A/N: This has been sitting on my computer for a while, so... here! Oh, right, I don't own a thing.

Meredith groaned, rolling over and shoving her face into the pillow as she tried to will her mind to shut off and her body to relax. She was exhausted, having just finished a double shift, and now it seemed everything was working against her. The rain was pounding down on the roof, something she was used to, thunder and lightening mixed into it as well. That was the part that was bothering her.

Even though she had long ago become accustomed to Seattle weather, thunderstorms still got the better of her most of the time.

When she was a child and her father was still around, he would tell her a story about some far away place where it was always sunny and it never rained. After he left, no longer able to deal with Ellis and her affair, she learned to wait the storms out - usually in the back of her closet with a flashlight in hand. Her mother was out of the question, never would Ellis Grey be found coddling her child.

A rather loud rumble interrupted her thinking causing her to flinch and curl up to the warm body beside her, wishing and hoping for the storm outside to quiet down. She knew that was unlikely to happen, though. Pulling her bottom lip between her teeth, she pushed herself up on her elbow and nudged the shoulder closest to her.

"Addie," she whispered. A jolt of lightening. A jump. Her heart hammered in her chest as she nudged the woman again. "Addie, wake up."

The redhead woman beside her groaned as she rolled over, coming face to face with Meredith as she blinked slowly. A moment later she mumbled sleepily, "What is it?"

"I can't sleep." Her reply is soft, weak. She hates that storms still scare her as a grown woman. She hates that she has to wake up her girlfriend in order to feel safe. She hates the feeling of helplessness that was currently making its way through her every nerve.

Something in her voice, or maybe it's the way she flinched when another round of thunder and lightening went off, has Addison in protective mode in five seconds flat.

"Come here," she murmured to the blond, propping herself up on the pillow slightly and opening her arms.

She doesn't have to tell her twice; Meredith immediately moved herself over into her girlfriend's waiting arms, curling into herself as lightning illuminates the room briefly.

"They used to fight a lot," she whispered almost too low to hear. "When it would storm they'd fight, thinking I couldn't hear it. Thatcher always came in afterward, when he'd hear me crying, and he'd tell me a story. He tried singing once, but he has a horrible singing voice."

Addison's hand continued to run through the blonde's hair, simply listening as Meredith let her inside her mind for a moment.

"After he left, there was no one to help me pass the time during a storm."

Her head is resting on Addie's chest, eyes closed as she takes in the steady beat of her heart and her even breaths. Another rumble of thunder had her jumping slightly, her small hands clinging to her girlfriend's nightshirt when she hears the soft hum.

The hum turned into soft words, a lullaby, coming from the woman wrapped around her. A smile covered her lips as she felt her eyelids grow heavy with sleep, not moving an inch when the thunder rumbled loudly in the distance and lightning lit the room.