Disclaimer: Still me, still don't own anything worth claiming.

Author's Note: Wow, three years. Off the shelf, dusted and out to play in the world again. Thank you for reading.

Chapter 25
"Be my friend.
Hold me; wrap me up.
Unfold me, I am small and needy.
Warm me up and breathe me."
Breathe Me – Sia

Kathleen Shepherd was livid.

That much was obvious from the way her angry strides ate up the expansive Marriott suite in seven long steps. To an outsider, they would resemble stomps, but an outsider would not be privy to this conversation. This was Shepherd business, a skeleton in their family closet that they would throw back and forth like a hot potato. At the end of a day or a month or a decade of arguments and bitter words, they would polish the perfect ebony skull and soundly replace it on a shelf. Somewhere deep inside him, he wanted no part of the family closet, but he knew it was no longer a choice. He chose to resent it instead and mentally rifled through more skeletons as Kathleen went about it, pacing back and forth like a soldier marching to duty – adamant, unbending, focused. The heated tone of her low-pitched rant did not once falter, her lips moving in perfect synchrony to the choppy syllables of fury resonating against the floor-to-ceiling windows.

Good God, it was giving him a headache just watching her. He also had last night's very fine single-malt scotch to thank for the migraine. And Meredith Grey, he silently admitted. The ease with which she edged past all his other thoughts and suddenly took center stage in his mind was both sobering and alarming. She was under his skin, in his veins, and for a few seconds he could think of nothing but her well-kissed lips and tousled golden hair as she'd stood in her foyer, ordering him to leave. Her gray eyes had shone with both lust and restraint, dilated pupils beckoning him, firm voice dismissing him.

He could have stayed, and it tormented him. Another kiss, another caress, another whisper against the flawlessly smooth skin of her neck, and he would have had her trapped against the off-white wall, her hands tangled in his hair. She would have wanted him to stay. He knew that as well as he knew that she would have hated him for it in the morning.

"I'm searching for Rebecca's lovechild," Kathleen mimicked him in a voice loud enough to snap him back to the present.

Derek wondered at which point during his drinking spree last night he'd decided that leaving a message on Kathleen's phone regarding Helen's existence and her parentage was a good idea. A great idea, he remembered telling the stocky bartender, who had smilingly refreshed his diminishing drink.

Fuck. This wasn't good.

"You do not say that over the phone. You most certainly do not wait eleven years to say that while you're stinking drunk," she prattled on, pausing before the couch where he was perched tensely in the corner, his elbows on his knees, his head held firmly between both hands as if he was afraid it would loll should he release it. His blue eyes followed her form tiredly. Her narrowed gaze took him in with great disdain. "Well, Derek? Are you out of your freaking mind or am I overreacting?"

He wished he could chalk up her explosive arrival in Seattle – at his suite no less – to overreaction, but last night he had literally dropped a bomb in her lap. This morning the fuse had run too short, and she was unwilling to handle the debris of this explosion by herself. He was in no position to contest her presence or her attitude. He had to suck it up and own up to the transgressions he'd made in favor of Sofia, who was back in Manhattan, immune to the backlash of her own devious plans. There was no limit to how much he had come to detest the woman. "No, Kathy," he sighed finally, massaging his temples between thumb and forefinger. "You're right. I should have been more considerate when telling you about Helen," he conceded.

She resumed pacing, as if satisfied with his proclamation. "Helen," she said with sudden realization, shooting him a pained look over her shoulder. "That's her name? Helen Shepherd?"

"Helen-Michelle Shepherd," he replied softly, leaning back into the couch with resignation. He missed her terribly – teenage drama and celebrity obsessions, sour candy and boys deemed cute that made him feel fiercely protective.

"That's a lovely name," she murmured, and the very real quality of names and middle names slowed her down. Kathleen seemed incredibly sad when she claimed the arm chair across the room, the exhausted set of her shoulders falling against the cushions with a gentle whoosh. The lilac shadows under her eyes said she was tired. "How could you?" she asked seriously. "I have a niece, an almost teenager, whom I've never met. We didn't even know she existed. How could you keep her from us, Derek? Who took care of her when you were in prison?" The questions were fired in rapid succession and she was staring at him expectantly.

