A/N: Okay, this chapter is coming from Alex's perspective which is sad I know, but I just love Alex/Mer friendship. The beginning of this chapter is from the end of "Sympathy for the Parents" and then the rest is just sort of made up by me. It mentions Alex's brother Aaron again briefly but just sort of as a side thought. You don't really need to know anything about him in this story. Enjoy.

Oh right I almost forgot...

Disclaimer: They aren't mine so please don't arrest me or whatever... I really enjoy the roller coasters at Shondaland... I just get board waiting for the big hills sometimes...

Baby Daddy-Chapter 3

Alex left Derek's office in a state of shock. Could Meredith really be pregnant? He wasn't sure that he was convinced that Derek could really figure it out before Meredith even with her tendency to avoid things that scared her. He made up his mind to watch her, and decide for himself whether or not he thought she was pregnant. But even so, he hadn't decided if would help Derek with his plan.

For the rest of the afternoon he was pretty much distracted by his brother, and so he didn't really get a chance to talk to Meredith until later that night. He was sitting on the couch when she got home. She asked about Aaron, and then comforted him about the fight he'd had with his brother. She'd said, "You're nothing like your father." Just a simple statement but with the way she had about her, the simple, calm surety she possessed, he knew he believed her and he knew for sure in that moment that she would be an excellent mother.

He'd returned the compliment telling her almost reflexively "You're nothing like your mother." And he could see that she believed him. It was almost like her faith in his ability to overcome his crappy childhood somehow gave her the confidence she needed for herself as well. When he'd expanded saying "You're good. You'd be good," and finally just flat out telling her, "You'd be a good mom." She'd smiled at him and he knew he'd said the right thing. He could tell from the look on her face that she wanted it. The kids thing. She wanted it, but she was afraid of it. He'd been worried before that Derek was pressuring her. But when he looked at her eyes just then, he was sure that it was what she wanted.

They sat in relative silence and watched the end of the news while she ate his cereal. As he sat there Alex decided that he would help Derek with his plan. Not because he liked the guy or anything. No, he would do it for Meredith, because she deserved to be really freaking happy when she found out. How hard could it be really? So far so good. Tell her she'd be a good mom. Check. Make sure she eats well. Check. Well, sort of. Lucky Charms were pretty healthy for Meredith. At least it wasn't cold pizza. He went to bed thinking this whole thing would be relatively easy to handle, at least on the scale of crazy Mere stuff. By the end of the next day however, she'd damn near broken his spirit.

It started off right away in the morning when he'd walked downstairs and caught her trying to lift the couch up. "Mere!" he yelled. "Mere, what the hell are you doing?" He ran over to her and tried to act natural as he took the thing the hell away from her.

"I'm trying to find my keys. I think they might be under the couch. I had them when I came home last night, but I don't know where they went after that." She didn't really seem in anyway off put by the fact that he'd basically just shoved her out of the way in his rush. He mentally kicked himself because he was pretty sure you weren't supposed to shove pregnant ladies either. But seriously, what the hell? She was like 100 pounds soaking wet, how did she think she was going to even budge that couch?

"Oh. Well, here, let me get it. You may be freakishly strong but this thing is still like 5 times your size." He lifted the side of the couch while she bent down and looked underneath. Sure enough, her keys were there. "Alright well, I just need like 5 more minutes and then I'll be ready to go," he told her after she'd fished the keys out from under the couch and he'd set it back down on the ground.

Then on the way to work, she went through the Starbucks drive-thru and ordered a triple espresso. He knew that in small amounts caffeine wasn't a really big problem for pregnant woman but he was pretty sure that was more than the 200 milligrams she was allowed. He knew he had to keep her from drinking it but he didn't know how. He just kind of cluelessly watched her drink it for a minute before he finally decided he just had to act. He pretended to go for the radio and knocked to coffee out of the cup holder. Then he watched with satisfaction as it spilled all over the floor of her jeep. "Crap! Sorry Mere."

He wasn't really sure that had sounded very convincing but she was too busy mourning the loss of her coffee to question it too much. "Man I really wanted that coffee too. I've really been dragging all week. Hopefully, I can get caught up on sleep this weekend." She said as she pouted at the new coffee stain on the floor.

The rest of the car ride passed in silence as Alex contemplated what she'd said. Exhaustion was a pregnancy symptom, so score one for McDreamy. But really, he argued with himself, she could just be tired from lack of sleep. It was inconclusive to be sure. Damn, he'd just called that dude McDreamy. Again. He shook his head at himself; he really needed to get some guy friends.

