Author's Notes:

Thank you so much for the feedback, everybody :) If you post without being logged in, I can't reply directly to you - so I just wanted to add here I really appreciate everybody who takes the time to leave me a note!

Derek has what's known as Broca's Aphasia. It's a non-fluent, expressive aphasia, meaning speaking does not come naturally to him, and he has to think very hard about what he wants to say. People with Broca's Aphasia are known for what's called telegraphic speech, which is speech stripped of everything but major nouns and un-conjugated verbs. "I ran to the park to play," becomes "Run park play," or in the most severe cases, possibly just, "Park." Someone with Broca's Aphasia isn't going to be able to compose a coherent sentence longer than five words or so. Since Broca's is an expressive aphasia, not an interpretive one, Derek's comprehension of what he hears vastly outstrips his ability to express himself. Comprehension is still affected, though, due to his reduced ability to hear and comprehend tiny function words as well as grammatical complexities.

All forms of expression are affected. People with sign language with Broca's have the same issues converting thoughts to signs as Derek does converting thoughts to words. Reading aloud is another problem area.

Derek's aphasia is somewhere in the realm of mild to moderate, depending on how rested he is, and I've learned, through the course of writing this story, that it's really easy to write bad English, but it's really difficult to write bad English with the consistency and rules of someone not butchering English on purpose, but rather due to cognitive limitations. I came up with a big spreadsheet matrix to help me determine how Derek might talk in any given scene. I made a list of the irregular verbs he knows and doesn't know, typical grammatical slips, typical word wrong substitutions (question/ask, remember/memory, etc), how many words Derek can use in a sentence before things start falling apart (5, then 6, 7, 8, 9 as the story progresses). I even went so far as to have a speech therapist review a chapter to see if I had Derek's speech patterns sounding somewhat realistic for someone with his disability (THANK YOU BTW!).

There was a method to the madness, as well. I based Derek's primary issues (Broca's Aphasia & right-side weakness) on the location of the blood on his forehead in the bloody gurney pictures I saw of 11x21 (though I admit I still haven't seen this episode and never plan to).

Anyway, It's been a fascinating challenge for me to write this, and I appreciate the help I've been given making this story shine. If you're really curious about what Derek might sound like, there's some wonderful videos posted on YouTube. I can't post the link here because ffnet strips links. Just search for "broca's aphasia sarah scott" and the very first video that pops up is the first in a series of videos of a teenage stroke survivor with expressive aphasia. The videos show you her progress at 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 years.


Week seven.

She's bought him seven different kinds of beer that she remembers him liking before, and she lines a bottle of each one on the table before him, arraying them like a row of soldiers. She caps off the line with a glass of water. It's after the kids are in bed on Friday, and the house is quiet.

He stares at the drinks with a dubious look. "This is beer?"

"Yep!" Meredith says.

He pulls the first bottle on the left toward him. The cap is metal and requires a bottle opener. She demonstrates for him how to use it, and he watches with a hawklike stare as the cap pops off, and a smoky twist of vapor curls out of the bottle. Condensation forms on the cold glass.

"I think this one was your favorite," she says. "But I could be wrong."

He sniffs the mouth of the bottle and makes a face. His dubious look grows. He raises the bottle to his lips and tips it back. One chug, and a disgusted look replaces his dubiousness. He grimaces, and his swallow is a slow one that reminds her of a boa constrictor trying to swallow a deer or something. She watches his Adam's apple bobble along his throat.

"I liked this?" he says, tone incredulous. He wipes his lips with the back of his hand and looks like he wants to spit out his mouth. Not just the beer. His entire freaking mouth.

She gives him a sheepish look. "Beer's kind of an acquired taste."

He looks at her. "What does …? What is …? What is acquired taste?"

She shrugs. "It means you have to taste it a lot before it tastes good. Same with coffee."

He takes another sip. And another. And then he coughs. "I don't know how this … good."

She pushes the glass of water at him. "Cleanse your palate."

"Palate?" he says. He tips back the glass and swishes the water in his mouth before swallowing.

"Your sense of taste," she clarifies.

"Oh," he says. He looks at the long line of beer bottles, frowning.

"Want to try the next one?" she says.

"No," he says.

Still, he takes the bottle opener with his right hand. He manages to lift it, but when he presses it against the bottle cap and puts his elbow into it to add weight, his grip fails, and he drops the tool. The bottle opener lands on the table with a loud smack. He looks at his hand for a moment, flexes his fingers. A frustrated sound loiters deep in his throat.

