Do You Ever Get Weary - 30!
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
"Thankfully, people keep coming back to the beach (and, for that matter, to love) for this lesson: sometimes it's best to get your walls knocked over and lose your most cherished constructs and be fully swept away.... The beach is not as much about slackness of mind (although there is some good in that) as it is about mindfulness to small and simple things. The beach teaches us to redefine rush. It teaches us the value of pause. It sinks us into contentment, and keeps building us up. We keep getting the chance to transform ourselves. With any shift of wind or weight, we know we can come about…and we can keep on coming about. And that slow, crooked seemingly aimless path of our lives at the beach may just be getting us closer and closer to our best selves." - How to Live at the Beach
In the end, she always hoped to end up back here. And not just at this house, though seeing Emily run joyously out onto the sand when they arrived yesterday was enough to make her well up with tears.
For a long time after their joint extended hiatus from surgery, they talked about taking more regular vacations, just some time away from grueling 60-hour work weeks to recharge their batteries, but then his mother got cancer, and they had another baby, and she started her fellowship, and before they knew it, it had been three years since they were here.
Everything still looked the same. The people who owned the house still hadn't put in a dishwasher and now, the house felt even smaller than it did before. But the sun still poured into the bedrooms upstairs, and the moist, gritty sand under her feet now as she walked away from the jetty still lifted her up.
"Mom?"
Looking at her, it seemed ridiculous that she could even think that everything looked the same. Emily was in pull-up diapers the last time they were here. Now, she had grown tall for her age, lost all her baby fat, and her hair had lengthened into loose waves and darkened to the color of buttered toast. She had just made the age cut-off and was about to start first grade, and had a mouth full of lost and loose teeth to prove it.
Emily didn't wait for a response before she continued with her question. "You know how when you lose a tooth, the part of your mouth where the tooth was is all soft?"
Meredith nodded. They'd put the first three teeth under Emily's pillow for the tooth fairy over the last two months and spent much time, at Emily's request, exploring the empty spaces in her mouth. "Yes."
"Is that what a brain feels like?"
She paused for consideration. Of all the ways that she could try to explain it to Emily, a soft gum might have been the most relevant and easily understood, if not a perfect match. "A little bit."
"Can I come to the hospital with you one day so I can touch a brain and see?"
She smiled, and remembered a time when she was five years old and was awed by the thought of her mother's hand inside someone's body, fixing it, healing it. Emily had never seen either she or Derek operate before, and since she started full-day kindergarten the September after Jack was born, she hadn't been to the hospital much at all.
When Meredith went back to work when Jack was three months old, they put him in the hospital daycare with Brenda and kept Emily in full-day preschool. But they finally broke down and hired a part-time babysitter who stayed with Emily during the day for the past two summers and picked her up from school at 3:30 each afternoon. It wasn't ideal, or exactly what Meredith wanted, but it was better than the alternative of using the gallery as a de facto babysitter. And so, Emily was nearly six years old and had never seen a surgery before. Not even an appy.
"We don't really touch brains with our fingers, Em," Meredith said. "We have tools that we use."
"Well, I can touch one with my finger," Emily shrugged. They could see the house in the distance, coming closer and closer to it, and to Derek and Jack, as they kept walking. "Can you find one for me?" Emily asked hopefully. "It doesn't have to be one that's in somebody's head already."
Meredith chuckled as Emily tried to negotiate a deal. "We don't really keep extra brains lying around, Em. But you can touch one of the models that we use if you want. It feels just like a real brain."
"But it's not a real brain."
"No, it's not."
Emily sighed. "I really need a real one."
"I don't know if I can find you a real brain, Em."
"Can you try?" Emily asked hopefully.
Meredith nodded. She could at least promise that. "Yeah, I'll try."
Emily seemed content to leave it at that, and she kept walking with an extra spring in her step, clutching a bucket of seashells that they had collected on the first half of the walk. Her green and pink polka dot bikini, worn today for the first time, was still bone dry, and Meredith knew Emily was trying to be a good sport but was itching to get into the ocean.
"Why do you want to see what a brain feels like anyway?" she asked after a minute.
Emily shrugged. "Cause it's cool."
"You don't think it's gross? Brains have blood and guts and stuff on them."
Emily shook her head and reached for Meredith's hand with her free one, pulling on Meredith's arm as she said simply, "You don't."
Meredith smiled and squeezed Emily's hand. She could see two chairs and a blue and white umbrella in front of their house, and enough of Derek's bare legs jutting forward even though she couldn't quite see his body yet.
"I'll see if I can find you a brain," she promised.
They found Derek and Jack just where they'd left them almost an hour before, when Emily was begging to do something fun but Jack was more than ready for his afternoon nap. Derek reclined in his beach chair, with his legs stretched out, his feet burrowed into the sand, and Jack asleep against his bare chest.
It seemed like Jack had sprung up into a bright-eyed little boy almost overnight. Like his sister, he was curious and imaginative, but while Emily was methodical, Jack was spontaneous, energetic, boundless. He started out with a head full of dark hair and dark blue eyes, and every day, he built on that to look more and more like Derek.
It happened less and less as she grew fully out of the child's role and into the mother's, but sometimes, despite everything, she wished that at least one of her parents were in her life, just so she could see what was passed down beyond the obvious. Derek knew what kind of baby he was, and even if he couldn't remember everything for himself, he had a clear picture of what his early childhood was like and how he fit into it. They knew exactly what qualities of Jack's or Emily's could be potentially traced back to Derek, because Derek's mother could tell them so. Sometimes-rarely, but still, sometimes-she wished that someone was there to point out some of the good things and say, "Oh, Meredith, they're just like you."
"Daddy," Emily shouted.
Derek, cradling Jack with one hand, held his free hand up to his lips. "Shhh," he reminded her.
"Me and Mommy got like 28 shells," Emily said, quieter this time.
