I Wanna Love Somebody Like You

20

The alarm was blaring way too loudly in Meredith's ear. She could hear the consistent beeping, but couldn't summon the energy to raise her arm to shut it off and instead curled deeper into Derek's warm embrace. She'd been working a lot lately, and balancing her shifts at the hospital with the start of the house being built was enough to make her completely exhausted and not have any desire to work at all.

But she was an intern, and she had a forty eight hour shift coming up. One that she couldn't miss because she was pretty sure that Bailey was still giving her more hoops to jump through because of Derek. And normally she was completely ready and willing to do anything she could to prove that their relationship was real, but today she was just completely exhausted.

It had been a month since they'd gotten engaged, and they had both been living in a very blissful state of contentment. Their house was already starting to come along, with the foundation to be started in the next few days. Work had been surprisingly calm, and although Izzie had still refused to return to the hospital, Meredith was happy.

Or she would be happy if she could just stop being so tired.

"I'll start the coffee," Derek murmured into her hair before he pressed a kiss to her forehead and rolled out of bed.

Meredith felt her stomach roll at the thought of coffee, and she curled into a ball as she wrapped her arms over her swirling stomach. "No coffee," she moaned. "Sleep."

The bed beside her shifted again, and a moment later she felt Derek's presence hovering over her. "You feel okay?" he asked.

"No," she moaned.

His lips made contact with her forehead again, this time lingering for longer than necessary and immediately followed by his hand. "You're warm," he said. "Maybe you should stay home."

"No," she sighed, sitting up in bed and immediately collapsing against the pillows as a wave of dizziness fell over her. "I have to go in. I left early yesterday to meet with the contractor."

"And you can't help it if you got sick," Derek frowned, pushing her back onto the bed as she tried to climb out again. "You're staying home."

"You can't tell me what to do," she frowned.

"Actually, I can," Derek said. "You're my fiancé and I promised to take care of you."

"Fine," Meredith rolled her eyes. "Just get me some Pepto Bismol. I'll be as good as new in a couple hours."

"Because you're staying home," Derek nodded.

"Derek," she snapped, but stopped when a wave of nausea washed over her. She scrambled off of the bed and into the bathroom, reaching the toilet with just enough time to empty the contents of her stomach.

"Mer," Derek frowned as he suddenly appeared beside her, one hand working through her hair as the other offered her a glass of water. "You can't seriously go into work like this."

"I have to," Meredith sighed, leaning into his arms. "There's too much going on today."

"Meredith, no one is going to let you scrub in if you're drinking an entire bottle of Pepto every hour," he said gently as he watched her throw her head back with the bottle raised to her lips.

"I don't care," she said, bracing herself on his arm as she stood and made her way back to the bedroom. "I'll feel fine in a couple hours when this stuff has kicked in."

Derek opened his mouth to argue but then decided against it. Meredith was no fun to argue with at any point in time, and he could only imagine that it was worse when she was sick and felt like crap. "Fine," he said. "But if you need a break use my office. You won't get any sleep in the on call rooms."