Thanks so much to everyone who reviewed the last chapter. I really appreciate it, and I'm glad you guys were happy with how the Jacqueline/Meredith thing turned out. Anyway, like I said before, we're nearing the end of the story, but this part's a nice long one. It's setting up stuff, and it's long, (I hope not too long, but I always seem to be a bad judge on that one.) And really…I guess that's all there is to say for now.

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Meredith shifted slightly in bed, turning her head to face Derek. The room was close to pitch black. Just a faint hint of light seeped in through the open window from somewhere out on the street, but it was enough to separate the shadowy shape of his profile from the other shadows filling the room. He lay perfectly still, the slow in and out of his breathing adding something soothing to the silence. Biting down on her lower lip, Meredith eased herself closer still. Her hand moved towards his cheek, reluctant. He didn't stir as her fingertips grazed slowly over his stubbled skin, traced the curve of his ear, trailed down to press against his lips. She sighed and lifted her hand back up and away, her fingers curling tightly into a fist. She cast a glance over her shoulder. The clock on the bedside table glowed red with the time. 3:18 Her eyes slid shut, her tongue tracing the curve of her lower lip as she counted backwards. It was 3:18...that meant he'd been asleep for just over two hours. Two hours after putting in forty at the hospital, and she was about to wake him up. She groaned and flopped back down against the mattress. He shouldn't have to wake up after only two hours. It wasn't fair. He'd come stumbling into the house, exhaustion hanging thickly over him like a cloak. Woken her up with his sleep deprived clumsiness as he shrugged off his clothes and slipped into bed behind her. Drifted off before she could even mumble goodnight back. Meredith cast another glance at the clock. 3:22 She could wait a little longer…another hour. He should sleep.

But then there was the pain… She'd felt sort of sick and crampy all day, but the pain that had woken her up again shortly after she'd drifted off to sleep in Derek's arms was been different. It kept coming in tight twisting waves. Contractions. Meredith tried out the word, finding the sound of it almost more unsettling than the pain. The real thing. The real having a baby thing. She shook her head, disbelieving. She was supposed to have eight more days before this happened. Eight more days to somehow come to terms with the whole concept of shoving an entire person out of a small hole. A very small hole. A very small, incredibly tiny hole. And a whole other person. Nine months was not nearly enough time to wrap her mind around that one. She glared up at the dark smudge of a ceiling overhead. The baby owed her eight more days. Eight more days to convince herself that yes, she actually could do this. Eight more days to, well…to get ready somehow.

At the very least, Derek was supposed to have had a good night's sleep.

Meredith closed her eyes decidedly. She could at least give him another hour.

She gasped, her teeth biting down hard against her lower lip, her hand flying out instinctively to grip Derek's shoulder. He groaned--the sound low in his throat--shifting and resettling at her touch. His face was still mashed against the pillow, still unawares beneath a mask of sleep when Meredith's body relaxed back into the bed. She wrapped an arm around her stomach, rubbing at it gingerly. She blinked bleary-eyed as the clock swam back into focus. 3:29 That would make the contractions just under fifteen minutes apart. Some distant part of her mind still remained sharp and untouched, divvying up the time she'd spent laying awake into tidy sensible intervals. There were the long stretches of staring wide-eyed at the ceiling, her body practically humming with fear and nerves and some sort of strange, intense anticipation. And then there were the sharp, tightening, twisting waves of pain.

But they weren't so bad. Okay, they hurt like hell, but she hadn't done more than gasp yet. A proud smile flickered across her face as she glanced back at Derek. She hadn't been loud enough to wake him up; Mr. You-yawned-too-loudly-and-now-I'm-awake was still out cold. Even with all of her poking and prodding. Her constant shifting. He really was tired, then. Ten car pile-ups had a way of making surgeons lose sleep, and she was pretty sure that Izzie and George were probably both still at the hospital. Still doing the grunt work of cleaning up what Cristina had described to her on the phone as a blood orgy.

Meredith bit her lip. He should sleep. After hours and hours of back to back surgeries…he really should sleep. This whole having a baby thing would probably take hours anyway. And yet…there she was, inching herself across the mattress until their bodies were touching once again.

"Derek," she whispered guiltily. One slender finger traced the rough plane of his cheek as she spoke. He shifted slightly, muttering to himself. Flung an arm out to pull her closer. Nestled against her, his head burying in the space between her chin and her chest. Meredith sighed and pressed her lips into the dark disheveled mess of his hair as his breathing slowed back to the steady pace of deep sleep. "Derek," she repeated, a little louder but still just as hesitant. "Come on, please… I know you're tired, but--" Her body stole her words away, the syllables degenerating into a low moan as another contraction coursed through her unexpectedly. It went on a little longer. Grew a little more intense… And then, "Wake up!" she snapped, suddenly smacking him hard across the chest.

Derek grunted, jerking away from her. He pressed a hand to his face. "Page the resident," he mumbled groggily, the hoarse muffled tones of his voice clear enough to be cranky.

"I will not page any resident," Meredith hissed, indignant. She shoved her arm out, her small fist meeting his bicep with a hard smack.

"What the--" His eyes fluttered open, blinking to see in the dark. "Meredith…" All traces of annoyance fell away as he spoke her name, and the sound came out rich and warm and hazy. He grunted again, scrubbing a hand over his face, snuffling slightly as he started to shake off the thick fog of sleep. Shifting forward, he pressed his lips to her throat--sloppy and sleepy as he breathed in her scent. "What is it?" he mumbled.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, her hand rubbing up his arm and around to the broad plane of his back. He felt exhausted. Just touching him, hearing him… She could tell he felt exhausted. Meredith bit down on her lip. "I know you've gotten pretty much no sleep in the past two days, but--" She leaned forward, kissing his temple.

