I'm really sorry it took me so long to update! I know I said I would try and have this chapter out sooner for all of you guys, but I got absolutely swamped with work, and didn't have as much time as I wanted to work on this. If it's any consolation, this chapter is the longest one so far (almost 9,000 words!) but you'll have to bear with any spelling/grammar errors—I didn't really edit this before publishing!

Big thank you to everyone who reviewed the last chapter, especially the guests, who's reviews I can't reply to via PM! You guys are amazing! Keep them coming! :)

This is the chapter with the most dialogue from the show, so I'm going to post this now (it applies to all chapters): I don't own this! All of the dialogue from the show belongs to Shonda and her genius (and also a tiny part to ABC). And the little bit where she finds the plans and the candles was inspired by a scene from L is for the Way You Look At Me, by CileSuns92. (Which is a great story. Check it out if you haven't already.)

Anyway, enough of me talking. Happy reading! :)

This is the starting of my greatest fear

I'm all packed up and getting out of here

But then you call and tell me not to go

That I'm the one who put the rock and roll

In your life

This is the starting of my fall from grace

Self-esteem, oh it's seen better days

You know, I'd never let this go to waste

I'll keep those memories on this map I trace

Back to home

Make It Without You – Andrew Belle

Expression becoming more serious, Derek gestures to a scan taped towards the bottom of the wall. "Beth Monroe"—his voice is quiet, more serious, and I can understand why: the clinical trial was hard on both of us, but more so on him—"made our clinical trial a success by surviving." He takes a breath, and I know that all the memories of all of the patients they lost are coming back to haunt him. "You talked me into putting her under." His tone makes me turn and look at him. I can see the love on his face, and the seriousness too; perhaps memories of the last week are resurfacing as well? "That's when I knew I needed you," he says, looking at me with those deep, McDreamy eyes, and I feel my breath catch. I remember that day all too well. I was so desperate that the virus would work, so afraid of losing Derek. It was that night that I really realized he was the love of my life, that I knew I needed him, no matter what. It was then that I knew we could never be friends, not when I would always be yearning for something more.

4x16/4x17 – Freedom

Beth was still unconscious, figure eerily still on the bed. I stood, gripping the railing, and watched as Derek checked her pupils, his fingers caressing her skin as if it were made of glass. I couldn't help yearning for him to touch me like that, and for the thousandth time since we'd finally called it off, I wished I hadn't been so hasty to accuse. I wished I had trusted him when he said he wanted to be with me, and not let my hurt and raging jealousy that he had kissed another woman take control. If I'd had better control over my emotions, maybe this wouldn't be happening.

I could tell from the tense expression on Derek's face that he was still regretting having performed the procedure. He didn't need to be: her vitals were steady, and she was doing much better than many of the patients we had seen. He couldn't think about all the losses now. "She's holding steady," I said, unable to keep the weariness and tiny hint of frustration out of my voice. Why couldn't he have some faith?

Derek glanced at the monitor, frowning slightly. "Her ICP is thirteen." He sighed. "We'll see."

I bit the inside of my lip, resisting the urge to wrap my arms around him and reassure him that everything was going to be fine. "Derek," I said instead, tone soft and gentle, "she's still alive. We've gotten this far. She's still alive." Just saying the words out loud gave me hope. This was going to work. It had to.

"Yes, but for how long?" he murmured coolly.

I sighed. There was just no pleasing him.

"You go." His tone was quiet, resigned. He seemed to be already bracing himself for the prospect of never seeing me again.

"No, I'll stay with her," I said quickly, not wanting to miss a single moment. Whether or not she lived, Beth was our last patient. Not to mention I wasn't going to let Derek slip through my fingers so easily.

"No, I'll do it. You can go." He still wouldn't look at me, no matter how long my eyes remained fixed on him. It only made me more desperate to stay, but at the same time, I knew my staying here wasn't going to change anything. In fact, it would probably just make it worse. Suppressing the urge to say anything else, I left the room.

Maybe Derek is right, I thought to myself as I headed down the hall to the locker room. Maybe a little break was what I needed. While I didn't want to leave Beth—not when the fate of my life seemed to be hanging in the balance—I couldn't deny that I was exhausted, mind whirling from the stress of the surgery and all this drama with Derek, and equally worn out from this whole thing with Dr Wyatt. Why she couldn't tell me what it was I was missing about my mother's suicide attempt was beyond me. She kept saying I had all the tools I needed to figure it out myself, but I really had no idea what I was missing. My mother had tried to kill herself. She didn't succeed, because the paramedics were able to come before she bled to death. There really wasn't any more to it.

I tried to clear my head as I drove home, tried to separate myself from everything that was going on at work, but I couldn't stop thinking about Beth, and Derek, and what was going to happen if she didn't live. By the time I got home, I had a killer headache and a mission: get a glass of wine and some Advil—a dangerous combination, but I really needed something alcoholic to soothe my nerves and something to deal with the pounding in my brain—and go to bed.

