Where You Belong

56

It was quiet.

The pure silence that existed in this place when no one was talking seemed oxymoronic. There was no chatter of other people drifting down the familiar hallways of the hospital. There were no footsteps. No machines hummed, beeped or alarmed. The hospital was usually full of activity; chatter, movement, noise. It had been a constant, the life of the hospital, something Meredith had grown accustomed to.

But now, in the utter lack of noise, the silence screamed at her, louder than anything before.

It didn't smell like the hospital either. The normally sterile smell of the halls had morphed into...nothing. She inhaled, but there was nothing. Her hair no longer smelled of the lavender Derek loved. Her scrubs didn't smell like detergent.

And her touch felt duller, like she couldn't feel anything properly.

It felt like her essence was fading away, deserting her. All that was left was sight and sound.

"I don't want to be here," she whispered.

The man sitting across the hall from her, his slumped position mirroring her own, nodded. "I get that."

Meredith lifted her eyes, meeting those of the man who had once captured the heart of her roommate. "Are you...always here."

Denny shrugged in a away that told her he couldn't tell her. "This is your afterlife, not mine."

"I don't want to be here," she repeated, closing her eyes. "How did I get here?"

"How do any of us get here?"

She released a breath of air, fighting not to whimper. "Are you actually going to answer any of my questions?"

He smiled supportively. "There's only so much I can tell you. You called me here for a reason."

"Izzy never told me you were Mr. Cryptic."

"You know why you're here," he offered. "You don't need me to tell you."

Derek inhaled a shaky breath into his aching chest as he stared through the paned glass at his girlfriend's mother. He didn't trust himself to enter the room again, not after Addison had practically had to drag him out when she caught him yelling at the amnesic woman. And as much as his ex-wife was right about one thing – that Ellis Grey was a black hole – she was wrong about another – that this wasn't Derek's fault.

If only he had taught her to swim.

There had been so many chances. That morning he was fishing, when she first told him she didn't swim. The many times they had wandered down to his pond. The time they went camping with their friends. He could still remember making lewd comments about skinny dipping in the river by their campsite, and making love to her by the lake they found in the middle of the forest. He had been so intent on ravaging her that he had forgone getting in the water.

It had been his decision.

She had left it up to him, had told him straight out that she was up to going in the water if he was. And he had decided it was too cold. He alone had decided to delay their first swim lesson. Maybe if things had been different she would have been able to get to the dock. He would have lost out on one intimate experienced with her, but it would have gained him the lifetime he was about to lose.

With a heavy sigh, Derek turned away from Ellis. In his mind there were two people at fault for what happened to Meredith. Ellis and himself. Ellis had failed miserably in being there for her daughter. She had never been affectionate, had never shown up when she was needed, had never taught her daughter anything constructive about life.