All Along The Watchtower - Part 24.4
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'm back! And I have my schedule mostly straightened out after the Dempsey Challenge. FINALLY. I'm so sorry for the long wait for this. I hope to have 24.5 out much faster -- I've already started working on it. Thanks, as always, to my super spectacular betas, and to all my readers who take the time to leave me feedback :) Chapter 24 will likely be 6 subsections, so 2 more to go after this. I hope you enjoy the rest of the ride. I promise Derek will be here in the flesh soon enough!
All Along The Watchtower - Part 24.4 [Solving Clue #5, #6, #7, #8]
You know what says thank you like nothing else? Derek had said. Sex, he hadn't said, but he'd mouthed it, cutting off the word with his teeth in a way that had seemed both vaguely and blatantly dirty all at once. He'd been kidding. Mostly. And she'd found it amusing. Mostly. And horribly distracting.
“This was the MRI room,” Meredith said as she stared at the note.
“What?” Alex said. “How did you get MRI room from that?”
She shrugged. She added the newest clue to the growing stack in her breast pocket, which bulged with too much stuff. The paper envelope crinkled, and she had to jam it to get it to fit, not that jamming constituted fitting so much as, well, jamming. She frowned as she brushed her breast pocket smooth, only to have it bow outward with a cardboard-sounding pop when she removed her palm.
“Context,” she said.
Alex raised his eyebrows. “Which is?”
A grin tugged at her lips. “Not telling,” Meredith said, and with that, she exited the scrub room.
“Mean,” Lexie said. “How are we supposed to play along and help you figure out the clues without details?”
“You don't need the details,” Meredith said. “Other than that he said this in the MRI room.”
“Said what!” Lexie said, huffing a frustrated sigh.
The hallways of the surgical wing were empty to the point of lethargy this late on a Sunday. The surgeries scheduled late at night were typically emergencies, which always seemed to come in a flood or not come at all. Some Sunday nights were a zoo in the pit. Others, like this one, well, the whole day had been slow.
The fluorescent, overhead lights shined off the immaculate floor tiles, giving the halls a ghostly feel to them in their emptiness. An abandoned gurney covered in rumpled blankets rested next to the wall on the right side of the hallway. A solitary nurse finished late night paperwork at the nearby station underneath the soft glow of a desk lamp. A radio played soft rock quietly as she clacked away on the keyboard of her computer. Sophie or Sadie or Sylvia or something. Meredith couldn't remember the blond woman's name.
“I bet the thing that says thank you is sex,” Alex decided.
Lexie's lip curled with disgust. “That's crass.”
The clacking slowed, and Meredith rolled her eyes when she saw SophieSadieSylvia look up from the glowing computer screen. As soon as Meredith met the nurse's eyes, the nurse's gaze darted back to her work, but not before the woman grinned a silly, annoying, obvious grin.
Everyone, Meredith decided. Everyone in the freaking hospital had helped set up this game. Or knew about it. Or...
Really, is that so bad? said the soft voice of Derek in her head. I do love you, you know. I don't do this for just anyone.
She grinned at the thought. She couldn't help it.
“He's a dude,” Alex said, his tone even.
“So?” Lexie said.
“He's a dude, and we've already discussed elevator rain checks, so sex in the workplace is clearly not below him,” Alex said. He gave Meredith a once over, head to toe, finishing with a brief, self-assured nod. “They've probably done it everywhere else already. Why not in the MRI room?”
Meredith glanced at the OR board as they passed it. There were two cells filled with scribbles and the rest, all blank. She didn't read them, instead turning right to head out of the wing. They passed through the double doors.
“Not in the MRI room,” Meredith said absently.
“So, where?” Alex said.
Meredith opened her mouth to reply, but Lexie interrupted.
“On second thought, you're right,” Lexie said, a look of disgust crinkling her face. She pulled her fingers through her brown hair, smoothing her ponytail. “You don't need to tell us.”
“Sadly,” Cristina said, rolling her eyes, “I know already. In vivid detail.”
“You ask me!” Meredith said.
“No, I don't,” Cristina said with a sigh. “You tell me anyway.”
“I... You...” Meredith frowned. “I distinctly remember you wanting to know if he was good.”
“Back when I didn't think he was idiot mold married to my person, and I wasn't getting any.”
“Oh,” Meredith said.
“We really don't need to know any of this,” Lexie said.
“Which is why I'm not telling!” Meredith said.
“You're telling by not telling,” Lexie said. “Telling that you're not telling is telling!”
Alex tilted his head in inquiry. “But you've done it somewhere else, right?” he said, ignoring Cristina and Lexie. “The lounge is near the MRI room. Did you 'say thank you' in there?”
“I'll have you know we made it home in this particular instance,” Meredith said.
Cristina and Lexie groaned.
“Meaning there are instances where you didn't?” Alex said, his expression gleeful.
“Um...” Meredith swallowed, stopped. She blinked as she realized the trap she'd walked right into. “No comment.”
Her gaze bounced from Alex to Mark, who were both grinning like the unrepentant letches they were, to Cristina and Lexie, who wore scrunched-up “yuck” faces that made them look like rabbits. Irritated, ruffled rabbits. Like the mean one in Monty Python.
Meredith rolled her eyes. “What! I'm not telling! I haven't told you anything. I haven't even said it was about sex.” She jabbed her thumb at Alex. “He went there all by his porny, dirty-minded, Uncle Sal self.”
“Uh, let's see.” Cristina held up her thumb. “It's about Derek.” Her index finger was next. “There is no number two. It's obviously about sex already.”
Mark snorted.
“Who's Uncle Sal?” said Alex.
“You,” Meredith said to Alex's look of confusion.
“I don't get it,” Lexie said.
Meredith rolled her eyes. “Never mind.”
They stepped around a janitor mopping the floor with a scuzzy, gray-colored mop.
“This whole clue hunt is painting a slightly different picture than I'd imagined,” Mark said.
Cristina glowered. “You picture McDreamy's sordid sex life? Am I seriously the only one here who doesn't?”
Lexie raised her hand. “I don't,” she said. Then she lowered her hand haltingly. “Or... I didn't. Before today. This is...” She made another disgusted face. “Eidetic memory sucks.”
“Well, I participate in it,” Meredith said. “I have an excuse.”
Alex smirked. “What about in Shepherd's office?”
Lexie shook her head. “They wouldn't. There are windows in there,” she said. “Everybody can see. And I've taken this to a logical place, where it shouldn't be, and I'll just be quiet now before I say something else.” She cleared her throat.
“Well...” Meredith said. Granted, she wasn't sure if they meant the Chief's office, which was technically Derek's, or Derek's old office. They both had windows. Chief's office remained sacrosanct, so far. Derek's, however...
She felt his hand on her thigh.
No. No, no, no. No, she did not feel anything. She wasn't thinking about that, now.
I like where this is headed, said phantom Derek with a smirk so smirky she could feel it. Even in her head. Even made up. Made up Derek was a freaking horny bastard. Just like the real one. She bit her lip.
Silence stretched as Lexie did the math. The shifting look from puzzlement back to disgust was comical. “Oh, ew,” Lexie said. “Ew, I've touched that desk.”
“See?” Alex said with a pleased grin. He looked at Meredith. “How about the supply closets?”
She'd yanked him through the door. He'd been flustered. Meredith, I have a page.
Help me, Chief Shepherd, she'd moaned as she'd pushed him against the door to close it behind him. It's an emergency.
Meredith grinned before she could help it. Damn it.
Oh, this is priceless, said the Derek in her head.
Lexie's face devolved into horror. “With the sterile supplies?”
“They were wrapped!” Meredith countered. “They were still sterile after!”
“Riiight,” Alex said haughtily. “Elevator?”
“No,” Meredith said.
Alex looked like she'd just told him she'd rode a unicorn to work yesterday. “Seriously?” he said.
“Yes!” Meredith said. “Why do you think the rain check was so special?”
She realized everybody was staring at her.
“Anywhere else?” Alex said.
Meredith opened her mouth. Then she thought better of it and closed it.
“Oh, ew,” Lexie said. “Ew, ew, ew. I don't want to know.”
“Good,” Meredith said. “Because I don't want to tell you.” She glared at Alex, who only snickered, infuriating ass that he was.
“And yet we still know,” Cristina said. She glowered. “Everything.”
They do, said imaginary Derek. You're a crappy liar, Mere.
“Shut up!” she said.
I love you, anyway.
When they arrived at the MRI room, they all filed through the doorway into the small room adjacent to the imaging room. The machine worked to scan a pale woman who looked like she'd just gotten out of brain surgery earlier in the day, or perhaps yesterday. Her skull was swathed in white bandages, and she lay peaceful and still, eyes closed, while the machine worked.