It wasn't until I got to the kitchen that I realized something was wrong. When your roommates were surgeons, there was nothing strange about coming home to an empty house. In all the hoo-hah with Derek and the trial, it completely slipped my mind that Alex was supposed to be home with Rebecca or Ava or whatever her name was. He'd taken the last few days off to look after her, much to Izzie's disapproval—she was convinced that Rebecca/Ava needed more help than Alex could give her, but hadn't had any luck convincing him. So it wasn't until I saw the blood smeared across the counter and pooling on the floor that I realized something bad had happened here.

It was like someone had dropped a bucket of ice water on my head. I couldn't move, all I could do was stand there, staring. I was a doctor; I dealt with blood every day, and yet the sight of the neat slices of tomatoes on the cutting board, the gleaming, red blade of the knife, and the slick puddle of scarlet dripping from the counter onto the floor made me feel like I was going to be sick. Images of my mother, passed out in a pool of her own blood on our kitchen floor chased themselves around my head, like they were playing some sick game of tag. This wasn't happening. Not today.

It took me a minute to collect myself, and when I did, the headache and the glass of wine were the last thing on my mind. The only thing that mattered now was cleaning up all that blood as quickly as possible. If I could get rid of it all, maybe I could pretend it had never been there in the first place. Maybe I could keep the nightmares at bay.

It took me a good half-hour of scrubbing before it was all gone. I had no idea for sure whose blood it was, but it didn't take a genius to figure it out. The only people who had been here today were Alex and Rebecca/Ava, and last time I checked, Alex wasn't suicidal.

I stood in the kitchen for a moment after everything was cleaned up, trying to pretend I was just walking in for the first time. There wasn't a single trace of the blood left, but I couldn't stay here. The cleanliness of the kitchen wasn't going to fool me; I couldn't get the image of the droplets of blood falling off the counter out of my head.

Swallowing the lump in my throat, I exited the kitchen and snatched up my coat and keys from where I had set them down on the hall table. I couldn't stay here, so there was really only one other place I could go.

Being back at the hospital made it easier to forget about what I had witnessed at home. Despite Derek's insistence that I didn't need to stay, there was plenty of work for me to be doing. I popped in to visit Beth and had a tense, painful conversation with her parents about her recovery and what was going to happen if she didn't wake up. It wasn't really something I wanted to talk about—especially seeing as I was clinging to the hope that she was going to make it—but it wasn't really fair to leave her parent in the dark, either. As soon as it was finished, though, I didn't have any qualms in fleeing the room. Derek would surely be by soon to check on her—since he had no idea I was back—and he was more than qualified to answer any questions they might have.

I had plans to head down to radiology and see if we couldn't schedule an MRI for Beth. I was tired of waiting and monitoring her vitals; I wanted to know what was really going on in there, whether or not the virus was working. Derek probably wouldn't approve, but I wasn't the type to sit around and do nothing. I'd let him slip through my fingers too many time, I'd be damned if I let it happen again.

I'd nearly made when I spotted the Chief coming around the corner. I swallowed, trying my best to appear calm. I hadn't seen him since we'd gone behind his back with Beth's surgery, and I really wasn't in the mood to face him now. Hoping that he wouldn't notice me, I kept walking, acting like I hadn't seen him.

"So you convinced Shepherd to do the second surgery without my approval?"

I stopped in my tracks, unable to control the sudden surge of frustration at his question. Why was everyone trying to pin the blame on me? I was just trying to save Beth's life. What was I supposed to do, send her home to die?

"So?" I replied, completely aware of how insolent my tone sounded. Most first year residents wouldn't dare taking that kind of tone with the Chief, but I wasn't really afraid of Richard. He couldn't fire me, not after everything he had done to me, and even though I didn't normally use that to my advantage, it was sometimes a useful piece of information.

"So?" Clearly, he hadn't expected this kind of answer either. "That's how you speak to the Chief? 'So?'"

He gave me one of his stern, chiefly looks, and suddenly I couldn't take it anymore. He didn't get to do this to me. I wasn't the bad guy here.

"My mother tried to kill herself after you left. Did you know that?"

The Chief stared at me, stunned. Again, this was not the kind of answer he had been expecting.

"Did you know that?" I repeated, more harshly this time. I needed to know.

"I didn't know that," he said quietly, shaking his head in disbelief. "I'm sorry, I didn't know—"

"She was a brilliant surgeon," I interrupted, not at all interested in his apologies. I was angry, really angry with the Chief, for the first time in a long time. It had never really occurred to me how responsible he was for my miserable childhood, but now that I did, I wasn't going to show him any sympathy. "How could you do that to her? She was a talented, gifted, extraordinary surgeon—"

And suddenly, it clicked. Dr Wyatt was right. I'd had all the pieces all along.

"Meredith?" the Chief began, confused, but I was already gone, dashing down the hall.

