A/N: I LOVE YOU GUYS!! I seriously love all of you guys! For those of you who don't know, this book just hit the Wattpad What's Hot List and is ranked #361 in the Romance category here! Yes! Out of the millions of romance novels that are posted here every day, this book is #361! And this has been possible only because of you guys. Your reads, votes and comments have helped this book make a climb that I never expected. So, A BIG THANK YOU to all of you! Keep showing your love for this story!

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Breathing became hard once again. My breath started to come in short pants as I stared into the pair of emerald green orbs, motionless. Time seemed to be suspended in that moment. It felt like the Earth had stopped spinning and it was just the two of us, standing there, staring at each other in the mirror. Without blinking, without moving, without talking.

"Are you okay?" he asked once again, and his voice caused me to snap out of my reverie.

"You," I said, my voice the ghost of a whisper, gravelly and hoarse and scratchy. I harrumphed once, without breaking eye contact with him. "You...You can't be here," I finally said in a gravelly whisper.

"Sorry, what?" he said in a clarion voice.

I spun around as quickly as I could. Actually, I spun around so fast that it might have given me whiplash. But I didn't care the least at that moment. I faced him, staring straight into his dark green irides. The look he was giving me was so intense and inquisitive and confused. I suddenly felt weak in the knees and had to lean back against the sink for support. My hands gripped the edge of the sink as I took in a deep breath to calm myself down. He was just a hallucination, and it had to stop right now.

"You. Can't. Be. Here," I enunciated each and every word with small pauses in between. My voice was still scratchy, but I was no longer whispering. I had found my lost strength and my voice was strong and firm.

He gave a small laugh. "What? Why? Why can't I be here? Last time I checked, it wasn't against the law," he said, chuckling the whole time. He took a step towards me, but I outstretched my hand to stop him right then and there.

"Don't move. You are dead. You are dead and dead people don't come back from the dead. So, just leave my head and go back to heaven or whatever..." I said firmly, determination ringing in my voice. Derek was dead. My husband, Dr. Derek Shepherd was dead. And dead people didn't pop up out of nowhere one fine day. It was impossible.

"Are you alright? Because you seem a little disoriented. Why would I be dead? I'm standing right in front of you, alive," he said, giving me a nonplussed look.

"No, no you're not," I asserted and before he could respond, I closed the distance of a few feet separating us and pinched him hard on his arm.

"Owww! What the fuck?" he cursed, wincing and giving me an angry look.

"You can feel," I stated, as if I was making a new discovery. "You can..." I trailed off and looking down to my own hand, I pinched my skin as hard as I could. Moaning softly in pain, I looked back up to see Derek still standing there.

"You – You are not going away," I said, gasping and clapping my hands to my mouth. "You are not going away," I repeated, shaking my head.

"Ma'am, are you alright? What are you saying?" he asked me, still rubbing the spot where I had pinched him.

"When people hallucinate, we tell them to pinch themselves to snap back into reality. But, you...you can feel my pinch and I can touch you and...My point is, I pinched myself and you are not going away," I said in a muffled voice, my hands covering my mouth.

"Well, let me guess why...Why, why, why...Oh wait, maybe that's because I'm a living person!" he spat out angrily, giving me a fiery look.

I stared at him for a long, long minute – the longest minute in the history of time. Then, slowly, very slowly, I raised a trembling, quivering hand and took it near to his face.

He flinched and shrank back in fear, scared that I was gonna slap him or hurt him again in some way. I ignored his flinch and slowly brought up my hand to his cheek. My hand remained suspended in the air like that for a few minutes, mere inches from his cheek. And then, finally, I sucked in a sharp breath and bit the bullet. I touched his cheek.

