A/N: As you'll very quickly be able to tell, this chapter was inspired by the dinner table fight of 15x21.
In OD, I accidentally developed an obsession to grey-areas. Basically every subplot I wrote had many, many layers of fault and nothing was ever simple or black and white, and this is no exception. Derek's sisters have every right to be mad at him (although one specific sister's attitude does push it too far) but Derek had his reasons for not telling them/his mom. So whose side are we on?
As they aren't named in the show:
Kathleen's husband is Ryan.
Nancy's husband is James.
Liz's husband is Ed.

"Hey! Mom! I'm at the top of the Space Needle right now!" Kathleen exclaimed as she wandered aimlessly around the space to get different perspectives of the city where her brother and one of her sisters resided.

Carolyn was the one who called her, but Kathleen often got the first word in. "I need you to come to the hospital."

"Why? What's Amelia done this time?" She said through a sigh as she paused, eyes settling over the water. She watched a ferryboat drift across the river peacefully in the far off distance. Why was Derek so in love with them again? She had no idea.

"It's not Amelia." Carolyn corrected, taking a quick look back to the door of her son's hospital room door. The one in the intensive care unit, because that's where her son was. Intensive. Care. Unit. Why did this keep happening? It was like a flashback to when he was shot or after the plane crash.

"Derek? Golden-boy Derek?"

"Please, Kathleen, I need you here." Carolyn begged, pacing up and down the ward now. She couldn't just stand there and stare at his room. She glanced into some other rooms by accident as she walked, seeing as one wall of every room was just glass. A rather old woman with no obvious injuries, intubated. A man younger than Derek, asleep with a bandaged around his head. A woman his age, neck held together by a halo and lungs held together by yet another endotracheal tube. She turned when she reached that room, for no particular reason, and walked back the other way.

"Okay, okay, geez, I'm heading down now." She sighed; she was enjoying the Needle. "What happened? Why do you sound so...panicky?"

"Derek was in an accident two weeks ago."

She paused and didn't enter the elevator. She didn't want to have a conversation with a bunch of strangers standing all around her, even if it did mean she would be a minute later to the hospital. "What?"

"Kath…he was broadsided by a semi-truck."

"Fucking hell. He's okay though, right?" She asked as if there was only one answer her mother could give. The problem was, he was the option that she didn't even consider: the 'not-fine' category. He was anything but okay.

She didn't even have the capacity to scold her foul mouth. "He's still in the ICU."

"But he's breathing by himself? He's not on a vent? Tell me he's not on a vent!" She pleaded, voice breaking. As much as she hated 'golden-boy Derek', she could feel the panic engulfing her both physically and psychologically.

"He was in a coma for nine days. He…he was on a vent for nine days." She just about managed to get out of her mouth, only to be met with a long moment of silence. "Kathleen, are you still there?"

She swallowed. "Injuries?"

"God, I don't even know. But he- he had a subdural hematoma and keeps having-" She swallowed. She couldn't say the word without a gulp. "He keeps having seizures."

Kathleen didn't reply to that, but shoved her way onto the elevator. She couldn't wait any longer.

"Derek, need me to get you anything?" Kathleen asked, pausing besides him.

"I'm quite capable, don't worry." He dismissed, a little peeved by the question.

"Sure?" She pressed.

"I'm sure."

She frowned. "Can I at least get you a drink?"

"I can make my own drink Kathleen." He said defensively. It was things like that – it wasn't the first time his mother or one of his sisters had said something like that to him in the last two hours he had been there – that fuelled his desire to leave. He knew his limits and he understood that they didn't, but he was also sure that his sisters were smart enough to figure out that he would ask for help if he needed it. It would be to Meredith or Amelia, never one of them, but he would still indicate when he needed assistance.

"Okay…" She sighed before murmuring something under her breath, probably rude.

He left the table to get said drink. Clearly, everyone had got theirs when he was still too dissolved in his baby to pay attention to the rest of the world. There was so much movement in the garden, he could hardly note if it was a child with a football running in the corner of his eye or a rushed adult.

He didn't know if his mom had moved furniture for him or she had changed the set up of the living room prior to his accident, but the sofas and tables of the living room certainly weren't in the same arrangement that they were last time he visited her. He didn't ponder that for a while, barely pausing, before heading to the kitchen.

