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The thing that no one tells you about being chief is that it swallows and consumes all the time you have. Especially when the hospitals’ residency program is collapsing slowly but surely. You suddenly have to wear a cape and superhero suit to save the damn thing.
At least it’s what it feels like for Meredith.
Her day is consumed with children’s schedules, school, science fairs, baseball, and art classes. With board meetings and budget committees and surgical schedules. And even that is a luxury because she can count on one hand exactly how many times she’s been inside an OR in the last month.
And even worse, she can’t count how many times she’s seen her husband.
She sees the father of her children every morning. He’s up early getting the Little Grey Shepherds ready for their day. She’s seen him at school functions and games. And she can’t lie, she finds it attractive when he’s doting on their children.
She sees the surgeon and board member. The one who was overly excited and practically jumped out of his seat to congratulate her when she was officially voted in as Chief of Surgery. She sees that man every day at work.
But her husband? Derek Shepherd? The one who would coordinate dates in ORs and on-call rooms. That one has been missing.
Well he’s not missing. He’s currently roaming the hospital overseeing the new intern orientation as the new director of the residency program. She knows exactly where he is. She just hasn’t spent any time with him as of late.
Her workload has doubled, their shifts don’t match, and when they’re both home they're too tired for…anything. Anything.
The worst part of it all is that her body has been keeping score and anytime she hears his voice down the hall, her skin prickles in anticipation. As if he’s going to suddenly whisk her away and have his way with her.
Which is stupid because they're married and not two teenagers trying to sneak away together.
She hates the stupid feeling. She hates how much she misses him. Hates how frequently her mind flashes back to early days, on-call rooms the quiet thrill of being found out. How frequently she thinks of pushing him into the nearest room and having him push her against the wall. She hates how her skin prickles at the memory of his hands, their rough heat, the old, familiar pressure at her hipbone as he pulls her closer in the dark.
And today, that stupid, stupid feeling seems greater than ever as he walks out of the conference room with a trail of residents behind him.
Her eyes track him, and in that instant, she decides that the dry spell that’s been hexing them for the last month needs to end.
As soon. As possible.
Preferably now.
It’s stupid. So freaking stupid. Such a stupid feeling.
Meredith’s been married to the same man for years and years and yet she finds herself sitting at the nurses station as he stands outside the conference room. Derek, of course, is oblivious to the fact that she’s staring at him all day because he’s far too busy with the stupid residents answering stupid questions about his stupid presentation or a stupid surgery or stupid whatever.
She can’t remember.
She can’t remember because she’s too busy staring at his stupid face and his stupid mouth and the way his jaw flexes as he ponders a question. The way the stubble on his face sits perfectly against his jawline and the way his brows furrow. The way his face has softened over the years with lines and wrinkles that mark all the crap the universe has thrown at them. She stares at all of it and finds that she can’t stop staring.
And that’s terrible because she’s the chief and as the chief she shouldn’t be distracted or turned on by stupid, stupid things like stubble and jawlines and silver hair.
It’s fitting, she thinks. The silver gives him a distinguished look and it has somehow made her husband look even more handsome. It’s really the only change to his hair and she’s selfishly thankful for it because she likes threading her fingers through his silver locks as he latches his lips against her jawline…as he traces her collarbone…the valley between…
She blinks and shakes off the thought- indecent thought- as the group of residents laugh at something stupid he’s said. She’s not immune to the way the residents orbit him. She’s not blind to the way he still draws eyes from the baby surgeons, the nurses, even some of the attendings who should know better. She’s aware of the whispers, the exaggerations, the mythology that has built up around him over time.
Aware of the way people flirt with him or rather try to flirt with him because he’ll somehow make it a point to make the band on his left hand visible. The gold band he’s worn since the biggest mountain their marriage has faced so far. A reminder that he’s taken.
Very taken.
By Meredith Grey.
And she’s not willing to share.
