Do You Ever Get Weary - 5/?
Title: Do You Ever Get Weary?
Author: greymcdreamysgh
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Mer/Der
Summary: Meredith and Derek have been married for a few years, but lately the wedded bliss is nowhere to be found. They rent a beach house for the summer, away from the hospital and work and surgery, in an attempt to repair what was broken.
Disclaimer: I don't own Grey's Anatomy.
Oh, life can be strange
Good and bad in so many ways
And in time you will find
That things are not always what they seem
ONE YEAR EARLIER…
It was springtime in Seattle and they had been graced with a string of sunny, warm days lasting for almost two weeks in the middle of May. Meals at the hospital used to be somewhat of a when you can, where you can experience, but now that they had settled into their residency, and even had their own interns, Meredith and Cristina could often manage a whole hour for their lunch.
“So I hear Olitzer is gunning for chief resident, and yeah, fuck that,” Cristina smirked. She set down her tray at an empty table, and Meredith slid into the available chair next to hers. At a little after two o’clock in the afternoon, the majority of the lunch crowd had cleared out of the cafeteria.
“Olitzer?”
“Yeah, orthopedic guy. Kinda tall, brown hair…overuses the word ‘swell.’”
“No, I know who he is, I just didn’t know he was going for chief resident,” Meredith replied.
“Well he’s going for it, but he doesn’t have a cat in hell’s chance of getting it,” Cristina said with confidence.
“He might.” Meredith shrugged. “I hear he’s pretty good.”
“Meredith, please, everyone in this hospital knows that it’s either you or me next year, and all the smart ones know that I’m going to kick your ass. Lovingly, of course.”
“We’ll see about that,” Meredith shot back with a cocky smile.
“So how’s the McFamily?” Cristina asked, reclining in her chair and taking a bite out of an apple. Cristina had never been an affectionate person by any means, but for some reason Emily adored her, and though Cristina had never said so in so many words, the feeling was mutual.
“Em’s doing ok. Derek is fine too, I guess.”
“You guess?”
“I haven’t seen him since yesterday morning, he got held up in that head-on collision that came in yesterday night.”
“And you didn’t?” Meredith had chosen neurosurgery as her specialty almost two years ago, and since then, she had become a rising star in the field. Multiple head traumas weren’t something she was likely to pass up.
“Somebody had to get the baby,” Meredith shrugged. “Speaking of, I should go check on her after lunch. She felt a little warm this morning.”
“God only knows what’s getting passed around at that daycare,” Cristina mused. “I was up there the other day. There’s snot everywhere.”
“They do produce quite a bit of snot,” Meredith agreed. “So, Olitzer wants to be chief resident….”
“Yeah, wants to be. Never will be,” Cristina responded emphatically.
“I don’t know. Remember that kid who came in last year? Legs bent the wrong way in some freak bus accident? He flew solo?”
“Yeah, I do, but I don’t remember the four hundred other more boring knee surgeries he’s done. I do remember me doing that quadruple bypass last month, and I’m sure I’ll remember for years to come the surgery I’m scrubbing in on tomorrow morning. Taking out a tumor the size of a baseball in this kid’s lung. Mer, you should have seen it, it’s huge, but we’re going to get it all” she trailed off, stopping when she saw Meredith looking at her a little strangely. “What?”
“Nothing,” Meredith replied immediately, shaken out of her thoughts. “Tumor the size of a baseball?” she tried to recover.
“Meredith,” Cristina started. “You know as well as I do that you’d roll over Olitzer in a chief resident race any day of the week. What do you really want to talk about?”
“Olitzer,” Meredith said with as much emphasis as she could muster. “Or your huge tumor. Whatever, you pick.”
Cristina just sat there, looking at Meredith and waiting. Meredith opened her mouth several times like she wanted to say something, but closed it just as quickly. Finally, on the fourth or fifth time she did it, she finally blurted it out. “I’m pregnant,” she said, all in one quick breath, a slow smile creeping across her face.
“Wow,” Cristina said, genuinely taken aback. “Congratulations. I didn’t know you were trying.”
“We weren’t,” Meredith shrugged. “I just found out yesterday. It just kind of happened, I guess.”
“Should I look into remedial sex ed for you?” Cristina joked. “You’ll wind up with nine kids and then you’ll tell me that it just happened. Just when I thought I was close to getting Shepherd dialed back down to a normal level of happy.”
“I haven’t told him yet. I’m trying to think of a cute way to tell him.”
