All Along The Watchtower - Part 7A
Title: All Along The Watchtower
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Pairing: Mer/Der
Rating: M
Summary: S6 continuation. Immediately post Sanctuary / Death and All His Friends.
Okay, here is part 7 at long last :) Thank you tons to my stupendous beta readers, and to everybody who takes the time to comment :) You guys are what makes sharing this story such a wonderful experience!
All Along The Watchtower - Part 7A
Gray water lapped at the dock supports. Quiet. Sloshing. A heron glided low over the water, flapped its wings, and set itself down in the reeds by the shore. The water spread out like a glass pane, undisturbed save for intermittent pings at the surface that sent ripples spreading outward in lazy rings.
He closed his eyes, leaning back in the lawn chair, and let the muted sun beat down on his face. Pleasant heat soothed his naked skin. He shifted, and the nylons of his wet swim trunks rasped. He scrunched his bare toes, and then he relaxed.
Cicadas rattled in the trees and the grass and everywhere. He breathed. Wet, fresh air hit his nose. Something splashed, distant. Not a single person but Meredith for miles. Just him, her, and the water. All for him.
“This isn't really an efficient use of bricks,” Meredith said next to him. “There are more important places.” She lay on her back, sprawled on a black towel in half of a cherry-colored string bikini. The top piece lay in a tiny heap by her hip. She'd baked into a light, soft gold, even all across.
“Red suits you,” he said. Muted sun turned the dark behind his eyelids pink.
“You're ignoring me,” she said.
“Mmm,” he rumbled. “Trying to.”
“You shouldn't ignore me.”
He grinned and turned to her. “Isn't that my line?”
“Well, this is your head, you know.”
“You're right,” he said. “It's mine. And I'll put the bricks where I want.”
“Still...” She sat up. “Why here?”
He sighed and opened his eyes. A thick, high wall surrounded them. It cut a semicircle into the water and wrapped around behind him into the grass, a winding mortar-and-stone serpent. The water wasn't gray. The sun wasn't muted. The wall blocked the light and made it dark.
“You're ruining it, Mere.”
“I'm sorry.”
“I need this.”
“Why?”
“Because,” he said.
He stood, took a running, thumping start, and leaped when his toes dug into the last plank of the dock. His outstretched arms split the water in front of his face. Shocking cold sucked him down into a deep, dark embrace. He torpedoed to the lake floor. His fingers touched the slippery, rippled dirt at the bottom. He tangled with weeds and mud. He came to a rest, pushed his feet against the packed floor, and jetted up, up, up. He broke the surface, spitting water and breathing noisily. He tread water, just a moment, and then closed his eyes and stilled. His body sank into the lake up to his ears, and he floated, listening to the muted sounds of the world.
He floated. Weightless.
Meredith rolled onto her stomach and watched him, chin resting on her palm. She grinned. “Since when are you Mr. Athletic?”
He pushed up with his arms and kicked his feet. His body came out of the lake to his shoulders as he tread water. “I can do whatever I want in here.”
“You can't out there?”
“I can't do anything out there.”
“We skinny-dipped. That's something.”
He swam back to the dock and pulled himself up against the soft, worn wood. She smiled at him, eyes glittering. “Yes,” he said. “I remember. That was a long time ago.”
“But you could do it again. I'm pretty sure I'd say yes if you asked, and I'm me, so I'd know.”
He snorted. “I can't even take a bath for another four weeks. Maybe five.”
She stroked his face. “But you can do things, Derek. You can.”
“I can't,” he said. “I can't do anything.”
He let the water pull him under, and then he dove. Cold gripped his skin. He slipped along through the clear, glacial water like an otter. He grinned when he saw Meredith ahead of him. She'd joined him after all. He kicked with his feet and sped to join her. She stared at him, concerned, standing on the lake floor in her pajama pants and a rumpled t-shirt.
“Derek,” she said, her voice perfectly clear despite being underwater. “Earth to Derek...”
He blinked, and things like chairs and tables and a television appeared in the water. He blinked again, and the water was gone. For a minute, he had no idea where he was or how he'd gotten there, but after a cleansing breath, the world made a bit more sense.
His lake had become the living room in Meredith's house. He sat in a hulking armchair. A pillow propped up his back, pushing into his lower spine. He'd stuffed pillows between his hips and the arms of the chair. And he'd wrapped a comforter around himself while he'd sat in the dim morning light and waited for the pain to stop.
Meredith squinted at him. Her hair kinked and swept to the side in odd, tangled bits, and she seemed pale and tired and not quite awake.
He swallowed and squeezed his fists. The blankets tightened. “Meredith,” he said as he let his eyelids dip. A fuzzy clot of exhaustion stuffed his head behind his eyes. His chest hurt. His back throbbed. Every muscle twinged, and every bone radiated discomfort. But he felt more clear than he had in days or weeks. He rubbed his nose with his index finger.
The clock said 7:30 AM. She'd slept in, and he knew that. He knew that because he saw the clock and cared what time it said instead of just saw. He noticed pictures on the mantle and knickknacks on the tables. Birds chirped, greeting the gray morning outside the windows. The distant hum of a lawnmower intervened in the silence. All things that, in his endless fog, he'd barely noticed.
She sighed and stroked his cheek. “It happened again?”
Her palm felt warm, and he leaned against it. He thought of the hours he'd endured. He'd needed to sit up, but the flimsy chair in their room had only made it worse, made him need to move, discomfort nipping close at his heels. He'd gone in search of something more comfortable, only to discover, once he'd gotten downstairs, that nothing helped. He'd alternated between sitting and moving, stumbling laps around the house, kitchen to dining room to living room to foyer to kitchen. He hadn't been able to get more than thirty minutes ahead of the pain. He'd worn himself down to the point that stumbling didn't even help, and so he'd collapsed, but before then, he'd been productive. Sort of.
“I made coffee,” he said.
“I saw. Thank you,” she said. But she didn't sound happy.
She pulled at the pillow by his left hip, and it popped loose. What had been pinging pebbles of discomfort on a precarious mountainside slope rolled into a raging avalanche of pain. He clenched his jaw, withholding a grunt. She nudged him, and she stuffed her tiny body into the space where the pillow had been, but the support came too late to stop the landslide. He shifted, ending in an awkward, hooked pose against the arm of the chair, but it didn't help. His muscles trembled.
He didn't think he could stand, but he needed to stand. Or do something. Anything.
“We need to move a chair upstairs,” Meredith said. “One that you like. We'll trade it with the one I have up there now by the window in our room until you're better.”
“Meredith--” he said, breathless.
“Mark's coming over today,” she babbled, ignoring him. “I'll make him help me. He's big. We could move a chair for you.”
“Meredith--”
“No,” she snapped at him. “No. You shouldn't have to come down here in the middle of the night because you have no freaking chair. It's ridiculous. It's freaking ridiculous, Derek. We'll move a chair.”
He clenched the arm of the chair so hard his hand shook. Nausea rolled in as somebody stabbed him with a burning rod, and a line of hot pain ran him through from his nipple to his spine. “Mere, I--” His voice choked off into a low bark of suffering, and then he couldn't speak. The stitched line down his chest flared with brilliant, technicolor sparks. Every breath made it worse, but every throbbing pulse made him breathe.
She gripped his arm and clenched until her nails dug into his skin, but the discomfort she caused was immaterial mixed in with all the rest. “You haven't taken your pills yet?” she said, her voice low and tense.
“No.” He gasped. “They're upstairs.”
Tears welled up in her eyes. She looked at him. Really, really looked at him. “Okay,” she said. “Okay, hold on. I'll get them, you sit.” He had to move, but she clenched his shoulder and pushed him down. “Sit, Derek. I'll get them. I'm getting them. Don't move; you'll just make it worse.”
Her palm swiped at her face, she made a wet, snot-filled sound as she inhaled, and she darted out of the chair and the room. She flew up the steps, her panic giving her strides a weight that vibrated the whole house and made him feel worse. Worse for not being well enough that this wasn't an issue.
He was a grown man. He should be able to come downstairs at night and not have it be the end of the world. She was grouchy and tired because of him. Because she woke herself up at all hours to care for him and for his needs while she ignored her own. He wanted to tell her it wasn't her fault. She'd missed her alarm by two hours on her day off. Hardly a crime after he'd woken her up at midnight and again at one-thirty.
He tried to go back to the lake while he waited for her to rescue him again, but everything seemed too sharp. Too distinct. Barbed, painful pants ran through his lungs. He couldn't sit still. He stood, dragging the comforter with him. Everything hurt, and he wandered with aimless, shuffling steps as he tried to flee. Years passed. When her hands touched his shoulder, he caught the vague sight of her crying, and he knew it was his fucking fault.
“Sit, Derek,” she said. “This isn't helping.” She corralled him back into the chair he'd been resting in, and she pushed a cold, sloshing glass of water into his hand. “You should have called upstairs. I have my cell phone. Or you could have yelled. I know yelling hurts, but come on. Anything, Derek. I can't believe I slept through my alarm. I can't believe you let me.” Her lip quivered as she plied him with pill after pill after pill, until he wasn't sure he could make himself swallow anymore. The last one stuck in his throat and made him want to choke.
