~*~ Six Feet Under The Stars ~*~

Welcome to my new story! I will be finishing Runaway World but this kind of intruded so I had to write it. And yes, there are stories with similar plotlines, but this is different, I promise. And it will mostly be about MerDer and Maddison, but also Calzona, Owina, Lexzie, and Lexie/Jackson.


She always knows.

It's not just that tension permeates the room, stinging her nostrils with noxious tendrils. It's also not just that dread hangs over the room full of navy-scrubbed attendings like frost that will not be banished, even under the benevolent hand of spring.

Her heart accelerates, pumping oxygenated blood ever-more quickly into her left atrium which leads to her left ventricle which pushes the blood out into the network of veins that map out her body, but although there should be an excess of clarity in response to her racing bodily functions, there isn't. Instead, swallowing seems a gargantuan task, breathing an unwelcome ordeal.

Then Derek's hand, fine-fingered and warm, laces itself with hers, and for a moment, she is gifted with the lucidity that has been eluding her, and the air in her system is rich and nourishing again. He can sense things about her before she can, sometimes, something that would have scared the hell out of her a few years ago. These days, she just goes with it, because the alternative, basically being ripped in half, is extremely unappealing.

And as Derek squeezes her fingers tighter, her mind drifts to another living, breathing, smiling, laughing body that is the byproduct of the two of them, a boy with a grin so bright sometimes she swears it could light the entire city, the child that denies semblance to the angel who shares his name, despite his looks, when she finds him in the pantry covered in smears of chocolate.

*'~

"I'm telling you that you're wrong, Dr. Shepherd."

"Well, I think you're in denial, Dr. Shepherd."

Meredith sat on the edge of the bed simply to have an excuse to calm her fidgeting limbs. She'd already paced the sunlit bedroom a few hundred times, stuffed still-clean scrubs into the laundry, and pulled the comforter haphazardly over the bed. All to have something to do. Anything to avoid grabbing the box in her husband's hand.

"This is ridiculous!" she huffed, her spine uncurling as her body stretched in the streaming sunlight as her hand unconsciously found a spot on the apex of her stomach."I'm not pregnant, Derek, and I think I would know."

Derek grinned, and despite herself she felt her knees grow just a little weak, felt her resistance eroded just a little more. "I know your cycle, Mer."

"That's kind of creepy, you know."

"Well, I have to pay attention to when I can touch your boobs and when I can't. If I didn't, I'd be in the doghouse as often as Mark and that would make the hot sex a lot less convenient."

"You're incorrigible."

"But you love me." Derek cornered her, pressing her up against the bluebell wall of their bedroom so she could feel their bodies touching in all the right places, igniting the sparks of chemistry that usually accompanied them. She breathed deeper, suffused in his scent, mint and thyme and Burberry, as he began to place butterfly light kisses against her lips. She leaned forward hungrily, insistently, but Derek pulled back, sapphire eyes dancing, and proffered the white box again.

"Just take the test, Mer, please? If it's negative, fine, you win, and I'll do you exactly one favor." His grin was bright, tantalizing, promising things that stained her neck and cheeks in rosy pink. "But if it's positive, and I think it is … well, we'll have something to celebrate, won't we?"

"Fine," she grumbled, partially out of a desire to prove him wrong, but mostly because when he looked at her like that he unlocked places deep inside of her that she hadn't previously known existed. She slipped the box from his fingers and pranced toward the bathroom. "But order me a pepperoni pizza while we're waiting, will you?"

Derek muttered something that sounded suspiciously like, "you are so pregnant," but she ignored him as she disappeared into the bathroom. As she peed on the little white stick, all the while rolling her eyes, she was already planning how to use the favor Derek promised.

But while she ate pizza and smirked triumphantly at her husband, the betraying little stick turned blue.

*'~

Her breath catches as Richard gets slowly to his feet to pace in front of them; she sees the dread following every footstep, her heart clenches and releases. It's like she's living one of those fairytales and she's stuck in the part where the main character is on the cusp of a very bad revelation, like that the angry, fire-breathing dragon is on its way, or that the knight in shining armor will not be coming to rescue her after all. Not that she every required such a knight, nor had one until Derek, but his mere presence allows her lungs to expand just a little more with each breath.

It seems as though the room takes a collective breath before Richard opens his mouth. "As of this morning … we have evidence that Robert Lawson is in Seattle."

