Now is the Start [4/?]
Title: Now is the Start
Author: greymcdreamysgh
Pairing: MerDer
Rating: PG-13
Summary: MDZB. A short multi-chapter fic. Exploring parenthood/child relationships in a series of moments from their first year as a family of four. "Kiss with a mouth full of shooting stars all the lost and the broken parts."
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.
Unafraid, you can name your scars
With the touch of a new heart
A few days after they agree that Derek will take a step back to allow Meredith more time to focus on work, Derek feels like it's all going pretty well. His brain-mapping project is moving forward, Zola is thrilled to spend more time with him, and he still gets to scrub in on a decent amount of surgeries anyway. Meredith is still incredibly stressed out sometimes, but Derek blames her friends for that. He feels frustrated so for her, and even a little sad, because he knows how much she loves Cristina and because it seems like no matter how hard she tries to find balance, something always gets in the way. Still, he couldn't be more proud of her.
One Friday morning, while Bailey rocks gently in his swing in the living room, Derek spreads his paperwork out on the coffee table and works from the couch on his laptop. Zola is old enough that she can play by herself in her room, at least for a little while before she gets bored. This leaves Meredith free to finish getting ready for work, and she sorts through the mail while she waits for her breakfast to finish toasting.
"Derek?" she says.
"Hmm?"
"Your mom sent you something."
"What is it?" he asks.
When his mother was here a few months ago, after Bailey was born, he remembers asking her for his old baseball cards so he can give them to Bailey when he's older, and if that's what they are, brain-mapping can wait. He has been anxious to see those cards again for awhile.
"I don't know," Meredith replies. Standing behind him and looking over his shoulder, she passes him a much smaller envelope than what he was expecting. "Here, you open it."
He slides a finger under the seal of the envelope and pulls out a single photograph with a piece of notebook paper folded around it. He disregards the loose-leaf at first, and grips the photo by its worn edge.
In it, he sees his father, sitting on the sofa in what he recognizes as his childhood living room. Chris Shepherd's jet-black hair is cropped closely to his head and his smiling face looks so youthful, more so than Derek ever remembers seeing it in life. In the photo, his father holds a baby upright on his knee-Derek recognizes the baby as himself immediately-and inclines his head towards the child in his arms, so close that the stubble on his face is almost touching him. Derek himself could be no more than six months old in this picture, and it looks like the camera caught him in the middle of a belly laugh. When Derek looks closer, he can see his father's fingertips digging into his sides, tickling him. Derek checks the back of the picture for a date, but there isn't one, only his mother's perfect script, written in pencil and faded with time, noting "Christopher and Derek."
"Is that you?" Meredith asks softly. Derek nods. Neither of them has many childhood photos around. As she leans over the back of the couch to get a closer look at the picture in his hand, he thinks that she might be searching the baby's face for hints of her son.
But then she says, "You look like your dad."
Neither of them says anything for a moment while Derek continues to stare at the picture. He does look a little like his dad, he supposes-it's that Shepherd hair-but he studies the photo not for hints of himself, but to drink in the details of the father he rarely looks at. His childhood home is full of family photos-they make his mother feel better-but he prefers to just remember his dad without seeing his face every day. It's been awhile since he's seen him.
"She sent a note with it," Meredith finally says, motioning to the discarded piece of paper on the couch next to him. He sets the photo down on his lap and unfolds the paper, wondering how his mother's handwriting hasn't changed in over forty years.
Derek, the girls are helping me organize some old pictures, and we found this. I thought you might like to have it. You remind me more of your father every day. I couldn't be more proud. See you, Meredith, and the kids for Christmas. Love, Mom
"Are you ok?" Meredith asks. She squeezes his shoulder, but he doesn't turn around. Getting this picture isn't a bad thing, but it has definitely surprised him.
"Yeah," he says quickly.
Meredith doesn't say anything, and doesn't remove her hand from his shoulder. He turns around and smiles for her. "I'm good," he says.
For a moment, she looks like she wants to say something, but she must decide against it.
"Ok," she finally says. "I need to get to the hospital. I nursed him an hour ago, so he should be good for a little while. I'll be home for his 7:00 feeding. Zola?" she calls, as she rounds the couch to get to Bailey. "I'm leaving."
"Bye, Mom!" Zola shouts back from her room.
Meredith's head jerks up from Bailey's swing and she turns back to Derek. "Mom?" Meredith mouths sadly.
Derek laughs. "She's still little," he assures her.
Meredith sighs. "Bye, B," she says, leaning down and kissing Bailey several times before she finally pulls herself away. She kisses Derek too, with a whispered goodbye, then grabs her toast, wraps it in a paper towel, and leaves.
Derek puts the photo down on the table but for awhile, he can't focus on his open laptop and the half a dozen medical journals he has open and dog-eared on the table. It takes a few minutes before he gives up the pretense of doing work, and picks up the photo again.
Meredith was right before. Although Chris Shepherd is younger by about ten years in this photo than Derek is now, he sees how easily he could stand in his father's shoes. They have the same build, the same hair, the same crinkle around the eyes.
He never talks about his father. Well, he hardly ever does. It's at least much less often than his mother and sisters do. Meredith doesn't push him on it, and for that, he loves her. But he thinks of his father more often now than he used to, and this picture is a reminder that Chris Shepherd really, truly was alive once. There was a time when he wasn't a myth or a specter, a time when he sat on a sofa with his infant son and lived the same ordinary moments that Derek himself is living now.
He lets himself look for a few moments more before he shakes himself out of it. He closes his laptop and stands up with it and the photo in his hands. He glances over at Bailey, still swinging drowsily and contentedly in the corner of the room, and then calls to Zola.
"Zola, come on out here," he says. "It's time for breakfast."
He sets the laptop and photo on the kitchen counter, and smiles as his daughter comes down the hall with three stuffed animals in her arms. Her pajama leggings are bunched up a little high on her shins, and in her attempt to hold on to all three animals at the same time, her shirt has ridden up to expose a little of her belly.
"Do we have guests for breakfast?" he asks.
She nods, and passes a stuffed lion, giraffe, and dog to him so he can seat them on the empty chairs next to her. Then she reaches up for him to lift her into her chair. Once she is strapped in, he asks, "What do you want to eat?"
"Cookies," she says.
"I don't think so," he replies.
Zola wrinkles her nose. "Mommy said yes."
He has meant to talk to Meredith about this, whether she too has noticed that Zola already tries to pit them against one another, to confuse them on what the other one has said she can or cannot do. Sometimes, she gets away with it, like if she asks for ten extra minutes before bedtime or a trip to the library-requests that Meredith would usually indulge-but he is certain that Meredith did not say she could have cookies for breakfast.
"No, she didn't," he replies firmly. "Only after dinner. How about eggs?"
Zola scowls, but then nods.
He cracks two eggs into a bowl and whisks them before pouring them into a skillet. He turns around for a second to confirm who he thinks he sees at the counter, and then, turning back to the eggs to continue scrambling them, he asks, "What do you, Joseph, Nugget, and Fuzzy have planned for today?"
He is kind of proud of himself for remembering the names of these particular stuffed animals. Zola would be quick to correct him if he was wrong, and she says nothing, so he must have gotten them all right. But Zola doesn't respond.
Instead, she leans forward in her seat and reaches for the photo, pinching her fingers over it until it gets close enough to her that she can grab it.
"That's Bailey?" she asks.
"No, that's me, when I was a baby."
Zola looks confused for a second. How could her father have ever been a baby? Then she points to Chris and asks, "Who's that?"
"That's my dad," Derek replies.
He and Meredith haven't really talked to Zola very much about Ellis and Chris, or even Lexie and Mark. It's not that they don't want to, but they agreed that Zola is only two years old, and she might not understand, especially when some of the people in question are people she has never met before. They have explained to her, as best they could, what it means to die-simply because they had to, considering their line of work-but they haven't ever really had a conversation about their own friends and family who have died.
Which is probably why Zola says, in a confused voice, "You don't have a daddy."
