Hello everyone! Sorry for being gone so long! Professors think it's funny to give you three weeks' worth of work to do in just a week, so I've been spending my time ensuring that everything gets done while writing bits and pieces as I can. Even so, since I last updated, I had the opportunity to meet SHONDA RHIMES! It was an amazing experience, one that I won't soon forget. Anyways, thank you to everyone who has reviewed and stayed by my side with this story even with the lengthy waits between chapters. I realized that while I was writing this chapter that I didn't necessarily have a planned way for Meredith to talk about her past with Derek, but it came to me as I wrote. Because of the way this chapter is structured, I couldn't manage to write her story into this chapter, however you'll see at the end that I have written myself into a place where I can't hold off on the conversation anymore. Since I didn't reveal this chapter, I'm apologizing by giving you a long chapter. It's the longest one that I have written for you guys, and I'm so excited for you to read it. Without further ado, Chapter 9 of Rise Up!

Meredith sat quietly in the passenger seat of Derek's car with her left hand in his right, smiling and silently admiring Derek and the way he could handle the vehicle effortlessly. She felt the hormones rushing through her veins as she witnessed the rawness of his masculinity in profile. The combination of that with his perfectly tousled hair and the light stubble he had along his mandible dripped sex.

No, Meredith. Back out of that dark corner and go stand in the light. Meredith toes flexed at the realization that she was drifting towards the kind of relationship where sex wouldn't be a question of when; she knew there wouldn't be a question at all. What she felt when her lips were against his told her that it would be the kind of relationship where they'd be together in that way nearly every night they were together geographically. She knew it would be an unspoken agreement that would lead them to being connected in the most intimate of ways. Too fast! You've only known this guy for a month. You knew Brian for four years and look how well that turned out.

Meredith's smile didn't falter as she pushed that thought process aside and turned her attention back to Derek and his terrible taste in music. She had been so enthralled by the shear beauty that was Derek Shepherd that she hadn't realized that he was crooning away to The Clash…and it still made her smile. She chuckled to herself at the notion of anyone even remotely liking any more of The Clash than "London Calling" and "Should I Stay or Should I Go," both of which she saw as highly overrated.

"What's so funny?" Derek questioned, forgetting about the song.

"Your terrible taste in music."
"The Clash isn't terrible. They're iconic."

Meredith laughed out loud, saying, "I mean I guess it makes sense that your taste in music is awful."

"Okay, for argument's sake, why does my hypothetical 'terrible taste in music' make sense?"

"Well, I mean, come on! You're a ridiculously handsome, brilliant neurosurgeon. You can't have everything, so clearly your tastes in music are what suffered here."

Derek smiled adoringly at her as he laughed at her flawed logic; he knew that The Clash was great and that's all that mattered.

"So what you're saying is that you don't like when I do this," Derek teased and rejoined Joe Strummer, intentionally singing slightly out of key. Meredith laughed gleefully at his antics.

"How on earth did I start to fall for someone who likes The Clash?" Meredith wondered out loud.

Her blood froze and she stiffened as she realized what she had just done. She pleaded that Derek's incessant singing and the volume of the track had kept him for hearing what she had uttered, but those hopes shattered as Derek pulled his hand from hers and quickly forced his fingers against the radio's off button.

Meredith quickly glanced away from Derek and out the window, praying he wouldn't bring it up. She saw that they had pulled into the hospital parking lot, but rather than parking in his normal spot, he chose to park practically as far from the doors as possible. Meredith shifted to undo her seatbelt and get out but Derek caught her hand in his and used his left hand to lift her chin to look at him.

"Meredith," Derek said simply. She swallowed hard, trying to fend off his upcoming interrogation.

"Meredith, what did you just say?"

"I don't know," she shrugged noncommittally.

"You said…you're falling for me?" Meredith bit her lip lightly and squeezed her eyes shut. Her breathing was shaky but she couldn't focus on regulating it.

