CHAPTER 10:­­­­­­ ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS.

Derek's eyes popped open at the sound of the phone ringing loudly. He felt the bed shift as Meredith moved beside him to pick it up It was late, and he needed to sleep- he had a craniotomy first thing in the morning, and the last thing he needed was to be yawning into a brain. He had just been about to drift off, despite the fact Meredith was nowhere close to sleeping herself, and the light beside her bed disturbed him. But now he had no chance listening to Meredith discuss her mother's journals with Cristina animatedly on the phone. Derek groaned as all these surgical terms swirled in his head. He really did love his job, but home time was home time. He didn't want to talk only surgery, or only hear about surgery, or dream about it. He wanted to snuggle with his girlfriend and think of nothing but her.

They had had a really great time when they went away to Sonoma, and Derek had thought they were on an upward spiral to…somewhere. But as soon as they got back to Seattle, and Meredith had started trawling through the vast and numerous volumes of Ellis's journals, they had gone nowhere. She was on the phone to Cristina all the time, with Cristina all the time, and it was getting too much.

He didn't know whether he really wanted to read Ellis's diaries, and Meredith had never offered. He didn't really want to know the inner workings of Ellis Grey's mind, he already had to endure and try to fix the damage she had done to Meredith when she was still alive. She didn't want to know how Meredith affected- or didn't affect her mind. Oddly, she had never thought to share it with him, yet went straight to Cristina without any doubts, and had become almost obsessed with reading them. He often found her on the couch or on the bed, with several sprawled across any surface. His heart sank when he considered how many more Meredith had to go through, and was beginning to wonder what would fill her days once she had finished reading the journals.

Derek was so desperate to stop this thing with Cristina, and the only explanation he had for their particular closeness over the past few months was that Cristina no longer had Burke to occupy her time, and now she was filling it with surgeries and Meredith- it was good for her, but awful for Derek. If Derek could fill that void that Burke left maybe he could get his girlfriend back- the girlfriend Cristina snatched away from him as soon as they stepped foot in the hospital.

He saw the elevator doors open, and noticed his friend was inside it. If there was one person in the whole world that could distract Cristina and wouldn't mind being used, it was Mark Sloan. He made a run for the doors before they closed, and luckily they were alone.

"I need you to have sex with Cristina Yang." Derek told Mark. "Distract her. Engage her. Give her something to do after midnight except call my girlfriend and wake her up." He said grumpily.

Mark had refused, said that Cristina was humorless and no fun. Derek thought that it was Mark-speak for being too hard to get. She wouldn't be easy to seduce that was for sure, she'd see through Mark's fake bullshit, but he had to convince Mark to try it on with her in terms that he understood- so he described her as a single malt scotch, whereas most of Mark's past conquests were beer bongs. He wondered if he would have classed Addison as a beer bong…probably not. She'd be one of those overpriced bottles of champagne, that gave you a headache the next morning if you drank too much of it. Meredith would definitely be her favourite choice of poison-tequila. Painful yet unexplainably alluring, addictive…she had that real quality about her that made you want to have more and more of her.

By the time Derek had been ready to leave, it was Alex who told him that Meredith had left with Cristina as Derek waited in the lobby for her. Alex had given him a pitying smile. Even he knew that Meredith preferred to spend her time with Cristina rather than him. At least they were together though. After all this time of the 'will-they-or-won't-they' crap, they were finally living together, and were as happy as they had been since before Addison showed up. That was something, and Derek knew that this situation of sharing his girlfriend with Cristina Yang was better than having no Meredith at all. He'd just have to suck it up and ride it out. If he could endure months in a loveless marriage with Addison while they were 'trying' to make it work, he could cope with Yang stealing time with his girlfriend.

Eight o'clock. Hopefully Cristina was at her place… that was his hopeful thought process until he saw her bike parked in 'his' space- which was rather apt. She was taking his place in Meredith's life, in his bed, and it was getting more and more difficult for him to accept. He mumbled a hello to his roommates who were sitting on the couch, watching a movie, as his eyes scanned the rooms downstairs, looking for his girlfriend.

