8. The rules talk

"More wine?" Derek asked, and tilted his head towards the bottle sitting off to the side of the small, round dining table.

Meredith smiled across the table at him as she swallowed her bite of steak and shook her head. "I'm good, thanks." She sighed happily as Derek smiled warmly at her just for the sake of doing so. It may be several weeks later than originally planned, but they were finally having their rule making dinner.

"What time are you on tomorrow?"

"Uh, nine, I think," she told him. "You?"

"I have a surgery at eight." He laughed; it was very rare that he was scheduled to be in before her. "I need to head in around seven. And, if you let me stay with you tonight, I promise I'll be super quiet when I leave..." He smiled sweetly at her, his eyes sparkling as he tilted his head to the side.

She giggled at his behaviour. "Like you've ever asked to stay at my place," she muttered.

He pretended to be hurt. "I always ask."

"You do not."

"Fine," he conceded. "Then I'm turning over a new leaf."

She rolled her eyes. "Whatever."

"Well?" He prompted.

"Well, what?"

"Are you going to answer my question?"

"You never asked a question." She countered.

"I asked if I could stay over tonight, remember, the whole turning over a new leaf thing?"

She laughed. "You told me you were turning over a new leaf, Derek. You never actually asked the question."

He narrowed his eyes as he regarded her, obviously realizing he had been caught, but also debating whether or not to argue. He sighed. "Meredith, if I promise to be very, very quiet when I leave in the morning, can I stay at your place tonight?"

She rolled her eyes again at his antics. "Of course, but don't worry about being quiet. I'll go in with you."

His joking expression suddenly turned more serious. "We're talking an extra two hours of sleep here, Meredith."

"I know, but..." She trailed off. It had been two weeks since she and Derek had stepped off their metaphorical cliff together and she had never been happier. Other than mornings where she had been on-call the night before, they commuted together almost every day. And she loved it. She absolutely loved it. "I just want to. Plus, you come in early with me all the time."

He smirked at her. "Okay. Just don't try to kill me in the morning."

"I promise I won't."

"Good, cause I don't want to be pummelled by those tiny, ineffectual fists."

She laughed despite herself, even as she reached across the table to take a swipe at his much larger hands.

He didn't respond quickly enough to avoid the initial impact, but did manage to grab her hand in his before she could return it safely to her side of the table. She only fought his grip for a moment before relaxing her fingers as he threaded them with his own. She couldn't fight him when he was smiling his McDreamy smile across the table at her.

"So," she began. "How do we go about the whole rules thing?"

"Hmm?"

"I mean, do we actually make rules? Or are there like universal rules that we just have to agree to go by? Are there other rules than the whole exclusivity thing? Because that was the whole issue that started this rules thing in the first place. Or is it just supposed to be silently accepted and I'm ruining it by asking?" She took in his amused expression as she spoke. "Hey! Don't mock me. Let me remind you for the hundredth time that I'm horrible at this. And I've never done it before. And unless you want to buy me a manual or something, you need to give me a little more guidance for a while."

"You're not horrible at this, Meredith. And I'm sorry for mocking; you're just so cute when you ramble." He squeezed her hand. "And there's no manual, it's just life. And it's different for everyone. We get to decide together how to handle these things."

"So before making rules together, we need to make rules on how to make rules?"

"Now who's mocking?"

She laughed.

He shook his head at her, his deep blue eyes sparkling brightly. "Anyway, back to what I was saying before I was so rudely cut off. We can discuss as little or as much as we want."

"Okay, so I assume we agree on the whole exclusive thing?"

Derek nodded. "Absolutely."

"What else is there?"

"Well," he started, his cheeks suddenly taking on a slightly redder tone as he very subtly avoided her eyes.

"What?" She leaned forward and squeezed his hand, suddenly curious.

"Well, I guess... I mean it's been a long time since I've done this, but... there could be a discussion about terms..."

Meredith scrunched her forehead. "Terms?"

"Yeah, you know, terms for each other..."

She tilted her head slightly as she struggled to interpret his odd behaviour. It almost reminded her of...

Meredith laughed out loud before she could stop herself. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry," she repeated as she tried to regain control of her breathing. "Derek. Is this like public school? Are you asking me to be your girlfriend?"

She swore he reddened deeper. "I just said we could discuss it if we wanted to..."

She was still laughing lightly as she smiled warmly at him. "I'd love to be your girlfriend, Derek. I actually kind of assumed I already was, but I guess that's the whole point of discussing things..."

