Warning: I've never ever ever written before; fanfiction or otherwise. This is my first time. Please go easy on me if it's bad.

Chapter 3: Hometown Glory

Meredith grumbled off the couch, walking up to answer the impatient knock by the door- knocks that may as well have been bombs being dropped on the roof of her house. She hissed as the light around the room threatened to blind her and her head pounded like a drum. She looked at the mess around her: empty bottles of beer and tequila laid out on the carpet, furniture knocked over, random clothes strewn around for some reason, and Cristina and Alex passed out on the carpet.

"What?!" she whispered loudly as she opened the door, eyes squinting at the bright light.

Derek's eyes widened and throat parched, partly because Meredith was so obviously a walking hangover, and partly because her long legs stretched out of her boy shorts and her chest was covered by nothing but a black bralette; the outline of the globes of her breasts accentuated by the tight girth of the piece of undergarment.

She sobered up for a second to realize it was Derek Shepherd gawking at her- or her chest rather. "They're called breasts, Shepherd. Now what the fuck are you doing here?" The annoyed tone apparent in her whisper, swallowing just a bit of vomit that threatened to spill.

God, she can't remember the last time she had drunk that much. Damn you, Cristina.

He cleared his throat and averted his eyes back to her sleepy, bloodshot ones. "Jesus. Are you hungover?" He said rhetorically as his senses finally cleared and remembered why he was even at her home. "Grey, we have a flight to catch in two hours!"

"SHIT! I forgot. I must've lost track of time last night. Shit, shit, shit," she frantically looked for a clock to affirm the time, "Go wait in the living room. Give me 15 minutes," she sobered up, quickly running up the stairs to shower, not giving Derek a chance to say another word.

Derek closed the door and walked into the hallway, eyeing his surroundings curiously. So this is what Meredith Grey's home looked like. It was huge for just one person. Odd. Nice...a little dusty.

He looked at the mess lying around the house until his eyes caught onto a sleeping Yang and Karev slowly waking up, obviously Meredith's drinking buddies last night. He looked at a bunch of cards laying on the floor and clothes around them- strip poker, he assumed.

Well that explains why Meredith answered the door half-naked.

Before he could look around some more, out of nowhere, quick footprints tapped against the hardwood floor and a figure hops onto him, pushing him to the ground. Derek grunted as his back hit the carpet and a long, slobbery tongue lapped at his face, tickling him. He laughed and tried to dodge the attacker's kisses and keep him at bay, but the large white and tan furball was obviously unthreatened by him.

"Hey buddy, you must be Doc," he greeted with a chuckle, finally managing to sit up, causing the dog to bark in affirmation and jump to rest his front paws on Derek's body.

"Doc, shut your trap before I sell you to a restaurant," a grumpy voice threatened from the ground. "Derek."

"Hey! Morning, sunshine," Derek teased as Cristina's hungover self got up from the ground and pulled up her sweats that she lost during last night's poker game, looking like hell.

She glared at his face, squinting at his shiny grin. "Shut your trap before I donate your hair to oncology to make wigs for patients," she hissed as her head continued to pound and every sound that magnified a billion decibels louder.

Karev was still out like a light, unstirred by all the noise around him, shirtless and snoring like a trucker. Meredith was known to only be friendly with two people in a hospital of hundreds of workers: Karev and Yang. People often wondered how those two got through Dr. Grey, the most guarded and untrusting person on the planet. Derek was hardly best friends to the two but friendly enough with the both of them, occasionally having drinks together.

"Hey, make yourself useful and grab me an aspirin, will you?" Cristina demanded, collapsing once again on the couch. "Please," she added with a sweet voice sarcastically after Derek gave her a dirty look. "It's in the first kitchen cabinet to the left"

As Derek waltzed into Meredith's kitchen with Doc trotting behind him, he noticed a couple picture frames on the wall, donning childhood pictures of who he assumed to be Meredith. A little blonde girl with a toothy grin and familiar eyes rode on a sled with a man holding on to its sleigh. He smiled at the innocence the girl held. Another one had a woman holding the girl on her lap, her strict yet smiling face cradling the little girl in pigtails, who was clutching a doll, with pride in her eyes. Ellis Grey as a doting mother. A picture that went beyond anyone's wildest imagination.