She stares at him, jaw threatening to drop. He says he's been working on his grip in physical therapy, but this is the first time she's seen the awesome results. His gaze twitches to her, as if he senses her watching him. "It's bad," he says.

She scoots her chair closer until the edge is touching his, and she takes his hand. She strokes her thumb along his palm. "Derek, you could barely make a fist a few months ago." She squeezes his hand. "This isn't bad; this is amazing." He moves his fingers in her grip, each flaring up in quick succession like a crowd doing the wave at a football game. He couldn't have done that a little while ago, either. Moving individual fingers used to be a slow process that took him lots of thought. She can't stop herself from grinning like an idiot. "Derek that's not bad. Not even a little."

He doesn't seem to believe her. She shifts his hand, closing his fingers over her palm. "Squeeze as hard as you can."

"Why?" he says.

"I want to see," she says. "Try."

For a minute, nothing happens, and she worries that maybe she's overestimated his improvement. But then she feels his grip closing around her. The force he can generate isn't much, but she can feel him against her, and he's doing far more than resting skin to skin like he seemed to be last time he tried this.

"Derek, this is so great!" she says.

A vague smile pulls at his lips, but he says nothing. His skin is warm, and he's close. He stares at her with an unreadable look in his eyes, which are almost black in the dim light of the chandelier overhead. She meets his gaze, and time seems to stretch. He twitches in her direction, like he wants to kiss her, but … isn't sure .…

She opts for direct. "Go ahead," she says. "Kiss me."

He pulls his hand free from her grasp to rest it on her shoulder, and he leans. Into her space. He nuzzles her. Presses his nose to her hair. Inhales. When he nibbles her earlobe, and she giggles, he stops. She scrunches her fingers against his lower back, urging him on.

"I like this," she says, hoping to avoid the possibility of mixed messages. "I didn't giggle because it's funny. I giggled because it feels good." She kisses him, too. Kisses his throat.

He fumbles, a bit awkward, but he settles into the moment when he reaches her lips, and they do what he already knows, what she taught him last time. Taste. Explore. Plunge. The bitterness of the beer he drank loiters in his mouth, but that doesn't stop her from taking whatever he gives.

She loses herself as seconds become minutes become … uncountable.

When he pulls away, he's panting, and there's a telltale bulge in his pants that tells her he enjoyed himself. He enjoyed her. He wants her. She doesn't draw attention to that, though, doesn't want to spook him. She licks her lips and swallows.

"Still six more to try," she says in a husky voice. She clears her throat.

He moves back to the task at hand, this time switching to his left hand to guide the bottle opener. He has no trouble this time, and pops open the second bottle with little effort. He picks up the beer and manages a sip before gagging. He works his way down the whole line, forcing himself to take at least three or four swallows of each one, with a sip and swish of water between them. By the end, he's blinking, and his eyes are watering, and he looks a bit nauseated.

"I don't think I … acquire this."

She laughs. She can't help it.

"Really, I liked this?" he says, his frown deepening.

"You did," Meredith says. But the whole point of this was to find out what he likes, now. She reaches across the table and grabs his hand. "It's fine if you don't like it anymore."

"Was my head okay … before?"

And she laughs again. "I don't know," she says. She reaches up to brush a loose curl out of his face. "Sometimes, I wondered."

He snorts. Not quite a laugh. She realizes she hasn't ever heard him laugh. Not since he hit his head. But his eyes are sparkling with amusement, and he's looking at her, and she finds herself sighing, caught in the trap of his heady stare.

"Do you like this?" he says.

"Beer?" Meredith says. She snorts. "Hell, no. That stuff is gross."

"What do you like?"

She snickers. "You don't want what I like," she says. "Trust me."

"Let me try," he says.

"Fine," she says, "but you'll be sorry."

She gets up and shuffles to the liquor cabinet where she has a bottle of Gran Dovejo Reposado stored for those special occasions when wine won't fix things. She looks at what else they have, shrugs, and grabs his old bottle of Laphroaig, which is three-quarters empty and hasn't been touched in over a year. Then, for the hell of it, she grabs a bottle of Bailey's Irish Cream. Bailey's is always an easy sell. She likes to think of it as a gateway liquor.

