Lightning Strikes Twice - Part 41A
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.
~~~~~
Meredith picked at her hospital pizza and her hospital fries and her hospital diet Coke, staring at the coagulating mess of cheese and grease and badness on her plate while Lindsey and Annie played at a table two away from theirs, as if parents and a weird almost-aunt weren't special enough to sit with the kids. Lindsey was eight. Far too cool for her almost-six sister. The playing occasionally degenerated into a bit of a spat over who got to play with which toy. Sarah refereed when it got bad, but for the most part, the dolls and crayons and the girls stayed firmly in their own universe, fifteen feet away, leaving Meredith drowning at the table with Stewart and Sarah, who kept trying to talk to her as if they expected her to be some mentally coherent doctor or something, and not an exhausted, scared fiancé. Or maybe just a mentally coherent fiancé and not a scared one. The talk rarely moved to the medical thing. Sarah had enough understanding of Derek's condition and surgery that she didn't ask much, and she must have filled Stewart in at some point, because Stewart seemed more fascinated with his Jell-O cup than about asking whether Derek would be okay.
Which was good, because Meredith didn't think she could do supportive for anyone but Derek at that point, though, even that made her feel like she was scraping her mental spoon at the bottom of a desiccated pitcher. And she certainly couldn't do coherent.
Somewhere in the blur, Meredith caught snippets about Sarah's and Stewart's flight and how they'd been lucky to get seats at the last minute. Ellen hadn't even mentioned them coming along during her frequent phone calls for updates and information. Genuine surprise had snarled in Meredith's brain, dragging her tiredness away momentarily when Mark had arrived at the door to Derek's quiet hospital room with a trail of jetlagged people slogging behind him.
Meredith had almost found herself crawling into an old, ugly hole of anti-family she'd thought she'd never return to, wishing they'd all just go away and take their noise and questions and blanket of saccharine, smothering caring away so she could be alone, listening to Derek sleep. But Derek loved his family, so she'd forced herself to deal with the noise and the people and the mountain of sympathetic caring that'd made her teeth grate. Somewhere in the haze, she'd quietly re-arrived at acceptance and wary appreciation. It'd only taken an hour or two. Then Ellen had made her go eat when all she'd wanted to do was stay, and a brief, vague cycle of hate had started again.
Was that normal? The yo-yo of wanting company and then wanting it to all go away?
She stared at her plate. She wasn't a neglectful person. When she felt hungry, she ate. When she'd been having the little cheesecake tiff with Derek, she hadn't been hungry. She hadn't. Her stomach was just a rebellious organ in its stupid pink hair phase and it'd growled said rebelliousness to the world. This was evidenced by the fact that her cold pizza and grease-glinting fries did nothing for her but shine. Right? Pizza was food. Pizza was good. She liked pizza.
She was going insane.
She poked her fork at the cheese, which stretched as she drew the tines away until the melting, dairy goo snapped and sprang backward onto the plate. Her fork hung suspended in the air from her fingers, almost two feet away from the table, a little curl of cheese wrapped around it, and her pizza lay on the plate, the surface of it broken and mangled. Her stomach responded, but not in a friendly feed-me way. More in a flip-flop of doom way.
She bit her lip and took a quick sip of her soda to quiet it, noticing, finally, as the swallow of drink settled and spread a chill deep into her torso, that Stewart and Sarah were both staring at her, unblinking, silent. Sarah had put her chair up against Stewart's and had leaned back against his large frame. She sighed as he worked his large, long fingers against the perfect creamy skin above her shoulders.
Sarah wore old jeans and a holey, black t-shirt that had the Rolling Stones tongue logo sprawled across the breast. Her dark, almost-midnight hair hung loose and fluffy and wispy, done in a careless-but-styled way that draped slightly past her shoulders. Thin hints of bangs streaked down against her eyes, which were blue, but deeply so, almost appearing black in the dim cafeteria lighting, sort of like Derek's did when they were in the almost-dark. A demure, sparkly tennis bracelet gripped Sarah's right wrist, and her wedding and engagement rings encircled her left ring finger, but otherwise, she seemed like she'd just rolled out of bed looking that gorgeous, no careful preparation, no artfully adorned metal or clothing affixed specifically to draw out her best features, and if she wore makeup, it was subtle enough to be silent in the overall glowing picture.
She was thin and pretty in a way that defied logic. Completely defied it. Because Sarah liked Jell-O, consumed tons of cookie dough, and didn't seem to care at all about how much she ate or what rules of fashion she defied. Which, really, just wasn't fair. People with metabolisms rivaling nuclear reactors weren't fair. And people who looked gorgeous on top of it? Not. Freaking. Fair. Meredith glanced at her pile of grease masquerading as a meal. Okay, at least the latter half about the gorgeousness made her slightly less hypocritical.
"Sorry, what?" Meredith asked dumbly when the staring continued.
Sarah's eyes dipped shut as Stewart hit a tense spot. A lazy smile dripped over her features. She pawed lightly at him, and he pulled his hands away. She leaned forward and grinned. "Meredith, honey, may I?" she said, pointing at Meredith's left hand. "I didn't get a chance to look earlier."
Meredith followed Sarah's gesture and landed her gaze on her ring. The simple princess cut platinum solitaire. She put her fork down against the plate with a clank. She couldn't help the small grin that chipped away at the churning bits of... everything else. She tilted her hand back and forth, catching the light, letting herself bathe in the small ache of relief for a moment before she looked back up and held her hand out.
"Sure," Meredith said.
Sarah's chair squealed as she dragged it across the floor, away from Stewart, closer to Meredith. Her thin, arching fingers brushed Meredith's, warm and soft and light. "It's lovely," Sarah said. "Did he take you to Eamon's?"
"Yeah."
"Oh, I love that store," Stewart said. "Whenever she's mad at me, if I get something from there it goes away."
"Stewart!" Sarah said, laughing.
He grinned. "What, I'm trainable."
"Yeah, we went there," Meredith said, easing back into her chair, away from the icky pile of food on her plate. She closed her eyes. The shop seemed like a painted watercolor behind her eyelids. She could remember the sudden silence as Derek, hands splayed softly against the small of her back, had guided her into the shop, out of the bustle of Manhattan and into Eamon's glittery world. She could remember the glow of the display cases. The old, lived-in smell of the building. The sparkle in Derek's eyes and in the endless rows of rings. Expensive rings. I just want you to have what you want, Derek had whispered against the rolling pile of doubt and imminent freak-out. She couldn't believe that it'd been less than a week ago.
Life had the propensity to change in spurts on her. Boom, father is gone. Boom, mother is sick. Boom, the guy you slept with is your boss. Said boss is married. Bombs are going off. Boss is divorced. Appendicitis. Boss is Derek again, and he's with you. Mother is lucid. You're dead in the water. Mother is dead. Derek doesn't remember. Now you have a family. Now you're engaged. Boom. Boom. Boom.
Derek's almost dead.
Boom.
Meredith laughed as tension coiled between the firecrackers going off in her head, and it was suddenly bright and hot and loud despite the circulating cool air and the dull murmur of the crowd around them, scattered across the expanse of tables in random, conversing groups of dueling heartbeats.
"Surprised the crap out of me when I realized we were in a jewelry store," she said with a clipped sigh, trying, trying so hard to remember the essence of the moment in a real sense, a sense that let her live it, but something was wrong, and she couldn't. She'd been happy. And now she almost couldn't remember how to do that. Tired. Stupid, stupid tiredness. Stupid test. Stupid seizures and dying and fear and worry and churning and waiting and watching, helpless.
Stupid nightmares. Ruining her resolve.
"It took me three hours to pick something," Meredith continued as she picked up her fork and started to worry at the cheese on her pizza again. It was a quiet, unresisting victim that bowed under the weight of her need for... something. To beat something. Because everything else she wanted to beat was amorphous. Conceptual. And she couldn't beat the crap out of a concept. She could beat the crap out of pizza cheese, though.
"I didn't know ring buying was so involved," she said, stabbing with her fork. "Did you know there's shapes and colors and sizes and metals and... Of course you do. You live in New York, and you're gorgeous." She stabbed at her plate. "Who wouldn't have gorgeous jewelry to go along with said gorgeousness?" Stab. "Plus, you recommended the store, which implies that you've been there." Stab. "It's sad that I have an ex-freaking-model for a friend, and when I try to think of the most irrationally pretty person I know, it's you, not her." Stab, stab, stab. "And I don't seem to be shutting up again. This happens when I'm nervous. And starving except not really, because this pizza looks awful and I can't... I'm... I want. And tired. Sorry. I'm just..."
Her shoulders started to shake. Her eyes stung. She wiped her fingers against her face, but they came back dry. Something was wrong. She felt like she should cry buckets, and nothing was shaking loose. It was all just...
Awful. And stuck. And she hated it. And them. And everything.
"It's okay, Meredith," Sarah said, her palm flat against Meredith's trembling back. She was vaguely aware of Stewart, ratcheting up to his full, towering height. He disappeared through the propped-open swing door to the cafeteria line at a quickened pace.
"Maybe I should go back," Meredith said. Her throat hurt. "I've been here a half hour already, and I..."
