Not A Big Deal (Grey's Anatomy, Meredith/Alex, R)
His arm falls across your stomach. This is OK, this is not weird, this is Alex back in your house yet again because Jo’s in hospital and he’s your person (and you’re his person). This is Alex in your bed. This shouldn’t be weird.
But his arm falls across your stomach and his hand is there, on your belly, in a way that shouldn’t do things to you but it does.
It really, really does.
You escape to the bathroom and oh - yes - there - manage the situation.
It’s not a big deal.
Only you can’t stop thinking about it.
“You can’t stay here,” you tell him one morning, the words out of your mouth before you’d planned it. You try to ignore the hurt in his eyes, the hurt he’s trying to hide from you anyway, and you don’t say - because what good would it do? - that you’re doing this for him.
His wife needs him.
He can’t be here.
He can’t be near you.
You love Jo. You didn’t always. You kind of hated her, actually. But now she’s family.
You can’t hurt her. The world has hurt her enough.
You have three kids, two sisters, one successful career. It should be enough.
It isn’t.
DeLuca was safe. He wasn’t Derek. Wasn’t Nathan. Wasn’t going to break you if it all crumbled. And it has and you’re still standing.
You will never have another love like Derek Shepherd.
You know this.
The only kind of love that might compare would be if. If. If you were to fall in love with your person.
And you can’t do that because Alex - because Jo - because because because -
(because if he died could you ever breathe again?)
He crawls into your bed a couple of weeks after Jo’s out of hospital. Says nothing. One night, you grab his hand. He clutches it like a life preserver.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” you tell him one morning.
“Shut up,” he says.
The laugh bubbles out of you.
You know you need to talk to Jo. You know this.
You keep putting it off.
You’re afraid she’ll tell you about how much she wants him back.
It happens on a day of a complicated surgery. You’re tired but wired, open-eyed, glassy-eyed, needing some fucking sleep, and he says, “Mer, relax” and you are too tired to censor and reply with a hissed “make me” and then - then he is kissing you.
When you look up there he is. “Is this - ” he begins, and you silence him by pressing your mouth to yours.
And oh god, oh god, it is exactly as good as you thought it would be, you’re wet and whimpering and come like you’re in your twenties, delirious with it, and afterwards all you can do is look at him.
“Crap,” you say.
You find yourself recycling phrases from your youth. “It’s not a big deal” features prominently. Alex looks at you and you steel yourself for his calling of your bullshit, but instead he sighs, and says OK, and goes along with it, and you hate yourself for being disappointed by this.
He sleeps in his own room and you think about sauntering in, all sexy in the kind of underwear you know you own but can’t find and also who has the time, but you never do it. Because you’re tired. And because it’d be embarrassing. And because what if he said no.
There’s a day where he’s operating with Jo and you can’t think about anything else. You really need to; you clawed this job back from Bailey when she was ready to set your career on fire and you get how grateful you should be, and you are, but also - you’re suddenly sixteen again going ‘does he like her more than he likes me?’ Which is not what you need right now. You need to be a surgeon.
You can’t return Cristina’s calls. Not right now.
Sometimes you think about, remember, his mouth on you, his tongue on your clit, and you need to stifle a moan.
On a night when no one else is home and the kids are asleep, you go into his room and before anything happens you say, “This didn’t happen. OK?”
You love his smile. That lazy way he looks at you, just after, adoring but grinning. You love -
Except no. It’s just sex. It’s Alex.
You have a list of the kind of cancers most likely to kill him in your head. Even though you know suicide or a car crash are the big fears for his demographic. If you had your way he’d get a CT scan every day. Twice a day. Just to be sure.
When he collapses at work you start running through your list. It turns out just to be exhaustion, and you mock him as you crawl into bed with him. “This is intern stuff,” you say, pressing your lips against his forehead.
He groans, then says, “Yeah, whatever. You’re the one shaking.”
You realise he’s right. You’re trembling, embarrassingly, and all you can do is hold him a bit tighter and be grateful that he knows not to say any more.
“I think -”
You are practicing in the mirror. Trying to make a speech. It feels stupid.
But you will keep practicing, because you are Meredith Grey and you don’t quit.
(OK, you quit a lot of stuff, but you will not quit this.)
“Alex.” You mean it as a question and it comes out as a statement. “Can we -” You indicate outside. The kids are asleep, indoors is safe, but you still want that porch swing.
He sits next to you and you breathe him in and for a moment you forget you’re supposed to say anything. Then, staring at your feet, you say, “I kinda love you.”
“OK,” he says.
And you have to laugh. “OK? OK? Alex, this is a big thing. I love you, I mean, I love you more than -”
And suddenly it’s not funny anymore.
“Mer. You don’t have to say it. It’s OK.” He’s being all kind and courteous, leaning in for a hug, and you can’t bear it.
