Standing on Solid Ground - Part 22

[ariaadagio]

Title: Standing on Solid Ground (22/?)

Fandom: Grey's Anatomy

Rating: M

Summary:  Post Some Kind of Miracle, Mer/Der.

~~~~~

"You're sure you're okay to do this?" Meredith asked once more as she pulled into a parking space in the Seattle Grace lot.  The morning was still very new, and the dim light of the sun, which hung low and sleepy, barely peaking over the horizon line yet, cast long shadows.  Most of the bedraggled people stumbling out of their cars, yawning and stretching and inhaling offerings from Starbucks, were interns and residents, since most attendings had the good sense and finally the capability to make their schedules more reasonable.  Nobody seemed to notice Derek and Meredith in the car, which was promising.

Derek swallowed.  "I'll be fine, Mere.  I can get caught up on paperwork today.  I've got a huge backlog."

"Well, beep me if you need a quickie in the supply closet or something," she muttered as she twisted backward to grab her purse out of the back seat.

"Wait," he said with a frown.  "You mean I could have beeped you for closet quickies all this time?  Where was that memo?"

"I was kidding, Derek."

"Damn."

"Is it true that men think of sex every six seconds?  With you, it seems more like three."

"Ouch, Mere."

She smiled.  "It's okay.  I'm worse, I think."

She kissed him quickly, just a routine peck on the cheek, and he grinned as she leaned back and started futzing around with the contents of her purse, a purse that he knew from experience could hold a vast array of items incalculably disproportionate to its small size.  She was just so...  Relaxed.  And comfortable.  And all his.

He reached over the back of the seat for his own briefcase where his pager, his personal cell phone, and his work cell phone were all clipped in a row across the side flap pocket.  He'd had all of them turned off except for his personal one since Thursday.  Meredith must have done that, because he couldn't... couldn't remember even touching them.  He'd finally followed suit with his personal phone on Sunday, when continuous calls had started to fray his weakened nerves.

It felt weird turning them all back on again.  His personal phone chirped at him after it blinked on and acquired a signal, letting him know he had some new voicemail.  Probably about fifty-seven messages from Addison, if the frequency at which she'd started calling him on Sunday had been any indication.  He swallowed against a thick knot of worry.  He really didn't want to talk to Addison.  Not about...  Well, not about anything.

"Okay," Meredith said.  "My shift ends at, um... really late.  If you can't make it that long, just go home.  I'll find a ride.  I'm serious, Derek.  Don't push it."

"Mere, I'll live," Derek said with a sigh.  "You're really making me wish you'd hurry up and get out of residency, though.  We could make our own schedules a lot nicer then."

"I'm not even out of internship yet, Derek."

"You're close," he said.

"Ugh," she grunted.  "Don't remind me.  Only a few more weeks left and I still have no idea what my specialty will be."

"I know," Derek said.  "But you'll be fine, Meredith.  You'll pick something, and you'll be great at it."

Her eyes twinkled.  "Well, I'm glad we agree."

Derek watched her, watched her smile, deep and full, all the way across her face, crinkling the skin around her eyes.  She'd never been this at ease with picking a specialty before... She'd always agonized.  Agonized, wondering why she couldn't figure out what she wanted.  And now she didn't betray a single worry on her face.

"You're agreeing with me?  This is the part where you usually moan."

"Yes," she said with a smile.  "But I had a discussion with my mother's ashes about it.  I decided that I'm going to be awesome.  Thus no more moaning."

"Really?"

"Yes, really.  She didn't talk back, so I assume she agrees."

"Meredith..."

"Bad joke, I know.  But, really, Derek.  I'm fine.  And last night... It helped."

He smiled.  "I can see that," he replied, a little dumbfounded at how... not upset she was.

She glanced at her watch.  "I have to run.  Bailey is going to kill me.  Are you coming?"

"Yeah, in a minute."  He breathed, staring at the hospital like it was this huge, carnivorous creature lying in wait for him, ready to pounce if he would just step out of the car...  "I just need a minute."

She frowned at him.

