December 15th
The next couple of weeks were filled with busy work. Derek, Meredith and the kids moved into their new five bedroom home situated on Derek's forty acres, and Derek and Meredith continued to balance their busy schedules between work and home. Katie and Matthew became best friends, and it wasn't a rare site to see the two playing in the backyard together on the swings and in the fort that Derek had built for the kids. Derek and Meredith finally agreed to have their wedding in the first week of June the next year, and Christmas was fast approaching.
"Mama, Bubbles is smelly." Katie said, walking into the kitchen.
"That's what happens when you have a diaper full of poop, silly." Meredith said, walking into the den to get Jack from his playpen. "Are you ready to go, Katherine?" Meredith asked as she changed Jack's diaper.
"Yep. Mama, can Matt come over and play today? It's rainy and I am going to be bored." Katie whined, sitting down next to her mother on the floor.
"No, Matt can't come over today, you're probably going to end up spending the better part of the day in the nursery. Daddy already went to work, and mommy has to go in too." Meredith explained.
"Aw, Crap." Katie said.
"Excuse me?" Meredith asked with her eyebrows raised.
"Uh… Aw Dirty Diaper!" Katie exclaimed.
"Katherine. Get your coat, let's go." Meredith straight faced, she trying her best to hold in her laughter until Katie left the room.
Several hours later, Katie and Jack were in the nursery, Meredith was busy in surgery, and Derek was just scrubbing out of his last surgery when his pager went off. He looks at the page for a second and it confused him at first, noticing that it was Dr. Randall's number. He made his way up to NICU and found her office. He gently knocked at the door and she told him to come in. She stood up at his entrance, and sighed. "Derek, I need your help." She says concerned.
"What's wrong Rebecca? You look scared out of your mind." Derek said, putting his hand on her shoulder.
"I'm not scared, I'm just concerned. Matthew's father showed up this afternoon. He is downstairs with him in the nursery now, I'm so worried that he's going to try to take him with him for Christmas."
"Has he said that he wants to take him?" Derek asked, sitting down on a chair in her office.
She sat next to him on the other chair. "No, he hasn't, but I am too nervous to even talk to him right now. He asked if he could see him this afternoon, so I told him he could visit him, he would never just take him, but he might put up a fight. I don't know if I could talk to him without crying. I don't like arguing with him in front of Matt, it makes him upset."
"No, I understand completely. Do you want me to go downstairs with you while you talk with him? I could take a break with Katie and pretend that I'm just visiting her, that way if you need some back-up, I'll help you out. How does that sound?" Derek asked.
"That sounds great! I'd like to do it now if you don't mind. I'll go down first and start talking to him and you can come down in a couple of minutes, alright?" Rebecca asked hopefully. "Thank you so much Derek!"
"It's no problem, I will be down there in a couple of minutes. Good luck." Derek said, reaching out to squeeze her shoulder in support. "You'll do great." He smiled.
"Thanks Derek." She said as she stepped out of her office and headed down the hallway.
Derek waited upstairs for five minutes and then he left for the nursery. He had no idea what to expect, knowing nothing about Matt's father other than the fact that he was a doctor. He though for a second and decided that Matt was normally sized for a four year old, so his dad couldn't be a giant or anything… or could he? He laughed to himself as he stepped off the elevator, and looked down the hallway. He stopped in his tracks when he saw who Rebecca was talking to.
Standing in the middle of the hallway having a heated conversation with Doctor Randall was none other than Mark Sloan. Derek walked up to them without Mark even noticing and stood behind him. "Mark Sloan, do I have to punch you out again?" Derek asked, a tone of anger to his voice.
Rebecca was completely taken aback by Derek's comment, obviously having no idea that the two men were quite familiar with one another. Mark whipped around at the sound of Derek's voice. "What the hell are you doing here, Shepherd? I thought you were in Africa or India, or Budapest or something." Mark said, matching Derek's tone of anger, though humored by seeing his friend.
