falling for you [m.s.]

one hundred seventy

new years eve

mark watched with a sigh as gwen sat on the porch in of the stools with a cup of coffee in her hands. she has been sitting there a lot lately. she's making a cup of coffee and goes to sit outside.

mark in the meanwhile watches her while he's doing the dishes, or cleaning up the house or playing with the kids.

gwen was getting a little better. she would sleep next to mark at night, she would invite callie to come over and have a talk with her. she even went to hailey's holiday school play. she talked a lot with addison and her family over the phone. she even went on a walk with amelia last week.

she's trying, mark knows that for sure. but she's still not the old gwen.

he thought about sending her to therapy but he knows that gwen would hold on against it till mark would give up. and he isn't going to force her to do something she doesn't want to.

he made himself a cup of coffee before walking outside to sit next to gwen.

"hey." mark greets his wife feeling sad that he couldn't talk to her in the way they used to talk.

"hey, why are you up so early?" gwen asks confused looking up at him. it was just 7 in the morning. it was saturday and the kids were still asleep.

"couldn't sleep." mark says sitting down. "what about you?"

"the same." gwen sighs looking into her cup. it was almost empty. "i had this dream about derek again. when we were young and he would annoy the hell out of me." gwen slightly laughs. "you know it's funny, as a doctor i'm confronted with death on a daily basis. but now that derek is dead- i still haven't completely processed that he's gone. i still think sometimes that he will, i don't know, show up on the doorsteps. that this was just a dream and he just missed his flight or something."

mark sips on his coffee grabbing gwen's slighty warm hand.

"but you know he won't come back, right?" mark asks wanting to make sure gwen understood everything right and wouldn't flee into some alternative universe were derek was still alive.

"of course i know." gwen says looking at mark's hand holding hers. she couldn't even imagine a life without mark. she is more than grateful that he wasn't harmed in that accident.

it was silent again. and while gwen enjoyed the silence lately, mark wasn't used to this constant quietness between him and his wife. but again, if gwen's not in the mood to talk mark wasn't going to force her.

he just watched as she lies back in the chair closing her eyes taking a deep breath. she seemed somewhat relaxed and mark couldn't be more happy for that.

"i thought about going to the hospital. you know, i wasn't there for some time and i wanted to see how everybody is doing." gwen says still in the same position.

mark thought for a minute. there would be a lot of spots that would remind gwen of derek. which could be a good or a bad thing.

"sure. that's a good idea." mark smiles warmly at his wife.

hopefully this will be a good idea.

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being in this place again was weird. it was like she visited it for the first time. like she was never here before.

since derek's death the whole atmosphere changed. people were quiet. they were just moving on trying to forget the death of one of their colleagues.