"I'm fine, Mere."

"You're sure."

"Yes."

"Absolutely sure?"

"Mere, go to work," he said.

She sighed, a flustered look spreading across her face.  "Fine."

With a faint smile tugging at his lips, he watched her go.  He leaned back in the seat, trying to relax as she disappeared into the building.  People walked in from the parking lot past the car, some chattering like morning people, others barely there and bleary like night people, all oblivious to him sitting there, worrying and tormented in his own little zone of private panic.  He sighed, his fingers working at the leather strap of his briefcase without him even thinking about it.  Squeak, squeak, squeak.  Squeak, squeak, squeak.

After several minutes, he managed to drag himself out of the car.  He locked it, bypassing the lock button on his keychain and actually sticking the key in the lock, anything to slow himself down.  He walked.  Walked with plodding, unhurried steps as he sized up the entrance.  He was in the middle of pondering the dubiously short length of the front walk when someone finally noticed him.

"Derek!" Addison said.

He started, shying to the side as she came up beside him.  "Addison," he said, the word more of a breath than speech.  His heart started to thump, thump, thump, harsh and distracting as Addison frowned at him.  He didn't want to talk about Thursday.  Not with her.  Not with anyone, really, but especially not with her.  And she was the kind of person who would ask.  She would--

"I heard about..." she said, not finishing the sentence.  "Are you...  are you okay?  I tried to call you on Sunday."  She stood there in black stilettos, black-pleated skirt and sharp-looking floral printed blouse, red hair gathered up in a simple ponytail, looking all austere, and fashionable, and worried.  Her thin, manicured fingers curled over the straps of her purse.

He swallowed as the heat of embarrassment began to flush over him.  "I'm fine," he said.

"You don't look fine."

"Okay, I've been better," he amended as he gave her a pleading gaze, a pleading gaze that he hoped would tell her to just leave him be, leave him alone while he walked in and got accustomed to things again.

"Are you going in to meet with Richard?" she asked, shifting her weight from one pointy foot to the other.

"Yes," he said, the single syllable clipped and abrupt.  He closed his eyes for a moment.  He'd wanted to be left alone when he came in, wanted to be ignored so he could stand there by himself and figure everything out again, maybe come to grips with the shivery, cold fear slipping under his skin.

"I'll walk with you."

"I can make it there by myself, Addison," he snapped, unable to stop himself.  He regretted it, being nasty to her, he did, but at that moment, he just couldn't be nice.  He felt like an animal stuck in a claw trap, ready to bite anything that came close.  And Addison was getting painfully close.

She sighed, but didn't offer any sort of retort.  A slip of concern crossed her face.  He clenched his teeth and turned away, unable to watch the gears turn behind her eyes as she assessed him.  He walked through the doors, pushing through them with a heaving gesture.  Anything to get away from her.

But when he made it into the waiting area, his sudden drive to move ceased, he stopped, and his breath caught.  Derek stood still, not really knowing what to do as the lobby enveloped him.  The last time, when he'd been on his way out of the hospital, sneaking out the back entrance like some sort of criminal, he'd barely been able to walk, and everyone had seen it, had probably had a great, long laugh about it on Friday after the gossip had fully circulated into every nook and cranny.  Now, he was back, and he didn't know what that meant.

He closed his eyes, breathing in the scent of sterile, immaculate hospital.  Nobody stopped him, nobody said hello, nobody beset him with questions.  But the longer things went without interruption, the more shaky his nerves got, and he stood there, trembling, not quite sure what to do, move forward, or stay until things evened out a bit.  The longer he stayed, wallowing in indecision, the worse it got, and he didn't know why.

"Nobody's going to jump you, Derek," Addison said as she came up behind him again.

"You just did," he snapped.

She frowned.  "I-"

"I'm sorry Addison.  I'm just..."  He ran a hand through his hair, breathed in and out, in and out, trying to calm his quivering nerves, but it wasn't working at all.

"I know.  I'm sorry, Derek.  I didn't mean to attack you, I was just worried."

