"Derek, can you c'mere?"

Draping the tie he'd just taken off of the hanger over his neck, Derek crossed into the bedroom. "Is it the... dress?" He dropped the last word at the sight of Meredith sitting on the side of the bed, her dress unbuttoned.

"Help me with my shoes?" Meredith asked. "For old times sake?" Her tone was coy, but with a breathiness that trembled a little if you knew to be listening for it.

"Absolutely." He crouched in front of her, ignoring the strappy heels for the moment. Picking up her right foot, he caught a glimpse of metal under the bed. A year ago, he'd assumed it was her cane, an attempt to shove her bad days out of mind, and had wanted to put it out of sight somewhere accessible.

Pulling out the aluminum bat had been a disquieting echo of doing the same thing in Meredith's old bedroom while piling things his things into bags. Thinking that if she'd really trusted him, really planned on keeping him around, she would have gotten rid of it. Taking it wasn't putting her in danger. What'd she said the year before ? "I told you, I'm prepared. That doesn't just mean condoms." She'll replace it before bringing in the next sap. Underneath the self-delusion, he'd known he was hurting her, and that if she spiraled this time it would be his fault. He'd decided that taking a means of protection was protecting her from herself. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. He'd left her vulnerable, and hit the blame at her. Thank God, she'd lobbed it back.

The bat's re-appearance was one of the few things they never discussed. At some point, he'd gotten inured enough to think man, I was a dick whenever he noticed it, without the accompanying rush of sickening shame. If she could associate the thing with its original purpose of keeping her safe, it was doing more good than leaning against a wall in the shed, waiting for one of the kids to continue on from T-ball and learn to pitch.

Today in particular, he'd give her anything to help her be comfortable. He cupped the heel of her right foot in his hand, kissed her ankle, and continued up the leg. He paused at the small surgical scar, running his tongue over the pink line. Those marks would continue to smooth out. The invisible effects were the ones that faded and flared. Convincing her that neither made her flawed had been his primary mission for the past year; some days requiring far more work than others.

When he got to her thigh, and turned too the left, she whined, sounding almost exactly like Ellie being petulant. "No time."

He knew exactly how much time they had,but he responded to the strain in her voice and caught her calves, spreading her legs as he placed them over his shoulders. She leaned back on her hands, revealing her flushed quim. "You're glistening, baby. Why not call me when you started feeling this?" She bit her lip, the habit that'd taken maybe an hour to reappear once the wires came traced squiggles on the inside of her thigh with a clawed hand. The whine repeated. "You wouldn't have had to worry about the time."

"Ellis…."

"The baby went down an hour ago." He leaned forward, kissing her belly, trailing the tip of his tongue over the spots he knew were ticklish. "What's the truth?"

"I didn't… Didn't wanna be all—" Her voice stumbled into a sigh as he set two fingers fingers onto her clit. "—last night…."

"Last night was last night. This is a whole new day."

"Yeah, but I'm…I didn't wanna be this way. All freak-outs and, mm, stress sex needy."

"First of all," he said, and then kissed her just to the side of his finger. "This was always going to be a big deal. Any time I downplayed it, I was humoring you, sorry." She laughed. "More importantly, I am here for whatever you need to get through it. All you have to do is use what you've learned, okay? That means?"

She scowled down at him. "Not doing flashcards right now, bub—Ohhh, fuck, yes." Her face changed completely as he closed his lips over the bud of her clit, sucking encouragingly. "Truth telling. Not ignoring…symptoms. C-communicating in the moment, and not…not just letting stuff go-oooh, Derek. Aaah… I can't—Oh! 'Can't' is not a bad word…. Shouldn't be ashamed of…of anything, ever, and you love me that's it, I said all of it, please, just—do that, do that more."

He was impressed that she'd stayed coherent enough to get through the list, given how quickly she devolved, her hips swirling with his tongue. She'd developed a habit of keeping her jaw clenched, moaning through her teeth, until her body remembered that her mouth could open. That passed quickly this time, and her voice filled the room. He couldn't imagine reaching a point where he took that for granted again; where every shift in pitch or tone wasn't meaningful. Where her every breath wasn't something miraculous.

