"No, no," Meredith muttered, suddenly building up the urge to pull away from Brian, "No, don't pull that shit on me."
Tears were streaming down her cheeks before she realised she was crying. She stood up off the couch, running her fingers through her hair as she tried to reign it in.
"Mer...," he murmured, standing up and moving toward her.
"No, Brian," she was frustrated now, she couldn't take this anymore.
She could remember. She remembered that last month, before Cristina got there. The constant battle with herself to leave him. To leave that place. She didn't want to be there.
****
She'd finally built up the courage to get back to work, and he'd helped her arrange a position where he worked. The more she worked, the more she didn't want to go back to his place. It wasn't their place. It was his place.
She wanted to go. She wanted to travel. She didn't just want to work in the hospital. She couldn't be in one place. She had to keep moving again. She was ready to start moving again. She wanted to go home.
But he was treating her like glass. Like she'd break at any second. Constantly hovering. She felt like she couldn't leave. She'd want to bring it up and he'd just look at her, and that look, it was as though she owed it to him to stay. So, she'd stay.
She'd got home that night, late as usual, having been unable to find an excuse to stay at the hospital overnight. She wasn't needed on call, and she was getting close to her maximum number of working hours, and the last thing she needed was anyone picking up on how much she was avoiding going back to his apartment and speaking to him about it. Brian was waiting up for her; she was surprised he was still even awake since he'd left around four that morning for an emergency.
"You're back late," he commented, standing up as soon as she walked in, "Is there anything I can get for you?"
"No, I was just going to head to bed," she shrugged, covering her mouth as she found herself automatically faking a yawn.
"Have you eaten?" he asked, frowning slightly as he turned off the tv.
"Yeah, I ate at the hospital earlier," she lied easily, turning around and heading into the bedroom.
"I was going to grab a shower before bed, do you want to join me?" he asked as he moved closer behind her, almost suggestively but not quite touching her.
"I'll get one in the morning, I'm too tired," she shook her head as she pulled off her clothes, quickly finding her pyjamas and putting them on, stood on the opposite side of the room from him now.
"What's wrong, Mer?" he sighed in exasperation, and she eyed him carefully.
"What do you mean? I'm just tired," she narrowed her eyes slightly.
"You're barely here, you barely touch me, we barely talk," he accused, his hand going to his forehead, "I thought going back to work would be good for you, but it's like you're pulling further away."
"Seriously?" she scoffed, shaking her head as she grabbed one of the spare blankets, "I'm not doing this with you now, and if you're so adamant on fighting now, when I'm tired, I'm just going to go and sleep on the couch."
"Stop running away from this! I just want to help you get better and you're not letting me," he groaned, sitting on the edge of the bed.
"Get better? What? You're trying to fix me? Is that it?" she held back tears, clutching the blanket closer against herself, "Newsflash, I'm grieving, I know that might be a new concept for you."
"You think I'm not grieving? You think I'm okay?" he shook his head before looking up at her again, and she could clearly see the anger in his gaze.
"This is what you call grieving? Going straight back to work and pretending like nothing happened? Getting upset that I won't touch you? Great, Brian, just brilliant, you're doing a great job there," she scoffed again, turning away from him.
"I'm sorry that I haven't completely closed myself off and let myself go to waste like you seem to be doing, I'm sorry that I still fucking love you and want you to be okay!" Brian suddenly exploded, and she felt like a dagger was being shoved through her chest.
"And who let me fall into that? You work and you leave me alone for hours, and hours. I grieve on my own, and I don't know why I expect anything else from you when you didn't even come when we needed you! We needed you and you weren't there, Brian. It took my mother calling you for you to get your act into gear, and then you only showed up when we were about to withdraw care!" it all came out as a ramble, and she was starting to lose sight of the point she had even been trying to make. God, she was tired, and she just wanted to go to bed.
"It always comes back to that doesn't it? I couldn't just drop everything and fly out to New York like you could!" he bit back.
"Nice to know that being hospitalised and losing our son isn't enough of a priority for you," she choked back a sob, leaning back against the wall and sinking to the floor, "I should've fucking known."
"I told you so many times, Meredith, I'm sorry that I wasn't there but I can't change that now," he said, a bitter edge to his tone.