"I used to," he says.
"How come not anymore?"
"He died, Zo," Derek says. "A long time ago."
"Oh," she replies. "Why?"
This is so much earlier than he ever planned to have this conversation. For a second, he is irrationally annoyed with his mother for sending the picture at all, and then with himself for leaving it in such easy reach. At the very least, he knows he will never, ever tell Zola about the sheer terror he felt when he saw, through the crack in a back door left slightly ajar, a gun pointed at his father's chest. He'll never tell her about clapping a hand over Amy's mouth, and holding her so tightly she couldn't move, or about the shock that came with realizing that all of his father's blood was now on the floor of his shop. He'll have to tell her someday that his father was murdered. But he'll never, ever tell her these other things, not now, when she is only two years old, or even later, when she is grown up. Not ever.
So now, all he says is, "His heart just got really hurt one day and he died."
"Oh," Zola says, still staring intently at the photo. "That's sad."
After a beat, he finally says something, impressed with her response. "Yeah, it is. I miss him a lot."
Zola sighs and doesn't say anything for a moment or two. It seems like the conversation just washes over her and then it's gone. Finally, she looks up and just asks, "Joseph can have cereal? He doesn't like eggs."
***
The next day brings a morning that allows all four of them to be home together. Derek showers and Meredith cleans up the remains of breakfast, while Zola colors and Bailey sits in his bouncy seat on the kitchen counter.
"Bailey, this is red," Zola says, placing a red crayon in Bailey's hand.
"Zola," Meredith says, turning around from the kitchen sink. "We can't give him crayons."
"Why not?"
Meredith hates to correct her, because she wants to encourage any and all positive interaction with Bailey, but she really can't let her five-month-old suck or gnaw on a crayon.
"Well, he might try to eat it," Meredith says as she takes the crayon out of Bailey's hand and gives it back to Zola.
"It's not food," Zola says matter-of-factly.
"I know, but Bailey doesn't know that. Why don't you use it to color instead?"
Zola goes back to her project, and while she works, Meredith takes a good look at her head. She then announces, "Hey, Zozo, you know what? We can take your stitches out today."
Zola looks up from her coloring from her seat at the kitchen counter. After a day or two, she has mostly forgotten that the stitches are even there, so this announcement must come as a bit of a surprise. "Alex can do it?" she asks.
"No," Meredith replies. "I'm going to do it. I'm a doctor too, remember?"
Zola smiles, until she sees Meredith rummage in the kitchen medicine cabinet for a pair of surgical scissors, and her eyes grow wide. Meredith also takes out a bottle of rubbing alcohol, washes her hands, and sterilizes the scissors with a clean paper towel and a healthy amount of the disinfectant.
"No, Mommy," Zola says, staring at her with a crayon in each fist.
"All I need to do is cut two little strings, and we'll be done. I'll be super gentle," Meredith assures her.
"Like when you cut my nails?" Zola asks.
"Exactly like that," Meredith says. "And you can have a piece of your Halloween candy when we're all done."
This seems to make the whole thing much easier to bear for Zola. For a two-year-old, she had remarkable stamina on Halloween, and even with Meredith and Derek secretly eating some of her candy, she still has a ton of it left.
When Zola sees the scissors up close though, she seems to reconsider. "No," Zola whines. "Use my pink scissors."
"I can't, Zo," Meredith says, thinking of Zola's pair of pink safety scissors with rounded edges and blades so dull they can barely cut a piece of paper. "I have to use my surgery scissors. It's only on the string, not on your skin. It won't really hurt."
Zola looks up at the scissors with doubt and fear plainly etched across her face. Meredith, with the scissors in hand, doesn't dare move them closer to her face in case she flinches, in which case she really will get hurt.
"Can you show me your tough girl face?" Meredith asks, but Zola is fixated on the scissors. "Don't look at the scissors," she urges her. "Show me and Bailey your tough girl face."
Zola seems to gather herself. She screws up her face into a grimace, and flexes both arms. It's something Derek taught her and it never fails to make Meredith smile.
"There it is!" Meredith exclaims. "Bailey, look how brave Zola is!"
And while she is talking, she quickly snips Zola's two stitches, and pulls out the remaining thread.
"All done," she says. "You were such a brave girl!"
"Done?" Zola asks incredulously.
"Yep, no more stitches."
"I can see?" Zola asks, feeling the smooth ridge of slightly raised skin on her forehead with her fingertips. Meredith rummages in her purse for a compact, and shows Zola her reflection in the mirror.
"What's that?" Zola asks.
"That's just a little scar," Meredith explains. "Sometimes that happens when your skin heals."
Zola wrinkles her nose. "I don't like it."
"It's ok," Meredith says. "When you get bigger, you probably won't be able to even see it," Meredith assures her.
"No," Zola whines.
"It's ok to have a scar, Lovebug," Meredith says gently. "Lots of people have them."
Zola scowls, and crosses her arms over her chest. "I don't like it."
Meredith doesn't really know what to tell her. Besides putting Mederma on it each day, there's really not a whole lot either of them can do about Zola's scar, except wait for it to fade.
"Can I show you something?" she finally asks. She lifts up her shirt so Zola can see her stomach. "Look, I have scars too."
Zola looks a little shocked when she sees the vertical scar right down the middle from her c-section and splenectomy, the hook-shaped scar from her liver surgery, and a smaller centipede of a scar below her belly-button and a little to the right from her appy. Zola can't even see the transverse incision across her lower abdomen, the first cut from her c-section.
"You got a lot," Zola says, audibly shocked as she stares at Meredith's abdomen.
"I know, but they don't hurt at all," she says, keeping her shirt held up so Zola can get a good look. "And I don't mind having them."
When Zola reaches out and touches her appy scar, it gives her goosebumps. Although it has faded over the years, she can still kind of see the dots on either side of the incision line to mark where the thread went in and out.
"Stitches for Mommy too?" Zola asks.
"I did, but when they got taken out, they left these scars," Meredith explains.
"Cause of the slide?" Zola asks curiously.
Meredith smiles. "No, these aren't from the slide," she says. "These are from surgeries I had to have. That happens sometimes."
"No surgery for me," Zola says, shaking her head.
"I know. You didn't need it, but I had to get my liver fixed, and my appendix fixed, and this is from when Bailey was born," she says, tracing a finger over each of her scars. "And they needed to do some stitches after my surgeries, so now I have scars."
"Oh," Zola says.
"It's ok to have scars," Meredith assures her. "Scars just mean you're tough and brave. Me and you are survivors."
"Survivors?" Zola asks. It's a new word for her, Meredith is pretty sure, but it's one she is all too happy for Zola to learn.
"Yeah," Meredith says. She leans over and kisses the top of Zola's head, just above her new scar. "It means we can do anything."
***
Later, after dinner has been cleaned up and the kids' pajamas have been put on, Zola has been told that she can play quietly until bedtime, so she has occupied herself with her kitchen set while Derek walks a fussy Bailey around the kitchen.
In the meantime, Meredith sits at the counter and looks up flights to Connecticut for the week of Christmas. They've flown out there a few times, but this will be the first time they've done it with both kids. Even though Zola's birthday is in January, it'll still be traveling with two kids under three. Across the country. During the holidays. Needless to say, they are both a little stressed out about it.
Derek paces around the kitchen, holding Bailey closely against his chest with his head on his shoulder. Bailey has eaten a good dinner, and they have already felt around his mouth for the hint of teeth trying to poke through, so their only explanation for his fussiness is that he's overtired. As soon as they settle on the flights they're taking, it'll be bedtime for the little guy.
"So we could take the red-eye and with the time difference, get in at a decent time in the morning," Meredith announces, looking up from her laptop. "On Sunday or Monday."
Derek grimaces. "I don't know about the red-eye."
The very thought of it causes his imagination to run wild with horror scenarios. He recalls every bad flight he has ever taken, every screaming baby, every parent who has knocked against his elbow and knee while they walked their kid up and down the aisle in a desperate attempt to make them sleep. Zola is a pretty good flier-not great, but definitely survivable-but Bailey is an unknown quantity. And if his intermittent fussiness, like what he is experiencing now, is any indication, Derek is prepared to stay on the West Coast for the next five to ten years.
