This newest chapter is gonna be divided into two parts. This one is in Meredith's PoV, and the next one will be in Derek's and picks up exactly where this one ends more or less.
The title is from a Coldplay song, Lost, which I'm sure you've heard at least once. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this!
Part 23 A – A Big Fish in a Little Pond
Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans.
John Lennon
Alice was a little grumpy when I woke her up. She was rolling around on her tummy, trying to figure out the best position to bear the sudden warmth that had wrapped around Seattle. It was her first summer, and she wasn't very fond of it. Nine months wasn't enough to love sticky hot and her sweaty forehead confirmed it. Her hair, now a shade lighter because of the sun, but still as dark as Derek's, was all messed up. She was about to open her eyes and cry when I came up to her crib. She had never complained much at night, but in the last few days the only sleep I could get was at the hospital.
"Hey Peanut," I scooped her up in my arms, and she kept fussing a little, groaning. I wiped some of the sweat away from her forehead and gave her some water. She drank it like she had spent the whole night in the Sahara, sheepishly leaning her head on my shoulder. "Let's go say good morning to Daddy." I said in an attempt to be cheerful.
In the kitchen, Derek was wearing some ratty faded shorts and an old t-shirt. We didn't need to be at the hospital until later in the day, but both of us were still on call. It was going to be Alice's first night out and judging by the way she woke up, I wasn't really sure it was time for someone else to handle her. She immediately titled her head up at the sight of Derek.
"Buongiorno Principessa," he said, turning away from the milk he was warming up and quoting one of our favorite movies. She smiled widely at him, all the grumpiness from upstairs forgotten with the sight of her Daddy. I passed her into his arms and she snuggled into his chest. I kissed him quickly, like a habit we'd grown accustomed to.
"Long night, uh?" he asked, clearly noticing the dark circles under my eyes.
"She doesn't like hot summers very much."
"I'm sure she's gonna love tonight, with Cristina." He looked down to see her reaction, smiling encouragingly, but she was almost asleep again. Derek sat at the table, holding her tenderly, while I took care of the rest of our breakfast.
"I don't know if that's a good idea, Derek," I mumbled when I sat next to him.
"She has to, at some point. We can't keep her locked up in here forever..."
"She's gonna hate this. I wanted her to like her first night alone," I sighed.
"Maybe, instead, some change will wear her out and she'll sleep like a hog. I know its hard Meredith," he squeezed my hand, trying to comfort me.
"It's not about me, it's about her," I put some biscuits in her milk, trying not to snap.
"She loves Cristina and Owen."
"I know."
He grabbed my face, when I knelt down to reach Alice's level and brush her wild hair, kissing the top of her head. "Stop worrying," he smiled, before kissing me. I sighed. Then I brushed Alice's cheek once more.
"Breakfast, Alice," I said cheerfully when I realized she wasn't grabbing the bottle I was holding out to her.
"No," she groaned.
My eyes widened, so did Derek's. She went back to sleep, hiding her face on Derek's chest and snuggling closer.
"Did she just say 'no'?" Derek frowned, quite amused.
"She did," I nodded.
We smiled. I kissed her forehead again, leaving her bottle on the table next to them. We were aware of some babbling about Mommy and Daddy, often repeating us when we said it, but she had never said something like that, to express her own feelings. If her first actual word beside our names was 'no' we had just booked a hell of a ride in the next two or three years. Her eyes told everybody that she was going to be a troublemaker. I picked her up in my arms, trying to convince her to wake up and eat. She groaned again at the unexpected change.
"Alice, c'mon. We have a whole morning free for us to enjoy, aren't you excited?"
She shook her head, starting to cry despite my attempts to sound very convincing.
"Do you wanna go to the lake with Mommy and Daddy? Together?"
She lifted her face up, brushing her fists over her eyes, nodding.
"You have to eat breakfast, then," added Derek, handing her the bottle. She took it from his hand and started eating quietly, unable to keep her head straight and leaning against my shoulder. I sat across from Derek while he ate and rubbed her back until she finished, while I did my best to chew some cereal as well.
"I'm going to have a shower, okay?" I told Derek, as I leaned in to give him Alice. She fussed, moaned and, in the end, she started crying as soon as she left my arms. That was weird.
"Peanut, Mommy isn't going anywhere. She's taking a shower," Derek tried to comfort her, but she was oblivious. Her tears made my heart ache.
"Let her cry," I sighed, knowing that it was just a tantrum, and doing the best I could to walk away just like I'd planned and not walk back to hold her in my arms say that I was going to be there forever. She was going to need this tonight and for the rest of her life.
"Hmm?" mumbled Derek, he knew I was usually the one to spoil her and he was the one setting rules and restrictions. His look seemed to ask 'Are you sure about it?' and sincerely, I couldn't even answer that myself.
"She'll stop, at some point. You said it yourself; I'm only taking a shower."
