"Shep, c'mon, you're gonna be late to your own party!" Mark yelled, openning Derek's office door at the same time..

Derek didn't take his eyes off of the JAMA article he'd opened on his desktop. "Fashionably so."

"You think Addie's gonna stand for that?" The last words were muffled by the scarf Mark had pulled over his face. He folded it down to add, "Getting a cab's gonna be a nightmare."

"Take the subway."

"There's a strike."

"Ended yesterday."

"It's the subway."

Derek rolled his eyes. "Didn't you move so you'd be closer to a stop?"

"I moved because whenever I ran into Cynthia in the gym, she looked like she might propose. Teach me to use the in-building amenities. The convenience of my new address is courtesy of a very skilled realtor. Whenever Addie decides she wants to go private, we're getting Elaine to find us a place on an avenue where the cabs go in the right direction."

Derek scoffed. Addison thrived on the competition of an academic hospital. She'd planed tonight, like she did every year, to ensure that it would be discussed after the holidays; memorizing spider's webs of faculty and board members' families, along with six levels of students. He'd waited to see who'd make it to their third year before learning names in their program. Plenty of those people would be there tonight, but their narrow brownstone was a fifth of the Gilded Age townhouse it'd once been part of, and that many people in such a narrow space made it hard to catch up, even for him.

He let Mark have his delusions. Derek had once considered this life to be an impossible dream, after all. "This Elaine would work with you again?"

"Realtors are great, man. They don't want to be pinned down, and they have access to empty apartments all over the city. Doesn't matter who lives uptown or downtown. They'll never show up on your doorstep every day for a week, and you don't have to find out that they collect Dopey the Dwarf tchotchkes."

"Sounds like a surefire way to be murdered and not be found for days. Possibly a week, depending on the listing."

Mark's frown was irritating He'd been riding his bike around after the girls during the Summer of Sam, too, hadn't he? He knew why women carried mace on their keychains; he'd been sprayed with it! (Granted, that was a misunderstanding.), and he knew Derek's sisters. If they really wanted to overpower someone, they could.

"You wanted Lexington," Derek reminded him. "'I had a good feeling about Lex,' you said."

"Are you going uptown, Dr. Sloan?"

In a blink Mark's smile was back. Sometimes, Derek could almost believe he'd never seen any other expression on his face. "I am, Babs. Would you like to share a cab?"

"Sure would. I need to get dolled up before I make an appearance in front of Dr. Montgomery-Shepherd."

Derek laughed. Babs and her wife had been together since the eighties, and had been screening office managers for their susceptibility to the Mark Sloan Effect for four years, with ninety-percent efficacy.

"You're gorgeous, Barbara Liebwitz, and Addison adores you. Right, Shep?"

"She does."

Right, Shep? Huh, Shep? Derek was there. Whatever Shepherd thinks. God, it'd be nice if some of Mark's need for confirmation—for validation—rubbed off on Addison.

"Well, I'm not wearing Keds on the dance floor. I'm going to go home to collect Kendra, and maybe we'll be fashionably late."

"All right," Mark grumbled. "Save a tango for me?"

Babs laughed. "Wouldn't you love that? I'm holding out until Dr. Shepherd's name is on my dance card."

"Hear that, Shep? Why not make our office manager's Christmas wish come true?"

"Babs, I adore and appreciate you. It's not happening."

"Turned down again." She clicked her tongue in exaggerated disappointment. "But I'll keep hoping. It's what I wish for on the menorah every year."

"That's not how that works!" Mark protested. "I may be agnostic by way of being an imbecile, but I've spun a few dreidels in my life."

Good grief. Derek was going to be forty next year, and his best friend thought they were still in The Breakfast Club. Babs had more patience with the routine than he did these days, she managed to sound convincibly amused as she said, "Hold my coat, Dr. Sloan."

"Yes ma'am. Shep, you going to get all bundled up and join us, or am I going to have to spike the eggnog on my own?"

"The eggnog is already alcoholic."

"It's like you don't know me."

I know you too well. He shook his head, trying to clear the thought. His problem wasn't Mark. He didn't have a problem. It was Christmas. Almost. Once he got through tonight, it would be.

"Go. Let Addie know I'm on my way."

"No can do. I want my Christmas presents. Pissing Addison off has a domino effect. She's the only person I've known to be liked be all of your sisters at the same time. That includes you and your mom."