Stacks of medical textbooks sat on the dining room table. Folded laundry rested on some baskets instead of in a closet. Piles of unopened boxes labeled E.G. looked like they've been sitting there for years. He looked at the photo that was stuck to the fridge with a magnet, a wallet sized snapshot of her sitting on a blanket on the beach, her hair flying all around and eyes covered by her sunglasses. She was wearing a black bikini top and white shorts. Her smile was infectious, her rosy cheeks bringing color to her face as she held a little white puppy who had his tongue out, sitting obediently on her lap.

She had the same smile on when she was talking about Doc back in his trailer. He had to admit, it was adorable how much she loved her dog. He took the picture off the magnet and stared at it a while, noting every pixel of the picture before he turned to look at the rest of the things stuck on her fridge, still holding on to the small photo.

Another snapshot was of a younger Meredith in a graduation toga and one of Richard Webber's hand on her shoulder and the other holding a bouquet of flowers. There were Christmas cards even if it was already early June, destination magnets, a bottle opener, and old grocery lists stuck on the fridge as well. Another was her and Alex in interns' scrubs, making silly faces at the camera.

He still had to get used to seeing Meredith Grey as an actual person, his fiancee in fact, and not someone he tried to get ahead of. It was definitely hard to imagine but looking at this side of her softened him up. He always had an incomprehensibly weird soft spot when it came to Meredith Grey when she let her human side out, even when they wanted to throttle each other. Whether that was a good or bad thing, he didn't know.

"Aspirin, Derek!" Cristina yelled from the living room, snapping him out of his daze.

He went back to the task at hand, absentmindedly slipping the photo in his hand into his back pocket and moving forward to retrieve the aspirin and filling a glass he found drying on the dish rack with water. Walking back to the living room, he tossed the bottle of medication with a "Heads up" to Cristina, who didn't catch it in time and ended up having a bottle thrown at her head.

"Oops," Derek said with a boyish guilt and sat next to her who was ready to rip all his hair out. "I brought you water though," he tried to appease as the dog climbed on the couch to sit next to him as well, apparently not wanting to leave his side.

"Don't think I don't know the game you're playing with Mer, Derek. I appreciate you trying to help my person but one slip up, and this could cost you both everything," she remarked after swallowing the pill down with the water, finally mentioning the elephant in the room.

He gulped nervously. Did she think he didn't know that? He'd spent the past two days weighing the risks, the pros and cons of this little arrangement. And before he could decide if it was worth it or not, Saturday had come and they were only hours away from meeting his family.

"We weren't supposed to tell anyone" was all he could say.

"You really think I'd be like the rest of the idiots in the hospital who believe she'd fallen in love and gotten engaged to be married overnight? McDreamy, pull your head out of your ass," she rolled her eyes at him.

"Look, we both get something out of this. I can finally have the job I came here for and she gets to stay in the country. It's a harmless deal. People get away with these types of things all the time, and under harder circumstances." He didn't know who he was trying to convince: Yang or himself. "We'll get divorced after everything's in order and it'll be like it never happened."

"Okay, okay. I'm just saying you can't half-ass this devious plan of yours. You're risking jail time and hurting your family. You two better act so much like an actual couple to the point where I might even think of believing your crap. Got it?" she told her friend.

"Yes, ma'am," Derek saluted, which earned him a punch in the shoulder.

"Whatever. Just make sure you're doing everything to pass off as a real couple. Play the part or whatever" Cristina yawned.

They sat in comfortable silence for a few minutes, Derek just stroking Doc's back as the dog leaned closer to his body, and Cristina's eyes were beginning to settle into sleep again until a loud thud jolted her awake.

"Okay, let's go!" Meredith's holler crescendoed as she descended down the stairs dragging her suitcase, her carry-on already in the hallway after she just threw it from the second floor. Her hair was soaking wet, the watermarks apparent on her dark green sweater.

