Meredith paused when she reached the doorway. She thought it was odd that Derek hadn't joined her downstairs, but she presumed he was too busy checking through his suitcase or getting ready to go, but he wasn't doing either of those things.
In fact, he was the opposite of ready.
"You've only got about twenty minutes until you need to leave if you're going to make your ten o'clock flight." Meredith said as she sat down on the bed by his legs.
"Mmm." He groaned.
"Are you okay?" She asked.
"Didn't sleep well. Actually...I'm not entirely sure I slept at all." He said as he sat up with heavy use of both of his arms. He didn't have the strength to get up simply. He winced as he did so. "Trying to do that thing where you rest more when you have a bad night as if it makes up for not sleeping."
She smiled a little. She got that. "You stay in bed. I'll cancel your meeting. You're not ready, and even if you do get up, you're going to fall asleep everywhere."
"No...I-" He sighed. "I just want it all over and done with. I'll get up, get dressed and go. I'll be unshowered and half-asleep, but it's fine."
"Are you sure?"
"I'm never going back, so it doesn't matter how unprofessional I am, does it?"
"I suppose not." She replied. "Love you."
He kissed her. "Love you. Now-" He sighed. "Outta bed we go."
"I don't have a lot, but I found everything in my cupboard which doesn't contain dairy or gluten." Meredith announced as she placed a few things down on the table in front of him. "It took me forever."
"Thanks." He muttered.
"I understand why you're struggling to eat now. Nothing is just naturally free of both, apparently."
He didn't reply, but smiled, just a little.
"How are you feeling now?"
"Okay, I guess." He shrugged. He felt so...guilty. She'd been so nice and he still couldn't tell her the truth.
"Oh, you've got an eyelash, um-" She paused when he scrubbed his eye. "Wrong one."
He wiped the other.
"No, it's um-" She sighed. "Should I get it?"
"Oh. Yeah. Probably be easiest." He agreed awkwardly.
After two attempts, she managed to get it on her finger.
"You gonna make a wish?" He asked with a smirk.
"Oh. I suppose so." She shrugged. She stared at it for a long second before gulping, and then blowing it away.
"Are you allowed to tell me what you wished for, or does that like...invalidate it?"
"I-" She swallowed. She couldn't do this...could she? Well, she'd wished it, so there was clearly at least some part of her who wanted this. And if she didn't tell him, how was he supposed to know? "I wished...I wished that you hadn't left, Derek."
He swallowed, and neither of them spoke for a long second before he cracked a joke, "I'm not sure eyelashes know how to turn back time."
She smiled for just a second before it faded. "I'm serious. I...I want to go back to how things were before you left. We were doing okay."
"You can't turn back time either, Meredith." He said as his eyes washed with tears. He couldn't help it. All he wanted was more time with his kids. All he wanted was for someone to turn back time.
The pair stared at each other, silent and motionless for a long second before Meredith leant forward, put a hand on his chest, and kissed him. Quick. Like a habit. Like they'd do it for the rest of their lives. After pulling away for just a second, she returned for a longer kiss, this time involving her hands too.
He kissed her back both times, or at least accepted the initiation both times, but only managed about half of the kiss before he put his hands on her, and pushed her away enough for her to get the message and stop.
"Derek-" She pleaded.
"I can't. I-" He swallowed as he shook his head. "I'm going to go."
She grabbed onto his non-casted arm. "What if I said I still love you?"
He paused. "Do you?"
"Yes, Derek. Of course. I...I freaking hate you. I despise your very bones. But...Jesus, Derek I love you." She confessed, feeling her heart rate double. She was doing it. She was actually doing it. She knew she was stupid, he'd treated her horribly by leaving, but love was love. It wasn't going to go away just because the rational part of her brain was telling her to stop. "Just tell me you love me too."
He shook his head.
"Then say it." She begged.
"What?" He breathed.
"Say you don't love me, Derek. Say the words. Say I don't love you, Meredith. Say it. Please."
He looked into her eyes. They were so...unlieable. She was so desperate for him to tell the truth. "I can't." He confessed.
"You said that you wished there was a gun to your head. You said that you wished that was the reason you left. Tell me why. Look me in the eye and tell me that you left because you don't love me anymore, Derek. Because I know you can't. Because I know that that wasn't why."
"I love you, Meredith. I love you with my whole freaking heart and those three months- being without you-" He swallowed.
"So why did you leave? If you wanted to come back, why didn't you just do that?"
"I treated you so badly."
"So you thought you'd leave? You should have come back and fixed it! Why did you think leaving would help?"
"It's not-" He sighed. "I didn't want you have to deal with me, not after...not after how I treated you."
"Deal with you?" She repeated. "Derek. Please. Tell me why you left. Tell me why you said you wished there was a gun to your head."
