What Do You Hear in These Sounds, 12 of ?
Author: Carsonfiles
Timeline: This chapter takes place roughly just after the episode with the not-a-spinoff. I have a mental block against the name and number. Later chapters continue to end of Season 3 and beyond. Then A/U (or I'll be really freaked out next fall)
Disclaimer: They aren't mine, but if Shonda doesn't quit bending them in ways they weren't meant to bend, I might have to confiscate them.
Summary: Picks up with Derek & Meredith on the way up to see the Bursons, and continues with Derek's session.
A/N: I can't begin to tell you the number of grey hairs uploading this chapter has given me. LiveJournal hates me, almost as much as Shonda hates Meredith. Because they both show the same amount of love.
I Fought the Law
Meredith thought this was probably the worst elevator ride in her life. Wait-maybe not worse than the one she, Addison and Derek took together in the days before the ‘Prom’-when he had been so angry over finding her at Finn’s. But that ride had been painful because of the cumulative damage, the pain she’d been going through for months and Addison was there to try to bridge the burning tension between them. This elevator ride was intense and quiet, and the silence was icy numbness. She tried to sort out the reasons behind the tension, each theory on a mental slip of paper. . .communication. . .not swimming. . .breathing for me. . . wanting to be chief. . .and then just as she thought she knew, a mental breeze swept through, and her neat stacks puddled into a mess.
She cleared her throat.
"Derek?”
And this time, when he glanced her way, a smile tweaked the edges of his mouth. Ok then, ok. Smiling is good.
“Are we. . .can we be. . .we’re okay? Because you seem. . .”
He looked sharply at her, and seemed to recognize what she was asking. The elevator chime sounded, and he took that step through the doors as an escape.
“Derek!” She called after him, found her feet and started nearly running. His head start and longer stride meant he was nearly halfway down the hall.
“Not now, Meredith. Not. Now.” And the terseness of those words was a physical force, pushing her the side of the hall, and throwing her into memories of standing in the nurse’s station, going over charts and hearing the the Shepherds bicker as they passed above. Not now, Addison. Not now. Shocked into looking up when Addison spoke her name, pretending to move on with her day, ignoring her own reaction.
But now she was the one being pushed away. She was the one being put to the side and she didn’t even know why.
Derek slammed the door of Jack’s office, and stopped to take a breath. She needs to ask? She pushes me away, time after time, keeps me distant. . .and wants to know from me what’s going on?
Jack was not impressed. “Is there a problem?”
Breakin' rocks in the hot sun
I fought the law and the law won-
I fought the law and the law won.
“It’s so hard, trying to build a relationship with Meredith. She won’t let me. . .it shouldn’t be so hard. Why is she making it so hard?” Derek’s sigh as he sat down was one of a man close to giving up.
Jack studied him for several moments, then stood. “Derek. Excuse me for just one moment. I’ll be right back.”
Before Derek could say yes or no, or even think of a response, Jack had left the room.
He blinked.
This was not the way he envisioned therapy. He thought there would be. . .well, something. Some way of sorting out his thoughts. Settling on priorities, dealing with the possibility (probability) he wouldn’t be chief. Figuring out how to help Meredith to open up. Figuring out Meredith. My directions are off-the compass needle is spinning. I’m disoriented. All I need is to get a surface, a space, and then I’ll be able to find north again. And when I do, when I get my bearings, I’ll be able to see. I’ll be able to see the way from here to there.
He heard movement and then Jack was back in the room, taking his seat and leaning back in his chair.
I needed money 'cause I had none
I fought the law and the law won,
I fought the law and the law won.
“Okay. So what about you? How are you doing in all of this?”
“I guess that depends on which part of the this you are talking about.”
“Well, in your first session, you didn’t talk about Meredith at all. But now, you want to talk about her issues. Let’s talk about how you are feeling about her issues.”
“Aaaaaaah,” Derek’s breath came out in a vocalized howl. “Frustrated. Incredibly frustrated.”