"Twenty-eight?" he asked.
Meredith sat down in the empty chair next to him. The umbrella shaded her completely, but she kept her cover-up on anyway, smoothing it over her thighs. Emily held on to her bucket, but shifted impatiently from one foot to the other.
"Yep. A lot of them are little though."
"Well, still. A shell's a shell, right?"
She shrugged. "Can you come in the ocean with me?"
"When Jack wakes up, I will," he promised.
"When will that be?"
"He's not getting burnt, right?" Meredith interrupted.
"I think he's ok."
Meredith pursed her lips, and then pulled a towel out of their bag. She spread it over Jack, covering his shoulders, and leaned over to make sure his face was shaded. He probably really was fine, but she shuddered at the thought of sunburn on a baby. He'd play the rest of the afternoon, but at night when the pain actually set in, he would scream and scream and there would be nothing she could do.
"Dad," Emily interjected, and repeated her question. "When will he wake up?"
"Probably soon."
"Can't you just wake him up right now?" she said, her voice drawing out into a definite whine.
Derek smiled. If they woke Jack up before he was ready, no one would be doing anything fun. "Nice try. Ask Mommy to take you in for a little while and then I'll come down," he offered.
"She won't go in the high waves with me," Emily whined as Derek put a reminder finger to his lips. "Will you, Mom?"
She wanted to. She really did. But she just didn't trust herself to keep a good hold on Emily in waves up to her waist and nearly over Emily's head. And even if she did carry her out there, Emily wouldn't have wanted to stand still anyway. She wanted to jump in headfirst and have an adventure.
Meredith noticed it more and more ever since Emily started what she called "real school" last September. Emily wanted to keep up. She wanted to do everything all the other kids had done, and she wanted to do it better. And especially since Jack was born, she didn't want to be a baby anymore. It's why she only called her 'Mommy' at home, and even then, only about half the time.
"Sorry, Em."
"See?" Emily asked Derek pointedly.
"Em, it probably won't be that much longer."
Meredith eased herself up out of her chair and reached for Emily's hand. "Em, come on, Daddy will be down in a little bit."
"Dad!"
"Emily, if you wake up your brother, then we won't be going in the ocean at all, I can tell you that right now," Derek said, consciously trying not to raise his voice. "He will probably be awake soon anyway, but I would like you to please be patient."
Emily pouted, but followed Meredith down to the shoreline. Overall, she had adjusted well over the past eighteen months, but sometimes she got tired of being told that she had to be patient, that Jack wasn't big enough to do something yet.
In the wet sand by the water, Emily plopped down and started to dig. "Mommy," Emily said. "Come on!"
Meredith bunched her cover-up around her waist and sat cross-legged on the sand next to Emily, helping her to make the drippy sand castles that Derek had taught them both how to do. She let the sand slip through her fingers as Emily scooped wet sand with both hands and packed it into a solid foundation.
"Mommy?" Emily asked a few minutes later. "Can I go in the water for a little bit? Not in the deep part?"
Meredith nodded, and watched Emily wade in. She bent to wash the wet sand off her bare legs as Emily rolled onto her back in shallow water and let the waves trickle in and ripple over her belly.
"Mom, look at me!" Emily cried, waving her arms and legs up and down. She looked like she had just taken a mud bath, and even her hair, splayed out against the ground, was caked with sand.
Meredith didn't want to stand too close to her, or give any indication whatsoever that she may be hovering, but she kept a sharp eye on exactly how deep and how strong the waves were by the time they reached Emily.
"You look like you're making snow angels," Meredith called out so Emily could hear her over the roar of the surf.
"No, sand angels!"
"You're doing a good job," she said, as a slightly bigger wave rolled in with an extra inch of water. "Lift your head up, Em!"
"What?" Emily turned her head towards the ocean just in time to catch a splash of water right in the face. Quickly, she pulled herself into a sitting position, rubbed her eyes with sandy fingers, and coughed a bit.
"You ok?" Meredith asked, fighting the urge to make her get up and move further away from the water's edge.
Emily nodded, and threw in a smile for good measure. "Mommy, I have so much sand on me!" she said, taking notice of her hair and hands for the first time.
"It's ok. It'll come off!"
Over six years ago-still hard to believe-when she was pregnant with Emily, she worried about a million and one different things that all essentially boiled down into one overarching, distinct, nearly paralyzing fear: she absolutely could not mess this baby up. The only thing she knew for sure then was that she was going to get a blank slate of a kid-healthy, thankfully, as proven by numerous ultrasounds-but a blank slate nonetheless. And she wasn't exactly the world's most stellar role model. And if genetics had anything to do with it, well, she was just flat-out screwed.
Just when she thought she had pretty much put her childhood behind her, it came roaring back in the form of a surprise pregnancy that she was in no way ready for. Sure, when she found out about the baby, she was in her thirties, had a good job, and was about to get married. On the surface, she should have been ready, overjoyed even, the way Derek was, but she was absolutely terrified. Every memory she tried to repress just wouldn't stay down-playing on the floor of the OR gallery, watching surgeries while she waited until it was finally time to go home, looking into her mommy's eyes and seeing what she knew, even at four years old, was resentment and a sort of helplessness. Only now, she wasn't in the memories anymore; her own nameless, faceless child had taken her place.
For months, she worried that she couldn't love the baby as much as she should, or as much as any normal person would. She didn't want to be a bad mother, but maybe she would turn out to be wired that way. Maybe she just didn't have it in her. She worried even more when she found out that the baby was a girl and though Derek had tried to understand, the intensity of her fear mystified him. And then suddenly, the baby was in her arms, and she was stunned and relieved at how quickly, how wholly and completely, she loved her. Once she realized that though, another question still nagged at her. This love felt so instinctual, so primal, that she couldn't help but wonder why Ellis Grey was the way that she was.
