Um, so you may hate me after this chapter. Not that there aren't good things to come, but this was very hard for me to write also. It was always planned this way though, and I had very reasons for doing it how I did. As I said, this story is much more about falling in love. It's about two people questioning what they want to do with their lives. And in order to do that, I had to take everything away. I also see this as the beginning of their coming back to earth. For the last 11 chapters they've been in Rome, getting to know each other, outside their regular lives, floating on happy pink clouds. And now they have to come back to reality. Boy that ground is hard!

4 months later…

"You know I'm going to kick your ass for making me take a 9 am class, don't you?" Christina remarks as they make their way across campus.

"I'm not making you do anything." Meredith says as she rolls her eyes and takes another sip of her coffee. "Since when can I make you do anything you don't want to do? Or anyone, in fact?"

"True." Christina agrees succinctly, but then adds, "But it's till your fault. You're the one that found the class."

"So it's my fault that Dartmouth's only neuroscience class is offered Monday and Wednesday at 9 am?" Meredith amusedly agrees.

"Yep." Christina says with a sip of her coffee. "I just know Stanford's neuroscience class is at a reasonable hour. Like one or something. Stupid New England work ethic or something."

"I am not a baby. You did not have to transfer to Dartmouth." Meredith tells her for about the millionth time, even though she's secretly glad that Christina did. She would never tell Christina that though.

Meredith had come back from Italy a mess. She had told herself that she was fine. She had done the right thing. She had hated tearing herself from his arms like that and leaving him that note. She's surprised it even came out legible with the tears that she wouldn't let fall making her vision mostly blurry and moist. If she closed her eyes, she could still see him laying back on that lounge chair, still wearing the same clothes from dinner, a happy smile on his face.

She must have gone quiet or some emotion splashed over her face, because Christina immediately said, "You aren't thinking about him, are you?"

"No." She immediately says, but they both know that she is lying. That's the reason that Christina is out here in the first place. She was supposed to go to Stanford. She had a full ride and everything. Well, part of the reason. The other part was her mother, but she wasn't going to get into that now.

When Meredith had come back from her trip, she had literally collapsed. Admittedly, it had been a very long trip. She had woken up snugly and warm in Derek's arms that morning even though the sun was not up yet and there was a definitive chill in the breeze coming off of the ocean. She remembers thinking that she never wanted to leave the warmth of those arms. She never wanted to let go. And that scared her. That had freaked her out. This man did not belong to her. This man was getting married the next day. And she had realized that as soon as he opened his eyes, he was no longer going to be hers. She could already imagine the stilted conversation and the awkwardness that would wind its way around them as they both tried to go their separate ways.

So she had decided that she didn't want that. She wanted to remember their time together as it was: happy and carefree and wonderful. She wanted to remember the way his eyes twinkled in happiness when he was trying to tease her. She wanted to remember the playful and flirtatious manner in which all of their conversations seemed to end up. She wanted to remember the way he would wind his fingers through her hair as if she was the most precious thing in his world. She wanted to remember them as happy. She wanted to remember them as a couple.

So she had taken the key from his pocket, gone up to the room, showered and packed, and written that letter. When she had gone to the front desk to find the driver, the pictures had already been lying there with their room number on them. So she had gone back and put them in the letter, and silently made her way back to the lounge chair to put the keys back in his coat pocket. She had done it as quietly as she could, hardly touching him for fear of waking him. Or she would have never been able to ever let go.

So she had gotten in the car and told the driver to take her to the train station. Where she had taken the express train straight to the airport. Where she had talked a flight agent into getting her on an earlier flight. Why stick around if she didn't have to? She doesn't really remember the flight home. She knows it was long and she knows it was boring. But after the flight allotment of alcohol was reached, she had floated into a semi-drunken stupor of non-awareness. It had been daylight when she had gotten in to Boston, but that didn't stop her from taking a cab all the way back to her apartment and falling straight into bed.

