Chapter Two
Mrs. McDreamy and the McWedding
Seattle, Washington - December 2021
Since Derek hooked up the water supply and Meredith's tomatoes had begun growing at a regular rate that they now had a mean vegan breakfast burrito every morning. They'd been doing a lot of things lately, well, they'd been doing it a lot lately. In all sorts of places - it'd started in Meredith's kitchen, because of course they had no neighbours, then came the bar. After Derek had introduced her to his ball friends, they really took advantage of the pool table. Well, they certainly took advantage of each other on the pool table. Either way, they were happy. There was food growing in the front yard and smiles on their faces as they woke each morning. Well Meredith was smiling, Derek was folding his arms and sighing because her snoring was too loud - and with the absence of traffic, it left Derek with rather a conundrum.
Well he was indifferent anyway, it seemed that he was blindsided by love. Though he did wake up one morning thinking that someone should be in charge of this new society so he sat with his back to the headboard, his mind shuffling through the various ways in which he would start this conversation - after all, he'd only know her a few weeks.
"Meredith?" He said, folding his arms and brushing her loose bangs away from her face as she gently woke in the morning light.
"Yeah, what is it?" She mumbled into the pillow as her eyes refused to budge open.
"I think since there's no president anymore, we should make one. Wanna put it to a vote?" He suggested, leaning down to kiss her forehead lightly.
"You woke me up for that, you just do it." Meredith replied, stuffing her head back down into the pillow and nudging him annoyingly in the ribs and attempting to go back to sleep. Derek chuffed and slid out of bed, pulling on a sweater and some pants, and looking over Meredith one last time before walking out of the room.
"You just had sex with the President of the United States, Mer." He said, chuckling to himself as he walked into the bathroom. The engagement ring sitting in its little box on his bedside table, waiting to be untucked. Waiting to be opened and enjoyed and explored in this new world. He'd got it from a little jewelers on Main Street, smashed through the layers of cubed glass and plucked out a little ring that looked like one his mother had had. Technically there was nothing stopping them, he really wouldn't have felt the need at all seeing as marriage didn't exactly mean much in this new world. Or it could if they wanted to, but Meredith was traditional, he knew that. And he knew that they were some things she wanted to keep from the old world. So they would have a wedding.
A week went by with no such luck at a proposal having happened. Whenever Derek felt a pause in the conversation long enough to whip out the ring, he forgot the right words, and one time he actually forgot the ring. The perfect moment hit him in the evening of a night they'd decided to go shopping, somehow the supermarket seemed like the most unlikely place but it ended up being exactly right. So the story goes as follows...
Derek and Meredith were strolling around the store, trolley between them, Meredith picking out the perfect jar of olives for the dinner she was planning for their month anniversary. "You know, gotta have the right olives to go with my tomatoes right. The ones you watered for me." She reminded him, smiling childishly as she picked up and put down another jar, "this one expired in 2016, how is it still even on this shelf." She said with disgust. Derek recoiled and laughed a little as she selected 'the perfect jar' and placed it down into the trolley. He felt the tingle at the back of his neck - all of the hairs standing up on end - he felt the chill of excitement as he watched her stand.
"Meredith?" He said, picking out the right syllables to begin with, so his lips pouted and shifted between 'm' and 'o' and 'e'. "I've thought of every way to say this-" He started, but when Meredith stood to her full height she interrupted him.
"Derek do you think it'll just be us, forever?" She asked, not meeting his anxious eyes and instead fiddling with the peeling label on the olive jar. She sighed, it was a pained sort of calm sigh like she'd already come to terms with everything that was before them. She supposed she had, in this new world of the emptiness, there was the light and hope of new love and the soft blanket covering of their relationship to cover the hardness. She dropped the jar to the bottom of the trolley and took his hands, she peered upwards in new mutiny as she surrendered herself to the vulnerability of his gaze. So much so that words failed her.
"When I thought it was just going to be me alone forever, I couldn't bare it. At first it was fun, you know doing whatever I wanted, but then the loneliness came, I spent days - weeks - laying around in my own filth waiting for those signs to be useful. Then one day they were, they worked, I wasn't alone anymore. And now I think it could be you and me together forever and I wouldn't bat an eyelid." He said longingly, his strong blue eyes and rounded shoulders shielded her as he brought her close to him, her chin just resting on his neck like a child would. He was her protector and sustainer.
