A/N: I'M SO SORRY- THE END JUST WROTE ITSELF, I SWEAR!
"I don't want to do this again. I can't do this again. I'm going to fall apart. I can't go through it all to a giant room full of strangers." Meredith paces her bedroom the following morning. They have two hours until they need to be at the courthouse.
"Meredith, stop," Cristina demands, and the blonde obeys, turning to face her friend. "Do you want to put William away?"
"More than anything," she responds instantly, without hesitation.
"Then you have to do this. Just...I don't know, just pretend it's only you and Quinn. You're just having a normal conversation, alone."
"That's like saying picture everyone in their underwear." Meredith scoffs.
"Well, whatever works."
"You really think I can do this?"
"I don't think, I know."
Meredith takes a deep breath, then nods. "Okay. Okay, I can do this."
"You can do this."
"I can do this." Meredith walks into her bathroom, waving Cristina off, pulling her hair half up, and brushing on some makeup. She spends a few minutes studying herself in the mirror. She looks the same as she has the past few days-like the dead awakened-and when she deems herself ready, she goes back to her closet and digs through, trying to find something to wear.
She ends up with white dress pants, short black boots, and a deep blue button-up shirt. Pushing away thoughts of the testimony she's going to have to give in a few hours trying to make the nausea brewing in her stomach go away, she heads downstairs, finding everyone already in the kitchen. The men are in suits, and Cristina is wearing a tight knee-length skirt with a red top and suit jacket.
They're all eating a good breakfast, presumably something Derek made, but Meredith is positive that anything she eats will just be puked back up, so she goes for some Lucky Charms right out of the box.
Soon enough, they're walking into the courthouse, meeting an awaiting Quinn at the doors. "Good, you're here. I want to quickly go over some things before you testify today." Meredith nods, splitting away from her group to speak to Quinn privately. "You need to prepare yourself." The lawyer starts quietly.
"What?"
"I'm going to do everything I can to make William sound as horrible as possible, but Annalise is going to do the opposite. This means she's going to try and put the blame on you."
"She...oh, God."
"I need you to make sure you don't lose your temper. That's exactly what she wants. She's going to provoke you and twist your words and make you seem like a terrible person." Quinn pauses. "You need to remember that you're not. Meredith, he did this, not you. He did it, and that's why we're going to make him pay."
Meredith nods, taking in a slow, shaky breath, and enters the courtroom with Quinn, both women sitting at their designated table in the front. She passes Olivia sitting next to Lindsey and catches her eye, each woman only being able to muster a small smile. With just a glance at the red-rimmed and exhausted eyes of Olivia, Meredith can tell how much of a toll what happened yesterday took on her.
In the blink of an eye, the court is in session, Meredith still looking straight forward. She hasn't turned her head to the right at all in the past few days, completely avoiding the eyes and face that haunt her every single thought.
Until she hears, "Dr. Meredith Grey to the stand."
Her legs feel like jelly underneath her as she crosses the room, gets sworn in, and takes a seat in the stand. Her hands are sweating, and she looks at Quinn, mentally trying to prepare herself.
"Can you tell the court what happened the night you were abducted, Dr. Grey?" Quinn begins.
"I was outside of the police station." Meredith swallows thickly, fighting to keep her voice steady. "I was trying to get into my car, but the door wouldn't open. He came up from behind me and covered my mouth so I couldn't scream. I tried to fight him off but he threw me to the ground and knocked me out."
"What's the first thing the defendant did when you saw him next?"
"Raped me," Meredith answers without hesitation, removing her gaze from Quinn and instead meeting William's. His eyes are cold, just as she remembers. He looks at her as well, a smirk playing on his lips.
"You were there for five days. How many times did you see him?"
"Um, probably seven or eight."
"And how many times were you raped?"
"Objection, asked and answered," Annalise calls.
"Overruled." The judge replies, nodding at Meredith to continue.
Meredith hesitates but narrows her eyes at William and answers. "F-four. Four times."
"What happened the other times you saw the defendant?"
"He beat me. That's it. Over and over again he just...hit me, shoved me, screamed at me." Meredith's tone goes emotionless, and she's sure her eyes look dead as well. She's not exactly sure what's happening, but suddenly it's only her and William, silently battling it out across the room. She refuses to be the first one to look away. This is her time to tell everyone what he's done, and she's not going to back off.
"What was the room like where you stayed?"
"Dark. Small. Cold. There weren't any windows or anything except for this generator in the corner."
"Did you have freedom of the room?"
"No, I was shackled and tied to the generator."
"Did you have anything to eat? Cover yourself with?"
"I didn't have anything to eat. I found a blanket, but it didn't really keep me warm and it was covered in bloodstains, which I assumed were from his previous victims."
"Dr. Grey was kept alone in a basement in the middle of the woods for days, being tortured. William Dunn used her to fuel his sexual desire and take his anger out. He's twice her size and weight, and showed absolutely no mercy towards a defenseless woman." Quinn addresses the jury, then turns back to Meredith. "What was happening the night the FBI team found you?"
"He brought a rope with him. He wrapped it around my neck and strangled me. He...he was going to kill me. If the FBI hadn't gotten there when they did..."
