Chapter Two: "White Flag"

None of the residents from yesterday are on today, which is good because Meredith is out cold. I'm not quite sure what to do with myself. I don't know what the rules are for the morning after sex with your ex with whom you need to have an important talk about maybe seeing other people. I haven't decided on that either. I was going to tell her about Rose, but now I don't know. The feeling, the guilt, is back.

I need coffee. And probably a shower.

I leave my sweater on the bed, which I hope she'll know to interpret as "I'm still here," put my shirt on and head downstairs to get some clothes out of my car. Cristina, sleeping clumsily on a couch, is in the same shape Meredith was in upstairs but I can hear sounds coming from the kitchen. Izzie, I imagine. Izzie is a morning person. And just above all the odors in the house that I thought I'd left behind in college, I can smell coffee. Dr. Stevens is my favorite roommate.

Coffee first, clothes later. My first decision of the day. Good work, Derek. Pat yourself on the back.

I enter the kitchen and she glares at me, but she does so while pulling a mug from the shelf and tipping the decanter into it. After I gratefully thank her for the coffee, her eyes soften and we sip in not-uncomfortable silence. I notice that it looks like she's been up all night with problems of her own.

"You can have all the chemistry in the world," she says, "but if you don't have timing, it all goes to hell."

I don't know if she's talking about herself or me.

"Hank, Denny, George. Even Alex. My timing is shit."

So, she's talking about herself. I think my job here is to sit here and listen. I can do that.

"It's complete bullshit. I fell in love with my best friend, my best friend who was married, and now I'm standing in the ruins because I feel like a homewrecker, he feels like he failed himself and we just can't be happy together. Not now. Not yet."

This is starting to sound familiar but I don't think she would appreciate it if I made this about me.

"Maybe not ever. What if we never find the right time? Shouldn't we try, even though it's hard? Even though it hurts? Should we just waste this connection we have?"

The smell of coffee has drifted through the house and woken the hangover duo. They shuffle into the kitchen, bleary-eyed with arms extended for a hit of caffeine, saving me from having to figure out whether or not Izzie wanted me to answer her.

I use the opportunity to get my things from the car.

-----

The second Derek's footsteps make it up the staircase, Cristina nudges me with her shoulder. "So what was that all about? Is he not seeing other people?"

Izzie hasn't been kept in the loop but I hope that the fact we're having this conversation in front of her makes her feel better about it.

"I don't know, we didn't talk." Kind of embarrassing actually, because I'm pretty sure that they both know there wasn't a whole lot of talking going on last night.

Izzie scoffs, partially confirming my suspicion. "Talk about what?"

I don't want to answer, so I look to Cristina, who rolls her eyes but summarizes the story. "Shepherd wants Meredith to get her shit together while he dates other people and Meredith told him yesterday that she doesn't want him to date anyone else, but he didn't say that he would or he wouldn't, mostly because Meredith didn't let him, and he came over last night and they had loud sex and no talking, so she has no idea what's going on."

Izzie looks indignant. "He's dating other people while he waits? How is that waiting?" She crosses her arms. "Men suck." Understatement of the year. Something must have happened between her and George, but I don't have time to find out. I have Derek to deal with.

-----

I look for him after I get dressed and find him downstairs, reading the paper.

I don't want to talk here. It's too personal. But I don't want to go somewhere with him because it would be hard to escape. And where would we go, a cafe? Too public. The hospital? Yeah, right.

He folds up the paper and sits up. "Look, I have to go check on something with a patient. Meet me at the place, the place overlooking the ferryboats. Meet me there in an hour." I think he's lying about the hospital. Maybe I'm not the only one who wants an escape route.

"Okay," I whisper. I don't know why, but it's as much volume I could get out of my throat. I was ready to have this conversation, but now I'm not.

He gives me one last look and leaves.

-----

I don't know why I wanted to meet here. It's quiet, and it's private, but it's a place with good memories of a better time. An easier time. And now we're going to bring our complications to it. I'm going to tell her about Rose, kissing her and wanting to date her. She deserves to know the truth about how I feel. I want more. I deserve to want more, and I'm not going to settle for less than what I deserve.

Her Jeep pulls up beside my car and we both get out. She takes a few steps down the hill and doesn't turn back to face me. I move to stand behind her, catching the smell of her hair as the wind whips through it.

"Meredith."

She turns around and meets my eyes.

It's time to say what she stopped me from saying yesterday. "I kissed another woman. I kissed her, and I enjoyed it. And I think... I think she could give me what I want."

I catch the anger in her face before she turns away and takes a few steps. "What you want."

I don't know what she's getting at so I wait for her to continue.

She runs a hand through her hair. "From the beginning, it's been all about you. I didn't want to date you. I didn't want to be the girl who fucked her superiors, but you broke me down. You turned up the charm until I couldn't turn you down. So I let you in and it blew right up in my face. But you still didn't back down. And yeah, I'm a big girl. I make my own decisions, and I thought I had a really good catch on my hands. But I didn't have all the information." She pauses. "That was incredibly selfish of you. You knew that it could have ruined my residency and you didn't care because you only thought about how you felt."

