I truly never expected this fic to happen. I quit Grey's back in high school, a few episodes into Season 12, before I'd ever written a single line of fic. Six years later, the beach scenes have turned me into a puddle of feelings all over again.
I still haven't done a full rewatch and I likely never will, but I'm deep in my warm and fuzzy Grey's nostalgia right now, and this is apparently the product of it.
If Meredith Grey can build a house of candles, I guess anything's possible.
Crossposted on ao3 as epigraphs. Title is from "New York" by Snow Patrol. I had to.
/
When she opens her eyes, her surroundings are nearly pitch-black.
The night sky stretches above and beyond her for miles before dipping into the indigo water of the Sound, just over the top of the hill she's lying on. Crickets chirp and Meredith feels wetness on her cheek from the damp grass. She's sure there will be green stains on her jeans when she checks them tomorrow.
Almost all the candles that surround her have gone out, but a couple of stragglers remain; their flames wink at her in the darkness, tiny spots of light competing with the stars. She sits up with a sigh and stretches her arms over her head, shakes out her fingers for good measure.
She can't believe she fell asleep.
When Derek told her to stay here, don't move, wait for me, she took his instructions literally, and she's beginning to regret it.
She stood quietly amid her house of candles for a while there, just soaking it all in, thinking about the trial and the champagne and Derek kissing her — and Derek wanting to do more than kiss her, for real this time.
Eventually, she admitted defeat and let herself sit in the grass, which quickly turned into lying down (to stargaze, she told herself, even as she felt her eyes slip shut from the exhaustion of the past few days, because the clarity of the night sky out here really can't be beat) and a nap that her body clearly needed.
Now, Meredith lets out a groan as she arches her back and tries to loosen her aching muscles, wincing at how tight her lower back feels.
Work had been tough enough already, and then she'd gone all "grand gesture" and cleared out two stores' worth of votive candles and glass holders, lugged them all to her car and spent two hours setting up a floor plan with little more than a crappy internet picture of a blueprint and a ball of string.
Not to mention lighting them all and keeping them lit until she'd all but given up on Derek even showing his face to her.
The look on his face, though, when he'd seen her? When she'd finally stopped rambling all over the place and taken a moment to take in his eyes, crystalline and sparkling, the smile that tugged at his lips?
The way he'd dipped down to kiss her, hard and insistent, wrapping himself around her like a clinging vine?
It made it all so freaking worth it.
She takes a moment to let herself remember it, how he'd appraised her house of candles with that stupid smirk of his, considering the room sizes like she'd set the walls in stone, not haphazardly formed connecting rectangles with tealights.
How he'd cocked his head to the side like he couldn't believe she'd done this for him — for them — how the candlelight made his eyes sparkle, how he'd shut her up with a kiss that set her on fire from the inside out. How he told her he wanted his conscience clear this time, so they could start again with no secrets between them.
It's a heady feeling, she thinks, sitting there in the grass in the dark, waiting for them to begin again.
Meredith fishes her phone out of her jacket pocket and checks the time. Derek's been gone for over an hour, and normally, this is the point where she'd start to worry — about him changing his mind, or ending up in a ditch somewhere, or any number of other nightmare scenarios her brain loves to think up — but not tonight.
Tonight she's embracing the whole "whole and healed" thing, so she settles into knowing that Derek lives in the middle of freaking nowhere, that Rose probably won't go without a fight, that he said he'd be back and she's trying to trust him, damn it, and now's as good as any a time to start.
Besides, it is very pretty on this hill on his land in the middle of nowhere with the Sound in the distance and the stars overhead. She could get used to this, to walls instead of candles, children underfoot and a bedroom upstairs for the two of them with a view of the water.
Not right this second, but someday.
She pictures it in her mind's eye, the house and the future and the family, and the prospect still scares the crap out of her, but not enough to make her want to run. It's a good kind of scared, she decides, because that's what a bright and shiny person would say, and she's trying to be one of them.
Meredith is so lost in her thoughts that she doesn't hear the footfall behind her until a quiet "Hey" pierces the bubble of relative silence she's been in since he left. She turns her head to see Derek walking toward her, his face soft and open and so full of love that it makes her heart constrict in her chest.
"Hey," she says back, smiling. She pats the ground next to her.
Derek is wordless as he sits down on the damp grass. He's so close that their shoulders touch, and she can smell his cologne, cedarwood and pine and a hint of spice. She breathes him in.
"I didn't think you'd wait out here," he says after ten seconds or ten minutes, she has no idea. "The trailer is unlocked, and warm."
