Sorry for the long delay... the weeks have been busy... but here's the update you've been waiting for...
Baltimore present day
When Meredith's nose was tickled by beams of sunlight she opened her eyes and saw her ex husband in front of her. "You are watching me sleep" she mumbled "What kind of weirdo are you?"
"A cute one" Derek smirked and kissed her. Never in his wildest dream had he imagined a scenario like this. "It's a beautiful day, isn't it?"
"Absolutely" Meredith said "I found a cocky neurosurgeon in my bed when I woke up."
"My bed" Derek teased her "Technically, it's my bed. We are at my place, so it's my bed. We could make this OUR bed if you would take the key I offered you"
"Derek, we talked about this" Meredith started to rant, but was interrupted by Zola who had opened the door and now looked at her naked parents.
"Moma" Zola smiled while they both tried to cover themselves with blankets.
"Hey Zola, how are you?" Meredith tried to act over the awkwardness of the situation "Good morning"
"You are in daddy's bed." Zola stated.
"See, it's my bed" Derek whispered and Meredith wanted to punch him.
"I am. He had a nightmare last night and he needed someone to..." Meredith couldn't think of a verb.
"be around so he isn't scared" Derek jumped in to help her.
"I want pancakes for breakfast" the girl smiled and left the room again.
"I should go" Meredith mumbled and got dressed quickly. "Tell them that I had to go to the hospital"
"You slept with me and..." Derek started to imitate the speech he had given her at the hospital the day after they had met.
"I do not take advantage of you" Meredith insisted. "We are both still in love of the idea of what we could have had... and... this can't work out... I need to leave. Goodbye Derek"
"Goodbye Meredith" Derek whispered and watched her leave.
On the way to work Meredith stopped by at a bakery to buy something to eat. The woman in front of her picked up a cake for the gender reveal party –something Meredith thought was beyond ridiculous. The woman looked happy as the sales person explained to her how to cut the cake in order to get the answer she was looking for. Meredith wished that the question she needed an answer to would be as easy to answer as 'Boy or girl'.
The fact that Zola had seen her and Derek forced her to face the reality of their situation. She had been caught on cloud 9 for the past weeks – pretending to be not a thing had been easy. They were Dr. Grey and Dr. Shepherd in the hospital, one picked up the kids –and the other one snuck into their bed late at night when the kids or Alex were asleep. It had been a scenario that allowed her to ignore the fact that they were practically living together. She had snuck into his house when he was with the kids or he had climbed through her bed room window when the kids were with her. It was a teenage fantasy come true –somehow unconventional, but it was the thrill of the chase. Lots of wild sex and zero commitment – it was not really what she needed. They had talked about their shortcomings, about the things that had led him and her to this. A situation where she needed to explain to her daughter why mommy was in daddy's dad had been something she had wanted to avoid. This could not happen again.
Boston 4 months ago
Derek leaned over to catch a quick peek at Meredith. He knew where Dr. Springer and his team were seated, but he couldn't find her. Instead he saw somebody else. "The bar girl is sitting at Meredith's table" he whispered to Mark. Mark tried to peek discretely and noticed that Meredith was not there.
"Which bar girl?" Mark wondered. "I've lost track. You met a couple of women in a bar. Big grey, little Grey, that chick in LA" There had been too many. Derek had met both Lexie and Meredith at the bar - and he had already forgotten about Derek's encounter with a young African American doctor. "The L.A. one?"
"Yeah" Derek nodded "Do you think she's looking at me? We really connected"
"Is this junior prom? Didn't she ignore you the next morning?" Mark wondered "I'll get something to drink for all of us. You promised me you won't talk to Mer, so anybody at her table is off-limits. If you win tonight, I'm sure I can hook you up with someone."
"Do you think they know each other?" Derek asked. Mark rolled with his eyes instantaneously.
"Yeah, they probably live together like Robbins and Torres. They have sex and adopt a lot of interracial children" Mark mocked him. "Man, you really lost your touch"
"Or he returned to his high school self!" his sister Kathleen suggested. "You remember that Afro? He literally had no game in high school."
"It was sad, I remember" Mark nodded.