"But what?" Derek coughed and pulled away, propping himself up with an elbow. "Do you need me to get you something? Water? More tortilla chips?" He flashed her a sleepy roguish grin as he referenced her latest craving.

Meredith just shook her head. She reached out, splaying her hand flat against his chest. "I need you to take me to the hospital."

Derek jolted upright at her words, eyes widening. "Okay," he said, quickly leaning over her to turn on the lamp on the bedside table. A soft pale glow filled the room, swathing them in light. He shifted to sit cross-legged, the bed groaning as he moved. She looked fine; very calm, with a little half smile playing at the corners of her mouth. But still… Derek could feel his heart pounding against his chest like a jackhammer, threatening to leap into his throat. His hands were already on her, racing up her arms to cradle her face. "What is it?" he urged. "Is something wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong," Meredith said. She shook her head, her hair rustling softly against the pillowcase. Her face split into a wide disbelieving grin, and she reached out impulsively to grab his hand. "We just have to go do that whole having a baby thing."

The baby thing…

Relief coursed through him in a giant wave. He sucked in a deep breath, still shaking off sleep, and with it came a great swell of excitement. She was okay, they just had to go have their baby. "You're in labor?" The words hung somewhere halfway between a statement and a question. Meredith didn't answer, busy struggling to sit up. He leaned forward, his arm slipping behind her, and practically lifted her to the edge of the bed.

"Yeah," she said at last, turning to give him a faint smile. "Apparently."

"Wow… Okay." Derek cupped her cheek, about to pull her to her feet when she held up a hand. She reached out for him with the other, her nails suddenly digging sharply into the skin of his forearm. He watched helplessly as her eyes squeezed shut, her lips puckering together. "Mer? Are you--?" He stopped speaking as she let out a high thin gasp--the sound twisting his heart into what felt like a tight and clumsy knot. He swallowed hard, rubbing her lower back. She felt tense. Rigid beneath his hand.

"I'm okay," she said quietly, her voice a little weaker than it had been. She winced, her hand moving gingerly to cradle her stomach.

"Mer…" His voice melted and he pulled her to him, enveloping her in his arms. She wasn't supposed to hurt. She wasn't supposed to ever be in pain. Not while he was there… He kissed the top of her head, his hand still rubbing at her back. She just lay against him, breathing. "Mer," he repeated, low and tremulous. The one word was rich with worry.

"Hey," Meredith said, giggling slightly at his tone. She lifted her chin up, kissing the underside of his jaw. "I'm good."

"Yeah?"

She nodded. "Yeah."

Derek just rubbed her back some more, disbelieving. "But you looked so…"

"Well you try smiling with a contracting uterus."

"Right… Sorry." He leaned forward. Kissed her cheek in apology. Returned to rubbing her back in slow even circles.

Meredith cleared her throat. "Ah…Derek?"

"Yes?" His voice flooded with concern, but he looked down to find her grinning cheekily.

"Hospital," she reminded him.

He nearly vaulted out of the bed at that, tripping and cursing in an attempt to relocate his discarded jeans as quickly as possible. He felt jittery and almost painfully awake, hopping on one foot as he jammed the other down the leg of his pants.

"That's backwards," Meredith called out lightly. She smirked, biting back a laugh as she stared at him. Derek was standing in front of her in his boxers and a black t-shirt, his hair a disheveled mess and his right leg stuck in the left hole of his jeans. His left leg was bare, pale skin glowing almost ghostly in the dimly lit room. The length of fabric that constituted the actual right half of his pants flapped uselessly in the air at his side. Derek let go of the waistband and the jeans plummeted straight back to the floor, pooling around his ankles.

"Fucking pants…" he muttered. He lifted his right leg up and out of the mess. Scowled down at the heap of denim on the floor. Bent over at the waist to snatch the pants up and shake them out, finally pulling them back on again in one fluid motion. "There," he said at last, his fingers making quick work of the button at the top. He glanced over at Meredith as he backtracked to the point where he'd kicked off his shoes only to find her grinning at him like the Cheshire Cat. "What?" he asked, already jamming his feet back into the shoes, not bothering with the laces.

She was rubbing her stomach almost lazily, watching him from her seat on the edge of the bed. "You can take a breath," she said with a shrug. She glanced back over her shoulder, eyes searching out the clock. "They're still almost fifteen minutes apart."

"Still?" Derek asked, wiggling his foot to get it all the way into its shoe.

"Yeah. I was timing them while you were sleeping."

He halted with an arm halfway down the sleeve of his sweater. "While I was sleeping?" he asked, indignant. Meredith just nodded, quirking an eyebrow at his sudden frown. "Why didn't you wake me up?"

"I did," she said flatly. "That's why you're awake right now." He pulled his sweater the rest of the way on, crossing back over to stand in front of her.

"When they first started," he elaborated, cupping her face in his hands.

Meredith shrugged, taking his hands in hers and pulling them away from her face. "Because you hadn't slept in over two days."

"Doesn't matter," he said brusquely. She smiled, trying not to roll her eyes at his obvious need to be the guy. To do the protective, manly man thing…whatever that was.

"Derek, we both know this will probably take hours," Meredith rationalized. "Actually…I bet we could both go back to sleep for awhile, and still get there with plenty of time." Her water hadn't even broke yet. She frowned, giving a little shake of her head. She was being paranoid, wanting to get there so soon. They were just going to end up stuck in some hospital room for hours anyway. Waiting…

"No," he said, his hands coming down as two heavy weights over her shoulders. "We're going to the hospital now. I'm not taking any chances with you." He tapped her chin lightly, straightening back up. "So, to the car?"

