It seemed peaceful enough. No voices, child, adult, or otherwise, rumbled up from downstairs. No crashes or thumps of small or large movement made the door thud against its hinges with buffets of passing air. The house seemed almost empty, well, from her vantage point, at least, which wasn't much of a vantage point.
Meredith lay on her back, staring at the ceiling, listening to Derek's deep, even breathing. The overhead fan blurred into a mess of rich, lacquered brown against the white painted ceiling as she let her focus wane. In and out and in and out, he breathed. Each one was heavy and full and throaty, but it wasn't snoring. It was just… him. Breathing.
Under other circumstances, it would have been a beautiful sound. Rare were the times that she was awake when he was not, and she usually relished it when it happened. He had a certain peacefulness about him when he slept that he just didn't have when he was awake. She'd always wondered if the difference was a recent product of his transition to Seattle. Perhaps life had punched him one time too many with Mark for him to retain that relaxed look when he was awake. Regardless, the difference was there.
She rolled to face him. He lay on his back as well, naked under the sheet, which came to a wrinkled, uneven stop just under his bellybutton. He was sprawled. His left hand stopped just shy of her side, but he was utilizing every bit of the mattress he could rightfully claim as his. His right hand ran haphazardly over the side, dangling his fingers down toward the box spring.
And he breathed.
It would have been a beautiful sound. It would have been.
Except they had just had rutting sex that had probably been loud enough to knock walls down. She was under no illusions this time that when she walked out of that door, she wouldn't receive looks. Looks. She felt like the little kid with her hand clutched around a cookie. Everyone would know where the cookie came from. It was just sort of, well, duh.
The fact that Derek could be relaxed enough to do the breathing peaceful thing was simply not fair. She wanted to get up, wanted to leave. She wasn't really tired at all. Sated yes, but after a few minutes of recovery dozing, she had been fine. And forcing herself to take a nap when she kept imagining the looks… Well, that was just not happening.
She'd gotten dressed, hoping he'd have finished dozing by then, but no such luck. She glanced at the clock and sighed. He had been fine. Fine enough to do the crazy sexathon challenge. This couldn't be concussion exhaustion… Could it? She bit back on the little stab, stab, stab of guilt. He could live without a precious nap long enough to walk downstairs and save her from the wolves.
"Derek, wake up," she said.
He twitched. "Mmm," he mumbled, but then resettled.
"Wake up!" she said with a little more force.
That got him. He inhaled, deep and slow, and then let it out. For a moment, he was silent. "What?" he said, not opening his eyes.
"You've been asleep for thirty minutes, Derek."
He groaned and rolled over, throwing the pillow over his head as he re-sprawled on his stomach. He sighed, the act of it racking his entire frame, before muttering something unintelligible from underneath the pillow, something that could have been, "Go away," but maybe not.
She yanked the pillow off his head. "I can't!"
He lay there with his cheek pasted against the mattress, his face mashed up, which curled his lip to the point that it looked almost laughable. He blinked, blinked, blinked. "Why?" he said. He scraped his face with his hand as he slowly rolled onto his back again.
"Because I'm not going near your family without you as a human shield."
"What happened?"
She wanted to shake him. Her muscles clenched in frustration, but she restrained herself. "The noise? Hello? We just did a statewide broadcast that we were having sex."
"Okay," he said with a sigh. But he didn't move. His eyes started to drift shut.
She found herself frowning at him as his breathing started to deepen again. He was really out of it. Which meant whatever she'd yanked him awake from hadn't been just a simple doze. "I'm sorry," she whispered as his head started to dip to the side. "I'll leave you alone. I thought you were just doing your lazy after sex thing…"
He jerked awake and made a strange sputtering noise. "I am not lazy after sex!" He groaned and scrubbed his face and blinked and stretched like he was trying to force himself out of hibernation.
She laughed. "You so are, Derek. You're such a guy."
He stood up and went searching for his jeans. "It's a biological imperative," he insisted as he bent over and yanked them up to his waist in a swift motion that showed off his flexing shoulders. He had great shoulders…
"Right," she said with a smile as she watched him glance around and then head for his shirt, which had somehow gotten way over into the corner of the room by the left window.
"You try having sex with moving parts and see how well you recover afterward," he grumbled.
He stumbled a little as he drew his navy-colored t-shirt up from the floor. He bent back up in time for her to see him try to stifle a yawn that ended up cracking his jaws open wide enough that she was reminded of a roaring lion. He paused, recovered, and started trying to flip the shirt right side out. A look of consternation spread across his face when the shirt tangled, and he seemed almost unable to figure out why it wouldn't untwist.