The residents laugh again and suddenly she’s irked and irritated because her silver fox of a husband’s attention is not on her and is instead making nice with others. He has a nice smile. A very nice smile. A gorgeous one. The kind of smile that’s on the cover of magazines and makes his stupid blue eyes even more sparkly. The same blue eyes that darken when he peels her out of the barriers between their bodies at the end of the day before letting his hands wander…his lips wander…and….
And she can’t believe it’s been eons and she still wants him this badly. It’s ridiculous, really. Because she can’t believe that she’s still staring at the man as if they haven’t been married for forever and share three overly energetic children. He’s the same man that wakes up next to her- halitosis and all- and makes pancakes with smiling blueberries.
Stupid, stupid, stupid brain-man with good hair and chest and arms and jawline and…she lets her eyes lower until they peek into the small amount of skin his shirt allows.
His weight keeps shifting from right to left but he settles on his left foot as he begins to roll up his sleeves. The white button-up he wears is the kind that looks like it belongs in a perfume ad. Crisp as the morning sheets, but already there’s a few creases. The sleeves are quickly pushed up above his forearms. The top two buttons are undone, revealing a flash of collarbone and the shallow V of his chest covered by whisps, a territory mapped by faint scars and a dusting of hair still dark at the roots.
She can feel the itch in her palms, the urge to slide her fingers under that shirt and run her hands up his chest and rip the damn shirt off. She feels the need to run her hands across his chest and feel the lean muscle beneath her palms. She wants to press her mouth against the pale expanse where his throat meets his chest.
Her gaze traces the way the fabric stretches across his shoulders, how he’s filled out with age and physical therapy after a semi nearly destroyed his body.
He took his health- both physically and mentally- seriously since then and now the man works out and runs and does stupid exercise that gives him a distinguished look. Not the bulky type but enough lean muscle that feels good when she runs her palms across his body.
She freezes suddenly because the thought reminds her that the man she’s ogling almost wasn’t here to admire.
But he is and Meredith knows every single mark on his skin. It’s a catalog she keeps sharper than her own. The scar hidden beneath the silver locks after a desperate craniotomy, the sternum scar left after her best friend saved his life, a long line on his arm reminding him of the career he almost lost, and other marks that are like small treasures for her to find. And when she does she presses her lips against the faded seams and reminds herself that he’s still here to love her in all the ways possible.
She wants him. Now. She wants to drag him into the nearest on-call room and have him take her. She wants him to taste the salt of his skin, dig her nails and mark his skin, bite down on the line of his shoulder, to grind her hips against his hip until he loses that careful composure in a gasp and a muttered Meredith.
The elevator dings and she’s startled back into her body, back into her role as Chief of Surgery. As Dr. Meredith Grey. Not an intern staring at the attending imagining dirty, dirty sex. A sudden jolt courses through her body and she lets a pile of papers slip off the counter. She reaches for them and when she stands up again, a familiar pair of eyes are on her.
“You okay?”
“Huh?”
Meredith blinks. Derek hovers over the nurses station, leaning his forearms against the cool counter as his blue eyes search hers.
Dammit. It’s so damn unfair, she thinks. It’s unfair that he’s leaning like that and even more unfair that he knows exactly what that posture does to her. His eyes crinkle at the edges, a corner of mouth quirking in sly satisfaction as he watches her try to reassemble her composure.
“You look like someone gave you bad news,” he asks her, “What’s wrong?”
Stupid brainman, she thinks. The only bad news she’s been given is that she hasn’t had him in bed in a millennium.
She scrambles for words, but her brain delivers a teaspoon where she needs a torrent, “I-yeah, fine. Just- paperwork.”
He furrows his brows, unconvinced. He does the thing she recognizes where he’s trying to read her and figure out the puzzles inside her head. The puzzle pieces that’ll tell him exactly what is wrong and how to fix it.
Meredith blinks, “Lots and lots of paperwork.”
“Don’t you have an office?” Derek smirks, “That’s the perk of being chief, Chief Grey.”
