Request
Author's Notes:
Hi, all! This is an idea that came to me while I was in Italy. It's been like a bug bite on my brain, and it wouldn't leave me alone. Today, I finally thought of a title (though an alternative title could easily be Aria Procrastinates About NaNoWriMo), and as soon as that happened, this spilled out of me in a matter of hours. This story has not been beta-read and has only been edited by me, so any mistakes are purely my own.
This is a prequel to Reclaim, but a sequel to Recover. If you haven't read Recover, which is an S11 MerDer fix-it, you'll be really damned confused. Sorry about that. Can't be helped.
I hope you enjoy this extra little slice of the Reclaim-verse!
When Meredith arrives at the rehab center, Derek's still engrossed in a late-afternoon session with Marie, his speech therapist. Meredith doesn't want to interrupt, so she sits without speaking on the paisley-print sofa that rests along the far wall, just inside the open doorway. He's in his room, sitting up in his bed, and he's staring at the tray table that rests over his lap. There's a pile of blocks on the table, each with a different shape and color. Yellow stars, red hearts, blue moons – the collection is a veritable bowl of Lucky Charms done with blocks and no bowl.
Marie is a slight woman with a bit of a Mary Tyler Moore look to her, though her hair is platinum blonde instead of mahogany. She's a bit older than Meredith, and laughter lines hug her ice blue eyes. "Can you point to the circle?" Marie is saying as Meredith settles into the squishy couch cushions.
After a bit of a pause, Derek finds the circle in the Lucky Charms mess, and he points to it with his index finger.
Marie leans forward, chair creaking, and cheers, "That's great, Derek! You're doing very well."
A tiny, wavering smile ghosts across his face. It's a hesitant expression, kind of like the first spring crocus pushing through the last snow of winter, like he hasn't quite figured out his facial muscles, yet. He glances at Meredith over Marie's shoulder, and the wavering smile gets wider before he turns back to Marie.
"Can you pick up the yellow shape?" Marie says. Derek roots through the block pile and picks up an orange triangle. Marie shakes her head. "No, that's not quite right, but you're very, very close." He looks back to his block pile with a perplexed expression. "You're looking for a star," Marie prods.
With this extra bit of information, he finds the right block this time.
"Really good, Derek!" Marie praises. "That's really good." She's huge on positive reinforcement. When people are having fun and want to please their teacher, they tend to learn faster, she's said in the past when Meredith asked about her cheerleader-on-steroids approach. Marie licks her lips and continues, "Now, what about something red? Can you show me something red?"
He puts down the star and taps on a heart lying flat at the far edge of his tray. He pushes the heart toward Marie.
Again, Marie cheers for him, and again he smiles that hesitant little smile, though Meredith can't tell if he understands the praise, or if he's just responding to the encouragement and enthusiasm dripping from Marie's tone.
"Okay, I'm going to finish with a really hard one," Marie cautions, and Derek looks down at the block pile with a serious, unblinking, I'm-going-to-war-now expression. Marie points at the heart he just singled out from the pile. "This is a heart," Marie says. "The color of this heart is red. Red. Can you say that word? Red?"
Meredith bites her lip as she watches. Derek looks at the red heart, and then back to Marie, and then back to the heart.
"Can you say red?" Marie repeats, tapping the little heart-shaped block. "Red. Rrrrrred."
But Derek's frozen with this confused look of indecision on his face. After a long moment, he picks up the heart and hands it to Marie, which is a good indication of where his understanding breaks down. He can definitely hear the word and identify the color red, but it's like he's just guessing what Marie wants him to do with it based on context. She's been asking him to pick things up and point to things – he understands picking up, and he understands pointing – and he thinks he's got a 50/50 shot at being right if he picks the red thing up.
Rather than tell him he got it wrong, though, Marie smiles. "That's really great, Derek. That's right. You found the red heart." And Derek gives her that wavering smile again. "But I'm asking you to say it. Say the word red. Can you say red?"
Another indecisive look. Marie didn't put the red heart back on the table this time. It's still in her hand. He reaches for it.
"No, that's not what I mean," Marie says, pulling the heart away from his grasping hand, an honest, but gentle correction. "I'm asking you to say. Say. Say. Can you say red?"