Meredith ran her fingers along the hem of her shorts, plucking at the fabric. "I'd like some pants first."

He glanced down at her bare thighs, running a hand though his hair. "Right. Pants…those are--" He trailed off as he turned to look helplessly back and forth between the dresser and the closet, wishing he paid more attention to what she did with her clothes.

"In the dresser," supplied Meredith. She reached up to grab his arm with both hands, using it to pull herself to her feet.

"What are you doing?" Derek asked as he watched her make her way across the room.

Meredith paused and turned back. Smirked at him over her shoulder, the corners of her mouth curving sexily as her gaze roved down over his lower half. "After watching your attempt at dressing yourself, I'm not about to let you help me."

Derek let out a burst of laughter, the sound coming from deep in his throat. He gave a rueful shake of his head before padding across the room after her. Leaned against the side of the dresser as she rummaged through her things. Grew puzzled as shirts and pants in myriad colors were tossed in long arcs over her shoulder to land in a heap on the floor.

"Ah…Mer?" he tried after a few minutes.

She clicked her tongue against her teeth and let out a little hum of acknowledgement. The sound was sharp and irritated, and she didn't look up from her search, seeming to grow more and more annoyed with each item she cast away.

"Is, well…is something wrong with all those pants?" Derek asked tentatively.

"Yes."

"Yes?" he echoed, feeling as if he were creeping up to a sleeping lion and poking it with a stick. Meredith didn't answer, just kept yanking things off the shelves. He took a step back, surveying the pile at their feet. Crouched down and pulled out a pair of stretchy black pants. "What about these?" he tried, holding them out to her.

She twisted around, one hand cradling her belly and the other suddenly clutching the door tight enough to turn her knuckles white. "No," she hissed, teeth gritted.

He frowned. "They'd look hot."

"They don't fit," Meredith snapped, still gripping the edge of the door like her life depended on it.

"Oh…" Derek let go and the pants fluttered back to the floor. "Well--"

"Derek…" moaned Meredith, cutting him off.

"Yeah?" He spun back around from examining the pile to find her bent forward, her forehead pressed against the hard edge of a shelf. "Hey…what is it? Another contraction?"

She nearly growled at him. "Stop. Talking." Her voice hitched, breaking down into an unsteady whimper.

"Okay," he whispered, reaching out and rubbing her arm. She stayed leaning into the dresser. No longer whimpering, but sucking down air in deep panting breaths. Sucking and panting, trembling a little. Slowly, she straightened back up, letting go of the door first and then her stomach. Derek just watched her, hesitant.

"I--" Meredith began, shaking her head. She blew at the hair dangling in her eyes before raising a hand and shoveling her bangs roughly back off her brow. "Pants. I need pants."

"That you do," Derek agreed quietly. She glanced up over her shoulder at him. Her lips twitched slightly. It was a little half smile of apology. Or maybe just a contemplative frown. He couldn't tell… He tilted his head to the side, more cautious than before. "Can I help?"

Meredith nodded, her hand still resting atop her head, tangled up in her disheveled bangs. "We need to find my gray pants," she stated.

"Your gray pants?"

"Yes," said Meredith emphatically. Derek just nodded, slowly, uncertainly. She gave him a definite frown that time. "They're gray," she reiterated, her voice louder as if that should clear up the matter. "With blue stripes down the sides." She shook her head, frustrated. Turned back around to glare at the nearly emptied wardrobe. "I wore them two days ago," she snapped, sounding suddenly close to tears. "And now, now they've disappeared!"

"Two days ago," he repeated, racking his brain for something helpful to say. Suggesting another pair of pants was clearly out of the realm of possibility. "Um…did Izzie do the wash?" he said at last. "Maybe they're down in the basement…?"

Meredith's eyes lit up, her face splitting into a smile. "She was switching stuff when she got paged," she said. Her grin broadened as she stepped away from the dresser, suddenly seeming delighted again. She picked her way over towards the hall, still cautious and unsteady. Pausing in the doorway, she beamed at him. "I'll be right back."

"Hey, hey, hey," Derek said quickly, shaking himself from his self congratulatory reverie about the laundry. He crossed over to her in four long strides. "You are not about to walk up and down two flights of stairs for a pair of pants," he said. Meredith's smile fell away in a heartbeat.

"Derek…"

"I'll go look for them," he continued, the words rushing out. Meredith just frowned at him, skeptical. "Gray pants with blue stripes down the sides. I know exactly which ones you're talking about," he lied.

"Okay," began Meredith, still doubtful.

"I can find you your pants," Derek insisted, taking her by the elbow and walking her back over to the bed. She dropped down onto the mattress without a fuss. "You just sit and rest, or," he shrugged, "finish getting ready. Do you have everything else you need? A bag packed…or something?"

"Crap." Meredith gave a sharp shake of her head. Wrinkled her nose and pouted up at him. Derek just quirked an eyebrow. "I didn't do that yet," she admitted.

"Well, you can do that now," he decided, helping her back up onto her feet. "And I'll--"

"And you'll go find my pants," interrupted Meredith, sounding pleased with the arrangement. Derek nodded and she flashed him a grin, flicking her wrist in a little shooing motion. "Get going then."