As soon as my palm made contact with his skin, I felt a jolt of electricity shoot through my body. Chills ran down my spine as the warmth of his skin radiated into my palm and then spread to my whole body. It was like magic. I felt the glorious warmth of his cheek against my palm and felt it seep into my body, up to my very toes. Tears welled up in my eyes. "You...You...You're alive," I croaked out, my vision turning blurry from the tears. "You are alive," I said louder this time, the tears spilling out of my eyes. "You are alive," I chanted like a sacred hymn.

"Yes, ma'am. I'm alive, and I really don't think you are alright. Maybe you need –"

He couldn't finish his sentence. He couldn't finish his sentence because I cut him short by flinging my arms around him and crashing my lips against his.

Your lips kiss and tell me a thing or two

Oh, the happy ending this could be

Swept away in love and all its glory...

My mouth was on his, kissing him hard. I kissed him fiercely, with all the passion and love and grief and longing that had built up inside me. I sucked his lower lip into my mouth and nibbled on it, my hands moving into his gorgeous ebony mane. I tangled my fingers in his hair and tugged on them as I kissed the life out of him. God, I had missed him so fucking much!

However, he didn't respond to my kiss, like he used to. His lips were not even moving as I continued to kiss him. Maybe he was too surprised to kiss me back. Maybe I had caught him off guard. I didn't know. All I knew was that I needed him to respond, and I needed it bad.

I kissed him harder and parted his lips with my own. He didn't object; he just complied. I slipped my tongue inside his mouth and challenged his tongue to a duel. And that, was what did the trick.

Slowly but surely, he started to kiss me back. His lips still weren't devouring mine as hungrily as mine were devouring his, but he pressed his lips back against mine and his tongue gently played with mine. I felt his arms going around my waist and pulling me closer. Smiling in triumph, I untangled one hand from his hair and let it smooth over his back.

Our tongues duelled for power and control as he held me close to his body. His left hand was now tangled in my hair, and his right hand had slipped under my shirt and was splayed on my bare lower back. Our mouths were fused together, fitting perfectly into each other like two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. I couldn't get over the feeling of kissing him again, of tasting him again. It had been so long. Far too long. I had even forgotten what it felt like to kiss him – what his sweet lips tasted like. But, boy, his lips tasted sweeter than I remembered. They were soft, warm, moist and compliant, yet hard and demanding and controlling at the same time.

The kiss slowly elevated from a slow, gentle, sweet play to a hard, hot, heavy and demanding duel for control. He had now outpaced me in kissing and was exploring every crevice of my mouth with his warm tongue. We kissed each other frantically, desperately, unable to get more of each other. My skin burned where his hand was resting, and my hands moved down to caress his neck and play with the curls at the nape of his neck. Our tongues darted back and forth between each other's mouth, desperate for more of each other's taste.

He finally pulled back from the kiss, and I was glad he did, because I needed to come up for air too. He panted as he gave me a breathless, crooked smile. I smiled back, feeling the wetness on my cheeks. He was my Derek. There was no doubt about it. Only my Derek smiled at me like that.

"Wanna get out of here?" he asked huskily, a smirk touching his lips.

I laughed softly. That was so typical of Derek. Of course I wanted to get out of there and make love to him. I wanted him to hold me in his arms like he was holding me now. I wanted him to kiss my neck and spoon me after our lovemaking. I wanted to cuddle with him and our kids in the morning. I wanted to do so many things that even I couldn't keep track of it. But, there were more pressing questions in my mind at the moment.

"Of course, I do," I said, smiling and wiping away my tears, "Derek, you are alive! You are alive! And that's enough for me. But, I – um – how?"

"Excuse me? What are you talking about? Who is Derek?" he asked, slowly pulling his hands back from me.

One minute hearts are lonely

The next each other's only...

I laughed. He was now joking about it. "You are! Derek, stop messing with my head," I said, slapping his bicep gently.

"No no no!" he said, now fully distancing himself from me, "I think you are mistaken, ma'am. My name's Adrian. Adrian Cooper."

"Yeah, right," I said, rolling my eyes.

