Title: Sound And Fury

Authors: Sara And Lizzie

Rating: T for language, mild sex

Disclaimer: we don't own grey's anatomy, or any anatomies but our own at that.

Author's Note: Ok. Our first Grey's Anatomy fic. Set after Derek picks Addison and Meredith sleeps with George. Review. No matter how you feel about it, review. Chapters will get longer. We tried to step it up with our grammar, but we still suck. If anyone wants to edit that before we post future chaps, we'll have sex with you. REVIEW, PLEASE.

"This guilt feels so familiar, and I'm home." –Something Corporate

Mark Sloan was drinking a cup of coffee in the Seattle Grace hospital. Addison had shaken him yesterday. He hadn't really left the hospital since. He leaned against the wall, considering his next move. Maybe this was fruitless. Maybe Addison and Derek were going to work it out.

But the thought of going back to New York knowing that Addison was here, virtually alone and unable to walk made him almost sick. His attention was attracted to the door of a room down the hall. Derek walked out, striding toward an elevator, not noticing Mark was even there.

Mark raised his eyebrows at the state his former best friend was in. He was disheveled, and his hair was mussed. No sooner had Derek disappeared into the elevator, Mark saw Meredith slink out of the same room. She was adjusting her scrubs, but her hair screamed sex, out of place in the way that told you someone was running their hands through it. She pulled it into a ponytail, and in doing so, met Mark's eyes.

He saw it in her fleeting glance. Guilt.

Meredith stood outside the OR fifteen minutes watching Derek perform a surgery, pretending that nothing had happened in that on call room.

Bailey walked by her and stopped. "Grey." She demanded. "I've been paging you for half an hour. There's plenty you can do without standing there looking all whimsical. Room 234."

Meredith raised her eyebrows, and headed off towards the room with one last glance at Derek.

"Reily." Meredith said, entering the room. "What the hell happened to you?" Without waiting for an answer she grabbed the chart from the door and started reading. "A stab wound? Jesus." She said, more to herself than Reily. She looked up at the girl. "You were naked? Why the hell were you naked?"

Reily rolled her eyes. "We were having sex."

"And he stabbed you?"

She shrugged. Meredith blanched. "Reily. You told me he tried to kill you. What the hell were you thinking having sex with him?"

She shrugged again. Meredith sighed. Impressionable girls in love made awful choices. She was tapping her foot, still waiting for an explanation from the girl in the hospital bed when a police officer walked into the room. "Meredith Grey?"

"Hi." She said, extending her hand. "She just told me what happened."

"Precisely why we wanted to talk to you." Reily raised her eyebrows. Meredith merely followed the officer out of the room.

Derek left the OR and headed toward the rehabilitation wing. What a tangled web it was. Had it ever been simple, he wondered. No. Probably not. Even when he had tried to make it simple by choosing Addison, it hadn't really been simple, because despite all of his efforts to convince himself otherwise, he was in love with Meredith.

So it was never simple. At least it was never this complicated. It was ironic, to an almost poetic point that Meredith, who flew through men, had found her downfall, not in that vicious cycle, but in the only man she loved.

Derek shook his head, plastered a smile on his face and walked into Addison's room.

Mark observed. They had both looked somber before, but now they were talking animatedly and she was laughing. Their palms were flat on the counter and Mark could see that their fingertips were touching.

Derek put his hand on top of hers before leaving, and she stared after him as he walked down the hall.

"Meredith."

"Mark." She said, obviously surprised. "Watch out. Last time we talked you got a bloody nose."

He raised his eyebrows and she shrugged. "Okay, I thought that could have been funny." She said sheepishly.

Mark looked at her for a long time. "You know he's still married, even if she cant walk around to catch you."

Meredith closed her eyes. "You're going to tell her."

"No I'm not. I don't want her to come with me because Derek is fucking you, Meredith. I want her to come with me because she wants to."

Meredith reacted like she'd been slapped. Fucking her. Like it was that simple. Pure, lecherous, unattached sex. Mark started to walk away. He turned around.

"He says he chose to stay with her to try and make things right. But he saved your life."

Meredith let Derek in her house several hours later, still reeling from her brief conversation with Mark. "I heard about what happened to Reily." Derek said.

"It's amazing, how she just doesn't get it."

"Be careful with her Meredith. That's a bomb waiting to blow."

"I'm a big girl, Derek. I can certainly take care of myself." She said, with an edge to her voice.

"Yea, you can take care of a lot of people Meredith."

"You included." She shot at him, without thinking. His eyes narrowed.

"Don't, Mere," he said, his voice rising. "Just don't."

"Don't tell me what to do!"

"I just told you to be careful."

"Ironic, coming from someone who seems to enjoy risk taking."

Derek raised his eyebrows, looking livid and hurt at the same time, and Meredith cringed. She knew none of this was easy for him either, but she couldn't stop herself.

"Meredith, I can't explain myself."

"Obviously not."

"Why don't you try to if you're so full of answers?" He was shouting now. She glared at him, but she didn't say anything.

"See?" he shouted. "You won't go there either."

"Jesus, Derek? Are you that out of touch?" She slammed her hand down on the closest counter.

"I asked you to be careful Meredith. That's all. Because I don't want to see you get mixed up in some drug dealing drama and get hurt because you want to spite me."

"Because I want to spite you? Derek, get over yourself."

"It's a two way street, Mere."

"Well I'll try not to get killed by any cars crossing that street. I'd hate to get killed and spite you."

"It might simple things up for me if you did." Derek retorted without thinking. Meredith stopped shouting, and became completely silent; letting everything he said wash over her. She blinked rapidly and then cast her eyes to the floor.

"Mere…" Derek said, realizing the line he'd crossed.

"Don't." she said, in a low, icy tone.

"Meredith, you know I didn't mean that."

"Sounded like it."

"Just go, Derek? Okay, please just go."

She turned her back to him, and he stared at her for a long time before turning and walking out the door.

When George came into the kitchen several minutes later, he found Meredith sitting on the floor, back to the fridge, with a bottle of tequila next to her.

"You want to tell me what that was all about?"

"Shit. I didn't think anyone was home."

"Well I heard it all. What's going on Mere?"

She was silent for a long time, and when she finally spoke, her voice was barely above a whisper. "Imagine you're doing something so wrong it makes you sick. And even though you know how bad it is, because she can't even walk on her own, for Christ's fucking sake, you can't stop doing it, because if you don't get those five more minutes with him, your world might stop."

She looked at George and shrugged. "Tell me what that is, and that's your answer."

George stared at Meredith, a bizarre mix fragility, arrogance and ego. He reached for her bottle, and she thought he would take it, but he simply poured her another shot, handed it to her and said, "That's love Mere. That's love."