Nicole's A/N: Hey, guys, if you're still with us. Irene and I are feeling very...confused...right now. It's not about the fact that we didn't get many reviews last chapter. The site went down right after we posted it, so you were unable to review for nearly 24 hours. It's about the fact that many of the reviews we did receive insisted that Meredith and Derek are out of character. We understand that everyone has different perceptions of the show and the characters, and this is ours. You don't have to agree with what we write, but please don't be rude because we see the characters through a different lens than you do. This is a fanfic, and while we're all very passionate about our views, there's simply no way to know for sure how Meredith and Derek would react if they were in this situation. The only person who knows that is Shonda Rhimes.

As always, if you're confused about something we've written, feel free to PM us or contact us on Twitter. We're very approachable, and we've had numerous conversations with readers about why we're writing what we're writing. If something is confusing for you, don't hesitate to reach out. Since we know what happens next and how everything works out in the end, we might miss something that could be confusing for readers. And if you don't like the direction we're taking this, I'd encourage you to write your own fanfic and take it in the direction that you see fit. There simply aren't enough MerDer fanfics to go around, so the more the merrier.

Chapter 25

Derek has no idea how he got from his office in Bethesda to his apartment, and then to the airport. He did everything without thinking, his box of stuff and Beth's chart in one hand, his termination letter in the other, his head somewhere else.

The ride to the airport is not long and uneventful, and even if something has happened, he wouldn't have noticed, too dazed as soon as he lets himself think.

It has sunken in that he has been fired. It took a while, at least the whole time he cleaned up his office and the entire ride back to his apartment, but it's there now, stuck in the pit of his stomach, and it doesn't want to leave him alone. Now that he's sitting on a steel chair, waiting for his plane in the Chicago airport, thinking is the only thing he can do, and he wishes he'd have something to distract him. He used up all his distractions before landing at O'Hare, and he has no idea how he can occupy his time now.

Beth's chart doesn't help, not even the newest test results, just like staring at his family though his phone camera roll is not helping. They make him feel even worse. The euphoria of going home fluctuates back and forth with the dread and the unsettling feeling that he has been fired.

Fired. Terminated. Sacked. Screwed.

He looks down at his phone again, noticing that he still hasn't read a couple of texts that arrived early this morning, and that he probably has a voicemail message as well. He groans, though he welcomes the distraction.

A lump forms in his throat when he notices that they are all from Meredith. And her texts sound panicked. He quickly listens to his voicemail, feeling like an even bigger ass for not answering.

He needs to call her back.

Meredith moves around the small mint in her mouth, closing her eyes as she scrubs in and relishes the minty explosion on her tongue. This pregnancy definitely makes for a pretty great breath, that's for sure. Derek would appreciate it, if he were here.

She takes a deep breath, trying not to let the loneliness wrap around her too much. She needs to focus on her upcoming surgery, not on the fact that Derek is MIA.

Amelia enters the scrub room with a strange smile, a smile that makes Meredith frown even more as Owen Hunt enters the room. Their patient is an abused woman, her husband hit her so hard she needs three surgeons to repair the damage, Meredith can't see what they could be possibly smiling about.

"Dr. Grey," Owen greets her, studying her for a beat longer than usual.

"Dr. Hunt," she nods back, allowing the sterile smell of the scrubbing sponge to calm her flip-flopping stomach.

"How is she?" Amelia asks, though her smile dims as she looks through the glass at the woman on their table.

"She stabilized, but we need to get in there," Meredith explains, taking a deep breath. "She has three young kids."

There's a look between Owen and Amelia that makes Meredith frown, but she can't think too much about it.

"Dr. Grey, are you okay?" Owen begins, and she already doesn't like his tone. "I have seen you in this hospital a lot, but most of the time it's close to restrooms." Meredith wants to dig a hole.

"I'm okay," she says curtly, then she cleans her forearms and her hands, glad that she will have one more layer of fabric in the OR to cover her still small bump. Amelia might know, but she's not ready for the Chief of Surgery to know and mommy-track her. She feels awful outside the OR, she needs to be working. "I don't like being home alone very much these days," she admits, masking what Owen really wants to know. It's true in a way, that her empty bed makes her want to burst into tears. She's still not used to sleeping alone.

She opens the OR door with her back and wears her gown, sighing as everything seems to fall into place as soon as she's dressed up for surgery. Everything falls away within these walls.

