Happy Sunday readers!

It has not been long, but this chapter addresses an issue that I had forgotten for a while. You'll just recognize it as we go.

Disclaimer: All medical facts have NO claim to be accurate. I write things, I don't have a medical degree. Take the medical procedures in here with a pinch of salt!

Enjoy!

Chapter 25

Derek smiled widely as he walked proudly through the aisles of the hospital on his day off, holding Zola in one arm and breakfast for Meredith in the other. People were staring, but he couldn't care less. He was bringing breakfast to his pregnant wife, he was allowed to be cheerful.

"Hey Debbie!" he greeted the nurse with a dazzling smile, and the older woman stared at him over her reading glasses "Do you know where Dr. Grey-Shepherd is?" he gloated, still absolutely not used to call his wife that. He'll probably feel always a little bit proud when he'll say it.

"I believe she's in OR 2. She has been there most of the night. Gotta love the night shift" Debbie mumbled

"Thank you Debbie" he said, handing coffee to the nurse.

"This baby is every day more gorgeous" the nurse smiled softly then, tickling Zola, who squirmed in her father's arms and giggled.

"I Zola" she reproached and Derek's smile widened.

"Derek!" he heard from behind, recognizing Richard's voice. "Hey there, Zola" the surgeon cooed, and Zola grinned widely.

"Richard," Derek smiled "Good morning. You've been here all night too?"

"Do I look like I slept in the hospital?" he smirked and made Zola giggle again, squirming in Derek's hold.

"Okay, let's get you down." Derek gave up "Don't go too far Zo, we need to be here when Mama gets out"

"Mama arr!" Zola shrugged her shoulders, looking up at Richard almost as if she was explaining him, then climbing on the empty office chair behind the nurses desk with purpose.

"She's been spending way too much time with Cristina" Derek smirked, shaking his head in amusement "A two-year-older who knows the word OR"

"Meredith could say appy at about the same age, don't be surprised" Richard smiled as he watched Zola climb up and down the chair and play with it.

"Nothing about Zola surprises me anymore" Derek grinned widely "Do you mind keeping an eye on her, so I can get changed and grab a milkshake for Meredith?"

"Go ahead" Richard smiled and Derek jogged away to his office.

Zola kept spinning on her chair delighted, until she stumbled out of it, hands first, and fell.

It was a second, when she stood up and looked around, her eyes searching frantically, her lower lip trembling, until she locked eyes with Richard and howled "Dada!" before she burst into tears.

Richard was quick to pick her up and, ignoring the screams, he cuddled the little girl closer, swaying a little as Zola hiccupped and sniffled, still mumbling "Dada" incoherently.

"He'll be back soon, Zola. Where does it hurt?" he asked quietly, trying a calming smile.

Zola showed him her tiny palms and Richard kissed them quickly, for a moment interrupting the flow of tears. "All better now?" he smiled and Zola giggled.

She held out her palms again and Richard kissed her better once again, making her giggle even more.

"That's a sound I really like to hear after a million hours in surgery" a voice startled them and a surprised Meredith showed up beside Richard.

"Mama!" Zola yelped, holding out her hands and wriggling in Richard's arms.

"Hi baby girl" Meredith grinned, kissing her face "Did you run away from home?" Meredith giggled, settling Zola on her hip, her little legs wrapping easily barely above her baby bump.

"Dada" Zola explained with a shrug, almost as if she was stating the obvious.

"Uh uh, I don't see Dada here" Meredith grinned.

Zola shrugged her shoulders again as she looked around then mumbled "Puff" making Meredith laugh brightly and Richard join them.

"He's changing, he'll be back in a moment" Richard explained.

"I'm here!" Derek's voice reached them and he appeared in all his glory and navy blue scrubs, holding a milkshake and the paper bag. Meredith smiled so widely he wanted to kiss her senseless for the rest of the day.

"Hey stranger" he grinned, walking closer to Meredith and pushing the milkshake in her free hand, before kissing her lips longingly. He stole Zola as he pulled away and the girl wasn't happy. She grunted and frowned as Derek picked up the paper bag with pastries and gave it to Meredith.

"What's all this?" Meredith frowned, just as deliciously as Zola

"Breakfast" he said quickly, kissing her again "You stayed here all night, at least you're going to have a proper breakfast"

"You ran out of muesli, didn't you?" Meredith smirked and he gave her a lopsided grin, kissing her again. "Thank you" she mumbled, before digging into the pastry.

Derek smiled simply, watching Meredith eat delighted.

