Author's Notes:
Look! Another early post. I'm on a roll, and I'm all caught up. :D Thanks again, everyone, for the lovely feedback. I can't reply to people who aren't logged in, so I just wanted to add a big hearty thank you to all my readers that I can't respond to privately: Mary, Clara, Paz, Mtnative, CG, HighTeeaol, Baseballbabe19, gmgrech, Juli, Kate, Marie, Patsy, Neb1223, Ariana, Mecawa, Pat, MerDerLuvr, all my anonymous feedbackers, and anyone else I've missed naming. Thank you so much, truly! I read everything you had to say, and it made me smile.
So, this part. It's a bit transitional. Lots of wheels spinning, but no major WHOA or anything. Sexy times, revenge, sibling rivalry, and tourism. What else could you want? :D
Week twenty-one.
There's a part of the morning where the sun is a sliver of blinding white-orange on the horizon, and the air around it quivers with heat. It's not predawn, but it's not full morning, either. It's a quiet time on every weekend day, where the kids aren't awake, yet, no alarm looms, and she can just be, listening to the birds and feeling the early light warm up her skin.
Derek's not a morning person anymore, not even close, although, now that he's participating more in childrearing, he's been getting up with the kids unless he has a pressing, health-related reason not to. Still, he's discovered this part of the morning, too. This quiet time that he can have with her. And he's pushed his weekend wakeup times even earlier as a result.
The covers rustle as he shifts until he's partially on top of her, and the weight of his torso mashes against her. She scrunches her fingers, feeling the muscles of his upper back bunch under her fingertips. He pushes his fingers through her hair, and her eyelids dip at the sensation of her hair moving, at his touch against her scalp. She slides her hands down his spine to rest her hands against his lower back. He kisses her lips, lingering, tasting. He has a smile on his face. Like he has a secret.
"What?" she says, tipping up to close the millimeters and kiss him back.
"What, what?" he replies.
She snorts. "You're smiling."
"I'm happy," he murmurs. He leans close, and his bright blue gaze searches her face.
She bites her lip. "I'm happy, too."
He kisses her. "In this light, your eyes are like trees." Another kiss. "So green." Another kiss. "You're very pretty."
She tips her head against his palm, and she shifts to hold his hand there, warm and alive against her cheek. "So are you," she says. She snorts. "I mean … you know what I mean."
"Yes," he says. He kisses her. "I know."
She stares at Derek through her eyelashes, blissed out at the feel of his lips on her body. His hands. Kissing, touching. She lies on her back, relaxed, and warm, and safe. With sex taken out of the equation, Meredith is surprised to find that her sex life, other than the missing sex, is better, now. After the accident.
Derek was good at sex. No, great. No, fantastic. But he got lost in wanting the payoff. Payoff after payoff after payoff. As many payoffs as he could cram into a single act of love. The more payoffs, the more pride he felt. She can't lay all the blame on him, though. She got fixated on the payoffs, too, and she egged him on. Make no mistake; payoffs are great, but she thinks, now, that payoffs shouldn't be the only thing considered when determining the quality of sex.
She doesn't remember the last time they cuddled for the sheer sake of, well, cuddling. Hugged, yes. Spooned, yes. Snuggled, yes. But they've never perpetuated a skin-to-skin enjoyment of each other's company for more than a few minutes. Except, now, he's sleeping naked next to her every night. And she's sleeping naked, too. There's nakedness. And he's gotten comfortable enough around her that he doesn't think twice about letting her look. At everything. He's shameless about his visual appraisals of her, too. And the visuals are what lead to the cuddling and the petting and the kissing. Nothing below the waist, yet, but that's also what takes all the pressure of finding the payoffs away. That's what makes it so intimate. There's no goal. Just love. Even when he's ready for the next baby step, she wants to perpetuate this. The focus on the journey, rather than the destination.
"I love you," she says, and he drinks her words with another kiss.
She aches for the, "I love you, too," to follow, but he doesn't have to say it for her to know he feels it. It's a simple articulation, but it's a complicated feeling. Maybe, he's trying to experience all the different aspects before he commits himself to it with words. But there's no way he can look at her like he's looking at her now and not feel it. There's no way. And, for now, she lets that be enough.
Derek Shepherd loves her. He's still figuring out what that means to him, but he does.
