Standing on Solid Ground - Part 26
Title: Standing on Solid Ground (26/27)
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Rating: M
Summary: Post Some Kind of Miracle, Mer/Der.
~~~~~
Meredith needed a break. She'd been on her feet for about ten hours by then, running this way, running that way, running this lab, running that lab, since early that morning. She found it hard to believe she would be out of her internship, a full-blown neurosurgery resident in just one and a half short weeks. Her surgeries with Dr. Weller had cinched the deal for her, made up her mind. Neurology cases just made her feel more at home than anything else. Still, despite finally arriving at the end of the year, finally with a firm roadmap in hand, it didn't feel much different. It seemed like the work she was doing was the same as the work she'd always been doing since she'd started at Seattle Grace, mainly the work nobody else wanted to do. However, it was possible that Bailey was just enjoying abusing her in a last ditch, home run sprint. Because, well, that was just something Bailey would do.
Regardless, she was tired. Really tired. She'd gone to all ends of creation and back on Saturday looking at apartments with Derek, and then again on Monday and Tuesday afternoon after her shifts. Sunday had been another extended shift, and she hadn't gotten home until around one in the morning. There'd been pretty much no sleep involved in the whole four-day stretch, though with Derek playing intern and matching all her shifts, it had been thankfully tolerable. But now it was Wednesday. Her painfully brief lunch break had been hosed from running errands. It was getting toward late afternoon. Sitting down sounded like paradise.
She groaned as she pushed into the dark gallery and collapsed with a sigh. Just the mere act of sitting was heaven, and the cool, dark quiet relaxed her. Things stopped hurting, stopped aching. She smiled a lazy, relieved smile as the pulsing throbs of agony in her joints melted to a dull hum.
Mark sat in the back row, engrossed in a fat, yellow book, a book whose content had him staring, perplexed, with the most serious frown on his face she had ever seen. She was about to shrug and let it go, assuming it was some medical reference, but then he shifted, and the cover of the book became visible for a few seconds. She squinted at it suspiciously. It had the same bends, the same folds, the same worn look as...
"Hey," she said. "Where'd you get that?"
Mark looked up. "What?"
"The book," she said. "Where'd you get that?"
He smirked. "Derek. He dropped it in my hands this morning and said I couldn't go until he was sure I wasn't going to decapitate myself with my own fishing pole."
"I'm... You..." Meredith stuttered. "What?"
Her thoughts came to a roaring halt. Derek hadn't mentioned Mark at all since she'd kicked him out of the house two and a half weeks ago, much to Izzie's chagrin. Derek hadn't mentioned Mark at all, and now they were going fishing? When had this happened? What had spurred that on? She suddenly felt drastically out of the loop, and curious about why Derek hadn't even hinted at it.
Mark shrugged. "I grew up in Manhattan. We don't do fishing. We do shopping, Broadway, and clubs. Things that involve buildings. Not trees," he explained wryly, misinterpreting her speechlessness.
"You know," Meredith said, her dumbfounded, tired brain wandering away with Mark's subject change. "I did kind of wonder why Derek even had that..."
Mark raised an eyebrow, closed the book, set it aside on the chair next to him, and leaned forward. "You think he's always fished?" he asked. "It's not like he had a dad to drag him out to do it. Why do you think I got so goddamned confused when I came out here? There must be something to it, though. This..." He scrunched up his face in an unadulterated look of displeasure. "Nature stuff. If it's kept him out here this long."
"He must have picked it up when we were out packing up some of his things at the trailer this weekend..." she mused.
"I don't know where he got it." Mark said. He frowned. "Why are you so amazed?"
"It's just... I didn't realize..." Meredith shook her head. "Never mind."
She tried to recite the moments in her head, all the moments since she'd kicked him out that she'd seen Mark, and she drew blanks. Nothing but blanks. What on earth had brought all this on? There must have been something monumental... some moment that she'd missed, and she felt bereft.
"You were right, you know," Mark said. "He's changed. A lot."
"When did you two talk?" she blurted, unable to keep it together anymore. "I mean... last time I saw you two together, well it was..."
He frowned. "I sat with him while he watched your craniotomy. He needed... company."
