BEFORE YOU CONTINUE READING: Hi! I'm back. I made several adjustments to the previous four chapters and would recommend going back and reading from Chapter 1 with a clean slate. Seriously, it may not be noticeable now, but the different details I omitted help me pace out the story. I'll repeat for the people who don't read A/Ns.

Please reread the story from the beginning with a clear mind. :)

Chapter 5: Mind Over Matter

Derek had his eyes. You could tell.

The photo was in black and white but the man had the lightest eyes, and she's glared at Derek Shepherd enough times to notice that his eyes were that supernatural shade too. He must've gotten it from his dad.

"Grey," Derek called, entering the living room, causing her to raise her head up. "Five-minute warning. The rest of them are gonna start arriving soon."

"Right," she cleared her throat trying to compose herself.

It wasn't enough that she had to meet Derek's truckload of sisters. No. They just had to invite all the aunts and cousins and any person on this side of the Pacific that had a drop of Shepherd blood.

"Is that her?" a voice echoed into the hallway as a woman who looked like Derek entered the room. "Hi," she gave Meredith a big pearly smile while gesturing to hug the blonde.

"Oh, hello," Meredith returned the interaction as least awkwardly as possible with a nervous smile.

"I'm Liz, one of Derek's sisters. My husband, Jim. My kids, Carter, Jacob, and Grace."

Meredith's eyes turned to the aforementioned husband and two preteen boys that greeted her equally courteously. She smiled at them, noting the little brown-haired girl hiding behind her father's legs.

"Hey, kiddos," Derek boomed as he walked back into the room with the biggest grin etched on his face.

"Uncle Derek!" The boys came running to their uncle who easily lifted both of them up in one big hug before settling them right down.

"Wow, look at you guys. You're getting so tall!" It was mesmerizing how much they've grown. Pictures and videos didn't do justice to how much his family had changed these past years. "Grace?" he tried to beckon the little girl watching her brothers' interactions with him curiously.

"Honey, look. It's Uncle Derek. Remember when he played with you last year when you, daddy, and I visited Seattle?" her mother had encouraged, remembering how enraptured she was by her uncle.

She nodded eagerly at recognition and ran to her crouching uncle's figure to give him a hug, and he gladly lifted her up in his arms as she giggled giddily. "Uncle Derek," she beamed.

"Good luck with that. She's never going to let you go now. That shy front was an act," Jim had chuckled as he watched his daughter swing her legs and settle comfortably in Derek's arms with a bright smile.

"Are you Uncle Derek's girlfriend?" the four-year-old inquisitively looked at the blonde to his left with wide eyes.

"Yes, I am," Meredith laughed at her bluntness. Her smile only charmed the little girl to raise her arms out, asking to be carried by her. "Oh. Uhm, okay," she said, trying to receive a giggling Grace from Derek.

She wasn't used to this– the whole family thing. Growing up, it was just her and Ellis. Well, there was her, and then there was also Ellis. Her mother had been dutiful but it had stopped there so Meredith learned to be grateful at the very least.

This was new. Noisy, alive, crowded with laughter and light teasing. She's never had that. It was nice, she guessed.

As more and more people had piled in, the house had become more occupied, and her memory was starting to fail her as one name after the other came and exited her ears. She glued onto Derek's side for nervousness' sake, not that he minded.

After meeting another one of his rowdy cousins, Derek had tried to excuse himself to go to the bathroom, sending his fiancé into a panic.

"What? No," she shrieked quietly, gripping his bicep as hard as she could, following him as he made his way towards it.

"Grey, you'll be fine," he looked at her weirdly. For someone so confident and charismatic at work, she seemed to be on her toes a lot these past few days. "Seriously, unlatch. I've been holding it in for a while."

"Ugh," she rolled her eyes as he disappeared into the powder room, leaving her to force herself to act casual. Deciding it would be weird if she were to wait by the door, she wanted nothing more than to throw back a shot of anything that could make her throat burn, but she settled for a glass of red wine in the kitchen.

