All Along The Watchtower - Part 28.2B

[ariaadagio]

Title: All Along The Watchtower
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Pairing: Mer/Der
Rating: M
Summary: S6 continuation. Immediately post Sanctuary / Death and All His Friends.


All Along The Watchtower - Part 28.2B

“You wanted a tour, didn't you,” he said, “or was that just an excuse to get me out of there?”

“I wouldn't mind a little tour,” she said quietly.

He stood, and she stood with him.  He grabbed her hand, and pulled her toward the other doorway.  The one that went into the library instead of back to the dining room.  He moved over the threshold, only to be yanked to a halt when his arm ran out of slack.

“Oh, my god, is this you?” Meredith said.

He looked back at her.  “What?” he said.  There weren't any photos on the wall, what--

Her fingertips ran over a set of scribbles on dirty, chipping white molding around the door.  The molding had seen better days, but his mother hadn't touched it, even after all these years.  Small black horizontal lines about an inch wide, starting at about two feet, ending at about five-and-a-half feet marked the white molding.  Each of the many lines had a letter and a height written next to it in messy handwriting that looked a little like Derek's.  D, K, R, A, N were the letters.  Meredith's fingers had paused on the D at five feet, which was the last D marked, because Derek had been five feet tall when his dad had died.

No tiptoes, Derek.  Stand flat-footed.

But, Dad--

His father had laughed.  Hold still, will you?

Derek blinked at the molding.  For a long moment, he didn't know what to say.  Didn't have words.  He swallowed at the unexpected lump in his throat.  “Dad used to measure how tall we were.  He marked it on the wall.  Mom hated it, but she's never taken it down or painted over it.”

Meredith stared at the molding reverentially, and she lifted her hand away, as if she didn't want to smudge anything.  “Do you remember any of these?”

He touched the one at four-feet ten.  The wood felt cold and worn under the pad of his index finger.  “I really wanted to be five feet tall,” he said, “but he wouldn't let me cheat.”

She grinned.  He stared at that mark.  The second-to-last one.  And then he pulled her gently into the library with him.  His feet sank into the thick, soft carpet.  The smell of books permeated the room.  Shelves lined each wall except for the wall with the giant window.  He grinned when he turned left.  There it was.  On the shelf right by the light switch.  An old, old edition of Webster's dictionary, too fat to pick up with only one hand, sat on the shelf.  He pulled it out to show her.

“He used this to make the marks level,” Derek said.  “He sat it on top of our heads and drew the pen along the underside.”

Meredith took the book from him.  Her hands sank like a rock until she got used to the weight.  “I'm surprised your necks didn't break.”

“It's a heavy book,” he agreed.

She put back the dictionary on the shelf.  She looked around the room, eyes brimming with curiosity.  Her gaze fell on the old, hulking, tan leather chair in the corner that had seen better days.  Dad's chair.  The chair didn't match the décor in the room at all anymore.  His mother had re-finished all the shelving with a cherry-colored stain, and she'd repainted the walls a pale, cheerful yellow that hadn't been there the last time he'd been home.  But she'd always kept the chair.  He imagined she would keep it until it fell apart.

“Dad read to me in here when I was little,” Derek said.  He pointed to the chair.  “I sat in his lap in that chair.”

Meredith wandered across the room, and he followed.  She picked up a silver-framed photograph from one of the shelves, an old, black-and-white of a young boy in a white t-shirt and jeans.  His hair was curly and dark, and he beamed for whoever was behind the camera.  A stadium full of people staring at something else filled the space behind him.  “Is this...”  Meredith squinted at it, and then looked at Derek.  “Is this him, or is this you?”

“Me,” Derek said.  “Yankees Stadium.  Dad took the photo.”

Meredith put the picture down, but she stared at it for a long, silent moment.

He picked up the photo next to the one she'd been looking at.  It was a photograph from earlier in the year, a family photo where they'd all dressed up.  His dad stood on the left, and his mother stood on the right, and Derek and his sisters filled in the front row.  Dad had his hand on Derek's shoulder.  Derek didn't look nearly as happy as he had in the Stadium photo, which had been taken toward the end of the school year.  His smile was forced, and his lip was busted, but scabbed.

Meredith wrapped her arms around him and peered at the picture with him.  “Tell me something new about him,” she said.

His stomach rumbled, and for a moment, he felt lightheaded.  He leaned against the shelf, barely keeping his grip on the inventory clipboard.  The pen he'd been holding slipped from his fingers and fell to the floor.

He stared at the paintbrushes he'd been counting.  Had he been on... row six?  Or seven?  He blinked at the shelf.  He couldn't think straight, and the shelf seemed to shimmer.  He thought about sitting down in the aisle.  Sitting down seemed... nice.  In fact, the floor seemed to be getting... closer.

“Derek?” his dad called from the other side of the aisle where they kept the tools like saws and hammers.  “Are you almost done over there?”

Derek swallowed as the world slowed down, and his heartbeats suddenly seemed very loud in the quiet space.  “Sh... sure.”  He'd tried to sound okay, but he didn't think he'd managed.

He heard footsteps as Dad rushed into the aisle wearing a stained shop apron.  “Derek?” his dad said, and then he was there, in Derek's space.  The smell of cedar tickled Derek's nose.  Derek wobbled on his feet as the clipboard was gently taken from his shaking hands.

