Lightning Strikes Twice - Part 17

[ariaadagio]

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

Well, this is either stress relief for the finale refugees tomorrow... Or just homage to the awesomeness that MerDer will *obviously* prove to be.  (sigh)

~~~~~

"How about these?" Derek asked.  Meredith looked up to find Derek standing there in the dorkiest looking pair of sunglasses she'd ever seen.  They were the wide, fat kind that hung down over the wearer's cheeks, shaped like circles with the bottoms sagging out.

"Airplane pilot," she said, snickering.  "Not cool."  He frowned.

When they had left the house, Derek had barely made it a stride before he'd paused behind her.  His breath had come in a short, quick gasp of pain, and he'd wavered on the stoop.  Meredith had turned just in time to see him squeeze his eyes shut, forcing out a rush of tears.

"It's a little bright," he'd said as he'd brought his hands up to shield his face, and it had twisted at her heart.  Because it really hadn't been that bright out.  Just a normal, partly cloudy day.  They'd decided to stop at CVS for a quick remedy before proceeding to the restaurant once they'd figured out that his sunglasses must have been left in the rental car.  She'd loaned him her own for the trip there so he could at least see straight to give her directions, and, though they'd been woefully too small for him, they'd worked for him in a pinch.

Kathy had been gracious enough to loan out her Mercedes for their little day trip.  She'd been delighted, actually, when she'd heard that Derek felt well enough to go out.  She'd practically thrown the keys at them and shoved them out the door.

Derek put the airplane pilot glasses back and yanked the next pair off the rack.  "These?"

Meredith snorted.  "John Lennon.  Too retro."

"These?"

"Terminator.  So over."

"These?"

"Stoned biker.  Never in."

"Well, miss fashion expert," Derek said as he placed the fourth pair of sunglasses back on the rack.  "Why don't you pick ones that will work for you?"

She glanced at the rack, biting her lip as she fell deep into thought.  She pawed up and down the white turntable with the tips of her fingers, rotating it slowly to get a view of all the choices.  There.  Those were perfect.  And they'd look great against the shape of his face.

"Here," she said as she grabbed them off the rack.  They caught on the nose hook, but she lifted and scooped them into her hand.  "Sexy rock star.  Do you approve?"

He took them from her and put them on, shrugging as he got a view of himself in the little strip mirror between the rack plates.  "How are these different from Terminator?" he asked.  "Actually, how is Terminator different from stoned biker?  I'm a little unclear on the nuances of eyewear, apparently.  Care to elaborate?"

He quirked a grin at her, and her breath caught.  He really did look sexy in those.

"Oh, shut up, Derek," she said as she grabbed his arm and started pulling him to the front of the store.  He let her drag him along as he laughed.  "Sexy rock star.  That's all you should care about."

"Just don't ask me to sing," he groused.

"Rock stars don't sing," she said as the cashier rung up the purchase.  Derek handed the lady his credit card.  "They break guitars and have sex with microphones onstage and make the crowd drool over their hot sunglasses.  That's why they're called rock stars and not singers."

"Yes, but they sing occasionally," Derek said.  "Between the microphone sex and the guitar breaking.  It's called music.  They sort of need it for there to be a concert in the first place."

The cashier snorted as she handed Derek's card back and he signed the receipt.

"Uh huh," Meredith replied.  They started walking toward the door.  "You keep the hope alive, Der."  He grinned at her, his expression mysteriously unreadable to her with his eyes concealed behind the glasses.  "What?" she said as the door dinged, and they pushed through it.

"You called me Der," he said.  "It's the first time I've heard you shorten it.  That I remember, anyway."

They walked out to the car.

"Your family's rubbing off on me, I guess," she said.  She pressed the lock button and climbed into the driver's side seat.

"Are you doing okay?" he asked as he sat down next to her in the front passenger seat.

"With what?"

"My family.  I haven't exactly been around to referee much."

She paused.  The family... really hadn't been as bad as she'd been expecting coming into things.  She'd spent chunks of time with everyone except Natalie at that point, who seemed friendly enough.  Meredith just hadn't had the opportunity yet to do much more than say hello.  She'd stirred things.  She'd been roped into entertaining the kids.  And Ellen...  Ellen had hugged her.  And it was...