A soft knock rumbles against the door. "Dada?" says Bailey. "Dada, I hungry."
"Can we have pancakes?" Zola adds, muffled.
Derek clears his throat and looks back at the door. "Yes," he says. "One minute."
"We'll be right out, Zozo," Meredith adds. "Hang on."
Derek smiles at her, gives her one last kiss, and rolls out of bed in a glorious show of sculpted muscle. He pads, naked, to his dresser and grabs a pair of boxers. She yanks on a t-shirt and some underwear. Another kiss beside the closed door, and then they greet the arrival of Sunday with smiles.
Derek whips up pancakes like it's a skill he never lost. He flips them without effort, and he makes beautiful, fluffy, perfect circles, not panlumps. She stands next to him, watching him cook, while the kids wait at the table. The batter sizzles as he pours a fresh dollop into the pan.
"I notice the kids never ask me to fix anything, anymore," she says, resting her head on his shoulder.
He grins at her. "Because you can't cook."
She snorts. "I so, too, can cook!"
He thinks about what she's said for a moment. "You're right," he says with a conciliating nod. "You can cook."
She frowns at his sudden agreement. "I can?"
He leans, and he kisses her, and then he flips his pancake. "Yes," he says. "But then you burn."
"Okay," she admits. "So, maybe, I burn things. On occasion."
She giggles as he wraps his arms around her, and his affectionate laughter rumbles in her ear.
Meredith, Derek, Carolyn, Zola, and Bailey trek downtown that day with the Manning family for, as Stewart calls it, "A day of being hopeless suckers." They wander through Pike Place again. They watch the fishmongers, and the marketeers, and the gray, gloomy water. They do all sorts of touristy things, or, as Stewart calls it, "The suckers are sucking." They walk to the pier. They ride the ferryboat out to Bainbridge and back. For the finale of the day, they take taxis to the Space Needle. The line is long, and they end up having to go up to the top in two shifts. Carolyn and Sarah go up with the kids, and Stewart, Derek, and Meredith follow in the next group.
The second Derek steps off the elevator into the cool, wet breeze, he freezes, and he swallows. He looks at the expanse of scenery, at beautiful, gray, drizzly Seattle, stretching out in all directions like a sheet, and he pastes himself against the wall. He loses every hint of color, until he's not much more flesh-colored than a sheet of notebook paper.
"What's the matter?" Meredith says, frowning.
Derek doesn't speak, but Stewart takes one discerning look and says, "I think someone's afraid of heights."
Meredith's frown deepens. "He wasn't afraid of heights, before!"
"Well, you said brain damage can cause personality shifts, right?" Stewart says.
"Yes, but … one would think a phobia develops from bad memories, which he doesn't have," Meredith counters.
"Oh, good point," Stewart says. He frowns. "Derek, the wall there is … probably not the most interesting thing to see up here. Don't you want to take a look?"
"I … I … I can … see … here," Derek says in a soft, shivery voice. He stares at the city sprawling into what, from here, looks like a wall of gray. His eyes are wide, whites visible all around, and his nostrils flutter as he pants like he might be having an unhappy chat with his unwelcome buddy, panic attack.
Meredith gapes. Maybe, Stewart is right. Maybe, Derek is afraid of heights. How in the freaking hell did that happen? "Um," Meredith says. She touches Derek's arm. "Let's go back down, okay?" She's seen the Space Needle a zillion times, anyway. This trip was for Derek and the Mannings.
Derek nods, and they scale the wall to the down elevator, leaving Stewart behind to sightsee with Carolyn and Sarah and the kids. Derek escapes into the elevator. When the doors trundle shut, he sighs with relief and slumps against the cold, metal elevator wall. His grip on his cane is shaky and slippery with sweat.
"Derek, what on earth?" Meredith says as the elevator drops back down to ground level.
He gives her a helpless look. "I … I don't .…" His mouth moves, but he can't offer her any other words, and she thinks he might be too upset to talk right now.
"Did you fall in rehab or something?" she says. "Something they didn't tell me about?"
His mouth moves like he's trying to talk again, but he doesn't answer, and she opts to stop pushing him.