Once upon a time, the sounds she made had been the only thing Meredith was shy about during sex. It wasn't until her roommates knew about him, and she'd still done her best to stifle herself that he'd understood that their first time might as well have been orchestrated for her comfort: a one-night stand in an empty house she'd planned to sell. He'd gotten through the don't-worrys and the I'm-fines by proving that he didn't see pleasuring her as a chore—a belief that'd originated from her self-worth issues, and been reinforced by screwing selfish, hurried people under twenty-five—it'd taken a while to get her to stop holding her voice back.

Her heels dug into his back as she dropped onto the bed, her right arm held against her belly. With the other hand she pushed his shoulder reluctantly, fighting herself. "You gotta—to-oh fuuck-n'okay, okay. Can't stop."

"Don't stop," he told her, drawing her hand down to replace his mouth as he moved. She mewled in objection, but her fingers were already at work. He watched her as she adjusted, rubbing frantically and then finding a stuttering rhythm.

"Hurry," she admonished, as he stroked himself to the beat of her frenetic movements. "I'm wet enough, I'm-" She arced, thrusting toward him. "Can't..."

"Come, if you're ready, love."

"I don't...I don't...I wanna…" She bucked as he pulled her toward him, and he ended up grabbing her legs again to hold her marginally still.

"Remember when you couldn't move?"

"Yeah," she panted. "Sucked." She groaned as he thrust into her. "Oh yeah, yeah that's... right there, I'm—" Her eyes went wide. "I'm gonna…. Shit! Der, I'm gonna leak." She twisted, trying to shrug off the sleeves of her dress. It'd been one of a least a dozen she'd pulled from the closet and unearthed from storage, insisting that she wasn't spending money on a new wardrobe for this. There'd been three that fit and were approved by the D.A., and Ellie was guaranteed to spit up on at least one.

"Okay, okay. Easy,I got it." He caught her shoulders, bringing his thumbs around the edge of her lapel. "Can I?"

She took a moment to nod. "Sorry."

"For what? Nothing's wrong."

"I'd been okay. For so long, I was okay."

"You're still okay," he assured her. "You've been better than okay. Today is not any other day. So, we're gonna deal with it one step at a time. Like we always do. You ready?"

"Mmhmm."

The dress was already undone far enough for him to tug it down her arms. "Off?" he asked, holding his hands above the clasp of her nursing bra. She nodded. "Can you tell me?"

She swallowed. "Yes."

"Thank you." Her breasts were full and the back of his hand brushed her nipple as he freed her from the garment. Her lips curled. "Still okay?"

"Yeah," she breathed. "Can you keep...? That felt nice."

"Like this?" He ran his knuckles over her in the same direction, trying to keep his touch light.

"More."

He rolled her nipple against the back of his hand, and he could feel the wave of pleasure grip her as she undulated under him. Her eyes closed and in the next breath shot open. She grabbed his wrist with her free hand.

"Stop! I can't..."

"Okay. That's okay."

"Not fair," she muttered. "Felt good."

"I know, baby." The tenderness brought on by her pregnancy with Ellie had been what got her to brave dealing with that issue. She'd been facing away from him, and suddenly yanked his hands up, leaving no question about what she needed. The sensitivity hadn't ebbed yet, which made backsliding more frustrating for her.

Lines set on her face as she processed, her hands ghosting his chest, searching for discoloration. "Nothin' wrong there, Mer. No broken vessels." He wished there were; that her struggling had left a viable mark on him, if only for her to see she was strong.

He re-adjusted his positioning over her. The delayed release, and the sudden flash between pleasure and disappointment had only made her more ready. Her breath quickened again, her fingers going from circling to frantic rubbing. "Oh, Mer. You're just about to explode, huh?"

"Uh-huh. O-Okay?"

"Yeah. That'll be so good, sweetheart."

She tensed with each ensuing shudder, grunting as she strained for the release it promised. He felt the tremor before her last cry cut off, and then her features settled into that feline smile of satisfaction. She didn't react to him nudging her hand out of place, and when he moved his thumb, she mewled with pleasure.

"We gotta go," she protested. "I'm…I finished."

"You did," he agreed. "Doesn't mean you're done." He kissed her, continuing to ease his thumb down until he felt her moan into his mouth. "Do you want me to stop?"

