A/N: To my awesome trailblazers, you have been so patient and so lovely and here is an extra-long chapter that you well deserve. I hope it's worth the wait. It jumps around in time just a bit, but should be mostly self-explanatory. Thank you again for being such wonderful readers, and I hope you enjoy!

.. Questions and Answers ..

As a surgeon, you have to get used to answering questions. Fast.

You answer questions … pretty much all day. Starting when your internship does, you're in the hot seat.

Every day. All day.

Some of the questions are more difficult to answer than others. Then there are some that are simple, but they're still hard: Will I get better? Will my loved one survive? Some of them, sometimes, are easier.

And then some of them …

"Let's start by talking about what drew each of you to the other one," the counselor suggests with a friendly smile.

… some of them are just plain awkward.

"Meredith, why don't you go first."

"Um." Meredith sits up a little straighter on the plush couch, glancing next to her. Derek's posture is also rigid, but she can see from the line next to his mouth that he's trying not to laugh.

She can feel her cheeks flushing as she imagines the other couples the marriage counselor has seen. They must say things like his intellect or all of his accomplishments or the way he was kind to animals or …

Anything but what she's going to have to say.

Meredith looks nervously at Derek, who thankfully steps in.

"We met … unexpectedly," he tells the counselor, who nods.

"Go on."

"It was kind of ... in a bar," Meredith adds.

"Kind of?"

"Yeah. Well, no. It was actually in a bar," she admits.

The counselor nods. She looks neutral, not judgmental at all, which is … nice.

"And in the bar … what drew you to Derek?"

"Tequila," Meredith offers.

She laughs and then Derek does too.

"I'm sorry," he says quickly. "We do take this seriously."

"We do. Seriously," Meredith echoes.

The counselor doesn't look fazed. "Why are you apologizing?"

"Because we're laughing," Meredith says, confused. "And we're supposed to be … marriage counseling."

"On the contrary, laughter is an important part of marriage. If you can laugh with each other … and laugh with yourselves … that's a good thing."

Meredith considers this.

"So you met in a bar…" the counselor prompts encouragingly. "But something must have drawn you to each other in the bar. Not just tequila," she smiles, "because there were plenty of other people there drinking, I would imagine, and I don't think you married any others, or had children with them?"

"No, I didn't."

"Ah." The counselor smiles. "So, Derek…"

"He had a red shirt," she blurts.

"She had a black dress," Derek counters.

Both are them are silent for a moment. "But it was more than that," Meredith adds just as Derek says: "But it wasn't just the dress."

Meredith turns to see Derek's eyes twinkling.

It's a relief to know laughter is good for marriage.

Because they're already doing more of it.

..

"Homework?"

"Homework," the counselor nods as she brings the session to a close. "Your assignment, before we meet again, is one family activity outside the … home," she says tactfully instead of hotel, "and one date night. That's just the two of you," she adds.

"Childcare," Meredith says faintly. The counselor's clinic has a bright, appealing daycare room that's allowing them this time, but they won't be able to use it for date night.

"You have to find childcare sometime," the counselor says, smiling. "If it helps, my assistant keeps a list of reputable agencies in the area."

"I liked her," Derek says when they close the office door behind them.

"Even with the homework?"

"Even with the homework."

They discuss the timing as they walk toward the clinic's childcare room.

"I can take tomorrow off. For our … family activity homework."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure. And our … date," Derek says. "When do you-"

"Thursday."

"Thursday?"

She's not sure why she picked Thursday. It just seemed right, so she nods.

"We'll need to find someone to watch the kids."

"We can do that."

Zola hugs her around the waist when they open the door to the daycare room and Bailey jumps into Derek's arms.

"You came back so fast!" Zola enthuses and Meredith feels Derek's arm around her, warm and comforting.

He must have noticed the expression on her face at Zola's words.

…

Some questions aren't easy or hard, they're just not meant to be answered.

They're more … rhetorical.

"Derek … did you know DC was an actual swamp when you moved here?"

