A/N- serious apologies for not posting sooner, I went back to university this week, and hadn't packed anything until the day before I left, and getting back into a routine has been a nightmare! I kind of loathe this chapter a little bit, but I felt like it was sort of important to include it so I did. As ever thanks so much for the reviews and alerts they make me very happy! And Happy Grey's Day! It's almost 9pm here in England, and the premiere airs at around 3am, so I get to watch tomorrow instead! Enough ramble, enjoy!

Disclaimer- Definitely don't own it!

As Derek walked into the house, he could hear laughter coming from the living room, meaning the four surgeons were all still here, though clearly much more sober than this morning, after taking off his jacket and hanging it on the bannister he stood in the doorway until Meredith spotted him and rushed over to him wrapping her arms around his chest and pressing a kiss to his lips.

"I missed you." She said, "Promise me you won't ditch me for Mark again anytime soon."

"I promise." He stated "you're much sexier than he is. I'd much rather be here with you, you're way better in bed." He grinned and held her in his arms for a few more minutes, breathing in her scent whilst gesturing to her friends about the location of the ring. As each made their excuse to leave the room and take a peek, Derek pulled Meredith into the kitchen, sat her down at the counter and began to pull out ingredients for lunch putting a pan on to boil as she watched him with tired eyes.

"I thought you were bringing me lunch home?" she teased getting up to stand beside him, wrapping her arms around his waist and resting her head on his shoulder whilst he stirred the pasta adding each ingredient and leaving it to simmer.

"I thought me cooking for you was more romantic." He said turning in her arms and pressing a kiss to her lips, before he spotted the three surgeons in the doorway. "I'll be right back." He said as he followed them to where his coat was hanging. Kissing her again before he did so. He briskly re-entered the living room, to gauge her friends' reactions. "So?" he asked.

"It's perfect!" Lexie exclaimed, trying to quieten her so that Meredith wouldn't hear her.

"Nice job man." Alex added giving him a pat on the back.

"Yeah, she'll love it." Cristina agreed, a hint of a smile reaching her lips. "Lady Tallulah herself would be proud!"

"You remember that?" Derek laughed.

"Yeah, but she doesn't, so let me mess with her a little more before you tell her." Christina asked as she gathered her things ready to leave "and shepherd?" she called him.

"Yeah?"

"she already thinks something is going on, upset her and I will personally see to it that your perfect hair is shaved, and buried in a box with the testicles that I will rip off with my bare, cardio goddess hands. We threw her off but you need to make this right with her or there will be no Friday to worry about!"

"Got it," he nodded as he walked back to the kitchen, pressing a kiss to Meredith's spaghetti covered lips. She moaned against his lips as he settled back into his chair and began serving up lunch.

"You're happy." She observed.

"why wouldn't I be, when I get to spend the whole afternoon making love to the most wonderful woman in the world and build a house with her for our five chatty children with perfect hair and their mother's wonderful bone structure."

"Two. " She replied, "But only if you give birth to them." They kissed again, rubbing their noses together as they broke apart. The sound of Cristina clearing her throat made them both turn around.

"My cab is here." Cristina informed them, "I'm heading to Joe's to grab my car then heading back to my place."

"We could've driven you." Derek offered, but Cristina shook her head

"I put you and Tallulah out enough last night." She told him, "Go do the nasty nasty without me here to hear you. I'll see you tomorrow at work."

"Er, we're gonna share that ride," Lexie told them closely followed by Alex.

"Yeah, I have to settle the tabs from last night" he said "we'll see you later."

"I'll call you with those details later Cristina," Derek said quietly earning him a thumbs up as the three left and Meredith and Derek finished their spaghetti before Meredith stood up from her chair and cleared the table, before laying herself down on it, her legs either side of Derek's chair.

"What are you doing?" he asked, rising up to kiss her neck.

"Empty house" she winked in response. "This is good yes?"

"No." Derek replied laughing as he saw her face fall. "This is perfect."

The pair lounged in the living room for the rest of the afternoon, Meredith was on ortho that week, and she was assisting Callie in a knee replacement surgery, so she had hit the books studying up on the procedure so she could be prepared for anything she was asked. Derek was trying to formulate a plan of action for his patient with a spinal tumour, whose most recent scans had shown rapid growth of the mass, so he'd decided to schedule the surgery for midweek. Meredith looked up from her textbook and at Derek.

"So what did Cristina want from you?" she asked, trying to make herself sound relaxed, and not slightly confused at why her best friend was talking to her boyfriend whom she openly mocked at every opportunity.