"Shows how much you know, I've been back almost a year now. In fact, it's a year ago this week." Derek said, sneering at Mark.
"What are you doing down here? Can't you see that I am trying to have a conversation with someone?"
"First of all, you're not having a conversation." Derek said. "You are causing Dr. Randall here to be upset and worried about losing her son. Second of all, I don't like to see anyone in this hospital yell in front of my child."
"Your child?" Mark asked, confused.
"Yes Mark." Derek says as he walked over to the window of the nursery. Matthew and Katie were sitting with their faces pressed against the window, making smooshy faces at the adults. "That one." Derek says, pointing at Matthew. "Is yours." He says pointedly. "And that one…" he says, pointing at Katie. "Is mine."
"Wait, wait wait…." Rebecca stopped them for a second. "You are Dr. Shepherd… the Dr. Shepherd? The one that left his wife, my mentor, Dr. Montgomery to, as she put it, 'traipse around the world pining for his intern'?" Rebecca asked.
"The one and only!" Derek smiled.
"And Meredith is…"
"Well, I told you before that she is the best resident in the hospital… she used to be the best intern in the hospital." Derek laughed. "You worked with Addison and you're telling me that she never mentioned me or Meredith?"
"Well, she certainly mentioned you two, but not by names that I can use within a 10 mile radius of our children." Rebecca said. "Besides, I haven't worked with Addison in a couple of years, not since she found out that Matthew was Mark's child. She pretty much didn't want to have much to do with me."
"And Addison didn't mention anything about Meredith having a baby?" Derek directed his question to Mark.
"Nope, I tried to avoid her as much as possible, she didn't have anything positive to bring to a relationship. She was pretty angry when she found out about Matt." Mark shrugged.
"Did she pull the old 'its probably not even yours' game?" Mark asked.
Derek nodded.
"Bitch." They both muttered under their breath.
Earlier that day-
Mark Sloan walked into Seattle Grace Hospital for the first time in a very long time. The hospital held some bitter memories as he thought of the day he tried to convince Addison to be with him. He smiled knowing how things worked out for her and thought to himself that perhaps these memories weren't as bitter as he first thought. This visit, however was not like that visit from years ago. Addison no longer worked here and according to her, Derek wasn't even here anymore, he had gone on some soul searching trip around to different countries. Nope, Mark was here to see his son. He hadn't seen him in almost two months and it broke his heart to think that he missed that much of his son's life.
He had spoken to Rebecca on the phone, and she was being unreasonable again. All he wanted to do was to take Matthew home for Christmas. He understood that the move that Rebecca had made was a step up in the right direction, he just missed his son and if he was going to remain in New York and his son in Seattle, he wanted to spend some special time with him. Especially since Rebecca was with him every day and was able to interact with him. He just wanted to spend Christmas with him.
Mark slowly made his way down to the hospital nursery. He peeked in the window and scaned the room to find his son. He saw him in the coloring corner, coloring on construction paper. He seemed happy, talking with a little girl that couldn't be much older than Matt, but they seem to be very happy sitting there, quietly coloring.
Mark entered the nursery and checked in with the caretaker, Rebecca had called down to inform them that he was visiting. He walked over to the coloring table and sat down near the children.
"Hey bud." He said.
Matt looked up for a second and did a double take. "Daddy?" Matt squealed and jumped out of his chair into Mark's arms. "Daddy! I missed you so much!" Matt exclaimed as he squeezed Mark tighter.
"It has been a while, what have you been up to?" Mark asked.
"Well! I am coloring and this is my friend Katie, she's my best friend!" he said pointing at Katie, who just continued coloring. "And this is where we color and play and have a good time, and Katie's dad built a swingset and a fort and we play there sometimes too!"
"Hi Katie, it's nice to meet you. Any friend of Matt's is a friend of mine." Mark held out his hand to Katie, who looked up from her paper shyly. Katie reached out and slapped his hand, a slight smile on her face.
