Chapter Six
It was noon when they awoke, the bagels still on the floor by the bed. Derek woke before Meredith, and by the time she opened her eyes he had spread an extra blanket over the bed and was opening the plastic bagel bag. She sat up and smile at him, still not quite believing that he was there, and hers. She bit into the bagel he handed her and put a hand up to catch crumbs, her eyes never leaving him.
"Meredith?" he said, noticing her gaze.
"Hmm?" she replied, her mouth full of bagel.
"I'm not going anywhere."
She swallowed and reached for his hand. "Derek," she said, blinking quickly to stop her eyes from welling up with tears, "I'm sorry, but it's gonna be a while before I can believe that. Okay?"
He nodded and bit into his own bagel. "Okay."
Half an hour later they ventured into the rest of the house, Meredith showered and dressed, but there was no sound from her roommates. Both of their doors were open with the beds made.
"Huh," Meredith said, sitting on the couch. "George must be with Callie, and Izzie…" she glances at the coffee table, the photo album was gone. "Izzie must be with my mother."
Derek sat next to her, his arm around her. "Your mother?"
"Yeah. She's been going over there and spending time with her. I mean, not that I haven't been, but Izzie was lonely and about to drive me crazy with cleaning, so I thought it would be nice for both of them."
"Is she working somewhere?"
"No. She's looking now, finally. For a while it was as if Izzie's world just stopped." Kind of like mine did when you left me.
Apparently, he must have been thinking the same thing because he shifted in his seat, his other hand coming to rest on her thigh. "Meredith…. You got your turn to talk yesterday. I think it's my turn." She inched away, afraid of what he might say. Things like I'll stay with you until the baby's born but I'm going back to Addison or Addison's moving in with us ran through her head.
"Relax, Meredith. I'm not leaving you, unless you want me to." As if to emphasize this he grasped her hand in his, and she leaned against him again, inhaling the musky scent of his cologne with just a tinge of the hospital smell: that of disinfectant and soap.
"I want to tell you, need to tell you, that I'm sorry. I am so sorry, Meredith. I know that I hurt you; I know that I don't deserve you, I deserve to be thrown on the street and dogs should be allowed to gnaw on me. I'm serious! I've hurt too many people. I didn't want to hurt you. I shouldn't have gone back to Addison, but a part of me had to be sure, sure beyond any doubt that we were really over.
"Because there was a time when I really loved her, loved her more than I could express, but we married young and we changed. We were so far apart that we didn't get to adapt. My grandmother used to say that everything happens for a reason, and I believe that. I believe that Addison and I had to happen, so that I could meet you."
He slid off of the couch and knelt by her, both of her hands clasped in his. "You're the love of my life, Meredith."
Tears welled up in her eyes, everything he was saying was perfect, so him; and she could not help but forgive him for the pain of the past months, for making her a dirty mistress, for everything. She knew somewhere that she should perhaps make him suffer, but there wasn't the time. She didn't want to do that to herself. She didn't want to hurt herself this time.
So she leaned over and kissed him, pulling him back onto the couch. They were still there, him holding her, when the door opened. She barely heard it, barely heard anything until she felt the shadow over them. She pulled slightly away from Derek and saw Izzie standing over them.
"Hi, Izz," Meredith said, grinning. "How's my mom?"
"Good. She's good. Meredith, can I talk to you? Alone?"
Meredith looked at her, puzzled, by followed her into the kitchen.
"Mer, are you sure about this? I mean, I know you love him, but Mer--."
"Stop, Izzie. You don't think I know that I forgive too easily? But Izzie, things have been very crappy for me lately, and I don't have that many people in my corner. You, George, Alex and Cristina? You're my family. You always will be. But Derek? Izzie, he completes me. You understand, I know you do."
Izzie looked away, out the kitchen window, and nodded, tears glistening in her eyes. "Yeah. I do." She put a hand to her mouth and then drew it away, steadying herself.
"Good. You okay?"