"I'll be fine in a minute," he said, though he really wasn't sure if that was a lie or not.  "I'm just a little..."  Shaky, disturbed, tired, worried, panicked, upset?  Adjectives ran through his head in a swirl that made him feel faint.  He swayed, swayed there like one of those stand-up, inflatable punching bags that kids got, the ones that kept bouncing up in a flurry after they got knocked around.

"You'll call me if you need help?" she asked.  She eyed him, her eyes narrowing into slits of concerned worry... worry that made him want to snarl at her again, but instead he nodded, mute as the rush of words escaped him entirely, leaving him blank and feeling just about ready to give into the flight response and bolt back out the door.

He swallowed as she left him standing there in front of the elevator, an island of inactivity in the bustle.  He wasn't planning on calling her if he needed help.  If he needed help, actually, he wasn't sure at all what he was going to do.  Hide in a closet?  Run for cover?  Break something else?  He'd kept assuring Meredith he would be fine, that he would be peachy, even as he'd sat there, a new coil of nerves winding up and twisting inside him with each passing second.  He couldn't call her like some needy child...  And calling his ex-wife... well, that was just... not going to happen.  No matter how friendly things were between them these days.

No, he would do this.  Do this on his own.  And he wouldn't go crazy.  He wouldn't let it all drag him down again.  He wouldn't let this happen again.  He wouldn't...  He breathed with new resolve, and despite the shakes, he slammed his thumb into the up button as though it were a hated enemy.

The trip to Chief Webber's office was somewhat trying.  The closer he managed to get to his destination, the more people recognized him, the more his colleagues started appearing out of the woodwork, the more he received well-wishes, pats on the back.  People beset him from all directions, crowding him, asking him how he was, crushing him with questions that he answered, breathy and flustered.  I'm fine.  I'm fine.  I'm fine.  He'd said it so much by the time he slogged up to the Chief's door, he felt like a scratched up record on a turntable.  The halls were certainly spinning enough for it to be true.

He darted into the Chief's office without knocking, feeling shaky and tired and in desperate need to escape the sea of concern and false smiles and people skittering everywhere.

"Shepherd," the Chief said as Derek rested his forehead on the cool surface of the door.

That was when Derek looked up and registered that he wasn't the only one in the room besides Chief Webber.  Dr. Wyatt sat at the desk across from the Chief.  The redheaded doctor turned at the intrusion, turned and blinked.  "Dr. Shepherd," Dr. Wyatt said, his voice quiet, barely there.

For a moment, Derek thought everything had seized up.  His breaths halted.  He couldn't think.  Couldn't speak.  He stood flat against the door and shook.  And then it all slammed back into him like a wrecking ball.  "Um," he muttered as he pawed blindly for the doorknob.  "I'm sorry, I-"

The Chief frowned at him.  "No, have a seat, Shepherd.  I didn't realize you'd be in this early.  But this is fine."

"Okay," Derek said weakly, unable to stop staring at Dr. Wyatt, who was staring right back at him.  Derek collapsed into the chair nearest to the door.  His briefcase slipped off his arm and onto the floor with a thud.  He sat there, breathing in short gasps that wouldn't lengthen, just wouldn't lengthen into something substantial enough for him to get his equilibrium back.

The Chief stood.  "I have to meet with my secretary quickly.  I'll be back in a few moments."

With that, Chief Webber left them alone in the room, and Derek felt betrayed.  Betrayed, because it was all so engineered.  Engineered and false.  The Chief didn't have anything that needed to be done with the secretary.  He just didn't want to be in the room with the two former combatants during round one of the rematch.  Coward, he thought, though Derek wasn't sure who exactly he was insulting anymore.

Derek collapsed his face into his hands.  He felt the burning stare of Dr. Wyatt on him, hot and flaring across his skin, and yet the other doctor said nothing.  Derek groaned into his palms, panting, trying to will the panic away by sheer force, but it wasn't listening.  He wasn't ready to have this discussion now, not this one, the one where his future would be decided.

"Are you okay?" Dr. Wyatt asked, finally breaking the silence.

