Lightning Strikes Twice - Part 28
Title: Lightning Strikes Twice
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Pairing: Duh. (Mer/Der)
Rating: M
Timeline: Post Time After Time.
Wow. I said hopefully 1-2 days. I didn't promise :) Sorry to all my poor victi--err... Readers in withdrawal. I haven't even started part 29 yet, but they might actually get back to the damed hotel room. Someday. Stupid burgeoning parts and their stupid explosive wordiness.
~~~~~
Three hours later, Meredith and Derek left the little shop. Meredith held the tiny bag in her hands, and, through the plastic, tightly clutched her fist around the small, velveteen, hinged box that sheltered her new ring. "By the way," Derek said, his hand against the small of her back as he guided her out the door, "Don't buy any jewelry in the diamond district unless you get a good referral. For future reference. And thus ends our first stop on the Meredith does Manhattan tour, which I'm hoping will become X-rated before the end of the night. Hotel room and everything. Shame to pass that up."
The words barely registered. She clenched her fingers around the tiny little box. Ring. Ring. Ring. She'd gotten a ring! And it was in the little box in her hand. And it was... It was...
Perfect.
They walked through the crush of people, getting bumped and jostled. Ring. Her fingers tightened, and she darted to the side of the walk, into a little alcove in the shade, away from the flow of moving bodies.
Biting her lip, she pushed the bag at him. His fingers brushed hers, and he looked at her with a questioning expression as his larger hand eclipsed her smaller one. "A prop to help you with the knee thing," she explained. Her breath caught when she fell into his gaze. She smiled. "Plus, you're less likely to get mugged."
He chuckled. "Okay," he said, his voice low and soothing, yet reverential and desirous all at once. "But I pity the mugger that falls for your cute and tiny routine. He'd probably limp away minus a limb, and no purse to show for it." He pulled the ring box out of the bag and stuffed it into his jeans pocket. It made a little bulge, just under the hem of his sweater, but it was otherwise hidden from sight. She stared for a moment, marveling at it. The ring. A ring. She had a ring. And it was perfect.
Derek cleared his throat. "Which package are you looking at?" he said, a smirk slanting his lips into a naughty expression.
She ignored his innuendo. If she didn't ignore it, she would probably end up jumping him right there. Manhattan or no, that would probably not be considered appropriate. She'd already seen at least one Girl Scout tour group. So, no. Definitely not appropriate. Meredith does Manhattan was only allowed to hedge into adult territory during the finale. Where there would be decidedly no Girl Scouts, people with cameras, or anything else that would make something X-rated a bit more kinky than even she intended.
She licked her lips and shook her head, forcing her gaze up. She hopped a little on her feet as a sudden zing of exhilaration ran up her spine. "I got a ring," she stated proudly.
His smirk changed into something genuine, something loving, not arrogant, and it made her want to melt inside. Hell, she was already melting. Melting, melted, puddle Meredith.
"You did," he replied, his voice low and husky as he slipped into her personal space, and his body heat collided with her own. She wrapped her arms around him, ignoring the claps of feet striking pavement all around them, the hustle, the groan of cars motoring past.
"You got me a ring," she corrected, breathing into the soft, fuzzy weave of his dark blue sweater. The temperature around them was perfect and balmy, the kind that let you go outside without a jacket, but was just right for an extra layer to be worn without feeling uncomfortable. And the blue... Mmm. Blue was definitely his color. Dark but vibrant blue. It made his eyes seem almost... electric. His eyes...
"Hey," she said, trying to keep her elation in check. "You can see?"
He winced and frowned. "It's shady here," he replied. His expression softened back into a smile as he watched her.
"Oh." Said elation shrunk, only to wind back up again in a slow, glorious buildup as he stood there, arms wrapped around her, warm, perfect, smelling clean and sharp like his aftershave, a welcome relief from the assault of some of the city's less attractive odors. She smiled into his sweater, ran her fingers up and down his chest.
"Thank you," she whispered when she felt like she would explode with the buzz that was slowly overwhelming her. "For the ring."
"Mmm-hmmm," he mumbled into the hair over her ear as he leaned down. His cheek brushed the side of her face as he pressed his lips onto the space just above her ear. His fingers snaked through the loose bits of her hair, which hung half in a ponytail, half free falling down her back.
The realness of the situation didn't hit her, really. Rather, it moved in like a changing season. Gradual. It started in the back of her head like a whisper at first, subtle fingers slipping through her thoughts in a caress as soft as Derek's hands in her hair. The whisper coalesced into something more solid, more substantial. Murmured words in a poetry reading, growing in volume, growing, growing until it was an endless, pounding thing. Everything blossomed. She smiled as she clutched at him. Really smiled. And damned if she could shut it off.
"I'm really happy," she observed. The tiny voice, the one that would have said, what's wrong with me? It was strangely silent. "Really, really."
The flat of his palm ran down the curve of her spine. "It's allowed, Meredith," he assured her. "You're allowed."
She sighed. When Derek had pulled her into the shop, she hadn't really gotten it at first. She'd seen the rows and rows of sparkly things, sparkly, expensive things, and had blankly thought... Jewelry. There's jewelry here. And then came... why? Her mind had been utterly silent and noncontributory as the bits of clues floated around like pieces in a sprawling, unsolved jigsaw puzzle. It really shouldn't have been that complicated. But...
She'd sat there as Eamon had brought out ring after ring after ring to the countertop. Derek had hovered back a few panels away, almost as if he were afraid having him loitering over her shoulder might spook her out of letting him buy her something so... huge. But, really, she hadn't needed Derek to spook her. She'd spooked herself.
She'd sat there thinking, crap, there's thousands of dollars of stuff on this table. A scrub cap was one thing. A ring that would very possibly take an actual chunk out of his salary depending how extravagant she got... That was a whole different thing. A whole different realm. A whole different freaking dimension of seriousness. And what had floored her even more was that he hadn't even set a price range. She had been sure that there were things in that store that could really, really hurt him in the financial department, no matter how much of a god he was in the surgical arena, no matter how much his hands were worth to Seattle Grace. Yet he hadn't even flinched, hadn't tried to steer her choice, hadn't... Done anything to stop or encourage her either way. It had all been on her. And that...
That had been plenty enough to spook the hell out of her.
She'd swallowed. The rings... At first she'd run her brain around in circles thinking, holy freaking crap, they're expensive, and she'd just been given free reign in her first judicious act as queen to pick whichever one she wanted. Her first impulse had been to swing to the other end of the spectrum and shy away from the ones with ridiculous price tags. And then she'd run her brain around in circles thinking if she picked something inexpensive Derek might get his feelings hurt, some sort of... male surgeony ego thing that she didn't really understand, couldn't even pretend to understand. He might feel less arrr-I-am-the-provider if she stuck to something simple and understated. Not that she'd thought he didn't value her independence. She was certain he did, which had been evidenced just by the fact that he had been standing back and not saying a freaking word to sway her decision. But he did have an I'll-save-you streak. And who knew how that would affect the whole buying a ring thing?
That, of course, had been preceded, accompanied, and followed by a wearying chorus of annoying, do I really deserve this? Remnants of a person she'd decided only the day before was dead, dying, or at least stuffed into a closet and shut up with a ball gag. Not quite so dead, dying, or stuffed-and-shut-up then. Sparkly, expensive things had made ugly, doubting Meredith zombies rise left and right. Until the chorus had been a moaning army of should I, should I, should I really? And she'd sat at the table, almost ready to cry over the uncertainty of it all.
But then she'd caught Derek watching her reverently out of the corner of her eye as she tore through choice after choice with shaking, unsteady hands. The gaze on Derek's face had been... unreal. He'd been alight that kind of gleeful anticipation of a kid opening the biggest box under the tree at Christmas, well, except he was maybe awfully lusty for undoing the wrapping paper, but that was a whole different metaphor, and damn it, she had had a point.
Right.
Her breath had caught. He had been that excited over watching her destroy his financial portfolio? That...
Dreams can change. I love you, and I want you.
What do you want, Mere? If I can give it to you, I'll give it.
I just want you to have what you want...
Things he'd said. Beautiful things. She'd turned back to the pile of rings, biting back a lump in her throat. For a long, long set of moments, she'd just stared, let the circling wagons of her thoughts slow down, creak to a halt, and then she'd embraced the mental silence for a moment.
What did she want?
And, finally, after what had seemed like the longest deliberation of her life, she'd stopped thinking about how expensive or inexpensive things were, or what Derek would think, or whether she deserved it. What did she want? What felt right? Derek wanted her to have what she wanted. And his gift would be in the giving, a gift she would be denying him if she were to in any way shortchange herself. It had been written plainly in the delight on his face at watching her decide. It. Desire for her to be happy.
So, what did she want?
She wanted the ring, the guy, the whole... normal... relationship thing. She wanted the ring.
That had been when things had changed. When it had stopped being about everything else, and only about what ring she thought was prettiest, what ring she thought suited her personality the best. And Derek had watched.
Still delighted.
