Alright… time to find out who the visitor is. You would have found out sooner if I didn't have the most sporadic internet connection ever. Seriously.

And I've got to say that I LOVE your reviews. They make me happy. :-) And I realize that Derek hasn't actually told Meredith that he and Addison are trying… but he will. I need to get this chapter in first, and then hopefully we'll be moving along and getting some things resolved. Or something closely resembling that.

Oh, and this is the first chapter so far where the title does not come from a song. Because I couldn't think of a song that would fit with this chapter the way that I wanted, and like I said before, I am an anal perfectionist.

Read.

Chapter 8
Forgive Like Crazy

"Excuse me. Do you know where I might be able to find Dr. Shepherd?"

It was around 11:00 the next morning. George looked up at the man standing before him. He was fairly tall with a full head of hair that looked like it had, at one point in time, been a dark brown color but was now a dark shade of grey. He had piercing blue eyes and a kind smile.

"Are you looking for Dr. Derek Shepherd or Dr. Addison Shepherd?" he asked the man.

"Derek. I'm his father. Patrick Shepherd," he introduced himself as he held his hand out to shake George's.

"Nice to meet you, Mr. Shepherd. I don't know where he is at the moment, but I can have him paged, if you'd like," George offered.

"That would be great. But if you could, please don't tell him why he's being paged. I want to surprise him."

"I can do that. You can have a seat over there while you wait." He pointed at the waiting area.

- - - - - - - - - -

Derek was finishing up with a patient when his pager went off. He groaned at the sound of it. He was tired and was looking forward to getting a little bit of sleep before his afternoon surgery. He decided that would have to wait, and he made his way down to the nurses' station.

"I was paged?" he asked the nurse behind the desk.

"Derek!"

He whipped around, and a huge smile crossed his face when he saw who had called his name.

"Hey, Pops!" he said as he greeted his dad with a hug. "What are you doing here?"

"I came out to see you, of course. That and I needed to get out of the house for a few days. Amy moved back home for a few weeks while Matt is out of town, and I'm drowning in a sea of estrogen again."

Derek laughed. He vividly remembered growing up in a house with five women. His mother was a saint; he was sure of that. She'd had three girls – Kathleen, Nancy, and Jill – before finally having the boy she so desperately had hoped for, only to be surprised again a few years later with another girl – Amy. He and his dad were always outnumbered, and as the girls got older, they made it a point to take a "guys' day out" once a week or so. Derek's sisters were… exhausting, in a word, so the men took any opportunity they had to escape from the craziness that was the Shepherd household. They would go fishing or hiking, pretty much anything that would get them out of the house. Derek had really missed his father since he had moved to Seattle and was more than happy to see him.

"I'm really glad you're here. I have a surgery scheduled for this afternoon, but it should only take a few hours, and after that, I'm free. We can have dinner or whatever."

"Sounds good. Why don't you give me a call after, and I'll meet you back down here."

"What are you going to do until then?"

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe go sightseeing. Go up in the Space Needle, watch them throw the fish around down at Pike's Place… I've never been to Seattle, you know," his father said with a grin.

"Alright, well, I will see you later then," Derek said, giving his father a quick hug before heading off to prep for his surgery. "I'm glad you're here."

"Me, too, son."

- - - - - - - - - -

After Derek had gone, Patrick went back up to the nurses' station and asked the pretty blonde nurse behind the desk if she would be so kind as to show him to Addison Shepherd's office.

The door was closed as they approached. He thanked the nurse and then softly knocked on the door.

"Come in," he heard a muffled voice say from the other side.

He slowly opened the door and stuck his head in. Addison was sitting at her desk charting and didn't look up as he entered.

"Hey, sweetie," he greeted her.

She looked up, startled by the familiarity of the voice. "Dad? Hi!" She jumped up from her desk to greet him.

He kissed her on the cheek and pulled her into a hug. "It's good to see you, honey."

"It's good to see you, too. What brings you out here?"

"Just came for a visit. The women have taken over the house again, and Jane thought a visit out here would be nice. She's worried about you and Derek, you know."

"I know…" Addison sighed. Her mother-in-law was always concerned with the well-being of her children. Addison knew that her sisters-in-law and their husbands found it annoying, but Addison loved that Jane was an active part of her children's lives. Her own mother and father had never been quite as involved in Addison's life, and even though she knew they loved her in their own way, she couldn't help but wish that she had grown up with parents who were more like Derek's.

"You should give her a call sometime. She would love to talk with you. I know you two have hardly spoken since everything happened," Patrick said cautiously.

"Yeah… I know. I just don't know what's okay to talk about anymore…"

"Addison, honey… you made a mistake. No one is denying that, but no one is denying that Derek made some mistakes, too. Jane and I still love you as if you were our own daughter, and we still think of you as such. I just want you to remember that."

"Thank you," Addison told him, trying to hold back her tears.

