Say when

51

Meredith feels the sun shining through the window the next morning and takes in a deep breath of the crisp air before slowly peeking her eyes open. She gives them a soft rub trying to get the sleep out of her eyes and looks at the clock realizing she has to get up to get ready for her early afternoon class.

She suddenly remembers what day it is and feels butterflies in her stomach and turns to the other side of the bed to give Derek a birthday kiss when she sees his spot on the bed vacant.. she gasps when she sees a stack of books resting on his pillow and a small note on top of them... she feels her heart swell and an uneraseable smile on her face as she sits up and takes the note.

Good morning love of my life,

It appears that the 'book fairy' left these on the table for you last night. See, I told you it would be ok. I had to get to class early so sorry I couldn't give you a birthday kiss to wake up to, but I love you and I'll see you after class, I have things planned so don't fill up your schedule.

I love you,

Derek

Meredith shakes her head in disbelief but still with a smile on her face as she goes through the books seeing that every one of them was there as well as some notebooks. She wondered where he got the money from, but didn't want to question it since the finances were a touchy subject with him. She felt her heart flutter in her chest at how much she loved him.

She got out of bed and walked over to her dresser starting to pull out some clothes for after her shower.. she then opened the top drawer and moved some things out of the way and pulled out a small black box.. she opened it revealing a white gold watch with a blue face that matched the color of his eyes.. on the back it had the words engraved "You are my sunshine."

She knew they'd discussed their birthday a month ago and agreed to not get anything for each other. But he'd done so much for her that she couldn't just come up empty handed, she wanted to get him something special so she pawned her mother's diamond necklace, the last thing she'd had of her mother so she could buy the watch for Derek.

She put it on top of her dresser and wrapped a white ribbon around the box before slipping it into her purse for later and felt butterflies thinking about what Derek could have planned for them. She headed off to the shower trying to prepare herself for her test later that day.. not realizing how big of a test it would be.