Disclaimer: I need the season 3 soundtrack.

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Meredith was doing charts at the nurses' station when Cristina came up.

"He should be back by now," Meredith said.

"McDreamy? What? Are you two dating again?" Cristina asked.

"No, just…he should be back by now."

"Whatever," Cristina said before ordering her interns around.

Meredith was on her way to scrub in to assist Bailey when she heard two interns talking.

"Did you hear about that huge car accident by the airport?" the first intern asked, "there were no survivors."

"Oh, no! Really?" the second intern replied.

"Yeah."

Meredith suddenly felt panicked – what if Derek was involved? She felt like she had to go out and see for herself or go to an on call room and cry but she couldn't. She had interns and surgery and Bailey was calling her name! With no other choice, she scrubbed in telling herself she was only worried because he was a friend.

As soon as the surgery was finished, one and a half hours later, she scrubbed out as fast as she could and grabbed her phone, starting to text him while walking down the hall. She wasn't watching where she was going and ran into someone.

"I'm sorry," she apologized.

"It's ok."

Meredith looked up and saw it was Derek. It was Derek, oh god! She hit him on the chest, tears coming to her eyes. Derek looked at her, concerned and pulled her into the closest on call room.

"You're late," she told him quietly.

"I know, I overslept and missed my flight so I got a later one. Then, there was a horrible traffic jam because of an accident. I called Richard," he explained.

At the mention of the accident near the airport, she got teary again.

Derek took a couple steps close to her so that he was just an arm's length away.

"Meredith, what's wrong?"

"You're late and you didn't call me and I was scared because I heard some interns talking about that accident and no one survived and I can't lose you," she rambled and at some point the tears began to fall, "but you don't have to call because it's just S&M."

Derek pulled her into a hug. "I should have called. I didn't know you'd worry this much."

"Neither did I," she cried.

Derek held her for a couple minutes, letting her calm down.

"This isn't working, is it?" he asked quietly.

She shook her head against his chest, "Not really."

Derek pulled back slightly to look at her. "Why don't we do a sort of relationship thing?" he suggested, McDreamily.

"What does that mean?" she asked.

"It means," he moved her bangs away from her face, "that we take things slowly, that I don't put any pressure on you unless you are being too avoid-y," he smiled knowingly and she returned a small smile, "that you can tell me things – you can always tell me things. It means that you will see I am not your father and I will never choose anyone else, that I will never walk away."

"You won't tell me to try to get to know Lexie?"

"Nope. So what do you want, Meredith?"

Meredith looked at him wondering if she should say what was on her mind. But if she wanted to be with him that's what she had to do, right?"

Derek kept looking at her with the unintentional McDreamy face while Meredith pondered actually not being with him. Not having him there to make her laugh, to tease her about her snoring, to be proud of her when she succeeds, to boast her accomplishments, for her to be bossy to, to make sure she takes care of herself, to make her talk when she doesn't want to but needs to, to save her when she's drowning – figuratively and literally – to love and to love her for and despite everything that's happened and everything that she is.

"The other day, Izzie said that you can't leave me; like you said, you cant walk away. The thing is…neither can I. I can flight like hell against it but I can't not be with you and I hate you for it. I hate that I love you so much," she smiled, running was easy, running was what she did, but running didn't make her happy, "I want to have a sort of relationship with you. And eventually after that a relationship relationship. I don't know how long I will take to get to that second part but I want to be with you."

With a big smile, Derek leaned in and kissed the woman who stole his heart in a bar. Meredith returned the kiss. Running didn't make her happy but being with Derek sure did and with everything that happened in her life, she deserved some happiness.

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Not the best fic, in my eyes but I'm sure everyone will love it. I always think my fics are crap.

I hope you enjoyed it 