For the first time, he looks upset. He looks at her hand. He really wants to grab the freaking heart. Meredith can read it all over his face. He just … isn't getting it. And Meredith can't tell if it's because he's not hearing the word say, not understanding the word say, or understanding the word say, but is unable to comply, and it hurts. It hurts her to watch. He so clearly wants to please Marie, and he can't do what she's asking, and he starts to shift back and forth like he's agitated.
"That's okay," Marie assures him. "That's okay if you can't do that one. That's hard. Talking is really hard; I know."
He's looking at his lap, now, and he's radiating a desire to be done. He doesn't like to be frustrated. He doesn't like when he can't do what Marie wants.
"What about something purple? Can you find a purple shape for me?"
He sighs, and he looks at the table. He gets that one in a matter of seconds, and Marie offers lavish praise. "You found the purple square! That's great! So, let's end on a good note, okay?" He slumps like he's relieved. "You did great today, Derek! You're getting really good at this!" she says with a gregarious grin as she scoops all the shapes off his tray table and back into the bag she brought them in.
A few moments later, after she's cleaned up all her stuff, Marie heads for the door.
Meredith rises from the sofa. "Any progress?" she says in a hushed tone that won't carry as she meets the therapist under the door frame.
Marie shakes her head. "None today," she says, matching Meredith's hushed tone. "But he's doing really great."
"Okay," Meredith says with a nod, and she goes to sit with her husband.
He doesn't say anything to her, but the way his expression brightens when she approaches, like it did when Marie happily told him he'd found the right chartreuse trapezoid or what-the-hell-ever, makes her heart squeeze. He still has excellent facial recall. He knows who she is just by glancing at her. And, if the shy smile peeking out of his expression is any indication, he likes having her there. She has no idea if this means he knows her from before the accident, or if he knows her because she was the first person there when he woke up after the accident. She's not sure she'll ever know. But she makes that be enough.
"Hi, Derek," she says, the words soft, and she smiles back at him. "How are you today?"
"Any progress?" Meredith says days later.
Marie only shakes her head and says, "None today. But he's doing really great."
"Any progress?"
"None today. But he's doing really great."
The exchange becomes a broken record that skips every time Meredith visits.
It's four weeks before Thanksgiving. Marie and Derek are working on something new this time when Meredith arrives, sniffling from the wet chill outside. Rain splashes on the roof of the rehab center, and she can hear it as a faint pat pat pat pat overhead.
"Remember," Marie says to Derek, "when you don't know something, what do you do?"
A long pause follows as Derek searches Marie's face. After twenty seconds of dead time, Marie adds, "Do you remember how to tell me no?"
But all Derek has in response is a blank look, and a lump forms in Meredith's throat, watching him get flummoxed by such a simple question.
"When you don't know something," Marie repeats, "what do you do to tell me you don't know?"
Finally, Derek's head shifts right a few millimeters, almost like he wants to look away. The motion is slow, and hesitant, but when Marie doesn't tell him he's doing it wrong, the motion becomes a real head shake.
"That's right!" Marie exclaims with a bright smile. "That's really good, Derek! When you shake your head like that, you mean no. Do you remember how to tell me yes?"
A long, long pause.
"Do you remember how to show me you mean yes?" Marie says.
A hesitant nod follows.
"That's great, Derek," Marie says. "That's so great. I'm really proud of you! Let's end on a good note, okay? You remembered how to nod!"
Another nod and a small smile.
"Okay," Marie says with a grin and a wink. She scoops all her visual aids back into her black canvas tote bag and stands. She meets Meredith at the door.
"Any progress?" Meredith says.
Marie looks at Meredith for a long time, silent, like she's formulating what to say. Like a doctor trying to figure out how to tell someone she has three months left to live or something.
"What?" Meredith says, folding her arms.
This seems to shake Marie loose from whatever she was thinking. The lithe woman smiles. "No progress on speaking today, but he's getting a lot better at word comprehension."
"It sounds like you have to repeat yourself a lot," Meredith says.
Marie nods. "I do," she says. "I know we weren't sure to start with, but I think there's a good case at this point for diagnosing him with some sort of aphasia."
Meredith feels like her stomach is falling out through her shoes. "What kind of aphasia? Broca's? Wernicke's?" It can't be global. His comprehension is too good for global. Which …. A lump forms in her throat. That's good, right? At least? That it can't be global?
Marie sighs. "The type of aphasia is unfortunately a lot harder to discern unless he starts speaking. He might have one or the other, or a little of both, but not enough to make it catastrophic like global aphasia. There's just so many variables."
"Okay," Meredith says.
