𝙓𝘾𝙄𝙄𝙄.
A MURDEROUS ACT / 𝘗𝘐𝘛𝘠 𝘛𝘏𝘌 𝘍𝘖𝘖𝘓
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this is dedicated to the wattpad ranking algorithm because i know
she loves short chapters and, by proxy, absolutely despises me!
thanks for doing the bare minimum babe! ❤️
SEATTLE IN NORMAL TEXT
NEW YORK IN ITALICS
IS THIS MY DOWNFALL?
That was a question that would plague both Derek Shepherd and Elizabeth Montgomery for years.
It would strike Beth as she stood in her New York apartment eight hours after asking her boyfriend to choose between her and his surgical career.
A twisted decision, a conversation that would not come lightly–– she'd stood, filling a glass of wine and thinking about the endings of things with a weight that had been on her chest all day. She was drinking to forget it, to shirk the guilt of making such a tense and curt demand. She stared at fingers that she almost didn't recognise, tried to avoid her reflection in mirrors, sensitive to the change that she might see.
She was thinking about the ending of things, twisting the words over and over in her head.
What made an ending? What defined an ending?
Was it just that someone called it that, said okay, right now, this is where this ends?
But, were endings loyal to that? Did they happen when they were supposed to happen?
Or did they persist? Did they creep a little bit over with sneaky suspicions and drowsy fingers?
Fuck knows.
It would occur to Derek as he left for work in Seattle on the day of Beth's Disciplinary Hearing, twenty-four hours after willfully setting his ex-sister-in-law's psychiatry career up in flames.
It'd been a hard call, one he'd made with bared teeth and a slight stammer in his jaw. But he'd done it, without hesitation, with a mouth full of deja vu as he relived Manhattan over and over and over and–– His brow furrowed as he watched his hand tremble very subtly against the steering wheel in his car. There was an emotion in him that he couldn't quite name.
(How absurd would it be that nearly five years apart, they would carry the same weight in their chests.)
For it was the same feeling, they were knitted the same with the same pain. Although it would take Derek longer to recognise it, the sensation that hit him was the same as Beth's as she stood waiting for Mark to return to her. They had something similar about them at these times: the burn of alcohol at the back of his mouth.
Foot testing his accelerator, the taste of alcohol on his tongue, Derek was thinking about the ending of things.
Was this really it? Was this how he wanted it all to go?
Would this really be the end or would Beth find a way to bounce back like she always seemed to?
Would she find a way to make the chips fall down in her favour or would it wipe her out completely?
It burned through him just like the whisky he'd nursed at 7am–– he didn't know.
In New York, Beth's eyes had bounced hurriedly towards the door, glacing the clock in an anxious sweep.
She had been expecting someone, the only person she could expect in this tiny apartment that she called home. Amelia had holed away in Brooklyn for the weekend and the overshadowed corners felt more gaunt. Beth had poured herself a larger glass.
Pouring a glass was just like the hurried swig of a whisky bottle jammed in the driver's door. In Seattle, Derek started his commute to work peacefully, but with his brain full of misdemeanours as unlawful as the laws he was about to break.
A key in the ignition and the habit of driving to work separately to his wife. His hand movements deteriorated into sloppy turns, his foot played with the idea of just burning rubber right down the Seattle highway.
He wasn't expecting anyone, or maybe he was... maybe he'd see Gary Clark in his rearview mirror. All Derek knew for sure was that he was really parched for adrenalin these days.
Adrenalin, for once, had been the last thing that Beth had needed.
She'd grabbed the bottle of Shiraz with one ambition: drown out this feeling in her chest, minimise it until it's docile and cheaper than the wine. Grow numb and then number. She'd searched for that feeling at the bottom of the wine glass. It'd been her third by the time the floors outside had creaked with newcomers feet.
She'd taken to lingering in the space like a moth, dizzy from a light fix that had driven them wild. Anything to cover up the dread, the paranoia, the tingling worry that the proposed decision she'd given her then-boyfriend would not work in her favour.
Before she'd poured her first glass, she'd been convinced that she was going to lose it all–– is this how it ends? Is this how she wants it all to go?
Derek had been drinking since dawn.
He couldn't sleep these days and knew that it was the only way to make his mind quiet. Otherwise, he'd start thinking about the ending of things again; he'd think about the sensation of standing in front of Gary Clark under that skyline and he'd think about how relieved he'd been to close his eyes.
The whisky burned, but it burned him to numbness.
