Chapter 4

Meredith and Izzie walked silently to the cafeteria and their usual table where George was waiting for them.

"Where's Christina?" Meredith asked.

"Surgery." George replied. "How's Becca?"

"She has to have surgery; her collapse caused a blood clot near her brain." Meredith replied quietly.

George nodded. "I thought she had been unconscious way too long."

"We found out who her parents are too." Izzie added with a glance at Meredith.

"Anyone we know?" George asked.

Neither of them replied, exchanging worried glances. Meredith finally spoke up. "Derek, her father is Derek." She stated. George stared at her skeptically, waiting for her or Izzie to burst out laughing, or for them to find the lie in their faces. He didn't.

"Shepard? Seriously?" he asked finally.

"Yeah."

"Are you going to tell him?"

"I'm…weighing my options." Meredith said with a guilty look toward the ground.

"What options? You either tell him, or you don't. it doesn't take very long to weigh those 'options'." Izzie replied, sounding annoyed.

"I'll tell him…" Meredith said, reluctantly. "…eventually."

"I guess I'll tell Addison, considering everything between you two; that could be quite an awkward conversation." Izzie said. "But you have to promise you will actually tell him about her."

Meredith sighed. "I promise. Thanks for telling Addison, I'd rather talk to Derek than Satan. He will probably be a lot more understanding."

Izzie smiled. "No problem."

"And, as an added bonus, it might mess up their relationship." Meredith added to herself with a grin.

But unfortunately, Meredith still spent all afternoon dreading the conversation she knew she eventually would have to have with Derek. After two hours, though, Meredith could no longer ignore Becca's hopeful stares every time she walked into the room to check on her, or even look at Derek knowing that there was a 14-yearold girl waiting to get to know him and he didn't even know it. So she decided to just suck it up and tell him. She found him in the hallway, pouring over some sort of chart. He didn't see her standing behind him, so it was up to her to say something.

"Derek." She stated quietly.

He looked up from the chart to stare at her. "Meredith."

She shuffled her feet slightly, unsure of exactly what to say. How do you tell a man that he has a 14-year-old daughter he didn't know anyway?

"Um, I just wanted to let you know that I have the names of Becca's parents." Meredith said awkwardly.

He nodded. "So, you contacted then and told them about her surgery."

"Not exactly." She replied, slowly pulling the piece of paper out from her scrub pocket. "I guess I'll do that now." She paused. "You know her parents, Dr. Shepard."

He glanced up at her, eyes gleaming with interest. "Really?"

She nodded uneasily. "Both her parents work here."

"I knew she looked familiar." Derek breathed. "Her mom's that nurse, she had red hair, she was with O' Malley…"

"Olivia." Meredith interrupted." It's not her, she's way too young to have a 14-year-old kid." She sighed; disgusted with herself for thinking Derek would immediately guess the answer and allow her to stay silent. "Her father is a neurosurgeon, he's known around here as Dr. McDreamy."

He just looked confused. "Who's that?"

Meredith placed her hand over her eyes in utter frustration and shoved the piece of paper at him. "Read and educate yourself."

Derek's eyes widened as he looked at the paper. "HOLY CRAP!" he yelled.

Richard appeared in the hallway. "Shepard, what the hell is going on down here! I can hear you from my office!"

"Nothing." Derek replied taking a deep breath. "Nothing, I have to go." He turned away from them and took off down the hall.

Richard glanced at Meredith, who only shrugged before heading down the hall in the opposite direction from Derek.

GAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGA

Izzie went straight from lunch to the neonatal wing to try and find Addison. Unfortunately, as soon as she did, she found out that she has to scrub in on a surgery, delaying their conversation for around two hours. Afterwards, Izzie stared at Addison and took a deep breath, preparing herself for what she has to say.

"Dr. Montgomery- Shepard, umm, I- sorry, I have no idea how to say this." Izzie said, somewhat nervously.

"It's okay." Addison replied, sounding more confused than nervous.

"There's a girl staying with us, her name is Becca Montgomery. She is schedules for surgery tomorrow; and Meredith asked me to contact her mother for her." Izzie paused.

"Her birth certificate says she's yours and Dr. Shepard's."

Addison's bright eyes widened with shock, and she felt like she could no longer stand up. She sank into the closest chair to her, not noticing it was a wheelchair. It started moving backwards slowly.

"Dr. Montgomery-Shepard-" Izzie said, reaching out to grab the chair.

"Addison shrieked as the chair began to pick up speed. "Holy crap!" she finally managed to swing her feet forward, and drag them on the ground, which stopped the chair from moving.

Richard shook his head at her from his place down the hall where she was, arms crossed. "I'm banning that word in this hospital from now on."

"Crap?" Addison asked, smiling slightly. "I'm not going to ask." She looked down at her shoes, biting her lip. "Ugh…that just totally ruined my shoes."

She smoothed her red hair out of her face, trying to restore some resemblance of order to her brain. "Have you seen Derek today?"

"I saw him earlier, I yelled at him about disrupting my hospital with similar language." Richard replied. His eyes softened as he surveyed his former intern.

"Is there something going on that I need to know about?"

Addison shook her head. "I just need to talk to Derek. Do you know where he went?"

"No. he seemed to disappear after Grey told him something, I didn't get any details."

She nodded, glancing at Izzie. "So, Meredith told him?"

