A/N Hi, thanks for the last reviews it felt good knowing people are still enjoying things I write! So I realised pretty quick the ages in the last one didn't really add up, but I don't really know for sure what the kids' age differences are, so I'm going to go with there being around 2 years difference for each one? If anyone knows what the age differences actually are please let me know!
I think this story is going to be a collection of oneshots, based around different situations with the kids, Meredith and maybe Derek occasionally too, so if you have any ideas please put them in a review and I'll try my best to come up with something!
Meredith was in the middle of a rather routinely boring appendectomy when a phone call came through on the OR telephone, and although she would never admit it a wave of relief flushed over her when the scrub nurse spoke that it was for her, then terror at what it was for.
"Dr. Grey it's the daycare, apparently Ellis has been involved in an altercation with another boy." The intern says, and Meredith swears if she wasn't wrist deep in a man's abdomen she would have freaked out a hell of a lot more than what she did. Ellis was the only one of the kids left in daycare now; Zola was in 2nd grade and Bailey just started kindergarten, meaning Ellis was able to play with other kids without the watchful eye of her older brother and sister, and also meaning she got into a little more trouble too. Not that Meredith minded, after all she knew she can't have been to easiest daughter to handle either.
"An altercation?" Meredith raises her eyebrows, turning to look at the intern on the phone. "I'm in the middle of a man's open stomach on an operation table, and you decide that they most information you can give me about my 3 year old daughter of whom the daycare are calling me regarding is that she's in an altercation?"
"That was what the daycare said ." The intern says, with a new gloss of fear in her eyes. Like deer in headlights, Meredith thinks.
"Well ask them what the altercation is!" Meredith snaps straight away without even a sliver of guilt. Without a beat the intern nods and mumbles the question into the phone while Meredith takes a deep breath to compose herself and her hands that are still working.
"According to the daycare Dr. Grey she's pushed another boy over." The intern finally speaks up again.
"What?" Meredith nearly shouts, but then quickly thinks on her feet. "Page Chief Bailey to come observe, DeLuca I want you to close, are you capable of doing that?"
"Yes mam." Deluca smiles and steps forwards as Meredith takes a step back.
"If I come back and find him dead then you better hope my daughter's pushed this boy so hard that I have to flee across the country and never see you again." Meredith sarcastically smiles as walks out the remove her gloves and scrub down, and as if it was fate Bailey joins her in the scrub room just as she goes to leave.
"Grey this better be damn good, paging me twice in a week, I hope I'm not going to have to observe some intern aga-" Bailey says as she scrubs, but stops when she sees Meredith removing her cap and gloves, and sees DeLuca leading the closure. "Daycare again?"
"Yes daycare again." Meredith sighs as she scrubs out next to Bailey, her eyes still training on DeLuca's stitches. "I'll be back in an hour tops."
"Take the afternoon." Bailey looks up at Meredith. "Go spend some time with your daughter, sounds to me like you both need it."
If Meredith wasn't so tired, she would have argued, but she knew Bailey was right. Meredith needed time, time that she didn't feel like she had had for the past month. Between Zola's soccer games, Bailey's piano lessons and Ellis's dance recitals, surgeries and simple things like grocery shopping, Meredith was just about ready to snap.
"Okay." Is all Meredith can manage to say before she walks out, re-tying her hair into a neat bun as she takes the elevator up to the daycare floor and goes in, taking a breath to brace herself.
She didn't even have to open the door to know the faint cries she could hear were coming from her daughter, but it wasn't an upset cry that begged for cuddle, it was instead a sharp scream that was fuelled by frustration and anger, and for a second Meredith couldn't decide whether it had been inherited from herself or Derek.
"I was called up." Meredith says to the first teacher she sees, since Ellis hadn't noticed her yet. "What happened?"
The teacher sighs, looking over at Ellis who was sat on the time out chair, squirming around as she screamed and got more and more worked up. "She was playing with another boy, they seemed to be having fun, but then we turned around and she pushed him over onto the floor, we put her on the timeout chair and tried to speak to her but she just started screaming. We don't like to do this but I think its best Ellis leaves for today."
"I'll take her and talk to her." Meredith says, watching her daughter as her heart begins to ache. "Ellis, it's mummy." She walks over to Ellis, bending down in front of the chair.
Ellis's cries stop for a split second as she looks into the warmth of her mum's green eyes as she meets them with her own watering, bloodshot blue ones. "Mummy!" Ellis cries, this time with more pain, and reaches to her.