The elevator comes to a stop, and they step out at ground level. The shift in Derek's demeanor is instantaneous. Where before, she had a shivery, shaking, pale, monosyllabic Derek, she now has a Derek who's managed to ditch shivery and shaking, though he's kept a firm grip on pale, and monosyllabic remains to be seen. He seems wasted from the wave of fear that crushed him. She finds a nearby bench for them to sit on while they wait for everybody to come back down. Pigeons hunt and peck the ground at their feet, looking for scraps and finding none.
Derek swallows as he sits. "I … I … I … f-falled," he says in a shaken tone.
Meredith gapes. "In rehab? When did-"
But he shakes his head. "N-not then. Before."
She frowns. "Okay .…"
"All I remember is … fall." He flexes the fingers of his left hand and stares at his palm. That's the hand he almost destroyed, and a pit forms in her stomach. "And a noise. A big … noise." He looks at her. "I … I … I … I … don't know word."
"It's okay," she says.
He remembers the freaking plane crash. She can't think of any other explanation. Why in the hell, of all the memories he could have kept, did he have to freaking keep that one. She imagines if one has twenty or thirty memories to choose from, and one of them is a freaking plane crash, that might be a good reason for the spontaneous development of an intense fear of heights. Jeez, she hopes he doesn't remember her safety-pinning his arm shut while he screamed until he blacked out. She has no idea what to even say.
"Yeah, we, uh .…" She swallows. Seriously, only in her freaking life is this a topic of conversation. "We kind of fell out of a plane that one time."
"You're kidding, right?" Stewart says before Derek can process that or react. Stewart winces and slides to a sitting position on the bench next to Derek. He rests his crutches beside his hip and sighs a grateful-sounding sigh as his body relaxes.
"Stewart, didn't you want to see the Space Needle?" she says.
"I did want to," he says, "but my knee is killing me." He swallows. "And by killing, I mean all the little knee gnomes went out and bought daggers, and now they're stabbing me."
Meredith frowns. "Did you tear your ACL?" she says. She's never asked him what happened with his knee before, but she knows an ACL tear is what ends up benching a lot of runners.
He nods. "Well, I think 'ripped to shreds' is a more accurate descriptor than 'tore'," he says, giving both expressions long, spindly air quotes. He gives her a sloppy grin. "And this act of ripping to shreds would also include my MCL, and a couple other things with L at the end. Really, I never memorized the list. But, yes, of the many Ls I horribly destroyed, the ACL is one of them."
Meredith gapes. "Wow," she says.
"Yeah," Stewart says with a sigh. "No coming back from that, really. If it'd just been my ACL, I might have managed to hang in there for another few years, warming the bench with the second stringers. As it is, I'll be lucky if I ever run again."
"I'm sorry," Meredith says.
"Eh, it's okay," he says. "If this hadn't happened, I never would have met Derek and formed the Derek and Stewart Has-bEen Society." Stewart wraps his long arm over Derek's shoulder. Derek snorts. "We like to be known as DASHES, for short, because it's an ironic descriptor of what neither of us can actually do."
"It's good that you can laugh about it," Meredith says.
"If I don't laugh, I cry," Stewart says with a shrug, and Derek smiles. "So, tell me about falling out of a plane. Did you guys really fall out of a plane? I'm starting to think I need to step up my woe-is-me game if I'm ever going to beat you."
"Well, the plane fell, and we fell with it," Meredith says. "It's not like we jumped out on purpose."
"Of course," Stewart says with a sage nod. He brushes his wispy hair out of his face. "That makes all the difference."
"Derek's been shot in the heart, too," Meredith says. "I'm not sure if we've mentioned that-"
"I have?" Derek says. He looks down at his chest with a frown.
"Good lord, man," Stewart says. He goggles at Derek. "You have more lives than a cat."
She looks up at the gray sky, thinking. "I died once .…"
Stewart's gaping at this point. Derek's frowning, too. "Maybe … brain damage was … good," Derek says. "I have no remember of this."
Stewart snorts. "That's the spirit, man. Joke it up."
"Or cry?" Derek replies.
"I vote joke," Stewart says. "Laughing always helps." He snorts. "Meredith and Derek. MAD." And then he guffaws. "MAD DASHES."
Meredith shakes her head. "This is so freaking ridiculous. Really, our life is ridiculous."
"We're MAD," Derek says.
