A/N: Thanks so much for your patience, readers! I appreciate each and everyone of you! Hang in there!

Derek sits on the edge of their bed in utter awe of the nubby kidney bean shape of his baby on the sonogram. He traces the outline with his finger, losing himself in thoughts of the future. Though his adopted daughter fills his heart with joy every day, This unexpected miracle in his wife's womb puts him on cloud nine. It's only an embryo, barely a fetus, but he can't fathom it as anything other than his child.

But he's not so sure about Meredith's feelings, and that bothers him. She became quiet when they left the hospital, his reassurances falling on deaf ears. Even Zola's silly antics and babbling did not bring Meredith out.

The toilet flushes, water runs, and Meredith steps out of the bathroom, wiping her hands dry.

He jumps up, eager to check on her. "You okay?"

She shrugs, "I'm fine." But her skin looks flushed and she rests a hand on her stomach.

"You were in there for a while… Are you sick?"

"Shouldn't you be out there entertaining your mom? Where's Zola?" she snaps.

"I just wanted to check on you–"

"And I said I'm fine."

"Meredith–" he starts.

She gets in his space and thrusts her index finger into his chest. "Can't you leave me alone for just one freaking minute? Please."

Stepping back, he sighs. He'll let her win this one. Any more pushing on his part will just drive her further away, and that's not what he wants. He wishes she would let him in, let him see. He wants her to be happy, and he doesn't know why she isn't. She's scared, but they just saw the baby safe and alive in her womb. All he wants is for her to spend a little time on cloud nine with him too. Just one minute.

It's a battle he can't win now, though. "Okay," he waves in surrender. "Zola's showing Liz her room, and Ma's making herself useful in the kitchen," he says as he walks past her. He stops and turns, stealing a glance at both of them through the mirror. He plants a quick kiss on her temple and hands off the sonogram. "I love you."

xxx

The kitchen is alive. Pots bang and clatter, the kettle whistles. His mother has soundly made herself at home. He enters. Heat from the oven seeps into the air, warming them. The baked ham sweats and sizzles as it cooks, and an aroma fills the kitchen that takes him back years to his childhood home.

"Ma," he greets.

She looks up from chopping carrots and raises a brow. "Everything all right?"

"Fine." It's a dismissal, of course, a little bow and wrapping paper to cover up his marital drama.

"Meredith?"

He really can't talk about her, so he covers again. "Long day. She'll be out in a few minutes." It's enough to satisfy his mother for now. She nods in acceptance and lifts the kettle off the stove. Derek grabs a couple of mugs and tea bags from the sidles a stool up to the counter, plunks himself into it, and props his head up.

Steam rises from the kettle as she douses the tea bags, filling the cups. "I'm still surprised you didn't plan anything for Thanksgiving."

Of course she's surprised. Thanksgiving is a great Shepherd tradition, something everyone always expects of them, and something they rarely fail to live up to. But it's been a trying few months for his family, and frankly this year, Thanksgiving has been the last thing on his mind.

He shrugs and mumbles an apology.

"I understand, dear." She covers the pot of carrots and yams and gives the stove and counter a quick wipe, surveying with an expert eye. Satisfied, her gaze lands on her steeping tea, and she looks around. "Sugar?" she asks.

"Top left cupboard."

She locates the small black canister and digs out a teaspoon from the drawer. He watches her scoop a heaping spoonful into her mug and stir. The scraping noise of ceramic and steel oddly comforts him.

"Do you want to talk?"

"About what?"

"Anything. The plane crash. Losing Mark. Your surgery…"

He does want to talk about something, but he can't because he promised. Instead, he says, "We're okay, Ma." He dunks the teabag and removes it. "It's been a rough few months, but I think we'll come out of this better than before."

She raises her brows. "Well, good."

"What?" he says. Her tone bothers him. Like she doesn't quite believe him.

She shakes her head and takes a cautious sip of tea. "Nothing. I'm sure you'll figure it out."

"Mm." He sips his tea too.

"You're worried about Meredith, though." His mother states. Clearly she's sniffed out some clues on their relationship today. It doesn't surprise him one bit.

Meredith makes it impossible, sometimes. If she could just tell him what to do to make her feel better, he would do it. Instantly. But he thinks that she can't, that she honestly doesn't know how to get him to help her. "I just want her to be happy, and-"

"And so does she."

"She what?"

"Wants you to be happy."

"I am happy." The words slip out before he can stop them.

