Lightning Strikes Twice - Part 29A
Title: Lightning Strikes Twice
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Pairing: Duh. (Mer/Der)
Rating: M
Timeline: Post Time After Time.
And thus, I conclude the NYC portion of this journey... This and the next part (A + B) are continuous, but size limits prevent me from posting it all together. Anyhoo, I really hope you enjoy! Thank you super special beta reader, and thanks to everyone who provided suggestions for tour stops :)
~~~~~
"Oh," Meredith groaned as she wobbled out of Katz's Deli on unsteady feet. Derek guided her, hands resting softly on her hips like an afterthought. They moved out onto the street. He followed her as she shuffled haphazardly around the corner and leaned against the wall, hands clutched around her stomach.
Derek couldn't decide whether to grin or frown as she curled up against him and groaned again. "You really should have stopped sooner," Derek said.
He didn't catch the full sentence as she half-mumbled, half-groaned it into his sweater. But there was something about pastrami, something about heaven... something, something. Something....
When they'd passed through the turnstile and into the deli, Meredith's eyes had widened at the crowd bustling back and forth. "Oh, it's this place!" she'd said, delighted as recognition replaced bewilderment. "The one with the faking. Thing. With. With Meg Ryan!" The ticket system the deli used to track orders, well, she'd been appropriately cowed by it, so he'd taken the lead and ordered them both a pastrami to split, smiling as she'd followed him, her hungry stare chasing the workers behind the counter making sandwich after sandwich as she'd trailed after him. The smell of cooking meat and grease and other things had twisted through the air, torturing her. Which he'd known because she'd complained. A lot. "It smells good in here!" she'd said. "I'm hungry!" Again. And again.
Shortly after that, the pacing had started, not that she'd had much room to move in the crush of the crowd, but he'd watched her try her damndest, a stupid smile stuck on his face the whole time. When they'd finally managed to sit down, he'd set the plate out before them and waited with bated breath while she sampled her first piece. Her first bite had been not at all hesitant, despite how gigantic and intimidating the sandwich had looked. She'd lifted it up and worked her teeth into it like a starving... beast, some sort of small carnivorous pile of grrr that had been presented with a delectable piece of mutton. Well, she had said she was hungry.
Really hungry.
Hungry enough that after she'd finished her half, she'd gone after the half that was left of his half. She hadn't asked if it was okay. She'd just sort of taken it. But, well, she was a weakness of his. A certifiable weakness. He'd just cupped his head with the heels of his palms and watched, amazed, wondering where the hell she found room in her tiny little body for so much food. He was uncomfortably full, and that was just from the quarter-sandwich he'd consumed. He was certain that she had found a way to destroy matter, no energy involved. Either that, or she possessed her own personal black hole, conveniently located somewhere within her digestive tract.
But even more fun than watching her defy the laws of physics had been the way she'd looked after every taste. Her first moan of pleasure had been hesitant, barely audible as she'd swallowed and licked her lips. The only thing that had made him realize the sound had come from her had been the look of unadulterated lust pasted across her face. At first, he'd thought she was being humorous and doing the Meg Ryan thing. And then he'd realized, no, she really just adulated, perhaps even deified pastrami. He'd considered that theory proven when she'd moaned, "Oh, god..." for what seemed like the twenty-seventh time in a row.
"Are you all right?" he asked when noticed that she'd stayed silent against him for almost a whole minute. He rubbed his hand up and down her back, trying to soothe her.
She looked up at him with a woeful expression. "So. Full."
"Well," he replied, "I was going to suggest we go do something relaxing, now, like ride the Staten Island Ferry, but..."
Her face crinkled up in a look of woozy, nauseated horror. "Oh, no. Rocking. Waves. Sea... Stomach. River. Water. Moving. No boats. Not now," she moaned. And then she blinked. "You actually want to go on a ferryboat?"
He shrugged. "We live in Seattle, Mere. One of these days, we're going to have to ride a boat. Might as well rip the band-aid off on a good day."
"I guess," she said. "But not now. You might need a cart just to carry me home, Derek. That was so good. I couldn't stop."
"So," he said, kissing the top of her head. She moaned at him, but it was a frustrated, I'm-so-full-I-could-explode moan, not one of pleasure. Not like the ones she'd been mewling while she'd been eating her sandwich, doing that alight, adorable eye rolling and that orgasmic swooning. "You weren't faking those little moans?"
"Derek..."
"They were cute," he said. "Way cuter than Meg Ryan's rendition."
"I like pastrami!"
He smiled. "I heard. I saw."
She hit his chest softly with the heel of her palm, and he laughed as she practically growled at him. "Oh yeah?" she countered. "Well, maybe you weren't being vocal about it, but you made a face while you ate. I totally saw you make it."
"A face?"
"Yeah, it was your sex face," she said, and then her voice went low and panty as she continued in a very, very good rendition of the Meg Ryan bit, "Except, in addition to oh, god, oh, god, it said why, why, why am I a health nut?"
He laughed. "I like pastrami, too, you know. And you ate half of mine."
"Yeah, whatever," she replied, rolling her eyes. "You're never fooling me with your fake salad lust ever again."
"Hey, I like salads."
"You're totally Meg about salads."
"I am not!"
"Are too..."
"Am not."
"Are too. Admit it," she said. "You're all for the fatty, greasy moo under that fruity soybean-and-lettuce exterior."
"Well, fine, maybe I am, but how else would I stay this hot?" he said, gesturing at his stomach, which was thankfully quite flat to prove his point despite how full he felt. "I don't have your metabolism, Mere."
She stared at him for a moment, silent. Her eyes rolled again, and not in that cute orgasmic way, either. "That's what I've always loved about you, Derek," she said. "Your humility."
"I am humble!" he protested. "I humbly admit my metabolism has followed me into middle age."
"Yeah, well, I'm sure I'll be joining you in a few years. For now, though. Pastrami. Ohhh." She moaned, gripping her stomach in discomfort, and he felt the intense need to hold her and take it all away.
He rubbed her back and cradled her in his arms as he leaned back against the brick wall. People passed on the street, but he and Meredith were essentially being ignored, off in their own private island on Manhattan. The city was much less crowded in this area. He ran his fingers through her hair. "You should have gotten a doggy bag, Mere."
"But it was on the plate," she said. Her thin fingers toyed with his sweater, bunching it up in the clutch of her palms. She looked adorable. Had he mentioned she looked adorable? "And so..." She moaned. "So good."
He clucked his tongue. "Shameful. No willpower whatsoever."
"I have willpower," she replied. "Just not with food. Or you."
He smiled. "It's mutual, trust me."
She rose up onto her toes, wrapped her arm around behind his neck, and pulled him down against her, kissing him. Her tongue swept into his mouth, and he welcomed it as he sucked at her lip, sucked and nipped and... She pulled back like a rocket, leaving him breathless, addled...
"You taste like pastrami," she said, making a face.
He frowned. "Well, you do, too... I thought you liked pastrami."
"On bread, yes."
He snorted with laughter, and she thunked her head back against his chest as she giggled along with him. "So, what's next?" she asked, once she'd recovered.
"Well, it's after three..." he mused. "We probably only have time for one more thing before we should head back to the hotel to check in and change."
"Change?"
"For dinner."
"Oh," she said, "It's a fancy restaurant?" Her face brightened as she smiled, her gaze lost somewhere else, somewhere not on the street with him.
"Well," he replied, "We could probably go like this if we're running late." He gestured to their clothes. She wore loose black slacks, a tighter black knit shirt, and a cute little creamy sweater thing that buttoned in a way that accentuated the curve of her breasts. Really, the only thing that might not work amongst them was his jeans, but at least they weren't frayed, and they didn't have holes. His sweater and his button-down shirt would be fine for anything but the dressiest of places. Then again, he knew she'd packed a very nice, short, curvy black dress at his behest. She'd asked him when she'd been packing for this trip if she would need to dress up, and he'd promised her that if she packed the black thing, he'd find a reason for her to wear it.
He really hoped they had time to change.
"So, it's not a fancy restaurant," she said, and her brightened expression fell a little out of the rafters into something less... nuclear.
He shrugged. "I haven't been there, Meredith. Kathy recommended it."