He found himself feeling strangely defensive. "I've given her the best of everything," he answered stonily. "She has a full-time nanny I happen to trust a lot and a very nice apartment in Fort George with security and very dependable facilities…"

"A child needs much more than your undeniable wealth, Derek. She needs love, attention and stability. She needs family," Kathleen stipulated firmly.

His headache forgotten, he glared at her. "I love her, Kathleen. I was her family until Sofia decided I deserved a trip to federal prison. Sofia never even asked about her, and she has known about her for all eleven years of her life." She had never asked, but Derek had volunteered the information, naively believing that despite her façade of nonchalance, she loved Helen just as much as he loved her.

Kathleen was giving him her understanding-therapist look now, and Derek found the gentle scrutiny infuriating. "You obviously love the child a great deal. I'm not saying you don't. I'm just saying, Derek, it was obviously not enough." She seemed to regret the words as soon as they left her mouth and died to the silence in the room.

The accusation hit a nerve. Not enough. A recurring theme in his life, he thought sardonically. With that thought, he pasted his most convincing devil-may-care smile onto his lips. "Well then, I shouldn't have to worry about that now that you can all contribute to bringing up Rebecca's abandoned child. I'm certain our combined efforts will make her feel loved enough to not run out on us." Like she'd run out on him, he filled in for himself. Kathleen's gaze softened on him, and he fought the urge to snap at her.

"Derek," she began on a tired sigh, but the ringing of his cell phone cut off whatever words of sympathy she was about to dish out.

Derek waved an impatient hand at her and came to his feet swiftly. He crossed the room to his ringing phone and grabbed it in all five fingers, grateful for the interruption. "Hello?" he said curtly, propping the slim contraption between cheek and shoulder as he walked towards the glass wall and stood there in appreciation of Mother Nature's fury. Everything was amok in the heart of Seattle's first honest-to-God storm. Elliot Bay was in a tizzy of frenzied motion, alive, frightened, tossed, rebellious. It was marvelous and spirited, and it reminded him very much of Meredith Grey. He looked away.

"Hello, Doctor Shepherd?" the person on the other end was asking, a note of uncertainty to the man's steady voice.

"Speaking," he replied.

"It's Gerard Hart," the man declared.

Derek straightened and slipped a hand into the front pocket of the slacks he had hastily donned when Kathleen had made her untimely arrival earlier this morning. "Hello, Gerard. Have you made any progress?" he inquired, all professionalism and detachment.

"I have an address. Your young lady has been staying at the Hilton under the name Helen of Tray," said Gerard, an unmistakable chuckle resonating through his kind voice.

He found himself grinning with reluctant pride. "Helen of Tray, huh?" he repeated wryly.

"You've got yourself a resourceful young lady there." And this time the other man let out a hearty laugh.

"Don't I know it," Derek muttered more to himself than to his listener, but he couldn't stop smiling. "Thank you, Gerard, I'll take care of it from here. Pass by the Marriott tonight at nine. I'll have the rest of your money ready for you," he promised to which Gerard replied with heartfelt good wishes. Ending the phone call, Derek slipped the phone into his pocket and turned to find his therapist of a sister watching him intently. He suppressed a groan and met her stare evenly.

"What was that all about?" she inquired.

"That was the PI I hired to track Helen down. She's been staying at the Hilton under the name Helen of Tray," he surmised, and her small smile told him she, too, found their niece's antics amusing.

"She's clever," she pointed out wistfully.

"Brightest kid in school," he said, and a wistful smile played against his lips. The pride in his voice could not be mistaken for anything else.

"You love her like your own child," Kathleen noted with the kind softness of the sympathetic mother he never had.

"I don't know how to love her any other way," he replied honestly, and the smile she flashed at him said she had nothing to say. Except she did, and he wouldn't like it one bit.

"In your message last night, you said something about Meredith Grey."

Derek froze en route to the lush bathroom, his chest clenching in the most disconcerting way. Whatever the hell he'd been thinking last night, his sister had no business knowing. He turned around slowly to face her, trying futilely to remember mentioning Meredith to Kathleen in his three minute message. He couldn't imagine the context. "Oh?" he prodded.