"Shepherd, move your ass out of there. We're gonna be late," she reprimanded, sitting at the bottom of the stairs to put her heeled boots on. Derek rose up to take her bags from her so he could load them in his car.

When he came back in the house, he watched as Meredith was frantically stuffing her handbag with last minute essentials while leaving Cristina reminders about taking care of her house.

"Absolutely no parties and don't trash my house. And get that thing out of my living room when it wakes up," she pointed at Alex's drooling sleeping figure. "Close the toilet or the bathroom door because Doc might drink out of the bowl. Make sure he has water and food before you leave for the hospital, he'll just eat if he's hungry," she leaned down to face her fluffy white dog.

"Be a good boy for Cristina, okay? We don't want her to put up flyers to give you away like last time," she glared at her friend, holding Doc's face in her hands, ruffling his ears. "I'll be back before you know it."

Meredith turned back to Cristina's unamused face. "And you can't-"

"Use your car, sleep in your room, throw a party, or sell you stupid dog. I know, I know. Will you please leave already? You're making my ears bleed." Cristina rolled her eyes, pushing a speechless Meredith and Derek towards the front door.

"Have fun, lovebirds," she winked, locking the door so Meredith couldn't come in anymore.

Derek looked out the tiny window of the airplane from his seat to watch the groundmen and traffic controllers working on the runway. In about 4 hours, he would see his family again with a certain fierce green-eyed, blonde hair beauty on his arm that he was supposedly in love with.

He honestly didn't know how to feel once they landed. Happy to see his family? Hurt because of certain memories? Nervous because he was a big fat liar? I guess we'll find out when we get there.

"Okay, final story. What are we telling your family? How did we meet?" Meredith interrupted his train of thought, reviewing the blue folder again.

"Well, they already know about how we had...issues at first, so we met when I came to the hospital and we hated each other for 2 years," he reminded her, "So we had to have started dating around the beginning of last year and gotten engaged at least six months ago."

"So, how did we go from wanting to murder the other to dating?" she cringed at how they could possibly spin a fairytale like that.

Derek thought for a second about what their relationship actually looked like at the beginning of last year. They had just found out about the point-system game the doctors created so they started trying to get ahead of the other a hundred times harder than they already had been.

He was exhausted and so was she. They were logging in more hours than the interns just so they could get the best cases or sway patients to switch to them. She was doing her research, he was offering more pro-bonos.

"I'm sorry, Dr. Shepherd, but Dr. Grey had your corpus callosotomy bumped for an emergency craniotomy," Nurse Debbie said apologetically.

"What?! She was in OR 3 thirty minutes ago working on a trial patient. How could she be doing another surgery?" he said irritated, taking off the scrub cap he had just finished tying up.

At that point, they had both been at the hospital for 39 hours straight and if she was as tired as he was, she would end up on a hospital bed for exhaustion if she chose to do another surgery that might take as long as another 5 hours after just finishing one.

Debbie raised her hands, knowing how those two go crazy competitive when it came to the other. "You'll have to take it up with her, Doctor."

Derek turned around with a groan, shaking his head in frustration. He was partly relieved because he might just be shy of too tired to be at his 101% for the surgery anyway.

He honestly didn't know how Meredith was still standing. Maybe she was stronger than him. He decided to go take a nap instead of driving home half-asleep. Grabbing a blanket from one of the on-call rooms so he could wander down the halls, he headed for the elevator to go the tunnels. He hated staying in the on-call rooms and was beyond ecstatic when he found an empty hallway of gurneys in the basement a few months back, converting it into his own secret sanctuary.

When he reached his destination, already dreaming of flopping on one of the spare hospital beds, his eyes caught a sleeping figure on one of the gurneys.

He looked around confused because he was pretty sure Meredith Grey was in OR 5 doing an emergency craniotomy.

Derek walked towards the figure to make sure it was really her. The bags under her eyes emphasized how much she needed this and her hands were cradled under her ear, tightly clutching her purple scrub cap. Her eyebrows were furrowed in silent frustration even in her sleep. She was still dressed in her scrubs and her hair still braided in an updo. Her body curled to her side as she unconsciously shivered slightly, trying to warm up amidst the cold hallway.

