Do You Ever Get Weary - 29a
Title: Do You Ever Get Weary?
Author: greymcdreamysgh
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Mer/Der
Summary: Meredith and Derek. Home. Love. Marriage. Family. Surgery.
Disclaimer: All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. As this work is an interpretation of the original material and not for-profit, it constitutes fair use. Reference to real persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context, and are not intended to be libelous, defamatory, or in any way factual.
Previous Chapters: Here
Whenever I think about what I lost,
I change my mind instead to what I still got
Cause I've got you, I said I got you
You can call me papa, and I'll call you baby
Monday was always the longest day of the week, the day when everyone had to do a little extra to help process the backlogged weekend cases. Derek always had an especially full schedule at the beginning of the week, as he faced the inevitable battles with other department heads, who were all dealing with the same problem, for limited OR space. When he finally collapsed into bed late on the evening of Monday, March 11, Meredith was already asleep and had probably been so for several hours. Within minutes of lying down, he fell almost immediately asleep as well. Until Meredith woke him up.
"Derek?"
He heard her asking for him quietly, but urgently, and felt her hand on his shoulder, but he couldn't make himself open his eyes yet. He was lying on his side, with his back towards her. When he didn't move or say anything else, she shook him again. "Derek, wake up."
Over the past few weeks, as the baby's due date got closer and Meredith grew more uncomfortable and unable to sleep completely through the night, she got in the habit of waking him up for every little thing. Sometimes, she wanted food, and other times she had a thought she wanted to share or a question she wanted to ask. A lot of the time, she was just bored and unable to sleep and wanted him to talk to her. She reasoned that if she had to suffer, he did too, at least for this part. Fortunately, she wasn't a picky conversationalist on these kind of nights. Usually, she would just lay back and close her eyes, and they'd talk about anything. Last night, they played 'would you rather' for over an hour before she finally drifted off to sleep, leaving him to ponder the choice of never cutting his toenails again or never brushing his teeth again.
Before he opened his eyes this time, he half-started to think of a comparably disgusting choice to pose her with. Mostly, he just hoped that she would go back to sleep. "What do you need?" he mumbled.
"I need you to wake up."
He groaned a little and rolled over on to his back, but didn't open his eyes yet. "I'm up."
"No, you're not."
She grew quiet, and for a second, Derek thought that maybe she had given up and would just try to go back to bed on her own, but then she spoke up again. "I'm pretty sure I'm in labor."
Well, he could just forget about sleeping now. He opened his eyes and propped himself up on his elbow to find her facing him, doing the same thing. She looked remarkably calm, completely different from how she behaved when she went into labor with Emily. "Really?" he asked.
"Well, I had some pain this afternoon, but it went away, and now I've been up for a little while and they're regular, about every ten minutes," she said. "So yeah, I'm pretty sure."
"You could have led with that!" he said
"Just wake up when I say to next time!" she countered.
"You want to go to the hospital?" he asked.
"No, let's just wait. It'll be a big enough spectacle when we get there. And we have time. I'm ok."
"We'll just hang out here for awhile then."
The fatigue was still there, nagging at him as much as he tried to fight it. But the excitement of what the next day would bring countered the exhaustion, and lessened his craving for sleep. Both of them laid back down to wait for the next contraction, but after a moment of thought, he propped himself back up.
"Wait, you were having contractions this afternoon?" he asked. "Why didn't you page me?"
"They went away," she said. "I didn't need you."
"You didn't operate this afternoon, did you?"
"No, I just had a few consults. I haven't been on many surgeries this week."
He did that on purpose, and she knew it. Any other time, she would have fought him hard on it, told him that she could take care of herself and exactly where he could go and what he could do when he got there. But as they moved into her ninth month, and he made it his first priority to get her to take it easy, she didn't say anything about her noticeably lighter schedule. He wanted her to get as much rest as she could, and all she really wanted to do for weeks was sleep anyway. They organized her schedule this way without ever talking about it, and now she was only going into labor ten days early. They'd given this baby an extra eleven days that Emily didn't have.
"Does Emily have a bag packed?" Meredith asked.
"She was three weeks early," he replied. "I've had a bag packed for her since the beginning of the month in case this one decided to show up early too."
"Ok." She nodded to herself and closed her eyes, pressing her fingertips to her forehead with both hands. "What's today? Tuesday?"