Her incisive stare turned reluctant at his puzzled look. "Have you seen her in Seattle?" she hedged, her left hand toying absently with a loose thread sticking out of the pale blue armchair.

He pulled the phone out of his pocket and fiddled with the buttons, seeming very busy for a few moments. It was a ruse of indifference. When he looked up, she was regarding him as carefully as ever. He resented the cross-examination. "I went to see her last night," he stated with a shrug. She almost died yesterday, and I kissed her because I needed to know she was alive. He held the words in and slanted a half-smile at his inquisitive sister. He'd needed to feel alive, and Meredith Grey had the uncanny ability to make him feel.

"Oh," she murmured.

Pinning her with a no-nonsense look, he slipped the phone back into his pocket and crossed his arms before his bare chest. "What did I say?"

That wrung an odd smile out of her. "Something about you saving her, and she being too stubborn to see it or realize it." She waved her hand before her face like the words didn't make sense but he could see the fiery curiosity in her dark gaze. She was designing fairytales about him and Meredith Grey. The telltale twinkle in her eyes wasn't lost on him, but she couldn't have been farther from the truth.

He kept himself from saying all the harsh things that came to mind and gave her a humorless smirk. "That's ridiculous," he said dismissively.

Kathleen gave him a long telling look. "I'm sure it is."

"Meredith!"

Startled, Meredith looked up from the busy screen of her smartphone where a listing of Seattle apartments was loading on Craigslist. George O'Malley was rushing through the lobby, hurtling towards her like an enthusiastic pet dog, baby blue eyes gleaming with overflowing excitement. She hit the close button and slipped the phone into her brown tote bag.

"Hey, George!" she greeted him with false enthusiasm.

When he was close enough, he placed both hands on her shoulders firmly. "Where are you going?" he asked, raising his eyebrows as his eyes trailed over her lightweight maroon sweater and slim-cut jeans.

"Family day," she said dismissively, shifting uncomfortably under his hands. Family day a la Meredith, loosely translated into father day. Thatcher Grey had finally decided to call her since her return from the dead. He wanted to see her, he'd stammered over the phone, and she had wanted to use the empty foil of the energy bar she'd eaten to create fake static and pretend she hadn't heard him. The last time she had seen him, they had murmured strained greetings at her mother's funeral. He'd stayed for ten minutes, staring at the open coffin pensively before squaring his shoulders and walking away – much as he had done when she'd been a child. The time before that, it had been Carol's funeral. She didn't remember much about the sordid affair, but she remembered Thatcher crying like a baby. She remembered resenting him for it, for taking her mother's hand in his and sobbing Ellis, like together they could make the pain of losing their grandchild more bearable. Before the funerals, he had visited her often in Boston, always eager to babysit, always longing for more of Carol. After Carol's death, while her relationship with Ellis had grown stronger, her relationship with Thatcher had died a slow painful death.

"William Tray's kid is here," George was explaining, his hands fidgeting on her shoulders, like he was itching to be somewhere else. "He has back-to-back surgeries for the next four hours, but she insists on waiting around for him. I need you to keep an eye on her for an hour or so," he begged hastily. "There's a woman in the pit," he paused to draw in a deep breath and his voice dropped several octaves, "having spontaneous orgasms," he whispered, grinning unabashedly as he released her. "I really can't miss this, Mer," he said earnestly, giving her a pleading smile.

She mock-debated it for a moment, then heaved a great sigh and nodded. It wasn't like she was dying to be ushered into Thatcher's living room and seated like a good-girl child to bear the prying scrutiny of his fatherly gaze. That could definitely wait. "William Tray has a daughter?" she asked as an afterthought.

He shrugged. "I guess so. She does look a lot like him, has that blond thing going on. Smart kid, too. She's right over there," he pointed at a row of chairs several feet away where a small figure was seated, golden hair messily arranged about her slim shoulders. "Thank you so much, Mer. I owe you." That said, he brushed past her and hurried to the elevator before the metallic doors met.