"Well, I'm all for changing," she said, enthusiastic again. She stared at him, her eyes went distant, a cute curl of a smile pulled at her mouth, and then she shook her head, blinked back into the world at large, and licked her lips. "You in a suit is just..."
He laughed as he realized where her distant place had been. "Well, you caught me, too. I just wanted you to get into that little black dress you packed. So, seriously, what do you want to do? We're burning changing time."
She thought silently for a moment, and he rubbed her back idly while she considered the options. He started trying to think of places to take her, just in case she really couldn't think of something she wanted to see. A walk in Central Park would probably help with her fullness. That could be nice. Though, he wasn't sure if he was up to a lot more walking at this point. He closed his eyes for a minute and breathed, letting the brief darkness soothe him. The pastrami, which sat heavily in his stomach, had been a large enough meal to make him drowsy to begin with, and on top of that, he was tired anyway. Just a little. Nothing like the day before. But, still. It had a sort of dragging effect. He grimaced and thought to himself, okay, body, give me another day. You can rest on the plane. Body didn't reply. He hoped it wasn't preparing another silent coup.
So, where else to go? Maybe the Cloisters, but then again, Meredith didn't really seem like the type who would enjoy that sort of thing. Medieval art. No. He didn't see her as a museum person in general, either. It was a shame that it was too early for a good show. She'd possibly get a kick out of seeing a Broadway musical like Phantom. Or maybe something funny like Spamalot. Maybe--
"I want to see Mount Sinai," she said, interrupting his thoughts. "Where you worked."
He blinked. Well, that wasn't... Wasn't really what he'd been expecting at all. "You want me to take you to the hospital?"
She nodded. "Where you worked," she said. "Show me your office."
He frowned. Mount Sinai? That was a place he hadn't expected to see again for a long time. "It's probably been rented to someone else, Mere."
"So? I want to see it."
"Really? I'm sure there're more interesting things to see, Mere..."
She gave him a cute smile, a cute smile that had him melting, and he couldn't resist smiling back at her as she whispered, "You're interesting to me," her expression and tone uncharacteristically shy.
"Okay," he replied despite his strange reluctance. Reluctant. Why was he reluctant? He'd been willing to stay in the hotel he'd stayed in the night he'd discovered Addison. He'd been to Times Square and stood there in the midst of some of his very favorite memories of Mark and the fun times they'd had, particularly when they'd just started their internships. He'd already slogged through it all in his head more than once.
What was the issue?
He sighed and raised his hand, hailing a cab as it prowled down the street looking for would-be passengers. The cab slowed and stopped. He sighed as they got into the car, sighed and leaned back against the seat. "Mount Sinai Medical Center," he told the driver, who nodded, and the car was moving before he'd even managed to clip his belt on.
Meredith settled closely to him, opting for the middle seat this time instead of the far side. Pastrami breath was apparently enough of a deterrent for the hanky panky she'd tortured him with earlier, and he was happy to just sit there with her, happy but... She sighed against his chest as he reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose, pushing up his sunglasses to rub his eyes underneath. As the car had started rolling, a brief hint of swirly nausea hit him. He swallowed it back, and he was fine again, fine, but just... Off.
No coups, he told himself. Damn it. He'd sleep when he got home.
Something jingled. He looked down, trying to focus on the white blur hovering in front of his face. A travel-sized bottle of ibuprofen. Meredith held it clutched in her hands like a teacup as she offered it up to him. Her purse lay open at her hip, all manner of things busting out of it like loose stuffing. A brush. A few tampons. A long wallet. She'd had to go routing for the painkillers. And he hadn't noticed at all.
"For your headache," she said when he looked at her curiously.
"I don't have a..." he began, and then he stopped. Stopped and thought about it. The slow throb that had been back behind his awareness tromped into the space between his eyes and pounded at him. "Headache," he finished lamely.
He took the bottle from her and swallowed two of the pills dry. "Thanks," he said as he felt the bump of the second one slide down his throat uncomfortably.
"It's really pretty obvious, Mr. Mopey. I don't get why you don't treat yourself," she said, a smile quirking her features.
"I hope this stops soon," he said.
"It will, Derek," she assured him, rubbing his arm. "PCS resolves spontaneously. I bet you'll wake up someday next week, and you'll realize you're fine."
He sighed. He hoped it would be as simple as that. But he'd been a neurosurgeon long enough to see some of the horror cases. People who still had chronic problems months later. People who never managed to heal completely. A concussion was a serious head trauma, constantly made light of by the media, by stupid action flicks. But, really, on the most basic level, it was still brain damage. And the human brain was sadly still far too much of a mystery for the medical community to even agree in certain terms on what exactly PCS was, let alone anything definitive about its duration or why it was so variable.
He closed his eyes and breathed, relishing the warmth of her next to him. She fumbled to put her purse back in working order, stuffing, jamming, twisting items to make them all fit inside again. He didn't bother to tease her. Women and their purses made no sense to him and never ever would. Contrary to popular opinion, he did sometimes learn things. Like not to ask why she needed all that junk. He caressed her side absently as she muttered things about needing something bigger, which seemed ludicrous to him. Her purse was already more like a tote bag.
He pointed out the window to the right as they passed the first notable bit of scenery he could think to play tour guide again with. "That's the 59th Street Bridge, if you care, by the way," he said.
She stopped her purse pulverizing to look out the window. "Is it special?"
He shrugged. "Mary Jane Watson got tossed from it."
"Mary who?"
"Oh, come on," he replied. "Spider-Man. Green Goblin?" She had to have at least seen the damned movie.
She snickered. "Well, I suppose it's good to know now."
"What is?"
"That I'm marrying a dork," she replied, patting his shoulder in a sympathetic, it's-okay-dear way that made him pout.
"Spider-Man is cool," he said.
He'd read the comics as a kid. Well, he'd read the ones Mark hadn't stolen from him five minutes after he'd cracked the spine. Mark had been bigger, well, still was, but when they'd been kids, while Derek hadn't been against hitting back, sadly, Mark had usually ended up clocking him into the pavement whenever he'd tried. It was how he'd broken his nose. His mother hadn't been very pleased when he'd come inside with a bloody face. On the bright side, Mark had chipped his knuckles.
He and Mark had enthusiastically gone to see the first Spider-Man movie in the theater on opening night. Mark had asked him to go to the second one, but Derek had been bogged down with work, both real, and looking back on it, manufactured, and he'd said no. Weeks. Mere weeks later, and he was driving in the rain wondering how the hell his life had gotten so twisted up and shredded.
"Tobey Maguire is cool," Meredith countered. "Spider-Man is dorky."
"Mary Jane is hot, at least," he said, forcing his mind back to the present.
Meredith looked up at him. "You like Kirsten Dunst?"
He frowned. His mind screamed. Trick question. Trick question. Don't say a word! "I'm not answering that."
"Why not?"
"Because I'm nearly forty," he said. "And she's like... two."
"She's in her mid-twenties, Derek."
"Still..." he replied. "Not answering that."
"Which means yes, doesn't it."
"No comment."
"It's okay," she said. "I like the Cosmo tub guy and he's barely the drinking age."
He looked down at her and smiled. "I thought you said I'd ruined you."
"Except for the Cosmo guy! And Calvin Klein models. And actors."
"Okay, well, so long as we're clear."
"It doesn't bother you, does it?" she asked, her voice suddenly quiet and serious. "That I'm only thirty-two?"
He frowned. No, it really didn't. It never had. He'd looked at her in that bar, and something had just clicked. It had never been about age, though she did sometimes make him feel old. Sometimes. Like with the fact that she could eat a truckload of pastrami and not gain one tiny ounce. And the real biggie...
When she'd admitted to him that she'd never been in a serious relationship before, and it'd really hit him just how fragile everything he'd built with her was. The thing with Mark... It made him feel weary. Weary, and definitely old. He'd been married, been cheated on, tried again, cheated right back, and been divorced. And she was fresh out of the starting gate, fresh to the point that he'd had to explain that fighting didn't mean something was ending. That had been a real shock for him. She'd seemed so... Sure of herself, sure and flirty and strong in the beginning, that he'd never thought he might be smearing some snow with dirt.