Right. She is Chief. Chief Grey.
And the way it just seamlessly rolls off his tongue is slightly hypnotizing. It’s like caramel or like velvet off his lips. An odd but familiar combination. Like when she kisses him after he’s had a single malt scotch and lets him rip off…
She stops herself. She’s the chief of surgery. She is a mother of three. She can do a lap-coli with her eyes closed, but Derek’s lopsided smile and the way he’s looking at her now-like he’s seeing through her, peeling her down to the bone and then looking through the bone-completely undoes her.
“I-uh- needed a change of scenery,” Meredith quickly grathers all the documents and quite honestly she’s not really sure they all belong to her. What she does know is that she needs to get as far, far, far away from Derek Shepherd and his sparkling, pretty, worried eyes that can easily undress her and undo her completely, “And stop calling me chief!”
Derek’s brow pinches as he snaps her back to reality,“Is something wrong with the kids? Did Zola-”
She shakes her head, a little too forceful, and the words trip out on a stumble. “Nope-no,no. Nothing's wrong with the kids. Zola’s fine. Bailey and Ellis are fine. They’re fine. I’m fine. You’re….fine.”
Her lips quickly twist into a forced smile as she rapidly blinks, “Just uh, long morning. And,” she blinks as she lets her teeth dig deeply into her lower lip it almost bleeds, “and… now…you’re… here and-”
“And?” He prompts her, gentler than she deserves. She can feel her body liquify and her mind shut off because now she’s thinking of even more indecent things.
He leans in just slightly, just enough for the space between them to feel charged even when there’s a whole counter between them.
“Chief?” he says, and the word lands like a challenge in the pit of her stomach.
She’s not sure if she wants to push him away or drag him into the nearest closet and have her way with him. She imagines doing both: pushing him up against the wall, feeling the heat of his hips and the roughness of his stubble scraping her collarbone.
Oh screw it, she thinks. She has an office and it has a door and it's a perk to being chief. That she can drag her husband into said office and finally get rid of his stupid white crips button down and trail the path of his scars and let him and his delicious stubble carve its own path down her body.
“And I need you.” She slaps her hand down on the counter, a little too loud, and tries to sound brisk, “In-in my office. Now. Right now.”
The words snap out too quickly, soaked in static, and land hard on the counter between them. She sees his eyebrow arch, the way the slyness in his mouth tugs into something warmer, something that registers the heat coming off her like a stovetop left on too high. For a man who spent a lifetime mastering control he’s suddenly, endearingly confused.
“I- Is this-” he starts, but her hand is already latched around his wrist, hauling him away from the nurses station.
“Now Dr. Shepherd!”
Derek’s not entirely sure why he’s suddenly being pulled down the hallway into the newly refurbished chief’s office. The new office that now belongs to the newly inducted chief of surgery who happens to be his wife. He has to admit, her being chief has been both amusing and torture. He hasn’t seen her outside the hospital walls in far too long but he’s enjoying being ordered around by her. Even if that means being dragged down the hospital hallways and curious eyes staring at the pair.
He wants to ask but to be honest, he knows better. He follows, equal parts bemused and aroused, the latter a condition he’d thought would recede after a decade of marriage and three kids, but no, the gravitational pull of Meredith Grey remains undefeated.
The door to her office slams shut behind them. She shoves his back to the door and presses into him before he can offer up protest or preamble. Her mouth is on his- his lips, his jaw, the stubble she’s been fixating on all day. Her hands go straight for his shirt, tugging at buttons with impatience and pulling it out from where he tucked it in. She pulls at the ends as she guides them backwards towards her desk before finally pulling it off. Her hands up the smooth heat of his chest all while keeping her mouth on his.
He gives as good as he gets, hands cupping her jaw, tilting her face up so he can angle deeper, his tongue sliding against hers with practiced, devastating skill. He catches her around the waist and then hoists her up so she’s sitting on the edge of her desk, knees parted around his hips, feet bracketing him in place.
