I shall now explain the reason that i am the happiest person at the moment... you guys set a new record in all my history of being on FF, i got the most reviews for one chapter... and i didnt even think the chapter was all the great.. shows what i know:S... anyway, on with the story...
"Hmm," Meredith thought to herself. She was stood in the middle of her walk-in cupboard surrounded by racks and racks of clothes from various events she had been to during her time as a celebrity. She had worn all the outfits at least once but at the most twice and she certainly hadn't paid for the whole wardobe. Just one of the plus sides of stardom. She spotted a red dress in the corner of the rack. She had worn it to the 12th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards.
"Hmmmm," She repeated her thoughts out loud and grabeed the dress to try on. Meredith zipped the red material up the back and fiddled with the dress until it looked perfect. She kept her hair down in the honey blond waves and hoped they would stay as they were.
Meredith heard the front door bang shut and walked out in her gown for Christina to observe and do what she does best- nit pick.
"Hey, what do you think?" Meredith asked as she made her way through to the kitchen where Christina was getting a drink.
"Great," Christina said, "You've already worn it though."
"Captain obvious strikes again! It's just for a date with Derek tonight," Meredith said.
"Oh, about him," Christina exclaimed, throwing a whole glass of orange juice down her throat as if it were a shot. "Hot as hell but have you seen the papers?"
"No, what about them?"
"Well," Christina threw a paper in Meredith's direction. "Apparently you are having an illicit affair with a married man. The paparrazzi caught you with his family in the park yesterday and did all the research they could over night."
"WHAT?" Meredith screamed. "His wife is missing. Went missing. He's hardly married and I haven't even slept with him. I've known him for much longer than a day too. We met way back when I first got into the car accident, remember?"
"Yeah, you don't have to convince me," Christina replied to her rambling. "So, anyway, I got in contact Martin, who by the way is the worst publicist in the world and you should fire, and he said that you shouldn't do anything but roll with the flow or something. God, he's such a hippy."
"What the hell is Derek going to do?" Meredith's still high-pitched worried voice interrupted Christina. "His kids and private life are all over the papers."
"I don't know but this is spreading pretty quickly and plus the whole mysterious wife thing, the case is being re-opened and investigated and apparently there are some leads that were never followed when they first looked for her so who knows."
"Christina," Meredith whimpered.
"What?" She replied in the same voice she had been using throughout the long process of giving the information to Meredith.
"You do know I could just scream right now yeah?"
"Bet you could," Christina rolled her eyes at Meredith's melancholy. It was her job to have all the pessimistic attitudes and sarcasm, not Merediths. "Just go to this date thing tonight, have hot and passionate sex with him and fill me in when you get back."
"Whatever," Meredith said.
She walked over to her shoe cupboard and picked some matching red ones to the dress and was ready to face the world again.
"Hi," Meredith said as she opened the door to the bell later that night.
She did not receive an answer but simply a mouth drop from Derek. He glanced up and down her frame and did not leave one part of her body without his eyed attention. Since they had met those long seven and a half weeks ago he had never seen her look this stunning. She never failed to impress, that's for sure.
"Woah," He said. "You look gorgeous."
"Thanks, you don't look too bad yourself," Meredith quipped.
"Ready to go?" Derek asked.
"Yeah, before we do," Meredith said tentatively, "Did you read the papers today?"
"Yeah, don't listen to them Mer," Derek told her relaxed.
"So you don't mind your kids being all over the papers, your wife's story being re-opened and the rumour that we're having an illicit affair?"
"Nope," Derek said shortly. "Why should I?"
"Er, well no cos it's not true but still. You don't have to put up with it and if at any point it gets annoying then I'll be completely ok with you getting back to your own life before I ever entered it and made it that much more interesting," Meredith rambled, still in a cynical mood.
"Just shut up Mer," Derek jokingly said, pulling her in for a long, breath-taking kiss that took her by surprise. Her knees turned into jelly at his sensitive touch and again, every sense in her body was exploding.
"Ready?" He asked once pulling away from her to breathe. Meredith could do nothing but nod.
Derek pulled up outside the hospital that he worked in and that Meredith had been admitted as a patient 7 and a half weeks before.He climbed out his seat and like a true gentleman, hurried round to the passenger side to help Meredith out. She gratefully accepted the hand and help and once out the car, wrapped her arm underneath Derek's, feeling his warmth through the brisk night air.
