Chapter Six
There were many things that Derek did that Meredith did not understand. Usually, however, they were just things like not putting the toilet seat down, even when he lived with two females, or letting Lydia stay up past her bed time. They were not full on, huge, crazy things like, for instance, inviting his ex-wife to stay with them for the week before she went back to New York.
To his credit, she mused, as she pushed the vacuum violently down the upstairs hallway halfway through that week, he had at least asked her first. And it hadn't even been in an "Addison's staying with us, okay?" kind of way. When he had returned from checking on her and getting Meredith and Lydia overnight bags he had sat down next to her on the floor, and taken her hand.
"Is Addison okay?" she had asked tiredly.
He had shifted, reaching over to push her hair out of her eyes. "I think so. I think so, but Meredith…. I'm worried about her staying alone like this. She's going to be weak, and you know Addison, she'd hate admitting that. I'm almost surprised that this incident scared her enough to call me."
"She's proud," Meredith had observed. "If she'd just tell someone else, Izzie, or someone. Izzie still goes and sees my mother, you know and--."
He had nodded, and then squeezed her hand to cut her off. "I know. I've told Addison that she needs to tell someone else, but like you said, she's proud. But I was thinking, she goes back to New York. She's asked me to go with her again, but I said I'd have to ask you. But I was thinking…. We have the guest room that almost never gets used," Meredith's jaw dropped when she had figured out where he was going.
"You want Addison to stay with us?" she had asked, incredulously.
"Just until her first chemo, and maybe a little while after. I'm worried about her, Mer, and I know that you are too. I'm worried that if she shuts herself off like this she won't recover, even if her cancer's not advanced."
Meredith had turned away from him drawing her knees up to her chest. "I'll have to think about it," she told him, and he nodded.
"That's all I can ask, babe," he'd said, kissing her just above the ear. "I'm on-call, so I'm going to go change. I'll get someone to bring a bed in here for you, okay?"
"Yeah," Meredith had said, but she wasn't really listening. She was thinking.
As he'd closed the door she had had a sudden memory of a time when she was pregnant that she had worried that Derek was about to tell her that Addison was moving in…. that was when he told her that she was the love of his life. She shook her head at the bitter laugh that emerged from her.
Her second thought had been to tell him no, just because he had given him the opportunity to and she really didn't want his ex-wife living with them for any amount of time, but she'd known that that was just bitterness. She could not do that to a person, one whom she respected, even if she was her husband's ex. And she knew why Derek was taking so much time to care for Addison. He had a bond with her, in a way it was like Meredith and her father, she realized. And he also felt that he owed Mark, for whatever reason.
Meredith did not completely understand that one. Mark had slept with Derek's wife, but she thought that when Derek had been unable to save Mark, the man had reverted in Derek's mind to his best friend. His best friend who had just happened to be engaged to his ex-wife. She remembered Derek talking to Mark, or the shell of Mark, at Roseridge. This his way of repaying a debt, in a way.
She had continued to think about it all through that long night, and when Derek came in the next morning to check on Lydia she had made her decision. She had said yes.
Now, she fought with the vacuum in the hallway. It was her day off, but Derek was working and Lydia had gone to day-care. Addison was in the guest room, where she stayed for most of the time. Derek could convince her to come out for meals, and occasionally to watch TV, but it was really all very awkward.
Meredith pushed the vacuum around a lamp, before she realized that she had tangled herself up in the cord. "Crap," she said, and attempted to get herself untangled, but lost her balance and fell forward. The vacuum came unplugged and the lamp fell over too, landing heavily across her back. "Ow!" she exclaimed, but she was more annoyed than hurt.
"Meredith?" Addison called, her head poking out of the guest room. Her bright red eyebrows shot up, as she came over. "Need a hand?" she asked, picking up the lamp.
"Could probably use one, yeah," Meredith agreed, and took Addison's offered hand to pull up on. She untangled herself from the now-loose cord and turned away from Addison to wrap it back around to vacuum and wait for her face to turn back from pink.
"You all right?" Addison asked after a moment.
