Author's Notes:

Well, here we are! The final chapter! I've left plenty of loose ends (such as the vow renewal), so I may come back to this universe for a short/medium story at some point if the mood hits me. Immediately after this, though, it's back to AATW. I need to finish that. Badly.

Thank you again so much for all the feedback. If you've been holding back on me, this is your last chance to chime in :)


Epilogue

Every bone in her body aches. Every muscle throbs. All she wants is to close her eyes. She slumps into the plastic chair, unclenching her fingers as she sags. What feels like dozens of bags drop to the floor in a messy, massive heap around her body and the chair, to the point that she feels a bit like she's standing in for the freaking Christmas tree herself. Well, she thinks, staring blearily at her haul, maybe not dozens. Not in this batch by itself, anyway. She's carried several loads back to the car to save herself from the indignity of having her arms fall off somewhere like she's an abused Barbie doll.

Sarah snaps her fingers in front of Meredith's face. "Hey!" Sarah snaps. "Hey, don't crap out on me, now. We still have to hit the bookstore."

Meredith rubs her eyes. "Can't you hit the bookstore while I sit here and pretend I hit the bookstore?"

Sarah snorts and collapses into the chair beside her. The food court in the mall is a bustling nightmare of frantic, last-minute Christmas shoppers. A rumble of excited conversation clots the atmosphere, almost burying the faint sound of Christmas carols lilting from the overhead speakers. The smell of fried food makes Meredith scrunch her nose. It's kind of a cognitive dissonance – Christmas and fried food – but no amount of cinnamon can drown the scent of french fries, burgers, and grease.

Meredith and Sarah have been fighting the crowds since morning, trying to work their way down both Meredith's and Sarah's massive shopping lists. "I don't know why I decided this would be a good idea," Meredith grumbles. "I hate Christmas shopping. And Christmas in general. I'm not a Christmas-y person!"

"But Derek is," Sarah says.

"Before the accident," Meredith says. "Who the hell knows, now?"

"You told me this morning to remind you if you got crabby that you wanted to do the family thing," Sarah prods Meredith. "Remember?"

"Well, I was a freaking moron this morning," Meredith says. "A freaking moron who didn't realize how much crap I would need to buy. Nine nieces, five nephews, four sisters-in-law, four brothers-in-law, one mother-in-law, plus my own freaking kids and husband." She kicks at the nearest bag. "I need a dump truck. I can't believe Derek used to enjoy this." Seriously, she always knew how demented he was about this stupid holiday, but now she has proof positive that he was a loon.

"Ah hah!" a familiar voice says, and Meredith looks up to see Stewart limping toward them with a zillion more bags in tow. He joins them at the table. "Ladies," he says as he sits. "How goes the ho ho hoedown?"

"I got everything except that book Lindsey wanted," Sarah says. She glances at Meredith and winks. "Someone decided to call it quits before we managed to hit the bookstore."

"Oh, I'll hit the bookstore," Meredith says. "I'll punch it. Right in the freaking nose."

Stewart snorts as he spreads his knees and slouches into his chair, a classic guy-in-repose array of limbs. He sighs like he's relieved to be off his feet, and Meredith doesn't miss the fleeting look of pain that passes through his features like a bolt of lightning before it disappears. "So, any calls?" he says.

"Nope," Meredith says. "Not a single one all day." She glances at her watch. Eight hours. Eight hours, she's been at this stupid mall, buying everything under the sun in support of a serious I'm-trying-to-be-more-involved-now-I-swear campaign. Eight hours without a phone call from Derek. No texts, either. Not one single help! She lets herself grin despite her exhaustion. "I think we might be in the clear." She sighs. "But seriously, I'm done. I'm not sure I can walk to the car from here, let alone the bookstore."

Sarah and Stewart exchange a wordless glance that contains a long conversation. Talk without talking. Something Meredith's gotten well versed in, trying to navigate around Derek's difficulties with speech.

