All Along The Watchtower – Part 20.2 (Can you feel my love?)
Author's Notes:
I know I said I'd post this Wednesday, but I didn't think you'd mind if I broke my word :) So, here we go. The forty-eight uninterrupted hours continues with... yet more fluffy goop. And some angst. But mostly fluffy goop. And even literal marshmallows! This ran a little long. I really did try to cut this whole chapter down to smaller bits, and this bit is smaller. Just, you know... It's not small.
Oh, and I wanted to mention I joined twitter. You can find me listed as ariaadagio :)
Gravel crunched under the tires as the Cayenne crawled through the darkness. A sprawling cave of trees, fauna, and other blurry shapes surrounded them. The scenery beyond the dim glow of the car's headlights seemed indistinct and inky black. The rain had stopped as they'd gotten closer to the lake, but the thick, frothy cloud cover had guaranteed an early sunset. Far outside the city, the sky at night was dark. Black. Not glowing purple. Like the sky at Derek's trailer, she bet the lake was a perfect place for stargazing on clearer nights. Maybe, even better.
The car rumbled to a stop. Meredith stared out the window. The road stopped abruptly at a pile of bracken and ferns and... other plant stuff that she wasn't woodsy enough to identify. A narrow walk proceeded to the right, where there was a small, glowing light the size of a soup can about fifty feet in the distance. The light framed a small set of steps and a large, boxy shadow. Between the soup can and the car, though? Black. She wasn't even sure if she was looking at grass, gravel, or dirt in the sea of ink beyond her window.
"Here we are," Derek said, his voice entirely too cheerful and sure considering she knew he wasn't sure at all. They'd seen a sign on the road that he'd had to chop his speed in half and flip on his high beams to read. Supposedly, the Chief's cabin was at the end of Cedarwood Place, and, well, they were at the end of this ambiguous road for which they'd identified the first three letters. Ced. Ced what?
Who knew for sure? But she was hungry and tired and willing to roll with it for now.
"Finally," she said. She shifted in her seat and popped her seatbelt loose. The belt rolled back over her shoulder. Her stomach growled. She wanted to stand and stretch and not be in this stupid car anymore, no matter how nice the company. She wanted to eat, too.
He turned off the engine and the car cabin lit up with a soft glow that made the outside look even blacker. "Don't you grumble at me," he said. His keys jingled, and the seat squeaked as he turned to face. "What did I do?"
"It took us an extra year to get here!"
He smirked. "You were the navigator. I'm blameless."
"And I told you to turn on Hemlock!" she said.
He nodded. "Five miles too early, yes."
"Well, I'm not psychic," she said. "The Chief's directions said turn on Hemlock. How was I supposed to know there was a Hemlock Court, Hemlock Lane, Hemlock Circle, and a Hemlock Street all in different places? That's ridiculous!"
"By checking the physical map first?"
His sage-but-laughing look made her want to strange him. She jabbed her finger at him and poked him in the chest. He grunted, though it was more an amused sound than an indignant one. "You, shut up," she said. "These people here are too obsessed with wood! It's their fault."
His eyes narrowed. His cheerful grin turned into a leer. "Really," he said as he looked her up and down.
"Yes, really, I..." Her voice trailed away as she thought about what she'd said. Obsessed with wood. "Derek, seriously? Are you five?"
He winked. "Admit it."
"Admit what? That I said wood?"
"You can't deal with life when you don't have a GPS," he said.
She crossed her arms over her chest. "I can, too!" she protested. "I told you to turn on Hemlock!"
"Too early."
"Not that early."
"Five miles too early!" he said. "I had to use the map."
"You could have just pulled a u-ey and gone back to the main road," she countered.
"The map told me a shortcut."
"Which wasn't short," she said. It felt like he'd driven them around the entire freaking lake. Possibly more than once. And he'd seen another damned punch buggy and walloped her because she'd been too busy poring over Richard's directions, trying to figure out where they'd gone wrong, to see it first. They'd ended their trip at 3-4 his favor instead of a tie because of that.
He shrugged. "I knew where we were."
"Lost," she said. "That's where we were."
He grinned. "Well, it was scenic," he said. "Wasn't it?"
She glowered. "It was long."
"You saw the lake."
"I heard my stomach growling more," she said.
"And it was wood-y," he said, and she couldn't help but chuckle at his lascivious expression and his what had to be an intentional slip. "Sorry, woodsy." Her chuckle became a laugh. "Wooded?" he pondered. "Perhaps arboreous would be more appropriate." She snorted. "And less innuendo-laden."
"Stop," she said. She wiped her eyes, convinced tears had formed as she'd cackled at him. "Oh, my god, stop. You are five."
"Horny," he corrected. "And the people here are obsessed with wood. You said it, not me."
"Horny and five," she amended. She smiled at him, leaned, and she kissed him. She relished the small groan that loitered in his throat. His warmth swept her up, and she couldn't help but lean in further. She clutched his shirt. Soft cotton ran underneath her fingertips. Even after hours in the car, he smelled fresh and musky and... hers. All hers. How did he do that?
She felt kind of icky, to be honest. They'd stopped at a rest stop shortly after she'd finished puking, and she'd been able to brush her teeth. Then, about thirty minutes ago, when they'd finally stopped to ask for directions, she'd washed her face in a convenience store bathroom and grabbed a bag of chips to sate her growling stomach. Except the chips hadn't done more than provide momentary distraction for the gnawing hunger, now she tasted like French onion dip, and, really, she just didn't want to be in the freaking car anymore.
He stared for a moment as she pulled away, as though she'd knocked him senseless, though that may have been the onion taste. Or, maybe not. He blinked. "You promised me attempted sex," he said, his voice low and throaty, and it sent an anticipatory thrill meandering down her spine. Apparently, he was impervious to onion breath.
She shook her head. She leaned back, licked her lips, and popped open the door. A chorus of crickets and other nighttime insects swept into the cabin along with... frogs? Or toads. Something croaking. Over and over. "Let's at least get the car unloaded before you jump me," she said with a laugh as she slid out of the car to her feet and into the darkness. Gravel churned under her shoes as she found her balance, and she groaned as she leaned against the car and stretched her aching muscles.
"Fine," he grumbled. "Fine, but after suitcases, there'd better be sex."
She smiled across the car cabin at him. "I think your record is broken," she said.
"I want sex," he said, and his eyes crinkled as he grinned back at her with delight. "I want, want sex. I'm relishing it. Okay?"
She stared at him. He looked so happy. And himself, for once. The shadows she'd gotten used to on his face had disappeared over the course of their long drive, as if, the further he'd gotten from Seattle, the less the world weighed him down. They'd laughed and joked all the way down the highway, and it'd been nice. Nice to play. And talk. And be post-it married without anything else getting in the way.
"I'm glad," she said, her voice shaking with emotion. She gripped the door handle and squeezed because she couldn't reach him at this distance. "I'm really glad, Derek."
He popped open his door and followed her to the ground. "I love you," he said, "even though you're a horrible navigator."
"And I love you," she said, "even though you're horny and five."
They stared at each other across the void of the car cabin for several seconds, and many things were said without words as the nighttime world around them fell away. Good things. You're mine. I love you. I'm so lucky. I'm glad you're here. They both closed their doors at the same time, and the night swallowed them whole as the car's cabin light blinked out. For a moment, she stood, dazed, her head swirling as she swallowed. Who would have ever thought, years ago, when she'd been seeing Dr. Wyatt to become whole and healed, she'd have made it here?
She stretched before she moved. First her arms. Her shoulder blades and triceps pulled as she grabbed her elbows one at a time and yanked them behind her head. While she did that, she lunged to return some feeling to her calves.
Something snapped twigs and brush in the undergrowth in the distance, and it made the hairs on her neck stand on end as she leaned against the black SUV and stretched her quads. Deer, maybe? Wind creaked through the wet trees, and a fat drop of water fell on her nose. She blinked and looked up. Nothing but rustling black.
