Nicole's A/N: I want to take a moment to thank all of you for your lovely feedback! We really appreciate it, and it definitely keeps us motivated to keep writing at the pace we are (We've been working on this around the clock thanks to our time zone differences).
Anyway, this chapter is for all of you who are like me and don't live in Canada and would prefer not to have 11x06 spoiled for you. Hope you enjoy. (Please give Irene lots of love for her Mer section this chapter. I wrote Derek, she wrote Meredith, and I was absolutely floored by her section!)
Chapter 3
Once they're fully adjusted and comfortable in their seats, his mother whispers in his ear, "So, now that we're situated, are you going to tell me why a husband and father who's going to home to see his family for the first time in weeks looks so glum?"
Derek swallows hard, looking shamefully away from his mother. Suddenly, he wishes he had taken the window seat so he could at least have the airport scenery to admire. They haven't taken off yet, meaning the only scenery he would be able to spot is other planes moving around preparing for takeoff. Instead, his eyes aim down the aisle, looking at the other people on the plane. Other folks just like him who are also getting settled in their seats. He wonders if any of them have a nosy mother sitting next to them.
"Derek, dear. Look at your mother, please. Your lack of eye contact only confirms that something is wrong. You weren't talking to Meredith early this morning without good reason, am I correct?"
She's good. Too good.
And she continues, "I know that love makes you do silly things, but if I'd had technology back in the day when your father was away, I surely wouldn't have been up late talking to him the night before I knew I was going to see him. No, I would have been resting so I'd be bursting with energy when I finally saw him."
He slowly turns his head toward her and lets out a sigh. Fortunately, before he is forced to think up an explanation for his late-night Skype call with his wife, the flight attendant begins demonstrating the flight's safety procedures. He uses this as an excuse to follow along.
Normally, he would ignore the demonstration, considering he's already survived one plane crash, and he's seen this demonstration dozens of time, more times in the last year than in his entire lifetime. But now, he pretends to be fully alert and invested on the safety demonstration. Safety first, right?
The safety demonstration doesn't last long enough, and soon the pilot tells them that they're next in line to take off. Silence returns, and his mother nudges him.
"It's nothing," he sighs insistently.
'You'renot acting like it's nothing," Carolyn observes.
He loves his mother to death, but she can certainly be a tad nosy.
"It's really silly, actually," Derek tells her. "Meredith and I...we had a fight. It was a stupid fight, and that's all there is to tell."
"Here's a little statistic for you: fifty percent of marital fights are stupid fights. I think that percentage gets a little higher each year you're married, and I'm pretty sure it's pretty darn close to one hundred percent after midnight, regardless of how long you've been married."
Derek grunts, wondering if there's any truth to his mother's statement or if she's just concocted it off the top of her head to make him feel better. After all, aren't half of all statistics made up, anyway?
The plane is moving and preparing for takeoff, and Derek knows he's in for a long flight. He's certain that his mother will do everything in her power to pry as much information about his and Meredith's fight out of him. He can't tell her the full story. She won't understand, being the Catholic that she is and a woman who gave birth to five children.
He knows she's not a judgmental person, though, and she likes Meredith. That doesn't change the fact that birth control, particularly permanent forms of birth control such as tubal ligation, are frowned upon by the Catholic Church. But so is premarital sex, he thinks, realizing he'd just learned that his eldest sister was conceived out of wedlock. He's never bothered to do the math, but now that he does: he realizes Kathleen was, in fact, born only five months after his parents' wedding day.
"You need her," his mother's exact words replay in his head. "She's the one." She'd somehow known all of that after spending less than an hour with Meredith.
His mother knows things.
But like all human beings, his mother is flawed. She can be wrong, too. What if she had been wrong about Meredith?
He feels nauseous, which could be attributed from the plane's speed increasing faster and faster towards the runway, eventually gliding off the ground. They are officially in the air. He feels his blood pressure drop when his lightheadedness emerges.
His mother places her hand on his arm.
"Derek, are you okay?" she asks, sounding very motherly.
"Yeah," he assures, flinching at the first hint of turbulence. "Ever since the plane crash...I know I've flown a lot this past year, but it doesn't seem to get easier."
"I can imagine how Meredith feels," his mother comments.
He lifts an eyebrow, perplexed. "What do you mean?"
"You were in that plane crash together, right? Mark and Lexie were killed in that same crash. It can't be easy for her with you flying all the time. I remember how terrified I was to let you and Amelia out of my sight after your father…" Her tone drains, and Derek knows exactly what she cut herself off from saying. After your father was murdered.