"She wanted the contact details of a few cardiothoracic surgeons back in New York," he bluffed, staring intently at his laptop in the hope she would drop the subject.

"That's odd, I thought she knew everybody in that area, some of them she knows particularly well. I'd've thought she'd've mentioned something. I guess it just slipped her mind." Alarm bells were ringing in Meredith's head, she knew when Derek was lying, and right now there was no doubt about it. Cristina had been a little off just recently, but they were all stressed about one thing or another. Izzie, Alex and George hardly ever seemed to be around just lately, busying themselves with interns and surgeries. They weren't avoiding her surely? She shrugged off the thought that they were hiding from her and went back to her notes on knee replacements.

"Did you have fun with Mark, I thought he might've stayed for longer." She hoped he'd let something slip, so she could call him on it, she hated it when he kept things from her, especially so when she knew that her friends were probably in on it too.

"He wanted to drop into a dealership, he's thinking about a new car and just wanted my opinion on a few models, he wanted to spend a little longer, but he had a shift starting so he dropped me off at Joe's so I could grab the Jeep. Did you have a good morning?"

"I thought Mark just got a new car?" She said surprised, the alarm bells getting louder and louder in her head. "We had fun, though I think something's going on that they don't want to tell me, everyone's acting kind of weird, I can't really put my finger on it. It's like they know something but can't say anything in front of me. Maybe I'm just being paranoid, I mean have you noticed anything?" She was watching his body language for any sign of something not being quite right, a tick like her playing with her ears so that she could be certain he was lying to her.

"I don't think so, no one's said anything to me, perhaps you're just tired, and you've been pretty stressed over the last few weeks. You haven't had a day off where you could just relax, you had the time off when mom was here but you haven't had a chance to relax. You get a little bit low when you're tired." He was trying desperately to keep her on his good side she could tell, but a dig at her being tired wasn't Derek's style. There was something he was hiding. But without proof she could hardly call him on it. She put it to the back of her mind. She'd try and get some more sleep this week and if everyone was still weird, then she'd say something, right now she just wanted to curl up in a ball and not wake up until she'd forgotten about it.

"Yeah, you're right, probably shouldn't have spent last night in the bar. I'm exhausted now. I want to be sleeping not studying. Would you judge me if I had a nap?"

"Of course I wouldn't," he said in a tone of voice that turned her legs to jelly. "I'm only really researching now. Why don't I lay with you until you fall asleep, and then I'll make you dinner when I'm done all ready for when you wake up?"

"I think you're the best boyfriend ever." She smiled planting a kiss on his lips before shutting her book and taking his hand and guiding him up the stairs.

Meredith woke up hours later, the smell of food waking her up from her slumber. She shoved her feet into her ugg slippers and padded down the stairs wrapping her arms around Derek as he stirred the sauce on the stove.

"What are you making me?"

"Chicken and vegetables, lots of Iron, lots of protein to keep your strength up."

"You made the sauce yourself?" Meredith raised an eyebrow, impressed by his skill in the kitchen.

"Yep, old Shepherd recipe, may have forgotten what I was doing halfway through but I called Kathleen and she saved the day." Meredith giggled and lifted the spoon from the pan, putting it in her mouth so she could try the sauce.

"God this is good, is this what you ate as a kid? I didn't know you could get fresh vegetables until I was ten, none of the nannies were particularly gifted, and boarding school food is beyond crap."

"Boarding school? Like straw boaters and lacrosse?"

"Yeah, only for a few years though, I was nine when she shipped me off, I came back just before high school, apparently my attitude didn't go down so well with the high school there. I passed the exam but I was excluded a few times, after run ins with the drama and dance teacher. The first time they let it go, because I was actually pretty good at lacrosse, I was in the polo team too, and I did track and I actually aced my dance exams much to my teacher's disgust. The second time though, it was too obvious to ignore. I think it was the rewriting the lines to Romeo and Juliet that gave it away. Juliet is supposed to be ravished with grief, rather than telling Romeo he was a moron and walking off the stage." Derek tried to stifle a laugh when she mentioned her rebellious side.

"And I thought you were a good girl." He joked.

"Who told you that, I was the rebel with pink hair, I tried the whole nose ring thing too, but I chickened out before the needle even got close." she looked at the startled expression on Derek's face. "What like you didn't have a fake ID, or go and almost get an illegal tattoo from some guy's older brother."

