Of Villains and Victims Chapter 2
Insomnia, she decides, is her subconscious telling her that she will die alone if she doesn’t figure herself out. The tree outside her window taps an irregular heart rhythm and the creaky sound of her wooden house in the wind ceases to be amusing somewhere around three a.m. The sheets still smell of him. That’s her problem. They never really did the grown-up thing; the thing where you exchange all your stuff back. So she has his pajamas and he has her favourite sweater, and really, this has to be better because she can’t go around not trusting the one person who wants her. She needs to want herself, good, bad and twisty. It isn’t happening with Derek, so she starts again without.
Another groaning creak and she is up, closer to five a.m. than four but she has to do something with these wasted hours. She doesn’t turn the lights on; knows her house backwards and forwards, fumbling for the banister because it is pitch black and she doesn’t want to fall and wake the others. When the house is quiet, this death quiet with the sound of breathing absent and nature sounds haunting, it reminds her of nights alone, waiting for her mother to come home. Meredith thinks, perhaps the insomnia is more than Derek but therapy isn’t helping because she cannot talk. People have always talked about her, but she’s lost the power of her voice. Ironic, but she resents the joke.
“Grey?” hoarse whisper of a voice and Meredith turns to the sound, up the stairs, her hand still on the banister, halfway down. She blinks, shadows taking form before her adjusting eyes. “Yeah?” her voice echoes, the softly thudding sound of feet down the hallway, sure of their path like her. It’s a metaphor she muses wearily, we know our way so well in the dark, why would we ever need light? A hand on her bare shoulder, prickling in defense at the unsought contact, Meredith does not look for his eyes.
“What are you doing Grey?” his baritone wavers between impatient and soft. This is Meredith, crazy Meredith lost without her tequila and lime. Un-tethered without Cristina who is so into Callie and bonding over failed relationships like hers is less important. She shrugs carelessly against his callused palm, cold on the stairway without an explanation.
Alex sighs, warm moist bad morning breath and she knows he’s slept. His grip is firm on her arm. Large and heavy; rough like he is and Meredith catalogs and files this away under “Things I Know About Alex Karev.” It’s a small drawer. He mutters something she does not understand, a language she does not know or maybe she is just that out of it. He leads her back up the stairs and down the hall. Closing his bedroom door with her, in his room, in the dark; Alex flicks the light on with a jerky motion. “Talk.”
Her head spins, blinking in the sudden bright. Alex leans his head against the door. A tattoo registers in her vision, left shoulder-blade, dark black against swarthy skin. The room, it used to be hers a lifetime ago, then George’s but it is thoroughly Alex’s now: weights and wrestling trophies, medical journals and plain sheets on her old bed. How did she forget that?
“Meredith,” her name calls her back to the present and the dark eyed stare of a man who isn’t the father that never tucked her in.
“I can’t sleep,” she blurts immediately, retreating from her hollow memories with an inward shake. “I was going to watch my mother’s old surgeries and…” She trails off, aware at last of what her actions suggest about her mental state. Mother dead. Father estranged. Half-sister insane. Boyfriend… Meredith grins tightly against his scowl because with Alex it is always opposites. Whether demon or darling, she plays the other part, his mirror, keeping the equilibrium even when they feel off-kilter. She’s supposed to be self-destructive and he’s apathetic but neither of them really are. The fact that he dragged her to his room; that she let him, is telling enough.
He responds with a huff, sitting at the edge of the bed, rubbing his hands over his face like she may well be the death of him. Meredith never asked him to be this concerned. She finds it more than a little un-nerving because, this is Alex and he’s not acting like Cristina would. Or how she thinks Cristina would. Meredith peers around her, at him. Sees the guitar and walks over to it. Strums an out of tune chord, as she turns her head to Alex. He looks at her, his face a mask of indifference. She knows him just a little better than most. She picks at the scab because he picks at hers. It’s self-protection. All of it. Her smiles and his frowns, and she is sick of being a problem everyone else gets to solve.
“Is it yours?”
“My father’s”
Meredith holds the acoustic gently against her body. Her childhood was piano lessons, then cello, “because she liked to spread her legs so much” Thank you mother. Guitar was Charlie in Boston and Pierre in France, far too long ago for her to be credible. Her fingers thumb the strings anyway. Meredith lifts her eyes to Alex’s gaze in the yellow light.
“Do you play?” her question is curiosity as she tries to remember a tune Pierre played with a guitar against her naked breasts. Meredith moves toward the bed. His admission is a strangled yes, so she sits beside him with a nudge. Green eyes collapse into brown and she is tired, so tired she does not care anymore.
“Tell me something true.” Alex takes the guitar in lieu of a response, tunes the strings while Meredith watches. His hands hold a skill she never quite learned.
