All Along The Watchtower - Part 21.4
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.
In which we conclude Derek's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. And Derek fights back tooth and nail.
I am officially crumbling under the weight of my own cliffhanger. Apparently, panicking, upset readers are my kryptonite, so I finished editing ahead of schedule, and I'm posting this now instead of tomorrow. I think this experiment proved to me that splitting chapters like this is a bad freaking idea. To those who requested shorter pieces, I'm really sorry :( But I think I'm going to go back to posting large chunks so that people can read the entire rise/fall and conclusion of action at once if they want to. If something splits well like 18 or 20, I'll split it. Otherwise, it's up to you to read in smaller pieces. Deal? :)
WARNING!!! There are serious, adult themes and concepts as well as graphic violence depicted in this chapter. I'm rating this chapter specifically M, and not for porny goodness. I'm not kidding, and I'm not hesitant about this rating. Please, plan accordingly.
All Along The Watchtower - Part 21.4
Amy, he'd said. You need to stop doing this. You told me--
This-is-th'last-time, she'd slurred. I swear.
He stopped dead in the bright hallway as he thought of the time, long ago, when he'd watched her ride off into the rain in a blue Firebird, stoned out of her mind. He'd gotten the bright idea, in his subsequent frustration, to chase after her on his Harley. In the pouring rain. In the dark. Without a helmet or protective gear. He'd been lucky to walk away from that bout of idiocy with a concussion and an impaled thigh, and he'd only been a helpless bystander to Amelia's downward spiral.
He clenched his fists. Sense and reason returned with the scream of skidding tires in his head.
What would happen to Meredith? Or Mark? Or any of the countless people who'd stepped up to the plate to keep this jagged rock bottom from cutting him open again? They were all his helpless bystanders.
Best case scenario, he'd be leaving the woman he loved to raise a child alone. Their child. A woman who had an abandonment complex bigger than four Mount Rainiers stacked end to end. His lip quivered as he thought of all the promises he'd made her.
I can't say it won't hurt, but you'll do great. And I'll be there the whole time.
That would be a lie if he choked right now. He pulled the prescription from his pocket and stared at it. At the siren call toward deliverance.
But I won't take it. I don't have any; I swear.
He blinked. That would be a lie, too. Revulsion washed over him when he realized what he'd done, and before he suffered another attack of morality decay in the wake of desperation, he ripped the sheet of paper into illegible smithereens and stuffed the confetti into the nearest trashcan. He'd nearly turned every good thing that had happened in the last thirty days into a giant fucking lie.
Nausea crashed into him like a wave. He'd probably just gotten himself fired, too. He'd practically assaulted a coworker. Threatened her. Extorted her. All for a fucking prescription. And he'd liked it. He'd liked watching her snivel and shake.
“I told you,” Mr. Clark said, a snarl in Derek's ear. “You are a sick. Depraved. Fuck.”
Indecision tore at him. He didn't know what to do. Find April? Apologize? She'd probably run the other direction the second she saw him, and he couldn't blame her for it, either. He'd acted reprehensible.
He closed his eyes for a minute, thinking. Panicking, really. What was he supposed to do, now?
“Ticktock, ticktock,” said Mr. Clark. Then he laughed and hummed the Jeopardy theme.
Derek stood in the middle of the hallway, frozen in that moment of realization and irresolution. What the fuck had he done? And what, now? Autopilot kicked in when gibbering upset wouldn't let him think beyond the sinking pull of dread. Instinct and nothing else yanked him through the searing, bright halls.
He didn't knock. Dr. Wyatt looked up as he stepped inside her office. She sat at her desk in front of a leafy salad piled high on a ceramic plate. Clumps of drippy, dressing-covered lettuce fell from her fork. Her temples pulsed underneath her skin as she chewed. She took a long look at him, frowned, and glanced at her watch.
She swallowed her bite of salad. “Derek, you're early,” she said.
He stood in the center of the room, a lost, lonely island. “I'm sorry,” he said. Or croaked. He blinked, and the room in front of his eyelashes shimmered. “Is this a bad time?”
He closed his eyes. Please, please, don't be a bad time. He didn't know where else to go.
“I'm eating my lunch,” she said.
He swallowed. “I'm sorry,” he said.
He blinked, and he lost it. All over again. All semblance of dignity and poise and everything that made him the smallest bit human.
“You're a weak, sniveling wreck,” said Mr. Clark.
Derek tried to glance at his watch, but the wall of tears veiled the time. He couldn't see more than blurry, bright shapes. He didn't know why he bothered to look, anyway. Meredith might not even be in the building anymore, and if she was gone, she would have just finished a thirty-six hour shift. He couldn't heap all of this on top of her. Not today. Not after how much he'd leaned on her already this morning. But who else was there? Who else was there that he could share everything with? He didn't know.
He turned toward the door, adrift.
“No, no,” Dr. Wyatt rushed to say. “Stay. We can do your session early. What did you want to talk about?”
