The rain hitting against the bedroom window managed to lull Meredith in and out of sleep. There was something she found soothing about the rain hitting the window that she loved and the warmth that surrounded her didn't help the matter that she had to get ready for work soon.

The space behind her, that when she had fallen asleep was occupied by her husband, was empty and cold. She missed the warm body that would usually provide her with heat, yet at the same time, the extra blanket was a bonus.

Somehow, her roommates hadn't found out about her marriage to Derek yet, which was some miracle of its own.

She remembered giggling about it two nights ago, telling Derek how it was kind of like they were teenagers, how fun it was to sneak around and make sure that no one found out about them.

The bed behind her had been empty for several hours at that point. When a pager had sounded at the earlier hours of the morning, Meredith had rolled over to grab hers, expecting to see a message flashing across the screen but instead found that it was blank.

It had been Derek's pager waking them, a rare occurrence for someone of Derek's status, interns were usually called in at the ungodly hours. AMVC victim had been brought in with severe head trauma, one that their on-call neurosurgeon decided she wasn't capable of handling alone seeing as she was only a fourth-year resident.

And so, Derek had crawled out of bed, pulling on a more appropriate shirt than his ratty sleeping t-shirt and bottoms that were on their last legs, pressed a soft kiss to Meredith's forehead and slipped out of the house as quietly as possible.

Now, as she lay there in her cocoon of blankets, Meredith could feel someone's eyes staring at her. Derek had a habit of watching her sleep, which had its ability to be cute or to be weird. However, the fact that Derek was not home managed to wiggle it's way to the front of Meredith's brain, causing blue eyes to snap open.

"George's room is bigger than mine."

Izzie was leaning over her bed, watching her sleep with a mug of coffee in her hand. The scream that Meredith had let loose didn't even seem to make her flinch, almost as if she was expecting it. The smaller blonde's hand flew to her chest, right over her heart as she tried to slow her racing heart. Why did I have to pick the freaky roommates? And what if Derek had still been here? I think we need a knocking rule.

Once her heart rate was back to normal, Meredith threw the covers off her body with a roll of the eyes at Izzie's lack of caring. As she stood and shot the other blonde doctor a glare, she failed to notice the pillow that had managed to make its way onto the floor, tripping over it and landing in a heap on the floor.

Pain shot through her ankle for a moment before it faded. Even after the pain was gone, Meredith didn't make a move to get up off the floor, instead letting the cold hardwood cool her skin. Izzie still stood behind her, not even making a move to see if she was okay, instead taking a sip from her mug once again. After a couple more seconds, Meredith shoved her hair back into place and out of her line of sight using both hands to push herself upright and continue making her way down to the garage.

After her first step, it was evident that she'd twisted her ankle, limping each time she put pressure on her left foot.

Izzie was still following her, still complaining about George behind her, "I have more clothes, I should have the bigger room." Her ankle hurt, she was already running late thanks to the rain and blanket issue, she didn't need to deal with her roommate's constant bickering too.

Besides, George had gotten to the house first, meaning he got the first pick of which room he wanted. And that just so happened to be the bigger room.

As she rounded the corner, George was standing protectively in front of his door, as if Izzie was going to take it from him the minute he walked away from it. She vaguely heard him shout something along the lines of him getting there first and that he could get whatever room he wanted.

"It's Meredith's house, she should get to decide," Izzie called out from behind her, two sets of footsteps following her down the stairs. I really don't want to.

They continued to follow her down to through the garage door as she went to get her underwear and clothes from the baskets that were sat on top of the washing machines from the previous night. Derek must have grabbed them before he left that morning. Behind her, she could hear the pair arguing about inches, which then turned into something about boxes and her mother's surgery tapes. The day did not need to start out with her mother being brought into it too.

Coming to the top of the stairs, the bathroom was just in sight and George and Izzie had still not left her alone yet. Shoving the door open, the room that would give her some privacy from her roommates was within her grasp. She slammed the door shut behind her before the exhaustion hit her again. Remembering that Izzie had been drinking coffee and not caring that Izzie had been drinking the coffee, Meredith re-opened the door, grabbing the mug from the blonde's hand and shut the door behind her again, placing a wooden barrier between the two of them.