"Well, don't look at me," Stewart says aloud. "If my knee had tear ducts, it would be crying buckets right now."

"Fine," Sarah says with a huff. "Fine, I'll go. But you owe me wrapping."

"Happily," Stewart says. "I like wrapping."

Meredith snorts. "Derek used to like that part, too. He'd cut the paper with a pocket scalpel and tape it up with surgical tape."

"Hey, there's an idea," Sarah says as she pushes back her chair. "Surgical tape is super durable. It would survive the mail really well." The chair legs squawk against the tile floor. "Meredith, do you have anything you want me to grab from the bookstore?"

"Nope," Meredith says. "I'll just sit here, basking in my shopping doneness."

In essence, like Thanksgiving, this is Derek's first "real" Christmas, and she wants it to be special. Last Christmas, he was monosyllabic, still, struggling to eject every single word out of his mouth, rather than suffering only the occasional stumble. He couldn't walk, yet, or make a fist, or do things out in the world by himself. He didn't get a chance to decorate a tree, or listen to Christmas carols, or buy presents, or wrap things, or do any of the Christmas-y stuff he used to delight in, except spending the morning with Meredith and the kids.

She closes her eyes, resting them, and she doesn't see Sarah depart. Meredith hurts. Everywhere. She's never shopped so much in her freaking life. But she's trying. Both for herself, for the family thing Derek always thought she could use, and for him. Hell, she's got this whole big, special, series gift planned for him, and everyth-

"Crap!" she blurts, snapping upright when she remembers. She was so busy trying to buy crap for his family, she forgot about her list for him.

Stewart frowns at her from across the table. "Crap?"

"I do need to go to the bookstore," she says. "I forgot. Will you watch all my bags?"

Stewart nods. "Sure. What should I do if they move?"

Meredith snorts. "Cute," she says, and she gathers up her coat, gloves, scarf, and purse, and makes a dash for it.


She doesn't dash far. The bookstore in question isn't actually in the shopping mall, but rather across the street. The wet air is freezing, and she shrugs back into her outdoor apparel, wincing at her protesting muscles. She stops for a moment, resting, pressing her soft red scarf against her mouth and nose. The scarf is brand new in the sense that she's only owned it for a few hours, but it didn't come from a store. It came from Derek, and it smells like his things. Like his pillow. She likes it.

Wait, he said that morning, approaching her with the scarf clutched in his hands, just before she left for the mall with Stewart and Sarah. Derek stepped out into the cold air and onto the stoop, huddled in the thick blue bathrobe Meredith had given him last Christmas. The engine of Stewart's old station wagon was already making a put-put-put-put noise in the distance, and Meredith waved at him to tell him to go on ahead. Stewart nodded, craned his neck around, and proceeded to back out of their long, gravel driveway. Sarah, meanwhile, was waiting in Meredith's Jeep, but she seemed engrossed in some game on her phone.

Meredith turned back to Derek. He proffered his bundle to her, and she took it with a dumb look on her face. What is this for? she said.

I maked it for you, he said. It's my one … one … one …." He sighed. "My first. My first done one. He made a face. The other didn't look …. He thought for a long moment, syllables collecting in his throat. The other was bad. I didn't finish.

She knew about the other scarf. She's seen him working on it from time to time. The other was a deep forest green color, and it was the one his mother helped him start. The quality changed from shoddy Meredith-did-it to professional Carolyn-did-it as he knitted from end to end. Meredith thought the constructional metamorphosis rather endearing. She had no idea he'd worked on a second one, though.

She let the scarf unfurl. He'd picked out a bright, blazing scarlet that matched her favorite bathrobe. It's beautiful. I love this color.

He grinned. It's freeze today. I thought you will like this, now, instead … later.

I do, she said, wrapping the scarf around her neck, and her arms around his body. I love you, she said. Thank you. You'll call if you need any help?

Yes, Meredith, he said, a soft murmur against her ear. I will call if problem. I love you, too.