Which is where she had stayed. Not for an evening, not for a day, but for weeks. The first night she had truly been exhausted and slept for who knows how long. The second day she had just felt achy all over, probably the hang-over, so she had just decided to stay in bed. She had a television in her room. There was take-out. There was the Discovery channel. There was all those cool medical shows where they gave you clues and you had to try and guess what the person had. Or better yet, the shows where they showed surgeries right on the screen. Meredith found those fascinating.

So that's where she stayed for weeks. Mostly lying in bed watching television, occasionally getting up to answer the door if she actually got a craving for something to eat, or switched her tv watching to the living room. Her phone rang, but she didn't answer it. Things happened in the world, but she didn't pay attention to them. She refused to read a paper, go on the internet, or switch to a channel that might on the slimmest chance even offer one bit of news about the Italian 'wedding of the year'.

Some weeks later, she had been sitting watching some show about the poor miserable lives of penguins. They had just gotten to the part where an endless procession of female penguins were traipsing across the frozen arctic tundra, when there was a knock on the door. She hadn't ordered anything. Or had she? She didn't know. It didn't really matter. She usually just ate a couple bites of it and threw it in the trash anyway. She wearily got up off the couch with the blanket still huddled around her and opened the door.

"So you're not dead." A golden-tanned Christina had asksed from the door, no-nonsense in her designer duds and sunglasses.

She hadn't wait for an answer, and Meredith had been too tired to give her one anyway, so Christina had just barged in and taken a long look around. Everything had been in complete disarray. Half-eaten containers of food, empty bottles of pop, pizza boxes, and whatever else she had picked up and dropped next to where she was sitting had been all around the living room couch and on the kitchen counter.

Christina had taken a clear assessment of the damage and succinctly asked, "What the hell happened?"

At first she didn't answer, still in the half-numb, half-aware state she had been living in. But then her lips started to tremble and her eyes started to water and she finally let herself cry. Christina had taken her in her arms and let her cry. She had cried for quite a while. And when she had finished crying, she had told her about her trip. She told her about Derek. She told her everything. About meeting him on the steps, about touring the sites with him, about sleeping with him, about Sperlonga, about how he's a Duke, about how she had fallen in love with him even though he was engaged to be married. About how he was probably married right this second. About how she had left him with a note. A note, for God's sake. Everything. And Christina had soaked it all in. Listened to every last word. Let her talk herself horse until there was nothing left to say. And then she had turned to her and simply asked, "So what do you do now?"

And Meredith had succinctly answered, without a thought in her head, "I want to go to medical school."

And that had been that. She had seen what happened when you let other people ruin your destiny. She had seen what duty and responsibility had done to Derek. He was married to a women he didn't even know if he really loved. Oh yes, she remembered that drunken conversation. If she admitted it to herself, it was probably what made her agree to go on that trip with him. That small glimmer of hope that maybe he could feel something for her. Oh, he had told her that that day at the beach was the happiest he could remember being. But it hadn't changed anything. He had still gotten married. He was probably married to her right now, trying to be happy married to a woman he didn't even know if he loved or not.

She wasn't going to be like that. If she had taken away anything from that experience, it was that she was going to live her life doing the things that made her happy. And being a doctor was something she had always wanted. She was going to be a doctor. She was going to be a good doctor. She was going to be a surgeon. Screw her mother. Screw anyone who said she couldn't do it. Which was pretty much what she had told Christina after Christina had ordered her to take a shower and get dressed and go out drinking with her. And Christina had decided to go to medical school with Meredith too. Fuck her mother. Fuck California and its freakin' sunshine. And fuck anyone who tried to get in their way.

Which is how they found themselves, three months later, walking to their first class at Dartmouth. Meredith in jeans and a light black corduroy jacket, and Christina in designer jeans and a designer brown leather jacket. They looked like two hot broads. They felt like two hot broads.