"I'm sorry. You can sleep, Derek," she said with a frown, growing more and more worried that she'd actually ripped him out of some sort of healing sleep. "If you're tired. I really didn't mean to drag you out of an actual nap." Just because he was up for a round of sex didn't mean he was back to being ready to conquer the world or anything. And he did have a tendency to push himself beyond reasonable limits.
He pulled the shirt over his head. "I'll live," he said.
"Derek…"
He stalked over to his shoes. "I think it's the Xanax. I feel really cottony."
"Oh," she said as he started lacing up his cross trainers. Well, that would explain why he was suddenly so vehement about waking up… She frowned.
He sat down on the bed next to her and heaved a sigh that degenerated into a frustrated growl. He ran his hands through his hair. When he looked up again, he had a genuine smile on his face. "Well," he said. "At least it didn't mess with my libido. I think I'd take panic attacks over no sex."
She laughed. "So, what do we tell your family?
He shrugged. "What makes you think we'll have to tell them anything?"
"You're kidding, right?" she asked, incredulous. "So, help me, Derek, if I have to discuss the birds and the bees with your army of nieces and nephews, I'm going to do it by throwing you to the wolves and watching you stutter."
"My throat is kind of sore," he said.
"See? We made noise. Lots. Oh, god. Every little bit of progress I was making is probably gone. Nancy already thinks I'm slutty. Your mother… I think she might have been starting to like me before this. She hugged me! Granted, you were maybe dying at the time. Is she prone to hugging in times of immense emotional stress? I wouldn't take it personally. Maybe someone was magically vacuuming downstairs and nobody heard. Would we get that lucky? Then again, you have a rare form of retrograde amnesia, and I've died once before, so I guess we're not really that lucky. No, no, I think I'm doomed, Derek. Doomed to be the woeful outcast in a family of beautiful people. Sarah is irrationally pretty, by the way. Does she model in her spare time?"
She looked at him. He blinked, staring at her with his jaw hanging slightly open. "Did you even take a breath?" he asked after a long, silent moment.
"Possibly," she said. Then she collapsed over her knees and groaned. "I suck at the family thing."
He rubbed her back. "Mere, you need to relax. You're not slutty, Mom hugs people she likes, I agree our luck is awful, but you're not doomed, Sarah doesn't model, you're doing great at the family thing, and don't worry."
They both stood. "Don't worry, he says," she groused as they pushed out of the room and into the hallway.
They walked down the steps. Stewart sat on the couch, socked feet propped up on the coffee table, a beer popped open and clasped in one hand. He got one look at them and started roaring with laughter. "You guys are so lucky that Ellen was out sweeping the deck for the barbecue… Sarah ran interference to keep her out there. You owe Sarah big, man," he said.
Stewart tilted back his beer and took a large, manly gulp that belied his wiry frame. His pronounced Adam's apple ripped down his long, thin neck as he swallowed. Stewart had a narrow, pointy face. His floppy, straight, black hair, which was about shoulder length, made him look a little gaunt since his face was already long. He was tall and gangly enough that Meredith immediately found herself thinking giraffe. Big, friendly giraffe. Who apparently drank beers like Cristina dealt with doors. One big slam.
Stewart put the empty beer bottle on a coaster on the coffee table.
Derek grinned. "See? We Shepherds are a well oiled machine," he said.
Kathy walked into the foyer. She took one look at them and started roaring with laughter. Meredith was starting to notice a trend. "Derek," she said between pants, "You look… None the worse for wear."
"Thanks, Kath," Derek said. "I'm fine."
He tried to push past her and head into the kitchen, but Kathy held up her hand against his chest. "Not so fast, buster. You have to do some penance, this time. Your freebie was on Tuesday."
He blinked. Meredith snickered. "What?" Derek said.
"Meredith," Kathy said with a mischievous smile, "Why don't you go out and help in the back? Derek's been appointed spokesperson."
"Spokesperson for what?" Derek asked as Kathy grabbed his shirt into a tent and dragged him toward the den. Meredith watched, bemused, until they disappeared around the corner.
