Stale Christmas cookies, post one
Title: You’re What I Want for Christmas
Author: mrsfjl66
Rating: PG Thirteenish
Pairings: Meredith and Derek, with mentions of Alex and Izzie and Mark and Lexie.
Disclaimer: The characters, settings and initial plotlines represented herein are the property of ABC, Shonda Rhimes, and any other entities having an ownership interest in Grey's Anatomy. No copyright infringement is intended, and no personal gain is being derived from the fair use of their intellectual property.
A/N: This has been written for weeks. No posting access means Christmas isn’t over for me apparently. For dmdell119, who wanted giggly!Meredith and jealous!Derek in their Shonda invented “happy couple” bubble. Not exactly that but as close as I could do. First post of the Tay’s Not Updating!ficfest. Yay!
Inspired by
You're All I Want for Christmas
(J. Clifford/ M. Bivins)
The season draws near
I can do without cheer
I can live without holly, jingles and jolly.
I don’t care for the snow
I don’t need mistletoe
It’s the taste of your kiss
That’s the thing that I miss
The sound of your sigh
Oh my angel on high
I want the smell of your skin--
You can keep the French hen.
Who needs good girls or boys?
Bells or candles or toys?
You’re what I want for Christmas.
Derek and Meredith were in the middle of cereal and coffee when Meredith suddenly stopped, her spoon clanking against the bowl. “There aren’t any reindeer,” she said.
Derek resisted the urge to chuckle as he noted the deep furrow of her brow. He cleared his throat. “Were you expecting some?”
She moved around the counter and motioned in the direction of the living room. “No Santa. No candy canes, no holly. No tinsel or whatever.”
“Decorations don’t usually just appear,” He said, mildly, still not really sure what was going on. Since when did Meredith care about tinsel?
“Don’t be an ass. When you live with Izzie, Christmas does just appear. In abundance. What’s the date?”
“December 8th,” Derek said.
“Something’s wrong. By this time last year, the house had been a Winter Wonderland for at least a week, and she was humming ‘Silver Bells’ in a nearly continuous loop. I know she was upset about Alex and his…syphilis carrier, but--”
“Maybe now that she’s with Karev, she doesn’t need to take her frustration out on Christmas?”
A differential diagnosis linking increased masturbation and lack of Christmas spirit wasn’t making itself apparent. Except now that he thought about it, Izzie Stevens the intern was insistent on being merry no matter the crisis. “Last year, she did accuse me of poisoning a man’s brain because I wasn’t excited about Christmukkah,” Derek admitted, with a slight smile.
“Christmukkah?”
“Exactly,” he said. Derek studied Meredith’s face and found a look that was half worry and half want. Want that had something to do with her puff-balled winter hat, and something to do with Addison showing up last fall. Christmas spirit because, and in spite of Ellis Grey. Christmas spirit because and in spite of him.
Derek moved behind her and pulled her back into his chest, wrapping his arms around her. “We could decorate,” he said, placing a kiss on her neck.
“We could,” she said, with a certainty he usually heard when she spoke to patients. She turned to face him then. “I’ll double check with Izzie, and you can handle getting the tree?”
“Real or fake?” he asked, unable to stop a smile from spreading on his face.
“What do you want?” she asked.
“You’re all I want for Christmas,” Derek said, and no matter the starts and stops in their story, it was true. He would’ve been totally mortified for saying the words out loud if not for the blush that spread through Meredith’s cheeks, and the “Really?” he saw in her eyes right before they settled to match her smirk.
Meredith wrapped her arms around his neck. “Does it totally ruin the romance if I say that all I want for Christmas is you and a tree?”
“Only slightly.”
That afternoon, Meredith found Derek at the coffee cart. “Izzie has clinic duty until possibly next year, but Alex said he’d help me clear a place for the tree when his shift is over.”
“Does Stevens have a preference?”
She shook her head. “If you feel like wielding an ax, there are a couple of farms that let you cut it yourself. Of course, you have an acre of Christmas trees behind the trailer and there’s no reason to…Let’s just go with fake. Less work. Less tree killing. Better, right?”
“She could just be busy,” Derek said softly. “My resident was running post-op labs until five minutes ago.”
