Author's Notes: This story is based off at least two ridiculous cliches and one minor one. I realize that. This was an idea that struck me shortly after I wrapped up SOSG, and it just wouldn't let me not write it, no matter how embarrassing it was for me to surrender to it. Without spoiling you, I just want to say I hope you'll have a little faith, and that you'll follow me on this journey to the end. Because I think you might be surprised at where I end up :)

This story follows directly after the episode Time After Time. It is solidly in the MerDer camp. I hope you enjoy it!

Derek didn't come home until three in the morning.

Meredith had called and called after Susan had finally left, called and given up around eleven when he'd simply refused to pick up. She'd gone to bed, sighing at the absence of him.

She tossed, she turned, she fidgeted, unable to rest knowing that, for some reason, Derek was off doing something that he obviously didn't want her involved in. She missed him... Missed hearing him next to her, missed him hogging the bed, missed him spooning her, missed spooning him.

The front door creaked open and shut. She barely heard it, and only then because she'd been listening to the annoying, pounding silence of his abandonment. A shuffle of movement happened downstairs. She wondered if it was Alex or Izzie, but hoped it was Derek. She hadn't checked before she'd gone to sleep to see if either of her fellow interns was home. She just hadn't cared much, stuck in the painful embrace of too many denied phone calls.

Blearily, she glanced at the clock. 3:00 AM on the dot. She rested on her side, listening to the flow of life downstairs. Whoever it was wandered into the kitchen, paced in an ambling fashion back into the foyer and stopped, stopped and just stood there for the longest time. The steps creaked as said person lumbered up the steps, moving like a plodding beast on the last dregs of its life.

When her door pushed its way open, she sighed in relief. Derek then. He'd come home. Worry she hadn't even realized she'd harbored slicked away in a downpour of relief. She lay there, listening as he shuffled across the floor in the dark. The digital alarm clock on her side of the bed read 3:17 AM in large, blurry red numerals. She blinked at it.

He sighed somewhere behind her like the weight of the world had settled on his shoulders, only to slip off into freefall and start dragging him down with it in clenching, grasping fingers. The air thickened with the depression that sluiced off him in waves. She didn't even have to look to sense how broken he felt.

A drawer groaned behind her as he yanked it open, slow and deliberately, like a crush of weariness was forcing him to think extremely hard about his movements. There was a rustle as he changed into his pajama pants and a t-shirt. He went into the bathroom briefly, closing the door partway, clunks and clatters following as he brushed his teeth, urinated, and ran the water in the sink.

When the bed dipped with a squeak, when he collapsed next to her and didn't make a move to pull her into his arms like he usually did, she rolled over to face him, only to find herself staring at his back as it shuddered under the heavy weight of his deep breathing. The vague scent of alcohol wafted from him, just behind the musky male scent that always made her weep with desire.

"Derek?" she whispered.

"I thought you were asleep," he said, his voice thick and rough. He didn't turn around.

"I suck at sleeping when you're not here. You've messed me up entirely," she replied, a light, tired chuckle rasping in the silence.

He didn't laugh. "Sorry," he said.

"What's wrong? Did something happen at the hospital? Where were you?"

"It's nothing."

"It's not nothing, Derek."

He rolled to face her. His eyes glittered in the dark light. "I'm not going to get it, Mere," he said.

"Get what?"

"Chief," he said. "I'm not going to get the job."

"Why not?"

"I'm just. Not."

"They'll pick you," she tried to assure him, wondering what on earth the Chief could have told him this morning that had gotten him into such an awful funk. "You're the best for it. Mark's too much like an overgrown adolescent, Burke has that tremor thing in his closet, Marlow is leaving, Cristina told me earlier, and Addison is... Well, you're just the best for the job, Derek. Seriously. You'll get it."

"You don't..." he stuttered, his voice falling off a cliff into silence.

She stared at him, watched the struggle march across his face in a rapid succession of vastly different emotions. He looked like he wanted to say so many things, like he wanted to explain everything, and yet, the words remained stuck in his throat, not coming out, and he lay there, staring at her darkly, silent, preoccupied, almost angry.

"I don't what?" she asked.

He swallowed. His eyes creased as he looked at her like... Like a starving man presented with the last piece of chocolate on earth. "I need..."

"You need what?"

He pulled her up against his body. She started at the sudden movement, only to relax into the warmth. He was always so warm, like her own private burner to heat the sheets. He ran his hand up over her hip, back and forth, and she sagged into the touch, ignoring the dark, dark look he gave her like a naughty present to unwrap.

"Do you love me?" he asked, abrupt, his voice gruff and cracking.

"Yes," she replied.