Three Percocet, one Oxycontin, and his antibiotics, all at once. That was a lot. They settled in his stomach with the cold, spreading chill of the water. “Gonna overdose,” he said when he found a thought. He tried to swallow the last dregs of water, but most of it dribbled down his chin.
“You're not going to overdose.” She sniffled. “You lapsed everything. You freaking let everything lapse, and now we need to start over.”
She took the glass from his slack hands. This was going to hit him hard, but he didn't think he cared. Not when breathing hurt this much. She settled back into the chair beside him. Her palms rasped against the comforter as she stroked his shoulder. He pulled the blanket tight.
“Meredith, this isn't your fault,” he said. Barely. Not being able to inhale gave him no air to work with, and his voice sounded miles away.
“No, it's yours, you stubborn... stupid...” Her face reddened, and she clenched her tiny fists as she searched for an appropriately derogatory noun.
“Ass?” he said. He tried to smile.
“Shut up.” Her gaze flared bright with fury. “Just shut up, or I'll yell at you, which would, in this moment, put me on the same level as Satan in terms of evil.” She ground her teeth, and her lip quivered. She stroked his arm, and she wept instead of yelled. “I'm sorry it hurts so much. I'm sorry.”
He watched her face and counted every soft freckle. He could still do that. For a minute. The knives dulled a fraction, enough to make him think maybe he would ease his way back into this. But then the narcotics hit him like a runaway Buick. He blinked, but his eyelids stuck, and he could barely open them again. The faucet behind his eyes dripped once, twice, and then the flow became a rushing roar. His body didn't seem attached anymore. The pain left him, replaced by pleasant, spreading numb.
He rolled his lips together. “Are you gone...” he managed. She looked at him strangely. His tongue felt thick in his mouth. He couldn't work it right. Tired. He swallowed. “Are you gonnnna yell when I wake up?” he slurred. But he didn't hear the answer.
A great wave of disorientation tugged him down into its undertow, and the black crush swept him away.
He woke up to muzzy, black stillness, not sure what had startled him out of slumber. Soft, thick blankets and cotton sheets held him in a warm cocoon. His eyelids dipped. He didn't want to be awake. Not now. He rolled over and burrowed, but then he heard it again. A soft, clipped sob through the wall.
He sighed, groaned, and pushed back the blankets. Cold air made him shiver as he forced himself to his feet. Muffled, blurry shapes formed a forest around him, but he knew their locations by heart. His dresser. His desk. The bed. He didn't stumble as he padded to his door.
All the doors in the hallway remained shut. A tiny, soft nightlight glowed from a plug in by the floor molding, lighting the way for anybody who needed to use the bathroom at the end of the hall. Shadows crept along the wall as he moved. His bare feet scrunched against the carpet runner.
Amelia sobbed again.
He knocked on the door, squinting, trying to wake up. “Amy,” he whispered.
“Go away,” she said.
He turned the knob and walked into her room. She sat in her bed, huddled under her comforter in the dark. Her eyes sparkled with tears.
“What's wrong?” he said as he settled next to her on the mattress. He rubbed her back, and she cried as she curled up against his body.
“There's something in my closet.”
He sighed. “Amy, there's nothing in your closet.”
“There is,” she said. “It made a noise.”
She shivered in his grasp. He hugged her. “There's no such thing as monsters, Amy. Your closet is safe. I promise.”
“Daddy scared them away,” she said. “But now they're back, and nobody believes me. I want Daddy.”
His throat closed up, and he froze. For a minute, he couldn't do anything but sit there, hollowed out and dead inside. She whimpered, gathering up pieces of his flannel pants in her fingers. She sniffed and sobbed, and he rubbed her back. His breaths hitched. He disentangled from her warm body, and he stood. He let himself sniff once. Twice. And then he wiped his face and turned to face her.
“Well, you're in luck,” Derek said, surprised his voice didn't sound weak or wavering. “Dad taught me all his secrets.” He inched toward Amy's closet, faux-cautious, and pulled the door open while she watched. He waved his foot over the floor of the closet, and he ruffled all her clothes, making deep, concerned noises as he inspected everything. “I don't see anything, Amy.”
She bit her lip. “What about the shoe rack?”
He thumped through every pair of shoes, careful to check the cavity of each one with his fingers. “Monster free,” he assured her. She didn't look convinced. He tried to think of what Dad might have done. Maybe a theatrical production full of tricks and slights, but Derek didn't know anything like that. He walked to her desk and rifled through the top drawer. Scotch tape. He pulled a piece free and kissed the non-sticky side.
“This is special,” he said. “If something happens, it will hold the door. I'm right in the next room, Amy. Nothing's going to get you.” He taped the door to the frame and patted it. “Okay?”
“Okay,” she said.
“Go to sleep,” he told her. He pulled up her covers, and she snuggled under the blankets with her bear.
He shut her door and returned to his room. His chest quivered. He crawled back into bed, feeling tired and wasted. He stuck his face against the pillow, and he cried. Not loud and sobbing like his mom or like Amelia. His eyes leaked. That was it. His family wouldn't ever know.
His mouth felt dry and gummy, and his eyes didn't want to open. He'd mashed his cheek against something soft and familiar. Breaths rasped in his chest, thick and long and even. A noise stuck on his vocal cords, and his hand flopped at his side with some useless impulse his brain had sent. Solid warmth wrapped his body. For a long time, he didn't move. The comforter rustled. He pushed his face against the soft, familiar thing.
The dull murmur of voices hit his eardrums. People. Talking. People there. His hand flopped again, and he groaned. A vague sense of unease spread through his body like creeping moss. The voices got louder. Yelling. Fighting. His leg twitched. He should move. Get up. Something might... Someone might...
The warmth around his body constricted, and a thick thing rolled over his back. Soothing. “Shh,” said a voice. “Sleep it off some more.”
“What,” he said, but he couldn't finish the thought. He lost himself in the murmur, in the warmth. The voice kept saying quiet words that made him feel safe despite the noise. He didn't know how long he lay there, curled against the soft thing, not moving, not thinking, just safe.
His eyes creaked open to daylight and a pale, cream-colored blur. He closed his eyes and rested from that effort. A big, rumbling sigh tore through his body. Ache twinged, which chipped away at his stupor.
When he opened his eyes again, he forced them to stay open. Focus followed after a long stretch of warmth and cream-colored blur and nothingness. Meredith's neck. The soft thing. She still sat in the chair beside him, exactly where she'd been when he'd passed out. In sleep, he'd curled against her. The bulky comforter made him large and unwieldy in her arms, but she'd managed. Mostly.
“Meredith,” he murmured. His tongue felt wrong. Heavy.
She looked at him. “Welcome back,” she said. She rubbed his back through the comforter. He felt like a sloth. He couldn't bring himself to move or speak or do anything but exist. “Sort of welcome back,” she amended.
Her fingers toiled with the hair at the nape of his neck. She stared at something far beyond the chair. The twitter of voices hit his ears again. He twitched from head to toe. His muscles didn't want to give him much. Lethargy cowed him into stillness, but the voices made him feel like he should be attempting to look and act human. To be aware and ready to defend himself.
“Who's here?” he said, the words stretched and chewy like a Starburst in his mouth. He let his jaw hang open. His tongue lolled. His mouth and throat felt dry. Dry like Death Valley in August.
“Just you, me, and Jerry Springer,” Meredith said. A silver thing waved in his face, too close to his eyes, and he couldn't process it before she took it away.
“Dunno him,” Derek said. His eyes drifted into something half closed. Couldn't move. Couldn't think. Couldn't do anything.
She snorted. “Well, I would hope not, though I suppose our lives might fit with some of his themes. Born into an adulterous marriage, and loved only by my fake parents? Slutty home-wreckers and the adulterous men who love them? My ex-wife cheated on me with my brother, and now she wants me back?”
He blinked. “Huh?”
“The television, Derek. Jerry Springer is a talk show. There's nothing but trash on right now because morning programming sucks.”
“Oh.” He breathed thickly while she stroked him, and then his awareness faded. He dozed, not quite sleeping, not awake either, for an indeterminate time that could have been hours or days or minutes. Lazy shapes floated in his head, not any assembled thoughts.
Necessities pulled him out of it. One by one, until he had a stack of them piled high enough that they outweighed his lethargy. He needed water. He needed food. And he really, really needed to pee. He stood up before he understood anything other than those three things.
The room whirled around his head, and he swallowed. “Whoa,” he said as black waterfalls robbed the color from his vision. The floor tilted. Something gripped him around the waist. He didn't fall.
When he came to himself, he stood in the center of Meredith's living room, clutched in Meredith's arms. She stared at him, concern creasing her gaze. Something else, too. Anger. “Would you stop doing that?” she snapped. “You nearly fall, every freaking time.”
He blinked. “Meredith,” he said, too dumbstruck to say much else. “What?”
“Stop standing up like it's a freaking race!” she said.
His face heated at her tone, as if she thought he would willfully make a fucking fool of himself. As if she thought he liked being helpless and held upright by his wife. “I need to use the bathroom,” he said. “I'm sorry if my fucking bladder got hold of my brain before I did.”
She bit her lip. “I'm sorry,” she said. “I'm sorry, it's just that...” Her voice trailed away. She wouldn't meet his eyes.
“Just what?” he snapped.