She goes into his room to visit with him, lump still stuck like a golfball in her throat. "Hi, Derek," she says. "How are you today?"
That silent, wavering, hesitant smile makes her inexplicably sad today.
She wishes she could hear his voice again.
Two weeks before Thanksgiving, Meredith is approaching the insaner side of frazzled. Derek's mother is flying in, soon, to visit, and his sister Kathleen will be arriving with her family just a little after that. Thanksgiving will be a full house. Carolyn assured Meredith more than once that Meredith wouldn't have to cook, but she's still nervous. This is her first major holiday since the accident. She's just not good at the family thing, and, now, she has no knight in shining whatever to play buffer for her.
When she plods into Derek's room, he's already done with his speech therapy that day, though Marie is still in the room, and she takes the opportunity for a quick lesson. She points to Meredith. "Derek, do you know who that is?"
Derek looks at Meredith, gaze brightening. A lump the size of a softball forms in Meredith's throat when Derek nods. Just the fact that he knows her is amazing. She never thought she would have this again. Him alive and awake and knowing her.
"She's really happy to see you today, Derek," Marie says. "Can you tell her hello?"
Derek looks at Marie. And then back to Meredith. And then back to Marie. And then back to Meredith.
"Can you say hello to your wife, Derek?" Marie says. "Or hi? Can you say hi? Hi is a way to say hello."
The happiness drips off his face, and Meredith's stomach sinks along with his expression. He doesn't shake his head. It's like the request has left him paralyzed. "That's okay," she tells Marie, heart in her throat, eyes stinging as she fights to keep her voice steady. She doesn't want Derek to think she's disappointed – she's not. Sad, yes. Bereaved of something she didn't ever realize was so important to her until it was gone. Him saying hello, and telling her that he loves her. But she never wants him to feel like he's not measuring up to expectations. "He doesn't need to say it."
Marie gives Meredith a quiet nod, but she's sure to tell Derek, "That's okay, Derek. I know talking is hard. But you did really great today!"
He's looking at Meredith when she sits down.
"Hi, Derek," she says. She can't stop the sniff that follows. She brushes her nose with the back of her palm. "How are you today?"
Of course, he doesn't answer.
"Any progress?"
"None today. But he's doing really great."
Two days before Thanksgiving when Meredith arrives, Derek's done with his daily speech therapy, but she's sure to swing by Marie's office to check in.
Meredith's house is full of freaking people. Carolyn is sleeping in the guest room. Meredith gave Kathy and John the master suite, and Meredith's been sleeping on an air mattress in Bailey's room. Kathy's kids sleep … anywhere their sleeping bags fit. The only private space left in the entire house is the bathroom, and even then, that's only private when she locks the door, thanks to countless boisterous, barging-in children.
She's happy to be away from the clot of constant activity. She's happy to be away from the bluster and cheer that makes her hurt it's so in-your-face. She's happy to visit her husband, who's alive, awake, knowing her, and not talking, but understanding more and more, and she has a lot to be thankful for. She may not be blustering with cheer like Kathy & Co, but she's happy in her own reserved Meredith way.
"Any progress?" Meredith says when she reaches Marie's office. The walls are a cheerful bright orange that Meredith would never in her right mind use to paint with, but somehow, in this warm-but-cluttered space, it works, particularly with the pristine white trim, and the navy blue couch.
Marie gives Meredith a serious, concerned look and motions Meredith into her office. She gives another how do I tell you you have cancer? look that Meredith can't possibly mistake for anything else.
"Oh, god, what?" Meredith says, heart thumping. "What is it?"
"Dr. Grey," Marie says in a soft, sympathetic tone, "I really want you to start preparing yourself for the possibility that Dr. Shepherd might not ever speak again."
Meredith blinks. That's all? "I know that," she says. She's been grieving about that for weeks, now.
Marie frowns. "You ask me if there's been progress every single time you visit."
Meredith shrugs. "He's not supposed to be alive, but he is. He wasn't supposed to wake up, but he did. He was never supposed to be able to hold his bladder, or dress himself, or point to what he wants in the cafeteria line, or find the red, heart-shaped block in a pile of blocks, but he can do all those things. He's been smashing expectations since he got here."