"Yeah. It's after midnight, right?" he wondered aloud. He rolled back over a little and saw that the clock by his side of the bed read 1:39. "Yeah, Tuesday."
"Lexie's on-call then," she said, her eyes still closed. "Cristina's not officially on-call, but she's probably at the hospital anyway. I think Alex and Izzie are home, but if not, call Mark, ok?"
"You memorized your friends' schedules?"
She opened her eyes and looked right at him. "I've never done the second kid thing. We needed a couple options for what to do with the first one while we're gone having the second one."
He chuckled at that, but a moment later, when she reached for his arm and gripped hard, turning on her side a little with the pain, he snapped into coach mode. With his free arm, he rubbed her thigh under the covers and let her squeeze his arm as hard as she wanted to.
"Do you need anything?" he asked gently.
"No, I just want you," she replied through gritted teeth.
He tucked a loose lock of hair back behind her ear, and rested his hand on her tensed shoulder. "I'm right here."
They managed to stay in bed for the next two hours, barely changing their original positions. Lying on their sides, they faced each other, sometimes drawing close to each other so she could hug him and sometimes a little further apart while she dozed between contractions. He wanted her to rest as much as she could before it got worse, so they hardly spoke.
Eventually, Meredith pushed against him, trying to use him as leverage to help herself sit up. So far, deep breathing was a sufficient coping technique, but when she woke him up, she had been alert but calm, and within the past twenty minutes or so, she started to get restless. At first, she simply squeezed his arm or his hand with each contraction. Now, she couldn't help but moan a little through the past two or three of them. He silently helped her sit up, with both of their pillows behind her, and that worked for a little while longer. When she started to swing her legs over the side of the bed, he stopped her.
"What do you need?" he asked. "I'll get it for you."
"I want to get in the shower."
"Let me run the water so it's hot, ok?" he said. "Two minutes."
She nodded, and once he had turned the shower in the master bathroom on, he turned around to see her pacing deliberately around the bedroom, both hands splayed across her lower back.
"Is it ready?" she asked.
He nodded, and she nodded gratefully. "Do you want me to get in with you?" he asked, worried that a sharp pain could cause her to slip and fall.
"No."
"I'm just going to sit right here then," he said as he put the lid of the toilet seat down and took a seat.
She nodded and, after stripping her clothes off, stepped into the shower, letting the hot stream of water rain down on her lower back. She sighed with relief, and all he could do was pray that the hot water supply would hold out for as long as she needed.
"That feels better," she said.
With no clock in plain view, Derek lost track of how long they stayed in there and how far apart Meredith's contractions were. They seemed like they were getting stronger, if only because she didn't seem like she could get through them silently anymore, but she still wasn't so far along that she couldn't relax between them. In the minutes between the end of one contraction and the beginning of the next, it almost felt like it was any other morning, and they were just getting ready for work.
"Hey, Mer," he said after a few contractions' worth of silence on his part while he tried to come up with something to take her mind off the pain. "Would you rather eat only mustard for a month, or lick the sidewalk of an entire city block one time?"
"You're disgusting," she said, laughing.
Her breath caught in her throat, and she moaned loudly, like the pain took her by surprise that time. He couldn't see her from where he was sitting, but he heard her hand smack against the shower wall as she tried to find support. Even though the water was helping to take the pain away, he wished she would get out for exactly this reason. He could just see her falling the next time the pain crept up on her unexpectedly.
She got through it with quiet little moans, ones he could barely hear over the rush of the water, and after a few seconds, it was over.
"The street thing," she said.
"Really? You don't know what the hell you're putting your mouth on."
"Yeah, but it would only take five minutes. You'd do the mustard thing?"
"I'd think about it. What city I was in at the time would have a lot to do with my decision."
"Good point."
He tried to think of another one, but before he could pose the question, she cried out, let her voice catch, and then releasing it in quieter, punctuated whimpers.
"Meredith, do you want to go?" he asked.
"No, I'm ok," she said when it was over. "Just don't leave, ok?"
All he wanted to do was put her in the car and go. They could control this in almost every way within the four walls of the hospital. Meredith could have an epidural if she wanted it. A doctor who actually delivered one or two babies after her internship year could preside. It would have made him feel better. But he had to keep reminding himself that it wasn't about making him feel better. He was just nervous, not in any physical pain. If Meredith wanted to stay, then he trusted her to know her body. They could stay.
