i've got your wedding bells in my ear {ensemble} (cont'd)
Richard spends the morning in OR 2. Three hours in surgery (long but routine, successful, the kind of surgery that just doesn’t take that much thought once you’ve done it hundreds of time - and he probably has) and another fifteen minutes spent staring into a cold metal sink, hands braced against the side of it, listening to the faucet as it drips.
It’s fitting, he thinks, in some kind of morbidly ironic way. Because this is where they dumped Ellis’ ashes; the equivalent of going to visit her grave, but without the flowers and the ceremony. All the things she never would’ve wanted, all the people who would show up who she wouldn’t have wanted to see when she was alive much less dead. She was a private person; it made sense that he and Meredith were the only ones who knew where she’d been laid to rest.
He’s going to the wedding today. Derek had invited him, an off the cuff comment one day, because they’d lived on the same land and he was the Chief and they’d known each other for years, and he’d nodded and told him he’d be there. And then he waited. Some part of him was hoping that Meredith would ask him.
And then a week ago she’d knocked on the door to his office and kept her eyes on the floor when she asked, “You’re coming right?”
“Of course,” he’d promised, with his hands on her shoulders, feeling her lean into his grasp.
It was later that he found out that Thatcher wouldn’t be there. Hadn’t even been invited. And it wasn’t that he was happy about her strained relationship with her father - far from it - but there was still some feeling like pride that it had been him that she’d invited. That she’d deliberately made sure he was coming.
“She’ll be okay,” he says, to the air, to a woman long since gone, looking down the drain of a sink like a long lost friend.
---
“Have you ever even been here?” Alex asks, as he takes the turn that will put them right outside of Cristina’s apartment building. Izzie’s got that dress on, and he has to force himself not to keep looking at her every time there’s a red light or a short stretch of open road.
Izzie stops to think before she answers, then, “I don’t think so actually.” It would only be weird if Cristina wasn’t so damn private and didn’t pretty much live with them - or at least Meredith - half the time. “You know you didn’t have to drive me.”
“I know.” He replies. He’d wanted to anyways, but rather than say that he just adds, “Figured I could get a glimpse of the bride outside of the wedding dress.”
She hits him in the arm, predictably with a, “Shut up.” He smirks into the rearview mirror, catching a glimpse of a semi-recognizable car that had been on their tail for the past five minutes, probably headed the same way. “The whole point here is to make sure she doesn’t decide to skip town. She has to do this. And if she doesn’t do it now then she probably never will and then she’ll wind up regretting it for the rest of her life and be old and alone - or with Cristina.”
Alex knows he shouldn’t laugh. It takes a lot of willpower. “Do weddings just do this to women? Is it something genetic where you all have to take it way too seriously?”
“It is serious, Alex” She says, and her tone is anything but joking. “It doesn’t happen every day and it doesn’t happen to everyone. It’s a big step - it means something. And it is serious.” Her gaze shifts out the window, away from him. “Especially for her.”
It’s hard not to read between the lines with that. Hard enough that he doesn’t quite manage it, and instead forces himself to swallow any comebacks he may have had. Later. There will be time for that later, when the mood isn’t quite so heavy. “I’m sorry,” he ends up saying, about nothing and everything, and he can see her nod out of the corner of his eye.
He gets what this is about. It’s the same thing Cristina’s disaster of a wedding was about. More so for him, this represents the most messed up of them all finding her potentially happy ending. Meredith - she used to give him hope about a lot of things. He wasn’t blind to their similarities, and the good that came her way, well, maybe he had hope that it might come his way eventually. That didn’t happen every day.
Of course, that was before. Now there isn’t going to be a happy ending for him, or Izzie, or them, and it’s all about the now and he’s got this part of himself that keeps insisting that maybe if they’d gotten their act together years ago that this would be better. That they’d have more of a chance.
Not that optimism (delusion, he thinks, in the back of his mind) has really ever done much for him.
---
Their apartment looks like some kind of disaster by the time Callie walks in the door. Cristina’s got a curling iron in one hand, looking for something in the kitchen cabinets, and Izzie’s sitting on the couch, Meredith’s veil spread across her lap, fixing something on it. There’s a bridesmaid’s dress lying flat on the coffee table, and Meredith’s wedding dress hung up over a door in the hallway. Dishes lay in the sink, coffee cups lying around in various places, and definitely male laughter coming from somewhere down the hall.
“Okay,” she says, as she closes the door, taking the place in.
”Oh thank god,” Cristina replies, getting off of tip toe, and turning to look at Callie, gesturing wildly with the hand that still holds the curling iron. “Do you know where the glue is?”
Callie frowns. “In the closet at the end of the hallway; why would it be in the cabinet?” Cristina shrugged, continuing along in the direction Callie had told her. “What do you need it for?” She asks, but she doesn’t get any answer, and from the look Izzie gives her, Callie’s going to guess that she doesn’t know either. “You look nice,” she tells her, after a moment, trying to be friendly, and Izzie smiles around a ‘thanks’.