"Please…Please don't."

Soon she was writhing again,.the hand resting on her belly forming the letters for the instructions she wasn't quite managing to pronounce. Losing her words was usually not a good sign, but she yowled as he slid deeper into her, her voice clearly still hers.

Her legs wrapped around him, and her long fingers dug into the taut skin of her breasts. A tiny drip of milk seeped onto her finger when she touched her nipple, and her eyes went wide. The way she froze was so different than the way she had when she came. Her eyes shuttered, and her hands dropped into fists.

"Mer?"

She shook her head, drew in a jagged breath, and finally her face cleared, and she lunged upward, grabbing onto his shoulders. "Don't stop. I'm here. I don't want you to stop. I'm okay."

"Okay," he echoed. "I hear you." He kissed her as he thrust into her again, lifting her left hip off the bed to pull her noticed her hold becoming uneven, her left arm tugging less than the right, but he couldn't bare to make her wait again.

This time, she would have dirtied the dress.

He laid her back, as he caught his breath, pressing his lips to the scar on her neck. He'd noticed her touching it sometimes, and when he'd asked her about it, she'd hesitated long enough that he'd expected to find the answer in the journal the next time he found it in his bag.

"It reminds me I have a voice, and I need to use it," she'd said. "And I need to teach the kids to use theirs. I thought I knew that before, but... I know it more now."

For her birthday, he'd gotten her a thin gold chain with three birthstones embedded in it. She almost never took it off. "I'll wear my grandmother's freaking pearls," she'd informed the lawyer in response to the advice to wear it and draw the judge's eye. "My kids aren't part of this." They'd determined this judge was not an impressed-by-pearls type. Her neck was bare.

Burp cloths were ubiquitous around the house again, and he found a Muppet themed one from the bedside table drawer. When he held out to her, she shook her head.

"Please?" she murmured. Her eyes closed again as he mopped her up, but she smiled when they opened. "Thank you."

"Any time." He kissed her again, until they were interrupted by jingling dog tags. "She heard you. Must've thought something was wrong."

"Lies."

"I tell the truth," he said, reaching for the pants he'd dumped on the bed. "The whole truth, nothing but the truth."

"You're horrible!" She snapped her fingers, and Artemis happily leapt onto the bed. She'd stayed lean so far and stood at about waist height on Meredith, who was absolutely her human. The rest of them she loved, but they were not boss. Well. The baby would be, sooner than later; her vocal babbling wasn't clear yet, but her attempts to mimic signs were getting there.

"I'm not even giving testimony. It's a statement."

"You can still be nervous."

"Now, Derek, we've talked about this," she said, her mocking tone a little darker than usual. "I'm not nervous. I have trauma. "

"Speaking of—"

"The pills are in my purse. Crazy not stupid."

"Not crazy."

"Been crazy since before I met you. Traumatized and crazy are not mutually-exclusive."

"That doesn't mean you are. You do have to get dressed, though." He sat on the bed, scratching Artemis on the head before offering his hand to Meredith. She sat up, and he plucked her bra off the comforter.

She snatched it but winced as she brought it around to fasten, confirming his suspicion that she'd been favoring her left arm. Their eyes met."Don't tell Callie. She has a sex injury tally. She counts Ellie."

"Is it?" He tugged the top of her dress around to help her into the sleeve, and buttoned it, carefully.

"Have we decided if she was an accident?" She freed her hair from her collar, the dark red she'd put into it glinting in the morning light. He frowned at her, not sure what the right call was here. He might've bought her blithe tone if he hadn't caught the way her cheek dipped when she'd sucked it in. "It was probably already sore, yesterday. I lift Zo too much, and adjusting to so much microsurgery has me holding instruments too tightly again. Drives Amelia nuts." She pulled her legs up and crossed her arms over them, and then drew the left back. When he reached for it, she didn't resist. "Callie's lawyer made her wear hose."

"Not your style," he said, carefully palpating the joint.

"Nope, they only exist to make you not a bare-legged hussy, but they call them nude. Should put that in my statement."

"Especially the hussy part," he agreed, trying to match her tone. Proofing her early drafts had been a little like he imagined censoring a loose-lipped sailor's letter home before D-Day.