She started to stand, only to have Sarah's firm grip drag her back down into the chair, not that she required much force to keep down. "Mere, sit," Sarah commanded. "You need to slow down. You need to breathe. And you need to eat."
"I'm sorry," Meredith replied. "I just... It's been a half hour, and I don't want-"
"Mom's with him," Sarah assured her. "She needs... She needs some time, Meredith. Do you know how Dad died?"
Meredith sniffled. "Derek told me."
"Let her have a few minutes with him, Mere," Sarah said. "You're running yourself down, and Mom needs... Mom really needs some time with him. She was... I've never seen her this upset before. Give her some time." Sarah's hand paused its endless, soothing circles, and, as if she sensed her politically veiled avoidance of Meredith's upset wasn't working, she leaned in and murmured just as politically, "He knows you're here and that you love him. You need to recuperate from this just as much as he does. It's not a crime to take an hour for yourself. Even when he's sick."
Meredith stared at her lap. Forty-five minutes had been enough the last time to break everything. But Sarah seemed so certain. So sure. Almost like a teacher. You'll learn, Meredith. After you've had a few years of practice at the marriage thing and the family thing and the support thing. You'll learn.
Meredith took a deep, cleansing breath, trying to ignore the way her spine seemed to want to crumple. She wanted to sleep, but sleeping was wrong and scary and... She couldn't. She wanted to cry, but she couldn't do that either, for many of the same reasons.
Stewart returned with a bundle of items piled on a tray, items that were about fifty times as healthy as her chilled, mangled pizza and fries. A steaming pita filled with salad-y stuff and meat, probably grilled chicken, and a cup of strawberry yogurt. Sarah leaned forward and took the pizza away as Stewart swooped in with Meredith's-attempt-to-consume-solids, take 2.0. "This might be easier to work at than an indigestible glob of fat on bread," he said as he set the tray down for her.
"Mommy!" Lindsey said, bouncing up from her seat with an artistic scribble of color sprawled across the paper in her grip, drawing everyone's attention away. "Look!"
Sarah smiled as she looked over. "That's very beautiful, Linds. You should show it to Uncle Derek later."
"Sure," Lindsey said. "Can we go see the Space Needle tomorrow?"
"Maybe," Stewart said. "We'll have to talk with Aunt Meredith and get a list of all the blatant tourist traps. Then we can be sure to be victimized by each and every one. It could be fun."
Lindsey giggled. "Right, Dad," she said. "I'll look online tonight. Aunt Meredith, do you have wireless?"
Stewart smiled. "She's a genius."
"Yeah," Meredith said, swallowing against the lump in her throat. "Derek uses it with his laptop."
"Awesome," Lindsey said.
Lindsey went back to her coloring, and Stewart and Sarah returned to their careful watch as if they expected Meredith to explode any moment like a volcano. Like quiet, unassuming Mount Rainier. Supposedly inactive. But when was anything ever totally guaranteed? For a second, all she could do was stare at the plate, blinking. They were both watching her, concern biting at their features. She swallowed, dry and hurting under the scrutiny.
It was weird. Weird to suddenly have a whole secondary rung to what had been her formerly shaky support structure. Derek. Friends. Both extremely effective when she let them be effective. But she'd died anyway. She'd been able to push Derek and her friends away. Avoiding five people wasn't so difficult when she really wanted to avoid them. But now she had a bunch of brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews and moms and... The family thing. Dozens of freaking people. She felt like a fly caught hopelessly in a web.
"I love strawberry," Meredith murmured as she took the little cup of yogurt. The yogurt was pink, and telltale bits and pieces of fleshy berry littered the smooth surface. Condensation dotted the outside of the plastic cup, and it felt cool against the heat of her palm. A spoon appeared in front of her. She took it from Stewart's long, spindly grip, and she dipped it into the mess. "Thank you," she said as she swallowed the first bite. The cream slaked the fire in her throat.
Sarah backed off an inch, and the two of them let Meredith eat the yogurt in silence. Sarah and Stewart chatted about other things, things Meredith didn't really have much to do with or any reason to know about, plans for the week that didn't involve the hospital, such as the Space Needle and the aquarium, shopping to get the girls ready for when school would start again, calling the repair guy to fix their bathtub, because the caulking needed to be replaced... Despite the calm and the seeming lack of attention to every sliver of movement she made, though, Meredith had the feeling that if she were to stand up and try to flee, she'd get tackled and dragged back to the table. When flies struggled in the web, the spiders always knew.
She finished the yogurt and raised the pita to her mouth, taking an experimental bite. It was warm, and the lettuce made it crunchy. A sharp hint of dressing gave it a bite, enough to wake her up a little. After two mouthfuls, she put it down on the plate and sighed, feeling better with just that much food in her system. She stilled when everything caught up with her in a rush.
They'd called her Aunt Meredith.
A week and a half, and she'd gone from that basket case who Derek thought might off herself alone in the bathtub to Aunt Meredith. Fiancé Meredith.
How did that happen?
She blinked, leaning back in her chair, watching through half-lidded eyes as Izzie and Alex wandered into the line to grab food. They must have been close to the end of their shifts. They'd started later than her. Had it really only been thirty-six hours? Derek had been pulled into surgery around eleven on Tuesday morning. And it was Wednesday. Almost nine. Thirty-six then. Including the crap before he'd been wheeled away. And she'd been awake for closer to forty.
The table shook as Stewart slammed his palm against the table. "I figured it out!" he said, triumphant, celebratory. "Sorry, babe," he commented in addendum, as if he realized his random outburst had outed the fact that his mind had been somewhat elsewhere. Meredith, somehow, didn't think that his exclamation had much to do with his and Sarah's casual discussion about how they liked Seattle so far.
"What?" said Sarah.
But Stewart broke his gaze from Sarah and turned to Meredith. He gave her a devilish smile that looked particularly evil against his angular features, pale skin, and black hair. "It was during..." he said, waggling his eyebrows suggestively. "When he proposed to you. During. I underestimated him. I mistakenly thought the redo was because he was being a dork."
Sarah made a sputtering sound that could have been suppressed laughter. Her hand flew up to her mouth, her shoulders shook, and she managed to stutter between gasps, "Oh, good grief, Stu... you're still... going on about that?"
Stewart shook his head. "Nope! Because I finally figured it out! Right?"
Marry me.
Both of them peered at Meredith, Sarah flushed beet-red and snuffling with laughter, Stewart serious, pondering. Meredith swallowed, heat burning across her cheeks, spreading, everywhere. Hot. The room. Hot.
"Izzie! Alex!" Meredith snapped as she saw her friends come back out of the line with trays in hand. Alex stared at them with particular interest, his gaze wandering up and down Stewart's profile, calculating, assessing. "Come sit over here!" It was such a thinly veiled save-me that she was certain everyone knew exactly what she was doing. Sarah snorted with the laughter she failed to smother, and Stewart grinned like the Cheshire cat.
Izzie and Alex weaved through the tables and came over.
"Hello," Izzie said hesitantly as she pulled up a chair, laying a tray in front of her with a strawberry yogurt cup identical to Meredith's, an apple, and a sandwich spread out artistically on it like a painting done with food and not so much a meal.
"Dude," Alex said, looking at Stewart, his eyes widening. "Are you...?"
Stewart stood and proffered his hand across the table. "Yeah. Stewart Manning," he said. "Nice to meet you. I'm one of Meredith's pending brothers-in-law."
Alex looked like he was going to explode as Stewart sat back down casually.
"Izzie, Alex," Meredith said, "This is Sarah, one of Derek's sisters, and Stewart, her husband." Alex's eyes narrowed in a brief flash of Meredith-are-you-insane? Then he relaxed again into his usual unflappable demeanor. She pointed to the table where the girls sat. "And that's Lindsey and Annie, Sarah's and Stewart's kids," she continued. "I've invited them to stay at the house while they're here visiting Derek. Sarah, Stewart, this is Izzie and Alex. My roommates. Fellow interns."
The pending explosion from before flooded Alex's re-schooled expression and sprawled across his face, overwhelming the unflappable, overwhelming, obliterating, laying waste. Meredith didn't think she'd ever seen such pure delight. His Adam's apple rippled down his throat as he swallowed. His temples bulged as he worked his jaw into a rapid series of clenching, unclenching, tension, relaxing. He looked like he wanted to say a million different things, and couldn't quite decide on which to begin with. Meredith frowned. What on earth?
Izzie looked down at her plate. "Everyone is getting married," she said.
Meredith didn't know when Izzie had found out for sure. She'd cornered Meredith on the way out of Derek's room that morning, shortly after Mark had finished quizzing her with plastics questions. "When!" Izzie had demanded, and then she'd sighed as she'd glanced into the room and caught Derek's pale, sleeping profile. Her eyes had tore up. She'd blinked, and she'd followed with a weepy, "Mere, you proposed. You. Proposed. Meredith, you! Seriously?" Then she'd degenerated into a frantic, spazzy little litany of mothering care that had ended with Meredith eating one of Izzie's nut bars while Izzie had sniffled and twittered about. Izzie's beeper had interrupted before Meredith had had a chance to swallow and answer, and Izzie had left with a frazzled, sobbing, "Crap! We'll talk later!" as she'd rounded the corner.