She still worried all the time that she wasn't doing this right. After all, she was learning as she went along. But she and Derek had raised a happy nearly-six-year-old, and looking at Emily now, Meredith knew that her family was the single biggest achievement of her life. It may not have seemed that way to anyone on the outside, but Emily was playing and laughing and she had a sweet little brother who was asleep in his father's arms. It was bigger than med school, bigger than becoming a surgeon, bigger than marrying Derek even. To her, these kids, and the fact that they not only existed at all but that they were happy, was improbable, astounding, extraordinary.
"Hey," Derek said, startling Meredith out of her thoughts. "Look who's up."
Jack, always slow to wake, rested his head on Derek's shoulder but looked at Meredith with a shy smile. His little belly poked out-he was always thirsty when he woke up and had probably just drank almost a full sippy cup of water-and his navy blue swim trunks didn't cover the top of his swimmy diaper.
She opened her arms and he leaned out of Derek's grasp and into hers. "Hi, Jack," she murmured, and kissed his forehead before he settled against her. "Did you have a nice nap?"
He nodded.
"Do you want to go in the water?"
He shook his head.
"I'm going to take her out a little before she freaks out," Derek said. Meredith nodded and held on to Jack while she watched Derek swing Emily into his arms and then set her down in the waves. He held on to her, lifting her up as each wave crested around them. Meanwhile, Jack wrapped his legs around her waist and rested his left arm on her shoulder. He sucked his thumb and watched Derek and Emily play while he tried to wake up.
When she was pregnant with Jack, one of Meredith's biggest worries was that they had maxed out their good kid karma with Emily. She wanted the second baby to be just like the first. Realistically, she knew Emily wasn't the perfect pollyanna of a child, but she was perfect in all the ways that counted to Meredith, and to get another child who was just like that seemed next to impossible.
Fortunately, it didn't happen that way. Emily and Jack had their similarities, but Meredith quickly understood that she didn't want a second Emily. She just wanted Jack to be Jack.
He snuggled against her, and she couldn't believe how quickly he had grown up. It didn't seem like that long ago that she was home on maternity leave, studying for her boards with him swaddled and nestled against her. He was running now, like actually running fast enough to where she had to really chase him rather than just pretend to. He was talking too, not quite as much as Emily was at eighteen months, but then again, everyone told her that boys tended to be a little bit slower at this kind of thing.
"Daddy?" Jack asked after a few minutes of watching Derek and Emily in the water. He pointed to Derek, but didn't squirm in Meredith's arms.
"Yeah, Daddy's playing with Emily."
"Emmy?"
"Yeah, with Daddy."
"Me go too?"
Meredith smiled. "You can try."
She hoisted him off her hip and, holding him by the armpits, dipped him into the water as a wave rolled in and rushed around his ankles. Jack shrieked with delight and kicked his feet out, creating as big a splash as a toddler could. She lifted him up, and then dipped him again, and he kept screaming and laughing, loud enough so that Derek and Emily turned around to see what the commotion was. She did it a third time, and a bigger wave came rushing up and actually drenched him up to his waist.
When she picked him up again and put him back on her hip, he gripped her so tightly that it felt like he'd never let go. His legs, which had just been so warm from being covered with a towel, were clammy and cold against her skin, and he started to soak her cover-up through.
"Mama!" he cried, and for a second, she worried that he was scared, but when she looked at his face, she saw that he was smiling in a sort of delighted, surprised way.
"The water is cold, huh?"
He nodded, and she dipped him into the water again. He screamed with joy and when she pulled him back up to her and tickled him, he threw his head back and wouldn't stop laughing.
"Mama! Mama!" he kept saying between giggles.
"Oh, Jack," she said, holding him close and kissing his cheeks and his forehead and his neck. "Jack, Jack, Jack. I love you."
Later, when Emily finally decided to take a break from the water, Derek and Meredith sat down in their chairs to watch Emily and Jack digging in the sand a few feet ahead. The armrests on their chairs touched, and though they sat in silence for long while, after only a few minutes, he reached for her hand.
"Hey," she said. "When we get back to the hospital, Emily wants us to find her a brain."
"What does she need a brain for?"
"She wants to touch one. She thinks it's cool."
Derek laughed heartily at that and, squeezing her hand, he brought it to his lips and kissed it.
They had been discussing lately, very calmly and more rationally than Meredith had ever discussed anything in her life, the pros and cons of having one more baby. At nearly 45 years old, Derek worried that maybe he was too old, and Meredith pointed out that having a baby at 45 wasn't all that different from having one at 43. When Meredith worried that in a year, she would be an attending and Derek might be chief soon as well for all they knew, Derek reminded her that in a lot of ways, being an attending was a hell of a lot easier than residency and that he certainly wouldn't be accepting the chief position with three kids under the age of eight.
Nothing was decided, and she hadn't gone off birth control yet, but it seemed like they were leaning towards going for it. She still worried about how difficult it might be, even just trying to get pregnant at all since they really weren't as young as they used to be, but she knew it would be worth it. And if it didn't happen, or they decided not to do it, she knew neither of her kids would face the world alone and for her, that was enough.
Right now though, they were just taking a break from it all, letting everything from the outside world continue on without them. At first, it was hard to slow down and she felt guilty that she was doing absolutely nothing, but 24 hours in and she could feel it down in her bones-the deep relaxation that came with escape and stillness.
"I love it here," she sighed. "It's so peaceful."
"Enjoy the peace now," Derek said. "The Shepherds descend on Seattle in a few days."
For the first time ever, they were inviting all of Derek's sisters, his mother, and whichever nieces and nephews wanted to come out to Seattle for Emily's birthday. His mother had of course visited numerous times, and now that she had been cancer-free for twenty months, they were making it a point to get her out to visit every three months or so. Annie and Kathleen flew out a few weeks after Jack was born, and all four of them had visited at least once since Derek had moved out here, but never all five at once. She and Derek still didn't have a final headcount on how many were actually coming, and they were all staying in a hotel anyway, but still, it had the potential to be an interesting visit.