"Meredith, look at me." There was a pleading to his voice and she didn't like that she was the reason it was there. She opened her eyes slowly and looked into his endless blues and saw his desperation to know the truth.

"You're falling for me?" he asked again.

"Yes," she whispered as quietly as she could manage.

The next moment passed in a blur and she was surprised to find Derek's lips firmly pressed against hers, kissing her hungrily. It wasn't a purely carnal kiss, but rather it was the perfect mix of passion and desire, something that an outsider could tell was driven by the loving need of his to be with her in any and every way possible.

Their lips separated and she felt Derek dragging his nose across the angle of hers, stopping its ascent at her hairline. His lips pressed gently against her forehead.

"Never be afraid to tell me how you feel. Especially when it's something like that," Derek murmured.

"Okay," she mumbled her response.

"Mer, what's wrong?" he asked, immediately sensing the change.

"It slipped out, okay? But if it wouldn't have, it would've been really hard for me to have just admitted openly to you or anyone for that matter! And you know now and you didn't say it back or even reassure me of anything, so I look like the idiot!" she announced dejectedly.

They sat in silence for several moments, Meredith feeling the relationship slipping from her grasp. She glanced carefully at Derek and saw him looking straight at her, his attention not deviating.

"I never thought it needed to be said," he finally said, "I figured my actions would've told you what I was thinking. I thought that you saying that now was just your response to picking up the feelings that I have set out. But of course, I'm falling for you, Meredith. I would've never admitted this from the beginning since I know you wanted to take this slowly, but I think I fell for you the moment you challenged me in the bar on the night we met," Derek said carefully.

Meredith looked down at her fingers as they knotted together, "It's a fairly new thing, but it's really hard for me to trust people. I want to trust you, but it's like a survival instinct not to."

She heard his seatbelt release and then felt his arms gathering her in a hug. He pressed his lips to her temple, "Do you want to talk about it?" She shook her head.

"Do you think you'll ever tell me?"

"I've known you a month, Derek. You can't push me like that or you'll be pushed away!"

"Mer, calm down. I didn't mean it like that. I actually want to know if you think you'll reach the point where you will feel comfortable talking about it. I'd just like to believe that we're going somewhere and that that somewhere has us knowing everything about each other."

Meredith felt anxiety creeping up on her and decided that her best bet was to avoid the situation and flee.

"We should head in and get ready. We have surgeries to get through," Meredith said, unbuckled herself, and stepped out of the car.

When she heard his door open, she said, "I'll pull up Mr. Jarvis' file after I've changed and I'll prep him for surgery," and she took off towards the entrance to the hospital.

Still sitting in the driver's seat, Derek dropped his head to the steering wheel and rested it against his hands. He couldn't fathom her taking off like she had, especially after he admitted to her that he was falling for her, too, which is exactly what she had asked to hear. He was started to think that maybe Meredith and all of her baggage wasn't worth the hassle, especially if he was never going to get anywhere with her.

But you really like her, and you don't give up on something you care about. You've been there, so you know. Lindsey gave up on you because you were busy building a career and she was only concerned with herself. Don't be the person who gives up because it's hard and you want things to be simple. After all, aren't the best things in life the ones you have to work for?

Derek closed his door and started the engine again. Just because she chose to walk from the back of the parking lot didn't mean he had to.

Meredith chose to silently watch Derek perform Mr. Jarvis' craniotomy, remaining as far away from him as she could and still close enough to get the experience from the surgery. She felt the relationship falling apart the whole time and knew it mustn't just be what she was feeling; the fact that Derek wasn't actively attempting to get to her move closer to his work told her that he felt the rift, too.

After monitoring Mr. Jarvis' in recovery for a bit to ensure he'd be able to breathe without the intubation, they had moved on to Mrs. Anderson's tumor removal. After the morning she had had, Meredith was surprised that she was even an inkling more interested in this surgery after practically wasting an incredible learning experience with one of the brightest neurosurgeons of the day.

She decided to put at least most of what happened that morning aside in order to really absorb the surgery, but when Derek was finally at the point where he was about to cut, her pager went off.

