A/N: It's Christmas! Well, Christmas Eve. Here's a nice long chapter to celebrate. Plus, it's ... sugary Sunday? Something like that. This chapter is a little different, and I hope you enjoy it.
Unto Certain Shepherds
Chapter 10: Christmas Eve, Part I
...
"Meredith?"
"… Derek?"
There's a pause after each whispers the other's name into the darkness.
And then two sighs of relief at the silence.
This makes sense when taking into account that the two previous times they tried this – waiting until both children seemed deeply asleep cuddled against them in Derek's childhood bed that's far too small for any of this – it didn't go so well.
They had a plan.
A solid plan.
Wait until after the Shepherd family merriment has waned, snippets of carols sung around the table, the movies and stories read aloud, until the children are bathed and dressed in their Christmas pajamas and snuggled in bed.
… and then sneak downstairs and unload the jeep they drove to the shopping center last night and bring in the presents that fill the trunk.
And wrap them.
And put bows on them.
And write cards for them.
And altogether do whatever they can to make them look like they're not just pale replacements for the gifts that fill the suitcases that are still in abeyance.
That was the plan.
So the plan was solid, but the execution …?
Well.
The first time, Meredith couldn't help laughing at Derek's urgent whisper, which was somehow terribly funny in the warm darkness of the narrow and crowded bed – and then the movement of her body moved Bailey, who woke just enough to clutch a handful of her hair and require additional soothing back to sleep.
The second time, Derek – who really deserved this after shaking his head at Meredith when she started laughing – was the one to laugh, and his laughter jostled Zola. She lifted her little head and murmured, inexplicably, seven pink ones, please, and then drifted back to sleep.
After that, they made sure to wait until they were certain their children's sleep would last.
Their sleep seems genuine, and deep, at this point.
By now, Zola and Bailey are breathing in deep, slow patterns that are so peaceful Meredith is surprised that both she and Derek have stayed awake. But they're awake, and after gripping each other's hands silently in an unspoken replacement for laughter, they take turns disentangling their slumbering children and finding their way out of bed. Derek sets Bailey with excruciating care inside the pack 'n' play and then tucks Zola into her small cot. With another exhale of relief, he wraps his arm around Meredith's shoulder, she wraps hers around his waist, and they engage in the same one two three will they wake up or are we safe wait and watch routine they've been doing since Zola was a baby.
One.
Two.
Three.
"We're safe," Derek whispers.
"Don't jinx us."
Derek seems to consider this. Very carefully, he sets up the baby monitor and pockets the other half. Then, when neither child wakes, he drops a victorious kiss on the top of Meredith's head and escorts her out of the room.
He pauses to close the door quietly. "Hey …"
Meredith looks up.
"Merry Christmas Eve," he says. "It's after midnight," he adds, perhaps reading confusion on her face.
"Merry Christmas Eve, Derek." She stands on her tiptoes to kiss him and he smiles down at her.
Without discussing it, they wait another minute outside the closed bedroom door to see if the children stir.
They don't.
"We did it," Meredith congratulates him as they approach the stairs.
"What happened to not jinx – no, don't step there!"
Meredith looks at her husband's words with a combination of surprise and alarm as he pulls her back from the top of the staircase.
"Is there a trapdoor I missed?" she asks.
"No. Sorry." He looks embarrassed. "It's just the left half of that stair creaks. Wakes up everyone in the house. Kath swore in high school that Mom had it built that way on purpose."
Meredith finds herself smiling. "So there was a lot of sneaking out?"
"Teenagers," Derek says mildly. "Anyway, the right side of the tenth step down creaks too, so just keep that in mind."
"Oh, I will."
They make it downstairs sans creaks – maybe another Christmas miracle – or maybe because Meredith doesn't even touch the last four steps because Derek, without warning, swoops her off the staircase into his arms.
"Now what did I do?"
"Nothing," he assures her. "I just felt like it."
"You just felt like it," she repeats, amused. Her feet are still dangling above the ground.
"I just felt like it," he confirms. He leans in for a kiss and she lets him. "Why, do you object?"
"I don't object. But, Derek …"
"What?"
"Aren't we supposed to be quiet so we don't wake people up?"