I burst into Dr Wyatt's office, heart thumping in my chest, to see her seated on her chair, one of her infamous notebooks open on her lap. She looked at me expectantly, and when I said nothing, took charge.

"Tell me," she prompted.

"She was a surgeon," I began, triumphant, yet careful with my words. I was still a little wary of deep, personal disclosures. Dr Wyatt was still a shrink, after all. "She was an excellent surgeon. If she was really trying to kill herself, she wouldn't have slit her wrists." The words were suddenly tumbling out in a rush, me being unable to stop myself from getting more and more caught up in what I had discovered. "She knew better. She would have taken the scalpel and cut her carotid artery. It would have taken seconds to die. She didn't really want to die." Saying the words out loud was like a balm, like some kind of much needed therapy after years of wondering. "She was an excellent, gifted, extraordinary surgeon. She didn't want to die."

Dr Wyatt's face was impassive. "What did she want?"

That was a no-brainer. "She wanted Richard to come back to her."

"And why didn't he come back?" she asked calmly.

I took a moment to consider, but the answer had already been presented to me. "Well, because he didn't know about it, and she was too stubborn to ask."

There was a brief pause before Dr Wyatt continued. "So what does that mean?"

"Well..." I began; suddenly realizing that was an answer that I didn't know. "That part I don't know. Could you tell me, for once?"

She shifted in her chair, closing the notebook and setting it aside. There was a smile on her face for the first time that evening. She looked...almost proud. "I can. It means that you are a gifted, talented surgeon, exactly like your mother, but the difference is you get to learn from her mistakes."

Learn from her mistakes? This was another thing that I didn't get. Ellis Grey didn't make mistakes. What did she do wrong that I could learn from? I chewed on the inside of my lip, thinking about everything that Dr Wyatt and I had just discussed. "Be extraordinary," I said slowly, trying to figure out what the hidden significance in these words was, because there really couldn't be anything else that was important from this conversation. Except, my mother hadn't made any mistakes. Unless..."She wasn't talking about surgery."

Dr Wyatt shook her head slightly. "No. She wasn't."

"She wasn't talking about surgery at all."

Beth's newest scans had finally come in. I found a quiet exam room to put them up; the ones from two days ago on the left, and the ones from today, on the right. The sight of them was tearing me apart: part of me wanted to look at them to see if there was any change, to see if the thirteenth time was the charm, and part of me didn't want to know. I didn't want to go back to Derek with news of another failure, especially given how painfully clear he'd made it that he didn't want to set foot in that OR, not after what had happened to Jeremy. I could remember our earlier conversation as clearly as if it were happening right now.

Derek stormed out of Beth's room, clutching her chart in a white-knuckled grip. I understood that he was upset, but he couldn't let that get in the way of his judgement, of his responsibility to Beth. We had promised her a shot at a long, happy life, and if she didn't choose it because of what happened to Jeremy, well, that was her choice, but we weren't supposed to be pushing her to opt against the surgery. If anything, we were supposed to be convincing her that this was the right thing to do, the only shot she had left. Derek, however, didn't seem to see things that way. The way I had to chase him down the hall told me that much.

"We'll get it right with Beth," I said gently, finally catching up to him as he rounded the corner towards the nurses' station. This was going to work. I knew it would.

"She just lost the love of her life," Derek snapped, barely even glancing at me. "How could you encourage her to do this surgery?"

I swallowed the urge to yell at him. Did he not understand how important this was for her? For me? I was the one who had come up with this trial, who had persuaded him to take it on, and now that it was going to be shut down, I had to fight for this surgery. We had to make it work. "How could you encourage her not to?"

"You know, it's not me with the big ego, it's you," he said coldly, slamming the chart down on the desk. A few of the nurses turned to stare at us, not used to displays of temper from Dr Shepherd, and his voice lowered to a furious whisper, "You backed me into a corner there. What was I supposed to do, say no?"

I couldn't believe he was doing this. This wasn't my fault. I wasn't the bad guy here. He was the one who wasn't doing his job. "Derek—"

"I can't." He glared at me, jaw clenched, eyes full of pain and anger. I could see all the losses reflected in his eyes, the twelve patients we hadn't been able to save. "She's just a kid."

"She's a kid who will die without this surgery!" Did he not feel the same burning urge that I did to save lives, to give Beth a chance at a future?

"She'll die with this surgery!" he retorted furiously.

There was a brief moment of silence. I didn't know what to say. This wasn't like Derek. Letting the losses completely squash the conviction, the belief in what he was doing, was not at anything like the overly confident neurosurgeon who'd charmed me into letting him become more than just a one-night stand.

"That's what you and I do together," he continued, eyes fixed firmly on Beth's chart. "We kill things. Over and over and over again." His tone was quiet and thick with bitterness. Derek wasn't one of those people that yelled when they were really angry, and I almost wished he were. My mother was a yeller, and I'd gotten used to it over the years. These quiet, hate-filled words that stabbed at me like knives were unbearable. I could feel my heart twisting a little more every time.