“Oh, God,” Cristina groaned. “You’re not going to make Emily wear one of those ‘I’m the big sister’ t-shirts, are you?”
“I don’t know, maybe,” Meredith said defensively. “Something cute. Help me think of something!”
“Ok, I am Cristina and you are Meredith. I think you are, anyway. I know your uterus is making you all fluffy and happy inside, but I don’t think of cute sayings. He knocked you up twice in less than three years - why don’t you just ask him to buy you a mini van?” she said sarcastically, just as her pager began beeping urgently. “Damn it,” she muttered, glancing down at the device. “I swear to God, if I’m not watching Pastern like a hawk, he manages to get into some irreparable disaster in about 20 minutes. I seriously might kill him. Would you harbor me as a fugitive?” she asked as she darted away.
“I’d have to see what Derek would say about that,” Meredith teased.
“I’d do it for you!” Cristina said with mock hurt in her voice before disappearing around a corner.
Meredith finished up with the rest of her lunch, dumping the tray’s contents in the trashcan. She made her way upstairs to the hospital daycare, a godsend in her eyes. Neither Meredith nor Derek were prepared, or willing, to quit their jobs, so to have a place where they knew Emily was safe and well taken care of eased their minds. Brenda, the woman who ran the daycare, didn’t mind parents stopping by to see how their children were doing during the course of the day, especially when they were scheduled for a long shift and it might be 12 or 13 hours of separation.
When Meredith got up there, she heard frantic cries that she immediately recognized as her daughter’s. She gingerly stepped around strewn about toys and the children who were playing with them, and found Brenda holding a screaming Emily.
“Oh, good, you’re here,” Brenda smiled apologetically.
“Yeah, I was just coming to check on her. She felt like she might have a little fever this morning when I dropped her off. What’s wrong?”
“Mama,” Emily wailed hysterically. Meredith extended her arms and Emily readily left Brenda’s embrace for hers.
“Well she definitely has a temperature now, and you know, I think she might have an ear infection. She keeps pulling,” Brenda said, tugging on her own ear to demonstrate. “She just woke up and was upset.”
Emily’s little face was flushed bright red as she clawed her way up Meredith’s torso like a koala bear, burying her face in Meredith’s neck and grabbing for her hair. She was crying hard enough that her wails had become intermittent screams, followed by hiccupping silences as she took in another breath. Meredith wrapped her arms around her child, supporting her weight with her right arm as her left hand rubbed Emily’s back in slow, gentle circles.
“It’s ok,” Meredith assured her as she sunk into an empty rocking chair. Emily’s entire body was hot, and her curly hair was matted down in places with sweat. “Mommy’s here, Mommy’s here,” she crooned. She pressed her lips to the top of Emily’s head as she flexed her feet and rocked the chair slowly back and forth. “Shhh, it’s ok.” She continued with every trick she had learned over the past 20 months that usually calmed Emily down, but it seemed like all she really wanted was to be held.
Brenda did the best she could to keep the other children away from Meredith and Emily while Meredith tended to her daughter. After awhile, Emily had either started to feel better or had simply exhausted herself from crying, and had mostly quieted down. She sobbed occasionally, like she knew that it still hurt very much but she had resigned herself to the fact that there was nothing she could do about it. She whimpered as Meredith moved her just a bit to get a better look at her ear. Emily’s skin was still quite flushed from her screaming, but Meredith did see a bit of fluid oozing from her left ear.
“I’m going to take you home,” Meredith whispered against Emily’s skin. “How does that sound?” Emily nodded tiredly, clutching Meredith like she didn’t ever want to let go.
She explained the situation to Brenda, who nodded sympathetically, and patted Emily’s back before handing Emily’s things to Meredith and letting them go. In the hallway, Meredith balanced Emily on one hip and slung her bag over the other shoulder as she carried Emily back down to surgery to a nurses’ station and asked them to page Derek.
“Dr. Grey,” the nurse said. “We were actually just about to page you. There is a trauma en route, severe head injuries from a fall at a construction site. ETA 10 minutes.”
Meredith sighed anxiously. “Can’t Dr. Shepherd take care of it?”
“He is, as soon as the rig gets here with the patient. But he’s already scrubbed in on the craniotomy he had scheduled this afternoon. Subdural hematoma. He needs you to take over.”
“Can’t one of the other residents finish it?” she asked, her hand immediately on Emily’s back as the child started to whimper and tug on her ear again.
“Mama,” Emily cried.
