Mark: You want me to take a look at that?
Derek: Meredith's going to take care of it.
Mark: I'm a renowned plastic surgeon.
Derek: It's just a scratch.
Mark: Grey's a resident.
Derek: She gives me sex, especially when I'm wounded.

Meredith: I am not sure moving in together is a good idea.
Derek: Okay. Fine.
Meredith: Fine? What does that mean?
Derek: Means that I know you.
Meredith: So what, you didn't believe that I would let you move in in the first place?
Derek: I believe that you believed it. Look, I'm gonna move very slowly. Baby steps. No sudden moves. You're like a deer in the woods.
Meredith: Okay, I built the house of candles, that is unprecedented in the Meredith chronicles.
Derek: Fine, lets move in together.
Meredith: Fine.
Derek: Unless of course you just wanna go ahead and get married .... Aha! Gotcha! You wanna know where I learned that? It goes with the story of how I cut my hand.

Meredith: You said Derek and I would never make it.
Cristina: And then I was karmically impaled for saying it.
Meredith: But you're right, I mean, people don't really have happily ever afters. People barely have ever afters. So why would Derek and I be any different?
Cristina: Mer, why do you care what I think?
Meredith: Because you're my person! And if I'm going to do this with him, and be whole and healthy and be a warm, gooey person who lives with a boy... I need you on board. I need you to cheer me on. Because you're the only one who knows me. Darkly. Really knows me. I need you to pretend that I can do this even if you don't believe. Because if you abandon me now, I will never make it, and I will never get my happy ending and that's just...
Cristina: Life.
Meredith: I'm saying please here.
Cristina: I think you and Derek will make it. You will make it work.
Meredith: Are you just telling me what I wanna hear?
Cristina: I am your person. I am on your side.

Once upon a time- happily ever after. The stories we tell are the stuff of dreams. Fairy tales don't come true. Reality is much stormier. Much murkier. Much scarier.