He'd try to understand why Nurse Debbie gave him the wrong information later but for now, he looked at his nemesis. She wasn't yelling at him or trying to dig holes on the back of his neck with her eyes. She was tired. Human. Almost angelic if only he didn't have eyes that couldn't get rid of the horns on her head.

He sighed guiltily, empathizing how she must've truly felt like she had the rug pulled from under her when Richard took back his unspoken promise of making her Neuro chief. It had been almost three years and neither of them seemed closer to winning the other over. But he was tired. He only felt like he could put his guard down if she did too. And her guard was obviously down right now as she sighed in her sleep. But he wasn't backing down either.

He opened the blanket he brought with him and laid it out to spread on her slumbering body. She stopped shivering and breathed out a comfortable breath, adjusting to the little heat the blanket brought her. He turned around and walked back to the elevator to try and settle for those damned on-call rooms.

Turns out she lost her trial patient mid-surgery. Complications arose before they could even inject her viral cocktail, Nurse Debbie clarified an hour later when he confronted her about it after his nap in the on-call room.

"This was the seventh one she lost. They called her to the ER right after surgery and she was in the middle of scrubbing in for the emergency craniotomy and just broke down in quiet tears. Poor thing. I guess she's a little overwhelmed right now. Apparently she had Nelson paged to the procedure instead. Sorry for the confusion, Dr. Shepherd," she apologized before walking away.

Derek nodded and headed for the attendings' lounge where he found Meredith sitting on a chair, her elbows on the table and hands cradling her head in silence. The blanket he threw over her now folded up on the couch behind her.

"Grey," he called out in sympathy.

Meredith looked up at him with tired and slightly red eyes, silently waiting for him to continue. She was too tired to be snarky.

"I'm...I'm sorry about your trial patient," he slowly sat down in front of her.

She gave him a bitter laugh, a heartbreaking kind of laugh that you know is between hopelessness and tears, "Seven. Seven people in a row. At this point, I feel like I'm killing people for sport."

"You can't let it get to you. And this time wasn't even your fault. You have a great trial on your hands. It happens," he encouraged her, trying to meet her eyes.

She breathed out a sigh, looking at him with desperation. She just wanted to save someone, at least just one.

She had an amazing idea for this trial and Derek was honestly jealous he didn't think of it first. "These people come to you because they had no one else to go to. You gave them that hope. They would've died anyway and you did everything you could to help them. Don't let their loss be in vain. Because of them, you are going to save someone else."

She looked at him suspiciously before giving letting his thoughtful words actually register in her mind. The smallest of smiles then graced her lips, the kind that melted his heart. She couldn't remember if she even smiled these last 40 hours. He returned her gesture before standing up to grab his briefcase from his cubby.

"Take it easy, Grey," he bid before closing the door of the lounge to finally head home.

Of course, when they both returned refreshed from their exhaustion, Meredith went back to bumping his surgeries and he went back to hogging Edwards, the only intern he knew she could tolerate.

"Just say we bonded over a patient we worked on together. We both lost him after a long, long surgery, and were devastated. We called a truce to get drinks to toast to him, became friends, started dating secretly, and got engaged six months later," he created their backstory off the top of his head.

Meredith stared at him stunned. "And you made that up just now?"

"Yeah. You get creative after all the bedtime stories your nieces and nephews ask for," he shrugged with nonchalance.

"Okay. Fine. Truce, friends, dated, engaged. Got it."

"Did you get the email for the hotel reservations, by the way? I put it under your name," Derek asked. "It's not too far from the house."

"Yeah, got it right here." she double-checked on her phone.

After the plane took off, they settled into their positions for the next 3 and a half hours. Derek read some magazine that was provided in the seat pocket and Meredith began tapping her fingers nervously and chewing on her bottom lip, so many thoughts overcoming her, she didn't really know which one to follow.

"Just tell me," Meredith blurted out.

"Tell you what?" Derek asked weirdly, not taking his eyes off the article he was reading.

