[9] {It's been a stressful month at school and I apologize for the immense delay. But your reviews have been amazing, and it's such a blessing to have readers like all of you. I hope this chapter lives up to expectations—remember when the temperatures dropped in chapter seven?}
Seeing Derek was always electrifying. Even just a quick glimpse of his hair sent Meredith running for on-call rooms despite her best efforts to keep still. And just knowing he was there, a few miles away, made it hard for her to fall asleep at night.
It'd only been one day. She spent most of her time alone, working up the courage to go find a familiar fifth year and talk to them. But whenever she went looking, it was as if they were avoiding her too.
"Muffin, please," she said, taking the chocolate one that was handed to her before paying. She turned to face the cafeteria, never knowing where to sit. She felt so alone here, even though Seattle was the home of everything she once knew.
"Lexie." As soon as she saw the brunette, Meredith headed over, standing with her muffin over her sister. "I-"
"Mer." Lexie wore the perfect expression of surprise as she gestured with her mouth full. "Oh my god, sit." She hardly let Meredith settle down in the cafeteria chair before blurting out, "So, you're really here?"
"I suppose," Meredith said, unwrapping her muffin carefully. "I'm getting my donor heart today," she looked up at the fourth year, offering Lexie a smile. She knew it wasn't anything near an explanation, and she'd already been here for over 24 hours without seeing her sister, but Meredith was out of explanations. She'd never really had one in the first place.
"You're going into cardio?"
"That's the question you choose to ask me?" Meredith let out a laugh.
"I suppose." Lexie mimicked her sister with a smile, and the short echo was enough to somewhat convince Meredith that maybe things would be okay.
"Does Derek hate me?" Meredith's voice from behind him made Mark turn, not even protesting when she took his coffee from his hand and drank from it.
"Uh, I don't know."
"You're his best friend, Mark."
"Okay," Mark relented. "No," he said loudly, suddenly, taking back his coffee. "Are you crazy, Grey? He's in love with you. He's still in love with you." He took a sip from the paper cup, his pause for dramatic effect failing when he proceeded to burn his lips with the scalding liquid. "How did you just drink from this and not… never mind." He shook his head, dismissing the tangent. "He's always going to love you," Mark continued, studying Meredith's reaction carefully. "You're killing him, Grey. He loves you and, but, you're killing him."
"Mark, stop." Meredith's voice was quiet, looking down at the floor. Mark watched her intently; he'd always loved Meredith like his own sister, and at once he could tell that he was only making her feel worse.
"Stop what?" He finally asked. "It's the truth, Meredith."
The secondhand confirmation of Derek's feelings for her struck a chord inside Meredith; and even though the words hadn't come from the neurosurgeon himself but rather, his best friend, it was a confirmation nevertheless. She'd arrived in Seattle scared of what she'd left behind, and although she was still terrified, she knew something had begun to change. If anything, something had to change. She just couldn't keep doing this anymore. "He's still in love with you" was hope for the hopeless; with Meredith being the hopeless and Derek's love being all the hope she needed in the world.
Her heart felt less empty than it had in years.
But what she was so desperately trying to forget was that at the very fiber of her being was a dark and twisty Meredith Grey. She wasn't bright and shiny, and quite frankly it seemed like she'd probably never be bright and shiny. And Derek deserved bright and shiny, especially since her dark and twistiness along with her obvious mommy issues had broken his heart.
He deserved someone who wasn't going to hurt him like she seemed incapable of doing.
Derek deserved better. And after four years of sleepless nights just thinking about it, Meredith didn't think she was better. She was going to let go. Tomorrow she'd be heading back to New York and she promised herself (and him silently) that this time, she really wasn't going to look or come back.
Tomorrow was the end. Tomorrow meant things were over. Tomorrow was the day she'd work up the courage and really say goodbye to Derek, giving him the proper closure she'd cheated him four years of.
Which was why when the snow storm hit Seattle, it ruined everything.
The minute she woke up and saw the snow covering Seattle's trees and roads and houses, Meredith swore loudly—and she really wasn't the kind of girl who swore, at least not the specific swear word that flew out of her mouth.
"Hello?" Max answered sleepily on Meredith's third call. "What's going on, Meredith?" He added, when he was somewhat more awake.
