A/N: I'm sorry it's taken me so long to update this story. Honestly, after 11x21, I wasn't sure if I could update this story; the content was too hard for me to write because of the similarities. I woke up the other day with a whole bundle of ideas for this story, though, including the ending. I think there's going to be one more part after this part (I've always said this will be a short story).
PART 3
"Funny, isn't it? The way memory works. The things you can't quite remember, and the things you can never forget."
"Kids?" A sudden glimmer of what looks like possibly hope comes across the man's face. The man who is also claiming to be her husband.
"Well, if we're really married, I hope we have kids. You're hot, and we would make pretty babies." She smiles deliriously, though her head temples are throbbing when a flash of a baby with bright blue eyes - the man's eyes - crosses her brain, and then it's gone. It's true, they would make pretty babies.
His smile falls and the hope washes from his face.
After the flash of the baby boy, there's a flash of a brown skinned little girl with large adorable brown eyes. The girl is wearing a butterfly costume. She doesn't know where this flash came from, but the little girl in the flash is adorable.
Both flashes are gone in an instant. And her head pounds harder.
A dark-haired woman wearing a white coat and navy blue scrubs enters the room. She looks familiar. She and the man have the same pearl blue eyes. They're related, it doesn't take a genealogist to realize that the man claiming to be her husband and the female doctor are relatives.
"Derek," the woman says. Derek, that's his name, right, he told you that, Meredith thinks, remembering the first brief conversation she and Derek had when she woke up. How could she forget his name? Meredith and Derek has a nice ring to it, she thinks, assuming he's not lying about being her husband. He definitely doesn't appear to be lying, though, taking into account the deep concern and worry plaguing his face. It's hard to fake a look like that. "Can I have a moment alone with Meredith?" the female doctor requests.
"Whatever you have to say to Meredith, you can say in front of me," Derek snipes in response. Definitely related, Meredith notes as the female doctor rolls her eyes. Doctors don't typically roll their eyes at husbands of their patients, do they? She's pretty sure it's against some code. It's certainly inappropriate.
"Okay, then," the woman sighs. "Meredith...I'm guessing you don't know who I am?"
Meredith studies the woman's white coat. "Dr. Amelia Shepherd," Meredith reads the letters on the coat. She is much too old to be Derek's daughter, so that left one possibility. "Derek's sister," she says with absolute certainty, almost as if she's recalling a memory, as if part of the memory of Amelia being Derek's sister is still lingering somewhere in her brain.
"That's right," Amelia says, glancing inquisitively at her brother.
Derek knows it's a good sign that Meredith knows Amelia is his sister, but he can't help but be a little jealous. At this point, it's difficult to tell what she knows because she remembers, and what she knows because she's simply analyzing her surroundings The good sign, however, is that she has the ability to inference and come to conclusions based on the information surrounding her. The analytical section of her brain is active.
"Do I like you?" Meredith's question is so abrupt; it takes Derek a moment to register that she's talking to Amelia. "Or are we the kind of in-laws who hate each other?" Derek almost bursts into laughter, as he's met by a memory of Meredith on morphine when she had her appendectomy and she'd rambled about all of her boyfriends. Her tone mimics her tone then.
Amelia chuckles. "We don't hate each other. Well, I don't hate you."
"That's good to know," Meredith says, and then the room falls silent until Meredith swallows thickly. "We're not that close, though, right?"
Amelia's breaths hitch, and she looks dumbfounded, like she doesn't know how to reply. Derek's chest aches with knowledge of his absence, and the fact he doesn't even know the answer to his wife's question. He feels wretched, terrible, awful. Amelia moved to Seattle last spring for him, because he asked her to. And now he feels like he's taken complete advantage of her.
He abandoned her.
It's always the ones you love the most that you hurt the most, they're also the ones who are capable of hurting you. Pain cannot exist without love. Something - or someone - is incapable of hurting you if you don't care for them deeply.
