What Do You Go Home To?

This was written as a sequel of sorts to Joy in Small Places, but it can stand alone. It assumes show canon through 4.11, which means the clinical trial never happened.

He looks... different. His hair is still thick and full but it's taken on a distinguished salt-and-pepper coloring. More lines have taken up residence around his eyes, which are wide and bright, engaging his audience as he speaks.

She remembers what they looked like in the dim lights of her bedroom when he was whispering things like "forever".

Meredith glances around. Many women in the audience, and perhaps a handful of men, are far more entranced than they should be about his speech, given its subject matter. She knows how they feel. Or she knew, once.

It's been a long time since she fell for that trap.

He looks good, she decides, in his tailored sport coat paired with loose fitting jeans and a white collared shirt with the first two buttons undone. If she didn't know him, didn't know his past, she would think he'd spent his whole life out on the west coast.

She watches as his eyes skim over the seated people before him. She knows she's been spotted when he stammers slightly, though she doubts anyone else noticed. He continues speaking, sharply and clearly, about his new study. He's going to change the world, and she feels a small swell of pride for having known him.

Her BlackBerry buzzes at her hip. She unclips it from its holster and opens the message from Liam.

"Just making sure you're awake," it starts. "I consider it my duty to make sure nobody else is subjected to your snoring."

She smiles at the screen and types in her response, still keeping half her attention on the speaker's voice filling the auditorium. "I'll have you know that this discussion is very interesting and you're distracting me from it. And I do not snore."

She looks up from her lap to meet Derek's eyes. He's twenty rows ahead, standing behind the lectern, but she can sense the something in his gaze. His speech doesn't waver, though. Derek wouldn't be Derek if he didn't exude confidence from every pore, all the time.

The ring on her left hand clinks against her phone as she clips it back onto her belt. She looks down to examine the simple platinum band with a recessed emerald-cut diamond. It's not a wedding ring, or even an engagement ring. It's not a promise of anything, because Liam isn't the marrying kind of guy, but he does want to buy her something nice to show her he cares. It finds its home on her left ring finger for practical reasons only.

He would have been her perfect match before. He loves her for who she is, and he's not offended when she wants to spend some time alone, or with Cristina. He doesn't pressure her into anything because he doesn't want any of those things himself. They're committed to each other, but not to the rest of their lives together. She loves him a lot, but some days she wonders if she might want more. The house, the kids, the dog. The white picket fence.

The man at the podium has all those things, and she wishes she was seated closer so she could examine him. Is he happy? Did getting all of those things make him happy?

Derek begins the conclusion of his speech and Meredith gets ready to make a quick exit. She doesn't feel the need to shake his hand. She knows he knows that she thinks he's brilliant. She doesn't need to confirm it.

She stands and applauds with the audience for a moment before sliding out of her aisle seat and walking casually out the door. She doesn't want to look like she's scurrying away. Meredith Grey, dignity, and Derek Shepherd were never things that went together very well and she wants to think that five years and three thousand miles have changed that.

Her phone buzzes again as soon as the door closes behind her. It's Liam, calling this time.

"Don't you have lives to save or something?" she says, by way of greeting.

"Actually, I did a clamshell this morning to save a stabbing victim, but you know, nothing big." He sounds nonchalant, but she knows better.

"Wow, I wish I was there right now." The thought of him in his post-major surgery high is enough to send a rush of lust through her body. He's a force of nature in that condition.

"Believe me, I wish you were, too." And that's the thing about him. She knows that as high as he feels right now, she can trust him not to do anything rash. He's completely loyal to her.

She bites her lip to distract herself from the thought of getting on the next plane out of Chicago, but she's here as a representative of Mass General. It was an honor to be chosen by the chief to represent their neurosurgery department at this convention.

Liam interrupts her thoughts. "So, was he good?"

The lust in her body is replaced by dread. "How did you know?"

"Some of the residents were watching the webcast. I think you'd have a huge fan club if you told them you've slept with him." He doesn't sound angry, or jealous, or judgmental. He sounds like her best friend who just happens to be male.

She chooses to ignore the part about the fan club. "He was great. When he gets it right, he's going to change the world."

"And so will you, someday." She hears his pager on the other end of the line. "Shit, gotta go. Love you."