She gestures, indicating the rest of the darkened house. It's packed with Derek's sisters, who've decided that sleeping here is the best send-off for their childhood home, and their husbands and many of their children. Derek's oldest niece will come in tomorrow, weather willing, but she knows that most of the rooms are packed with Shepherd family members, adults and teenagers alike.
"We don't want to wake the hordes. It's true." He nods, kissing her one more time before he sets her on her feet. "We're past the hard part now, though," he assures her. "Almost everyone is upstairs, and the kids in the family room – well, that carpet is a sound killer, which is why we liked it, and they also sleep like … teenagers."
"So we're safe."
"We're safe."
"And we're alone," Meredith points out.
"We are indeed alone."
For a few moments after that they're mostly quiet, exchanging Christmassy kisses with each step along the dark, garland draped wall toward the front door. Or presumably so. Meredith lets Derek lead – he knows the terrain, and the moonlight coming through the windows isn't helping her much. She closes her eyes and then she feels a hand sliding over her hips … and onto the doorknob that's currently poking her in the back.
"Wait." Gently, she pushes him back, leaving the door mercifully closed. "Coats, Derek. We need coats."
"I knew that," he says, sounding a bit breathless.
"Of course you did." She brushes a hand across her mouth and smiles up at him, or what she can see of him in the mostly darkness.
"Here." He flicks a switch on the wall and Meredith blinks. It's not bright or even close, but it's less dark now.
He's turned on a low yellow light that illuminates the area in the front hall with the coat trees, further protecting the rest of the house's sleeping occupants from waking up.
"Better?"
"I wasn't complaining before," she reminds him teasingly, and sees him smile as he reaches for their warm winter gear. He pulls down her coat first and helps her into it while she laughs a little, touched by his gallantry. Then he shrugs into his own, and fumbles in the pockets to make sure he has gloves. She does the same.
Carefully, the minimal light revealing his smile, he winds a soft scarf around Meredith's neck. "It's cold out there," he says by way of explanation, but then he tugs her gently toward him by the two woolen ends.
She has to give him points for his game – he's creative and resourceful, in her experience, when it comes to this particular part of their marriage. As you have to be when you have two small children and two unpredictable pagers.
So she tips her head back while he inclines his own head downward and then she's sighing happily as he captures her lips, gentle but insistent enough for warmth to curl in her midsection. Her next exhale is a gasp of surprise as he lifts her against him, she wraps her arms around his neck obligingly – always happy to wind her fingers into his hair. He hoists her higher, jostling the coat tree, which makes her laugh again; Derek pretends to be annoyed by her laughter but can't hide his own. He muffles it in her neck instead.
"Should we take our coats off?" she murmurs, realizing she's starting to feel warm.
"Not if you're still planning to go outside," says another voice, unexpectedly.
Very unexpectedly.
They freeze.
And then after that happens very quickly.
First, Meredith and Derek spin around with startled alarm, which knocks Meredith's head into the coat tree and dislodges approximately seven hundred Shepherd family coats of varying colors and sizes. Derek, alarmed, tries to pull her to her feet and ends up knocking the entire coat tree over in the process.
So it's not for several eye watering minutes that they're able to find another light and turn it on and let it reveal …
Derek's mother, sitting in his father's old chair in her housecoat, holding a steaming mug of what he knows will be tea and looking decidedly amused.
"Mom," Derek grimaces. "I didn't know you were – Meredith and I were just …"
"… going outside. I know, dear. I just want to make sure you dress warmly. Meredith isn't used to Connecticut winters, you know."
"Yeah." Derek shoves his hands in his pockets, embarrassed, while Meredith just blinks in time with her throbbing scalp. "I know."
"Are you all right, Meredith?" his mother asks kindly. "That was quite a knock to the head."
"I'm fine," she says quickly. "Really." She proves it by squatting down to help Derek reorganize and hang the fallen coats.
"Good. Derek was never very good at sneaking out." His mother's tone is fond. "Some of my girls were so good at it I was certain they'd end up in the CIA, but not this one."
"I'm not sneaking out," Derek says defensively. "We're just going to the car."
"…to get the children's presents so you can wrap them while they're sleeping," his mother says, finishing the thought. "Derek, you act as if I haven't raised any children at all."
