There are times I'll admit
The seams of a life are tearing a bit
But that's all relative
When all that you know sums up to this
I'm sorry long days came
I'm sorry you're not quite the same
I'll take all my reasons home again
You'll have a reason, I'm giving you reasons

Warnings of strong rip currents and a storm out to sea kept them out of the ocean that day. Weather officials had advised cautious swimming, if any at all, and with an adventurous toddler who had recently taken to pushing her limits, Derek and Meredith had decided no swimming at all would be easier.

During the week, the town was quieter. The beach drastically emptied as people went home to pull their nine-to-fives Monday through Friday. Derek wasn't sure if it was the cloudy sky, or the fact that it was barely after nine in the morning, or the fact that it was a Wednesday, but as they walked along the beach, they were for the most part the only ones there. Occasionally a jogger dashed by, or an elderly couple walked past them arm in arm, but that was it. He kind of liked it this way, just the three of them.

Emily trotted ahead of them by just a few feet, not out of sight, but, if they kept their voices low, out of earshot. They hadn't even dressed her for swimming, in the hope that she would understand that clothes that were not supposed to get wet should stay away from water. She looked like a small version of Meredith, wearing long shorts and a short-sleeved shirt. The only difference was that Meredith had tied her hair back in a ponytail, and let Emily's curly hair stay loose around her face.

The waves pounded the shoreline and billowed and crashed in, like they were unwelcome guests at a party. They walked awhile before he reached for her hand, nervously like a teenager, not like the man who had been married to her for over three years. Her taking it made him feel strangely more successful than anything he'd done in months.

"Hey," Meredith said, barely a few paces from the house. "I think we should do something special for Emily's birthday."

"What were you thinking?"

"I don't know. What do people normally do for little kid birthday parties?"

"I don't know," Derek shrugged. "I think anything with a high sugar intake is probably considered successful. We can have a cake, and we'll do presents, and hopefully it'll be nice weather that day and we'll go swimming."

"How are we going to get the presents without her seeing them?"

"Can't we just take her to the toy store and she can pick out what she wants?"

"No!" Meredith exclaimed. "She should be surprised. She has to do the whole unwrapping thing, with the ribbon and the ugly paper with balloons on it. There should be balloons."

"You hate that stuff."

"Yeah," she agreed. "But I think Emily should have it. Everybody should have it at least once in their life."

"They should."

"I just think…I just want her to have something special. She should have a birthday party. With a cake, and presents, and pin the tail on the whatever."

"Ok, but I have a specific requirement about the cake," Derek said. "No chocolate cake."

Meredith frowned. "Chocolate's the best kind of cake," she said matter-of-factly.

"It was until I threw it up all over my backyard at my 8th birthday party."

Meredith wrinkled her nose in disgust.

"And then everyone in the third grade made fun of me."

"Aww, you were that kid," she teased.

"I was that kid," he said. "Or at least I was that kid until Mark punched Steve Fisher in the face in front of the entire class for making fun of me." He grimaced and swallowed hard, like he still couldn't quite forget the taste. "So I guess Em can have whatever kind of cake she wants, but there's going to be a lot left over if it's chocolate."

"There won't be that much."

"Well, since it's just going to be the three of us," Derek said.

Meredith was immediately defensive. "What does that mean?"

"I'm asking you if you and Emily are going to eat an entire cake by yourselves," he escalated slightly, getting defensive himself.

"Well, I was thinking that we'd do something for her here on her actual birthday, and then she could have a party when we got back. And there would be more people at that one."

"And who would be coming to this party?"

"Whoever Emily wants," Meredith shrugged.

"She'll be three. I don't think she'll come up with a huge list of people."

"Our friends, then. Her friends from daycare. Who's that little girl she always talks about? Anna? No, Ashley."

"Ok, so the Seattle Grace surgical floor, and a couple of kids from daycare."

"Yeah, maybe like ten?" she suggested.

"I was thinking more like five. You have no idea what ten three-year-olds would be like. Especially with all that sugar."

"I want her to have fun. A birthday is special, and last year wasn't…I wasn't up to seeing people, and she should have had something more than a brownie from the hospital cafeteria with a candle in it."

"Mer, we got her presents. Remember, she got that set of plastic food and some books and I think that's what the tricycle was from too."

"You got her presents. I watched her open them and went back to bed."

"Meredith, you were…you weren't you then."

She shook her head. "Emily should have had a celebration. She should have had a cake with the flowers made out of icing. And hats. You know the pointy hats?"

"Yeah."

"I think we should get some of those. Even though those freakin' strings hurt when you pull on them and they snap up. But they're pretty birthday-y, right?"

"That's about as festive as it gets."

"What about games and stuff? Do you know any of those stupid little games?" she asked, almost anxiously.

"Pin the tail on the donkey is about all I have."

"Should we get her a piñata?"

"I think she might be a little too young for that. I don't know how much I like the idea of our toddler blindfolded and swinging a baseball bat."

"Well, everyone could do that one."

"You know what, if you can get Cristina Yang to play piñata, I am all for this idea. But, Mer, I think she would seriously be happy just with the attention and the presents. It doesn't have to be—"

"Derek. Did you have birthday parties growing up? Like other ones where you didn't throw up and you had fun?"

"Well, yes, but…."

"Then Emily should have that. Your mom did that for you. I should do that for her."

"Ok," he agreed softly. "We'll do whatever you want."