Owen and Amelia join her a minute later, when she's practically ready to open up their patient. She looks at the quick scans they have taken, before she discusses the surgical plan with Owen one last time. Amelia is already standing near the woman's shaved skull, ready to work her magic.

"You can do the honors, Dr. Grey," Owen says with a grin, as he situates himself on the opposite side of the table.

Meredith picks up the scalpel and opens up the woman's abdomen, closing her eyes for a moment as her nose fills with the smell of blood, before it dissolves in the sterility of the room. Owen looks at her funny, and Amelia frowns for a beat.

They work in a companionable silence for a few minutes, focusing on getting their heads in the game, their voices used only to address the scrub nurses for instruments and to quiz the lone first year resident there.

Her back is bothering her a little as she bends in a certain way, and she tries not to wince too visibly as she moves around. Heck, everything in her body aches, but surgery is her safe haven, she can ignore it for a little longer.

"Is everything okay, Dr. Grey?" Owen asks her again with a frown when she's hands deep into the woman's abdomen.

"It's a tricky bleed," she avoids, knowing that this is not what he wants to know.

"You would tell me if something was wrong, right?"

Meredith rolls her eyes, knowing that the one talking and meddling is Owen, definitely not Chief Hunt. "Of course."

"It's just," he sighs, "I heard rumors. About you and cancer."

She groans loudly, and so does Amelia, which sounds...odd. "I don't have cancer. And I'm not having a secret dirty affair with Alex or anyone else for what matters. Derek and Bailey drive me insane enough, I don't need any more men in my life."

Amelia laughs, then lightens up the atmosphere: "How's my favorite Monster?"

"Covered in pee sixty percent of the time?" Meredith sighs, winning a laugh from more than half of the OR staff. "Any potty training tips?"

Both Owen and Amelia share a look before they shrug. "Ask my sisters. They have a million kids, and they love gushing about their broods' accomplishments," Amelia adds. "Or Mom. She did potty train Derek, and Bailey is practically a mini version of Derek when it comes to a lot of things."

"True," Meredith sighs, the longing coming back in full force. Bailey is definitely a little Derek in the making and she doesn't know is she should embrace it in full or start panicking.

A buzzing sound interrupts their conversation and the scrub nurse says. "Dr. Grey, it's your phone. Derek Shepherd."

Meredith feels a sudden relief that he's finally calling her. "Put it on speaker, please."

"Mere?" Derek's voice sounds distant, with an undistinguished background noise covering some of it, but it makes her weak in her knees.

"Where have you been? I tried calling you and texting you a million times!" she snaps, even though she doesn't want to. She wants to hug him, and hear him say that he loves her and that he's okay, but she can settle for this.

"I'm sorry, I had a lot of things to straighten up."

She bites her lip. "Look, I'm sorry about last night, I didn't mean to snap at you, I just…"

"I know," he sighs, his tone softening, and she can almost picture his face as he says it. "I know you wouldn't drink in your condition."

Meredith's breath hitches, wishing people hadn't caught up on that. "I was drinking apple juice shots," she admits, "you should try them sometimes, with Zola." She hears him laugh. "Can you call me back later? I'm inside a woman's abdomen and it's touch and go."

"Of course!" he exclaims and she can practically see him blush on the other end. "Are you going to be working late today?"

"No, I want to do something with the kids, I need to be with them." Her voice wavers a little, but she hopes the fact that she's on speaker can mask it. "We can Skype you when we're all together tonight, is that okay? Are you busy?"

"I'll make time for you," he says softly and she hopes he won't say anything cheesy when the entire OR can listen. A young nurse in the back is already doey-eyed, she'll faint if he goes all cheesy on her, and he already did enough damage with a single sentence. "We'll talk tonight," he adds, a hint of excitement in his voice that makes her feel guilty they haven't Skyped in so long. "Kiss the kids for me when you see them, okay?"

"Sure," she smiles.

"I love you, Mere."

"I love you, too."

"Cheeseball!" Amelia shouts from her spot as the nurse ends the call, and it makes Meredith laugh loudly. She can hear Derek's laugh being cut off. "God, is he always this mushy?"

The hilarity though is quick to disappear, as Hunt asks: "What condition was he referring to, Dr. Grey?" People heard Derek and if she wanted to hug him before, now she wants to kill him. Painfully. Why did she marry such an idiot?

Meredith freezes, not knowing how to reply to that, her eyes widening. "Um, it's…"

"It's the nothing that concerns you condition, Dr. Hunt," Amelia is quick to intervene, making Meredith's eyes widen even more. "She said she's fine. If something was wrong she would tell you, right, Meredith?"

