"Did he wear you out or something, Mere? C'mon! Get up! It's after ten…" Cristina urged her friend while pulling open the curtains.
Sunlight flooded the bedroom, highlighting the flecks of dust that sprang from the quick movement of the curtains. Meredith scurried under her mass of blankets and pillows to retreat back into darkness like a mouse that had been unexpectedly cornered.
"Sleep…few…more…minutes…" Meredith whined, hoping for more time to lie in that state between dreaming and being awake. Her ability to linger in bed in the morning was often limited as an intern-turned-resident, and she tried do so whenever possible. She always loved this time of day, despite the typical interruptions of intermittently piercing alarms set to snooze or the occasional outbursts by Cristina demanding that she wake up. It was the best time of day to linger in dreams before the harsh realities of everyday life interfered.
"No more sleep – apartment hunting awaits. And if I have to spend one more minute downstairs watching Izzie Homemaker disinfect the kitchen while I wait for you to get up, I'm going to lose my mind. You'd think after working in a hospital she'd understand that we don't like those chemical smells to follow us home," Cristina replied.
Meredith bolted straight up to look at her friend, her heart pounding from a sudden infusion of adrenaline.
"Izzie's disinfecting the kitchen?" Meredith asked, eyes wide as she racked her brain for what possible evidence she and Derek could have left from their tryst.
"Yeah, something about wanting to make cookies and not knowing when the counters were cleaned last," Cristina stated casually, studying Meredith's reaction before dismissing it to search through a pile of clothes for her missing brown tennis shoe.
"Oh," Meredith sighed, relieved. Her heart started to settle back into a safe rhythm.
"Don't worry. I didn't tell her that you and McDreamy did the McNasty in her precious workspace last night." Cristina smiled teasingly, enjoying the view of Meredith's skin turning a bright crimson color.
"Oh god, you heard us?" Meredith asked.
"Um…Yeah, Mere…It's a miracle the whole block didn't hear you two going at it. Was it good? It sounded like it was good…" Cristina sat back on the bed next to Meredith, hopeful for details.
Meredith continued to blush, refusing to make eye contact with Cristina's eager gaze.
"Come on. I need to live vicariously through you for a while," Cristina pouted, playfully hitting Meredith with a pillow. In the past, the girls had a secret pact not to share details about their sex lives out of fear that their boyfriend's fragile egos could somehow get bruised. But now that Burke was out of the picture, Cristina was hopeful that the agreement would no longer be enforced.
"Fine," Meredith finally agreed. "It was absolutely, unbelievably amazing, but I will not give any other details."
She leaned back onto her pillows, smiling broadly at the memory.
"No need. I heard enough last night to get a pretty good idea of what was happening," Cristina teased. "Does this mean that the two of you are back together?"
"Yeah, I think so," Meredith nodded.
"You think so?" Cristina asked, raising her eyebrows almost condescendingly.
"I mean, I know so. We talked and worked some things out last night…"
"Sounded like it…" Cristina interrupted snarkily.
"…and we're really going to try to make things work," Meredith finished, satisfied with the outcome.
She lifted her arms out in front of her and stretched them back up over her head. The added movement of stretching her legs and pointing her toes toward the bedroom door made her feel like a lanky giant amidst a sea of blankets.
"I knew you two couldn't stay broken up for long," Cristina stated matter-of-factly. "You two are like rabbits. You couldn't go that long without sex."
"Cris! Do you really think that's all that we do?" Meredith asked, a little disturbed.
"It's okay, Mere. It's your thing," Cristina replied. She had given up on looking for her shoe in the clothing pile and was now digging around under the bed. She swore her shoes somehow walked away on their own.
Meredith wrinkled her brow defensively. She hated that her friend perceived their relationship that way, but she didn't feel up for arguing with her about it. She knew that Cristina had never been terribly supportive of Derek, and now probably wasn't the time that that would change.
