I'm sorry again for the delay. My life is kind of crazy right now, and I find myself only able to write a little bit here and there, which makes frequent updating hard. I hope you're all still willing to give the story a chance. Please let me know what you think! Thanks for your patience and sticking with the story xoxo

Meredith was exhausted.

As she stepped into the shower after a few hours of precious sleep, all she wanted was to call out of work, crawl back into bed, and sleep for the next week. Preferably with Derek's arms around her.

But she couldn't do that. Because she was a stupid intern, and as she sank onto the floor of the shower, the warm water soothing her and making it hard to keep her eyes open, she couldn't exactly remember why she had decided to place this slow and painful torture on herself.

She allowed herself to close her eyes for a moment, and it wasn't until her toothbrush slipped out of her hand that she realized she was actually falling asleep. In the shower.

As she pulled herself to her feet, she turned the water to the coldest setting possible, hoping that it would wake her up. This was totally Derek's fault. She'd just performed a forty eight hour shift, after which Derek had taken her to dinner, then called her the moment that she got home. Apparently if they couldn't actually have sex, he thought it was necessary to have phone sex all night. Or twice, but to Meredith's exhausted body it had seemed like a lot more than that.

And now she had to go visit her mother before she went to work, another thing that she hated. It was awful to see Ellis Grey deteriorating before her eyes, awful reliving the painful memories of her past, and worst of all she had to hide it all from Derek. She hated hiding it from Derek.

"Mer?" his voice came from the hallway, and before she knew what was happening he was smiling at her from the other side of the frosted shower door. "Good morning."

"What the hell are you doing here?" she asked, poking her head out of the shower stall. "I told you you're not allowed here."

"Relax," he rolled his eyes. "Izzie and George spent last night at the hospital. And I assigned them a high profile case yesterday, they're not leaving anytime soon."

"Oh," she said, moving back into the shower.

"Taking a cold shower?" he smirked. "You know if you're having dirty thoughts, I can help you out with that."

"Don't hold your breath," she rolled her eyes, but turned the water back to hot anyways. It was starting to get painful.

"Everything okay?" he asked as he discarded his boxers and stepped into the shower behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist and kissing her neck.

"I'm just….so tired," she whispered, leaning into his touch. "I can barely even keep my eyes open."

"Hmmm," he said, removing one hand from her waist to reach for her shampoo. "I remember that feeling very well."

"What are you doing?" she frowned as she watched him pour a generous amount into his hand.

"Letting you relax," he said, working the soapy matter through her hair. "Close your eyes. I'll take care of you."

She rolled her eyes at his cheesiness, but she couldn't help the relaxing feeling that washed over her as he gently massaged her scalp. She leaned into him as he rinsed her hair, washed her body and then conditioned her hair, knowing her shower routine by heart.

"You're on your own for shaving your legs," he laughed after her hair was silky and smooth from the conditioner.

"Hmmm," she sighed as she wrapped her arms around him. "Too tired."

"Alright," he sighed dramatically, reaching to turn off the shower and a towel to wrap Meredith in. "I suppose I can handle that."

"And don't think you're getting sex anytime soon," she said, her body moving slower than it ever had as she reached for another towel to wrap her hair in. "Any time off I have will be spent sleeping. Not sexing."

"Noted," Derek nodded as he stepped back into his pants. "Do you want to ride in together?"

Meredith bit her lip as she wracked her brain for an answer. "I can't," she finally said as she pushed her way past him towards her bedroom.

"Mer, I'll drop you off and then park the car," he offered, following her as he buttoned his shirt. "No one will know."

"No, I mean I'm going in later," she said. "I already cleared it with the chief."

"If you're going in late, why aren't you taking the extra time to sleep?"

Meredith sighed, knowing that he was only trying to be apart of her life. And she hated that she couldn't tell him this. But it had been the last thing she had promised her mother, and since she had never made Ellis Grey proud in her life, she somehow hoped this would do the trick.

"I have an appointment," she heard herself saying. "With a doctor."

Derek's expression immediately turned from curious to concerned. "Are you sick?" he frowned.

"No, Derek," she rolled her eyes. "Sometimes people go to the doctor to prevent getting sick."

"Oh," he nodded slowly. "Is this your…female doctor?"

She couldn't help but roll her eyes. The man was a doctor himself, he'd been married to an obstetrician for eleven years. But he still freaked out when she had her period or talked about getting gynecological exams. She wasn't sure why, but the whole process really freaked him out. Some doctor he was. So hopefully that would shut him up. "Yeah," she shrugged as she pulled a sweater over her head.

