Lightning Strikes Twice - Part 52B

[ariaadagio]

Title: Lightning Strikes Twice
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Pairing: Duh. (Mer/Der)
Rating: M
Timeline: Post Time After Time.

~~~~~

"Huh," she said.  Derek did not like country music.  As in hated.  She filed that away, a private zing of glee overwhelming every cynical Christmas-killing feeling of dread that had collected.  She was learning important stuff, and he was humoring her.  Maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all.  "Okay.  How about..."

She hit the skip button on the radio, and the next song began.  A woman, singing softly to the slow progression of piano chords.  They both listened quietly.  Quin howled when the melody launched into the higher registers, and, though he managed the lofty heights the singer reached, he was quite off-key.  She grinned, reaching back to scratch him.  "He likes it," she said.  The lyrics were beautiful.  The song was...  The song was beautiful.

"What is this?" Derek murmured.

"So Are You To Me," Meredith answered as she looked at the track list.  "Eastmountainsouth."

"It doesn't have any beat."

"No, but listen to it," Meredith countered.  "It's gorgeous."

"And apparently short," Derek replied as the song abruptly ended.

Meredith sighed.  "That wouldn't work, would it?"

"It would take me the length of the song just to figure out how to lead you," Derek said, his voice dipping low with rue.  "I have enough trouble with my feet as it is."

"Who says you'd be leading?  You're the dance-challenged one.  Not me."

His fingers flexed around the steering wheel, and the corner of his lip twitched in what she could only assume was a checked grin.  "You like dancing?"  His tone expressed his subtle pleasure over the fact, which she found curious.  Why would he be happy that she liked an activity he hated?

"I love dancing," she confirmed as she tried to figure out where his mind was at.

He glanced at her, his eyes twinkling.  "What kind of dancing?"

"Grind-y, sweaty club dancing," she said.  "Not ballroom.  Well, I don't know about that.  I've never really tried it.  Ballroom dancing, I mean."  She sighed, watching the scenery passing by.  There were a lot of things she'd never done, when she thought about it.  "And I like slow dancing," she added, her voice low as the clusters of stick-y trees along the roadside blurred into gray.  "With you.  I like that."

"Mere..."

"Even if it's vastly inappropriate and about drowning, In The Air Tonight..."

Derek's gaze ticked off the road to her before resettling on the roll of the pavement as the car churned over it.  "It's special," he said.  The grin on his face was a fabulous expression that she wanted to bask in forever.  "Kind of ours."

"Yeah," she replied, sighing.  "It kind of is.  Derek, I..."

"I didn't know you liked dancing," Derek repeated, a pleased, sated expression overwhelming his features.  Almost like he'd just had some great sex.

"Well, you don't," Meredith replied with a shrug.  "So--"

He stared at the road.  "We should go to a club."

"What?  Why?  You hate clubbing."

"I don't hate clubbing," he said.  "I used to love clubbing.  I'm from Manhattan, Mere.  How exactly do you think I got into The Clash?  There was this great spot at 315 Bowery that I just--"

"But you said..." she stuttered, trying to picture him.  At a club.  Then again... punk rock.  He'd had the bike.  He'd lived in New York City.  And he'd had Mark.  Mark might have dragged him to something, or...  Maybe...  Her eyes narrowed as the image began to incorporate leather jackets and chains and those silly leather gloves with holes in the fingers that only covered your palms.  She tried not to laugh.  She did.  And she managed.  Sort of.

He smiled, looking bemused but good-humored at her failed efforts as she snorted.  "I said I don't dance in public," he countered.  "I never said I didn't like to go clubbing.  And you like it.  So..."

"But what about woodsy, introverted Derek 2.0?"

His eyebrows rose.  "Derek 2.0?"

"It's the term I've developed for the Seattle you," she said.  "The you that I know and love."

"Let's just say Seattle Derek noticed Bright-and-Shiny Meredith is trying out all of Seattle Derek's hobbies, but she hasn't offered anything up."