She bit her lip and nodded. She hadn't been paying much attention to Derek then. She'd seen him, yes, the one time she'd looked up. She'd felt his eyes on her for a while after that. But she'd been so soaked up in the adrenaline, so excited, so engrossed, she just hadn't even thought of him again until she'd closed, and by the time she had actually been able spare a glance, he had been long gone.
He still hadn't spoken much of his peer counseling experience that first day, though from his heartfelt apology and exhaustion that night, she'd pieced together that the day had been pretty harrowing for him. She could believe that under the crush of all that trauma, he'd finally bent and given Mark an inch. She could definitely believe that.
She peered at Mark, peered at him and wondered as he sat there, looking lost and uncomfortable. "He didn't like it out here to start with either," she said, inexplicably feeling the need to comfort him.
"What's to like?" he snapped. "It's so dreary, and... plant-filled."
Meredith leaned back and smiled. "Ferryboats."
He stared her, his face absent of any expression whatsoever. "Huh?"
"He has a thing for them."
Mark smirked. "I think he has a thing for you."
He winked at her. Now that he had put the Fishing for Dummies book away, his focus stayed on her for a moment and then drifted to the side. He stared behind her, down at the OR, a genuine smile on his face, not a smirk, and then he shifted his stare back to Meredith in a motion that dared, just dared her to look behind her.
"What's the big deal?" she asked as she turned in her chair, only to have her world stop when her field of view settled on the OR below.
"Is that?" she blurted, even though she would know him anywhere.
"I was wondering when you'd notice," Mark said with a chuckle. "He's been there for over an hour now."
She swallowed. Derek stood below with his back to her, working nimbly on a man whose spine was exposed to the operating room like a bloody offering. Chief Webber hovered next to Derek, shoulder-to-shoulder, supervising, helping, watching, but at the moment, it was obvious that he was fulfilling a subservient role in the whole affair while Derek worked as the master.
A seeping warmth like an advancing narcotic spread a smile across her face before she could stop it. She watched him, found herself standing up, slowly. She walked up to the glass, placed her palms on the window and just... watched. Watched his head make minute movements as he shifted his view, watched his favorite scrub cap, the one with the ferryboats on it, bob and move, or hover as he entered a moment of intense focus. His back twitched from side to side as he moved his fingers and hands, though his torso blocked her view of exactly what he was doing. He was a pillar of intensity, not once stepping back to blink or work out cricks, something she hadn't seen him able to do since before the ferry accident over a month ago. The Chief looked over and said something, his surgical mask rippling as his mouth moved. Derek nodded. And then it was back to work, work, work.
It was the happiest sight she'd seen in months. Happy because it meant so, so much more than just a spinal surgery. So, so much more... She stared, her lips slightly parted. She ran her fingers down the glass, not caring about the streaks she was leaving behind. She just couldn't stop staring.
"From what I can gather," Mark said, surprising her enough that she would have jerked had her muscles not been drugged into catatonic euphoria. She'd almost forgotten he was even there. "He's fishing a bullet out. Some poor good Samaritan tried to stop a robbery and will probably be paralyzed for his trouble."
Meredith swallowed. It was a sad, sad thing, yes. But she just couldn't bring herself to feel bad, couldn't bring herself to feel anything but overwhelming bliss, shout it to the rooftops, the floor is falling out from under me and I don't care, unadulterated bliss.
"Derek. He's-" she whispered. The words choked up in her throat as she broke her stare reluctantly to look at Mark.
Mark smiled at her. "Yep!" he said.
"Why didn't you tell me when I came tromping in here?"
He shrugged. "The look on your face when you found out on your own was worth it."
She finally peeled herself from the glass and sank into a chair, the first chair that would intercept her fall to the floor, because her legs just weren't working anymore. Nothing was working. There was a disconnect between her brain and the rest of her body. Her brain was happily in la-la land, languishing in the rapture. Her limbs were begging for directions, but they just weren't getting any. The conductor was on break.
"Derek. He's-" she said again, dumbfounded, watching, watching, watching.