She knows he's hung up, but she repeats the words before she puts her phone away. She continues through the throng of neurosurgeons in the atrium to the hotel. Assuming surgeons pick specialties based on their personalities, it makes sense that Liam is perfect for her. He rushes into emergent situations and does whatever he can to stop the bleeding before someone with more finesse and expertise comes in and takes the glory. And he's okay with it.

It's why he won't commit long-term.

She doesn't blame him.

Her phone rings again. Cristina. "Have you seen him yet?" She always cuts right to the chase.

"I saw him speak, but I haven't seen him personally. And I don't plan to."

She scoffs. "Yeah, okay. You two are a disastrous magnet for each other."

"It's been a long time. It's all water under the bridge."

"Hm," she hums, not sounding convinced at all. "So what are you doing right now? It doesn't sound like you're networking like a good little convention-goer."

"I need to make notes on the presentation," Meredith says, and it's the truth. She doesn't go on to say that she wants to research his procedures. She knows how he thinks, and she wants to know if she can find what he's missing. She wants him to succeed, she tells herself, for the benefit of humankind.

"Yeah, well do me a favor and stay away from the hotel bar, okay? I don't trust you, alcohol, and him within a mile radius of one another."

Meredith rolls her eyes. "See you on Monday."

It's early evening by the time Meredith gets up from the tiny desk in her hotel room. She thinks she has an idea, but she's going to let it roll around in her mind before she decides what to do about it. She focuses on getting ready for the evening's events – dinner and cocktails.

Spending nearly all of one's waking hours working doesn't exactly promote normal social behavior, which is why someone invented the medical convention. Learn by day, schmooze by evening, sleep together by night. Of course, the latter part of that doesn't apply to her, but that doesn't mean she can't put on a nice dress and talk up her hospital to neurosurgeons from around the world.

She's learned to play the game, and she's good at it. It's something her mother was never capable of. Ellis Grey was well-respected because of her scalpel but nobody ever liked her. She didn't want a funeral because she knew that nobody would show up because they actually felt anything for her. They would show up to "pay their respects", and she found the idea distasteful.

Meredith is not her mother. She makes friends and connections, and there are people in six states that owe her favors. She isn't exactly a social butterfly, but she realizes that a little friendliness goes a long way.

She doesn't want people to remember her as a frigid bitch who was a really great surgeon. She wants to be remembered as a great doctor in every respect. And if she ever has children, she wants to be remembered as a great mother, as well. She doesn't want anyone to have to experience the surprised, pitying expressions on people's faces when they realize that the great Dr. Grey had a child.

She shakes the thoughts from her head and lathers up her hair in the shower. She uses something citrusy now. The scent of lavender reminds her of days long past, when she was caught in Derek's web of lies, half-truths and beautiful promises. If she was strapped to a lie detector test, she would probably admit that she still loved the idea of him, but the reality was nothing like the fairytale.

He professed all kinds of things using words like "love" and "life" and then took them off the table when things got too difficult. She admits that she wasn't an easy person to love, but she doesn't think he tried all that hard, either.

Still, she'll always be grateful to him for teaching her. Without him, she wouldn't be the doctor she is today. Five years ago, though, she decided that her time at Seattle Grace was up.

"I haven't seen your application for your fellowship, yet. Cutting it a little close to the deadline, aren't you?"

They were walking across the third-floor bridge in front of the huge picture window. She shrugged and kept up her pace.

"Meredith..." he started.

"I'm not staying here. I had Dr. Clarke write my letters of recommendation for a few programs back east."

Her mistake was not turning around to look at him. She gasped in surprise when he grabbed her arm, dragged her into his office, and closed the door behind them.

"You can't leave."

"And you have no say in how I live my life. You gave up that right years ago."

"As if I ever fucking had it."

Meredith was sick of this fight. She rubbed her hands over her face. "Why do you even care?"

He paced around the small room. "I care because you're going to be one of the best some day and you'll be at some other hospital when you make your first big discovery."

"So this is about the hospital's reputation? Seriously?"

"Yes, what else would it be about?" He stood in front of her with his hands on his hips, expecting... she didn't know what.

"Don't bullshit me. You don't want me to leave because then I won't be under your thumb anymore. You don't want me to move on with my life."

He flinched, but didn't say anything in response.

"Come on, Derek," she said, her voice softer this time. "Give me your big speech. Promise me the sun and the sky. Promise me things you have no business promising."

