Chapter Text
“Derek!” Finn sped to catch up along with the man, weaving through the hallway with purpose. He didn’t care if people saw or thought bad of him for chasing down a man in the hallway. This was urgent. “Derek!” He yelled once more, knowing that the surgeon would purposefully ignore him as best he could. “Come on, man I know you don’t like me, but you could at least hear me out.” He huffed as Derek finally stopped, allowing Finn to catch up to him.
“What do you want?” Derek snipped as he sped up again, his white coat billowing behind him as he seamlessly made his way through the corridors, his destination clear in his mind.
“It’s Meredith.” Finn panted, still catching his breath.
Derek immediately spun off in the opposite direction, already headed for Meredith’s patient room. He didn’t have to hear the panting and thudding footsteps following along in his wake to know that Finn would follow.
“Meredith?” Derek had already begun before he had spun round the corner, the open door beckoning him in. It wouldn’t have stopped him anyway; he would have barrelled through without asking. Not with the way Finn had been so insistent.
“Derek.” Addison whispered, in the doorway before he had even gotten a chance to see Meredith.
“Addison?” He murmured in confusion.
“Derek. I don’t think you should be here right now.” She advised, her eyes stern.
Derek scoffed, pushing Addison’s arm aside and barrelling his way into the room without care for what direction he pushed Addison into.
“Meredith.” He breathed, glaring at Addison as he waltzed into the room. She looked fine. Her numbers looked good. What was the big rush? Why did Finn come to get him? And why had Addison blocked his entrance?
Meredith shrunk into her bed, recoiling away from his outstretched hand, which had already gone to curl around her head. He let his hand fall, his fingers curling tightly into his palm. He had made his decision, after talking to Finn. He was going to back down. What had they said to her? How had they known? Why would they poison her against him?
“Meredith?” He asked again, looking from her wide eyes to Addison’s guilty ones. Rage fuelled within him, bubbling up from his chest to his snarling mouth. “What’s going on?”
“I think it’s best if we give her some space, Derek.” Finn butted in, pulling on his arm. Derek wanted to push him off, to shake Addison until she told him what was going on. But he didn’t. He saw the wild fear in Meredith’s eyes, how tiny she looked, impossibly small and fragile in her hospital bed.
He exited, Finn following along behind him. He chanced one last look at Meredith. She couldn’t even look at him.
“What do you think it is? Some kind of temporary amnesia thing, right?” Finn asked as soon as the door was shut behind him. “At first I just thought this was her way of letting me down easy.” Finn sighed. “But the way she looked at you –”
“I think you’re right.” Derek hesitated to agree with the man. It was a phenomenon, but sometimes patients would wake up from surgery unable to recall the last few days, weeks or even years. “Meredith wouldn’t pretend to have amnesia. You clearly don’t know her very well. She’s not a coward.” He hissed, unable to resist taking a jab at the man even if he had already decided to end things with Meredith. He just didn’t like Finn all that much.
Though, he supposed, if Meredith had really forgotten Finn, and even Derek, too, then this could be his second chance. What Meredith didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her. He could convince her that he was her whole world.
Yes. This would work. He just had to get to Meredith alone and convince her that she loved him.
Addison sighed as the door snicked shut behind the two men. The change in the air was instant. She saw it immediately – the moment they were alone Meredith relaxed, all the tension easing away from her body in one long exhale.
“Are you alright?” She asked Meredith, though she did seem more relaxed than before.
Meredith nodded shakily, pushing herself up on the bed. “Where am I?”
Addison cringed. She was sure that it was just temporary, that after a few moments the fog would clear and Meredith would kick her out of her room. But it seemed as though Meredith didn’t know anything.
“Seattle Grace Hospital.” Addison sighed, perching on the edge of Meredith’s bed by her feet, her blank ‘doctor’s mask’ slipped over her face as she inquired, “What’s the last thing you remember?”
Meredith seemed to hesitate for a moment, wracking her brain for her last recollection.