And then she started to cry. It bubbled out of her like an exploding can of shook up soda, ratcheted up her spine. The giddy relief, the joy, all of it... It spilled out onto her cheeks even as she sat there in heaven, just watching him. She hugged herself, clenching her arms with her hands until the nails dug in and started to hurt.
Derek paused, every muscle in his body held tight in a rigid lock. Slowly, he turned and looked up. It was as if he'd sensed her there, breaking down for him. Their eyes met. His surgical mask obscured his mouth, but the smile on his face was obvious anyway, just from the way his eyes twinkled. He winked at her and turned back to his patient. She cried harder.
"You okay?" Mark asked.
She nodded, wiping her eyes frantically with the backs of her palms. "You have no idea how okay I am. I just... I'm..." The words abandoned her, and Mark just let her sit there quietly, not prying.
Cristina barged in, the door cracking open and then slamming shut in her wake. "Meredith, I-" she began, determined. And then she stopped short as she appeared to register the sight before her. "Hey. Are you o-" Her voice cut off, and her gaze followed Meredith's into the OR. "Is that Dr. Shepherd?"
Meredith glanced at Cristina as she sat down. "Yeah," Meredith said, her voice shattered, a pile of dusty pieces at the lowest octave she could manage. She shook as tears continued to sluice down her face. "It's Derek."
"He's operating," Cristina said. Then she frowned. "Sorry. I seem to be stupid right now."
"Yeah, me too," Meredith sobbed.
She, Mark, and Cristina sat there in silence for several minutes, until Meredith started to get a grip on herself again. The tears stopped, and she sat there, smiling, blinking, watching like some sort of drug addict on a high. But this was so much better than morphine. She sighed.
"Meredith," Cristina said, her voice hesitant, but desperate.
"Yeah?"
"I don't mean to interrupt your McMoment, but I have to tell you-" Cristina paused abruptly. She darted a look to Meredith, then to Derek down in the OR. She shifted in her seat like she was having a little private war with herself. "Well."
Meredith prodded, "Yeah?"
"May 3rd," Cristina blurted.
Meredith blinked and peeled her eyes away from the scene in the operating room below, only to stare at Cristina instead. Cristina's eyes watered, and tears of her own slipped hesitantly down her cheeks in an uncharacteristic display of emotion.
"Seriously?" Meredith asked.
Cristina nodded.
"You know I'll be there," Meredith said, and the happy, drugged feeling she'd been experiencing, the one she'd doubted she would ever top, was suddenly bursting through the atmosphere to new, spatial heights.
"Am I missing something?" Mark asked.
"Yes," Meredith replied.
"Okay, just making sure," he said.
Cristina snorted, and the three of them continued their vigil.
Izzie busted into the gallery next. "Meredith. Alex just told me you're going to rent out your master bedroom to him starting next month. You can't be serious about-" her voice ended abruptly in a squeak and then silence. She stopped and plopped down into the chair on Meredith's other side. "Wow," she said.
The vigil resumed with four this time and continued until Derek closed, yanked his mask down, and started pulling off his protective gear. Meredith launched out of her chair and raced down to the scrub room to meet him. She slammed into him just as he exited the OR. He grunted at the impact. She wrapped her arms around him and stayed there, plastered to him.
"Hey," he said with a drawling chuckle as he walked them into the scrub room with little shuffle steps to clear the doorway and let Chief Webber out of the OR.
"Grey," the Chief said as he brushed past them, not seeming to mind the horrific PDA she was instigating, which was good, because she just couldn't bring herself to let go. They both stood there while Chief Webber rinsed off and scrubbed out. Derek stood awkwardly in her grasp, his arms held away from her.
"Excellent work, Shepherd. That man might be walking again soon. You saved the nerves," the Chief said as he soaped up his hands. "You're officially off probation."
He left them there without further comment. Derek let her hang on him, just relishing his warmth, until finally after a few moments, he laughed. "I have to scrub out, Mere. You're killing me. I can't touch."
"I know," she said. "I'm sorry." Reluctantly, she pulled back and let him wash off his hands and arms. "How was it?" she asked.
"Like good sex," he replied, not looking up as he worked at his fingernails.
"Oh?" she said.
"I'm exhausted," he admitted with a sigh. "But, damn, was it worth it."