"Yes," she says weakly, frowning at her sister-in-law's attitude.

And then, when she looks at Owen, she knows what's going on, she knows better than anybody else in the room, and her eyes widen again. She gasps, then throws a poignant look at Amelia. The neurosurgeon ignores her, but Meredith is adamant to get to the bottom of this. Later, after they have fixed the woman, she needs to investigate more.

They finish the surgery in an awkward silence, Meredith studying the other two surgeons, gathering more clues. She has it all figured out by the time they are in the scrub room and the patient is being wheeled to the ICU.

Much to her relief, Owen leaves the scrub room first, his pager going off, so that Meredith and Amelia can be alone.

"Okay, what was that?" Meredith practically yelps. "You can't talk to the Chief of Surgery with that tone."

Amelia rolls her eyes. "I was doing you a favor. You don't want him to know about the baby, right?"

"That's not the point!" Meredith sighs. "Are you sleeping with him?"

"No!" Amelia replies quickly, though Meredith can see her freeze and fidget with the sponge. "No way."

"Amelia, there were looks. Longing looks over body cavities I know all too well. I spent my whole internship exchanging longing looks with your brother, as much as it pains me to admit it."

Amelia smiles, though it dims, as she looks down in the sink.

"I'm not judging you, I'm not in a place to judge you, but are you sure of what you're doing?" Meredith asks, needing to know.

"It's just sex," Amelia admits.

Meredith gives her a triumphant smile. "I knew it!"

"Mer, it's really, really good sex," Amelia emphasizes.

"Still,"

"Incredible, awesome sex, Meredith. The kind of sex that may put you in the hospital with a concussion sex," Amelia sighs. "A girl has needs."

"I know," Meredith sighs, even though sex is the least of her worries at the moment.

"Gross! You're talking about you and my big brother. No." Amelia cringes. "I know that you didn't miraculously conceive two children together, but I can't hear about it."

Three. But Meredith doesn't have the heart to correct her. Instead, she says: "We can give you tips for the trailer. Your brother…"

"I can't hear you!"

"Not even the bendy thing he does in the shower? Because I remember the trailer's shower, and let me tell you, it was…"

"Stop it! Meredith Grey, I'm scarred for life now!"

Meredith laughs with Amelia, both their cheeks rosy. She likes to tease Amelia and joke with her. She has a great sense of humor, and Meredith needs some levity in her life at the moment.

"I just want to see if you know what you're doing. Because I'm not sure Owen Hunt can do just sex." Meredith could see it in his eyes that he loved Cristina, even when he pretended not to with her. She's not sure if she has seen the same glimmer in his eyes as he looked at Amelia, but she does know those looks in the OR are dangerous ones. And she's not even sure Owen will ever be ready for another relationship, especially since he seems to be missing Cristina every day.

Amelia sighs. "He told me about Cristina and what they had; we agreed that it won't be nothing more serious than a booty call."

"Just making sure, I don't want you to get hurt." Meredith admits.

"Meredith, I'm a big girl."

"I know," she sighs. "Can you please not tell him about the baby?"

"I haven't told him yet, and I will fend off the rumors."

"Thank you," Meredith exhales loudly. "God, your brother is so brainless sometimes."

"He's a man, it's in their DNA."

"With him and Bailey around I'm doomed for life."

"So we're hoping this one is a girl?" Amelia grins, looking down at Meredith's stomach.

Meredith takes a moment to answer that, because she honestly has no idea. Or well, she has clues, but she never put them together, she never wanted to put them together before this. "I don't know, but this pregnancy is completely different from Bailey's."

"Way to kill she Shepherds' curse if it's another boy, uh?"

"Indeed, and the Grey sisters' curse." Meredith finally giggles, though she has no idea why her now clean and dry hand falls on her stomach. No idea.

The calmness that the call with Meredith has brought him is gone. Derek is a ball of nerves now. He's panting, short of breath and so lost in his thoughts that he almost misses the call for his plane. Everything in his head swirling and mixing so much that he has no idea what happened, nor when or how he should start fixing things. He feels like choking, though he tries to pull it together for the length of the check-in until he can slump in his seat.

The window seat for once doesn't bother him. He has dreaded it after the plane crash, because a window seat gives him less opportunities to escape without trampling over his seat companion, and because it mirrors the spot he was when they flew to Boise, but this time, a window seat means that he can curl up in his corner and freak out in silence. Strangely, the seat next to his is also empty, and he prays it remains that way until he lands in Seattle.