"Dude. Grey and Yang are upstairs studying her mom's journals." Alex half-laughed. He might as well have told Derek that Yang had ripped off his balls and was juggling with them. But he could cope for Meredith. It was all about Meredith.

Derek walked down the hallway slower than he usually would, listening out for Meredith and Cristina through the walls, he knew that these walls were thinner than he would have liked, and tried listening out for his name somewhere in their conversation. Maybe Meredith was so stuck on Cristina because she was talking to her about Derek- about things she felt she wasn't able to say. Except Derek had thought that the progress they were making up till now had been good, and had felt like there was a shift in their relationship after they had their mini-vacation; that Meredith was ready to fully commit. But he never heard his name, just some more surgical techniques. He sighed in frustration, bracing himself and gathering his strength against the door as he prepared to remain calm instead of be angry at his girlfriend and her best friend.

Cristina was sprawled out on his side of the bed, wrong way up, doing some kind of yoga stretching while Meredith read out a passage from her mother's journal? What was this? Some screwed up book-club for the surgically-hungry? They both gently ribbed him about trying to hook Cristina up with Mark, but if they knew how desperate he was to get Cristina out of his bed- literally and metaphorically, they'd realise it wasn't as much of a joke as they had first thought.

Derek walked further into the room, unsure whether he would rather them be at the trailer, the place he had given her to escape from…him. Maybe she didn't want to be away from him. He wanted Cristina out of that room, and he wanted Meredith all to himself. He hadn't seen her all day, and wanted time alone. He knew exactly what to say to get her out of his space.

"Look, I'm gonna take my pants off now, so unless you wanna stay and see…" Derek told Cristina, smiling.

As predicted, Cristina hastily jumped up from the bed, emphatically. Derek watched her get ready to leave the room, his eyes following her, the fake smile being replaced with a more genuine one. What he didn't expect, however, was Meredith collecting up her journals.

She brushed her cheek on his lips as she passed him, saying "I'll see it later" before walking out of the room with her friend.

Derek exhaled a breath he didn't even know he was holding, as he wondered how reading her mother's journals trumped a good time with him.

Meredith would be up soon. He had defined 'soon' to mean within the hour, but two had passed and Meredith was still downstairs, reading on some technique- a technique Ellis perfected at the expense of building a relationship with her daughter.

Derek fell into a drowsy sleep, unable to stay awake and wait for Meredith any longer. He was woken up by the squeaky creak of the old door opening, as Meredith quietly tiptoed inside. She peeled back the bed sheets and slipped inside the warm bed, as Derek cracked an eye open to peek at the clock. It was midnight, and Meredith would have had less than five hours sleep. Meredith flipped off the bedside lamp Derek had left on for her, and moved closer and closer to him. Derek didn't make any effort to show her he was awake, keeping still, and breathing deeply and evenly.

It seemed as though Meredith remembered the promise of no pants, as her lithe body shifted against his, her soft lips finding his neck as she softly peppered kisses along it, her silky smooth hands finding their way under his worn t-shirt. She really had fully intended on seeing it later.

"Meredith…sleeping…" Derek mumbled into his pillow.

"Never stopped you before…" Meredith whispered against his ear lobe, her breath igniting his skin with a warmth.

"No." Derek said more forcefully, his ruse of being more asleep than he really was well and truly rumbled. "Just stop it!"

It took all of Derek's self control to not just roll over submissively and give into her demands, and his desires. That was the problem- for them, the sex made up for all the other crap that went on during the day, and instead of hiding away from it, Derek decided to face it head on. If he still loved Meredith during her candid moment of insisting Izzie and Alex still live in her house, then Derek could insist on this point.

"Are you mad at me or something?" Meredith asked him innocently, blinking in confusion in the darkness before flipping the light back on. "Is this about me teasing you about Mark?"

"I don't care about Mark. It's about Cristina, and how she's always here, how you call her in the middle of the night, how you push me out of your bed and gossip with her early in the morning. You talk to her." Derek explained, past the point of doing anything but blurting out everything he had been trying so hard to keep inside.

