Disclaimer: If I owned it, MerDer probably would have been married in season three and would have a few kids by now. Clearly, it's not mine.
Just a one shot, post 5.20. Complete fluff. Based on a boatload of spoilers from all over the place: PD on the View, Shonda's Twitter, Izzie's wedding blog, Grey's Writer blog, spoiler pics, sneak peeks, and random speculation. Basically everywhere. I tried to piece them together into a nice little one shot.
Hope you enjoy!
It's day two of wedding dress hell. Apparently, Izzie thought it would be best for her to try on as many dresses as she could before making the decision. Even if it means Meredith doesn't get to see the inside of an OR until...further notice?
Cristina barely zips Meredith in what feels like the millionth dress when she's anxious to take it off. Wedding dresses were supposed to be form fitting, but Meredith wondered if she should draw the line at not being able to draw in a deep breath. Mini-breaths were only effective for so long. "This one is tighter than the last one," she all but gasps, pressing her hands to her stomach.
"Well then, maybe you should grow a pair and tell Iz that you enjoy breathing," Cristina shrugs, making sure Meredith's hair is out of the way before she fully zips the back of the dress.
"I can't do that," Meredith says. "Cancer, remember? What kind of friend would I be if I said no?"
Cristina opens the bathroom door. "Fine. But when she dresses me in pink frills, don't expect me to be such a good sport."
"Meredith," Izzie calls from her bed. "Come on..."
"Just...be nice," Meredith pleads, stepping out of the adjoining bathroom and into Izzie's hospital room, or as Meredith has dubbed it "The Bridal Shop of Horrors."
Izzie smiles wide when she sees her friend. "Oh, Mer..."
Meredith notices Derek sitting in the chair next to Izzie's bed and nearly jumps. "Derek!" she screeches. "What-why are you here?"
"I was paged," he says simply, trying not to smirk at his future wife modeling a monstrosity of a wedding dress. Derek knew she'd never agree to half of the choices hanging on the rack, but still, he finds all of this oddly amusing and adorable.
"I need to measure him for the morning coat," Izzie says as she hands Cristina the measuring tape, thus delegating the job of seamstress to her.
Cristina groans audibly, but reluctantly takes the tape from her. "Just how I love spending my days at work...fitting McDreamy for a tux," she says sarcastically.
If Izzie hears Cristina's comment, she chooses to ignore it. "Mer, put a pair of these on."
The dress swooshes as Meredith walks over to the assortment of high heels next to the rolls of potential bridesmaid fabric, and Derek laughs, his arms outstretched as Cristina measures the length from his fingers to his shoulder. It really was humorous. Their theme of simplicity was being transformed to a huge production, but Derek didn't particularly care. It wasn't the wedding that mattered. That was one day. Being married to Meredith was the only thing of true importance.
Meredith shoots him a glare, and the smile on Derek's face grows. Her angry face was one of the things about her that he loved most. "Which ones?"
"How about those? The ones with the sequences?" Izzie suggests.
Meredith slips on the heels and walks back over to Derek so Izzie can look them over. Cristina drops down into the chair Derek had previously occupied, waiting until Izzie was done before she could continue with her measuring.
"Veil," Cristina reminds them. She finds ways to amuse herself in wedding dress hell, even if the comic relief comes at Meredith's expense.
"Oh, veil," Izzie echoes. She reaches over to grab it from the nightstand and hands it off to Meredith, who sets it on top of her head without a single protest. She's learned that protesting just leads to guilt trips.
"You two look like the top of a wedding cake," Cristina comments with a dry smirk.
Meredith rolls her eyes at her friend's teasing. "Shut up."
"Smile," Izzie says cheerfully. She snaps the picture and plays it back on her camera. "Oh, you two are so cute."
"Adorable," Cristina mocks. The sound of her pager blares through the room and her eyes go wide with excitement. "Gotta go," she announces, tossing the measuring tape to Meredith. "Measure your own fiancé," she says, almost gleefully.
"Come back later! And bring Lexie! I need to measure you both!" Izzie yells. She turns her attention back to the bride and groom. "While I have you both here, we need to talk flowers. I'm thinking peonies-which are not plants, Meredith."
"Help me out of this dress. Please," Meredith begs Derek in a murmur that Izzie doesn't hear.
Derek nods. "It's bad luck to see Mer in her wedding dress before the wedding. Do you think I could help her change before we...talk flowers," he asks politely. Meredith smiles; she really did have to give him credit. He was being a team player in all of this.
"Fine. But no quickies in there. Just because I haven't slept across the hall in a few weeks doesn't mean I don't know what you two do behind closed doors," Izzie says, flipping through her bridal magazines for the dog-eared pages with colorful bouquets.