"Okay," he said, leaning in to kiss her gently. "Good luck. I'll see you at work?"

"Yeah," she said, wrapping her arms around his neck to kiss him again. "Thanks for coming over. I needed this."

He pressed his lips against her forehead, letting them linger for a moment longer than necessary. "Me too," he said before he turned and walked towards the door. "Bye, Mer."

"Bye," she called, watching him disappear before she turned back to her mirror. It was going to be a long day.

XXXXX

After meeting with the head of the nursing home who had told her that all rights were going to be signed over to her, she found herself completely overwhelmed and exhausted in Dr. Burke's OR. As she held Mrs. Paterson's heart in her hands, she tried desperately not to fall asleep, only closing her eyes once as she squeezed the heart a little too hard.

She couldn't do this. This was her first time in heart surgery, she couldn't mess this up. After Burke yelled at her, she forced herself to ignore the exhaustion she was feeling and concentrated on the job in front of her.

It wasn't until after they had restarted the heart, which had taken more effort than it should have, that she noticed the ripped glove on her right fingernail. The hand that had been holding the heart. The hand that had squeezed her patient's heart too hard when she'd fallen asleep for less than a second in the OR.

Her heart pounded in her ears as she scrubbed out based on autopilot. She had no idea what to do. If she told Burke, he would kick her off of his service, maybe out of the program. But if she didn't tell him and something happened to Mrs. Paterson…that would all be her fault.

She walked through the halls in a trance, needing to find Derek. He would know what to do. He always knew what to do.

"Hey," she finally ran into him at an intersection of halls, munching on a salad as he made his way towards the elevator. "How was surgery with Burke? You got to hold a heart."

"Yeah," she said, glancing at George who was awkwardly walking behind them. She couldn't talk to Derek with George following them around like a puppy, at least not the way she wanted to.

"It's an amazing feeling, isn't it?" he asked as he took another bite of salad. "You'll never forget it."

"It was pretty great just to watch," George chimed in and she rolled her eyes. She wasn't quite sure why the hell her roommate seemed to think it was okay to follow her around all the time, but right now all she needed was Derek. And the only thing getting in the way of that was George.

"Dr. Shepherd," she said as the elevator ran. "I…can I talk to you? About the surgery we performed the other day? I have some questions."

Derek's eyes examined hers for a moment before he nodded, understanding that that wasn't what she needed to talk to him about at all. And she loved the fact that he could read her so well. "Of course, Dr. Grey," he said. "Why don't we go to my office?"

"Thank you," she said softly as they stepped onto the elevator with George.

The short ride was completely awkward as she stood beside Derek, George standing just a hint to close to her back. She could feel the concern radiating off of Derek's body, and it was all she could do not to lean into him and take his support right now.

Thankfully, the elevator doors slid open onto the administrative floor and she followed Derek down the hall to his office. The moment the door closed behind him, he turned to her with concerned eyes and she wrapped her arms around him, taking comfort in his warm and strong body.

"Mer," he breathed, his hands trailing along her back. "What is it? Are you okay? Did the doctor say something?"

"Doctor?" she frowned, her voice muffled by his scrub top.

"This morning," he said. "If she found something…Mer, we can get through it. Whatever it is, we'll do it."

She felt a sting of tears pricking her eyes at his words. She hated that she had to lie to him, and she hated that she made him scared. But she loved how concerned he was, and she loved that every day, every moment, she was becoming just a bit more aware of the fact that he wasn't going to leave her. "It's not that," she whispered. "I'm perfectly healthy."

"Okay," he said, guiding her to the couch and sitting her down, pushing her hair out from her eyes. "What's going on?"

"I think…maybe I did something," she said. "To the heart. When I was holding it. I nodded off a little. Squeezed it."

Derek's look of concern increased slightly, but he reached to link their fingers together. "The heart's a tough muscle, Mer," he offered. "It can take a squeeze or two."

"My fingernail popped the glove," she continued. "Cut straight through." She took in the expression on Derek's face as it changed slightly, knowing that he was thinking what she was about to say. "Derek, what if I punctured Mrs. Paterson's heart?"

"It went okay, right?" Derek asked. "The heart was beating, everything was normal?"

"Yeah," she whispered.

"So…do I tell Burke?"

Derek's expression changed to one of conflict, and suddenly she regretted what she had just done. Derek was an attending, and if this had happened in his OR he would have been seeing red for a month if an intern hadn't told him something like this. But he was also her boyfriend, and he didn't want her to get herself in what might very well be unnecessary trouble. She'd put him in an awkward position, and she hated that. She sometimes forgot that an attending being in a relationship with an intern did have problems at work.

