All Along The Watchtower - Part 20.2B (Can you feel my love?)
Title: All Along The Watchtower
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Pairing: Mer/Der
Rating: M
Summary: S6 continuation. Immediately post Sanctuary / Death and All His Friends.
All Along The Watchtower - Part 20.2B
(Can you feel my love?)
He stirred after about thirty minutes and groggily smacked his lips. “Fell asleep,” he muttered against her skin.
She grinned and squeezed his shoulder. “You did. Feel better?”
“Hmm,” was all he said as he pulled away from her, blinking life back into himself, and whether that meant yes or no, she couldn't tell. He rubbed his face and looked slightly dazed. He ran his fingers through his flyaway curls, and she watched as he, at last, had a chance to assess his surroundings. His sleepy gaze traced the fireplace, and the shag rug, and the dinged coffee table. He looked behind them into the dining room, and beyond to the kitchen.
“Richard must be colorblind,” he decided after giving everything a lackadaisical once-over.
She chuckled. “That's common in men, you know.” She kissed him. “Both literally and figuratively.”
He shrugged, an amused look on his face. He glanced at the crooked lampshade beside him before turning to face her. “He kind of needs Adele to function,” he'd said.
He'd told her once about how the Chief had acted on their camping trip to the wilderness, what seemed like eons ago. When she and Derek had been taking some space or whatever because his sister Nancy had twisted him up in knots, which he'd also later explained. And she'd seen the Chief trying to peddle his clothes to be mended and ironed when he and Adele had been separated. And, really...
“He kind of does,” Meredith agreed. “I like it, though. It's very homey. Rustic, even. And it was really nice of him to offer it up for us.”
“It was,” Derek said. He glanced at the crooked lampshade once again, sighed, and reached to set it straight.
She smirked. Neat freak.
“It's got real food,” she said as he continued to look around. They'd been expecting soup and things in the pantry after Richard had said it was fully stocked. On the way there, Derek had suggested that they rough it with whatever was available tonight, and then buy fresh food in the morning after they'd gotten some sleep, and she'd agreed. “Apparently, the Chief had a neighbor drop by with some perishable stuff like fruit,” she continued. “Oh, and clean sheets and soap and stuff. There's a note on the fridge. It says call Ben if we have any problems, and there's a number on the sheet.”
He sniffed, and he gazed at her. The cloudiness of recent sleep had receded, leaving only sharp, aware blue. “Who's Ben?”
She shrugged. “I don't know. The grocery fairy neighbor?”
“Hmm,” he said, at which point, her stomach broke the silence with a burbling, obnoxious growl.
She blushed. “I guess I'm really hungry.”
He nodded, and he rose to his feet with a grimace and stiff movements that told her his body was still asleep, even if his mind wasn't. He wiped his face with his hands again, reached toward the ceiling and stretched, stared for a moment, and then swallowed. “Well, let's fix that,” he decided after a pause. “What was in the kitchen?”
“I don't know,” she said as she rose to join him. “Kitchen stuff.”
“Well, did the grocery fairy bring bread?”
“I don't know,” she said. “Maybe. I saw bananas.”
He glanced at her and gave her a wry grin. “Bananas are not bread,” he informed her. He shook his head and plodded into the kitchen. She followed.
“I know that,” she said. “I'm a doctor, you know.”
“A doctor who can't cook or identify bread, apparently,” he said with a soft chuckle as he pulled down a loaf of white Wonder Bread from the top of the refrigerator. The plastic crinkled. She hadn't even looked there. He stared at the package and grimaced. She couldn't help but smile. Not whole wheat. He would be slumming it with America's comfort food tonight.
“Normal people like crappy white bread, you know,” she said. She leaned against the counter and gave him a sheepish grin as she watched him explore the large kitchen.
“Normal people aren't healthy,” he countered with a haughty smirk. “That's why we're employed.” He rifled through all the cabinets and then glanced at what was in the fridge. Beyond his thin frame, she saw milk and eggs and OJ and a pile other things that looked potentially edible, given preparation.
“Why do you want bread?” she said.
He turned and winked. “The better to feed you with,” he said with a wolfish grin that lit up his whole face, and she wondered what that might mean. If he still wanted sex, now that he was feeling a bit better, after he plied her with a scrumptious dinner. Relief fluttered in her body. Even if she was over-interpreting, at least he felt better enough to smile like that. She just wished he could feel like that most of the time, again, rather than experiencing fleeting moments of normality.
Soon. She hoped. With Dr. Wyatt's help, and when the Paxil started to work.
She frowned as he pulled a jar of boysenberry jelly and some Skippy peanut butter from one of the cabinets. He pulled knives and plates loose next. “And that means...” she pondered as she stared and added everything together, “peanut butter and jelly?”
He nodded. “At this precise moment, it does.”
That hardly seemed like a healthy, scrumptious meal to ply her with. Good in a pinch. But more her style than his. “Derek Shepherd makes peanut butter and jelly?” she said with incredulity as she wrapped her arms around his waist.
“Yes,” he said. “Tonight, I do.”
She watched as he pulled out bread. Enough to make one sandwich. Not two. She frowned. He hadn't ever gotten his appetite back since the shooting. She still had to remind him to eat. Time and time again. Like it just didn't occur to him to feed himself anymore. How weird would that be, to just... not be hungry. Ever. Even as you wasted away. “You should make two sandwiches,” she said. She kissed his bicep.
“You're that hungry?” he said.
“No,” she said. “Make one for yourself.”
He didn't comment as he added two more slices of bread to the stack.
“That's not cooking, you know,” she said as he slathered peanut butter on the first slice.
He paused. “Did I say it was?”
“You impugned my cooking skills earlier.”
“You don't have any cooking skills to impugn,” he replied.
She laughed and held him tightly. “Mean, mean man,” she said as she pressed her face between his shoulder blades and kissed him through his shirt. The shirt felt soft against his lips, and his shoulder blades shifted and moved as he worked the peanut butter across the bread. The heat of his body made her feel warm inside. Warm and complete and happy.
“How is feeding my starving wife mean?”
“Come on. I can make a peanut butter sandwich,” she said. “You could have just pointed me at the kitchen and let me fix it myself.”
“I know. I just...” He paused. The knife clinked as he set it against the plate. He'd put peanut butter on two slices. “I wanted to...” He waved the knife in the air as he fought for the right words to explain his feelings. “But I don't think I'm up for elaborate right now.”
She pressed her cheek against him and sighed. She could understand that. He'd driven for several hours, which was tiring by itself. Then he'd been scared witless and beset by panic that he'd fought against. Valiantly. He didn't think he could do something complicated, but he wanted to do something. Something for her. Something to show his Gary Clark ghost and his damaged self-esteem that he could function. Live. Be a man. Provide. Normally, she might have labeled that sort of behavior as some sort of alpha caveman jerk thing. But... not now. He needed something to prove to himself he wasn't omega and helpless. That he wasn't without choices.
She kissed him through his shirt again, only to pause. He hadn't closed the cabinet. Beyond the space from which he'd pulled the jelly, she saw a stack of familiar-looking bags full of fat marshmallows. White, puffy cylinders of sugary awesome.
“Oh,” she exclaimed, and he stopped before he dipped his knife into the boysenberry jelly. “Oh, there's marshmallows in here!”
He raised his eyebrows at her as she pushed past him and grabbed one of the bags. He'd moved them into the kitchen, and he'd put the peanut butter on the bread. He'd done something. She hoped he wouldn't mind if she--
“So?” he said.
“We can make fluffernutters!”
“Fluffywhats?”
“Nutters.”
The lascivious snicker on his face made her roll her eyes, but she couldn't help her grin. “You are so freaking five, Derek,” she said. She gave him a light shove. “I can't take you anywhere.”
He laughed. “What are fluffernutters?” he said.
She ripped open the marshmallow bag and dumped out several of the marshmallows. They were the big kind that you could put on sticks and roast to make s'mores. She'd always used a fork and roasted them over a candle, though. While her mother wasn't looking, anyway. Ellis Grey probably wouldn't have appreciated her smallish daughter playing with fire, of all things. Then again, she'd approved of a suture kit for a present when Meredith had been ten.
Looking back on it, that was sort of bad, wasn't it? Meredith filed that away as something not to do with baby. No sharp knives before baby was old enough to drive. She shook her head as her mind wandered back to the situation at hand.
On a hunch, Meredith glanced again at the open cabinet. Yep. Graham crackers and milk chocolate Hershey bars stacked in the back behind where the marshmallows had been. A grin she couldn't stop overtook her. They could do those, later, though. She tore a couple marshmallows to bits while he watched, and then littered them on the first piece of peanut buttered bread.
“Marshmallows and peanut butter,” she explained as he watched her culinary burst with a touch of horror in his gaze. “Normally, we'd use marshmallow paste, which comes in a jar, actually, but marshmallows will have to do in the meantime.” She paused and turned to him. “Unless you want to nuke these, so they melt?”
