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slybrunetteTitle: Cardboard Boxes Took Us Miles From What We Would Miss
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Characters/Pairings: Derek/Lexie. Definite undertones of Derek/Meredith, Alex/Lexie, and Alex/Meredith.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1,669
Author's Note: This was written for [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com], who wanted Derek/Lexie a while back and I failed miserably every time I tried it. I don't know if I'd call this full-on Derek/Lexie but it's my first attempt and I'm still trying to work things out. So, I dearly hope this is okay, and I promise to give this pairing another shot in the future.
Summary: Future fic. Meredith up and left sometime in the middle of the day, on your average Thursday, and Lexie has none of the answers as to why.
It was a split-second blind grab for his hand, her small one in his larger one, and her fingers moving unhindered across his (ring finger without a ring; they hadn’t been married, no matter how much that framed post-it on the wall begs to differ).
Later, it translates into backs of hands brushing in the elevator, bodies side by side and close enough for shared body heat.
She’d driven. He’d barely said a word. The idea that got him from the couch where she’d found him, note – it’s always a note – clutched loosely in hands that were better suited for scalpels, was that they’d head back to the hospital, find Cristina, find Alex, find whoever might have a clue what was going on. Then go from there.
Except she knows Cristina’s allegiances don’t lie with Derek and Alex has been walking around like he’s sitting on the world’s biggest secret for the past week, so it’s all rather futile. Futile and distracting.
Meredith up and left sometime in the middle of the day, on your average Thursday, and all she’d said in the note was that she needed some time to think. It hurts Lexie that she knows nothing that could supplement the note, has nothing to add to it. It probably hurts Derek more.
“I’m sure she’ll be back soon,” she offers, weak smile, sure of nothing of the sort but, “this isn’t like her.”
And even that assumption isn’t foolproof.
The elevator doors separate and so do they, keeping a respectful distance as they head down the hallway.
-
Derek keeps a calendar.
“You know something,” she says, over breakfast, orange juice for her and black coffee for Alex. It’s six-fifteen in the morning and Derek’s already been gone for twenty minutes.
“I know lots of things.” He gives her a smirk that hasn’t worked on her since she left him for Mark and then left Mark for him again. But that fell through too, and now they’re just friends and Mark won’t even look at her in the hallways. It’s probably a good thing that Alex lost his desire for plastics years ago because any communication he has with Mark is alternately stilted and bitter.
“About Meredith.” Six days. She’s given her two weeks before she starts worrying. Or worrying more. “You know something about Meredith.”
Alex looks at his cereal instead of her.
“This sucks for him, Alex.” His spoon knocks against the side of the bowl too loudly; it should serve as a warning bell, but it only exasperates her. “I mean, she only left a note.”
He spends five seconds giving her a very pointed look, narrowed eyes and set jaw, just long enough for her to feel the weight and utter ridiculousness of her statement, and then he walks out of the room.
She presses the heels of her hands into her eyes and wonders how many aspirin she’s going to need to make it through the day.
-
Day fifteen and Meredith’s cell phone no longer goes to voice mail, instead playing a pre-recorded monotonous message about a full inbox.
She’s left three. She hesitates to think that Derek could’ve left the rest, and instead looks to Cristina, to Alex, even to Bailey and Richard who are obviously concerned enough to walk softly around Derek.
He spends more time at the bar than he used to and she tries to keep him company when she can, even if doing so is complicated by Mark’s presence. It is his best friend, after all, and Lexie knows that means she has to be the one to back off.
She still feels some obligation to him, even if it’s because of a woman that she knew for only a handful of years and might never have really known at all. Who he might never have really known at all.
-
Day thirty-six and Alex has been gone for two days.
He announced his departure in a rush, said he’d need a few days off, and shoved a suitcase in the back of his car. The popular theory was that he was going to visit his family in Iowa.
It wasn’t one she ever really bought into.
In the meantime, she folds herself into the couch, bends at the knees, and lays a hand on Derek’s arm in the otherwise empty house. “Maybe Alex got in contact with her. Maybe he’s gone to talk her into coming back.”
This is grasping at straws; it’s really their only option. There is a modicum of hope stored up in both of their expressions.
“You never know.”
-
Alex comes back and moves out within the span of a week.
She helps him pack, finds an old sweater of hers that she was sure she lost, lets an easy sort of banter fly between them.
Derek helps him shove his stuff into the back of his car, a life packed up in too few suitcases and duffel bags, and there is a nod that looks too generic from where she stands.
There’s no point to it, really. By this time, no one’s fooling anyone else.