Meredith rolled her eyes. “Your resident also finished charts and supervised interns in the skills lab for two hours,” she said.
Derek grinned. “Excellent. We may get out of here in time to get the tree and decorations all in one trip.”
“Nope. I’m getting the decorations,” she said, her ponytail swinging a bit.
Derek shouldn’t have been worried. Meredith was brilliant, and she was capable of virtually everything, including minor repairs on the Jeep. (“I don’t usually keep boys long enough for auto repair,” she’d said, with grease on her nose). “You are?” he asked, suddenly willing Izzie to appear like some sugar plum fairy in a lab coat.
“Yes. I have plans for this tree,” she said.
“You do?”
“Yes. Anatomy Jane will be the tree topper. Gauze for tinsel. You know, surgically themed,” Meredith said, and he must’ve paled imagining Jane’s jelly pouch on the living room floor because Meredith laughed out loud.
“I didn’t really think--” he protested.
“You seriously did,” she said, but reached up, kissing his mouth lightly. “I built our dream house entirely out of pillar candles. I think I’ll be ok.”
“It’s not my fault you bought the largest artificial tree in Washington,” Mark snapped from the other end of the tree box.
.
“It’s not my fault you’re a forty year old baby,” Derek muttered, hoping Meredith left the door unlocked. Her car was the only one in the driveway, but the lights were on, and he was pretty sure his back bumped into a wreath when they got to the door. Festivity in progress.
“It’s huge,” Meredith said, as they maneuvered the box into the house. She had a piece of pizza in one hand and some kind of marker in the other.
“Very observant, Grey,” Mark said, shifting his weight a little. “Where are we putting the Sequoia?”
Meredith pointed to a clear spot in the living room, and toed the door closed behind them.
When his hands were free, Derek noticed the couch was apparently Meredith’s workshop. She had bags full of silver garland and tree lights, and multiple red somethings were spread out on the coffee table. He could smell pine and cinnamon in the room, coming he supposed from candles he saw here and there. The woman knew candles.
“It should face the other way,” Mark said, inspecting the tree as they followed the simple assembly instructions. “This isn’t its best side.”
“Is that your professional opinion?” Derek asked.
“This side is asymmetrical, Shep.”
“It has character. Stop diagnosing my tree.” Derek said, half regretting his decision to get Mark’s help in the first place.
“Fine, but when this tree is lopsided and half lit, don’t say I didn’t mention it,” Mark said.
“One year, Mark. One. And I had the lights fixed in an hour,” Derek said, and there was no half about his regret now.
“McGrinchy and McScroogy,” Meredith giggled from her perch on the couch.
“And why are you Cindy Lou Who all of a sudden?” Mark asked. “Isn’t that more Little, uh, your sister’s thing?”
Meredith said nothing but her return glance was surprisingly stony, given that her arms were full of what Derek now recognized as Christmas stockings.
Yeah, he knew it was pathetic, but he was now watching her hang them with rapt attention. He hadn’t expected that at all. Stockings made this thing, this Derek and Meredith thing, permanent in a way that moving into Ellis’s former office just hadn’t. Whipped, Mark would say from somewhere to Derek’s left, but Derek noticed Mark watching her too. Maybe to see the line-up Meredith considered hers enough to warrant one of the burgundy stockings she’d carefully lettered in silver paint.
Izzie and Alex made the mantle first, and Derek felt a little like a running back waiting to be drafted. He need not have worried. He was next, followed in quick succession by stockings for Meredith, Cristina, and George. Then Meredith paused, looking at the layout with her bottom lip in her teeth, as well as a glance at what she had yet to hang. She seemed to reconsider something, and pulled the stockings down to start again.
This time, the “Derek” and “Meredith” stockings were first, and then “Lexie” and Derek felt his smile grow wider. Derek knew it, but seeing Meredith count her sister as family was huge. So huge, he wondered what else Santa Meredith had in store.
Cristina went up next, followed by Alex, Izzie and George. And as if Meredith could hear Derek’s request for a surprise, Mark’s name appeared, sparkling a little in the light.
Meredith shrugged, then turned to face them. “I figured Mark is yours, right?” she asked.
“For better or worse, I guess,” Derek said, nodding, before he realized how odd and true that might actually be.