When Meredith walked out onto the deck, she finally discovered why there had been almost no one in the house, no noise in the house. Everyone was out in the backyard running this way and that, doing various yard-centric errands, except Ellen, who sat on the deck, reading a book in one of the lawn chairs under an umbrella, apparently oblivious to all the mayhem going on around her. John looked like he was firing up the grill. Sarah grunted as she lugged a rather large boom box to the edge of the deck. Chris followed behind with the first speaker in what looked like it would be a large set. It was a big, boxy thing, larger than the boom box itself.
"Where does this go?" Natalie asked as she ran past with an extension cord.
Most of the children were notably absent. Meredith frowned. "What's going on?" she asked into the din. For a minute, she thought nobody had even noticed her, and she felt tiny and quiet in the midst of a great, familial behemoth. She rocked back on her feet, trying to ignore the sudden clammy, chilly feeling that swathed her skin. Stupid to think she could be part of--
"We're doing the barbecue tonight," Stewart said as he strode up behind her, fresh beer in hand. He slugged it back and poured the whole thing down his throat. When he righted himself, he let loose his breath in a relaxed, sated hiss as he bounced on his feet like he was warming up for a jog. "We usually do it on the first night after everyone is settled, but it got bumped back because of Derek."
Meredith raised an eyebrow. "The… barbecue?"
"Yes," Stewart said. He looked her up and down with a roving, practiced eye. She felt her cheeks redden under the unabashed scrutiny. She wondered if he liked what he saw. But then he surprised her when he gave her a toothy, dorky-looking grin and said, "How good are you at capture the flag? Derek sucks. You look like you'd be a feisty little jail guard, though. The tiny ones are always the ones that fight tooth and claw for the win."
She gaped at him for a moment before recovering. "Capture the what?"
"Flag," he said. "Don't tell me you've never played."
"Um… I think maybe once in PE class in middle school?"
"Oh, wow. Well, whatever you do, don't do what Derek does."
"What does Derek do?"
Stewart shrugged. "Sucks." He tipped back his beer bottle and gulped, but it was empty. He lowered it with a disappointed frown.
"Thanks, Stu," she said, testing the nickname out like it was some sort of biohazard she knew she shouldn't be touching. He didn't seem to notice or care. "You're a fountain of helpfulness."
He grinned. "I try. We usually play after dark with glow sticks. Makes it funner. The kids love it, but I think it's really just an excuse for us adults to act like degenerate five-year-olds."
The first strains of Smooth Criminal flared. Loud enough to melt her chest. Meredith looked up and cringed as Sarah leapt back from the boom box, a startled pile of flailing limbs. "Holy crap, Chris, what did you do to the speakers!" she shouted as she recovered, dove back in, and started twisting knobs that could have been the volume. Finally, the sound died down to a loud, but reasonable level. "Sorry everyone!" she said as Chris inspected the speaker setup.
"Well, I'm off for more beer," Stewart said as if the noisy debacle on the deck hadn't even warranted notice. He eyed his empty bottle, and then he wandered off.
"Meredith!" Sarah called. "What type of music do you like?"
"Not The Clash," Meredith replied.
Sarah laughed. "Does Derek still listen to that crap?"
"Yes," Meredith said with a groan.
"Well, luckily," Sarah said as she hopped down from the deck, "I made the mix CDs."
Meredith saw a flicker of movement in the corner of her eye. She turned just in time to see shiny, cushy thing hurdling through the air at her. Reaching up, she caught it in a snap and brought it down. It was a plastic bag filled with napkins.
"Excellent reflexes!" Stewart whistled, delighted. "We'll conquer tonight, Meredith. I have first pick." He stood behind the grill. The direction that the napkins had been lobbed from…
She stood staring at him, gaping as he did an about face and swaggered off. Sarah laughed. "Stu, don't scare her," she called after Stu as he departed. He raised his brand new beer and tipped it back at her in acknowledgement, but didn't turn around. Sarah just laughed again. "Mere, honey, why don't you help Natalie with the table?"
Sarah pointed at the table where Natalie stood, hovering, putting out plates and arranging things, which was actually quite the task when there were settings for twenty-five people. For a minute, she stood there, twitching a little in overload. She blinked, stealing herself, and then went over to the table.
"Hello," she said.
Natalie looked up and smiled. "I see Stu shirked the napkin duty," she said.
Meredith glanced down at her bundle. "Apparently."
Natalie bent over and set out a table candle and a plate. She was probably the closest looking to Derek of the Shepherd cadre. But, while she was attractive, she wasn't drop dead gorgeous like Sarah, or plucky cute like Kathy, or suavely elegant like Nancy. Very… down to earth, was the thought that sprung up in Meredith's mind.