He opened his mouth, but he couldn't speak. All he did was leak.
“Why don't you sit?” Dr. Wyatt prodded. She pointed toward her couch with her fork. She took another mouthful of lettuce and brushed a wave of graying hair behind her ear while she chewed.
He sat on her couch in her tiny, cheerful, orange office. The rainbow of fish swam back and forth, and the water in the tank burbled. The room smelled flowery. Everything seemed bright and warm and too much when he felt cold and awful in comparison.
He wiped his face with the backs of his shaky hands. His skin felt raw. “I just extorted a coworker for a Percocet prescription,” he admitted. It felt good to admit. To spill himself on the table for her and let her figure out how to approach this nightmare. Tiredness made his head ache.
“You really fucked up, this time,” Mr. Clark said.
Dr. Wyatt wiped her mouth with a paper napkin, and she left her half-eaten salad behind on the desk as she picked up her notepad and settled into the chair across from the couch. She regarded him for a long, discerning moment. “Did you fill the prescription?”
“I tore it up and threw it out.”
“That's a good sign.”
“Extortion is a good sign?” he said. “I'll probably get fired.”
“You didn't take drugs,” she countered. “You came here, instead.”
“So?”
“Derek, if it were easy to overcome addiction there wouldn't be such vast resources dedicated to it. You might not have overcome addiction, yet, but you just won a serious battle.”
“By extorting my coworker?” he said, incredulous.
She gave him a sheepish grin. “Well, no. But the extortion created several paths for you, and you chose one that didn't end inevitably with drug use. That's a start.”
“That's not a start,” he said, vehemence shaking his tone. “What I did was disgusting.”
She nodded, deep understanding in her eyes. “You're an ethical person,” she said. “Addictions counteract ethics, and that can be upsetting. You're making progress, whether you believe it or not.”
He put his elbows on his knees and pressed his face into his hands. He pulled his fingers through his tangled hair. “I don't feel like I've fixed anything.”
“And maybe you haven't, yet, but you've got your toolbox and a blueprint,” she said. “That's much better than before.”
“Why does it feel like this, then?”
She gave him a wry look. “Ever heard the expression the cure is worse than the disease?”
She scribbled on her notepad. He let the sound of it soothe him. He rubbed the soft knees of his scrubs with his palms.
“I think I like hurting people,” he said.
He looked up at Dr. Wyatt, who stared back at him with an even gaze that didn't judge. She didn't recoil or tell him how twisted he was. She shifted in her chair, recrossed her legs, and motioned for him to give her more. “Why do you think that?” she prodded.
“I have dreams,” he said. He closed his eyes, and he wiped his face. His skin felt sticky from crying. Hot. “About killing, and...”
“And, now, this?” Dr. Wyatt said. “The extortion?”
He nodded.
“You threatened this coworker?”
I'm still your boss, you know, he'd said. I could easily take this 'job opportunity' away again.
He nodded again.
“What about Meredith?” Dr. Wyatt said.
He looked up. “What about her?”
“Do you think about hurting her?”
Revulsion coursed through him. “No, of course not.”
“What about me?”
“No...”
She raised her eyebrows. “Anybody else specific?”
He didn't speak.
“Who did you extort for the prescription?” Dr. Wyatt said.
He looked back at his knees. “Dr. Kepner.”
“How did you feel when you did it?”
He shrugged. “I don't know.”
“Liar,” said Mr. Clark. “You felt good. You wanted to watch her cry.”
Derek put his head in his hands. “I... liked it,” he said.
Dr. Wyatt regarded him for a long, quiet moment. “You've told me that Dr. Kepner was involved in your shooting, yes?” she said.
Dr. Shepherd! Thank god, you're back!
His hands shook. Why had he remembered that, now? After so many months? He'd had the flashback of his shooting so many times he couldn't count the instances anymore, but he'd never remembered that little piece. The part where he'd felt the bullet pierce him. It'd been a blank in his head, but now, when he thought about it, he could recall everything.
From the way his ears seemed to pop, to the muffled sounds in the shot's wake. He hadn't been able to understand what April had been saying. He'd always assumed it was just the confusion of the moment. Now, he realized the loud sound of gunfire had shocked his ears into momentary dysfunction. He remembered the feel of the bullet as it incinerated a path inside of him. Remembered the explosive bloom of pain under his left breast, like a hot poker had been rammed underneath his nipple until the burning end touched his spine.
“Derek?” Dr. Wyatt said.
He blinked, realizing he'd been sitting there, fingering the remnant of his wound for who knew how long. His chest twinged. “Yes,” he said. “She was there.”
“Was the shooting her fault?”
“No,” Derek said.
“That's right,” said Mr. Clark. “It was your fault.”
“You don't sound convinced about that,” Dr. Wyatt said.
Derek blinked. You did this to me, he'd told Dr. Kepner. You made me this person.
He swallowed.
“Do you blame her, Derek? It's okay if you do.”
