Chapter 8 Surprise visitor

I spent my morning chasing after Liam who did not want to get dressed because crawling around in his jammies was much more interesting than laying still on the changing table. "Ugh, Liam please we need to get going if we want to be on time at grandma's." I huff at him. He stops dead in his tracks when he hears the word grandma and starts to giggle. I take this opportunity to scoop him of the floor and walk into his room placing him on the changing table I tickle his belly. He squeals and kick is little legs. "Got you little man!" I say laughing to him. Chancing him into sweatpants and a t-shirt that says mischief-maker. I pull a little sweater over his head so he is nice and warm. Placing him into the stroller with his bag for the day already on it. Putting his sunglasses on and heading out of the apartment. I sprint to the subway and we just make it in time to hop on.

I arrive at Matt and Kathrin's just to see Matt getting out of the elevator he is off to work. He gives me a hug and waves to Liam. Liam is just smiling at him. We go up to the top floor. I take Liam out of the stroller and knock on the door. The door swings open and we are greeted with a very happy Kathrin. Liam just giggles in delight and start to kick his legs when he sees her. Kathrin takes Liam out of my hands and says: "come in dear." I push the stroller in while Kathrin put Liam in the playpen. "You might want to put him on the floor Kathrin he learnt a new trick yesterday." I say to her and she looks surprised at me. "I definitely have to see the new trick, little man." She says to Liam while putting him on the playmat on his belly. Liam pushes him self of the floor onto his knees at starts to crawl ready for a new adventure in Kathrin's living room. Kathrin just claps her hands and is cheering Liam on. "I almost had a heart attack yesterday when I was cooking diner and he was not in the spot where I left him. I found him in the living room playing with his teddy bear." I say to Kathrin. "I can imagine." Kathrin says while still looking at Liam. "Oke everything you need is in the bag, I have to get to class and I will be back around 5. I need to finish this big biology paper." I say while walking over to Liam and giving him a kiss on hiss head. "Bye Liam." I say to him and wave. "Take all the time you need to finish that paper dear. We will have fun." Kathrin says to me. I wave on last time and than I am out of the door.

After class Izzie, George and I walk over to the library as we all need to finish the paper. We find a big table where we all can sit. I get my laptop out of my bag and the books I need for my last piece of research and I start typing. I am so into the paper that I don't feel somebody standing behind me till someone whispers in my ears. "I knew I would find you here." I jump in my seat. I see Izzie looking up from her laptop and she just smiles. I turn around and see Derek standing behind me.

"What are you doing here?" I ask surprised but quietly. "I needed to study up on a surgery and thought I would do it with my favourite student." He says smiling and kisses me. "Hi." He mumbles against my lips. "Hi." I mumble back not wanting it to end. But Izzie starts to cough and Derek pulls away far to quickly for my liking. He pulls up a chair and sits next to me. "O, and I missed my favourite geek." Derek says teasing me. I slap Derek on the chest. "I am not a geek!" I giggle and than I add "You are the geek cause you are the 28 year old trying to study in an university library, mister." I say while winking at him. "That might be so, but I am your geek." He says smiling and kissing me again. This time it is George who coughs and I pull away and turn to my friends. "What is your guys problem?" I huff towards them. George starts "it is quit distracting when you do that in front of our faces." Izzie adds. "At least you could have introduced us." "Right." I say. "Izzie, Derek. Derek, Izzie. George, Derek. Derek, George." I say while pointing at each other. "Happy now?" I ask Izzie and she just nods and goes back to writing her paper. George is still staring at Derek like a lost puppy.

I turn to Derek "What do you need to study for?" I ask him. "I am scrubbing in on a corpus callosotomy tomorrow." He says cocky. "You are cutting someone's brain in half tomorrow. That is so cool." I say in excitement "I am not cutting I am just observing and assisting but yes the neurosurgeon is cutting someone's brain in half. So what are you doing?" Derek says. "I am just writing a boring biology paper that needs to be finished by tomorrow." I sigh. "It can not be that boring it is biology." He states. "Well it is when it is about the ecosystem, I wish we could move on the human biology part." I say without thinking. "I could help you out with that." Derek whispers into my ears and I turn bright red hoping that neither George nor Izzie heard him. "Stop distracting me. I really need to finish this paper." I say laughing and turn to my laptop again. Derek just sighs but out of the corner of my eyes I can see him smiling. He opens up a big neuro textbook and starts making notes.

