Everyone agreed that no matter how much they would make fun of Meredith for her SUV it did come in handy this fall. This would be the first year their kids would all try their hand in soccer. With Meredith driving, Addison in the front passenger seat, and Izzie and Alex in the back with a bag of soccer balls in the middle of them they all laughed at how silly they all looked without their actual kids in the vehicle with them. They would show up later with Addison's husband, who is also the head coach of the team. Alex had volunteered as assistant coach right away. He would have nobody else coaching his son but him.
As they pulled up to the parking lot which is conveniently located right in front of the field they could already see other families gathered waiting for the first practice to start. Alex had met some of the parents and children at registration so he immediately felt comfortable about his decision about becoming coach. He's a little too eager to talk with the guys after the car ride with the women that he jumped out of the car as soon as they parked and started heading over to the group of dad's that had gathered.
Meredith notices Alex trying to escape and turns back to Izzie who is still sitting in the back seat. "Iz, you better get that husband of yours back here. I am not going to be lugging his balls around." Addison and Izzie burst out laughing. "Oh shut up."
Izzie opens the door on her side and screams out to Alex, "Get back here and get your balls!"
Alex slaps his hand over his face and turns around as he mutters to himself, "Could she be any more embarrassing?" He makes his way back to the car while glaring at his wife the whole time. She knows what she did, she did it on purpose. Izzie stands there with a huge grin on her face. "Did you have to yell that?"
"Did I embarrass you? I am so sorry," Izzie says sarcastically as Alex grabs the ball bag out from the back seat.
Alex ignores Izzie's comments and looks up at Addison who has come around to their side of the car with Meredith. "Where is your husband with our kids? Everybody else is here."
Before Addison could open her mouth she feels something against her leg. "MOMMY!" the little girl squeals as she wraps her arms around Addison's waist. Addison squats down and hugs her daughter.
"Hey Jessica, it looks like daddy got you all ready for soccer." She had to laugh at the crooked pony tail that her husband tried to put in their daughter's hair. Addison takes the hair out and puts her daughter's long auburn hair back into a straight pony tail. She takes a step back to take a look at what he had dressed her in. A long sleeved USA soccer t-shirt, sweatpants, shin guards with long socks pulled up over them, and even cleats. Addison shakes her head thinking he had gone a bit overboard.
Meredith has Louis seated on the driver's side seat facing out. She ties the laces of his cleats as he plays with her hair. He pulls it up, lets go and lets it fall back down and repeats until she is finished getting him ready. "Did you have a good time with Jessica's dad?"
"Yeah, he made us psghetti. He says it gives us energy." He grabs her hand as they walk towards the field. "Is daddy coming?"
"He said he would be here. He is probably just running late." Meredith hopes she is right. It would kill Louis if his father didn't show up, especially because it is the first practice. It wasn't like Edward to be late to anything involving Louis. He rarely was late to anything at all.
Jessica runs ahead and Louis lets go of Meredith's hand and follows behind her. Addison walks over to Meredith who has started to walk over to the bleachers where they were going to sit and watch the practice from. They glance over at Alex and Izzie who are still with their son. Addison smiles, "I bet I know what's going on over there with the Karevs. Alex is saying "C.J., you're going to go out there and be the most aggressive person out there." And Izzie is saying, "Please just don't get hurt, pookie bear." Meredith laughs. There is no doubt that those words would be coming out of their mouths.
Alex takes a headband out of his pocket and puts it around his son's dirty blonde hair. Carson's hair is short but Alex thinks to be the part you have to look the part. Izzie rolls her eyes at her husband who has been trying his hardest to make his son the most athletic person in the world from the moment he was born. As soon as Alex puts the headband on his sons head Carson pulls it off. "Carson James, you will put that back on right now." Izzie smacks Alex in the arm for being so hard on him.
C.J. slowly puts the headband back around his head and says in a low voice, "Sorry, daddy."
"Come on, let's head out to the field. We'll get you loosened up," Alex says as he takes C.J.'s hand and they begin to walk away.
Izzie calls out to Alex, "Please remember he's only 5." Alex just looks back and smiles. Izzie rolls her eyes and makes her way over to the bleachers where Addison and Meredith are already seated. "Alex is acting like this is the World Cup."
