Disclaimer: own nothing.

"Hey, you. Sorry, I couldn't sit with you, I got caught up in…something.", Derek said finding Kat outside the nurses' station.

"That's okay, I ended up reading all about gay giraffes, anyway.", they headed out of the oncology floor. He had never liked oncology, as a speciality. Too morbid, he used to tell Addie, as a young intern forced to work with terminal patients. That made his life sound like a cosmic joke now.

He'd been doing this for a while now, spending time with her while she got her chemo. It was easy enough to get out of a surgery when you had cancer and well, he was allowed to use it to his advantage sometimes.

Today had been her very last chemotherapy session. After which she could officially be cancer-free. He wished he could have been there for that, listening to her go on and on about gay giraffes or the welfare paradox or about the kids in New Jersey making music in their basement who were the next big thing or whatever else had been occupying her mind that day.

The truth was, he could listen to her talk all the time. She liked to talk, he preferred to listen.

Especially because she didn't see him as someone to be pitied, someone to feel awfully sorry for. He was so tired of all the sympathy-filled glances, all the pity casseroles, the charity cases.

She made him feel like himself again. His old normal, insufferable self again. Nobody else really did that, these days.

Except for Meredith, of course. But then her sudden persistent need to be friends had also uncannily coincided with her knowledge of his diagnosis.

He liked to not think about that, if he could. He liked to not think about the fact that after years of distance the only reason they had reached a sort of truce, a somewhat mended relationship was because of the pity she felt for him.

Because if he let himself think that for a longer than a moment, Derek knew that his angry impulsivity would ruin everything yet again. And with what little time he had left, maybe it was best if he spent that…happily. Or at least as some semblance of happiness.

"So, this thing you had to do, did it have anything to do with planning the love of your life's wedding?", Kat interrupted his chain of thought rather harshly.

"Funny.", he replied, rolling his eyes at her. He'd shared with Kat more than he had initially planned to. More than he had, surprisingly shared, with anyone these past few years and so he was used to such jabs about his sad, pathetic love life.

But he didn't make any moves to definitively refute her claims. He never did. He didn't need to. It was the truth, after all.

He was still deeply, hopelessly in love with his ex-wife.

That hadn't changed over the years, he hadn't expected it to. He had known that what he had with Meredith he would never recreate, never experience again. It hadn't taken him a messy divorce to realise that. He had always known that. From the very beginning, from when he had felt an unfamiliar, breathtaking feeling creep into him, wrapped around the woman he was 'casually dating' in his tiny trailer in the middle of nowhere. He had known. Understood that what he had started to, or perhaps always, felt for her was unlike anything he had felt for anyone. Not even his wife of over a decade. As much as he hated to admit it, his older sister had been right, he was seldom alone. All his life there had been someone who he claimed to love but what she failed to see, to recognize was that he never had truly not been lonely.

Not until her.

They say you never know what you have until it's gone but the truth was, he did know and yet he had been stupid enough to let go of it. Of her.

So, no, he had never denied it to himself. The fact that she was the love of his life, that she always would be. That even if sometime in the future, he let himself love somebody else, it wouldn't be the same.

But with that knowledge, he also had to come to terms with the fact that he wasn't that for her. That he would have to be okay being to her what Addison had been to him.

Someone she had loved and chosen to spend her life with, but not someone who had changed her life, so to speak. Not the kind of love that had tilted the axis of her world. Not the overwhelming kind.

He had assumed during their marriage, that he too, had been that for her but over the years he had accepted that he never would have been good enough for that.

He would instead, have to live with it when she found somebody who was. Somebody for whom she felt that way.

It seemed punishment enough for all the hurt he had caused.

So watching her from the sidelines as she had fallen in love with another man had been unbearably difficult, bone-crushingly painful but he had done it. Successfully. Without acting like a total asshole about it.

Some part of him although had foolishly believed that, watching her like that, fuelled by his self-awareness, he would be happy too. Happy for the love that she had found. But there had been none of that. Just the old, familiar, striking jealousy and this time, the new, overpowering ache in his chest.