"Are you? You don't seem like it. Meredith had to strongarm you into that surgery. It doesn't seem like you to not want to be a hundred percent, to not want to fight for your career."

Is she suggesting he gave up? "I did fight," he argues, "For months. Callie and I… we did. I just–"

"Didn't want your family involved?"

"I didn't want anyone else to suffer, Ma. Everybody suffered this year, and I…"

She pats his hand. "I know, Derek. You want to take care of everyone, but sometimes when you do that, you miss the point."

The pots rattle as steam escapes. His mother gets up to lift off the lids and check on everything, leaving Derek wondering. Is she right? The point. What is the point here?

"Daddy!" Zola shrieks, thundering bare-footed into the living room, a grinning Liz following. "Come pay tea!"

All ponderous wondering falls away. Derek smiles, swept up by his daughter's infectious excitement. "Oh? A tea party?"

"Yeah. Come on, Daddy," she says.

"Okay." Her little dark hand warms his own. She pulls him, unresisting, to the living room. What will he do when she's a teenager? He'll never be able to say no to her.

They clear a bunch of toys off the coffee table to make room for Zola's tea set. Zola runs over with a pile of tea cups and saucers in her arms and drops them unceremoniously onto the table. Then runs back for the toy tea pot and little rubber cookies.

"This is cute," Liz says, holding up her little tea cup with both hands.

It's Chip, from Beauty and the Beast. The whole tea set is an homage to one of Zola's favorite movies. It's particularly special now too, as it was a gift from Lexie.

"Don't forget the pinky finger," Derek says, waggling his own.

"Right." Liz mimics him and smiles.

Zola happily plays the polite host, offering them invisible tea and lego lumps of sugar along with rubber cookies which they pretend to scarf with vigor, enthusiastically asking for more.

"Ah," Liz sighs. "This reminds me of the good old days." She takes a pretend sip.

"The good old days?"

"We used to play tea."

Derek scoffs. "Only after you held my toys for ransom."

"Well, Amelia had the attention span of a gnat when she was two, so I could never play it with her, and Nancy was a snob, so… you at least had some courtesy."

"More like insufferable patience."

"Sure. I know you secretly liked it."

"Ha."

"Cookie?" Zola asks him, offering a fake rubber cookie.

"Thank you." He accepts and takes a pretend bite. "Mmm."

"Mark used to play tea with me," says Liz.

"That was just to appease mom." Derek watches Zola make 'shhh' noises, pretending to fill her pot with water. She carefully arranges more cookies and blocks on a platter decorated with a dancing Belle and Beast and sets it in the middle of the table.

"Tea?" Zola asks them.

Liz holds Chip out for a refill. "I don't know, I think he had fun." Liz says to him. Her smile fades sadly. She shakes her head. "I can't believe he had a kid. Now he's gone."

A wave of sadness hits Derek and he swallows. "He was a great dad," he swallows the lump in his throat. "A good friend."

"Yeah. Derek?"

"Mm?"

"You are too."

He nods, but inside he doesn't agree all the way. Yeah, he's a good dad, but… he could've been a better friend, perhaps. Mark would disagree of course. Still, he misses him. He grieves for a moment, until Zola brings him back to the present. "Tea, Daddy?" Time blurs on until his mother announces dinner.

xxx

"Meredith?" Derek pads down the hallway. He thought she'd be out by now, even if she didn't join the tea party, he thought she'd make an appearance in the kitchen, so he's a little surprised she's not there. "Meredith?" he calls again. "Dinner's ready."

Zola gallops past him and pushes open their bedroom door. "Mama?" The bedroom is empty, but a light peels from under the bathroom door, where he hears water running.

He knocks even as he pushes the door open, "Mere-"

"Mommy!" Zola squeezes through his legs right into the bathroom, her little hands smudge the foggy shower door barely concealing a flesh-colored blob slumped in the corner.

Is she hurt? His heart races and he yanks the door open. "Mere!"

The razor tumbles from her hands as she's startled awake. Confusion slathers her expression. She wipes her eyes. "Wha…?" she mumbles. "Derek?"

Thank God she's fine, and not dead or self-destructing, just tired. He shuts off the water. "Uh, we called you. Dinner's ready. Are you okay?" He offers his hand to help her up.

"Fine. I um, I fell asleep." She ignores his hand and pulls herself up, looking annoyed more than anything.

"Mommy!" calls Zola as her little fingers dig into the back of his thigh.