"Emily's going to be six," she said in disbelief. "Six years old. How?"
"I don't know," he said, shaking his head. "Was Cristina able to get a flight?"
Meredith nodded. The biggest adjustment by far in the transition from resident to fellow wasn't the research she was expected to do or the new procedures she needed to learn. It took her months to get used to Cristina, George, and Izzie's absence, which, even though she still had Alex, made Seattle Grace feel like an entirely different hospital. George made it a point to email regularly and call once a week like clockwork, even if only to talk to Emily and Jack when Meredith wasn't home. And Izzie was, of course, still in Seattle, though just at a different hospital. She and Alex were still living in Meredith's old house, and Meredith was excited to know that, starting in about five months, at least one child would have a happy childhood there.
The time difference and the crazy working hours made it difficult to connect with Cristina, but sometimes when she least expected it, her phone would vibrate with a text that said something as simple as 'CABG. Solo today.' and that at least let her know that Cristina was happy. Still, she looked forward to her visits every other month, even though they were always so short, and she couldn't help but hope that she would move back to Seattle after her fellowship ended next July.
"She gets in on Sunday. She's only staying for two days, but...."
"Still, it'll be good to see her," he said. "Does she need a place to stay? We can't fit my insane family, but we can fit Cristina in our house."
Meredith shook her head. "She's staying with Garrett."
"How's that going with them?"
"Well, they've been together for two years, and half of that has been spent living at opposite ends of the country, but I think it's going pretty well considering. They're still together; that has to mean something."
She glanced over at the kids just in time to see Jack jump inside the hole that he and Emily had been digging, and step on the sand castle she had built around it in the process. Clumsily, he plopped down and his little butt hit the edges of the hole, collapsing sheets of packed sand into the hole with him. He scooped some of the sand out and added it to Emily's castle, patting it hard enough that some of it toppled over.
"Jack!" Emily shrieked. "Mom! He's not doing it right!"
A few months ago, she might have tried to hit him, but now all she was doing was yelling in indignation. Progress.
"He's just a baby, Em," Meredith reminded her. If she'd said it once, she'd said it a million times. "He's not trying to mess it up on purpose. You have to show him."
Emily sighed. "Jack, do it like this," she said, literally taking his hand in hers and patting the sand firmly but not as hard as he was doing before. She let him sit in the hole, and tried to rebuild what she could before abandoning the Jack-occupied castle and starting another separate one.
Jack seemed content to hang out in the hole, and with Emily gone, he was free to push the surrounding mounds of sand over and all but flatten them. When a half-dozen seagulls landed a few feet away though, he lost all interest in the sand itself. Springing up out of the hole, he chased after them until, in perfect synchronization, they all flew away. When they did, he laughed and followed them, running down the beach another few yards.
"Jack," Derek called out, and when the toddler turned around, he flashed them a coy smile. "Come on back!"
He just kept going though, and after a few seconds, Derek jumped out of his chair and ran after him. Catching up to him, he swept Jack up with one arm, and holding him like a football, ran him back. Jack screamed and giggled, and stuck his arms out like he was flying, until Derek plopped him down close to where Emily was working on her latest master sculpture.
When he sat back down, Meredith said, "Wait until your mom and sisters see them. They're going to freak out."
Even though Derek made it a point to email pictures regularly, Mary hadn't actually seen the kids in person since Jack's first birthday in March, and his sisters hadn't seen them since they flew to Connecticut for Christmas. When it felt like everything changed day to day, six months was an eternity.
"Your mom would have freaked out too," Derek assured her, even though Meredith didn't think she said it in a wistful sort of way at all. Maybe she had and she just didn't realize it. After all, Derek knew it still bothered her sometimes, only because she still had that nagging feeling that her mother might have resented the kids, not because she was still worried about keeping pace with the legend of a surgeon Ellis was.
"Oh, she would have," Meredith agreed, chuckling and trying to keep it light. Freaking out was a gentle way to describe what would have been Ellis's probable reaction to grandchildren.
"No, in a good way. Our kid wants to touch brains," Derek said. "Don't tell me Ellis Grey wouldn't have thought that was cool."
"Maybe," Meredith conceded, remembering a world where the choice came down to showing an interest or being overlooked entirely. She still couldn't be sure that her parents tried their best, which is all she ever wanted from them anyway. As a parent herself now, she had spent years trying to understand it, but finally she had come to the conclusion that her own best was simply better than her mother's and her father's. Ellis was dead, and though Thatcher knew she had kids because he still had a relationship with Lexie, he may as well have been dead too. That was that. And despite it all, it turned out ok in the end. As the years went by, despite everything she thought she knew about marriage and families, things kept getting better, not worse, and her faith in it all didn't disintegrate, but instead, kept building up.
"We gave them a family though," she said. "I think she could have been proud of that. I hope so anyway. Or respected it, at least. Even though she would have never been able to tell me."
"That's true."
She sighed and settled comfortably into her chair. Derek laid a hand gently on her leg, and she watched as Jack wrecked the second hole Emily dug. But Emily just rolled her eyes this time, and started to pile the sand back on to him, loosely burying her brother. When Jack laughed, and Derek squeezed her thigh, Meredith smiled.
"I'm glad we're here."
* * *
A/N: So there it is--the final chapter. I realize that this is super fluffy and more of an epilogue than an actual chapter, but I hope you liked it anyway. I want to thank all of you for hanging out with me for a 2+ year journey through this fic, and I especially want to thank those of you who kept me writing with your constant feedback and encouragement. Of course, major props to boofadil for being a fantastic beta all the way through, and for keeping me focused--you are the best!!
So yeah, I can't believe this is done. I have nothing new planned right now, especially not a serial fic, but I would like to hear what you all thought one last time, even if you've never commented before. Thank you all again so much!!