"What happened to your hair, you look like you just got out of surgery" Maggie hushed when Meredith walked into the room seconds after the ceremony had started. A soloist was playing the violin while a representative from the Harper Avery foundation entered the stage.
"I'm sorry, emergency surgery. Got dragged into it when I dropped off Ellis" Meredith was out of breath "My stand in took a while to come in." Her hair was curled, but wild.
"You were wearing this dress in an OR?" Maggie whispered. "Wow! Where's all the baby weight? You look great"
"You lose a lot of weight if you don't have time to eat." Meredith joked. "I really hope I can grab something at the bar after the ceremony. I'm so sorry, Dr. Springer. Mr. Sutter was brought in. I just had too..."
"I understand." the surgeon nodded "Is he okay?"
"I don't know, Ericson took over" Meredith hushed "He'll update me"
"Who is Mr. Sutter?" Maggie wondered.
"One of the trial patients." Meredith said. "He came in with renal failure." Meredith looked to her right. Derek's table was full of people. She saw him and he hadn't aged a day. She felt all the emotions she had gone through since she left. He sat next to his mom and sister. Mark and a woman she didn't know were sitting there as well.
Baltimore present day
One week before the wedding and Derek knew that he needed to make sure he kept Mark's nerves calm. But in reality he was the one that needed to be calmed down. "Zola found us in bed this morning... Meredith left and now I can't get a hold of her." Derek needed to vent.
"Every time she walks away from you, she's miserable! I care about how she feels, okay? I care" Mark told him "You..."
"Mark" Derek interrupted him surprised by his harsh words.
"Maybe after so many years you just don't see it. You pity yourself because she has done you so wrong. You know how many women think like that, and... and look like that, and laugh like that, and care?" Mark wondered.
"I know, she did it because she cared too much. She cares so much for the people she loves, she' the..." Derek tried to calm himself down "and I'm in love with everything about her. I'm in love with the idea of what we could have had and I'm in love with her being the"
"One for you – and when you have it, you know it" Mark smiled "So far I've met one. And yeah, she's... she's Meredith's sister and she's out of my league in every possible way, but I don't care. She dazzles me... and I'm not stupid enough to believe that one day I'll meet someone like her."
"I tried Mark. I don't believe I'll meet someone like her because I won't love her." Derek sighed "I won't love her because nothing compares to her"
"I wouldn't have hurt her." Mark told him.
"I'm going to pretend you didn't say this about my wife." Derek told Mark "You sound like you are in love with my wife"
"Ex-wife. My soon to be sister in law." Mark clarified "You asked her for a divorce –and now you are surprised that she doesn't take you back so easily."
"We've been practically living together for a months now" Derek insisted.
"Ugh, I hate him." Meredith mumbled while she looked at the chart Derek had given her before they had left the hospital the night before.
"You've been spending the nights at his house" Alex stated "What has he done now?"
"He asked me to do a consult with him and it's Beth Monroe." Meredith said, but Alex knew that this consult was not part of the problem.
"Who is Beth Monroe?" he wondered.
"#13 of the glioma trial, house of candles and " Meredith stopped for a second "and Zola found us in bed this morning"
"Are you implying that you are afraid of commitment?" Alex smiled.
"I'm not" Meredith insisted "It's not going to work out. You were not right."
"You are" Alex smiled "You've been sleeping at his house for what? Five weeks now"
"I've not. It's not been this long, has it?" Meredith looked at him.
"It has been." Alex nodded.
"He has this idea of his McFamily and -he wouldn't want this if it wasn't for Ellis and Zola. He..." Meredith started to ramble, but Alex interrupted her little rant.
"Relax, you are reading too much into this. Maybe it's just a consult"
Boston 4 months ago
"I didn't know Derek's ex wife would be here" Kathleen whispered to Mark while they listened to one of the key note speakers.
"Where do you see her? Your brother has been looking for her everywhere" Mark joked "He was more eager to see her than to think about winning the most important award a surgeon could win."
"If she's nominated, she must be good." Kathleen said "Didn't she get fired?"
"Yeah, but not for killing a patient" Mark said "She tempered with Derek's trial."