That's not true. I want to open my mouth to say it's not true, even though I don't think I could back it up with evidence. "Meredith --"

"No. Listen." I have to fight a smile. I love her like this. "After Addison showed up, all leggy and fabulous, you said you would sign the papers and she would be on the next flight back to New York. Well, that turned out to be true, didn't it? Right, except she stayed, you stayed with her, and you left me out to dry, Derek. Noble Derek Shepherd, trying to work out his marriage to an adulterous wife at the cost of his relationship with dirty mistress Meredith."

She has no idea how much leaving her hurt me, too. But I had to do the right thing, and as she said, I wouldn't be me if I wasn't trying to make it work.

Fuck, she was trying to prop me up even though it was killing her inside. "I'm a self-absorbed bastard sometimes." I can admit that.

But she's still talking. "And then I met Finn. Finn was good for me, you knew that. You realized it so you had to swoop in and ruin it for me. I wasn't allowed to be happy without you. You were with Addison, but you wanted me within arm's reach. For what? In case things didn't work out? Was I your back-up plan?"

I can't rationally explain what happened with the vet. I just know that it made me inexplicably angry to picture them together and that I'd needed to feel her, to remind her how good it could really be. To remind myself. "I was still in love with you."

If she heard me, she's ignoring it. "And then finally, Addison was out of the picture. I found myself having to make a choice. Finn, the good man, the safe pick, or you, the guy who could hurt me a hundred times and I'd still come back. It might take time, Derek, but I always come back. But no, you took the choice out of my hands when you bowed out. You had this image of me, happy, and apparently it didn't include you. That is so fucked up."

It was. But look where we are now. "I hate to say I told you so."

Well, that gets her looking at me again. "That is SO FUCKED UP. It's always. About. You. You are clearly the foremost expert on what I need in my life to be happy."

Oh for fuck's sake. "YOU don't even know what you want, Meredith, so excuse me for trying to give you a sense of direction."

"And now I don't fit into how you imagined your life to be, so you're cutting me away, right? Screw what I think or feel. No time to waste on putting Meredith back together again. You need to find yourself a wife who will spit out a family for you."

"My life can't revolve around making sure you don't drown again." I should have seen it coming. I should have cornered her and forced her to talk, but I was too angry with her to see the signs. "I felt completely powerless. I didn't stop you, and I couldn't save you." I wish she could see how hard it was for me.

"And so you took off, Derek," she says. "It's what you do. Things got too hard for you so you checked out. I should be glad you didn't move to Florida or something."

Oh, this is nice. "So you can stand on your soapbox and accuse me of running, right? You ran away from me. You are always running away from me."

"How can I run towards you when you're pulling this shit? You tell me the highlight of your week was flirting with another woman and, what, you want me to say, 'I love you, too!'? You tell me you want to marry me and have kids with me, but only if I beat someone else to the finish line."

"I told you. You don't know what you want so I was just trying to light a fire under you to see what sparked." That seems reasonable enough.

"God. So fucked." She sounds resigned. The fight has left her body. She falls forward on the grass onto her knees and holds her head in her hands.

I stay standing behind her. "I've hurt you a lot, Meredith. I'm sorry. It's just, being with someone shouldn't be this hard. I want things, and I don't think it's unfair to want them. And you're not there."

"I'm not there," she agrees.

Which leads to the question, "So where does this leave us?"

She doesn't answer, not right away. She gets up again and walks to her car. She'd better not get in. We're not done yet. But she just puts her hands down on the hood, probably to warm them. "Who is she?"

I won't feign ignorance. "Her name is Rose. She's a surgical nurse. I think she started about a month or two ago."

She's angry again. "A nurse? A nurse at this hospital? Damnit, Derek. First you dated," she makes air quotes around that word, "Sydney Heron, and now you're dating a nurse. I'll have to see you together all the time, like it was with Addison. Just once, can you stop and think about how I might feel?"

"When do I get to meet people outside the hospital? I'm not doing this intentionally, it's just where I spend most of my time. Besides, you dated my vet."

"Our vet. I didn't date Finn to get back at you, and you could have easily changed vets. You were married to Addison. I had to see you two together all the time, and I can't just change hospitals."

"Fine, I'll consciously make myself completely uncharming to everyone at the hospital." I try for humor.

She shakes her head, but not in any sort of response. Probably just exasperation. "So, this seeing other people thing. Am I allowed to date or is it just you? If I meet someone who doesn't mind my character flaws, will you start playing the jilted lover again?"

I can't promise her I won't. "You're free to do whatever you want." In theory. "But you're not ready to be with anyone. That's why we're not together. Why would you have reason to date someone else?"

She considers it for a moment. "It's not that I'm not ready to be with anyone, Derek. I'm just not ready to be with you. And I know that being with me isn't easy, but you hurt me. You broke me. And you just keep breaking me."

My chest feels tight. I don't have a response for her.

"I was ready, you know. Before I found out about Addison. I was picturing us together, with all the things you want."

I am such a fool. I love her. I love her so much. But I don't say it. It won't be enough. "I'm sorry," I whisper.

She opens the door to her Jeep. "Goodbye, Derek," she says, before getting inside.

"Goodbye, Meredith," I respond. She shuts the door, starts the engine and drives away.

Nothing between us has never felt as final as this.