All Along The Watchtower - Part 24.3

[ariaadagio]

Title: All Along The Watchtower
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Pairing: Mer/Der
Rating: M
Summary: S6 continuation. Immediately post Sanctuary / Death and All His Friends.

I am WAY behind on my feedback.  I will get to it asap :)  Thank you so much to everybody who has left comments for the last several parts.  I loved them all!  This will be the last chapterlet I'm able to post before Maine.  I have no idea how long it will be until I can finish the next part, but I'll try to keep plugging away at this :)  I really hope you're enjoying this chapter!  I've had an incredibly lousy week (and it's only Monday!), so if you're holding onto any feedback, I could really use it today -- I'd love to hear from you!  Thanks, as always to my super awesome betas, who work on this story almost as much as I do, sometimes.


All Along The Watchtower - Part 24.3
“Wow,” Cristina said in the silence that followed when Meredith repeated the poem aloud for the group.

Meredith grinned faintly.  She wiped her face.  Her leaky eyes had begun to dry.  She was such a freaking hormonal yo-yo of emotions right now, it was exhausting.

This clue, at least, she knew without provocation, in the space between one heartbeat and the next.  Thump-thump.  The memory slipped in like the tide, unstoppable, indomitable.  He'd started talking about ferryboats while they'd been waiting for the elevator near oncology.

Again with the lame pickup lines.  Nobody could live in Seattle for six weeks and not notice ferryboats.  But she'd thought it cute, anyway, and her heart had sped up.  Except... cute?  No.  Stop.

She'd tried to remain vehemently in the land of no as they'd stepped inside the elevator.  The land that was all about not dating.  No, no, no dating her boss.  I'm your boss's boss, he'd said, as if that would help.  But they'd been alone in the elevator, and he'd smelled so nice, and then she'd thought about when they'd had sex.

Drunk sex.  Even drunk on copious scotch and clumsy, he'd been the best kisser on the planet.  She'd tried to steer her brain away from thoughts like those.  Tried!

So, this line, he'd purred as he'd turned around.  Is it imaginary?  Or do I need to get you a marker?

And then all she'd been able to think about was the way he'd purred his words while they'd been drunk and fooling around in the taxi on the way home from Joe's, and...

If all kisses ever kissed had been graded on a bell curve, people would hate this man, she decided as his lips trailed against her skin, because he would have wrecked it for everybody else.  She might grade him a half-a-point off perfect, but only because he stopped to breathe now and then.

He was a really.  Good.  Kisser.  An undiscovered diamond in the rough.

She was glad she hadn't ignored him, though she wouldn't ever tell him that.

Shadows slipped over them as the taxi cab sliced the darkness.  The leather seats creaked, muffled by the hum of the radio up front.  The scent of liquor and sweat coiled in the hot air between them.  She inhaled.  He smelled musky.  Masculine.  Hers.

Hers?  She stomped out the thought like an unwanted fire.

Tequila did things.  Funny things.  Like make her feel hot.  And bubbly.  And bright.

She blinked at the happy smear beyond her face.

The taxi driver in the front seat stared through the windshield, either oblivious to what was going on in the back seat, or... intentionally ignoring it.  She suspected he might tell them to stop if kissing turned into something... else.  For now, the driver stared, unblinking, at the dark road ahead, and he made no comment.

“You're not going to tell me, are you?” Good Kisser murmured as he pressed against her, his words stretched and fuzzy with inebriation.

She realized she had no idea what he'd asked.  What he thought she wasn't telling him.  “Where we're going?” she guessed.  Her hands slid along his smooth red shirt.  He felt good against her.  Strong.  Solid.  “Didn't you hear me tell the driver the address?”

They'd stayed at the bar for hours, talking about nothing important, and it'd been... nice.  He had a quality about him.  He listened.  With his eyes and the rest of his body as much as with his ears.  When she'd spoken, he'd never looked away.  Never once appeared distracted.  Never interrupted.  No matter how inane the subject matter.  She wasn't used to that kind of devotion from anybody.  Particularly not from a stranger.

He snickered.  “I meant your name.”

“Does it matter?” she said.

“I told you mine.”

And she'd forgotten already.  “Why is it important?”

He shrugged.  “Because it's your name,” he said.

A thought struck her, unbidden in the alcoholic haze.  She frowned.  Pulled away.  Licked her lips.  They tasted like him.  Heady.  She wanted to keep going.  Bad, sexy thoughts wouldn't stop tumbling in her head despite dangerous logic.

“You've never done this before,” she said, catching her breath.  She didn't make the words a question.

“I've had sex,” he replied with a haughty, bewildered laugh.  “Trust me.  I'm very good at sex.”  Almost as though he were trying to convince himself.  It was the oddest thing.

She blinked.  Alarm bells rung in her head.  “I don't care about that,” she said.  Almost snapped.  “I mean this.”  She gestured awkwardly between them.  Her limbs felt loose and not quite cooperative.  “Gone home with a girl you don't know.”

His mouth opened.  Closed.  Good Kisser stared at her, his eyes hooded in the darkness.  “Is that a problem?” he said instead of denying it.

The alarm bells became shrieking sirens.

“You get that this isn't anything, right?” she said.  Almost demanded.  “I don't want...”

The skin around his eyes twitched.  As though the question offended him.  But the upset was gone in a flicker.  So fast, she thought she may have imagined it.

“I get it,” he said, his tone low.  Quiet.

She blinked.  “But...”

The leather seat moaned as he pressed against her, closing the gap once again.  He pressed his lips against hers.  “You want some fun, right?” he said.  God, he had such a sexy voice.

“Mmm,” she moaned.  “Yes.”

