love in the time of science - chapter eleven (part 2)

[morgenwrites]

This is Part 2.  Please read Part 1 first.

Title: Love in the Time of Science
Author: Morgen
Summary: Love. Tragedy. The things we’ve left unsaid. This is their story. Set after episode 5.05.
Disclaimer: I am not famous. I do not own TV shows. I am a poor college student with a laptop and a serious procrastination habit. 
Rating: Written for grownups.

He stared at her and she looked away towards the wall, but she felt his smile fall all the same. She didn’t have one to put up in its place. She glanced down at her plate. Two bites left. Maybe she wasn’t hungry anymore.

“You’re still upset about this.”

Her shoulders stiffened. “I’m not. I’m fine. You did what you had to do.”

“You’re mad at me,” he insisted. “That’s why you don’t want to scrub in.”

“That’s not it,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s just…you kicked me off of surgery, Derek. Surgery!”

“I know,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m not trying to make you apologize again! I get that you’re sorry, it’s just…” She cut her words off abruptly and stuffed her mouth with the second to last piece of French toast. The syrup was suddenly much too sweet. It turned her stomach and left her wanting to gag. She reached for her water glass and gulped from it in huge swallows.

“It’s just what?”

Meredith bit her lip. She didn’t know how to explain it. It was just a feeling. Like she was hollow on the inside because everything good had already been scooped out. “I’m not my mother,” she said at last.

He nodded but said nothing as if sensing that he might accidentally destroy what more was left and waiting on the tip of her tongue with so much as a single misplaced word.

She closed her eyes. “You know when I first got accepted to med school, there was a moment there where I was so convinced that I could do this. That I could be even better than my mother,” she said, the words ringing loud with disbelieving laughter. “That’s the only thing that would’ve made her proud, and for one brief, delusional moment, I actually thought I could do that. Maybe. And now… Now, I know I’m not my mother,” she said quietly. “I’m no Ellis Grey. I get that, I do, but I never felt like I was bad at my job. It’s the one thing I’ve always been able to do. No matter how messed up everything else got, I still had that. I wasn’t a bad doctor.”

“You’re not a bad doctor,” said Derek.

“Lately I’ve been feeling that way.” He shook his head about to protest, but she carried on. “I dropped a kidney, Derek. I actually dropped one. On the ground. Remember that?”

“That was a freak accident,” he said dismissively. “A one time thing. It could’ve happened to anyone.”

“Right…” She stared at her plate, pushing her one remaining bite of French toast around and around her plate.

Don’t play with your food, Meredith. Who’s going to want to eat with you when you look so uncivilized?

Derek scooted closer and eased his arm in between her back and the chair, pulling her into a sideways hug. “We’re not really talking about the kidney, are we?” he asked.

Meredith stiffened in his grasp and stared straight ahead. She could still see him out of the corner of her eye, an indistinct blur of Derek, dark with concern, his voice gentle with worry and love and things that meant she should confess. That she could confess. To him. Even after a day of spilling just about every secret she had, it was still hard. It was still a monumental effort, like pushing a boulder up a hill with her bare hands, just to get her tongue to move, herself to speak. “I don’t know,” she said. Her words trembled and quaked.

“Mmm…” He hummed low in his throat like a purring cat, encouraging her to go on. “It’s okay. You do know. Why do you think you’re a bad doctor?”

She shook her head. The boulder was stuck and breaking her back. The words were peanut butter clinging to the roof of her mouth.

“Is it because of the trial?” he pressed, prying her out of herself bit by bit.

“I don’t know!” she snapped. “It’s stupid.”

“No it’s not.”

She looked at him, her eyes wide and flooded with tears. “You didn’t trust me with your patient,” she blurted. Her voice was mournful and whiny. Pathetic. She hated it.

Derek’s whole expression seemed to crumble. “Meredith…” He shifted even closer, his fingers curling tightly around her lower back. “I’m sorry. I want you there now,” he said, sounding hopeless. “I’d take it back if I could.”

“I know,” she said. But it didn’t take away the ache she felt when she thought about how quickly he’d kicked her off the case, how very little it had taken for him to decide she was too damaged to do her job. She sighed heavily and speared her final piece of French toast. “I’m not my mother,” she said again. “The diary makes that perfectly clear. She didn’t waste time running around Europe or spend entire years living off of coffee and alcohol and jars of peanut butter. By the time she was my age, she was already on her way to becoming someone.”

