The song used in this update is Jack Johnson-Flake

Derek looks over at her sitting in the passenger seat as he turns onto her street. She is looking out of the window with a slight smile curving the ends of her lips. He doesn’t know why she is smiling. He hopes that it is because she is happy to be alive. He hopes that it is because of the warmth of the sun hitting her on her face, illuminating its surface and transforming her into an angelic figure. For what seemed like forever, she might have been an angelic figure. He can’t think about that. He can’t. He needs to concentrate on why she is smiling. He doesn’t know why she is smiling and instead of comforting him, it scares him.

It scares him because she still isn’t communicating. It scares him because she has yet to talk about her almost death. How is she supposed to solve the problems that led to her giving up if she doesn’t talk about them? If she doesn’t confront them? He hates to think about what will happen next time. He can’t even fathom a next time. What if he isn’t there? What will happen then? It scares the shit out of him to think about it.

He licks his lips and runs his sweaty palms over the steering wheel as he turns into her driveway. It seems like forever since he has stepped foot in her house. It seems like forever because it has been the longest three days of his life. He can predict her response to his unasked question, but he needs to ask anyways. It’s almost like a compulsion. Ask and you shall receive, or whatever.

“How are you?” He asks as he places the vehicle in park, turning his body slightly towards her. He hopes that if she sees that he is opening up to her with his body language, she will finally communicate with him. He hopes that she will reciprocate the openness.

“I’m fine,” she responds with a warm smile. He knew that was what she would say. She’s always fine. Even when she’s at the bottom of the freaking bay she’s fine. In the dictionary next to fine should be the name Meredith Grey.

I know she said it's alright
But you can make it up next time
I know she knows it's not right
There ain't no use in lying
Maybe she thinks I know something
Maybe maybe she thinks its fine
Maybe she knows something I don't
I'm so, I'm so tired, I'm so tired of trying

He sighs as he turns to open his door. He knows that he shouldn’t feel the frustration that is causing the blood in his capillaries to boil. He knows that he should be happy that she is here. With him. Now. She is with him now and he should cherish that. He should. But he can’t. All that he can think about is the fickleness of her presence with him. He feels as if he is turning into a paranoid schizophrenic. Except its not a feasible entity that is his enemy. It is death. It is death and it’s not his own that he fears, but hers. Life without her would be a life of torture. Every breath. Every morning waking up to her cold pillow. Every night in silence in the absence of her snores. Every heartbeat. It is a waste without her. She is the only reason that it matters. She is the only reason that anything matters anymore.

It seems to me that maybe
It pretty much always means no
So don't tell me you might just let it go
And often times we're lazy
It seems to stand in my way
Cause no one no not no one
Likes to be let down

He leans his forehead against the soft leather of the steering wheel. He needs to remember to breathe. He needs to breathe, but it’s so hard. It’s just so damn hard to breathe when such a large weight compressing his chest. It’s just so hard to breathe for himself right now, let alone breathe for her as well. But he has to. He has to breathe for her. He has been breathing for her since he pulled her out of the water and began giving her CPR. He has not stopped. He has not stopped breathing for her. He can’t. He can’t stop breathing for her. When she wasn’t breathing, he wasn’t breathing. He couldn’t. She is his oxygen. She provides the oxygen, he provides the ventilation.

He sees her frail arm reaching out to him with his peripheral vision before he feels its slight touch on his shoulder. So light. So ethereal. Almost not there. Almost not there at all.

“Derek?” She asks hesitantly as she leans slightly towards him. Her lavender scent filling his nostrils.

She has finally gotten her conditioner yesterday and he couldn’t stop inhaling her. Inhaling her like there was no tomorrow, because for all he knows there might not be a tomorrow. He might not ever wake up and be met with the sun dancing across her milky skin again. He might not ever be able to enjoy the small things, like drinking a cup of coffee together while reading different sections of the newspaper together in the mornings. It is the small things. It is the small things that make this thing between them so damn big.

I know she loves the sunrise
No longer sees it with her sleeping eyes
And I know that when she said she's gonna try
Well it might not work because of other ties and
I know she usually has some other ties
And I wouldn't want to break 'em, nah, I wouldn't want to break 'em
Maybe she'll help me to untie this but
Until then well, I'm gonna have to lie too

“I’m fine,” he sighs into the void that exists between the top of the steering wheel and the horn. He isn’t fine. He isn’t even close to fine. Just like she isn’t fine. But if she is going to lie and pretend to be fine, then so can he. He can play her little game as well. Plus, she doesn’t need to worry about him. He needs to worry about her. He needs to take care of her. He needs to make sure that she doesn’t stop breathing. He needs to make sure that she doesn’t stop living.

He turns his face towards her and forces himself to smile. He is sure that it is probably an ugly smile. It feels ugly. It feels ugly and wrong. Smiling feels like it did when he was with Addison. He feels like he has on a pair of those old wax lips. Lips that scream “Look at me, I’m fake smiling with my fake red lips and fake white teeth because I’m fake fine.” They have both become masked actors in the drama that is their life. Where is the line between the play and the reality? Because he sure as hell would like to know.