There’s a yelp down the hall, followed by more laughter, and Callie decides to venture over that way, just out of curiosity. What she finds is Cristina and Meredith both packed into the bathroom, with Alex half in, half out in the hallway. Meredith’s got her fingers under cold water, and a curling iron sits on the edge of the sink. The bottle of glue that Cristina was just searching for is nowhere to be found and she figures that’s a good thing, considering the only scenarios she can imagine the glue being needed for in this scene are close to terrifying. She turns her eyes on Alex and asks, “Since when are men allowed?”
“Friend of the bride, not of the groom. What do you think I’m going to go do, hang out with Shepherd? And the house is empty anyways.” Alex replies.
“Why not? You’d enjoy sucking up.”
“Wait, where are Lexie and Sadie?” Cristina and Meredith’s replies coincide with each other, but they don’t even seem to notice. Maybe it was a good thing that she’s been gone most of this morning.
Alex deals with this in turns. The “shut up” is aimed at Cristina, while his voice shifts into more neutral territory when he tells Meredith, “I don’t have a clue where they are. I’m not their babysitter.”
“But they’re supposed to be here now.” Meredith tells him, eyes slowly widening like the wrong word might send her into panic mode.
Cristina sends a look in Meredith’s direction. “Wait, they’re coming here? Why?”
“Because that’s where we’re all getting ready. They are bridesmaids.”
“But they’re interns.”
Callie rolls her eyes at the both of them. “Ever think about picking up a phone? You know, calling them?” They stare at her rather blankly. “Please tell me you have cell numbers for them?” More staring. “Oh come on, I have them.”
“We just use pagers.” Cristina tells her.
“And I live with them.” Meredith adds.
The good part of this is that they’re so busy defending themselves that they don’t bother to ask why she has either one of their numbers. It’s really only Sadie’s that she has, and that’s really only because that one time she had a little too much to drink at Joe’s and Sadie…followed her home (she even lies to herself in her head - that’s not good). The line is busy though, and so she sits back on the couch with her cell phone in her hand and promises herself she’ll try again in another five minutes.
Izzie’s still there, the veil now sitting next to her on the couch. She’s got her feet tucked underneath her, lost in the skirt of the dress, elbow propped up against the hard outline of the couch, head resting in her palm. She looks the kind of tired that doesn’t go away with a little rest.
Callie finds it interesting that the kind of hatred she once had for this woman has since melted away, only to be replaced by absolute human nature. Sympathy. She’s a doctor and the woman across from her is sick; it’s the most basic response in the world.
It puts a lot of things in perspective. Life, the shortness of it, the cruelty of that instinctual urge you get to wish ill on someone who’s wronged you in some horrible way. Because sometimes, even if it really has nothing to do with anything you subconsciously thought or didn’t think, those things come true. And then you get to watch that person suffer. It never feels good. Never. Usually quite the opposite.
And then there’s that fleeting second, when Alex comes out from tormenting Meredith and Cristina, and brushes a stray blonde curl from Izzie’s face before he presses a kiss to her lips, whispering something that only she can hear, something that makes her smile, where Callie feels a pang of jealousy. Because yeah, Izzie’s going to die sooner rather than later, well before her time, and she only has an unspecified amount of time where she’ll be like this, tired but okay, but she has one thing that Callie can’t seem to find or make stick.
She has someone that loves her. Really, really loves her. Enough that they’ll stick around through this, through everything that’s going to go wrong. Who is strong enough to stick around.
Callie presses her lips together and forces herself to keep her eyes on her phone.
---
This is not the best time to do this. In fact, he thinks either five months ago or never were probably the best times. Not an hour before the wedding, when Derek’s already got enough on his plate thinking about Meredith and all the possible scenarios where this could go horribly, horribly wrong.
Then again, maybe this is the best time. Derek might be so distracted that he just ignores the admission altogether. At least it should soften the blow.
Either way, he’s got to say something. He has to do something because the guilt is bad enough as is, and Lexie is never going to let him forget that he’s sneaking around either. It should be as simple as stopping sleeping with her, except he’s tried that numerous times and it never works. Something in his subconscious has gone rogue and now whenever he tries that she winds up being all he can think about.
So this is the alternative.
“I lied earlier,” Mark tells him, looking at their reflections overlapping in the mirror. Derek’s fiddling with his collar but his hands still as soon as the words leave Mark’s mouth.
“About what?” Derek asks, turning to face him.
“I do have a date,” he admits, shoving his hands in his pockets in one hell of an uncharacteristic move.
A smile crosses Derek’s lips. “You say that like it’s the end of the world. So who is it? The peds nurse you’ve had your eye on?”
“No, not her.” He knows who Derek’s referring to, specifically because Lexie had been mocking him about constantly checking out her ass.
“Then who?”
Nothing to it but to do it, he thinks, forcing out her name. “Lexie Grey.”
Something flickers in Derek’s eyes, like he thinks this is just Mark pushing his buttons. Then it settles, realization sweeping his features. “No.”
“It’s a little too late for no, about five months too late,” Mark tells him, because it’s not like he hadn’t expected to hear that at least a couple hundred times during this conversation. It’s not like he wasn’t prepared to put up a fight. “I tried not to go near her, a lot. But she…is really good at getting what she wants. Better than I am. And then she shows up at my hotel room telling me to ‘teach her’ and what am I supposed to do? Say no?”