His expression was comical, and she couldn't help but snort with laughter at the way he stared at her concoction. Like she'd ruined his perfect sandwich by putting mud on it instead of jelly. “Melt the marshmallows?” he said.
“Yep! Melt.”
“With peanut butter?” he said.
She nodded.
“That sounds...” He stared at the plate, looking thoroughly uninterested, and, maybe, a little sick.
“Bliss,” she said. “Bliss on bread. You have to try it.” She jammed the two pieces of bread together and shoved the sandwich at him. He frowned. “Come on. It won't kill you. I swear it won't. One bite.” When he didn't budge, she gave him a pout-y face she knew he had trouble resisting. “Please? Please, Derek? Try it? It's great. I swear!”
With a look of doubt, he took the sandwich from her hands and raised it to his lips. Her heart fluttered. Victory! She stared as he bit into it and chewed.
“So, what do you think?” she said, anxious.
“This is...” He made a face and handed it back to her. At least he swallowed. “This is pretty disgusting, Mere. You eat these? As meals?”
She frowned. “It's a delicacy!”
“It's... marshmallow-y.”
“Marshmallow-y,” she said. “That's all you have to say? What is wrong with your taste buds?”
He chuckled as he picked up his knife and resumed making his own sandwich. A normal, ho-hum PB&J that made her want to weep with the injustice of it all. “My taste buds are perfect, thank you,” he said.
She snorted. “Well, at least we know you're not completely defective, since we've established that you'll eat ice cream.”
He put a finishing dollop of boysenberry jelly on the last slice of bread and smooshed the two remaining slices together. She bit into her marshmallow sandwich and chomped, the motions pronounced, as if she could prove a point. He glanced at her and shook his head, an amused smirk on his face.
“Remind me never to let you feed our kid,” he said.
“I could so feed our kid!” she said. “I fed myself plenty when I was a kid. Therefore--”
His eyebrows raised. “You grew up on this?”
“I might have,” she said indignantly.
“It's really kind of a miracle that you're this tiny,” he said. He smirked, and his eyes roved her figure, up and down, appreciatively. “And alive.”
“You, shut up,” she said. “Jelly isn't that much healthier. It's solid sugar, and you're a hypocrite.”
He shrugged. His eyes sparkled as he bit into his sandwich and chewed his first bite. He swallowed. “I'm actually kind of jealous of you. You eat like a garbage disposal, but you're the size of a pea.”
She stuck her tongue out at him.
He laughed. “That's mature,” he said.
She put her sandwich down and slid up against him with a smile. His body accommodated her presence almost like a sixth sense. She didn't see him move, but she just... fit with him. Like an interlocking piece. He took another bite of his sandwich. “You know what would make this perfect?” she said. She kept her voice deep. A low purr.
“It's not perfect already?” he said. “I thought you called it bliss.”
She nodded. “It is bliss, but it could be blissier.”
He stared. “Blissier.”
“Yes,” she said. “It's a word.”
“A word you made up just now,” he said with a wink.
“Whatever,” she said, rolling her eyes. “More blissful. And we're never playing Scrabble, by the way.”
He pouted as he chewed. “Not even strip Scrabble?” he said around a mouthful of sticky peanut butter, as though he couldn't wait to empty his mouth for that complaint.
She shook her head. “Not even.”
He sighed with disappointment and swallowed. “So, what would make this more blissful?”
“Mmm,” she moaned. She pressed her lips against his cheek, in his space and close. His breaths tightened. She ran her fingers through his hair and hovered by his ear. “Pickles,” she whispered.
His eyes widened, and he dropped his sandwich on his plate. “Now?” he said, his tone incredulous, but what was funnier than his disbelief was the fact that she could tell he'd do it if she asked. Get pickles.
She couldn't stop herself from bursting out laughing. “No,” she said, and his body deflated with relief. She kissed him. He would have gone back outside into the terrifying pitch blackness, braved a panic attack, gotten back into the car, and driven to find a freaking supermarket. For pickles. Because she was pregnant. And she'd asked. And that was just... adorable. Adorable, and she loved him. “No, I just wanted to see the look on your face,” she said.
“And you say I'm mean,” he replied, his eyes twinkling.
She nodded as she rested her head against his shoulder. “You are, but I love you, anyway.”
He snickered. “No, I'd say you are. Abusing my willingness to get you odd food items in the wee hours.”
“Maybe, we're both despicable,” she said.
“You're despicable,” he said, a playful grin on his face. “I'm not despicable. I was willing to get you pickles. Now, I'm not so sure. I think, maybe, I'll pick another replacement thought.”
She pouted. “No more pickles?”
“Mmm. No. You've ruined pickles,” he informed her. His lip brushed her ear, and he left his sandwich behind on the counter. Forgotten. “I'll take you to bed,” he rumbled against her ear, and she shivered at his desirous tone.
“As your replacement thought?” she whispered. He kissed her, and she gasped.
“For real,” he said.
For a moment, she stood senseless as he kissed her. Again, again, again. His mouth trailed along her throat, up her chin, and to her lips. Tasting. Searching. Wanting. Needing. Taking. A groan fell from his body, telling her that he'd found his dinner for the night. His delicacy. She was in his arms. Warm and solid, and she forgot her sandwich, too. Where had she put it? She couldn't even remember setting it down. She-- He kissed her again, and she couldn't think about anything anymore, except the fact that she wanted him. She'd wanted him since he'd hit her with his first punch buggy sighting. Since before then, even. She'd always wanted him.
Since that first night in the bar when she'd tried to ignore him and his sexy red shirt and his horrible pickup lines and his cute arrogance. And, now, she had him. All to herself. No secret wife or nurse in the way. No mommy or daddy issues left to interfere. All whole and healed, herself. They were post-it married. And both breathtakingly alive with beating hearts and no physical wounds left to speak of. She was alone with him, and he was kissing her. Loving her.
She was his. She let him own her in that moment, and she liked it.
He backed her into the counter with a thud, pressed against her, dwarfed her. Retaking some ground in a war of love, she slid her hand along his soft shirt to the waistband of his pants and fingered the fat brass button that kept his lower body away from her and entrapped. She licked her lip and relished the taste of him. Derek-y with a bit of peanut butter and boysenberry.
She undid the top button of his jeans, and he groaned. She slipped her hands underneath the soft, fraying denim at his waistline, underneath the clinging waistband of his boxer briefs, and down. Down, down, down into warmth. Heat. He pressed against her and made a delightful, deep noise in his throat that told her yes. Yes, he liked that a lot. But he wasn't hard. At all. She cupped him, felt his weight in her hands, just like he liked, and he bucked a little. A plate clinked as he pushed her backward. She pressed her lips against his and swallowed his growl with a moan of her own. She stroked him, and he shuddered. But, still nothing.
“Derek, are you sure?” she said, her voice breathless, as she forced herself to pull away from his body enough to speak. The separation was a physical sort of pain, but the last thing she wanted was attempted sex that failed, because even though he'd pinky promised that he wouldn't get upset, she imagined he might get upset. Just a little. After the harrowing experience he'd had not even ninety minutes ago. And, if they failed, now, that didn't bode well for future attempts as his self-consciousness started to crush him like a bug.
“I was in the mood before,” he said. He pressed himself against her hand. She gripped him. Nothing. “Maybe, I can get back into it.”
She pulled her hand away and hugged him. She hated to say it. Not when her insides felt gooey and her breaths had shortened and she felt a bit dizzy with hedonist thoughts about making love to him, but, “Maybe, we should wait a bit,” she whispered.
He pressed his nose against hers and sighed. “I want to get back into the mood,” he said, his dark eyes millimeters from hers. “This yo-yoing kills me. Please, Meredith. I want to make love to my wife.”
“I'm not saying we can't,” she said. She kissed him. “But trying to force yourself to have sex after what just happened less than two hours ago wouldn't exactly help you with that emotional whiplash feeling.”
He sighed. His frustration made her bite her lip. He kissed her forehead. “I know,” he said, his voice tinged with regret. “I know that in my head, I just...” He shook his head and looked away, blinking. He growled with irritation, not lust.
“How about a bath instead of bed, first?” she said, a compromise.
He stared at her. “A bath?”
“Just to relax,” she said. She kissed him. “Maybe, play a little. We'll see how you feel afterward.”
“We don't even know if this place has a bath,” he said.
She frowned. “How could it not have a bath?”
“Because it's a cabin,” he said. “It might only have a shower.”
“I refuse to allow this cabin to have only a shower,” she said.
Derek chuckled. Soft. Not with gusto, but light amusement. “Too much like camping for you?” he said.
She made a face.
“Well, let's see, shall we?” he said. He grabbed her hand and pulled at her, and she relaxed as he consigned himself to this new non-lusty plan. Their footsteps thunked on the hardwood floor. There was an alcove to the left in the short hallway, where an old washer and dryer sat. The hallway ended in two doors, one on the right, and one at the end. The door on the right? Bingo. She flipped on the light. Bright circular bulbs flashed on over the vanity at the sink. A heat lamp in the ceiling also flicked on.