"Exactly. It's important to discuss."

Meredith started laughing again. "Whatever, I still can't believe you asked me to be your girlfriend..."

"Shut up," he pleaded, but it just made her laugh more.

He released her hand, sitting back to mock glare at her. Meredith forced herself to sober.

"Derek," she pleaded, opening the palm of her hand, which was still sitting on the table near him. "I'm sorry. Okay, I'm not really sorry, but I'll stop."

He narrowed his eyes at her and made a show of sighing and returning his hand to hers. "Fine."

"Derek?" She questioned, keeping a straight a face as possible.

"Yeah?"

Her smile broke through again. "Will you be my boyfriend?"

He huffed at her and tried to drop her hand again, but she was ready this time and held on tight.

Derek sighed contentedly as he lazily ran his fingers through the mess of dirty blonde hair strewn across his chest. He could feel Meredith's even breathing, every exhale meeting the bare skin right above his sternum. Her hand had stopped its wanderings around the far side of his chest, as its owner was dozing.

A glance at the alarm clock told him it was getting late, but still wasn't too late to lay awake a little longer. In the past he had hated being awake any longer than necessary, but these days he found himself revelling in these moments; simply being able to hold her as she slept in his arms. Now he wanted to stay awake. He wanted to experience this.

His hand ran down her hair to her back, his fingers recognizing the slight bumps in her usually smooth skin as goose bumps. The heat from their earlier activities had dispersed as the sweat had evaporated. Derek hadn't even realized he was cold until he had realized she was cold. He reached down for the sheet that was resting along his waist line, but realized quickly that they would need the blanket as well. The blanket that had been kicked off during their earlier activities.

He sighed and placed a kiss on her head as he carefully disentangled their legs. She muttered something in her sleep, her arm shooting out to wrap around his upper torso in response. He smiled at her unconscious efforts to stay so close to him, even as he tried to gently pry her fingers away from him.

"Meredith," he whispered. "You need to let go for a second."

She groaned and buried her face into his chest.

"Come on, I'll be right back. I promise." He pulled her arm up, off of him and tried to discreetly slide out from under her.

"Whereyougoin?" She mumbled with some coherence that usually pointed to the fact that she was awake.

"Sorry I woke you up. I'll just be a second."

"M'kay," She responded sleepily, fully releasing him as he stood and made his way around the bed in the dark, searching out the blanket.

Meredith wrapped the sheet tighter around her body as his absence suddenly made her realize the temperature. "It's cold," she spoke aloud as she propped herself up on an elbow.

"I noticed," Derek said from the other side of the bed, right as he draped the blanket down on top of the bed, covering her.

"Mmm," she mumbled in content as she steeled herself back down. "Smart man."

Derek smirked as he tucked himself in behind her. "I do my best," he told her as he wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her back against his chest.

"I'm all warm now."

"Good. Go back to sleep." He took a deep breath and laced his fingers through hers.

"Derek?"

"Hmm?"

"You're on my side."

"What?"

"You're on my side of the bed."

"So?"

"It's just weird. We've never slept like this before. You're on my side. I'm on your side."

He smiled into her hair. "I have a side?"

"Of course," she replied sleepily. "You always sleep on that side. Thus, you have a side in my bed. I guess its one of those rule things we're supposed to discuss..."

He chuckled. "I like having a side in your bed."

"Me too."

He smiled. "And you have a side in my bed."

"Good."

"Good," he repeated, propping himself up enough to reach his head over beside hers. He rested his cheek along hers and sighed happily.

Her fingers closed tightly around his as she snuggled her body closer. And suddenly he couldn't not tell her. They had already said it to each other, but as staggered admissions, and only once. He had been planning on waiting until she was more comfortable in the relationship to make it a more regular occurrence, but he just needed to say it.

"I love you, Meredith," he whispered, and his heart only took two beats as it waited for her reply.

"I love you too, Derek, so much." Her voice was groggy, but her words were more than a simple repetition of his.

Derek closed his eyes and took a deep breath before he turned his head to place a kiss on her cheek and returned his position to behind her. His forehead came to rest against the back of her head and his right arm snaked under her to join the mass of fingers intertwined over her abdomen. Her breath evened out in his arms and she was soon fast asleep. Derek inhaled the addictive smell of her hair and exhaled happily, resting his head down and allowing himself to drift off into peaceful sleep.