"I'd drink to that if I had a beer," Stewart adds.
All three of them share a look. Seconds pass in a slow march. One, two, three, four, five. And then all three of them laugh, and laugh, and laugh. They're still laughing when Carolyn and Sarah return with the kids.
Meredith's been waiting weeks for this moment, biding her time. A stroke victim named William Smart checked into the hospital for an appendectomy on Tuesday morning. William can hardly speak. He's limited to a small collection of single-syllable words. Beyond that, he can't communicate by talking, and he can't understand speech, either, not even a little. He has weakness in his right side, but his left is fine. Communication with him is primarily limited to gestures and expressions, like smiles or frowns or nods or head shakes. He's not dumb. Far from it. The only cognitive issues he has are language-related.
She stands over the table under the bright lights, watching Dr. Peters show her what he's learned. This is his second appendectomy in a few weeks. The first one, she coached him through, step by step. This one, she's watching like a hawk, but she's not intervening unless he looks stuck, or like he's about to do something stupid, and so far, neither has happened. Dr. Plank and Dr. Shaw, the doctors she's been torturing since the gala, are relegated to the side of the table, holding retractors and watching their buddy get all the glory.
"Dr. Plank, are you familiar with what's known as a left-side blowout?" she says as she watches Dr. Peters work.
Dr. Plank's eyes narrow, but Meredith can't see his expression behind his surgical mask, can't see if he's frowning. "What does that have to do with an appendectomy?" he says.
Silence stretches in the OR. Even Dr. Peters looks up, wide-eyed.
Meredith glares at Dr. Plank. "The man on this table has a left-side blowout, and Dr. Peters is doing an appendectomy on him. That's what a left-side blowout has to do with an appendectomy." She nods at Dr. Peters. "Keep going, you're fine."
Dr. Peters nods and continues.
"So, Dr. Shaw, tell me about this completely unrelated left-side blowout that Dr. Plank doesn't seem to care about," Meredith says.
Dr. Shaw looks up from the abdominal cavity and gulps. "Uh," she says. "It refers to stroke victims, doesn't it?"
"Yes, I'm glad you know you're operating on a stroke victim," Meredith says, fighting the urge to roll her eyes. "Tell me what happens with a left-side blowout."
For a moment, silence stretches. "It's a type of ischemic stroke," says Dr. Peters. "All language processing areas in the left hemisphere of the brain are damaged. The Broca's. The Wernicke's. The arcuate fasciculus. That's why it's called a blowout. There's nothing left."
"Very good, Dr. Peters," Meredith says. "Dr. Plank, what kind of aphasia results from a left-side blowout?"
A long pause follows. "Global aphasia?" Dr. Plank hazards.
Meredith levels a stare at him. "Are you asking or telling me?"
Dr. Plank gives his head a little shake. "Telling. I'm telling. It's global aphasia."
She turns to Dr. Shaw. "And what is global aphasia, Dr. Shaw?"
Again, both tortured interns have no response, and Dr. Peters is the one who supplies the answer. "It's a combo of Broca's and Wernicke's aphasia," Dr. Peters explains. "The patient can't talk, which is the Broca's, and can't understand anything, either, which is the Wernicke's."
Meredith nods. "That's right. Dr. Shaw, Dr. Plank, Dr. Peters shouldn't have to keep saving you. You should know these things. This isn't surgical trivia; this is stuff you should have learned in medical school."
More silence stretches. Meredith gets a slight thrill, imagining their knees knocking under the table. "Dr. Peters," she says, since she knows there's zero chance of Dr. Plank or Dr. Shaw halfway being able to answer this question. "Why doesn't global aphasia usually happen with a right-side blowout?"
"Because the dominant hemisphere of the brain is what processes language, and most people's dominant hemisphere is the left," Dr. Peters says.
Meredith nods. "What processes nonverbal information?" she asks the group. "Anyone?"
Silence stretches. Dr. Peters is the one who says, "The non-dominant hemisphere of the brain."
"So," Meredith says, turning to Dr. Plank, "someone with his non-dominant hemisphere intact would be able to understand a smile."
She glares at Dr. Plank, who shrugs. Again it's Dr. Peters who says, "Probably."
"What about if someone is glaring, or yelling?" Meredith says. "Do you think that patient would understand that he's the subject of anger?"