Something cold constricted in his chest. He clenched his fists until his hands ached. He opened his mouth and only a hiss of air popped loose. He took a slow, deep breath. “I got him to lower his gun, and then she came,” he said.
Dr. Wyatt nodded. More scribbling. “So, you do blame her.”
“It's my fault he was at the hospital,” Derek said. “Not hers.”
“Is it?”
“He came for me.”
“And we've talked a lot about your feelings of guilt over the people who were killed while Mr. Clark was looking for you,” Dr. Wyatt replied. “But what about you? What about when you got shot? You said you got Mr. Clark to lower his weapon.”
“I did,” Derek said. He ran his hands through his hair, agitated. “I never remembered the rest before...”
“But, now, you do?”
He shook his head as the moment replayed in his head. Dr. Shepherd! Thank god, you're back! “She ran up behind me while I was talking to a man holding a gun. What person does that? Why did she...?”
He blinked tears as he felt the bullet ram into him. Again, again, again. A burning echo. It hurt. It hurt so much, and he'd always thought Mr. Clark would have done it, regardless, because he'd been hellbent on exacting his judgments, but there'd been a moment when he hadn't been hellbent at all, and the ceasefire hadn't been broken by Derek.
You stood up to him, Meredith had said as though it were some sort of definitive thing. You were brave. You got him to lower his gun. As if it hadn't been a glitch on the way to bone-shattering inevitability. I watched, Derek. I saw that.
He hadn't understood why Meredith would fixate on that moment, before. Now, he realized she'd watched April throw a grenade without the pin on a situation he'd almost had under control. The idea that he hadn't caused these crushing months of misery for himself with his own cowardice... Something lightened inside. Something small, but noticeable.
Not your fault, a hesitant voice said in his head. Not Gary Clark's rough growl. Something softer and forgiving. Perhaps his Mirror Meredith, giving him a respite. He didn't know. He rocked in his chair as unbearable despair became something... less. Not gone. Not hardly. But less. Like an ache had receded that he'd suffered for so long that he'd forgotten what it felt like to live without it. The absence allowed him to breathe through his discomfort instead of be squished by it, and it felt...
Better.
He wiped his eyes. He realized he wanted to ask Meredith about what she'd seen when he'd been shot. She'd asked him once what he remembered. He'd never asked her about her experience. Was there more he didn't remember? Some other set of dots he'd connected wrong because his head was a mess?
Maybe. Maybe not. But he wanted to know her version of events.
“Let's go back to the dreams you mentioned,” Dr. Wyatt said, her soft voice interrupting the watercolor memories blotched before his eyes. “Tell me about them.”
I'm going to snap your fucking neck.
Derek shuddered as he remembered his hands. Squeezing.
“I dream about killing Mr. Clark,” he said. “I try to strangle him. Then I take his gun, and I shoot him.”
“Is there anybody else in this dream when you kill?”
Lawyers. At the beginning, there'd been lawyers. So, she was alive, until you withdrew care, until you pulled the plug, one of them had said when he'd tried to explain. But then he'd leaped across the table at Mr. Clark, and everybody in the room had faded away like dispersing mist. There'd been only Derek and Mr. Clark, interlocked in a vicious, violent, bloody struggle. One that always ended with Derek staring down at Mr. Clark as Mr. Clark's life bled away on the catwalk. Alone.
“Not when I kill,” Derek said.
“Ever?” Dr. Wyatt prodded.
“No.”
“So, the only two people in this hemisphere of desired harm were involved with your shooting,” she replied.
He shrugged. “I guess.”
“Why do you guess and not know?”
“What if there's somebody else, and I just haven't run across him?” Derek frowned. “Her. Them. I don't know.”
“Somebody else you want to hurt?” Dr. Wyatt said.
“Yes.”
“I don't know.”
He glowered. “What do you mean, you don't know?”
She shrugged as if his worries didn't matter. “I mean I don't know what would happen if there's somebody else, but I think, based on your established pattern, that it's pretty safe to assume there's nobody else until there's somebody else. I don't think extrapolation is warranted here.”
“Why?” he demanded. “I dreamed about shooting somebody, and then I threatened a coworker.”
She leaned back in her chair. The wood creaked, and the cushion rustled. She tapped her pen on her notepad. “Derek, do you understand what targeted violence is?”
“I don't understand any of this,” he said, a sick feeling coiling in his stomach.
“It's the ultimate power exchange,” she said. “There's a winner and a loser. It's easy to feel mighty when your opponent is at your mercy.”
“You're saying I want to feel powerful?”
“I'm saying there are two people in this world who we know engendered deep, unshakeable feelings of helplessness and horror for you, feelings so unshakeable they caused you to develop a mental illness, and I don't think your reaction to either Gary Clark or Dr. Kepner has anything to do with loving violence,” she said.
“What does it have to do with, then?”
She leaned toward him. “What do you think it has to do with?” she asked.
“Taking control?” he hazarded.