Resigned to babysitting duty, she readjusted her tote on her shoulder and walked over to where a very jubilant young girl was now chattering away with Olivia. When she reached the nurse's side, she stopped mid-sentence and smiled at her kindly. "This is Doctor Grey," Olivia told the young Tray, who smiled up at her bashfully. "She'll be staying with you until your father gets out of surgery," she said reassuringly and mumbled something about work before striding towards the elevator, leaving a gaping silence in her wake.

Meredith stared at the young girl – who couldn't have been a day older than ten – for a moment longer than courtesy allowed, taking in her curly blond hair and sharp blue eyes – a shade of blue so familiar it made her uneasy. She dismissed the disconcerting thought and slipped her bag off her shoulder as she claimed the seat next to the kid. "Hey, I'm Meredith," she said, allowing the tote to hit the ground between her feet before she stuck her hand out.

"I'm Helen," said William Tray's child, smiling his smile with softer, fuller lips and smaller teeth, and she placed her hand in Meredith's, shaking it like she believed this was an official introduction. When their introductory handshake ended, Helen was still smiling and studying her curiously. "How come you're not wearing what they're all wearing?" She scrunched her nose in distaste as she pointed at the scrubs another doctor who hurried by was wearing.

Meredith imagined she found the outfit distasteful, and she smiled. "I'm off duty." She crinkled her nose, too, inspired by the child's honesty. "They're quite dreadful, huh?"

Her golden head bobbed in earnest consent. "They're ugly," she stated.

Laughing softly at the uncensored expression, she took in the child's expensive-looking clothes and prim shoes. "How did you end up here alone? Did your mother drop you off?" Being a hospital child herself, she was quite familiar with the concept of being dumped from one parent to the other. She sympathized with Helen Tray and her preppy outfits. Meredith herself had rebelled against them when she'd hit fifteen, preferring pink to blond and leather to plaid.

Helen shook her head. "My mother died giving birth to me," she said, and Meredith resisted the urge to slip a comforting arm around her. "My nanny brought me here. She's paranoid," she huffed, rolling her remarkably familiar eyes. "She told George to keep an eye on me until she gets back."

"Where did she run off to?"

The smile this time was rich with mischief and looked nothing like Doctor Tray. "The bank. We're running low on cash."

Meredith raised her eyebrows. "Low on cash," she repeated in a curious murmur.

"Where were you going?" Helen asked, turning the tables on her with surprising confidence.

"I was going to see my own father," she confessed, giving her a sideways smile, hoping the clever child couldn't detect the reservation in her voice.

"Oh," she muttered, and her little face fell. "I'm sorry you're stuck here with me. I swear I can wait alone," she promised, but Meredith could read the hesitancy in her eyes. Helen Tray did not want to be left alone, and Meredith understood all too well.

She settled back into her plastic chair. "Trust me, I'd rather be here than there," she said diplomatically, pleased to see the child's evident relief.

Helen was only quiet for a minute before she looked up at Meredith again, this time her blue eyes alight with confusion. "You don't like your father," she realized, more puzzled than anything.

Ah, the innocence of youth. Not all fathers were rock-star neurosurgeons with laughing brown eyes, gentle dispositions and crowns of golden hair. "I haven't seen him in a very long time," she replied tactfully.

"I haven't seen my father ev… in a very long time, too," she tripped over the words and smiled shyly. "I live in New York," she told Meredith's inquisitive eyes.

"Alone?" Meredith sputtered, utterly horrified at the prospect. What kind of father sent their child to live in a city all the way across the country?

"I live with my nanny. My uncle rents an apartment for us and visits every day, but he was away for two years, traveling somewhere. Now he's back, too, but he doesn't visit as often. I haven't seen him in a while either. He's very busy, like my dad," she summed it all up neatly, but Meredith recognized the bleakness of the picture. Helen Tray was lonely, even though she loved and had the love of two extremely busy men, who were lousy at managing their time.

"Did your uncle fly out here with you?"

Her smile turned uncomfortable, and she shrunk into her seat as if the question baffled her. "No," she decided finally. "He's still in New York." Meredith was about to ask what brought her here, when the girl turned the tables again. "Do you have any kids?"