A breeze ruffled her hair, and more twigs snapped in the distance. Leaves rustled. The air smelled wet and full of the promise of rain. Her nostrils flared in the dark. She closed her eyes, and for a moment, all she did was listen as the cool air tickled the nape of her neck. There were no traffic sounds or hints of civilization. Just... emptiness. And the whisper of the wind through the leaves. And an owl, mournful in the distance.
Another twig snapped, and she squinted at the darkness. Had to be a deer. A single one. Or maybe a herd. She wished the light was better so she could see. She wanted to see deer. She loved watching them in the early morning on the deck by Derek's trailer while she sipped her first cup of coffee. They came close. Quiet. In small groups. They would stare at her with their delicate brown eyes and wet-looking noses, only to shoot off into the distance in response to some sound only they could hear, or some threat only they could determine.
Derek would love it here, she decided, and she'd been glad the Chief had suggested this place. Derek needed open space and quiet to relax. To not stress.
"So, what all should we bring in from the car? Can we leave your fishing stuff out here?" she called over the hulking SUV as, at last, she walked to the rear of the vehicle.
She kept her hand on the cool metal of the car's frame as she moved. The feel of the car gave her some orientation in the black. Her night vision had kicked in enough to identify shapes, at least. Tall trees surrounded them, reaching up into the sky, and at their swaying feet, she felt small and insignificant. She kicked a large rock with her shoe by accident as she moved. When she shuffled to the trunk, Derek wasn't there. She pulled open the door. The rear light came on.
She frowned when she realized Derek hadn't replied. At all. She began, "I would assume you'd want to take that stuff directly to the..." only to trail away. He still hadn't arrived. "Dock..." She glanced beyond the car windows. With the light on in the car, and the relentless darkness outside, she couldn't see a thing through the tinted glass.
"Derek?" she called. Maybe, he'd stopped to stretch. She listened to his footsteps and watched his shadow move.
He reached the corner on his side by the trunk. His breaths hit the air, steady and even. "Okay," he said, his voice quiet.
"Do you have a flashlight or something? I can't see a thing out here except the car trunk." He liked to carry a little two-inch long LED light sometimes, particularly at his trailer at night. Things got freaking dark there when the moon wasn't out, which, in Seattle, with the copious cloud cover, was actually a common occurrence.
A pause. "In my pocket."
She hauled her rolling suitcase from the pile in the trunk. She grabbed his suitcase next. His fishing gear clanked and crashed in a cascade that made her wince. She hoped she hadn't broken anything. "Umm," she said as the last box tumbled to the floor of the trunk, "Sorry." What the hell had he done? Stacked all the suitcases like he was playing Tetris or something?
He didn't respond or make a snarky comment about her clumsiness, and her guilt quickly bled away. Surely, his gear wasn't that breakable, and he didn't seem disturbed by the prospect of his careful equipment stacks being disrupted. He stood by the corner of the trunk, gripping the frame of the car, breathing.
She marveled at the weight of his bag as she hauled it over the lip of the bumper. He'd managed to pack just as much as she had, for once. Maybe, more. On his consult trips, he tended to stuff a few things in a duffel and run, but he'd been meticulous this time. On Thursday night, before she'd fallen into bed to sleep, she'd watched as he'd tucked about thirty thousand pairs of socks along the edges of his suitcase, buried underneath piles of clothing. Lots of layers. Undershirts. T-shirts. A fleece vest. A sweatshirt. And a thick, lined coat that seemed too heavy for the end-of-summer they were experiencing.
What's all that for? she'd said.
You'll need layers, he'd replied.
Why?
Trust me. You'd rather have them and not need them. It's a camping thing.
She'd shrugged and packed heavily as he'd suggested, though she still didn't get it. It was chilly at night, yes. But not arctic. Though, she decided as she frowned, it was a lot colder out here than it'd been in Seattle. A shiver crawled through her. Perhaps they'd climbed elevation a bit? And, maybe, he planned for them to spend at least one night outside in a tent, if only to say he'd roughed it at least a little. She hadn't asked him about his specific plans. She'd been so busy simply getting through the week, she hadn't even thought about it. She grinned. A tent could be fun. Maybe. She wasn't sure if he'd packed one under all the other crap in the trunk.
"Here," she said as she pushed his suitcase at him. Gravel spit under the suitcase's wheels. "Take your bag." He skipped backward a step, but the suitcase still thumped his knee and fell to its side. "Derek? Flashlight?"
For a long moment, he didn't speak. With slow, exaggerated precision, he shifted, and he reached into his back pocket. The small LED light she'd remembered him carrying flashed to life. The jiggle of the light as his palm shook gave his state of mind away, and her stomach felt like it was sinking as she watched him try to give the light to her. He couldn't keep his hand still. She felt like an idiot for not noticing sooner when she looked at his face in the dim light, really looked, and saw unadulterated, nauseated terror loitering in his wide-eyed, glassy gaze.
"Here," he said, his voice breathless as he gave her the flashlight. His fingers brushed hers as he did so, and a lump formed in her throat. He'd been so warm, moments ago, and now? Now, his limbs had had frozen through with anxious chill as his body pulled his blood supply to his heart and his core.
What on earth had set him off? He'd been so happy. Her eyes watered. She shook her head. It didn't matter, now.
She swallowed as she slammed shut the trunk, plunging them into darkness, save for the white cone of brilliance offered by the LED. She bent to grab his suitcase along with hers, because she doubted he possessed the presence of mind to carry it himself, and she then positioned the LED so that it was jammed between her hand and the suitcase handle in her right hand. She could steer the light a little by squeezing her palm.
"You know what, we've got our clothes," she said, forcing her voice to stay low and calm and soothing. "We can get the rest in the morning. Let's go inside."
"Okay," he said on a tight exhale, but he didn't move with her.
She swung around after several steps toward the soup can light and urged him on. He took a step after what felt like an eon of stillness, but that one stride looked as though it were a fight against the earth to keep it from swallowing him. Like it was a struggle to force himself to follow her. His fight-or-flight had kicked in, except flight had become freeze in terror when he'd realized he couldn't see to run anywhere, or to identify where the mysterious threat resided. It was written all over his footsteps and his posture and his shaky voice. She gripped their suitcases and kept urging him onward, hoping her voice would help and maybe give him an anchor. He didn't seem annoyed by her constant peppering of requests to keep moving.
They made it up the walk, which, thankfully, was paved and made for easy suitcase rolling and for frightened shuffling. They moved out of the well of blackness, and into the small sanctuary offered by the soup can light, which she realized was actually a glass lamp held in place by a shiny brass frame. She hauled the suitcases up the steps, grunting. The gold numbers posted by the door said 3137. Thank god. This was the Chief's place. Unless they'd somehow ended up on 3137 Cedarwood Court, or Cedarwood Lane, or Cedarwood Circle, or Cedarwood Street, or some other Cedarwood Something, named like all the freaking Hemlocks in a tree parade. The people here were obsessed with wood, damn it. She refused to claim a bad navigator rap for that.
"Do you have the keys?" she said as he shuffled behind her. She flicked off his little flashlight and slipped it into her pocket.
"Yes," he said, but he didn't move.
The frightened verbal tremor in that one syllable made her want to throw her arms around him and never let go. But the situation would get better if they could move inside, first. That way, she hoped whatever had caused him to fall into panic mode would cease, and he could recover instead of linger and suffer like this.
"Can you get them out?" she prodded, trying to force him to function.
His nostrils flared as though he fought a wave of panic. "I'm okay," was all he said.
"I'm going to reach into your pocket," she told him.