Derek opened one cupboard at a time, searching for something to drink out of. One contained pots and pans. Another contained dishes and plates of two different sizes. The next was that one cupboard that everyone pretended to not to have, containing a random assortment of odd-fitting bowls and different shaped bottles. Then the last one, which contained a dry store of pantry-like foods. He assumed the drawers contained cutlery so ignored those, making an instant conclusion that the glasses were in the cupboards above the oven. Above…where he couldn't reach from a sitting position.

But he couldn't go back and ask for help now. Or rather, he didn't want to go back and ask for help. That would be much too embarrassing, he decided.

His fingers brushed the cabinet, just about managing to open it from the bottom of the door. He got the right one on his first try. It was his family-home after all (he was pretty sure he was just being optimistic with opening the bottom drawers first) so it wasn't that shocking of a guess.

He shuffled forward a little, slipping his feet off of his chair and letting his shoes touch the ground. It wasn't often in a day that they did that.

He wrapped the hand on the opposite side of the cupboard around the handle of a lower cupboard before pushing up.

His knees, thankfully, didn't buckle at the weight. Although, they were most definitely surprised if the sear down his thighs was anything to go by. He still attended physio and was still making minimal improvements. The length of time he could stand had lengthened since the supposed cut off mark but he could still hardly stay upright without the support of the bars or, in this case: the metal handle ejecting from the kitchen cupboard. His nearer hand grasped the cup with ease. He had nearly placed it on the kitchen counter when-

"Derek?" Kathleen practically shouted.

Then there were only three things he was aware of.

The first was that he was no longer holding the glass.

The second was that that meant it was now on the countertop. Although, some shards probably fell to the floor.

The third was the searing pain in the hand that had reached a razor-sharp shard on the counter as it settled there to support him. Tried to settle there, even.

"Kathleen!" He greeted in a rather emphatic tone as his legs collapsed. Despite the awkward mess of limbs, the landing was still the best he could have wished for, seeing as he didn't end up on the floor. He slid his good hand under both legs to put them back on their rests, rather than letting them move themselves.

She rushed forward, careful not to stand on any broken glass. "I told you I should have got your drink."

"It's fine." He said through a shake of his head, looking at the cut that had formed in his hand. It wasn't deep. He could clearly see that all it had done was rip through a couple layers of skin.

"You smashed a glass." She dismissed, shaking her head as she carefully picked up the three pieces of the glass that she could pick up safely due to the larger surface area of unbroken, smooth shards.

"You spooked me." He pulled himself away with his un-splintered hand so she could access the under-the-sink cupboard that he was previously sat next to. That specific cupboard always contained a dust pan and brush, right? He searched for a second before pulling it out, passing it to his sister.

"I did not spook you, you were doing something I'm pretty sure you are not supposed to be doing." She sighed as she took the cleaning instrument and started to brush the floor, collecting up the smaller shards.

"You're aware that I'm not entirely paralyzed, right? I can stand if I want…most of the time." He returned. The last half was a good afterthought to add. His pain was chronic and fluctuating. Some days he could barely stand at all, others he could.

She looked up at him disapprovingly before saying, "I'd know these things if you talked to me. Or told me anything about it. At all."

"You see me once a year, sometimes less, I don't need to update you on every day of my life."

"You know what would have been really nice? If you had updated me on just one day of your life. One singular day to mention just something. Something, Derek! Say, after you were discharged and still not walking or five months into your recovery when you realized that that wasn't a thing that you were going to be able to do. Maybe you could have told me when I visited you with our sisters that your recovery wasn't as streamlined and simple as we hoped. Just…something! Something other than mom phoning me and asking me whether or not I was aware of: one, the fact that you broke your freaking spine twice; two, the fact that the two fractures caused major sensory and motor deficits below the neurological level; and three, the fact that you were soon going to have one of those recovery chats with your surgeon about the fact that you were very, very likely going to have to use a wheelchair for the rest of your life!"

"Kathleen-" He sighed, not continuing despite the silence. He was expecting to be interrupted, but he wasn't.

"You are aware that you are supposed to say something after that, right? That's how arguments work. I say something. You say something."

He would have replied. But he had nothing to say: she was right.

"Hey, was wondering where you two got to." Carolyn said as the siblings came out the living room doors. When they left, Liz was still setting out bowls and there were still people rushing about, settling their kids with their own meals first and making sure everyone had everything they needed. Now, some people already had a full plate of food, James already starting.

He let Kathleen place his drink at his seat at the head of the table, opposite his mother (it was much easier to sit there than anywhere else) before pushing himself to the space, thankfully between his wife and favourite sister. He didn't even try to lie anymore about who that was.

