Lightning Strikes Twice - Part 40B
Title: Lightning Strikes Twice
Author: AriaAdagio
Rating: M
Pairing: Mer/Der
Summary: Post Time After Time. Derek takes Meredith to visit his family in Connecticut, but nothing goes as planned.
~~~~~
"Where is everyone staying?" he asked again. What's going on?
"Sarah and I were planning on checking into a hotel later," Stewart replied. "Mom's-"
"Staying in Mark's spare bedroom," his mother said. Her tone was wary, as if she expected him to object, but he couldn't. He couldn't bring himself to care anymore. Mark was Mark. Mark would always be Mark. Hate was a wasted emotion when Mark would never, ever understand what he'd done. And Mark was... Things would never be the same, but without the hate... Derek couldn't bring himself to wish Mark away from the people who were his family in spirit though not in blood.
"Oh," Derek said, turning to Stewart. "You shouldn't have to stay at a hotel, you could..." he began, and then he stopped, his crayon paused, and his gaze flicked to Meredith as he realized the verbal stumble he'd almost gotten himself into. He met Meredith's eyes, and she blinked, smiled, and reached to brush his wrist as her eyes narrowed with affection and just... Being. Her touch sent a shiver up his arm, and he sighed when she lingered like a moth to a flame. Her thumb trailed along the bump of a vein in his wrist, searching, soothing.
"Yeah," Meredith said, directing her words to Stewart. "You guys could stay at our house." Our house. The words broke through the buzzing opiates like spears. And then she turned back to Derek. She added in a softer voice that made his heart melt. "It's your house, too, Derek. You can offer."
He swallowed against the sudden blur. He blinked and rubbed his eyes. He hadn't wanted to presume. Not only because it technically wasn't his house, but also because he knew the only bedroom she really had to give out at will was the master bedroom since the others all had renting occupants. She'd said she was going to stay with him the whole week. Stay the whole time. But... He hadn't rationally expected that she meant the whole week, as in every minute, second, and slice of time between. It was unfair to her. On-call rooms were really not all that restful with all the comings and goings of tired doctors and nurses who could only spare five or ten minutes, and her curling up in the sliver of space left to her on his hospital bed seemed cruel. The beds were really only meant for one person. And he had people checking on him at all hours, which would wake her up. But, if she gave away the master bedroom, that cemented the fact that she would be there. All the time. And that... Strangely made the homesickness burn a little brighter. He wanted to go home and curl up in their own bed, for him, so he could finally be a normal person again, out of the scrutiny, off of the stage where his body maintained an unending soliloquy, and for her, because he hated that she would be suffering with him, and he hated that he didn't have the courage to tell her not to.
"Thanks, that'd be great," Stewart replied.
"You can take the master bedroom," Meredith said. "The girls will have to sleep in the den, though. I've got a bit of a full house thing going on."
Stewart smiled. "Sarah mentioned you have a couple roommates."
Something jabbed Derek's leg. He sniffled and blinked. "You gotta color, Uncle Derek!" Annie snarled at him, but it was a cute sort of snarl that made him laugh because she looked so damned serious, as if coloring were all that stood between him and collapse of the universe.
"Okay, okay, I'm coloring," he said against the low, weepy feeling hovering in the back of his throat. Home would be nice. He gestured at the brown muddle of stuff on her page. Annie, it seemed, like him, was not much of an artist, but he felt compelled to say, "That's beautiful," anyway. She grinned at him, eyes twinkling with a brilliant sparkle of innocence and belief, belief that her Uncle Derek thought she was some sort of Picasso or Monet, and it melted him, made him, for just that one moment, forget where he was, and he loved her for it. He loved her for it even when the slow pang that followed reminded him that Meredith had said only maybe, and he shouldn't get his hopes up again. He shouldn't. He couldn't.
One of the hardest things about his family's yearly reunions and holiday get togethers had always been seeing his sisters' families sprout up around him one tiny, bubbly new body at a time. Addison had always played well with the kids, but she'd never seemed to revel in it. He wondered when it had been that he'd lost that last sliver of hope with her. Derek Shepherd. Not a father. He couldn't pinpoint when the final moment had been, but he was pretty sure it would have been over one of their many Christmases or Thanksgivings in the crush of the sprawling Shepherd clan. Perhaps on a morning when the wrapping paper had been flying about in a storm of bits and pieces, while he had been staring wistfully, and she'd only been happily watching the fray, as if she didn't seem to know or care that she was missing something vital to be a part of the moment instead of just a watcher.
"Where's everyone else?" he asked, trying to force himself onto another train of thought as he started to fill in the blobby wings he'd offered his rather inartistic butterfly with blotches of wax-smelling color. Meredith caught his gaze, and he swallowed as his crayon stopped moving. She knew. She knew what he'd been thinking then, he was certain. She smiled at him shyly instead of glaring, telling him to put his pipedreams away.
"Sarah took Lindsey to the cafeteria a few minutes before you woke up," Stewart rattled on, unaware of the exchange that said so much without a word. "Mark is off doing doctor things. I don't know. Something about a nose. Or maybe it was a bre-" He paused, his gaze wandering to Annie. "Stuff," he corrected before continuing. "Nobody else was able to make it so soon after taking a week off, but I'm under strict orders to make sure your brain is only as scrambled as it used to be and to report back in painstaking detail."
"Stewart!" Ellen hissed softly.
"What, he's fine!" Stewart said. He pointed at the tray table. "Look at the horse he colored. It's perfect."
"I wasn't drawing a horse," Derek said.
Stewart recovered quickly. "Well, see," he said after a rolling, choking sort of stutter, "It's so perfect it's transcended its original species."
"Thanks, Stu," Derek said, his voice wry as he stared down at his butterfly. He supposed, if one was as mentally deficient as Stewart, that it could be interpreted as a malformed equine. With blue spots and antennae. He secured himself in the knowledge that Stewart was just being Stewart.
"Annie," Derek said, his voice low, conspiratorial. "I heard that Daddy wants to take you to riding lessons. He just needs to be convinced."
"Really?" she squeaked.
Stewart's jaw dropped. "Low, Derek. Sarah will have words with you later, I'm sure."
"Scrambled brain. In morphine veritas," Derek replied, smirking. "What can I say?"