He should have known, after all, she was and would always be the love of his life.

And apparently, everyone around him knew that, too.

Derek cleared his throat distractedly, "Anyway, we should do something, celebrate somehow."

"Celebrate what?"

"Your last chemo session?", he looked at her incredulously as she rifled through her purse for something, indifference radiating off her.

"Oh, that's nothing."

"It is something. It is a lot."

"I've done this before and it's not..it doesn't really mean anything. Not until I have a clear PET scan after this."

"But it's a win! We take all the wins that we get right? Even the small ones. And this is huge."

"Did you just-"

"Oh, god-"

She broke out into a raucous laugh, brown eyes brimming with mischief looking up at him. He tried to hold it in but let go soon after her, her infectious snorts pulling him in.

"I can't believe you just quoted Jane", Kat said dissolving into another fit of giggles.

"Look, we all make mistakes."

"Oh no, the support group's working real well for you I suppose, then.", she gave him a slight condescending pat in return.

"Shut up.", but the truth was no matter how much he detested actually physically being in that church every week, maybe his brain was listening more than he had ever intended for it to.

If he knew anything, he knew brains, he knew neuroplasticity.

And maybe, he was re-learning a thing or two about hope, as well.

"Come on.", he pulled at her arm to swerve them toward the cafeteria.

"Where are we going?", she asked, wiping away at her eyes.

"To celebrate."

"Seriously?"

"Hmm."

"You're one of those hopelessly optimistic, the grass is greener on my side kind of a person, aren't you?", she continued sceptically.

He used to be. For years, he used to be. The hopeless optimist with an honest to god belief that things would work out in the end. That it was all meant to be.

But he hadn't been. Not in years. He'd lost too many battles, he'd lost too many people.

"Yeah. Yeah, I am."

But maybe, maybe he really was re-learning a thing or two about hope.

Or at least, he was trying to.

Derek carried the tray of Jell-Os with him cautiously, careful not to topple the slimy little things. Jell-Os had always had a tendency to leave a bad taste in his mouth, ever since he'd been forced to consume them in multitudes whenever he would accompany his mother to the hospital after his dad's death. So he would slyly slip them all in his bag, away from all the nurses' eyes for his best friend back home who happened to love all things slimy. Even his frog.

But then, years later, he would learn that his daughter loved loved loved Jell-O.

It's the best thing in the whole wide world, daddy!

So Derek had learnt to like them, too or at least pretend to.

It had seemed fitting that something that he had lost because of his father's death would come back to him when he would become a father himself.

Life did come full circle, eventually.

Who knew, maybe someday Zola would build her kids the same Jell-O cake her dad used to build her, as a young girl.

And maybe, if he told himself about the circle of life enough times, he could believe it too. Accept that he would be more of a memory for his children, than a tangible reality.

And that would have to be okay.

He was trying, here.

"What is that?", Kat inquired, confusion and only mild disgust, etched on her face.

"Your celebratory cake.", he handed her the fork to be used as a makeshift knife, taking his place across from her.

"That's a lot of Jell-O."

"My daughter says they're basically miniature cakes.", he had haphazardly put together two strawberry ones with the lemon one between them creating a strange triangular cake-appearing apparition. For Zola, he would stack them one on top of the other, like a castle of cards. She would always delight in his antics but he hadn't had the time, or precision for that right now. Nor the perception of his four-year-old child.

"Your daughter sounds lovely.", she replied, voice laced with sincerity. "Maybe I could meet her someday?"

"Yeah-yeah, I'd like that."

He gesticulated toward the creation and urged her to go on. She looked at him warmly with a slight smile on her face and took a bite.

"By far, the greatest cake I have ever consumed."

"Yeah? My backup plan was always to become a baker, of course.", he chuckled in response, standing to cut a piece for himself when he was suddenly engulfed in a fierce, tight hug.

"Thank you. That was a nice thing to do.", he heard from under the bundle of a thick knitted-albeit sky blue this time-cap

"Hmm, well, I am a nice person.", he rubbed her back gently, returning the hug.