“I know, I know,” Meredith hushed soothingly. “Listen, I can’t do it,” she said to the nurse. “I actually have to leave and I wanted to know if you could clear my other surgeries for today. What about one of the other residents?”
“It’s Memorial Day weekend, Dr. Grey. Dr. Zeller and Dr. Ulrich took their families to the coast for the holiday.”
“Ok,” Meredith pressed, thinking frantically. “All right, I’ll be back in ten minutes, but push my other surgeries to tomorrow.
She adjusted Emily’s bag, and started back on the same path she had just taken, back up to the daycare. Most of the time, she loved being a doctor. She really did. But something felt wrong here. She shouldn’t have been leaving her sick baby so she could tend to someone else. The thought that her mother might not have felt the same way briefly danced across her mind, but she shoved it away and focused her attention back on Emily.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured as she walked the toddler back to the daycare. “This won’t take long, I promise. Miss Brenda is going to take good care of you, and I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“Mama,” Emily grumbled irritably. She had lost the extensive vocabulary Meredith and Derek were slowly working with her to build in a confusing blur of sickness. Emily uttered that one word, Meredith’s name, repeatedly all the way back to the daycare, until all Meredith could do was counter it with, “I love you, I love you, I love you.”
A few minutes later, Meredith was beside Derek in the OR as he gave her the particulars of this surgery before leaving to tend to the construction accident. He explained where he was in the procedure, and what needed to be done from there.
“How long do you think you’re going to be?” Meredith found herself asking.
“I’m not sure; it depends. Why?”
“Em is sick. I was just about to take her home, but if you think you’ll be done first, can you go get her?”
“You probably only have about an hour, maybe two, left here,” Derek motioned to the patient. “I think this guy fell three stories. He’s pretty banged up, but I’ll see what I can do. Is she ok?”
“She’s hurting. Cranky. I’m pretty sure she has an ear infection. She just needs some antibiotics.”
“My schedule’s clear after this trauma. I’ll come home right after, but I think you’ll be done first.”
“I’ll see you at home then,” Meredith smiled, and though her mask covered most of her face, Derek could still tell by the way her eyes crinkled at the sides.
* * *
Later that night, Meredith had finally gotten Emily to sleep after a long afternoon and evening. She had managed to get one of her friends in pediatrics to see Emily quickly on their way out, and with one look at her, he diagnosed her with an ear infection. He recommended ear drops for pain relief, and Tylenol as needed, but didn’t expect that she would need antibiotics.
Meredith collapsed into bed, tired despite it still being fairly early. Her hand touched her stomach just briefly, fingertips tracing over a few lingering silver stretch marks, and wondered how she was going to do all of this again. Emily thrilled her and exhausted her, just like her career simultaneously thrilled her and exhausted her in ways she didn’t know were possible. Two in three years. Maybe she should get a mini van. Derek hated them. He said even the thought of owning one made him feel old. She’d have to twist Derek’s arm to get him to agree to buying one. Maybe Olitzer could set the bones afterward. He wouldn’t be busy being chief resident. Cristina would though. A toddler and an infant. Maybe a mini van. Soccer mom. Two in three years.
Her breath caught in her throat, and her heart started to pound. She kneaded slow circles on her stomach with her fist, trying to calm herself down. But there would be more ear infections. More short days at work. Caught off guard. More of being stuck between a rock and a hard place.
She splayed her palm flat across her stomach, trying to hold something, but nothing was there. It was still flat, tight from early morning sessions at the gym after Emily was born. But knowing something - someone, she corrected herself - was in there made it completely different.
The bedroom door eased open, quietly as if Derek had fully expected to find her asleep when he got in. He shucked off his pants, and unbuttoned his shirt, hanging both back up in the closet. He rummaged through the drawers in only his boxers, and after pulling a t-shirt on, crawled into bed with Meredith.
“Hey,” he mumbled sleepily. He wrapped his arms around her, and she pulled him close, his stomach flush against her back.
“Hey,” she yawned. “Em has an ear infection.”
“Ok. Did anyone write her a prescription?”
“No, Brennan just said to give her Tylenol as needed, and some ear drops. She didn’t need antibiotics this time.”
“I checked on her before I came in here. She’s asleep.”
“Finally,” Meredith sighed. “What happened to construction guy?”
“He fell off a scaffold, on his back, and hit his head on the sidewalk.”
“Paralysis?”
“Amazingly, no. Well, not so far,” he amended himself. “He broke his back. His spinal CT was clear, and we relieved the pressure on his brain, but he’s in a coma. We’ll see how he does. Your craniotomy from today is healing nicely though.”