Now, she seemed positively subdued. And it was... Weird. And manic-depressive. And, when Meredith thought about it, totally Izzie.
"Dude, that last game, man," Alex said, oblivious to Izzie's melancholy. His fingers clenched at the side of the table, and he leaned toward Stewart. "That was... I was in the fifth row. Double overtime. It was f-" His words cut off sharply as his gaze darted to the kids two tables away. "Awesome," he corrected himself seamlessly, as if the stray beginnings of the smothered curse word had been an intentional stutter.
"Alex," Meredith said. "What are you talking about?"
Alex ignored her. "You got MVP for that, didn't you?"
Stewart grinned. "Yes."
Alex turned to Meredith and gestured helplessly. "It's Stewart Manning, Mere," he said, his tone reverent. As if that somehow explained everything.
"So?" Meredith said. She looked at Izzie, who didn't appear to care about the conversation going on around her. She poked at her food and took little bird-sized bites. "It's just..." Meredith continued.
Just Stewart.
"And this is why I love her so," Stewart said, grinning, all teeth and crinkly, sparkling, dark eyes.
"Is Dr. Shepherd okay?" Izzie asked, her voice pale and weak. "Dr. Bailey has been keeping us away."
"Everything's fine, Izzie," Meredith answered by rote, relief flooding her over the fact that Dr. Bailey had been intervening behind the scenes. She would have to thank her later when she got a chance. She didn't think Derek would have taken it all that well if one of his students had been witness to him sobbing in the doorway to his room that morning.
"May I see?" Izzie said, pointing to Meredith's hand.
Meredith held out her hand. "Sure, Izzie."
Izzie stared at the ring for the longest time, tilting Meredith's palm from side to side, shifting the diamond in the light. "It's so beautiful," Izzie said. "I never... You're getting married, Meredith. Everyone is. George is married. I was... Everyone is getting married." Except me. The words were clearly stuck there in the mire, not said, but obvious all the same.
"Well, I-" Meredith stuttered, at a loss as the pieces started falling into place. Denny. Denny had proposed under similar circumstances. Sick. Still in dangerous territory. And then he'd died.
Derek might die.
"Tell me the story," Izzie blurted as she wiped her eyes.
Stewart leaned forward, cradling his pointy chin against the hammock of his interlocked fingers. He rested his elbows on the table, and he grinned. "Yes, Meredith, tell us the story."
"I proposed to him before his surgery," Meredith said. "The whole hospital knows the story."
Izzie shook her head. "I'd believe it if you didn't have the ring. There's nothing impulsive about buying a ring like that. I know what you make. You couldn't afford that. Which means Dr. Shepherd bought it. Which means you both knew about this beforehand."
Stewart nodded. "Yes, it's obvious that your hospital shenanigans were all a cover-up operation for a slightly more sordid tale."
"Shenani-what?" Meredith spluttered. "You're... Not fair. Not fair at all, Stewart."
"Come on, Meredith," Izzie insisted. "Tell me."
Meredith sighed. "Alex, do you care?"
"No," Alex said, shrugging.
"Why can't you be like Alex, Izzie?" Meredith said.
"Because I'm not a heartless jerk?" Izzie said. "And, despite my personal reservations, I was there for you back when he was still the attending you were trying to stop yourself from falling for and failing dismally. And then when he was a McBastard and dumped you for McSatan I was there. I. Er. No offense." She looked at Sarah apologetically.
Sarah snorted. "None taken. I've called him worse."
"You owe me," Izzie continued, turning back to Meredith. She jabbed her spoon into her food and scooted forward. "Let me live vicariously through you again. Besides, Cristina's been a bitch all day, and I need a breather. I need goo. I need romance. I need little birdies and happily-ever-afters, and I need to get them from you, apparently, because I keep getting freaking screwed. So just..." She sighed as she fell down off her tantrum and shoved a heaping pile of yogurt from her spoon into her mouth. "Please?" she said, her voice wet and muffled around her mouthful. She swallowed, unblinking.
"Why's Cristina being a bitch?" Meredith asked.
"I don't know," Izzie snapped, her voice dripping with affronted hurt, as if caring about Cristina over explaining how Derek had proposed post-coital and naked was a sin. Izzie jammed another spoonful of yogurt into her mouth. "All she does is run laps around the hospital, beating up on nurses and doctors who even mention the word McDreamy. It's like she's got nothing better to do."
Meredith's breath stopped for a moment as panic kidney-punched her. She clutched at the table. "She said nobody was mentioning Derek."
"They call Derek McDreamy?" Sarah said. She giggled. "Oh, that's cute. I bet he hates that."
"He does," Meredith snapped. "And it's worse right now because he thinks he's supposed to be perfect even when he's just nearly died for the second time in two weeks, and he can barely walk. It's a stupid nickname. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I wish Cristina had never come up with it. He's a freaking person. Not a superhero. And I... I... I... Izzie, she said nobody was mentioning it. She swore to me."
Silence stretched as everyone stared at her.
"Well, they're not, now, Mere," Izzie said after a long, wide-eyed pause, a perplexed look overwhelming her hurt expression. "At least not loudly enough to attract Godzilla."
Meredith pushed her chair back as panting, stabbing breaths overwhelmed her. She'd been gone a long time, and people were apparently talking despite what she'd told Derek. And he wouldn't... No. He wouldn't deal well if he heard about any of it. He wouldn't...
"I have to go back," she said. "I have to go back upstairs. It's been too long. I need to..."
"Honey," Sarah said. "Sit. What's wrong?"
Meredith's legs felt weak and wobbly. She swallowed, trying desperately not to think about the dead, spaced, broken look that had hovered in his eyes. The look she'd seen that morning when she'd wrestled him into the bathroom for the shower. The tiredness that she'd been denying came back, crushing her, making her wilt, and a headache roared between her ears. She breathed, but it came out as an almost, sort-of sob.
Stewart stood, and somewhere in the blur, she felt his warm hands helping gravity ease her back into the chair.
I can't do it. I'm so tired. I feel so bad. I can't. Please. I just can't.
"I can't," she muttered as Derek's words infected her. She pushed up, trying to stand, but Stewart held her down with barely any effort. "I can't leave him alone," she continued. "I need to go back. I said I would be there. You didn't see him this morning. I need..."
"You need to eat, Mere," Sarah insisted, gesturing at the pita Meredith had sampled only two bites of. The chicken had cooled, and no steam curled up into the air. The lettuce had begun to settle, like it had given up. Given up on the pita thing and had surrendered to being a pile of rotting, uneaten junk, ready for the trash heap. Bits of dressing dribbled out the side like the toothpicks that held it together had mortally wounded it.
"Finish eating," Sarah said. "Tell us about the proposal."
"But he's alone," Meredith replied, blinking with disbelief. She was assigning her state of mind to a freaking pita. She was...
She was going insane.
That was it.
It was the exhaustion. Had to be.
Sarah shook her head. "Mom's with him."
"But..." Meredith protested, but it was more an obligatory exhalation than anything else.
"He'll be fine," Sarah said, the certainty making her words a veritable wall.
"You haven't even talked to him yet," Meredith said, something inside of her still kicking and screaming and wailing, demanding that she return to Derek's room right that instant. "He was sleeping when you got here. You don't know."
Sarah shrugged and gave her a small smile. "He's my brother, Meredith. My big brother. I've known him my entire life. I know him. He's Derek. And you have a ring on your finger. If the former wasn't enough to make him stick around, the latter will be. Plus, I looked at his chart and had a word with Dr. Weller. There's nothing wrong, Meredith. Nothing. He's tired, but he's supposed to be after that much anesthesia."
Alex bit into his sandwich, chewing noisily. "I doubt he'll feel perfect if he finds out you think you need to baby-sit him," he said as he polished off a few swallows. "Why don't you just castrate him?"
"Alex!" Izzie snapped.
"What?" he said, shrugging. "I'm just saying."
Izzie rolled her eyes and turned to Meredith. "So," she prodded weakly. "The proposal?"
The table creaked as Stewart sat back down.
Meredith sat there, biting her lip, feeling like the floor was pulling her innards out into a void below her feet. That wasn't what she was doing. Was it? He'd said he wanted her there. He was afraid. He... She wrung her hands together, eyes stinging. No. He'd said thank you. A couple times. More than a couple. And he'd seemed better with her there. And she... She leaned forward, pinching her nose between her fingers, sighing so roughly it burned. She sucked at the supporting thing and the sick thing and the family thing and the whole lot of it. She didn't know. She'd never done this. She...
"Hey," Sarah said. "Meredith, honey, breathe."
"I'm such a freak," Meredith whispered. "I'm a dark and twisty freak."
"Way to go, Alex," Izzie snarled.
"What?" he said.
"Meredith," Stewart said, leaning forward. "He wants you here. It's obvious. Don't worry. He hates being here, he hates being weak and tired and sick, but he doesn't hate having his loved ones around. And if feeling like that emasculates a man, well I guess I'm as girly as they come. Just call me Stewarina."