I left my baby and it feels so bad,
Guess my race is run.
“What is she doing that frustrates you?”
“She takes off. Whenever something happens, she wants to go to earth, hide out, and not deal for a minute. She refuses to take responsibility for things. She’s been having a really hard time, and I can’t make her trust me.”
“You can’t make her trust you. Should she trust you?”
“Of course she should trust me. I love her.”
“Meredith isn’t someone who trusts easily. Have you earned her trust?”
Derek’s eyes tensed and lightened with a flare of anger. “You mean, other than divorcing my wife for her? Other than risking my career for her? Other than pulling her dead body out of Elliot Fucking Bay when she decided not to swim?”
“You did those things for her?” Jack spoke softly.
“Of course I did them for her. Who else would I have done them for?”
“I would hope that you divorced your wife for yourself. And you made your own choices for your career. And rescuing her from the water. . .that was just the right thing to do, wasn’t it?”
She's the best girl that I ever had
I fought the law and the law won,
I fought the law and the law won.
Derek slammed his fist to the table next to him. “I have sacrificed for her.” His voice was nearly a bellow. “And she will Not. Let. Me. In!”
“But before you sacrificed for her, what happened?”
“What do you mean?”
“Derek. Meredith is seeing my wife. At this moment, even. I have seen her chart. I have seen your ex-wife. That puts me at a slight advantage over some other therapist who wouldn’t know when you were trying to snow them. Cut the bullshit, think back. Take yourself out of the equation. Why do you think that Meredith might not trust someone at first response?”
“I know she’s never had anyone to depend on. I want her to be able to depend on me, to open up to me.” Derek’s voice was even, but it barely masked his anger.
“Now, think about this past year, and consider the reason why she might choose any other person in this hospital to trust before she trusts you.”
Robbin' people with a six gun
I fought the law and the law won,
I fought the law and the law won.
Derek’s eyes flared with another surge of anger. His first instinct was to leave. He didn’t have time for this. He didn’t need to go over and over the events that had led to his divorce. “Look, Burson. I don’t know where you get off, putting things in that way. What you are doing is a violation of Meredith’s confidentiality. Don’t you realize that?”
Jack’s laugh lacked humor. “And over all of this, Meredith’s problems are what you are concerned with. Let me tell you how therapy works, Dr. Shepherd. You don’t get to come in here and get to bitch about someone else. Save that for a night out with your guy friends. Here, you talk about yourself. You talk about your own feelings. You aren’t in here to fix Meredith. You’re here to fix Derek. Figure out where you are broken. Accept that possibility, that some of these problems lie within you. Or you will forever be railing about how a woman doesn’t understand you. How can you possibly expect another person, Meredith, Addison, or anyone at all, to give you what you need, when you don’t even know yourself?”
"You're so sure that the problems I'm having with Meredith are because of my issues." Derek couldn't look at Jack, didn't want to see his face. "Why? How are you so ready to point your finger at me?"
"You're the one sitting in this office. If there are problems in a relationship, they don't just belong to one person. Both people contribute. And all one person can do is work on their own." Jack's voice remained calm.
“So you tell me, Doc.” Derek was growling through clenched teeth. “Since we’re not doing brain surgery here, I guess you can be the expert. To fix Derek. Just where should I start to fix Derek?”
“You could start by telling me why you chose Addison.”
I lost my girl and I lost my fun
I fought the law and the law won,
I fought the law and the law won.
The question took Derek by surprise. He hadn’t thought of choosing Addison in months-even before his reconciliation with Meredith. He thought back to the few days, maybe it was even a week, that he had thought it would end easily. God, that seemed like such a long time ago. But it was less than a year, less than a year since he sat in the chairs by the hospital doors. Thinking.
