13. Thanksgiving

Meredith crept cautiously down the wooden staircase, knowing instinctively where to step and where not to step. She reached the last step and peered around the banister towards the kitchen doorway. When there was no movement, she motioned for Derek to join her.

He deftly made his way down the stairs, almost as knowledgeable as her as to where the squeaky spots were, and hovered beside her at the landing, his breath hot against her neck as his hand found purchase on her hip.

"You make a go for the door. I'll cover you," She whispered.

"I feel like we're in a really bad spy movie," he responded, his stubble tickling the side of her neck as he leaned in close.

She suppressed a giggle and gently shoved him away from her and towards the front door. Once he was safely across the landing, and out of sight of the kitchen door, she moved to catch up, and they were only feet away from a successful escape when a familiar voice stopped Meredith dead in her tracks.

"What do you think you're doing?"

Meredith cringed and spun to meet the scrutinizing gaze of her roommate, standing tall, a heavy book cracked open and clutched in her arms, her eyes narrowed in suspicion.

"Uh..." She scrambled for answer as she felt Derek step up behind her. The doorbell rang behind them.

"We're answering the door," Derek answered easily, causing Meredith to stifle a laugh at his matter-of-fact tone.

Izzy, of course, wasn't buying it. "Don't tell me you two are going to the hospital..."

"Well..." Meredith trailed off.

"Come on! Everyone is supposed to be in the kitchen by nine to help me make dinner."

"Iz-"

"It's Thanksgiving." The doorbell rang again in the background.

"I know, but we have to work."

"But it's like a family-" The doorbell rang again.

"Got to get the door," Meredith turned, around Derek, and pulled open the front door.

"Is this where Georgie lives?" A friendly man, being flanked by two younger men, asked.

"Georgie?"

"O'Malley," he clarified. "Where is he, upstairs?"

"Oh, George, yeah," Meredith stuttered, suddenly remembering her roommate's ranting about his family nickname. This would make the friendly older man his father, and the two others his older brothers.

"O'Malley!" They yelled together, pushing through the door and towards the stairs.

Derek stepped out of their way with an amused expression, and Izzy met her gaze.

"Should I call the police?" She asked jokingly as she turned to watch them trail up the stairs.

Meredith saw an opportunity and quickly motioned for Derek to join her in escaping through the still open door while her roommate's attention was elsewhere. He passed her silently, and she pulled the door shut behind her, just in time to hear Izzy yelling for them to be back by six.

Meredith was still laughing as she plopped herself down in the passenger seat of Derek's car. "Good work, partner," she said as she leaned across her seat to kiss him. "Successful escape."

Derek laughed. "Yeah, it was close call. For a second I wasn't sure we were going to make it," he said sarcastically.

She laughed again as he put the car into reverse and backed out of the driveway. "That's definitely the most fun I've ever had leaving my house."

He snorted. "I'd have to agree with you."

Meredith smiled and reached for his hand as they drove along the familiar route to the hospital. She didn't know why she was in such a good mood. She had volunteered to work Thanksgiving back in September, when things between her and Derek were still up in the air. But even though it was a holiday and she had to work, she couldn't wipe the smile from her face. For the first time in her life, she had something to be thankful for. She had someone to celebrate a holiday with.

000

"Dr. Shepherd?" Meredith asked as professionally as possible, as her boyfriend was conversing with the Chief.

Derek turned to face her, a gentle smile playing on his lips. "Dr. Grey."

"I'm going home," the Chief announced with a nod.

Derek laughed as he turned back to face him. "Then go home."

"Adele's sister is in town. I hate that woman."

Derek laughed. "The OR board needs to be checked one more time."

"It does, doesn't it?" He nodded to both Meredith and Derek. "Excuse me."

Derek was shaking his head as he turned back to Meredith.

"What's that about?" She asked.

He shrugged. "He's not supposed to be in today. Looking for an excuse to stick around."

Meredith cocked her head. "Technically you're not supposed to be in today, either."