"Yeah. It just kind of hit me today, how long it's been. I feel like I haven't done anything to move on, you know? I need to be doing something. For one thing I'm running out of money. I don't want to be a surgeon. But I think," Izzie took a deep breath, "I think I still want to be a doctor."
Meredith smiled. "Good, Izzie. You should be a doctor, you're a good doctor." Izzie nodded, smiling herself, in a way that made Meredith know that there must be something else underneath it. "Izzie? What is it?"
Izzie shook her head. "It's just—I think I want to give Alex another chance. He's been so sweet, and so patient with me. I think he's finally realizing that it is safe for him to be human. But is it--? I mean…"
Meredith smiled. "Izz, it's okay. You can like Alex. It's not disrespect to him, to Denny. He wanted you to be happy. I'm sure he's happy now, he would want you to be happy." Izzie seemed on the verge of tears, but she nodded. "Good. Want lunch?" Despite the bagels, Meredith was suddenly famished.
"Okay."
"Derek, you can come in here now. What do you want for lunch?"
"You," he said, without missing a beat and coming into the kitchen. She looked at him in the doorway, and just shook her head, a smile never leaving her face.
"George!" Callie exclaimed, as he rounded the corner to her little hideaway in the hospital. He still found it kind of strange to be coming to work to visit his girlfriend, but he tried not to let her see that. Instead he tossed his backpack down by her bed and lay across it, looking up at her.
"Hey," he said. "How are you?"
"Good. I have-" suddenly her phone rang and she dived off the bed to grab it from her purse. "Hello? Oh, hi Mom."
George was vaguely startled. Callie hardly ever mentioned her family.
"You're what? Oh, yeah. Sure. Sounds great. So…. I'll see you? Okay. Cool. Bye Mom." George watched her face as it turned from that of a daughter humoring her mother to one of shock and panic. When she hung up the phone she was as white as her lab coat.
"Callie? What's up? Something wrong?"
"My mother is coming to town," she said steadily. "My mother, who already thinks I work too much and would drag me home if she knew I lived in the hospital, is coming to town."
"Oh yeah. I can see where that might be a problem."
"George, you've got to let me move in with you while she's here."
"Wait—what?" George was shocked; this hadn't been part of the plan. That was the type of thing that you were supposed to discuss, not just dive into because of badly timed visit from someone's mother! "Callie, let's be rational. Just get an apartment!"
"There's not enough time! She's coming next month! George, please?"
George looked in her face, she seemed close to tears and there was panic in her eyes. "I'll talk to Meredith, okay? It's her house and her decision. Just calm down, all right?"
"Yeah, okay. I'm sorry George, but my mother just gets so weird and I don't want to deal with her disapproval, you know? I just don't think I could handle that right now." She put her face in her hands, and George put a hand on her back.
"Callie? Is there something I should know about what's going on here?" he asked gently, but she immediately sat up and glared at him.
"No! What makes you think that?"
"Whoa. Calm down. It's just, you seem to be over reacting for the situation here and I just want to make sure you're okay."
She looked at him, with big eyes, and George could tell that there was something underneath there, and he felt like an archeologist, unearthing the artifacts that made a civilization tick.
"Callie?" he said, and then let the word hang in the air, as he looked into her eyes. He could see the truth coming up, until she finally took a deep breath and spoke.
"Okay. I'm bipolar, George, and I've had a lot of problems because of it. I've lost boyfriends, for one thing, but the last apartment I had…. I wasn't taking my meds and I kind of got in trouble for property damage…. Being here, being in the walls of the hospital, it reminds me of everything I've got going, it reminds me of my patients and how I can help them only if I stay on track. I need that.
"Maybe I should say: I needed that. Once I met you, George; that changed. I feel more complete now, more stable. I'm centered now. I think I can manage out of the hospital, but not without you."
Those big eyes watched him, waiting to see how he would take that information, and he knew he had to be careful. He also felt an incredible sense of relief, as if all the distance between them had suddenly disappeared. He smiled at her, cocking his head slightly. "Me? Really?" She nodded, smiling back at him.
