Chapter 9: Aftermath
"What?" Derek exclaimed. He was stone cold sober now. Katie looked at Mark and smiled.
"I think I'll go to my room now." She escaped upstairs Jake and Zach trailing behind her.
"I think I'm going to leave now." Mark gave Meredith a hug, and a sympathetic smile. He would've liked to stay and protect his family, but he knew that Meredith needed to talk to Derek by herself. "I'll talk to you guys tomorrow okay? Call me." Derek continued to stare at Meredith. She looked at him and sighed.
"You might as well come in." Derek stepped into the house and surveyed it. Pictures hung on the walls, most of the kids. Other family lined the wall as well. Mark was in quite a few pictures.
"So does Mark come here a lot?" Meredith rolled her eyes at what Derek's tone was indicating.
"If you're going to act like that get out of my house." Meredith didn't even bat an eyelash at his comment. She had been expecting it. "I doubt Katie let the cat out of the bag for you to come here and be an asshole. So, get over yourself."
"Get over myself?" Derek laughed.
"I just found out that I have three children. Three thirteen year-old children, that don't seem to like me very much. And these children know my best friend better then they know me. And the love of my life couldn't even tell me that I had any children. So don't you dare tell me to get over myself. I'll be seeing you later Meredith, with my children mind you. They court will be interested to learn that you kept them from me. I want them. Unless, of course, they really aren't mine."
With that Derek stomped out of the house slamming the door behind him. He needed a drink, and an old friend who happened to be a bartender.
"Hey Joe."
"Ah, Dr. Shepard, you're back." Derek looked at the bartender.
"I don't work here anymore. It's Derek."
"What brings you to this neck of the woods?"
"Richards' funeral." Joe nodded sympathetically. "Joe, I'm warning you beforehand, I'm going to need a cab." The bartender looked up and raised an eyebrow. "I met three kids tonight. The ones that are mine, that no one told me about."
"Oh. Then the first one is on the house."
"Thanks Joe, but Derek is leaving." Derek turned around to see Mark.
"What the hell are you doing here?" Derek asked before he hauled back and hit Mark in the face. Mark fell to the floor, and a few people at the bar stopped talking and looked to see what was happening.
"Okay, so maybe I deserved that." Mark stood up and rubbed his jaw.
"Maybe?" Mark turned and smiled at Joe before settling on the barstool next to Derek.
"I was there when Katie decided to drop the bomb about daddy dearest over here." Joe nodded still looking confused but poured him a drink anyway.
He was still a steady listener about the drama in PPTH and knew the 'Three Stooges' as his own niece and nephews. Mark would always stop by, but he wasn't sure why Mark was randomly lying on his Bar floor. Derek was sober at the moment.
"She said she was going to her room, but the three of them were really listening at the top of the stairs. You know how they are Joe." That earned a snort from the bartender. Their actions in the house, at the bar,(they were let in on special occasions) and at the hospital were famous.
"Anyway, Derek threatened to take them away from Meredith, if they were even really his, so before I reached the hotel, I got a hysterical phone call from Katie about Derek taking them away and how there was no way she was going to New York, unless it was for spring break or some of the summer with her brothers and Meredith like they had wanted to. I figured he would be here, and I decided I needed to talk to him."
Derek was staring at Mark in shock. "I made her cry. I made my daughter cry."
"Well, apparently you don't know if she's your daughter or not. Derek, you tore into that place, and in all of about 5 minutes managed to reduce two people to tears, and two other people into a crazy shock, and complete denial that you're their father. Oh wait, make that three in denial, two in tears, and one unsure how to clean up the destruction you left behind."
"I made her cry." Derek repeated still in shock.
"I think you need a drink more then Derek does." Joe comment. "Too bad Mer doesn't come in often anymore. She could probably use some tequila."
"Yeah. I bet that if the kids were old enough they could use some too." Mark turned back to Derek "Yes you made her cry, now get over it and figure out how to fix it. I'm going to see my wife, she's probably wondering where I am by now." Mark stood up, and tossed a ten on the bar top.
"Katie wanted me to talk to you, but I don't know what to say. So I'll only say two things, one, if you hurt any of them I will be forced to kill you. Two, those kids, and their mother, however much they say they hate you don't. When I first came here, all they wanted to know about was their daddy. And Meredith let me tell them everything I could remember that was appropriate. She told them everything that she remembered too. Not that it was a lot or anything, because apparently you were very secretive. The whole having wife thing made you keep a lot from her, that's what I heard anyway." Derek's blue eyes widened in surprise. "I thought they hated me."
"At one time they didn't hate you, but now I think they do."
"Oh that's comforting."
"Well, look at what you did today Derek. How would you feel if you were them? When you figure that out, come see me." Mark was out the door of Joe's and into the night before Derek could get out another word.
Yeah... Derek's and idiot and a bunch of other choice words. But, what did you think?
Review, you know you want to!