She hears the shuffle of paperwork, the clatter of a pen cup, and other crap fall onto the floor. He presses her back with the kind of certainty that makes her heart detonate in her chest.His mouth follows the quick, shallow breaths at her throat, his lips mapping a path down and down her neck, pausing to taste the pulse at her collarbone.
She’s barely aware she’s making any noise at all until he teases at the open collar of her blouse, and she gasps, and he laughs, low in his chest, the sound vibrating against her skin. He unbuttons her shirt with infuriating slowness, as if he has all the time in the world. She’s the one who’s supposed to be in charge, Meredith thinks.
But here, now, she is at his mercy, and she likes it. For now.
His hair, silver at the temples, brushes her jaw as he kisses down, down, past the hollow of her throat, tongue tracing the edge of her bra and the curve of her breast. He slides his hands under the edges of her bra with a deftness that still, after all these years, makes her shudder; his hands are never cold, not on her, not ever, and he knows the pressure points along her ribs, the way she likes to be touched. Firm, but gentle, like he’s holding the most miraculous and fragile thing he’s ever seen.
She pushes herself onto her forearms until she’s once again on the edge of her desk, his hands at her waist, deft fingers tugging open the fly of her navy dress pants. The zipper rasps down, and he slips his hand inside, palm broad and warm, fingers splaying against the thin silk of her underwear. When he cups her, she bites her tongue so she doesn’t give him the satisfaction of a moan, but he knows her so well. He knows how to press the heel of his hand just so, knows where she’s sensitive.
He slides the fabric aside and his thumb finds the spot that makes her legs go weak, her knees tightening reflexively around his hips. She gasps and her head falls back.
She hums with pleasure until logic rams into her all too clouded mind, “Oh…wait! Wait!”
His brows furrow, desperation and confusion cloud his eyes, “What?”
“The door,” she gasps as she pushes him off, “Lock it. Lock it now!”
He grins and stumbles back, an uncoordinated tangle of hands, lips, and limbs, reaching for the lock on the doorknob.
Her pants are already halfway down her thighs, bunched at the knees, and she’s not even embarrassed; she’s too far gone, too greedy. She kicks them off, the crumple of navy pooling by her shoes.
Derek just stands there a second, chest heaving, flushed in a way that would be embarrassing for anyone else, but not for him. Not now. He looks at her. Really looks at her, like he’s savoring the image of Meredith Grey, bare-legged on her desk, gold hair mussed, blouse hanging open, the cups of her bra half-pulled aside in his wake. His eyes flick from her chest to the flash of her underwear, to the long line of her thigh, to her face.
A whole anatomy lesson, his gaze, filled with every ounce of awe and hunger he’s ever had for her.
He smirks as he realizes that he has her right where he wants her. He’s tried to keep composure since she’s become chief but he’s had to admit that watching her slide into the role so effortlessly has reignited a burning flame. He’s wanted to have her in every possible way since her new title was engraved on her coat but life and other demands have prevented him from having his way.
But now, she’s splayed in front of him offering herself in the most intimate of ways. And she’s the chief. And it’s her office. And he’s at her beck and call. Or she’s at his beck and call. Who cares? Someone’s at someone’s beck and call.
“You realize,” he says, voice low, closing the distance between them, “that this is a gross abuse of power. I could file a complaint.”
“You could,” she teases as she reaches to place open mouthed kisses where his jaw and neck meet, “But you’re enjoying this way too much.”
“I am enjoying,” he agrees, and the way he says it, easy, certain, like it’s the simplest fact in the world, makes her stomach drop.
His hands settle at her hips, thumbs moving in slow circles just inside the jut of her hipbones. “You know, this title really suits you.”
He tilts his head, studying her with that look she’s never been able to fully defend against.
She gasps, “Derek-”
He kisses her once, deep and unhurried, then draws back just enough that she can feel his breath, “What do you want, chief?”