“Don’t compare yourself to her,” said Derek as if it was that easy to not care. “You don’t need to be identical to her to be a good surgeon.”

“Right,” she scoffed. She shifted in her chair, feeling overheated. Uncomfortable. “She spent her internship learning things; I spent mine unraveling. Uh huh. Clearly I’m the extraordinary one.”

“There’s more to life than work, Meredith, and you have her beat outside the OR every time.”

Meredith snorted. “Because I’ve really been the picture of healthy and functional in the time you’ve known me.” She looked down at her empty plate, frowning at the left over sticky mess. If she didn’t wash the syrup off tonight, it’d be hell to get rid of come tomorrow. “I was even worse before med school,” she added as she got to her feet.

Derek shook his head disbelievingly. “You’re a good person. You care for your friends. You-”

“Give me your plate,” she said, cutting him off. She couldn’t handle much more of this.

He looked up. “Huh?”

“Your plate,” she said. “You cooked. The least I can do is the dishes.”

He sighed but handed it over, and she stacked the plates together, jumbling the silverware into a pile on top. She dumped everything into the sink and headed back to the center island, picking up the griddle and the bowl Derek had used for the batter as well. He frowned at her from his seat at the table. “Meredith, listen to me,” he said.

“Can you put all that crap back in the fridge?”

His frown deepened, but he got to his feet and picked up the bread and the butter. The syrup bottle. She turned on the water, letting it drown out the sudden, stuffy silence. The fridge door opened and closed, and then he was standing beside her, looming over her. Radiating an all too familiar frustration.

“Mer,” he tried again. Of course he would. If there was one thing Derek Shepherd didn’t know, it was when to drop it. She rolled her eyes and picked up the sponge. She’d had more than enough self-analysis for the evening. Hopefully he’d get the point when she didn’t answer.

They stood perfectly still for a moment, and she was painfully aware of the distance between their shoulders. The water hit the basin like thunder in a storm. A waterfall to pull them down. She should do better, but comparing herself to her mother left her raw. She squirted the dish soap onto the sponge and the spell broke. Derek sighed almost imperceptibly, she felt it more than heard it, and then he started putting away the dry dishes stacked in the drain board.

She watched him out of the corner of her eye, wondering when they’d gotten so domestic. Angrily domestic at the moment. He was letting the cabinets slam. But still… Two years ago, if someone had told her she’d be doing up dishes with her live in boyfriend after a long night of talking, she never would’ve believed it. One night stands had no business doing dishes. But Derek navigated her kitchen, their kitchen, like he’d been doing it his whole life. Not once did he stop to ask her where something went, and that wasn’t just because of the tense, brooding silence they were cultivating. She wasn’t sure how she’d missed the change from strange and new to completely natural. Maybe it had been something of a slow slide like growing taller. Inches added on when you weren’t looking.

She could’ve asked Olivia if the woman hadn’t been so distraught. Married with a daughter. She would’ve known the feeling. Maybe even had a name for it. Maybe this was how married people fought too. With slammed down cups and furiously scrubbed plates. Silences that said a lot. Olivia could’ve told her. She liked Olivia. “They seem like a nice family,” she said, forgetting to speak over the sound of the running water.

Derek turned to look at her. “What?” he said tersely.

“Your clinical trial family,” she said. “Well, I only met Olivia, but it’s clear they love their daughter a lot.”

“They do,” said Derek as he deposited several assorted coffee mugs on their shelf. Each one was set down a lot harder than necessary, but she bit her tongue and didn’t comment. “They don’t deserve this,” he said roughly. “They’re good people.”

“Yeah.” Did anyone ever deserve it? “They’re not telling her that she’s dying,” she said.

He scowled at her. “I know. She’s not going to though. The treatment works.”

“Right. I know it does,” she said, her voice creeping towards irritated to match his. “But there are always risks, and this has huge ones. I’m just saying they’re not telling her that it’s even a possibility. She might as well be getting her tonsils out for all she knows! That’s why Olivia was so upset when I found her,” she added quietly. “I think they were fighting about it. Her and her husband.”

“It’s not an easy thing for a parent to have to go through,” he said. She bristled at his tone. So freaking condescending. As if he was enlightening her. As if he thought she’d never have realized that on her own. “Couples that lose a child can get ripped apart.”