"I don't have hobbies to offer up, Derek," she insisted.  "You're the one with hobbies.  I'm hobby-less and boring.  I never had any time except for...  Well, I had time.  I just used it for stupid stuff.  Like--"

"Clubbing."

"And drinking.  And sex.  There was lots of drinking and sex," she said, and then the pictures of Derek in leather and chains on his motorcycle evolved.  Liquor bottles.  Hair grease.  A spiked dog collar around his throat.  And a tight black shirt.  Yes.  He'd have to have one of those.  She blinked, half-laughing at the ludicrous image and half-turned on.  Tight.  Leather.  Tight leather.  And black.  Derek looked very good in black.  Derek looked good in anything, but particularly dark blue and black.  And...  Damn it.  Stop.  Moment.  They were having a learning moment.  She had to--  Leather!  "You really like to..." she managed, only to have her voice choke away as her throat constricted.  She coughed.  "I don't see you on the club scene, Derek.  Visualization is failing me.  Or, well, it's not failing me.  But it's very scary."

Perhaps he just went in frayed jeans.  Frayed jeans seemed like a more appropriate act of rebellion for Derek than hair grease and dog collars.  Frayed jeans, thready and thin on the back pockets, open at the knees, maybe a few snags along the quads, uneven and stringy at the ends where his boots began...  Yeah.  Black boots.  Not combat boots or grungy biker boots, just...  The boots he always liked to wear when he wasn't in sneakers, the sharp, pointed, stylish kind with heels to catch the bike stirrups.  Sexy.  And he would have a black shirt, maybe with the logo of the club.  With a sharp-looking leather jacket.  Not horrendously punk-y with silver buckles on the shoulders.  Just a smart leather coat that worked to forward the whole motorcycle image.  There was the picture.  She'd found it.  She licked her lips.

"There's still lots of new stuff to find out, Mere," Derek said.  He grinned, and the great sex expression returned.  "I didn't know you like to dance."

She shared his look of glee.  "I know," she replied with a smile.  "Well...  What about this song, then?"

She flipped the skip button until the CD-player landed on track seven.  The song started slowly and wasn't very textured to begin with, but she knew it by heart.  Vocals and piano.  Then the drums started, and the strings eventually cut in.  It built.  Into something bigger, like a big, building...  Like a big, building mystery story with a definitive climax where all the whodunits came to light.  And the lyrics.  The lyrics, which she'd always found pretty before, suddenly connected with her in a way that made her chest hurt.  They were about someone.  Suddenly.  Instead of being about an amorphous Prince Charming she never expected to meet.

She bit her lip as she watched him, trying to gauge his reaction, which started, really, as no reaction whatsoever.  His face hovered in neutral, sort of like Switzerland, were it an expression and not a country or...  Yeah.  He swallowed, staring at the road.  The dim, golden light of the sun cast its dying glow on his face, making his eyes sparkle and his skin seem otherworldly.  Loose strands of his raven-brown hair lit up like hot metal, turning incandescent orange in the bath of waning light.

She settled back against her seat, letting her eyes dip into half-lidded relaxation.  The heaters blew on her, bathing her in soft warmth that slowly seeped to her core.  She watched him.

She loved this song so much.  She always had, ever since she'd heard it on the dance floor in London.  And now...  Now, she had someone sitting next to her who made it come alive.  Because for her, it was about Derek, and that was...  That was perfect.  It made the song even better, made it three-dimensional and real and...  Hers.

She realized, in that moment, she didn't care whether he liked it or not, and the nerves bled away.  It might not be their song, but it was definitely hers, and it was a very good feeling.

"Izzie picked this out?" Derek asked, breaking into her musing.

"No, I did," Meredith admitted.  "I saw she was making the CD for me, and I suggested she put...  Well, I heard this when I was in London."

"Your Europe trip," Derek said.  "You want your bad plane sex with the Frenchman to be immortalized at our wedding?"

"This was from later," she protested.  "This is..."  She noted the perplexed expression on his face.  "You don't like it."

"It's... interesting," he decided as the main rhythm finally cut in.  "What is it?"

