Derek hurried home with a bag full of pregnancy tests; one of each brand from the drug store on the main road. He found his wife where he had left her, still sitting on the bathroom floor. No words were exchanged when she rose, took the bag from Derek and closed the door.

The three or four minutes she left him alone in the small trailer were agony. Derek paced up and down the short hallway before collapsing onto the bed. Eventually the bathroom door slid open and Meredith stepped out. She was biting her lip, but met his eyes.

"They...uh...we need to wait."

Derek nodded and moved up the bed so he was partially leaning against the headboard. "How long?"

"Two minutes, three minutes and five minutes. They're all a little different and...well, there's a lot of them."

He cracked a smile and was relieved to see Meredith return it and head towards him, crawling from the foot of the bed to rest beside him, her arm draping across his chest.

He pressed his lips against the top of her head. "It's going to be okay."

"You've said that a few times."

"And I'm going to keep saying it until you believe it."

Meredith sighed, her fingers curling around the fabric of his shirt. "I would know, right? If I'm pregnant I should feel it."

Derek closed his arms around his wife. "If you are pregnant you've barely had any symptoms. There's no reason for you to know." The question was a little easier to address now that he had had some time to process the situation. After pulling on the clothes he had worn the day before, he had jumped into his car and sped into the small town about ten minutes from them. And as fast as he had asked his car to go, his brain had been racing even faster. He loved his wife desperately and had never been more certain of his life decisions that had led him to marrying her. And they wanted kids. He desperately wanted kids.

He and Addison had originally planned to have kids. After med school. After internship. After residency. After they had settled as attendings. Always after. And as after gradually melded into never, Derek had conceded to the fact the he would likely never be a father.

But then he had met Meredith. And the ache had started up again. The ache to hold his newborn child in his hands; to realize a love that didn't exist outside of a parent-child bond. And he wanted to experience all of that with Meredith.

Almost a year ago, while flying home from their first visit to New York for Thanksgiving, Meredith had told him she was warming up to the kids idea. A few months later, a discussion had revealed she was leaning towards wanting kids more and more. And the day before their wedding, she had told him she was sure.

They were both sure. They both wanted this to happen.

Just not necessarily right now.

Their conversations had never gone further than wanting kids. How many? How far apart? Starting when? How long would she take off work? How long would he take off work? Daycare? School? Religion, beliefs and rules? They hadn't talked about anything.

And as much as Derek ached for a having a baby with Meredith, he knew all of those things were important to think about. They had been married less than six months. She was only in her third year of residency.

"I'm not talking about symptoms, Derek," she spoke up, cutting of his train of thought. "I mean emotionally, or whatever. I should feel it."

"Kathleen didn't know she was pregnant with Megan until she was almost thirteen weeks," he offered.

This seemed to appease his wife. She sighed and relaxed against him. Megan was a great kid and was obviously loved very much by her parents, as were all of the Shepherd grandchildren. Not knowing in the first weeks of pregnancy didn't automatically mean the kid would grow up feeling unwanted, unworthy and neglected. Like Meredith had.

He rubbed his hand across her back. "It's been at least two minutes. Maybe even three."

"I want to wait for all of them to be finished."

"Okay." It wouldn't be easy to wait another two minutes, but he would do anything she asked of him. "Are you still feeling nauseous?"

She shook her head against his shoulder. "I think it's the adrenaline."

"Good." He kissed her head again, fighting down his own adrenaline surge and anxiety. As much as he wanted this, he refused to let himself want it yet. Not until they knew.

Silence fell between them for a long moment.

"It's probably been five minutes," Meredith finally spoke.

"Mmm-hmm," he agreed, making no move to get up. He would make a move when she did.

She lifted her head to meet his eyes. Hers were moist, but she wasn't crying. He could make out a smorgasbord of emotions on her face. Anxiety. Fear. Hope. Love. Uncertainty. Longing. Vulnerability.

He ran his fingers through her hair. "I'm here," he whispered. "No matter what the answer, I will be here."

"I know," she said meekly, and despite all the fear and uncertainty in her eyes, he knew she was telling the truth.

"I love you." He couldn't not say it in that moment, with her eyes practically oozing vulnerability.

"You too." She closed her eyes for a moment, her hand still clutching to his shirt, and when she re-opened her eyes, she spoke. "What do you want to answer to be?"

He released a breath of surprise, not having been expected to be asked. He had expected to find out one way or another, and then react and go from there. "I'm not sure," he answered honestly.

She nodded, her eyes telling him she understood and felt the same way. "We want kids."

"We do."

"But we never talked about when to have them."

"We didn't."