She'd ended up picking a very simple platinum ring without embellishment in the band. The tinyish diamond that crowned it, well, tiny compared to some of the ridiculous mounds of shiny Eamon had pulled out, had made her breath stop when it caught the light. It was cut... squarish. Eamon had called it a princess cut, which she had found ironic. Queen of England and all. It had been love at first sight when Eamon had pulled the ring out from some nook behind one of his counters. It hadn't even been out for display. She had almost been ready to pick a roundish diamond set on a similar platinum band before she'd seen it. But the square one...
She just liked it.
Eamon had explained the technicalities. Colorless, 1.25 carats, very very slightly imperfect, whatever that meant. He'd gone on to smile and say it was his favorite ring in the whole store, but that he rarely pulled it out to show anyone, which probably meant... Ouch. On the price tag, anyway. But... But... It was perfect. Eamon had gone on to pull out some appraisal thingy. He'd handed the paper to Derek, and Derek had seemed to be pleased with whatever was written there... So...
She had picked her ring.
There was no engraving on the ring. Eamon had asked if she wanted something inscribed, but she'd shook her head. It'd seemed odd, to her, to try and define something so terrifyingly big in words that would fit on something so tiny. Putting it succinctly would just make it sound cheesy. And she couldn't very well have on her ring band, "It just was." That seemed worse than cheesy. It. This thing with Derek. No, she'd decided after some more careful thought. Not something that would fit on a ring. Plus, she wasn't really much of an artist as far as words went. All arguments that led to the ultimate decision of no words at all.
She finally blinked back into the bustling world around her and found herself just standing there, breathing against him. A few seconds of bliss gave way to the awareness that he was hovering, and that he had been hovering for a long time while she wandered off into a million thoughts. His warmth against her was invigorating. The way he clutched at her like she was his life raft, that was...
"You're okay, right?" she asked.
"Yeah," he murmured. "More than."
She swallowed. "Still working through..."
He nodded. "Yeah. Sometimes. Sorry."
"Don't be. I wish I could make a coat out of you."
He snorted. "Oh, now you want to skin me?"
"I think that would sort of ruin the effect," she whispered. "So, what's next?"
"You don't have anything particular you want to see?"
She paused, frowning. Did she? She ran her hands up and down his arms, petting as she thought. "We're close to Times Square, right?"
"Yeah, we could walk."
"Let's do that first."
He grinned. "All right." He glanced around, quickly gaining his bearings as he flipped his sunglasses down over his face from where they'd been resting in his hair. He pointed, and then they were off.
She grasped his hand, and as they darted forward though the crowds, she couldn't help but laugh. It was almost like some sort of twisted game. Dodge-a-pedestrian. So many people. Everywhere.
Frankly, she just didn't get it. Not the fact that there were people everywhere, but the fact that Derek had somehow endured this crazy, huge mess of population for thirty-eight years of his life. Derek wasn't... Derek liked fishing by his lake in the quiet. He liked camping and being away from people. He liked... peace. He was a people person, but he didn't like huge gatherings. He was more into intimate encounters, more into the one-on-one, or just smaller-scaled, closer things. He was... sweet, unrushed, easygoing... And that just didn't seem to jibe with all the pushing and shoving and noise and pulse of... go, go, go that thrummed in the air like the chest-melting bass-beat of a club's dance track.
A body slammed into her and kept on walking.
This was definitely not peaceful.
Then again, he was a surgeon. He used to ride a motorcycle. He was obviously an adrenaline junky. Just like she was. Thrills were important. And Manhattan... It was hard not to look up and stare and gape at all the lights and movement. Excitement filtered into every one of her pores, and all she was doing was walking down the street. The city definitely had an abundance of thrill.
"Okay, stop," he said as they hit the corner of 44th and Broadway. He squeezed her shoulders, and she plowed to a halt with a squeak of surprise at his sudden cease of movement. People broke apart around them in a skilled redirection, as if they were used to stupid tourists stopping and gawking in the middle of everything all the time.
"What?" she said.
"Shhh, I'm playing tour guide. Come here," he said, guiding her closer to him so that she stood spooned against him, his front flat against her back. He wrapped his arms low around her waist.
"A naughty tour guide?" she said.
"Shhh," he said. "Close your eyes."
She frowned, wondering what the hell he was doing, but she did it anyway, half expecting him to play some sort of flirty joke on her, maybe feel her up in public. It would be just her luck, too, if Google decided to pick that moment to snapshot the newest update for its Manhattan satellite maps. Whoops, there's Meredith Grey, getting felt up by her hot fiancé in Times Square. Feast your eyes on the pile of lust-
"Hear that?" he said.
"Hear what?"
"Listen," he said, his voice a low, soothing rumble against her ear.
And so she did. At first it was a jumble, just a jumble. Noise. Jarring, pelting noise that flew up around her ears and made it hard to hear herself think. And then, as she listened more, deeper, harder, the noise began to peel apart into separate sounds. People, voices crept all around her like... like she was in some sort of auditorium, and the whispers bounced off the walls and grew and grew. A shout here and there shook things up. Whistles. Laughter. Shrieks. Chatting. People hailing cabs, gabbing on their cell phones. Footsteps, like the magnified clamor of ants, clapped around her across the pavement. Clicks of stilettos, softer pats of flat feet, even the tap-tap-tap of a cane. Police sirens, halted after a short chirp-chirp-chirp, flared like staccato accents, only sometimes blaring into a full out wail. Air rushed against her in a low whir through the wind tunnel of the high buildings. Traffic. Moans of cars and the blast of trucks and other big things with wheels. Music. A man played a clarinet for coins on the street, his instrument case open at his feet. People had their iPods turned up too loud, and songs bled from their headphones. Obnoxious people with their stereos cranked tore through the intersection with their windows down, compliments of the nice weather.
It all came down to people. Everywhere. And nobody was the same.
"That's Manhattan," Derek said after a moment, as if he'd heard her arrive at her conclusion.
She turned to grin at him, only to find him staring at the intersection with the oddest look on his face. "What's with the frown?" she asked. "And, damn, you're pretty good at this, so far. I feel like I should be paying you."
He shook his head. "I don't... know. I just expected to be more... homesick."
"Homesick?"
He shrugged. "For here. Standing here again after so long. I thought it would... Mean more."
"You miss Seattle, don't you?"
"Yeah, I do."
"Maybe you just have a new home, then."
"Maybe," he replied noncommittally as he stared off into space, running his hands along her shoulders absently as he stood there. He sighed lightly. The look on his face was... Unreadable. His lips curled in the vague hint of a smile, but it was a subdued one. Unhappy, ironic, but... Not. Happy, but... Not. The rest of his face was a whole big mess of something she couldn't put her finger on, and, in a feeling of frustration she'd become painfully used to, she wished the sunglasses would just... Go away. Go away into the abyss of... not on Derek's face.
"What," she began, and then she bit her lip and stopped.
He twitched and turned to her, the curious expression melting away in to one she knew a lot better. The Meredith-is-my-world face. She liked that one. "Did you say something?" he said.
She opened her mouth to reply, but her stomach rumbled an answer for her. For the briefest moment, she flinched, looked down, and hugged her stomach, only to realize... nobody had heard it. What would have been a growling shout regarding the need for imminent food consumption had been reduced to something almost silent. The rush of the noise really started to hit her then. Another police siren chirped. A horn honked. Voices, people, everywhere. How had Derek done it?
Her stomach did the noisy-but-not growl thing again, shaking her out of the brief, deafening wall of sound, enough to think again. She pulled up her wrist to glance at her watch. It was almost two already.
"I'm suddenly realizing I'm extremely hungry," she said. "Can we grab some lunch, maybe? I think my stomach might start cannibalizing itself soon."
He laughed. "Yeah, but not here."
"Not here?"
"Times Square is a tourist trap. Mark and I used to come here all the time for shitty beer, but, really..." His voice trailed away as he got lost in some distant place again. He cleared his throat, shook his head. "Never mind. Let's hail a cab."
She watched him for a moment, watched him frown and collect himself. "What did you and Mark used to do?"
He gave her a weak smile. "Well, I usually just sat at the bar and collected all the phone numbers he picked up. He liked to see how many hot tourists he could swindle into a one-night stand."
She snorted. "Yeah, that sounds like Mark."
"It's looking back on things like that that I think I really should have seen it coming..."
"Derek..." she said, low-pitched, worried at the way his voice twisted. She knew he still had trouble with it. Sometimes. Knew. And now she'd seen why, seen how awfully the whole mess had affected him firsthand in the direct aftermath. She wondered if, in addition to the wounds being fresh again because of where they were standing, they were fresh again because of the week of replay he'd been forced to experience. She didn't know. She wrapped her arms tightly around him.
He cleared his throat, blinking frantically enough that she could see the movement behind his sunglasses. "Sometimes, I miss him. Other times, I just hate him even more," he said, and then he turned toward the street, slipping out of her grasp. He swallowed, visibly forcing it all away. His fingers clenched around her hand. He breathed.
"So, what are you in the mood for?" he managed after a moment, cheerful, but his voice was still a little... Off.