"I'm not going to leave," he assured her.
They let the rest of the night pass that way, alternating getting in and out of the shower for as long as the hot water held out. Meredith's fingers were still thoroughly wrinkled when she got back in the shower just before dawn. After the first shower, Derek changed into a short-sleeved t-shirt and stuck his entire arm into the water for her to use for support. All of a sudden, he heard a splash, like she was wringing her hair out and lots of water was hitting the floor all at once. In that moment, she gripped his arm so hard that she nearly broke the skin. She was quiet, but he heard her perfectly clearly when she said, "My water broke."
It had taken hours and hours to get to this point with Emily, and frankly, he was a little stunned that it was happening now after only five with this baby. He wondered how much time they had left, and he couldn't help but ask her, "Can we go to the hospital now?"
She didn't hesitate before replying, "Yeah, we need to go. Can you call Izzie?"
She turned the water off, and when she stepped carefully out of the shower, he had a dry towel waiting for her. "I'll get dressed and wake up Emily," she said.
"No, no, no. Just get dressed," he said. "I'll get her. We probably shouldn't let her wake up too much. Hopefully she'll go back to sleep once she gets to their house."
He made a quick phone call to Izzie to let her know they would be dropping Emily off there in a little while, and then waited while Meredith changed and blow-dried her hair until it was only slightly damp instead of soaking wet. He then helped her settle on the living room couch, and dashed back upstairs to get Emily.
He knew he was probably forgetting a million things, and he tried to go through what some of them might be while he pulled Emily's covers back. They had Meredith's bag and Emily's duffel containing a change of clothes and some things for her to play with, and he guessed that was all that really mattered. He rummaged through Emily’s top dresser drawer for some socks to put on her bare feet, and then scooped her up into his arms. Her blonde hair was unruly, and if he could have pulled it back without waking her up, he would have, just so he could see around it well enough to get down the steps without breaking an ankle.
When he got downstairs, Meredith was standing ready with Emily's coat, and he held her while she threaded Emily's arms through the sleeves.
"Daddy?" Emily mumbled, lifting her head up as if to look around but without ever opening her eyes.
"Em, we're going to take you to Izzie and Alex's house, ok?" he said in a voice that was almost softer than a whisper, hoping that she would think they got called in to see a patient and not that Meredith was going to be the patient. "Mommy and I have to go to the hospital. Just try to go back to sleep and we'll see you tomorrow."
When they loaded Emily into her car seat, she was still extremely groggy and he hoped that she would just fall back to sleep. He didn't know if it was the cold air or the noise they were trying to keep to a minimum, or just the simple act of being woken from a sound sleep, but Emily spent the first five minutes of the ride waking up, not falling back to sleep.
Meredith's contractions were still seven minutes apart, but it seemed like as soon as her water broke, the pain intensified that much more, hitting her like a ton of bricks. She had her eyes closed and her lips pursed like she was trying so hard to be absolutely silent. Her entire body tensed, and though she tried her best, she couldn't help but whimper a little when her contractions peaked.
"Mom?" Emily asked. When Meredith couldn't respond, she asked again, her voice wavering.
Meredith shook her head and gripped her chair's arm rest, and Derek glanced in the rearview at Emily, who was now wide awake. "Mommy's ok, Em," he said.
"Why is Mommy hurting?"
"The baby is ready to come out, and that makes Mommy's belly hurt," he explained. "Remember how we talked about that?"
"I'm ok, Em," Meredith said as soon as she could. She turned a little in her seat so she could look at Emily. "We'll see you in a little bit. Alex and Izzie will bring you to the hospital as soon as they can."
Though they tried to explain and comfort as best they could, by the time they made it to Alex and Izzie's house a little while later, Emily was nearly in tears. He parked in the driveway, and scooped Emily into his arms, realizing that she didn't have any shoes on. He couldn't even remember if they put an extra pair in her bag for her.
"We'll see you really soon, ok, Bean?" he said, trying not to rush so much that she would notice. He slung her bag over his shoulder and started to carry her up the steps to the house, but Emily leaned out of his arms and cried, "Mommy!"
Meredith opened her door, and Emily reached out from Derek's arms for a reassuring hug and kiss. "I'm ok," Meredith promised. "Everything's ok. You don't have to be scared, I'll see you soon."
Emily nodded hesitantly, convincing neither of them, but Derek shut Meredith's door and carried Emily up to the open front door.
