"Did you and Dr. Shepherd break up?" Izzie frantically asked before Meredith could even step fully through the front door.
It was after ten-thirty, and after working a sixteen hour shift, Meredith was in no mood to have this conversation with Izzie, who no doubt would press for details. The tension from the last couple days was starting to take its toll on Meredith's shoulders, and more than anything she had wanted to slip into the house and sneak away to the bathtub where she could wash away the stress that had consumed her life. Even though she had spent the whole day thinking about Derek, she didn't feel ready to talk to anyone, much less Izzie, about their relationship status.
Izzie stared at Meredith intently, her arms crossed as she blocked the steps like a bouncer ready to kick Meredith back out the door if she didn't give the secret password.
"What have you heard?" Meredith sighed, throwing her khaki and orange tote bag and navy blue pea coat onto the bench by the door in a fit of frustration.
"He's upstairs, Mere, and he looks like shit."
Meredith's heart sank. She definitely didn't feel ready to confront him yet, and she was suddenly relieved to have Izzie standing before her, obstructing her path.
"When did he get here?"
"About forty-five minutes ago. He said something about needing to get some things out of your room, and then he went upstairs. I heard him slamming some things around for a while, but that stopped a few minutes ago. Do you want me to ask him how much longer he's going to be?"
Meredith hesitated, imagining herself hiding out in the living room waiting for him to clear out his things from her bedroom. But she knew that if he had been here for forty-five minutes already, he wasn't just packing. He was waiting…for her.
"No, that's okay. I'll talk to him," Meredith whispered nervously. She knew that some sort of confrontation was inevitable. She just hoped that it would go better than the one from the morning.
"Are you sure?" Izzie asked, trying her best to be supportive.
Meredith nodded, and slowly brushed passed Izzie to trudge up the stairs.
There seemed to be more stairs than she remembered, and yet, Meredith conquered them much faster than she had planned. She found herself standing at the top of the landing, staring at the light feathering out from her bedroom door. She felt like a character in some horror movie preparing to fight a hideous monster. But it wasn't a monster. It was Derek, her McDreamy. How bad could it possibly be?
She took a deep breath, and opened the door.
Derek sat on Meredith's bed, crumpled over the side with a t-shirt wadded up in his fist. His back was turned away from the door so Meredith couldn't see his expression, but she was certain that he was scowling. And the fact that he hadn't turned toward the door when she entered scared her a little. It was as if she were invisible to him.
She bit her lower lip, and stepped into the room, closing the door quietly behind her.
Still, he didn't move. His body was rigid as his mind went in a thousand different directions.
When he decided to come over, he had planned to confront her and fight, as Addison had suggested. To fight for their relationship, and if that meant battling Meredith in the process, he would have more than a couple choice words now to express his feelings. He had been rehearsing it mentally all day. But now that she was here, it was all lost. Nothing. He would have to wait for her to make the first real move.
She started to move toward him, feeling more guilt seep into her with each step. Had she really left him this tense and catatonic?
He continued to ignore her. Inside, he was a rabid animal being cornered. Outside he was just a shell. A rigid, hollowed out, unmoving shell.
She hovered next to him, standing behind him as he continued to grip the gray t-shirt. From the closer perspective, she recognized the shirt as being one of hers – her ratty old Dartmouth tee that she sometimes slept in, and the sight of him clutching it so fiercely made her feel like she had been punched in the stomach.
No reaction.
She sat down beside him, wrapping her arms under his so that her hands touched his chest, her head resting against his back.
Finally, he inhaled sharply. She could hear the air traveling into his lungs as his heartbeat sped up. His body tensed a little more at first, but slowly, silently, he relaxed into her embrace as the two sat, speechless.
Tears streamed silently down the side of Meredith's face.
"Derek…I'm sorry. I'm dark and twisty and broken and sometimes I do really stupid things."
Derek gently pulled away from her grasp so he could turn and face her, revealing his own tear-stained face. His hair was still wild, like it had been towel-dried and left to go every which way, but his eyes were calm and reassuring.
Meredith studied him quietly, kneading her hands in her lap as she considered how she would continue.
"I haven't done this relationship stuff before, Derek. Not really, and, well, if this is going to be it—if I'm it for you, then I want to do it right, and I just can't get it right right now. And I so want to get this right."
Derek started worrying the fabric of her t-shirt through his hands, calculating a response. He had a lot that he wanted to say, but he knew from experience that he'd have to tread gently in this territory or risk scaring her away again. And he needed to have this conversation – to have something with her.
"So what are you saying, Mere?"