He rolled over her and brought his mouth down onto hers, writhing, rolling against her, until she felt like a tiny rock under the crush of his sudden wave. "Derek," she moaned as he rubbed his groin up against her, rubbed and teased and tormented. Even through her sleep shorts, even through his pants, she could feel him pressing up against her, throbbing, growing. She reached down and pushed her hand against him. He groaned and shoved into her touch, and then he pulled away, leaving her bereft.

His hands ran up underneath her arms, and he dragged her across the bed, until she lay across it diagonally. He crouched by her head and leaned forward, his palms starting a slow, sensual trip from her shoulders, down over her breasts, all the way to her waistline. He leaned against her, over her, his arousal pressing into her as he slipped his hands under the waistband of her pants. He let the elastic catch on the bends of his wrists, and he drew his hands down the inner length of her legs, sliding her sleep shorts along with them, down over her skin, soft, smooth, and slow, leaning closer, closer, closer to her as he went.

He drew back up to start the journey again, and she arched into it, arched against him as he started licking a trail of fire from her navel to her dampening panties. His fingers curled around the thin lace straps that ran over her hips, and he slipped them away, down past her knees. His tongue roved lower and lower, into the vee at the juncture of her thighs. His cheeks rubbed the damp, slick inner skin of her quads. His palms slipped between her legs and he spread her apart, curling his tongue down into her. He flattened out against her like a settling wave, grinding into her. His ribcage slid across her upper body, rubbing her nipples.

She gasped, clawing at his pants, out of control, yanking them down in a sudden need to feel him. The length of him sprang free, and she ran her teeth along the underside. He started to quiver, to push against her in small, thrusty, uncontrolled jerks, even as he worked her lower body into a sopping, tense, glorious mess. Bucking into him as he drew a stuttering, hitching moan of desire from her like he was unweaving a thread from a tapestry, she gripped his hips with her nails, dug into the skin, and took him into her mouth, all the way down. He pumped into her, rubbing along the roof of her mouth, her tongue, and she moaned as he licked and sucked and ravaged her with sweeping, practiced, careful pressure that made her want to shiver up into a ball and die.

Just before she hit the peak, he rolled off her, lifted out of her, panting, gasping, and she lay there glassy-eyed, stuck just before an explosion that should have come but hadn't. Fuzz gripped the corners of her vision, fuzz and painful need. She whined at him, unable to stop herself as she started to shake with the denied release. "Derek, please," she hissed. "Don't stop!"

He took an agonizing moment to gather his senses, and then he flipped himself around and pushed into her all the way like a desperate, out of control jackhammer. He slipped in and out at a frantic pace as he brought his mouth down on hers, panting, breathing with quiet, choking gasps. She tasted both him and her on his lips, slippery, salty. She sighed into him, bit his lip and sucked. He jerked at the sharp sensation, pulled back, but then a smirk slipped across his face, and he came down on her like a thunderstorm of sensation, his lips a sprinkle of pleasant lightning strikes in the torrent.

"Do you need me?" he whispered into her mouth, a throaty, harsh bit of words, jumbled up between grunting thrusts that set her teeth on edge. The headboard thunked against the wall with the violent, shuddering force of him. She felt like he was spearing her into two separate pieces. She arched up into him, arched and sighed and gasped as his angle, the sheer power served to stimulate her into a wired, trembling pile of torturous needing.

"Yes," she panted. "Yes, I need you. Derek, more. Derek, harder. Please."

She clawed at his hips, grabbed at his ass, trying to guide him, to force him to keep up the mindless, delirious pace, but as she curled under him, shaking, begging, he slowed. "No, please," she said, whimpered, whined, clenching around him. "Please, Derek."

He withdrew to the tip, hung there over her, shuddering, heaving, every muscle in his body a block of solid, straining tension, only to run up into her again with a groan. He rested inside her, breathing, his face twisted with a dark look of unadulterated... wildness. And then he did it again. And again. And again.

She shouted, dragging her nails down against his skin every time he pushed into her, shouted until she was hoarse, barely able to give him any more encouragement than a throaty, lusty, whispery growl. He continued in the slowest torture she'd ever experienced, until the world above her was only him as she waited for him to fill her again, only to shake and beg and whine when he left her. Everything was a blur. His skin was slippery with sweat. His hair was a bloom of wild curls that she grabbed and twisted roughly between her fingers whenever she could reach them.

When he ran her through again, she grabbed his head, splayed her palms against his cheeks, across his ears, and clenched. She contracted her lower body around his length, and shook, and shook. Sweat dotted his brow. His eyes flared at her in a sort of wild, out of control way. His mouth formed a grimace of... pain, pleasure... she couldn't tell which. His teeth formed a snarl.

"Please, Derek," she pleaded when she had his eyes caught in her gaze. He stared like a bird caught in the thrall of a snake. The intensity scared her beyond reason. "I do need you, Derek," she panted, nonsensically knowing it was what he wanted to hear, though she had no idea why, no idea why it was suddenly important to him.

"Let me go," he growled. "And you can have me."