Meredith wanted to play good cop so, so badly, and just scoop her baby up and rock her, telling her it would all be okay and she still loved her and that everyone had bad days, but if Meredith had learnt anything in the past 3 years of being a single mother it was that it is hard to play good cop-bad cop when there was only one cop.
"Okay we need to calm down." Meredith says composed, holding Ellis's small wrists just under an arm lengths away from her. "That means sitting still, not crying, and taking big breathes."
Ellis sniffles, sitting up properly in her chair but still continues to whimper. "Mummy."
"Mummy's here, but Mummy can't do anything while you're all worked up." Meredith explains, finding it more and more difficult to keep up being stern while watching her such small daughter break down in front of her, especially when she knew exactly what she was about to ask for.
"Cuddles." Ellis whimpers, trying to reach her arms out again. Out of the three kids, Ellis was definitely the one that was the cuddliest, even more so than Bailey was at her age. "Mummy please."
"Ellis Sheperd." Meredith sticks to her guns, knowing that once she wraps her arms around her daughter she won't be able to let her go. "No cuddles until you tell me why you pushed another boy over." She says sternly, thanking the lord no interns were around to hear her say the word 'cuddles'.
"Not fair." Ellis says, her eyes still watering, making her blue eyes glaze with a look that could remind Meredith of only one person.
"What's not fair?" Meredith asks softly now.
"He got two daddys." Ellis sniffles. "And I got no daddys."
For a second Meredith wanted to go give the daycare teachers a piece of her mind about how she felt about them not knowing her fatherless daughter was jealous of the boy with two dad's and how did they not realise that this was the cause of the problem? The next thing to hit Meredith was a wave of guilt. She'd never really sat down with Ellis and explained why she didn't have a daddy like the other kids, just that Daddy was in heaven being an angel. But now, it seemed that Ellis was growing up a little bit more, faster than Meredith ever could have imagined. Now, Ellis noticed.
For a little while longer, Meredith struggled to find something to say.
"We never, ever push people, okay?" Is all she can say without her voice wavering too much. "No matter what it's about."
"But-" Ellis starts to say, her tears nearly gone now, but Meredith cuts her off with a stern look.
"Not ever." She says, swallowing the frog that seemed to have imbedded itself in her throat. "Do you understand?"
Ellis nods sheepishly, trying to reach her arms out again, but this time Meredith accepts and pulls the small toddler into her arms, kissing her head softly.
"Go get your backpack." Meredith says when she lets get go. "We're going to go for a ride."
XXXXX
There were two things that Meredith had learnt in the past 4 years that still amazed her. The first one was kids would put their hands on anything and think the best place to put it would be up their nose, and the other thing was that all she had to do was walk into the school office, introduce herself as Dr. Grey, and simply say there was an emergency giving no details to get her kids out of school early.
"Mummy where we going?" Bailey asks as Meredith drives towards the harbour. She knew the kids weren't missing out on anything important this afternoon, if they were she never would have dreamed of taking them out of school for something that seemed as pointless as this did.
"It's a surprise Bails." Meredith smiles a little, looking in the rearview mirror at the three kids in the back. Bailey was kicking his legs in the empty space, looking around but not focussing on anything. Zola, on the other hand, was following every sign and post they passed, the little cogs in her head turning trying to figure out their end destination. Ellis was the only one still, and that was because she had become exhausted from the hour of crying she had and was now fast asleep.
"Is it ice cream?" Bailey asks.
"No, but maybe we'll get some after-" Meredith starts, but stops when Zola perks up.
"I got it!" Zola says, beaming as her eyes train on something in the distance, and Meredith smiles knowing that she's right. "Can I tell Bailey mummy?"
"Go ahead." Meredith smiles, as also their end point was in clear sight, Bailey was too busy staring at the lace swinging off his shoe to notice.
"We're going on the ferrys!" Zola smiles, excitement bubbling through her giggles. "We get to go on the ferry Bailey!"
"Really mummy?" Bailey asks, his feet suddenly stopping in their tracks and his expecting eyes trying to meet Meredith's in the mirror.
"Really." Meredith smiles, driving onto the boat as Ellis started to wake up, whining and shuffling around in her seat. "Well good morning little miss."
Ellis just whines, opening her eyes slowly and looking around confused, not recognising where she was and soon starts whimpering at the same time the ferry starts to move off.
"Hey sh, it's okay." Meredith says softly, getting out the car and opening the back door to Ellis's seat. Rarely did Meredith have time to take the kids on the ferry; last time was probably around a year ago, meaning Ellis was likely to not remember one bit of it. "Zo can you help Bailey undo his seat belt while I get Ellis out?"