"I'm going to go now, then" Richard excused himself, feeling almost an intruder in such a family moment.

"Oh, no, wait. I have an announcement to make, you can stay" Derek grinned widely and Meredith stared at him.

"Derek, I changed my size of scrubs, the world knows we're having a baby"

"Baby!" Zola yelped

"Bossy" Derek grinned and Richard shook his head amused "I got cleared for surgery" Derek smirked and Meredith froze.

"You did?" she mumbled, incredulous.

"Yeah" he smiled, "Right before I arrived here, actually" then it was Meredith who launched herself to him for a kiss. A little too passionate kiss because Zola groaned, sandwiched in Derek's arms, and they pulled away with rosy cheeks, their eyes shining with emotion.

Meredith bit her lip and watched her husband, happier than she has ever seen him lately, and sighed.

"Congratulation Derek!" Richard smiled gratefully, patting him on his back. His lingering hand on Derek's shoulder was patted by Zola, who grinned just as widely as her parents.

"Did you have fun with Uncle Richard?" Derek asked Zola then.

"We had a bit of a balancing incident, but it was all better later" the older man explained.

"They looked like they were having fun" Meredith smirked, rubbing her baby's back as she kept smiling.

"We did, right Zola?" Richard winked, and the baby giggled. "I have surgery in twenty minutes, I'd better go get coffee" he smiled then. "I'm glad we can have you back permanently, Derek"

"I'm glad to be back, Richard. Thanks for watching Zola"

"Anytime"

The older man retreated and Meredith kept staring at Derek, joy in her eyes. "Are you going to troll for cases in the pit?" she smirked

"Probably" he chuckled, pulling her closer "How was your night?"

"Long" Meredith sighed, suddenly the tiredness catching up with her "I just have a few more hours of paperwork though, then I can get home and sleep"

"I can take Zola home later"

"I'll text you if I'll take her" she smiled, then her pager beeped "MVA ten minutes out. Looks like my boring paperwork will wait. I might need your helpful hands down in the ER, Dr. Shepherd" she smiled

"I'll meet you baby-free in five" he grinned, kissing her quickly just because they could, before the went in two opposite directions.

Meredith welcomed the twenty-five year old man with internal bleeding and a probable head injury in Trauma Room 1, listening carefully to the paramedics rattle out stats and the intern fuss around the patient to get first dibs on the surgery.

"Welcome back, Dr. Shepherd" she smiled widely, when Derek walked in exactly five minutes later, his hand finally free from the sleeve, a smile mirrored on his face.

"It's good to be back Dr. Grey-Shepherd, especially since we're going to share a case" he smirked, his eyes sparkling.

"Abdominal CT for me, get one of the head for Dr. Shepherd too" she ordered to her intern, who was staring a little too intently at Derek "Stat!"

"Uh, yes ma'am...Dr. Grey-Shepherd" the intern stammered, then scrambled out quickly, making Derek smirk at her bossiness.

They continued the preliminary tests, then they waited together for the CT results, sharing a drink at the coffee cart quietly.

Their intern came back exactly as they were throwing out their paper cups, announcing that their patient he had a small bleed in his temporal lobe and part of his liver and spleen needed to be repaired. They decided to use only one anesthesia and do both surgeries together.

Derek followed Meredith in the scrub room and helped her tie up her scrub cap, kissing the nape of her neck in the process and making her giggle loudly.

"Stop it!" she protested without much force.

"Focus, right" he smiled, then handed her the soap.

They exchanged furtive glances as they washed up, suddenly feeling like it was surreal.

"It's the first surgery we're both going to lead" Meredith announced, somehow drawn by the color of their matching scrubs, realization setting in.

"Yeah" he smiled widely "Feels good"

"Definitely" she agreed, her smile widening a little "Are you going to be okay?"

"I've been practicing a lot on dummies to check the mobility. I might take a little longer, but I'll manage"

"Good" she smirked, closing the water.

They stared at each other for a long minute and Derek tried to keep his mind away from the apprehensive thoughts plaguing him. Yes, Callie might have cleared him for surgery, but they were sharing stories about Zola and Sofia and maybe she had been a tad too distracted. Like he had been distracted when he had cleared Preston Burke for surgery a few years ago.

Derek kept the door open for Meredith, and she grinned at him from behind her mask, their bodies barely brushing as he followed her inside the room.

A round of applause filled the OR and Derek had to smile brightly at the warm welcome. He was nervous, but the confidence his staff was giving him calmed his nerves a little, especially since Meredith was there with him.