"I was thinking…well, I was reading this toy store ad that came with the paper yesterday. I circled all these things that might be good, you know? It's hard to know what to get her because she's at this age and she's not really a baby anymore, but she's still little and…well, there was this baseball thing, like you can put the ball on this pole— "

"A tee," Derek supplied.

"Yeah! Yeah, a tee. So I was thinking that might be good. It's supposed to be for boys, I think, so they can practice hitting, but you like baseball. Well, you're a guy. But she can play with boy things, right? You know, feminism."

"She would love that."

"I think she would. And there's this set of doctor tools. I think it has a little plastic stethoscope and blood pressure cuff, things like that. It comes in a bag, and nobody has carried their medical supplies in a bag since 1873, but Emily would carry it around, don't you think?"

"I think she would. I also think she'd eventually want to know why it didn't come with a scalpel. I keep imagining the day when I will come home to find her in her room, cutting her stuffed animals open with a pair of scissors or something."

"I could see it," Meredith grinned proudly.

"Was there anything else you wanted to get her?"

"I was thinking something crafty. I want her holding smaller objects. She should be developing her fine motor skills."

"She's got plenty of crayons and paints and things like that. Is that what you were thinking?"

"No. Well, that, but they have these markers that apparently don't write anywhere except on this special paper that goes with it, so I was thinking maybe that?"

"So she wouldn't be able to color all over our kitchen counters?"

"Unless this paper they sell with it is made of granite, no."

"That's excellent. Add that to the list."

"And then maybe just a few new books. Like three? We should probably keep the bedtime stories somewhat fresh, you know?"

"For our sake if not hers," Derek agreed.

"I want you to pick those out, though. You have all those books that you used to read with you're your dad, so you should pick. Em," she interjected suddenly and much more loudly.

Emily squatted down, intensely focused on scooping the white froth of the water up with two hands and then letting it spill out through the cracks in her fingers. With the way she was positioned, it would have been easy for a wave to rush in and knock her down. It wouldn't even have to be a particularly big one. When she heard her name, she looked up sharply, back at Meredith.

"Did I say you could go in the ocean?" Meredith asked sternly.

Emily nodded, and went back to the difficult task of trying to pick up water with her hands.

"Emily," Meredith tried again. "I said you were not allowed to go in the ocean today. Remember? Come out now, please."

"I go in there, Mommy," Emily pleaded.

"No. Daddy and I said no, because the water is very strong today, remember? Maybe tomorrow you can go swimming, but not today."

Emily slunk out and focused her attention back on the sand. She barely walked a few more paces before she plopped down and started digging a hole with her hands, the way Derek had shown her.

"Em, you want to make a castle?" Derek asked.

She nodded. "Daddy, you can help me do it?"

"I will in one minute," Derek promised. "You start it. I'll be right there."

He and Meredith took a seat a little further back, on sand where the tide hadn't crept up and soaked yet. He felt comfortable inching closer to her now, and when he rested his hand on her knee, he didn't feel out of place. They watched Emily start to dig, and begin to form piles of sand around the hole. Well, Meredith watched Emily and Derek watched Meredith.

"Were you lonely growing up?" he asked.

She didn't answer right away. Instead, she stared straight ahead with her eyes focused on Emily. He barely caught it when she responded. The nod was barely a cock of the head, but it was there. It was definitely there.

"She's not going to be lonely, Meredith," Derek tried. Except maybe she would be. Maybe there would be times where she felt empty. But right now, no. Now, Emily was two years old and she was happy.

Derek eased himself forward and almost up, but before he could get to his feet and go to Emily, Meredith stopped him in his tracks.

"Do you ever worry…just all the time that you're not doing enough for her?" she asked timidly, her gaze still fixed on Emily.

He frowned. She worried all the time?

He worried about Emily every day since he knew she existed. He worried when she picked at her food that she wasn't eating enough. He worried about whether she would ever be potty trained. Even though he was a neurosurgeon, he worried when she had a cold about how much Tylenol to give her. But he didn't worry that she didn't know she was loved. He didn't worry that she felt neglected. The thought that he might not be enough for her had never crossed his mind. He just didn't think about things like that. But Meredith did.

He sank back down on to the sand next to Meredith and waited. She dragged an index finger through the sand, and wiped the grains that stuck to her off on her pants. She sighed, and made eye contact with him for a second before she looked down again.

"I don't know how to do this," she admitted.

"Yes, you do, Meredith. You're doing it."

"People have to just do it, Derek. They have kids and then they have this responsibility to them to be the parent and take care of them. They have to do it. And we see people come through the hospital all the time; you know some want to do it more than others. It doesn't mean anyone knows how to do it right."

"It's the wanting to that makes the difference," Derek agreed.

"I just love her so much. I never thought I could love anything as much as I loved surgery. Then I never thought I could love anything as much as I loved you. But Emily," she drew a breath.

"She's Emily," Derek nodded knowingly.

"Yeah," Meredith sighed. "She's mine…and I can't shake the thought that I might be failing her in some way that I don't even know about, just because I'm me and she's her, and who knows if I'm going to be enough. Even with all the trying in the world. She should have everything, Derek."

"I know. She will, Mer."

"She should have a birthday party."

"She will," Derek assured her. "She'll have everything. Even if it means we're eating chocolate cake for the next three months."

Meredith laughed a little at that, but fell silent. Emily had wandered ankle-deep into the surf again. She turned around with a wry smile, and looked at Derek like she was quite literally testing the waters. Derek frowned sternly, and shook his head. Emily's expression sank, but she reluctantly followed Derek's pointed finger out of the ocean and back on to the sand.