He's abandoned everyone in his life. He has a long trail of hurting people, over and over again, because of his own selfish endeavors.
Is it so wrong, though, to want to reach your full potential?
Addison cheated on him because he was never around, because he buried himself in his work. But Addison was no Meredith. Addison also wasn't the mother of his children.
He thinks of Zola and Bailey, and how he's spent the last weeks watching them grow over a computer screen. That's not how he wants to watch them grow up. No good father would want to watch their children grow up in cyberspace, thousands of miles away.
This isn't how it's supposed to be.
He looks at Meredith, who doesn't even remember their life together. She worried endlessly about getting her mother's disease. It's been a center conflict for them and their relationship since the beginning.
"If I get Alzheimer's and forget you…"
"I will remind you who I am. Every day."
Their post-it note. The epitome of their love.
"I want you to pull the plug the minute I start forgetting where my keys are."
"Meredith…"
He hated when she brought it up, because it freaked him out. The idea that she might not remember him, that she might not remember their family, their life together, their love for each other; it genuinely scared him to death. It's his worst nightmare.
Now his worst nightmare is an augmented reality.
But it's not. Meredith's tumor is removable. She doesn't have Alzheimer's, she has a freaking brain tumor that's impacting her memory. Her memory may be able to be restored. Brain tumors can be cured. Alzheimer's cannot, yet.
It's the reason he's living in DC, though. The BRAIN Initiative has the potential to open doors that he's dreamed about for years. There are thousands of people asking the same questions that have tormented his brain for decades. It's his only shot at getting the answers to these questions.
Is he really being selfish if he's doing this for Meredith? For her mother's disease? For the gene that she carries?
What happens next? Maybe Ginsberg will remove the tumor and Meredith's memory will be restored, then in twenty or so years she gets Alzheimer's and this becomes their permanent reality. Meredith not knowing him. Meredith not remembering their children.
His heart throbs, pulsating through his ears. Derek's thoughts are all over the place, and he's torn about what to do. It shouldn't be this difficult, but it is.
All Derek knows is he needs to be present. For Meredith. The rest can wait.
The future can wait for now.
Meredith knows something is wrong with her. Her head is killing her, and she has no recollection of a life with this man named Derek who claims to be her husband.
Her mother has Alzheimer's. Had Alzheimer's. How many years have passed? What year was it? Meredith imagines her mother is dead now. "The year," she murmurs. "What year is it?"
Her supposed husband and sister-in-law exchange looks with each other, and it's Derek who says, "2015. It's 2015."
She counts the number of years that have passed in her head. Based on her math, she's already completed her residency, presumably.
Meredith swallows thickly, "And how long have we been married?"
"Five years," Derek replies, taking his iPhone out of his pocket. He looks hesitant when he hands the phone to her, allowing her to see the screen.
It's her. She's smiling and looks undeniably happy. Her heart skips a beat when she sees the two small children with her in the photo. The children from the flashes, she recalls, and her breaths hitch when she notes the children's attire. The blond-haired, blue-eyed little boy - he has Derek's eyes - is wearing a pumpkin costume, and the little girl wears a purple butterfly costume. The photo was evidently taken on Halloween.
She knows they're her children, even though she can't remember specific details about them. Where were they born? When are their birthdays? Their favorite foods? Their favorite stuffed animals? She knows nothing about her own children.
Derek slides through his camera roll, revealing more photos. Some of just the boy, some of just the girl, and some of just her. There are a few pictures of him and her, but the majority of the photos seem to have been taken by him. She and the kids are the spotlight of his camera roll.
She sees the letter Z in her head. Zoe? Zo? Does the girl's name begin with Z? Then the letter B crosses her head. Brady? Brayton? Her head hurts when she tries to think.
"Their names?" she asks, starting to tear up. "What are their names?"
"Our daughter's name is Zola, and our son's name is Bailey," Derek replies.
