Meredith was grateful that Derek had agreed to go and hang out at the hospital with her before his doctor's appointment. He had seemed almost eager, and she suspected the house was driving him a little bit stir-crazy. It had been a week since the left the hospital, and he had not left the house much since then. She had dragged him out to Joe's one night, and he'd gone with George to do the grocery shopping, but that had ended up being an ordeal. So, she was glad that he had agreed to go out again.

When the day came, though, he seemed edgy. She sat on the end of the bed, dressed, and watched him work on buttoning the shirt he had pulled out to wear. "Want a hand with that?" she asked, off-handedly. He had let her help him with most things, although she was the only one that he would let help him except in insinuating circumstances.

"I can do it!" he said with a scowl.

"Fine, fine, don't go all 'wounded tiger' on me; it was just an offer."

"Sorry," he said gruffly. "Is that straight?"

Meredith looked, and smiled. "Yeah."

"Finally. Can you hand me my sweater?"

She grabbed the gray sweater that she had gotten out of his closet for him, per his request, and put it in his outstretched hand. She watched as he felt around for the tag, found it and pulled the shirt on.

"Good?" he asked.

She stood and went over to him, pulling his collar out and kissing him. "Incredibly handsome as always. Although I miss the stubble." She ran a hand over his smooth cheek. He had gotten up early to attempt to shave, and had managed pretty well, with much swearing and only one nick.

"I have a feeling the stubble will be back soon," Derek said, taking her arm. "That was an ordeal I'd prefer not to deal with too often."

"You had better be grateful that I like scruffy men," Meredith said, "Steps."

He held tightly to her arm and put the other hand on the banister as they went down, but he had gotten better at it. He was not as cautious, although she still worried at the times that he insisted he could go up and down them himself.

"It's five-thirty, there's time for breakfast if you want." He liked it when she told him the time often, it was the one thing that seemed to bother him the most; not being able to have a good sense of time. She had put in an online order for a talking clock, but it had not come in yet.

"Yeah, sure."

"Museli?" she asked, sitting him down at the table and going to the cupboard.

"Whatever. It's easiest."

"Yeah, well that and Izzie's already gone. You really don't want me attempting to cook. I promise. I almost burned my dorm down once in college while attempting ot make spaghetti. I burn rice when I microwave it. There is nothing that involves a stove or an oven that I am good at."

Derek chuckled and Meredith smiled to herself. She liked that she could keep him in a pretty good mood. She had not told him yesterday that her father had shown up at the hospital again, this time with his other daughter who was home from school for the summer holiday and had gotten food poisoning. She had barely had to interact with him anyway. She had not even been the intern on the case.

They ate their cereal in silence, Derek drumming his fingers rhythmically against the table as he brought the spoon to his mouth with the other hand.

"So, it's your last week as an intern. Has Bailey told you when she is going to let you fly solo yet?" Each intern got their first solo surgery during this final week. George had already had his, with Burke and Alex was scheduled to perform a hysterectomy for Dr. Montgomary that day, something that none of them would let him live down.

Meredith took a moment to chew her mouthful of cereal and deliberated. It had not been said outright, but she was fairly sure that she was going to be allowed to perform the next fairly minor tumor removal that came into neuro. She also knew that Derek had wanted to be her supervisor when the time came.

Her first reaction was to shrug, but she knew that Derek could not see that. "Um… I'm not sure yet. Bailey hasn't said yet. But Izzie doesn't know either, so…"

"I guess it depends on what comes into the ER."

"Yeah. You ready to go?"

He shrugged. "If you are. You have to be there soon, right?"

"It's five forty-five, we can make it." She stood up and went over to him, taking his hand and placing it on her arm. He stood up and surprised her by leaning down and kissing her neck.

"I love you, Meredith," he whispered.

She leaned against him, and his arms went around her, protecting her. "I love you too," she replied, and tears suddenly came unbidden to her eyes. She blinked them back, unable to bring herself to move and break the moment. It was so perfect, him holding her this way, in the way that made it seem as if he would not let anything hurt her. She had missed that. Even at night now she felt as if she were the one doing the protecting, with her arms resting on his chest; this was the way he used to hold her.

She hated, hated that they had to go and get in the car. At least it was not she who broke the spell. Derek put another kiss on her cheek and put his arm around hers. "Come on, Dr. Grey, let's get you to work," he said.

She nodded, and began to walk towards the door. They went down the front steps, and she made sure that Derek was managing getting situated in his seat before she went around and started to drive to the hospital.

When they pulled into the parking lot she was five minutes late, but she had explained things to Bailey the night before as she was leaving the hospital.

They got out of the car and started for the door of the hospital. Meredith was grateful that it was not raining, even though she generally liked the rain. Derek's grip on her arm was tight, but he walked confidently.

"There's hardly anyone in the lobby," Meredith began, suddenly. She had not intended to commentate this for him, since he knew the hospital well, but almost as soon as she said it she felt his hand relax a little. "Just some nurses from peds. Dr. Torres just ran to the stairs, I think she's late." She had gotten good at describing things to him in a voice that only he could hear. "We're almost to the elevator. Oh, hold it please!"