"I killed twelve people. And because of you, I will kill a thirteenth." He shook his head. "Once this is over, we're done. I don't want to work with you, I don't want to see you, I don't want to talk to you; we are done." And with that he walked away, leaving me standing there, feeling raw and heartsick.

I sighed, taking another look at the scans. This wasn't how things were supposed to go. The trial was supposed to bring us together, not push us further 'd suffered so much already, losing these other patients, and I had pushed him to operate on Beth when he hadn't wanted to. If she died, this was all going to be on me, and Derek would never work with me again. Hell, he'd never want to see me again, and I couldn't deal with that. I had lost Derek once. I wasn't going to do it again.

Please, please be working. Please live, Beth. Please.

She'd been doing fine when we checked on her earlier, which gave me hope. With most patients, it became obvious within the first few hours after the surgery whether or not the patient was going to live. So far, none of them had made it more than an hour or two past the surgery. So the fact that Beth was still alive nearly two and a half hours after receiving the virus had to count for something. I'd tried to convince Derek when we went to check on her an hour ago, but he hadn't been so easy to hope.

The door swung open, and I turned, half-hoping to see Derek, and trying to hide the mixture of crushing disappointment and relief when I saw that it was Rose. At least if the virus wasn't working, he wouldn't be here to see it yet. I would have a few more hours with him, a few more hours to savour his presence.

There was a brief moment of awkward silence; neither Rose not I were entirely sure what to say to each other. We tried to pretend to have a professional relationship to salvage whatever little bit of our dignity that hadn't been stolen by the hospital rumour mill, but we didn't really like each other. I didn't think we ever could. To me, she was always going to be the other woman, the woman who stole Derek from me just when everything was starting to work out. To her, I would always be the woman that everyone thought of when they thought of Derek Shepherd, the legacy that she would never be able to outlive.

"Are those Beth's films?" she asked quietly, coming a little closer for a better look.

I nodded distractedly, attention entirely focused on the scans. I didn't have time to waste on Rose, not when the future of my life was at stake. "Yes," I replied, absentmindedly. "These are from two days ago, and these, from today." I indicated with my finger to each scan.

Something about them was different. I felt like I was looking at one of those pairs of pictures they used to show you as a kid, the ones where you had to spot the difference. Something about these two was different, but I wasn't sure what. "Would you hand me those callipers, please?"

I tried to keep myself calm as Rose scrambled to comply with my request. I didn't want to get my hopes up—I'd had them crushed too many times—but I couldn't deny the tiny silver of excitement creeping up in the pit of my stomach. If this was what I thought it was...

Trying to quell my rising excitement, I lifted the callipers and carefully measured Beth's tumour as of two days ago, before comparing the measurement I'd taken against the size of the tumour in today's scans. I flipped back and forth between the two, trying to make sure this wasn't some kind of mistake, that I wasn't simply imagining what I wanted to see. After several measurements yielded the same results, however, there was no denying what I was seeing.

"This one is smaller than that one," I stammered, the childish excitement in my voice making Dark and Twisty Meredith cringe. I couldn't keep the grin off my face. "The tumour's shrinking. The virus is working!"

Rose's eyes widened, and for a moment, she stared at the scans incredulously, before her face broke into a wide smile. "Oh my God," she cried, and suddenly, we were both laughing. It didn't matter that I was the one everyone thought of as Derek's girl, or that she was the girl who was with Derek; in this moment, we were just two people celebrating an amazing breakthrough in the history of medicine.

"You have to go tell Derek." He needed to know right away, to know that this had worked, that we hadn't just been killing people. A tiny part of me was crushed that I wasn't the one who got to tell him, but the larger part of me was too overjoyed that this had worked, that I hadn't lost Derek forever, to care.

"No." Rose's voice was firm. She turned to me, expression suddenly serious. "You have to tell him." She paused for a moment, as if steeling herself for what was to come. "It's the kind of thing he would want to hear from you," she added quietly, before turning and leaving the room.

"Rose," I began hastily, feeling slightly guilty. Sure, this had always been mine and Derek's clinical trial, and by that logic, I should be the one to tell him, but I couldn't help feeling like the success of it was undermining their relationship. Rose was a genuinely nice person, and I had the feeling that she and I might have been able to get along under different circumstances. After all, it wasn't her fault that she was the one Derek had kissed, and that was really the only reason I hated her.

She paused, one hand on the doorknob. I knew I should say something, insist that she be the one to break the news to Derek—despite the fact that I wanted to do it myself—but Rose found words before I did. "Congratulations on your major medical breakthrough," she said, smiling softly. "It's the stuff of legends." And with that, she left the room.