He managed to walk out of the room calmly enough, but as soon as he was out of sight, Derek quickened his pace. Took the stairs two at a time. Nearly killed himself when he met with a pair of O'Malley's shoes three steps from the landing. Cursed loudly, and promptly clamped a hand down over his mouth, not wanting to draw Meredith out of their room. After a long cautionary moment of silence in which no doors swung open and her voice failed to call out questioningly, he resumed his race to the basement. It was dark down there with just the cheap glow of a single bare bulb illuminating the washer and dryer. The door to the washer hung open, and he peered in. A wadded mess of damp clothes clung to the walls. He wrinkled his nose and straightened back up. The pants better not be in there. The dryer was open too as if Izzie really had been paged exactly in the middle of switching loads. A laundry basket sat on the floor in front of it. It was half full with clothes, and more things lurked in the shadowed recess of the dryer.

Derek crouched down and started searching.

Gray pants…with blue stripes down the sides.

The whole thing was a mess of women's clothing. There were gray tank tops and a few gray socks. Flannel pajama bottoms. Sweaters in soft pinks and blues and several pairs of jeans. But no gray pants. He emptied the dryer and the entire contents of the laundry basket out onto the floor, searching through the mess over and over. Bit by bit. Shirt by shirt. But no gray pants. After pawing his way uncomfortably past far too many pairs of panties he didn't recognize as Meredith's and therefore had to be Izzie's, Derek rocked back on his heels, giving up.

He moved reluctantly to the washer and stretched a hand in, extracting a chilled clump of clothes. All of it looked grayish… Maybe. Turning away, he let the clothes fall from his fist to land with a dull, wet smack next to a bottle of detergent. He wiped the hand dry on his sweater and raked it back through his hair, frustrated. Why was she so hell-bent on the gray pants, anyway? It wasn't as if she could give birth wearing pants… Derek heaved a sigh, glancing up at the ceiling. He wanted to get back upstairs to her. Needed to get back up there, but…

There was the small matter of being unable to find a damn pair of pants.

Growing desperate, he reached for his phone, grateful he hadn't bothered to unclip it from the waistband of his jeans. He raced his way through the phonebook, stopping at one of the numbers Meredith had entered for him. She'd been messing around with his phone shortly after they'd gotten back together, trying desperately to find a way to delete the picture he'd set as his wallpaper. It was a good picture; her in profile, caught off guard staring down at her then much smaller baby bump. She looked beautiful. Radiant, he'd thought.

And she'd hated it.

She'd tried to delete it. Tried and tried and failed. And, in the process, had discovered that--outside of the hospital--she was the only number in there not preceded by a New York area code. Which was pathetic, really… Apparently. So she'd "given" him her friends--laughing, teasing and wrapping her legs around him as she punched in the numbers for George, Izzie, Cristina and Alex.

He'd never used any of them, but now seemed as good a time as any to start. He dialed the number. Held his breath.

She answered on the second ring, sounding tired. "Um…hello?"

"Izzie?"

"Yes…." He could almost hear her frowning over the line. "Who's this?"

"Derek," he said awkwardly.

"Oh! Right…" There was a scuffling sound on her side, a faint whispered rush of voices, and then a tentative, "Hi. Uh…your patients are all still stable. Well, Mr. Carter was showing some--"

"No," he interrupted, barely listening to her. "I'm in the basement."

"Of the hospital?" Izzie asked, confused and incredulous.

"Of the house," he snapped, shaking his head.

"Right," Izzie laughed. "That makes more sense."

There was another pause full of her talking in an undertone to whomever she was with. Derek heaved a sigh. Cleared his throat. "Izzie!"

"What?" She jerked back into the conversation. "Sorry, uh…why are you calling me, doctor…ah, Derek?"

He nodded, relieved. "Mer's in labor and I have to take her to the hospital, but--"

"Meredith's having the baby?" Izzie didn't ask. She didn't inquire. She squealed. It was something high-pitched. Loud and painful, right against his ear. Derek winced, nearly dropping the phone.

"Yes," he gritted out.

"Oh…wow," gushed Izzie, her voice reverberating with excitement. "That's great! You're gonna be a dad. How's she doing?"

"She needs a pair of pants," Derek stated flatly.

That stopped her short. "…Okay."

"Gray pants," he stressed, peering into the depths of the washer as he spoke. "With blue stripes down the sides." He sighed, straightening back up. "Apparently that's very important. She's refusing to wear anything but them, which is just--"

Izzie interrupted him again, not the least bit surprised. "Of course that's important. They're the only ones that fit her that she doesn't have some sort of hateful vendetta against." She paused, growing thoughtful. "Really, I think that's because they're not technically from a maternity store, so she feels--"

"Izzie…"

"What?"

"I don't care about the history of the pants," he said tersely. "Just… Do you know where they are or not?"

"Umm…" she drawled, sounding as if she was chewing on her lip, lost in thought.

"Meredith said that they might be in the wash?" he suggested.

"Oh! Yeah, yeah, yeah… I pulled them for her yesterday. Are you still in the basement?"

Derek rolled his eyes, but managed a controlled enough "yes."

"And you can't find them?" Izzie asked, disbelieving.

"No, I can't find them," he said, his voice thick with frustration. "That's why I'm calling you. I went through everything in the dryer and they weren't there." He leaned over the washing machine, pulling out another damp wad of clothes. "Are they still in the wash?"

"No," she said decidedly. "I put them in the first load 'cause Mer likes them so much." She hesitated, growing skeptical again. "Are you sure you looked? They should be hanging right there…"

"Yes. I looked," Derek said, his voice growing louder. And then he paused. "What do you mean…hanging right there?"

"I always hang them up and let them air dry," said Izzie. She spoke slowly as if she were beginning to doubt his ability to differentiate between a washer and a dryer. "They get those weird little fuzz balls all over if you put 'em in the dryer."