Dad felt Derek's forehead with the back of his hand, a look of deep concern on his face.  “Are you feeling okay?” Dad said.

Derek blinked.  Yes, he wanted to say.  I'm fine.  He'd almost managed.  Dinner was only two hours away.  Mom made meatloaf every other Monday, and it was meatloaf day.  He could taste the peppers and the beef on his tongue already.  He licked his lips.  And then all he could think about was meatloaf.  He couldn't make it for two hours.  He just couldn't.

“I'm hungry,” he said woozily, and then he sat down at his father's feet because he couldn't stand up anymore.  He would have fallen, instead of sat, but Dad controlled the descent.

“Hungry?” Dad said sharply.  “Didn't you eat lunch?”

Derek swallowed.  His non-answer probably answered for him.  The room kept wobbling in and out of focus.  He thought he might be in the process of fainting.  He didn't think he'd ever fainted.  It was a new experience.  He didn't like it.

“Peter, mind the register, will you?” he heard his father say, voice rumbling, though the rumble could have been the blood rushing in Derek's ears.

“Sure thing, Mr. Shepherd,” said Peter.

And then the world moved.  Something tugged under his shoulders, and Derek rose to his feet, more of the something's volition than his own.  The bell over the door rang.  The hardware store disappeared.  The cool outside air ruffled his hair.

“I'm okay, Dad,” he managed.  “Really.”  What he should have said earlier.  What any self-respecting eleven-year-old would say.

What a wimp, he heard the kids at school say, an echo.

But his father didn't speak as he frogmarched Derek across the street to the diner.  Mae, the head waitress, and Dad exchanged words that didn't make much sense.  Something about, “Something quick and easy.”  In a matter of blurred seconds, Derek found himself sitting in a booth on a red vinyl seat across from his father.  Mae put down a bare bones garden salad drizzled with some creamy dressing, a glass of milk, and a piece of the diner's signature carrot cake in front of him.

Dad grinned at Mae.  The skin around his eyes crinkled.  “Thank you, Mae.  You're a dear.”

Mae said something, but Derek didn't hear it.  He stared at the chipped surface of the table for less than a second before he grabbed his fork and stuffed his face full of crispy lettuce and explosive cherry tomatoes.  He finished the whole salad in a matter of moments and started on the carrot cake, which made his nose crinkle.  He wasn't a huge fan of carrot cake, but he was so hungry, the taste didn't matter.  He ate the whole sickly sweet thing, icing and all, and then he chugged the entire glass of milk Mae had left him to wash it down.

When the starving frenzy died, he realized his father was looking at him, eyes dancing with fury, mouth set in a grim line.  Derek swallowed.  “I'm sorry,” he said, and he looked at his lap.

“Don't apologize.  You didn't do anything,” Dad said.  “They took your lunch money again, didn't they.”  Not exactly a question.

A lump formed in Derek's throat.  They'd taken more than that.  They'd taken his breakfast money, too, and he hadn't eaten since Sunday night.  But he'd thought he could make it until dinner.  He'd tried.

What a wimp, the kids said again.  He heard them laughing.

He fiddled with one of the napkins and didn't speak.  The diner was narrow and long, full of about twenty-five red vinyl booths, with big bright windows that looked out on the busy street.  A jukebox sat by the front door near the cash register.  His dad took him to this place with Mark every Sunday afternoon after work for milkshakes, a happy, sharp contrast to the misery of now.

All the bruises from the day suddenly hurt a lot more.  His eyes pricked.  If he spoke, he'd just cry, and that would be proving them all right.  Men didn't cry.  Only wimps and girls cried.

Dad shook his head.  The vinyl squeaked as he shifted, and then stood, and then switched to Derek's side of the booth.  His father's arm came down around Derek's shoulder, and Derek felt himself pulled into a warm, tight embrace, but Dad didn't say a thing, not one word.  He sighed like he was disappointed, but he rubbed a firm, strong hand up and down Derek's arm.

Derek closed his eyes.  He hated school.  He hated it so much.  Ever since he'd gone to middle school.  Mark was a year behind him and was still in elementary.

Mark was the one who could hit.

Not Derek.

“Will you tell me what happened?” his dad said.  He squeezed Derek's shoulder.

The lump in Derek's throat grew.  He said nothing.  He'd said nothing the last time, too.  And the time before that.  His dad hadn't said anything about it the first time when Derek refused.  The second time, Dad had been a bit more persistent.  This time...

“Is there someone else you'd rather talk to?” his dad prodded gently.  “It's okay.  It doesn't have to be me.”

If Derek told, his dad would try to intervene.  Derek knew it.  Dad would talk to the principal, or the kids, or the kids' parents, and then it would only get worse.  Everybody would hate Derek even more, and he'd never fit in, and it would never ever stop.

Derek's lower lip quivered.  “No.”

Dad sighed and ran his hands through his dark, curly hair.  His skin rasped as he wiped his face with his palm in an upset motion.  Then he took a deep breath, as if he were steeling himself for something.

“Where is this happening?” Dad said.

Derek stared at the table.

His father shifted.  The red vinyl seat squeaked.  He wrapped both arms around Derek and squeezed before letting him go.  “I promise nothing goes beyond this table, Derek.  Whatever you tell me stays between us.”