"Used to wear this dress with more buttons undone. Same basic idea as showing ankle. You got it, flaunt it, or whatever. I…I like it like that, and so do you, and…how can you be so normal? Last night, you didn't do anything wrong, or unusual, and I lost it on you. Full on lost it, tried to punt you off me, out of nowhere! That doesn't just kill the mood; it takes over the rest of the night. Then, this morning I was freaking on fire. Doesn't it make you think there's something not right about me? That maybe all the old ladies who used the word 'hussy' might've been onto something?"

"No," he said, earning him a bull-snort of annoyance.

He'd avoided arguing with her a long time, until the afternoon when she'd shouted, "I'm not goddam skitish, Derek. Loud voices don't bother me, because I couldn't hear! You wanna yell at me? Fucking yell at me!" He didn't even remember what the issue had been, only that her eyes had been about as furious as they were now. Fine. If she needed him to drown out what she was hearing in he head, he could do that.

"I'm sorry, I don't think that! You're not a whore, or a skank, and you're the one who says I'm just as much of a slut. Personally, I think it's a healthy way of dealing with the amount of stress you've been under."

"You would. Doesn't it frustrateyou when I end up crying in a corner, because you brushed my goddam leaky tits?" She thrust her chest toward him, and he sat his ground.

"Sure, I'm human, I like screwing you, it's not a thrill to have that cut short, but if you're panicking I'm less worried about blueballs than I would be getting a page. Do I love your breasts? Absolutely. They're beautiful, they've fed our babies, and they are yours. Veto rules apply! It's no different than—"

"It is! It's different. It's not a blocked duct! I take the meds, I took the Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing seriously, I did the CBT worksheets, and sixteen months from now, I could knee you in the 'nads, because you aren't ready for me to freak-out while you fuck—"

"I will be."

"You shouldn't be."

"I'm not going to apologize for paying attention while I make love to you, or screw you, or fuck you."

"Goddamn it!" Meredith's fists slammed onto the comforter, causing Artie to look up, concerned. "I get it, okay? I'm being a bitch to you for being good to me, and it's not the first time, or the hundredth. I'm lucky you tolerate it. Lucky the meds help. Lucky I can stand for day-long procedures. Lucky I've never bolted from the OR. That being strangled didn't give me brain damage! I'm lucky he didn't find a locked door; that he didn't spy on a pharmacy tech and steal a syringe. I'm lucky he didn't grab a sharp, strip me, pin me to the gurney. I am so damn lucky, and sometimes I think it'd be easier if I wasn't! If he'd just tried to put his prick in me, I might not be able to let you touch me at all, but that would make sense!" At the end of that pronouncement, she caved into herself, her forehead bumping against her arm. "I'm a terrible person."

He waited, watching her breathe before he put his hand on her back. "What's the truth?"

"I am. I'm disturbed. Who says that? Who thinks it? That she'd rather have been raped because it's less complicated? Someone who hasn't been through anything."

"Well, that's not you."

"It is," she insisted. "He didn't get under my clothes! The things that happened in the actual statements I read? What happened to me is nothing. I-I thought….I worked with combat vets for six months!Their stories arebrutal, but I didn't…l mostly didn't.…" Her ribs expanded in the lead up to a scream of frustration, and her shoulders slumped again. "It's easier not to compare in a totally different context."

Jesus, what had she found? To think, the work with the VA been the research he'd worried about. Before her maternity leave, she'd gone back to part-time teaching, and as a primary researcher on Owen and Callie's project. It'd helped her get on track for the sixth/seventh year residency plans he'd started for her, and altered for Lexie. ("You didn't even get to update them for Mousy. I've already died—Amy, too, and you wouldn't even teach her!— Someone oughta warn Edwards.")

"You're not a terrible person. You went through something terrible," he said, working on the knots in her spine. "It's different from anyone else's situation, and it's okay to wish it was simpler. He's only being sentenced for part of what he did. You were impacted by more than those thirty seconds, and writing your statement brought that into the foreground. It's not fair, either, especially when they said the guilty plea would made things faster."

