Irene's A/N: There's a party and YOU are invited!

No, seriously, there is going to be a party, and you guys will have a blast. You have been very patient with Meredith and Derek in two separate places for 5 chapters, so now you might get your reward. Also, I want to say, just for the sake of our reputation, that we do not use drugs. Just read on to find out why...

Enjoy!

Chapter 6

Meredith is welcomed home by the sweet smell of baked goods. Usually, she would salivate and make a beeline for the kitchen; tonight it only makes her want to hurl. Okay, she's starving, but she's sure that in the kitchen there's Mama Shepherd, and that makes her stomach clench in fear.

Mama Shepherd is inside her house, and there's still dust above the kitchen cabinets. She totally forgot about the kitchen cabinets at three-forty-five in the morning when she was re-checking her cleaning work.

Carolyn is going to hate her now.

"Mama!" she hears, before a three-feet-five body could slam against her. Meredith winces for a moment when Zola's elbow hits her stomach. This is going to be a long evening.

"Hey there, birthday girl, did you have fun today?"

"Oh Mama, I had the best of fun!" Zola exclaims, and Meredith can finally see the streak of flour over her cheek and the white powder embedded in her braids.

"I bet you did." She sighs, trying to clean her up the best she can, which only makes Zola giggle harder, her eyes twinkling with excitement.

"Nana is making my cake!" Zola grins, her eyes darting back towards the kitchen. "I help!"

"Are you a good helper?" she asks, for a second regretting that Amelia's gift is still under wraps. Zola nods eager.

As soon as she thinks about Amelia, the woman shows up behind her, carrying a grocery bag and smiling brightly.

"Happy birthday, Zola!" Amelia uses as her greeting, and Zola beams.

"A present!"

Amelia laughs loudly, Zola's enthusiasm contagious. "No, it's not a present, it's my dirty scrubs."

Zola eyes the bag warily, before she grimaces. "Eww!"

Amelia laughs even louder as Zola disappears back in the kitchen, though she sobers up when she finally notices Meredith's panic. Oh yeah, she's in full-on I-need-my-tequila panic. Except she has an embryo in her uterus, and it doesn't mix well with tequila.

"We forgot the top of the kitchen cabinets," Meredith blurts, eying Amelia with eyes wide.

"What?" Amelia looks genuinely confused as she shreds her coat and leaves her shoes at the door.

"Last night. We didn't clean the top of the kitchen cabinets!"

Amelia looks at her almost as if she had grown three heads. "Meredith, my mother is not six feet tall, and even if she were, how can she see on top of the cabinets?"

"I don't know! Maybe she senses the dust there. Maybe she's deathly allergic to dust and I'm about to send her into anaphylactic shock!" Oh god, do they even have an epi pen in the house?

"Mom is not allergic to dust, I promise."

"I'm not, dear, don't worry." Carolyn exits from the kitchen cleaning her hands on her apron -well, Derek's apron,- a gentle smile on her features. She gives her a once over, and Meredith feels naked, definitely naked. "It's good to see you, Meredith."

Carolyn voice doesn't sound menacing, but Meredith is trembling like a leaf as she tries a tentative, forced smile. She probably looks like a freak.

"I'm glad you could make it out for Zola." Meredith has no idea where her voice comes from, but all of a sudden, as she tries to get Amelia's support, she notices that she's now alone in the foyer with her mother-in-law.

"I've been looking forward to seeing you all," Carolyn says with a dazzling smile that looks so much like Derek's.

"Nana, the oven dinged!" Zola yells from the kitchen, and Meredith takes a deep breath when Carolyn excuses herself to check on Zola's birthday cake.

Meredith is tempted to pull an Amelia and hide already, but it's Zola's birthday and she knows she has to play the host and be smiley. She just needs to push through a couple of hours, then she can go hide wherever she wants.

She hears a muffled thud followed by a muttered curse coming from the playroom and she breathes deeply once again. With the Carolyn drama, she totally forgot that her husband is already home. Se decides that they should keep the hostility to a minimum since there are children at the party and he did go out to get the supplies for the party, maybe he gets to sign a temporary truce.

Yet, when she sees the playroom she almost wants to cry. No truce for Derek Christopher.

Did a unicorn barf in there?

The rainbow streamers and colorful balloons were expected, even something Meredith was looking forward to, and the piñata looks cute enough to be smashed into tiny little pieces. Her eyes are probably bogging out as soon as she spots the plates and cups Derek has picked, though.

"Holy mother of rainbows," she mutters under her breath, but it's apparently loud enough to make Derek appear from behind the couch, a giggling Bailey slung on his shoulder.