“Of a sort,” she said with a nod. “I'd imagine enduring severe trauma is a bit like being stripped against your will. It can be dehumanizing, terrifying. I think of the actions you've described to me as an attempt at reestablishing a sense of self. Sort of... resetting the balance of power within yourself to a level you feel capable of enduring.”
He shook his head despite the hope welling in his gut. You're not a sadist, Meredith had said, and now, despite what he'd done, a second source, a more impartial one, seemed to be agreeing. He rocked in his seat at the twisting uncertainty. “I don't want to reestablish anything,” he said, blinking back tears he couldn't help. “I want to make all of this stop. I want to make the dreams stop. I don't kill people. I'm a doctor to save people.”
Dr. Wyatt smiled. “Well, that's the good news.”
“What's even remotely good about this?”
“Consciously or subconsciously, you're reaching for equilibrium right now. One of the people who took your control away is dead. You can't reset the balance of power anywhere but in your subconscious, so, you dream. One is living, and you interacted with her in a way that set you up as the superior in the situation.”
“How the hell is that good?”
“I think these sessions will help you, in the long run, with finding a healthier outlet for all these feelings you have,” she said. “We can redirect your reaching for balance and control to somewhere more socially appropriate.”
He rubbed the bridge of his nose. It was a little too late for that, now that he'd done something so socially inappropriate he could get fired. “When?” he said. Painful breaths chuffed in his chest as he squeezed his fingers. “Soon?”
“I'd be lying if I tried to give you any specific answer,” she replied.
He put his head in his hands.
“Let's start with a little exercise,” she said. “I want you to start thinking about things in terms of what you're deciding for yourself.”
He rubbed his face. “What do you mean?”
“Have you been to lunch, yet?” she said.
He frowned. What did lunch have to do with anything? “No...” he said.
“When you go, and you pick what you're going to eat, I want you to tell yourself what you picked and why you picked it, and I want you to jot it down.”
His frowned deepened. “That's...”
“I know it sounds really silly, but it does add up,” she said. “When you go home today, I want you to tell yourself why you're choosing to leave work at that moment. Jot it down. When you change into your PJs, maybe stop and ask yourself why you picked those PJs. Jot that down.”
“But that's--”
“By drawing attention to the choices you make, even the small ones, you're going to start realizing exactly how much power you do still have over your own life,” she said. “I mean, why did you come here early today?”
“I needed to talk to someone.”
“Why not Meredith?”
He shook his head. “I don't...” he began, unable to finish.
He'd gotten used to this, he realized. Having Dr. Wyatt as a sounding board. A woman who was compensated monetarily to help him sort things out. He felt a lot less like he was unfairly burdening her than he did with Meredith, who, though she never said a word to the contrary, never told him to shut up or go away when he needed somebody, even at her own expense, had grown more and more tired of entertaining his insecurities as the weeks had dragged onward. Her slipping patience with him that morning when he'd been less than articulate only confirmed the heaps of strain he'd piled onto their relationship.
“It's okay if you don't know why,” Dr. Wyatt said with a warm smile, misinterpreting his churning silence. “What's important is that you realize you made a choice to come here.”
“I... did.”
She nodded. “You definitely did,” she said. “You make a lot of choices. Every day. I want you to start tabulating them. Just for a few days, until you're thinking about the choices you make by rote.”
“Okay.”
She smiled at him, her gaze bright, encouraging. “We'll get there, Derek. I don't know when, but we will. Okay?”
“Okay,” he said.
Dr. Wyatt glanced at her watch. “Unless you want to talk about something else, I think that's a good stopping point for today. Do you agree?”
He nodded mutely.
“Okay,” she said, smiling. “Take your time if you need it. I'm going to work on my lunch before it gets too soggy.” She returned to her desk and picked at what was left of her salad, leaving him be to think and reassemble without scrutiny.
He stared at his knees, trying to gather the flayed remnants of all his thoughts. A tired headache had flared behind his eyes, throbbing, crushing. He didn't have any idea what he would do if Dr. Kepner filed a complaint with HR. He wasn't sure how he'd get through the rest of the workday, or how he would even begin to function socially at Joe's that night. He didn't know how he'd tell Meredith what he'd done that day, either. How close he'd come, but he needed to. He needed to tell her, if only to preserve the trust he was trying so hard to rebuild in the wake of squandering it.
He rubbed the remnant of his bullet wound through his lab coat and scrubs.
Not your fault, the small voice whispered again.
With his unlocked memories, a small piece of chaos in the disorder had corrected itself, at least. He wiped his irritated eyes, trying to compose himself enough to leave Dr. Wyatt's office and go to lunch. Not my fault, he thought, echoing, testing out the words with his own voice and timbre as he remembered the bullet cleaving his insides. He would take it, he decided. The hope. He wanted it. Wanted to keep it. A small piece of hope that things were getting better despite how horrible he felt. Even a small piece of hope was a lot more than he'd had before, and Mr. Clark, for once, said nothing.
Not your fault, the little voice repeated in Mr. Clark's absence, and Derek listened.