Not that she was all that pure, either. But he quickly veered away from that thought before it got him stuck in the gutter. He looked at her, ran his fingers through her hair, and sighed. It was only an eight-year difference. Well, almost eight. Not huge. Plenty of relationships had formed around larger gaps. And, really, despite the fact that sometimes the difference did flare up quite a bit, it didn't... bother him. It just made him feel... Real. Not drenched in the fantasy. Which wasn't necessarily bad.
"No, Mere," he said. "It doesn't bother me. Does it bother you that I'm nearly forty?"
"No," she replied, a little too quickly. "Well... No."
He stilled as he heard the sudden tension clamp around her tone like a vice twisting tighter. That definitely meant yes, at least a little. He'd never asked before, never really thought to ask. They'd just sort of... happened. And he'd gone with it.
"Well, what?" he prodded, a cold, coiling sort of fear slipping underneath his skin. Age was something he couldn't fix. Couldn't ever fix. It just was. And if it bothered her...
"Let's talk about it later," she said.
"But..."
"I'm happy right now. Let's talk about it later."
"Okay, Meredith," he replied, sighing, unable to press her more, because they had finally arrived. "Later."
He paid the cabbie, and they got out of the car. She hefted her purse over her shoulder. He smiled, wrapped his arm around her waist, and guided her toward the 5th Avenue entryway. Mount Sinai wasn't like Seattle Grace. It wasn't one huge, sprawling building. It was a series of them spread out like a college campus. His old office had been buried behind a series of winding hallways and stairs and pathways that weren't necessarily obvious at first glance.
Mount Sinai Medical Center. The main building rose like a tower in front of them. People were everywhere. Staff, walking in, walking out. Visitors, walking in, walking out. Sick people, walking in, walking out, hobbling in, hobbling out, wheeling in, wheeling out. But Derek stood still, far back on the walk. Meredith waited patiently.
It was the first place Derek actually felt twinges of... unsettlement that were hard to ignore. The big pangs he'd been expecting outside the Algonquin, while he'd been standing in Times Square... They hit him now, though it certainly had nothing to do with the homesickness he'd been expecting when he'd offered Meredith this tour. It was literally the first place in Manhattan Derek found himself not only far from actively missing, but rather actively dreading.
As he halted again in front of the sliding, double doors, his breath caught for a moment. He could remember so many times when he'd walked through those doors. Even the last, though he hadn't known it when he'd been in the act of it. When he'd packed up and moved he'd done a lot more moving than packing. He'd left everything but his clothes and a few sentimental knickknacks when he'd fled. He had left his office untouched, let his secretary box his things up and mail them out to him in Seattle once he'd gotten a mailing address. He'd had all his active patients referred without warning, which he regretted, but... He just hadn't been able to stay.
Mark had been with him, that last time he'd come here. Mark had somehow found the time to come to work that day, and had accompanied Derek, all smiles, cheer, and arrogant snark like he always was. All on the same day he'd fucked Addison.
Derek had been behind. Behind on mountains of paperwork. He'd often neglected paperwork in favor of getting in on the next cutting edge surgery, the next new miracle procedure. Though he'd had a private practice, he had a very good relationship with the teaching doctors at the center, and they called him in. Often. Sometimes to teach, sometimes to learn. Sometimes for both. He'd had a week of nonstop cutting, and he'd had a pile of paper in his inbox about a foot-and-a-half high to churn through as a result.
"Cheer up, man," Mark had joked. "Just make scribbly chicken-scratch lines in the blanks and call it done. Nobody can read doctor handwriting anyway."
The day had been a nightmare. He'd spent it all in the office, reading, writing, reading, writing, until his eyes had been solid clusters of throbbing soreness. He'd leaned back in his chair, breathed, and as the last bit of daylight had slipped from the sky, Mark had poked his head in. "Well," he'd said. "I finished that rhinoplasty. Miss Jenkins now looks cute and perky instead of wicked-witchy. I am a genius. Ready to go, man?"
"I can't," Derek had replied, gesturing to the sprawling reams of paper, cracked open folders, research books, texts, and piled junk on his desk. "I have to get through all this stuff before it turns my desk into a steaming compost heap."
There had been a time, once, when Mark would have protested, would have told him to lighten up, to get off his ass and go home to Addison, but not anymore. Mark had swallowed. He'd gotten a pinched, sort of sad look on his face, he'd nodded, and he'd left. Just like that, Mark had left.
The sky had opened up moments later, rumbling with a foreboding that Derek had simply... Not thought about at all. Because he'd had paperwork. Miles of it. His eyes had hurt, his wrist had been killing him from the constant pen work, his brain had been scrambled, and he'd known very well he should have just gone home, because his productivity had been suffering already, and would only continue to do so. Instead, he'd stayed. He'd stayed, and Mark had left.
Left to go fuck Addison.
How did that work? How did that even begin to work? Derek had never really thought about it before. Never really... thought about the day of. The night was too raw, and he'd always gotten stuck in it, unable to rewind and analyze, unable to get past it. Not until Meredith, anyway. And, after Meredith, he hadn't really felt a need to analyze it anymore. So, he just hadn't.
Hadn't thought about it. At all.
Had Mark known he was going to fuck Addison when he'd left that day? Impossible to tell. Derek liked to think Mark would be the guy that admitted it up front. He was pretty forward, pretty blunt, and with Derek, he was usually painfully honest. "Derek, I'm going to fuck your wife." Derek liked to think he would have said it if it had been premeditated.
But then why had Mark looked sad... Sad like he knew Derek was ruining things, even when Derek didn't. Sad like he knew he loved Addison, and knew Derek was hurting her, and knew he didn't like it.
How did that work?
"Derek?" Meredith whispered. Her arms wrapped around his stomach, and he shuddered back into the present.
"Sorry," he said. He led her through the door, giving her a brief tour of the facility. Not much had changed. He saw familiar faces, familiar faces he found himself having the inexplicable need to dodge. He'd turn away when someone he knew passed, anything to prevent them from saying hello, saying hello and asking what the hell had happened.
He did find some enjoyment in watching Meredith, at least. Meredith listened to him with rapt attention while he babbled on almost nervously about surgeries he'd done, people he'd met, things he'd experienced, and the pleasure on her face was only tempered by the barest hint of concern. He could tell it was for him. The concern.
By the time they arrived at the suite where he and Mark had worked out of, he felt wired, wired and tense, and unsure about why this place was making him so uncomfortable. The door to what had once been his office suite was decorated with a small, shiny, silver plaque. Dr. Myers, Dr. Walcott, and Dr. Abbey. The names gleamed against the dim light of the hallway. Nobody he knew, and it was unsettling. It was supposed to say Dr. Shepherd and Dr. Sloane. It was. It had. And now it didn't.
He swallowed. "Well, this is it," he said as Meredith came to a stop next to him, and they just stared at the door like it was some sort of impenetrable oak wall. He didn't dare check to see if it was locked. He wasn't sure he wanted to see what Dr. Myers, Dr. Walcott, and Dr. Abbey had done to the innards of the place. "Mark and I shared it."
Meredith touched the plaque. "You don't seem like the private practice type," she said.
He frowned. "I don't?"
"Private practice neurosurgery? That's a big money, big reputation game, Derek. You've always seemed more to me like you're in it for the feel-good, not for the money or the clout."
He didn't really know what to say to that. He'd started up his practice as a business endeavor, a way to rise to the top, without ever really considering what that meant at the time. It was important to be upwardly mobile. To aspire. That point of view had pounded itself into his brain as he'd grown up, no dad, and he was forced to make himself... Be something. Something that would never be enough until he'd won. Won what? Who knew... But Dad wasn't around to say whether he was proud already or not, and so it'd all twisted up into a drive that'd... Crunched up the person he was like a little Volkswagen Beetle plowing into a semi.
It hadn't been until he'd found Addison with Mark that he'd realized how much he simply... Hated it. Everything. His life. Saving people had always been the icing on the cake that had kept him going. But in New York, it'd always felt like exactly what it was. Business. Smile and be friendly to the fake-nice people who will pay for the tumors to be gone from their spines, brains... It had never felt like that at Seattle Grace. He'd been all about making it before. And now he felt sort of like he'd finally settled, finally found his niche. Seattle Grace fit with him. And it wasn't just because of Meredith.
He breathed in sharply as the realization coalesced somewhere in the mire of his thoughts.