He smiled and stepped forward, his hands coming to rest at her waist. "Maybe so, but I'm here to be near you, not because I'm avoiding being at home."

Meredith smiled and kissed him. "Yeah?"

He nodded. "Yeah."

"Okay. Well, I need a neuro consult."

"Hmm," he released his grip on her middle and reached for the chart in her hands.

"My patient from the pit, Holden McKee, PBS sixteen years."

Derek nodded and shifted through the CT results. "There's no bleed, no mass, no fracture. He can be discharged."

"But he opened his eyes when I was examining him."

"That's normal," he said easily. "Certain reflexes are preserved. There's arousal, but no awareness."

Meredith nodded. "But...he was looking at me."

He narrowed his eyes as he met hers. "Meredith..."

She sighed. "He was."

"The CT report says he wasn't..."

"I know I sound crazy, but..." She trailed off. "I know what I saw." She met his eyes evenly. "He was looking at me."

Derek met her gaze for several seconds before nodding. "Okay, let's go and see him."

"Thank-you," she mumbled as she took the chart back from him and turned toward the elevators.

"You don't need to thank me," he responded as he fell into step beside her. "You're good at what you do. If you think he was looking at you, it warrants being taken seriously."

000

It was hours later that Meredith found herself alone, going through charts on the floor of her patient's room, her mood much less upbeat and thankful than it had been that morning. She hadn't expected to be waiting for a man to wake up after sixteen years to discover he had lost his family. She took solace in the fact that Derek was working on the case with her, but her mind was stuck on the decision he had made only a few short months before. This man was going to wake up, and in his mind, his life will have changed overnight. And only months ago, Meredith could have awoken to find her life drastically altered if Derek had chosen differently. And she could only imagine the hell she would be living through now.

There was a soft knock at the door and she looked up to meet Alex's gaze.

"What are you doing here?"

She sighed. "Waiting for my patient to wake up."

"Why aren't you at Thanksgiving?"

She shrugged. "Why aren't you at Thanksgiving?"

He sighed as he wandered across the room and collapsed beside her. "I tell you something and you tell me something?"

Meredith turned to meet his eyes, taken aback by the expression she saw. Alex was good at masking his feelings. He was good at presenting a cocky smirk and a nonchalant shrug, but right now he was hurting. And he wasn't trying to hide it.

She nodded and sighed. "I just... I want to be happy. And this morning I was happy. I've never had a Thanksgiving before, and I woke up happy this morning. Because for the first time in my life, I have someone who wants to celebrate these things with me. And Derek and I were supposed to come to work for the day and then go home and have a real Thanksgiving dinner." She paused. "And then I get this patient. And he's been PBS for sixteen years, until I noticed he was looking at me. And suddenly he's not actually PBS, he's minimally conscious. And no one has noticed it. And we called his family. And the baby he had just had is now seventeen. And his wife is remarried and pregnant. And they don't want to be here when he wakes up. He'll be all alone. In his mind his life has turned upside down in the blink of an eye. And I'm being selfish and neurotic and all I can think is how my life almost turned upside down like that. If Derek had chosen Addison... And to just think about how quickly and how easily your life can just change." She sighed heavily and turned to Alex. "Your turn."

"I failed the medical boards," He admitted quickly. "If I tell Izzy about it, she'll be all nice about it, all supportive and optimistic." He sighed. "She might as well rip off my nads and turn them into earrings."

Meredith nodded, understanding exactly what he was saying. "Alex, you should go to Thanksgiving. I mean, don't tell her if you don't want to, but you should. Go and be with her, and be happy while you can. Cause otherwise, you may wake up one day and your life will be upside down and you'll regret not going."

He nodded. "Yeah."

"Yeah."

There was silence between the interns for several moments before he turned to meet her eyes. "I think you're reading too much into this."

"Maybe. Maybe not. Life can change in the blink of an eye."

He nodded. "It can. And it does. But not always for the worse." He raised an eyebrow. "Without sounding mushy or girly in any way, a few months ago you let a random guy pick you up in a bar, and your life changed for the better."