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Pairing: Mer/Der
Rating: M
Summary: S6 continuation. Immediately post Sanctuary / Death and All His Friends.
In which we conclude Derek's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. And Derek fights back tooth and nail.
I am officially crumbling under the weight of my own cliffhanger. Apparently, panicking, upset readers are my kryptonite, so I finished editing ahead of schedule, and I'm posting this now instead of tomorrow. I think this experiment proved to me that splitting chapters like this is a bad freaking idea. To those who requested shorter pieces, I'm really sorry :( But I think I'm going to go back to posting large chunks so that people can read the entire rise/fall and conclusion of action at once if they want to. If something splits well like 18 or 20, I'll split it. Otherwise, it's up to you to read in smaller pieces. Deal? :)
WARNING!!! There are serious, adult themes and concepts as well as graphic violence depicted in this chapter. I'm rating this chapter specifically M, and not for porny goodness. I'm not kidding, and I'm not hesitant about this rating. Please, plan accordingly.
All Along The Watchtower - Part 21.4
Amy, he'd said. You need to stop doing this. You told me--
This-is-th'last-time, she'd slurred. I swear.
He stopped dead in the bright hallway as he thought of the time, long ago, when he'd watched her ride off into the rain in a blue Firebird, stoned out of her mind. He'd gotten the bright idea, in his subsequent frustration, to chase after her on his Harley. In the pouring rain. In the dark. Without a helmet or protective gear. He'd been lucky to walk away from that bout of idiocy with a concussion and an impaled thigh, and he'd only been a helpless bystander to Amelia's downward spiral.
He clenched his fists. Sense and reason returned with the scream of skidding tires in his head.
What would happen to Meredith? Or Mark? Or any of the countless people who'd stepped up to the plate to keep this jagged rock bottom from cutting him open again? They were all his helpless bystanders.
Best case scenario, he'd be leaving the woman he loved to raise a child alone. Their child. A woman who had an abandonment complex bigger than four Mount Rainiers stacked end to end. His lip quivered as he thought of all the promises he'd made her.
I can't say it won't hurt, but you'll do great. And I'll be there the whole time.
That would be a lie if he choked right now. He pulled the prescription from his pocket and stared at it. At the siren call toward deliverance.
But I won't take it. I don't have any; I swear.
He blinked. That would be a lie, too. Revulsion washed over him when he realized what he'd done, and before he suffered another attack of morality decay in the wake of desperation, he ripped the sheet of paper into illegible smithereens and stuffed the confetti into the nearest trashcan. He'd nearly turned every good thing that had happened in the last thirty days into a giant fucking lie.
Nausea crashed into him like a wave. He'd probably just gotten himself fired, too. He'd practically assaulted a coworker. Threatened her. Extorted her. All for a fucking prescription. And he'd liked it. He'd liked watching her snivel and shake.
“I told you,” Mr. Clark said, a snarl in Derek's ear. “You are a sick. Depraved. Fuck.”
Indecision tore at him. He didn't know what to do. Find April? Apologize? She'd probably run the other direction the second she saw him, and he couldn't blame her for it, either. He'd acted reprehensible.
He closed his eyes for a minute, thinking. Panicking, really. What was he supposed to do, now?
“Ticktock, ticktock,” said Mr. Clark. Then he laughed and hummed the Jeopardy theme.
Derek stood in the middle of the hallway, frozen in that moment of realization and irresolution. What the fuck had he done? And what, now? Autopilot kicked in when gibbering upset wouldn't let him think beyond the sinking pull of dread. Instinct and nothing else yanked him through the searing, bright halls.
He didn't knock. Dr. Wyatt looked up as he stepped inside her office. She sat at her desk in front of a leafy salad piled high on a ceramic plate. Clumps of drippy, dressing-covered lettuce fell from her fork. Her temples pulsed underneath her skin as she chewed. She took a long look at him, frowned, and glanced at her watch.
She swallowed her bite of salad. “Derek, you're early,” she said.
He stood in the center of the room, a lost, lonely island. “I'm sorry,” he said. Or croaked. He blinked, and the room in front of his eyelashes shimmered. “Is this a bad time?”
He closed his eyes. Please, please, don't be a bad time. He didn't know where else to go.
“I'm eating my lunch,” she said.
He swallowed. “I'm sorry,” he said.
He blinked, and he lost it. All over again. All semblance of dignity and poise and everything that made him the smallest bit human.
“You're a weak, sniveling wreck,” said Mr. Clark.
Derek tried to glance at his watch, but the wall of tears veiled the time. He couldn't see more than blurry, bright shapes. He didn't know why he bothered to look, anyway. Meredith might not even be in the building anymore, and if she was gone, she would have just finished a thirty-six hour shift. He couldn't heap all of this on top of her. Not today. Not after how much he'd leaned on her already this morning. But who else was there? Who else was there that he could share everything with? He didn't know.
He turned toward the door, adrift.
“No, no,” Dr. Wyatt rushed to say. “Stay. We can do your session early. What did you want to talk about?”