Kathleen had, annoyingly, insisted on taking the drink from him and carrying it for him, despite the fact he had a perfectly good, secure method of carrying things like that by himself which he had used for a good couple months with only one slip. Although, if there was ever going to be a second time, he was sure it would be in front of his whole family. The one who he was trying to prove his new self to. To them, he probably only had one difference but he wanted to prove otherwise. He wanted to prove that when Meredith said she loved him more than she did before because she thought he was a better person, she was right to.

"Sorry, we got-" Derek started, returning to his place.

"What happened to your hand?" His mother interrupted, as she noted the double wrap of gauze around his palm.

"He smashed a glass." Kathleen answered for Derek.

He frowned, rolling his eyes. "I did not smash a glass."

"You were holding a glass, then you dropped it; you smashed a glass." She returned in simple sentences.

His mother was looking at him with an awful lot of concern now. It had been difficult – very difficult – to convince her that he was okay with it all to start with and that he was starting to accept who he was and who he would be. But, of course, Kathleen just had to shatter that. "She practically shouted my name without any warning that she was behind me, how was I supposed to react?"

"Okay, okay. We're not five years old. We can deal with a broken glass, right?" She questioned, diffusing the argument.

"Kathleen picked it up but you still might not want to let any barefooted kids in there, just incase." Derek recommended. "At least until you get the vacuum in there."

Carolyn nodded, praying that their squabbling wouldn't continue. All of her children certainly all knew how to rub each other the wrong way. Well, except Derek. He had a new layer of things for them to irritate him about but that was more obvious than any of the other things they had learnt to say. He could tell that they were already getting the hang of how to piss him off by talking about that subject.

"Right, because I can't ever do anything right for you, can I?"

His eyes dropped to his empty plate before deciding on something to start with. "Say, Kathleen, could you please pass that plate in front of you to your poor, maimed big brother? I would get it myself but you see, I'm too incapacitated to perform the most basic of tasks, so I'm afraid I need your constant assistance."

Her eyes shot up to him from her own plate at the request, surprised more than anything. She wasn't the only one radiating astonishment. He quirked an eyebrow at her jaw-dropped state and she reluctantly passed him the bowl, her aggression burning silently.

"Thanks." He said, drowning in sarcasm as he took the bowl.

Meredith's hand slipped round his other hand, trying to exchange a look with him, but he didn't turn to her at the touch. His fingers did wrap around hers though.

"You okay?" Meredith asked quietly, lifting his hand above the table to examine it. That wasn't related to what she was asking about though, they both knew that.

He tried his best to smile. "Oh, I'm absolutely great."

She sighed at his sarcasm, and squeezed his hand lovingly.

"You know, I was in a car accident a couple years ago. Well, I think I was like thirty-seven, actually." James stated, rather abruptly. The man had settled down his fork a minute or two ago, finishing the meal before most people had gotten half way through, despite the fact that his plate was piled the highest, with the unhealthiest foods out of the whole table.

Derek looked up from his plate of food, only able to presume that the man was directing the statement as him. He would have no reason to bring it up if he wasn't there. Then again, he had no reason to bring it up because he was there either. But, he did always question Nancy's choice of husband, so he supposed it was a fair enough thing to come from him.

Derek had learnt a while ago not to judge a book by its cover but considering his now-consumed plate of carbohydrates and heavily-fattening processed foods, he felt fairly confident making the assumption that the broad and expansive belly pushing against his t-shirt was not something that had come from undiagnosed hypothyroidism. He didn't seem like a particularly nice man either. If he was honest, he was the perfect caricature for the mean, lazy, alcohol-drinking husband that shouted at the TV and complained when dinner was five minutes late, despite already going through twelve bags of crisps and not providing assistance, he had fretted about becoming when he was first discharged from the hospital, finding himself unable to do much more than sleep, eat and watch television.

He didn't become anything like that man at all, he liked to think.

He couldn't help her out like he used to. They used to a half-and-half kind of method. No one actually worked out the percentage, but, for example, they used to both put dishes away after they were cleaned dried. That involved an awful lot of movement every second, as well as often reaching to a high cupboard. Hence, why, unless she had a late surgery and the plates were stacking too high, it was always her job. So he always took washing up as there was no movement and no reaching involved in that at all.