"Yeah, I'm good," Meredith said, turning around with one hand on the vacuum handle. "Can I get you anything?"
Addison's eyebrows came together. "No, and I wish you'd stop asking me that. You and Derek both. I'm not completely useless, you know."
Meredith was somewhat surprised by this outburst, but realized she understood. She remembered feeling useless, during her time on bed-rest during her pregnancy with Lydia. Also, if Addison was feeling well enough to ask to help her than she was probably well enough to do it, and should. Feeling useless had been the reason several of her patients had lost their battles.
"All right," she said. "I hate housework, anyway. It's times like these when I miss living with Izzie," she smiled. "You can start the dusting downstairs, if you want."
Addison nodded. "All right. Where are the dustrags?"
"In the bucket at the bottom of the stairs," Meredith said, pointing. "I'll be down as soon as I finish the vacuuming."
"So if you're not down in ten minutes I should call 911?" Addison joked and Meredith smiled. Maybe it wasn't entirely awkward.
She went down to work in the kitchen five minutes later, and Addison came in to dust the shelves around the kitchen desk. They worked in silence for a little while, Meredith cleaning the windows and Addison dusting, and then Addison spoke up. "I guess you think I'm nuts for not wanting to tell anyone about… about this," she said, gesturing to her chest.
"No," Meredith said, after a moment. "Not nuts. But I do think you're judging them wrong. I thought about not telling them when I was pregnant, which is an entirely different situation and nowhere near as dire, but I was scare senseless. Anyway, I did, obviously, and I found out how truly supportive they can be. Particularly Izzie and she's your protégé."
"Yeah. I know, they'd be great and supportive," Addison acknowledged, sinking into a kitchen chair. "But I think that may be why I don't want to tell them. I mean, ever since what happened to Mark I've been Miss Independent. I've kept my distance, even from Izzie. I guess having them be supportive and everything would make it seem like I was as weak… as weak as I sometimes think I am."
Meredith had long since stopped washing the windows, and now she came over and sat on a chair near the other woman. "Addison, keep in mind who's telling this to you, because I am probably one of the weakest people, oh ever, but to me you are the epitome of strength. I'd be the one whining all the time about life and fate and all that crap if this happened to me.
"I do understand why you don't want people to know. And I'm not going to lie and say that I don't mind you coming to us, but I'll do whatever I can for you while you're here, all right? And all I'm asking is that you get better so people can stop asking me pointedly if I know where you are and you can go back to work and just be the attending that my interns complain to me about."
Addison smiled. "I'll see what I can do about that," she promised with a smile. "And thank you, Meredith, for understanding."
"Any time," Meredith said. "Now come on and give me a hand with these windows."
It was about an hour later when Derek came home. He came into the kitchen, where Meredith was emptying all the rotting things out of the refrigerator and Addison was sweeping.
"What's going on in here?" Derek asked. "Addison! What the hell are you doing?"
"Sweeping, Derek," Addison pointed out, and Meredith snickered.
"Sit down!" Derek ordered. "Meredith, why are you letting her exert herself like this!"
"For Pete's sake, Derek," Meredith said, closing the refrigerator door, "She's not going to break. Besides, she asked me if she could help."
"It's progress, Derek," Addison pointed out. "If I were a patient you'd be glad."
"But you're not," Derek exclaimed. "You're…." he trailed off, glancing at her, and then at Meredith, as Lydia scooted in, then pulled up on a kitchen chair to watch. "Well, you're Addison," he spluttered finally, seeming fairly sheepish.
"Good save," Meredith said, not quite knowing why her voice came out icy. She let Derek kiss her cheek, but she felt herself go stiff when he did it.
"Mommy, I made a picture for you!" Lydia exclaimed suddenly, pulling it out of the backpack that Derek had put on the table. Meredith quickly turned her attention to her daughter and the awkward moment passed, albeit slowly.
GAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGA
Izzie couldn't believe that she was in a jewelry store, with Alex, but she was. She was in a jewelry store with Alex picking out her engagement ring. Disbelief didn't even begin to cover her feelings as the jeweler, an elderly man who seemed to have a magnifying monocle permanently attached to his eye, brought out a case of rings with a shaking hand.
"Price isn't an issue," Alex had said when they first came into the store. The man's eyebrow had gone up into his receding gray hairline and he had gone to the locked glass case to retrieve this box of rings.
"Go for it, Izz," Alex said, putting his hand on the small of her back and pushing her gently to the counter. Izzie looked up at him nervously, not wanting to seem greedy or material or anything else that this could symbolize. She wished that he had just bought the ring and surprised her, but that wasn't how Alex worked. He always wanted to please her.
Izzie glanced at the case, and then had a thought. She closed her eyes and tried to picture the perfect engagement ring. Once she had the picture in her head, of a gold band with a small diamond in the center, framed on either side by gold, she opened her eyes and attempted to find the closest thing to it in the box.
She looked past anything silver, or anything with colored stones. Alex's hand was in hers, squeezing gently as she looked carefully at each ring, knowing that there had to one that would stand out to her. And then, just as she was beginning to give up hope, there it was: the perfect ring. She reached for it and took it out of the case, slipping her hand out of Alex's to try the ring on her finger.
It slid on without any problem, fitting just below her second knuckle. She held her hand out to admire it, to see if it really looked right, and she smiled. It was perfect. The old jeweler's eyes crinkled merrily as he smiled, and the monocle slipped out, revealing a sparkling blue eye that matched his other. He seemed nicer to Izzie, now, and she met his gaze.
"That's the one," he commented, taking her finger tips to hold her hand up to the light. "It suits you, girl. Lots of folks come in here and agonize for hours over the right ring, the right cut. Not you, you know what you want. Decisive," he added, nodding at Alex.
Izzie almost laughed. The word decisive had never fit when applied to her. She was bad at choosing, professions, men, restaurants. Maybe she didn't make bad choices, like Meredith, but she was simply bad at the actual choosing part. Until now, it seemed. She had a great job, a great boyfriend (no, fiancé) and she had just chosen her own engagement ring with no hours worth of hesitation.
Alex wrote a check for the ring, and Izzie pointedly looked away. She wasn't very comfortable with this, but Alex was the gentleman, always had been. Well, not always, but always since they started dating steadily again. She took his left hand again as they went out of the store, holding her left hand out to allow the diamond to glisten in the sunlight.
"Thank you, Alex," she said, kissing his cheek. "It's gorgeous."
Alex shrugged. "It's a nice ring. What's really gorgeous is the hand that it's on."
Izzie couldn't help but blush at that. It sounded sappy, but she liked it. Everything seemed perfect, with the blue sky overhead and the sun shining. As she got into Alex's car, though, she knew that everything wasn't really perfect in her life. As she left the townhouse, George and Callie had been arguing over something, and she thought she heard glass break, but Alex had been there smiling and ready to go, so she hadn't gone to investigate. She probably should have.
She would have given anything not to have to work that day, but she had a twelve hour shift starting at noon, part of making up for Addison's absence. Alex convinced her to at least get lunch before going to the hospital though, and so she attempted to push the sordid lives of her friends out of her mind, and just enjoy the morning with her fiancé. Fiancé, fiancé, fiancé.
She hadn't told anyone yet, she wanted to wait until she had the ring. Maybe it was the fact that with Denny she hadn't had a ring, and maybe it was something else, but it didn't seem real to her until she had the ring. She wasn't going to think about Denny.
She had the ring. It was real. She smiled, and kept glancing at it over her turkey sandwich throughout the meal. Alex had a funny little smirk on his face, not like the one he normally wore. It was knowing, but it was also happy and not sarcastic. Their fingers were linked over the table, and they talked of trivial things, which made it better. To Izzie, it was a mark of how close they were.
As Alex got up to throw away their trash he leaned over and whispered in her ear, "If you didn't have to work in ten minutes I'd totally do you now."
