A Night In

[singingdrummer]

 It all started with Ben tugging Meredith onto his lap, lips pressed against hers in a heated kiss. His hands roamed on her figure while his desire for her grew. He had wanted her ever since their first encounter at the bar but Ben never imagined something would actually become of it.

"I want you to know you're not some groupie to me, Meredith. I really want this with you."

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[highfidelity]

Meredith smiled to herself and walked inside to get a shower and a change of clothes for their date. She didn't want him to pick her up in the same clothes he'd left her in. And she wanted to pick out a decent restaurant they could go to, not too fancy because it would be late and they'd both be tired.

But she worried when it got to ten and he hadn't come back. It was verging on too late now to go out anywhere. She tried calling him, hoping that he'd just forgot and not the alternative...her fear that everything he'd just said to her was bullshit, a move to get into the bed of the one woman he knew didn't want him. Was he bragging to his friends now about sleeping with her?

She kept calling, hoping eventually he'd pick up.

[singingdrummer]

Ben didn't know what the 'friend' had given him, but it wasn't good. The hours passed and the spinning feeling got worse. He barely felt the buzz of his phone, but he finally managed to pull it out of his pocket while sitting with his back against the couch. His legs wouldn't let him stand up anymore.

"Babe, that you? I feel weird.."

[highfidelity]

"Ben? Where are you?"

Meredith was on her fifth call and she was terrified. She could hear something was wrong.

[singingdrummer]

"At my mate's. Tim gave me something dodgy.. Can't fucking stand up anymore."

Her voice was the only thing keeping him conscious. He wanted her there, so he gave her the address.

[highfidelity]

"I'll come to get you."

Meredith grabbed her keys and ran for her car, trying to talk to him while she drove. He would hear her arrival by how she pushed her way to him, literally fighting off his drunk friends who wanted to hit on her or wonder why she was killing their buzz.

"Don't fucking touch me... Come on, Ben, I'm getting you out of here."

[singingdrummer]

"There she is.. The most beautiful girl in town," Ben grinned. He was really out of it by then, eyes barely staying open as he held out his arm for her to take.

"How come you're spinning like that, baby?"

[highfidelity]

She took him by the arm and helped him to her car, driving straight for the nearest hospital. She was in a panic. "What did you take? What happened?"

[singingdrummer]

Ben tried his hardest to remember but it was getting difficult to focus. The figure next to him turned blurry.

"Tim had something.. Bastard never takes no for an answer. Pill or something."

He placed his hand lazily on top of hers before everything went black.

[highfidelity]

She rushed him to the emergency room, though utterly useless because she didn't know what he had taken or who he had gotten it from. Not that he could tell them either. It would be a while before she saw him again, and when he came to in a hospital bed she didn't know whether to be thankful or upset with him. Or both.

[singingdrummer]

He came to a long while later, not feeling good at all. To be honest he didn't expect her to be there after witnessing him all messed up, like some typical rock star. But he was happy to see her face.

"Hey.."

[highfidelity]

"Hi." She was sitting by his bedside just sad and disappointed more than anything else. "You overdosed on something. You could have died," she told him. Unable to resist the dig: "I guess getting back to me wasn't that important."

[singingdrummer]

He deserved that.

"Meredith.. I should've stayed with you. Going there was clearly a bad idea."

This hadn't happened before. Ben was becoming one of those rock stars he always read about, and it was a scary thought.

"I'm sorry. I ruined our night.. I did a messed up thing to you."

[highfidelity]

"Don't apologize," she said softly. "It doesn't matter. I can't see you again."

She stood then, heartbroken but determined. She didn't want to be part of this world, and she couldn't afford to have his reputation pull her down. She could lose her job if anyone thought she was mixed up in something.

"I'm just sorry I wasn't enough for you," she replied as she grabbed her coat. "You just turned out to be one of those same idiots I hoped you weren't."

[singingdrummer]

"Wha..? Babe, it's not that. You're more than enough."