He opened his mouth, but he couldn't speak. All he did was leak.
“Why don't you sit?” Dr. Wyatt prodded. She pointed toward her couch with her fork. She took another mouthful of lettuce and brushed a wave of graying hair behind her ear while she chewed.
He sat on her couch in her tiny, cheerful, orange office. The rainbow of fish swam back and forth, and the water in the tank burbled. The room smelled flowery. Everything seemed bright and warm and too much when he felt cold and awful in comparison.
He wiped his face with the backs of his shaky hands. His skin felt raw. “I just extorted a coworker for a Percocet prescription,” he admitted. It felt good to admit. To spill himself on the table for her and let her figure out how to approach this nightmare. Tiredness made his head ache.
“You really fucked up, this time,” Mr. Clark said.
Dr. Wyatt wiped her mouth with a paper napkin, and she left her half-eaten salad behind on the desk as she picked up her notepad and settled into the chair across from the couch. She regarded him for a long, discerning moment. “Did you fill the prescription?”
“I tore it up and threw it out.”
“That's a good sign.”
“Extortion is a good sign?” he said. “I'll probably get fired.”
“You didn't take drugs,” she countered. “You came here, instead.”
“So?”
“Derek, if it were easy to overcome addiction there wouldn't be such vast resources dedicated to it. You might not have overcome addiction, yet, but you just won a serious battle.”
“By extorting my coworker?” he said, incredulous.
She gave him a sheepish grin. “Well, no. But the extortion created several paths for you, and you chose one that didn't end inevitably with drug use. That's a start.”
“That's not a start,” he said, vehemence shaking his tone. “What I did was disgusting.”
She nodded, deep understanding in her eyes. “You're an ethical person,” she said. “Addictions counteract ethics, and that can be upsetting. You're making progress, whether you believe it or not.”
He put his elbows on his knees and pressed his face into his hands. He pulled his fingers through his tangled hair. “I don't feel like I've fixed anything.”
“And maybe you haven't, yet, but you've got your toolbox and a blueprint,” she said. “That's much better than before.”
“Why does it feel like this, then?”
She gave him a wry look. “Ever heard the expression the cure is worse than the disease?”
She scribbled on her notepad. He let the sound of it soothe him. He rubbed the soft knees of his scrubs with his palms.
“I think I like hurting people,” he said.
He looked up at Dr. Wyatt, who stared back at him with an even gaze that didn't judge. She didn't recoil or tell him how twisted he was. She shifted in her chair, recrossed her legs, and motioned for him to give her more. “Why do you think that?” she prodded.
“I have dreams,” he said. He closed his eyes, and he wiped his face. His skin felt sticky from crying. Hot. “About killing, and...”
“And, now, this?” Dr. Wyatt said. “The extortion?”
He nodded.
“You threatened this coworker?”
I'm still your boss, you know, he'd said. I could easily take this 'job opportunity' away again.
He nodded again.
“What about Meredith?” Dr. Wyatt said.
He looked up. “What about her?”
“Do you think about hurting her?”
Revulsion coursed through him. “No, of course not.”
“What about me?”
“No...”
She raised her eyebrows. “Anybody else specific?”
He didn't speak.
“Who did you extort for the prescription?” Dr. Wyatt said.
He looked back at his knees. “Dr. Kepner.”
“How did you feel when you did it?”
He shrugged. “I don't know.”
“Liar,” said Mr. Clark. “You felt good. You wanted to watch her cry.”
Derek put his head in his hands. “I... liked it,” he said.
Dr. Wyatt regarded him for a long, quiet moment. “You've told me that Dr. Kepner was involved in your shooting, yes?” she said.
Dr. Shepherd! Thank god, you're back!
His hands shook. Why had he remembered that, now? After so many months? He'd had the flashback of his shooting so many times he couldn't count the instances anymore, but he'd never remembered that little piece. The part where he'd felt the bullet pierce him. It'd been a blank in his head, but now, when he thought about it, he could recall everything.
From the way his ears seemed to pop, to the muffled sounds in the shot's wake. He hadn't been able to understand what April had been saying. He'd always assumed it was just the confusion of the moment. Now, he realized the loud sound of gunfire had shocked his ears into momentary dysfunction. He remembered the feel of the bullet as it incinerated a path inside of him. Remembered the explosive bloom of pain under his left breast, like a hot poker had been rammed underneath his nipple until the burning end touched his spine.
“Derek?” Dr. Wyatt said.
He blinked, realizing he'd been sitting there, fingering the remnant of his wound for who knew how long. His chest twinged. “Yes,” he said. “She was there.”
“Was the shooting her fault?”
“No,” Derek said.
“That's right,” said Mr. Clark. “It was your fault.”
“You don't sound convinced about that,” Dr. Wyatt said.
Derek blinked. You did this to me, he'd told Dr. Kepner. You made me this person.
He swallowed.
“Do you blame her, Derek? It's okay if you do.”