Flashback
Hospital Lobby
Derek thought about his patient from a couple of days ago, the gunshot victim. The case had come in as self-inflicted, but he and Karev had overheard a fight between the couple that made them suspicious. The patient had cheated on his wife years before, and she had never let him forget it. But what had made a difference to Derek was the man’s pain as he talked about the past. How his wife would never forgive his infidelity, and nothing she said could ever make him feel as bad as he already did. That patient’s story, it was Addison’s story. She was sorry. She’d said that almost immediately as she begged him not to leave their home, before Mark had even left their bedroom. And she had been saying it since she arrived in Seattle, that she was sorry, that they would make it through. She’d given him permission to bring it up as a weapon, dirty tactics, whenever they fought. He smiled to himself. He wouldn’t do that. Not really. Not if he tried to make it work. He’d been calling her Satan since she got to Seattle, though, which was ironic since he’d called her that back in the city as well. Of course, then it was a term of affection, when she’d scared the bejeezus out of an intern, intimidated a sales clerk into marking something down or convinced their chief of surgery that something had to be done exactly the way she wanted-even if it wasn’t exactly hospital protocol.
And he was frustrated with Meredith. She was pushing him into signing, she didn’t understand-but how could she? How could she know what it was like to make an oath, to swear in front of your friends and family, a priest and God that this was the one person you would cleave to. He had told her he couldn’t possibly have been expected to flourish the pen and end eleven years of commitment, that he deserved, needed to take some time to respect that marriage. That’s what she expected of him, just to end it, but her parents were divorced, she didn’t get the marriage thing. That he couldn’t just walk away from it as if it didn’t matter, just close the door on that era of his life-what had he said? Eleven Thanksgivings, eleven Christmases? But I did. I did just that when I closed the door to the brownstone and boarded a plane for Seattle. And so when he had told Meredith that, what had he been talking about?
God, when she had given him that speech, the one about cheesecake and loving him so much she hated him and throwing in the bit from Say Anything-how cute and wonderful she was when she did that. He had almost taken her in his arms right then, and wished he had, because he would be done with this thinking now, done deciding. he would have decided and she would be his. And the papers would be signed. He’d be over at Joe’s now or even at her house, and they would be healing. And he could explain why he hadn’t told her before (and why was that? asked part of him, why hadn’t he been honest with the woman who saved him?) He didn’t know, not then, but if he had signed the papers, they would have talked and she would have helped him understand.
I left my baby and it feels so bad,
Guess my race is run.
He looked up to see Meredith’s resident walking up to him. In a dress? They exchanged a few polite sentences and then she said it.
“Come on. You know what to do already. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be in so much pain.” Dammit. She was right. He knew. He had to give Addison a chance, had to see if she was the part of his lost soul that was returning to him. Had to finish this part before he could go on. He smiled, and every muscle of that smile screamed out to him it was a lie. He smiled and nodded, and watched Miranda leave for her anniversary dinner.
And he decided. And it nearly killed him.
And then his wife walked up.
Shes the best girl that I ever had
I fought the law and the law won
“I have been looking everywhere for you.” She stood, hip cocked at an angle, staring at him in a way that challenged him. Dared him.
“Well. You found me.” And he stood up and walked to where he could face her, stare her in the eye.
“So? Are you going to sign those divorce papers or not?”
And he could feel his heart breaking, shattering, smashed under those fucking expensive shoes as he looked at her. “Addie. I’m not signing. Not right now.”
“So when, Derek? When do you think you could be bothered to end your marriage? Will you pencil me in for tomorrow afternoon?” And her voice was frustrated, tense, echoing his own heartache.
“I’m not signing the papers, Addie. We can try to make a go of this. I can’t promise it will work, and I’m not going back to New York.“ He hated each word that came out of his mouth, each sound that he formed. Because he wanted, God, he needed Meredith. How can I just abandon her? She saved my life.
Addison looked at him, searched his face for what he wasn’t saying. She slowly nodded her head. “We can make a go of it here. I’ll talk to Richard, see if he has a place for me.”