"So, are you going to get up so we can do this or what?" Cristina asked, changing the subject as she triumphantly yanked a shoe from the depths of the bed's shadowy underbelly.
"Yeah," Meredith groaned at the prospect of getting out of bed. "Just let me shower real quick and I'll meet you downstairs."
"Fine," Cristina responded, standing up. She kicked random articles of her clothing back into a large pile in the corner of the room before heading back downstairs.
Meredith looked in amazement at the transformation her room seemed to undergo virtually overnight. She hadn't really noticed it before, but Cristina's belongings were strewn everywhere – on the floor, on dressers, in the closet – she even had scrubs stuffed inside her pillow case and a turquoise bra hanging from the corner floor lamp. While Meredith didn't really consider herself a neat freak, she was appalled that her friend had colonized her room so quickly and completely.
Meredith sighed with exasperation and forced her body toward the bathroom shower, hoping to renew her patience in the spray of water. The quest to find Cristina her own apartment could not start fast enough.
Meredith stopped by the living room on her way to the kitchen, partially hoping that Derek would still be asleep on the couch, miraculously unnoticed by her roommates.
As expected, he was gone. The leather couch had shifted back into its normally worn shape, long forgetting the outline of Derek's body pressed against it.
She sighed a little with disappointment before following the smell of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies to the kitchen.
"Good morning," Izzie beamed brightly, holding a spatula in one hand and a cookie sheet in the other. "Did you get enough sleep last night?"
Cristina snickered a little as she flipped through a magazine at the kitchen table.
"I slept well, just not long enough. Coffee?" Meredith asked casually, scanning the room once more for evidence of her indiscretions with Derek.
Nothing seemed out of place.
"Yeah, I just made a fresh pot," Izzie replied.
Meredith grabbed a mug and poured herself the dark hazelnut roast, savoring the aroma and taste as it slid down her throat. Even after her steamy shower she still felt a little tired and achy from the night before, and she hoped the caffeine would soon reenergize her.
"Thanks for the tee shirt, too. I love it," Izzie smiled, nodding toward the table.
In the rush to get out of the car, Meredith had completely forgotten to bring in the shirt last night. Derek must have gotten it out of his car before he left and neatly folded it on the table.
She smiled at his thoughtfulness.
"Did you have a good time?" Izzie asked.
"Of course she did. Can't you tell?" Cristina piped up, not lifting her eyes from the glossy pages.
"Yeah, the concert was great. I had forgotten how nice that area of Washington is," Meredith replied, ignoring Cristina.
"Did Derek like it?" Izzie continued, spooning out another batch of cookies onto her cookie sheet. The dough quickly spread against the residual heat of the already used sheet.
"He did. We're thinking about going camping there sometime, he liked it so much," Meredith affirmed, rolling her nearly empty mug between the palms of her hands as she soaked in its remaining warmth.
"I bet that would be really nice," Izzie smiled, supportively. "I take it things are better between you?"
"God, Izz, do you even need to ask?" Cristina said, putting her magazine down. "Even as she fights being awake she's practically glowing with giddiness. It's sick!"
Meredith blushed a little. She had to admit she did feel a little giddy. But she thought she had been doing a good job covering it up. Was the contrast between normal dark and twisty Meredith and today's bright and shiny version really that dramatic?
"I'm not glowing," Meredith mumbled, trying to hold back the smile that was creeping across her face.
"Yeah. Okay, whatever," Cristina said dismissively.
"Mere, it's fine. Glowing is good. You should be happy. You've got your McDreamy and even though you have problems you still are together. I'm happy for you. Slightly jealous of your ability to make things work, but happy for you," Izzie encouraged as a spoonful of cookie dough hit the cookie sheet particularly forcefully. It was as if she was lobbing it at the tray rather than delicately placing it there.
Meredith detected a bitter tension in Izzie's voice but decided not to follow up on it just yet. She didn't want anything to ruin her good mood.
"So, do you know where you want to go look, Cris?" Meredith asked, changing the subject.