She threw a smile in his direction and caught his eye as they approached the building. She had a feeling that the spark and life that oozed from their eye contact sessions would never disappear, however long they did it for. The previous night, they had stayed up talking and whenever she looked into the pools, she felt like she was falling. How was it possible she was falling this fast though? She had known him granted, seven and a half weeks ago but only properly known him for a day and a half at the most. She had never experienced the feelings for an guy she had been with. She was convinced that he was her soulmate. As she looked over at Derek in his tux, looking handsome as ever, she braced herself for the evening to come.
"Derek," One man signalled across the room enthusiastically for Derek and Meredith to join him.
"Oh boy," Derek whispered to Meredith. "Prepare yourself."
"Hi Landan," Derek replied once they had skirted in and out of the guests at the party.
"Wow," Landan's mouth dropped. "Aren't you Meredith Grey?"
"Yes," Meredith shyly answered, observing the shocked look on the face of a very muscular man with short brown hair. Cute but clearly gay.
"Oh My God, I can't believe it is you. Do you know how long I've been wanting to meet you? That film you were in with Hugh Grant, the chick flick- I completely loved it. It was just awesome!" Landan finished then looked over to Derek and winked. "Good work."
Meredith just forced a smile, "Thanks."
Derek, still enjoying the feeling of Meredith on his arm, smiled at Landan and then quickly diverted their direction to another of his collegues, one not so… out there.
"Owen," Derek said in elation. Owen was an older collegue and had been Derek's mentor throughout the whole of his twenties, learning the ins and outs of surgery from the one man who knew best.
"Derek, how are you?" The man turned around to see the couple advancing towards him. He was a man in roughly his sixties, great smile and neatly combed white hair. His build was strong and anyone could tell that back in his day, he was quite the catch.
"I'm fabulous thank you," He said in a delighted mood compared to when he was speaking to Landan. "How are you?"
"Not nearly as good as your lovely lady looks but still, who could be?" He winked at Meredith. What was it with surgeons and winking? Meredith blushed at Owen's compliments and felt a lot more confident around him than Landan.
"Thank you," Meredith said politely. "I'm Meredith Grey."
Owen obviously knew who she was but was not rude enough to go shouting it to the room. He took the hand she had held out for him to shake and bent down to kiss it.
"Lovely to meet you Meredith Grey. I'm Owen Stansley," Owen introduced himself. "So what do you do?"
"I'm an actress," Meredith replied.
"Oh, decided not to follow in your mother's footsteps?"
"Well, I tried but it didn't last long," Meredith laughed. "I just wasn't cut out for it. No pun intended."
Owen laughed and looked in Derek's direction. He noted the look of adoration he had directed towards Meredith and could not once remember a time that he had looked at Addison in that way. Sure, he had loved Addison but he could see Derek was feeling something like no other. The couple in front of him were clearly soulmates and were a perfect match but Owen wasn't going to bring this up tonight with Derek.
The evening continued with much the same small talk among Derek and his collegues. He had introduced Meredith to all his respected collegues and avoided all the pompous idiots that he was forced to work with occasionally. Meredith looked as though she was having a good time and she was very much enjoying the feel of being Derek's date. It was clear that most of the surgical team had a thing for Derek, male and female. Landan made his efforts to steer Meredith in a different direction so he could have some alone time with Derek but all attempts failed as Derek always seemed to find her within a minute.
Throughout the evening Meredith and Derek had reached that point in a relationship that usually takes a few weeks. They had joked and talked, feeling comfortable enough in each others company to reach any depth of conversation. It had just reached 9 o'clock.
"So do you want the guided tour?" Derek asked, wanting to get away from the prying eyes on the couple. Apparently bringing one of the most famous actresses in the world as your date could cause quite a commotion.
"Sure," Meredith was heard saying but at the same time a loud crying noise came from the entrance of the hospital.
"DADDY," Derek heard Alex scream. Alex never called him Daddy. Something must have been wrong. He grabbed Meredith's hand, which had never been much out of contact of Derek through the evening and Meredith felt his pulse racing.
"Alex?" Derek questioned into the crowd, trying to find the small boy. By the entrance to the hopsital stood three of his children.