“I guess I could call in sick tomorrow,” she said to his feet.
Since you obviously can't be by yourself for more than two minutes. Her unspoken words banged around inside his skull, repeating. His fingers clenched, and the backs of his eyes stabbed at him. “Let go of me,” he said in a low voice.
She backed off and looked away. For a minute, he had to think. Clots in his reasoning made the process slow. His brain reviewed the layout of the house at the speed of a snail. Bathroom. Right.
He didn't have to sit to urinate anymore at least, though trying to aim while he was so fucking impaired almost made him want to. A sneering Gary Clark hovered in the mirror as Derek washed his hands. Derek's face reddened, and his shoulders hunched. He panted with disquiet, and Mr. Clark seemed to smile wider every time Derek took a stabbing breath. “Stop,” Derek whispered. When he blinked, the apparition disappeared, leaving Derek staring at a gaunt, haunted, stubbly disaster case with glassy, unfocused eyes. When his stomach growled, he sighed and looked away.
Water. Food. Kitchen next. When he got there, Meredith had already sat down at the table. She'd put out a bowl and a spoon and a glass of OJ for him. A carton of milk sat on the table next to a box of Muesli. She sat opposite to the place she'd set for him, munching on her breakfast. She ate cereal as well, but he couldn't make out the writing on her box from the entryway, and by the time he'd gotten close enough to read, the momentary spark of curiosity had died.
“If you want something else, you can fix it yourself,” she said, tone neutral.
He sat and slumped in his chair. “This is fine, thank you.”
They ate in stony silence. She inhaled three bowls of cereal doused in milk to the brim of the bowl. He consumed maybe three-quarters of a bowl before he lost interest. The Muesli tasted like sawdust, and when his stomach stopped growling, he couldn't bring himself to care about it anymore.
He stared at his lap, tired, angry, with a side of roiling, consuming upset that made him feel like he was on the verge of tears. She was pissed at him, and he didn't like it, and that made his anger even worse, because he felt like it was something he couldn't help. Everything was something he couldn't help.
“Are you still hurting?” Meredith said. Her spoon tinkled as she set it against her empty bowl. The spoon spun around the lip before settling.
“No.”
“Good,” she said. Her eyes twitched. Like she wanted to say more. Was dying to say more, but she was holding herself back. Except the strong, dissonant waves of anger radiating from her made him feel chastised all the same. She saved him nothing, and on top of that, he felt worse, because she felt he was bad off enough that she needed to censor herself.
He put his elbows on the table and rubbed his forehead, wishing it would all just stop. Everything. He swallowed against the lump in his throat. His shoulders hunched. “I didn't mean to upset you,” he told his bowl of mushy cereal because he didn't want to see her glaring at him anymore.
“Why didn't you wake me when this started?”
“Because I already woke you!” he said. Blush broke out all over his face, and he pulled bunches of the tablecloth into his hands. His teeth clenched. “I woke you twice! You needed sleep, and by then it was a lost cause for me. I can get down the stairs by myself. I'm fine.”
“You're not fine,” she said. “You're high as a freaking kite, it's dark at night, and you might fall. As it is, you got trapped down here while I freaking overslept, and then you had to behave like a damned superhero and not call me when it was time to take your pills.”
“I lost track of time,” he said. “I didn't mean to do it.”
“Fine,” Meredith said. “Fine, we can call this an accident, but--”
“It was an accident,” he roared. He pushed back from the table and stood. “I came downstairs because it hurts me to lie flat for more than a few hours, and then I got stuck down here. I went to the lake and lost track of the fucking time. That's all. Maybe I'm stubborn, but I'm not a masochist.”
“The lake?”
He blinked, brought up short. “The lake?"
“You said you went to the lake.”
“Nothing,” he said. “A daydream.”
“You still should have woke me,” she said. “Before.”
“I can get down the steps by myself, Meredith.”
She stomped her foot. Her chair squealed as she rose to meet him eye-to-eye. “And just because you can doesn't mean you should!”
He clenched his jaw. He tried to count to three. He made it to one, and then he exploded. “I tell you when I need to go upstairs, and I tell you when I need my pillows moved, and I tell you when I can't reach something on the top shelf of the fucking closet because it hurts, and I tell you all the other things I can't do. I'm a fucking invalid already, and now you want me to wake you up from a sound sleep to help me with one of the few things I can manage on my own? Jesus Christ, Meredith. I'm trying, but I can't...” He panted, and his sight blanketed with tears. The back of his throat hurt. He didn't want to cry, but his body betrayed him. He wiped his face with shaky palms. They came away wet and sticky, and his torso shivered with emotional stress. “Do you have any idea how humiliating this is for me? I'm not even allowed to pick up a full jug of milk.”
She sighed. Through the blur, he watched her wipe at her face. In the intense, disturbing racket of his own misery, he'd missed her crying while he'd roared. Her soft, distressed sobs hit his ears now like deep, rending tears in his soul. Guilt plunged deep into his gut, and his body quivered. He hadn't meant to yell. He hadn't meant any of this. Tired, cottony exhaustion spun webs behind his eyes, and he closed his eyes. In the blackness, he felt the room revolve around his body in slow, disorienting circles.
She moved. Her arms wrapped around him. “Derek. Derek, I know that you're physically able to walk down the steps. I do. I really do. I've watched you. And I swear I'm not trying to take that away,” she said, her voice soft against his body. Her fingers wound through his hair. “I'm just really worried you'll fall because of all the stuff you're on, and I won't find out until the morning when I step on the broken heap that was my husband. Please. Please, I already saw you in a broken heap once. I don't want to do it again. Please, Derek.”
He leaned into her embrace and set his palms against her hips. “I'm sorry, Meredith. I'm really sorry.”
“I'm sorry, too,” she said. “I'm tired, and I've got no freaking right to take it out on you. I just hate to see you in so much pain.”
“I woke you up.”
Her fingers clenched, and his shirt tightened as she scrunched it in her grip. “Actually, Derek, I slept like crap, and you had very little to do with it. I'm a resident at one of the nation's top hospitals. Do you honestly think your two five-minute interruptions made a dent in my night? Not hardly.”
“Oh.”
“Seriously,” she grumbled against his chest. “Inflated ego much?”
A woeful shard of laughter shivered in his chest. Ache slipped into his sternum. Tears leaked, despite the momentary mirth. “I'm sorry,” he repeated.
“It's okay,” she said. She kissed his throat, and then she kissed his chest. “But will you please wake me up for downstairs trips from now on? Please? For my own peace of mind?”
“Yeah,” he said. His muscles trembled, and he added with soft defeat, “I need to sit.”
“Okay,” she said.
He heard the refrigerator door open and close as he plodded into the living room like a tranquilized, clumsy elephant. She put the milk away or something. Dishes clanked. Water ran. He sank into the chair he'd occupied that morning. The pillows settled under his weight. He relaxed and pulled the comforter around himself, curling up in the warmth. She joined him minutes later, slipping under the blankets with him. Her tiny body lined up with his hip and shoulder. She lay her head against the unmarred side of his chest, spread her right arm against his stomach, and curled against him like a small cat.
At least that didn't hurt anymore. He could be thankful for that.
“I arranged with Richard to do 12 hour shifts on the weekends and on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and 10 hour shifts on Tuesdays and Thursdays,” she said. “Nothing over night. I'll be home every night and in the mornings, at least, and I'll still be putting in hours up to the cap.”
“You won't have any breaks,” he said. His lip quivered.
She rubbed her palm idly against the flat of his stomach. “I can manage for a few weeks,” she said.
He thought of her trying to manage that schedule by herself, no breaks, not a single day off, and when she got home, she would be helping him with all the I-can't-do-it-by-myselfs he'd stacked up in a figurative pile for the day. She would be helping him, not relaxing or doing things for her own enjoyment. Even for just a few weeks. That would be awful for her. Exhausting. Stressful.
He swallowed as the tears renewed, and he looked away from her, into the side of the chair. Hot, awful blush spread over his face and down his neck. Her palms captured his face in a prison. She pulled him back to face her eye-to-eye. “Hey,” she said. “You'd do it for me. You have done it for me. When I had my surgery. We take care of each other. Remember? That's what the post-it says.”
“I remember what it says,” he said.
“You're not an invalid, Derek.”
“I feel like one.”
“You're healing,” she said. She stroked his cheek with her palm. “It hasn't even been two weeks. It sucks. I know it does, but... Don't sell yourself short. You're the strongest person I know. You are, Derek.”
You're not the man here. I'm the man.
Derek looked away. “Stop saying that.”
“Stop saying what?”
“Stop saying I'm strong like I had something to do with this. I was going to die. I'm still alive because the fucking universe thought it would be funny.”
“Derek...”
“You told me when you drowned that you had an experience. You had a choice. You chose to fight.”
She nodded. “I did.”
“It wasn't like that for me,” he said. Something upsetting and terrifying coiled in his gut. He clutched her and rested his forehead against her temple. “It wasn't... He shot me. He shot me, Meredith, and I couldn't do anything. I couldn't get away. Something distracted him, and he left me there. He left me.”
You're not the man here.
“But I found you,” she soothed. “It's over, now. It's over. He's dead. And you're alive. Just like you promised.”
“But I lied. My promise was a lie. I thought...”
