Hmm…the day after Christmas. I always feel kind of fat and lazy the day after Christmas due to too much eating and drinking the day before. Oh well, I had a good Christmas. Hopefully everyone else did too. I was very glad to hear that people enjoyed the last chapter. It was a pretty important chapter for the story (obviously because Derek found out), and so it was really great to hear that people liked how that scene played out. Thanks so much to everyone who reviewed!

Now, this chapter feels a little bit different. At least, it feels different to me. It spends a lot of time inside Meredith and Derek's heads because they're both reeling from what just happened between them. So I wanted to spend a lot of time just with their thoughts…I don't know, it feels different to me for some reason. Can't quite put my finger on it. Hopefully it's not a disaster, and you guys enjoy. So please, read away!

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Meredith blinked up at the rain; not moving as the drops spilled across her face and painted the early morning all in gray. She was safe outside, far from the inquiring hallways of the hospital, but she felt cold and anxious. She couldn't go back inside. Her patient had died, and when all was said and done, she hadn't gone back. She had fled because…Derek. Meredith moaned distractedly, leaning forward to press her palms against the brick outer wall of the hospital, forcing herself to try and breathe normally. But she gasped and found herself inhaling the rain. It was everywhere--soaking through her scrubs and plastering her hair to her head. It didn't matter though. It wasn't the sort of thing she cared about right now. Honestly, it wasn't the sort of thing that even registered in her mind. Her mind was too busy spinning with painfully vivid memories; every touch of Derek's hands against her skin, every whispered word from his mouth to her ear. They were there whenever she closed her eyes, so she forced herself to stare wide-eyed down at the pavement.

Meredith didn't understand why she was hiding. She wanted to simplify it down into the fact that Derek was married, and that if she went back to him now, she would fall into his arms. He was married and she would know, and she wouldn't even care. That was true. Frighteningly so, actually. She knew it was true in a soul-searing, undeniable way. The way she felt right now, she wouldn't stop to talk. She wouldn't sit down and clarify anything with him. She would question nothing. She wouldn't even let him speak. She was built of a paper thin wall of resistance that would last all of five seconds. It would crumble and falter and give away before she could even lock the door. And then she would be pulling Derek towards her, wanting to feel him completely, and twist that into undeniable proof of how he would be there for her. Always there for her. And that would be stupid, Meredith told herself, her thoughts sounding like an angry hiss in her mind.

And so she had run, forgoing the warmth of the hospital to kneel in the gravel and the rain. She didn't trust herself around Derek right now, and she needed to be able to trust herself. She needed to, at the very least, be capable of rational thought. But everything that had happened in the on call room had robbed her of her defenses. Derek had been perfect…too perfect, in a way that felt unreal. The things he'd said were vividly faultless things that seemed to come straight out of her dreams. When he had first left her for Addison, every night had been like that. (Granted her dreams hadn't revolved around a baby then, but they had been swollen with the exact same words, the exact same needs that had left her powerless in the on call room.) Closing her eyes and letting her head meet the pillow had been a surefire way to send her mind spinning into Derek's arms. His hands had burnt imaginary trails down her skin. She had heard him whisper things inside her head that she knew weren't possibly real; promises as concrete as smoke. Even though she had been sleeping, she had known in a vague sort of way, that it was all a dream. In fact, it had been such an exquisite form of torture that she thought it was more the stuff of nightmares than dreams.

Only now, she was apparently living it. Her sudden defenselessness around Derek seemed reason enough to flee. (Although she wasn't so sure if it was a sudden onset of defenselessness, or if she had always been so unguarded…only needing him to act for her to bend and break her walls.) But Meredith knew even that wasn't the heart of why she was standing in the rain. She raised a hand, pushing her waterlogged bangs out of her eyes. The real reason was something she didn't want to analyze too closely because it wasn't something she was sure she could get past. It was something that was cold and dark and small; a single shard of glass embedded deep inside her mind. And it frightened her. Twenty four hours ago…even three hours ago really…she and Derek had been worlds apart. They had been separated by wedding rings and Addison, secrets and silent looks filled with things they couldn't say. But in that room, the world had turned over. None of the other stuff had even been worth mentioning. It had all just dissolved away with her tears, leaving nothing save each other. With three words, a line had shifted. Derek had acted as if she were everything, but she couldn't help feeling that the reason wasn't really her at all.