She laughed as he dried off and came over to wrap his arms around her, finally able to give her a real hug. He ran his hands down her back and lower. She leaned into him, and they ground together. He groaned. "You're better, though," he said, his voice a breathy whisper.
They stood there in the dark of the scrub room, breathing, skin on skin. She sighed into his shoulder. She looked up at him, and he looked back down at her, his gaze hooded in lust and weariness. The emotions twisted and tangoed into a dark, writhing pair behind his eyes. Lips parting enough to loose the smallest of sighs, he leaned down into her until his mouth brushed against hers, soft, fleeting. The kiss slid into existence from that small touch. She clutched at his shoulders, nails biting into him, trying to hold on as he dipped her back and drank her down.
The door slammed, and they broke apart, panting. "Sorry," a nurse said, but it was too late.
Meredith started to laugh, and Derek laughed right along with her. "We really shouldn't do that here," Meredith said.
"We really shouldn't," Derek agreed as he fought to catch his breath. His pupils were dilated, and his skin had a flushed, feverish tone to it. His hair was slightly mussed, just enough to tell the world he'd been doing something not quite professional. She imagined she looked much the same way.
"So," Meredith said, a playful smile curling across her lips. "I hear from a semi-reliable source that you're taking Mark fishing with you."
He snorted. "If Mark can even cast a line, I'll be amazed."
"But you are going with him."
"Yeah," he said. "I still don't know if it's a good idea, but..."
"You never know," she said. She wrapped her arms around him again and stood there, leaning up against him. It was a nice place to be. "And he does care, Derek. He cares about you."
"I know. It doesn't make what he did okay."
"No, but..."
He shrugged. "Seattle was supposed to be my fresh start. Maybe it's one of those for him, too. Maybe."
"Maybe," she agreed.
He sighed. "Am I being a fool?" he asked. He peered at her with a questioning gaze, one that begged her for guidance, for something to hold on to.
"No," she said. She squeezed him. "You're being the man I fell in love with."
The flush on his face, which had slowly been receding, bled back into existence. His lips parted, and he breathed in quickened, shortened pants. "You're really making me want you right now," he said, his voice tortured.
"Am I?" she purred. She pushed into him, felt his arousal pushing into her. He backed up against the wall and stood there, letting her torment him. She ran her hands along his back and watched him with a lascivious grin as he fought to not give in to temptation and ravish her right there. In the back of her mind, the little voice was telling her to stop, that this was a bad thing to do in the hospital. The little voice had won earlier. At the moment, the little voice was pouting while she squashed it.
Derek cleared his throat. He thunked his head back against the wall and let out a pitiful moan. "So, um. Did you sign the lease application?" he asked, struggling with the words. He clutched at her shoulders like he was trying not to drown as she slid her hands down to his hips and under the waistband of his scrubs. In the darkness, him pushed into the corner like that, it would look like they were just kissing, just hugging, and he was at her mercy.
"Yes," she said. "I turned it in over lunch. Which means that now, at this moment, I just realized that I'm starving. You owe me dinner."
"Dinner?" he asked, dazed, as she worked him further into confusion and lust. She paused, giving him a breather. He blinked. His whole body shook. "I need to..." his breath hitched. "Change first."
"Me too," she said. She leaned in and kissed him, plunging into him, his parted lips. He moaned again, and the sound swept down her throat, curled down her spine. She licked, sucked, and teased, and when she finally pulled back, he stood there swaying, his eyes glassy with arousal.
"You're killing me," he said.
She finally withdrew, and Derek stood there looking blank. He panted and swallowed and panted and swallowed, trying to get some semblance of coherence back.
"Maybe we should skip dinner," she whispered.
"Maybe we should," he said, followed by another groan.
She winked. "Race you to the car?"
He stumbled forward from the wall. "You'll win. I can barely walk," he hissed.
"Okay, okay," she said. "No racing then."
He growled as he hitched stiffly toward the door. "You're going to pay for this tonight," he said, a dirty grin sprawling across his face despite his obvious discomfort. "And pay, and pay, and pay."
"Bring it," she replied, returning his grin with one of her own.
"Well, I'll certainly bring you," he said.
