So, I'm really happy many of you enjoyed this story so far. Thank you for the reviews and the alerts. I know I promised a rather quick update, but this past weekend I was really busy helping out at the local festival and it sucked the time out of me.
Things are starting to move here so I'm sure you'd like this a lot better.
Come Fly With Me is a pretty song by Michael Bublé. I don't own it, that you know.
Chapter 2 – Come Fly With Me
Drained of all her energy after a long day sightseeing, Meredith finally slumped on the mildly comfortable seat in economic class.
She remembered in first class once travelling with her mother as they went to a conference in Orlando and she had been bribed with a visit to Disneyland. That had been the time of her life, even if her mother never appeared in any photos she had taken.
She stretched her legs as far as she could, then pulled out a textbook and a pencil from her carry-on bag and opened Advanced Chemistry. Surely, it wasn't a leisure lecture; she'd probably take notes along the way, but when she got back to Boston she had her final exam to take, before graduating, a semester earlier than any other student in her year.
She was deep into reading her first paragraph already, when someone cleared their throat, startled her. She looked up and her gaze met two endless blue eyes.
They stared at each other for a long moment, before the stranger smiled. It lit up his whole face, enhancing the already great features Meredith was staring at. He had neatly trimmed hair, barely-there stubble that gave him a ruggedly handsome quality, a gorgeous smile and a crooked, but well-fitting nose.
In other-words, he was hot.
"Uh, I..." the stranger stammered, pointing at the seat next to Meredith's, between her and the window.
"I'm sorry" Meredith whispered, gathering her book and papers and sitting up so quickly that her pencil fell on the ground.
The handsome man, McDreamy she dubbed him, placed his bag securely over their heads, then bent to pick up her pencil before she even noticed it fell.
He handed it over and she took it as her cheeks burned, moving aside to let him sit. He smiled again when she said a muffled 'thank you' before she quickly sat again and tried her best to focus back on her book, ignoring the way that man made her lose any train of thought.
She could feel his eyes on her. She didn't know why, but the guy had a certain something that attracted her more than any other man had before. She wasn't even drunk!
When she looked up for a beat, she realized that the stranger was still looking at her. Caught, he turned to the window with a guilty smile on his perfectly kissable lips.
She waited for him to turn back to her, meanwhile she studied his physique. He was a little taller than her, his body fit but not built enough to say that he lifted weights regularly. He didn't look like an athlete either, but he surely worked because she'd noticed when he gave her back the pencil that his hands were rough. It wasn't a bad rough, just unexpected, since his figure was neat and he seemed someone who invested a lot in his appearance.
"Hi" he startled her again, and again she blushed like a schoolgirl. This ride was going to be hell.
"Hello" she whispered back.
"Thank you" he said, that broad smile appearing on his face again.
"Uh, you're welcome?" she replied, an amused frown on her brow while she managed a nervous smile.
"For the seat." he clarified, seeing her puzzled expression "I know you gave up the ticket and I'm so grateful"
"Ah, I...My friend couldn't come with me and I had these two seats so I decided that maybe somebody would need it and I converted my ticket" she rambled and he smiled widely.
"I'm thanking your friend as well, then"
"I'm not" she blurted, without even thinking, and then she hid herself back in her book.
"Why?" he pried, but she didn't budge.
He chuckled, low and deep as so not to disturb the other passengers, but the flight attendants' voice and the rumble of the starting engine covered it.
Meredith sighed loudly; she had never liked the take off. Never ever.
She gripped her book tightly and pretended not to be affected by the movement, but she had to close her eyes and relax against the back of the seat as the plane left the ground, her hand suddenly gripping tightly the armrest.
When they were finally in the air she let out the breath she was holding, then turned to McDreamy next to her and saw that he was grinning. Again.
"Amused by other people's fears?" she asked
"No, I had the same issue before; you just have to pretend you're somewhere else as you take off and not think about all the possible things that could go wrong"
"I see" she said amused, like he was a little child "Where did you learn that?"
"One of those books" he shrugged off, pointing at her lap.
"So you find air travel tips in Advanced Chemistry?" she was smiling widely now, trying to mask her laugh with a smirk.
"Nope, but in Anatomy you do. Pre-Med, right?" he guessed and when her face fell he chuckled.
"How did you...?" she said, closing protectively the book
"I had the same book when I was in Pre-Med. I see that things haven't changed a bit at Bowdoin"
"Dartmouth" she whispered
"Nice" he grinned "How long before graduation?"
"Just Advanced Chem between me and that damn day"
"Study trip? Exchange?"
"Well, actually I'm taking a vacation. I'm one semester earlier than the rest of my class and I just needed it. Needed some perspective"
"So you're heading to Rome" he seemed amused by her choice and she couldn't help but get mesmerized by the way his eyes crinkled when he was amused.
"Yep. Good food, good wine, handsome boys. Heaven, basically" she smirked, stressing the handsome boys part and wishing that in Rome at least one could match the handsomeness of McDreamy here. "What about you? Business trip?"
"My sister is studying Architecture in Rome for her last year and I wanted to join her for this holidays, since I actually have time off." he sighed, smiling, but there was a lingering sadness there.