Izzie laughed into her coke and swatted at him playfully. He wiggled his eyebrows and continued to the trashcan. Only when she was sure that he was not looking did she allow herself to shiver.
He dropped her off at the hospital, although he didn't come on-call until six. She got on again at six the next day, so the car swap would work until they were on-call together again. It was lucky. She felt lucky over everything. Life was good.
She changed in the locker room, alone but for a weedy looking intern, who belonged to a resident who she didn't know well. She changed quickly, it was only eleven forty-five and she wanted to find Meredith before her shift started, to tell her the news. She smiled at her ring again as she slipped her coat on. She chided herself for being so obsessed with the ring. It was the human attraction to sparkly things, she supposed. She also realized that she should not have made fun of Meredith for being so enamored of her engagement and wedding rings, because really, they were that amazing.
In her search for Meredith she passed the fourth floor conference room and passed, thinking that she heard Meredith's voice. A brief stop proved her right. She lingered on the edge of the door, unseen through the half-open door, but able to hear. She knew it was wrong to be eavesdropping, but it was just Meredith and Derek.
"Tell me again when you'll be gone?" Meredith was asking.
"The eighteenth through the twenty-fourth. Friday through Thursday. It's not even a week, Mer. She has to be there on Monday, and she'll be ready to travel by Wednesday."
"The twenty-third?" Meredith said.
"Yeah, that's it," Derek said, and Izzie thought she heard a noise like the closing of his Sidekick. "Mer, I've got to go check on the Emerson case. I'll see you later. We're still taking Lydia to get pizza tonight, right?"
"Yeah," Meredith said, and Izzie knew she was distracted. She knew why too, and Shepard seemed to be completely oblivious. "Love you."
They kissed, and Shepard swooped out of the room, barely noticing Izzie. She waited a few minutes, allowing Mer the time to collect herself if needed before going into the room.
"Oh, hey Mer," she said, casually, as if she had just happened to enter the room and find Meredith there, sitting on the conference room table. "You okay?"
"Yeah, fine, why?" Meredith said with a smile that didn't reach her eyes.
"No reason," Izzie said, and despite everything she couldn't stop a grin from spreading across her face.
"What is it Izzie?" Meredith said, obviously suspecting a secret.
Izzie didn't answer, just held out her left hand. Meredith gasped and then squealed.
"Oh my God, Izzie! Seriously?"
"Seriously!" Izzie agreed nodding. Meredith jumped up and hugged her.
"Congratulations!" she said. "Have you set a date? I'm sorry, I'm being pushy, it's just, that's all of us but George isn't it? It's almost perfect."
"Yup," Izzie agreed, not allowing her smile to fade, even though she knew that George and Callie might be on the rocks, and Shepard might be having an affair and was at least missing his wife's birthday and that things were far from perfect.
GAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGA
Later, Meredith would decide that it was all Izzie's fault. This wasn't exactly true, if she really thought about it, but it was easier to lay the blame elsewhere. Technically, the blame lay mostly with, as a matter of fact, solely with her because she was the one who made the actual choices, but hey, she wasn't the best at taking responsibility.
So, it was all Izzie's fault.
Meredith was glancing at a chart at the nurses' station on the fifth day of Derek's second absence. Izzie came up beside her and pushed a cup of coffee into her hand. "Hey," she said.
"Hey," Meredith replied, distractedly.
"Listen, I need a consult on a baby. I need George on it too, and I've already got him meeting me in the conference room. Come with me and I'll discuss the case with both of you at once."
Meredith bit her lip. She had really wanted to avoid Izzie and George today. "Um, okay. Just let me check on this post-op really quickly."
"No!" Izzie said, and Meredith looked at her side-long. "I mean, George has to scrub-in, in like ten minutes. It won't take long, promise."
"I didn't see his name on the board," Meredith protested, suddenly suspicious of Izzie. Izzie ignored this and took Meredith's arm, guiding her to the conference. By the time they reached to door Meredith had a pretty good idea of what was going on and she was pretty sure that she was going to kill Izzie at some point in the near future.
"Happy birthday, Meredith!" a dozen or so people exclaimed as they entered the conference room.
