Lightning Strikes Twice - Part 14

[ariaadagio]

Title: Lightning Strikes Twice
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Pairing: Duh.  (Mer/Der)
Rating: M
Timeline: Post Time After Time.

~~~~~

Meredith was in a daze.  She'd spent the morning beset by Derek's nieces and nephews.  They'd cajoled her into playing twister.  And hide and seek.  And tag.  And all sorts of other things.  She hadn't gotten this much exercise in a long, long time.  She could almost remember everyone's names...  Almost.  There were a couple of the littler ones whose names still escaped her, since they didn't talk much to begin with.

It seemed as though the entire Shepherd population below age twelve had realized the chink in her armor.  She, unlike Derek's sisters and the rest of his family, couldn't say no to sucked thumbs and pouty faces.  And, like little sharks, they'd gone in for the kill.

She'd just lost a game of hide-and-seek and had finally managed to extricate herself, only to get yanked into another family thing moments later.  A family kitchen thing.

"Meredith!"  Sarah waved a batter-covered spatula haphazardly in the air as Meredith wandered out into the kitchen for a glass of water.  "Come help me with this."

Meredith froze and stared.  Sarah stood over the counter.  Cookie sheets were everywhere.  Bowls.  Batter.  Chocolate chips.  Stuff.  Stuff that she usually relegated all to the category 'Izzie things'.  As such, 'Izzie things' often remained an unidentified curiosity, because Meredith really just didn't care much.

Sarah was a tall and spindly woman.  Her dark hair was piled high atop her head in a messy ponytail, half of it looped back under into a faux bun, half of it spilling down the back of her neck in a sloppy waterfall, but it was a controlled sort of messy, the kind that was styled to look that way, not the kind that arrived from lack of caring.   Her hair was dark enough that Meredith couldn't tell if it was black or brown, but it was too light to be labeled definitively as midnight.  Sarah wore an apron several sizes too big for her, making her lithe, probably size zero figure into something that seemed even more bony and insignificant.  Her face was sharp and pointed, pretty, like an elongated, feminine version of Derek.  Where Derek had a nice chin with a subtle cleft, Sarah's tapered to a point.  Her face was thinner, more symmetrical, more... manicured.  To be honest, she didn't look at all like she fit there behind the counter.  She had an Addison vibe about her.  Too pretty, too elegant to be in love with baking cookies in a dirty, oversized apron.

"I..." Meredith said, pausing as Sarah licked a spoon in a very not elegant way, and her manicured face collapsed into unadulterated manicured bliss.  "I don't bake," she finished, the words weak and faint.

Sarah smacked her lips.  Her tongue briefly appeared as she scraped dough off the roof of her mouth.  She moaned at the taste, but the sound built into words without pause.  "Oh, come on," she said.  "You can cut apart somebody's brain, but you can't read a recipe?  I don't buy it."

Meredith opened her mouth and then closed it as Sarah stared her down, making her feel like an insignificant drip despite the fact that, while Sarah was several inches taller, she probably weighed pounds less.  Meredith found herself looking down at the bowl nearest to her.  There was a mess of unmixed junk in it.  Chocolate chips.  Butter.  Eggs.  Stuff.  Izzie things.  She'd been roped in.

"Uh..." she muttered as her hand snaked down to grip the long wooden handle of the spoon that waited there for her.  What are you doing, hand, she wanted to ask, even as her fingers flexed around the grip.  She didn't bake.  She... This was Izzie stuff!

"Just stir it," Sarah prodded with a smile.  "The spoon won't bite."

"Okay."  Meredith started to work the batter.  She'd really only wanted a glass of water...

"So," Sarah began without precursor.  "I woke up to the most interesting sound..."

The spoon slipped from her grip as it caught on a pile of batter and chips.  Meredith's hand flung outward, and she grunted as a blush ran like fire up from her chest to her cheeks and everywhere in between.  "Sorry," she said as she captured the spoon again.

Sarah stared at her.