She grabs a tall stack of shot glasses last, waddles back to the table with her awkward bundle, and then heads back to the kitchen to grab some salt and a lime from the door of the refrigerator. She slices the lime and puts the slices on a small plate.

She returns to her seat beside him, setting the plate and salt shaker down. She pushes all the beer bottles away, and the mess clinks as all the glass smacks against more glass. One bottle almost tips, but she saves it. She pulls the tequila, scotch, and Bailey's to the forefront and arrays them in front of him.

She points at the tequila bottle. "This is my poison of choice."

"You … drink poison?" he says.

She giggles. "Well, no, but it'll probably taste like poison to you."

"Oh," he says. He wears an amusing expression on his face. Sort of … Crap, what did I get myself into?

"When people tell you to pick your poison, they're asking what kind of liquor you like."

He nods, staring at the bottle filled with golden-colored liquid. She points at the scotch next. "This is your old favorite," she says.

"I thought … I liked … beer."

"You did," she says. She wraps her hands around the neck of the bottle. "And you had a favorite beer, but this?" She jiggles the scotch bottle. "This was your favorite liquor."

"My poison," he says.

She nods. "Yes."

He looks at the Bailey's. "What is …?"

"This," she says, spinning the bottle around to show him the label, "is what I serve people who say they don't like liquor, but are willing to be convinced otherwise. It's a fallback."

He churns on that for a moment. "… Okay," he says.

She picks up two of the shot glasses she's brought to the table and sets them in front of him, one for her, one for him. She pours both of them a shot of tequila. He reaches for the glass, but she bats his hand away. "There's a special way you do this one."

He blinks, and he looks at her, bewildered.

"Allow me to demonstrate," she says. She takes the salt shaker and dumps salt on her hand. Then she takes the shot glass in the other hand. "It's a four-step process. Lick, chug, bite, suck."

"… Okay," he says, not taking the porny bait to make a snarky comment. He watches her.

She presses her tongue to the back of her hand and licks up all the salt. Then she takes her shot glass and kicks it back. Fire funnels down her throat. She's done this too much to gag or cough, but it's been long enough since she's partaken that her eyes water. She grabs the lime, bites into the fruit, and sucks it. Her last swallow completes the maneuver. She licks her lips and ends the experience with an, "Ugh."

He looks at the shot. And the salt shaker. And the lime slice. He picks up the shot glass and sniffs it. The smell alone is enough to make some people gag, and he's one of those.

"Is your head … okay?" he says, clearing his throat.

She blinks. "Are you calling me brain-damaged for liking tequila?"

He looks away, but not before she catches what looks like a smirk on his face. "Maybe."

She snorts. "Well, I suppose it takes one to know one."

His body jerks like he's laughed, but she doesn't hear any sound. She pours herself another shot while he stares at his, a serious must-conquer look on his face. At first, she thinks he isn't going to try the shot. But he's still as stubborn as he used to be. Despite her warning, despite the fact that the smell nauseates him, he goes for the salt shaker, and he copies her lick, chug, bite, suck steps to the letter. He even uses his weak hand to hold the lime. The only thing he doesn't do is end with an, "Ugh." Instead, he coughs, and his eyes water to the point that he's crying, and he looks for a moment like he might vomit. But he keeps it down like a pro, and she gives him a playful slap on the back.

She can't resist a cheerful, "Told you so!" while he wheezes, trying to catch his breath. She follows his shot with another one for her, and the fire in her throat becomes a backdraft. She shakes her head and finishes with an, "Ugh," to cool herself off.

"This is …," he begins, still panting, "good to you?"

She laughs. "No, of course not. You don't drink straight tequila for the taste."

"What do you …?"

"You'll feel why in a little while," she assures him. She refills her shot glass with tequila. "Want another?"

He makes a face. "No." And from his tone and his face, she can imagine pre-accident Derek belting out, Jesus Christ, no!

So, he's done with the tequila experiment, but he looks at the scotch. He's being a trooper. She grabs the bottle and pours him a shot of that. "Normally this goes in a tumbler," she says. "But shot glasses work."

"A tumbler is?" he says.

"A kind of cup," she says. "Ready?"

"Do I use … salt?" he says. "And lime?"

She shakes her head. "No, just tip that one back, and drink it plain."

"Okay," he says.