"I'm saying…I'm saying that I think I need some time and space for a while. I have daddy issues… And mommy issues… And trust issues and commitment issues and…well, issues. Issues that I want to work on so I can make us be a permanent us. I want you to be it for me, too."
Meredith stared intently at Derek, waiting for some kind of reaction.
He stared back, a smile tugging ever-so-slightly on the corners of his mouth.
Feeling encouraged, Meredith decided to continue.
"So this break-up thing that I did today, I didn't mean to hurt you. I guess I'm not saying that we're over over. Just temporarily over. Over until I can make myself better and be solidly in this. But Derek…" Meredith paused, needing more oxygen to keep going. "If you don't want to wait for me to fix this…or if you want to meet girls at Joe's or whatever while you wait, I'll understand."
Derek leaned back, resting his back against the headboard of her bed and dropping the t-shirt in his lap so he could fold his hands together.
"Mere, you don't have to worry about there being someone else. I meant it when I said that you are the love of my life."
Meredith looked down at her hands, shyly. It still felt surreal to have anyone, much less Derek Shepherd, say those words to her.
"But I hate the idea of us being over, even for a little while. What does that even mean exactly? Can we talk to each other? Will you be seeing other people?"
"NO!" Meredith quickly responded, surprised by the question. "Of course not."
"So what does 'temporarily over' mean? What are you going to be doing to fix us?"
"Well…maybe I could talk to somebody…someone up in psych or something to get some help," Meredith replied, surprising even herself with the words she was muttering. She hadn't even considered going into counseling until this moment, and ordinarily she was unlikely even to consider it. Now, however, she thought it could be a good idea.
Derek nodded at her, caught somewhat off guard by her response as well. He was very supportive of counseling even though his own experiences with Addison hadn't worked out well, but still, he hadn't expected Meredith to suggest it. It seemed contrary to her stubborn independence.
"And we can still talk to each other and work together, we just won't be together. We won't have this constant expectation that we have to spend time together or share everything that's happening with us or have any relationship pressure for a while. And no sex. Definitely no sex." This final comment caused Meredith to sigh heavily, as if she regretted even suggesting it as a condition of their temporary over-ness.
Derek read her sigh perfectly and smiled at her, teasingly.
"Are you sure about the 'no sex' condition?" He nudged, laughing a little.
"Derek, I need an incentive to fix things quickly. What better incentive could there possibly be to move things along?" Meredith shot back, giggling a little herself.
"Alright, then. We'll try this 'temporarily over' plan, but I am holding you to the temporary." Derek sighed, sliding over on the bed so he could stretch out fully and rest his head on a pillow. He knew that being "over" probably didn't entail sleeping in her bed, but he hoped she wouldn't force him to leave just yet.
"Temporary. I promise," Meredith sighed back, feeling the exhaustion from her long shift and stressful 48 hours hit her suddenly. As she watched him sprawl out in bed she realized how tired he looked too. "It's late, and I want to get some sleep. I haven't done much of that lately."
"Okay, I can leave," Derek said, slowly sitting up.
"No, wait," Meredith searched for an excuse to keep him there in bed. As much as she knew they needed the break from each other, she also knew that she didn't want him to leave. "You don't need to go. It's so late, and by the time you get back to the trailer, it will be after midnight. You've already got stuff here…just…stay."
"Mere…Are you sure that's a good idea?" Derek asked, quietly hopeful that she wouldn't change her mind.
"Yeah, it's fine. There's no sex, and we're still friends, and…friends…well, friends don't let friends drive tired. And you're tired, and I stayed with Cristina when I was tired, so you can stay, Derek, it's fine. We're adults. It's…fine."
Derek smiled a patented McDreamy smile. He loved it when she rambled like that. "You should get some sleep."
"Yeah" was all she could muster in response.
She stood up, kicked off her blue jeans and picked up the Dartmouth tee that had been pushed to the floor. She uncrumpled it so she could study it a moment, trying to figure out why Derek had been clutching it so tightly when she walked in. At a loss for answers, Meredith quickly pulled off her shirt and bra and slipped into the tee, feeling Derek's eyes on her the whole time. She wondered if this violated the "temporarily over" rules, undressing in front of him, but she was really too tired to care, and besides, it was nothing he hadn't seen before.
She walked over to the light, turned it off, and stumbled back to bed in the dark before crawling into bed with Derek. As she pulled back the sheets and slipped under the covers, the coldness of the cotton sheets nipped at her skin, causing her to shiver a little. She instinctively slid her body closer to Derek so she could feel his warmth, and he quickly shifted his left arm under her neck, creating a space that allowed her to rest her head on his chest and listen as the slow, steady rhythms of his heart lulled her to sleep.
Temporarily over might just work.