It seems to me that maybe
It pretty much always means no
So don't tell me you might just let it go
And often times we're lazy
It seems to stand in my way
Cause no one no not no one
Likes to be let down
It seems to me that maybe
It pretty much always means no
So don't tell me you might just let it go

“I’m home,” she whispers as she looks up at the house looming in front of them. Her eyes are big, almost as if she is scared and this only intensifies his fear, but she quickly hides that fear.

“You’re home,” he responds as she turns to look at him. She smiles at him. She opens the car door and gets out of the car. She bends down to look at him when he remains seated. He doesn’t know if she wants him to come in. He doesn’t know what she wants. He doesn’t know anything anymore.

“You coming?” she asks him with arched eyebrow.

“Yup,” he responds while opening the door.

He follows her into the quiet house. All of her roommates are at work so they have the house to themselves. She drops her bag at the bottom of the stairs before turning to face him. She smiles at him before walking up to him and wrapping her arms around his torso. He is confused. He has no idea why she is hugging him unexpectedly. He runs his hands up and down her back, hoping for her to show some kind of emotion. He can’t believe that he is wishing for her to cry, but it seems like it would make it easier. It would make it easier to know that she was just as scared as he was. He needs for her to be scared. He needs for her to scared of death so that she never willingly attempts to die again.

“I’m alive.”

Her soft whisper cuts through his heart, dissecting it to tiny pieces as it crumbles into a messy pile in his chest cavity. She’s alive. She’s alive. Meaning she was dead. He knows that she was dead. He knows that. God does he know that. He lived that. He lived through her death. Why don’t her words offer him relief? Maybe it’s because they are more like a statement. They seem dull. They don’t seem full of, well, anything. It is almost like she is just saying them to say them.

“You’re alive,” he forces himself to respond past the large lump that has formed in his throat. Probably a piece of his broken heart. His broken heart that only she can put together. He will never admit it. He will never admit that he needs for her to be his cobbler. He needs for her to mend his soul, the support upon which his being rests.

The harder that you try baby, the further you'll fall
Even with all the money in the whole wide world
Please please please don't pass me
Please please please don't pass me
Please please please don't pass me by

She rests her chin on his chest as she stares up at him. She doesn’t look sad. She doesn’t look relieved. She looks content. How can she be content? She almost died. He’s scare shitless and she’s content. He forces yet another smile, something that he has a feeling he will be doing a lot from now on. She bites down on her bottom lip.

“What?” he asks, knowing that look as a tell that she is wanting something. He runs his fingers through her smooth, silky hair as she stares up at him.

“I’m starving.” As she says these words her stomach growls loudly and a giggle escapes from her sweet mouth.

A giggle. A giggle that should make his heart soar. A giggle that should force a chuckle involuntarily past his lips, but instead causes him immense pain. What if he had never heard that chuckle again? He leans forward and places a soft kiss on her forehead to hide the grimace of pain that flickers across his face. He can fake. He can make her think that he is okay. He can. He will. He has to. He can’t let her know. He can’t let her know that now he is the one who is sinking to the bottom. He is sinking to the bottom of the same bay in which he found her. He is inhaling the same water that flooded her lungs. He is suffering from the same hypothermia that she suffered from. He is trying to take away her pain and in doing so, he has began to die the death that she suffered only three days ago.

Everything you know about me now baby you gonna have to change
You gonna have to call it by a brand new name
Please please please don't drag me
Please please please don't drag me
Please please please don't drag me down

“Well, I guess we better go get you something to eat,” he says as he looks over the top of her head and towards the kitchen. He can’t look in her eyes right now. He can’t. He can’t allow his breaking soul to mend with her healing one. He can’t. He can’t let her see it. He needs time. He needs time to mask it. Time. Time that fickle bastard who keeps fucking with his life. Time. He wishes it was that time of year when you set your clocks back, only he wants to keep setting the clock back. He wants to gain more hours. He wants to cheat time. He wants to cheat time with her so that they can cheat death together. He needs for them to cheat death together, because anything less than forever just isn’t long enough.

He ushers her into the kitchen so that he can prepare something for her to eat, but his thoughts aren’t on the food. They are on the dangers that come with eating. What if she chokes? He can’t. He can’t function. He can’t function because he can’t think about anything but her dying. He needs to find a way to cheat. He needs to find a way to steal more time. He would go to hell and back for her. He could be her Orpheus, but he would refrain from looking back. He would rescue her from death. His love is enough for that. He could do that. But is his love enough to keep her from dying in the first place? It wasn’t the first time.

Just like a tree down by the water baby I shall not move
Even after all the silly things you do
Please please please don't drag me
Please please please don't drag me
Please please please don't drag me down

I'm not sure how I feel about this chapter. I wanted to show the transition and Derek's pain. He is now the one drowning...except for he is drowning on dry land...and he is determined to hide it from Meredith. Let me know what you think.

-marci