Sarah looked at Stewart and mouthed something. Thank you, maybe. Meredith wiped her face as they shared a deep, understanding look. Stewart had said it like he wasn't guessing. Like he knew. Innately.
Alex looked down at his plate. "Sorry, man," he said to Stewart. Not to Meredith. Which seemed odd. But...
"So, proposal?" Izzie said.
Meredith took a small bite of pita. It was lukewarm and slippery with dressing saturation, but it still tasted good despite the lack of zesty crunch. "Well I... We..."
"It's okay, Mere," Sarah insisted. "Tell us."
"You'll just laugh at me," Meredith said, looking at Izzie. "At us. You always make light."
Izzie sighed. "Meredith..."
"You were joking about Vegas," Meredith said. "About annulments. And his hair."
"Oh, Mere," Izzie said. "I didn't mean it that way..."
"Please, don't joke about him," Meredith said, unashamed as she reduced herself to begging. "If you visit him," she said, aware that Dr. Bailey couldn't be there all the time and that her friends were all nosier than freaking horses. Mutant horses, with noses longer than... horse noses. "When I take him home." She paused to breathe. When she took him home, the bandages would be off. He'd be stuck living with people he didn't want to see him as weak or something lesser. "Especially when I take him home," she continued. "Please. He's Derek. He thinks he needs to be perfect. The McDreamy crap goes straight to his head. I had to convince him to get a lifesaving operation because he didn't want to be vulnerable in front of the people who spend hours debating what mousse he uses to get the perfect curl."
"I'm sorry, Mere," Izzie said. She turned to Alex and stared. When he didn't look up from his plate, she elbowed him sharply in the ribs.
"What?" he said. "I don't make fun of him."
"You're the one who started the Vegas thing!" Izzie said.
"That wasn't making fun," Alex replied. "I was serious. They have more sex than I do."
Izzie smiled. "They're very noisy," she explained to Sarah and Stewart.
Sarah and Stewart exchanged a twinkling, mischievous look. "We know," they replied in unison.
"Tell us, Mere," Sarah said, turning to Meredith. "You can't really shock us at this point. And we won't make fun."
Meredith sighed as everyone but Alex gave her stares that peeled away so many layers of herself that she felt naked. She cleared her throat and blinked. Anything. Talking about anything had to feel better than sitting here wishing she could be upstairs, reassuring herself that Derek was fine. Wishing she could purge the creeping, moldy, ugly, twisting tiredness that wouldn't leave her alone.
"It was on Thursday," she began. "Right after you told me he was going to propose, Stu."
Stewart puffed up like a peacock. "Told you so!"
She smiled. "Yeah. We had a talk. One that we needed. Really, really needed. There was so much stuff. So many broken things. The ferry. The ferry broke so many things. Derek was... messed up from that. So was I. And... One thing led to another. We sort of christened one of the on-call rooms at Sharon Hospital."
"A semi-public place?" Alex said. "Damn. Go Shepherd. Did you break the bed there, too?"
"No!" Meredith hissed.
"Right."
"We didn't! And we didn't break the bed at home, either. I don't know why you're going on about that. The headboard was a little loose, but, all-in-all, fine. Really. I think you're just mad because Derek was too embarrassed to explain to you how to make women scream."
Everyone stared at her.
"I mean. Um." She coughed. "The headboard is fine," she insisted.
"Go on, Mere," Izzie said.
Meredith forced herself back to the proposal, schooling herself with deep, cleansing, long sighs. They hadn't broken the bed, no, but the sex had been good. Very good. And they'd both been slain with the finishing of it. "He sort of just... Blurted it out. Or whispered, really. Since we were, you know, done. Sort of doing the exhausted, basking thing. Marry me, he said. Just like that."
Meredith's breaths slowed as she thought of it, and a ghost of a smile curled her lips. They'd been in their own world. Removed from Sharon Hospital and concussions and badness. He'd looked into her eyes, and she'd been beyond naked. There had been no part of her that he hadn't laid bare before him. No piece of her soul. The moment had stretched. They'd breathed against each other, soft and hot and living, heartbeat to heartbeat. He'd stared. Stared at her like she was his deliverance, and she'd never doubt again that she really had saved him from his own kind of drowning when they'd met.
Izzie sighed, her eyes glazing over with a dreamy look. "That's so romantic!"
"No wonder you needed a redo," Alex said.
"Oh, shut up, Alex," Izzie snapped. "Proposing then... It's so intimate. There's no crowd, no restaurant staring you down, no audience driving the answer. You're both so vulnerable, and you've just reaffirmed how much you love each other. And that makes it just..."
"That sort of thing doesn't have to reaffirm anything, Izzie. It can just be to scratch an itch. You should know."
"Shut up, Alex," Izzie hissed. "So, did you say yes?"
"No," Meredith said. "I put my clothes on and ran."
"And?" Stewart said.
"He chased me." Stewart laughed. "In clothes," she clarified. "He chased me in clothes."
"And?" Sarah prodded.
"Then I said yes," she said. "He's very persistent. He's... I should go back."
"No, Mere," Sarah said. "Sit and talk. Finish your food."
Meredith sighed and picked up the pita, taking another few bites. "I could do without the sister thing, you know," she grumbled.
Sarah laughed. "That's what makes it the sister thing."
"Is this a private party, or can I join?" Everyone looked up. Mark stood there with a tray that seemed like overkill for his lone apple. It was as if he'd purchased food just to have an excuse. Meredith hadn't even seen him approach. He was in his street clothes, some faded jeans and a shirt that'd seen better days. Dark circles hugged his eyes. And he slouched far more than the size of his briefcase indicated he should be slouching.
"Sloane," Alex said flatly.
Mark stared for a moment as if deciding what would be appropriate. "Karev," he said, his eyes narrowing with all sorts of dark, churning emotions before he turned to Stewart and washed every hint of it away with a blink. "Hey, man," he said.
"Mark," Stewart said.
"Heard you won this year," Mark said as he sat down with his tray.
"Yeah," Stewart replied, a happy smile melting him. "Meredith is a feisty little jail guard. Kept everyone in line." But then the smile disappeared, and he and Sarah both shifted uncomfortably.
"Well, Alex and I should go," Izzie said. "Because we're scheduled to do... Stuff."
"What?" Alex said.
"You know. The rounds. With Dr. Bailey."
"But we're off in-"
"Alex," Izzie hissed.
"Right," he said. "Okay."
They departed quickly, Izzie jerking on the sleeve of Alex's scrubs. Meredith shook her head as she took another bite of soggy pita. The air between the table occupants could have snapped apart and shattered it was so thick with unspoken things. Sarah looked at her hands, a small frown pursing her gorgeous features into a guilt-ridden mess.
"Look, guys, I'm trying," Mark said, cutting into the strange tension. "I just... I would have picked Derek over me, too. You don't have to act like... I get it. It's okay. You don't have to act like I'm going to go postal on you and scream about it."
"Oh, Mark," Sarah said, puffing a huge, heaving sigh that sent her loose bangs flying. Her eyes watered. "You did a stupid thing, but we love you."
"I'm trying," Mark replied, shrugging. "To fix it. I'm trying." He turned to Meredith. "He loves you."
"Yes," Meredith said.
Silence mushroomed in the space between them like the remnants of some sort of explosion. Mark took a bite of his apple and stared at her, unblinking as his jaw worked. Crunch. Crunch. Munch. He drew his fingers down over the light fuzz of his beard in a ponderous motion. He swallowed thickly and sucked in a breath like it was the last bit of air he'd ever receive.
"Never Addison," he added. "Not like I-- Just you."
Meredith stared. "He used to love her. He's told me."
Mark raised an eyebrow. "He told you how he felt about Addison?"
"It was over a decade of his life, Mark," she said. "It's part of what made him who he is now. We've talked about it. It's not like she's taboo or something."
"He told you about the lightning stuff?"
"The what?" she said.
Mark shrugged. "You're his lightning. Addison wasn't even close."
"Okay," Meredith said, frowning, unsure about what Mark was fishing for.
Sarah stood. "Mom, over here!" she said, waving at Derek's mother, who stood, scanning the tables for familiar faces. When she saw Sarah waving, her curious look melted into a warm smile, and she approached.
"Derek's asleep again," Ellen said as she pulled up a chair.
"You left..." Meredith whispered.
"Yes, it's getting late," Ellen said. "Mark, dear, are you ready to leave, or?"
Mark, peeled from his staring, blinked and looked up. "Yeah," he said gruffly. "We should round everyone up."
Stewart stood. "Everyone is here."
"I have to go back," Meredith said. "Ask the admitting nurse to page Izzie for you. She can let you into the house and give you the spare key."
"Meredith..." Stewart said.
"I have to go," she said as the rushing panic, the panic she'd let die in the midst of repeated soothing and prods to chat, to talk about the first proposal, began to stab again. He'd been left all alone. "I've been down here too long, and I have to... He's alone."
She turned and bolted, only to be thwarted by the damned elevator. It was stuck up on six. And then it stopped at five for what seemed like a block of time competing for election as an eon. She turned to take the stairs, only to run into a familiar, thin, wiry but towering frame of legs and arms and just a little bit of torso. Giraffe.