"I look at her sometimes and I wonder if I was already in over my head with her. When I'm at work, I think about her all the time and I worry about her, but I can't leave because, you know, I have patients. I think I'm trying to do the same things as my mom did, and look what happened."

Look at me. Look at how long it took me to recover from that. Look at how I am still recovering.

Derek nodded, urging her to keep going. He kept one eye on Emily, and his hand found the small of her back. She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands. She stayed like that for a minute, quiet and suddenly unable to look him in the eye, like the words coming out of her mouth were the most private, shameful confession.

"I don't want to mess her up, Derek. I love her too much."

"Meredith," he murmured, but she stopped him before he could continue.

"Sometimes I think maybe she didn't want to try," Meredith nodded to herself tearfully. "And other times I think maybe she wanted to but it wasn't enough. The weird thing is, I think the second one scares me more. It's different—not loving her enough to try and not trying hard enough for it to be enough. Because at least with the first one, you know. You know it's not enough, so when it's not, it's not a surprise."

He felt like he should say something, to reassure his wife before she fell apart in his arms. He watched her wring her hands a bit before she crossed her arms protectively across her stomach.

"You loved your mom," Derek murmured, as if to question without prying, even though he was almost sure that he already knew.

"Yeah, I really did," Meredith said tearfully.

"Emily loves you," he said emphatically. "So much."

She nodded. "I know. She loves me."

"Meredith, she worships the ground you walk on. She cries for you when you're not here. She runs to you when you get home. Emily thinks she is the luckiest kid in the world just because you're you."

"It will be harder for her to love me later though. If I'm not enough, it will be harder. She won't understand why."

"How can you see how she feels about you and think you might not be enough for her? She adores you."

"I just want her to be ok."

"She will be, Meredith."

"Daddy!" Emily interjected. She heaped another handful of sand on top of the pile she had started to make. "Help me!"

"I'm coming, Bean," Derek promised. "I'm just talking to Mommy right now."

"Ok," she replied in a sing-song voice.

"Meredith," he soothed. "She's ok. Everything is ok."

"It's not," she said. "You want more."

He opened his mouth to say something, anything, but she stopped him before he started.

"Don't say that you don't, because I know you. I know that you want more. And it's not that I don't. Because I do. I want to give you more. But I look at her and sometimes it's all I can do to…"

"Make sure she has what she needs," Derek finished.

"Yeah," she sighed. "Derek, I wanted that baby. And it was just one more thing I couldn't give you. It was another thing I couldn't give her. So then I started thinking that it would be good for me to just focus on her. If I can raise a daughter," she trailed off. "She's here already. And she needs me. I want to be a surgeon. I do still really want that. But I want to be her mom more. So I'm just…."

"We'll do the birthday party," he assured her.

"Ok," she sighed,

"And we'll do hats. Kathleen used to have this tiara that the girls wore on their birthdays. Corrine doesn't wear it anymore, she thinks she's too old, but Maddy still likes it. We could get Emily one of those."

"She would like that," Meredith said. "She's on that princess kick."

"You know that bakery on Third? They have those cinnamon things you like? I'll see if they can do a cake."

"Just one of those sheet ones. With the flowers," Meredith said. "It doesn't have to be anything big."

"I'll tell them to do extra flowers. Do you want me to see if my mother can fly out?" he asked.

"Her family should be there," Meredith nodded.

"We'll pick a weekend, and I'll call her."

"Ok."

"And people from work. We'll have it on a day when Cristina can be there."

"Yeah," Meredith agreed.

His hand fit comfortably in the curve between where her ribs ended and her pelvis began. He curled his fingers around her just for a moment, and then swept them lightly across her back. He did want more. He couldn't deny that. Maybe he would never have it, but to at least know why was more than what he had.

In the time they had spent talking, Emily had grown tired of waiting. She stood at the bank of the water, and let the aftershocks of the waves ripple over her bare feet. Derek eased himself to his feet and went to the site of the sand castle construction.

"Em, I'm going to help you," Derek called. "Come over here. We'll build."

Emily shook her head. "Daddy, I going swimmin'."

"No, you're not," Derek reminded her. "Mommy and I already told you not today."

"I sink that I go in there," Emily suggested, pointing towards the horizon.

"Emily, the ocean is too dangerous today. Let's build a sandcastle instead."

"I don't like that," Emily pouted.

"Emily," Derek warned. When he started to walk towards her, she began to cry. She plopped down in the wet sand, and when the water crept forward, she smacked at it with both hands. He squatted down next to her, putting himself on her level. "Em, Mommy and I want to make a sandcastle with you. You are not allowed to swim today. We'll do that another day, ok?"

Emily shook her head rapidly back and forth, and dissolved into loud sobs.

"Do you want to finish your sandcastle?" Derek asked.

"No," she said defiantly.

"Well, then I guess we have to go home," Derek said.

"No," she screeched, much louder this time.

Meredith joined them at the water's edge.

"Em, Daddy and I said no. And Daddy told you that you can build a sandcastle with us, or we can go home and do something else. You are not swimming today."

"I am swimmin'," Emily said, her voice tear-soaked and full.

"No, you're not," Meredith remained firm. "Now, do you want to finish your sandcastle? You already started it."

"No," she said, and scooted further towards the water.

"Ok, let's go home then," Derek said. He took her hand, and eased himself back to his feet, but she refused to stand up with him.

