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So, I was thinking about funny situations and what the kids of our favorite couples would be like ... and this is what happened. It is rated T because it's fairly innocent, but obviously it discusses the mechanics of sex, if you didn't already pick up on that. Fork and Knife is a song by Brand New, but it pretty much has nothing to do with the story.
Here are the kids (because there are a lot of them!)
Shepherd kids: Brayden and Cameron (8), Abbie (5)
Sloan kids: Damon (8), Emberlyn (6), Alice (4), Shiloh (3)
Hunt kids: Treyton (7), Jasmine (4)
Karev kids: Marley (7), Sienna (6)
The four men sit soaked in dread, contemplating their fate uneasily as they look across the room and meet eleven sets of bright, curious eyes in various shades of luminous jeweled colors. They were given very specific instructions when their wives left but were unfortunately left in the dark in terms of execution. They're trapped in a treacherous quagmire about a subject they can barely voice out loud in front of their children.
Brayden, Cameron, and Abbie Shepherd, Damon, Emberlyn, Alice, and Shiloh Sloan, Treyton and Jasmine Hunt, and Marley and Sienna Karev sit in a jumbled row on the Derek's couch, knobby knees with Hello Kitty band-aids colliding with grass-stained forearms and lopsided ponytails.
Occasionally, a scuffle arises, such as when Damon yanks on one of Sienna's braids and Abbie's Strawberry Shortcake doll gets a little too close to Treyton, but for the most part, they simply stare at their befuddled fathers, who reluctantly guided all the children to the couch for an important piece of information after their wives left with various threats.
It is difficult for the four men to imagine marring such innocence, to tell those glimmering emerald, sapphire, and ocher eyes a truth that has the potential to wreck the beautiful purity being displayed. The sun-stained cornsilk hair of Abbie, Alice, Shiloh, and Marley doesn't hint, in any sense, that they are ready for this information. The way Shiloh clings to Grumpy, his favorite Care Bear, and the mismatched outfit - purple with yellow and red – of Jasmine doesn't depict a readiness for this subject. Unfortunately, another pregnancy is forcing their hands.
"How the hell are we supposed to explain what sex is?" Alex mutters, voicing the continuing predicament of the four. Having grown up in a bar, he had figured out sex himself by the time he was eight, Owen had been told by his father, Derek by Nancy and Kathleen, and Mark … was, well, Mark.
"Let's just tell them that stork shit and be done," Mark suggests flippantly. "The game's starting in a few minutes."
"No, we can't do that. Cristina specifically said that by the time she got back she expected the kids to be 'enlightened'," Owen argues.
None of them had noticed Alice Sloan standing in front of them, sweet as her counterpart from Wonderland. "I can help you, Daddy!" She announces as soon as Owen finishes speaking, and then launches herself onto Mark's lap. The heavy dictionary clutched in one ivory fist hits Mark in an unfortunate spot, causing him to double over in pain while she settles herself contently to flip through the large volume. She frowns, trailing her finger down the page until she finds the right word, and then begins to read. "Sex. Sexshual onion -"
"Union," Owen corrects automatically.
"Sexshual union between a male and a female evolving inspection of the, um, pea-kiss …"
"What?" Alex asks, peering over the little girl's perfect blonde curls and the rumpled hood of her periwinkle sweater dress, because the last thing he needs is to have to explain sex twice to his children.
"I think it was supposed to be 'involving insertion of the p –'" Owen begins.
"Ooo-kay, thank you very much, Alice," Derek says, grabbing the book from her and closing it carefully. She slides down her father's lap, extremely disappointed, and slinks off toward the couch and earning a loud protest as she accidently situates herself on Marley's fingers.
"Let's rewind a bit," Derek suggests, thinking that perhaps doing this without anesthesia is the best way to go. Maybe if they skate around the topic a bit there'll be some sort of natural progression … but he's not exactly Mr. Brightside and prepares for the worst. "We all know that boys and girls are different, right? Can anybody give me an example of that?"
Abbie's arm shoots into the air, accompanied by the clinking of her many pink and purple bracelets. The five-year-old is known as something of a smarty-pants, a fact that inspires Mark to recall their communal childhood more than Derek thinks is specifically necessary. "Girls have long hair and boys have short hair," the child states proudly, chest puffed out exactly as Derek's had once been, and Mark suppresses a snicker.