“I know that,” she snapped. She picked up the griddle and started scrubbing it violently. Some of her frustration bled away with the soap and the water. The bits of food that got washed away. “I just…” She sighed and glanced over at Derek. “What do you think about it?” she asked.

“I think it’s an incredibly personal, private decision they have to make, and it’s my job to respect what they choose for their family.”

“Not as a doctor,” she said, rolling her eyes. Again with the whole condescending thing. She could just about smack him. “I meant what do you think, Derek, as a person?”

“You mean if it were our kid?” he asked flatly. He was staring straight at her like a challenge. Like revenge. Getting her back for cutting their earlier conversation off short. She bit her lip and hesitated, her sponge hovering in midair. He always knew just how to test her. Their kid. Something shot through her like electricity, painful yet thrilling.

“Yeah,” she said. “Something like that.” She resumed scrubbing the griddle vigorously while her teeth massacred her lip. He better not freaking misinterpret that as an invitation to procreate at any time in the foreseeable future.

There was a long pause, but when she glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, his expression had softened. He wore a quiet, distant smile. “Everyone deserves the chance to say goodbye,” he said at last, picking up a handful of silverware and beginning to sort it.

“You don’t think it’s selfish? Telling the kid just so the parents can have that moment?”

“No,” he said quietly. “It’s not just the parents who deserve the chance to say goodbye. You think differently?” he asked, and this time he didn’t sound condescending. Just curious.

“No, no. I agree with you,” said Meredith. “I’d tell her. It’s just…Olivia. She’s so convinced it’s the wrong thing to do. That Sarah won’t fight or something if she knows. And I don’t think she’s a bad person or unintelligent or anything. I don’t even really think that she’s wrong, and yet at the same time…” She shook her head, feeling troubled and trying to pinpoint why. The kitchen fell away in a flash.

I don't wanna be here. I wanna go back.

The room was cold and she wasn’t breathing.

We were told there wasn't a lot of time.

Dead, dead, dead.

I'm out of time?

She shivered and the griddle slipped out of her grasp, clattering loudly as it resettled against the sink.

“Meredith?” said Derek, his voice hinting at worried. “You okay?”

“Slipped,” she said, picking up the griddle and rinsing it off. She handed it to him. “Maybe it’s right for them,” she said quietly, trying to convince herself. Sarah wasn’t her. She had every reason to want to fight to stay alive.

Even if she didn’t know she needed to fight…

“Maybe it is,” he said. He sighed and shook his head. “We don’t get a say here, Mer. Even if we think we’re right.”

She nodded, shutting off the water. “I know,” she said. The kitchen was too quiet, and she looked back at him with an exaggerated sigh, wiping her hands dry on her jeans. “Alright,” she said lightly, pushing away the worry. The empty hospital that lurked at the back of her mind. “This is getting freaking morbid here. Can we talk about something else?”

Derek raked a hand back through his hair and smiled. At least they were done with the fighting. “I distinctly remember you’re the one who started this whole train of thought.”

She grinned at him, biting her lip. “So not my fault. I’m weird and freaky, remember? It’s your job to suggest the normal topics.”

“Mmm…” He stepped closer, shifting so he stood behind her. His hands gripped the counter on either side of her, and she was pinned. He nipped at her ear. “What if I like your weird and freaky?” The words were a low growl rolling over her skin. She leaned back ever so slightly. Just enough for her shoulder blades to press against his chest. The air between them was electric. Still filled with static from the fighting. From the way his breath spilled down her neck. Hot. Waiting to spark.

“What if you do?” she murmured. His fingers curled around her hipbone and she pushed back, wriggling against him. He chuckled and gripped her tighter. Possessive. She was his. He would have her. She would have him. Soon. These were facts. She did it again and his laugh turned into a moan. His hand slid across her stomach, tightening around her waist, and she could tell he was seconds from picking her up and carting her to their room. Seconds. If that. She grabbed his arm and shook her head, caught off guard by a sudden desire. “Not upstairs,” she said quickly.

“Not upstairs?” he echoed, and she could hear the grin in his voice. He thumbed the waistband of her jeans before moving to pop the button. A hand slipped inside, brushing against the lace front of her panties. “What do you want, Mer?”

He toyed with the slender strings that gripped her hips. Crept infuriatingly close while giving her nothing. “Touch me,” she said.