Christina opens the door to their building and says, "I swear, if you don't start thinking about him any less, you're going to start deluding yourself that he's everywhere."

"I wasn't thinking…" Meredith starts as she opens the door to their classroom, but then stops in horror.

Scrawled across the auditorium chalkboard is the name "Dr. Derek Shepherd" in very large bold cursive lettering. And standing over the podium looking down at his notes is one very familiar figure dressed in dark blue jeans and a dark blue jumper over a collared light blue shirt. A man she had last scene rumpled up on a lounge chair in Italy.

Christina bumps into her from behind, and her coffee spills out over her hand. Unthinkingly, she yells out a very loud, "Shit.", and his head swivels in her direction.


Suggested Soundtrack: 'Broken' by Seether feat

'Cause I'm broken when I'm lonesome

And I don't feel right when you're gone away

You've gone away, you don't feel me anymore

Derek sits in his new office staring at his empty computer screen. He had come straight here after class, not really knowing where else to go. Sure he could probably check emails and get organized and all that good stuff, but instead he just sits there not even able to turn his computer on. The entire far wall of his office is a window, giving splendid views of the New Hampshire campus, but he doesn't look out. He sits staring at a blank computer screen mentally replaying the events of not even two hours ago.

He thought he was over this, he thought he was over her. But apparently not. Because when he had heard that familiar explicative, his head had swiveled of its own accord and his heart had soared; the shouted word transporting him back to that fateful summer morning when his world had changed forever. He had half expected to find her wearing the same Roman sundress and sandals he had seen her for most of that week. But when he looked up, he had seen an entirely different girl. Not the care-free summer goddess he remembered, but the quintessential medical student in jeans and a petite jacket. Who was he kidding? This was probably the real Meredith. The Meredith he had never gotten to see. The Meredith that had broken his heart.

Cause I'm broken when I'm open

And I don't feel like I am strong enough

'Cause I'm broken when I'm lonesome

And I don't feel right when you're gone away

What was he talking about? He had only known her for a week. A week that had changed his life forever, but apparently had left her unmoved. How could she have done that to him? He remembered being so full of hope. Being so full of conviction that he was doing the right thing. Being so full of love.

The car had pulled up the Villa D'este entrance at the top of the Tivoli hill. It was mid-afternoon, and he was surprised to find that it was eerily quiet. He would have expected caterers and florists and event planners to be running around in competent frenziness. Maybe they were all down by the waterfront.

He walks through the house, seeing the house partially set up for the main event tomorrow. White table-cloths and settings haphazardly placed on some tables and not on others. From room to room he goes, seeing the same state of abandonment, akin to the scene in sleeping beauty where the fairies sprinkle sleeping dust and everyone falls asleep where they stand. Except there are no pages and servers sleeping under the tables. There's only abandoned silverware and a quietness that is eerie in the midst of all of this chaos.

He steps out through the last door of the house and onto the first section of the garden. Again, the only sound he hears the loud far-away roar of the fountains in the garden below. He winds his way down the long concrete garden path that runs parallel to the house in a long descending ramp, the click of his heels on the pavement the only sound. There should be people here. There should be an army or workers milling down below. What the hell is going on?

He fairly jaunts down the long straight staircase that takes him down the terraced garden and into the heart of the Villa: the long series of rectangular pools that lead to the crowning glory of three-story high fountains. To where the altar was supposed to stand. Where chairs were supposed to be set up in perfectly spaced rows for the crème of Italian and New York society to witness his nuptials on the morrow. Instead there is nothing.

He walks up and down the gardens looking for anyone, but gives up after a while. He decides that the only thing to do is to head back to the hotel where the rehearsal dinner is supposed to be. He's sure they'll let him check in early. He's still wearing the same suit from last night, and the sand in his shoes and hair is really starting to bother him. He pays the driver a hefty sum and makes his way to the hotel on foot. He passes by many curious stares that he attributes to his wrinkled and sandy attire. His mistaken impression is soon rectified though when he approaches the front desk and asks to check into his room.