Kathleen's hand was cool on the inside of his elbow. He could feel the tremor in her touch flutter against the bare skin of his arm, and he reached for her hand, stilling it against him. He turned from Seattle Grace's sliding glass doors to search for her worried face behind him and was met with a halfhearted smile of uncertainty. Her captured hand absorbed the warmth of his larger warmer one before he let it go and smiled at her with false reassurance.

"We can't wait much longer. If she sees him – if he sees her…" he let the words trail into a telling silence and gestured with his hand towards the door.

It took her a full minute to nod her head and heave a great breath. "Right, let's," she muttered under her breath and walked past him through one pair of the thick glass doors and then the other.

They paused just inside, suspended in the warmth of the vast hospital, surveying their surroundings cautiously like two caged animals released in the wilderness. Derek's heart paused defiantly when his gaze landed on a smiling Meredith Grey whose twinkling silver eyes were gazing down at Helen – his Helen. He was hardly aware of taking hold of Kathleen's sturdy wrist and tugging her towards him as if to shield his eyes from the unfolding scene. He could not afford the romanticized fancies his traitorous mind concocted. He could not afford Meredith Grey breaking down another one of his barricades.

Kathleen was staring at him when he tore his riveted gaze away from them. "Is that the infamous Meredith Grey?" she asked with soft irony, her warm brown eyes shifting between his tumultuous features and the oblivious pair with dawning realization. She gently removed his hand from hers.

He did not want insight into her revelations. "In the flesh," he replied, his voice just as soft as hers had been, but colder and self-derisive.

She flashed a look of puzzled concern at his grim smile. "And this is Helen?" she probed, her stare encompassing the child with great tenderness and longing.

"Yes," he confirmed, swallowing past the gritty feeling in his throat. He'd missed her, all girly and pink – slightly rebellious and fiercely loyal.

"She's beautiful," Kathleen said wistfully, and he followed her entranced stare back to the golden duo.

They both were: Helen bursting with the luminance of a beautiful child and Meredith ethereal in her beauty – like a goddess and her equally gifted child. From a distance, they looked untarnished, untouched by mankind, yet they were both ironically damaged. Someone careless who was privileged with access to their hearts had made each of them subject to neglect. He was the culprit in Helen's story. He wondered about Meredith as he took a step forward, looking at Kathleen with unpleasant resolve. "Let's go."

She followed him for the length of the distance that separated them from the twosome, but their presence went unnoticed until Derek cleared his throat loudly. The unreservedly abashed smile on Meredith's lips dissolved as her blue-gray stare drifted from Helen's upturned awed face to his own. He found his gaze forced to her piercing eyes, and he tried to read the dozen emotions his presence evoked but she shut him out too quickly. Her silvery eyes cooled dramatically, tempered by suspicious caution, guarded by resurrected walls and barriers.

His jaw ticked with irritation at her subtle refutation.

"Uncle Derek!" Helen exclaimed half-heartedly, leaving no room for the encroaching silence.

He snapped back to attention and drew a calm smile on his lips as he took stock of the situation. Kathleen was hiding behind him as if she wished to be nothing but a spectator to the debacle. At Helen's declaration, Meredith's eyes went wide with wonder and her pink lips parted in shocked consternation. "Aw, Ella, you don't sound so happy to see me," he teased, pointedly ignoring Meredith's wide-eyed stare as he imparted with a cool "Hello, Doctor Grey."

Helen's baby face softened with childish guilt, and she smiled at him reluctantly. "I'm happy to see you," she insisted, her enthusiasm innocent. "Am I in a lot of trouble?" she asked in a small voice, looking up at him with a gaze identical to his in color, but he had long since lost the ability to look so earnest. Unblemished. He was tainted by darkness, robbed of any semblance of virtue. Meredith looked at him, too, equally anxious as if his decision mattered to her, as if his winsome niece had managed to woo her with her charming knack for uncolored honesty. They looked like little girls, caught whispering secrets in the dark way past their bedtime, beguiling a besotted parent into letting them off the hook.