"We were trying to be quiet..." Meredith found herself babbling.  "Well, I was, at least.  I don't know if Derek cares.  He didn't seem to think much modesty was required on the plane trip over when he was suggesting... Er.  I mean."  She stirred, and stirred, and stirred.  Her hand started to hurt as she ground into the batter like it was her own personal vendetta against all things batter-like and kitcheny.  "You know, you really should just shut me up," she continued, barely taking a breath.  "You probably don't want to hear about your brother and his depraved, porny thoughts.  And by depraved and porny," she said, stirring harder.  "I mean totally G-rated and fluffy and not going anywhere near my pants.  And by pants, I mean..."  Don't mention tip number four.  Don't think about Cosmo.  Don't picture--  "Um.  Shoes?  Why does nobody shut me up when I babble?"

"Meredith," Sarah interrupted her with a laugh.  "Take a breath."

The spoon slipped away.  She forced herself to stop.  "Sorry," she muttered as she closed her eyes and internally counted to ten.  No, twenty.  Maybe twenty-five.  She was acting like a complete fool...  Bimbo slutty homewrecker, now, maybe.  She pictured neutral Sarah clickity clacking along the New York streets in gorgeous, two-hundred-dollar stilettos, approaching Nancy's negative corner with pomp and elegance.  It really just wasn't any fair.

But Sarah only laughed again.  It was a bright, twinkly-sounding thing, not condescending at all.  "Trust me," Sarah said.  "With Mark in the family, well, essentially in the family, we're really just a pack of desensitized letches at heart.  I doubt anybody cared.  And, honey, if that was you two trying to be quiet, I really, really pity your neighbors."

"My roommates complain a lot," Meredith replied.

"You have roommates?"

"Yes.  I rent the other bedrooms in my house."

Sarah raised a perfectly sculpted eyebrow.  "Oh?"

"Yeah," Meredith said.  "Other interns."  She wondered why Sarah sounded so surprised by all this.  Interns were notoriously poor.  Of course they'd shack up together.

"Must be a busy house."

"Yeah.  With four doctors living there, somebody is always coming or going."

"I can imagine," Sarah said.

"So, why isn't Mark here?" Meredith asked.

The sculpted eyebrow went up again.  "Pardon?"

"Well, you said Mark was practically family.  Why isn't he here?"

"Well," Sarah began, suddenly hesitant.  A bluster of emotions slipped across her face.  Meredith thought she could pick out, at the very least, sadness.  Sarah arrived at wherever her thoughts were taking her, her lips parted, and a wordless syllable came out, almost like um, but not really.  She finally shrugged and said, "Mom didn't invite him this year."

"Because of Derek?" Meredith asked.

Sarah gave her a smile that was definitely sad.  "Mom didn't think he'd come if he thought Mark would be here."

Meredith frowned at that.  Why would these people have such a hard time choosing their brother by blood over Mark?  "You sound like you miss him..." Meredith said.

"We all do.  He's...  Well, he's Mark.  I know he did a stupid thing with Addison... but...  He's family.  He grew up with us as family.  Since before Dad died.  You don't push away your family just because they do stupid things."

Meredith swallowed.  "I can't really relate," she said flatly.  She kept stirring when Sarah nodded mutely and didn't reply.  The other woman looked disturbed, but she didn't say anything, didn't ask, and Meredith found herself grateful to the point that the relief made her grip fail.  The spoon slipped away again.

She glanced down at the counter, noticing for the first time the stained, slightly crumpled index card caught underneath the foot of the mixing bowl.  She leaned forward and read the loopy, curling handwriting.  Maybe this was some super secret family recipe...

"Hey," she said as her eyes halted on line seven.  "This says to use an electric beater."

And then she noticed the electric beater, sitting on the counter just behind Sarah, gleaming, unused.

Sarah grinned.  "Yes, but how else was I going to rope you into chatting?  You're very darty..."

"I don't dart," Meredith said with a snort.  "I... walk fast."

A burble of laughter pealed between the two of them, and Meredith resumed stirring just for the hell of it.  "Also known as darting," Sarah confirmed.

"I have the strangest suspicion I've been had," Meredith muttered.

Sarah moved her own bowl next to one of the waiting cookie sheets and started plopping little quarter-sized dollops of batter down, evenly spaced.  Every other other dollop ended up in her mouth, but Meredith supposed that was one of the benefits to being the baker.  Discretionary dessert robbery.

"Listen, Mere," Sarah said after a particularly large robbery.  She paused to lick her fingers.  "Mere is okay right?"