"And she's working on one again." Kathleen noted "Good for her. He's still an emotional mess and she's on the top of her career. I understand why Nancy doesn't like her"
"You've never met or talked to her" Mark insisted. "She's hard getting to know, but one's you know her. She's worth it"
"Will you two stop talking!" Derek's mother interrupted them. "They are about to present the winners"
"Surgery is the boldest and most fearless of the healing arts. We stand side-by-side with the colleagues who have supported us, prepared us The Harper Avery award celebrates those who have destroyed the obstacles, altered the direction, and invented the future of how we are to live and heal and thrive. The surgeons in this room are redefining medicine for generations to come. For the moment that every surgeon lives for And so I am very pleased to announce this year's winner."
The presenter had said his name. It was surreal. Derek walked up the stairs. All eyes were on him -all eyes except the one he had been desperate to see. Meredith looked down on the ground. He took a deep breath before he started. "A little more than a year ago I couldn't have imagined standing here right now. I had suffered a major setback in my career - and circumstances outside of my control forced me to start over." he looked at Meredith who was looking straight at him "Today I see that this setback has been a gigantic leap forward. I was forced to look at things from a different perspective. I made changes in my life and had to fight major obstacles. Some days I felt like giving up." he paused and waited for a reaction on Meredith's face. She bid her lips and hoped that Derek would stop looking at her. Some days he felt like giving up. She wondered what giving up would have looked like. She imagined that it meant picking up the phone and telling her that he still loved her or flying to Boston and crash one of her surgeries.
"But I didn't". Derek swallowed and Meredith tried to suppress her feelings.. He hadn't. He hadn't called and the encounter in the OR had not happened either. No, she knew he had worked on his trial and she had worked on hers. They had lived their lives like their paths had never crossed. Like she had never felt the safety she had felt when he was with her, the feeling she had not felt since she had left. Flashbacks were playing in both their minds - 'I'm your eye for an eye' - 'Don't look at me like that' - 'You were like coming up for fresh air' - "I don't want 48 hours.' "I can't breathe" Meredith whispered and left the room. The flashback in Derek's head stopped and he looked down on his sheet of paper.
"I emerged stronger; and had the privilege of working on a very special project with some of the brightest colleagues I ever got the chance of working with. I want to say thanks to them, to my family and to my friends! Thank you!" He looked at Meredith one last time. She was almost at the door and he knew that Mark was right. She was still in his box of things he had to get rid of, but could not close much less throw out.
Baltimore present day
"That tumor was huge" Meredith told Derek when she reviewed Beth's file "I can't believe you got it out completely – it was so beautiful"
"It needed to be fixed" Derek mumbled. "and I was the one who could fix it"
"and you fixed it" Meredith nodded "You got to the bottom of it and you removed every tiny cell. She was your Harper Avery case, was she?"
"She was. She asked for you when she was in Seattle." Derek sighed and sat down next to Meredith "and if it wasn't for Beth, I wouldn't have seen you again and do you remember when you told me that we could be extraordinary rather than ordinary apart."
"You were extraordinary without me" Meredith insisted. "This tumor was crazy difficult to remove"
"I wasn't. Do you know what my first thought after that surgery was?" he wondered and put the file down. "I wanted to tell you. I wanted to pull that bottle of champagne out of the fridge again and I wanted to win you over with some grand gesture"
"Grand gesture?" Meredith smiled and looked at the scan. It had been a long time since someone had shown her an MRI of the brain. It looked fine and she turned the screen to Derek. "It looks fine. Clean slate, third chance. She'll be okay" She would be fine – just like Meredith. Life had a funny way of only moving forward.
"Are we going to talk about what happened this morning?" Derek wondered. He knew why she had rushed out without a word.
"It's easy" she sighed "Zola shouldn't have seen us in bed together"
"Why not?" Derek wondered "I love you and you love me"
"If love was enough we wouldn't have gotten divorced in the first place" he looked hurt when she said those words. He wanted to yell, but he realized that she was right. Their problem had never been that they didn't love each other enough, it was quite the opposite.
