"How did he …?" Meredith asked, flabbergasted. Derek was not supposed to know Taylor even existed, let alone her name and that she would be under the table. "Did someone blab?"
She looked around the table threateningly, glaring at each person in turn and stopping when her eyes met Alex's.
"Hey don't look at me!" he defended. "I want absolutely nothing to do with any of this. The last thing I need is to get in between you and McSteamy."
"It's McDreamy," Izzie retaliated offhandedly.
Meredith reached down under the table and hoisted Taylor into the lap, playing with her little curls. "Sweetie how did you meet Dr Shepherd?" Meredith asked her daughter, tugging her necklace out of Taylor's grip.
"Auntie Izzie brought him to see me," Taylor answered nonchalantly as if she were talking about what colour her shows were.
Meredith looked up into Izzie face and served her with a death glare.
"What?" she asked, shoving some of her ceaser salad into her mouth to prevent her from talking. "Derek saw us earlier carrying her into the daycare centre and then when I went to go bring him a file earlier he asked me to see her. She's his daughter Mer!" Izzie said. "You can't keep him from her forever."
Meredith contemplated what she was saying. "Maybe not forever, but at least until he finds out on his own time. And by no help from any of you!" Meredith said, a slight smirk on her face. She pushed back her chair, Taylor still in her arms, and got up from the table. "I'll se you guys later," she said as she walked away.
XXXXXXXXXX
The daycare centre was crowded, little kids running around everywhere. Meredith promptly checked Taylor in, put her in a corner with a colouring book, kissed her head and left, telling her, as always, that she would be back in a couple to hours to take her home.
She absolutely hated having to leave Taylor in there everyday but what else could she do? She like having her so close so that if she was having a bad day she could just go and take a break and cuddle her daughter close to her chest and smell her lavender hair and the worries of the world would melt away. But the fact that Taylor spent more time at the daycare centre than she did at home worried Meredith. She didn't want her daughter to grow up the same way she did, without a father and hardly knowing her mother because she worked so much.
Meredith walked over to the nurses' station and pulled a file towards her, opening it and quickly scanning her eyes over the contents.
"You could have told me," a voice said from behind her. She spun wildly around and came face to face with Derek.
"Told you what?" Meredith asked, her heart hammering. She couldn't help but think that Derek knew; knew that Taylor was his daughter and that he was going to take her away from her and bring her back to New York to be raised as Addison's daughter. She knew she was being irrational but again … she couldn't help it.
"That you had a daughter," Derek said.
Meredith was silent. "You're right. I could have. But you also could have said goodbye," she shot back, her voice dripping with venom. Meredith turned her back to him and continued to read the file.
"Mer, come on," Derek said, putting his hand on his shoulder and spinning her around to face him. "You know I'm not good with goodbyes. If I had had to say goodbye to you, then I never would have been able to leave. And it was something that I had to do, for both our sakes."
'If only you had said goodbye," Meredith thought to herself. "Then you never would have left and we would be raising Taylor together." She knew that no matter how much she wanted to, Meredith could never say those things to his face.
She wondered if what she was doing was cruel; keeping a man from the daughter he didn't know he had as payback for causing her pain. Meredith knew it was, but she was still trying to lick her wounds even after four years and wasn't quite ready to give him to one thing she knew would make him happier than ever.
"Meredith say something," Derek said, bringing her out of her thoughts and back to reality.
Meredith opened and shut her mouth, word percolating on her tongue but she couldn't seem to force them out. "I have to go." She turned on her heel and walked away, leaving him as he had done to her. She had been so close to breaking, so close to ripping open the stitches made of lies and telling him everything about Taylor. But she forced herself not to; forced herself to think of the reason she had given herself long ago: that Taylor didn't deserve pain. That she didn't deserve to be rejected the same way she had, to be left in the cold and abandoned. She was doing this for Taylor. She was doing all of this for Taylor.
Even though he was silent, Meredith could tell that Derek was a couple feet behind her. So she stopped suddenly and turned to face him. His expression was stunned, wondering what she was going to do.
"Can I help you with something Dr Shepherd?" she asked, her voice filled with mock sincerity.
"You know you can call me Derek," he said.
"Dr Shepherd," she said adamantly, "What can I do for you? Because if there's nothing you need me for I have placed to be," she said coldly.
"Are you ever going to forgive me?" he asked.
"Are you ever going to stop causing me pain?" she asked back before turning back around and walking away for the second time.