Once they got to the hospital Meredith started walking in the opposite direction of the locker room. "Hey Mere, where you going?" He asked from behind her.

"To the coffee cart. I should have just enough time to grab a new cup before rounds."

Crap. He forgot about the coffee cart. He was screwed. He walked to the locker room alone and while he changed he contemplated how impossible it was going to be to keep her from drinking coffee until she clued in about the pregnancy.

When she came in a few minutes behind him she set her coffee cup down on the bench and turned around to change. Seizing the opportunity he lurched forward and knocked the cup to the ground. She turned around and looked at him like he'd lost his mind. "What in the hell Alex?" she asked with her hands on her hips.

"Uh… sorry" he said, avoiding eye contact. "I… um… tripped." She gave him a look like maybe he'd grown a second head or something but he just shrugged it off saying, "Time for rounds," and rushing out of the room. Really smooth, he thought as he walked into the hall.

Alex ended up with Robbins while Meredith was with Torres so it was a couple hours before he saw her again. She was working on a little girl with a displaced shoulder fracture that would need surgery. When he ran into her she was getting ready to shoot an x-ray with no apron on. Seriously? He thought to himself. She always wore the damn x-ray apron but on the day he's supposed to be watching her she forgets? Radiation exposure was definitely bad for the baby. "Hey Mere!" He yelled out distracting her just when she was about to shoot. "Do you want me to grab you an apron?"

"Oh no that's alright." She said cheerfully. "Lindsey here was afraid to get the x-ray by herself and so I said I'd stay with her. Right Lindsey?" The little girl looked at her and nodded. "Like I was just saying, it's only bad for you if you do it a whole bunch."

Alex decided that he better switch tactics. "Hunt was looking for you." What?

"What?" She echoed his thought, "Why?"

"I'm not sure, but he said it was an emergency. So you better go find him right away. I think he was down in the pit." He walked up to where she was standing with the kid. "I can take Lindsey's x-ray, right sweety?" He smiled and tried to put the kid at ease. He was going to be stuck babysitting some kid who only had a broken arm. Derek so owed him. Big time.

"Oh, alright." She looked confused but seemed to be buying it. "I'll go find Hunt. Lindsey, will you be okay with Dr. Karev?" The girl looked at him like she was sizing him up and eventually nodded. "Okay I'll come by your room in a little bit to show you your pictures." He smiled, and was pretty proud of himself when she left and he finished up the little girls x-ray.

He didn't see Meredith again until lunch time when he spotted her and Cristina sitting at a table in the cafeteria. He was going through the line when he decided on a whim to pick her up a chocolate milkshake. "Seriously Mere, are you sure you're okay?" He heard Cristina saying as he walked up and set his tray down. Then Cristina started putting her hand on Meredith's forehead; like she was checking for a fever.

Alex's stomach dropped. What could possibly be wrong with her now? Had he missed something? He was doing the best he could. He was only one guy, and she was a lot of crazy to keep track of. The stress of the day was starting to catch up to him. "What is it?" he asked, "What's wrong Mere?"

"Nothing jeez, I just felt like eating a salad. It's not like I've never had one before." Meredith said and Alex immediately breathed a sigh of relief.

"Actually Mere, it's exactly like you've never had a salad before. At least not as long as I've known you." Cristina shot back at her.

"I just haven't been feeling that well this morning and this salad was the only thing that sounded good. Especially the ranch dressing." Meredith took a big bite and savored it in her mouth.

"See," Alex said, hoping to put an end to the topic "She was just after the dressing and that's totally unhealthy."

"Oh Alex, who told you Hunt was looking for me? He's not even on today." Mere asked him as she finished off the last of her salad.

He didn't respond to her question, he just set the milk shake in front of her and said, "Here. I got you this to make up for spilling your coffee this morning"

"Oh thanks Alex," She said as she picked the cup up and took a big gulp. "But, oh my god, I almost forgot to tell you. You aren't the only one who spilled my coffee today. Derek did it too, and the crazy thing is, I think he did it on purpose!" her eyes were big on her confused face.

"What? That's crazy. Why would he spill your coffee on purpose?" He realized after he said it that maybe he shouldn't have put her on that particular train of thought. 'Why?' was a decidedly bad question for her to be asking. Oops.