Meredith. I have to talk to Meredith. But he didn’t want to hurry, didn’t want to speak those words again, because when he spoke them, they would be real. He would not only damage Meredith, but he would be killing himself.
Again.
I fought the law and the law won,
I fought the law and the law won.
End Flashback
Derek rubbed his face from chin to forehead with his hands, trying to wipe away the memories of that night. Those long months, when they tried for too long. Was it time when I found out the girl with the bomb was Meredith? He had become enmeshed with his marriage to Addison and completely forgotten that he had committed to try, not committed never to say it wasn’t working. Was it enough when I sat in the booth at Joe’s with Addison and her supply of Christmas catalogues and broke her heart telling her I loved Meredith? So when it had become evident that there was no use trying, he should have known. It was certainly past time when I was able to clip Mrs. Booker’s aneurysm. Quitting would have been the right thing, saved everyone some trauma.
“I needed to try. But we should have stopped trying before we did, we were making each other miserable.” And for a moment he had a keen sense of déjà vu, as he remembered Addison practically chasing him down the hall the night Burke was shot, chasing him down and he couldn’t get away. . . Not now, Addison. Not now.
He froze.
“What just fell into place?” And for being such an arrogant ass earlier, Jack was certainly being polite. Of course he was, now.
“I need to figure something out. I need to think about this, figure it out.”
“All right then. Figure it out, and I’ll see you next time.
I fought the law, and the law won;
I fought the law and the law won.
Previous Chapters
1: I don't go to therapy to find out if I'm a freak
2: I go and I find the one and only answer every week
3: And it's just me and all the memories to follow
4: Down any course that fits within a fifty-minute hour
5: And we fathom all the mysteries, explicit and inherent
6: When I hit a rut, she says to try the other parent
7: And she's so kind, I think she wants to tell me something
8: But she knows that its much better if I get it for myself.
9: Oooooooh, aaaaaaah, what do you hear in these sounds?
10: I say I hear a doubt and a voice of true believing.
11: And the promises to stay, and the footsteps that are leaving.
Timeline: This chapter takes place roughly just after the episode with the not-a-spinoff. I have a mental block against the name and number. Later chapters continue to end of Season 3 and beyond. Then A/U (or I'll be really freaked out next fall)
Disclaimer: They aren't mine, but if Shonda doesn't quit bending them in ways they weren't meant to bend, I might have to confiscate them.
Summary: Picks up with Derek & Meredith on the way up to see the Bursons, and continues with Derek's session.
A/N: I can't begin to tell you the number of grey hairs uploading this chapter has given me. LiveJournal hates me, almost as much as Shonda hates Meredith. Because they both show the same amount of love.
I Fought the Law
Meredith thought this was probably the worst elevator ride in her life. Wait-maybe not worse than the one she, Addison and Derek took together in the days before the ‘Prom’-when he had been so angry over finding her at Finn’s. But that ride had been painful because of the cumulative damage, the pain she’d been going through for months and Addison was there to try to bridge the burning tension between them. This elevator ride was intense and quiet, and the silence was icy numbness. She tried to sort out the reasons behind the tension, each theory on a mental slip of paper. . .communication. . .not swimming. . .breathing for me. . . wanting to be chief. . .and then just as she thought she knew, a mental breeze swept through, and her neat stacks puddled into a mess.
She cleared her throat.
"Derek?”
And this time, when he glanced her way, a smile tweaked the edges of his mouth. Ok then, ok. Smiling is good.
“Are we. . .can we be. . .we’re okay? Because you seem. . .”
He looked sharply at her, and seemed to recognize what she was asking. The elevator chime sounded, and he took that step through the doors as an escape.
“Derek!” She called after him, found her feet and started nearly running. His head start and longer stride meant he was nearly halfway down the hall.
“Not now, Meredith. Not. Now.” And the terseness of those words was a physical force, pushing her the side of the hall, and throwing her into memories of standing in the nurse’s station, going over charts and hearing the the Shepherds bicker as they passed above. Not now, Addison. Not now. Shocked into looking up when Addison spoke her name, pretending to move on with her day, ignoring her own reaction.