"Yes," Derek says patiently, still clinging to the hope that they will not have to have a modified anatomy lesson (though he's more than qualified to give one, as Meredith cheerfully reminded him), "Anything else?"
"Boys are dirty and girls are clean," Marley states with her nose in the air, echoing Izzie's expression exactly when she spots a pair of Alex's reeking, sweaty socks on her immaculate floor.
"Yes, sometimes that's true -" Owen begins.
"Boyees like blooo and girlsth like pink!" Shiloh pipes up proudly, launching his tiny body into the air in an effusion of excitement and nearly tumbling over the back of the oatmeal colored couch.
This isn't going as planned, not that they had procured a plan from their muddled Saturday musings anyway, but it had gone from a far-off chance of success to the brink of disaster in about five minutes. "That's right, but their bodies are different too, right?" Derek plows on. The children exchange glances.
"Why do we have to tell them?" Mark moans.
"We lost the bet," Owen reminds him calmly.
"I told you we should have bet on the Yankees!" Mark grumbles. "But no, you all insisted that the Mariners would win. Stupid Seattle."
"It was a close game!" Alex protests. "We have to tell them because that damn ref was half blind and completely deaf!"
"No," Mark decides, looking accusingly at Derek, "It's because you got your wife preggo again!"
"Well, it's not my fault we have to tell them now! You're the one with four kids," Derek argues.
"When a Mommy and Daddy love each other very much, something magical happens," Alex says shortly. "Okay, that's it. We're done."
"Someshing madical?" Shiloh asks. "Liksh Hawwy Pottwer?"
"Don't be stupid!" Brayden calls out. "Babies aren't made by magic, 'cause there's no such thing as it!"
Abbie, Marley, Sienna, and Emberlyn all gasp. "Hello? Have you not seen the Tinkerbell movie?" Emberlyn demands angrily, hands on her hips, deep chestnut ringlets framing her angelic face, marred by childish outrage. "Of course magic is real!"
"Is not!" Cameron scoffs.
"Prove it," Alice sings saccharinely.
"Let's skip ahead," Mark states, clearly wishing to evade the argument inevitably brewing. "Grown-ups do something called sex."
"Mark," Derek groans.
"Sex?" Jasmine asks with a wrinkled nose. "What's sex?"
"Sex is where Daddy swings a big stick in hopes of getting a home run but sometimes he swings too early, pops up instead of going deep and is replaced by a battery propelled pinch hitter," Mark says.
"MARK!" the other three yell.
"Let's start over," Derek suggests through gritted teeth, sending an indigo glare in Mark's direction as he does. Bad enough that his children have to learn this and learn it from Mark, but after the man seduced his ex-wife Derek doesn't need him corrupting anymore family members. "And maybe more appropriately. Once upon a time, there was a little guy … a little sperm."
"Whatsh spwerm?" Shiloh wants to know.
"We'll get to that later," Derek promises. "Anyway, this sperm was named … Sylvester. Sylvester the sperm."
"Sylvester?" Alex snorts.
"It was the first thing I could think of," Derek defends. "It was the name of my toy dinosaur as a kid."
"And you named a sperm after it? That is so wrong, dude," Alex mocks with his trademark smirk, admittedly glad to have something to hold against the world famous neurosurgeon.
"One day, Sylvester took a little walk," Derek continues, ignoring him. "And on that walk, Sylvester met an egg. Her name was Emma. Together Emma and Sylvester went on a journey to Babyland."
"But Dad," Brayden protests. "I don't get it. How did they even meet in the first place?"
"The sperm – like Sylvester – swim into the Mommy," Owen adds.
"Where?" Treyton inquires.
"Like fishes?" Sienna asks.
"Do they need floaties? Because I need floaties when I swim," Alice says seriously.
"Sperm are something only boys have and they can swim by themselves," Alex states resignedly.
"Are they all named Sylvester, Dad? Because I hate that name," Cameron complains.
"No. They usually don't have names. That was just an example," Derek says, burying his face in his hands.
"If boys get those sperm things, what do girls have?" Jasmine inquires.
"Eggs," Owen says simply.
"Like an alligator!" Damon teases.