"Oh, my god. Is that you? Shep!" a low, growly voice belted across the hall. Derek turned to see Dr. Harold Gretsky striding toward them. Harold wore a pristine white lab coat over green scrubs and snazzy-looking cross-trainers that didn't have even one scuff mark. He was a tall, thin man in his late forties. His hair was a slick, silvered color, crimped and short.
"Harry," Derek replied, smiling weakly as the older doctor approached. Harry had been Derek's chief resident when Derek had been an intern, and they'd grown to be fairly close colleagues as Derek had rose in the ranks. Derek hadn't seen anyone from Mount Sinai since he'd left it. He got called out on consults from Seattle Grace all the time, but luckily, Mount Sinai housed some of the best neurosurgeons on the East Coast, Harry included, and, well, they hadn't needed to call him in for anything yet.
"Harry, this is Dr. Meredith Grey, my fi--girlfriend," Derek said, barely managing to correct himself in time. The fiancé thing was definitely a dangerous area. He was far too bubbly about it. Meredith stuck her hand out to shake Harry's, and Harry looked back at her. Derek didn't miss the judgment there. Nor did he miss the surprise. Or the thousands of other things. Harry wasn't known for being stone-faced. "Mere, this is Dr. Harold Gretsky. He was a teacher of mine."
Whatever Harry had been feeling, he managed to stuff it away in some box and bow slightly. "Charmed, Dr. Grey," he said suavely, and to his credit, he didn't say a word about the missing wife. "Shep, I read that paper you wrote on the conjoined twins separation. That was fascinating! I can see how Seattle Grace managed to woo you over to them," he continued, as if Derek's sudden disappearance wasn't at all strange, "What brings you back to Mount Sinai?"
Derek cleared his throat. "Just showing Meredith around my old haunt."
Haunt. Haunt seemed like a particularly apt word to describe things. He felt like a ghost. Like he shouldn't be there. And it was odd, having this conversation outside his old office door. He half-expected Mark to barge out of the old office and start cracking jokes. Instead, his ex-friend's younger apparition passed by in a breeze of memory.
"Derek, you suck, man," Mark said. "You didn't even get her a card?"
"I was busy," he replied as Mark wrapped his arm over Derek's shoulder and pulled Derek into a tight... not hug. It was something darker. More threatening.
"Yeah, elbow deep in brain tumor," Mark said, his voice dripping with... Anger. "It's your anniversary. How do I know that, but you forgot?"
The two of them walked off into the hallway and disappeared like... Like they had been lights, and somebody had just... shut them off. Derek stared down the hallway after the memory as it faded, removed from Harry's conversation with Meredith. He knew they were speaking. The words twisted around his ears in a vague curl of mumbled sound.
"Well, do you want to?" Harry asked, his voice slamming through Derek's wandering mind like a wrecking ball.
Derek blinked. "What?"
"Scrub in. I know it's no conjoined, adult twins, but we have a lot of eager interns who would be absolutely thrilled to see you do it. You're still kind of an idol around here, you know."
It. It what? Derek wondered. And, strangely, he found himself utterly not curious, despite the rabid look of glee on Harry's face. Hell, the man was practically salivating. Must be something rare, something worth writing about, but...
"No, thanks," Derek replied, surprised at how easy it was to say. "I owe Meredith dinner."
"She can scrub in, too," Harry said cheerfully. "A girl after my own heart, wanting to specialize in neurosurgery. And, unlike you, I didn't even have to twist her arm about it."
Meredith's expression melted into one of surprise. Derek shook his head. "No thanks, Harry. I appreciate the offer, though."
Harry shook his head. "You? Passing up a... Where's the Twilight Zone music?" He joked.
Derek shrugged, and Harry's beeper went off. He pulled it from his belt. "911, I have to go," Harry said. "Let me know when you're back in town next time, we'll do lunch."
And then he was gone, and Meredith was staring at him. As the silence settled around them in Harry's wake, and as he stared at the place where Harry had been, Meredith wrapped her arms around him, as if she knew just how... Unsettled he felt. "He had to twist your arm to specialize?" she asked.
He swallowed. "I couldn't decide between cardio-thoracics and neurosurgery for the longest time."
"What made you finally pick?"
"My dad," he answered. His dad had died of a ruptured aneurysm. "Neurosurgery just hit... closer to home with me. I felt more connected to it." Every successful surgery that saved a kid from living without a parent... Worth it. It reaffirmed why he'd chosen to be a surgeon in the first place.
He supposed he really was more about the feel-good than the rest of it. Meredith had called him out on it before he'd figured it out for himself. And that was... Incredible. He tried to smile at her, but it sort of twisted, and he wasn't sure he came across happy.
She nodded. "So, what now?" she asked.
"There's still more of the hospital to see, if you want."
She shook her head. "I've seen enough. And you've been weirded-out ever since we got here."
"Weirded-out?"
"Yeah," she said. "Like you finally figured out the meaning of that saying, you can't go back home again."
He turned to her, a lump forming in his throat. Was he seriously that much of an open book? She'd been reading him all day like... Like he was one of those picture books with a smattering of words fit for the consumption of three-year-olds - easily. "Meredith..."
"Yeah?"
"If I ever..." His voice trailed away, and for a moment, he just couldn't find it. He stared at Meredith. She was beautiful. And she really... Got him. He never wanted that to go away. Never ever.
"Yeah?" she prodded.
He cleared his throat. "Don't ever let me not come home."
"What?"
"With Addison," he explained. "I used to... I used to stay at the office all night doing paperwork, trying to keep up, trying to get ahead, and I..."
"Derek..." she said, interrupting him. "I seriously doubt that will ever be an issue."
"But..."
"You're already worried," she said. "You just passed up a freaking once-in-a... okay, well, maybe thrice-in-a-lifetime, surgery. And you gave up your chance at Chief. For me. That doesn't sound like a man who stays at work too late."
He closed his eyes. "Things change, Meredith." He had changed. A lot, he was realizing. A whole lot.
"This won't."
"But."
"It won't," she said, like it was some sort of scientific fact, and that comforted him. He needed that. He did.
She leaned up and kissed him, stole his breath away. He pushed her flat against the wall and came down on her like a storm. He really needed it. Really. She still tasted a little like pastrami, but he didn't care. And she didn't seem to care either. He slipped his tongue down into her and licked and tasted and sucked, and it was so good, and he couldn't breathe. He just. Needed.
Her fingers pulled at his hair. He felt her nails scraping at him through his sweater. He jammed his groin up against her and pushed her up a little. She moaned. It was a cute, soft, throaty little moan that coiled through him and started building tension. Tension that was bad. Bad in the hospital. They couldn't have hospital sex again. Not when they had a hotel room. Stop, stop, stop, his brain was saying.
But somewhere behind it all, there was a soft, pleading whisper. I need this. I need her. I need. And for a minute, all he could do was Polo to his desire's Marco. Her heat filled him. She squeaked, and another delightful moan slipped down his throat as she pushed back and entered him. It was a slip, slip, slide of skin and heat and breath and he never wanted it to end.
Except they were in the middle of the hallway outside his old office, and they had to stop.
Had to stop.
He grunted and pulled away, pushing his hand out flat against the wall to prop himself up while he panted and blinked and tried to pull himself together. "So," Meredith said, her voice breathy and... lost. She was still recovering, too. "Where to next?"
"It's getting late. You want to head back to the hotel? Traffic will be awful right now. It might take a while."
"Okay," she said. "But, honestly, I don't think I'll ever be hungry again. Not after that pastrami."
He chuckled. "Give it a few more hours, oh bottomless pit of mine."
"Did you just call me a bottomless pit?"
"I might have," he said, smirking at her. He kissed the top of her head.
"Mean," she said, giggling. She had a beautiful giggle. "So mean."
"I find it cute. I really don't know where you put it."
"You think it's cute that I eat like a horse?"
"I think everything you do is cute."
She laughed as they headed toward the street, and he hailed them a cab. The trip back to the hotel was uneventful and long. He'd been right. The traffic was horrible. But at least he had some time to recuperate. He rested with his eyes shut. Meredith didn't bother him for more tour tips or scenic narration. She just rubbed his knee absently while he hovered in the middle of a doze despite the noise that cluttered the air. Traffic, horns, shouting, sirens, cursing. Every once in a while her hand would roam to the ring box in his pocket, and that had made him smile lazily despite the half-sleep that clutched at him.