"Oh." He whirled around, wide-eyed as he scanned the room.

"They should literally be like… Hanging. Right. There."

And they were.

Derek smacked the palm of his free hand against his forehead as he came face-to-face with a pale gray pair of track pants. They were loose and stretchy, with thin baby blue stripes racing up the sides. And they were draped over the back of an old, dusty folding chair. Which…wasn't exactly "hanging" as far as he was concerned, but that wasn't exactly a technicality he was willing to waste time debating at the moment either. He snatched them up and shook them out. They were cool to the touch. Cool, but dry.

"Do you see them?" Izzie's voice crackled over the line again.

"Huh? Oh, yeah. I've got them, thanks."

"Good! Now hurry up and get them to Mer." Izzie laughed. "You don't want her to have the baby in the car."

"Right…" The word was more of a frightened gulp than an actual answer, and it had him already backing out the basement door.

"Okay. Yay!" Izzie was back to gushing again. "This is so exciting. Have you guys thought of a name yet? Meredith's been refusing to tell me, but you've got to have something to put on the birth certificate, so…"

"Uh, I really have to go," interrupted Derek, his voice strained.

"Of course, sorry," said Izzie quickly. "I'll let everyone know, and we'll all see you when you get here!"

"Great." He hung up without giving a second thought to what she'd said. Instead, he jammed his phone back into its clip and took the stairs three at a time on the return trip. He tried to not pound his way down the hallway too loudly, too frantically, but…he was half expecting to find Meredith lying on the ground, writhing in pain.

"Took you long enough," she said as he came crashing back into their room. She was seated on the edge of the bed, swinging her legs back and forth, toes just skimming the ground. Her hair had been brushed and pulled up into a ponytail, and a bag sat packed beside her. She'd changed into a white long-sleeved shirt and was smiling up at him. Pants-less, but smiling.

Derek breathed a deep sigh of relief. One that seemed to shake its way through his lungs. "Sorry," he muttered. He crossed over to where she sat, kneeling down to help her get dressed. "They were kinda hard to find." Meredith just murmured in agreement, leaning heavily on his shoulder. Her breathing seemed shallower than before, and he eyed her worriedly as they both straightened up. "How're you doing?"

Her smile grew a little thinner and she lifted her chin up to look at him. "Managing," she said quietly. "I'm managing."

"Okay," Derek said, rubbing her arm. "Managing is good." He leaned around her, swinging her bag up onto his shoulder. "Are the contractions still fifteen minutes apart?"

Meredith made a little humming noise, tilting her head from side to side, uncertain. "I don't know," she murmured. She clutched his hand tightly--the gesture completely unlike her--as they made their way out of the room and towards the stairs. "Maybe more like ten…" She paused abruptly on the second step. Her grip on his hand nearly doubled and her other hand grabbed at the banister. "Definitely more like ten," she whimpered, her voice high and pitiful. She stayed frozen for well over half a minute as her nails carved deep half moons into the palm of Derek's hand. When she finally turned to give him a shaky smile and start down the stairs again, it was all he could do to keep from lifting her into his arms and carrying her bodily to the car. She'd hate it. He knew she'd hate it if he tried. But still… The desire to was there. The need to was there. And it was all he could do to stop himself.

Even so, Meredith kept his hand in a death grip. She didn't shrug off the arm he slung around her, and had no sarcastic comment about how he was watching her every step like a hawk. And that scared him. As much as he couldn't help but love the way she was almost clinging to him, it made him dread what she'd go through next. What he'd see her go through next. He was willing to bet he broke a good half a dozen rules driving to the hospital alone, and that was with her doing nothing more than alternating between panting her way through contractions and chatting rather calmly with him the rest of the time.

Meredith came to a sudden halt as they were finally making their way--slow and shuffling--over the few feet that separated where they'd parked the car from the entrance to the hospital. "Derek?" Her voice wasn't exactly innocently questioning. It had a hard edge to it that had him stopping in his tracks as well. He glanced down at her, curious. She was squinting straight ahead at the glass doors.

"Mer?"

"Why do I have a welcoming party in the lobby?"

"Um…" He looked back up. Sure enough, there were the remaining four of Bailey's interns camped out in some of the chairs in the waiting area. They looked rather pinched and tired, still in scrubs with a few stacks of neglected post-op notes resting between them. But they were all chatting animatedly, and Derek cringed as he spotted several pink balloons tied to the chair Izzie was sitting on. "I-- That's a good question, Mer," he tried lamely.

"Derek!" His name came out as a sharp snap of sound like the crack of a whip, and he glanced back at her, already apologetic. "You told everyone that I'm in labor?"

"No, no," Derek said quickly. He ran his free hand through his hair. "Just Izzie."

"Just Izzie?" echoed Meredith, incredulous. "That's worse than telling everyone!" She jerked away from him, hands coming down on her hips. "And since when do you even talk to Izzie?" She glared over her shoulder at her friends, who were, for the moment, still oblivious to her arrival.

Derek shuffled his weight from one foot to the other. "It's a long story. Um, involving your pants…"

Meredith looked up at him, staring like he'd just sprouted an extra head. "Right…" she scoffed. "I don't even wanna know." She went back to eying the cluster of her friends through the window, and Derek swallowed hard, his mind scrambling desperately for something to say. Before he could come up with anything, she was speaking again. "They have balloons," she said, putting a chilling emphasis on the final word. Something cold and almost deadly.

"Yes," Derek agreed. "Just a few though."

"Great," Meredith groaned. "This is just like the baby shower."