"Love was too much, Meredith" he whispered "If you do anything, it's… the people you love… you'd do everything for them –even if it damages you, even if you know you get in trouble. You would die for the people you love. You told a gun man to shoot you"
"I did" Meredith laughed.
"Don't ever do that again" Derek smiled back at her. "Zola and Ellis need a mom"
"and a dad" Meredith added "So don't take bullets. I've seen you getting shot too many times. I don't need you to be my knight in shining armor"
"Men in my family" Derek sighed "I can't help it. How about dinner tonight?"
"I can't." Meredith lied "I'm sorry. I have to go. Beth is waiting."
Boston 4 months ago
"What are you doing here?" her resident wondered.
"Well, my patients need me." Meredith smiled. "I feel a lot more comfortable here than I do at those dinners". She always held open invitations for disasters and she felt like staying for Derek's victory lap around the room.
"You want to figure out why the device is failing"
"Yeah, it was perfect, it worked fine, and then everything falls to crap and he's here all of a sudden" she nodded. "and it's like we're back at step 1 except this time it's a lot harder because we only have a tiny window of opportunity. Can I see the chart?"
"The tests haven't come back yet. The lab is backed up" the resident sighed "I tried to rush them, but…"
"Yeah, I get it. You haven't expected me to be back so early" Meredith nodded "I haven't expected to be back so early either. You can go home if you want to."
"Oh, I'll sit here with you -if you don't mind." the resident smiled "Dr. Springer said he's leaving, is that true?"
"Probably" Meredith nodded "I don't know. He gave me this whole speech about breathing freely again and about feeling fine again -and I don't think he was talking about me all the time. He's probably pissed he didn't win the Harper Avery. So I really don't know."
"I sometimes wonder what the world outside looks like. I spend so much time in here, I hardly ever get out. It's easy to forget that there's something real outside" the resident sighed "I'm from this tiny place in Missouri. I haven't seen anything. I spend years in libraries and lecture halls - I never really lived - and now I'm supposed to save people's lives. I thought we did. I mean I pushed you to do this trial, so I can do this trial - and I thought we were helping people, but I don't have a clue about life. I've never loved anyone. You know that idea of life they give you in romance novels. I've never experienced that -have you?"
"I have. With Ellis dad" Meredith sighed. It was weird talking about Derek - considering he was just across the street
"What happened to him?" the resident wondered.
"He had to go, and I had to stay" Meredith sighed. "and now I'm stuck in this state of immovability- maybe I should free myself from that."
Suddenly out of the blue there was a change in Meredith's perspective. She had learned to live without him. "Have you noticed that most of our patients have a history of dementia in their family?" the resident wondered "The diabetes starts before the dementia starts, but what if…"
"How many patients have you looked at?" Meredith wondered.
"About 200 of the applicants" the girl explained "what if we have looked at the whole dementia thing all wrong?"
"How long have you thought about this?" Meredith wondered.
"Six weeks" the resident said "I was reading this article by Dr. Shepherd about looking at things from a different perspective. I can lend you a copy if you want to."
"That won't be necessary" Meredith rolled her eyes. She had read the article even though she had hated herself for it. "I'm very familiar with Dr. Shepherd's publications -and you might have saved more lives than you could ever imagine. If there's a causality, this might be something big"
"You are all cheerful" the resident noted.
"We might not have won today, but maybe we'll turn our lives around today and maybe in a year or two we'll kick our colleagues' asses and show them what amazing research two women can pull off." Meredith said "Write a research proposal and submit it to the NHI."
"You want me to draw up a proposal?" the resident wondered.
"It's your idea." Meredith encouraged her and got up. "If I learned one thing in the past year, it's that you have to stand up for yourself. And I was born to someone who had a method named after her before she sat her boards. So, don't hide behind me or Dr. Springer or anyone."
"Where are you going?" the resident wondered.
"Handing in my resignation" Meredith smiled. "It's time to move on -and our trial is over and… I need to go somewhere"
Baltimore present day
"Beth Monroe, you look fantastic" Meredith smiled when she walked into Beth's room. "I can't believe it! It's been four years"
"Dr. Grey? I can't believe you work here" the young woman smiled. She had changed a lot since Meredith had seen her last. "The other Dr. Grey told me you moved away. So this is where you went?"
