Derek woke up the next morning and smiled when he looked down to see Meredith cuddled up against his chest, both of them wrapped up in the flannel blanket on the floor in front of the now extinguished fire. He hugged her, bringing her closer to him, causing her to stir. "Mmm…good morning," she said without opening her eyes.

"Good morning beautiful," he said as he kissed the top of her head.

"Ahem."

Derek turned his head to see his parents standing behind the couch in the loft. "Oh shit."

"What?" Meredith asked, still half asleep. She followed Derek's gaze and saw a man and a women in their early fifties standing a few feet away. "Oh." She blushed and Derek started laughing.

"Uh hi Mom, Dad. Uh, can you give us a few minutes?"

"We'll be downstairs," his mom said as she turned around.

As soon as Derek saw his parents leave, he wrapped the blanket around his waist, handed the robe back to Meredith, and ran back to his room to change. "Well, that was humiliating. What a way to make an introduction," Meredith said annoyed.

"Sorry about that. I didn't know they would be coming here today."

"That seems to be a theme with you this weekend." Meredith grabbed a pair of jeans, changed out of her slip, and threw on her grey Dartmouth long sleeve shirt.

"Okay, you have to admit that was a little funny."

"Yeah, what a great first impression: 'Hi, I'm Meredith, the girl who screwed your son all last night and you walking in on this morning.'"

"Okay, first of all," Derek said as he threw on a pair of pants, "it's not like they actually walked in on us in the act. Secondly, we were pretty well covered in the blanket, and you had your slip on, so for all they know we fell asleep in front of the fire—they don't need to know that we had sex. Thirdly, they'll love you regardless." Meredith rolled her eyes as she ran a brush through her hair. "Are you ready to meet them for real now?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"No, not really. You'll eventually have to leave this room, and when you do they'll want to meet the girl I've told them so much about."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously."

"Fine, let's get this over with." They left his room and Derek put an encouraging arm around Meredith's waist as they walked down the stairs to the kitchen where his parents were making coffee.

"Hi Mom," he said as he went over and gave his mom a kiss on the cheek and Meredith sat down at the island.

"Hi sweetie, I made you some coffee, just the way you like it." She poured Derek a cup and handed it to him.

"Thanks, Mom. Mom, I'd like you to meet my girlfriend Meredith. Meredith, this is my mom, Carolyn Shepherd."

"Hi Meredith, it's so great to finally meet you! I've heard a lot of good things about you." Carolyn handed Meredith a cup of coffee and smiled.

Meredith couldn't tell if his mom was being sarcastic or not, but she seemed to be a nice woman. "It's nice to meet you too." She sipped her coffee.

"Mom, where's Dad?"

"Oh, he's bringing things in from the car." Just as she said that, Derek's father walked in.

"Oh Dad—this is Meredith. Meredith, this is my dad, Joseph."

"You can call me Joe," he said as he put the suitcases next to wall and shook Meredith's hand. "So, how did you two meet?"

Meredith looked over at Derek and blushed. "Go ahead, Meredith." Derek said, smiling.

She shot him a powerful look, and then started talking. "Well, um…it was my first night at Dartmouth, and my roommate and another one of our friends decided to go to this fraternity party across the street. I met Derek randomly at the beginning of the party, then my roommate got tired and so we were getting ready to leave, but I ran into Derek again before I had the chance to leave, so my friend took my roommate back and I stayed and talked with Derek for awhile. Then it got late, so he walked me back to my dorm."

Derek chuckled at her blatant omission from the story. "Then it turned out I was her TA in her organic chem lab, and then we kept running into each other, so we decided to start going out."

"And that's not against the University rules?" Carolyn asked.

"No, not really. It's not like I'm her professor, and in two weeks I won't be her TA anymore, either."

"Oh, okay then."

They spent the rest of the morning talking and getting to know Meredith, and they seemed to genuinely like her. "Derek, she seems really sweet," his mom said when they were alone in the kitchen cleaning up. "I really like her—aside from my first impression of her, but she seems like a nice girl. Don't screw it up."

"Haha, thanks Mom. And I won't."