Suggested listening:

"I'll Always Be Right There"- Bryan Adams

Meredith was asleep by time they pulled into the driveway with six gallons of lavender paint, two hand rollers, four large sponge brushes, and three mixing trays in assorted sizes. Derek sighed and turned off the ignition, content to just sit in the lingering warmth of the truck rather than face waking Meredith and braving the December cold of Seattle to get inside.

God, he loved her. It was insane. Derek couldn't imagine feeling the way he did for Meredith ever again. Or ever before, for that matter. Derek looked over at her and smiled. Home Depot had been a disaster. They had gone there for lavender paint. Maybe a few brushes. How was he to know just how many types of lavender paint Home Depot had to offer? Eggshell and semi-gloss, flat-based and high-sheen. What the hell was high-sheen, anyways? Derek didn't know, and he certainly didn't think that Meredith would have. And boy, was that assumption a mistake. 'Why, Derek? Why don't you care? This is important!'

The truth was, Derek did care. But he had a lot on his mind. Yes, he had told his mother, who in turn had told his sisters. That part was the truth. But was his mother really as 'okay' with it as he had claimed? Hell. No. He would have to call her. He would have to call his mother, and Nancy and Kathleen, and re-invite them all. It was that, or face Meredith; and after the two and a half hours they had just spent arguing in the paint department of Home Depot, Derek definitely couldn't pick the latter.

Derek trailed a hand across Meredith's belly and waited to feel a kick. That was another new thing. Their baby was 'boycotting' Derek. Meredith's words, of course. Derek wondering if you could really consider four days much of a boycott, but it was true. Not once in the last ninety-six hours had he felt his baby girl kick. And after their last harrowing experience with the OB-GYN, this should have alarmed him. Expect for she was kicking Meredith. 'All day and night' to borrow Meredith's words; and although she complained, Derek knew she was happy. He wondered why the baby wouldn't kick for him. Was she disassociating with him? Did his daughter somehow sense the unvoiced stress both he and Meredith seemed to be feeling lately? Meredith teased that it was because he kept picking such horrible names for her, although they both knew that Derek was joking when he did this. Derek could only hope it was something like this. He wanted to feel his daughter kick. To him, four days was a long time.

Derek slid his hand lower, hoping the motion would prompt movement on the baby's part. Nothing. He sighed. Meredith didn't even stir. He watched her sleep; her head resting against the window, hands folded in her lap, the dried streak of tears still on her face.

They hadn't been able to pick a color. They'd gotten there, and they'd gone down the aisle with all the house paint on it, and Derek had thought that they'd already picked lavender.

"It looks different in this light," Meredith observed disappointedly. She passed the color sample to Derek.

Derek realized he was supposed to add to this thought.

"It looks the same."

"It's different," Meredith insisted.

"Alright, let's look at the others then," Derek suggested.

That too had been a mistake.

"This one?" Meredith pulled one of the little cards from the wall of little cards. All lavender. A wall of little lavender cards, next to a wall of little blue cards. Derek wondered how there could even be this many shades of one color.

"I like it," he offered.

Meredith wrinkled her nose. Titled the card back and forth. Squinted.

"It's too pale."

"What about this one?" Derek suggested. "It's called 'Lavender Dream'." He held it out to her.

Meredith shook her head.

"You didn't even look at it," Derek accused.

"I did," Meredith insisted. "It's too blue-"

"It's called 'Lavender'," Derek pointed out dully.

"I don't like it."

And that was how it had gone for the next half hour.

"I'm going to find the brushes," Derek had explained finally, desperate to get away from the purple wall. He had been looking at it for too long; was it actually glowing around the edges? Derek shook his head to clear his vision.

"I'll go too," Meredith suggested.

"You have to pick out a color-" Derek pointed out.

"I have."

Really, just like that? After all of the debate, it was actually that easy?

"Which one?" Derek crossed his arms.

"This-"

He looked down at the sample. Read the name. Read it again. Derek looked up slowly.

"…It's the same one."

"No, it's 'Lavender Skies,' we were just looking at 'Purple Haze'," Meredith said, as if this were the most obvious thing in the world.

"It's the one I picked," Derek insisted. "It's the first one. The very first one-"

There was a long pause.

"Oh," Meredith agreed finally, "It is."

And she was happy, just like that.

Derek brushed his thumb across Meredith's cheek. They were flushed; from crying, probably. He didn't want to wake her. He already felt guilty enough.

Derek followed Meredith to the paint counter. Although she had insisted on getting three different size mixing trays, they had selected their brushes with surprisingly little trouble.

"Acrylic or acrylic-latex?"

Derek glared. Had the man behind the counter just given Meredith a choice?

"Umm…" Meredith looked to Derek.

"Either." He growled shortly. Not at Meredith. Never at Meredith.

"It's your choice, sir."

"We're doing a nursery," Meredith explained happily, throwing a glance at Derek over her shoulder. "Which would be better for that?"

Meredith and the man discussed paint types for nurseries for the next half hour.

Derek was growing increasingly impatient. He found himself drifting off. Now he was looking at the power drills. They made him think of his surprise for Meredith. Soon. He had been planning it for months now. Meredith hated surprises. Derek was confident she would love this.

Speaking of, she was heading down the aisle towards him.

"Derek, where did you go?" she asked. "I need you to help me with the paint-"

"You chose?" He could not hide the way his voice rose hopefully.

"Well, no," Meredith admitted. "I need your help-"

"Acrylic or acrylic-latex," Derek found himself snapping. "Where's the difficulty in that?"

There was a long pause. Meredith touched her belly.

"I chose acrylic-latex," she said finally. "But I need to know…flat, low-luster, or semi gloss-"

"Semi gloss-" Derek's voice sounded way too harsh. He cringed inwardly. "Semi gloss," he tried again, but the damage was already done. Meredith bit her bottom lip.