"Well actually, compared to the party this is rather understated." He tilted his head to the side and grinned at her. Long and slow like a lazy sigh, going for something charming.

She just rolled her eyes and turned away. "Unbelievable," she hissed.

Meredith made her way into the hospital with her hands still on her hips. She could feel Derek following behind her, could sense the apologetic air that hung around him. She wasn't…mad, exactly. Just too grumpy and uncomfortable to bother reassuring him that she wasn't. She hadn't wanted to deal with all of this yet. The questions, the excitement, the jokes, the noise; everything that came hand-in-hand with her friends. She knew they'd all find out eventually, and just… Okay, Cristina alone would've been fine. But this? This was supposed to come later. After she'd changed and gotten into bed. After she'd been told just how far along she was (which, judging by the lack of blinding pain bad enough to make her want to swear off sex for the rest of her life, she was guessing wasn't that far). After Derek had had plenty of time to do something cheesy like rub her back and tell her how great she was doing. That she was amazing. That he loved her.

And instead she got balloons. Freaking pink balloons and a damn welcoming committee.

It was typical. Just…typical.

"You're all here," she stated flatly after drawing near to her friends. They looked up in unison, faces breaking out into delighted grins.

"And you're wearing the pants," Izzie said, flashing Derek a thumbs up.

Meredith glanced between the two of them, still confused. "Right… So you're all here, which is great, really." She managed a shallow smile, and jerked her head in the direction of the elevators. "I'm gonna go up there."

"Wait," said Izzie eagerly, holding out a hand. "Do you want to take the balloons now, or should I bring them up later?"

Meredith's jaw clenched, and Derek cleared his throat. "Later," he answered. "Definitely later."

Izzie's face fell a little, but she stopped untying the ribbons that had them tethered to her chair.

"How're you feeling, Mer?" George called out before Meredith could turn away again.

She raised an eyebrow, disbelieving. "Like I'm trying to shove a person out of me," she snapped.

"Oh… Gotcha," he said, quiet and apologetic.

Meredith sighed and looked back at her friends. They were all just sitting there, watching her with a strange mixture of hope and worry shining in their eyes. Exhaustion clung to them like dust, dulling them. They were probably all off duty by now, and yet…they'd sat there. Waited for her. Just to see her for a few minutes. Even Cristina was refraining from pointing out that she was being a bit of a bitch. She sighed again, giving a slight shrug of her shoulders. "Sorry, I just--" She cut off abruptly. Sucked in a rattling gasp of air and grabbed at Derek's hand. Grabbed and squeezed and clenched as another wave of pain went coursing through her stomach and danced around her lower back.

"Ouch," said Derek instinctively, caught off guard by the sudden sharp stab of her nails and the corner of her engagement ring digging into his flesh.

Cristina snorted, incredulous. "Did he just say ouch?"

"Dude…" Alex shook his head. "You can't say ouch."

Derek grimaced, stepping closer to Meredith so she could lean into him.

"Yeah," she panted as the pain slowly dulled and faded away. She glanced up and shot him a look, disbelieving and amused as she caught sight of the worry in his eyes.

"Sorry," he muttered sheepishly.

She just laughed. "I'm gonna pretend I didn't hear that one."

He smiled down at her, and Meredith swore the pain disappeared entirely for a moment. And so she simply leaned against him. Happily let him steer her away from the others and onto the elevator. But her mood shifted again as she moved away from her friends. The contractions started to come a little stronger, a little sharper, a little quicker, and everything else just…blurred. Despite the fact that they were making their way through the hospital in those first few hours of morning that come before dawn, when the halls are as sleepy and silent as they ever get, everything around her seemed to meld into a giant overwhelming mess. There were voices and people and footsteps echoing purposely down the halls, but it all just slipped slightly out of focus and turned into a roar of background noise. Meredith wasn't quite sure what any of the forms said when being admitted. She just moaned and pushed them weakly into Derek's lap, bracing her back with one hand and clutching at him with the other. The whole hospital felt strange. Inside-out and backwards. Nothing seemed familiar.

The pants she'd wanted desperately were discarded without a second thought. She just moved, and did, and breathed; feeling as if she were creeping towards a border between numb and frightened that she didn't understand. She couldn't get the intern part of her brain to focus, to remember what the nurse was doing and why, to even listen to the explanations. 'What if's' kept forcing their way into her thoughts as if the presence of the hospital was causing some unknown dam within her to suddenly be breached. A thousand worst case scenarios screamed their way into her head at once, and Meredith just sat there trembling. Trembling and nodding and feeling very small. She was scared. She didn't know why exactly, but…she was. Scared to the point where it was all she could do to keep from bursting into tears when the nurse finally stopped poking at her, and left her alone in the room with Derek, saying that the doctor would be in soon.

She flopped back against the mattress, fiddling absently with her gown as Derek got up with a frown and closed the door. He glanced back at her, and she could see the worry filling his eyes. She tried to smile for him. Tried, faltered a little, and finally failed.

"Hey…" Derek murmured, concerned. He'd crossed from the door back to her bed before Meredith even had a chance to realize her lower lip was trembling like a leaf. He slipped down into the chair beside her, and folded her hand up in his. His fingers were close and tight and warm around her, his thumb stroking at her skin. And he leaned forward. Leaned so that his shadow loomed over her. Leaned so that she was cut off from the clinical whiteness of the room, and all that was there to see was the blue of his eyes. "Meredith," he whispered, hushed and melodic as if her name were the words to a song. "What's wrong?"

She swallowed the lump in her throat and shook her head. "Nothing."