"Of course I'm close to her, Derek. She's my best friend. I trust her and confide in her." Meredith replied, crossing her arms and moving away from him.

"I'm your boyfriend. You can trust and confide in me. That's what a relationship is. " Derek paused for a breath, but a second later, he wished he hadn't, because the words that formulated in his brain during that inhalation of air pushed everything over the edge. "She's taking advantage. She was never this bothered in you, in your opinion when Burke was around. She was in her own bed, there were no phone calls. Now she has no-one, she's here all the time. She's using you, and you're taking it, yet you give me a hard time for the smallest things. She only wants Ellis's expertise in those journals, it's all about the surgery, about getting ahead. Did you even think about sharing them with me?"

Derek saw the blood drain from Meredith's face. Her cheeks that were red with anger a few moments before had become a deathly white, her smouldering eyes turned cold and hard. He might as well have slapped her, because it would have hurt her less. He could see her searching in her mind for a retort, but none came. She was too shocked that Derek went there. It was too low, just like how bringing everything back round to the secret wife and staying with her would have been a bottom-of-the-barrel argument. Burke and Cristina's failed wedding certainly had set off a series of events that had ended the easy period of their relationship, and they had entered some hard times, and were at the end of the tunnel, and Derek had killed it again.

Meredith suddenly shot out of the bed, standing up, throwing a sweater on from the ground. She picked up the first two socks she could find on the floor, and pulled them on, before grabbing her mother's diaries on the nightstand.

"It's always about you, Derek. I thought up the trial, it gets your name, my drowning was about how you couldn't cope, the bomb blowing up in my face prompted you to end your marriage. As for Ellis's journals- why do you even care what's in them? It's all surgery, I'm not even mentioned. Why would I want to share that with you?" She opened the door forcefully, already striding angrily halfway down the hallway before Derek reached the threshold to the bedroom.

"Where are you going, Meredith? It's midnight already."

Meredith turned round, her expression and tone of voice sarcastic. "Maybe I'll go stay with Cristina. You seem to think I love her more anyway." She answered before stomping down the stairs.

The door to Izzie's bedroom opened quickly, as both Alex and Izzie popped their heads out to see what all the commotion was about. They saw Derek sulking angrily at the doorway to the bedroom, giving him sympathetic smiles before shutting their door again when they heard the front door slam, and her car engine start and fade as she drove down the street.

Derek had come downstairs to Izzie and Alex already at the table, and Izzie smiled supportively, holding out a cup of coffee to him. He sat there in Meredith's kitchen, making small talk with the roommates he wanted out, and he realised- it didn't feel like home without Meredith in it. He felt like a guest, not like he belonged. When Meredith was there by his side, or upstairs trying to find something to wear that did not need ironing, he felt like he was in the right place. That morning though- he felt like an outsider.

"How much did you hear?" Derek asked wearily, sipping the coffee from the flowery mug.

"Just shouting. No specifics…" Alex said, smiling quickly.

"We kinda heard something about Cristina though…" Izzie told him truthfully. "Not that we were listening or anything…" She added quickly, before hurrying out of the kitchen.

Over the day, Derek had caught glimpses of Meredith around. At times, they had been frozen, unsure how the other had taken the argument the night before, and when Derek had decided to make a move and approach her, something had prevented them from talking. It was either her pager, or being dragged away by someone, or being with Cristina…and Derek wanted to avoid that confrontation at all costs.

However, being face to face with Cristina proved unavoidable once they had to go into emergency surgery together, and while they were scrubbing in, Derek realised something. Cristina was acting normally with him, that slightly distant air about her, yet respectful- Meredith hadn't told her. Even if she had told her he and Meredith had a fight, she hadn't told her best friend it was about her- and for that, Derek was grateful to Meredith- perhaps he had been quite unfair to her.

The closer he got to going home, the more anxious he got about facing Meredith- or admitting that she had run away from a further confrontation. He had pulled out of the hospital parking lot, and had reluctantly driven to Meredith's house- but he didn't see her car there. He went inside, and before he could ask the question, Alex answered for him.