"So, Meredith," a voice called out from behind her as she poured out a bottle. "How's the family treating you so far?"

"Carolyn," Meredith greeted politely. "They're… there are a lot of you," she tried to laugh off. "Everyone's been great. Derek's been missed, anyone can tell."

Her future mother-in-law smiled solemnly. "Three years is long enough for you to convince yourself that a person can be completely different. But Derek, he hasn't changed. I could always count on him to be the man I raised. I missed him so much, some days I was scared one of us would be gone before he made the effort to come home again…"

She couldn't help but note the fear in her voice. Like at one point, one of them had almost lost the other. She didn't really know what exactly Derek's sentiments were, but it was obvious he loved them. No matter how complicated he made things seem, everything was rooted in love.

The silence brewed as Carolyn's thoughts seemed to be miles away, and Meredith didn't really know what to say.

Tell her something she'd want to hear, you idiot.

"He…he thought about you all the time." That's probably not a lie. "Carolyn, Derek thinks the world of you and everyone here. Weeks before we even had to leave, he would not shut up about this trip."

Okay, she knows that one was true but also technically, he'd been ranting about how much he dreaded it.

Nevertheless, that earned her a beautiful and relieved smile from the mother who sighed in relief, brushing her sudden emotional episode aside.

"Well, anyway, you're here so we could get to know you more too. Tell me about yourself. Derek's so quiet about your relationship, he acts like a dog hiding his favorite bone. Has he met your family?"

How was she supposed to tell this woman she had no family. Who the hell has "no family"? She chuckled nervously, trying to buy herself some time to think, but her fidgeting hands didn't go unnoticed by her observant interlocutor.

"Family… yes, uhm," Meredith faltered. "I mean, no. I-"

"Meredith."

"Huh?"

"I didn't have a family when I met my husband either. He became my family," Carolyn empathized, taking her shaky hands. "Breathe, child. There's no such thing as perfect or a right answer. I just want to know you… if you would let me, of course."

God, Derek was so fucking lucky. She was actually jealous of him for having this mom. Carolyn was warm and understanding. She had those eyes that made you feel like it was okay to be flawed. She gave her a silent look, gently encouraging her to go on.

Meredith exhaled and nodded her head softly with a smile. "My mom's dead. Died a few years back," she shrugged off. "We were never close. We didn't have…a relationship even though she raised me on her own after my dad left when I was five."

Carolyn nodded understandingly, her heart happy that her future daughter-in-law trusted her enough to talk about these things. She knew firsthand how hard it could be. Her motherly instincts already kicked in, promising herself to hurt anyone who would hurt Meredith.

"Derek's met my friends," Meredith continued, now amused thinking about Cristina and Alex. "They're my family. Actually, he was friends with them separately even before we… got together; back when I hated his guts," she said with a laugh. "They started this idiotic thing back then where they'd report to each of us how many times we'd complain about the other in a day."

The woman laughed out loud hearing the odd story her son and his fiancé had, still not quite sure of the exact rundown of how their relationship had developed but just glad it did. Derek needed this girl. She was refreshing.

"Twenty-six," a deep voice interrupted them, making the two ladies glance at the man leaning against the door frame. "Cristina said she had come up with twenty-six different versions of a "Mc" nickname for me. McAss, McBastard, McCocky…"

"Twenty-five," Meredith corrected smugly in amusement. "It was one for every letter of the alphabet, but I never figured one out for 'X'."

He walked up by the duo, pouring himself a drink as his mother laughed. "My mistake," Derek chuckled.

"Okay, well when you kids are ready, join the rest of us outside. We had the spread set out there," the older woman reminded as she left the couple alone, smirking to herself at the blatant flirting neither of them seemed to be aware they were doing. Nothing else seemed to be in the room when they were both there.

"I think she likes you," Derek shrugged once his mother had left, popping a grape in his mouth from the bowl by her on the island.

"Well, I like her," the blonde blushed but remained casual, studying him as he looked at her incredulously. "What?"