He closes his eyes and tries to focus on Meredith's voice, the one he has heard just a few minutes before, when he called her. It was a brief, chaotic call, but it still made him feel better. He always feels better when he hears her voice. She sounded okay, even if still a little pissed at him, but he can't blame her. Now though her soothing effect is gone, and he just wants to be in Seattle.

The flight attendant explains the emergency procedures as the plane prepares for take off. He follows the discourse, though he knows first hand what those safety precautions are, and he has no intention of disobeying their regulations.

Anxiety grips him as usual as the plane starts rolling, so he closes his eyes again. Meredith reappears, only they are happy then. Happy and smiling, and she looks gorgeously pregnant as they laugh together. He wants to see her this way again.

He relaxes when they are in the air, though not much. He allows his mind to wander as he works on fixing the mess they are in now. He needs to fix his marriage, especially now that he can be there to fix things, and he's not on the other side of the country. He knows his presence - or lack of thereof - was not their biggest issue, it was just the last drop. They're not fighting only because he went to DC, and he needs to know what the problem is before he can fix it.

"There's no discourse anymore. There's no conversation. There's just blame."

Brené Brown's words reverberate in his head, and he takes a long, shuddering breath. There's a lot of blame for the silliest things between them, and conversation has never been their stronger suit. He knows something has to change, though, so maybe he should start from there.

He remembers that he hasn't seen the end of the video, because Meredith called, so he pulls out his iPad and opens the TED video. He watches the woman transfixed, remembering the words and all the thoughts they provoked in him. A couple of times his breath hitches in his throat, but he manages not to cry. Barely.

"And we perfect, most dangerously, our children. Let me tell you what we think about children. They're hardwired for struggle when they get here."

His mind goes to Zola and Bailey, how hard the beginning of their lives were, how terrible things could have been if only a little detail had gone wrong. And now, now he wants them to be perfect indeed. Because, in his eyes, they are. And then he thinks about his new baby, growing safely within Meredith, and he hopes that his or her life won't be a struggle from the beginning, that he'll be there to love him or her and cherish every second they'll get to spend together.

"And when you hold those perfect little babies in your hand, our job is not to say, "Look at her, she's perfect. My job is just to keep her perfect - make sure she makes the tennis team by fifth grade and Yale by seventh grade." That's not our job. Our job is to look and say, "You know what? You're imperfect, and you're wired for struggle, but you are worthy of love and belonging." That's our job. Show me a generation of kids raised like that, and we'll end the problems I think that we see today."

He remembers holding Zola for the first time. The way her eyes lit up as he gave her the penlight, the way something inside him clicked, the void that he didn't even know he had that she filled. It's as clear as the first time he held her knowing that she'll be his daughter one day and how he was unable to let her go, or the first time they had a family hug in the foyer of Meredith's old house, when they got her back. He smiles brightly.

Then he remembers Bailey's first hours, the whirlwind of labor and the emergency c-section that had him shaking in fear, the knowledge that he might have needed to raise the little boy and his sister alone if Meredith didn't make it. Everything is fuzzy in his mind up to the point when he could finally hold his son in his arms.

He remembers rocking Bailey gently and swaying near his isolette in the NICU, the way every little feature of his face reminded him of Meredith, how quiet he had been, despite the dramatic entrance he decided to make. Every memory is embedded in his brain, every word he whispered to Bailey when he still didn't have a name, when he wondered how could he name him alone, without Meredith.

His heart fills with expectations at holding the new baby in his arms.

He wants to raise them right. He wants to give them the world.

"We pretend that what we do doesn't have an effect on people. We do that in our personal lives. We do that corporate - whether it's a bailout, an oil spill, a recall - we pretend like what we're doing doesn't have a huge impact on other people. I would say to companies, this is not our first rodeo, people. We just need you to be authentic and real and say, "We're sorry. We'll fix it.""

Derek knows how much of an effect some things can have on people. He knows how much his move to DC cracked an already precarious balance, how much in jeopardy he has put his own marriage and life as he knew it in general. And he wants to say sorry, and fix things. He wants to work hard to be back to the couple and the family they were before, even if life has never been easy between them. He has a lot to lose if he doesn't work hard, and he's not ready to lose when it comes to Meredith and his children.