"Gorecki, by Lamb."

He frowned.  "What kind of name is Gorecki?"

"I don't know!" Meredith said.  "I don't pay attention to that.  It's just the lyrics, they..."

"The lyrics are kind of perfect," Derek agreed, his voice low and soft.

She grinned.  He got it, even if he didn't like it.  He...  "They really are," she said.

"But, Meredith," Derek said.  "This isn't really..."

"You said you liked clubbing."

"I do like clubbing," he said.  "You, it seems, like raving."

"Raving, clubbing."  She shrugged.  "Whatever."

He smirked.  "I would die to know what the hell you were doing in London to this music."

"Swapping spit with some guy, probably."

"Probably?"

"Raving, Derek," she said.  "There was alcohol involved.  And some other stuff."

"Other stuff, huh."  His teeth flashed as he gave her an evil grin.  "What other stuff?"

"Pretty colors," she stated.  "That's all I remember.  I don't do that crap anymore."

Her head had been pounding when she'd woken up.  She'd swallowed, spit tasting sticky and metallic against her throat as she'd sat up.  She'd found herself on the cold, wooden floor, hair shooting out in all directions, still in the prison of hairspray and dye and product she'd tortured it with.  She'd found her underwear dangling around her ankle.  She'd found her bra later after an intense search.  The room had spun wildly as she'd sat up, followed by sharp, jabbing pains as she'd asked her muscles to connect with her brain again.  She'd winced blearily at the wet, used condom she found on the floor by her face.

Hello? she'd said, but the word had been a grating remnant of her speaking voice, as if she hadn't uttered a word in days.

Nobody had answered.  It hadn't been until she'd hobbled to the phone, a phone she didn't recognize in an apartment she didn't know, and saw the blinking light on the answering machine that she'd started to freak out.  She'd hit play.  She didn't know why.  She wasn't particularly nosey.  But the light had been blinking, and she'd been firing on about three total neurons at the time.

Mere, babe.  Had a great time.  See you later at the party, maybe.  I hear they scored some good shit for it.

She hadn't recognized the voice, neither the timbre nor the faint, lilting British accent.  She hadn't recognized the apartment.  She hadn't recognized the clothes she'd been wearing, and she hadn't even been able to remember when she'd painted her nails with the lacquered black shade she'd found at her fingertips, chipped and cracked and old.  She hadn't been able to remember anything.

What's wrong with me? she'd said in a cracking, broken voice as she'd tried to get her legs to work, only to collapse in a twitching, aching pile on the couch.  What's wrong?  What's wrong?  What's wrong?

Derek smiled.  "Because you're bright and shiny, now?"

"I totally am."

His fingers squeaked against the steering wheel, and he shifted in his seat, his eyes staring at the road.  He blinked, and it seemed like in that moment, the sunset became night.  The last hint of gold faded from his face, leaving them in darkness.  Deep, light-polluted purple clogged what should have been a black-touched blue sky.  His eyes glittered in the waning light, and the soft green glow of the dashboard filled the space between them with a vague nighttime light.  She watched his hands in the darkness as they gripped the wheel, and then she settled down to watch the road pass underneath them.  The white lane dividers sprawled out in the glow of the headlights and beyond, blurring into an on-off line sort of like she imagined Morse-code would look, were it a painting instead of a sound.

"I'm glad you're happy, Meredith," Derek said, his voice barely audible over the soft air of the heaters and Quin's peaceful breathing in the backseat.  The dog had settled down to snooze, and he had his muzzle cradled between his two front paws.  His eyebrows twitched in the onslaught of canine dreams.

Wanna stay right here, 'til the end of time, she mouthed as Lamb's vocalist continued onward.  "Me, too," she said.  "I like it.  Being happy, I mean.  And I'm really glad you're feeling better.  Really, Derek."

"I'm driving," he stated, his voice puffing up with pride.

"You are."

He sighed as the song neared its finish.  "I don't know, Meredith.  I agree the words are... good.  But this music isn't really..."