"How are you doing with everything?"

"I'm okay. Work is good."

"That's not what I meant."

"I know. I just don't know what to tell you about Derek and me. Sometimes it's okay, and sometimes it's not. I'm trying, you know. We haven't really had a real talk yet. And part of me is glad because I'm scared of what might come out of that," she confessed.

"I understand. I know how stubborn you both are," he said, and she let out a little laugh. "But you have to talk. If this is going to work, you have to communicate."

She nodded, looking down at her lap.

"Addison, look at me." She looked up at her father-in-law with tears threatening to spill out of her eyes. "Derek loves you. He loves you more than anyone else in the world. But you know as well as I do that when he gets upset, he shuts people out of his life. He will come around, though. Because the love he has for you… it's still there. You wouldn't still be here in Seattle if it wasn't. Just keep holding on, sweetie. You'll make it."

Patrick pulled her into hug her, and Addison laid her head on the shoulder of the man who had been her father for the past 15 years and let the tears come.

- - - - - - - - - -

"So, how is everyone at home doing?" Derek asked his father as they were waiting for their dinner later that night.

"They're all doing well. Kathleen and David left the kids with us a few weekends ago while they went to Martha's Vineyard. Davey and the girls are getting along a lot better now. The girls told your mom and me that they have decided against selling him to the circus."

Derek laughed. His sister Kathleen had three kids – Hailey, 13, Laura, 11, and Davey (David, Jr.), 6. He remembered how Hailey and Laura hadn't wanted a baby brother at first and had tried to give Davey to Derek and Addison for Christmas the year he was born.

"How are the other kids?"

"Doing really well. Mollie is still doing ballet and loves it. Gracie will start kindergarten here in a few weeks, and Nancy is already sulking about her baby being all grown up."

Mollie, 10, and Gracie, 5, were the daughters of Derek's sister Nancy and her husband Jeremy.

"Doesn't Caitlyn start kindergarten this year, too? How's Jill doing with that?"

"She can't wait for her to start. That girl is a ball of energy, and Jill has her hands full with the twins."

Hayden and Avery, Jill and Jason's twin boys, had just turned 3 a couple months ago, and their big sister, Caitlyn, was 5.

"I bet. And you said Amy and Natalie are staying at the house while Matt is away. Where is he this time?"

"Hong Kong. He'll be gone for two more weeks and then hopefully no more long trips for a couple years."

"That's good. I know how much he hates being away from them."

Natalie was only a year old, and Derek knew how much his brother-in-law missed his wife and baby girl when he had to go away on business.

"And that just leaves… you," Patrick said, eyeing Derek. "How are you doing?"

"I'm fine, Pops," Derek answered, taking a drink of his water.

"Are you really, now? Because it looks to me like you haven't gotten a whole hell of a lot of sleep recently. And you look lonely, son."

"I've just been busy with work lately. That's all."

Patrick sighed. His son could be so damn stubborn sometimes. He got that from his mother, of course.

"Derek, I know you may not want to hear this right now, but you need to talk to your wife."

"I don't want--"

"Just listen to me, okay? I know she made a terrible mistake, son. We all know that, and we're not condoning what she did. But your mother and I… we still love her. We love both of you so much. But as much as we love you, Derek, we know that you have to accept some of the responsibility for what your marriage has become. You were absent. You were indifferent toward your wife, and you and I both know that."

Derek didn't know what to say. His father was right, as much as he hated to admit it. He put his head in his hands and thought about what his father said.

"How do you do it, Pops?"

"Do what?"

"You and Mom. How do you keep your marriage so strong? All these years and all the fights and after five kids… you are still so happy. How do you do it?"

"Listen to me, Derek, and listen closely," Patrick said. "It's hard. It's damn hard. Your mom and I have to work at it every single day. But we've always remembered one simple thing – forgive like crazy. It's one of the most important things you can do. Everyone makes mistakes. But if you don't forgive each other, even for something as simple as forgetting to buy more milk, you don't stand a chance. Grudges are a perfect waste of happiness, and they will eat you alive. Forgive. Like. Crazy."

He paused to let those words sink in.

"I know you have a point, Pops… but it's much easier said than done."

"No one said this was going to be easy, son. But I promise you… it'll be worth it. Trust me."

Okay, I love Derek's family. Patrick Shepherd is awesome. He's like Super-Dad, minus the cape.

And yes, I am aware that in the show, Derek's dad is dead. But not in my world. There's going to be at least one person who doesn't have some weird daddy issues. You also may have noticed that Derek only has 6 nieces and 3 nephews instead of the 9 nieces and 5 nephews from the show. I changed that, too. Obviously. Nine seemed like a more reasonable number of kiddies for me to keep track of. So that's that.

I feel like there should be more drama. I'm not good at drama. I try to avoid it whenever possible. I'll work on that.

Anyway, you know what to do. So do it.