It's Not Over

32.

"How is she doing?" George asked as he watched Meredith tend to a patient in the pit. They were all down there due to a major vehicle collision.

"She seems fine." Izzie said.

"Much better than I expected her to be." Cristina agreed.

"Dudes, she looks like shit." Alex said.

"Yeah, but she seems okay..." Izzie said.

"When you three are ready to depart from fantasy land, let me know." He said storming off to follow his patient to CT.

"What the hell is up with him?" Izzie asked. The others just shrugged and turned their attention to their own patients.

Meredith finished up with her patient and threw her trauma gown and gloves in the hazardous waste bin. She instantly went to find something else to do. Stay busy, stay sane. That was her new motto and it had been for the last month. Didn't help her get through the nightmares and the what ifs. She had tried not to sleep but she had almost collapsed during surgery. So she drank herself to sleep. Luckily she was used to that type of behavior so she didn't look too hungover during the day. She made a stop in the bathroom and when she was washing her hands, she took a look at herself in the mirror and paused. Her hair was stringy and unkept, she had dark circles under her lackluster eyes. Her face was gaunt and she instantly knew she had lost weight...weight she didn't have to lose. She had become the her from three years ago...again because she took a chance...again because of him, because she had loved him...did love him. She knew that she would love him for as long as she was breathing and sometimes she almost wished she wasn't. She never entertained that thought seriously but she just wished it could have been easier. That she could have met him when he wasn't married. She could have been married to him and have his children by now. That is the part that killed her most of all...that she couldn't turn back time in both of their lives to mold it into what the both wanted. But the point was, they couldn't. She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders and planted a fake smile on her face and went out to face the world. Hours later, she would escape to her bedroom with her bottle of tequila and she would cry herself to sleep on her bathroom floor so no one could hear her and feel the need to say I told you so.

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"How is he doing?"

Mark turned and looked at Addison, who was looking at Derek worriedly. He was writing in a chart and his eyes were bloodshot and his clothes were wrinkled.

"I don't know. He won't really tell me. Just says he's fine and changes the subject." He shrugged.

"He is so not fine." She remarked. "What are we going to do?"

"What can we do? Meredith made her decision and he is living with it." Mark replied.

"Living? Mark, he is obviously not living...he is dying...slowly...by degrees. And Nancy says he is drinking again. We have to do something." She said.

"What do you suggest?" Mark asked. He so did not deal with emotional crap like this and Derek was exactly the reason why Mark didn't date. Cause this is what a chick could do to you.

Addison looked at Mark and then swiftly slapped him on his head.

"What the hell was that for?" He demanded.

"Derek was your best friend...he is your brother in every sense of the word...we are the reason he is like this. We had an affair which sent Der to Seattle where he met Meredith. He left her to be with me...out of obligation. I have never seen him so happy as he was with her when she was here." Addison said, her blue eyes flashing.

"Again I will ask, how the hell can we help?"

Addison thought for a moment and then took out her phone. She dialed a number quickly and waited for a minute while the call connected.

"Alex? It's Addison."