Zola nods, proudly reaching over to undo Bailey's. "Can we get out too? I'll hold Bailey's hand until you can."
"Sure thing Zo, just stay by the side of the car." Meredith smiles and she pats down Ellis's dark curls while simultaneously undoing her seat and watching to make sure Zola and Bailey got out the car okay.
"Where we mumma?" Ellis asks tiredly, rubbing her eyes as she lets her head fall onto her mother's shoulders.
"We're on a ferry boat sweetie." Meredith explains as she walks round to the other side of the car to find Zola and Bailey stood patiently, Zola's hand firmly wrapped around Bailey's. "Come on lets go up to the top." She says, reaching her free hand out for Bailey to take, knowing Zola would want to walk ahead on her own.
The four walk up, Zola leading the way with a special bound of energy that Meredith couldn't recall seeing for a while. Even Bailey seemed excited; even though his last memory of the ferry boats probably wasn't clear, he heard Meredith and Zola talk about them enough that he knew they were special, and knew how much his Daddy loved them. Meredith finds an empty bench a couple of feet distance from the railing around the top deck and sits there, letting Ellis get comfortable on her lap while Zola and Bailey go to look out the binoculars.
"You know Ellis, ferry boats were one of your daddy's favourite things." Meredith says, still patting her hair down, remembering the feeling of doing it to someone else with unnaturally dark, perfect curls a lifetime ago.
"Why?" Ellis asks. It was generally always why.
"I think he liked the quiet, and how much of seattle you can see at once." She says as she points in the direction of rows and rows of apartment blocks, offices and harbours.
"Oh." Is all Ellis says.
"I know daddy isn't here." Meredith says point blank. "And I know that's really really sad, but it doesn't mean you don't have a daddy, it just means he's a little different to other daddys."
Ellis ponders this for nearly a second. "Max's daddy gives him hugs." She says, then looks at Meredith. "But my daddy gives no hugs."
"You want to know a secret?" Ellis nods at Meredith's question. "I wish daddy could hug me too sometimes, but daddy's an angel remember?"
"In da sky." Ellis begins to frown as she remembers, but Meredith pulls her chin up before she can shed a tear.
"Daddy's an angel in the sky, but that means he can watch over us all the time and make sure we're safe and happy." Meredith says. "and he's doing a pretty good job right?"
Ellis smiles a little and nods, but then her face turns down again. "I never see'd daddy."
Meredith frowns as much as she'd allow herself too. Life had handed Ellis a pretty rough hand from the start, but how was she supposed to explain to a three year old that sometimes, just sometimes, life was simply unfair.
"Daddy turned into an angel before you were born." Meredith explains, tightening her arms aroud Ellis' waist. "But I think that was so he could watch you all the time, and never have to take his eyes of you so he could always make sure you're okay. That's a pretty good Daddy right?"
"Yeah!" Ellis smiles, as if all her previous pain had been forgotten. "So Daddy always watchin me?"
"You, and Zola and Bailey." Meredith nods, smiling a little more.
"And you?" Ellis asks.
"And me." Meredith nods again, smiling a little more than before this time. "And if we ever miss Daddy lots, and we worry he's not looking after us, then we can come onto the ferry boats, because Daddy always watched the ferry boats."
XXXXX
The trip ended with a special treat to the pizza place and ice cream parlour, which subsequently ended with three pizza covered kids. After bathing the three of them with the help of Maggie, Meredith managed to get all three of them to bed with minimal issues, bar Bailey's struggle at settling on a pair of pyjamas to bed. Now, Meredith actually got to enjoy a moment of piece to herself, and found herself thanking Ellis for her daycare meltdown as without it Meredith was almost certain she'd still be stuck at the hospital.
"Ellis wants a Daddy." She speaks out loud, the only recipient of her words being the ceiling. "I told her she has one, just that he's a little different. Was that the right thing to say? What was I supposed to tell her – you do but he's not here so Mummy should really have found an alive Daddy because it has been the appropriate amount of time but she'd being too selfish to do it? I don't know if selfish is even what I'm being here, I can't just go out and find someone for the sake of the kids, Zola would be able to tell if I wasn't really happy with some guy even if they all loved him. And besides, they're not new guys kids, they're your kids, so if I ever do happen to run into someone I'd appreciate some sort of sign than you approve because I just spent the day telling Ellis that you're always watching us but I swear to god if I ever find out you're just always watching the ferry boats then as soon as I'm up there with you then be prepared."