Meredith couldn't help the small smile that came to her lips. "Yeah. It did."

"You can't always be waiting for the other shoe to drop. It's no way to live."

She nodded. "No, you're probably right. But I've never had this before, any of this. Derek, you guys. I feel like I may actually have something close to a family, for the first time. And I don't want to lose it."

"Yeah, I know the feeling."

"Yeah," she answered supportively. Alex had never talked about his past, but she had long since been aware of some sense of familiarity between them; an unspoken understanding. He hadn't had much of a childhood either.

"Well," he broke the comfortable silence after several seconds and patted her on the knee. "Happy Thanksgiving." He stood to leave.

"Happy Thanksgiving," she responded. "And Alex, if you need help, like studying or whatever, I'm here. And I promise not to be overly supportive and optimistic."

He paused at the door and nodded. "Thanks."

000

What do I do? What would you do?

He had asked her what she would do in his situation. It was easy to tell him she couldn't answer for him. And professionally speaking, it was the right thing to tell him. But it didn't mean the question wasn't running through her brain; over and over and over. Facing the same decision, what would she choose?

Derek thought that she would choose the surgery; that she would choose a chance to start another life.

But Meredith wasn't so sure. After being alone for so long, she had finally discovered what it was like to have people in her life; to have a family, to have a man who loved her. And she wasn't so sure she would want to start over and risk being alone again. She wasn't so sure she would choose the surgery. She didn't want to be alone again. If she lost her family and had to choose, it would be a difficult decision.

Holden had been brave. He had risked being alone for a chance to find happiness again. And he had died. He didn't get a chance at a future now. She sighed, the memory of looking into the OR to meet Derek's eyes and just know Holden hadn't made it, even before he shook his head. She knew she needed to learn to distance herself, and she was usually good at doing so, but this particular case was getting to her far more than she would have liked.

Meredith sighed heavily and lifted her face out of her hands. After Derek had offered to speak to Holden's son, she had stumbled into her locker room and collapsed on the bench. This morning she had been full of excitement about going home for Thanksgiving dinner, but now she couldn't muster an ounce of it. Her shift had long since ended, but she didn't want to go home. She wasn't in the mood to be thankful.

Footsteps echoed as a familiar form wandered into the locker room.

"What are you doing here?" She asked in surprise as she met her best friend's gaze.

Before Cristina could answer, George appeared beside her, also dressed in scrubs. He looked just as surprised to see them as they were him. "Oh, this is beyond bad," he muttered as he hurried to change.

Meredith sighed, now silently adding guilt to the list of emotions she was feeling. She and Derek were at the hospital. And she knew Alex was here. And she Cristina and George. Which left Izzy alone with Joe, who was the only other person she knew to be invited. "Wonderful," she muttered.

"What's with the dark twistiness?" Cristina asked. "I thought you were looking forward to today?"

"Yeah, I thought I was too. Until my patient woke up after sixteen years, learned he lost his family and then died. Kind of finding it hard to be thankful."

"Bummer. I'm avoiding your house. Burke and Izzy are going Iron Chef on the Turkey. I couldn't take it anymore."

"You left Izzy alone with Burke?"

Cristina shrugged. "And Joe and Walter."

"Who's Walter?"

"Joe's boyfriend."

Meredith nodded. "At least she's not alone."

George appeared from the other side of the lockers, dressed in street clothes. "Can you drive me back home?" He asked Cristina. "My brothers took my dad home and left me here."

"Why are you even here? I thought you were out hunting?"

"I was, until my brothers shot my dad in the ass with their pellet guns." He sighed heavily and rolled his eyes.

Meredith couldn't help the small smile at George's expression as he and Cristina said goodbye and headed for the door. Derek passed them on his way in and collapsed beside her on the bench.

"How did it go?" She asked quietly.

"Horribly; just like the rest of the day."

She nodded and leaned into his comforting warmth, letting her head rest against his shoulder. "That just about sums it up."