Alex and Izzie, still in their pajamas, held the storm door open for them and ushered them inside. Derek set Emily in her stocking feet down on the floor, but as soon as he did, she turned and reached to be picked up again.
He didn't want to oblige her, knowing that it would take another ten minutes to get out the door and continue on to the hospital if he did, but Alex picked her up without a word instead.
"Hey, buddy, you're going to be a big sister!" Izzie said, and Derek hoped that some of her enthusiasm would transfer to Emily. "Where's Mer?"
"She's in the car."
"How is she?"
"She's good," he said, feeling a strong sense of urgency to get back to her. "She's managing."
"Tell her we can't wait to see the baby!" Izzie said. "And that there is no shame in an epidural."
He smiled. "I'll let her know."
"Should we take her to school?" Izzie asked, taking Emily's bag from Derek.
At the mere mention of school, Emily's eyes filled with tears and she looked at him with such horror on her face, with a look that said plainly, 'Please don't make me.'
"Actually," Izzie said gently, taking note of Emily's reaction. "I'm going to take a sick day, so if your dad says it's ok, you can hang out at our house for awhile. We can watch movies and bake cupcakes, whatever you want."
"You don't have to go to school today," he told Emily, before turning to Izzie. "I'll call her out of school as soon as we get to the hospital."
Emily nodded, and her voice broke on the words, "I want my mom."
Alex held on to her a little more tightly, anticipating that she might try to squirm, and Izzie touched her arm and gently said, "You'll get to see your mom really soon. We just need to let the baby come out and then we can go see her."
"No, I want her right now."
"Em, Mommy's ok," Derek said. He kissed Emily's forehead and whispered, "I promise I'll take good care of her. And I promise I'll call as soon as you can come see her and Roo. We just need you to be a good girl for Alex and Izzie while we're gone. Can you do that?"
Emily nodded, but still said tearfully, "I want Mommy."
"I know," he said, wondering how long he left Meredith alone. "I have to go, I'm sorry," he said with one last kiss. "I love you, Bean, and I'll see you soon."
"Is she ok?" Meredith asked as soon as he got back in the car.
He chose to tell a white lie for everyone's good rather than tell her that they left her crying, and said, "She's fine."
Author: greymcdreamysgh
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Mer/Der
Summary: Meredith and Derek. Home. Love. Marriage. Family. Surgery.
Disclaimer: All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. As this work is an interpretation of the original material and not for-profit, it constitutes fair use. Reference to real persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context, and are not intended to be libelous, defamatory, or in any way factual.
Previous Chapters: Here
Whenever I think about what I lost,
I change my mind instead to what I still got
Cause I've got you, I said I got you
You can call me papa, and I'll call you baby
Monday was always the longest day of the week, the day when everyone had to do a little extra to help process the backlogged weekend cases. Derek always had an especially full schedule at the beginning of the week, as he faced the inevitable battles with other department heads, who were all dealing with the same problem, for limited OR space. When he finally collapsed into bed late on the evening of Monday, March 11, Meredith was already asleep and had probably been so for several hours. Within minutes of lying down, he fell almost immediately asleep as well. Until Meredith woke him up.
"Derek?"
He heard her asking for him quietly, but urgently, and felt her hand on his shoulder, but he couldn't make himself open his eyes yet. He was lying on his side, with his back towards her. When he didn't move or say anything else, she shook him again. "Derek, wake up."
Over the past few weeks, as the baby's due date got closer and Meredith grew more uncomfortable and unable to sleep completely through the night, she got in the habit of waking him up for every little thing. Sometimes, she wanted food, and other times she had a thought she wanted to share or a question she wanted to ask. A lot of the time, she was just bored and unable to sleep and wanted him to talk to her. She reasoned that if she had to suffer, he did too, at least for this part. Fortunately, she wasn't a picky conversationalist on these kind of nights. Usually, she would just lay back and close her eyes, and they'd talk about anything. Last night, they played 'would you rather' for over an hour before she finally drifted off to sleep, leaving him to ponder the choice of never cutting his toenails again or never brushing his teeth again.
Before he opened his eyes this time, he half-started to think of a comparably disgusting choice to pose her with. Mostly, he just hoped that she would go back to sleep. "What do you need?" he mumbled.
"I need you to wake up."
He groaned a little and rolled over on to his back, but didn't open his eyes yet. "I'm up."
