A/N: I guess you could say that this chapter is sort of like my baby. I wrote the bulk of it before I even finished writing 'Lost & Found', so I've spent several months adding to it, editing it and fine tuning it. Because I've been working on it for so long, everything else that I've written in this story, especially the chapters since Meredith and Derek arrived in Connecticut, has pretty much been leading to this chapter. I think because of that I'm more nervous posting this than I've been about any other chapter in anything I've published here. I have a feeling you're either going to love it or hate it. Either way, I'm extremely eager to read what you all think of it, so please leave a review!
Meredith sighed as she pulled Derek's jacket a little bit tighter around her shoulders and leaned heavily against the porch swing, chilled by the wind blowing across Maggie Shepherd's back porch. She knew she ought to go back in soon – she certainly didn't want Derek or his family thinking she'd run off – but she was enjoying the respite from the constant effort of trying to come up with the right words to make Derek's family like her. As much as she insisted she didn't care, she knew it was a lie. Derek adored his family, even Nancy, and though Meredith didn't doubt that if it came down to it, he would side with her over them, she never wanted him to have make that choice. She wanted them to like her, if not because she needed their approval then because she knew it was important to Derek.
She heard a car pull up at the front of the house, and from the shouts she heard from Beth and Abby, she figured that Mark had finally arrived. She smiled slightly, knowing she now had at least one more ally on her side.
Meredith was so caught up in her own thoughts she almost didn't notice when the back door opened and slammed shut. It wasn't until she heard the sounds of someone crying softly that she looked up, shocked when her gaze fell upon Nancy leaning heavily on the railing.
"Are you alright?" Meredith asked, her voice startling Nancy, who seemed to have also been lost in her thoughts.
"I…I didn't realize anyone was out here," Nancy said, quickly wiping the tears from her face. "Hiding from us already, are you?"
Meredith sighed. "Look Nancy, I know you don't like me, although I honestly don't know why, other than the fact that I'm not Addison. And if that's the reason, well, there's nothing I can do about that, is there? But clearly something else is going on here, so if you want to talk, I'm here."
"Right," Nancy scoffed. "Like you'd even care."
"I don't hate you, Nancy," Meredith assured her. "I don't even know you."
"So why do you care if I'm alright?" Nancy asked.
"Because you're Derek's sister," Meredith said. "He loves you and he cares about you and if he knew you were out here crying by yourself, he'd want to help. And if he cares about you, that's all I need to know for me to care, and want to help."
"You wouldn't get it," Nancy said, turning away from Meredith again. "Just like none of them get it."
"Them?" Meredith asked in confusion.
"My sisters," Nancy sighed. "With their perfect marriages and their perfect little lives. Even Derek, he gets cheated on, then he cheats on his wife, and he walks away with a perfect new relationship. Who wants to be bothered with the problems of the family screw-up? Poor little Nancy, can't seem to keep a husband. Makes for great family jokes, at least for them."
"I'm sure they don't mean any harm," Meredith said.
"Oh, no one ever does," Nancy snapped. "I don't know why I'm even bothering to talk to you. You're just the same as the rest of them, living your perfect little life with Derek."
Meredith chuckled softly. "I'm fairly certain no one would describe my life as perfect," she assured her.
"Right," Nancy said in disbelief. "You and Derek have an affair and you still come out as the golden couple. From where I'm standing, things look pretty damn perfect for you."
"Nancy, nobody has a perfect life," Meredith said. "Anyone who tells you they do is lying to you. My father walked out of my life when I was five and never looked back. My mother resented my existence, burying herself in her work, constantly telling me that I was a disappointment to her or that she should never have even had a child. I can't remember ever once hearing her say that she loved me. When I moved back to Seattle, I found out my father had replaced us with a new family, including two sisters I'd never even met, while I grew up with a mother who did the best she could but preferred to pretend I didn't even exist. My father turned out to be an emotionally abusive alcoholic. In the span of little more than a year, my boyfriend turned out to be married, I met a family I didn't know existed, I held a live bomb inside a man's chest cavity, my dog died, my roommate's fiancé died, my mother died, I drowned, my stepmother died, my best friend got left at the altar, Derek and I broke up because he kissed another woman and I was in a massive plane crash. You really want to talk not perfect lives? You found the right girl."
Nancy sighed as she sat down next to Meredith on the swing.
"Everyone's got problems, Nancy," Meredith said. "Your sisters might keep them under wraps, but they're there. It's just that some of us, like me, end up with our problems being a bit more public than most people's."
