slybrunette: (GREY'S. Meredith; the original grey)
[personal profile] slybrunette
Title: Just To Stay Like This In The Dim Half-Light Dawn
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Characters/Pairings: Derek/Meredith
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 612
Prompt: Written for [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com] for the Alphabet meme (b is for breakfast). I'm sorry this is so short, but I had an idea and I don't like writing words just for the sake of them.
Author's Note: This is a new trick for me: MerDer where people are actually happy. Miracles never cease. If there are any errors it's because I wrote this with a very needy dog in my lap.
Summary:Spoilers for Season 5. It's just another morning in a long series of them -- if you forget all about things like calendars and plans that they were never very good at sticking to.



It’s weird. And by that Meredith really means it’s weirdly normal, the way they go about things.

He isn’t in bed when she wakes up, instead she can hear the shower running down the hall, and from the giggling downstairs she knows the only possible person it can be is Derek.

She gets dressed without turning on the lights, relying on the blue-white light that seeps through the curtains drawn over the windows, having already taken her shower the night before, a routine broken by one long day and not enough time in the morning with five people in the house, more often four. She misses a button on her shirt, doesn’t notice until the last hole doesn’t match up with the amount of buttons, one side too long, and then she undoes and redoes them. By the time she’s tripped over a pair of shoes, haphazardly lined up by the door, the shower has been turned off and the giggling has stopped, replaced by silence and the mechanical hum of appliances that greets her when she walks down the stairs and into the kitchen.

With the radio on low, some news station, she makes herself breakfast, toast, pulling the box of Muesli down from its place in the cabinet and setting it on the counter to wait for him. The clock ticks and her toast almost burns because she isn’t watching closely enough and then she hears him on the stairs.

“Morning,” he says, sidling up behind her, kissing her on the cheek, something that speaks of habit and absentmindedness. There’s a briefly entertained delusion that this is the wrong day, and she’s simply got her days mixed up. It’s short lived and followed by another one, that maybe he forgot what today is. Unlikely, she decides, after a moment where she does nothing but watch him pour cereal into a bowl. Unlikely because he’s the one who’s wanted this enough to propose three different times, more or less.

So instead of the roughly six million questions floating around in her mind, she just nods at him and says, “Good morning to you too,” as she sits down at the table.

It can’t help but feel anti-climactic, after the pause she’d given between his greeting and her own. He doesn’t notice; there’s this smile playing at his lips and he’s humming something over the weather report, and she never liked people who hummed but it never bothers her with him. With him it breathes of familiarity.

There’s a long stretch after he joins her at the table, across from her, with his bowl and his spoon hung limply between his fingers, and he keeps looking at her, and it makes her smile at first, then laugh, and it’s like he’s doing it intentionally. Sitting there, giving her these looks, while they laugh at nothing over at breakfast.

It’s weird in all the ways that the morning of your wedding day shouldn’t be. In fact, if Izzie had her way, she wouldn’t be seeing Derek for those full twenty-four hours before the wedding, but they have to work, and she isn’t going to make him move back to his trailer for the night. Granted, those are just the excuses she gave to placate Izzie; in reality, she just didn’t care about tradition, no matter how hard she tried for Izzie’s sake, somewhat for his sake. She didn’t care about the wedding, or all the stuff that came before it, all the preparation and ritual. She cared about what came after all of that.

Like right now. Meredith wants nothing more than this moment right now, real and honest and comfortable and them.


From: spydrga

Date: 2009-05-05 04:19 pm (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
Absolutely perfect! Loved it.

Re: From: spydrga

Date: 2009-05-05 04:21 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] slybrunette.livejournal.com
Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it!

Date: 2009-05-05 06:14 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] seattle-dreams.livejournal.com
That was so sweet. Very MerDer-ish. Loved it! :)

Date: 2009-05-05 06:16 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] slybrunette.livejournal.com
I'm glad you thought so! Thanks for reading and reviewing hun!

Date: 2009-05-05 06:22 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] liljan98.livejournal.com
I loved it, because it's so in character. They don't care about the "big day" and traditions, they just want normality. Having breakfast together like they are going do it everyday for the rest of their lives...

Date: 2009-05-05 06:28 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] slybrunette.livejournal.com
They really don't do they? That's the problem with tradition and ceremony and all of that -- it takes away something I think, the meaning of it, you know?

I'm glad you liked this! Thanks for reading and reviewing!

Date: 2009-05-05 06:37 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] darkandtwisty02.livejournal.com
Stephanie-I know you struggle writing Mer/Der but this was amazing. Yes it was short but it was totally in character. I could just see Derek sitting there w/ his spoon hung mid air :)

Loved it!