“Here?” asked Derek as he kissed his way down the side of her neck. She tilted for him. “In the kitchen?”

She’d never liked this room before. Never since…

He rubbed her slowly through the lace only to pull his hand away as she started to quiver. “Is that what you want?” he asked as his hands skated upward, taking her shirt with them. His thumbs pressed against the underwire of her bra, popping it up over the swell of her breasts.

“Yes,” she moaned, but whether that was yes to the kitchen or yes to the fingers rolling her nipples between them, she couldn’t remember anymore. Yes to both of them. Yes to freaking everything.

“What about Alex?” he asked, walking her away from the sink. “And Izzie?” His hand wandered down her stomach to pet her through the lace again. “They’re both home.”

“And dead to the world by now,” she said, staggering backwards with him. Who gave a crap about roommates anyway? Roommates were stupid. He hooked a single finger under the thin strip of lace, teasing it away from her skin. God. If he’d just get rid of her panties and touch her already. “Besides,” she said, trying like hell to make the thoughts inside her head remember how to come out as words. She had a point. She had a… He palmed her breast and hummed low in his throat. Encouraging her. “It’s my house,” she gasped. “And, and…” She moaned as he finally pushed her panties to the side and sought her out. His fingers delved and stroked and teased. She was shivering, delirious. Like a fever. She rocked against his hand. Whimpered. “It’s my house and…”

He dragged his thumb, circling her clit. “And we’re gonna fuck where you want to?” he growled.

“Yes,” she said as he pulled her tighter to him. She could feel him behind her, pressing hard against her, but she couldn’t reach. “Yes. God. Where I…” Her hands clenched in fists as her breath hissed past her teeth. “Fuck, Derek…” She reached up, twisting an arm behind her head, desperate to feel him. Her hand tangled in his hair, clutching at thick clumps of curls.

“Mmm…” He kissed the back of her neck, fingers dipping in and out. “You’re wet, Mer. You’re so wet.” She moaned and shifted her hips, still tugging on his hair. He walked her further backwards, and the room seemed brilliantly lit. Every cabinet, every last plate and cup was a bright blur she didn’t have to mind. She’d never liked this room much before, but she didn’t care where they were going now. He could walk her to the freaking moon if he wanted. (She had no doubt he would.)

He turned her, and she pivoted around the fingers curled deep inside her. His mouth came down over hers, hot and demanding, and she sucked, pulling his tongue deep into her mouth. Derek groaned, and the sound reverberated down her throat until there was no part of her left untouched. Her fingers found the tiny buttons on his dress shirt and flew down them one by one. Surgical dexterity she thought with a distant laugh that surrendered soon to the whining, needing hunger spilling from his fingers into her.

When she broke away from his mouth, it was to plant a trail of kisses over the strip of bare skin caught between the two halves of his open shirt. The smooth plane of his chest and the swirl of dark hairs winding down. Captured there for her like a masterpiece in a gilded frame. She licked her lips and let her gaze drift lower, reaching out to cup him through his jeans. When she pushed his shirt off his shoulders, she followed the fluttering fabric down to her knees. She stared up at him as she freed him from his jeans. Hovered near him. And breathed.

“Meredith,” he moaned, looking down at her with hooded eyes. “Please.”

She smiled and wrapped a hand around him. Licked her way up his length, swirling her tongue before she took him in her mouth. The room seemed to pulse. His fingers tangled in her hair. She wanted him. Completely. She licked and sucked and savored every groan he made. Every sound that meant he wanted her too. After all of this, every jagged, hurtful thing they’d hurled at each other, the want was still there. It didn’t die. It lived and pulsed and breathed. It was in the smell of him. The taste. It was there in the way he stroked her hair, holding it back from her face so he could see. In the way he groaned her name again and again like she was his prayer. And it was there in the way he pulled her to her feet before he finished and kissed her gently on the lips with a mumbled, “Wait. Not yet.”

All of it familiar. And all of it discovered brand new again.

The wanting that pulsed deep inside her transformed into something ravenous, and she kicked her way out of her jeans and her panties. Clothes pooled on the floor forgotten. Black leather boots encased her feet and clung to her calves like a second skin. She glanced at Derek and left them on.