She glares at him, or tries to, but she can't help laughing. First of all, she likes the way moved here sounds. And second of all … it's hard to take anything too seriously with mud spattered from hip to ankle.

Zola, who insisted to an amused sales associate at District Trek that she was the fastest hiker in the family and would not caught dead in a carrier like Bailey's, is as muddy as her mother, and luckily very amused by it.

Only Bailey, secured to Derek's back, is clean as a whistle, his little green sunhat free from mud.

"Is it quicksand?" Zola looks from her mother to her father with alarm. "Like in Captain Jack and the Sinking Treasure?"

"It's not quicksand," Meredith assures Zola immediately, then leans closer to Derek to whisper: "Right?"

Bailey chooses that moment to snatch his sunhat off his head and hurl it into the mud.

How did they get here?

It all started with their homework assignment. No … it started with a little pink pony pad, and then it started with their homework assignment.

It started with family activity day.

…

Family activity day dawns hot and humid with no promise of relief from either.

Zola is jumping on the bed, and Bailey is trying to as well, but Zola's more powerful jumps keep knocking him down. Meredith would ask Zo to slow down and give him an opportunity to jump, but Bailey's hysterical laughter every time he falls suggests he's enjoying it.

"You're really not going to work?" Zola looks back and forth between her parents.

"Not today," Derek says.

"But what you're doing is really important. It's going to help sick people." Zola's parroting what Meredith used to remind her in Seattle when she asked why her father was working so far away. When she said she missed him.

"That's true." Derek sits down on the side of the bed and takes Zola on his lap. "But what I do with you, and your mom, and your brother, is more important."

"It is?"

"It is." He kisses the tip of her nose.

"Is that why we all live together now?"

Meredith feels her throat tightening and she can tell from the glimmer in Derek's eyes that he feels the same way.

"That's right." He holds Zola tightly for a moment and then releases her. "But … this is just a hotel. We need to find somewhere to live."

"A house!" She grins broadly, then a pensive look comes over her face.

"What is it, sweetie?"

"I like our house in Seattle."

"Me too, Zozo. I love our house in Seattle." Derek smiles at her. "That's still our home. But while we're here … we need another home."

"I think you're only supposed to have one home," Zola says. "That's what makes it home."

"I disagree."

Zola is standing up now, and Derek draws her between his knees. "Home is wherever the four of us are together. So right now, it's here, in DC."

Zola considers this. "What if the four of us are in a car, driving? Is that our home?"

Meredith smiles. "She may have you there."

"I've lived in a trailer. I can live in a car."

"I don't want to live in a car," Zola says hurriedly.

"Daddy's just being silly." Meredith lifts Bailey to her hip, preparing to go change him. "About the car, I mean. The rest … the rest isn't silly."

Zola considers this. "Will we live in a house?"

"I think that sounds like a good idea." Derek feigns confusion. "I wonder who can help Mommy and me find the perfect house for us."

"I can!" Zola beams.

"Oh, good." He stands up and tosses Zola in the air; she squeals in response. "I have a feeling you'll find us the perfect one."

Meredith corrals Derek on his way to fix breakfast for Bailey.

"You're really taking the whole day off?"

He nods. "Do what we love at home and at work," he recites. "And you three are what I love."

"Don't be dreamy when the kids are awake. Be dreamy when they're asleep."

"I'm not a machine," he teases her.

Over breakfast, they agree to house hunt this weekend and to spend family activity day outdoors.

In the heat.

And the humidity.

"It will be great," Derek assures her hastily. "I found a bunch of family friendly trails. Somewhat bashfully, he shows her a book.

The Active Family's Guide to the DMV.

"Are we buying a car?"

He laughs. "DMV as in DC, Maryland, Virginia. Not Department of Motor Vehicles."

"Oh." She pauses. "That seems unnecessarily confusing."

"Take it up with the founding fathers." He opens the book to a tape-flagged page. "Check out this one."

"You marked up hikes," she says. "Before we got here."

"I marked up hikes." He pauses. "Is that bad?"

"It's not bad. It's good. It's very good." She touches his cheek. "You knew we were coming."