Again, he didn't move. He made no comments. Didn't smirk. Didn't joke about the fact that she would be stuffing her hands into his pants, and that felt... Wrong. Discordant and wrong and bad. She closed the short distance between them with a cautious, telegraphed step as she tried not to spook him. She squeezed his shoulder with one hand as she reached into the front left pocket of his jeans, where she saw the telltale bulge of keys. His breaths came in slow, forced inhalations and exhalations. Regulated and even. His body was stiff as a board and shivery, and he swayed, as though she could topple him with a light push. Warm metal jabbed her fingertips. She clutched, and she pulled his keys loose.
She fumbled around the storm door and looked for a key that didn't seem familiar to her. She recognized the house and backdoor keys she'd given him when she'd asked him to move in. The keys to his trailer. Keys to both his Cayenne and her Jeep. A bike lock key. The keys to his office at the hospital, both his new office and his old one, which he'd never officially relinquished. She grabbed the next key and tried it in the door. No. Next one, yes.
The key sank into the keyhole with a metal crunch as the lock's pins fell into place. She turned the key and pushed open the door. She pulled the suitcases through, and then she motioned Derek forward. He followed. Slowly. He felt at the door frame with a shaky palm. Like he'd been blinded and needed grounding.
She felt by the door along the wall for a light switch. When her fingers touched a ripple on the wall, she flicked it. Pitch black plunged around them as the outside light winked off. She winced as his breaths hitched, and he made a scared, I-might-faint sounding gasp. The second switch next to the outside light illuminated the main room of the cabin in welcoming brilliance, and she sighed in relief. She didn't take any time to stare at their surroundings, though.
She pushed the door shut and locked it behind them. The thunk of the deadbolt echoed in the silence. Derek flinched, and his gaze ticked to the door handle. He swallowed, and he seemed to deflate a bit, but not much.
"I'm going to touch you," she announced.
When he said nothing, she stepped forward and pulled him into her arms. His body shook, and his grip convulsed around her as he pressed his face against her mussed hair and the warmth of her neck. His body jerked as he pulled breaths in and pushed them out with forced, even slowness, and as she rubbed his back, trying to soothe him, she realized he must be counting or something. He held every deep inhalation for three seconds. No more. And he blew his breath out over three more seconds. No more.
"It's okay," she assured him as he trembled in her arms, wondering what on earth had caused this. "You're okay." The rasping sound of her skin as she brushed his shirt filled the eerie silence. He trembled. "You're okay, Derek. You're not going to die. You're safe. Nobody will hurt you."
One of the suitcases fell with a thunk, and he flinched and made a small moan. Her heart squeezed, and she kept whispering at him. She had no idea how long she stayed that way. On the welcome mat. Holding him. His mood gradually began to shift. His controlled breathing tightened into sharp gasps and wet sniffles. He turned away from her and slammed his hand against the wall. Once, again, another time. A hanging picture wavered, and she caught it with her hand before it fell. She let him burn off his tear-streaked frustration in silence.
When he stopped hitting things, she pulled him back into her arms and rubbed his back. "Let me get you a glass of water," she said, her voice soft. He didn't respond as she wandered away. She wasn't sure where she was going, entirely, until she took a moment to orient herself in the new space.
The main room of the cabin was a wide, airy space. Hulking couches and a beat-up, wooden coffee table surrounded a fireplace on the right wall. Huge paned windows with aging blinds adorned the rear wall and the front wall. To the left, open space across a wooded floor, and then a dining room table. Beyond that, a large kitchen with a marbled center island and a stainless steel fridge and dual ovens. A hallway in the back led to, presumably, the bedroom and bathroom and whatever else was there.
A long handwritten note had been stuck to the fridge. She grabbed it. Curious. Apparently, a man named Ben had stopped by at the Chief's behest and put some perishable items in the fridge, along with fresh bars of soap in the bathroom, clean towels, and sheets, and all of that. Some bananas and a small pile of tomatoes sat on the back of the counter next to the salt and pepper shakers. This Ben guy had gone all out.
She searched the cabinets for glasses. Jackpot on the first try. She grabbed a thick, heavy glass from the cabinet closest to the sink and ran it under the faucet after testing the temperature with her finger. Good enough.
When she returned to the living room, she found him sitting on the sofa staring into space. He'd turned on the crooked lamp on the end table. His eyes were red and puffy, and though he wasn't crying, now, the skin on his cheeks glistened, and red irritation spread across his face like sharp, streaky blush. The rest of his pallor was bad, though. Sunken and pale and tired, and the contrast to how he'd been not fifteen minutes ago, happy and alight, made her eyes prick with tears. She blinked, and the blur sharpened once again.
"Derek," she whispered to keep from surprising him as she wandered into his field of view.
He didn't move. She sat beside him, sinking into the thick cushions. She handed him the glass of water. He took a shaky sip, but didn't speak.
"Are you okay, now?" she said. He clearly wasn't okay. In the broadest sense, that was the stupidest question she could have asked. She supposed what she really meant was, was he still frightened? He seemed... better, at least. Better than he had been.
He looked at her with desolation. Without words, he set the water glass on the coffee table on a coaster, and she accepted him into her arms. He sighed, and she tightened her grip around him. She rubbed his back in slow, soothing circles, just as he'd done for her when she'd been throwing up on the side of the road. She swallowed around the lump in her throat as she stared beyond him at the empty fireplace.
"I love you," she said.
A breath ratcheted in his chest. He grunted. "I want this to stop happening to me," he said, his voice dark and tired. Upset.
"I know," she said, unable to stop her tone from plunging into sadness. "Me, too."
He didn't respond.
"What scared you?" she said.
He tensed, and silence stretched for moment after moment, as if the mere thought of trying to identify his fears scared him. "There was somebody out there," he said. He sounded sick. And embarrassed. And all sorts of things she didn't want him to feel on their forty-eight uninterrupted hours.
She didn't bother telling him that there hadn't been anybody out there. Just a deer snapping some twigs as it walked through the brush. Or some other furry wildlife thing. He knew. Which was what made all of this worse. To be scared to the point of gibbering malfunction, and at the same time, knowing that it was your brain playing chemical tricks on you? That would be horrible for anyone. But, for a control-oriented man like Derek, it was breaking. Had already broken. She pulled her fingers through his hair and said nothing. She rested her cheek against his head and sighed, offering as much silent support as she could.
"I'm sorry for ruining this," he said, and she closed her eyes at his shame-laden tone.
"Don't be sorry," she said. Her eyes burned over the fact that he felt guilty for this. He felt guilty for everything. He didn't need to feel guilty for this, too. "You're here in the best capacity you can manage, and I love you. It's okay. You're okay. You didn't have a panic attack. That's a start, isn't it? Better than before?"
Which was true, she decided, as she found some hope and lit it bright like a lantern in the dark. He'd nearly incapacitated himself, but he'd kept breathing, and he'd moved when she'd asked, and he hadn't collapsed in a choking mess to claw at his throat or tell her that he felt like he was dying, like she'd seen him do, now, several times.
He cleared his throat. "Replacing the panic thought helps," he said, his voice rough. "Dr. Wyatt..."
"She taught you that?"
"Yeah," he said.
"How does it work?"
"I think about... something," he said. "Something else."
"Like what?"
He swallowed. "Pickles."
"Pickles?"
"I keep imagining you want pickles and ice cream in the middle of the night, and I go to get them at the marketplace you like a few blocks down from your house. The pickles, I mean."
She frowned. "Why would I want pickles?" She usually picked them off her cheeseburgers, and he knew that.
He shrugged. "I know it's cliché. But you're pregnant," he said, and even then, even when he was upset, the words tinged with a brilliant sort of hope and eagerness that made her heart flutter. She hugged him tightly and didn't move, relishing the warmth as his body reanimated slowly from fear over the passing moments.
"Like cravings?" she said.
"Yeah."
She grinned, and she kissed him. "Definitely gold stars."
He wiped his face with his hands and sniffed. "What for?"
"At my beck and call even in your head."
