A/N: So, this chapter really has two parts: the first takes place a week or so after the last chapter, and the second jumps forward another week to Christmas Eve. I'm really excited about some of the stuff in this chapter. It may not seem like much now, but some of it will tie into a storyline which I've been planning for quite some time and am completely in love with, which will really start developing a bit later on in the story (or perhaps in a new sequel all its own!).
"You know, I don't think coming home to you will ever get old," Derek commented as he walked into the living room to find Meredith sitting on the couch, papers scattered all around her. "So, what furniture did I buy today?"
"Derek, I don't buy furniture every day," Meredith said.
"You've been living here for five days, and I think you've ordered furniture for five rooms already," Derek laughed. "I guess I just got used to the pattern."
"Very funny," Meredith said. "Oh, a package came from your mother while you were at work. I put it on the table in the entryway."
"Mer, there's no table in the entryway," Derek said.
"You really don't pay much attention, do you?" Meredith asked. "It was delivered this morning, Derek. The entryway was the first room I ordered furniture for. Go take a look."
Derek shook his head and walked back down the hall to the entryway. "Hey, there is a table in here!" he called out when he got there.
"Told you," Meredith smiled as Derek walked back into the room carrying the small box his mother had sent. "Now open that package, I've been staring at it all day and I want to know what she sent you. She already sent all her Christmas gifts, so it can't be those."
"You're very impatient, you know that?" Derek teased as he pulled the tape off the box and pulled out its contents. "Well, I'm pretty sure this is for you."
"Your mother sent me a stocking?" Meredith asked, reaching out to take it from Derek's hands. "It's beautiful – do you think she made it herself?"
"I highly doubt it," Derek said. "My mother's knitting skills are about on par with yours, I'm afraid. My aunt Riona probably made this. She's knitted stockings for pretty much everyone in the family."
"Really?" Meredith asked. "That's a lot of stockings, Derek."
"She loves it," Derek said. "She knits pretty much anything you can think of – sweaters, scarves, mittens…and, as she reminds me every time I see her, baby blankets."
"Baby blankets?" Meredith asked. "Doesn't she have enough great-nieces and nephews? Why all the pressure?"
"Mer, you've seen how many kids my sisters have," Derek said. "In my family, especially in the eyes of my aunts and uncles, you aren't successful until you've got a gaggle of kids running around at your feet."
"A gaggle?" Meredith repeated. "Exactly how many children do they want you to have?"
"Five seems to be the average in my family," Derek said.
"How many kids do you want?" Meredith asked curiously.
"Two or three, maybe," Derek said, looking nervously for Meredith's reaction. "If the time is right, of course. Maybe more, if we're lucky and they're all just like you."
"Trust me, you don't want kids that are just like me," Meredith said. "We'd never live through the teenage years."
"Oh, come on," Derek laughed. "I'm sure underneath the pink hair and all the black clothing, you were really just a sweet kid."
"I was a holy terror," Meredith said. "I sent band geeks like you running for cover, Derek."
"Hey, I had a wild side," Derek protested. "I did get arrested once, remember? I'll bet you can't say that."
"You shouldn't gamble, Derek," Meredith said.
"Wait, you did get arrested as a teenager?" Derek asked. "What for?"
"Which time?" Meredith asked.
"It was more than once?" Derek asked.
"Four times," Meredith admitted.
"Um…all of them, I guess," Derek said warily.
"The first two were just minor truancy charges when my teachers got tired of me skipping class," Meredith said. "The third time was for shoplifting."
"And the fourth?" Derek asked.
"It was my sixteenth birthday," Meredith said, looking nervously at her hands, unable to bring herself to see Derek's reaction to what she was about to confess. "I crashed my car into a tree a few blocks from my house. I was convicted of driving under the influence. I was on probation until I turned eighteen and then my record was sealed."
"Meredith…" Derek muttered in shock.
"I know, I know, it was incredibly stupid of me," Meredith said. "And part of me would take it back if I could…but if we're being honest here, there's a bigger part of me that wouldn't do it any differently."
"You're kidding, right?" Derek asked. "Meredith, a DUI is a serious offense. Are you telling me that you don't regret it?"
"I didn't say that," Meredith said. "I do regret drinking that night, and I do regret getting behind the wheel of that car. But at the same time, I can't completely regret it, because I would never want to do anything that would change what happened right after I crashed that car…"
Meredith looked up in fear as her mother walked through the door of the ER exam room, startling the young intern who was preparing to stitch up the gash on Meredith's forehead.
"Get out," Ellis instructed the intern. "I'll finish her stitches."
"Yes, ma'am," the intern mumbled as he scurried out of her way, closing the door while Ellis made her way across the room to the exam table Meredith was sitting on.
"Could we hold off on the yelling, Mom?" Meredith asked, already mentally detaching herself from the verbal lashing she was certain was on its way. "I've got a bit of a headache."
Ellis stood in front of Meredith, staring at her with a look in her eyes that Meredith had never seen before, and couldn't quite identify. Several times, she opened her mouth as if to say something to her daughter, but each time, she closed it before any sound could come out. Meredith couldn't help but think that if it were anyone other than her mother standing there, she'd be certain they were about to cry.
Finally, Ellis sighed and, in a single motion so swift that it caught Meredith completely off guard, leaned forward and pulled her daughter into a hug. Although at first she tensed from the unfamiliarity of the situation, Meredith slowly found herself relaxing into her mother's embrace, finding it strangely comforting in spite of the fact that it was so completely out of character for Ellis.
"I couldn't lose you, not that way," Ellis said, whispering so softly that, in spite of their close proximity, Meredith could barely make out her words. "I thought it was happening again…I can't go through that again."
Finally, after what seemed like both forever and not nearly long enough, Ellis pulled away, quickly wiping a tear from her eye as she turned her attention to Meredith's stitches.
