She pulled the car up the drive and parked, before going around to the trunk and glancing around before she opened it. She pulled the thin rectangular package out and held it close to her chest, before darting into the house. She saw his car in the garage, and hoped that he was in the study or somewhere else where he would not see her. She ran upstairs and into their bedroom, tearing into the package and setting it onto the bed, before searching for the hammer and nail that she had hidden in the bedside table the night before. She climbed up onto the bed to drive the nail into the spot she had chosen and then leaned down to pick up the frame.

“What are you doing?”

She screamed and almost lost her footing, before looking over her shoulder at the man leaning against the doorway and looking bemusedly at her. “Close your eyes!” she shot at him.

“Meredith, what are you doing?”

“Close,” she repeated. With a placating smile he obeyed and she turned back to the wall, carefully putting the wire over the nail. “Okay,” she said, stepping back and then jumping off of the bed. “You can look.” She stood by him, taking his arm and watching, wondering if he was transported back to that cloudy afternoon in New Hampshire as she was.

They had been sitting in the living room of the borrowed beach-house, venturing downstairs after a long night and a lazy morning in bed. Meredith was dressed in jeans and a long shirt of Derek’s. He sat on the sofa, nursing a glass of wine and she was perusing the bookshelf full of leather-bound books that looked as if they had not been touched in generations. Her finger fell on one and she started to pull it out just as Derek said, “This place reminds me of what people talk about when they mention people like Emily Dickinson.”

“Oh my God,” Meredith murmured, as she glanced over. He was looking out the window, and there was no way he could see the title of the book she had just pulled down.

“What?” he asked.

She walked over to him, holding out the volume of Dickinson’s poetry she had just taken down from the dusty shelves. “You can read my mind.”

“Or great minds think alike,” he offered, putting his arm around her as she settled in next to him.

“That implies that you’re a great mind,” she retorted. “The jury is still out.”

“You mock me far too much.”

“You’re easy to mock.”

“Mmm. You know, I’ve never actually read a Dickinson poem. Aren’t they all about death and doom and storms?”

“Most of them,” Meredith shrugged. “You can’t grow up around here and not be taught them at some time or other. Or I had particularly obsessed teachers. I had units of Dickinson twice. Here, here’s one for you.” She began flipping through pages to find the poem she wanted. Derek was absent-mindedly running his fingers through her hair, and she snuggled closer against him as she started to read aloud: “Surgeons must be very careful/When they take the knife!/Underneath their fine incisions/Stirs the Culprit – Life!”

“Fair warning,” Derek murmured. “Most surgeons need that reminder.” He kissed the top of her head. “Not you though, after what you said the other day. You don’t forget there are people under the knife.”

“Yeah,” Meredith murmured. “But I’m not a surgeon.”

“You will be,” Derek said. “A great one.”

She did not mention the time she read the poem to her mother and her mother muttered something about there not always being life in a patient. She liked this conversation about it better, even if she thought Derek overly confident in her abilities.

Years later, she had found the print of the poem at a junk store where she was browsing on a boring afternoon off. She had had it framed and failed in her attempt to have it hanging there as a surprise. Still, as Derek looked at it, the effect was good. A grin spread across his face, and he put his arm around her waist.

“Not that you forget that,” she murmured. “But it’s a symbol of us.”

“We have many symbols.”

“Oh? What else? Besides stars, I mean.” She smiled.

“Well, ferryboats, for one.”

She smiled, thinking back to the first date they had had in Seattle.

She sat, anxiously awaiting him at the restaurant they had agreed on. She had not been on-call but he had, so she was checking her cell phone for the tenth time, wondering if he had been called into surgery, when his voice startled her and she hastily put it away.

“Seattle has ferryboats.”

“Um…yeah. Water on three sides equals ferryboats.”

“Yeah. I guess that means I have to like it here.”

She smirked, remembering something he had said a long time ago. “You’re genetically engineered to hate anywhere not Manhattan.”

He shook his head. “I liked Boston!”

“Liar. You hated Boston!”

“At first, yeah. Maybe I’m just genetically engineered to hate anywhere not Manhattan or without you.”

“Corny, corny man.”

And just like that their rhythm had been back. It had not been easy, but somehow the fact that they had survived ten years apart made the five years together easier to survive. There were the habits to get used to, and Meredith had to get used to talking. She had been known to leave letters on his pillow when she had particular difficulty expressing something, but that was rare anymore.

“So you like it?” she asked tentatively.

“Definitely,” he asserted, leaning down to kiss her. She still loved the fact that he was there for her to talk to, and kiss, and more all the time. “It fits. It’s like the finishing touch on the house.”