Dr. Peters nods. "Yes, probably."
"So, Dr. Plank," she says. "Let's put all this together, shall we? We'll see if you were paying attention."
Dr. Plank swallows and stares back at her. Meredith doesn't even blink when she says, "Let's say a man suffers a TBI that somewhat mimics a left-side blowout. The worst damage is to his left Broca's area and his left primary motor cortex." She pauses. Lets that sink in. Dr. Plank's eyes start to widen when he figures out where this conversation is going, and to whom she's referring. "Dr. Plank," she prods. "Are you listening?"
"Yes," he says with a too-fast nod that makes her want to smile, but she resists the urge. "Broca's area, left primary motor cortex. Yes."
"Do you think this man would be able to understand when he's being teased?" she says.
To his credit, after thinking for a moment, Dr. Plank says, "Are there any contrecoup injuries outside the Broca's area?"
"Yes," Meredith says. "In addition to the language and motor deficits caused by his primary injury, his family has noted he has light sensitivity, noise sensitivity, distorted processing of certain audio frequencies, longterm memory loss, false memory recognition, intense migraines triggered by stress, fatigue, and an increased tendency for him to become overstimulated in busy environments."
The silence stretches. "Nothing else?" Dr. Plank says.
"Nope," she says, a humorless single syllable where the letter p pops in the tense silence.
"Oh," Dr. Plank says. He looks down at the body on the table that Dr. Peters is so skillfully fixing all on his own.
"So, Dr. Plank, do you think the patient I just described could understand when someone is teasing or insulting him?" Meredith says with an unsympathetic, bored tone.
"I .…"
"Dr. Plank," she says. "I asked you a question."
"Yes. Yes, he … probably could," Dr. Plank admits. "Maybe, not the words, but .…"
"Dr. Shaw," Meredith says. "Do you think this patient has the capability to care that he's being teased or insulted?"
"Yes," Dr. Shaw says in a tiny, tiny voice that sounds like a mouse. "Yes … probably."
Meredith leans across the table, closing the distance between them. She wants them looking right in her eyes. She wants them to freaking know that their patients are real people. That's something every surgeon should know. There's no excuse not to. Even Cristina, prickly as she was, had the decency to not insult patients to their faces.
"Tell me, is this patient capable of embarrassment?" Meredith says.
"Yes," Dr. Plank says in a soft voice.
"What about his migraines?" Meredith says. "Given that his migraines are stress-induced, do you think teasing this patient might also cause him delayed but severe physical pain?"
Dr. Plank's as pale as a sheet at this point. He doesn't answer. Dr. Shaw doesn't offer any help, either.
"Who the hell would tease a patient?" Dr. Peters says, because he has no context for any of this, a fact Meredith is glad of. Dr. Peters stops his work for a moment and looks up, takes in the sight of Dr. Shaw and Dr. Plank, and Meredith, who's glaring at them, and says, "I … am getting the idea this is a pointed lesson, and I'll shut up, now." Meredith likes Dr. Peters. She's surprised as hell, doesn't know how he went from being that intern with the stupid cape hair to being her favorite, but he did.
Meredith doesn't let up. "So, what does all this tell you, Dr. Plank?"
"I .…" Dr. Plank shakes his head. He's shaking. Meredith can see the retractor he's holding twitching in his grasp. Score for Medusa.
"I hope you'll keep this lesson in mind next time you two encounter a TBI or stroke patient who you think is too stupid to understand that you both have less compassion than a slab of drywall," she says. She turns to Dr. Peters. "Dr. Peters, you're doing an excellent job." She turns back to Dr. Shaw and Dr. Plank. "Dr. Shaw, Dr. Plank, I want you both to scrub out, now, and get off my service."
She finally lets herself smile as the two of them scramble out of the OR like their hair is on fire. God, damn it, that felt good. And vindicating. And awesome.
"Dr. Grey, I can't remember what to do, now," Dr. Peters says, and Meredith diverts her attention back to the most important thing. Teaching a fledgling surgeon how to be great.