She sniffed. "This is scary."

He sat upright and pulled her into a hug. "It is scary," he agreed. "But we'll get through it. If it's positive, then we'll be having a baby. It may be a little sooner than we expected, but it won't change how much we love them. And if it's negative, then we'll talk about when we want to start trying."

She sniffed again. "I don't know what I'd do without you, Derek." It was a rare time that she would admit something like that. She was good and confident with declarations of love, but verbalizing just how invested she had become in their relationship was another thing all together.

He smirked, touched at her sincerity and offering her a lighter topic, knowing she was only comfortable talking about it if she pushed it further. "If you didn't have me, you probably wouldn't be in this situation... We do have a lot of sex..."

Meredith giggled. "Probably more than our fair share."

"Not that we should be thinking about cutting back or anything..."

She giggled again. "But if I am pregnant we should probably be a bit more...choosy about where we have sex. It's probably not appropriate for a pregnant lady to-" She cut herself off. "Crap."

"What?"

"I had my period last month."

"So?"

"So, it means if I am pregnant I'm about two weeks along."

"And?"

She rolled her eyes. "Two weeks ago I snuck into your lecture and we had sex on your desk in your office."

"Oh."

"We're horribly people."

"We are not-"

"We are," she insisted. "How are we supposed to tell our kid that he was conceived in a university office? On a freaking desk?"

Derek shrugged, trying to make light of her concerns. "It's better than an exam room... I mean..." He stammered, immediately realizing the idiocy of his statement.

She glared at him. "Why would you pick now to bring that up? Seriously!"

He cringed. "Sorry. I guess...the last time we thought you may have been pregnant was...well, it was after..."

She glared at him again.

"You know what it was after."

"Idiot," she muttered. "Seriously. Who brings that up now?"

"An idiot," he agreed.

"You've got that right." She sighed. "But, seriously, Derek. A desk."

He shrugged and smirked. "It'll be something to tell the grandkids about."

Meredith stared at him for a long moment before rolling away and off the bed.

Derek took this to mean it was time and he quickly followed her to the bathroom, where all of the tests lay waiting in the sink. All of them saying to same thing.

Meredith leaned into his chest, and Derek wrapped his arms around her from behind. Her reflection in the mirror told him she didn't know how she felt any more than he did. She took a shaky breath, but made no move to leave his embrace or say anything.

"Come on," Derek whispered after several minutes of silence, gently pulling her from the bathroom and guiding her back to the bed. "We have our answer."

They curled up together again, much like they were before.

"It's for the best," she finally said. "We weren't prepared. We hadn't talked about it."

"Meredith..."

"And I've had alcohol. I practically live off of caffeine."

"Meredith."

"I'm around radiation at work."

"Meredith."

"And we live in a trailer."

"Meredith."

"It's for the best," she reiterated, her voice flat.

He closed his arms tightly around her. "I'm sad too."

And then she was crying.

Derek ran his hand up and down her spine as she cried silently against him. "We may not have been expecting a baby so soon, but we would have been happy about it."

She nodded against him. "I thought that maybe...maybe we really could do it all."

"We will," he promised. "One day. We'll talk about this. And we'll decide when to start trying. And we'll get our positive. Then there won't be any regrets."

"I was never supposed to want any of this," she whispered fiercely. "But now..."

"I know." It had taken her time to come around to the idea of having kids. And even though he knew it still scared her, he knew she wanted it.

"I want it now. And one day we'll plan and then I'll get pregnant and we'll be happy. And the baby will be happy."

"All of our kids will be happy. And, Mer, keep in mind that there is a big difference between being unplanned and being unwanted. If we end up like this again and the sticks are positive, the baby will never be unwanted."

"I know, even if I have a hard time understanding that sometimes." She sighed. "You said kids."

"What?"

"You said all of our kids will be happy. Plural."

"I did say that," he agreed, recognizing what she was doing. They were so good at the talking thing now, but Meredith was still a little awkward in bringing up topics sometimes. But it was okay, because Derek understood how hard she was trying. "How many do you want?"

"How many do you want?" She countered.

He smirked. "I asked first."

"But I brought it up."

He chuckled. "Fine. I want...I'm not really sure. Part of me wants a dozen. I love being around all the kids when we go to New York. But the other part realizes a dozen is a little unrealistic..."

Meredith rolled her eyes. She could tell he was being sarcastic, but would play along. "A dozen is more than a little unrealistic. You'd be giving birth to most of them because I am not giving birth twelve times."

Derek smiled. Her eyes were still watery, but she was calm. "How about we start with one, and go from there?"

"No." Her response was immediate. She had thought about this before.