"I want to leave," she muttered, looking up to glare at him.
****
"You could've seen him and spent more time with him, you could've held him," she murmured as she picked at her sleeve, not looking at him, "I didn't stop you from doing shit, so don't put that on me."
"I hardly had any time with him," she flinched slightly when he flung his arm into the air in frustration, "and you completely shut down on me!"
"I shut down on you? You're angry because I shut down on you?" she looked straight at him now, all the rage she had subdued when he'd finally shown up in New York boiling up to the surface.
"I took you in, Meredith. I did everything for you, and you left!" he threw back at her.
"You kept me around to make yourself feel better! You decided what was best for me, and you didn't let anyone help! The last thing I needed was being holed up in your apartment, thousands of miles from home, but you took advantage, and it took Cristina flying out and almost kicking your door down for me to be able to leave!" she got to her feet again now, turning and walking out of the room.
She just needed to breathe for two seconds, get herself together. She knew he was following her into the kitchen, and she just wished he wouldn't. If anything, she just wanted him to leave.
"Now you're making it sound like I was keeping you hostage, I guess you really do listen to what Cristina says," he laughed bitterly, standing in the doorway to the kitchen when she turned to face him again.
"I felt guilty enough without walking out on you as well," she said, wiping at her eyes as she leant back against the sink.
"But it was fine as soon as Cristina came along?" he accused.
"She made me realise I was getting worse! She made me realise that I needed out, that we weren't working anymore. We weren't the same, and you expected more of me than I could give you," she shook her head, "You still expect more from me than I can give."
"Is this the part where you bring up my opposition to you travelling again? Like always?" he goaded.
"Because you do oppose it! You always did!" she claimed, lowering her head.
"Because I want you with me! Because I miss you when you're away. Forgive me for wanting a stable home for us, I thought that's what you wanted when you got pregnant?" he sighed, stepping into the room and leaning against one of the chairs.
"Wait, you expected me to just stop travelling for work because we were having a baby?" she looked at him, almost incredulous.
"We talked about a house! We talked about marriage, and more kids! I thought you wanted to stop travelling all over and finally settle down," he gesticulated with his hands as he stood up straight again.
"God, you sound just like my mother. I had, and I have, zero intention of stopping travelling completely. Sure, I was going to take time off for a while, but I was never going to stop. That's my job, Brian! That's what I want to do, and I'm not going to just stop that, and if that's not good enough then maybe we should quit while we're ahead," her voice got quieter as she trailed off, her words hitting her – she didn't want to be with him, they couldn't be together.
"Meredith, I love you. I love that you've seen the world, and you've accomplished so much. Isn't it all enough by now? Don't you love me enough to at least try and settle down with me, stay in one place?" his voice grew quieter now.
"You know I love you, Brian, but we can't do keep doing this. You want me to settle down, stop doing what I love... that would make me unhappy, you know that would make me unhappy. You want to just move on like nothing ever happened, and I... I'm not ready to move on," she shook her head, wiping at her eyes again.
"It's been three years, Mer," he sighed softly, meeting her eyes for a brief second before looking down, "You need to try and move on."
"How? Forgetting Noah ever existed?" she could taste the bitterness in her mouth, anger boiling up in her again.
"That's not what I'm saying," he looked up at her with a frown.
"it's what you've wanted all along, you want to just move on, try again, like it's that easy! Like things can just go back to the way they were," she shook her head again, "I think you need to leave."
"I'm not giving up, Meredith," he started to plead, before a look crossed his face, like had an idea, and it just made her more wary and anxious for him to go, "Come with me."
"Where? Sacramento? No, I'm leaving for France on Monday morning," she frowned in confusion, crossing her arms over her chest.
"No, I mean, come with me," he gestured over his shoulder before turning around, and she followed cautiously, seeing him head for the nursery.
"What are you doing?" she asked, her breath catching as he opened the door to the room.
"Just come in here a minute, please," he breathed, stepping inside.
She followed him into the nursery, a wave of grief hitting her as it always did when she stepped over the threshold. Her arms wrapped around her chest tighter as her eyes started to glaze over with automatic tears.
"Why are we in here?" she murmured, swallowing slightly.