“You were attacked and shot in the chest at close range. You were in shock. You were in pain. Thinking you're going to die in a situation like that? Not the biggest stretch in the universe. But you're alive, Derek. You're alive. That's not a lie to me,” she said. She placed a finger against his lips. “You breathing? Not a lie.” A palm against his heart. “Your heart beating? Not a lie.” A kiss against his shoulder. “Whether you thought you meant your promise or not, you lived, and no one will ever convince me that's not at least a little bit on you.”
He swallowed. The room spun away from him, and he watched the ceiling flicker bright with wide open grayness as he fell onto his back. April said words, but he couldn't understand. He couldn't breathe, and then Gary Clark aimed the gun at him. Derek blinked. The image made a ghost imprint in his mind's eye. A gun. Pointed. Ready to kill.
“Everybody saved me but me,” Derek said.
She stared at him, eyes determined, glittering. “We work at a hospital,” she said. “We see death every day. We both know that people who want to die usually find a way. Their bodies shut down, or they off themselves, or... whatever. Metaphysics or physics, they find a way. A man attacked you and left you with a penetrating chest trauma that came a hair's width from severing your aorta. You were suffocating in your own blood. Gary Clark pushed you through the door, Derek. You had your foot in, your leg, maybe even your hip. You could have easily died if you'd let yourself go, and you lived anyway.” She kissed him. “To me? That's not strong,” she said against his lips. “That's Herculean.”
He swallowed. “My heart stopped.”
“I know, but it's beating, now,” she said. As if to emphasize her point, she pushed her ear against his chest. Not over his heart, not pressing. Gentle. Careful to avoid the incision on his sternum. She listened for a long moment. He let her. A lazy smile spread over her lips. “It's beating now, Derek,” she said. “And that's what counts. You won't ever convince me you're not strong. So, stop trying.”
He didn't understand her determination. He collapsed under the weight of it, unwilling to argue anymore. “I'm just so tired,” he said. “I need it to stop.”
Her palm rasped against his shirt. “I know,” she said. “I'll have Mark help me with this chair when he gets here. You won't need to do stairs in the middle of the freaking night. This chair is good, right?”
He sighed. “I'm sorry for making this hard.”
“It's not your fault, Derek. It's not. Gary Clark did this. Not you. You need to stop apologizing for that.”
“I know you had to bargain with Dr. Altman to get me released early,” he said. “I know you took it upon yourself to be my caregiver. I hate it. I hate needing help with everything, but I'm trying, Mere. I'm trying.”
“I know,” she said, her voice soft. “I know you are. I thought it was going to be a nightmare getting you to wake me up for things.”
He gave her a weak smile. “Do I get a sticker?”
“I guess that's worth at least a few.”
“Gold stars?”
She yawned, and she snuggled closer. The blanket rustled, and she made a low, pleasant noise in her throat. “If you want.”
“I think I do,” he said. “I'm a gold star kind of guy.”
She lifted her head. “I'd give you thousands if I had them,” she said.
“Now, who's getting cheesy?”
She smiled, and she settled back against him without answering. Her hand rubbed his stomach, idle, almost absent, and she stared across the plane of his torso. He stroked her back, wishing he could move just a bit to pull her into an embrace, but she'd pretty much pinned him.
“Mere?” he said. “Mere, are you okay?”
“I'm fine.”
“Really fine? Or lying fine?”
“Right now?” She looked at him with a relaxed, dreamy smile. Her eyes seemed glazed, but with sleep and nothing else. “I'm snuggling with my amazing, alive, gold star husband. I'm pretty fine. Why?”
“Just...” He inhaled. “You never say anything about... I mean. You were hurt, too. He didn't shoot you, but he took something from you. From us. And you saw me get shot. That's not the sort of imagery that goes away with time.”
Shit! Take his watch, and let's go.
“I'm really okay, Derek.”
“No nightmares?” he pressed. “Nothing? Why couldn't you sleep last night?”
“I do have nightmares,” she admitted. “I think about it a lot. You nearly dying. The baby, sometimes. I don't remember dreaming last night. Maybe it was that. I don't know.”
“But?”
She shrugged. “I told you. I decided I'm fine,” she said. “And if I'm ever not fine, all I have to do is look at you breathing, and it's okay again. I really meant it, Derek. The rest of it is meaningless if I don't have you. You're alive, and you're healing, and we can make another baby whenever you're ready. In light of that? I'm fine. I'm more than fine.”
“I didn't think it would last when you explained it before,” he said.
“You're alive,” she said. “You kept your promise, lie or not. The fine will last until you're 110.”
He blinked. “110?”
“Remember?” She grinned. “You told me you wanted to live to 110 and die in my arms.”
He stretched his memory through the fog. So much had happened. He'd said a lot of things. “Oh, yes. I did say that, didn't I? That was one of my finer gold star moments, I think. Very waxed poetic.” What if, while I'm waiting, I meet someone who is ready to give me what I want from you? His heart sank when he thought of the rest of it. “Well...”
“What?”
“Until I threatened you at the end. About finding somebody else. That wasn't so amazing of me.”
She snorted. “I prefer to think of it as a much needed jump. My capacity-for-relationships battery was sort of dead.”
He looked at his lap. “It was still wrong to say.”
“It was, but it's what you used to do with me. I didn't get it before. I do, now. I do, and it's okay.”
“What do you mean?”
Her eyes searched his face. A ghost crossed her gaze. “When you were shot, you were barely lucid for a lot of it. I kept having to hit you. Over and over, and I hated it. I hated it, but I needed to get a response out of you. I needed to keep you with me. So, I did it anyway. I hit you,” she said. “It's the same concept, really, with your crappy ultimatums. I was in emotional shock. You just wanted me to react, so you hit me. You weren't trying to drive me away, and I get that now. You were trying to get me to pull closer.”
His lips flattened into a line, and he clenched his fists. “You can't compare those.”
“Why not?” she said.
“Because me playing Russian roulette with your insecurities as a fucking bullet is not the same as you saving my life. Not even remotely.”
“Let's compare your games to me using you for sex, then,” she said, blunt and matter-of-fact. “I knew you wanted more than I could give you. I knew it, and I had sex with you anyway, because it made me feel safe. Safe, Derek. I treated you like a doormat so I could feel safe for a few minutes out of the day. I used you.”
His body stilled. He listened to her take a long, slow breath. Quiet. He let his eyes drift shut, and he thought of all the times she'd done that. All the times they'd had sex in the space of minutes, quickies, and yet she'd always stopped for that pause before she left. The pause in the end, where he wrapped his arms around her, and they panted in soft, tired unison. That pause had always given him a false, leaping sense of hope that she would stay for longer than minutes. That she would stay forever. But she'd always dragged herself away with a look that told him, despite her hangups, despite all of it, she wanted what he wanted, even if she didn't think she could give it to him.
“You never told me that,” he said.
And then you pulled me from the water...
“Told you what?”
“Why,” he said.
“Oh. The safe thing.” Her lashes dipped low over her eyes, and she smiled. “You always make me feel safe. But I really needed it then. I needed it so much.”
“I let it happen, Meredith. I could have said no.”
“But you didn't,” she said. She toiled with a lock of his hair. “Because you loved me. And I used that. I used it, and I shouldn't have. It wasn't fair to you.” She swallowed, and her voice cracked. “But I needed it.”
“Mere...”
She wiped her eyes. “Look. My point is, we both did bad things. We both did. I'm the one who wasted time, though. I should have said it sooner.”
“Said what?”
She kissed him, lips to lips, and he moaned as her tongue stroked him. Their noses mashed, and she lingered, breathing in his space. “I should have said that I love you.”
Her body against his intoxicated him. Where the drugs made him hazy, she made him hot and alive and shaky. A fool, but in a different way. He inhaled the scent of her hair, lavender, and he kissed her temple.
Your choice? It's simple. Her or me.
“You did say it sooner, Meredith,” he murmured. “And then I chose Addison and wrecked it.”
Her body trembled in his arms. She made a small, wheezing, gasping noise that made him think she might be choking. He flopped against the chair, discombobulated with sudden panic stomped under the weight of a ton of narcotics. “Meredith,” he said, and she shivered against him. “Meredith, what is it?”
Tremors became giggles became rolling guffaws. He sat there, dumbfounded, blinking, and feeling very much the fool when he still couldn't figure out what was going on, even after he knew she was laughing. Had he tripped on his tongue and said something stupid? He couldn't remember saying something funny.
She panted against him, recovering, and then she looked at him, her eyes red but sparkling with happy, streaking tears. She wiped at her eyes, and then she laughed again. “How did we go from gold stars and pep talks to an argument about who sucks more?”
His lip twitched. “I have no idea.”
She kissed him. “I love you.”
“I love you, too,” he replied
“Nobody sucks more,” she said. “We're equally suck-y. Let's be even, now. No more baggage crap. Okay?”
He raised an eyebrow. “I thought that's what the post-it was for?”
“It was, but we never really had it out, I guess. Never really...” She searched for words. “I'm not sure I even understood any of it before. I guess I have a bit of perspective now, or whatever.”
He smiled. “Not an intern anymore?”
“I guess I finally graduated.”
He closed his eyes. “Hmm,” he agreed, and when she didn't reply, he drifted, tired.