The girls had been teenagers when Dad died; chances were one of them had been annoyed with him at all times. The oversight still grated on Deek, twenty-eight years later. "Don't tell her, then, just go."

"Jeez, fine, Scrooge."

"Yeah, byt I get the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future rolled into one."

"Also the business partner."

"'Marley was dead to begin with,'' Babs quoted.

"Oh, well then," Derek said. "If it means he goes first, call me Ebenebezer."

"Ow! Got me," he appeared in the doorway again, pretending to stumble, and mimed yanking out a fake arrow. Like he wanted to be sure Derek saw he hadn't imagined a fictional gunshot. The chafing sensation disappeared. "Right in there," he thumped his chest where he'd just had an imaginary gushing wound, and put a hand on the threshold. "Parties of Christmas past were pretty different, huh?"

"Very." He hesitated, looking at the framed shot of Yankee Stadium hanging on the opposite wall. "Do you ever…miss those?"

These events were nothing like those gatherings in living-rooms in studios where the bed was hidden behind a sheet. They were frequently dressed-up study groups, or supposedly blowing off steam from exams which boiled down to arguing over the answers they'd even with progressively wider gestures. Sometimes he'd taken out his guitar, or they'd let the stereo drown out their voices. He'd even danced in those days, with those people.

Mark tilted his head, and Derek inhaled, about to wave off his own question.

"Sure, man. Those were good times." He came further into the office, resting his hands on the back of a visitor's chair. "Weird, isn't it, how there will be more people up at The Pen, but it never seems as crowded?"

"Yeah," Derek admitted, treading carefully. Mark had actually tried to sell him on accepting the offer Richard Webber had brought to him last fall, as though they could just close the practice and move across the country, or Addison would go along willingly if they could. "It just…it gets fancier every year. She's got a champagne fountain that could've belonged to Jay Gatsby."

"You're not complaining about that, are you?" Babs asked.

"Not that, exactly... You remember my nieces who took coats at our anniversary party? Ally and Mack?"

"Oh, yes! They were a hoot."

"I asked her if she wanted me to call them, and she said we'd just go with the agency."

"Hm. Ally's the one who had half of her head shaved?" Babs asked, as direct as ever.

"Yeah. Her girlfriend is going up with us tomorrow. I'd have offered her the gig, too. If it was up to me, we'd have Nan send her older three down to be caterwaiters. I understand that impressions matter, but…."

"Your family is part of the impression you want to make."

"They're her family, too. She keeps up with my sisters more than I do."

"You don't compartmentalize the same way," Babs said, shrewdly. "And creepy neurosurgeons tend to turn out to be psychopaths. Dr. Montgomery-Shepherd is an OB-GYN."

"What do you…?" Derek trailed off, no longer wanting to know, but Babs wasn't the type to let him keep the blinders once she'd discovered he was wearing them.

"There wasn't anyone at your anniversary-do that I wouldn't have trusted with a seventeen-year-old girl, but it's ironically male-dominated field. One that doesn't just have bad apples. It has well-placed, protected worms."

Derek cringed. He'd heard rumors, some of them vile, but he'd let himself believe they sprang from immature med students' jokes about becoming gynecologists. Hadn't Mom always said gossip might not be the truth, but it laid a trail?

"She's vigilant. She has to be. For herself, her peers, and because she has to find her own way to bring them low enough to crush under her stilettos."

Mark whistled. "I think I know why Ms. Liebwitz puts up with us, Derek. It's a long game."

"You two let women go about our business, but you're not against tripping the men who don't," Babs countered.

Women. Mackie was his second niece to turn eighteen. He'd managed to become a marginally cool uncle by sneaking the girls into R-rated movies, and not telling their mothers about piercings and tattoos. Somehow, getting first dibs at intimidating boyfriends and girlfriends hadn't translated into realizing that the next-generation Shepherds weren't all lambs in the eyes of the world.

"Now then, you might be okay with being on the couch until Epiphany, but I am not." Babs took Mark's arm imperiously and pulled him out of Derek's office. They called out goodbyes and the door clicked shut. It wasn't until he heard the elevator arrive that Derek pressed his hands against his eyes, hoping to quell the headache budding behind them.