"Because you need to see that it's okay, Mer, it's okay to move on. And yeah, it's going to hurt, but you need to do this," he sighed, and she kept her eyes fixed on him as he moved toward the crib, starting to fold up the bed covers.
"What are you doing?" she said, her voice barely audible as she clocked on what was different in the room – there were boxes stacked up in the corner.
"I'm trying to help you move on, Meredith, you can't keep living like this, with this massive reminder of him sitting around," he shook his head as he started putting the bedding into one of the boxes, "It's not healthy."
"What are you – Stop!" she found her voice raising exponentially in volume, but she was frozen to the spot, not fully believing what was happening in front of her.
He continued to pack things into the boxes as she stood there, frozen. Books, small toys, decorations that had been littered around the room. As soon as his hand touched the photo album on the bookshelf, suddenly she was moving across the room and taking it from him.
"Get out," she hissed, clutching the baby blue album close against her chest.
"Meredith, what –" he frowned, turning toward her.
"Get the hell out. Get your things, and get the fuck out," she all but growled at him, the tears luring her sight.
"Speak to me, Meredith," he shook his head, holding his hand out toward her.
"Speak to you? About what? This is it. I'm done. I don't want you around anymore, I'm done trying to fix whatever fucking joke this is. Get out of this room, get out of my apartment, and don't ever come back. Don't call me. I don't want anything to do with you."
"What the hell?" his frown deepened as he moved out of the room and she followed him, closing the door to the nursery behind her before they went into the bedroom, "You can't just kick me out, Meredith."
"I told you I wasn't ready!" her voice started to rise in volume the angrier she became, "I don't want to move on! I don't want to just pack everything up and pretend he never existed! You don't get to choose that for me, you don't get to decide that I need to pack up and move on!"
"Why won't you let me help, Meredith?" he started to please, but was packing his things back into his travel bag.
"Help? You think this is helping?" she ran her fingers through her hair as she took a breath, trying to force back the sobs that just wanted to break though, "This isn't helping! I'm miserable, Brian. Being with you is making me miserable. You don't listen to me! You don't listen to what I want, or what I need!"
"I guess it's always been about you, hasn't it?" he scoffed, shaking his head as he zipped the bag up, "That never changed."
"All about me? Really? You were the reason I was stuck in Sacramento, you made me stay, made me go against everything I wanted to keep you happy. I was depressed, Brian. I lost my baby and you used that as an excuse to mould me into the perfect little girlfriend for you!" she was practically shouting at this point, hoping he would finally here her, "You weren't there. You didn't want to be there. I don't give a crap if you were scared; I was petrified! But I didn't have the goddamn privilege of being able to hide away."
"Are you done throwing accusations at me? I'm going, okay, I'm going," he shook his head as he walked out the room and she watched him walk down to the front door, putting his shoes on and grabbing his jacket, "I'll always love you, Meredith. Call me when you're ready to just accept that."
"Don't hold your fucking breath," she muttered, both her arms wrapping around the album against her chest again as she watched him leave.
At the final click of the door, she realised she was alone again. She felt relief. She hated that she'd pushed herself to be with Brian. She didn't need him. She'd survived without him. She didn't want to be with him, she wanted to keep Noah's memory alive, and he just wanted to destroy it with every chance he had.
Before she knew it, she found herself sat on the floor against the wall in the hallway, her head bowed as she let the sobs break though. She wasn't sure how long she'd stayed like that for. It could have been minutes; it could've been hours.
Eventually, she dragged herself off the floor, keeping a tight grip on the photo album as she found her phone sat on the coffee table between the two used wine glasses. Tears came to her eyes again, but she blinked them away, deciding to call the one person she could be around. The one person who wouldn't ask questions, who made her feel like everything would be okay – made her feel safe. Everything in her just wanted to see him, regardless of the hour.
She pulled up Derek's number and pressed dial before she could talk herself out of it. She listened to it ring out, and just when she was about to change her mind and hang up the call, thinking she might as well drink herself to sleep, he answered, his voice stirring something deep inside her that made her want to see him right this second.
"Meredith?"
Her voice was shaky, but she managed to get the words out, trying to keep her breathing steady as possible, "Can I come and see you?"