Dead Baby Bike Race Day.

Natural selection indeed.

Her fellow interns, who clearly hadn't seen anything like this before (she, of course, had seen worse traumas than what this race would bring due to practically living in hospitals most of her life while her mother was practicing and then once again while Derek was finishing up his residency) were babbling excitedly about all the cases they were going to get. Meredith herself was excited about actually handling the traumas for herself for a change. After tying up the back of her trauma gown, she pushed her way through the doorway, coming face to face with beds full of people with varying degrees of injuries.

Cristina stepped up beside her, grinning from ear to ear at the sight, "It's like candy… but with blood!" The comment caused her to giggle slightly as a man caught her eye across the room.

"Oo. I'll take that one." Her eyes were fixed on the spikes that were sticking out of his side. This case practically screamed surgery at her. Said the man was sitting up on the trauma bed, looking around as if him being there was just an inconvenience to him, that the spikes were simply a minor scrape on the knee. Meredith wanted this case. She wanted it now.

Alex replaced Cristina next to her, the latter having run off fighting with Izzie over a case that seemed to be a TBI. He had seemed to spot the same man as her and before Meredith could comprehend what was really happening, she was shoving Alex out of the way to reach the bed before he could.

He'd just pulled the spikes out of the man's side leaving her with him to stitch him up. That left Meredith half convinced Alex had lost his mind for not taking the precautions and the other man had downed a bottle of something really strong before getting on his bike that morning for not even flinching as the spikes were removed from his skin.

Meredith pulled out her suture kit as the man began to flirt with her each time she ignored them and instead going on to think about how much she wanted her husband to walk through that door right at that very minute.

"You've got a nice touch." He complimented her for the God-knows how many time. How she wanted to pull the rings out from under her scrub top. "And by the way, you are a rocking babe."

With an eyebrow raised and a small grin playing on her face, she asked him, "Seriously, do you actually think you have a shot here?"

"I think I've got a shot anywhere."

The man was stupid enough to be refusing a CT, he could have been bleeding internally for all she knew but she couldn't force him into going and so was stuck having him sign an AMA form instead.

As she handed the form over to him, he leant in close to her as he somehow managed to sign his name without looking, "Darling, I will do anything you want me to."

Meredith stared blankly at him, shaking her head as some of the comments her husband had made in the past came to mind, "What is it, with you guys and your need to dirty everything up?" She could have sworn men had one thing and one thing only constantly on their minds.

While she was engaged in her conversation with the frustrating bike racer, Viper as she had learnt when taking his personal information, she failed to notice her husband coming to stand in front of the trauma room window, watching her as she finished up with her patient. He'd been looking for her for a while, not having seen her since he left to tend to the man with the brain injury, who had thankfully survived the crash.

Derek watched the conversation between the two. By the look of things, his wife had just finished up with the man, one of those injured in the bike race I what he was wearing was any indication. The man rose from the bed, adjusting his shirt and making his way to the exam room door before he spun back around and grabbed Meredith by the back of the head, crashing their lips together in a rough kiss. Jealousy flared from almost nothing inside of Derek as he watched this man press his lips against Meredith's.

The man finally pulled back as Meredith raised a hand, looking completely stunned as the cyclist gave her a wink and turned to walk out of the door, completely oblivious to the man in navy blue scrubs standing in the doorway.

Meredith shouted something that was muffled by the walls at the retreating man's back before turning around, pausing with a dazed look on her face. It lasted no more than four seconds before she snapped back to reality and began to make a move on stripping the bed sheets, ready for the next patient.

Just as she finished up with the task she caught something out of the corner of her eye and turned to see Derek standing there, watching her every move with his arms crossed over his chest.

He moved lightly to the left and opened the door, letting himself in. "So, you make-out patients now?" His voice was flat as he entered the trauma room and shut the door behind him. Despite his serious manner, Meredith knew him well enough to know that he was just joking around with her.

Deciding to push the buttons, she asked him with a shrug, "What? Are you jealous?"

"I don't get jealous." He told her firmly, his face twitching, the tell-tale sign that he was lying to her. Even though they were joking, she couldn't help the smile that graced her face for a moment at the thought of him still getting jealous, even after eight years of marriage.