It was heartbreaking, walking up the stairs while she cried. As I put my head under the warm stream of water I could easily picture her rolling and fussing in Derek's arms, hitting him as hard as she could to make him follow me.
Tears mixed with the water and I let them.
Instead, when I came back downstairs I found Derek lying on the couch with Alice on his chest, reading a book. She was turning the pages too fast to actually read anything, pointing at the colorful animals drawn there, giggling happily. As soon as she realized I was there, she threw her arms towards me, squealing "Ma-ma!" and I just melted into the doorframe. I hurried over to pick her up with a wide grin plastered on my face, tickling her belly endlessly to hear her perfect laugh. She said my name when I showed up. She wanted me so badly she asked for me. Her cheeks were flushed because of all of the laughing, so I sat beside Derek to give her some time to recover. She sneaked out my arms after a few moments, crawling to his lap, where she giggled some more. Then we went upstairs to get dressed for our outing.
When we came back downstairs, Derek was already waiting for us on the porch, enjoying the warmth and the sun Seattle rarely gets. He was an outdoor man after all.
It wasn't very hot in the morning, so it was pleasant under the shade of the trees, walking quietly in the forest. Some old leaves crunched under our flip-flops while we walked, even if the forest didn't smell as good as it did after a heavy rainstorm. We were going to the lake for a picnic, finally able to stay outside for an entire morning and remain dry.
When Alice saw the lake for the first time, she was astonished. She was immediately mesmerized by the water and its thousands of reflections, shrieking happily to let us know how much she loved the place.
"You like it here, uh?" I asked, while we walked closer, stepping on the old wooden dock. It was our dock even though it wasn't new like the house. We had decided to keep it that way nevertheless when we built the house, preserving what the old owner had built. It was perfect for fishing and sitting anyway. It was as dry as I'd ever seen it and Derek immediately laid the towels down on it, spreading all of his fishing tools out around us. Alice was dazzled by all of the movement and the sound of the water crashing on the dock. She was watching Derek as well, trying to understand what he was doing with his fishing rod and the rest of the tools.
"Daddy looks weird, right?" I asked her, noticing her puzzled but fascinated face. She glanced up from my lap, pointing to Derek with her finger and babbling "Da-da." He looked towards us with a huge smile, still tying some stuff that I've never learned the names of.
"I'm fishing, Peanut," he answered promptly to her puzzled expression. "If we're lucky and I catch something, you can even touch a real fish..." he added, smiling at me to see if I agreed with his idea. Alice rolled off of my lap to feel the wooden dock under her chubby hands, hitting it with her proverbial grace.
"Careful Alice," I said, when I saw her crawling away a little too fast for my comfort.
It was hard to keep up with her now that she was more than able to crawl. She loved to explore and we couldn't tear our eyes off of her for a second. That's why I agreed to her first night out; because I was sure she would love it.
At the lake, all of her grumpiness was gone, replaced by giggles and oohs every time she found something new to discover. If Derek wasn't so quick grabbing her, she would have eagerly crawled down into the water without a second thought. When we refused to let her near it she cried again.
"Hey, it's biting!" said Derek, right in the middle of the newest tantrum and I was grateful to that fish. When he was able to lift it up onto the dock it kept wagging and stirring, squirting tiny drops of lake water onto us. Alice giggled under the unexpected rain, carefully crawling to touch the fish as soon as it stopped moving. She pulled her hand away when she felt the scales and the fish waggled once more. Then she burst in tears. Derek picked her up, holding her on his lap and trying to tell her that it wasn't as scary as it seemed. She was still focused on the fish and nothing else, despite the fact that she was crying, while Derek spoke, determined to touch the fish again, but too afraid to move closer by herself. He set her free from the hug and she carefully crawled near the fish again. This time she pointed at it, looking at me, and then Derek, almost as if she wanted to check our reactions. Then she crawled back.
"Are you scared of the fish?" asked Derek. She crawled closer to the animal again, pointing it out to Derek with her chubby fingers.
"You want us to touch the fish first?" I tried to interpret her.
"Ma-ma," she said, looking at the fish again then at me with pleading eyes. I took it as a yes, so I brushed my fingers over the slimy skin of the fish, smiling at Alice. It wasn't as gross as I expected and she seemed satisfied with it, then she frowned again and turned to Derek.
"Da-da," she asked. Derek inched closer and touched the fish as well. It was kind of funny the way she looked at us when we had our fingers over the fish, almost like it was going to swallow us in one bite.
At last, she crawled closer, resting her hand on the middle of the fish, waiting for some kind of reaction. She petted it, but it was still again, so she kept on hitting it, despite the water and the squishy feeling. When she looked up, her almost-toothless smile was contagious.