"I've been better," Derek said with a wry chuckle.  He took another steadying breath, and the tremors receded enough for him to have a thought that didn't revolve around how disturbed he was.  Why did Dr. Wyatt even care?  He looked up and allowed himself to really absorb the younger doctor's appearance.  Dr. Wyatt's eyes were rimmed with red and bloodshot with a spider's web of veins.  His hair jutted out in unkempt spikes that said he hadn't bothered with a comb or a brush in a while.  Paleness washed his skin with an alabaster, haunted tone.  His face dripped with a raw excess of pain.

"Me, too," Dr. Wyatt said.  His gaze dropped to the floor.  His throat rippled as he swallowed.

Silence stretched between them like a rubber band, each second yanking it farther and farther toward its breaking point.

"I'm sorry," Derek blurted, overwhelmed with the tension crackling in the air between them.  "For-"

Dr. Wyatt let loose a wracked, tortured laugh, interrupting him.  "You don't have to apologize to me."

"But I-"

"Tried to save the woman I killed."

"I shouldn't have gotten physical."

Dr. Wyatt shrugged in a rolling motion that was far from carefree, a rolling motion that said who cared about the details.  Who cared about the what of it all.  It was tortured, stuttering, and full of pain that said he really just didn't care about Derek right then, about what Derek had done, that he had enough of his own problems to deal with.

"Have you ever... Have you ever killed anyone, Dr. Shepherd?" Dr. Wyatt asked, his voice low and warped and breaking.

Derek swallowed against the sudden flow of memories.  Slowly, the nerves went away.  They crept back into their boxes, and he had control of himself again.  His hands moved when he said to move.  They didn't just hang there attached to his wrists, trembling like they were caught on a live wire.  He breathed and looked.  He saw Dr. Wyatt sitting there, really saw him, and saw himself staring back.  It was an odd moment.

"A long time ago," he answered after long pause.

"How did you..."  Dr. Wyatt paused.  His whole body shuddered.  "Cope?"

"I'm the wrong person to be asking about coping," Derek answered.  He'd done much the same bottling that he always did, until Mark had dragged him to a bar and made him talk.  There hadn't been much coping involved.  Just repressing, and then a lot of shouting.  And it had been very ugly.

Dr. Wyatt nodded, looking down at his pants and fiddling with some thread that only he could see.  They sat there in abject, silent misery for less than thirty seconds before Chief Webber walked back in.  He burst through the door as though he'd been standing on the other side with his stethoscope resting against the surface the whole time while he listened to the confessionals.

"Did you two talk?" he asked, though it was one of those questions that just dripped superficiality.  The Chief knew they had talked.  It was written all over his face.

They both nodded, mute.

Webber sat down at his desk and started shuffling with some papers.  "Good.  Now, about this peer-counseling thing..." he muttered.

Derek sighed.  He'd heard Izzie's horror stories through Meredith.  He'd been hoping the peer counseling would be overlooked, cancelled, forgotten about, anything but actually carried through with.  He'd barely made it to this moment, this moment where he sat there in the Chief's office awaiting judgment.  He didn't want to spill his guts to a peer, somebody he knew, somebody who knew him.  He didn't want to, and he didn't think he actually could at this point.  He just hoped Chief Webber had the good sense not to stick him with Addison or Mark.  If that happened...  Well, no job, no matter how much he loved it, was going to keep him there for that.

"Dr. Wyatt, I'd like you to meet with Dr. Heron when you get a chance.  And Shepherd... Shepherd..."

Derek ran his hands shakily through his hair.  Not somebody he knew.  Please not---

"Dr. Bailey."

"What?" Derek said.

The Chief stared at him.  "What, did you not hear?  Dr. Bailey.  Go find her."

"I can't-" he stuttered.

"You can if you want to keep your job, Shepherd.  She usually takes notes in the gallery right around now.  Go find her."

Derek swallowed and stood, swaying as his nerves took him back into their twitchy grip.  Dr. Bailey?  He hadn't even considered...  In a daze, he wandered into the attendings' locker room and changed into his scrubs.  Dr. Bailey?  He couldn't...  Miranda...  He...  That...  This was bad.