“It’s not OK.” Your eyes have gone blurry with tears.
“Meredith -”
“It’s not OK that I love you more than him!” It comes out as a shriek, desperate, a banshee howl, and as soon as the words are out you want to take them back. You ache all over.
Meanwhile, Alex has you in his arms. Soothing. Kind.
Do you even deserve this?
You fall back on familiar methods. Tequila. Sex. You’re just a girl at the bar.
Sometimes you think about your mother, and google flights to Boston, just to see.
Alex moves out and you can’t bring yourself to ask if he’s back with Jo or staying somewhere else.
The love of your life died and that’s never going to be OK.
Of all the things the universe has flung at you, this is the one you have the hardest time with.
Not even that he died, but that you have to go on without him.
That first year, if you’d fallen in the water, kids or no kids, you would have let yourself sink.
How can you even consider loving someone else?
Tequila. Sex. Harder on the system than it used to be. But screw it.
This is how it works.
And then Jo is at the bar. “Need a ride home?” she asks, which is the polite way of saying you’ve-had-too-much-to-drink, and you’re grateful she’s being nice and also embarrassed that you’re here, sad drunk Meredith, like you haven’t moved on at all in life, and when you sob in the passenger seat on the way home you kind of wish you were dead.
“You should talk to Alex,” she says.
Jo is not the only person telling you to talk to Alex. Maggie and Amelia share this viewpoint. Even Bailey has muttered comments on the matter. It’s like they don’t understand how you work: the more they push, the more you’ll push back. You are never Ellis’s daughter so much as when you’re fighting against something.
(But what would you say, if you were to talk to him?)
In the end it is not an extraordinary day. It’s an ordinary one. You’re in the gallery watching Amelia dissect an impossible tumour (does Amelia do anything else?) and he comes in. Sits down next to you.
And because you are focused on your sister, and rooting for her, you grab the hand next to you.
And when the surgery’s over and everyone else, mostly giddy interns, have filtered out, he is still there.
You look at him. You feel tired and gross; you haven’t showered in you can’t remember how long, you need sleep, you want the chance to put lipstick on, and he’s looking at you like you’re beautiful.
“You need to kiss me right now,” you tell him.
He complies.
Later you open your mouth and he says, “I know, I know, this is just for today, it doesn’t mean anything. I know the drill, Mer.”
You take a deep breath. Your heart is hammering against the walls of your chest. The words are so hard to get out. They are so much safer inside. “I don’t want this to be just for today,” you say. You begin.
But his arm falls across your stomach and his hand is there, on your belly, in a way that shouldn’t do things to you but it does.
It really, really does.
You escape to the bathroom and oh - yes - there - manage the situation.
It’s not a big deal.
Only you can’t stop thinking about it.
“You can’t stay here,” you tell him one morning, the words out of your mouth before you’d planned it. You try to ignore the hurt in his eyes, the hurt he’s trying to hide from you anyway, and you don’t say - because what good would it do? - that you’re doing this for him.
His wife needs him.
He can’t be here.
He can’t be near you.
You love Jo. You didn’t always. You kind of hated her, actually. But now she’s family.
You can’t hurt her. The world has hurt her enough.
You have three kids, two sisters, one successful career. It should be enough.
It isn’t.
DeLuca was safe. He wasn’t Derek. Wasn’t Nathan. Wasn’t going to break you if it all crumbled. And it has and you’re still standing.
You will never have another love like Derek Shepherd.
You know this.
The only kind of love that might compare would be if. If. If you were to fall in love with your person.
And you can’t do that because Alex - because Jo - because because because -
(because if he died could you ever breathe again?)
He crawls into your bed a couple of weeks after Jo’s out of hospital. Says nothing. One night, you grab his hand. He clutches it like a life preserver.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” you tell him one morning.
“Shut up,” he says.
The laugh bubbles out of you.
You know you need to talk to Jo. You know this.
You keep putting it off.
You’re afraid she’ll tell you about how much she wants him back.
It happens on a day of a complicated surgery. You’re tired but wired, open-eyed, glassy-eyed, needing some fucking sleep, and he says, “Mer, relax” and you are too tired to censor and reply with a hissed “make me” and then - then he is kissing you.
When you look up there he is. “Is this - ” he begins, and you silence him by pressing your mouth to yours.
And oh god, oh god, it is exactly as good as you thought it would be, you’re wet and whimpering and come like you’re in your twenties, delirious with it, and afterwards all you can do is look at him.
“Crap,” you say.
You find yourself recycling phrases from your youth. “It’s not a big deal” features prominently. Alex looks at you and you steel yourself for his calling of your bullshit, but instead he sighs, and says OK, and goes along with it, and you hate yourself for being disappointed by this.