"Monitor her," he finally said. "If there is anything wrong at all, one irregular heartbeat, then you tell Dr. Burke."

"Okay," Meredith said softly. "I'm sorry, Derek."

He inhaled sharply as he looked at her. "I'm just sorry you're so exhausted," he murmured. "Why don't you try to get some sleep now?"

"Thanks," she sighed, leaning her head against his shoulder. "Thank you."

"For what?" he asked.

"Being you," she replied as she allowed herself to drift off into safe unconsciousness in his arms.

XXXXX

She spent her day completely terrified, checking on Mrs. Paterson every half an hour to make sure that everything was okay. Her body was on high alert, ready to jump into action and tell Dr. Burke what had happened as soon as anything irregular appeared at all.

She was standing at the nurse's counter late in the afternoon when she felt Derek approach her. "You okay?" he asked, concern lacing his tone.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine," she nodded as she returned to her chart.

"You sure, cause you seem not okay."

As much as she loved how well he knew her, how well he could read her, there were times that she wished he just…wouldn't.

"I'm fine," she said. "Long day."

"Well, let's go out to dinner tonight," he suggested. "We can get away from it all, just be us."

"I can't," she said. She hadn't told Derek at the party at her house, one that she thought was going to be suspiciously bigger than Izzie had promised. But there was going to be tequila at the party. Right now she needed tequila, but the last thing she needed was Derek and tequila mixed together. Because when she drank tequila, she couldn't control herself when it came to Derek, and she would probably end up fucking him in her living room with the entire staff of the hospital watching. She did not need that right now.

"Forget about the party," he said, following her down the hall.

"You know about the party?" she frowned.

"Your friends will be at the party, we can be alone somewhere else," he offered. "And not for sex, if you're too tired. We can just be us. Alone."

It sounded incredibly tempting, but she couldn't give in. "How do you know about the party?" she asked, distracting herself more than him.

"Thanks for not inviting me, by the way," he said as he leaned closer to her. "That felt good. Dinner. Think about dinner. Perfect opportunity."

"Well…" she started to reply, but was cut off by the sound of her pager. Without another word, she sprinted away from Derek to where Mrs. Paterson was crashing.

She spent the rest of the day being lectured by Burke, yelled at by the chief, and venting to the other interns in the tunnels to make herself feel better. As she was talking to the nursing home, finalizing plans to accept her mother's estate that evening, Derek intercepted her way, a stern look on his face. She sighed as she avoided his gaze, leaning against the railing and staring out at Seattle.

"I heard," he announced.

"It's a notary thing," she said quickly. "A thing to get notarized."

"I'm talking about the heart thing," Derek replied. "Do you want to talk about it?"

She sighed as she glanced at her watch. As much as she wanted to break down in his arms again, she couldn't. She had too many responsibilities. "We're adults," she said. "When did that happen?" She could feel his eyes on her as she turned to walk away, and she turned back to look at him. "And how do we make it stop?"

After yelling at the people in charge of her mother's estate after realizing that she had to come back again to sign for her estate, she made her way back to her house where the only words to describe the party were out of control.

After trying unsuccessfully to find Izzie and cancel the party, she grabbed a bottle of tequila and allowed herself to drink her day away.

As she was standing on the front lawn, dancing slightly to the music in the house, she caught sight of a very familiar, very welcome, and very handsome man.

"You blew me off for a bottle of tequila?" he asked as he pushed himself off of his car. "Tequila's no good. It doesn't call, it doesn't write. It's not nearly as much fun to wake up to in the morning."

She giggled slightly as she grabbed him by the lapel of his coat, pulling him into a deep kiss. This was exactly what she needed right now. "Take me for a ride, Derek," she murmured before she kissed him again.

"You sure?" he asked, his eyes sparkling with amusement.

"I'm positive," she said, pulling him towards his car.

"Mer," he gasped as she pushed him into the passenger seat.

"I want sex," she said as she climbed on top of him, straddling him as she pulled the door closed behind them.

"Me too," he said, watching as she pulled her sweater over her head, then reached to lean the seat back as far as it would go. "God, you're beautiful."

"Derek," she rolled her eyes, pushing his jacket over his shoulders. "No sweet talk."

"What?" he frowned.

"Dirty talk," she said, rubbing her hips against his. "I want to fuck you."

"Oh," he laughed slightly, his hands going to the button on her pants. "Fuck me, Meredith."

