Who Would Have Thought

Chapter 33

Bad. This was so so bad. Meredith had expected bad. She had definitely been counting on bad. Because if Mrs. Shepherd was anything, she was protective of her children. And Meredith had hurt one of those children. It didn't count for anything that Meredith hadn't meant to, or that she now loved that child more than anything, she had hurt him. She knew it was going to be bad before it had even happened.

She hadn't actually expected Mrs. Shepherd to even try to be nice to her. That would have been ridiculous. Her main thought had been that she was probably going to be murdered or something. Which hadn't happened yet but, well, Derek had been standing right there. The second he scrubbed into surgery, she was probably going to be killed and thrown into the ocean or something.

And she probably shouldn't have run. Even if she didn't want to hear all the awful things that Mrs. Shepherd was saying about her to Derek. Things that Meredith didn't want Derek to believe but knew he might because he usually listened to his mom. But she shouldn't have run. She didn't avoid and right now she was definitely avoiding. She probably shouldn't have cried either.

But at some point, Mrs. Shepherd had been Mom. She had been like a weird fake mom for her. Mrs. Shepherd had always been around, always been a phone call away. Meredith could still remember going to the Shepherd family Christmas and feeling completely and totally overwhelmed, but also totally accepted. Hearing Mrs. Shepherd say those things was almost worse than hearing her own mom saying that kind of stuff.

Derek had just kept holding her hand, squeezing her hand like he had needed her strength. And she had ran. Derek got it, or at least he got it before his mom had a chance to interfere and say anything about what her running had meant. But it had hurt, it had hurt too much to stand there and be attacked even with Derek defending her like he had. Running was good.

But crying was definitely bad. She actually couldn't stop crying. When she had turned to walk away from them, her plan had been to go do her job. Instead, she couldn't stop crying. No matter what she did, she couldn't stop crying. Which was why she was now roaming the tunnels, trying her absolute hardest to stop before she got paged and she actually had to be a doctor.

"Meredith? You down here?" Derek's voice came from another hallway.

Answer. She should answer him. Except she didn't want him to come. Not really. Because he had talked to his mom and he usually listened to his mom. Which meant he could be coming down here to dump her. He could actually be coming down here to tell her it was over and his mom was right and...the tears welled up in her eyes again and she took a deep shaky breath.

"Oh Mer..." she heard him murmur and then suddenly strong arms were wrapped tightly around her and pulling her close to a warm body. "It's okay, I'm here."

"Der," she breathed, a sob wracking her body as she cried against his scrub top, her fingers grasping at the indigo fabric.

"Shhh....shhh..." he whispered, holding her closer as he gently rocked. "Let it out."

"I'm...I'm...." she shook her head desperately, trying to get air. Her fingers tightened on the fabric clapsed in her hands as he rubbed her back soothingly. Crying. This was bad. She couldn't cry. This had not been the plan. The plan had been to be calm and collected and grown up and more like Meredith Grey the attending and less like Meredith Grey the bartender who broke him.

"It's okay," he breathed, pressing a soft kiss on her temple. "It's okay."

"Derek...Der," she sobbed. "I...she..."

"She's...god I hate her right now," he murmured.

"She's...mom," she shook her head. "You can't....no..." He couldn't hate his mom. If he hated his mom than that would probably give Mrs. Shepherd all kinds of reasons to hate her even more, which would only give her more incentive to kill Meredith. So he couldn't hate his mom. He couldn't. His mom was right. About everything.