Meredith laughed. “So it’s Mark you married. Explains volumes,” she said.
Derek groaned and Mark laughed, then a softer, “Thanks, Grey.”
Meredith nodded, then sat on Derek’s other side. “Do they look okay?” she asked.
“Absolutely,” Derek said. Then he took a closer look at the order. Meredith had basically used the force of all of Bailey’s former interns to insulate Lexie from Mark on one side and the two of them on the other. Interesting tactic, even just symbolically. “So Mark’s not allowed near Lexie even on the fireplace?” he asked her.
“Nope,” Meredith said, her eyes on Mark.
He expected Mark to shoot something back. Anything. Instead, Mark’s eyes dropped from hers to the floor. “You know, this was fun but I should …” Shit. If Mark hadn’t slept with Lexie, he was about to. Logically, Derek knew he had no business wondering about any of it. But he felt anger, irritation, something, flare in his gut. With Mark, boundaries, however arbitrary, were useless as usual.
No time to think on that though, as Izzie and Alex came through the door. Izzie gave a distracted, “Pretty, Mere” before bounding up the stairs. She’d barely looked.
“Shepherd, I’ll help with the lights later,” Alex said, before following quickly, almost as if Izzie would disappear if he didn’t. Alex clearly wasn’t having that.
“I can string Christmas lights. I’m a neurosurgeon, dammit,” Derek said to no one in particular.
“You say that like it means something,” Mark said, pulling his keys from his pocket. “See you tomorrow.” And he was out the door.
Meredith moved behind him, her fingers in his hair. She had gotten in the habit of sorting out her problems through his hair as much as he did. It felt good though. “Mark is screwing my little sister,” she said.
Don’t put it that way, he thought, rubbing a hand over his face. Since they were talking bad news… “Probably,” he said. “Izzie’s not okay.” And as a consequence, neither was Karev.
“I know,” she said, and for a second he wished he hadn’t said anything.
“Derek?”
“Hmm?” he asked, getting sleepy under her fingers.
“I love the tree,” she said, kissing his cheek. “Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas, Meredith.” It would be. No matter what.
Author: mrsfjl66
Rating: PG Thirteenish
Pairings: Meredith and Derek, with mentions of Alex and Izzie and Mark and Lexie.
Disclaimer: The characters, settings and initial plotlines represented herein are the property of ABC, Shonda Rhimes, and any other entities having an ownership interest in Grey's Anatomy. No copyright infringement is intended, and no personal gain is being derived from the fair use of their intellectual property.
A/N: This has been written for weeks. No posting access means Christmas isn’t over for me apparently. For dmdell119, who wanted giggly!Meredith and jealous!Derek in their Shonda invented “happy couple” bubble. Not exactly that but as close as I could do. First post of the Tay’s Not Updating!ficfest. Yay!
Inspired by
You're All I Want for Christmas
(J. Clifford/ M. Bivins)
The season draws near
I can do without cheer
I can live without holly, jingles and jolly.
I don’t care for the snow
I don’t need mistletoe
It’s the taste of your kiss
That’s the thing that I miss
The sound of your sigh
Oh my angel on high
I want the smell of your skin--
You can keep the French hen.
Who needs good girls or boys?
Bells or candles or toys?
You’re what I want for Christmas.
Derek and Meredith were in the middle of cereal and coffee when Meredith suddenly stopped, her spoon clanking against the bowl. “There aren’t any reindeer,” she said.
Derek resisted the urge to chuckle as he noted the deep furrow of her brow. He cleared his throat. “Were you expecting some?”
She moved around the counter and motioned in the direction of the living room. “No Santa. No candy canes, no holly. No tinsel or whatever.”
“Decorations don’t usually just appear,” He said, mildly, still not really sure what was going on. Since when did Meredith care about tinsel?
“Don’t be an ass. When you live with Izzie, Christmas does just appear. In abundance. What’s the date?”
“December 8th,” Derek said.
“Something’s wrong. By this time last year, the house had been a Winter Wonderland for at least a week, and she was humming ‘Silver Bells’ in a nearly continuous loop. I know she was upset about Alex and his…syphilis carrier, but--”
“Maybe now that she’s with Karev, she doesn’t need to take her frustration out on Christmas?”