What he did instead was the only thing he knew to do when words failed him. He kissed her, wildly and angrily. She returned it with all the same passion, even while her mind was screaming "Wrong, wrong, wrong!"

He grabbed her shoulders and guided her to his desk, reaching an arm behind her to clear the corner. He used the angle to dominate the kiss. He controlled everything about it.

It was her deepest, darkest, hidden weakness and he knew it.

Her hands reached up his scrub shirt and scraped around his abdomen. She didn't use her nails; she couldn't leave marks.

After what felt like minutes, he finally stopped, but only to rip off his shirt and hers. He didn't care about leaving marks. He dragged his lips and rough, stubbly chin across her exposed torso. He sucked marks into her skin and nipped at her breasts with his teeth.

He pushed her back so that her upper body rested on the desk and ripped off her pants. He bent over to attack her, licking and sucking her in a way that would hurt if she wasn't so turned on. She came hard and fast, covering her own mouth to muffle the shout. They couldn't get caught.

She had fully and completely lost her mind. She was going to do the one thing she swore she'd never do again.

He got up and walked over to the other side of the desk, knowing that she didn't have the energy to move anywhere. She noticed with morbid amusement that he still kept emergency condoms for office sex in the bottom left drawer of his desk. She wondered if he used them with her.

He stood before her, his pants at his ankles and his cock as hard as she'd ever seen it.

She summoned what little energy she had to sit up. She wasn't going to let him dominate this, too.

He pushed into her, not roughly, and she wrapped her legs around his back and her arms around his neck. She ran her hands through his hair and pulled him down for a kiss.

It reminded her of something that happened years ago when she was an intern. Dark, dirty sex in an exam room.

She pulled back and brushed the hair off his forehead, allowing herself to look into his eyes for the first time since they started. She could tell he was thinking of it, too. Four years and a million fuck-ups ago. When he wasn't hers because he was with Addison, not Rose.

She swallowed back a laugh at the thought of how things had come full-circle. Breaking eye contact, she rested her forehead on his shoulder and fought the assault of memories.

He grunted and shuddered. He was close. He had been close when they started.

Meredith leaned back and looked at him again. She loosened her legs from their vise grip around his waist and let them dangle over the edge of the desk.

"This," she began. He kept up his rhythm. "Is why." Thrust. "I have." Thrust. "To." Thrust. "Leave." She punctuated her last word by contracting her inner muscles and wrapping her legs around his body, forcing him as deep as he could go. He spasmed against her, groaning and shaking. She braced her arms behind her to support his weight when he collapsed against her.

She let him rest for a moment before she pushed him back and got out from under him. She gathered her clothes, fixed her hair, and left his office quietly.

The next day, she noticed the sparkly new diamond on Rose's left ring finger and she knew she'd made the right decision.

The water in the shower goes cold, shocking Meredith out of reliving the past. It's a scene she recalls more often than she'd like to admit.

She continues her routine, drying her hair into soft curls and applying some light makeup. She slips into a dark blue silky dress that's cut low in both the front and the back, but makes up for it by having a conservative hemline. She looks more like a neurosurgeon's trophy wife, and she feels a tiny bit guilty at having not bought this dress to go out with Liam.

When she tried on the dress at the store, Cristina scoffed and said, "Well, now you're just playing with fire."

Meredith pretended not to know what she meant.

And really, she didn't buy the dress for Derek. She bought it because her boss wanted her to dazzle everyone and sing the praises of an already world-renowned facility.

She sprays her favorite perfume on the back of her knees, the inside of her elbows, and then reaches around to put a spritz at the small of her back. It's an old habit, stemming from her love of having her neck and chest kissed – perfume is only good for one of the body's five senses.

After slipping into a pair of silver strappy sandals, she makes her way down to the banquet hall. She registers her name and receives her name tag and table number. There are already a few doctors seated at the table when she gets there with the drink she picked up along the way. The men stand to greet her, and she can't remember the last time she was at something this formal.

She introduces herself first. The man on the left is quick to respond.

"Dr. David Weitzman, NewYork Presbyterian. I was colleagues with Dr. Shepherd, back when he lived on the right coast." Meredith fakes a laugh and worries about the implications of him knowing her connection to Derek. "Dr. Grey," he continues, "Your research project was remarkable. Well beyond your years. May I just say that I was extremely disappointed that you rejected our fellowship offer?"