That was the compromise they had to make. It meant the tasks quickly became even more monotonous than they were before, seeing as they were limited to half of the chores, but if there was something he physically couldn't do, that was just the way it had to be. And they were both fine with that. They were getting used to that for every aspect of their lives.

James didn't wait for a prompt from anyone else, continuing, "Yeah, broke a bone beginning with 'f' but you know I'm not a doctor so I have no idea what it was."

"Probably your femur or fibula." Meredith suggested, unable to think of any other bones. She questioned the phalanges, supposing he would have no idea how to spell the word if he couldn't even remember it but discounted it from her guess anyway.

"Where are those ones again?"

Meredith sighed. If she was honest, she was half-scared of where this conversation was going to go. "The fibula is basically your shin, femur above it."

"Right- the fibula then." He agreed, giving a nod. "Did you break your fibula or femur, Derek?"

He dropped his fork, a little too dramatically. He didn't mean to do that really. He had just spent so long going over what was going to happen on the trip that when it actually did occur, as it was doing now, it felt as if it had been going on for twenty years. "I actually broke both fibulas. And my left femur."

"Mmm, doesn't sound great." He muttered unhelpfully. He was most definitely aware that it didn't sound great. "My friend, Timothy-"

"Timothy?" Nancy inquired, interrupting him.

"You know, Tim Rodgerstone." He elaborated, turning to his wife.

She nodded as the realization settled on her face. "Oh- yeah."

"Anyway, he was a wrestler. And he broke his back. And I thought that meant he was going to be paralyzed or whatever. But he's not. He's not even in a wheelchair."

"Not all SCIs- uh, spinal cord injuries result in damage that impairs motor and sensory function. Sounds like your friend was quite lucky. We have this thing called the ASIA scale – basically, a spinal cord impairment scale – and I can only presume your friend had an AIS level E injury." Amelia clarified.

"So not all people with broken backs are like- paralyzed because not all breaks are the same? They're different levels…AIS thingamabobs or whatever?"

"Yeah, broken spines don't always mean total, traditional paralysis." He clarified, feeling a little like he was talking to a child. He was glad Amelia was helping out with a little bit of the babysitting.

"Right…that makes more sense now." He murmured after a second of taking it in. "But you're paralyzed, right? I mean, if you could move your legs, then you wouldn't need the wheelchair. Isn't that how it works?"

He knew the man wasn't a doctor. But seriously? Seriously? "Not all wheelchair-users are paralyzed. There are plenty of conditions that aren't even anything to do with the spine that means someone might need to use one. I can move my legs, but I can't walk." He wasn't a hundred percent sure whether he wanted to laugh or cry at the fact he had to make that elaboration.

"Really?"

"Mmm mmm." Derek agreed. Did it sound like he was kidding?

"Is it annoying?"

"Being in a chair? No, not really. Sometimes there'll be something but mos-"

"No. I mean, yes- but, like- is it annoying, knowing you could have done more?"

"What do you mean by 'done more'?"

"When I broke my leg, the guy said I wouldn't be able to walk for two months. And this one-" He placed a hand on his wife's shoulder. "-paid some more for extra physio. Then I was walking in six weeks. Two weeks early."

"Okay...and?" Derek pushed. He had a horrible feeling about where this was going, seeing as he wasn't the first person to say something like that to him.

"Well if you're not paralyzed then why didn't you just go to physio twice a week instead of once. Maybe then you'd be able to walk, like me."

There it was. He did his best not to react again. "First...I am partially paralyzed, technically, what you'd call a paraplegic. That's what I meant by 'traditional' paralysis. Just because I'd feel it if you stuck a knife in my thigh, doesn't mean I'm not paralyzed. I didn't have an AIS E injury so I still have massive problems with my legs. Secondly, it would have been physically impossible for me to have more physio, seeing as I had it every day."

"How about the weekends?" He asked, posing it as if he was a genius who had just found a cure for his condition.

"Every day includes the weekends."

James' eyebrows raised a little, before his face fell neutral again. Then, another light bulb went off. "What if you had it for another hour?"

"Then I would have just ended up hurting myself, straining my muscles and set myself back in my recovery. It would have been too much."

"So because you couldn't deal with a little pain, you ruined your whole recovery?"

"A little pain?" Derek repeated incredulously, making no eye contact with the rest of his family before swallowing to clear his tone. "My injuries...they weren't the kind that stopped hurting after a few weeks."

The man huffed. "Was it really that bad?"