"Nothing," he defended jovially, "I just didn't think you could like anything connected to me." Although he was mostly kidding, he was still trying to gauge Meredith and how far she would start drifting away from her stronghold of dislike for him.

She scoffed at his tease but really couldn't blame him. Both of them were equally ridiculously petty when it came to the other. "I hate to admit it but I think you've moved up from unbearably annoying to tolerable. So, liking your family isn't so out of the ordinary."

"Tolerable…Wow. Am I blushing or?"

"Oh, shut up," she giggled absentmindedly, throwing a grape his way. Letting her laughter die down, a thought popped into her head. "You know, now that I think of it, you do have 26 McNicknames."

"What do you mean?"

"Before we were introduced, days before you officially started, Cristina and I saw you walk out of the chief's office."

"Okay?"

"Before you were McDickhead," she mused to herself for coming up with that as he rolled his eyes and nodded for her to continue. "I was the one who dubbed you McDreamy."

She almost instantly regretted telling him that as his face slowly grew too pleased with himself, looking at her like had just won some imaginary competition against her. She rolled her eyes as she swigged the last few centimeters of wine from her glass down her throat. This was going to be unbearable.

"Hmm," he hummed to himself delightedly, watching her move around the kitchen. So his (in)famous nickname had come from her. Because Meredith Grey had a crush on him at first sight. Okay, even he knew that to be farfetched. She thought him to be physically attractive. Which also happened to be his first impression of her, a story he might take to his grave. Of course, all that didn't matter after they were revealed to be competitors.

"It was an irony, okay?" Her defense ending up in futility. "This kitchen can't fit enough of your growing head before the walls crumble. Can we go now? I'm starving," she waved off his smile. She brought this on herself.

Maybe this was the world's karma for leaving him uncomfortable on the grass this morning. She could feel him studying her as if trying to figure out how he could get her to make him McDreamy in her eyes again.

"Hey!" she snapped at his inattentiveness, a feeling brewing inside of him trying to make this more fun. "I've already had a glass of wine. Food."

This was fun. For him.

Kids ran amok, adults clanged their beer bottles. They both arrived in the garden last, people cheering as they finally made their way towards the crowd surrounding three long picnic tables. The couple immediately found their seats, and as the minutes passed, Meredith found herself enjoying the food and alcohol and light family conversation.

His family was nice. Every adult showed her how excited they were to "have her in the family". If she were to jump to conclusions, the cheesy way they all got along and bonded was an indication of how bright and shiny Derek grew up. She'd cringe at the thought, but it would only be because she was slightly jealous.

"So, Meredith Grey," Kathleen, Derek's sister, grinned from across the table. "Tell us the story!"

Meredith looked at her confusedly, grabbing Derek's beer bottle to wash down some of her food. "What story?"

"Your engagement, of course. How did my sap of a brother propose?"

The crowd's ears perked up, agreeing excitedly as they encouraged to hear Meredith speak. A blush crept up both their cheeks, slapping themselves in the head for forgetting this one detail of their mastermind plan. Her laugh grew nervous as the family cheered her on.

Her gaze traveled back and forth between Derek and Kathleen, taking notice of Derek's silence as he made no attempts to look away from his salad.

"You know what, guys, I really think Derek should tell the story," her hands clapped together, ignoring how a pair of blue eyes bulged her way in a silent murdery way. "It was his proposal. He should get to tell it. Am I right?" she perked up their audience, now switching their encouragement over.

He clenched his knuckled, concealing his death glare in a smile as she sat back down and he slowly stood out of the bench, grabbing his bottle to move over to his other side as Meredith tried to swipe it.

"Okay, okay," he raked his hair back, walking to somewhat the center as all eyes were on him. He was truly absolutely clueless as to what to say. "Where to begin…"

So which one was he supposed to tell? The one where he had forced Meredith to ask him nicely in his office or the one where he had bought her cheap plastic rings from a children's jewelry store?

"I know for a fact that Meredith hates being the center of attention if it's not work-related," he started, no fucking clue where he was going with this. He looked at her watching him intently as he tried to piece a story together, looking way too smug and comfortable at not having to speak in front of his family. "So, a big, flashy public proposal was out of the question."