When I stepped out of that exam room, I was on cloud nine—well, almost. Once I'd told Derek about our success—our "major medical breakthrough" to quote Rose—I'd officially be on cloud nine. I felt like nothing could stop me. Nothing could dampen my spirits. I had just made medical history. My clinical trial—because even though Derek was the attending on this, I was the one who had approached him about it—was a success. We had found a cure for gliobastomas, one of the most aggressive brain tumours ever. This was the kind of stuff people—and by people I was thinking major medical journals—were going to want to write about, the kind of thing that was going to save millions of people's lives.

By the time I got home, though, the glow of success had worn off a little. Derek had proved to be impossible to find—as had the celebratory bottle of champagne he'd put in the tiny fridge in the resident's lounge weeks ago. I hadn't the faintest idea where it ha gone, and neither did Cristina, though I wasn't sure that she'd even known it was there in the first place—the fridge wasn't really something she ever had use for. She hadn't been in a particularly helpful mood when I stumbled across her either, not only because she was busy practicing her sutures, but probably also because of the presence of Extremely Bright and Shiny Meredith, who had never really poked her head out before and disgusted Cristina immensely. I could picture her disdainful expression as if she were right in front of me.

I burst into the room, after having gotten changed, heart hammering in my ribcage like a jackhammer. Cristina lounged on the sofa, dangling her pager between her fingers, clearly bored.

"Hey!" I grinned, unable to stop the enthusiasm from seeping into my voice. I knew she wouldn't be overly impressed, but I had just made history.

"Hey," she replied vaguely, obviously not paying any attention to me and my enthusiasm. "You have got to take this sparkle pager back. Seriously. I am drunk on the power."

"Where is it?" I groaned in desperation, routing unsuccessfully through the fridge for the champagne. It had to be in here. Derek had put it in here, and God knew I had been staring at it for the last few weeks, waiting for the time when we could open it. Now that that time was here, I didn't want to waste a single moment.

"I think it might actually be mystical," Cristina continued, chucking the pager at me. I caught it deftly, mind racing. "Have you seen Derek?" He would know where the bottle had disappeared to. He was, after all, the only one other person who would move it. Everybody had figured out pretty quickly that the bottle of champagne with the Post-It reading, "Don't touch!" was to be left alone.

Cristina reclined on the couch, rolling her eyes. It was obvious she wasn't at all interested in the latest Meredith and Derek drama, and didn't really care that my life was depending on the finding of one Dr McDreamy. "Nope."

I sighed, wishing—not for the first time—that my best friend had been a little more supportive. Sure, Derek and I had a bit of an up-and-down history, but that didn't mean she had to completely tune out every time I mentioned his name. Most of the time, I didn't care, but this time it actually mattered, and a tiny fraction of her attention would have been nice.

Where could Derek be? It wasn't like him to just disappear. I was the one who pulled the running and vanishing-off-the-face-of-the-Earth acts, not him. He was the one who stayed, no matter how hard thing got—well most of the time, though the ferryboat thing really wasn't his fault. If it had been me in his place, I would have been high-tailing it out of there long before he had. I'd thought he might have been at the trailer, and had headed over there after leaving the hospital—breaking several traffic laws along the way—only to find out that he wasn't there, and getting caught in a very awkward conversation with the Chief...

"Derek!" I gasped, stumbling onto the porch outside the trailer. I was bursting at the seams to tell him the news; it wasn't really the kind you could keep to yourself, and I wanted him to be the first one to know—apart from Rose, but there wasn't really anything I could do about that one.

"He's not here."

I froze, deflating at the sound of the Chief's voice. Here was an awkward conversation I really didn't want to have. The last time I'd seen the Chief, I'd accused him of being heartless and basically driving my mother to a suicide attempt he'd never actually known about. I'd completely forgotten that he'd been living out here since Adele kicked him out; otherwise I might have been a little bit more careful.

"Oh." The crushing disappointment I felt at Derek's absence wasn't enough o overpower the awkwardness of the situation. Now would have been a perfect time for the ground to open up and swallow me whole.

I wished the Chief would say something, anything to end the long, awkward silence that had fallen between us. I didn't have anything to say—what were you supposed to say to the man you just accused of making your mom so desperate she tried to "kill" herself to get his attention?—and I felt incredibly uncomfortable standing here. He was obviously on his way out to God-only-knew where, and I couldn't help noticing the irony of the situation: I'd spent the whole ride here wishing I could get there faster, only to arrive and wish that I had taken more time.

The Chief sighed, and I fiddled with my coat nervously, wrapping it a little closer around myself. It was chilly outside, and while I hadn't noticed the cold before, I was noticing it now.

Finally, he spoke: "Look, I'm not a bad man. I know I'm the villain in your story, but I'm not a bad man."

I didn't know what to say. He was right, and he and I both knew it. It wasn't his fault that my mother had resorted to such desperate measures, and he hadn't deliberately done anything to her. In fact, he'd just been trying to do the right thing. He'd been being the good guy; my mother just didn't see it that way.

The Chief seemed to be waiting for me to say something. After a moment of silence, he sighed, realizing that I wasn't going to say anything, and walked to his car.