“You'll tell on me,” Derek said.  “They'll find out I ratted.”

“I won't tell anybody, Der.  I just want to hear from you what's going on.  I promise.”

Derek's chest constricted.  The diner was empty.  It was too early in the afternoon for the dinner crowd, and way too late for lunch.  They were alone, save for Mae, who shuffled around behind the front counter, stacking menus.  The careworn woman was well out of hearing range.

“I promise,” Dad said again with quiet surety, and then he pantomimed a zipper across his lips using his thumb and index finger.

Derek blinked, and the world blurred.  “They corner me on the way to school,” he blurted.  Usually, he managed to dodge them on the way there, and those were the days he got to eat.  Sometimes, they terrorized him in the bathroom, too, even when they knew he had no money to give them.  “And in the bathroom.  I try not to go, but...”  Even if he didn't drink anything in the morning, he couldn't make it past the final bell.

Dad stilled.

“Please, don't tell anybody,” Derek said into the silence.

“I won't tell anybody,” his dad said, his voice a low murmur.  “But maybe we can come up with a plan.”

Derek wiped his face with the back of his hand.  “A plan?”

His dad bumped shoulders with him.  “A plan.  What could you try to get them to stop?  How would you like to solve this?”

“Me?” Derek said.

Dad nodded and gave him a soft, understanding smile.  “Yes, you.”

Derek looked at the table.  He'd managed to tear one of the napkins to tiny paper shreds with all his self-conscious fiddling.  “I wish I could hit back like Mark,” he said.

Dad was silent for a moment.  “What do you think might happen if you hit back?” he said.

“I don't know,” Derek said.  He shrugged half-heartedly.  Usually, when Mark hit back, everything turned into a brawl, and Mark got put in detention, but at least Mark didn't starve.  “A fight.”

“What else could you do?” Dad said.

Derek gritted his teeth.  “Call them jerks.”

“That's a bit like hitting them,” Dad said.

“Well, I've tried running away, and they just yank me back,” Derek said, frustrated.  His fingertips hurt from grabbing at trees.  No parking signs.  Cars.  The fence.  Anything available.

“Do you know if they do this with anybody else?” Dad said.

Derek swallowed.  Honestly, he felt like all those kids did was wait for him - the easy pickings shrimp.  He tried to avoid them, but they always found him eventually.  He'd never seen them picking on anybody else.  He was alone.

“No,” he said.

“Do you know why they do this?” Dad said.

“Because I'm small,” Derek replied.

Dad shook his head.  “No, it's because they're small, and that's not your fault.”

“They're huge, Dad.  I can't--”

“No, I mean... they feel small.  Maybe, something is wrong at home.  Hurting other kids makes them feel bigger.”

“Oh,” Derek said.  And then he frowned.  “What would be wrong at home?”

Dad shrugged.  “Sometimes, moms and dads don't get along very well.”

Derek frowned.  He couldn't imagine that.  At all.

“The point is, though,” Dad said, “that they want to hurt you, and you shouldn't give them what they want.”

“But it does hurt!” Derek said.  Tears renewed in earnest.  He was a wimp.  Just like they said.  “They call me names, and they won't let me leave until I give them my money, and then I can't eat all day, or I can't go, and--”

Dad hugged him.  “I know, Der.  I know it hurts.  And you're very brave to talk to me about this.  Do you understand that I think you're very brave?”

“I don't feel brave,” Derek said.

“Well, you are,” Dad said.  He ran his fingers through Derek's hair.  “Those kids are the cowards, Derek.  Not you.  And I'm not saying you shouldn't hurt when they do these things.  What they do is a hurtful thing.”

“I don't understand.”

Dad squeezed Derek's shoulder.  “Derek, do you know what a poker face is?”

“He always seemed to know how to handle everything without making me feel handled,” Derek said as he placed the picture where he'd found it on the shelf, a lone tree in a forest of pictures.  He had no idea what kind of parent he would make when he couldn't even deal with a hug from his overzealous sister without flipping out.

Meredith rested her head on his shoulder.  “I wish I'd had that.  Maybe, I wouldn't have turned out so deeply freaky.”

“You're not freaky,” Derek said.  And then he sighed.  “I miss him.”  He blinked, and his eyes watered.  “I miss him a lot.  I didn't used to think about him much.  I think about him all the time, now.  What he'd be like, now, if he were alive.  What he'd think of me.  I'm not sure he'd be pleased.”

“I think he'd be proud,” Meredith said.

“You really think so?”

“Yeah, I do,” she said.  “It takes a lot of courage to get help.”

Derek nuzzled her, pressed his nose against her hair.  “You realize you're talking about yourself, now, not me, right?  You're more courageous than anybody I know.”

“I'm not,” she said.

“You are.”  He kissed her, and a rueful laugh popped loose from his lips as he pulled away.  “We're doing it again.  Dr. Wyatt would slap us on the wrists and makes us start journals.”

Her eyes twinkled as she stared at him.  He loved her smile.  “Being hopelessly negative about ourselves?” she said.

“Mmmhmm.”

“I'll stop, if you stop,” she said.

“On three?”

She nodded.  “Two.”

“One,” he said.

They shared a long silence.  Derek took a deep breath.