A differential diagnosis linking increased masturbation and lack of Christmas spirit wasn’t making itself apparent. Except now that he thought about it, Izzie Stevens the intern was insistent on being merry no matter the crisis. “Last year, she did accuse me of poisoning a man’s brain because I wasn’t excited about Christmukkah,” Derek admitted, with a slight smile.
“Christmukkah?”
“Exactly,” he said. Derek studied Meredith’s face and found a look that was half worry and half want. Want that had something to do with her puff-balled winter hat, and something to do with Addison showing up last fall. Christmas spirit because, and in spite of Ellis Grey. Christmas spirit because and in spite of him.
Derek moved behind her and pulled her back into his chest, wrapping his arms around her. “We could decorate,” he said, placing a kiss on her neck.
“We could,” she said, with a certainty he usually heard when she spoke to patients. She turned to face him then. “I’ll double check with Izzie, and you can handle getting the tree?”
“Real or fake?” he asked, unable to stop a smile from spreading on his face.
“What do you want?” she asked.
“You’re all I want for Christmas,” Derek said, and no matter the starts and stops in their story, it was true. He would’ve been totally mortified for saying the words out loud if not for the blush that spread through Meredith’s cheeks, and the “Really?” he saw in her eyes right before they settled to match her smirk.
Meredith wrapped her arms around his neck. “Does it totally ruin the romance if I say that all I want for Christmas is you and a tree?”
“Only slightly.”
That afternoon, Meredith found Derek at the coffee cart. “Izzie has clinic duty until possibly next year, but Alex said he’d help me clear a place for the tree when his shift is over.”
“Does Stevens have a preference?”
She shook her head. “If you feel like wielding an ax, there are a couple of farms that let you cut it yourself. Of course, you have an acre of Christmas trees behind the trailer and there’s no reason to…Let’s just go with fake. Less work. Less tree killing. Better, right?”
“She could just be busy,” Derek said softly. “My resident was running post-op labs until five minutes ago.”
Meredith rolled her eyes. “Your resident also finished charts and supervised interns in the skills lab for two hours,” she said.
Derek grinned. “Excellent. We may get out of here in time to get the tree and decorations all in one trip.”
“Nope. I’m getting the decorations,” she said, her ponytail swinging a bit.
Derek shouldn’t have been worried. Meredith was brilliant, and she was capable of virtually everything, including minor repairs on the Jeep. (“I don’t usually keep boys long enough for auto repair,” she’d said, with grease on her nose). “You are?” he asked, suddenly willing Izzie to appear like some sugar plum fairy in a lab coat.
“Yes. I have plans for this tree,” she said.
“You do?”
“Yes. Anatomy Jane will be the tree topper. Gauze for tinsel. You know, surgically themed,” Meredith said, and he must’ve paled imagining Jane’s jelly pouch on the living room floor because Meredith laughed out loud.
“I didn’t really think--” he protested.
“You seriously did,” she said, but reached up, kissing his mouth lightly. “I built our dream house entirely out of pillar candles. I think I’ll be ok.”
“It’s not my fault you bought the largest artificial tree in Washington,” Mark snapped from the other end of the tree box.
.
“It’s not my fault you’re a forty year old baby,” Derek muttered, hoping Meredith left the door unlocked. Her car was the only one in the driveway, but the lights were on, and he was pretty sure his back bumped into a wreath when they got to the door. Festivity in progress.
“It’s huge,” Meredith said, as they maneuvered the box into the house. She had a piece of pizza in one hand and some kind of marker in the other.
“Very observant, Grey,” Mark said, shifting his weight a little. “Where are we putting the Sequoia?”
Meredith pointed to a clear spot in the living room, and toed the door closed behind them.
When his hands were free, Derek noticed the couch was apparently Meredith’s workshop. She had bags full of silver garland and tree lights, and multiple red somethings were spread out on the coffee table. He could smell pine and cinnamon in the room, coming he supposed from candles he saw here and there. The woman knew candles.
“It should face the other way,” Mark said, inspecting the tree as they followed the simple assembly instructions. “This isn’t its best side.”