Truthfully, they haven't even talked about his flying frequency. Meredith never mentions the plane crash. It's a sore subject for both of them. They've moved on. Well, the best that they can. Or they've avoided it. Avoidance. It's their specialty, after all. Meredith's pregnancy following the crash had certainly helped distract them. After so much distress and woe, their miracle baby came into their lives like a bright, shining glimmer of light at the end of a pitch dark tunnel.
He doesn't know if she worries about him; he only knows how he feels when she's away from him. Even when she's not thousands of miles above the ground, he worries. He worried about her all day yesterday when she wouldn't answer her phone. He's worrying about her right now, wondering if she did in fact make an OB appointment and how it went if she did. He wonders if she's managing her stress well at work with the mess of the party planning coupled with his mother coming into town and her busy workload. He hopes she's keeping her temper under control, because he knows how vile his wife can be when she's under high amounts of stress. He's not the only one who has to suffer. She can, for lack of a better word, be such a bitch at times.
Of course he can't stop worrying about her. When you love someone, you worry about them no matter what.
The question is, does she still worry about him?
"Yeah, I'm sure it's hard on her," Derek nods, attempting to clear his mind of intrusive thoughts. They won't leave, though. He sighs, confessing the inevitable, "It's hard on both of us."
His mother grabs his hand. "It doesn't get easier." She weaves in her fingers with his, sighing. Well, you're a ball of fuzzy warmth and encouragement, Mom, Derek thinks, closing his eyes for just a moment, knowing from his mother's melancholic tone that she is speaking from personal experience now. She raises her eyebrows with sorrow. "If anything, it gets harder. I still worry about you and your sisters every single day. Especially Amelia. I worry about her the most. It's because she's my baby. You always worry about your baby the most."
"Amy has made the most worry-worthy decisions out of all of us," Derek replies tartly, not seeing any truth to his mom's 'worrying about your baby the most' comment. He worries about both of his children equally. He can't imagine anything woeful ever happening to Zola or Bailey.
The idea of either of his children experiencing what he and Amelia had gone through when their father died is unimaginable. Derek will never forget coming out from the back, seeing the blood gushing from his father's head. He had yelled for Amy to stay back, hoping to shield her from the gruesome sight. Somehow, he'd grabbed the phone to call 9-1-1. He doesn't actually remember calling 9-1-1; he just remembers the sirens, and the police telling him how brave he was. Later, his mother had found his sister and him huddled together, sitting on the curb outside the store. He remembers her wrapping her arms around them and sobbing like there would be no tomorrow.
"Even before the drugs," his mother responds hoarsely, interrupting the dark memory that had just resurfaced in Derek's mind. "She was so young. I always worried about how she would be affected. And I...I wasn't in the best state of mind when she was growing up. I was an emotional wreck."
"You did the best you could," Derek interjects, remembering nights that his mother would locked herself in her room, crying, refusing to get out of bed. He remembers tucking Amy into bed on some nights, trying to keep her calm and collected. Nancy and Kathleen were teenagers when Dad died and chose to live in their own little worlds of denial. Derek remembers feeling responsible for Lizzie and Amy when their mother would go into her depressive states. "You loved us, and you told us so all the time. That's all you could do, Ma. That's all we expected you to do."
It's the first heart to heart he's had with his mother since her last visit to Seattle. This time, it's his turn to offer her encouragement.
His mother solemnly shakes her head. "Amelia was too young to really understand the mess of it all. Tell me, Derek. How is she doing?"
"She's - well - she's running my Neuro department, if that tells you anything," Derek scoffs. "When I was in Seattle, naturally, we competed. She's stubborn, like me, and very competitive. In some ways, she reminds me of a younger version of myself. A female version of myself. She seems to be doing all right on her own with me gone, at least from the little I've heard."
Confession time: He's only spoken to Amelia twice since he left. He'd intended to check up on her more frequently, but he decided that it was better to give her the freedom and trust that she so desperately cried for. She had, however, sent him a couple scans asking for advice. They had spoken over the phone about them. Nothing too major, though. He is trying to trust her. Trying. It's hard, though. She'll always be his baby sister. He'll always feel like he needs to protect her.
"Good." His mother nods. "I'm glad she's doing well. I have to admit, I used Zola's birthday as an excuse to fly out here and see her."
Derek chuckles. "I gathered that already, Ma."
"Not that I'm not elated to see my granddaughter and grandson," she adds. "I miss having you around, Derek. I wish I could be as involved in your kids' lives like I am with the rest of my grandkids."