"It's...  Nice.  Not like my family.  My non family.  My thing that had parents.  Well, my thing that had a woman and a man and wedding rings, at one point.  Or something.  Everyone has been friendly with me, mostly.  I think Nancy needs some of your Xanax, though," she said with a laugh.

She turned to glance at him and found his mouth set in a grim line.  She didn't need to see his eyes to see she'd stung him, however inadvertently.  She reached out and touched his arm.  "Sorry, I shouldn't joke.  About the Xanax.  Do you feel all right?"

"I'm doped up, Mere," he growled.  "I feel like the pill bottle says I should feel.  Falsely calm with a side of drowsy."

"Sorry," she said again.

"No," he said, sighing as he stretched out his frame and visibly forced himself to relax. "No.  I didn't mean to snap.  I'm just..."  He put his elbow on the side of the window and put the side of his cheek against his palm.  "A little disturbed that I need it."

She frowned, unsure of what to say to that.  After seeing him the night before...  After seeing how upset he'd been just that morning, already on the Xanax...  There was no doubt in her mind that he did need it.  He did.  She knew it was helping him, helping him keep himself from falling apart while he caught his breath and dealt with things.  But she knew he hated it at the same time, and she ached for him.

Maybe...

"We could wean you back off it, Derek," she found herself saying.  "If it's really that awful.  You know what the problem is now.  Maybe...  Maybe we could work through it if it gets bad again..."

"No," he said, his voice breaking.

And with that small word, she realized just how thin the line was that he straddled, which only shoved another sharp spear of dread into her gut.  If he was that distraught already...  She swallowed.  She didn't want to see what he was going to do with the memories of her death.  Her drowning.  Pulling her up from the water.

She knew on a clinical, textbook level that he'd been in shambles.  She knew from his behavior in the aftermath that she'd really messed him up.  But she hadn't seen it with her own eyes, hadn't been there to break his fall in the metaphorical shower.  And, now, she would be.  She didn't want to watch him suffer, knowing that she was the root cause of it.  She didn't want to watch him suffer, period.  The shower that day had been one of the most heartbreaking moments of her life.  No apology should have been worth that.

"So," she managed to croak.  She cleared her throat.  "Where do you want to eat?"

"Why don't you turn in there?"  Derek pointed across the street to a row of shops.  "There aren't many choices around here."

"What's in there?" she asked.

He shrugged.  "Just a little deli.  They have good sandwiches and salads."

She turned the car on and drove across to the other side of the street in moments.  Traffic was, well, pretty much nonexistent.  The area just wasn't that populous.  She pulled into one of the spaces in front of the small, cozy-looking building.  White-lined red awnings hung over the wide glass windows of each shop.  They flapped in the breeze.  Evenly space flowerpots lined the street-side of the walk, which ran from end to end of the building.

The deli storefront was narrow.  Through the window, she could see a line of booths up the side of one wall inside, a few of which were occupied by people from various walks of life.  A line of curved, hollow glass countertops lit with fluorescent rods ran along the other wall.  Through the glass, she could see all sorts of meats and pies and other food, all artistically arrayed.  A blackboard menu with chalked in choices hung up at an angle near the ceiling.   The whole thing seemed like the epitome of a mom and pop deli.  It looked wonderful.

They walked through the door and were immediately greeted with a friendly, "Hello!" from the man standing behind the line of glass countertops.  He wore a slightly dingy white apron over faded, frayed jeans and a white t-shirt.  Meredith paused, wondering if they were supposed to order at the counter or go sit down or what, but Derek pushed past her and walked toward the back of the deli.

She followed his lead, and they sat down at the very end, farthest from the windows, farthest from all of the other patrons.  As Derek removed his rock star sunglasses, a tall, thin waitress who couldn't have been more than sixteen bounced up to them, all blond, bubbly, and friendly.  "Can I get you anything to drink while you're deciding?" she asked in a low-pitched, smoky, alto tone that didn't match her effervescent demeanor in the slightest.

"Ice tea, please," Meredith said.  Derek ordered water without the lemon.

Meredith craned her head to look at the menu on the wall as the waitress walked away.  Derek propped his head up with his hands and watched her with a smile, like he knew exactly what he wanted, and wanted to take the time to just... enjoy her.  She wondered how many times he'd been there before that he didn't even need to glance at the menu as a reminder.

"Did you grow up here?" she asked, suddenly curious.  He'd said he was from Manhattan, which was close, but so, so far from the general friendly tone of this place, she couldn't imagine him fudging it like that...  It was like comparing apples to...  scalpels.  Or something.