"The jury's still out on that.", she sat back down, disentangling herself from him, not quite meeting his eyes. "But you're definitely a good friend. I haven't had one of those in a while.", her voice tapered off slowly at the end, a sad note in it.

Derek paused, taking in her words.

"Yeah..yeah, me neither.", losing his best friend and then subsequently the love of his life, had made him wary of relationships, of proximity, of vulnerability and he had found himself unconsciously alienating himself from all those he was close to, over the years.

So, yeah, he had forgotten there for a while, how pure, how simply good, it was to have a friend. Someone to joke with. Someone to talk to. Someone to lean on.

It was a good thing then, that Kat Jacobs had decided to remind him.

Meredith was having a crappy day. A crap-tastically crappy day.

First, she had spilled coffee on her brand new shirt right before leaving for work.

So then she had to go change, which made her late which had resulted in her being in the direct line of fire for Bailey.

Her patient had died before she could even get him on the table, then the second had bled out prior to her even attempting to find the cause.

And all of this before, she had to unplug a ten-year-old child.

Damn it, she hated today.

She absolutely positively hated it.

She needed a pick-me-up, a silver lining, some plain old hope.

So she'd decided to leave early and spend some time with her children. To remind her of what mattered, her hope personified. But it hadn't been her week with them so she would need to clear it with Derek and her search for him had led her to the cafeteria. With a woman in his arms.

So yeah, all in all, Meredith was having a pretty shit day.

She sat in the conference room on the third floor, sulking. Hiding. Pretending to finish the paperwork.

She was swiping through her patient files mindlessly on the tablet when the door slammed open.

"Hey, the intern said you were looking for me?", and there he was. Derek Shepherd. In all his annoyingly stupid glory.

He stood leaning against the wall opposite her, arms crossed in front of his torso, his brows furrowed. He had a black long-sleeved undershirt on beneath his navy scrubs. He hadn't worn those since they'd first met.

He was trying to hide the weight loss, she realised somberly. She could see it on him- the frailness in his face, the pronounced bags under his eyes, the way the wall was more holding him up rather than behaving as an accessory for his dreamy-ness. She had studied his body for years, she could tell what little changed in him but she had to admit that to a passerby, he would seem just like his old normal self. He was hiding it well. He had been good at that. Hiding. Running. Evading.

Her heart ached but there was nothing she could say, or do. For him, or for herself.

"Yeah, but that was a while ago.", she wondered how gossip travelled faster than light in this place but actual substantial information took eons to reach the right person.

Derek tentatively took a seat beside her, running a hand through his salt-and-pepper hair.

"Is everything okay? You look a bit..sad.", he cocked his head at her in that all too familiar manner, pulling at some old, buried part inside her.

"I just had to unplug a ten-year-old.", she replied, sighing gravely as his soft blue eyes met hers.

Everytime he had looked at her like that she had faltered. Broke open. Let go off her meticulously crafted walls and armours. The first time it had happened, he had been asking about her secret phone calls. And had, in return, discovered the truth about her mother. And now even after four years of actively staying away from each other, his eyes somehow still had the same effect on her.

She hated that.

She hated how much she didn't hate that.

"Mer, I'm so sorry.", his hand covered hers, squeezing gently, for a second too long. But not long enough. Never long enough.

She paused, taking stock of her surroundings, of her thoughts, of the strange unwelcome feelings she had been encountering recently. Feelings that concerned him.

It was just that she cared for him, of course, she did. He was the father of her children. It mattered to her whether he was alright or not.

And it was just that. Perfunctory concern. For someone she had once hopelessly, inexplicably loved.

Just concern.

"So I was wondering if I could take the kids today. I was done with work already and maybe I could pick them up from school. I just need some- I just a need a little-"

"-Giddiness?", he finished for her. "Yeah, sometimes I wish I could bottle up their laughter and hear it on repeat on all day.", a calmness overtook his features at the mention of their children.

He understood being a parent. He specifically understood being a parent to their two perfect little babies. No matter how hard she tried, nobody else in this world would be her partner for this part of her life. For better or for worse, it would always be Derek.