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Pairing: Mer/Der
Rating: M
Summary: S6 continuation. Immediately post Sanctuary / Death and All His Friends.
Okay, here is part 7 at long last :) Thank you tons to my stupendous beta readers, and to everybody who takes the time to comment :) You guys are what makes sharing this story such a wonderful experience!
All Along The Watchtower - Part 7A
Gray water lapped at the dock supports. Quiet. Sloshing. A heron glided low over the water, flapped its wings, and set itself down in the reeds by the shore. The water spread out like a glass pane, undisturbed save for intermittent pings at the surface that sent ripples spreading outward in lazy rings.
He closed his eyes, leaning back in the lawn chair, and let the muted sun beat down on his face. Pleasant heat soothed his naked skin. He shifted, and the nylons of his wet swim trunks rasped. He scrunched his bare toes, and then he relaxed.
Cicadas rattled in the trees and the grass and everywhere. He breathed. Wet, fresh air hit his nose. Something splashed, distant. Not a single person but Meredith for miles. Just him, her, and the water. All for him.
“This isn't really an efficient use of bricks,” Meredith said next to him. “There are more important places.” She lay on her back, sprawled on a black towel in half of a cherry-colored string bikini. The top piece lay in a tiny heap by her hip. She'd baked into a light, soft gold, even all across.
“Red suits you,” he said. Muted sun turned the dark behind his eyelids pink.
“You're ignoring me,” she said.
“Mmm,” he rumbled. “Trying to.”
“You shouldn't ignore me.”
He grinned and turned to her. “Isn't that my line?”
“Well, this is your head, you know.”
“You're right,” he said. “It's mine. And I'll put the bricks where I want.”
“Still...” She sat up. “Why here?”
He sighed and opened his eyes. A thick, high wall surrounded them. It cut a semicircle into the water and wrapped around behind him into the grass, a winding mortar-and-stone serpent. The water wasn't gray. The sun wasn't muted. The wall blocked the light and made it dark.
“You're ruining it, Mere.”
“I'm sorry.”
“I need this.”
“Why?”
“Because,” he said.
He stood, took a running, thumping start, and leaped when his toes dug into the last plank of the dock. His outstretched arms split the water in front of his face. Shocking cold sucked him down into a deep, dark embrace. He torpedoed to the lake floor. His fingers touched the slippery, rippled dirt at the bottom. He tangled with weeds and mud. He came to a rest, pushed his feet against the packed floor, and jetted up, up, up. He broke the surface, spitting water and breathing noisily. He tread water, just a moment, and then closed his eyes and stilled. His body sank into the lake up to his ears, and he floated, listening to the muted sounds of the world.
He floated. Weightless.
Meredith rolled onto her stomach and watched him, chin resting on her palm. She grinned. “Since when are you Mr. Athletic?”
He pushed up with his arms and kicked his feet. His body came out of the lake to his shoulders as he tread water. “I can do whatever I want in here.”
“You can't out there?”
“I can't do anything out there.”
“We skinny-dipped. That's something.”
He swam back to the dock and pulled himself up against the soft, worn wood. She smiled at him, eyes glittering. “Yes,” he said. “I remember. That was a long time ago.”
“But you could do it again. I'm pretty sure I'd say yes if you asked, and I'm me, so I'd know.”
He snorted. “I can't even take a bath for another four weeks. Maybe five.”
She stroked his face. “But you can do things, Derek. You can.”
“I can't,” he said. “I can't do anything.”
He let the water pull him under, and then he dove. Cold gripped his skin. He slipped along through the clear, glacial water like an otter. He grinned when he saw Meredith ahead of him. She'd joined him after all. He kicked with his feet and sped to join her. She stared at him, concerned, standing on the lake floor in her pajama pants and a rumpled t-shirt.
“Derek,” she said, her voice perfectly clear despite being underwater. “Earth to Derek...”
He blinked, and things like chairs and tables and a television appeared in the water. He blinked again, and the water was gone. For a minute, he had no idea where he was or how he'd gotten there, but after a cleansing breath, the world made a bit more sense.
His lake had become the living room in Meredith's house. He sat in a hulking armchair. A pillow propped up his back, pushing into his lower spine. He'd stuffed pillows between his hips and the arms of the chair. And he'd wrapped a comforter around himself while he'd sat in the dim morning light and waited for the pain to stop.
Meredith squinted at him. Her hair kinked and swept to the side in odd, tangled bits, and she seemed pale and tired and not quite awake.
He swallowed and squeezed his fists. The blankets tightened. “Meredith,” he said as he let his eyelids dip. A fuzzy clot of exhaustion stuffed his head behind his eyes. His chest hurt. His back throbbed. Every muscle twinged, and every bone radiated discomfort. But he felt more clear than he had in days or weeks. He rubbed his nose with his index finger.
The clock said 7:30 AM. She'd slept in, and he knew that. He knew that because he saw the clock and cared what time it said instead of just saw. He noticed pictures on the mantle and knickknacks on the tables. Birds chirped, greeting the gray morning outside the windows. The distant hum of a lawnmower intervened in the silence. All things that, in his endless fog, he'd barely noticed.
She sighed and stroked his cheek. “It happened again?”
Her palm felt warm, and he leaned against it. He thought of the hours he'd endured. He'd needed to sit up, but the flimsy chair in their room had only made it worse, made him need to move, discomfort nipping close at his heels. He'd gone in search of something more comfortable, only to discover, once he'd gotten downstairs, that nothing helped. He'd alternated between sitting and moving, stumbling laps around the house, kitchen to dining room to living room to foyer to kitchen. He hadn't been able to get more than thirty minutes ahead of the pain. He'd worn himself down to the point that stumbling didn't even help, and so he'd collapsed, but before then, he'd been productive. Sort of.
“I made coffee,” he said.
“I saw. Thank you,” she said. But she didn't sound happy.
She pulled at the pillow by his left hip, and it popped loose. What had been pinging pebbles of discomfort on a precarious mountainside slope rolled into a raging avalanche of pain. He clenched his jaw, withholding a grunt. She nudged him, and she stuffed her tiny body into the space where the pillow had been, but the support came too late to stop the landslide. He shifted, ending in an awkward, hooked pose against the arm of the chair, but it didn't help. His muscles trembled.
He didn't think he could stand, but he needed to stand. Or do something. Anything.
“We need to move a chair upstairs,” Meredith said. “One that you like. We'll trade it with the one I have up there now by the window in our room until you're better.”
“Meredith--” he said, breathless.
“Mark's coming over today,” she babbled, ignoring him. “I'll make him help me. He's big. We could move a chair for you.”
“Meredith--”
“No,” she snapped at him. “No. You shouldn't have to come down here in the middle of the night because you have no freaking chair. It's ridiculous. It's freaking ridiculous, Derek. We'll move a chair.”
He clenched the arm of the chair so hard his hand shook. Nausea rolled in as somebody stabbed him with a burning rod, and a line of hot pain ran him through from his nipple to his spine. “Mere, I--” His voice choked off into a low bark of suffering, and then he couldn't speak. The stitched line down his chest flared with brilliant, technicolor sparks. Every breath made it worse, but every throbbing pulse made him breathe.
She gripped his arm and clenched until her nails dug into his skin, but the discomfort she caused was immaterial mixed in with all the rest. “You haven't taken your pills yet?” she said, her voice low and tense.
“No.” He gasped. “They're upstairs.”
Tears welled up in her eyes. She looked at him. Really, really looked at him. “Okay,” she said. “Okay, hold on. I'll get them, you sit.” He had to move, but she clenched his shoulder and pushed him down. “Sit, Derek. I'll get them. I'm getting them. Don't move; you'll just make it worse.”
Her palm swiped at her face, she made a wet, snot-filled sound as she inhaled, and she darted out of the chair and the room. She flew up the steps, her panic giving her strides a weight that vibrated the whole house and made him feel worse. Worse for not being well enough that this wasn't an issue.
He was a grown man. He should be able to come downstairs at night and not have it be the end of the world. She was grouchy and tired because of him. Because she woke herself up at all hours to care for him and for his needs while she ignored her own. He wanted to tell her it wasn't her fault. She'd missed her alarm by two hours on her day off. Hardly a crime after he'd woken her up at midnight and again at one-thirty.
He tried to go back to the lake while he waited for her to rescue him again, but everything seemed too sharp. Too distinct. Barbed, painful pants ran through his lungs. He couldn't sit still. He stood, dragging the comforter with him. Everything hurt, and he wandered with aimless, shuffling steps as he tried to flee. Years passed. When her hands touched his shoulder, he caught the vague sight of her crying, and he knew it was his fucking fault.
“Sit, Derek,” she said. “This isn't helping.” She corralled him back into the chair he'd been resting in, and she pushed a cold, sloshing glass of water into his hand. “You should have called upstairs. I have my cell phone. Or you could have yelled. I know yelling hurts, but come on. Anything, Derek. I can't believe I slept through my alarm. I can't believe you let me.” Her lip quivered as she plied him with pill after pill after pill, until he wasn't sure he could make himself swallow anymore. The last one stuck in his throat and made him want to choke.