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.
~~~~~
Meredith picked at her hospital pizza and her hospital fries and her hospital diet Coke, staring at the coagulating mess of cheese and grease and badness on her plate while Lindsey and Annie played at a table two away from theirs, as if parents and a weird almost-aunt weren't special enough to sit with the kids. Lindsey was eight. Far too cool for her almost-six sister. The playing occasionally degenerated into a bit of a spat over who got to play with which toy. Sarah refereed when it got bad, but for the most part, the dolls and crayons and the girls stayed firmly in their own universe, fifteen feet away, leaving Meredith drowning at the table with Stewart and Sarah, who kept trying to talk to her as if they expected her to be some mentally coherent doctor or something, and not an exhausted, scared fiancé. Or maybe just a mentally coherent fiancé and not a scared one. The talk rarely moved to the medical thing. Sarah had enough understanding of Derek's condition and surgery that she didn't ask much, and she must have filled Stewart in at some point, because Stewart seemed more fascinated with his Jell-O cup than about asking whether Derek would be okay.
Which was good, because Meredith didn't think she could do supportive for anyone but Derek at that point, though, even that made her feel like she was scraping her mental spoon at the bottom of a desiccated pitcher. And she certainly couldn't do coherent.
Somewhere in the blur, Meredith caught snippets about Sarah's and Stewart's flight and how they'd been lucky to get seats at the last minute. Ellen hadn't even mentioned them coming along during her frequent phone calls for updates and information. Genuine surprise had snarled in Meredith's brain, dragging her tiredness away momentarily when Mark had arrived at the door to Derek's quiet hospital room with a trail of jetlagged people slogging behind him.
Meredith had almost found herself crawling into an old, ugly hole of anti-family she'd thought she'd never return to, wishing they'd all just go away and take their noise and questions and blanket of saccharine, smothering caring away so she could be alone, listening to Derek sleep. But Derek loved his family, so she'd forced herself to deal with the noise and the people and the mountain of sympathetic caring that'd made her teeth grate. Somewhere in the haze, she'd quietly re-arrived at acceptance and wary appreciation. It'd only taken an hour or two. Then Ellen had made her go eat when all she'd wanted to do was stay, and a brief, vague cycle of hate had started again.
Was that normal? The yo-yo of wanting company and then wanting it to all go away?
She stared at her plate. She wasn't a neglectful person. When she felt hungry, she ate. When she'd been having the little cheesecake tiff with Derek, she hadn't been hungry. She hadn't. Her stomach was just a rebellious organ in its stupid pink hair phase and it'd growled said rebelliousness to the world. This was evidenced by the fact that her cold pizza and grease-glinting fries did nothing for her but shine. Right? Pizza was food. Pizza was good. She liked pizza.
She was going insane.
She poked her fork at the cheese, which stretched as she drew the tines away until the melting, dairy goo snapped and sprang backward onto the plate. Her fork hung suspended in the air from her fingers, almost two feet away from the table, a little curl of cheese wrapped around it, and her pizza lay on the plate, the surface of it broken and mangled. Her stomach responded, but not in a friendly feed-me way. More in a flip-flop of doom way.
She bit her lip and took a quick sip of her soda to quiet it, noticing, finally, as the swallow of drink settled and spread a chill deep into her torso, that Stewart and Sarah were both staring at her, unblinking, silent. Sarah had put her chair up against Stewart's and had leaned back against his large frame. She sighed as he worked his large, long fingers against the perfect creamy skin above her shoulders.
Sarah wore old jeans and a holey, black t-shirt that had the Rolling Stones tongue logo sprawled across the breast. Her dark, almost-midnight hair hung loose and fluffy and wispy, done in a careless-but-styled way that draped slightly past her shoulders. Thin hints of bangs streaked down against her eyes, which were blue, but deeply so, almost appearing black in the dim cafeteria lighting, sort of like Derek's did when they were in the almost-dark. A demure, sparkly tennis bracelet gripped Sarah's right wrist, and her wedding and engagement rings encircled her left ring finger, but otherwise, she seemed like she'd just rolled out of bed looking that gorgeous, no careful preparation, no artfully adorned metal or clothing affixed specifically to draw out her best features, and if she wore makeup, it was subtle enough to be silent in the overall glowing picture.
She was thin and pretty in a way that defied logic. Completely defied it. Because Sarah liked Jell-O, consumed tons of cookie dough, and didn't seem to care at all about how much she ate or what rules of fashion she defied. Which, really, just wasn't fair. People with metabolisms rivaling nuclear reactors weren't fair. And people who looked gorgeous on top of it? Not. Freaking. Fair. Meredith glanced at her pile of grease masquerading as a meal. Okay, at least the latter half about the gorgeousness made her slightly less hypocritical.
"Sorry, what?" Meredith asked dumbly when the staring continued.
Sarah's eyes dipped shut as Stewart hit a tense spot. A lazy smile dripped over her features. She pawed lightly at him, and he pulled his hands away. She leaned forward and grinned. "Meredith, honey, may I?" she said, pointing at Meredith's left hand. "I didn't get a chance to look earlier."
Meredith followed Sarah's gesture and landed her gaze on her ring. The simple princess cut platinum solitaire. She put her fork down against the plate with a clank. She couldn't help the small grin that chipped away at the churning bits of... everything else. She tilted her hand back and forth, catching the light, letting herself bathe in the small ache of relief for a moment before she looked back up and held her hand out.
"Sure," Meredith said.
Sarah's chair squealed as she dragged it across the floor, away from Stewart, closer to Meredith. Her thin, arching fingers brushed Meredith's, warm and soft and light. "It's lovely," Sarah said. "Did he take you to Eamon's?"
"Yeah."
"Oh, I love that store," Stewart said. "Whenever she's mad at me, if I get something from there it goes away."
"Stewart!" Sarah said, laughing.
He grinned. "What, I'm trainable."
"Yeah, we went there," Meredith said, easing back into her chair, away from the icky pile of food on her plate. She closed her eyes. The shop seemed like a painted watercolor behind her eyelids. She could remember the sudden silence as Derek, hands splayed softly against the small of her back, had guided her into the shop, out of the bustle of Manhattan and into Eamon's glittery world. She could remember the glow of the display cases. The old, lived-in smell of the building. The sparkle in Derek's eyes and in the endless rows of rings. Expensive rings. I just want you to have what you want, Derek had whispered against the rolling pile of doubt and imminent freak-out. She couldn't believe that it'd been less than a week ago.
Life had the propensity to change in spurts on her. Boom, father is gone. Boom, mother is sick. Boom, the guy you slept with is your boss. Said boss is married. Bombs are going off. Boss is divorced. Appendicitis. Boss is Derek again, and he's with you. Mother is lucid. You're dead in the water. Mother is dead. Derek doesn't remember. Now you have a family. Now you're engaged. Boom. Boom. Boom.
Derek's almost dead.
Boom.
Meredith laughed as tension coiled between the firecrackers going off in her head, and it was suddenly bright and hot and loud despite the circulating cool air and the dull murmur of the crowd around them, scattered across the expanse of tables in random, conversing groups of dueling heartbeats.
"Surprised the crap out of me when I realized we were in a jewelry store," she said with a clipped sigh, trying, trying so hard to remember the essence of the moment in a real sense, a sense that let her live it, but something was wrong, and she couldn't. She'd been happy. And now she almost couldn't remember how to do that. Tired. Stupid, stupid tiredness. Stupid test. Stupid seizures and dying and fear and worry and churning and waiting and watching, helpless.
Stupid nightmares. Ruining her resolve.
"It took me three hours to pick something," Meredith continued as she picked up her fork and started to worry at the cheese on her pizza again. It was a quiet, unresisting victim that bowed under the weight of her need for... something. To beat something. Because everything else she wanted to beat was amorphous. Conceptual. And she couldn't beat the crap out of a concept. She could beat the crap out of pizza cheese, though.
"I didn't know ring buying was so involved," she said, stabbing with her fork. "Did you know there's shapes and colors and sizes and metals and... Of course you do. You live in New York, and you're gorgeous." She stabbed at her plate. "Who wouldn't have gorgeous jewelry to go along with said gorgeousness?" Stab. "Plus, you recommended the store, which implies that you've been there." Stab. "It's sad that I have an ex-freaking-model for a friend, and when I try to think of the most irrationally pretty person I know, it's you, not her." Stab, stab, stab. "And I don't seem to be shutting up again. This happens when I'm nervous. And starving except not really, because this pizza looks awful and I can't... I'm... I want. And tired. Sorry. I'm just..."
Her shoulders started to shake. Her eyes stung. She wiped her fingers against her face, but they came back dry. Something was wrong. She felt like she should cry buckets, and nothing was shaking loose. It was all just...
Awful. And stuck. And she hated it. And them. And everything.
"It's okay, Meredith," Sarah said, her palm flat against Meredith's trembling back. She was vaguely aware of Stewart, ratcheting up to his full, towering height. He disappeared through the propped-open swing door to the cafeteria line at a quickened pace.
"Maybe I should go back," Meredith said. Her throat hurt. "I've been here a half hour already, and I..."