When Meredith jams her key into the front lock in the darkness, she clenches her teeth. The moment of truth. The door opens, hinges moaning a little in the chilly, wet air. The sight before her takes a moment to sink in, but when it does, a wide grin stretches across her face, replacing nervousness with contentment.

The smell of woodsmoke fills the air. A fire dances in the fireplace. Derek and all four kids are sitting at the dining room table, playing Memory. Bailey sits in Derek's lap. The Christmas tree stands tall in the corner of the room, covered in brilliant lights and ornaments. Christmas carols play from the speaker system in the living room. Felix bats a stray ornament across the rug – some stuffed … white … thing. Meredith can't see what it is from this distance, but it's not shiny, so it's not glass, and she doesn't feel the need to confiscate the makeshift cat toy.

"Hi, Mom!" Lindsey says, looking up from their Memory game. Annie gives a little wave and smiles shyly, but doesn't say anything, and Stewart waves back at her with a giant hand and a goofy grin.

"Wow, you guys got a lot done today!" Sarah says as she looks around. Her gaze pauses on the stockings over the fireplace, which weren't there this morning, and then migrates to the beautiful tree, which wasn't there, either. Well, the naked tree was there. But not this decorated splendor.

Derek sets Bailey down on the floor and stands. He grins. "Yes, I spended … hour … phone," Derek says. "Mom tell me … how …." He struggles for a minute, lips working in silence as he tries to get his vocal cords to cooperate. "How …." He swallows. "D … decorate."

"We 'cated tree wif Dada!" Bailey says. "It fun!"

Zola puffs up in her seat like a peacock. "I got to do the star on top! Daddy lifted me!"

Meredith gives the tree another appraising glance.

The tree isn't a perfect Martha Stewart project like some of Derek's trees in past years have been. Derek used to do this thing with the light strands where he would wrap every individual branch twice, moving in toward the trunk and back out toward the edges as he made his way in circles around the tree, from bottom to top. The result was nuclear – it literally made the air around the tree hot – and took him all day, and thousands of lights, to complete. She sees this technique repeated this year, but in moderation. Not every branch is wrapped, and on every branch with lights, he's only coiled the light strands once instead of twice. Also, it's clear from its decorative distribution – all the breakable ornaments sprinkled tastefully on top, and all the more durable ornaments hanging in uneven clumps on bottom – that this was a joint project between him and all the kids, something she can't recall him doing before. The sight of the star at the top makes her chest hurt, now, knowing how the decoration got there. She wishes she'd been there to take a picture of that moment.

"You guys did a great job," Meredith says, a lump forming in her throat.

Derek grins. "This is not … too much … vomit?"

"Erm," Stewart interjects, frowning. "Did you mean to say vomit? Though, what word even semi-related to vomit could have fit in that sentence … I have no idea."

Derek snickers. "She calls decoration vomit. Christmas vomit."

"You know," Meredith clarifies when Stewart's frown deepens. "Like Santa threw up?"

Sarah snorts. "Good way to put it."

Derek's looking at her, eyes raised askance, and so Meredith adds, "It's just the right amount of vomit. Thank you."

Derek's grin widens. They share a look. She bites her lip and smiles back at him.

Something beeps in the kitchen, and his gaze snaps in that direction. "I check," he says, and he slips past everybody, back into the kitchen.

"You guys, sit!" Meredith says, waving Stewart and Sarah away before they can offer to help. Her body hurts, aches throbbing through all her leg joints and hips like banging gongs, but she can hold out for a few more minutes. "Let me get you both something to drink." And then she follows Derek.

Meredith's not sure what the hell food Derek is making, but when he yanks open the oven door to check whatever's inside, the scent of cooking … something … explodes into the room in a warm blast. Her empty stomach gurgles in anticipation. She steps past Felix's food and water dishes and into the space behind Derek. She wraps her arms around his waist after he straightens and closes the oven door.

