A/N: So, I'm leaving at 4am tomorrow morning, which means this will be the last update for a while. I'll most likely have the next update ready a few days after I return, so look for it probably around the 16th. In the meantime, please review and let me know what you think of the story so far!

Meredith sighed as she sat on the front steps of Derek's house, clutching her knees to her chest and ignoring the Seattle rain that had already soaked her hair and jacket. Her talk with Molly had convinced her that she needed to talk to Derek as soon as possible, but she hadn't taken into account the possibility that he wouldn't be home when she got there. She knew she should have known better. After all, during the drive over the radio announcer had been going on about a six car pile up not too far from Seattle Grace. Of course he'd still be at the hospital. With her luck, he'd be there all night, performing surgeries and saving lives, leaving Meredith cold and alone on his front porch.

And it was just Meredith's luck that, at the very moment she had decided to call it a night, call someone to come take her home and call Derek in the morning, she had discovered that she couldn't leave. Pulling her cell phone from her pocket, she contemplated who she could call to come pry her from the steps. Cristina would tell her she was an idiot for even wanting to talk to Derek. Alex would laugh at her situation but not really understand. Izzie and Lexie, they walked on eggshells around her as it was, thinking she was going to break at any moment. The last thing she needed was to give them another reason to worry. She knew George was in the middle of a thirty-six hour shift and wouldn't be able to get away from the hospital. She could call Callie, she'd understand the problem, but Meredith had spent so long trying to convince Callie that she was fine and could return to work that she couldn't stand to admit to her that she was wrong. The only person she could think of to call was Molly, but she knew she'd already be home by now. Her morning sickness had been wearing her out, so although Meredith knew she'd come if she called, she figured she'd bothered her sister enough for one night.

Stupid, defective legs, Meredith thought to herself, her therapist's warnings about negative self talk flying out the window. She bit her lower lip to hold back the tears she felt building up in her eyes and pulled her jacket closer around her as she shivered slightly from the cold.

Derek Shepherd was exhausted. He'd spent most of the afternoon trying to figure out where Meredith could have gone. Just as he was leaving the hospital for the night, he'd been called back in for a massive head trauma from a pile up on the highway. After spending nearly three hours working at a feverish pace to remove clots from the man's brain, Derek had been forced to call time of death. The worst part for him, though, was having to tell the man's wife, to see her grief-stricken face as she clutched his arm, breaking down completely when he said those words that every doctor hates to say, 'Ma'am, I'm so sorry. We did everything we could.' Because to Derek, it was never everything he could have done. If past experiences were any indication, he'd spend the night going over and over the surgery in his head, desperately trying to figure out something, anything that he could have done differently. At least, he figured, it would take his mind off of Meredith, because as much as he hated to admit it, he was terrified by the fact that he couldn't find her.

Parking his car in his drive way and jumping out, Derek thought he must be hallucinating when he saw a small figure sitting on his front steps, shaking from the cold but not making any move to get out of the rain.

"Meredith?" Derek's shocked voice pulled her back to reality. She'd zoned out so completely that she hadn't even seen the headlights as he pulled into the driveway.

"My God, Meredith," Derek muttered as he rushed over and knelt next to her. "You're soaked. What are you doing out here?"

"W…waiting," Meredith stuttered through the shivering and the tears. "I was…w…waiting for you. It wa…wasn't raining…not when I sat down."

Derek laughed slightly. "Well, why didn't you get up when it started? The porch is covered, you know."

"C…can't," Meredith said, dropping her head in shame. "C…can't move the legs…stupid legs."

The smiled dropped from Derek's face as he realized that she literally couldn't move. "Hold on," he said, taking off his jacket and wrapping it around his shoulders before he hurried up to the front door and opened it. Returning to Meredith, he wordlessly scooped her up in his arms and carried her into the house.

After only a moment of hesitation as he considered what to do with her, Derek carried her up the stairs and into the large master bathroom, setting her down on the edge of the large Jacuzzi tub and turning the water on to warm up.

"Are you okay for a few minutes?" Derek asked. Meredith nodded and managed a weak smile for him.

"Okay, I'll be right back," Derek assured her.

Sure enough, after listening to him rustle through his dresser for a few minutes, Derek returned with a pair of sweatpants, an old t-shirt and a sweatshirt.