The effect of these words would have stunned a stranger, Meredith muses as she tries to restrain the tears pricking her eyes. The beads of moisture rebel and make two wet, shining trails down her cheeks. Beside her, Derek's hand clenches tighter around hers, and she can hear Addison's soft, horrified gasp and Mark grinding his teeth. Despite herself and futility of the action, Meredith allows her voice to join the cacophony of yells that assault Richard as he tries to restore calm.

"How do you know that? You can't know that!"

"It can't be!"

"I thought San Francisco was the last one!"

"Silence!" Richard finally thunders, and the attendings sheepishly obey. The diamond tears are still racing down her cheeks but the room has a strange crystal clearness, Meredith can see everything from Izzie's sympathetic face to Mark's arms tight around Addison, who is shaking like a lone leaf in a hurricane.

"We know because 4-year-old Jake McKinnon went missing this morning from daycare," Richard says, his voice an anomalous illusion of calm. "We suspect because the boy just disappeared – the daycare says he was there one minute, and gone the next. I'm telling you all because if this man really is in Seattle, we want to get one of these kids back alive."

The room erupts in noise again, but Meredith isn't looking at her distressed colleagues, she's staring at the door, behind which, somewhere, her son is playing happily, unaware of the danger. "Go get them," Addison instructs Mark in a desperate whisper, and though Meredith wants to run after the Head of Plastics or send Derek behind him, she knows that he was the running back and star sprinter of the track team while Derek ran distance.

So she waits, counting every second until Gabriel is back in her arms.

*'~

"Congratulations, man. Really," Mark said, trying to effuse his voice with real sincerity, but it was difficult to distill when his own wife had failed to carry a child in her womb for the last six months. She blamed herself for ruining their chances by aborting their first child, maintaining that God was punishing her by making her unable to bear children; Naomi's tests had, in her mind, proven their greatest fear.

It was awful, but he was relieved it wasn't him, that he wasn't to blame for the fact that their house wasn't filled with giggles and cries amongst all the excess rain.

"Thanks," Derek said, unable to quench his wide grin. "Meredith insisted for days that she wasn't, but …" he stopped, Mark suspected, because he couldn't control the clenching of his jaw, a profusion of unadulterated pain. At one time Derek Shepherd would have done anything to hurt him, after his and Addison's betrayal, but these days their friendship was mostly holding together.

"I'm so sorry, Mark. Are you two still not having any luck?" Derek asked softly.

"Yeah. I mean, I know we're supposed to wait a year before getting worried, but all those tests Naomi did that one time are freaking her out."

Derek smiled sympathetically, but Mark knew there was no way his friend could truly empathize, as he would become a father in less than nine months."Well … tell her hi for me. Next Saturday, again?"

"Sure," Mark grunted before pushing his elegant front door, framed by French taupe siding, open. "Addie?" he called into the echoing empty space, perfectly decorated and spotlessly clean with white trim, pale wood floors, and eggshell colored walls. "Addison?"

His heartbeat quickened at the lack of response under his soft t-shirt, the color of the Manhattan mist he used to know so well. His hand curled around the collar of the shirt; ever since her marriage began to disintegrate she hovered at the edge of a cliff he could never completely pull her away from. When he pushed the bathroom door open, she was crouched in the semi-darkness, sobs ripping from her body, a blank white stick clutched in one clenched fist.

"I thought you were going to wait for me," he whispered to her huddled form, because if there were going to be tears she usually wanted his assistance in wiping them away, and if there was disappointment they weathered it together.

Her eyes haunted him, ripped a hole in his heart, and he decided maybe her empty uterus needed another firm talking to, once she was asleep, of course.

There were no more words for this occasion; they were all used up by previous failures, so Mark sank down beside her to stroke her rumpled strawberry curls, the only comfort he could offer. As they danced through shards of shared misery, Mark noticed her discarded panties lying on the floor. They were spotted with a bit of blood, the beginnings of her period, and the results of the stick in her hand were confirmed without him every laying eyes on it.

"It was just the flu," she choked before bending over to empty her stomach into the toilet.

*'~

Her tears adorn Derek's fingers as he wipes them from her cheeks, and though they strive for comfort there is none to be had in this godforsaken city. And although she never believed in all that knight in shining armor shit she finds herself gripping desperately at the stronghold that is Derek's warm, scrub-covered chest. As he threads his hand through her golden locks she is reminded of how he is always willing to be here, by her side, for anything, even if she just needs the mind-numbing presence of human pain reliever.

Richard continues to talk, but she can't hear him. There's only one voice she'll respond to.