"I wouldn't expect anything less from him, Iz," Meredith says. She looks around the park to see if she could spot any sign that Edward is on his way. The practice is about to start and he still isn't there. She squints her eyes as she sees someone that could be him. As the figure gets closer she smiles as she realizes that it is indeed Edward and all of her fears and worries go away. He wouldn't be that dad that disappoints his son by not showing up to things only because they are getting divorced. When Edward spots them he waves and walks faster to get to the bleachers before the practice begins.
"Sorry I am late." He kisses each of the women on the cheek to greet them. "I missed the subway and it took me forever to catch a cab. Did I miss anything?"
"They're just about to start," Izzie says.
Edward looks around to see that all the women had gathered on the bleachers and all the men had gathered under a tree. He looks back at the group of women he had gotten so used to hanging out with over the years of his marriage and then back at the men. "I'm going to go hang out with the guys." He gets up and walks over to the guys and slaps some hands when he gets there.
All of the focus goes to the field where they have the kids gathered around to start the practice. "Hi I am Coach Duquette and this is Coach Karev. Is everyone ready to play some soccer?" The kids all cheer and scream and with that the practice begins.
It's not long before the kids start to lose interest in what Alex has to say. Some of them start picking at the grass and throwing it at the kid seated next to them and the others start talking amongst themselves. Jessica, Addison's daughter, stands up and starts to dance. All of the attention of the kids goes to her. They start chanting her name and clapping their hands which makes her giggle and dance even crazier.
"Jessica, you know better," Denny says in a calm voice.
She ignores the attempt of her father to make her stop instead she turns her back to him and continues with her dance.
"Get that kid of yours in line, Duquette," Alex says. Before Denny can say anything else CJ stands up and joins Jessica in her dance. At first he dances alone but soon he grabs her hands with his and they begin to dance together. All of the kids are cheering and laughing at the site of Jessica and C.J. dancing. They stand up and form a circle around them. Alex begins to feel his blood boil. Before he loses his temper he tries to calm himself down. A yell sneaks out, "Carson James Karev, you stop that right now." C.J. stops dead in his tracks and so does Jessica and the rest of the kids.
For Denny teaching a group of 5-6 year olds comes naturally. He is around most of his team while at work anyway. Being an elementary school teacher comes in handy. Alex on the other hand finds that coaching would not be as easy as he thought it would be. Not being known for his patience Alex decides to take a small group of the kids to teach them the fundamentals of the game while Denny takes the rest to start teaching them the basic skills of the game.
The kids start to calm down and get into the game while in their smaller groups. Alex breathes a sigh of relief when they all have their attention on him and it seems like they are even understanding it. Half way through Denny and Alex switch groups so the kids will have an equal amount of knowledge going into the next practice. Izzie was worried about Alex's temper when he decided to sign on with Denny to coach. "I'm glad he's teaching the rules because you know he'd only be teaching them how to score. Nobody would know defense with Alex in charge," Izzie says as they look on.
"So Addison, how did you manage to land the perfect husband? He's great with the kids, he teaches, he coaches, and he still has time to be a great father and husband." Meredith asks. It's not even that Edward wasn't all those things, he was. There came a time where Edward became more and more distant and Meredith never asked why. They were still happy so she felt no need to try and fix things. Looking back on it now maybe she should have tried. She isn't unhappy with her decision to get a divorce or if she was she hadn't come to realize it yet. Something in the back of her mind keeps telling her it's the right thing to do.
"I have the wonderful Isobel to thank for my husband. It's a good thing her and Denny didn't hit it off on their first date or I'd be Addison Karev." They all laugh.
"Oh my god, imagine that," Izzie says through her laughs. "You'd have some evil kids." Addison throws her gloves at Izzie. "You're just mad cause you know I'm right."
Meredith opens her mouth to add onto the teasing of Addison when her phone rings. They all look in the direction of Meredith's purse. Who on earth would be calling? Everybody she usually talks to is at the practice. The only person who is missing is Cristina and she never uses the phone. Meredith fumbles through her purse until she finds her phone. She looks down to see a number she doesn't recognize on the display screen. "I don't know who it is."
"See if they leave a message. Maybe it's a wrong number," Izzie says. They all sit there not saying a word as they listen to the sound of Meredith's ring tone. The ringing finally stops and is followed shortly after by a little noise that signifies a voicemail has been left.
