Derek was still in bed when she had crawled out of it twenty minutes ago, leaving him in favouring of sorting through her mother's latest medical expenses. Her mind began to drift halfway through writing out the latest check for the care home, as she began thinking about why exactly she was doing these things for her mother.

Her mother had resented her since the day she was born. No, scratch that. The woman had hated her daughter the moment she found out about her.

Ellis Grey was all about the surgery and nothing else, a child to her was a simple distraction, too needy.

Of course, Thatcher had found out about the pregnancy before she could do anything and then there was a baby on the way.

For the first five years of her life, Meredith had been dumped in Thatcher's care. (He was never going to be called 'dad' or even 'father', the man as neither of those, she thought to herself.) And when Thatcher had been called into his place of work, she'd been dumped on Adele and Richard Webber.

That one lasted long – ha ha – when Adele and Thatcher had both found out about the affair that was going on between their partners. It just seemed cruel to ask her to babysit the child of her husband's mistress.

And then when she was five, everything she had known was ripped out from underneath her, everything familiar, everything stable – that one deserved another 'ha-ha' because her life was anything but stable when she was five but it was familiar and comforting and she knew what was going on in her life then – and she was dropped into a new place with people she didn't know and it had freaked her out to the point of not talking for two weeks.

Of course, her mother didn't notice too much, she was too busy settling into her new life at Mount Sinai, more often than not dumping Meredith with a nanny that could care less about her and more so about the big bucks that they were raking in as a reward for working with Ellis Grey's child.

For the following ten years, her life had been pretty isolated, never really bothering to make herself too many friends and instead throwing herself into her school work, if anything to distract herself from her mother.

When she was fifteen, she had met Amelia Shepherd. The details were kind of fuzzy at that point but it had been 1993 and she had just started Sophomore year of high school. Her mother had been pulled into a surgery just as she was supposed to pick Meredith up and had had an intern answer her call, relaying the news and telling her to walk home. Of course, that was before the thunderstorm hit.

And to make matters worse, just as she was about to step out onto the street, a car had come out of nowhere, straight through the rather large puddle that had formed, soaking her straight through her coat and sweater she had been wearing.

A frustrated groan later, another car had come down the street and Meredith had braced herself for the impact of water but it never came.

Instead, the black car had pulled to a stop in front of her, the window rolling down to reveal a young woman, no older than twenty with dark hair and blue eyes.

"Hey, are you ok?" She'd asked, eyeing up Meredith.

Meredith had squinted a little, cursing herself for forgetting her glasses that morning and the rain for not making anything easier. The woman was familiar, but she couldn't put a name to the face. "As good as I can be," She'd shrugged in response, cautiously taking a step back from the car just in case this woman she recognised but couldn't name tried to pull anything funny on her. "I'm sorry, do I know you?"

"Not really, we've met a couple times. I'm Amelia Shepherd. You live across the street from us I think. I'm their youngest daughter." The women had offered up and things slowly began to connect in the younger blonde's mind. The Shepherd's had lived across the street from her ever since she moved to New York. There had been five of them at the time of her moving, the eldest being twenty-nine and the youngest being ten. She'd seen them all in passing as they entered in and out of the family home but she'd never bonded with the children, no matter how much fun she would have thought being friends with Amelia would have been.

"No offence, but what are you doing in this district? Aren't you a little young to have a child school age?" Meredith asked and watched as the older woman laughed in response.

"Way too young, don't worry about that. I'm in Med school but I'm home for a bit. I'm just picking up my nephew for my sister." Amelia had motioned to the back of the car where she presumed the boy was sitting. "Do you have a lift home?" She'd asked after a beat.

"I did." Meredith had sighed. "And then she decided that surgery was more important and left me to walk in this."

Amelia didn't even pause to think before she'd offered her a ride home, dripping clothes and all. Meredith had accepted the ride cautiously, not overly trusting of the blonde just at that moment but it was going to be better than continuing for the next mile in the storm.

After that moment, Amelia and she had formed a sort of friendship, developing into more later on and becoming as close as sisters. Amelia had even told her at one point that she thought of her as more of a sister than her biological ones, probably due to the fact that there was only a five-year gap between themselves and over twelve between Amelia and her next sister Lizzie.

Once the check was tucked up safely inside it's envelope, ready to be posted, Meredith glanced up at the picture album on the bookshelf in front of her. The edges were old and torn, having seen its fair share of uses over the years.