"Hello," he says in a soft, reverent tone. He turns in her arms to face her, and he presses his lips to hers.

"Hi," she says, grinning back at him. She puts her hands in the back pockets of his jeans, mashing up against him. "So, everything went okay today?"

"Yes," he says. "I have no difficult." He shakes his head, making a face. "Trouble," he says, correcting himself. He grins at her, and her heart squeezes at his joyful expression. "I take care of them myself."

She leans onto her tiptoes and kisses him. He's wanted this for months. Today, all his hard work came to fruition. It'll be a while before he's replacing Melody, but this is an auspicious start.

"You did," she says, smiling. "So, when are you doing your shopping?"

He doesn't respond. All he gives her is a mischievous I-know-something-you-don't-know look that tells her he's already done it.

"You want to see if you still like wrapping tonight after the Mannings leave?" she says. "I bought a zillion things."

Derek snorts. "I like wrap gift." A pause. He thinks. "Wrapping," he says, fixing his grammar. "I will wrap if you wish … me … wrap … them." He frowns, like he's not quite happy with what he's said, but he doesn't struggle to correct himself or beat himself up over it. That's nice to see.

She pulls her fingers from his jeans pockets and rubs his back. "You remember wrapping?" she says.

He shakes his head. "No, I wrap new things."

"So, you did go Christmas shopping already," she confirms. He nods. "When on earth did you do that?"

"Yeah," Stewart chimes in from the living room with a sheepish look on his face. "About that last basketball game …."

Meredith laughs. "Who'd you get presents for?"

Derek gives her an innocent shrug, and he doesn't answer her except to say, "I guess we will see on Christmas." His eyes twinkle as he makes a shooing motion with his hands. "Now, go away, please."

Meredith frowns. "What? Why?"

"If you get close, something will burn," he says with an evil smirk and a brief glance toward the oven.

"Hey," she says. "That's mean. You're mean. You're a very mean man."

"I'm not mean," he says as his hands slide low against her spine. And lower, and lower, still. "I'm nice." He kisses her. "Very nice."

She leans onto her tiptoes to kiss him in return. His lips taste like sugar. A candy cane, maybe? "Well, you taste nice, at least," she says, grinning at him.

His arms tighten around her body, and she rests with her cheek against his chest as she sinks back onto her heels. She strokes his pectoral muscle over his heart, and his soft, wrinkled t-shirt flattens under her palm.

"I love you," he says in a velvet tone, as easily as if he's been saying it his entire life.

"I love you, too," she says. She pets the supple plane of his body under her palm, stopping as she slides past the ripple of his ribs.

"Hey, break it up," Stewart says. "You're offending my puritanical sensibilities!"

"Puritanical in what universe?" Sarah grumbles.

"Mirror Kirk. Mirror Spock," Stewart says without pausing. "Totally puritanical compared to that crazy."

Derek snorts but steps out of Meredith's arms to pull out some serving dishes. "I … I want. I want … to … see this," he says.

Stewart nods. "Patience, young padawan. We've still got one more Star Wars movie to watch before we can break you in on Star Trek."

Meredith grabs beer for Stewart and a fresh bottle of wine for everybody else from the fridge – her original mission. She yanks some glasses out of the cabinet and heads back into the living room with her bounty while Derek toils with his delicious-smelling-whatever-it-is.


"Wow," Derek says, staring at her haul as she sets the last bag on top of the bed. It took them four trips from the car to carry everything inside, though the book she got him, 101 Things to Do in Portland, remains safely ensconced in a plastic bag underneath her driver's seat. She can't wrap that one until she slips the train tickets she bought him into the book sleeve, anyway. "I … wow," Derek repeats in a weightier tone, dragging her attention back to the dilemma at hand.

He looks down at the single roll of tape and Santa kitten wrapping paper he left on the floor by the bed with a pair of scissors in preparation for the wrapping job, and then back to the presents mountain, and he frowns. Meredith can hear that guy from Jaws in her head, muttering the iconic line, You're going to need a bigger boat. Derek turns to her, eyebrows raised. It's after nine. The kids are in bed. The Mannings have all gone home. "You buy … much … thing."