"I had an abortion," Nancy blurted out, not daring to look over at Meredith.
"When?" Meredith asked in shock.
"Right before Nick left," Nancy said.
"Is that why he left?"
Nancy nodded. "I…I didn't tell him that I was pregnant, I knew he'd try to convince me to keep it and I was just too scared. I just…when I had my boys, I still believed that I could make a marriage work. And when it didn't, it was so hard on them…it still is. I was just so scared that it would happen again, and I wasn't sure I could handle putting another baby through a messy divorce."
"Were you and Nick having problems?" Meredith asked.
"No," Nancy admitted. "Things were perfect. But look at my track record. Even my own family doesn't think I can make a relationship work. Why should this time be any different?"
"Why shouldn't it?" Meredith asked. "Everyone makes mistakes, Nancy. Everyone has something in their past that they're not happy about. That doesn't mean you have to let it dictate your future."
"That's deep," Nancy said.
"Well, my therapist doesn't get two fifty an hour for nothing," Meredith said.
"You probably think I'm a horrible person…I mean, who does something like that?" Nancy asked. "Who does that without even telling the father? Do you know how he found out? I left my wallet at the clinic and they called the house. I couldn't even come up with a decent cover story…I mean, I'm an OB, I have plenty of reasons to be at that clinic, but I couldn't even spare him the pain and lie to him."
"Can I ask you a question?" Meredith asked, waiting until Nancy nodded before she continued. "If you don't believe you can make a marriage last, why did you marry Nick?"
Nancy sighed. "You'd think it was stupid if I told you."
"Try me," Meredith said sincerely.
"He's different than any other guy I've been with," Nancy said. "The way he makes me feel, it's different than anything I've ever felt. He makes me want to believe in love, in fairytales and happily ever after. I wanted to be better for him, I wanted to try…but in the end, I just let him down, just like everyone else. And I don't he'll ever forgive me."
"Well, he came back, didn't he?" Meredith asked. "That's got to count for something."
"He's not back, not really," Nancy said. "He's biding his time, trying to do the right thing…he's not back because he loves me, he's back because he feels responsible."
"Responsible?" Meredith asked in confusion.
"I…I'm pregnant again," Nancy admitted. "I know, it seems impossible…I mean, up until a few weeks ago, I was in the middle of a messy divorce. Certainly not something that lends itself to an active sex life. I stopped taking my birth control because I figured after Nick, I was done, I wasn't going to do the relationship thing ever again, and with two kids in the house, I can't exactly do one night stands either."
"I'm assuming it's Nick's baby?" Meredith asked.
"Yeah," Nancy confirmed. "We'd just finished a particularly nasty session with the lawyers and I was pretty broken emotionally. I guess I was crying or looked upset somehow when I left the office, because Nick followed me home to make sure I was alright…and it just sort of happened. I don't even think my brain processed what we were doing until it was all over. It was almost like a reflex or something."
"I understand," Meredith said.
"Oh please, don't patronize me," Nancy snapped.
"Um, hello, panties on the bulletin board?" Meredith reminded her. "I know you heard the story of those."
"Right," Nancy said. "So maybe you do get it. One minute I was standing in my entry hall, telling him to leave me alone, and the next thing I knew we were in the bedroom."
"Are you going to keep the baby?" Meredith asked.
"Honestly, I have no idea," Nancy sighed. "I did tell him this time. Not telling him caused so many problems last time, I couldn't bear to do that again. But really, nothing's changed. I'm still terrified, just like last time. Except this time, I don't even really have much of a marriage to fall back on. Nick knows I haven't decided anything…he hardly talks to me and we don't even sleep in the same room. It's as if he's waiting for me to decide before really committing. What scares me the most, though, is how terrified I am of him leaving again, even with this sham of a reconciliation we've got going on right now. It sounds pathetic, but even having him in my life that small amount, I'd do anything to keep it, and I'm terrified that if I don't keep the baby, he'll leave again and there'll be no going back this time."
"Nancy, you can't have a baby just to save your marriage," Meredith advised. "It's not fair to your relationship and it's certainly not fair to the baby. Not to mention the fact that it hardly ever works, because having a baby won't fix whatever the problems are in your relationship."
"I know," Nancy sighed.