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Pairing: Duh. (Mer/Der)
Rating: M
Timeline: Post Time After Time.
And thus, I conclude the NYC portion of this journey... This and the next part (A + B) are continuous, but size limits prevent me from posting it all together. Anyhoo, I really hope you enjoy! Thank you super special beta reader, and thanks to everyone who provided suggestions for tour stops :)
~~~~~
"Oh," Meredith groaned as she wobbled out of Katz's Deli on unsteady feet. Derek guided her, hands resting softly on her hips like an afterthought. They moved out onto the street. He followed her as she shuffled haphazardly around the corner and leaned against the wall, hands clutched around her stomach.
Derek couldn't decide whether to grin or frown as she curled up against him and groaned again. "You really should have stopped sooner," Derek said.
He didn't catch the full sentence as she half-mumbled, half-groaned it into his sweater. But there was something about pastrami, something about heaven... something, something. Something....
When they'd passed through the turnstile and into the deli, Meredith's eyes had widened at the crowd bustling back and forth. "Oh, it's this place!" she'd said, delighted as recognition replaced bewilderment. "The one with the faking. Thing. With. With Meg Ryan!" The ticket system the deli used to track orders, well, she'd been appropriately cowed by it, so he'd taken the lead and ordered them both a pastrami to split, smiling as she'd followed him, her hungry stare chasing the workers behind the counter making sandwich after sandwich as she'd trailed after him. The smell of cooking meat and grease and other things had twisted through the air, torturing her. Which he'd known because she'd complained. A lot. "It smells good in here!" she'd said. "I'm hungry!" Again. And again.
Shortly after that, the pacing had started, not that she'd had much room to move in the crush of the crowd, but he'd watched her try her damndest, a stupid smile stuck on his face the whole time. When they'd finally managed to sit down, he'd set the plate out before them and waited with bated breath while she sampled her first piece. Her first bite had been not at all hesitant, despite how gigantic and intimidating the sandwich had looked. She'd lifted it up and worked her teeth into it like a starving... beast, some sort of small carnivorous pile of grrr that had been presented with a delectable piece of mutton. Well, she had said she was hungry.
Really hungry.
Hungry enough that after she'd finished her half, she'd gone after the half that was left of his half. She hadn't asked if it was okay. She'd just sort of taken it. But, well, she was a weakness of his. A certifiable weakness. He'd just cupped his head with the heels of his palms and watched, amazed, wondering where the hell she found room in her tiny little body for so much food. He was uncomfortably full, and that was just from the quarter-sandwich he'd consumed. He was certain that she had found a way to destroy matter, no energy involved. Either that, or she possessed her own personal black hole, conveniently located somewhere within her digestive tract.
But even more fun than watching her defy the laws of physics had been the way she'd looked after every taste. Her first moan of pleasure had been hesitant, barely audible as she'd swallowed and licked her lips. The only thing that had made him realize the sound had come from her had been the look of unadulterated lust pasted across her face. At first, he'd thought she was being humorous and doing the Meg Ryan thing. And then he'd realized, no, she really just adulated, perhaps even deified pastrami. He'd considered that theory proven when she'd moaned, "Oh, god..." for what seemed like the twenty-seventh time in a row.
"Are you all right?" he asked when noticed that she'd stayed silent against him for almost a whole minute. He rubbed his hand up and down her back, trying to soothe her.
She looked up at him with a woeful expression. "So. Full."
"Well," he replied, "I was going to suggest we go do something relaxing, now, like ride the Staten Island Ferry, but..."
Her face crinkled up in a look of woozy, nauseated horror. "Oh, no. Rocking. Waves. Sea... Stomach. River. Water. Moving. No boats. Not now," she moaned. And then she blinked. "You actually want to go on a ferryboat?"
He shrugged. "We live in Seattle, Mere. One of these days, we're going to have to ride a boat. Might as well rip the band-aid off on a good day."
"I guess," she said. "But not now. You might need a cart just to carry me home, Derek. That was so good. I couldn't stop."
"So," he said, kissing the top of her head. She moaned at him, but it was a frustrated, I'm-so-full-I-could-explode moan, not one of pleasure. Not like the ones she'd been mewling while she'd been eating her sandwich, doing that alight, adorable eye rolling and that orgasmic swooning. "You weren't faking those little moans?"
"Derek..."
"They were cute," he said. "Way cuter than Meg Ryan's rendition."
"I like pastrami!"
He smiled. "I heard. I saw."
She hit his chest softly with the heel of her palm, and he laughed as she practically growled at him. "Oh yeah?" she countered. "Well, maybe you weren't being vocal about it, but you made a face while you ate. I totally saw you make it."
"A face?"
"Yeah, it was your sex face," she said, and then her voice went low and panty as she continued in a very, very good rendition of the Meg Ryan bit, "Except, in addition to oh, god, oh, god, it said why, why, why am I a health nut?"
He laughed. "I like pastrami, too, you know. And you ate half of mine."
"Yeah, whatever," she replied, rolling her eyes. "You're never fooling me with your fake salad lust ever again."
"Hey, I like salads."
"You're totally Meg about salads."
"I am not!"
"Are too..."
"Am not."
"Are too. Admit it," she said. "You're all for the fatty, greasy moo under that fruity soybean-and-lettuce exterior."
"Well, fine, maybe I am, but how else would I stay this hot?" he said, gesturing at his stomach, which was thankfully quite flat to prove his point despite how full he felt. "I don't have your metabolism, Mere."
She stared at him for a moment, silent. Her eyes rolled again, and not in that cute orgasmic way, either. "That's what I've always loved about you, Derek," she said. "Your humility."
"I am humble!" he protested. "I humbly admit my metabolism has followed me into middle age."
"Yeah, well, I'm sure I'll be joining you in a few years. For now, though. Pastrami. Ohhh." She moaned, gripping her stomach in discomfort, and he felt the intense need to hold her and take it all away.
He rubbed her back and cradled her in his arms as he leaned back against the brick wall. People passed on the street, but he and Meredith were essentially being ignored, off in their own private island on Manhattan. The city was much less crowded in this area. He ran his fingers through her hair. "You should have gotten a doggy bag, Mere."
"But it was on the plate," she said. Her thin fingers toyed with his sweater, bunching it up in the clutch of her palms. She looked adorable. Had he mentioned she looked adorable? "And so..." She moaned. "So good."
He clucked his tongue. "Shameful. No willpower whatsoever."
"I have willpower," she replied. "Just not with food. Or you."
He smiled. "It's mutual, trust me."
She rose up onto her toes, wrapped her arm around behind his neck, and pulled him down against her, kissing him. Her tongue swept into his mouth, and he welcomed it as he sucked at her lip, sucked and nipped and... She pulled back like a rocket, leaving him breathless, addled...
"You taste like pastrami," she said, making a face.
He frowned. "Well, you do, too... I thought you liked pastrami."
"On bread, yes."
He snorted with laughter, and she thunked her head back against his chest as she giggled along with him. "So, what's next?" she asked, once she'd recovered.
"Well, it's after three..." he mused. "We probably only have time for one more thing before we should head back to the hotel to check in and change."
"Change?"
"For dinner."
"Oh," she said, "It's a fancy restaurant?" Her face brightened as she smiled, her gaze lost somewhere else, somewhere not on the street with him.
"Well," he replied, "We could probably go like this if we're running late." He gestured to their clothes. She wore loose black slacks, a tighter black knit shirt, and a cute little creamy sweater thing that buttoned in a way that accentuated the curve of her breasts. Really, the only thing that might not work amongst them was his jeans, but at least they weren't frayed, and they didn't have holes. His sweater and his button-down shirt would be fine for anything but the dressiest of places. Then again, he knew she'd packed a very nice, short, curvy black dress at his behest. She'd asked him when she'd been packing for this trip if she would need to dress up, and he'd promised her that if she packed the black thing, he'd find a reason for her to wear it.
He really hoped they had time to change.
"So, it's not a fancy restaurant," she said, and her brightened expression fell a little out of the rafters into something less... nuclear.
He shrugged. "I haven't been there, Meredith. Kathy recommended it."
"Well, I'm all for changing," she said, enthusiastic again. She stared at him, her eyes went distant, a cute curl of a smile pulled at her mouth, and then she shook her head, blinked back into the world at large, and licked her lips. "You in a suit is just..."
