Secret smile

27

He was hiking. He was hiking through the woods by himself. It wasn't his first time since moving to Seattle that he had gone for a hike, it had been one of the draws of Seattle in the first place. It was the first time he had done it alone though. He had dragged Mark but he hadn't really wanted to spend this much time alone in his head before. But Christmas was past and he couldn't make himself cheer up. Meredith seemed better; her holiday bad mood had dissipated quickly and she was back to the giggling girl he loved hanging out with. But he couldn't move past it. He couldn't forget that Valentine's Day was in less than a month, and then Easter. His whole life was coming apart at the seams, and no matter what he did, he couldn't get over the pure fact that he was completely and totally alone.

He had thought he was doing better. Before Christmas, when he had been spending all his time with Meredith, he had almost felt normal again. Or as normal as normal could b after everything he had been through. But that had been before Christmas and somehow, now everything hurt. He kept expecting it to get better and it wasn't. He wanted it to be better.

Dr. Wyatt kept hinting at things...at the drugs again. He didn't want any of that, he didn't want to be the guy who couldn't get the hell over his dead wife and daughter. But he couldn't get over them. He couldn't stop dreaming about the accident, and he couldn't stop hearing Sarah's voice everywhere he went or feeling Amy's fingers on his spine when he finally managed to fall asleep. He was falling apart. And what was worse, everyone knew it. Mark knew it and always seemed to be around, talking about anything but and being weird. His mom called him every day, asking questions that he couldn't begin to answer. Even Meredith had started acting differently around him, like maybe she was finally agreeing with everyone else that medication would be a good idea. So today, he just needed to be alone. He needed to be alone in his head, even if it was the scariest place to be right now. But he was starting to think that maybe everyone else was right. His life was turning into something he had never wanted, something he wasn't ready to deal with. But he wasn't ready to give in yet. He just needed to breathe again, he needed to clear his head and breathe.

So hiking seemed like a good idea. Even if it was freezing cold and it might actually snow, which seemed really stupid to be hiking in. But the cold was helping. It was biting his face and at least that was feeling something. Which told him how bad it had gotten. He had no idea how this had happened, he didn't want to be the guy that ended up messed up like this. He had always been happy.

When he had first met Amy, he had been completely in love with the way she laughed, the way she seemed to view her entire life like something to actually love. They had fit so well together because of that. Everything had fit because they had both loved their lives, and once Sarah had come along, they had had a reason to love their lives even more. All three of them had been so damn happy. The list of things he had loved about his life had been too long to even dream of counting. And now he could count it on one hand. He loved his job. He loved his family. He loved Mark. And he loved Meredith. Which actually Mark and Meredith were more like family than anything else so he could probably cut the list down to two. There were two things he loved.

He wanted to love his life again. He wanted a reason to wake up in the morning, to roll out of bed and actually move. At some point, there had to be something more than just his job. A year and a half ago, his daughter's small giggles had made him get out of bed. A year and a half ago, trying to have a baby shower sex had made him get out of bed after a long shift. Now, he could barely remember any of those things. He was pretty sure that at this point the only thing that was getting him up was his family. And not because he wanted to spend time with them, but because they wouldn't let him just stay in bed. Someone was always pushing him to get up and get going which was insane. He had never been this person. He had always been optimistic and cheerful and a happy guy.
Now, the only thing he was feeling right now was the cold, biting wind and the overwhelming pain that wouldn't leave him. He was drowning in it, but he wasn't willing to just give up. For the last year, he had been fighting the anti-depressants everyone wanted him to take, because he had to believe he was still the guy Amy had married. He had to believe he was still able to be happy. He just had to find something, something more than his job. There had to be something. His mom had had her children and he was...he could get self-help books. Plenty of people wrote books about grieving and finding peace again. He had rolled his eyes at the books but he could start reading them. It might be a good push. And maybe than he'd find something.