"I actually lived in Boston for a bit, but that's a long story" Meredith smiled politely "What have you been up to?"
"I went volunteering in the Middle East. It's what Jeremy always wanted to do, so I… I thought I owed it to him. I thought that I had gotten the chance at life that he deserved. I felt like I really made an impact. I sort of felt like I had to earn the right to this second life." She updated Meredith "and then at a refugee camp in Jordan I started to seize. A very nice doctor took care of me. He diagnosed the tumour –or he told me to get my head checked. You can't really get an MRI in the middle of the desert"
"Do you miss him?" Meredith wondered "Jeremy? Do you still miss him?"
"I… I'll always miss him, he was my first love. Something like that doesn't come around all too often, does it?" the young woman smiled "So you and Dr. Shepherd finally made it work?"
"That's an even longer story" Meredith sighed.
"You two were always so obvious" the girl giggled.
"We were married… he proposed about six months after the trial and we got married on a post it. And he was shot and we worked on another trial again, and we adopted a child and we got divorced, I moved to Boston, had a child, finished my residency, got nominated for a very fancy award and got offered an amazing position here" Meredith rambled "Which is where I met him –again – out of the blue. I thought I'd never seen him again –I had… I had gotten used to the fact that he wasn't around anymore"
"You two were meant to end up together" the girl smiled. "I'm still waiting for that person"
"I thought you are still in love with Jeremy" Meredith looked at her .
"I do, but he's gone and I'm still here – and I have to believe a love like that comes around again. I just have to believe that this wasn't it." She said "Tell me what is happening with you and Dr. Shep. I mean he wouldn't have sent you to see me if…"
"You are something. It's complicated. It really is" Meredith sighed "We are friends –and parents to two beautiful girls. Let me show you a picture."
"They are gorgeous" Beth smiled
"They are" Meredith nodded. "But they get older and they notice things. I'm still adjusting to the situation. I learned to survive on my own."
"But it's lonely" Beth smiled "I get it. I'm still having those dreams – you know… where I wake up after surgery and he's still there. I got used to the fact that he won't be there, but I hope and pray that there will be somebody someday who is going to be there when I wake up because I'm scared of dying alone. I've seen so many dying children in Jordan –and the only comfort I could give them was letting them know that they aren't alone."
Boston 4 months ago
Mark looked around. All the people in the room seemed happy while he was alone. Lexie had stayed in Seattle because she was looking after Zola. Derek was the star of the evening and while he had promised him to have a drink with him, Mark was still on his own.
This evening had been the first occasion where Derek had smiled since Zola had started to talk. He looked at a blonde in a black dress who was carrying her black-haired daughter to the exit and thought that this would be the perfect picture of Meredith after the ceremony. It'd be her and Derek and their five McChildren, Mark thought. Mark knew that Derek still dreamt about her. If it had been her leaving with Zola, Derek's life would have been perfect, but instead he had been talking to the Chief of Staff of John Hopkins for almost thirty minutes. "I thought you had forgotten about me" Mark said when Derek finally walked up to him.
"Sorry Mark" Derek said and looked at the glass of scotch that Mark handed over to him "Mark, I need changes, you live in Mer's old house now and I think she's going to walk around the corner every time I'm there. It's like a Meredith Grey ghost haunts me wherever I'm trying to go. They offered me Chief at John Hopkins".
"That's amazing." Mark said "I hope you'll finally get over her there -and stop nagging me about her. I won't be around to babysit Zola though."
"I know." Derek nodded
Mark raised his glass for a toast. A few people around them joined in. "To the man who has hit more walls than anyone else and still managed to break through them."
"Don't you wonder what she is doing? She left. " Derek asked. He always felt like she was close. He felt like she was there when he discussed his research with Dr. Jackson. Mark knew whom he was referring to in an instant. "Man, you have to forget about her" Mark said. "She didn't win and she didn't feel like congratulating you."
"I tried to, Mark." Derek reminded him "I threw out all her pictures, I never talk about her. I tried to forget about her enough to get over her, but there's no getting over her."