He sleeps in his own room and you think about sauntering in, all sexy in the kind of underwear you know you own but can’t find and also who has the time, but you never do it. Because you’re tired. And because it’d be embarrassing. And because what if he said no.
There’s a day where he’s operating with Jo and you can’t think about anything else. You really need to; you clawed this job back from Bailey when she was ready to set your career on fire and you get how grateful you should be, and you are, but also - you’re suddenly sixteen again going ‘does he like her more than he likes me?’ Which is not what you need right now. You need to be a surgeon.
You can’t return Cristina’s calls. Not right now.
Sometimes you think about, remember, his mouth on you, his tongue on your clit, and you need to stifle a moan.
On a night when no one else is home and the kids are asleep, you go into his room and before anything happens you say, “This didn’t happen. OK?”
You love his smile. That lazy way he looks at you, just after, adoring but grinning. You love -
Except no. It’s just sex. It’s Alex.
You have a list of the kind of cancers most likely to kill him in your head. Even though you know suicide or a car crash are the big fears for his demographic. If you had your way he’d get a CT scan every day. Twice a day. Just to be sure.
When he collapses at work you start running through your list. It turns out just to be exhaustion, and you mock him as you crawl into bed with him. “This is intern stuff,” you say, pressing your lips against his forehead.
He groans, then says, “Yeah, whatever. You’re the one shaking.”
You realise he’s right. You’re trembling, embarrassingly, and all you can do is hold him a bit tighter and be grateful that he knows not to say any more.
“I think -”
You are practicing in the mirror. Trying to make a speech. It feels stupid.
But you will keep practicing, because you are Meredith Grey and you don’t quit.
(OK, you quit a lot of stuff, but you will not quit this.)
“Alex.” You mean it as a question and it comes out as a statement. “Can we -” You indicate outside. The kids are asleep, indoors is safe, but you still want that porch swing.
He sits next to you and you breathe him in and for a moment you forget you’re supposed to say anything. Then, staring at your feet, you say, “I kinda love you.”
“OK,” he says.
And you have to laugh. “OK? OK? Alex, this is a big thing. I love you, I mean, I love you more than -”
And suddenly it’s not funny anymore.
“Mer. You don’t have to say it. It’s OK.” He’s being all kind and courteous, leaning in for a hug, and you can’t bear it.
“It’s not OK.” Your eyes have gone blurry with tears.
“Meredith -”
“It’s not OK that I love you more than him!” It comes out as a shriek, desperate, a banshee howl, and as soon as the words are out you want to take them back. You ache all over.
Meanwhile, Alex has you in his arms. Soothing. Kind.
Do you even deserve this?
You fall back on familiar methods. Tequila. Sex. You’re just a girl at the bar.
Sometimes you think about your mother, and google flights to Boston, just to see.
Alex moves out and you can’t bring yourself to ask if he’s back with Jo or staying somewhere else.
The love of your life died and that’s never going to be OK.
Of all the things the universe has flung at you, this is the one you have the hardest time with.
Not even that he died, but that you have to go on without him.
That first year, if you’d fallen in the water, kids or no kids, you would have let yourself sink.
How can you even consider loving someone else?
Tequila. Sex. Harder on the system than it used to be. But screw it.
This is how it works.
And then Jo is at the bar. “Need a ride home?” she asks, which is the polite way of saying you’ve-had-too-much-to-drink, and you’re grateful she’s being nice and also embarrassed that you’re here, sad drunk Meredith, like you haven’t moved on at all in life, and when you sob in the passenger seat on the way home you kind of wish you were dead.
“You should talk to Alex,” she says.
Jo is not the only person telling you to talk to Alex. Maggie and Amelia share this viewpoint. Even Bailey has muttered comments on the matter. It’s like they don’t understand how you work: the more they push, the more you’ll push back. You are never Ellis’s daughter so much as when you’re fighting against something.
(But what would you say, if you were to talk to him?)
In the end it is not an extraordinary day. It’s an ordinary one. You’re in the gallery watching Amelia dissect an impossible tumour (does Amelia do anything else?) and he comes in. Sits down next to you.
And because you are focused on your sister, and rooting for her, you grab the hand next to you.
And when the surgery’s over and everyone else, mostly giddy interns, have filtered out, he is still there.
You look at him. You feel tired and gross; you haven’t showered in you can’t remember how long, you need sleep, you want the chance to put lipstick on, and he’s looking at you like you’re beautiful.
“You need to kiss me right now,” you tell him.
He complies.
Later you open your mouth and he says, “I know, I know, this is just for today, it doesn’t mean anything. I know the drill, Mer.”
You take a deep breath. Your heart is hammering against the walls of your chest. The words are so hard to get out. They are so much safer inside. “I don’t want this to be just for today,” you say. You begin.