Dedicated to Lucey, for her birthday.

Spoilers all over the place, up to S4 Finale ('Freedom'). Prompts taken from 100mood (LJ community)

PICKING AT THE EDGES
by Leni

001. Accomplished. (S4. Finale)

Meredith Grey was crazy.

She knew it as she closed the door to Derek's trailer behind her and rushed to her car. People driving on the same road knew it as she sped past them. Three clerks in three different stores knew it as she left, arms loaded with all the candles in storage.

Her new definition for 'crazy' was here and now, mapping out an imaginary house in her ex-boyfriend's land. One hour, one hundred ninety-two burning candles and a minor nervous breakdown later, Meredith smiled at her handiwork.

After all, Derek had always liked her brand of crazy.

002. Amused. (S3)

"Hey, Karev."

Alex didn't especially dislike Dr. Sloan, but neither did he like the man. He turned around to face the plastic surgeon, expression somewhere between annoyance and impatience at the interruption. "Yes?"

Sloan nodded into the patient's room before them. Inside, Meredith was recounting the risks of neurosurgery to a nervous couple. Meanwhile Dr. Shepherd tried to look focused - much unsuccessfully, since his eyes kept straying to his on-again girlfriend. "Derek's never been good at self-denial," Sloan mused aloud, amused. "Fifty dollars say Dr. Grey loses her panties before lunch."

Alex snorted. "Who says she's got them on now?"

003. Angry. (S4)

Dr. Erica Hahn entered the Emerald City Bar and rolled her shoulders as if to relieve a weight she hadn't noticed until she'd stepped outside the hospital building. Work at the hospital had been colder somehow, silent and efficient in a way Erica was not sure she approved of. So… mechanical. "Something was off today," she commented as she noticed some of the surgical residents at the bar. Small talk wasn't her preference, but she suddenly realized she'd barely exchanged words with anybody at work.

"Always gives me the shivers," Stevens agreed. "I was a minute away from a migraine - let's not go home tonight?"

O'Malley looked just as stressed. He nodded.

"Cowards," Yang said from her seat.

"Prudent," he corrected and motioned the bartender to refill his drink. "You'd think long exposure would diminish the effect," he added with a headshake. Stevens, and even Yang, sighed in response. "You wish," the blonde muttered.

"Long exposure to what?" There was a small, surprised, silence between the friends. Erica was surprised when three small pitying smiles answered. "Well?" she insisted.

"Newbie." Yang looked thrilled at the opportunity to know something the Head of Cardiothoracic Surgery did not. Not unexpectedly, she didn't expand on her answer. "You probably wouldn't believe it anyway."

"Webber's actually stepping down this year?" she guessed. Dr. Webber was well-liked, losing him would account for the unusual atmosphere at Seattle Grace.

"Will he ever?" Yang seemed amused by the idea. But she didn't offer a straight answer.

Before Erica could say how she didn't appreciate being toyed with, a comment which would have surely widened the chasm between her and Dr. Yang, O'Malley stepped in. "The reason everyone's been quiet today… well… Dr. Shepherd planned to take Meredith out for the weekend; but she said that - Um." He stopped when Yang, Dr Grey's best friend if Erica had read it right, glared at him.

"It was a McFight, okay?" Yang finally admitted.

Erica wondered if they were serious.

When Steven's toast ("And may it blow over soon.") was echoed by two equally hopeful voices, Erica had her answer.

004. Annoyed. (S1)

For a second, Derek thought that his girlfriend's snoring had woken him up again. It was not so. For starters, the space beside him was empty and Meredith's barely lowered voice filtered through the remnants of his dreams. "I can't believe it," she repeated once and again, obviously agitated.

Derek sat up, intending to determine the problem and talk her out of whatever drastic measure she'd talked herself into taking. Meredith was sitting at the edge of the bed, still in her underwear, using one of his T-shirts to brush at a wine-red fabric. Her blouse, if he remembered it right. Meredith should definitely wear that color more often. "Good morning, Mer."

The look she gave him was anything but 'good'. "Doesn't Doc have any boundaries?" she asked caustically as she brushed her blouse harder. "There's dog hair all over it and it's too late to go home to change."

It was amusing to see her like that. Lacy lavender underwear and the most annoyed frown in history on her face. "What do you expect, when you leave them on the floor?" he said reasonably. As if reason had ever worked on her.

"I can't go to a hospital with dog hair all over me," she almost-whined, and with an exasperated sigh threw his T-shirt back into his closet and resorted to picking every hair with her fingers. Three seconds later - two more than what Derek had anticipated - she pursed her lips and, eyes still fixated on the guilty light-brown hairs, told him that it was his fault.

Derek shook his head at that and finally got out of the bed. He pulled out a perfectly clean set of underwear, trousers and shirt. "I don't think these will fit you?"

"Don't be cute," she said warningly.

He pulled on his clothes, following her progress from the corner of his eye. He knew the obvious path to follow, but he needed to find the exact timing and phrasing to present it to her. "I'll be McHairy today - Cristina has the eyes of a hawk," she was complaining as she gave her blouse an accusing look. "I knew that spending the night was a bad idea."

Forget exact timing. This was now about distracting her before that idea took root. "You could keep a change of clothes here. There's enough space," and he opened an empty drawer to demonstrate. He had two seconds to school his expression and channel the anxious feeling into a complicated knot of his tie. Two seconds where his words sunk in and Meredith lowered the blouse to stare at him. "I promise, Doc doesn't fit in one of those," he said as lightly as he could, nodding to the drawer.

Slowly, Meredith turned her gaze to it, at the same time shrugging into her blouse without any apparent memory of dog hair. "I…." Her brow creased. "That's…."

Derek could practically see her rabbiting her commitment-phobic self out of his trailer and his life. He closed the drawer, a little more forcefully than he'd intended, and told himself he didn't feel guilty at trying to push their relationship in the right direction - or any direction, for that matter. "Gimme," he said, reaching out. Still wide-eyed and speechless, Meredith shrugged out of her blouse again and put it in his hand. "I'm sure it was somewhere…" He started looking through an almost forgotten corner of his closet. "Ha!" He took out a brush and with a few strokes freed the wine-red material from the worse patches of curly hair.

"Thank you," Meredith murmured as she exchanged the blouse for her denim pants. She didn't mention his offer as they had breakfast, and neither did Derek as he drove her to the hospital.

Two months later Addison looked delighted at finding empty space for her clothes, and Derek couldn't think of a single good reason to deny it to her.

005. Anxious. (S3)

It had seemed a good idea at the time. Even her subconscious had agreed, feeding her the most entreating images of her, Derek and Finn in the same bed. Obviously, her subconscious was a shameless hussy with no idea of how the real world worked.

Meredith glared as her phone started ringing. It'd be one of them, trying to one-upmanship the other. In the last weeks, she'd been dined and wined like never before, not even when she'd dated either man exclusively.

Casual dating? Overrated and so very stressful. "I'm not home," she groaned miserably.

But the phone kept ringing.

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