She started to stand, only to have Sarah's firm grip drag her back down into the chair, not that she required much force to keep down. "Mere, sit," Sarah commanded. "You need to slow down. You need to breathe. And you need to eat."
"I'm sorry," Meredith replied. "I just... It's been a half hour, and I don't want-"
"Mom's with him," Sarah assured her. "She needs... She needs some time, Meredith. Do you know how Dad died?"
Meredith sniffled. "Derek told me."
"Let her have a few minutes with him, Mere," Sarah said. "You're running yourself down, and Mom needs... Mom really needs some time with him. She was... I've never seen her this upset before. Give her some time." Sarah's hand paused its endless, soothing circles, and, as if she sensed her politically veiled avoidance of Meredith's upset wasn't working, she leaned in and murmured just as politically, "He knows you're here and that you love him. You need to recuperate from this just as much as he does. It's not a crime to take an hour for yourself. Even when he's sick."
Meredith stared at her lap. Forty-five minutes had been enough the last time to break everything. But Sarah seemed so certain. So sure. Almost like a teacher. You'll learn, Meredith. After you've had a few years of practice at the marriage thing and the family thing and the support thing. You'll learn.
Meredith took a deep, cleansing breath, trying to ignore the way her spine seemed to want to crumple. She wanted to sleep, but sleeping was wrong and scary and... She couldn't. She wanted to cry, but she couldn't do that either, for many of the same reasons.
Stewart returned with a bundle of items piled on a tray, items that were about fifty times as healthy as her chilled, mangled pizza and fries. A steaming pita filled with salad-y stuff and meat, probably grilled chicken, and a cup of strawberry yogurt. Sarah leaned forward and took the pizza away as Stewart swooped in with Meredith's-attempt-to-consume-solids, take 2.0. "This might be easier to work at than an indigestible glob of fat on bread," he said as he set the tray down for her.
"Mommy!" Lindsey said, bouncing up from her seat with an artistic scribble of color sprawled across the paper in her grip, drawing everyone's attention away. "Look!"
Sarah smiled as she looked over. "That's very beautiful, Linds. You should show it to Uncle Derek later."
"Sure," Lindsey said. "Can we go see the Space Needle tomorrow?"
"Maybe," Stewart said. "We'll have to talk with Aunt Meredith and get a list of all the blatant tourist traps. Then we can be sure to be victimized by each and every one. It could be fun."
Lindsey giggled. "Right, Dad," she said. "I'll look online tonight. Aunt Meredith, do you have wireless?"
Stewart smiled. "She's a genius."
"Yeah," Meredith said, swallowing against the lump in her throat. "Derek uses it with his laptop."
"Awesome," Lindsey said.
Lindsey went back to her coloring, and Stewart and Sarah returned to their careful watch as if they expected Meredith to explode any moment like a volcano. Like quiet, unassuming Mount Rainier. Supposedly inactive. But when was anything ever totally guaranteed? For a second, all she could do was stare at the plate, blinking. They were both watching her, concern biting at their features. She swallowed, dry and hurting under the scrutiny.
It was weird. Weird to suddenly have a whole secondary rung to what had been her formerly shaky support structure. Derek. Friends. Both extremely effective when she let them be effective. But she'd died anyway. She'd been able to push Derek and her friends away. Avoiding five people wasn't so difficult when she really wanted to avoid them. But now she had a bunch of brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews and moms and... The family thing. Dozens of freaking people. She felt like a fly caught hopelessly in a web.
"I love strawberry," Meredith murmured as she took the little cup of yogurt. The yogurt was pink, and telltale bits and pieces of fleshy berry littered the smooth surface. Condensation dotted the outside of the plastic cup, and it felt cool against the heat of her palm. A spoon appeared in front of her. She took it from Stewart's long, spindly grip, and she dipped it into the mess. "Thank you," she said as she swallowed the first bite. The cream slaked the fire in her throat.
Sarah backed off an inch, and the two of them let Meredith eat the yogurt in silence. Sarah and Stewart chatted about other things, things Meredith didn't really have much to do with or any reason to know about, plans for the week that didn't involve the hospital, such as the Space Needle and the aquarium, shopping to get the girls ready for when school would start again, calling the repair guy to fix their bathtub, because the caulking needed to be replaced... Despite the calm and the seeming lack of attention to every sliver of movement she made, though, Meredith had the feeling that if she were to stand up and try to flee, she'd get tackled and dragged back to the table. When flies struggled in the web, the spiders always knew.
She finished the yogurt and raised the pita to her mouth, taking an experimental bite. It was warm, and the lettuce made it crunchy. A sharp hint of dressing gave it a bite, enough to wake her up a little. After two mouthfuls, she put it down on the plate and sighed, feeling better with just that much food in her system. She stilled when everything caught up with her in a rush.
They'd called her Aunt Meredith.
A week and a half, and she'd gone from that basket case who Derek thought might off herself alone in the bathtub to Aunt Meredith. Fiancé Meredith.
How did that happen?
She blinked, leaning back in her chair, watching through half-lidded eyes as Izzie and Alex wandered into the line to grab food. They must have been close to the end of their shifts. They'd started later than her. Had it really only been thirty-six hours? Derek had been pulled into surgery around eleven on Tuesday morning. And it was Wednesday. Almost nine. Thirty-six then. Including the crap before he'd been wheeled away. And she'd been awake for closer to forty.
The table shook as Stewart slammed his palm against the table. "I figured it out!" he said, triumphant, celebratory. "Sorry, babe," he commented in addendum, as if he realized his random outburst had outed the fact that his mind had been somewhat elsewhere. Meredith, somehow, didn't think that his exclamation had much to do with his and Sarah's casual discussion about how they liked Seattle so far.
"What?" said Sarah.
But Stewart broke his gaze from Sarah and turned to Meredith. He gave her a devilish smile that looked particularly evil against his angular features, pale skin, and black hair. "It was during..." he said, waggling his eyebrows suggestively. "When he proposed to you. During. I underestimated him. I mistakenly thought the redo was because he was being a dork."
Sarah made a sputtering sound that could have been suppressed laughter. Her hand flew up to her mouth, her shoulders shook, and she managed to stutter between gasps, "Oh, good grief, Stu... you're still... going on about that?"
Stewart shook his head. "Nope! Because I finally figured it out! Right?"
Marry me.
Both of them peered at Meredith, Sarah flushed beet-red and snuffling with laughter, Stewart serious, pondering. Meredith swallowed, heat burning across her cheeks, spreading, everywhere. Hot. The room. Hot.
"Izzie! Alex!" Meredith snapped as she saw her friends come back out of the line with trays in hand. Alex stared at them with particular interest, his gaze wandering up and down Stewart's profile, calculating, assessing. "Come sit over here!" It was such a thinly veiled save-me that she was certain everyone knew exactly what she was doing. Sarah snorted with the laughter she failed to smother, and Stewart grinned like the Cheshire cat.
Izzie and Alex weaved through the tables and came over.
"Hello," Izzie said hesitantly as she pulled up a chair, laying a tray in front of her with a strawberry yogurt cup identical to Meredith's, an apple, and a sandwich spread out artistically on it like a painting done with food and not so much a meal.
"Dude," Alex said, looking at Stewart, his eyes widening. "Are you...?"
Stewart stood and proffered his hand across the table. "Yeah. Stewart Manning," he said. "Nice to meet you. I'm one of Meredith's pending brothers-in-law."
Alex looked like he was going to explode as Stewart sat back down casually.
"Izzie, Alex," Meredith said, "This is Sarah, one of Derek's sisters, and Stewart, her husband." Alex's eyes narrowed in a brief flash of Meredith-are-you-insane? Then he relaxed again into his usual unflappable demeanor. She pointed to the table where the girls sat. "And that's Lindsey and Annie, Sarah's and Stewart's kids," she continued. "I've invited them to stay at the house while they're here visiting Derek. Sarah, Stewart, this is Izzie and Alex. My roommates. Fellow interns."
The pending explosion from before flooded Alex's re-schooled expression and sprawled across his face, overwhelming the unflappable, overwhelming, obliterating, laying waste. Meredith didn't think she'd ever seen such pure delight. His Adam's apple rippled down his throat as he swallowed. His temples bulged as he worked his jaw into a rapid series of clenching, unclenching, tension, relaxing. He looked like he wanted to say a million different things, and couldn't quite decide on which to begin with. Meredith frowned. What on earth?
Izzie looked down at her plate. "Everyone is getting married," she said.
Meredith didn't know when Izzie had found out for sure. She'd cornered Meredith on the way out of Derek's room that morning, shortly after Mark had finished quizzing her with plastics questions. "When!" Izzie had demanded, and then she'd sighed as she'd glanced into the room and caught Derek's pale, sleeping profile. Her eyes had tore up. She'd blinked, and she'd followed with a weepy, "Mere, you proposed. You. Proposed. Meredith, you! Seriously?" Then she'd degenerated into a frantic, spazzy little litany of mothering care that had ended with Meredith eating one of Izzie's nut bars while Izzie had sniffled and twittered about. Izzie's beeper had interrupted before Meredith had had a chance to swallow and answer, and Izzie had left with a frazzled, sobbing, "Crap! We'll talk later!" as she'd rounded the corner.