Her eyes widened as she stared. The shower was the size of a house by itself, or, well, a shed, at least. It was about six by six feet with sliding glass doors. Two fat metal shower heads the size of dinner plates pointed downward onto a tiled floor. And there was definitely a freaking tub.
“Oh,” she said with a gasp as she took in the sight of it all. Derek slid up behind her and peered into the room over her shoulder. “Oh, wow. This is...”
“A giant pit,” Derek said.
“A whirlpool tub,” she corrected as she stared at the huge platform by a large half-frosted window that looked out into darkness at the top. The tub looked like a small pool and was surrounded by a tile platform where they could stack towels and candles and other relevant things. Huge, fluffy white towels and washcloths adorned the shiny towel racks against the far wall, and the room smelled slightly of fresh soap. Her nostrils fluttered as she stared at the rose-colored bar of soap in the dish by the big window on the ledge around the tub. The soap matched the pastel-colored tiles.
I bought it sight unseen, the Chief had told her as he'd given her the keys. Almost as if he'd been a little embarrassed about it. She'd wondered why at the time. This bathroom? Probably why. It was obscene. And pink. And not a freaking bachelor pad bathroom by any stretch of the imagination.
“Definitely not what I was expecting,” Derek said, his voice airy.
“Oh, my god,” she said as she stared at the luxurious bathroom. Derek's grip tightened around her body. He kissed her ear. “I want to take a bath. Please, please, can we take a bath? It'll be fun and relaxing and... it's a whirlpool tub!” She turned into him and kissed his lips before he could reply. She bounced. Just a little. She couldn't help it. This was bounce-worthy.
“Are you sure it's safe?” he said when they parted. His gaze seemed apologetic, as though he were reluctant to dampen her excitement.
She frowned. “Why wouldn't it be safe?”
His warms hands roamed low against her belly. He rubbed her shirt. Instinct drove her to lean against him as he said in that soft voice of his, “The baby.”
“Oh,” she said. Her forehead crinkled with consternation. “Oh, um...” There was a freaking whirlpool tub, and if she couldn't take a freaking bath in it, she might cry. And then yell at him for his super-powered bully sperm. And, maybe, pout a little. But... “Well, I can't imagine it being bad if it's not too hot. Aren't the problems from... like... hot tubs?”
He shrugged. The concern in his gaze didn't lift. “I don't know. I fix brains, not unborn babies.”
Unborn babies couldn't sweat because they were swimming in a uterus. Hot tubs tended to cook unborn babies. A sliver of fear ran through her as she tried to remember the facts from her neonatal cases, some long ago with Addison. She couldn't remember any specifics as her mind raced for answers, and she had no way to check for information. She pouted at him. “Derek, I want the Internet.”
His gaze softened as he stared at her. “And a bath?”
“The Internet and a bath,” she said with a nod. “Yes.”
“Why don't you run the water?” he said. He gave her a so-so motion with his right hand. “Not too hot, yet.” He turned back toward the hallway. “I'll be back in a minute.”
She frowned. “Where are you going?”
He looked over his shoulder and winked. “Just... run the water,” he said, and he gave her a secretive smile that made her curious. The Internet was not like pickles. He couldn't just run to a convenience store for that. Could he?
She snickered as she imagined him wandering back into the bathroom tomorrow morning, bedraggled and tired as he dragged a new shiny laptop and a router in with him. Look, Mere, he'd say. I found a Best Buy. And it only took me eight hours and three laps around the lake!
“Okay...” she said, shaking off that image in her head as he disappeared down the hall. She leaned across the porcelain void, fiddled with the shiny hot and cold knobs, and let the water warm up from freezing. She stared at the pit as it filled with water and giggled with anticipation. A whirlpool tub! She licked her lips. A whirlpool tub. With Derek. She sat on the tile ledge around the tub and stared at the water as it swirled to fill the huge, bath-tubby abyss.
Derek returned in about five minutes. “It's safe as long as the water isn't hotter than you are, and we don't stay in it until we're shriveled prunes,” he announced as though he were quoting somebody directly. There was something familiar about his phrasing...
“So, we keep it low 90s and limit ourselves to less than thirty minutes or so?” she said.
He nodded. “Yes.”
“Where'd you find that out?” She combed her spread fingertips through the frothy water. It felt good. Not hot. Definitely not cold. Perfect. She turned on the jets. “Did you get me the Internet?”
He winked as he sat on the edge of the tub with her and pulled at his shoelaces and slipped off his shoes. “I'm a miracle man,” he said with an arrogant smirk.
She laughed. “No, really,” she said. “Where--”
“I called Miranda.”
She gaped. “Bailey?”
“I owe her charts for a month,” he said.
“For her telling us we can take a bath?”
He shrugged, but his eyes sparkled. “She doesn't like knowing I have sex, apparently.”
“But we're not having sex right now,” she said.
“We'll be naked in a bathtub,” he countered. “I think that's enough for her sensibilities. She says congratulations, by the way.” He frowned. “Or rather, 'Congratulations, fools. Now, leave me alone, so I can fix this poor man's liver and not think about the specifics of how that baby happened.'”
Meredith blinked at his impersonation. Really, he did a good job at it. “You called Bailey,” she said, not a question, yet. She glanced at her watch. “At 8:30 PM. To ask about unborn baby safety? How did you know she was working tonight?”
He shrugged and winked. “I didn't. I risked it. And I didn't break the cellphone rule, either. I used the land line.”
The fact that he knew Bailey's number by heart made Meredith smile. Dr. Bailey had visited him every day in the hospital for at least a few minutes, more than anybody else outside of his family and Mark. She'd even come across town once to see Derek when he'd been at Seattle Presbyterian with pneumonia. For all their claims to the contrary, those two were thick as thieves, and the fact that Derek had thought of Bailey instead when he probably knew Addison's number as well made Meredith smile more. Bailey wasn't a world-renowned neonatal specialist or an OB-GYN. She was, however, a mom and a doctor that he apparently trusted to know the answer.
“She likes you, you know,” Meredith said.
Derek grinned. “Everybody likes me,” he said. She rolled her eyes as he slid across the tiled ledge. Closer to her. He kissed her ear and whispered over the rushing water, “You like me.”
“I do,” she said. The tub was almost full. She bent to begin undressing, but he stopped her with a look. The look. His look. The one that made her feel special and loved and perfect despite all her flaws and all her problems and all her freakishness. She leaned into him and raised her arms as he lifted her shirt. His warm palms slid up her bare skin and cupped her breasts over her bra. She moaned as she relaxed into his arms. He undressed her as though he were unwrapping a present, intent on saving the paper because it was pretty and perfect, but he marveled over the present, too.
She stared through her eyelashes, drunk on the sensation of being pampered, as he put her socks on the pile with her pants and her shirt and her underwear and her bra. “Well,” she said as she languished at the side of the tub, “I'm naked. Now, what will you do with me?”
He grinned at her and let her watch as he undressed. Slowly, as if to tantalize her. She licked her lips as the blue of his threadbare shirt became pale skin, and his pants fell away from his slim hips into a denim pool on the floor. His biceps bunched and flexed as he moved. Curly, wispy hair dusted his torso in a triangle at his chest, covering most of the harrowing, pinkish scar where he'd been split open by Cristina. The bullet wound remained sharp and ugly and pocked under his left nipple, but... she barely saw it as she basked in the sight of his naked body.
He didn't seem to favor the marks left by his injuries anymore. Didn't hunch over them or hide them. He might not like them, but at least he'd grown a bit more comfortable with them, or at least comfortable with the fact that, even if he found them ugly, she wouldn't balk at them or look at his body with horror or pity. She looked at him, yes. But horror and pity were the last things on her mind.
Her mouth dried as she trailed along the flat plane of his stomach with her gaze, to the twist of dark curls below his belly button, and lower. Even flaccid, she found him pretty impressive, or maybe that was just the knowledge of what he could do with what he had. He wasn't small, not hardly. But he wasn't large, either. They fit, exactly as he'd said that day on the couch when they'd found out together that she was pregnant. They fit, and that was all that mattered to her. The toned swell of his quads and his sleek calves completed the picture. Artwork. Her body twitched, and she inhaled tightly in anticipation as she stared at the tapestry of him. Of Derek Shepherd.
All hers.
He flashed a grin at her, and her heart skipped. She swallowed, trying to recover her wits, but that was a hard thing to do when he looked at her like that. He had an irresistible smile, which was one of the reasons she loved when he was happy and at peace, and one of the reasons she hadn't been able to ignore him at the bar when she'd been just a girl, and he'd been just a guy.
They climbed into the warm water together and sank down to the bottom. The tub was deep, and the swirling, moving water enveloped her up to her shoulders. The water was warm, but not hot. Perfect. He spread his legs and pulled her against him between his knees, her back to his chest, where she rested, relaxing in his wet embrace. His kneecaps offered support for her arms. She gripped him, and she rubbed her thumbs against his shins. He sighed as she twisted her fingers with the soft, wet hairs peppering his legs.