"I not do that, Daddy," Emily yelled.

"Emily," Meredith said sternly. "Daddy said it's time to go, so it's time to go."

"No," she screamed, shaking her head.

Derek picked her up, and held her against his chest with both arms. At first, she made herself go rigid and try to wriggle out of his grasp, but he didn't let her go. On the way back to the house, she cried at the injustice of it all, at the fact that the ocean was right there and she was not allowed to swim in it. Eventually, her legs curled around his torso and her arms wrapped around his neck and her shrieking sobs died down into intermittent whimpers.

After that day, they decided together that maybe they needed to take a break from the beach, at least until they could take full advantage of it again. Since then, they tried a few different things—a bike ride through town, a picnic lunch on the living room floor, painting seashells on the back porch—but none of it had engaged Emily like swimming did.

On the third overcast morning, Derek got up early, just after six. Wrapped in the sheets next to him, Meredith snored slightly, her mouth hanging open a little. Her hair delicately fanned out over her pillow. Derek noticed that like Emily, her hair had gotten lighter too. He lay there for a few minutes and allowed himself to wake up naturally, relishing in taking the morning slow. Rolling on to his side, he propped himself up on one elbow and watched her sleep for a while.

He could have touched her. He could have pulled himself flush against her, laced his fingers with hers, buried his face in the crook of her neck, breathed her in, and gone back to sleep. He could have sneaked closer to her, kissed her bare shoulders and the back of her neck until she woke up, and mumbled dirty things in her ear until she turned around.

He got out of bed. She stirred a little when the mattress shifted under her, but she never woke.

He padded barefoot around the house, poking his head in every room for no particular reason. Upstairs, downstairs, back upstairs again. He peeked into Emily's room, easing the door open just a few inches until he saw the gray light stream through cracks in the blinds and Emily asleep in her bed. She had kicked all the covers off and her feet dangled over her bed rail. Her blue Seattle Grace Hospital t-shirt rode up over her stomach and she clutched Bear with one hand.

Downstairs, he made a pot of coffee, and drank the first cup black, alone on the back porch. He stretched out on the chaise lounge and sipped quietly. He appreciated the utter solitude of the moment, the absolute silence of being alone.

A woman jogged past him, wearing tight blue yoga pants and a white sports bra. Her long black hair was tied back in a ponytail and stuffed under a baseball cap. A massive golden retriever pulled her along the damp sand by his thick leather leash. Linda, the accountant from Portland, who spent weekends in a house three blocks down with her husband and twin ten-year-old sons. Scout, the dog who, when Emily gingerly petted him a few mornings before, licked her hand and made her laugh. Linda waved hastily, and he nodded hello.

"Good morning, Derek!" she called up to him. She slowed down just long enough to ask him, "How's your daughter?"

"She's good! Still asleep," he replied.

"Bring her by sometime," she offered breathlessly. "Scout would love it."

"We will," he assured her.

"Great. Have a good one," she puffed, and resumed her old pace, running past him.

He watched her disappear down the beach, growing smaller and smaller until he could no longer see her, and turned his attention back to the ocean. The little sunlight there was that morning rippled across the water. Waves rolled in more turbulent and rough than he recalled seeing in a long time. They were louder, bigger, and crashed onto shore violently. Clouds grouped themselves in heavy clusters on the horizon. The rain was coming in.

He turned around with the rattling of the screen door. Emily clenched her fingers around the handle and tried to pry it open. She still looked a little sleepy, with locks of hair sticking out at odd angles and droopy eyes only half-open. She wore only her t-shirt and a pull-up diaper, and had carried Bear downstairs with her.

"Daddy," she whined when she couldn't get the door to open.

"Hey, Bean," Derek smiled. He opened the door for her and swept her up into his arms, sinking back down onto his chair. He sat up a little more, and cradled her by his side. She gripped him like a bear cub, resting her head on his chest.

"Did you have a good night?" he asked, even though he knew it would take her a few minutes to perk up and feel like talking.

She nodded.

He held onto her, and supported her with the crook of his right elbow, letting her wake up slowly. Leaning down, he kissed her forehead.

"Daddy, your hairs are scratchin' me," she mumbled, and reached up with both hands without turning to look at him. She cupped his face and rubbed her palms flat up and down his stubble before she pushed his face away.

"Sorry," he apologized.

She slung her legs over his lap and danced Bear across the convex curve of her belly. Derek gripped one of her feet with his left hand, squeezing it gently at first, but then just holding it while they sat there.

The beach was completely deserted at this early hour of the morning. Debris scattered across the shore—seaweed, driftwood, shell fragments that the water carried in overnight. Heavy, white frothy waves thundered on to the shore, one right after the other.

"That the ocean," Emily pointed straight ahead.

"Yeah, that's it," Derek agreed.

"We not swimmin' in there today?"

"No, we're not. See how rough it is?"

"We just lookin' at it?" she asked timidly.

"Yeah, we're just looking at it," he murmured. Not touching. Not diving in. Just looking. For now, at least, while the waters were still stormy.

Emily shifted; she rolled on her side and latched on to him. Parading Bear across his chest, up his arm, across his face, she smiled and patted his hair. He drew her close, and rubbed her back a few times. Up and down, back and forth. He sipped his coffee, and placed the mug on the ground next to him.

