Hello! :)

I promise I do like Meredith some of time...but many of you have probably gathered that I am not always a Meredith fan, hence why this is not my first Meredith-sucked-as-a-girlfiriend-so-I-decided-to-make-her-better-with-a-fix-it one-shot. So...another one, this time based in season 5 and based on a request from 'guest'.

Enjoy! :)

"Hey. You're home late."

"Sorry." He apologized in a genuine tone from the hallway as he kicked off his shoes.

"Oh, no. That's okay-" She replied as she watched him walk into the room, untucking his shirt. "Just an observation, not a criticism."

"Right." He agreed as he settled next to her on the couch.

"Something exciting kept you at work?" She asked after one extremely long moment of silence. Normally, they'd have bucket loads to talk about with all the surgeries they had done (and, of course, all the gossip they had heard from the nurses).

"Just a surgery."

"Boring surgery?" She guessed by the look on his face.

"Aneurism."

"So that would be a yes then. Well, I mean, I'd love to do an aneurism clipping but, for you, I imagine that is pretty boring."

"Yeah." He agreed, not looking at her.

"Prognosis looking good?"

"Mmm."

She didn't speak for a second before softly asking, "Are you okay?"

He looked up and his eyes briefly met hers. "Fine."

"You're really quiet."

"Just tired."

"Are you sure? Because we're surgeons; we're always tired, but you're not normally so quiet."

"Yeah. Just-" He swallowed. "I don't know- mightta caught a bug or something. Not feeling that great."

"It sounds like you just googled excuses for being off with your partner, because you are never ill. Or, if you are ill, you never confess to being ill so unless you're about to collapse on the floor and die; I think you're lying."

He didn't know what to respond to that, as she was so accurate in what she was saying. Although, he hadn't googled excuses, he was coming up with his own on the spot, which was probably why they weren't working.

"So...what's up?"

"I-" He gulped, and licked his lips. "-My Dad."

"Oh." She breathed. His dad? "Okay."

"Yeah." His eyes lost hers again. "I told you before...right?"

"That he died?" Meredith replied, assuming that's what he meant.

Derek swallowed before just about breathing out, "That he died."

She nodded slowly. Where was this going? And why were they even there is the first place, discussing this? "I um-"

"He was shot." Derek interrupted, knowing the only way he was going to get it out was by blurting it.

Meredith faltered. "Like..."

"With a gun." He agreed, knowing what Meredith would say if she could. "That's how he died."

"When? Or...where? How?"

"I was 10. We were in his store - he ran a little corner shop in New York - when some...robbers came in and demanded everything. Dad didn't want to give up his watch and he-" He paused. "He was shot."

Meredith didn't reply, but made sure her body language could tell him in every way that she was there, listening and supporting him.

Derek smiled. It wasn't a happy smile. "You know, they didn't even take the watch in the end. They just shot him and left."

Meredith gave him a second to make sure he was done before deciding to reply, and repeating the one word that stuck out to her. "We?"

"What?" He breathed.

"When you were explaining, you said 'we were in his store'. You mean-"

"Yeah." His eyes watered over, knowing what she was trying to ask.

"You were 10."

He swallowed. That fact still hurt him until that day. 10-year-old Derek didn't deserve that. "I was 10."

"And...you watched your dad...get shot...with a gun." She said slowly. "And you were 10."

"Yeah." He breathed, because he didn't know what else he could say. "I um...I think I saw it first. I grabbed Amy and pulled her away because, you know, she wouldn't know what to do. I'm not even sure she really knew that guns existed anywhere other than on little play soldiers."

She squeezed his hand.

"If I'm honest, sometimes I wish I just ran to dad and left Amy there. They wouldn't have shot a kid...but they did shoot him."

"The fact you did something at all was incredible Derek. I'm pretty sure I was still sticking crayons up my nose at 10."

He let out a laugh. He couldn't help it.

She smiled. That was exactly what she wanted; he hadn't smiled properly since he entered the room and it was making her heart throb more and more each second. "There's my favourite laugh."

He grinned.

"Oh, and my favourite McDreamy smile." She continued.

His smile remained briefly it fell slightly, and he asked, "How about you and Cristina? I heard-"

"No. This isn't about me and Cristina. This is about you. Today- tonight is about you, okay?"

He kissed her. "I really, really do love you, you know?"

"I know." She smiled. "And I really, really do love you too."