“Is that your professional opinion?” Derek asked.
“This side is asymmetrical, Shep.”
“It has character. Stop diagnosing my tree.” Derek said, half regretting his decision to get Mark’s help in the first place.
“Fine, but when this tree is lopsided and half lit, don’t say I didn’t mention it,” Mark said.
“One year, Mark. One. And I had the lights fixed in an hour,” Derek said, and there was no half about his regret now.
“McGrinchy and McScroogy,” Meredith giggled from her perch on the couch.
“And why are you Cindy Lou Who all of a sudden?” Mark asked. “Isn’t that more Little, uh, your sister’s thing?”
Meredith said nothing but her return glance was surprisingly stony, given that her arms were full of what Derek now recognized as Christmas stockings.
Yeah, he knew it was pathetic, but he was now watching her hang them with rapt attention. He hadn’t expected that at all. Stockings made this thing, this Derek and Meredith thing, permanent in a way that moving into Ellis’s former office just hadn’t. Whipped, Mark would say from somewhere to Derek’s left, but Derek noticed Mark watching her too. Maybe to see the line-up Meredith considered hers enough to warrant one of the burgundy stockings she’d carefully lettered in silver paint.
Izzie and Alex made the mantle first, and Derek felt a little like a running back waiting to be drafted. He need not have worried. He was next, followed in quick succession by stockings for Meredith, Cristina, and George. Then Meredith paused, looking at the layout with her bottom lip in her teeth, as well as a glance at what she had yet to hang. She seemed to reconsider something, and pulled the stockings down to start again.
This time, the “Derek” and “Meredith” stockings were first, and then “Lexie” and Derek felt his smile grow wider. Derek knew it, but seeing Meredith count her sister as family was huge. So huge, he wondered what else Santa Meredith had in store.
Cristina went up next, followed by Alex, Izzie and George. And as if Meredith could hear Derek’s request for a surprise, Mark’s name appeared, sparkling a little in the light.
Meredith shrugged, then turned to face them. “I figured Mark is yours, right?” she asked.
“For better or worse, I guess,” Derek said, nodding, before he realized how odd and true that might actually be.
Meredith laughed. “So it’s Mark you married. Explains volumes,” she said.
Derek groaned and Mark laughed, then a softer, “Thanks, Grey.”
Meredith nodded, then sat on Derek’s other side. “Do they look okay?” she asked.
“Absolutely,” Derek said. Then he took a closer look at the order. Meredith had basically used the force of all of Bailey’s former interns to insulate Lexie from Mark on one side and the two of them on the other. Interesting tactic, even just symbolically. “So Mark’s not allowed near Lexie even on the fireplace?” he asked her.
“Nope,” Meredith said, her eyes on Mark.
He expected Mark to shoot something back. Anything. Instead, Mark’s eyes dropped from hers to the floor. “You know, this was fun but I should …” Shit. If Mark hadn’t slept with Lexie, he was about to. Logically, Derek knew he had no business wondering about any of it. But he felt anger, irritation, something, flare in his gut. With Mark, boundaries, however arbitrary, were useless as usual.
No time to think on that though, as Izzie and Alex came through the door. Izzie gave a distracted, “Pretty, Mere” before bounding up the stairs. She’d barely looked.
“Shepherd, I’ll help with the lights later,” Alex said, before following quickly, almost as if Izzie would disappear if he didn’t. Alex clearly wasn’t having that.
“I can string Christmas lights. I’m a neurosurgeon, dammit,” Derek said to no one in particular.
“You say that like it means something,” Mark said, pulling his keys from his pocket. “See you tomorrow.” And he was out the door.
Meredith moved behind him, her fingers in his hair. She had gotten in the habit of sorting out her problems through his hair as much as he did. It felt good though. “Mark is screwing my little sister,” she said.
Don’t put it that way, he thought, rubbing a hand over his face. Since they were talking bad news… “Probably,” he said. “Izzie’s not okay.” And as a consequence, neither was Karev.
“I know,” she said, and for a second he wished he hadn’t said anything.
“Derek?”
“Hmm?” he asked, getting sleepy under her fingers.
“I love the tree,” she said, kissing his cheek. “Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas, Meredith.” It would be. No matter what.