Meredith seems to anticipate his concern, and says, "Hopefully the kids will sleep the whole time anyway."
"Yeah, but if they don't, everyone else on the flight is going to want to kill us," he says. He pats Bailey's back and makes shushing noises in his ear as he takes another lap around the kitchen counter.
"What about Monday during the day then?" Meredith suggests. "We could get in by the afternoon."
Derek shakes his head. "If we get in too early, then we're going to get roped into going to this thing at Kate's."
Meredith gives him a puzzled look, and he realizes that they have avoided this event thus far. So far, it's been great to get out of it, but the flip side is that because they've missed it so many times, Kate will definitely force them into going this year.
"They do this thing where everybody comes over the day before Christmas Eve and bakes and drinks," he continues, "And it's a lot of people we went to high school with. It's a nightmare, honestly."
"Kate is still friends with people from high school?" Meredith asks incredulously.
"She and Joe have been dating since they were seventeen," he reminds her.
"Right."
"Anyway, I'd like to avoid that if at all possible."
What goes without saying is that everyone at that party knew him when he was fifteen. They all remember his afro, and his acne, and his band uniform. And now that he is a neurosurgeon, many of them take some measure of comfort for themselves in reminding him that he used to be a band geek.
"Don't you want to show your sister's friends that you have a hot wife and cute kids now?" Meredith asks, sensing why he is objecting, though she of all people doesn't need to be talked out of going to awkward family gatherings.
"Not really," he says. "Then it moves from reminiscing to expressing total shock that I have a hot wife and cute kids now."
Meredith laughs. "Ok, well if we fly out on Tuesday during the day, then we'll avoid reliving your awkward high school experience and we'll bypass a possible mutiny on the plane," she says. "But we'll also miss most of Christmas Eve. So what's better? Red-eye with possible meltdowns or reminiscing and small talk over pie and beer?"
Derek sighs and looks at Meredith from across the counter. "What about another airline?"
"Derek!" Meredith says in exasperation, but as Bailey's fussing turns from whimpers to cries, she turns her attention to her son instead. "What's the matter, B? Huh?"
"Mommy, I want him to stop crying," Zola says. She has left her toys in the living room and come into the kitchen to investigate for herself.
"I know, Zo," Meredith says, "But he's uncomfortable, and that's the only way he can tell us."
"What's wrong, buddy?" Derek asks, tilting his head close to Bailey and patting his back. He shifts Bailey in his arms, and that might do the trick. His cries die down a little, but as Derek rounds the countertop again, to the side where Meredith and Zola are, Meredith's voice takes on a new sense of urgency.
"Derek?" she says. "Derek, blow out."
"What?" he says, but then he looks down. Bailey has indeed blown out his diaper, and poop is spreading across his body, and seeping onto Derek's shirt as well. "Oh, come on, B."
Meredith seems to be biting back a laugh as he extends the baby outward, holding him at arm's length. He may be biased, because he is the one covered in poop right now, but this is by far the most disgusting mess that either one of his children has ever created. But of course, Bailey has stopped crying.
"Well, now you're happy, aren't you?" Derek says, and he can't help but laugh as Bailey stares back at him contentedly.
"Yuck, there's poop everywhere!" Zola shouts. "Bailey!"
"I know, babies do that sometimes," Meredith tells her. "Pretty gross, huh? Can you help Mommy and Daddy and go get Bailey's wipes and a new diaper for him?"
Zola looks all too happy to get out of there. She runs down the hall, and turns the corner into Bailey's room.
Meredith turns back to Derek. "Put him in the sink. I'll hose him down."
In this moment, Derek is just thankful that they've already loaded the dishwasher. He plops Bailey in the kitchen sink, and holds him in place while Meredith uses a pair of kitchen shears to cut his pajamas off him.
"So that's the end of that outfit," Derek says, still holding an extremely messy Bailey upright in the sink.
"Yeah," Meredith says, "And how much do you care about that shirt?"
"Not enough to get poop in my hair trying to take it off," he says, and the next thing he knows, Meredith is cutting his shirt off too.
She balls all of the dirty clothes up with the dirty diaper and throws them in the kitchen trash. Leaning around Bailey, she washes her hands, and then gives the baby a good look.
"Look at him," she says with a laugh. "He literally has a shit-eating grin right now. Are you proud of yourself?"
Bailey flaps his arms in delight, and Derek can't help but grin too. He holds Bailey up a little higher so Meredith can start to clean him off. The baby bounces in his father's arms and laughs while Meredith takes the spray nozzle and hoses him down. This seems to be the most fun Bailey has had in a long time.
"Bailey," Derek says, shaking his head. "You seem like you're feeling better."
"Well, now we know," Meredith says. "If he starts fussing like that, just beware. This might be coming. Right, B?"
Bailey just laughs again. Once they have gotten him relatively clean, Derek says, "Why don't you change him and put him down? I'll disinfect the sink and take out the trash."
Meredith scoops the wet baby into her arms without a towel, kisses his cheeks, and says, "Come on, pooper."
Derek laughs along with Bailey, but before Meredith can take him into his bedroom, Zola returns with a box of wipes and a diaper in her hand.
She stops in her tracks and stares at Derek. "You got a scar too?" she asks.
Derek shoots Meredith a look. Zola has seen him without a shirt countless times, and she has never mentioned his scar at all. Before now, he wasn't sure she even knew what a scar was, but now she's staring at his chest, and she definitely knows and recognizes it on him. It makes him feel slightly, inexplicably, anxious.
"She was upset about her head," Meredith says. She shifts Bailey to her hip, and looks back at Derek, unsure if she should apologize. "I showed her mine."
"Oh," he says. "Yeah, I have one too, Zo."
"You had surgery too?" she asks. "With stitches?"
"Yeah, I did," he replies softly.
"Why?"
Her question makes him think of another thing that he'll never, ever tell Zola: one of the only other times he has ever felt absolutely terrified, when he himself was shot. He'll never tell her about how hard his back hit the hospital's tile floor when he fell. His gurgling cough, something he had heard before. Meredith's firm pressure on his chest. The weeks and weeks of recovery. The pulling of this scar whenever he moved.
Instead, all he says is, "I had an accident. I had to get my heart fixed."
"Like your daddy?" Zola asks.
***
While Derek puts Zola to bed, Meredith has moved beyond airline reservations and is returning emails and beginning to shop for Christmas gifts from the comfort of the couch. Derek is in Zola's bedroom for quite awhile, and Meredith is sure that Zola has somehow gotten him to agree to read her way more stories than she would otherwise get. She has been meaning to talk to him about this, how she has noticed that Zola is getting smarter and that she tries to force them into good cop and bad cop roles sometimes.
When Derek finally emerges, he stands in front of her and says, with so much exhaustion in his voice, "She asked me if I was going to die like my dad."
Just like that, answering emails is finished, Christmas shopping is finished-everything is finished except for this moment. She closes the laptop and sets it on the coffee table, and stares up at Derek. It takes her a second to say something because, though she can clearly see the pain in Derek's eyes, she is also worried about her little girl, who may think her daddy will not come home one day.
"What did you say?" she finally asks, as evenly as she can.
"I said no," Derek says with a sigh, as he sits down next to her. "What else could I say?"
"Was she ok?"
She can't hear Zola crying, or even just talking to herself for that matter, but it's a struggle to resist the urge to go to her right now and hold her in her arms.
"I think so," Derek says. "She closed her eyes and let me leave."
Meredith nods, and lets the breath she's been holding go. She watches Derek stare straight ahead, drained and expressionless. At times like these, she struggles to know what to do, or what to say. Derek never talks about his father, and even now, when she is confident that she is the one who knows him better than anyone else in the world, there is still so much that she does not understand.
"You want to go to your family's for Christmas, right?" she asks.
He looks up. "What? Yeah. Why?"
