Hello!
I would love to post twice a week every week, but I'd very quickly run out of chapters and leave you in hiatus so, for now, I'll just be putting double posts in every once in a while...and, of course, this is one of said double posts! There will be an update on Friday as normal.
So, enjoy!
"Hi, I've just come to get a glass o-"
"Oh. Hi. God. Hi." He greeted, scrambling to hide what he was doing. First, he slammed his laptop closed, then he made a grab for the blanket beside him, and covered up a small stack of books and papers.
She paused. That was not what she was expecting when she walked in. She was expecting him to be by her side immediately, telling her that he'd get her water because, apparently, she was unable to. It was sweet, but rather overwhelming, especially when she'd never really been treated that way before. "What are you doing?"
"What?" He asked innocently, as if she hadn't just witnessed his guilty behaviours.
"Derek." She named. "Are you watching p-"
"No!" He exclaimed. "No. I don't- I don't do that."
"Are you sure?" She asked with a smirk.
"I'm sure."
"Are you absolutely sure?" She teased.
"Yes. I'm a hundred billion percent sure."
"So...what were you doing?" She asked in the same jokey kind of voice, walking towards him.
"Not um- it's nothing important."
"So...you just suspiciously close your laptop everytime I walk in the room out of fun?" She asked.
"Yeah?" He agreed with a hopeful smile.
She rolled her eyes, and sat next to him on his left, on the opposite side of his hidden...whatever it was. "So? What's going on?"
"I told you, nothing." He said, sitting up for a second and moving his laptop from his lap to the table.
"Mmm...Nothing, huh?" She asked before suddenly lunging, reaching over him and grabbing one of the notebooks.
"Meredith!" He exclaimed as she stood and escaped his grip, book in hand. He didn't want to even touch her, scared he might hurt her, so it was a very easy fight for her to win.
She giggled. "You keep a diary? Have I not know that this whole time- that you keep a diary?"
"No- I uh-"
"Oh-" Meredith sighed, like she was looking at a cute puppy. "Don't be shy, I think it's cute."
"You think I have time to write a diary?" He asked, his voice soft.
"Mmm. Right. How about...uh-" She faltered. "I don't know what else I could suggest to tease you with."
He smiled, just a little. "Mer-"
"Are you serious?" She asked softly. "Can I really not look? Because I won't if you really don't want me to. If it's...you know, to do with your accident or something."
He sighed. "No- just- it's fine. You can look."
"Are you sure?"
"Mmm." He agreed.
She slowly flipped the cover of the notebook to examine the first page. "Thirty-one feet." She read off the page. "Six feet. Bathroom. Stairs. Front door. What is this? A map of...no, not a map of this house."
He swallowed. "No."
"So what is it?" She asked as sat down next to him on the sofa again, book in hand. "This isn't your house either."
"No, it...it's not a house that exists."
"So you drew the floor plan of an imaginary house?"
"I suppose it is imaginary but...hopefully not forever; I want to build it."
She swallowed. "Oh."
"I mean...not me. I can't build it. I'd be a horrendous builder. I'm the height of a child and can't carry anything."
She smiled, just a little. Those were good points.
"But...you know, I want someone else to build it- for me. On the land where my trailer is."
She swallowed the hard lump in her throat that appeared as he spoke.
She could take what he said two ways. He wanted the builder to build it for him, or he wanted the builder to build it for him. Her mind jumped instantly to one of those option.
For him and him only...not for them together, with him using that terminology not to mean that the builders were making it in place of him.
She didn't even know why she was upset. She didn't even know if she wanted to live with him or how far she wanted their relationship to go. But she supposed if she did feel her breath halt at the idea of him living without her, that meant she wanted him.
"And then- on one of the other pages there is-" He started, pausing when she turned the page. "So...this is the upstairs. There are two toilets, one of which is an en-suit to this bedroom. This is the master bedroom, and it's gonna have a huge double bed in it. So..."
"So?" She pushed.
He swallowed, and looked away. "So um...maybe I could have...um...you know, someone else...I mean- like a partner. With me. In bed."
Oh. He was doing his shy, awkward thing again. His so-freaking-lovable shy, awkward thing. "You're asking me to move in with you?"
"No-" He said, a little too abruptly and loudly. "I mean...um- yes? I suppose I um...maybe?"
"You're suggesting that when this house is built, which probably won't be for quite a while because I'm pretty sure houses take forever to build, that I might want to move in with you?" She rephrased for him when words failed him.
It took him a second, but then he smiled. "Yeah. That's uh...that's what I was going for."
"Is this because I was just blown up?"