He cleared his throat and stretched his hand towards Helen. She put her little one in his unhesitatingly, and he tugged her to her feet easily. "We'll see about that, Ella," he said uncertainly, wrapping her lanky body – pink sweater, white jeans and suede boots – in a warm bear hug, lifting her off the ground in the process. She wrapped skinny arms around his neck, giggling infectiously. "I missed you, kiddo," he muttered, and it felt like the most honest thing he'd said in days. When he reset her feet on the ground, he could feel Kathleen's trembling anxiety and Meredith's tentative surprise. Well, Doctor Grey, I guess I'm human. His hand still on Helen's shoulder, he stepped aside, bringing Kathleen into clear view. Helen studied her curiously, quick intelligent eyes narrowing in wonder. "This is my friend, Kathleen," he said in way of introduction. "Kathleen, Helen."

Helen stuck her small hand out, and Derek suppressed a tender smile when Kathleen let out a startled chuckle and shook hands with her niece for the first time. "It's nice to meet you, Mrs. Kathleen," Helen said in an attempt to sound older than her eleven years.

"You, too," Kathleen answered in a miraculously smooth voice.

Derek caught the shimmer in her eyes with a frown. Don't cry, Kathy. "Kathleen, this is a… friend of mine, Doctor Meredith Grey," he said, his voice heavy with sarcasm that was lost only on the youngest of their quartet. The two women shook hands with quietly murmured pleasantries. "We have to go," he announced suddenly, and Helen's eyes flashed up at him incredulously.

"No!" she cried. "He's almost done. He's coming, right Meredith?" She looked to Meredith with pleading eyes.

Meredith nodded supportively. "Yes, Will-" she paused and backtracked. "Doctor Tray will be out of surgery in a half hour at most," she informed them with a professional smile.

Derek was uncomfortable with her use of William Tray's first name, so he scowled at her darkly. "We'll be leaving now, just after I have a word with Doctor Grey," he stated, and they understood it was an edict. Meredith's friendly countenance turned into a glare.

"No, Uncle Derek! I won't leave! I…"

"Helen-Michelle Shepherd," he interrupted her tirade in a firm no-nonsense tone that made tears spring into her beautiful eyes. He almost felt guilty, but he had been unfamiliar with guilt for such a long time. "Kathleen, will you and Helen wait for me in the car?"

His sister nodded dutifully, still shell-shocked by the very reality of the situation.

Helen rushed past him and threw her arms around Meredith Grey, who smiled warmly at the impulsiveness of the affectionate act. She smoothed a motherly hand over his niece's wavy golden locks and pressed a kiss to her forehead. Derek could barely watch.

"Don't cry, sweetie," she murmured soothingly, and he saw her brush a couple of stray tears from Helen's face with her thumbs. "You'll come back tomorrow." She shot a defying look at him over the bowed golden head.

"They're taking me back to New York," she whispered achingly, and Derek wished he was somewhere – anywhere – else.

"I don't believe that," Meredith said, but her eyes said she did. She believed he would deprive this desperate child of seeing her father. She didn't know how much worse it was – that he would deprive this desperate child of knowing her father and her family.

Through her tears, Helen smiled a heartbreakingly pretty smile. "It was nice to meet you, Meredith. Carol was so lucky to have you," she said sadly, and Meredith's entire demeanor became cloaked with a sadness so familiar it took him back to the cabin.

"Come on, Helen," Kathleen was saying.

"I'll see you tomorrow, sweetie. I'll make sure Doctor Tray knows that you're coming," Meredith smiled with such angelic reassurance that Helen would have believed her, but Derek knew his dark expression was enough to denounce that declaration. Angel and demon, he thought sardonically.

"Run along, Ella, I'll only be a minute," he said softly as if by speaking gently he could pretend to be gentle.

Kathleen ushered Helen out of Seattle Grace Hospital quickly, and he watched them until they disappeared past the double glass doors. When he turned back to Meredith Grey, she was regarding him with enough cynical expectation to make him want to feel his head for diabolical horns. She came to her feet, standing a head below him, but it was enough to take away whatever disadvantage she felt at sitting before him.

"What kind of game are we playing today?" she wondered aloud, and her voice was deceptively low, smooth – almost husky, like an erotic promise.