"Gender bender names," she notes, a stream of liquid releasing from her tear ducts. "I always liked gender bender names." She meets Derek's eyes, which have also started to well with tears. "What's wrong with me?" she asks. "Why can't I remember? Do I have Alzheimer's? Is that why I can't remember anything?" She doesn't dare mention her mother, because she knows it's safe to assume that she's dead. And she's okay with that, as awful as it might sound.
"No," Derek's sister steps forward, speaking up. "You don't have Alzheimer's, Meredith. You," she pauses for a moment, then finishes, "have a brain tumor."
"A brain tumor? You're joking, right?" Meredith struggles to believe the words she's hearing. When her mother received her diagnosis, Meredith immediately started wondering if she, too, would inherit her mother's disease. Alzheimer's is hereditary, so she'd known right away that there was a chance that, as the daughter of someone with Alzheimer's, there was a good enough chance that she would develop the disease too.
When you're a med student, you learn about a gazillion different diseases and conditions, and you become obsessed with self-diagnosing yourself with every pain. You have a headache, you automatically can't help but wonder if it's a brain tumor. Some of her classmates had wasted a few CT scans just to confirm they didn't have tumors.
Brain tumors were never a concern for Meredith, though, even when the rest of her classmates were worrying about having a tumor with every headache. Meredith doesn't remember worrying about that.
She's always lived by the motto, "Whatever happens, happens."
Yet, she remembers Alzheimer's becoming the center of her every thought when she learned of her mother's diagnosis. Maybe it's because she considered Alzheimer's to be one of the worst possible diseases a person could develop. Watching a person slowly deteriorate before your eyes was painful enough. She never wanted to begin to imagine what it was like to be that person, to slowly lose your memory, to recall things from thirty years ago but be unable to remember the name of your daughter? She wouldn't want her children to go through that, either.
Knowing that their mother has no idea who they are.
The thoughts are painful. Pervasive. A reality she never wants for her, or her children.
"Brain tumor?" she says again.
"That's correct," her sister-in-law confirms.
"Right, so what's the next step? Is it operable? I mean, obviously neither of you can operate on me since you're related. Are you here to tell me I have X days to live? What are you going to do?" Derek smirks, and Meredith glares at him. "What's with that look on your face?"
"What look?" Derek asks.
"I don't know, a look like you're remembering something. Something that I obviously won't remember, but I'd like to know what it is. Because I want to remember, even if it's physically impossible for me to remember because of a freaking brain tumor."
Derek chuckles. "You know, this is generally when I'd kiss you," he replies flatly.
"Then do it," Meredith shrugs, staring helplessly at her husband, and he looks taken aback by her request. "Maybe I'll remember something. Do it. Kiss me." She sees Amelia blushing as Derek hesitates, then slowly he leans forward across the bar of her hospital bed. She licks her lips, hoping they aren't dry; it's not like she was planning on telling him to kiss her, or being kissed for that matter. This isn't exactly how she imagined kissing Derek for the first time in her memory's sake, yet it feels right. Since, judging by the photos he's shown her, she assumes they've shared many kisses.
His lips are soft. They're foreign yet familiar. Meredith can't explain the sensation she feels when Derek's lips touch hers. But she likes it, and she doesn't want him to stop.
The kiss is short and quick, like a habit they've formed over the years. She wants to do it again, but he's quick to pull away. Her heart flutters like a butterfly has been trapped in her chest cavity. Derek adjusts his posture, standing up straight, and she can't help but notice that he's blushing.
Silence falls between them, until her sister-in-law coughs. "Uh-hem," she murmurs. "Dr. Ginsberg, one of the best neurosurgeons in the country and my former teacher, will be removing your tumor. She's on a plane here as we speak, and she should arrive in the morning."
"I'll get my memory back after the surgery?" Meredith asks, hesitant to hope. She knows she's never been a hopeful person; something tells her that hasn't changed over the last seven or eight years, even if her life seems to be picture perfect now.