Meredith nodded.  "Yeah."

"I mostly just wanted to tell you to not worry about Nancy," Sarah said.  "She's been acting weird for weeks now.  Kathy and I are trying to pry it out of her, but, well, the point is, it's not you."

Meredith sighed.  "Thanks.  I just wish she would leave Derek alone.  He doesn't need this right now."

Sarah nodded sympathetically.  She put her cookie sheet into the oven and started mixing up another batch.

The two of them worked, and worked, and shortly after, Meredith's first batch had been committed to its very own cookie sheet and subsequent dessert robbery, though Meredith had limited herself to every other other other dollop.  She wondered if it was petty that she felt slightly smug that she was more resistant to temptation than perfect, elegant Sarah.  It probably was, but she couldn't help it.

Meredith sighed against the smooth, sugary taste of fresh cookie dough.  Her eyes dripped open from the bliss just in time to see Ellen wander in from the hall.  "Oh," Ellen said, honeyed and deep as she sighed and let a lithe hand fall against her chest in a swooning gesture.  "It smells so good in here."

"I'm baking up a couple batches for an afternoon snack," Sarah explained.  She held out her spatula.  A healthy glob of batter stuck on to the tip.

Ellen shook her head.  "I'll have one when they're cooled."  She turned to scrutinize Meredith.

"I'm stirring," Meredith said, finding herself smiling and not really knowing why.  This was actually kind of fun...  "Not baking."

Ellen laughed.  She settled down onto a chair at the kitchen table with a weary sigh, and the smile on her face faded as she ran her hands up over her face.

"What's up, Mom?" Sarah asked.

"I'm worried about Der," she said.  "He's sleeping in the den right now.  Should he still be this tired?  This... incapacitated?"

Meredith frowned and focused on the batter in the bowl.  Chips swirled under the tip of the spoon.  Her fingers flexed as she dragged the spoon through the mixture, around and around, almost hypnotically.

"I don't know, Mom," Sarah replied.  "Concussion symptoms should generally go away within three days or so, which we're just shy of.  But if he was out for twenty odd minutes...  Well, that, on top of him being stressed out about his amnesia, on top of the motorcycle accident and the past concussion..."  Sarah wiped her hands on one of the kitchen towels and went to sit with Ellen.  "I'm not surprised he's really suffering...  He's the specialist, though.  Maybe we should ask him?  I haven't done concussions since I was an intern."

Ellen frowned.  She picked up one of the placemats and started worrying at it with her fingers.  "I don't think he's being entirely honest about how bad he's feeling.  I'm not sure he would be a good person to ask."

Sarah and Ellen both looked at Meredith.  So focused on the batter, it took her a moment to realize that the conversation had stopped, and they were both looking at her.  She stopped her stirring cold and swallowed.  They cared about what she thought?

"Um," Meredith stuttered.  "Well, I agree.  With Sarah.  Plus, especially with his history, he's very likely to develop PCS, which might make symptoms persist a lot longer."

Ellen looked confused.  "PCS?"

"Er...  Sorry," Meredith said.  "Post concussion syndrome.  There's no real treatment for it beyond giving prescriptions to address the symptoms."

"How long does that last?"

Meredith shrugged.  "It can be long term.  Up to a year."

She had really hoped that Derek would escape the problems of post concussion syndrome, but the more she thought about it, the more worried she became.  She'd thought, though obviously still sick, he'd been a lot better that morning.  Then again, he'd been awake for all of, what, an hour or two, before he'd gone back to sleep?  And, despite his obvious arousal, he hadn't really been all that enthusiastic about having sex until she'd pretty much jumped him.  He was an otherwise healthy, fit adult.  The prolonged exhaustion was worrying.

"It could also be a pituitary imbalance..." Meredith mused.  "Or a bleed that got missed earlier.  Or any number of other things that are slow to show up after a head injury..."

Ellen gave up on the placemat and clutched the edge of the table.  Her fingers whitened.  "Should we take him back to the hospital?"

"Well," Meredith said.  She gave up on the stirring and sat down at the table with Sarah and Ellen.  "Unless he starts having really bad, persistent headaches, seizures, or acts confused, I think it's safe to just wait until he goes back to get his stitches out on Thursday."

