AN: First GA fic. Not entirely sure where this is heading so, the rest, we just have to take on fate. All spelling and grammar mistakes are solely on me, unfortunately.

Meredith slowly opened her eyes and squinted at the ray of light falling on her face. She took a moment to register her surroundings after her vision had adapted to the light.

Good, I'm in my room. Should've pulled down the blinds.

Her gaze fell to the floor and realised that there's a man who's totally naked, for not the blanket covering his ass, lying on his stomach on the floor. It took her a proper minute to review how she got home last night.

Went to the bar with Cristina. Had tequila shots. And then…shit. Mark! I'm screwed.

She grabbed the lavender duvet from him and dropped a pillow on his pretty cute butt which woke him up. The man squinted at the brightness of the room and felt his head throb slightly in pain as he watched her tiptoe away. "Why don't you go back here and we'll pick up where we left off?" He offered, giving her a big grin.

Meredith froze in her tracks and turned back to him with an awkward smile, "You have to go. Seriously, I'm late." Any attempts of trying to tuck the stray hair falling on her face went in vain.

"So…" He stood up, looking around. "You actually live here?"

"No." She answered in a heartbeat, almost like an impulse, but quickly took it back with indecisiveness. "Yes, kind of."

He zipped up his pants and buckled his belt. "Oh. It's nice. A little dusty. A lot. But it's nice." He looked at her, her grey eyes accentuated by the daylight spilling from the half-opened blinds.

She emptily stared at him, like she was waiting for something to happen or for him to just get the hell out of her house so she can get a shower and go out on the road.

"So, how do you kind of live here?"

"I moved two weeks ago from Boston. It was my mother's house."

"Oh, I'm sorry."

She tucked her hair behind her ear and looked at him with wide eyes, "For what?"

"You said 'was'."

"Oh! My mother's not dead, she's…she's—" She rambled, still keeping the duvet around her. "You know, we don't have to do the thing."

"We can do anything you want." He was all teeth and all that dreamy sex appeal that was just radiating from his body.

"No, the thing: exchange the details, pretend we care. Look, I'm gonna go in there," she pointed at the door behind her, "and take a shower, and when I go back down here, you won't be here. So,"

Oh, the grin gets wider. "I'd love to join you."

"I don't really think…uhm. Listen," There was a pause as she waited for him to tell her his name but he only looked at her with a stupid smile on his face, his mouth slightly agape while he fiddled with the collar of his shirt. "Uhm…"

"Derek." He extended his hand and she gladly took it, now smiling widely too.

"Right. So uhm, I've got to take a shower and when I get back out, you're not going to be here, so goodbye. It was really nice meeting you, uhm, Derek." Her giggle was all he heard as she ran away into the shower room, leaving him to find his way out.

"Ah, the rebellious sister." Mark's voice boomed in front of her and she looked up from her phone to see him smiling from ear to ear while pushing an airport trolley full of baggage walking towards her.

She walked up to him and allowed him to pull her into a hug. After a moment, they broke apart and he ruffled her hair which caused her to glare at him as they found their way into the airport parking lot. She quickly unlocked the trunk and let him put all his things in there.

"So how are you?" He said after they have settled inside the car, putting on their seatbelts.

"I'm not the one who just came home from New York." She countered, dodging the question she only knows to answer with two words: 'I'm fine'.

"You're being really grumpy today. Didn't you miss me?"

If she wasn't looking at the road ahead, she'd be rolling her eyes. "You're awfully sure of yourself." But then again, he wouldn't be Mark if he wasn't.

"C'mon. Even just a little bit?" He smiled, all the obvious joy in his face as if he really has nothing to worry about, no problems, no anything. The kind that only shows when he's around Meredith. The kind she's gotten used to while they were growing up. That's until he moved out 8 years ago.

