AN: ok. tried to do a longer chap this time, but not too long. lmk what you think.
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Later that day, Meredith was just drifting off to sleep in an on-call room (thankfully alone) when her pager buzzed. Groaning, she glanced at it, abruptly sitting upright when she realized it was from Derek.
DARREN COVINGTON - CODED 2 HRS POST OP
T.O.D.18:26
"Dammit!" she hissed, hurling the pager at the wall. It slammed against the cinder block and the battery pack popped out. Meredith stood, heading towards the door and yanking it open.
Derek was already outside of the room, frowning. "Meredith-" he began tentatively.
"What, are you stalking me now?" Meredith interrupted, brushing past him. Reaching out, Derek caught her sleeve, pulling her back.
"Meredith. Please," he pleaded. "This is the closest we've come so far. We're going to get it right."
"Then why haven't we?!" Meredith snapped angrily. Tears pricked at her eyes; panicked, she blinked them back. There was no way she was spilling her guts out to Derek Shepherd right now, hours after she had abandoned him in an on call room.
"There's no way we could have seen this coming. It was a post op complication, they happen all the time. You know that," Derek said placatingly, lightly grasping her forearms. She didn't bother trying to jerk away.
"Derek -" A sob bubbled out of her lips. Horrified, she tried to stifle it, but it just crept back up on her. The weight of the last two years was dropping on her all at once, like a giant anvil. "This isn't fair."
Gently, Derek steered her back into the on call room and sat her down on the bed. He closed the door quietly behind him and sank down into the chair behind him. "Meredith…" he said seriously, "what is wrong?"
Everything. She couldn't have Derek but she couldn't get away from him. Her trial was blowing up in her face. Some army doctor had cut out her uterus and now she was infertile at the ripe age of 28. Frankie - the only person who might be able to remotely understand her predicament- was dead.
"Nothing. I'm just tired."
Derek shook his head. "No, you're not." he paused and took a breath. "You're mad at me."
Meredith snorted. "Wow, Nancy Drew, you've done it again."
"You should be mad at me. I'm furious at myself personally." Derek smiled cautiously.
"No, you don't get to joke about this," Meredith snapped. " You know, I wasn't a marriage person before I met you. Or a kid person." she took a deep, shuddering breath.
Somehow sensing the meaning behind her words, Derek frowned deeply. "Meredith, I am so sorry. Truly. I cannot apologize enough."
"No. You can't," Meredith scoffed, standing and moving for the door.
Derek blocked her way. "Please, Meredith. Let me talk-"
"Why should I?!" Meredith yelled. "What could you possibly have to say? I had a life here. I was fine."
"Meredith -"
"Get out!" she shrieked, pounding Derek on the chest. She choked on a sob, remembering a comment he had once made about her tiny, ineffectual fists. It felt like a lifetime ago. "Get out!"
"Stop. Stop." Derek said, wrangling her wild arms and holding onto them tightly. In a moment of strangled silence, Meredith sniffed. Derek regarded her with the utmost concern. "Its ok. You're allowed to feel like this. Do you want to hit me again?"
Meredith shook her head. "No." Why did the walls feel like they were closing in on her? "I want to have a baby."
Derek's face collapsed. "Oh, Meredith…"
"Let me go," Meredith grunted as she tried to jerk away. Instead of releasing her, Derek tightened her grip and pulled her into a hug. "No. No. Let me go," Meredith cried into his shoulder.
Derek was rubbing slow circles into her back, and even though she felt pathetic admitting it, this was all she had wanted for the last 2 years. It wasn't about the sex. Derek had always been so much more than sex.
"I don't like to be around Cristina when she's with her daughter," Meredith mumbled into Derek's soaked scrub top. "I get so jealous it makes me feel sick. Its not fair. I never even wanted kids."
"But now you do?" Derek questioned softly. There was no judgement in his voice.
"Yeah. I really, really do." Meredith pulled away from Derek, and Derek, who seemed to believe she was beyond the point of running, allowed her to. "I almost died over there."
Derek nodded regretfully. "I know."
"And all I could think about -" she hiccuped, her throat sticky. "All I could think about was that I would never see you again. And you would secretly be relieved because it meant you had no choice between me and Addison."
"No," Derek said firmly. His expression darkened. "No, Meredith. I divorced Addison a month after you left. I made the wrong choice. It was always you."
"I wanted to marry you," Meredith breathed.
Smiling sadly, Derek laced his fingers in hers. "So did I."
"I thought maybe we could have a family," she whimpered, feeling pathetic. Worthless. Like something inside her was diseased.
"You can still have a family, Meredith."
"But I can't get pregnant."
"No." Derek shook his head. "You can't get pregnant."
"I can't get pregnant," Meredith said. The words rolled off of her tongue. She'd said them before, but never like this. Now there was truth behind them, and it was as if the tile had dissolved under her feet. "I can't get pregnant."
She placed her hand over her stomach and tried to imagine a baby inside, kicking. Nothing happened. Obviously. She glanced at Derek. "I want to feel that," she whispered.
Derek covered her hand with his. "I know. Its ok."
Taking a deep, shuddering breath, Meredith stepped backwards, shaking Derek off of her. "Thanks," she muttered, because she really wasn't sure how to respond after an altercation like this one. She slipped by him to the door. "Do you, uh, maybe want to get a drink?"
Derek smiled. "There's nothing I want more."
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AN: also, the reviews have really slowed down. please review, even if you're a guest and it's short, because i need to know if people are still interested in this story and if i should continue writing! i get tons of views, and the number of reviews don't really correlate