"I feel a little out of place too, sometimes," Natalie said.
"Pardon?" Meredith said.
Natalie just gave her a knowing smile. "I live in Florida. I'm not a doctor. I see them maybe two or three times a year. Sometimes, I feel a little like I'm not quite in the club anymore."
Meredith smiled, but it was a polite, grating kind of smile that she wasn't really sure she meant. "I have a bad history with families," she said.
Natalie shrugged. "Don't let it keep you out."
"Out?"
A smile spread across Natalie's lips in a grin so reminiscent of Derek's slanty, arrogant, I'm-on-top-of-the-world-and-I-know-it face, Meredith struggled to withhold a gasp. It was weird, being surrounded by people who were obviously so close to Derek and yet… So… Not. "Of the club," Natalie clarified. "And you can call me Nat, by the way."
Meredith nodded, a little unsure how to proceed, but Natalie worked farther down to the next place setting and put out another plate. "Derek really likes you," Natalie said as she placed the next candle. "It's good that you make him happy." Meredith followed with the napkins.
Meredith sighed. "Sometimes I wonder." What with the dying and all.
Natalie stared at her for a moment and gave her a nonchalant shrug that said very little of anything. "Don't," she said.
The conversation sort of died awkwardly at that point. Meredith swallowed as she worked her way around the table in a lap, placing napkins on the plates as she passed. She walked by Natalie at some point. Everything remained cordial. When Meredith was done with the napkins, she went off to find other things to do and got lost in the swirl of preparation. She stacked food. She helped carry this box, helped drag that chair, picked up trash, darted this way and that in the fray.
It was overwhelming. Overwhelming to suddenly be a matter-of-fact part of something so big and… so… warm. Meredith, help with this. Meredith, can you do that? Mere, come over here. It was all a swirl in her head. After a while, she found herself needing to sit, almost feeling dizzy with it all. She meandered to the picnic table, through the big, warm swath of family darting this way and that in a blur. She sat, put her head in her hands, and just stared. Stared. Everyone seemed so… happy.
It seemed almost wrong for her to be a part of it.
But it felt so…
So…
When a warm hand slipped over her shoulder, she startled out of her chair with a gasp. She turned to find Derek standing there, looking sexy in his sexy rock star sunglasses. He had a cute grin on his face.
"Care to dance?" Derek asked as he tugged her closer and started to sway to the slow rhythm of In The Air Tonight. She sighed against him, reveling in the rolling, hypnotic feel of the back and forth, back and forth. Suddenly, things weren't so overwhelming anymore.
"I thought you didn't dance in public?" she said. Then again, he had danced at prom. With Addison. Swaying back and forth much like this. All while he had stared at her, unblinking, dark, angry, longing, and all sorts of other things.
"A, this isn't public," he said. "B, slow dancing doesn't count, and, C, I just spent thirty minutes doing an en masse sex talk for my entire family under age ten."
She snorted at his woeful expression. "What does C have to do with dancing?" she asked, trying not to break into peals of laughter over the mental image of Dr. Derek Shepherd giving a lecture on sex ed. She would be surprised, immensely surprised, if he hadn't had extreme difficulties keeping it G-rated. She could imagine him blushing profusely as he tried to come up with metaphors about seeds and whatever else.
He frowned as her lip started to quiver with suppressed laughter. "It doesn't," he said. "I'm just showing you my hidden pain. I can't believe Kathy made me do that."
She smiled. "It's your own fault, you know."
He paused and pulled back to look her in the eye. It felt a little odd that, with the sunglasses, she couldn't meet his eyes back. "How is this my fault?" he asked, incredulous. "It takes two, you know."
"You started that little game…" she said.
"Hey, now," he protested. "I distinctly remember you being the one to say we needed to be quiet."
Meredith laughed. "And I distinctly remember you being the one to make a game of trying to make me yelp…"
"It wasn't a game until you followed with your return…" He paused as a funny look crossed his face. He paused, paused, paused, like he was trying desperately to find some other word, but he finally settled on, "Stroke…" though it sounded half-hearted, like he couldn't believe he'd said it.
"Derek…"
"Sorry," he said as a quirky grin returned. "That was bad."
"That was awful."
"I blame the concussion."
"I blame your dirty, dirty mind," she said, smiling.
They swayed, swayed, swayed. The song slipped to an end and into Waiting For A Girl Like You by Foreigner. They shifted to match the new beat. Meredith was glad it wasn't a fast song. Because standing there, soaking up Derek's warmth, doing the prom thing, well, it was very nice. They'd never done anything like this before. Hell, they rarely had the time.