"Your thing?" she supplied when his voice fell away.

"Not really, no," he admitted.  "And I can't imagine dancing to this at a wedding.  It's just..."

She'd expected as much when he'd called it interesting instead of given it an actual adjective.  Interesting was the word people used to avoid hurt feelings.  What an interesting idea.  You look interesting.  Your choice was interesting.  Not that she minded much.  He'd given it a try.  And he got it, even if he didn't like it.  "It makes me think of you," she said.

"Mere, if you really...  If you want to use this song, we can use this song.  I kind of...  I love that this makes you think of me, even if I don't necessarily love it myself."

"Then it misses the point."

"The point?"

"It has to be our song," she said.  "Not mine.  Not yours.  Ours.  And we don't have one, Derek.  We have no song."  She skipped back to track four as Gorecki came to a close.  "How about this one?"  She squinted at the track list in the darkness.  "Feels Like Home.  By, uh... Chantal.  Somebody.  I can't even begin to pronounce this.  This kind of works.  It's pretty, but not horrifically diva."

"Diva?"

"I think track five might work, too," she said, staring at the list.  "It's--  Wait.  That's country, too.  Why are all the good non-sappy, non-diva love songs country?"  She reached for the radio to hit the skip button.

"Mere, stop," he murmured.  His palm brushed against her skin, and he pushed her away from the radio before she could switch the song to the next non-country ballad.  They hovered in the air, touching, and he sighed.  His skin was always so warm.  And perfect.  She tilted her hand until it hung in the air, palm to palm with his, and grasped him.

"What?" she said, closing her eyes as she basked in the dark and the comfort of the moment.

"A song is something that happens," Derek said.  "You don't pick it."

She swallowed and cracked her eyes open.  The blur of the dashboard coalesced.  "I suppose you would know," she said.  "I mean...  You already have one with somebody else."

She bit her lip when she realized what she'd said might have sounded jealous or something.  To him.  Jealous.  She hadn't meant it that way at all.  It was just...  All new.  To her, it was all new.  This was take two for him.  He had a chance to fix all his screw ups.  This was her chance to make the mistakes for the first time.  Sometimes, it was a daunting sort of weight on her shoulders, knowing that.

A quiet breath whuffed from his lips, sort a laugh, but not really.  He blinked, and she watched the way the dashboard glittered against the film of wetness over his eyes.  His lip twitched, and in his face, she didn't read any sort of condemnation or anger.  Just muted amusement.  Bewilderment.  If only you knew, his expression seemed to say.

"No, I don't," he said.

"What?"

"The only time Addison and I ever really danced was when we met," he said.  "I was so drunk the song could have been Tragedy, and I wouldn't have noticed."

"What about your wedding?" she prodded, curiosity driving her to pry.  "And hospital prom.  You totally danced with her at hospital prom."

"At our wedding, we danced to some horrifically sappy ballad that she picked out," he said as Chantal swept her song into another swelling chorus.

"Like this one," Meredith said with an understanding frown.

Derek nodded.  "Like this one, Mere.  And at prom..."

"What?"

"I had my mind on you," he said, a small, ironic breath of laughter escaping from his lips.  "Not her."

"Oh."

"Which was probably obvious."

"I did sort of notice," she said.  "So, if you don't dance in public, how are we supposed to get a song?"

"It'll figure itself out, Mere."

She turned in the seat and watched his profile.  "How are you always so sure?"

He smiled.  "It's a gift," he said.  "But we can listen to the rest of this CD if you want.  Maybe it'll happen in the next forty-five minutes."

"Okay," she replied.

They drove the rest of the way in darkness, but not silence, as the rest of Izzie's selections played.  They spoke of the merits and demerits of each.  Beat is too fast.  Beat is too slow.  Beat is nonexistent.  Too sappy.  Not sappy enough.