Meredith placed a hand against her stomach as she turned her face back to the rain again, wishing there were a way to wash away complications as easily as the rain washed away everything else. She wanted simplicity. She wanted Derek. And she wanted him to want her with the same pure intensity that drove her mind in circles. But the only way to be with him was to fight a war through a wall of complications. Her choices were simple; be a dirty mistress again or do her best to break up a marriage. Either that or be alone. Alone with her child…their child. She had feared telling Derek would complicate his life painfully--she hadn't anticipated that the act of speaking the truth would set her mind reeling into confusion as well. Meredith shook her head fiercely, watching the rain fall, and blinking when the raindrops landed in her eyes, until finally a voice penetrated her thoughts.

"Meredith…?"

She turned to find Cristina standing beside her, protected from the rain by both a hood and an umbrella. The expression on her face was one Meredith didn't recognize, some sort of combination of shock and disbelief. She thought it might have something to do with the fact that she probably looked like a drowned rat…not exactly one of her typical looks. "What the hell are you doing out here?" Cristina asked, reaching down to yank Meredith to her feet and force her beneath the umbrella.

"Nothing," murmured Meredith.

"Right, nothing. You wanted to take a shower in the freezing rain? Jesus Mer, are you trying to kill yourself?" Her attention drifted down to the shaking hand that was still hovering over Meredith's stomach. "Are you okay?" she continued, her voice losing its edge and growing uncharacteristically gentle. "Is your baby…?"

Meredith shook her head. "Fine. We're fine."

"You're sure?"

"Yeah. Fine," repeated Meredith, her voice coming out empty and helpless.

"Okay, people who are fine do not kneel on the ground in the middle of a freaking downpour," snapped Cristina, reverting to her usual personality. She frowned at Meredith, trying to decipher the raw wild look in her friend's eyes. "You look like you escaped from psych," she muttered.

Meredith shrugged, and turned beneath the umbrella so that she was facing Cristina. There wasn't any point in lying. "I slept with Derek," she said numbly. Cristina's eyebrows shot straight up, and Meredith blinked absently before amending, "Well, almost slept with him."

"You almost slept with him?" echoed Cristina incredulously. Her voice was vibrant and outraged compared to the tortured quiet of Meredith's speech. "As in you both decided that it was a bad idea just in time? Or did somebody catch you getting ready to do the McNasty? Oh…was it Satan? Is that why you're so freaking shell-shocked?"

Cristina herded her into a doorway and out of the rain, but Meredith simply shook her head, overwhelmed by both the sudden barrage of questions and the mention of Addison. "No, no, no and no," she murmured, referencing each inquiry in turn. "I, um…got paged."

"Well sex on call can be tricky," said Cristina, the corners of her mouth twitching up into a knowing smirk. Meredith just stared down at the sidewalk, her face hollow and expressionless. Cristina sighed and placed a hand on her arm. "Okay fine, what happened?" she prodded quietly. "Why the almost sex?"

"I told him I was pregnant."

"Finally," said Cristina with a tinge of exasperation, but as she spoke, a frown traveled across her face. "And what?" she continued. "He just jumps into your pants?"

Meredith shrugged, chewing nervously on her lip. "Well…we both jumped."

"You both jumped?"

"Yeah." Meredith nodded her head as she twirled a strand of her soaking hair around her finger. "We both jumped."

"Well, what did he say before the jumping?" asked Cristina, her voice growing sharp and extremely skeptical. "Was he happy? Is he leaving Addison?"

"I don't know," murmured Meredith. "He seemed…happy." She shrugged, and turned to look at Cristina. "We didn't really say much…does jumping imply leaving?"

Cristina narrowed her eyes. "Normally I'd say yes, but this is McBastard we're talking about, so really…anything goes."

"Cristina….he was being nice," protested Meredith weakly. She chewed anxiously on her lip, unsure of how to explain the influx of conflicting emotions that had caused her to seek shelter in the rain in the first place. "I don't know," she tried again. "He was being so…" Her voice trailed off and she shook her head.

"So what?"

Meredith made a face. "McDreamy…" she muttered. It was the closest she could get to the truth, and Cristina seemed to understand though it brought a sudden scowl to her face.

"Oh," she said quietly, her dark eyes flashing. Meredith started to nod, but the gesture was swallowed up by a compulsive shiver. She hunched her shoulders, pulling her soaking lab coat closer to her body. Cristina just frowned at her. "Okay seriously, I know you're Meredith and your natural state is somewhere between depressed and miserable, but what the hell was up with the trying to drown yourself in the rain thing? You just felt up for some hypothermia this morning?"

"Avoiding Derek," answered Meredith, her teeth chattering as she spoke. Cristina rolled her eyes before reaching in her tote--pulling out a sweater and thrusting it at Meredith. She smiled gratefully and peeled off her lab coat, replacing it with a warm layer of green fleece.