"Hmm," he mumbled as his hand found her lower back. "Earlier, in the waiting room, how did you know she was Holden's wife?" He asked gently.

She sighed. "Waiting rooms are full of people hoping for good news. She was the only one who looked like she had completely given up."

"Yeah," he responded. "Yeah, I guess you're right." He sighed. "God, I hate cases like this."

"They make you think about everything," she agreed.

He nodded and met her eyes. "What are you thinking about?"

She shrugged. "Everything. And how quickly it could all be over."

He narrowed his gaze. "Meredith, you know I'm in this..."

"I know, but there are always other things in play. And it's not just you, I mean you're a big part of it, obviously, but this is the first time in my life that I feel like I have a family, of any sort. But what if it's all just temporary, like we're banding together to get through the year, but that's it?"

"I guess you can't do anything more than believe that's not true, and do everything you can to fight for the life you want."

Meredith nodded as his words rang true. "Yeah." She met his eyes. "Yeah, I think you're right." She hesitated for a moment. "Do you regret it at all?"

"Regret what?"

"Picking me?"

He sighed and wrapped his other arm around her, his nose coming to rest in her hair as he breathed deeply. "Not even for a second, and I mean that. Meredith, I'm happier than I've ever been. I feel free. I love the way you make me feel. I love you. And I want to be with you." He shook his head. "There's no regret."

"Did you love her?"

He nodded. "Once. At least I think I did; I hope I did. But I don't know when it stopped."

She forced a shuddery breath of air into her lungs.

"What's wrong?"

She shook her head and squeezed her eyes closed, fighting off the tears that threatened to fall. "It's just been a crappy day. I was looking forward to it, but now..."

Derek sighed and rested his head on hers, holding her tightly to his chest. "Yeah, me too."

"I've never had any of this before," she choked out. "And I don't want it to stop."

"You have to believe it won't," he reassured her quietly. "And all I can offer you is the promise that I will do everything in my power to stop this from ending." He squeezed her tightly.

Meredith sighed against his chest, letting his warmth and support envelope her. "I know," she whispered. "It just makes me wonder what my life would be like now, if you..."

"If I had chosen Addison?"

She closed her eyes and nodded against him.

He sighed heavily. "Both of our lives would be very different, but you never need to know what it would feel like. I made the right choice. And I plan to stick with it as long as you'll let me."

She allowed herself a small smile and sat up, pulling her face away from his chest to meet his eyes. "Yeah?"

He smiled warmly, his features morphing easily into his signature McDreamy look. "Yeah."

"Okay."

He cocked his head. "Did you want to head home for dinner?"

"Not yet."

000

Meredith sighed heavily as she sat alone at the bar, her fingers playing over the ridge of the glass sitting on the ledge before her. She knew she should just get over herself and go home and attempt to salvage her Thanksgiving. But it was just too tempting to spend the evening at the Joe's, wallowing in her avoidance and fear.

"Is this seat taken?"

She was pulled from her wanderings at the voice close beside her and she turned to meet the eyes of a handsome stranger, his fair coloured hair bouncing slightly and a half-uncertain expression across his face. There was a time in her life where this would have been welcome on a night such as this.

"Uh, yeah," she stuttered. "It is." She smiled, more to herself than to reassure the man. Her life had changed. Only a few months prior her life had taken a turn very similar to this; a turn for the better, as Alex had told her. She'd found the guy she was going to spend the rest of her life with. She had someone to save seats for now.

The hopeful man nodded to her and turned away, right as Derek swept around behind her, returning from the bathroom. His hand landed on her back as his eyes tracked the man as he left their area of the bar.

When the stranger had disappeared behind a mass of Thanksgiving bar-goers, he huffed and sat beside her.

"Shut up," she muttered.

He laughed. "I didn't say anything."

"You didn't have to."

"Apparently I can't leave you alone for a minute." He made a dramatic show of sighing heavily. "But I suppose that's the downfall of having such a beautiful girlfriend..."