Derek, it seemed, actually had a rather eclectic sense of taste in music, and most of the songs on the disc, he at least showed an appreciation for, even if he didn't necessarily like them.  She learned that her picture of him in his club-going days had been mostly correct as he related how Mark had dragged him to a club during college to 'loosen him up a little', and he'd heard a band doing a cover of one of The Clash's songs.  He'd traced the song's lineage back to its parents, and from there, he'd slowly come down off the ledge of stereotypical valedictorian archetype into a valley of more flavored, textured personality, started to become more than just a hint of the Derek she knew.  Started growing up.

He seemed delighted to learn that her desire to go to medical school and make something of herself had evolved as her own sense of rebellion had flared bright and then died in torrent of spent embers.  Well, not thrilled at the story.  But thrilled that she was talking.  Europe had untwisted the last of her kinks.  She'd woken up somewhere after a bad trip, hadn't had a clue where she was or how she'd gotten there.  And that had been it.  The last straw.  She'd flown home, horrified, her mother had gotten sick, and the rest had been history.  She'd become Dr. Meredith Grey.

The closer to their destination they traveled, the slower he drove.  The roads lost their battle with the encroaching snow as he turned onto his mother's street, and she finally understood exactly why Derek had insisted on an SUV with the rental agency this time.

The street was nothing but white and quiet.  Thick, puffy snow covered everything.  Though the sky above hung stark and black and twinkley overhead with the light dusting of stars, and the remnants of storm clouds had since passed, the snow hadn't yet received an opportunity to melt.  Wind had smoothed it into drifts.  The street had been plowed at one point, but new snow had covered the pavement again, and the plows had not yet returned.

Colored lights decorated the Shepherd house around the door and the bushes that framed the walkway.  Little electric candles dotted each window of the large house between the blinds and the glass panes.  A gigantic, gorgeous wreath with a red-plaid ribbon hung around the doorknocker at the front door.  Embossed against the golden glow escaping from the windows, Meredith saw shadow patterns flickering against the shades.  People.  Moving inside.  Many people.  Having fun.  Talking.  People.

"You're sure you're okay, Mere?" Derek asked as he turned the key in the ignition, and the rumbling of the SUV faded into the muffled silence of snow.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she insisted as she gritted her teeth and clenched her fingers around her purse straps.  This was it.  "It's Christmas."

"Yeah," he said.  "Our first."

For a long march of moments, they sat there, quiet, unmoving, peaceful, just sharing the passing time.  Derek leaned forward, pinching his nose with his fingers, sitting, breathing.  He sighed, and then he got out of the SUV.  Meredith let the door slam vibrate in her chest, let the cold blast of air sink into her pores.  She listened as his feet crunched against the snow along the side of the car.  He popped the trunk, and though she expected him to grab their luggage and start heading toward the house, instead, she heard the whine of a zipper as he tore into their joint suitcase.  She turned around in time to see him donning his thick winter coat, which he'd pulled from its tightly packed space on top of their regular clothes.  The fabric made a soft rustling noise as he slipped it over his shoulders.

He slammed the trunk shut before she could ask what on earth he was doing.  The rear passenger door came open.  "Come on, Quin.  It's snow," Derek said, his voice dripping with the quiet whisper of pent up excitement.

Meredith smiled as the dog shot out of the SUV with a playful bark and took off to explore the new, funny wet stuff.  Derek's breath clawed out from his mouth in a cloud of mist as he gathered up a wet, perfect snowball and lobbed it across the yard with sharp, whistling speed that spoke of long forgotten battles in the snow, building walls and forts of powder, stockpiling slush bombs and other cold instruments of maiming.  Snow clawed out in a fan behind Quin's back feet as the dog dug in with his hindquarters and shot across the yard.  The snowball landed with a splat and dispersed next to a winter-barren tree, leaving a pockmark in the wind-swept surface.  Quin lowered his nose into the white mess, snorting and running around in circles, trying to figure out where his mysterious toy had vanished.

Derek laughed and lobbed another ball of snow, expertly aimed, as Meredith decided to brave the cold.  She hopped through the dense slush in the driveway, her feet half-crunching, half-sinking into the wet mess below her soles with strange slurch, slurch, slurching sounds.  Cold seeped through her shoes, and she cursed her poor planning.  Their poor planning.