"If I have something to be nervous about. Your sisters gonna cross-examine me? Is your mom a typical monster-in-law? Is she one of those people who are basically walking lie detectors?"

Derek put his magazine down to look at her with smugness and amusement in his eyes. He watched her tap her fingers impatiently. "Well, I do believe you're nervous, Dr. Grey. And I thought only death could scare someone like you," he teased.

She glared at him. "I don't do well with mothers, not even my own," she murmered bitterly.

"Ma is as sweet as a peach, you have nothing to worry about. My sisters are nice enough, I guess, but Lizzie's a psychiatrist so she might try to psychoanalyze you. Don't take it personally when she gets...personal. Nancy can be tactless, but she means well. And my mom isn't the walking lie detector, Grandma Annie or Gammy is…," he slowly realized nervously.

"Shit, Gammy always knew when I was lying as a kid and sneaking to get treats," Derek totally forgot about Gammy's ways.

"Of course. Because what we're doing is exactly like stealing a cookie out of the jar," she replied sarcastically, calming herself down. "We're a little older than 5 years old, I'm sure we can pass this off. We just have to-"

"Play the part?" He finished for her. They've been telling each other that nonstop since they hatched this plan.

"Exactly."

It was 2:00pm Alaska Daylight Time when the plane finally landed in Sitka, Alaska's tiny airport that was actually nothing more than a tarmac. A charming and quaint little rural town. Derek looked outside his airplane window, recognizing his mom and grandmother excitedly watching the plane taxiing from the fenced gate with the rest of the people waiting for their loved ones. He let out a deep sigh before Meredith gave him a knowing look.

"Ready?" she asked after the plane settled into a complete stop and they were permitted to take off their seatbelts. They both remained seated as everyone around them rushed to deplane, waiting for the crowd to clear out.

"Let's do this." He said as they walked out of the aircraft and descended the stairs to finally plant their feet on solid ground

"Derek! Over here!" A woman cheered for him, her eyes on the verge of happy tears after spotting her son's tall figure. She was standing beside another older woman, who was flailing her arms around to catch his attention. His eyes lit up as he caught the two women who raised him, pacing in their direction, dodging the crowd, and forgetting about Meredith who had a hard time keeping up with his speed.

"Ma!" he bent down to embrace her with wide arms, "It's so great to see you!" he exclaimed after giving her a big kiss on the cheek while moving on to hug Gammy.

"Look at you. You look wonderful! And where's your lady?" Gammy asked, looking around.

Meredith was still struggling to get past the crowd, the wind knocking her hair in different directions as she tried to look for Derek, and finally spotting him with his hand waving. She tried to calm her hair as she paced in their direction, straightening her sweater and heartbeat starting to quicken. I don't do well with mothers. I don't do well with mothers.

She smiled nervously at the two beautiful older women from a distance, walking towards them and Derek.

"Ma, Gammy. This is Meredith," he said, putting his hand behind the small of her back, presenting her to them.

"Hi," Meredith said with a sweet smile, "Derek's told me so much about you. I'm so glad he's finally decided to come home," she said genuinely, stepping forward to make it seem like she was comfortable.

Finally. Here she was. In the flesh. The woman who apparently managed to snap their Derek up. They looked at the taller woman from head to toe in awe. She was gorgeous and she seemed nice. Obviously a tad younger than Derek, they assumed.

This was the woman who finally got Derek to move on, they had to know how she managed to enchant him.

"Dear! Look at you! You're absolutely stunning!" Carolyn exclaimed before reaching up to pull her into a warm hug that Meredith returned with a surprise. "I'm Carolyn, honey. This is my mother-in-law, Annie."

"Hello, darling. Oh my goodness, you certainly do nicely for Derek. You two look like a dream together! I'll have adorable great-grandchildren!" Gammy hinted after hugging her politely as well, Derek letting out a nervous chuckle as he and Meredith shared a nervous glance and twisted smiles.

"Come on, let's get you two to the car," she said, hooking her arm around Meredith and pulling her away from Derek, asking her to tell her more about herself.

"Der-Bear, get the bags, sweetie," Carolyn reminded before catching up with Gammy and Meredith, wanting to know more about her future daughter-in-law.

