The television was blaring away to itself in the corner of the room; Meredith was curled up on the sofa with her youngest child, Ellis who had fallen asleep on her knee after refusing to stay in her own bed for the night. Her day at work had been long and repetitive with surgery after surgery, she'd barely even had a chance to pee let alone eat some lunch or sit down for five darn minutes. Maggie was still at the hospital, Amelia was already in bed after working the night shift for a few days and her other two kids were flat out upstairs.
Meredith clicked the button on her phone to reveal the time, 9.34pm.. She decided to get herself up from the sofa and carry Ellis up to her bed. She stirred a little as she lifted the tot to her shoulder, her comfort blanket still firmly clutched in her hand.
"No, Mama" Muffled a sleepy Ellis as she realized she was on the move.
Meredith awkwardly shuffled side to side as she attempted to neaten up the cushions on her sofa one handily. "Shh. You just go back to sleep, sweetie."
She turned off the TV and closed the blinds thinking that she'd go upstairs and check her emails in bed just as the door bell rang. Her eyes rolled in frustration, figuring that her child was now fully awake and would profoundly refuse going to bed for a third time that night. She heard a light tap on the door, whoever was outside clearly wanted her attention. She glanced at herself in the mirror in the hallway and saw that Ellis was actually still asleep, thank god for that.
She wandered to the door, opening it to reveal Nathan standing there looking very apologetic as he saw Meredith's daughter in her arms.
Meredith frowned at him disapprovingly, she didn't mind hanging out with him outside of her home or at work but he'd turned up uninvited which she didn't like.
"Hey, I um... I can't… You can't be here." She eventually spoke.
"I thought you'd say that." Nathan admitted. He took a step closer to Meredith and leaned over beside her to catch a glimpse of Ellis flat out on her shoulder. "Looks just like her Mommy. Especially those curls, she's just gorgeous." He smiled, gently smoothing a piece of her hair which had fallen over her eyes. Meredith's face softened ever so slightly at how careful he was with her.
"She had a little too much sugar after dinner…" Meredith chuckled at the thought of it. She had a hard time saying no her mischievous two year-old. "Was driving me insane for a couple of hours straight, almost flushed some building blocks down the toilet then crashed out on my knee a little while ago."
Nathan looked at her warmly with a smile laced upon his face. He hadn't really seen the 'Mother' side to her; at work she was always calm, cool and totally in charge of everything which got thrown in her direction. Her home life seemed like utter chaos.
"Worth every second though, right?" He asked, totally in awe of the woman stood in front of him.
Meredith backed into her house a little more, finally feeling the true extent of the cool November air. "Every damn second." She agreed, only just noticing that Nathan had a brown paper bag in his hand. "What you got there?"
"Remember when you asked me out to that restaurant which we never got to… And then we rescheduled and you cancelled, and then we rescheduled again but Maggie's Mom died and you shut me out for a while?" He raised his eyebrows at their incredibly bad track record.
"Yeah I remember."
"Well, this is the date that we never had." He bit his lip, as he pulled out a bottle of wine from the bag. "We have pasta, freshly cooked pizza, this whole bottle of wine to ourselves, Mer. What do you say?"
How could she say no to him turning up on her doorstep like that? She stepped aside with a shy smile and ushered him into her house. He made sure to tip toe passed just in case Ellis woke up.
Meredith took Ellis up to bed without any drama, she'd left Nathan downstairs roaming her kitchen in search of some plates and some wine glasses which he had managed to find on his own. He spent a moment glancing at the countless paintings which covered the door of her fridge just as she came in beside him from upstairs.
"Hey." Nathan smiled warmly now that Ellis was down for the night, her mood seemed lighter and much less tense than before. He knew their whole relationship was difficult for Meredith especially with her trying to keep things as normal as possible for the sake of her children. Nathan was a very patient guy and deep down she appreciated that.
"Hey. You didn't have to do all of this you know." Meredith waved her hands over the counter where he had laid out the plates of food.
"I know." He replied, pouring her a generous sized glass of wine to which she immediately took a sip from. "But I wanted to. How many times did that date get cancelled? I just wanted to make it up to you."
She looked up at him properly for the first time since he'd been there, fully admiring the hopeful look on his face, his eyes looking back at hers, his hair flat from the long day he'd had. Anyone else would want to go home and sleep after being at work 14 hours a day, but there he was in her kitchen trying his damn hardest to put a smile on that face of hers, even just for a second. It was what she deserved after all the bad things happening in her life.
"Thank you..." Meredith bit her lip to conceal the little smile which was about to break across her face.
"You're very welcome. I like those paintings by the way, very… abstract." Nathan admitted, going back to look over her children's artwork.
Meredith hopped onto the counter, legs dangling from the side and grabbed her plate of Italian food.
"Ok, so that one..." She pointed her fork at a piece of paper. "That's what Bailey did at 4.30 in the morning last weekend." Meredith gritted her teeth together, faking a smile. "I was happily asleep, heard this almighty crash. Thought it was someone breaking into my house. I came downstairs saw a whole tray of paints all over my floor, my 5 year old attempting to clean it up with one of his sisters t-shirts…"
Nathan began sniggering at her storytelling.
"You wanna know the best part?" Meredith laughed. "He'd actually written Zola's name in the corner of the picture, was gonna make it look as if it was her raiding the house for the paints at the crack of dawn; but I caught him red handed, literally."
