Keep The Faith

9.

A day passed, then two. Two days after the confession in the on call room, two days after they had ripped their hearts to shreds for each other, they had sex again. They had met, in the dark basement of the hospital. Accounting.

Seattle Grace's accounting staff worked nine to five. There was no one down there all night, but that night, there were two doctors, clinging to each other.

The next day she tried to ignore him, but if she didn't know when she would see him next, she found it hard to breathe. She thought, when he chose Addison that she was broken. Now she could see that was barely a fracture compared to this.

They were both shattered now, annihilated, and their only chance of not going to pieces was each other.

On the fourth night, it was another on call room, the fifth night, his car, the sixth night, an empty exam room.

Tonight would mark one week since the on call room. She was waiting for him. But the week felt like an eternity. What happened if it turned into two weeks? Months, even?

I'm not in love with Addison. I haven't been since the day I woke up on your floor. He really had said those words. Meredith, despite all her better judgment, believed them.

She believed everything her told her, for some ridiculous reason she couldn't identify. She had a steadfast faith in him that had been shaken, but still she kept hoping. She could never quite give up on him.

Her pager beeped at her side, reminding her that she still had a job to do, a job that was too important to her to ignore, so she answered the page dutifully.

"Grey." Bailey snapped when she reached the nurses station. "Shepherd's got a craniotomy. He's requested you." Meredith nodded stoically at her resident.

"Right." She murmured. "Craniotomy."

Bailey eyed her suspiciously. "O.R. two, Grey." Meredith nodded, and headed for the O.R, not noticing that Cristina was following her until her best friend grabbed her shoulder and spun her around.

"Mer, whatever it is, just tell me, cause I'm gonna find out." She said bluntly, her way of letting Meredith know that she knew. There was something going on.

Meredith looked up at the ceiling, down at the floor, and finally into the inquisitive eyes of her best friend. "It's Derek." She said.

Cristina rolled her eyes. "Well, duh. No one sends you in a fit of depression like McDreamy does. Care to be more specific?"

Meredith smiled in spite of her, finding Cristina's brutal honesty refreshing. "We've been sleeping together."

"Like, prom? No kidding. He all but told the cops and Finn right in front of Addison."

"No, not like prom. Like in an on call room when I first came back and almost every day since."

Cristina's eyebrows raised in a gesture of surprise. "McCheating?" she questioned.

Meredith shrugged. "He asked me to wait for him. Says he can leave her, he just needs time."

"And you're just....waiting?"

"Until I can't wait anymore." Meredith said. Cristina's pager started beeping and she pulled it off her scrubs, and checked it.

"Burke." She said. "Gotta go. Joe's tonight?"

Meredith nodded, and headed for O.R. two.

💉🩺

Derek fidgeted. He was waiting for her, waiting to see her. He liked to keep her close to him, closer than your ex girlfriend should be, especially when you're still trying to figure out how to tell your wife that you want a divorce.
Meredith had been avoiding him today. Last night had been incredible. Sex with Meredith was something like an awakening, a religious experience. He just wished he could sort through his own head, and untangle his thoughts, come clean to Addison, and get the divorce.