Meredith

There are fifty-two tiles on the ceiling of my room. Fifty-two. Trust me, I just counted them. I also flipped through all twelve channels on the crappy little television three times, and read my own file more thoroughly then I've read files for some of my patients. And my case isn't even remotely interesting. It's just that…well, I need something to do. This is a very small boring hospital room, and until Finn gets back, I need something to distract me from all the thoughts inside my head. My thoughts are very persistent. They seem to have a mind of their own, which is actually kind of scary if you think about it. And so I'm making a big effort to actively count things and violently change channels just to keep the thoughts in my head from popping up and making me want to cry.

You know, when I put it that way…it's really not my fault that I now know just how many tiles are on the ceiling. It's Finn's fault. He left me alone with my crazy mind. My crazy mind that just zooms straight to Derek when my Sorta-Boyfriend isn't within a five-foot radius of me. And it's Derek's fault too. If he had come back to visit me a second time, I would not have been in the midst of a minor (okay, it was more of a regular sized) freak out all day long. I seriously thought he would've been back by now. Or, at least bothered to wave through the window or stick his head in the door for a minute. Maybe drop a quick, "Hey Meredith…about that thing where your best friend walked in on us half naked." But no, I got nothing. Maybe he wants to pretend it never even happened. We had been pretending prom didn't happen. I guess we're just continuing the trend. I don't know why I let myself get my hopes up with him every single time. Especially now seeing as I'm a renewed dirty mistress and he's still married. That is not how you spell success. Actually, I think it spells something closer to completely fucked.

Oh God…I need something else to count.

Hmm…maybe all the rose petals, or my split ends, or…never mind. The door's opening. Finally. (Maybe it's Derek.)

Nope… "Oh, it's you," I say as the door opens a little wider and Cristina slips in.

"Gee you sound thrilled. Expecting someone else?" She's smirking again. Lately, everyone seems to be smirking at me every time I open my mouth. I feel like there's this huge joke everybody's in on but me. (I have a hunch that the joke just might be my life. That'd be fitting.)

"Finn," I say. Cristina promptly rolls her eyes.

"Yeah…right. More like McDreamy."

"I am not expecting McDreamy," I say crossly. I've given up on that. Now, I'm just back to foolishly hoping, but Cristina doesn't need to know that. She may be my person, but she's already smirking more then enough. "I'm waiting for Finn. He went to borrow a board game from one of the nurses."

"A board game?" echoes Cristina. "Seriously Meredith, a board game?" I just nod my head. I don't know why she's so surprised. There's not much else to do when you're stuck in a bed the whole day. Well, that's not entirely true. I'm sure Derek and I could find plenty to do in bed to keep us occupied for a day. That would be...good. Only no, that's not the point. My mind needs to stop thinking dirty thoughts about Derek. "First he brings you flowers and one seriously freakish bear, and now he's got you wanting to play board games?"

"I like board games," I try, but Cristina just keeps staring at me incredulously. "Finn's being nice. He's trying to cheer me up!" I insist. He actually was doing a pretty decent job of it too, before he left me alone with my thoughts. Now I'm not feeling so cheery anymore. Stupid thoughts. Stupid Derek. "You know he took the whole day off of work just to visit me. He rearranged all his appointments. Derek would never do that…"

"Shepherd saves humans Mer. Not chipmunks and rabbits, but real live humans. You can't postpone emergency brain surgery to go shopping for hell bears from Oz." She picks up the bear and frowns at it, before dropping it face down on the floor. At a guess, I'd say she's not too fond of the bear. "And I don't see why anyone would want too," she adds, shaking her head. Okay, Cristina needs to get with the program here and defend Derek when I need him to be defended, and bash him when I need him to be bashed. No more of this saying the opposite of what I want to hear thing that she's been going for lately.

"Yeah…well…" I shrug and settle back against the pillows. I'm not really sure what my point is here. I think it has something to do with Finn being nice though. That reminds me… "Finn brought me ice cream," I say, sitting back up and looking at Cristina. "My favorite flavor, and I didn't even tell him. Somehow he just knew." I fold my arms over my chest and smile proudly. There's no way Cristina has a counter argument for that.

"What?" she asks skeptically, raising an eyebrow. "I didn't know they were serving tequila-flavored ice cream today." Oh, that's funny Cristina. Very funny. Seriously, some times I hate her a little.

"Cristina," I sigh, imploring her to listen to me. "He took the whole day off for me, and he brought me presents, and we played games and we had ice cream… Finn's nice, and I don't care at all that Derek didn't come to visit me." Cristina doesn't believe me. It would probably help if I sounded a bit more certain, maybe a little less like I'm trying to convince myself. "So I don't know why you're defending Derek over McVet," I add crossly. There…that helped make me sound a bit more convincing.