When Meredith didn't make a move to check her pager, Derek chastised her, "Never ignore a page. If you've been paged, you answer it."

She sighed and moved away from the patient to look at the page she'd been sent, groaning internally, "It says they need all available personnel in the pit. I'm in surgery."

"Dr. Grey, your hands won't be touching this woman's brain. I just have to cut and close. You may go," Derek said. She flinched a little at the coldness in his voice, but turned and went to scrub out without saying another word.

As she exited the scrub room, her thoughts drifted between her newest failed relationship and the mess she was about to come in contact with in the pit. She was expecting, and frankly hoping for, large amounts of blood that required immediate surgery, preferably ones that fell anywhere but neuro.

The elevator was nearly straight down the hallway from the OR she had just emerged from, but it felt miles away. Maybe that was just her brain playing with her about how it was with Derek; their physical distance wasn't even fifty yards, but emotionally, they were on different planets. She reached the elevators and pressed the button, waiting as patiently as she could manage in her current state.

A chill ran down her spine; she felt as though she were being watched. It wasn't the same feeling as she had normally when walking around the hospital under the surveillance of video cameras. This was eerily different, almost as if she were in some sort of horror movie. Meredith checked behind herself, not seeing anyone out of the ordinary in the hallway.

She exhaled, reassuring herself that her mind was playing tricks on her and she had nothing to be concerned about. She glanced into the hallway to her left as she waited for the elevator to arrive.

A man in casual clothing was glancing in and out of recovery rooms near the opposite end of that hallway. He seemed to be looking for someone recovering from surgery. Does he not realize that he can't be on the recovery floor? Why hasn't anyone called him on it and sent him back to the waiting room?

"Excuse me, sir," Meredith heard herself call. He turned to look at her and she went flush. Brian.

Her fight-or-flight response kicked in immediately and she took off back towards the operating rooms. She heard her name being called from around the corner as she reentered OR 3 where Derek was working. She stood frozen in the scrub room, refusing to turn and watch the surgery from the distance. Her grip on the edge of the scrub sink was knuckle-whiteningly tight as her world collapsed around her.

Derek had seen unexpected movement above his line of vision and quickly glanced up to see what had caught his attention. He'd seen Meredith leave, but he was definitely looking at the back of her head, her luxurious blonde hair tied back.

Knowing he couldn't stop operating to ask her himself, he asked that one of the scrub nurses go to talk to her, requesting that Meredith be asked why she had returned to the OR instead of following orders to go to the pit.

Derek continued carefully cutting along the margins of tumor, ensuring that he would not be clipping any part of Mrs. Anderson's cerebral cortex. He had successfully made incisions along the perimeter of the tumor and was preparing to excise it from his patient's head when the nurse, whose name Derek still didn't know since he was still pretty new to the hospital, came back looking both a bit uncomfortable and concerned.

"What did Dr. Grey say to you?" Derek asked calmly as he continued to operate.

"She didn't. She didn't say anything no matter how many times I asked her. She just stood there."

Derek stayed silent and finished his procedure as quickly as he could manage while still maintaining accuracy and safety. After removing the tumor and checking to make sure he removed the whole of it, he requested that the surgical resident in the room close Mrs. Anderson's skull and get her prepared to be moved into recovery. Derek walked into the scrub room and went around Meredith to the sink beside her. He turned on the sink and started to clean his hands before casually starting a conversation with her. He knew to tread lightly, especially after the outburst from that morning.

"So what happened to going to the pit?" he asked nonchalantly.

"I started…I came back."

"Did you receive a new page telling you to stay where you were?"

"No."

"Meredith, you need to tell me what's going on. You were under my supervision and you didn't show up, which means that I have to be able to explain why you neglected your page and instead stayed in the OR."

"He's here," Meredith whispered as if she'd seen a ghost.

"He's here?"

"Remember how I said someone from Dartmouth was coming to Seattle to see me? He's here. Probably outside of this OR."

