A/N: This is the longest chapter I've written in a while, so I hope you all enjoy it! Things are starting to pick up now, and I'm anticipating writing 4-6 more chapters as events play out and the story starts to wrap up. Just a head's up!

"Derek, you need to breathe," Addison cautioned, leaning against the wall and crossing her arms over her chest as her ex-husband paced back and forth in front of her. "You're going to start scaring the other hotel guests."

"I don't care," Derek grumbled, pausing and running his hand through his hair in frustration before shaking his head and resuming his pacing. "I'm going to kill them."

"Yes, I gathered that from the first twenty or so you said that," Addison said, glancing down the hallway at the still-closed door of Megan's hotel room. "I think that's why they're hiding in Meggie's room."

"Why is it always Nancy?" Derek asked angrily. "Why can't she ever just keep her damn mouth shut and let me live my life?"

Addison smiled knowingly. "Because you know as well as anyone that Nancy's missing some sort of common sense filter in her brain. She probably honestly didn't think there was anything wrong with what she said."

"Yeah, well, there was," Derek snapped. "When I got here, Evelyn would barely speak to me, but I was fixing things. Me. On my own, without any nagging sisters getting in the way. Things were going well, Addie. Really well, with both of them. And now…"

"Now they've had a rather abrupt initiation into life as a Shepherd," Addison pointed out. "It'll all be okay, Derek."

"You don't know that. You can't know that. Evelyn's…she's cautious, wary even…stubborn, too. It took a lot to get through that, Addison. And now, less than five minutes with my sisters and I really think all that work is gone."

"Derek, give them time. It'll get better," Addison assured him. "Who knows? Maybe by the time you come back for another visit, this whole thing will have blown over."

"Come back?"

Addison frowned. "You said you were going back to New York tonight."

"Right." Derek nodded briefly before quickly shaking his head. "No. Addison, I can't leave now. Not with everything so messed up."

"I guess it's a good thing you haven't taken a vacation day in twenty years."

"Yeah," Derek muttered distractedly, his mind seemingly focused on something else.

"What?"

"I, uh…I have to go," Derek said quickly. "Make sure my sisters don't do anything stupid while I'm gone."

"Where are you going? Derek!" Addison called out as Derek hurried down the hall toward the elevator, not bothering to turn back and respond to her question.

When the doorbell rang thirty minutes later, Meredith glanced at the clock in the kitchen and shook her head before she set down her coffee. She supposed she couldn't be too annoyed at someone - probably a neighbor - dropping by at nine in the morning. How were they to know she'd spent the last twelve and a half hours in surgery?

Opening the door, she frowned in confusion as she tried to place the familiar-looking woman in front of her. "I'm sorry, can I help you?"

The redhead nodded and smiled nervously. "You probably don't remember me. You operated on my husband about fourteen years ago?"

Meredith stared at her for a moment before nodding. "Ryan Marshall's wife, right?"

"Yes." Addison smiled and breathed a sigh of relief. "You remember me, then?"

"We treated seventy-four patients with the Grey-Sloan Method in our clinical trial," Meredith said. "I remember the names, faces and families of every last one of them. How is your husband doing?"

"Really well. He still gets his scans done every year, just like you recommended after the trial ended, but so far, there's been no signs of any regrowth."

"Well, I'm glad to hear that." Meredith frowned again and stared at Addison for a moment. "I don't mean to sound rude, Mrs. Marshall, but what are you doing here?"

Addison sighed, not bothering to correct her on her name, and bit her lower lip nervously. "It's kind of a long story, actually. May I come in?"

Meredith hesitated for a moment before nodding and motioning for Addison to enter. Closing the door behind her, Meredith led her into the living room and the two women took seats opposite from one another.

"Dr. Grey, you…"

"Please," Meredith interrupted. "I'm not treating your husband anymore. Call me Meredith."

"Meredith." Addison nodded and took a breath. "You know Derek Shepherd?"

Meredith stared at Addison skeptically. "I'm a neurosurgeon. Of course I know of Derek Shepherd."

Addison shook her head. "No…not know of him, know him. He is…well, he's the father of your daughters, isn't he?"

"No offense, but I don't see how that's how any of your business one way or the other."