Meredith rolls her eyes. "Oh, don't look at me like that," she says. "It's your fault."

His eyebrows rise further toward his hairline. "My fault?" he says with a smirk. "What did I … … d …." He thinks for a moment. "Do?"

She resists the urge to cheer for him, over the fact that he can be this tired, after a full day of parenting four children and doing the Christmas decoration thing, and still get that right on the first try. She steps into his space. "A, it's all for your stupid family." She grins. "B, you're the Christmas addict." She rises to her tiptoes and kisses him. "C …."

"C?" he echoes with an expectant look.

She snorts. "Well, I don't have a C right now, but I'll think of something."

His gaze creases with affection. He kisses her once before pulling out of her arms. He picks up the first bag and sits on the floor with it. The bag contains some shiny new knitting needles and several skeins of yarn that Meredith thought were pretty.

"For … Mom?" he says.

Meredith nods. "Yeah," she says. She frowns. "I hope she likes it. I had no idea what to get her. I suck at this."

"You don't suck," he says. He pets the first skein. The soft bundle of yarn is Meredith's favorite shade of purple – a deep lavender like she stole a sprig from a bouquet. "I'm sure she will like," he says. But he stares at the skeins and the needles with a frown.

"What's the matter?" she says, looking down at him.

"Nothing," he says. He gives her a reassuring smile. "I think … how … wrap."

"Oh," she says. She thinks for a long moment. She snaps her fingers. "Wait, I have an idea."

He watches her, curiosity loitering in his gaze as she marches to their walk-in closet. She bought a pair of knee-high boots a while ago when Sarah dragged her out for a shopping trip. Meredith has no idea what the hell she'll ever do with shiny, black, spike-heel boots that come up to her knees and remind her somewhat of prostitutes, but Sarah assured her the boots were an essential addition to any woman's closet, and Meredith supposes Sarah-who-should-be-a-supermodel would know what she's talking about. Meredith dumps the boots she'll never wear out of the big shoebox onto the floor of the closet. The box is huge to accommodate the tallness of the boots, and she thinks it will be big enough to fit the long knitting needles in addition to the yarn. She brings the box back to Derek.

He takes it with a nod. "Yes," he says. "Yes, this work."

He nudges the roll of wrapping paper with his hand and sends it tumbling backward. He puts the box on top of the paper, measuring the size cut he needs to make. He grabs the scissors and leans forward.

"Wait," she says. "Wait one second."

He looks up at her with a questioning gaze, eyebrows raised. She steps around him to his nightstand. She hovers there, her hand by the drawer, giving him a few seconds to identify what she's doing and to tell her no if he doesn't want her rooting around in there. His look is steady, unblinking, so she pulls open the drawer.

He keeps lots of things buried in here. The book he was reading before the accident – some medical thriller by Robin Cook – is still stacked inside at the bottom, his place midway through marked by a bookmark with a gold-colored thread tassel hanging off the end. There're also several issues of National Geographic resting on top of the book. These are more recent additions to the drawer, along with some simple children's books like Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear? that he's appropriated from Zola and Bailey, and a few comics borrowed from Stewart, to help him practice reading. She shovels past the magazines and books to the pile of little doodads he stores here, both new and old, in a plastic bin. Nail clippers. The bottle of lube. Pens. Unused bookmarks. A tiny book light. Miscellaneous batteries. A pocket-sized flashlight. A bottle of acetaminophen. His codeine. She finds the brown leather case she's looking for. The hinges squeak as she flips it open and smiles at what's inside.

She pulls the little case free and walks it over to him. She sits beside him on the rug. "Here," she says, proffering the case to him.

He looks at it. "Knife?" he says.

She nods. "It's your pocket scalpel. You used it to cut wrapping paper before the accident."

