July 30, 2010
It's been three months and he must think she's dead by now because honestly? When someone writes you a letter like that you don't wait three months to respond. Except, of course, if the writer is your ex-husband who is telling you he loves you again after you cheated and he cheated and left you for another woman. Then, she thinks, it just might be excusable.
There is no thought-out, justifiable reason she has paid attention to little but ocher sand and monsoon season. She was shocked for a couple weeks, petulant for a few more, and then angry at him for saying the things he did. Also, she was confused at how he managed to wear away the walls of her heart once again, making her vulnerable to him and his thoughtful, insightful, caring, stupid letters.
She's not ready. Plus also, Cailen kissed her. Or she kissed him, she's not really sure because she avoided him afterward and now he looks perpetually wounded whenever he looks at her and his puppy-dog eyes are getting on her nerves (mostly because she's not sure how long her resistance will last.) It was close-lipped, chaste, but lingering, as they stood hidden by the lush leaves of the oasis while the villagers celebrated one occasion or another.
Not to mention Derek doesn't know. So it's not her fault she hasn't written, really. She just needs to think of something neutral to say, something in-between 'I don't think I ever stopped loving you' and 'go back to your twelve-year-old girlfriend, you bastard.' The appropriate phrasing, unfortunately, hasn't dawned on her yet.
But now she's writing, deciphering things written deep in her heart, most of them in regard to one Derek Shepherd because he can ruin her and fix her, sometimes simultaneously. She doesn't believe, yet, that he'll stay with her or give up Meredith or his beloved trailer or do all the things he says he will. But she might believe that he loves her because otherwise she would be a hypocrite for loving him from afar for years, although she denied it and struggled against it.
She may not be ready to forgive him yet, but then again everyone is only allotted so much time, something she is reminded of every day as people die all around her.
Dear Derek,
I'm sorry that it took so long for me to get back to you but the truth is, I didn't know what to say. And I thought long and hard about this letter but pretending isn't going to get us anywhere, so I'm just going to tell you how I feel.
You've told me a bunch of things you should have told your girlfriend, and I told you a lot of things I shouldn't have said to my ex-husband who was in a relationship. I hate that you have essentially turned me into the other woman, even though we haven't done anything, because I swore I wouldn't be that person again. There was a situation in LA when I was … tempted by a married man to be that other woman. But in the end I didn't do it.
Still, they shouldn't treat you like that just because you couldn't marry someone. You probably saved yourself and Meredith from an unhappy marriage, and you were brave enough to do something she was not. I think, Derek, that you were in love with the idea of her. Something new and fresh and unexplored and free of pain. But in the end, that idea didn't come to fruition, and once the idea was dead, what was there left to love? You two burned too brightly - and now you've burnt out. But you tried, as hard as you were able, considering, and so in the end it isn't really either of your faults.
It hurts to hear you say those things again, Derek, when in Seattle you called me Satan and said you hated me. Why can you forgive me now, but not then, when I was trying everything I could think of to get our marriage to work? What made you suddenly love me again? Because I don't doubt that Meredith wasn't right for you but that doesn't mean I am. I don't want you to come to me because I still care about you and you're alone now. It was so painful last time; I don't think I can survive being broken by you again.
You've never been gone from my life, but I've put all my efforts into moving on. I have a life halfway across the world. I just kissed another man. You and I had some great times, and maybe we can again someday. But I'm not ready. It's going to take more than one McDreamy letter, Derek, for me to believe you. We have so much baggage that nothing is simple like it used to be, I'm not the studious redhead and you're not the eager student with amazing hair.
And I freaking know we had sex, all right? I know that, but you were practically engaged. You loved Meredith, and what we did broke something in your relationship. It felt right because we had been together for so long before, but it was wrong, even though it meant something to me too.
I love you too, Derek, I always have, I think, but that doesn't solve everything. It doesn't necessarily mean we should be together, because I'm not sure I'll ever stop loving you, even if I'm with someone else. I guess what this entire, rambling letter means is that I'm confused. I only know how to love you from afar.
Addie
P.S. I wouldn't be surprised. She might actually like me better than you now.
It's really no different than he expected, he never thought getting Addie into his arms again was going to be a walk in the park. He needed her to know how he felt right then, because she was his only constant, the thing that kept him sane through a week of drunken stupor.
Now he's ready to fight, ready to make her see. His heart soars as he reads her words, because she loves him too. She's repressing it because last time she loved him it landed her in a minefield of heartbreak. But eleven years can't simply be cast away, and coffee kisses, late nights studying over lukewarm Chinese, and tumultuous feelings take eons to fade.
"Shep!" Mark booms, and Derek lifts his eyes away from the TV where the Yankees are battling it out with the Cardinals. He's reminded that while he waited, stagnant, for three months, life went on. "Can you run to the store? Callie wants burritos!"
"You knocked her up," he reminds his best friend evenly, thinking it's best if Mark prepares for upcoming fatherhood sooner rather than later. "You go get them."
"She also wants a backrub, STAT," Mark sighs, hitching dirty sweatpants more securely around his waist. Derek has been living in their apartment since shortly after his failed wedding, so he was there when, a few days later, a shrieking Callie discovered that she was carrying Mark's baby. He watched, as if looking in through a lighted window, as Meredith and Lexie both had separate trysts with Jackson Avery, as Miranda struggled to share Tuck, as Richard began, once again, to subtly court Adele. It had been fine, for once, to watch from the sidelines, but now he's ready, after watching, learning, because they're all moving forward, even if it's only to move two steps back.
"You're going to have to start doing this stuff soon enough," Derek warns his best friend as Callie's calls start up again, the pregnancy hasn't been easy on her, causing constant morning sickness and residual nausea.
"Why?"
"I'm, um, well … I'm going to Sudan," Derek finally admits slowly.
"Finally," Mark grunts as he ransacks the freezer, apparently trying to decide if taquitos are an appropriate substitute for burritos.
"What?"
"Well, honestly, I don't know why you're not there yet. It's Addison," Mark says, as if this explains everything.
"I can't go now," Derek admits glumly. "Not with the merger. I already talked to Richard about taking some time off, but you know how he's been lately. He's barely acknowledging me. There's just no way I can get there for another few months."
"You'll find a way," Mark assures him confidently. "I just can't believe you might not be here when my kid's born. You have all those nieces and nephews and I'll just have Callie and don't get me wrong, I love her, but her and me and a crybag? Should be interesting."
"Don't call it a crybag," Derek tells him in amusement.
"Her," Mark corrects.
"It's a girl."
"Yeah," Mark says with an expression Derek doesn't think he's ever seen grace the man's face. "We decided on Adelyn."