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
"Thankfully, people keep coming back to the beach (and, for that matter, to love) for this lesson: sometimes it's best to get your walls knocked over and lose your most cherished constructs and be fully swept away.... The beach is not as much about slackness of mind (although there is some good in that) as it is about mindfulness to small and simple things. The beach teaches us to redefine rush. It teaches us the value of pause. It sinks us into contentment, and keeps building us up. We keep getting the chance to transform ourselves. With any shift of wind or weight, we know we can come about…and we can keep on coming about. And that slow, crooked seemingly aimless path of our lives at the beach may just be getting us closer and closer to our best selves." - How to Live at the Beach
In the end, she always hoped to end up back here. And not just at this house, though seeing Emily run joyously out onto the sand when they arrived yesterday was enough to make her well up with tears.
For a long time after their joint extended hiatus from surgery, they talked about taking more regular vacations, just some time away from grueling 60-hour work weeks to recharge their batteries, but then his mother got cancer, and they had another baby, and she started her fellowship, and before they knew it, it had been three years since they were here.
Everything still looked the same. The people who owned the house still hadn't put in a dishwasher and now, the house felt even smaller than it did before. But the sun still poured into the bedrooms upstairs, and the moist, gritty sand under her feet now as she walked away from the jetty still lifted her up.
"Mom?"
Looking at her, it seemed ridiculous that she could even think that everything looked the same. Emily was in pull-up diapers the last time they were here. Now, she had grown tall for her age, lost all her baby fat, and her hair had lengthened into loose waves and darkened to the color of buttered toast. She had just made the age cut-off and was about to start first grade, and had a mouth full of lost and loose teeth to prove it.
Emily didn't wait for a response before she continued with her question. "You know how when you lose a tooth, the part of your mouth where the tooth was is all soft?"
Meredith nodded. They'd put the first three teeth under Emily's pillow for the tooth fairy over the last two months and spent much time, at Emily's request, exploring the empty spaces in her mouth. "Yes."
"Is that what a brain feels like?"
She paused for consideration. Of all the ways that she could try to explain it to Emily, a soft gum might have been the most relevant and easily understood, if not a perfect match. "A little bit."
"Can I come to the hospital with you one day so I can touch a brain and see?"
She smiled, and remembered a time when she was five years old and was awed by the thought of her mother's hand inside someone's body, fixing it, healing it. Emily had never seen either she or Derek operate before, and since she started full-day kindergarten the September after Jack was born, she hadn't been to the hospital much at all.
When Meredith went back to work when Jack was three months old, they put him in the hospital daycare with Brenda and kept Emily in full-day preschool. But they finally broke down and hired a part-time babysitter who stayed with Emily during the day for the past two summers and picked her up from school at 3:30 each afternoon. It wasn't ideal, or exactly what Meredith wanted, but it was better than the alternative of using the gallery as a de facto babysitter. And so, Emily was nearly six years old and had never seen a surgery before. Not even an appy.
"We don't really touch brains with our fingers, Em," Meredith said. "We have tools that we use."
"Well, I can touch one with my finger," Emily shrugged. They could see the house in the distance, coming closer and closer to it, and to Derek and Jack, as they kept walking. "Can you find one for me?" Emily asked hopefully. "It doesn't have to be one that's in somebody's head already."
Meredith chuckled as Emily tried to negotiate a deal. "We don't really keep extra brains lying around, Em. But you can touch one of the models that we use if you want. It feels just like a real brain."
"But it's not a real brain."
"No, it's not."
Emily sighed. "I really need a real one."
"I don't know if I can find you a real brain, Em."
"Can you try?" Emily asked hopefully.
Meredith nodded. She could at least promise that. "Yeah, I'll try."
Emily seemed content to leave it at that, and she kept walking with an extra spring in her step, clutching a bucket of seashells that they had collected on the first half of the walk. Her green and pink polka dot bikini, worn today for the first time, was still bone dry, and Meredith knew Emily was trying to be a good sport but was itching to get into the ocean.
"Why do you want to see what a brain feels like anyway?" she asked after a minute.
Emily shrugged. "Cause it's cool."
"You don't think it's gross? Brains have blood and guts and stuff on them."
Emily shook her head and reached for Meredith's hand with her free one, pulling on Meredith's arm as she said simply, "You don't."
Meredith smiled and squeezed Emily's hand. She could see two chairs and a blue and white umbrella in front of their house, and enough of Derek's bare legs jutting forward even though she couldn't quite see his body yet.
"I'll see if I can find you a brain," she promised.
They found Derek and Jack just where they'd left them almost an hour before, when Emily was begging to do something fun but Jack was more than ready for his afternoon nap. Derek reclined in his beach chair, with his legs stretched out, his feet burrowed into the sand, and Jack asleep against his bare chest.
It seemed like Jack had sprung up into a bright-eyed little boy almost overnight. Like his sister, he was curious and imaginative, but while Emily was methodical, Jack was spontaneous, energetic, boundless. He started out with a head full of dark hair and dark blue eyes, and every day, he built on that to look more and more like Derek.
It happened less and less as she grew fully out of the child's role and into the mother's, but sometimes, despite everything, she wished that at least one of her parents were in her life, just so she could see what was passed down beyond the obvious. Derek knew what kind of baby he was, and even if he couldn't remember everything for himself, he had a clear picture of what his early childhood was like and how he fit into it. They knew exactly what qualities of Jack's or Emily's could be potentially traced back to Derek, because Derek's mother could tell them so. Sometimes-rarely, but still, sometimes-she wished that someone was there to point out some of the good things and say, "Oh, Meredith, they're just like you."
"Daddy," Emily shouted.
Derek, cradling Jack with one hand, held his free hand up to his lips. "Shhh," he reminded her.
"Me and Mommy got like 28 shells," Emily said, quieter this time.
"Twenty-eight?" he asked.