"Mama!" Mark walks in with the two boys using him as they might a brilliantly colored jungle gym, Brecken hanging on with only a grip on Mark's ear for support and Gabriel tangled around one muscled elbow like a monkey.

It is difficult to believe anything can hurt Gabe when Mark deposits him unceremoniously into her arms, his forest green eyes glowing with excitement and his soft chestnut hair, which curls adorably around ears that stick out just a bit too far, slightly rumpled from a morning of play. A plastic Bob the Builder, painted overalls chipped, hangs out of one cord pocket, which are paired with lime rubber boots with frog faces and the thermal snowman pajama shirt she couldn't get him to relinquish that morning.

"Mama, can we play doctor now?" he asks, his eager effusions that paint the dull conference room in a rainbow of colors only make the danger more stingingly pungent. Her son is so full of life and happiness and pure, unadulterated joy that she can't imagine him not growing up, can't not picture him as the skinny, lanky star of his very first soccer team, can't stop envisioning him searching his chin for that first hint of dark scruff as he becomes uncoordinated with a voice like fireworks. He will walk across that stage to get his diploma, exuding confidence; will wait for a girl to waltz gracefully down the aisle into his arms.

She knows this. She's thought about it with too much wistful melancholy since he's grown big enough to run out of her arms, reach the first shelf on the snack cupboard and tie his tiny Converse not to know.

"Mommy, please? I want to use your stefesoap!" Gabe begs, wriggling in her arms impatiently.

"In a second, honey," she responds automatically, reveling in each instant she gets to squeeze him to her chest without abandon before he runs off to explore his bright, sparkly four-year-old world.

"Why you squeezin' me so tight?" he squeals, giggling and pressing a sloppy, affectionate kiss to her cheek before dropping to the floor, his shirt sliding up his tanned belly, the baby roundness of which hasn't quite faded.

"Sorry," she murmurs, but he's already moved on, already tugged the deep copper-headed Brecken from Addison's reluctant arms. Belatedly, she notices the entire room watching the antics of her child and his best friend; Derek's hand moves protectively to rest against her hip.

"People," Richard attempts to lure the doctors' attention away from the two boys, but she can't deal with his pity right now, doesn't want to shoulder anyone's, really, and yet Cristina's sorrowful gaze is burning into the back of her head. "We will be working closely with the police and the FBI in order to solve this case, and the bodies, when found, will be brought here to be analyzed -,"

"We're leaving," she interrupts in a shaky voice. Sure, Gabriel and Brecken are mostly oblivious to the Chief's grave words that spin the beginnings of disaster around them, but she wants to protect her son as long as humanely possible. He may be in danger, just like every other four-year-old in the city, but that doesn't mean he has to know about it.

Gabe still fits in her arms perfectly when she scoops him up but he awards her efforts with the same face as the day she arrived home to find Derek and Mark had let the boys watch Pirates of the Caribbean when she had specifically forbidden them to. It's hard to resist eyes filled with the perfect emerald of spring after an endless rain but Gabriel's safety ranks above his nigh irresistible pleads today.

"Dr. Grey -" Richard begins, then as she doesn't halt, "Meredith!"

"We're leaving," Addison repeats in an ice cold voice that brokers no argument, Meredith stifles a grin, she's sure Richard got a taste of the north pole.

The drive home is laced with restless worry, her fingers dance across the relatively new dove leather of their Lexus SUV as she watches the weeping sky outside. She can see Mark and Addison's headlights behind them, pinpricks of luminosity in the dreary surroundings. Gabe is playing with Bob the Builder, walking the small plastic figure across his knees and talking softly, utterly oblivious to the peril he faces.

When they arrive home, she allows the oak and buttermilk light spilling from their majestic house to embrace her, but it doesn't comfort her like it usually does. This isn't a sanctuary any more than the hospital is, no matter how many memories are safely encased in the familiar walls.

The magnets on the fridge, in shades of fire engine red and carrot orange and kiwi green, mock her with their inherent cheerfulness, a reminder that this morning, they were happy, this morning Gabriel's greatest danger came from shooting orange juice out of his nose when he laughed too hard, this morning she couldn't find him because he hid in his tree shaped tent and when he popped out, eyes alight with mischief, she swore she'd born a sprite, not a human child.

