"So you're choosing Mark," he stated petulantly, apparently not processing the fact that his daughter was, in fact, in the room.
"What?" Hannah asked, confused, "Choosing Mark for what?"
"I'm choosing Mark," she answered, ignoring Hannah's question and looking boldly at Derek to reiterate just how sure she was.
"Choosing Mark for what?" the nine-year-old repeated.
"I'm choosing Mark over your dad, Hannah," Meredith explained, swallowing the gulp of realization that they were both, in their own ways, Hannah's father, "to be with."
Derek cut in, "And what if I don't want this to happen?"
Hannah frowned and looked meaningfully at her father, trust begging to flitter away with his cold, decisive need to hang on to his mistress, "You don't want to stay with Mom?"
Her question was innocent, the articulation of the little-girl hope that her parents would one day get back together. Derek, feeling a flush of shame dot his cheekbones, couldn't meet his daughter's eyes, let alone answer her shy appeal.
Meredith sucked in a shaky breath, immediately siding with Hannah, willing him to stop pressuring her into being with him, "We wouldn't last, Derek. Mark and I will work, and not that I couldn't make it work with you, but it would take a little more effort on both our parts. You have to know that something about us isn't right."
"It was right for a while," he argued, still verbally refusing to let Meredith leave, although they both knew that the other wasn't entirely happy.
"Derek, Hannah wants her parents, not me. I was never her mother. Yes, for awhile we worked, but you were hiding stuff, and when that came out, we fell apart. If you don't want to acknowledge the fact that I love Mark, than at least acknowledge that Hannah needs you as a dad, and Addison as a mom," she stopped to breathe before adding one last note as a whisper to herself, "anything else is way too confusing to figure out."
He was silent for moment, drinking in what she had said, and staring at his daughter. Hannah, to her credit, was wearing her most heartbreakingly hopeful facial expression in the hopes of swaying her father's mind.
He sighed.
"I'll talk to the chief," he relented, grudgingly, looking back and forth between them before settling on the oldest, "if I'm going to move on from you, Meredith Grey, I shouldn't do it in Seattle."
Hannah grinned and launched herself at Derek, wrapping him in a tight hug. He half-smiled over her shoulder at the blonde who was feeling increasingly intrusive.
"Mind if I just-" she motioned to the door and he nodded softly, watching her back as she disappeared.
Her keys were looped around one of her fingers as she pushed open the door and ran a hand simultaneously through her hair. She took one last look through the window once she had stepped off the pseudo-porch and onto the expansive lawn towards her car, smiling at Derek, who was bringing two fingers up to pinch the bridge of his nose in a characteristic Dr. Shepherd gesture.
She was going to miss him.
She ducked behind her hair to hide her stubborn tears, nearly jumping at the sad eyes that met her own when she glanced back up. Addison Montgomery was standing a few feet away, furrowing her brow at the skinny blonde in front of her.
"Did you….did you and Derek-"
The New-Yorker looked so sad, so resigned to the fact that her husband would never find his way back to her that Meredith Grey was reassured that she had made the right choice.
"I broke it off," she explained, "not that we were still together but-"
"Thank you," Addison breathed, tears welling in her eyes as she followed Meredith's gaze to the half-open window.
"You should go," the intern mumbled to the surgeon, brushing past her former rival in a desperate attempt to reach her car before she started to cry.
"Mark's at your house; or at least he went there looking for you…"
Meredith nodded, letting her lips upturn in a brief, sad smile before unlocking the door to her rented Saturn.
--
Pulling up to her illuminated house, she hesitated climbing out of the driver's seat after turning the engine off. Mark's car was in the driveway and was presumably waiting for her inside, waiting for her to take one incredibly-out-of-character leap into the unknown.
She drew in a shaky breath, simultaneously trying to calm herself from her emotionally-draining confrontation with Derek and get ready for a hopefully worthwhile confrontation with her other favorite ex. After three minutes that seemed to drag on forever, she pulled her keys out of the ignition and opened the door.
The walk up her front porch steps took longer than it should have. Her feet dragged underneath her and her movements were sluggish as she reached for the handle of her childhood home.
It wasn't that she was worried about making the wrong decision-she had never been more sure of anything in her life- it was that she was going to have to put herself out there, line herself up against the man who had dumped her senior year when he had found out she was pregnant. What if he didn't want her? What if her being pregnant had allowed him a convenient out?
The door opened before she could get up the courage to perform the simple twist. The man she had mistaken for Derek on her first day as an intern was staring back at her when she looked up. Now, months later, she had expected him to be Mark.
"Is he here?"
George nodded briefly, stepping aside so that she could pass him. He was sitting on her living room couch with a beer in one hand, watching a football game on her T.V. She laughed, feeling the tension from minutes ago slip away as she looked at Mark Sloane, who seemed to be at home here, in the house where they had many of their firsts. He was wearing a stunningly similar leather jacket to the one he had worn in high school, and she had to clear her head of the idea that he was the same man now, nine years later. Unwrapping her scarf from around her neck, she sank onto the couch next to him. He silently offered her his Heineken and she gratefully accepted, tipping back ice-cold alcohol to calm her jumpy nerves.