It took him several tries to tie the drawstring on his pants, his fingers shook so violently.  He shoved his briefcase into the locker, not even bothering to take anything out of it.  He clipped his beeper and his cell phones onto their holders, though it took forever.  Forever to get them on straight.  He sat on the bench and tried to get his cross-trainers on, tried to tie the laces.  But those were being stubborn too.

He finally had to stop, stop and just breathe.  He shouldn't have come to work today.  He really shouldn't have done it.  The worried chorus built and built in his head until he was sitting there feeling nauseated, and a headache pulsed behind his eyes like a living organism trying to hammer its way out of his skull.  He'd barely been able to talk to Burke yesterday, and yet he'd somehow gotten it in his head that he would be okay to field questions from the entire hospital staff?  From Miranda?  Miranda, who he admired more than anyone else who worked at Seattle Grace?

A curdled moan fell from his lips.  Another locker slammed.  "You okay, Shep?" Dr. Mannheim said as he passed by somewhere behind Derek.

"Fine," Derek whispered.

Derek finally stood and evacuated the locker room, if only to get away from all the people passing through.  It was still a bit early for all the attendings to be getting in to work.  But the trickle had begun, and he didn't want to be sitting there for every co-worker to dissect and analyze.

He wandered down to the gallery.  Most people seemed to be giving him a wide-berth, as if they were at last figuring out that seeing him stumbling around like a nervous, drowning wreck was not their cue to intrude and ask him if he was okay.  Really.  The answer was self-evident, anyway.  Regardless of why, they left him alone, and the relief at not being poked and prodded further helped a little with the worry.

He found Dr. Bailey sitting in the gallery, exactly as Chief Webber had predicted.  He stood, looking through the narrow glass window in the door and sighed.  He'd been hoping he would have an excuse to wander around some more, alone, 'looking' for her.  But there she was, writing notes on a clipboard in the dim light.  No surgeries were happening below yet, and the interns were all most likely still out on pre-rounds and early morning scut assignments.  So nobody else was there.

He inhaled one last cleansing time before he pushed through the door.

"I was wondering if you would be smart enough to take today off," she muttered without looking up as the door swung shut behind him.  "I guess not."

"I'm fine," he said, his voice whispery as he sat down next to her, one empty seat intervening in the space between them.  He folded over and leaned his head into his hands, waiting, just waiting for the yelling and snapping and snarling to start.  He had no doubt that Dr. Bailey would take the opportunity to bring him down a couple pegs.

She glanced up briefly before going back to her notes.  "You look like a six-year-old could knock you over," she said.

Peg one.

He sighed, and with the whole rush of air, he wilted, giving up all pretense of trying to fake okayness.  He should have known it would never work with her.  "It's been a rough morning," he said, groaning into his hands, hands that had started to shake again.

"Did you talk to Dr. Wyatt?"

"Yes."

She stared at him.  Her head started to shake, back and forth, back and forth.  She sighed.  "You are such a fool," she said.

"Do you even know how to counsel?" he snapped, daring to look her in the eye.  "I'm feeling more beset than counseled."

She shrugged, her eyes not leaving his.  It was a bitter staring match that, after about ten tortured seconds, drove him to look at his lap, at his shaking hands.  His whole body felt like a quivery mess, and he sat there praying, praying that he would get through this.  He had to make it through this.

"I read the manual," she said.  "It's a load of bull, in my opinion."

He jerked his gaze up again, unwilling to let her cow him into submission yet.  "Oh, is it?"

"Yes," she said.  "Now, shut up while I counsel you."

"I-"

"Derek, do you want me to give you a bad eval?  Because I will.  I so will."

Peg two.

He looked back down.  He slumped even further in his chair.

"When I had William, the day you had my husband's skull cracked open on your operating table... it was upsetting to be so out of control.  I actually tried to walk out of the hospital while I was in labor."

"Addison didn't tell me that."

"I'm making a point.  Be quiet," she snapped.  "Look, there will always be things in life that you can't control.  You need to figure that out, or you're going to be a train wreck from now to finish."