“Are you okay, now?” Meredith said.

“I'm better,” he said honestly.  “You?”

“I'll live.”  She glanced at the doorway.  “A little more tour?  Or back to your family?”

He'd calmed down.  He didn't feel sick or panicky anymore.  He felt no pressure when it was just him and Meredith in their own little bubble, but he couldn't stay in that bubble forever.  A tiny pile of worry twisted at the thought of going back into the fray where he would be judged, but there wasn't much he could do to get rid of it, other than to get things over with.

Do you understand that I think you're very brave? his dad said, a distant echo.

Derek tried to hold onto that, instead of the hating words of Mr. Clark.  It was hard.  It was so hard.  But he tried.  He was less of a nervous wreck, now, and it was easier to think straight.  Easier to think about good things.  He wouldn't think badly of Mark, had Mark been in this position instead.  He wouldn't think badly of anybody trying to come home with a new illness, mental or physical or both.  He tried not to think badly of himself for having difficulties with something that was truly difficult.  Something that would be difficult for anybody.

You're the strongest person I know, Meredith had said many times.

He tried to hold onto that, as well.

“I just don't get it,” he heard Rachel saying as he walked back to the living room with Meredith's small hand clutched in his.  Meredith walked beside him, a bastion of support, but even then, his grip on the good things faltered when he heard Rachel's frustration bleeding from every syllable.  “Crap happens to everybody, and we pick ourselves up.  It's been nearly six months.  Shouldn't he be less jumpy by now?  He's not Derek.  He's not acting like my little brother.”

Derek froze just outside the room.  Closed his eyes.  So much for hoping Rachel had sorted through her initial surprise.  Now, she sounded like she'd had a chance for her concerns to boil over and make a mess of the stove, and she was on a tear.

“She'll judge,” said Mr. Clark, a quiet, returning whisper.  “She'll judge, and she'll hate you.  She hates you already.”

Meredith squeezed his hand, and Mr. Clark's voice snapped away.

“He has a mental illness, Rachel,” Kathy insisted in his defense, which, put that baldly, didn't make Derek feel much better, though it was the truth.

He did have a mental illness.

“Well, that's crap!” Rachel said.  “He should be able to--”

He stepped into the room, and she shut up.  Fast.  Mark and his Mom and Kathy looked at him, but Rachel looked away.

“Should be able to what?” he said, the words quiet.  His voice sounded shaky.  He cleared his throat and steeled himself.

Derek, do you know what a poker face is?

Rachel's miffed expression dissolved into horror when she got a good grasp of how much he'd heard, but she stuffed her emotions behind a cold mask in seconds.  She took a short breath and steeled herself, much like Derek had just tried to do.  Kathy attempted to diffuse the situation by stepping between them, but that didn't stop Rachel from saying imperiously, “You should be able to handle your family touching you, Derek.  Six months, and Mark doesn't clap you on the back anymore, and I can't even squeeze your shoulder or hug you?”

Meredith stiffened beside him, and calm resolve threatened to turn into something nasty.  “H--”

“And how would you suggest I fix that?” Derek said, interrupting Meredith before she could leap like Wolverine to his defense, though he did appreciate her sentiment.

“Get a new shrink,” Rachel said, her tone hostile.  “I don't know.  Clearly whatever yours is doing isn't working.”

“Rachel, that's enough,” Mom said, her voice low and furious.

Kathy folded her arms and glared at Rachel.  “A psychiatrist isn't a magic fix-it button, you know.”

But he ignored Kathy, and he ignored his mother.  He spoke calmly, though he didn't feel calm.  “I'm still me, Rache,” he said, refusing to drop eye contact with her.  Refusing to be cowed.  He was so sick of being cowed.  His entire body hummed, and his heartbeat began to thunder in his ears.  Thump-thump.

Rachel snorted and looked away.

His legs started to shake with the adrenaline of confrontation, and he resisted the urge to flee the room.  He'd backed up for Gary Clark.  He'd spent the last six months backing up.  This was his family.  His family.  He took his nerves and funneled them into defiance.

“I remember when you graduated high school,” he said.  “It was a year after Dad died, and you couldn't even get through your speech without crying.  I remember when you hitchhiked back here from Cornell because you were homesick.  You came home every weekend for a year before you were okay with being alone.  I remember when you totaled Steve's car a few weeks after you'd met him, and I told him for you, because you were feeling so guilty, you wouldn't eat.

Rachel sniffed and folded her arms defensively.  “What does any of that have to do with anything?”

“Somebody shot me,” he said.  He pressed his hand to the pockmark underneath his left nipple.  He could still feel it through his shirt.  “That bullet came within a millimeter of killing me instantly.  I couldn't breathe, or walk, or defend myself, and the only reason I'm standing here having a conversation with you at all is because of Meredith and her friend.”  He jabbed his thumb in Meredith's direction.  “She saved my life.”

Kathy blinked tears.  “Derek,” she said, her voice torn.  His mother was crying, too.  He hated that he'd upset them, he kept going, anyway, before he completely lost his nerve to the thunderous pounding of his heart.  They needed to hear this.