She got tired of the fish not much later, crawling far away from us onto the dock. She almost fell in twice, so we decided to let her touch the water. Derek took her in his arms and balanced her out over the dock, until the tips of her toes touched the water. She wrinkled them, causing both of us to smile, then she tried again and started splashing water all around, almost like the fish, as soon as she began to enjoy the feeling. Oh, troublemaker.
"Okay then," said Derek, taking her out of the water before all of us were soaking wet. She whimpered, still shaking her chubby toes mid-air, eager to feel the water again. She was back in my arms right in time to fall asleep and for us to go back home and start getting ready for work.
She woke up when we were almost ready, a bit confused at first because she couldn't see the lake anymore, then she realized she was back home and her protests ended quickly.
"Alice." She turned to me immediately when I called her name, letting go of her toys for a little while. "Do you remember what we talked about yesterday?" I closed the distance between us and sat next to her on the floor. "You're going to stay with Aunt Cristina tonight. She will tuck you in bed because I can't kiss you goodnight, and neither can Daddy."
She frowned, letting me know that she understood perfectly.
"It's gonna be so much fun. I promise..." I faked a smile, because my heart was breaking a little bit for her, because I was going to leave her alone all night.
Right then, Cristina knocked at the door. Alice smiled widely at her, crawling a little bit towards her, but giving up at one third of the distance, still too long to be crawled entirely.
"Hey munchkin!" Cristina greeted her, picking her up in her arms unexpectedly. Alice immediately reached out to slap her face as her welcome. "Hey Mer, she looks cheerful."
"You should have seen her this morning. She learned to say 'no', which should be fun for you," I grinned.
"'No' is a good word," mocked Cristina
"You say that now," I giggled, "look; you know where everything you need is, right?"
"I'm gonna give her the dinner that you prepared, I'm gonna put her to sleep no later than nine-thirty, and tomorrow morning she'll wake up early so I shouldn't bother with waking her up. She should drink water and I have to close her window before bed because it should be opened earlier to let some fresh air in," she recited like some values on a chart or some presentation during rounds. A smile immediately appeared on my lips.
"What about breakfast?" I played along with the surgeon-intern.
"Warm some milk in the bottle with frogs." She smiled again, "Mer, we're going to be just fine," she added more seriously.
"Cristina," I sighed, the mere idea of being at work tonight was enough to make my stomach churn.
"She knows me and I know her well enough. I'm gonna stay here, where she's comfortable. We'll manage a good night's sleep," Cristina tried to reassure me.
"You can call me anytime, you know that, right?"
"Yeah. Can Owen stay overnight too? He wants to stay closer to the hospital; he has a critical patient in the ICU."
"I don't think it'd be a problem." The more the better
"Breathe," smiled Cristina, but nothing seemed to be enough when the moment of actual goodbyes was nearing.
"I can't," I sighed. It was true. I wasn't able to leave my baby, even with my best friend. I was one of those moms.
"Is Derek around? I wanted to say hi," she pretended to change the subject. They were on good terms after she'd saved his life during the shooting, some sort of close friendship, even if their relationship was still a mystery to me.
"No, he already left. We took two cars in case I need to get back or the other way around."
"You won't need to."
"Okay," I managed to say, chocking on every other word. I brushed Alice's curly hair, kissing her forehead. "Mommy's gonna come back soon, I promise." I felt tears in my eyes, walking out, knowing that I wouldn't see her in the next twelve hours. The last image of her was Cristina grabbing her hand and waving it at me while she had the cutest smile on her face. I was going to hold onto that for the rest of the night.
When I arrived at work, the rush of things kept me busy until ten when I called Cristina.
"Hey," I greeted, hesitantly. The fact that no piercing shouts could be heard from the phone was already reassuring.
"Meredith, everything's fine. Owen is reading her a story, but she must be almost asleep by now. It's kind of cute actually, seeing Owen reading her a story, makes me want to have a kid."
"Sure you're ok? Because what you just said wasn't really you," I widened my eyes, knowing that she was just saying that to cheer me up.
"That's your daughter's charm. She got it all from her father, no doubt about it, sorry Mer." I giggled, finally feeling a little bit calmer than when I left.
"Call me if in a couple of hours she's still wide awake, okay?"
"She's closing her eyes right now."
"Good," I smiled, proud of Alice.
My pager rang and I had to cut the conversation short, glad that my little girl was enjoying her first night on her own.
AN: 'Buongiorno Principessa' is taken from the movie "Life is Beautiful" with Roberto Benigni. I'm sure everybody has heard something about it. I think it won a couple of Oscars too. I loved the movie and Benigni was born in my city, practically the village next to mine. The way he handled such a tough theme like the Holocaust is fascinating. Anyway, I checked the translation of the quotation above on some websites and I realized there wasn't one, so I just left it in Italian. I wanted to add it because it's one of the tenderest scenes in the whole film and I simply loved it.
Here the Mama Meredith that hovers comes out, but don't you all think she's going to be that kind of mother?
Stay tuned for more, I'll update as soon as I can!