He unhooked her tangled bra, but she couldn’t say where it fell because he dropped his head to her breasts, flicking a nipple with his tongue. His mouth closed around it and she grabbed fistfuls of his hair, holding him there while he sucked. She shivered and arched her back, pushing herself into his mouth. She was a messy pile of starving, desperate things, and she barely noticed the arm that wrapped around her waist.

The ground disappeared from beneath her feet, and he left her nipple damp and throbbing. She squeaked. The ceiling swam above her in a wash of white, and she felt something rough and sturdy beneath her back. She turned her head to the side and the napkin holder loomed like the Great Wall of China. The table then. She was lying on the table. Derek stood at the end, gripping her foot in his hand. How’d she missed that?

How?

He smirked at her boots, eyes gone dark and lustful. He looked at her like a lion stalking its prey. “These are nice,” he murmured, kissing her leg where leather gave way to skin. “You should wear them…” He kissed her knee, her thigh. “To breakfast tomorrow.” He spread her apart as he climbed higher on her thigh with each word. “It’d be good enough to eat.” She shivered and lifted her hips, trying to get closer.

He took his time. First it was only his fingers that found her. Peeled her layers apart.

“Please,” she begged. He liked that. When she begged. And it was freaking genuine anyway, so… “Derek,” she moaned, thunking her head against the table. “Please, please, please.”

He laughed and the sound hummed against her very center. His tongue swept against her and she swore she was dying. The world spun out in every color and none at all, and her fingers curled in his hair. She shifted her hips, trying for more. More of him. Every press of his tongue was feather light and left her even hungrier than before. His fingers coaxed and curled and played her like a harp. A violin.

God, she was an entire fucking orchestra at this point.

She shuddered and kicked out, catching the back of a chair with her boot. It fell. Clattered. Crashed to the ground. Derek looked up at the sound. Left her. “Leave it,” she hissed. “Leave it. Fucking leave it.” He just rested his chin against her thigh and grinned at her.

“So very bossy, Dr. Grey,” he crowed. “What am I going to do with you?”

Anything he wanted, really.

“Just, just…please. Don’t stop.”

He smiled again and then the only thing she could see was the top of his head. Even that slid lazily out of focus as he licked his way through her folds and started peeling her apart again. Like an onion. Every lick, every fluttering touch, every curl of his finger and press of his thumb and another layer was gone. Gone, gone, gone. Obliterated. It was an explosion in slow motion, freeze framed into something close to insanity and all she wanted was that moment when everything blew apart and the world flared white and red. It dangled there close. Waiting for her.

Teasing her.

God, if only…

She whimpered and shifted closer. Every breath shivered out of her lungs like it was her last. She mewled and pleaded and cried his name until suddenly, he stilled.

No.

He pulled away and kissed her once. She could taste herself on his mouth. But then he was gone and she was left bereft, at a loss.

Lacking.

Her hands flailed in the air, scrambling for reason, and then flopped against the tabletop. “Finish me,” she gasped, protesting, torn and disoriented. Hanging from the ledge.

He grinned at her as he pulled her legs towards the ground. The room slid. “Turn over,” he said.

She laid there blinking, and he did it for her. Her heels found the ground, wobbling as he rolled her over. Her body slid against the wood. She shook.

“Derek,” she whimpered.

He splayed his palm against the small of her back, pressing her flat. And then he was kissing his way up her spine, visiting every vertebra with his lips. The table slid out of focus, blurred and brown and grainy, and she shivered as he moved closer, hovering over her. His hands brushed her hair from her neck and he bent to suck on it as he pushed a leg between her thighs. Rubbed her. Nudged her. Spread her apart.

She could feel him, hard and close, more than ready. But not there. Not there. “Oh, come on,” she moaned. “Please.”

“You want me inside you?” he asked, his voice low and husky and ragged, shredded thin and close to cracking. He was going to kill them both with all the waiting.

“Yes,” she hissed, wriggling against him. She listened to him groan and smiled into the tabletop. Two could play at torment.

But then he pushed into her and there was only a rush that had to be the world peeling back from the point where he filled her. He curled over her and into her, breathing down her spine and deep into every crack inside of her. Her breasts were mashed against the table and fingernails scratched at the finish. She could hear it shifting beneath her with every thrust, creaking in shaky protest. She gripped the edge and prayed it wouldn’t break.

She gasped as he reached a hand around to flick her clit. “What do you need, Mer?” he asked, sounding strained and panting.