"Come on, listen to the message. This one time someone called my phone and it was the wrong number and the guy wound up talking about sex for 5 minutes before realizing I wasn't his girlfriend," Addison says as she scoots closer to Meredith.
Meredith reluctantly picks up her phone to listen to the message. "Meredith, it's Derek. Um, give me a call when you get this I guess. I'm never good at leaving messages. I normally hang up and call back later. Anyway, call me back, bye." She blushes immediately at the sound of his voice. A little smile sneaks though.
"Who was it?" Izzie asks. "The curiosity is killing us."
"It was Derek," Meredith mumbles not really wanting to tell them. She knows how they will react and she's trying not to get too excited herself.
"Call him back."
"Yeah you have to call him back, Mer."
"I was kind of counting on you guys to talk me out of it." Addison grabs the phone out of Meredith's hand, finds the phone number and calls it back. She hands the phone back to Meredith with a huge grin on her face.
"Come on, Iz, she needs to be alone." Addison tugs on the sleeve of Izzie's jacket and they make their way over to another group of moms who had gathered at the sidelines of the field.
She doesn't have to go through with it. She could just hang the phone up. Deep down inside she wants to hang up. She doesn't want to be excited to hear his voice. She doesn't want to smile over the simple fact that he had thought about her enough to call her. As the phone rings she hops he wont pick up. Just as she goes to hang up he answers, "hello?"
"Hi, Derek? You Called. Um, I didn't even know you had this number. Well I mean I know you had it because I gave it to your office but your office number is not where you called from because I have that number in my phone."
"Yeah, this is my cell phone. I guess I looked it up and added it. I hope that's ok."
"I suppose it is."
"Listen, the reason I called is well…did Edward show up to practice?"
"Yes he did. Louie is so happy he made it. This may actually work out."
"Yeah, until he leaves." Meredith is silent. She didn't want to think about him leaving. Not only would she miss Edward but if he won she wouldn't know what to do without Louis. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that."
"No it's ok. It's a reality that I am going to have to face." Derek knows he messed up. He didn't even call to talk to her about Edward. He wasn't sure what he had even called for. He just wanted to talk to her/. She said it was ok but he knew it wasn't. Even though Meredith keeps telling him they came up with the idea together he isn't really convinced that is the case. Part of her still loves him and wishes he wouldn't go. He knows this and he needs to be sensitive of it. Meredith finally speaks up, "I should get going."
"Yeah I'll see you tomorrow."
"Bright and early. Goodbye, Derek." She doesn't wait for his response before she hits the end button and puts the phone back in her purse. The very happy feeling of the phone call had given her quickly turned into sadness. She doesn't want Edward to move. It will crush Louis. She hadn't explain that to him. It was hard enough explaining why they would no longer all be together anymore. She feels tears coming to her eyes as she looks out onto the soccer field at her son. He is getting ready to kick the ball and he looks over at his father and smiles. How do you tell a boy like that he may no longer see his father every day? Her sadness quickly disappears when Louis's attention turns to her. He waves before kicking the ball and she waves back. She makes her way over to Izzie and Addison who have somehow gotten hot chocolate.
Izzie hands Meredith a cup as Addison starts questioning her. "So what did he want?"
"He wanted to know something for the case." She really did not want to talk about the phone call. It had left a bad taste in her mouth. She had gotten mad when she knows she shouldn't have. At least she would see him tomorrow to clear things up. She takes a sip of the hot chocolate. It was perfect. Not to hot and not cold either. She closes her eyes as she holds the cup under her nose and inhales the sweet smell of the cocoa. She opens her eyes to see Edward standing in front of her. She smiles.
"I was wondering if I could take Louie out for ice cream when this is finished," he says.
"Sure I don't see why not." They look out to the field to see Louis kick the ball hard into the goal. "It looks like we have our own little Pele on our hands."
Edward lets out a laugh, "Ha, yeah. It looks like practice is over. I'll see you in a little while." Edward walks towards Louis. Louis runs over to Edward and jumps into his arms. Meredith looks on as all the families start to gather up their kids. She is left standing by herself. This is how it's going to be from now on. The only single parent on the whole team. Soon Edward would move to Seattle and leave her all alone. It makes her even more determined to win the custody case. Her whole life depends on it.