I'll Hold My Breath

Chapter 5

 Meredith kept telling herself it didn't happen. The kiss with Derek, it wasn't real. She couldn't allow herself to act on her feelings for him because that had never worked out well for her in the past. Meredith and feelings didn't go well together. She learned at a young age to bury them deep down in order to protect herself.

It wasn't that Derek didn't seem like a nice guy, he did. They always seem nice at first, Meredith told herself. Finn was nice until she went on the cruise and he'd stopped calling by the third day. Meredith knew she wasn't the type of girls nice guys wanted to settle down with. She had too much baggage. Mommy issues, Daddy issues, commitment issues, the list went on. Derek was the typical sweet guy next door; and that guy never ended up with someone like Meredith.

All he could think about was that kiss. He'd never felt anything like that; the chemistry between them was undeniable. He grinned like a giddy school boy every time he thought about it. He was really starting to like this girl. Derek could tell a lot about her just by being around her; she acted confident but he had seen her doubt herself throughout their trial. He could tell she'd been hurt in the past and she now wore a mask to protect herself from getting hurt again.

Derek barely knew her and yet all he wanted to do was comfort her and tell her that he was there and things were okay. She was safe and he wasn't going to hurt her; ever. He felt an intense need to protect her from the ugliness of the world. He wanted to be her knight in shining armor.

If he told any of this to Meredith he knew he'd come off as crazy, or she'd think he was still hurting over his break up with Rose and she was nothing more than a rebound. The truth was he'd barely given Rose a second thought since arriving in Seattle. He was restarting his life and his past was best left in New York.

Meredith was exhausted. She had just finished doing a surgery that took longer than she'd expected and she wanted nothing more than to find an empty on-call room and sleep for a couple hours before her and Derek perform their final surgery. Just as she steps out of the scrub room and into the hall she's pulled into an on-call room before she has the chance to react.

"We need to talk about yesterday." Derek stood in front of her, seemingly nervous.

"There's nothing to talk about." She said.

"We kissed."

"You kissed me."

"I didn't see you fighting me on it."

"I was tired, I wasn't thinking." Meredith stuttered.

"There was something there, Meredith." His voice softened as he said her name.

"Derek, please.....don't do this."

"Do what?"

"Make this a bigger deal than it is."

"Meredith..."

"You want me to say it? We kissed. There. Happy?" Meredith huffed.