Where You Belong

122

"You're on time," Wyatt commented as she opened the door to her office and ushered Meredith inside, an eyebrow raised in pretend surprise.

Meredith offered the psychiatrist a wry smile. "Hey, I'm early."

Wyatt smiled back. "By a minute."

Meredith shrugged as she walked into the room and dropped herself down onto the familiar couch. "Still..."

Wyatt closed the door and then sat on her chair, notepad in her lap. She looked expectantly at Meredith. "How did the contest end?"

"I won," Meredith told her. "I was right about my patient having the brain tumour."

Wyatt nodded and for a moment Meredith thought she was going to back to her questions for their last session the previous week and ask Meredith about why the first symptom that caught her attention was the patient getting married on the spur of the moment, but Wyatt simply made a note and moved on. "How was your Thanksgiving?"

"It was really nice," Meredith said, smiling at the happy memory. She and Derek had spent the entire day at home, just the two of them. No hospital. No stress. In the evening, they had called Derek's mother to wish her a Happy Thanksgiving, and Meredith had happily chatted with her and half of Derek's sisters. And when they had gone to bed, he had still been looking at her like he had that morning. His expression didn't suggest he thought she was weak or damaged. She had fallen asleep feeling loved and more thankful than she could remember.

"Did you do anything special?"

"Derek and I both had the day off, and actually managed to get through the day without being paged."

"Did you have a big turkey dinner?"

She shook her head. "We had a turkey, but it was just the two of us. His family is in New York and we talked about having friends over, but it's our first year in our new home and married and..." she shrugged, "I guess we just wanted it to be the two of us." She paused and glanced towards the fish tank. "I told him. About this."

"And how did that go?"

She stared at the fish for a long moment before turning her attention back to Wyatt. "It went okay. He was, uh... He was really supportive."

"That's good. Did you expect him not to be?"

She shook her head. "No, he's always supportive. It's just...hard. He's..." She trailed off. "It's not easy to describe. He's always supportive, but he likes to fix things. And he can't help me right now, even though he wants to. The fact that I need a kind of help he can't give me isn't easy for him to understand." Though they hadn't spent much time actually discussing her therapy over the weekend, she had seen several flashes of concern and uncertainty in his eyes. She had done her best, each time, to make him feel needed, but she wasn't sure how much of it was getting through to him. She knew he supported her – and would always support her – but that didn't mean he wasn't struggling to understand why she needed help that he couldn't give her.

Wyatt smiled and nodded.

Meredith lifted an eyebrow. "That's a good thing?"

Wyatt shook her head, but her smile didn't change. "It's not a good thing that your partner is struggling to understand your needs. But I'm impressed by your statement. You clearly have a very strong relationship if you're able to make those connections. You recognize a characteristic of your partner, and you understand how this is affecting him. It's not just about you or him."

Meredith managed a small smile back. "We do have a strong relationship. He wants to understand. He just..." She sighed. "I think he feels like he's failed me or something."