He sighed and wrung his hands together.  Clammy and cold, they slipped and slid, and his grip seemed more like a touch than the actual act of holding.  He sighed again, trying to stop himself.  Stop himself from freaking out at being under fire.  He never should have come into work today.  He just wasn't ready for an inquisition, especially from Miranda.  He'd thought Addison would be bad.  But... Miranda?

"This is different.  Meredith...  She-" he gasped, on the verge of...  Something.

"She died," Dr. Bailey said with a nod.  "Death is the biggest cosmic I-told-you-so for when we think we have our lives in our own grasp.  As a doctor, as a surgeon, I would have thought you knew that by now."

The nerves all piled up in one giant swell and snapped.  "She let herself die, Miranda.  She let herself go," he blurted.  And then the stirrings of panic started to pulse again, deep in his gut.  He hadn't meant to bring Meredith's private business out onto the table, especially to her boss.  But...

"So, you're pissed off because it was her decision and not God's?  Is that it?" Dr. Bailey asked.

He ran his hands through his hair.  "I'm not mad.  I'm terrified.  Miranda, I can't do this again.  I can't.  Just look at me.  I can't go through this again."

She frowned.  "Well, you need to make up your mind then."

"Make up my mind?"

Dr. Bailey put her notepad down and turned to him.  She drew a deep, deep breath, one that racked her whole tiny frame.  It was as if she were preparing herself for battle, and Derek felt himself instinctively hunkering down under the weight of her stare.

"She was glowing this morning," Dr. Bailey said.  "Whatever you did this weekend, it must have been special.  I've never seen her that happy."

"What does that have to do with-"

Dr. Bailey held her hand up, silencing him.  "She won't be happy when you dump her on her ass again because you can't deal with her quirks."

His jaw dropped.  "You're calling her dying on purpose a quirk?"

"Derek, you have put that girl through every torture imaginable, and she still comes back to you.  You didn't tell her about Dr. Montgomery.  Then, you strung her along for months while you supposedly tried to work things out.  I saw how you made your stupid McDreamy eyes at her the whole time, too.  McDreamy...  McDreamy, my ass.  McSchmuck would fit better.  I knew about that pathetic little let's-be-friends experiment, too.  That was the cruelest thing you ever could have done.  So, don't you think she feels the same way about you?  That she can't do it again?  Open your eyes, fool."

Peg three.  Peg four.  A whole pile of pegs broke and went spilling to the floor with hollow plinks.

"I-" he began.  But that single word was all he could manage.  He swallowed, blank, a blank slate of thoughts and words as what Dr. Bailey had said seeped in.

"Damned right you better be speechless," Dr. Bailey muttered.

Derek watched through the cracks in his fingers as the operating room below began to fill.  His eyes widened as he saw Meredith's unmistakable, lithe little figure strutted out into the room, already in her scrub gear.  Dr. Weller wandered in shortly after her, and soon a patient was being wheeled in through the large double doors.  He glanced at Dr. Bailey, who had a knowing smirk on her face, as if she'd planned this, as if she'd known Meredith was going to come walking in any moment.

"Derek," Dr. Bailey said, yanking him back, kicking and screaming into the discussion. "You need to decide whether you trust her or not, and you need to do it fast, because if you take too long before you let her go again, you're going to break her just like she broke you.  Hell, it's probably already too late.  And you will let her go if you can't get through this.  Because torturing her any more than you already have will mean I have one less intern.  Which is more work for me, and that makes me cranky.  Do you like it when I'm cranky?"

"No," he whispered.

"Good.  I don't either," Dr. Bailey said as she gathered up her clipboard and pen and other things.  "Your assignment is to watch this surgery from start to finish.  And then you can go get your paperwork done, or whatever it was that you planned to do today.  But don't come moping around in my direction until you can tell me what the hell you want with regards to my intern."

And then she was gone.  He was alone in the gallery.  Meredith glanced up and saw him.  Her eyes brightened and she waved quickly before refocusing on her task at hand.  He leaned back in his chair.