"I don't know," she says. Before, you just didn't seem like you wanted to fly out there. And the whole thing with your dad." She trails off for a second before assuring him, "We don't have to go if you don't want to."
"I want to," he says almost immediately. She doesn't respond right away while she tries to gauge whether or not he's telling the whole truth. She knows he doesn't want to disappoint his family, especially after all he's asked of them in the past year, but more than that-and she's sure about this because she's a pro at it herself-he doesn't want to let on that anything might be wrong. The easiest way to do that is to just keep going as if nothing is.
"I want to," he says again, much more emphatically.
"Ok," she agrees, "We'll go."
They settle into each other's arms on the couch. His arms feel strong around her, and she lays an arm across his stomach and rests her head on his shoulder. Like this, they relax quietly for a few minutes, just enjoying the rare and absolute silence.
But it doesn't take long for him to ask her, "You want to go, right?"
"Yeah," she says. "Your family should meet Bailey. Plus Thanksgiving is probably going to be a disaster, and they should have one normal holiday."
Keeping him talking seems to snap him out of his initial shock, because his voice actually perks up and she can almost hear him smiling even though she isn't looking at him. "If you're going to my family hoping for normal," he says, "You're going to be sorely disappointed."
Meredith laughs, and replies, "Well, more normal then."
Derek grows quiet again. "Zola's going to ask more about my dad. Mom has pictures of him everywhere."
"She saw the one your mom sent?"
"Yeah."
Meredith doesn't know what to do about this, because he's right. While Meredith herself really does not want Zola and Bailey to grow up in a house that keeps a lot of secrets, she worries that some of it might be inevitable. Chris Shepherd is almost as much a mystery to Meredith as he is to Zola, and Meredith has tried hard over the years-especially during the few times that they actually have visited with Derek's family-not to pry out of respect for Derek. She can't help but wonder, though, about the man who raised her husband. She is sure that knowing Chris is the way to burrow more into the heart of who Derek really is.
And if she's curious, she knows Zola must be. She remembers when Zola learned that Carolyn was actually Derek's mother, and that's what a Nana was, her father's mother. Zola was equal parts confused and amused by this fact for days, so it's only natural that she would wonder about the man who looks so much like Derek. Zola is young enough that she is basically without a filter, and they have always encouraged her curiosity, but her questions are getting more complicated and they can't keep her from asking.
Meredith pushes away from him a little, and turns so she can look into his eyes. "Are you ok?" she finally asks.
"Yes!" he cries defensively.
"Ok, well you just seem not ok," she says matter-of-factly. She is fully out of his arms now and sitting up straight. "You never talk about your dad and it's been a lot of him for one day."
"I'm ok. It's just been," he hesitates, "Unexpected. And she asks a lot of questions."
Meredith nods. "We don't have easy answers to give," she says quietly.
Derek gives a little, joyless laugh, agreeing with her. "I didn't think I would tell them any of it until they were older. I'll never tell them some of it."
"I've told myself the same thing a million times."
This part, she completely understands, because she knows there are questions she will have to answer someday too. She may have to tell her children about things that are embarrassing or painful or shameful. Things that she has done that she is not proud of. People she pushed out of her life, or who pushed her out of theirs. People she couldn't save. She'll have to answer questions about Ellis and Thatcher and Addison and Lexie. And she'll want to hide most of it, because of what it says about her and what it might do to her children to hear it. She will want to leave out the parts about the boys and the tequila. And the parts about the bomb, and the ice cold water of the Puget Sound, and the gun, and the plane. If she ever has to, it will be hard to talk about self-doubt and grief and terror. And she thought she had more time, because her oldest is not even three years old yet. But Zola is already asking where Derek's daddy is.
"No easy answers," Derek echoes, almost as if he has a sense of what she might be thinking.
Meredith sighs and nods, and sinks back into his arms, seeking his comfort. He accepts her, and kisses the top of her head. They let some time go by when neither says anything and despite the anxiety of parenting, of choosing big things for someone else, she feels better to be in it with him. There was a time, not so long ago, that she would feel alone with thoughts like these, even in his arms, but she doesn't anymore because she is sure that he understands.
"I did invite Richard to Thanksgiving," she finally says, wordlessly asking him to move the conversation to a lighter place again. "If he gets discharged in time."
"Really?" he asks.
She shrugs. "This is why your family seems normal to me."
He laughs. A real laugh this time, albeit a quick one. "Normal isn't all it's cracked up to be, Meredith."
"Still. That's why we have to do Christmas in Connecticut. Snow, and cousins, and pie. It'll be good for them. Thanksgiving is going to be my mother's ex, who thought it would be a good idea to give me power of attorney, and a bunch of broken-up couples."
"You invited Cristina then?"
"No. I meant Callie and Arizona."
"You should invite her," Derek urges, "You should make up."
"We're just in a bad place right now," Meredith says.
That place is somewhere between shock and anger and pain. At first, it was equal parts shock and anger, a reaction to what she views as Cristina's selfishness, but now, as it goes on, pain is starting to slip in.
"I don't know," she says, "Maybe this is how we're going to be from now on. Things are different now."
"She's still your person," Derek says, rubbing her arm.
"Derek, my person would support me, and help me. My person wouldn't make my life harder," she snaps. She has gotten at some of these feelings since the whole thing started, and expressed some of them to Derek, but it's a little easier today to assign a word to it: betrayal. It may not be what it really is, or what it may look like to someone else, but it's what it feels like to her.
"I feel like she doesn't have my back," she says, before adding quietly, "My research project is going nowhere."
He kisses her temple and inhales deeply, what he once called breathing her in. Her hair is dirty though, and probably doesn't smell anything like what he hopes it will smell like.
"You're a good doctor, Meredith."
She appreciates him saying it, but she knows that's not it. Well, it's not all of it. Because she knows, deep down in the core of her, that she is a good doctor. But nobody else knows it. And she can't figure out how to be a good doctor, and do all of the other stuff too. Even with Derek taking a step back and making a professional sacrifice for her, and even with him supporting her and loving her more than she ever thought she was going to be supported or loved by any man, it still feels overwhelming sometimes, like she grasps for things and never really reaches them.
"I can't figure out how to make it all work," she admits.
"You're doing it though," he assures her, once again giving her more than she feels like she deserves.
She sighs and burrows into him. He is so good at making her feel better. Despite everything that is happening with work and with Cristina, it at least feels good to know that with him, there is peace and comfort and understanding.
"I just don't want to be my mother," she says quietly.
He doesn't say anything, but when a moment or two goes by and he still doesn't respond, she tilts her head to stare up at him. He doesn't meet her eye right away. "You know what I mean?" she asks, when he looks at her.
It still takes him a second to say something, and when he does, it isn't anything she was expecting.
"No," he says. "All I want to do is be my dad."
Her heart breaks for him. She knows grief very well, but not like this. Even though his arms are wrapped around her, she wraps hers more tightly around him. He looks at her, and though he doesn't have tears in his eyes, the exhaustion scares her.
He has never said these words to her before. He always seems to just know what to do with Zola and Bailey without really trying, and she always assumed that that is just because he is a good man and because he loves them so much. Now, she realizes in an instant that, while those things are also true, he must always be trying to follow his father's example.
"I love you," she says. She kisses him deeply, because it might be the only way to tell him the whole of it. How much she loves him, and needs him. How good he is.
She knows a little something about trying to live up to expectations, and this might be the only comfort she can give him.
When they come apart, she tells him again. "I love you," she says, and he nods in response.
Then she adds something else-because, besides "I love you," it's the truest thing she can say; because she couldn't do this without him and what's more, she wouldn't have wanted to; because she knows intimately what other children's lives are like and, even though sometimes she is frustrated and lost, she is thankful that her children will never have the father that she had.
"You are everything I wanted for them."
***
***
I'm so sorry for the wait between chapters this time. Real life has certainly gotten in the way. But hopefully this was worth the wait. I love hearing from you guys so please let me know what you thought. For my American friends, happy belated Thanksgiving, and happy holidays to everyone!