He resisted the urge to lock metaphorical horns with her. "Can we speak somewhere more private?" he requested, making it sound more like a question than a demand. He cast a hurried look over their buzzing surroundings. "It's a private matter," he continued.

She sized him up for a few seconds and then nodded tersely. She turned and walked towards a set of offices lining a long wall, tucked beneath a staircase to a visible second floor that formed a ringed balcony above them. He took in the architecture to avoid staring at the elegant sway of her hips, caught in narrow, snug black jeans. They were inside an office moments later. It was small, and a computer was whirring insistently in the background, the idle screen black. He stood by the desk as she quietly pushed at the door, leaving it ajar. He could see a sliver of the hospital through it but not enough to make out anything substantial. She was as skittish as an animal in a trap, and he couldn't resist observing her in silence.

"Well?" she prodded, crossing her arms below her breasts in a mixture of impatience and defensiveness.

"William Tray doesn't know about Helen," he said without compunction. "I need you to keep it on the low, and tell whoever else knows to keep it on the low – at least for a couple of days."

"What do you mean he doesn't know about her? He doesn't know he fathered a child? Your sister died giving birth to her? He didn't know she was pregnant? Why didn't you tell him? How does she know about him? What kind of insanity is this?" she sputtered, angry because somehow she had gotten herself embroiled in another one of his intricate webs. He had saved her life, and she suddenly owed him everything. While nursing her back to life, he had stolen her soul.

"It's complicated," he replied simply, unwilling to divulge the intricacies of the situation.

"What's happening in a couple of days?"

"I'm going to tell him the truth myself."

She seemed to debate this for a few seconds, as if she didn't know what to make of his noble pursuit. Then she looked away in resignation, carefully extricating herself from this 'kind of insanity'. "Fine, is that all?"

He raised a dark eyebrow at her complacence. "No," he hissed, his assessing gaze dropping to her crossed arms. He laid his hand on the intersection and gently loosened them. Through her thin sweater, he could feel the heat of her skin. It stirred a deep hunger inside him, an unsightly beast that always crawled out to play when Meredith Grey made an appearance. "Who is Carol?"

She lifted her chin the fraction of an inch, fighting the sadness that clawed at her. "It's complicated," she said finally, regarding him with defiance and moving away just enough for his hand to slip off her arm.

"Yes," he agreed slowly and stepped forward, lifting his hand to her face. "It seems complicated."

She took a step backwards, and his hand returned empty. "Leave me alone, Derek." It was a plea.

He let out a bark of sinister laughter that widened her bright eyes. He suddenly felt tired, exhausted, like the weight of the world had settled on his shoulders and refused to budge. "Everywhere I go, there you are," he mused, and she looked away as if she could not stand to look into his tortured eyes. "Even in the middle of fucking nowhere!"

She shrunk physically but still managed to stand a little taller. "I have to go," she said in a clear, even voice and started to edge past him, but Derek caught her before she could take another step.

He stood close, much too close for anything appropriate. He crowded her space and breathed her air like she sucked the air from every other thought in his mind and dominated his consciousness. He stood just like that, his fingers easily snaring her slim elbows, his chest mere inches from hers, his chin level with the top of her head. His darkest thoughts had him punishing her by making her want him as much as he incomprehensibly wanted her. The beast inside him just wanted to lash out at her, blame her for the darkness, berate her for her betrayal. "This is either a cruel joke the universe is playing on me – on us both. Or you've somehow managed to place yourself in my path, so we could break each other a little more. Either way, you're everywhere. You're in my cabin in the middle of no man's land. You're with Mark Sloan, in Richard Webber's hospital – with Helen! Tell me Meredith, do such coincidences happen in real life? What do you think?"

Her silence was deafening, but the cool gray eyes that found his spoke volumes. He understood it with a clarity that frightened him. A small part of her craved these little interludes, like morsels of food that satiated her soul, but the rest of her begged to flee because she felt exposed – naked. "Let me go." She made no move to physically struggle against him, but her very soul that fed on him also warred with him.

"Or what?" he asked quietly. "You'll slap me again?"

She let his questions die a slow painful death and moved away from him as soon as his hold on her loosened. Wordlessly, she sidestepped him, left the office and slammed the door shut in her wake.