Desire - Merddison

Chapter Eleven

Addison's POV

My eyes meet Meredith's whilst we are in the OR operating on Dr Bailey's patient. Bailey is desperately trying CPR on him, not wanting to let him go, he's a patient that has meant so much to her for the past 5 years. She won't stop. I shake my head, knowing that she can't bring him back. None of us can anymore.

"Fight it, come on." Bailey pleads with the patient, despite the fact he can't hear her.

"Why isn't anyone moving? Who's recording?" She asks, fighting back tears, with pure desperation coming through in her voice.

"It's been ten minutes since we've had a perfusing rhythm." I tell her. I try to stop her from doing CPR since it isn't working. She shrugs my hand away from her shoulder as the monitor flatlines. I tell her that it's her call, and she continues, counting to herself out loud.

She finally stops and pulls off her mask as the monitor flatlines once again, it's the only sound there is in the OR at this point. She looks up at the clock and announces the time of death before walking out of the room trying not to cry.

Both me and Dr Bailey got to the scrub room to wash our hands, she stops for a moment when she sees someone covering Jeremiah's body, and starts again when Meredith walks in, before leaving the room.

"It's hard to accept the end when you're too close." I sigh to Meredith. Because I myself was struggling to accept that this is the end of me and Derek. I look down at my wedding ring that I've just put back on my finger after washing my hands. And at the corner of my eye I catch a glimpse of Meredith also looking at me and at the ring.

"Look, I don't want someone who doesn't want me, Meredith. But if there's the slightest chance that he does, I'm not leaving Seattle." I say as I leave the room. Because it's true, if there is the smallest hint from him that there is a chance of me and him reconcilling, then I am not leaving.

I leave to go and find Dr Bailey to console her on the loss of Jeremiah. It is hard when you've been treating a patient for so long, only for them to die. Despite the fact that he had managed to survive until the age he did whilst having cystic fibrosis. He lived a little bit longer than most people would with the same condition. I have only known Dr Bailey for a short time, but when I found her in the supply closet wiping away her tears, I was shocked. She's never seemed like the kind of person who becomes emotional about patients, at least not to the point of her crying in a closet.

"Hey." I say softly to her.

"Don't you have a husband to go and try to win back?" She asks me, trying to change the subject, not wanting me to see her cry.

"Maybe, I don't know.. probably not." I sigh.

"You know, he was talking to me earlier in the elevator. Frustrated with me for having you consult on the case and joining me in the OR. Asking me what I'm trying to do to him, that I'm trying to drive him crazy," she chuckles, still wiping away some tears, "I told him that if consulting on his wife, his ex wife, mistress or whatever it is that you become to him, is the thing I have to do so save my patient then I'm damn well gonna do it. I think, there's still a chance there for you both. I told him that he's managed to get himself in between to very fine women and he was just looking for an easy way out, by the use of me, trying to make someone else make the decision for him. Which isn't gonna happen."

"That sounds about right. If he isn't walking away then he's looking for an easier way out of a crap situation."

***

Meredith's POV

I'm sort of shocked by Addison saying that if there's even the slightest chance that Derek wants her back then she isn't leaving. I need her to leave. That way, there's one less thing for me to think about. Or maybe a dozen less things to think about. Because every single second longer that she is here, the more I think about her. And I know why I keep thinking about her, I've already realised why, but that doesn't make it any less annoying that the thoughts keep happening. I don't want to think about her. I just want to be with Derek again.

But it's going to be okay. Because me and Derek are going for a drink after work. He wouldn't come for a drink with me if he was going to give Addison another chance would he? Surely not. And so, I block out what she said and just keep in my mind that I know he has chosen to leave her, sign the papers, be back with me and she will be long gone and on a flight back to New York.

***

Not long after finishing my shift, me and Derek head over to Joe's bar, I take off my coat whilst Derek puts down his briefcase as we sit down at the bar.

"I'm glad we're doing this." I smile to him.

"Me too. Want a drink?" He sounds nervous, probably hence the silly question, because of course I want a drink, why else would I come to a bar?

"Yes." I reply simply, trying not to laugh at his question. "Oh." I say as he accidentally knocks his briefcase off the chair.

"I've got it." He says as he goes to bend down to pick it back up, but I've already bent down to pick it up for him.

"I'll get it." I say as I pick it up for him. I pass the case back to him, and that's when I see some papers still laying on the floor that must've fallen out from his brief case. I pick those up to and try not to look to see what they are, and I see that it's the divorce papers.

Divorce papers that he hasn't signed. And I just stare at him as he looks down to the ground, realising I've seen for myself that he hasn't signed them.

He's going back to her. He made me believe that he was going to sign them and that we would start again. I storm out of the bar and by no surprise he follows me.

"Go away Derek."

"Oh come on."

"Come on? Come on? Are you for real?! This morning you made me believe that there would be an us, you told me she was leaving, and THEN you proceeded to tell me you would sign the papers, Addison would then leave, and we would be together. But once again you have gone back on your word and let me done, again!" I shout at him.

"Cut me some slack. Addison was my wife for 10 years so forgive me for thinking it through a little bit, forgive me for hesitating, forgive me for having my reservations about throwing away the decade I've spent with my wife. I have feelings too."

"Boohoo Derek, youve got two women who want you. One of them is smart, unbelieveably glamorous and beautiful and extremely kind, and the other option, is me. We all know what you'll do next. Plus, I'm out. I'm out of this, out of this 'relationship', I'm out. Because I cannot keep going around this same circle over and over again. So I'm out." I say through gritted teeth back to him before walking away and storming off home to rant to my friends about him.

***

A few days later

I thought I was out of the relationship. I know for a fact that I am super angry. But it's Derek. Derek, who I love in such a way that it makes me hate him. The whole 'let him have the last piece of cheesecake, pretend to like his taste in music, and hold a radio over my head outside his window' kind of way that makes me hate him, love him.

So once we scrub out of a surgery, I tell him. I tell him I'm in, and that I'm so in that it's humiliating. I tell him that I love him, and how it makes me hate him because of how much I love him, and even the horrible cringey type of way that I love him..

"So pick me. Choose me. Love me. I'll be at Joe's tonight. So if you do decide to sign the papers, meet me there."