Absentmindedly, she began flicking through the pages, Meredith came to a stop on one particular picture. It was of her mother, herself and Thatcher in the park one afternoon when she was three. The distance between her parents then was so painfully obvious and she deduced that the affair was already taking place at that point.

She could feel a presence behind her and turned her head slightly to find Izzie leaning over her, toothbrush in mouth as she looked at the open picture.

As Meredith was trailing her eyes back down to the album in front of her, her eyes caught wind of what Izzie was wearing and she rolled her eyes. Hello, kitty.

"You're here early." She nodded to her husband who had his back turned to her, leaning against the nurse's station as he looked through a chart.

He turned to flash her a smile before he turned back around to grab his chart and begin walking with her. "I have a chordotomy at five, I'll be out at six so I thought I'd buy you breakfast before rounds." He told her, watching her closely as they walked. "I know you haven't eaten anything yet because it's four forty-five and you don't function before five thirty. And you've been awake since two, here since three-thirty."

With a smug smile, she replied, "I've already eaten."

"What'd you have?"

Damn, the man wasn't going to give it up. He knew that'd she'd eaten the leftover food from last night, he just wanted her to admit it to him so he could lecture her about her bad eating habits.

Again.

"None of your business."

"It is when I know you've eaten crap again." Shit. "You should eat toast. Cereal. Something that consists as an actual breakfast food, Mer. You're an intern. I've done this. I know what it's like."

"Fine. I ate leftover grilled cheese." She walked past him, ignoring the shout of displeasure he gave.

"That's sad. Pathetic. If you don't start eating properly, I'm going to start force feeding you a decent breakfast."

For a moment, she smiled at the bantering they were doing with each other before remembering where they were and the smile fell. "We can't do this here, Derek. It's unprofessional."

"It's an attending getting to know his intern." He shrugged.

"The attending already knows the intern. Too well."

"Well, she'd my favourite intern."

Meredith whacked him on the arm. "That's favouritism. That's not allowed."

Her husband let out a puff of air. "You're no fun when you're grouchy, you know?"

"And you're going to be late for you chordotomy."

Derek glanced at his watch before straightening back up. He glanced side to side, shaking his shoulders slightly as he spoke. "Nice talking to you, Dr. Grey."

She watched him disappear around the corner, shaking her head at him before she too turned and walked away.

George was trailing behind her as she bounced from door to door, checking up on her patient's charts. He'd been complaining about Izzie walking around in her underwear for the last five minutes. The decision to have roommates was beginning to drive her nuts. The pair just couldn't get on for the life of them.

"I don't know what you want me to do, George. I can't make her wear clothes if she doesn't want to." Meredith shrugged, hoping he'd get the message and quit following her.

"It's your house, you can do something about it!" He exclaimed, leaning a little too close for comfort.

"Correction, it's my mother's house." My house doesn't exist yet.

"Meredith please." George was actually begging her at that point and she was about to lose her cool with him.

Thankfully, the pair walked past the nurse's station where Bailey currently was sat.

"O'Malley, Grey. Get Karev and head down to trauma. Shepherd needs you."

At the sound of her husband's name Meredith's head snapped up. Her husband was in surgery, not in ER. "Shepherd's in surgery?"

"He was pulled before he could go in."

"Well, I guess we're going down there then."

The search to find Alex hadn't been as hard as she thought it was going to be but she could see the glances she was giving between herself and George and it was beginning to make her even more uncomfortable than she already was about him knowing. She didn't know if she could trust him just yet and he had a pretty big secret of hers in his possession. She had her reasons for not wanting to tell anyone about her marriage, she just hoped that he respected her silence and didn't blab to anyone.

Entering the trauma room, Meredith could see her husband sitting at the top of the bed, the patient lying with his head immobilized and blood covering the top portion of his body. There was an x-ray place next to Derek and the neurosurgeon was looking back and forth between the two.

Meredith had to do a double take when she glanced at the x-rays but what she was seeing was true. "Those look like…"

"Nails." Derek nodded at her disbelieving look. The man had seven different nails embedded in his skull and brain. Just from looking at the images, there was a very likely chance that this man wasn't going to make it through the trip to the OR, it was a miracle that he had made it to the hospital without anything shifting and killing him instantly.