She feels like she fell asleep and traveled seven or eight years into the future to see with her own eyes that there really is light at the end of the tunnel.
"That's the hope, but we don't know for sure," says Derek's sister.
Meredith nods knowingly. She may not have any memories from her internship or residency years, but she knows that there are a multitude of risks with brain surgery, even with one of the best neurosurgeons in the country performing her surgery. She might lose all of her memories, even the ones before she graduated med school. She could become permanently brain damaged. She can might the ability to speak or see. Any number of complications might occur.
She can stroke out on the table.
She can die.
Meredith's stomach tightens; she feels sick to her stomach knowing that there's a chance that she might never remember this amazing life that exists according to Derek's phone. It doesn't seem fair. She had a crappy childhood, and she never had a good relationship with her mother. And her father left her. Now, apparently, she has a fantastic life, and she doesn't remember it?
Maybe there's a reason she doesn't remember it. Maybe Derek isn't the amazing husband he appears to be. Could there be something he's withholding from her? A dirty secret? He's just shown her pictures of the kids, but she hasn't seen them in the flesh. Even though they look happy in the photos, are they really happy? There's always more to a story than a photo can show.
Derek could be an abusive husband, or a cheater. Anything is possible. His eyes seem genuine, though. They don't look like the eyes of an abusive cheater. He could be at faking the loving husband thing. Most abusive husbands are good at putting on a show, aren't they?
"Would you like for me to give you some time alone?" her sister-in-law asks, looking between Meredith and Derek.
Meredith and Derek both nod simultaneously. "Yes."
"Okay," Amelia nods, and she leaves.
Derek's heart is still racing from the kiss he and Meredith shared. He struggles to believe that it's the first kiss they've shared since before he went to DC. They hadn't exactly been kissing much before he went to DC, either. Their relationship had been a constant battle. They would have sex, but it wasn't romantic sex - "making love" - by any definition. It was avoidance sex. They've had a terrible tendency to use sex as a way to avoid talking to each other. Sex is easy. Communicating has never been one of their strengths.
The kiss they've just shared is different. It feels different. It's not like any of the kisses they have shared in recent history. In fact, he can't remember the last time they'd shared a kiss like that. It's surely been a long time.
It was quick and brief, but somehow it managed to ignite something missing from within him. He wants to do it again, but he's afraid to push her.
"I didn't remember," she admits. "When you kissed me, I didn't remember anything, but...I liked it." She blushes, and he feels his own cheeks warming, his insides melting when he meets her gaze. She adds, "I'm sorry if my lips are dry."
"I don't mind dry lips," he smiles, and suddenly he can't control his urge to kiss her again. He leans forward again, brushing his lips against her lips, and they meet again. Unlike the kiss he'd given her when she was unconscious, he feels her kissing back this times. He leans forward, edging as close to her as possible. Derek continues kissing her. He strokes her cheek; his heart races. He doesn't want this to ever end.
But it's Meredith who separates their lips.
"The kids," she gasps suddenly. He flashbacks to when they would have morning sex, and Meredith would stop at random to tell him that the kids were awake. She was always right, too. "I want to see the kids."
He frowns at that, unsure of that idea. "Are you sure?"
"I can't have brain surgery without allowing my children to see me one last time," Meredith says simply, taking his hand. "Please," her eyes beg him, and it reminds him of all the times she's begged him before, and he'd insisted they trade off whatever she wanted him to do for sex. Sex was always the trade off, when either of them wanted something from the other. He knows that sex can't be a trade off now, though. Even if it could be, and she wanted it to be, he wouldn't dare have sex in the ICU. It's definitely one thing they haven't done, and he's not sure he wants to add it to their list, unless they found someone to guard the door like he and Meredith had done for Jeremy and Beth.
"Meredith," he starts to say, prepared to argue why seeing Zola and Bailey might not be the best idea right now.