"Nuh-uh, Dae!" Marley protests.
"Our eggs are pretty," Emberlyn decides. "They are pink and purple and have lots of magical sparkles. Right, Daddy?"
"Uh, sure," Mark says, at a loss.
"Toldja, Cameron," Marley says, sticking her tongue out at him.
"Where are the eggs?" little Alice asks, her blue eyes opened wide.
"In your ovaries," Derek answers frankly after taking a deep breath.
"Where's that?" Emberlyn inquires.
"What about our eggs, Dad?" Treyton asks.
"Boy don't have eggs, remember?" Owen reminds him. "They have sperm."
"Yeah, they have ugly fishes," Sienna says. "Not pretty eggs like us."
"Okay, stop!" Owen yells, a hint of army doctrines still lacing his voice. "Everyone stop. Let's regroup. Kids, hold off on the questions for just a minute. Everyone else …" he gazes doubtfully at his three allies. Derek is too much of a wuss to tell them, Alex is reluctant for his two beautiful daughters to be corrupted earlier than they need to be, and nobody in their right mind is going to let Mark say anything.
"Let's just say it," Derek whispers.
"Yeah, go ahead, Don Juan," Mark hissed back.
"Why me?"
"It was your idea."
"You owe me."
"For what?"
"Sleeping with my wife."
"Daddy sleeps with Mommy all the time," Alice tells Derek seriously. "Usually they sleep beside each other, but sometimes Daddy sleeps on top of Mommy and she makes funny noises, 'cause Daddy is really heavy, I think."
Mark's head descends into his hands as Owen raises an eyebrow and Alex snickers, picturing innocent little Alice, in her fluffy slippers and Cinderella nightgown, walking in on McSteamy and Satan doing the dirty. "I always knew you'd screw up your kids," is Derek's only comment.
"Okay, fine," Alex says before Mark sends Derek to his own surgical floor with a concussion. "Listen up, okay? Boys have penises and girls have vaginas." He pauses, unsure where to go with it next. The balloon meets the needle; the figurative cat has poked its head out of the bag and discovered freedom. Dead silence, fraught with the untold facts sprinkled throughout childhood, pervades the room.
Mark picks it up, examining his fingernails as he states bluntly, "The Daddy puts the penis in the Mommy's vagina and they make a baby. End of story."
All eleven kids stared back, mouths hanging open between bubble-gum pink lips, eyes showing the disgust in regard to the information they have been requested to process. A few more seconds of horrified silence is followed by screaming of "EWWW!!"
"Nice job, Mark," Derek snaps.
"Yeah, so much for easing them into it."
"You're lying!" Sienna accuses, leaping up to point at her Uncle Mark. "Nobody would do that! Yucky!"
"That's how you make babies," Mark says, leaning back in his chair in a pleased way like some lost god of fertility himself.
Crystal tears leak from the corner of Sienna's chocolate brown eyes as she stands, and Alex rushes forward, his desires to cradle his daughter against his chest and to beat Mark Sloan dead warring violently inside him. Before he can make a decision, however, Sienna yells, "I hate you, Daddy! How could you and Mommy ever do that? I'm leaving forever and ever and ever and you'll never find me!"
Damon compliments her disgust by miming throwing up over the arm of the couch while the other children continue to squeal, whine, and cry, depending on their various natures.
"Fuck," Mark breathes as he watches the disaster unfold before his eyes.
"Whatsh fuck, Daddy?" Shiloh asked.
"That's … what we were trying to explain," Owen sighed.
"Hey, Marley, want to have a baby?" Treyton calls to Marley.
"NO!" Alex yells. "Absolutely not! No! No babies."
"That's only for married people," Derek clarifies.
"How do birds do it?" Abbie asks after a long silence.
"The same way," Derek replies we do.
"What about whales?" Abbie wants to know.
"The same."
"How about froggies?"
"They do it the same way, Abbie," Derek says through gritted teeth.
"But Daddy, what about bumblebees? Their peniseses would have to be veeery small."
"With insects, there's a queen," Owen interjected, trying to be objective and scientific. "They all have babies with the queen."
"She's a playa!" Damon yells.