"You know I didn't kiss him, right?" She asked as she filled out the rest of the necessary form. "You know you're my husband? Or do I need to keep reminding you of that? Our age finally catching up?"

"Of course I know that you think I don't know that? I know that very, very well." Men! He was just proving her point. "You know I almost died today? I came this close." He held up to fingers with a minimal gap between them. "How'd you feel if I died? You've spent the last eight years with me, you wouldn't know what to do without me."

"Aww," Meredith pinched his cheek and shook it slightly, "Get over yourself. I'd find someone less clingy, that's what I'd do. You don't have to worry that pretty little head of yours about that."

With that, she grabbed her clipboard and stalked out of the trauma room, leaving Derek to stand in the exam room by himself, trying and failing to come up with a response to her comment.

Izzie had roped her into this. That's what she kept telling herself as she sat there, watching the surgery she knew shouldn't be happening. Meredith had no idea why she decided to transfuse the man but she had done it anyway and she knew that Derek would probably not be too impressed with her deciding to step in on a case she wasn't involved in. But know, they were sitting in the gallery watching as Alex assisted (he hadn't been involved with this case until he heard that there was an open heart surgery involved) on brain dead man's heart surgery.

Her pager had run out of battery just as her shift ended and so she made her way to the intern locker room to change it, meaning she missed the end of the surgery. It was the end of her shift anyway and she needed to change out of her scrubs. All she wanted to do was curl up in her rather large bed with her husband and sleep for who knows how long. The rough start she'd had that morning had set her up for a not so good day.

Just as Meredith had finished swapping the batteries over, Alex burst through the door with a great big grin on his face, "God, I smell good! You know what it is? It's the smell of open heart surgery. It's awesome. It is awesome." This man had been nothing but an ass since the moment he called her a nurse and it was really shining through today. "You gotta smell me," Alex said as he walked towards Meredith, arms raised as he shoved his chest forward.

"I don't want to smell you." She told him, not even bothering to turn towards him, instead fiddling with nothing in her locker, waiting for him to leave her alone. Instead, she felt his arms wrap around one of her shoulders, coming to rest on the edge of her locker and saw the other rest on the locker door beside her, cornering her in, his chest pressed against her back, "Oh, yes you do."

Without much warning, she spun around in the small space, grabbing Alex by the collar and all but threw him back against his own. "You have got to be kidding me! I have more important things to deal with than you. I have roommates that are driving me absolutely insane and won't stop arguing over who gets which room. I have a husband who has turned very needy and I have a mother who is causing me issues. So I don't have time for your frat-boy-bitch problems. Take credit for your saves and everyone else's, I don't care. Just stay outta my face." Alex gave a fake yawn and to stop herself from slapping him across the face, instead, she shoved him back against the lockers with a fair amount of force.

Vaguely, Meredith heard the locker room door open but was too busy restraining herself from hurting Alex even more that she was already. Turning her head to the right, her icy blue eyes met Derek's and she finally let Alex go, storming back to grab the items she threw in when she shoved him.

Alex too noticed Derek's presence and held his hands up as a sign of surrender and innocence, "She attacked me." Derek, however, knew his wife better than that and knew that the intern must have done something to majorly piss her off.

Like a flash of light, Meredith was back across the locker room and ready to grab Alex by the collar again, the later not even flinching at the speed blonde was coming towards him. "Meredith! Meredith!" She heard her husband call out to her as he planted both hands on her shoulders, steering her away from her would be victim, letting her take a few calming breaths.

Derek turned towards the other man, making sure to keep Meredith behind him, "You might want to leave before I change my mind and let her beat you to a pulp with her tiny, ineffectual fists." After guiding Alex out of the locker room by the arm and shoving the door shut with an effective bang, Derek turned back to Meredith as she began shoving her belongings into her purse.

When she made eye contact with him again, he noticed that her eyes were becoming slightly glassy. "What?" He asked softly.

"Nothing." She began in reply before she seemed to remember who she was talking to as her husband gave her a short nod of encouragement, "It's just…" Another pause. "Nothing." She finally settled on.

With no one else in the locker room with them, Meredith was safe to step forward and press her face into Derek's chest, just breathing in his scent which made her relax almost instantly. His arms came to wrap around her in reassurance, holding her as closely as possible to him.