“Some things really scare me,” he said, and his voice cracked.  “Like loud noises, and people touching me when I'm not expecting it, because those things make me think I'm being attacked.”  He felt Meredith lean into him, a soft, firm reminder that she was there with him.  His wingwoman.  “I'm trying to be better about all of this, I truly am, and I'm sorry I can't be the little brother you remember right now, but this isn't something I can just switch off, just like you couldn't switch off grief, or homesickness, or guilt.”

Rachel reddened.

“I have some big problems.  Do you think I don't know that?” he said.  “But I'm still me, Rachel.  I remember when you were pregnant with Cody, and Steve was on a business trip.  You went into premature labor, so I took you to the hospital, and I held your hand.  That was me.”

Rachel's lower lip quivered.  She started to cry, just like Kathy and his mom.  Meredith was crying, too.  The whole fucking room except for Mark was crying, and Derek felt like he'd just stabbed a puppy or something.  His sudden courage drained like a sieve, and he felt horrible.  He hadn't thought about Meredith.  She didn't like hearing about the details.

I don't want to remember you nearly dying, she'd screamed at him only a few months ago.  I don't want it, Derek!  Do you want to remember me in the water?

“I need you guys to understand this because you're my family, and I really need my family,” he managed, before he lost his momentum, and then his throat felt too full to talk, and he couldn't take looking at a bunch of women who were crying because of him, particularly Meredith and his mom, so he looked at his feet instead.  He felt like a giant jackass.

The front door opened, and Derek shied away.  He couldn't stop himself when he was already so upset.  His heart thundered, and he felt faint and sick with the need to run, but then Meredith was there, tears and all, and just having her in his field of view, clearly not panicking, helped him find enough of his center to keep from falling apart.  He made himself not fall apart through sheer stubborn will.  The sounds of his heart beating subsided in the rush, leaving dead silence and shame behind.

Steve stared at them all from the threshold.  He was a tall, freckled man with red hair, a round face, and a ruddy complexion.  He worked for Merrill Lynch as a mutual fund manager for a few hundred clients.  He was a high roller, but for family gatherings like this, he relaxed.  He wore jeans and a sweatshirt that were a little too big for him, and his sneakers were stained from years of trekking in the mud.

“Whoa,” he said in his typical deep baritone.  “What happened?”

Rachel took one look at her husband.  Her lower lip quivered.  She sniffed and wiped her face.  And then she marched out of the room, her nose pointed toward the ceiling as if to say, You can't cow me, either, Derek Shepherd.

A lump formed in Derek's throat.  He'd screwed up again.  He knew it.  He'd upset everybody.  On Thanksgiving.  Why did this have to be so hard?  He blinked, and then the room blurred.  God, damn it.  He'd made everybody cry.

“This isn't how I wanted this to go,” he said, his voice thick and warbling with embarrassment.  He wildly thought about places he could take his pregnant wife at the last minute on Thanksgiving.  “Should I leave?  I can...”

“No, you should not leave,” Mom snapped, cutting him off.

“Nobody should leave,” Kathy said as she wiped the remnant tears from her face.  She took a deep breath.  “Can we all just accept that this is weird for everybody?  Anything like this takes some time.”

Derek rubbed the bridge of his nose.  He needed to apologize.  Or something.  He didn't know what.  “Let me go see if I can talk to her.”

“Derek,” Kathy began, “that might not be a good--”

“I have to try,” he said.  “You can tell everybody at the park to come back,” he said to Steve, and then he turned to Meredith, whose eyes were red.  He wanted to talk to Rachel, but not at Meredith's expense.  He pressed his forehead against hers, and then he kissed her.  I'm so sorry, he said, but didn't say.

Her gaze softened.  It's okay, she told him in return.  I'm glad you did what you needed.

“Will you be okay?” he said aloud.

She gave him a watery grin.  “Just call me Dorothy,” she said.

“Dorothy?” Kathy said.

Meredith gave his sister a wry look.  “Private joke.”

“Oh.”

“Meredith...” Derek said.

“I'm okay,” she said.  She wiped her eyes with her hands, and she looked a lot better.  Her eyes were bright, and she smiled genuinely.  “Really.  Go talk to her.”

Satisfied, he gave her a nod, one last kiss, and he trudged after Rachel, who he found in the library where he and Meredith had been, talking about his father, moments before.  His sister stood by the window in a bath of muted fall light.  Her hands were folded over her chest, rumpling her Florence and the Machine t-shirt.  She'd gotten her hair highlighted with green tips at some point since she'd visited him in the hospital.  He couldn't see her face, but he heard her sniffling.

Derek stared at the wall in his bedroom, silent.  He sat on the bed, Indian-style on top of the quilt his mother had made for the bed.  His baseball glove lay in his lap, clutched around an old baseball.  He was sixteen, now.  Dad was supposed to be there to take him to their annual game.

Rachel knocked softly on his open door.  Her keys jingled as she shifted.  “Hey,” she said.  She'd dyed her hair cotton candy pink that year, and it made her head look a bit like a blob of strawberry ice cream.  His mother hated the colors, but Rachel kept coming up with new ones to shock and horrify.

He looked at her dully, feeling too dour to tease her today.  “What?” he said.

His fingers clenched around the old leather glove.  Dad was supposed to be there, but he wasn't.

Rachel pulled two ticket stubs from her jeans pocket, and she gave him a watery smile.  “I thought I would take you, this time.”

His throat tightened.  “You don't even like baseball.”