They both knock their shots back together. Her throat feels like napalm stripped it raw when she ends her lick, chug, bite, suck routine, and her finishing, "Ugh," is more raspy air than word. She blinks as the world goes a little spin-y for a second, and a hot flush spreads across her skin. Derek puts his empty shot glass down on the table.

"Well, you're not gagging this time," she says.

"That was …," he says. He swallows. "Not … awful."

She laughs. "Found a taste you'd like to acquire, then?"

He smiles. "May … be."

"Want to try the Bailey's?" she says.

He thinks for a long moment. He blinks, the motion long and slow. "Sure," he says, but he lingers so long on the shh sound that it's clear he's become intimate with the reason why people drink tequila. He looks up at her, and she realizes for the first time that he's flushed, and his stare is thousand yard. He shakes his head like he has no idea what's going on, but that only seems to make him more fuzzy. His confused squint almost makes her laugh.

"I feel …," he says, but his words taper to nothing, and he looks at her with a puzzled expression. The kind of expression that tells her he's got no words for whatever he feels. He looks at his right hand, and puzzled burgeons into bewildered. He flexes his fingers. They respond, but not like they did a little while ago, not like when he was showing her his grip. The movements are sluggish and imprecise. "I … feel .…" he says, but again, he doesn't finish his sentence.

This is wrong, a little voice tells her. This is so wrong. But her head is fuzzy, too. Fuzzy and spin-y. And everything is getting hot like the room is an oven. She giggles at him. "S'why you drink tequila!"

He stares at her for a long time. "… Oh."

She pours him a shot of Bailey's, and she goes for a fourth shot of tequila. "You drink that plain, too," she says. "Ready?"

When he nods, she says, "Go!" and kicks back the next tequila shot. Lick. Chug. Bite. Suck. The napalm in her throat explodes like dynamite, and her ending, "Ugh," is barely a hiccup of air.

Derek sets his empty shot glass on the table. He blinks, looking at the Bailey's bottle. "I … like .…"

"Two for three," she says. "Not bad."

Her head feels cloudy, and as the euphoria drowns her, she giggles for no particular reason. She's having fun with her husband, who lived, and that's a happy, happy thing. She flops against him, resting her head on his shoulder, and she looks up at him. His throat is all stubbly and lickable, and she has the crazy idea of dumping salt on it for a special shot. She giggles again, and she leans up to kiss the juncture between his neck and jaw.

"Hmm," he rumbles, deep in his throat, and the syllable vibrates against her lips.

He turns to face her with glassy, unfocused eyes that have nothing to do with the prodrome phase of a migraine. He grins at her. She presses her nose into him, breathing. He smells like the before Derek, which makes sense, since she gave him the same aftershave and shampoo he always used. She kisses him. Once. Again. Again. And then she nibbles, pulling a small tent of his flesh between her teeth.

He laughs. A full, throaty chuckle.

The sound of it adds to her buzz. So, he's still ticklish, then. That's nice to know. He's still ticklish, he hates beer, kind of likes scotch, and is a shoe-in for Bailey's. Her mental list grows. Who is Derek Shepherd.

She pulls her fingers through his hair in a sloppy gesture, snorting with hopeless amusement when her fingers get stuck halfway to the nape of his neck. She tries to extricate herself. He dips low, into her space, hovering. He takes her mouth with his own, and she forgets about trying to free her hand. Her fingers flex as she holds on.

He tastes like alcohol. He tastes like hers. Their union is a fire. She moans against him, and the time whittles away like wood off a carving until there's no time at all. Just him, pressed into her space, kissing her.


"Mommy," says a quiet, tiny voice. Something presses into her shoulder. "Mommy."

She squints through her eyelashes toward the sound. Light pierces her pupils, and she moans. Her head throbs in time with her heartbeat, her mouth tastes like paste, and she feels like she's going to vomit.

"Mommy," repeats the voice, and she manages to get her eyes all the way open. A pair of bright blue eyes that aren't Derek's stare back at her. Where did Derek go?

"Derek?" she mumbles.

"Mommy, I hungry," Bailey says.

She waves a hand at her son, shooing him away, and struggles to sit up despite her spinning head. She remembers kissing Derek, and then … more tequila, and more tequila, and then .… And then …?

