Disclaimer: I would love to get Grey's Anatomy for Christmas. Because I don't currently own it but it would make for one kick ass present.

Oh my god, I am so sorry that this took forever and a day to post. It's been ready for a while and then I got busy and then I had issues signing into (did anyone else find it impossible to sign in for like 3 weeks? or was it just me?) and then the Christmas rush started and anyway, sorry sorry sorry. But here is the next update if anyone is still reading, hahaha. This fic is nearly done and I will try to do better with keeping my next one updated often.

Enjoy!


Meredith wasn't avoiding.

She wasn't sure what she was doing but she wasn't avoiding her best friend, ex-boyfriend, man she was pretty sure she was still in love with or whatever it was Derek could be called now. Avoiding would suggest that she was going out of her way not to see him and ignoring phone calls and she had just been busy. Busy and not going out of her way to see him; which was clearly very different than going out of her way not to see him. Besides she hadn't actually heard from him in the last few days because he was busy too.

Probably planning his wedding to someone that wasn't her.

But she wasn't bitter and she wasn't avoiding even though she wasn't quite sure how to face him since their last kiss and the cuddling on the bed and she had no idea what to say to him besides declaring her insanely undying love, but it didn't mean she was avoiding. She was just doing groceries.

"If looks could kill, that cereal would be dead," her sister's voice cut into her non-avoiding thoughts.

"It is dead. It's a box of cereal, Lex."

"Than why are you looking at it like you want it to die?"

"I was just...thinking and it was there, thinking about things and I don't want the cereal to die, or what I was thinking about, definitely don't want what I was thinking about do die."

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah...I'm fine...I'm fine," Meredith nodded, taking the already dead box of cereal and throwing it into the cart. She was fine. She wasn't avoiding and really, going for groceries with her sister was actually totally healthy and probably meant she was more than fine. Talking to Lexie was good, especially since the last time she had spoken to Derek he had sworn that Mark Sloan claimed to be dating Lexie and Meredith figured if there was anytime to talk to your sister it was when she started dating a manwhore. "Are you?"

"Why wouldn't I be fine?"

"Because you're dating Mark Sloan," Meredith shrugged, grabbing for a box of cereal bars.

"I...no...I...that's not...how do you...Derek...Mark told Derek and Derek told you," Lexie breathed. "Crap."

"Crap is right."

"It's...you don't know him," Lexie frowned. "Or you do, I know you know him but you don't know him know him and if you did, he's actually really great and amazing and..."

"Even Derek calls him a manwhore."

"But he loves him."

"Are you...do you love him?"

"No. No. Yes. Maybe. I think, in the future I could love him and don't...you don't know him so don't look at me like that, you don't...if you knew him, you'd get it."

"But he's a manwhore."

"He was a manwhore, no he...when he asked me out I told him I wouldn't go out with him unless he swore to stop sleeping with anyone else and maybe I'm naive to believe him but he...he's nota manwhore anymore."

"I...I don't think you're being naive, but he's..." Meredith sighed, turning around the corner with her cart and bumping immediately into another, jumping at the loud crash as the metal caging banged together. "Oh god, I am so..."

She would know those dark curls anywhere.

"I wasn't even paying attention..." the dark curls breathed, looking up slowly from the ground that he had apparently been paying attention to, his eyes growing wide and for a second they looked soft or something but Meredith was pretty sure she imagined that. The not avoiding the man who's cart she had just bumped into was driving her crazy. "Oh...hey."

"Hey."

"I was...busy...I've been..." he sighed, his eyes moving back toward the ground before looking up again. "How are you?"

"I'm good," Meredith nodded quickly. "Busy...busy."

"It's been...a crazy couple of days," he shrugged and Meredith was pretty sure she almost believed him. He didn't actually have a reason to avoid her, he wasn't the one in love with a person that was engaged to another person but he looked tired and stressed and his eyes definitely weren't sparkling right now. She fought the insane urge to hug him and tell him everything was going to be all right because she wasn't sure it was, and she wasn't sure she could ever let go if she let herself hug him. "Just...crazy days."

"We could...drinks?"

"Drinks?"

"Not...not right now because shopping and it's not even five so drinks would be bad but later, later we could go have drinks and you could talk about what...the craziness or...the craziness."

See, not avoiding.

"You want to..." he breathed, his eyes growing maybe even a little wider, the blue piercing through even though the lightning in the grocery store was crappy. And then he closed them quickly and took a deep steadying breath before opening his eyes again. "Yeah, that would be good."

"Unless you..."

"No," he shook his head quickly. "I want to. I've been meaning to call."

"So have I," she giggled softly.

"Drinks would be good," he nodded, smiling and that odd softness returning to his eyes.

"Good."

"Hmmm..."

"I should...go," Meredith sighed, gesturing to her partially full grocery cart as she turned to find Lexie.

In deep conversation with Mark.

"Or not," Derek laughed.

"Great," Meredith groaned and then shook her head. "Not that...I mean, it's not great that I'm with you or not...and...just...that's weird."