She sat on the bed beside him.  “No,” she admitted.  She put her hand on his shoulder.  She blinked, and tears spilled.  “But I do love you.”

“Rache?” he said softly as he entered the room.

She looked at him.  Her face was streaked with glistening tear tracks, and her eyes and cheeks were red.  Her deep blue gaze took him in, head to toe.  Her lower lip quivered, and then she turned away to stare out the window.  Her shoulders shook.

His chest tightened at the sight of her.  He'd done that.  His fault.

“Rachel, I'm sorry,” he said as he closed the space between them and sidled hesitantly to her side.  She watched him out of the corner of her eye, and though she acknowledged his presence, she didn't move closer to him, which felt weird.  Of the whole family, Rachel was the biggest offender in the hug department.  He swallowed against the lump in his throat.  “I'm sorry I'm like this.  I wish I could fix it.”  He would have given anything to fix it.

She shook her head.  “It's not your fault,” she said, her voice twisted with misery.

Derek blinked, surprised.  “But I--”

“Mom said to give you some space,” she said.  She rubbed her eyes.  “I didn't want to believe her because you're...”  She looked at him, and she smiled through her tears.  “Well, you're you.”

“I'm sorry, Rache.  I--”

“I hate guns.  I hate them, Derek,” she snapped.  “Dad is dead, and I can't even touch you anymore.”

He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her tightly against him.  She squeaked in surprise, and then a hitching breath flowed out of her body.  She relaxed like he'd drugged her, like this, this hug, this was all she'd wanted the whole afternoon.  Maybe, it had been.

“Yes, you can touch me,” he murmured against her hair.

“But you said--”

“You lunged at me,” he said, figuring honesty was the only policy at this point.  “Then, you all had me cornered by the door, and I didn't have any space.  I was already a nervous wreck about making a good first impression, and I kept making more and more errors that you were noticing, and I just...”  He sighed.  “It was too much, and I lost it.”

“Oh, I...”  She pulled back, and she looked at him with a guilty frown.  She wiped her eyes.  “I didn't even think of that.”  She pushed back into his embrace.  “I'm sorry, Derek.”

“I do like this,” he said.  “I do.  I just need a little warning, and I need to not feel cornered.”

“Okay,” she said, the word soft.  Her lithe arms wrapped around him.  She clutched his shirt, and she didn't let go.

In the distance, he heard the front door open, and a crash of voices entered the house like a stampede.  He heard John's unmistakable timbre.  He heard Amelia saying hi.  He heard the kids.  Giggles.  A screech.  He stiffened, and he clenched his teeth.  There were fifteen people out there.  All crammed into the living room like sardines, he imagined.  He didn't know how he would do this, but he focused on pickles, pickles, pickles, and his tension slowly bled away.

“This is really difficult for you,” she observed.

“Yes, but I swear I'm trying as hard as I can.”

“Me, too,” she said.  She sniffed, and he rubbed her back in slow, soothing circles.  “I do want you here.  I love you.  I'll always love you.  You're my brother.  It's just...”

He closed his eyes.  “Hard?”

She nodded rapidly, but she didn't speak for a long moment.  He listened to her sniffle as she tried to collect herself, and he kept moving his back up and down her spine.  “Dad used to do that when I was upset,” she said when she found her voice.

“Where do you think I learned it?”

She laughed ruefully.  He liked it much better when she laughed, and it did a lot to soothe his nerves.

“Want to go back out, now?” he said.

She raised her eyebrows.  “Do you?”

He looked dubiously back at the door.  There was a lot of noise filtering through.  Enough to make his skin crawl.  But he'd left Meredith out there.  He'd left Meredith alone in that crush to act out the Wizard of Oz, and, even with the nerves... he really did miss them.  All of them.

“You might have to push me the last few feet,” he sort of joked.

“Should I warn you first?” Rachel said with a teasing smile.  “Send a messenger pigeon?”

“Funny,” he said.

She pushed against him playfully.  “I'm a funny girl,” she said.  Her eyes were red, still, and it was clear she'd been upset, but she looked so much better, now.  She seemed like Rachel he knew and loved and had grown up with, now that she understood she could still play with him, just... not as hard.

He let her take the lead heading back to the living room.  When they hit the threshold, hit the veritable wall of noise and people, she kept going a step before she realized he'd slammed to a stop.  Rachel looked back at him.  Guys, look who's here! she would have said excitedly, clapping, if he'd visited last year before he'd gotten sick, because that was the kind of bubbly, effervescent person she was, and all the kids would have converged on him like a swarm of noisy ants.  She didn't do that now.  Didn't draw any attention to him whatsoever.  She gave him an encouraging smile, and then went to sit by her husband.

Derek took a short, clipped breath.  The adults and older kids had mostly taken seats in the ring of chairs his mother had put out around the big room in a circle.  The younger kids were... chaos.  On the floor.  Everywhere.  He eyeballed the empty folding chair between Abby and Meredith, who'd taken refuge next to Mark and was looking almost as wildly at the room as Derek was.  At least Mark was trying to keep her occupied with what looked like a very poor excuse for conversation.  But he was trying.

Meredith and Mark.  His people.  And Abby, whom he adored, and hadn't gotten a chance to talk to in what felt like a year, now.  She'd called him a few times when he'd been in the hospital, but... hell if he could remember those conversations beyond the fact that he'd had them.  He'd been too stoned.