"We need to get you out of those wet clothes…um…do you need me to help?" Derek asked, not sure how she would react to the idea. This certainly wasn't what he had envisioned when he had thought about the first time he would have her in this part of the new house, but he knew with them, things rarely went as planned.

Meredith wasn't quite sure whether it was the exhaustion, or the pain in her legs, or maybe the effects of the cold blocking rational thought, but she found herself nodding in agreement. Truth be told, she was definitely not ready for him to see her, not like this. As much as she tried not to, as many therapy sessions as she had devoted to the subject, she couldn't help but resent the scars that now marked her body, and Derek's possible reaction to them terrified her.

"Okay then," Derek said, reaching over and gently pulling off her jacket and then lifting her shirt over her head. It took all his self-control to stop the gasp he felt forming in his throat as he took in the reddish lines snaking across her torso. He knew now was definitely not the time to do anything to make Meredith uncomfortable or self-conscious.

"Can you stand up so I can get the pants?" Derek asked nervously as he gently wrapped an arm around Meredith's waist, lifting her to her feet as she steadied herself with a hand on the towel rack. Derek quickly had the buttons of her jeans undone and gently pulled them off. Without a word, he picked her up gently and lowered her into the warm waters of the tub.

"Do you need me to stay?" Derek asked. "I mean, I can leave and then come back if you need help getting up or something."

"I…I think I'm okay now," Meredith whispered, feeling the warmth returning to her body. "Thank you."

"Okay, well, there's a towel here when you're ready, and some dry clothes, too," Derek said. "I'm going to take your clothes downstairs and put them in the dryer for you. Just holler if you need anything, okay?"

Forty-five minutes later, Derek sat nervously on the edge of his bed, staring at the closed door that led to his bathroom. He wasn't quite sure how much longer he should wait before doing something to ensure that she was still alright in there, so he was relieved when he finally heard movement from within and saw the door open slowly a few moments later.

Meredith emerged, clad in Derek's sweatpants and his Columbia sweatshirt, her damp hair hanging around her shoulder. "Hi," she said softly, nervously playing with ties on the hood of the sweatshirt.

"I've got some soup down in the kitchen," Derek said. "If you're hungry, that is. If you're not, that's fine too. I just figured, it's warm and you're probably still cold, so…"

"Soup would be nice," Meredith said, smiling shyly at him.

Derek nodded as the two of them headed down to the kitchen. He quickly pulled out a bowl and spooned out some of the vegetable soup he'd heated up while she was taking her bath. Placing it in front of her, he smiled as he watched her eagerly eat.

"Good soup?" he asked in amusement.

Meredith nodded. "I had dinner at Molly's…her cooking skills are only slightly better than mine. She can at least make pasta, but we generally just eat pizza and takeout."

Derek shook his head. "One of these days, I am going to teach you to cook," he said.

"I don't know, your kitchen is awfully nice," Meredith said. "I would hate to ruin it."

"The kitchen at your house seems to still be in good shape," Derek observed.

"That's because Izzie never lets me go in there," Meredith said. "Now, Molly's kitchen, on the other hand…well, let's just say we're going to have to repaint the ceiling before her husband comes home."

"Okay, maybe I'll just do all the cooking," Derek laughed.

"That would be good," Meredith agreed.

"Can I ask you a question?" Derek asked.

"Yeah, go ahead," Meredith said.

"How long were you sitting out there before I got here?" Derek asked.

"Um, maybe an hour or two," Meredith said sheepishly. "I'm not really sure…Molly dropped me off. It didn't really feel like that long."

"Why didn't you call me?" Derek asked. "Or at least call someone?"

Meredith sighed. "I don't know," she admitted. "I don't really like to ask for help, you know that. The only one I could think of who wouldn't make a big deal out of it is Molly, and she would have been nearly home by then, so it would have taken her an hour and a half to get here. Besides, it doesn't usually last that long. I figured why bother calling someone if by the time they got out here the legs would probably be fine again. I guess I just didn't factor in how the cold would affect them."

"Does this happen often? The thing with your legs?" Derek asked in concern.

"I wouldn't say often," Meredith said. "Once every week or two, maybe a little less often now. It's usually after I've been sitting in one position for a long time. They just decide they aren't going to work, although it's mostly the right leg that I have problems with. Apparently it's one of the things they're learning about the surgery they did on the leg, that this sort of thing happens. I can usually get them going after a few minutes, or at least as soon as someone helps to my feet and I can remind the legs what they're supposed to do. But it is one of the reasons Callie won't clear me for surgery yet…she says I have to be able to stand still for four hours without them locking up before she'll clear me."