-
“And so you slept with her.”
His lab coat hangs open, loose; it serves as sharp contrast to Derek’s precisely buttoned one.
(Sometimes, Lexie muses on just what made her do what she did, just where it went wrong – if anything went wrong at all. She compares and she contrasts, tries to figure out which were the pros and the cons, but she never can quite place them.)
Alex shrugs, confirms, “And so I slept with her.”
The parts before and after that? They don’t really matter.
-
She could move out.
She doesn’t.
-
Day seventy-eight, she gets wasted at Joe’s. And it’s not just lack of inhibitions, slurring of her words wasted. It’s stumbling, ‘the hangover in the morning will be lovely’ territory.
It’s Mark’s fault. As in she spent the better part of two days working the same case with him – and the patient freaking died before they’d even operated – and, between the tension, the frustration, and the exhaustion, tequila started to look real good as she made her way up to the bar.
There are warm hands on her shoulders, curving gently, and all she can really do is differentiate as to whose they’re not.
She turns into Derek, sucks in a fairly startled breath.
“Come on,” his hand shifts from her shoulder to her arm, stopping around her wrist. If she curls her hand up, her fingers will intertwine with his just like they once did. “I’ll drive you home.”
-
It’s not as bad with Mark the next time.
The reason why is fairly obvious, but she never thanks Derek and she doesn’t think he ever really expected her to.
-
At the five month mark, Lexie comes home early and boxes up some of Meredith’s stuff, little things here and there that either just serve as clutter or a reminder. She reorganizes to cover what’s missing.
It almost works, except she’s standing halfway inside the closet in his bedroom, folding up winter clothes that don’t have a place there anyways, now that the sun has come out and May has rolled around once more, when he finds her.
She hadn’t heard the front door.
There’s a long stretch of time where he’s just standing in the doorway, looking at her frozen form with a half-folded shirt draped over her arm. She fights to hold a calm expression but loses and turns back to the bed, folds it right, swallows a lump in her throat that reminds her that, one day, someone’s going to have to empty this closet and this room and this house of her things.
She’s not coming back. Maybe to Seattle but not to him.
“It’s spring cleaning,” she says, her back to him, and when she turns he isn’t there anymore.
-
There is a banquet he is expected at, because he’s still the Chief, and she puts on a fancy dress and a million-watt smile and calls herself his sister-in-law, even if she never was.
People ask a little less after Meredith, that way, since he’s not alone. The absence just isn’t as noticeable.
“Thank you,” he tells her, when they’re in the car. His eyes lock with hers, after she’s dropped the smile and he’s dropped the guise of a charming, happy man; they’ve gotten good at being a little more raw with each other. It wasn’t intentional.
She covers his hand with hers and nods.
-
A year goes by and she drops boxes off at Alex’s apartment.
“You know where she is,” it’s no longer an assumption, and he never did deny it, “and I thought she might want some of this stuff.”
He lets her set them in a line along the wall of his small apartment, regards both them and her with a careful kind of indifference. “She’s in California.”
There’s an interesting kind of irony there, Addison and Meredith both fleeing to the same state. He doesn’t bother to vocalize it but she knows he’s drawing the same lines she is. “I don’t want to know that.”
-
Almost five years ago, she hit on Derek in a bar.
Half a decade later, she falls into bed with him.
-
“No,” she murmurs, threads her fingers through his as she pulls him towards her room and away from his.
(By this time, the only reminder left of Meredith in his room is a framed post-it above the bed; there are certain things Lexie can’t deal with.)
-
Alex knows everything, especially when you don’t want him to.
“And now you’re sleeping with him.”
She feels like she’s under a microscope, with the way his eyes are boring into her. It’s not anger or accusation; he just knows how to see right through her, three failed chances at a relationship later.
Everything is circular.
“And now I’m sleeping with him.”
The room echoes the sentiment.
-
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Characters/Pairings: Derek/Lexie. Definite undertones of Derek/Meredith, Alex/Lexie, and Alex/Meredith.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1,669
Author's Note: This was written for [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com], who wanted Derek/Lexie a while back and I failed miserably every time I tried it. I don't know if I'd call this full-on Derek/Lexie but it's my first attempt and I'm still trying to work things out. So, I dearly hope this is okay, and I promise to give this pairing another shot in the future.
Summary: Future fic. Meredith up and left sometime in the middle of the day, on your average Thursday, and Lexie has none of the answers as to why.