Meredith sat down in the empty chair next to him. The umbrella shaded her completely, but she kept her cover-up on anyway, smoothing it over her thighs. Emily held on to her bucket, but shifted impatiently from one foot to the other.
"Yep. A lot of them are little though."
"Well, still. A shell's a shell, right?"
She shrugged. "Can you come in the ocean with me?"
"When Jack wakes up, I will," he promised.
"When will that be?"
"He's not getting burnt, right?" Meredith interrupted.
"I think he's ok."
Meredith pursed her lips, and then pulled a towel out of their bag. She spread it over Jack, covering his shoulders, and leaned over to make sure his face was shaded. He probably really was fine, but she shuddered at the thought of sunburn on a baby. He'd play the rest of the afternoon, but at night when the pain actually set in, he would scream and scream and there would be nothing she could do.
"Dad," Emily interjected, and repeated her question. "When will he wake up?"
"Probably soon."
"Can't you just wake him up right now?" she said, her voice drawing out into a definite whine.
Derek smiled. If they woke Jack up before he was ready, no one would be doing anything fun. "Nice try. Ask Mommy to take you in for a little while and then I'll come down," he offered.
"She won't go in the high waves with me," Emily whined as Derek put a reminder finger to his lips. "Will you, Mom?"
She wanted to. She really did. But she just didn't trust herself to keep a good hold on Emily in waves up to her waist and nearly over Emily's head. And even if she did carry her out there, Emily wouldn't have wanted to stand still anyway. She wanted to jump in headfirst and have an adventure.
Meredith noticed it more and more ever since Emily started what she called "real school" last September. Emily wanted to keep up. She wanted to do everything all the other kids had done, and she wanted to do it better. And especially since Jack was born, she didn't want to be a baby anymore. It's why she only called her 'Mommy' at home, and even then, only about half the time.
"Sorry, Em."
"See?" Emily asked Derek pointedly.
"Em, it probably won't be that much longer."
Meredith eased herself up out of her chair and reached for Emily's hand. "Em, come on, Daddy will be down in a little bit."
"Dad!"
"Emily, if you wake up your brother, then we won't be going in the ocean at all, I can tell you that right now," Derek said, consciously trying not to raise his voice. "He will probably be awake soon anyway, but I would like you to please be patient."
Emily pouted, but followed Meredith down to the shoreline. Overall, she had adjusted well over the past eighteen months, but sometimes she got tired of being told that she had to be patient, that Jack wasn't big enough to do something yet.
In the wet sand by the water, Emily plopped down and started to dig. "Mommy," Emily said. "Come on!"
Meredith bunched her cover-up around her waist and sat cross-legged on the sand next to Emily, helping her to make the drippy sand castles that Derek had taught them both how to do. She let the sand slip through her fingers as Emily scooped wet sand with both hands and packed it into a solid foundation.
"Mommy?" Emily asked a few minutes later. "Can I go in the water for a little bit? Not in the deep part?"
Meredith nodded, and watched Emily wade in. She bent to wash the wet sand off her bare legs as Emily rolled onto her back in shallow water and let the waves trickle in and ripple over her belly.
"Mom, look at me!" Emily cried, waving her arms and legs up and down. She looked like she had just taken a mud bath, and even her hair, splayed out against the ground, was caked with sand.
Meredith didn't want to stand too close to her, or give any indication whatsoever that she may be hovering, but she kept a sharp eye on exactly how deep and how strong the waves were by the time they reached Emily.
"You look like you're making snow angels," Meredith called out so Emily could hear her over the roar of the surf.
"No, sand angels!"
"You're doing a good job," she said, as a slightly bigger wave rolled in with an extra inch of water. "Lift your head up, Em!"
"What?" Emily turned her head towards the ocean just in time to catch a splash of water right in the face. Quickly, she pulled herself into a sitting position, rubbed her eyes with sandy fingers, and coughed a bit.
"You ok?" Meredith asked, fighting the urge to make her get up and move further away from the water's edge.
Emily nodded, and threw in a smile for good measure. "Mommy, I have so much sand on me!" she said, taking notice of her hair and hands for the first time.
"It's ok. It'll come off!"
Over six years ago-still hard to believe-when she was pregnant with Emily, she worried about a million and one different things that all essentially boiled down into one overarching, distinct, nearly paralyzing fear: she absolutely could not mess this baby up. The only thing she knew for sure then was that she was going to get a blank slate of a kid-healthy, thankfully, as proven by numerous ultrasounds-but a blank slate nonetheless. And she wasn't exactly the world's most stellar role model. And if genetics had anything to do with it, well, she was just flat-out screwed.
Just when she thought she had pretty much put her childhood behind her, it came roaring back in the form of a surprise pregnancy that she was in no way ready for. Sure, when she found out about the baby, she was in her thirties, had a good job, and was about to get married. On the surface, she should have been ready, overjoyed even, the way Derek was, but she was absolutely terrified. Every memory she tried to repress just wouldn't stay down-playing on the floor of the OR gallery, watching surgeries while she waited until it was finally time to go home, looking into her mommy's eyes and seeing what she knew, even at four years old, was resentment and a sort of helplessness. Only now, she wasn't in the memories anymore; her own nameless, faceless child had taken her place.
For months, she worried that she couldn't love the baby as much as she should, or as much as any normal person would. She didn't want to be a bad mother, but maybe she would turn out to be wired that way. Maybe she just didn't have it in her. She worried even more when she found out that the baby was a girl and though Derek had tried to understand, the intensity of her fear mystified him. And then suddenly, the baby was in her arms, and she was stunned and relieved at how quickly, how wholly and completely, she loved her. Once she realized that though, another question still nagged at her. This love felt so instinctual, so primal, that she couldn't help but wonder why Ellis Grey was the way that she was.