Derek flailed his arms, stunned at the now lack of attention on him. Suddenly, he was yesterday's news, Meredith's first impression apparently captivating them.

As they rode in the car, the ladies bombarded them with questions: asking about how they met, telling them to explain how they even started dating since Derek's told them...colorful things about Meredith initially. They both answered expertly, telling their newly crafted story together, filling in the details perfectly like a synchronized performance. Thank God they cleared those details up on the plane.

Meredith looked out the window, admiring the community. No big bustling buildings, franchises, or heavy traffic. Everything was just small local shops and quaint stores.

"Your town is beautiful. Definitely far from what I'm used to," Meredith commented as she stared out in wonder at Mount Edgecombe and its crest still lightly dusted with snow.

"We'll have plenty of time to explore it dear," Carolyn remarked with a smile, looking from the rearview mirror at Meredith's face that seemed excited to be there.

Meredith never got to explore anywhere as a child. Well, there was that Europe trip before med school, but that was it. Her mother never had time to take her places and she spent summers with babysitters or playing around in the hospital. She looked out at Sitka and never even gave places like these a thought. Alaska wasn't exactly at the top of people's destination list.

They drove around for a couple more minutes, and Meredith noticed something odd. Shepherd's General Merchandise. Shepherd Printing. Shepherd's Post. Shepher's Auto Mechanic and Fix. Shepherd and Montgomery Health Center.

"Pssst!" She tried to catch his attention multiple times as he looked out the window. When he didn't turn to face her, Meredith threw a discreet pinch at Derek's arm that caused him to hold in a yelp. "Ouch! Please don't do that," he complained, rubbing the spot she pinched.

"Did you forget to mention all the family businesses, honey?" She gritted out.

Derek just shrugged his shoulders guiltily, never even thinking that his family's money was relevant to their situation. "It's not a big deal," he reasoned. She gave him an annoyed look and continued to look out and watch the people in the town.

As the car pulled up at the harbor, and everyone started to get out of the car, Meredith looked confused, not seeing their hotel by any side of the road. Instead, they were at a small dock like the one Derek had by his lake.

"I-uhm," Meredith stammered, following everyone's lead to get out of the car, "Was this the hotel we booked?" she pointed at the small, rundown building behind them.

"Oh, no, dear. We cancelled your hotel reservations. You can't stay at a hotel for three weeks. You'll stay at our home. We have more than enough room," Carolyn insisted, "We still have to take the boat to get to the island though," she said pointing at the sole medium-sized luxurious speed boat hovered on the waters.

"Mom!"

"Oh, Carolyn, please, I really don't want to intrude," Meredith stressed inwardly.

"Nonsense, you two. You're family. We are not having you stay at some hotel for three weeks! I don't know why you booked it in the first place. Now let's go," she said with a smile, walking towards their boat.

Meredith gave Derek a panicked, wide-eyed look. "Shepherd!" she squeaked discreetly, asking him to do something.

Derek raised his hands in surrender, "I had no idea, I swear," he scratched his head. "Well, it is a little suspicious to insist on a hotel for three weeks."

"Mmhm, what's even more suspicious is when they walk in our room and find out I'm making you sleep in a bathtub instead of next to me," she bit back.

He laughed at her little pout. "Okay, we'll work something out. I can live with that," he chuckled. "I'm sorry. Suck it up, Grey. Play the part or whatever." he snickered, gripping the handle of her suitcases in one hand and resting the other on the small of her back to guide her towards their boat where Carolyn and Gammy were all ready to go.

As they sat down on the comfortable boat, and the engine roared loudly to head to the island, Meredith watched as their distance from a particularly large house grew smaller and was a mansion maybe. As they sped closer and closer to the home, her jaw dropped when Carloyn remarked, "Home sweet home, Derek. Welcome back," she patted him on the shoulder.

"That is your home?" Meredith looked at him incredulously. The fabulous cedar shingle and stone house might as well have been a castle. It had a huge lot of green grass that surrounded its every corner. And the entire house rested on a huge brick stone foundation. It had several chimneys. There had to be about a dozen bedrooms in that thing.