He was still flaccid. She could feel him mashed at her lower back along her spine. That thought remained in a cobwebby corner of her mind, somewhere. Fleeting. But she stopped thinking about it so much when he lathered a washcloth and rubbed her with it until she thought she might slip down the drain when they unstopped it, boneless and fluid in the churning water.
“Thank you,” she said, her voice sleepy and soft as he worshiped her head to toe without involving a single kiss, a streak he then broke almost as if he'd read her mind. She felt his lips graze her throat, and she listened to his breathing, soft and sure, as he tasted her skin.
“For what?” he whispered by her ear. The washcloth rasped. Water dripped.
“Just... thank you,” she said. She let him do what he wanted. He'd worked her into a pile of goo, and she couldn't bring herself to care much beyond the fact that she didn't want the goo feeling to ever end. They hadn't done this in a while. Well, they'd taken a bath or two. But not like this.
He rubbed her nipples with his soapy thumbs until they perked. She moaned, and his touch slipped lower. He kissed her neck and rested the flat of his palms against her belly. Her stomach at first, and then he sidled lower and lower, until the edges of his pinkies brushed the wiry hair down there. She put her palms over his and held him close.
“Can you tell, yet?” she said.
The water sloshed as he shifted. Not enough to disturb her much. “That you're pregnant?” he said.
“Yeah, I mean...”
He nuzzled her. “Well, you can't possibly be more than six weeks along,” he said, his voice a soft slip of fur down her spine. She tingled. “We've only been having sex since mid-July.”
“I know,” she said. They'd missed the fireworks, she thought in a blur. The literal ones, anyway. How had they missed so much? “I still look the same to me. Even the so-called bustyness.”
“You're not that much bigger,” he said. His knees squeezed against her sides, and he cocooned her. “I told you I wouldn't have said anything, yet.”
“Still,” she said. She pressed his hands against her. “Can you tell?”
“I can't tell, yet,” he replied. “Other than the fact that since we found out, I can't look at you without knowing. I...” His voice trailed away. A soft noise filled her ear as she listened to him swallow. She turned her head and leaned back against his pale shoulder.
“What?”
She kissed his wet skin.
A sigh that moved her body with it rumbled through him. The water swirled around them. She watched the ripples chase along the filmy surface. Their bodies reflected in a soft shimmer. “You make me so happy,” he said, his voice thick and low and choked up with... everything.
She smiled as she languished in that feeling. That he loved her so much that he felt like that, just thinking about the fact that they'd made another person together in an act of love. She squeezed his hands. “You're not so bad yourself, you know,” she said.
“I love you so much,” he murmured.
She leaned, and she kissed his kneecap. Water dripped as she resettled. “Ditto,” she whispered.
Moments passed. The water sloshed, and the whirlpool jets whirred. “When do you think we...?” she began, soft words against his skin.
“Conceived?” he finished for her, as though he simply... understood. No matter what kind of freaky off-topic thing she could come up with, he would always get her. That was his thing. Getting her. She loved that about him.
“Yeah,” she said, swallowing.
“Hmm.”
“I think it was the night before the memorial,” she said. He'd been happy that night because he'd managed a bit more athleticism than their first few couplings since the shooting, and he hadn't needed any timeouts or assistance righting himself out of a position that caused him pain. She closed her eyes as she remembered the taste of him, and the sound of his soft groans as he filled her body to the brim. Her lower body fluttered at the simple thought of it. Of him. Filling her. Her breath caught.
As if he sensed her sudden desire, his hands moved. At first, she wanted to die with the abandonment as the warmth of his palms against her belly left her, but he slipped down through her forest of wiry curls and lower, and he touched her there. At the fluttery spot. She gasped, and she stiffened against him. “Derek,” she managed, her voice a choked whisper as he wrung her senses out like a wet washcloth.
He kissed her ear as he stroked her. Need built in her body, slow and coiling. “I think you're wrong,” he said, his voice low and challenging, and she couldn't think straight to ask him why or what about. He touched her, and she mewled in his arms.
“Derek,” she said again, helpless as he played her like his violin.
“I think it was the first time,” he said as she gasped and shuddered.
The first time, she thought. The words filled her brain like a soupy oatmeal and refused to coalesce. She couldn't think. She couldn't speak. She scrabbled at his knees, and he laughed against her ear as he leaned over her, his larger body dwarfing hers. He laughed, and the sound vibrated against her body like heady, thick music. Her head swirled like the water as she fought for breath. Air. Something.
His sigh rolled against her ear, and his arms enveloped her like a warm coat. He pulled her against his body, until her skin slipped against his, naked and wet and strangely frictionless in the slippery fluidity of the water. She sucked in a breath, leaned back, into him, and she couldn't breathe as her body tightened. She could only moan to tell him yes. Yes, that was good. That was perfect. She moaned like she was dying. Was she dying? Yes, yes, yes.
He kept her on that painful, perfect precipice for... hours. Days. Years. Eternity. He touched her, working his magic, and then she died in his arms for real, and yet only metaphorically. La petite mort. That was what the French called orgasms, right? Little deaths. It didn't freaking matter. The phrase was appropriate. Bliss squeezed her brain. Everything popped loose at once. Her body twitched like she'd been zapped with lightning, and then she became a pile of jelly and boneless limbs in his arms. Unmoving. Languishing in stupor. Pleased to the point of malfunctioning synapses. Her eyelids drooped, and he held her, not speaking.
This was the most perfect freaking bath. Ever.
She lay against his arms, not moving, and her awareness of the room blurred. Exhaustion overcame her. She'd just had the most amazing orgasm she could recall in months, and she'd been working nonstop all week, and she just... Couldn't. Couldn't do anything anymore but enjoy his body close to hers and let her brain shut down.
She moaned when he shifted, and he whispered gently in her ear, “Mere, we've been in here about forty minutes.”
Forty minutes? How? Already?
She didn't want to move. Or think. Or anything. He turned off the jets. The drain gurgled, and the warmth surrounding her drained away. He slipped his arms underneath her body, and the world skewed as he lifted her.
She had the presence of mind to croak at him. He hadn't lifted that much since before he'd been shot. “No,” she moaned. “You'll hurt...”
“I'm okay,” he said, his voice strained but even. He panted, but he didn't seem to struggle too much with her weight, and she stopped caring as much as he wrapped a billowing, fluffy towel around her lax body. The world skewed again.
“Derek...”
“Really, I'm okay,” he said, and he sounded sure, but not defiant, and no pain laced his tone. “I can carry you ten feet. Maybe, not eleven, though.”
She was too spent to argue, and she curled up in the towel and against his chest. In the blur, she thought she saw the hallway, and then things got dark again. Bedroom? He laid her flat on cool, clean sheets that smelled like Downy fabric softener or something. The mattress squeaked as he joined her. He pulled fluffy blankets and a soft, light down comforter over them. He wrapped his arms around her, spooning her. He stroked her hair, and he breathed against her ear. They lay naked together under the sheets.
Somewhere, in her grogginess, she flopped her hand against his bare hip, underneath the blankets. “Mmm,” she said. She felt him against her. Ready where he hadn't been before. Thick and pressed against her spine like a steel rod. “Sex?” She swallowed. “Don't mind.” She'd just lie there. He could still have fun.
He laughed. “I'll wait until you're conscious, if it's all the same to you.” He kissed her ear. “I'm okay.”
He meant it. She knew he meant it from his tone. He'd done more than make a freaking sandwich for her. He'd kicked his shoddy self-esteem's ass. He'd needed that, and he was happy. Pleased. Sated, though unsated.
She rolled, turning the spoon into a fork, and she pressed her nose into his chest. Soft fuzz tickled her nose. “Kay,” she muttered sleepily. She kissed him. Her lips touched the dent where his sternum had knitted underneath his skin. Her eyelids creaked open as she realized a bit more about their surroundings. He'd wrapped himself around her tightly like a cloak, her own personal Derek cloak, and though it was nice, it seemed it was also a necessity. “This bed is really small,” she said abruptly.
He kissed her again. “Yes,” he said. “Our very own microcosm.”
“Huh?”
“Bachelor pad, remember?” Derek said. The blankets rustled. “It's a double bed.”
She didn't wake up enough to contemplate it, much. They'd fit together in a hospital bed, and that'd been a single, though that had had railings, and... Did it matter? The room turned fuzzy again. The warmth of his body pulled her toward dreaming like quicksand. She yawned and breathed the musky, soapy, clean scent of his body. “If I'm right,” she said, “You have to eat a fluffernutter.”
He laughed, soft against her body. “Right about what?”
“I think it was the night before the memorial,” she murmured.
He stroked her back. “Okay, Mere,” he said.
“You'll eat one?”
She felt him nod. “If you're right,” he said.
“I am,” she replied.
“If I win,” he said, and she felt him smile in the darkness, “I'm eating you, though.”
She fell asleep in his arms to that thought, and dreams of him naked shimmered in her head like the reflections on the whirlpool water.