From the tormented, desirous look on his face, she had absolutely no doubt that he would.
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Rating: M
Summary: Post Some Kind of Miracle, Mer/Der.
~~~~~
Meredith needed a break. She'd been on her feet for about ten hours by then, running this way, running that way, running this lab, running that lab, since early that morning. She found it hard to believe she would be out of her internship, a full-blown neurosurgery resident in just one and a half short weeks. Her surgeries with Dr. Weller had cinched the deal for her, made up her mind. Neurology cases just made her feel more at home than anything else. Still, despite finally arriving at the end of the year, finally with a firm roadmap in hand, it didn't feel much different. It seemed like the work she was doing was the same as the work she'd always been doing since she'd started at Seattle Grace, mainly the work nobody else wanted to do. However, it was possible that Bailey was just enjoying abusing her in a last ditch, home run sprint. Because, well, that was just something Bailey would do.
Regardless, she was tired. Really tired. She'd gone to all ends of creation and back on Saturday looking at apartments with Derek, and then again on Monday and Tuesday afternoon after her shifts. Sunday had been another extended shift, and she hadn't gotten home until around one in the morning. There'd been pretty much no sleep involved in the whole four-day stretch, though with Derek playing intern and matching all her shifts, it had been thankfully tolerable. But now it was Wednesday. Her painfully brief lunch break had been hosed from running errands. It was getting toward late afternoon. Sitting down sounded like paradise.
She groaned as she pushed into the dark gallery and collapsed with a sigh. Just the mere act of sitting was heaven, and the cool, dark quiet relaxed her. Things stopped hurting, stopped aching. She smiled a lazy, relieved smile as the pulsing throbs of agony in her joints melted to a dull hum.
Mark sat in the back row, engrossed in a fat, yellow book, a book whose content had him staring, perplexed, with the most serious frown on his face she had ever seen. She was about to shrug and let it go, assuming it was some medical reference, but then he shifted, and the cover of the book became visible for a few seconds. She squinted at it suspiciously. It had the same bends, the same folds, the same worn look as...
"Hey," she said. "Where'd you get that?"
Mark looked up. "What?"
"The book," she said. "Where'd you get that?"
He smirked. "Derek. He dropped it in my hands this morning and said I couldn't go until he was sure I wasn't going to decapitate myself with my own fishing pole."
"I'm... You..." Meredith stuttered. "What?"
Her thoughts came to a roaring halt. Derek hadn't mentioned Mark at all since she'd kicked him out of the house two and a half weeks ago, much to Izzie's chagrin. Derek hadn't mentioned Mark at all, and now they were going fishing? When had this happened? What had spurred that on? She suddenly felt drastically out of the loop, and curious about why Derek hadn't even hinted at it.
Mark shrugged. "I grew up in Manhattan. We don't do fishing. We do shopping, Broadway, and clubs. Things that involve buildings. Not trees," he explained wryly, misinterpreting her speechlessness.
"You know," Meredith said, her dumbfounded, tired brain wandering away with Mark's subject change. "I did kind of wonder why Derek even had that..."
Mark raised an eyebrow, closed the book, set it aside on the chair next to him, and leaned forward. "You think he's always fished?" he asked. "It's not like he had a dad to drag him out to do it. Why do you think I got so goddamned confused when I came out here? There must be something to it, though. This..." He scrunched up his face in an unadulterated look of displeasure. "Nature stuff. If it's kept him out here this long."
"He must have picked it up when we were out packing up some of his things at the trailer this weekend..." she mused.
"I don't know where he got it." Mark said. He frowned. "Why are you so amazed?"
"It's just... I didn't realize..." Meredith shook her head. "Never mind."
She tried to recite the moments in her head, all the moments since she'd kicked him out that she'd seen Mark, and she drew blanks. Nothing but blanks. What on earth had brought all this on? There must have been something monumental... some moment that she'd missed, and she felt bereft.
"You were right, you know," Mark said. "He's changed. A lot."
"When did you two talk?" she blurted, unable to keep it together anymore. "I mean... last time I saw you two together, well it was..."
He frowned. "I sat with him while he watched your craniotomy. He needed... company."