"No," Derek said.  "We lived in the city.  After Dad died, I knew Mom wanted to move to some place quieter, but she waited until we were all out of high school."

"I'm surprised you don't have an accent."

"I worked hard to drop it when I started doing more and more consults outside the city."

The waitress returned with their drinks and took their orders, a chicken ceasar salad for her, and a garden salad with the dressing on the side for him.

"So," she said as the waitress bounced off again.  She was happy to pry, happy to dig into his life.  They rarely talked about their pasts.  It seemed so appropriate to do it now that they were literally surrounded with his.  "What happened to your dad?"

"Ruptured brain aneurysm.  One minute he was fine, and the next..."

"Was he a surgeon?"

"No, just a general practitioner.  Nothing spectacular like 'The Ellis Grey' or anything," he replied, putting the words 'The Ellis Grey' in air quotes.  She tried not to flinch at the mention of her mother.  It wasn't like he knew anymore...  She leaned her head down into her hands, gripped at the bridge of her nose with her pinched index finger and thumb.

"Do you miss him?" she asked as she looked back up.  Did she miss her mom?  Not really.  But was that normal?  She sucked at normal.

"Sometimes," he said.  "I was only ten when he died, Mere.  I don't...  Well, I don't remember a lot..."  His voice trailed away, and his expression changed as he leaned toward her minutely.  "Mere?"

"Yeah?"

"I get the impression..." he began, hesitant.  He took a breath.  "Are you okay?"

She blinked.  Something twisted inside her, something twisted with the fact that he'd noticed.  Noticed her, even without her saying a word.  She swallowed, almost angry that he was so in tune with her.  Because she didn't want to talk about this with him.  Not now.  Not after that morning when she'd barely been able to keep him standing.  He didn't need her dark and twisty right now.  He had enough on his own.  And at the rate he was remembering, he wasn't going to have much more time to...  Deal.

"My mother just died," she said, her voice quiet.

"I know."

"I thought you didn't remember?"

"I don't.  But she was alive when I was still with Addison...  Mom said she died.  It doesn't leave much of a window."

She sighed.  "Everyone keeps assuming I'm not fine about it."

"Are you?   Mere?"

She wanted to say it.  I'm fine.  She wanted to answer by rote.  It's what she did.  And it would stop the discussion from going where she didn't want it to go.  Her mother was reasonably safe.  But explaining why she felt the way she did... that ran into dangerous territory.

But the way he was looking at her...  Piercing.  Concerned.  He was on anti-anxiety medication, racked with his own problems, and there he was, staring at her.  Like nothing mattered but her.

Stop it.  Stop it.  Don't say it.  Say you're fine, a little voice pleaded.

But he was looking at her...  How had this conversation gone so wrong so fast?

"I don't know.  I-"  She paused, clamping down on the brakes a little too late to do any good.  The dread from earlier began to pulse under her skin.  Just a subtle throbbing.  "I don't know," she finished.  She dropped her gaze to her hands, which were suddenly very interesting.

His eyes narrowed.  "What are you not telling me?"

"I can't," she snapped.  She closed her eyes, trying not to think about how upset he'd been just hours earlier.

"Can't what?"

"Derek, I'm going to have to watch you remember it eventually...  I don't want..."

"Meredith, what happened?"

Her gaze darted to the sunglasses that sat at the edge of the table by the ketchup and the sugar packets.  "I don't want you to hurt," she blurted, trying not to think about the slick, wet feeling of his skin as he'd stood in her embrace and sobbed.  "And if I tell you..."

"Mere...  If this thing you won't talk about, this thing you keep apologizing to me for is so bad, don't you think giving me a little warning will make it hurt less?"

No.  No, it would make it worse.  She tried not to think about the night before when he'd sounded so broken.  I feel wrong, Mere.  "I don't know," she said.

He sighed.  "Mere..."

Trying not to think wasn't working.

"You know how when you set a bone you always say you're going to count to three, but you do the set on one, just to take the pain of the anticipation away?" she asked.

"I don't set bones."

"It's a rhetorical thing."

"Okay..."

"What if me telling you this essentially just lets you finish counting to three?  You're already..." her voice fell away.  In pain.  On the edge.  Ready to break...  So many phrases drifted on the tip of her tongue.