She snorts, only to wince, as an odd wave of déjà vu hits her. She's on the couch. Derek's out cold on the floor on his stomach. The only major difference from their first-ever morning together is that their clothes aren't strewn all over. Both of them are still dressed. Mostly. Derek's lost his shirt, somehow – she wishes she could remember that part – but he has pants. She has pants. So, no sex happened, she thinks through the pounding in her head, which … is .… She's too woozy to decide what it is.

"Mommy, when's breakfast?" Bailey says. He's standing obliviously next to the couch, between Derek, who's still sprawled and unmoving, and Meredith, who's trying hard to show signs of life. There's no sign of Zola. She must still be asleep.

Meredith sits up, rubbing her eyes. She licks her lips. She wishes she had a pause phrase like Derek. A go-away-and-stop-talking-for-a-bit phrase. But she doesn't.

"Mommy?" Bailey prods.

Derek's shirt is in a messy heap on the floor by the dining room table. His cane is .… She frowns. She's not sure where his cane is, and it makes her head hurt trying to think about it. She wobbles to her feet and takes Bailey to the kitchen. Cooking anything is out of the question right now, so she pours him a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch and douses it with milk.

"Here," she says, and she sets the bowl on his tray table for him after putting him into his high chair. She heads to the bathroom to relieve herself, chug some acetaminophen, and splash her face with a shock of cold water in attempt to wake the hell up. She carries the bottle of painkillers back out to the living room with her, grabbing a glass of water from the kitchen on the way, and she kneels on the rug beside her passed-out husband.

She thinks he had at least one more shot of scotch last night, but, still, having not drunk anything in over a year, he'd be a bit of a lightweight in terms of his ability to process alcohol. She splays her fingers on his spine and says, "Derek," in a soft voice. "Derek, wake up." Her head is throbbing like a gong, and a wave of nausea barrels through her. She pauses to pinch the bridge of her nose and swallow, swallow, swallow. When the ugh moment passes, she adds another, "Derek?" to the morning.

He comes back to consciousness with a low groan. He squints at her with bloodshot blue eyes. "Wha …?" he grumbles. And his eyes snap shut again. He rolls his face into the carpet like he's trying to shrink away from the sunlight.

"Can you sit up?" she says. She jingles the bottle of acetaminophen at him. "This will make you feel better."

As soon as he ratchets into an upright position, she plies him with the acetaminophen and water. "Good morning," she says while he rubs his eyes and tries to find sentience. He looks at her with a wince, but he doesn't speak. "And, now," she says, grinning, "you know what a hangover is."

A deep sound loiters in his throat, and he stares at her with a baffled expression. "What … hap … happen?" he says. Then he looks down at himself, at his lack of shirt. He folds his arms to cover naked skin, and he blushes like a stoplight.

That's when she realizes what she's done. Her stomach clenches, and she bites her lip as guilt hollows out a pit inside her body. Crap. Crap, crap. Crap. Crap. She got Derek drunk as a skunk last night. She got Derek drunk as a skunk without even pausing to explain to him what was happening to him, or what the headache-y, vomit-y consequences would be. She took his judgment away without asking, first. He could have been scared, or confused, or … something, and she got herself too blitzed to care about anything but the fact that she was happy. She freaking roofied her own husband.

She winces as she gets up to grab his shirt for him. She bends to pick it up. They didn't have sex, she tells herself. They didn't have sex. It's not as bad as it could be.

"Derek, I'm so sorry," she croaks, unsure what else to say. She hands him his wrinkled shirt and collapses back to the floor beside him. "I'm so, so sorry."

Confusion drips across his features. He winces as he pulls his shirt back on. "Why?"

"I didn't tell you those drinks last night were alcoholic," she says.

He's silent for a long moment. "What is … alcoholic?"

God, she wants to cry. No, she is crying. She's freaking crying. She screwed up. She screwed up so freaking bad. And her head hurts, and she's nauseated, as if she needs physical reminders. For a minute, she can't even speak, she's so overcome. Guilt coils like a snake.

He inches toward her. "Why upset?" he says, and he pulls her into a hug.

"Alcohol is a drug," she says. "Like your pain pills. It's a drug. And I gave it to you without telling you you were taking it."

He blinks at her. God, damn it; she's lost him. "… What?" he says.

"You know how your pain pills make you sleepy?" she says.

He nods.

"Alcohol makes you sleepy," she says. "And happy."