He leaned close and kissed her, then drew back only a couple of inches. "Callie?" he said, looking in her eyes, watching them examine him. "I love you." He kissed her on the neck and she leaned into him. She may have been a bad girl to some people, but to him, she was perfect.
"Rounds people!" Bailey's voice startled the interns in the locker rooms into motion, Cristina and Meredith had been standing next to Meredith's locker talking about Burke, and Alex was demanding details from George about "ortho-chick". In other words: nothing different than normal in the interns' locker room, but for Meredith things seemed different. They seemed brighter. The cloud over her was gone, it was as if the drama was over. She had a feeling that, somehow, the drama was only beginning, but it was nice to feel happier.
"Good morning Dr. Bailey," she said, walking over to Bailey and smiling at her. Today was a good day, a good day to cut.
"Grey, just because your love life may have picked up, you don't have to infect the rest of us with your insanity." There was a snicker that probably came from Cristina. Or Alex. "Okay, Karev you're with me in the pit, O'Malley: Montgomary-Shepard Cristina: Shepard. Grey, don't give me that look. You're with Dr. Torres, but the chief wants to see you."
"Okay I'll go by there after—."
"Before rounds."
Some of the light seemed to go out of her day just then. She leaned against a locker and sighed, knowing what the meeting would be about. Derek was waiting for her outside the locker room, under the pretext of handing charts to Cristina, but Bailey wasn't fooled judging by the look she gave him.
"I asked for you," he said to Meredith, pitifully.
"Thought I'd gone soft!" Bailey said, hearing him even though she was halfway down the hall.
Derek shook his head and Meredith smiled. "It's okay. I get to go and see the chief…. Ten bucks says he tries to put me on the vagina squad and then thinks about the cat fights that would ensue."
"Oh, I don't know Meredith, I'm not particularly fond of clawing, one tends to break nails that way." Meredith whirled around, off balancing slightly and feeling Derek's hands against her back. "Dr. Montgomary-Shepard!"
"You should probably cut off the Shepard, I suppose," Addison said, handing a chart to George who was watching this exchange nervously. "O'Malley, did I or did I not say go?"
"You, well, you did, yes you did. Okay, I'm gone." George went off towards the elevator, leaving Meredith watching Addison, Derek's hand still on her back.
"I have those divorce papers for you, Derek, nothing changed but the date. Oh, and I added my signature." Addison said coolly, reaching into her bag.
Derek reached out a hand for them, and Meredith watched as he took them, it seemed to play in slow motion, reminding her of that day, months ago when she had last seen those papers. He looked at her and walked over to the nurses' station, grabbing a pen from a chart and signed, right there, in front of everyone. Meredith looked at Addison's face for something resembling shock, but the other woman seemed more resigned than any thing.
"Okay," she said, taking the papers back. "I'll let you two celebrate, shall I?" she spun on her heels and went down the hall, her footsteps echoing on the white tile floor of the hospital. Meredith turned around to look at Derek. There was a smile on his face, but she could see the pain in his eyes.
"I'm going to go and see the chief," she said, gently. He nodded, and she put her hand to his cheek. "Thank you, Derek."
As she walked down the hall to the elevator she had a brief feeling that she had, as Derek put it, ended his family. Almost as soon as she thought this there was a flutter inside of her, and she knew. She wasn't ending a family, she was beginning one. It was that thought which gave her the courage to head directly for Dr. Webber's office.
She ducked into the office and Dr. Webber's assistant Patricia looked up at her over her glasses, then her eyes widened and she took them off. "So it is true? Another little Dr. Grey will be joining us?" Meredith smiled, and nodded, but inside she couldn't help thinking: No, another Dr. Shepard will be joining us. The thought made her smile genuinely. "You've got that glow, my girl," Patricia said. "Go on in, he's expecting you."
Meredith nodded at her and walked briskly into the chief's office. It had been a while since she had been in there, since the day of Denny's death, and in that time she hadn't spent much time talking to Dr. Webber. A part of her was still angry, angry that he had ruined her family and hadn't tried to fix it.