She bit her lip and nodded. She hadn't been paying much attention to Derek then. She'd seen him, yes, the one time she'd looked up. She'd felt his eyes on her for a while after that. But she'd been so soaked up in the adrenaline, so excited, so engrossed, she just hadn't even thought of him again until she'd closed, and by the time she had actually been able spare a glance, he had been long gone.
He still hadn't spoken much of his peer counseling experience that first day, though from his heartfelt apology and exhaustion that night, she'd pieced together that the day had been pretty harrowing for him. She could believe that under the crush of all that trauma, he'd finally bent and given Mark an inch. She could definitely believe that.
She peered at Mark, peered at him and wondered as he sat there, looking lost and uncomfortable. "He didn't like it out here to start with either," she said, inexplicably feeling the need to comfort him.
"What's to like?" he snapped. "It's so dreary, and... plant-filled."
Meredith leaned back and smiled. "Ferryboats."
He stared her, his face absent of any expression whatsoever. "Huh?"
"He has a thing for them."
Mark smirked. "I think he has a thing for you."
He winked at her. Now that he had put the Fishing for Dummies book away, his focus stayed on her for a moment and then drifted to the side. He stared behind her, down at the OR, a genuine smile on his face, not a smirk, and then he shifted his stare back to Meredith in a motion that dared, just dared her to look behind her.
"What's the big deal?" she asked as she turned in her chair, only to have her world stop when her field of view settled on the OR below.
"Is that?" she blurted, even though she would know him anywhere.
"I was wondering when you'd notice," Mark said with a chuckle. "He's been there for over an hour now."
She swallowed. Derek stood below with his back to her, working nimbly on a man whose spine was exposed to the operating room like a bloody offering. Chief Webber hovered next to Derek, shoulder-to-shoulder, supervising, helping, watching, but at the moment, it was obvious that he was fulfilling a subservient role in the whole affair while Derek worked as the master.
A seeping warmth like an advancing narcotic spread a smile across her face before she could stop it. She watched him, found herself standing up, slowly. She walked up to the glass, placed her palms on the window and just... watched. Watched his head make minute movements as he shifted his view, watched his favorite scrub cap, the one with the ferryboats on it, bob and move, or hover as he entered a moment of intense focus. His back twitched from side to side as he moved his fingers and hands, though his torso blocked her view of exactly what he was doing. He was a pillar of intensity, not once stepping back to blink or work out cricks, something she hadn't seen him able to do since before the ferry accident over a month ago. The Chief looked over and said something, his surgical mask rippling as his mouth moved. Derek nodded. And then it was back to work, work, work.
It was the happiest sight she'd seen in months. Happy because it meant so, so much more than just a spinal surgery. So, so much more... She stared, her lips slightly parted. She ran her fingers down the glass, not caring about the streaks she was leaving behind. She just couldn't stop staring.
"From what I can gather," Mark said, surprising her enough that she would have jerked had her muscles not been drugged into catatonic euphoria. She'd almost forgotten he was even there. "He's fishing a bullet out. Some poor good Samaritan tried to stop a robbery and will probably be paralyzed for his trouble."
Meredith swallowed. It was a sad, sad thing, yes. But she just couldn't bring herself to feel bad, couldn't bring herself to feel anything but overwhelming bliss, shout it to the rooftops, the floor is falling out from under me and I don't care, unadulterated bliss.
"Derek. He's-" she whispered. The words choked up in her throat as she broke her stare reluctantly to look at Mark.
Mark smiled at her. "Yep!" he said.
"Why didn't you tell me when I came tromping in here?"
He shrugged. "The look on your face when you found out on your own was worth it."
She finally peeled herself from the glass and sank into a chair, the first chair that would intercept her fall to the floor, because her legs just weren't working anymore. Nothing was working. There was a disconnect between her brain and the rest of her body. Her brain was happily in la-la land, languishing in the rapture. Her limbs were begging for directions, but they just weren't getting any. The conductor was on break.
"Derek. He's-" she said again, dumbfounded, watching, watching, watching.
And then she started to cry. It bubbled out of her like an exploding can of shook up soda, ratcheted up her spine. The giddy relief, the joy, all of it... It spilled out onto her cheeks even as she sat there in heaven, just watching him. She hugged herself, clenching her arms with her hands until the nails dug in and started to hurt.