"Oh." He's taken aback for a moment. "So you and Dad…"
"We had to wrap presents sometime." She looks pensive for a moment, and takes a sip of her tea.
"Mom." Derek tilts his head.
"Yes, dear."
"Since we're all awake … can I just ask why you're awake? It's almost one o'clock in the morning. We'd be asleep if we could."
"I know." His mother takes another sip of tea. "I was just … winding down."
Derek notices there's a crocheted blanket on her lap he recalls from his childhood. "Are you okay?" he asks with concern.
"I'm fine. You know, son, your generation didn't invent staying up late. When you children were young, at Christmastime, your father and I had to do half the preparations in the middle of the night. And that's not including –"
She stops talking suddenly, looking shy.
Tactfully, Meredith distracts herself hanging a bright pink knitted hat on the top of the coat tree.
Derek studies his mother's face in the low light. He hasn't seen her in years before this visit and the lines in her familiar face are less familiar. In his absence, she's grown older – of course she has, but guilt prickles his skin as he thinks about her age and their distance. His mother was such a strong and sturdy presence throughout his childhood, his teenage years, his young adulthood when he still lived on this coast. Now she looks small in her housecoat, even … fragile.
"It's really late, Mom. You should get some sleep," Derek says gently.
"Excuse me? I changed your diapers, Derek Shepherd. You don't tell me when to sleep," his mother says firmly. She sits up very straight, eyes flashing, and no longer looks small at all. Derek gulps.
"Sorry," he says quickly.
His mother looks satisfied. "Good. Now, it is late, so you'd better get to the car and get those presents. But, Derek –"
He turns back.
"You weren't really going to make Meredith go out with you in that freezing weather, were you?"
"It's fine," Meredith assures her mother-in-law. "I was out before, and there are a lot of packages to bring in."
"Nonsense. It's colder now. Derek, surely you can handle the packages so Meredith doesn't have to go with you."
Frankly, he was hoping to steal some more kisses while they unloaded the jeep, but he can't exactly ignore his mother's tone.
"Of course I can handle it." He drops a quick kiss on Meredith's lips while she tries not to transmit don't leave me here too desperately. She may not have much familiarity with big, happy families, but she's pretty good at knowing when someone is trying to get her alone.
"You okay?" he asks quietly enough that his mother won't hear, and she's so touched that he can read her that well that she lies through her teeth and ushers him out the door.
"That's more like it," Carolyn Shepherd says approvingly. "Meredith, dear … come and sit with me."
…
Meredith settles gingerly on the couch facing the chair where her mother-in-law is perched under a knitted blanket.
Okay, this is it. Derek's family has been so kind to her, so welcoming, that a small part of her has been waiting for the other shoe to drop.
This is where I get the real talk. The Nancy-ten-years-ago-talk. The no-one-likes-you-and-you're-a-homewrecker talk.
She's not surprised that Derek's mother wanted to get her alone so she can tell Meredith what she really thinks of her.
What surprises her … is how disappointed she is.
Are you really that naïve? she chides herself.
She's never thought of herself that way. If anything, she's come to see the hard shell she developed in her younger years, to protect herself. It was work to let it melt, to let herself be loved. But did that process weaken her to the point where she thought the warm welcome from Derek's entire family could have been sincere?
Her cheeks flush in anticipated embarrassment.
Of course they were nice to her when Derek was around. His mother was probably just waiting until she could be honest, and now she has her chance.
"Meredith …"
She steels herself before she glances up. "Yes?"
Whatever it is, she can take it.
She has plenty of practice.
"I hope you don't mind that I sent Derek out by himself, dear. It's just been so busy, I haven't had a chance to talk to you alone."
Meredith offers a weak smile. "No, it's … fine."
"Good." His mother leans back in her chair. Despite her firm words to Derek, she does look tired. Her hands are curved around her mug of tea, grey hair curling around her face. "Meredith, I just wanted to say how happy I am that you're here."
"I understand, and I'm sorry," she says automatically.
"Sorry for what?" Now his mother looks confused.
"Sorry for …" her voice trails off. "Wait, what did you say?"
"I said how happy I am that you're here."