"Where are Emily and Lou?" Derek asked, panick setting in.
"A man took them," Alex said, high-pitched and obviously scared.
"What? Which man?" Derek asked.
Meredith could see him about to explode into tears and sat him down on a seat next to the entrance. Once Derek had safely sat down, Meredith bent down to Alex's height and scanned his eyes.
"Tell me what happened from the beginning," Meredith said calmly.
"Well," Alex said, tears starting to fall from his eyes. Meredith put an arm around him and guided him to the seat next to Derek. Jacob and Maya followed, not quite understanding what was going on. "This man came up to the door and so Phoebe, our babysitter, answered and then screamed. So I went to the door and saw a man who had a knife. So I ran to the others and told them what was going on. We all managed to run out the back door and through to the garden but the man could run fast. Phoebe ran out the front door and got away and left us there. What a moron right?"
"Right," Meredith responded, still calm.
"Then, the man came into the back garden and we were all hiding but he found Emily and at that point we all ran out at him and asked him to give her back. Lou went up to him and did her 'diddums' look and said please but the man wasn't human and just picked her up with his arm, did the same with Emily and ran out the house. We chased him to the front of our house screaming but then we saw a car parked up and a woman was inside with a black hat on. She told him to hurry up but said naughty words and then we tried to chase him to the car but he was too quick and… and…" Alex started to cry once getting through the story, not quite managing to get out the fact that two of his sisters had been taken. "Is it all my fault?" He asked in his fathers direction.
Derek had tears strolling down his face and a look of distress forming.
"Of course it wasn't you fault sport," Derek said, not even managing a smile for the little chap.
"Did the lady in the car call the man any particular name?" Meredith asked.
"Errr…" Alex said.
"Rafe," Jacob interrupted. "The lady said hurry the fuck up Rafe."
"Jacob Ethan Shepherd," Derek sternly said. He couldn't deal with all this information and Meredith could see him breaking down.
"OK, everyone in the car," Meredith announced. Owen walked over and asked what was wrong.
"Emily and Lou have been taken," she said quietly, watching carefully the weary faces of the family walking towards Derek's car.
"Can I help in any way?" He asked.
"Hmmmm, I don't know," Meredith said. "Can I have your cell number so if we do I can call you?"
"Yeah sure," He agreed and handed over his cell number. She gratefully took it and ran out to the car in which Derek was sat in the drivers seat.
"Out," Meredith ordered. "You are not driving in this state."
He didn't have the energy to argue but simply asked Meredith one thing.
"Just please put your foot down," he said it quietly, as if trying to avoid the situation.
"Where are we going?" Maya asked.
"Police station," Meredith said. "How did you get to the hospital Alex?"
"We got Maya to the diddums look on a taxi driver," he answered.
Meredith smiled at the tense time. She was determined that her presence in this family would not be the reason it falls apart.
THANK YOU...
Tracy.F, alexandizzie4eva, TCF, azgwest, Lucrece (its just called Notting Hill! lol, thanks so much for the review), Absent Heart (lol prepare yourself, and sorry for using the name Rafe for such a bad person! love the name tho!), karensmith, Lou (think your review is long? check out Islandgurl90s!), howtosavealife, Ciaobella06, dirtymistressXxX (thanks! make me blush u do!!), Islandgurl90 (has now set the barrier of long reviews... she has the title of longest review i have ever recieved! hehe, my bounty hunter side is quite relaxed at the moment due to the long review!), FrancisMc23, Carrie, Kilikina1, JainaZekk621, merbelle007, Mrs.Dr.DerekShepherd (ok, the ball wasnt all that fun!!), Endzi, SoInLuv (Derek should be naked the whole time on Greys, i dont think many would complain!), Amnesie (hope this is a quick enough update to not hurt ur feelings!!), skye3 (more fluff will come!), Dilly0702, ilovepatrick (thank you for beautiful comments and i wont tell your boss!! and i think everyone wants to be mer in this story, we are only human right?!), CJ (lol), Greysanatomyaddiction (thanks for the add of the story), nfinchamscheff.
sooooo... who the hell is Rafe and the woman? what the hell am i gonna write about without lou?!! and how will meredith cope with distraught Derek :(
Let me know what you think my darlings...