“Well, I'm very fun,” he told her.  His hand slipped under her skirt, and she gasped when he touched her.  “And I learn fast.”

She couldn't find words as he cupped her lower body.  She squirmed in the seat, trying not to do something that would clue in the driver and get them kicked to the curb.  Good Kisser smirked.  He looked good in shadow.  His almost-black hair framed his pale face, and, in that moment, he seemed a lot less goofy than he had in the bar.  More darkly handsome.  Suave.  Which was a ludicrous idea.  Tequila did funny things to attractiveness.  Funny things that made it easy to enjoy just about anybody who was willing.  But, still...

Bad, bad, bad idea, said her brain.  The smart part.  But then he touched her again.  Kissed her.  And the drunken, hedonist part took over.  Telling him no just because he didn't have the one-night stand code-of-conduct memorized seemed a bit like turning down a winning lottery ticket because it didn't quite understand the lottery.  Who turned down winning lottery tickets, no matter how clueless the ticket was?  Lotteries could be explained.

“See?” he said, his murmur a soft slide of sound against her skin.  He kissed her.  “Very.”  Kissed her.  “Very.”  Kissed her.  “Fun.”

“Yes,” she moaned, the letter s stretching into a long hiss.

Nobody turned down winning lottery tickets.  That's who.

“Thought so,” he replied happily.

The taxi came to a stop in front of her mother's dark house under the buzzing glare of a street light.  He wasn't as drunk as she was.  He helped her stumble out of the cab.  He even paid the driver without hesitation.  She crinkled her nose at the unexpected, unwanted chivalry, but...  He bumped into her on the front walk.  Almost fell.  Okay, maybe he was a lot drunk, too.

There was definitely drunkenness.

He chuckled, and the rich, lovely sound made her insides tighten like screws.  She imagined him making that sound in bed.  Imagined him naked.

She laughed as unparalleled debauchery unfolded in her mind's eye.  “I have more liquor in the cabinet.”

“Scotch?” he said.

“Sure.”  She took a deep, sloppy breath.  The sidewalk kept moving.  “I think.”

“You think?”

“It's not really my liquor cabinet.”

He was definitely drunk.  Because he didn't even ask what that meant.  She struggled to put the key into the lock, sealing her fate, and he followed her inside without question.

She swallowed before that memory took her to places too sexy for scavenger hunts when one was surrounded by friends.  She'd broken so many rules.  She never should have taken him home that night, but she had, and it'd been the start.  The beginning of the end of her single life.

We'll talk later? he'd called after her as she'd fled from the oncology elevator.

Yes, damn it, she'd thought.  Because she'd known right then she was done for and only buying time.

Even after everything that had happened in the last few months.  Even after Addison, and Rose, and every other stupid thing.  Derek Shepherd was a mistake she was glad she'd made.  There was chemistry not even she could explain, but it worked.

They worked.

She loved him.

“This is the elevator,” Meredith said as she folded the card, slipped it back into the envelope, and put it into her breast pocket with the first card, whose envelope she'd mangled.

Cristina's incredulous expression was almost comical.  “If I could have loaned you a marker?”

“I tried to draw a line,” Meredith explained.  “Him, boss.  Me, not boss.  No kissing across the line.”

Cristina frowned.  “A literal line.”

“Yes,” Meredith nodded.  She couldn't stop the grin that overwhelmed her.  “He offered me a marker.”

“To draw your line.”

“Yep.”

“This is reaching new levels of corn,” Cristina said.  “Even for him.”

Meredith shrugged.  “It's not really a new level.”

“Really, really not new,” Mark added, his tone wry.

Cristina scowled.  “Why did you marry him again?”

“I think it's sweet,” Lexie said.

Alex snorted.  “You would.”

Lexie glared.  “You should take notes.”

“With the marker?” Alex said with a smirk.

Lexie jabbed Alex in the shoulder.  He rubbed his white lab coat absently as they moved down the hall, toward the oncology elevator, which was in another wing of the hospital.  The walk was a relatively long one.  Meredith couldn't help but notice looks from people as she walked.  Lots of looks.  Lots of smiles.  Why?  The scrutiny was a bit unnerving, to say the least.

When they reached the elevator, Meredith glanced around the door frame and at the button panel that would summon the car.  Nothing.  Disappointment pinged.

“Maybe it's inside,” Mark said.

Cristina nodded.  “Or on another floor.”

Alex stepped forward and jabbed the elevator button with his index finger.  They waited.  When the doors pulled apart, Nurse Debbie, the gossip kingpin of the entire hospital stood there, poring over a chart.  She'd tucked her short, brown hair behind her ears and seemed lost in thought.  She looked up, and for a moment, her expression remained blank.  Then she must have registered who she was looking at, because her gaze shifted to Meredith, the tiny center of the human cluster outside the elevator doors, and Debbie's lips curled into a secretive, sly smile.  She didn't say a word, only nodded, but her eyes gleamed as the crowd of them split apart to let her through.

She disappeared around the corner, shoes squeaking on the pristine floor tiles, only to reappear within moments, as if she'd changed her mind.  “I have $50 down on you finding Dr. Shepherd in two hours or less,” she said.  “Don't disappoint me.”

“Does the whole freaking hospital know about this game thing?” Meredith said, but Nurse Debbie only shrugged, grinned, and walked away.  Meredith turned to Mark with an interrogating glare.  “Did Derek recruit the entire hospital to make this run smoothly?”  Not that she minded.  Not really.  Not...

“Wait,” Meredith said as she processed Nurse Debbie's words.  “Finding Derek?  Is Derek hiding somewhere?”