It happened quickly then. The blonde’s eyes turned glassy, swelling with tears. Addison was taken aback. She had never seen Meredith’s emotions displayed so openly on her face before. It startled her for a moment, before her caring side leapt into motion. Her hands found Meredith’s, cold and shaking as the blonde desperately tried to remember.
“Hey.” She hushed, squeezing their entangled hands. “Shh. It’s okay. Everything is alright. It’ll come to you.” She soothed, shuffling closer.
“I – I” Meredith stumbled through her tears, her head hanging low as she began to weep.
“It’s okay.” Addison whispered, gathering Meredith into her arms as the blonde’s sobs wracked her body. “It’ll be okay.”
If Addison was being honest with herself, she wasn’t so sure. She had no idea what was wrong. And she had no way of fixing it.
“I remember you.” Meredith spoke up in a soft voice after her sobs had begun to die down.
“Me?” Addison gasped, pulling back to look Meredith in the eyes.
“I don’t remember much. You were smiling at me. You seemed sad.” Meredith noted, her hand trailing along the sleeve of Addison’s white coat. “Was that today?” She asked.
Addison exhaled. Well, she hadn’t expected Meredith to remember any part of that conversation, let alone it be the only thing she could remember. “Yes. Before your surgery.”
“I had surgery?” Meredith asked, eyes wide. Was she afraid?
“Yes.” Addison smiled a little, hoping that it would reassure the blonde that everything had gone fine. Well, almost fine. “You really don’t remember anything else?”
“I remember…” Meredith began. “You. Before, I think. It was daytime then. And I remember you were here when I woke up. And then –” Meredith sucked in a shaky breath. “Those men.”
The question underneath was so painstakingly clear. But Meredith hadn’t asked explicitly, and Addison couldn’t bring herself to offer up the information without an unambiguous prompt for it.
“Why are you sad?” Meredith’s quiet whisper broke through her thoughts.
Addison startled a little. She hadn’t even realised it until the blonde had asked, but she was sad, the reverberation of Meredith’s whisper rumbled through her chest. “I… don’t know. I suppose because you don’t remember.”
“Why can’t I remember?” Meredith finally asked for the first time.
“I don’t know yet.” She answered honestly. “I can run some tests, try and find out.” She hesitated.
“But?”
“But… Sometimes these things just happen. You could remember, eventually. Or-”
“-Or this is my life now? Right back at square one?”
Addison didn’t answer. She didn’t need to. Meredith had hit the nail square on the head. The blonde sighed, settling back into Addison’s embrace.
“Are we friends?” She mumbled into the redhead’s hair.
Addison paused. They weren’t friends. Anyone who saw them, on paper, would know. But there had been fleeting moments, these past few weeks. Knowing glances, civil conversations that bordered on warm and understanding. If Meredith could only remember, perhaps that answer could be yes.
Before she could formulate the words, Meredith pulled back, her eyes assessing quietly. They were still red and swollen from her tears, but the sharpness within them hadn’t dulled. She was still Meredith. Just more open than she had been before.
Her hand drifted up to Addison’s cheek, her fingers delicately skirting over the skin just below her ear.
“Were we lovers?” She asked again instead, the change of tense noticeable to the redhead. Addison stuttered, tripping over her words as she began to deny it. “Something in-between, then.” Meredith hummed to herself, her thumb skirting gently over Addison’s lips, effectively halting her rebuttal.
Addison didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t think. Her mind was overrun. Where on earth had Meredith gotten that idea from?
“Will you stay?” Meredith asked innocently.
Addison could hardly breathe. Meredith’s breath smelled of mint, and it mingled with her own. Her hands had tangled into her hair, leaving a trail of sparks along her skin as her fingertips slid from her cheek and her lips to the base of her neck.
“I-” She began, ready to say no, to use her patients as an excuse. Her eyes flicked briefly towards the locked door, and then once again back to Meredith’s eyes. “Yes.” She gave in, not quite understanding why she had chosen to do so.
“Good.” Meredith mumbled, tucking herself in under Addison’s chin and wrapping herself under the woman.
Addison didn’t know what was wrong. She didn’t know how to fix it. All she could do was to hold Meredith in her arms and pray to whatever God there was that this would mend itself with time.