But now she was the one being pushed away. She was the one being put to the side and she didn’t even know why.
Derek slammed the door of Jack’s office, and stopped to take a breath. She needs to ask? She pushes me away, time after time, keeps me distant. . .and wants to know from me what’s going on?
Jack was not impressed. “Is there a problem?”
Breakin' rocks in the hot sun
I fought the law and the law won-
I fought the law and the law won.
“It’s so hard, trying to build a relationship with Meredith. She won’t let me. . .it shouldn’t be so hard. Why is she making it so hard?” Derek’s sigh as he sat down was one of a man close to giving up.
Jack studied him for several moments, then stood. “Derek. Excuse me for just one moment. I’ll be right back.”
Before Derek could say yes or no, or even think of a response, Jack had left the room.
He blinked.
This was not the way he envisioned therapy. He thought there would be. . .well, something. Some way of sorting out his thoughts. Settling on priorities, dealing with the possibility (probability) he wouldn’t be chief. Figuring out how to help Meredith to open up. Figuring out Meredith. My directions are off-the compass needle is spinning. I’m disoriented. All I need is to get a surface, a space, and then I’ll be able to find north again. And when I do, when I get my bearings, I’ll be able to see. I’ll be able to see the way from here to there.
He heard movement and then Jack was back in the room, taking his seat and leaning back in his chair.
I needed money 'cause I had none
I fought the law and the law won,
I fought the law and the law won.
“Okay. So what about you? How are you doing in all of this?”
“I guess that depends on which part of the this you are talking about.”
“Well, in your first session, you didn’t talk about Meredith at all. But now, you want to talk about her issues. Let’s talk about how you are feeling about her issues.”
“Aaaaaaah,” Derek’s breath came out in a vocalized howl. “Frustrated. Incredibly frustrated.”
I left my baby and it feels so bad,
Guess my race is run.
“What is she doing that frustrates you?”
“She takes off. Whenever something happens, she wants to go to earth, hide out, and not deal for a minute. She refuses to take responsibility for things. She’s been having a really hard time, and I can’t make her trust me.”
“You can’t make her trust you. Should she trust you?”
“Of course she should trust me. I love her.”
“Meredith isn’t someone who trusts easily. Have you earned her trust?”
Derek’s eyes tensed and lightened with a flare of anger. “You mean, other than divorcing my wife for her? Other than risking my career for her? Other than pulling her dead body out of Elliot Fucking Bay when she decided not to swim?”
“You did those things for her?” Jack spoke softly.
“Of course I did them for her. Who else would I have done them for?”
“I would hope that you divorced your wife for yourself. And you made your own choices for your career. And rescuing her from the water. . .that was just the right thing to do, wasn’t it?”
She's the best girl that I ever had
I fought the law and the law won,
I fought the law and the law won.
Derek slammed his fist to the table next to him. “I have sacrificed for her.” His voice was nearly a bellow. “And she will Not. Let. Me. In!”
“But before you sacrificed for her, what happened?”
“What do you mean?”
“Derek. Meredith is seeing my wife. At this moment, even. I have seen her chart. I have seen your ex-wife. That puts me at a slight advantage over some other therapist who wouldn’t know when you were trying to snow them. Cut the bullshit, think back. Take yourself out of the equation. Why do you think that Meredith might not trust someone at first response?”
“I know she’s never had anyone to depend on. I want her to be able to depend on me, to open up to me.” Derek’s voice was even, but it barely masked his anger.
“Now, think about this past year, and consider the reason why she might choose any other person in this hospital to trust before she trusts you.”
Robbin' people with a six gun
I fought the law and the law won,
I fought the law and the law won.