Three Percocet, one Oxycontin, and his antibiotics, all at once. That was a lot. They settled in his stomach with the cold, spreading chill of the water. “Gonna overdose,” he said when he found a thought. He tried to swallow the last dregs of water, but most of it dribbled down his chin.
“You're not going to overdose.” She sniffled. “You lapsed everything. You freaking let everything lapse, and now we need to start over.”
She took the glass from his slack hands. This was going to hit him hard, but he didn't think he cared. Not when breathing hurt this much. She settled back into the chair beside him. Her palms rasped against the comforter as she stroked his shoulder. He pulled the blanket tight.
“Meredith, this isn't your fault,” he said. Barely. Not being able to inhale gave him no air to work with, and his voice sounded miles away.
“No, it's yours, you stubborn... stupid...” Her face reddened, and she clenched her tiny fists as she searched for an appropriately derogatory noun.
“Ass?” he said. He tried to smile.
“Shut up.” Her gaze flared bright with fury. “Just shut up, or I'll yell at you, which would, in this moment, put me on the same level as Satan in terms of evil.” She ground her teeth, and her lip quivered. She stroked his arm, and she wept instead of yelled. “I'm sorry it hurts so much. I'm sorry.”
He watched her face and counted every soft freckle. He could still do that. For a minute. The knives dulled a fraction, enough to make him think maybe he would ease his way back into this. But then the narcotics hit him like a runaway Buick. He blinked, but his eyelids stuck, and he could barely open them again. The faucet behind his eyes dripped once, twice, and then the flow became a rushing roar. His body didn't seem attached anymore. The pain left him, replaced by pleasant, spreading numb.
He rolled his lips together. “Are you gone...” he managed. She looked at him strangely. His tongue felt thick in his mouth. He couldn't work it right. Tired. He swallowed. “Are you gonnnna yell when I wake up?” he slurred. But he didn't hear the answer.
A great wave of disorientation tugged him down into its undertow, and the black crush swept him away.
He woke up to muzzy, black stillness, not sure what had startled him out of slumber. Soft, thick blankets and cotton sheets held him in a warm cocoon. His eyelids dipped. He didn't want to be awake. Not now. He rolled over and burrowed, but then he heard it again. A soft, clipped sob through the wall.
He sighed, groaned, and pushed back the blankets. Cold air made him shiver as he forced himself to his feet. Muffled, blurry shapes formed a forest around him, but he knew their locations by heart. His dresser. His desk. The bed. He didn't stumble as he padded to his door.
All the doors in the hallway remained shut. A tiny, soft nightlight glowed from a plug in by the floor molding, lighting the way for anybody who needed to use the bathroom at the end of the hall. Shadows crept along the wall as he moved. His bare feet scrunched against the carpet runner.
Amelia sobbed again.
He knocked on the door, squinting, trying to wake up. “Amy,” he whispered.
“Go away,” she said.
He turned the knob and walked into her room. She sat in her bed, huddled under her comforter in the dark. Her eyes sparkled with tears.
“What's wrong?” he said as he settled next to her on the mattress. He rubbed her back, and she cried as she curled up against his body.
“There's something in my closet.”
He sighed. “Amy, there's nothing in your closet.”
“There is,” she said. “It made a noise.”
She shivered in his grasp. He hugged her. “There's no such thing as monsters, Amy. Your closet is safe. I promise.”
“Daddy scared them away,” she said. “But now they're back, and nobody believes me. I want Daddy.”
His throat closed up, and he froze. For a minute, he couldn't do anything but sit there, hollowed out and dead inside. She whimpered, gathering up pieces of his flannel pants in her fingers. She sniffed and sobbed, and he rubbed her back. His breaths hitched. He disentangled from her warm body, and he stood. He let himself sniff once. Twice. And then he wiped his face and turned to face her.
“Well, you're in luck,” Derek said, surprised his voice didn't sound weak or wavering. “Dad taught me all his secrets.” He inched toward Amy's closet, faux-cautious, and pulled the door open while she watched. He waved his foot over the floor of the closet, and he ruffled all her clothes, making deep, concerned noises as he inspected everything. “I don't see anything, Amy.”
She bit her lip. “What about the shoe rack?”
He thumped through every pair of shoes, careful to check the cavity of each one with his fingers. “Monster free,” he assured her. She didn't look convinced. He tried to think of what Dad might have done. Maybe a theatrical production full of tricks and slights, but Derek didn't know anything like that. He walked to her desk and rifled through the top drawer. Scotch tape. He pulled a piece free and kissed the non-sticky side.
“This is special,” he said. “If something happens, it will hold the door. I'm right in the next room, Amy. Nothing's going to get you.” He taped the door to the frame and patted it. “Okay?”
“Okay,” she said.
“Go to sleep,” he told her. He pulled up her covers, and she snuggled under the blankets with her bear.
He shut her door and returned to his room. His chest quivered. He crawled back into bed, feeling tired and wasted. He stuck his face against the pillow, and he cried. Not loud and sobbing like his mom or like Amelia. His eyes leaked. That was it. His family wouldn't ever know.
His mouth felt dry and gummy, and his eyes didn't want to open. He'd mashed his cheek against something soft and familiar. Breaths rasped in his chest, thick and long and even. A noise stuck on his vocal cords, and his hand flopped at his side with some useless impulse his brain had sent. Solid warmth wrapped his body. For a long time, he didn't move. The comforter rustled. He pushed his face against the soft, familiar thing.
The dull murmur of voices hit his eardrums. People. Talking. People there. His hand flopped again, and he groaned. A vague sense of unease spread through his body like creeping moss. The voices got louder. Yelling. Fighting. His leg twitched. He should move. Get up. Something might... Someone might...
The warmth around his body constricted, and a thick thing rolled over his back. Soothing. “Shh,” said a voice. “Sleep it off some more.”
“What,” he said, but he couldn't finish the thought. He lost himself in the murmur, in the warmth. The voice kept saying quiet words that made him feel safe despite the noise. He didn't know how long he lay there, curled against the soft thing, not moving, not thinking, just safe.
His eyes creaked open to daylight and a pale, cream-colored blur. He closed his eyes and rested from that effort. A big, rumbling sigh tore through his body. Ache twinged, which chipped away at his stupor.
When he opened his eyes again, he forced them to stay open. Focus followed after a long stretch of warmth and cream-colored blur and nothingness. Meredith's neck. The soft thing. She still sat in the chair beside him, exactly where she'd been when he'd passed out. In sleep, he'd curled against her. The bulky comforter made him large and unwieldy in her arms, but she'd managed. Mostly.
“Meredith,” he murmured. His tongue felt wrong. Heavy.
She looked at him. “Welcome back,” she said. She rubbed his back through the comforter. He felt like a sloth. He couldn't bring himself to move or speak or do anything but exist. “Sort of welcome back,” she amended.
Her fingers toiled with the hair at the nape of his neck. She stared at something far beyond the chair. The twitter of voices hit his ears again. He twitched from head to toe. His muscles didn't want to give him much. Lethargy cowed him into stillness, but the voices made him feel like he should be attempting to look and act human. To be aware and ready to defend himself.
“Who's here?” he said, the words stretched and chewy like a Starburst in his mouth. He let his jaw hang open. His tongue lolled. His mouth and throat felt dry. Dry like Death Valley in August.
“Just you, me, and Jerry Springer,” Meredith said. A silver thing waved in his face, too close to his eyes, and he couldn't process it before she took it away.
“Dunno him,” Derek said. His eyes drifted into something half closed. Couldn't move. Couldn't think. Couldn't do anything.
She snorted. “Well, I would hope not, though I suppose our lives might fit with some of his themes. Born into an adulterous marriage, and loved only by my fake parents? Slutty home-wreckers and the adulterous men who love them? My ex-wife cheated on me with my brother, and now she wants me back?”
He blinked. “Huh?”
“The television, Derek. Jerry Springer is a talk show. There's nothing but trash on right now because morning programming sucks.”
“Oh.” He breathed thickly while she stroked him, and then his awareness faded. He dozed, not quite sleeping, not awake either, for an indeterminate time that could have been hours or days or minutes. Lazy shapes floated in his head, not any assembled thoughts.
Necessities pulled him out of it. One by one, until he had a stack of them piled high enough that they outweighed his lethargy. He needed water. He needed food. And he really, really needed to pee. He stood up before he understood anything other than those three things.
The room whirled around his head, and he swallowed. “Whoa,” he said as black waterfalls robbed the color from his vision. The floor tilted. Something gripped him around the waist. He didn't fall.
When he came to himself, he stood in the center of Meredith's living room, clutched in Meredith's arms. She stared at him, concern creasing her gaze. Something else, too. Anger. “Would you stop doing that?” she snapped. “You nearly fall, every freaking time.”
He blinked. “Meredith,” he said, too dumbstruck to say much else. “What?”
“Stop standing up like it's a freaking race!” she said.
His face heated at her tone, as if she thought he would willfully make a fucking fool of himself. As if she thought he liked being helpless and held upright by his wife. “I need to use the bathroom,” he said. “I'm sorry if my fucking bladder got hold of my brain before I did.”
She bit her lip. “I'm sorry,” she said. “I'm sorry, it's just that...” Her voice trailed away. She wouldn't meet his eyes.
“Just what?” he snapped.
“I guess I could call in sick tomorrow,” she said to his feet.