Derek makes dinner for everyone on Wednesday after rehab when Amelia visits. The dish is some chicken and rice thing. He's cooked it before, and it was happiness in Meredith's mouth. She's pleased to have it again. The kids sit at the end of the table closest to Meredith, Bailey in his high chair, and Zola in a normal seat. She cuts up Bailey's chicken for him, and Derek slices Zola's, albeit with less precision, because he has to use his left hand to cut with.
"Oh, my," Carolyn says when she sees the serving dish and its contents. "Derek, do you …?" She stares at the chicken and rice thing and then looks up at Derek with a tinge of hope in her eyes. "Where did you come up with this recipe?"
Derek shrugs. "I see … chicken … fridge … I know what … agree." After he finishes with cutting up Zola's meal, he passes the plate down the table to Meredith, who passes the meal along to Zola.
Carolyn takes a moment to piece together what he meant. "I taught you this," she says.
Derek pauses, serving spoon frozen in the serving dish. He blinks. "You … do?"
"I did!" Carolyn says. "Do you remember any of that?"
Derek finishes serving himself a plate full of rice. He stares at his plate like he's hoping some sort of meaning-of-life revelation will prostrate itself before him if he waits for it long enough. After a moment, though, he shakes his head. "I .…" He gives his mother a helpless shrug. "No. I have no remember of this."
"I taught you right before you left for college," Carolyn says. "I was trying to impart enough kitchen knowledge to prevent you from starving to death."
"That's right, I remember that, too!" Amelia says, smiling. "You made him cook it … three or four times, I think. Before he left. We kept having it for dinner." She turns to Derek and grimaces. "It was like eating bricks. Don't take this the wrong way, but I was so glad when you left. You could not marinate a chicken to save your life."
"Amelia!" Carolyn scolds. "Not nice."
Derek shakes his head again. "I … I don't … remember."
"That's okay, sweetheart," Carolyn adds in a soft, warm tone. "I was just curious."
"I gotta say, it tastes much better, now," Amelia says. "At least, the accident did some good." And then her eyes widen and she gapes with a did-I-say-that-out-loud expression. She reddens, and she hunkers in her seat. "Crap, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. Derek, I'm so sorry."
The silence stretches. Derek swallows. "Are you say … say … say … brain damage .…" He stops, and he closes his eyes to think while his mouth works, saying nothing. After several false starts, he manages to add, "Say crash make me better … cook?"
Derek and Amelia stare at each other for a long moment, unreadable expressions on their faces, like they're having some sort of psychic conversation. Meredith frowns. Apparently they come to some sort of agreement, because Amelia hazards a hesitant, hopeful, "I … might be?" in response to his question.
"Amelia!" Carolyn scolds. "Inappropriate!"
"It's … okay," Derek says. He shrugs, and he smiles. "Brain damage … make me like her."
Carolyn gapes. "Derek Shepherd!" Meredith gapes, too. She's seen him joke about his injury, but … only with her. Never with anybody else before.
The corners of Amelia's lips turn up in a tiny smile. "Still got that mean streak, huh?"
"Me?" Derek says, innocent and sweet. "I'm … not mean. Ask … M … Meredith."
"He's not mean," Meredith interjects, not sure where this is going but willing to play on Team Derek, because … Derek's playing. He's playing, to include self-deprecation, and she's never freaking seen him play like this since the accident. Hell, she's never seen self-deprecation from him ever. Not like this. Her eyes water. "He's not mean at all."
Derek smirks. "See?"
"Her opinion doesn't count," Amelia says. "You've swindled her into liking you."
"What is … swindle?" Derek says. Bailey's having trouble with a chicken piece, so Meredith reaches to help him get it on his tiny fork.
"Trick," Amelia clarifies.
"How can I … swindle?" Derek says. "I have … brain damage."
"Oh, come on," Amelia says with a snort. "You can swindle anyone without a Y-chromosome."
Derek frowns. "What is Y … chr … chr .…" He stumbles over that word and doesn't end up saying it, but he doesn't seem overly frustrated about it, and Meredith continues to watch this exchange with rapt amazement. "What is …?"
"A Y-chromosome," Amelia says, "is what makes a man a man."
Derek looks at Meredith, a question in his gaze. He cups his hand over his mouth like she's seen Stewart do any number of times, and says, "I have this?" in a whisper totally meant to carry.
Meredith grins at him. "Yes, you definitely do."
Derek turns back to Amelia. "You say … I swindle … women?"