Bailey escapes from Derek's hold to crawl towards her, and she welcomes her little boy in her arms with a smile. She breathes in his soft smell, smiles when he babbles something akin to an hello, then rests quietly against her for a beat, sated, which gives Meredith a moment to study her husband after a month apart.

He's dressed down, really dressed down, compared to the last few times she has seen him on Skype. Gone is the suit and tie, replaced by a soft indigo t-shirt that hugs his torso in all the right places and a pair of sweatpants, striped thick socks as the finishing touch. His hair is a little unkempt, his stubble practically a beard now, his eyes tired.

For a split second, Meredith is glad that he's there, as she represses the urge to kiss him senseless. Then she remembers the plates, and she's fuming.

She opens her mouth to yell, but the doorbell rings, shifting their attention away from one another.

"I'll go; it's probably the pizza," she says, unable to look one second more at the hideous pattern of the plates or at the puppy dog face Derek is making. She puts down Bailey and heads again for the foyer, grabbing her wallet before she opens the door.

Behind the wooden barrier, a twenty-something guy barely peeks from a stack of six boxes, his grin forced.

"Shepherd, right?" Meredith nods, frowning. "Three cheese, two pepperoni, one vegetarian."

Of course he got the vegetarian. She rolls her eyes as she pays, fuming as she carries the boxes in the playroom. Who in their right frame of mind would buy six boxes of pizza? They barely get one when they're eating as a family, how many kids does he thinks she has invited?

Bailey is nowhere in sight when she gets back, her back pulling a little as she puts the boxes on the table, next to the hallucination-inducing plates. Right, Connie said no heavy lifting and no stress. She's really following doctor's orders.

She groans when she sees the pattern of the plate up close and personal, grimacing in disgust at the haphazard mix of colors to create that trip-like rainbow. Has Derek started to smoke joints in DC? Or maybe LSD? 'Cause those plates can only come straight out of a drug-induced trip.

"God, where did you get these?" she wrinkles her nose as she asks Derek, her husband looking up from the stack of the not surprisingly rainbow napkins he's arranging in a rainbow shape. Has he gone mental in the month he's been away? Did the president choose him as a test subject rather than a doctor for his BRAIN project?

"Oh Mommy, the pizza is here!" Zola bounces in the room, and Meredith swears she has never seen her that excited.

"I know, Lovebug. I paid for it."

Zola laughs, eying the room with a pleased look on her face. "Do ya like all the colors? Daddy made me pick everything!"

"That's a lot of colors indeed, Zo," she swallows, trying not to grimace. Zola beams.

The doorbell rings again, and Zola bolts to the foyer, Derek hot on her heels.

He's not allowed to plan a party ever again.

"Look!" Zola squeals, snapping her out of the hypnosis the plates created in her tired brain.

Sofia and three other little girls are standing huddled at the threshold, their eyes wide in surprise and awe at the sight of the playroom.

"So many colors!" Sofia yelps, and the three little girls agree with distinctive nods of their heads.

The party is on.

She greets Callie curtly, and not because she's mad at the orthopedic surgeon, but because she can't see how much the plates clash with the rest of the room, or how crazy their pattern is. Nobody seems to notice that, except maybe Amelia, but she's too scared to come forward, in case her mother tries to talk to her. Scaredy cat.

"Do you want a slice?" Derek asks her with a nod towards the pizza box, and she almost Kevorkian him.

She grabs his arm and leads him out of the room and into the corridor, her eyes blazing.

"What the hell were you thinking?"

Derek cowers. Coward!

"Where in hell did you find these?" she asks in an angry whisper, waving her hand towards his torso and his slice of pizza, resting like a gold coin on top of pigeon's poop over the plate.

"Target, like you suggested?" He's frowning, puzzled and clueless. God, she'll punch him before tonight.

"Derek, they're freaking hideous!" her whisper rises just a notch, before she can contain herself.

"Zola wanted them!"

"Zola wanted to buy a unicorn shaped cake mold and of course I said no!"

"It's her birthday!"

"You're spoiling her!"

"It's. Her. Birthday!" he growls, his eyes a dark obsidian. He's so close and so angry she can feel his breath on her skin, and suddenly she misses his warmth, even when she's pissed beyond belief. He's practically pinned against the wall and she has so many old memories involving him in that position. She can't think of him like that when she has a point to prove, though. Still, he looks deliciously hot now that he has shaved and changed into a crisp blue shirt, his eyes making her gooey for him like the cheese on his pizza. Focus!