"No, really! I think you have mistaken me for someone else. I'm not a Derek. I'm Adrian," he said firmly.

My heart fell into the pit of my stomach. The smile fell off of my face, supplanted by a look of profound bewilderment and disappointment. He was not Derek? But, but...How could he not be? He was...He was Derek, for fuck's sake! He couldn't be someone else. I would know my Derek even in my sleep. The way he had kissed me a few moments ago, the way he had held me so close...It was the way Derek kissed me. And he looked exactly like Derek, for God's sake! Except for the green eyes, but oh well...He had to be Derek. He was no one else.

"Derek, I swear... If you're joking with me, then this is not the right time. I'll kill you if you're joking with me," I threatened.

"Ma'am, you are crazy. You need help," he said seriously. And then, all of a sudden, his face looked like he had had an epiphany. "Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute....Is this some sort of game you are playing with me to get me to sleep with you? Because if that is it, then you don't have to, darling. I'm gonna take you home anyway. You're hot. So fucking hot. Even with all the crying," he said, leering at me and grinning lewdly.

"You asshole!" I cried out, appalled and disgusted. This was not my Derek. My Derek was not this crass and lewd. He would never accuse a woman of playing mind games with him to sleep with him. But, then again, how could he not be Derek? "How dare you say a thing like that to me?"

"Hey, whoa, whoa," he said, raising his hands in the air. "You are the crazy woman who was staring at me and crying the whole time I was performing. Which is not a reaction I expected, because girls do a lot of things when they see me, but crying is not one of them. And then, you followed me and came into the men's room. And when I asked you if you were okay, you pinched me and then pounced on me like a hungry lion or something. And then you start calling me Derek. And now you are calling me an asshole. What is your problem, woman?"

I couldn't speak. I just stared at him wordlessly, unable to come up with a coherent sentence. Hell, even my thoughts were not coherent. They were muddled and all over the place. I didn't know what to think. I didn't know what to feel. I didn't know what to say. I just didn't know.

"This is the men's room?" I finally managed to murmur, tears sliding down my cheeks. Yeah, Meredith, that's the part to focus on.

"Yes," he said, jamming his hands into his jeans' pockets. "Listen, I think you need some help. I'm sorry I accused you of playing games to sleep with me, but what was I ought to think? You've been behaving so...weirdly. If you need me to drop you at the nearest hospital or something..."

"I'm not crazy," I whispered, looking down at my feet. I had no idea what was happening to me. Fuck you, universe. What were you trying to do to me?

"Um, okay. If you say so," he muttered under his breath, but I heard him anyway. "But you still seem...." he paused, probably thinking of words excluding 'lunatic' and 'crazy.' "Pretty disoriented," he finally said, still unconvinced that I was not a lunatic. "I don't know much about medical stuff, but things like this can happen if you have a concussion or something," he said.

"I don't have a concussion," I murmured, looking up at him with tear-filled eyes. "I'm fine," I said, though it was pretty hard for me to believe my words at the time.

"Okay, then. Um, I'll head out...Have a good night, um – uh –"

"Meredith," I supplied. I felt so discombobulated, but the thought of him leaving disconcerted me more. He could not leave. If I let him leave now, he was going to walk out that door and I was never going to see him again. I was never going to see my Derek again, even though my Derek said he was Adrian Cooper. I had to do something. And fast.

"Meredith," he said, my name rolling off of his tongue so sexily. "Good night, Meredith. And goodbye." He turned around and reached for the doorknob.

"WAIT!" I yelled out. Apparently, I had to make him believe totally and completely that I was crazy and belonged in the psych ward.

He turned around, his eyebrows raised, a befuddled look on his face.

"Um...I don't...I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but...Can I have your number?" I asked, waiting and watching for his reaction.

"Oh, no!" he said with a chuckle, but stopped quickly when he saw my face. "I don't give out my number to random strangers."

