Seven Thousand Hours

Chapter 28| Her.

TW// mentions of su*cide

"Hmm, Derek?" Meredith groaned as she woke up and looked around his office. She looked to the window and saw it was dark out. Crap. Derek must've left, and she must've slept all day. Her jaw was killing her as she stood up and walked to the bathroom mirror. Her whole face was swollen and bruised, and she could barely open her jaw.

But that wasn't really the pressing issue right now, she needed to know where Derek had gone.

She'd passed Mark in the hallway, his face and body was a mess, and he'd tried to apologise when he saw the state of her face, but she'd pushed him away and told him to go back to New York.

She went out into the parking lot to the trailer but she suddenly realised it had gone. He's moved it.

"Mer!" She heard Amelia call from behind her. Crap! Meredith turned around, praying she wouldn't say anything but the black bruise that covered half her face was enough. "What the hell happened! And am I hearing right that Mark is William's dad?!" Amelia asked quickly. "If you think my face is bad, wait until you see your brothers. When I find him that is" Meredith said as she walked to the car she found she never drove anymore. She'd given Amelia a brief explanation but was in a rush to go find him.

She drove straight to where she knew he'd go, home.

She pulled up the lane where she saw his trailer parked amongst the tree's. He was sat on his porch, throwing back beers like it was tequila.

"You moved the trailer" Meredith said as she climbed out her car and walked over to him. "Go home, Meredith" he slurred at her . "Well...no. I came to see if you were alright" she said as she came and sat with him. Derek laughed to himself. Meredith only frowned. "Am I alright? My best friend slept with my wife and my wife told me it was my kid. Only to find out 2 years later he's not." Derek sighed at the dizziness, unsure if it was the alcohol or the injuries. "I know, Derek" she reached for his hand but he pulled away. "You don't, Meredith. You don't get it at all." He mumbled as he stood up and stumbled down onto the grass.

Meredith knew she'd never understand what he was going through, but that didn't deter her from trying. She looked around at the forest and cliff side view of the sound. She looked at the small table full of cans and bottles, noticing a small yellow bottle.

She reached over and grabbed them, reading the label. "Why do you have Webbers blood pressure pills?" Meredith asked confused as she looked up to Derek who was batting cans into the woods. He turned and looked at her hands before whacking another can into the distance.

"Derek" she spoke a little louder, her heart sinking in her chest as she watched him. "Leave it, Meredith" he choked up before hitting another can. Before her was a very broken man. She'd seen broken, she'd saw how her mother was after Richard left, or when Burke left Cristina at the alter. She knew broken because she was broken. But she'd never seen it like this before. Losing your kid, wife and best friend all because of some sex? She couldn't even imagine the pain he was going through.

"Derek, I'm asking you again." She said as she jumped off the patio towards him, holding the bottle of pills. He looked to her before grabbing the bottle from her hands. "These are pills to lower your blood pressure" he inspected the bottle but Meredith just watched him. "I have a pretty low blood pressure anyway, but if I took just 5 of these, my heart would pump less blood to my organs and they'd begin to shut down. And then less oxygen would go to my brain and I'd stroke out and eventually my heart would stop beating" he said as he inspected the bottle before looking at her tear filled eyes.