I close my laptop as I finished my paper. I can see Izzie writing a note and sliding it over to me. I open the note and it reads. "You know you could have some fun in the library." Followed by a winking emoticon. My head shuts up looking at Izzie and she is nodding her head in the directions of the bookshelf. Derek is still into his neuro textbook that he doesn't even see it. I think about it for a moment and than stand up. Derek still doesn't notice so I whisper in his ear. "Come with me." He head shuts up and looks at me. I take his hand and pull him towards the bookshelf. He catches on rather quickly. Cause when we reach the back of the library he pulls me into the last row and pushes me up against the bookshelfs and kisses me softly. "Hhmm I like this kind of distractions." Than he starts again and this time my hands go up to his hair and I run my fingers trough it. It feels so perfect. I can feel one his hands roaming over my back and the other one in my hair. Than I feel something pressing against me. I pull away and say while looking at his bulge in his pants: "Uhmm Derek I think we might need to stop. I don't want to be our first time to be in the library." "Oh god no we don't want that." Derek says "I am just excited to see you." He says winking. Than he says. "We can just stick." Kiss. "To the kissing." Kiss. "I can control myself." Kissing me longer till we are both out of breath. "I like kissing you" He says while looking into my eyes. "I like kissing you too." I say pulling his face down to mine again. I can feel my phone vibrating in my pocket but I try to ignore it but than it goes of for a second time and I forgot that I was pressed up against Derek. He pulls away and says "You should get that, it might be important." I reluctantly pull away and fish the phone out of my pocket. Kathrin's name is across the screen. My heart beats a little faster and I walk away from Derek back to the table and answer the phone.

I am aware that he is following me so I have to watch my words. "Hi Kathrin." "Hi Meredith. Liam is doing so great with the crawling." I just say "mmmm." She goes on "I was wondering if you would like to stay for dinner when you finished your paper." "Yes I would love to stay for diner that would be great. I will go back and finish the paper and than I will see you around 5 oke" I say. As I reach the table she says. "oke I will let you finish, bye Meredith." "Bye Kathrin." Izzie looks up from her laptop and I just shake my head at her. Nodding in the direction of Derek. I glance at my watch and see it is already four O'clock. I need to go in 45 minutes. Derek is already back into his neuro textbook and I decide to do some of the homework that was assigned today. I am in the middle of it when Izzie asks: "Are we still on for tomorrow after school." I look up from my book and say: "Yes we are still on for tomorrow." Izzie just smiles and than says. "Right I am going to go home, see you tomorrow." And to Derek and George she says "Bye guys."

George is still busy with his paper and now it is really time to go. I turn to Derek. "I am going as well. What time are you picking me up on Friday?" Derek looks up from his textbook. "I will pick you up around 7. How does that sounds?" he says. "Sounds great I will be ready!" I wink at him. "I will let you study now, good luck tomorrow on the surgery." I say. "Thanks" he says and than he pecks me on the lips and says "Bye Meredith." "Bye Derek." I say and than I turn to George. "Bye George see you tomorrow." "Bye Mer." He says. I see Derek look at George when he said Mer, like he was jealous or something. I just shook my head while walking away. I felt bad for George leaving him alone with Derek but I really needed to go. I turned around one last time and Derek was already back into the corpus callosotomy theory and I just smiled.

I try to feed Liam his dinner while Kathrin is cooking dinner. But Liam is not having it. He wants to be down on the floor crawling. "Seriously Liam, can you behave for once we are not at home" I say annoyed when he slaps the spoon out of my hand for the second time and it lands on the floor. I give up wipe his face and put him on the floor again. He excitedly crawls back to the toys that are spread al over the room. "I will just feed you later than" I sigh as I plop back into the chair. He can be exhausting sometimes.