"Speedy trial my ass," she muttered."Timing blows." The sentencing had been postponed enough times for her to stop quipping about about losing her hearing, and was finally happening on the Friday before she became a sixth-year in a five-year program, and after the anniversary of her mother's breakdown. Last year had been the first after Maggie appeared in their lives; she'd been pregnant, and she hadn't said a word about it. Last week, she'd closed herself in the study to work on her statement and hadn't said a word at all.

"But it doesn't….Ishouldn't be punting you! The baby's six months old." She lifted her head enough to put her hand under her chin. "I expected the C-section would be rough. Didn't think it'd be emergency, but it was going to be hard, whether or not they were all up in my snatch. A C was the best option. VBAC was the kind of fate-tempting I don't do anymore. Whatever. I—we got through it. I thought I was…that that part was better. I know it doesn't work that way." She sniffed, and he wiped a tear away from the corner of her eye.

"Mer, the other times that's happened, you've gone away. Last night you stayed."

"I fought to," she said, softly. "I can't, always. I bolt."

"Not the same." She hadn't come close to bolting in months. But that wasn't a helpful observation when willpower didn't always come into the equation. "I'd rather see you run a hundred times than have you go away the way you do if I hu—touch you the wrong way. It's nothing like your zoning out."

"You were gong to say, 'hurt me.'" A different version of distress crossed her face, taking the vexation with it and leaving concern behind. She sat up at that, her legs curling to the side to put her closer to him. "Derek, if I strained my bum elbow, it's not your fault. I wasn't fighting you. It's the feeling of being there. I hate it. I hate that it's still in me. The anger…fucking madness…it's suffocating. I don't know what puts me in the headspace. You get me me out."

"You don't…."

"I didn't think you were him. I never have."

Freezing had roots in the threat of further violation, but what came next had reinforced by the liberties treatment had required. She ran if she felt too seen; he didn't think that originated from the attack itself. The flashes that came with panic were the most tied to those thirty seconds. She'd fought, then. She fought against bolting. She fought herself. Of course she did.

"I still…. I never want…You're always so scared, Mer." He shook his head. "I'm sorry. Today isn't—"

"Try again, buddy." She wrapped her hand around his wrist, pressing her fingers to his pulse. "All the times you've had to repeat the same old lines to me? I can do that, too. You do not hurt me. You do not scare me. You didn't beat me up. Before I knew how to use my body, I knew to fear that someone else would. You don't have to invite a stranger into your bedroom for it to happen, and…and yeah, we both know there's a goddamn bat under the bed, because that never totally disappears, but I don't remember feeling safe the way I do with you. Do. Did. In the hospital. At home. Even when you're not with me, because you will be." She kissed him like she was sealing a promise. "You…you've touched me more than anyone in my life, and never...I don't…I don't know what words I want. Your intent…it's not just never wanting to hurt me, it's maybe…taking care? And you don't treat me like I'm a broken robot."

"Uh, no?" He'd missed a trick there. Until recently she'd been so twisted up in his day-to-day that there weren't many of those.

"Cristina spooked at the idea of Owen…being her carer, basically, because her mom's whole thing was interceding under that guise. My whole life, my mom said, 'take care of yourself,' but I didn't know what that looked like. You show me. You don't just say 'I'll take care of you,' and do things. You ask, you offer, you explain. You haven't always loved me, but you even then, it was more than respect. Every time you touched me mattered."

He could hardly remember what touching her before loving her, but there'd been at least one night—nine years ago next week—where he'd expected to never encounter her again. Had he understood that she could be bossy without actually telling him what to do? Had he cradled the back of her head to keep her expression in view? The only light inside had come from the foyer.. Her eyes had been the bright point in a room of shadows cast by her mother's boxes.( Jesus. He'd save that one for the next time she needed to laugh.) He remembered flipping her. Kissing her breasts and moving down. He could hear her saying, "Oh, that's okay," even as her hips started rolling on the cushion, using that small, self-depreciating tone that'd crept in and out of her voice again in the past sixteen months. Could remember pausing, saying, "C'mon, honey, let me take care of you." Was it all from that night he, or was he filling in words from the other times her eagerness had become hesitancy if she thought the scales were uneven? He did know he'd called her "honey" because of her hair, and was certain that it'd been their second night together when she'd threatened to twist his balls off if he said it again.