A knock on the door brought all of their gazes up. "Dr. Shepherd?" an orderly said as he carried in a tray that smelled vaguely of warm but unidentifiable food. He stepped near to the bed and stopped, staring at the tray table expectantly.
Stewart swooped in and gathered Annie up into his arms. "All right, Starshine," he said as he gave the side of her cheek a loud raspberry kiss. "Let's move so Uncle Derek can eat."
He set her down on the floor. She pouted, tugging at Stewart's pant leg with her tiny fingers. "But Uncle Derek likes to color!"
"I know he does, sweetie," Stewart replied absently as he started gathering up her crayons and moving things out of the way. Derek watched as his amoebic butterfly got folded up with Annie's blobby horses. "But I bet he also likes to not starve. Shall we go to the cafeteria and see if Mommy has robbed the buffet of all its Jell-O?"
The orderly dropped off the tray of food on the table, smiling. "Good to see you feeling better, Dr. Shepherd," he commented. Derek vaguely remembered him as Nick. They'd talked about the finer points of hockey at one point in the elevator. Derek had walked with Nick to transport a patient who'd been terrified. A woman who'd needed a keyhole craniotomy for a biopsy. The three of them had had a fine debate over why the Rangers were absolutely not going to win their next game, and why the NHL was going downhill.
"Thanks," Derek replied, too riveted with Annie and Stewart to feel very awkward about the sympathy. Nick disappeared as quickly as he'd arrived.
"Mommy wouldn't do that!" Annie said. "She'd save some for me."
"Would she?" Stewart replied. "She never saves any for me." He finished cramming everything back into her little backpack and handed it to her. She looped the straps over her shoulders, and then he roared affectionately as he lifted her up again and settled her against his hip.
Annie laughed. "But you don't like Jell-O."
"I never get any!" he said. "How can I say whether I like it or not? My, my, you're getting heavy," he groaned as he slouched, wilting on his knees as he faux-struggled to carry her. He stepped once, twice, three times toward the door, covering the distance easily with his long legs despite his stunted movement.
"Daddy!" Annie giggled.
Stewart made it to the door before he turned it around. "Tell me, does this hospital have its liquor license?"
Meredith laughed. "Hospitals generally don't do that, Stu."
"Rats," he said, snapping the fingers of his free hand. "I was hoping. Things are so much more progressive on the West Coast."
"The only alcohol you could find here is disinfectant," Derek said.
"Nasty stuff," Stewart replied, letting his tongue fall out as he made a snarling face of disgust. "Strips your throat right off..." His voice trailed away as he noticed everyone staring at him. "What? I was kidding. Honest. All right, all right. I can take the nasty, glare-y hints. I'll be in the cafeteria feeding my monsters so they can grow up to be just like their mother."
"Stewart..." Meredith began.
"Sarah, oh siren of my heart," Stewart belted jovially as he turned left and peered down the hall before looking back with a quirky grin. "Not all monsters are snarly, you know."
"Stewart!" Meredith said, slightly louder than before.
Stewart jumped at the sound. "Oh, listen. I can hear her calling, now. Sarah, Sarah, Sarah. My radar says this way," he said, pointing down the hallway after he'd done a full spin on his heels. He turned to Annie and waggled his eyebrows at her. "Would you agree, my little sirenette?"
Annie laughed, staring at him like he was the bright center of her world. Derek couldn't help but smile as her hands wrapped around Stewart's neck and she crinkled her grip against him. Stewart blew out a breath, sending a loose strand of hair flying, and gave her a floppy, Stewart smile.
"Stewart!" Meredith tried again.
"What?" he finally asked.
"Cafeteria is to the right, down four flights," Meredith said, pointing in the opposite direction Stewart had intended to go.
"Oh, yes, right. Well then," Stewart said, turning an about face. "Shall we go find Mommy?" he asked his small bundle, and then they traipsed down the hall to the right.
Silence hovered in their wake, and Derek felt the levity slipping away from him drip by drip, until it seemed as though his body were the filter, and happiness the fluid. The tiredness he'd pushed aside pulsed behind his gaze. He closed his eyes, resting his wrists on the tray table.
Food. Dinner. He was being fed. Finally. Instead of ice chips, or glasses of water, or liquid substitutes, or blobby, easy to eat things like pudding that didn't require chewing or much of any thought to consume beyond the effort of getting the utensil carrying it from the dish to his mouth. His first solid food in over a day. Almost two. The smell of it curled against his nostrils, and something inside him woke up a little. Hungry.
"They tried to bring you lunch, but you were out," Meredith said. "Seriously out. They took it away when it got cold. I didn't want to wake you up."
He opened his eyes again and moved the tray cover aside, revealing a rather appetizing-looking salad, steaming pieces of chicken loitering at the top like white, sandy islands floating atop a green sea. He fumbled with the little dressing packet, trying, trying to read what it said. Italian. Good enough. He sprinkled it lightly over the salad and tossed the lettuce with his fork.
His first bite was heaven. The tang of the dressing and the crunch of the lettuce as it ground between his teeth made it easy to pretend he was at home at the kitchen table, Meredith sitting across from him, reading the paper while she sipped at her coffee, or that he was standing on the hospital promenade, staring out at the distant, rolling green of Seattle's surrounding sprawl of life. As long as he kept his eyes closed, he wasn't in the hospital eating dreadful hospital food. It was solid and real. His teeth clicked against the tines of the fork, and the tips of the tines pressed against his tongue, painfully if he pressed hard enough. Real food. After his fifth bite, he leaned back against his pillow and sighed, resting for a moment. He'd barely made a dent, and already, tired. Just... Tired. His mind started to drift as he remembered just why he'd been too exhausted for lunch.
"Those nurses are slave drivers, you know," he mumbled. His fork dipped into his salad as his barely remembered grip loosened the rest of the way, and the drift became a doze.
"Oh, are they?" Meredith replied.
He broke to the surface again as quickly as he'd surrendered, blinking. "Mmm," he replied noncommittally, giving her what he hoped was his best, mischievous smirk, but he saw only concern when he stared back at her. Her gaze wandered to his accidentally discarded fork, followed the flow of his hand into his wrist, where the intravenous line snaked into a vein, and then up to his face again. He noticed, again, how deeply the circles gripped her eyes. He frowned. "What is it, Mere?"