Derek paused, every muscle in his body held tight in a rigid lock. Slowly, he turned and looked up. It was as if he'd sensed her there, breaking down for him. Their eyes met. His surgical mask obscured his mouth, but the smile on his face was obvious anyway, just from the way his eyes twinkled. He winked at her and turned back to his patient. She cried harder.
"You okay?" Mark asked.
She nodded, wiping her eyes frantically with the backs of her palms. "You have no idea how okay I am. I just... I'm..." The words abandoned her, and Mark just let her sit there quietly, not prying.
Cristina barged in, the door cracking open and then slamming shut in her wake. "Meredith, I-" she began, determined. And then she stopped short as she appeared to register the sight before her. "Hey. Are you o-" Her voice cut off, and her gaze followed Meredith's into the OR. "Is that Dr. Shepherd?"
Meredith glanced at Cristina as she sat down. "Yeah," Meredith said, her voice shattered, a pile of dusty pieces at the lowest octave she could manage. She shook as tears continued to sluice down her face. "It's Derek."
"He's operating," Cristina said. Then she frowned. "Sorry. I seem to be stupid right now."
"Yeah, me too," Meredith sobbed.
She, Mark, and Cristina sat there in silence for several minutes, until Meredith started to get a grip on herself again. The tears stopped, and she sat there, smiling, blinking, watching like some sort of drug addict on a high. But this was so much better than morphine. She sighed.
"Meredith," Cristina said, her voice hesitant, but desperate.
"Yeah?"
"I don't mean to interrupt your McMoment, but I have to tell you-" Cristina paused abruptly. She darted a look to Meredith, then to Derek down in the OR. She shifted in her seat like she was having a little private war with herself. "Well."
Meredith prodded, "Yeah?"
"May 3rd," Cristina blurted.
Meredith blinked and peeled her eyes away from the scene in the operating room below, only to stare at Cristina instead. Cristina's eyes watered, and tears of her own slipped hesitantly down her cheeks in an uncharacteristic display of emotion.
"Seriously?" Meredith asked.
Cristina nodded.
"You know I'll be there," Meredith said, and the happy, drugged feeling she'd been experiencing, the one she'd doubted she would ever top, was suddenly bursting through the atmosphere to new, spatial heights.
"Am I missing something?" Mark asked.
"Yes," Meredith replied.
"Okay, just making sure," he said.
Cristina snorted, and the three of them continued their vigil.
Izzie busted into the gallery next. "Meredith. Alex just told me you're going to rent out your master bedroom to him starting next month. You can't be serious about-" her voice ended abruptly in a squeak and then silence. She stopped and plopped down into the chair on Meredith's other side. "Wow," she said.
The vigil resumed with four this time and continued until Derek closed, yanked his mask down, and started pulling off his protective gear. Meredith launched out of her chair and raced down to the scrub room to meet him. She slammed into him just as he exited the OR. He grunted at the impact. She wrapped her arms around him and stayed there, plastered to him.
"Hey," he said with a drawling chuckle as he walked them into the scrub room with little shuffle steps to clear the doorway and let Chief Webber out of the OR.
"Grey," the Chief said as he brushed past them, not seeming to mind the horrific PDA she was instigating, which was good, because she just couldn't bring herself to let go. They both stood there while Chief Webber rinsed off and scrubbed out. Derek stood awkwardly in her grasp, his arms held away from her.
"Excellent work, Shepherd. That man might be walking again soon. You saved the nerves," the Chief said as he soaped up his hands. "You're officially off probation."
He left them there without further comment. Derek let her hang on him, just relishing his warmth, until finally after a few moments, he laughed. "I have to scrub out, Mere. You're killing me. I can't touch."
"I know," she said. "I'm sorry." Reluctantly, she pulled back and let him wash off his hands and arms. "How was it?" she asked.
"Like good sex," he replied, not looking up as he worked at his fingernails.
"Oh?" she said.
"I'm exhausted," he admitted with a sigh. "But, damn, was it worth it."