If this was all there was, just him and Emily and Meredith, would that be ok? Emily, who made him so full sometimes that he felt like he could burst, who traced her fingers over his skin as light as a breath—she was enough. More than enough, actually. Holding her now, he felt, despite everything that had happened, staggeringly happy, and proud in a way he couldn't fully articulate. It was not that Emily wasn't enough. It wasn't that she didn't make him happy, because she did—breathlessly, achingly so. She was his firstborn. He'd waited for her for so long. Emily Grace, five pounds, three ounces. Red-faced and screaming, robust and healthy and swaddled in his arms. He had waited so long. Years. She was more than enough.

It was just—he literally closed his eyes for this—when they lost the baby, he had already welcomed that new person into his life. He or she (there had been a DNA test, but they had never asked for the results) could have been curled up on his chest right now alongside Emily. The exhilarating possibility of it all stunned him, thrilled him, when he first found out that Meredith was pregnant. If his family was complete with Emily, it became all the more so then. Now that it had happened, he couldn't imagine his life any other way. Derek Shepherd was a father of two.

When it ended, he felt like the rug had been pulled out from under him. It didn't matter that he had never held the baby. It didn't matter that there was no birth, no name, no future. It was still something real that he no longer had. Kathleen told him this was normal. She'd tried to comfort him when he called her one night a few weeks after it happened, while Meredith was still at the hospital. He'd choked and sobbed and sputtered, and she sat patiently on the other end of the line and listened. Derek, she'd said. Derek. It was real. This is a loss. Meredith feels this way too. She's grieving. You can feel sad. It was sudden. I know. Like Dad.

When you add something to what may have already been complete, when you add something to what you are thankful and lucky to have…when you suddenly have this abundance of joy, it eventually becomes normal. It weaves itself into the fibers of your life. At first, it is more, but then it simply becomes part of the whole. That part quietly becomes so vital, even though it started out as a wonderful something extra to an already full life. And when it is taken away, a big, gaping hole is left where the part once was.

Meredith wanted more too. He begged her to think about it without knowing that she did think about it. She thought about it all the time. Maybe there wouldn't be more. But he took comfort in knowing that they finally understood each other. Meredith knew what he wanted, and he knew why she was hesitating. And what's more, he didn't simply guess. She told him. She sat with him and told him how it hurt, and why.

He could make this work with her. He wanted to make this work with her. It was just—if she didn't change, could he reevaluate what he thought his life would be like? Would it be ok—could he be happy—if there was never more?

"Hey, Em?" He nudged her a little. She looked up at him expectantly. "I love you."

"Daddy, I hungry."

"Ok," he laughed. "Let's get you some breakfast."

The milk had spoiled overnight. It was kind of hard to make cereal or pancakes or anything without milk. Sitting in a kitchen that had been permeated by the nauseating smell of it, with a two-year-old pinching her nose and saying, "That's stinky, Daddy" didn't exactly make the situation better. Derek poured the milk down the sink, flushed it down with a blast of hot water, and opened the kitchen window a few inches to get some air into the room. He put a pair of sandals on Emily, and piled her into the car. The trip to the store would only take five minutes.

The entire trip took fifteen minutes. The normal weekend crowd that would have clogged the check-out lines at the convenience store was sparser than usual. Not as many people were willing to drive what was often several hours each way if the news had forecasted a washout weekend. Still, it was difficult to estimate how long you'd be gone if you never really stopped to think that you had to go both there and back and timing it was something you'd never done before.

He got out of the car Emily in one arm and a gallon of milk in the other, he nudged the front door open with his elbow.

Meredith was awake and curled up on the living room couch. The television was on but she wasn't really watching it. She cupped a steaming mug of coffee with both hands and when the screen door rattled open, she jerked to attention.

"You're back," she sighed, quickly, like she wasn't planning to actually say those words.

He frowned, and remembered that he had forgotten to leave any indication of where he was going.

"I'm back."

The rest of the day passed quietly. They took Emily to the park, and Derek took pictures while Meredith pushed her on the swings. The camera changed hands while Derek helped Emily cross the monkey bars. They ate an early lunch at home, and the three of them curled up together in Derek and Meredith's bed for a leisurely afternoon nap.

Derek didn't sleep much though. Instead, spent a good deal of time reading his book and watching Meredith and Emily asleep together, and the way Meredith's arm draped tenderly over Emily. Emily was slumped against Meredith's body, not on top of her but close enough, with her hand fiercely clutching a lock of Meredith's hair. She had to pull it when she rolled over. She had to. Emily was the most restless sleeper he'd ever seen, and whenever she slept with Meredith, she had to hold on to her hair. He wasn't sure why, but she'd done it since infancy and just never given the habit up as the years passed. Emily had been known to start at one end of the bed when she went to sleep and wake up on the other. Meredith had to be woken up constantly with this arrangement. There was no way Emily could be peaceful enough not to wake her. But she had never said a single word about it, he realized. Never. Because Emily did it to feel safe. And that was reason enough for Meredith to allow it. Once, in the course of two hours, Emily started to roll away from Meredith, taking her hair with her. Meredith barely woke, not enough to realize that Derek was already awake anyway, and pulled Emily's sleeping body back towards her, flush against her own. Her hand found Emily's back and she murmured something incomprehensible to the child before drifting back to sleep herself.

After they woke up, Meredith, armed with the week's circular for Toys R Us, left Derek and Emily at home to do some super-secret birthday shopping. Emily's birthday wasn't for another two weeks, but she had said something about leaving plenty of time to get what she wanted, and Derek didn't question it. The nearest Toys R Us was at least forty minutes away, so she wanted to try the local toy store in town first, and then would go out there if need be. She said she would be back for dinner.