She wrapped him up again in the warmest grasp she could manage, snuggling up against his back, tilted up onto her toes, and kissed his neck. He turned around at the touch, and it quickly became mouth-to-mouth. The fun kind. With tongue.
That drew the chuckle she wanted when he pulled away. "That's later, Meredith," he said, grinning, really grinning. The earlier upset was gone, had dripped out of him like water through a sieve. "I meant food."
"Italian?"
"I have dinner reservations at an Italian place. Do you want to double up, or do you have a second choice?"
"Oooh," she said, purring as she hugged him closer. "Reservations?"
"Yeah. It's a little place that opened up since I left. I heard it was good. So... Preferences?"
"Surprise me," she said.
He grinned. "All right."
He turned and started to raise his hand, intent on hailing a cab, but she felt the weird, time-stopping thing. The noise swelled up around her again in a wall of cacophony. She breathed. Smells were everywhere. Exhaust. Food. City things. They were standing in Times Square as a couple. A real, getting married someday, freaking-expensive-ring-tucked-away-in-his-pocket couple. It seemed wrong to just... slip away. Slip away in a cab, off into the distant wherever, whatever.
She reached forward and pulled on his arm just as he reached the apex of his cab hail. He collapsed down out of the hail as she curled her fingers around his hand and pulled him back into the middle of the sidewalk, much to the likely chagrin of everyone who had to start spilling around them again just to get by. The crowd parted skillfully.
"Wait," she said, suddenly breathless.
He frowned. "What?"
"We have to do the normal thing. I've never done it. We have to."
"The what thing?"
She glanced around. "We don't have a camera. We're crappy tourists, Derek."
"I'm not technically a tourist, Mere."
"Whatever. I'll just use my phone. Did you know my phone takes pictures?"
"Uhhh..."
Time stopped as she whirled around on her feet, looking, looking, finding. A panhandler or two. Men in business suits in a hurry. People on cell phones. Policemen. Kids under the pull of their parents. Women clicking past in pumps that were far too tall and spiky to be anything but fashionable devices of masochistic torture. Who could take a picture... Everyone looked mean, like they would bite her head off if she asked.
"Excuse me," she said, belting across the writhing crowd when her eyes fell on the perfect target, someone very unlikely to run off with her phone as a consolation prize, someone unlikely to curse at Meredith for interrupting her precious time.
The Girl Scout leader woman looked up from the crowd of high-school-aged girls all hovering around her in a girly cluster. It was the Girl Scout troop she'd seen earlier, actually. They weren't in uniform, but they had on enough of the various Girl Scouty apparel to make it obvious. The leader lady wore her hair tucked under a green bandana with the Girl Scout symbol slathered all across it like strange, misshapen polka-dots. And she had patches on her vest. Lots and lots of... patches. The girls had them too. Patches. Everywhere. Meredith cringed, remembering her high school years. She never would have been caught dead anywhere near a Girl Scout.
"Would you mind taking a picture or two?" Meredith said politely as she approached the frazzled-looking leader lady.
"Sure, if you trade with me," the woman said in a kind, mothering voice. She was tall and thin, with curly brown hair down to her shoulders and small, round glasses. Her face was slightly wrinkled, enough to indicate she was in her late forties or early fifties. But she looked elegant, even despite the bandana, which was decidedly not elegant. And... Kind. She looked like a classic... well... A down-to-earth mom. Really.
Meredith laughed and handed the woman her phone. "Sure, I can do that," Meredith said.
She walked back to Derek, who was staring at her with an amused grin that ripped across his face like a flashing, neon sign that screamed happy, happy, happy, I am. "That was normal?" he said as she wrapped her arm around his waist, he wrapped his arm over her shoulder, they wheeled around so they had Broadway sprawling into the distance behind them, and posed.
"Oh, shut up," she said between clenched teeth as she smiled for the phone camera. Girl Scout leader woman popped off a few shots. "We're making memories. And if you're one of those people who's photogenic in everything, which I suspect you are, I might have to hurt you when I see how these turn out."
He burst out laughing just after leader lady took the last shot. "Meredith, I really doubt you could take a bad picture either," he said. "This shouldn't be news to you. You're hot, Mere."
She blushed as she went to trade with leader lady. They had a real camera. Girl Scouts were prepared. She glanced at Derek as he walked through the crowd of Girl Scouts to her side. While the girls figured out how they wanted to pose, Derek wrapped himself around her, his arms going around her waist as he looked over her shoulder. "Do you even know how to use a camera? You don't seem... like a picture person," he said, his voice playful, arrogant, and damned annoying.
She flipped open the lens thing and pointed the camera. "It can't be that hard. You just hit the little take-a-picture button thing, don't you?" She peered through the window thing and was greeted with only half of the troop. Jeez, there were a lot of them. "Crap, some of them got cut off. How do you zoom this thing out?"
"Hit the minus sign on that swing button," he said in her ear, low and luscious, and it was very much not helping her focus, either the camera or her brain. But he was right. Damned men and their gadget things. She brought the full extent of Girl Scouty troopness into the view and snapped off a few shots.
"Okay, now I'm done," Meredith said as she handed the leader lady's camera back to her. Her stomach rumbled again. "Feed me, Derek."
Derek laughed as the army of Girl Scouts started moving down Broadway, off to whatever their next stop was in their own tour. "Do you even know how to get those pictures back off your phone?" Derek asked. "I've never seen you use it as a camera."
"I very possibly know how, yes!" she said, indignant. The truth was, she really didn't have a clue. She was sure she could figure it out, though. She was a freaking surgeon. How hard could it be?
He just smiled in a quirky, know-it-all smile that said he knew that she was lying through her teeth. "We'll figure it out later," he said. "Gimme that."
She handed him her phone, and in an expert, sweeping motion, he flipped it back open, pointed it at her just inches from her face, and she heard the fake-shutter sound going off.
"Hey!" she said. "I didn't even get a chance to smile."
"You're gorgeous anyway."
"Liar. Do it again."
"Fine," he said as he brought the phone up, shifted it left and right as he stared through the view screen, and finally settled on an angle. "Ready?"
"Yes," she said through clenched, smiling teeth. She stood waiting, waiting, waiting. The seconds ticked past one by one until her mouth started to hurt. No fake-shutter clicky thing happened. He just stood there, staring at her seriously.
"You're sure?" he finally asked.
"Yeah."
"Positive?"
"Yes, Derek."
"I just want to make sure this time. You're certain?"
She lost the smile thing and snorted with laughter. "Ass," she said as she glared.
He flashed a picture just then as she was trying to come up with a more descriptive retort. "Hey!" she snarled.
He laughed. "You're cute when you're angry. I couldn't resist."
"Damn it, give me that," she said, extending her hand out to him.
He dropped her phone onto her waiting palm. "See how you like it," she said as she snapped off another shot an inch from his nose.
"I look good at any angle," he deadpanned.
"Ass," she repeated.
"You love me, though," he said.
"I do," she replied. "I really, really do."
"I love you, too," he said.
They kissed, lunging up against each other. The world around them fell away, and Manhattan was suddenly gone in the wake of him against her. His fingers crawled down her spine. His breathing was like a wave in her ears, blotting out everything. He tasted... Good. Really good. He was warm, and rough, and... Oh. Ooh. Her thoughts peeled away from her brain and disappeared into the dark, fuzzy void somewhere in the background with the world. She heard a shutter-click off to the side, sharp, and the clarity of it against the mushy woozy swirly... things, was like a stabbing knife. She pulled away in a slow, drugged motion, and looked up to see him holding his own flip-phone out at arm's length.
"Hey," she whispered, dazed as the shutter went off again.
"My pictures are better," he said.
"Ass," she said, laughing as she slowly recovered. Her pulse calmed down into something reasonable again. The slow, melty fire cooled. As the breeze of the New York wind tunnel brushed against her skin, her blush eased off her skin like a receding tide.
He stared at his phone, hitting button after button as he fiddled with... Something. "I'm making porny wallpaper for my laptop when we get home."
"You can't do that," she said. "You use that laptop at work." She moved to look at the pictures over his shoulder, but he curled away with a laugh, hiding the results of his trickery from view.
"So?" he countered with a chuckle. "We have real sex at work, why not have porny wallpaper at work?"
"You wouldn't."
He wagged his eyebrows at her in a suggestive, lewd expression that said he would. He so, so would. Maybe. Well, possibly. Maybe she was being paranoid. But he looked very dangerous right then. Dangerous and... really freaking gorgeous.
"I might," he replied in a whisper that curled down her spine like he'd reached under her shirt and slipped his fingers down the line of bone. He hooked his phone back onto his belt clip. Then he shifted and draped himself over her back, wrapping his arms around her waist in a pose she was beginning to think of as her own personal Derek-sweater. And it sucked, because she really liked it, and it made it very, very hard to stay mad.
"You're skating toward no porn tonight," she said, breathless, even as he had her standing there, shivering, thinking all sorts of bad, naughty, naked Derek thoughts. Which would possibly be unhelpful for that night if she were going to really attempt any sort of stalwart denial as punishment. Except, the crappy thing about it was, it would be punishment for her as well. And he knew it.