His expression darkened.  "On drugs."

"I didn't mean it like that," she said.

"Mere," he whispered.  His breath hitched.  Just a little.  He ran his hands through his hair and let loose an agitated sigh.  "Just the fact that you're getting this upset over debating what I can and can't deal with is already making me count.  I'm at two.  What could you have possibly done to me that's worse than what I did to you?  Mere?"

She pursed her lips and leaned back in the seat.  The waitress came back with their food, finally, and she set it cheerfully on the table between them, but the mere thought of eating at this point made her stomach turn.  She stared at Derek, who stared back at her.  She was trying to save him from being worried.  But from the look on his face, it was already too late.

"Please," he whispered, his voice suddenly quiet and wretched.  "Did you...  Cheat?"

"No," she snapped.  "How could you say-"  A hot flare of anger snarled through her, only to die away as she saw the rebuffed, distraught look on his face.  Stupid, Meredith.  Stupid, stupid, stupid.  Of course that would be the first thing he would think of when she was making it out to be this horrible.  "No, I didn't cheat, Derek," she said, calmer.

"I'm sorry," he said.  "It's just you're making it out to be so terrible, and I don't..."

He sighed.  He sighed again, but this time the air came with a light noise of vocalization.  It was what he did when he started to freak out.  She could remember the sound of him, breathing at her neck when she'd come to a stop at the landing of the stairs last night.  And it had been just like that, only more rapid.  She swallowed against the pain at the back of her throat.  She couldn't tell him, couldn't even begin to tell him, and yet, it was obvious that she couldn't not tell him either.  The damage was done.

"I'm not sure if I'm fine or not about my mother, but..." she said, her voice trailing away as she watched him try to relax.

He swallowed.  His head shook minutely as he went through steps to force himself back into a calm box.  It was painful to watch.  He'd been that close.  Even with the Xanax.  And it had been her fault.

"But..." he prodded when he was finally ready.

Meredith closed her eyes, remembering.  You are anything but ordinary, Meredith.  Now, run.  Run...  "She spoke to me and told me everything I wanted to hear.  And she was ready to go, Derek.  She wasn't upset.  She just hugged me and told me to wake up..."

A noise came from his throat.  Lost.  She could see it on his face, the lost confusion.  He didn't know where she was going with this.  But back behind it all, just behind his eyes, there was also the dread.  Dread that he had an idea of where it was going.  An inkling.  And he didn't like it.

"Wake up?" he said.

"I drowned, Derek."

He blinked.  "What?"

Plunge, plunge, take the plunge.  She breathed in deeply.  Trying to prepare herself, but it didn't work.  He sat there, looking at her, the lost, confused look still on his face.  Like he honestly thought he'd misinterpreted.  Like he thought she might be trying to trick him.

"I drowned, Derek," she repeated, driving the words home.  "And you're the one who pulled me out of the water.  I was dead for three hours.  I was dead, and I saw my mother, and she was fine.  So, I don't know if I'm fine about her dying, but... I think I am.  I think."

He blinked again.  Blink, blink, blinked.  A glassy film of water slipped across his eyes.  He swallowed.  He grunted, clearing his throat in with a gruff, tearing sound.  "How?" he asked, his voice crushed.

"I fell in the Sound," she said.  "We were triaging accident victims on-site at a ferry accident."

"But..." he said.  The lost tone was back.  "You can swim..."

She smiled, couldn't help but smile despite the pain, glad that at least somewhere in all the twisting, distraught memories that'd happened later, he could still remember the happy stuff from earlier on.

She'd gone over to his trailer, just a few days after he'd told her about it.  After searching everywhere, knowing he was there because his car had been parked right there, she'd found him relaxing on the dock by his lake in a lawn chair with a fishing pole and a cooler.  Things had gotten a bit mischievous.  She'd pushed him in.  He'd done a classic fake out, pretending he was in trouble, and he'd yanked her in with him when she'd gotten close enough to the edge of the dock to try and help him.  The water had been freezing, but she'd forgotten about it fairly quickly when he'd started tossing sopping items of clothing back up behind him onto the dock he'd just been pushed off of.

"What are you doing?" she'd asked, giggling as his boxers had landed with a sucking, wet sound next to his jeans, shoes, and shirt.

"Lemons into lemonade," he'd said with a grin.  "Care to join?"