He didn't answer. He rested in her arms, and she lost track of the crawl of moments as she rubbed his back and his toned bicep. She watched the fireplace with an absent stare. Extreme stress followed by its absence must have pulled on his consciousness. She felt the weight of his body press down on her, and his breaths evened into thick, raspy blasts of warmth that hit her skin. She tried to look at his face, but with him curled against her shoulder, his nose resting at her chest level, all she could see was his silver-dusted curls and the slope of his side and hip. She kissed him while he dozed, unwilling to disturb him.
At least, the Chief's cabin was cozy, she decided as she stared at the living room, unable to do anything else for the moment. It was a bachelor pad, exactly as he'd said, but it was livable, and homey, and just... nice. The two couches didn't match, exactly. They were two different shades of worn green, one more olive, and one more spruce, as though they'd been picked out at separate yard sales, and whoever had chosen them had simply eyeballed the color. A fluffy white shag rug accented with green and black swirls that, again, didn't quite match either of the couches, covered the hardwood floor between the couches and the fireplace. Ornate, flowery carvings crawled up the sides of the fireplace and created a huge mantle over top.
The wood scent of the cabin tickled her nose, and she closed her eyes as she was reminded vaguely of the smell of a freshly cut Christmas tree. Her mother had always used the fake ones that didn't smell at all, and, as Meredith had grown into an adult capable of buying her own tree, she hadn't really understood the appeal of it, anyway. Real trees would only die, turn brown, become giant fire hazards, and shed their needles all over the floor in a sticky, sappy pile. Izzie had gotten a real tree, though, and the whole first floor had filled with the sweet scent. Meredith had found that she kind of... liked it.
The lights and sparkles and other Christmas vomit, she could have done without, but she'd liked the smell. Spruce-y and fresh. When Derek had dragged another Christmas tree over her threshold for their first post-it Christmas, she hadn't complained.
Post-it Christmas number two would be coming again in four months, she realized. Only four. When had that happened? How? With all the shooting crap and the hurt and pain... She'd pretty much missed the passage of time.
Her free hand roamed to her womb, and she opened her eyes to stare at the fireplace. She could imagine hanging Christmas stockings from the lip of the mantle, and she could imagine a real tree in a stand by the window, decorated with shiny ornaments and a bajillion lights. There would be glittering presents adorned with pretty bows sitting underneath.
She didn't want to suck as a mom, and a big tree and a sparkly Christmas was an important facet of not sucking, she decided. She hadn't had it as a kid. She would make sure baby had it. No matter how ridiculous and fake she felt doing it. She'd have to let Derek explain to her exactly how to do all the happy Christmas vomit stuff. He loved Christmas.
He'd tried to get her to participate more their first year, but he'd backed off a bit when all she'd done was glare at him. They'd compromised, and they'd had that painfully awkward dinner and invited everyone. His idea. Not the awkwardness. The dinner. Mostly his cooking, too, though she'd fooled people by being in the kitchen at opportune times. She'd gotten him that fuzzy blue bathrobe that he liked to wear, and they'd exchanged gifts over coffee the day after Christmas because they hadn't had time on Christmas day. She'd called it progress, then, and he'd happily agreed with her. Progress.
She could make more progress. Right? Her throat thickened with emotion as she stared at the empty mantle and imagined a stocking for Derek, and for Samantha, and at some point in the future... a stocking for baby. She was artistically challenged and couldn't sew. She imagined lopsided, patchwork stockings with sloppy glitter for the names instead of embroidery. Derek's would be big and striped like a candy cane. It would dangle from the mantle all the way to the floor and be large enough to fit a small person. That seemed to fit his Christmas personality. Exuberant and sort of funny and full of cheerful awareness that Christmas should be something enjoyable and full of wide-eyed innocence, rather than something to fear or dread.
She squeezed his body as he slept. She wanted that. For baby. Christmas.
You could help me shop this year, if you want, he'd said as they'd given Samantha her first walk.
She wanted that. She needed the practice. For baby.
He stirred after about thirty minutes and groggily smacked his lips. "Fell asleep," he muttered against her skin.
She grinned and squeezed his shoulder. "You did. Feel better?"
"Hmm," was all he said as he pulled away from her, blinking life back into himself, and whether that meant yes or no, she couldn't tell. He rubbed his face and looked slightly dazed. He ran his fingers through his flyaway curls, and she watched as he, at last, had a chance to assess his surroundings. His sleepy gaze traced the fireplace, and the shag rug, and the dinged coffee table. He looked behind them into the dining room, and beyond to the kitchen.
"Richard must be colorblind," he decided after giving everything a lackadaisical once-over.
She chuckled. "That's common in men, you know." She kissed him. "Both literally and figuratively."
He shrugged, an amused look on his face. He glanced at the crooked lampshade beside him before turning to face her. "He kind of needs Adele to function," he'd said.
He'd told her once about how the Chief had acted on their camping trip to the wilderness, what seemed like eons ago. When she and Derek had been taking some space or whatever because his sister Nancy had twisted him up in knots, which he'd also later explained. And she'd seen the Chief trying to peddle his clothes to be mended and ironed when he and Adele had been separated. And, really...
"He kind of does," Meredith agreed. "I like it, though. It's very homey. Rustic, even. And it was really nice of him to offer it up for us."
"It was," Derek said. He glanced at the crooked lampshade once again, sighed, and reached to set it straight.
She smirked. Neat freak.
"It's got real food," she said as he continued to look around. They'd been expecting soup and things in the pantry after Richard had said it was fully stocked. On the way there, Derek had suggested that they rough it with whatever was available tonight, and then buy fresh food in the morning after they'd gotten some sleep, and she'd agreed. "Apparently, the Chief had a neighbor drop by with some perishable stuff like fruit," she continued. "Oh, and clean sheets and soap and stuff. There's a note on the fridge. It says call Ben if we have any problems, and there's a number on the sheet."
He sniffed, and he gazed at her. The cloudiness of recent sleep had receded, leaving only sharp, aware blue. "Who's Ben?"
She shrugged. "I don't know. The grocery fairy neighbor?"
"Hmm," he said, at which point, her stomach broke the silence with a burbling, obnoxious growl.
She blushed. "I guess I'm really hungry."
He nodded, and he rose to his feet with a grimace and stiff movements that told her his body was still asleep, even if his mind wasn't. He wiped his face with his hands again, reached toward the ceiling and stretched, stared for a moment, and then swallowed. "Well, let's fix that," he decided after a pause. "What was in the kitchen?"
"I don't know," she said as she rose to join him. "Kitchen stuff."
"Well, did the grocery fairy bring bread?"
"I don't know," she said. "Maybe. I saw bananas."
He glanced at her and gave her a wry grin. "Bananas are not bread," he informed her. He shook his head and plodded into the kitchen. She followed.
"I know that," she said. "I'm a doctor, you know."
"A doctor who can't cook or identify bread, apparently," he said with a soft chuckle as he pulled down a loaf of white Wonder Bread from the top of the refrigerator. The plastic crinkled. She hadn't even looked there. He stared at the package and grimaced. She couldn't help but smile. Not whole wheat. He would be slumming it with America's comfort food tonight.
"Normal people like crappy white bread, you know," she said. She leaned against the counter and gave him a sheepish grin as she watched him explore the large kitchen.
"Normal people aren't healthy," he countered with a haughty smirk. "That's why we're employed." He rifled through all the cabinets and then glanced at what was in the fridge. Beyond his thin frame, she saw milk and eggs and OJ and a pile other things that looked potentially edible, given preparation.
"Why do you want bread?" she said.
He turned and winked. "The better to feed you with," he said with a wolfish grin that lit up his whole face, and she wondered what that might mean. If he still wanted sex, now that he was feeling a bit better, after he plied her with a scrumptious dinner. Relief fluttered in her body. Even if she was over-interpreting, at least he felt better enough to smile like that. She just wished he could feel like that most of the time, again, rather than experiencing fleeting moments of normality.