Author: greymcdreamysgh
Pairing: MerDer
Rating: PG-13
Summary: MDZB. A short multi-chapter fic. Exploring parenthood/child relationships in a series of moments from their first year as a family of four. "Kiss with a mouth full of shooting stars all the lost and the broken parts."
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.
Unafraid, you can name your scars
With the touch of a new heart
A few days after they agree that Derek will take a step back to allow Meredith more time to focus on work, Derek feels like it's all going pretty well. His brain-mapping project is moving forward, Zola is thrilled to spend more time with him, and he still gets to scrub in on a decent amount of surgeries anyway. Meredith is still incredibly stressed out sometimes, but Derek blames her friends for that. He feels frustrated so for her, and even a little sad, because he knows how much she loves Cristina and because it seems like no matter how hard she tries to find balance, something always gets in the way. Still, he couldn't be more proud of her.
One Friday morning, while Bailey rocks gently in his swing in the living room, Derek spreads his paperwork out on the coffee table and works from the couch on his laptop. Zola is old enough that she can play by herself in her room, at least for a little while before she gets bored. This leaves Meredith free to finish getting ready for work, and she sorts through the mail while she waits for her breakfast to finish toasting.
"Derek?" she says.
"Hmm?"
"Your mom sent you something."
"What is it?" he asks.
When his mother was here a few months ago, after Bailey was born, he remembers asking her for his old baseball cards so he can give them to Bailey when he's older, and if that's what they are, brain-mapping can wait. He has been anxious to see those cards again for awhile.
"I don't know," Meredith replies. Standing behind him and looking over his shoulder, she passes him a much smaller envelope than what he was expecting. "Here, you open it."
He slides a finger under the seal of the envelope and pulls out a single photograph with a piece of notebook paper folded around it. He disregards the loose-leaf at first, and grips the photo by its worn edge.
In it, he sees his father, sitting on the sofa in what he recognizes as his childhood living room. Chris Shepherd's jet-black hair is cropped closely to his head and his smiling face looks so youthful, more so than Derek ever remembers seeing it in life. In the photo, his father holds a baby upright on his knee-Derek recognizes the baby as himself immediately-and inclines his head towards the child in his arms, so close that the stubble on his face is almost touching him. Derek himself could be no more than six months old in this picture, and it looks like the camera caught him in the middle of a belly laugh. When Derek looks closer, he can see his father's fingertips digging into his sides, tickling him. Derek checks the back of the picture for a date, but there isn't one, only his mother's perfect script, written in pencil and faded with time, noting "Christopher and Derek."
"Is that you?" Meredith asks softly. Derek nods. Neither of them has many childhood photos around. As she leans over the back of the couch to get a closer look at the picture in his hand, he thinks that she might be searching the baby's face for hints of her son.
But then she says, "You look like your dad."
Neither of them says anything for a moment while Derek continues to stare at the picture. He does look a little like his dad, he supposes-it's that Shepherd hair-but he studies the photo not for hints of himself, but to drink in the details of the father he rarely looks at. His childhood home is full of family photos-they make his mother feel better-but he prefers to just remember his dad without seeing his face every day. It's been awhile since he's seen him.
"She sent a note with it," Meredith finally says, motioning to the discarded piece of paper on the couch next to him. He sets the photo down on his lap and unfolds the paper, wondering how his mother's handwriting hasn't changed in over forty years.
Derek, the girls are helping me organize some old pictures, and we found this. I thought you might like to have it. You remind me more of your father every day. I couldn't be more proud. See you, Meredith, and the kids for Christmas. Love, Mom
"Are you ok?" Meredith asks. She squeezes his shoulder, but he doesn't turn around. Getting this picture isn't a bad thing, but it has definitely surprised him.
"Yeah," he says quickly.
Meredith doesn't say anything, and doesn't remove her hand from his shoulder. He turns around and smiles for her. "I'm good," he says.
For a moment, she looks like she wants to say something, but she must decide against it.
"Ok," she finally says. "I need to get to the hospital. I nursed him an hour ago, so he should be good for a little while. I'll be home for his 7:00 feeding. Zola?" she calls, as she rounds the couch to get to Bailey. "I'm leaving."
"Bye, Mom!" Zola shouts back from her room.
Meredith's head jerks up from Bailey's swing and she turns back to Derek. "Mom?" Meredith mouths sadly.
Derek laughs. "She's still little," he assures her.
Meredith sighs. "Bye, B," she says, leaning down and kissing Bailey several times before she finally pulls herself away. She kisses Derek too, with a whispered goodbye, then grabs her toast, wraps it in a paper towel, and leaves.
Derek puts the photo down on the table but for awhile, he can't focus on his open laptop and the half a dozen medical journals he has open and dog-eared on the table. It takes a few minutes before he gives up the pretense of doing work, and picks up the photo again.
Meredith was right before. Although Chris Shepherd is younger by about ten years in this photo than Derek is now, he sees how easily he could stand in his father's shoes. They have the same build, the same hair, the same crinkle around the eyes.
He never talks about his father. Well, he hardly ever does. It's at least much less often than his mother and sisters do. Meredith doesn't push him on it, and for that, he loves her. But he thinks of his father more often now than he used to, and this picture is a reminder that Chris Shepherd really, truly was alive once. There was a time when he wasn't a myth or a specter, a time when he sat on a sofa with his infant son and lived the same ordinary moments that Derek himself is living now.
He lets himself look for a few moments more before he shakes himself out of it. He closes his laptop and stands up with it and the photo in his hands. He glances over at Bailey, still swinging drowsily and contentedly in the corner of the room, and then calls to Zola.
"Zola, come on out here," he says. "It's time for breakfast."
He sets the laptop and photo on the kitchen counter, and smiles as his daughter comes down the hall with three stuffed animals in her arms. Her pajama leggings are bunched up a little high on her shins, and in her attempt to hold on to all three animals at the same time, her shirt has ridden up to expose a little of her belly.
"Do we have guests for breakfast?" he asks.
She nods, and passes a stuffed lion, giraffe, and dog to him so he can seat them on the empty chairs next to her. Then she reaches up for him to lift her into her chair. Once she is strapped in, he asks, "What do you want to eat?"
"Cookies," she says.
"I don't think so," he replies.
Zola wrinkles her nose. "Mommy said yes."
He has meant to talk to Meredith about this, whether she too has noticed that Zola already tries to pit them against one another, to confuse them on what the other one has said she can or cannot do. Sometimes, she gets away with it, like if she asks for ten extra minutes before bedtime or a trip to the library-requests that Meredith would usually indulge-but he is certain that Meredith did not say she could have cookies for breakfast.
"No, she didn't," he replies firmly. "Only after dinner. How about eggs?"
Zola scowls, but then nods.
He cracks two eggs into a bowl and whisks them before pouring them into a skillet. He turns around for a second to confirm who he thinks he sees at the counter, and then, turning back to the eggs to continue scrambling them, he asks, "What do you, Joseph, Nugget, and Fuzzy have planned for today?"
He is kind of proud of himself for remembering the names of these particular stuffed animals. Zola would be quick to correct him if he was wrong, and she says nothing, so he must have gotten them all right. But Zola doesn't respond.
Instead, she leans forward in her seat and reaches for the photo, pinching her fingers over it until it gets close enough to her that she can grab it.
"That's Bailey?" she asks.
"No, that's me, when I was a baby."
Zola looks confused for a second. How could her father have ever been a baby? Then she points to Chris and asks, "Who's that?"
"That's my dad," Derek replies.
He and Meredith haven't really talked to Zola very much about Ellis and Chris, or even Lexie and Mark. It's not that they don't want to, but they agreed that Zola is only two years old, and she might not understand, especially when some of the people in question are people she has never met before. They have explained to her, as best they could, what it means to die-simply because they had to, considering their line of work-but they haven't ever really had a conversation about their own friends and family who have died.
Which is probably why Zola says, in a confused voice, "You don't have a daddy."
"I used to," he says.
"How come not anymore?"