"Hey buddy, do you want to go back to New York for Christmas?" Mark asked, he knew that it wasn't right to plant a seed like that in a child's head, but if he was going to convince Rebecca to let Matt go with him, he was going to need Matt's approval.
"Yes!" Matt smiled excitedly, but suddenly, his smile turned to a frown. "Uh oh daddy, you're in trouble." Matt said, looking at the window of the nursery. Standing there with her hands on her hips, looking very angry, was Rebecca.
Meredith hadn't heard from Derek in quite a while, she figured that maybe he had gone down to the nursery to see Katie and Jack. She loved to watch him from the window in the nursery, it always made her smile to watch him interact with Katie. She stepped off the elevator and walked towards the room. She was very surprised at what she did see when she peered through the window.
Derek was sitting at the coloring table, with Katie on his lap, he was holding Katie in place with one hand and coloring with the other hand while Katie colored the same picture from her seat on his lap. Next to him, sat Mark Sloan, a face that she hadn't seen in over six years, with Matthew perched on his lap, mirroring exactly the way that Derek and Katie were sitting and coloring. The sight was so picture perfect, it made her heart melt.
Meredith smiled as she watched the two men interact with one another. Meredith was a little confused as to exactly why Mark was there at first, but thinking back to her conversations with Rebecca, all of the pieces were put together.
"And you didn't even find out until you came back?" Mark asked.
"Nope, I was completely in the dark. When I got home, I was introduced to the most beautiful little girl in the world." Derek said, dropping a kiss onto Katie's head.
"I never really thought about having kids until Matt here, I love having him around. And you have two!" Mark smiled.
"Yeah, I love having them around, they are great company, and they teach me so much. Matthew is really a great kid, great manners, and he keeps Katie company. Oh, I can show you something!" Derek says as he lifted Katie from his lap and set her down next to him. "Hey Matt, remember that thing I taught you?" Derek said as he held out his hand to Matthew.
Matt smiled and turned to Derek, he put his crayon down and held his hand out to Derek. Derek and Matt slap hands for their 'secret' handshake, all the while, Matt was smiling from ear to ear.
"You taught him our secret handshake!" Mark laughed.
"Yep, remember how cool we were? Haha" Derek and Mark laughed. Derek looked up to see Meredith standing in the window looking in. He smiled and motioned for her to come inside.
Meredith walked into the nursery and looked around. Before going to the coloring corner, she checked in on Jack, who was sleeping soundly in one of the cribs. She walked over to Derek and Mark and sat down.
"It's starting to look like an adult daycare in here." She laughed as she lifted Katie onto her lap. "I would ask you what brought you to town, but I have a feeling that I already figured it out." She said, nodding toward Matthew.
"Yep, Matt is my boy." Mark smiled proudly, looking down at Matt.
"A well mannered boy, who is always welcome in my home." Meredith smiled.
"Thank you. Rebecca is a great mother to him, I feel very lucky. How have you been?" Mark asked politely.
"I'm doing just fine. We have had our ups and downs, but we're doing just fine now." Meredith said happily. "Are you really thinking of taking Matt back to New York with you? Rebecca seemed pretty upset when I talked with her this morning."
"I'm not sure yet. We started talking when Derek came down, she had to go to surgery, so I promised her I'd talk with her later about it." Mark said. "I'd really like to, I don't see him very much anymore." Mark said, giving Matt a little hug.
"How would the three of you like to come to dinner tonight at our house this evening? The kids can play and we'll all get together and catch up on each other's lives." Meredith said, looking over at Derek, who nodded his approval.
"That would be very nice, Meredith. I'll ask Rebecca if she'd like to." Mark smiled.
"And then after the kids go to bed, you and I can go hang out at Joe's." Derek grinned.
Meredith cleared her throat. "You think so?"
"Um. If it's alright with Meredith." Derek corrected himself with a wink to Meredith.