Meredith wondered who'd done the surgery. Perhaps Dr. Weller or Shadow Shepherd. A brief pang hit the back of mind when she thought of Derek. Real Derek. Derek should be doing that. Saving lives. Dr. Weller and Dr. Nelson were both great surgeons, but the neurosurgery department wasn't the same without Derek at the masthead.
Derek sat on the porch swing, sipping from the long neck of a brown beer bottle as he stared into the chilly night. She stopped at the end of the walk. Blinked. She hadn't expected to find him here. Or anywhere, really. She'd made her house of candles, and he'd broken up with Rose, and he'd come back after. Just like he'd promised. And then he'd backed off the last few days. If she invited him somewhere, he came, but otherwise, he didn't push. Didn't even hint, let alone show up unannounced, which was weird. She'd gotten so used to him pushing...
She clenched her teeth as she walked forward. So, he'd made it a few days. Maybe, this would be the pressure bombshell. He sure looked broody enough; just like when he'd started bolting after the ferry thing. She shook her head. No. She'd said she would try to trust him. All he was doing right now was sitting on her freaking porch swing. That was hardly a crime. Was it?
He was so engrossed in thought, he didn't even look at her until she stiffly sat beside him, and the swing swayed and creaked under the new weight.
“Hey,” she said. What are you doing here? she didn't add. Forced herself not to. People who trusted each other didn't ask that sort of thing. Did they?
He stared into the street. A smile tugged vaguely at his lips and then slipped away, as though his feelings were at war. “I watched Beth walk today,” he said, his voice thick with emotion. “She made it down the hall and back.”
“That's really great,” Meredith said.
Derek didn't respond. He took a frothy swig from his bottle. The hint of the smile she'd seen didn't make a reappearance. His gaze was dark and dour.
She frowned. “That's not really great?”
“Beth is fine,” he said. He gave himself a little shake. Like he didn't quite believe it.
Meredith nodded. “She is. I talked to her an hour ago.”
“Beth is really fine.”
“She really is.” She put her hand on his knee because it felt like the right thing to do. “So, what's wrong?”
“It's just...” He swallowed, ceasing the quiver in his voice. “Wrapping my head around it.”
“Around what?”
“That she lived,” he said. He looked at her, finally. “She lived, and she's walking.” He glanced down at his beer bottle. “This is going to sound selfish.”
“What is?”
He took a swig. The weird twitch that wanted to be a smile reappeared and slipped away, like he was trying to force it to stay on his face and failing dismally. A dark, thick sound caught in his throat. “I really needed her to live.”
“Oh,” she said. Awkward. It was the only thing she could think of.
A car drove past, wet tires whooshing across the pavement. The nighttime silence stretched. He hadn't come to pressure her, she realized. He was upset. Fighting some sort of pervasive melancholy that he knew shouldn't be there. His disquiet gripped her and scared her all at once, because he'd come here to do it. To be upset. Which meant... what? What did it mean? That he wanted her to suffer with him for her part in his misery? Was the other shoe dropping? Or...
She swallowed. “Did you mean what you said to me, earlier?”
“What did I say?” he said.
“That I make you feel like a murderer.”
He looked at her, his lips parted like he wanted to say something, but the words had gotten stuck. His mouth closed. The stricken look in his eyes only confused her. He stared at the dark, wet street. Wind rustled through the wet leaves overhead, and the random splatter of rain drops accented the quiet with their drum beats. He pulled his fingers through his mussy hair and sighed.
“I snapped at you,” he said. “I'm sorry.”
“You didn't answer my question,” she said.
“It wasn't you.”
“But you did,” she said. “Feel like a murderer.”
He took a swig. “It's so hard to remember why I do this, sometimes.”
“You do it because you have a gift.”
He shrugged. “I don't feel like I have a gift, lately,” he said. “I feel like a butcher. Even Beth called me a butcher. I became a surgeon to save people. Not...” His voice cracked. He looked away and wiped his face with his free hand. He stared darkly at nothing. Away from her.
His body language was prickly. Hard to read. But he was there. She frowned. He was there, and not dumping blame on her. Just... seeking comfort? Was that what this was? He made her feel safe. Was it so ludicrous to think she did the same for him?
Yes, a tiny, insecure voice said. You're worthless at this whole relationship thing. How could you make anybody feel safe when you're such a mess, yourself?
She shook the words in her head away. Fight through the fear, Dr. Wyatt had told her. Could she do that?
“We saved Beth,” she said. She leaned against his shoulder. He wrapped his arm over her like a coat, like her blatant invitation was all he'd been waiting for. “And we saved countless other people in the future because of the work we did.”
He sighed. “It's hard to wrap my mind around the theoretical when I'm presented with the real every day.”
“But Beth is real,” she said. “And she walked.”
“So were the other twelve who died,” he said, the words dark and lost. “But...”
Liquid sloshed in the beer bottle as he tilted it back and took a sip. He smelled malty. And his body was warm, a sharp contrast to the nippy air outside. She pressed her cheek against the soft, gray fleece of his coat, snuggling closer. The weird, amazing part was that she felt him relaxing underneath her. Settling into the swing instead of fighting it tooth and nail. He squeezed her arm with his hand and ran his palm up and down her sleeve, warming her even further, and she couldn't help but relax with him.
This wasn't bad, she decided. Him being here unexpectedly. Even upset.
It was actually... nice.
He was nice to come home to.
“Why did you become a surgeon?” he said.
She frowned. “I don't know... It just... seemed like what I should do.”
“Your mother?” he said.
“I guess some of it had to do with that. Or... Okay, a lot of it.”
He tilted his beer bottle at her in a clear offer to share, but she'd never been much of a beer person. Not like him, or like Alex, or Izzie. She waved off his offer. He shrugged and took a swig. His Adam's apple bobbled along his skin, and a wet, mushy sound echoed as he swallowed, his throat close to her ear.
“What do you do when you lose too many people?” he said.
An acerbic chuckle skipped from her lips. “I hyperventilate in the closet until my knight in shining whatever comes to help me with a paper bag,” she said.
His grip tightened around her. He looked down at her with a soft smile. “Meredith.”
She stroked the soft lapel of his coat. “You helped.”
“I'm glad.”
“I'm... here, too,” she said. Awkwardly. Hesitantly. Stupidly. But... “I can help you.”
He kissed her forehead. “You already do,” he said.
“But you said--”
“I know what I said. But Beth is alive. I'm wrapping my head around that instead of another tombstone. And that's because of you.”
She didn't know what to say, couldn't even think of something awkward, and so she said nothing. He leaned forward to set his bottle on the porch floor. Then he pulled her close and buried his face in her hair, sighing.
“I'm glad you're here,” he said. “Thanks for pushing me.”
The swing creaked as they swayed in the breeze.
Derek needed to cut. He had a rare talent for it. A gift. It was part of who he was. What made him tick. The fact that he'd twisted himself up inside so badly that he was afraid to pick up a scalpel, lest he hurt somebody, was a constant burn. A reminder that no matter how happy he looked or how well he seemed day-to-day, something still wasn't right. A reminder that Jaws was lurking.
At least she understood it. His reluctance. He'd always been too sensitive to the losses. They took him longer to deal with and to sort through, and when they mounted too far into a pile, he tended to fall to pieces. Now, he had even less emotional fortitude than he'd had before, both to cope with mounting stress during surgery, and to cope with unfavorable outcomes.
Soon, she hoped, he'd be in a place where he could do what he loved again.
Save people.
Even if it meant he would be doing simple stuff for the rest of his career.
At least he would be saving lives.
He needed that to be whole.
The lab tech, Reza, glanced up from his computer screen and grinned when they entered. He was a short, stocky man of middle eastern descent, with bronzed skin and short, black hair. “Dr. Grey,” he said in a cheerful tone. He leaned forward, and he ripped something off the side of the computer monitor. A cream-colored, embossed envelope just like all the others.
Meredith reached for it and took the envelope into her hands.
“Thank you,” she said as she wormed her finger underneath the seal and tore open the top. “When did Derek put this here?”
Reza's brown eyes twinkled. “Dr. Shepherd was here? I thought he wasn't working today.”
Meredith sighed. “You're not going to tell me anything, are you?”
Reza's lips curled into a grin. He glanced at the computer screen and then back at her. “Only that Mrs. Fitzgerald seems to be done with her MRI.” He brushed his hands on his pants as he stood.
“Thanks,” Meredith said with a sigh. “That's helpful.”
Reza shrugged and left them in the tiny room while he went to help the woman in the other room back onto the gurney on which she'd arrived. Meredith pulled the next clue out of the envelope.
“You're dark and twisty; but I like it, I said,” she read. “It makes you strong and so fearless, and I want us to wed.”
She didn't give the others a chance to digest the poem. “Elevator,” she said.
“But we've already been to the elevator,” Lexie said. She frowned. “You're answering these too fast!”