“Woman was God’s second mistake” he murmurs arrogantly, a quiet chord in E minor echoing his sentiment. He gives Meredith his best shit-eating grin because really, he’s not sure he can take this. So he cowers over the six-string, the second-best guitar in his father’s collection, which dwindled with drugs and alcohol. He saved it. He does not know why.
“Alex,” his name is a warning, a tug at his humanity. He knows she’ll keep it secret, keep him safe because they share weakness and cynicism like others have hope. Nietzsche feels like home but Meredith won’t budge tonight. His fault. Her fault. She woke him up but nothing said he had to follow. He strums the opening chord to “Runaway Train” Meredith whisper sings the words, her voice like a reed. Alex stops abruptly.
“My mother sang. My father slapped.” Succinct, simplistic in a way he still can’t feel about the whole ordeal. It says nothing but everything like the famous six word Hemingway story. An ocean of emotion encompassed in six little words. Meredith says nothing. Does not believe in the falsehood of apology because she knows he would never accept it. Her hair falls cinnamon soft against his shoulder, he bristles at the touch. She breathes a sigh that sounds like sorry but her hands trace his over the strings.
“Keep playing.”
He doesn’t know why, but he does. Switching the light off because it’s easier to play from his memories in the dark. Meredith sits with her head on her knees, her arms wrapped around her legs. She is an outline, pitch black and darker still against his bed, but her eyes catch what light there is, reflecting his horrors back on him, in time with her own. He plays Dylan, and wonders without rancor when she will break just like a little girl. He sings without realizing it, until Meredith sings along, a strange harmony, but it works. He stops. She is too much. Silence. She reaches for him in the black, and he lays the guitar down. This is true. Fear and pain colliding as her thumb brushes his rough cheek. The gesture important, for they do not touch with kindness. Not each other. It is too much like sympathy.
“We won’t become them,” Meredith whispers, half prayer half question and Alex chuckles mirthlessly, the defense mechanism of an only child grown old before his time. He bends into her, briefly, because she smells like a home he could want one day. He leans back and away. Eyes gone to the shadows a history he will not share.
“We don’t get a choice.” She stalls for a second. Considers his words and Alex is so accustomed to her chatter that their quiet leaves him nervous in a way he can’t articulate. Something shifts without permission, her weight on his bed and she is holding him. Awkwardly. A soft mouth breathes into his ear and he cannot help his shiver.
“We should really try to fuck Fate. We’ve fucked everyone else.”
He laughs, loud and clear; gives her hair a good tug as she yelps in protest. Meredith pokes him in the ribs. Alex returns her hug. They sit in the stillness that breaks every time a tree knocks against the window. They wonder what they really want.
Another groaning creak and she is up, closer to five a.m. than four but she has to do something with these wasted hours. She doesn’t turn the lights on; knows her house backwards and forwards, fumbling for the banister because it is pitch black and she doesn’t want to fall and wake the others. When the house is quiet, this death quiet with the sound of breathing absent and nature sounds haunting, it reminds her of nights alone, waiting for her mother to come home. Meredith thinks, perhaps the insomnia is more than Derek but therapy isn’t helping because she cannot talk. People have always talked about her, but she’s lost the power of her voice. Ironic, but she resents the joke.
“Grey?” hoarse whisper of a voice and Meredith turns to the sound, up the stairs, her hand still on the banister, halfway down. She blinks, shadows taking form before her adjusting eyes. “Yeah?” her voice echoes, the softly thudding sound of feet down the hallway, sure of their path like her. It’s a metaphor she muses wearily, we know our way so well in the dark, why would we ever need light? A hand on her bare shoulder, prickling in defense at the unsought contact, Meredith does not look for his eyes.
“What are you doing Grey?” his baritone wavers between impatient and soft. This is Meredith, crazy Meredith lost without her tequila and lime. Un-tethered without Cristina who is so into Callie and bonding over failed relationships like hers is less important. She shrugs carelessly against his callused palm, cold on the stairway without an explanation.
Alex sighs, warm moist bad morning breath and she knows he’s slept. His grip is firm on her arm. Large and heavy; rough like he is and Meredith catalogs and files this away under “Things I Know About Alex Karev.” It’s a small drawer. He mutters something she does not understand, a language she does not know or maybe she is just that out of it. He leads her back up the stairs and down the hall. Closing his bedroom door with her, in his room, in the dark; Alex flicks the light on with a jerky motion. “Talk.”
Her head spins, blinking in the sudden bright. Alex leans his head against the door. A tattoo registers in her vision, left shoulder-blade, dark black against swarthy skin. The room, it used to be hers a lifetime ago, then George’s but it is thoroughly Alex’s now: weights and wrestling trophies, medical journals and plain sheets on her old bed. How did she forget that?