"Happy birthday, Mommy!" Lydia echoed, from her spot in Cristina's arms. She reached out for Meredith, who took her, looking around the room in shock.
She really hated surprises. Really really hated surprises and she knew that Izzie knew it. And she hated corny things, in general, and the 'Happy Birthday, Meredith' letters strung up across the room were definitely corny. When she turned to Izzie to say something though she saw the grin that lit up Izzie's face and she couldn't ruin this for her. Instead, she pushed a smile on to her face.
She definitely wanted to pitch a fit over all of this, but she had Lydia exclaiming that she had helped Aunt Tizzie make the cake, and even Cristina seemed happy, as she came over to assert the fact that this had been in no way her idea, because she knew that Meredith hated surprises.
"It's fine," Meredith reassured her. "Don't worry about it. It's nice to know that you guys remembered and everything. No big deal." She then took the knife that someone handed her and cut the cake, giving Lydia the first, small, piece.
She continued to smile and make small talk, projecting the image of happiness. Attempting to be fine, like she said she was. Lydia helped, because she was very excited over the fact that it was her mommy's birthday, and had, in fact, drawn her a picture of a birthday cake in daycare.
Izzie and George had presents for her, which she exclaimed over as was proper. Cristina and Burke came up to her and Burke wished her a happy birthday, to which Cristina sighed impatiently.
"Yeah, happy birthday, Mer," she echoed. "Listen, Burke and I were wondering, we didn't have a chance to actually get you anything, but we'd be happy to take Lydia for you, for the night. Would that be okay?"
Meredith wanted to say no, just because she had planned her evening. She was going to take Lydia to the pool and then home where they would make popcorn and watch Beauty and the Beast. She had a slight thought of even letting Lyddie stay up past her bedtime if she pushed it at all. Still, Burke was grinning and Cristina looked slightly nervous, meaning that they both wanted to do this. She suspected that it had something to do with practicing or something.
"Um, sure," she said, making herself smile and nod. "Lyddie, come here, baby." Lydia had been over with George and William Bailey-Jones (also taken out of day-care), dancing to a CD that someone had put on. Surgeons were always ready to party, Meredith thought. She'd found that one out the hard way.
"What is it, Mommy?" Lydia asked.
Meredith put a hand in the girl's curly hair. "Would you like to stay over with Uncle Burke and Aunt Cristina tonight? Would that be okay?"
"Yup," Lydia said so quickly that Meredith looked up at Burke and Cristina who were smiling guiltily.
"I may have said something to her," Cristina said, defensively. "You always say kids should be prepared for things. Lydia, chère, tu danse bien." Lydia giggled and went back to George.
Meredith shrugged. "Okay then," she said, and wondered what she was going to do alone all evening.
"Hey Mer?" Izzie said, coming up to her, with a cup of soda in her hand. "Listen, I didn't get to see your mother this week like I normally do. I'm really sorry, but I just didn't get a chance."
Meredith put a hand on Izzie's arm and sighed. "Izz, don't worry. She…" she trailed off. "Well, one visit won't make that much of a difference."
Still, when the smoke had cleared from the party, broken off by Cristina's and Bailey's emergency pagers going off, Meredith crumpled up wrapping paper and decided that she would go visit her mother, which would at least use up some of her time that evening.
She drove to Roseridge on auto-pilot and made her way to her mother's room. Ellis lay in bed, and did not look at Meredith when she sat down on the edge of the bed. "Hi Mom," she said, setting her purse on her lap. "How are you?" There was, of course, no response. "Derek's out of town again, and Lydia's being babysat or they'd both be here. Actually," she continued, "I don't know where we'd be. It's my birthday, Mom," she said, with a sigh. She gently took her mother's hand. "I feel like that girl, from that Sixteen Candles movie. When everyone forgets her birthday. But it's worse, because everyone's remembering but the most important person."