“I wouldn't exactly call it hiding,” Mark said in that irritating, I-know-something tone of his.

“Is that what this is?” Meredith said.  “A bad poetry scavenger hunt to find Derek?”

Cristina shook her head.  “He wouldn't do something so egotistical,” she said in perfect deadpan.

“Shut up,” Meredith said.  She glared at Mark.  “Well?”

Mark only gave her a Gallic shrug.  “I'm just the messenger,” he said.  “Don't shoot me.”

Lexie pointed at the back wall of the elevator.  “Maybe, he didn't get the whole hospital involved.”  The doors trundled shut, but she leaped forward to block them from closing.  They split apart once more.  “There are clues all over the place.  I'm sure people have seen the envelopes.  This is so romantic!”

“Oh, look, our broken record is skipping,” Cristina said, rolling her eyes.

Lexie frowned.

Meredith marched across the elevator's metal threshold.  She grabbed the envelope hanging on the back wall from a single strip of surgical tape and pulled it down.  She opened the envelope gently and pulled out ferryboat card number three.

Another poem.

She burst into a single, paralyzing explosion of laughter before she could read it aloud to the group.  Before she could think about reading it aloud to the group.  Everybody piled into the elevator.  Nobody pressed a button.  The doors slid shut, but the elevator car didn't go anywhere.

It's not the chase, Derek had said.

“What's it say?” Alex said.

Meredith opened her mouth, but nothing came out.  “I...”  She glanced at the letter.  “He...”  Words didn't want to form.  She tried again, only to let loose a light chuff of air that wasn't really a syllable and wasn't really a laugh, more a snort of disbelief.  Only somebody like Derek could come up with a rhyme like this.  Somebody horny and five.  She guessed this would be the laughter at his expense part of the equation he'd laid out for her in the first note.

She smiled.  Really smiled.  Derek being corny and romantic and horny and five...  Something burbled inside at the thought.  Something nice.  Something warm.  The picture of him that way stretched, a perfect, soothing moment where nothing bad intruded.

She loved, and life, in that moment, was unadulterated simplicity.  The last few months, she hadn't had flash pan thoughts like that as much.  She relished the one she had, now.  Even though it meant grinning like a freaking fool.

This was one of the wonderful bits of being in love.  Smiling just because she'd thought of him happy.    Happiness, she decided, was the best kind of infectious disease.

Cristina grabbed the note out of Meredith's hands.  Her eyes darted back and forth as she read the card.  “Oh, for crap's sake.  Seriously?  He said that?  With words?”

“Said what!” Lexie said.

Lexie pushed between Cristina and Alex to see, but didn't have the chance before Mark, of all people, forced his way into the people cluster and grabbed the note.  Lexie clawed at it, but he was way too strong for her, and way too tall.  He had the note in moments, held high above her head.  His face dissolved into a comical expression as he read the card.  Lexie tried to grab it once more, but he smirked and kept it out of her reach as though he were playing keep away.

Mark cleared his throat as Lexie backed him into the corner of the elevator.  She gave up.  He raised a fist as though he were reciting Shakespeare or something, maybe Hamlet's ode to his father's skull.  “Your fists, I described as tiny, ineffectual,” he said, barely able to keep the laughter out of his deep tone.  “And I said that this thing we have is more than just sexual.”  His face turned bright red, and he shook his head.  “Oh, man.  That's...”

“The intern locker room,” Meredith said.  She turned to Alex.  “After I slammed you into the lockers.”

Alex looked at her blankly for a moment, which almost made her want to laugh all over again.  Alex had clearly had his share of locker slams for bad behavior.  As much as she loved him, that didn't surprise her.  At all.

“Oh, yeah,” he said eventually.  “I remember that.”  He rubbed his shoulder with a small frown.  “That hurt.”

Meredith blinked.  “Really?”

Alex's ponderous expression shifted into a haughty smirk.  “No,” he said.  “But your fists didn't seem that ineffectual at the time.”

“Definitely tiny, though,” Mark interjected.  He handed Meredith the card.

“How would you know?” Meredith said.  “You weren't there.”

He shrugged.  “Watched you in surgery plenty of times.”

Meredith put the card into her pocket with the other two.  She squeezed her fist once, staring at her slender knuckles and fingers.  The nail on her index finger had broken, and her skin was dry from so much repeated abuse via soap, from scrubbing in for surgeries.

I'm still not going out with you, she'd said.  For all the good that had done.

Derek had smirked at her in return, his expression infuriatingly knowing.  You say that, now.

The locker room was on the next floor.  Another warm smile crossed her face as she slid forward and pressed the button for the second floor.  This was sort of fun.  Not that she'd ever admit it aloud.

The elevator lifted them up, and they stepped out into the hallway as a group.  This late on a Sunday evening, the hallways had a skeletal crew wandering through them.  A few nurses.  Custodial staff.  The doctors unlucky enough to be on call.  Overall, they didn't pass many people.  The intern locker room was empty and silent, and they found the next envelope taped with surgical tape to the locker where she'd shoved Alex years ago.  She pulled the note off the locker and read the next poem to herself.

The words Derek had written were an unexpected sucker punch.

Pick me, choose me,
A moment I'll always regret,
Because I knew in my heart,
Though not in my head,
That I loved you then,
And I should have said yes.

She blinked, and she read it again.  Her heart squeezed, and she swallowed.

Pick me, she'd begged.

Choose me.

Love me.

She'd begged.