"I'm sorry I wasn't home earlier," Derek said, feeling guilty that he had left her sitting out there for so long. "We had a lot of traumas come in tonight, so I was pretty busy for a while there."

"Derek, you don't have to apologize," Meredith insisted. "You didn't even know I'd be here. I should have called first…I just, I knew that I needed to talk to you, so I came out here."

"Look, if this is about earlier," Derek said. "It's okay. I understand that you're not ready."

"I want to meet your family," Meredith said. "I mean, yeah, the possibility of your other sisters being just like Nancy kind of terrifies me, but they're your family, and they're important to you, so I want to meet them. I just…"

"I know," Derek said. "You don't want to fly."

"Who'd you talk to you?" Meredith asked.

"Excuse me?" Derek asked. "Talk to?"

"Lexie or Callie?" Meredith asked. "Which one did you talk to after I left?"

"Um, Lexie," Derek admitted.

"She told you about the flying thing," Meredith said.

"She did," Derek said. "And it totally makes sense, I didn't even think of it, but I should have."

"It isn't that I don't want to fly," Meredith explained. "I do want to. I want to be able to get on an airplane and fly, just like a regular person…like I used to be able to. I want to have that back. It's not a matter of not wanting it. I actually, physically cannot get on an airplane. I know it's a mental thing, I get that, but it feels physical. The last time I went to an airport, I actually passed out from hyperventilating during the panic attack I had walking through the doors. And I wasn't even flying – I was there to pick up Molly."

"Well, aren't there things that you can do about that?" Derek asked. "I mean, like mental exercises or something?"

"I'm working on it," Meredith said. "My therapist's been helping me, and we're working toward it. I'm just…I'm not ready yet, Derek."

"We don't have to fly," Derek said. "There are other ways to get to Connecticut, you know. It might be fun to drive – I've never really seen the Midwest, you know."

"You want to drive to Connecticut?" Meredith asked. "Doesn't that take too long? Can you get the time off for that?"

"Well, considering I've taken maybe two weeks off in the two and a half years I've worked at Seattle Grace…not to mention the fact that I've worked every single holiday during those two and a half years…I think I can get plenty of time off. We could even rent an RV and make a real vacation out of it."

"Um, Derek?" Meredith giggled. "I think the trailer was quite enough to convince your family that you've dropped out of their social sphere. I'm not sure your sisters' hearts could handle the shock of us pulling up in a giant RV."

"Fine, no RV," Derek agreed. "But what about just driving in car? We could stop along the way for the nights."

"Okay then," Meredith said. "If we're going to Connecticut, you'll need to make me a list of all your family members…I don't want to forget anyone's name."

"Can it wait until morning?" Derek asked, laughing as he noticed Meredith stifling a yawn. "It's pretty late…you could stay here tonight, if you wanted to."

"Well, I guess you do have plenty of room here," Meredith teased.

Derek laughed. "Yeah, um…I still don't actually have furniture in most of the rooms, though. I was thinking you could stay in my room and I'll take the couch."

"Derek, I don't want to impose," Meredith said. "You shouldn't have to sleep on the couch just because of me."

"Meredith, there's certainly no way I'm letting you sleep on the couch, so I'm afraid this time, I'm going to have to put my foot down and say that you don't have a choice," Derek said, trying to sound light as he tried to get her to see things his way.

"Okay," Meredith said. "But you don't have to sleep on the couch. It's not like we've never shared a bed before."

"Are you sure?" Derek asked.

"I'm not having sex with you tonight, if that's what you're asking," Meredith said. "But I don't think either of us should have to sleep on the couch when you have a king sized bed in your room."

As Derek climbed into bed that night, he couldn't help but smile at the sight of Meredith curled up on the other side of his bed, just as he'd pictured on so many nights since he had moved in. As her light snores began to fill the room, he wondered if he would be out of line to wrap a protective arm around her while she slept.

Deciding it would be best not to risk all the steady progress they'd been making, Derek sighed as he kept his arms to himself and gradually began to fall asleep.

He stirred only slightly as Meredith rolled over in her sleep and rested her head against his chest while she draped her arm loosely over his waist. Instinctively, Derek slipped an arm down around her shoulders, holding her close as he drifted off to sleep, a small smile playing at his lips.