She breathes out a small sigh of relief. He knows about Derek because he supervised her research. "Thank you, Dr. Weitzman, but I'm a Boston girl at heart. The lure of going home was too hard to resist."

Meredith will admit that she enjoys playing sweet and charming every now and then. Scary and damaged just doesn't fit in her tiny evening clutch.

"Please, call me Dave. Are you a Red Sox fan? If you are, I'm afraid we can't be seen together," he jokes.

Meredith laughs like she's supposed to and he introduces her to the other doctors at the table, from hospitals in Toronto, Los Angeles, Atlanta and London. She guesses the planners really wanted people to mix. They fall into comfortable conversation waiting for the appetizers to be served.

Suddenly, Dave stands up and fixes his eyes on a spot behind her. She senses Derek's presence even before Dave's exclamation of his name.

Derek comes to stand beside her, reaching over the table to shake hands with his old friend. He looks sharp in his fitted black suit. He takes the empty seat next to her and she hopes like hell that he isn't seated there tonight. She's pretty sure that the speakers have their own VIP table as guests of honor, but she wouldn't put it pasts the gods to rain all over her.

She swallows back the rest of her martini quickly. Dave doesn't seem to think it odd that she and Derek have yet to greet one another. Maybe he thinks that they've gone through their pleasantries already.

"Excuse me, I'm going to get another drink," she says, standing up and fleeing quickly.

Derek doesn't miss a beat. "Oh! I'll go with you. I'll catch up with you later, Dave."

Meredith changes her course from the bar to the first door she sees. It leads to a deserted area meant to hold spillover from the hall.

She turns to face the person who followed her here.

She feels surprisingly calm as she looks into his eyes while he looks her up and down. Her heartbeat only quickens when his examination stops at the hand that's holding her clutch. His gaze fixes on it for a moment and she takes the opportunity to look for the ring on his finger.

There isn't one.

She thinks that George would have told her if he'd gotten a divorce. On second thought, she realizes it's possible that all of her friends would have conspired to not tell her. But he could just be not wearing his ring. Getting it cleaned. Re-sized. Maybe he doesn't like wearing rings anymore.

Meredith puts her hand behind her back. She can't take the scrutiny. She knows what he thinks the ring is, and she can't be bothered to correct him. He shakes his head slightly before looking up at her face with a sad smile on his.

"Who's the lucky guy?"

She bites down on her lip. She wants to fly into a mad rage because he'd dare to ask. She wants to tell him the truth. She doesn't want to tell him anything.

She decides on option C.

"You're the toast of the town, Derek."

He looks almost defeated. "I haven't found the solution yet."

"But you will. Soon."

His posture straightens a bit, as though he's bolstered by that simple vote of confidence. "I'm missing something, but I don't know what."

She throws him a bone. "I looked at everything you've published, and I think I might be able to help you. I mean, I hope that isn't presumptuous of me, to assume that you'd want my help, but I was going to write up a report for you."

"It's not presumptuous at all, Meredith. The trial is based on some of your research. When I finally figure it out, your name will be on the study whether or not you help me now."

She nods. "Okay. I'll send it to you later. Same e-mail address?"

He grunts a noise that sounds positive, but looks a little disappointed that she isn't offering to show it to him in person.

"I should go back. I'll see you around?" She slips back through the door without waiting for his response. She's pleased with herself for holding in her emotions. She's always been reactionary, but she's learned to rein it in for the sake of her bedside manner. Her poker face has gotten a lot better.

She stops at the bar and picks up a double vodka martini. She wishes she could do tequila shots, but it would probably draw attention in a place like this. She makes her way back to her assigned table, determined to enjoy the rest of the evening.

Meredith slips out of the banquet hall after dessert is served when the live band starts to set up. She knows that staying for drinks and dancing is just asking for trouble.

She's not ready to call it a night, though, so she finds herself in the hotel bar despite Cristina's warning. A group of other younger neurosurgeons are gathered around the pool table and she finds it an odd juxtaposition – the formally-dressed group with their hands wrapped around pints of MGD, leaning over the dirty pool table to examine angles.

She walks up to them and introduces herself because she's confident enough to do that now. None of them show the slightest bit of reaction at her name, so she allows herself to let her guard down for the night.