"I saw her go off with Yang. Sorry man." Alex said with understanding.

Derek's shoulders slumped with resignation, and he made his way to the trailer- he just wanted to sleep after his lack of it the previous night- he could deal with Meredith after he had at least six hours. He drove through to the clearing, where he saw Meredith's jeep parked in it's usual spot- the lights on throughout the trailer. Derek wasn't surprised. He did say this was her place to escape, and maybe she was taking her chance to fill Cristina in on every sordid detail of their quarrel.

He stepped onto the deck tentatively, but on first glance could see no one inside. He opened the door carefully and quietly, and saw that there was old coffee in the pot, that he bed was unmade on Meredith's side. She hadn't spent the night with Cristina, she had spent it in the trailer- alone. Momentarily distracted by this realisation, he let go of the door, and it sprung back on it's spring hinges, slamming closed.

He could hear Meredith's shocked scream in the corner of the bedroom, as she lunged forward into the doorway with Derek's old tennis racket, the one with no strings, brandishing it as a weapon.

Meredith saw Derek with a bemused expression on his face as he tried not to laugh at her completely non-offensive weapon. She dropped it to the ground in defeat, and put her right hand on her heart, willing the palpitations to stop. "I swear to god Derek! You scared the living crap out of me. I nearly died of a heart attack! You could have been some crazed psycho out to kill me!" She ranted.

Derek swallowed his laughter. "I'm sorry." He said softly, approaching her as if she were wounded. "Not just about scaring you. But I'm sorry for last night."

He was earnest, Meredith had to give him that at least. Meredith closed the distance between them, not quite touching him, but felt comforted knowing that if she reached her arms out, she could have been hugging him. "I'm sorry too. I didn't realise what I was doing- I didn't mean to shut you out, it's just- I've never done this before. I don't get to the stage where I fight with a boy, let alone make up with them, and then you show up here…"

"Mer…" Derek whispered, being the one to pull her into his comforting chest, wrapping his arms around her protectively. "From now on, you can expect that I'm gonna show up. Even if I yell. Even if you yell. I'm always gonna show up."

Meredith exhaled closing her eyes and revelling in Derek's smell, his touch as his hands rubbed her back soothingly, the way she could feel the dull thud of his heartbeat. She didn't know how long they had just stayed like that in silence- enjoying this moment, and right then, time didn't really matter all that much, because for the first time since their trip away to the wine country- it was just Meredith and Derek- her and him.

Derek's chin rested on her head, as he still held her. "I looked for you at home. Alex said you were with Cristina…how did you get here so quickly?"

"I didn't stay with Cristina for long- I just went to pick up her lot of Ellis's journals." Meredith said, peeling herself out of Derek's embrace, taking his hand and leading him to the bedroom where two large boxes were taped up and 'MOM'S DIARIES' were scrawled in large letters. "I'm not going to read them anymore." Meredith said, running her fingers over one of the boxes, resisting the urge to let her mind get lost in her tumultuous history with her mother.

Derek remained silent, but held on to her other hand anyway, letting her speak when she was ready. This was a huge thing for Meredith to deal with. Ellis seemed to haunt her well after she was dead- her spirit kept appearing to create another roadblock in Meredith and Derek's relationship, and Derek didn't want her to affect them anymore- and by the looks of things, neither did Meredith.

"You know what I realised last night while I was driving to stay here? She didn't mention me for a reason- a journal is a private thing- where you're supposed to keep your innermost thoughts- and I was never amongst them, and neither was Richard- it was about surgery after surgery, and that was it. I was never really at the forefront of her mind- I was always an afterthought- and inconvenience, and I always took second place to her work. Those journals weren't meant for me to read, Derek. She trusted me with her disease, she told me to keep it a secret from everyone- asked me to cut my Europe trip short after she got diagnosed. She made me power of attorney to her affairs, her accounts, her nursing home bills- she put her life in my hands, and left a detailed, extensive will. She made funeral arrangements, and charitable donations, and left me with a huge chunk of change after she died- and not once, not anywhere did she write about these diaries. They weren't meant to impart her wisdom on me- they weren't written to share with me. Just because we found them doesn't mean I should have read them. It hasn't given me an eye-opener into another side of Ellis Grey I never saw. It just confirmed everything I knew before."