"You should eat, Der," she said.
"I'm working on it," he said as he picked his fork back up again, brandishing it at her, attempting to be playful and managing somewhat. "It's solid, you know. I'm very excited."
"I can see that," she said as he took another bite and then another.
He smiled. "You just want me to get to the dessert so we can argue over who gets it." He gestured with the fork at the little dish that sat beside his salad plate.
"I do not!" she said.
"Do, too," he replied, taking another bite. "You can't pass up cheesecake."
She rolled her eyes. "Trust me, I can pass up hospital cheesecake."
"Lies," he said as he polished off a piece of chicken. It was a little chewy, but edible. "Here I am, helpless as a lamb, and you'd rob me of my hospital cheesecake."
She put her elbows on the railing and stared at him, her eyes crinkling up with a smile that reached every part of her face, making her skin almost glow. "Why don't you work on the salad first, and then we'll talk dessert."
"All right, all right," he said. "Playing the hard bargainer, are you? You can have the cheesecake if you kiss me first."
Her eyes twinkled. "I'd kiss you for less than cheesecake."
"Less than hospital cheesecake?"
"Totally for free," she said, almost purring, but not quite as she leaned in closer. "If you ask." Her chair rolled back across the floor as she stood and bent over the side railing. The scent of her mingled with the leafy smell of salad as her heat touched his, and her skin hovered centimeters away, burning.
"I'll take you up on that," he replied softly, captive in her gray, sparkling gaze.
"Right now?" she said.
He nodded. "Yes, definitely now."
"Ask me," she said.
"Will you kiss me, Meredith Grey?" he said.
"Yes," she said against his mouth. Their lips brushed lightly before she plunged, certain but searching. He reached for her neck with his free hand to steady himself, curled his fingers against her throat, and then ran his palm up through her soft, lavender-scented hair, snaking his fingers through the strands.
"Mmm," he moaned as she licked. The fork clanked from his nerveless fingers. She dotted her first kiss with a second quick peck, like bird dipping down for water from a lake. And then she sat back down, breathless.
After a moment of helpless swirling, he blinked himself back to the present. "I don't suppose I could have a spare for good luck?" he said.
She smiled. "Eat your salad, Derek."
He smirked at her before picking up his fork. He nudged the cheesecake plate in her direction. "It's yours if you want it," he said.
She glanced at it, and he could tell from the look on her face that she'd been planning to say no when her stomach let loose the most raucous gurgle he'd ever heard. How such large sounds could come from such a small body, he'd never figure out. Never ever. He grinned. "Your stomach seems to want it," he commented, pushing the little plate closer to her.
"Meredith, dear," Ellen said from the sofa. At some point, she'd resumed her knitting, and he hadn't even noticed. He blinked, amazed, yet again, at how ruined his observational skills had become in the haze. "Have you eaten?" she said.
"Oh, sure," Meredith said. Her skin flushed. "Um. Yeah. I think."
Derek frowned as another bite of chicken slipped down his throat. "You think?" he said. How could she not remember when she'd last eaten?
"Breakfast?" she offered helplessly, shrugging. "Maybe? A snack? I think I had a snack thing. Um. One of those little nut bars. Izzie made me. She said it helped keep good energy flow. Or something. I think. It tasted like crap."
"Oh, Meredith, dear," Ellen said as she placed her knitting project to the side and stood. "You should go and get something with Stewart and the girls."
Meredith's eyes widened. She shook her head. "No, it's okay. I can... I can stay."
"Don't worry, Mere, it's not like I'm going anywhere," Derek replied, worried. "And if I did, I'm very certain you could catch me."
"You're sure?"
"That you could catch me?" he replied, looking down at himself, swathed in blankets. It was a five minute ordeal just to get out of the damned bed, let alone walk away from it. "Absolutely."
She frowned. "Derek..."
"Go eat, Mere," he said, flashing her the best smirky look he could manage. "I'll be fine."
She gave him a weak, watery smile. "O- Okay," she stuttered. She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. "I'll be back in a few minutes, I swear."
"Take your time," he replied, frowning as she parted. He leaned back against his pillow, letting his eyelids fall shut on her parting figure. She hadn't been eating? Why wouldn't she have been...
He swallowed, suddenly feeling awful. He'd been so wrapped up in his own discomfort, he hadn't really thought much about her, about her constant watching. She took bathroom breaks. She'd disappeared for a long shower. But, now that he thought about it, he hadn't seen her eat. Hadn't seen her sleep. Whenever he'd paid attention, she'd had her nose buried in a book, or she'd been wrapped around him or his hand, trying to make him feel less like his whole world was crumbling down.
He drifted in the mire as the floor nurse, Abasi, came to check his intravenous line and vitals. The nurse gently lifted Derek's wrist and felt for his pulse. "How are you feeling, Dr. Shepherd?" Abasi asked quietly. "Any pain?"
"Tired, but no pain," Derek answered.
"Wonderful," Abasi replied as he scribbled quick notes on Derek's chart with a gold-colored ballpoint pen. "Good evening, Mrs. Shepherd," he added politely. And then Abasi departed like a wraith as quietly as he'd come. He was the most unobtrusive, quick nurse Derek had ever met, and Derek appreciated it.
The room started to fuzz. He was vaguely aware of his mother moving, shifting. He heard a chair scoot up against the side of the bed. The earthy, flowery, rainy scent of her perfume wafted in the space to his right. Her quiet breathing fanned into the air, close, but not intimate like Meredith's when she hovered close. A quiet, hollow sound of flesh gripping the railing next to him preceded a light, warm but weathered hand against his cheek.
"M'okay, Mom," he muttered as her fingers brushed thin, soft lines against his forehead, like she were trying to run her fingers through his hair but was frustrated to find that she no longer could. And then his awareness faded to black.
He snapped awake. His mother sat next to him, knitting needles clinking softly in the relative silence. He wiped a hand over his face. He swallowed. His mouth felt pasty again with sleep. How long? He glanced at his watch, looking at it blearily. Twenty-five minutes. He felt slightly more rested, though, ready to start picking at the remnants of his salad.
His mother frowned at him. "Derek?"
"I'm just tired, Mom," he said. "Anesthesia makes people tired," he clarified. And then he brushed the subject away. He wished she would stop treating him like he was dying. "So, you're staying with Mark?"