For so long, she had gotten used to not talking about feelings with anyone and so had the tendency, after all the years she had known Derek, to shut him out sometimes. This time, however, he seemed to understand that she was going to open up to him about what was bothering her at some point, just not in the middle of the very public locker room.

As if remembering that she was in the locker room, where any intern could walk in at any moment, Meredith pulled back from Derek. "Can we go home now?" She asked him, but he was already digging his keys out of his pocket. Since they'd driven in separately that morning, it meant that they'd have to drive home separately too.

She and Derek pulled up outside their house just moments after each other, Meredith parking the jeep in the driveway next to George's car and Derek parking his car on the street just outside the house. As she climbed out of her car, Derek came to a stop next to her, his hand extended towards her slightly, which she took without a second thought.

Making their way up to the house, Meredith sighed in relief when the warmth of her home hit her full in the face she opened the door. She silently thanked that she had forgotten to turn the heating off that morning as she was leaving for work.

Izzie and George were both on-call at the hospital that night and so they didn't have to worry about keeping themselves hidden for the night, and so once Meredith had slipped her coat off and hung it up in the closet, she turned towards her husband leaning up so their lips were in line with each other and then kissed him.

He responded eagerly, kissing her harder. The pair stayed like that for a moment before pulling away from each other. "I like it much better than when your roommates are here," Derek told her with a small smirk. "We'd get to do that a lot more if you didn't have those roommates of yours living here."

"I know," She slumped against him. "But they needed somewhere to stay and they were the best candidates. The rest were all too weird. Besides, I missed having someone living here. I've been living around crowds of people since I was seventeen. I get lonely if they house is quiet."

He was giving her an odd look, his eyes sparkling the way she loved as he watched her for a moment. "What?" Meredith asked him, a stray piece of hair coming to rest in front of her face.

"You are the most caring person I know." His smile grew and his eyes twinkled a little more. "Even after what you went through and most would probably say you shouldn't have turned out the way you have, you are amazing."

Even though he had been giving her compliments like that for years now, they still never failed to make her blush each time, make something warm and fuzzy rise inside of her. Instead of responding verbally, she chose to respond with another kiss, which he happily complied with.

"Now, why don't you go and take a nice warm bath, and I will get on the phone and order something for us to eat?" He suggested. A warm bath did sound amazing right at that moment and who was she to say no to some take out?

A smile graced her features as she made her way up the stairs. Halfway up, she called over her shoulder, "And no Chinese food!"

As he picked up the wireless home phone from its stand, he chuckled, "I know, Mer. Ten years, remember?"

The hot bath had done her aching muscles wonders. The only reason she had gotten out of it and not fallen asleep was because she heard the doorbell ring downstairs and assumed that food had come.

Now, she was clad in her Dartmouth t-shirt and a pair of Derek's plaid pyjama bottoms, sitting four steps from the bottom watching as her husband paid the delivery man. She still had no idea what he'd order but when he turned around, pizza box in hand, she gasped gleefully. "Pizza?" In response, he shook the box, watching her excitement build by the second. "Chicken?"

"What other kind of pizza would I get?" He asked her sarcastically, waving the hand that was not holding the pizza in the air. "It would be a crime to get anything else!"

Lunging forward off the steps, Meredith let out a short squeal as she made a grab for the pizza box. Opening it, she grabbed a piece and took a bite out of it. "Good, I love you." She mumbled around the mouthful of pizza.

"I love you too," Derek tried reaching for a slice of pizza but Meredith's hand quickly swatted his away from it. "You were talking to me… right?" He asked, watching as she seemed to make the slice of pizza disappear in a matter of seconds.

After she had swallowed the food in her mouth, Meredith turned to him, "What? Oh, yeah, I guess I love you too." She shrugged.

The pair moved into the living room, Meredith placing the box onto the coffee table that in the middle of the room, grabbing a second slice in the process.

The pair sat in silence for a few moments, just enjoying each other's company before Derek decided to approach the incident from earlier again.

"So, are you going to tell me what that thing with Alex was about or are you going to leave me to find out about it?"

He could tell from the way she was hesitating to answer that she didn't want to talk about it but Derek also knew from experience that with Meredith you needed to push her to talk or she would let things build up to the extreme.