"I want…" she swallowed hard as she pulled his sweater over his head and ripping the buttons off of his shirt. "I want you inside of me. And I want to ride you. Hard and fast."

"Yes," he gasped as she unbuttoned his pants, pulling his straining erection out of his pants. "Meredith…please."

She shifted slightly to pull her own pants off, straddling him again as his hands massaged her breasts roughly through her bra. "Derek," she gasped.

"What do you want?" he murmured, his voice low and husky.

"You," she said, rubbing her hips over his straining erection but not letting him enter her. "I want your hard, huge cock inside of me. Now."

"You're such a naughty girl," he said. "Wanting to do such dirty things."

"Do you want me to stop?" she asked, leaning to down pull him into a hot, searing kiss as his hands moved to her hips.

"No," he said. "Meredith…please."

"Yes," she sighed, not wanting to wait any longer either. She slowly lowered herself onto his erection, giving herself a moment to bask in the euphoria of having him deep inside of her, of knowing that in this moment there was very little that could go wrong in her life.

"Mer," he gasped, his penis twitching with need inside of her. "Please."

She braced herself on his shoulders as she began moving her hips, riding him hard as he leaned up to pull a nipple into her mouth, sucking on it hard as she continued to move over him.

"Derek," she gasped, her pace speeding up as her walls tightened around him.

"Come," he commanded, reaching down to stroke her where their bodies were connected. "Come for me, Mer."

"Oh God," she breathed, her back already arching as she felt herself losing control. "Derek…"

"Yes," he gasped, holding her hips as she rode the waves of her orgasm. "That's it….oh yes…"

"Derek," she gasped, her hips still rocking over him as his body tightened. "Oh God."

"Wow," he breathed, reaching up to twirl a finger around her hair as she collapsed on top of him.

"Derek," she repeated his name again, apparently the only word she was able to form as her brain was clouded with a fog that only Derek could create. "You're….God."

"I know," he laughed as he wrapped his arms around her, pressing a kiss to her forehead. "And you're drunk."

"Not that drunk," she murmured, but her slurred words and the taste of tequila on her tongue was evidence otherwise. "Cold."

"Here," Derek said, reaching for his discarded button down and wrapping it around her shoulders.

"Thanks," she sighed, pushing herself off of his chest to look down at him. "You always take care of me."

"I know," he laughed, running his hand through her hair. "I like it."

"I'm glad you let me ride you," she giggled, reaching to pull the shirt off again, her bra clad breasts hanging temptingly in his face. "I want to sex you again."

"Me too," he said, amusement sparkling in his eyes. "It seems like the party's winding down…Listen to me!"

"What?" she giggled.

"We should probably sneak inside now," he laughed, reaching up to push her hair behind her ear.

"We've done enough sneaking for tonight," she informed him, lowering herself back to his lap so their faces were level. "It was good sneaking, but enough sneaking."

"Yeah, I'd say we're pretty good sneakers," Derek sighed as he pulled his shirt back over her shoulders. "God, I love it when you wear my clothes."

She smiled down at him as she pulled the shirt closed. He swallowed hard as their eyes met, reaching to stroke her hair again. Just as she was leaning down to kiss him again, there was a tap on the window, causing both of them to turn towards the sound. And Meredith's heart froze as she saw her resident standing beside them, her expression obviously not amused.

"You mind moving this tail wagon? You're blocking me in," was all she said before she walked away.

"Apparently not good enough," Derek sighed as he pulled her shirt closed again.

"Derek," she hissed, rolling off of him and reaching for her pants. "This is bad. So so bad on so many levels."

"It's not that bad," he offered.

"For you," she snapped. "That's my boss!"

"So am I," he said, pulling his sweater over his head.

"Not helping," she said.

"Look, I'm Bailey's boss," he said. "I'll talk to her. Explain the situation."

"I'm already in trouble with Dr. Burke and the Chief," Meredith sighed. "I don't need to be in trouble with Bailey either."

"You won't be," he said, reaching for her.

"I have to go," she said, reaching for the driver's door and stumbling out of the car.

"Mer," he called.

"Just go," she yelled.

"What about my shirt?" he asked, obviously trying to lighten the mood.

"I'm keeping it!" she replied before she stormed into the house, disappearing into her bedroom and throwing herself onto her bed. She was going to get fired. She was convinced of it. If she hadn't been in enough trouble before, sleeping with her boss would seal the deal. And yet again, she wasn't completely sure that they should continue this.

Bailey knew about them, and that couldn't be good for either one of them.