Dr. Webber was reading over some documents when she came into the room, so she sank into a chair and looked around at the brightly-lit office. It seemed so different from the rest of the hospital, where everything was sterile and white. The chief had pictures of his nieces and nephews all over the desk, although, she noticed, Adele was not in many of them. She thought, for only a second, about the chief's wife. She had only talked to her a few times, but those few made her a difficult person to hate. Why were all the people she should hate so difficult to hate?
She decided to leave that pondering for another time, as the chief looked up. "Ah, Meredith, how nice to see you. How are you?"
"Fine. What is it that you wanted to talk about?" she asked this, even though she knew exactly what it was that he wanted to talk about, because he squirmed just a little bit in his chair and a part of her saw this as some kind of victory.
"Well, Meredith…. I've heard rumors, that are apparently…. Well obviously, true." He was obviously making a point not to look at her stomach, almost as a father might.
"You mean, the fact that I'm pregnant, Dr. Webber? Are you going to reassign me? Shift me to another service?"
Dr. Webber sighed and rubbed his temples. "It is what generally happens when something… of this nature… occurs with an intern, however, since you will be a second year resident soon, and you are… well Dr. Grey, you are exceptionally talented. I've decided that you will be allowed to stay on your current track. You will have to work to make up OR time both before and after… the birth…. But I think that you will be able to handle that." He smiled, jovially, and she nodded. She was aware that this was obviously special treatment, but a small voice in her head was whispering: he owes you and she couldn't make it shut up.
"Thank you, Dr. Webber." She said, standing up.
"Let your resident know that I've requested you to have maximum OR time. Oh, and Meredith? Don't think this means I'm condoning this, or condoning… well… who the father is. That doesn't need to get around."
'Of course," Meredith said, smirking slightly.
She left the chief's office to go and find Dr. Bailey, who was in the pit with Alex loading a car accident victim out of an ambulance. "You still with us, Grey?" she asked, as Meredith grabbed the other side of the stretcher and they began wheeling it into the ER.
"Yeah. Dr. Webber… Well he wants me to start making up the OR time I'll miss." Meredith couldn't help but feel guilty at saying this, but Bailey only nodded.
"Okay, Karev, go assist Dr. Torres, Grey stay with me on this one."
"Man, I'd be a chick and get knocked up for extra OR time."
"Yeah Alex, I'm sure you'd love the morning sickness and the getting fat, and the hormone changes and—."
"Grey! Grey, shut up and intubate this man. Karev, get your ass in gear!" Meredith took a breath and grabbed the intubation tray from a nearby nurse. Once she had him intubated and was pumping air, Bailey looked up at her with one eyebrow raised. "Hormone changes, you were saying?"
Meredith scowled at her.
Several hours later, they were in surgery repairing damage to the mans kidneys, and Meredith was surprised when Dr. Bailey handed her the scalpel to make the first incision and allowed her to continue flying solo while they fixed the less damaged areas. Only when they reached the worst of it did Bailey push her gently aside.
It was an amazing feeling to be sewing someone back together, to fix what fate had done to them. She waited in the scrub room for Bailey. "Thanks," she said simply.
"None needed. You're ready Grey, once your actual residency starts you'll be expected to cut with minimal assistance."
"You're also planning on Mommy-tracking me, aren't you?"
"Go and tell the man's family he's okay, Grey."
Derek lay awake in Meredith's bed. She was lying up against him, her head on his chest and he could smell the lavender in her hair. She was so perfect, so his. Addison hadn't been his, especially not recently, but he had always shared her with something. Work, friends…. Meredith had these, but somehow she managed to remain purely his. She sighed in her sleep, sometimes, and he found it endearing.
He didn't usually compare her to Addie, they were two completely different women, but tonight was one of those nights, when he had done something that marked a forked path in his life. He had had many of those recently, when he came to Seattle, when he originally didn't sign the papers, that night with Meredith in the exam room and now. Up until then he had thought the biggest fork was opening his own practice.