Soon. She hoped. With Dr. Wyatt's help, and when the Paxil started to work.
She frowned as he pulled a jar of boysenberry jelly and some Skippy peanut butter from one of the cabinets. He pulled knives and plates loose next. "And that means..." she pondered as she stared and added everything together, "peanut butter and jelly?"
He nodded. "At this precise moment, it does."
That hardly seemed like a healthy, scrumptious meal to ply her with. Good in a pinch. But more her style than his. "Derek Shepherd makes peanut butter and jelly?" she said with incredulity as she wrapped her arms around his waist.
"Yes," he said. "Tonight, I do."
She watched as he pulled out bread. Enough to make one sandwich. Not two. She frowned. He hadn't ever gotten his appetite back since the shooting. She still had to remind him to eat. Time and time again. Like it just didn't occur to him to feed himself anymore. How weird would that be, to just... not be hungry. Ever. Even as you wasted away. "You should make two sandwiches," she said. She kissed his bicep.
"You're that hungry?" he said.
"No," she said. "Make one for yourself."
He didn't comment as he added two more slices of bread to the stack.
"That's not cooking, you know," she said as he slathered peanut butter on the first slice.
He paused. "Did I say it was?"
"You impugned my cooking skills earlier."
"You don't have any cooking skills to impugn," he replied.
She laughed and held him tightly. "Mean, mean man," she said as she pressed her face between his shoulder blades and kissed him through his shirt. The shirt felt soft against his lips, and his shoulder blades shifted and moved as he worked the peanut butter across the bread. The heat of his body made her feel warm inside. Warm and complete and happy.
"How is feeding my starving wife mean?"
"Come on. I can make a peanut butter sandwich," she said. "You could have just pointed me at the kitchen and let me fix it myself."
"I know. I just..." He paused. The knife clinked as he set it against the plate. He'd put peanut butter on two slices. "I wanted to..." He waved the knife in the air as he fought for the right words to explain his feelings. "But I don't think I'm up for elaborate right now."
She pressed her cheek against him and sighed. She could understand that. He'd driven for several hours, which was tiring by itself. Then he'd been scared witless and beset by panic that he'd fought against. Valiantly. He didn't think he could do something complicated, but he wanted to do something. Something for her. Something to show his Gary Clark ghost and his damaged self-esteem that he could function. Live. Be a man. Provide. Normally, she might have labeled that sort of behavior as some sort of alpha caveman jerk thing. But... not now. He needed something to prove to himself he wasn't omega and helpless. That he wasn't without choices.
She kissed him through his shirt again, only to pause. He hadn't closed the cabinet. Beyond the space from which he'd pulled the jelly, she saw a stack of familiar-looking bags full of fat marshmallows. White, puffy cylinders of sugary awesome.
"Oh," she exclaimed, and he stopped before he dipped his knife into the boysenberry jelly. "Oh, there's marshmallows in here!"
He raised his eyebrows at her as she pushed past him and grabbed one of the bags. He'd moved them into the kitchen, and he'd put the peanut butter on the bread. He'd done something. She hoped he wouldn't mind if she-
"So?" he said.
"We can make fluffernutters!"
"Fluffywhats?"
"Nutters."
The lascivious snicker on his face made her roll her eyes, but she couldn't help her grin. "You are so freaking five, Derek," she said. She gave him a light shove. "I can't take you anywhere."
He laughed. "What are fluffernutters?" he said.
She ripped open the marshmallow bag and dumped out several of the marshmallows. They were the big kind that you could put on sticks and roast to make s'mores. She'd always used a fork and roasted them over a candle, though. While her mother wasn't looking, anyway. Ellis Grey probably wouldn't have appreciated her smallish daughter playing with fire, of all things. Then again, she'd approved of a suture kit for a present when Meredith had been ten.
Looking back on it, that was sort of bad, wasn't it? Meredith filed that away as something not to do with baby. No sharp knives before baby was old enough to drive. She shook her head as her mind wandered back to the situation at hand.
On a hunch, Meredith glanced again at the open cabinet. Yep. Graham crackers and milk chocolate Hershey bars stacked in the back behind where the marshmallows had been. A grin she couldn't stop overtook her. They could do those, later, though. She tore a couple marshmallows to bits while he watched, and then littered them on the first piece of peanut buttered bread.
"Marshmallows and peanut butter," she explained as he watched her culinary burst with a touch of horror in his gaze. "Normally, we'd use marshmallow paste, which comes in a jar, actually, but marshmallows will have to do in the meantime." She paused and turned to him. "Unless you want to nuke these, so they melt?"
His expression was comical, and she couldn't help but snort with laughter at the way he stared at her concoction. Like she'd ruined his perfect sandwich by putting mud on it instead of jelly. "Melt the marshmallows?" he said.
"Yep! Melt."
"With peanut butter?" he said.
She nodded.
"That sounds..." He stared at the plate, looking thoroughly uninterested, and, maybe, a little sick.
"Bliss," she said. "Bliss on bread. You have to try it." She jammed the two pieces of bread together and shoved the sandwich at him. He frowned. "Come on. It won't kill you. I swear it won't. One bite." When he didn't budge, she gave him a pout-y face she knew he had trouble resisting. "Please? Please, Derek? Try it? It's great. I swear!"
With a look of doubt, he took the sandwich from her hands and raised it to his lips. Her heart fluttered. Victory! She stared as he bit into it and chewed.
"So, what do you think?" she said, anxious.
"This is..." He made a face and handed it back to her. At least he swallowed. "This is pretty disgusting, Mere. You eat these? As meals?"
She frowned. "It's a delicacy!"
"It's... marshmallow-y."
"Marshmallow-y," she said. "That's all you have to say? What is wrong with your taste buds?"
He chuckled as he picked up his knife and resumed making his own sandwich. A normal, ho-hum PB&J that made her want to weep with the injustice of it all. "My taste buds are perfect, thank you," he said.
She snorted. "Well, at least we know you're not completely defective, since we've established that you'll eat ice cream."
He put a finishing dollop of boysenberry jelly on the last slice of bread and smooshed the two remaining slices together. She bit into her marshmallow sandwich and chomped, the motions pronounced, as if she could prove a point. He glanced at her and shook his head, an amused smirk on his face.
"Remind me never to let you feed our kid," he said.
"I could so feed our kid!" she said. "I fed myself plenty when I was a kid. Therefore-"
His eyebrows raised. "You grew up on this?"
"I might have," she said indignantly.
"It's really kind of a miracle that you're this tiny," he said. He smirked, and his eyes roved her figure, up and down, appreciatively. "And alive."
"You, shut up," she said. "Jelly isn't that much healthier. It's solid sugar, and you're a hypocrite."
He shrugged. His eyes sparkled as he bit into his sandwich and chewed his first bite. He swallowed. "I'm actually kind of jealous of you. You eat like a garbage disposal, but you're the size of a pea."
She stuck her tongue out at him.
He laughed. "That's mature," he said.
She put her sandwich down and slid up against him with a smile. His body accommodated her presence almost like a sixth sense. She didn't see him move, but she just... fit with him. Like an interlocking piece. He took another bite of his sandwich. "You know what would make this perfect?" she said. She kept her voice deep. A low purr.
"It's not perfect already?" he said. "I thought you called it bliss."
She nodded. "It is bliss, but it could be blissier."
He stared. "Blissier."
"Yes," she said. "It's a word."
"A word you made up just now," he said with a wink.
"Whatever," she said, rolling her eyes. "More blissful. And we're never playing Scrabble, by the way."
He pouted as he chewed. "Not even strip Scrabble?" he said around a mouthful of sticky peanut butter, as though he couldn't wait to empty his mouth for that complaint.
She shook her head. "Not even."
He sighed with disappointment and swallowed. "So, what would make this more blissful?"