"Have you checked the weather forecast?" Meredith asked, the worry stressed in her voice as she moved around her hotel room getting dressed, picking up things from the floor on her way to the bathroom.
"Meredith, it's so early," Max groaned in response, rolling over and pressing his face into his pillow while holding the phone to his ear.
"Max," Meredith emphasized his name. "It's almost 10am in New York."
"Yeah," he mumbled back. "Late for you because you're a doctor, but hey, I'm a bartender."
"Right." Meredith's smile only appeared on her face momentarily before it changed into an eye roll, and then she let out a deep sigh. "Max, I think I might be snowed in."
"What?" All of a sudden, he sounded much more awake.
"Will you check the flights out of SeaTac, please?" She pleaded, practically begging him as she stuck a toothbrush in her mouth and talked around it.
"I'm on it," Max replied, distracted as his eyes scanned the forecast page and then the flights leaving Seattle. "Well, I'll be darned."
"Don't say that ever again," Meredith smiled. "What?"
"Snowed in. Snowed in at Seattle," he confirmed.
"I can't," Meredith sank down to the floor, leaning against the bathroom wall. She held her toothbrush in her hand, met with silence on Max's end of the call. When she finally spoke, her voice sounded almost hoarse. "I don't know what to do."
Max sighed, holding the phone tighter in his hand like it would help her. "It's only for a few days."
"You don't understand." Meredith forced herself to her feet, rinsing out her mouth in the sink before she sat back down, making a face no one could see. "I don't have anybody here, Max. I mean, there's Mark and my sister Lexie but… everything reminds me of Derek. I can't stay here anymore, I need to go, and I need to get out, and I just need to go home."
"Hey, hey," Max was saying as Meredith's rant reached near hysterics. "I've said this so many times," he told her with a small smile on his face. "But it's going to be okay."
"I want to go home," she replied, defeated.
"Meredith, you are home."
By the time she'd finally trudged her way through the snow and walked into the hospital, Max had sent her a text saying that he'd checked with the airport and her flight would just be pushed back. He tried joking around, saying that this was probably one of the only snowstorms Seattle would ever have and she was somewhat lucky to experience it, but he hardly got a smile out of Meredith.
"Grey, you're still here!" Mark greeted her with a wide smile and open arms, handing her his coffee before she even asked.
"Snowed in," Meredith said, accompanying her explanation with a smile of sorts. "I guess the universe has other plans for me today."
Mark started to respond, his mouth open, but then he stopped. "Yeah," was all he said. "I guess it does."
Just like when she'd stepped foot back inside the walls of Seattle Grace Mercy West, the news that Meredith was still here spread like wild fire as well. Within an hour she was once again picking up on the whispered conversations and side glances that followed her no matter where she went. Eventually Mark pulled her into his OR, letting her assist on a bone graft to avoid all the gossip.
"You're a good friend, you know that?" She told him as they worked. Mark glanced up from the patient, grinning.
"I've changed, Meredith Grey," he chuckled. She had to smile at this, because four years ago she never thought that it was possible for the same Mark Sloan who'd tried to hit on her, to really change into a good person. But then again, as she worked in the quiet hum of his OR, she figured he'd always been a good person after all. "You know what you should do?" Meredith was partially startled when Mark spoke up again, too lost in thought, literally operating on auto-pilot.
"What?" She responded, but as soon as their eyes locked over the operating table, she knew. "Don't say it," she cautioned him.
Mark let out a quiet laugh. "Why not?"
"Mark, I can't even get Alex or Cristina to talk to me," she explained quickly, for once not noticing the dull ache that came with saying her friends' names. "How do you think I'm supposed to talk to Derek?"
He shrugged his shoulders, the subtle movement just bold enough for her to pick up on it without him making a mistake in his work. "You talk to me just fine. What's the difference?"
"Because you're you," Meredith smiled. "You're the guy who hit on me when I was an intern and had no clue I was sleeping with his best friend."
From the gallery of Mark's OR, Derek sat in a chair in the back row, his elbow on the armrest, his chin in his hand. A nostalgic smile formed on his lips as he watched Mark and Meredith laughing, noting that she actually looked happy. So, maybe she was doing alright after all. He couldn't help but miss her as he watched her ask that critical surgical question, her face lighting up as she realized how the surgery was going to end up. She looked happy and that was all he wanted, and yet it hurt.
