A/N: Thanks everyone for all your support. Someone pointed out I spelled Dr. Herman's name wrong, Oops! I always thought it was Hernan for some reason, Anyway, it's fixed.

Enjoy!

Richard was impressed. Incredibly impressed. He'd just watched his daughter perform a rare, complicated, and extremely difficult procedure on an otherwise lost cause. Maggie Pierce was his daughter. Ellis Grey's daughter. He had to tell her, she deserved to know and life was short. He swallowed and thumped down the stairs from the gallery to the surgical floor. Donning his scrubcap and removing his labcoat he entered the area just in time to see her exit the OR.

"Dr. Pierce..." he called.

Maggie stopped and turned to him. "Dr. Webber?"

He walked closer, apprehensive. "Um, I need to talk to you-"

"Richard!" Amelia said cheerfully as she burst through the door Maggie just exited. Standing in between them, she looked at Richard, then at Maggie, then back at Richard.

Richard glared at her to go away. She gave him a knowing look, "Well- I'll just- you know, update the family..." and she walked away, a giant grin on her face. He rolled his eyes.

"In here?" he asked, pointing to the now empty scrub room.

"Um, okay?" Maggie said, suddenly looking very worried.

He followed her in and waited as she turned around to face him, arms crossed.

"I don't really know how to say this..." He started.

"You know, I don't think-" Maggie interjected.

"I think I'm your father." Richard finished.

Maggie sputtered. Confusion and shock drew itself on her features... "You- you're my father?"

"I'm fairly certain, yes." One arm propped him up as he leaned on the stainless steel sink.

Maggie blinked, turned away for a second, turned back, "You and Ellis-"

"Yes," he nodded.

"You're my dad."

"Yes."

"Oh my God, you're my dad!" Maggie said, covering her mouth in surprise.

xxx

Amelia had just finished giving her patient's family good news, and was now on her way through the halls to find a spot to update her charting for the day. Meredith had just got off the elevator and was walking toward her in a daze. Well not walking toward her exactly, but walking in her direction. She swallowed. She wasn't exactly sure what Meredith thought of her, although she'd been the one to reccomend her to come to Seattle. Amelia knew she may have messed things up after sleeping with Mark, so she stopped and hesitated as Meredith approached.

Meredith was barely looking at her however. Her gaze was fixed ahead, and she moved stiffly.

Amelia risked it. Deftly, she touched Meredith's forearm as she passed.

It was enough to make the woman stop and look up in confusion. "Amelia," she said softly.

"Hey," she replied. I'm here, she wanted to convey.

Meredith's gaze revealed a storm of mixed emotions, and Amelia could only guess at the wringer she'd been through this last week. Her sort of sister in law blinked and nodded slightly, I know, she seemed to be saying, and Amelia was relieved that Meredith didn't seem angry at her.

She let go of her arm and looked back at her chart, clearing her throat awkwardly.

"Um..." Meredith said, "Lexie's not on my couch anymore so... you can move in. The house is clean anyway..." she continued as she walked away.

"Oh... Okay." Amelia said, and the tension between them was immediately abated. "Thanks," she called over her shoulder.

xxx

Meredith met Owen outside ICU room four. The lost guy in the woods. Through the glass, Edwards was checking his incisions and monitoring his vitals.

"How is he?" she asked, feeling bad that she'd left him this long, but not feeling like she should apologize for the best two-and a half hours she'd had since... since she'd found out she was pregnant.

"Well, he's not worse," Owen said, "but he's not better. I talked to him, we called the police about his family and they're looking but-"

"But what?" Meredith asked, looking up from his chart.

"I think you should talk to him. He's giving up, and we need him to hold on just a little longer."

"And you want me to talk to him."

"Yes," Owen said, nodding. "You know what it's like-"

"I know what it's like," she repeated. "I won't be able to help him, I'll probably agree with everything he says. Call psych." She shoved the tablet back at Owen. She hated this, she felt like she was being used. Screw you, she thought angrily. Meredith shook her head and turned around.

"But you're here now." Owen said, "Four years later, you're here. Alive. Operating. Saving lives, making a difference. Somehow you made it to this moment. I don't know how you did it, but... he just needs a little more time, Meredith."

He needed more than a little more time.

Four years ago:

Meredith retched violently into the bedpan for the third time. The world spun around like an obnoxious tilt-a-whirl. Drugs and tequila... not a good mix. It wasn't like she overdosed, she'd taken her medication as prescribed, but five shots of tequila with even those small amounts of painkillers was bad news.

Doctor Meredith knew that she was unbelievabley lucky her breathing hadn't stopped, or that she hadn't fallen from the dizziness and split her head open on her mother's kitchen table earlier.