Derek made the resolution to ask Mark about that, about whether whisky and the third-degree burns the plastic surgeon came across regularly in his career were kindred spirits–– and then he remembered that odds were, after what Derek had said to him, Mark probably would never speak to him again.
Beth's head had turned at the sound of a key in the lock.
It'd been so abrupt that New York had spun around her. She'd kept spinning and spinning, tipsy and balancing herself against the kitchen counter with sweaty palms until she'd caught sight of Mark in the doorway and he'd reigned her in with his gravitational pull.
She'd stood there, not with dignity or integrity, but with determination, her vision slightly blurred as she watched the door open, revealing the man she'd been desperate to see all day.
Her heart had jumped into her mouth and she'd struggled to swallow it back down; but when she did, she did it with a long sip of Shiraz.
Derek didn't hesitate before breaking the speed limit.
Wobbling against the kitchen counter, Beth had attempted to appear off-handed.
The forced guise of a casual woman who definitely had not been stressed and overthinking Mark's appearance was immediate. Her eyes had flickered away from him immediately, dropping down to follow her hand as it sheepishly and incoherently slid against the tile.
On the other side of the room, Mark hadn't even bothered to look over at her.
Derek's whole body tingled with the feeling of a machine pushed to its limit, his muscles tensing and his face splitting into a smile as he watched the metre below him rise.
Speed was something he could control. He could control this.
He pushed and pushed and pushed and this would not give way. Skirting around other cars, watching the city grow hazy in front of his very eyes, yes, this was something he could control. He could pull this, press this, push this here and here–– Derek could be the one calling the shots.
Beth hadn't been able to remember the last time she'd ever felt so small.
She'd been ignored. Mark had passed her and retreated into the bathroom, still as cold and aloof as he had been hours ago when she'd watched him leave that storage room.
She'd supposed that it would've hurt, but it didn't when she was propped up by a cocktail of spirits and cheap prescription pills. A slight tremor had kept her neck upright. She'd stared after the door and gulped wine quicker.
She had been seven when her father had asked her to make him a martini for the first time. She'd stared at his clumsy hands as he, a doctor way out of his prime, coached her on what she needed to do.
It was his medicine, so he'd said. Adult medicine.
A bit of this and a bit of that and he'd feel so much better. It was a cure-all.
Trust him, he's a doctor.
A cocktail made by the stammering fingers of his young daughter, apparently, was enough to fix all of his marital issues.
Derek had been seven when his father had set him in the front seat of his car.
They'd been in a parking lot on the edge of the city, somewhere out in the back of a wholesale place where no one could see. His father had shown him the ropes, how to manoeuvre the little automatic Cadillac and helped him stretch to the pedals.
A move here and a movement there and they'd be on their way.
Trust him, he's your father.
A single pedal touch and a steer of the wheel and that was all Derek had needed to move on.
Derek was moving on, but the problem is, he was moving a little too quickly–– illegally quickly. Route 99 was ablaze with burnt rubber, his car leaving the streets incoherent and blurred as he skirted around cars just like he'd ignored all the warning signs.
He hadn't seen Gary Clark coming and he hadn't seen Beth's relapse, either.
Add it all to the list. Number it.
One through to a thousand.
Keep it going. Keep it going fast.
Beth, however, had seen the red flags.
She'd watched Mark's sluggish step as he'd appeared out of the bedroom and taken up half the room with his mood alone.
Her eyes had picked at him, incoherently but steadily. She'd watched him look over at her, suddenly choosing to acknowledge the woman who'd spent the whole evening martyring him in her head as if that night had been a funeral, the funeral of a relationship she'd murdered with her very own hands.
For both of them, these were the moments that mattered, unspoken moments in both of their lives that they'd be asked about for years to come: What made you drink until you were dizzy? What made you drive a storm up Route 99? What made you do what you did?
Moments that would lead to other moments and the sudden spiral of everything and anything... both of them carried that with them, that lump at the back of their throats, that awareness that they deeply regretted ever saying anything, ever making that decision.
But, it was for the best.
That's what they both rationalised it as, five years apart on opposite sides of their lives and the country: they were doing this all for the best.
The best, however, didn't feel as good as they'd both thought it would:
They both felt like their fathers.
The self-medication was essential, Beth had found.
She wasn't partial to martinis, wine would do the trick–– When Mark avoided her eye like that and ignored her greeting, she knew that it was important.
The wine had numbed her through to the bone, like ice that dug deep under her skin and didn't make his snub burn as much as it would have otherwise. She'd known she'd be sensitive, that she'd overthink.
She'd tried so hard to not betray how intoxicated she was, but in reality, Mark had appeared in doubles, in triples.
