Chapter One: Part two
I'd totally repopulate with you
A/N I'm trying to keep the Grey's relationships as canon as they possibly can be, so doing the exact plot of LMOE would be OOC for Derek and Meredith so this chapter will be where the plot alters a little as Carol and Phil don't exactly like each other at the beginning.
Somewhat near Seattle, Washington - November 2021
"Who-who are you?" The woman said, her gun dipping as he hands shook with fear and uncertainty. "Are you the one who put up those billboards?" She asked, still quivering but lowering her weapon a little as he turned around to face her. He attempted a weak smile and put his hands in the air. His legs were wobbly but as he began to look - to really look at the woman in front of him, the more he wished he was wearing more than an old sweater and some dirty underwear.
"Yes! Yes that was me!" He replied suddenly excited that that endeavour had proved to be useful, and internally he was thanking God that it was worth it. And a little bit of him felt like Noah right now, saving humanity from the flood. "I'm not dangerous." He said, then realising he was still holding this woman's bra he dropped it into the sand. "Sorry, about that." He continued gesturing, which made the woman blush a little and finally drop her gun into her pants pocket. She took a step towards him and smiled a little as she looked through his thistle beard and overgrown mane of hair to realise he was actually quite an attractive man.
"I can't believe you're real, I thought I was the only one left." She said, they were only standing with a few feet between them. She extended her hand for him to shake, "I'm Meredith, Meredith Grey - last woman on Earth." It was a declaration, an absolute fact in her mind that couldn't be altered. But she was pleased to meet him.
"Meredith, that's a nice name, traditional well you know. I'm Derek Shepherd, last man on Earth if we're giving ourselves titles. Sorry I haven't spoken to another person in two years and I still can't get my head around the fact that you're replying to me." Derek muttered out, his lungs aching for a breath in that it'd been a long time since he'd felt this sort of emotion. It was an overwhelming urge to touch her, in any and every possible way, he felt it inexcusable of course, but it did make sense, so he wasn't going to totally chastise himself over it.
"That's ok, it's been a long time for me too. Do you want some tea? I'm afraid its all I have left." Meredith said, her eyes sparkling a little as she lead Derek through her camp to her stove. She'd been living in her car and trailer as she travelled, putting all of her stuff into a rental as she followed to pull of the billboards. Originally from New Orleans Meredith was a pretty simple thirty-something that used to work in a boat making factory, albeit random she was the manager and she was good at her job. She was a sweet person with questionable past, she was dark and twisty on the inside, and since the world died and left her alone, she was ok with it. Anybody who had survived the deaths of every single person they knew had to be a little dark and twisted anyway.
She lead Derek to a deck chair and he sat watching her as she let a pan of water boil. She sat beside him with a owl mug in both hands and a steaming smile as she sipped the tea. "So Derek? Who are you...?"
After an hour of talking and acting like they were on a first date, Derek gave his mug back to Meredith and stood up suddenly taking her hand. She looked puzzled for a moment, but then again she had just been talking about Floridian radishes. She was already slightly in love with him. Behind the beard and the two years, he was kind and smiled with his eyes and his mouth. She'd imagined that if anyone was still alive they'd either be ugly or horrible and she'd have to put up with them. But Derek seemed to dispel all such thoughts with his charm, maybe he was just putting it on to get her into bed, he had been alone for two years. Even if she was, Meredith had decided she really didn't care what his motives were, she had nothing to lose. And he didn't seem like an axe murderer.
"I think I should show you my place." He said, whisking her away to his jeep and setting off for the cul-de-sac.
The block was a normal Seattle street, where Derek had subsequently moved after his wife left him. It wasn't much, but it'd become a home to him, a comfort through this time of uncertainty. After the virus hit and people were dropping like flies, he'd called Addison a few times to check if she was still alive. She may have left him but he was a good man, he felt like it was his duty not to abandon her completely. So he'd called and left a message but there'd been no answer. Sometimes now he called the number still registered to her cell and let the familiar chirp of her voice flood his ears. Somehow now he was looking at his house beside Meredith, Addie didn't come to his mind at all, all Derek could think about now was how he could impress her.
Then he remembered the state he'd left the house in. With no running water and consequently no bathroom, he'd moved a porta-potty onto his back porch and then when his depression hit an all time low he'd stopped doing any sort of hygiene ritual altogether and now there were empty liquor bottles and half-opened tins of refried beans littering the once smooth floor. As he opened the door the mess hit him like a wall, his nose scrunching as he inhaled the smell. It was like a dozen rotting eggs had met a serious mould problem in a stinky blue cheese factory. The house smelt like feet, thrice times over. Derek recoiled his entire body almost immediately closing the door behind him and slamming his back into the peeling paint of the grey-green door - peeling from the alcohol Derek's fingers had been coated in merely the night before when he stumbled in from a day at the bar. Meredith shot him a questioning look and he tried to cover his back with a smile but it came out rather guiltily and soon enough Meredith was pushing herself past him.
