The reviews I received made me so happy! I enjoyed the fact that a lot more of you seem to be enjoying this fanfic. Please keep reviewing and I will keep updating quickly.

Also this is a sad chapter, and it was a hard one to write.

"Hold on" Meredith said quietly into the phone as she propped herself out of bed and left the hotel room, softly closing the door as she exited.

"Let's get to the point I'm sure we both know why you're calling" Meredith told him not at all caring that these were the first words he was hearing her speak in over sixteen years.

Derek was taken aback, this was the first time he heard Meredith's voice in what felt like to him an eternity. She sounded the same but older, more mature and more protective of herself.

"We have a daughter" Derek more accused than stated

"I'm aware of that Derek. I've been raising her now for 15 years" Meredith said her voice dripping with sarcasm

"Don't you think that's something I would have liked to know" Derek accused his voice beginning to rise

Meredith scoffed "Now that you've met her, seen what a fantastic job I did raising her, you fell in love with her and now, now after all this time, now you want to come into her life, well I'm not going to let you"

"You don't get to just make all the decisions on your own, for the past fifteen years of her life you and you alone decided everything for her, including the decision not to tell me I even had a daughter" Derek yelled

Meredith scoffed "I knew you were a liar when Addison showed up in Seattle and you didn't tell me you were married, and when you made me believe you were going to divorce her but this Derek Shepherd is a low even for you" Meredith said her voice terrifyingly calm that it even made Derek shutter a bit before he went back to being angry.

"What are you saying? That I knew about Grace. How the hell would I know about her?, You just up and left town less than 24 hours after our conversation in the storage closet, you left your job, you left your friends, you left me" Derek finished off softly

"I left you? Derek. You chose your wife, you were having a baby with your wife. What did you want me to do? Stay in Seattle and watch you be happy and start a family with her. I loved you Derek." Meredith sputtered out

"I never wanted to cause you any pain, ever. I can't blame you for leaving, I can't. But you were never going to tell me about my daughter and that is unforgiveable"

"I did tell you, Damnit Derek, you know I told you. You got my letter because you wrote me back. Unless you suddenly have Alzheimer's drop the act. You knew about Grace for almost sixteen years and you never once had any interest in her and I did it without your help. We didn't need you then and we sure as hell don't need you now"

Derek couldn't focus on anything else Meredith was saying because he was so caught up in her statement that she had written him a letter and he responded to it. He never received anything from Meredith after she left. He called her multiple times but her phone number had been disconnected, he bugged Cristina for months about Meredith's whereabouts but she refused to tell him, now Meredith was telling him she contacted him, that she sent him something so personal as to inform him that they had a child together, he couldn't wrap his mind around it.

"I never received a letter Mer" Derek told her softly because he knew deep down she had to be telling the truth. Meredith wasn't a liar.

"I got a letter from you two week after I sent mine. It was on Seattle Grace stationary and it had your signature at the bottom and it basically said you had zero interest in anything I mentioned in my letter and that you didn't want me to contact you again. So I didn't"

"I promise you I never sent that, I would never abandon my child like that. Meredith I know I made mistakes but I love Grace. I loved her since the second I realized she was mine. I loved her in that moment because she was mine. If I had gotten your letter I would have loved her then too and I would have been there. You have to trust me on that"

Meredith sighed, she wanted to believe him, she wanted to believe that the man she has been in love with all these years really didn't know they had a child together that he really wasn't a monster.

Before Derek could process the letter anymore another thought occupies his brain.

"Was Grace born pre-mature?" Derek asked urgently

"No, she was actually 2 weeks past her due date, why does that matter?"

"It just does, I am so sorry Meredith that I never received your letter, I am. We can't go back and as much as I wish we could, we can't. Now that I know, Grace I can't picture my life without her. I can't live knowing that my child is out there and that I can't know her. So I'm going to know her and from now on I'm going to be there financially and physically, I want a say in things" Derek stated firmly

"Grace and I are leaving tomorrow morning" Meredith blurted out

"Then have breakfast with me, the three of us sit down and have breakfast like a normal family and we'll work something out"

"I'll call you back and let you know" Meredith said and immediately hung up. She was emotionally drained, one phone call brought up 16 years of suppressed feelings and the thought of seeing Derek tomorrow after so much time put knots in her stomach. She felt physically sick and now she had to talk to Grace.

Derek entered his house and slammed the door, "Peyton go to Levi's now." Derek yelled as he passed his son lounging on the couch watching sports center.

Peyton had never seen his dad so angry, he quickly picked up his keys and shut the door behind him, he didn't want to be home for this. Derek opened every drawer in every room of the house, slamming them completely out of joint and tearing every single one out of the wall. He searched every single little nook and cranny he could think of. He quickly descended the stairs two at a time and opened the door to his and Addison's bedroom. She was sitting on the bed in a robe, her hair wet from what looked like a shower and tears were cascading down her face.

"Where's the letter" Derek seethed with a voice full of venom and a look so angry on his face that scared her.