"He is," Marie agrees. "He truly is. But only in nonverbal areas. Based on what I see in our therapy sessions every day, and based on his brain scans-"
"Look," Meredith snaps, cutting her off, which is rude, but she can't help it. She's tired of people telling her what Derek can't or won't do anymore. "Screw what the damned scans say. Okay? Screw it. I know I might never hear him talk to me again. I know that, and I've been trying to make peace with it for weeks. I'm not letting myself hope. In fact, as far as hoping goes, I don't do a lot of it, anyway. I've learned not to, over the years. But he's not supposed to be alive, yet he is, and he's not supposed to be awake, yet he is, and I refuse to not let myself believe in the mere possibility that, someday, my husband might tell me hello again, and that he loves me. I refuse."
"Okay," Marie says. "Okay, Dr. Grey. As long as you're being realistic."
"My whole family is dead except for him and our kids," Meredith says, eyes stinging again. "And all the people outside of family that I've ever loved are gone except for Alex, and they're never ever coming back. Believe me, I'm ensconced in realistic. If realistic were a country, I'd be president for life."
Marie seems to know when to back down from a fight. She holds up her hands in surrender. "Okay," she says, and Meredith heads to Derek's room.
"Hi, Derek," she says softly, greeting his pleased smile with one of her own when she gets to his room. "How are you today?"
He still doesn't answer, but … that's okay.
He didn't leave her. He didn't die. He's alive and awake, and he knows her.
And she makes that be enough.
They all stuff themselves to the point of pain on Thanksgiving. Kathy, John, Amelia, Owen, and Carolyn are already piling the kids into the cars in the parking lot, but Meredith stays behind for a few minutes to say goodbye to the love of her life. When she gets up to leave, though, Derek grabs her arm, like he doesn't want her to go. She stares at his hand, which is clutched around her wrist. He's never done that before.
"Do you want me to stay?" she says, heart in her throat.
Yes, she wants him to say, please, stay, but he's silent, staring at her with a pointed, pleading look.
"Derek, do you want me to stay with you?"
When he nods, the lump in her throat expands. She sits back down in the chair.
"Okay," she says, and she watches him deflate like he's relieved. "I'll stay. I don't like being alone anymore, either."
She tells Carolyn she wants to stay with Derek instead of going home, and Carolyn is quick to offer to take care of the kids. Meredith has the orderlies bring her a cot, and she spends Thanksgiving night with her husband. He still doesn't speak to her, but they color, and they play a few simple card games, and she reads Goodnight Moon to him, and he feels more … there. That's the only way she can describe it.
She feels like this is a precipice, or something.
The day after Thanksgiving, an emergency comes up at the hospital, and she's not able to visit again after she leaves in the morning to go to work. She does call Marie, though.
"Any progress?"
"None today. But he's doing really great."
The broken record won't stop skipping.
The Shepherd army leaves Seattle on Sunday, three days after Thanksgiving. The holidays are always a busy time for surgeons, and Meredith doesn't get a chance to visit Derek at all during the following week. She hasn't seen him since the morning after Thanksgiving. She usually tries to see him every day after work for an hour or so, and she brings the kids on the weekends for longer visits. Sometimes, she has to skip for emergencies and unexpected things, but for the most part, she comes every day, and this is the first time since his accident that she's gone more than a two day span without seeing him.
She wishes she could have more time with him. It seems wrong that, by some crazy miracle, he lived, and, yet, she's left scrambling for a mere hour with him every day.
She misses having him sleep beside her at night. She misses her best friend. She misses her husband.
She wonders if he even notices she's gone.
December 5th, the last day of the first week in December, a Saturday, Meredith's in the middle of an open cholecystectomy when someone at the rehab center calls her cell phone. Meredith frowns. She visits the rehab center so often in person, she can't recall the last time they've ever had to call her at work. They usually just catch her as she wanders past reception. Her phone rings and rings in the quiet operating room.
"Francine, can you grab that and hold it up to my ear?" Meredith says, glancing down at her bloody surgical gloves. She's wrist deep in an abdomen right now. "My hands are full." Francine complies, and Meredith says a tense, "Hello?" into the receiver.
"Hi, Dr. Grey. This is Todd."
She knows Todd. He's one of the counselors who works at the center. The concern in his voice is infectious. "Is something wrong with Derek?" she says without preface.
Todd replies, "Are you going to visit, soon?"
"What? Of course, I will. As soon as my schedule clears. One of the other general surgeons is on maternity leave, it's the holidays, and things are a mess, here. That's all. Why?"
"Can you give me a time frame for when you might visit, next?" Todd says.
