Heeelloooo!

I'm back, after my exams in Uni, with a new chapter. Sorry for the delay of one week, I had too much to learn for my exams.
So, this chapter pretty much explains the title of this story. Also it is the last chapter before the main part of this story starts. I'm already working on the next chapter, and will hopefully update on the weekend.

Have fun with reading and I would love to read a review from you!

Living in a house full of doctors

Derek was very anxious while he waited for his niece on Wednesday. He had his car parked outside the schoolyard, ready to get the girl and drive with her to the airport, where they would pick up his mother. He was glad that she would come and stay with them for a few weeks. First of all, during his hospital stay he recognized how much he missed having her around. And secondly, he could tell that Chloe wasn't feeling 100% well. He remembered clearly the happening of the board game evening, when he saw it for the first time.

The game had not really been full going when Derek watched a tiny yawn coming from his protégé. He pulled her close with a small smile and asked: "Tired?"
She nodded and scooted closer. Soon, she had her feet up beside her on the couch and her head lay comfortably against her uncle's chest. He had his arm around her and rubbed her back in soothing circles. 10 minutes later, Mark looked up and couldn't hide a grin.

"Daddy Shepherd is at work, I see? Is she asleep?"

Before Derek could answer, he caught the hurt look in the eyes of his wife and everyone in the room could hear a mumbled "NO!" from Chloe. She still had her eyes closed and after answering she rubbed her cheek against the fabric of Derek's shirt.

They finished the game- with Mark winning, to his great joy- and got into a comfortable round of chatting. Chloe was sound asleep but Derek didn't want to disturb her or move himself, so he stayed in place, his right side covered by his godchild, his left side by his wife. But right before midnight he started to notice the heat that was coming from the child at his side. Carefully he let the hand of his wife go to feel the girl's forehead. Wrinkling his forehead in thought, he asked Owen for a blanket.

"Everything all right?", he asked when he stood up to help his friend to put the blanket around the girl.

"She's spiking a fever. It would explain the headache and the fatigue today; this could still be a side effect from her wandering around in the rain, or it is the stress… It isn't a high fever, but…"

Meredith leaned forward to get up. "It is a fever nonetheless. Let's bring her up to bed."

He shook his head. "Let us wait for a few minutes. I think she's sleeping better with company than alone." He shot her a meaningful lool to remind her on the nightmares, Chloe told her about. Meredith nodded and they waited for a few more minutes before tucking her into bed.

On Sunday-morning, the fever hat vanished and the child had refilled her energy-levels with a good night's sleep. But when Derek called home from work on Monday evening, between back-to-back emergency-surgeries he couldn't drive home to see her personally like he had planned, she sounded more than tired. Lexie told him this morning that Chloe had developed a cough that disturbed her sleep once again and now he was worried. At least his mother would keep an eye on Chloe at home from now on, even when he was at work.

The bell of the school rang and the kids filled out. Derek was getting even more nervous when most of the kids were already out, but he couldn't see his girl anywhere. She was one of the last to come out, walking on her own, being ignored by the others. He could see her pale skin from far away; her eyes had huge black shadows under them and were rimmed with red. She had cried not too far in the past.

He waved her over and greeted her with a kiss on the forehead when she climbed on the passenger seat. On their way to the airport, Derek wanted to pick up Meredith, her shift was already over. Driving into his reserved parking lot, Chloe volunteered to get her aunt out.

The first known face she ran into was Dr. Bailey, who was standing at the counter and was involved in a case discussion with Arizona Robbins.
Not knowing where to look for Meredith, she decided to ask, but she didn't dare to interrupt the discussion. Instead, she stood patiently behind the doctors, waiting for them to finish. But when Arizona saw the pale child and heard her suppressed coughs, she jumped into action. She ignored her colleague and turned to the girl, giving her a wide smile.

"Hi there, can I help you? Are you here to see a Doctor?"

"Ehm, actually, I wanted to ask Dr. Bailey something." Miranda turned around, her lips turning into a smile when she recognized the child.

"Hello Chloe. How are you?"

"I'm fine, thank you. I just wanted to ask- do you know where Meredith is? I'm looking for her but I don't know where she is." Chloe asked, covering up her coughs again.

"Well, you don't sound too good, to be honest. Does your Uncle know that you are sick?" Miranda asked.

"I'm living in a house full of doctors. There is no way he could not know."

Miranda and Arizona started both to laugh.

"You know, Lexie woke me up in the middle of the night, wanting to touch my forehead to know if I'm having a fever. When I came down into the kitchen this morning, April Kepner was standing there and her first sentence was: Maybe you should stay at home, you sound sick! I know they can't help it, but this is… unnerving!"

The grownups grinned at Chloes eyerolling.

"Allright, you are Derek's niece, right? I'm Arizona Robbins." The child took in the sneakers and the colored scrubs.

"I get it: You are the pediatrician. But, back to my question: Does anyone of you know where Meredith is? Derek is waiting in the car for us!"

Miranda smiled and turned to the nurse. "Could you page Doctor Meredith Grey for me? Thank you." After that she turned back and told Chloe to wait at the counter. And a few minutes later Meredith came, together with Christina, towards her. Chloe took a few steps to them.

"There you are! Derek is waiting for us, we'll make Carolyn wait for us at the airport."

Christina raised her eyebrows at this. "My, my, little girl is bossy! She's already spent too much time with you, Mer!"