They really shouldn't have packed away all their winter clothes, but...  It hadn't been that cold in Seattle.  She opened the trunk and pulled out her coat, throwing it on as fast as her shivering limbs could manage, but it was too late to stave off the first chill, and for a moment, she stood there, shocked and twitching with the onslaught of cold sting and ache.

She looked up in time to see Derek careening onto his back in an explosion of snow as Quin yapped and ran in circles around him.  He laughed as the dog attacked him with kisses, and Meredith couldn't help but smile as she heard the cadences of his low murmurs.  Derek scrunched his gloveless hands against Quin's muzzle and ruffled him affectionately, and as she drew closer, words formed from the rise and fall of sound.  "Somebody likes snow, doesn't he?  Oh, yes, he does."

"Somebody definitely likes snow," Meredith commented with a laugh as she stumbled through the yard to Derek's prone form.  Quin looked up at her and barked before returning to reassess the cleanliness of Derek's face.  He found it lacking, and the bath started all over again.

Derek cackled with glee, rolling onto his side to get away from the dog.  He stood, shaking off his curly hair and jacket and hands much like a wet dog.  Powdery snow and slush went flying everywhere, and he shoved his hands into his pockets immediately.  "I like it until it melts in my pants," he said.  "Which it's going to do very soon at this rate."

"What about your shirt?" Meredith said.

He raised an eyebrow at her as Quin pushed up against her leg and leaned, demanding more attention, or perhaps more lobbed snowballs.  "My shirt?" Derek said.

She bent down and gathered up a handful of snow, mashing it into a compact piece of slush, wincing as the cold seeped through her skin.  She drew her arm back and faked the throw with a flick of her wrist.  Quin launched forward, spraying both her and Derek with upturned snow as he fought for traction.  Derek followed the dog with his gaze, and it was the opening she needed.  She stuffed the melting snowball down the neck of his coat.

"FFFFF---!" Derek began to belt as the packed ice slipped down inside his jacket, only to flash a wide-eyed look of horror at the house where the shadows of countless bodies moved behind the curtains.  His curse ended in a strangely wailing "AH!"  He comically twisted around, trying to get away from it, but it was stuck inside his coat, and suddenly they were both careening backward into a heap in the chilly, wet snow as he grabbed her and pulled her down on top of him with a half-growl, half-chuckle.

"See?" Meredith said with a giggle as she settled against his heaving body.  "Your shirt is kinda wet, now."  She drew a cold index finger down his nose while he shivered and panted and sputtered.

Quin returned, a perplexed look on his face.  Why?  Why can't I find these mysterious white things you keep throwing?  I don't get it.  I just...  Don't get it.  She reached up and scratched his neck, and he collapsed into the heap with them, his tail wagging, dusting their legs with fresh, wet snow.

"You cheated," Derek decided as he stared up at the pinpricked, black sky.  His teeth started to chatter.  "Jesus, that's cold, Meredith."

She kissed him.

"Okay, that's not so cold," he muttered against her lips as she drew her fingers through his wet hair and sighed.

"This is my first Christmas," she said as she panted, nose-to-nose with him.

"I know," Derek said, his eyes twinkling, smile wide and brilliant, even as his skin bleached of color and his hair started to twitch with the shivers racing through his body.

"No," Meredith said.  "I mean it's my first Christmas ever, Derek.  Christmas with my mother?  Not Christmas.  So I'm...  I'm a little nervous.  I spent the whole time in the car wondering if I was ruining it."

For a moment, he stared.  Just a moment.  A blink.  Expressionless.  A soft sigh hit her face as he breathed out with the enormous weight of what she'd just said.  She felt his hands slide around her and pull her into a tight embrace.  And then he kissed her.

"You're here," he whispered.  "You're not ruining it, Meredith.  You couldn't possibly.  You're here, and...  That makes it perfect."

She smiled as Quin stood with a yap and started to explore the snow, his nose to the ground.  "So," she said.  "Now that we've established I'm not fine, are you okay?  I mean really okay?"