Meredith and Derek quickly make their escape into the bathroom, thankful for a few moments to themselves. "You could model these professionally," Derek grins, brushing the hair off Meredith's neck before unzipping the back of her dress.
She rolls her eyes. "You really think I'd wear this?"
"No. But you still look cute."
"Yeah, if you don't count the fact that my boobs are sore from being smushed," Meredith says as she pulls off the white silk gloves and drapes them over the hanger.
"Getting married naked in a field of flowers sounds good now, doesn't it?" he asks, quirking his eyebrows.
Meredith giggles. "Going home and getting naked with you sounds even better," she says, letting Derek enjoy her bra and panty clad body for a few moments before pulling her scrubs back on.
"Tonight," Derek says, leaning against the sink. "Tonight we can have naked time."
Naked time with Derek was always something to look forward to after a long day at work. "Promise?" she asks.
Derek kisses her forehead, letting his lips linger there. "Promise."
"Okay," Meredith whispers. She finishes tying the drawstring of her scrub pants, happy to be wearing comfy clothing, however briefly. Surely she'd be back in another wedding dress within the hour. "Sorry about all this," she frowns.
"For what?" Derek asks. He has on his concerned face and she can't help but smile.
"This...I know this isn't what we wanted to do and I-" she says before Derek interrupts, effectively ending what was sure to be an adorably apologetic ramble.
He runs his hands through her hair, the wavy strands threading through his fingers. "Meredith, it's fine. I know it's not...what we planned, but she's our friend. So if that means she wants to plan us Barbie's Dream Wedding, I don't mind. It makes her happy. Maybe this can be our decoy wedding."
"Decoy wedding?" Meredith asks, incredulous.
"Yeah. We'll let Izzie do what she wants. Then you and I can do it the way we want," he says with a smile that made her heart thud in her chest. Derek always had this way of getting her to see the upside. She really likes that.
"The way we want," she nods, as if she's rolling the idea around in her mind.
She puts her hand on his shoulder for support as she slips her shoes back on and Derek smiles. "We can get some ideas together tonight. Dinner, drinks...it'll be fun."
"Then naked time?" Meredith asks, a naughty glint in her eyes.
"Then naked time," he agrees.
A night of wedding talk, dinner, and sex. Not really a bad way to spend an evening with her fiancé.
--
As it turns out, modeling wedding dress is more exhausting than a day spent in the OR. Izzie, cancer inflicted or not, was just as effective at bossing her around, however politely. There had been flower talk, shoe talk, even talk of bringing in possible bands for the reception. Meredith wasn't quite sure how Izzie would get a drummer through hospital security, but had no doubts that it could be done. Apparently, using cancer in her favor worked wonders.
She had even been made to witness the bridesmaids' humiliation, which was far more entertaining than her own. Meredith realized that she actually had it easier than Cristina and Lexie, at least in some respects. Wearing white was the rule for the bride. But the bridesmaids' dresses had countless color possibilities. They had tried on pinks and purples and blues, each frillier and more of an eyesore than the last. The lavender wasn't so bad. Derek popped his head in the room before he left and gave it his vote. He knows it's Meredith's favorite.
Alex walked into the room around seven bearing food for a makeshift dinner date, and Meredith really had to resist the urge to hug him. Maybe he did it on purpose, knowing that there could only be so much wedding planning for one day before Meredith went off the deep end. Either way, she's thankful. If he hadn't, she'd still be there sporting her tiara and heels.
When she walks into the house, Meredith can smell the steak and a smile comes over her face. Derek really knows how to cook-something she's come to find out since she started living with him. She sets her bag down on the floor and shrugs off her coat. They have the house to themselves tonight, which has become more and more frequent lately, as Alex spends most of his days and occasionally nights with Izzie. It's quiet now. In some ways, it's nice to have the privacy. But sometimes, she misses the sound of Izzie humming as she cleans house, or the smell of baked goods when she wakes up in Derek's arms on Saturday mornings.
That's why she puts up with the dresses. And the flowers. And the tiaras. She does it because it makes Izzie happy. Medicine can only do so much to cure a person. What the chemo and the IL2 don't give her is hope. Or something to live for. So if seeing Meredith walk down the aisle in a big white dress and an up-do gives her more reasons to fight for her life, she'll do it. Izzie is far more important to her than getting to have buffalo wings at the reception.
"Hey," Derek says, leaning against the doorframe of the kitchen. He looks cute, standing there like that, and Meredith smiles at him.