Meredith shrugged. “No, another elevator,” she said as she glanced at her breast pocket. No more of the envelopes or cards would fit, but she didn't want to throw any of them out. They were... special. She stepped out into the hallway, and all of them followed like a blind herd of sheep.
“That was when he proposed, right?” Cristina said.
“Right,” Meredith said.
She pulled her stethoscope out of the pocket at her hip and wrapped it around her neck as they walked through the empty halls. She hoped Derek didn't have too many more of these planned before the payoff. He seemed to be stepping forward in sequential order, and he'd gotten to his proposal already. There wasn't that much left between then and now. Was there? She shoved the envelope and the card into her newly emptied pocket. She could fit a few more in there.
“Wait,” Mark said. “He ended up proposing in an elevator?”
“Yeah,” Meredith said. “He did.”
“Do you do everything in elevators?” Lexie said.
“Not sex, apparently,” Alex said.
Mark snickered. “He proposed in the elevator, and you thought the teddy bear was dumb?”
“What teddy bear?” Cristina said.
“I never said the bear was dumb,” Meredith said.
Really, she hadn't said much of anything about the bear. Mark had been trying to save her from answering questions lobbed like bricks at her by Derek's pushy sisters, and in the spur of the moment, Mark had picked that as the subject switcheroo. She'd been too shocked to do much more than stutter, and then the conversation had taken a left turn, away from bears. So, when are you getting married for real, anyway?
“And the thing in the elevator was really sweet,” Meredith said. “He tacked up all my old case histories with him on the walls, and he--”
“Wait,” Cristina said. “I want to hear about the teddy bear.”
“His first proposal involved flowers and candles and a teddy bear,” Mark said.
Cristina smirked. “That must have been when he was trolling for ideas.”
The familiar ding of the elevator's arrival in the distance made her gaze sharpen. “He asked you for ideas?” Meredith said as they turned the corner.
“I tried to steer him away from the stupidly maudlin,” Cristina said. She glanced at Mark. “I specifically told him no house of candles.”
“What house of candles?” Lexie said.
“Nothing,” Meredith said.
“You seriously swear you've never had sex in an elevator?” Alex said as they arrived at their destination, just in time for the elevator doors on the left to slide shut.
Meredith bit her lip as the familiar envelope taped on the far wall of the elevator disappeared from view. She raced to the elevator to jam the buttons, both down and up, but it was too late. The following hum told her the elevator had been summoned to another floor already and wouldn't be coming back for a few minutes.
Meredith sighed. “No, just--”
“Everywhere else in the hospital,” Alex said with a nod. “Right.”
Lexie elbowed him in the ribs. “You're such a pig,” she said before she turned to Meredith. “What house of candles?”
“Do you want the next clue or not?” Meredith said. There was no way in hell she would cop to the candles thing to Lexie. Meredith would never hear the freaking end of it.
The elevator dinged, and Meredith twitched, but it was the doors on the right, not the left that slid open. Her shoulders slumped. The doors slid shut.
“This seems to happen to us a lot,” she said. Everybody stared at her with blank looks of confusion. She jammed the up button again, once, twice, again, in rapid succession while she glared at them, picturing the Chief, instead.
That won't make it come faster, said the Derek in her head. It comes faster when I push it. She couldn't help but snort.
Cristina frowned. “You're not going to freak out again, are you?”
“No, I'm just laughing,” Meredith said.
“At?” Mark said.
“All of you,” she said. And Derek. Who she was making up in her head in his mysterious absence. McPhantom, she decided, which only made her snort again. “You're just...”
“Us?” Lexie said.
Me, McPhantom said.
“Something like that,” Meredith said.
The correct elevator came this time. Meredith stepped over the threshold, a small smile tugging at her lips as she remembered how Derek had looked, standing there surrounded by case files. Files she'd helped him with or done the large part of the work herself. The sweet smell of his cologne tickled her nose, almost too vivid to be only a memory.
Had he been there recently, taping the envelope to the wall? Wearing a bucket of cologne? Curiosity wound with excitement, her lingering exhaustion, and the whispering remnants of her headache. What kind of night did he have planned at the end of this, exactly? She wasn't quite sure she had the stamina to deal with corny, romantic, Derek-y Derek until the wee hours, but as far as worries were concerned, worrying that she couldn't keep up with a happy, cologne-y Derek seemed like a nice worry to be having.
See? said McPhantom. I'm getting better. No Jaws. I want you to enjoy this.
She grabbed the envelope from the back of the elevator and stepped back into the hallway, into the people cluster that followed her. The paper crinkled in her hands as she pulled out the next clue. The elevator doors trundled shut and hummed away behind them. “We were ready then, as we're ready, now,” she said as she read from the card. She glanced at her family. They stared back, intent. “So, we took out a Post-it, and we wrote our vows.” She knew this one immediately, too, but she waited to speak so that Lexie could have her fun.
Lexie didn't disappoint. She bounced on her feet, excitement in her gaze. “Oh! Oh! I know!” she said. “The Post-it wedding!”
Alex shook his head. “I still don't get that,” he said.
“Get what?” Meredith said.
“Why a Post-it?”
“It was a thing,” Meredith said. “A Post-it thing. We didn't have time for city hall.”
There isn't any time, she'd said, and he'd understood. Supported her.
She could feel the pen in her hand. He'd asked her for a piece of paper, and all she'd had were Post-its for her charts. She'd signed her life into his keeping. He'd signed his life into hers.
They'd fumbled toward that moment for years.
Taken missteps left and right.
She tried to put her finger on when it had all begun to come together. When they'd broken the vicious cycle of him pushing because he thought she would run, and her running because he pushed. When he'd thrown off his mantle of impatience and self-entitlement. When she'd forced herself to fight through her fears, both the ones he'd propagated and the ones of which he'd been a hapless victim.
Her first thought... The cliff. With the candles. She'd told him she wanted to trust him. He'd kissed her.
But the more she considered, the more she decided, no. The moment where they'd really lain down their swords had snuck up on them. It'd come and gone without fanfare in the night on the edge of dreams.
She lay in the bed, staring at the ceiling. She clutched the lip of the blanket. Darkness muted the world, made the shadows seem frothy and... bigger, somehow. Clouds had covered the moon outside in a thick, puffy, gray carpet turned purple by the city's light pollution, and the only light that filtered through the window was the soft, distant white of a buzzing streetlamp outside.
She tilted her head. She listened to his soft, even breathing beside her. Inches. He lay on his stomach inches away from her, his face tipped toward her as though he sought her even in dreams. She couldn't see any of his features. Just the muzzy, naked lump that was him. The breathing, there lump.
She'd promised that she would try to trust him, which meant she had to believe him until proven otherwise, or her promise meant diddly. Which meant he wasn't leaving. That he was going to be there tomorrow night, and the night after, and the night after that.
Which made this whole thing... really. Really...
“Derek?” she whispered.
His body twitched under the covers, and his even breathing skipped as he snuffled. Then he resettled and didn't move anymore.
“Derek?” she repeated.
Another snuffle. “Mmm?” he muttered into the pillow, his voice thick with sleep and dreams.
“Are you awake?”
“No,” he said, though it sounded more like “nurgh”, as he turned away from her and jammed his face into his pillow.
She stared at him, biting her lip. Seconds dragged as though time had been dipped in molasses. She worried at the hem of the blanket with her fingers.
“You have to be awake if you're answering me,” she decided.
He twitched. “No, I don'.”
“You do!”
“Talkin' in my sleep,” he mumbled.
“You don't sound asleep.”
He didn't answer. The silence filled with the thick, even sound of his breathing as he fell back into slumber, and she frowned. He was a light sleeper. Getting him to wake up was usually as simple as saying his name. This was... He was tired, and this was futile, and stupid. Being extraordinary was not being afraid of the dark or being afraid of him. Of them. Except...
“You don't think this feels weird?” she said before she could stop herself.
Something in her tone must have broken through. He flopped onto his back and wiped his face with his hands. The rustle of his palms across his stubbly skin soothed her, somehow. He sighed. Not a bothered sigh. Just... recouping some oxygen to be awake and functional.
“What's weird?” he said, and for the first time that night, his tone was fully awake and listening.
She looked at him. “Our first night together,” she said.
“But I've slept here dozens of times,” he said, his words soft and cautious.
“But not in a continuous sense,” she said, unable to stop the quiver in her tone. “This is really... This is it. You're here. You're totally here. Forever. You moved in.”
“You asked me to,” he said slowly.
“I know, but... now, it's... real. It's really real.”
A long, maddening silence followed. He didn't move or speak, but he was awake and staring at her. She could tell he watched her from the glisten of the dim light striking his eyeballs. Her heart skipped in the darkness. Forever was a scary word. Particularly when it came to him. She'd trusted him before, more than once, and it'd never gone well. And, now, here she was, in the middle of the night, dragging them into another confrontation, practically daring him to contradict her. To tell her he was walking away because he couldn't take waiting for her to work out the horrific pile of skittishness he'd helped to create. She'd told herself she'd try to trust him, but that didn't stop junk like this from twisting up in knots inside her head. Her feelings about Derek didn't mix well with logic. Logic made her scared. Which, honestly, didn't seem logical.