He laughed as he realized where her distant place had been. "Well, you caught me, too. I just wanted you to get into that little black dress you packed. So, seriously, what do you want to do? We're burning changing time."
She thought silently for a moment, and he rubbed her back idly while she considered the options. He started trying to think of places to take her, just in case she really couldn't think of something she wanted to see. A walk in Central Park would probably help with her fullness. That could be nice. Though, he wasn't sure if he was up to a lot more walking at this point. He closed his eyes for a minute and breathed, letting the brief darkness soothe him. The pastrami, which sat heavily in his stomach, had been a large enough meal to make him drowsy to begin with, and on top of that, he was tired anyway. Just a little. Nothing like the day before. But, still. It had a sort of dragging effect. He grimaced and thought to himself, okay, body, give me another day. You can rest on the plane. Body didn't reply. He hoped it wasn't preparing another silent coup.
So, where else to go? Maybe the Cloisters, but then again, Meredith didn't really seem like the type who would enjoy that sort of thing. Medieval art. No. He didn't see her as a museum person in general, either. It was a shame that it was too early for a good show. She'd possibly get a kick out of seeing a Broadway musical like Phantom. Or maybe something funny like Spamalot. Maybe--
"I want to see Mount Sinai," she said, interrupting his thoughts. "Where you worked."
He blinked. Well, that wasn't... Wasn't really what he'd been expecting at all. "You want me to take you to the hospital?"
She nodded. "Where you worked," she said. "Show me your office."
He frowned. Mount Sinai? That was a place he hadn't expected to see again for a long time. "It's probably been rented to someone else, Mere."
"So? I want to see it."
"Really? I'm sure there're more interesting things to see, Mere..."
She gave him a cute smile, a cute smile that had him melting, and he couldn't resist smiling back at her as she whispered, "You're interesting to me," her expression and tone uncharacteristically shy.
"Okay," he replied despite his strange reluctance. Reluctant. Why was he reluctant? He'd been willing to stay in the hotel he'd stayed in the night he'd discovered Addison. He'd been to Times Square and stood there in the midst of some of his very favorite memories of Mark and the fun times they'd had, particularly when they'd just started their internships. He'd already slogged through it all in his head more than once.
What was the issue?
He sighed and raised his hand, hailing a cab as it prowled down the street looking for would-be passengers. The cab slowed and stopped. He sighed as they got into the car, sighed and leaned back against the seat. "Mount Sinai Medical Center," he told the driver, who nodded, and the car was moving before he'd even managed to clip his belt on.
Meredith settled closely to him, opting for the middle seat this time instead of the far side. Pastrami breath was apparently enough of a deterrent for the hanky panky she'd tortured him with earlier, and he was happy to just sit there with her, happy but... She sighed against his chest as he reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose, pushing up his sunglasses to rub his eyes underneath. As the car had started rolling, a brief hint of swirly nausea hit him. He swallowed it back, and he was fine again, fine, but just... Off.
No coups, he told himself. Damn it. He'd sleep when he got home.
Something jingled. He looked down, trying to focus on the white blur hovering in front of his face. A travel-sized bottle of ibuprofen. Meredith held it clutched in her hands like a teacup as she offered it up to him. Her purse lay open at her hip, all manner of things busting out of it like loose stuffing. A brush. A few tampons. A long wallet. She'd had to go routing for the painkillers. And he hadn't noticed at all.
"For your headache," she said when he looked at her curiously.
"I don't have a..." he began, and then he stopped. Stopped and thought about it. The slow throb that had been back behind his awareness tromped into the space between his eyes and pounded at him. "Headache," he finished lamely.
He took the bottle from her and swallowed two of the pills dry. "Thanks," he said as he felt the bump of the second one slide down his throat uncomfortably.
"It's really pretty obvious, Mr. Mopey. I don't get why you don't treat yourself," she said, a smile quirking her features.
"I hope this stops soon," he said.
"It will, Derek," she assured him, rubbing his arm. "PCS resolves spontaneously. I bet you'll wake up someday next week, and you'll realize you're fine."
He sighed. He hoped it would be as simple as that. But he'd been a neurosurgeon long enough to see some of the horror cases. People who still had chronic problems months later. People who never managed to heal completely. A concussion was a serious head trauma, constantly made light of by the media, by stupid action flicks. But, really, on the most basic level, it was still brain damage. And the human brain was sadly still far too much of a mystery for the medical community to even agree in certain terms on what exactly PCS was, let alone anything definitive about its duration or why it was so variable.
He closed his eyes and breathed, relishing the warmth of her next to him. She fumbled to put her purse back in working order, stuffing, jamming, twisting items to make them all fit inside again. He didn't bother to tease her. Women and their purses made no sense to him and never ever would. Contrary to popular opinion, he did sometimes learn things. Like not to ask why she needed all that junk. He caressed her side absently as she muttered things about needing something bigger, which seemed ludicrous to him. Her purse was already more like a tote bag.
He pointed out the window to the right as they passed the first notable bit of scenery he could think to play tour guide again with. "That's the 59th Street Bridge, if you care, by the way," he said.
She stopped her purse pulverizing to look out the window. "Is it special?"
He shrugged. "Mary Jane Watson got tossed from it."
"Mary who?"
"Oh, come on," he replied. "Spider-Man. Green Goblin?" She had to have at least seen the damned movie.
She snickered. "Well, I suppose it's good to know now."
"What is?"
"That I'm marrying a dork," she replied, patting his shoulder in a sympathetic, it's-okay-dear way that made him pout.
"Spider-Man is cool," he said.
He'd read the comics as a kid. Well, he'd read the ones Mark hadn't stolen from him five minutes after he'd cracked the spine. Mark had been bigger, well, still was, but when they'd been kids, while Derek hadn't been against hitting back, sadly, Mark had usually ended up clocking him into the pavement whenever he'd tried. It was how he'd broken his nose. His mother hadn't been very pleased when he'd come inside with a bloody face. On the bright side, Mark had chipped his knuckles.
He and Mark had enthusiastically gone to see the first Spider-Man movie in the theater on opening night. Mark had asked him to go to the second one, but Derek had been bogged down with work, both real, and looking back on it, manufactured, and he'd said no. Weeks. Mere weeks later, and he was driving in the rain wondering how the hell his life had gotten so twisted up and shredded.
"Tobey Maguire is cool," Meredith countered. "Spider-Man is dorky."
"Mary Jane is hot, at least," he said, forcing his mind back to the present.
Meredith looked up at him. "You like Kirsten Dunst?"
He frowned. His mind screamed. Trick question. Trick question. Don't say a word! "I'm not answering that."
"Why not?"
"Because I'm nearly forty," he said. "And she's like... two."
"She's in her mid-twenties, Derek."
"Still..." he replied. "Not answering that."
"Which means yes, doesn't it."
"No comment."
"It's okay," she said. "I like the Cosmo tub guy and he's barely the drinking age."
He looked down at her and smiled. "I thought you said I'd ruined you."
"Except for the Cosmo guy! And Calvin Klein models. And actors."
"Okay, well, so long as we're clear."
"It doesn't bother you, does it?" she asked, her voice suddenly quiet and serious. "That I'm only thirty-two?"
He frowned. No, it really didn't. It never had. He'd looked at her in that bar, and something had just clicked. It had never been about age, though she did sometimes make him feel old. Sometimes. Like with the fact that she could eat a truckload of pastrami and not gain one tiny ounce. And the real biggie...
When she'd admitted to him that she'd never been in a serious relationship before, and it'd really hit him just how fragile everything he'd built with her was. The thing with Mark... It made him feel weary. Weary, and definitely old. He'd been married, been cheated on, tried again, cheated right back, and been divorced. And she was fresh out of the starting gate, fresh to the point that he'd had to explain that fighting didn't mean something was ending. That had been a real shock for him. She'd seemed so... Sure of herself, sure and flirty and strong in the beginning, that he'd never thought he might be smearing some snow with dirt.
Not that she was all that pure, either. But he quickly veered away from that thought before it got him stuck in the gutter. He looked at her, ran his fingers through her hair, and sighed. It was only an eight-year difference. Well, almost eight. Not huge. Plenty of relationships had formed around larger gaps. And, really, despite the fact that sometimes the difference did flare up quite a bit, it didn't... bother him. It just made him feel... Real. Not drenched in the fantasy. Which wasn't necessarily bad.