"No. Well-" He paused. "I've always wanted to build a house there. That's why I bought the land. And I was happy living in the trailer until I had a relationship but I never really had one serious enough to consider that and then...well, the chair meant I couldn't live in the trailer anymore and had to move to my bungalow but...now-" He smiled. "I might have a reason to finally build it. But I suppose that depends on..."
"...whether I'd want to move in with you." She finished.
He gave a small nod.
"Well, not right now." She replied. "I'm not sure I'm ready yet and I don't think you are either, but...one day- if this keeps going how it's going- if this keeps going as freaking amazingly as it's going right now...then yes. Yes, of course, Derek. I'd love to."
"Okay." He breathed, a little shocked. "Okay."
She smiled. He really had no need to get so nervous about this sort of thing, but she didn't mind really; she just wished he wouldn't get quite so stressed. "So...we're making plans."
"Yeah." He said quietly.
"Or...we're regretting making plans already?" She asked, worried by the soft, hesitant tone of his agreement.
"No. It's not-" He paused for a second to collect himself. "I just...I haven't really made plans since the accident. I...I didn't think anything else would ever change again. I didn't think I'd need plans."
She smiled. "I get that. And...I'm really, so very happy that I get to be part of these new, perhaps slightly scary plans."
"Hey, Mer-"
She looked over to him. "Mmm?"
"I'm gonna be in my room, doing something for about an hour, is that okay?"
"What kind of something?" She pondered.
"A secret something."
"Oh-" She smiled. "Are you doing something really cool for the house? A secret...pancake dispenser."
"I-" He paused. He'd take that as an excuse, seeing as it must have been believable if that's what she thought. "Well- not a pancake dispenser but yeah, something like that."
"In that case, go ahead. I'll make sure to knock with plenty of notice before coming in, so you don't need to scramble like you did yesterday."
He smiled. "Okay. Great."
"Knock-knock-" Meredith said, as she knocked on the real door.
He paused, and made a grab for the blanket next to him and pulled it over what he was doing, just incase. "You okay?"
"My hands are dry, I need some cream."
"From your bag?" He asked, looking to it. It was, in fact, right next to him on the bed, because he'd pulled something out of it the second he had privacy and hadn't bothered putting the bag back on the floor after that.
"Yeah."
"Oh- okay, give me a second."
"How is my pancake dispenser going?" She asked, mostly joking, as she leant against the doorframe.
"It-" He paused as he transferred over to his chair. "-is going okay. Maybe."
"I'm not sure how you make a pancake dispenser so the fact that it's going just 'okay' is pretty impressive to me."
He smiled, although she couldn't see that. "Definitely."
"You'll be done soon?"
He didn't reply for a second, focused. Realistically, there was no way she'd remember where she'd put it in her bag, and things moved around in bags when they were picked up all the time, but he still felt the need to place the item back in the place he'd put it originally, just incase. "Mmm."
He pulled the door open after a quick check to see whether his work was covered (which it was), and offered her the bag.
"Thanks. Can't have dry hands as a surgeon." She said as she took it, delving her hand in to search for the tube.
"Mmm. Makes the gloves feel weird." He agreed.
"Oh, yeah. Horrendous feeling, isn't-" Her eyebrows creased, and she trailed off.
"You okay?"
She swallowed. "Oh, yeah. Just- something in here that I forgot was in here."
"Important thing?" He asked. He was sure that the thing he'd been so obsessive over was the same item as the one which had just surprised her, and he wanted as many details as possible.
"Oh- uh- not particularly. Just- with the being-blown-up-thing and the concussion, I totally forgot about it. Anyway- uh, enjoy your house designing."
"So...have you started the foundations yet?"
Derek smirked as he looked up to find his girlfriend in the doorway of the lounge. "I haven't even picked up the plans today."
"Right." She said as she sat down next to him on the sofa. She gave him a quick, greeting-style kiss. It wasn't long or passionate, just simple. "Lazy builders plus lazy boyfriend equals no dream house."
"I'm not lazy." He retorted. "I've been very, very busy."
"Doing what?" She asked, intrigued. She glanced around the room. There was nothing to indicate that he had been doing anything around the lounge.
He shrugged. "Stuff."
"What kind of stuff?"
"Organising surgical rotas for Tuesday because I've now got four surgeries in one day, putting in my vote for chief resident, read two papers on grade IV glioblastomas- oh, and, washed six plates and two glasses. And folded some washing."
"Joyce et al?" She pondered, taking note of the time he had spent reading.
He smiled. "Yeah."
"I was sat reading it in the bedroom while you were out here then. Small world...of neuroscience authors. We could have read together if I'd known"
"He published yesterday, makes sense." Derek replied before asking, "Was it a good read?"
