Disclaimer: I have a headache. If I owned the show I'd get Derek to look at it. Not that he can help as I'm quite certain it's allergies, but him looking at me would be help enough.

Here's it is! Sorry I didn't get this up last night. I wasn't sure how I felt about it so I stopped writing it and started again today. And I still don't know if I love it or not but I'm leaning towards yes, so here it is. It's kind of wierd because we only get so much as it's Der's perspective...so yes...

Enjoy!

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I was still on that damn cloud.

And I probably shouldn't be. Because it had been yesterday and it had just been talking. And sitting on my lap. For a good hour until I had gotten paged away. But in the long story that was our relationship it hadn't been much at all. But somehow it had felt like a lot more.

So here I was, the next day, still sitting on cloud nine.

Or maybe it was fifty.

I felt good. I felt more than good. I felt like everything was starting to work for me. I had gotten Chief, which yes, I had turned down but talk about an ego boost. Mark and I were friends again, well a form of friends, that was very different than what we had had, but it was something. And Meredith…I couldn't stop smiling if I even thought of her name. Things were slowly falling into place and things were changing. They were changing for the better. We were getting back to us.

I was going to ask her out on that date soon.

Very soon.

I just had to think of something perfect. Because this was Meredith and no one had ever really given her perfect. I had never even given her perfect. But she deserved it, the past nearly a month had definitely taught me that. So I needed to figure out the perfect date.

Whatever that meant.

I just knew that this time I had to do better than nights spent up having sex but never going on dates…and even worse night fully clothed going right to bed. This time I had to do better than that.

The girl was going to get some romance.

Speaking of the girl, or thinking of her, that was definitely her on the opposite side of the cafeteria. I had Meredith radar, always had, hence my usual amazing ability to find her alone on elevators. It had been fuzzy recently, but apparently not so much anymore.

And that was Lexie.

Walking towards Meredith. Looking purposeful and determined.

Crap.

Meredith tensed as soon as Lexie said hi. Okay, to everyone else in the area it probably wasn't noticeable but she was Meredith and I was Derek and she definitely tensed upon Lexie's apparently friendly greeting. I felt my body wanting to move closer, to protect her, but I couldn't. Meredith needed to do this.

She needed to do this alone.

I just wasn't moving from this spot until it was over because I'm pretty sure it was my official job to make sure Meredith was left standing.

They were talking. Lexie was smiling, I couldn't see Meredith's face. But they were talking and Meredith didn't seem to Meredithy about it. Well maybe she was; she seemed to be gesturing with her hands a lot. She definitely might be freaking out but at least she had known this was coming. I had done all I could do. At least until they were done talking.

Lexie was frowning now. This was bad. Because it meant Meredith was probably saying things she'd later regret, she did that when she got going. And I would be doing damage control, which was fine. But this was messy, this was my kind of girlfriend and her kind of sister. I had no idea where the lines were, I had no idea how far to push things and what to let go. If Meredith was saying things that she didn't mean, my life was going to get more complicated.

Which was okay, it was worth it for Mer.

Meredith was angry now. Definitely angry. Maybe she wasn't going to say anything she regretted, maybe she was just finally saying what she should have said ages ago. That would be good.

That would probably make damage control more Meredith centric. I happened to love anything that was Meredith centric.

And now Lexie looked like she was going to cry. This wasn't good and it was probably time that I stepped in. As that was beginning to feel like my job again. Protecting Meredith Grey was definitely beginning to be my job again.

"You stole my dad, but not him, you don't get to steal him. Things right now they're messy and complicated but he's mine. And always will be, so back off," I heard Meredith hiss as I approached slightly.

They were fighting about me.

Okay, definitely not the time to step in.

But it was done, Meredith was storming off. She was storming in the opposite direction and I was pretty sure she hadn't even seen me. But she said she'd page after talking to Lexie if she needed me. She would.

She had to.

Because we weren't that not talking couple anymore.

We were saving us.

I turned to leave but Meredith was standing there, at the other side of the crowded room, staring at me with tears in her eyes.

"Are you okay?" I mouthed.

"Yes…no…" she mouthed back, wiping at her eyes. She was definitely doing her Meredith being far to strong routine. I knew it well. And it was usually followed by her walking away.

"Do you need me?" I mouthed, asking the question I was terrified to hear the answer to.

She paused. She paused and frowned. She paused and frowned and rocked back and forth on her feet. My heart stopped. She couldn't…this would kill whatever it was we had salvaged and she had promised. She couldn't walk away again, if she did. We'd be over.

She nodded.

"Page me," I mouthed, pointing to my pager.

She turned around and disappeared but my pager would be ringing soon.

"Dr. Shepherd?"

Lexie. Apparently I was a Grey magnet. She looked just as beat as Meredith did. If I wasn't so worried about her sister I might even care. "Dr. Grey," I greeted.

She needed to change her name.

Or Meredith did.

I definitely voted Meredith as I had one picked out for her. But that was going to take time.

"I talked to my sister…I talked to Meredith," Lexie said.

"So I saw," I nodded.

"She kind of…she freaked out," Lexie frowned.

"She does that," I couldn't help but smiled.

"Is she…do you think she'll actually…maybe one day…" Lexie stammered. And another man would probably be confused but I was an expert on all things Grey.

"I don't know," I sighed. Okay, maybe not an expert but well versed. "She's…difficult and right now things are, a mess. But she might. Just be patient with her for now."

My pager cut me off.

Meredith.

"I have to go," I smiled apologetically as I began to walk away. "I'll talk to you later, Dr. Grey."

"Derek?" she said awkwardly.

"Yeah?" I stopped.

"When you said your heart's already taken…it's her isn't it? Meredith?" she asked.

"Yeah," I nodded. "Yeah, it is."

I left her, and walked towards the on call room I had been paged to. I didn't know if I should have admitted that, but I couldn't lie, not about my heart belonging to Meredith. I could omit the truth, but I couldn't lie.

"Mer?" I whispered, opening the door of the room.

She sat on the bed, staring at the wall, not crying just staring.

"Mer?"

Her eyes met mine, and right in front of my eyes, she fell apart. Sobs racked her body, tears stained her cheeks. I moved quickly, kneeling in front of her and pulling her into my arms, holding her tightly as she gasped for breath. She clung to me, her fists grasping at my lab jacket. She was falling apart.

"It okay," I whispered. "I'm here, it's okay…I'm here, Mer. I'm here."

I lifted her up and moved us both so we were laying on the bed, holding her close as she cried.

I was finally here.

Take me into your darkest hour

And I'll never desert you

I'll stand by you

So see...Lexie and Meredith had to talk. But this fic is from Derek's perspective and he couldn't really be there when they talked. So I had to twist and turn things to give them a way to talk without us actually hearing all of it. But Derek still needed to witness it someway, so he could have a panic about whether she was going to come and talk to him or not. So this was defintley a hard update to balance...and Lexie in my head (apparently I have a Lexie in my head) really wanted to figure out that Derek's heart belonged to Mer. So that was thrown in. And well the ending...well that was huge. Meredith let him in. And he was there. Sigh.

I'll be updating this later tonight.

Read. Love. Review.