"Meredith was a mystery. I honestly have no idea how she would've wanted me to propose. Or if she'd even say yes... At this point, we had been dating a couple months and I hadn't gotten a ring yet. I just knew I wanted her, I guess."

Meredith held in a snort, only her possibly catching the double entrada of his snippet. They were so going to hell for lying.

"One morning, she was performing surgery and I had been watching her from the OR gallery."

Surgeons aren't just never late, they're always early. So on his first day to report for duty at Seattle Grace Hospital, Derek Shepherd came in an hour before the time Chief Webber and he had agreed upon.

He made himself comfortable, walking around the huge institution, letting his instincts lead the way, and exploring the building like a five-year-old on an adventure. Seattle Grace was no joke. The busy hallways, state-of-the-art facilities, and friendly nurses who threw saucy smiles at him despite it being only seven in the morning. He could get used to this.

He walked aimlessly, applauding the said instincts that never failed him because before he knew it, he had arrived at a hallway of entrances to various operating rooms. Smirking to himself about how no one has surgery written in their heart like he does, he strutted on as orderlies nodded curtly in greeting, not questioning his presence despite the lack of scrubs.

"Right now, I'm removing her skull flap and inserting it subcutaneously in a pocket in her anterior abdominal wall. Why?"

Derek's ears perked up as a silky voice questioned from a speaker echoing in the gallery, walking in to find the lead surgeon on the grounds below hyperfocused on her task.

The younger doctor wracked her brain at the sudden question. She remembered reading this at one point, panicking that she was blanking out at such a basic question. "Because, umm, the flap is…"

"What does removing the skull flap do, Dr. Crosby? Why are we doing this procedure?" the green-eyed doctor in the purple scrub cap asked, her strict tone intimidating but her question patient and guiding.

"A decompressive craniectomy is meant to relieve intracranial pressure and brain swelling," the intern said confidently.

"Right. And since it could take days to relieve such, so we're left with a skull flap. What then?"

As if a lightbulb had clicked in the nervous doctor's head, she watched as the perfectly sawed-off piece of bone was deposited into a sterile bowl. "The flap needs to be stored in a sterile environment before a cranioplasty is done. Subcutaneous pockets are a form of preserving the bone since the body wouldn't view it as foreign material."

"Correct," the lead surgeon affirmed her well-explained answer. "You had the answers, Dr. Crosby. Don't let nervousness overtake you in the OR," her voice still as stern, but only meant to encourage her student.

"Yes, Dr. Grey."

Grey, Derek thought, wondering what this neurosurgeon Grey had in relation to the pioneering general surgeon Ellis Grey. He's met her in Boston once before as a newly-minted doctor, and it wasn't an experience he liked to relive despite being in the presence of such genius.

He studied in awe as this Dr. Grey continued the procedure, noting the skillful way her minute movements swiftly angled the instrument. The way she used every tiny muscle in her fingers to the flex of her wrists to slice the layers was entrancing.

Not just that, her spirit was one-of-a-kind, like everyone in the room submitted to her so willingly. She commanded the OR with a different kind of energy that took over everyone. The intern looked like she wanted to kiss the ground she walked on as the brain instantly showed signs of decompressing, all the messy waves on the screen calming down in a uniform pattern.

His observations drifted away from the patient and towards the doctor, looking higher to note her seafoam eyes, bright and clear despite being underneath all the headgear.

His eyebrows pinched in confusion, swearing he's seen them before, especially when he noted some of the blonde hair peeking out from behind her ear.

Déjà vu overcame him but he still couldn't place her. All he knew was she looked so so familiar. Have they met before?

Her voice had this raspy edge to it, and her face (or what he could see of it) was a vague memory deep in his brain. Classmate? Consult? Conference?

He hasn't slept with her before, has he?

Who was she?

She was the most entitled, rude, and cocky woman he's ever met. That's who she was. Fuck it that her beautiful eyes and flower-scented hair would've made him inwardly swoon as a man, this doctor didn't know who she was up against.