"Ah, yes, the lady said to give you this when you checked in." The hotel clerk remarks censoresly as he hands him a manila envelope with 'Derek' written on the top of it.

"Thank you." He answers regally, trying to hide his confusion with authoritative clipped words.

He takes his room key and the envelope and catches the elevator to the top floor. He leans back as the elevator rises and opens the envelope. Inside is a single folded newspaper clipping with today's date proudly displayed on top. And underneath is a large blown-up black and white picture of him and Meredith kissing for the photographer last night. He doesn't have to read the caption or the story that goes with it to know what this means. His lungs freeze in his chest in shock as the elevator pings open. He walks forward in a state of shock, not quite able to get a handle on what is happening.

He is barely able to control his breathing as he unlocks the door to his room and notices a man's jacket on the floor. That's not right. That shouldn't be there. He walks down the long foyer, the envelope still clasped in his hand. And then he knows. He knows what he's going to see. But that doesn't stop him from walking forward. Forward to the room that him and Addie were supposed to have shared their evening after the wedding. The room where his soon-to-be ex-fiancée and as-of-this-moment ex-best friend lay fucking. On his bed. In his room. In his hotel. Oh, the irony.

He remembers standing there, witnessing this scene that would have normally sent him into a rage. But it doesn't. He actually had felt something akin to…relief? Not that he hadn't been angry. No, it certainly took a very diabolical mind to set something up like that. And then he had gotten kind of sad. It's not like he had been an innocent party. He and Addie had been friends at some point. He had thought enough of her to have once thought she would make him a good wife. Or his father had. He just didn't really know anymore.

Without making a sound, he had turned around, walked back down the long hallway, gone back down the elevator, and requested a different room from the front desk. Where he had showered, gotten a bell boy to retrieve his suitcase, and waited. He was pretty sure she had known he was there. And sure enough, within the hour a succinctly written note with the words, "Drinks 5?" was scrawled across her own personal stationary. How appropriate. How impersonal. How Addie.

So he had taken the next couple of hours to confirm and rectify what he was certain was going to be a very unpleasant couple of weeks. He hadn't even known how to get a hold of the caterers and wedding planners, so he had done the next best thing: called his sister Kathleen. Who told him simply that yes, the wedding had been called off, and that he might want to give their mother a few days before he tried to talk to her, and hung up. He can't imagine what it must have been like for his family to have opened up their morning papers and seen that. Which had prompted his next call to the public relations firm his father had kept on retainer. No wonder people in the street had been giving him those looks.

He remembers sitting in a corner table of the hotel's restaurant waiting for Addie to show up. She of course had been fifteen minutes late and showed up looking like a page from a fashion magazine: designer clothes with two-inch high heels and nary a hair out of place. He would have smiled at her show of panache, but it probably would have made things worse. She had sat down with a ramrod stiff spine and waited for him to speak. Her eyes daring him to come up with an excuse good enough for the cancellation of the 'wedding of the year'.

"I'm sorry." He says, the only words he can think of to express everything that he is feeling at that moment.

She must see something in his face, because she deflates a little and says, "I'm sorry too."

"You're sorry?" He asks in confusion.

"For Mark." She says, not needing to elaborate, for he knows exactly what she means.

"It's alright. I deserved it." He says without looking at her.

"That's not what I meant. That wasn't the first time." She admits, and this time it's her that can't look him in the eye.

"How long?" He asks, not sure if he really wants to know the answer, but needing to know anyway.

She kind of shakes her head in an uncertain gesture and smiles as she says, "Weeks, months, years. I don't know."

Derek sits back in his chair in shock and listens to her next words. "I think I've been in love with him for a while. You've just been so…distant." She says, finally able to look at him when she says that last word. "For a long time. Every time you didn't show up to a dinner invitation, every time you would go off by yourself, Mark was just sort of there. Not that that's any kind of excuse or anything." She finishes with a sigh as she leans back in her chair.

