Who would have thought

25

"Der, have you seen my other shoe?" Meredith sighed as she crawled underneath his bed.

"What other shoe?" Derek asked, throwing a few shirts into his suitcase.

"You know...the other one," she said, coughing as she shimmied out. "You need to dust under there."

"You want me to dust under my bed?"

"Or vaccuum or something," she giggled, rubbing her nose.

"Or maybe you shouldn't climb under my bed."

"I can't find my shoe."

"Did you check the closet?"

"Yes," she rolled her eyes.

"The other room?"

"Yeah," she frowned, chewing on her lip.

"It has to be somewhere, Mer," he shrugged.

"Maybe...under the couch," she ran into the living room.

"Good luck," he called after her, laughing as he turned back to his suitcase. They had a day to pack. He knew this was going to happen. They had exactly one day to find everything and get it in bags and be ready to fly to England. He had been on her for weeks to start packing and it had come down to this. Running around and Meredith searching desperately for a shoe.

It was her style. This what she did. And he loved it. He loved the fact that when he had stopped by her apartment earlier, she had been struggling to find her passport, her suitcase, all the clothes she wanted to bring. And he loved even more that she had realized at some point most of her clothes were here, at his apartment, as well as hopefully the lost shoe.

"Is it there?" he yelled into the living room.

"Yep," she said breathlessly, holding up the shoe as she came into the room. "Under the couch, just like I said."

"Good job," he smiled widely.

"So there's that," she sighed as she threw it haphazardly into her mess of a suitcase.

"You're never going to get that closed," he laughed. Annoyed would probably be the right reaction but she was so damned cute.

"I have a plan," she giggled as she moved past him to the huge pile of clothes sitting on a chair. "Tank top...tank top..."

"Meredith, should I trust your plan?"

"Of course."

"I see it in movies all the time," she shrugged, lifting up a tank top to her nose. "I sit on it, you zip it."

"Seriously?" he laughed. "That's your plan?"

"That's the plan."

"I love you."

"I love you too," she giggled, throwing a clean tank top to her suitcase.

"No, I mean, I really love you," he laughed.

"I really love you too."

"Hmmm..." he nodded.

"What?"

"We're going to Europe tomorrow, Mer."

"We are," she smiled widely.

"For a month."

"Yeah," she nodded, her smile starting to fade. "You're not...I mean...you still want to go right? I know it was...I wanted to go somewhere after graduation and I know it's fast but...I mean, if you don't want to go anymore..."