But Dark and Twisty Meredith was rejecting all notions of luck and wanted to go back to the moment where, just for a second, for a second- nothing hurt, and she'd started to forget the pain of loss as she contemplated bleeding out and joining Derek in the afterlife.

Moments, Ghost Denny had told her, that's all you get. Moments with your loved one. She wondered if that's what Derek was getting. Just moments. She didn't get moments in reality. She got nothing.

She wanted forever.

She made it through seven months with two thoughts in mind- one- a piece of Derek lived in her and she would give birth to it and hold it and love it more deeply then she'd ever loved anything else, and... that gorgeous little girl would love her back the same way.

But there was nothing left. She was empty. So empty.

Enraged, Meredith threw the bedpan against the door of her room, watching the milky bile splatter on the window. She clutched herself and curled into a painful ball, sobbing.

At some point, a shadow passed over the window in her room. Her particular room wasn't really that private, she was under observation, so a large window filled one wall, and directly on the other side was a nurse's station.

She was expecting a cleaner, or a nurse, but when the door opened, Richard Webber stood there deeply troubled. He side-stepped the bedpan, ignoring it completely as he approached the bed. Meredith rolled to the other side, not able to face him.

She heard the scrape of wood chair legs on lineoleum and Richard's despairing sigh as he sat down.

"I can have the nurses bring you some Tylenol, for the pain," he said.

Meredith plucked at a loose thread on her pillow and ignored Richard. Her pelvis was aching, still healing from being screwed together. Her insides, mostly healed, still throbbed from the needle and thread work that held the soft tissues of her lung and her uterus together, among other things. Her chest burned from the pressure of the tension pneumothorax her broken ribs had caused, epecially now that she'd vomited.

She didn't want tylenol. She wanted something that would relieve the constant aching pain in her broken heart.

"Meredith, look at me, please."

She wouldn't.

"Dammit! I am not watching you die again!" He grabbed her, physically turning her in the bed to face him. She squirmed and cried, pushing at his strong arms, bucking in the bed. But he was too strong.

She closed her eyes, refusing to look at him even as he held her.

"Meredith, three weeks ago I convinced Cristina to sign papers for removal of life support. I convinced her to let you go. Essentially, I convinced your best friend to kill you."

Her eyes opened and she shook her head slowly in denial.

"You'd been non-responsive for twenty-one days, all your levels were deteriorating. You were dying, slowly by degrees, and I couldn't stand to see you suffer. We started to disconnect all the leads, all your IV's. You were intubated. I removed your intubation tube... and we waited. We all watched and waited." Richard swallowed and shook his head slowly. Despite how much we loved you, this was much worse. So we were willing to let you go, where obviously you seemed to want to go."

Meredith lay there, completely disbelieving what Richard said. She hadn't been that far gone had she?

"You started to breathe on your own. I tried to convince myself it was a fluke. A reflex. But as you kept gasping, it was clear you decided to fight."

She sighed. She didn't remember that part. She remembered a strange dream with her mom and George, and Derek... and something he said that at the time made so much sense. She wasn't finished. She had to come back for the baby.

Now there was no baby.

"You fought." Richard continued, and she saw fear in his eyes as he relieved the memory. "Just like you did when you fell in the water. You fought."

So now what? In her distorted mind, there was nothing for her to fight for so...

"You just gonna lay here and fade away? Is that it?"

No... maybe... Meredith pounded angrily on the mattress. Everything was just so hard. And everything hurt. So much.

"Your mother would call you a quitter." Richard said, the corners of his mouth twitching, like he didn't want to release those words. "She'd call you a damn fool. A waste of money and time and resources. A waste of talent," he bit at her.

Meredith frowned. How dare he play the Ellis card! Ellis quit. She was the fool! She quit on Richard! "Shut up about my mother," she growled.

"At least she lived." Richard snapped. "At least Ellis understood the value of life. Of living. A least she lived long enough to change the world. What about you? What've you done? Spent all that time, learning from the best, learning from me, from Bailey, from Derek Shepherd. Now you're just gonna give up on all of that. On all of us?"

"It hurts!" She cried. Just let me die... she pleaded with her eyes. She had nothing. There was nothing.

"I know!" Richard bellowed. "And it's my fault!"

"Wh-what?"

"It should've been me on that table in the OR! It should've been me!" Richard bolted out of the chair, knocking it over in the process.

His thunderous roar stopped her hopeless thoughts. She blinked, stared at him with upset. How was this his fault?

"Derek gave me chance after chance to fix it... he offered to help, and I was too self absorbed and prideful to let him. So I got his weight on my shoulders, and I got you now too. And you know what? If you give up now... It would be a slap in Derek's face. Everything he did for you... All the love he gave you, all he taught you. A waste!... You don't get to waste the rest of your husband's life being a quitter! You don't!"

