Hello!
Bit of a shorter one this week, but there's some spice coming up so I think I'll post twice next week to ease that a little bit, and make up for this slightly shorter chapter.
Writing is going okay and I've got a holiday coming up so hopefully I'll be able to pre-write enough to really make sure there is no hiatuses ever again, and so I have some room to change some stuff about before I post it to the real world.
Hope you enjoy!
"Hey. Cured all brain tumours in existence yet?" Mark asked as he dropped into the seat next to his best friend.
He didn't look up from the book he was reading.
Mark whistled. "Hello? Earth to neuro god, Derek Shepherd, fixer of Burke's unfixable hand."
"You know you asked me if me and Mer had our first fight yet when we were talking a few days ago?" He asked. His voice was blank, and he still didn't move any part of himself.
He faltered thanks to both what he had said, and how he had said it; he could tell from just one sentence that this wasn't going to be a happy, how-was-your-day kind of conversation. There were going to be emotions. "Yeah-"
"It was today. Ten minutes ago."
"Why?" He asked.
"I don't know."
"No...I mean, why did you fight?" He clarified, although he wasn't quite sure how Derek had misinterpreted what he asked.
"We fought over that thing that she won't tell me about. So, I don't why we fought."
"But you're angry." Mark observed. That much was obvious. "So it wasn't a one-sided fight?"
"Itwas."
"And then?" He prompted, noting the accent on the past-tense word.
He looked away from him again. "She used the...the word, you know?"
"In what kind of way?" He asked. From what Mark had gathered, she had been so accepting of everything about Derek since day one. In fact, she had actually significantly improved his self-image and self-esteem by being so accepting. Surely that couldn't have all been some kind of façade. Why would she have even been with him if that was the case?
"She said..." He swallowed. This was burnt into his mind. It probably would be forever, if he was honest. "She said...'You don't win most traumatic life award over me just because you have a disability and I don't so stop acting like you do.'"
"She's...minimising your feelings." Mark said. He'd had so many conversations with Derek's therapist that he often found her vocabulary and key words slipping into his own conversations.
"Or she had a really, really bad life before she met me."
Mark faltered at that; Derek wasn't mad, he was worried. "She still shouldn't have said that. I mean...no one thinks that what you went through was in any way a small thing. It was like...the biggest thing that could happen to a person. And you had - still have - every right in the world to claim most traumatic life award. I mean, unless we're facing you off with like...a dude with like half brain and no arms or something. No offense but- Derek, your life really sucks."
He smirked. "I thought you were trying to make me feel better."
"My point is...she shouldn't have said what she said, because it sounds like she's trying to make your disability and your accident - which she still doesn't even know anything about - sound like a small, significant, easy little thing, which it isn't."
"I'm really worried about her. Like..." He swallowed. "Really worried."
"Derek-" He sighed. He loved the fact that his friend was always trying to think of others, but it didn't always turn out that well for him.
"Meredith isn't the kind of person to say stuff like that."
"I know she hadn't said anything like that before but- you know, people change. People can lie and hide parts of themselves but that doesn't last forever and then one day...one day everything is just different."
"Meredith isn't like that."
"You're biased by the fact that she's your girlfriend, Derek."
"I know but- honestly, she's not been this perfect, put-together, always-perfect girl. She's been...real, you know? She's shown me other sides of herself and no when, ever, has she shown me anything that would suggest that my chair even bothers her in the slightest- barring her slight annoyance at my inability to go places with stairs because her old favourite restaurant is horridly inaccessible."
He didn't know what to say to that.
"So...if I'm right, that...that means her life really was-" He paused. There wasn't a word he could even put there. "I'm thinking I'd rather her have just be an asshole now, you know."
Mark nodded.
"I mean...you said it yourself- how bad would your life have had to be to make it worse than mine?"
He sighed. "I'm afraid I really don't know, mate. I'm sorry. And I really hate to have to mention in now, but Mary's surgery is in ten so-"
He nodded. "Off to surgery. With Meredith."
Meredith didn't show, but Cristina did. She explained that Meredith had asked if they could switch places and she could have a day on cardio because she felt that she had been spending too much time on neuro and neglecting the other specialties. Derek knew that was a lie.
"She didn't show." Mark observed, walking into the scrub room and joining his fellow surgeon.
"No." Derek agreed quietly.
"Heard anything from her?"
He shook his head.
"What do you think that means?" Mark asked after a second. Although Derek was the one exploring love for the first time, Mark's only experience with romance and sex came from short relationships and one-night stands, so he wasn't actually an expert on this particular problem. He'd never been in a relationship for any fights to occur, earnestly.
He sighed. "I...I have no idea."
"You doing okay?"
He didn't reply to that.
"Derek?"
"Can you tell Mary about the surgery?" He asked after yet another short moment of silence.
"If that's what you need, of course."
"Mmm." He agreed before leaving without another word.
The house was dark - pitch black, in fact - but she had just parked beside his car in the driveway, meaning he was home, and it was only 10:30.
She turned the light on, shook off her coat, kicked off her shoes and dumped her bag, but didn't turn on the light to his bedroom when she reached it. She didn't turn on the light to the bathroom either.
"Derek." She whispered, knowing a call at a regular amplitude would be like a punch to his eardrum.
In the darkness, she could just about see his head move, but he didn't reply. He hadn't even noticed her until that moment.
"How many do you need?" She asked.
"Just...one of each." He breathed. "And something to- just- make it stop."
She nodded; she knew why he was sat at the toilet, not lying in bed in a ball. "How many times have you been sick?"
"Just twice." He uttered. "Feeling...not going away though. Don't wanna go to bed. Didn't."
"Okay. I'll sort out your pills and get a bucket for you so you can get to bed, and help you settle, okay?"
He wanted to protest. They were fighting. They weren't a bright-and-shiny couple right now. But his head was pounding so much that he had no choice but to utter an 'okay', and let her care for him.