"But you also can't not have a baby simply because you're afraid your past is going to repeat itself," Meredith continued. "That's also not fair to you, the baby, or anyone else involved. If everyone based their actions on what had happened to them in the past, we'd never get anywhere. You can't let the past dictate your future or you'll never be happy."
"You know, it's scary when you start sounding like Kathleen," Nancy commented.
"Six months of intensive therapy, I'm just glad something seems to be sinking in," Meredith said. "You want my advice?"
"Might as well," Nancy said. "It's not like I'm going to be talking about this with anyone else anytime soon. I'm still not really sure why I'm talking about it with you."
"You need to talk to Nick," Meredith said. "Tell him how you feel, why you did what you did, find out where exactly he stands. But make your decision about the baby separately. Don't base it on how he reacts, don't base it on how you think your relationship is going. Just remember that there's only so much you can be certain of as you move forward. Sometimes, you have to let yourself take the rest on faith."
Nancy nodded as silence descended on the porch. For what seemed like hours, they sat there in the darkness, each thinking about what the other had revealed.
"So," Nancy said, finally breaking the comfortable silence. "You held a bomb in a body cavity? Really?"
"Well, it's about time you showed up, loser," Nancy smiled as she walked into the living room, Meredith following a few feet behind her.
"Hey, I've been here," Mark laughed as he stood up to hug her. "You're the one who disappeared, Nancy-pants."
Meanwhile, Meredith slipped quietly onto the loveseat next to Derek, who immediately wrapped a protective arm around her.
"You alright?" he whispered into her ear.
Meredith nodded. "Why wouldn't I be?" she asked in confusion.
"I don't know," Derek said. "You and Nancy both kind of disappeared for a while. I thought maybe one of you was busy burying the other's body in the backyard."
Meredith smiled slightly. "What ever happened to my knight in shining whatever?"
"I'm still your knight in shining whatever," Derek insisted. "Why would you doubt that?"
"So your version of being my knight involves you sitting in here, sipping a cold beer, while you think your sister is murdering me and burying my body?" Meredith teased.
"I suppose you have a point there," Derek agreed. "It's not very knight-like when you put it like that. I suppose I'll have to work on that in the future."
Meredith giggled and leaned in to kiss Derek on the cheek.
"Hey!" Mark called out from across the room. "I'm the one who just got here, where's my kiss?"
Nancy sighed as she sat on the edge of the bed in her guest room later that evening. The boys were spending the night at their father's, so she figured now was as good a time as any to talk to Nick. As she was driving back to her house that night, she'd made her final decision about the pregnancy, but she knew she needed to sort through a few things with her husband before she told him that.
Nick looked surprised to see Nancy waiting for him as he walked through the door, but didn't say anything as he proceeded to the dresser and started pulling out his pajamas.
"Why did you come back?" Nancy asked, her voice shaking in a way that caught Nick completely off guard and left him temporarily speechless.
"I would that was pretty obvious," Nick said when he finally got his voice back. "Do you even need to ask?"
"Yes, I do," Nancy said. "I told you I hadn't made a decision about the baby yet, but you came back anyway. Are you going to leave again if I don't have it?"
Nick sighed. "Honestly, Nancy? I don't know. Is there anything worth staying for if there isn't a baby?"
"What about me?" Nancy asked, the tears falling despite her best efforts to stop them. "Aren't I a good enough reason to stay? Unless you don't love me anymore, of course. Maybe you never loved like I thought you did."
"I did love you, Nancy, more than anything. Even after all of this, I'm still in love with you, and I probably always will be," Nick said. "But it takes two people to make a marriage work, and even though we tried to pretend that everything was fine, things weren't okay before I left. You never talked to me…"
"That is absolutely not true!" Nancy interrupted. "We talked all the time!"
"Not about the important stuff," Nick said. "Sure, we talked about the day to day stuff, but you never actually let me in. You've put up these walls to keep your feelings all locked up inside. Sometimes, it's almost as though you think if you let anyone see anything except the cool and collected version of you, they'll bolt. It's as if you don't trust me enough to let me in, to let me see you feel anything. We've been married for four years, Nancy, and tonight is only the second time I've ever seen you cry."
"You never asked, Nick…you never asked me to tell you anything," Nancy said.
"Nancy, you're my wife," Nick sighed. "And I'll admit, this is partly my fault for never telling you this while we were still together. But I shouldn't have to ask you to tell me things, you should trust me enough to want to tell me them. That's how marriage works, I share things with you and you're supposed to share things with me. You really want me to ask you things? Fine, here's one I've been wondering about for the last eleven months – why did you have the abortion, Nancy?"