She has a vague flash of memory of them moving to the couch. He had the cane then. He needed it. Pumping his system full of a depressant that affects the central nervous system, a depressant that in high enough doses turns even normal adults into slow-moving, uncoordinated lummoxes who can't stand up, is enough to make Derek's weak side act almost dead. The nice thing about being stupid drunk, though, was that they both found his immobility hilarious at the time. That he had one leg and one arm acting like entrants in a best spaghetti contest was a comedy routine adding to their giggles. She thinks she might remember a bunny hop or two as they tried to move into the living room. And, god, the laughter. Except now she's starting to doubt her interpretation of events, her interpretation of his demeanor. Was he laughing? Was he having fun?

And, now, she's even more disgusted. "It makes it harder to move," she adds, "and it makes you do things you wouldn't normally do."

He stares at her for a long moment. "Oh," he says.

Another flash of memory. She recalls picking up his right hand, the one he couldn't control, and kissing every finger. Can you feel that? she said, but he couldn't answer except to purr his approval deep in his throat, because the other thing about drunk Derek they discovered was that drunk Derek can't speak. Like at all. Not even monosyllabic stuff. He can make noise, but not a bit of it makes any sense. Which drives home to her how much conscious effort he must put into talking.

"I'm so sorry," she says. "I'm so sorry I didn't warn you."

What about this? she said. And she slid her hands underneath his shirt. He arched into the touch, giving her groan of pleasure. Was it pleasure, though? Maybe, it was fear. How would she know? He couldn't freaking talk. Meredith licks her lips nervously as she follows the memory to completion, and sees Derek's shirt fly across the room in her mind's eye.

Derek's hugging her, and she doesn't get it. She doesn't get why he would be hugging her after this. "This hurt is a … hangover?" he says.

She sniffs. Wipes her face. "Yes. You get it when the alcohol wears off."

"Okay," he says.

"This is not okay!" she says. "This is so far from okay."

Except he shrugs, and he gives her a lopsided smile despite the haggard look on his face. "I had fun with you," he says. "If you … warned me, I will … still … drink. Why not okay?"

She blinks at him. "Really? You weren't scared?"

His embrace tightens. "I trust you," he says with an easy shrug. "You were happy." He thinks for a moment. "I was okay."

She sits in his arms, gobsmacked. She gave him a debilitating substance. But she was happy, and he decided this was enough for him to not be worried about the fact that he couldn't talk or move his leg or hand anymore? She presses her ear against his chest and breathes, soaking up his warmth. She didn't want to screw this up before, but, now, more than ever, she does not want to screw this up.

"I won't mess it up again," she swears.

"I mess up lots," he says. "You can one or twice."

She blinks at his idea of a joke, snorts, and looks up at him. His eyes are twinkling, and he has such an easy, relaxed look despite how pale he is. She finds herself falling in love all over again. Derek Shepherd, version 2.0. So much of the old Derek. But so much new, too.

"Okay?" he says.

She sniffs and nods. "Okay."

Now that she's calmed down a little, he scoots toward the edge of the couch and hoists himself to his feet. He looks around the room from his wobbly standing position. "Where is … my cane?" he says.

She shrugs. "I have no idea where it went."

This is like her exam room panties all over again, adding to her secret shame, she thinks. His cane will end up stapled to a bulletin board somewhere or something. Seriously, though. She peers around. He had his cane last night at the dining room table. He had his cane when they were moving to the couch. A cane isn't a small thing like panties. Where the hell could it have gone?

Derek hobbles one step away from the couch. He's got a bit of a desperate expression on his face, now, and she realizes he hasn't had a chance to make a pit stop like she has. He hops one more step.

"Do you need help?" she says, stepping over to him, offering to be his temporary cane until they can find where his ran off to.

He puts a hand on her shoulder for balance. "Let me try."

For a second, with her pounding head, she's not sure what he means, but he takes a test step, and his intention clicks. "I bet you can do it," she says.

He takes another step. And another.

"Mommy?" Zola calls.

"One second, Zozo," Meredith responds, focusing on Derek.

He reminds her of a fawn walking for the first time, shaky and uncertain. She moves with him, ready to catch him if he starts to have problems. Though his fingers dig in, grabbing a tent of her shirt, he doesn't put any weight on her. Without his cane, his limp is the most pronounced she's ever seen it, and he has to think about every step, but he manages to push himself through the awkwardness. He walks all the way to the bathroom without any help save for her shoulder offering him a reminder about how to stay upright.

