Fic - At the Bottom of the Well (is Where We Dig Ourselves Out) (Meredith, Meredith/Derek) pg, 1/1
Title: At the Bottom of the Well (is Where We Dig Ourselves Out)
Summary: It's a grieving process, she muses, learning that what you thought you were was an incredible, elaborate lie. Meredith wonders if this is what it was like for him, always having to pick up the pieces.
Rating: pg
Author's Notes: 818 words. Spoilers for everything up to date. Written for _takemeaway_ who wanted Mer/Der with the prompt, how do you come back from that? I tried to keep this short enough to fit in a comment, but alas. Con-crit is much appreciated. This is my first go at both this character and pairing. All mistakes are mine. These characters, however, are not.
It’s a tough thing to swallow, this turn of events.
They’re on the couch again, tequila on the coffee table, Derek’s glass half empty.
It’s a grieving process, she muses, learning that what you thought you were is all an incredible, elaborate lie.
There’s music on, some sort of classic rock she vaguely knows because that’s what she does and it’s what he likes. Derek is resting his head on the back of the couch with his eyes pressed tightly closed and she pulls her knees up to her chest, watches him.
He’s drunk. Or maybe not drunk. Or maybe even almost there. All that matters is he is not a fan of talking to her anymore, or anyone for that matter. His bruises are healing, fading almost completely and she reaches out to touch them, run her finger of the burgeoning scar near his temple just to convince herself that he’s still half alive.
She doesn’t.
Instead she counts his breaths, memorizes the sound and sight of his chest rising and falling and feels the panic that is thick in the back of her throat start to slowly ebb away.
“He doesn’t know how to let go,” Mark had told her, a day, maybe two earlier when he’d passed her a cup of coffee and sympathetic smile. “He just holds on to everything and he’s going to keep holding on until he stops. And then he’s going to hit bottom and that’s when he’s going to need you to pull him back up.”
And Meredith had breathed and sighed and wished so badly to be able to carry this pain for him. She was accustomed to it, knew how to deal with death and loss in that removed way that only somebody with more than a few first-hand accounts can.
That’s what love is, she guesses, and understands in a way she couldn’t before.
Love is wanting to carry this weight on her shoulders so he didn’t have to know the sheer pressure of it. Love is this deep-seeded feeling in her chest that grows and multiplies as she watches him fall apart; the panic as she sees him venturing so far from the man she met in the bar over tequila and quiet smiles.
Now, she echoes that movement with the breathing and sighing and wonders, fleetingly, if this is what it was always like for him. That winter when she had fallen in the water and couldn’t muster the will to find her way to the surface. Those weeks following her mother when she’d pressed forward, a ghost of herself, not sure how to exist in a world she hadn’t been expecting to be so vastly different.
“Derek,” she says, voice quiet, and finally reaches out for him. There’s a gentle hand on his arm and he shifts, just slightly in response. Still he does not look at her. “Talk to me.”
“What do you want me to say?”He asks, voice rough from lack of use. He didn’t work today and this is how she found him after her shift, sprawled on her couch, tequila in his hand. “Do you want me to tell you how many patients have died at my hand? Do want me to tell you that I can’t even tell you’re their names?”
“We aren’t perfect,” she presses quietly. Her hand is still on his arm and her grip tightens. “We are all fallible. “
“I prided myself on being the best. I was the best,” his eyes open on hers and it takes her breath away in the worst possible way. They’re harder, capillaries forming spider webs at the corners and she wishes she were better at this. His voice cracks when he asks, “What the hell happened?”
“Nothing. Nothing happened,” she scoots towards him, hands falling at her sides. They ache. She’s been clenching them all day, restless to get back to him. Worried for him. “You are a good man. You are a good doctor… Right now, in this moment, you are still the greatest person I’ve ever known.”
After a long moment, Derek just sort of falls into her and she wraps an arm around him, her hold steady and sure. She holds him and kisses the side of his head and lets him fall apart because that is what good girlfriends do for their boyfriends. That is what good people do. She holds him tight and prays to a God whose existence she’s never even acknowledged for him to get through this in one piece. For him to be OK.
“I don’t,” he starts, stops, and his breath smells like tequila as he breathes. “I don’t know if I can come back from this.”
Meredith pulls back to look him in the eye. “You will. We will,” she says and is surprised at the surety in her voice.