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Pairing: Mer/Der
Rating: M
Summary: S6 continuation. Immediately post Sanctuary / Death and All His Friends.
All Along The Watchtower - Part 20.2B
(Can you feel my love?)
He stirred after about thirty minutes and groggily smacked his lips. “Fell asleep,” he muttered against her skin.
She grinned and squeezed his shoulder. “You did. Feel better?”
“Hmm,” was all he said as he pulled away from her, blinking life back into himself, and whether that meant yes or no, she couldn't tell. He rubbed his face and looked slightly dazed. He ran his fingers through his flyaway curls, and she watched as he, at last, had a chance to assess his surroundings. His sleepy gaze traced the fireplace, and the shag rug, and the dinged coffee table. He looked behind them into the dining room, and beyond to the kitchen.
“Richard must be colorblind,” he decided after giving everything a lackadaisical once-over.
She chuckled. “That's common in men, you know.” She kissed him. “Both literally and figuratively.”
He shrugged, an amused look on his face. He glanced at the crooked lampshade beside him before turning to face her. “He kind of needs Adele to function,” he'd said.
He'd told her once about how the Chief had acted on their camping trip to the wilderness, what seemed like eons ago. When she and Derek had been taking some space or whatever because his sister Nancy had twisted him up in knots, which he'd also later explained. And she'd seen the Chief trying to peddle his clothes to be mended and ironed when he and Adele had been separated. And, really...
“He kind of does,” Meredith agreed. “I like it, though. It's very homey. Rustic, even. And it was really nice of him to offer it up for us.”
“It was,” Derek said. He glanced at the crooked lampshade once again, sighed, and reached to set it straight.
She smirked. Neat freak.
“It's got real food,” she said as he continued to look around. They'd been expecting soup and things in the pantry after Richard had said it was fully stocked. On the way there, Derek had suggested that they rough it with whatever was available tonight, and then buy fresh food in the morning after they'd gotten some sleep, and she'd agreed. “Apparently, the Chief had a neighbor drop by with some perishable stuff like fruit,” she continued. “Oh, and clean sheets and soap and stuff. There's a note on the fridge. It says call Ben if we have any problems, and there's a number on the sheet.”
He sniffed, and he gazed at her. The cloudiness of recent sleep had receded, leaving only sharp, aware blue. “Who's Ben?”
She shrugged. “I don't know. The grocery fairy neighbor?”
“Hmm,” he said, at which point, her stomach broke the silence with a burbling, obnoxious growl.
She blushed. “I guess I'm really hungry.”
He nodded, and he rose to his feet with a grimace and stiff movements that told her his body was still asleep, even if his mind wasn't. He wiped his face with his hands again, reached toward the ceiling and stretched, stared for a moment, and then swallowed. “Well, let's fix that,” he decided after a pause. “What was in the kitchen?”
“I don't know,” she said as she rose to join him. “Kitchen stuff.”
“Well, did the grocery fairy bring bread?”
“I don't know,” she said. “Maybe. I saw bananas.”
He glanced at her and gave her a wry grin. “Bananas are not bread,” he informed her. He shook his head and plodded into the kitchen. She followed.
“I know that,” she said. “I'm a doctor, you know.”
“A doctor who can't cook or identify bread, apparently,” he said with a soft chuckle as he pulled down a loaf of white Wonder Bread from the top of the refrigerator. The plastic crinkled. She hadn't even looked there. He stared at the package and grimaced. She couldn't help but smile. Not whole wheat. He would be slumming it with America's comfort food tonight.
“Normal people like crappy white bread, you know,” she said. She leaned against the counter and gave him a sheepish grin as she watched him explore the large kitchen.
“Normal people aren't healthy,” he countered with a haughty smirk. “That's why we're employed.” He rifled through all the cabinets and then glanced at what was in the fridge. Beyond his thin frame, she saw milk and eggs and OJ and a pile other things that looked potentially edible, given preparation.
“Why do you want bread?” she said.
He turned and winked. “The better to feed you with,” he said with a wolfish grin that lit up his whole face, and she wondered what that might mean. If he still wanted sex, now that he was feeling a bit better, after he plied her with a scrumptious dinner. Relief fluttered in her body. Even if she was over-interpreting, at least he felt better enough to smile like that. She just wished he could feel like that most of the time, again, rather than experiencing fleeting moments of normality.
Soon. She hoped. With Dr. Wyatt's help, and when the Paxil started to work.
She frowned as he pulled a jar of boysenberry jelly and some Skippy peanut butter from one of the cabinets. He pulled knives and plates loose next. “And that means...” she pondered as she stared and added everything together, “peanut butter and jelly?”
He nodded. “At this precise moment, it does.”
That hardly seemed like a healthy, scrumptious meal to ply her with. Good in a pinch. But more her style than his. “Derek Shepherd makes peanut butter and jelly?” she said with incredulity as she wrapped her arms around his waist.
“Yes,” he said. “Tonight, I do.”
She watched as he pulled out bread. Enough to make one sandwich. Not two. She frowned. He hadn't ever gotten his appetite back since the shooting. She still had to remind him to eat. Time and time again. Like it just didn't occur to him to feed himself anymore. How weird would that be, to just... not be hungry. Ever. Even as you wasted away. “You should make two sandwiches,” she said. She kissed his bicep.
“You're that hungry?” he said.
“No,” she said. “Make one for yourself.”
He didn't comment as he added two more slices of bread to the stack.
“That's not cooking, you know,” she said as he slathered peanut butter on the first slice.
He paused. “Did I say it was?”
“You impugned my cooking skills earlier.”
“You don't have any cooking skills to impugn,” he replied.
She laughed and held him tightly. “Mean, mean man,” she said as she pressed her face between his shoulder blades and kissed him through his shirt. The shirt felt soft against his lips, and his shoulder blades shifted and moved as he worked the peanut butter across the bread. The heat of his body made her feel warm inside. Warm and complete and happy.
“How is feeding my starving wife mean?”
“Come on. I can make a peanut butter sandwich,” she said. “You could have just pointed me at the kitchen and let me fix it myself.”
“I know. I just...” He paused. The knife clinked as he set it against the plate. He'd put peanut butter on two slices. “I wanted to...” He waved the knife in the air as he fought for the right words to explain his feelings. “But I don't think I'm up for elaborate right now.”
She pressed her cheek against him and sighed. She could understand that. He'd driven for several hours, which was tiring by itself. Then he'd been scared witless and beset by panic that he'd fought against. Valiantly. He didn't think he could do something complicated, but he wanted to do something. Something for her. Something to show his Gary Clark ghost and his damaged self-esteem that he could function. Live. Be a man. Provide. Normally, she might have labeled that sort of behavior as some sort of alpha caveman jerk thing. But... not now. He needed something to prove to himself he wasn't omega and helpless. That he wasn't without choices.
She kissed him through his shirt again, only to pause. He hadn't closed the cabinet. Beyond the space from which he'd pulled the jelly, she saw a stack of familiar-looking bags full of fat marshmallows. White, puffy cylinders of sugary awesome.
“Oh,” she exclaimed, and he stopped before he dipped his knife into the boysenberry jelly. “Oh, there's marshmallows in here!”
He raised his eyebrows at her as she pushed past him and grabbed one of the bags. He'd moved them into the kitchen, and he'd put the peanut butter on the bread. He'd done something. She hoped he wouldn't mind if she--
“So?” he said.
“We can make fluffernutters!”
“Fluffywhats?”
“Nutters.”
The lascivious snicker on his face made her roll her eyes, but she couldn't help her grin. “You are so freaking five, Derek,” she said. She gave him a light shove. “I can't take you anywhere.”
He laughed. “What are fluffernutters?” he said.
She ripped open the marshmallow bag and dumped out several of the marshmallows. They were the big kind that you could put on sticks and roast to make s'mores. She'd always used a fork and roasted them over a candle, though. While her mother wasn't looking, anyway. Ellis Grey probably wouldn't have appreciated her smallish daughter playing with fire, of all things. Then again, she'd approved of a suture kit for a present when Meredith had been ten.
Looking back on it, that was sort of bad, wasn't it? Meredith filed that away as something not to do with baby. No sharp knives before baby was old enough to drive. She shook her head as her mind wandered back to the situation at hand.
On a hunch, Meredith glanced again at the open cabinet. Yep. Graham crackers and milk chocolate Hershey bars stacked in the back behind where the marshmallows had been. A grin she couldn't stop overtook her. They could do those, later, though. She tore a couple marshmallows to bits while he watched, and then littered them on the first piece of peanut buttered bread.
“Marshmallows and peanut butter,” she explained as he watched her culinary burst with a touch of horror in his gaze. “Normally, we'd use marshmallow paste, which comes in a jar, actually, but marshmallows will have to do in the meantime.” She paused and turned to him. “Unless you want to nuke these, so they melt?”