He'd swirled in front of her eyes like a phantom of everything that had gone wrong: a man who couldn't meet her eye. It was only when he'd looked at her, a reluctant stare straight into the eye, that Beth had felt something again.
Derek just wanted to go fast. He wanted to break the fucking sound barrier.
The feeling of the world flying past made his whole body forget how much it ached. The adrenalin was addictive, it was enticing, it's what kept him stuck to this seat–– he leant forwards pushed further and further.
The world dipped around him and his chest didn't hurt as much, he didn't think about the bullet Gary Clark had propelled into his wound and how, just as Beth had felt like her fathers drinking her sorrows away, Derek had felt like his own father, stood at the barrel of a gun.
That's how Shepherd men die.
As New York settled, Beth had found herself incapable of speaking.
The words had got caught in the back of her throat. She'd almost choked.
She'd just stared at Mark and felt her heartbeat thrum against the cage of her chest, the only organ in her body that it couldn't still. While her brain had swirled with clumsy thoughts and her fingers had loosened on her glass, Mark had cleared his throat:
Hi. He'd said.
She'd almost slid to the floor. Hi.
Seattle, however, wouldn't settle, Derek would make sure of it. If today was going to be the end of all of these things, he'd cause a scene. He'd cause a big scene, a big drunk fucking scene–– look at me, world, I'm alive. I got shot just like my Dad and I'm alive.
He saw Gary Clark in his rearview just as it patterned with red and blue.
Who gives a shit? He was alive.
Mark had stood there. He'd stood there and Beth wasn't sure whether her life would ever be the same. S
he'd drunk the sight of him just like he was her fourth glass, just like he was a pack of pills or a line or whatever she happened to get her hands on back then.
She'd took a stumbling step towards him, braced herself on the dining table and left her glass behind.
(Hi, she'd repeated. Hi, how was your day?)
If this was a crisis, Derek was having a lot of fun.
His last crisis had been the sad sort, the type that had driven him into the forest and set him amongst the grass on a shitty foldout chair. Now, this was fun.
He was driving fast and he was feeling great and decided to race cops for the hell of it.
He was late to work anyway, why not see how far he can go?
He was here, that's the one thought that had comforted Beth.
It was a comfort far stronger than the alcohol. Mark was here. He was here, things weren't too bad. As shitty as she felt about the whole situation, just the sight of him standing in her apartment had reassured her. This wasn't the end. This wasn't the end.
The cops were persistent, Derek would give them that. They didn't give up, not even when he pushed triple digits.
He took a mouthful of his whisky and let a small laugh pass through his lips. Maybe he was in the wrong career? Maybe he should've gone into professional racing?
Derek was fairly sure that racing drivers didn't get shot.
Mark hadn't answered her question about his day, he'd just stared.
Beth had carried the weight of it willingly. There'd been so much space between them and she hadn't had the wits about her to vocalise how much she wanted him next to her.
In fact, she hadn't been able to say anything–– just stare, just watch, just wait for Mark to say something. To make his decision, to break her heart, to make her whole life––
Jesus Christ, Derek thought to himself as he looked back up into the mirror, They don't give up, do they?
After a prolonged pause, Mark finally spoke: I gave in my notice.
The end, Derek supposed, was inevitable. He was going to get caught, there was only so much road. Things were always going to catch up with him–– that was the reasoning, too, that he'd taken to Beth's career. It was always going to end badly.
It was Beth, it was in her DNA. She didn't know how to treat things with care, only demolish them unceremoniously. Derek calling the board together and putting together a last-minute hearing was just like the eventual overtaking and screech of his car brakes. He was showing mercy, he was calling time.
Oh? That had been Beth's response.
She hadn't vocalised it, but she'd thought that it was the alcohol.
She'd thought that the wine was making her hear things, that it was playing out the best-case scenario right in front of her–– But no, if this had been a fantasy, he would've been smiling.
He would've been closer.
He would've been saying it with love and hope in his eyes... Mark wasn't.
In fact, he wasn't looking at her at all.
Derek watched the cop get out of their car and meander towards him. He wondered what make the police officer's gun was. He looked out of his window and smiled as the officer tapped on his window, a hand on his belt, and ordered Derek to exit his vehicle.
I have a month left, Mark had said next, I called up Derek this afternoon. We're opening the clinic together. I'm signing the papers tomorrow.
With an elbow wedged in between his shoulder blades and his cheek pressed against the hood of his car, Derek could only wonder whether this was how Gary Clark would've been apprehended if things had played out that way.
He listened to the click of handcuffs and mused over the fact that the bastard had never worn them.