"Mmm," she moaned. She pressed her lips against his cheek, in his space and close. His breaths tightened. She ran her fingers through his hair and hovered by his ear. "Pickles," she whispered.
His eyes widened, and he dropped his sandwich on his plate. "Now?" he said, his tone incredulous, but what was funnier than his disbelief was the fact that she could tell he'd do it if she asked. Get pickles.
She couldn't stop herself from bursting out laughing. "No," she said, and his body deflated with relief. She kissed him. He would have gone back outside into the terrifying pitch blackness, braved a panic attack, gotten back into the car, and driven to find a freaking supermarket. For pickles. Because she was pregnant. And she'd asked. And that was just... adorable. Adorable, and she loved him. "No, I just wanted to see the look on your face," she said.
"And you say I'm mean," he replied, his eyes twinkling.
She nodded as she rested her head against his shoulder. "You are, but I love you, anyway."
He snickered. "No, I'd say you are. Abusing my willingness to get you odd food items in the wee hours."
"Maybe, we're both despicable," she said.
"You're despicable," he said, a playful grin on his face. "I'm not despicable. I was willing to get you pickles. Now, I'm not so sure. I think, maybe, I'll pick another replacement thought."
She pouted. "No more pickles?"
"Mmm. No. You've ruined pickles," he informed her. His lip brushed her ear, and he left his sandwich behind on the counter. Forgotten. "I'll take you to bed," he rumbled against her ear, and she shivered at his desirous tone.
"As your replacement thought?" she whispered. He kissed her, and she gasped.
"For real," he said.
For a moment, she stood senseless as he kissed her. Again, again, again. His mouth trailed along her throat, up her chin, and to her lips. Tasting. Searching. Wanting. Needing. Taking. A groan fell from his body, telling her that he'd found his dinner for the night. His delicacy. She was in his arms. Warm and solid, and she forgot her sandwich, too. Where had she put it? She couldn't even remember setting it down. She- He kissed her again, and she couldn't think about anything anymore, except the fact that she wanted him. She'd wanted him since he'd hit her with his first punch buggy sighting. Since before then, even. She'd always wanted him.
Since that first night in the bar when she'd tried to ignore him and his sexy red shirt and his horrible pickup lines and his cute arrogance. And, now, she had him. All to herself. No secret wife or nurse in the way. No mommy or daddy issues left to interfere. All whole and healed, herself. They were post-it married. And both breathtakingly alive with beating hearts and no physical wounds left to speak of. She was alone with him, and he was kissing her. Loving her.
She was his. She let him own her in that moment, and she liked it.
He backed her into the counter with a thud, pressed against her, dwarfed her. Retaking some ground in a war of love, she slid her hand along his soft shirt to the waistband of his pants and fingered the fat brass button that kept his lower body away from her and entrapped. She licked her lip and relished the taste of him. Derek-y with a bit of peanut butter and boysenberry.
She undid the top button of his jeans, and he groaned. She slipped her hands underneath the soft, fraying denim at his waistline, underneath the clinging waistband of his boxer briefs, and down. Down, down, down into warmth. Heat. He pressed against her and made a delightful, deep noise in his throat that told her yes. Yes, he liked that a lot. But he wasn't hard. At all. She cupped him, felt his weight in her hands, just like he liked, and he bucked a little. A plate clinked as he pushed her backward. She pressed her lips against his and swallowed his growl with a moan of her own. She stroked him, and he shuddered. But, still nothing.
"Derek, are you sure?" she said, her voice breathless, as she forced herself to pull away from his body enough to speak. The separation was a physical sort of pain, but the last thing she wanted was attempted sex that failed, because even though he'd pinky promised that he wouldn't get upset, she imagined he might get upset. Just a little. After the harrowing experience he'd had not even ninety minutes ago. And, if they failed, now, that didn't bode well for future attempts as his self-consciousness started to crush him like a bug.
"I was in the mood before," he said. He pressed himself against her hand. She gripped him. Nothing. "Maybe, I can get back into it."
She pulled her hand away and hugged him. She hated to say it. Not when her insides felt gooey and her breaths had shortened and she felt a bit dizzy with hedonist thoughts about making love to him, but, "Maybe, we should wait a bit," she whispered.
He pressed his nose against hers and sighed. "I want to get back into the mood," he said, his dark eyes millimeters from hers. "This yo-yoing kills me. Please, Meredith. I want to make love to my wife."
"I'm not saying we can't," she said. She kissed him. "But trying to force yourself to have sex after what just happened less than two hours ago wouldn't exactly help you with that emotional whiplash feeling."
He sighed. His frustration made her bite her lip. He kissed her forehead. "I know," he said, his voice tinged with regret. "I know that in my head, I just..." He shook his head and looked away, blinking. He growled with irritation, not lust.
"How about a bath instead of bed, first?" she said, a compromise.
He stared at her. "A bath?"
"Just to relax," she said. She kissed him. "Maybe, play a little. We'll see how you feel afterward."
"We don't even know if this place has a bath," he said.
She frowned. "How could it not have a bath?"
"Because it's a cabin," he said. "It might only have a shower."
"I refuse to allow this cabin to have only a shower," she said.
Derek chuckled. Soft. Not with gusto, but light amusement. "Too much like camping for you?" he said.
She made a face.
"Well, let's see, shall we?" he said. He grabbed her hand and pulled at her, and she relaxed as he consigned himself to this new non-lusty plan. Their footsteps thunked on the hardwood floor. There was an alcove to the left in the short hallway, where an old washer and dryer sat. The hallway ended in two doors, one on the right, and one at the end. The door on the right? Bingo. She flipped on the light. Bright circular bulbs flashed on over the vanity at the sink. A heat lamp in the ceiling also flicked on.
Her eyes widened as she stared. The shower was the size of a house by itself, or, well, a shed, at least. It was about six by six feet with sliding glass doors. Two fat metal shower heads the size of dinner plates pointed downward onto a tiled floor. And there was definitely a freaking tub.
"Oh," she said with a gasp as she took in the sight of it all. Derek slid up behind her and peered into the room over her shoulder. "Oh, wow. This is..."
"A giant pit," Derek said.
"A whirlpool tub," she corrected as she stared at the huge platform by a large half-frosted window that looked out into darkness at the top. The tub looked like a small pool and was surrounded by a tile platform where they could stack towels and candles and other relevant things. Huge, fluffy white towels and washcloths adorned the shiny towel racks against the far wall, and the room smelled slightly of fresh soap. Her nostrils fluttered as she stared at the rose-colored bar of soap in the dish by the big window on the ledge around the tub. The soap matched the pastel-colored tiles.
I bought it sight unseen, the Chief had told her as he'd given her the keys. Almost as if he'd been a little embarrassed about it. She'd wondered why at the time. This bathroom? Probably why. It was obscene. And pink. And not a freaking bachelor pad bathroom by any stretch of the imagination.
"Definitely not what I was expecting," Derek said, his voice airy.
"Oh, my god," she said as she stared at the luxurious bathroom. Derek's grip tightened around her body. He kissed her ear. "I want to take a bath. Please, please, can we take a bath? It'll be fun and relaxing and... it's a whirlpool tub!" She turned into him and kissed his lips before he could reply. She bounced. Just a little. She couldn't help it. This was bounce-worthy.
"Are you sure it's safe?" he said when they parted. His gaze seemed apologetic, as though he were reluctant to dampen her excitement.
She frowned. "Why wouldn't it be safe?"
His warms hands roamed low against her belly. He rubbed her shirt. Instinct drove her to lean against him as he said in that soft voice of his, "The baby."
"Oh," she said. Her forehead crinkled with consternation. "Oh, um..." There was a freaking whirlpool tub, and if she couldn't take a freaking bath in it, she might cry. And then yell at him for his super-powered bully sperm. And, maybe, pout a little. But... "Well, I can't imagine it being bad if it's not too hot. Aren't the problems from... like... hot tubs?"