"Of course. Always is. He's an excellent researcher."
"Surgeon too."
Her eyebrows ceased. "He's a surgeon? I thought he just did research."
"He- well, his wife had quintuplets. He made a very sensible decision to get a nine to five- but he was a very good surgeon before that."
"Quintuplets? Jesus. That's a lot of babies all at once."
He smiled. "I know right. For his wife physically, and afterwards at home. I think I'd like...spontaneously combust."
She smiled back. "Back to the house plans-"
"Yeah?"
"In the house- well, in the- our-maybe-possible house-" She started before asking, "How many bedrooms will there be?"
He almost answered, but then he considered the actual content of her question. She didn't want to know how many bedrooms there were in the same way she wanted to know how many bathrooms there were or how big the lounge was.
She wanted to know if he was planning on having kids with her in this dreamhouse.
Kids.
They'd discussed their reasoning for and against children before, when they weren't even dating yet.
He didn't want children for obviously reasons; he felt he'd struggle too much to look after them with a disability. He'd rather a child be happy with able-bodied parents than for him to selfishly want a child, but treat it badly. Not that would really be his fault, he'd definitely try.
He just wasn't sure whether or not him trying would be enough to make up for all the things he'd either he totally fail, or just be generally inadequate at.
He swallowed the lump in his throat as he thought about what he might want to say. He knew the answer, of course, but he couldn't tell whether it was what she wanted him to say or not.
"How...how many bedrooms do you want there to be?" He asked after a long second.
"One...for me and you. One for if you're in the doghouse so you don't have to sleep on the sofa-"
He smirked.
"As much as I may hate you at the time, sleeping on sofa sounds like a ready bad idea for you, and I'm not doing it so...definitely at least two. And then...another one incase we have a guest-" She swallowed. "And then two more. And those two have to be the same size, and be equal in every way possible."
His eyebrows creased. "Why?"
"Because you told me that when you have siblings, you have to share everything. Like...half the chocolate bar each and ten pounds each to spend at the mall and...you know, the same size room."
He smiled. He was pretty sure that was all he remembered about his childhood. Except everything was split into five, not two. He had to admit, childhood was often pretty bad when everything you wanted was split into five. Still, he wouldn't trade it to be an only-child, nor for just one or two sisters.
"But then again, it kind of depends-"
"On?"
She swallowed before answering, "Whether you want kids or not."
Crap.
It couldn't be down to him. He always thought they'd either keep their opinion, or naturally change their minds at around the same time as their relationship got stronger and they grew more mature. But they couldn't be in different places. Being in different places in a relationship was...bad. That's the reasoning so many people gave for the question of why they broke up with their partner, or even divorced them.
"I um-" He paused. What did he even want to say? All he knew was that he should tell the truth. He couldn't lie about something like this. He couldn't be ten years down the line with two kids, resenting both them and Meredith, because he never actually wanted this but decided to lie to make her smile. "In theory, I want kids. Yeah."
"But what about...in real life? In...non-theory."
"I try really hard to be...you know, happy and optimistic about it all and most of the time, it's genuine joy. I mean, warped joy because a lot of the time it's because my brain is reminding me that it's either death, or life with a disability, and one is clearly better than the other but..." He swallowed. "I just...I'm not sure I could imagine parenting like this. It's hard enough to just, you know, look after myself. But a child? Two children?"
"I think you'd make a wonderful dad."
"Really?"
"I think...it might be a possibility that you would make a better dad if you could walk, but only because then you'd be able to play football and soccer and stuff, because I hate any kind of physical activity-"
He smiled, just a little. It wasn't the first time he'd heard this complaint.
"But I think you'd make a really-freaking-far-above-average dad any day of the week. Enough for the kids to say best dad ever." She returned. "I think you'd be better than me. And that's not me being all loathsome and lacking self-esteem, I just genuinely think that you could make the best dad ever."
He didn't reply to that, but she could see by his expression and how deeply he was staring at her that he was listening and taking in every word.
"I mean, imagine you're a kid and one day you decide you want a little black cat to add to your toy collection. You go to your dad, you make your request and...boom, perfect toy made."
He smiled. "I suppose. And I mean, you make good points but...you and I both know it's not the kind of opinion that you change over night. Or after a conversation with your girlfriend."
"So...right now?"
"I don't think it's a 'no', it's just a..."
"Let me get back to you on that one?" She suggested, finishing the sentence for him.
He smiled. "Yeah. Exactly."
"So, for now, let's say Lucky is being extremely lucky and getting two bedrooms then, huh?"
He smiled as he looked to the creature. "I guess so!"
