Secret smile

16

Derek kept his head down and his hands in his pocket. He did not want to be here. He wanted to be at home. His day had been hell and all he wanted to do was be at home, hiding underneath the blankets. It sounded like a better plan, it had been what he had been planning on doing all day until his stupid brother had barged in and demanded that they were going to go out. Mark had been doing this ever since Derek had told him about the sex with Meredith. The mistake he had made, the friendship he had thrown away because of tequila. Mark just kept saying they had to go out, and every time, Derek basically told his brother to fuck off. But this time, his brother hadn't wanted to go to some stupid ass bar, he had just suggested the market. It was a Saturday, the market seemed like a good idea.

People were all over the place, it was noisy and crowded and he didn't have to worry about fending off advances from girls he certainly wasn't interested in. It was definitely easier than a bar. And she wouldn't be here, at least he had no reason to think she would be here. He hated that. Of everything over the past week, he hated avoiding the girl that had been becoming his friend. He had loved her friendship, loved the way Meredith Grey made him breathe. But he couldn't see her now, he didn't want to see her. He had taken to staring at his wedding ring every morning, seriously considering slipping it on in an apology to his dead wife for the sex. And if he saw Meredith...there was no way he would ever forget the way she had tried not to cry when he had told her the sex was a drunken decision and he couldn't stand to see her again, not when she was in pain. He had never meant to hurt her. In all of his own pain, he hadn't meant to turn that onto Meredith who already had so much of her own pain to deal with. She was amazing and he liked her more than he had remember liking anyone as of late and she deserved more than being told she was a drunken mistake. The sex had been a mistake but nothing about Meredith was.

The sex had been amazing, the three times he had slipped into her had left his drunken mind swirling with relief. But he never should have told her she was a mistake, she wasn't. She was...Meredith. She was the beautiful girl who managed to make his brain feel slower. He hated that he had hurt her, that he had left her, standing in a blanket, as she tried desperately to fight tears.

He should have handled everything differently. Not the sex, not that it should ahve happened but they had been drunk and it had happened and he couldn't change that. But he wished he had handled later better because he had managed to lose his anchor. He had spent the last year of his life floating around and suddenly Meredith had made it better and now everything felt too big.

His panic attacks were back full force, even hitting during surgery when he was usually able to calm himself. The nightmares were coming so much, Mark had joked to just sleep in the chair to keep from jumping up and running to his room. He couldn't stop the nightmares, no matter how many times he tried to remind himself that maybe Puppers hadn't been torn to shreds and bloodied. He was floating. He needed his anchor. If he could just talk to her for five seconds, he was pretty sure he'd be okay again. She made breathing so much easier but right now the idea of talking to her made breathing harder. He had no idea what to say or what to do. Everything had gone wrong between them and he had thrown away the beginnings of an amazing friendship. He didn't know how to fix that.

Mark was walking next to him, and Derek could feel his brother's eyes on him. He hated that he was back to this mess, but now every time he closed his eyes, he either saw Meredith wrapped in that damn blanket, hurt as hell, or his wife's sad, hopeful smile two weeks before the accident when she had taken a pregnancy test and it was negative. He wasn't sure what he wanted to see less, but both hurt like hell.

He just wanted some sense of normalcy in his life. He had found it with Meredith in his life, maybe not what he had been used to but at least he had had something. Now he was alone again and Mark had to stop looking at him. He wasn't going to fall apart in public, at least he didn't think he was going to. He just had to keep breathing, he was used to that. There was no reason to worry.