Meredith snorted and jokingly shoved at his chest, but he caught her hand and pulled her close, his breath hot against her lips before he kissed her.

"I have to hand it to the guy for trying, though" Derek muttered as he pulled away. "I know from experience that you're not easy to approach at the bar."

She cocked her head and met his eyes. They had never really discussed their first meeting. "I'm not, huh?"

He shook his head, his eyes sparkling. "Nope. It's a good thing I'm very brave."

She laughed, and his smile widened at her reaction. "Well," she joked. "You may be brave, but he had a better line..."

His bottom jaw opened for several seconds with out any sound erupting, and then he gasped and glared at her. "How do you figure?"

"Is this a good place to hang out? Not very discreet. Now; is this seat taken?" She smirked, her eyes sparkling as she gently mocked him. "Much more inconspicuous. And it works on more than one level."

He glowered at her. "Maybe I wasn't trying to be inconspicuous. Maybe I was going for something conspicuous."

She laughed and reached for his hand. "You were going for conspicuous, huh?"

He squeezed her hand and nodded. "Of course. I had a feeling it was exactly what I needed to get through to you..."

"You had a feeling?"

Derek nodded. "Yup, and it worked. I definitely got through to you." He smirked.

She raised an eyebrow. "Is that you finally admitting to being the one who took advantage?"

He stuttered several times, scrounging for something to say in response. "No...I...it was you who took advantage..."

"Whatever you say, Derek," she placated.

He growled deep in his throat and pulled his stool closer, his arm wrapping securely around her waist when they were pressed close together. "To be honest," he started, his voice taking on a much more serious tone, "I did whatever I could to get you to talk to me. I didn't exactly go in with much of a strategy."

"You did okay."

"Yeah?"

She shrugged and laid her head on his shoulder. "Like you said, you were successful."

His arm tightened as he rested his head on hers. "I was lonely," he admitted quietly.

"Me too."

"I think I was lonely for a long time; and I didn't even realize. I'm not lonely anymore."

Meredith smiled and lifted her head to meet his eyes. "I'm glad," she whispered, her hand reaching to brush through his hair. "I'm not lonely either, and I don't ever want to be again."

He captured her wandering hand in his and smiled warmly at her. "You won't. We won't."

She hesitated for several seconds. "Derek, are you ever... Do you ever worry that things could change?"

"Sometimes," had admitted. "But I know I'll do everything in my power to ensure it doesn't."

"Okay, and me too. I'll do everything I can too." She offered him a smile. "And if I'm doing anything wrong, can you sort of prompt me to fix it?"

He sighed and lifted his free hand to her cheek. "Mer, I'm telling you, you need to have some more faith in yourself. Learn to trust your instincts."

She smiled in full, even going so far as to roll her eyes in good humour. "Well, could you keep an eye on me while I'm learning to trust my instincts then?"

"Okay."

"Well, did you want to go home and see if we can convince Izzy to let us have some turkey?"

"Only if you're ready to go."

"I don't want to keep you at a bar all night on Thanksgiving, Derek."

He smiled at her. "Hey, the thing I'm most thankful for is here with me, so I couldn't care less."

Meredith felt her heart swell at his words, leaving her chest tight and her throat a little dry. "Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"And you really don't mind missing the whole turkey dinner thing?"

He shrugged. "Tell you what, we'll have a great big dinner next year to make up for it."

She breathed and leaned into his warmth again, the importance of his words invading her mind. They had a next year. "I love you."

"I love you, too."

"Can we stay for one more drink?"

"Sure," he told her, motioning to Joe for another round.

They remained silent, taking comfort from the other until Joe set their drinks down with a nod. Derek slid hers close to her, and picked his up. "To Holden," he said gently.

She lifted her glass and clinked it against his. "To Holden," she echoed. Life was unpredictable; it could change in the blink of an eye, but as she eyed the dreamy man beside her, she was reminded that it could change for the better. She was determined to live in the present and make this work. She wouldn't let the fear of losing prevent her from living. And she would always have Holden's memory to remind her.