"Thank you," he says when they arrive at his destination. He leaves the safety of her shoulder and hobbles into the bathroom, hand clutching the edge of the sink for balance. She closes the door behind him and goes to look for his cane again.

Seriously. Where the hell?


"I didn't take it, Mommy," Zola says. "I didn't!"

Bailey shakes his head. "Not me. Not me."

The kids won't confess, even with an ice cream offer on the table, and Meredith's out of ideas. She rubs the bridge of her nose, trying to quell the nausea that swells. Her head throbs. She wishes she could remember what happened last night. They have to find the damned thing eventually – there's only so many places a three-foot-long stick can be hidden – but in the meantime, Derek's stuck without a cane.

"Meredith," Derek calls from the hallway, and she goes to check on him.

He's made it halfway back from the bathroom without any help at all. He leans against the wall, using his shoulder to keep weight off his weak leg, and he's still standing, but he looks like he's stranded there. Still, she has to admit, he can work a lean as well as he always could, and he looks good. Her insides tighten as she stares.

He gives her a sheepish look. "Help," he says in a soft voice. He swallows. "Please."

She steps next to him, and he puts his arm over her shoulder. He's got weight on her, now. A lot. But it's nice to know he can move around a little unaided. He's making so much progress.

"Are you doing this in rehab?" Meredith asks as they hobble down the hall together.

He swallows. "Walk … without cane?"

"Yeah," she says.

"I try," he says. "But I never did … before."

Meredith blinks. "This is the first time you've been able to do it?"

His smile could fuel a nuclear power facility. "Yes."

"What's wrong?" Zola says when she sees them struggling toward the couch.

"Daddy needs his cane," Meredith says. And she gives Zola a stern look. "Which is why, if you took it, you should tell us, now."

"I didn't!" Zola insists.

This is going to be a long freaking day, Meredith thinks. Her head pounds.


"Found it," Derek says, lying flat on the floor on his stomach as he peers under the couch. He reaches underneath and pulls out the cane. He uses it for balance as he climbs off the floor.

Meredith gapes. "How in the hell did it get down there?"

He collapses onto the couch next to her. "My last remember is … scotch." He grimaces. "Lots scotch."

She grins, but a little sliver of insecurity digs into her. "Good memories, right?"

His gaze softens. "Yes. I had fun."

He's hooked his cane over his arm, and she takes it into her hands. It's a simple wooden one, about three feet long, with a hand clip at the top and a rubber foot at the bottom. She brushes her fingertips along the smooth surface.

"What?" he says.

"Do you remember Addison?" she says.

He blinks. He looks at the cane for a long moment.

"There's no connection," she says to ease his mental churn. No connection except panties, which she's not sure she'll ever explain to him. There are some things in their history that she appreciates having erased. "I was just wondering. If you remember her."

Addison came to visit him when he was at Seattle Grace, when he was still in a vegetative state, but nothing more than that. She hasn't been back since. She's called to find out how he's doing every once in a while, but … not much else.

"Who is Addison?" he says.

"Your wife," Meredith says. "Before me."

He looks at her with a blank expression.

"She had red hair. She was about your height. Sometimes, she wore glasses. She had an angular face. A pointy chin. She was leggy and fabulous."

He thinks for a long moment, but the blank look doesn't leave him. "I don't know," he says.

She nods, but she's not sure how this makes her feel. She gives him back his cane, and she rests her head on his shoulder, content to let the moments pass in silence. She hears the kids behind them, still coloring at the dining room table, off in their own universe. He pulls his fingers through her hair, and she sighs.

"Why did I had two?" he says. The rumble of his words hit her eardrums.

She clutches a tent of his t-shirt. "Wives?"

"Yes."

She kisses him through the soft cotton, pressing her lips to the space over his heart. She doesn't want to give him the painful, sordid tale. Not right now. She settles for saying, "You fell out of love. It happens, sometimes."

"I meeted … meeted .…" A sigh. A long pause. "I met you at bar … after?"

She smiles. "Sort of. You had a … fight. With her. And you met me while you were still fighting."

He nods, and he doesn't ask another question. He thinks for a long moment, and she lets her own mind drift, happy to sit here with her alive husband while her children play at the table. The sofa cushion squeaks as he leans into her space and kisses her.

"I'm glad I met you," he says.

Her eyes prick. Even now, he can sweep her off her feet. "Me, too," she says, and she kisses him back.