Addison sighed. "He's my ex-husband."

Meredith paled as she leaned back in her chair. "Oh God," she muttered. "Please tell me you were his second wife."

"Sorry. First and only."

"Shit." Meredith put her head in her hands for a moment before looking up again. "I didn't know…I swear I didn't know he was married. If I had…"

Addison smiled gently and shook her head. "I'm not here to scold you for sleeping with my husband two decades ago," she assured her. "What happened then is well in the past, and trust me, there are at least a dozen other things I'd blame for the disintegration of my marriage before I'd blame you."

"Then I guess my question from earlier still stands…what are you doing here?"

"Honestly? I'm not entirely sure," Addison admitted with a hint of embarrassment. "I found out that Derek's sisters were coming out to Seattle and I tagged along. This may sound strange, but in a way I feel like this whole mess is my fault, so I guess I just wanted to be sure that Derek fixed it."

"How would this be your fault?" Meredith asked in confusion.

"I don't know. I guess I feel like if I hadn't cheated on Derek, he never would have come to Seattle in the first place, so you never would have been put in the position you were in. Or if I hadn't come after him, if I'd just left him alone and sent divorce papers…maybe he would have stayed here and you two would still be together. Or when we were working on our marriage, I knew there'd been someone else out here in Seattle. I knew about you…not you specifically, but I knew there was someone he was still thinking about out here. There were times in therapy that he admitted he wanted to call you, make sure you were okay. And I told him no. I insisted he have no contact, that he needed to focus on our marriage. If I…"

"This wasn't your fault," Meredith interrupted. "Was it awful and difficult and horribly uncomfortable to be a pregnant intern? Yeah, it was. But I wouldn't change it even if I could, because my girls are the world to me. And I'll admit, I kind of hated you for coming after him for a while…not as much as I hated him for not telling me he was married, but still…I guess I kind of hated both of you. But having been married, having experienced what I hope was the sort of relationship you two had at one point, I can't say I wouldn't have done the same thing you did if I'd ever been in your position. And insisting your husband cut off contact with his dirty mistress is definitely not unreasonable."

"Dirty mistress? I don't think…"

Meredith blushed slightly. "Sorry, that just sort of slipped out. It's an inside joke. When Mark found out who the girls' father was, after he told me what happened with you two, we used to joke that we were in the dirty mistresses' club. It was much funnier at the time."

"That sounds like something Mark would come up with," Addison agreed with a smile.

"Speak of the devil," Meredith muttered, glancing up as Mark walked down the stairs, obviously still half asleep.

"You make coffee, Mer?" he asked groggily.

"In the kitchen, where it always is."

Mark nodded and headed into the kitchen without even acknowledging Addison.

"Mark Sloan lives with you?" Addison asked in surprise.

Meredith shrugged. "You know how old houses are. They all come with rats living in the attic."

"I heard that!" Mark shouted from the kitchen as Addison bit back a laugh and shook her head.

Miranda Bailey leaned back in her chair and stared across her desk at the man standing uncomfortably in the doorway of her office on the top floor of Seattle Presbyterian Hospital.

"Well, would you look what the cat dragged in. Just what brings Derek Shepherd to Seattle Presbyterian?"

"I don't suppose you'd believe I was just in the neighborhood and thought I'd drop in?"

"Of course I would," Bailey smirked. "Just as soon as I'd believe I'm a six foot tall supermodel."

Derek nodded. "May I come in?"

"If you must."

Taking that as permission, Derek stepped into the office, closing the door behind him before taking a seat. "I need a favor."

"And I need a vacation. Something tells me neither one of us are about to get what we want."

Derek sighed. "Look, Miranda…may I call you Miranda?"

"No."

"Oh." Derek seemed to lose his confidence for a moment before shrugging it off and continuing. "Dr. Bailey, I'm here because I need a job."

"That's too bad," Bailey said. "This hospital's already got a Chief of Staff, and I don't intend to go anywhere anytime soon."

"I've only been Chief of Staff at Mount Sinai for a few months," Derek said. "I think I was a pretty good Chief of Surgery before that, though, and I know you need one of those."

"No, actually, I don't."

"But Sara Watson retired a month and a half ago. You can't have an interim forever."