"You could have killed yourself, Meredith. You hit a tree, but you could have killed someone," Ellis said as she prepped the suture tray.
"But I didn't," Meredith pointed out.
"But you could have," Ellis said, a bit more forcefully this time. "You have no idea what it's like, Meredith. No idea what it feels like to lose someone because one person was stupid enough to think they could drink and drive."
"I'm sorry, Mom," Meredith said, wincing as Ellis began stitching up her cut.
"You will never do this again," Ellis said, focusing on the tiny stitches she was administering. "You have so much as a sip of wine and you don't get behind the wheel, Meredith."
"I won't," Meredith said softly.
"I'll call my lawyer in the morning and let her handle the police," Ellis said, standing up and pushing the suture tray back to the side of the room before moving toward the door and motioning for Meredith to follow her. "Let's go home, Meredith."
"I know for a fact that she cancelled two surgeries to stay home with me that night," Meredith told Derek. "My mother never cancelled a surgery, not for anything, and especially not for me. When I went to court, the judge who heard my case had been a patient of my mother's a few years earlier. She pulled strings to get my record sealed when I turned eighteen. My mother didn't believe in calling in favors or using her influence to get things, but she did. In the aftermath of that crash, that's the only time in my entire life I've ever felt like my mother was there for me; it's the only time I ever felt like maybe she really did love me, even if she never said it."
"She did love you," Derek said, placing a reassuring hand on Meredith's arm. "She wouldn't have been that scared if she didn't love you."
"That's why I can't regret it, though," Meredith said. "I can't wish that the DUI never happened, because then none of it would have happened. That night was the only time she ever hugged me. Ever, Derek. In my entire life, my mother only hugged me once, and it was that night."
"Then I guess something good came of it after all," Derek said.
"Come on, Meredith, how long does it take to put on a dress?" Derek laughed as he sat on the edge of the bed a week later, waiting for Meredith to emerge from the walk-in closet.
"Okay, one, you are the one who built the freaking gigantic closet that I keep getting lost in," Meredith shouted back. "And two, you are the one who sprung this church thing on me at the last minute, Derek. How am I supposed to know what to wear to church? I think I've been to a church twice in the last decade, and both times were for weddings where all I had to do was put on a bridesmaid's dress."
"Meredith, no one's going to kick you out if you're wearing the wrong thing," Derek said. "Just put on a dress, or a pair of slacks and a shirt, or whatever you want. But hurry up, because we're going to be late."
"Why are we going to church anyway?" Meredith asked as finally emerged wearing a pair of black slacks and a light green turtleneck sweater. "Is this too casual?"
"That's perfect," Derek smiled. "And to answer the other question, we are going to church because it's Christmas Eve. Midnight Mass is one of those traditions I promised I'd introduce you to."
"Midnight? I thought you said the service was at nine?" Meredith asked as they headed down the stairs. "We're going to be very early if this thing doesn't start until midnight."
"They just call it Midnight Mass," Derek said. "It actually used to be at midnight when I was a kid, but I think the churches started noticing that people tend to fall asleep when you have a service at midnight, so they moved it up a few hours. There is an actual one at midnight, too, if you're a traditionalist, but I'm one of those guilty of falling asleep more years than not, so I prefer the earlier Mass."
"I don't want to sound stupid or anything," Meredith said slowly, as they settled into the car and Derek started the drive to the local church. "But what exactly does one do at church?"
"What do you mean?" Derek asked.
"What happens while we're there?" Meredith asked. "I just want to know what to expect."
"Oh, it'll be a lot like a regular service," Derek said. "Only a bit longer, with a lot more candles and better music."
"That's not terribly helpful," Meredith said. "What's a regular service like?"
"Have you never been to church?" Derek asked in surprise.
"One of these days, you're going to remember who raised me, Derek," Meredith said. "My mother was about as far from religious as you could get."
"And no one ever took you to a service?" Derek asked.
"Why would they?" Meredith asked. "Wait, you know, you're right, one of my foster families dragged me to church with them. I spent most of the service carving things into the back of the benches, though, so they didn't bring me back more than that one time."
"Pews," Derek corrected.
"Excuse me?" Meredith asked.
"Technically, they're not called benches, they're called pews," Derek said. "Is this going to make you uncomfortable, coming to Mass with me? I should have thought of it sooner, but we've never really talked about religion…I figured that you might not be Catholic, but it just never occurred to me that you wouldn't be, well, anything."
"I don't think it'll bother me," Meredith said. "I mean, I don't know how I feel about organized religion, seeing as I've never really been exposed to it. I definitely believe in a higher power, though. Is that a problem, that I'm not Catholic?"
"No, of course not," Derek assured her. "My mother's still pretty strict, but my sisters and I are more of what our parish priest used to call CEO members."
"CEO?" Meredith asked in confusion.
"Christmas and Easter Only," Derek said.
"So, was church totally and completely scary?" Derek asked as they walked back into their house later that night.
"No," Meredith admitted. "It was actually kind of nice. I'm not sure I want to make a habit of it, but I think I could handle that a few times a year."
"Good," Derek smiled. "Well, that's one Christmas tradition down. You ready for the next one?"
"It isn't even Christmas yet," Meredith pointed out.
"Christmas Eve is part of Christmas," Derek said. "Christmas is a whole season, Mer, not just one day."
"It is?" Meredith asked. "Alright, I believe you. What's next, boss?"
"Now we put out the cookies and milk for Santa," Derek said.
"You're kidding me, right?" Meredith laughed. "Santa, Derek? We're adults in our thirties, and you want to put out cookies for Santa Clause?"
"Hey, watch what you say," Derek said. "You might just end up with coal in your stocking if you're not careful."