With no warning, the man brought his hand's in front of his face, "I can't see my hands!"

George, who had been standing right next to him, jumped backwards. "He's awake?"

She had to admit, the man managed to make her jump too. There was no way he could be conscious.

But alas, this man was very conscious, in a very large amount of pain and needing some medication.

Derek was still shouting out orders about what he wanted done but Meredith could see that the man was beginning to freak out, shouting about how he couldn't see anything. Meredith needed to find a way to get the man to stop moving before he shifted anything and caused himself some major damage.

"I can't see." The man called again.

"It's okay." She tried to reassure him. "we need you to be very still, Mr…" The blonde trailed off, realising that she had no clue what the poor man's name was. Meredith glanced at the nurse over Derek's shoulder, waiting for an answer.

"Cruz. Jorge Cruz. He tripped and fell down a flight of stairs holding a nail gun." The nurse added and Meredith could tell what the look on her face was without having to see it for herself.

Derek was shining his torchlight into the man's eyes, checking his pupils for reactivity. "Somehow, he managed to miss a blood vessel. That's a minor miracle." He muttered the last part to himself. "Optic nerve's been affected."

"Can you feel this?" No response. "Numbness on his right side. What's our immediate concern?"

"Infection."

"I want these nails out in the next half-hour. I need a CT."

"CTs are down." The nurse called out again and the annoyance was visible on Derek's face.

"They exchanged them out last night, computers crashed. They'll be back up by one."

'Typical. What are the options?"

"MRI." Meredith heard George call out and almost groaned at the stupidity of the answer. Maybe George shouldn't be a doctor if he's coming up with answers like that.

"Brilliant. He has nails in his head, put him in a giant magnet!" Alex beat her too it, calling out sarcastically as he thumped George on the arm. "You want films from three axis points and a C-arm in surgery."

Derek sent George and Alex off to do research on the case after that, leaving her with instructions to "Stay with him, keep him calm and look for changes."

At least she was away from the topic of Izzie walking around naked.

"Also," Alex added after a moment of silence. "George is going to be devastated."

"Meredith blinked. George? "George?"

"Well, yeah. He's got some sort of crush on you. In fact, I'm pretty sure the dudes in love with you. Shame for him though."

"Alex, I really am not following this conversation so please make it clear what you're talking about before I walk out of this locker room and leave you to talk bullshit to yourself." She snapped at him.

"You're married, aren't you? Or was that some random rambling yesterday. 'I have a clingy husband'?"

For a moment, Meredith swore everything around her froze. She stopped breathing, her heart stopped for a beat, the noise outside in the hallway quietened down.

And then, everything came back, all rushing into reality at once. Her head spun a little as she looked at the taller man in front of her. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Sure you don't, Grey." Alex rolled his eyes. "I know you're lying at this point."

"I'm not, Alex." She tried to insist but Alex was having none of it.

"Firstly, your wedding rings are hanging out the top of your scrub shirt. Well, I assume their yours because having someone else's wedding rings is a little weird."

True to his word the rings were hanging out the top of her scrub shirt, resting against the material for all to see. How long had they been hanging out for?

"And secondly, the paranoid look of panic that just came across your face? That totally gives you away."

This whole keeping her marriage a secret thing was not working out well, two people who weren't supposed to know, knew. Although, the first person who knew was Cristina and she had been the one to tell her about her marriage. Alex had figured it out on his own. The man was smarter than she gave him credit for.

"Or maybe you're hiding something bigger about your marriage, seeing as the way you're acting about someone finding out is pretty extreme, Grey."

As long as he didn't put two and two together about Derek being in the locker room. Dressed in street clothes. When there was only the two of them in there.

The signs weren't that obvious… were they?

"Whatever, it's not like it's my business to know. Just don't let Izzie get wind of the gossip. You'd never hear the end of it and everyone at the hospital would find out."

"Look, Alex," She began and the man turned to look at her. "Could you just keep this information between us? I'm not ready for people to know about my husband and I just yet and I'd like to keep it that way."

Alex just looked at her for a moment, silent before he nodded. "Yeah, whatever. Like I said, it's none of my business."

Still not moving from her previous position, Meredith watched as he too pulled on a fresh set of scrubs, having been on – call the previous night, before leaving the locker room to go back out onto the hospital floor.

With a small groan, Meredith dropped her head into her hands, thinking of the different ways that Alex knowing something personal about her could be taken.