"Thank you, Damon. All right, how about some Spongebob now? Or do you guys want to watch a movie?" Derek asks desperately. It doesn't have the desired effect, the children just stare back, except for Sienna, who leaves the room at a sprint sobbing something about packing, forgetting, perhaps, that she is not in her own house.
"Uh, now what?" Mark inquires.
"April Fools?" Alex suggests.
"That was last week."
"They'd never know."
"They might tell kids at school."
"We could tell them not to tell their moms …"
"Oh please, Shiloh is such a Mommy's boy. He'll tell her anything."
The soft jingling of a key in a lock interrupts their doom laden conference, and heels click on the hard wood and melodious voices fill the foyer as their wives enter, accompanied by the rustling of many shopping bags.
Identical smirks decorate their faces as they enter the living room, but they melt upon closer observation of the situation. Shiloh is examining his cars and seems rather confused by the lack of genitals. Abbie has her fingers in her ears and is chanting "I do not like sex. I do not like sex," like a broken record nobody will take pity on. The others have bonded together behind a tent made of couch cushions and seem to be contemplating a mutiny against the four fathers. They spot pirate swords under Damon and Cameron's shirts.
But the word mother displays its usual magical quality, the second they are spotted by the kids there is a tremendous shout of "Mommy!" and the four women are nearly knocked to the ground by the pack of sobbing, whining, disturbed children.
"Mommy, you have been very naughty," Marley says seriously. "Daddy told us what you did. I am very disappointed in you. You made Sienna run away!"
Izzie has barely opened her mouth when all four women turn to shoot suspicious glares at their children, because they're clingy but not this clingy, especially since their fathers usually overload them with multicolored gummies and chocolate chunk cookies in their absences."Jeez, Mark, what did you tell them?" Addison asks as she cradles the red-faced Shiloh in her arms, he squirms and wriggles but eventually falls still and hides his face.
"They told us how to make babies, Mom," Damon says. "Dad explained everything. Just play lots of baseball."
Addison eyes her husband dangerously, nearly living up to her Satan nickname, but he only shrugs casually while ruffling the back of his hair and yawning. "You're the vagina doctor, babe. I did the best I could."
"Dowen't wowwy, Mommy," Shiloh whispers loudly. "I forgives you for whatsh you did withf Daddy."
"Good, glad we understand," Cristina says in a pleased way, seemingly the only one who does not care how the kids were told as long as she didn't have to do it herself. Of course, she probably would have broken out the diagrams and medical terminology, so her kids have received an arguably better explanation. "Now, if either of you do that before the age of eighteen and are stupid enough to let me or your father find out, we'll disown you. Got it, Treyton? Jasmine?"
Abbie, meanwhile, is sobbing into Meredith's shoulder, her limbs aranged around the bump that is the baby she's carrying, and even soothing hands in her blonde ringlets do nothing to help. Cameron and Brayden, on the other hand, are standing open-mouthed but not overly upset, their expressions below tangles of deep brown hair exude only shock. "Did Daddy really put his 'pee-pee' in your 'gah-gi-nah'?" Abbie asks tearfully.
"Well, honey … um," Meredith stutters as she struggles between the balance of the frank realism that her mother fed her and the candy-coated world all parents are tempted to show their kids at least once to spare as much pain and humiliation as possible.
"Okay, seriously?" Izzie asks Sienna makes a break for the door, hands clutched tight around a few of Abbie's Barbies, a pink shirt and toothbrush, and a spare pair of socks. She manages to intercept the girl but her desperate struggles grow more difficult to restrain. "You guys fail at teaching sex ed!"
"We tried!" Alex claims.
Derek smiles his famous smile for effect, but it fails to instill the usual charm that leaves a trail of women behind him. "That's not going to work this time, Derek Shepherd!" Meredith warns.
"It really wasn't all that bad," Derek defends. "We were doing well until Mark decided to intercede."
"Whatever," Mark shrugs. "What are you going to do about it?"
"Well, honey," Addison says, pouting her red lips seductively at her errant husband as she hugs her children to her designer-clad body. "Let's just say none of you four boys will be experiencing the topic of today's discussion until you can handle it in a more mature manner."
After this week's episode with Mark ... I just couldn't resist. I hope you liked it ... or at least found it mildly amusing. So leave me a review (please :) telling me what you thought or tell me which kid's names you liked the best.