His end didn't feel fair. It was cheap. It was cowardly.
Beth had stood there, concave against the table with feet that had forgotten how to stand. Her relief was overwhelming and could not be repressed by the wine. The twitchy smile she'd given to Mark as she realised that he'd chosen her had almost been subconscious and erratic–– Mark had chosen her, HER, he'd chosen Beth over the hospital, over the promotion, he'd chosen HER! Her eyes had welled with tears. Mark had not reciprocated the gesture.
Instead, he'd just adjusted his shirt, his chin dipping to look at the floor.
Haven't you got lives to save, Chief Shepherd?
The cop was one of Derek's old patients.
He turned Derek around and gave him a steady but firm smile.
It wasn't friendly. Derek stared at him and tried to place his face–– oh yeah, aneurysm in the frontal lobe, a miracle recovery.
He was too drunk to be ashamed. He leant against his car and smiled, shaking his head.
Lives to ruin, actually.
He wouldn't know whether his words were coherent.
There had been something so disorientating about being chosen, Beth had found.
She hadn't been chosen before. She hadn't even truly believed it was possible. If Mark had chosen the hospital, she would have accepted it–– that's what Calum had done, that's what she would have done. She would've always chosen her career, and maybe that's why she was more shocked than anything else.
Silently, Beth had been so convinced that this would be the end.
Derek recognised the look on the cop's face, it was the same look that he'd get for weeks to come whenever he was picked out of his car by an officer that recognised his face.
It was pity. It was the silent indicator that they knew exactly why he couldn't stop this.
It was the universal marker of awareness: poor Chief of Surgery, he got shot and now his whole life is in a mess.
Thank you, Beth had said. It hadn't been slurred, in fact, it had sounded frighteningly clear. It had been as if something had shifted as if something had been fortified within her.
(Crap, this guy loved me enough to throw that all away?)
He waited on the curb until things were organised. He listened to the drone of the police radio and wondered what tragedies were happening in Seattle today.
The cuffs were uncomfortable, he felt slightly dishevelled, but not as worse as he could've been. That's how the cop looked at him as if Derek was the worst he'd ever been. He felt like laughing.
If you think this is bad, he said to the officer, you should've seen the blood.
Beth had repeated her thanks. Thank you for choosing me. Thank you for loving me. Thank you for not hating me even though I'm being awful. Thank you for tolerating it. Thank you for being here. Thank you for not leaving me behind. Thank you for everything and more––
The cop didn't seem to have an answer for that.
He just stared at Derek until something at the back of Derek's head twitched–– it was a sober part of him, the reserved centre of the logical and the calm.
It was screaming, it was screeching, telling him that he was making a mess of things. Derek managed to ignore it as he was hauled to his feet.
Mark had not responded.
He didn't look at her as she poured her heart out drunkenly at his feet. He hadn't touched her as she staggered towards him, holding onto the lapels of his shirt as if he was the last thing keeping her upright–– she'd hold onto to him for years if he'd let her, Beth would never let go.
He had, however, tensed under her touch, avoided her eye and stiffened as she pressed sloppy lips against his cheek and whispered in his ear.
I would've chosen you too, She'd lied with wine on her breath, I love you. I'm so sorry, Mark. I love you so much.
Where to, Chief? The officer said.
The same pity that was on his face was the same pity that let Derek walk. He massaged his wrists as the cop sat him in the back of his squad car and closed the door.
Derek gazed between the mesh divider and out onto the clear open road; rush hour traffic was beginning to congeal at the corners, the cops timing was impeccable.
He felt the vehicle rumble beneath them as he glanced over at the clock, blinking to make out the blurry numbers.
The hospital, Derek replied.
Mark, again, hadn't spoken.
He'd withstood her kisses, her empty lies that he would figure out halfway down the line.
He'd tasted the wine in her, just like he'd tasted her frenzy.
Beth hadn't lied when she said that she loved him; god, did she love him! It had just been the other things, the other half-truths that had driven him dizzy until he'd had to step back and hold her at arms length––
Beth had broken off, blinking at him as if he'd just said something a little too loud.
And then he hadn't spoken.
He hadn't said a word. He'd just turned away, taken his coat and left.
Beth had been left alone.
Got a surgery? The officer asked, mostly out of politeness. It was the awkward conversation of a man who knew exactly how important Derek was, of who he knew and what he did, But also the caution, the knowledge that a drunk guy with a scalpel was by no means a good omen.
No, Derek said, staring at the clock on the dashboard until the number 9 was burned into his retinas, A hearing.