He looks at this woman he thought he knew so well, and discovers that he doesn't know her at all. She's perfectly right. He has been distant. He's been distant to those around him, he's been distant to his friends and family, he's been distant to himself. He had only just realized this week how far removed he had gotten from himself. It had taken a grouchy little sprite called Meredith to make him take that hard look at himself.

"I really am sorry." He finally says, telling her with his eyes just how sorry he really is.

She takes a hard look at him, but then takes a sip of her water. She places the glass back on the table, and seems to come to a decision.

"So who's the girl?" She asks as one friend might say to another, harkening back to the days before their friendship had been piled on with romantic and familial expectations.

"Meredith Grey. You've probably heard of her mother: Ellis Grey." He tells her, truly speaking to the true Addie for the first time in a long time.

She certainly does know who Ellis Grey is, and they talk about her for a while. He kind of tells her the abridged version of how he met Meredith. And he tells her about all of the questions and hard truths he has been asking himself ever since his father died. And for the first time in a very long time, they are the Addie and Derek of long ago. The good friends that maybe should have never been more than that. They sit and they talk about their lives for a good hour or so and then part ways congenially. There's too much history and bad feelings for them ever to be considered best friends anymore, and he has no idea what he's going to say to Mark, but they at least part on good terms.

Maybe he wouldn't have been so nice if he hadn't had the shining promise of Meredith in his heart. Maybe they would have had a friendly but absent marriage right now that would have ended with one of them having an affair. He didn't know. But he was glad that it had ended so well. That they could still be, if maybe not friends, friendly acquaintances. He was in fact invited to their wedding set to take place at the Ritz Carlton in New York City this winter. Not as the best man, but it was still an invite. He was happy for them. He really was.

He wished everything had worked out as smoothly for him and Meredith. He had left the restaurant that night full of dreams and the future him and Meredith could have. He had gone straight back to his room and called Richard for Ellis Grey's number. He had had to wait until later in the evening to reach her at her office first thing in the morning eastern standard time. Where he had been informed that her daughter was only five years old, and any grown man that wanted anything to do with a five year old was sick, and had hung up on him.

He had thought it was weird at the time, but he hadn't given up. He had been mired in cleaning up the mess that was his non-existent wedding and darting the media that wanted a word with the "Double Dealing Duke", but he still searched for her. He did a google search and discovered that she had been a student at Harvard University. How did he not know that? She had been down so much on her abilities, that he hadn't even suspected that she was a graduate of one of the best colleges in the country. That mother must have done a number on her. Through some finagling and string-pulling, he had even managed to obtain her cell phone number and home address. A number which he called for weeks with no answer. An address for which he visited many times once he had finally been able to wrap up his father's business interests and head over to the states. But he hadn't given up. Well, not until the day he had seen enough.

He remembers that day too clearly to ever forget. The feeling of nervousness and pent-up excitement that had been boiling within him ever since the day he had missed her at the airport. After the dissolution of his marriage, his fondest wish had been to jump on the next plane to Boston. At first he just didn't even know where to go. It had taken a couple of days for his contacts to even get back with him with her address and phone number. Vendors still had to be paid, guests had to be told about the cancellation of festivities, and a million other things that Addie had left in his hands as her and Mark had jetted off to enjoy the honeymoon trip. Someone had to get some kind of use out of it. Finally, his mother had agreed to take care of debacle that was the wedding cleanup. Under the condition that he finish cleaning up his father's business interests.

So he had hired a business manager, and flown around Europe meeting all of his father's old business associates. His father had always told him there was nothing better to boost morale than a face to face interview. It had taken him a lot longer than he had thought, contracts and decisions and paperwork having piled up during his father's lengthy illness. But every day he called her. He called in the morning, he called in the evening, he called whenever he got a chance. But it always went straight to voicemail. He even had a private detective agency confirm that it was her number. It was.