"It's a beautiful day to save lives," he smiled, watching one by one each member of the staff he had worked with countless times and was worried he'd never meet professionally again. "It's a beautiful day indeed."

Derek positioned himself in front of the shaved skull while Meredith peered at him from her place near the abdomen; they smiled at each other, then they begun.

Every little detail went smoothly on Meredith's part. She had to remove part of the liver and repair the spleen as predicted, but the stitches and patches seemed to hold perfectly. She tied the last stitch carefully, then lifted up her head to see Derek stretch his neck, a sign that he was losing focus a bit.

"Do you mind if I stay here until the end, Dr. Shepherd?" she asked, worried when he looked at her a little doubtfully.

"Stand by me" he almost ordered and she stood at his left, smiling gently at the intern suctioning on his right. There was something unconvincing in his demeanor and her shift was over anyway, she could stay a little longer. She felt like she had to, despite the lingering tiredness already catching up with her as she stopped.

"How is it going?" she asked, hiding the sliver of concern.

"It's a tricky bleed. How was it down there?"

"Peachy, really."

"Good" he mumbled, his eyes not leaving the brain in front of him "That's really good. Clamp please" he held out his left hand "No, wait" he swallowed "I need to cauterize here first. Suction, damn it!"

"Take your time" Meredith soothed simply, her voice calm and collected as Derek got near the bleed and began working on it.

She wanted to put her hand on his back and rub away the tension from his shoulders, feel his muscles relax instead of being a single block of pent up nerves. His usually fluid and quick movements seemed robotic and forced, which unsettled Meredith, but she thought it was because he was rusty, not because he had lost his ability.

Well, until he asked the resident to hold the instrument for him and he flexed his left hand multiple times, his fingers shaking.

He swallowed thickly, then looked up to find Meredith's concerned gaze. "I..." he mumbled.

"You were suturing the blood vessel" she said simply, looking at him in determination and handing him the suture. His fingers had yet to stop trembling.

"I..."

"I'm not leaving. Here," she said simply, preparing the needle for the suture and holding it out for him "I'm gonna hold the retractor"

"Meredith -" he began, his blue eyes turning glassy.

"Just finish this one. It's the last part." she encouraged and the whole OR, gallery included, was holding their breaths. The resident and intern were gawking at Meredith, the nurses were worriedly preparing more instruments, one of them close to the phone and ready to call in Dr. Nelson, while the anesthesiologist was blinking rapidly in disbelief.

"I'm not going to be the next Burke" Derek shook his head, stepping away from the table hastily "You can finish" he swallowed thickly, his vision blurring.

"Stay here, please;" Meredith said with determination, taking his place in front of the skull. He shook his head shakily, staring at his gloved hand like he wanted to cut it off by himself. "Walk me through it" Meredith stated calmly, and Derek's head snapped up.

"You know how to stitch a blood vessel." he snapped, his rough voice cracking at the end.

"I want you to walk me through it." she kept the same reassuring tone.

He gave in.

His shaky voice went through the rest of the surgery step by step, feeling like it was torture or karma biting him in the ass. Meredith completed the procedure flawlessly, without Neuro being even her specialty, the resident at her side green with envy.

Fifteen minutes later Derek was hunched over the sink in the scrub room, waiting for Meredith to close, barely holding in his tears.

The rest of the surgical team scrubbed out and disappeared glancing at him with sympathy -or was it pity?- but Meredith was the last one. She had been up all night, but she was still determined to put the last stitch on the patient and bandage every wound herself.

She walked out of the OR with a sad smile, placing a soft kiss on Derek's cheek as she stood beside him at the sink, her hand rubbing his stiff back in comfort.

"I'm sorry" she said simply, and he knew she meant it.

"I got my hopes up" he admitted, a veil of tears in his eyes, his voice breaking slightly. "I..."

"It's okay, mine were up too" she sighed, starting to scrub out "You'll get there, Derek"

"I...What if you weren't in the OR with me?"

"You would have done the right thing. I know you would have" she looked up at him and he knew she had undivided trust in him "The guy is going to be okay, Derek"

"I could have damaged his brain permanently"

"And I could have nicked an artery and killed him. You didn't Derek" she said plainly, grabbing a paper towel "It was a long surgery and you just got cleared"

His eyes watered "I..."

"Come here" she said simply, opening her arms to him "Come on!" she smiled softly as he hesitated, stepping closer to him.

He swallowed thickly, before engulfing Meredith in a hug she happily reciprocated.