She dashed forward, regretting the fact that Derek jerked a little as she slid into the elevator, but he smiled good-naturedly. She leaned up to kiss his cheek, whispering: "No one important in here," in it. His smile made her grin and press herself against his side.

"Are you okay with hanging out in the waiting room? Or would you prefer the locker room or the tunnels?"

"Whatever. I brought War and Peace."

"Waiting room, then, we're there anyway. By the way, only you would be that into a sixty-four hour audiobook. It's ridiculous."

"Well, there's not much else for me to do," he said, and she could almost see his quills bristle.

"Yeah, I know. Well, I have to go face the wrath of Bailey. Page me if you need me. I'll get you for lunch and then we'll head upstairs, okay?"

"Sure," Derek agreed. She leaned down and kissed him, placing one hand on his thigh, and then darted off to change into her scrubs.


Derek sat in the waiting room chair with his eyes closed, listening to the twentieth hour of the unabridged version of War and Peace when a voice startled him. there were other people in the room, of course, nut he had decided to ignore them since he did not have much of a way of knowing who they were. Not without Meredith. He missed her rather snarky comments when she was not around.

"Well, well, look who decided to come back to his stomping grounds. Can't even stand a week away!"

"Miranda!" Derek said in surprise, carefully pushing the pause button and putting the iPod on hold. Accidentally pushing other buttons had led to long, frustrating times of attempting to find his exact place again, or find the book again.

"How're you doing, Shepard?" she asked, and he heard her sit down next to him. He shifted so that he thought he was facing her.

"I'm all right, I guess. Things could be better. I guess we'll find out today how soon that will be."

"Well… I'll keep my fingers crossed." There was silence for a minute and he could hear Miranda shifting before she said: "Look, Shepard, I wanted to talk to you for a second about Grey."

"Meredith?" Derek asked, in surprise, "What about her?"

"She's exhausted," Bailey said bluntly. "She's doing all right with her work, but it's obvious even to the patients that she's completely drained. Now I don't know what it is; if she's worried or if it's just nerves about becoming a second year resident. I can't help but notice that this is coming up now, though."

Now meaning since the accident, of course.

"Yeah. Thanks, Miranda. I'll… I'll talk to her. I don't think she's really sleeping. She should… I'll make sure…."

"Do that. I can't have her collapsing on me." She squeezed his arm. "I'm glad you're at least feeling well, Shepard, we miss you here."

"Thanks."

He heard her stand up and leave and Derek sat back, letting the hand holding his iPod droop to the side. How had he not noticed if Meredith really was exhausted? Because he was so wrapped up in his own life.

"Ready to go eat?" He was startled by Meredith's voice, sounding peppy and warm, but there was a hint of tiredness in it.

"Yeah, sure. Let's go," he said, taking her hand and kissing her cheek as he stood. He never missed when he was kissing her. She had commented on that earlier in the week. He told her it was because she was a part of him. She had called him cheesy, but he knew she liked it.

"Wait, just a second Meredith," he said, pulling her back.

"What is it?"

"I just… I just wanted to tell you, you don't have to spend all of your time with me, you know. Go to Joe's with your friends sometimes, or whatever."

"What, do you want to get rid of me?"

"No, of course not. I just want you to know, that you can."

"Okay."

"Okay." He squeezed her hand and together they headed to the cafeteria

They went and ate with the interns, and Derek found that he enjoyed their company, although he found that he was just a little jealous of their banter about their recent surgeries. Izzie was jitter about a surgery of Bailey's that afternoon that she was scrubbing in on, and Alex was bragging about the hysterectomy, which had gone off without a hitch.

"Only you would be bragging about taking out a woman's main womanly organs," Cristina pointed out to Alex.

"If it's to cure her cancer, yeah, I would."

"It's twelve forty-five," Meredith said. "Ready?"

Derek pushed his fork into his last, or he was pretty sure that it was his last, piece of lettuce and ran his for along the plate to make sure it was empty. "Yeah, I guess so."

They said good-bye to the others at the table and headed upstairs to the offices that were on the fifth floor.

Neither said if they were nervous, but after Meredith signed the forms for him and sat next to him in the waiting room chairs he could hear the sound her watch made as she played with it; something she only did when she was nervous. His palms were clammy, and he found himself clenching and unclenching his fists until his name was called.

Meredith gave him her arm. "The nurse is old. I'm surprised she's not a patient." Her voice was calm, steady, but there was just enough of an edge to it to relay the fact that she was not as calm as she seemed. Derek could not bring himself to respond.

The appointment itself involved many drops in his eyes, which stung and much poking and prodding. The doctor shown a light in his eyes which made them water. He could detect some kind of a difference with the light, but not much. According to the doctor that was a good sign.

"It's hard to tell how long it will be, or how much the vision will progress," he said. It seemed to Derek from the direction of his voice that he was talking more to Meredith. "It maybe that a little bit more light vision is all he retains. Maybe enough to move around a little easier."

"But it could all come back?" Derek asked.

"It could. I still recommend some form of rehabilitation, because there's no telling how long."

Derek stopped listening, feeling that he had to hold onto the idea that he could regain his vision, he just had to.

A/N Review please!