"No, you're not."
She grew quiet, and for a second, Derek thought that maybe she had given up and would just try to go back to bed on her own, but then she spoke up again. "I'm pretty sure I'm in labor."
Well, he could just forget about sleeping now. He opened his eyes and propped himself up on his elbow to find her facing him, doing the same thing. She looked remarkably calm, completely different from how she behaved when she went into labor with Emily. "Really?" he asked.
"Well, I had some pain this afternoon, but it went away, and now I've been up for a little while and they're regular, about every ten minutes," she said. "So yeah, I'm pretty sure."
"You could have led with that!" he said
"Just wake up when I say to next time!" she countered.
"You want to go to the hospital?" he asked.
"No, let's just wait. It'll be a big enough spectacle when we get there. And we have time. I'm ok."
"We'll just hang out here for awhile then."
The fatigue was still there, nagging at him as much as he tried to fight it. But the excitement of what the next day would bring countered the exhaustion, and lessened his craving for sleep. Both of them laid back down to wait for the next contraction, but after a moment of thought, he propped himself back up.
"Wait, you were having contractions this afternoon?" he asked. "Why didn't you page me?"
"They went away," she said. "I didn't need you."
"You didn't operate this afternoon, did you?"
"No, I just had a few consults. I haven't been on many surgeries this week."
He did that on purpose, and she knew it. Any other time, she would have fought him hard on it, told him that she could take care of herself and exactly where he could go and what he could do when he got there. But as they moved into her ninth month, and he made it his first priority to get her to take it easy, she didn't say anything about her noticeably lighter schedule. He wanted her to get as much rest as she could, and all she really wanted to do for weeks was sleep anyway. They organized her schedule this way without ever talking about it, and now she was only going into labor ten days early. They'd given this baby an extra eleven days that Emily didn't have.
"Does Emily have a bag packed?" Meredith asked.
"She was three weeks early," he replied. "I've had a bag packed for her since the beginning of the month in case this one decided to show up early too."
"Ok." She nodded to herself and closed her eyes, pressing her fingertips to her forehead with both hands. "What's today? Tuesday?"
"Yeah. It's after midnight, right?" he wondered aloud. He rolled back over a little and saw that the clock by his side of the bed read 1:39. "Yeah, Tuesday."
"Lexie's on-call then," she said, her eyes still closed. "Cristina's not officially on-call, but she's probably at the hospital anyway. I think Alex and Izzie are home, but if not, call Mark, ok?"
"You memorized your friends' schedules?"
She opened her eyes and looked right at him. "I've never done the second kid thing. We needed a couple options for what to do with the first one while we're gone having the second one."
He chuckled at that, but a moment later, when she reached for his arm and gripped hard, turning on her side a little with the pain, he snapped into coach mode. With his free arm, he rubbed her thigh under the covers and let her squeeze his arm as hard as she wanted to.
"Do you need anything?" he asked gently.
"No, I just want you," she replied through gritted teeth.
He tucked a loose lock of hair back behind her ear, and rested his hand on her tensed shoulder. "I'm right here."
They managed to stay in bed for the next two hours, barely changing their original positions. Lying on their sides, they faced each other, sometimes drawing close to each other so she could hug him and sometimes a little further apart while she dozed between contractions. He wanted her to rest as much as she could before it got worse, so they hardly spoke.
Eventually, Meredith pushed against him, trying to use him as leverage to help herself sit up. So far, deep breathing was a sufficient coping technique, but when she woke him up, she had been alert but calm, and within the past twenty minutes or so, she started to get restless. At first, she simply squeezed his arm or his hand with each contraction. Now, she couldn't help but moan a little through the past two or three of them. He silently helped her sit up, with both of their pillows behind her, and that worked for a little while longer. When she started to swing her legs over the side of the bed, he stopped her.
"What do you need?" he asked. "I'll get it for you."
"I want to get in the shower."
"Let me run the water so it's hot, ok?" he said. "Two minutes."
She nodded, and once he had turned the shower in the master bathroom on, he turned around to see her pacing deliberately around the bedroom, both hands splayed across her lower back.
"Is it ready?" she asked.
He nodded, and she nodded gratefully. "Do you want me to get in with you?" he asked, worried that a sharp pain could cause her to slip and fall.
"No."
"I'm just going to sit right here then," he said as he put the lid of the toilet seat down and took a seat.