Since you obviously can't be by yourself for more than two minutes. Her unspoken words banged around inside his skull, repeating. His fingers clenched, and the backs of his eyes stabbed at him. “Let go of me,” he said in a low voice.
She backed off and looked away. For a minute, he had to think. Clots in his reasoning made the process slow. His brain reviewed the layout of the house at the speed of a snail. Bathroom. Right.
He didn't have to sit to urinate anymore at least, though trying to aim while he was so fucking impaired almost made him want to. A sneering Gary Clark hovered in the mirror as Derek washed his hands. Derek's face reddened, and his shoulders hunched. He panted with disquiet, and Mr. Clark seemed to smile wider every time Derek took a stabbing breath. “Stop,” Derek whispered. When he blinked, the apparition disappeared, leaving Derek staring at a gaunt, haunted, stubbly disaster case with glassy, unfocused eyes. When his stomach growled, he sighed and looked away.
Water. Food. Kitchen next. When he got there, Meredith had already sat down at the table. She'd put out a bowl and a spoon and a glass of OJ for him. A carton of milk sat on the table next to a box of Muesli. She sat opposite to the place she'd set for him, munching on her breakfast. She ate cereal as well, but he couldn't make out the writing on her box from the entryway, and by the time he'd gotten close enough to read, the momentary spark of curiosity had died.
“If you want something else, you can fix it yourself,” she said, tone neutral.
He sat and slumped in his chair. “This is fine, thank you.”
They ate in stony silence. She inhaled three bowls of cereal doused in milk to the brim of the bowl. He consumed maybe three-quarters of a bowl before he lost interest. The Muesli tasted like sawdust, and when his stomach stopped growling, he couldn't bring himself to care about it anymore.
He stared at his lap, tired, angry, with a side of roiling, consuming upset that made him feel like he was on the verge of tears. She was pissed at him, and he didn't like it, and that made his anger even worse, because he felt like it was something he couldn't help. Everything was something he couldn't help.
“Are you still hurting?” Meredith said. Her spoon tinkled as she set it against her empty bowl. The spoon spun around the lip before settling.
“No.”
“Good,” she said. Her eyes twitched. Like she wanted to say more. Was dying to say more, but she was holding herself back. Except the strong, dissonant waves of anger radiating from her made him feel chastised all the same. She saved him nothing, and on top of that, he felt worse, because she felt he was bad off enough that she needed to censor herself.
He put his elbows on the table and rubbed his forehead, wishing it would all just stop. Everything. He swallowed against the lump in his throat. His shoulders hunched. “I didn't mean to upset you,” he told his bowl of mushy cereal because he didn't want to see her glaring at him anymore.
“Why didn't you wake me when this started?”
“Because I already woke you!” he said. Blush broke out all over his face, and he pulled bunches of the tablecloth into his hands. His teeth clenched. “I woke you twice! You needed sleep, and by then it was a lost cause for me. I can get down the stairs by myself. I'm fine.”
“You're not fine,” she said. “You're high as a freaking kite, it's dark at night, and you might fall. As it is, you got trapped down here while I freaking overslept, and then you had to behave like a damned superhero and not call me when it was time to take your pills.”
“I lost track of time,” he said. “I didn't mean to do it.”
“Fine,” Meredith said. “Fine, we can call this an accident, but--”
“It was an accident,” he roared. He pushed back from the table and stood. “I came downstairs because it hurts me to lie flat for more than a few hours, and then I got stuck down here. I went to the lake and lost track of the fucking time. That's all. Maybe I'm stubborn, but I'm not a masochist.”
“The lake?”
He blinked, brought up short. “The lake?"
“You said you went to the lake.”
“Nothing,” he said. “A daydream.”
“You still should have woke me,” she said. “Before.”
“I can get down the steps by myself, Meredith.”
She stomped her foot. Her chair squealed as she rose to meet him eye-to-eye. “And just because you can doesn't mean you should!”
He clenched his jaw. He tried to count to three. He made it to one, and then he exploded. “I tell you when I need to go upstairs, and I tell you when I need my pillows moved, and I tell you when I can't reach something on the top shelf of the fucking closet because it hurts, and I tell you all the other things I can't do. I'm a fucking invalid already, and now you want me to wake you up from a sound sleep to help me with one of the few things I can manage on my own? Jesus Christ, Meredith. I'm trying, but I can't...” He panted, and his sight blanketed with tears. The back of his throat hurt. He didn't want to cry, but his body betrayed him. He wiped his face with shaky palms. They came away wet and sticky, and his torso shivered with emotional stress. “Do you have any idea how humiliating this is for me? I'm not even allowed to pick up a full jug of milk.”
She sighed. Through the blur, he watched her wipe at her face. In the intense, disturbing racket of his own misery, he'd missed her crying while he'd roared. Her soft, distressed sobs hit his ears now like deep, rending tears in his soul. Guilt plunged deep into his gut, and his body quivered. He hadn't meant to yell. He hadn't meant any of this. Tired, cottony exhaustion spun webs behind his eyes, and he closed his eyes. In the blackness, he felt the room revolve around his body in slow, disorienting circles.
She moved. Her arms wrapped around him. “Derek. Derek, I know that you're physically able to walk down the steps. I do. I really do. I've watched you. And I swear I'm not trying to take that away,” she said, her voice soft against his body. Her fingers wound through his hair. “I'm just really worried you'll fall because of all the stuff you're on, and I won't find out until the morning when I step on the broken heap that was my husband. Please. Please, I already saw you in a broken heap once. I don't want to do it again. Please, Derek.”
He leaned into her embrace and set his palms against her hips. “I'm sorry, Meredith. I'm really sorry.”
“I'm sorry, too,” she said. “I'm tired, and I've got no freaking right to take it out on you. I just hate to see you in so much pain.”
“I woke you up.”
Her fingers clenched, and his shirt tightened as she scrunched it in her grip. “Actually, Derek, I slept like crap, and you had very little to do with it. I'm a resident at one of the nation's top hospitals. Do you honestly think your two five-minute interruptions made a dent in my night? Not hardly.”
“Oh.”
“Seriously,” she grumbled against his chest. “Inflated ego much?”
A woeful shard of laughter shivered in his chest. Ache slipped into his sternum. Tears leaked, despite the momentary mirth. “I'm sorry,” he repeated.
“It's okay,” she said. She kissed his throat, and then she kissed his chest. “But will you please wake me up for downstairs trips from now on? Please? For my own peace of mind?”
“Yeah,” he said. His muscles trembled, and he added with soft defeat, “I need to sit.”
“Okay,” she said.
He heard the refrigerator door open and close as he plodded into the living room like a tranquilized, clumsy elephant. She put the milk away or something. Dishes clanked. Water ran. He sank into the chair he'd occupied that morning. The pillows settled under his weight. He relaxed and pulled the comforter around himself, curling up in the warmth. She joined him minutes later, slipping under the blankets with him. Her tiny body lined up with his hip and shoulder. She lay her head against the unmarred side of his chest, spread her right arm against his stomach, and curled against him like a small cat.
At least that didn't hurt anymore. He could be thankful for that.
“I arranged with Richard to do 12 hour shifts on the weekends and on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and 10 hour shifts on Tuesdays and Thursdays,” she said. “Nothing over night. I'll be home every night and in the mornings, at least, and I'll still be putting in hours up to the cap.”
“You won't have any breaks,” he said. His lip quivered.
She rubbed her palm idly against the flat of his stomach. “I can manage for a few weeks,” she said.
He thought of her trying to manage that schedule by herself, no breaks, not a single day off, and when she got home, she would be helping him with all the I-can't-do-it-by-myselfs he'd stacked up in a figurative pile for the day. She would be helping him, not relaxing or doing things for her own enjoyment. Even for just a few weeks. That would be awful for her. Exhausting. Stressful.
He swallowed as the tears renewed, and he looked away from her, into the side of the chair. Hot, awful blush spread over his face and down his neck. Her palms captured his face in a prison. She pulled him back to face her eye-to-eye. “Hey,” she said. “You'd do it for me. You have done it for me. When I had my surgery. We take care of each other. Remember? That's what the post-it says.”
“I remember what it says,” he said.
“You're not an invalid, Derek.”
“I feel like one.”
“You're healing,” she said. She stroked his cheek with her palm. “It hasn't even been two weeks. It sucks. I know it does, but... Don't sell yourself short. You're the strongest person I know. You are, Derek.”
You're not the man here. I'm the man.
Derek looked away. “Stop saying that.”
“Stop saying what?”
“Stop saying I'm strong like I had something to do with this. I was going to die. I'm still alive because the fucking universe thought it would be funny.”
“Derek...”
“You told me when you drowned that you had an experience. You had a choice. You chose to fight.”
She nodded. “I did.”
“It wasn't like that for me,” he said. Something upsetting and terrifying coiled in his gut. He clutched her and rested his forehead against her temple. “It wasn't... He shot me. He shot me, Meredith, and I couldn't do anything. I couldn't get away. Something distracted him, and he left me there. He left me.”
You're not the man here.
“But I found you,” she soothed. “It's over, now. It's over. He's dead. And you're alive. Just like you promised.”
“But I lied. My promise was a lie. I thought...”