She sighed. "I don't guess you'd care. You'd probably tell me to suck it up. But we had some good times on my birthdays. Remember my tenth one? Double digits, on a weekend. We went to the park, and the movie. It was fun. We won't go into my sixteenth birthday," she smiled and wished that her mother was really here. That they could at least be laughing about the past, and reminiscing together.
She wanted to curl up next to her mother as she had when she was a small child, but she knew that it would just break her heart that her mother would not respond. So instead she just sat there on the end of the bed, occasionally soliloquizing. She slowly drew herself up when a nurse told her that visiting hours were nearly over and kissed her mother's still forehead.
Her hands were shaking as she got into the car, and she drew out her phone. She was about to call Derek, but then she couldn't. He hadn't called her all day, and she did not want to be pathetic, or make it seem as if she were calling just to alert him to the fact that he had missed her birthday.
Sitting in the car, she was not sure where to go, until she had a thought. She had had a definitely crappy day. Crappy, in fact, did not even begin to describe it. Her daughter was in the highly capable hands of her best friend and her husband. She deserved to go somewhere and just allow herself to feel crappy.
A voice in the back of her head told her that that was the justification that had gotten her in a hell of a lot of trouble once before, but she was too upset to care. She pulled out of the parking lot and headed to Joe's.
She supposed that there were other bars, much closer to either her house or Roseridge, but she figured that she would, at least, be somewhat safe at Joe's. It was Joe after all; he'd look out for her, or risk not being invited to Thanksgiving.
She flounced into the bar and sat on a stool, next to a good looking guy who was obviously eyeing her. "Want to buy me a drink?" she said huskily.
"Um…. Sure, " he said, stammering and signaling to Joe. Once the drink had been poured Meredith took her left hand off of her thigh and placed it on the counter, her wedding band gleaming. "I'm sure my husband will appreciate that," she said and snickered at the guy's change of expression. Joe raised his eyebrows and Meredith just laughed before downing her tequila shot.
GAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGA
When the doorbell rang, George was sort of expecting Callie. He hadn't thought that when she stormed out that morning she would actually not be coming back, but it was starting to look that way, and he was sort of nervous. He did not want to search her out in case this was all a misunderstanding and he would end up looking pathetic, but he was kind of nervous.
He glanced into the kitchen at Izzie before getting up to answer the door, but she was up to her elbows (with a smear on her forehead) in flour, and so he put down the medical journal he was perusing and got up to answer the door. When he flipped on the porch light and opened the door, he was surprised to see Meredith standing there, blinking in the light. Although, when he thought about it, he was not very surprised. He had a feeling that they should not have left her alone that night.
"Hey," he said, carefully. "What's going on?"
"I fell," Meredith said bluntly, holding out her hand. There was a scrap on it, but it was not bleeding badly. "Going up the steps."
It wasn't exactly the information that he was looking for, but he smiled and gestured inside. "You're lucky," he said, "You've ended up at a house that has a couple of doctors in attendance." He looked to make sure that she was following him inside, and then led her into the living room. "Sit there," he said firmly. "I'll get a band-aid."
She nodded, staring at the cut on her hand, but he could tell that it was not really what was troubling her. He went into the kitchen for a first-aid kit.
"Who was there?" Izzie asked, sliding a tray of something into the oven.
"Meredith," George said in a whisper. "She's drunk. I'll take care of her."
"Damn that man," Izzie exclaimed, brandishing a rolling pin.
"Izzie!" George hissed, digging for a band-aid. For doctors, they really weren't that well prepared for things like this. "She's in the living room! And you don't know what's going on." He finally found the band-aid box and Neosporin and headed back to Meredith.
She had a throw pillow drawn against her stomach and was curled around it, staring into space.
"Mer?" George asked, taking her injured hand. "You okay? Are you going to be sick?"
She shook her head, her mouth clenched tight. Gently he applied the cream and put the band-aid on. "There. That's all fixed," he said.
"Where's Callie?" she asked suddenly, as if sensing that all wasn't in place in the house.
"She's… not here," George said with a sigh. "I think I might have done something. I don't know. She left this morning."
"You should go after her," Meredith said, as if pointing out the obvious.