It wasn't that he didn't like plenty of the people who would be there tonight. The ones he saw regularly. Whom they already went to dinner with, whose kids sent them invitations to their b'nai mitzvahs, sweet sixteens, and graduations, and got checks in return. They weren't family. Christmas was for….

For kids.

He hadn't thought that when the parties had been a fraction of the size, rotating between apartments. Of that motley crew, only he, Addison, and Mark were left in Manhattan. The rest had scattered, first as interns: to Baylor, the Clinic, Berkley. Sam and Naomi had taken Maya to LA the day their residencies ended—We were kids. We didn't know it. He didn't know when they'd become adults. Wouldn't an adult have known what to say to Sam the night he listened to him sob over not knowing why he needed a divorce? They hadn't compared notes, but he'd been able to hear enough of Addison's voice from the other room to know she'd had Naomi on the other line. She hadn't sounded much more confident than him—Richard and Adele had been the adults; but they were gone. His mentor's presence had always lessened Derek's feeling that he was performing at events where a plate cost more than his mom's take-home pay at the point of her retirement. He'd gamely helped Addison pick items from Levanger to send off with their regards, aware that it might be the best gesture anyone could manage with careers like theirs.

Thanks to all the events on both sides he didn't see as much of the kids in his life. Without them around the magic got lost. At some point, this season had become exhausting not exhilarating. That the holiday made the questions surge didn't help. From family, friends, colleagues—and he always ended up fielding them. How Addison had shut down the aunts and sisters who'd look at the nearest baby and say, "next time it'll be you, dear!" was beyond him.

Every year, he joined in on opening boxes and going on battery runs. At some point that night, or the next day while he braided doll hair and helped the five-year-olds wobble on the bikes, someone would say, "oh, Derek, you'll be such a good dad!" He'd want to turn it back on them, to ask why they thought that. If they really thought someone who regularly worked ninety-hour weeks could be as attentive as his father had been. Maybe he could cut down on taking calls—that'd been part of the appeal of going private—but thinking that hit play on the chorus of voices insisting that would be a waste of his training, and the talent he hadn't anticipated. Historically, Shepherds had strong work ethics. He and his sisters had gained theirs by helping Dad open every morning. He couldn't exactly let a kid be his scrub nurse. They'd become doctors, too, but of the older three, only Nancy had similar concerns. That was why she'd moved to Connecticut. Fewer mothers, more need for a specialist.

The decorations would be gorgeous tonight. Addison had been enthusing over that gilded age champagne fountain for weeks, and the violinist in the string quartet she'd booked had a Stradivarius. It'd all been a dizzying new world at the beginning; celebrating their success over their holiday. Was it possible to change course? The fir they decorated together was upstairs, where their guests would never see it. All too delicate to have a kid running around. Thinking about it for too long made him wonder if that might apply to most things in their life..

He'd step back if Addison said she was ready to have their own tiny bundle to be passed around—Hell, to be fought over. Hannie was five; the family hadn't gone this long without a baby in twenty years— on Christmas morning. He'd create his own big Christmas gestures, and go to the hokey family Christmas parties. He wasn't sure she was capable of stepping back. She was the foremost fetal surgeon in the five boroughs, and she almost never allowed someone else to deliver one of her patients' babies. Two years ago, they'd been up at The Pen for ten minutes before her cell rang, and she was back in the car. He couldn't say anything about it. it'd been seeing a woman be neglected by a male OB-GYN over the holidays that had settled her on this path. Back when her passion lit up his world. When they were going to be able to have it all. They were going to change the face of medicine, and raise the next generation of Shepherds. He'd believe Dad would've beenproud of him.

The phone rang just as he'd finally started half-heartedly loading his briefcase to head out. He debated letting it go. If it was Addison, she'd call his cell, and he could pretend to be closer than he was. Chances were that would backfire. She'd have Savvy watching the corner for him. "Shepherd."

"Really? Me too!"

Derek rolled his eyes in the darkness, but he smiled, too. "Hey, Amy."

"It's Ame—" His little sister gave a huffy sigh. "You're never gonna stop, are you?"

"Probably not. What's up? Addie was hoping you'd make an appearance tonight."

"Not you?"

Shit. He pressed his palm against his forehead. "I...know you better."

"It'd serve you right if I did show up." He heard the taunt she was holding back. You think you do. He didn't know which of them was right. "You're not there."

"Are you even in the city?"