She nodded and, after stripping her clothes off, stepped into the shower, letting the hot stream of water rain down on her lower back. She sighed with relief, and all he could do was pray that the hot water supply would hold out for as long as she needed.
"That feels better," she said.
With no clock in plain view, Derek lost track of how long they stayed in there and how far apart Meredith's contractions were. They seemed like they were getting stronger, if only because she didn't seem like she could get through them silently anymore, but she still wasn't so far along that she couldn't relax between them. In the minutes between the end of one contraction and the beginning of the next, it almost felt like it was any other morning, and they were just getting ready for work.
"Hey, Mer," he said after a few contractions' worth of silence on his part while he tried to come up with something to take her mind off the pain. "Would you rather eat only mustard for a month, or lick the sidewalk of an entire city block one time?"
"You're disgusting," she said, laughing.
Her breath caught in her throat, and she moaned loudly, like the pain took her by surprise that time. He couldn't see her from where he was sitting, but he heard her hand smack against the shower wall as she tried to find support. Even though the water was helping to take the pain away, he wished she would get out for exactly this reason. He could just see her falling the next time the pain crept up on her unexpectedly.
She got through it with quiet little moans, ones he could barely hear over the rush of the water, and after a few seconds, it was over.
"The street thing," she said.
"Really? You don't know what the hell you're putting your mouth on."
"Yeah, but it would only take five minutes. You'd do the mustard thing?"
"I'd think about it. What city I was in at the time would have a lot to do with my decision."
"Good point."
He tried to think of another one, but before he could pose the question, she cried out, let her voice catch, and then releasing it in quieter, punctuated whimpers.
"Meredith, do you want to go?" he asked.
"No, I'm ok," she said when it was over. "Just don't leave, ok?"
All he wanted to do was put her in the car and go. They could control this in almost every way within the four walls of the hospital. Meredith could have an epidural if she wanted it. A doctor who actually delivered one or two babies after her internship year could preside. It would have made him feel better. But he had to keep reminding himself that it wasn't about making him feel better. He was just nervous, not in any physical pain. If Meredith wanted to stay, then he trusted her to know her body. They could stay.
"I'm not going to leave," he assured her.
They let the rest of the night pass that way, alternating getting in and out of the shower for as long as the hot water held out. Meredith's fingers were still thoroughly wrinkled when she got back in the shower just before dawn. After the first shower, Derek changed into a short-sleeved t-shirt and stuck his entire arm into the water for her to use for support. All of a sudden, he heard a splash, like she was wringing her hair out and lots of water was hitting the floor all at once. In that moment, she gripped his arm so hard that she nearly broke the skin. She was quiet, but he heard her perfectly clearly when she said, "My water broke."
It had taken hours and hours to get to this point with Emily, and frankly, he was a little stunned that it was happening now after only five with this baby. He wondered how much time they had left, and he couldn't help but ask her, "Can we go to the hospital now?"
She didn't hesitate before replying, "Yeah, we need to go. Can you call Izzie?"
She turned the water off, and when she stepped carefully out of the shower, he had a dry towel waiting for her. "I'll get dressed and wake up Emily," she said.
"No, no, no. Just get dressed," he said. "I'll get her. We probably shouldn't let her wake up too much. Hopefully she'll go back to sleep once she gets to their house."
He made a quick phone call to Izzie to let her know they would be dropping Emily off there in a little while, and then waited while Meredith changed and blow-dried her hair until it was only slightly damp instead of soaking wet. He then helped her settle on the living room couch, and dashed back upstairs to get Emily.
He knew he was probably forgetting a million things, and he tried to go through what some of them might be while he pulled Emily's covers back. They had Meredith's bag and Emily's duffel containing a change of clothes and some things for her to play with, and he guessed that was all that really mattered. He rummaged through Emily’s top dresser drawer for some socks to put on her bare feet, and then scooped her up into his arms. Her blonde hair was unruly, and if he could have pulled it back without waking her up, he would have, just so he could see around it well enough to get down the steps without breaking an ankle.
When he got downstairs, Meredith was standing ready with Emily's coat, and he held her while she threaded Emily's arms through the sleeves.
"Daddy?" Emily mumbled, lifting her head up as if to look around but without ever opening her eyes.
