A/N: Everything belongs to Shonda Rhimes. Except Riley, of course. Don't forget to review! :D

"Can I write my letter to Santa now?" Riley bounced up and down with impatience.

Mark, refusing to give in, reached across the living room carpet and placed a hand on his son's shoulder to stop the movement. "You can write your letter to Santa when you tell me why you kicked Tyler."

"Can I have cookies if I tell you why I kicked him?"

"After dinner."

With that answer, the child crossed his arms and set his face with determination. Mark could sit there all night. He had, once before, when Riley had stolen a chocolate bar and wouldn't admit to it. This was the drill: sit, talk, get answers. It usually worked quickly, but then there were these times. Half an hour had already ticked by on the clock.

In silence, they sat, for another thirty minutes. The little blond child rocking back and forth to occupy himself at times, while Mark repetitively ran over the surgery he had preformed that day. As far as his knowledge reached, he saw that the patient would wake up completely satisfied.

Finally, after a total of sixty minutes on the living room carpet, Riley broke. Mark had known the time was coming. The boy had to pee and couldn't hold it any longer, "I kicked Tyler because he likes Summer."

"Well that's no reason to kick someone. Everyone is entitled to having their favourite season, bud." That was not what he had been expecting. The boys were fighting over their favourite seasons? Something else was up. It had to be.

"Daddy, Summer is my girlfriend."

Ohhhhhhhhh.

That explained everything. "That's still no reason to kick him. If this Summer girl likes you, you shouldn't have to worry about if someone else likes her or not."

Why was he coaching his four year old on this?

"But she doesn't know that she's my girlfriend. So I don't want Tyler to tell her that she's his girlfriend."

The joys of being in kindergarten.

"Well, Ry, you have to ask her to be your girlfriend. And you need to apologize to Tyler."

Riley's words were now all mushed together in a quick chain so as to get his request out more quickly, "Okay, Daddy. Can I go pee now?"

"Go for it."

In less than a second, the child was on his feet and running for the bathroom.

Mark stood from the floor, contemplating what to make for dinner. He wasn't the best of cooks, but they didn't eat out every night. The choices that night were spaghetti with tomato sauce or sandwiches.

"Sandwiches or spaghetti?" he called out, his voice carrying through the bathroom door.

"Kraft Dinner!"

That wasn't one of the choices. "Sandwiches or spaghetti?" he tried again.

A groan preceded the voice's answer, "Spaghetti."

The toilet flushed. The door opened, and out came Riley with his zipper still undone.

"Go wash your hands and zip up," Mark told him as he placed the pot of water to boil on the stove top.

Again the child emerged a second later, hands dripping and zipper zipped. He headed for the television remote to find the batteries dead, as they had been the night before and the night before that and the night before that. Making a mental note to pick up some triple A's, Mark continued with dinner, silently watching his son fiddle with the buttons on the TV.

"We'll write your letter to Santa after dinner, okay?"

"Mhm," was the only reply he got. Riley was enveloped in some colourful children's show.

"What are you asking for this year?"

"A puppy. A yellow one."

Wonderful. "Puppies don't come in yellow."

A face popped up over the back of the couch, giving Mark look that could kill, "Yes they do. Mackenzie has a yellow lab- labradreer."

"Labrador?"

"Yeah! A yellow lab- Labrador. I want one of those."

"I'm not sure that Santa can bring one of those in his bag. The puppy might get hungry. We wouldn't want that, would we?"

"Well then you'll have to get me one."

Riley sat back down, content with watching his show. Apparently, that was the end of that conversation. Dinner was ready with perfect timing - right when the cartoon ended.

After eating the spaghetti and cookies for dessert, the two "men" sat down at the kitchen table with pencils and paper. The boy's writing was half backwards and change size forty times every line, but it was legible. Decent for a four year old, at the least. The boy asked for a puppy, a yellow one, five times, with other small things thrown in between. A Buzz Lightyear action figure, a new firetruck, and night-vision goggles. Those things, he could manage. A puppy, on the other hand, would grow into a dog, and Mark couldn't have a dog. He didn't have the time or the patience or the space.

But he couldn't say no to that face. He had a weakness for that adorable little face with that pouty little lip and those big blue eyes. When they had sealed the envelope and addressed it to Santa Claus, he couldn't restrain himself any longer.

"So what will you name your puppy?" tactfully, he through in as an afterthought, "If you get one, I mean."

"I don't know. Not spotty. That's a stupid name for a dog."

"Language, young man."

"Sorry. That's a silly name for a dog," Riley corrected himself.

It wasn't that stupid was a bad word. It wasn't that it was any better than silly, either. Stupid, coming out of the mouth of a four-year-old, just sounded wrong. Dirty, in a completely un-dirty way.

The rest of the evening progressed quickly. The young Sloan was tucked into bed in his favourite pajamas and with his stuffed panda bear by eight o'clock sharp. It had been an eventful day, to say the least. And that was without mentioning all of the adult drama floating around the hospital.

Just as he was sitting down to settle in for a movie on the couch, there was a knock on the door. With a grunt of defeat, he abandoned his comfortable position on the furniture. The door was only steps away, but it took him at least thirty seconds to get there, with the knocking continuing at random intervals.

Mark didn't know who to be expecting, but there were people he wouldn't be surprised to see standing at his door and people that he would be surprised to see standing at his door. Owen, Derek, Cristina, Meredith, Bailey. They weren't people he would be overly surprised to find. Albert Einstein, George Bush, Michael Jackson, and . . .

Pulling open the thick door, he found one last person to put on the list of people who would surprise him with their presence.

Callie Torres.

A/N: I hope that everyone is enjoying so far. Please review!