The begging had sucked to begin with, but the lack of reciprocation he'd demonstrated when she'd confessed that she loved him...  That had been the worst sort of humiliation.  She'd loved him in an end-of-the-road sort of way, and she'd told him, and all he'd done was stare at her.  She'd had to flee.  And then he'd picked Addison and brushed Meredith aside like she'd meant nothing.  In the space of a single night, the act of breathing had become a labor that had felt like knives had been slipping underneath her ribs.

“Well?” Alex said.

Meredith blinked.  The sound of the paper envelope crinkling skipped off the walls, echoing in the quiet.  She realized the note was now in Cristina's lithe hands.  She couldn't even remember handing it to her.  Couldn't remember Cristina grabbing it.  Cristina rolled her eyes as she read.

“Shut up,” Meredith snapped before Cristina could say a word.  “I really loved him.  It makes you do stupid, stupid things.  I acknowledge the stupidness.”

“Love, right?” Lexie said, her tone gentle.  “Not loved?”

“Present tense,” Meredith said.  She sighed.  “Yes.”  A lump formed in her throat as her mind's eye moved her body into the scrub room.  He stood in front of her, not speaking.  “In a big, share the last piece of cheesecake, pretend to like his taste in music, hold a radio over my head way.”

“Wait, you said that, too?” Cristina said as she looked up from the card.  Alex and Lexie moved closer to read over her shoulders.  “About the cheesecake and the radio?  You never told me that.”

“He picked her, even after I said it,” Meredith said.  She wiped her eyes.  The emotional yo-yo seemed to have decided to swing back toward catastrophic, stupid crying.  “I was practically begging.  It was one of the most humiliating experiences of my life.”

Mark cleared his throat awkwardly and looked at the floor.

“Why's he bringing this up, now?” Lexie said, frowning.  “This isn't romantic.”

“I knew he thought he'd picked wrong,” Meredith said.  Her voice warbled, and she wanted to strangle herself for the amount of pathetic emotionalism she was showing tonight.

She and Derek didn't talk about the Addison stuff very often.  He'd apologized for choosing wrong.  And for lying by omission.  And for any number of other things.  He'd apologized profusely.  But he'd never once said he'd wanted to pick her the first time around.  Only that he'd regretted not picking her in hindsight.  It was a subtle distinction that she'd danced around for years.  She knew without any doubts that he loved her, now.  But, in his own words, she'd known he'd been a little late.

“So, why rub in the moment?” Lexie said.  “Isn't this game supposed to be fun?”

“He's not rubbing it in,” Meredith said, her voice soft as she worked out the subtle math.  She sounded wrecked.  “You don't get it.”

She'd always preferred to allow that horrible moment to sit in the denial section of her brain.  Bringing the memory back to the active-consideration section made her hurt like the wound had gone septic in the time she'd left it sitting alone in the corner.  Except...  Now, she had antibiotics.

He'd given her that in the space of six silly lines that only sort of rhymed.

“I'm confused,” said Alex.

Lexie stomped her foot.  “He's wrecking this!  I thought it wasn't shark-y!”  Her words ricocheted off the barren walls, echoing shrilly once before bouncing into silence.

“I get it,” Mark said in the tense lull that followed.

Lexie looked at him incredulously.  “You do?”

Mark shrugged.  “He'll break his own back to follow the rules,” he said.  “He always has.”

“What does this have to do with the rules?” Lexie demanded.

Mark sighed.  “Addison showed up and waved a wedding ring and divorce papers at him.”

“He wanted to pick me,” Meredith said.  It was so weird to say.  So weird to...  She thought back to that moment.  The pick me, choose me one.  Her entire memory realigned.  Her lip quivered as she watched her past.  I love you, she'd said.  She'd surprised the hell out of him, cornered him in a scrub room.  He'd already been a conflicted mess.  Her timing couldn't have been worse.  His gaze had said, oh, god, me, too, not, gack, I'm in sticky wickets! like she'd thought before.  He hadn't been able to verbalize the fact that he'd felt love, but he'd felt it.  I know I'm a little late in telling you that, he'd said many torturous months later.  Late telling her.  Not late feeling it.  “It wasn't hindsight that changed his mind about it,” she said.

The old wound stopped burning.

Six silly lines.

Lexie frowned.  “Still...”

“He's never told me he wanted to pick me,” Meredith said.  “We don't really talk about it.”

“I'm sorry,” Derek said.  He stared across the small, round table at her, absently running his index finger around the lip of his empty scotch glass.  His only glass.  He'd never gotten a refill.  She'd lost count of how many shots she'd gone through.  Pool balls cracked in the background over the bustling murmur of inebriated voices.  His gaze was dark and deep in the dim light.

She blinked, trying to remember the conversation track that had gotten them here.  Tequila made her brain fuzzy like a peach.  “Sorry for what?” she said.

“Not signing the papers,” he said.  “I'm sorry, Meredith.”

She clenched her fingers.  “I thought we were starting fresh,” she said.

“We are, I just...  I'm sorry.  I chose wrong.”

“You said that before.  About choosing wrong.”

“I know, I...”  He blinked.  “I just wanted to...”  A haunted look crossed his face, but he buried it with a soft smile.  “I feel like I'm waking up after a long bout of flu.”

“Being with me is like having the flu?” she said, incredulous.

He shook his head vehemently.  “No.  Being without you.  I just...  I'm so tired, Mere.  This last year has...  I'm glad you're here.”

“Oh.”

“I'm glad I'm here,” he added.  She barely heard him over the pulse of life at the bar.

She kicked back her newest shot of tequila.  Number five-hundred fifty-two.  Maybe.  She might be exaggerating.  The room swam.  She raised her hand, signaling for another shot.  The passing waitress nodded.

“I don't think we should have sex,” Meredith said as she returned to looking at him.