She folded her project into her lap, kneading her fingers against the clot of thread. "Yes," she said. "He offered when he picked me up. And I... I didn't want to impose. On you."
"You're never imposing, Mom."
She smiled at him. "This place is lovely, you know. So much nicer than Mount Sinai. Very green. I can see why you like it here. The view off the promenade is gorgeous."
"The promenade is my favorite spot," he said. "That and the ferries. Seattle sort of grew on me."
His mother nodded. "Meredith grew on you, too."
"She didn't really have to grow on me, Mom," he replied. "She just suddenly was."
She grinned, leaning forward to grasp his hand. "I meant since I first met her. You fit," she said as she squeezed his palm. "You two remind me of your father and I. We loved each other. But then we really, really loved each other. The end result of what we had certainly didn't happen overnight."
He drifted with the gentle, earthy cadence of her voice. "Hmm?" he muttered, suddenly realizing she'd finished and was staring, her silver-streaked hair, serious, deep blue eyes, and timeworn skin giving her a sage, comforting look.
"The two of you," she said, patiently waiting for him to catch up before she continued. "I've never seen you so happy, all things considered. You remind me of your father so very much." Her lower lip quivered, and her eyes reddened as she sniffled, which made him want to crumple. "Your smile is the same. And the way your eyes sparkle when you're delighted. And your laugh. Meredith makes you laugh, and it's lovely."
Tears dotted her face as she looked down at his hand, clasped in hers. He sighed. "I'm fine, Mom. Really."
"She's very worried about you," Ellen said. "She reminds me of me."
"I didn't mean to scare her," he said, fighting back the lump in his throat. "Or you."
"Of course not, sweetheart," Ellen whispered. "I'm worried, though. It doesn't look like she's slept a wink in days. And the poor girl hasn't eaten. She's barely gotten up since I arrived." She didn't finish her assessment with her thoughts on him, instead remaining silent. But he saw it in her eyes. And you. And you, Derek. You're so frail and sick and not yourself. You remind me of the man that I lost.
"Mom..."
"Don't Mom me," Ellen scolded as she let go of him and wiped at her face, sniffling. She gestured at his salad. "Eat. I don't need two starving children."
"Mom..." he said out of habit, sighing as he picked up his fork and took another bite. Another. Another. The food didn't taste quite as good anymore, but she was watching him like if he didn't finish every scrap it was a sign he was going to keel over and die any second. He chewed, subconsciously matching the soft, distant rhythm of his heart monitor.
"I was so frightened. When Meredith called me," Ellen admitted.
He put his fork down and turned to her, clearing his throat, awkward, scratchy, threatening to open up with grief. "Oh, Mom. It's not... It's not like Dad," he said, his eyes pricking up with new, exhausted tears. "I'm fine. I'll be fine, now. I'm a neurosurgeon. I know," he said, though he knew it was sort of a lie.
He didn't know.
There were still a whole slew of things that could go wrong. And he hadn't really tested himself cognitively yet. Just from his trouble thinking so far, he knew that he hadn't been spared troubles concentrating. Those would clear over the course of his recovery, unless Dr. Weller had done something to permanently impair him or the hematoma had done something that wasn't fixable. But his mother didn't need to know about that. She didn't need to know about the potential for him to develop a seizure disorder, or about any of the other complications that could develop and send him back for yet another craniotomy, or even the more mundane things that could go wrong from any sort of surgery. Infection and fever. Post-operative pneumonia. She didn't...
"I may not know medicine like you and your sisters and Meredith," she said, interrupting his mental spiraling in time to save him from a dark well of fear, but not in time to save him from the guilt or the clawing upset she had churned up inside him. "But I know it was very serious, Derek, and that it still is. You almost died. I know. Meredith was..."
"I didn't mean to scare her," he insisted. "Or you. Or..."
"Hush," she said, her tone dropping into the soft, calm, earthy sound that made her words more of a mood than things with definitive meaning. Hush. Never fear. It was her soft, mothering tone that made everything all right. It's all right. I'll always be here. And your father will always be with you. Here. She'd touched his chest and curled him into her embrace. It'd been the last time he'd gone to her. The last time, when his dad had still been an open wound, and he'd needed it. He could remember her rocking him softly until he'd fallen asleep, drowning in tears. It was one of the sharper memories he had of his earlier childhood, which was odd, because most of the things he could remember about his father were just distant impressions. The sound of his laughter. A scent. A smile. The splotchy pattern on his favorite tie.
"You're not to blame," his mother said.
"I'm sorry, anyway," he admitted as he rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Meredith's already had enough to deal with. She doesn't need this. You didn't need this. Nobody needed this." He stared at the remainder of his salad. There were perhaps five more bites left, but he wasn't hungry anymore. His stomach was satisfied, and all that remained was the tiredness that told him he was about to lose the world again if he let his eyelids fall shut for more than a blink.
"How are you, Der," his mother whispered. "How are you, really?"
He swallowed. Tired. Cloudy. Scatterbrained. Homesick. Weak. Sick. Embarrassed. Stripped. Scared. "Can we, please, not talk about me?" he said quietly. "When we talk about me, I feel like I look."
She nodded. "All right," she said. "All right, sweetheart. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you feel worse. Never that."
She leaned forward against the railing and wrapped her arms around him, pulling him into her embrace, and he found he couldn't resist, nor did he want to.
"Mom..." he said, helpless as the tears began to fall in earnest. He felt better. Better, but not good. Tired. Cloudy. Meredith had helped him, but she'd done it at the cost of her own health, and that was... He had to stop being so ill. He had to...
But he couldn't.
And that was the simple fact of it.
"Hush, Der," she whispered, sighing against his ear. "And let me hug my stubborn son." Her warmth wrapped around him. And he couldn't do it anymore. He fell apart.
"I'm so tired," he said, his breaths hitching. "And I can't fix it."
"There's someone you can fix," Ellen replied as she rubbed a palm down his back. The fabric rustled. He sighed. "She just needs a nudge. She has a lot of words twisted up inside, and she's not saying them."
When his mother finally released him, he felt better. He pulled it back inside again. The coiling ugliness that kept leaking out. He was better. Not good. But better. Better enough that he could at least give a nudge.