He watched helplessly as she walked out, realising that she was right about one thing; he was an idiot. An idiot who needed to do something, to fix this before it's too late.

"Fuck. That's the last time I'm going near that twat and his 'good stuff'.. I can't lose her like this."

[highfidelity]

If only he knew how much it hurt Meredith to leave him there. But all she thought was that she had been right about him all along. She had taken a huge risk by asking him to be her first, the person she wanted to fall in love with. And then he'd gone and blown it like this. In her eyes if he had really cared about her, he wouldn't have gotten messed up. He would have remembered she was waiting for him.

But she just went home and cried, feeling like a fool for wasting herself on a man who had sweet-talked her and she'd fallen for it.

[singingdrummer]

The same day he got discharged, he packed his bag and said his goodbyes to the band. He couldn't live that life anymore, not after it cost him the first thing that had actually meant something to him. The woman he had fallen in love with.

Ben wouldn't be seen in that town for the next month or two.

[highfidelity]

Meredith didn't notice he was gone. She didn't say anything about it to anyone, and she didn't date either, too ashamed to allow herself to get close to someone like that anymore. She kept her head down and kept to herself, until she got home one day to find him on her doorstep. So shocked she dropped her bag.

"...What are you doing here?"

[singingdrummer]

"Hello, Meredith."

He had changed his hair to a shorter style and said bye bye to eyeliner. Ben Lacey was Ben Sergeant again.

"Is it alright if I come in?"

[highfidelity]

"I suppose."

Since he was between her and the door anyway. She was shocked but also guarded. Picking her bag back up and moving past him to unlock the door, letting him follow as she moved to put her groceries into the kitchen.

"What do you want, Ben?"

[singingdrummer]

"I wanted to see you. To talk."

He closed the door behind him, following her with slightly unsure steps. This was the first time he'd seen her since his massive mistake.

"I left town.. and the band. That night made me realize what I had become. And seeing the hurt and sadness on your face.. Losing you, the love of my life. I couldn't live that life anymore."

[highfidelity]

Meredith stopped halfway through unpacking her groceries and just stared at him. It was everything she wanted to hear him say, but she wasn't sure she could trust him anymore.

"How do I know you're telling the truth?" she said softly. "I gave you everything I had and you still didn't keep your word to me. I don't know if I can believe you."

[singingdrummer]

"I had a career but I chose to go away and fix myself.. At the end of the day you were the most important one. I couldn't live with myself after I watched you walk away.. Our first night haunted me every single day. The feeling of utter happiness.. for the first time in years."

Ben sighed, running a hand through his hair. No one hated him more than he did.

[highfidelity]

"That's all just words, Ben." Meredith sighed, putting her groceries in the fridge before she leaned up against the counter and looked at him. "You said a lot of nice things to me that night too, but they weren't enough to keep you from getting high."

She exhaled. She didn't want to humiliate him but she needed him to understand how much he had hurt her.

"Do you know how worthless I felt? How humiliated? I wait for the right man to be with my whole life and then you don't even care about me enough to not make such a stupid bloody decision? I felt like you used me."

There were tears in her eyes just thinking about it. She was still too nervous to be physically intimate with anyone anymore.

"I loved you. Maybe I still do."

[singingdrummer]

"I know I'm not exactly worthy of your trust right now, and I don't blame you. You gave your virginity and your heart to me, and I threw it away with one fucking stupid decision."

Ben understood exactly what he had done to her. How much she had been hurt.

"I love you too, Meredith. If I could take back what happened, I'd do it in an instant. That twat of a man is gone now.. I left him behind."

[highfidelity]

She looked at him for a long moment. Looking into him. Trying to find the sincerity in his words. It saddened her to know that her first memory of being with someone would always be tainted by what happened afterward.

"Do you need somewhere to stay?" she asked quietly after a moment. "What are you doing now?"

She wasn't going to throw him out especially when he said he'd left the band. She didn't know if he had any place else to go, or anyone to turn to. And her apartment wasn't much, but she could offer.