Derek bit his lip. He couldn't say what he wanted to. He wanted to be sarcastic. Why, do you think breaking twenty bones is a pain-free experience? Take the amount of pain you felt, times it by twenty, that's how I felt! But he couldn't. He was trying to stay calm. "Yes. It was...it really was that bad."

Meredith grabbed his hand under the table and they exchanged a cringed look. God, he was thankful for her. Most days, he would say he was simply glad for her existence, but today was the fact that she was a doctor. He couldn't imagine what it would be like if she didn't understand the complexities of his injury and begged him to explain it all to her again and again and again.

"So Amelia, remind me what you do for a living." Liz's husband requested, trying to fill the silence of the adult's table after the previous conversation ran out of steam. Or rather, ended due to ignorance. The kids table, on the other hand, was consumed by sound. Ed always seemed an awful lot nicer than James. Key word: seemed. "You're a nurse, aren't you?"

He didn't say that because he held the belief that women couldn't be doctors. She knew he wasn't misogynistic, it was just a purposeful dig at her.

"No…I'm Head of Neurosurgery at Grey Sloan." Amelia answered, picking up the wooden cutlery to pick up a mass of mixed salad before dumping it on her plate.

"Oh, right. I almost forgot you all work at the same hospital." He said, scooping some carrots. That wasn't the only thing he seemed to make a mistake about.

The table consisted of general party food: (purposefully) cold pizza, crisps, breadsticks, a variety of cheeses, cocktail sausages, crimson tomatoes, crisps, sweetcorn, soft bread rolls, lush-green salad, cucumber and a very large selection of dips and sauces.

"And Meredith, you do general?" Ed asked.

She nodded, not quite surprised that he was aware of her job, but not Amelia's. Whether she agreed with it or not, Derek was the golden child and Amelia was the black sheep. Of course the man knew the golden child's wife's job but not Amelia's. "Yeah."

"And Derek used to be head of neurosurgery before he quit to work for the president." Lizzie added proudly, despite the fact she knew it would embarrass him. In fact, he was pretty sure that was why her unconscious mind thought it would be such a good idea to do it.

"Like the real president? The American president? That sounds so cool. Do you still do that?" Ryan, Kathleen's husband, inquired.

He shook his head, already knowing the next question.

"Is that because…" He asked, trailing off as his eyes dropped a little. There it was again. He knew everything would always be about the chair with his family. Everything.

"No, no." He returned, answer already prepared in his mind. "I quit before...uh- that. I work with Amelia now."

"Like joint-head of the department?" James inquired.

"Nope, I'm just a plain old neuro attending now. Or I will be again in the new year; I'm currently on paternity leave for Elle. Amelia is the sole head of the department and has been for a while now." He corrected, smiling at her a little. She returned it awkwardly. They were both aware that their sisters and husbands were trying to gang up on her in an attempt to embarrass and humiliate her. That's what they did. That's what they always did.

"Amelia got the job because he left for the presidential job." Nancy stated.

Derek sighed. He hated to see Amelia go so sheepish but he knew it was only a matter of time before she stood up for herself. Until then, he supposed it was just going to be overprotective-brother time to defend her. "No, Amelia got the job because she deserved it."

"But if you didn't leave, she would have never become head of neuro, right?" She questioned back.

"She could have been head of neuro at any other hospital in the country if she wanted to move. But she didn't. So, it just so happened that when I left, she could interview for the job."

"I'm still hearing a yes there, Derek." Kathleen murmured.

"That's how the job works. You can't become head if your department already has one so yes, Amelia only got the job because I left because that's how the position works. Someone leaves, someone else takes their place. I left, she took my job. I wasn't anything to do with the actual equation."

"Sure." Kathleen murmured back.

"So why didn't you take it back when you returned?" Nancy asked.

"Because it's a job. It's a position at a workplace. It's not like if someone better turns up, they instantly take their place." Meredith tried to elaborate, knowing how difficult Derek was finding it to keep up the fight with his sisters alone. The longer they sat there, the more she understood his hesitancy to accept his mother's invitation.

"But you removed that tumour in that guy's brain that no one else had ever done before, right? That makes you better than Amelia."

"I'm not the only person in the world to remove an inoperable brain tumour. Yes, I have a reputation for it but Amelia has removed a good dozen herself before."

"But you've removed more than a dozen?" She pushed further.

Derek sighed. This was the other reason why he didn't want to come to this party. This is why he made his own child into an excuse.

"Kathleen, I think you've pestered your sister quite enough."

