I Wanna Love Somebody Like You

4

Meredith was exhausted.

As she stepped into the shower after a few hours of precious sleep, all she wanted was to call out of work, crawl back into bed, and sleep for the next week. Preferably with Derek's arms around her.

But she couldn't do that. Because she was a stupid intern, and as she sank onto the floor of the shower, the warm water soothing her and making it hard to keep her eyes open, she couldn't exactly remember why she had decided to place this slow and painful torture on herself.

She allowed herself to close her eyes for a moment, and it wasn't until her toothbrush slipped out of her hand that she realized she was actually falling asleep. In the shower.

As she pulled herself to her feet, she turned the water to the coldest setting possible, hoping that it would wake her up. This was totally Derek's fault. She'd just performed a forty eight hour shift, after which Derek had taken her to dinner, then called her the moment that she got home. Apparently if they couldn't actually have sex, he thought it was necessary to have phone sex all night. Or twice, but to Meredith's exhausted body it had seemed like a lot more than that.

And now she had to go visit her mother before she went to work, another thing that she hated. It was awful to see Ellis Grey deteriorating before her eyes, awful reliving the painful memories of her past, and worst of all she had to hide it all from Derek. She hated hiding it from Derek.

"Mer?" his voice came from the hallway, and before she knew what was happening he was smiling at her from the other side of the frosted shower door. "Good morning."

"What the hell are you doing here?" she asked, poking her head out of the shower stall. "I told you you're not allowed here."

"Relax," he rolled his eyes. "Izzie and George spent last night at the hospital. And I assigned them a high profile case yesterday, they're not leaving anytime soon."

"Oh," she said, moving back into the shower.

"Taking a cold shower?" he smirked. "You know if you're having dirty thoughts, I can help you out with that."

"Don't hold your breath," she rolled her eyes, but turned the water back to hot anyways. It was starting to get painful.

"Everything okay?" he asked as he discarded his boxers and stepped into the shower behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist and kissing her neck.

"I'm just....so tired," she whispered, leaning into his touch. "I can barely even keep my eyes open."

"Hmmm," he said, removing one hand from her waist to reach for her shampoo. "I remember that feeling very well."

"What are you doing?" she frowned as she watched him pour a generous amount into his hand.

"Letting you relax," he said, working the soapy matter through her hair. "Close your eyes. I'll take care of you."

She rolled her eyes at his cheesiness, but she couldn't help the relaxing feeling that washed over her as he gently massaged her scalp. She leaned into him as he rinsed her hair, washed her body and then conditioned her hair, knowing her shower routine by heart.

"You're on your own for shaving your legs," he laughed after her hair was silky and smooth from the conditioner.

"Hmmm," she sighed as she wrapped her arms around him. "Too tired."

"Alright," he sighed dramatically, reaching to turn off the shower and a towel to wrap Meredith in. "I suppose I can handle that."

"And don't think you're getting sex anytime soon," she said, her body moving slower than it ever had as she reached for another towel to wrap her hair in. "Any time off I have will be spent sleeping. Not sexing."