"I really don't know," Meredith says, frown so deep it's scrunching up her eyebrows into one fuzzy unit. "My schedule is all wonky." She glances at the rest of the OR occupants. The scrub nurses and her intern are all making a point to look like they're not listening, but they are. She can tell. The EKG monitor beeps in the intervening silence, and the sterile chill of the operating room air makes her shiver. She rolls a crick out of her shoulder and tilts her head back toward the phone. "Todd, what is this about?"
"Derek's been really despondent the last few days," Todd says. "He's sleeping a lot. Not engaging when people talk to him. He got a migraine on the 3rd that he's just now getting over. We think it might help him to know when you'll visit, next."
A pit hollows out Meredith's stomach. "Is he upset that I'm gone?"
"Well, we can't be certain, since he can't talk, but the timing of this sudden melancholy and migraine is rather suspect."
Meredith swallows. Her chest hurts, and she can hardly talk around the awful pain in her throat. She doesn't want to jump to conclusions, but she jumps like she's performing the high jump at the Olympics, anyway. "He thinks I left him?" she says.
Todd has nothing to say to that. You did leave him, she fills in for Todd, because she's the kind of hyper-self-critical person who does things like that to herself. Derek thinks she left him, and he's so stressed out by her sudden disappearance that he got a migraine.
Meredith glances down at her open abdominal cavity and her bloody, gloved hands. Then she looks up at the ceiling, calculating. "I'll visit in a few hours," she says. "Just as soon as I finish what I'm doing." This open cholecystectomy should only take another ninety minutes.
She has a few more surgeries scheduled for today, but she'll bump them. Most are elective, and she's sure she can get Miranda or Richard to take care of the one urgent one if she explains why she needs it taken care of. Not only that, but she can't stomach the idea of working when he thinks she abandoned him. She can't put her feelings about that in a box. She can't be an objective surgeon capable of making life-altering decisions.
She knows what being abandoned feels like.
She'd never wish that feeling on somebody else.
Especially not him.
Not after he's worked so hard to live.
He's sleeping on his side under a pile of fuzzy blankets when she gets there, and his room is dark. She doesn't flip on the overhead lights. She doesn't want to startle him. But she does switch on the dim lamp resting on the night table by his hospital bed. She leans across the railing and puts her hand on his shoulder, relishing the warmth of his skin, and then she rubs his back through the sheets. He's groggy at first. His dull blue eyes are glassy and spaced, his uncombed hair shoots every which way, and his dark, unkempt stubble makes him look pasty. He squints at the lamp and then at her.
"Hey, it's me," she says.
She clasps his right hand between her palms and squeezes it. He doesn't speak. The watery you-came-back! look in his eyes when he wakes up enough to understand what's going on slays her. She wants to kick off her shoes and slide into bed with him, but he's not demonstrative with her, and she doesn't want to push herself on him. She's not even sure he can still do things like love or be intimate, anyway. Instead, she scoots her chair as close to the bed as it will go and sinks into it.
"Hi," she says. "I'm so sorry, Derek. I just got really busy. I didn't mean to make you think I was gone." He rubs his eyes, waking up a little more. She has no idea if he understands her.
The blankets rustle as he shifts closer to her.
She loves him, but she's tired, and her brain is fried, and she doesn't feel like playing games today, or having a one-sided conversation with him, or anything. "I'm just going to sit here with you and be quiet," she tells him. "Okay?"
He takes a second, but he nods.
She pulls his hand into her lap, clutching his palm, and she closes her burning eyes. She loses track of time as her consciousness begins to ebb and flow, and her awareness of the room wanes. She has a nice dream.
Meredith, he says in that soft, reverent tone she's grown to love. I love you.
When her watch beeps, she blinks awake with a surprised twitch, and she squints at the face of her watch. The nanny needs to go home soon, and Meredith can't stay. She sighs. Derek dozed off at some point, but his hand is still resting in her grasp. His head is tipped in her direction like he was happy just to watch her sleep, and he fell into dreaming that way. She gently shifts his arm back to the mattress, and then she stands to stretch out all the cricks and kinks that have been plaguing her.
She doesn't want to wake him, so she tries to gather her purse and her coat without making noise. She's mostly successful, and he hasn't woken by the time she's tiptoeing out of the room.
She's almost to the threshold when an upset, frantic noise behind her halts her dead in her tracks.
She turns to find him staring at her with a pleading expression.