She murmurs something against his lips as his mouth drags down her jawline, her neck and lower, nipping at the spot on her clavicle that always makes her back arch. He pushes the blouse farther off her shoulders, tugging the fabric down her arms until it pools behind her at the edge of the desk.
He’s reverent, in love with the weight of her, the way her legs tremble when he slides her underwear down. She’s not prepared for the hot rush of his mouth on her, the way the stubble pricks hot and then soft as he kisses up the inside of her thigh and then…there…his mouth, clever and slow and devastating.
Meredith's head falls back, her throat working around sounds she'd deny making later because anyone could be walking by, anyone could be listening in the hallway, and it usually wouldn’t make her feel guilty or secretive or anything except she’s the chief, and she should not, absolutely not, be letting her subordinate husband pleasure her on her desk.
It dials the whole thing up to eleven. She’s burning, alive and melting at the same time because he's found the spot that makes her vision whiten at the edges, the place where his tongue flattens and then curls, and the sound she makes is not a sound she recognizes as her own.
Derek, for his part, is lost in the shape of her. The way her thighs frame his face, the way her hips tilt and chase his mouth, the way her fingers tangle in his hair- not pulling, exactly, but holding on. He knows every contour of her by heart, has mapped her a thousand times. The mark just below her left hipbone. The way her breath catches when he grazes his teeth against the sensitive skin of her inner thigh. The exact moment when her body tenses and then releases, like a wave cresting and breaking.
He looks up at her through his lashes, and the sight nearly undoes him. Meredith Grey, Chief of Surgery, spread out on her desk her green eyes half-lidded and dark with want. He's seen her in countless moments, in the OR, at home, in bed. But this? This version of her, undone and wanting and entirely his, this one wrecks him every single time.
He doesn't stop, and she comes apart against his mouth with a sound that's half sob, half laugh, her hips jerking once, twice, and then going slack. He kisses the inside of her thigh, slow and reverent, as her body shudders through the last waves of her release.
Meredith's chest heaves as she stares at the ceiling, her vision swimming back into focus. The fluorescent lights buzz overhead, indifferent to the fact that the Chief of Surgery has just been thoroughly ruined on her own desk. Her fingers loosen in his hair, trailing down to cup his jaw, thumb brushing along his cheekbone.
"You're still dressed," she says, her voice hoarse and wrecked.
Derek looks up at her, something lazy and delighted in his expression. “Is that an order, Chief?”
He stands and Meredith finds herself staring at the prominent bulge straining against his pants. She reaches for his belt buckle with hands that are still trembling,
Her fingers fumble with his belt, the metal buckle cool against her still-flushed skin. She tugs it free with a metallic whisper, then works the button of his pants, the zipper rasping down in a way that makes her mouth go dry. Derek's hands grip the edge of the desk on either side of her hips, his knuckles white with restraint.
"God, Meredith," he breathes as her fingers slip beneath the waistband of his boxers, finding him hot and hard against her palm. She’ll admit she’s had her fun hearing him call her chief but when he calls her name, she’s rendered helpless. It slips off his lips so easily. Like a prayer or the most holiest of words he’s ever said.
She pulls him closer, her grip tightening as she strokes him once, twice, watching his eyes flutter closed.
"You're killing me," Derek whispers, his forehead pressed against hers.
Meredith works his pants down his hips, her hands reach to the knobs of his spine, the twin dimples at the small of his back. She's never been patient, not with him, not when she wants him badly. Her hands slide around to his stomach, feeling the muscles tense beneath her touch, and she presses herself against him.
"I need you now," she whispers, and the words send a visible shiver through him. Her legs wrapped around his waist. The edge bites into her thighs as he positions himself, and then he's there, filling her in one slow, perfect thrust that makes them both gasp.
Her fingers digging into his shoulders. Derek moves with a rhythm that's both familiar and new, each stroke deliberate and deep, his breath coming in hot puffs against her neck. He has one hand braced against the desk, the other tangled in Meredith's hair as he drives into her. Meredith's legs tighten around his waist, her heels digging into the small of his back.