"Em, we're going to take you to Izzie and Alex's house, ok?" he said in a voice that was almost softer than a whisper, hoping that she would think they got called in to see a patient and not that Meredith was going to be the patient. "Mommy and I have to go to the hospital. Just try to go back to sleep and we'll see you tomorrow."
When they loaded Emily into her car seat, she was still extremely groggy and he hoped that she would just fall back to sleep. He didn't know if it was the cold air or the noise they were trying to keep to a minimum, or just the simple act of being woken from a sound sleep, but Emily spent the first five minutes of the ride waking up, not falling back to sleep.
Meredith's contractions were still seven minutes apart, but it seemed like as soon as her water broke, the pain intensified that much more, hitting her like a ton of bricks. She had her eyes closed and her lips pursed like she was trying so hard to be absolutely silent. Her entire body tensed, and though she tried her best, she couldn't help but whimper a little when her contractions peaked.
"Mom?" Emily asked. When Meredith couldn't respond, she asked again, her voice wavering.
Meredith shook her head and gripped her chair's arm rest, and Derek glanced in the rearview at Emily, who was now wide awake. "Mommy's ok, Em," he said.
"Why is Mommy hurting?"
"The baby is ready to come out, and that makes Mommy's belly hurt," he explained. "Remember how we talked about that?"
"I'm ok, Em," Meredith said as soon as she could. She turned a little in her seat so she could look at Emily. "We'll see you in a little bit. Alex and Izzie will bring you to the hospital as soon as they can."
Though they tried to explain and comfort as best they could, by the time they made it to Alex and Izzie's house a little while later, Emily was nearly in tears. He parked in the driveway, and scooped Emily into his arms, realizing that she didn't have any shoes on. He couldn't even remember if they put an extra pair in her bag for her.
"We'll see you really soon, ok, Bean?" he said, trying not to rush so much that she would notice. He slung her bag over his shoulder and started to carry her up the steps to the house, but Emily leaned out of his arms and cried, "Mommy!"
Meredith opened her door, and Emily reached out from Derek's arms for a reassuring hug and kiss. "I'm ok," Meredith promised. "Everything's ok. You don't have to be scared, I'll see you soon."
Emily nodded hesitantly, convincing neither of them, but Derek shut Meredith's door and carried Emily up to the open front door.
Alex and Izzie, still in their pajamas, held the storm door open for them and ushered them inside. Derek set Emily in her stocking feet down on the floor, but as soon as he did, she turned and reached to be picked up again.
He didn't want to oblige her, knowing that it would take another ten minutes to get out the door and continue on to the hospital if he did, but Alex picked her up without a word instead.
"Hey, buddy, you're going to be a big sister!" Izzie said, and Derek hoped that some of her enthusiasm would transfer to Emily. "Where's Mer?"
"She's in the car."
"How is she?"
"She's good," he said, feeling a strong sense of urgency to get back to her. "She's managing."
"Tell her we can't wait to see the baby!" Izzie said. "And that there is no shame in an epidural."
He smiled. "I'll let her know."
"Should we take her to school?" Izzie asked, taking Emily's bag from Derek.
At the mere mention of school, Emily's eyes filled with tears and she looked at him with such horror on her face, with a look that said plainly, 'Please don't make me.'
"Actually," Izzie said gently, taking note of Emily's reaction. "I'm going to take a sick day, so if your dad says it's ok, you can hang out at our house for awhile. We can watch movies and bake cupcakes, whatever you want."
"You don't have to go to school today," he told Emily, before turning to Izzie. "I'll call her out of school as soon as we get to the hospital."
Emily nodded, and her voice broke on the words, "I want my mom."
Alex held on to her a little more tightly, anticipating that she might try to squirm, and Izzie touched her arm and gently said, "You'll get to see your mom really soon. We just need to let the baby come out and then we can go see her."
"No, I want her right now."
"Em, Mommy's ok," Derek said. He kissed Emily's forehead and whispered, "I promise I'll take good care of her. And I promise I'll call as soon as you can come see her and Roo. We just need you to be a good girl for Alex and Izzie while we're gone. Can you do that?"
Emily nodded, but still said tearfully, "I want Mommy."
"I know," he said, wondering how long he left Meredith alone. "I have to go, I'm sorry," he said with one last kiss. "I love you, Bean, and I'll see you soon."
"Is she ok?" Meredith asked as soon as he got back in the car.
He chose to tell a white lie for everyone's good rather than tell her that they left her crying, and said, "She's fine."