Derek was standing in the driveway of the house he had grown up in, he had been in New York for three days and was staying with his mother. He had lost his cell phone in Seattle, so he hadn't even spoken to Meredith since before the accident. He had told his mother that he would fix her lamp, even though he had no idea what he was doing. He had turned the lamp upside down and sat on the driveway and looked at it for twenty minutes.
"Derek."
Derek's head snapped up, he knew that voice but there was no way. It couldn't be Meredith, she wasn't in New York, she was in Seattle with another man.
"Derek I know you can hear me," said Meredith standing in front of him. "Derek please…"
Derek raised his head a little so that he could see her shoes. It was definitely her.
"What are you doing here?" said Derek shocking even himself by how harsh he sounded.
"You just discharged yourself and disappeared," said Meredith. "I was worried."
"Yeah sure you were."
"I love you of course I was worried…I thought you were going to die."
"Yeah I'm sure that would have made things a lot easier for you."
"Easier? Derek what are you talking about?" said Meredith a sense of dread settling in her stomach.
"Did you even care that I was unconscious for a week? The least you could have done was tell me, you were seeing other people again. I think I deserved that much from you…"
"Seeing other people?" said Meredith completely shocked. "I'm not seeing anyone, how can you think that?"
"Save it!" Shouted Derek getting to his feet. "I know you were too busy to visit me because you were out with some guy! Fine! All you had to do was tell me, you don't love me this was all revenge for Addison and Rose!"
"Derek that's not true…I tried to see you they…."
"Save it! I know what happened, my sister told me," said Derek looking at her like he hated her. "Just go! I'm done, finished. I should never have gotten involved with an intern that picks up strange men from Joe's."
"Derek…" whispered Meredith struggling to hold back tears.
"This is private property, you're trespassing," said Derek coldly.
"I'm going," she said. "I do love you and I don't know what you've been told but it's not…"
"If you're not gone in two minutes I'm calling the police," said Derek barging past Meredith and going into the house.
----------------------------------------
"Hello dear, I didn't know you were in town," said Linda Shepherd as she kissed Mark's cheek. She had gone to take out the trash and found Mark storming out of his car and up the drive way.
"Hi Mom," said Mark hugging her. "Is Derek in?"
"Yes he's in the den with Nancy," she said. "Is everything alright? You boys aren't fighting again, are you?"
"No. I'm just going to knock some sense into him," said Mark.
"Do try and be careful," said Linda. "I made chicken wings…I'll bring them down."
"Thanks Mom," said Mark going into the house. "Hey did you know Meredith was here yesterday?"
"The woman from the hospital, she broke his heart, no I didn't know she was here," said Linda.
"Okay," said Mark heading down to the den.
"Mark what are you doing here?" said Derek when he saw Mark coming down the stairs.
"I'm going to kick your ass!"
"What did I do?" sighed Derek, he didn't have the energy to argue with anyone. He just wanted to lie in bed and wallow.
"You broke Meredith again! Normally I wouldn't get involved your relationship is your business but when I get kept up all night because I can hear her sobbing her heart out all night…that tends to bother me," said Mark. "How the hell could you do that to her?"
"Yeah well I fell pretty crappy myself," said Derek. "Don't try and make me feel worse…I never meant to make her cry."
"You're better off without her," said Nancy confidently. "She was bad news, she just wanted to be the intern dating the attending making six million dollars a year."
"No! No it wasn't money. There's one thing I know Meredith never cared about my money. It was me she didn't want. I would have given her any amount of money she wanted," said Derek. He might not know what went wrong with him and Meredith at the end, but he wasn't about to let her be called a gold digger.
"So tell me Derek, what the hell did she do?" said Mark, watching Nancy out of the corner of his eye. "From what I can see, she nearly made herself ill from worrying about you. You disappear from Seattle and she comes after you. So tell me why the hell why she crying herself to sleep last night. Why did you make her run, the person that made you happier than I've ever seen you?"
"She wasn't worried about me," said Derek. "It was more important to her that nobody know that we were together than for her to make sure I was even alive. She started dating again, she was with him when I woke up and when Nancy called her to tell her I was awake."
"Nancy," said Mark grimly. "What the hell have you told him?"
"The truth," said Nancy somewhat less confident than she was before.
"Derek I think there's a few things we should get straight," said Mark. "Despite what Nancy here has told you Meredith did care. She was camped outside your room all week, and you know why she was outside the room because your darling big sister banned her from seeing you. And when Meredith did sneak in your room she got you to wake up…only you couldn't know that because she was kicked out again! So she was not on a date when you woke up, she was being dragged from your room kicking and screaming."
Derek just sat there with his mouth hanging open. He knew Nancy was manipulative but she was his big sister, surely she wouldn't do something like that to him, would she?
"And as for keeping the two of you a secret…the whole hospital pretty much guessed that something was going on by the way she was acting, there wasn't a whole lot she could do to hide it," said Mark. "If you had taken the time to find that out, you might not have driven her away.
"Nancy?"