"Oh," he says. He pulls it loose from the case and unfolds it, careful to avoid the gleaming, bladed, sharp end.

"You want me to show you how to use it?" she says. He'll never use something like this on skin again, but she thinks wrapping paper might be a nice compromise between the past and the present. When he doesn't answer right away, though, she rushes to add, "It's okay if you don't want to. No pressure. I just thought …."

"No, I …." He swallows, and he blinks, and he shakes himself like he's been torn from a reverie. He looks at her with a warm smile. "I try. Show?"

"Okay," she says. She scoots closer. He grips the scalpel with his left hand. His non-dominant hand. His motor control with his left hand is unaffected by his TBI, though, so that's what he uses to handle sharp things and when he's trying to write. She puts her hand over his, warm skin to warm skin, and guides him to the top of the paper, beyond the edge of the shoebox. They both lean forward to reach. "This is super sharp," she says. It's meant to cut something far more resilient than wrapping paper. "You don't need to press too hard. Just put it to the paper and drag." She pulls his hand toward them, and the paper splits in two like butter. "Okay?"

He nods. "Okay."

He sets the scalpel aside and starts folding the paper around the box. Stewart must have shown him the mechanics of wrapping gifts, because Derek does a beautiful job with this part. In minutes, the skeins of yarn and the needles are hidden in a box that looks professionally wrapped. He hands her the finished box. She marks it for Carolyn with a tiny note on a free scrap of wrapping paper, and she sets the box by the wall.

He leans toward the bed and grabs the next bag. He pulls out a board game she bought for Mary, one of his littlest nieces. He picks up the scalpel again, and she watches him make the second cut by himself. The line is a bit crooked without her guiding him, but considering the hand he's working with, considering the fact that five minutes ago, he didn't know a damned thing about how to use this kind of knife …. It's perfect.

Her eyes water as she watches him, wrapping present after present with a familiar, cheerful gusto. She stacks and sorts the wrapped results when he hands them to her. It's a nice system. A bit like surgery, but … not.

Who is Derek Shepherd? she thinks as she adds a finished package to the stack by the wall. Her focus spaces, and the stack becomes a colorful, Santa kitten blur.

He still likes the whole Christmas thing.

Maybe, not as well as he used to be able to do, not on people, but he can still cut.

He's exchanged demanding for meek, chatty for quiet, arrogant for humble, gregarious for shy, restrained for gluttonous. He's lost his mean streak. He's kept his snark, though. He's kept his sense of humor. He still has his curiosity, his reverence for life, his sweetness, his love for family, and his tendency for self-flagellation. He's still a hopeless romantic with a thing for ferryboats.

He's still hers.

Who is Derek Shepherd?

She has a good summary, now, but thinks she'll spend the rest of her life answering this question. Another week, and she'll know for sure about the Star Wars thing – whether he's a fan, now, or not. She's not sure what's next on the Derek discovery docket after that. She doesn't mind not knowing the next step in the journey, though. The Tilt-a-Whirl is fun as long as he's sitting in the seat beside her.

"Meredith," he says, the word soft.

She yanks her focus from the stack by the wall and looks back at him. She raises her eyebrows at him. "Yes?"

"Will you bring … more … paper?" he says.

She grins. "Sure," she says. "I'll be right back."

She rises to her feet. She bends to kiss him. And then she wanders to the hall closet where they keep the wrapping paper stash. She grabs the whole trash bag full of it, all ten rolls. There's solid red, solid green, Christmas trees, more Santa kittens, snowmen, penguins, reindeer – the collection is a Christmas menagerie.

She watches Derek cut the last strip off the first roll of Santa kitten paper as she reenters the master bedroom. She bites her lip as she watches him fold with the intentness of someone disarming a bomb. Okay, she admits to herself as a stupid, toothy smile kidnaps her bland expression. Okay, fine.

Maybe, the Christmas thing isn't all bad.

~finis~