His expression was comical, and she couldn't help but snort with laughter at the way he stared at her concoction. Like she'd ruined his perfect sandwich by putting mud on it instead of jelly. “Melt the marshmallows?” he said.
“Yep! Melt.”
“With peanut butter?” he said.
She nodded.
“That sounds...” He stared at the plate, looking thoroughly uninterested, and, maybe, a little sick.
“Bliss,” she said. “Bliss on bread. You have to try it.” She jammed the two pieces of bread together and shoved the sandwich at him. He frowned. “Come on. It won't kill you. I swear it won't. One bite.” When he didn't budge, she gave him a pout-y face she knew he had trouble resisting. “Please? Please, Derek? Try it? It's great. I swear!”
With a look of doubt, he took the sandwich from her hands and raised it to his lips. Her heart fluttered. Victory! She stared as he bit into it and chewed.
“So, what do you think?” she said, anxious.
“This is...” He made a face and handed it back to her. At least he swallowed. “This is pretty disgusting, Mere. You eat these? As meals?”
She frowned. “It's a delicacy!”
“It's... marshmallow-y.”
“Marshmallow-y,” she said. “That's all you have to say? What is wrong with your taste buds?”
He chuckled as he picked up his knife and resumed making his own sandwich. A normal, ho-hum PB&J that made her want to weep with the injustice of it all. “My taste buds are perfect, thank you,” he said.
She snorted. “Well, at least we know you're not completely defective, since we've established that you'll eat ice cream.”
He put a finishing dollop of boysenberry jelly on the last slice of bread and smooshed the two remaining slices together. She bit into her marshmallow sandwich and chomped, the motions pronounced, as if she could prove a point. He glanced at her and shook his head, an amused smirk on his face.
“Remind me never to let you feed our kid,” he said.
“I could so feed our kid!” she said. “I fed myself plenty when I was a kid. Therefore--”
His eyebrows raised. “You grew up on this?”
“I might have,” she said indignantly.
“It's really kind of a miracle that you're this tiny,” he said. He smirked, and his eyes roved her figure, up and down, appreciatively. “And alive.”
“You, shut up,” she said. “Jelly isn't that much healthier. It's solid sugar, and you're a hypocrite.”
He shrugged. His eyes sparkled as he bit into his sandwich and chewed his first bite. He swallowed. “I'm actually kind of jealous of you. You eat like a garbage disposal, but you're the size of a pea.”
She stuck her tongue out at him.
He laughed. “That's mature,” he said.
She put her sandwich down and slid up against him with a smile. His body accommodated her presence almost like a sixth sense. She didn't see him move, but she just... fit with him. Like an interlocking piece. He took another bite of his sandwich. “You know what would make this perfect?” she said. She kept her voice deep. A low purr.
“It's not perfect already?” he said. “I thought you called it bliss.”
She nodded. “It is bliss, but it could be blissier.”
He stared. “Blissier.”
“Yes,” she said. “It's a word.”
“A word you made up just now,” he said with a wink.
“Whatever,” she said, rolling her eyes. “More blissful. And we're never playing Scrabble, by the way.”
He pouted as he chewed. “Not even strip Scrabble?” he said around a mouthful of sticky peanut butter, as though he couldn't wait to empty his mouth for that complaint.
She shook her head. “Not even.”
He sighed with disappointment and swallowed. “So, what would make this more blissful?”
“Mmm,” she moaned. She pressed her lips against his cheek, in his space and close. His breaths tightened. She ran her fingers through his hair and hovered by his ear. “Pickles,” she whispered.
His eyes widened, and he dropped his sandwich on his plate. “Now?” he said, his tone incredulous, but what was funnier than his disbelief was the fact that she could tell he'd do it if she asked. Get pickles.
She couldn't stop herself from bursting out laughing. “No,” she said, and his body deflated with relief. She kissed him. He would have gone back outside into the terrifying pitch blackness, braved a panic attack, gotten back into the car, and driven to find a freaking supermarket. For pickles. Because she was pregnant. And she'd asked. And that was just... adorable. Adorable, and she loved him. “No, I just wanted to see the look on your face,” she said.
“And you say I'm mean,” he replied, his eyes twinkling.
She nodded as she rested her head against his shoulder. “You are, but I love you, anyway.”
He snickered. “No, I'd say you are. Abusing my willingness to get you odd food items in the wee hours.”
“Maybe, we're both despicable,” she said.
“You're despicable,” he said, a playful grin on his face. “I'm not despicable. I was willing to get you pickles. Now, I'm not so sure. I think, maybe, I'll pick another replacement thought.”
She pouted. “No more pickles?”
“Mmm. No. You've ruined pickles,” he informed her. His lip brushed her ear, and he left his sandwich behind on the counter. Forgotten. “I'll take you to bed,” he rumbled against her ear, and she shivered at his desirous tone.
“As your replacement thought?” she whispered. He kissed her, and she gasped.
“For real,” he said.
For a moment, she stood senseless as he kissed her. Again, again, again. His mouth trailed along her throat, up her chin, and to her lips. Tasting. Searching. Wanting. Needing. Taking. A groan fell from his body, telling her that he'd found his dinner for the night. His delicacy. She was in his arms. Warm and solid, and she forgot her sandwich, too. Where had she put it? She couldn't even remember setting it down. She-- He kissed her again, and she couldn't think about anything anymore, except the fact that she wanted him. She'd wanted him since he'd hit her with his first punch buggy sighting. Since before then, even. She'd always wanted him.
Since that first night in the bar when she'd tried to ignore him and his sexy red shirt and his horrible pickup lines and his cute arrogance. And, now, she had him. All to herself. No secret wife or nurse in the way. No mommy or daddy issues left to interfere. All whole and healed, herself. They were post-it married. And both breathtakingly alive with beating hearts and no physical wounds left to speak of. She was alone with him, and he was kissing her. Loving her.
She was his. She let him own her in that moment, and she liked it.
He backed her into the counter with a thud, pressed against her, dwarfed her. Retaking some ground in a war of love, she slid her hand along his soft shirt to the waistband of his pants and fingered the fat brass button that kept his lower body away from her and entrapped. She licked her lip and relished the taste of him. Derek-y with a bit of peanut butter and boysenberry.
She undid the top button of his jeans, and he groaned. She slipped her hands underneath the soft, fraying denim at his waistline, underneath the clinging waistband of his boxer briefs, and down. Down, down, down into warmth. Heat. He pressed against her and made a delightful, deep noise in his throat that told her yes. Yes, he liked that a lot. But he wasn't hard. At all. She cupped him, felt his weight in her hands, just like he liked, and he bucked a little. A plate clinked as he pushed her backward. She pressed her lips against his and swallowed his growl with a moan of her own. She stroked him, and he shuddered. But, still nothing.
“Derek, are you sure?” she said, her voice breathless, as she forced herself to pull away from his body enough to speak. The separation was a physical sort of pain, but the last thing she wanted was attempted sex that failed, because even though he'd pinky promised that he wouldn't get upset, she imagined he might get upset. Just a little. After the harrowing experience he'd had not even ninety minutes ago. And, if they failed, now, that didn't bode well for future attempts as his self-consciousness started to crush him like a bug.
“I was in the mood before,” he said. He pressed himself against her hand. She gripped him. Nothing. “Maybe, I can get back into it.”
She pulled her hand away and hugged him. She hated to say it. Not when her insides felt gooey and her breaths had shortened and she felt a bit dizzy with hedonist thoughts about making love to him, but, “Maybe, we should wait a bit,” she whispered.
He pressed his nose against hers and sighed. “I want to get back into the mood,” he said, his dark eyes millimeters from hers. “This yo-yoing kills me. Please, Meredith. I want to make love to my wife.”
“I'm not saying we can't,” she said. She kissed him. “But trying to force yourself to have sex after what just happened less than two hours ago wouldn't exactly help you with that emotional whiplash feeling.”
He sighed. His frustration made her bite her lip. He kissed her forehead. “I know,” he said, his voice tinged with regret. “I know that in my head, I just...” He shook his head and looked away, blinking. He growled with irritation, not lust.
“How about a bath instead of bed, first?” she said, a compromise.
He stared at her. “A bath?”
“Just to relax,” she said. She kissed him. “Maybe, play a little. We'll see how you feel afterward.”
“We don't even know if this place has a bath,” he said.
She frowned. “How could it not have a bath?”
“Because it's a cabin,” he said. “It might only have a shower.”
“I refuse to allow this cabin to have only a shower,” she said.
Derek chuckled. Soft. Not with gusto, but light amusement. “Too much like camping for you?” he said.
She made a face.
“Well, let's see, shall we?” he said. He grabbed her hand and pulled at her, and she relaxed as he consigned himself to this new non-lusty plan. Their footsteps thunked on the hardwood floor. There was an alcove to the left in the short hallway, where an old washer and dryer sat. The hallway ended in two doors, one on the right, and one at the end. The door on the right? Bingo. She flipped on the light. Bright circular bulbs flashed on over the vanity at the sink. A heat lamp in the ceiling also flicked on.