“Meredith,” her name calls her back to the present and the dark eyed stare of a man who isn’t the father that never tucked her in.
“I can’t sleep,” she blurts immediately, retreating from her hollow memories with an inward shake. “I was going to watch my mother’s old surgeries and…” She trails off, aware at last of what her actions suggest about her mental state. Mother dead. Father estranged. Half-sister insane. Boyfriend… Meredith grins tightly against his scowl because with Alex it is always opposites. Whether demon or darling, she plays the other part, his mirror, keeping the equilibrium even when they feel off-kilter. She’s supposed to be self-destructive and he’s apathetic but neither of them really are. The fact that he dragged her to his room; that she let him, is telling enough.
He responds with a huff, sitting at the edge of the bed, rubbing his hands over his face like she may well be the death of him. Meredith never asked him to be this concerned. She finds it more than a little un-nerving because, this is Alex and he’s not acting like Cristina would. Or how she thinks Cristina would. Meredith peers around her, at him. Sees the guitar and walks over to it. Strums an out of tune chord, as she turns her head to Alex. He looks at her, his face a mask of indifference. She knows him just a little better than most. She picks at the scab because he picks at hers. It’s self-protection. All of it. Her smiles and his frowns, and she is sick of being a problem everyone else gets to solve.
“Is it yours?”
“My father’s”
Meredith holds the acoustic gently against her body. Her childhood was piano lessons, then cello, “because she liked to spread her legs so much” Thank you mother. Guitar was Charlie in Boston and Pierre in France, far too long ago for her to be credible. Her fingers thumb the strings anyway. Meredith lifts her eyes to Alex’s gaze in the yellow light.
“Do you play?” her question is curiosity as she tries to remember a tune Pierre played with a guitar against her naked breasts. Meredith moves toward the bed. His admission is a strangled yes, so she sits beside him with a nudge. Green eyes collapse into brown and she is tired, so tired she does not care anymore.
“Tell me something true.” Alex takes the guitar in lieu of a response, tunes the strings while Meredith watches. His hands hold a skill she never quite learned.
“Woman was God’s second mistake” he murmurs arrogantly, a quiet chord in E minor echoing his sentiment. He gives Meredith his best shit-eating grin because really, he’s not sure he can take this. So he cowers over the six-string, the second-best guitar in his father’s collection, which dwindled with drugs and alcohol. He saved it. He does not know why.
“Alex,” his name is a warning, a tug at his humanity. He knows she’ll keep it secret, keep him safe because they share weakness and cynicism like others have hope. Nietzsche feels like home but Meredith won’t budge tonight. His fault. Her fault. She woke him up but nothing said he had to follow. He strums the opening chord to “Runaway Train” Meredith whisper sings the words, her voice like a reed. Alex stops abruptly.
“My mother sang. My father slapped.” Succinct, simplistic in a way he still can’t feel about the whole ordeal. It says nothing but everything like the famous six word Hemingway story. An ocean of emotion encompassed in six little words. Meredith says nothing. Does not believe in the falsehood of apology because she knows he would never accept it. Her hair falls cinnamon soft against his shoulder, he bristles at the touch. She breathes a sigh that sounds like sorry but her hands trace his over the strings.
“Keep playing.”
He doesn’t know why, but he does. Switching the light off because it’s easier to play from his memories in the dark. Meredith sits with her head on her knees, her arms wrapped around her legs. She is an outline, pitch black and darker still against his bed, but her eyes catch what light there is, reflecting his horrors back on him, in time with her own. He plays Dylan, and wonders without rancor when she will break just like a little girl. He sings without realizing it, until Meredith sings along, a strange harmony, but it works. He stops. She is too much. Silence. She reaches for him in the black, and he lays the guitar down. This is true. Fear and pain colliding as her thumb brushes his rough cheek. The gesture important, for they do not touch with kindness. Not each other. It is too much like sympathy.
“We won’t become them,” Meredith whispers, half prayer half question and Alex chuckles mirthlessly, the defense mechanism of an only child grown old before his time. He bends into her, briefly, because she smells like a home he could want one day. He leans back and away. Eyes gone to the shadows a history he will not share.
“We don’t get a choice.” She stalls for a second. Considers his words and Alex is so accustomed to her chatter that their quiet leaves him nervous in a way he can’t articulate. Something shifts without permission, her weight on his bed and she is holding him. Awkwardly. A soft mouth breathes into his ear and he cannot help his shiver.
“We should really try to fuck Fate. We’ve fucked everyone else.”
He laughs, loud and clear; gives her hair a good tug as she yelps in protest. Meredith pokes him in the ribs. Alex returns her hug. They sit in the stillness that breaks every time a tree knocks against the window. They wonder what they really want.