Now, she seemed positively subdued. And it was... Weird. And manic-depressive. And, when Meredith thought about it, totally Izzie.
"Dude, that last game, man," Alex said, oblivious to Izzie's melancholy. His fingers clenched at the side of the table, and he leaned toward Stewart. "That was... I was in the fifth row. Double overtime. It was f-" His words cut off sharply as his gaze darted to the kids two tables away. "Awesome," he corrected himself seamlessly, as if the stray beginnings of the smothered curse word had been an intentional stutter.
"Alex," Meredith said. "What are you talking about?"
Alex ignored her. "You got MVP for that, didn't you?"
Stewart grinned. "Yes."
Alex turned to Meredith and gestured helplessly. "It's Stewart Manning, Mere," he said, his tone reverent. As if that somehow explained everything.
"So?" Meredith said. She looked at Izzie, who didn't appear to care about the conversation going on around her. She poked at her food and took little bird-sized bites. "It's just..." Meredith continued.
Just Stewart.
"And this is why I love her so," Stewart said, grinning, all teeth and crinkly, sparkling, dark eyes.
"Is Dr. Shepherd okay?" Izzie asked, her voice pale and weak. "Dr. Bailey has been keeping us away."
"Everything's fine, Izzie," Meredith answered by rote, relief flooding her over the fact that Dr. Bailey had been intervening behind the scenes. She would have to thank her later when she got a chance. She didn't think Derek would have taken it all that well if one of his students had been witness to him sobbing in the doorway to his room that morning.
"May I see?" Izzie said, pointing to Meredith's hand.
Meredith held out her hand. "Sure, Izzie."
Izzie stared at the ring for the longest time, tilting Meredith's palm from side to side, shifting the diamond in the light. "It's so beautiful," Izzie said. "I never... You're getting married, Meredith. Everyone is. George is married. I was... Everyone is getting married." Except me. The words were clearly stuck there in the mire, not said, but obvious all the same.
"Well, I-" Meredith stuttered, at a loss as the pieces started falling into place. Denny. Denny had proposed under similar circumstances. Sick. Still in dangerous territory. And then he'd died.
Derek might die.
"Tell me the story," Izzie blurted as she wiped her eyes.
Stewart leaned forward, cradling his pointy chin against the hammock of his interlocked fingers. He rested his elbows on the table, and he grinned. "Yes, Meredith, tell us the story."
"I proposed to him before his surgery," Meredith said. "The whole hospital knows the story."
Izzie shook her head. "I'd believe it if you didn't have the ring. There's nothing impulsive about buying a ring like that. I know what you make. You couldn't afford that. Which means Dr. Shepherd bought it. Which means you both knew about this beforehand."
Stewart nodded. "Yes, it's obvious that your hospital shenanigans were all a cover-up operation for a slightly more sordid tale."
"Shenani-what?" Meredith spluttered. "You're... Not fair. Not fair at all, Stewart."
"Come on, Meredith," Izzie insisted. "Tell me."
Meredith sighed. "Alex, do you care?"
"No," Alex said, shrugging.
"Why can't you be like Alex, Izzie?" Meredith said.
"Because I'm not a heartless jerk?" Izzie said. "And, despite my personal reservations, I was there for you back when he was still the attending you were trying to stop yourself from falling for and failing dismally. And then when he was a McBastard and dumped you for McSatan I was there. I. Er. No offense." She looked at Sarah apologetically.
Sarah snorted. "None taken. I've called him worse."
"You owe me," Izzie continued, turning back to Meredith. She jabbed her spoon into her food and scooted forward. "Let me live vicariously through you again. Besides, Cristina's been a bitch all day, and I need a breather. I need goo. I need romance. I need little birdies and happily-ever-afters, and I need to get them from you, apparently, because I keep getting freaking screwed. So just..." She sighed as she fell down off her tantrum and shoved a heaping pile of yogurt from her spoon into her mouth. "Please?" she said, her voice wet and muffled around her mouthful. She swallowed, unblinking.
"Why's Cristina being a bitch?" Meredith asked.
"I don't know," Izzie snapped, her voice dripping with affronted hurt, as if caring about Cristina over explaining how Derek had proposed post-coital and naked was a sin. Izzie jammed another spoonful of yogurt into her mouth. "All she does is run laps around the hospital, beating up on nurses and doctors who even mention the word McDreamy. It's like she's got nothing better to do."
Meredith's breath stopped for a moment as panic kidney-punched her. She clutched at the table. "She said nobody was mentioning Derek."
"They call Derek McDreamy?" Sarah said. She giggled. "Oh, that's cute. I bet he hates that."
"He does," Meredith snapped. "And it's worse right now because he thinks he's supposed to be perfect even when he's just nearly died for the second time in two weeks, and he can barely walk. It's a stupid nickname. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I wish Cristina had never come up with it. He's a freaking person. Not a superhero. And I... I... I... Izzie, she said nobody was mentioning it. She swore to me."
Silence stretched as everyone stared at her.
"Well, they're not, now, Mere," Izzie said after a long, wide-eyed pause, a perplexed look overwhelming her hurt expression. "At least not loudly enough to attract Godzilla."
Meredith pushed her chair back as panting, stabbing breaths overwhelmed her. She'd been gone a long time, and people were apparently talking despite what she'd told Derek. And he wouldn't... No. He wouldn't deal well if he heard about any of it. He wouldn't...
"I have to go back," she said. "I have to go back upstairs. It's been too long. I need to..."
"Honey," Sarah said. "Sit. What's wrong?"
Meredith's legs felt weak and wobbly. She swallowed, trying desperately not to think about the dead, spaced, broken look that had hovered in his eyes. The look she'd seen that morning when she'd wrestled him into the bathroom for the shower. The tiredness that she'd been denying came back, crushing her, making her wilt, and a headache roared between her ears. She breathed, but it came out as an almost, sort-of sob.
Stewart stood, and somewhere in the blur, she felt his warm hands helping gravity ease her back into the chair.
I can't do it. I'm so tired. I feel so bad. I can't. Please. I just can't.
"I can't," she muttered as Derek's words infected her. She pushed up, trying to stand, but Stewart held her down with barely any effort. "I can't leave him alone," she continued. "I need to go back. I said I would be there. You didn't see him this morning. I need..."
"You need to eat, Mere," Sarah insisted, gesturing at the pita Meredith had sampled only two bites of. The chicken had cooled, and no steam curled up into the air. The lettuce had begun to settle, like it had given up. Given up on the pita thing and had surrendered to being a pile of rotting, uneaten junk, ready for the trash heap. Bits of dressing dribbled out the side like the toothpicks that held it together had mortally wounded it.
"Finish eating," Sarah said. "Tell us about the proposal."
"But he's alone," Meredith replied, blinking with disbelief. She was assigning her state of mind to a freaking pita. She was...
She was going insane.
That was it.
It was the exhaustion. Had to be.
Sarah shook her head. "Mom's with him."
"But..." Meredith protested, but it was more an obligatory exhalation than anything else.
"He'll be fine," Sarah said, the certainty making her words a veritable wall.
"You haven't even talked to him yet," Meredith said, something inside of her still kicking and screaming and wailing, demanding that she return to Derek's room right that instant. "He was sleeping when you got here. You don't know."
Sarah shrugged and gave her a small smile. "He's my brother, Meredith. My big brother. I've known him my entire life. I know him. He's Derek. And you have a ring on your finger. If the former wasn't enough to make him stick around, the latter will be. Plus, I looked at his chart and had a word with Dr. Weller. There's nothing wrong, Meredith. Nothing. He's tired, but he's supposed to be after that much anesthesia."
Alex bit into his sandwich, chewing noisily. "I doubt he'll feel perfect if he finds out you think you need to baby-sit him," he said as he polished off a few swallows. "Why don't you just castrate him?"
"Alex!" Izzie snapped.
"What?" he said, shrugging. "I'm just saying."
Izzie rolled her eyes and turned to Meredith. "So," she prodded weakly. "The proposal?"
The table creaked as Stewart sat back down.
Meredith sat there, biting her lip, feeling like the floor was pulling her innards out into a void below her feet. That wasn't what she was doing. Was it? He'd said he wanted her there. He was afraid. He... She wrung her hands together, eyes stinging. No. He'd said thank you. A couple times. More than a couple. And he'd seemed better with her there. And she... She leaned forward, pinching her nose between her fingers, sighing so roughly it burned. She sucked at the supporting thing and the sick thing and the family thing and the whole lot of it. She didn't know. She'd never done this. She...
"Hey," Sarah said. "Meredith, honey, breathe."
"I'm such a freak," Meredith whispered. "I'm a dark and twisty freak."
"Way to go, Alex," Izzie snarled.
"What?" he said.
"Meredith," Stewart said, leaning forward. "He wants you here. It's obvious. Don't worry. He hates being here, he hates being weak and tired and sick, but he doesn't hate having his loved ones around. And if feeling like that emasculates a man, well I guess I'm as girly as they come. Just call me Stewarina."