"For porny wallpaper of my hot fiancé that keeps on giving?" he said, his voice curling with a soft, laughing tone as he spoke into her neck, accenting the words with a series of short, worshiping kisses along her clavicle. "So worth it." The words brushed against her skin. She licked her lips. He was freaking sexy, he knew it, and sometimes, that really freaking sucked. His hand cupped her hip, and the warmth seeped through her slacks.
"Ass," she hissed as her throat went dry. "Seriously..."
"Seriously!"
She moaned, curled around in his grasp to face him, and kissed him again. The cool thing about the mutual attraction bit was that she could mess him up just as badly as he could send her into la-la land. He leaned forward, his fingers tightening over her hips. He wasn't paying the slightest bit of attention as she let her hand roam down his chest, down, down and lower to his waistline. He made a cute little groan in the back of his throat as she slipped her fingers under the denim, distracting, distracting. There. She pulled back from him with his phone in tow.
"I'm taking this hostage," she said.
He panted at her, making several false starts that included syllables like uh, uh, ah, wha? before he managed to say, "You're kidnapping my phone?"
"Damned straight I'm kidnapping your phone."
"But..."
"Now, hail a taxi like a good little Manhattanite... Manahattanonian... Manha... Man."
"You're kidnapping my phone, and now you're calling me little?"
"Feed me, Derek," she growled. "My stomach. Demands. Food."
He laughed. "Fine. But I want my phone back."
"Only after I've fixed it."
"Fixed it?"
"Seriously, Derek," she replied as he turned toward the street and started prowling with his gaze for a cab that looked available. "Us snogging in Times Square? Not porn."
His hand, partially raised for a hail, came back down like an afterthought as he whipped around to face her. "I said it was porny, not porn!"
"Like I said. I'll fix it."
He went silent for a minute, utterly silent. And then he started to smile. Evilly. "Oh," he replied, his voice dropping into low, sexed tones that... really made her want to jump him. He came at her again, brushing up into her personal space. "I could call you with your phone, you know," he said, low, rich, growly. "Mine's on vibrate."
She snorted and pushed away. "Very cute."
"Just trying to be helpful."
"Take me for a ride, Derek. That'd be helpful."
"Okay, okay," he grumbled. "You mean in a taxi, I'm assuming."
"Derek..."
Finally able to follow through without distraction, he hailed them a cab in moments. She climbed into the cab and settled against the cool, leather seats. The car was in slightly bad shape. The fabric of the seats was ripped in a few places, letting the cottony underbelly spill out like guts, and it smelled like someone had tried to erase some of the less fun scents with too much Armor All and Pine Sol. The seats were freaking slippery, and she felt like she was sitting inside a lemon. Not a lemon car. A lemon fruit. It was... stinky.
The cab driver didn't even turn around to look at them, didn't say hello, even as Derek shuffled into the seat and closed the door behind himself with a slam. "205 East Houston Street," Derek told the driver, who finally made a sound. Just a grunt. Whether it meant yes, I need directions for that, I hope you tip me well, or just... I hate you all and cabs suck, she would never know, but he looked like a grumpy, grumpy person, so she decided on the latter-most option. It definitely fit the scowl she saw through the rear-view mirror.
The taxi pulled out into traffic, and as she curled up against Derek in the backseat for the ride, her hip rubbed up against the ring box in his pocket. Ring. Ring. Ring, a little chorus sang in her head, and she couldn't help but loose a little purr. As he leaned back in the seat, and she slid up against him, he groaned, turned, smiled at her, but his lips were set in a thin, frustrated line. "You're trying to kill me, aren't you?"
"Just priming the pump," she whispered, breathing in the warmth of his skin.
"Do I get hazard pay for this tour guide gig?"
"Is that a ring box in your pocket or..." She nuzzled his neck, twisting her fingers into his hair, licking her way up his neck, along the line of his jaw. She watched out of the corner of her eye. Grunty taxicab guy didn't seem to care, so she went in for the kill and nipped.
Everything was just... Perfect.
"Mere..." he managed between rasping breaths. "Taxi... Bad."
Okay, perfection minus one. Stupid taxi, stupid waiting... Stupid... Burning hunger for actual food. She wanted the hotel now. Except she also wanted to not die of starvation. And she knew if she didn't stop teasing him, if the look on his face was any indication, she might very well be committing them to the porn, no turning back.
She pouted as she pulled away. Stupid ravenous famishment. Her stomach growled again, and in the relative quiet of the taxi, the noise of her gurgly innards was definitely audible. Derek, dazed as he was, didn't seem to notice. Grunty taxicab guy was in front of a thick, scratched-up, plastic wall, so... yeah. She'd escaped scrutiny. She slipped back across the seat, feeling a little like she was butt-skiing across the leather. She tugged her seatbelt on as she practically fell into the dip on her side of the car, folding her arms over her stomach with a grimace as she settled.
"So," she said. "Where are we going?"
Derek blinked. "What?"
"Where are we eating?" she clarified.
He blinked again and finally seemed to come back to himself. She couldn't help but grin despite the fact that her stomach seemed to be declaring war on her. He did things to her, but it was a two-way street. And that was... Really invigorating.
He swallowed and collected himself. "It's a surprise," he replied.
"Another surprise?"
"Hey now, you said, and I quote, surprise me."
"I didn't mean surprise, surprise me."
"So," he said, a playful smirk pasting across his features. "This wasn't a literal surprise we were talking about?"
"No," she replied. "So, what is it?"
"Are there such things as non-literal surprises? Because if you're not surprised, how is that surprising?"
"Derek..."
"You'll like it," he assured her. "It's very unhealthy. Just your type of place."
"You're taking me to an unhealthy place?"
"Sure."
She frowned. "Are you actually going to eat anything? I don't want you to starve."
He shrugged. "I'll share with you."
"Share?"
"They serve big portions, Mere."
"You're actually going to consume something... heart clogging?"
"I do indulge from time to time, Mere," he replied.
"Wow," she said. "This must be a good place." Her stomach rumbled up in agreement, but Derek, though his eyes darted down to her abdomen, didn't comment. His lips quirked. Just a little. But he didn't comment.
"You'll probably recognize it," he said instead.
"From where?"
"A movie."
"What movie?"
"It's a surprise, Mere. You can't be surprised if you know what movie it's from."
"Fine," she conceded with a dramatic sigh. She flopped against the seat. "You should order with an accent. Men with accents are hot."
He regarded her silently for a moment. "Waht," he said after the pause, his tone dropping in pitch as he turned his voice all scratchy and... Not Derek. "Ya wan' me ta tauwk like dis?"
"Holy crap," she said, her breath catching. "That's... You used to..."
"Ya wan' me ta tauwk doity? I ken say enough doity woids ta make ya noggin hoit."
She stared at him as he stared back, grinning at her, the rest of his expression hidden conveniently behind his sunglasses. That was... That was... Not Derek. Not... Not... What? It was like his vocal cords had been twisted into something.... Not Derek. It didn't match up with her conception of him at all. Not one tiny bit. It... He... She'd heard the classic Brooklyn accent countless times in movies, from other natives she knew, but... But... It so did not belong anywhere in the vicinity of his mouth. It just... It didn't.
I'm surprised you don't have an accent.
I worked hard to drop it when I started doing more and more consults outside the city.
"Holy crap," she repeated.
He snorted. "I'm kidding, Mere," he said, slipping back into speech that was most certainly himself.
For a minute, she was so flummoxed at the sudden switchback that she just sat there, blinking, amazed. She breathed, trying to catch up with the fact that Derek seemed Derek-y again. "You said you worked hard to get rid of it!" she exclaimed after the long, whirling pause. "I thought..."
"I'm from the Upper East Side, Mere," he replied. "I used to muck up some of my vowels, enough that for professional reasons it seemed like a good idea to retrain myself if I wanted to branch out of New York, but I think that's about it. I kept my Rs, at least."
"That was... That was... Like you were a sock puppet for an alien, or something."
He grinned. "Dat's ma goil. Always expressin' hoiself like a poet."
They both managed to keep quiet for about two seconds before they broke into peals of laughter. She was crying by the time the hilarity cleared. His face was ruddy and flushed. "Okay, no more, please," she panted as she wiped the tears from her eyes. "It makes me feel like I'm in the Twilight Zone."
He laughed some more. "I'll have to save it for a rainy day to drive you crazy, I guess."
"Wonderful," she growled, though she couldn't help but smile back at him. "So, where are we going?" she tried again.
He shook his head. "Told you. Surprise."
"Fine," she said. "Fine. I guess I can take another surprise after that... Jumbly, crazy bit of stuff that came out of your mouth, which, by the way, I'm refusing to admit was words. So wrong, coming from you. I just... No. It was seizures. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it."
He stared at her for a moment, and then he laughed, and laughed, and laughed, and she decided she liked it a lot. It was far better than memory-twisted Derek from earlier. She joined him. And, slowly, they settled. Meredith leaned back against the seat and smiled. She watched the scenery drift past in the stop-and-start crawl of the New York traffic, listening to Derek's soft, sexy tour guide voice as he pointed out various sights and fun things.