Was that a bad sign? Surely, that was a bad sign.
Panic coiled.
“Do you want me to leave?” he said, his tone soft. Calm. Resigned.
“No!” she said.
Silence followed when he didn't respond further. Damn it. She sighed. Derek, I'm scared. That's all she'd meant by any of this. Derek, I'm scared, and you inexplicably make me feel safe. I need you to make me feel safe right now. Except fear was a lot harder to explain than it was to feel. Explaining it was admitting it, and...
The mattress creaked as he slid closer. He wrapped his arms around her.
“I've never done this before,” she said, curling against him.
“I haven't either,” he admitted.
“But you...” She swallowed. “There was her.”
“She wasn't you, Mere.” His lips pressed against her forehead. He didn't pull away. He inhaled instead, as though her scent comforted him. As though he had words he couldn't say, either. Meredith, I'm scared, and I have no idea what you want from me.
“I want you here,” she said, her tone definitive. “You can ignore the rest of my screwy, messed up signals.”
“But I like the screwy and messed up,” he said.
“Liar,” she said. He tensed, which only confirmed her suspicions about her behavior. She added woefully against his chest, “I feel like a freaking yo-yo, Derek.”
“A yo-yo.”
“Yeah.”
For a moment, she wondered at his odd, tense silence. He didn't wear a t-shirt to clutch, so she curled her fingers against his warm skin. She'd called him a liar. Not the best choice of word, considering she was trying to figure out how to trust him again, and he knew it. Except...
His body hitched, and a soft chuff swept over the top of her head. She blinked, flummoxed. Was that...?
“Oh, Meredith,” he said, barely put together before he lost it again.
It was. It was that.
Mirth.
Her eyes narrowed. “What's funny?”
He rubbed his eyes. “You don't trust me,” he replied.
She gaped. “And that's funny?”
“I admit, you're confusing the hell out of me, but I don't really have room to complain about it,” he said.
All the pieces slid into place as she stared at him.
A giggle popped loose from her lips. She couldn't help it.
And then he laughed. The sound of it was delightful. It slid down her spine and made her feel warm inside.
She laughed again.
And then they were both stuck in paroxysms of noisy, gasping guffaws that probably woke Izzie and Alex from a sound sleep.
She hadn't heard Derek laugh this hard in a long time. She hadn't laughed this hard, either. It felt good. Liberating.
Perfect.
“Okay, so,” she managed, panting. “Maybe, yo-yo applies to us both.”
“We traded places,” Derek said.
She snickered as she kissed him. “I'm in, coach. Am I doing you proud?”
“At least we're a team,” he said affectionately.
She nodded. “We are,” she said, smiling in the dark. She settled against him as he rubbed her back in slow, soothing circles. “I want you here,” she repeated, and this time there was no doubt or panic or anything clotting the sleepy spaces in her head. She yawned.
“I want to be here,” he replied against her ear. He held her.
Whether he'd meant to do it or not, she felt safe. Just like she'd wanted. For now, she decided, despite damaged trust and yo-yos and everything, safety was more than enough to get through the night.
Baby steps, she told herself as she drifted to sleep.
Baby steps, and they would win the match.
“City hall takes twenty minutes if you're in a hurry,” Alex countered, unaware that she'd slipped deep once more into memory.
Meredith blinked and looked up from the note. “We didn't have twenty minutes,” she said.
The elevator dinged, and a harried, tired-looking nurse stepped through the doors. She glanced at them. Smiled despite the paleness of exhaustion crimping her features. And continued on her way.
“You clearly had twenty minutes somewhere if you were having sex in Derek's office,” Alex said.
Lexie's nose scrunched up, and her forehead wrinkled. “Ew.”
“Evil Spawn makes a decent point,” Cristina said. “You could drive a truck through that logic.”
Alex nodded. “It's crap logic.”
“It's not crap,” Lexie countered. “I thought it was cute. They should do what they want.”
“And we wanted a Post-it,” Meredith said.
“So, where was it?” Mark interjected.
“Derek's office,” Alex said.
“Not the raunchy sex,” Mark said. “The Post-it.”
“It's hanging on the wall in their bedroom,” Lexie said.
“I know. But where did they sign it?” Mark said.
Meredith stuffed the latest envelope into her side pocket with the other and led them to the residents' lounge. Derek had taped the envelope to her alcove. Her clothes, a blouse and some khakis, were folded and stacked on the bottom of the alcove underneath her shoes. She grabbed the envelope and opened it.
“Chief Shepherd, you said, a teasing purr. You strode to the table. The rest... a blur,” she recited, only to sigh.
“Oh,” Lexie said. “Oh, god. How much sex do you people have?”
Alex glanced at her. “I guess you wear earplugs.”
Lexie jabbed her thumb toward Meredith. “She snores. It makes the whole house vibrate.”
“Does not!” Meredith said.
Cristina sighed. “This game is TMI.”
“Derek's office, then?” Alex said.
Meredith's face heated. There was no way she could get out of this one without talking about sex. Derek had made it rather blatant. “Um. No.”
The gleam in Mark's eyes was positively lecherous as he said, “Where, this time?”
Meredith bit her lip. “Derek was in the conference room, and--”
“That has windows, too!” Lexie said.
“With blinds...” Meredith countered.
“I don't want to know!” Lexie said.
“I've sat on that table...” Cristina said.
“Dude,” Alex said with a smirk. “Mad props.”
“Next time he calls me a manwhore, I'm going to punch him in his fucked up nose,” said Mark.
“It's clearly a hypocritical nose,” Cristina said.
“It was my idea!” Meredith said. “He was working!”
“So, he did you on the table,” Mark said.
“Or, did you do him?” Alex said.
Meredith sighed. “This game was clearly not meant for an audience.”
You're enjoying it anyway, said McPhantom.
“No, no,” Alex said. “This is great.”
Mark nodded. “I'm getting tons of ammunition.”
“I hate you guys,” Meredith said.
Mark's eyes twinkled as he squeezed her shoulder. “I think you kind of love us.”
And me, McPhantom said. Do I count double?
Meredith didn't argue. Instead, she turned to hide her grin as she led them to the conference room, which, at this time of night on a Sunday evening, was empty, as expected. Derek had taped the note right on the table where she'd been sitting. She remembered the squeak as her naked skin had slid across the table. As he'd pulled her closer. She'd gasped as he'd--
Crap.
Without words, without being there at all, he'd made it dirty. Porny. She closed her eyes, trying to tell the pervasive, sexy memories to go away. There was no way in hell she was going to relive naughty table sex in the middle of a crowd of her closest friends. While pregnant.
Really? McPhantom purred in her ear. You seem to be reliving it already.
“Yes, really!” she snapped, stomping her foot. Everybody stared at her, and she swallowed. “Sorry,” she said. “It's nothing. Pregnancy stuff.” And porny, porny pretend Derek.
Real Derek wrote that clue, McPhantom said gleefully. I'd say he's porny, porny, too.
Lexie looked at the glossy, lacquered wood table. “I'm going to barf,” Lexie said.
Alex followed her gaze. “We should do that more.”
Lexie's eyebrows rose. “Barf?”
“Have sex in inappropriate places,” he said.
Meredith ignored them and picked up the envelope. She pulled out the next clue. Lexie, ignoring Alex, leaned forward, “What's it say? Not more sex. Please. He's my boss. And my brother-in-law. And my roommate. Wasn't it enough for me to catch you on the kitchen counter with him that one time?”
“The kitchen counter?” Mark said. “Really? I didn't think he had it in him.” His gaze traced the outline of the shiny table, and then he grinned at Meredith. “You're a good influence, Grey.”
“That's not good,” Lexie said. “It's dirty. And wrong. And... dirty!”
Alex smirked. “Mad props.”
“I eat in there,” Cristina said.
“Shut up,” Meredith said as she glanced at the card. “Where Derek and I choose to be intimate is--”
“Everywhere,” Alex said.
Lexie and Cristina both sighed.
My work here is done, said McPhantom.
Meredith frowned at the card. This one was different. A veritable wall of scribble-y, hard-to-read text jumped out at her. She swallowed, squinting at it to piece it together.
Dear Meredith,
I can't write a poem about this. I tried, but...
I don't remember very much, but I remember you there. It was your strength that pulled me through. I would not be here today if it weren't for you. You always try to shrug it off like it was nothing, or like Cristina did more, because that's the kind of person you are. You give and give and rarely take. But I want you to take this, Mere. Please, take credit. You're an amazing woman. I was dying, and this is where you saved my life.