"Okay Mer…there are better ways to avoid someone." Meredith just shrugged, shoving her hands deep into the pockets of her sweater. "And why were you avoiding Shepherd anyway? Aren't you supposed to be figuring out the sordid dirty mistress-McDreamy-secret baby-Satan triangle?"

"That's not a triangle."

"Shut up."

Meredith sighed, stepping out of the doorway to peer up at the finally lightening sky. "If I'd gone back we would've had actual sex instead of almost sex. Besides I was all…" she shrugged aimlessly. "Crazy…I mean seriously, with all the crying and the incoherency."

That earned Meredith a blank stare. "What?"

"Trust me…you don't want to know." She made a face, and ran her hands through her hair, trying to dry the damp strands. "Can we just blame it on the crazy pregnant lady hormones and be done with it?"

Cristina gave Meredith a long appraising look, her lips drawing into a thin line, before finally nodding her head. "Fine," she agreed. "But he's an ass if he doesn't leave Satan now. Actually no, I already think he's an ass. He'll be…" she hesitated, her brow knitting as if in a struggle to come up with just the right word. She heaved a frustrated sigh as she concluded, "He'll be unforgivable." Her statement was met with nothing but silence and the soft sound of Meredith scuffing the toe of her shoe against the rough edge of the pavement. "Mer?"

"He wasn't going to leave her yesterday," she muttered at last, her voice very quiet and thin. "Before I talked to him."

"Obviously Mer, you hadn't told him about the baby yet. Now he has to leave. I mean what, he's gonna live with Satan while you're pregnant with his kid? Ass. Unforgivableass."

Meredith glanced up, her usually kind green eyes sharpening with annoyance. "Well if he wasn't going to leave before, then what's the point?"

Cristina's face clouded in confusion. "What's the point? Seriously?"

"Cristina…" Her voice was as ripe with annoyance as her eyes, prompting Cristina to answer in the same vein.

"Meredith…"

The two women stared at each other, both seemingly at a loss for words. Their silence forced the air to take on a strange sharp edge that didn't fade when Meredith finally shook her head. "Never mind," she muttered darkly, gesturing down at her waterlogged scrubs. "I have to go change anyway." And without another word, Meredith was walking away. She couldn't quite fathom why Cristina, of all people, didn't seem to understand what would be wrong with Derek suddenly leaving Addison because of the baby. And her own failure to grasp, let alone articulate, what it was about that possibility that left her heart so aching and angry was only making things worse.

She wanted Derek. Beyond all doubt, she wanted him. Every inch of her that had been touched by Derek felt painfully alive. It was as if he were imprinted in her flesh, and that was something that she wanted to savor and never forget. Derek returning to her was at the heart of her dreams, and yet the thought that that could suddenly become reality was leaving her with an unexplainable bitter taste in her mouth. She felt at war with herself--raw and shredded from her very center.

Only she couldn't comprehend why.

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Derek pushed open the door to the roof, stepping out into the misty air. The yellow of the helicopter landing strips stood out bold against the gray world, but, aside from them, the top of the hospital was completely bare. He took a deep breath and ran a nervous hand through his hair--his fingers trembling in the midst of what was normally a natural even gesture. But it wasn't a surprise that his hand felt shaky. He felt as if his legs wavered with every step, and so Derek forced himself to stop pacing. Instead, he slid down to rest against the closed door, his body fitting easily into a low crouch.

He had waited for her.

For nearly two hours, he had waited in that small room crowded with his thoughts. There had barely been enough room to breathe in there, let alone deal with the realization that she wasn't coming back. He didn't know what that meant; if she was still busy with her patient, or if she simply wanted to get away from him. Derek didn't know. He had finally left the room to look, but he hadn't found her anywhere, and he just didn't know. All he knew was that he had to cut into a man's brain in a half an hour and he couldn't stop shaking. He couldn't concentrate. Well actually, that wasn't completely true. He could concentrate with almost painful clarity, but all he could think about was Meredith.

He was going to have a child. She was having his child. Meredith, not Addison. Derek felt as if a thousand jumbled puzzle pieces had been hurtled towards him at breakneck speed, leaving his mind to struggle with the task of fitting the clues of the past weeks into something coherent. It was a mess that he was sure he was failing to comprehend completely, but the heart of it…that he understood. The heart of it was Meredith. The mother of his child…mother…father… He was going to be a father. The words still felt strange, even inside his own head.