He paused huffing, obviously pained that he had shouted at such a vulnerable woman. He met her stricken gaze for a second before he left her sobbing on the bed as he slammed the door behind him.

"Meredith?" Owen's voice interrupted her memory.

She looked throught the window at the man whose life was balanced precariously on a metaphorical cliff, her hand absently fell on her stomach. She remembered the feeling of Anna's hands on her stomach, on her face. Hope wasn't lost... it was just- misplaced. She wasn't finished.

"I'll try," she said to Owen. "I don't know if it'll work, but... I'll try."

Owen sighed with relief and stepped aside to let her in the room.

xxx

"Arizona?" Callie asked as she was pulled to the couch of the tiny office they occupied. There was something troubling Arizona. "What's going on... what's wrong?"

Arizona looked away for a moment, and flicked her blonde hair out of her eyes. She pursed her lips, thinking, "Hmm," she hummed.

Callie had the distinct feeling that she wasn't going to like this conversation. "Arizona?" she asked again, not able to keep the tiny edge of panic out of her voice.

"I'm sorry Callie, Dr. Herman just dumped a huge pile of work on me and I can't disappoint her. I have to study." She nodded to the pile on the desk.

"Oh," Callie said, following Arizona's gaze to the pile. "Oh that?" she scoffed. "That's nothing-"

"Nothing?" Arizona interrupted, her eyebrows shot up to the sky. "Callie, Herman is expecting me to know everything in those dammed books. She's going to be quizzing me. She is only the second female fetal surgeon in North America and-" she sighed, exasperated. "It's not nothing, Callie, it's everything!"

Callie stood up and flipped through some of the magazines, noting the highlighting and all the notes in the margins. She looked at Arizona, who seemed truly upset and agitated. "Arizona, you're right, it's not nothing. But it's not everything either. You can do this. We can do this."

"We?" her wife asked. "But you don't know anything about fetal surgery."

Callie shrugged. "Nope, I don't. But I don't have to. I practically taught myself ortho. I am the master at studying. Herman's done half the work already, she's highlighted the most important parts. We can do this."

"Really?" Arizona asked, standing up from the couch.

"Really." Callie said.

Arizona leaned in to her until she could smell the faint whiff of her conditioner. She kissed Callie softly and sighed. "Okay. You. Are right." She picked up the pile of papers and books. "C'mon, we better get started. Maybe we should order in then?" she asked as she pulled ahead, her stride still perfect and sexy as it had been before the prosthetic.

But as Callie watched her wife a few feet ahead of her, she couldn't help but wonder if maybe there was something she was holding back.

xxx

"I'm a butterfly Papi!" Sofia said as she stood on the couch, a blanket outstretched behind her. She jumped down and ran around the house making flapping noises as she went.

"You're a butterfly?" Mark asked incredulously. Just a few minutes ago she'd been a bunny. "I thought you were a bunny."

"I didn't wanna be a bunny no more," Sofia replied.

Of course, why didn't he know that before? "Why not?" he asked as he reached into the fridge for wieners to make hot dogs. Water was already boiling for the macaroni, dinner would be ready soon.

"Cause bunnies can't fly!" Sofia said from his bedroom. He imagined she was jumping on his bed.

Mark smirked. "Sure bunnies can fly." He called back.

Sofia's boisterous laughter filled his heart. "Bunnies can't fly Papi!"

Just then, the door opened and Lexie walked in.

"Lex." he greeted, trying not to sound too excited. He did smile though, he couldn't not smile.

"Mark," Lexie said, and she smiled a little. "Um, I came to pack..."

"Oh," he said. Of course, she still was going to D.C. "You wanna have dinner too?" he asked as he ripped the bag of weiners open and dumped them into another pot of boiling water.

"Oh, sure!" Lexie said, a little too quickly.

"Wexie! Wexie!" Sofia called, now realizing her favorite aunt was home. There was the thunder-patter of little feet as she ran down the hall back into the living room.

"Hello Sof! Oh, I love your hair! What's the blanket for?"

"I a butterfly!"

Mark smiled and turned his attention back to the stove, stirring the macaroni. He hadn't told Lexie yet. He actually didn't plan on it. He was going to surprise her in D.C. That's why Sofia was with him tonight. He was going to miss her over the next month or so. But he fully intended on wooing Lexie back. He sighed. He missed his best friend, this was Derek's thing, the wooing.

A/N: Thanks! Please review! Also, if you want a little pick me up and miss some Derek wooing, I strongly recommend my Fic Ferryboats and Scrubcaps – how Derek became McDreamy. I'm a little disappointed it hasn't gotten much of a reception it's really quite cute and funny, so...

Also if anyone can help me with pictures to upload for my fics that would be cool too!