It hadn't really been until he drove away that I realized the extent of what he had first said. Derek wasn't there. He wasn't waiting for me with his trademark grin and our bottle of champagne. I hadn't the faintest idea where he might be, but I couldn't shake the image of him out somewhere, celebrating our success with Rose. He didn't really want to be with her, did he? He couldn't. We were supposed to be together. Forever. We were Meredith and Derek. We were legendary. We couldn't not be together, could we?

I'd headed back home mostly because I'd given up hope at finding Derek at all, but there had been a small part of me that hoped he would be home waiting for me. As far as he knew, I had left work and gone home, leaving him to watch Beth overnight, and so the logical assumption would be to head over to my house with the champagne to meet me and celebrate together. Opening the door to an empty house just crushed my spirits even more.

The silence in the house was deafening. Normally, I would be more than happy about it; a few moments without Izzie's bright bubbliness or Alex's never-ending parade of women or their constant bickering was a welcome relief. Now however, I wished that they were here to fill the silence and distract me from my thoughts. They seemed to fill the absence of noise with a deafening echo: my doubts about whether Derek actually cared anymore or whether he had given up on us long before; and the memories of my mother drowning in a pool of her own blood that sprang to mind every time I so much as glanced at the kitchen.

Stop it, Meredith, the rational voice in the back of my mind snapped. You're being ridiculous.

I ran a hand through my hair, trying to find that Bright, Shiny Meredith who had seemed so indestructible an hour ago. I shouldn't have been so upset not to find Derek at the trailer; he was probably just bust finishing up at the hospital. Just because I hadn't been able to find him didn't mean he wasn't still there. Seattle Grace was a pretty big place. There was no need to be freaking out. Everything was going to be fine.

Still, I couldn't help the feeling a sense of urgency. Derek may very well be at the hospital finishing up his work before going to get that champagne bottle and heading out here to celebrate, but I couldn't forget about my mother's mistakes. She had let her pride get in the way of her happiness, and had effectively spoiled her own life, and by consequent, my childhood. I'd been through that with Derek; having already lost him twice, I knew the feeling, and I wasn't prepared to suffer through that again. Admittedly, the first time hadn't been my fault, but with Rose, that had been something I could have prevented. Just like my mother should have told Richard she was miserable without him, I could have swallowed my pride and anger that Derek had kissed another woman—which, I realized after the fact, he had tried to tell me that night when I told him I didn't want him seeing other people. I had to tell him now that I loved him, and that, regardless of whether I was all whole and healed or not, I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him.

The silence was really starting to get to me. I had to get out of here. Derek might come here when he got off work—assuming that was where he still was—but who knew when that would be—if at all—and I didn't really want to sit around and wait for him to show up. My mother had made the same mistake, and Richard had never known. I wasn't going to take that chance. Derek was going to know I loved him because I was going to tell him. I'd never really had anyone in my life that I wanted this much, nor anyone who wanted me despite all my issues, and I would be damned if I'd let him slip through my fingers.

Mind made up, I took a deep breath and started to think. There was a bottle of champagne in the basement leftover from New Year's last year. While it wasn't the bottle of champagne, champagne was champagne as far as I was concerned. I'd go grab it and head back out to the trailer, where I'd wait for Derek. He'd have to show up eventually; it was his house after all.

Deciding to get the champagne was easy. Finding it, however, was an entirely different story. The basement was a disaster, a place where all the crap that we didn't want or need but wouldn't get rid of was shoved. Trying to find a bottle of champagne in there was like looking for a needle in a haystack. I wracked my brains, trying to remember where the champagne was. Most of the New Year's stuff—which Izzie had purchased seeing as none of the rest of us were really that big on celebrating—had been shoved into a box, destined to sit in the basement until it was time to dig it out next year. The champagne had been shoved in there too, Izzie insisting it was better to save it for next year rather than waste it on a non-champagne-worthy occasion.

I shifted a few boxes, cursing her for not letting us keep the bottle in the fridge—though it really would have just been taking up space; none of us normally had an occasion to celebrate that was worthy of champagne. If she hadn't been so insistent that we put it away and save it for next year, I would be on my way to the trailer right now and not down in my basement wading through piles of crap trying to find it.

It shouldn't be so hard to find a box of New Year's decorations. I could have sworn we put them on this shelf, right next to the...

I froze, all thoughts of finding the champagne bottle gone. Sticking out of on of the boxes, where I'd shoved it months ago, were the plans Derek had drawn up for the house. Our house. The house of dreams he was going to build for us on his land. He'd left them here that morning after we'd been discussing them at breakfast, and had never asked about them since. I'd just shoved them in a box in the basement and forgotten about them. I hadn't wanted to think about it back then, hadn't been ready to commit to someone else for a lifetime, or start thinking about marriage and houses and kids. I wasn't sure that I was ready now either, but I didn't want to be without Derek, and if that meant I'd have to take a leap or two, then so be it. I wasn't going to sit around and wait for him to come to me anymore.