“Good,” she murmured. “That’s good.”
“Are you mad at me?” he asked, whispering the words right into her skin. “For not being able to get her today?”
“No. It’s not your fault everyone in Seattle decided to bash their brains in today.”
“What’s wrong then?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” she shook her head.
“Your heart is beating so fast,” he observed, laying his palm flat across her chest.
“I think you’re just trying to feel me up.”
“I married you so I wouldn’t have to be stealth about it. I can do that whenever I want,” he chuckled. “Seriously, Mer….”
“Seriously, nothing’s wrong,” she promised, drawing his hands up around her and clasping them in her own.
Curling into her, he settled in. He burrowed his head into his pillow and took a deep breath. The full extent of his fatigue settled deep into his bones, and he wrapped himself around Meredith a little tighter as sleep started to come over him. Just as he got to the woozy limbo between consciousness and unconsciousness, Meredith squeezed his hand.
“Hey,” she whispered. She paused, and he squeezed back. “I’m pregnant.”
“What?” he asked in euphoric disbelief. “Seriously?”
“Yeah,” she said quietly. “It’s a lot. I know it’s a lot.”
“It’s good, Mer.” He rubbed his foot up and down her leg for a minute, and tenderly kissed the back of her neck. “This is so good.”
Good things, she thought. So many good things had happened.
Emily. Warm and pink in the hospital, holding her hand. Swaddled and snuggled between her and Derek in bed. In the park, on the fourth of July, with strawberry juice dribbling down her mouth and fireworks in the sky. Caught red-handed with Cristina, of all people, playing hide and seek. Sitting on the kitchen counter helping Izzie bake muffins, laughing as she tried to spoon batter into the cups with her hands. Running towards her, with sticky hands and a delighted shriek, for a bear hug when she got home from work. Feeling like she belonged to someone.
The memories wrapped around her, more comforting than anything else she could think of at that moment. “Yeah,” she said into the darkness. “It is good, isn’t it?”
* * *
“And, Dr. Bowman, why am I removing only the majority of the tumor today?” Meredith quizzed in the middle of a surgery a few weeks later.
“The tumor is on the occipital lobe, which is the part of the brain that controls vision. The patient has asked us to proceed with cutting as much of it out as we can without doing damage to the brain, in an attempt to save his sight.”
Meredith nodded. “And what is the post-op treatment protocol for Mr. Rhodes?”
“We’ll proceed with radiation and chemotherapy to kill any cancer cells that might remain.”
“Correct,” she managed, taking a deep breath as she turned away from her patient. The nausea had arrived about two weeks after she found out she was pregnant, and it had been almost a constant ever since. She had been a fixture in the operating room for four years, and it had never bothered her until now, but that initial incision and the subsequent smell of an open body on her table made her stomach churn every time.
A few hours later, after she closed the incision and scrubbed out, all the while managing not to throw up, Meredith retreated to the bathroom. She turned one of the sinks on and doused her wrists under the stream of cold water, then pressed her moist hands on the back of her neck. A wave of nausea washed over her, and her stomach felt like it had been turned upside down. Hunching over, she gagged once over the sink, but swallowed it back. She took a shaky breath, and looked up into the mirror. The mythical glowing pregnancy skin was nowhere to be found. Instead, her complexion was pale and clammy. Maybe it was just the fatigue, or maybe the hormones. Maybe a little of both. She dragged her fingertips over her cheekbones and temples, and tried to massage some of the tension away.
Sighing, she glanced away for a second, just to check her pager. Almost eleven in the morning. Maybe she’d squeeze in visiting Emily before lunch. Maybe Derek too. It was exhausting trying to be everything.
She touched her stomach, tight and slightly distended even in the early weeks of pregnancy. Her insides, on the other hand, felt like a bowl of jello. The red kind. With that cherry cough syrup smell. Chunky. With a thin, firm skin on top. A spoon could slice right through it, just like a scalpel on flesh.
Meredith gagged again, and this time, she couldn’t keep it down. In an instant, she turned around and pushed the door to one of the stalls back open, vomiting harshly into the toilet. When she thought it was over, the mere recollection of the smell of iodine mixing with blood, and the image of the somewhat gelatinous look of the human brain, squeezed hard once more around her queasy stomach. She barely had time to recover before she was emptying the rest of her breakfast into the toilet.