She dropped her hands, and the delicious assault began all over again, pushing her closer and closer to the edge. She felt like a mountain climber, scrabbling at the rocks, pawing, trying to keep her footing, knowing that the most exquisite freefall awaited her, but enjoying the view, the fresh air, the thrill of being up so high, so much that she almost didn't want to jump yet.

He pushed her back into the pillows with a thrust that made her shout so loud her vision blurred and her chest throbbed with the lack of air in her lungs. He gripped the headboard up above her. She watched his arms flex and tremble as he put his weight into it, put his weight into her, in and out and in and out in a dizzying, violent race that she didn't want to ever end.

"Derek," she panted. "Derek, more. More! Harder!"

For the last time, he rammed into her with a tremendous heave. He looked down at her, panting, held there in the middle of something, his eyes frenzied, and then his entire body jerked, his eyes darkened into something unseeing and panicked and overwhelmed. He rolled his head back and looked at the ceiling, practically roaring in triumph at her. She felt him seep inside her, seep and twitch and move. He flinched up against her in a series of short, tiny motions as he continued to twitch, and the feel of his pelvic bone jamming against her rubbed her just right, sent her into her own pealing waves of throaty screaming. She squeezed his hips as he yanked on the headboard, thrashing in his own nonsensical whirlwind.

They both collapsed, gasping. Except as she came back to her senses, as the stars stopped circling, leaving her with a languishing, dull, throbbing, sated sense of ease, he kept gasping.

"Derek?" she asked. She turned, only to find him staring at the ceiling, his eyes watering and red as he visibly shook, trying not to fall apart.

"It's not a mistake..." he gasped.

"What?" she asked. She rolled up against him, reached over his forehead to play with a wayward curl. Everything was slick with sweat. He was covered with the flush of recent sex, but under that lay a pale crush of exhaustion and anxiety. "Derek, what's wrong?"

"Please don't," he said.

"Don't what?"

"Die."

The word was like a gavel coming down with a crack. Her sense of easy, tired, aching satisfaction tore away from her. "What? What are you talking about? Derek?"

He turned to her, his eyes hooded with lust and fear and other dark, needy things. "You can't do this to me again."

"Do... what?" she asked, swallowing. "Derek, you're scaring me."

"I'm scaring you? Meredith, please..." His tone wilted into a throaty, pleading whisper that made her heart break. He clutched her shoulders, clutched at her like he expected to close his eyes and wake up again to find her vanished, out of his grasp.

"I'm not going to die, Derek. I'm fine. You just made me so amazingly fine I could very possibly shoot into orbit. What the hell is wrong?"

"Don't ever give up again. Please don't. Please. I know you-- Please, just don't."

Her world froze solid at the words, and all she could suddenly think was that he knew. Somehow, he knew. Knew that she'd had one bad moment where she'd been too tired to care that she was dying. So tired, she'd thought it might be better to just slip away. The fear, the dark angst all crawling across his face... It suddenly made sense. Somehow, he knew, had known, and the pieces all started falling into place, giving her a macabre, twisted picture of what might be going on in his head.

"I won't, Derek," she said, staring deep into his wounded, tortured gaze. "I promise."

He rolled on his side and let her curl around him like a drape. She ran her hands over his side, feeling the ripple of his ribcage between her fingers. "I'm not going anywhere, Derek. I swear it," she said, the vehemence ruining what was left of her voice.

"It's not a mistake then," he whispered.

"No," she replied. "It's not."

Whatever he was talking about, whatever he meant, she didn't care. All she cared was that he knew about what she'd done, had known all this time and he hadn't said a word. His hovering, his strange, rampant too-cheerfulness, it stuck in her mind's eye like a bloody abrasion.

"I would have told you sooner," she said.

"It doesn't matter," he replied.

"It does, Derek. I'm sorry."

He didn't answer for a long while, long enough that she thought he might have fallen asleep, finally a victim of his own, tired upset. But then he heaved an abnormally large breath, and his words crawled at her in a horrible whisper, "Did you know I'm the one who pulled you from the water?"

She swallowed. "What? No... Nobody told me. I thought someone from the Coast Guard... or something..."

Tears pricked her eyes, pricked and started to fall. She'd never meant... never meant for him to find her in the water like that. She hadn't really thought any of it through until after the fact, when it was too late to change, anyway. But she never would have wished that on him, never.

He sighed. "Don't do it to me again."

"I won't, Derek. I promise."

She rubbed his side, massaged him and soothed him deep into what was left of the morning, until the tension leaked out of his frame, and his breathing slipped into a peaceful, even rhythm. She let herself drift, soaking in the warmth of him, relaxing at the sound of his steady breathing. The sight of his back blurred, and she slowly lost her grip on conscious thought.

"Thank you for saving me," she slurred against the warm skin of his neck.

And then she fell asleep.