Ellen's frown deepened.  "He had a headache.  I had to make him take ibuprofen."

Sarah reached across the table and rubbed her mother's hands.  "We'll just have to keep a closer eye on him," she said, soothing, low, almost mothering to the mother.  "I'll tell Kathy, Nance, and Nat.  Don't worry."

Meredith swallowed.  Don't worry.  Hah.  She'd been concerned that the hospital had let him go too soon.  She'd given him the prescription for dizziness in an attempt to help.  But what if she'd missed something else?

No, she decided.  No, it was probably just PCS.

For some reason, despite her forced certainty, a quivery, panicky, flippity flop of nerves bundled into her stomach.  She swallowed again and stood.  "You said he was in the den?" she asked, suddenly overwhelmed with the intense need to make sure with her own eyes that everything was fine.

"Yes, dear," Ellen replied.

His family seemed to be relying on her medical advice.  Hers.  And she wasn't even out of her internship yet.  The prospect of a misdiagnosis, which interns often made, was terrifying.  She tried not to flinch as a twisting flash of Derek naked on the gurney, throwing up, unable to help himself, tore across her mind's eye.  Her body twitched forward in a panicked, tripping stride, but Sarah grabbed her arm before she could make it any farther.

"Oh, hey," Sarah said. "Can you take the overflow out to the trashcan please since you're up?  It's just out the back door at the foot of the deck."  Sarah pointed to the bag full of 'Izzie thing' remnants and other trash that sat by the wide glass doors.

No, Meredith wanted to say.  She wanted to go to the den.  "Sure," she said.

She darted outside with the bag in hand, running, trying not to let her panicking make her slip onto her ass and twist or break something.  She dropped the bag into the trashcan sort of like a drive-by gunman tossing his piece and fleeing from the cops.  She skipped back up the steps of the deck, taking them two at a time, only to skid to a stop at the top.

Nancy sat at the far corner of the deck in a sliding rocker chair.  She had her face in her hands.  Her body trembled, and little hiccupping sobs were audible.

Meredith looked back at the door to the house.  She hop, hop, hopped a little forward on her feet, but something made her stay, made her stay and ask, "Is something wrong?"

Nancy looked up and glared.  Her face was red and puffy, and her cheeks were covered with the damp film of smeared tears.  "What do you care?" she snapped, her voice low, throaty, and hollow.

"I..." Meredith began, and then she thought better of it.  "Never mind."

She took three more steps toward the door, only to halt again as something visceral pulled on her reins.  "You know, Nancy," she said as she slammed to a stop and turned to face her opponent.  "I don't know what your problem is.  But if you could stop taking it out on Derek and me...  If you could do that...  Well, that would be nice."

There.  She'd said it.

"Great," Nancy said with a bitter laugh.  "Sure."  She crossed her arms and looked away in silent dismissal.

Meredith sighed and walked back inside.

She burst into the den and found Derek there, breathing softly, tipped back in one of the lazy boys in the corner of the room.  For a moment, she paused, watching him.  Sunlight streamed down from the windows, washing his features out, accenting the dark circles under his eyes.  His lips were parted, and he was breathing deeply through his mouth.  His skin, pale, looked a little bloodless in the harsh daylight, especially against the black swath of stubble that he hadn't shaved away in three days, enough to almost be the beginnings of a real beard.

She walked over and collapsed next to him, the need to reassure herself more overwhelming than her desire to let him rest.  There was just enough room in the chair.  He flinched as she landed against him, but there was a considerable delay between the jerk that said she'd woken him up and the moment his eyelids slid open.

"Hey," she whispered as she lay along his length on her side, propping her face up with one hand.  She rubbed the palm of her other hand across the flat plane of his stomach.  His warmth seeped through the fabric of his ratty t-shirt and into her fingertips.

A bass, throaty noise, possibly a groan, wriggled up from his chest.  He swallowed.  "Meredith," he said, a whisper in return, groggy, not all awake.  He squinted at her and yawned like some sort of bear disturbed from hibernation.

She smiled.  She ran her fingers along his shoulder, his side, his arm, his leg, reassuring herself that he was fine.  And he did appear to be fine.  He did.  Tired, yes.  But fine.  His eyelids started to dip shut again.

