So, I definitely should've updated this sooner, it's stupid that it's been almost a year. Also a little unbelievable. I could say that it's down to computer problems, up-and-moving-about problems, but it's also me being a lazy bum. I hope people will still read and please comment too :)
A small number of drinks and an indeterminate amount of sulking later, brings it to half past eleven. And maybe Meredith has forgotten about their drink. Maybe she's still out, still busy doing… whatever it was she was doing or maybe she went straight home and fell asleep instantly.
He is worried a little. Simply because of their phone call and how distant and off she sounded. Sure, she'd been through the crapper a little recently, so maybe tonight was just getting to her, but he couldn't help but be concerned nonetheless.
It's bound to be too late to call her and check, but that doesn't stop Derek driving her way, driving to her house to check. He just needs to know. That's she's alright, that she'll help comfort him for a little and that… she's still Meredith and still the woman who loves him. He knows it when she looks at him, when she talks to him, how she acts- and that's what he wants to know now.
He rings the doorbell twice. Hopefully it doesn't wake her, or her roommates. That'd be worse, because they're highly unlikely to let him in or give him any Meredith-related information. Nobody answers. So he pulls his cell from his pocket, thumbs down his address book to her number and hits the send button. He lets it ring an eternity before giving up and conceding that she's not going to answer. Now he's more concerned than before. He tells himself that he's being irrational. Because it's late, she's bound to be tired, so is probably curled up in bed and dead to the world for the night. Or, she's still out, busy doing what she was doing.
As he sighs and looks to the ground, his eyes fall on the doormat. And then he remembers the key that's hidden under it. He remembers seeing her grab it from there one time after she arrive home to find she'd forgotten her keys at work. He'd told her the doormat was too obvious a place to hide spares and that that'd be the first place a burglar might look. She'd rolled her eyes and brushed it off, told him not to be so paranoid.
He debates his decision one last time as his fingers curl around the cold silver metal of the key. What if she is home and didn't answer the door or phone for a reason? He could just make her pissed. Besides, he's the ex who'd only just become her boyfriend, is it really ok to let himself in to her house?
He does it anyway.
Meredith stands by her bedroom window, staring out of it but not really looking.
She's given up with thinking that her life can get much worse at this point because lately, that's all it seems to do. She might as well take things as they come and not expect anything better because then it hurts less and she doesn't have to be disappointed.
She closes her eyes, drops her head a little. Her life is a mess. Always has been. And if she were to judge on how things were looking at the moment, she'd say it wouldn't be that unwise to hedge all her bets on the rest of her life being messy.
There's a knock on her door and she turns her head half-heartedly, mutters "come in".
It's George. Who looks a little… strange. She hopes he hasn't broken something else of her mothers, like he did last week. Or hopes he's not going to try talk to her, again, because she's more reasonable than Izzie is when it comes to why he really can't buy tampons from the store again.
But it's neither of those things. Instead, it's three little words that he needs to tell her. Three little words. Few letters. Monosyllabic. He has all these feelings inside him that he couldn't begin to describe or verbalise, and these three words sum them all up perfectly. It should be easier.
But it isn't because he's George and she's Meredith and he loves Meredith.
He is going to tell her tonight, he is-he just needs another minute or two or ten or fourteen to gather up that last bit of courage. Everyone keeps telling him that he just needs to say it, admit his feelings. And he wishes it was that simple. And he knows she's not quite over Shepherd, but he wants to be the person she turns to and knows will be there for her, unlike some married exes.
George closes the door and Meredith turns back towards the window, looking outside at the rain as it pelts down in sheets. It hadn't been raining earlier.
She likes it now it is.
George wastes no time and is standing in front of her, ready to say his piece, put his heart on sleeve and his feelings out there.
"I know I'm not a world-renowned surgeon… I know I'm not a lot of things you've gone for in the past… I know. But. I would never leave you."
There's definitely a bit of confusion swirling in Meredith's head at this point, but she doesn't show it. She'd rather hear George out first before saying anything.
"I will never hurt you. And I will never stop loving you."