She still worried all the time that she wasn't doing this right. After all, she was learning as she went along. But she and Derek had raised a happy nearly-six-year-old, and looking at Emily now, Meredith knew that her family was the single biggest achievement of her life. It may not have seemed that way to anyone on the outside, but Emily was playing and laughing and she had a sweet little brother who was asleep in his father's arms. It was bigger than med school, bigger than becoming a surgeon, bigger than marrying Derek even. To her, these kids, and the fact that they not only existed at all but that they were happy, was improbable, astounding, extraordinary.
"Hey," Derek said, startling Meredith out of her thoughts. "Look who's up."
Jack, always slow to wake, rested his head on Derek's shoulder but looked at Meredith with a shy smile. His little belly poked out-he was always thirsty when he woke up and had probably just drank almost a full sippy cup of water-and his navy blue swim trunks didn't cover the top of his swimmy diaper.
She opened her arms and he leaned out of Derek's grasp and into hers. "Hi, Jack," she murmured, and kissed his forehead before he settled against her. "Did you have a nice nap?"
He nodded.
"Do you want to go in the water?"
He shook his head.
"I'm going to take her out a little before she freaks out," Derek said. Meredith nodded and held on to Jack while she watched Derek swing Emily into his arms and then set her down in the waves. He held on to her, lifting her up as each wave crested around them. Meanwhile, Jack wrapped his legs around her waist and rested his left arm on her shoulder. He sucked his thumb and watched Derek and Emily play while he tried to wake up.
When she was pregnant with Jack, one of Meredith's biggest worries was that they had maxed out their good kid karma with Emily. She wanted the second baby to be just like the first. Realistically, she knew Emily wasn't the perfect pollyanna of a child, but she was perfect in all the ways that counted to Meredith, and to get another child who was just like that seemed next to impossible.
Fortunately, it didn't happen that way. Emily and Jack had their similarities, but Meredith quickly understood that she didn't want a second Emily. She just wanted Jack to be Jack.
He snuggled against her, and she couldn't believe how quickly he had grown up. It didn't seem like that long ago that she was home on maternity leave, studying for her boards with him swaddled and nestled against her. He was running now, like actually running fast enough to where she had to really chase him rather than just pretend to. He was talking too, not quite as much as Emily was at eighteen months, but then again, everyone told her that boys tended to be a little bit slower at this kind of thing.
"Daddy?" Jack asked after a few minutes of watching Derek and Emily in the water. He pointed to Derek, but didn't squirm in Meredith's arms.
"Yeah, Daddy's playing with Emily."
"Emmy?"
"Yeah, with Daddy."
"Me go too?"
Meredith smiled. "You can try."
She hoisted him off her hip and, holding him by the armpits, dipped him into the water as a wave rolled in and rushed around his ankles. Jack shrieked with delight and kicked his feet out, creating as big a splash as a toddler could. She lifted him up, and then dipped him again, and he kept screaming and laughing, loud enough so that Derek and Emily turned around to see what the commotion was. She did it a third time, and a bigger wave came rushing up and actually drenched him up to his waist.
When she picked him up again and put him back on her hip, he gripped her so tightly that it felt like he'd never let go. His legs, which had just been so warm from being covered with a towel, were clammy and cold against her skin, and he started to soak her cover-up through.
"Mama!" he cried, and for a second, she worried that he was scared, but when she looked at his face, she saw that he was smiling in a sort of delighted, surprised way.
"The water is cold, huh?"
He nodded, and she dipped him into the water again. He screamed with joy and when she pulled him back up to her and tickled him, he threw his head back and wouldn't stop laughing.
"Mama! Mama!" he kept saying between giggles.
"Oh, Jack," she said, holding him close and kissing his cheeks and his forehead and his neck. "Jack, Jack, Jack. I love you."
Later, when Emily finally decided to take a break from the water, Derek and Meredith sat down in their chairs to watch Emily and Jack digging in the sand a few feet ahead. The armrests on their chairs touched, and though they sat in silence for long while, after only a few minutes, he reached for her hand.
"Hey," she said. "When we get back to the hospital, Emily wants us to find her a brain."
"What does she need a brain for?"
"She wants to touch one. She thinks it's cool."
Derek laughed heartily at that and, squeezing her hand, he brought it to his lips and kissed it.
They had been discussing lately, very calmly and more rationally than Meredith had ever discussed anything in her life, the pros and cons of having one more baby. At nearly 45 years old, Derek worried that maybe he was too old, and Meredith pointed out that having a baby at 45 wasn't all that different from having one at 43. When Meredith worried that in a year, she would be an attending and Derek might be chief soon as well for all they knew, Derek reminded her that in a lot of ways, being an attending was a hell of a lot easier than residency and that he certainly wouldn't be accepting the chief position with three kids under the age of eight.
Nothing was decided, and she hadn't gone off birth control yet, but it seemed like they were leaning towards going for it. She still worried about how difficult it might be, even just trying to get pregnant at all since they really weren't as young as they used to be, but she knew it would be worth it. And if it didn't happen, or they decided not to do it, she knew neither of her kids would face the world alone and for her, that was enough.
Right now though, they were just taking a break from it all, letting everything from the outside world continue on without them. At first, it was hard to slow down and she felt guilty that she was doing absolutely nothing, but 24 hours in and she could feel it down in her bones-the deep relaxation that came with escape and stillness.
"I love it here," she sighed. "It's so peaceful."
"Enjoy the peace now," Derek said. "The Shepherds descend on Seattle in a few days."
For the first time ever, they were inviting all of Derek's sisters, his mother, and whichever nieces and nephews wanted to come out to Seattle for Emily's birthday. His mother had of course visited numerous times, and now that she had been cancer-free for twenty months, they were making it a point to get her out to visit every three months or so. Annie and Kathleen flew out a few weeks after Jack was born, and all four of them had visited at least once since Derek had moved out here, but never all five at once. She and Derek still didn't have a final headcount on how many were actually coming, and they were all staying in a hotel anyway, but still, it had the potential to be an interesting visit.