"To let ourselves be seen, deeply seen, vulnerably seen; to love with our whole hearts, even though there's no guarantee - and that's really hard, and I can tell you as a parent, that's excruciatingly difficult - to practice gratitude and joy in those moments of terror, when we're wondering, "Can I love you this much? Can I believe in this this passionately? Can I be this fierce about this?" just to be able to stop and, instead of catastrophizing what might happen, to say, "I'm just so grateful, because to feel this vulnerable means I'm alive."

Derek's eyes fill with tears. His heart feels so full. He is alive, no matter the odds, the hardships of his life, the terrible things that happened to him. He's alive and he has a family, an amazing wife, a rewarding job - okay, maybe he doesn't have that in this very moment, but he has the skills for it -, a roof on his head. He never stops to think about how much he has, he only sees the bad things, the things that aren't working.

And he's definitely very much against vulnerability. He needs to be strong, in control, and yet, he knows he can't. He can't be everything, everywhere, all the time. He'll fail, and he will be loved still. He knows he'll have at least one person that will always love him, and he wants to think that this person is Meredith. Because he does love her that way, wholeheartedly, without any guarantee. He has never been a fan of gambling, but with Meredith, he couldn't help but bet. And she allowed him to see the joy.

With his wife and his kids, he has learned to see and feel the joy, and revel in it, revel in the little moments of amazing terror, when his heart is about to explode in his chest from the sheer joy of being alive.

He wants to savor those moments.

Though, when he goes over the questions the researcher poses him, he knows that he can love Meredith that much, or his kids and his job; he can be fierce and passionate, and still be vulnerable. Meredith allows him to be vulnerable, and the realization hits him like a ton of bricks.

Meredith saw him at his worst, when he could barely talk and the scar on his sternum was still an angry red. She saw him fight infections as his wrist healed and throw up when flu season came. She saw him helpless during Beth's trial, or when they couldn't find a way to fix their mess. She saw the pile of his losses when Jen died, when all he wanted to do was quit, and she stayed.

Meredith is still there.

And the last, which I think is probably the most important, is to believe that we're enough. Because when we work from a place, I believe, that says, "I'm enough," then we stop screaming and start listening, we're kinder and gentler to the people around us, and we're kinder and gentler to ourselves."

He can't breathe anymore as the screen becomes black. He can't breathe.

Stop screaming, start listening.

A tear makes his way down his cheek and he can't stop it. He doesn't care that he's in public, or that people might start staring at him, but he can't stop it.

He wants to be kinder and gentler, he wants to listen and believe that he's enough, when he surely knows he's not. He's never enough, because people rely on him and he always lets them down. He let down the president, his wife, his family, hell, even his mother, by promising he'd visit and he never did.

How can he think he's enough?

As he tries to suppress a sob, he realizes that maybe he is enough. It might not look like it from his point of view, but he's enough for his patients - when he still had some -, and he's probably enough for his kids as well. They might be clueless about what's out there, but he believes he can be enough for them. And maybe for Meredith too.

He wants to learn how to be enough for Meredith.

He squeezes his eyes, trying to stop the tears and the sobs, but he's an uncorked champagne bottle. Every emotion he has tried to hide blubbers out of him, forces him to curl up around the seat and cry for everything that he has missed, everything he ruined, everything he will never get back.

The flight attendant sends him a worried glance, so that he turns around even further, his cheeks burning from embarrassment and tears, as he unravels his soul. The high pitched screaming in his head about how much of a loser he is slowly quiets down, his mind still wired up and alert, but blissfully quiet. The tears slow down, his chest becomes less tight, his fists unclench, his body uncurls and he starts to feel the loneliness. He feels suddenly cold and alone, and he needs someone to hold.

He wants to hold Meredith and his kids. He wants to hug his family.

Breathing becomes easier, as he follows the hum of the airplane to inhale and exhale, the sudden anxiety attack fading away, a quiet acceptance filling his heart.

The screaming is gone. He's finally listening.

The plane starts descending.

Irene's A/N: Do you remember of the Brené Brown video about vulnerability Derek was watching before Meredith had a breakdown and he called everybody morons? This is the same video. If you need the link, feel free to ask. Honestly, it's a beautiful and funny talk, and it's 20 minutes of your life. Speaking of the video, I'm going to adopt the whole "stop screaming, start listening" mantra in my whole life. It will be my new "if you don't have anything nice to say, say nothing at all", because when we listen -we really listen- there's not much room for screaming.

So, as Nicole said, if you feel like screaming how much OOC our characters are, we'll be there to listen and explain why we did things in a certain way. And remember, Derek is coming home. We are as excited about it as you are! ;)

Thank you for reading!