George shrugged. "I will, if she's not back soon. I don't want to pressure her."
Meredith was shaking her head before he'd said all of this. "No! Go after her!" she insisted.
"Okay," George said soothingly, smoothing Meredith's hair down. "I will, okay? You don't have to worry about me."
"It's easier," Meredith mumbled.
"Than what?"
"Worrying 'bout myself," Meredith explained. And then, without warning, she burst into tears. Her tears then became heaving sobs, and George held her against him, suddenly worried.
"Mer? It's okay. You're okay. Here, let's go upstairs and you can lie down, okay?" He put his arms around her and led her slowly to the staircase. Tears were still streaming down her face and she was off balance.
"I didn't…. I didn't want to go to an empty house," she forced out through her tears, as they were halfway up the stairs.
"It's okay, Mer. We're always here for you, okay?" he said, and she nodded against his shoulder. He took her into the room that had been hers for so long. He did not turn on the light, just led her to the bed and slipped off her shoes for her. She curled up immediately and began to sob again.
George gently rubbed circles on her back and made shushing noises. He knew that with Meredith it was just better to let her cry herself out. She'd talk when she was ready. Finally she seemed to catch her breath and she choked out, "Happy fucking birthday to me."
"Oh Mer," George breathed. "Where's Derek?"
"In New York, with Addison," she said, sitting up and wiping her eyes. She laid her head on George's shoulder.
"What are they doing there?" he asked, trying to sound casual and conversational.
"I'm not supposed to tell you," Meredith murmured, sounding for all the world like Lydia.
"I'm George, I don't tell secrets," he said with a smile. To his surprise she smiled back.
"'Kay," she said, sounding sleepy. "She's sick. Derek said he'd go with the first time, but he's worried so he went again. An' I guess he was just worried. I dunno why he forgot."
"Addison's sick?" George pressed, and Meredith nodded, lying back on the pillow.
"Yeah. She's got breast cancer. It's not far 'long. She's gonna be okay. Don't tell Iz. She doesn't want hovering."
"I won't. You should get some sleep."
"'Kay," Meredith agreed, curling up and nuzzling into the pillow. He gently covered her up and kissed her cheek. She smiled and was asleep before he stood up. As he left the room, he saw a light blinking from her purse. Glancing at her sleeping figure on the bed he fished out her phone, and saw that there were three missed calls from Derek Shepard. The phone was on silent. With a sigh he pushed talk.
"Mer, hey." Shepard said, obviously in relief.
"It's not Meredith, Derek," George said, stepping out into the hall and running a hand through his hair. "I just wanted to let you know that when you come home looking for your wife she's over here. She spent her birthday drinking at Joe's, and she's now passed out in her old bed. So, you might want to come home and apologize. Profusely."
"George? You don't know--."
"Actually, I do know what's going on. And I also know that you're hurting her for no reason. There are ways that this could have been handled, Derek, without hurting the woman who's let herself be broken by you before. You're breaking her again, and I'm not going to let you do it."
He almost expected to be hung up on, but wasn't. Instead Derek breathed in deeply. "You're right. I'm on my way. Thank you, for taking care of her. Is Lydia--?"
George shrugged. "With Cristina. Look, Shepard, Meredith's like my sister. I'm not going to let her fall." Then he hung up and bolted down the stairs. "I'm going to go find Callie!" he called to Izzie. "Meredith's asleep; she probably won't wake up until morning."
"I'll listen out for her," Izzie assured him. "It's what we're here for."
Twenty minutes later, George found Callie sitting on a bench outside the hospital. He sat next to her in silence, and she whispered, "I've been off my meds, George."
"I know," he admitted. "It's okay. I'll take care of you."
She smiled and laid her head on his shoulder, and put her hand in his. It would not be easy to heal her, to get things back to where they were, but he knew that he could do it.
He only wished that he could heal both of them, but Meredith wasn't his to heal.
A/N Review please!
I love George. The Emmys were a joke, eh? I'm still alive here at college. The line break thing is still dead. Season three is still to come