Groaning miserably, she leaned back against the bathroom stall and wiped her mouth with the skin of her wrist. Only a few more weeks, she thought. A few more weeks and this would ease up considerably, just like it had with Emily. A few more weeks and Emily’s two year molars would finally be in. They’d be able to get her back into her own bed. They’d be able to get a full night’s sleep. The surgeries, though - they were always going to keep coming. Another this afternoon, in fact. One more tomorrow, and two the next day. So far, barring any traumas. Please, please, no one fall off a building or crash their car into a telephone pole or get shot in the head, at least until next week, she pleaded tiredly to no one in particular. Just until next week, or even until this nausea let up a bit.
You can do this, she told herself. You are Meredith. At least I think you are.
A little privacy would have been nice, but she couldn’t expect much when she was holed up in a pubic restroom in a highly busy area of a hospital. She looked under the door to see a pair of black Crocs, partially hidden by powder blue scrubs, inspect every stall like it was a police investigation.
“Meredith,” Cristina called, pushing door after door open before finally getting to the one where she actually was. “Mer -” she stopped abruptly when she almost hit Meredith in the head with the door. “Hey.” She sank down to the floor next to Meredith. “Smells great in here.”
“I just puked twice.”
“You should go home.”
“What? No, don’t be ridiculous. I’m fine. I have a surgery this afternoon.”
“Yeah, well, Bowman is running his mouth, saying that you looked like you were going to blow chunks all over the OR just now.”
“Oh, God, can we not talk about chunks?” she moaned, rolling her head back and pressing her palms flat against the floor. “I’m fine,” she insisted again.
“Has your OB at least given you a Zofran prescription?” Cristina asked.
“I don’t need it.” She inhaled slowly with every word, almost choking on the last one.
“Fine, you don’t need it.”
“It stopped working for me,” she admitted reluctantly after a moment or two.
“Then I’ll write you a prescription for Phenergan right now,” Cristina offered.
“No,” she swallowed hard. “Phenergan makes me too tired. I have to be able to sleep when I’m on Phenergan.”
“You should be sleeping right now,” Cristina countered. “I looked at the board. Your surgery started at six.”
“I am fine,” Meredith repeated through gritted teeth. She needed to touch something cold, anything to help with the annoying, nauseating heat that flushed her face and glazed her over with sweat almost instantly. Lying down on the tile floor with both hands flat, she bunched her scrub top up under her breasts in an attempt to cool the small of her back, and she suddenly felt a little better.
“You are lying on the floor of a public bathroom, and you are so nauseous that you don’t even care that it’s disgusting. Mer, you should go home and rest. Zeller can take care of that surgery this afternoon.”
“You just don’t want me to stay because you want to be chief resident and so do I and you just don’t want me to do this surgery,” she rambled, pressing both hands on her forehead. “You just want me to get a mini van and stay with my kids and not be a doctor anymore.”
“Ok, I know you’re hormonal and sick, despite you being fine and everything, but seriously. You need to need to take care of yourself. Mer….”
“I know,” she moaned, bursting into tears. “I know. I’m sorry. I just,” she gasped, and tried to get up. Cristina immediately grabbed her arm, holding her up and over the toilet, and Meredith dry-heaved violently, her stomach cramping with every woozy, churning flip flop. Tears rolled down her cheeks, carving wet rivulets in her skin as the color further drained from her face.
“Do you want some water?” Cristina asked as she helped her sit up.
Meredith shook her head and blotted at the tears with her fingertips. She cupped her forehead in her hands, caught between not wanting to cry too hard for fear of upsetting her stomach even more, and feeling like she simply couldn’t keep everything in.
It was impossible. Impossible to be everything, and do everything, and have everything. At least not right now, or the way she had hoped. Here she was with a husband who adored her, a beautiful baby, and another healthy one on the way. She had the career, the drive, and the ambition, and had been working on the clout and the prestige since the day she set foot in that hospital. She had everything that the majority of the world said that they wanted, even if only in an abstract someday. But if they could see her now. A sobbing, puking, hormonal mess sitting on the floor of a public restroom. It didn’t feel so great.
She wanted everything that she had, very much so in fact. But the key, she realized, was wanting each component of her life enough to make it real. And right now, she didn’t want to be a surgeon. She wanted to take Emily home for the day, and Derek too, even if he was in the middle of surgery, and go home. She wanted to take Emily’s afternoon nap with her on the couch. She wanted Derek to run her a warm bath, and then join her. Doctors didn’t get sick, or pregnant. And when they did, they at least had the good professional sense to do it quietly and discreetly. No allowances, no exceptions. Certainly no special treatment.