But then, everything felt strange now. Staring down from the rooftop, it was almost as if he didn't recognize the city he'd lived in for months. Everything was shifting. Around Meredith, he had felt in control--okay with everything…thrilled even. His fears had lain down before hers. But now, without her near, Derek was moving with undeniable certainty towards something much more overwhelmed. Meredith was pregnant, and he had just cheated on his wife. And he didn't know what that meant. He wanted to feel remorse, guilt…something besides the desire to finish what they had started. But amidst all the confusion, the heavy longing to take Meredith in his arms again was a constant. Meredith and the life buried deep inside of her…that was the only other constant. The baby. Children had been furthest from Derek's mind, but as soon as Meredith had spoken, the idea had taken root within him with a strength that was frightening.

Derek shoved himself back onto his feet, and instantly resumed pacing. His blue eyes had clouded and darkened, growing as stormy as the unsettled sky. As far as he could tell, he had to choose again. It was as if he were rewinding time, once again forced to contemplate the scale that balanced his wife of eleven years, their wedding rings, their vows and their history against his girlfriend of a few months. Against Meredith; the woman he was supposed to forget, but couldn't quite. Only now, the woman he'd forced himself to severe ties with suddenly produced what seemed to amount to an unbreakable bond. And Derek swore he felt that precariously balanced scale begin to shift.

A glance down at his watch had him groaning, and hurrying back down from the roof to see his patient briefly before surgery. He did his best to force the image of Meredith and her tear streaked face from his mind, and to think of nothing save medicine. And for awhile, he was successful. But by the time Derek left the OR several hours later, he couldn't forget anymore. He needed to see her. The desire to see her had swollen from simply insistent to utterly overpowering.

And so Derek was pacing back and forth outside an on call room, waiting for her to answer his page. He couldn't bring himself to wait inside--that felt too passive and he needed to do something. Wearing the floor of the hallway thin seemed like an acceptable option, despite the odd looks he earned from passing nurses. Some distant part of his mind, that was still logical and focused on something besides Meredith, was aware of how strange he looked. His steps were bold and tormented, his blue eyes grown nearly black, and his jaw tense and rigid. But Derek was too caught up in why Meredith had left in the first place, and why she was taking so long to answer now to really care.

It wasn't until he physically crashed into another person that he actually stopped pacing.

"Watch it," came an angry voice, nearly growling at him, and Derek found himself looking down into the scowling face of Cristina Yang. Her black curly hair was doing its best to escape from the messy bun she'd thrown it into, and her dark eyes were sparking with a light that reminded him of Meredith. She was Meredith's best friend after all, and that thought alone had him taking her by the arm and leading her into the empty on call room. "Don't touch me," she spat out indignantly, yanking her arm back from him as soon as the door had closed. "I'm Meredith's friend, not Meredith." Her voice was harsh and filled with as many emotions as seemed to be swirling wildly within Derek's own head.

"Sorry," he muttered, taken aback by her manner. He knew her to be brisk and blunt, but she was radiating a barely restrained fury that almost had him regretting his sudden decision to shut himself in a room alone with her. Still, she seemed like his current best shot. "I was just…I wanted to ask you…"

"About Meredith?" she asked, cutting him off.

Derek nodded. "Yeah…" He looked up hopefully at her, only to find her gaze as sharp and cutting as always.

"Fine," she said icily. "But you want to drag me into an on call room and ask me about Meredith? Then you're not my boss. While we're in here, you're not my boss. Understood?" Derek nodded again, prompting Cristina to sit down on the bed opposite him. He waited for her to continue speaking, but she simply glared at him expectantly.

"You know about…" he began tentatively. Derek was sure she had to know about the baby. If Meredith had told anyone, it would be Cristina. Still, he wasn't sure, and he found his voice coming out cautious and uncertain. "I mean, she told you…"

Cristina just scoffed. "Of course she told me." A small smirk played across her face as she added, "Way before she told you."

"Way before," echoed Derek. "Way before? How long has she known?" He wanted to think that Meredith had come to him instantly, but he could tell by the look in Cristina's eyes that that was far from the truth.

"Ask her yourself," answered Cristina tersely. Derek just let out a heavy sigh, his head falling down to rest in his hands. That motion seemed to affect her because she continued speaking, her voice growing noticeably softer. "She's not stupid…she figured it out awhile ago."

He knew he had no right at all to be angry about that, and so he ignored the automatic clench it created in his gut. Instead, he simply nodded, his chin bumping roughly against his palm. "Where is she?" he continued, his voice low and strained. "I need to talk to her."

"No idea," answered Cristina. "I think she went home already." She smiled blankly at him, her expression clearly stating that she refused to help him find her.

"But I need to talk to her," insisted Derek, trying to calm his own frustrations. His voice was vaguely needy, and it set Cristina's eyes flashing angrily at him again.