He felt sick, sick to his stomach.  He'd never thought about... thought about what he'd put her through.  Not really.  It had always been about him, his torture, his pain over trying to deal with Addison despite the fact that he still loved Meredith and couldn't really get over it no matter how hard he tried to let it go away, tried waiting for it to pass.  He'd cared deeply when Meredith was upset, when Meredith moped, but he hadn't really ever connected it together before, connected together the dots.  Yes, she had her mother and Thatcher to worry about, but really.  Really...  He had been the constant in her life, the every day thing, as she'd gradually slipped from happy to pained and sad and moping over the months.  Not Ellis.  Not Thatcher.

And now he felt sick.

He wiped his hands at his face as his eyes started to water, uncontrollably water.  Meredith adroitly worked below.  She looked like she felt completely at home behind her surgeon's mask as Dr. Weller instructed her through a craniotomy.  She was perfect, and beautiful, and smart, and funny, and...

The door opened.  "Derek?" a smooth voice interrupted.

He blinked.  God, he just didn't have the energy for this right now.  He didn't.  He sighed, too upset already to even care that he was falling apart, and too tired to be embarrassed about it.  "What is it, Mark?" he asked, his voice trapped in a weary crush.

"Dr. Weller is letting Meredith do a craniotomy by herself?  Hey, that's great," Mark said as he sank into the seat next to Derek.

Derek sighed into his hands.  "Yes.  She's a great surgeon."

"She is," Mark agreed.

"And she's..." Derek stared at her, watched as her tiny fingers worked skillfully to save the patient, an older man, probably in his fifties.  The procedure was textbook.  Even Dr. Weller looked appropriately amazed that an intern was doing it so well.  "Perfect."

"I'll take your word on that," Mark said, said in a sincere voice, a sincere voice that said he wasn't going to be touching Meredith with a fifty foot pole.

"I'm such a bastard," Derek said.  He sniffled again.  Coughed with grief.  Exhaustion overwhelmed him again in a bitter wave.  Everything ached, and his roaring headache came back to torture him.

"Um," Mark said.  "Okay."

The door opened, and Derek crumpled.  "Get out," Mark said.  "This is private."

"Sorry," someone muttered.

And they were alone again.

"Are you all right, Derek?" Mark asked, his voice hitching, as if he wasn't really sure what he was supposed to be doing, but he was going to give it a try, regardless.

Derek shook his head.  "No."

"Well, obviously grabbing a beer is out," Mark muttered with rue.  A soft, slithering sound filtered through the air as Mark rubbed his face slowly with his large hands.  From the corner of his eye, Derek saw the glitter of Mark's wristwatch as it swept past in an arc.

Derek sighed, put his face in his hands and just let the grief roll.  Silence thickened into something tangible.  They sat there while he shook and broke down in a vaguely similar repeat of Thursday, albeit less violent.

"What do you do without beer?" Mark asked.

Derek laughed despite himself.  He looked up, blinking away tears only to have them replaced.  "Walk trails.  Bike.  Camp.  Fish.  Read.  Do crossword puzzles."

"Now I get it," Mark said, his voice swelling with a sudden understanding.  His lips quirked into a haughty smirk that was just so typical of Mark that Derek didn't even care that it seemed to be at his expense.  "You've turned hippie."

Derek didn't answer.

"Well," Mark grumbled, "If you want to go fishing sometime, I think I could do that.  I still need to get my bike back before...  Well.  Never mind.  I'll leave you alone."  Mark stood with a heaving sigh and turned to leave.

"You can stay," Derek whispered.

Mark stopped.  "Okay," he said.  He sat back down.  "It'll be all right, man," he said, awkward, his face creased with a strange, atypical confusion.  He turned his attention back to Meredith, the frown still hanging from his face like a badly tacked poster.  It just didn't fit right.  Not on Mark.

The door opened again.  "Go away!" Mark belted.

Derek sighed as the door shut again, drowning out the sound of somebody gasping in surprise on the other side.  "Thanks," he said.

"No problem," Mark said.  He relaxed back into the chair, slouching.

Derek didn't know why, but he found it comforting.