"When I couldn't hear Alex got a crash course in being my person, and it wasn't his first—" Suddenly, she snickered and waved a hand in front of her face. "Sorry. It's rodeo, right? That's the say-it?"

"Correct," he said. Zola got so mad now whenever they mentioned "an old say-it," and it was adorable. So was the pink rising in Meredith's cheeks.

"He's got an uncle…. I'll tell you later. It wasn't his first crazy lady's bedside, not even the first crazy lady with a broken face, but… I couldn't always…we'd been friends so long, just,…."

"Not your person."

"Not you. I could be so out of it, but if I could find where your hand was, I was okay. If I could find your eyes, you'd see what I needed. It's not like we'd never done the major injury thing before, but this was…. I couldn't just let the doctors and nurses do their jobs, and if I cringed or flinched, you stepped in. With the major stuff, but also such tiny things, like swabbing my lips, and brushing my hair. The times you took the PCA pump over for me? You knew I was in pain before I did. Hell, you knew when my nose itched."

"Not that difficult. You were scrunching it like a rabbit." He didn't like remembering sitting beside her in that ICU bed, staring at her face, so bruised that it was easy to see the blue of oxygen-deprivation, but that would always stand out. "That…that was the first thing that made you smile. I've never been so glad you think I'm ridiculous."

"Don't take this the wrong way, but I thought you were a genius." She squeezed his wrist. "Tell me your side?"

"Uh, it was sometime between Friday and Saturday. Days three and four. You were…miserable doesn't cut it. In agony might not. Hardly conscious, sweaty from the pain, and the splint, and the cast. Repositioning you in any way that might help obviously increased the vertigo. The morphine made you a little less restless, but you're so sensitive to it. The tape from your IV was rubbing a raw spot right here—" He tapped the tip of her nose, and grinned when she wiggled it pulling away. "—and you'd just keep rubbing off the vaseline until I could convince someone from the weekend Pain Management Team to switch you to something that didn't make you so itchy. I wrote those policies, and there wasn't…." He hesitated and took in what she'd been saying. "It felt like there wasn't anything I could do for you. Then your nose started wiggling, like when you're doing it on purpose to make our babies laugh and I could take care of that one irritant. Your eyes opened just enough for me to watch you go cross-eyed, like you had to confirm that I was doing what you thought I was doing, and then…it's not that I didn't know you'd be okay, but when you smiled…you were there."

Meredith worked her hand down from his wrist, taking his and lacing their fingers. "You were there. Those days... It's all pretty bleary. I remember thinking I was a doctor, I shouldn't be confused or…or scared. I couldn't track the days, or what was pain meds, and what was anesthetic. I kept hearing Mom, and I thought I'd died again, but it'd gone wrong and I was stuck in my rigored body. Someone was always doing something, and if I had been able to hear..." Her other hand went to Artie's back. "Think it'd have been bad. What I could see was so distorted, sometimes because of the drugs; sometimes the swelling. The concussion, too, I guess. The dark helped me tell I wasn't in that room, but, um, it made it hard to track movement. I…I think neuro checks might've actually been the start of me using the CNS to keep sane. The penlight, I could follow. Felt like Callie was constantly messing with my leg, didn't understand why I couldn't hear, or what was going on with my throat. I'd think it was stupid to be confused or scared. I was a doctor. Never, ever tell me being a visitor is repetitive."

He cleared his throat as he laughed. She'd dropped hints at parts of this. He'd known the first two weeks had lingered in her mind past the EMDR, theoretically because she couldn't make a cohesive narrative of them. That the morphine dreams stayed vivid while her moments of consciousness were blurry. There were times when saying her name, or even snapping for Artie to get on the bed could settle her sleep, more where she fished her earbuds out of the drawer in the middle of the night.

"Wouldn't be true," he said. "You kept them from blending."

"You were gonna get plenty of blending." She grimaced. "Do braces taste all metallic, or was that not being able to open my lips at first?"

"Probably that. So much for getting out of being a metal-mouth, huh?"

"Still didn't come with headgear, Mr. Face of the Hospital."

"Really want that sixth grade picture on the fridge?" he teased. She looked baffled. "It's sixth grade, right? With the bangs?"