"So, speaking of competitions…" he said, breaking the comfortable silence.
She glanced up at him, looking for a hint, any hint, but with the sunglasses, she just didn't find any. Derek was all about eye expression. Aside from smiling and scowling, he didn't do as much with the rest of his face. She hadn't realized that before that day, and it was frustrating to suddenly feel so handicapped. She reached up and brushed his cheeks with her palms, wishing idly that she could sweep her fingers up and push the glasses back, no matter how sexy they looked on him, but she restrained herself. If he was wearing them, he needed them.
"Yeah?" she prodded when he didn't say anything.
His lip curled. "Finn…"
"Oh," Meredith replied with a frown. "You remembered that."
"Yeah," he said.
She looked down. "It wasn't one of my finer moments of decision making."
He sighed. "Look, Mere," he began, his voice breaking into silence as he searched for words. She watched him, let him have his time, enjoyed the feel of his skin against her palms as she slipped up under his shirt and rested her hands against his lower back. "I get that I gave you a busload of reasons to doubt my sincerity," he said after careful contemplation. "I just want… Well… Have we… Talked about…"
"What?"
He switched tactics abruptly after an agitated sigh. "You get that you're not a fling to me, right? You never were. I know they're just words, Mere, but…"
She stared at him, hung frozen in the moment as his words sank in. Tension rolled through her. She shivered with it. She'd been doing the family thing all week, Derek had nearly died, Derek didn't remember everything, Derek, Derek, Derek. She snorted, and it degenerated into outright laughter shortly after. She felt horrible about it, horrible when she saw his lip twitch in some unknown reaction that she couldn't read because she couldn't fucking see his eyes. She leaned against his chest and laughed again, though she couldn't really tell if it was a laugh or a sob.
His arms tightened around her. "What's funny?" he asked, his voice hitching, confused, a little pained...
"Nothing," she moaned at him, trying to pull herself together. "It's just… I've spent this whole week waiting for the other shoe to drop, for you to stop believing in me, and here we are having a discussion about my trust issues."
He swallowed. "Why wouldn't I trust you?" he asked.
"Because I gave up, Derek. I gave up, and I don't think you ever believed me when I said it would never happen again. I also think, on top of all that, that you blamed yourself for it. And when I told you about it today, I saw it, Derek. I saw it starting to happen on your face. You used to look at me like you do now. And then the ferry thing happened, and it… went away."
He sighed. "I don't know what to say to that, Meredith. I don't know… I just don't remember."
Her heart crumpled at his lost tone.
He leaned into her, brought his lips down next to her ear. "I'd tell you if I knew," he said, frustrated, sad. He breathed once, twice.
She clutched him, tighter, tighter, rubbed his back. His earlier, relaxed demeanor was gone, replaced by a tense, wilting frame that made her chest ache. "For what it's worth, Derek, I do."
"What?" he whispered, the word hitting her ear like a feather touch.
"Trust you," she said. And it was true. She'd always felt like she would wake up one day and he wouldn't be there, always felt like she was with him on borrowed time, especially lately, after the look in his eyes had changed. Then he'd forgotten all about her in the world's most ironic reset and decided he loved her anyway over nothing more than a box of cereal and conversation. She was willing to work with anything at this point now that he'd given her such a compelling reason.
"Thank you," he said.
"I'm sorry I messed things up," she replied, pulling him as close as she could manage. "I'm so sorry."
"Stop saying that," he replied. And then he kissed her. The world peeled away from her like the petals of a wilting flower as he dipped her backward. His fingers tightened at the small of her back. She heard a vague chorus of childish "eeeews" and giggles, but it didn't matter, didn't matter in the slightest, because it all faded into the roar of her rushing blood and his deep breathing against her. His lips ran against her like a slow burning fire.
Meredith blinked, caught a glimpse of a kaleidoscope of colors all around her, spinning, spinning. Beyond it all, somehow, she caught a flicker of movement. Kathy was making frantic shooing motions with her hands. Frantic, frantic, what? Meredith blinked again, unable to form thoughts. Derek. Derek tasted really good. Derek… What? Kathy was hopping up and down at this point, mouthing words at her, rapid bits of syllables, though it seemed strangely as though she were the victim of a mute button. No audible words were happening. Derek… Mmm. Blink, blink. Back to Kathy.
"Meredith, back up!" Kathy finally yelled.