"Okay, now that's funny. At 4.30 in the morning though? Ouch." Nathan chuckled as he took a bite from his pizza. "This is good, right?" He asked, raising his eyebrows at Meredith who gleefully nodded back at him.
"And this is from Sabrina's, the restaurant we were gonna go to?" She quizzed.
"Yup. I'll take you there sometime. If you'd like? See what else is good there."
"Definitely. I wasn't even that hungry but I'm glad you came round." Meredith reached out for the last piece of pizza. "You mind?"
"Go for it. I'll pour us the rest of the wine."
The dishes were left by the sink along with the empty bottle of wine, Meredith took a tub of ice cream out of the freezer and two spoons from the drawer. She grabbed Nathan's arm along with their glasses and headed upstairs, it was more private plus anyone had the tendency to walk through her front door at any time during the day.
Nathan followed swiftly behind making sure to be quiet. "So you're taking me to your bedroom on our first official date? Score." He cheekily whispered into Meredith's ear. She shot him a glare and opened up her bedroom door, insisting that he went in first so that she could shut the door behind them.
"Come sit." Meredith patted the empty space on the bed beside her and pulled the lid off the ice cream, handing Nathan a spoon.
He kicked off his shoes and sat beside Meredith. Her bed was huge and yet he chose to sit so their shoulders were touching. They devoured the ice cream within minutes, Nathan insisting that he had the last mouthful considering he let her have the last bite of the pizza.
"I'm out of wine!" Meredith moaned. She grabbed the glass out of Nathan's hand and downed the rest of his, giving him both of the empty glasses back.
He sniggered at her and narrowed his eyes, placing them on the bedside table. "Must have been good wine."
Meredith nodded. It was and it had been a while since she'd felt the buzz of alcohol in her system, she'd been busy and hadn't socially drank in absolutely ages.
"Go downstairs. Grab a bottle that you fancy from the oven and we'll open that." Meredith instructed.
Nathan jumped down from the bed and registered what Meredith had just said. "Wait…" He looked at her, profoundly puzzled wondering if he misheard. "Did you just say the oven?!"
Laughter from the both of them instantly filled the room, Meredith at that moment in time seemed totally carefree. He wasn't even that surprised that the oven was used as storage for her alcohol.
"Great. Now just don't let me get drunk, I'm inappropriate when I'm drunk… or so I've heard." Meredith shrugged her shoulders and took the bottle from Nathan, filling her glass to the top.
"Oh yeah… inappropriate in what kind of way?" His eyes met hers and lingered there for a little while until she looked away bashfully.
"You know. Saying things I shouldn't, dancing awkwardly around the house. Jumping into bed with men I shouldn't be sleeping with." Meredith muttered with a slight smirk on her face remembering her time in med school. She'd spent the majority of her time there drunk and then hung-over the next mornings wondering just how she was going to pass.
"Mmm, well we could always just jump in the shower instead of the bed." He said suggestively with his eyebrows raised.
"Don't make suggestions."
"Why, are you considering it?"
"Absolutely not." She placed her glass on the bedside table and crossed her arms.
Meredith wasn't sure if her point had gotten through to Nathan or not considering he gleefully watched her every move for the next couple of seconds.
"So you know that time we first met at the OR board?" Nathan began.
"Um, vaguely." Meredith's mind somewhat flashbacked to that memory.
"What was your honest first opinion of me?"
Meredith eyed Nathan for a brief moment, confused as to why he was asking.
"Like when I first met you I knew I wanted to know more about you, know who your friends were, you were the person out of everyone that day who I wanted to work with the most, watch you do your thing in the OR. The famous Dr. Grey, whose name was all over the hospital." Nathan breathed, his heart beating a little faster than normal. That had come out of nowhere.
He downed the rest of his wine for some Dutch courage, leaning in ever so slightly towards Meredith who unusually had nothing to say.
Nathan's hand gently raised up to her chin, positioning her head so that she was looking right at him, blue eyes against blue. A tingling feeling ignited within Meredith as he tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, she'd never really felt the softer side to Nathan…That time in the car had been all about a burning desire for some rough, hot sex and lots of it as fast as he could give it. She'd craved that a lot since the night it had happened but after convincing herself to act like a Mother of 3 and not a desperate teenager she hadn't given in since.
Meredith bit down on her lip as Nathan inched closer to her, his thumb tracing up and down over her cheek in the lightest way imaginable.
She inhaled desperately, totally unaware that she was even holding her breath just as Nathan's lips landed on hers, kissing her deeply despite his urge to start casually and slow. He couldn't control himself when it came to Meredith and after waiting for months, upon months to do that again why should he?
Meredith's hand ran through Nathan's hair, pulling him closer to her, closing off the already small gap between them. She felt the roughness of his stubble against her cheeks as he continued to invade her thoughts with just how good it felt kissing him. He bit down on her lip just as she climbed onto him, straddling either side of his legs which gave him more of an opportunity to let his hands roam all over her body.
"My first opinion of you…" Meredith interrupted as he kissed her again, not letting her finish the sentence. "Hot." She breathed against his lips.
"What?" Nathan pulled back to look at her, a smirk beaming across his face.
She rolled her eyes, knowing that his ego wanted to hear her say that again. "Hot, my first impression of you was hot…" He ginned at her. "And also like, majorly cocky but that's another story." She smiled leaning down to kiss him again, giving in to the satisfaction that she was totally enjoying him turning up out of the blue for the date they never had.