Addison's mouth was moving. She was saying things, things her husband should have been listening to. But his gaze was fixed on Meredith, and his brow furrowed in worry as he watched her take shot after shot.
He tried to count how many times she raised the glass to her lips, but he wasn't sure how many he'd missed the few times he'd looked at Addison. His hands tensed around his own glass every time she tipped her head and poured tequila down her throat.
She wasn't even with her friends. She was a few stools away from all of them, like she couldn't bear to talk to anyone. Addison waved her hand in front of Derek. "Sweetie." She said, exasperated. "You still in there? I'm exhausted. Can we go?"
Derek forced a smile. "If you grab the car, I'll settle with the bartender." Addison nodded and gathered her things. Derek waited until she left, then strode up to the bar.
💉🩺
Meredith felt a hand on her arm as she raised another shot to her lips. It took her about three seconds to realize it wasn't any old hand, it was his hand. "What do you want?" she asked, her voice sounding harsher than she'd realized.
"Mer, stop. Please." He asked, his tone caught somewhere between pleading and commanding. His hand on her skin was scorching. She wrenched her arm from his glass and poured the alcohol down her throat, enjoying the burn.
She shook her head. "No." she said. "No. You have no say over how I ride out the waiting."
"Meredith, you're going to hurt yourself."
She shook her head and smiled a crooked, sad, smile. "No." she said again. "Tonight, I'm not hurting. I'm not going to feel anything at all, Derek." She said, signaling for another shot.
"She's had enough Joe." Derek called.
"Pour me another, Joe." Meredith countered. She turned back to Derek. "You're not my boyfriend, Derek. You don't have to watch out for me."
"I don't mind." He said, smiling what he hoped was his McDreamy smile.
She shook her head. "You don't get to watch out for me, Derek." She said, a harshness in her voice. "You don't get to keep me waiting for you, and then expect that you can watch out for me."
"I'm sorry." He said in a husky voice. "I'm sorry."
She shut her eyes to his. "You make me feel so much, I think I'm going to break. I don't want to feel anything right now."
He placed a hand on her arm. "Meredith, don't do this."
She opened her eyes and looked into his, for a long, long time. She reached out with the arm not covered in his and placed her hand over his. Fingers intertwined on contact, and their eyes remained locked.
Her friends, and half the bar was staring at them, but neither of them moved. Finally, Meredith looked down. "Your wife is probably waiting." She murmured.
Derek pressed his lips to her forehead. "Take care of yourself." He whispered. "Please." He ran his hand up her arm and clutched her should as he walked away. From the door of the bar, Addison left her position at the window, and ran back out into the rain.
After what she had seen, she didn't care how Derek got home.
💉🩺
After going back to the hospital to retrieve his own car, Derek drove home slowly, almost turning around and going back to check on Meredith a few hundred times. When he finally reached the trailer, he walked through the rain slowly, like moving too quickly would cause something horrible to happen to her. When he entered the trailer, Addison was sitting on the bed, with her arms crossed and ice in her stare.
"Hi." He said.
She cut right to the chase. "You want to tell me what the hell that was?" she asked.
"What was?"
"You and Meredith, and your little bar tango."
Derek snorted at how simple she thought it was. "Please, Addison, it was hardly a tango." He said. "Dr. Grey looked upset, and I was concerned."
"And you expect me to believe that?"
No. No, actually, I've been sleeping with her. I love her. I want a divorce. He could have said that. But instead he just nodded. Addison took off her glasses, turned off the light and rolled away from him.
💉🩺
Back at Joe's, Cristina, Izzie, George and Alex watched with growing concern as Meredith pounded shots.
"Uh, Mer?" Cristina called over. "You want to provide us with any insight?"
Meredith's head snapped in her direction. "To what?" she asked belligerently.
"Maybe as to why Shepherd just went all McProtective on your ass. Or why you're drinking like tequila's going out of style."
Meredith turned her entire stool to face them. "I'm waiting." She announced drunkenly.
Izzie's brow furrowed. "Okaaaay." She said, drawing out the word. "Is this like knitting?"
Meredith frowned, reached behind her, and took another shot. "No. I'm waiting for McDreamy to leave McWife."
Her friends exchanged pointed glances. "What?" she all but shouted. "He promised. He's going to. Seriously."
💉🩺
"Who's presenting?" Nothing. "Who is presenting?" Bailey repeated.
"Uhhh..." Meredith started. But it wasn't working. The room was spinning, her head was pounding and her stomach was churning. She felt like she was going to fall over and pass out at any given moment.
"Grey!" Bailey snapped. She heard George's voice come in and take over, spitting out the patient's name and symptoms. Meredith couldn't do it anymore. She looked pleadingly at Bailey, who seemed to understand what was wrong. Bailey nodded and jerked her head toward the door.
Meredith stumbled out into hallway, and barely made it to the nearest bathroom before she emptied the contents of her stomach into the toilet.
While she was throwing up, her friends made an executive decision. They were going to the source. It was almost five o'clock by the time they corned Derek in an elevator. George reached out when he wasn't looking and pressed the button for the basement. Derek got off first, and looked around.
"Why are we in the basement?" he asked, as the four remaining interns filed off the elevator, letting it shut behind them. "You haven't brought me down here to kill you, have you?" Derek joked.
He was met with four stony stares. Cristina stepped forward. "Listen, McDreamy," she spat out. "We know exactly what's going on, here. And Meredith may buy it, hook, line and sinker, but we don't."
"Don't buy what?"
Cristina rolled her eyes. "This whole, please wait for me just a little longer, Meredith routine. I don't know what you think you're doing, but it's not good enough for her. Right now, you're not good enough for her."
"Dr. Yang, that's not your place!" he snapped.
"Don't talk to her like that!" George snapped back. "You don't get it Dr. Shepherd. You don't get to do this to her. Not now, not again. What we're saying is not a warning, it's not a reminder, it's an ultimatum."
Izzie nodded. "Come clean to Addison. End it. Or we will."
Derek shook his head in disbelief. Alex squared his shoulders and looked him up and down. "Do you think we're joking? You think just because you're our boss we're scared of you? You've lost the respect of all of us. Pretty soon, you'll lose the respect of Meredith, too, and you don't want that, because she's pretty much the only person in your life who can't see through you."
"This is ridiculous." Derek said, keeping his deer in the highlights look. At that moment, the elevator door slid open and out walked Miranda Bailey.
"No." she said. "What's ridiculous is the fact that my intern is bent over a toilet throwing up her stomach acid because you did something that forced her into a drunken stupor."
Derek opened his mouth, but Bailey just spoke louder. "No! You don't get to talk. You listen. I don't know exactly what's going on, here, Shepherd, but I'm nowhere near as stupid as you, so I picked up on it. You choose. Once and for all." With that, she stepped back on the elevator she had been holding open with her foot.
Cristina looked at Derek. "We'll give you five days. Or we go to Addison."