And that was something.
Author: AriaAdagio
Rating: M
Pairing: Mer/Der
Summary: Post Time After Time. Derek takes Meredith to visit his family in Connecticut, but nothing goes as planned.
~~~~~
"Where is everyone staying?" he asked again. What's going on?
"Sarah and I were planning on checking into a hotel later," Stewart replied. "Mom's-"
"Staying in Mark's spare bedroom," his mother said. Her tone was wary, as if she expected him to object, but he couldn't. He couldn't bring himself to care anymore. Mark was Mark. Mark would always be Mark. Hate was a wasted emotion when Mark would never, ever understand what he'd done. And Mark was... Things would never be the same, but without the hate... Derek couldn't bring himself to wish Mark away from the people who were his family in spirit though not in blood.
"Oh," Derek said, turning to Stewart. "You shouldn't have to stay at a hotel, you could..." he began, and then he stopped, his crayon paused, and his gaze flicked to Meredith as he realized the verbal stumble he'd almost gotten himself into. He met Meredith's eyes, and she blinked, smiled, and reached to brush his wrist as her eyes narrowed with affection and just... Being. Her touch sent a shiver up his arm, and he sighed when she lingered like a moth to a flame. Her thumb trailed along the bump of a vein in his wrist, searching, soothing.
"Yeah," Meredith said, directing her words to Stewart. "You guys could stay at our house." Our house. The words broke through the buzzing opiates like spears. And then she turned back to Derek. She added in a softer voice that made his heart melt. "It's your house, too, Derek. You can offer."
He swallowed against the sudden blur. He blinked and rubbed his eyes. He hadn't wanted to presume. Not only because it technically wasn't his house, but also because he knew the only bedroom she really had to give out at will was the master bedroom since the others all had renting occupants. She'd said she was going to stay with him the whole week. Stay the whole time. But... He hadn't rationally expected that she meant the whole week, as in every minute, second, and slice of time between. It was unfair to her. On-call rooms were really not all that restful with all the comings and goings of tired doctors and nurses who could only spare five or ten minutes, and her curling up in the sliver of space left to her on his hospital bed seemed cruel. The beds were really only meant for one person. And he had people checking on him at all hours, which would wake her up. But, if she gave away the master bedroom, that cemented the fact that she would be there. All the time. And that... Strangely made the homesickness burn a little brighter. He wanted to go home and curl up in their own bed, for him, so he could finally be a normal person again, out of the scrutiny, off of the stage where his body maintained an unending soliloquy, and for her, because he hated that she would be suffering with him, and he hated that he didn't have the courage to tell her not to.
"Thanks, that'd be great," Stewart replied.
"You can take the master bedroom," Meredith said. "The girls will have to sleep in the den, though. I've got a bit of a full house thing going on."
Stewart smiled. "Sarah mentioned you have a couple roommates."
Something jabbed Derek's leg. He sniffled and blinked. "You gotta color, Uncle Derek!" Annie snarled at him, but it was a cute sort of snarl that made him laugh because she looked so damned serious, as if coloring were all that stood between him and collapse of the universe.
"Okay, okay, I'm coloring," he said against the low, weepy feeling hovering in the back of his throat. Home would be nice. He gestured at the brown muddle of stuff on her page. Annie, it seemed, like him, was not much of an artist, but he felt compelled to say, "That's beautiful," anyway. She grinned at him, eyes twinkling with a brilliant sparkle of innocence and belief, belief that her Uncle Derek thought she was some sort of Picasso or Monet, and it melted him, made him, for just that one moment, forget where he was, and he loved her for it. He loved her for it even when the slow pang that followed reminded him that Meredith had said only maybe, and he shouldn't get his hopes up again. He shouldn't. He couldn't.
One of the hardest things about his family's yearly reunions and holiday get togethers had always been seeing his sisters' families sprout up around him one tiny, bubbly new body at a time. Addison had always played well with the kids, but she'd never seemed to revel in it. He wondered when it had been that he'd lost that last sliver of hope with her. Derek Shepherd. Not a father. He couldn't pinpoint when the final moment had been, but he was pretty sure it would have been over one of their many Christmases or Thanksgivings in the crush of the sprawling Shepherd clan. Perhaps on a morning when the wrapping paper had been flying about in a storm of bits and pieces, while he had been staring wistfully, and she'd only been happily watching the fray, as if she didn't seem to know or care that she was missing something vital to be a part of the moment instead of just a watcher.
"Where's everyone else?" he asked, trying to force himself onto another train of thought as he started to fill in the blobby wings he'd offered his rather inartistic butterfly with blotches of wax-smelling color. Meredith caught his gaze, and he swallowed as his crayon stopped moving. She knew. She knew what he'd been thinking then, he was certain. She smiled at him shyly instead of glaring, telling him to put his pipedreams away.
"Sarah took Lindsey to the cafeteria a few minutes before you woke up," Stewart rattled on, unaware of the exchange that said so much without a word. "Mark is off doing doctor things. I don't know. Something about a nose. Or maybe it was a bre-" He paused, his gaze wandering to Annie. "Stuff," he corrected before continuing. "Nobody else was able to make it so soon after taking a week off, but I'm under strict orders to make sure your brain is only as scrambled as it used to be and to report back in painstaking detail."
"Stewart!" Ellen hissed softly.
"What, he's fine!" Stewart said. He pointed at the tray table. "Look at the horse he colored. It's perfect."
"I wasn't drawing a horse," Derek said.
Stewart recovered quickly. "Well, see," he said after a rolling, choking sort of stutter, "It's so perfect it's transcended its original species."
"Thanks, Stu," Derek said, his voice wry as he stared down at his butterfly. He supposed, if one was as mentally deficient as Stewart, that it could be interpreted as a malformed equine. With blue spots and antennae. He secured himself in the knowledge that Stewart was just being Stewart.
"Annie," Derek said, his voice low, conspiratorial. "I heard that Daddy wants to take you to riding lessons. He just needs to be convinced."
"Really?" she squeaked.
Stewart's jaw dropped. "Low, Derek. Sarah will have words with you later, I'm sure."
"Scrambled brain. In morphine veritas," Derek replied, smirking. "What can I say?"