Sarah looked at Stewart and mouthed something. Thank you, maybe. Meredith wiped her face as they shared a deep, understanding look. Stewart had said it like he wasn't guessing. Like he knew. Innately.
Alex looked down at his plate. "Sorry, man," he said to Stewart. Not to Meredith. Which seemed odd. But...
"So, proposal?" Izzie said.
Meredith took a small bite of pita. It was lukewarm and slippery with dressing saturation, but it still tasted good despite the lack of zesty crunch. "Well I... We..."
"It's okay, Mere," Sarah insisted. "Tell us."
"You'll just laugh at me," Meredith said, looking at Izzie. "At us. You always make light."
Izzie sighed. "Meredith..."
"You were joking about Vegas," Meredith said. "About annulments. And his hair."
"Oh, Mere," Izzie said. "I didn't mean it that way..."
"Please, don't joke about him," Meredith said, unashamed as she reduced herself to begging. "If you visit him," she said, aware that Dr. Bailey couldn't be there all the time and that her friends were all nosier than freaking horses. Mutant horses, with noses longer than... horse noses. "When I take him home." She paused to breathe. When she took him home, the bandages would be off. He'd be stuck living with people he didn't want to see him as weak or something lesser. "Especially when I take him home," she continued. "Please. He's Derek. He thinks he needs to be perfect. The McDreamy crap goes straight to his head. I had to convince him to get a lifesaving operation because he didn't want to be vulnerable in front of the people who spend hours debating what mousse he uses to get the perfect curl."
"I'm sorry, Mere," Izzie said. She turned to Alex and stared. When he didn't look up from his plate, she elbowed him sharply in the ribs.
"What?" he said. "I don't make fun of him."
"You're the one who started the Vegas thing!" Izzie said.
"That wasn't making fun," Alex replied. "I was serious. They have more sex than I do."
Izzie smiled. "They're very noisy," she explained to Sarah and Stewart.
Sarah and Stewart exchanged a twinkling, mischievous look. "We know," they replied in unison.
"Tell us, Mere," Sarah said, turning to Meredith. "You can't really shock us at this point. And we won't make fun."
Meredith sighed as everyone but Alex gave her stares that peeled away so many layers of herself that she felt naked. She cleared her throat and blinked. Anything. Talking about anything had to feel better than sitting here wishing she could be upstairs, reassuring herself that Derek was fine. Wishing she could purge the creeping, moldy, ugly, twisting tiredness that wouldn't leave her alone.
"It was on Thursday," she began. "Right after you told me he was going to propose, Stu."
Stewart puffed up like a peacock. "Told you so!"
She smiled. "Yeah. We had a talk. One that we needed. Really, really needed. There was so much stuff. So many broken things. The ferry. The ferry broke so many things. Derek was... messed up from that. So was I. And... One thing led to another. We sort of christened one of the on-call rooms at Sharon Hospital."
"A semi-public place?" Alex said. "Damn. Go Shepherd. Did you break the bed there, too?"
"No!" Meredith hissed.
"Right."
"We didn't! And we didn't break the bed at home, either. I don't know why you're going on about that. The headboard was a little loose, but, all-in-all, fine. Really. I think you're just mad because Derek was too embarrassed to explain to you how to make women scream."
Everyone stared at her.
"I mean. Um." She coughed. "The headboard is fine," she insisted.
"Go on, Mere," Izzie said.
Meredith forced herself back to the proposal, schooling herself with deep, cleansing, long sighs. They hadn't broken the bed, no, but the sex had been good. Very good. And they'd both been slain with the finishing of it. "He sort of just... Blurted it out. Or whispered, really. Since we were, you know, done. Sort of doing the exhausted, basking thing. Marry me, he said. Just like that."
Meredith's breaths slowed as she thought of it, and a ghost of a smile curled her lips. They'd been in their own world. Removed from Sharon Hospital and concussions and badness. He'd looked into her eyes, and she'd been beyond naked. There had been no part of her that he hadn't laid bare before him. No piece of her soul. The moment had stretched. They'd breathed against each other, soft and hot and living, heartbeat to heartbeat. He'd stared. Stared at her like she was his deliverance, and she'd never doubt again that she really had saved him from his own kind of drowning when they'd met.
Izzie sighed, her eyes glazing over with a dreamy look. "That's so romantic!"
"No wonder you needed a redo," Alex said.
"Oh, shut up, Alex," Izzie snapped. "Proposing then... It's so intimate. There's no crowd, no restaurant staring you down, no audience driving the answer. You're both so vulnerable, and you've just reaffirmed how much you love each other. And that makes it just..."
"That sort of thing doesn't have to reaffirm anything, Izzie. It can just be to scratch an itch. You should know."
"Shut up, Alex," Izzie hissed. "So, did you say yes?"
"No," Meredith said. "I put my clothes on and ran."
"And?" Stewart said.
"He chased me." Stewart laughed. "In clothes," she clarified. "He chased me in clothes."
"And?" Sarah prodded.
"Then I said yes," she said. "He's very persistent. He's... I should go back."
"No, Mere," Sarah said. "Sit and talk. Finish your food."
Meredith sighed and picked up the pita, taking another few bites. "I could do without the sister thing, you know," she grumbled.
Sarah laughed. "That's what makes it the sister thing."
"Is this a private party, or can I join?" Everyone looked up. Mark stood there with a tray that seemed like overkill for his lone apple. It was as if he'd purchased food just to have an excuse. Meredith hadn't even seen him approach. He was in his street clothes, some faded jeans and a shirt that'd seen better days. Dark circles hugged his eyes. And he slouched far more than the size of his briefcase indicated he should be slouching.
"Sloane," Alex said flatly.
Mark stared for a moment as if deciding what would be appropriate. "Karev," he said, his eyes narrowing with all sorts of dark, churning emotions before he turned to Stewart and washed every hint of it away with a blink. "Hey, man," he said.
"Mark," Stewart said.
"Heard you won this year," Mark said as he sat down with his tray.
"Yeah," Stewart replied, a happy smile melting him. "Meredith is a feisty little jail guard. Kept everyone in line." But then the smile disappeared, and he and Sarah both shifted uncomfortably.
"Well, Alex and I should go," Izzie said. "Because we're scheduled to do... Stuff."
"What?" Alex said.
"You know. The rounds. With Dr. Bailey."
"But we're off in-"
"Alex," Izzie hissed.
"Right," he said. "Okay."
They departed quickly, Izzie jerking on the sleeve of Alex's scrubs. Meredith shook her head as she took another bite of soggy pita. The air between the table occupants could have snapped apart and shattered it was so thick with unspoken things. Sarah looked at her hands, a small frown pursing her gorgeous features into a guilt-ridden mess.
"Look, guys, I'm trying," Mark said, cutting into the strange tension. "I just... I would have picked Derek over me, too. You don't have to act like... I get it. It's okay. You don't have to act like I'm going to go postal on you and scream about it."
"Oh, Mark," Sarah said, puffing a huge, heaving sigh that sent her loose bangs flying. Her eyes watered. "You did a stupid thing, but we love you."
"I'm trying," Mark replied, shrugging. "To fix it. I'm trying." He turned to Meredith. "He loves you."
"Yes," Meredith said.
Silence mushroomed in the space between them like the remnants of some sort of explosion. Mark took a bite of his apple and stared at her, unblinking as his jaw worked. Crunch. Crunch. Munch. He drew his fingers down over the light fuzz of his beard in a ponderous motion. He swallowed thickly and sucked in a breath like it was the last bit of air he'd ever receive.
"Never Addison," he added. "Not like I-- Just you."
Meredith stared. "He used to love her. He's told me."
Mark raised an eyebrow. "He told you how he felt about Addison?"
"It was over a decade of his life, Mark," she said. "It's part of what made him who he is now. We've talked about it. It's not like she's taboo or something."
"He told you about the lightning stuff?"
"The what?" she said.
Mark shrugged. "You're his lightning. Addison wasn't even close."
"Okay," Meredith said, frowning, unsure about what Mark was fishing for.
Sarah stood. "Mom, over here!" she said, waving at Derek's mother, who stood, scanning the tables for familiar faces. When she saw Sarah waving, her curious look melted into a warm smile, and she approached.
"Derek's asleep again," Ellen said as she pulled up a chair.
"You left..." Meredith whispered.
"Yes, it's getting late," Ellen said. "Mark, dear, are you ready to leave, or?"
Mark, peeled from his staring, blinked and looked up. "Yeah," he said gruffly. "We should round everyone up."
Stewart stood. "Everyone is here."
"I have to go back," Meredith said. "Ask the admitting nurse to page Izzie for you. She can let you into the house and give you the spare key."
"Meredith..." Stewart said.
"I have to go," she said as the rushing panic, the panic she'd let die in the midst of repeated soothing and prods to chat, to talk about the first proposal, began to stab again. He'd been left all alone. "I've been down here too long, and I have to... He's alone."
She turned and bolted, only to be thwarted by the damned elevator. It was stuck up on six. And then it stopped at five for what seemed like a block of time competing for election as an eon. She turned to take the stairs, only to run into a familiar, thin, wiry but towering frame of legs and arms and just a little bit of torso. Giraffe.