Before I get into this chapter, I want to thank you all for being so patient with updates. I hit a bit of writer's block with the story, and it wasn't until just these past few days, and more specifically tonight at midnight (as I write this it is 3:30am), with the help of my friend NotAnSvuFanPage on twitter, that I was finally able to really hit my writing stride with this chapter and finish it. So, a huge thanks to her for writing a lot of the second half of this chapter. I don't know if I could've finished the chapter without her help.
Between the lack of Hayes in recent episodes, finals, plus a disability and an illness that like to flare up every few days, I've mainly been writing one-shots, headcannons, and prompts. Things that are making me happy in the moment. If you want to read them, I would highly suggest following my tumblr page merwxdows, where I post one-shots quite frequently. I also post a lot of headcannons and mini-fics on my twitter, under the same username as my tumblr.
Finally, this is your warning now – because of the content in this chapter, the rating of this fic has been upgraded to MATURE. If you are in any way uncomfortable reading mature content, I would skip this chapter. I will be putting warnings in front of any mature chapters I post from here on out. Once again, thank you all for your patience. I hope to release 2 more chapters before the New Year, but I will have to see how life decides to treat me in the next few weeks. Chapter 10 of Begin Again is very long, to hopefully make up for the lack in updates recently. Enjoy.
"Austin and Liam are with their aunt for the weekend… would you be able to/ be interested in maybe spending the night? I've missed you." Was the text Meredith received from Hayes on an otherwise regular Friday evening. It'd been 3 weeks since they'd made their relationship official, and while they tried to stop by each other's offices as often as possible, work had been separately running them both mad, which meant they hadn't worked together or seen each other outside of work more than a couple times since the dinner party. For once, things worked out in Meredith's favour. Maggie wasn't on-call and was able to watch the kids for her. She hadn't told the young trio about Hayes yet, since she wanted him to be with her when she did. Unfortunately, their schedules hadn't necessarily allowed for it. So, of course, Mer jumped on the opportunity to finally spend some quality alone time with Hayes. She explained the situation very briefly to Maggie, came up with an excuse to tell her kids since they didn't know about the relationship yet, and began to get herself ready to leave.
20 minutes later, Meredith had packed everything she assume she'd need for a night over at her boyfriend's house. If she was being honest with herself, she felt quite a bit like a teenager in the moments when she thought about how excited she was to see him and be alone with him. It felt like she was sneaking around, trying not to get caught. But no, she was a grown ass adult with children, in a new but committed relationship. And she was having a sleepover at his house.
Mer decided against dressing up. She didn't assume the night would involve anything that required her to look fancy, so she dressed down and comfortable instead. 45 minutes after getting Hayes' first text, Meredith was hugging her children goodbye and on her way to his house, 15 minutes away. At 5:45pm, Meredith knocked on his door. He was dressed down as well. Thank god.
He opened the door, and she stepped inside, closing the door behind her. "I'm glad luck was on our side tonight; I truly have missed seeing you for longer than 10 minutes." He told her as they hugged tightly, like it'd been the first time they'd seen each other in months. "Me too." She said, smiling at him earnestly after releasing from their hug. She glanced quickly around his house and in his kitchen, spotted baking ingredients scattered across his counter. She looked back at him. "What were you doing before I got here?" She asked, pointing to the mess in the kitchen. Cormac looked over and laughed, forgetting about the atrocity that was his kitchen.
"Ah, that, yeah – there's a kid on the peds floor that's going to be stuck there for a while, his birthday is tomorrow, he was supposed to have a big birthday party. I usually try to make cupcakes or cookies for those kinds of kids if they can handle it, so they have some semblance of a normal birthday. I figured that we could work on it together while we wait for the pizza I ordered to get here." He explained. Meredith knew from Arizona and Alex that peds surgeons went above and beyond for their patients, but she couldn't help but admire just how much this man truly cared for every single one of his patients. She was practically speechless. So, she just kissed him instead, and followed it up with, "You're the best, you know that?" He laughed at her remark.
"I'll try my best to help, but I have to warn you now, I'm not known to be very good at baking or anything along those lines." He smirked and chuckled at that statement as well. "Ah, c'mon Grey, it can't be that hard. Just follow the instructions and we should have smooth sailing." He told her, taking her purse and putting it on the couch. "Should is the key word there." Meredith said through a laugh as she entered the kitchen. She took a look at the recipe she'd be trying to follow and promised herself to double check everything she was doing. This was for a very sick child. She could do this. She could do this… right? She didn't have much of a choice either way.
Baking went better than Meredith had initially expected. It didn't take too long, the batch was fairly small, and while she made a few small errors, Hayes had thankfully caught them before she put it into the batter. After placing the tray in the oven, he turned around and kissed Meredith, who had been standing a few feet away, smiling at him, and admiring him. She set the timer on her phone, and not even moments later, the pizza had arrived. Perfect timing.