"He died, Zo," Derek says. "A long time ago."
"Oh," she replies. "Why?"
This is so much earlier than he ever planned to have this conversation. For a second, he is irrationally annoyed with his mother for sending the picture at all, and then with himself for leaving it in such easy reach. At the very least, he knows he will never, ever tell Zola about the sheer terror he felt when he saw, through the crack in a back door left slightly ajar, a gun pointed at his father's chest. He'll never tell her about clapping a hand over Amy's mouth, and holding her so tightly she couldn't move, or about the shock that came with realizing that all of his father's blood was now on the floor of his shop. He'll have to tell her someday that his father was murdered. But he'll never, ever tell her these other things, not now, when she is only two years old, or even later, when she is grown up. Not ever.
So now, all he says is, "His heart just got really hurt one day and he died."
"Oh," Zola says, still staring intently at the photo. "That's sad."
After a beat, he finally says something, impressed with her response. "Yeah, it is. I miss him a lot."
Zola sighs and doesn't say anything for a moment or two. It seems like the conversation just washes over her and then it's gone. Finally, she looks up and just asks, "Joseph can have cereal? He doesn't like eggs."
***
The next day brings a morning that allows all four of them to be home together. Derek showers and Meredith cleans up the remains of breakfast, while Zola colors and Bailey sits in his bouncy seat on the kitchen counter.
"Bailey, this is red," Zola says, placing a red crayon in Bailey's hand.
"Zola," Meredith says, turning around from the kitchen sink. "We can't give him crayons."
"Why not?"
Meredith hates to correct her, because she wants to encourage any and all positive interaction with Bailey, but she really can't let her five-month-old suck or gnaw on a crayon.
"Well, he might try to eat it," Meredith says as she takes the crayon out of Bailey's hand and gives it back to Zola.
"It's not food," Zola says matter-of-factly.
"I know, but Bailey doesn't know that. Why don't you use it to color instead?"
Zola goes back to her project, and while she works, Meredith takes a good look at her head. She then announces, "Hey, Zozo, you know what? We can take your stitches out today."
Zola looks up from her coloring from her seat at the kitchen counter. After a day or two, she has mostly forgotten that the stitches are even there, so this announcement must come as a bit of a surprise. "Alex can do it?" she asks.
"No," Meredith replies. "I'm going to do it. I'm a doctor too, remember?"
Zola smiles, until she sees Meredith rummage in the kitchen medicine cabinet for a pair of surgical scissors, and her eyes grow wide. Meredith also takes out a bottle of rubbing alcohol, washes her hands, and sterilizes the scissors with a clean paper towel and a healthy amount of the disinfectant.
"No, Mommy," Zola says, staring at her with a crayon in each fist.
"All I need to do is cut two little strings, and we'll be done. I'll be super gentle," Meredith assures her.
"Like when you cut my nails?" Zola asks.
"Exactly like that," Meredith says. "And you can have a piece of your Halloween candy when we're all done."
This seems to make the whole thing much easier to bear for Zola. For a two-year-old, she had remarkable stamina on Halloween, and even with Meredith and Derek secretly eating some of her candy, she still has a ton of it left.
When Zola sees the scissors up close though, she seems to reconsider. "No," Zola whines. "Use my pink scissors."
"I can't, Zo," Meredith says, thinking of Zola's pair of pink safety scissors with rounded edges and blades so dull they can barely cut a piece of paper. "I have to use my surgery scissors. It's only on the string, not on your skin. It won't really hurt."
Zola looks up at the scissors with doubt and fear plainly etched across her face. Meredith, with the scissors in hand, doesn't dare move them closer to her face in case she flinches, in which case she really will get hurt.
"Can you show me your tough girl face?" Meredith asks, but Zola is fixated on the scissors. "Don't look at the scissors," she urges her. "Show me and Bailey your tough girl face."
Zola seems to gather herself. She screws up her face into a grimace, and flexes both arms. It's something Derek taught her and it never fails to make Meredith smile.
"There it is!" Meredith exclaims. "Bailey, look how brave Zola is!"
And while she is talking, she quickly snips Zola's two stitches, and pulls out the remaining thread.
"All done," she says. "You were such a brave girl!"
"Done?" Zola asks incredulously.
"Yep, no more stitches."
"I can see?" Zola asks, feeling the smooth ridge of slightly raised skin on her forehead with her fingertips. Meredith rummages in her purse for a compact, and shows Zola her reflection in the mirror.
"What's that?" Zola asks.
"That's just a little scar," Meredith explains. "Sometimes that happens when your skin heals."
Zola wrinkles her nose. "I don't like it."
"It's ok," Meredith says. "When you get bigger, you probably won't be able to even see it," Meredith assures her.
"No," Zola whines.
"It's ok to have a scar, Lovebug," Meredith says gently. "Lots of people have them."
Zola scowls, and crosses her arms over her chest. "I don't like it."
Meredith doesn't really know what to tell her. Besides putting Mederma on it each day, there's really not a whole lot either of them can do about Zola's scar, except wait for it to fade.
"Can I show you something?" she finally asks. She lifts up her shirt so Zola can see her stomach. "Look, I have scars too."
Zola looks a little shocked when she sees the vertical scar right down the middle from her c-section and splenectomy, the hook-shaped scar from her liver surgery, and a smaller centipede of a scar below her belly-button and a little to the right from her appy. Zola can't even see the transverse incision across her lower abdomen, the first cut from her c-section.
"You got a lot," Zola says, audibly shocked as she stares at Meredith's abdomen.
"I know, but they don't hurt at all," she says, keeping her shirt held up so Zola can get a good look. "And I don't mind having them."
When Zola reaches out and touches her appy scar, it gives her goosebumps. Although it has faded over the years, she can still kind of see the dots on either side of the incision line to mark where the thread went in and out.
"Stitches for Mommy too?" Zola asks.
"I did, but when they got taken out, they left these scars," Meredith explains.
"Cause of the slide?" Zola asks curiously.
Meredith smiles. "No, these aren't from the slide," she says. "These are from surgeries I had to have. That happens sometimes."
"No surgery for me," Zola says, shaking her head.
"I know. You didn't need it, but I had to get my liver fixed, and my appendix fixed, and this is from when Bailey was born," she says, tracing a finger over each of her scars. "And they needed to do some stitches after my surgeries, so now I have scars."
"Oh," Zola says.
"It's ok to have scars," Meredith assures her. "Scars just mean you're tough and brave. Me and you are survivors."
"Survivors?" Zola asks. It's a new word for her, Meredith is pretty sure, but it's one she is all too happy for Zola to learn.
"Yeah," Meredith says. She leans over and kisses the top of Zola's head, just above her new scar. "It means we can do anything."
***
Later, after dinner has been cleaned up and the kids' pajamas have been put on, Zola has been told that she can play quietly until bedtime, so she has occupied herself with her kitchen set while Derek walks a fussy Bailey around the kitchen.
In the meantime, Meredith sits at the counter and looks up flights to Connecticut for the week of Christmas. They've flown out there a few times, but this will be the first time they've done it with both kids. Even though Zola's birthday is in January, it'll still be traveling with two kids under three. Across the country. During the holidays. Needless to say, they are both a little stressed out about it.
Derek paces around the kitchen, holding Bailey closely against his chest with his head on his shoulder. Bailey has eaten a good dinner, and they have already felt around his mouth for the hint of teeth trying to poke through, so their only explanation for his fussiness is that he's overtired. As soon as they settle on the flights they're taking, it'll be bedtime for the little guy.
"So we could take the red-eye and with the time difference, get in at a decent time in the morning," Meredith announces, looking up from her laptop. "On Sunday or Monday."
Derek grimaces. "I don't know about the red-eye."
The very thought of it causes his imagination to run wild with horror scenarios. He recalls every bad flight he has ever taken, every screaming baby, every parent who has knocked against his elbow and knee while they walked their kid up and down the aisle in a desperate attempt to make them sleep. Zola is a pretty good flier-not great, but definitely survivable-but Bailey is an unknown quantity. And if his intermittent fussiness, like what he is experiencing now, is any indication, Derek is prepared to stay on the West Coast for the next five to ten years.