He used that empty seat between Abby and Meredith as a carrot on a stick.  He didn't say hello, yet, to anybody.  Didn't announce that he was there.  He just had to make it to that seat, and then he could worry about behaving like a human being once he'd done that.  Everybody was so busy chatting in small, happy groups, nobody noticed him.

A few feet from his goal, Abby caught sight of him and lit up.  Abby looked more like her father John than like Kathy.  She'd inherited John's dirty blond hair, which she in turn dyed platinum, and she had John's button nose, and his oval face.  Uncle Derek! it looked like she wanted to say, but he supposed she'd either caught on to Rachel's choice for subtlety or had been forewarned by Kathy, because Abby didn't say anything.

“Hey,” Meredith said softly as he sat down.

He gave her a kiss.  “Are you okay?” he murmured.

“I've just been given a detailed plan about how Mark intends to woo Lexie back,” she said.

“Woo?” he said.

Mark leaned forward to see around Meredith's shoulder.  “Woo,” Mark said.  “I've been reading a how-to book.”

Derek snickered.  “A book on how to woo?”

“Hey, man,” Mark said, and he held up his hands.  “It was conversation.”

Derek pulled Meredith into his arms, and he gave her a kiss.  Thank you, he mouthed over her head.

Meredith seemed to relax in his arms.  She rested her head on his shoulder.  She didn't seem to want to say much, seemed happy to soak things in, tucked safely in his protective bubble.  He didn't begrudge her some Derek-as-a-human-shield time.

“Abby,” he said, turning to his oldest niece.

She grinned at him.  “Guess what my grade in molecular neurobiology is right now,” she said.

“Hmm,” he said.  He tried to make a show of guessing, though he knew from Kathy's excited babbling on the phone that Abby was somewhere in the summa cum laude range as she neared graduation.  “70%?”

Abby rolled her eyes and laughed.  Kathleen had asked him to let Abby shadow him for a day when she'd been a sophomore in high school.  Kathy had been trying to show her daughter what kind of career options were out there, not as anything binding, just... as helpful encouragement.  Being the awesome uncle with an awesome uncle reputation to uphold, he'd let Abby put on scrubs and watch a hemispherectomy right next to the operating table, and she'd been smitten with neurosurgery ever since.  She'd applied to his first alma mater, Bowdoin, early decision, and she'd gotten in without needing to apply anywhere else.

“I am really proud of you,” he said, and she brightened.

And that was when the room quieted, and he realized everybody was staring at him.  They'd noticed he'd joined them.  He swallowed.  His muscles stiffened, and he couldn't help but sink in his chair.  Under scrutiny, he found it a lot harder to smile, but he made himself do it.  He smiled over Meredith's head, and he squeezed her shoulder.  He wasn't sure if he was reassuring her, or reassuring himself.

“Hi, everyone,” he said, barely, to the huge crowd.

“Sibling spat resolved?” John said with a playful grin.  He and Kathy sat across the room on the piano bench like a pair of birds on a wire.

Rachel made a face.  “It wasn't a spat.”

“A misunderstanding,” Derek added kindly.

Mark elbowed Meredith, and she twitched in Derek's arms.  “Bets on the first real fight?” Mark said.

“The first?” Meredith said as she pulled away and sat up.  She looked wildly at Derek.  “As in there are multiples?”

“They're not fight fights,” he assured her.

Mark shrugged.  “Well, it is Thanksgiving.”

“But they're not real fights,” Derek interjected.  “Don't give her ideas.”  He looked at Meredith.  “They're mild disagreements.”

“Like what?” Meredith said.

Mark's eyes gleamed.  “Ask who likes Mayor Bloomberg and see.”

“Let's not do politics right, now, okay?” Derek said.  “I already have a headache.”

Mark folded his arms.  “Fine,” he said.  And then he grinned.  “Ask who likes Star Wars.”

“You wouldn't,” Derek said.

“Didn't you miss this?” Mark said, but before Derek could answer, Amelia was there right in front of him.

He flinched.  He couldn't help it.  But he collected himself quickly, and he accepted her apologetic look, giving her a wink in return.  She dropped to her haunches, crouching so she was eyelevel with him.

“Hey,” she said, leaning close to whisper against his ear, giving him a little privacy from Abby.  “How are you doing?”

“I've been better,” he said.  And then he gave her a tiny grin.  “I've also been much worse.”

Amy nodded with understanding.  “I know that feeling.”

“Thanks for...”  He swallowed.  “Thanks for all the phone calls.”

“Any time,” she told him.  She made a sweeping gesture toward the noisy room.  “Have you told them?”

“No,” he said.

“Okay,” she replied, and she pantomimed a zipper closing over her lips.  He blinked, momentarily dumbfounded to see such a profound remnant of his father in the room with them, but she'd moved away to talk to Mom before he could say anything.

That was when a small body plowed into him like a wrecking ball, and Derek flinched again.  Just a little.  His heart sped up and then slowed down.  The constant adrenaline baths were making him ache even more than he'd been aching that morning, but he steadied himself, and he managed to stuff his nerves away in a box before he reacted too badly.  He looked down to see his newest nephew staring up at him with big blue eyes and wisps of explosive, curly black hair just like Rachel's.  Cody held a little matchbox truck in one hand, and a car in the other, and it was clear from his “oops” expression that he'd gotten carried away.