'Yeah well, you are not who she needs to talk to now."

"What?" he sputtered disbelievingly. "We need to talk. How could she possibly think we don't need to talk about this?"

Cristina glowered at him. "Don't be stupid," she said thickly. "She obviously needs to talk to you, just not now." She rolled her eyes, looking suddenly as frustrated as Derek. "Meredith's a mess. Give her space."

"She's not a mess," he answered indignantly, prompting Cristina to laugh. It was a short bitter sound, almost grating to listen to.

"Seriously? Not a mess? Please, she has more issues than the rest of us put together--most of them thanks to you."

Derek balked at her. "I didn't…" he began weakly, but Cristina was once again cutting him off.

"Aside from the whole mother who doesn't remember her thing, there's the boyfriend who lied to her." She looked pointedly at Derek. "That would be you."

"I didn't lie to her…"

"You know that ring you're always wearing?" she asked, nearly sneering at him. "I know it's hard to remember, but it means you're married. And there's no way not telling her was anything other than a lie." Derek sighed heavily, the shadows in his eyes growing more pronounced. He knew that Meredith had protective friends, but the sheer volume of anger in Cristina's voice outweighed anything Meredith had ever directed at him. It left Derek feeling defenseless, standing there with his mouth hanging open, struggling to think of a reply. But before he could string two words together, Cristina was speaking again. "And now she's going to go ahead and ruin her career with a baby. And if you think she's keeping it for any reason other than the fact that it's yours, you're even stupider than I thought."

Derek felt as if the ground were dropping out from beneath his feet, leaving him perched in nothingness, and unsure of how to move or speak. He wanted to think that Meredith was fine, but he couldn't comprehend why Cristina would be looking at him as if she actually might hate him if Meredith were perfectly fine. It left him feeling sick to his stomach, and he nodded his head, letting it once again fall down to rest in his hands. "I want to help her," he said in a strained quiet voice, almost a whisper. At first he thought Cristina hadn't heard him because she simply stood up and walked towards the door. But she paused before pulling it open, turning back to fix her dark eyes on him.

"Than try putting her first for once."

Her words weren't exactly angry, but they were heavy and frustrated, and she didn't wait for his reply. She simply walked out of the on call room, leaving Derek alone to try and find some answer hidden in the floor he was staring blankly down at.

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So yeah, Meredith and Derek have a lot to deal with. My thoughts…starting with Derek. (Yeah, reverse order of the story, but isn't it exciting to switch it up like that? Heh.) Derek was wonderfully calm when he was with Meredith and she was crying and just generally freaking out. He hadn't begun to deal with the fact that she was pregnant outside of the realm of taking care of her and reassuring her, because she was so visibly upset that his own thoughts just became unimportant in the moment. Only now, she runs off on him and doesn't come back. So he waits, and slowly finds himself getting hit with everything he hadn't thought about when he was with Meredith--he's having a kid, he just cheated on his wife, is he going to have to choose between Meredith and Addison again, etc…etc… And to make matters worse, he can't find the one person he really would like to talk about things with because she's avoiding him, and so he decides to make do with her best friend. Only Cristina? She has serious Derek issues. She had just spent her morning dealing with the whole Mer in the rain, trying to pull herself together post-Derek situation, which really didn't improve her opinion of Derek at all. This simply escalates when he basically accosts her about Mer. And so Derek gets to deal with bitter angry Cristina who is fiercely protective of her friend, and who seizes the opportunity to tell him things and speak to him in a way that Meredith would never do herself. And she ends up overwhelming Derek because, even though he'd very much like to deny/argue about what she's saying, he can't. Because she isn't saying anything that's not true.

As for Mer…she's very much in shock and freaking out. She wants to be rational and talk to Derek, but the way she's feeling, she knows it's just not possible. And so she avoids him by going out into the rain to try and pull herself together. Only, just as Derek is suddenly filled with a thousand thoughts, so is she. And she wasn't expecting this at all. She doesn't know what to assume the fact that they almost slept together means, and the fact that all of this seems to be happening simply because she said she was pregnant is bothering her. And she doesn't get why it bothers her, because she wants Derek so badly…but she wants Derek to want her for who she is, not just because she happens to be having her kid. So she's got a lot of conflicting emotions, none of which she can really deal with yet.

And there is a huge difference between the way Cristina is with Meredith and the way she is with Derek. But that should be fairly self-explanatory. One of them is her person, and the other is the one responsible for the majority of her person's problems. So yeah, big rift there.

That's about it. The next chapter is going to feature the resolution to the unfinished (really barely started) Meredith and Derek conversation. Should be fun! Thanks so much for reading, and please review!