He blinked, looking befuddled.  But, to his credit, he didn't protest.  “Um...”  He frowned.  “Okay.”

“If we're starting fresh, we should do it like normal people.”

He leaned forward in his chair.  The space between them closed to inches.  “And how do normal people do it?”  He made the words “do it” sound incredibly dirty.  He always did that.  Made her think bad, naughty, hedonist thoughts.  She licked her lips and body-slammed the sexy thought to the ground in her head.

“They have dates and get to know each other first,” she said.  “Don't they?”

“But we've dated already,” he said.

“That was before.  And I still don't know you like you said I should.  We only started over like an hour ago.  An hour of discussion is not knowing you.”

He grinned.  “You might want to stop drinking, then.”

“I can know you when I'm drunk!” she insisted.

“Yes,” he said.  He leaned closer, and inches became less.  He picked up her hand.  Drew it to his lips.  Kissed it.  His lips felt soft against her skin.  “But we have a bad track record with sex and alcohol.”

“Oh,” she said.  She pulled her hand away.  “Good point.”

He tilted his head.  Stared at her, unblinking.  Forever.  His whole expression softened with adoration.  “I love you,” he said.  He smiled over the words as though the mere act of saying them made him giddy.  Thrilled.  As though, now that he'd said them once, the floodgates had opened, and the newness hadn't yet worn off, resulting in countless repetition.

She bit her lip.  A icy flicker of fear carved a space between her ribs like a sword.  “That's definitely not starting fresh.”

“I know,” he said, relaxed.  Happy.  “But I do.”

The cold got colder.  “You're breaking the rules.”

“We have rules already?  We've been a couple for fifty-three minutes.”

She ignored him as she wavered in her chair.  The waitress approached with a full shot glass, as requested, and set it down in front of Meredith on the table.  Meredith stared at it, trying to ignore how the room had gotten all spinny and fun, and how freaking delectable he looked, and failing dismally.  Derek was right.  This crap would totally make her have sex.  She picked up the glass and pushed it across the table.  Toward Derek.

He smirked.  “What, you want me drunk, too?  I figured I was the designated driver.”

“In addition to making me have sex, tequila's been known for its truth-serum properties,” she explained.  “And I'm interrogating you.”

“But I hate tequila,” he said.

She narrowed her eyes.  “But I'm interrogating you.”

He clutched his empty scotch glass.  “Meredith,” he said, the word soft, and just the sound of it made her relax more than the alcohol gushing through her bloodstream had.

She sighed noisily.  “I like it when you say that.”  Which was making it hard to think.  Or be smart.

He raised his eyebrows.  “Meredith?”

She pointed loosely at the shot glass.  “You don't have any more secret wives, do you?”

The mirth bled from his expression.

“I'm interrogating you,” she repeated.  She blinked.  Everything felt cold inside, which was wrong.  Alcohol should make her feel hot.  “I'm not having sex with you until you tell me everything.  I can't...”  She swallowed.  “Don't you dare tell me what I've earned and what I haven't, this time.  If you really mean it when you say you're sorry.”

He stared at her for a long, interminable moment, his expression unreadable.  Or, maybe, readable but too subtle for her to figure out while her head was swimming and her thoughts were slow and plodding.

“And if you're not sorry,” she said, babbling, unable to stop herself.  Her eyes watered.  “If you're not sorry, I want you to leave, now.  And we won't start.  Fresh or otherwise.  I can't do it again.  You broke me, you know.  I'm a broke... broke.... broken.”  The words tangled on her tongue.

He looked appalled, or...  Like she'd taken her tiny, ineffectual fist, equipped herself with a shiny set of brass knuckles, and slammed him in the gut with it.  He didn't say a word.  For a long moment, she couldn't breathe.  And then her stomach started twisting.  He was waffling, she decided.  God, she didn't want to do this again.  Any of it.  The waffling or the secret wife or anything.  And how did he always make her feel like the villain whenever he'd done something horrible?  It was like his entire defense relied on making the aggressor feel like she'd kicked a puppy.  She swallowed.

“I'm kinda drunk,” she confessed.

He nodded.  “You are,” he said.  He looked away from her, down at the shot glass with her tequila, a regretful expression on his face.  “Truth serum,” he said, resigned.

Then he wrapped his fingers around the glass.  His chair squawked as he pulled closer to her, until they weren't across from each other anymore, and he didn't have to lean to be close to her.  They were next to each other.  Inside each other's space.  Their arms touched.  He slammed back the contents of the glass in one gulp and gestured to the waitress for another as he finished his grimace.

When he returned his gaze to her, she felt naked.  Not lusty naked, just...  He peeled away all her layers.  “I really meant it, Meredith,” he said.  “I chose wrong, and I love you, and I'm sorry.”

She swallowed against the lump in her throat.  Fear burbled.  She'd bathed herself in ice.  “Let's not talk about that anymore, then.”

“Okay,” he said softly.  “What do you want to talk about?”

“Go back to the part about Columbia,” she said.  That was safer.

“What about it?”

“You got your medical degree there.  And your bachelor's,” she said.  “In biochemistry.”

He nodded.

“Then why do you wear Bowdoin shirts so often?” she asked.

He shrugged.  “I went there my Freshman year.  I transferred out after.”

“Why?”

His expression shifted briefly to something distant.  “To be closer to home,” he said.

She was drunk.  She missed the relevance of his odd tone of voice.  She swallowed.  “I went to Dartmouth.”

His smile returned.  “I guessed that.”

“Really?”

“Your shirt.  Remember?”

“Oh,” she said.  Stupid alcohol.  “Right.”