"I don't know. He's kind of been a basket case lately. I think maybe the new job is getting to him. But this was just the weirdest thing I think he's ever done. I was holding the coffee when I walked up and he just kept glaring at it! It was like he was mad at the coffee or something!" She was gesturing wildly with her milkshake still in her hand. Alex was a little afraid it was going to end up all over him. "Then I told him how I really needed that coffee because you had spilled those other two and then, a second later, he just knocked it out of my hand! After he did it he just kind of looked at the coffee on the ground and then at me, said he had to go, and ran away." She paused very briefly, "You don't think he has a brain tumor or something, do you?"

"Hmm maybe," Cristina responded with a shrug. She paused for a second and then when no one said anything she added, "You think if he does it would end up being one that only he knows how to operate on and he would be totally screwed? That would be ironic." Leave it to Cristina to bring the conversation back around to surgery. The rest of lunch passed without incident but Alex knew he was going to have to go talk to Derek when they were done.

Once he was done with lunch Alex didn't have to look very hard to find Derek. He passed right by him while he was walking down the hallway not too far from the cafeteria. "Hey, Shepherd!" He called after him.

Derek turned around as saw Alex and immediately perked up. "Hey," he began as he leaned closer to Alex, "Have you been, you know, working on that project we discussed yesterday?" he whispered conpiritorily. Alex could see why Meredith thought he was going crazy. The guy looked like he had seen better days.

"Dude!" Alex half whispered, half yelled "Come here." He pulled Derek around the corner to an empty on-call room. "What the hell are you doing? You knocked her coffee out of her hands and ran away? What is this second grade? Meredith thinks you've got a brain tumor or something!" Alex yelled with a kind of wild disbelief.

Derek at least had the decency to look chagrined. He squeezed his eyes shut and pushed his head against the wall. "I know!" he started, "I just panicked. I think between this and being Chief, Meredith might actually be right about me losing my mind."

"I think it's time to give up and just tell her. I mean you don't really even know for sure that she's pregnant. This could all be for nothing, and if I have to go through another day like today I might just tell her myself." Alex was glad to finally be able to vent about this whole mess. "Plus," he added, "The coffee thing is ridiculous. What are we just gonna do? Follow her around knocking her coffee out of her hands for the next 9 months?"

"Oh please don't tell her. I know I'm being crazy. I just want this to go perfectly for her. She's had such a hard life she deserves for this one thing to be happy and easy." Then Derek seemed to get his confidence back when he smiled and added, "Besides, I think I've got a plan for the coffee." He put his hands in his pockets and leaned against the wall.

Alex looked at Derek as he stared assuredly back at him and briefly found himself being sucked back in by Derek's returning confidence. He couldn't help but believe what Derek was telling him, and for one crazy moment he wondered if this was what it was like to be McDreamied in the on-call room. Then he shuddered involuntarily and snapped back into the annoyance he was supposed to be feeling. "Fine but just get a handle on it so I don't have to keep following her around with a freaking butterfly net."

He didn't see Meredith again until the end of the day. He ran into her and Cristina when they were all on their way out the front doors into the parking lot.

"Hey Alex, you off too?" Meredith asked as the three of them fell into stride alongside each other, "Because me and Cristina are going across the street to do some drinking if you want to come."

"Drinking?" Alex couldn't believe his ears. Of all the rotten luck! Trying to convince Cristina and Meredith not to drink after they set their mind to it was not a fun task. He assumed. Not that he'd ever really had a reason to try it before. "Eh, drinking doesn't sound like very much fun. Maybe we could do something else?" Alex figured it was worth a shot at least.

Cristina and Meredith looked at him like he had gone off the deep end or something. "Drinking doesn't sound like fun?" Cristina asked incredulously "It doesn't 'sound like fun'? What the hell Alex? You practically live at Joe's and now you don't want to go drink?"

"Seriously." Mere added for affect. Yeah, if he didn't figure something out soon they were going to eat him alive. Then trying to be nice to him Meredith added "What would we do exactly?" He really had no idea.

He was saved when Derek came up to where they had stopped just outside the doors. "Hey, what's up?" he asked innocently.

Alex realized what they were going to have to do if they wanted to get out of this. "Hey Shepherd. These two are planning to go drink at Joe's but actually I need to talk to Cristina in private first." Alex tried to communicate everything he was thinking into his eyes while he looked at Derek.

"What the hell are you talking about Evil Spawn?" Cristina asked over her raised eyebrows.

"Just come here." Alex growled as he grabbed Cristina by the arm and pulled her away. Derek nodded his approval over the plan and then Alex saw him pull a confused Meredith into his arms and proceed to kiss the crap out of her. Way to distract her McDreamy! Alex thought as he pulled Cristina back into the doors of the hospital.