He saw the fear on Meredith's face and realized this was much more than just someone from her past reappearing.

"He's not a friend," Derek said bluntly. She swallowed roughly and shook her head slowly, refusing to make eye contact with him. Derek dried his hands off and put his hands on the edge of the sink, leaning back against it with his feet crossed in front of him. He waited to see if she'd speak on her own or if she'd need to be prompted.

"Dr. Shepherd—" Meredith started. Derek's lips were against hers in a light, loving kiss.

After a moment, he broke the kiss, slightly breathless, and said, "Colleagues don't do that. If we aren't talking at work and talking about work, I'm Derek. And when I'm Derek, everything you say to me is confidential."

She looked at him with tears glistening in her eyes.

"I think he's still out there," she whispered.

"He won't do anything if I'm around. Come on," he urged.

Meredith took a step towards him and followed him out of the operating room, sensing the impending chaos that would ensue.

Derek wrapped his right arm possessively around her back as they walked towards the elevators to go check Mr. Jarvis' post-op scores. He felt Meredith stiffen as they passed a brunette male of just an inch or so shorter than he. Derek held onto her protectively, warning off this man's searing gaze. He wasn't sure if he should be jealous or broodingly confident; he sprung for the latter.

When they paused at the elevator, waiting for it to arrive, Derek turned and glared back, not bothering to try to be nonchalant about it; he was fine with being obvious about his intentions and Meredith didn't seem to notice the sharp change in his personality for those moments. Derek kept his eyes firmly set on this man, not backing down when whoever he was challenged him back. He ushered Meredith into the elevator without looking in front of him when it announced its presence, pressing the button for the third floor.

"Aren't we going to see Mr. Jarvis on the sixth floor?" Meredith asked quietly.

When the doors closed, Derek pressed the buttons for four and six as well, "Yes, but he's going to be looking to see what floor he has to go to to find you again. This way, he'll be waiting on three."

"I'm sorry he's here. I didn't expect that he'd follow me."

"Meredith, I don't care that he's here. I just need you to tell me why. Why is he here?"

She bit her lip, unsure of what to say, settling on, "He has a friend at the police station in Boston who warned him of a warrant that was coming out to arrest him."

"The officer shouldn't have a job after this stunt. Why are they taking him into custody?" Derek asked. He felt it; he knew he was about to find out about Meredith's past and why things were so difficult for her.

"Because he shouldn't be allowed to practice medicine."

That's it? That's why Meredith is so torn up from leaving Boston? She reported him to the police for whatever reason and now he's here so she's upset. But…that leaves too many blanks. Is her nonchalance strategic to leave out as many details as possible?

"There's more than that, Meredith. Anyone could tell."

"So what if there is? It's not important right now."

"It's very important now! I just got myself involved in whatever you have going on with this man because I was protecting you. I'm at a disadvantage right now," Derek explained.

"I can't talk about this! Why can't you just let it go?" That shook Derek. He was expecting her to understand his position and give in. Instead, he gets an angry girlfriend and more ignorance. He decided he was better off letting it go than pushing it. Based on that choice, he flipped the switch from devoted boyfriend to uninterested superior. And as her superior, he was responsible for delegating work to her to make his life easier. The elevator pinged as it arrived at the fifth floor.

"Dr. Grey, please go monitor my post-ops. Page me if anything changes with either of them," he said simply.

Meredith's jaw dropped, stunned at the broad jump he had just taken in roles, and whispered, "Derek."

"Right now, I'm Dr. Shepherd. Since you refuse to let me help you, I'm going to go back to helping others and saving lives. I suggest you do the same," he announced confidently, taking a step towards the doors of the elevator.

"I don't—"

"Stop making excuses and get to work!" he shouted before stepping out of the elevator and walking briskly towards the nurse's station, leaving Meredith dumbfounded, scared, and alone.

