Easy Silence

40.

"You're high, aren't you?" Derek laughed as he walked toward the locker room, smiling at the sound of his girlfriends warm laughter coming from the other end of the phone.

"I am not!" she protested.

"You're totally high."

"I'm just..." she breathed, clearly trying to stifle the giggles. "It was a good surgery, it was a really good surgery."

"That's great, Mer."

"Remember the amazing sex we used to have when I was like this?" she breathed into the phone, her giggles suddenly dying and Derek felt his chest tighten at the sadness that had replaced the giggles.

This was hell.

This was complete and total hell.

It had only been fifteen days. He had flown out of Ottawa fifteen days ago and it already felt like he had been gone more like a year. They talked constantly. If they weren't working or sleeping, they were talking. The night before she had gone out with friends and had actually left the bar just to talk to him but that didn't actually make any of this less than hell like.

It wasn't that he had been expecting to like this, but he had kind of figured it would be better than this.

Or something.

"Yeah..." he murmured. "Yeah, I remember."

"I'm going to be at work soon," she sighed. "And I...it's good that it's late because drinking and usually...when it's early it makes talking to you hard so this is good but you...you..."

"I'm at the rink," he cut off her ramble. "The game should be done around the time you're getting out."

"So...you probably want to go out with the team, right? That's what you do after games. You go out and don't, I'll be tired and probably, sleep, I should probably sleep and I'll sleep. You can go out with the team and I should sleep and we'll talk to morrow or something. It's good. It's great or something."

"Okay, freaking out, why?"

"I think...I'm pretty sure I'm going crazy."

"Oh," he sighed. "I am too."

"Long distance sucks, it just...it sucks."

"I know."

"And it hasn't even been three weeks, Der. Not even...how are we supposed to do it? How are we...next year, how are we going to do it next season?"

"We'll manage."

"I don't...I don't know, Derek. Maybe we can't. Maybe we should just call this off," she breathed, before suddenly gasping. "Oh god, I didn't mean that. I totally, I can't believe I said that, I can't believe...I totally...I don't want to end this, I don't want to break up. It's not what I want and it just kind of slipped out and it's not something...I don't want to break up."

"Good."

"I'm just...tired and sad and I miss you," she sighed. "And going crazy. Completely going crazy."

"I miss you too."

"Good because if you...sorry, crazy."

"I love you."

"I love you too."

"And this is what you're going to do, so you have to listen, okay?"

"Okay."

"You are going to take a deep and calming breath," he ordered gently. "Maybe a few of them before you go in. And then you will go kick some ass and save some lives. When you're all done doing that, I will call you."

"But you...team..."

"I can call you when I'm out with them."

"They'll make fun of you."

"You called me when you were out with your friends," he shrugged, pausing outside the door of the locker room. "I can take the making fun if I get to talk to my main girl."

"You're an idiot," she giggled.

"I'm at the locker room."

"I just pulled up to the hospital."

"So I guess this is goodbye."

"It is. For now."

"I'll call you when your shift is done. Or when the game is done depending on time."

"Okay."

"I love you."

"I love you too."

"I miss you."

"I miss you too."

"I...bye," he sighed, hanging up the phone quickly.

He had to hang up. He knew it. In the last two weeks they had already figured out that the only way to say bye to each other was to abruptly hang up or else they'd spend hours more on the phone, just lingering over the phone. It was hell. Living this far away from his girlfriend was actually some form of pure and complete hell. He had a relationship with a phone and a computer rather than his beautiful actual girlfriend and it wasn't fair. His teammates had already started giving him a hard time about it and he...he hated them for being able to be with whoever it was they were with.

One year, it was just going to be one year.

"You okay, Shep?" his best friend's voice interrupted his thoughts.

"I...yeah," he breathed.

"Meredith?"

"She just got to work. She's still high from her surgery last night and she...she sounds so...alone."

"And you sound pathetic."

"Mark..."

"Derek, she's fine. She misses you and you miss her but you'll both be fine," Mark shrugged. "You have love to get you through or whatever such shit you'd say to me if situations were reversed. Not that they would be, as you haven't had sex in over two weeks and I'm not exactly sure how you haven't exploded."

"Some things are more important than sex."

"I'm not quite sure you're a man."

"Shut up."

"Yeah, yeah," Mark laughed, shoving him into the locker room. "Grey's good. Now get your head in the game."

"I will," Derek sighed, nodding hello to some teammates as him and Mark made their way toward their lockers.

Derek knew Meredith was going to be okay.

It was him he was worried about.

And it hadn't even been three weeks.