She kisses him, just once and hopes, for now, that it is enough.
Summary: It's a grieving process, she muses, learning that what you thought you were was an incredible, elaborate lie. Meredith wonders if this is what it was like for him, always having to pick up the pieces.
Rating: pg
Author's Notes: 818 words. Spoilers for everything up to date. Written for _takemeaway_ who wanted Mer/Der with the prompt, how do you come back from that? I tried to keep this short enough to fit in a comment, but alas. Con-crit is much appreciated. This is my first go at both this character and pairing. All mistakes are mine. These characters, however, are not.
It’s a tough thing to swallow, this turn of events.
They’re on the couch again, tequila on the coffee table, Derek’s glass half empty.
It’s a grieving process, she muses, learning that what you thought you were is all an incredible, elaborate lie.
There’s music on, some sort of classic rock she vaguely knows because that’s what she does and it’s what he likes. Derek is resting his head on the back of the couch with his eyes pressed tightly closed and she pulls her knees up to her chest, watches him.
He’s drunk. Or maybe not drunk. Or maybe even almost there. All that matters is he is not a fan of talking to her anymore, or anyone for that matter. His bruises are healing, fading almost completely and she reaches out to touch them, run her finger of the burgeoning scar near his temple just to convince herself that he’s still half alive.
She doesn’t.
Instead she counts his breaths, memorizes the sound and sight of his chest rising and falling and feels the panic that is thick in the back of her throat start to slowly ebb away.
“He doesn’t know how to let go,” Mark had told her, a day, maybe two earlier when he’d passed her a cup of coffee and sympathetic smile. “He just holds on to everything and he’s going to keep holding on until he stops. And then he’s going to hit bottom and that’s when he’s going to need you to pull him back up.”
And Meredith had breathed and sighed and wished so badly to be able to carry this pain for him. She was accustomed to it, knew how to deal with death and loss in that removed way that only somebody with more than a few first-hand accounts can.
That’s what love is, she guesses, and understands in a way she couldn’t before.
Love is wanting to carry this weight on her shoulders so he didn’t have to know the sheer pressure of it. Love is this deep-seeded feeling in her chest that grows and multiplies as she watches him fall apart; the panic as she sees him venturing so far from the man she met in the bar over tequila and quiet smiles.
Now, she echoes that movement with the breathing and sighing and wonders, fleetingly, if this is what it was always like for him. That winter when she had fallen in the water and couldn’t muster the will to find her way to the surface. Those weeks following her mother when she’d pressed forward, a ghost of herself, not sure how to exist in a world she hadn’t been expecting to be so vastly different.
“Derek,” she says, voice quiet, and finally reaches out for him. There’s a gentle hand on his arm and he shifts, just slightly in response. Still he does not look at her. “Talk to me.”
“What do you want me to say?”He asks, voice rough from lack of use. He didn’t work today and this is how she found him after her shift, sprawled on her couch, tequila in his hand. “Do you want me to tell you how many patients have died at my hand? Do want me to tell you that I can’t even tell you’re their names?”
“We aren’t perfect,” she presses quietly. Her hand is still on his arm and her grip tightens. “We are all fallible. “
“I prided myself on being the best. I was the best,” his eyes open on hers and it takes her breath away in the worst possible way. They’re harder, capillaries forming spider webs at the corners and she wishes she were better at this. His voice cracks when he asks, “What the hell happened?”
“Nothing. Nothing happened,” she scoots towards him, hands falling at her sides. They ache. She’s been clenching them all day, restless to get back to him. Worried for him. “You are a good man. You are a good doctor… Right now, in this moment, you are still the greatest person I’ve ever known.”
After a long moment, Derek just sort of falls into her and she wraps an arm around him, her hold steady and sure. She holds him and kisses the side of his head and lets him fall apart because that is what good girlfriends do for their boyfriends. That is what good people do. She holds him tight and prays to a God whose existence she’s never even acknowledged for him to get through this in one piece. For him to be OK.
“I don’t,” he starts, stops, and his breath smells like tequila as he breathes. “I don’t know if I can come back from this.”
Meredith pulls back to look him in the eye. “You will. We will,” she says and is surprised at the surety in her voice.
She kisses him, just once and hopes, for now, that it is enough.