As she pulled back from him he reached into the far depths of his innermost jacket pocket and pulled out the little black box he'd been carrying around. He failed to get on one knee for she was still holding him tight upright, but she gasped a little when she saw it. In truth she would never have said yes had this been any other time, they'd only known each other for a month - what a splendid month it was though. She would've run far away from him at the thought and wept over her loss of him. But there was nothing now, no career, no friends, no debt, to stop her from adhering to her heart's desire.
So he opened his mouth and said those fabled words "Meredith Grey, will you marry me?" He asked, he knew he should've thought of some clever and interesting way of saying it, but his mind was at faults for it. She nodded before answering and kissed his cheek.
"Derek Shepherd, I shall have to call you McDreamy, for I feel like I'm in a dream with you."
The wedding was organised within a few days, Meredith had entrusted one job to Derek before the event itself - he was to get her some fresh flowers. After the virus had struck most people had stopped tending to their gardens and one by one the wilting flower groves had begun to indeed die out. Hydrangeas were flailing left, right and centre. The lilies had peeling leaves and petals greying with age. He knew it'd be quite a challenge but he figured there must be something still growing in this dying world of old. Either way, there was a spring in his step as he walked the curbs of Seattle looking for flowers. He felt like some sort of pied piper or Dick Wittington trying to find his way on the golden streets of London.
Meredith was busying herself with dress finding and decorating a little chapel she'd found, it was in a hospital. Normally such things would be deemed odd, but she found the place oddly soothing. She'd spent a lot of time in hospitals - her mother having been a surgeon, she couldn't bare the idea herself, as a form of rebellion she'd moved away and found herself her own life. Her mother having pushed her away out of longing for higher achievement. The place was small and winding and you had to dig through miles of corridors just to find it, but sitting in there, sitting in the first pew, she could see herself and him. That was when she had the idea for the CD player.
Ar least one part of the day would be normal then, with nobody ordained to marry them she decided a pre-recorded track would narrate the event. It took her just over an hour to time it right, she'd sent Derek off to find flowers to keep him busy, if this was going to be her last day of freedom she was going to spend it on her own. On her own, in a store full of crafts. She was adding white sequins to a dress she thought was perfectly ok, because she didn't want to get married in something ordinary. She wasn't going to be another one of those happy brides with a happy smirk and twelve bridesmaids, even before the virus hit and everyone died. She wasn't that sort of girl, she wasn't exactly strange either mind you, she was just a little quirky.
Later that afternoon she watched from the kitchen window as Derek came strolling down the path of their house with a large smile plastered about his stubbled face. He was holding a tiny bunch of early winter snowdrops, their dewy - they like the rain of Seattle just as much as Derek it seemed. He rapped on the door with his man-hand and smirked, cocking a hand to his waist and raising an eyebrow as she opened the door. Meredith giggled to look at him, standing there like that. And as he presented the bunch to her she graciously accepted and brought him into her arms.
"Thank you Mr. McDreamy." She whispered in his ear that night as they fell asleep, the next day bringing something new, and old, borrowed and blue.
They made their way to the hospital arm in arm, well arm an handle. For Meredith was carrying the CD player between them as they walked through the empty and borrowed streets. Her shoes were blue, and the bottom of her dress hemmed in shiny crimson to complement. He was wearing a black tux, smart as Their arms swaying side-by-side between them. As they waded through the endless corridors, Derek shot Meredith a 'do you know where we're going?' look as they rounded the last corner.
"Ta-da!" Meredith said, flaying her arms out to the side and spreading herself across the doorway. Then she retook Derek's hand and leading him down the aisle. They stood parallel to each other as Meredith placed the stereo on the alter, flicking the on switch she quickly left the room and hid round the corner. Derek smiled as he braced himself and slow wedding march began to play, the steady rhythm pulsing he chewed his lip. Meredith braced herself and clutched her flowers to her chest, taking the first step she strode down the aisle.
She would be Mrs. McDreamy before the day was out, the music was slowing to a pause and she was standing beside Derek, hands outstretched, feet lightly clicking. The tape reeled on in Meredith's slow sweet voice, "we are gathered here to today to witness, ha well not really, but anyway- the wedding of Meredith Grey and Derek Christopher Shepherd - told you I'd remember..." And it went on, the tape clicking every minute longer it played, pausing for vows and the exchange of rings before a kiss which Meredith hadn't quite anticipated and the tape continued chatting over for some time.