But somewhere, she knew she wanted to do that surgery this afternoon too. Because she also knew that when she was done with the throwing up and the exhaustion that ached deep in her bones, she wanted to be chief resident too.
The anti-Ellis.
The one who could balance and juggle and love and mother and cut, equally, all at the same time. The one who could have the stellar career, and later grow wrinkly and old with her first real love.
The one who could raise a daughter to be the anti-Meredith.
She didn’t realize how hard she was crying, but Cristina brought her back to the present when she flushed the toilet, and then briefly touched her shoulder. “Mer,” she offered quietly. “I’m going to go get Derek, ok?”
Cristina left her there, and a few minutes later, Meredith could hear the door open again. She straightened up a bit, took a few deep breaths, and blotted a few lingering tears with her fingertips.
“Fifth stall,” she heard Cristina instruct, and Derek breezed immediately in. “Where are you going?” Meredith heard her ask accusingly, directing her attention to someone else.
“The bathroom,” a nurse she thought was named Lisa replied.
“Yeah, not today,” and the door pulled closed. She continued to hear disgruntled, muffled arguing from the other side of the door, but Cristina refused to budge. She thought she heard a snide comment about bedpans, but she couldn’t be sure.
“Meredith,” Derek called as he carefully opened the door to her stall and sat down next to her. “Hey.”
“Hey.”
“What’s going on?” he asked softly, brushing his lips against her forehead. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know,” she wavered. “I just want you to go get the baby and I want to sleep. I want to stop being sick, and I can’t. I can’t, Derek,” she spilled out as her voice broke.
“Ok,” Derek soothed, wrapping his arm around her. She gripped at the hard muscles of his abdomen and rested her head on his shoulder. “Do you want me to do that surgery this afternoon?” he asked. “I have time. You can take Em home, and I’ll come home as soon as I’m done?”
“No,” she moaned. “I just want you…. Everybody looks at me differently.”
“No, they don’t,” he tried to assure her.
“I’m laying here crying and throwing up on the floor of a public bathroom, and my best friend is guarding the door so my husband can come in and I can fall apart in peace. Everyone is looking at me. Even you are.”
“No, Meredith.”
“Fat, pregnant, hysterical Meredith. Crazy hormone lady with the perfect life who can’t stop crying…. I can’t handle this,” she admitted, shame wrapping itself around her throat like a noose. “This isn’t what you signed up for when you married me.”
“This is exactly what I signed up for,” he murmured. “Me holding you when you cry. You pregnant with my child. This,” he paused as he kissed her temple, “Is exactly what I signed up for when I married you.”
“It’s not going to get better,” she said desperately. “I can’t be everything.”
“You’re doing it, Mer. You’re already doing everything.” She held onto him, and he rubbed her back in the same way he rubbed Emily’s - slow, gentle, clockwise circles.
Looking up at him, she asked suddenly, “Am I like her?”
“Who?”
“My mother.”
“No,” he replied immediately, searching his brain for the best choice of words that would prove to her how honestly he felt that way. Because she wasn’t like Ellis. The one who wasn’t there for Meredith because she was too busy being a shark in the OR. The one who Meredith spent her entire life never really knowing. The one who never just let Meredith feel like she measured up. “You’re not like her. You are…. Meredith, you are nothing like her,” he swore.
“I hope I’m not,” she choked as he told her to breathe. “I don’t want Emily to be like me.”
“Hey,” Derek said sharply. He helped her sit up a little more, supporting almost her entire weight with one arm. “There is nothing wrong with being you. Look at me. It’s going to get better,” he comforted. “You’re right, maybe it will be hard for a little while. But everything works out in the end, doesn’t it?”
“That’s what I’m banking on.”
“You can do this,” he promised with each word. “You’re Meredith.”
Meredith clutched at his hand - I think I can. I think I am. - and he squeezed back reassuringly.
A/N: So I seem to be enjoying my own beach house quite a bit (which actually gave me the idea for this story), but I did manage to finish this one in like a week so yay for an improvement in updating speed! This is the first of either two or three parts that flashback to the previous year, and is obviously before the miscarriage. The next part or two will deal with that, and the grieving, etc, which will be more of what brought them to where they are presently in the story. This was more groundwork than anything else, but it’s important groundwork, I think. Big thank you to Kay (tinseltowngirl) for being a great listener - you are awesome! And, as always, thank you so much for reading and continuing to review. I appreciate it very much!