With love,
Derek
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Pairing: Mer/Der
Rating: M
Summary: S6 continuation. Immediately post Sanctuary / Death and All His Friends.
I'm back! And I have my schedule mostly straightened out after the Dempsey Challenge. FINALLY. I'm so sorry for the long wait for this. I hope to have 24.5 out much faster -- I've already started working on it. Thanks, as always, to my super spectacular betas, and to all my readers who take the time to leave me feedback :) Chapter 24 will likely be 6 subsections, so 2 more to go after this. I hope you enjoy the rest of the ride. I promise Derek will be here in the flesh soon enough!
All Along The Watchtower - Part 24.4 [Solving Clue #5, #6, #7, #8]
You know what says thank you like nothing else? Derek had said. Sex, he hadn't said, but he'd mouthed it, cutting off the word with his teeth in a way that had seemed both vaguely and blatantly dirty all at once. He'd been kidding. Mostly. And she'd found it amusing. Mostly. And horribly distracting.
“This was the MRI room,” Meredith said as she stared at the note.
“What?” Alex said. “How did you get MRI room from that?”
She shrugged. She added the newest clue to the growing stack in her breast pocket, which bulged with too much stuff. The paper envelope crinkled, and she had to jam it to get it to fit, not that jamming constituted fitting so much as, well, jamming. She frowned as she brushed her breast pocket smooth, only to have it bow outward with a cardboard-sounding pop when she removed her palm.
“Context,” she said.
Alex raised his eyebrows. “Which is?”
A grin tugged at her lips. “Not telling,” Meredith said, and with that, she exited the scrub room.
“Mean,” Lexie said. “How are we supposed to play along and help you figure out the clues without details?”
“You don't need the details,” Meredith said. “Other than that he said this in the MRI room.”
“Said what!” Lexie said, huffing a frustrated sigh.
The hallways of the surgical wing were empty to the point of lethargy this late on a Sunday. The surgeries scheduled late at night were typically emergencies, which always seemed to come in a flood or not come at all. Some Sunday nights were a zoo in the pit. Others, like this one, well, the whole day had been slow.
The fluorescent, overhead lights shined off the immaculate floor tiles, giving the halls a ghostly feel to them in their emptiness. An abandoned gurney covered in rumpled blankets rested next to the wall on the right side of the hallway. A solitary nurse finished late night paperwork at the nearby station underneath the soft glow of a desk lamp. A radio played soft rock quietly as she clacked away on the keyboard of her computer. Sophie or Sadie or Sylvia or something. Meredith couldn't remember the blond woman's name.
“I bet the thing that says thank you is sex,” Alex decided.
Lexie's lip curled with disgust. “That's crass.”
The clacking slowed, and Meredith rolled her eyes when she saw SophieSadieSylvia look up from the glowing computer screen. As soon as Meredith met the nurse's eyes, the nurse's gaze darted back to her work, but not before the woman grinned a silly, annoying, obvious grin.
Everyone, Meredith decided. Everyone in the freaking hospital had helped set up this game. Or knew about it. Or...
Really, is that so bad? said the soft voice of Derek in her head. I do love you, you know. I don't do this for just anyone.
She grinned at the thought. She couldn't help it.
“He's a dude,” Alex said, his tone even.
“So?” Lexie said.
“He's a dude, and we've already discussed elevator rain checks, so sex in the workplace is clearly not below him,” Alex said. He gave Meredith a once over, head to toe, finishing with a brief, self-assured nod. “They've probably done it everywhere else already. Why not in the MRI room?”
Meredith glanced at the OR board as they passed it. There were two cells filled with scribbles and the rest, all blank. She didn't read them, instead turning right to head out of the wing. They passed through the double doors.
“Not in the MRI room,” Meredith said absently.
“So, where?” Alex said.
Meredith opened her mouth to reply, but Lexie interrupted.
“On second thought, you're right,” Lexie said, a look of disgust crinkling her face. She pulled her fingers through her brown hair, smoothing her ponytail. “You don't need to tell us.”
“Sadly,” Cristina said, rolling her eyes, “I know already. In vivid detail.”
“You ask me!” Meredith said.
“No, I don't,” Cristina said with a sigh. “You tell me anyway.”
“I... You...” Meredith frowned. “I distinctly remember you wanting to know if he was good.”
“Back when I didn't think he was idiot mold married to my person, and I wasn't getting any.”
“Oh,” Meredith said.
“We really don't need to know any of this,” Lexie said.
“Which is why I'm not telling!” Meredith said.
“You're telling by not telling,” Lexie said. “Telling that you're not telling is telling!”
Alex tilted his head in inquiry. “But you've done it somewhere else, right?” he said, ignoring Cristina and Lexie. “The lounge is near the MRI room. Did you 'say thank you' in there?”
“I'll have you know we made it home in this particular instance,” Meredith said.
Cristina and Lexie groaned.
“Meaning there are instances where you didn't?” Alex said, his expression gleeful.
“Um...” Meredith swallowed, stopped. She blinked as she realized the trap she'd walked right into. “No comment.”
Her gaze bounced from Alex to Mark, who were both grinning like the unrepentant letches they were, to Cristina and Lexie, who wore scrunched-up “yuck” faces that made them look like rabbits. Irritated, ruffled rabbits. Like the mean one in Monty Python.
Meredith rolled her eyes. “What! I'm not telling! I haven't told you anything. I haven't even said it was about sex.” She jabbed her thumb at Alex. “He went there all by his porny, dirty-minded, Uncle Sal self.”
“Uh, let's see.” Cristina held up her thumb. “It's about Derek.” Her index finger was next. “There is no number two. It's obviously about sex already.”
Mark snorted.
“Who's Uncle Sal?” said Alex.
“You,” Meredith said to Alex's look of confusion.
“I don't get it,” Lexie said.
Meredith rolled her eyes. “Never mind.”
They stepped around a janitor mopping the floor with a scuzzy, gray-colored mop.
“This whole clue hunt is painting a slightly different picture than I'd imagined,” Mark said.
Cristina glowered. “You picture McDreamy's sordid sex life? Am I seriously the only one here who doesn't?”
Lexie raised her hand. “I don't,” she said. Then she lowered her hand haltingly. “Or... I didn't. Before today. This is...” She made another disgusted face. “Eidetic memory sucks.”
“Well, I participate in it,” Meredith said. “I have an excuse.”
Alex smirked. “What about in Shepherd's office?”
Lexie shook her head. “They wouldn't. There are windows in there,” she said. “Everybody can see. And I've taken this to a logical place, where it shouldn't be, and I'll just be quiet now before I say something else.” She cleared her throat.
“Well...” Meredith said. Granted, she wasn't sure if they meant the Chief's office, which was technically Derek's, or Derek's old office. They both had windows. Chief's office remained sacrosanct, so far. Derek's, however...
She felt his hand on her thigh.
No. No, no, no. No, she did not feel anything. She wasn't thinking about that, now.
I like where this is headed, said phantom Derek with a smirk so smirky she could feel it. Even in her head. Even made up. Made up Derek was a freaking horny bastard. Just like the real one. She bit her lip.
Silence stretched as Lexie did the math. The shifting look from puzzlement back to disgust was comical. “Oh, ew,” Lexie said. “Ew, I've touched that desk.”
“See?” Alex said with a pleased grin. He looked at Meredith. “How about the supply closets?”
She'd yanked him through the door. He'd been flustered. Meredith, I have a page.
Help me, Chief Shepherd, she'd moaned as she'd pushed him against the door to close it behind him. It's an emergency.
Meredith grinned before she could help it. Damn it.
Oh, this is priceless, said the Derek in her head.
Lexie's face devolved into horror. “With the sterile supplies?”
“They were wrapped!” Meredith countered. “They were still sterile after!”
“Riiight,” Alex said haughtily. “Elevator?”
“No,” Meredith said.
Alex looked like she'd just told him she'd rode a unicorn to work yesterday. “Seriously?” he said.
“Yes!” Meredith said. “Why do you think the rain check was so special?”
She realized everybody was staring at her.
“Anywhere else?” Alex said.
Meredith opened her mouth. Then she thought better of it and closed it.
“Oh, ew,” Lexie said. “Ew, ew, ew. I don't want to know.”
“Good,” Meredith said. “Because I don't want to tell you.” She glared at Alex, who only snickered, infuriating ass that he was.
“And yet we still know,” Cristina said. She glowered. “Everything.”
They do, said imaginary Derek. You're a crappy liar, Mere.
“Shut up!” she said.
I love you, anyway.
When they arrived at the MRI room, they all filed through the doorway into the small room adjacent to the imaging room. The machine worked to scan a pale woman who looked like she'd just gotten out of brain surgery earlier in the day, or perhaps yesterday. Her skull was swathed in white bandages, and she lay peaceful and still, eyes closed, while the machine worked.