"I promise I won't act like I don't know them," she interrupts. "I don't want to scare them. This is scary enough for me as is, believe me. I just...I need to see them, okay? Please?"
She looks desperate, helpless, and he can't say no to her. He can't keep her children from her, after all. That doesn't feel right at all. And Zola is old enough to ask questions.
"Okay," he mouths, immediately texting Maggie. As far as he knows, she still has the children with her.
Mer's awake. She wants to see the kids.
Maggie quickly texts back: OMG. We'll be there ASAP.
Derek's heart bolts, because he knows it's only a matter of time before the whole hospital is going to know Meredith is awake, and the last thing Meredith needs right now is a menagerie trying to see her. He frantically texts Amelia.
Don't let anyone besides Maggie in Mer's room. She's bringing the kids, and Mer doesn't need extra visitors right now.
Amelia texts back right away. On it.
Unfortunately, despite Amelia's and Derek's best efforts to keep the outside world away, their efforts are denied. Not long after Derek texts Maggie, Alex appears in the doorway. Derek assumes that Maggie spread the word about Meredith being awake. Derek was glad that he alone with her when she awoke, because she doesn't need additional confusion.
Meredith doesn't say anything when Alex enters the room. It's like she doesn't want people to know that she doesn't remember them. Even with memory loss and a brain tumor, Meredith is stubborn and has all of her pride intact. Derek is grateful to see her personality shining. If anything, this version of Meredith responds and behaves more like the Meredith he fell in love with, opposed to the Meredith he's known these last several months.
He knows this is Meredith pre-Addison, pre-Thatcher, pre-Lexie, pre-Cristina, pre-bomb, pre-drowning, pre-Alzheimer's trial, pre-plane crash, and most importantly, pre-DC. This Meredith doesn't remember him breaking promises or telling lies. This Meredith has a blank slate. All she knows is he's her husband; the rest of their relationship baggage ceases to exist to her, and it makes everything less complicated.
Or more. Because he suspects she'll be livid when she remembers or finds out the truth. Whichever comes first.
Amelia pops her head in for a moment. "Sorry, I tried to keep him out, but he wouldn't back off…"
"I've known Mer longer than ninety-nine percent of the people in this hospital; I think I'm allowed to here," Alex announces and his eyes widen when he sees Meredith looking at him. "You're awake!"
"Thank you, Captain Obvious," Meredith says, a smirk on her face. She still has her sense of humor, too, and she seems to know that Alex is someone who's fluent in sarcasm.
"And you're not brain damaged, I see," Alex says, and Meredith feigns a smile. Derek can tell it's fake; he wonders if Alex can too. Alex might know his wife as well as - or possibly better than - he does. They're good friends who've gone through similar life struggles. Some might say they're each other's mirror.
"Right… no brain damage… yet," Meredith winces, and that's when Alex's smile falls and he turns toward Derek, clearly looking for answers.
Derek heaves a sigh. "Meredith, do you know who Alex is?"
"What's going on?" Alex quickly demands. "Why wouldn't she know who I am?"
"I was hoping I could conceal it," Meredith sighs, "but apparently I'm a crappy liar. I have a brain tumor, they tell me, and I can't remember anything past my first day as an intern."
"Oh, so you remember screwing him then, right?" Alex points to Derek. Leave it to Alex to point out the piece of the puzzle that Derek himself can't quite figure out. If Meredith remembers getting ready for her first day of intern year, then why doesn't she remember him? Surely she should remember him, because she recognized him in the hallway that day when they met at the hospital on her first day as an intern, shortly before he cornered her on the stairwell because she was running away from him. She should at least know his face. Why doesn't she remember his face?
It's obvious that she cares about him, even with the loss of those vital memories which she should have, given the timeline of events she claims to remember. She wouldn't let him kiss her if she doesn't care or have feelings for him. He knows she felt what he felt when they kissed, or she wouldn't have kept kissing him.