“Harder,” she groaned. “I need… Harder.”

The words were barely out before he’d grabbed her hips and complied. Started yanking her backwards with every thrust. Her vision went dusty around the edges and she surrendered to the rhythm, rocking back with his hands. Bringing him deeper. Closer. The table creaked. Their bodies slid. There was no space left inside her unexplored. Nothing untouched. He filled her and drained away. Filled her and drained away. Again and again. He grunted, shouting senseless sounds, leaving her drunk on a mess of mingled pleasure and pain. It seemed endless and ephemeral at the same time. Too soon and never until her lips curled back from her teeth and she started to shake. The room took a nosedive that left her screaming her release.

Coherency shivered away in a flash of white.

Her mind was lost somewhere along the way when bliss struck her like lighting and rippled through her veins. Her toes curled in her boots and the sound of his name skinned her throat and left her hoarse. She was barely half aware, delirious as he finished. She hung there dazed, clinging to the table as the room tried to right itself. He pumped into her again. Once. Twice. A final time and then he spilled. She heard her name on his lips and loved the sound. When he slumped forward to lay curled over her back, she’d just remembered how to breathe. He kissed her throat and the underside of her jaw. His hand found hers and their fingers locked. Their hair was damp with sweat, their skin slick. The room smelled of sex and she had the table to thank for the fact that she was still kind of upright.

She didn’t know how long they stayed locked like that, half standing and bent over the table. But eventually, after what had been seconds or days, a minute or a lifetime, she nudged him with her elbow. “You’re crushing me,” she muttered.

“Sorry,” he said softly, separating from her. She shivered and felt alone, but then he was fitting his hands under her armpits. Helping her to her feet. His pants had pooled around his ankles, and she sagged against him, still needing his hands.

“Crap,” she said as her legs started to shake. Her knees felt weak. “Let’s sit.”

Derek chuckled but seemed as happy to give in to gravity as she was. He crumpled to the ground, holding her the whole way down. They fit beneath the table, and she curled around him, staring up. She came face to face with a sea of long forgotten scribbles. She’d drawn on the underside of the table once upon a time. The work of a blue marker and no one to play with. Her mother hadn’t noticed the day she’d sat down there and tried to die.

“My art,” she mumbled, jerking her chin towards it.

Derek tilted his head back and stared. He was silent for a moment, but then he nodded and kissed her hair. “Hmm… Very Picasso. It’s good art.”

She breathed and slumped against his chest, petting the swirls of dark hair that grew there. “It’s a good table,” she countered, sounding tired and sly.

He laughed. “It is.”

She thought they might be telling lies, but she couldn’t decide. Good table or bad. She’d been down here before. To watch the blood.

When she shivered, he just held her closer, and she looked up at the scribbles instead. It was an endless trail of meandering blue. She wondered what she’d been trying to draw.

The ocean? Or the sky?

“Come on,” said Derek. He rubbed his hands up and down her arms. “Let’s go to bed.”

“Okay,” she whispered. She let him guide her out from under the table. Away from it all. But she glanced back wondering as they gathered up their clothes.

Ocean.

Or sky.

She’d cast her vote for the one that had swallowed her whole.

-----

So, yeah. More of the communication. This chapter had them putting a fair amount of the past to rest. As well as digging up some issues that still have a ways to go before they’re resolved. Like Meredith and her mother. Derek unintentionally hurt her a lot when he kicked her off the trial. She’s already been feeling like she can’t compare to the surgeon her mother was, and now Derek’s actions essentially said to her that he didn’t trust her with his patient. And she knows he had his reasons, but what it comes down to for her was that his gut reaction was that she couldn’t handle it. She wasn’t a good enough doctor. And it’s really eating away at her. It plays into all her insecurities about living in her mother’s shadow and basically leaves her feeling like she doesn’t deserve to be on the trial. Even when Derek specifically tries to get her back. In her eyes, she isn’t good enough. But that doesn’t stop her from being intensely interested in the case. As much as she doesn’t want to dwell on the trial, she really liked Olivia and connected with her. And the fact that they aren’t telling Sarah that she might die is really troubling her, but she can’t exactly place a finger on the why of that. But Meredith’s been dead, and her experiences from her NDE are shaping how she’s viewing this whole thing. And yeah, that’s about it for now. Thank you so much for reading!!