The waitress arrived with another full shot glass.  He took the glass and tipped it back immediately.  He grimaced and blinked, eyes watering as he set the empty glass down on the table next to the others as though it were a statement.  He gestured at the waitress for another.  When he looked at Meredith, his stare had that thousand-mile quality that told her he and sobriety were already having a minor tiff.

“What else do you want to know?” he said.

“I'd still say this failed on the scale of one to romance,” Alex said.

“Still, it's... nice to know.  It's just...” Meredith said, her voice trailing away.  The whole humiliating lot of it didn't feel nearly so humiliating, now, knowing he'd reciprocated.  “It's nice to know.”

Her fingers clenched.  She had no idea what had spurred this.  Any of this.

He'd lobbed so many empty apologies at her the last few months that she'd gotten used to hating the words, “I'm sorry.”  He said them over and over and over again, and he clearly hated what he did and did feel sorry about it, but then he kept repeating the same behavior over and over.  Snapping at her when his temper got loose from his precarious hold on it.  Taking the blame for things that weren't his fault.  Acting moody and dour and hard to live with.  This poem, those six, cute-ish lines, felt more real than anything he'd uttered recently, even without a literal apology contained within them.  These words meant more.  They redefined an entire moment in her life, a moment she'd despised.

How had he even known that moment needed to be fixed in her head?

Knowing that would require an enormous amount of personal reflection, particularly so many years after the fact.  Wouldn't it?  Except sick Derek didn't reflect.  He wallowed.  He wallowed and moped and hid away from everything bad while he played his victim cards left and right.

I don't tell you enough how much you mean to me, he'd said, a little more than a week ago.

Was this more of that?

I'm a freak, she'd said.

I'm sorry I ever helped you think that.

Maybe, that apology hadn't been empty, either.  And this game was all about Derek driving home a point.  The point that he loved her and found her desirable.

He'd planned this out meticulously.  He'd dragged the whole hospital into it.  He clearly wanted her to get the message.  So, he repeated it.  Over and over again as he moved through their life together from ORs, to elevators, to locker rooms, to scrub rooms, and who knew where else?

Her hands shook as she brushed her face with her palms.  Everybody was staring at her, doubtful, horrified expressions plastered on their faces, like they expected her to panic, or sob.  Or barf.  Or all of the above.

“Shut up,” Meredith said when she realized they were still dwelling on her horrible begging.  “Just shut up.”

“We didn't say anything,” Cristina said.

“You're thinking it,” Meredith said, blinking with wet eyes.  She grabbed the card from Cristina, jerking it out of Cristina's grip, not that Meredith had to try very hard, but the violence of the maneuver felt good.  She stuffed the card with the others in her breast pocket.  “It was humiliating, and I know I was pathetic, and shut up.  You don't get it.  None of you do.”

Tonight is about you, he'd said in the first letter.

“You really want to know what I'm thinking?” Cristina said.

Meredith rubbed her brow tiredly.  “Not really.”

Cristina ignored her.  “At least you got through the crap,” she said.

Meredith let loose an acerbic chuckle.  “He got shot.  He has PTSD.  He's an addict.  You don't call what's going on right now crap?”

“It's external crap,” Cristina said.

Meredith wiped her face.  “I really do love him.”

Cristina nodded.  “And he loves you,” she said.  “And there's no more crap.  Internally.”

“It sounds like you're describing an enema,” Alex said with a smirk.

Meredith ignored him.  “I thought you were mad at him,” she said to Cristina.

“For making you say whiny drivel with no self-respect?” Cristina said.  She shrugged.  “Yes.”

“He didn't make me say it,” Meredith countered.  “He never made me do or say anything.”

Cristina only shrugged again.

“Owen hurt you,” Meredith said.  “You didn't have a problem forgiving that.”

“I didn't say anything about forgiveness,” Cristina said.

Hope burgeoned.  “Or lack thereof?”

“He's a bit like a fungus,” Cristina admitted as though it pained her to say the words.

Meredith raised her eyebrows.  “Owen?”

“Derek,” Cristina said.

“So, instead of an enema, he's mold,” Alex interjected.

Cristina shifted from foot to foot, her expression irritated, though, Meredith couldn't tell the direction of the irritation.  At Alex, for his comments, or at Meredith, for making Cristina talk... mushy.  “Look,” Cristina said.  Or snapped.  Sort of.  “He grows on you.  Okay?  That's all.”  She made a face like she'd sniffed something horrible.

Meredith stared at Cristina for a long stretch of moments.  There was no way this couldn't all be connected.  Derek's sudden shift in behavior.  Cristina's sudden... support.  Not blinding support, but, with Cristina, just having her liken Derek to mold was pretty freaking supportive.

“Really, what did you do to him last weekend?” Meredith said.

“I didn't do anything to him.”

“You did something,” Meredith countered.  “Something that spurred this whole sincere mea culpa, flowers-and-hearts game thing.”

“I said it would be a cone of silence,” Cristina replied.

“Oh,” Meredith said.  She sighed, glum.  She couldn't counter that.  She'd withheld novels of information from Cristina the last few months on Derek's behalf.  Though, that stung, a little.  Knowing there was something Derek didn't feel like he could tell her, even after everything.  “That's fair, I guess.”

Cristina raised her eyebrows.  “With them, Mere.”  She glanced pointedly from Lexie to Alex to Mark, reminding Meredith about their rapt audience.

“Oh,” Meredith said, swallowing.  “Later?”

Cristina nodded slightly.  “If he doesn't tell you tonight.”  Her lip twitched as though she were fighting not to snicker.  “He seems to be in a spilling mood.”

“I guess we're not part of the dark-and-twisty club,” Lexie said.