He had finally met up with Richard after failing to place this Dr. Grey, only to find out some hours later that she was Dr. Meredith Grey, neurosurgeon and his main competitor for head of the department.

Richard had introduced them when he called her into his office, only for things to go instantly sour when she made it clear she had no interest in making nice with the New Yorker who had come to Seattle to steal her job.

The faint recognition that tugged at his heartstrings every time she looked at him slowly casted away as annoyance brewed. The rest, as they say, is history.

"It was a long procedure but she saved her patient's life. I waited until she came out of surgery, and she was just exhausted. I wanted her to go home, but the thing is Meredith is the type of selfless person who'd spend the night monitoring her patient because she didn't want them to be alone. She stayed after the long night she had already had because her patient didn't have any loved ones around," he reminisced, adding himself to the actual story while recalling the way she had stormed out of Richard's office to check on her patient.

Even before the messy crap they got themselves into, he knew for certain she was a dedicated physician. She was sensitive to her patients' needs and knew how to see them still as people and not just cases. She was caring and annoyingly talented.

"Meredith is that rare person; the one who wouldn't hesitate to hold a stranger's hand… " People's smiles were evidence enough that his fairytale was working, but Derek seemed so lost in thought, only snapping back to reality when someone erupted in a light cough as he remained wordless a second too long.

"Oh," he stammered. "That's when I realized that despite everything in life, I wanted to be with her and I just needed to know if she wanted to be with me too. So I went to her office and asked her if it was okay that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her," he rambled on, pulling some handy, generic lines from romance movies– wrapping up quickly as he realized he got lost in his story and didn't even know why he was telling it in the first place.

Damn, he was good at this impromptu storytelling thing. It's a skill, even she had to admit, slightly taken aback at how well formulated that was.

"And I said yes," Meredith interjected, wanting it to be over, slowly getting confused as to some parts that sounded genuine, as if he was complimenting her skill and personality. "And we then were engaged. That's it."

Meredith gulped nervously as people around them started to clang their utensils against their glasses, wooting and asking the happy couple to show them a kiss.

Shit.

Liz, sitting to her left, gently encouraged her to stand and walk over to Derek, standing there dumbfounded, guiding her in a soft push. Her teeth caught the insides of her cheeks as she nervously stepped her way up, walking over to him wishing the ground would shake or the sky would fall.

She huffed silently as she ended up standing right in front of him, both of them before the crowd.

"So," Derek smiled at her smugly, "How do you wanna angle your way out of this one?" he teased in a low voice that only she could hear, gesturing around with his eyes to the people that surrounded them in, watching the two of them with sweet fawning looks.

This was karma.

She glared at him but inwardly, she was freaking out. Why was she panicking? Okay, so what that they had to kiss? Play the part, Meredith.

"Whatever, fine. Just do it already," she braced herself with an annoyed tone. She couldn't understand the nervousness that fluttered in her stomach and traveled all the way to her chest. It's not like she had feelings for him. This would be strictly part of their business deal.

She looked at him with a challenging yet unsure stare. What annoyed her the most wasn't his arrogant smirk or his admittedly tempting lips. It wasn't the continuous clanging of glasses or the cheering for their public display of attention. No. She was frustrated because she was nervous. And what for? Seriously, what for? She was far from a prude. She's kissed a lot of men. A lot. This was just McJackass, Mr. Pretty Face, Sir Brain Butcher.

Derek Shepherd was confusing and she could feel herself losing grip on the wall she had built around her. He was making her feel weak.

That was her problem. And she swore that that was the last thing she would ever be.

"Do it," she commanded irritatedly, wanting the moment to be over with.

Derek's shit-eating grin softened at her forced insistence. Should he be hurt by how badly she didn't want him to kiss her?

Her face was in front of him but her eyes wandered the demanding audience nervously. She almost looked...scared. And he could feel the unsurity that radiated from her. He felt a pang of guilt overcome him as she stared back at him with eyes that tried to look confident but were nothing but vulnerable.