"Derek, I'm so sorry," she says. "I have to go. Melody can't stay much later with our kids."
He swallows, and his lips move, like he's trying to say something. She freezes. She's never seen him do that. Try. She waits, and he keeps trying. Nothing comes out, though.
"I promise, I'll be back tomorrow," she assures him. "I'm not leaving forever, just for today. I'm so sorry."
She hates to leave him when he's looking at her like that. Like she just murdered his dog, and she's leaving him to grieve over the bloody body or something. But her watch beeps again, and she has to. She has to go. She turns-
"N … N … No."
She stops. She blinks. She doesn't quite believe what she's heard. She turns to face him again.
"No," he pleads, looking right at her, and her jaw drops. The word is thick and weird-sounding, like he's trying to talk around a mouthful of marbles or something, like he doesn't fully comprehend how his tongue works, but she can still understand. It's not a hello or an I-love-you but it's a word, and he said it to her. He said it to her.
"No," he repeats, more bold this time, and he shakes his head for emphasis. "No."
She's speechless for a long crawl of time.
"You spoke," is all she can think of to say when she finds her words again, which-
"N … no. No … g … … g … go."
Her heart might explode. She swallows. "Oh, my god," she says, and she finds herself stepping back toward the bed like she's been pulled there by a tractor beam. "Oh, my god," she repeats, because there's not much coherent left in her head.
He's talking.
He's talking to her.
He's talking to her.
"No," he repeats, looking at her.
Her eyes water. She shakes her head. "Derek, I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry. But I have to go. I have to. Our children need somebody looking after them, and Melody can't stay."
He gives her an upset look. His gaze drops to his lap. "No," he says again, a plaintive, heart-rending request.
After months of silence, even this one syllable word repeated ad infinitum is like the floodgates have opened. She wishes she could stay with him. She wishes so hard. She swallows against the lump in her throat and pulls the little analog clock off his nightstand.
She points to the current time. 9 p.m. "This is now," she says. "When the hands get back to this place, I'll be back, Derek. I swear. I'll be back first thing in the morning. I'll bring the kids, and we can all do something fun. Okay?"
He traces the clock face with his hands. And then he looks up at her. He draws an imaginary circle from the 9 back to the 9.
"Yes, exactly. I'll be back first thing tomorrow," she says. "I swear, I'll be back. I swear. I'm not leaving you forever."
He stares at the clock for a few more seconds, and, finally, he lets her go without protest. Even so, she kind of wishes she could hear the, "No!" again.
When she returns in the morning with the kids just a few minutes after 9 a.m., he's waiting, staring at the door, and the clock is in his hands. When she comes through the doorway with their babble-y, bubbly children, two boxes of crayons, and a stack of coloring books, his eyes are bright and his smile is nuclear – there's nothing hesitant about it.
"Hi, Derek," she says, a gushing, happy syllable, like she hasn't seen him in months. "How are you today?"
"Hi, Dada!" Bailey chirps at the same time Zola belts an enthusiastic, "Daddy!" and crawls into the bed with him to sit on his lap.
He doesn't speak. The two words she's heard him say, now, though – no and go – don't really fit here, so she doesn't worry. She settles into the chair beside his bed. "Did you sleep well?" she says.
Derek looks at her with a baffled expression. It's like … he wants to answer her question, but he's not sure what she said. Some flavor of aphasia. She's almost positive Marie is right.
"Sleep," Meredith repeats more slowly. "Did you sleep well?"
He swallows. "N … n … n …." He closes his eyes and thinks for a long moment. "No," he says.
She blinks. "No, you didn't sleep well?"
He nods, grunting as Zola climbs all over him as only squirmy, young children can.
She frowns. "I'm sorry." She takes the clock from his lap and puts it back on the nightstand. "If you want to sleep a little more, that's okay. I can take the kids to the cafeteria."
That, however, gets a brilliant smile and another, "No." His grip on Zola tightens.
Her heart squeezes, hearing that. She meets his smile with one of her own.
"I'm glad to see you, too," she says.
"Mommy, peas, cayons?" Bailey says as he settles by Derek's knee on the other side of the tray table.
It's a simple way to spend the day, she thinks. Coloring. She opens the crayon box for them all and spreads the crayons across the table. Bailey grabs a blue crayon. Derek goes for red. Meredith picks up purple, and Zola chooses green.
It's simple – coloring.
But she can't think of a day she's ever enjoyed it more.
~finis~