"Sorry," she said.  "You can go back to sleep if you want."

His eyes snapped open and he blinked frantically.  "No," he said.  He reached up and scrubbed at his face.

"So," she said with a grin as he shifted a little so he was facing her.  "I stirred cookie batter."

He stared at her with muted curiosity.  "What?"

"In the kitchen.  I did a kitcheny thing," she clarified.

"How'd they convince you?"

"Lies.  Told me it needed to be stirred when, in fact, your mother owns a very nice electric beater."

He chuckled.  "Sarah, right?"

"Yeah," she said.

He smiled at her, relaxed, still not all awake, sort of like he was drifting there in a drugged doze.  His blinks came with glacial slowness.  She contented herself to lie there with him for a moment, trying to ignore the twisting pangs she felt at seeing how tired he really was.  She reached out and rubbed a palm against his beard.  He leaned into it with a listless sigh.

"Do you think it's the meclizine that's making you this sleepy?" she asked.

He gave her a helpless look.  "No idea.  I like having the floor stay where it is, though.  So, I'll take my chances."  He sounded woefully depressed about it.  She curled up against him, resting her head against his chest under the crook of his chin.

"I'm sorry you're feeling so bad," she said.  "I'm awful at the sick thing.  I'm sorry."

His arms tightened around her, but he didn't comment.

She splayed her fingers against his hip, listened as his breathing evened out.  She thought he might be asleep again, but she was afraid to ask for fear of waking him if he was.  She really was bad at the sick thing.  She didn't know what else to do for him.  He was so down.  And his mother was right.  He did seem nearly incapacitated...

Derek Shepherd!  Are you awake?  Do you know where you are?

She flinched against him at the memory.

"What?" he asked.  Apparently not sleeping, then.  Or her sudden jerk had woken him.  Either way, it made her feel bad.  Bad to be dumping this on him right now.

"It's nothing."  She sniffed.

He sighed, again a lifeless, listless sound.  "Mere..."

With just that one exhausted word, he broke through any further refusals she would have made.  She knew he didn't have the energy to force it out of her, but she also knew from his tone that he'd try.  She clutched at his shirt.  "Tell me about when you crashed your bike," she whispered.

He swallowed and shifted her out from underneath his chin.  He stared, his eyes hooded with discomfort.  "Why do you want to know?" he asked.  She felt the muscles of his arms stiffen.

"I'm not allergic to anything," she babbled.  "I had my tonsils out when I was nine.  My family seems to be rife with heart disease.  And I got my appendix removed recently, but you should remember that at some point on your own."

He frowned.  "What's this about, Mere?"

She stared at him as tears started to make her vision fuzzy.  "I couldn't fill out the forms.  When they wheeled you in.  I couldn't... And you were so sick, and I wanted to help, but I didn't know anything..."

He blinked once, twice.  Whatever resistance he'd been mounting fell away, but the awful look on his face made her regret badgering it out of him.  Not a happy memory.  Not a happy memory at all, from the way his features shifted into angst and the rest of his muscles tightened up.  But then, what should she have expected, if it was an accident bad enough to make him scared of motorcycles?  People who rode motorcycles already had a certain level of daring.  It was hard to take that away.

She rubbed his arms, hoping to comfort him.

"I was a second year resident," he said after a long, agonized pause.  His tone had fallen into clinical doctor speak, and it sort of scared her.  "I went out on my bike in the rain when I shouldn't have.  Mark was drunk and needed somebody to pick him up.  Addi had her car, mine was in the shop.  So, I took my Harley.  I hydroplaned and skidded into a telephone pole.  I was lying on the pavement for a good thirty minutes before somebody bothered to call the paramedics."

She gasped.  "Thirty minutes?  In New York?"

He shrugged, just a little helpless motion.  "It was dark and cold and raining, and it wasn't the greatest neighborhood.  My rib punctured a lung when I flipped over the bike and slammed into the curb, apparently, though I don't remember the landing.  I just remember lying there trying to breathe."

The silence after his recount was like a sack of weights, pressing down on her chest, crushing, crushing.  She wanted to cry, and was pressing herself as close to him as she could manage before she realized it.  He held her, though he didn't offer her any sort of comfort.  He seemed... disquieted.  She regretted ever asking.

