On-Call // April & Meredith
April looked back up at Meredith's face frown as she continued to talk, realizing that she'd done it again. She'd preemptively apologized, without even being certain that it was necessary. "I..." She stumbled, shaking her head. "I'm just not sure you want to hear about my... I mean. We hardly ever talk and now... We're basically talking about..." April trailed off gesturing with her hands vaguely and dropping to a whisper, "Sex." Flushing, April looked down at her hands, feeling like she'd inevitablly made things more awkward. She'd never been good at talking about sex, though, and she'd always been awkward, so no big surprise.
April nodded and felt relatively heartened to listen to Meredith speak about about herself and Derek. Maybe their road to each other and their own happily ever after hadn't been as easy or simple as April had imagined. Thinking back, April realized that she did have a hint about the not so easy path to togetherness that Meredith and Derek had. In the shock and tragedy of the shooting, she'd sat on a scrub room floor with Meredith once. April had been in shock and deeply sad about Reed so she hadn't paid too much attention. But the other doctor had said some things then that made April curious now. Before she could stop herself, April asked, "You said... I remember you said, it took you a long time to find Derek. A long time to know... that you wanted him... what... what did you mean?"
April worried a little that she might have crossed a line. She always felt a little tentative with Meredith in their quasi friendship. She was actually sure that if the shooting had never happened, they would never have lived with each other, or have gotten closer. Especially given an inappropriate crush April had once harbored for Derek. She was actually really surprised to hear that Meredith wanted to do a dinner or something with her. Like a double date sort of thing. She'd never done a double date! Ever. She'd never had anyone to go with. She resisted the urge to text her sister, right then and there.
Trying to hide her internal delight, April grinned, "Great. Great. That will be fun. Awesome." She sniffed, still probably way too excited about this than she should be. It was just another new thing that April had never had the chance to do because she'd never really been in a relationship. To other people, little things like double dating didn't seem like a huge deal, but to April it was a milestone. Looked across the table to Meredith and smiled, happy to be hanging out with her, and waited to see what would happen next.
She found it amusing the way April tiptoed around the word "sex", but it didn't bother Meredith much. It just brought a smile to her face, how hard April tried to impress people. She had to give the girl points for putting on a brave face day after day after day. Meredith listened intently at April's next question, and in the back of her mind she started to slowly realize that she actually cared about what the other doctor was saying. Normally, whatever came out of April's mouth was high pitched and somewhat squeaky and Meredith had no care for it, but this conversation was proving to make her night much more interesting. It took her a fair amount of time to properly link April's hesitant phrases together, but Meredith figured out the full question soon enough. "Oh," she nodded, correctly remembering that conversation in her mind as well. The day Derek was shot, the day she sat on the floor of the scrub room gripping April's hand for dear life as she prayed her husband was okay. "He used to love me more than I loved him," she said, tilting her head as she thought. "And then eventually it was back and forth between us. It took us awhile to find the perfect balance of give and take that's healthy for a relationship... I, he said I was constantly leaving him. And that's because I didn't know what I wanted. I'm dark and twisty, or used to be," she smiled somewhat. "And because of my mom having Alzheimer's and a bunch of other things," here Meredith waved her hand like all those things were in the past, "I didn't know I wanted him. And when I did, it was always too late or the wrong timing."
She finished the last bite of cake before continuing, "I couldn't always trust him, either. It took an equally long time for Derek to break down my walls and get me to fully trust him. He didn't understand me for the longest time either." There seemed to have been so many barriers in her relationship with Derek that they'd overcome over the years, Meredith was proud of them for how far they'd come and how much they'd achieved together. "I guess you're lucky in a way, you don't really have the same walls I do," she said, playing with the plastic fork in her hand as she spoke.
Meredith had to smile at April's excitement, the happiness mimicking that of a puppy's. "A double date would be fun," she smiled, drumming her fingers lightly on the table as she thought about the prospective night. She couldn't imagine what the conversation would be like, but Mer had hope that things would turn out alright. Keeping the faith, that was her new motto. She'd try her best. It was apparent that April was just as confused and scared as any of the other residents, and she needed a bit of a push towards love; but Meredith thought maybe she was willing to be that person. Sure, April sometimes annoyed the heck out of her with her chief resident habits, but maybe, just maybe, the two could find some way to be friends.