Let's talk about Meredith, shall we?

Now, most of the time, I like Meredith. I'm not a big fan currently (I'm about half way through s10 of my rewatch), and I couldn't stand her during Derek's trial, but, you know, generally I'd say I like Meredith.

But good lord, her ability to focus on her husband's feelings is just...non existent.

She told Derek that it had been a 'bad day all round' after he explained how his own freaking father died, she failed to offer any sympathy when Derek confessed to almost killing his best friend as a teen (any OD readers know I'm extremely intruiged by the Michael Boetcher storyline), and then when Heather Brookes died, the student he'd been mentoring specifically and the friend he had literally just -operated- on, she replied to his sadness by telling him he needs to go and pick up Zola. Like...kids are important, of course, but how about like one singular sentence of sympathy?

Okay, I'll stop now, so you can enjoy my version of what should have happened when Derek came into Meredith's room after Heather died

"I got the clot out but-" He sighed. "There was just so much swelling."

She listened with a sympathetic look on her face, trying her best not to look at her son. On one hand, she really wanted to listen to Derek but, on the other, all she really wanted to do was hold and watch her newborn child.

"I just couldn't get it to stop." He continued in a quiet voice before smiling briefly at his son when his pacifier dropped from his lips. He should have laughed at that, or at least sustained his smile for a little longer, but he couldn't. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't.

He couldn't do anything.

"You did everything you could, Derek."

"I must have asked for her a dozen times- and Ross didn't know where she was. I thought she was just off doing...something but-" She was on the floor of the basement, dying. She was alone, dying. Her brain was bleeding, dying. Dying. Dying. Dying.

"That's not your fault, Derek. You know that."

"Her mom is on her way in now. She doesn't-" He paused and swallowed, hard. He'd ignored her reassurances, because he didn't want them. He wasn't sure whether he'd say it was his fault entirely, but he could have done better. He could always do better. "She doesn't know yet."

"Do you want to be the one to tell her?"

"I was her surgeon." He replied. He still wasn't looking at her.

"I know. But maybe you want someone else to do it?"

He shrugged, and never replied. Instead he just continued to stare at the baby in his arms, silent.

"Derek, can you put the baby down?" She requested, trying to keep her voice calm and level.

He glanced up briefly to her before slipping off the bed, and placing the child down carefully in the crib. "You okay?" He asked, concerned.

"I am fine...but you're not."

"She woke up happy today, excited for surgery and seeing her friends and...and now she's...dead." He said at almost a whisper after a while.

"That's not your fault." She replied instantly.

"I was the one who operated."

"Derek." She called. "It wasn't your fault."

He stared at him for a long moment, before one blink covered both of his eyes with tears. He sighed out a long, stuttery breath. "It's no good, Mer...no matter what I do, it'll never be enough...I will never be enough."

She didn't speak for a second. Every once in a while, he'd drop something that would make her heart sink. He was confident, and arrogant on the outside, but he wasn't the same on the inside. It just wasn't often that he let that part of him shine through. "You're enough for me."

His lip trembled as he shook his head.

"I promise you, Derek. You're enough. You've always been enough and you'll always be enough. You're perfect the way you are."

"Maybe for you but..." He swallowed so far his throat hurt. "Not good enough for her. For...Heather. For...so many people who died on my table."

"You were good enough, and you have always been good enough. You were perfect. You just...she couldn't be saved, because she couldn't be saved." She replied. "And it wasn't your fault. You didn't cause her injury. You weren't ever going to be able to save her- no one would be able to save her. She was too far gone to survive. And that means that it wasn't your fault."

He shook his head again.

"Say it." She begged. "It was not my fault."

"It..."

"Was not my fault." Meredith finished, hoping to encourage him.

"It...was-" He swallowed hard. "-it was not my fault."

"Say it again. But believe it this time."

"It was not my-" Tears slipped. "-fault."

She smiled. He sounded like he believed it this time. "And I truly do believe it wasn't your fault but...you're also grieving a friend so you still need soothing. Come closer and let me hold you."

He smiled, just a little, and let himself be engulfed by his wife.