Her eyes widened as she stared. The shower was the size of a house by itself, or, well, a shed, at least. It was about six by six feet with sliding glass doors. Two fat metal shower heads the size of dinner plates pointed downward onto a tiled floor. And there was definitely a freaking tub.
“Oh,” she said with a gasp as she took in the sight of it all. Derek slid up behind her and peered into the room over her shoulder. “Oh, wow. This is...”
“A giant pit,” Derek said.
“A whirlpool tub,” she corrected as she stared at the huge platform by a large half-frosted window that looked out into darkness at the top. The tub looked like a small pool and was surrounded by a tile platform where they could stack towels and candles and other relevant things. Huge, fluffy white towels and washcloths adorned the shiny towel racks against the far wall, and the room smelled slightly of fresh soap. Her nostrils fluttered as she stared at the rose-colored bar of soap in the dish by the big window on the ledge around the tub. The soap matched the pastel-colored tiles.
I bought it sight unseen, the Chief had told her as he'd given her the keys. Almost as if he'd been a little embarrassed about it. She'd wondered why at the time. This bathroom? Probably why. It was obscene. And pink. And not a freaking bachelor pad bathroom by any stretch of the imagination.
“Definitely not what I was expecting,” Derek said, his voice airy.
“Oh, my god,” she said as she stared at the luxurious bathroom. Derek's grip tightened around her body. He kissed her ear. “I want to take a bath. Please, please, can we take a bath? It'll be fun and relaxing and... it's a whirlpool tub!” She turned into him and kissed his lips before he could reply. She bounced. Just a little. She couldn't help it. This was bounce-worthy.
“Are you sure it's safe?” he said when they parted. His gaze seemed apologetic, as though he were reluctant to dampen her excitement.
She frowned. “Why wouldn't it be safe?”
His warms hands roamed low against her belly. He rubbed her shirt. Instinct drove her to lean against him as he said in that soft voice of his, “The baby.”
“Oh,” she said. Her forehead crinkled with consternation. “Oh, um...” There was a freaking whirlpool tub, and if she couldn't take a freaking bath in it, she might cry. And then yell at him for his super-powered bully sperm. And, maybe, pout a little. But... “Well, I can't imagine it being bad if it's not too hot. Aren't the problems from... like... hot tubs?”
He shrugged. The concern in his gaze didn't lift. “I don't know. I fix brains, not unborn babies.”
Unborn babies couldn't sweat because they were swimming in a uterus. Hot tubs tended to cook unborn babies. A sliver of fear ran through her as she tried to remember the facts from her neonatal cases, some long ago with Addison. She couldn't remember any specifics as her mind raced for answers, and she had no way to check for information. She pouted at him. “Derek, I want the Internet.”
His gaze softened as he stared at her. “And a bath?”
“The Internet and a bath,” she said with a nod. “Yes.”
“Why don't you run the water?” he said. He gave her a so-so motion with his right hand. “Not too hot, yet.” He turned back toward the hallway. “I'll be back in a minute.”
She frowned. “Where are you going?”
He looked over his shoulder and winked. “Just... run the water,” he said, and he gave her a secretive smile that made her curious. The Internet was not like pickles. He couldn't just run to a convenience store for that. Could he?
She snickered as she imagined him wandering back into the bathroom tomorrow morning, bedraggled and tired as he dragged a new shiny laptop and a router in with him. Look, Mere, he'd say. I found a Best Buy. And it only took me eight hours and three laps around the lake!
“Okay...” she said, shaking off that image in her head as he disappeared down the hall. She leaned across the porcelain void, fiddled with the shiny hot and cold knobs, and let the water warm up from freezing. She stared at the pit as it filled with water and giggled with anticipation. A whirlpool tub! She licked her lips. A whirlpool tub. With Derek. She sat on the tile ledge around the tub and stared at the water as it swirled to fill the huge, bath-tubby abyss.
Derek returned in about five minutes. “It's safe as long as the water isn't hotter than you are, and we don't stay in it until we're shriveled prunes,” he announced as though he were quoting somebody directly. There was something familiar about his phrasing...
“So, we keep it low 90s and limit ourselves to less than thirty minutes or so?” she said.
He nodded. “Yes.”
“Where'd you find that out?” She combed her spread fingertips through the frothy water. It felt good. Not hot. Definitely not cold. Perfect. She turned on the jets. “Did you get me the Internet?”
He winked as he sat on the edge of the tub with her and pulled at his shoelaces and slipped off his shoes. “I'm a miracle man,” he said with an arrogant smirk.
She laughed. “No, really,” she said. “Where--”
“I called Miranda.”
She gaped. “Bailey?”
“I owe her charts for a month,” he said.
“For her telling us we can take a bath?”
He shrugged, but his eyes sparkled. “She doesn't like knowing I have sex, apparently.”
“But we're not having sex right now,” she said.
“We'll be naked in a bathtub,” he countered. “I think that's enough for her sensibilities. She says congratulations, by the way.” He frowned. “Or rather, 'Congratulations, fools. Now, leave me alone, so I can fix this poor man's liver and not think about the specifics of how that baby happened.'”
Meredith blinked at his impersonation. Really, he did a good job at it. “You called Bailey,” she said, not a question, yet. She glanced at her watch. “At 8:30 PM. To ask about unborn baby safety? How did you know she was working tonight?”
He shrugged and winked. “I didn't. I risked it. And I didn't break the cellphone rule, either. I used the land line.”
The fact that he knew Bailey's number by heart made Meredith smile. Dr. Bailey had visited him every day in the hospital for at least a few minutes, more than anybody else outside of his family and Mark. She'd even come across town once to see Derek when he'd been at Seattle Presbyterian with pneumonia. For all their claims to the contrary, those two were thick as thieves, and the fact that Derek had thought of Bailey instead when he probably knew Addison's number as well made Meredith smile more. Bailey wasn't a world-renowned neonatal specialist or an OB-GYN. She was, however, a mom and a doctor that he apparently trusted to know the answer.
“She likes you, you know,” Meredith said.
Derek grinned. “Everybody likes me,” he said. She rolled her eyes as he slid across the tiled ledge. Closer to her. He kissed her ear and whispered over the rushing water, “You like me.”
“I do,” she said. The tub was almost full. She bent to begin undressing, but he stopped her with a look. The look. His look. The one that made her feel special and loved and perfect despite all her flaws and all her problems and all her freakishness. She leaned into him and raised her arms as he lifted her shirt. His warm palms slid up her bare skin and cupped her breasts over her bra. She moaned as she relaxed into his arms. He undressed her as though he were unwrapping a present, intent on saving the paper because it was pretty and perfect, but he marveled over the present, too.
She stared through her eyelashes, drunk on the sensation of being pampered, as he put her socks on the pile with her pants and her shirt and her underwear and her bra. “Well,” she said as she languished at the side of the tub, “I'm naked. Now, what will you do with me?”
He grinned at her and let her watch as he undressed. Slowly, as if to tantalize her. She licked her lips as the blue of his threadbare shirt became pale skin, and his pants fell away from his slim hips into a denim pool on the floor. His biceps bunched and flexed as he moved. Curly, wispy hair dusted his torso in a triangle at his chest, covering most of the harrowing, pinkish scar where he'd been split open by Cristina. The bullet wound remained sharp and ugly and pocked under his left nipple, but... she barely saw it as she basked in the sight of his naked body.
He didn't seem to favor the marks left by his injuries anymore. Didn't hunch over them or hide them. He might not like them, but at least he'd grown a bit more comfortable with them, or at least comfortable with the fact that, even if he found them ugly, she wouldn't balk at them or look at his body with horror or pity. She looked at him, yes. But horror and pity were the last things on her mind.
Her mouth dried as she trailed along the flat plane of his stomach with her gaze, to the twist of dark curls below his belly button, and lower. Even flaccid, she found him pretty impressive, or maybe that was just the knowledge of what he could do with what he had. He wasn't small, not hardly. But he wasn't large, either. They fit, exactly as he'd said that day on the couch when they'd found out together that she was pregnant. They fit, and that was all that mattered to her. The toned swell of his quads and his sleek calves completed the picture. Artwork. Her body twitched, and she inhaled tightly in anticipation as she stared at the tapestry of him. Of Derek Shepherd.
All hers.
He flashed a grin at her, and her heart skipped. She swallowed, trying to recover her wits, but that was a hard thing to do when he looked at her like that. He had an irresistible smile, which was one of the reasons she loved when he was happy and at peace, and one of the reasons she hadn't been able to ignore him at the bar when she'd been just a girl, and he'd been just a guy.
They climbed into the warm water together and sank down to the bottom. The tub was deep, and the swirling, moving water enveloped her up to her shoulders. The water was warm, but not hot. Perfect. He spread his legs and pulled her against him between his knees, her back to his chest, where she rested, relaxing in his wet embrace. His kneecaps offered support for her arms. She gripped him, and she rubbed her thumbs against his shins. He sighed as she twisted her fingers with the soft, wet hairs peppering his legs.