He swallows, feeling an overwhelming sadness lingering within him. His insides twist, as he exhales. "I miss you, too, Mom," he tells her truthfully, holding it together. He's a grown man. He's been the head of the house essentially since he was twelve years old, and that's the role he's supposed to hold now as a husband and father. With Meredith, though, he doesn't feel like he holds that title. She seems to hold it these days, and it's completely out of his control. Everything is spiraling out of his control.
She squeezes his hand.
"I miss all of you," Derek confesses. "Lizzie, Katie, and even Nancy. All my nieces and nephews. They're growing up fast. It's hard to believe that eight years have passed since I moved to Seattle. Everything has changed."
"Hmmm." His mother seems to be contemplating on her own behalf. He can tell from her inquisitive expression that she is about to ask a question, most likely an awkward one. "How long have you been in DC, Derek?"
He swallows, and before he can answer her question, he is interrupted by the flight attendant asking him for his drink and snack choice. It's then that he realizes that his throat is as dry as a desert, and his stomach rumbles.
Skipping breakfast is starting to catch up with him now. And it'll be past one, probably closer to two, Seattle time when they land, meaning he'll have completely missed lunch since his brain will still be on East Coast time at five o'clock. He hopes Meredith or Amelia has found time to shop and stock the house with party food. Somehow, he'll have to find the self control not to eat it all before the party. Meredith would kill him, if she doesn't already kill him for other reasons that she'll surely come up with on her own.
He asks for Mountain Dew, not caring about the calorie content in this moment, all he wants is the caffeine. His snack choices are either a small bag of pretzels or small bag of cookies. He chooses pretzels, since he imagines he'll have no choice but to eat plenty of sugar later at the birthday party. Meredith wouldn't have it any other way, and sugary cake will forever be a birthday tradition.
His mother, on the other hand, asks for a Sprite and cookies.
Derek thanks the flight attendant then takes a sip of his soda while his mother hums, not opening her pop can. He can feel her eyes on him, watching, studying, waiting. But why?
"Yes, Mom?" he asks quietly.
"You didn't answer my question," she insists.
He inhales deeply. "Three and a half weeks. Why?"
"Now, how many times have you traveled back and forth between Seattle and DC this last year?"
He can't recall off the top of his head.
"I don't know. A dozen or so. Why are you asking?"
Though, he already knows the answer to her question. She's trying to prove a point. Carolyn Shepherd huffs a sigh, seeming to know that she doesn't have to answer her son's question for him to know what she's getting at.
"Mom, I've been busy," Derek says.
"Every day, twenty-four-seven? Not even having a Sunday off?" His mother prods in her usual I know you're lying tone. He feels like he's eight years old all over again. He rolls his eyes, mimicking his eight-year-old attitude, knowing he's been busted.
This time, it's not sneaking Mark in his bedroom window that he's hiding, though. He doesn't want to admit that he's spent his Sundays in bed until noon then sitting on his couch watching Netflix until ten or eleven o'clock at night, apart from the Sunday that he'd spent the entire day Skyping Meredith and the kids. She'd had the day off, so she had positioned the computer so he could watch the kids play all day. It had been a good day. One of his most memorable days in DC.
That, of course, was their first Sunday apart. Everything had spiraled downhill from there.
He grunts.
"That's what I thought," nods his mother.
"I could have come visited you or invited you to DC," he acknowledges.
"But you didn't," she points out.
He sighs. "I didn't."
They both go silent. Derek closes his eyes, hoping sleep will come so he won't have to be faced with more awkward questions from his mother during the rest of the flight.
Truth time.
Truth time honestly sucks.
Meredith sits in front of Dr. Ryan her fingers playing with the band of her watch, twisting and turning, much like her insides. Especially since Dr. Ryan looks worried.
Crap, maybe it's twins and she totally missed the second sac.
"Meredith," Dr. Ryan begins, sighing deeply. It's not twins, she looks sad. "I'll be blunt. I don't like your labs."
It's Meredith's turn to frown. "What is it? Am I dying?"
"No, of course not."
"Your face is telling me I'm dying, Connie."
Dr. Ryan sighs. "Your hCG levels are really low, Meredith. I don't like it at all, especially with your medical history."
Meredith takes a deep breath, pinching the bridge of her nose. "You think I'm going to miscarry." Her voice is firm, collected, not at all like she expected it to be.
"We need to do another blood test tomorrow, and if the values don't double, I'm afraid the outcome won't be really good Meredith."
Meredith nods, reading through the results herself.
"Have you experienced any spotting?"
Meredith nods again. "Yesterday. I thought I was about to have my period." And she felt relieved. Now, now she has no idea what to think. Her brain feels like cotton candy as she tries to process her doctor's words.
