"Two pairs."

"Sorry, Dad: four of a kind." Sadie apologized with a remarkable lack of apology in her voice, laying the four one-eyed jacks on the carpet before her, on proud display for Derek.

The late afternoon, waning sunlight sprinkled itself on the plush carpeting of the living room in their brownstone as it struggled against the dusk. The foliage right outside the wide bay window was a vibrant red and orange kaleidoscope, and the flood of sunlight seemed to set it ablaze. The sky was piercingly blue, and clouds within it were weightless. This, plus the fact it was Friday, made it the perfect day to leave work early, so he and Addison had, then picked Sadie up from school and went at home for a night in.

From his reclined position on the carpet across from her, Derek jerked forward and scowled with a suspicious curl to his lip.

"I've been had! That's the third time you've had that!" he exclaimed, pointing accusingly at her. She shrugged easily enough, but there was a definite smile in her voice when she said, "It's all in the cards!"

"I don't think so." He contended, sitting up and collecting the upturned cards. "Mark showed you a cheat or something!"

"No, Dad, jeez." Sadie rolled her eyes and raked in her deserved chips. After they were securely on her side, she looked up at him with a devilish glint in her eyes. "It was Mom."

"What?" Derek exclaimed with astonishment, and then called, "Addison!"

She had been in the kitchen, which was in the back of the brownstone, and must have still been in the middle of something, because she only responded by yelling distractedly, "What is it?"

"You taught Sadie how to cheat at poker!" Derek very nearly whined, but smiled at his daughter. A few moments later, Addison materialized in the door way holding a plate of chips and salsa with the exact same devilish smile and glint in her eyes teasing him that had been in Sadie's eyes moments before. She leaned against the doorframe and shrugged.

"Taught is a strong word. I…offered her some tips."

"Cheating is not a condoned practice in this house! What are you teaching our child?" he demanded, still more amused than angry but putting on a good front of the morally appalled father, as Sadie was giggling crazily beside him.

"What about that time you showed me how to cover up a scratch on Mom's shoe with a sharpie?" she managed to ask amidst her laughter. Derek's eyes shot right over to Sadie and his mouth tightened in a terrified line, while Addison's eyes widened about three inches in diameter as she glared at her husband.

"Yes, Derek, what about that time?" she demanded, straightening and putting a hand on her hip.

"Sadie, I think you're short a few chips…" Derek said slowly, pushing a pile of valuable chips over to her side. An easy purchase, Sadie accepted them quickly.

"Derek!" Addison nearly screeched. "What pair was it?"

"I don't know what you're talking about, Addison. Do you, Sadie?" he glared warningly at her, and she shrugged innocently.

"Nope."

"Oh no," Addison said teasingly through gritted teeth, "It's too late for that!"

In a movement that should have been impossible given her pencil-cut skirt, Addison deftly dropped down to her knees on the carpet, grabbed her daughter in an inescapable embrace, and began tickling her mercilessly, until the little girl was breathless.

"Okay, okay, it was the black Jimmy Choos with the peep toes!" She cried through her hysterical laughing, rolling with relief from Addison's arms. Addison whipped her head to a laughing Derek, her mouth agape, and she hurled at him the nearest thing to her hand—a beaded pillow. He dodged it, and laughed even harder.

"Oh, cheating at poker is immoral, but teaching your child to cover her tracks and then take bribes for her silence, that's building good moral presence." She said as she crossed her arms over her chest and arched an eyebrow at him.

"Oh don't be so upset, you probably don't even know where those shoes are right now!"

"Sure I do. Rack 3, seventh from the left." Derek shook his head when she rattled the numbers off precisely.

"There is a line between hobby and addiction, Addison, and I think you've crossed it with those things!" With that he grabbed her outstretched ankle and dragged her closer. She giggled foolishly when he pressed his lips to hers. Sadie, sprawled out across the carpet across the room, sat up quickly, her eyes bright with excitement.

"I want to go to the park and feed the ducks. Can we please? They'll be gone soon for the winter! And it's not actually dark yet!"

Both of the Shepherds regarded the outdoors for a moment, but the excitement in Sadie's voice won them over. Central Park was only a few blocks away, anyway.