"Oh, Zozo!" Meredith switches to mommy mode. "Hi! Mommy's taking a shower, sweetie. I'll be out in a minute, I don't want you to get wet." It's enough to convince Zola that there's nothing to worry about.

Derek hands her a towel and turns to Zola. "Okay," he says. "Good job, you found mommy. Go tell Grandma that Mommy and Daddy are coming in a minute."

"Kay," she says, and runs out the door. He watches her go, and then turns back to regard Meredith.

"Derek," she hisses.

God, he is just trying to help. "What?" Dammit, he's doing this wrong, and now instantly regrets the irritated tone leaving his lips.

"Can you move, please?"

He steps back. Meredith marches past him into the bedroom. Following her, he sees the sonogram picture on the sink counter, next to the toilet. Oh. He picks it up and takes it with him.

His gaze meets hers through the dresser mirror as she combs her hair out in sharp, angry strokes.

"I am fine," she says for the fifteen millionth time today. God, he hates that word.

"It's okay if you're not."

"No," she argues. "Not today."

But it should be, and he's been so caught up with his own misery that he failed to notice hers. When was it ever okay for him to throw tantrums and argue with his family and not take care of his pregnant wife? Today, this Thanksgiving, he should have listened and paid attention, because now he sees she's barely holding it together. Mom is right, he's missed the point completely here. "Especially today," he says, and he means it.

"No!" She whirls to face him. "Because your mother is here, and your sister is here, and Zola needs her mommy, and I told you–"

"I know," Derek raises his hands. "You didn't want a thing-"

"But you needed a nerve. And your stupid sisters fought over you until one of them got on the freaking red-eye with your mother, who holds Thanksgiving sacred so she's cooking us a ham. And they're all gaga over Zola, because she somehow inherited your charm even though you don't bother to pick up the phone and talk to your family who think you're some kind of God or something–"

"Stop. Meredith, stop."

"And since when did you like cream corn? And I'm–"

Derek takes two lightning-quick strides to invade her space and bring her chilled body into his. She's mid-sentence when he crushes her into him. He tunes out her words, tunes out the wetness seeping onto his shirt, and focuses his energy only on comforting her. "Shh, shh," he says.

"I'm so tired," she warbles into the space between his neck and shoulder. "And I… I miss Lexie, and–"

"I know. I know," he murmurs into her lavender soaked hair as she softly cries on his shoulder. "I'm so sorry for putting that all on you." It's so clear now. All she's done for him. Building him up, brick by brick by brick. What would he do without her? "You don't have to… I'm here. I am. I'm sorry for-" Being an ass. Not looking beyond his own crooked nose, apparently. Tears prick behind his eyes. He gulps. "I'm here too, and I just… I want you to be happy."

Meredith only responds in sniffling shudders. "Great," she mutters, "I got you wet."

"It's just a shirt."

"I know, but your mom-"

"I don't care about them right now, I care about you." He gently guides her to the bed and brings her to sit down with him. "Meredith, if you don't want this–"

She quickly shakes her head. Too quickly, in his opinion. "No, I–"

"Meredith," he puts a hand on her bare knee. "Take a minute. Think about it." He cups her chin, running his thumb under her cheekbone and then under her eye to wipe away the tears. "Don't worry about them right now. What do you want? Do you want them to stay? Do you just want to sleep?" Either way, he's with her. If he has to send them away, he will. If she wants to just lie in bed and sleep and leave him to face the 'wolves,' he will. She's the one he cares most about. He'd do anything for her. God knows she's done it for him a thousand times over.

Meredith sniffs loudly and looks away, wiping her face. She breathes deeply and closes her eyes, letting her face slacken and her limbs relax. It's what she does before a surgery, or a difficult conversation. She rubs her thighs, and her left hand catches his right, the one still resting on her knee.

"It's okay. I do want to visit with them," she says at last.

"You're sure?"

"They're nice." She squeezes his hand. "Zola likes them. And we need spares or whatever. In case… We need spares."

Derek nods. "Okay," he squeezes back. "But Meredith, if they do anything, if they say anything… I swear, I will–"

She kisses him on the corner of his mouth and leans against him. "I know, I know. Thank you."

"I love you." And so much more, but he thinks she can see it in his admiring gaze.

"I love you, too." As if a massive weight has just fallen off her shoulders, she hops up. "We better change and get out there before they start thinking we're doing the nasty-nasty while our daughter noshes the creamed corn."

A/N: Thanks so much for reading and following! Leave a comment, I'd love to hear what you think! Next chapter will be up in a few days!