He shrugged. The concern in his gaze didn't lift. "I don't know. I fix brains, not unborn babies."
Unborn babies couldn't sweat because they were swimming in a uterus. Hot tubs tended to cook unborn babies. A sliver of fear ran through her as she tried to remember the facts from her neonatal cases, some long ago with Addison. She couldn't remember any specifics as her mind raced for answers, and she had no way to check for information. She pouted at him. "Derek, I want the Internet."
His gaze softened as he stared at her. "And a bath?"
"The Internet and a bath," she said with a nod. "Yes."
"Why don't you run the water?" he said. He gave her a so-so motion with his right hand. "Not too hot, yet." He turned back toward the hallway. "I'll be back in a minute."
She frowned. "Where are you going?"
He looked over his shoulder and winked. "Just... run the water," he said, and he gave her a secretive smile that made her curious. The Internet was not like pickles. He couldn't just run to a convenience store for that. Could he?
She snickered as she imagined him wandering back into the bathroom tomorrow morning, bedraggled and tired as he dragged a new shiny laptop and a router in with him. Look, Mere, he'd say. I found a Best Buy. And it only took me eight hours and three laps around the lake!
"Okay..." she said, shaking off that image in her head as he disappeared down the hall. She leaned across the porcelain void, fiddled with the shiny hot and cold knobs, and let the water warm up from freezing. She stared at the pit as it filled with water and giggled with anticipation. A whirlpool tub! She licked her lips. A whirlpool tub. With Derek. She sat on the tile ledge around the tub and stared at the water as it swirled to fill the huge, bath-tubby abyss.
Derek returned in about five minutes. "It's safe as long as the water isn't hotter than you are, and we don't stay in it until we're shriveled prunes," he announced as though he were quoting somebody directly. There was something familiar about his phrasing...
"So, we keep it low 90s and limit ourselves to less than thirty minutes or so?" she said.
He nodded. "Yes."
"Where'd you find that out?" She combed her spread fingertips through the frothy water. It felt good. Not hot. Definitely not cold. Perfect. She turned on the jets. "Did you get me the Internet?"
He winked as he sat on the edge of the tub with her and pulled at his shoelaces and slipped off his shoes. "I'm a miracle man," he said with an arrogant smirk.
She laughed. "No, really," she said. "Where-"
"I called Miranda."
She gaped. "Bailey?"
"I owe her charts for a month," he said.
"For her telling us we can take a bath?"
He shrugged, but his eyes sparkled. "She doesn't like knowing I have sex, apparently."
"But we're not having sex right now," she said.
"We'll be naked in a bathtub," he countered. "I think that's enough for her sensibilities. She says congratulations, by the way." He frowned. "Or rather, 'Congratulations, fools. Now, leave me alone, so I can fix this poor man's liver and not think about the specifics of how that baby happened.'"
Meredith blinked at his impersonation. Really, he did a good job at it. "You called Bailey," she said, not a question, yet. She glanced at her watch. "At 8:30 PM. To ask about unborn baby safety? How did you know she was working tonight?"
He shrugged and winked. "I didn't. I risked it. And I didn't break the cellphone rule, either. I used the land line."
The fact that he knew Bailey's number by heart made Meredith smile. Dr. Bailey had visited him every day in the hospital for at least a few minutes, more than anybody else outside of his family and Mark. She'd even come across town once to see Derek when he'd been at Seattle Presbyterian with pneumonia. For all their claims to the contrary, those two were thick as thieves, and the fact that Derek had thought of Bailey instead when he probably knew Addison's number as well made Meredith smile more. Bailey wasn't a world-renowned neonatal specialist or an OB-GYN. She was, however, a mom and a doctor that he apparently trusted to know the answer.
"She likes you, you know," Meredith said.
Derek grinned. "Everybody likes me," he said. She rolled her eyes as he slid across the tiled ledge. Closer to her. He kissed her ear and whispered over the rushing water, "You like me."
"I do," she said. The tub was almost full. She bent to begin undressing, but he stopped her with a look. The look. His look. The one that made her feel special and loved and perfect despite all her flaws and all her problems and all her freakishness. She leaned into him and raised her arms as he lifted her shirt. His warm palms slid up her bare skin and cupped her breasts over her bra. She moaned as she relaxed into his arms. He undressed her as though he were unwrapping a present, intent on saving the paper because it was pretty and perfect, but he marveled over the present, too.
She stared through her eyelashes, drunk on the sensation of being pampered, as he put her socks on the pile with her pants and her shirt and her underwear and her bra. "Well," she said as she languished at the side of the tub, "I'm naked. Now, what will you do with me?"
He grinned at her and let her watch as he undressed. Slowly, as if to tantalize her. She licked her lips as the blue of his threadbare shirt became pale skin, and his pants fell away from his slim hips into a denim pool on the floor. His biceps bunched and flexed as he moved. Curly, wispy hair dusted his torso in a triangle at his chest, covering most of the harrowing, pinkish scar where he'd been split open by Cristina. The bullet wound remained sharp and ugly and pocked under his left nipple, but... she barely saw it as she basked in the sight of his naked body.
He didn't seem to favor the marks left by his injuries anymore. Didn't hunch over them or hide them. He might not like them, but at least he'd grown a bit more comfortable with them, or at least comfortable with the fact that, even if he found them ugly, she wouldn't balk at them or look at his body with horror or pity. She looked at him, yes. But horror and pity were the last things on her mind.
Her mouth dried as she trailed along the flat plane of his stomach with her gaze, to the twist of dark curls below his belly button, and lower. Even flaccid, she found him pretty impressive, or maybe that was just the knowledge of what he could do with what he had. He wasn't small, not hardly. But he wasn't large, either. They fit, exactly as he'd said that day on the couch when they'd found out together that she was pregnant. They fit, and that was all that mattered to her. The toned swell of his quads and his sleek calves completed the picture. Artwork. Her body twitched, and she inhaled tightly in anticipation as she stared at the tapestry of him. Of Derek Shepherd.
All hers.
He flashed a grin at her, and her heart skipped. She swallowed, trying to recover her wits, but that was a hard thing to do when he looked at her like that. He had an irresistible smile, which was one of the reasons she loved when he was happy and at peace, and one of the reasons she hadn't been able to ignore him at the bar when she'd been just a girl, and he'd been just a guy.
They climbed into the warm water together and sank down to the bottom. The tub was deep, and the swirling, moving water enveloped her up to her shoulders. The water was warm, but not hot. Perfect. He spread his legs and pulled her against him between his knees, her back to his chest, where she rested, relaxing in his wet embrace. His kneecaps offered support for her arms. She gripped him, and she rubbed her thumbs against his shins. He sighed as she twisted her fingers with the soft, wet hairs peppering his legs.
He was still flaccid. She could feel him mashed at her lower back along her spine. That thought remained in a cobwebby corner of her mind, somewhere. Fleeting. But she stopped thinking about it so much when he lathered a washcloth and rubbed her with it until she thought she might slip down the drain when they unstopped it, boneless and fluid in the churning water.
"Thank you," she said, her voice sleepy and soft as he worshiped her head to toe without involving a single kiss, a streak he then broke almost as if he'd read her mind. She felt his lips graze her throat, and she listened to his breathing, soft and sure, as he tasted her skin.
"For what?" he whispered by her ear. The washcloth rasped. Water dripped.
"Just... thank you," she said. She let him do what he wanted. He'd worked her into a pile of goo, and she couldn't bring herself to care much beyond the fact that she didn't want the goo feeling to ever end. They hadn't done this in a while. Well, they'd taken a bath or two. But not like this.
He rubbed her nipples with his soapy thumbs until they perked. She moaned, and his touch slipped lower. He kissed her neck and rested the flat of his palms against her belly. Her stomach at first, and then he sidled lower and lower, until the edges of his pinkies brushed the wiry hair down there. She put her palms over his and held him close.