“You were attacked and shot in the chest at close range. You were in shock. You were in pain. Thinking you're going to die in a situation like that? Not the biggest stretch in the universe. But you're alive, Derek. You're alive. That's not a lie to me,” she said. She placed a finger against his lips. “You breathing? Not a lie.” A palm against his heart. “Your heart beating? Not a lie.” A kiss against his shoulder. “Whether you thought you meant your promise or not, you lived, and no one will ever convince me that's not at least a little bit on you.”
He swallowed. The room spun away from him, and he watched the ceiling flicker bright with wide open grayness as he fell onto his back. April said words, but he couldn't understand. He couldn't breathe, and then Gary Clark aimed the gun at him. Derek blinked. The image made a ghost imprint in his mind's eye. A gun. Pointed. Ready to kill.
“Everybody saved me but me,” Derek said.
She stared at him, eyes determined, glittering. “We work at a hospital,” she said. “We see death every day. We both know that people who want to die usually find a way. Their bodies shut down, or they off themselves, or... whatever. Metaphysics or physics, they find a way. A man attacked you and left you with a penetrating chest trauma that came a hair's width from severing your aorta. You were suffocating in your own blood. Gary Clark pushed you through the door, Derek. You had your foot in, your leg, maybe even your hip. You could have easily died if you'd let yourself go, and you lived anyway.” She kissed him. “To me? That's not strong,” she said against his lips. “That's Herculean.”
He swallowed. “My heart stopped.”
“I know, but it's beating, now,” she said. As if to emphasize her point, she pushed her ear against his chest. Not over his heart, not pressing. Gentle. Careful to avoid the incision on his sternum. She listened for a long moment. He let her. A lazy smile spread over her lips. “It's beating now, Derek,” she said. “And that's what counts. You won't ever convince me you're not strong. So, stop trying.”
He didn't understand her determination. He collapsed under the weight of it, unwilling to argue anymore. “I'm just so tired,” he said. “I need it to stop.”
Her palm rasped against his shirt. “I know,” she said. “I'll have Mark help me with this chair when he gets here. You won't need to do stairs in the middle of the freaking night. This chair is good, right?”
He sighed. “I'm sorry for making this hard.”
“It's not your fault, Derek. It's not. Gary Clark did this. Not you. You need to stop apologizing for that.”
“I know you had to bargain with Dr. Altman to get me released early,” he said. “I know you took it upon yourself to be my caregiver. I hate it. I hate needing help with everything, but I'm trying, Mere. I'm trying.”
“I know,” she said, her voice soft. “I know you are. I thought it was going to be a nightmare getting you to wake me up for things.”
He gave her a weak smile. “Do I get a sticker?”
“I guess that's worth at least a few.”
“Gold stars?”
She yawned, and she snuggled closer. The blanket rustled, and she made a low, pleasant noise in her throat. “If you want.”
“I think I do,” he said. “I'm a gold star kind of guy.”
She lifted her head. “I'd give you thousands if I had them,” she said.
“Now, who's getting cheesy?”
She smiled, and she settled back against him without answering. Her hand rubbed his stomach, idle, almost absent, and she stared across the plane of his torso. He stroked her back, wishing he could move just a bit to pull her into an embrace, but she'd pretty much pinned him.
“Mere?” he said. “Mere, are you okay?”
“I'm fine.”
“Really fine? Or lying fine?”
“Right now?” She looked at him with a relaxed, dreamy smile. Her eyes seemed glazed, but with sleep and nothing else. “I'm snuggling with my amazing, alive, gold star husband. I'm pretty fine. Why?”
“Just...” He inhaled. “You never say anything about... I mean. You were hurt, too. He didn't shoot you, but he took something from you. From us. And you saw me get shot. That's not the sort of imagery that goes away with time.”
Shit! Take his watch, and let's go.
“I'm really okay, Derek.”
“No nightmares?” he pressed. “Nothing? Why couldn't you sleep last night?”
“I do have nightmares,” she admitted. “I think about it a lot. You nearly dying. The baby, sometimes. I don't remember dreaming last night. Maybe it was that. I don't know.”
“But?”
She shrugged. “I told you. I decided I'm fine,” she said. “And if I'm ever not fine, all I have to do is look at you breathing, and it's okay again. I really meant it, Derek. The rest of it is meaningless if I don't have you. You're alive, and you're healing, and we can make another baby whenever you're ready. In light of that? I'm fine. I'm more than fine.”
“I didn't think it would last when you explained it before,” he said.
“You're alive,” she said. “You kept your promise, lie or not. The fine will last until you're 110.”
He blinked. “110?”
“Remember?” She grinned. “You told me you wanted to live to 110 and die in my arms.”
He stretched his memory through the fog. So much had happened. He'd said a lot of things. “Oh, yes. I did say that, didn't I? That was one of my finer gold star moments, I think. Very waxed poetic.” What if, while I'm waiting, I meet someone who is ready to give me what I want from you? His heart sank when he thought of the rest of it. “Well...”
“What?”
“Until I threatened you at the end. About finding somebody else. That wasn't so amazing of me.”
She snorted. “I prefer to think of it as a much needed jump. My capacity-for-relationships battery was sort of dead.”
He looked at his lap. “It was still wrong to say.”
“It was, but it's what you used to do with me. I didn't get it before. I do, now. I do, and it's okay.”
“What do you mean?”
Her eyes searched his face. A ghost crossed her gaze. “When you were shot, you were barely lucid for a lot of it. I kept having to hit you. Over and over, and I hated it. I hated it, but I needed to get a response out of you. I needed to keep you with me. So, I did it anyway. I hit you,” she said. “It's the same concept, really, with your crappy ultimatums. I was in emotional shock. You just wanted me to react, so you hit me. You weren't trying to drive me away, and I get that now. You were trying to get me to pull closer.”
His lips flattened into a line, and he clenched his fists. “You can't compare those.”
“Why not?” she said.
“Because me playing Russian roulette with your insecurities as a fucking bullet is not the same as you saving my life. Not even remotely.”
“Let's compare your games to me using you for sex, then,” she said, blunt and matter-of-fact. “I knew you wanted more than I could give you. I knew it, and I had sex with you anyway, because it made me feel safe. Safe, Derek. I treated you like a doormat so I could feel safe for a few minutes out of the day. I used you.”
His body stilled. He listened to her take a long, slow breath. Quiet. He let his eyes drift shut, and he thought of all the times she'd done that. All the times they'd had sex in the space of minutes, quickies, and yet she'd always stopped for that pause before she left. The pause in the end, where he wrapped his arms around her, and they panted in soft, tired unison. That pause had always given him a false, leaping sense of hope that she would stay for longer than minutes. That she would stay forever. But she'd always dragged herself away with a look that told him, despite her hangups, despite all of it, she wanted what he wanted, even if she didn't think she could give it to him.
“You never told me that,” he said.
And then you pulled me from the water...
“Told you what?”
“Why,” he said.
“Oh. The safe thing.” Her lashes dipped low over her eyes, and she smiled. “You always make me feel safe. But I really needed it then. I needed it so much.”
“I let it happen, Meredith. I could have said no.”
“But you didn't,” she said. She toiled with a lock of his hair. “Because you loved me. And I used that. I used it, and I shouldn't have. It wasn't fair to you.” She swallowed, and her voice cracked. “But I needed it.”
“Mere...”
She wiped her eyes. “Look. My point is, we both did bad things. We both did. I'm the one who wasted time, though. I should have said it sooner.”
“Said what?”
She kissed him, lips to lips, and he moaned as her tongue stroked him. Their noses mashed, and she lingered, breathing in his space. “I should have said that I love you.”
Her body against his intoxicated him. Where the drugs made him hazy, she made him hot and alive and shaky. A fool, but in a different way. He inhaled the scent of her hair, lavender, and he kissed her temple.
Your choice? It's simple. Her or me.
“You did say it sooner, Meredith,” he murmured. “And then I chose Addison and wrecked it.”
Her body trembled in his arms. She made a small, wheezing, gasping noise that made him think she might be choking. He flopped against the chair, discombobulated with sudden panic stomped under the weight of a ton of narcotics. “Meredith,” he said, and she shivered against him. “Meredith, what is it?”
Tremors became giggles became rolling guffaws. He sat there, dumbfounded, blinking, and feeling very much the fool when he still couldn't figure out what was going on, even after he knew she was laughing. Had he tripped on his tongue and said something stupid? He couldn't remember saying something funny.
She panted against him, recovering, and then she looked at him, her eyes red but sparkling with happy, streaking tears. She wiped at her eyes, and then she laughed again. “How did we go from gold stars and pep talks to an argument about who sucks more?”
His lip twitched. “I have no idea.”
She kissed him. “I love you.”
“I love you, too,” he replied
“Nobody sucks more,” she said. “We're equally suck-y. Let's be even, now. No more baggage crap. Okay?”
He raised an eyebrow. “I thought that's what the post-it was for?”
“It was, but we never really had it out, I guess. Never really...” She searched for words. “I'm not sure I even understood any of it before. I guess I have a bit of perspective now, or whatever.”
He smiled. “Not an intern anymore?”
“I guess I finally graduated.”
He closed his eyes. “Hmm,” he agreed, and when she didn't reply, he drifted, tired.