She could swim.  And he knew it.

Was that how he'd decided she'd given up?

"It was cold, Derek," she said.  "I was shocked that I'd gotten knocked into the water.  And for a second...  I was so tired, I just... didn't."

"Didn't..." he prodded.

"Swim," she replied.  He sat staring at her for the longest time, blinking, like he couldn't quite believe her.  The look on his face was...  He ran his hands through his hair again, but at least he didn't look like he was about to fall apart, not like he had before.  "Say something, Derek," she pleaded.

The last blink crushed a tear out of the watery film over his eyes.  Just one.  It snaked down the plane of his cheek and fell to the table with a splat.  "What am I supposed to say?" he said.

"I don't know," she replied, suddenly feeling helpless.  He looked...  Disillusioned.  That's how he looked.  Like he'd placed her on this pedestal, only to have it come crashing down on him.  The trust.  The trust.  Was this how it had disappeared the first time?

"But I'm sorry," she babbled when he remained silent.  "I would have fought harder if I'd realized what it would put you through.  I would have...  I never...  But I was just so tired.  And my mother..."

He looked at his hands, a dark look overtaking him.  "You were in this hole," he whispered.  "This deep hole...  And it seemed more insurmountable the longer you waited to climb..."

"I dragged you down with me," she finished.

For a long, glacial moment, silence hung between them.  He looked up at her.  "Are you... okay now?" he asked.

She sighed.  "I came back thinking I was."

"But?"

"But you were really messed up, Derek....  You never said it in so many words, but I think this trip to see your family was you trying to glue yourself back together.  Sort of a Mom will fix it thing.  And I think I may have ruined your chances at getting the Chief of Surgery job."  Babble, babble, babble.  She couldn't stop.  Couldn't look at him.  She didn't want to see the judgment there.

"Mere..."

"Though I'm still not exactly sure how.  And I'm sorry, Derek.  I'm more sorry than you'll ever know."

"Mere, stop," he said, his words quiet, flat.  Like the gavel coming down, only to hit nerf.

"What?" she snapped, finally brought to a halt.  She looked at him, but the judgment she'd expected to find just wasn't there.

He sniffled and wiped his damp cheeks with the heel of his palm.  He inhaled once, twice, three times in a series of slow, calming breaths.  "I can't say this doesn't upset me," he said.  "Because it obviously does."

"But?"

"But... I'll try and keep it in perspective when I remember," he said.  "I'll try."

She stared.  He stared back.  He was definitely unsettled.  But he wasn't freaking out.  Where was the freaking out?  Where was...  Everything?

"There is no perspective, Derek," she said.  "I stopped swimming, and my resultant near death..."   She flailed her hands, struggling to find a word.  Experience was far too banal for the freak show she'd endured.  "Whatever... would give any shrink a field day.  Hell, you probably think I'm nuts yourself."

He grinned at her despite the sadness creasing his face.  "Meredith...  I'm on tranquilizers, and you just spent thirty minutes holding me up in the shower while I cried.  I don't have much room to talk about crazy.  Let's just... take this as it comes."

"Your mother said that..."

"Yeah, well," he said, shrugging, "Sometimes moms have good advice."

"Not mine."

"She told you to wake up..."

"She did..." Meredith whispered.  "Are you okay?"

"No," he said.  "But... Well, I have a certain level of empathy.  Let's say that."

"Are we okay?  Are we really?"

"Sure.  I'm your wingman," he said, grinning.  A real grin.  Bare remnants of the sad look remained.  The rest had been washed away in the sudden mirth.  "How can we not be okay when you have a sexy rock star for your wingman?"

"Can you even fly a plane?"

His grin widened into a full on, mischievous smile.  He leaned forward and wagged his eyebrows conspiratorially.  "Wouldn't you like to know..."

She laughed.  "So, no?"

"I'm not telling," he said.

"I'll pry it out of you," she threatened.

"Want me to go back and get the airplane pilot glasses?" he replied.  "They might be more fitting than you know!"

"Only in the cheesy, dorky sense..." she said.  "If I tried to pry it out of you, I'd win..."

Derek picked up his fork and took the first bite of his salad.  "I know," he replied after taking a moment to chew.  He winked at her.

She started on her own food shortly after, and was delighted to find that it was quite possibly the best chicken ceasar salad she'd ever eaten.