"No?"

"No," she repeated. "Two. We start with two. And then decide if we want more. I don't want our kid to be an only child. Being an only child sucked."

"So...two," he repeated with a smile. "And then maybe more."

She nodded. "But not ten more."

"Nine?"

She smacked him and he laughed, having wanted to get a reaction out of her.

"Eight?"

This time she just rolled her eyes, knowing he was baiting her and that he wouldn't stop. "I doubt we could handle more than three, or maybe four."

"More?"

"Total."

"Mmm," he murmured, pulling her close again. "I think you're right. Although, my mother would tell you that she was quite happy raising five. However, I draw the line at having four girls and only one boy. We'd have to keep going until we get another boy or it's just not fair."

Meredith scoffed. "If you think I'm squeezing five kids with heads the size of watermelons out of my vagina, you have another thing coming."

"I think watermelon is a little extreme."

"Do you have a vagina?"

"No."

"Then you don't get an opinion."

He chuckled. "So, at least two. Maybe three or four."

"Sounds good."

"Sounds perfect."

She hesitated. "But...when do you want to...start?"

It was a tough question. Part of him wanted to say right now. The thought of having babies with the love of his life was so tangible; so within reach. He wanted it so badly; to get their positive test, to see her pregnant, to hold the baby for the first time. It was the last piece of the puzzle that would make his life everything he could dream of. But there were more factors that needed to be considered. "I don't know. Part of me wants to start today, and the other says to wait."

"Me too. I know we would be okay no matter when, but now does seem a little soon."

He nodded. "You're less than halfway through your third year. We live in a trailer. And we're newlyweds."

She nodded. "I guess we can't continue to have sex all the time if we have a baby."

"That's usually frowned upon. And once we have a kid, it will interfere with our sex life for at least eighteen years."

Meredith pursed her lips. "And of you add in potentially three more kids, about, what? Two years apart? That's another six years. That's at least twenty-four years of limited sex."

Derek had to laugh at their topic. With the whirlwind of emotions that morning, it was nice to have something light to joke about, even if there was a hint of genuine concern. "How about we wait until our first anniversary? And we'll start trying then if we're ready."

Meredith nodded. "That sounds perfect. I...I like it being just you and me for right now, but...I don't want to wait very long."

"Me either."

"Derek?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm still sad about today."

"Me too. And maybe that's not a bad thing. It means we both know we want this. So, when it happens, there won't be any uncertainty."

"And that includes if it happens by accident," she extrapolated. "We'll still want him or her."

He nodded. "Exactly. Big difference between unplanned and unwanted."

She sighed heavily. "So, I guess if I'm not pregnant it's okay to take some Gravol?" It was more of a statement than a question.

"You feeling crappy again?"

"Yeah. And I guess the drugs really did help last night. It was why I was feeling better and didn't take anything before I went to sleep."

"Which was why you felt crappy again this morning," he finished, rolling off the bed to fetch pills and water for his wife.

She took the supplies from him gratefully before sighing. "You should really get going. You're already really late."

He shook his head and returned to his spot beside her on the bed. "I called in on the way to the drug store. I didn't have anything scheduled, so I told them to page me if there's an emergency. I also called in sick for you, by the way. And I'm telling you this upfront, so that you don't have to send your best friend to assassinate me again."

She snorted. "Thanks, but you really don't need to stay home. I'll be fine."

"I do need to stay home. This morning was tough on both of us. We need each other today, even if we're just going to sleep."

Meredith looked up at him, her green eyes stripping him bare as they stared into his. And then she sighed as tears welled in her eyes again. "I'm sorry, Derek." She wasn't a selfish person at all, but certain topics brought self-panics, like the idea of an unplanned pregnancy. And in those cases, she was sometimes delayed in realizing exactly how much those things affected him.

"It's okay."

"You really want kids."

"We both do."

She hugged him, her arms snaking tightly around his upper torso, and her nose burying itself in the crook of his neck. "I love you."

"I love you too."

"And we're going to do the kid thing. Not right away. But soon."

He smiled and closed his eyes, revelling in the feeling of being so close to his wife in every way possible at that moment. "Soon."

AN: I know a lot of you wanted her to be preggers, so please don't hate me. I do promise that it will happen in this story. Not right away, but soon enough. I just really believe that Meredith deserves a planned pregnancy, and I already have a great idea for how Derek finds out. And I also think that after everything they've been through in this universe, they deserve to be happy and married without any further responsibilities other than work for at least a little while. They haven't even had their honeymoon yet (which they will sometime after Christmas, so around the 7-8 months point.)

Five months/Thanksgiving will be up next.