“Wait,” Derek frowns. “Teach her? Teach her what?” It’s a stupid question, which dawns on him momentarily, and then he amends his question. “Are you really trying to lay this off on her?”
“No, I’m - “ he pauses, thinks on exactly where he’s going with that sentence. Then, “Yes I am. Mostly.”
Derek shakes his head, and Mark internally prepares himself for the onslaught he figures is probably coming. But then something in Derek’s face softens and he says, “I’m marrying the intern I cheated on my wife with. I’m not the poster child for doing the right thing. Meredith certainly isn’t, and if Lexie is anything like her sister she probably isn’t either. If this is serious, if you’re happy - I’m not in the position to tell you no. Not anymore.”
“Are you drunk?” He has to ask. This isn’t going right. No way he gets off that easily - if he thought that this would go this smoothly he would’ve told him months ago.
“Quit while you’re ahead, Mark.” Derek tells him, turning back to the mirror. “And pray Meredith has a similar reaction.”
It makes him wonder if Derek is doing this because he’s just in a good mood today, got his mind on other things, or if he really is looking at similarities. Best friends who both dated interns - interns who were half-sisters. Difference is this is not a path he and Lexie will ever be going down. This isn’t them. For all the similarities there are still so many differences.
He definitely has one thing in common with Derek though: he can’t wait for this hour to be up. He can’t wait to see her (he’ll hate himself a little for this, but the feeling will pass).
---
“Do I look okay?”
She’s greeted with a chorus of yes from all four bridesmaids, Cristina and Sadie looking fairly equal amounts of annoyed, Izzie and Lexie meanwhile seemed to expect this repeated line of questioning.
“Besides, we have like two minutes. However you look now is how you’re going to look.” Cristina throws in, drawing looks from both Meredith and Izzie.
“Oh, good, that was helpful.” Izzie says, basically for Meredith because she was having similar thoughts as well. What ever happened to being supportive and patient with the bride? “You look fine. Everything’s fine.”
The music starts up. She can feel butterflies in her stomach pick up right with it, pressing her lips together tight, her hands clenching and her nails digging into her skin. She’d let them grow out a little, and she wasn’t used to them being long enough to hurt.
“Deep breaths,” Izzie tells her, putting a hand on her shoulder, locking eyes with her. “This is what you’ve been waiting for. And it’s going to go just fine.”
It’s probably a lie, but it’s a lie that she needs to hear. “Right,” she exhales, as she watches Lexie walk out, the start of the procession down the aisle. There are four of them, then her. Four people in between her and that altar and Derek and forever. It’s a scary thought.
One by one they disappear, their numbers dwindle. Izzie gives her a smile as she turns to walk out there, something reassuring, and then it’s just Cristina with her hand on Meredith’s arm. “If it feels right do it.” Cristina tells her, apparently mustering up her supportive best-friend voice now that it’s just the two of them. “You’ll regret it for the rest of your life if you don’t.”
And then the music hits the right beat and Cristina is gone too, and it’s just Meredith standing there with hands that shake and she’s wondering if her lipstick’s okay or if she’s going to trip over the train of her dress or if she’ll walk out at the wrong time. She’s not wondering if she’s doing the right thing and that should be telling enough about whether or not she should be here.
Her foot hits the wooden aisle and she knows all at once that she’s sure.
---
Sadie’s always enjoyed people watching. It’s how she knows exactly what buttons to push, what to say to get under someone’s skin. She studies them first, and then makes her move, calculated like a feral cat studying its prey.
That’s not why she’s doing this tonight. No, the way she figures it she’ll find some out-of-towner who’s feeling either particularly down or particularly horny and sleep with them. No strings, no consequences. But that’s later. For now, she’s purely watching.
People pair off at these things. Aside from the wallflower girls, the lonely boys, everyone always does. Even the old ladies, probably family of Derek’s because Sadie knows for sure the only family Meredith’s got here is Lexie.
Owen Hunt’s doing something on the dance floor with Cristina that has her laughing, the kind of all out laughing that one doesn’t do in a formal public setting, not that Cristina ever seems too worried about things like breaking rules and appearances. A few feet away Lexie’s dancing with one of Derek’s little nephews, giving the child something to smile about, that is before Mark touches her shoulder, saying something to the little boy before letting his hand drop to hers and pulling her away somewhere that isn’t the dance floor, her laughter audible even over here.
Izzie and Alex are sitting a table down from hers, just close enough to be something other than friendly, chatting with George and a few other people from work, glasses full of champagne, all smiles and laughter. Meredith and Derek are still out there dancing, amidst everyone else, the kind of blissful happiness that almost seems to eliminate everyone else from the room.
And then there’s the woman who takes a seat next to her. Callie levels her gaze with Sadie’s and Sadie can feel the mischievous smile start to form on her lips, as the other woman says, “So I was wondering if you were doing anything later?”
Like she said, everyone pairs up. And she wouldn’t have it any other way.