Where You Belong

32

New plans had been enacted for their trip to New York. Meredith and Derek had talked through all of Meredith's fears regarding their relationship level. They were as solid as ever. Derek and George were on antibiotics, but were plague free. Izzy was starting to venture away from her baking. Burke was still healing well. They weren't scheduled back until the following day, but Derek and Meredith decided to cut a day off their quasi-vacation and go back to work on Tuesday to leave an extra day off for their next attempt to head across the country. Life was going pretty well.

Or, at least, it had been going well until Meredith had decided to come back to work a day early. The first thing she had heard upon entering the hospital was that Burke's parents had come to see him. And that Cristina had been mostly naked on top of Burke when his parents made their grand entrance.

Bailey had immediately lumped Cristina and Meredith in together in her annoyance from the gossip and any headway Meredith had made in convincing that wasn't true had been lost when Derek's patient with the tumour in his frontal lobe, who had lost all impulse control, had mentioned Derek's behaviour towards her.

Is that blond your girlfriend? Because the way you're looking at her, you might as well just mount her right here and now.

And it wasn't like it was Meredith's fault her boyfriend couldn't stop doing the smiley-flirty-coy thing with her. Okay, so it wasn't all her fault. Derek was the attending; he should know had blushed and avoided eye contact with her resident. And Derek, the bastard, had quickly fled the scene.

And now, to top her wonderful morning off, Meredith found herself staring at a pair of black panties hanging ominously on the bulletin board.

A pair of her black panties. The same pair Derek had pulled off of her in the exam room five days before.

"This is a hospital. Serious work happens here! We save lives here! Oh, is something funny?" Bailey snapped at Alex and George, who were barely able to control themselves.

"Whose are these?" She demanded.

"This is bad," Meredith mumbled. "This is really bad."

"You better claim them," Cristina hissed back. "She thinks they're mine. Claim them."

"No."

"I know it's one of you," Bailey said, turning to face off with Meredith and Cristina. "It's always one of mine. Always. So, tell me? Which one of you left your damn drawers on my surgical floor?

Meredith winced, knowing if she left it too long that Cristina would cave and turn her in. But...everyone was staring, and she had worked so hard to overcome the slutty intern rumours...

"Oh, no, did I leave my underwear lying around again?" Callie said suddenly. "I am so sorry, Bailey. It's my bad."

For a moment, Meredith swore she didn't breath. And in the next moment she swore she loved Callie Torres more than anyone.

Bailey didn't look completely convinced as Callie took the underwear off the board, but Meredith and Cristina both quickly morphed their expressions into one of innocence and their resident was forced to let it go. Meredith shot Callie a hugely grateful look before taking her charts from Bailey and getting to work at the nurses' station.

It wasn't, however, more than a few short minutes before she heard Derek volunteering her services to replace Cristina so that she could 'enjoy' a cup of tea with Burke's mother.

"I'm sorry?" She asked as she turned from her charts.

Derek shot her a cocky smirk. They had spent the previous day together. George had been home to keep an eye on Izzy, so Derek and Meredith had gone out. And after they had talked through everything, all had seemed so much better and so much lighter. Derek had changed. His interactions with her had changed. After such a stressful week, she would have understood if he had been a bit darker, clingy maybe. She certainly felt a little clingy still. But, instead, he was lighter, freer. He was making jokes. And flirting at inappropriate times. And smiling a lot. And catching her out of nowhere to kiss her. His arm would hook around her elbow and she would find his lips pressed against hers before she could even turn fully towards her. And he was saying things; happy, mushy things.