Meredith wondered who'd done the surgery. Perhaps Dr. Weller or Shadow Shepherd. A brief pang hit the back of mind when she thought of Derek. Real Derek. Derek should be doing that. Saving lives. Dr. Weller and Dr. Nelson were both great surgeons, but the neurosurgery department wasn't the same without Derek at the masthead.
Derek sat on the porch swing, sipping from the long neck of a brown beer bottle as he stared into the chilly night. She stopped at the end of the walk. Blinked. She hadn't expected to find him here. Or anywhere, really. She'd made her house of candles, and he'd broken up with Rose, and he'd come back after. Just like he'd promised. And then he'd backed off the last few days. If she invited him somewhere, he came, but otherwise, he didn't push. Didn't even hint, let alone show up unannounced, which was weird. She'd gotten so used to him pushing...
She clenched her teeth as she walked forward. So, he'd made it a few days. Maybe, this would be the pressure bombshell. He sure looked broody enough; just like when he'd started bolting after the ferry thing. She shook her head. No. She'd said she would try to trust him. All he was doing right now was sitting on her freaking porch swing. That was hardly a crime. Was it?
He was so engrossed in thought, he didn't even look at her until she stiffly sat beside him, and the swing swayed and creaked under the new weight.
“Hey,” she said. What are you doing here? she didn't add. Forced herself not to. People who trusted each other didn't ask that sort of thing. Did they?
He stared into the street. A smile tugged vaguely at his lips and then slipped away, as though his feelings were at war. “I watched Beth walk today,” he said, his voice thick with emotion. “She made it down the hall and back.”
“That's really great,” Meredith said.
Derek didn't respond. He took a frothy swig from his bottle. The hint of the smile she'd seen didn't make a reappearance. His gaze was dark and dour.
She frowned. “That's not really great?”
“Beth is fine,” he said. He gave himself a little shake. Like he didn't quite believe it.
Meredith nodded. “She is. I talked to her an hour ago.”
“Beth is really fine.”
“She really is.” She put her hand on his knee because it felt like the right thing to do. “So, what's wrong?”
“It's just...” He swallowed, ceasing the quiver in his voice. “Wrapping my head around it.”
“Around what?”
“That she lived,” he said. He looked at her, finally. “She lived, and she's walking.” He glanced down at his beer bottle. “This is going to sound selfish.”
“What is?”
He took a swig. The weird twitch that wanted to be a smile reappeared and slipped away, like he was trying to force it to stay on his face and failing dismally. A dark, thick sound caught in his throat. “I really needed her to live.”
“Oh,” she said. Awkward. It was the only thing she could think of.
A car drove past, wet tires whooshing across the pavement. The nighttime silence stretched. He hadn't come to pressure her, she realized. He was upset. Fighting some sort of pervasive melancholy that he knew shouldn't be there. His disquiet gripped her and scared her all at once, because he'd come here to do it. To be upset. Which meant... what? What did it mean? That he wanted her to suffer with him for her part in his misery? Was the other shoe dropping? Or...
She swallowed. “Did you mean what you said to me, earlier?”
“What did I say?” he said.
“That I make you feel like a murderer.”
He looked at her, his lips parted like he wanted to say something, but the words had gotten stuck. His mouth closed. The stricken look in his eyes only confused her. He stared at the dark, wet street. Wind rustled through the wet leaves overhead, and the random splatter of rain drops accented the quiet with their drum beats. He pulled his fingers through his mussy hair and sighed.
“I snapped at you,” he said. “I'm sorry.”
“You didn't answer my question,” she said.
“It wasn't you.”
“But you did,” she said. “Feel like a murderer.”
He took a swig. “It's so hard to remember why I do this, sometimes.”
“You do it because you have a gift.”
He shrugged. “I don't feel like I have a gift, lately,” he said. “I feel like a butcher. Even Beth called me a butcher. I became a surgeon to save people. Not...” His voice cracked. He looked away and wiped his face with his free hand. He stared darkly at nothing. Away from her.
His body language was prickly. Hard to read. But he was there. She frowned. He was there, and not dumping blame on her. Just... seeking comfort? Was that what this was? He made her feel safe. Was it so ludicrous to think she did the same for him?
Yes, a tiny, insecure voice said. You're worthless at this whole relationship thing. How could you make anybody feel safe when you're such a mess, yourself?
She shook the words in her head away. Fight through the fear, Dr. Wyatt had told her. Could she do that?
“We saved Beth,” she said. She leaned against his shoulder. He wrapped his arm over her like a coat, like her blatant invitation was all he'd been waiting for. “And we saved countless other people in the future because of the work we did.”
He sighed. “It's hard to wrap my mind around the theoretical when I'm presented with the real every day.”
“But Beth is real,” she said. “And she walked.”
“So were the other twelve who died,” he said, the words dark and lost. “But...”
Liquid sloshed in the beer bottle as he tilted it back and took a sip. He smelled malty. And his body was warm, a sharp contrast to the nippy air outside. She pressed her cheek against the soft, gray fleece of his coat, snuggling closer. The weird, amazing part was that she felt him relaxing underneath her. Settling into the swing instead of fighting it tooth and nail. He squeezed her arm with his hand and ran his palm up and down her sleeve, warming her even further, and she couldn't help but relax with him.
This wasn't bad, she decided. Him being here unexpectedly. Even upset.
It was actually... nice.
He was nice to come home to.
“Why did you become a surgeon?” he said.
She frowned. “I don't know... It just... seemed like what I should do.”
“Your mother?” he said.
“I guess some of it had to do with that. Or... Okay, a lot of it.”
He tilted his beer bottle at her in a clear offer to share, but she'd never been much of a beer person. Not like him, or like Alex, or Izzie. She waved off his offer. He shrugged and took a swig. His Adam's apple bobbled along his skin, and a wet, mushy sound echoed as he swallowed, his throat close to her ear.
“What do you do when you lose too many people?” he said.
An acerbic chuckle skipped from her lips. “I hyperventilate in the closet until my knight in shining whatever comes to help me with a paper bag,” she said.
His grip tightened around her. He looked down at her with a soft smile. “Meredith.”
She stroked the soft lapel of his coat. “You helped.”
“I'm glad.”
“I'm... here, too,” she said. Awkwardly. Hesitantly. Stupidly. But... “I can help you.”
He kissed her forehead. “You already do,” he said.
“But you said--”
“I know what I said. But Beth is alive. I'm wrapping my head around that instead of another tombstone. And that's because of you.”
She didn't know what to say, couldn't even think of something awkward, and so she said nothing. He leaned forward to set his bottle on the porch floor. Then he pulled her close and buried his face in her hair, sighing.
“I'm glad you're here,” he said. “Thanks for pushing me.”
The swing creaked as they swayed in the breeze.
Derek needed to cut. He had a rare talent for it. A gift. It was part of who he was. What made him tick. The fact that he'd twisted himself up inside so badly that he was afraid to pick up a scalpel, lest he hurt somebody, was a constant burn. A reminder that no matter how happy he looked or how well he seemed day-to-day, something still wasn't right. A reminder that Jaws was lurking.
At least she understood it. His reluctance. He'd always been too sensitive to the losses. They took him longer to deal with and to sort through, and when they mounted too far into a pile, he tended to fall to pieces. Now, he had even less emotional fortitude than he'd had before, both to cope with mounting stress during surgery, and to cope with unfavorable outcomes.
Soon, she hoped, he'd be in a place where he could do what he loved again.
Save people.
Even if it meant he would be doing simple stuff for the rest of his career.
At least he would be saving lives.
He needed that to be whole.
The lab tech, Reza, glanced up from his computer screen and grinned when they entered. He was a short, stocky man of middle eastern descent, with bronzed skin and short, black hair. “Dr. Grey,” he said in a cheerful tone. He leaned forward, and he ripped something off the side of the computer monitor. A cream-colored, embossed envelope just like all the others.
Meredith reached for it and took the envelope into her hands.
“Thank you,” she said as she wormed her finger underneath the seal and tore open the top. “When did Derek put this here?”
Reza's brown eyes twinkled. “Dr. Shepherd was here? I thought he wasn't working today.”
Meredith sighed. “You're not going to tell me anything, are you?”
Reza's lips curled into a grin. He glanced at the computer screen and then back at her. “Only that Mrs. Fitzgerald seems to be done with her MRI.” He brushed his hands on his pants as he stood.
“Thanks,” Meredith said with a sigh. “That's helpful.”
Reza shrugged and left them in the tiny room while he went to help the woman in the other room back onto the gurney on which she'd arrived. Meredith pulled the next clue out of the envelope.
“You're dark and twisty; but I like it, I said,” she read. “It makes you strong and so fearless, and I want us to wed.”
She didn't give the others a chance to digest the poem. “Elevator,” she said.
“But we've already been to the elevator,” Lexie said. She frowned. “You're answering these too fast!”