“Hmm. The finishing touch might be that fire-pit I wanted,” she sighed.

“You won’t fish with me, yet you want a fire pit?”

“I like fire.”

“Pyromaniac,” he teased. “I’ll put one in next summer. I’m just glad the house got done when it did.”

“Yeah. For the record, I may have decided you weren’t crazy for buying this land.”

“Well, with your mother in Roseridge it made sense. Did you see her this morning?”

Meredith shook her head. “Uh uh. I was being interrogated by Richard. Which reminds me, we have a prom to get ready for.” She wandered into the bathroom and started to undress for a shower.

Derek followed her. “What’d you tell him?”

“Nothing. It wasn’t my story to tell. He let me off when I brought up Mom. He finally admitted that they had a thing. I mean, it’s been obvious based on some of her ramblings but… he admitted it.” She paused, fumbling with the clasp of her watch, then held it out to Derek. He undid it and then kissed her wrist. “I just wonder, you know,” she said finally. “How it would have been.”

“If he had stayed with her?”

“Yeah. It might have been nice to have a dad. But then, would I have ended up sitting on those steps that day in March?”

“We would have met anyway,” Derek said, confident as ever. “Trust me.”

She smiled at him, shaking her head. “So you say,” she murmured. “As it is, I’m pretty fond of the way things turned out. Now go, so I can shower.”

“I could help you,” he offered, putting his hands on her hips.

She sighed. “Not now. We have to leave in an hour. How about tonight I let you help me get the dress off?”

He kissed the arch of her neck. “That’s a plan.”

Once she had showered and done her hair, she called downstairs to him. “Derek Christopher Shepherd, if you don’t get up here and get your suit on right now, we will be late!”

She heard him coming up as she slid the black dress over her head. “Zip me,” she ordered, enjoying the feeling of his hand sliding up her back. “I feel bad for them,” she commented, sitting on the edge of the bathtub as Derek began to change. “The interns. It’s weird, because they’re Miranda’s responsibility but—”

“They’re your friends,” Derek finished.

“Yeah. Is that weird? I mean, I’m a fourth year, they’re interns.”

“Well, it maybe a little weird. But this is the first year you haven’t been completely wrapped up in caring for your mother. And we’re settled in the house and I don’t know… they fit you. They have your weird sense of humor.”

“That you share,” she pointed out. “It makes sense…but some times I almost feel like I’m one of them. It’s so weird. But good. They’re good people.”

“They are,” Derek agreed, buttoning his shirt. “Can you believe we’re actually making it to prom?”

Meredith smirked. “Eleven years later,” she murmured.

“It’s an improvement,” he asserted, offering her his hand. “I can be your fiancé, not your cousin Derek from Iowa. You’re not going to be in the wrong place showing up at the hospital, I’ve hidden the tequila—ouch! Don’t hit me.”

“Ass.”

“And it’s unlikely that we’ll spend tomorrow morning being separated by your mother.”

“But it’s entirely likely she’ll yell at us,” Meredith countered. “She does a lot of that.”

“True,” Derek replied as the reached the bottom of the stairs. He turned and put her arms around him, and hers went around his neck, like they always did. “But this time around I’ll be there, the whole time.” She smiled, and leaned up to kiss him. “You look beautiful tonight, Mer,” he murmured. “Elegant and poised. You’re an amazing surgeon and an amazing woman.”

Meredith shrugged. “I guess. But you know what I like best?”

“Hmm?”

“Being yours.”

Derek smiled. “You were always mine, Meredith. I always knew you were a star. Now the rest of the world gets to figure it out. I take pride in figuring it out first.”

“Sappy, arrogant man.”

“You love it.”

“I do,” she agreed. “I love you.” She removed her arms and took his hand again, intertwining their fingers as he had done ages ago on their first ‘date’. “But I would not love to be late. Let’s go.” She led him outside into the night. She did not know how hectic the evening would be, or that she would not go home with him, but would go with Miranda’s interns to comfort Izzie Stevens. When she got home, though, he would be waiting for her, ready to put his arms around her and assure her that he was there to stay. She had to admit that she was glad he had not gone when she let him go.

She loved him and she had learned the hard way that that was something that did not fade away, no matter how undeserving or broken she thought she was.

A/N Meredith can’t extract herself from the circle of friends she ends up with, I think. That’s what makes them special, after all. :-)

This has been one of my favorite fics to write, pretty much ever. Playing with it has been so much fun. I’m glad you all enjoyed it, but even if you hadn’t it would have been worth it. Anyway, I have at least one other one-shot going up Friday, probably, and it’s got some AU tendencies so keep an eye out.