The confession, shocking as it is and, as much as she didn't see it coming, barely triggers a response. I love you. That's what he just said, right? Is she so messed up that, being told something as strong as that, fails to make her feel anything? George loves her? She stayed silent during his admission and she's still silent now. He's waiting for some response from her, surely. Who says that and doesn't want anything said back in return? But what canshe say? She's stunned. Except she's not stunned, because nothing is really registering as shock in her system anymore. When he doesn't blink, doesn't crack a grin, look away, move, say anything else, it begins to sink in that it's more than likely he means what he's saying.
She's Meredith.
And she's pretty broken.
She reaches for his waist, rests her hands on it.
She reaches for his shirt, hesitating, but just barely before she takes the bottom of it in her fingers, pulling it up and off his chest.
Descending the stairs quietly, because he has no idea if she's awake or not, much less in there, Derek pauses outside the door. If she is there, he hopes she's not mad at his intruding. But he needs to see her, his need and desire to is at a level it shouldn't be. That wife of his would be furious if she found out.
He knocks on the door, calls out "Meredith?" and then pushes the door open wide.
He's knocked for sixes as his eyes fall on her.
And George.
Shirtless George.
And her arms on his chest.
And his arms around her.
Both parties have their mouths wide open. George's quickly left shocked to annoyed that, not only have they been interrupted, but by Derek Shepherd nonetheless. Meredith, dropping her hands slowly from George's chest, struggles to swallow down the lump in her throat, her eyes locked on Derek's, looking just as injured as he is.
George looks to Meredith, for... back-up, for her to tell Derek to get out, because what he's just said and done is pretty important. But when he finds her staring at Derek, he knows there's absolutely no chance of getting that. No chance of getting Meredith either because, plain to see, she's still very much Derek's, despite everything that he's done and despite the wife he has.
God, he's such a fool.
He doesn't grab his shirt as he hurries out the room and he gives Derek his best evil glare as he does- or tries, anyway, because he's George and he doesn't really have evil glares. In fact, all Derek would probably have seen would've been the hurt in his eyes, on his face. And that just makes this horrible situation even more embarrassing.
"Why are you here?" Meredith whispers.
Avoiding the question and closing the door behind him, he ignores the fact she hasn't invited him in -it's too late for that, seeing as he's just let himself in the house anyway. "If I hadn't walked in then… if I'd come in five minutes later… would I have found you in bed together?"
Meredith hangs her head. "I don't know."
Derek closes his eyes and tries to blot out the images in his brain. "God, Meredith," He sighs.
She sinks down at the foot of her bed and pulls her knees up to her chest. Sometimes, she really does have a spectacular way of screwing things up.
"I... George, Meredith? Were you...? I can't... I feel sick."
Meredith glares now. "You have no room to talk, Derek." It's not accusatory; she just wants to point out how it feels. "You don't think I know you sleep with Addison? Come on. Knowing that every night, you climb in bed beside her? That makes me want to throw up. That crushes me a little inside. You can say whatever you want about this Derek but don't think I don't know how it feels."
She has a point. It's perfectly fair. It's exactly how he's feeling and how he feels when he thinks what might've happened, had he come in a short time later. He wants to explain that, it's not just that it's with George- he'd be feeling like this were it with anyone. The thought of her being with anyone else turns his insides.
When they'd stood next to each other over an operating table, operating on her one-night-stand who'd shown up at the hospital suffering from a priapism, he'd told her how surprisingly painful it was, the moving on.
Now was no different.
No, it was. Because now it felt fifty times worse.
He opens his mouth to tell her this because, though he shouldn't, she deserves him to be honest with her. "Meredith."
"When you called earlier? I went to see my father." She whispers. "My father that left when I was four. Thatcher. The Thatcher I haven't seen in over twenty years. The one that couldn't stay and fight for a relationship with his five year old daughter."
Derek doesn't know what to say. Maybe this is a better line of conversation than the George/moving on one, but... this isn't exactly the easiest of ones either. Nothing is easy.
"My mom had an affair. Which is why my father left."
"Thatcher told you this?"
"No. My mother did." She sighs and fiddles with the small hole at the end of her sweater sleeve. It's a cotton thread and unravels easily. A little like her. "I went to see her this morning and she… you don't ever want to hear any details whatsoever about your parents sex life, do you? You'd rather just think they don't have sex because it's easier that way."
"What did she say?"
"That, that man makes her purr like a kitten, when he isn't making her growl like a tiger.'" Derek grimaces. "Yeah, horrible right? I asked her to stop, but she doesn't. And I'm just managing to keep out the disgusting dirty images that could create in my mind when she says… she says 'and my husband wonders why I'm not interested in him anymore.' How do you respond to that?"