Brecken and Gabriel tumble a waterfall of toys down from their usual nooks and crannies, and before long Mario, in a remote control car, is chasing Luigi (in a similar vehicle) around a Fischer-Price dragon guarded castle. Meredith finds herself entranced by their play, and she doesn't intercede even when Brecken gives up on catching Gabe's Luigi and tackles the lime and cobalt car, sending Gabriel into a fit. Because their eyes, sapphire and emerald, and their cheeks, flushed with exertion, are both so undeniably precious – she often considers them both her sons and knows Addison does the same – and so infinitely fragile, like they are constructed of the most delicate glass.

"I can't believe this is happening," Addison whispers brokenly. "This isn't happening."

But it is.

"Addie, the chances of them …"

"Just shut up about the chances, Mark!" Addison snaps at her husband, Mark ruffles the back of his hair, intricate, perfect web of muscles straining under his shirt as he does. Addison finally succumbs to tears; however, as Meredith knew she wouldn't do in public (she found her that supply closet after the end of her marriage), and Mark slides his hands over her silk covered sides, easing her long, skinny limbs into his embrace. As he does so, Meredith heads for the kitchen and selects four glasses along with a certain bottle as she tries not to look at the picture of the broccoli dinosaur Gabriel drew her last week (the hospital has an integrated daycare-preschool, one of the top in the country after Richard's four best surgeons had kids, and apparently broccoli has been deemed 'evil').

The tequila greets her tongue with a familiar burn as she consumes it, and soon the liquid is sunk deep in the bottle. Derek's head is in his hands, purple rings frame Mark's eyes (she remembers he just had a ten hour surgery) and Addison is completely inebriated and humming softly against the soft cotton of Mark's ash grey Henley.

They're adults, surgeons, but they're not trained to deal with this.

"No! I wants to be Jack!" Brecken's piercing trill interrupts their melancholy phobias as the four-year-old grabs a hold of one end of the plastic sword Gabriel is clinging to as if it is life itself.

"No, Brecken, I called Jack!" Gabe cries,.

"I can be a better Jack than you! Watch this, I can even stab Mommy!" Brecken breaks free, landing both boys on the ground but happening to end up with the sword, which he promptly brings down on Addison's black tight-swathed knee repeatedly, finally garnering the adults' full attention.

"Brecken, Gabe," Addison scolds. "Remember what we talked about? We only use swords to …"

"Cut up fruit," the boys reply, rolling their eyes adorably. Meredith chokes back a laugh, Addison read an article last month in one of the parenting magazines she somehow has time to read that explained the effects of violent video games and play on young boys and her subsequent freak out had resulted in the fruit rule. Not that either of the boys followed it, nor that she enforced it often.

Frown decorating his cherubic face, Gabriel trots into the kitchen and returns with a bright yellow banana, which he and Brecken proceed to stab dejectedly on her feather grey carpet. She's glad Mark is laughing into his elbow and Addison's lethal glare is directed at him because now they are all barely restraining hilarity. And her son is so alive, so unique, so unsuspectingly, devastatingly beautiful, that she can't imagine a boy practically radiating light to be in any danger at all.

Eventually they fall asleep in a heap like newborn puppies, caramel and strawberry locks curled with sweat and the sweet aroma of baby shampoo surrounding them. Tucked into Gabriel's Dr. Seuss themed bed, they seem more a part of one boy than two, something she wouldn't have completely been able to fathom unless she'd met Derek and Mark; it makes sense that their sons are the same.

Addison and Mark take the guest room; or rather Mark carries her to it and kisses her forehead tenderly. She and Derek bid them a soft goodnight as Mark slips Addison's ridiculous heels to the floor and leave as the Plastic surgeon sheds his shirt for the barely awake redhead to sleep in instead.

She and Derek tumble into bed where her salty tears once again begin to flow. Amidst her sobs she tugs Derek's button down shirt from his arms, desiring to feel his skin against hers. Derek gently attempts to restrain her, but her top and bra are gone as well and she presses her beating heart up to his and revels in the soft sigh that follows.

"What are we going to do?" she finally whispers.

"It'll be okay," Derek promises, because it's all he still possesses. He threads his fingers through her hair, joins their foreheads, their chests, and pulls the rest of their clothes from their bodies as he pulls her impossibly close. It's not about sex, not tonight, although this is a deviation from their usual pattern. Tonight it's about the livewire of Derek's feverish skin on hers as they fall asleep cradled in each others arms. "It'll be okay," he says one last time.

The problem is he can't promise that.

*'~~'*

So I hoped you liked it! Please let me know if I should continue.

*'~~'*