She really kind of missed him—the playful but overly protective brother who chased away the first guy Meredith planned to sleep with when he caught them making out in her room—but she's too proud to say that. It's the first time she's seen him since she surprised her in New York last year to congratulate him for the end of his residency. And his ego needs to be deflated a little, anyway. Plus, she's really not that kind of person. She's Meredith Grey. She wore nothing but black in high school and had pink hair, she doesn't miss people. But Mark's the exception. He's Mark; without him, she would have been way worse, her childhood completely, utterly ruined. Underneath his ragged and confident exterior, he's self-destructive and self-loathing on almost a pathological level. Vulnerability and protectiveness adds up to that too. "'Kay. Maybe."

"Ah! There it goes!" He exclaimed, his arms open, though not wide enough to interfere with her driving, as if receiving the ball thrown at him at a football match.

"So, you're staying at the house or are you gonna get your own place?" She asked, not bitchily, just plain and simple; Meredith being Meredith.

"I think I'm gonna hang around at the house. Chase your current boyfriend away."

She made a sound that could only be interpreted as a grunt. "Are you seriously gonna be all protective again? Seriously?! I'm 27. I'm a grown up. I don't need to be protected and watched over or whatever." She threw a hand up in the air only to land in the steering wheel with a thud.

"Yeah." He laughed, too satisfied to be pissing her off. He missed this. He missed her. Meredith was the only stable thing in his life. Well, except for their mother's constant temper. But he shut Ellis off anyway, so it can be controlled, really. "Fool me. I'm your big brother. You're just 26. March is 6 months away. Ha!"

"Are you seriously gonna be like this the whole time?" Slight annoyance was evident in her voice.

"Like what?!"

"All brotherly and—" She made a low grunt of disgust in her throat.

His voice boomed in laughter that can only be interpreted as 'Yeah, all the freaking time.' Which, in turn, made Meredith roll her eyes after taking a turn on the left.

A minute of silence passed between them before Mark finally broke it, his voice taking a tad bit more seriousness now. "Remember my friend from NY Pres I told you about?"

"Oh, the one who went into neuro, right?"

"Yeah. He decided to go with me too."

"Like, take his fellowship in Seattle, too?"

He nodded. "Yeah."

"Well, I didn't see you load him in the trunk, so where is he?"

"He went earlier. Said he wanted to check out the city and find a place to live in. I offered him a place to stay but he declined. He thinks it'd get in the way of him screwing girls every night."

"I see you still got that reputation." She smirked, memories flooding her all of a sudden; helping each other sneak out on most night and covering up for each other every morning.

"What reputation exactly?" His face was completely puzzled and wondering.

"The sleep with 'em and leave 'em thing you got going since high school."

He chuckled loudly, implying that she's wrong.

"What?"

"I don't. Not anymore, anyway. I met someone." He's too proud, it's shining from his pearly whites.

Meredith glanced at her brother for a brief second, a look of wonderment in her face. "Seriously? Marcus Grey, manwhore extraordinaire, found someone? Seriously?"

"That's what she said." He beamed again.

"Isn't that line only applicable when pertaining to sex?" She threw at him but he just sat there, grinning like a fool. "Anyway, so do I get the honour of meeting this woman who managed to tame you?" She asked, still bewildered, but given the fact that she's known him her whole life, Mark Grey is very much capable of loving someone and investing in them as emotionally as everyone else, if possible, maybe more. "Or are you hiding her from me, too?"

He smirked, the image of his girlfriend floating in his brain. "Oh, you'll meet her soon."

In a matter of minutes, she's pulling up in front of their childhood house and Mark got out of the car as Meredith followed, too. "Wow." He sighed, leaning back into the car, taking everything in. "It hasn't changed much since I left."

"No one's been home for a year. I haven't…" She trailed, weighing the moment, deciding whether it's the right time to talk to him about their mum. He should've been over it already, right? It's been 8 years already since they had that fight.

*****Flashback*****

Four days before the end of their vacation which marks the beginning of his internship in New York, Mark slowly trudged off to his mum's office, his heart pounding madly in his chest, scenarios and possible exchange playing out in his head, all at once. She couldn't tell me what to do. I'm free to make my own decisions. This is my life. Mine. No one else could dictate me or discourage me.