Derek doesn't reply and she continues.
"Luckily, she reminds me that she is tired, sends me away because she needs to rest before she's paged again and I… get the hell out there."
Derek looks at her, sympathetically. Not that he'd ever be handed that information, but he can feel for her nonetheless.
"She's essentially just admitted to sleeping with a man that isn't my dad. To having an affair. What the hell am I supposed to do with that information?"
"I've no idea," He says. When he was handed the information, served on a plate right in front of his eyes that his wife was sleeping with a man that wasn't her husband he'd walked straight out and hadn't looked back. This was different though- Meredith was only just finding out the reason after all these years the reason her father had abandoned her when she was little. She couldn't walk away from this. But she couldn't confront her mother because her mother would not be in a fit state to give her the answers she needed. And assumedly, she couldn't go ask the man that was more a stranger than a father to her because that'd get her nowhere either.
Meredith slips out from his arm and sits down on the floor at the foot of her bed.
"Do you love her?"
Derek blinks.
"Addison, do you love her?" Meredith repeats, mistaking his startled expression for confusion.
He doesn't want this conversation because it's too hard to admit either possible answer. Both hurt. And, he's not sure which answer it is.
"Derek?"
He shrugs. It's too nonchalant, too dismissive for her liking. "I don't know."
Meredith shakes her head. "You gotta give me more than that." Her voice drops and she sounds as vulnerable as she had the other night, when she'd begged him not to go yet and remind her of when they were last happy. "Because I can't have lost someone I love to a woman you don'tknow if you love. So. Do you love her?"
Can he tell her that he's pretty sure he loves her too?
"Derek."
"Please don't make me answer. I don't know."
"That's not good enough," She whispers.
"I don't," He stresses. "I know I did once. But now there's too much hurt to look past and too much confusion in my head for me to know what I feel."
She chuckles, laughing in spite of herself. She loves him and he maybe loves someone else.
"Falling in love with you is probably one of the stupidest things I've done."
The words are a sucker punch to his gut. "You regret it?" He asks hoarsely. And he can't help but sound wounded, sound hurt when asks, because that's exactly how he feels in the moment. Meredith moves a smidgen closer to him. Some strange, natural reaction it is- wanting to be closer to him. To comfort him. Why does she want to take away his hurt, when he's caused her so much of it?
"No, I don't regret it." She says honestly. "Life just would've been so. much. easier had I not. Things wouldn't… hurt this much, I guess." She laughs bitterly.
"So, if you could go back, knowing what you knew… would you stop yourself falling in love with me?"
The question has her thinking. If she didn't love Derek Shepherd, fuck… things wouldn't hurt so much. She wouldn't have to pull herself out of bed every day, she wouldn't have to stop herself from wanting to throw up when she saw him and Addison together… and she wouldn't lie in bed every night, picturing her and Derek together, and feeling her heart break again when she realised her life was just that- picturing, not being, with Derek.
But if she didn'tlove Derek?
She hasn't loved any man before, but she loves Derek. And despite how they are, where they are, what he's done to her… loving Derek still gives her the most incredible of feelings. Derek, despite the lie, is one of the best men she's known. And she wouldn't change any of that. Or any of those feelings, at least.
"I wouldn't stop myself from falling in love with you." She replies, quietly. "I love you. And that's… it's bad, it's wrong and it's hurts but… loving you? How ever much it does hurt still makes me feel… it makes me feel… good. So, I wouldn't change it."
The admission is more than music to his ears. Everything shit that there is in his life at the moment, doesn't form a thought or feeling in his body, when he's heard that.
Mark? ...not worth it.
Addison? ...can deal with it later.
George? … probably not something to be too worried about.
Meredith loves him. He's lied to her about having a wife, made her a dirty mistress, messed her around and treated her like crap-and still she loves him and wouldn't change it, given the chance. She's had a lot of crap in her life, and he's sure he hasn't scratched the surface on much of it, and yet she's still this incredible, strong, woman. Who loves him. God, the feeling is amazing. More than that. It's pure elation. She is amazing.
He rests his head on her shoulder and in a moment of either stupidity or cleverness, whispers to her that he wouldn't change falling in love with her either.