In my bones

chapter 6

By @sunset543 on fanfiction.net! Meredith is in her 4th year of residency including the intern year, so she had Aiden about a year before starting at Seattle Grace.

Enjoy! :)

Disclaimer: I don't own any of Grey's Anatomy. Not the characters. Not the plot. Not anything. Nor do I own anything to do with the NHL. At all. But it would be pretty cool if I did.

It was Saturday morning and Derek had to go for one last session at Northgate before playing the Capitals but not until the afternoon. He had 4 hours to work up the courage to ask for a date, and he wanted, needed, to do it as soon as possible. He was offered a shower and he took it gladly, though he didn't have any other clothes, he realised. He came back down the stairs, dripping wet in just a towel.

"Mer?" he padded into the kitchen.

"Yeah, what do yo-" she stopped mid-sentence, just staring at him. She visibly swallowed and he smirked, knowing that she was checking him out.

"You wouldn't happen to have any other clothes, do you?"

"Oh...yeah... yeah I do. There's some old stuff of George and Alex's upstairs from when they used to live here." She walked past him quickly, her head down, and went quickly up the stairs. She pulled some clothes out of some drawers and handed them to him, meeting his eyes.

"Thank you," his husky voice sent shivers up her spine.

"You're welcome," she breathed.

"I'll, uh, get changed," he said, just as breathlessly, and went back into the bathroom.

Meredith let her body fall against the wall, this was bad, she had nearly kissed him again, when her son was in the house, they weren't even together! And his eyes were so expressive, she could get lost in them for hours. She straightened up and got dressed quickly after having a short shower of her own and came back down the stairs in search of Aiden, he would probably want to do something today. Instead of finding him though, she ran straight into Derek and he grabbed her arms to stop her from falling.

"Can I talk to you?" he asked.

"Yes," she answered critically, her eyebrow quirked.

"Don't worry, it's good. Or at least I hope you think it's good."

He dragged her back into the kitchen and sat down across from her.

"I've um, I've been wanting to ask this for a while, and there's no pressure, you can say no... But, um. Will you go out with me Meredith Grey?"

For a second, she just had to let it sink in, Derek Shepherd wanted to date her. He wanted datey, romancy things. And she wanted them too, but she wasn't sure how he would react to all the dark and twisty, but that was answered for her:

"I want to know everything about you. I know so much already but I want to know you inside and out Mer. All of the 'dark and twisty' as you call it, I want to know. And I want to be there for Aiden, he's amazing, and so are you."

She looked into his eyes and saw the tenderness but also the fear of rejection behind them. "Yes," she grinned, "Yes, I'll go out with you."

Derek smiled brightly, jumped off the stool and brought her into a bearhug.

"Thank you, I promise I won't disappoint," he grinned.

"You better not," she smirked, "You can't just be all McDreamy up until now then just let it drop."

"Mc what?" he asked, his brow furrowed.

"It doesn't matter," she dismissed it with a wave of the hand, "But Derek, I don't want to tell Aiden right away, he's the most important thing in my life and that isn't suddenly going to change."