Kathrin starts to talk to me. "He is getting so big you must be very proud of him?" "Yes I am very proud of my little trooper it must be hard for him not having a daddy figure in his life." I say a little sadly. "Oh dear, don't worry about that right now, he doesn't know any better than it is just you. He is a very happy baby and that is because of you!" Kathrin says. "I know I just wish I hadn't had to do it all alone. We were in this together. And know I am doing it alone. It is just not fair." I say starting to breakdown "I wasn't sure we were going to make it, cause going to college and raising a child it wouldn't have been easy, but we didn't even get the chance of proofing everybody wrong. He didn't even have a chance to see his son." At this point I have tears streaming down my face. "It is just not fair." I can feel something at my legs and Liam is looking up at me with a face that says Mommy why are you crying and that he wants to comfort me. I pick him up from the floor and cuddle him into my chest. It makes me even sob more when I do this. And right at this point Matt walks to the door and looks confused to the scene in front of him. "What happened." He asks Kathrin. "She is just having a breakdown about Finn not being here and not doing a good job." Kathrin says while doing something at the stove.

Matt walks over to me and sits down next to me. "Meredith, listen to me." He says. I am still burying my head into Liam's little shoulders. "Meredith." He says for a second time and this time I look up. "You are doing a fantastic job look at you. You are raising a baby while going to college full time. You had a job on the side last year. Worked your ass off last summer to spend more time with Liam during term time. And you are living on your own. Not many 19 year olds can say that." " I know I am doing a good job, I just wish Finn was here to do it with me." I sniff calming down a little bit. Matt pulls me into a big hug that almost feels like Finns. "You are alright" Matt says while rubbing my back. "I am alright." I say finally calmed down. Matt starts to talk again. "So anything interesting going on in your life except Liam?" he says while tickling Liam's belly that earns a giggle. I think for a little bit deciding if I want to tell them already. "Well actually yes there is something interesting in my life." I start. "I am dating someone." I am not sure if I want to look at Matt and Kathrin's faces at the moment but I do it anyway. Matt looks a bit shocked. "You are dating someone?" He asks surprised. "Yes well we just had one real date and we studied together today I am going on another date with him on Friday." I say pausing. "Well tell me more about this guy where and when did you meet him and what is his name?" Matt asks. "His name is Derek, I met him the other day when you had Liam overnight for the first time. And yesterday we had some coffee together and today he showed up at the library to study with me." I say. "What does he study?" matt asks. "He is a surgical resident at NYU medical, so he doesn't really study anymore." "How old is he?" Matt asks I can feel he is holding it back a little. "He just turned 28." I say. As I say this Kathrin is dropping the cutlery on the floor in the kitchen. It makes a loud noise that makes Liam jump and whimper in my arms. I rock him a little and that calms him right down. I place him on the floor again. "Does he know out Liam?" matt asks curious. "No, not yet. I want to get to know him a little better before I introduce him to Liam. He seems like a very nice guy. I really like him." I say smiling when I think of Derek. "I am happy for you that you met someone. We knew it was going to happen one point. But now it is getting real." He says a little sad. Now it is my time to hug him. "He will always be in my heart. And Liam will always be a reminder of him." I say trying to comfort him. "When the time is right can we meet him?" Matt asks. "Of course you get to meet him one day if I decide to go trough with it."

"Can someone please set the table, dinner is almost ready?" Kathrin cuts in. "Right I will try to feed the little monkey again, see if I get lucky this time." I say while walking over to Liam who is playing with some toys. "Right little man, dinner is ready." I say to him. He drops his toys and crawls over to the high chair. This was so much easier than carrying him around all the time! "Oke lets try this again, but no funny business this time." I say sternly to Liam. I walk over to the microwave and warm up his dinner. Kathrin put the pot with risotto on the table. "I love risotto!" I exclaim. "I know dear I remembered it was one of your favourite so I made it just for you!" Kathrin says with a smile as she serves me a plate. Liam's hands reaches out for it but it is to far away. "No, no that is mommy's dinner Liam here is yours." I say while offering him another bite. I take on bite of my risotto and I just moan in pleasure. "This is sooo good!" "Thank you dear, just enjoy it." Kathrin says. The rest of dinner goes fine. Now it is time to get home. "Oke Liam say bye bye to grandma and granddad we are going home. Liam crawls over to Matt and reaches up to be picked up. Matt scoops him up and Liam is delighted with giggles. I quickly snap a picture of the two of them. And I gather all of his stuff and say goodbye to Matt and Kathrin. "See you next week Liam." Kathrin says while she waves to him. Liam just smiles at her.