"Hey," she echoes. Meredith walks over and wastes no time in kissing him. She hasn't had the chance to kiss him since he helped her change out of the dress this morning. If there wasn't dinner cooking in the kitchen, she would have already dragged him off to the bedroom. One of the perks of having the house to themselves lately is getting to have sex whenever and wherever they wanted to. And not having to care about waking their roommates with the noise they made-not that they really did in the first place.
Derek runs his fingers down her spine, delicately tracing each of her vertebrae. "I made dinner."
"Hmm...I know," she breathes. "Thank you."
"I was going to wait to make it with you, but I wasn't sure when you'd be home," he explains as the two walk into the kitchen. Meredith notices how the table is set with the nice plates-the stuff that sits in the china cabinet and only gets pulled out for Thanksgiving and Christmas, per Izzie's insistence that holidays require such fancy things. Apparently, a date night spent at home is worthy of those adornments, too.
Meredith's smile grows when she sees wine chilling in a bucket of ice. Wine, dinner, wedding planning, and unabashed sexing. All reasons why she wants to marry this man. "Alex showed up with food, so we decided to call it a day."
Derek walks around to the other side of the island and goes back to sautéing the peppers and onions in the pan. Meredith reaches across and picks one out with her fingers, giggling when Derek shakes his head amusedly at her. "Don't burn yourself."
"It's not that hot," Meredith says. "So is this wine for dinner, or can I open it now?"
"Open it," Derek shrugs. He checks on the steak in the broiler then grabs two wine glasses from the cabinet. "So what did I miss?"
Meredith sighs dramatically. "Oh, just bridesmaid dress hell. Cristina refuses to wear the pink, and Lexie says the bustle on the blue makes her ass look huge. So we're thinking lavender. But she has another shipment coming in tomorrow...something about summer colors. I don't know," she rambles, taking a sip of the wine Derek pours for her.
"So no big decisions?" Derek deduces.
"Nope. Not yet," she says.
Derek gives her a smile; one that makes her heart beat a little faster. Even after all this time, he still has that affect on her. She really hopes that never changes. "Well, there's still time," he says assuredly. "Tonight is about us though."
Meredith smiles. Us. That sounds pretty damn good. "Us and our simple wedding."
The timer on the broiler dings and Derek quickly retrieves it. Meredith's oven, as he's found out, has a way of overcooking food, even if it sits for an extra minute or two. Not even Meredith knew that. Izzie told him. They're the only ones who have ever used the thing.
She takes the plates off the table and hands them to Derek. The way he expertly prepares the dishes makes Meredith laugh. Steak, sautéed vegetables, and mashed potatoes on one plate. Salad in the bowls. All perfectly arranged. If he wasn't a surgeon, he could easily make a living as a chef, though she'd want him all to herself. Derek is the only one-besides Izzie-who has ever cooked for her.
"Our naked, clamp and scalpel bouquet wedding," Derek teases, kissing her temple as he walks with their dishes over to the table.
Meredith laughs as she takes her seat. "Your mom wouldn't appreciate her son having a naked wedding."
"You want my mom to come?" he asks.
"Of course," she says, almost feeling guilty, as though Derek wouldn't invite his mother simply for the sake of avoiding mommy drama for her benefit. "She's your mom."
"You know she loves you, right?" Derek asks, smiling. "She wanted you to have the ring."
Meredith nearly chokes on her forkful of salad. "What? I-why didn't you tell me that?"
"Because. I didn't want to make you feel obligated to wear it. I don't care if you wear it or not," he shrugs in explanation.
"Well, now I want to," she says, reaching for her wine glass. "It's an heirloom. What kind of daughter-in-law would I be if I didn't?"
Derek smiles. "You're not a ring bride."
"I want to," Meredith says decisively. "It's...she wants me to have it. It can be a tradition or whatever. I'll wear it, and our son can give it to his wife one day."
Hearing her say things like that takes him by surprise. Every time. Even the thought of kids scared the hell out of her a few months ago. Now though, she talks about them as a definite in their future. And they are; babies will happen one day. When and how many is still up for discussion. But knowing that they'll be parents to each other's children is comforting. And gives him more joy than nearly all else.
"Just don't get down on one knee when you put it on my finger. That's not us." She scrunches her nose when she says it and Derek grins.
"Okay," he agrees.
"So..." Meredith takes a bite of her steak, chewing it as she speaks. Another thing he finds adorable. "Wedding."
Her determination amazes him. This whole getting married thing doesn't freak her out-sure, the idea of white doves and a flautist might-but not the idea of spending the rest of their lives together. She wants that.
"Whatever you want to do. We could do it at Joe's if you wanted," Derek teases. "As long as you and I are married at the end of the day."
Meredith ponders the idea. Hardly classy, but they weren't ones for pomp and frills anyway. "A trashy bar wedding. Very us," she giggles.