And Meredith does Manhattan continued to its next stop.
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Pairing: Duh. (Mer/Der)
Rating: M
Timeline: Post Time After Time.
Wow. I said hopefully 1-2 days. I didn't promise :) Sorry to all my poor victi--err... Readers in withdrawal. I haven't even started part 29 yet, but they might actually get back to the damed hotel room. Someday. Stupid burgeoning parts and their stupid explosive wordiness.
~~~~~
Three hours later, Meredith and Derek left the little shop. Meredith held the tiny bag in her hands, and, through the plastic, tightly clutched her fist around the small, velveteen, hinged box that sheltered her new ring. "By the way," Derek said, his hand against the small of her back as he guided her out the door, "Don't buy any jewelry in the diamond district unless you get a good referral. For future reference. And thus ends our first stop on the Meredith does Manhattan tour, which I'm hoping will become X-rated before the end of the night. Hotel room and everything. Shame to pass that up."
The words barely registered. She clenched her fingers around the tiny little box. Ring. Ring. Ring. She'd gotten a ring! And it was in the little box in her hand. And it was... It was...
Perfect.
They walked through the crush of people, getting bumped and jostled. Ring. Her fingers tightened, and she darted to the side of the walk, into a little alcove in the shade, away from the flow of moving bodies.
Biting her lip, she pushed the bag at him. His fingers brushed hers, and he looked at her with a questioning expression as his larger hand eclipsed her smaller one. "A prop to help you with the knee thing," she explained. Her breath caught when she fell into his gaze. She smiled. "Plus, you're less likely to get mugged."
He chuckled. "Okay," he said, his voice low and soothing, yet reverential and desirous all at once. "But I pity the mugger that falls for your cute and tiny routine. He'd probably limp away minus a limb, and no purse to show for it." He pulled the ring box out of the bag and stuffed it into his jeans pocket. It made a little bulge, just under the hem of his sweater, but it was otherwise hidden from sight. She stared for a moment, marveling at it. The ring. A ring. She had a ring. And it was perfect.
Derek cleared his throat. "Which package are you looking at?" he said, a smirk slanting his lips into a naughty expression.
She ignored his innuendo. If she didn't ignore it, she would probably end up jumping him right there. Manhattan or no, that would probably not be considered appropriate. She'd already seen at least one Girl Scout tour group. So, no. Definitely not appropriate. Meredith does Manhattan was only allowed to hedge into adult territory during the finale. Where there would be decidedly no Girl Scouts, people with cameras, or anything else that would make something X-rated a bit more kinky than even she intended.
She licked her lips and shook her head, forcing her gaze up. She hopped a little on her feet as a sudden zing of exhilaration ran up her spine. "I got a ring," she stated proudly.
His smirk changed into something genuine, something loving, not arrogant, and it made her want to melt inside. Hell, she was already melting. Melting, melted, puddle Meredith.
"You did," he replied, his voice low and husky as he slipped into her personal space, and his body heat collided with her own. She wrapped her arms around him, ignoring the claps of feet striking pavement all around them, the hustle, the groan of cars motoring past.
"You got me a ring," she corrected, breathing into the soft, fuzzy weave of his dark blue sweater. The temperature around them was perfect and balmy, the kind that let you go outside without a jacket, but was just right for an extra layer to be worn without feeling uncomfortable. And the blue... Mmm. Blue was definitely his color. Dark but vibrant blue. It made his eyes seem almost... electric. His eyes...
"Hey," she said, trying to keep her elation in check. "You can see?"
He winced and frowned. "It's shady here," he replied. His expression softened back into a smile as he watched her.
"Oh." Said elation shrunk, only to wind back up again in a slow, glorious buildup as he stood there, arms wrapped around her, warm, perfect, smelling clean and sharp like his aftershave, a welcome relief from the assault of some of the city's less attractive odors. She smiled into his sweater, ran her fingers up and down his chest.
"Thank you," she whispered when she felt like she would explode with the buzz that was slowly overwhelming her. "For the ring."
"Mmm-hmmm," he mumbled into the hair over her ear as he leaned down. His cheek brushed the side of her face as he pressed his lips onto the space just above her ear. His fingers snaked through the loose bits of her hair, which hung half in a ponytail, half free falling down her back.
The realness of the situation didn't hit her, really. Rather, it moved in like a changing season. Gradual. It started in the back of her head like a whisper at first, subtle fingers slipping through her thoughts in a caress as soft as Derek's hands in her hair. The whisper coalesced into something more solid, more substantial. Murmured words in a poetry reading, growing in volume, growing, growing until it was an endless, pounding thing. Everything blossomed. She smiled as she clutched at him. Really smiled. And damned if she could shut it off.
"I'm really happy," she observed. The tiny voice, the one that would have said, what's wrong with me? It was strangely silent. "Really, really."
The flat of his palm ran down the curve of her spine. "It's allowed, Meredith," he assured her. "You're allowed."
She sighed. When Derek had pulled her into the shop, she hadn't really gotten it at first. She'd seen the rows and rows of sparkly things, sparkly, expensive things, and had blankly thought... Jewelry. There's jewelry here. And then came... why? Her mind had been utterly silent and noncontributory as the bits of clues floated around like pieces in a sprawling, unsolved jigsaw puzzle. It really shouldn't have been that complicated. But...
She'd sat there as Eamon had brought out ring after ring after ring to the countertop. Derek had hovered back a few panels away, almost as if he were afraid having him loitering over her shoulder might spook her out of letting him buy her something so... huge. But, really, she hadn't needed Derek to spook her. She'd spooked herself.
She'd sat there thinking, crap, there's thousands of dollars of stuff on this table. A scrub cap was one thing. A ring that would very possibly take an actual chunk out of his salary depending how extravagant she got... That was a whole different thing. A whole different realm. A whole different freaking dimension of seriousness. And what had floored her even more was that he hadn't even set a price range. She had been sure that there were things in that store that could really, really hurt him in the financial department, no matter how much of a god he was in the surgical arena, no matter how much his hands were worth to Seattle Grace. Yet he hadn't even flinched, hadn't tried to steer her choice, hadn't... Done anything to stop or encourage her either way. It had all been on her. And that...
That had been plenty enough to spook the hell out of her.
She'd swallowed. The rings... At first she'd run her brain around in circles thinking, holy freaking crap, they're expensive, and she'd just been given free reign in her first judicious act as queen to pick whichever one she wanted. Her first impulse had been to swing to the other end of the spectrum and shy away from the ones with ridiculous price tags. And then she'd run her brain around in circles thinking if she picked something inexpensive Derek might get his feelings hurt, some sort of... male surgeony ego thing that she didn't really understand, couldn't even pretend to understand. He might feel less arrr-I-am-the-provider if she stuck to something simple and understated. Not that she'd thought he didn't value her independence. She was certain he did, which had been evidenced just by the fact that he had been standing back and not saying a freaking word to sway her decision. But he did have an I'll-save-you streak. And who knew how that would affect the whole buying a ring thing?
That, of course, had been preceded, accompanied, and followed by a wearying chorus of annoying, do I really deserve this? Remnants of a person she'd decided only the day before was dead, dying, or at least stuffed into a closet and shut up with a ball gag. Not quite so dead, dying, or stuffed-and-shut-up then. Sparkly, expensive things had made ugly, doubting Meredith zombies rise left and right. Until the chorus had been a moaning army of should I, should I, should I really? And she'd sat at the table, almost ready to cry over the uncertainty of it all.
But then she'd caught Derek watching her reverently out of the corner of her eye as she tore through choice after choice with shaking, unsteady hands. The gaze on Derek's face had been... unreal. He'd been alight that kind of gleeful anticipation of a kid opening the biggest box under the tree at Christmas, well, except he was maybe awfully lusty for undoing the wrapping paper, but that was a whole different metaphor, and damn it, she had had a point.
Right.
Her breath had caught. He had been that excited over watching her destroy his financial portfolio? That...
Dreams can change. I love you, and I want you.
What do you want, Mere? If I can give it to you, I'll give it.
I just want you to have what you want...
Things he'd said. Beautiful things. She'd turned back to the pile of rings, biting back a lump in her throat. For a long, long set of moments, she'd just stared, let the circling wagons of her thoughts slow down, creak to a halt, and then she'd embraced the mental silence for a moment.
What did she want?
And, finally, after what had seemed like the longest deliberation of her life, she'd stopped thinking about how expensive or inexpensive things were, or what Derek would think, or whether she deserved it. What did she want? What felt right? Derek wanted her to have what she wanted. And his gift would be in the giving, a gift she would be denying him if she were to in any way shortchange herself. It had been written plainly in the delight on his face at watching her decide. It. Desire for her to be happy.
So, what did she want?
She wanted the ring, the guy, the whole... normal... relationship thing. She wanted the ring.
That had been when things had changed. When it had stopped being about everything else, and only about what ring she thought was prettiest, what ring she thought suited her personality the best. And Derek had watched.
Still delighted.