In the half an hour it would take Derek to prepare pasta, heat leftover sauce, toss a salad, and warm a loaf of bread, he had hoped that Emily would busy herself coloring at the table or playing with a few toys on the living room floor. In a perfect world, he wouldn't have a two-year-old underfoot in the kitchen as he tried to fix dinner. However, Emily didn't seem to care about any notion of a perfect world. She started to color a little bit at the table, but her effort was halfhearted, just a few scribbles across one sheet of paper. The project lasted barely a few minutes before she wandered away from the table and further into the kitchen. She started to cling to Derek, standing next to him and much too close to the stove, and the large pot of boiling water, for his liking.

"Emily, why don't you go color a picture for Mommy so she can see it when she comes home?" Derek suggested as he added a box of spaghetti to the pot.

"I want you to hold me, Daddy," Emily whined, tugging on his pant leg insistently.

"I can't hold you right now, Em," Derek replied. "I'm making dinner near a hot stove."

"Daddy," she tried again.

"Em," Derek sighed, "What is it?"

"Hold me," she whimpered, stretching her arms up for him.

Derek stirred the pasta once more and gathered Emily up. Her arms immediately wrapped around his neck as she nestled into his body and started to cry quietly. "What's the matter, Bean?" he asked, rubbing her back as he sat down at the table with her. "You're alright. Let's quiet down and you can tell me what's wrong. Do you miss Mommy?"

Emily shook her head and gripped him tighter. Derek just sat there for a few minutes, whispering quietly in her ear that it was ok and to tell him what was wrong, before he felt her stomach lurch. He managed to react quickly enough to sit her more upright and away from him, just in time for her to vomit all over the kitchen floor and dissolve into loud, scared sobs.

"Bean," Derek said sympathetically as Emily's cries punctuated the air. "Not feeling very good, huh?"

Emily shook her head, tears staining her cheeks as they spilled down. He didn't let go of her despite the fact that she had vomit all down her front, some of which had gotten on him as well. "I not feel good," Emily finally whispered tearfully.

"You're ok, Em," he comforted. "You're ok. Let's get you in the tub, how's that sound? Can you stand up for Daddy?" he asked, stripping off her sundress and shoes and just leaving them on the floor for now. He left everything, stopping only to turn the stove off before he carried her upstairs to run a warm bath.

He would clean everything up later as soon as Emily was feeling better. "Emily, I want you to tell Daddy if you don't feel well from now on," he instructed gently, watching her nod in response as she sat miserably in the bathtub. "I'm sorry I didn't listen to you before, ok?"

"Daddy," Emily said with a wavering voice as she tried to stand up in the tub and reach for him.

"Em," he replied, quickly taking her hand so she wouldn't slip but turning her around so that when she got sick again, she'd get it all in the tub.

Emily vomited violently into the shallow water, her tiny stomach pushing the rest of her lunch out. It was probably the most vulnerable he'd ever seen her, the way her lips curved into a sad pout and she rubbed tears away with one hand while she tried to climb out of the tub and into his embrace with the other.

"Can Mommy come home now?" she asked Derek in broken, tearful speech.

"Mommy's going to be home as soon as she can," Derek promised.

"I want Mommy," she cried.

"I know, Bean. But I'm here. It's ok."

He lifted her out of the tub and wrapped her in one of the towels folded by the tub. "How are you feeling now? Any better?" he asked as his arms encircled her protectively. He made no move to get up. He simply drained the tub and sat there on the bathroom floor with her, trying to comfort her and stop her from crying.

"Daddy," she sobbed over and over, digging her nails into the skin of his chest and resting her head on his shoulder.

"Emily," he soothed. "It's ok. Sometimes our bellies hurt us so they want to get rid of what's inside so it won't hurt anymore."

Explaining brain maladies to a multitude of Seattle Grace patients was routine. Head trauma, brain bleed, blood clot, craniotomy. Each case was a little different, but he had never met a patient who marched bravely into brain surgery with no reservations. There was always just the slightest shadow of doubt. Blind faith didn't exist in neurosurgery. The only time he had ever experienced complete and total trust is when he held Emily, knowing that there was no doubt in her mind that he had all the answers to everything.

"I not be sick anymore?" she asked.

"I hope not, Bean," he replied.

"Daddy, you can hold me?"

"Yeah, I'll hold you," he whispered, kissing the crown of her head. "Shhh," he soothed. Her hand gripped the space between his thumb and index finger. "That's my girl," he repeated, and after a few moments, Derek was able to coax her sobs into broken, sporadic whimpers. He pulled the towel more tightly around her, making sure that it covered her so she was warm enough. Glancing down, he saw that she wasn't asleep; she had simply exhausted herself into silence.

Sitting quietly on the bathroom floor, Derek lost track of time. He wanted to call Meredith as soon as Emily had gotten sick, but hadn't wanted to leave Emily alone. Now, he figured that Meredith would be home any minute anyway. He weighed whether or not to tell her when she got home that Emily had cried for her, but before he could decide for sure, he heard the front door open and close and footsteps downstairs. Still holding Emily flush against his chest, he tried not to move for fear of disturbing her.

"Mer," he called softly. His voice didn't carry all the way down, but when he heard Meredith jog up the stairs, he could only assume that she had seen the kitchen. "Meredith," he repeated.