Nancy closed her eyes as the tears slowed to a silent, steady stream. "I was scared, Nick. Every single relationship I've ever had has ended in disaster. I mean, for God's sake, this is my fourth marriage. What does that say about our chances? How could I bring a baby into this world when I can't even make a marriage work? My boys went through hell when Luke and I divorced…how could I risk doing that to another baby? And then you left because of it, so I guess I found a way to ruin it anyway."
"I didn't leave because you had the abortion, Nancy," Nick said quietly, sitting down next to her on the bed and taking her hand. "I left because you didn't trust me enough to tell me."
"You didn't leave because of the abortion?" Nancy asked timidly.
"I'm not saying I'm completely okay with the decision," Nick admitted. "I'll admit, I was furious when I found out, but not just because of the fact that you had an abortion. Do you have any idea how much it hurt that you didn't trust me enough to tell me what you were going through? That you didn't involve me in the decision? You aren't the only person in this relationship, Nancy."
"You think I don't know that?" Nancy snapped.
"You certainly haven't acted like you know that," Nick replied. "We took the same vows, Nancy. Remember 'for better or for worse'? I would have been there for you, if you'd only let me."
"You wouldn't have tried to talk me out of it?" Nancy asked.
"I would have wanted to talk about all of the options, yes," Nick said. "But if you had decided to go through with it after all of that, I would have been there for you. You can deny it all you want, but I know this hurt you, Nancy, and it kills me that you didn't trust me enough to let me be there for you through all of that."
"But you…don't you want kids?" Nancy asked tentatively.
"If it happens for us, I would love to have kids with you, and I know I've made no secret of that fact," Nick said. "But maybe I didn't make the rest clear. All I've ever wanted is our relationship, Nancy. Kids are a bonus, but they're not the be-all, end-all of what we've got. I would never dream of asking you to go through with something you didn't want to. I would have been there for you…damn it, I should have been there, Nancy!"
"You really would have?" Nancy asked.
"I would have," Nick agreed.
"So where do we go from here?" Nancy asked.
"I don't know," Nick sighed. "I really don't know."
"I guess I could talk to Kathleen," Nancy offered quietly. "Maybe see if she knows someone around here who we could talk to…that is, if you even want to try this again."
"I do," Nick said, smiling slightly. "You'd really be willing to try some sort of counseling? To work on us?"
"If that's what it takes, yes," Nancy said. "I…I don't want to lose you, Nick. And I hate being dependent on anyone or anything, you know that, but I love you and I really want this to work. I need you in my life, Nick."
"I love you too," Nick said. "And I do think we can make this work, regardless of what you decide about the pregnancy."
"About that," Nancy said nervously. "I sort already made my decision earlier."
"You didn't…" Nick said, terrified of what Nancy was about to say.
"No, I didn't," Nancy smiled. "I wouldn't have done that without you. I actually decided, I want to do this, Nick. I want to have this baby. I'm going to have this baby."
"What about everything you were saying earlier?" Nick asked. "What about all that fear? Are you sure this is what you want?"
Nancy nodded. "Don't get me wrong, I'm still scared out of my mind," Nancy admitted. "I think it'll take a lot to change that. But if I let my fear of my past repeating itself dictate my future, I'll never do anything…and then I really would lose everything. So, let's just say I'm taking a leap of faith here."
"That's pretty a pretty sappy statement coming from you," Nick teased.
"Shut up, I'm pregnant," Nancy retorted. "Blame it on the hormones."
"I love the hormones," Nick grinned, tentatively reaching his hand out and laying it on Nancy's still mostly flat stomach. "You can't…you can't feel her yet, can you?"
"Not for another few months," Nancy said. "And what's this about 'her'? If my past is any indication, you should probably be saying 'he'."
"And what was that you telling me about not letting the past dictate the future?" Nick replied. "Call me crazy, but I think it's going to be a girl."
"And if it's a boy?" Nancy asked questioningly. "Or if there are problems? You know, it's a lot riskier having a baby at 44 than it is at 28."
"It won't matter," Nick assured her. "He'll be ours, and that will make him absolutely perfect in my eyes, boy or girl, problems or not. She – or he – will be loved no matter what."
"And you think I'm sappy?" Nancy laughed.
"You love me anyway," Nick pointed out.
"I do," Nancy agreed, her eyes tearing up just a bit again. "I really do."