By three in the morning, she's back in her room with a few more contacts in her BlackBerry. She's reaching behind her back to undo her zipper when she hears a knock on her door. She doesn't have to look through the peephole to know who it is. She just hopes he hasn't been watching her all night, waiting to catch her alone.

She opens the door enough to look outside, but not enough to let him in.

"What do you want?" she asks, exasperated. "It's late."

Derek holds his hands out in front of his body like he's surrendering something. "I just want to talk. Honestly. It's been forever since we've talked."

"There's nothing to talk about." She doesn't intend to sound angry; she's just exhausted.

"Come on, Meredith. Let me in. I'll stand here all night until you let me in."

She rolls her eyes at the line, like something out of a cheesy romantic comedy. "You can't do this anymore. I have a..." She still doesn't feel the need to define her relationship for him. "Fuck, get in here before someone sees you," she says, throwing open the door and stalking back into her room.

He follows her in, closing and locking the door behind him. He takes off his shoes. She wonders how long he's planning to stay.

Because she's had quite a bit to drink, torturing him seems like a nice idea. She walks in front of him and turns around. "Unzip me," she orders.

He pulls the zipper down, down, down, until she knows the top of her black g-string is showing. She hears his audible gulp, but he makes good on his promise and keeps his hands to himself otherwise.

She walks into the bathroom and closes the door most of the way, testing his willpower to stay put and not peer in. She doesn't know why she wants to make keeping his promise so hard on him.

"So you wanted to talk?" she calls out. "Talk."

She reenters the bedroom wearing a long sleeve t-shirt and a pair of gym shorts she stole from Liam. Derek is seated on the overstuffed chair next to the television, so she gets into bed and arranges the pillows to form a back rest.

"I miss you," he says simply, like he's asking her to pass him the milk for his muesli.

The alcohol in her system is making her equal parts bold and bitter. "What, Rose isn't enough for you? You need some side action?"

"Rose and I are divorced. She has the kids. I send her fifteen thousand dollars a month and I see them every other weekend."

And just like that, all of Meredith's bitterness melts away. He didn't find his happiness after all. "Do you have pictures?"

He pulls his wallet out from his back pocket and flips it open to a Sears portrait studio image of a dark-haired toddler with his arms wrapped around a pink-adorned infant with curly black hair and large, round eyes. "That's Jacob. He's three now... that picture was taken a year ago. And Abigail, she's two. Just a baby, there, though."

Meredith knows without a doubt that he didn't choose their names. Still, by the reverent tone he uses to speak of them, she knows that his children are the most valuable thing in the world to him. She's glad he was able to find that part of his life, at least. "They're beautiful," she says, and she means it.

He smiles like a proud parent and takes his wallet back.

"What happened to you, Derek?" Meredith's mind-mouth filter has taken a hit tonight.

She half-expects him to respond, "you"; to place the blame for his life being in shambles on her. Instead, he just sighs and sinks deeper into the chair. "I have made so many mistakes in my life that I've lost count. I was never that guy. I don't know when I became that guy, but I just want to know how I can stop." He looks to her like he expects her to have the answers he's looking for.

If it wasn't so sad, she would find it funny. He's asking the perpetually messed-up girl for advice about life. She decides to take the opening he's giving her, though, because he's never allowed her access to his thoughts and feelings – at least not without an accompanying speech that incorporated things she wanted to hear with things she didn't.

She doesn't know how to start because she's never done anything like this. She's never talked to Derek. She plays around with the hem of Liam's shorts. The diamond in her ring catches the light and she hears him flinch.

"And now I might be too late," he says.

She scoffs. "Derek, we passed 'too late' years ago." But she decides to tell him the truth, not because she wants him to do something with it, but because he's being so truthful with her. She thinks it's only fair if all the chips are out on the table. "I'm not married. This isn't a wedding ring, or an engagement ring. It's not even a promise ring. It's just a gift from a man who loves me."

He nods and stifles a smile, but she can see it on his face, anyway. His expression becomes grim again, quickly. "I never bought you anything like that. I'm sorry."

She lets out a humorless laugh. "You tried to buy me a house."

"I'm sorry about that, too."

This whole conversation feels surreal, she thinks. Derek being apologetic is not something that she can reconcile with the man she knew.

A lot has changed in five years.