"You make a science out of it, Derek."
"For the record, I wasn't swindled," Meredith interjects. She's waving her Team Derek flag, after all. She jabs her thumb in Derek's direction. "He sucks at pickup lines." Which may not be a Team Derek thing to say, but she's getting into the spirit of this sibling sniping. Maybe, she's ditched Team Derek and joined Team Meredith. "Sucks."
"I think … brain damage … make this part … worse," Derek says with a mischievous gleam in his eye.
Meredith snorts. God, this is .… This is .… She's not even sure what the hell this is, but she loves it.
"Callie say I can't schmooze anymore," Derek adds, like it's a badge of honor.
"What's schmooze?" Zola says between noisy bites of chicken.
"It's another word for talking," Meredith explains. Which doesn't catch the nuances of the word, but Zola's five. She won't get the intimate nuances, anyway.
"You can't schmooze," Amelia says to Derek, rolling her eyes. "You couldn't schmooze with a rock, now."
"Well, how can swindle, if can't schmooze?" Derek replies, which … is a reasonable point.
"You don't need to open your mouth to swindle," Amelia counters. "Have you looked in a mirror?"
Derek frowns. "Yes … why?"
Amelia takes one look at his sincere, confused expression and laughs. And laughs. And laughs again. "You know … of all the things brain damage has done to you, that's gotta be the weirdest," she says, shaking her head. "I mean, it's seriously weird."
"What is?" Derek says.
"Your ego got kidnapped and stuffed in a trunk somewhere," Amelia says.
Derek shrugs. "At least my talk has friend."
"What?" Carolyn says.
"In trunk," Derek clarifies.
Carolyn gapes. "What on earth?"
Derek smiles. "It … okay," he says. He shrugs again. "Laugh, Mom."
"I … Derek …," his mother stutters.
He sighs. "I hate talk," he says. "I hate it." He closes his eyes and thinks. His mouth opens and closes. He battles with a word. When that one doesn't work, he thinks again. He manages, "When I talk wrong … it make … angry," he continues. He thinks. "Not today." He thinks and thinks, but it's clear he's not done, so nobody speaks. "Today, I t-t-try to laugh. Okay? I … I … I try."
Silence stretches. Amelia sniffs and wipes away streaks of tears from her face.
"What wrong?" Derek says. "I didn't meaned to make sad. I meaned for happy."
"Nothing's wrong," Amelia says in a warble. "I am happy." She beams a thousand-watt smile at him. "Nothing, it's just … welcome back."
"Welcome back?" Derek parrots.
"It's nice to have a stupid big brother to tease again," Amelia says. Her lower lip quivers. Her voice cracks when she adds, "I've missed you."
"Yes," Derek says, smiling back at her. He thinks for a moment. "My humor … not in trunk. Today." And then he freaking winks.
Meredith stares at him, jaw agape.
"What?" he says when he sees her looking at him.
Meredith shakes her head and shrugs. "I've missed you, too," she confesses.
He tilts his head as he regards her, a soft, affectionate smile on his face. She remembers that look. I'm in love with you, he said. I've been in love with you forever. "H-here … I … am," he says, eyes wet.
"Yeah," she says, a whisper, as her sight blurs. She leans toward him and brushes her fingers through his hair. "There you are." And she kisses him hello.
"How do I …?" he says, pulling away from her nipple, but he swallows and he doesn't finish his question. He reddens.
"How do you what?" she prods.
"Make you … orgasm." His mouth opens and closes. He thinks. A syllable gets stuck in his throat. She pulls her fingers through his hair while she waits. "On purpose," he decides. "Make you orgasm on purpose."
She regards him for a long moment. He doesn't blink. "You'd have to touch me …," she says.
He frowns as if to say … I am touching you. I've been touching you.
"No, I mean .…" She shifts onto her back so she can spread her legs more easily, and then she takes his hand in hers. He lets her guide him to the cleft between her thighs. "You have to touch me here." She gives him a chance to pull away, but he doesn't, so she presses him against her. He takes a deep breath, and she pauses, lets him get used to that.
"Okay?" she says, just to be sure.
He nods.
She traps his index and middle fingers, and she presses them against herself. "Touch me here," she says. "Gently. It's sensitive. If you press too hard, it can hurt."