Meredith shrugged. “No, another elevator,” she said as she glanced at her breast pocket. No more of the envelopes or cards would fit, but she didn't want to throw any of them out. They were... special. She stepped out into the hallway, and all of them followed like a blind herd of sheep.
“That was when he proposed, right?” Cristina said.
“Right,” Meredith said.
She pulled her stethoscope out of the pocket at her hip and wrapped it around her neck as they walked through the empty halls. She hoped Derek didn't have too many more of these planned before the payoff. He seemed to be stepping forward in sequential order, and he'd gotten to his proposal already. There wasn't that much left between then and now. Was there? She shoved the envelope and the card into her newly emptied pocket. She could fit a few more in there.
“Wait,” Mark said. “He ended up proposing in an elevator?”
“Yeah,” Meredith said. “He did.”
“Do you do everything in elevators?” Lexie said.
“Not sex, apparently,” Alex said.
Mark snickered. “He proposed in the elevator, and you thought the teddy bear was dumb?”
“What teddy bear?” Cristina said.
“I never said the bear was dumb,” Meredith said.
Really, she hadn't said much of anything about the bear. Mark had been trying to save her from answering questions lobbed like bricks at her by Derek's pushy sisters, and in the spur of the moment, Mark had picked that as the subject switcheroo. She'd been too shocked to do much more than stutter, and then the conversation had taken a left turn, away from bears. So, when are you getting married for real, anyway?
“And the thing in the elevator was really sweet,” Meredith said. “He tacked up all my old case histories with him on the walls, and he--”
“Wait,” Cristina said. “I want to hear about the teddy bear.”
“His first proposal involved flowers and candles and a teddy bear,” Mark said.
Cristina smirked. “That must have been when he was trolling for ideas.”
The familiar ding of the elevator's arrival in the distance made her gaze sharpen. “He asked you for ideas?” Meredith said as they turned the corner.
“I tried to steer him away from the stupidly maudlin,” Cristina said. She glanced at Mark. “I specifically told him no house of candles.”
“What house of candles?” Lexie said.
“Nothing,” Meredith said.
“You seriously swear you've never had sex in an elevator?” Alex said as they arrived at their destination, just in time for the elevator doors on the left to slide shut.
Meredith bit her lip as the familiar envelope taped on the far wall of the elevator disappeared from view. She raced to the elevator to jam the buttons, both down and up, but it was too late. The following hum told her the elevator had been summoned to another floor already and wouldn't be coming back for a few minutes.
Meredith sighed. “No, just--”
“Everywhere else in the hospital,” Alex said with a nod. “Right.”
Lexie elbowed him in the ribs. “You're such a pig,” she said before she turned to Meredith. “What house of candles?”
“Do you want the next clue or not?” Meredith said. There was no way in hell she would cop to the candles thing to Lexie. Meredith would never hear the freaking end of it.
The elevator dinged, and Meredith twitched, but it was the doors on the right, not the left that slid open. Her shoulders slumped. The doors slid shut.
“This seems to happen to us a lot,” she said. Everybody stared at her with blank looks of confusion. She jammed the up button again, once, twice, again, in rapid succession while she glared at them, picturing the Chief, instead.
That won't make it come faster, said the Derek in her head. It comes faster when I push it. She couldn't help but snort.
Cristina frowned. “You're not going to freak out again, are you?”
“No, I'm just laughing,” Meredith said.
“At?” Mark said.
“All of you,” she said. And Derek. Who she was making up in her head in his mysterious absence. McPhantom, she decided, which only made her snort again. “You're just...”
“Us?” Lexie said.
Me, McPhantom said.
“Something like that,” Meredith said.
The correct elevator came this time. Meredith stepped over the threshold, a small smile tugging at her lips as she remembered how Derek had looked, standing there surrounded by case files. Files she'd helped him with or done the large part of the work herself. The sweet smell of his cologne tickled her nose, almost too vivid to be only a memory.
Had he been there recently, taping the envelope to the wall? Wearing a bucket of cologne? Curiosity wound with excitement, her lingering exhaustion, and the whispering remnants of her headache. What kind of night did he have planned at the end of this, exactly? She wasn't quite sure she had the stamina to deal with corny, romantic, Derek-y Derek until the wee hours, but as far as worries were concerned, worrying that she couldn't keep up with a happy, cologne-y Derek seemed like a nice worry to be having.
See? said McPhantom. I'm getting better. No Jaws. I want you to enjoy this.
She grabbed the envelope from the back of the elevator and stepped back into the hallway, into the people cluster that followed her. The paper crinkled in her hands as she pulled out the next clue. The elevator doors trundled shut and hummed away behind them. “We were ready then, as we're ready, now,” she said as she read from the card. She glanced at her family. They stared back, intent. “So, we took out a Post-it, and we wrote our vows.” She knew this one immediately, too, but she waited to speak so that Lexie could have her fun.
Lexie didn't disappoint. She bounced on her feet, excitement in her gaze. “Oh! Oh! I know!” she said. “The Post-it wedding!”
Alex shook his head. “I still don't get that,” he said.
“Get what?” Meredith said.
“Why a Post-it?”
“It was a thing,” Meredith said. “A Post-it thing. We didn't have time for city hall.”
There isn't any time, she'd said, and he'd understood. Supported her.
She could feel the pen in her hand. He'd asked her for a piece of paper, and all she'd had were Post-its for her charts. She'd signed her life into his keeping. He'd signed his life into hers.
They'd fumbled toward that moment for years.
Taken missteps left and right.
She tried to put her finger on when it had all begun to come together. When they'd broken the vicious cycle of him pushing because he thought she would run, and her running because he pushed. When he'd thrown off his mantle of impatience and self-entitlement. When she'd forced herself to fight through her fears, both the ones he'd propagated and the ones of which he'd been a hapless victim.
Her first thought... The cliff. With the candles. She'd told him she wanted to trust him. He'd kissed her.
But the more she considered, the more she decided, no. The moment where they'd really lain down their swords had snuck up on them. It'd come and gone without fanfare in the night on the edge of dreams.
She lay in the bed, staring at the ceiling. She clutched the lip of the blanket. Darkness muted the world, made the shadows seem frothy and... bigger, somehow. Clouds had covered the moon outside in a thick, puffy, gray carpet turned purple by the city's light pollution, and the only light that filtered through the window was the soft, distant white of a buzzing streetlamp outside.
She tilted her head. She listened to his soft, even breathing beside her. Inches. He lay on his stomach inches away from her, his face tipped toward her as though he sought her even in dreams. She couldn't see any of his features. Just the muzzy, naked lump that was him. The breathing, there lump.
She'd promised that she would try to trust him, which meant she had to believe him until proven otherwise, or her promise meant diddly. Which meant he wasn't leaving. That he was going to be there tomorrow night, and the night after, and the night after that.
Which made this whole thing... really. Really...
“Derek?” she whispered.
His body twitched under the covers, and his even breathing skipped as he snuffled. Then he resettled and didn't move anymore.
“Derek?” she repeated.
Another snuffle. “Mmm?” he muttered into the pillow, his voice thick with sleep and dreams.
“Are you awake?”
“No,” he said, though it sounded more like “nurgh”, as he turned away from her and jammed his face into his pillow.
She stared at him, biting her lip. Seconds dragged as though time had been dipped in molasses. She worried at the hem of the blanket with her fingers.
“You have to be awake if you're answering me,” she decided.
He twitched. “No, I don'.”
“You do!”
“Talkin' in my sleep,” he mumbled.
“You don't sound asleep.”
He didn't answer. The silence filled with the thick, even sound of his breathing as he fell back into slumber, and she frowned. He was a light sleeper. Getting him to wake up was usually as simple as saying his name. This was... He was tired, and this was futile, and stupid. Being extraordinary was not being afraid of the dark or being afraid of him. Of them. Except...
“You don't think this feels weird?” she said before she could stop herself.
Something in her tone must have broken through. He flopped onto his back and wiped his face with his hands. The rustle of his palms across his stubbly skin soothed her, somehow. He sighed. Not a bothered sigh. Just... recouping some oxygen to be awake and functional.
“What's weird?” he said, and for the first time that night, his tone was fully awake and listening.
She looked at him. “Our first night together,” she said.
“But I've slept here dozens of times,” he said, his words soft and cautious.
“But not in a continuous sense,” she said, unable to stop the quiver in her tone. “This is really... This is it. You're here. You're totally here. Forever. You moved in.”
“You asked me to,” he said slowly.
“I know, but... now, it's... real. It's really real.”
A long, maddening silence followed. He didn't move or speak, but he was awake and staring at her. She could tell he watched her from the glisten of the dim light striking his eyeballs. Her heart skipped in the darkness. Forever was a scary word. Particularly when it came to him. She'd trusted him before, more than once, and it'd never gone well. And, now, here she was, in the middle of the night, dragging them into another confrontation, practically daring him to contradict her. To tell her he was walking away because he couldn't take waiting for her to work out the horrific pile of skittishness he'd helped to create. She'd told herself she'd try to trust him, but that didn't stop junk like this from twisting up in knots inside her head. Her feelings about Derek didn't mix well with logic. Logic made her scared. Which, honestly, didn't seem logical.