Something in Kathy's tone made Meredith react, and she tilted back on her feet, tearing from Derek's embrace. He grunted, stumbled to catch his footing, and had about a nanosecond to stare at her, confused, breathless, and glassy-eyed before a cooler's worth of ice cubes and melting bits poured down on top of him. Chris and Stewart ran off laughing, red plastic cooler thumping to the ground beside Derek in their wake.
"Too hot, too hot!" Stewart shouted as kids everywhere started laughing and shrieking and giggling. "We'd like some peace tonight!" he called, but he was already past the fence that separated the back yard from the front.
John chuckled as Derek stood there dripping, shivering, shocked.
"Oh, you are going to pay," Derek growled as a dangerous smile overtook his face. He peeled off his sunglasses, tossed them onto the nearby table, and, suddenly, he was off at a run, chasing down John.
"I didn't do anything!" John yelled.
"Bystanders are guilty, too!" Derek called after him.
Stewart, having made a lap of the house, came up behind Meredith as she watched, stunned. Derek and John disappeared in the direction Stewart had originally gone. "See?" Stewart said, a relaxed, playful grin slathered across his face. "This is why he sucks at capture the flag. He's all endurance and no sprint. He'll never catch John."
Meredith choked, trying not to laugh as she thought about it. "Endurance," she said as a guttural shout curled around the side of the house from what she could only presume was the front lawn, followed by another. It sounded like a frustrated Derek. "Yeah. I can see that. Yeah."
Stewart grinned. "Why, you minx, you. I think you'll fit in just fine--"
He grunted as Derek tackled him from behind. "That was cold!" Derek roared as they plowed to the ground.
"That was the idea," Stewart said with a chortle from somewhere in the fray. "Why do I always get picked on?"
"Because Chris could bench press my trailer!"
Meredith backed off with a laugh, amazed at the sudden transformation of Derek, Casanova, to Derek, wounded, playful adolescent. She sat down at the picnic table, dumbfounded. Kathy sat down beside her.
"They always have to have at least one fight. I swear. The collective IQ level drops in groups of tens whenever males of the species congregate…" Kathy said, her voice trailing away.
Stewart escaped, tripping, nearly sprawling as Derek made a leaping grab for his ankle, but he righted himself with a laugh and sprinted off. Derek hopped onto his feet and chased after him with a growl.
Kathy frowned. "Are they okay like that? I mean, with Derek being hurt."
Meredith blinked as she registered Kathy's words, and the worry slipped down behind her heart. "Um, actually, they really shouldn't do that. If he gets a concussion again so soon after the last one, he could die," she said, standing up, suddenly frantic. "And he's a brain surgeon. Why is he being a moron?"
The problem was fixed when Derek and Stewart walked back into the yard, laughing, joking, slapping each other like they'd just been having a friendly discussion. What. The. Hell. Meredith blinked. "Sometimes…" she said. "I just don't get it."
Kathy snorted. "I make my living 'getting it', and I still don't get it. Trust me, it's not just you."
Meredith caught movement out of the corner of her eye and tore her eyes away from Derek. Nancy walked over and sat down at the table, staring, staring off into space. Her eyes were bloodshot and rimmed with red. She sniffled. Her fingers curled. She clutched a fist at her chest like she was protecting a mortal wound from further damage. She looked, for all intents and purposes, like a ghost.
"Nance, are you doing all right?" Kathy asked as she stood up and resettled next to Nancy. She took Nancy into a hug, but Nancy sort of just… let it happen. Passive. Staring.
When Mary ran up, Meredith frowned. "Mommy, where did Daddy go?" Mary asked.
Nancy blinked.
Meredith leaned in before Nancy had a chance to answer. She could remember. She could remember her mom trying to explain to her why Thatcher wasn't around anymore. Mary didn't need to make that memory at a family picnic. Not when she should be having fun.
"Mary, why don't you explain how to play capture the flag to me?" Meredith said.
Mary turned to Meredith, leaving Nancy forgotten. "Oh, that's easy," Mary said, flashing a toothy, cute grin.
Meredith took up the little girl's hand and drew Mary away. As Mary began to babble, babble, babble away about the finer points of play, Meredith glanced back over her shoulder at Nancy, who stared after her. It was the first time she'd seen Nancy look at her without a writhing pile of hate behind her eyes. Instead she looked… Almost… Almost grateful. Perhaps there was hope there after all, Meredith decided.
She let Mary keep talking long after the rules for capture the flag had been expounded.