"Oh." Meredith pauses. "You did?"
"I did." She takes a sip of tea. "I knew it would happen, one Christmas – or I hoped it would – but I didn't want to push. It's such a long distance."
Meredith nods, still feeling uncertain about the direction of the conversation.
In the silence, she hears gentle thumps outside the door – knowing her methodical husband, he's decided to carry all the packages to the door before carrying them all inside together.
"I know how happy Derek has been in Seattle," Carolyn continues. "I know how much of that is you, and the family you've given him."
Meredith rests her hands on the legs of her pajamas, not sure what to say.
"You're a part of this family too. All of you. You have been from the beginning, and if you'd never come back to the house you still would be. But I'm truly happy that you did."
She takes a sip of tea and smiles at Meredith when she lowers the mug.
Blinking, Meredith realizes that nothing else is dropping.
There's no other shoe.
This is it.
Meredith finds herself having to blink back tears.
"Thank you," she says finally, though it doesn't seem like enough.
"Thank you," her mother-in-law responds, "for what you've given my son … and all of us." She smiles fondly. "I'm going to miss my newest grandchildren when you leave."
"They're going to miss you too," Meredith says automatically, but she knows that she means it. "You've been so welcoming to all of us," she says quietly, a little shyly, "and I'm so grateful."
"It's my absolute pleasure," his mother says softly.
Another soft thump at the door sounds; Derek is making progress on the presents.
For a moment, Meredith watches her mother-in-law.
Her expression looks far away.
"Can I ask you a question?" Meredith's tone is hesitant.
"Of course."
"Did you really stay up to see if anyone is sneaking out?"
Derek's mother tips her head back against the chair and laughs. "No, no. It's a different world now. My grandchildren don't need to sneak out, they have – phones. It's just a coincidence that I was here when you two were … putting on your coats," she says diplomatically. "I wasn't going to interrupt, but …."
"No, I'm glad you did," Meredith says hastily. She's also glad it's not so bright in this room that her blushing can't be hidden from her mother-in-law.
"Well. I stayed up because … well," Carolyn repeats, looking into her tea mug for a moment, "I was thinking," she says.
Meredith suddenly feels like she's intruding. "You don't have to – "
"No, no." Her mother-in-law waves a hand. "I know I don't have to. I want to. I was thinking," she continues. "I was … remembering. At Christmas, I spend some time remembering."
Meredith nods slowly.
"My Christopher loved the holidays," Carolyn says quietly. "It's been so many years. Time helps with the pain, of course, and the grief. But the joy, the good memories – they stay. They don't fade. So I like to take some time to remember him. He liked to sit right here, on the long nights before Christmas," she indicates her chair, "and we'd light a fire and drink tea and sit under this blanket, together."
For a moment she looks almost shy, almost girlish.
"We'd plan for Christmas – he'd get so excited about making things magical for the children. It was a special time for us."
Meredith listens, transfixed. Half of her is consumed by the tragedy of Derek's mother losing her husband so young. But the other half is moved almost to tears at the way she's dealt with it and continues to honor him. Clearly, Derek came by more than just his love of Christmas naturally.
"Oh, I'm going on," his mother says apologetically, perhaps noting Meredith's silence. "Please forgive me."
"It's fine," Meredith assures her. She's trying to think of a way to say, I like hearing about him, to express how much it means to learn more about the father from whom she knows Derek learned so much.
But then her mother-in-law glances at her and Meredith thinks she doesn't have to say anything at all.
"Derek is very like his father in some ways," Carolyn says quietly. "Chris was a dreamer, and a thinker at the same time. Oh, he loved the magic of the holidays. He wanted to recreate it for his children. He believed that he could."
An optimist, Meredith thinks. So much like her husband.
"I did my best, after he was gone. As you do, for the children, as anyone would. A part of him is still here, always. Not just on the holidays. But at Christmas … well."
For a moment her mother-in-law looks pensive, and Meredith remembers she's selling the house where she and her husband spent all their Christmases as a family of seven.
That must be difficult.
And yet her mother-in-law's expression is warm, even relaxed.
She wants to talk about him, Meredith realizes. She wants to think about him.
"Carolyn," she says tentatively.
She looks up.