"Who's playing?" she asked, mentally berating herself for ignoring the more important issue. He turned to her, like he knew that she was practicing her usual strategy of avoidance.
"Where you at Derek's?" he countered, practicing his own usual strategy of getting everything out in the open before things reached an uncomfortable level of awkwardness.
"Yes,"
"Ah," he said, grabbing his beer back and returning to the game, "Cowboys against Colts."
"Ah."
The seconds ticked by, and Meredith could sense George listening from the kitchen.
Rip the band-aid.
"I'm in love with you," she blurted, half-surprised at how easy it was to let those simple words slip. A noticeable crash came from the general direction of the kitchen, which they both ignored. The silence was overwhelming, despite the background grunts coming from the blue- and- white-clad football players on the thirty-two- inch screen.
Mark seemed to be processing the words slower than it took Meredith to let them out.
"You're supposed to say something back," she prompted, nervous, "something like, 'oh, I've been waiting for you to say that-I love you, too' or 'oh. That's cool'."
He let out a short bark of a laugh and tore his gaze away from the game.
"I assume you didn't go to Derek's to reprise your role as a dirty mistress?"
"I did not."
"In that case-" he hesitated, for dramatic effect, "Oh, I've been waiting for you to say that-I love you, too."
She smiled, and she was still smiling when he leaned in to kiss her seconds later. Another crash came from the kitchen, and they broke away. His blue eyes fluttered into view as they both slowly regained their bearings. He frowned and leaned in again.
"One sec," she promised; a finger to his mouth.
"You didn't interrupt the first time we heard a suspicious noise come from the kitchen," Mark mumbled as she turned away from him, a smile still playing on her lips.
She was back in less than a minute.
"He shouldn't be bothering again," she announced lightly, reclaiming her spot on the couch, this time closer to him.
"What'd you do to him?"
"Threatened his current living arrangements," she shrugged, "So…where is this going?"
Her question was tentative, and he reached for the remote in note of her solemn tone. The picture on the screen cut out and he turned to her, once again.
"I can tell this will take my full attention," he explained to her incredulous look, "what do you mean?"
"I mean…you live in New York. You've loved Addison for years, you rival Derek with everything, and we have a kid…need I go on?"
He sighed, "You needn't.
"First and foremost, I'm over Addison. I guess I've been over her for awhile- ever since we slept together. Once it actually happened it was somehow a little less than pining after her for all those years had hinted at. As for Derek-yes. I enjoy taking back something that was-or is-mine. But as twisted as this whole situation is, I already hurt him as much as I possibly could by sleeping with Addison. He was married to her for twelve years…it's not like he can just get over that. With you, no offense, the relationship was over in, what? Two months?"
She frowned, but he either ignored it or didn't notice.
"New York is up in the air. I know you're doing your internship here, and I don't want to make you move. Chief said he might let me stay on past my trial period but I'll have to see. Finally, Hannah. We have a kid-most couples do. Granted, our situation is a little more…complicated. But if you want, I'm sure that Addison and Derek will let us visit her. I mean, they let me see her, why wouldn't they let you? Out of the two of us, you've committed fewer felonies, so…"
She laughed, "You haven't seen me for a while…you sure I'm still behind?"
"I'm pretty confident."
She sobered, bringing the conversation subtly back to them.
"You've been thinking about this for awhile, haven't you?"
He shrugged, suddenly looking a little embarrassed, "I've kept my options open."
She laughed again, and he couldn't remember why he had even wanted Addison in the first place. Her laughter died a few seconds later.
"Derek said he would have to move back to New York; to get over me," she picked at her sweater, not entirely sure how Mark would react to the fact that Derek needed to get over her. But, to her surprise, he hooked thumb and forefinger under her chin and lifted her eyes to meet his.
"If you had turned me down, I would have said the same thing," he assured sincerely.
"I'm going to miss him," she admitted, bringing her legs up to rest on the couch beside her. His fingers left her chin, and she found herself wishing that they hadn't.
"I will, too; if I stay."
She sighed, and her head drooped to rest on his shoulder. He kissed the top of her hair, and in that moment, she was reassured, once again, that she had made the right choice.
"This time, if I get pregnant, you will not be leaving without saying goodbye. I require a voicemail, at the very least," she joked, voice muffled by his shirt.
He laughed, and his chest rumbled underneath her as she flipped around to straddle him, hair framing her face as she leaned down to give him an open-mouth kiss. His laughter faded as one of her hands entangled in his hair and the other reached for the hem of his shirt.
"What about George?" he managed between breaths and kisses, struggling to think through the fog of Grey.
"Gone," she said, "at Burke's for the night."
"Good," he sighed, flipping her again so that he was hovering over her, pulling at her lavender sweater.
AN: as you can see, the pairings are now set. I'm sorry for all the MerDer people who thought this was a MerDerfic…I'm as surprised as you, honestly. There should be at least one more chapter as an epilogue, and maybe one in- between to figure out how Addie and Derek are going to work out there problems. Review, as usual!!