"You're not gonna be the next Burke" she whispered next to his ear, pulling him even closer as she stood on her tiptoes and tried to make her stomach fit in between them.

"I shouldn't have been in that OR" he mumbled, burying his nose deeper in Meredith's neck.

"It's okay if you need more practice, -"

"Callie was distracted when she cleared me this morning" he swallowed, dreading what he was going to say next "The day I went to the follow up alone, she said that I might never regain full function" he admitted and then a pin could drop in the scrub room and you would have heard it. Meredith pulled away from him and stared deep into his eyes, her hands still on his shoulders not to make him bolt.

"What?" she spluttered, taken aback.

"I'm sorry" he mumbled "I should have..."

"Why didn't you tell me?" she asked, a hurt frown marring her features "It's been months!"

"I didn't want you to feel sorry for me. I wanted to see you happy about the fact that we had just seen our baby and then I just...omitted it"

"Derek, -"

"I know, I'm sorry" he stiffened, stepping away from her warmth and leaning heavily against the cold metal sink, trying to keep his tears at bay.

"You should have told me" she said gravely "It wouldn't have changed anything"

"It would have!" he snapped, turning to her with a deep-rooted sadness in his eyes.

"How?" she challenged, fiery and stubborn as usual.

"You would have felt sorry for me! Stopped talking about the hospital or the amazing surgeries you could scrub in or -"

"Derek, you can tell me things and I can tell you things without one of us breaking" she said simply "We have been through so much crap that there needs to be more than words to break us now!"

The certainty in her words, the soft smile on her lips, the way her hand moved slightly forward from her hip to rest on her stomach, they all made Derek feel like the biggest ass ever.

"I'm sorry" he spluttered, not knowing what to say anymore, just feeling overwhelmed.

"I know" she said simply, and she was the one who pulled him swiftly in a tight hug this time.

Time stood still as Derek took deep but shaky breaths and hid his tears, Meredith simply held him like he had held her so many times, their baby nestled snugly between them; she felt the already more common flutters deep inside her womb, relishing the presence of their tiny human. It was warm and comforting and it felt so right that Meredith forgot all of a sudden that a world outside this embrace existed, so did Derek.

Until he felt a gentle poke in the ribs.

Derek pulled away suddenly, staring at Meredith puzzled and a bit in awe.

He knelt in front of her, his own two hands on her stomach, his eyes red and puffy, his expression indecipherable.

"Derek?" her eyes widened, a mix of shock and puzzlement.

"Did Bird kick?" he asked breathlessly, his eyes fixated on the navy blue of her scrub top.

"Yeah?" she frowned, then realization shone brightly "You felt it?"

"I don't know. I think it poked me" he looked up even more in awe, resting his hand fleetingly over her belly "Oh God it's moving again, right?" he grinned widely

"Yes, Derek" she grinned, a giggle escaping her lips as his hands roamed all over her stomach, tracking the few movements he could feel "She's moving"

He looked at her with a dazzling smile, his problems suddenly set aside, then he joked "So, girl today?"

"Yup! She's been quiet the whole surgery, she deserves an award" Meredith smiled, her hands lingering over Derek's then tangled in his hair at the nape of his neck when he put his ear against the fabric of her scrub top and kept grinning, taking a cleansing breath as Bird kicked his cheek.

"Hi Bird, it's Daddy;" he still chocked up a little when he said that, his lips finding her stomach for a quick peck "Thank you for being a good baby for Mama, she had a very long night"

"Thank you Daddy, for being cuddly and happy despite the crappy hour you just had" Meredith replied for their baby as he kissed the very spot where he felt the last movement.

"Credits to Bird, definitely" he looked up and gave her a lopsided grin, then he just rested his ear again against her stomach.

"It will be okay, Derek" Meredith replied, and he sighed loudly.

"I hope so" and for once, she was the one who believed more than he did.

I was a little mean here with Derek. I have plans for him, don't worry. This is not an issue that is going to disappear, it will be with us for a few more chapters, and I really hope you won't mind. I know Isabel164 will surely won't ;)

I pushed aside a bunch of other storylines I introduced in the last chapters, especially Edda, but this one needed to be a stand-alone. Also, I hope you didn't mind Richard there. I never used his character in this fic so here are his 15 minutes of fame.

Again, I'm no medical expert, so I basically made up a procedure for Derek to fail. If you want to suggest me an edit, I'll be glad to change it to something closer to reality.

Stay tuned next Sunday for the developments on Derek's hand and how this will affect their everyday life!

Thank you for reading and eventually reviewing!