"How did you and your husband meet?"
Carolyn blinks, looking surprised. "You really want to hear that story?" she asks dubiously.
"I'd love to – I mean, if you don't mind telling it."
"I don't. Not at all." She leans back slightly, wrapping her hands around her mug, a smile tugging at her lips. Her gaze grows misty as if she's traveling back through the decades. "Well. I grew up not too far from here, in a house full of brothers." She smiles a little. "My mother used to say the three little girls I had in a row were compensation for that. But anyway, I had three older brothers, and it was a different time, then. I helped my mother out around the house, with the cooking and the cleaning, and my brothers helped my father out with the more … masculine tasks."
Meredith nods, listening, wondering where the story is going.
"One Christmas, when I was nineteen, all three of my brothers were busy with different things, and my father asked me to take the car out to the hardware to get some … part they were missing." She pauses, her eyes sparkling. "Well. I'll explain that bit later. So I took my parents' car out to the store – we lived quite a bit away from town, there were fewer houses then. I knew the store, but I'd never been inside before. Shepherd Family Tools, it was called."
She pauses again. "You don't have to pretend it's not amusing," she says kindly. "My children and grandchildren have filled me in over the years, but – as I said, it was a different time. I knew the Shepherds had been running the store for a few dozen years. There were so many family businesses back then; town looked completely different. And so I went inside, expecting to see the old weathered grey-haired hardware store owner. Cranky. I knew this from my brothers."
"But you didn't," Meredith prompts curiously, when Carolyn seems to be waiting for her to speak.
"Oh, I did. Old, weathered, grey-haired, and cranky too. But I also saw his son, Christopher." She smiles. "He had his name on his shirt. You know, he was a few years old, and we went to different schools – maybe I'd come across him once or twice at a football game or church picnic, but I couldn't remember it and it must have been years before. I know that day was the first time I really saw him."
Meredith rests her chin in her hand, listening closely. Her mother-in-law's voice is rich with memory, but light too, as if she's recapturing the youth and innocence that flavored that long-ago day.
"He had bright blue eyes that were twinkling like someone had just told him a joke, and curly black hair, and he looked at me and said, what can I do for you? and that was it. I was smitten."
Carolyn pauses her story to smile ruefully. "I was very young," she admits, "but it felt like an electric shock. What can I do for you? That's what he asked. And I almost said, marry me. Can you believe it? Nineteen and I was as inexperienced as – I told you I had three older brothers," she explains, "and when they lived at home they made sure the boys kept their distance from me. Then I started at a women's college for nursing and I wasn't going to meet anyone there. I didn't even think the words marry me were in my vocabulary. I didn't say them, of course," she adds hastily. "I opened my mouth to tell him which part I needed for my father … and nothing came out. I couldn't remember it. I was absolutely frozen."
Meredith's eyes widen. Her mother-in-law is a vivid storyteller; she can practically feel the nineteen-year-old version of Carolyn's panic and embarrassment in that moment.
"Well. That could have ended badly, and we wouldn't be sitting here, but Christopher didn't let me just stand there open-mouthed like a fish. He walked me all around that store showing me different parts, asking me questions about what my father was trying to do, so he could help me figure out what I wanted to buy."
"He did?"
"He certainly did. Until finally the older Mr. Shepherd told him he needed him back at the register. Go on home and ask your father and come back, that's what Mr. Shepherd told me, and I didn't know how to tell this man that I didn't want to let his son out of my sight."
"What did you do?"
"Drove home," she admits, "worried the whole time Christopher wouldn't be there when I got back. And then when I got home I found my father and brothers none too thrilled with me – they didn't expect me to take so long and my brother Teddy had already gone out and borrowed a part from a neighbor. I never did find out what part it was," she admitted. "I just walked right into the kitchen and told my mother I'd found the man I was going to marry and she had to let me drive back to the hardware store and give him my phone number right now."
Meredith's eyes widen again. Carolyn's tone makes clear this would have been unexpected.
"What did she say?"
"Well, she looked surprised. I didn't really ask for much, not usually. And then she said, Carrie – she called me Carrie – you drive back to the hardware store with my blessing and tell the Shepherd boy he's a lucky one."