It was a split-second blind grab for his hand, her small one in his larger one, and her fingers moving unhindered across his (ring finger without a ring; they hadn’t been married, no matter how much that framed post-it on the wall begs to differ).
Later, it translates into backs of hands brushing in the elevator, bodies side by side and close enough for shared body heat.
She’d driven. He’d barely said a word. The idea that got him from the couch where she’d found him, note – it’s always a note – clutched loosely in hands that were better suited for scalpels, was that they’d head back to the hospital, find Cristina, find Alex, find whoever might have a clue what was going on. Then go from there.
Except she knows Cristina’s allegiances don’t lie with Derek and Alex has been walking around like he’s sitting on the world’s biggest secret for the past week, so it’s all rather futile. Futile and distracting.
Meredith up and left sometime in the middle of the day, on your average Thursday, and all she’d said in the note was that she needed some time to think. It hurts Lexie that she knows nothing that could supplement the note, has nothing to add to it. It probably hurts Derek more.
“I’m sure she’ll be back soon,” she offers, weak smile, sure of nothing of the sort but, “this isn’t like her.”
And even that assumption isn’t foolproof.
The elevator doors separate and so do they, keeping a respectful distance as they head down the hallway.
-
Derek keeps a calendar.
“You know something,” she says, over breakfast, orange juice for her and black coffee for Alex. It’s six-fifteen in the morning and Derek’s already been gone for twenty minutes.
“I know lots of things.” He gives her a smirk that hasn’t worked on her since she left him for Mark and then left Mark for him again. But that fell through too, and now they’re just friends and Mark won’t even look at her in the hallways. It’s probably a good thing that Alex lost his desire for plastics years ago because any communication he has with Mark is alternately stilted and bitter.
“About Meredith.” Six days. She’s given her two weeks before she starts worrying. Or worrying more. “You know something about Meredith.”
Alex looks at his cereal instead of her.
“This sucks for him, Alex.” His spoon knocks against the side of the bowl too loudly; it should serve as a warning bell, but it only exasperates her. “I mean, she only left a note.”
He spends five seconds giving her a very pointed look, narrowed eyes and set jaw, just long enough for her to feel the weight and utter ridiculousness of her statement, and then he walks out of the room.
She presses the heels of her hands into her eyes and wonders how many aspirin she’s going to need to make it through the day.
-
Day fifteen and Meredith’s cell phone no longer goes to voice mail, instead playing a pre-recorded monotonous message about a full inbox.
She’s left three. She hesitates to think that Derek could’ve left the rest, and instead looks to Cristina, to Alex, even to Bailey and Richard who are obviously concerned enough to walk softly around Derek.
He spends more time at the bar than he used to and she tries to keep him company when she can, even if doing so is complicated by Mark’s presence. It is his best friend, after all, and Lexie knows that means she has to be the one to back off.
She still feels some obligation to him, even if it’s because of a woman that she knew for only a handful of years and might never have really known at all. Who he might never have really known at all.
-
Day thirty-six and Alex has been gone for two days.
He announced his departure in a rush, said he’d need a few days off, and shoved a suitcase in the back of his car. The popular theory was that he was going to visit his family in Iowa.
It wasn’t one she ever really bought into.
In the meantime, she folds herself into the couch, bends at the knees, and lays a hand on Derek’s arm in the otherwise empty house. “Maybe Alex got in contact with her. Maybe he’s gone to talk her into coming back.”
This is grasping at straws; it’s really their only option. There is a modicum of hope stored up in both of their expressions.
“You never know.”
-
Alex comes back and moves out within the span of a week.
She helps him pack, finds an old sweater of hers that she was sure she lost, lets an easy sort of banter fly between them.
Derek helps him shove his stuff into the back of his car, a life packed up in too few suitcases and duffel bags, and there is a nod that looks too generic from where she stands.
There’s no point to it, really. By this time, no one’s fooling anyone else.
-
“And so you slept with her.”
His lab coat hangs open, loose; it serves as sharp contrast to Derek’s precisely buttoned one.
(Sometimes, Lexie muses on just what made her do what she did, just where it went wrong – if anything went wrong at all. She compares and she contrasts, tries to figure out which were the pros and the cons, but she never can quite place them.)
Alex shrugs, confirms, “And so I slept with her.”
The parts before and after that? They don’t really matter.
-
She could move out.
She doesn’t.
-
Day seventy-eight, she gets wasted at Joe’s. And it’s not just lack of inhibitions, slurring of her words wasted. It’s stumbling, ‘the hangover in the morning will be lovely’ territory.