"Hey," Meredith said, entering the bathroom and finding her husband and daughter leaning against the wall. "What happened?" she asked concernedly. "Is she ok?"

"Stomach virus, I think," Derek said. "She was fine all afternoon, and as soon as I started dinner, she got clingy and teary, and she got sick all over the kitchen floor. In the tub too," he said.

"Em," Meredith sighed sympathetically, "How's my girl?" She perched on the edge of the tub, and Derek gingerly tried to get up. She closed her eyes for a moment, in frustration more than anything else, like she couldn't believe she wasn't there for her through this from the beginning, like she couldn't believe that even without work to get in the way, she missed the one time when Emily needed her. "Here, I'll take her," Meredith offered.

Carefully, Derek eased Emily into Meredith's arms, smiling wistfully as Emily's hands immediately clutched the fabric of Meredith's shirt and her face nuzzled against her mother's chest. "Mommy," she murmured, swallowing back a tired yawn.

Meredith's hands immediately, and so instinctively, cupped Emily's head and back, trying to communicate an unspoken security. "Emily," her lips leaked out as they pressed gently on Emily's forehead.

"I'll be right back," Derek promised as he got quickly to his feet and left the room. A few minutes later, he returned with a pull-up diaper and a pair of pajamas. "How did everything go?" Derek asked, expertly strapping the diaper on his child while barely moving her.

"I got almost everything," she said. "There was this party store right next to the T-O-Y store, so I got some stuff there too. I'm sorry, I kind of maybe went a little overboard," she told Derek, as she helped him put pajamas on a finally groggy Emily.

"It's ok," he said.

"Derek, let's give her some Pepto-Bismol," Meredith suggested. "Em, will you take some medicine for Mommy? That's my good girl," she praised when Emily nodded. Derek opened the bathroom cabinet and poured the correct dosage of the medicine into a tiny plastic cup, passing it to Meredith before squatting down in front of Emily.

"Drink this, Em," Meredith instructed gently.

"I not be sick anymore?" Emily asked Meredith with hopeful eyes.

"I hope not," Meredith replied, holding the cup to her lips and coaxing the pink liquid into her mouth.

Emily gingerly swallowed the last of it, leaning her exhausted frame against Meredith's body for support. Derek smiled comfortingly at his daughter, his hand touching her face briefly. "Meredith," he warned a moment later, when he noticed Emily's expression change drastically in an instant.

Meredith reacted instinctively, immediately on her feet and holding her daughter over the toilet, just before she heaved pink and harsh into it. She took a sip of the paper cup of water Derek offered her, but she had barely swallowed when it came right back up. Meredith held her over the toilet with both hands, one under the backs of her legs and one around her chest and under her armpits. She tried not to jostle her and just waited, whispering soothing words until Emily seemed like she was done. She shifted Emily in her arms and Derek noticed that the toddler was glazed in sweat. She looked exhausted.

"Mommy, you fix my belly all up," Emily begged tearfully as Meredith pulled her back towards her and wiped her mouth with the now discarded towel. She clawed her way up Meredith's torso like a koala bear, tears dripping onto the fabric of her shirt.

"I'm going to try, Em," Meredith promised.

"You can fix it, Mommy," Emily replied.

"Em," Meredith soothed sympathetically. Derek noticed the hitch in Meredith's voice as well. "I'm going to sit with you and hold you until your belly feels better, how's that?" she asked, settling onto the floor with Emily with her back against the tub. She looked up at Derek. Get Bear, she mouthed.

Derek left and returned a few minutes later, having changed his shirt, with the stuffed animal and a blanket. He sat down next to Meredith and covered Emily with the soft piece of pink thermal. Meredith tugged on the edges of the fabric, pulling it securely around Emily's body. She cradled Emily like an infant, resting Emily's head in the crook of her arm and tucking Bear in between them. "Sometimes we get sick," she murmured, trying to explain. "And we usually feel much better in the morning, but when we don't, it's our mom and dad's job to sit with us until we do, so that's what Daddy and I are going to do, ok?"

"Ok," Emily whispered, taking hold of Meredith's hand.

"It's ok," Meredith continued. "Nothing's going to happen to you." She pressed a hand and then her lips against Emily's forehead, trying to detect a fever. "It's ok," she repeated.

"Bean, how bout we tell you a story?" Derek suggested, taking one of Emily's tiny feet in his hands.

Emily shook her head. "Don't leave, Daddy."

"I won't leave, I'll just tell you one that's in my head," Derek assured her. "Not from a book."

"Ok," she agreed.

"One day, a long time ago, there was a prince sitting in a restaurant. He just moved to Seattle from a place called New York. Know where that is, Em?" he asked, smiling when Emily shook her head no. "It's all the way on the other side of the country. We have to take an airplane to get there.

Out of the corner of his eye, he watched the expression on Meredith's face change from worry to amusement. As the words flowed out of his mouth, warm and rich, recognition flickered across her face. She looked up, away from Emily, and at him as he started to tell their daughter the story of them. A hesitant smile crossed her features. It was fleeting, but it was there for a slice of real time before she turned her attention back to Emily.

Derek continued, "The prince was very lonely and sad because he didn't have a princess. And he was sitting in this restaurant wondering if he would ever be happy again. While he was sitting there drinking his water," he stopped as Meredith silently rolled her eyes with a good-natured grin. "While he was drinking his water," he resumed, "He saw the prettiest princess in the whole world sitting in the same exact restaurant that he was in. He didn't know anything about the princess, not even her name. He only knew that she was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. And even though he was sad, he wanted to meet the princess, because he thought maybe she could make him happy. So he got up from where he was sitting to see if he could talk to her."