Meredith smiles and both women pause for a moment at that point in the story. A gentle thump from the doorstep reminds them Derek is still handling packages from the car.
"And you drove back?" Meredith asks.
"And I drove back." Carolyn pauses. "And when I got there, Christopher was packing up one of those big army duffels. He saw me and said, oh, you're back, did you figure out what you need? And that's when I learned he was in school up at Torrington, driving back right after Christmas. Which was in two days."
Meredith nods encouragingly, waiting for her to go on.
"I was devastated. What could I say? I wanted to give him my telephone number – you know, how I'd seen it done in the movies – or at least say something, but he was going back to college in a couple of days, so it seemed hopeless. I remembered I had three older brothers and that's probably all this Christopher was doing, being nice to a hapless girl who had no idea what she came into the store to buy."
Meredith waits patiently for the story to turn.
"So I just told him I wouldn't need to buy anything, and I choked out an apology for wasting his time – and that's when cranky old Shepherd walks back to the register, busy looking at the ledger in his hands so he didn't see me, and starts talking to his son."
"What did he say?" Meredith asks.
"He said, All right, Chris, if you really insist on driving all the way out the Maloneys' place I'll give you my keys, but if you're not back by the rush you can forget the gas money for school."
Meredith feels a tingle at her neck. "He was going to drive to your house," she realizes.
"That's right." Carolyn seems somewhat surprised that Meredith knew her maiden name so quickly.
… not like she could forget it, or any of the other tidbits of information Derek slowly leaked to her that first year.
"So then it was Christopher's turn to stand there gape-mouthed, embarrassed. He blushed and it made his eyes look even bluer. And I didn't know what to say. I turned around to leave, thinking I'd messed everything up, and he called out to me. Wait!" She pauses, smiling. "He told me since he didn't have to drive all the way out to my parents' house after all, he had some free time, and would I want to get a hot chocolate with him at the drugstore?"
Meredith smiles, charmed by the old timey feel of the story.
"You said yes," she guesses.
"I said yes." Carolyn's lips purse. "We had hot chocolate, and we got him back to the store by the rush so he didn't have to miss out on his gas money for school."
"So he did go back to school?"
"He did." Carolyn takes a sip of tea. "Two days after Christmas. All the way to Torrington. We spent six months writing letters and seeing each other for bits and drips of time and then I transferred up to the nursing college in East Stoneham and he met me at the train with a ring."
"A ring!"
"Everyone said it was too soon. Just six months, and moving away from home like that – but we said when you know, you know."
"So you said yes."
"I said yes. We got married. I slowed my degree down so I could work while I did it and Chris did the same. We had a run down little apartment in Torrington where the hot water ran only a few hours a day and the ceiling leaked and there were spiderwebs in the staircase and I loved every inch of it. We were so young," she says softly, her tone almost dreamy. "We spent a few years in that apartment – we grew up there, really, together. Got each other through school and moved back down to this part of the state and next thing I knew I was expecting Elizabeth. I found out on Christmas," she says, "and I surprised him at work. By that time he was running the store. I walked in and told him I was looking for a part, just like I did that first Christmas. He played along, asked me which one and I said it was written down on a piece of paper."
Meredith nods encouragingly.
"He unfolded it and of course there was no part. It said you're going to be a father." She pauses, smiling. "He ran around that counter so fast I was afraid he'd break a leg. Picked me up off the floor and couldn't seem to let go. And I wasn't a little bitty thing like you, either." She nods toward Meredith. "But that's how happy he was. And he was just as happy every time he got the news and every time we added to the family. More children … more magic."
Another gentle thump outside the door brings Meredith back to the present.
"That's a wonderful story," she says honestly.
"Thank you for listening so kindly, dear." Carolyn smiles at her. "I must seem very impetuous – a silly girl – fancying myself in love like that, changing my life around for a man I barely knew."
"You don't seem silly. You seem in love."
Carolyn smiles softly, setting her teacup down on the table. "I was. I still am. Sometimes love comes so quickly it bowls you over," she says, her voice tinged with reminiscence. "It's how you stand up afterwards that determines the rest."
It's slightly convoluted but Meredith gets it. More than gets it – she's fairly certain she's lived it.