For a moment, Derek was stunned.  The tiny baby with the bright smile he'd held in his arms, only weeks before he'd left Manhattan, had gotten really big.  He'd seen lots of pictures, but seeing Cody in the flesh was profoundly different.  He'd watched Cody being born.  Cody had been seven weeks premature, a tiny ball of wrinkles and skin and scrunched up eyes, and his entire hand hadn't been much bigger than Derek's thumbnail.  He seemed to be catching up to the growth curve, finally.

“Hi, Cody,” Derek said, leaning forward.

Cody didn't seem to know what to do about this big person who knew his name, and Derek's heart twinged a little.  He'd been away too long.  He was the awesome uncle.  For the kids who still recognized him, like Abby, he supposed.  The youngest Shepherds in the crowd, like Cody and Morgan, who were here, and Mary, who was in Houston with Nancy, probably wouldn't know him as anything more than a complete stranger.

Derek held out his hand and smiled.  “I'm your Uncle Derek.  Do you remember me?” he said, the words gentle.

Cody didn't say anything.  Didn't take Derek's hand.  He stared like he'd been caught with a cookie he wasn't supposed to have.  Derek could sympathize.

“I get a little nervous around new people, too,” he said.

Rachel, who'd been watching the exchange, slipped down from her chair, crawled across the bright, oriental rug, and scooted up beside her son.  She rubbed Cody's shoulder.

“Cody, this is your Uncle Derek,” she said, her voice injected with cheer.  “He was there when you were born.  I bet you don't remember that.”

Cody shook his head, and he hid behind Rachel.

“Hi, Cody!” Derek said, and he winked at his nephew.

Cody stayed mostly hidden behind Rachel.  He gripped her leg and put his cheek against her shirt.  But he smiled, and Derek saw a fantastic collection of little baby teeth that hadn't been there before.

“The last time I saw you, you fit in my arms,” Derek said.  Cody had been almost one when Derek had left for Seattle.  “Do you remember that?”

Cody shook his head.

“I don't think you could fit anymore,” Derek said.  “You look like you could be ten.”

Cody grinned, and he held up four tiny fingers.

“Four, now.  Wow!” Derek said with an appropriate level of amazement.  He glanced at Meredith and grinned.  She looked... hesitant.  Like she couldn't figure out how to enter the conversation, but she wanted to give it a try.  Families scared her, but Cody was a tiny person.  A lot less threatening.  Her hand rested on her belly, and his throat filled up, not with bad nerves for once, but yet another astonished I'm-going-to-be-a-dad-soon thought, followed by the heart-constricting additional thought, with Meredith.  He would be a dad soon with Meredith.  He coughed a little to clear his throat, and wrapped his arm over Meredith's shoulder as he turned back to his young nephew.  “Have you met your Aunt Meredith, yet?”

Cody shook his head.  He seemed more intent on jamming his cheek into Rachel's shirt than talking to these strange adults.

Meredith grinned.  “Hi, there.  I'm Meredith.  What's your name?”

Rachel gave Cody a little push.  “Cody, say hello,” she said.

“Hello,” he said reluctantly, and Derek blinked.  He remembered that voice, though when he'd left, Cody had only known a few single syllable words like ma and da.

Meredith held out her hand.  “It's really nice to meet you, Cody,” she said, but Cody seemed too shy to shake on it.

“Do you have a game you like to play?” Derek said, trying to draw Cody out a little.

When Cody didn't answer, Rachel did for him.  “He likes to play Candy Land,” she offered helpfully.

“Oh, that's a classic,” Derek said.  And then he tossed his bait.  “Do you want to play Candy Land for a few minutes?  I think your grandma has that in the library.”

Cody's eyes lit up.  Victory.  Derek grinned.  There was a reason he was the awesome uncle.  And this would be both a great way to reintroduce himself in a less crowded setting, and a great way to help Meredith get her feet wet with the whole not-a-horrible-aunt thing.

“Can I play, too?” said a small voice, and Derek looked to the right, surprised, but not overwhelmingly so.

Morgan, Kathy's youngest, a year older than Cody, stood there, too.  Her thumb was stuck in her mouth.  She wore a little teal-colored dress and a tiny pair of patent black Mary Jane shoes.  She'd inherited the same dirty blond hair from her father that Abby had, and her big security blanket dragged behind her in a fuzzy pile.

Derek beamed at her.  Double victory.  And he hadn't even been trying.

“I think that would be very fun,” he said.  He squeezed Meredith's shoulder.  “I have to warn you, though, your aunt is a card shark.”

Cody giggled.

“You think I'm kidding,” he said.

“What's a card shark?” Morgan asked.

“Derek, we've never played cards,” Meredith said, eyes twinkling.

“No,” he said, and he kissed her, “but you're great at stealing hearts.”

The whole room collectively groaned, and he chuckled when he caught Rachel's grimace as he pulled away.

“Okay, definitely still the same Derek,” Rachel said, rolling her eyes as he stood up.

“See?” he said.  He grinned at the room, nerves momentarily forgotten, and then he went to play Candy Land with his wife, niece, and nephew.