Is Forever Enough?

Chapter 35

"This one looks nice, how about Dr. Hourton?" Meredith frowned before sliding her chair closer to Derek so she could look at his lap top.

"It's a boy..." She trailed off...and crinkled her nose in disgust. He ignored it, and clicked to make the page bigger.

"Yeah...so? It says here he's one of the best and around our age.."

"I don't want to talk to a guy about our marriage, he'll be sitting there judging me and making me take the blame..." Derek looked at her like she had two heads.

"What...are you talking about? He's a therapist Meredith, I think he's trained not to judge people. And blame? Who said anything about blame?" He couldn't hide the frustration in his voice. It had been a long weekend...too long. It was the first weekend he could remember where they both had time off...and it seemed like they were successfully driving each other crazy. Or at least...his unborn daughter's were driving him and his wife crazy....making him crazy as well.

Meredith slapped his hand out of the way and took over the touch mouse pad and pulled up another Doctor's profile.

"Here. This one is nice. She went to Oxford...and used to live in LA where she worked with many famous couples..." Meredith kept going, but Derek interrupted her.

"LA? She sounds like a flake. And famous couples? What respectable doctor in their right mind goes to Oxford and then helps washed up celebrities in LA?" Meredith rolled her eyes at him and pulled up another profile.

It was a woman again, and Meredith read off her seemingly un-impressive resume. "Why does it have to be a woman?"

"Because women understand the situation better..."

"Oh...I see. You just want a woman so I can be the selfish, asshole husband who gives up on his family?" He accused and she stared at him as if she was insulted.

"I never said that Derek. And what happened to 'Their trained not to pass judgement...blah blah..'"

"This is ridiculous. We're obviously not going to agree." He sighed, and left the counter top island to get a drink from the fridge.

"Maybe we should just ask the hospital for a recommendation?" She could tell right away her suggestion wasn't going to work as he turned and looked at her with a horrified look on his face.

"Sure...let's do that. And while we're at it, we can just go in without wedding rings on to feed the Seattle Grace gossip chain. I really don't want the hospital knowing we're seeking help for our problems." He had started to raise his voice a little, letting the whole situation get to him, but brought it back down knowing that the kids were napping in the next room.

"That's not what I meant Derek. I just think maybe Psych would be able to recommend someone for us."

"Uhhhh." He let the irritated noise escape from the back of his throat and it bounced around the kitchen and hit her like a ton of bricks.

"I'm sorry if this is annoying you, I didn't realize this was such a chore." Came her snappish reply, and he sat his glass down on the counter harsher than he meant to.

"It's not Meredith. I just don't want people to know we're going to counseling."

"Are you ashamed?" She was challenging him, her voice leering almost willing him to pick a fight.

"No. But it's a personal matter. I already went through one failed marriage under the hospital scrutiny. I really don't want to do that again."

"We're not failing Derek." She threw back at him, shutting the lap top and attempting to get down from the high counter chair without her enlarged stomach getting stuck.

"That's is not what I meant...."

"But it's what you said..." She interrupted causing him to run his fingers through his hair and turn widely around to face her.

"Just stop!" He broke in, not able to keep his voice low anymore. The stress of the weekend had finally caught up to him and he couldn't handle it anymore. His mind was screaming at him. One half of his brain was cautioning to calm down and the other half was laughing at him, taunting him, telling him to yell and freak out over the changing moods of his wife.

She stared at him, shocked, and not moving and then her face seemed to fall all at once, like he had physically punched her just by uttering those words. It wasn't even what he had said, but how he had said it. He never spoke to her that way. They used to be able to banter, they called it mockery. It was who they were. They used to be able to do a lot of things.

He let out a breath, and hung his head down, guilty over how it had come out, but not really feeling sympathetic. 'She picked a fight with me on purpose...I have a right to be mad..' The angry side of his brain thought. 'She didn't know how frustrated you were...you've been hiding it from her..' The sympathetic side added in, keeping him in check like an angel on his shoulder.

"I'm sorry." He apologized, and poured himself a glass of water. Meredith could see the tension in his shoulders almost radiating off him in each breath he took.

"What's wrong?" She stayed in her spot by the counter nervously fumbling her fingers across the mosaic tile. He sighed again. A shorter version of the first and when he turned to face her he was met with her staring at her hands.

"It's just been a long weekend. It didn't start too great..." He tried to explain it to her without sounding like an awful person. Her moods were leaving him with a short fuse...but how could he tell his pregnant wife that?

She still didn't look to his eyes. She felt guilty, she had been arguing with him all weekend. She shook her head, visibly fighting with the thought within her. She couldn't control the constant onslaught of hormones. She felt like something was taking over her body. "Yeah...I know.." came her whispered reply and he knew just by looking at her that he had upset her.

"We're just...we're driving each other crazy." He hadn't thought about it before the words were out of his mouth. They just flew out and he looked at her expecting her to lash out at him but instead she just nodded...which scared him even more.

"Yeah...it's...that's never really happened before.." He looked at her, a full tilting of the head look that usually made her go weak at the knees...but in that moment it did nothing at all.

"It's not a big deal Meredith...we've been stressed..."

She nodded, not really believing him. It was her fault....she was a hormonal, fat, pregnant women who was driving her husband crazy. After all, that's really what he meant...she was driving him nuts and that notion had blood rushing to her head in an angry fashion.

The anger however, strong it was, lacked any oomph and soon turned into instant hurt as she stared watching him try and read her. Finally she broke eye contact with him effectively ending their conversation.

"I'm just...going to lay down for awhile." She didn't even look at him as she walked out. He stood there, feeling bewildered. It seemed like all recent events were bewildering. They started easy like a summer storm and ended like an F 5 tornado. It didn't know what to think, or what to even do. They never fought, and ever since they had been for all intents and purposes "separated.." it seemed as if that's all they did.
It dawned on him that you had to communicate in order to fight...and that was definitely lacking a year ago. Walking back over to his lap top he opened it and stared blankly at the page. "A counselor is going to think we are completely nuts." He stated, to the empty kitchen. He clicked on the first woman's email address and quickly typed a message of interest to her. "Yes. Completely nuts."