"No kidding."

"She...she claims he's not sleeping with anyone else anymore."

"He claims the same thing," Derek murmured, shaking his head slightly. "Never thought I'd see the day when Mark Sloan was a one woman man."

"He used to have more than one woman in one night," she giggled.

"He did," Derek laughed.

Meredith nodded but let silence fall between them as she glanced back at her sister, in the arms of a manwhore. Or not because apparently he wasn't anymore and if Meredith was going to be honest she had always actually liked Mark despite how he was and maybe it was good that he had finally settled down. It would be better if it wasn't her little sister but they at least looked happy and in love, standing in the middle of the grocery store completely oblivious to everything including the awkwardness that was Meredith and Derek.

Maybe she had been avoiding.

Because she glanced back at Derek and all she could see was how sad and stressed he looked and even though she had no idea what was causing it right now, besides being engaged to someone he didn't love, she couldn't help but want to kiss him and hug him and tell him things that she had never even told a guy since she had told him years ago and it was all insane. But she couldn't do that so instead she was looking at him in silence, and he wasn't meeting her eyes and it was all incredibly awkward and she hated it so maybe avoiding would have been the right thing to do all along.

"How Madie?" she suddenly blurted out.

"Madie?"

"Your...you fiancée," she murmured, finding the word actually almost a little painful.

"Oh...she's...good, I haven't really...busy with work and she's busy with wedding planning so I haven't seen her much."

"She's wedding planning without you," she murmured.

"Yeah."

"Der...you need to...you need to talk to her."

"I know."

"Because you...and I...you just need to talk to her," she whispered, grabbing for his arm, because it wasn't a hug but it still felt like the most natural thing in the world to do. "You just...you need to let her know that you...you're not...you need to talk to her."

"Hmmm..."

"You're miserable, Der."

"I know," he laughed harshly. "I'm working on it."

"Okay," she nodded, her hand moving up and down his arm, rubbing the strong muscle. "Good."

"I should...drag Mark away," Derek sighed, pointing to a carton in her cart. "Or else your strawberry ice cream's going to melt and that could be a national disaster."

"That would be really bad," she giggled.

"Mer..." he murmured, suddenly turning to look at her and Meredith hated thinking it but she was pretty sure her heart stopped as their eyes met. They were sparkling again, at least a little and they didn't look nearly as wide and suddenly he didn't look nearly as stressed out. A million cheesy things ran through her head, things she knew she would kick herself for later, but right now she never wanted to move again. She could just keep looking at him, watching his blue eyes and the expression change on his face. Cheesy, annoying, crappy thought that she never thought ever. He smiled slightly, the look in his eyes shifting to something she couldn't even out her finger on but it had her leaning into him, as his hand moved, his fingers playing over the line of her jaw, his touch soft. "Mer.."

"Derek," she breathed, a hand moving to rest on his chest, where his heart was thudding hard. She bit her lip and looked down, hoping to avoid a gasp or a groan of pleasure at his feather soft touch or anything else that might give away how her entire body trembled as his hand cupped her cheek with a gentleness that years ago he hadn't possessed. He laughed softly, shifting to be closer to her and despite the sudden heat rushing over her body, she looked back up.

Their eyes met.

Everything stopped.

"I'll...I'll call you later about the drinks," he murmured, stepping back, his hand falling from it's place against her cheek, effectively ending the spell or whatever it had been.

"Oh...I...okay," she nodded quickly.

"I will," Derek smiled slightly, the hand now working its way through his curls.

"I know where you live if you don't," she giggled.

"I know," he laughed softly. "And Mer...I ...this...you..."

"It's...go," she breathed. "Go and we'll...later or something, you can...go and later."

"Definitely later," he nodded.

"Later."

"Come on, Mark," Derek sighed. "Break it up before we have to get the cold water."

"Hey, we're just talking," Mark frowned, pulling back from Lexie. "No need to bring out the cold water...not for me at least."

"Mark, we're going," Derek groaned, shaking his head as he pulled at Mark's arm and shoved him along. "You'll see Lexie later."

"This is just rude."

"Yeah, yeah, complain to Mom," Derek sighed, pushing Mark forward again and turning to look over his shoulder quickly at Meredith. "Bye."

"Bye," Meredith murmured, turning to walk down the aisle as Lexie said her goodbyes and moved behind her.

She hasn't been avoiding, she honestly hadn't been.

And she could still feel his soft touch along her jaw, she could still smell him and feel the warm and strong presence of him that came with leaning into him. She moved quickly down the aisle, quickly away from him and none of it was fading, none of it was going away.

But somehow, between the last time they had hung out, the last time they had had a marathon phone conversation and been completely and normally them, something had shifted, not only when they had looked at each other but something had just shifted completely and it left her breathless and shaky and she couldn't stop feeling him. Even though now everything between them had felt awkward.

In the most amazing way.

Because it wasn't that they had nothing to say. She was pretty sure they had too much to say, and just no way knowing how to say it.

I'm not ready, I'm not ready
for the weight of us, for the weight of us