Was that a bad sign? Surely, that was a bad sign.
Panic coiled.
“Do you want me to leave?” he said, his tone soft. Calm. Resigned.
“No!” she said.
Silence followed when he didn't respond further. Damn it. She sighed. Derek, I'm scared. That's all she'd meant by any of this. Derek, I'm scared, and you inexplicably make me feel safe. I need you to make me feel safe right now. Except fear was a lot harder to explain than it was to feel. Explaining it was admitting it, and...
The mattress creaked as he slid closer. He wrapped his arms around her.
“I've never done this before,” she said, curling against him.
“I haven't either,” he admitted.
“But you...” She swallowed. “There was her.”
“She wasn't you, Mere.” His lips pressed against her forehead. He didn't pull away. He inhaled instead, as though her scent comforted him. As though he had words he couldn't say, either. Meredith, I'm scared, and I have no idea what you want from me.
“I want you here,” she said, her tone definitive. “You can ignore the rest of my screwy, messed up signals.”
“But I like the screwy and messed up,” he said.
“Liar,” she said. He tensed, which only confirmed her suspicions about her behavior. She added woefully against his chest, “I feel like a freaking yo-yo, Derek.”
“A yo-yo.”
“Yeah.”
For a moment, she wondered at his odd, tense silence. He didn't wear a t-shirt to clutch, so she curled her fingers against his warm skin. She'd called him a liar. Not the best choice of word, considering she was trying to figure out how to trust him again, and he knew it. Except...
His body hitched, and a soft chuff swept over the top of her head. She blinked, flummoxed. Was that...?
“Oh, Meredith,” he said, barely put together before he lost it again.
It was. It was that.
Mirth.
Her eyes narrowed. “What's funny?”
He rubbed his eyes. “You don't trust me,” he replied.
She gaped. “And that's funny?”
“I admit, you're confusing the hell out of me, but I don't really have room to complain about it,” he said.
All the pieces slid into place as she stared at him.
A giggle popped loose from her lips. She couldn't help it.
And then he laughed. The sound of it was delightful. It slid down her spine and made her feel warm inside.
She laughed again.
And then they were both stuck in paroxysms of noisy, gasping guffaws that probably woke Izzie and Alex from a sound sleep.
She hadn't heard Derek laugh this hard in a long time. She hadn't laughed this hard, either. It felt good. Liberating.
Perfect.
“Okay, so,” she managed, panting. “Maybe, yo-yo applies to us both.”
“We traded places,” Derek said.
She snickered as she kissed him. “I'm in, coach. Am I doing you proud?”
“At least we're a team,” he said affectionately.
She nodded. “We are,” she said, smiling in the dark. She settled against him as he rubbed her back in slow, soothing circles. “I want you here,” she repeated, and this time there was no doubt or panic or anything clotting the sleepy spaces in her head. She yawned.
“I want to be here,” he replied against her ear. He held her.
Whether he'd meant to do it or not, she felt safe. Just like she'd wanted. For now, she decided, despite damaged trust and yo-yos and everything, safety was more than enough to get through the night.
Baby steps, she told herself as she drifted to sleep.
Baby steps, and they would win the match.
“City hall takes twenty minutes if you're in a hurry,” Alex countered, unaware that she'd slipped deep once more into memory.
Meredith blinked and looked up from the note. “We didn't have twenty minutes,” she said.
The elevator dinged, and a harried, tired-looking nurse stepped through the doors. She glanced at them. Smiled despite the paleness of exhaustion crimping her features. And continued on her way.
“You clearly had twenty minutes somewhere if you were having sex in Derek's office,” Alex said.
Lexie's nose scrunched up, and her forehead wrinkled. “Ew.”
“Evil Spawn makes a decent point,” Cristina said. “You could drive a truck through that logic.”
Alex nodded. “It's crap logic.”
“It's not crap,” Lexie countered. “I thought it was cute. They should do what they want.”
“And we wanted a Post-it,” Meredith said.
“So, where was it?” Mark interjected.
“Derek's office,” Alex said.
“Not the raunchy sex,” Mark said. “The Post-it.”
“It's hanging on the wall in their bedroom,” Lexie said.
“I know. But where did they sign it?” Mark said.
Meredith stuffed the latest envelope into her side pocket with the other and led them to the residents' lounge. Derek had taped the envelope to her alcove. Her clothes, a blouse and some khakis, were folded and stacked on the bottom of the alcove underneath her shoes. She grabbed the envelope and opened it.
“Chief Shepherd, you said, a teasing purr. You strode to the table. The rest... a blur,” she recited, only to sigh.
“Oh,” Lexie said. “Oh, god. How much sex do you people have?”
Alex glanced at her. “I guess you wear earplugs.”
Lexie jabbed her thumb toward Meredith. “She snores. It makes the whole house vibrate.”
“Does not!” Meredith said.
Cristina sighed. “This game is TMI.”
“Derek's office, then?” Alex said.
Meredith's face heated. There was no way she could get out of this one without talking about sex. Derek had made it rather blatant. “Um. No.”
The gleam in Mark's eyes was positively lecherous as he said, “Where, this time?”
Meredith bit her lip. “Derek was in the conference room, and--”
“That has windows, too!” Lexie said.
“With blinds...” Meredith countered.
“I don't want to know!” Lexie said.
“I've sat on that table...” Cristina said.
“Dude,” Alex said with a smirk. “Mad props.”
“Next time he calls me a manwhore, I'm going to punch him in his fucked up nose,” said Mark.
“It's clearly a hypocritical nose,” Cristina said.
“It was my idea!” Meredith said. “He was working!”
“So, he did you on the table,” Mark said.
“Or, did you do him?” Alex said.
Meredith sighed. “This game was clearly not meant for an audience.”
You're enjoying it anyway, said McPhantom.
“No, no,” Alex said. “This is great.”
Mark nodded. “I'm getting tons of ammunition.”
“I hate you guys,” Meredith said.
Mark's eyes twinkled as he squeezed her shoulder. “I think you kind of love us.”
And me, McPhantom said. Do I count double?
Meredith didn't argue. Instead, she turned to hide her grin as she led them to the conference room, which, at this time of night on a Sunday evening, was empty, as expected. Derek had taped the note right on the table where she'd been sitting. She remembered the squeak as her naked skin had slid across the table. As he'd pulled her closer. She'd gasped as he'd--
Crap.
Without words, without being there at all, he'd made it dirty. Porny. She closed her eyes, trying to tell the pervasive, sexy memories to go away. There was no way in hell she was going to relive naughty table sex in the middle of a crowd of her closest friends. While pregnant.
Really? McPhantom purred in her ear. You seem to be reliving it already.
“Yes, really!” she snapped, stomping her foot. Everybody stared at her, and she swallowed. “Sorry,” she said. “It's nothing. Pregnancy stuff.” And porny, porny pretend Derek.
Real Derek wrote that clue, McPhantom said gleefully. I'd say he's porny, porny, too.
Lexie looked at the glossy, lacquered wood table. “I'm going to barf,” Lexie said.
Alex followed her gaze. “We should do that more.”
Lexie's eyebrows rose. “Barf?”
“Have sex in inappropriate places,” he said.
Meredith ignored them and picked up the envelope. She pulled out the next clue. Lexie, ignoring Alex, leaned forward, “What's it say? Not more sex. Please. He's my boss. And my brother-in-law. And my roommate. Wasn't it enough for me to catch you on the kitchen counter with him that one time?”
“The kitchen counter?” Mark said. “Really? I didn't think he had it in him.” His gaze traced the outline of the shiny table, and then he grinned at Meredith. “You're a good influence, Grey.”
“That's not good,” Lexie said. “It's dirty. And wrong. And... dirty!”
Alex smirked. “Mad props.”
“I eat in there,” Cristina said.
“Shut up,” Meredith said as she glanced at the card. “Where Derek and I choose to be intimate is--”
“Everywhere,” Alex said.
Lexie and Cristina both sighed.
My work here is done, said McPhantom.
Meredith frowned at the card. This one was different. A veritable wall of scribble-y, hard-to-read text jumped out at her. She swallowed, squinting at it to piece it together.
Dear Meredith,
I can't write a poem about this. I tried, but...
I don't remember very much, but I remember you there. It was your strength that pulled me through. I would not be here today if it weren't for you. You always try to shrug it off like it was nothing, or like Cristina did more, because that's the kind of person you are. You give and give and rarely take. But I want you to take this, Mere. Please, take credit. You're an amazing woman. I was dying, and this is where you saved my life.
With love,
Derek