She's changed a lot in five years.

"Why are you here? What did you expect would happen tonight?"

"I didn't expect anything. I just wanted to see you. Sit with you. Be in the same room as you without you running in the opposite direction."

She supposes some things never change. "I have nothing left to give you."

"I don't need anything else."

"So if nothing else happens tonight, you'll be satisfied? You'll leave me alone?"

He shakes his head in the negative. Somehow, she knew it wouldn't be that simple. "Meredith, I may be a fuck-up of epic proportions but I need you. I can't live without you."

She rolls her eyes, even as tears blur her vision. "You might have a way with words, but I know better."

He gets up off the chair and moves to the edge of the bed, just a foot away from where she's sitting. The bed tilts in his direction, like some cosmic hint. "I was wrong. The whole time, I was wrong. I've never been more sure of anything in my entire life. You're it for me and it makes me sick to my stomach to think that I might have lost you forever."

"You couldn't have figured this out eight years ago? It's been a long time. There's a lot of water under the bridge. There's so much water under the bridge that the bridge has been swept away. There is no bridge, Derek."

His lips turn up in a grin and she knows he's remembering some of her better rambling rants. She's remembering them, too. She has more vivid memories of her abbreviated relationship with Derek than she does of her four-year relationship with Liam.

She wonders what that says about her.

"Are you happy?" he asks.

"Yes," she answers, without hesitation.

She can tell by the look on his face that he believes her. It's not what he wanted to hear. "Is there a chance for this," he gestures between them, "for us, at all?"

Her heart races wildly while she contemplates the answer. The light in the room is suddenly too much to bear, so she bends over to hide her face between her knees. "This isn't fair."

"Look me in the eyes and tell me I don't have a shot in hell, and I'll go," he whispers, as though he's afraid to say it out loud.

She tilts her head back up and watches as he braces himself. She hates him right now. She hates herself right now, because she can't close the door on him for good. She puts her head back down without saying anything.

He breathes out a huge sigh of relief and in the silence that follows, she considers what she just admitted to. She gave him an inch, and she's sure he'll take a mile.

"What's he like?" he asks, surprising her.

She struggles to come up with a description that doesn't trivialize Liam. Anyone can be intelligent, funny and attractive. "He's like... sex and mockery, except he doesn't date other people."

Derek cringes, but he soldiers on. "So it's not serious."

Meredith shrugs. "He's not that kind of guy."

"I would be okay with that, you know. If you didn't want anything serious. I just want you."

She shakes her head. "You have kids and you live on the other side of the country. 'Not serious' is not possible."

At his hopeful look, she realizes that she just implied that she was thinking about it. And she is. Thinking about it.

"But how would it work?" she asks. "I have a life in Boston. I like my life in Boston."

He turns away to face the wall across from the bed. "I can't leave Seattle... I don't want to be a summer dad."

"I would never ask you to leave your kids," she spits. She's indignant that he would even suggest it. He, of all people, should know how sensitive she is to his children's situation.

He nods like a scolded child and his head drops a little lower. "I just... I've wanted this for so long. I don't want it to get held up by technicalities."

"Technicalities?" she shrieks. "These are not technicalities. You being a neat freak and me being a mess? That's a technicality. You liking minty toothpaste and me liking cinnamon, that's a technicality. This is a whole freaking life-changing thing."

He heaves another deep sigh and she lies back on her mountain of pillows. She decides to change the topic of conversation. "Why did you get divorced?"

"Rose got tired of playing second fiddle to someone who wasn't even there," he begins. "It took her a while to figure it out. When you left, she was busy with planning the wedding. Then she was pregnant, and then she was pregnant again. But then I think she started to realize that I only paid attention to her if it had anything to do with the kids."

She examines the stucco ceiling while trying to formulate a response that isn't an expletive. "You are such an ass." She gives up.

"I know." He lies back as well, stretching out across the end of the bed. "I offered to buy her a house in the city, and a generous alimony. But she knew I didn't care about money. That's why she fought me on custody. My lawyer thinks I did pretty well, all things considered."

She wonders what it means to do poorly.

"It wasn't really that acrimonious. We both made mistakes. She told me later that she knew what she was getting into... she just thought that if she hung on, I'd eventually forget."

"Do you think you would have?"

"No. I asked for the divorce. She was willing to keep the holding pattern."