Scraping her long, blonde hair back into a ponytail, Meredith forced herself to get up off the bench and follow Alex's footsteps, beginning her shift.

They'd agreed to have lunch together that afternoon in Derek's office, as not to draw attention to themselves out in the open.

Meredith had been sent by Bailey to check up on her post-op patient and so had told Derek to run and grab their lunch without her, that she'd be up in his office as soon as she was done.

So, ten minutes later, Derek was still sat on his couch, the two salads he'd bought sprawled out on the table in front of him, still untouched.

The sound of a sharp knock on the door brought him out of his train of thought. His tiny blonde wife appeared around the door frame, looking slightly out of breath as she grinned at him.

"Hey! Sorry I took so long but Bailey wanted me to also run another set of labs on the man as well and you know how long the lab takes to even drop something off." She made her way across the room and forced Derek to move on the couch so he had his back pressed against the arm of the couch and she was settled against his chest, legs sprawled in front of her.

Grabbing the two salads and handing one to Derek, Meredith wasted no time in ripping hers open and proceeding to stab it rather violently with her plastic fork.

Derek watched her from behind, eyebrows crinkling together a little as he watched her. "Everything ok?"

"Honestly?" She asked before shoving a forkful of lettuce into her mouth. "I don't know." She told him once she'd swallowed.

"What do you mean you don't know?"

"Well, you know how we weren't going to tell anyone?" She began pushing a piece of chicken around the plastic take away container before giving it a stab.

"You told someone?"

"not exactly…" Meredith trailed off for a moment, trying to come up with an explanation for what had happened. "You know Alex, right?"

Derek thought for a moment before answering. "He's the one you had pinned against the locker, right?"

"Mhm," Meredith confirmed. "Well, he figured it out himself. My rings had fallen out of my scrub top and he noticed them and then when I was ranting to him the day we were fighting, I may have let slip that I had a husband… I may have said 'I have a clingy husband' or something." Derek let out a quiet 'hey!' from behind her but she ignored him and continued on. "And well, he heard me say that and now he knows."

"Does he know you're married to me?" Derek asked but secretly, he was kind of glad that people were beginning to find out about their marriage. He knew that Meredith wanted to keep it between them for the moment because she didn't want people to think she had married him because of his status but at the same time, he knew there was no way they were going to be able to keep their marriage a secret for seven years. He wanted people to know that she was his and he wanted O'Malley to stop staring at his wife with those creepy eyes.

"No, at least I don't think he does. I never told him that I was married to you specifically but you did come into the intern locker room dressed in your own clothes the other day, and why would the head of neurosurgery come into the intern locker room if he didn't have a specific reason to do so?" Meredith got out in one breath and Derek was still amazed after ten years that she could say so much in such a small space of time. "If he does know it's you then he would have had to figure it out for himself."

"Meredith…" Derek began, approaching the topic cautiously. "Maybe it's a good thing people are finding out. We can't keep us to ourselves forever."

Meredith let loose a groan and dropped back dramatically into Derek's chest, waving the hand with a fork in around to emphasise her point. "I want to establish myself in this hospital before people find out, Der. I don't want people thinking I'm a whore again because I'm married to you, that I want to have the power of being your wife to get myself up in the surgical world. I've worked too hard for this to let it go down the drain right now."

"But you married me before I was where I am today, you didn't know that I was going to be at this level ten years ago when you met me or eight when we got married."

"I know we know that Derek, but they don't know that and you know how much people love a gossip in hospitals. You would think they'd be more interested in doing their jobs and saving people's lives but whatever." Her salad was being stabbed viciously again. "They'll probably come up with some rumour that we got married six weeks ago after a drunk night out and that you want a divorce and who'd actually want to be with the whore who marries to get ahead!" Meredith exclaimed before suddenly going very still and Derek knew that she was blinking back tears.

Everything Meredith had just said had been somewhat what had happened back in New York. When people found out that Derek had married her at nineteen, they were quick to assume and judge them. They'd say Derek was trying to live his youth through his wife, that he was just looking for someone younger than him and when he got bored of her, he'd divorce her and find someone young again, that he'd find another 'love'.

For Meredith, she was a gold digger, she only married Derek for three things, his wealth, his status in the surgical world and for his looks. That she was too young to know what it was like to be in love at nineteen and spend the rest of her life with the same man.