Grinning, Meredith greeted her niece with a hug and ignored her best friend.

"Then let's go. We don't want Mama Shepherd to wait." With that, they both gave a wave to their audience and turned.

"This is amazing." Miranda Bailey murmured to herself.

Arizona gave her a surprised look. "Mh?"

"Meredith. She changed so much… Look at her, she is almost getting into a motherole for the girl." With a sigh, Miranda opened the chart in her hands again.

Derek, Meredith and Chloe drove to the airport in silence. Finally, when they had about 10 minutes left till Carolyn would be able to join them, he asked her what was wrong.

"They know. The other kids at school know mum is drinking. And that I'm living with you. They… some of them… said some ugly things."

With a sigh he opened his arms again and pulled her close to comfort her. He had hoped that this would not happen. It were probably nosy teachers who couldn't keep their thoughts to themselves, one student who picked it up and because of that things were getting harder and harder for his girl. He looked his eyes with the eyes of his wife, who was silently rubbing the girl's back. She shrugged and looked as helpless as he felt.

"Do you want me to have a word with the school because of that?" He asked gently. Chloe shook her head.

Involving parental help would only let her seem weak. And she was not weak.

He sighed again. "All right. Thank you for telling me. I'm sorry to cancel our talk here now- and I promise you, we WILL talk again about this- but there is someone waving behind you."

The girl shot around and looked for the elderly woman who was pushing a luggage-cart in front of her with two big suitcases, one hand waving up above her head.

Derek took the child's hand and pulled her towards the exit. She wanted to step back, let her uncle be greeted by his mother first- after all, they were mother and son- but Carolyn didn't want to see any of this. Letting the cart for her son, she walked the steps toward Chloe and pulled her into a warm and motherly hug.

"Oh Chloe! Oh sweet child! Look how big you have become, where is this sweet little girl? You are almost abeautiful and grown up lady!"

Carolyn shot her son an apologetic look and stroke the girls hair.

"We have so much to talk about, you and I. We will have a lot of days just for us.", she promised before revealing the child to the world outside their hug again.

Next was Meredith. Carolyn smiled brightly at the woman in front of her. She looked a lot better than the last time they met. Back then, the young woman was destroyed and exhausted, physically and mentally. The horror of the shooting, the emergency surgery of her husband and the loss of her unborn child were too much for her, but first, she hadn't told anybody of the shepherd family. But when she almost collapsed, she had to admit the truth. Carolyn could remember this like it was yesterday, and Meredith couldn't help but remember, too, when she felt the arms of the woman around her.

"Carolyn…" Meredith murmured.

"I am here again. Don't worry. I know you have thoughts to share, we will address them soon." After tightening the hug, she let the woman free.

Compared to this, Derek's greeting was cut short, only a quick hug and a kiss on the cheek. The it was his job to carry the bags to his car, while his mother linked arms with her daughter in law and put her free arm around Chloe and walked fast towards the airportgarage. All four of them spent the evening together, going out to Derek's favorite restaurant. They arrived home a bit too late for Derek's taste- it was a school night, nonetheless!- so he shooed his niece directly upstairs into bed. But he stayed upstairs and tucked her in, sensing that she needed to talk again about the happenings at school.

This left Carolyn and Meredith alone.

Both sat down at the kitchentable and the older woman didn't waste time.

"So; Meredith, how are things?"

The young woman sighed. "They are… tight. Chloe is lovely, but she has a lot to deal with. And while I'm sure Derek is perfect to help her, I'm probably not."

"Why?"

"I… I'm still dealing with the happenings on that day. And my father was an alcoholic, too, only that he needed part of my liver because his own failed with the amount of alcohol she had to run on. How can I be the one to tell her, that everything will be okay again?"

Carolyn smiled softly and took the woman's hand.

"Because of all this. Chloe is centering herself more around you right now." She gave a little laugh at Meredith's surprised look. "Yes, she is! She tries to get your attention as much as she does with Derek's. I think with telling her about your father you did the best thing you could. Maybe she should even meet him- if you're okay with that- because she needs to see for herself that everything can become okay again.

But you need to tell her how long that road to this "all okay"-point was.

Another thing is, she needs to work on herself. She is surpressing her own feelings to mend with the crowd."

"Oh yes! We felt that. After your phonecall…"

Carolyn nodded. "Mark told me about it. Maybe you and Derek should consider therapy for her. She had to live through too much at her little age, this can't be good for her.
You are probably thinking that you need to become a mother for Chloe, but you are scared that she will reject you. Don't be, Meredith. Stay who you are when you interact with her, and she will show you what she needs. You are doing a great job with her till now. And I am sure you'll be a great mother one day."

When the young woman just looked down after this statement, her mother in law took her hand.

"You WILL be amother someday, Meredith. Some things take longer than others. And till you are really pregnant, you can work on your relationship with Chloe. The girl needs an older woman to guide her. And she wants this woman to be you."

When Derek entered, Meredith looked up and asked immediately: "Is she asleep?"

Smiling, Derek came to her side and kissed her temple. "Yes. She told me to tell you that she's looking forward to your day off later this week. And your shopping trip."

"See?", Carolyn asked with a big smile on her face. "Like I told you! You are pretty much at a growing stage right now. Don't rush, just go on like you did till now, and everything will work out."

Meredith gave her a smile back and let herself be pulled into her husbands' side. Carolyn was right. They were at a growing stage.