"Right…" snorts Cristina. Okay, maybe convincing was the wrong word choice. "McVet, yeah…see, that's the thing. Would you have slept with Derek at the prom if he was just called McDoctor?"

"Huh? McDoctor?" I ask. She is seriously making no sense. "Why would we call him McDoctor? He's already McDreamy."

"Exactly. He's McDreamy. McVet is just McVet. The best nickname we could give him is a freaking McJobDescription."

"McVet's catchy," I say stubbornly.

"Meredith." Oh great, she's Meredith-ing me. "Seriously? Catchy? Look, I'm not defending McAss, but it doesn't matter how many ice cream flavors McVet guesses correctly for you, or how many board games he brings you. He's always just going to be McVet. And that is safe and boring." She points a finger at my face, adding, "The happiest he'll ever make you is the same messed up fake happy you've been trying to pull off all day."

"I'm not fake happy!"

"Yeah, and I'm a nice person."

"I'm not…it's just…I'm…" I shrug my shoulders and sigh, shaking my head. She's looking at me with that infuriating expression that means she knows she's right. Well, Cristina always thinks she's right, but this look, this look just screams that she's right and Finn will never make me happy. It's really not proving very helpful right now. "Don't we hate the happy people?" I mutter finally, glaring at Cristina from where I lay nestled in the pillows.

Oh great. Another Cristina look. If I had to spell this one out, I'd say it's pretty much a stop-changing-the-subject-and-lying-to-your-person-already look. She and Derek could seriously have a competition over who crams the most into a single look. It'd be a close race. Although…Derek's looks tend to make me want to rip off my clothes. He might get extra points for that. "We do hate them," Cristina agrees at last, her expression softening slightly. (Which for Cristina, is quite an achievement.) "They're unnatural," she adds, just as the door to my room opens again to reveal Finn, smiling proudly and holding up a large rectangular box.

"Look what I found," he calls to me as he steps through the doorway.

Cristina turns to stare at him, a look of horror on her face, before quickly turning back and mouthing, "See," pointedly in my direction.

"Umm…" I say, frowning at Cristina and tilting my head to the side to study the front of the box. "Monopoly." He got Monopoly. Of all the games he could get, he got Monopoly. I hate Monopoly.

"Yeah, sorry. No time for that," says Cristina, reaching out to take the game from Finn, and simply dropping it onto the floor next to the bear. Did she seriously just do that? Poor Finn, he looks completely baffled. He is really not used to being around Cristina at all. Oh well, at least that means no Monopoly.

"What?" asks Finn, looking back and forth between me, Cristina, and the discarded game.

"Yep. Your labs are back Mer. Bailey says you can go home tonight." I glance down at her hands, just now realizing that she's holding a stack of lab results and discharge papers. I wonder how I missed that. Surgeons are supposed to be observant. "And she says she wants you working only half your shift tomorrow," adds Cristina as she tosses me the lab results. I nod, pursing my lips as I start to flip through them. It's hardly protocol for patients to see these, but we're all doctors here, so whatever.

"That's great Meredith," says Finn, sitting down next to me and interrupting my concentration.

"Mmhmm."

"And it's only seven," he continues, putting his hand on my shoulder. "I can drive you home and still make you that dinner we never got around to." Well I guess dinner can't hurt. He is a good cook, and I can only microwave.

"Okay…" I say absently, closing my file and purposely avoiding Cristina's eyes. "Lets go."

Derek

I can hear them coming down the hallway before they even make it around the bend in the hall and out into the open space of the lobby. They're loud, their voices carry. And well, its always impossible not to notice Bailey's interns, especially when they include Meredith.

"I'm good. Seriously. Stop pushing me. I can walk." That would be Meredith, cross and stubborn and probably twisting around to glare at whoever is wheeling her down the hall.

"I know you can walk Mer," answers another voice, carrying just as easily to where I'm seated as the first one. It sounds a lot like Cristina.

"Then why aren't you letting me? People are looking at me funny," hisses Meredith.