"And the princess didn't really want anyone to talk to her because she was very lonely and scared," Meredith chimed in, the eye contact impenetrable between her and Emily.

"Why?" Emily asked curiously.

"Since she was a grown-up, her mommy didn't live with her anymore," Meredith replied. "So she was all by herself."

"Where's her daddy?" Emily asked.

"She never had one."

"Oh," Emily sighed. Satisfied with that answer, she snuggled against her mother and looked expectantly at Derek.

"So the prince sat next to the princess," Derek continued, "And he told her that he had never been to Seattle before, but he got a new job so he had to move there. He was sad to move away from New York, but he had to leave."

"Why?" Emily asked again.

"He just wanted to start over, Em," Derek explained gently. "Anyway, the prince thought the princess was the prettiest princess he had ever seen."

"But the princess didn't want to talk to the prince because she was so sad. She just wanted to be by herself," Meredith added.

"Cause talkin' to strangers isn't allowed?" Emily asked, her voice catching on the last syllable and rising a bit as she shifted in Meredith's arms.

"Yeah," Meredith smiled, "No talking to strangers. Shhh," she soothed before Emily could start crying again. She smoothed Emily's sweaty hair off her face, and lightly grazed her fingers over Emily's stomach. "You're ok. It's ok. Mommy's here. Keep telling the story," she urged Derek.

"The prince wanted to talk to the princess very much, but he wasn't sure how to get her to listen," Derek continued. "She didn't want to talk to him at all. But then the prince told the princess that she should talk to him. And she asked why," he recalled fondly.

"And the prince said 'I'm someone you need to get to know to love,'" Meredith finished. "So the princess thought that the prince sounded a little bit stupid."

"Don't say 'stupid,' Mommy," Emily instructed gently, getting groggier and groggier with each word.

Derek laughed. "Maybe the prince was a little bit stupid."

"He was, a little bit," Meredith smirked. "So then the prince wanted to know about the princess."

"But she said that she was just a girl in a…restaurant," Derek amended himself, grinning in spite of himself as he watched an amused smile creep discreetly across Meredith's lips, even though she was focusing her attention entirely on her daughter.

"But the prince said that was ok, because he was just a guy in a restaurant."

"And soon, they fell in love." Derek squeezed Emily's foot in his hand. "They fell in love and lived happily ever after."

Emily nodded, in appreciation of an ending she expected. "Mommy," she whimpered, reaching for Meredith.

"It's ok," Meredith repeated over and over, rubbing her palms over Emily's arms and then across her forehead. "I'm going to put you in your bed, ok? And when you wake up in the morning, you'll be all better."

Derek helped Meredith to her feet, and she carried Emily to her bedroom. Meredith covered her with the pink blanket, and kissed her forehead again. She squatted down and smoothed Emily's hair back over and over, whispering things Derek couldn't quite hear completely, though he caught a lot of "I love yous" in Meredith's buttery, warm tone that was usually reserved just for their daughter. He left them there alone for a moment, and went downstairs to start cleaning up the mess in the kitchen.

He drained the water out of the pot, and dumped the half-cooked pasta in the trash. He just started on washing the dirty dishes in the sink when Meredith came back downstairs. "She's asleep for now," she sighed, pushing the loose locks of hair off her face. "I don't know if she's done, but I left a trashcan next to the bed for her."

"Will she know to throw up in there?" Derek wondered aloud.

"It's worth a shot," she replied, gathering up Emily's soiled clothes off the floor to put in the wash. "I'm only going to be a few minutes down here anyway. Do you have your shirt?"

"Oh…yeah, it's in the laundry room already."

"I'll put it in the wash with her dress," she offered, heading for the stairs.

He nodded. "Meredith—"

Loud coughing and a gag coming from upstairs interrupted him. "Mommy!" Emily cried.

Meredith paused for just a second on the stairs, lingering on the third step and waiting for him to finish what he was going to say. Derek shook his head. "Nothing," he said. "Go."

Meredith bounded up the stairs, and into Emily's room. Derek could hear Emily's fearful sobs and Meredith's muffled voice, drifting down the stairs in quieter, soothing tones.

Derek scrubbed the floor and the kitchen table, and somewhere in that time, the whole house grew quiet. Emily must have settled again. When he finished, he went upstairs. Emily's dress was simply left on the floor. He gathered it up, along with the sheets off Emily's bed and his shirt from the laundry room, and put everything in the wash together.

In the master bedroom, he found Emily lying in bed, and Meredith right next to her, sitting on the edge of an armchair she had dragged over from the corner of the room. The sheets were bunched down at the foot of the bed, and Emily laid more towards the middle, curled up in the fetal position. She was naked except for her diaper, and the pajamas she had been wearing were balled up on the floor, but she was asleep.

"How's she doing?" he asked quietly, perching on the chair's armrest with his right leg bent and folded in. He wrapped an arm around Meredith's body, and she put her hand on his knee.

"She just got sick again," Meredith said. "All over her bed."

"I know, I just put the sheets in the wash."

"Thank you," she murmured appreciatively.

"Mer," he murmured. "It's going to be ok."

She nodded, and gently squeezed the muscle where his knee met his thigh.

Sighing, she looked up at him, blinking back a few exhausted tears, and smiled. He would never forget the way her voice caught on her words as she spoke.

"You turned it into a fairy tale."