Meredith’s world narrows to the point where their bodies meet, the friction building between them. Her nails rake down his back, leaving pale lines that will bloom red by morning. She can feel the tension coiling in his muscles, the way his rhythm falters as he fights for control until everything is shattering. There is a hot, wet rush and then a trembling, open-mouthed gasp as the world implodes behind her eyes. His face buried in her neck, making unguarded sounds into her skin.
It’s not just the sex. It’s not just the hunger- the physical hunger. It’s the moment after and the moment in between. The parts where he pauses to look at her. To remind her that he doesn't just want her physically but he wants all of her. The dark. The twisted. The broken. The healed. He wants her. All of her.
He’s made mistakes and she’s made her own fair share. But somehow, they’ve made it work. And this man, this broken, healed, put together man is completely hers. Mind, body, soul, and all. And she’s his.
They’ve made their lives work and they’ve miraculously pushed through chaos and disaster. And their prize for it all has been these stolen moments. These rare stolen moments that they can add to the full blown legend of Meredith and Derek.
Time stops. For a man who is all composure, all surgical elegance, he moves with a frantic need now, hips stuttering as he tips over the edge. His hands fist in her hair and at her waist, holding her in place as if the only thing keeping him anchored to the planet is her.
Derek is the first to recover, slumping forward to bury his face in the curve of Meredith’s neck. He inhales, slow and deep, as if oxygen is only found here, in the scent of her skin, the sweat and salt and the faintest trace of the soap she stole from his side of the shower. His arms wrap around her waist, and he tries to regain enough dignity.
“I thought you said your new office was off limits?”
Meredith is still trembling against him, her hands in his hair, her legs locked around him, and there is no dignity in the aftermath.
“I lied,” she kisses him lazily and loudly, “It’s very…in limits.”
He laughs, “I like you as chief.”
She giggles against his lips, “You like being bossed around.”
“You keep me in line,” he kisses her neck before kissing her lips again, “I love you.”
He pulls away to start picking up the piles of clothes strewn all across her office and begins to dress.
“I missed this,” she says, softer than she means to.
“You mean raunchy office sex?” he teases as he offers her blouse.
She snatches it playfully, “No, I mean yes- but not… you know what I mean!”
“I know what you mean,” he says, voice low and a little rough, “I missed you too.”
His thumb traces the hollow below her lip, and Meredith feels her body flush all over again. But this time it’s different. It’s not lust and desire. It’s a different type of want. The kind that reminds her that the man holding her in his arms knows her better than anyone in the world. He knows her dreams, her fears. Her habits and her peeves. He knows to be patient. To give her time before she leaps into the unknown. And he has the utmost faith in her. And perhaps, it’s the thing that makes her miss him even more even when he’s standing right in front of her.
He kisses her again, long and slow, until they’re both giggling into each other’s mouths.
They finish dressing slowly, inventing little reasons to touch each other. Straightening cuffs, smoothing collars, stealing kisses between buttons. There is a contented exhaustion to it, a lazy, languid quiet as they collect themselves and prepare to return to the normalcy of the day.
Derek’s phone rings with a new page, beckoning away back to business. Meredith slips on her shoe and glances at him. He’s a mess, and he doesn’t even know it. His hair, usually so annoyingly perfect, is now a fluffed, erratic disaster.
“Wait!”
Meredith cups the nape of his neck and drags her fingers through the silver, smoothing it back into place. He shivers at her touch, and she finds herself smiling before quickly pressing her lips against him for the final time before releasing him.
“There,” she says, voice low and close. “Now you can go, Dr. Shepherd.”
He lingers, just a beat too long, at her office door before leaving with an overly satisfied, thoroughly fucked smile on his face.
Meredith giggles as the door closes. Because another thing that no one tells you about being chief are the benefits of having a private office and your handsome husband working directly under you.