"No, I was the band geek with the afro and acne, who probably would have stayed inside on his own for the entirety of high school if it weren't for Mark. He did the jock thing. I was president of the science club," Meredith smirked at him. "And the mathletes." Meredith laughed out loud.

"I got extra credit performing dissections. Frogs got boring, so I used to see what came in at the docks. I had a thing going with one of the guys there. I let him touch my boobs and he gave me hearts and livers and lungs and stuff." Derek stood open mouthed.

"Meredith Grey, you really let him touch your boobs for old animal parts?"

"Yeah, you think that's bad, don't ever ask about Europe. And anyway, you're the only one I'd let near my boobs now." She kissed him, giggling at the slightly scared expression on his face. "This is what happens when you're not parented. I waited until sophomore year of high school before I gave up the V card, don't worry."

"Yeah, I was 22," He mumbled, "So, dinner."

"22? You bloomed a little late huh?" She joked.

"I was waiting for the right person, and I had yet to figure out hair products, I wasn't exactly hot in high school, you could roll out of bed looking that sexy, this takes time, effort."

"Well I appreciate it. I'm glad you got hot in college, and learnt your way around a woman. I'm particularly appreciative of that." She grinned at him cheekily, and he swooped in, wrapping his arms around her waist and peppering kisses up and down her neck, his stubble giving her Goosebumps.

"Food first, sex later," She breathed, pushing him away so he could take the sauce off the heat.

"Oh now you're grateful I was a geek who spent Friday nights with his mother in high school? Because I learnt to cook, and now I can feed you?"

"That's just one of the many reasons I love you," She giggled, grabbing two plates so that Derek could serve up the chicken breasts and sauce, bringing the vegetables to the table so that Meredith could pick out her own medley. He filled up a water jug and poured them both a glass before placing it on the table. Meredith put foil over the leftovers that would go to Alex and Izzie when they got home before pulling cutlery from the drawer and passing Derek a set. She served herself up a portion of vegetables, making sure to avoid the green beans Derek had thrown into the mix. She didn't like the peas he'd added, but she could tolerate those, but green beans were something else altogether. He watched her fascinated as she checked each vegetable she picked out, discarding the slightly imperfect ones in favour of the greenest broccoli and the straightest carrots before adding them to her little pile. It was a wonder she ate anything at all being that fussy. She saw him looking and raised her eyebrow, and he looked back down at his own plate before changing the subject.

"So Europe?" Derek asked, making Meredith choke on a mouthful of broccoli.

"I thought you weren't asking about that?"

"I'm curious."

"Okay, I can't believe I'm telling you this, and it goes no further, okay? so Amsterdam, we couldn't find a place to stay, so we headed into this little bar, hoping someone would take pity on us and let us stay the night before we caught the plane, only it wasn't quite a normal bar, needless to say we got drunk, and convinced this one guy to let us sleep in his back yard. We ended up sleeping in a shed with several thousand dollars' worth of cannabis plants, and we woke up to police sirens, and had to scale a six foot fence and run down some little back alley with all our gear on. I think that was the worst one. There were a few times where we woke up with some very questionable people in our beds, but Sadie and I have no idea about a lot of them. My pictures seem to say that Europe is pretty, but I really couldn't tell you much about it. I'm still not totally sure how we made it home alive. Sadie's dad called it off in the end when he had to bail us out of jail. That's actually a good story..." Meredith went on about her travels, and Derek hung on her every word, he liked getting to know her, even if she was far more daring than he ever gave her credit for. He'd rarely known Meredith to share, so there was no way he was going to stop her now she'd started.

Meredith felt almost refreshed after telling Derek about her dark side, including a tale about her alter ego from the night before, trying desperately to figure out why he was laughing at her before she'd even told him. She hit him with her tiny ineffectual fists until he told her about his own brush with Lady Tallulah. She cringed in embarrassment as the foggy parts of the night began to make a little more sense. She hid her face in her hands, wishing she could go back and say no more tequila after the seventh or eighth shot. He kissed her passionately promising that he loved Lady Tallulah almost as much as he loved regular Meredith, leading her to the couch, resting her back on the arm, her legs draped over his. She turned herself round and snuggled in his arms, not moving for the rest of the night, catching The Breakfast Club on the cable, Izzie joining them when she got in. Meredith was content in that moment, it didn't feel as weird as it had done earlier in the day, for which she was grateful. Maybe she was just tired, pre-pms-ing no doubt. When Derek finally got her to go to bed, she slept peacefully, and woke up ready for whatever the day would throw at her.

A/N- I'll try update again soon, I may need it once the premiere is over!