"I know you never felt about Addison like this, Derek" Mark said "but if it was Lexie, I'd take her out to dinner and talk."
"I know it's over, but sometimes I can't help but wonder what we'd be if we were still together. I just wonder what it'd be like if she was here. She'd get ready in her room. She'd probably wear a breath-taking dress and tell our daughter how proud she is. And when she walks into the room everybody's eyes would be on her. She'd walk across the room carrying our daughter and she'd sit down right beside me- instead she sat at a different table and I only got to see her for like ten seconds. We didn't talk."
Baltimore present day
"He has a date? I can't believe that he calls me to tell me that he has a date." Meredith mumbled. "He calls me to ask me. 'Can you pick up the kids tonight?' "
"Are we talking about Dr. Shepherd here?" Alex wondered.
"No, Santa Claus, who do you we are talking about?" Meredith glanced.
"You see his hair and your insides get all squishy." Alex smirked.
"They are not! Just go out with Wilson." Meredith. "and have dinner with me at the place he's having dinner."
"I don't say no to free food" Alex said.
"Who said I was paying?" Meredith wondered.
"I'm not letting you stalk your boyfriend with me – unless I get something out of it" Alex laughed "You are about to cross over to crazy"
"I'm not crazy, I'm a Grey" Meredith smiled.
"Am I supposed to know what that means?" Alex wondered. "What is it you want anyway?"
"To be able to look at him and feel absolutely nothing. That's the kind of closure I wanted." Meredith sighed "That's why I came here. I thought I was ready to let go, but... I'm not... and"
"Maybe you don't get this kind of closure because it just isn't over." Alex insisted.
"That's what I was going to say" Meredith nodded "I came here and it wasn't over. It's just another chapter, but now he's talking to Wilson who you should be talking to and five minutes later he calls me to tell me to pick up the kids after he told me he loved me just this morning"
Seattle 4 months ago
"You are my love story, and I write you into everything I do, everything I see, everything I touch and everything I dream, you are the words that fill my pages." The blanket Maggie's mother had made for Ellis contained all sorts of corny quotes.
Meredith looked at her sleeping baby. "I saw your daddy. He's still very pretty. Not as pretty as you, but a close second" Meredith whispered with a smile on her face.
"She's not going to reply, you know?" Maggie smiled. Meredith turned around and looked at her sister who had just returned from the gala. She looked stunning in her dress.
"She will- one day. It's only a matter of time." Meredith said. And she would start asking questions eventually.
"You never came back. Someone from John Hopkins was looking for you." Maggie explained. He had also talked to Derek Shepherd for a while, but he had been very keen on finding Meredith Grey.
Meredith nodded. "He's the coordinator of the fellowship programme. He wants me to run a diabetes trial that uses the findings of our trial. The trial we thought was successful, but the patient in the ICU tells you otherwise."
"What is stopping you?" Maggie wondered "It sounds like a good opportunity"
"It's research, no OR time. I'd... "
"do limited hours. You can take afternoons off to go to the park. It's sort of perfect." Maggie tried to encourage her. "and you'd get another chance to finally move on. Because you still have this whole "You are my love story, and I write you into everything I do, everything I see, everything I touch and everything I dream, you are the words that fill my pages." thing for Derek and you need to get over that. I mean you never really get a new start here -with Ellis and the divorce and everything... "
Meredith nodded, but interrupted her. It was time to be realistic "He won a Harper Avery Award. There's virtually no hospital on the planet where I could hide from him. It's tempting to accept the offer when it's an offer you can't refuse."
"The Avery foundation considers to buy SGMW."
"Yeah, and I hate the thought of being connected to him like that. There'd be phone conferences, meetings, consults and he might travel here" Meredith looked at Maggie "or I might have to go back"
"I would love to do a consult in Seattle, see where Ellis Grey lived and worked, meet your people" Maggie began to dream.
"Well, you can stay here and do that" she joked "I'm going to find somebody."
Baltimore present day
"Wilson looks old." Alex chuckled when Derek walked in with his mother.
"What do you mean?" Meredith wondered. She didn't want to risk blowing her cover.