His admission means everything to Meredith, but she can't help but feel awful for having indirectly broken up yet another marriage. If she'd fought a little harder for him back then, she could have saved them all a lot of heartache.

She can hear her therapist's voice in her head. She can't think that way. That path leads to insanity.

But the train of thought brings up another. "How do you know you still want me? I've changed a lot. Like, a lot, a lot."

He chuckles. "There wasn't just one thing that made me fall in love with you. If any one of those things is still intact, I'm still going to want you."

There are those pretty words again, she thinks. "It wasn't enough before."

"You're not the only one who's changed."

Another comfortable silence follows and she uses it to attempt to process everything that's happened tonight. She concludes that she is seriously considering giving Derek another chance, and that it involves moving back across the country, leaving Cristina and Liam and everything she has in Boston. But she isn't sure yet. She needs more information.

"Did you know I was going to be here?"

"No, I never even considered the possibility. And I don't mean any offense by that. You know what I think of your abilities, but you're still very..." She knows he doesn't want to say "young" because that would be admitting that he isn't. "New, in the scheme of things, and they've got a large staff over there at Mass General. You must have really impressed the chief." He sounds proud, and she can't help but be affected by it.

Still, she can't quite swallow the implications of what he just said. "So... if you didn't run into me this weekend, if I didn't come this weekend, I could have gone the rest of my life without knowing you still felt this way?"

He shakes his head against the sheets and it messes up his hair in a way she finds completely endearing. "Actually," he starts, sitting up to face her, "Well, your friends won't tell me anything, but I was prepared to use a whole line of connections to figure out where you lived. I was going to fly out to Boston, stand under your window and hold a radio over my head."

Meredith laughs. She laughs, and laughs, and laughs, until tears are running down her face. "Oh my god, I'm so glad that didn't happen."

He has the decency to look a little sheepish. "It was going to be my gift to myself when I finished my study."

"Oh, about that." She figures that now is as good a time as any to show him her notes. She rolls over and reaches into her laptop bag. When she's loaded the proper files, she slides the computer over to him.

She finds herself biting her lip in nervousness, watching him scroll through her thoughts on screen.

"Holy shit, Meredith. I think this is it." He looks at her with awe written all over his face. "I was approaching it from the wrong angle. This might break it wide open."

He starts typing frantically, as though he's afraid he'll forget what he wants to write if he doesn't get it down in the next thirty seconds.

Meredith tries to breathe around the butterflies in her stomach. She might be a part of medical history. With Derek.

"I'm emailing this to myself, okay?"

"Uh, yeah, yeah, of course." She feels completely tongue-tied. She can't remember the last time she was this excited about something.

He finishes with the computer and puts it down on the floor. "You have to come back with me," he says, when he turns back around. "You have to come to Seattle. You have to see this through. I'll talk to your chief. He'll understand." He's firing words off at a record rate.

She nods, shocked, because it's all she can think to do.

"You'll come?"

She takes a deep breath and exhales. "I'll come."

He gives her a look she's familiar with, even though it's been a long time since she's seen it. He wants to kiss her.

She wants it, too.

She's not sure who moves first, but his hands are in her hair, her hands are in his and it feels like coming home. She generally considers kissing to be a part of foreplay – a precursor to sex – but with Derek, it's so much more. It's saying things that they are incapable of putting into words. It's making and breaking promises.

Their tongues meet in the middle and battle for dominance. It's an old game she didn't know she missed.

He breaks away first, leaning his forehead against hers and panting like he just ran five miles. She's grateful to him for it, because she doesn't want to be the girl who cheated again, but she's pretty sure she wouldn't have stopped it from happening.

"Can I stay here tonight? I mean, I'll stay in my clothes and sleep on top of the covers if you want, but I... I just don't want to leave." The confident speaker from earlier today is nowhere to be found.

She weighs the idea in her head. "You don't have to sleep in your suit. Or over the blankets. But... you know."

"I know."

She rearranges the pillows and slips under the comforter. He strips to his boxers and undershirt, turns out the light and joins her.

In the darkness and silence, she realizes that she hasn't slept well in years. She'd forgotten the feeling, the inexplicable safety that Derek brought with him.

She makes her decision. They might have a mountain of issues left to deal with, but the first step is simple.

"Derek?"

"Hm?"

"Yes."