Let It Go

69.

"Want some of this?" Derek asked Meredith, using the spatula in his hand to point to the omelet he was making. "No, I'm good," Meredith replied. She sipped her coffee and flipped the page of her newspaper. Derek sighed quietly. He could cut the tension between them with a knife. The last four days had been rough. He was holding Meredith before they fell asleep, kissing her good morning, having lunch together at work, kissing one another in the hallways, having sex nearly every night... But they weren't them. They were on edge. Meredith was waiting for him to break. He was fighting an internal battle not to.

He hadn't slept for more then two or three hours in over a week now. If he was with Meredith, he might get four if was really lucky. Night before last, she'd been on call though and he hadn't slept at all. It had been the same story two nights before that when he'd had his on call shift. He could cope with being exhausted. He was a surgeon. He had learned how to go on very little sleep very early in his career. A good night's sleep certainly made the day easier though.

In a way, he was glad he couldn't sleep. When he did sleep, it was the dreams that woke him up. The dreams in turn led to an increase in flashbacks and another sleepless, anxiety-filled night. The flashbacks during the day weren't as bad. He was still having them, but he was so busy in his role as both Head of Neurosurgery and Chief of Surgery that he couldn't let them take him over as he had in the past. Meredith being around helped too, even if it was totally awkward between them at the moment. It was his downtime, his alone time, that he couldn't escape from them.

He shoveled his omelet onto a plate, picked up his mug of coffee, and joined Meredith at the table. "You sure you don't want some of this?" Derek asked. "I'm sure. Izzie is stopping by Bodo's and picking up breakfast for us before she gets to the hospital," Meredith replied from behind her paper. "You're addicted to that place," Derek stated. "Bodo's is good." Silence fell.

Derek turned his attention to the small TV positioned on the counter, the local news providing a distraction from the obvious tension. Norm, the local weatherman, was giving a weather report. Derek listened, chewing on his omelet as Norm pointed to the map, explaining something about cold air moving in to replace the unseasonably warm temperatures they were having and low pressure systems that could produce severe thunderstorms that afternoon and evening.

"Hear that?" Derek asked Meredith. "Hear what?" came her voice. She closed the paper and concentrated on reading the back page. "What Norm said about the weather this evening. It looks like it could get nasty later." "Norm's never right," Meredith replied. "Last week it was supposed to be in the fifties and rainy. It was seventy degrees and sunny for three days straight." "True," Derek agreed. They fell back into silence. Derek played with his food, his appetite gone.

He didn't like this. They'd only been together as an actual couple for a couple of months but he knew they weren't this couple. They talked constantly, laughed and joked together. Meredith called him names and stole his food and he in turn teased her. She bossed him around, he tried to object, but somehow lost every time. They weren't the couple who sat at the breakfast table and talked about the weather. Meredith told him his Museli was disgusting and he told her she was going to have bypass surgery before she turned fifty thanks to the greasy bacon she was inhaling, all the while unable to keep their hands off of each other. That was their usual breakfast, not discussing Norm's weather report or otherwise not speaking.

"We should get going soon," Meredith said, sitting her paper down finally. Derek took the chance to look into her eyes. "Yeah," he agreed with a nod. "We should." Meredith left the table and went upstairs to get her bag. She felt the tension too and she hated it. She hated not being able to talk to Derek, have him talk to her. She'd heard the rumors about what had happened in the trauma room. He'd apparently froze, went into a sort of trance, before someone snapped him out of it and he ordered them to page her. Then he'd slipped into a supply closet and come out some time later looking like hell. She wished he'd tell her about it, tell her what happened. She knew Derek said he was okay, just 'sad', but she didn't buy it. This was something more. Something that he needed help with, be it talking to her or Mark or someone else he trusted or going to a professional.