"Shepherd just walked in with a woman that looks way too old to be an intern. Older than Herman, and he died, so…" Alex stopped and Meredith turned around quickly to have a chance to take a glance at Derek.
"Crap, crap, crap. It's his mother. She can't see me here." Meredith whispered.
"Still jealous?" Alex smirked.
"I don't get jealous." Meredith mumbled. "Where's Wilson?"
"At the hospital, in the OR with Dr. Colestone." Alex laughed. He had known that it wasn't Wilson all along. Meredith had not been the only one who snuck people into a bed room.
"So that's why she was looking forward to tonight…" Meredith whispered and felt stupid.
"It's her first appy, she was nervous, so she asked him for advice." Alex smiled "Let's eat this steak"
Boston 3 months ago
Meredith knocked at the door the lady at the reception had referred her to.
The door opened and Meredith's heart skipped a beat. "Derek isn't here" Mark said "He had to head back to Seattle. He had to see a patient. Where did you go?"
"I had to see a patient" Meredith said.
"He talked to a woman about the time you promised to cook dinner." Mark chuckled. "He still thinks about you"
"It was a Tuesday. The Tuesday before Alex" she paused. Mark looked like he didn't want to hear about it, but it was the Tuesday before she had gotten fired.
"Meredith, he told all the details, about how you didn't buy any ingredients and tried to wing it -and about how you ended up sitting on the living room floor ordering take out"
Meredith nodded. It had been an amazing evening. They had talked and laughed and it was probably the last happy memory she had with him.
"Why did you come here anyway?" Mark wondered.
"My moronic resident made a not so moronic observation when she monitored our trial data." Meredith said "and it might be interesting for Derek's research. I wanted him to know"
"You are very concerned about Derek's research" Mark sighed "Come in"
"No, nevermind." Meredith declined "Maybe this is a sign from the universe. I'll tell my resident to get in touch with him - and I'll move on. This is goodbye. I have to go. Take care of Lexie, Mark."
"There's no universe, Meredith. Things don't happen to you. You happen to things and you should stop blaming destiny for all the crap that is going on in your life and take charge." Mark paused "This is probably what your sister would have told you. I don't know where that came from. If it was up for me to decide, you two would dance at my wedding."
Baltimore present day
Meredith stopped breathing. He was standing right in front of her and pulled her closer to him. His eyes were beautiful and she was nervous. "You are back" Meredith smiled. "The kids missed you"
Instead of saying something he kissed her. "What do you want me to do? You don't trust me and I want to show you that I'm trustworthy."
"Show me that Ellis and Zo are your priority" Meredith touched his hands softly "That's what I need to know for now. I don't want them to be confused by whatever is going on with us"
"I'll do anything in my power to prove it to you. You, Ellis, Zola and tumours on the wall and ferryboat scrub caps. You want to go back to being just… parents. I'll accept that" he touched her face "I can't leave you. I love you Meredith!"
"How was your date?" Meredith wondered.
"I saw you and Alex" Derek smiled. "I thought it was funny that you were hiding from my mother."
Meredith looked down to the ground. She knew her behavior had been childish. "What was it that you needed to do? She told you to do it and you insisted that it wasn't the right time. What was it?"
"I'm not going to tell you. In fact I asked you to join me for dinner" he reminded her "and you declined. You don't get to hear it."
"I…"
"needed to eavesdrop on me" Derek smirked. "You are not ready to know. Not yet anyway –and I'm not ready to tell you"
"It's not me, it's you. Are you really going to give me that speech?" Meredith teased him.
"It's us. We want this to work – and maybe it's time to take things slowly." He told her and walked away. "Good night, Meredith. I have to go and I will make the kids my priority"
"I signed your forms. You can take them to Mark's wedding" Meredith noted. "I know you need the consent forms for Ellis."
"Well, thank you, but I like to relinquish using them. You should come to that wedding with me." Derek insisted "I'm sure…"
"She wouldn't talk to me." Meredith sighed "I… and…"
"See, you are not ready!" Derek nodded "I'll wait until you are."
"What do you want me to do?"
"Stay here. Don't move." Derek told her "Don't say a word and just kiss me"
"I think I can do that" Meredith smiled and their lips touched.