"…not exactly."

He hadn't felt the weight leaving his shoulders, but he felt it return. "You're in Baltimore, you traded shifts to avoid Christmas, and you want me to break it to Mom. Again."

"You don't have to put it like that." Her exasperation was decidedly satisfying. "It's prime MVA season."

"I'm a neurosurgeon, too, and I've never missed a year."

"Maybe because whenever you insist that you can't work, everyone applauds you for being a family-focused man. I get asked if I'm sure I can handle the lifestyle."

"Since when do you care?"

"Since I got tired of being questioned about everything! No one's gonna miss me upstate, bro. Half the family is already there pretending they can't hear the kids plotting to sneak looks at the presents, and searching every mall in a tri-county area for additions to fifteen Christmas lists that supposedly had a November thirtieth deadline—"

"Remind me, who decided she had to have the Mega Trevor doll on this very night, once-upon-a-time?"

"Wonder Woman needed her gentleman in distress!"

"That, and you wanted to lord the truth about Santa over all of us."

"Yeah, well, you foiled that plan."

"Start of a tradition. Luke's getting a puppy, and I'm the sucker who's making a detour and setting it up in its own room at a pet-friendly motel. You could use keeping it company as an excuse to skip Mass, and then watch our nephew become the happiest nine-year-old in the world."

"One overly-involved, childless relative is enough."

"What do you call Mark?"

"'Dickhead.'"

"Amy."

"My name is Amelia. You want me to say Mark's the fun uncle? You're in daddy-training. I'm a black sheep."

"Christmas is for family—"

"Is that why you're sulking at the office?"

"—it's when you let everything else go." Her sharp inhalation was made staticky by the network. Goddamnit. "I didn't mean to imply—"

"You did. You grant forty-eight hours of grace, and hold the past against me for the rest of the year."

"I d—"

"You're the only one who does that much. Our sisters pretend to remember I'm sober halfway through offering me their heavy pours. One of the little kids crashes a toy car? They're just like you, Amy, ha ha ha."

"I'll tell—"

"You'll tell them to shut up, because it's Christmas? I don't...seasonal tolerance! I want you to realize that I'm thirty-fucking-two, I've been clean...a decade, and...don't...at the kiddie table." Static absorbed portions of her outburst. Derek slammed a hand down on his desk and stood up, going over to the window.

"Then don't act lie you do! Don't mope around the place like a storm cloud and throw a tantrum when the whole atmosphere doesn't change! It's not about you. It's about the kids!"

"Total dad-in-training."

"If it wasn't for you, I might be past that point." It was better than how would you know, but not by much.

There was a long silence. "What?"

"When did the girls start having kids?"

"The nineties?"

"During their residencies. They all started then, and only the youngest were born once they were board-certified."

"The triplets set off a weird baby-fever competition, so what?"

"So, that was what Addison wanted us to do! She was ready, but I wasn't done raising my baby sister."

"Fuck you." She'd said that to him dozens, maybe hundreds of times. It hadn't hit this hard in years. "I will not take the blame for your unhappiness. Not this time."

He let his forehead thump against the cold glass of the window, and it immediately started to melt the heat of his anger. "You shouldn't. I shouldn't have said that."

"Why not? Say what you mean, no matter how mean! That's the Shepherd motto."

"I didn't mean it."

"You did, and you're right! You know what Ally told me? If any of the lambs from Squared down don't believe in Santa, they won't admit it. How old's he gonna be this year, Derek?"

"Twelve." Derek sighed. His oldest nephew was as rationally-minded as his nickname suggested, though he'd had it since the day Nancy announced that since she and Peter weren't hyphening, his first name would be Shepherd.

"Bri had to sit Lizzie down and tell her she knows the truth, she'd doesn't want to ruin it for Hannah. She is currenrly how old?"

"Also twelve. You know, if you came around for birthdays—"

"I know….old...are!" Amy shouted. He held the crackling phone to his ear, knowing he deserved that. "You were twelve, Derek. You needed looking out for."

He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to squeeze down the lump in his throat at the same time. "I had seven more years than you did."