His smile flattened into something not... unhappy.  But not... at peace.  Definitely not at peace.  He blew out a breath, a fan of misty air puffing around them.  "I haven't had trouble with big crowds and noises and things for weeks.  I shouldn't be nervous."

"And you're here," she countered.  "You're here all the time and saying things.  I shouldn't be nervous, either."

His lip twitched, and his grin returned.  "I guess we just suck."

Meredith laughed.  "I guess so."

Quin added his agreement as he returned and smothered them with fresh snow and wet kisses and playful yapping, just in time for the front door to open.  "I thought I heard some X-rated shenanigans out here," a tall, lanky shadow in the doorway said.  "You've ruined Ellen's perfectly picturesque snow, you know.  It's all churned up, now.  Points for locale, though.  Your mother's front lawn in the snow?  Wow."

Meredith scrambled off of Derek, and they stumbled to their feet.  "We were just playing," Meredith replied as Derek brushed off his coat and pants.  He started sweeping his hand against her back, sending chunks of snow to the ground, and she sighed, leaning back into his touch with a smile.

"Hey, man, you made it, finally," Mark said, appearing next to Stewart.  The two of them stood in the doorway in identical Knicks t-shirts.  It would have been adorable were it not for the fact that now that the activity had stopped, Meredith realized she was freaking cold.  Derek pulled her into a hug, and they lumbered up the walk, a bundle of wet stuff and shivering limbs.  Quin plodded behind, tongue dangling from the side of his mouth, a cheerful, amazed look of curiosity tempering his chocolate eyes.

"Yeah, well, some of us didn't have two weeks of leave to burn," Derek answered as the two of them stomped into the foyer.

"I know," Mark said.

"I'll go get your luggage," Stewart said, launching himself into the cold from which they had just escaped.

Bits and clots of snow fell to the welcome mat and began to melt on impact as she and Derek shook off, leaving puddles and slush and yuck.  Warmth slammed into her face, followed by the cloying scent of cinnamon and something baking.  The loud murmur of voices, feet thumped overhead and toward the back of the house, and the crackle-snap of a nearby fire in a fireplace thundered against her ears in a huge, spiraling rush of... Christmas.  Holiday.  Everything.  She didn't have a chance to worry, because as soon as Mark had taken her sopping coat, Derek wrapped himself around her.  His body shivered against her back, but it didn't matter.  She'd never felt so warm in her life.

"Addison?" Derek asked as he rubbed his palms against her arms, creating friction and heat.  She stood there, allowing the warmth and shock and panic to soak in and return circulation to her limbs.

"She stayed home this time," Mark called over his shoulder as he took their coats to the closet.  "She didn't want it to be too awkward."

"Ah," Derek answered.

"Hello, Meredith," Nancy said as she appeared in the doorway to the foyer.

"A puppy!" Mary shrieked, tearing past her mother.  Quin was quite happy to receive the attention.

"Be careful, honey, he's wet," Nancy said.

"Nancy," Meredith said.

"Hey, Mary," Derek said as he relinquished his hold on Meredith and knelt down to greet his niece.  "His name is Algonquin," he said, his voice dripping with a parental sort of pride.  "But we call him Quin."

"Hi, Quin," Mary said, a smile ripping her face from ear to ear.  The dog licked her, and her giggle wound into the cascade of voices all through the house.

Nancy folded her arms over her chest and smiled faintly.  "Merry Christmas," Nancy said.

"Um."  Meredith swallowed.  "Mer--  Merry Christmas."

Nancy gave her a small nod.  "Uncle Derek and Aunt Meredith are here!" she called loudly into the hallway, clapping her hands in emphasis.

Meredith shivered as the rumble of sounds all seemed to converge at once, and suddenly she was enveloped in words and laughs and smiles and hugs and handshakes and things that swept her breath away.

"Good lord," Ellen commented into the family fray.  "You two are soaked."

"Yes," Derek replied.  "But we're here."