"Listen," I said, taking a step towards him, not missing the way he cringed a bit, "Adrian, I just...You..." I fumbled for words. I didn't know what to say to him. You look exactly like my dead husband? You are a Xerox copy of my dead husband? I think you are my dead husband? I believe, no, I'm pretty sure you are my dead husband who is somehow alive? No. None of those statements were going to make me look less crazy than I already looked. "I just...That kiss we just shared... Don't you think that that was something?" I said, changing tack, "I mean, I definitely felt something there. And I know you felt it too. Wouldn't you want to follow up on that kiss? I – I have plans tonight, but I was hoping we could get together some other night...for you know..." I trailed off. I couldn't even bring myself to say the words.

He looked at me for a minute, before smirking. "I knew it! I knew you were attracted to me. But, that's okay, because I think you're hot too," he said, giving me an appraising look from head to toe.

"Yeah..." I said, shuffling my feet nervously under his scrutiny. Oh, this was killing me..."So, can I have your number?"

"Okay. But, on one condition," he said.

"What?" I asked desperately.

"You have to promise not to stalk me."

"How...How can I stalk you? You live in Cleveland, right? I live here," I said, not knowing how I managed to remember that piece of information at that moment.

"Yeah...Except, I'm moving to Seattle in two weeks," he said, shrugging.

"Oh..." My mouth formed a big O and I stared at him for a few minutes, before remembering that he had asked me to promise him something. "Yes, I promise I won't stalk you."

"Good. Because I'll put out a restraining order if you do," he said with a laugh. The laugh was like music to my ears. There was just something about it....Something that I couldn't place my finger on...His laugh was just so carefree and spontaneous, just like him...

"Okay," I said as I laughed genuinely for the first time that day.

************************************

Walking out of the bar, I headed straight to my car and got behind the wheel. I couldn't drive for a number of reasons. First of all, I was drunk off my ass, and second of all, the alcohol wasn't the only thing that had discombobulated me that night. The happenings of that night still felt surreal. I still had no idea what the fuck had happened inside the bar a few minutes ago. Sighing, I rested my head on the steering wheel and replayed the events of that night inside my head.

After a good few minutes of ruminating, I was still as clueless as I had been when I had got inside my car. I needed someone. I needed someone to vent to and...well, to drive me home.

Lifting my head from the steering wheel, I pulled out my phone from my pocket and opened the contacts. The first contact that came up was Adrian, since his name started with A. Damn Adrian. Or damn Derek. Or damn them both for making me feel the way I did. I scrolled down quickly, stopping at Maggie's name. My sister. Should I call her? We had a pretty good bonding, but she was not my confidante. Plus, there was the whole thing with Nathan. Maggie had told me a week ago that she liked Nathan, and she thought he liked her back. And I was still having sex with Nathan like a bitch and Maggie had no clue. Nope. Definitely not Maggie, because I was gonna feel too guilty talking to her.

I scrolled up again and finally stopped at my best friend's name. Alex. I was going to call Alex. He was the one who got me – every aspect of me. He wasn't going to think I was some crazy lump who thought her dead husband was back from the dead. He would believe me. He would probably inject some sense into this whole situation as well.

Sighing heavily, I tapped the call icon and pressed the phone to my ear. After a few rings, his voice came on the other end.

"Hello? Mer?"

"Yeah. Alex, hi. Could you come and meet me outside Shorty's? Now?" I asked.

A/N: There you go. So is it Derek? Or is it Adrian? Derek? Or Adrian? Keep thinking about that, and while you are at it, just remember one thing. This is a MERDER story. A MERDER story is a MERDER story and nothing else. I know you guys feel pretty confused about the MerDer part right now, but I promise, you'll find out all about it soon....ish. Till then, please bear with me and keep faith in me. All I am asking you is to keep faith. I have promised you MerDer, and it will be MerDer. You just have to wait for it a bit, that's all.

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                                           Dr. Derek Shepherd/ Adrian Cooper