"Yeah, I've got some info on a few places. Are you ready to go?" Cristina replied, standing up from the kitchen table. She left her magazine wide open on the burgundy placemat as she moved away, clearly not intending to restore the table to its previously well-laid out state. The wooden chair that she had been sitting in made a particularly loud protest as she pushed it across the hardwood floor back toward the table.
Meredith nodded and relished the last remaining droplets of coffee in her cup before placing it in the dishwasher and heading toward the front door. She hoped that this process would go quickly so she could spend the rest of her day off with Derek, but something told her that nothing with Cristina was ever super easy.
"How can you not like this place, Cris? It's perfect! You could walk to work…and to Joe's…and you can see both the city and the mountains…" Meredith argued, the mix of exasperation and disbelief palpable in her voice.
The women had been looking at apartments for five hours and nothing seemed to meet Cristina's expectations.
"Too many windows," Cristina dismissed, wrinkling her nose slightly. "I'll be living in a fish bowl."
"I mean, check out these hardwood floors," Meredith continued, hoping to persuade her friend.
"They're loud and collect a lot of dust," Cristina replied.
"Seriously? The last place you hated because it had carpeting which you said would be too dirty!"
"It was cream colored carpet, Mere. There's a difference," Cristina replied.
Meredith lifted her fingers to her temples to rub circles around them. The love hangover that had put her on cloud nine was now replaced by a thundercloud clapping repeatedly in her head.
"So what are you going to do?" Meredith countered.
"I don't know. Keep looking I guess," Cristina shrugged.
"For what?" Meredith sighed. "What would possibly meet your standards? We've seen dozens of apartments today. Dozens. Big ones. Small ones. Studios. One bedrooms. Two bedrooms. Lofts. Basements. Some with carpeting. Some without. And you haven't liked a single one that we've looked at! And I want my room back! I want a place where I can sleep with my boyfriend and have hot sex without bruising my tailbone because we're forced to do it on a slab of wood on legs instead of on my king-sized mattress!"
Meredith stomped over to the large corner window of the apartment, breathing in the view of the mountains in the distance as she tried to calm down a little.
"You bruised your tailbone?" Cristina asked, a little shocked.
"Maybe. I think so…" Meredith huffed. She reached her arm around to her lower back, confirming that it was still tender from being thrust repeatedly against a table.
"Fine. I'll move out. Don't worry about me. I'll figure something out," Cristina reacted a little too casually.
Meredith inhaled deeply, feeling the oxygen reach the bottom-most spaces of her cavernous lungs. She closed her eyes and tapped her fingers against the windowsill, rolling the tips from left to right like she was rapidly working the keys on a piano as she thought.
"Stay. You don't have another place to go to and I'm your person. I can just go to Derek's," Meredith replied calmly.
Something about the apartment's view, a blend of urban and natural environments, made Meredith feel much less combative than usual. The place reminded her a little of Derek's trailer without the obvious disadvantages of being confined to a tin can surrounded by mud and raccoons. "But if you make me go with you to another apartment today, so help me god, I will lose my mind," she said, raising her voice and turning toward her friend.
"I get it. I'll take it from here," Cristina nodded, acknowledging how much she had already abused Meredith's time.
Meredith looked around the apartment one last time, hoping she could find some selling point to pitch. She saw several, but none that she thought would resonate with Cristina.
"Are you sure you don't like this place?" Meredith asked, hopeful.
"Definitely not…it's a little to Zen for me, and I don't meditate," Cristina responded sarcastically as she retreated to the front door. "But I promise that if I don't find a place of my own in a week or so, I'll consider it," she added, hoping to appease Meredith. After losing Burke so suddenly, she didn't want to risk sacrificing another important relationship because she was too noncommittal.
Meredith pulled out her cell phone to quickly text Derek that she'd be at his place soon, and followed Cristina out the door. She couldn't help but feel a little sad that her Saturday off had succumbed to a fruitless search for something her best friend didn't know how to find.