She pants slightly, still too shaken about the small confrontation, trying to keep herself in check. She can't behead him just yet, but after the party...oh, after the party she'll have a field day with him.

"Look, she took me by surprise, okay?" Derek tries to save himself, but it's too late. The plates are already containing pizza, it's way too late to apologize.

"What, did she sneak them in the cart?" Meredith rolls her eyes.

"She begged for them. And I was shaken up because I thought they had kidnapped Bailey, so…" he gulps, his eyes widening a little, his cheeks rosier.

"Kidnapped?"

"He was temporarily unaccounted for. I swear it was less than two minutes!" Derek hangs up his hands in the air.

"Was he hiding in between clothes?"

Derek's eyes widen, and Meredith knows the answer is right. He always does that recently, whenever they step into a clothing store. She rolls her eyes at his vivid imagination, then backs away from him a little.

"Let's get back, it's not like you can magically change the plates to a color that doesn't hurt my eyes at this point," she huffs, leaving him in the corridor as she goes back to mingle in the playroom.

"What are you doing?" She hears his curious whispered question as she moves closer to the table with the stack of plates he has carefully arranged.

"Grabbing a slice because I'm starving." She rolls her eyes as he puts himself between her and the plates.

"But you hate the plates?!"

"Oh, for the love of God, give me a slice!" she tries to push past him, but he persists. "I want a slice of pizza, dammit!"

She finally reaches her prize, the cheesy gooey fragrance sticking to her nostrils as she leaves Derek behind. She's salivating.

As soon as she's halfway through the slice though, she feels her stomach rolling in protest at the introduction of food.

She totally blames the ugly plates for not letting her enjoy the pizza.

She feels tears sting her eyes. How could Derek ruin her love for pizza? In this moment she only loves her children more than she loves pizza and he goes and buys stupid trippy plates so that she cannot cheat on him with the slice of cheese pizza? Her stomach rolls again as soon as she attempts another bite, forcing her to lower the slice on the rainbowy mess.

"Mama I waited a whole two minutes to open my presents!" Zola jumps near her, and she wonders what she will be like after the sugar of the cake. It's going to be interesting indeed.

"Zola, you still haven't blown the candles yet."

"Mommy, please, can I open my presents?"

"Don't you want the birthday song?" Derek pitches in, for once coming to her rescue. Should she be grateful? No, not until he erases the memory of the plates from her mind.

"You can sing it before I open the presents."

"And what are we going to do when the cake comes?" Derek prods her again, and she's not caving. Meredith feels strangely proud.

"Sing again, Daddy!"

Derek gives in. He can't win against that look, and Zola at the age of four has already mastered it. Yes, Meredith is definitely proud.

"Okay, let's sing the birthday song!" Zola orders the people around, and they all form a circle around her and her presents.

She watches her daughter's delighted face as they all sing out of tune and almost out of sync, feeling even more proud then. She has a beautiful daughter, inside and out, and lately she has lost sight of her, overwhelmed as she was with all the stuff she had to do. It can't happen again.

"Which one do you want to open first?" Derek grins, directing the operation: presents.

"Oh, this one's pretty!" Zola points to a present wrapped in silver shiny paper, a pink ribbon around it. Derek beams.

"It's from Mommy and Daddy."

That one doesn't look like a paint easel at all, nor the box of craft supplies she told him to get. Not good.

Zola squeals as she tears the paper; gone was the careful little girl who opened Anatomy Jane the previous night. This evening Zola is intense in everything she does, even opening her presents. "Daddy!"

Meredith watches in horror as she unwraps one of those kid tablets with the sturdy handles and the stupid loud apps already there, and the urge to find a dozen new different ways to murder Derek gets stronger by the second. She tries to breath through that again, reasoning that she likes to play with their iPads sometimes, maybe it's time they stopped having to wipe out grease from the screen with Bailey's butt wipes.

Zola opens another present wrapped in purple, a nice set of three books coming out of the heavy paper, and the books make her breathe a little easier. The delight on Zola's face at the sight of the apron Amelia got her rights the world once again.

Next in line is another present wrapped up in expensive-looking paper, a present that makes Meredith frown. Is it from one of the Shepherd sisters?

"This is from Daddy," Derek says, his turn to beam. Meredith doesn't like the vibe of his grin one bit.

She can't believe her eyes as soon as Zola destroys the paper and tosses it aside.

"Amazing Allyson!" one of the little girls shouts, stunned.

Meredith feels like screaming. Derek bought her a seventy-freaking-five dollars worth of doll. That talks! Is he nuts?