Date: 2009-05-05 08:27 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] slybrunette.livejournal.com
You're right on that, I do struggle, but this was actually fairly easy. I think I struggle on getting ideas for it, more so than the actual writing of it.

I'm so glad that you enjoyed this! Thanks for reading and reviewing; I always appreciate your input!

Date: 2009-05-05 10:14 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] darkandtwisty02.livejournal.com
You know if you ever need ideas (hint hint) I"m always here for you! Ha Ha!

Is it Thursday yet, Seriously it's driving me nuts!

Date: 2009-05-06 11:45 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] slybrunette.livejournal.com
lol, I know that.

Almost there, hun, almost there.

Date: 2009-05-05 07:46 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] mizzougirl88.livejournal.com
Aww! That was adorable! :D

Date: 2009-05-05 08:27 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] slybrunette.livejournal.com
Thank you! I'm glad you thought so :)

Date: 2009-05-05 09:20 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] starseed4.livejournal.com
Miracles, indeed! There was no angst in this! :P And still, despite it being happy and cute, it wasn't so overwhelmingly fluffy that it became unbelievable. It was just very subtle and very real. Beautiful job with this. :)

Date: 2009-05-08 09:46 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] slybrunette.livejournal.com
I know, no angst, how did that happen, lol. But yeah, it's not too fluffy if it's realistic. I don't mind happy when it's plausible.

I'm glad you liked this! Thanks for reading and reviewing!

Date: 2009-05-05 09:28 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] clockwork-jo.livejournal.com
Perfectly in character, and I love the way it's written- giving a weird fascinating quality to these everyday things, like the buttons on her shirt. It's kind of inconsequential details that seem like nothing and then add up to actually a pretty big something- which is just the feeling of normality. ^_^ Ugh. Loved it.

Date: 2009-05-10 04:58 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] slybrunette.livejournal.com
This wasn't supposed to be as much about the little details, but that's kind of the way it came out, and I almost like it more for that. You can blame it on the music I was listening to at the time -- it changed this from a humor-based piece to something more...atmospheric.

I'm glad you liked this! Thanks for reading and reviewing!

Date: 2009-05-05 11:06 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] candylandgal.livejournal.com
Beautiful! If only more of us were moved to realize in the moment that there is extraordinary in the ordinary and not take a single second of anything that runs so deep for granted---I loved this! It speaks of them -so- well! :)

Date: 2009-05-10 04:59 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] slybrunette.livejournal.com
It is about the moments, and the present. People are far too focused on the past or the future, but it would be nice to stop every once in awhile, you know.

I'm glad you liked this! Thanks for reading and reviewing!

Date: 2009-05-05 11:44 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] xxelliexox.livejournal.com
I loved it!!

Date: 2009-05-10 05:00 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] slybrunette.livejournal.com
I'm glad! Thanks for reading and reviewing!

Date: 2009-05-05 11:53 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] http://users.livejournal.com/_takemeaway_/
Oh, this is awesome. I love it. I think this is the kind of thing I like most about the MerDer dynamic, anyways - the normalcy and the mundane stuff. Not the big spectacles and the high drama. And I'm not a huge fan of the weddings/babies/whatever nonsense that shows like to trade in, but I really like the way you approached it - the toned down wedding is something I can definitely get behind.

And I totally needed this today - the last two weeks of school are kicking my ass right now and this was the perfect little pick-me-up. ♥

Date: 2009-05-10 05:04 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] slybrunette.livejournal.com
I like the little moments. If they weren't so drama filled and...well everything that Shonda has been doing with them for quite a while now, I think I might actually like them. Which is why I can write stuff like this and even enjoy doing it.

I'm glad you liked this! Thanks for reading and reviewing! And good luck with school hun!

Date: 2009-05-06 11:41 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] skye3.livejournal.com
i love it!!! they are just so adorable. wonderful writing!

Date: 2009-05-10 05:10 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] slybrunette.livejournal.com
Thank you! I'm glad you liked it!

Date: 2009-05-07 11:34 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lexiesloan.livejournal.com
I have to be honest... I do not even like Meredith and Derek (I only started watching the show for Mark and am now completely addicted to Mark/Lexie if you could not tell from my name) but for some reason, just the way you write Meredith and Derek, it makes them both so tolerable for me and I can actually stand to read about them.

The simplicity of their morning, I think, was absolutely perfect - especially when you think of everything this particular couple had gone through to get to that morning.

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