Meredith usually only bit her lip when she was trying not to cry.

…Great.

Derek looked out through the windshield. The truck was growing cold without the ignition idling, and heavy white clouds were building to the north in the dark night sky. It would be snowing soon, and the first few flakes made their sloppy appearance against the windows, not quite frozen yet.

"Meredith-"

"I don't understand why you're acting like this," Meredith insisted tearfully.

"Mer-" Derek tried again.

"It's not my fault," she exclaimed, and to Derek's horror, she let out a loud sob. "You could have mentioned," she hiccupped tearfully,"that you were going to be acting like this, because I'm trying really hard here-"

Derek's face burned and he felt the angry glares of nearby shoppers. He looked like such an asshole.

"I'm sorry, Mer," he insisted, "I really am, it isn't your fault-"

"I can't do this without you, Derek," she pointed out honestly, "I need you-"

"Okay," Derek agreed, "I'm sorry-"

"We're tired too, you know, but these are things that need to be done-"

Again with the 'we're'. No wonder his baby hated him. He was so incompetent.

"You're right," Derek agreed. Seriously, what was wrong with him? "I'm sorry, I know you're um, nesting right now-"

"You jerk!" Meredith shrieked. Literally shrieked. Derek wanted to sink through the floor and disappear. "This isn't some phase you read about in stupid 'What to Expect...'! This is important!"

People were gathering at each end of the aisle now, drawn to the commotion.

"I'm sorry, Meredith, you're right-" It was finally happening, Derek realized. It felt like most of Meredith's pregnancy had been dealing with complications and/or the possibility of complications. Besides the morning sickness, things like cravings and extreme hormones had mostly taken a back seat. And suddenly, here they were, full-force and long overdue.

Derek attempted to comfort her. He could feel the stares of the nearby onlookers, and one employee even tried to ask Meredith if she needed help. Derek just wanted to get out of there. It was a long process getting Meredith back to the paint counter, but once they were there, Derek told the man:

"Four gallons of your acrylic-latex semi gloss in this color-" he slid the paint sample across the counter.

"Six-" Meredith hiccupped.

"What?" Derek looked down at her.

"Six gallons," she corrected, and Derek took a long, deep breath.

"Six gallons," Derek echoed, and dared the man behind the counter to even look contradictory.

"Mer…" Derek spoke softly, trying to wake her before it started to sleet. He tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. "Meredith…"

She stirred. Her hands went to her belly, and Derek knew that the baby was probably moving. He resisted the urge to stick out his hand for a feel. Pushing open his door, he hurried around to Meredith's side and helped her down. He held her elbow so she wouldn't slip as they navigated their way up the steps and onto the dark porch.

"Are you hungry?" Derek asked as they pushed their way inside. She shook her head, and he helped her remove her coat. She was tired.

"Derek?" she yawned, and he answered:

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry if I was difficult…" and her apology was so honest and cute that all Derek could do was smile. He knew, for all the trouble that she was going to, that his mother and sisters would have to come. As his family was currently un-invited, Meredith could not know that all her worrying was for nothing.

"It's not your fault," Derek insisted.

"Okay, but we need to paint…"

And Derek said:

"No, not tonight."

"Okay." And he knew she was tired when she agreed.

Derek helped Meredith up the stairs, and wondered why the house was so quiet. Where was Izzie? And George and Alex? At the hospital, probably, or maybe at Joe's? He helped Meredith out of her maternity clothes and into her old Dartmouth t-shirt, the only article of pre-pregnancy clothing that truly still fit her.

"I found a name," she mumbled sleepily, and Derek said 'okay', because he thought she was probably too tired to know what she was saying. "Don't you want to know?" she asked quietly.

Derek smiled and nodded.

"Charlotte."

He paused to consider this.

"...Charlotte..." It was more a statement that a question. He was trying out the feel of it.

"The littlest quint," Meredith pointed out solemnly. "Kate, Lucy, Julie, Emily-"

"-Charlotte," Derek finished for her, because he remembered the Quintuplet case, and Charlotte had been Meredith's quint, and it was perfect. And he told her so. "…It's perfect, Mer."

And Meredith smiled, and drifted off to sleep holding his hand. And she was happy, just like that.

Derek watched her sleep, and the sleet outside the window gradually turned to snow as the hard sound of ice against the roof faded into a soft silence. A long time after Meredith had fallen asleep, Derek gently removed his hand from hers, and crept across the hall into George's old room. He closed the door, and cracked a window, and painted the plain, white walls the color of lavender skies. And three hours later -still smelling strongly of latex- he crawled into bed and laid his hand against Meredith's abdomen…and was rewarded with a tiny kick from his daughter. Meredith stirred and rolled over, and Derek wrapped her in his arms, and together, they slept.

The song choice is reference to Derek's commitment to always being there for Meredith, no matter what. Even when she's driving him crazy by being indecisive about the paint choices. They've chosen a first name, 'Charlotte' and if you don't remember, there was an episode in season 2 or 3 (pretty sure it was 2) where a woman is brought in, pregnant with quintuplets, and Charlotte is the quint that Meredith is assigned to. So each intern kind of bonds with their quint throughout the episode: Cristina- Julie, Alex- Kate, George- Lucy, Izzie- Emily...or something like that. Izzie's quint ends up dying, but she learns a lesson, and Meredith's quint has problems with her lungs. In the end, Meredith makes the decision to put Charlotte with one of her sisters, and it turns out that that was a very good judgment call, and everyone praises her for it because Charlotte ends up recovering immensely. So that name has significance, as is becoming a theme with Meredith. She has a lot of emotions that have given her trouble in the past, and she's trying to overcome this part of herself. So there you go. Reviews, please! :)