How long ago that seemed.
There was usually some kind of doubt that remained after one of those choices, and there had been when he looked at Addison's face, at her familiar looping signature, but then he had felt Meredith's breathing against his hand, seen her standing there with the baby inside her, her face glowing. When she smiled at him, her eyes crinkled and every time this happened he fell a little bit more in love with her.
The right choice had definitely been made, and he felt like he should be thanking God or whatever deity was out there for giving him a second chance.
Suddenly the thought-provoking silence was broken, by Meredith. She rolled out of his embrace and cried out, though she was obviously still asleep. He worried, immediately, about the baby, but the cries seemed to be related purely to a dream.
She thrashed, one hand nearly cuffing him on the chin, but his reflexes kick in and he caught it, and managed to shift onto his side. "Meredith," he whispered soothingly, stroking her cheek with one hand. "Meredith, shh, you're okay. I've got you." He soothed her, thinking of the day in the supply closet when she very nearly hyperventilated. He wondered if maybe her mother had something to do with this obvious nightmare. Eventually her breathing became even again, and she stopped thrashing against him, once again in a peaceful sleep. He gently wiped the tears on her face away with the edge of a sheet, and after watching her for a minute to make sure that she was really asleep he got out of bed and went into the hallway.
In the living room he was surprised to see George sitting in the silence. "Is she okay?" he asked, and Derek sank down next to him rubbing his face with his hands.
"Yeah. Does she have those often?"
George shrugged. "Sometimes, since the code black. She never let on that it affected her, but you know Meredith, it did."
Derek nodded. "Thank you," he said, looking back at George, "For taking care of her."
George made a soft snorting noise. "I could have done better," he commented.
Derek paused, he didn't like to think of what had happened between Meredith and George, but he wasn't one to lecture about sex that should not have happened. He didn't know what to say to that, though, so Derek shrugged.
They sat there together for a few minutes, two men bonded by their connections to the same woman, but connected in entirely different ways. Derek stayed on the couch long after George went back to bed. The sun began to rise and a blue cast came over the room. Almost as soon as he was aware of the sun coming up, he heard a door close in the hallway, and from the footsteps he could hear that it was Meredith.
She came into the living room a few minutes later, and pulled a throw from the chair to wrap herself up in.
"Hey," she said, leaning against the doorframe. Meredith's hair was tousled, and the light made it seem to glow.
"Hey," he replied, moving over to make room for her on the couch. She sat down and leaned her head on his shoulder.
"Did I wake you up?" she asked, a twinge of guilt in her voice.
"No. I was awake. Are you okay?"
"Yeah," she shrugged. "Dreams."
"About the bomb?" she looked up at him, confused. "George told me. That day must have been horrible for you."
She nodded. "It was, but you made it better."
"Me?" he said, in surprise, twirling a lock of her hair around his finger.
"Yeah. I… this is gonna sound stupid, but I imagined it was you telling me how to pull the bomb out. Someone I trusted… someone I love."
This tugged at his heart, and he thought about that night, when he had come up to check on her. He was so relieved that she was all right, but he couldn't pull her into his arms the way that he wanted to do. Now, however, he could. He pulled her against her, and to his surprise she began to cry.
"I'm sorry. I just…" she trailed off, and he rubbed her back, letting her cry. After a few moments she sniffed and sat up. "We should go see my mother. I should tell her, that we're having a baby."
"Okay," he agreed, and she lay back against him, linking her hand with his.
Meredith left the locker room, in a state of utter disbelief. Bailey's words echoed in her head: "You need OR time, she's operating in an hour, no choices here, Grey." She walked quickly down the hall in search of Addison Montgomary. She had started going only by her maiden name, recently, even had a new lab-coat made. Meredith peered into every exam room searching for her. As she walked down the hall George passed by her.
"Hey, Mer? Do you have a minute?"
She took a breath. "I do if you can walk and talk. Have you seen the She—that is, Dr. Montgomary?"