"I didn't know," she whispered.

He swallowed.  "I don't like to talk about it."

"You don't seem to have the best luck with moving vehicles," she said after another long pause where they lay there curled in silence.

He chuckled.  Just a little, brief, gruff thing, but she was happy she'd managed to interject some levity.  "Yeah, well, a motorcycle was just asking for it, really..." he said.  "I'm not sure that counts.  Sulfa drugs, by the way."

"Allergic?"

"Yeah."

"Good to know..." she said.  "You know, for future outings.  Maybe I should drive from now on."

He scowled at her, but his eyes twinkled. "Very funny."

She leaned forward, already close enough to him that the motion was a bare wisp, and she met his lips with her own.  His hand curled and tightened just over her waist.  She breathed him in, searching, wanting.  His eyes slipped shut, and for the moments until she needed to breathe again, bliss fell over her.  She moaned, a brief, squeaky sound that he sucked away before it grew into something fuller.  The hand over her side roamed lower.

They broke apart moments later, only their soft panting interrupting the peace between them.

"Okay, Derek?" she said with a breathless chuckle as the skin on her chin started to sting.  "I know you feel like crap and all.  But the beard has got to go."

He frowned, though his face still betrayed some level of mirth.  He reached up and felt the stubble swathing his face.  "Oh, that is getting kind of bad," he admitted.  "Sorry."

They lay there for another few minutes, just relaxing.  Meredith almost felt tired herself, victim of the sudden lack of mobility and the soothing motions of his warm hands against her.  The smell of chocolate chip cookies wafted in slowly, building, building.  The sunlight filtering in from the window fell against her skin, soaking her with warmth, drowning her in a feeling of sloth.  She wanted to lie there forever in the space next to his soft breathing.

But then his breathing hitched.  His relaxed expression tightened.  He frowned, and his grip around her arm clenched to an almost painful degree.

"What is it?" she asked.

He blinked.  "You were knitting at a bar," he said abruptly.

"Um," she said, swallowing.  What?  "Yes, I did have a knitting phase."

"At a bar?"

She shrugged.  "It was an exercise in finding alternatives."

He squinted, his expression belying his confusion.  "Was that before Christmas?" he asked, his stare distant, looking through her, not at her.

She frowned.  "No..."

The blood drained from his face.  "Oh," he said.  He blinked, swallowed, stilled, and went very, very quiet.

"Derek?" she prodded.  "More memories?"

He ignored her question, and before she realized it, he was struggling, moving, grunting, trying to get up.  He let the chair down and half-stumbled to a standing position.  He started tilting to the right as his balance left him bereft, and she snaked her arms around his waist as soon as she could manage to stand.

"Where do you want to go?" she asked, worry twisting her in knots as he just stood there, panting.  It wasn't an out of breath sort of panting.  It was a distressed, emotional panting.  Each one was racked with a tiny bluster of vocalization, almost sobbing, but far, far too quiet to be classified as such.

He swallowed.  "I'm tired, Mere," he whispered, his voice... haunted, miserable.

"Okay," she said, trying desperately not to push him, not to prod him, not to yell at him to explain.  Something was definitely going on.  "To bed then?"

He stiffened and pulled away, shuffling, almost tripping, but managing. "I can do it," he snapped.

He made a long, slow journey back up to the bedroom.  She followed him, worried that he was going to fall over, but he wouldn't let her help whenever she got close.  He made no comment about her trailing a few steps behind, at least, but from the look on his face, he was concentrating mostly on not collapsing.

He made it to the bedroom, shakily dodging sisters and kids and mother.  Meredith frowned and shook her head at all the concerned looks she was getting.  When he finally collapsed into bed and closed his eyes, she felt like they'd just finished a marathon.

"Derek?" she asked in the darkness.

"I'm tired, Mere," he whispered, almost a sob, almost but not quite.  He rolled onto his side and sighed a heaving, weighted, distressed sigh.

Meredith didn't know what to do.  "Do you want company?"

The word that followed almost killed her.

"No."

She swallowed thickly and backed away.  "Sorry," she said.

He didn't answer as she forced herself back out of the bedroom.