Where You Belong

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Derek sighed softly as his sleep deprived brain was forced to find consciousness by some unknown external force. He gradually became aware of his surroundings; he was lying in his bed, mostly on his stomach, with his face pressed into his pillow. It was warm and soft. And something was touching his back. A warm, comforting pressure ran up and down the length of his spine. He sighed again, prepared to drift back to sleep. Unfortunately, the pressure on his back stopped its movement, pressed into him and shook him gently.

"Derek?" His wife's quiet voice found his ears.

"Mmm?" He managed to mumble back without lifting his head.

"I'm sorry, but you have to get up now."

"Nnnn," he responded, pressing his face deeper into the pillow. He heard her laugh in response.

"Unfortunately, yes," she said. "I know you got home late, but I let you sleep as long as I could."

Derek vaguely remembered stumbling into their darkened condo very early that morning. He wasn't sure what time it had been. He hadn't wasted any time in climbing the stairs to their bedroom, stripping down to his boxers and crawling into bed. He'd slung an arm over his sleeping wife and had fallen asleep himself. He didn't remember the alarm going off that morning or her getting up before him.

"It's seven-thirty," Meredith prompted. "And you have surgery at nine."

With an unhappy groan, he rolled onto his back and stared up at his wife, blinking hard at the onslaught of bright light.

She winced for him. "Sorry. I know it's bright, but I made coffee." She lifted a steaming mug off the nightstand and held it out to him enticingly.

"How does coffee help it be less bright?" He asked with a scratchy voice.

She smiled that playful smile that always made his heart swell. "Coffee makes everything better."

"Is that so?"

"If you get up, I'll give you the coffee so you can find out."

"You're bribing me with coffee?"

"Yes."

He chuckled.

"You do it to me all the time," she pointed out.

He slowly sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed to sit on the edge. She passed him the coffee and then sat beside him. "I can't believe it's morning already," he complained.

She leaned her head against his shoulder. "I know. But we're supposed to be off relatively early tonight. We can have an early dinner and then you can sleep."

He turned his head and planted a kiss on the top of her head. "Sounds like a plan." He took a sip of the coffee and then sighed. "Do you know what time I got home last night?"

She lifted her head. "No. I didn't hear you come in at all. I just woke up this morning and you were here." She reached to run her fingers through his hair. "You could have just crashed in an on-call room. You would have gotten more sleep."

He closed his eyes and savoured the feeling of her fingernails running along his scalp with just the right amount of pressure. He couldn't even bring himself to care that his hair must look a horrible sight.

He had considered finding an on-call room the night before, but the pull to spend the night in the same bed as his wife had been too strong. It had been pitch black outside through the windows as he had spoken to the family of his third patient – the first happy news he had given that evening – but he hadn't sought the knowledge of just how late it was. He was exhausted, both mentally and physically, after several back-to-back marathon shifts and losing two patients in the last twelve hours alone.