An awkward silence falls between them, which Alex clearly picks up on. His eyes widen. "You don't remember screwing him, but you remember it being your first day of intern year? Do you remember me? Because we met on the first day of intern year…"
Her eyes open, as if she's recalling something. "You called me a nurse," she hesitates.
Alex shrugs. "Not exactly, but you took it like that."
"You were a douche," she mumbles hastily. "We're friends now?" She looks surprised at the possibility of her and Alex being friends.
"Best friends," Alex laughs, but Meredith still looks puzzled.
"Oh, come on," Derek feels his heart sinking, and an overwhelming sense of self doubt hits him. "You remember him, but you don't remember me?" He can't believe he's jealous that she remembers Alex being a douche. At least her only memory of him isn't one of his idiotic moves. Maybe it's better that she doesn't remember any details about him, as awful as it feels.
"Blame the tumor, not me," she shrugs. He's had hundreds of patients who've blamed their actions on their tumors, and to see his wife being able to do it crushes his heart. He knows he can't be mad at her; it's what it is, and there's no changing it until the surgery.
"Uncle Alex!" a tiny voice cries. Derek is ashamed to admit he barely recognizes his own children. He's seen them on the computer a number of times, but he can't believe how much they've grown since he's seen them list. Maggie is standing in the doorway holding Bailey in her arms, and Zola stands next to her. Zola runs forward and gives Alex a hug around the waist. "I hadn't seened you in soooo long!" Then she lets go of Alex, freezing when her eyes glue to Derek and then Meredith.
Zola is visibly stunned.
They're the children from the photos, but they're bigger. Both kids have to be at least a year older than they were in the Halloween photos on Derek's phone.
"Daddy!" Zola exclaims, almost like she hasn't seen Derek in a while. Meredith knows children her age have no real concept of time, and a few hours might feel like an eternity.
Okay, she doesn't know much about children at all. It's not like she spent much time around children when she was growing up, but she remembers bits and pieces of her childhood, and she took a philosophy class in college which discussed the relativity of time. A year when you're three years old goes ten times slower than a year when you're thirty years old. The reason being, you're three, the year is only one-third of your lifetime, whereas when you're thirty, it's one-thirtieth. Obviously a three-year-old's year would feel much longer than a thirty-year-old's.
Meredith wonders how old Zola and Bailey are now. Her head hurts too bad at this point to do the math. Meredith doesn't even know her own age at this point. Maybe that's not such a bad thing, though.
She notices Alex slip out of the room, though, and the woman who brought the children hands Bailey off to Derek and also leaves the room. She's pretty sure all of this is information overload and is going to cause her brain to explode.
Zola bounces in front of her father and sticks out her lip when she looks at Meredith, worry evident in her eyes. "Daddy, what happen to Mama? Auntie Maggie saided she gots hurt."
"Your mama did get hurt," Derek says, frowning.
"Oh," Zola says. "Can I gives her huggie and kissies?"
Derek smiles gently. "Well, why don't you ask her yourself, sweetheart?"
"Mama, can I gived you huggies and kisses?" Zola looks at Meredith now.
Meredith doesn't know how to respond, but she knows she can't say no to the sweet offer. Zola's puppy dog eyes are angelic; they melt Meredith's heart. Meredith nods, motioning for Zola to come over.
"Of course you can," she says, pretending like everything okay, like she remembers everything there is to know about Zola, her daughter.
Zola carefully crawls into bed with her, with a little assistance from Derek. As Zola snuggles up against her, and Meredith carefully guides her away from the IVs, she thinks about the photos Derek showed her of the kids. Of Zola. There were pictures that dated all the way back to when she was much smaller. Meredith wonders when she and Derek adopted Zola. Her skin color is a dead giveaway that she's adopted. She wonders how they met her. Meredith wants to know her daughter's story.
What she does know, though, is she doesn't recognize the feeling in her heart. She's sure she's felt it before, but she doesn't remember the feeling. Joy swells within her. Tears dampen her eyes when Zola wraps her arms around Meredith's chest and softly kisses the right side of her cheek.