Lived it enough that it no longer seems strange to be sitting at one o'clock in the morning in her Christmas pajamas on an old couch in her husband's childhood home listening to her mother-in-law tell her about her late father-in-law.
A few more thumps … these ones sounding of finality.
"That will be Derek," Carolyn says, and Meredith nods.
"Carolyn," she says, leaning forward slightly. It feels important to finish this conversation before her husband returns. "Thank you for telling me that story. It, um, it means a lot."
Her mother-in-law's eyes look bright. "You're more than welcome. And, Meredith … you don't need to, and it won't change anything between us, I can assure you … but I hope you'll consider calling me Mom."
The door opens then and Derek blusters through, his cheeks very pink from the cold, his breath visible, armloads of packages sliding from his hands onto the welcome mat. He glances from his mother to Meredith and back again. "What's going on in here?" he asks curiously.
"Oh, nothing," his mother says. She stands up, folding the blanket that was sitting over her lap. "Meredith, it was lovely speaking with you, dear. I hope you'll both get some rest."
Derek bids her good night, looking a little confused, and then Meredith crosses the floor to help him with the packages and accept a chilly kiss.
Together, they watch his mother ascend the staircase.
"Was it okay?" Derek asks doubtfully, pulling off a glove and cupping one of Meredith's cheek with one cold hand, searching her face with concern. "Talking to my mom?"
"It was … more than okay," Meredith says. "She's, um, she's pretty great."
"She seems to think the same thing of you," he says.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah," he says. "I think you're probably both right."
He shrugs out of his coat.
"So…"
Meredith studies the pile of boxes and bags on the welcome mat.
"So now we wrap," she says.
"So now we wrap."
They check the baby monitor – which reveals two angelically sleeping children – and then lug presents into his father's office at Derek's direction.
Meredith scans the room, the dated feel of the couch and desk and shaggy rug. It's a tribute, really, and understandably so.
There are pictures on the walls, beaming freckled dark-haired children who still had a father. She pauses at the picture of her husband who can't have been more than three, sitting on an older sister's lap under what looks like duress. His eyes are bright, his pout awfully familiar, his tousled curls downright adorable.
And then Meredith notices the photograph of his parents' wedding on the wall.
She moves closer and then pauses in front of it to scan the young, beaming faces. His mother is glowing, her youthful smile reminiscent of several of her granddaughters. Meredith can see both Liz and Kathleen in the shape of her face. His father is grinning, his mop of dark curls all Derek, his rangy build familiar from all of the Shepherds. The newly married couple look nothing short of thrilled.
She senses Derek coming up behind her, then feels his arms wrap around her.
"I wish he could have known you," he says simply.
Meredith turns in the circle of his arms to rest her head against his chest. "I wish he could have known you, as an adult," she says softly. "That he could have seen how wonderfully you grew up."
Derek doesn't answer, just holds her tightly.
When he releases her, his eyes look damp. For a long silent moment he just studies the picture of his parents, his arms loosely around her.
"Bailey kind of looks like my father around the eyes," Derek says quietly after a while, his tone hesitant, indicating the photograph. "What do you think?"
Their son is a sweet doughball of a toddler, all boy and all cherub at the same time. It's hard to see much of the tall man in him, but then Meredith notices the way the photograph captured the twinkle in Derek's father's eyes.
Meredith closes her own eyes and lets her own son's small merry face drift into her mind, beaming up at her. It softens, blurs, becomes Derek's and then his father's. Three pairs of blue eyes, twinkling with the magic of Christmas.
"I see it too," she says.
Not much time passed in this chapter, but I have been looking forward to Meredith's conversation with Carolyn for a while now. (Remember, I used to think the entire story was going to be five chapters...) I don't think anything on the show conflicts with my personal Derek's-Parents headcanon, but if it does ... please forgive me. Next chapter, time to move Christmas Eve forward, featuring more Shepherds than you can shake a stick at and lots of shenanigans. I wanted to capture the quieter moments too ... six thousand words of them, apparently. And I'm glad I did, BUT I solemnly swear I will never make you read a chapter without a fully-awake Zola again. Thank you so much for reading. Reviews are the candy canes in my hot chocolate, so please review!