There had been many nights during Meredith's time at Med-school where she'd found herself crying in the middle of the night, years of isolation catching up with her and the lack of love she'd had as child letting her thoughts drift and coming up with many scenarios of Derek leaving her in the middle of the night.

Those were the worst nights for them. Meredith would let out the pain she'd kept bottled up for years as a child and Derek having to watch his love break down and not being able to do anything for her pain.

Grabbing the container from her hand, he placed the plastic on the table before turning her around so she was diagonal across his lap, head tucked under his chin. She grabbed a fistful of his scrub shirt, a few tears slipping down her cheeks, opening the floodgates for the rest.

They sat like that for twenty minutes, before the sobs became hiccups and her shoulders had stopped shaking so violently. Derek had been whispering soothing things the entire time but wasn't sure if they were getting through to her, he was never sure when she worked herself up to this point. He was just thankful she hadn't worked herself up to a panic attack, knowing it would have wiped her out for the rest of the day.

Glancing down at her face, he could see the drying tear tracks on her cheeks as her eyelashes brushed softly against them, fluttering in her sleep.

The soft buzzing that came with his phone ringing on silent echoed through the small office. Thanking the stars he'd put his phone on silent, he flipped it open and hit accept.

"Hello?"

"Derek, it's been a while since we've heard from you."

"Ma," He rolled his eyes gently. We've been busy. I'm sure you remember when I started my intern year and there's a lot to do as a department head."

"Don't roll your eyes at me sir," His mother chided from the other side of the phone, of course she would know he'd rolled his eyes at her and he had to resist rolling his eyes for the second time. "Can't a mother want a phone call from her only son and daughter – in – law once in a while?"

"We would have called, Ma."

"I'm sure you would have," The sarcastic reply was. "Now, why are you talking so quietly?"

Glancing down at the woman still curled up on his chest, he sighed. "That was a sigh. What are you sighing for? Are things not going to well, Derek?"

"The medicine side of it isn't too bad I'm just not sure how Meredith is settling into the social side of things."

Concern immediately flooded the older woman, "What do you mean? Meredith isn't adjusting too well?"

"I mean, she managed to find roommates so she's starting to make friends, but she's terrified about them finding out about us. She just fell asleep after she cried herself out because she was worried about being called a whore again – like back in New York." Meredith stirred slightly and he let his free hand stroke her hair slightly.

"She's not adjusting then." It was a statement this time from Caroline. She knew how her daughter adjusted to new things, although she thought things were getting better for her, but apparently she seemed to be doing exactly the same, possibly even going backwards.

"Is there anything I can do?" She asked, already knowing the answer.

"At this moment, no not really," Derek told her, wishing there was more she could do for them. T was one of those things they needed to deal with themselves. "But I'll let you know if something does come up. Now, we both know that you didn't call just to have a little chat."

"Thanksgiving."

"Ma, that's three months away!" Derek exclaimed but deep down, he wasn't too surprised his mother was trying to organise things this early.

"And you know how long it takes to organise things in this family. I wanted to make sure you are coming this year." His mother's tone was flat but he could tell that they were going to be expected to attend, no excuse valid.

"We'll try but it'll depend on if we can get time off, interns don't get that luxury ad I don't really want to be asking for time off so soon into the job." Derek told her, already predicting what was going to happen if he flat out told her they weren't going to be coming – there would be guilt trips every phone call for the next years and Caroline might even be tempted to send out the troops – the sisters and their mini armies. "Ma, I'll get back to you. My pager just rung. Bye."

Derek hung up before his mother could have a chance to protest and he knew that he was going to pay for hanging up on his mother but he didn't want to talk about going home at that moment. There were more important things that needed his attention. If his mother found out he lied about the page though, when they did go home, he was going to pay hell for the move.

A blanket was folded neatly across the back of the couch and Derek carefully and skilfully moved himself to grab it before securely tucking it around the pair of them, setting an alarm for thirty minutes when he knew Meredith would have to get back out on the floor for rounds before leaning his head back and pulling his still sleeping wife towards him.

Chapter four came with a much smaller wait than last time. I've spent the last couple of days writing this in between work and college so I hope that it's ok! Everyone went nuts over the last chapter so I hope you'll give a similar response to this one! Thank you for 110+ follows over the course of the last couple of months along with the thirty-five reviews, they mean a lot and I love every one of them!