As weeks had gone by, his calls had gotten less and less frequent. He had even tried her mother again, only to be told she was on vacation. It seemed that luck just hadn't been with him. Doubt had started to creep in. Why wasn't she answering her phone? Had something happened to her? Was she screening her calls? Why not pick up just once? And as the weeks went by: just what had he meant to her? Just what did he really know about her? He hadn't known she went to Harvard. She had never told him her flight plans. Was she even Ellis Grey's daughter? Ellis claimed that her daughter was only five years old!

As each phone call went unanswered, and more time went by, these questions started to fill his mind. Just what had he done? Embarrassed himself, subjected himself to ridicule, subjected his family to ridicule, for what? For a woman that he had known for barely a week? How did he even know her name was Meredith? He had never seen her driver's license, or any form of identification. All he knew about her was what she had told him. She could have been anyone.

Until one day, a month to the day he had called off his wedding, he found himself on her doorstep. Or the doorstep of one Meredith Grey. An old-fashioned townhouse in one of Cambridge's older neighborhoods. He had gone straight from the airport, the ancient street lamps and passing cars the only illumination. With the time changes and the jet lag he hadn't even known what time it was.

There were still people milling around, so it couldn't be that late. He told the cab-driver to wait, not sure if anyone would even be home. He had given up long ago trying to reach anyone at the number he had been given. He bounds up the steps, not able to contain his excitement and then pauses in trepidation when the time actually comes to knock. He has been waiting a long time for this moment. He has no reason to think that she will even be happy to see him. The butterflies stir around in his stomach and he bounces from one foot to the other, not quite able to get up the nerve to actually knock. He can do this. She will be happy to see him. He couldn't have just imagined the connection between them.

He knocks. He hears the sound reverberate through the house. Another car passes down the quiet street. He's about to knock again, when he hears someone walk up to the door. The dead bolt turns in the lock, and he holds his breath in anticipation. The door opens, and he's met with….

A half naked man. Or boy. He doesn't look quite old enough to be a man. Is this Finn?

"Oh, I thought you were the pizza delivery guy." The boy answers sheepishly, wiping his face like someone who has just woken up. He is shirtless and looks like he barely had enough time to throw some pants on and come downstairs.

Derek just kind of stares at him for a moment, not able to come up with something to say. Then he pulls himself together and asks, "Does a Meredith Grey live here?"

The boy seems a little surprised at the question. "Oh, yeah, Meredith. She's upstairs taking a shower. You want to come in and wait for her to come down?"

He doesn't quite know what to do.

"Look, um…" He says, pausing long enough to indicate he's looking for the fellow's name.

"Roger." The guy supplies.

Roger? Not Finn then. His mind reels. "Um…Roger." He says with a friendly smile that he does not feel. "I'm an old acquaintance of Meredith's. I just got into town and would like for her to call me." He tells the youth and hands him a business card with his cell phone and email address on it.

The youth looks at the card and reads, "Dr. Shepherd."

The guys either a little slow on the uptake or drunk, one or the other, he ascertains.

"Could you just make sure she gets that?" He asks, already putting away his wallet and taking a step back. If he's going to talk to Meredith, it's not going to be in front of this idiot.

The boy says he will, and the door is closed again.

He had gone back to New York and waited for her to call. An entire week of asking himself just what the hell he was doing. An entire week hoping that had been her roommate. His family was still back in Italy, his ex-best friend and ex-fiance were on his Balinese vacation, and his practice was no more, so he pretty much sat in his apartment and waited. Occasionally he fielded some business calls from his business manager and caught up on his medical reading, but generally he just waited for her to call. And she never did.