"No, Mere," he said. "It doesn't bother me. Does it bother you that I'm nearly forty?"
"No," she replied, a little too quickly. "Well... No."
He stilled as he heard the sudden tension clamp around her tone like a vice twisting tighter. That definitely meant yes, at least a little. He'd never asked before, never really thought to ask. They'd just sort of... happened. And he'd gone with it.
"Well, what?" he prodded, a cold, coiling sort of fear slipping underneath his skin. Age was something he couldn't fix. Couldn't ever fix. It just was. And if it bothered her...
"Let's talk about it later," she said.
"But..."
"I'm happy right now. Let's talk about it later."
"Okay, Meredith," he replied, sighing, unable to press her more, because they had finally arrived. "Later."
He paid the cabbie, and they got out of the car. She hefted her purse over her shoulder. He smiled, wrapped his arm around her waist, and guided her toward the 5th Avenue entryway. Mount Sinai wasn't like Seattle Grace. It wasn't one huge, sprawling building. It was a series of them spread out like a college campus. His old office had been buried behind a series of winding hallways and stairs and pathways that weren't necessarily obvious at first glance.
Mount Sinai Medical Center. The main building rose like a tower in front of them. People were everywhere. Staff, walking in, walking out. Visitors, walking in, walking out. Sick people, walking in, walking out, hobbling in, hobbling out, wheeling in, wheeling out. But Derek stood still, far back on the walk. Meredith waited patiently.
It was the first place Derek actually felt twinges of... unsettlement that were hard to ignore. The big pangs he'd been expecting outside the Algonquin, while he'd been standing in Times Square... They hit him now, though it certainly had nothing to do with the homesickness he'd been expecting when he'd offered Meredith this tour. It was literally the first place in Manhattan Derek found himself not only far from actively missing, but rather actively dreading.
As he halted again in front of the sliding, double doors, his breath caught for a moment. He could remember so many times when he'd walked through those doors. Even the last, though he hadn't known it when he'd been in the act of it. When he'd packed up and moved he'd done a lot more moving than packing. He'd left everything but his clothes and a few sentimental knickknacks when he'd fled. He had left his office untouched, let his secretary box his things up and mail them out to him in Seattle once he'd gotten a mailing address. He'd had all his active patients referred without warning, which he regretted, but... He just hadn't been able to stay.
Mark had been with him, that last time he'd come here. Mark had somehow found the time to come to work that day, and had accompanied Derek, all smiles, cheer, and arrogant snark like he always was. All on the same day he'd fucked Addison.
Derek had been behind. Behind on mountains of paperwork. He'd often neglected paperwork in favor of getting in on the next cutting edge surgery, the next new miracle procedure. Though he'd had a private practice, he had a very good relationship with the teaching doctors at the center, and they called him in. Often. Sometimes to teach, sometimes to learn. Sometimes for both. He'd had a week of nonstop cutting, and he'd had a pile of paper in his inbox about a foot-and-a-half high to churn through as a result.
"Cheer up, man," Mark had joked. "Just make scribbly chicken-scratch lines in the blanks and call it done. Nobody can read doctor handwriting anyway."
The day had been a nightmare. He'd spent it all in the office, reading, writing, reading, writing, until his eyes had been solid clusters of throbbing soreness. He'd leaned back in his chair, breathed, and as the last bit of daylight had slipped from the sky, Mark had poked his head in. "Well," he'd said. "I finished that rhinoplasty. Miss Jenkins now looks cute and perky instead of wicked-witchy. I am a genius. Ready to go, man?"
"I can't," Derek had replied, gesturing to the sprawling reams of paper, cracked open folders, research books, texts, and piled junk on his desk. "I have to get through all this stuff before it turns my desk into a steaming compost heap."
There had been a time, once, when Mark would have protested, would have told him to lighten up, to get off his ass and go home to Addison, but not anymore. Mark had swallowed. He'd gotten a pinched, sort of sad look on his face, he'd nodded, and he'd left. Just like that, Mark had left.
The sky had opened up moments later, rumbling with a foreboding that Derek had simply... Not thought about at all. Because he'd had paperwork. Miles of it. His eyes had hurt, his wrist had been killing him from the constant pen work, his brain had been scrambled, and he'd known very well he should have just gone home, because his productivity had been suffering already, and would only continue to do so. Instead, he'd stayed. He'd stayed, and Mark had left.
Left to go fuck Addison.
How did that work? How did that even begin to work? Derek had never really thought about it before. Never really... thought about the day of. The night was too raw, and he'd always gotten stuck in it, unable to rewind and analyze, unable to get past it. Not until Meredith, anyway. And, after Meredith, he hadn't really felt a need to analyze it anymore. So, he just hadn't.
Hadn't thought about it. At all.
Had Mark known he was going to fuck Addison when he'd left that day? Impossible to tell. Derek liked to think Mark would be the guy that admitted it up front. He was pretty forward, pretty blunt, and with Derek, he was usually painfully honest. "Derek, I'm going to fuck your wife." Derek liked to think he would have said it if it had been premeditated.
But then why had Mark looked sad... Sad like he knew Derek was ruining things, even when Derek didn't. Sad like he knew he loved Addison, and knew Derek was hurting her, and knew he didn't like it.
How did that work?
"Derek?" Meredith whispered. Her arms wrapped around his stomach, and he shuddered back into the present.
"Sorry," he said. He led her through the door, giving her a brief tour of the facility. Not much had changed. He saw familiar faces, familiar faces he found himself having the inexplicable need to dodge. He'd turn away when someone he knew passed, anything to prevent them from saying hello, saying hello and asking what the hell had happened.
He did find some enjoyment in watching Meredith, at least. Meredith listened to him with rapt attention while he babbled on almost nervously about surgeries he'd done, people he'd met, things he'd experienced, and the pleasure on her face was only tempered by the barest hint of concern. He could tell it was for him. The concern.
By the time they arrived at the suite where he and Mark had worked out of, he felt wired, wired and tense, and unsure about why this place was making him so uncomfortable. The door to what had once been his office suite was decorated with a small, shiny, silver plaque. Dr. Myers, Dr. Walcott, and Dr. Abbey. The names gleamed against the dim light of the hallway. Nobody he knew, and it was unsettling. It was supposed to say Dr. Shepherd and Dr. Sloane. It was. It had. And now it didn't.
He swallowed. "Well, this is it," he said as Meredith came to a stop next to him, and they just stared at the door like it was some sort of impenetrable oak wall. He didn't dare check to see if it was locked. He wasn't sure he wanted to see what Dr. Myers, Dr. Walcott, and Dr. Abbey had done to the innards of the place. "Mark and I shared it."
Meredith touched the plaque. "You don't seem like the private practice type," she said.
He frowned. "I don't?"
"Private practice neurosurgery? That's a big money, big reputation game, Derek. You've always seemed more to me like you're in it for the feel-good, not for the money or the clout."
He didn't really know what to say to that. He'd started up his practice as a business endeavor, a way to rise to the top, without ever really considering what that meant at the time. It was important to be upwardly mobile. To aspire. That point of view had pounded itself into his brain as he'd grown up, no dad, and he was forced to make himself... Be something. Something that would never be enough until he'd won. Won what? Who knew... But Dad wasn't around to say whether he was proud already or not, and so it'd all twisted up into a drive that'd... Crunched up the person he was like a little Volkswagen Beetle plowing into a semi.
It hadn't been until he'd found Addison with Mark that he'd realized how much he simply... Hated it. Everything. His life. Saving people had always been the icing on the cake that had kept him going. But in New York, it'd always felt like exactly what it was. Business. Smile and be friendly to the fake-nice people who will pay for the tumors to be gone from their spines, brains... It had never felt like that at Seattle Grace. He'd been all about making it before. And now he felt sort of like he'd finally settled, finally found his niche. Seattle Grace fit with him. And it wasn't just because of Meredith.
He breathed in sharply as the realization coalesced somewhere in the mire of his thoughts.