"No period-like bleeding, though? Any cramps?"
"Doesn't feel like the last time, " Meredith admits, her face darkening at the memory. The blood between her thighs still felt pretty real to her whenever she thought about it. It was not the same feeling at all. "I'm not even feeling sick, being honest."
"Each pregnancy is different, Meredith."
"I know that," Meredith scoffs. "I just...I don't know what to think."
"Look, the sonogram looks fine, so I wouldn't worry about a miscarriage just yet. Tomorrow, if the hCG levels are still low, then you can really worry, now you just need to relax and hold onto the possibility of a positive outcome."
Meredith snorts at that. Loudly. "Right, relax."
"Meredith, I mean it. No heavy lifting - yes, Bailey and Zola are heavy lifting -, try to keep your feet up as much as you can and reduce your stress levels."
Meredith laughs again. "It's Zola's birthday today. I have a birthday party scheduled, my mother-in-law is coming into town and I'm not sure Derek is even willing to speak to me. I don't see much relaxing or sitting down in my near future."
"I mean it, Meredith."
"Maybe it's better if I miscarry," she mumbles under her breath, darting her eyes away from Dr. Ryan's.
Dr. Ryan sighs loudly. "You know there might be complications after a miscarriage. Please, Meredith, take care of yourself even if you don't want the baby. Termination is safer than a miscarriage."
Meredith shakes her head, unable to tell her that no, she can't terminate the pregnancy, or Derek will terminate their marriage. Not that they have much of a marriage these days, but she doesn't want to be the one pulling the plug and have him hate her for the rest of their lives. Her kids deserve a family, or at least divorced parents who can talk to each other without the need for lawyers.
The miscarriage looming over them gives her an out. She dreads what will happen, she dreads the grief she knows will follow, and she dreads Derek's reaction to it, but it's still the easiest way out.
In retrospect, she knows how much more complicated Derek's recovery after the shooting would have been if she would have stayed pregnant. Her stress levels were through the roof, she barely ate, barely slept, barely thought about herself in the first place, she has no idea how she could have managed an healthy pregnancy while Derek could barely sit up in bed.
This time, she feels like the situation is not much different than how it was that day. Of course nobody is pulling out guns in the middle of the surgical wing, but the stress she has to manage is very much like taking care of Derek all over again. Only this time, the kids can at least smile back, and most of the time the joy outweighs the terrible parts.
Yet, she can't bring herself to imagine their life with a third child.
Three children means being outnumbered. It means sleepless nights all over again. It means more poopy diapers, more spit up, more laundry to sort out.
She has no idea how they can do that again when they can barely manage a conversation without chewing each other's heads off. Parenting is a team sport, that is what she has gathered in the past month, while Derek was away and she had to work twice as hard for every little thing. What if they prolong his contract and he ends up staying in DC? Will they have to move? She can't imagine raising three kids with Derek on the other side of the country, and she doesn't want to. Moving is still unfathomable for her, though, and she can't figure out a solution to that problem. Unless the third child magically vanishes into thin air, like it never existed.
"Here," Dr. Ryan intrudes in her very busy head, forcing her return to the present, as she hands her the results of both the blood work and the sonogram. "I will see you tomorrow as soon as your test results are in, alright?"
"What if they don't double? How soon can I expect a miscarriage?"
Dr. Ryan shakes her head at the question, pinching the bridge of her nose. "We can't predict that. Sooner rather than later, though."
Meredith nods, swallowing a lump in her throat. Maybe she can hide it all from Derek, mask it as a heavy period, pretend nothing happened. No matter how much she hates him sometimes, she knows telling him they have lost another baby will break his heart, and she's not that cruel to wish that kind of pain for him.
"Thank you, Connie."
"I'm sorry, Meredith."
Meredith shakes her head as she stands up slowly, feeling a million new aches in her body, knowing that a splitting headache is looming in her future. She says goodbye to the doctor, promising to take care of herself, not to do stupid things, then she exits the office.
She has nowhere else to be, then.
She should troll for cases, but her head is too full to think straight in an emergency situation, and she's too stressed to see the kids. Her brain feels murky, sluggish, her thoughts jumbled and incoherent.
She sees the door of Derek's office, and she's tempted to go in. A new series of memories about that very office come back to her, and she stands there, staring at the locked door with her test results in her hand for an imprecise amount of time, breathing in the stale air of the hospital. Her brain is working a mile an hour, and a quiet place to sit is exactly what she needs.
