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Chapter 5

The slamming door echoed loudly throughout the once quiet lobby.

Meredith was on her feet in seconds, racing towards her obviously distraught husband.

"Derek?"

The pain was clearly evident in her tone. She hated seeing him like this. She hated when he hurt.

"Derek, what happened?" she questioned more urgently. He was pacing in the middle of the lobby, angrily pulling his hands through his hair.

"She…I can't…I just…"

He collapsed dejectedly in the nearest chair, cradling his head in his hands. Meredith took her queue to let him gather his thoughts before throwing him anymore questions. Instead, she occupied the chair next to his and started running her hand across his shoulder blades in a soothing manner.

From a short distance away, Carolyn maintained her seat as she watched her son, a frown etched in her features. She had had higher hopes for the meeting, but it obviously didn't go exactly as planned. She shook her head and sighed deeply. Derek always had been too stubborn for his own good.

She allowed the couple some privacy and Meredith a chance to bring Derek back down before going over there herself and demanding details.

"I can't even look at her," he finally whispered so quietly Meredith almost missed it. "I can't look at her. I can't talk to her. I lose all rational thought. I don't know this person. She's not even Amelia anymore."

He clasped his fists together and leaned his forehead against them to support his head.

"Derek," she said with enough force to let him know she really meant for him to listen. "She's not the same person. Not right now. We went over this; her fiancé, the man she loved, is dead. It's the scariest thought in the entire world. For a good two minutes, I was 100% sure I had just watched you die in front of me on an operating table. Two minutes may not sound like a lot but when all you can hear is the sound of yourself sobbing and a flatline where your husband's heartbeat should be, it's a freaking eternity. That pain is more than enough to break a person. It's crushing."

Thinking about that day, about all she'd lost and almost lost, still brought tears to her eyes. She felt them start to prick the back of her eyes as she willed them not to spill over onto her cheeks. She wasn't allowed to do this today. Derek needed her to be strong.

"Honestly, Derek, you expecting anything more from her than to just be breathing is cruel. And on top of all this she's trying to stay clean off extremely addictive pain pills? It's a miracle, Derek, a freaking miracle she didn't just down a whole bottle just to try to make the pain stop. Because, quite honestly, when the love of your life dies, it sounds pretty freaking tempting. And this is coming from someone who's not addicted to Oxycotin."

Derek lifted his head slowly, moving like it weighed far more than it should. Tears glazed over his eyes and the look on his face broke Meredith's heart.

"She's breathing, Derek. She's right here. That's all we can ask for at this point."

She moved her hand from his back to his stubbled cheek as she wiped away a few stray tears sliding down his face.

"I was mean. I was so mean to her."

"That's what you do," Meredith slightly shrugged.

A look of confusion and offence flitted across his face.

"What? You're angry. You get mean when you're angry. And you know exactly what to say in order to hurt whoever you're mad at." She said this as if it was the most obvious statement in the world. When his expression didn't change she continued, "Have you really not made that connection yet?"

She paused for a moment and, after realizing he wasn't going to see it on his own, proceeded to list off his past transgressions.

"You practically called me a whore when you assumed I was sleeping with Finn because you were jealous and angry when you had no right to be," she counted on one finger.

"You told me you never wanted to see or work with me again after our 12th patient died in the clinical trial," she listed on the next finger.

"You called me a lemon and said various other hurtful things after Jen died and proceeded to hit my engagement ring into the woods with a bat." She added a third finger to her hand.

"You basically told me I was going to be a horrible mother because you were mad at me about the trial. Not to mention the months following tha-"

"Okay, I get it!" Derek interrupted. The last thing he wanted to do was relive all the horrible things he had said and done to her in the past.

"I'm not trying to reopen anything. I'm just saying, this is what you do. And I get it, so when it happens I try not to take it personally, but I'm not the only one you react that way to. You need to go back in there and fix it with Amelia."

Derek sighed again and rubbed his eyes before nodding his head. Meredith relaxed a little after seeing that her words were having the desired effect.

"When'd you get so good at this?" he lightly teased.

She smiled while running her fingers through his disheveled hair. "I had a good teacher. And provided a lot of good opportunities for him to teach me over the past few years," she answered.

"Well that's true," he played along confidently, seeming lighter by the second. "I'm an excellent teacher."

"I love you," Meredith stated with proof of her words shining in her eyes. "You know that, right?"

"I know," he replied softly. "I love you too."

He kissed her on the cheek and then once more on the lips before rising to his feet.

Derek didn't hesitate before pulling the door to the mediation room back open.

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