It’s Mark’s fault. As in she spent the better part of two days working the same case with him – and the patient freaking died before they’d even operated – and, between the tension, the frustration, and the exhaustion, tequila started to look real good as she made her way up to the bar.
There are warm hands on her shoulders, curving gently, and all she can really do is differentiate as to whose they’re not.
She turns into Derek, sucks in a fairly startled breath.
“Come on,” his hand shifts from her shoulder to her arm, stopping around her wrist. If she curls her hand up, her fingers will intertwine with his just like they once did. “I’ll drive you home.”
-
It’s not as bad with Mark the next time.
The reason why is fairly obvious, but she never thanks Derek and she doesn’t think he ever really expected her to.
-
At the five month mark, Lexie comes home early and boxes up some of Meredith’s stuff, little things here and there that either just serve as clutter or a reminder. She reorganizes to cover what’s missing.
It almost works, except she’s standing halfway inside the closet in his bedroom, folding up winter clothes that don’t have a place there anyways, now that the sun has come out and May has rolled around once more, when he finds her.
She hadn’t heard the front door.
There’s a long stretch of time where he’s just standing in the doorway, looking at her frozen form with a half-folded shirt draped over her arm. She fights to hold a calm expression but loses and turns back to the bed, folds it right, swallows a lump in her throat that reminds her that, one day, someone’s going to have to empty this closet and this room and this house of her things.
She’s not coming back. Maybe to Seattle but not to him.
“It’s spring cleaning,” she says, her back to him, and when she turns he isn’t there anymore.
-
There is a banquet he is expected at, because he’s still the Chief, and she puts on a fancy dress and a million-watt smile and calls herself his sister-in-law, even if she never was.
People ask a little less after Meredith, that way, since he’s not alone. The absence just isn’t as noticeable.
“Thank you,” he tells her, when they’re in the car. His eyes lock with hers, after she’s dropped the smile and he’s dropped the guise of a charming, happy man; they’ve gotten good at being a little more raw with each other. It wasn’t intentional.
She covers his hand with hers and nods.
-
A year goes by and she drops boxes off at Alex’s apartment.
“You know where she is,” it’s no longer an assumption, and he never did deny it, “and I thought she might want some of this stuff.”
He lets her set them in a line along the wall of his small apartment, regards both them and her with a careful kind of indifference. “She’s in California.”
There’s an interesting kind of irony there, Addison and Meredith both fleeing to the same state. He doesn’t bother to vocalize it but she knows he’s drawing the same lines she is. “I don’t want to know that.”
-
Almost five years ago, she hit on Derek in a bar.
Half a decade later, she falls into bed with him.
-
“No,” she murmurs, threads her fingers through his as she pulls him towards her room and away from his.
(By this time, the only reminder left of Meredith in his room is a framed post-it above the bed; there are certain things Lexie can’t deal with.)
-
Alex knows everything, especially when you don’t want him to.
“And now you’re sleeping with him.”
She feels like she’s under a microscope, with the way his eyes are boring into her. It’s not anger or accusation; he just knows how to see right through her, three failed chances at a relationship later.
Everything is circular.
“And now I’m sleeping with him.”
The room echoes the sentiment.
-
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no subject
Date: 2010-05-17 08:13 pm (UTC)Oh...mah gahd...this is just. Utterly fantastic. I can't even begin to describe how much I love it. Derek/Lexie is one of my favorite crackships and this just proves how they can work. NNggghhh. You're my hero.
Almost five years ago, she hit on Derek in a bar.
Half a decade later, she falls into bed with him.
I died a little bit, not gonna lie.
Thank you SO much for sharing this. Fabulous.
no subject
Date: 2010-05-17 08:21 pm (UTC)TBH, never thought of them. And then prompts were thrown my way. This is of course interesting because, hello, she hit on him. And yet. Sometimes I'm not so bright.
I'm so glad you liked this! Thanks so much for reading and reviewing!
no subject
Date: 2010-05-17 09:02 pm (UTC)omg don't read that pleaseHeh, well you know my thoughts on Lexie and who she can be paired with (*cough*). Of course I saw somethinig between them.
And OF COURSE I liked this, shiiiiit. ;D
no subject
Date: 2010-05-17 09:16 pm (UTC)Doorknob girl. I know. I've got your number ;)
no subject
Date: 2010-05-17 09:19 pm (UTC)and good, I'm glad ;D
no subject
Date: 2010-05-17 09:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-17 08:32 pm (UTC)It's well written (of course), and the Alex/Meredith subtext is spectacular (naturally; you are the on that converted me) and this:
“No,” she murmurs, threads her fingers through his as she pulls him towards her room and away from his.