"Can you tell, yet?" she said.
The water sloshed as he shifted. Not enough to disturb her much. "That you're pregnant?" he said.
"Yeah, I mean..."
He nuzzled her. "Well, you can't possibly be more than six weeks along," he said, his voice a soft slip of fur down her spine. She tingled. "We've only been having sex since mid-July."
"I know," she said. They'd missed the fireworks, she thought in a blur. The literal ones, anyway. How had they missed so much? "I still look the same to me. Even the so-called bustyness."
"You're not that much bigger," he said. His knees squeezed against her sides, and he cocooned her. "I told you I wouldn't have said anything, yet."
"Still," she said. She pressed his hands against her. "Can you tell?"
"I can't tell, yet," he replied. "Other than the fact that since we found out, I can't look at you without knowing. I..." His voice trailed away. A soft noise filled her ear as she listened to him swallow. She turned her head and leaned back against his pale shoulder.
"What?"
She kissed his wet skin.
A sigh that moved her body with it rumbled through him. The water swirled around them. She watched the ripples chase along the filmy surface. Their bodies reflected in a soft shimmer. "You make me so happy," he said, his voice thick and low and choked up with... everything.
She smiled as she languished in that feeling. That he loved her so much that he felt like that, just thinking about the fact that they'd made another person together in an act of love. She squeezed his hands. "You're not so bad yourself, you know," she said.
"I love you so much," he murmured.
She leaned, and she kissed his kneecap. Water dripped as she resettled. "Ditto," she whispered.
Moments passed. The water sloshed, and the whirlpool jets whirred. "When do you think we...?" she began, soft words against his skin.
"Conceived?" he finished for her, as though he simply... understood. No matter what kind of freaky off-topic thing she could come up with, he would always get her. That was his thing. Getting her. She loved that about him.
"Yeah," she said, swallowing.
"Hmm."
"I think it was the night before the memorial," she said. He'd been happy that night because he'd managed a bit more athleticism than their first few couplings since the shooting, and he hadn't needed any timeouts or assistance righting himself out of a position that caused him pain. She closed her eyes as she remembered the taste of him, and the sound of his soft groans as he filled her body to the brim. Her lower body fluttered at the simple thought of it. Of him. Filling her. Her breath caught.
As if he sensed her sudden desire, his hands moved. At first, she wanted to die with the abandonment as the warmth of his palms against her belly left her, but he slipped down through her forest of wiry curls and lower, and he touched her there. At the fluttery spot. She gasped, and she stiffened against him. "Derek," she managed, her voice a choked whisper as he wrung her senses out like a wet washcloth.
He kissed her ear as he stroked her. Need built in her body, slow and coiling. "I think you're wrong," he said, his voice low and challenging, and she couldn't think straight to ask him why or what about. He touched her, and she mewled in his arms.
"Derek," she said again, helpless as he played her like his violin.
"I think it was the first time," he said as she gasped and shuddered.
The first time, she thought. The words filled her brain like a soupy oatmeal and refused to coalesce. She couldn't think. She couldn't speak. She scrabbled at his knees, and he laughed against her ear as he leaned over her, his larger body dwarfing hers. He laughed, and the sound vibrated against her body like heady, thick music. Her head swirled like the water as she fought for breath. Air. Something.
His sigh rolled against her ear, and his arms enveloped her like a warm coat. He pulled her against his body, until her skin slipped against his, naked and wet and strangely frictionless in the slippery fluidity of the water. She sucked in a breath, leaned back, into him, and she couldn't breathe as her body tightened. She could only moan to tell him yes. Yes, that was good. That was perfect. She moaned like she was dying. Was she dying? Yes, yes, yes.
He kept her on that painful, perfect precipice for... hours. Days. Years. Eternity. He touched her, working his magic, and then she died in his arms for real, and yet only metaphorically. La petite mort. That was what the French called orgasms, right? Little deaths. It didn't freaking matter. The phrase was appropriate. Bliss squeezed her brain. Everything popped loose at once. Her body twitched like she'd been zapped with lightning, and then she became a pile of jelly and boneless limbs in his arms. Unmoving. Languishing in stupor. Pleased to the point of malfunctioning synapses. Her eyelids drooped, and he held her, not speaking.
This was the most perfect freaking bath. Ever.
She lay against his arms, not moving, and her awareness of the room blurred. Exhaustion overcame her. She'd just had the most amazing orgasm she could recall in months, and she'd been working nonstop all week, and she just... Couldn't. Couldn't do anything anymore but enjoy his body close to hers and let her brain shut down.
She moaned when he shifted, and he whispered gently in her ear, "Mere, we've been in here about forty minutes."
Forty minutes? How? Already?
She didn't want to move. Or think. Or anything. He turned off the jets. The drain gurgled, and the warmth surrounding her drained away. He slipped his arms underneath her body, and the world skewed as he lifted her.
She had the presence of mind to croak at him. He hadn't lifted that much since before he'd been shot. "No," she moaned. "You'll hurt..."
"I'm okay," he said, his voice strained but even. He panted, but he didn't seem to struggle too much with her weight, and she stopped caring as much as he wrapped a billowing, fluffy towel around her lax body. The world skewed again.
"Derek..."
"Really, I'm okay," he said, and he sounded sure, but not defiant, and no pain laced his tone. "I can carry you ten feet. Maybe, not eleven, though."
She was too spent to argue, and she curled up in the towel and against his chest. In the blur, she thought she saw the hallway, and then things got dark again. Bedroom? He laid her flat on cool, clean sheets that smelled like Downy fabric softener or something. The mattress squeaked as he joined her. He pulled fluffy blankets and a soft, light down comforter over them. He wrapped his arms around her, spooning her. He stroked her hair, and he breathed against her ear. They lay naked together under the sheets.
Somewhere, in her grogginess, she flopped her hand against his bare hip, underneath the blankets. "Mmm," she said. She felt him against her. Ready where he hadn't been before. Thick and pressed against her spine like a steel rod. "Sex?" She swallowed. "Don't mind." She'd just lie there. He could still have fun.
He laughed. "I'll wait until you're conscious, if it's all the same to you." He kissed her ear. "I'm okay."
He meant it. She knew he meant it from his tone. He'd done more than make a freaking sandwich for her. He'd kicked his shoddy self-esteem's ass. He'd needed that, and he was happy. Pleased. Sated, though unsated.
She rolled, turning the spoon into a fork, and she pressed her nose into his chest. Soft fuzz tickled her nose. "Kay," she muttered sleepily. She kissed him. Her lips touched the dent where his sternum had knitted underneath his skin. Her eyelids creaked open as she realized a bit more about their surroundings. He'd wrapped himself around her tightly like a cloak, her own personal Derek cloak, and though it was nice, it seemed it was also a necessity. "This bed is really small," she said abruptly.
He kissed her again. "Yes," he said. "Our very own microcosm."
"Huh?"
"Bachelor pad, remember?" Derek said. The blankets rustled. "It's a double bed."
She didn't wake up enough to contemplate it, much. They'd fit together in a hospital bed, and that'd been a single, though that had had railings, and... Did it matter? The room turned fuzzy again. The warmth of his body pulled her toward dreaming like quicksand. She yawned and breathed the musky, soapy, clean scent of his body. "If I'm right," she said, "You have to eat a fluffernutter."
He laughed, soft against her body. "Right about what?"
"I think it was the night before the memorial," she murmured.
He stroked her back. "Okay, Mere," he said.
"You'll eat one?"
She felt him nod. "If you're right," he said.
"I am," she replied.
"If I win," he said, and she felt him smile in the darkness, "I'm eating you, though."
She fell asleep in his arms to that thought, and dreams of him naked shimmered in her head like the reflections on the whirlpool water.