Never in his life had he ever thought he'd love someone the way he loved Meredith Grey. So quickly had she'd become everything to him that it'd taken him by surprise—he hadn't known that his heart was capable of loving this way. Derek felt everything for Meredith, to the point where sometimes he wished he didn't. To him, she was perfect. But she refused to let him love her the way he wanted to, and that was what they'd struggled with; a struggle that eventually led in a break up where he didn't even get to see her, because she ended up on the other side of the country.
A few minutes Mark happened to look up and see Derek in the gallery. Without Meredith noticing, he mouthed, "She still loves you." Derek had to smile, nodding slowly. He watched as Mark's eyes crinkled around the corners, the only indication that he was smiling underneath his surgical mask, before Derek got up out of his seat and walked out of the room.
Shortly after 7pm, Meredith decided that she had to say goodbye to Derek now because if she didn't, she would never again have the courage that she currently felt like she held. It didn't matter that she'd still be stuck in Seattle for a few more days, possibly even a week; she just needed him to know.
Meredith had meant it when she'd said she would tell Derek "goodbye" today. Yes, he just deserved better, better than what she could give him. And although she didn't think she could ever be "better" for him, saying goodbye would be a step in the right direction. She needed this for herself as much as she thought he did for himself.
So when she eventually found him in the middle of an empty hallway void of all nurses and hospital staff and essentially all opportunities for rumors to travel down the grapevine, she didn't turn around. Her pace slowed, but that was only natural since she was once again coming face to face with the love of her life, only this time the connotations were different and they weren't meeting for a kiss or a hug or anything really, because she was here to say goodbye.
The best way to describe the look on Derek's face was an expression of confusion. His own steps slowed considerably, his eyebrows furrowing slightly, his hands curling into loosely clenched fists. It'd been four years and yet he could still read her, could still sense that whatever was coming, he needed to protect himself from. He couldn't get his heart broken again.
"Hey," she said softly, her mind marveling at the fact she was standing a foot away from him and not flinching. If she reached out, she could touch him. For the first time in a long time, he felt close because he was.
"Meredith." In the back of Derek's head, his brain forced his body to relax.
"Please, don't say anything," she said simply, taking in a deep breath.
Derek looked taken aback for a second before he gave her the slightest nod. "Okay."
"Okay," Meredith echoed, letting out the long breath she'd inhaled seconds ago. "I need to say goodbye." Immediately after her words left her mouth, Derek opened his mouth to respond, to stop her, to say anything because wherever this was going, he didn't want to hear it. "Derek," she said quietly. "I need to finish this… you need to let me finish this."
She waited until he nodded again before continuing, finding the words as she went because in all honesty she lacked the proper words to say. Because how were you supposed to say goodbye to the love of your life, a goodbye four years too late? "I cheated you out of four years—nobody told me, I just know. Because Derek, I know you. I—I used to know you really well. And…" She trailed off, allowing herself to get lost in the blue of his eyes, knowing full well that he didn't want her to go on. "I know you don't want to hear this, but I have to let you go because it's been too long, and I just don't want to hurt you anymore. I don't want to hurt you."
Meredith paused, trying to allow time for her words to sink in before her head and heart told her to say more. The look on Derek's face was heartbreaking, but she tore herself from his gaze, looked up at the ceiling and to the wall next to them, before she opened her mouth to speak again. "I'm sorry I never said goodbye before. I'm so, so sorry."
"Meredith, don't." It hurt him so much that their first real conversation in four years was something as painful as this, but he couldn't muster up any sort of comprehensible response. It hurt. "You're not even leaving Seattle yet," he said, his voice forcing her eyes to meet his once again.
"No," she shook her head. "No, I'm not. But I have to start letting you go, or I never will."
"Meredith," he interjected.
"Derek, it's done." Selfishly so, Meredith didn't give him a chance to respond, to deliver an impromptu speech back. Her hand reached up to cup his cheek lightly, his skin warm and the beginning of his stubble tickling the bottom of her palm. The simple touch felt like sparks running through her body, but then just as quickly as she'd moved to touch him, she dropped her hand and turned and walked away.
This was goodbye. She hadn't thought she could do it, but she did.