The First Time

9.

Derek stood nervously in the hallway outside Meredith's door. He wondered if he shouldn't have gone home first and showered and changed but he'd sensed that Izzie seemed to think that he should come straight away and in truth he couldn't wait to see Meredith. Hopefully she'd be as eager to see him as he was to see her.

But he was scared that she would push him away again so he didn't want to get his hopes up.

But Izzie had said that it wasn't all one-sided ... so that had to be good.

He knew that there was no point in standing there talking to himself and so he raised his hand and knocked lightly on the door.

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Ever since Izzie had left for work at the gym, Meredith had been restless. Even more restless than usual. It didn't seem to matter what she did, everything reminded her of Derek. She couldn't get him out of her mind.

She'd thought yesterday morning that she'd made the right decision. That Derek would be the one. And that was why she'd resorted to trying to glean as much information as possible from the books - because she didn't think that she could do it with anyone else but him and she wanted to be as prepared as she could be for when the time came.

But then Izzie had come home and after Meredith had told her about everything that had happened, Izzie had just reiterated that she didn't think that Meredith was ready for someone like Derek. That she would only be setting herself up for a fall.

And so Meredith had tried to put him out of her mind. But it seemed that wasn't possible for her. Of course, she knew that it didn't help that she was wearing his t-shirt again. But she couldn't help herself. She wanted to feel close to him and this would probably be as close as she would ever get.

She'd tried to lose her self in a movie on the television but of course it was a romance that only served to make her think about him even more.

Having turned off the television she'd was now curled up on the couch trying to read but she couldn't concentrate. She'd picked a murder mystery out, knowing that anything light wouldn't do because her mind would just stray back to Derek again. But it didn't seem to matter. She'd read the same page about ten times and all she could think of was him.

She was just beginning to think that she needed more ice cream - they'd eaten everything they had last night. But if she were to go to the store for more then she'd have to get changed ... and that meant taking off Derek's shirt ... and she didn't want to do that, when she heard the knock at the door.

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Meredith opened the door and was completely dumbfounded.

"Hey." Derek said, trying to gauge whether the look on her face was one of pleasure at seeing him or not. But in truth, it seemed that she was just in shock.

"You're at my door." Meredith said wondering for a moment if this was real or whether she had conjured him up in her mind because she had been thinking about him so much. Maybe he was just a figment of her imagination.

"Yeah. I hope that's all right?" he asked nervously, still not sure if she was actually happy to see him or not.

"Um. Yeah." Meredith said and then came to her senses as she watched a couple of girls walk passed down the corridor who were obviously very interested in what was going on between them. "Do you want to come in?" she asked standing to one side and holding the door further ajar.

"Is that okay?" he asked. He didn't want to do anything that would have her running for cover again. But then he realized that she was already home - she had no where to run.