Something cold constricted in his chest. He clenched his fists until his hands ached. He opened his mouth and only a hiss of air popped loose. He took a slow, deep breath. “I got him to lower his gun, and then she came,” he said.
Dr. Wyatt nodded. More scribbling. “So, you do blame her.”
“It's my fault he was at the hospital,” Derek said. “Not hers.”
“Is it?”
“He came for me.”
“And we've talked a lot about your feelings of guilt over the people who were killed while Mr. Clark was looking for you,” Dr. Wyatt replied. “But what about you? What about when you got shot? You said you got Mr. Clark to lower his weapon.”
“I did,” Derek said. He ran his hands through his hair, agitated. “I never remembered the rest before...”
“But, now, you do?”
He shook his head as the moment replayed in his head. Dr. Shepherd! Thank god, you're back! “She ran up behind me while I was talking to a man holding a gun. What person does that? Why did she...?”
He blinked tears as he felt the bullet ram into him. Again, again, again. A burning echo. It hurt. It hurt so much, and he'd always thought Mr. Clark would have done it, regardless, because he'd been hellbent on exacting his judgments, but there'd been a moment when he hadn't been hellbent at all, and the ceasefire hadn't been broken by Derek.
You stood up to him, Meredith had said as though it were some sort of definitive thing. You were brave. You got him to lower his gun. As if it hadn't been a glitch on the way to bone-shattering inevitability. I watched, Derek. I saw that.
He hadn't understood why Meredith would fixate on that moment, before. Now, he realized she'd watched April throw a grenade without the pin on a situation he'd almost had under control. The idea that he hadn't caused these crushing months of misery for himself with his own cowardice... Something lightened inside. Something small, but noticeable.
Not your fault, a hesitant voice said in his head. Not Gary Clark's rough growl. Something softer and forgiving. Perhaps his Mirror Meredith, giving him a respite. He didn't know. He rocked in his chair as unbearable despair became something... less. Not gone. Not hardly. But less. Like an ache had receded that he'd suffered for so long that he'd forgotten what it felt like to live without it. The absence allowed him to breathe through his discomfort instead of be squished by it, and it felt...
Better.
He wiped his eyes. He realized he wanted to ask Meredith about what she'd seen when he'd been shot. She'd asked him once what he remembered. He'd never asked her about her experience. Was there more he didn't remember? Some other set of dots he'd connected wrong because his head was a mess?
Maybe. Maybe not. But he wanted to know her version of events.
“Let's go back to the dreams you mentioned,” Dr. Wyatt said, her soft voice interrupting the watercolor memories blotched before his eyes. “Tell me about them.”
I'm going to snap your fucking neck.
Derek shuddered as he remembered his hands. Squeezing.
“I dream about killing Mr. Clark,” he said. “I try to strangle him. Then I take his gun, and I shoot him.”
“Is there anybody else in this dream when you kill?”
Lawyers. At the beginning, there'd been lawyers. So, she was alive, until you withdrew care, until you pulled the plug, one of them had said when he'd tried to explain. But then he'd leaped across the table at Mr. Clark, and everybody in the room had faded away like dispersing mist. There'd been only Derek and Mr. Clark, interlocked in a vicious, violent, bloody struggle. One that always ended with Derek staring down at Mr. Clark as Mr. Clark's life bled away on the catwalk. Alone.
“Not when I kill,” Derek said.
“Ever?” Dr. Wyatt prodded.
“No.”
“So, the only two people in this hemisphere of desired harm were involved with your shooting,” she replied.
He shrugged. “I guess.”
“Why do you guess and not know?”
“What if there's somebody else, and I just haven't run across him?” Derek frowned. “Her. Them. I don't know.”
“Somebody else you want to hurt?” Dr. Wyatt said.
“Yes.”
“I don't know.”
He glowered. “What do you mean, you don't know?”
She shrugged as if his worries didn't matter. “I mean I don't know what would happen if there's somebody else, but I think, based on your established pattern, that it's pretty safe to assume there's nobody else until there's somebody else. I don't think extrapolation is warranted here.”
“Why?” he demanded. “I dreamed about shooting somebody, and then I threatened a coworker.”
She leaned back in her chair. The wood creaked, and the cushion rustled. She tapped her pen on her notepad. “Derek, do you understand what targeted violence is?”
“I don't understand any of this,” he said, a sick feeling coiling in his stomach.
“It's the ultimate power exchange,” she said. “There's a winner and a loser. It's easy to feel mighty when your opponent is at your mercy.”
“You're saying I want to feel powerful?”
“I'm saying there are two people in this world who we know engendered deep, unshakeable feelings of helplessness and horror for you, feelings so unshakeable they caused you to develop a mental illness, and I don't think your reaction to either Gary Clark or Dr. Kepner has anything to do with loving violence,” she said.
“What does it have to do with, then?”
She leaned toward him. “What do you think it has to do with?” she asked.
“Taking control?” he hazarded.