"Busy much?"
"You could say that. I'm a surgeon. Okay, a wannabe neurosurgeon" he corrected with a smile "Second year of residency is coming up"
"Wow" she replied unexpectedly, unable to contain her wonder.
"You're planning on being a surgeon too?"
"Maybe. Just figuring things out as I go. My friend was supposed to be where you are sitting but since she's not, I took this vacation to empty my mind and find a different perspective"
"And you're going alone?"
"Of course, I've been dreaming of going to Europe since I can remember." she shrugged off.
"Hmm, stubborn, I like it." he grinned and she felt like melting at this point. Why wasn't all this awkward?
"How long are you planning on staying with your sister?" she kept questioning, just because she liked talking to the dreamy stranger.
"Well, I have two weeks off, then my vacations starts and then I guess I'll have a couple of weeks more for myself, since our hospital is being renewed and they're closing to move all the stuff to the new building"
"Wow, that's a lot"
"Yep" he smiled "I really need it. Yesterday I slept for like...sixteen hours?" he asked himself, making Meredith giggle and as he chuckled, she was again mesmerized. She loved hearing him chuckle.
"You piled up lots of days off" she stated then.
As soon as she mentioned this, his smile became a thin line and a veil of sadness fell over him. "These two weeks were supposed to be my honeymoon" he said gravely, then managed an unhappy smile.
"I'm sorry" she apologized immediately, but he shrugged it off .
"It's fine, I'm leaving to get over it. It's been a couple of months since she left. I mean, I was standing there in my tux and she appears, dressed casually, she has her bags packed, she says she can't go through it and she calls off the wedding. At least she had the decency to leave me before going to Barbados or something with the other guy."
"That's rough" Meredith said sincerely, once more grateful that her longest relationship lasted maybe two nights.
"I'm sorry, I'm sure you don't want to hear about some stranger's problems" he shrugged it off, picking up the brochure the airline had left for his seat and pretending to read it.
"It's fine, really, just keep talking, I'll go back to my book" she grinned mischievously and she finally made him chuckle again.
"Thank you" he said as his laughter tuned down, the brochure already forgotten. "I should let you study though"
"Don't bother, my exam is in eons" she waved her hand, grinning. "It's nice having someone to talk to"
"Well, we're both traveling alone and you gave me the seat, the least I could do is make friendly conversation" he smirked, tilting his head to the side and she already knew he did that every time he wanted to impress her. It was the McDreamy smile.
"Uh, uh" she nodded amused, once again pretending to ignore him by reading the title of the paragraph for the fifth time. That book definitely had her undivided attention.
"So what's your name?" he asked
"I'm just a girl on a plane"
"And I'm just a guy on a plane, then" his full fledged smile made her almost buckle and spill everything about her even her bank account code, but she quickly recovered.
"What's your story?"
"I don't have one"
"Everybody does. I told you mine"
"You know most of it, actually" she smiled widely
"Oh, we're both here, hiding our pains, then" he smirked.
"Sort of" she smiled back, unable to contain it.
He looked at the page she was unsuccessfully trying to read and grinned cockily "You know, I can help you study, if you want"
"Humor me" she mocked him, hiding the page from his view.
"C'mon, I'm good at this. I graduated first in my class, best intern in my year" he pleaded with his eyes and she smirked.
She closed the book with a thud and put it away, pulling out a worn book instead, its pages a little yellow and the cover marked by the time.
"So you're avoiding my help?" he snickered, peeking at the cover of the book, but not recognizing it, since her hands were all over it.
"Yep, deep into fantasy world instead of atomic numbers" she smiled secretly, then purposely pulled up the cover and hid herself in there.
"Seacrow Island. Hmm" he hummed, a doubtful expression on his face
"So what? I read children books when I fly."
"Astrid Lindgren?" he asked then, the author still covered by her hand.
"You know this book?" she asked almost in disbelief, lowering the book on her lap again in surprise.
"My sister was glued to it every summer" he sighed, smiling
"Wait, the wannabe architect sister?"
"Nope, the oldest one. I have four of them, so I might even be wrong"
"Four?"
"Yep. Only boy. In the middle. Good times..." he grinned "What about you, any siblings?"
"Not that I know of" she smirked and he chuckled.
The conversation died down for a moment, but he picked it up right away "So, is this your favorite novel or do you like something more exciting to widen your knowledge?"
"Do you intend on talking the whole flight?" Meredith answered instead
"No. I plan on sleeping in a few" he grinned
"Oh, this is gonna be a long night..." she sighed, shaking her head and he couldn't help but chuckle. And hell, she could even give up on sleeping if he kept being all dreamy like that for the rest of the flight.
So, they don't really exchange names often those two, uh?
The Astrid Lindgren's book, Seacrow Island, is my favorite children's book I own. My own copy is battered and wrinkled, but it's only because I re-read it too often. It's a summer story, an adventure, just like this story is going to be.
Well, now you know more about Meredith and the dreamy stranger. This story will be often from Meredith's perspective rather than Derek's, it just wrote itself that way.
I'll try to update soon but since the festival will last till the 23rd of July I have no idea how much time I will spend on my laptop. I'll try to not let you wait too long!