"No. :Listen, Mer, here's the deal, you see Callie's mom's coming into town. And the thing is: she doesn't know where Callie lives. So Callie needs a place to stay and—"
"And you want her to stay at my place for the duration?" Meredith asked, heading towards a nurses' station.
"Um… yeah, is that okay?"
Nurse Debby pointed towards a door and Meredith made a beeline for it, and just as she reached the door she turned to talk to George. "Yeah, okay. Derek's practically moved in, so hey, the more the merrier." Then she opened the door and went into the exam room.
"Ah, there's my intern. It's about time, Dr. Grey." Meredith nodded, going over to the side of the patient's bed.
"Miriam Katz, eight months pregnant, discovered to have a cyst on the side of her ovary and scheduled for emergency c-section so the cyst can be biopsied without harming the baby. Vitals are stable, as are the baby's vitals. Ultrasound…." Meredith trailed off for just a second as she suddenly remembered that she had missed her own sonogram appointment due to an emergency surgery on a GSW. Quickly she cleared her throat and continued, "Ultrasound reveals no abnormalities with the baby." She smiled at the patient, feeling an odd kinship with her, although the family picture on the bedside showed just how different they were.
"Good. All right, Dr. Grey, do the pre-op and we'll have you in surgery before noon, Miriam." The patient nodded and Addison started to the door, on a sudden whim Meredith followed her out.
"Dr. Montgomary-She… Dr. Montgomary?"
"What is it, Grey?"
Meredith stopped, as Addison leaned against the nurses' station. "I wanted to tell you… well it sounds pathetic, but I'm sorry. I didn't do this on purpose so that he'd come back to me or anything like that. We didn't even mean to—well, I wasn't lying to you when I told you I wasn't sleeping with him. It just happened. But now…. It's right." She sighed, not knowing how to express to this woman how right it truly was.
To her surprise, Addison put the chart down and put a hand on Meredith's shoulder. "Calm down, Dr. Grey, it's all right. I do understand, even if I don't want to. I know that you can't help but love him… can't help who you love." She looked past Meredith for a moment, and Meredith could almost read her mind. So, Derek wasn't the only one who fell in love while cheating. "Go do that pre-op now, Dr. Grey, if you want to scrub in."
Meredith nodded and went back to the patient's room.
It was another two weeks before she and Derek had a time off together that wasn't in the middle of the night and wasn't at sunset (a particularly bad time to visit her mother), so that they could both go to the extended care facility. Meredith didn't wait until then to see her, just didn't mention anything about the baby and her mother didn't seem to notice. If she saw Meredith at all, it was lucky.
That Saturday morning dawned rainy and gray, as it so often was in Seattle. Meredith was awakened by loud scuffles from the corridor outside her room, and she got out of bed to see what was going on. Opening the door and stepping into the hall she was nearly mowed down by George who was carrying a cardboard box, followed by Derek carrying a floor lamp.
"What's going on?" she asked, but then she remembered. Callie was moving into George's room since her mother was coming in the next day. Meredith was running a boarding house. "Derek, put that down. We're going to see my mother, remember?"
"Yeah," he called, putting the lamp down in George's room.
"How did you get roped into doing that anyway?' she asked, but then saw Callie at the end of the hall.
"She gave me… a look," he explained lamely.
Meredith raised her eyebrows at him. "You're quite easily swayed by looks, aren't you?" He smiled sheepishly and she rolled her eyes. "Come on, get dressed."
He obeyed, pulling his clothes from a box by her dresser. "You know, we really should get another dresser or something."
"Or," he said, pulling on a pair of jeans, "You and I could move into the master bedroom."
She paused as she was pulling her shirt down over her waistline. "Yeah. We could." She had left the master bedroom, with its own bath, empty, because… well… that was her parents' room.
"Think about it."
She nodded, and went into the bathroom to brush her teeth. Izzie was already in there, in only a shirt and Hello Kitty underwear. "Izzie? You do know that both my boyfriend and George's girlfriend are in this house? And that doesn't bother you?"