Derek’s eyes flared with another surge of anger. His first instinct was to leave. He didn’t have time for this. He didn’t need to go over and over the events that had led to his divorce. “Look, Burson. I don’t know where you get off, putting things in that way. What you are doing is a violation of Meredith’s confidentiality. Don’t you realize that?”
Jack’s laugh lacked humor. “And over all of this, Meredith’s problems are what you are concerned with. Let me tell you how therapy works, Dr. Shepherd. You don’t get to come in here and get to bitch about someone else. Save that for a night out with your guy friends. Here, you talk about yourself. You talk about your own feelings. You aren’t in here to fix Meredith. You’re here to fix Derek. Figure out where you are broken. Accept that possibility, that some of these problems lie within you. Or you will forever be railing about how a woman doesn’t understand you. How can you possibly expect another person, Meredith, Addison, or anyone at all, to give you what you need, when you don’t even know yourself?”
"You're so sure that the problems I'm having with Meredith are because of my issues." Derek couldn't look at Jack, didn't want to see his face. "Why? How are you so ready to point your finger at me?"
"You're the one sitting in this office. If there are problems in a relationship, they don't just belong to one person. Both people contribute. And all one person can do is work on their own." Jack's voice remained calm.
“So you tell me, Doc.” Derek was growling through clenched teeth. “Since we’re not doing brain surgery here, I guess you can be the expert. To fix Derek. Just where should I start to fix Derek?”
“You could start by telling me why you chose Addison.”
I lost my girl and I lost my fun
I fought the law and the law won,
I fought the law and the law won.
The question took Derek by surprise. He hadn’t thought of choosing Addison in months-even before his reconciliation with Meredith. He thought back to the few days, maybe it was even a week, that he had thought it would end easily. God, that seemed like such a long time ago. But it was less than a year, less than a year since he sat in the chairs by the hospital doors. Thinking.
Flashback
Hospital Lobby
Derek thought about his patient from a couple of days ago, the gunshot victim. The case had come in as self-inflicted, but he and Karev had overheard a fight between the couple that made them suspicious. The patient had cheated on his wife years before, and she had never let him forget it. But what had made a difference to Derek was the man’s pain as he talked about the past. How his wife would never forgive his infidelity, and nothing she said could ever make him feel as bad as he already did. That patient’s story, it was Addison’s story. She was sorry. She’d said that almost immediately as she begged him not to leave their home, before Mark had even left their bedroom. And she had been saying it since she arrived in Seattle, that she was sorry, that they would make it through. She’d given him permission to bring it up as a weapon, dirty tactics, whenever they fought. He smiled to himself. He wouldn’t do that. Not really. Not if he tried to make it work. He’d been calling her Satan since she got to Seattle, though, which was ironic since he’d called her that back in the city as well. Of course, then it was a term of affection, when she’d scared the bejeezus out of an intern, intimidated a sales clerk into marking something down or convinced their chief of surgery that something had to be done exactly the way she wanted-even if it wasn’t exactly hospital protocol.
And he was frustrated with Meredith. She was pushing him into signing, she didn’t understand-but how could she? How could she know what it was like to make an oath, to swear in front of your friends and family, a priest and God that this was the one person you would cleave to. He had told her he couldn’t possibly have been expected to flourish the pen and end eleven years of commitment, that he deserved, needed to take some time to respect that marriage. That’s what she expected of him, just to end it, but her parents were divorced, she didn’t get the marriage thing. That he couldn’t just walk away from it as if it didn’t matter, just close the door on that era of his life-what had he said? Eleven Thanksgivings, eleven Christmases? But I did. I did just that when I closed the door to the brownstone and boarded a plane for Seattle. And so when he had told Meredith that, what had he been talking about?
God, when she had given him that speech, the one about cheesecake and loving him so much she hated him and throwing in the bit from Say Anything-how cute and wonderful she was when she did that. He had almost taken her in his arms right then, and wished he had, because he would be done with this thinking now, done deciding. he would have decided and she would be his. And the papers would be signed. He’d be over at Joe’s now or even at her house, and they would be healing. And he could explain why he hadn’t told her before (and why was that? asked part of him, why hadn’t he been honest with the woman who saved him?) He didn’t know, not then, but if he had signed the papers, they would have talked and she would have helped him understand.