"She was supposed to." Izzie said

Addison nodded again. "Dr. Stevens, do you think you could cover me for a few minutes?"

"Sure."

She headed off down the hallway. Richard looked over at Izzie curiously. "Stevens, do you have any idea what is going on?"

Addison found Derek sitting on the bench outside of the hospital, his head in his hands. She sat down next to him silently, not even sure if he had seen her coming.

"Derek." She said quietly.

He raised his head and looked at her. "Addison."

"Did Meredith tell you about Becca? "She asked bluntly, not seeing the point of beating around the bush.

He nodded; looking confused. "She told you?"

"Stevens did." she paused. "Have you met her?"

"She's one of my patients." He paused, think of what to say next. "She looks like you, you know."

Addison smiled. "So she got the hair?"

"She got the hair." Derek confirmed, a smile beginning to form on his lips. It disappeared almost immediately though. "Addy, what are we going to do?"

"I don't know."

"Our relationship isn't stable enough for a kid, especially not a teenage one who has to have brain surgery tomorrow."

"Thank you for stating the obvious-wait, what do you mean she's having brain surgery tomorrow?"

"Derek sighed. "She collapsed at Meredith's somehow, and a blood clot formed in her brain. I have to perform the evasive procedure tomorrow morning."

"I'm sorry, Derek." She said, placing a hand on his shoulder in comfort.

He stared at the hand in disgust for a moment, almost as if he was going to push it away, but then relaxed, as if he was grateful for the comfort. He reached up and intertwined his hand with hers.

"We'll talk about what to do after her surgery tomorrow." He said quietly.

"Shouldn't we talk to her before she goes into surgery, like maybe tonight?"

Derek shrugged. "I'm not sure if that's such a good idea, wouldn't it worry her too much, considering I'm operating on her?"

"I don't know, Derek." Addison sighed. "I guess I'll see her tomorrow morning afterwards. I get off in half an hour."

Derek nodded, watching his wife walk away broodingly.

Becca stared at Christina as she walked in with Meredith. "Does my mother really work here?" she sighed, annoyed that her amazing eavesdropping skills weren't getting her the straight answers she wanted and so Christina was her best shot at getting her the answer.

"You mean Satan? Yeah, she works here."

"Why do you guys call her that?"

"Because he is Satan." Christina replied.

Meredith shot Christina a warning look.

"What? You've said it, even Izzie'ssaid it. A woman who cheats on her husband and breaks up his relationship with his new girlfriend is Satan. It's that simple."

"She cheated on my dad?" Becca asked, looking thunder-struck.

"With his best friend." Christina confirmed. "And sufficiently broke up Derek and Meredith when she came from New York."

"My dad is Mcdreamy?"

"Your dad isn't a bad person, Bec." Meredith amended. "He just didn't tell me he was married until he showed up and told me herself. He didn't want to remember." She paused trying not to let her obvious hurt show. "And when the time came to choose, he figured he had to at least try and forgive her for what she did."

"That doesn't make him a bad person? It sounds like he acted like-"

"Christina!" Meredith interrupted her eyes wide.

"What? It's not like she never heard the word before." Meredith shook her head in exasperation.

Becca listened to the exchange with a half-smile on her face, which dimmed as she thought of her next question. "So, do they know I'm here?"

"Sure, maybe." Becca muttered, scowling slightly.

Becca couldn't sleep. Nerves bounced around in her stomach, making it clench tightly and painfully every time she thought of her surgery or those newfound revelations about her parents' relationship or rather their lack of relationship on top of her ankle throbbing painfully every few seconds.

Sloan had told her that showing up wouldn't be easy on them, that they were going through a pretty hard time as it was; but she had never expected this. She hadn't given Sloan's words a second thought when he said those things, hadn't even pictured walking into the web of lies she now found herself. This was her punishment for never giving any action a second thought in her entire life. The door to her room creaked open, and she looked over suspiciously, expecting a burglar or something.

"Oh, I'm sorry, did I wake you up?" Derek asked.

Becca shook her head. "I was already up." She replied quietly.

"Don't be nervous." He said softly. "The surgery isn't that risky, you'll be fine. I'm the best we have."

Becca nodded. "Okay."

Derek stepped closer to her, exhaling nervously. "So, you cam from New York." He stated. "I used to live in New York."

"Yeah, I lived there up until a few days before Thanksgiving."

"It's nice up there."

"Yeah. Becca said, looking slightly confused as to why Derek kept beating around the bush.

"Look, this is hard for me to say." Derek said. "I, neither of us, wanted to give you up."

"Don't tell me that." Becca snapped, her eyes flashing angrily. "I've been going between foster homes for thirteen years; every single family who shipped me off sold me that line. You wanted a better life foe me, I get it."

Derek sat down on to the hospital bed next to his daughter. "We really did."

"I'm sorry." Becca said, trying to hide the tears glistening in her bluish-green eyes. "It wasn't supposed to go like this…" she trailed off, looking guilty.

Derek secured the ice-pack on her ankle, numbing the pain a bit and wrapped his arms around her; feeling her relax into his embrace.

"Do you want me to stay here tonight?" he murmured. He felt her nod into his shoulder.

"That isn't too weird for you?"

"Are you kidding? What kind of father would I be if I didn't stay with my daughter the night before her surgery?" he joked.

Becca grinned. "Thanks, Dr. Shepard." Her eyes started to close slowly.

"No problem." He replied. "And call me Derek."