She'd ended up picking a very simple platinum ring without embellishment in the band. The tinyish diamond that crowned it, well, tiny compared to some of the ridiculous mounds of shiny Eamon had pulled out, had made her breath stop when it caught the light. It was cut... squarish. Eamon had called it a princess cut, which she had found ironic. Queen of England and all. It had been love at first sight when Eamon had pulled the ring out from some nook behind one of his counters. It hadn't even been out for display. She had almost been ready to pick a roundish diamond set on a similar platinum band before she'd seen it. But the square one...
She just liked it.
Eamon had explained the technicalities. Colorless, 1.25 carats, very very slightly imperfect, whatever that meant. He'd gone on to smile and say it was his favorite ring in the whole store, but that he rarely pulled it out to show anyone, which probably meant... Ouch. On the price tag, anyway. But... But... It was perfect. Eamon had gone on to pull out some appraisal thingy. He'd handed the paper to Derek, and Derek had seemed to be pleased with whatever was written there... So...
She had picked her ring.
There was no engraving on the ring. Eamon had asked if she wanted something inscribed, but she'd shook her head. It'd seemed odd, to her, to try and define something so terrifyingly big in words that would fit on something so tiny. Putting it succinctly would just make it sound cheesy. And she couldn't very well have on her ring band, "It just was." That seemed worse than cheesy. It. This thing with Derek. No, she'd decided after some more careful thought. Not something that would fit on a ring. Plus, she wasn't really much of an artist as far as words went. All arguments that led to the ultimate decision of no words at all.
She finally blinked back into the bustling world around her and found herself just standing there, breathing against him. A few seconds of bliss gave way to the awareness that he was hovering, and that he had been hovering for a long time while she wandered off into a million thoughts. His warmth against her was invigorating. The way he clutched at her like she was his life raft, that was...
"You're okay, right?" she asked.
"Yeah," he murmured. "More than."
She swallowed. "Still working through..."
He nodded. "Yeah. Sometimes. Sorry."
"Don't be. I wish I could make a coat out of you."
He snorted. "Oh, now you want to skin me?"
"I think that would sort of ruin the effect," she whispered. "So, what's next?"
"You don't have anything particular you want to see?"
She paused, frowning. Did she? She ran her hands up and down his arms, petting as she thought. "We're close to Times Square, right?"
"Yeah, we could walk."
"Let's do that first."
He grinned. "All right." He glanced around, quickly gaining his bearings as he flipped his sunglasses down over his face from where they'd been resting in his hair. He pointed, and then they were off.
She grasped his hand, and as they darted forward though the crowds, she couldn't help but laugh. It was almost like some sort of twisted game. Dodge-a-pedestrian. So many people. Everywhere.
Frankly, she just didn't get it. Not the fact that there were people everywhere, but the fact that Derek had somehow endured this crazy, huge mess of population for thirty-eight years of his life. Derek wasn't... Derek liked fishing by his lake in the quiet. He liked camping and being away from people. He liked... peace. He was a people person, but he didn't like huge gatherings. He was more into intimate encounters, more into the one-on-one, or just smaller-scaled, closer things. He was... sweet, unrushed, easygoing... And that just didn't seem to jibe with all the pushing and shoving and noise and pulse of... go, go, go that thrummed in the air like the chest-melting bass-beat of a club's dance track.
A body slammed into her and kept on walking.
This was definitely not peaceful.
Then again, he was a surgeon. He used to ride a motorcycle. He was obviously an adrenaline junky. Just like she was. Thrills were important. And Manhattan... It was hard not to look up and stare and gape at all the lights and movement. Excitement filtered into every one of her pores, and all she was doing was walking down the street. The city definitely had an abundance of thrill.
"Okay, stop," he said as they hit the corner of 44th and Broadway. He squeezed her shoulders, and she plowed to a halt with a squeak of surprise at his sudden cease of movement. People broke apart around them in a skilled redirection, as if they were used to stupid tourists stopping and gawking in the middle of everything all the time.
"What?" she said.
"Shhh, I'm playing tour guide. Come here," he said, guiding her closer to him so that she stood spooned against him, his front flat against her back. He wrapped his arms low around her waist.
"A naughty tour guide?" she said.
"Shhh," he said. "Close your eyes."
She frowned, wondering what the hell he was doing, but she did it anyway, half expecting him to play some sort of flirty joke on her, maybe feel her up in public. It would be just her luck, too, if Google decided to pick that moment to snapshot the newest update for its Manhattan satellite maps. Whoops, there's Meredith Grey, getting felt up by her hot fiancé in Times Square. Feast your eyes on the pile of lust-
"Hear that?" he said.
"Hear what?"
"Listen," he said, his voice a low, soothing rumble against her ear.
And so she did. At first it was a jumble, just a jumble. Noise. Jarring, pelting noise that flew up around her ears and made it hard to hear herself think. And then, as she listened more, deeper, harder, the noise began to peel apart into separate sounds. People, voices crept all around her like... like she was in some sort of auditorium, and the whispers bounced off the walls and grew and grew. A shout here and there shook things up. Whistles. Laughter. Shrieks. Chatting. People hailing cabs, gabbing on their cell phones. Footsteps, like the magnified clamor of ants, clapped around her across the pavement. Clicks of stilettos, softer pats of flat feet, even the tap-tap-tap of a cane. Police sirens, halted after a short chirp-chirp-chirp, flared like staccato accents, only sometimes blaring into a full out wail. Air rushed against her in a low whir through the wind tunnel of the high buildings. Traffic. Moans of cars and the blast of trucks and other big things with wheels. Music. A man played a clarinet for coins on the street, his instrument case open at his feet. People had their iPods turned up too loud, and songs bled from their headphones. Obnoxious people with their stereos cranked tore through the intersection with their windows down, compliments of the nice weather.
It all came down to people. Everywhere. And nobody was the same.
"That's Manhattan," Derek said after a moment, as if he'd heard her arrive at her conclusion.
She turned to grin at him, only to find him staring at the intersection with the oddest look on his face. "What's with the frown?" she asked. "And, damn, you're pretty good at this, so far. I feel like I should be paying you."
He shook his head. "I don't... know. I just expected to be more... homesick."
"Homesick?"
He shrugged. "For here. Standing here again after so long. I thought it would... Mean more."
"You miss Seattle, don't you?"
"Yeah, I do."
"Maybe you just have a new home, then."
"Maybe," he replied noncommittally as he stared off into space, running his hands along her shoulders absently as he stood there. He sighed lightly. The look on his face was... Unreadable. His lips curled in the vague hint of a smile, but it was a subdued one. Unhappy, ironic, but... Not. Happy, but... Not. The rest of his face was a whole big mess of something she couldn't put her finger on, and, in a feeling of frustration she'd become painfully used to, she wished the sunglasses would just... Go away. Go away into the abyss of... not on Derek's face.
"What," she began, and then she bit her lip and stopped.
He twitched and turned to her, the curious expression melting away in to one she knew a lot better. The Meredith-is-my-world face. She liked that one. "Did you say something?" he said.
She opened her mouth to reply, but her stomach rumbled an answer for her. For the briefest moment, she flinched, looked down, and hugged her stomach, only to realize... nobody had heard it. What would have been a growling shout regarding the need for imminent food consumption had been reduced to something almost silent. The rush of the noise really started to hit her then. Another police siren chirped. A horn honked. Voices, people, everywhere. How had Derek done it?
Her stomach did the noisy-but-not growl thing again, shaking her out of the brief, deafening wall of sound, enough to think again. She pulled up her wrist to glance at her watch. It was almost two already.
"I'm suddenly realizing I'm extremely hungry," she said. "Can we grab some lunch, maybe? I think my stomach might start cannibalizing itself soon."
He laughed. "Yeah, but not here."
"Not here?"
"Times Square is a tourist trap. Mark and I used to come here all the time for shitty beer, but, really..." His voice trailed away as he got lost in some distant place again. He cleared his throat, shook his head. "Never mind. Let's hail a cab."
She watched him for a moment, watched him frown and collect himself. "What did you and Mark used to do?"
He gave her a weak smile. "Well, I usually just sat at the bar and collected all the phone numbers he picked up. He liked to see how many hot tourists he could swindle into a one-night stand."
She snorted. "Yeah, that sounds like Mark."
"It's looking back on things like that that I think I really should have seen it coming..."
"Derek..." she said, low-pitched, worried at the way his voice twisted. She knew he still had trouble with it. Sometimes. Knew. And now she'd seen why, seen how awfully the whole mess had affected him firsthand in the direct aftermath. She wondered if, in addition to the wounds being fresh again because of where they were standing, they were fresh again because of the week of replay he'd been forced to experience. She didn't know. She wrapped her arms tightly around him.
He cleared his throat, blinking frantically enough that she could see the movement behind his sunglasses. "Sometimes, I miss him. Other times, I just hate him even more," he said, and then he turned toward the street, slipping out of her grasp. He swallowed, visibly forcing it all away. His fingers clenched around her hand. He breathed.
"So, what are you in the mood for?" he managed after a moment, cheerful, but his voice was still a little... Off.
She wrapped him up again in the warmest grasp she could manage, snuggling up against his back, tilted up onto her toes, and kissed his neck. He turned around at the touch, and it quickly became mouth-to-mouth. The fun kind. With tongue.