He watches her, eyes wide and serious like she's given him a bomb to carry. "Touch how?" he says.
"Repetitive, rhythmic motion," she says.
"Rhythmic?" he says. "Like … rhythm?"
"Right," she says. "It means even spaces between each event." She cups his hand and shows him an example. Press. Pause. Press. Pause. Press. "This is rhythmic." She moves his palm to her inner thigh. "Other touch can help, too. Like here." With his hand underneath hers, she strokes herself from the crease of her leg where her thigh meets her groin, down to the midpoint between her groin and her knee. "Or here," she says. She moves him again to cup her. So he doesn't get frustrated, she adds, "But the other touches won't do anything by themselves, usually. Women are a bit harder to get off than men. It can take longer, too."
"Okay," he says. The sheets rustle as he shifts so he's using his thumb instead of his fingers, and he cups her with the rest his hand. "This?"
"Yes," she says.
She relaxes into the massage with a sigh. Like with everything else, he's a fast learner, once he gets shown the basics. She closes her eyes, and she visualizes him. Pretends this is the real deal, and he's pounding into her. He spends some time figuring out what she likes, and she's sure to be vocal with pleased moans to let him know he's found a winner. Circles like ring-around-the-rosy, she likes. Stroking across, kind of like one would pet a dog, she likes. Rhythmic pressure like he's pressing a button – she likes that, too.
When he's too rough, she says, "Too much, too much," and he listens, eases back.
Her body throbs, and her breaths quicken.
"Yes," she says. "Yes, please."
His weight shifts, and he brings his cumulative lessons to bear when he touches her right breast with his free hand, petting, teasing the nipple, and he presses his lips to hers. With his three-pronged approach, it's easy to lose herself in the sensation of being loved, and she lets it sweep her into a fantasy place where he's sheathed himself in her body.
"What is … this?" he says, a murmur against her lips. His cupping grip below tightens, and his fingers slip in what's become a wet, sopping mess.
"That means I like it," she says, eyes closed. "That needs to be there for sex, or it'll hurt me."
"Hmm," he says. He kisses her. Drinks away any other words she might have had stored. "I'm glad you like it."
She has no idea how long it takes for her to find release, because she loses time in his arms, being worshipped by him. He touches what feels like everywhere. Kisses everything.
"How long is normal?" he asks.
"Mmm," she says, gasping when he hits a crescendo and pleasure rolls into her like an unfurling wave. "A while," she says, arcing into him. With a vibrator, maybe five minutes, tops. Without? "Maybe, twenty minutes?" she guesses, though it's hard to think straight when he's doing that. Playing her like a harp. A moan coils in her throat.
He kisses her. "Okay."
Sweat pearls on her skin. Her body flushes. And then she hits that point where she feels like she's losing purchase, and she bleats as the falling sensation starts. She grabs for something. Something to hold onto. Anything. At first, all she scrunches between her fingertips are crumpled sheets, but then she finds his hand, somehow, the one he used to stroke her chest, and she squeezes so hard her knuckles hurt.
She arcs backward, she moans, and her body twitches with abandon against him. This is a quiet orgasm, and it feels like … opening a warm oven on a cold day, or smelling her favorite flower, or collapsing onto the sofa at home after a long day at work. He brings her, keeps bringing her. She tips her head to the side, and she nips him on the shoulder. He laughs, and it's a beautiful sound.
He strokes her hair as the last spasm shakes her, watching her like he's opened the perfect present on Christmas morning or something. His eyes are hooded and heady with desire. She pulls his hand to her lips and kisses the back of his palm.
"Like this?" he says in that velvet, lusty tone that unfurls down her spine.
She swallows, breathing soft and deep and even next to him. "Yes," she says. "Like that." She swallows. "Derek, do you want me to-"
"Can I do it again?" he says, cutting her off. He sounds like he's discovered his favorite roller coaster at the theme park.
She laughs. "If you want," she says. "But give me a minute. It'll be too sensitive down there for a little bit."
He presses into her space. Kisses her lips. Looks down at her. A slow, wolfish smile spreads across his face. "But I can do this, now, yes?" He kisses her again.
"Yes," she murmurs against him. "You can do that anytime."
His gaze is a hungry one when he says, "Good."