A knock on the door brought all of their gazes up. "Dr. Shepherd?" an orderly said as he carried in a tray that smelled vaguely of warm but unidentifiable food. He stepped near to the bed and stopped, staring at the tray table expectantly.
Stewart swooped in and gathered Annie up into his arms. "All right, Starshine," he said as he gave the side of her cheek a loud raspberry kiss. "Let's move so Uncle Derek can eat."
He set her down on the floor. She pouted, tugging at Stewart's pant leg with her tiny fingers. "But Uncle Derek likes to color!"
"I know he does, sweetie," Stewart replied absently as he started gathering up her crayons and moving things out of the way. Derek watched as his amoebic butterfly got folded up with Annie's blobby horses. "But I bet he also likes to not starve. Shall we go to the cafeteria and see if Mommy has robbed the buffet of all its Jell-O?"
The orderly dropped off the tray of food on the table, smiling. "Good to see you feeling better, Dr. Shepherd," he commented. Derek vaguely remembered him as Nick. They'd talked about the finer points of hockey at one point in the elevator. Derek had walked with Nick to transport a patient who'd been terrified. A woman who'd needed a keyhole craniotomy for a biopsy. The three of them had had a fine debate over why the Rangers were absolutely not going to win their next game, and why the NHL was going downhill.
"Thanks," Derek replied, too riveted with Annie and Stewart to feel very awkward about the sympathy. Nick disappeared as quickly as he'd arrived.
"Mommy wouldn't do that!" Annie said. "She'd save some for me."
"Would she?" Stewart replied. "She never saves any for me." He finished cramming everything back into her little backpack and handed it to her. She looped the straps over her shoulders, and then he roared affectionately as he lifted her up again and settled her against his hip.
Annie laughed. "But you don't like Jell-O."
"I never get any!" he said. "How can I say whether I like it or not? My, my, you're getting heavy," he groaned as he slouched, wilting on his knees as he faux-struggled to carry her. He stepped once, twice, three times toward the door, covering the distance easily with his long legs despite his stunted movement.
"Daddy!" Annie giggled.
Stewart made it to the door before he turned it around. "Tell me, does this hospital have its liquor license?"
Meredith laughed. "Hospitals generally don't do that, Stu."
"Rats," he said, snapping the fingers of his free hand. "I was hoping. Things are so much more progressive on the West Coast."
"The only alcohol you could find here is disinfectant," Derek said.
"Nasty stuff," Stewart replied, letting his tongue fall out as he made a snarling face of disgust. "Strips your throat right off..." His voice trailed away as he noticed everyone staring at him. "What? I was kidding. Honest. All right, all right. I can take the nasty, glare-y hints. I'll be in the cafeteria feeding my monsters so they can grow up to be just like their mother."
"Stewart..." Meredith began.
"Sarah, oh siren of my heart," Stewart belted jovially as he turned left and peered down the hall before looking back with a quirky grin. "Not all monsters are snarly, you know."
"Stewart!" Meredith said, slightly louder than before.
Stewart jumped at the sound. "Oh, listen. I can hear her calling, now. Sarah, Sarah, Sarah. My radar says this way," he said, pointing down the hallway after he'd done a full spin on his heels. He turned to Annie and waggled his eyebrows at her. "Would you agree, my little sirenette?"
Annie laughed, staring at him like he was the bright center of her world. Derek couldn't help but smile as her hands wrapped around Stewart's neck and she crinkled her grip against him. Stewart blew out a breath, sending a loose strand of hair flying, and gave her a floppy, Stewart smile.
"Stewart!" Meredith tried again.
"What?" he finally asked.
"Cafeteria is to the right, down four flights," Meredith said, pointing in the opposite direction Stewart had intended to go.
"Oh, yes, right. Well then," Stewart said, turning an about face. "Shall we go find Mommy?" he asked his small bundle, and then they traipsed down the hall to the right.
Silence hovered in their wake, and Derek felt the levity slipping away from him drip by drip, until it seemed as though his body were the filter, and happiness the fluid. The tiredness he'd pushed aside pulsed behind his gaze. He closed his eyes, resting his wrists on the tray table.
Food. Dinner. He was being fed. Finally. Instead of ice chips, or glasses of water, or liquid substitutes, or blobby, easy to eat things like pudding that didn't require chewing or much of any thought to consume beyond the effort of getting the utensil carrying it from the dish to his mouth. His first solid food in over a day. Almost two. The smell of it curled against his nostrils, and something inside him woke up a little. Hungry.
"They tried to bring you lunch, but you were out," Meredith said. "Seriously out. They took it away when it got cold. I didn't want to wake you up."
He opened his eyes again and moved the tray cover aside, revealing a rather appetizing-looking salad, steaming pieces of chicken loitering at the top like white, sandy islands floating atop a green sea. He fumbled with the little dressing packet, trying, trying to read what it said. Italian. Good enough. He sprinkled it lightly over the salad and tossed the lettuce with his fork.
His first bite was heaven. The tang of the dressing and the crunch of the lettuce as it ground between his teeth made it easy to pretend he was at home at the kitchen table, Meredith sitting across from him, reading the paper while she sipped at her coffee, or that he was standing on the hospital promenade, staring out at the distant, rolling green of Seattle's surrounding sprawl of life. As long as he kept his eyes closed, he wasn't in the hospital eating dreadful hospital food. It was solid and real. His teeth clicked against the tines of the fork, and the tips of the tines pressed against his tongue, painfully if he pressed hard enough. Real food. After his fifth bite, he leaned back against his pillow and sighed, resting for a moment. He'd barely made a dent, and already, tired. Just... Tired. His mind started to drift as he remembered just why he'd been too exhausted for lunch.
"Those nurses are slave drivers, you know," he mumbled. His fork dipped into his salad as his barely remembered grip loosened the rest of the way, and the drift became a doze.
"Oh, are they?" Meredith replied.
He broke to the surface again as quickly as he'd surrendered, blinking. "Mmm," he replied noncommittally, giving her what he hoped was his best, mischievous smirk, but he saw only concern when he stared back at her. Her gaze wandered to his accidentally discarded fork, followed the flow of his hand into his wrist, where the intravenous line snaked into a vein, and then up to his face again. He noticed, again, how deeply the circles gripped her eyes. He frowned. "What is it, Mere?"