Meredith shifts so she's looking at him. "I distinctly remember you telling me not to move, and I followed the instructions."
He snorts. "Yeah, because rule-following is so typical of you."
She elbows him and lets a giggle break loose. "I follow the rules… sometimes."
That earns her another snort, and Derek wraps an arm around her shoulder. Heat bleeds through the fabric of her coat and a shiver travels down her spine. She's missed his arms around her, more than she'll ever admit.
A beat, and then: "How'd it go, with Rose?"
Derek brushes his free hand across her cheek, tips her chin so she's looking at him. "You really want to know?"
Meredith shrugs as best she can in his embrace. "If we're doing this thing for real, there need to be no secrets this time. So I guess, yeah."
He presses a kiss to her temple. "About as well as I'd thought it would go. I don't think it was the most unexpected conversation."
"But no shoes to the head?"
He laughs. "No shoes to the head."
"Good," she says. It would have been a shame, to ruin his hair or his unfairly perfect face. Not that she'd ever tell him that, or that his ego would need the stoking.
Derek hums. "Beth woke up, you know."
Meredith moves so she can sit facing him, can see the way his eyes light up. The smile that spreads across his face is like the sun. She almost can't believe it. Beth woke up. Beth survived the surgery, and she woke up. "She did?"
"She did."
"Oh my god, Derek, it worked! This is… Oh my god, she's alive and awake and it worked and we can publish and this could be in the running for a Harper Avery and—" She's rambling, she knows, but she can't stop it. Derek cuts her off with a kiss, one hand on the back of her head, the other on her shoulder.
When his tongue slips between her lips and he pulls her close, every coherent thought leaves Meredith's body as she goes pliant against him, fisting one hand in his dress shirt as the other grabs on to his knee.
They're rough and hot and desperate about it, and his kisses send a fire running through her veins. She sees sparks behind her eyelids, and there's a swooping feeling low in her belly. Derek licks into her mouth and she lets out a keening sound, blindly fumbling for purchase in the folds of his coat as he turns her into jell-o.
He rests his forehead against hers when they come up for air, both flushed and panting. The look in his eyes would be enough to bowl her over if she weren't already on the ground.
"Meredith," he says, her name a plea and a prayer wrapped up into one. His eyes are shimmery and filled with tears; she catches one that spilled down his cheek with her thumb. "You—"
Her eyes are pricking too, and she takes a deep breath. She will not cry, not now, when all they should be is happy.
Beth woke up. Meredith built a freaking house of candles.
"I know," she says, because words are useless here. They've always communicated better through touch, through glances and gazes, and right now, she understands every single emotion flickering across his face like they're the steps of a surgery, clear and precise.
Derek lets out a laugh, a wet chuckle, really, and he squeezes her hand. "We need to toast," he says, with a sudden urgency in his tone. "There are glasses back in the trailer and…"
"Who said we need glasses?" Meredith smirks and reaches for the champagne bottle. Sure, it's lukewarm at best now that it's been sitting outside for god knows how long, but it's the principle of the thing. She stands up and opens the bottle quickly, letting the cork fly off into the distance.
Derek's glancing at her with that you're doing something crazy again and I can't help but stare look she's grown to love as she holds up the champagne between them. "To Beth," she says. "To the trial. To us. To being whole and healed or whatever."
His eyes go wide as she takes a swig directly from the bottle. The champagne's fizzy on the roof of her mouth and she feels the carbonation all over. She scrunches up her nose and Derek laughs as he stands up too, stepping into her space.
Meredith hands him the bottle, tips her head to the side and smirks. Derek Shepherd is not the kind of guy who drinks lukewarm bubbly in a field in the middle of the night, but then again, people do surprise you when you least expect it.
His sip is considerably smaller than hers, she can tell, but it leaves him spluttering all the same and she can't help but laugh at his crappy attempt at hiding his distaste.
"To Beth," he echoes when he's stopped coughing. "To the trial. To us. To fresh starts."
Half a step forward and he's completely in her space, warm and intoxicating. He dips down to kiss her again, long and slow, and he pulls her flush to the length of him with his free hand. She runs her fingers through his hair, scratching lightly at his scalp, and feels him shudder.
He tastes like lukewarm champagne but she can't bring herself to care, not when he's hot against her, doing things with his tongue, and he's all hers, forever. The idea sends a bolt of warmth straight through her chest.
"Derek," she says, pushing him away, though every nerve ending in her body screams not to. "Derek."