Derek led them to the bed, pulling her down on top of him as he sat on the edge of the bed, as she continued staring at the two boxes infront of her, still haunting her. "So… what are we going to do? Keep them? Get rid of them? Donate them?" Derek asked, stroking his hand through her honeyed strands.

"All I know is that I can't read them.I can't live my life continuing her work- I'm not her, and I'm not even like her. I have to live for me, and at my level. I was happy- we were happy before I started reading these diaries. What's the point in making a dead person proud at the expense of being with you?"

Her name escaped his lips in barely a whisper, as his lips brushed the side of her head, his hands holding hers tightly as he heard her open up to him like she never had before. He sounded like he was as pained as she was, as she laid Ellis's ghost to rest again. He would have done anything to take this away- if he knew how to. Sometimes, Derek felt inadequate, not knowing how to help Meredith in those situations, and the only thing he could do was be there, show up, love her.

"We should argue more often…" Meredith said to Derek breathlessly, as she fell back onto the sheets, as Derek rolled over to face her, both of them tired- and deliciously naked.

"Hmm…" Derek sighed contentedly, opening his eyes to meet Meredith's. They were shiny again, open to him, not clouded by the doubt that had been occupying them days before. "Make up sex is good."

They settled into a comfortable position, Derek right up behind her, his free arm wrapped tightly around her, pulling her further into his body- her skin touching his as they laid there in the darkness, the moon peeking through the skylight, illuminating the bedroom with a dull glow.

"It's so scary. Arguing, thinking it's over…putting yourself out there to someone and finding pieces of yourself you didn't even know you lost- or adding bits of you to make you a more whole person." Meredith whispered to him as Derek's head shifted closer to the back of hers, as he said nothing, just choosing to tighten his grip on her, inhaling her sweet smell.

"I love you, Derek." She said in a hushed tone in the darkness.

Her admission echoed around the metal walls of the trailer. I love you. Ilove you. I love you. I loveyou. Meredith wasn't one of those girls who said those three words flippantly just to emotionally blackmail a man, and she wasn't the type of girl who said it because she thought she ought to, or because it was the done thing. In fact, there had been times where Meredith's actions conveyed her love, and it seemed like the declaration was on the tip of her tongue, and it never came out. Except this time it had, and Derek knew what a milestone it was for her to say it first, without tagging a 'too' on the end after he had said it first. She had said it all on her own- it came from to depth of her heart.

Meredith had probably never been given the feeling someone would reciprocate that admission of love if she had declared it- she had certainly never gotten that from her mother- the journals confirmed it. Her mother only showed her that emotions were weak- that it was your actions that counted- and yet, Derek couldn't help but be proud of Meredith in that moment- she had done the hardest thing- be sincere and have her words match the emotions behind them perfectly. The saying 'actions speak louder than words' wasn't really true. Those three little words felt pretty damn great- the best thing was when the actions matched the words- and Meredith had done that. She was active and present in their relationship- they had taken another step that night. The had fought, made up, and learnt something about each other they didn't know before.

"I love you too." Derek replied, his heart feeling lighter than it had ever done in years.

*********************

What if we stop having a ball?
What if the paint chips from the wall?
What if there's always cups in the sink?
What if I'm not what you think?
I am

What if I fall further than you?
What if you dream of somebody new?
What if I never let you in?
Chase you with a rolling pin?
Well, what what if I do?

Cuz I am giving up on making passes
And I am giving up on half empty glasses
And I am giving up on greener grasses
I am giving up

What if our baby comes in after nine?
What if your eyes close before mine?
What if you lose yourself sometimes?
And I'll be the one to find you
Safe in my heart

Cuz I am giving up on making passes
And I am giving up on half empty glasses
And I am giving up on greener grasses
I'm giving up

For you

I'm giving up

Ingrid Michaelson- Giving up.