Mostly for the better, if she was being honest with herself. He was an amazing father. The best any child could have. Zola and Bailey were special, and so was their father, she could always admit that.

"Yeah."

"Of course, Mer. But they won't be free until five, I think.", she glanced at him, perplexed. "Bailey had soccer practice and Zola had that arts and crafts extracurricular she joined, remember?"

Right, she'd forgotten about that. Derek had a strange colour-coded calendar for their events, Meredith preferred to trust her unparalleled memory. Family history of Alzheimer's, notwithstanding.

So that wasn't until more than four hours later. What was she supposed to do for four hours now?

Maybe she could troll for cases down in the pit, she mused.

"Or, I have a better idea-", his voice startled her out of her reverie.

Maybe she hadn't mused anything at all.

She met his eyes, brimming with something akin to exuberance.

"Do you trust me? Will you come with me?", his voice had gotten a couple of octaves higher, the unbridled joy evident. He made it sound like he was asking her to join him on an adventure to the centre of the earth.

What was going on? Where did he want her to go? With him? How would that even work?

"Are you asking me to play hooky with you?", Meredith mumbled, barely more than a whisper, averting her gaze.

"Yes!", he clapped his hands together excitedly, and abruptly stood up, chuckling.

Was he okay? Maybe the cancer had spread to his brain because what the actual fuck was going on?

"Take a leap of faith, Meredith.", he bent down towards her, hands flat on the table, a suspenseful tone in his voice.

Well, she had been historically bad at those. And damn it, she didn't want to leap, what was she freaking spider-girl?

But then she hadn't been on the other side of this boyish grin in so long.

And somehow that strange ache in her chest lessened at the stupid dreamy boyish grin.

So her agreeing to whatever he had in store was just an act of selfishness, obviously.

Nothing more.

Briefly, Meredith had wondered if all she knew about Derek was a sham. That all these years had been a facade.

And that in reality, he was a serial killer who buried women in that huge secluded land of his.

Because why the hell did his 'idea' involve them on a ferryboat to Bainbridge?

Serial killer, indisputably.

Or, perhaps, he wanted to go back to their old dream house to hash out all of their underlying resentment and unresolved issues.

That, sounded more like the man she had been married to.

So she'd spent the entire ferry ride and then subsequently the car ride, glaring at him from the corner of her eye. To which he had simply grinned. And had refused to answer any and all questions she possessed.

That smug bastard.

It made her believe that her trust in him had been misplaced.

Well, she had had that epiphany before.

A few times.

Except, instead of taking the long route to the house, he veered them onto a tiny path leading up to a marketplace of sorts. She had never been to this side of the area, back then. Much preferring the closest supermarket and the city for their necessities.

She spotted a local supermarket, a hardware store, a store for fishing supplies, a pawn shop and a candy store already. Strange collection, she wondered to herself.

Finally, Derek halted at the very end of the lane, parking right in front of a quaint, cozy-looking bakery.

"Stay here, I'll be right back.", he unbuckled his seatbelt and rushed out of the car, barreling inside the shop.

She heard a bell ring as he pushed open the door, and a woman's voice greeting him by name.

Was this a place he frequented often? So he still came to this side of the town. To the dream house.

The dream house. She hadn't thought of it in years, consciously attempting to erase all that she could of their past, their history.

The house that Derek built. The house that Derek built for her.

"He's selling his land because of you."

"So you're still you?"

"I'm still me."

In the divorce, she had ensured that he would get the land and the house.

No matter what she was made to believe over the years, that place was never hers. He had never built it for her, just this idea of her he had in his head.

The chase of it. He was always chasing her in some way or the other and when that had ceased, their marriage inevitably had, too.

Not to say that she didn't have a part to play in what had happened to them. There were days after the divorce when her brain took her down a hateful, vicious path. Free-falling. A part of her wondered if maybe she hadn't pushed him so far away from her, her life would be starkly different today.

Because when push came to shove, Derek ran. And, oh, she had pushed.