He stared at her for a long moment. Six seconds, precisely, because he could hear the clock clicking in the silence. "I was getting treatment in DC. That...that's why I didn't come back."
"But you came back."
"Yeah." He agreed, not quite hooking onto what she was implying.
"So...that means you're better now?" She assumed. "Whatever was wrong is fixed?"
He stared at her for a long moment as the tears in his eyes rolled. He caught them as quickly as he could with his sleeve, but it was far too late; Meredith had seen them.
"What is it?" She asked with a low, shaky voice as his tears answered her question.
"I um-" He smiled as he sniffled. It wasn't funny. It really wasn't. Well...maybe a little. "I'm a brain surgeon with brain cancer."
"But you didn't come back because you're better?"
"It's a...glioblastoma- so um..." He tried to continue, only to realize he couldn't quite get through his sentence without a hard swallow. "So that means I...it means I'm not going to get better."
She wanted to be sick. She needed to be sick. She. Was. Going. To. Be. Sick. "No."
"I tried treatment but it didn't work. They gave me about six months at the time so...that-"
"No."
"-makes it about three now."
"No. They...they got it wrong."
"Meredith-"
"They got it wrong." She repeated.
"Meredith, please-"
"They. Got. It. Wrong! Okay? They got it wrong. You are fine! You are going to be fine!" She exclaimed.
"Meredith. Look at me." He begged.
"No. No you don't need to do that. You don't need to be nice and sound all sad but be all strong because you are going to be fine."
"Please. Meredith." He begged. "Mer-"
That made her look at him, right in the eye. Mer. He hadn't called her that since he got back.
She shook her head as ever more tears fell.
She couldn't do this.
"I'm sick." He stated with a trembling lip. "And I'm going to get sicker. And then...then I am going to die."
She couldn't help the squeak-like cry that came from her throat as he finished. He was sick. And he was going to get sicker. And then he was going to die.
Derek didn't get a chance to say anything, seeing as Meredith had already thrown her arms around him. He wrapped his good arm around her too, and slowly rubbed his hand in slow circles across her back. He really wanted to say that it would all be okay, but he knew he couldn't. That would be a lie. People often said that to those who were suffering temporarily and they often denied the reassurance because of how severe the pain felt at the time but, truthfully, one day it really would be okay. But that didn't apply to this situation.
He hadn't even told her everything yet. That he missed Zola's play due to a seizure, and that he had fractured his wrist when he hit his hand on the table. That he was so thin because he could only manage the plainest of foods, and even then he'd throw up half of it. That he looked so sick because he was deficient in basically every mineral and vitamin there was despite his supplements. That he had been refusing a NG tube from his oncologist for two weeks now. That Carolyn had moved with him because he was deemed unable to live alone. That he intended on ending his life a few weeks early with PAS because he didn't want to die in pain.
"That's why I didn't want you to love me, Meredith."
She lifted her head to look at him, then kissed him just once. "Why didn't you just tell me?"
"I didn't want you to suffer too."
"I've been suffering since the day you left, Derek. And now...now that I know-"
"I know." He blinked, and more tears dropped. "I'm sorry. Looking back, maybe it was a stupid choice but-" Even more fell. "We can't go back in time."
"We could have spent that time together, Derek. We could have done everything you wanted to do as a family and...and we could have- we could have been together."
"That would have just made it harder. You know that. You would have had to suffer that whole time, and you'd still love me. At least this way you probably love me a little less."
"But I would have had you. I would have...have had that time with you."
He couldn't reply to that. "I think I should go and say goodbye to the kids now and then...then you. If I go now, you can work on hating me for the next month or two so it won't be so bad."
She grasped onto his good wrist so hard that it was probably going to leave a bruise. "You said you'd live until 110."
"I know. I know what I promised." He acknowledged. "But there's nothing I can do."
"Then I'll find something!" She exclaimed, tears more bursting than rolling this time.
"There isn't anything to find. I've looked. I've looked everywhere, Mer, but there really just isn't anything to find out there."
"There has to be. Derek, please. There's always more things to try. You can't have done every option yet. Not in three months, no matter what you were doing."
"Meredith-"
"Fight for me, Derek. Please."
"I already did, Meredith. I fought so freaking hard and it didn't work."
"But you did it alone last time. But if you do something - if you do anything - I promise you that you won't be alone this time. I will be there for every second of it, by your side, supporting you. I will fight with you. The kids will fight with you. Your friends will fight with you. And you'll win this time, okay? You hear me? You'll win."
Sixty more years with the love of his life and seeing his kids grow up and graduate and marry and have their own children sounded...well, so amazing that he couldn't put it into words. He wanted that. He wanted all of that so freaking much. Maybe he wanted it just enough to try again. He swallowed before stating, "110."
Meredith beamed. "110."