She laughed as he dried off and came over to wrap his arms around her, finally able to give her a real hug. He ran his hands down her back and lower. She leaned into him, and they ground together. He groaned. "You're better, though," he said, his voice a breathy whisper.
They stood there in the dark of the scrub room, breathing, skin on skin. She sighed into his shoulder. She looked up at him, and he looked back down at her, his gaze hooded in lust and weariness. The emotions twisted and tangoed into a dark, writhing pair behind his eyes. Lips parting enough to loose the smallest of sighs, he leaned down into her until his mouth brushed against hers, soft, fleeting. The kiss slid into existence from that small touch. She clutched at his shoulders, nails biting into him, trying to hold on as he dipped her back and drank her down.
The door slammed, and they broke apart, panting. "Sorry," a nurse said, but it was too late.
Meredith started to laugh, and Derek laughed right along with her. "We really shouldn't do that here," Meredith said.
"We really shouldn't," Derek agreed as he fought to catch his breath. His pupils were dilated, and his skin had a flushed, feverish tone to it. His hair was slightly mussed, just enough to tell the world he'd been doing something not quite professional. She imagined she looked much the same way.
"So," Meredith said, a playful smile curling across her lips. "I hear from a semi-reliable source that you're taking Mark fishing with you."
He snorted. "If Mark can even cast a line, I'll be amazed."
"But you are going with him."
"Yeah," he said. "I still don't know if it's a good idea, but..."
"You never know," she said. She wrapped her arms around him again and stood there, leaning up against him. It was a nice place to be. "And he does care, Derek. He cares about you."
"I know. It doesn't make what he did okay."
"No, but..."
He shrugged. "Seattle was supposed to be my fresh start. Maybe it's one of those for him, too. Maybe."
"Maybe," she agreed.
He sighed. "Am I being a fool?" he asked. He peered at her with a questioning gaze, one that begged her for guidance, for something to hold on to.
"No," she said. She squeezed him. "You're being the man I fell in love with."
The flush on his face, which had slowly been receding, bled back into existence. His lips parted, and he breathed in quickened, shortened pants. "You're really making me want you right now," he said, his voice tortured.
"Am I?" she purred. She pushed into him, felt his arousal pushing into her. He backed up against the wall and stood there, letting her torment him. She ran her hands along his back and watched him with a lascivious grin as he fought to not give in to temptation and ravish her right there. In the back of her mind, the little voice was telling her to stop, that this was a bad thing to do in the hospital. The little voice had won earlier. At the moment, the little voice was pouting while she squashed it.
Derek cleared his throat. He thunked his head back against the wall and let out a pitiful moan. "So, um. Did you sign the lease application?" he asked, struggling with the words. He clutched at her shoulders like he was trying not to drown as she slid her hands down to his hips and under the waistband of his scrubs. In the darkness, him pushed into the corner like that, it would look like they were just kissing, just hugging, and he was at her mercy.
"Yes," she said. "I turned it in over lunch. Which means that now, at this moment, I just realized that I'm starving. You owe me dinner."
"Dinner?" he asked, dazed, as she worked him further into confusion and lust. She paused, giving him a breather. He blinked. His whole body shook. "I need to..." his breath hitched. "Change first."
"Me too," she said. She leaned in and kissed him, plunging into him, his parted lips. He moaned again, and the sound swept down her throat, curled down her spine. She licked, sucked, and teased, and when she finally pulled back, he stood there swaying, his eyes glassy with arousal.
"You're killing me," he said.
She finally withdrew, and Derek stood there looking blank. He panted and swallowed and panted and swallowed, trying to get some semblance of coherence back.
"Maybe we should skip dinner," she whispered.
"Maybe we should," he said, followed by another groan.
She winked. "Race you to the car?"
He stumbled forward from the wall. "You'll win. I can barely walk," he hissed.
"Okay, okay," she said. "No racing then."
He growled as he hitched stiffly toward the door. "You're going to pay for this tonight," he said, a dirty grin sprawling across his face despite his obvious discomfort. "And pay, and pay, and pay."
"Bring it," she replied, returning his grin with one of her own.
"Well, I'll certainly bring you," he said.
From the tormented, desirous look on his face, she had absolutely no doubt that he would.