He knocked and slowly opened the door. Ellis Grey was scribbling behind the stack of papers placed neatly on her large oak desk. The skin between her eyebrows in a crease, way too engaged in her paperwork. "Mum?"

She didn't even look up at him as he entered the room. "What is it, Mark? I'm busy."

"I'm going into plastics." He breathed out, his voice loud and clear.

She stopped writing and slowly looked up at him. "Pardon me?"

"I said I'm specialising in plastic surgery." He looked straight into her eyes, unable to feel much, the adrenalin slowly numbing him, circulating in his veins.

"Are you out of your mind?" She all but yelled as she laid her pen down and straightened her face. "How are you supposed to change the face of medicine in plastics?"

"I—" He started but instantly cut off by his mum, rage now discernible in her face.

"What happened to you?" She asked so seriously, getting up on his feet and walking around her table, only to stand in front of him with a hand on her hips.

"Excuse me?" He ask, complete puzzlement in his face.

"I raised you to be extraordinary, Marcus. Why are you wasting your life on such thing? Plastics is practically cosmetology. You know better than that, Mark. You should be specialising in cardio, instead!"

"I'm excellent, mum. Maybe I got in quite a number of troubles back then but my skills are excellent. They're flawless." He said loud, anger obvious in his voice. "And I know plastics is not general surgery or cardio or neuro, but it's life-changing, too. It changes the way people feel about themselves."

"If people want to feel good about themselves, they should hire a shrink!" She all but shouted.

"But I really want to do this, mum." He reasoned out, red in the face, his arms making movements in front of him. "I'm old enough to make decisions for myself. This is my career."

"This argument is over, Mark. You're going into cardio." She slowly made her way back to her seat, making no room for remarks.

"Or what?" He said, challengingly brave. His anger a bit toned-down now as he shifted his weight on his other feet. But his body thumped in a beat, suddenly feeling every pulse.

Ellis stopped in her tracks, turning back to her son. "Or I'll disown you."

"Fine." He said in a heartbeat. "I'm done being told what to do with my life. My life."

She may not have known a lot about her own son, but this she certainly know: Mark does not back out. He does not take anything that he said back; he keeps his word and he sticks to it till the end. "Okay." She said as she sat down on her chair, pulling herself closer to her desk, hands laced together in front of her.

He stared at her for a short moment, "Goodbye, then."

She watched his retreating back out of her office, and quite possibly out of her life. She went back to her paperwork as his even steps carried him upstairs.

Meredith heard it all. She was listening beside the doorway and bolted in front of her mum quickly after Mark left the room. "Mum!" Meredith demanded, worried and confused. "Are you really not gonna stop him? He's leaving!"

Too engrossed in her work, she didn't even look at her furious daughter. "I fed him, clothed him and sent him to school. I did everything I could possibly do."

Meredith stared at her with her mouth slightly agape. Freaking unbelievable!

*****End of Flashback*****

"Mum hasn't been home yet, either." She said softly, watching his face for any kind of reaction as he continued to stare at the house, as if studying every piece of brick, every edge of the each window. But she let it go. Maybe it's too soon.

She cleared her throat in a gesture for him to follow her and walked to the back of the car, unlocking the trunk.

Surveying the contents, he took the smallest suitcase. "Can you take this?"

"God, what do you have inside this? Sentimental cadavers from the East Coast?" She grunted as she moved past him to open the house.

He smirked on her complaints. "Well, I'm glad, not everything has fully changed." He said, putting down his suitcase, taking a swift look around.

"You're taking your old room 'cause I took mum's!" She yelled from the top of the stairs.

They were moving the last of his things back to his room when her phone buzzed. "Are you staying home tonight?" She asked him, dropping down on a chair, eyes glued on her phone as she typed the last of her text message before sending it.

"I was planning to get a couple of drinks with Shep."

"Well, I'll head out now, I'm meeting Cristina." She beckoned to his things and said, "I'll leave you to this. And maybe dusting off downstairs too. Bye." And then she was out of his room in a flash.

"You better be home by midnight!" He shouted after her.

"I'm 27!"

"26!"