He smiled, unconvinced. Leaned closer still so that his lips skimmed over her forehead, and she could hear the steady in out of his breathing. And then he straightened up, pulling away to stare straight into her eyes. "Then why are you trying not to cry?" Meredith opened her mouth to speak, to answer, but couldn't find the words. Couldn't even find the thoughts inside her own mind to explain why she suddenly wanted to be anywhere but here. And so she settled for another fierce shake of her head. "Is it the contractions?" he pressed. "Are you in too much pain?"

"No, it's…" she began, only to have her words falter as pain rippled like fire around her abdomen. "It's, um…" She shook her head. Shook and shook and gasped and tried to think of something to say. "It's--"

"Shhh…" Derek leaned forward, stroking her cheek and pressing a finger to her lip. "Shhh, just breathe. You can tell me later. It's okay."

Her fingers curled around his hand and she sucked in air, waiting for the pain to peak and fade away again. He kept murmuring to her; telling her to breathe, that she was okay, that everything, everything was okay. And she nodded, feeling as if she were falling into his voice.

"It's--" she tried again as everything settled back to normal.

"It's what?"

Meredith frowned. Scooted back a little so she wasn't laying flat. "It's not the pain," she said quietly. And it wasn't. It hurt, but it was nothing compared to what she'd felt all those months ago when she'd thought she was losing the baby. That had felt like knives. Like being stabbed and skewered and turned inside out all at once. It had been enough to make her want to curl up and die. But this? This she could still breathe through. "It's not," she insisted, her voice faint.

"Okay," agreed Derek. His hand ran up and down the length of her arm. Up and down, slowly up and down. "It's something else?"

"Yes…"

The one word sounded weak and pathetic. She felt weak and pathetic. Her cheeks flushed and she looked away. It was like she was six again, trying to work up the courage to tell her mother that she couldn't sleep because her room was too dark. That it was pitch black and terrifying. With things lurking in the shadows, quite possibly lurking and about to get her.

Only to be scolded and told to grow up.

And now, that same smothering fear had crawled in out of nowhere as if her thoughts were enough to choke her. She swung back and forth between afraid and ashamed.

"Meredith," Derek urged. His voice was low and coaxing. Drawing an answer out of her. Pulling it closer and closer to her lips.

She clamped down and shook her head. "It's stupid."

"No, it's not."

Meredith frowned and looked away, trembling under the weight of trying to keep it all in. She bit down on her lip to stop it from shaking. Let her teeth dig in hard enough to taste blood.

"Tell me," Derek pleaded. He reached out, his fingers gently gripping her chin and turning her back to face him. The pad of his thumb brushed over her lower lip, freeing it from her teeth. "Tell me, and I'll do everything I can to fix it."

"I'm afraid." The words snaked out of her without her permission. They hung there in the air, quavering. The pressure of his hand on her face wouldn't let her turn away again, but she closed her eyes resolutely. Waited for him to tell her to grow up and tough it out.

"Oh." He sounded almost relieved. And then his voice was a warm rush of soothing words, his hands always on her, always holding her. "That's okay, Mer. It's okay if you're scared. I know this is a lot, but--" She opened her eyes cautiously, and he smiled at her. "You're safe. You're okay. This isn't something you need to be afraid of." Meredith didn't answer. She just stared up at him, her eyes wide, unsure of what to say. He shifted in his chair. Leaned forward to balance his weight on his knees. Let his smile slip away into a thoughtful sort of frown. "We've never really talked about it," he continued quietly, watching her. "Are you scared of actually having the baby?"

Meredith raised her shoulders and tilted her head; it was a gesture caught somewhere between a shrug and a shake of her head. "No," she began, searching out her thoughts as she spoke. "I don't know. I just-- What if…" She gestured aimlessly with her hand. "What if something goes wrong?" she asked at last.

"Then there'll be doctors here to take care of it," Derek rationalized. He rested his chin on his fist, his eyes still not straying from hers. "And you're at Grace. If something did go wrong, you'd already have the best team on the entire west coast here. You know that."

"Right," she said weakly. She looked away from him, flicking her gaze towards the ceiling.

"Hey," he pressed. Sudden understanding bellied his tone, and his eyes grew fierce. "You're not expecting something to go wrong, are you?" She just let her eyelids slip shut, and her lip go back to trembling. It was a question that didn't really need an answer anyway. "Meredith…" Derek continued, his voice breaking a little on the second syllable. "Mer, please," he pleaded. "Don't think that. Don't worry yourself sick. You're gonna get through this just fine." She still didn't say anything, and for a second he thought she was ignoring him. Stifling a sigh, Derek buried his hands in his face. He rubbed his fingers roughly against his eyes, searching desperately for a way to reassure her. When he looked back up, she still had her eyes closed, but her fingers were gripping the bar on the bed tight enough to turn her knuckles white. A thin little moan escaped past her lips, and he scooted forward. Lifted her hand off the bar, giving her his own hand to squeeze instead. And she did--she squeezed and clenched at his fingers, eyes flying wide open as their palms touched.

"Oww…" she whined, staring up at him.

"I know, Mer. I know."