Cristina glared at her.  “Look, he needed a bit of a push.”

“And you pushed him,” Meredith said.

The last time she'd really pushed him, he'd had a panic attack on the catwalk, and he'd stoned himself on his Percocet, and she'd had to leave work early to drive him home.  He'd barely been coherent.

Stupid.  She'd been stupid to let that slide.  She'd chalked the fact that he'd taken so many pills up to him hurting himself when he'd fallen by the railing.

She'd had to help him get into the car, and even through the numbing haze of drugs in his body, she'd watched an expression of pain slice across his face.  Breakthrough pain.  Bad pain.  He'd paled to the color of flour and cried out.  Just from trying to get into the car.  She'd pushed him to go to the hospital before he was ready, and that had been the result.  Him stoned and still in horrible pain.

She clenched her fists.  She had to stop doing that.  Had to stop pulling up moments where she could have intervened sooner, or at least not contributed to the problem, if she'd only been less stupid.

“That could have been a disaster,” Meredith said.  “Pushing him.”

“It wasn't,” Cristina said simply.

“And now he's playing romantic scavenger hunt with extremely bad poetry,” Meredith said.

Cristina nodded.  “He is.”

“Did you know anything about this?” Meredith said.

Cristina shook her head.  “Really didn't.”

Lexie grinned.  Giggled.  “Oh, my god,” she said.  “You like him.”

Cristina bristled.  “I do not.”

“He is sweet,” Lexie said.

“And hypocritical,” Cristina said.

“And considerate,” Lexie countered.

“And egotistical,” Cristina replied.

“And gregarious,” Lexie said.

“And vengeful!” Cristina said.

“Well, so are you!” Lexie said, snickering.

“I'm...”  Cristina blinked.  Swallowed.  “Not hypocritical.”

Alex laughed.

“Points for Little Grey,” Mark observed.

Meredith shook her head.  “Could we possibly move on?  Please?”  She left the locker room, forcing them to follow her request or get left behind.

“To where?” Lexie said.

“The scrub room,” Meredith said.

Cristina scowled.  “You said the cheesecake stuff in the scrub room?”

Meredith sighed as they churned through the empty hallways.  “Just shut up.  All of you.  Derek is a bouquet of stupid flaws, and he screws up a lot.  I get it.  I got it a long time ago.  That doesn't mean I want him any less.  Sometimes, you just love.  Okay?  You'd shut up if you understood it.”

They crawled out of the idling taxi cab in front of her mother's house, into the nippy, wet air.  The taxi drove away after Derek sloppily tossed a fifty dollar bill at the driver.  That was like a 200% tip, but Derek didn't seem to care or notice that the driver had pocketed the bill without offering change.

“This situation seems... fam... familiar, somehow,” Derek slurred, his tone mirthful.

Meredith stumbled, but he caught her.  She pressed against his hard body.  She felt hot with alcohol, but freezing with icky fear.  And dizzy.  And his soft, gray fleecy coat felt so nice against her cheek.  He smelled nice, and she wanted...

She leaned on her tiptoes and kissed him in the flickering light.  The streetlamp overhead buzzed.  A deep, lilting groan coat in his throat as she explored him.  The peat taste of his scotch and the remnant burn of tequila wafted in her mouth.  No, she told herself.  This was bad, and she was very, very drunk.

He was the one who pushed her away.  “I thought you said no se... sex.”

“Right,” she said.  “I knew that.  Cuz I'm broken, and we're starting fresh.  Or... whatever.”

“Hmm,” he agreed.

They'd talked at Joe's for three hours, and she'd drunk more shots than she could count.  She wasn't sure she'd spent the time asking the right questions.  Wasn't sure about anything.  She'd started on the tequila again when she grilled him about Addison.  She'd needed it like anesthetic to hear why and how and where and when everything had fallen apart for them.  She'd figured having a forensic breakdown of the process, both before and after his move to Seattle, might be handy in the future, might prevent further secrets from popping out of the woodwork.  He'd talked about his former marriage baldly, and she'd listened as he'd described a loving couple dissolve over the years into something loveless, dejected, and hurting.

They zigged and zagged toward the front door.  She searched for her keys.  If she hadn't been drunk to the point of muscle retardation, she thought her hands might be shaking.  Why had she taken him home again?  He hadn't held the taxi for himself, she realized.  Only bad things could come from this.  She wasn't ready to let him in again.  Not yet.

When she found her keys, she opened the door, and they stepped inside the quiet house.  George and Izzie were either sleeping or out or...  She lost her train of thought.

“May I stay?” Derek said.

“Why?” she said, the word a harsh knife.  Sudden fear made her shiver.

“I know it's not fresh,” he said.  He wavered on his feet.  “But I love... love you, and I'm ti...”  He swallowed, as though the word had caught on his tongue.  “Tired, and I just want to be here tonight.  No sss... sex.  Promise.”

He gave her a stupid, puppy dog look that made it hard to say no, but she couldn't say yes, either, not when he waved scary words like that at her.

She swallowed.

He stared at her for a long moment.  He seemed spacey.  And having trouble connecting glacially moving thoughts.  He shook his head.  “Never mind.  I'll call... another ca... cab.”

Her body stiffened as the thought of him leaving seemed almost as bad as him staying.  “Why never mind?” she demanded.

“Because I...”  He looked around at her dark foyer as though it were new and strange to him.  Took a stumbling step forward.  Placed a hand against the wall to steady himself.  “Well, do you want me here?”

“Yes,” she said.  That was an unloaded question she could answer.  She wanted him.  She just couldn't get past that point in the equation to anything of substance, yet.  Wanting him didn't mean sex or relationships or serious, scary stuff.