I pulled the box out farther so that I could grab the plans and take them upstairs—they wouldn't do us any good down here—when I realized the box was full of candles. The large, white, cylindrical ones Izzie had put up all over the house at Christmas, making the whole place look like it was glowing. She hadn't been able to use all of them—we had hundreds of them; Izzie had bought them to decorate the reception hall for Cristina and Burke's wedding, and since that never happened, they'd just sat boxed up in the basement, waiting for further use. It was ridiculous to keep them all down here—we'd never have use for all of them at once—but Izzie had insisted. You never know when you'll need them. And, despite the fact that I had sided with Alex and argued that they were just a waste of space and that we didn't need more useless crap down there, I couldn't help agreeing with her.

You never know when you'll need them.

I wasn't the grand gestures hind of girl. I didn't like to go over-the-top or be cheesy, and I certainly wasn't warm and fuzzy. So as I stood in the clearing by Derek's trailer, the clearing where our future home might stand, surrounded by the skeleton of a house—like the kind you'd see on a blueprint, just outlines—made out of hundreds of candles waiting for Derek to arrive, I couldn't help feeling a little ridiculous. My plan, at the time, had been a brilliant one: use all those stupid candles from Cristina's failed wedding that were never going to see the light of day otherwise to build our dream house and show Derek that I was ready for forever, regardless of whether or not I was all whole and healed—the jury was still out on that one. The giddiness of our success had returned as I loaded the boxes in the trunk of the Jeep and drove out to Derek's, this time glad he wasn't there when I arrived; I'd been like a kid on Christmas morning setting the stupid things up and then lighting them all. It was going to be so romantic: Derek would walk in with the bottle of champagne, smiling that delicious, McDreamy smile, and I would be waiting to welcome him home. He'd tell me that he loved me and that he was glad I had encouraged him to do that trial and to operate on Beth, and we'd have hot, passionate sex—though that part might have to happen in the trailer. I wasn't a huge fan of sex on the grass, especially when it was cold and wet out.

After standing in the middle of the stupid, cheesy candle house for half an hour, however, the aura of romance was beginning to fade away. Who was I kidding? This was ridiculous. This wasn't the kind of thing a mature, grown-up surgeon did; this was the kind of thing those stupid, fluffy heroines did in all those dumb romantic comedies that Cristina and I only watched so that we could make fun of the characters and their stupid little lives. She'd be cringing if she could see me now. Not only that, but it was also painfully obvious that Derek wasn't coming. It had been at least two hours since Rose and I had realized the tumour was shrinking, which meant he was bound to have found out by now. It ruined the whole me getting to tell him the good news before anyone else, but I didn't care so much about that. What I really cared about was telling him that I loved him, more than I had ever loved anyone else, and that I was tired of this stupid cat and mouse game we kept playing with each other. I wanted the house and the kids and the lifetime—not right now of course; kids were a little terrifying, but eventually.

I wanted to call him. Wanted to find out where he was, and what the hell was taking him so long. Four times I dialled his number on my cell, only to hang up before the first ring. What if he was out celebrating with Rose? I didn't want to know that I had been stood up for that stupid scrub nurse. Or worse, what if he was at home? What if I had gone to all this effort to make this house of candles—which were starting to go out, one by one—and he had been sitting at my house the whole time, waiting for me?

"Stupid, corny, idiotic..." I muttered, pacing back and forth and glaring at my cell phone like it was the reason for all my problems—which it partially was; if Derek would only call me and tell me where the hell he was, maybe I wouldn't be such a mess "I cannot believe I did this. Stupid, loser, son of a—He could be at home instead of...Ugh. Stupid—"

"Meredith."

The sound of his voice literally made me jump out of my skin. I had been so engrossed in belittling myself and willing my cell phone to ring that I hadn't even noticed the arrival of the very man I had been looking for. Part of me was relived that he was finally here, that he wasn't out with Rose, or waiting at the house, or dead—which, sadly, had been a possibility in some back part of my dark, twisted mind—but the larger part of me was frustrated with the way the entire evening had gone, and the fact that his delayed arrival had completely ruined my plans.

"Where have you been?" I yelled. I wasn't really angry with him; I was frustrated that he was late, relieved that he wasn't abandoning me, and above all embarrassed at the corniness of the candle house, all of which was manifesting itself as anger. It was way easier to take all of this out on him; he was the root of all my problems, after all. "I have been waiting and waiting for you," I continued, and suddenly, all everything was tumbling out in a rush before I could stop it. "And I did this stupid, embarrassing, humiliating, corny thing, and I was just going to tell you that this over here is our kitchen," I pointed with an accusing finger to one of the candle rooms, "and this is our living room, and over there, that's the room where our kids could play. I had this whole thing about I was going to build us a house, but I don't build houses because I'm a surgeon, and now I'm here feeling like a lame-ass loser!" I sighed, trying to reign myself in, realizing that I sounded a little crazy ranting on and on and on about this stupid candle house, and I was probably making even more of a fool of myself. Still, Derek needed to hear these things, needed to understand why it was so bad that he was late, and if he really loved me, well then he wouldn't care about the rambling, would he?