And then, the fading pain of the contraction seemed to loosen her lips in a way that all of Derek's coaxing hadn't been able to manage. It weakened her resolve, sent her guard running off somewhere else, and--before Meredith truly knew what was happening, or could have a chance to stop it--the words came tumbling out. Tumbling and rushing and pouring their way out, tangling up on each other in the race to be spoken first. "It's just…why shouldn't something go wrong, you know?" she demanded darkly. "Something's always gone wrong. Always. Even from the beginning, Derek." She glared down at her bulging stomach before jerking her focus back to him. "We both know this was a total accident. Being pregnant was pretty much the last thing I wanted, and just when I'd started to warm up to the idea, I almost lose the baby!" She laughed bitterly, shaking her head. "And then I couldn't work, and your mother came, and I have high blood pressure so they stick me on bed rest, and…" She gasped, trying to catch up with the chaotic parade of her thoughts. It was as if her mind had been tossed into a blender set on high, and she was left trying to make sense of the sopping soupy mess of uncertainty even as it all slipped through her fingers and came pouring--ranting and lost--out of her mouth. "I still can't quite believe we walked into the hospital like normal people today. I figured, with my luck, I'd be lifted in by helicopter already hemorrhaging or something! This is too normal. I feel like I'm lying here waiting for the other shoe to drop. For me to die, or the baby to come out with two heads."

Derek's grip on her hand tightened. "You're not dying," he said fiercely, cutting her off. He knew she was being somewhat flippant, but still… He didn't know how to think rationally when she said things like that. Even hearing the words made his stomach churn. "You're. Not. Dying." He said it again, slower. Dragged the words out until they were almost angry, and Meredith was cowering a little against the pillows. 'You're having a baby, but you're not… You're not gonna die." She seemed frozen by the sudden vehemence of his voice. Her cheeks paling, eyes widening. "Mer…" Her name came out as a ragged sigh, and he let his hand tear back through his hair.

"I know," she agreed quietly, meekly. "I'm not actually dying, and…" She bit her lip, a guilty smile gracing her face. "The baby doesn't have two heads."

Derek grinned, something within him warming up at her smile. "She doesn't," he said. "We've had countless one-headed ultrasounds to prove it."

"Yeah." Meredith laughed. She readjusted their hands, pressing her palm flat against his. She wound their fingers together again, and just stared up at him. It was as if spewing all the twisting fears that had been lurking in the back of her mind had done something good. Lanced a wound. Made it easier to breathe. Something… Whatever it was, it helped. She barely even minded the next contraction, she was too busy grinning up at Derek. Just grinning like a… Like a ridiculously happy person. A fool. Grinning like a fool sounded about right.

By the time the doctor came in, they were talking about other things entirely. He was rubbing her back and she was still smiling, and wanting to cry seemed like a distant thing.

The doctor they'd switched to was a middle-aged woman named Elizabeth Harrison. Her voice was warm and soothing, her blonde hair run through with several streaks of gray. She was rather squat, and didn't walk from place to place so much as she bustled about, humming with energy and an innate cheerfulness. She fit Meredith's generic mental image of a motherly sort of person save for the fact that her eyes were sharp and almost hawk like. They were a clear pale gray that broadcasted her intelligence in a way that everything else about her just…didn't quite. At any rate, Meredith liked her. They both did. She'd filled their two criteria for a new doctor perfectly in that she was neither an attractive man prone to kissing his patients, nor Derek's ex-wife.

Elizabeth made her way into the room with a soft flurry of sound, smiling genially at them. "So it sounds like you're finally having your baby, Meredith?" she said, flipping through the updated vitals as she spoke.

Meredith just nodded, twisting the bed sheet into a knot.

"That's great," Elizabeth continued, greeting Derek quickly before turning back to Meredith. She rattled off a series of questions that Meredith answered reluctantly at first, as if she were refusing to dip any more than one toe into a pool, still half expecting the sudden fear that had come with the nurse's visit to come flooding back.

It didn't.

Other than the occasional need to stop talking and gasp her way through another contraction, it didn't seem much different from her last doctor's appointment. If anything, it seemed faster. Before Meredith had a chance to start worrying about anything, she'd already been examined, and Elizabeth was standing up again, snapping off her gloves.

Elizabeth gave her a gentle, dimpled smile. "You can relax, dear," she said softly. "You're doing fine."

"Yeah?" asked Meredith, relief seeping into her voice.

"Yeah," agreed Elizabeth with a nod. She shuffled backwards towards the door, scribbling on Meredith's chart as she moved. "I'll be back to check on you later. You're two centimeters, so--"

"Oh…" Meredith said, her voice cutting in over the other woman's. "Only two?" she asked, trying to keep her disappointment from showing.

Elizabeth grinned, giving another little bobbing nod of her head. "Only two," she agreed. "So try and sleep now, if you can. You've still got a ways to go."

The door clicked shut, and Meredith fell back against the pillows. She exhaled loudly, her bangs fluttering off her forehead and drifting slowly back down. She glared at Derek, who was watching her curiously. "Two centimeters," she muttered. Derek nodded, and she narrowed her eyes. "Two!"

"Well, two's a start," he tried diplomatically. "It's a fifth of the way to ten."

Meredith scowled, folding her arms over her stomach. "I know it's a fifth of the way to ten!" she snapped. "I can do the whole math whatever… It's just--" She stopped abruptly, her frown deepening. "Never mind."

"It's just what?"

"I said never mind!"

"Oh come on, Mer. Tell me," Derek pressed, trying his hardest not to grin. It was hard. Her eyes were flashing, and she was pouting up at him, her lower lip jutting out. He was pretty sure she'd never looked more adorable.

"Fine," she sighed, already exasperated. "I was betting on at least three!"

"Really? Me too," he said, and then he gave in and grinned.

-----

So yeah. Mer's finally on her way to having her baby. Finally. This was a lot of fun to write, but, at the same time, it was very nerve-racking as I've never had a baby myself. So, it felt like a lot of writing blind or something. Anyway, that's about all I've got to say right now as I'm exhausted. So just, thanks so much for reading! I'll try to update again soon.