“Of a sort,” she said with a nod. “I'd imagine enduring severe trauma is a bit like being stripped against your will. It can be dehumanizing, terrifying. I think of the actions you've described to me as an attempt at reestablishing a sense of self. Sort of... resetting the balance of power within yourself to a level you feel capable of enduring.”
He shook his head despite the hope welling in his gut. You're not a sadist, Meredith had said, and now, despite what he'd done, a second source, a more impartial one, seemed to be agreeing. He rocked in his seat at the twisting uncertainty. “I don't want to reestablish anything,” he said, blinking back tears he couldn't help. “I want to make all of this stop. I want to make the dreams stop. I don't kill people. I'm a doctor to save people.”
Dr. Wyatt smiled. “Well, that's the good news.”
“What's even remotely good about this?”
“Consciously or subconsciously, you're reaching for equilibrium right now. One of the people who took your control away is dead. You can't reset the balance of power anywhere but in your subconscious, so, you dream. One is living, and you interacted with her in a way that set you up as the superior in the situation.”
“How the hell is that good?”
“I think these sessions will help you, in the long run, with finding a healthier outlet for all these feelings you have,” she said. “We can redirect your reaching for balance and control to somewhere more socially appropriate.”
He rubbed the bridge of his nose. It was a little too late for that, now that he'd done something so socially inappropriate he could get fired. “When?” he said. Painful breaths chuffed in his chest as he squeezed his fingers. “Soon?”
“I'd be lying if I tried to give you any specific answer,” she replied.
He put his head in his hands.
“Let's start with a little exercise,” she said. “I want you to start thinking about things in terms of what you're deciding for yourself.”
He rubbed his face. “What do you mean?”
“Have you been to lunch, yet?” she said.
He frowned. What did lunch have to do with anything? “No...” he said.
“When you go, and you pick what you're going to eat, I want you to tell yourself what you picked and why you picked it, and I want you to jot it down.”
His frowned deepened. “That's...”
“I know it sounds really silly, but it does add up,” she said. “When you go home today, I want you to tell yourself why you're choosing to leave work at that moment. Jot it down. When you change into your PJs, maybe stop and ask yourself why you picked those PJs. Jot that down.”
“But that's--”
“By drawing attention to the choices you make, even the small ones, you're going to start realizing exactly how much power you do still have over your own life,” she said. “I mean, why did you come here early today?”
“I needed to talk to someone.”
“Why not Meredith?”
He shook his head. “I don't...” he began, unable to finish.
He'd gotten used to this, he realized. Having Dr. Wyatt as a sounding board. A woman who was compensated monetarily to help him sort things out. He felt a lot less like he was unfairly burdening her than he did with Meredith, who, though she never said a word to the contrary, never told him to shut up or go away when he needed somebody, even at her own expense, had grown more and more tired of entertaining his insecurities as the weeks had dragged onward. Her slipping patience with him that morning when he'd been less than articulate only confirmed the heaps of strain he'd piled onto their relationship.
“It's okay if you don't know why,” Dr. Wyatt said with a warm smile, misinterpreting his churning silence. “What's important is that you realize you made a choice to come here.”
“I... did.”
She nodded. “You definitely did,” she said. “You make a lot of choices. Every day. I want you to start tabulating them. Just for a few days, until you're thinking about the choices you make by rote.”
“Okay.”
She smiled at him, her gaze bright, encouraging. “We'll get there, Derek. I don't know when, but we will. Okay?”
“Okay,” he said.
Dr. Wyatt glanced at her watch. “Unless you want to talk about something else, I think that's a good stopping point for today. Do you agree?”
He nodded mutely.
“Okay,” she said, smiling. “Take your time if you need it. I'm going to work on my lunch before it gets too soggy.” She returned to her desk and picked at what was left of her salad, leaving him be to think and reassemble without scrutiny.
He stared at his knees, trying to gather the flayed remnants of all his thoughts. A tired headache had flared behind his eyes, throbbing, crushing. He didn't have any idea what he would do if Dr. Kepner filed a complaint with HR. He wasn't sure how he'd get through the rest of the workday, or how he would even begin to function socially at Joe's that night. He didn't know how he'd tell Meredith what he'd done that day, either. How close he'd come, but he needed to. He needed to tell her, if only to preserve the trust he was trying so hard to rebuild in the wake of squandering it.
He rubbed the remnant of his bullet wound through his lab coat and scrubs.
Not your fault, the small voice whispered again.
With his unlocked memories, a small piece of chaos in the disorder had corrected itself, at least. He wiped his irritated eyes, trying to compose himself enough to leave Dr. Wyatt's office and go to lunch. Not my fault, he thought, echoing, testing out the words with his own voice and timbre as he remembered the bullet cleaving his insides. He would take it, he decided. The hope. He wanted it. Wanted to keep it. A small piece of hope that things were getting better despite how horrible he felt. Even a small piece of hope was a lot more than he'd had before, and Mr. Clark, for once, said nothing.
Not your fault, the little voice repeated in Mr. Clark's absence, and Derek listened.