'Derek" Addison began in hysterics

"Shut up" Derek whispered angrily "And give me my letter" he finished

Addison sobbed but reached into the pocket of her robe handing him the letter she knew he now knew about. Her hands shook and she placed it in his hands. He ripped it out of her hand and studied it for a second, it was definitely Meredith's handwriting, with a New York return address and a postage date of November 15th 1998. Furious didn't begin to describe how he felt.

He looked at Addison with so much disgust he couldn't fathom it.

"I will make sure this divorce is over so quickly it will make your head spin. You will live with this every day for the rest of your life, the fact that you forced a child to grow up without her father and the fact that you forced me to stay in a marriage I didn't want anymore. Have your stuff out of this house by tomorrow. I never want to see you again." Derek stated venomously

He turned to slam the door before he stopped himself "Oh and let Mark know he has a son, I'll inform Peyton"

Addison ran to Derek and tried to get him to listen to her

"Derek…I never opened it….I didn't know. I swear Derek I didn't know about her. I wouldn't do that. I just…I kept the letter from you because I was scared….You were so miserable after Meredith left. I knew you wanted her back, I knew you were in love with her but I was in love with you Derek. I wanted us to go back to how we were before"

Derek looked at her for a long moment "I'll never forgive you for this" he stated and looked at her so sadly before leaving the room and walking out of the house.

He pulled his escalade out of the drive way and stopped in the middle of the road. He had to read the letter right now, he needed this last conformation that Grace was really his.

He immediately recognized Meredith's handwriting as her words jumped off the page

Derek,

I hope you're happy, I really do and not in a spiteful sarcastic way. I genuinely hope that you are happy with your decision and that your marriage is better than it was before. I'm not in such a great place right now. By now I'm sure you know I left, I just couldn't stay and watch you be happy with her while I was so in love with you. I found out after I left, I'm in New York by the way, that I'm pregnant. The baby is yours. We're having a little girl. I know that you love Addison and that you two are building your family back and that you are also having a child, but I know what it's like to grow up without a father. I don't want that for her, I want her to have a perfect life, the life I never got. I'm not going to force you to have a relationship with her (even though I hope you will), I just want you to know that in about a month there is going to be a tiny little girl in this world that belongs to the both of us. We made her together. I think I'm going to name her Elizabeth after both of our moms but I'm still not sure. If you're still the man I know that you are, I'm sure I'll be hearing from you soon.

-Meredith

Derek read the letter 3 times and by the last time he was broken down in sobs, if he had gotten this letter, as difficult as this would have made his life, he would have been the happiest man in the entire world. Addison robbed him of that and in a way he robbed himself as well. As hard as that must have been on Meredith, she did the right thing, she tried to tell him. He couldn't be mad at her.

Tonight confirmed his speculation that Peyton wasn't really his. If Derek was Peyton's father then Grace would have had to have been conceived before Peyton was, however Grace was younger than Peyton which meant there was no way Peyton was really his. He hadn't been intimate with Meredith since Addison showed up. Although tonight he gained a daughter that didn't mean he intended on losing a son. Peyton in a way would always be his because he was the man who raised him. This was such a mess but first he had to do right by Peyton and he had to tell him.

He quickly called Peyton and told him to meet him at the hotel where Meredith and Grace were staying. Derek decided him and Peyton would get a room there to sleep because he didn't want to step foot in his house until Addison was gone. He controlled his temper as much as possible but he knew he couldn't see her anytime soon because he would lose it on her.

Derek decided to wait for Peyton in the lobby of the hotel.

When Meredith came back in the room Grace was sitting on the bed, her eyes puffy from crying.

Meredith reached over and hugged her daughter to her "I love you" she whispered to her and kissed her head

"I love you too" Grace told her mom and cried harder

Meredith rubbed her back soothingly until Grace calmed down enough to talk. "I want to go home" Grace whispered

"We can go home"

"I want to go home now. I think this whole thing was a mistake"

"It wasn't a mistake, you wanted to meet your dad and he's happy you came here. He called me when you were in the bathroom, he figured it out"

"How did he do that?" Grace asked shocked

"He's a brain surgeon, and you look like him, plus he can do math so it wasn't too hard to figure out"

"I thought my plan was flawless" Grace pouted

Meredith laughed and wiped away the few tears on Grace's face

"He didn't know about you. I sent him a letter telling him but he never got it"

"Really?"

"Really, and he wants to know you now. To make up for what all he missed"

Grace smiled a little

"But you're almost 16, you flew by yourself and stayed in a strange city all alone, which I'm still mad about by the way, I think you're old enough to make the decision how much or how little involvement you want from your dad"

"I really like Derek. He was really nice to me for the most part but I think I want things to stay how they are. I want to go back home with you and Uncle Mark and Derek can stay here with his family"

"Are you sure? You flew all the way out here to meet him and now he wants to be a part of your life, isn't that what you've always wanted"

"It was, it's just I don't think I want that anymore. Peyton, that's my half brother or whatever, needs him more than I do. I just think maybe it's too late."

"It's not too late"

"Mom I made up my mind. I want to go back home now"

"I guess I'll let Derek know then" Meredith stated taken aback.

This one is a little shorter and probably not how any of you expected things to go with Grace changing her mind. Don't worry though, this isn't the end of their relationship. More to come, keep reviewing, they make me want to continue on!