When they were safely ensconced between the two sets of double doors he decided to be direct about it. "She's pregnant."

"What?" Cristina was clearly confused. "Who's pregnant?" Her eyes narrowed.

"Meredith is. Shepherd knocked her up," He told her simply.

"Yeah right. Like she would ever tell you that before she told me." Cristina started to walk away.

Alex grabbed her arm again and pulled her back. "She doesn't know she's pregnant yet." He said, almost cringing at how stupid that sounded. "Shepherd figured it out and asked me to help him keep an eye on her until she figures it out for herself."

Cristina just stared at him blankly.

"Seriously, just think about it." Alex decided he needed to provide a little more detail. "This is Meredith, if anyone was going to not notice they were pregnant even while it was staring them right in the face it would be her, right?" Alex was starting to think that maybe he should have stayed with Meredith and sent Derek in here to talk to Cristina. Although, that would create an entirely new reason why the kiss-the-crap-out-of-her method of distraction would keep her mind occupied. He shuddered to think about it; that would be a little like kissing his sister.

"Seriously?" Cristina's shoulders dropped and she tilted her head to look at him. "Are you messing with me? You're messing with me right?

"Think about it." He looked her in the eyes.

"The salad!" pointed into the air and sort of half-laughed half-snorted. "Leave it to Meredith to crave normal, healthy food!" then she stopped and looked him more seriously, "Hmm… and he doesn't want to tell her yet because she'll be all dark and twisty about it, am I right? I guess maybe he's got a point. Dark, Twisty and pregnant is not a fun place to be. Trust me. Been there done that." She paused again for a moment, "But you know whenever she finds out she'll still be Meredith. Unless Shepherd's planning on tricking her into a frontal lobotomy before that happens," and she was back to surgery. Figures.

"He just wants to make her see that kids are a good idea before she figures out she's about to have one. I think it's good. He's stepping up for his family." Alex wasn't quite sure why he was defending the guy but whatever. It was nice that he wanted to be there for his wife and his kid. "So anyway, that's why you guys can't go drinking. Because she's knocked up and would be pretty pissed later if she found out we all just watched while she gave the kid fetal alcohol syndrome."

"Hmm, good call. Alright but we'll have to find something else to do to blow off steam. Baseball maybe? She really liked that when we went before." Cristina offered.

"Baseball? Seriously? What if she got hurt?" Alex was starting to get the feeling that he was in danger of becoming majorly overprotective.

"Dude. Don't be a freak. No one has ever gotten hurt before when we played. Besides, we always wear helmets." She crossed her arms and raised her eyebrows.

"Fine baseball it is. Now let's get back out there before those two get arrested for public indecency or something." Alex nodded toward where Derek and Meredith seemed to be trying to set some kind of world make-out record. He would have been impressed if he weren't so grossed out.

"Ha, yeah. Besides that kid needs oxygen." Cristina chuckled as they walked back to the happy couple. "You guys know that PDA's went out in like 10th grade right?" She said after they got back over there.

"Your one to talk," Meredith said as she reluctantly pulled herself away from Derek. "You and Owen are so much grosser than us."

"Ha! She's got a point Yang." Alex laughed at her, "You and Hunt are completely gross." He kept snickering as Cristina rolled her eyes.

"Whatever. We decided baseball sounded funner than drinking, so let's all go do that instead." Cristina rolled her eyes.

"Baseball. Hmm. That sounds like fun actually. Der k, do you want to come play some baseball with us?" Meredith responded, nodding her head a little as she spoke.

"Oh, no," Derek looked surprised at the offer and immediately refused, "No. No, I uh can't… I have to… um, work." Derek stammered in a way that made Alex cringe. How could the guy be so smooth and charming one minute and a total geek the next?

Meredith looked at him quizzically. "Okay…" she said, waiting for him to explain further.

"Alright. So I'll, um, see you at home later," Derek kissed her and started to walk away.

"Derek!" Meredith called after him, "What the hell?"

"I have to work!" He called back and then under his breath he said, "Just keep her out of the house for a couple hours." The statement was directed to Alex who was standing between Meredith and Derek at that point. Alex was curious but just shrugged in response.

Once Derek was back in the building Meredith looked at Alex and Cristina and said, "Poor Derek. I think the long hours are really starting to get to him." She then turned around and looped her arm through Cristina's and the two of them started walking toward the parking lot. Alex just smiled and shook his head before following them out to the car.

TBC