Well, this was going about as well as he had expected it to. Derek's heart shattered when he saw the tears shining in her eyes and he took a step forward only to stop short because he had a feeling she wouldn't actually want his comfort right then. He was the reason she was hurting. He was the reason she'd been hurting. ...and there was nothing he could do to fix it. Derek couldn't go back in time and change things, he couldn't take it back. What was done was done and he'd hurt her. He'd hurt them both.
"Patty..." he started and then he realized that I'm sorry wasn't going to cut it. It just wasn't. However miserable he'd been, she had been just as upset except that maybe she was more upset because she hadn't really had a choice. Derek didn't feel like he'd sent her away, but he could see why she felt that way; he hadn't given her all that much of a choice. He saw that now. So he didn't defend himself.
Derek didn't know what to say. "Sorry" wasn't enough and telling her how he felt had been the wrong decision. Now, he'd only managed to make it worse. His throat was tight and his mouth was dry, the color having drained from his face as he looked back at her, standing too still, dripping all over the floor and all he wanted to do was hold her and kiss her and apologize with the perfect words that didn't exist to make everything bad melt away from the both of them.
But there was nothing he could do.
Taking a deep breath, Derek nodded. "You're right," he admitted finally, in a voice so much smaller than even he felt right then, which was saying a lot. His eyes prickled with the threat of his own tears and Derek blinked them back as he took another shaking breath. "You're right and I'm sorry and I know that 'I'm sorry' is nowhere near enough. I blew it and I hurt you and..."
You shouldn't have come here, he told himself and his stomach turned over with discomfort. "...I'm sorry. I don't know what else to say, I'm sorry. If I could spend my whole life making it up to you, I would. I'm sorry."