Derek never received a page from Meredith, so he assumed that his patients had suffered no post-operative problems. He knew that the neuro resident on the floor would have conducted full neuro exams to ensure there were no deficits and that he would have heard immediately if anything was found. Derek knew regardless of what had happened, this man, whoever he was, was still in the hospital looking for her. He notified security of the intruder and requested that a guard be dispatched to every floor, especially three, to keep an eye out for him. He gave specific directions to remove the brunette man, who wasn't carrying a visitor's badge, from the premises

Derek had spent the rest of his day in his office, catching up on paperwork. His shift wasn't set to end until five, but by 4:15, he had finished all of his work. He made the decision that he deserved to get off a little bit early after everything he had been going through, so he gathered his things, changed back into his street clothes, and walked across the street to the bar.

He was sitting on a barstool at the bar, tossing back his second single malt scotch of the evening, wincing slightly at the burn as it rolled down his throat. Even so, he felt the alcohol crawl through his veins, a feeling that he desperately craved after the stressful day he had had. Two surgeries, two fights with Meredith, and a potentially dangerous man from her past.

She warned you that she was difficult and came with a lot of baggage. You thought you could handle it, promised her you could. Now look at you: shutting down, abandoning her, and drowning your sorrows in booze.

…But is it really abandoning her if she hasn't given you the opportunity to come in? She's not in this the way you are. Not yet. She may be falling for you, but she isn't in this.

Then make her get in this! You didn't pursue her for a short-term fling; you wanted a partner. You saw it in her, so make her see it in you. This is time for damage control. You need to fix this. You'll be on thin ice with her after leaving without her, but if you do nothing, it'll shatter.

Derek wasn't sure how long it had been by the time he pulled up to Meredith's house. He also wasn't completely certain as to how he got there even though he made sure to sober up completely before getting behind the wheel. Regardless, he couldn't put the day out of his head without seeing her. The door to her house had been open; he made a mental note to chastise her about that later. He'd have to put that one aside for a while though as he was on a mission to right everything from the day.

He took the steps quietly and walked down the hallway to her bedroom. He glanced in from the doorway, seeing that she was laying on her side with her back to the door. Derek slipped out of his shoes and climbed onto the bed behind her, spooning her closely and kissing her hair.

"I left early, but that's no excuse for leaving without you," he said. He knew she was awake and fully aware of who he was; she had taken in a shaky breath like she was unsure of everything, but also had turned slightly so she was pressed tighter against him, a move reserved for someone she was familiar with. She didn't speak or move any more, but that didn't deter Derek.

"Now you're not talking to me. I was a jerk. Sometimes boyfriends can be jerks. Doesn't mean you stop talking to them…you get that I'm saying I'm sorry right?" Derek sighed.

He felt Meredith take a deep breath, "You yelled at me for no reason, then you walked away, and now you show up here."

"Of course I showed up. Why wouldn't I? You don't trust me?"

"I do," Meredith announced, rolling in his arms to lay facing him on her other side.

"Okay, well this is how it works. You fight sometimes, and somebody apologizes."

"Well how am I supposed to know that?" That piqued Derek's interest. Why wouldn't you know that? Unless…unless she's never dated this way. Derek gazed carefully at Meredith, hesitating a moment before speaking.

"You've never done this before," he stated.

"No, I've never done this before," she admitted.

"Okay, all right. From now on, you can expect that I'm gonna show up. Even if I yell. Even if you yell. I'm always going to show up, okay?"

Meredith nodded minutely and smiled lightly. Derek put his hand on her cheek and kissed her gently. When they broke apart, he saw Meredith gazing intently into his eyes. She took a deep breath and let it out.

"It happened a week before graduation…"

See what I meant? Next chapter will revolve around Meredith's past, guaranteed considering Meredith just started the conversation. I apologize for the cliffhanger, but I didn't want to hold off on posting for any longer and I want to devote time to writing her past into the story. I hope you enjoyed the chapter! Please review or message me and keep following and favoriting! If you don't, you may miss the next update and then you won't know how Meredith came to be in Seattle with Derek! Enjoy your Thanksgivings!