"Okay, honey, go upstairs and get your jacket. It's chilly." Addison instructed her, and before she finished Sadie was on her feet bounding past them and up the stairs to her bedroom. After a beat, Derek asked,

"Do you think I'm forgiven?"

Addison curled closer to him and fit herself against his side so they both say on the carpet with their backs against the sofa.

"Derek, relax. Your status as Superhero has been restored, I think." She assured him, tucking an errant strand of dark hair back with the rest of its kin, and let her hand linger in his hair.

"How about with you?" He asked, letting his forehead rest against hers so he could look into her eyes. She smiled sweetly.

"Well, you know how I feel about Batman. He's my favorite Superhero."

Derek snorted. "What if I got a mask?"

"That would help. You still don't have George Clooney's chin, though." She observed without any seriousness, running her finger along his face.

"Ouch!" he mimicked pain, but pressed his lips against hers for a kiss that began chaste, escalated sweetly when he wound a hand around her hip, but diffused sweetly when she pulled away very slightly.

"I'm ready to talk." She whispered, still essentially kissing him, as her mouth was barely a whisper from his.

"Okay. Now?"

"It doesn't have to be now, but—," she was cut off abruptly by a sudden, profound, deafening...smash. The profundity indicated something massive, from somewhere outdoors.

Memories of a similar beautiful fall day from a few years before flooding both of their minds immediately, they both sprang up from the floor and ran to the window.

"What was that?" Derek asked, terror deadening his voice as they both stared down towards the business district.

"Mom, Dad, something's on fire over there, look!" Sadie cried from the top of the stairs, where she pointed Eastward out of the front window. No flames were visible, but a huge column of smoke plumed ominously up over the buildings. She, like her parents, also had some memories of September 11th, 2001, but she had been very young at the time. Not so young, however, that she didn't cling to her father when he wrapped his arms around her and picked her up. The three of them stood in silence for a long moment, hearts racing, when a pager exploded from the kitchen. Only moments later, a second one followed.

After swallowing audibly, Derek turned to Addison.

"The bat signal."

"Which hotel, exactly, did the papers say?" Meredith asked as she puffed for air. The six-hour flight had rendered her body nearly entropic, and now she was fighting the pulsating New York City sidewalk traffic with not only her luggage, but Miranda's as well. She imagined she looked pretty ridiculous, but didn't care. She just wanted to put them down.

"Jolly Madison." Miranda replied from a few feet in front of her, not even deigning to turn around to say so. Instead, she broke into a jog, which Meredith mirrored, only more clumsily, and almost died via taxi in the process. After catching her breath during a brief moment when a slow-walking elderly man deterred Miranda's determined progress, Meredith asked hopefully, "Are we close?"

"Are you complaining, Grey?" Miranda asked, now deciding to turn.

"No, Dr. Bailey, I just…" Meredith chewed her lip. They had only been together eight hours. There were a long two days ahead of them if she angered her now.

"You're just complaining." Miranda supplied hostilely. Meredith's mouth dropped open a bit.

"Look, Dr. Bailey, I might just be misreading you, but are you angry at me, for something?" she asked slowly, hurt in her voice. Bailey sighed begrudgingly as she looked at Meredith Grey.

What happened to not letting your personal problems affect your work?

It wasn't Meredith's fault the Chief sent her to, in effect, baby sit Miranda. In fact, the intern probably didn't even realize it. She just thought she was on a business trip—she didn't have any other motives. But still, Miranda had been giving her a hard time the entire while. Finally, she shook her head.

"…No." She shuffled to the side, out of the flow of bodies, giving Meredith a chance to follow her and set a few bags down.

"This...this…this is more than just a cool seminar. For me." She said aloud, her desperation evident. Meredith nodded.

"I figured as much." She shifted her weight. "I didn't mean to…"

"It's not you, Grey. I'm sorry if it seems that way—what was that?" The throng of bodies around them came to a momentary standstill as every person stared North, at an apartment building that was currently ablaze, and huge chunks of flaming debris plummeting to the street. It was less than a block away from them, and the sky above them was already blackening with smoke.

"I don't know, but it shook the ground!" Meredith replied, shielding her eyes to see what it was exactly.

"Look!" Miranda pointed, as a very distinct helicopter propeller snapped from the flaming mass and swirled in frightening slow motion to the ground.