"Emily's going to be six," she said in disbelief. "Six years old. How?"
"I don't know," he said, shaking his head. "Was Cristina able to get a flight?"
Meredith nodded. The biggest adjustment by far in the transition from resident to fellow wasn't the research she was expected to do or the new procedures she needed to learn. It took her months to get used to Cristina, George, and Izzie's absence, which, even though she still had Alex, made Seattle Grace feel like an entirely different hospital. George made it a point to email regularly and call once a week like clockwork, even if only to talk to Emily and Jack when Meredith wasn't home. And Izzie was, of course, still in Seattle, though just at a different hospital. She and Alex were still living in Meredith's old house, and Meredith was excited to know that, starting in about five months, at least one child would have a happy childhood there.
The time difference and the crazy working hours made it difficult to connect with Cristina, but sometimes when she least expected it, her phone would vibrate with a text that said something as simple as 'CABG. Solo today.' and that at least let her know that Cristina was happy. Still, she looked forward to her visits every other month, even though they were always so short, and she couldn't help but hope that she would move back to Seattle after her fellowship ended next July.
"She gets in on Sunday. She's only staying for two days, but...."
"Still, it'll be good to see her," he said. "Does she need a place to stay? We can't fit my insane family, but we can fit Cristina in our house."
Meredith shook her head. "She's staying with Garrett."
"How's that going with them?"
"Well, they've been together for two years, and half of that has been spent living at opposite ends of the country, but I think it's going pretty well considering. They're still together; that has to mean something."
She glanced over at the kids just in time to see Jack jump inside the hole that he and Emily had been digging, and step on the sand castle she had built around it in the process. Clumsily, he plopped down and his little butt hit the edges of the hole, collapsing sheets of packed sand into the hole with him. He scooped some of the sand out and added it to Emily's castle, patting it hard enough that some of it toppled over.
"Jack!" Emily shrieked. "Mom! He's not doing it right!"
A few months ago, she might have tried to hit him, but now all she was doing was yelling in indignation. Progress.
"He's just a baby, Em," Meredith reminded her. If she'd said it once, she'd said it a million times. "He's not trying to mess it up on purpose. You have to show him."
Emily sighed. "Jack, do it like this," she said, literally taking his hand in hers and patting the sand firmly but not as hard as he was doing before. She let him sit in the hole, and tried to rebuild what she could before abandoning the Jack-occupied castle and starting another separate one.
Jack seemed content to hang out in the hole, and with Emily gone, he was free to push the surrounding mounds of sand over and all but flatten them. When a half-dozen seagulls landed a few feet away though, he lost all interest in the sand itself. Springing up out of the hole, he chased after them until, in perfect synchronization, they all flew away. When they did, he laughed and followed them, running down the beach another few yards.
"Jack," Derek called out, and when the toddler turned around, he flashed them a coy smile. "Come on back!"
He just kept going though, and after a few seconds, Derek jumped out of his chair and ran after him. Catching up to him, he swept Jack up with one arm, and holding him like a football, ran him back. Jack screamed and giggled, and stuck his arms out like he was flying, until Derek plopped him down close to where Emily was working on her latest master sculpture.
When he sat back down, Meredith said, "Wait until your mom and sisters see them. They're going to freak out."
Even though Derek made it a point to email pictures regularly, Mary hadn't actually seen the kids in person since Jack's first birthday in March, and his sisters hadn't seen them since they flew to Connecticut for Christmas. When it felt like everything changed day to day, six months was an eternity.
"Your mom would have freaked out too," Derek assured her, even though Meredith didn't think she said it in a wistful sort of way at all. Maybe she had and she just didn't realize it. After all, Derek knew it still bothered her sometimes, only because she still had that nagging feeling that her mother might have resented the kids, not because she was still worried about keeping pace with the legend of a surgeon Ellis was.
"Oh, she would have," Meredith agreed, chuckling and trying to keep it light. Freaking out was a gentle way to describe what would have been Ellis's probable reaction to grandchildren.
"No, in a good way. Our kid wants to touch brains," Derek said. "Don't tell me Ellis Grey wouldn't have thought that was cool."
"Maybe," Meredith conceded, remembering a world where the choice came down to showing an interest or being overlooked entirely. She still couldn't be sure that her parents tried their best, which is all she ever wanted from them anyway. As a parent herself now, she had spent years trying to understand it, but finally she had come to the conclusion that her own best was simply better than her mother's and her father's. Ellis was dead, and though Thatcher knew she had kids because he still had a relationship with Lexie, he may as well have been dead too. That was that. And despite it all, it turned out ok in the end. As the years went by, despite everything she thought she knew about marriage and families, things kept getting better, not worse, and her faith in it all didn't disintegrate, but instead, kept building up.
"We gave them a family though," she said. "I think she could have been proud of that. I hope so anyway. Or respected it, at least. Even though she would have never been able to tell me."
"That's true."
She sighed and settled comfortably into her chair. Derek laid a hand gently on her leg, and she watched as Jack wrecked the second hole Emily dug. But Emily just rolled her eyes this time, and started to pile the sand back on to him, loosely burying her brother. When Jack laughed, and Derek squeezed her thigh, Meredith smiled.
"I'm glad we're here."
* * *
A/N: So there it is--the final chapter. I realize that this is super fluffy and more of an epilogue than an actual chapter, but I hope you liked it anyway. I want to thank all of you for hanging out with me for a 2+ year journey through this fic, and I especially want to thank those of you who kept me writing with your constant feedback and encouragement. Of course, major props to boofadil for being a fantastic beta all the way through, and for keeping me focused--you are the best!!
So yeah, I can't believe this is done. I have nothing new planned right now, especially not a serial fic, but I would like to hear what you all thought one last time, even if you've never commented before. Thank you all again so much!!