He was still flaccid. She could feel him mashed at her lower back along her spine. That thought remained in a cobwebby corner of her mind, somewhere. Fleeting. But she stopped thinking about it so much when he lathered a washcloth and rubbed her with it until she thought she might slip down the drain when they unstopped it, boneless and fluid in the churning water.
“Thank you,” she said, her voice sleepy and soft as he worshiped her head to toe without involving a single kiss, a streak he then broke almost as if he'd read her mind. She felt his lips graze her throat, and she listened to his breathing, soft and sure, as he tasted her skin.
“For what?” he whispered by her ear. The washcloth rasped. Water dripped.
“Just... thank you,” she said. She let him do what he wanted. He'd worked her into a pile of goo, and she couldn't bring herself to care much beyond the fact that she didn't want the goo feeling to ever end. They hadn't done this in a while. Well, they'd taken a bath or two. But not like this.
He rubbed her nipples with his soapy thumbs until they perked. She moaned, and his touch slipped lower. He kissed her neck and rested the flat of his palms against her belly. Her stomach at first, and then he sidled lower and lower, until the edges of his pinkies brushed the wiry hair down there. She put her palms over his and held him close.
“Can you tell, yet?” she said.
The water sloshed as he shifted. Not enough to disturb her much. “That you're pregnant?” he said.
“Yeah, I mean...”
He nuzzled her. “Well, you can't possibly be more than six weeks along,” he said, his voice a soft slip of fur down her spine. She tingled. “We've only been having sex since mid-July.”
“I know,” she said. They'd missed the fireworks, she thought in a blur. The literal ones, anyway. How had they missed so much? “I still look the same to me. Even the so-called bustyness.”
“You're not that much bigger,” he said. His knees squeezed against her sides, and he cocooned her. “I told you I wouldn't have said anything, yet.”
“Still,” she said. She pressed his hands against her. “Can you tell?”
“I can't tell, yet,” he replied. “Other than the fact that since we found out, I can't look at you without knowing. I...” His voice trailed away. A soft noise filled her ear as she listened to him swallow. She turned her head and leaned back against his pale shoulder.
“What?”
She kissed his wet skin.
A sigh that moved her body with it rumbled through him. The water swirled around them. She watched the ripples chase along the filmy surface. Their bodies reflected in a soft shimmer. “You make me so happy,” he said, his voice thick and low and choked up with... everything.
She smiled as she languished in that feeling. That he loved her so much that he felt like that, just thinking about the fact that they'd made another person together in an act of love. She squeezed his hands. “You're not so bad yourself, you know,” she said.
“I love you so much,” he murmured.
She leaned, and she kissed his kneecap. Water dripped as she resettled. “Ditto,” she whispered.
Moments passed. The water sloshed, and the whirlpool jets whirred. “When do you think we...?” she began, soft words against his skin.
“Conceived?” he finished for her, as though he simply... understood. No matter what kind of freaky off-topic thing she could come up with, he would always get her. That was his thing. Getting her. She loved that about him.
“Yeah,” she said, swallowing.
“Hmm.”
“I think it was the night before the memorial,” she said. He'd been happy that night because he'd managed a bit more athleticism than their first few couplings since the shooting, and he hadn't needed any timeouts or assistance righting himself out of a position that caused him pain. She closed her eyes as she remembered the taste of him, and the sound of his soft groans as he filled her body to the brim. Her lower body fluttered at the simple thought of it. Of him. Filling her. Her breath caught.
As if he sensed her sudden desire, his hands moved. At first, she wanted to die with the abandonment as the warmth of his palms against her belly left her, but he slipped down through her forest of wiry curls and lower, and he touched her there. At the fluttery spot. She gasped, and she stiffened against him. “Derek,” she managed, her voice a choked whisper as he wrung her senses out like a wet washcloth.
He kissed her ear as he stroked her. Need built in her body, slow and coiling. “I think you're wrong,” he said, his voice low and challenging, and she couldn't think straight to ask him why or what about. He touched her, and she mewled in his arms.
“Derek,” she said again, helpless as he played her like his violin.
“I think it was the first time,” he said as she gasped and shuddered.
The first time, she thought. The words filled her brain like a soupy oatmeal and refused to coalesce. She couldn't think. She couldn't speak. She scrabbled at his knees, and he laughed against her ear as he leaned over her, his larger body dwarfing hers. He laughed, and the sound vibrated against her body like heady, thick music. Her head swirled like the water as she fought for breath. Air. Something.
His sigh rolled against her ear, and his arms enveloped her like a warm coat. He pulled her against his body, until her skin slipped against his, naked and wet and strangely frictionless in the slippery fluidity of the water. She sucked in a breath, leaned back, into him, and she couldn't breathe as her body tightened. She could only moan to tell him yes. Yes, that was good. That was perfect. She moaned like she was dying. Was she dying? Yes, yes, yes.
He kept her on that painful, perfect precipice for... hours. Days. Years. Eternity. He touched her, working his magic, and then she died in his arms for real, and yet only metaphorically. La petite mort. That was what the French called orgasms, right? Little deaths. It didn't freaking matter. The phrase was appropriate. Bliss squeezed her brain. Everything popped loose at once. Her body twitched like she'd been zapped with lightning, and then she became a pile of jelly and boneless limbs in his arms. Unmoving. Languishing in stupor. Pleased to the point of malfunctioning synapses. Her eyelids drooped, and he held her, not speaking.
This was the most perfect freaking bath. Ever.
She lay against his arms, not moving, and her awareness of the room blurred. Exhaustion overcame her. She'd just had the most amazing orgasm she could recall in months, and she'd been working nonstop all week, and she just... Couldn't. Couldn't do anything anymore but enjoy his body close to hers and let her brain shut down.
She moaned when he shifted, and he whispered gently in her ear, “Mere, we've been in here about forty minutes.”
Forty minutes? How? Already?
She didn't want to move. Or think. Or anything. He turned off the jets. The drain gurgled, and the warmth surrounding her drained away. He slipped his arms underneath her body, and the world skewed as he lifted her.
She had the presence of mind to croak at him. He hadn't lifted that much since before he'd been shot. “No,” she moaned. “You'll hurt...”
“I'm okay,” he said, his voice strained but even. He panted, but he didn't seem to struggle too much with her weight, and she stopped caring as much as he wrapped a billowing, fluffy towel around her lax body. The world skewed again.
“Derek...”
“Really, I'm okay,” he said, and he sounded sure, but not defiant, and no pain laced his tone. “I can carry you ten feet. Maybe, not eleven, though.”
She was too spent to argue, and she curled up in the towel and against his chest. In the blur, she thought she saw the hallway, and then things got dark again. Bedroom? He laid her flat on cool, clean sheets that smelled like Downy fabric softener or something. The mattress squeaked as he joined her. He pulled fluffy blankets and a soft, light down comforter over them. He wrapped his arms around her, spooning her. He stroked her hair, and he breathed against her ear. They lay naked together under the sheets.
Somewhere, in her grogginess, she flopped her hand against his bare hip, underneath the blankets. “Mmm,” she said. She felt him against her. Ready where he hadn't been before. Thick and pressed against her spine like a steel rod. “Sex?” She swallowed. “Don't mind.” She'd just lie there. He could still have fun.
He laughed. “I'll wait until you're conscious, if it's all the same to you.” He kissed her ear. “I'm okay.”
He meant it. She knew he meant it from his tone. He'd done more than make a freaking sandwich for her. He'd kicked his shoddy self-esteem's ass. He'd needed that, and he was happy. Pleased. Sated, though unsated.
She rolled, turning the spoon into a fork, and she pressed her nose into his chest. Soft fuzz tickled her nose. “Kay,” she muttered sleepily. She kissed him. Her lips touched the dent where his sternum had knitted underneath his skin. Her eyelids creaked open as she realized a bit more about their surroundings. He'd wrapped himself around her tightly like a cloak, her own personal Derek cloak, and though it was nice, it seemed it was also a necessity. “This bed is really small,” she said abruptly.
He kissed her again. “Yes,” he said. “Our very own microcosm.”
“Huh?”
“Bachelor pad, remember?” Derek said. The blankets rustled. “It's a double bed.”
She didn't wake up enough to contemplate it, much. They'd fit together in a hospital bed, and that'd been a single, though that had had railings, and... Did it matter? The room turned fuzzy again. The warmth of his body pulled her toward dreaming like quicksand. She yawned and breathed the musky, soapy, clean scent of his body. “If I'm right,” she said, “You have to eat a fluffernutter.”
He laughed, soft against her body. “Right about what?”
“I think it was the night before the memorial,” she murmured.
He stroked her back. “Okay, Mere,” he said.
“You'll eat one?”
She felt him nod. “If you're right,” he said.
“I am,” she replied.
“If I win,” he said, and she felt him smile in the darkness, “I'm eating you, though.”
She fell asleep in his arms to that thought, and dreams of him naked shimmered in her head like the reflections on the whirlpool water.