Meredith seems to anticipate his concern, and says, "Hopefully the kids will sleep the whole time anyway."
"Yeah, but if they don't, everyone else on the flight is going to want to kill us," he says. He pats Bailey's back and makes shushing noises in his ear as he takes another lap around the kitchen counter.
"What about Monday during the day then?" Meredith suggests. "We could get in by the afternoon."
Derek shakes his head. "If we get in too early, then we're going to get roped into going to this thing at Kate's."
Meredith gives him a puzzled look, and he realizes that they have avoided this event thus far. So far, it's been great to get out of it, but the flip side is that because they've missed it so many times, Kate will definitely force them into going this year.
"They do this thing where everybody comes over the day before Christmas Eve and bakes and drinks," he continues, "And it's a lot of people we went to high school with. It's a nightmare, honestly."
"Kate is still friends with people from high school?" Meredith asks incredulously.
"She and Joe have been dating since they were seventeen," he reminds her.
"Right."
"Anyway, I'd like to avoid that if at all possible."
What goes without saying is that everyone at that party knew him when he was fifteen. They all remember his afro, and his acne, and his band uniform. And now that he is a neurosurgeon, many of them take some measure of comfort for themselves in reminding him that he used to be a band geek.
"Don't you want to show your sister's friends that you have a hot wife and cute kids now?" Meredith asks, sensing why he is objecting, though she of all people doesn't need to be talked out of going to awkward family gatherings.
"Not really," he says. "Then it moves from reminiscing to expressing total shock that I have a hot wife and cute kids now."
Meredith laughs. "Ok, well if we fly out on Tuesday during the day, then we'll avoid reliving your awkward high school experience and we'll bypass a possible mutiny on the plane," she says. "But we'll also miss most of Christmas Eve. So what's better? Red-eye with possible meltdowns or reminiscing and small talk over pie and beer?"
Derek sighs and looks at Meredith from across the counter. "What about another airline?"
"Derek!" Meredith says in exasperation, but as Bailey's fussing turns from whimpers to cries, she turns her attention to her son instead. "What's the matter, B? Huh?"
"Mommy, I want him to stop crying," Zola says. She has left her toys in the living room and come into the kitchen to investigate for herself.
"I know, Zo," Meredith says, "But he's uncomfortable, and that's the only way he can tell us."
"What's wrong, buddy?" Derek asks, tilting his head close to Bailey and patting his back. He shifts Bailey in his arms, and that might do the trick. His cries die down a little, but as Derek rounds the countertop again, to the side where Meredith and Zola are, Meredith's voice takes on a new sense of urgency.
"Derek?" she says. "Derek, blow out."
"What?" he says, but then he looks down. Bailey has indeed blown out his diaper, and poop is spreading across his body, and seeping onto Derek's shirt as well. "Oh, come on, B."
Meredith seems to be biting back a laugh as he extends the baby outward, holding him at arm's length. He may be biased, because he is the one covered in poop right now, but this is by far the most disgusting mess that either one of his children has ever created. But of course, Bailey has stopped crying.
"Well, now you're happy, aren't you?" Derek says, and he can't help but laugh as Bailey stares back at him contentedly.
"Yuck, there's poop everywhere!" Zola shouts. "Bailey!"
"I know, babies do that sometimes," Meredith tells her. "Pretty gross, huh? Can you help Mommy and Daddy and go get Bailey's wipes and a new diaper for him?"
Zola looks all too happy to get out of there. She runs down the hall, and turns the corner into Bailey's room.
Meredith turns back to Derek. "Put him in the sink. I'll hose him down."
In this moment, Derek is just thankful that they've already loaded the dishwasher. He plops Bailey in the kitchen sink, and holds him in place while Meredith uses a pair of kitchen shears to cut his pajamas off him.
"So that's the end of that outfit," Derek says, still holding an extremely messy Bailey upright in the sink.
"Yeah," Meredith says, "And how much do you care about that shirt?"
"Not enough to get poop in my hair trying to take it off," he says, and the next thing he knows, Meredith is cutting his shirt off too.
She balls all of the dirty clothes up with the dirty diaper and throws them in the kitchen trash. Leaning around Bailey, she washes her hands, and then gives the baby a good look.
"Look at him," she says with a laugh. "He literally has a shit-eating grin right now. Are you proud of yourself?"
Bailey flaps his arms in delight, and Derek can't help but grin too. He holds Bailey up a little higher so Meredith can start to clean him off. The baby bounces in his father's arms and laughs while Meredith takes the spray nozzle and hoses him down. This seems to be the most fun Bailey has had in a long time.
"Bailey," Derek says, shaking his head. "You seem like you're feeling better."
"Well, now we know," Meredith says. "If he starts fussing like that, just beware. This might be coming. Right, B?"
Bailey just laughs again. Once they have gotten him relatively clean, Derek says, "Why don't you change him and put him down? I'll disinfect the sink and take out the trash."
Meredith scoops the wet baby into her arms without a towel, kisses his cheeks, and says, "Come on, pooper."
Derek laughs along with Bailey, but before Meredith can take him into his bedroom, Zola returns with a box of wipes and a diaper in her hand.
She stops in her tracks and stares at Derek. "You got a scar too?" she asks.
Derek shoots Meredith a look. Zola has seen him without a shirt countless times, and she has never mentioned his scar at all. Before now, he wasn't sure she even knew what a scar was, but now she's staring at his chest, and she definitely knows and recognizes it on him. It makes him feel slightly, inexplicably, anxious.
"She was upset about her head," Meredith says. She shifts Bailey to her hip, and looks back at Derek, unsure if she should apologize. "I showed her mine."
"Oh," he says. "Yeah, I have one too, Zo."
"You had surgery too?" she asks. "With stitches?"
"Yeah, I did," he replies softly.
"Why?"
Her question makes him think of another thing that he'll never, ever tell Zola: one of the only other times he has ever felt absolutely terrified, when he himself was shot. He'll never tell her about how hard his back hit the hospital's tile floor when he fell. His gurgling cough, something he had heard before. Meredith's firm pressure on his chest. The weeks and weeks of recovery. The pulling of this scar whenever he moved.
Instead, all he says is, "I had an accident. I had to get my heart fixed."
"Like your daddy?" Zola asks.
***
While Derek puts Zola to bed, Meredith has moved beyond airline reservations and is returning emails and beginning to shop for Christmas gifts from the comfort of the couch. Derek is in Zola's bedroom for quite awhile, and Meredith is sure that Zola has somehow gotten him to agree to read her way more stories than she would otherwise get. She has been meaning to talk to him about this, how she has noticed that Zola is getting smarter and that she tries to force them into good cop and bad cop roles sometimes.
When Derek finally emerges, he stands in front of her and says, with so much exhaustion in his voice, "She asked me if I was going to die like my dad."
Just like that, answering emails is finished, Christmas shopping is finished-everything is finished except for this moment. She closes the laptop and sets it on the coffee table, and stares up at Derek. It takes her a second to say something because, though she can clearly see the pain in Derek's eyes, she is also worried about her little girl, who may think her daddy will not come home one day.
"What did you say?" she finally asks, as evenly as she can.
"I said no," Derek says with a sigh, as he sits down next to her. "What else could I say?"
"Was she ok?"
She can't hear Zola crying, or even just talking to herself for that matter, but it's a struggle to resist the urge to go to her right now and hold her in her arms.
"I think so," Derek says. "She closed her eyes and let me leave."
Meredith nods, and lets the breath she's been holding go. She watches Derek stare straight ahead, drained and expressionless. At times like these, she struggles to know what to do, or what to say. Derek never talks about his father, and even now, when she is confident that she is the one who knows him better than anyone else in the world, there is still so much that she does not understand.
"You want to go to your family's for Christmas, right?" she asks.
He looks up. "What? Yeah. Why?"