"Meaning you had seven years of belief. I never learned how. When I was still sleeping on the floor of your room, you'd wake up with nightmares, I'd hear Mom tell you she'd always be there, and you'd go back to sleep. I couldn't understand how you trusted that she wasn't going to be run over by a cab on ninety-ninth. That hasn't changed. I don't know how to trust, and I can't pretend otherwise. It'll be better for everyone if I'm not there. The shipment with the presents are already up there. Hopefully, those make it harder to hate Crazy Aunt Amelia, no matter what their mothers say."

"Am…Amelia—"

"Forget it. I'm not going to be there. Christmas is a trigger for me, and I'd appreciate if you'd respect that. It's not gonna happen if you keep acting like it's the season of amnesia."

"I…I don't understand. I don't know why you can't just let yourself…compartmentalize…but you are an adult. It's your choice."

She laughed, bitterly, but rather than being unrecognizable, it brought a memory to mind. Amy at Elena's age. A cousin on Dad's side had a Christmas-themed wedding. She'd taken a candy-cane from the centerpiece, sucked it into a point, and started stabbing the red and green balloons all over the hall. He'd been the one to chase her down and demand to know what she was doing. "They kept going on about miracles," she'd said. "I was injecting realism into the proceedings."

Nancy had come up behind them with a comment on Amy always being so morbid. A fight had erupted, and Mom had made Nancy's husband take the other plus-ones, and Mark in his car so she could berate the five of them for showing their asses. He'd never followed up with Amy about what she'd said, or the champagne on her breath. He'd been wrong to assume it all came attributable to the substances, but he didn't know what more he could do about the past.

"I'm glad I have your permission," she said.

"That's not—" He sucked his cheek. She wanted to leave him mad. It was easier. He'd done it hundreds of times, and he would again. "You don't need it. Just call Mom tomorrow, okay?"

"Of course. Going to let Addie get you on the dance floor tonight?"

"Never." The next burst of laughter held less of the pain he hadn't been able to protect her from. "If you change your mind, and need help pulling off a last minute surprise—"

"I'll hitch a ride with the reindeer."

"Good plan." The last hint of hope ebbed out of him. "Merry Christmas, Amy."

"Merry Christmas, Der-Bear."

He stared down at the lights of the traffic; the red, green, and yellow making the Christmas lights look like they belonged to the city, not the season. Christmas and New York did share a vein of magic; one he was sure he'd always be able to feel. Amy's holidays hadn't all been awful. He could see her wide eyes as she unwrapped that doll. She hadn't paused to consider who'd found it, just thrown herself at him.

Wonder Woman is right, he'd thought; his hands and face still feeling chafed from running all around the city. He'd found it at FAO Schwartz and handed over two months of allowance and a birthday-money advance Mom hadn't actually made him repay.

His freshman year of high school had been the coldest Christmas on record, and rather than playing out what they'd all known was a charade, they'd set up sleeping bags and blankets in the living room, with the fire built up. They'd woken to find breakfast served on trays around them, with the oven still open for heat, and the presents arranged at their feet. (They'd put Amy in the middle, but if she'd tried to get up, he hadn't been the one to coax her down.)

There'd been snowball fights that boiled down to him, Amy, and Mark versus the older three; years of sledding in the park, with him and Mark dragging her back up over and over, even when she'd had a broken wrist, and wasn't supposed to get the cast wet. She'd gotten it going down a steeper incline with her friends, and he and Kathleen had decided it was better for her to get back on the horse with someone there to help if she couldn't handle it or panicked. (Shouldn't Mom have been in on that conversation? He'd never really considered that, but if it'd been Stevie, and Kathleen hadn't been consulted, she would've read Allegra and Mack the riot act.).

He didn't regret it. Not comparing her grin at the bottom of that hill, and the pale terror he'd seen after running half a mile from hockey practice to find his baby sister being helped into an ambulance. She'd reached for him, and told the paramedic, "It's okay. My big brother's here."

Amy had trusted someone. She'd believed in someone. Him. He turned the phone horizontally across the cradle to keep it from ringing and buried his face in his hands.

It was fully dark out by the time he hailed a cab on the sidewalk. It didn't matter. Tomorrow, they'd head upstate playing Santa's helpers, and for a couple of days tonight would seem like it belonged to someone else's life.

Maybe that was how Christmas would be for him. He wasn't up to his dad's standards. He wasn't the brother Amy had needed him to be—that Amelia wanted him to be—or the husband racing his wife up the ladder. He had a handle on Uncle Derek.

He wished that was enough.