"And I don't intend to." Bailey paused, leaning forward to tap her finger on a manila envelope on the corner of her desk. "This right here is the contract for our new Chief of Surgery. The board approved it last night and he signed it an hour ago. So you'll have to look elsewhere if you're looking for a position here."

"What about an attending position?"

Bailey frowned and stared at him for a moment, trying to determine if he was serious. "The Chief of Staff at one of the highest ranking teaching hospitals in the country wants to be an attending surgeon at my hospital? Why?"

"I need a position in Seattle, Dr. Bailey."

"Why?"

"It's a family matter."

Bailey nodded. "So why aren't you across town at Grace-Mercy, bugging Mark Sloan with your family drama?"

"Are you saying Grace-Mercy is a better hospital?"

"Not in every department, no," Bailey said. "But their surgical department? Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. One of the reasons I got this job seven years ago was to rebuild its reputation after a series of bad administrations across all departments. We've made incredible progress, and I'm damn proud of what this place has become, but our surgical program is still up-and-coming. We're years away from being at the level of Grace-Mercy. And none of that even considers your so-called family matter…if you want to be close to Meredith Grey, you'd be far better off at Grace-Mercy."

"You know about Meredith and I? About the twins?"

Bailey scoffed. "She was my intern, of course I know. What I don't know is why you're here instead of talking to Mark Sloan."

"Because Grace-Mercy already has a full roster of highly ranked attending surgeons," Derek pointed out. "Mark's got Meredith Grey and Alexandra Sloan, he'd never be able to justify another neurosurgeon to his board. Unless you recruited one of them to fill your Chief of Surgery position here…"

"Don't think I didn't try," Bailey muttered.

"You couldn't get either of them?" Derek asked in surprise.

"Who I did or didn't approach about the position is none of your business," Bailey said sharply. "Don't go thinking we had to settle, either. Alex Karev is an exceptional pediatric surgeon who'll be a great asset to our hospital. Are you really that desperate to work under someone who was an intern when you were an attending?"

"I'm not desperate, Dr. Bailey, don't think that that's what this is," Derek said. "I want to work here because I'm a surgeon, and I became a surgeon because I want to heal people. I need a hospital to do that in."

"I think you'd be better off staying at Mount Sinai."

Derek shook his head. "I resigned from Mount Sinai an hour ago. With or without a job, I'm staying in Seattle, Dr. Bailey. I've spent my whole life putting the wrong things first, and I'm not about to make that mistake again. My daughter is here, so I'm going to be here."

"You've got two daughters," Bailey pointed out. "Why not move to Chicago?"

"You know my daughters, right?"

"Better than you think."

Derek frowned but nodded. "I think I can work on a relationship with Annie long distance, but I don't know that I can do the same with Evelyn. If I have to choose a place to live, it's going to be where she is. And Evelyn's in Seattle."

"I can't offer you anything close to what you were getting at Mount Sinai," Bailey said hesitantly. "You haven't regularly seen the inside of an OR in at least half a decade. And I just don't have that kind of budget."

"I don't care about the money. You can pay me an intern's salary for all I care," Derek assured her. "I want to work because I'm a surgeon, and I became a surgeon to help people. I'm tired of the paperwork, anyway. I don't need the money, I need the work. And, to be quite frank, your surgical department could use another big name like me."

Bailey frowned, hating to admit that he had a point. Adding Alex Karev as Chief of Surgery was a coup, but adding Derek Shepherd to their roster…well, even if he hadn't been in an OR in years, it was still a significant hire. And if she could get him for a steal, salary-wise…

"I want to be clear, you hurt my girls in…"

"Your girls?" Derek interrupted skeptically.

"Your DNA may have helped make them physically, but I helped deliver those girls," Bailey said. "You've known them for what, twenty minutes? Evelyn's my goddaughter, and Annette is my daughter-in-law, not to mention the mother of my grandchildren, so yes, my girls. You hurt them in any way and I will kill you in such a way that it'll be archeologists who finally find your body a thousand years from now."

Derek gulped but nodded. "I have no intention of hurting anyone, Dr. Bailey."

"I'm so going to regret this," Bailey muttered, standing up and extending her hand across the desk. "Dr. Shepherd, welcome to Seattle Presbyterian."