Off the Carousel

There's No Pain Here

A/N: I know, I know. Cliffie ... What can I say? I'm a fanfiction writer.

Enjoy!

Meredith didn't believe in heaven. Not the heaven with angels and clouds and harps. But if there was a heaven, this would be it. Snow without cold.

Dainty snowflakes the size of a nickel floated by so close she saw each intricate crystal sparkle before it landed. Given all the white flakes and snow drifts surrounding her, there should be cold. But there wasn't. The temperature felt perfect, yet her breath produced long smooth vapor wisps that stretched and stretched until the molecules vanished, and the snow crunched under her feet as she gazed at the tall frost-painted trees above.

But it wasn't the snow or the scenery or the perfect temperature that made this heaven. It was the absence of all pain and worry. No fear, no haunting questions, no emptiness, just–

WAP!

Something cool and wet and slushy smacked into her right cheek and ear and dripped down her neck. A snowball?

"Got ya!"

That voice. She swiped the slush off her cheek and looked up. "Derek?"

In the brilliance of this place, there he was. He grinned his megawatt smile. The one that said a whole paragraph about his love for her without speaking a word. She melted under his gaze until he wiggled his fingers beside his ears and stuck out his tongue. "Nya-na-na na na-na, you can't get me!" Derek hopped around in the snow like a happy border collie.

It broke the spell. "Ooh, I'm gonna get you now!" she cried, scooping up some snow and mushing it into a ball. She aimed and fired. Derek dodged, and the snowball just barely skimmed his winter coat.

"You missed!"

"Ass!"

He grinned and chased after her. Giggling, she ran, sidestepping to the right. He slapped her butt as he passed.

"ASS!" she yelled again.

She scooped up more snow and spun to face him. Derek made faces, taunting her while he passed a perfectly formed snowball between his hands. He crouched to pick up more snow.

Now he had two snowballs.

Meredith carefully packed her own ball, feeling the snow harden underneath her fingers. She turned to the side, facing him like a baseball pitcher. With one eye closed and her tongue out, she raised her hands, lifted her left leg, aimed, and fired.

The throw went wide, but Derek's arm snapped out and he caught her ball in mid-air. Now he juggled three snowballs!

Crap. She bent and scooped up more snow–

Wap! Wap-wap!

Snow slathered all over her face, her chest, her elbow, leaving Meredith sputtering and blowing snowflakes off her lips. Derek laughed, a startling, joyous guffaw that echoed in the woods.

"Argh!" she charged at him like a raging bull. He didn't dodge this time. He held his arms out and caught her, absorbing her momentum and cushioning their fall as she knocked him into the snowbank.

This must be heaven.

Derek's laugh was unlike anything she'd ever heard. She was laughing. Harder than she had since... well, she couldn't remember. Derek's twinkling eyes were full of life as he gazed at her like she was the sun. "Hi," he said.

"Hi." Gosh, that gaze would melt her like snow. She leaned in. He leaned in. His lips against hers tingled every one of the 200 nerve endings of her delicate skin, radiating through her cheeks, down to her belly. A hell (heaven?) of a kiss, and not an ordinary kiss.