Meredith trails off, and Derek shifts in his seat, aware of the unease coming from each of the members of his team around him. None of them what to think about what might have happened if they had found her body, not William.
"This is exactly what William Dunn did to not only Dr. Grey but seven other women. He easily falls into the categories of a psychopath, serial killer, and sexual sadist. This man does not deserve to continue doing this to people." Quinn speaks to the jury again, giving her words a moment to sink in. "Your witness," she tells Annalise, then sits back down.
Annalise stands and faces Meredith. "Did you fight my client back?" She starts.
"I'm sorry?"
"You said my client abused you, did you ever attack him?"
"What? No, no I didn't!" She raises her voice defensively.
"You broke his nose the first night-"
"He fractured my skull that night!" Meredith cuts her off. She glances at Quinn, who's silently trying to tell her to watch her temper. The blonde gets the message, trying to calm herself.
"Are you sure you never provoked him in any way? Fighting him would make what he did to you self defense."
"I was weak and terrified. I knew there was no way I was going to beat him in a fight, so why try and hurt myself more? I did nothing to him." She growls, her lip curling in disgust at the thought, then returning her gaze directly on William.
"You were found in a t-shirt, where did you get that?" Annalise moves on, seemingly unphased by Meredith's little outburst.
"He gave it to me," she rolls her eyes.
"So, you did have something to wear. What about a drink?"
"Um, he gave me a bottle of water-"
"So you also had something to drink. My client provided you with something to stay hydrated."
"No. He gave me that water saying he needed me to stay alive so I could suffer more at his hand. He told me-"
"Dr. Grey, let's move on. In your statement, you said my client smelled. What exactly did he smell like?" Annalise says quickly, not leaving Meredith any time to object.
"Um..alcohol. Different types. He really, really strongly smelled like alcohol."
"So my client was also under the influence. Can he really be held accountable for his actions when affected by multiple drinks?" The lawyer asks the jury, then returns to Meredith. "Do you know who Matthew Trahkcol is?"
"Yes, that's his son," she responds, nodding towards William.
"Did you ever meet or interact with him?"
"No."
"My client told me that his son, Matthew Trahkcol, who recently escaped from prison threatened him. My client was manipulated into doing something to these women he didn't want to do." Annalise addresses the jury again. Her statement gets gasps from around the room.
"Multiple objections, Your Honor, that lacks foundation, speculation, creation of material fact," Quinn stands, narrowing her eyes at the other lawyer.
"Do you have any proof of contact?" The judge asks.
"Yes," She replies, pulling a piece of paper off her table. "Item 1C, phone records. Matthew was making calls four times a week to my client."
"No, your client was calling Matthew." Quinn jumps in.
"You don't know that," Annalise says.
"Neither do you," she shoots back.
"Counselors, enough!" The judge booms and both lawyers instantly shut their mouths and turn their attention to the judge, having forgotten that they're not supposed to talk directly to one another or things get out of hand. "What was discussed during these calls?"
"She doesn't know, the phones were untraceable," Quinn answers for the other lawyer, getting a dirty glare.
"Approach." The judge orders and both women come to the stand.
"We can get interrogation footage of Matthew Trahkcol." Quinn lights up before anyone can say anything. "It will prove that the defendant was manipulating his son, not the other way around."
"Find it and bring it to me to review. We'll reconvince after a twenty-minute recess." The judge commands, bringing down her gavel and dismissing the court.
As soon as she can, Meredith is off the stand and out of the room. Annalise returns to her table, exchanging a few words to William before walking towards her team. The group on Meredith's side joins Quinn in their private room, where Vanessa pulls out her laptop and begins typing rapidly to find the interrogation footage.
"Should someone go after Meredith?" Derek asks quietly. The room is quiet for a minute before Olivia steps up.
"I'll go. I get what she's feeling right now better than any of you," she says. Lindsey lets go of her hand, which she has been gripping tightly all day, watching as Olivia then leaves the room, appearing to know exactly where Meredith had gone.
Halfway down the hall, three security guards nearly knock Olivia out. They were running and not paying attention. "What the hell?" She demands, frowning at all three of the men's wildly panicked faces.
"Sorry ma'am," one tells her absentmindedly.
"Mind telling me what's going on?"
"Um...it's probably best that only the police know." Another guard joins in.
Olivia rolls her eyes, pulling her creds from her pocket, making sure to flash the men with the weapons holstered to her side. "Special Agent Prenton, FBI. What's going on?"
The three men instantly snap to attention, their gazes apologetic. "It's William Dunn, the defendant in the serial killer case."
Olivia freezes. "What about him?"
"He's gone."
xx
In the women's restroom, Meredith hunches over the toilet in the furthest stall from the door, finally allowing her body to puke up what she had been holding down all day. Part of her wants to fall apart and cry, the other part wants to scream and hit something. When her stomach settled she wipes her mouth and flushes, taking a minute to just stand in the stall and collect herself.
She hears the door open, realizing it's probably Cristina or someone coming to check on her. She shakes her head to clear her thoughts and steps out of the stall, letting the door fall shut behind her. Meredith looks up, her blood turning to ice as fear and horror take over.
There, standing in front of her is William Dunn.