Untouchable face

62.

It was hard for Derek to believe he had only been with Meredith for two weeks. It was even harder for him to imagine not being with her. Somehow, being with her filled the hole he had felt since the accident that had apparently been Meredith-shaped. He had no idea how exactly they had just fallen together so easily. He knew he liked her, he was most likely in love with her but he had never had a relationship come together like it was the most natural thing in the world. He had a feeling that the hole had happened because of Meredith. Meredith had made him realize that something was missing, something huge and scary. But now everything felt right. He felt like he had loved her for years, not days.

It was a crazy and a small part of him couldn't believe how quickly all of this was moving. He had a feeling that he should possibly be terrified but he wasn't. It just felt right. It felt entirely right that the only time him and Meredith had been apart recently was when they were working. Meredith worked a lot, which he had known, and the forty-eight hour shifts always took a lot out of her. She would call him and say she was drained and he would usually find her curled up on her couch, her black and white Converse untied but still on. She was adorable when she was drained.

She always smiled at him and just curled into him and they'd sit and have a perfectly lazy afternoon cuddling together. Eventually he'd make them something to eat, and everything just felt perfect. It was like they had been together forever.

And being together meant things. She hadn't met his entire family yet, but she had spent a lot of time with Ma and Sophie. It meant he needed to meet her family. The problem was, Meredith didn't have a family in the normal sense of the word. She had friends, really close friends that she had apparently been close to since the second she had started her internship. She was with them all the time and from what she had told him, they had been the first people that made her feel like she belonged.

Which meant nothing was normal about this meeting of the family and all bets were off. Usually, he was fine with meeting parents. Moms loved him, dads loved how great he was with their little girls, and any siblings were easy to sway. This was going to be very different.

He could do this, he had to do this. He could tell how important it was to Meredith when she had invited him along and since he hoped to be in her life forever, this was important. He wasn't going to think about how scary they kind of sounded. Cristina scared him the most. She was Meredith's person, whatever that meant. Meredith had said something body dragging but all he could figure out was that Cristina Yang was much more than a best friend. He needed Cristina to like him. From the sounds of it, Cristina didn't like many people but he could do this. He just had to hope that they'd all see how happy Meredith was and that would be enough for them. Because he might have known her long but he could tell she was happy.

Her eyes were shining, she was giggly, and she just seemed to glow. She was so clearly happy and so was he. They were beyond happy and that had to be worth something. Her friends would see that and they'd be okay with this. They might not be used to her dating anyone but they had to see that them together was a really good thing. He just needed to breathe and it'd be over soon.

"Hey," Meredith reached to squeeze his hand.

"Hey," he echoed.

"What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing," he denied quickly.

"Okay, that was a lie."

"It wasn't."

"It was. You're all...jittery."

"Jittery?" he laughed.

"Yes. Like you've had a lot of coffee but no food."