I think Cristina starts to reply, but her voice is drowned out by another voice. A voice that I have absolutely no desire to hear. "Nobody's looking at you funny Meredith. Don't worry, you look lovely." They round the corner as Finn speaks, and I catch Cristina shooting his back a very obvious eye roll. (That reminds me, I've always been a fan of Dr. Yang. Very sensible woman.) I think Meredith is rolling her eyes as well, but I can't tell. She does look slightly annoyed, but that could just be because she's buried beneath a giant teddy bear and a bundle of roses. "Just wait here," continues the idiot veterinarian, as they near the exit to the lobby. I should probably stop staring at them and at least pretend to be reading the paper. "I'm going to go pull the car around." The car. Car, singular. That means they're going home together, to the same destination. My teeth are grit together before I even realize it, and I barely hear Meredith's reply.

"Don't be silly Finn. I can walk to a car."

"It's all the way at the other end of the lot Meredith. Wait here, it'll just take me a minute to swing it around." She sighs but shrugs her shoulders, nodding slightly as he hurries out the door and across the dark parking lot.

Cristina mumbles something that I can't make out, but she's smirking and Meredith looks frustrated or perhaps just exhausted. I shake my head, smiling to myself. She's always been cute when she pouts.

"Seriously Cristina, that's not it," she blurts out loudly. "And I'm not smiling fake-happy, I'm smiling real-happy." She smiles suddenly as she says this, as if to prove her point, and the expression is so clearly not a smile, so clearly a forcibly cheerful grimace, that I almost laugh out loud. "Besides," she continues, sinking back in the chair and folding her arms over her chest. "You're supposed to be on my side here." She winces slightly as she speaks, but quickly resumes pouting almost immediately.

"Seriously Mer, sides? We're not Izzie and George here. But for the record, I've always been on your side when it comes to him. You know that." Him? I glance quickly down at my paper, and try to remain inconspicuous. There are only two possible people that that could refer to; me and the freaking boy wonder, coming to the rescue with his car out in the parking lot. She opens her mouth to continue speaking, but gets interrupted by the sudden buzzing of her pager. "Crap. Gotta go."

"What? You're leaving me to sit here and wait for McVet all by myself?" asks Meredith, twisting around in her seat and catching sight of the pager in her friend's hand.

"Umm yeah, I'm working remember? Unlike you, I don't get free sick days and flowers for my hangovers."

"Dehydrated," insists Meredith, but she nods and sinks back into her chair as Cristina turns away and disappears down the hall. I try to keep pretending to read the paper, but Meredith is sitting there by herself, just staring out the wide front window. Her hair is falling forward, long blonde strands that hide her face from view. I've always loved her hair. It's so soft and golden, and it has this way of just whispering through your fingers. She sighs and straightens up, frowning at her armful of get well gifts before dumping them unceremoniously into the empty seat. Without meaning to, I stand up and cross the lobby to where she's standing, staring out the window. She doesn't turn around at the sound of my footsteps, just keeps staring, apparently lost in thought.

"Meredith," I say gently, reaching a hand out to graze her arm. She jumps visibly, gasping as she turns around.

"Derek…" She says my name in that soft breathy way she gets when she's caught off guard. "Sorry, I…you startled me."

"Sorry," I apologize. Meredith nods, staring up at me, a frown slowly appearing on her face. I don't know how she manages to be so consistently beautiful, but suddenly I'm not sure what to say. She has a way of making me forget things. "So you get to go home?" I manage at last.

"Yeah. Bailey said I could go." Bailey…right. Now is probably not the best time to bring up what Bailey knows, at least, not if I want Meredith to continue talking to me.

"That's good," I say softly, smiling at her. "How are you feeling? Better?"

"Fine," she says shortly. "I'm fine." Her voice turns suddenly short and brisk, her green eyes clouding and turning gray.

"Meredith…"

"What Derek? I'm fine, everything's fine. Everything's perfectly fine." Right. The only time Meredith ever describes anything as fine is when it's actually the complete and total opposite of fine.

"Mer, don't lie. What's wrong?" I reach out, running my hand down her arm, trying to get the tense expression behind her eyes to soften. "Come on, talk to me. We need to talk." She smiles slightly at this, nodding and leaning towards me. I feel my breath catch as she tilts her head back and looks up at me, her eyes searching my face.

"We do," she agrees quietly, but even as she speaks, her expression tenses up again. "But why now Derek? I could have used you earlier, you know, some time after you left me alone with my boss."

"I know. I tried to," I say, shrugging my shoulders as the frustrating memory of Finn swims back into my memory. "But you were never alone. That idiot of a vetrinarian was always with you."

"You mean Finn? He has a name, Derek." She glares at me, shaking her head. From the way she's pursing her lips, I'm pretty sure she's about to start rambling. "At least he bothered to come see me," she continues. "At least he bothered to make time for me. It's not like I like Monopoly or really want to do crossword puzzles all afternoon, but at least it's something. At least he's trying."