"It's just… he's a bit of an ass." Was all she offered him, causing Derek to raise an eyebrow in response.

He hummed a little. "And that justifies trying to beat him to a pulp with your tiny ineffectual fists?"

Meredith was silent and the response she wanted to give was obviously along the lines of 'shut up or I will show you just how ineffectual these fists are'. "He called me a nurse during our first shift because I challenged his diagnosis. And he stole our brain guys surgery today. After which, he tried to make me smell him and I kinda just snapped."

"I think it's more than that, Mer." Derek offered up, waiting to see if she was going to say anything else.

"There is more, I guess." A breath. "George and Izzie seem nice enough but I really regret inviting them to live here. I know that I said I was lonely in such an empty house but my god, I just want to spend my time with you and no nosy roommates hanging around. But I know exactly what they're going to say if they find out that we're married and I don't want them to think that. Because it's not the truth and I'm not married to you just to get a leg up. I'm pretty sure they already hate me enough because of the Ellis Grey thing."

Meredith took another pause, seemingly having ended her rant but Derek knew to give her a moment to collect her rambling. "And I miss home so much. I miss your mother, I miss Amelia, I miss Lizzie, I miss Kathleen, I miss Mark, I miss Addison and dear lord I even miss Nancy a little bit. This is all so different to New York and being in Med School." With a pout, she turned from her position leaning against Derek to face him. "Why did you let me go through with this internship? Why didn't you stop me?"

Brushing a stray hair out of her face, Derek smiled affectionately at her, "I let you go through with this internship because I know that one day, you're going to be even better than your mother. And I know you miss everyone back home, but we can always call them and you know that they are all going to be dropping in and out of here all the time. You'll get to the point that you don't want to see them anymore."

Meredith seemed to accept what Derek was saying, lying back against him with a content sigh, her eyes falling shut briefly.

His hand began to smooth the hair in the front of her head back, leading to her falling asleep in a matter of moments., the previously loved pizza lying untouched on the table.

Once Derek was sure she was well and truly asleep, he moved her head from his arm, standing and moving into position to allow him to pick her up with ease. The blonde moaned a little in her sleep but quickly stilled as he began to make his way up the stairs.

The following day, Meredith was back at the hospital for a forty-eight-hour shift. She'd hated the fact that she'd had to get up early that morning while her husband had gotten to stay in bed, which then followed a mild rambling session in her mind about how it was unfair that attending's didn't have to pull the same sort of shift patterns as interns and residents.

As she pulled her fresh scrub top over her head, she felt a presence behind her and turned to see Alex standing against the opposite wall of lockers. "What do you want? Round two?"

He smirked at her in response, just watching her as she continued to get ready for her shift. After the incident yesterday, he was impressed with the amount of strength she had in her. For such a tiny thing, the girl could really throw her fair bit of weight.

Meredith knew he was still staring at her and once she was finished getting dressed, she turned to face him fully, one hand coming to rest on her hip, "Why do you keep staring at me?"

Alex seemed to be thinking for a moment before he responded. "I wanted to say I was impressed yesterday. Didn't expect you to be capable of such things." He was trying to push her buttons and wined her up but she wasn't going to let it happen.

"Well, clearly someone needs to keep you in shape." Was all she responded with. This man was going to cause her problems throughout her residency, she could already tell.

"Also," Alex added after a moment of silence. "George is going to be devastated."

Meredith blinked. George? "George?"

"Well, yeah. He's got some sort of crush on you. In fact, I'm pretty sure the dudes in love with you. Shame for him though."

"Alex, I really am not following this conversation, so please make it clear what you're talking about before I walk out of this locker room and leave you to talk bullshit to yourself." She snapped at him.

"You're married, aren't you? Or was that some random rambling yesterday? 'I have a clingy husband?'"

Long time no update, hey? Sorry 'bout that. But I got a new computer and got back into Grey's with even more vengeance and I wanted to write more stories so here I am. I have like two other fics in mind too but I don't want to start another without attempting to finish this one. So, if any of my previous readers are still with me, hey! Any new readers, let me know what you thought of this chapter and if you want to see more in the future! Adios amigos!