That drew the chuckle she wanted when he pulled away. "That's later, Meredith," he said, grinning, really grinning. The earlier upset was gone, had dripped out of him like water through a sieve. "I meant food."
"Italian?"
"I have dinner reservations at an Italian place. Do you want to double up, or do you have a second choice?"
"Oooh," she said, purring as she hugged him closer. "Reservations?"
"Yeah. It's a little place that opened up since I left. I heard it was good. So... Preferences?"
"Surprise me," she said.
He grinned. "All right."
He turned and started to raise his hand, intent on hailing a cab, but she felt the weird, time-stopping thing. The noise swelled up around her again in a wall of cacophony. She breathed. Smells were everywhere. Exhaust. Food. City things. They were standing in Times Square as a couple. A real, getting married someday, freaking-expensive-ring-tucked-away-in-his-pocket couple. It seemed wrong to just... slip away. Slip away in a cab, off into the distant wherever, whatever.
She reached forward and pulled on his arm just as he reached the apex of his cab hail. He collapsed down out of the hail as she curled her fingers around his hand and pulled him back into the middle of the sidewalk, much to the likely chagrin of everyone who had to start spilling around them again just to get by. The crowd parted skillfully.
"Wait," she said, suddenly breathless.
He frowned. "What?"
"We have to do the normal thing. I've never done it. We have to."
"The what thing?"
She glanced around. "We don't have a camera. We're crappy tourists, Derek."
"I'm not technically a tourist, Mere."
"Whatever. I'll just use my phone. Did you know my phone takes pictures?"
"Uhhh..."
Time stopped as she whirled around on her feet, looking, looking, finding. A panhandler or two. Men in business suits in a hurry. People on cell phones. Policemen. Kids under the pull of their parents. Women clicking past in pumps that were far too tall and spiky to be anything but fashionable devices of masochistic torture. Who could take a picture... Everyone looked mean, like they would bite her head off if she asked.
"Excuse me," she said, belting across the writhing crowd when her eyes fell on the perfect target, someone very unlikely to run off with her phone as a consolation prize, someone unlikely to curse at Meredith for interrupting her precious time.
The Girl Scout leader woman looked up from the crowd of high-school-aged girls all hovering around her in a girly cluster. It was the Girl Scout troop she'd seen earlier, actually. They weren't in uniform, but they had on enough of the various Girl Scouty apparel to make it obvious. The leader lady wore her hair tucked under a green bandana with the Girl Scout symbol slathered all across it like strange, misshapen polka-dots. And she had patches on her vest. Lots and lots of... patches. The girls had them too. Patches. Everywhere. Meredith cringed, remembering her high school years. She never would have been caught dead anywhere near a Girl Scout.
"Would you mind taking a picture or two?" Meredith said politely as she approached the frazzled-looking leader lady.
"Sure, if you trade with me," the woman said in a kind, mothering voice. She was tall and thin, with curly brown hair down to her shoulders and small, round glasses. Her face was slightly wrinkled, enough to indicate she was in her late forties or early fifties. But she looked elegant, even despite the bandana, which was decidedly not elegant. And... Kind. She looked like a classic... well... A down-to-earth mom. Really.
Meredith laughed and handed the woman her phone. "Sure, I can do that," Meredith said.
She walked back to Derek, who was staring at her with an amused grin that ripped across his face like a flashing, neon sign that screamed happy, happy, happy, I am. "That was normal?" he said as she wrapped her arm around his waist, he wrapped his arm over her shoulder, they wheeled around so they had Broadway sprawling into the distance behind them, and posed.
"Oh, shut up," she said between clenched teeth as she smiled for the phone camera. Girl Scout leader woman popped off a few shots. "We're making memories. And if you're one of those people who's photogenic in everything, which I suspect you are, I might have to hurt you when I see how these turn out."
He burst out laughing just after leader lady took the last shot. "Meredith, I really doubt you could take a bad picture either," he said. "This shouldn't be news to you. You're hot, Mere."
She blushed as she went to trade with leader lady. They had a real camera. Girl Scouts were prepared. She glanced at Derek as he walked through the crowd of Girl Scouts to her side. While the girls figured out how they wanted to pose, Derek wrapped himself around her, his arms going around her waist as he looked over her shoulder. "Do you even know how to use a camera? You don't seem... like a picture person," he said, his voice playful, arrogant, and damned annoying.
She flipped open the lens thing and pointed the camera. "It can't be that hard. You just hit the little take-a-picture button thing, don't you?" She peered through the window thing and was greeted with only half of the troop. Jeez, there were a lot of them. "Crap, some of them got cut off. How do you zoom this thing out?"
"Hit the minus sign on that swing button," he said in her ear, low and luscious, and it was very much not helping her focus, either the camera or her brain. But he was right. Damned men and their gadget things. She brought the full extent of Girl Scouty troopness into the view and snapped off a few shots.
"Okay, now I'm done," Meredith said as she handed the leader lady's camera back to her. Her stomach rumbled again. "Feed me, Derek."
Derek laughed as the army of Girl Scouts started moving down Broadway, off to whatever their next stop was in their own tour. "Do you even know how to get those pictures back off your phone?" Derek asked. "I've never seen you use it as a camera."
"I very possibly know how, yes!" she said, indignant. The truth was, she really didn't have a clue. She was sure she could figure it out, though. She was a freaking surgeon. How hard could it be?
He just smiled in a quirky, know-it-all smile that said he knew that she was lying through her teeth. "We'll figure it out later," he said. "Gimme that."
She handed him her phone, and in an expert, sweeping motion, he flipped it back open, pointed it at her just inches from her face, and she heard the fake-shutter sound going off.
"Hey!" she said. "I didn't even get a chance to smile."
"You're gorgeous anyway."
"Liar. Do it again."
"Fine," he said as he brought the phone up, shifted it left and right as he stared through the view screen, and finally settled on an angle. "Ready?"
"Yes," she said through clenched, smiling teeth. She stood waiting, waiting, waiting. The seconds ticked past one by one until her mouth started to hurt. No fake-shutter clicky thing happened. He just stood there, staring at her seriously.
"You're sure?" he finally asked.
"Yeah."
"Positive?"
"Yes, Derek."
"I just want to make sure this time. You're certain?"
She lost the smile thing and snorted with laughter. "Ass," she said as she glared.
He flashed a picture just then as she was trying to come up with a more descriptive retort. "Hey!" she snarled.
He laughed. "You're cute when you're angry. I couldn't resist."
"Damn it, give me that," she said, extending her hand out to him.
He dropped her phone onto her waiting palm. "See how you like it," she said as she snapped off another shot an inch from his nose.
"I look good at any angle," he deadpanned.
"Ass," she repeated.
"You love me, though," he said.
"I do," she replied. "I really, really do."
"I love you, too," he said.
They kissed, lunging up against each other. The world around them fell away, and Manhattan was suddenly gone in the wake of him against her. His fingers crawled down her spine. His breathing was like a wave in her ears, blotting out everything. He tasted... Good. Really good. He was warm, and rough, and... Oh. Ooh. Her thoughts peeled away from her brain and disappeared into the dark, fuzzy void somewhere in the background with the world. She heard a shutter-click off to the side, sharp, and the clarity of it against the mushy woozy swirly... things, was like a stabbing knife. She pulled away in a slow, drugged motion, and looked up to see him holding his own flip-phone out at arm's length.
"Hey," she whispered, dazed as the shutter went off again.
"My pictures are better," he said.
"Ass," she said, laughing as she slowly recovered. Her pulse calmed down into something reasonable again. The slow, melty fire cooled. As the breeze of the New York wind tunnel brushed against her skin, her blush eased off her skin like a receding tide.
He stared at his phone, hitting button after button as he fiddled with... Something. "I'm making porny wallpaper for my laptop when we get home."
"You can't do that," she said. "You use that laptop at work." She moved to look at the pictures over his shoulder, but he curled away with a laugh, hiding the results of his trickery from view.
"So?" he countered with a chuckle. "We have real sex at work, why not have porny wallpaper at work?"
"You wouldn't."
He wagged his eyebrows at her in a suggestive, lewd expression that said he would. He so, so would. Maybe. Well, possibly. Maybe she was being paranoid. But he looked very dangerous right then. Dangerous and... really freaking gorgeous.
"I might," he replied in a whisper that curled down her spine like he'd reached under her shirt and slipped his fingers down the line of bone. He hooked his phone back onto his belt clip. Then he shifted and draped himself over her back, wrapping his arms around her waist in a pose she was beginning to think of as her own personal Derek-sweater. And it sucked, because she really liked it, and it made it very, very hard to stay mad.
"You're skating toward no porn tonight," she said, breathless, even as he had her standing there, shivering, thinking all sorts of bad, naughty, naked Derek thoughts. Which would possibly be unhelpful for that night if she were going to really attempt any sort of stalwart denial as punishment. Except, the crappy thing about it was, it would be punishment for her as well. And he knew it.
