(no subject)
Title: Give Me A Chance To Miss You
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Characters/Pairings: Meredith/Derek, Izzie, Cristina, Alex
Word Count: 1,140
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: #33 - Too Much for fanfic100
Author's Note: This is for all the MerDer fans on my flist that suffer through all my Alex/Izzie fic without any relief. I finally wrote something non-angsty (or sort of) for you guys.
Summary: It's a big house, with only two people in it, and yet somehow they manage to be in each other's space and, more often than not, each other's way.
It’s a big house. Bigger than her old house, which wasn’t small by any means, considering it comfortably house three or four people on a normal day.
But.
There’s always a but.
It’s a big house, with only two people in it, and yet somehow they manage to be in each other’s space and, more often than not, each other’s way.
They’re moved in three days before she’s spending the better part of the evening, right up until last call, according to Alex, who drove her home, at Joe’s because it’s just too much closeness. The hospital, same shifts, and then home, and it’s nothing like when he was just spending the night. Then he’d have to go home to change or something. Now this is home. For both of them.
And it’s driving her crazy.
On the eighth day, it becomes more than a nuisance. It becomes a problem.
“I just always shower before breakfast.” She says, standing half-dressed in the kitchen where he’s almost done cooking.
“You woke up late.” He reminds her which, yes, she did, because the alarm clock is apparently out of batteries, but that doesn’t mean she can’t still do both. The same way she always does specifically.
She shrugs, itching for the warm spray against her skin. “It’ll only take me ten minutes.”
“I’ll be done in three.”
“Well then eat yours. I’ll get mine when I’m done.”
“It’ll be cold.”
“That’s what the microwave is for.”
He frowns at her. “Is this why you lived on cold pizza and leftover grilled cheese?”
“This is exactly why.” Which isn’t far from the truth. She just isn’t a big, elaborate breakfast person. She doesn’t have time for it. If anything it’s cereal or toast these days. “I thought you were into the whole Muesli thing.”
“I wasn’t going to fight your roommates for the kitchen.” She opens her mouth to answer, something about the few times she’d made breakfast, but a hand silenced her. “And you make a much better surgeon than a cook.”
“Nice save.”
“I try.”
“I’m still showering.”
“Fine. But you’re missing out.”
She ends up in the shower for twenty. By the time she gets back downstairs he’s already left and breakfast is cold on the counter.
---
Derek isn’t much for the television. The late night talk shows she keeps on low bother him more often than not.
“You can’t even hear that.”
“No but if I watch it for long enough it’ll bore me to sleep.”
“You’re not tired?” He sounds incredulous. “Seven hours in surgery and you’re not tired.”
“I don’t know why. I’m just...awake.” She gets like that sometimes. It used to be late night talks with Cristina that would help her mellow out and drift off. Now that isn’t an option; even by phone it just isn’t the same.
He moves closer, letting his lips find her neck, kissing up her jawline, finally her lips. She gives in easily, brings her hand up to his face, feeling his five o’clock shadow (and then some) scratch at her palm as she does, and deepens the kiss.
After, he drops off almost immediately (sex will do that to you) but she lies awake with the television on mute and an anxious feeling in her gut.
---
“You changed shifts?” He catches her in the halls of Seattle Grace two days later.
She almost asks ‘who’, but figures it out herself. “The Chief told you?”
“Richard told me.”
“I just felt like going in earlier a few times a week. And I figured he wouldn’t mind.” Meredith lies. She just wanted to do something about their constantly converging shifts.
He gets this look, probably one of worry, as he asks, “Is something wrong?”
“No.” She tells him, shaking her head for effect, and it isn’t hard to figure out that he doesn’t believe her. No sane person wants to get up any earlier than they have to. At the moment, she doesn’t care. “Anyway, I’ve got to go take care of Mrs. Mendel’s labs, so I better go.”
“Yeah.” He says, with a nod. “Okay. I’ll see you at home.”
It just makes her walk faster on the way down the hall.
Away.
---
“Trouble in paradise?” Cristina asks, just from the look on Meredith’s face, apparently.
Meredith takes a moment out from stabbing at her salad to nod to Alex, with a, “that’s what he said.”
Cristina actually glares at him.
“Why does everyone keep saying that anyway?”
“Because it’s true.” Izzie offers up, and Alex nods right along with her. Of course he does.
“Yeah, see, this is why it took me so long to move in with Burke. It only causes problems.” And everyone knows arguing that point with Cristina is like shoveling the dirt straight up so no one says a word.
“We’re together all the time. I mean he knows I don’t do well with relationships. Now we go from occasionally spending the night to living and working together twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.”
“You did it with those two.” Cristina nods to the tables only other occupants.
“I wasn’t sleeping with them too.”
“Never asked.” Alex mutters, half-under his breath. All three of the girls give him some version of a glare. He doesn’t even flinch.
“So move out.” Cristina tells her, after a moment.
“He built a house. I can’t just move out. This isn’t a trial period.”
“Not technically.”
“Cristina.”
“What, you asked?”
“Maybe you should just tell him.” Izzie says.
“How?”
Alex doesn’t miss a beat as he replies, “Get out of my face.”
“Tell him you just want some alone time. That it’s too much too fast.” Is Izzie’s much more agreeable suggestion.
Meredith looks at Cristina, expecting a suggestion from her as well. Taking the hint, Cristina shrugs. “I liked his.”
Wonderful.
---
“Why didn’t you say something earlier?”
She has to admit, he takes it much better than she figured he would. Less of an insult, more of an ‘I can’t get over my own neuroses right away’ type thing. Which is how it’s meant.
“You didn’t have to hide it. You’re supposed to be able to tell me these things.”
Meredith doesn’t really have an answer for him other than, “it sounded stupid.”
His smile is reassuring but he doesn’t say anything else, and that puts her on edge.
“We don’t exactly excel at this couple thing do we?”
“No.” And he’s laughing; that’s a good sign, right? “But we’re working on it.”
“So you get it?”
He pauses for a moment, in thought, and then slowly nods. “I think so. We’ll just...try to ease into this, right?”
She lets out a breath. “Right.”
When he puts an arm around her shoulders, pulls her to him, somehow she knows they’ll make it.