"I hoped you were coming," he corrects her. "Hoping isn't the same as knowing."

But sometimes it is, she thinks.

…

"… and that's why ended up in a swamp."

"Mer, who are you talking to?"

"The universe," she says. "Whoever's listening. Anyone who might be considering hiking in a swamp."

"It's not a swamp," he says with dignity, and Meredith is about to answer him when she sees the path that he's –

"Derek!"

But it's too late. To Bailey's delight, Derek walks straight into a patch of swinging, muddy leaves.

Their son is finally as muddy as the rest of them. They match, Zola and Meredith hand in hand, Bailey grinning from his perch in the backpack carrier attached to his father.

"Maybe we should have taken the rail trail," Derek allows.

"And miss all this mud?" Meredith smiles, then leans up to kiss him.

"Don't, you'll –"

"I don't mind," she assures him. "Plus, rail trails are no fun."

"Too easy," Zola scoffs, and Meredith thinks their daughter might have spent too much time showing her swagger to the man who sold them their newly minted DC hiking gear. Their daughter looks adorable in the brightly colored moisture-wicking top and bottoms, though, so Meredith can't really complain.

Meredith looks up at the hazy sky. The trail they chose wasn't exactly easy. It's the longest one around the strange little island, where some long-dead politician or other used to have an estate. It's low down, deep in the swampy parts of the island, and they're long past the glorious views of the Potomac, recognizable downtown DC beyond … now they're, well … in the mud.

"Daddy, look!" Zola is poking at the soft ground with one of her little sneakers. "Quicksand!"

"It's not quicksand, sweetie. It's just good old fashioned mud."

"Why is there so much mud here?"

"Because it's a swamp," Meredith says cheerily, ducking when Derek reaches for her with one muddy hand.

"Swamps are cool," Zola decides as she tromps between her parents.

"Derek … there's no one else on this trail."

"It's a weekday."

"It's a swamp," Zola adds.

"Who's side are you on?" Derek teases.

"We're all on the same side," Meredith reminds him. "The side where – Zo!"

She's slipped on the slick ground.

"Are you okay?" Meredith kneels in the mud without a second thought to check on her.

"I'm good." Zola sits up, her brightly colored clothes mostly mud now, and reaches for her –

"Don't rub your face," Meredith advises. Wiping off her own hand she tilts Zola's chin. "Did you bump anything?"

"No. I'm tough," Zola reminds her.

"You certainly are." Meredith helps her to her feet and glares at Derek when he starts laughing.

"What?"

"Nothing," he says, forcing the smile off his face. "It's just … I'm not sure I'd recognize either one of you under all that mud."

"Yeah, you would."

"You're right … I would."

And they're off again along the muddy trail.

…

"We did it," Meredith says when they've staggered exhausted through the door of the hotel. They shed their mud-spattered outerwear quickly in the tiled foyer and then split up the kids for emergency bathing. "We actually did it. The whole trail."

"We did it," Derek echoes when they're actually clean, Bailey's hair blond again, everyone's fingernails a much more passable color. He smiles at her. "I haven't said this in a while, but … we're almost done with our homework."

"Alll we have left is to find a babysitter for Thursday," she reminds him, keeping her voice low so she doesn't startle the kids.

"Already started. The concierge has bonded sitters. We can interview one in the morning."

Meredith closes her eyes briefly, imagining a mud-free dinner. Maybe some candles, a glass of something that's not milk …

"It was so fun when we hiked. Can we do it again?" Zola is beaming.

"We absolutely can. Very soon. Just … maybe a little more neatly," Derek suggests.

"Being neat is no fun." Zola climbs onto the couch and starts jumping.

"Zozo, we have neighbors underneath us," Derek reminds her.

She looks confused.

"They can hear you jumping."

She looks neutral now.

"And they might not want to." Derek laughs, seemingly in spite of himself. "I can't imagine why, though," he adds when Zola flashes a smile in return.

Derek glances at his blackberry. "I should …"

"Go ahead."

She appreciates the time he's taken off; isolating him from his work was never the goal. She takes the kids to get ready for bed.