"Since when do you play Monopoly?" I interrupt. (See, I was right about the rambling.)

"I don't," she snaps, eyes flashing. "That's not the point." I'm not sure what the point is. I've been trying to see her all day. We're finally alone now, we might as well take advantage of it and talk about what's happening.

"Fine, he has a name. But can we just talk now?"

"No," she says, her stubbornness rearing up as she crosses her arms over her chest.

"Please Mer," I implore, my voice softening.

"Oh, don't even try that," she snaps. "And no, we can't talk now. Finn's going to be back with the car any second."

"Right…Finn," I mutter, hating the sound of his name. Even as I speak, I catch sight of him climbing out of a car and walking towards the hospital entrance. "I wouldn't want to get in the way of him," I say bitterly.

"Hey I got the car," calls Finn as he makes his way towards us. He passes over me and turns towards Meredith, the two of us not even bothering to pretend that we're happy to see each other. "Ready to go Meredith?" he asks, slipping an arm around her waist. My hand clenches instinctively into a fist, and Meredith's eyebrows flutter slightly upward at the sight of it.

"Umm…I'm…" she begins, stammering as she looks at me.

"Am I interupting something?" he asks, finally glancing in my direction before looking quickly back at Meredith.

"No. We were just…" But before she can finish her sentence, we're interrupted by a fourth person walking up to us. The loud clack of heels on the tile floor alerts me to the fact it's my wife before I even catch sight of her.

"Derek, there you are," she says, leaning forward to kiss my cheek. "Ready to go sweetie?" I should probably turn towards her, but I can't take my eyes from Meredith, because her eyes are suddenly flashing emerald, her lips tightening into a thin little line as she slowly and very deliberately places her hand in Finn's. "Finn," Addison continues when I don't answer her. "How good to see you again."

"Good to see you too Addison," he returns warmly. Figures they'd like each other.

"Are you here to take Meredith home?"

"Yep. She's just been released."

"That's great. I'm glad she's got someone like you to be there for her," she says pointedly, stepping closer to me. "Take it easy Meredith," she adds after a moment. It comes out as nothing more then a condescending afterthought. Addie really does know how to sound like a bitch when the desire to takes her. I think Meredith nods her head slightly at this, but she doesn't look over at Addison. She's too busy staring at me, our eyes locked together. Actually, to say that we're staring feels like an understatement. It's more of a glare that we're exchanging, something deliberately hard and biting. It's hard to explain, but it has everything to do with the fact that she's clutching Finn's hand and I have my arm looped around Addison's waist, and yet neither of us seems to care at all that they're talking to us. At least, I know I have no idea what they're saying. It's all just a fuzzy, distant hum. Nothing important at all. The only thing that's important is Meredith. Meredith, and the fact that Finn touching her is actually making my heart hurt.

"Well, should we get you home Meredith," says Finn loudly, his voice finally breaking through to us, as Addison turns towards me and repeats her earlier question about us leaving.

"Yes," spits Meredith, her eyes still burning and trained on me.

"Of course I'm ready Addie," I say, working hard to keep my voice calm and even.

"Lets go," continues Meredith, finally looking away from me and up at Finn. Without another word, she lets Finn slip his arm around her, and she wheels the two of them out the door and towards his parked car. I don't move as she walks away, just let my gaze follow her retreating back, ignoring the insistent pressure of Addison's hand against my arm. At last, the car pulls away with a low rumble and I shake my head, trying as best I can to clear my mind.

"Well…that was interesting," says Addison cautiously.

"Yeah." I sigh, shrugging my shoulders as we too make our way out into the parking lot. We walk in silence, and as I glance back at the hospital, I catch sight of Meredith's bear and roses still laying abandoned in the wheelchair. The anger, the frustration…whatever it was I've been feeling turns instantly cold and heavy, like a lump that's lodged in my throat.

I don't know what exactly we're supposed to be doing, but I have a feeling that it's not supposed to be this.

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A/N - Wow...I'm seriously on a Snow Patrol kick when it comes to titles for this story. My apologies that this took so long to get up. It's due to me being back in school now, much less time to write. But I'm going to try to get another update up before the weekend's over. Anyway, I think this chapter was pretty straightforward. Lots of Meredith and Derek baggage and jealousy getting in the way of things. This was a bit of a shorter section, pretty much a set-up for the next chapter, where things sort of come to a head. And yeah, the story's about halfway through, give or take a chapter. Thank you so much for the reviews, I know I always say that, but they make writing this incredibly worthwhile. Hope you guys are still enjoying the story. Please review!