If only she-

But it didn't matter. None of it mattered. She had moved on, they both had. She had to let go. There was nothing tying them together anymore.

But, then, why the hell was she here?

Derek hastily returned with three white boxes in his arms and deposited one on the back seat and quickly came around to her side and handed her the other two.

"Hold these.", he ran back inside and returned with coffee.

He took his seat and started the car, wordlessly depositing the cups in the holder between them.

"Where are we going, now?", Meredith asked, annoyed.

"Oh, I thought we could go watch the ferryboats."

The more she tried to forget, the more he insisted on reminding her.

Meredith let out a sigh, picking up the cup on her side.

One sugar, no cream. Just how she liked it.

She gazed outside the window, taking in the old, familiar landmarks. She knew where they were headed. Of course, she knew.

All throughout their relationship, they'd been looking for spots to watch the ferryboats.

"I, um, know this place that has an amazing view of sunrise. Over the ferryboats."

"I have a thing for ferryboats."

"I remember."

She'd been the one to start it, and he had made it a point that it persisted. So when they'd moved into the house, Derek had found them this place right here.

"So, you still come here?", they were nearing the cliff now. If you took the left before the bend that led you to the house, you'd end up here.

"Sometimes. When I'm having a bad day.", Derek whispered, glancing at her. He halted, shutting off the engine to park close to the edge of the cliff.

If you took the left before the bend that led you to the house, you'd end up here. On the edge of the cliff, looking out at the vast, cerulean ocean with tiny, minuscule ferryboats dotting the horizon. You'd end up here, right in the middle of a memory she was trying so hard to let go of.

They'd spent hours here as new parents juggling two kids and their gruelling careers. It was simple. Every once in a while, after a hard day, they'd ask for an extra hour from the babysitter and wind up here. And when that wasn't a possibility, they'd get the kids in the car, buckled up and ready to drive around until they'd fall asleep just so they could thereafter find their way here.

There were days they'd just sit together, in silence. And others where the conversation would never end, or the laughter wouldn't. Days when she would fall in love with him, over and over again.

It did something to you, watching the expansive ocean like that. It put into perspective how truly insignificant we were. How pervasively insignificant our problems were.

"Sunshine in Seattle, must be some miracle, right?", the rays hitting his face made the amber specks in his eyes glow.

"Or, the apocalypse is upon us."

"Ah, I missed the dark and twisties. I really did.", a heady giggle left him, crinkling his crow's feet.

And strangely, she found herself joining him.

Derek retrieved the boxes from the back seat, the grin firmly still in its place.

"Okay, there you go.", he muttered, handing her a wooden spoon. He gulped anxiously, waiting for her to open it.

It smelled good, it smelled delicious.

"Right so, I talked to them about your wedding cake and we were supposed to sample flavours anyway so I thought you know, two birds with one stone. They didn't have the cake flavours at such short notice, though and I know you've postponed the wedding but they have the best cheesecakes I have ever had."

"Derek.", it was time for her crow's feet to deepen. "You're rambling."

"Sorry.", she shook her head, amused. Since when did he ramble?

"Cheesecake as a wedding cake?", her eyebrows lifted up, playfully.

He shrugged, not quite meeting her eyes. "It's your favourite."

Maybe her reluctance about him planning the wedding had been unfair, after all. It was nothing like Izzie. He was nothing like Izzie. However hard it was for her to admit it, it was the truth that nobody in this world knew her better than him.

She cleared her throat, taking a bite from the cake, attempting to shirk past what her mind had just traitorously acknowledged.

Her eyes widened as the flavours exploded in her mouth.

"Oh, my god. This is..this is amazing.", a treacherous moan left her as the cheesecake melted on her tongue.

"Right?", Derek replied exhilarated, wiggling his eyebrows, but Meredith was too busy devouring the delicacy in front of her to say anything in return.

"Try this, it's blueberry.", he handed her the one in his hands.

"This is better. How can it be better?", the words were muffled with the absurd amount cake stuffed in her mouth as her eyes rolled all the way to the base of her skull.