Meredith loves toothbrushing time.

There's something … honest, easy to talk, about this time. Zola and Bailey are sitting side by side of the thankfully wide lip of the bathtub, Meredith on the closed toilet seat, for all the world like the counselor to their adorable brother-and-sister union. How does that make you feel? She could ask.

… but the setup doesn't last long; Bailey loves brushing his teeth like a big boy, mimicking his older sister's routine with impressive enthusiasm, but most of the toothpaste ends up on his face or sometimes, inexplicably, in his hair. Meredith usually lets him do it himself for a few minutes and then takes over. Once he's situated on her lap and she's brushing, holding his head in her hand, Zola takes the toothbrush out of her own mouth.

"Mommy?"

"Yes, Zo?"

"I kind of miss our house."

"Yeah?" Meredith shifts her grip on a wriggling Bailey, who doesn't appreciate her attention to his little cuspids – which she knows for an unfortunate fact are quite sharp. "I do too," Meredith says, and Zola looks at her with interest. "What do you miss about it, sweetie?"

"My room," Zola says immediately. She brushes her teeth with a few more flourishes, then adds, "and your room."

"My room too?" Meredith stands with Bailey in her arms to help him rinse, taking a moment to wrestle the toothbrush gently from his alarmingly strong mouth.

"Yeah. Like when me and Bailey come in and …" Zola waves her little hands in an illustration of a classic cuddle pile.

"It's not the same here, but we're all here, so there's no reason why we can't … " Meredith makes the same gesture with her free hand and Zola giggles.

"But we're not going to live here forever, Zozo."

"I know." Zola rinses and spits on her own, then bares her little teeth to inspect them.

"Ooh, sparkling," Meredith praises her. "We're going to move somewhere that's a … house," she assures her daughter. "And you'll have your own room."

"I will?"

"Definitely."

"Mommy … can I have bunk beds in my new room?"

Meredith envisions Bailey scaling the side of a bunk bed and crashing to the floor. "Um … let's see what Daddy thinks about that," she deflects.

…

If toothbrushing is surprisingly enjoyable, pre-bed stories are just flat-out enjoyable. Both kids are clean and dressed in their pajamas, snuggled between their parents and nicely sharing the job of turning pages.

"I like when you both put us to bed," Zola says. "Bailey does too," she adds. She pats her little brother's leg. "Right?"

Bailey pops the pacifier they can't quite bring themselves to take away out of his little mouth. "Right," he says quite distinctly, and then sticks it back in.

Meredith and Derek exchange a look. This highly unusual work schedule … or lack of work schedule … has felt strange to both of them, she knows.

It doesn't seem to feel strange to the kids, though. They like it.

She studies the hand that's holding the book open, her hand that she spent years and tens – no, hundreds – of thousands of dollars training.

She'll cut again. She knows she will.

What did the counselor say? Take each day as it comes.

It must count for the nights, too. And for tonight … her hands are right where they're supposed to be.

…

"Bailey's down?"

Derek nods. Zola fell asleep first, Bailey protesting his new environs until Derek walked him enough loops in the darkened living room to settle him down. He closes the door and flicks on the baby monitor.

"Ah … sleeping babies."

Meredith looks over his shoulder. Stretched out on her little cot, Zola doesn't look much like a baby anymore, and she has a pang.

"Zo's out." Derek follows Meredith's gaze. "Then again … she did a lot more hiking than Bailey did."

Meredith smiles, recalling Zola's fierce determination on the trail. Even with the mud, the mosquitoes, the humidity …

"That was the best homework I've ever done," she says out loud.

She glances at Derek. He doesn't necessarily look like he agrees.

Questions take guts, sometimes. If you're not sure you want to know the answer.

"Don't you think?"

"It was pretty great," Derek says. "But best … I don't know."

Some answers just give you more questions.

"Ask me Thursday night," he says with a grin, and tackles her to the bed, her laughter muffled in his shoulder.

And some answers … give you everything you need.

To be continued. So. Worth the wait? Review and let me know!

PS I love DC, I do, and a little mud never hurt anyone. :)