"I don't know," she says. Before, you just didn't seem like you wanted to fly out there. And the whole thing with your dad." She trails off for a second before assuring him, "We don't have to go if you don't want to."
"I want to," he says almost immediately. She doesn't respond right away while she tries to gauge whether or not he's telling the whole truth. She knows he doesn't want to disappoint his family, especially after all he's asked of them in the past year, but more than that-and she's sure about this because she's a pro at it herself-he doesn't want to let on that anything might be wrong. The easiest way to do that is to just keep going as if nothing is.
"I want to," he says again, much more emphatically.
"Ok," she agrees, "We'll go."
They settle into each other's arms on the couch. His arms feel strong around her, and she lays an arm across his stomach and rests her head on his shoulder. Like this, they relax quietly for a few minutes, just enjoying the rare and absolute silence.
But it doesn't take long for him to ask her, "You want to go, right?"
"Yeah," she says. "Your family should meet Bailey. Plus Thanksgiving is probably going to be a disaster, and they should have one normal holiday."
Keeping him talking seems to snap him out of his initial shock, because his voice actually perks up and she can almost hear him smiling even though she isn't looking at him. "If you're going to my family hoping for normal," he says, "You're going to be sorely disappointed."
Meredith laughs, and replies, "Well, more normal then."
Derek grows quiet again. "Zola's going to ask more about my dad. Mom has pictures of him everywhere."
"She saw the one your mom sent?"
"Yeah."
Meredith doesn't know what to do about this, because he's right. While Meredith herself really does not want Zola and Bailey to grow up in a house that keeps a lot of secrets, she worries that some of it might be inevitable. Chris Shepherd is almost as much a mystery to Meredith as he is to Zola, and Meredith has tried hard over the years-especially during the few times that they actually have visited with Derek's family-not to pry out of respect for Derek. She can't help but wonder, though, about the man who raised her husband. She is sure that knowing Chris is the way to burrow more into the heart of who Derek really is.
And if she's curious, she knows Zola must be. She remembers when Zola learned that Carolyn was actually Derek's mother, and that's what a Nana was, her father's mother. Zola was equal parts confused and amused by this fact for days, so it's only natural that she would wonder about the man who looks so much like Derek. Zola is young enough that she is basically without a filter, and they have always encouraged her curiosity, but her questions are getting more complicated and they can't keep her from asking.
Meredith pushes away from him a little, and turns so she can look into his eyes. "Are you ok?" she finally asks.
"Yes!" he cries defensively.
"Ok, well you just seem not ok," she says matter-of-factly. She is fully out of his arms now and sitting up straight. "You never talk about your dad and it's been a lot of him for one day."
"I'm ok. It's just been," he hesitates, "Unexpected. And she asks a lot of questions."
Meredith nods. "We don't have easy answers to give," she says quietly.
Derek gives a little, joyless laugh, agreeing with her. "I didn't think I would tell them any of it until they were older. I'll never tell them some of it."
"I've told myself the same thing a million times."
This part, she completely understands, because she knows there are questions she will have to answer someday too. She may have to tell her children about things that are embarrassing or painful or shameful. Things that she has done that she is not proud of. People she pushed out of her life, or who pushed her out of theirs. People she couldn't save. She'll have to answer questions about Ellis and Thatcher and Addison and Lexie. And she'll want to hide most of it, because of what it says about her and what it might do to her children to hear it. She will want to leave out the parts about the boys and the tequila. And the parts about the bomb, and the ice cold water of the Puget Sound, and the gun, and the plane. If she ever has to, it will be hard to talk about self-doubt and grief and terror. And she thought she had more time, because her oldest is not even three years old yet. But Zola is already asking where Derek's daddy is.
"No easy answers," Derek echoes, almost as if he has a sense of what she might be thinking.
Meredith sighs and nods, and sinks back into his arms, seeking his comfort. He accepts her, and kisses the top of her head. They let some time go by when neither says anything and despite the anxiety of parenting, of choosing big things for someone else, she feels better to be in it with him. There was a time, not so long ago, that she would feel alone with thoughts like these, even in his arms, but she doesn't anymore because she is sure that he understands.
"I did invite Richard to Thanksgiving," she finally says, wordlessly asking him to move the conversation to a lighter place again. "If he gets discharged in time."
"Really?" he asks.
She shrugs. "This is why your family seems normal to me."
He laughs. A real laugh this time, albeit a quick one. "Normal isn't all it's cracked up to be, Meredith."
"Still. That's why we have to do Christmas in Connecticut. Snow, and cousins, and pie. It'll be good for them. Thanksgiving is going to be my mother's ex, who thought it would be a good idea to give me power of attorney, and a bunch of broken-up couples."
"You invited Cristina then?"
"No. I meant Callie and Arizona."
"You should invite her," Derek urges, "You should make up."
"We're just in a bad place right now," Meredith says.
That place is somewhere between shock and anger and pain. At first, it was equal parts shock and anger, a reaction to what she views as Cristina's selfishness, but now, as it goes on, pain is starting to slip in.
"I don't know," she says, "Maybe this is how we're going to be from now on. Things are different now."
"She's still your person," Derek says, rubbing her arm.
"Derek, my person would support me, and help me. My person wouldn't make my life harder," she snaps. She has gotten at some of these feelings since the whole thing started, and expressed some of them to Derek, but it's a little easier today to assign a word to it: betrayal. It may not be what it really is, or what it may look like to someone else, but it's what it feels like to her.
"I feel like she doesn't have my back," she says, before adding quietly, "My research project is going nowhere."
He kisses her temple and inhales deeply, what he once called breathing her in. Her hair is dirty though, and probably doesn't smell anything like what he hopes it will smell like.
"You're a good doctor, Meredith."
She appreciates him saying it, but she knows that's not it. Well, it's not all of it. Because she knows, deep down in the core of her, that she is a good doctor. But nobody else knows it. And she can't figure out how to be a good doctor, and do all of the other stuff too. Even with Derek taking a step back and making a professional sacrifice for her, and even with him supporting her and loving her more than she ever thought she was going to be supported or loved by any man, it still feels overwhelming sometimes, like she grasps for things and never really reaches them.
"I can't figure out how to make it all work," she admits.
"You're doing it though," he assures her, once again giving her more than she feels like she deserves.
She sighs and burrows into him. He is so good at making her feel better. Despite everything that is happening with work and with Cristina, it at least feels good to know that with him, there is peace and comfort and understanding.
"I just don't want to be my mother," she says quietly.
He doesn't say anything, but when a moment or two goes by and he still doesn't respond, she tilts her head to stare up at him. He doesn't meet her eye right away. "You know what I mean?" she asks, when he looks at her.
It still takes him a second to say something, and when he does, it isn't anything she was expecting.
"No," he says. "All I want to do is be my dad."
Her heart breaks for him. She knows grief very well, but not like this. Even though his arms are wrapped around her, she wraps hers more tightly around him. He looks at her, and though he doesn't have tears in his eyes, the exhaustion scares her.
He has never said these words to her before. He always seems to just know what to do with Zola and Bailey without really trying, and she always assumed that that is just because he is a good man and because he loves them so much. Now, she realizes in an instant that, while those things are also true, he must always be trying to follow his father's example.
"I love you," she says. She kisses him deeply, because it might be the only way to tell him the whole of it. How much she loves him, and needs him. How good he is.
She knows a little something about trying to live up to expectations, and this might be the only comfort she can give him.
When they come apart, she tells him again. "I love you," she says, and he nods in response.
Then she adds something else-because, besides "I love you," it's the truest thing she can say; because she couldn't do this without him and what's more, she wouldn't have wanted to; because she knows intimately what other children's lives are like and, even though sometimes she is frustrated and lost, she is thankful that her children will never have the father that she had.
"You are everything I wanted for them."
***
***
I'm so sorry for the wait between chapters this time. Real life has certainly gotten in the way. But hopefully this was worth the wait. I love hearing from you guys so please let me know what you thought. For my American friends, happy belated Thanksgiving, and happy holidays to everyone!