"How about we eat this alongside a movie?" Hayes inquired as he closed the door. "That sounds perfect." Meredith said as she took the pizza from his hands and placed it on his counter. "What's your movie of choice?" He asked, which made Meredith laugh. Her Netflix watch history was constantly inundated with the movies her young children were watching. She hadn't watched an adult movie in many, many years. "The only movies I think of are children's movies now… what do you have?" She asked as he went to grab plates for the two of them. Meredith figured the movie taste of teenage boys and their father would probably give more options than the Marvel movies and Disney movies that ran on repeat at her house. "Ah, let me think. The movies I normally watch with the boys aren't things I would necessarily want to watch with you…" Meredith smirked at Hayes as she picked a piece of pizza up and placed it on her plate. "Oh, come on, there has to be one movie that we can watch." Meredith said as she walked to the living room, sitting down on the couch. Hayes sat down beside her, thinking about the movies they could potentially watch. "How about Night at The Museum?" He asked, pulling up Netflix. "Sure!"
They sat and ate their pizza, making small conversation about work among other things until the cupcakes were done. The timer on Meredith's phone went off, and Hayes went to pull the food out of the oven. "It really is so sweet how you do that for your patients." Meredith exclaimed. "It's the least I can do. And hey, it's not like you've never gone above and beyond for patients before. Right?" Hayes replied, returning to the living room and sitting back down beside Meredith, wrapping his arm around her shoulder. "Well… I did officiate a wedding once in an ICU room. The couple was supposed to get married the day they came into the ER. The fiancée never got fully better. She was stuck in the hospital for months. So, I married them under a projection of stars right before she died. It was bittersweet." Hayes reacted to her story with admiration and astonishment. "Like I said… above and beyond, Grey." He smiled slightly at her and kissed her sweetly. "Okay, let's get this movie going." Meredith said afterwards playfully, and Hayes chuckled as he turned back towards the TV and hit play on Netflix.
25 minutes into the movie, Meredith shifted and rested her head on her boyfriend's shoulder. Jokingly, Hayes nudged his shoulder, looking down at Meredith and laughing. "You think you're hilarious." Meredith said as she desperately tried to stifle a laugh. "Yes, I do, actually. And you seem to think so as well." He grinned at her. In a moment of quick thinking, Mer picked up a pillow and hit Hayes playfully on his shoulder. "Oh, Grey, you do not want to go there." He said with a smirk, a glint of mischief in his eyes. "Too late." She said through a grin, hitting him with the pillow again, to which he grabbed the pillow beside him and threw it at her. "You're just giving me more ammo." She teased and laughed while throwing the pillow back at him, which landed square in his face, which made her laugh and instinctively back away. She felt like a teenager again, having a pillow fight with her boyfriend while they were supposed to be watching a movie, but she loved it.
The pillow fight only lasted a few more minutes before the mood changed and Meredith was on top of Hayes staring into his eyes. She kissed him, but there was something different about this kiss. There was so much passion and heat. It didn't take long for Hayes to wrap his arms around her waist and pull her closer. It was like no matter how much they grabbed at each other they needed to be closer. His tongue lightly ran across her bottom lip asking for permission to enter and she happily accepted. Their tongues met and it felt like the flame of 1000 fires had just been ignited between them. Neither of them could have pinpointed the exact moment where their playful pillow fight turned into… whatever this was becoming… but neither of them had any intentions of letting the inferno burn out any time soon.
He ran his hand down her back and to the back of her thigh. He grabbed it and pulled her across him so that he could reposition them. She got the hint and moved her leg over him so that she could straddle him. It was her that had to pull away first to breathe, but Hayes quickly moved his kisses to her neck. She threw her head back to give him more access while she caught her breath. She placed her hands on his shoulders as he licked and sucked in all the right places. She couldn't help the moan that escaped her mouth. The noise she made was infectious. He immediately felt a pool of heat rush to his stomach. He was the sole cause of those noises, and it was exactly what he wanted to hear from her.
He knew if they didn't stop soon, they would reach a point of no return, but he wasn't sure he wanted to return. He pulled back a little just to be sure that Meredith was okay with what was happening. Meredith noticed his hesitation and immediately withdrew her hands from his shoulders. She looked into his eyes and couldn't quite tell what he was thinking. "We can stop if you want to. If you're not ready, then I'm not either" She said.
Hayes couldn't believe how beautiful the woman in front of him was. Even in moments where it felt like there was inferno between them and she didn't want to stop, she was putting his needs above her own, and was offering him the kind of support that he didn't think he'd ever find in another woman. Meredith knew exactly what he was going through and that's what made all of his hesitation go away. Abby gave him permission. He was just waiting for someone that made him feel safe and comfortable - and he felt those things with Meredith.
