AN: Happy Thanksgiving! Follow me on Twitter at unnamedfanwritr for more Greys stuff, and fun!

It was getting harder to breathe here.

If you think I look bad, you should see my lungs.

We need to talk. About your POA.

My sisters send you here?

Look, God forbid this thing gets any worse... You need to pick someone local.

Amelia can't even decide what's for dinner... Maggie... doesn't know when it's time for someone to die... She has a hard time letting people go, so... Let's... j-just talk about... s-something else please?

I'm about to scrub in on a hepatic pregnancy, where the fetus is attached to the liver.

No! Alive? Oh... I'm so jealous...

The waves rushed in again, the gulls chirped. Meredith stared down the shoreline. On one side water rushed in, smoothing the sandy beach, filling in the many crevices of her last footprints. And on the other side the rocky edge slowly rippled up to the cliff above. But in the distance... so far and so close... Derek was waiting.

You look like crap.

Look who's talking. I got a 26 week old who looks stronger than you.

Liver Baby?

So I hear you're looking for a POA?

You here to volunteer?

Choose someone who'll choose you, over and over again.

I'm afraid... If I fall asleep... I'm afraid I might not wake up.

Everyone's scared of you, Grey. You know that? It's cause you're fierce, you've got teeth, grit. You fight to the bloody death about the stupidest little things. This virus has got nothin' on you.

Meredith closed her eyes. The crashing waves were calling her. Derek... was calling her.

This feels like payback.

Damn right it is... You've known me my whole life... you're the only one... I can trust... to pull the plug if my brain is gone.

I'll do every damn thing I can first...

I know you will.

And... you don't want to be put on a vent?

There's a shortage... I don't want to take one... from someone who needs it.

What if that someone is you?

...It's not. Not yet... My kids need me.

We all need you.

In the bright sunshine, Derek watched her. He tilted his head. She stepped cautiously toward him again. "You could walk too, you know!" she yelled.

"Wouldn't make a difference!"

"Why not?"

"Because... The sand isn't real, Meredith!" Derek said, as if explaining the sky is blue, and two plus two is four.

She stared in disbelief... and he stared back with a shrug. And then... she didn't care. She just didn't. Screw the sand. Screw the sea and the gulls and the rocks. She stepped, and stepped again, her jog becoming a run. Okay. The sand isn't real. So if it's not real, then... This place... maybe she could just touch him... just hold him, one last time... just-

Derek grinned like he did the day Zola showed up at their door. Like he did when she told him she was pregnant with Bailey.

Now he was grinning for her.

Meredith ran, no longer feeling the ground beneath her feet, only the wind as it breezed against her, blowing her hair across her face. She raised her arms.

WHOA!

Meredith tripped. Into the air she sailed, SPLAT!

The sand. Was real. "OOOH!" Meredith sloshed in the seawater, covered in mud and seaweed. "You said it wasn't real!" she cried over Derek's laughter. Wet and muddy, she struggled to stand, "I hate you!"

"You love me!" Derek laughed, "God knows I love you."

Yeah... He did. She stood up, a wet sopping mess now, and took him in. The man of her Dreams. The man in her Dreams... The man she loved, with all of her being, the man who loved her with all of his.

The man who was gone.

But not gone.

He was here... In her Dreams.

"I'll be right here when you're ready," Derek said.

Meredith sighed. Knowing now, as did he...

This Dream was different.

It wasn't like the dreams from before. She wasn't supposed to get too close, was she?

But still... she'll take this. Anything... to just be near. A whiff was better than nothing...

And so, as the seaweed wrapped around her ankles, (she swore it was real), as the wind chilled her wet body... and the salt air tinged her nostrils, she let go of her expectations and simply took it in... that he was here.

Here. With her. At the beach. Her refuge, and now her hope.