"You could wear your black dress. I could wear my good looking red shirt. Could be fun," he reasons. Getting married in a bar, Meredith crunching on peanut shells as she walks down the makeshift aisle, barstools in lieu of pews.
"And we could have buffalo wings," Meredith adds before taking another bite. For such a tiny person, she could probably out-eat him. He really loves that she has an appetite, too.
Derek refills both of their wine glasses. "We could."
"Your mom would take her ring back if we did that," she says seriously. "I don't think we could sell her on a bar wedding."
"Well, it's going to sound tacky when you call it a bar wedding," Derek laughs.
"That's what it would be," Meredith argues light-heartedly, forking an onion followed by a piece of steak.
Derek wipes his fingers on a napkin-the ones Izzie painstakingly ironed, just so they could sit on display next to the fine china. No one has used the iron in weeks. Meredith frowns a little at the thought. It hasn't been as homey here lately.
"What if we didn't call it a wedding?"
"Huh?"
"Wedding sounds too...formal. A wedding is what Izzie is planning-and apparently bringing in chicken kabobs for tomorrow," Derek states amusedly.
Meredith's eyes go wide. "Chicken kabobs? What for?"
"She was telling me all about the catering company while you were trying on dresses in the bathroom. She even got us a gift registry," he says, trying to get her to see the silver lining.
She just lets out a sigh. You really can't tell your cancer stricken friend to un-hire a wedding caterer for your wedding, right? That would be mean.
"What would we call it then?" she asks, effectively changing the subject.
"I don't know. A wedding-ette?" Derek says jokingly. "A union? Marriage ceremony?"
Meredith smiles. "Very romantic."
"It could still be romantic. Just low key," he adds.
She swirls her wine around in her glass, seeming to go over the logistics of pulling it off. "Yeah?"
"You really wouldn't care if we got married there?" Derek asks, incredulous. Meredith looks at him, mirroring the expression on his face.
"No. Why? Would you?"
Derek shakes his head slowly. Meredith really was a conundrum sometimes. He loved her all the more for it. "No. It's just...I didn't think many little girls dreamt of having their wedding in a bar," he laughs.
"I wasn't really one of those girls, Derek. The kind that had pretend weddings in the backyard with the bubble gum machine rings and wax paper trains. All of that Cinderella crap wasn't me," she shrugs.
While he already knew she wasn't one for romantics, he couldn't help but wish things had been different for Meredith. Before she met Derek, he knew the idea of marriage had never even crossed her mind. She was a cynic about such things since age five.
"We could-I mean, if we're serious about it," Derek smiles. "Joe wouldn't mind. We could have the place to ourselves for a few hours. Sneak off to the bathroom to celebrate," he smirks.
Getting in her pants was never far from Derek's mind, Meredith knows. She really hopes that spark is always there. Somehow, she knows it will be. "Uh huh," she giggles, raising a bite of mashed potatoes to her mouth. "My black dress is very easy access..."
"That's why I think you should wear it," Derek grins naughtily.
"So...Joe's?" she asks.
Derek shrugs noncommittally. "We still have time to think about it. But I think we could pull it off," he says confidently. Meredith's go-getter attitude is rubbing off on him.
"I want to," Meredith says assuredly. "It's...us. More us than the gothic cathedral Izzie is booking. And the band and the rose shaped butter sitting on little doilies. And we met there, so...yeah."
"Yeah?"
Meredith nods. "Mmhmm," she says with a smile.
"Maybe we should conceive our first child in the bathroom. Make it full of family memories," Derek jokes.
"This tradition thing is fun," Meredith giggles. She drops her fork down next to her plate, rises up from her chair and takes his hand. Sex trumps food. It always has. "Come on."
Derek threads his fingers with hers and follows his fiancée out of the kitchen. "Where?" But when she leads them towards the stairs, he knows. "Aah...naked time," he grins.
"We just planned our wedding-non-wedding. Now you have to put the ring on me. And then..." she says, trailing kisses along his neck. "Sex. All night," Meredith states, pulling her shirt over her head as they reach the top. Derek really loves this side of her, too.
He maneuvers her through the hall with ease. She's used to walking backwards down the hall with Derek pressed up against her. They've had that down to a science for years. "Being married to you is going to be fun," he laughs. She gasps when he picks her up, but quickly wraps her legs around his waist as he leads them into their bedroom.
Meredith smiles. "I think so too."
Like I said, fluff. I had every intention of making it a wedding out on the land, but the Joe's thing sort of wrote itself. Who knows what Shonda is planning; I just want them to say "I do" before the end of the season. I'm sure we're going to love it no matter what. ;)
Anyhoo, that's it. Hope you liked it! :)
Reviews make my day!