"I'm ready." Was all he said. Two simple words that broke the dam. He quickly turned her over so that he could be on top of her and crashed his lips to hers. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him flush against her. His hands traveled down the sides of her body and underneath her shirt. He explored as much of her as he could. He was driving her insane. She could feel the best of his hands against her bare skin and she was responding in all types of ways. He was trying his best to maintain his composure. He knew it'd been close to four years since he'd done this, and he wanted to make sure he didn't move too fast in fear that the experience might not be good for her. But that was becoming harder and harder to do as he felt and heard her responses to the things he was doing.
Meredith moved her hands to the hem of his shirt and pulled up. He begrudgingly stopped kissing her so that he could pull it all the way off. As soon as his shirt hit the floor, he was back to kissing her. This time it was his turn to play with the hem of her shirt. Even though he knew they were both ready he was still hesitant to push too far, so Meredith took the step for him. She removed her shirt and let him stare at her for as long as he liked. He looked at her in awe, scanning her body with his gaze and taking in as much of her as possible. He went to lean back in, then paused. "We should probably move up to my bedroom" He said as he started getting up. She looked at him with a smirk, "yeah, we definitely should." She said with a low voice, and Hayes' breath hitched as he grabbed her hand and led her to his bedroom as fast as possible. The point of no return. As soon as they got through the door his arms were wrapped around her waist and he picked her up. She instinctively wrapped her legs around his waist as they kissed some more. He walked them to the bed and laid the both of them down as gently as he possibly could with the desire for her taking over his rational thinking. "It's a damn good thing we have this house to ourselves." Meredith whispered in his ear before she went back to kissing his jaw, neck, and collarbone. "Dear god, woman, are you trying to drive me bloody mad?" The heavy Irish accent that flowed through that sentence was just enough to set Meredith off. "That… is exactly what I'm trying to do." She said, with pure lust in her eyes as she undressed herself even further, and ran his hand up her bare leg slowly, back to her waist, before diving back into kissing him, rolling herself on top of him. He let her have her way, if only for a few moments.
It didn't take long before the rest of his clothes and both of their undergarments were being tossed to the floor, and they were under the covers. They took things slow at first, taking the time to fully explore the other's body, but not for long. All of their movements were calculated and meticulous. Meredith wanted to make sure he was comfortable the whole time, so she let him take the lead. And boy did he. If she didn't know any better, she would've thought he was lying about not having had sex in close to four years. It was as if he knew her body like it was his own, and vice versa. All the little things that he never thought he'd feel again came flooding back to him as he made love to this woman who came into his life and put back all the missing puzzle pieces he didn't realize were missing. The same went for Meredith - though she'd been with a couple other people since Derek died, this was unlike anything she'd experienced previously. That innate feeling of safety, trust, and care that she'd had with Derek had finally returned to her with Hayes, and it was magical for her to feel it again.
By the time they were done ravishing each other's bodies, they were exhausted. He placed one last kiss on her lips then on her forehead before rolling over so that he could spoon her. After a few moments of silence, he lowly whispered "I'm glad you were my first." To which Meredith responded by grabbing his hand and bringing it closer to her heart. "If you freak out tomorrow morning, it's okay." She said after a few minutes of silence, rolling over in his embrace. He furrowed his brows at her, confused. "My first time - the morning after, I freaked out. I woke up beside someone who wasn't Derek. He hadn't even done anything wrong, but I lost it. I deep cleaned the entire house, and worried Alex, Amelia, and Maggie right out of their minds. So, if you freak out tomorrow morning, it's okay." She stroked his cheek with her thumb and placed a small kiss on his lips. "Okay." He said as he smiled at her slightly. She rolled back over, and he wrapped his arm tightly around her waist. Before falling asleep, all Hayes could think about was how lucky he'd gotten with Meredith. He never expected himself to be able to feel the way he was feeling again. Yet here he was, laying exposed and vulnerable, next to this woman who was exactly what he needed. She always put his thoughts and feelings before her own, and her capacity for compassion and understanding was just one of the many things he admired about her, but especially tonight. He couldn't have imagined having those firsts with anyone else.
He closed his eyes, and his final thoughts were of what Abby had told him before she died. "It's okay to fall in love again. You have my permission. You don't need to beat yourself up or feel guilty. You deserve to be happy." She'd told him. She wanted this for him - happiness. And Meredith made him feel the happiest he'd felt in a very long time. So, he took her advice. He wouldn't feel guilty about it in the moment, or the morning after. Instead, he would choose to be content and happy, like Abby wanted for him. He knew he was okay because it was Meredith. He knew deep down that Abby loved her already and was cheering them on from Heaven. Finally, he fell asleep, holding his girlfriend close to him, hoping to himself that she'd be his last and only first.