Izzie shook her head, smiling. Smiling and it went to her eyes. This was the Izzie-smile, one that she hadn't given anyone in… months. "Want to know why it doesn't bother me?"
"You're high?" Meredith suggested through toothpaste.
"Meredith! No, it doesn't bother me because my boyfriend is here too." She spat out her toothpaste and left the bathroom leaving Meredith staring at her in disbelief.
They took Meredith's car to extended care facility. It wasn't quite ten in the morning, but the rain was already pouring down in sheets. Before Meredith could get out of the car Derek was coming around with an umbrella. That was definitely something to add to her list of 'things to love about him'.
Her mother was in the parlor, a cup of tea in her hand, but thankfully Dr. Webber was no where to be found. Meredith shed her overcoat and slid into a chair by her mother, Derek standing by her.
"Good morning, Mom."
Her mother didn't say anything, just sipped her tea and looked out the window.
"Mom? Mom look at me. It's me Mom, it's Meredith."
Her mother turned to her, but didn't say anything. Her face looked completely blank.
"Dr. Grey?" Derek's voice said over her, and to Meredith's surprise her mother looked up at him.
"Hello there, Dr. Shepard, how are you?"
"I'm fine Dr. Grey, but Meredith has something to tell you." He nodded at Meredith who reached out to take her mother's hand.
"Mom? Mom, can you hear me? Mom, I've got great news. I'm going to have a baby!" She glanced at Derek. "That is, we're going to have a baby. You're going to be a grandma, Mom, isn't that great?"
Her mother looked at Meredith for a moment, and seemed to see her for just a second, before looking back up at Derek. "Did Izzie come with you? She's such a nice girl!"
Meredith sat there, in shock for a minute. She knew her mother couldn't help where her mind took her, but she couldn't seem to accept that at the moment. She couldn't think. All she could do was hoist herself out of the chair and storm out, leaving Derek to grab her coat.
He ran after her in seconds, grabbing her keys from her coat pocket before putting the coat over her shoulders. "I'm driving, Meredith."
She didn't argue with him, just climbed into the passenger side of the car and rested her head against the window.
They drove for five minutes before she could push herself out of the fog enough to say, "She never saw me. Not when I was rebelling, not when I wasn't. But now, now that everything is so perfect; I just wanted her to see me."
Derek reached out a hand and took hers and she clung to him. Still, her mother's words rang in her head, and she ran in the house as soon as Derek parked the car. Izzie was in the front hall, waiting for her to come in. "Meredith! Callie's stuff is every where, she's like, a dog marking territory but the territory isn't hers, it belongs to the dog next door!"
"Seriously? That's such a great metaphor, Stevens! I'm moving it in as fast as I can! George, come on, tell her that his isn't permanent."
"Yeah… um… we're moving it as fast as we—."
"Okay, all of you, just shut up! Seriously! Izzie? I know it's great that you've been visiting my mother and all, but guess what? You're apparently her daughter now. So I'll just go sign over the power of attorney, okay? Because she sees you. She may not see me, but she wants you!"
Derek had come in by then and he put his hands on her shoulders. "Meredith, calm down, it's not Izzie's fault."
She whirled on him, "Easy for you to say, you see her maybe, what, five times? But she recognizes you!" she didn't know what she was doing, really, as she began slamming her fists against his chest.
"Okay, tiny, but perhaps not ineffectual. Meredith, stop. Calm down, baby, it's all right. We'll go back, okay? She'll see you, I promise, at some point she'll see you and the baby and--."
Meredith couldn't listen to him any more. Nothing turned out like that nothing ever did with her mother. She was never proud of Meredith for going to med school, for turning her life around, and now, now that she was having a baby and things were so right. No. Nothing.
She pulled away from Derek, pushed past Izzie and was halfway down the hall when a sharp pain struck against her middle. She doubled over and cried out, and a single thought came into her head: Maybe it's not perfect after all…
A/N Long chapter, but I just had to end it there :) review. I know, no Burketina, but you'll get them in the next chapter!