"I wub ya, Mama." Zola's coffee brown eyes peer at Meredith. "Why ya cryin? I hurted you?"
"No, baby," Meredith whispers; it feels right to call the little girl - her little girl - "baby." Zola is her baby girl, and while she may not remember how she became her little girl, she knows that it feels right and that's what matters. "I'm just so happy that you're here. That's why I'm crying."
"Oh," Zola says. "You cwy lots and lots when Daddy goed away coz you sad."
Meredith freezes. What on Earth is Zola talking about?
Something tells her that this is the missing piece of the puzzle.
Derek's heart hurts when he sees what looks like a lightbulb go off in Meredith's eyes. Does she remember something? Does it have to do with the months of agony they've endured? If she remembers something, he would prefer it be one of their happy moments. Like their first night together. Or Bailey's birth. He doesn't want her to remember their fighting; it's why he's neglected to bring up DC, not that there's really been an opportunity to bring it up, either.
What was he supposed to say? "Oh, yeah, by the way, we've kind of been fighting a lot these past months, because I was offered a job to work for the president in DC." It certainly did not fit into any of the brief conversations they have had since she'd woken up.
He's an idiot if he didn't expect Zola to bring it up, though. This is the first time the kids have seen him since his urgent return; of course Zola would say something. He's been so concerned about Meredith's present well-being that he's not sure their past struggles are even relevant. Of course they're not going anywhere, but there are bigger issues to be concerned about. Like Meredith having a brain tumor.
Derek had no clue that Meredith had cried when he left. They'd talked so little when he was in DC; she always managed to have an excuse not to talk. She was busy. She had to be in surgery. It just wasn't a good time. It was never a good time for her. He thought she was pushing him away; maybe she was even falling out of love with him.
His chest feels heavy as he pictures Meredith all alone, crying in his absence, as Zola claims she did.
Bailey wiggles in Derek's arms. Derek can't get over how much his son has grown in such a small amount of time. It's making Derek feel like an old man, now that he's barely able to hold the toddler in one arm.
"Mama. Mama!" Bailey cries out, reaching for Zola and Meredith on the bed. Derek feels even more worthless to his son. He's been absent from his children's lives for three months, and now Bailey doesn't even want his father to hold him.
Derek knows he's undeserving of his children's love. He left them in the middle of the night without saying goodbye. They have every right not to want anything to do with him ever again. It's Meredith who they've seen every day. It's Meredith who's read their bedtime stories, who's kissed their booboos, who's fed and clothed them. He knows she's not much of a cook, but she always makes sure the kids have a well-balanced meal. And Amelia's been a big help, too. He knows he owes Amelia big time for taking care of his family when he was away.
He feels horrible. Wretched. Dreadful. If only he could clone himself to be in two places at once. Life would sure be a whole lot simpler.
His family needs him. That fact is clearer right now than it's ever been.
Meredith doesn't say anything to him about Zola's crying comment. Instead, she makes a place for Bailey to join her and Zola on the bed. Derek carefully sets his son in between the bed's bar and Meredith, so that everyone is comfortable and there's no risk of Bailey falling. Meredith wraps her arm around the little boys, and Bailey lays his head against her breast. It's such a natural photo, one he's accustomed to seeing. It reminds him of the moments following Bailey's birth, and they'd brought Zola to meet her new brother. Of course, Bailey was a lot smaller back then than he is now.
He can't refrain from taking out his phone and snapping a picture of his family, since it's been three months since he's taken a new photo of the kids with Meredith, though Meredith texts him pictures of the kids every now and then. She hasn't sent him any new pictures of her with the kids.
With Meredith's surgery only hours away, he knows it's more important to snap pictures now than ever before.
"Take every breath God gives you for what it's worth."
He takes a deep breath, capturing the moment, trying not to blink.