Then he did something he totally despised. He made one last visit to Boston. He had needed to make one last attempt to see her. The guy could have just never given her the card. Where he had seen her kissing a man that was not Roger. And the night after that, a different man. And the night after that, a different one than that. Until he just couldn't stomach it anymore. She had warned him, hadn't she? Something about inappropriate men and tequila? And he started to rethink their time together. Their first night together had been just such an occasion. Copious amounts of alcohol and little sense. What a little bitch. What was her excuse for the rest of the trip then? Who wouldn't say no to a day at an Italian resort with a real-life Duke? Had the righteous indignation been an act? Had in all been an act?

He didn't know, but the next few days and weeks are a bit hazy on his part. He remembers going back to New York feeling like a knife had been rammed right into the center of his heart. He remembers questioning what it had all been worth. He called off a wedding, disrupted his entire life, for what? For a little tramp that had used him like a second fiddle. Pulled his strings, tested his limits, made him think, and then threw him to the wolves. He had been angry at her, angry at the injustice of it all, and most of all angry at himself.

Until one day he had gotten over it. It hadn't been easy, it hadn't been simple, but he had done it. He had taken a hard look at himself, and he had taken a hard look at his life, and asked himself for the first time, just what exactly did he want? He had no job to tie him down, he had no wife or girlfriend to be considerate of, and he had no father trying to tell him what to do. Just what did he want? And after long and quiet deliberation he had it: he wanted to be a neurosurgeon. He wanted to be the best damn neurosurgeon there was.

So he had called Richard up. He had called all the contacts he could think of and asked about neurosurgeon jobs. And this one had popped up. Their regular neuron professor had just up and quit unexpectedly, and they needed someone pronto. Dartmouth had one of most state-of-the-art neurology department in the country and had put their money where their mouth was in getting him to sign with them. The only codicil being that he had to teach this class. It was a medical school, after all. He could have guest lectures, and the former professor had everything planned out already, so he had readily agreed.

What he hadn't counted on was being HER being here. Just what were the odds of the one person he never wanted to see again showing up in HIS class? That after all that searching and calling and making an ass of himself she would just magically appear on the first day of class. He really hadn't known what to do. They had stared at each other across the auditorium, and he had momentarily been transported to that joyous week. But then all the things that had happened after poured into his mind, and he turned away. He handed out syllabuses. He ignored her. He talked about class goals and class objectives and never once looked in her direction. And when class had been over, he had gathered up his stuff and come here. To stare at an empty computer screen.

He is so caught up in his memories that he doesn't hear the soft tread of the self-same object of his thoughts approach the door.

"Der….I mean, Dr. Shepherd." He hears stuttered in a low familiar voice behind him.

He whirls around and just stares at her. The same cat-like emerald eyes that he remembers teasing him and cajoling him and staring right into his soul, stare back at him. The hair is the same: The golden highlights framing her face, the wavy lengths resting over her shoulders. The clothes are different, but that's expected. This isn't the same girl that he met on those steps though. There is no spunk, there is no flippancy, there is no bristliness. Only an apprehension that is belied by the rhythmic twisting of her tiny watch in circles around her wrist.

"Mm…Ms. Grey." He says flatly, schooling his face to express nothing.

The watch twisting stops. Her spine straightens.

"You're teaching here?" She asks tentatively, but with a little more strength than when she greeted him.

"Yes." He answers simply, not willing to give any more than that.

She looks at him questioningly, but then straightens even more. "The course listed a different professor." She says, a statement, not a question.

"It was a recent decision." He grudgingly reveals, staying just as straight and unmoving as her.

She's angry now. He can tell. "Should I drop the class?" She asks, almost like a dare.

"I don't see why. It's not like we knew each other for very long. The TA's will be grading the homework, and all tests are done by student number. You'll just be another number in my grade book." He says with a purposely hurtful tone. She hurt him. It's not the most professional thing to do, but in that moment he doesn't care.

Her eyes flare in surprise and for a moment he is sorry. But then she pulls in her breath, and her eyes shoot daggers his way. "Fine." She declares coldly, turns around, and leaves.

"Fine." He grumbles to himself as he watches her flaunt down the hallway.