I left my baby and it feels so bad,
Guess my race is run.
He looked up to see Meredith’s resident walking up to him. In a dress? They exchanged a few polite sentences and then she said it.
“Come on. You know what to do already. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be in so much pain.” Dammit. She was right. He knew. He had to give Addison a chance, had to see if she was the part of his lost soul that was returning to him. Had to finish this part before he could go on. He smiled, and every muscle of that smile screamed out to him it was a lie. He smiled and nodded, and watched Miranda leave for her anniversary dinner.
And he decided. And it nearly killed him.
And then his wife walked up.
Shes the best girl that I ever had
I fought the law and the law won
“I have been looking everywhere for you.” She stood, hip cocked at an angle, staring at him in a way that challenged him. Dared him.
“Well. You found me.” And he stood up and walked to where he could face her, stare her in the eye.
“So? Are you going to sign those divorce papers or not?”
And he could feel his heart breaking, shattering, smashed under those fucking expensive shoes as he looked at her. “Addie. I’m not signing. Not right now.”
“So when, Derek? When do you think you could be bothered to end your marriage? Will you pencil me in for tomorrow afternoon?” And her voice was frustrated, tense, echoing his own heartache.
“I’m not signing the papers, Addie. We can try to make a go of this. I can’t promise it will work, and I’m not going back to New York.“ He hated each word that came out of his mouth, each sound that he formed. Because he wanted, God, he needed Meredith. How can I just abandon her? She saved my life.
Addison looked at him, searched his face for what he wasn’t saying. She slowly nodded her head. “We can make a go of it here. I’ll talk to Richard, see if he has a place for me.”
Meredith. I have to talk to Meredith. But he didn’t want to hurry, didn’t want to speak those words again, because when he spoke them, they would be real. He would not only damage Meredith, but he would be killing himself.
Again.
I fought the law and the law won,
I fought the law and the law won.
End Flashback
Derek rubbed his face from chin to forehead with his hands, trying to wipe away the memories of that night. Those long months, when they tried for too long. Was it time when I found out the girl with the bomb was Meredith? He had become enmeshed with his marriage to Addison and completely forgotten that he had committed to try, not committed never to say it wasn’t working. Was it enough when I sat in the booth at Joe’s with Addison and her supply of Christmas catalogues and broke her heart telling her I loved Meredith? So when it had become evident that there was no use trying, he should have known. It was certainly past time when I was able to clip Mrs. Booker’s aneurysm. Quitting would have been the right thing, saved everyone some trauma.
“I needed to try. But we should have stopped trying before we did, we were making each other miserable.” And for a moment he had a keen sense of déjà vu, as he remembered Addison practically chasing him down the hall the night Burke was shot, chasing him down and he couldn’t get away. . . Not now, Addison. Not now.
He froze.
“What just fell into place?” And for being such an arrogant ass earlier, Jack was certainly being polite. Of course he was, now.
“I need to figure something out. I need to think about this, figure it out.”
“All right then. Figure it out, and I’ll see you next time.
I fought the law, and the law won;
I fought the law and the law won.
Previous Chapters
1: I don't go to therapy to find out if I'm a freak
2: I go and I find the one and only answer every week
3: And it's just me and all the memories to follow
4: Down any course that fits within a fifty-minute hour
5: And we fathom all the mysteries, explicit and inherent
6: When I hit a rut, she says to try the other parent
7: And she's so kind, I think she wants to tell me something
8: But she knows that its much better if I get it for myself.
9: Oooooooh, aaaaaaah, what do you hear in these sounds?
10: I say I hear a doubt and a voice of true believing.
11: And the promises to stay, and the footsteps that are leaving.