(By this time, the only reminder left of Meredith in his room is a framed post-it above the bed; there are certain things Lexie can’t deal with.)
Is just so, so good.
no subject
Date: 2010-05-17 08:37 pm (UTC)I'm so, so glad you not only gave this a try but liked it too! Thanks for reading and reviewing!
no subject
Date: 2010-05-17 08:42 pm (UTC)/randomness
no subject
Date: 2010-05-17 08:45 pm (UTC)But Derek is a pompous asshole. Though I don't necessarily agree with 'turned into' so much as 'pretty much always was'. Guess who I'm not a fan of? lol
no subject
Date: 2010-05-17 08:53 pm (UTC)Have you seen last week's episode? I want your thoughts concerning my OTP and Alex/Lexie... I think I could go either way?
no subject
Date: 2010-05-17 09:15 pm (UTC)I have. I'm Team Alex. I have various reasons for this, number one being that Mark's character has done nothing but piss me off since Sloan first showed up (I did not, in any way, buy that arc or his thing with Teddy or his changed man bullshit), whereas Alex has been/will always be my favorite. Number two being that I think Mark and Lexie are at different places at the moment. Number three, I want to see Alex/Lexie play out a little more.
That said, I will not bitch and complain about Mark/Lexie if it happens, I will simply re-orient myself to it. Because I did ship it a year ago, so there has to be some residual shipper left in me.
Basically, I won't be dancing on anyone's shipper grave when all is said and done because I am a multi-shipper and life is easier that way (especially when they have driven your original OTP into the ground).
no subject
Date: 2010-05-17 09:01 pm (UTC)I really enjoyed it thanks
no subject
Date: 2010-05-17 09:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-17 09:55 pm (UTC)Of course Alex knows the whole history, hehe.
"one day, someone’s going to have to empty this closet and this room and this house of her things." - And it would still be her house...
“No,” she murmurs, threads her fingers through his as she pulls him towards her room and away from his. (By this time, the only reminder left of Meredith in his room is a framed post-it above the bed; there are certain things Lexie can’t deal with.)" - Perfect, really.
no subject
Date: 2010-05-17 09:57 pm (UTC)Yeah, one day they're going to have to empty that house of themselves, lol. She's always going to be there, that way.
I'm glad you liked this! Thanks for reading and reviewing!
no subject
Date: 2010-05-17 10:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-18 02:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-17 10:55 pm (UTC)I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU
I JUST WANT TO LAY DOWN ON THE FLOOR AND ROLL AROUND AND SMILE LIKE MAD BECAUSE YOU ARE PERFECT. YOU ARE MY HERO. I WANT TO SIT AT YOUR FEET AND LEARN FROM YOU, OH WISE ONE.
OH GOD THIS IS MAGIC. BRB, MEMORIZING EVERY WORD OF IT. CANNOT EVEN HANDLE. OMG.
[STOPS BREATHING]
[CPR ON SELF]
OKAY, BACK.
[GLEEFUL FLOOR ROLLING]
I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU
no subject
Date: 2010-05-18 03:23 am (UTC)This is so NOT where I was going to go with these two when I first tried writing them but your prompt created this lovely little reality and I thought 'what the hell?'. Your reaction? Total validation that I probably did the right thing.
I am so freaking relieved/overjoyed that you liked this hun! Thanks so much for being awesome!
no subject
Date: 2010-05-18 12:17 am (UTC)The undertones of Alex/Meredith were perfect, messed-up (yet not) and awesome; and I really got a sense from this that, approached this way, Derek and Lexie could work and make the shared abandonment a little less bad.
The writing was also gorgeous.
Awesome.
no subject
Date: 2010-05-18 03:26 am (UTC)I'm so glad that you liked this! Thanks so much for reading and reviewing!
no subject
Date: 2010-05-18 01:01 am (UTC)I love Alex's little moments and the mentions of Mark and Lexie's past. It's so believable and I could see this happening if Meredith ever did disappear.
The ending line was beautiful, "The room echoes the sentiment". Lovely and sums this up perfectly.
Seriously, amazing :)
no subject
Date: 2010-05-18 03:28 am (UTC)I fought with myself over the ending (I had a different scene at closing but I cut it at the eleventh hour) so it's great to hear that this version worked for you.
I'm glad you liked this! Thanks so much for reading and reviewing!
no subject
Date: 2010-08-22 08:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-22 03:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-15 10:30 pm (UTC)