She grabs her set of keys and picks out the one for Derek's office, still shiny and round like the day he proudly gave it to her, back when the ink on their post-it was barely dry. Of course the keys had changed when he got the new office, but the excitement was the same. He was smiling like a three-year-old on a sugar rush, and if he were a little less manly he would have bounced on the spot when she was the one to open his door for him. Over the years Meredith has barely used the key, but she still likes to have it in the same keyring as the keys to their house.
The door opens with a muffled click that echoes in the rather empty corridor, and Meredith slips in practically undetected. To cover up the sneaking even more, Meredith decides to lock the door.
When she turns around, her breaths are almost knocked out of her: Derek is still there between the four walls of the room.
He might be on a plane over Kentucky for all she knows, but the essence of him permeates the surfaces of the office. From the worn-out throw blanket on the beige couch to the scratched desk, Derek is there. It makes her uneasy thinking about him flying again, knowing that she has no control over his death if the plane were to crash once again. She appreciates the text before and after he gets on the plane, they comfort her, though the worry is still there. If only he can come back safe and sound so she can kill him with her bare hands.
She moves closer to the desk, leaving her own test results over the mahogany surface, tracing the lighter scrapes over the central part of the desk, where he usually writes. Or where she sits when they have a quickie in his office. They probably made most of those marks together, in the heat of the moment, when life was so much easier.
Meredith takes a deep breath before she sinks in his chair, the leather moaning as it accommodates her weight, the back tilting slightly backwards.
She can almost smell Derek in there.
Her head stops swirling for a moment as she savors his male scent, closing her eyes as she tries to relax, to empty her head. Breathing comes easier now, distracted as she is by Derek's phantom presence.
He's smiling at her from one of the photos, and she's smiling with him. It's the first thing she can see when she lifts up her eyes from the manila folder in front of her, and she feels a tug at her heartstrings. He was so adamant in having that photo framed for his office they almost fought about it. He says she looks natural there, the breeze of the ferry blowing her hair, her smile radiant; she only believes she looks like a mess. Yet, Derek wants to look at that photo every day. Next to them there's Zola and Bailey, sitting with her out on their deck, their smiles wide, their faces showing all the months that have passed between then and now.
Her heart squeezes when hanging on the wall next to his diplomas and framed articles -their clinical trial featured more than once - Meredith spots the first photo she has with Zola as their daughter. She looks drained, and so does Zola, but their smiles radiate the unadulterated joy of that moment. Under Zola's photo, Bailey's infamous sixth finger scan hangs proudly, his grainy face making her insides flutter.
She stops breathing when her eyes shift to a recent photo of her and Derek at the rehearsal dinner of April's wedding-that-wasn't. He is wearing a suit and no tie, his shirt slightly unbuttoned at the neck, his hair is mussed but sill wild, too wild to tame after an entire day under a scrub cap, most likely. What brings about her lack of oxygen though are his eyes, staring deeply into hers, his smile soft, gentle, reverent. He's looking at her like she's a prize, and she's smiling at him in a way that she's sure she has forgotten how to do.
Meredith can't remember the last time he has looked at her like that.
She takes her eyes off the wall, grounding herself with the harsh reality of the manila folder in front of her, wondering if he will ever look at her like that again.
Tears sting her eyes as she reads for a third time through her blood work results, going over and over each number, each line, each value. The values are a mess, but the sonogram is proof.
She stares at the dark and grainy blob for a long time, trying to sort her thoughts, making lists of pros and cons, picturing scenarios, reminding herself how to breathe.
At some point, her hand wanders over her stomach, settles right above her belly button, and there it stays. She has no idea why she cannot move it. She only knows that the more she thinks about the situation, the more her thoughts jumble together, creating an epic mess. She can't find one end to unravel it, no matter how thoroughly she searches for it.
She's almost grateful when a jiggling of keys startles her, until it comes to her that the only people with access to the keys couldn't possibly be there. Unless it's a janitor. Or Derek gave the key to other people. She holds her breath as the door clicks open, a little yelp of triumph coming from the other side.
Do janitors yelp in triumph when they open office doors?
Irene's A/N: Uh oh, who's trying to enter Derek's office? Stay tuned to find out!
No, seriously, I truly hope you loved the chapter just as much as you loved the 2 before. I'm a little overwhelmed by the love, in a good way! I know there are lots of things that might upset you in this chapter, lots of things both Meredith and Derek think that will set off alarm bells in your reader's mind, but keep in mind that they're both running on practically zero sleep, after a month apart, and they're angry at one another on top of that. Perspective is a key in this fic, guys...
I hope to have all of you here next time we post! And remember, we love hearing your thoughts in any shape and form they come at us! Thank you for stopping by!