"You should eat, Der," she said.
"I'm working on it," he said as he picked his fork back up again, brandishing it at her, attempting to be playful and managing somewhat. "It's solid, you know. I'm very excited."
"I can see that," she said as he took another bite and then another.
He smiled. "You just want me to get to the dessert so we can argue over who gets it." He gestured with the fork at the little dish that sat beside his salad plate.
"I do not!" she said.
"Do, too," he replied, taking another bite. "You can't pass up cheesecake."
She rolled her eyes. "Trust me, I can pass up hospital cheesecake."
"Lies," he said as he polished off a piece of chicken. It was a little chewy, but edible. "Here I am, helpless as a lamb, and you'd rob me of my hospital cheesecake."
She put her elbows on the railing and stared at him, her eyes crinkling up with a smile that reached every part of her face, making her skin almost glow. "Why don't you work on the salad first, and then we'll talk dessert."
"All right, all right," he said. "Playing the hard bargainer, are you? You can have the cheesecake if you kiss me first."
Her eyes twinkled. "I'd kiss you for less than cheesecake."
"Less than hospital cheesecake?"
"Totally for free," she said, almost purring, but not quite as she leaned in closer. "If you ask." Her chair rolled back across the floor as she stood and bent over the side railing. The scent of her mingled with the leafy smell of salad as her heat touched his, and her skin hovered centimeters away, burning.
"I'll take you up on that," he replied softly, captive in her gray, sparkling gaze.
"Right now?" she said.
He nodded. "Yes, definitely now."
"Ask me," she said.
"Will you kiss me, Meredith Grey?" he said.
"Yes," she said against his mouth. Their lips brushed lightly before she plunged, certain but searching. He reached for her neck with his free hand to steady himself, curled his fingers against her throat, and then ran his palm up through her soft, lavender-scented hair, snaking his fingers through the strands.
"Mmm," he moaned as she licked. The fork clanked from his nerveless fingers. She dotted her first kiss with a second quick peck, like bird dipping down for water from a lake. And then she sat back down, breathless.
After a moment of helpless swirling, he blinked himself back to the present. "I don't suppose I could have a spare for good luck?" he said.
She smiled. "Eat your salad, Derek."
He smirked at her before picking up his fork. He nudged the cheesecake plate in her direction. "It's yours if you want it," he said.
She glanced at it, and he could tell from the look on her face that she'd been planning to say no when her stomach let loose the most raucous gurgle he'd ever heard. How such large sounds could come from such a small body, he'd never figure out. Never ever. He grinned. "Your stomach seems to want it," he commented, pushing the little plate closer to her.
"Meredith, dear," Ellen said from the sofa. At some point, she'd resumed her knitting, and he hadn't even noticed. He blinked, amazed, yet again, at how ruined his observational skills had become in the haze. "Have you eaten?" she said.
"Oh, sure," Meredith said. Her skin flushed. "Um. Yeah. I think."
Derek frowned as another bite of chicken slipped down his throat. "You think?" he said. How could she not remember when she'd last eaten?
"Breakfast?" she offered helplessly, shrugging. "Maybe? A snack? I think I had a snack thing. Um. One of those little nut bars. Izzie made me. She said it helped keep good energy flow. Or something. I think. It tasted like crap."
"Oh, Meredith, dear," Ellen said as she placed her knitting project to the side and stood. "You should go and get something with Stewart and the girls."
Meredith's eyes widened. She shook her head. "No, it's okay. I can... I can stay."
"Don't worry, Mere, it's not like I'm going anywhere," Derek replied, worried. "And if I did, I'm very certain you could catch me."
"You're sure?"
"That you could catch me?" he replied, looking down at himself, swathed in blankets. It was a five minute ordeal just to get out of the damned bed, let alone walk away from it. "Absolutely."
She frowned. "Derek..."
"Go eat, Mere," he said, flashing her the best smirky look he could manage. "I'll be fine."
She gave him a weak, watery smile. "O- Okay," she stuttered. She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. "I'll be back in a few minutes, I swear."
"Take your time," he replied, frowning as she parted. He leaned back against his pillow, letting his eyelids fall shut on her parting figure. She hadn't been eating? Why wouldn't she have been...
He swallowed, suddenly feeling awful. He'd been so wrapped up in his own discomfort, he hadn't really thought much about her, about her constant watching. She took bathroom breaks. She'd disappeared for a long shower. But, now that he thought about it, he hadn't seen her eat. Hadn't seen her sleep. Whenever he'd paid attention, she'd had her nose buried in a book, or she'd been wrapped around him or his hand, trying to make him feel less like his whole world was crumbling down.
He drifted in the mire as the floor nurse, Abasi, came to check his intravenous line and vitals. The nurse gently lifted Derek's wrist and felt for his pulse. "How are you feeling, Dr. Shepherd?" Abasi asked quietly. "Any pain?"
"Tired, but no pain," Derek answered.
"Wonderful," Abasi replied as he scribbled quick notes on Derek's chart with a gold-colored ballpoint pen. "Good evening, Mrs. Shepherd," he added politely. And then Abasi departed like a wraith as quietly as he'd come. He was the most unobtrusive, quick nurse Derek had ever met, and Derek appreciated it.
The room started to fuzz. He was vaguely aware of his mother moving, shifting. He heard a chair scoot up against the side of the bed. The earthy, flowery, rainy scent of her perfume wafted in the space to his right. Her quiet breathing fanned into the air, close, but not intimate like Meredith's when she hovered close. A quiet, hollow sound of flesh gripping the railing next to him preceded a light, warm but weathered hand against his cheek.
"M'okay, Mom," he muttered as her fingers brushed thin, soft lines against his forehead, like she were trying to run her fingers through his hair but was frustrated to find that she no longer could. And then his awareness faded to black.
He snapped awake. His mother sat next to him, knitting needles clinking softly in the relative silence. He wiped a hand over his face. He swallowed. His mouth felt pasty again with sleep. How long? He glanced at his watch, looking at it blearily. Twenty-five minutes. He felt slightly more rested, though, ready to start picking at the remnants of his salad.
His mother frowned at him. "Derek?"
"I'm just tired, Mom," he said. "Anesthesia makes people tired," he clarified. And then he brushed the subject away. He wished she would stop treating him like he was dying. "So, you're staying with Mark?"