He stilled.  “Okay.”

“No sex.”

He nodded.  “No sex.”

She glanced down the hallway, and then back to him.  “Stairs are complicat... cate... cated.”

“Hmm,” he said with another loose nod.  “They are.”

She shucked off her coat and shoes and purse in the dark foyer and let them all fall to the ground in a heap by the welcome mat.  He frowned at the messy pile.  He looked like he wanted to pick up the coat and hang it in the closet.  She snorted and left him behind to figure out how to do that while he was too drunk to walk straight, let alone bend down without falling over.  She shuffled into the living room and collapsed onto the couch.  She leaned her head backward to stare blankly at the ceiling.

What the hell was she doing, having him stay?

Minutes or hours later, he found her.  He sank onto the cushions beside her.  “This defin... definitely seems familiar.”

She flopped her head to the right to stare at him.

He gave her a hopeful grin.  “At least there's no toilet... toilet brush,” he said, stumbling on the words.  “On your man.  Mantle.”

She laughed.  She couldn't help it.  “What are you talking about?”

“When you first moved in,” he said.  He pointed sloppily at the mantle.  “It was sit... sitting right there.”

She gazed at the fireplace and the mantle over top, trying to remember anything beyond the sight of him buttoning up his red shirt.  She couldn't picture the mantle behind him, but she remembered him calling the house odd.  A toilet brush on the mantle would most certainly be... odd.  She smiled stupidly as she tried to picture it.  Tried to picture him trying to ignore it.

“Seriously?  A toilet brush?” she said.

He shook his head.  “Why would I lie about a toilet... brush?”

Why would I lie?  The words hit her like a bath of ice water, unexpected, freezing.  “You've lied before,” she said, the words bald and cold and hurting, freshly ejected from a still open wound.

For a moment, he stared at her like she'd sucker-punched him again, and she felt even worse.  She felt worse, damn it, for telling him he lied.  But he was.  He was a lying liar who lied, and she...  He'd broken her.  Her trust.  Her idea of true love.  Everything.  It was all broke, and coming back from that would take a while.

“You still don't... believe me?” he said, slivers of hurt cutting his gaze.

“I do,” she said.  “I mean I don't.  I mean...”  She wiped her face sloppily.  Her eyes watered.  She couldn't muster much more than cracking syllables as she added, near tears, “I really, really want to, but...”

You broke me.  She left those words unspoken.  She blinked in the silence, heady exhaustion pulling at her.  He didn't retort.  About the lying.  Didn't offer hollow excuses.

“Thank you for letting me... st... stay,” was all he said in a deep, low murmur that made it hard not to relax.  Hard to remember why she was so twisted up inside.

She watched him through her eyelashes.  He'd taken off the gray fleece thing, leaving only the open blue button-down and the black t-shirt underneath.  His two best colors.  He did seem pale.  Tired.  He stared back at her, his expression somewhat glassy.  Anesthetized by alcohol, her heart didn't patter at his closeness, but something else coiled tightly in the pit of her stomach.  Need.  Need for...

“No sex,” she said again.

He nodded.  “I promise.”

She awkwardly scooted closer, across the sofa cushions.  He watched her, quiet, unblinking, his stare dusky with alcoholic haze.  Their hips touched.  He didn't move, as if he didn't want to spook her.  He felt warm against her.  Warm and solid and soft all at once.  Safe.  The denim of her jeans whispered in the silence as she brushed against the cushions and pushed closer still, melding against him.

She just wanted him.

She snuggled against his body with a needy sigh.  Clutched his shirt between her fingers.  Breathed him in.  The scent of tequila and male wafted against the back of her throat.  Without a word, he pressed his face against her hair.  Wrapped his arms around her.  Held her as tightly as he could with misbehaving, drunken muscles.

Him.

Like she wanted.  The him that she could manage right now.

She fell asleep in moments, wrapped in the familiar scent of his body and listening to the soft sound of his slow, even breathing.  She imagined he did the same with her.

Lexie sighed, her expression peaceful.  “I miss that.”

“Miss what?” Alex said with a frown.

Lexie glared at him.

“I do,” Cristina said.

Meredith glanced at her.  “Do what?”

Cristina shrugged.  “Understand it.  Loving idiot mold.”

“But--”

“I don't intervene on stuff I don't get,” Cristina said.

“Oh,” Meredith replied.

They reached the dark scrub room.  Meredith pushed through the door.  She glanced through the glass into the empty operating room beyond.  This was the same OR that Cristina and April and Meredith had wheeled Derek when he'd been shot.  The same OR where Gary Clark had pointed a gun at Cristina while she'd struggled to save Derek's life.  The same OR where she'd watched Derek, for thirty seconds, be dead.  So much had happened here.  She watched the ghost of Derek Shepherd scrub his wrists and palms and knuckles under the water in the sink.

Pick me, she'd said as she'd shoved the door closed behind her, plunging them into privacy.

Choose me.

Love me.

She watched the ghost of Derek Shepherd say it, too, with his eyes.  She felt almost numb with the relief of it.  A horrible moment in her life expunged.  Replaced by something better.

She swallowed against the lump that had solidified in her throat.  He'd taped the note onto the lip of the sink.  “For Meredith,” it said in messy black ink.  Just like the others.  The soft patter of water dripped from the faucet, perhaps due to a surgeon's or a nurse's hasty exit.  She turned off the water, and then she grabbed the letter.  Opened. it.  Read it.

“You know what says thank you like nothing else?” she told her peanut gallery as she read.  Her family.  “I'll give you a hint.  When you say please, I am helpless, and in this game: You win.”