Hello again!
This chapter took forever for me to type get through. (Damn writer's block). But I hope I did the characters justice :)

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Chapter 3

By the time they landed, Meredith was pleased to see Derek's mood lift marginally. She obviously didn't expect him to be back to his usual "McDreamy" self, but he seemed to be starting to accept the situation.

After they acquired their luggage and hailed a cab, Meredith handed the driver a slip of paper with the address to Amelia's rehab center.

"We'd like to find a hotel as close to this address as possible, please," she informed the driver.

With a polite nod and a glance at his new destination, he pulled the cab into the morning L.A. traffic.

Derek gazed out the window without really focusing on the scenery racing past. He spent the first few minutes of the trip attempting to gather his thoughts and figure out how to handle the situation. Meredith leaned quietly to his left side with her arm looped through his as she looked tiredly out the opposite window. As he let his mind continue to wander, a sudden thought struck him.

"Zola!"

"What?" Meredith exclaimed as his unexpected outburst jerked her out of her half asleep daydreaming.

"Zola," he replied in earnest, "We were supposed to meet Janet to start signing papers so she can come home. What are we supposed to do if she calls and wants us to come in?"

"It's okay. I remembered that this morning too. I called Janet's office this morning while you were taking your shower and explained we had a family emergency in L.A. and may be out of town for a little while. She has our numbers and I told her she could call anytime if she needed."

"Oh," Derek sighed, visibly calmer at this news. "Jeez, Mer, you thought of everything," he said with a playful nudge with his shoulder.

"I try," she smiled back with a nudge of her own.

"How much time did Owen give us?"

"I pretty much told him what I knew and asked how long he could spare us. We each had a lot of time saved up and Dr. Nelson is there to deal with any neuro emergencies. He said we have up to two weeks if we need it but I told him I would call to give him an actual number once we had a better idea of what's happening."

"That was nice of him."

"It was. It also might have helped that I ran into Cristina while I was frantically looking for him. She was behind me but I have a feeling she was silently threatening him against saying no," she giggled.

He let out a soft chuckle. "Still," he continued, "It was nice of him. Both of them I guess."

A companionable silence fell over the back seat before Derek broke it a second time.

"When does Amelia get out?"

"Uhmmm…," Meredith struggled to even remember what the current date was. She had been at the hospital for the greater part of the last day and a half. Silly things like the current day of the week frequently took a backseat to the hundreds of other things she had to remember while working.

"What is today? Wednesday?"

"No," he replied with an amused grin, "It's Thursday now."

"Oh," she said slightly surprised, "Well, tomorrow then. Addison said she got out on Friday, so…" she trailed off seeing no need for further explanation.

"So what's the plan?" he inquired. Meredith met him with a confused stare.

"That's totally up to you guys. Amelia wants to see you sometime today. I figured we'd check into a hotel for a couple of nights, drop off our bags, maybe find some food cause, I don't know about you, but I'm starving," she added sending him a look that said 'either you feed me or you face my wrath', "and then we'd go see your sister."

Sounded like a solid plan to him. He was thankfully waking up and getting a better grasp on what was happening. Earlier it had been impossible for him not to picture his 17 year old sister, high out of her mind, and lying battered and bloody on the floor of the living room during the aftermath of a joyride gone wrong.

'This isn't the same,' he kept reminding himself, 'She got help. She got clean.'

'But for how long?' said the nagging voice in the back of his mind.

It was true. After the almost fatal car wreck, she cleaned herself up and, for all he knew, had been clean up until now.

The thought kept nagging him all the way to the hotel. According to the cab driver, the rehab facility was only a 10 minute drive away from the Hilton where he dropped them off. After a must needed breather and a couple over priced breakfast sandwiches, courtesy of room service, they headed back down to the lobby to catch a cab.

Once they were seated and on their way, Meredith passed her phone to Derek.

"You should call Addison. Let her know we'll be there soon."

He looked at the phone she was offering him like it was a snake waiting to strike.

"Derek?" she said firmly in an effort to break him from his sudden trance. "Do you want me to do it?"

"No…No, I'll do it."

Pressing 'send', he raised the phone to his ear and waited.

"Meredith?"

It took him a second before realizing why Addison would be asking for his wife.

"It's Derek, actually. I'm just using her phone."

"Oh…Okay. Well are you guys here yet?"

"Yeah, we'll be there in less than ten minutes."

"Okay. I'll pass the message on to Amelia and Carolyn."

"Thank you. See you soon."

"Bye, Derek."

Within what felt like no time, the cab pulled up to the rehab center.

They walked into the inviting lobby as they both searched for any sign of his sister, mother, or Addison.

It was an inviting room. Calm neutral colors graced the walls and fabrics in the plush chairs and couches in the waiting area. A petite, black haired woman sat behind the large speckled counter, typing away on the computer. Without needing to voice the idea to the other, Derek and Meredith made their way towards the receptionist.

"Derek!" His mother's voice filled the quiet room as she hurried over to her son and daughter-in-law.

"Derek," Carolyn sighed in relief as she embraced her only son. "I'm so glad you two are here," she said, moving on to give Meredith a hug hello as well.

"I was really hoping the next time I got to see you would be over a happier occasion," she added glumly. She was, of course, alluding to her previous visit while Derek was in the hospital recovering from the shooting.

"We did too, Mom," Derek replied with a similar expression.

"Where is she?"

"She's in with a mediator," came a voice approaching from behind Carolyn.

"Addison," greeted Derek.

She gave the couple a quick nod in greeting before continuing, "She wants to talk to you. Its part of her finishing steps: apologizing to her family. She thought it may go better with the mediator there. You just have to go check in with the front desk and they'll take you back. I've already said goodbye to her for the day but I'll be back tomorrow when it's time for her to check-out."

Suddenly everything was real. Amelia was just on the other side of a door, ten steps away, and waiting to talk to her brother.

And Derek was terrified.

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