Derek just continued to look at her, grinning enthusiastically. He reminded her of their son like that. The same eyes, the same vibrance. She loved that her children had taken after his bright and shiny, instead of her scary and damaged.

Or, the bright and shiny he once used to be. But maybe, maybe underneath all that ignorance and hurt, he was still the same man she had met in Joe's all those years ago. Still her Derek.

Not hers, she reminded herself.

"I knew you'd like it."

She nodded noncommittally, making an effort to keep the moans to a minimum. A great act in futility, if there ever was one.

Once she was done relishing each of the cheesecakes in a needed-to-unbutton-her jeans-way and in a need-to-throw-up-it-was-so-good way, only then did she take in her surroundings once more.

All that sweetness had an almost dizzying effect on her, as if she had just consumed an entire bottle of tequila. Minus the hangover.

God, that was the best thing ever. To feel the same intoxication and not have to deal with the consequences later on.

It was perfect. It was heavenly. It was like having good sex, really good sex after a long drought. Or having sex with someone you'd been craving for a long time, someone you had experienced and learnt every single contour of. Someone who had done the same for you. Sex like that.

Damn it.

She needed to not think of sex, or naked bodies, or well-acquainted bodies, or anything human anatomy related, in her ex-husband's presence.

I am marrying Chase, I am marrying Chase, I am marrying Chase, Meredith chanted internally, willing all inappropriate thoughts about inappropriate people or, a singular highly inappropriate person, away.

"Did all that sugar put you into a coma?", conversation was good. Conversation meant her mind didn't have the power to run rampant and unsupervised in unknown waters.

"Sorry, I think I finished yours, too."

"That's okay, what's mine is yours, right."

Why did he have to say things like that?

"In a completely platonic, mi casa su casa, friends way-",he finished quickly, raising his hands in mock surrender.

Right, okay, maybe her unaided terrible imagination was the culprit here.

It was fine. It was fine. She was marrying Chase. She Was. Marrying. Chase.

"Anyway so-", he began, "Never have tequila for the rest of your life or never have wine?"

It was like she was in a freaking mad tea party ride in freaking Disneyland with the way her mind was being assaulted from every different direction today.

"Seriously, Derek?"

"Come on, humour me."

This was yet another thing of their shared past. It started off years ago when they'd worked on a couple of young kids in a Ferris Wheel mishap with concussions and traumatic brain injuries. They'd continuously played this game despite the seriousness of their situation and Meredith and Derek had been amused, to say the least if not just a little frustrated. But then that night, Meredith had come home to him with a bottle of wine and a whole lot of either/or choices.

And that's how it had been for years to come.

She let out a resigned sigh, giving in.

"Well, that's easy. No tequila."

"Really?"

"I think I am officially too old. Wine, on the other hand, keeps me sane."

"That's fair."

"Oh, I have a good one.", she could never resist indulging in the juvenile activity, anyway.

"Listen to Bailey attempt to learn the flute every night, or watch Zola practice her gymnastics every day."

"Oh, god.", he guffawed loudly, mirth radiating off him. "That's like..Sophie's choice!"

Their children were exceptionally talented and special except when they played their hand at said extracurriculars.

"After much deliberation, I have arrived to the conclusion that it would have to be Bailey and his flute. Don't get me wrong I love our son, and would support everything he chooses to do but I still have nightmares about the flute, sometimes."

"It was just so very…loud."

"And off-key. So off-key.", he joined in.

They giggled in sync, catching each other's eyes over their coffee cups.

And a traitorous, terrible feeling filled her heart. One that was unrelenting. One that screamed over and over again that, damn it, every cell in her body had missed this.

This companionship. This ease. This-.

Stop, she had to stop.

"Postponing the wedding. Is it because you needed time or…is it something else?", he was suddenly very interested in his cup, eyebrows pinched.

"That's your question?"

"Uh, yeah."

She rolled her eyes. Derek had always slyly utilized this game as a way to have 'conversations' with her. Which back then for her emotionally unavailable non-confrontational self, had frankly been a great method.

Not anymore, though. She was older now. More grown up. Less emotionally-stunted. Or that's what she liked to believe.