"For porny wallpaper of my hot fiancé that keeps on giving?" he said, his voice curling with a soft, laughing tone as he spoke into her neck, accenting the words with a series of short, worshiping kisses along her clavicle. "So worth it." The words brushed against her skin. She licked her lips. He was freaking sexy, he knew it, and sometimes, that really freaking sucked. His hand cupped her hip, and the warmth seeped through her slacks.
"Ass," she hissed as her throat went dry. "Seriously..."
"Seriously!"
She moaned, curled around in his grasp to face him, and kissed him again. The cool thing about the mutual attraction bit was that she could mess him up just as badly as he could send her into la-la land. He leaned forward, his fingers tightening over her hips. He wasn't paying the slightest bit of attention as she let her hand roam down his chest, down, down and lower to his waistline. He made a cute little groan in the back of his throat as she slipped her fingers under the denim, distracting, distracting. There. She pulled back from him with his phone in tow.
"I'm taking this hostage," she said.
He panted at her, making several false starts that included syllables like uh, uh, ah, wha? before he managed to say, "You're kidnapping my phone?"
"Damned straight I'm kidnapping your phone."
"But..."
"Now, hail a taxi like a good little Manhattanite... Manahattanonian... Manha... Man."
"You're kidnapping my phone, and now you're calling me little?"
"Feed me, Derek," she growled. "My stomach. Demands. Food."
He laughed. "Fine. But I want my phone back."
"Only after I've fixed it."
"Fixed it?"
"Seriously, Derek," she replied as he turned toward the street and started prowling with his gaze for a cab that looked available. "Us snogging in Times Square? Not porn."
His hand, partially raised for a hail, came back down like an afterthought as he whipped around to face her. "I said it was porny, not porn!"
"Like I said. I'll fix it."
He went silent for a minute, utterly silent. And then he started to smile. Evilly. "Oh," he replied, his voice dropping into low, sexed tones that... really made her want to jump him. He came at her again, brushing up into her personal space. "I could call you with your phone, you know," he said, low, rich, growly. "Mine's on vibrate."
She snorted and pushed away. "Very cute."
"Just trying to be helpful."
"Take me for a ride, Derek. That'd be helpful."
"Okay, okay," he grumbled. "You mean in a taxi, I'm assuming."
"Derek..."
Finally able to follow through without distraction, he hailed them a cab in moments. She climbed into the cab and settled against the cool, leather seats. The car was in slightly bad shape. The fabric of the seats was ripped in a few places, letting the cottony underbelly spill out like guts, and it smelled like someone had tried to erase some of the less fun scents with too much Armor All and Pine Sol. The seats were freaking slippery, and she felt like she was sitting inside a lemon. Not a lemon car. A lemon fruit. It was... stinky.
The cab driver didn't even turn around to look at them, didn't say hello, even as Derek shuffled into the seat and closed the door behind himself with a slam. "205 East Houston Street," Derek told the driver, who finally made a sound. Just a grunt. Whether it meant yes, I need directions for that, I hope you tip me well, or just... I hate you all and cabs suck, she would never know, but he looked like a grumpy, grumpy person, so she decided on the latter-most option. It definitely fit the scowl she saw through the rear-view mirror.
The taxi pulled out into traffic, and as she curled up against Derek in the backseat for the ride, her hip rubbed up against the ring box in his pocket. Ring. Ring. Ring, a little chorus sang in her head, and she couldn't help but loose a little purr. As he leaned back in the seat, and she slid up against him, he groaned, turned, smiled at her, but his lips were set in a thin, frustrated line. "You're trying to kill me, aren't you?"
"Just priming the pump," she whispered, breathing in the warmth of his skin.
"Do I get hazard pay for this tour guide gig?"
"Is that a ring box in your pocket or..." She nuzzled his neck, twisting her fingers into his hair, licking her way up his neck, along the line of his jaw. She watched out of the corner of her eye. Grunty taxicab guy didn't seem to care, so she went in for the kill and nipped.
Everything was just... Perfect.
"Mere..." he managed between rasping breaths. "Taxi... Bad."
Okay, perfection minus one. Stupid taxi, stupid waiting... Stupid... Burning hunger for actual food. She wanted the hotel now. Except she also wanted to not die of starvation. And she knew if she didn't stop teasing him, if the look on his face was any indication, she might very well be committing them to the porn, no turning back.
She pouted as she pulled away. Stupid ravenous famishment. Her stomach growled again, and in the relative quiet of the taxi, the noise of her gurgly innards was definitely audible. Derek, dazed as he was, didn't seem to notice. Grunty taxicab guy was in front of a thick, scratched-up, plastic wall, so... yeah. She'd escaped scrutiny. She slipped back across the seat, feeling a little like she was butt-skiing across the leather. She tugged her seatbelt on as she practically fell into the dip on her side of the car, folding her arms over her stomach with a grimace as she settled.
"So," she said. "Where are we going?"
Derek blinked. "What?"
"Where are we eating?" she clarified.
He blinked again and finally seemed to come back to himself. She couldn't help but grin despite the fact that her stomach seemed to be declaring war on her. He did things to her, but it was a two-way street. And that was... Really invigorating.
He swallowed and collected himself. "It's a surprise," he replied.
"Another surprise?"
"Hey now, you said, and I quote, surprise me."
"I didn't mean surprise, surprise me."
"So," he said, a playful smirk pasting across his features. "This wasn't a literal surprise we were talking about?"
"No," she replied. "So, what is it?"
"Are there such things as non-literal surprises? Because if you're not surprised, how is that surprising?"
"Derek..."
"You'll like it," he assured her. "It's very unhealthy. Just your type of place."
"You're taking me to an unhealthy place?"
"Sure."
She frowned. "Are you actually going to eat anything? I don't want you to starve."
He shrugged. "I'll share with you."
"Share?"
"They serve big portions, Mere."
"You're actually going to consume something... heart clogging?"
"I do indulge from time to time, Mere," he replied.
"Wow," she said. "This must be a good place." Her stomach rumbled up in agreement, but Derek, though his eyes darted down to her abdomen, didn't comment. His lips quirked. Just a little. But he didn't comment.
"You'll probably recognize it," he said instead.
"From where?"
"A movie."
"What movie?"
"It's a surprise, Mere. You can't be surprised if you know what movie it's from."
"Fine," she conceded with a dramatic sigh. She flopped against the seat. "You should order with an accent. Men with accents are hot."
He regarded her silently for a moment. "Waht," he said after the pause, his tone dropping in pitch as he turned his voice all scratchy and... Not Derek. "Ya wan' me ta tauwk like dis?"
"Holy crap," she said, her breath catching. "That's... You used to..."
"Ya wan' me ta tauwk doity? I ken say enough doity woids ta make ya noggin hoit."
She stared at him as he stared back, grinning at her, the rest of his expression hidden conveniently behind his sunglasses. That was... That was... Not Derek. Not... Not... What? It was like his vocal cords had been twisted into something.... Not Derek. It didn't match up with her conception of him at all. Not one tiny bit. It... He... She'd heard the classic Brooklyn accent countless times in movies, from other natives she knew, but... But... It so did not belong anywhere in the vicinity of his mouth. It just... It didn't.
I'm surprised you don't have an accent.
I worked hard to drop it when I started doing more and more consults outside the city.
"Holy crap," she repeated.
He snorted. "I'm kidding, Mere," he said, slipping back into speech that was most certainly himself.
For a minute, she was so flummoxed at the sudden switchback that she just sat there, blinking, amazed. She breathed, trying to catch up with the fact that Derek seemed Derek-y again. "You said you worked hard to get rid of it!" she exclaimed after the long, whirling pause. "I thought..."
"I'm from the Upper East Side, Mere," he replied. "I used to muck up some of my vowels, enough that for professional reasons it seemed like a good idea to retrain myself if I wanted to branch out of New York, but I think that's about it. I kept my Rs, at least."
"That was... That was... Like you were a sock puppet for an alien, or something."
He grinned. "Dat's ma goil. Always expressin' hoiself like a poet."
They both managed to keep quiet for about two seconds before they broke into peals of laughter. She was crying by the time the hilarity cleared. His face was ruddy and flushed. "Okay, no more, please," she panted as she wiped the tears from her eyes. "It makes me feel like I'm in the Twilight Zone."
He laughed some more. "I'll have to save it for a rainy day to drive you crazy, I guess."
"Wonderful," she growled, though she couldn't help but smile back at him. "So, where are we going?" she tried again.
He shook his head. "Told you. Surprise."
"Fine," she said. "Fine. I guess I can take another surprise after that... Jumbly, crazy bit of stuff that came out of your mouth, which, by the way, I'm refusing to admit was words. So wrong, coming from you. I just... No. It was seizures. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it."
He stared at her for a moment, and then he laughed, and laughed, and laughed, and she decided she liked it a lot. It was far better than memory-twisted Derek from earlier. She joined him. And, slowly, they settled. Meredith leaned back against the seat and smiled. She watched the scenery drift past in the stop-and-start crawl of the New York traffic, listening to Derek's soft, sexy tour guide voice as he pointed out various sights and fun things.
And Meredith does Manhattan continued to its next stop.