"Derek- what is it?" She asked, her fingers grasping around the handle and taking one look back at him before forcing the wood on its hinges. The full weight of what she was witnessing was like a bomb dropping, after everything she'd been through to find out this almost-perfect guy she'd just met. The last man on Earth, was a slob. Half her heart broke for him, he'd clearly been through something for his house to get this bad. The other half was siding with her brain and was screaming for her to run away, not to try and fix this guy she only just met. Then she turned around. He was right there, standing right in front of her with an awful look on his face, knowing that he felt as bad about this as was deemed acceptable. She watched his eyes sigh and she melted. "It's ok."
She said, taking a deep breath she closed the door and approached him. His shoulders curved around his body like he had arching wings protecting him from the sun, in some ways he was angelic. He was a man, and he needed tidying up - desperately - but he was something. Meredith placed her hand on his shoulder and gripped him tightly as she sculpted her words. "I'm new here, and it would be rude to move into your house when I don't even know you, so if you want, why don't we find me a house together and if we get along, maybe you could come and live with me?" She said, speaking slowly and reassuringly to him, searching for his eyes in his bent over frame and then brushing past him to look at the rest of the street.
The next morning Derek woke with a start, his mind flicked through the day before and for the first time in a good long while his lips curled into a smile. His eyes sparkled as he got up and actually brushed his teeth, he also picked up a razor from the store and got rid of thistle brush he'd been growing on his face. Then he combed his hair and set off on a short walk down the street the little two-bed apartment Meredith had claimed for herself. She didn't like too much space, her house in New Orleans she'd shared with two roommates - other 30-something singletons who's kept each other company through the worst of it. Now she couldn't bare to look at too many empty rooms, so small it was. Not exactly the mansions they were practically entitled to now that capitalism had died out.
Derek was raising his hand to knock on Meredith's door when he noticed a small attempt at building a garden she'd obviously started on the night before. He paused for a moment, thinking about how he could impress her and repay her for the compassion she'd shown him yesterday when he was clearly at his lowest. Her little baby tomato plants were situated in tiny pots beside a cleared out planter, but there was no running water. There was no watering system to keep them hydrated, little bells were ringing inside Derek's head until he didn't knock and made a move up the hill to the library for a book on water collection and dispersion systems. Meredith spotted his figure outside her window and peeked through the curtains to just witness him making his way down the road - forgetting that his jeep would be quicker yet again.
After a while of researching and Meredith deciding to leave him to it, seeing as he clearly working on something. Derek came across a water tower and spent an aching thirty minutes trying to tie a hose pipe around it. Eventually he managed it but not before soaking through his entire outfit, shirt, pants and socks all wet. Completely soaked to the bone. He tied it off and brough the end of the pipeline down to a system he'd carefully crafted out of some old piping he'd found on a nearby construction site. "Wait until she sees this, eh Jimmy?" He said to his smiling basketball as he worked tirelessly through the soft winter afternoon.
When it was finished Derek silently strode down the street like a prowling peacock trying to attract a mate. He preened his hair back as he finally lifted his fist to the knocker and crashed his knuckles on the wood. "Yes?" Meredith said coyly as she smiled at him and opened the door. She knew exactly what he'd been up to all day from careful watching every few hours, and her attraction to him was only growing. He lead her out to the end of her picket-fenced garden and together they peered down at his work.
"What's this then?" She said, pretending to inspect, her shoulders pulled back by her hands and her chin jutting forward over the now nicely drizzled tomato plants.
"Well, um," Derek mumbled, rubbing the back of his neck to ease some nerves. "I thought I should do something nice for you, impress you and all - after yesterday." He replied, gesturing in front of him.
"Uh huh." Meredith said, the corners of her mouth in a patient smirk as she lifted her upper body away from the tomatoes and towards his. She bit the end of her index finger between her teeth, truth telling with her eyes, an unspoken confession that she knew and she actually probably already loved him. If that was possible. Her smile was his reward for a day's work, and he would've walked away the happiest man on the Earth at that very moment had she not casually leaned upwards. Suddenly the space between their bodies had dissipated, and it was only the two of them and the tomatoes, and they really weren't about to spoil the moment. Derek dipped his head a little and let her lips gently brush against his. He left it at a chaste kiss, not wanting to push her too far too soon. But then she wrapped a snake-like hand round his neck and pulled him closer to her, so close in fact that the deep scent of her lavender shampoo was invading his nostrils, intoxicating and enchanting him all at the same time.