"I do need time. I do. And I'm not having doubts."

He nodded," That's good, that's great. I was just enquiring so I'd know if I needed to be ready with a getaway car."

"You'd drive my getaway car?"

Somehow she thought that that wouldn't go down too well.

"Oh, absolutely. Especially since now that I'm planning your wedding, I should be your maid of honour, right? Or best man, whatever."

"Don't kid yourself, Derek. Alex will be my maid of honour.", she replied cheekily.

"Somehow I think Cristina wouldn't be okay with that. Hey, maybe she and I can join forces to stage a maid of honour/best man coup.", he countered with a twinkle in his shiny blue eyes.

Right, that was, if her former person showed up. Which was highly unlikely.

"What-what is it?"

"What?", she parroted.

"Your face twitched when I mentioned Yang."

"It did not."

"Come on, you're a terrible liar, Mer."

"Am not!"

"So you admit you were lying, then."

"Oh shut up, Derek. It's my turn."

"Fine.", he huffed childishly.

"The woman in the cafeteria you were hugging. Girlfriend or…not girlfriend?", two could play this game.

"You saw that, did you?"

"Hmm."

"Just a friend.", she could feel his eyes on her, staring intently while she preferred the view of the ocean. "We met at a cancer support group and she was here for chemo."

"You're in a support group, that's..that's nice."

"Yeah, it is, actually. I hated it at first but it's starting to grow on me.", the Derek from a few weeks ago with his wounds still terribly raw, would have lashed out at her, used his anger to push her away but for whatever reason, he was giving her something here. Something big.

"Miranda suggested it, strangely."

"I haven't told Cristina about the wedding.", she found herself blurting out.

He seemed perplexed, silently watching her. Maybe she should have just kept her mouth shut. She had no idea how far this friend thing went, anyway.

"Are things frosty in the land of the twisted sisters?", he titled his head in her direction, kindness filling his eyes.

Frosty would mean things had been warm, earlier. That hadn't been the case in a long, long time.

"You could say that."

"I'm sorry, Mer.", he reached out to squeeze her shoulder gently, sincerely.

Inexplicably, Derek had wholly supported the inherently intimate relationship her and Cristina had shared. Derek was the love of her life but she was her soulmate and he had plainly accepted that.

"You should tell her, you know. She'd be very happy for you."

"Right, yeah. Anyway, we should head out or we'll be late to pick up the kids."

He stayed still, making no attempts to follow through with her instructions.

"When I found the bakery and had that cheesecake, the first thing, the only thing I wanted to do was run to you."

An uneasy silence filled the car, the weight of his confession heavy between them.

"So this being friends thing, it's nice.", he gave her a shy smile, reaching for his seatbelt. "We should have done it a long time ago."

She returned his smile, hesitantly.

Because Meredith Grey and Derek Shepherd were historically terrible friends.

Because she'd be the first person he would want to run to every time he found a good cheesecake place.

Because in those half-closed white boxes, there was a last piece of cheesecake she would always leave.

A/N: hello, hi is anybody still here? It'd be miracle, honestly, with how long i've been away from this story. I'm so so sorry about that. That was never my intention. This story is my baby, it's the first thing I have ever written and I fully intend to finish it and soon. So don't worry, I swear I will give you the great MerDer happy ending. Eventually.

Anyway, long story short, I lost all of my work for this story which made it so much harder for me to start working on it again. But here you go!

And this chapter is hugee. I didn't realise it'd turn out that long.

But anyway, I have the next chapter( which is big flashback moment) mostly written as well and will be posting soon and then I'll continue in March since I have finals coming up.

Cant believe I wrote all this ten days before my finals. Pray for me y'all.

Anyway I've been blabbing for too long so I shall stop now.

Please, please review and let me know what you think, it means the world to me. And gives me that motivation.

Thank you for reading, thank you for sticking around. Idk how to express how grateful I am for those of you who still stuck around and reviewed and waited for this story to be something.

Thank you thank you! You're really the only reason I could come back to it.

I hope everyone's okay. Catch y'all soon.