"I told you we had enough room, dear," Carolyn winked.

Enough room? The mansion could've been a hotel itself, Meredith thought.

Their little boat finally docked by the small makeshift pier, Meredith realized they still had so much to learn about each other. His secret family fortune and estate was something that could've blindsided them in the interview if he kept keeping things from her. She had to talk to him about telling each other everything.

Derek offered his hand to help Meredith step off the boat and onto the dock and the four people took their time unloading all the luggage. As they walked towards the huge house, various familiar people spotted Derek from a distance.

"Hey, Derek! Welcome home," someone echoed from afar, several hands waving at the small group.

"Oh, hey!" Derek echoed back. "Uhhhhhhh...Mom, what are all these people doing here?" He turned back to his mother.

"Just a little welcome home party, honey," Carolyn giggled, ignoring the badly concealed horrified look on her son's face.

"Grey," he whispered out before the two of them were about to enter the house. "There's gonna be a lot of people in there."

"Yeah, duh," she replied, noting the obvious crowd in the house.

"I...think I shouldn't introduce you as my fiancee just yet. They're gonna drown us in questions and I'm all drained from our flight. Maybe I should just say you're my girlfriend," he looked at the guests with horror, knowing their nosiness was going to cause an all-nighter of questions about their engagement and whatnot.

Meredith was tired too. She just wanted to eat something and crash on a bed. And they have yet to figure out their sleeping arrangements. "You really think your family didn't blab it out to them yet?" Meredith asked.

"No. They wouldn't. It's too important of an announcement. They would've thrown some ridiculous engagement party or an ad on the paper or something," he rolled his eyes at the socialite standards his family felt like they had to go through.

"Too important? Who are you people?" Meredith squeaked as he ignored her remark and ushered her in the house.

The house was filled to the brim with his neighbors and family. Everyone on this side of town seemed to be eager to welcome him home. Add in the caterers and waiters rushing around with trays of food, Derek could barely walk without being stopped by some distant relative or nosy neighbor.

Before he could even find his sisters or nieces and nephews, it was "Dr. Shepherd!" here, handshakes there, more small talk and promises of playing golf later initiated by people who looked like they spent all their free time at the country club. He wasn't even sure if he knew all these people. Meredith's face started to hurt from smiling, acting like the doting girlfriend she was.

When they finally had a second to themselves, Meredith quickly snagged an hors d'oeuvre from a passing waiter as Derek looked around worriedly, exhausted from the small talk.

"Why didn't you tell me your family was some sort of Alaskan Kennedy? Was your dad some kind of senator or something?" Meredith pestered.

Derek shook his head. Michael hated politics and all the drama that came with it. "Dad wasn't a senator. But he was Senator Montgomery's best friend," Derek replied, spotting the senator charming some people by the foyer. "Our families were...close."

He was just about to lean into her ear to discreetly suggest they sneak out to get some air, overwhelmed by all the people when all of a sudden, a sultry voice replied to his previous statement.

"'Close' might be an understatement, Derek," the intruder laughed

Both he and Meredith turned their heads to face their eavesdropper. Her piercing blue eyes were calm and collected and her lips stretched in a small kind smile. She was tall and gorgeous. Her perfectly styled red hair cascading down shoulders and clothes obviously fabulous and stylish.

Derek's eyes bulged in surprise. She was the last person on his mind who'd show up to his home.

"Addison?"

A/N:

Ya'll should really watch The Proposal if you haven't yet. It helps with actually imagining the setting and house and everything.

Check out my other story! It's a one-shot based off of the S17 beach scene where MerDer gets married called "Salt and the Sea"

And it's been a while! I'm so sorry, It's because I've been super busy with school and working on future chapters instead of this one. I haven't been very organized in laying out the storyline. I swear I'm not abandoning this story.

I would love love love for more reviews. Please tell me what you think. This chapter doesn't have much sweeter interactions or whatever because it's more of a filler chapter.

Anyways, stay tuned because I have more things planned for this story. Some later and more important chapters are already written. I just have to fill in the blanks.