"I'm just saying, if Derek hadn't left for that job and then hadn't been in that accident then-"

"That accident-" He started, tone shifting drastically for just those two words. "-had nothing to do with me being okay with not being head of neuro. And for the love of god, could we just stop talking about it? I get it, okay? I know why you are all so pissed at me. I'm sorry I didn't tell you straight away but you really don't need to watch me like I'm some kind of zoo exhibit. That's literally the reason I didn't tell any of you in the first place. I'm perfectly aware of what you're all thinking about when you stare at me and I'm a hundred and one percent sure that you've all seen someone in a wheelchair before so you really have no need to do all that gawking like I'm some pariah!"

Silence engulfed the space for just a second. Then one of his sisters spoke. Kathleen. Of course it was her. "That accident changed you."

He sighed. "Kathleen."

"It did Derek, I don't know how you can deny that." She rebutted.

"My plane landed four hours ago and I've been here for three quarters of that time. How do you know what's changed about me? You don't know me Kathleen, this is the most we've seen each other in about three years."

"You're my brother, I know you and you have changed. I mean- I'm not saying I'm surprised. It ruined your life because it would ruin anyone's."

"It did not-" He tried to protest before being cut off.

"A third of people in RTCs develop either PTSD, Depression, anxiety and/or phobias. By the fact that you didn't even bother to tell us about the fact you were almost paralyzed, I would chuck some massive avoidance issues in there too. Twenty percent of people have an anxiety disorder, thirty have depression and forty have two or more persistent mental health issues after an SCI." She listed off, not helping the psychiatric side of herself shine through as she blurted statistics at him.

"I'm not a psychiatrist but I am aware of the statistics." He returned bluntly. "I also-"

"What about Jason's tumour, huh? That was irrational. And stupid. You evidently took a page from Amelia's book for that one, didn't you?"

"It was operable!"

"You removed the brain tumour of the guy that paralyzed you! I don't get how you don't see anything wrong with that!"

"Because he was a guy who was supposed to die and he didn't because I removed it. Because no one would even dare to go near it. I did it because I wanted him to live. I needed him to live. It wasn't his fault he hit-"

"He ruined your life Derek! He hit you with a freaking semi-truck and paralyzed you!"

"He didn't ruin my life! That accident didn't ruin my life. It changed my life in an awful lot of ways and of course, it took me a while to process it all, it would for anyone, but it did not ruin my life Kathleen. And this-" He gestured to his lap. "-this certainly did not ruin my-"

"Seriously! How can you say something like that? How the hell can you say that being in car accident that has put you – permanently – in a wheelchair did not ruin your life when you're stuck like that for the rest of your life?" It was such a disgustingly shaped word. She was disgusted by it. By him. By the idea that someone could possibly be happy when they lacked what society deemed a required skill to live.

Derek didn't say anything. He couldn't say anything. He couldn't even move for a second either. He just exhaled, swallowed, blinked and settled his knife and fork on his plate before dropping his hands to his side. He pulled himself backwards away from the table before pushing himself across the patio they were sat on.

The table sat in silence too, although the children still continued, not paying much attention to their argument.

Meredith and Amelia exchanged a look. All they could hear in their minds were Derek's protests not to go to this event. Not yet. Not when he had barely come to terms with what it all meant for him. He had said he didn't need nor want his family involved. He had said that he knew what they would say and how they would act around him and he didn't want that. He had said a lot of things about why he didn't want to go and now, it was starting to make Amelia question whether her reason for refusing to attend for so long was insensitive to him.

Kathleen stood, shoving her seat back a little and watching helplessly for a second before shouting after him as he pushed open the gate to the front garden which he had entered through a few hours previously. "Derek- hey, no, I didn't mean it like that-" She tried to correct herself as she finally realized what she had just said.

"Kathleen." Carolyn barked. She turned her head to her mother to see a disappointed frown and a disapproving shake of her head. "Sit back down."

"Mom-" She protested.

"Kathleen. Now."

She abided because of the tone of her voice. Her mother could be rather scary sometimes, even when she was in her fifties. Some things never changed.

Derek's two closer family members exchanged a look before one of them settled her cutlery; they had made a silence decision between them. "I'll go."

"Amelia, really, he might just need a bit of time to cool off and th-" Carolyn tried to protest, pausing when Amelia stood.

"I said, I. Am. Going." She repeated, shoving her chair into the table harshly before following her brother's path away from her family.