She folded her project into her lap, kneading her fingers against the clot of thread. "Yes," she said. "He offered when he picked me up. And I... I didn't want to impose. On you."
"You're never imposing, Mom."
She smiled at him. "This place is lovely, you know. So much nicer than Mount Sinai. Very green. I can see why you like it here. The view off the promenade is gorgeous."
"The promenade is my favorite spot," he said. "That and the ferries. Seattle sort of grew on me."
His mother nodded. "Meredith grew on you, too."
"She didn't really have to grow on me, Mom," he replied. "She just suddenly was."
She grinned, leaning forward to grasp his hand. "I meant since I first met her. You fit," she said as she squeezed his palm. "You two remind me of your father and I. We loved each other. But then we really, really loved each other. The end result of what we had certainly didn't happen overnight."
He drifted with the gentle, earthy cadence of her voice. "Hmm?" he muttered, suddenly realizing she'd finished and was staring, her silver-streaked hair, serious, deep blue eyes, and timeworn skin giving her a sage, comforting look.
"The two of you," she said, patiently waiting for him to catch up before she continued. "I've never seen you so happy, all things considered. You remind me of your father so very much." Her lower lip quivered, and her eyes reddened as she sniffled, which made him want to crumple. "Your smile is the same. And the way your eyes sparkle when you're delighted. And your laugh. Meredith makes you laugh, and it's lovely."
Tears dotted her face as she looked down at his hand, clasped in hers. He sighed. "I'm fine, Mom. Really."
"She's very worried about you," Ellen said. "She reminds me of me."
"I didn't mean to scare her," he said, fighting back the lump in his throat. "Or you."
"Of course not, sweetheart," Ellen whispered. "I'm worried, though. It doesn't look like she's slept a wink in days. And the poor girl hasn't eaten. She's barely gotten up since I arrived." She didn't finish her assessment with her thoughts on him, instead remaining silent. But he saw it in her eyes. And you. And you, Derek. You're so frail and sick and not yourself. You remind me of the man that I lost.
"Mom..."
"Don't Mom me," Ellen scolded as she let go of him and wiped at her face, sniffling. She gestured at his salad. "Eat. I don't need two starving children."
"Mom..." he said out of habit, sighing as he picked up his fork and took another bite. Another. Another. The food didn't taste quite as good anymore, but she was watching him like if he didn't finish every scrap it was a sign he was going to keel over and die any second. He chewed, subconsciously matching the soft, distant rhythm of his heart monitor.
"I was so frightened. When Meredith called me," Ellen admitted.
He put his fork down and turned to her, clearing his throat, awkward, scratchy, threatening to open up with grief. "Oh, Mom. It's not... It's not like Dad," he said, his eyes pricking up with new, exhausted tears. "I'm fine. I'll be fine, now. I'm a neurosurgeon. I know," he said, though he knew it was sort of a lie.
He didn't know.
There were still a whole slew of things that could go wrong. And he hadn't really tested himself cognitively yet. Just from his trouble thinking so far, he knew that he hadn't been spared troubles concentrating. Those would clear over the course of his recovery, unless Dr. Weller had done something to permanently impair him or the hematoma had done something that wasn't fixable. But his mother didn't need to know about that. She didn't need to know about the potential for him to develop a seizure disorder, or about any of the other complications that could develop and send him back for yet another craniotomy, or even the more mundane things that could go wrong from any sort of surgery. Infection and fever. Post-operative pneumonia. She didn't...
"I may not know medicine like you and your sisters and Meredith," she said, interrupting his mental spiraling in time to save him from a dark well of fear, but not in time to save him from the guilt or the clawing upset she had churned up inside him. "But I know it was very serious, Derek, and that it still is. You almost died. I know. Meredith was..."
"I didn't mean to scare her," he insisted. "Or you. Or..."
"Hush," she said, her tone dropping into the soft, calm, earthy sound that made her words more of a mood than things with definitive meaning. Hush. Never fear. It was her soft, mothering tone that made everything all right. It's all right. I'll always be here. And your father will always be with you. Here. She'd touched his chest and curled him into her embrace. It'd been the last time he'd gone to her. The last time, when his dad had still been an open wound, and he'd needed it. He could remember her rocking him softly until he'd fallen asleep, drowning in tears. It was one of the sharper memories he had of his earlier childhood, which was odd, because most of the things he could remember about his father were just distant impressions. The sound of his laughter. A scent. A smile. The splotchy pattern on his favorite tie.
"You're not to blame," his mother said.
"I'm sorry, anyway," he admitted as he rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Meredith's already had enough to deal with. She doesn't need this. You didn't need this. Nobody needed this." He stared at the remainder of his salad. There were perhaps five more bites left, but he wasn't hungry anymore. His stomach was satisfied, and all that remained was the tiredness that told him he was about to lose the world again if he let his eyelids fall shut for more than a blink.
"How are you, Der," his mother whispered. "How are you, really?"
He swallowed. Tired. Cloudy. Scatterbrained. Homesick. Weak. Sick. Embarrassed. Stripped. Scared. "Can we, please, not talk about me?" he said quietly. "When we talk about me, I feel like I look."
She nodded. "All right," she said. "All right, sweetheart. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you feel worse. Never that."
She leaned forward against the railing and wrapped her arms around him, pulling him into her embrace, and he found he couldn't resist, nor did he want to.
"Mom..." he said, helpless as the tears began to fall in earnest. He felt better. Better, but not good. Tired. Cloudy. Meredith had helped him, but she'd done it at the cost of her own health, and that was... He had to stop being so ill. He had to...
But he couldn't.
And that was the simple fact of it.
"Hush, Der," she whispered, sighing against his ear. "And let me hug my stubborn son." Her warmth wrapped around him. And he couldn't do it anymore. He fell apart.
"I'm so tired," he said, his breaths hitching. "And I can't fix it."
"There's someone you can fix," Ellen replied as she rubbed a palm down his back. The fabric rustled. He sighed. "She just needs a nudge. She has a lot of words twisted up inside, and she's not saying them."
When his mother finally released him, he felt better. He pulled it back inside again. The coiling ugliness that kept leaking out. He was better. Not good. But better. Better enough that he could at least give a nudge.
And that was something.