"Oh, my god. Is that you? Shep!" a low, growly voice belted across the hall. Derek turned to see Dr. Harold Gretsky striding toward them. Harold wore a pristine white lab coat over green scrubs and snazzy-looking cross-trainers that didn't have even one scuff mark. He was a tall, thin man in his late forties. His hair was a slick, silvered color, crimped and short.
"Harry," Derek replied, smiling weakly as the older doctor approached. Harry had been Derek's chief resident when Derek had been an intern, and they'd grown to be fairly close colleagues as Derek had rose in the ranks. Derek hadn't seen anyone from Mount Sinai since he'd left it. He got called out on consults from Seattle Grace all the time, but luckily, Mount Sinai housed some of the best neurosurgeons on the East Coast, Harry included, and, well, they hadn't needed to call him in for anything yet.
"Harry, this is Dr. Meredith Grey, my fi--girlfriend," Derek said, barely managing to correct himself in time. The fiancé thing was definitely a dangerous area. He was far too bubbly about it. Meredith stuck her hand out to shake Harry's, and Harry looked back at her. Derek didn't miss the judgment there. Nor did he miss the surprise. Or the thousands of other things. Harry wasn't known for being stone-faced. "Mere, this is Dr. Harold Gretsky. He was a teacher of mine."
Whatever Harry had been feeling, he managed to stuff it away in some box and bow slightly. "Charmed, Dr. Grey," he said suavely, and to his credit, he didn't say a word about the missing wife. "Shep, I read that paper you wrote on the conjoined twins separation. That was fascinating! I can see how Seattle Grace managed to woo you over to them," he continued, as if Derek's sudden disappearance wasn't at all strange, "What brings you back to Mount Sinai?"
Derek cleared his throat. "Just showing Meredith around my old haunt."
Haunt. Haunt seemed like a particularly apt word to describe things. He felt like a ghost. Like he shouldn't be there. And it was odd, having this conversation outside his old office door. He half-expected Mark to barge out of the old office and start cracking jokes. Instead, his ex-friend's younger apparition passed by in a breeze of memory.
"Derek, you suck, man," Mark said. "You didn't even get her a card?"
"I was busy," he replied as Mark wrapped his arm over Derek's shoulder and pulled Derek into a tight... not hug. It was something darker. More threatening.
"Yeah, elbow deep in brain tumor," Mark said, his voice dripping with... Anger. "It's your anniversary. How do I know that, but you forgot?"
The two of them walked off into the hallway and disappeared like... Like they had been lights, and somebody had just... shut them off. Derek stared down the hallway after the memory as it faded, removed from Harry's conversation with Meredith. He knew they were speaking. The words twisted around his ears in a vague curl of mumbled sound.
"Well, do you want to?" Harry asked, his voice slamming through Derek's wandering mind like a wrecking ball.
Derek blinked. "What?"
"Scrub in. I know it's no conjoined, adult twins, but we have a lot of eager interns who would be absolutely thrilled to see you do it. You're still kind of an idol around here, you know."
It. It what? Derek wondered. And, strangely, he found himself utterly not curious, despite the rabid look of glee on Harry's face. Hell, the man was practically salivating. Must be something rare, something worth writing about, but...
"No, thanks," Derek replied, surprised at how easy it was to say. "I owe Meredith dinner."
"She can scrub in, too," Harry said cheerfully. "A girl after my own heart, wanting to specialize in neurosurgery. And, unlike you, I didn't even have to twist her arm about it."
Meredith's expression melted into one of surprise. Derek shook his head. "No thanks, Harry. I appreciate the offer, though."
Harry shook his head. "You? Passing up a... Where's the Twilight Zone music?" He joked.
Derek shrugged, and Harry's beeper went off. He pulled it from his belt. "911, I have to go," Harry said. "Let me know when you're back in town next time, we'll do lunch."
And then he was gone, and Meredith was staring at him. As the silence settled around them in Harry's wake, and as he stared at the place where Harry had been, Meredith wrapped her arms around him, as if she knew just how... Unsettled he felt. "He had to twist your arm to specialize?" she asked.
He swallowed. "I couldn't decide between cardio-thoracics and neurosurgery for the longest time."
"What made you finally pick?"
"My dad," he answered. His dad had died of a ruptured aneurysm. "Neurosurgery just hit... closer to home with me. I felt more connected to it." Every successful surgery that saved a kid from living without a parent... Worth it. It reaffirmed why he'd chosen to be a surgeon in the first place.
He supposed he really was more about the feel-good than the rest of it. Meredith had called him out on it before he'd figured it out for himself. And that was... Incredible. He tried to smile at her, but it sort of twisted, and he wasn't sure he came across happy.
She nodded. "So, what now?" she asked.
"There's still more of the hospital to see, if you want."
She shook her head. "I've seen enough. And you've been weirded-out ever since we got here."
"Weirded-out?"
"Yeah," she said. "Like you finally figured out the meaning of that saying, you can't go back home again."
He turned to her, a lump forming in his throat. Was he seriously that much of an open book? She'd been reading him all day like... Like he was one of those picture books with a smattering of words fit for the consumption of three-year-olds - easily. "Meredith..."
"Yeah?"
"If I ever..." His voice trailed away, and for a moment, he just couldn't find it. He stared at Meredith. She was beautiful. And she really... Got him. He never wanted that to go away. Never ever.
"Yeah?" she prodded.
He cleared his throat. "Don't ever let me not come home."
"What?"
"With Addison," he explained. "I used to... I used to stay at the office all night doing paperwork, trying to keep up, trying to get ahead, and I..."
"Derek..." she said, interrupting him. "I seriously doubt that will ever be an issue."
"But..."
"You're already worried," she said. "You just passed up a freaking once-in-a... okay, well, maybe thrice-in-a-lifetime, surgery. And you gave up your chance at Chief. For me. That doesn't sound like a man who stays at work too late."
He closed his eyes. "Things change, Meredith." He had changed. A lot, he was realizing. A whole lot.
"This won't."
"But."
"It won't," she said, like it was some sort of scientific fact, and that comforted him. He needed that. He did.
She leaned up and kissed him, stole his breath away. He pushed her flat against the wall and came down on her like a storm. He really needed it. Really. She still tasted a little like pastrami, but he didn't care. And she didn't seem to care either. He slipped his tongue down into her and licked and tasted and sucked, and it was so good, and he couldn't breathe. He just. Needed.
Her fingers pulled at his hair. He felt her nails scraping at him through his sweater. He jammed his groin up against her and pushed her up a little. She moaned. It was a cute, soft, throaty little moan that coiled through him and started building tension. Tension that was bad. Bad in the hospital. They couldn't have hospital sex again. Not when they had a hotel room. Stop, stop, stop, his brain was saying.
But somewhere behind it all, there was a soft, pleading whisper. I need this. I need her. I need. And for a minute, all he could do was Polo to his desire's Marco. Her heat filled him. She squeaked, and another delightful moan slipped down his throat as she pushed back and entered him. It was a slip, slip, slide of skin and heat and breath and he never wanted it to end.
Except they were in the middle of the hallway outside his old office, and they had to stop.
Had to stop.
He grunted and pulled away, pushing his hand out flat against the wall to prop himself up while he panted and blinked and tried to pull himself together. "So," Meredith said, her voice breathy and... lost. She was still recovering, too. "Where to next?"
"It's getting late. You want to head back to the hotel? Traffic will be awful right now. It might take a while."
"Okay," she said. "But, honestly, I don't think I'll ever be hungry again. Not after that pastrami."
He chuckled. "Give it a few more hours, oh bottomless pit of mine."
"Did you just call me a bottomless pit?"
"I might have," he said, smirking at her. He kissed the top of her head.
"Mean," she said, giggling. She had a beautiful giggle. "So mean."
"I find it cute. I really don't know where you put it."
"You think it's cute that I eat like a horse?"
"I think everything you do is cute."
She laughed as they headed toward the street, and he hailed them a cab. The trip back to the hotel was uneventful and long. He'd been right. The traffic was horrible. But at least he had some time to recuperate. He rested with his eyes shut. Meredith didn't bother him for more tour tips or scenic narration. She just rubbed his knee absently while he hovered in the middle of a doze despite the noise that cluttered the air. Traffic, horns, shouting, sirens, cursing. Every once in a while her hand would roam to the ring box in his pocket, and that had made him smile lazily despite the half-sleep that clutched at him.