"What?" He's breathless, standing in front of her, his hair sticking up at odd angles, his pupils blown. If it were lighter outside, she's sure she would be able to see his cheeks are mottled red.
She needs to know they're on the same page.
"I know I said I don't trust you yet, but I'm trying, and I want to." She wants it more than any surgery in the book. "I want to trust you, and I want this to work, and I want us to do this right this time, because I don't think I could take it if we don't. I love you, Derek, and that scares the crap out of me, but I'm trying not to run from things that scare me anymore."
And there it is: all her cards on the table. She's got nothing left to hide behind.
"Meredith," he says, and she's always going to wonder how he manages to fit so much meaning into the three syllables of her name. "I love you, and I want to do this right too. I want nothing more than to be with you, and to make you happy."
She gulps, and tries to swallow down the tears threatening to break free. Happy tears, she swears. "Okay."
Derek looks at her, eyes wide and pleading. "Okay?"
She nods. "I mean, I wouldn't have built a freaking house of candles if I hadn't meant it."
He grins and takes a moment to look at the house again, the few candles that remain lit. Flickering reminders of a future they can have, together. "How did you even…?" he starts, as if he's just now considering the logistics that went into making all this happen.
"I have my ways," she says, going for suave and mysterious, but the raise of his brows tell her he's not buying it, not for a second. She laughs. "Two WalMarts, a fake blueprint I got off the internet and a ball of string to keep my lines straight."
"You know," he says, eyes sparkling, "if there's ever a blackout, we're good to go."
She shoves him, but she's grinning. "Ass."
"Mhmm," he replies. "You do love my ass."
"Derek!"
"Meredith!" he parrots.
"I hate you," she huffs, but there's no bite behind her words. She's so glad they're back to the banter and the teasing. She's missed it.
"I seem to recall you saying that you love me just now," he says, in that stupid cocksure way that turns her insides to goo. He knows it too, and that only spurs him on. God, she hates him (and loves him, so much that it scares her sometimes).
"Hmmm," she says, like she's thinking about it, and she takes three steps backward. "On second thought…"
She doesn't get much farther than that before he sets the champagne bottle down and starts chasing after her, feet heavy on the damp grass. She shrieks when he catches up to her and pulls her into his arms, warm and strong and safe.
Derek scrapes his teeth against the column of her throat, and then he's pressing hot, wet kisses there, moving higher until he nips her earlobe. Meredith shudders and grabs onto him again as she turns into putty in his arms. "Please, Derek," she whines when he litters her faces with kisses, from her eyelids to her cheeks, but never where she wants him the most.
"Say it." He nibbles on the shell of her ear and pulls back just enough so she can feel his breath fanning out over her skin, leaving goosebumps in its wake.
"Say what?" she manages, barely.
He sucks a mark into the skin below her clavicle. She'll be able to cover it with her scrubs, but the reminder of him will be constant, just like he wants it to be. "You know what." His voice is a low growl and her whole body is on fire, flames licking up inside her like she's one of the candles.
"I love you, Derek."
"I love you too." As soon as the words leave his lips, his mouth is on hers again and she loses herself to the sensation. With Derek, she feels safe enough to let her brain shut off and instinct take over. She knows he would never hurt her, not like this.
When they break apart to breathe, Meredith sags into his arms, and he holds her up until her feet start working again. She makes a contented little noise at the back of her throat and Derek presses a kiss to the crown of her head, soft and reverent.
Her eyes slip shut for just a second before she finds her footing. "Is this how you wanted to kiss me, before?" She's looking up at him through hooded eyes, and if his pupils are any indication, it definitely is.
"Yes," he rasps. "I want to kiss you like that, pretty much always."
"Is this all you wanted to do with me?"
His arms tighten around her waist and she feels him, all of him, hard and insistent against her. "Meredith."
She might have missed this most of all, the closeness they find with one another. It was never just sex; it never could have been, but she didn't realize that until it ended. Derek was the first person who made sex feel like more than a physical act, and the weight of it overwhelms her sometimes.
The vulnerability and the intimacy she shares with him should make her want to run for the hills. Instead, it makes her feel safe in a way she's never felt before. It's why sex and mockery backfired, why it was always bound to implode. The moments after were what she craved all along.
And now? Now she gets them. Forever.
She cups his face with one hand, tracing his cheekbone with her thumb. "Take me to bed, Derek," she says, pushing up on her tiptoes to press a kiss to his lips. Quick, like it's a habit.
She reaches out for his hand and they lace their fingers together. Derek picks up the half empty bottle of champagne and they set off for the trailer.
Behind them, a dozen candles flicker in the wind.