"I got all whole and healed, and you don't show up." I glared at him, as if to indicate that—just in case he hadn't already figured it out—this was all his fault. I had gone and done this stupid, crazy, horribly embarrassing thing, and he couldn't even be bothered to show up. "And now it's all ruined because you took so long to come home," I was surprised to hear the tremor in my voice and to feel the familiar burn of tears in my eyes, "and I couldn't even find that bottle of champagne." Or the one in my basement, for that matter—not that I'd spent any great amount of time looking for it.

Derek said nothing, simply holding up the bottle of champagne—our champagne—I hadn't noticed he was holding like it was the solution to all our problems. I stared at it for a minute, feeling incredibly humiliated—even more so than when I had run into the Chief the first time I came out here. How could I have doubted him? Why did I have to go spouting off all this crap about how he couldn't have the decency to show up when he'd probably been out there with that stupid bottle of champagne, looking for me the whole time?

Derek, to his credit, just smiled to himself, a small, amused sort of smile, and stepped over the wall of candles at his feet. "This is the kitchen?" he asked, gesturing with the bottle.

I just stood there, unable to say anything.

"Living room?" He frowned. "It's a little small." He turned and surveyed my work critically, like it was some award-winning masterpiece and not just a bunch of candles spread out in what I thought was an approximation of a house. "The view is much better from here," he added, gesturing towards one of the rooms facing the cliff.

"And that's the room where the kids are going to play?" He pointed to the room in the far corner, facing the city. "Hm." He nodded contemplatively, tiny smile gracing his lips.

I couldn't believe it. Derek was actually taking this seriously? I hadn't intended this to be an actual plan for our house. I was sure that the one Derek had drawn up was perfect. This had just been some stupid, unbelievably corny attempt to try and show him I cared, not an actual stab at house planning. I wasn't a designer. I was a surgeon.

I was about to point this out to him when he frowned slightly, as if something had just occurred to him. "Where's our bedroom?" he asked, trademark smile curling about his mouth, making those eyes sparkle wickedly.

God, he could be infuriating sometimes. "I'm still mad at you," I said, gesturing accusingly at him with my phone. "And I don't know if I trust you," I continued, trying to ignore the fact that he was walking towards me with that serious, incredibly sexy look on his face. "I want to trust you but I don't know if I do, so I'm just going to try. I'm gonna try and trust you because I believe that we can be extraordinary together rather than ordinary apart, and I wanna be—"

Whatever else I might have been about to say was lost as his mouth descended on mine. It felt so right after so long without it, and I didn't really care about any of the other things I had wanted to say, or even that I was supposed to be mad at him. This was what I wanted. This was what I wanted to be able to do every day for the rest of my life. This was the man I loved more than life itself.

The kiss wasn't on par with some of our steamiest kisses, but that didn't matter. Kissing him—even in the tender, romantic way that I was now—was like a tiny slice of heaven, like a vital breath that I couldn't live without. My hands wound around his neck, pulling him closer, never wanting to let go. And for the longest time, it seemed like I wouldn't have to. Eventually, however, Derek disentangled himself gently. I had to fight the overpowering urge to pull him back and never let him go. He obviously had something on his mind—he had that look on his face, the sad one he wore every time he was about to say something he didn't want to, something that might very well break my heart—and, as much as I didn't want to hear it, I wasn't going to begrudge him his right to speak.

"I have to go," he said quietly, giving me a tiny smile.

"What?" Go? Where could he possibly have to go? He had just gotten here!

"In order to kiss you the way I want to kiss you, in order to do more than kiss you, I need to speak to Rose." He gave me a small smile, the kind that spoke volumes of what was to come. "I want my conscience clear, so that I can do more than kiss you."

I had completely forgotten about Rose. Derek and I were so perfect, so obviously meant to be, that I had completely forgotten that we weren't together right now, that there was another woman in the way of our happiness. Now that I remembered, I hated her more than I ever had, simply because she was spoiling this perfect moment, but I understood why Derek needed to break up with her first. He'd had enough experience with cheating in the past, and I knew he wouldn't want that on his conscience.

"Stay here," he said, before I could say anything. "Don't move." He grinned, the real, full-on McDreamy smile, one that I hadn't seen in months, and it was impossible to be mad at him for leaving.

I sighed, a reluctant smile transforming my own features. "Wait for me," he said, handing me the bottle of champagne. I took it, nodding, unable to find the words to express what I wanted to say: that I would wait for him, wait until the end of the world if that was what it took. I wasn't going anywhere.

I wasn't upset when he walked away. I wasn't worried that he wasn't going to come back, or that he'd cut and run when things got tough. We were in this for the long haul now, both of us. A few hours of waiting weren't going to kill me. Not when it meant we could have forever.