Zola studies the doll with a gentle smile and Meredith feels nauseated once again. He's buying her daughter. He's totally buying their daughter with expensive presents now that he's not there for her. She wants to throw up, and it's not just the stupid pizza and the hideous plates now.

"Thank you, Daddy!" Zola grins, hugging him for a beat, then she runs out to who knows where, returning with Anatomy Jane in her hands. She puts the new super-cool doll next to her old and battered Anatomy Jane, and Meredith feels tears in her eyes at how it is an accurate representation of her life at the moment, where Derek is the cool one and she's just...Jane. She doesn't know juggling tricks or incredible stories, she barely figured out lullabies at this point, and he's just...He has it all. She will always be Jane, and she'll have to raise the kids alone when he's in DC. She doomed her kids to failure.

She sniffles, blinking back tears, choking back more nausea as she breathes in the pizza-flavored air, then her heart stops.

"Oh Daddy, my new dollies can be best friends!" Zola looks up at Meredith with the widest of smiles as she says that, cuddling Anatomy Jane close to her chest, and dismissing Amazing Allyson, leaving her to keep an eye on the already opened presents, taking Anatomy Jane back to the presents table with her and picking up another one.

She looks up at Derek, standing next to her, and he looks livid.

"Why would she want an ugly eighties doll over Amazing Allyson?" Meredith swears she hears her husband mutter under his breath. Meredith can't believe what she's hearing. She can't look at him. Who does he even think he is? She fights the urge to say something. It's Zola's moment, and she doesn't want to ruin it.

She watches as her daughter tears open another present.

"That's from me!" Sofia proudly announces.

It's the Sofia the First: The Enchanted Feast DVD.

"I really wanted this!" Zola cries out with excitement.

"What do you say, Zola?" Meredith hears Derek's soft sincere voice remind his daughter. Nope, not looking at him, she clenches her fists, resisting the urge to turn toward him. Meredith bites her lip and tries to control her stress levels, but that's much easier said than done. Who was Connie kidding? Telling her to keep her stress low was the biggest joke Meredith had ever heard. Yeah, right. Meredith knows she doesn't have a chance of lowering her stress levels any time soon, especially when her husband continues to act like a prick.

"Thank you, Sofia!" She gives her best friend a gallant hug. "Mommy, Daddy, can I watch this tonight before bed?"

"Of course, Lovebug." Meredith is quick to answer before Derek this time. She still can't look at him. How dare he insult Anatomy Jane. She knows it's just a stupid doll, but Anatomy Jane isn't ugly, and so what if their daughter prefers her over his stupid seventy-five dollar talking doll?

Her stomach bubbles, an overwhelming sense of vertigo whips through her at a rapid pace. The salt from the slice of pizza she'd eaten builds in her saliva, making her stomach churn even more. She leans against the playroom door. Tomato sauce. Melted cheese. The pizza scent fills her nostrils. She clasps her hand over her mouth.

Once Zola's gifts are all opened, Derek grabs an empty trash bag and begins piling the wrapping paper into the bag. Finally, an escape. She needs to get away from the pizza haze. Far, far away.

When she thinks no one is looking, she makes a dash up the stairs looking for a place to hide, even if just for a moment to calm herself down. She needs to regroup. Clear her head. Otherwise, she's going to end up murdering her husband while purging her insides all over his McDreamy, passive-aggressive face before this party is even over, kids or no kids. And she would rather not have a houseful of little eyewitnesses when she kills him, covered in vomit.

She passes the kids' bathroom, which is full of rubber duckies and other creepy bath toys that she feels are watching her every time she goes in it. No. Not in there. She can't go in her kids' rooms either, and Amelia's room, which is now loaded with Carolyn's things, is also off limits.

That leaves one safe haven: The walk-in closet at the end of the hall. Perfect.

She reaches for the gold door handle and pushes the door open, abruptly closing the door behind her. Still facing the now-closed closet door, she inhales a deep breath of air and collects her thoughts. She swallows deeply, breathing through her nose. The pizza stench is gone. The nausea also fades. Phew.

And then she hears someone or something breathing…

Nicole's A/N: Well, there you have it! Meredith and Derek's first encounter - was it worth the wait? Irene and I may have very well been smoking some LSD while writing this chapter. LOL. Now, who or what do you think is in the closet with Meredith? I've been reading a lot of Stephen King lately, so my mind is coming up with creatively dark scenarios…

Also, I know some of you are looking forward to Maggie's role in this party. Don't worry, we haven't forgotten her. She will arrive at a very interesting time, and that's all I can say for now!