Faster car

53

He was in love with her. He was in love with her. He had been driving around the neighbourhood for about half an hour now, hoping that it would calm him down like it always did and it hadn't come. Instead his head was just spinning with the thought, he was in love with her. He hadn't meant for this to happen, they were just having a baby together by accident. He had forgotten to use a condom. That was it. One time and he had gotten her pregnant, and then they had ended their strange relationship. It wasn't like they hadn't gotten along, but he had never looked at her and really thought he could fall in love with her. She wasn't exactly his type, and he had always figured he would need a racing fan as a girlfriend or wife. And then she had taken his breath away.

Just now when she had been giggling and making fun of him was the first time he had noticed it, the first time he had been aware of what it meant but it was hardly the first time. He had just written every other time off as how beautiful the pregnancy had made her, and the fact it was his baby she was carrying. But it wasn't that. His feelings went so much deeper than that. The giggle that sent shivers up and down his spine had nothing to do with the baby. Her soft lips, her beautiful green eyes, the way his skin tingled after she touched him...that had absolutely nothing to do with pregnancy. He had spent too much time at races thinking about her, and had always tried to explain that away. But he couldn't anymore. He adored her. He loved her.

He had no idea when it had happened. It had seemed like it had just snapped into place, like one second he had been living his life and now everything was different. He had thought that when he fell in love like this it would happen gradually, like he'd feel himself falling slowly bit by bit but it wasn't how it had happened at all. It had just happened. When his dad had talked about falling in love with his mom, he had always figured maybe he had been exaggerating. People didn't just wake up one morning and just be in love. They didnt' get in car accidents and just fall. It was supposed to happen gradually, slowly. But here he was, gripping the steering wheel, sweat on his forehead as he tried to figure out how he had fallen in love with Mer.

He had no idea what he was supposed to do now. They were weeks away from having a baby, just a few weeks away from their entire lives changing so now wasn't exactly the time to be making huge love confessions and asking her to be his girlfriend. It wasn't the time to shake everything up and change their worlds but it probably wasn't the time to realize this anyway.

This was huge. He had just realized he was madly in love with someone, and now he had no idea what to do. What could he even do with this? A newborn wa going to take up all of their time, they'd be stressed. A new relationship could completely fall apart under the stress of a new baby. And he was probably getting ahead of himself. He didn't even know how Meredith felt.

Derek wanted to believe she had to feel something. She kissed him constantly, she nearly begged for his lips on hers with the she dealt her head back and parted her lips. She clung to him when she wasn't feeling well, she hated when he left but he had no idea how much of that was her and how much of that was the hormones wreaking havock on her. For all he knew, Meredith just needed somebody right now. She was scared, she was in pain, she was feeling huge, and she might just need someone right now. She might just need someone to make her feel beautiful or special or something. And in a couple months, all of that could go away, she could go back to being the strong woman he had met ten months ago in a bar. He hated to think of it like that, to think that maybe this was all one sided. He hadn't been in this situation since he was about sixteen years old, when he had still been the scrawny band geek with too much hair and far too into racing. In recent years he actually had been able to get any girl that he wanted and now all he wanted was the one girl who might not want him. He as a bad romantic comedy.

Since the People article, he had basically figured he would never have trouble getting a girl ever again. That somehow, his awful pick up skills wouldn't matter, that girls would just fall at his feet. He had figured, at the beginning of this, that Meredith would have his child, they'd be a team, and he'd meet a girl and marry her, give Cole a couple half-siblings. Instead, he had fallen for theone woman who didn't care about People or racing. Which he had to admit was probably one of the things he had first started to love. At first she hadn't even known and once she had found out, after she had figured out that it didn't change who he was, she didn't care. She was growing to love racing, he knew that, but she didn't care that he was one of the best or how sexy a stupid magazine considered him.