He swallowed the lump in his throat and leaned down only to plant the softest peck on her nose, causing her already closed eyes to widen in surprise. He then switched to her right cheek, grazing his lips over the smooth skin before kissing it, letting his lips purse to catch just a bit of her before releasing it. He then slowly moved to the left to do the same. He moved up to kiss her forehead, just to where her hair parted. His forehead then barely rested softly on the spot he planted the last kiss on with his eyes now fluttered close but hers just staring confusedly at his closed lids, counting the long lashes that adorned them. He hovered his lips over hers but didn't seem to have any intentions of actually touching them.

Never in her entire life had she ever been kissed so tenderly and so...respectfully before. And they technically didn't even kiss.

And she knew. It was because he respected her enough not to force her into anything. She knew that he didn't want to kiss her if she truly didn't want to kiss him.

She felt him about to break away, deciding that should be enough to placate their audience so hungry for the couple to show affection. So she raised her hand up to cup his cheek, pulling him down so his hovering lips could finally touch hers. The clanging stopped, the people disappeared, and there was no one there but them.

Pure electricity. Like two live wires crackling over each other trying to connect, shocking their nerves to focus all their senses on the contact between them.

She first forced his mouth to pry open, coaxing them apart when she caught his bottom lip in hers. He instinctively returned her actions, catching and releasing her lips with his own, relishing in its softness. His hands raised to cradle the small of her back as he deepened his mouth against hers, and she let her hand wander up to the back of his neck, encouraging him to stay close.

She acquiesced to his demanding lips that now continued to fuse with hers tenderly, slightly opening her mouth so he could sneak a taste. Derek's mouth stretched into a smile at her sweetness and his actions grew firmer, angling himself and pulling her chin towards him so he could explore every breathtaking inch of her mouth that he could with his lips. She pulled away from his hungry kisses just for both of them to start regaining some oxygen, her fingers resting on the hair that rested on his nape.

And just as his tongue was about to slip into hers, a loud whistle forced them to break apart.

Wild cheering, applause and teases scattered across the house and crescendoed back into their ears as they gained their senses again, still trying to catch their breaths. Amused parents squealed and covered their children's eyes. Derek's cousin, whistling with his fingers in his mouth to express how breathlessly heated things grew, walked up to slap him hard on the back in approval.

"Slow down, Derek. She's not going anywhere," he joked as the crowd laughed as they went back to chattering.

Derek and Meredith smiled nervously at the people, his arms still embracing her waist and their cheeks covered in a hot blush. She slowly broke away from his body and met his equally stunned eyes, trying to figure out what the fuck just happened.

"Hmm," she exclaimed, eyebrows slightly furrowing and biting the inside of her cheek hard and blinking continuously in an awkward realization that she had just enjoyed an earth-shattering kiss with Derek Shepherd.

"That was…" he knowingly replied, equally at a loss for words, licking his swollen lips and looking at her like she had two heads. Both of them equally horrified at how they had lost themselves for a moment there.

She played with her fingernails at a lack of knowledge on what to do and just wished the earth would swallow her so she didn't have to experience this awkwardness, "Odd…" she murmured.

"Unexpected," he pondered to himself at the same time,

Carolyn immediately stood up to embrace the happy couple, pushing them together to fit in her little arms.

"I am so so happy for you two! Congratulations!" she said, pure ecstasy at the notion that her baby boy has finally found the one- everyone so unfazed by their nervous chuckles.

People only see what they wanna see. And right now, the fake couple looked at each other not knowing what exactly they were getting themselves into.

A/N: As promised. I'm sorry for the wait. Please let me know how you guys like it! Where do you think their relationship is going?

While you're here, I'm going to once again shamelessly promote my other MerDerstories: Hows of Us & Ghost.

Also, I thought of a new AU concept, but don't know if I can take it on. It's Henry and Teddy's storyline but MerDer. I'll try to do that once my load is a little lighter, but if anyone else is interested, I would love to see your take on it.

Lastly, Happy Pride Month!