"Dr. Bailey, there's a bus!" Meredith managed, her eyes glued to the traffic-locked bus that was directly beneath where the piece of machinery was going to land. Bailey reacted instinctively and took off. Meredith heaped the luggage up against the side of the building gracelessly. She acknowledged in the back of her head she didn't often sprint to emergencies behind Dr. Bailey wearing leopard print flats, and found a strange humor in it as she sprinted.

A crowd had collected, and when the women got closer, the smoke was choking and blinding, but they didn't need to see to know when the helicopter propeller landed. The sound of crushing, suffering metal ground their ears, but they pressed onward.

"Let us through!" Miranda barked several times, to no avail. Meredith also tried to elbow her way forward, but had little success.

However, to her left, a man dressed in sleek black also was fighting his way to the front. She edged in behind him, and let him do most of the blocking. Miranda fell in behind Meredith, and soon the three of them emerged at the front of the crowd, where the crushed bus rose up terrifyingly large in front of them. They paused, and the man turned to them, barking over the din, "Who are you?"

"We're both doctors!" she screamed back, awash in relief when she heard approaching sirens.

"So am I! Do you have any trauma experience?"

"We both do!" She indicated Miranda with a head bob, who was struggling to hear him.

"Okay, well let's walk the perimeter and see if there was anyone on the sidewalk!" he shouted, and moved to do so without their affirmation. Meredith watched his sleek, muscular, well-groomed figure, and almost didn't believe his assertion. But she followed him, and Miranda performed the same maneuver on the other side.

The smoke was billowing outward, so once they cleared the front of the bus, the view was clear. But by no means pretty. A young woman and man, presumably together, lay on like rag dolls on the cement in front of the door of the apartment building, and a small boy was a few feet in beyond them.

Miranda appeared on the other side, closest to the boy, and she knelt beside his small body and went to work according to emergency protocol. Meredith and the man got down next to the couple.

"What are her vitals?" the man asked as he felt carefully around the other man's neck and head.

"I have a pulse, barely." Meredith replied, her voice scratchy from the soot and smoke. Assessing there to be head trauma, she didn't roll her over from her side lying position. Instead, she stepped over her and knelt in front of her, only to see a rather prominent pregnant stomach and a very badly burned face. But Meredith could not get past the stomach.

"She's pregnant."

The man cursed, and moved his patient onto his back.

"Make sure she doesn't move too much."

Meredith braced herself against the woman's body, and when she did, her head was right by the woman's mouth. It began to move, and Meredith wished she could hear the entirety of what she said.

"She was responsive! For a minute…now she's not." Meredith cried to no one.

"Just keep her still!" the man responded anyway, as he began compressions on the man's chest. His motions were fierce, desperate, and Meredith had a horrible feeling the man wasn't going to make it. She ventured a glance through the gritty air at Miranda, who was situating the small boy in a way that indicated he too had head trauma. Meredith pressed her eyes closed and tried not to make herself sick.

Just then, on either side of them, a mass of darkly clad paramedics and firemen oozed inward.

"What's going on?" the leader shouted.

After a few brief, difficult moments of explanation, Meredith, the man, and Miranda exchanged information with them. In an impressive, smooth transition, the boy was strapped to a gurney and Miranda and he were loaded into an ambulance on one side. Meredith only saw it in her peripheral, for at the exact same moment, she and her patient as well as the mystery doctor and his patient were being loaded into an ambulance on the other side.

It seemed like the heavy twin doors hadn't even slammed shut yet when the vehicle was in motion, the deafening blare of the siren not even occurring to Meredith as she helped the single paramedic with them.

As they went through their motions precisely, determinedly, and swiftly, the man finally looked up at Meredith.

"I never caught your name, Doctor." He said appreciatively.

"Grey. Meredith Grey." She replied.

"Mark Sloane. Nice work out there." He said with a nod and a smile that could have melted steel. Despite the circumstance, heat rose in her cheeks when she returned the smile.

"Uh…thanks."

So this chapter took on a life of its own, but I won't complain! Not much else to say at this point…more to come, stay with me! Thank you for reading, and for all the feedback thus far, as well as for any feedback that may be incoming. Hope you enjoyed it!