"Yeah," she said, her voice just a tiny bit mystified.

She'd seen how enchanted the kids were by "little Momma," but was still surprised he could pull them to mind. It made him think of the school pictures all but littering his mother's house, every kid and grandkid displayed.

"Anyway. The taste wasnasty, and I only had so much stimuli to focus on. The longer it went on, the more fragments there were in my head. Memories, flashbacks, nightmares: they were all part of this bad trip, except I couldn't just come to on the floor of a warehouse, put the purple pills on the list of shit to avoid, and get on with my life. I'd wake up for a while, but if I didn't wanna lose my mind from the pain, I had to give into it…." The depth of her breath signaled that she was remembering she could breathe. "I never woke up alone. Not once in two weeks. Most of the time, you were there. You were watching.

"You've watched me from the start, and there were points where I didn't know how to take it, but…I couldn't hide from you." She'd let her hair curtain her face, and she tucked it back to look at him again. "I'm not saying you should always be able to predict me. Where's the fun there? Just, even with how I've changed, you know me. Do I worry that I'm more dissertation then project, and you'd rather move to Borneo and be waited on by cabana girls? Sure. Sometimes I'd rather do that than wash another load of onesies. We've tried letting each other go. We're not good at it."

"We are not. Cabana in Borneo?"

She giggled. "I don't know things. That's what I have you for."

"Is it?" he asked, dryly.

Her smile didn't flicker. "Yup. I've…I've needed a lot of watching for the past year. I try really hard not to be sorry, but it'd be easier if you told me more things like that. We talk about everything except how it was for you. How it is. I think you're trying to make up for not being here, but I don't know."

He shouldn't feel like her fastballs were coming from left field. This was classic; the last time they'd gotten notice of a postponement, it'd been impossible to change the subject from Zola's kindergarten enrollment. At the end of summer, she'd start at the school near the hospital:,the one Meredith had thought she'd attend before she'd known where Boston was. He could probably bat the conversation that way, or toward Ellie's teething, or Bailey coloring in the lines. Doing so would be a foul.

"It's not…not that exactly. I needed to take the job to understand that I didn't want it. I do feel bad for being gone when it happened, I always will. But also…I'm still grappling with all the damage I could've avoided if I hadn't kept playing the same cards. We've come so far. I don't want to get wrapped up in myself, and start it up again."

"I won't let you," she said, decisively. "I have a new definition of whole and healed. I don't drive myself nuts wondering if you meant something. You don't go sulk like a wounded animal. We've got three full journals proving that. I love how well I know you now. How you think, and how you feel things. And you've gotta be doing that today."

"Uh, yeah," he allowed. He didn't want to elaborate. They could debrief about him another time; there'd be plenty of it. He wasn't batting anything away, exactly. She lifted his hand, putting it to her heart. The beat was calm. Steady. Try me. "I'm…I'm afraid I'll fail you. That as much as I don't want to, I'll do something that makes you uneasy."

"You're not the only person who'll be there for me." Incredible, improbable woman that she was, she beamed at him. "If I'm allowed to bolt so are you. Read it." She pointed at the white board fixed to the wall beside the reframed Post-it. The top line had been written in Sharpie. BOLTING IS NOT RUNNING — YOU COME BACK

"General 'you,'" she declared. "Doesn't say 'Meredith comes back.'" She leaned against his shoulder. "You can go be mad. Just come back. If you ask me to keep you there, I will do what I have to do, because you know I don't want to hurt you. That's how it works."

That wasn't something he could argue against.

The first time she'd run, he hadn't been ready. He couldn't have anticipated the news of a plane crash that''d sent her from waiting for him at Dr. Wyatt's to the closet closest to the (new) door of his office. He also hadn't known she could run. It'd turned out that "could" hadn't been equivalent to "should." He'd learned the tells; she'd learned to anticipate the impulse, but neither of them were quick enough to avoid setbacks altogether. Grabbing her cane was not an ingrained habit.

The first time she'd signed "run" at him from across a room, she'd been returning from the restroom at her birthday dinner, and balked at a crowd that was being seated. He'd only been able to send Wilson to follow. The check had been on the table, but in her opinion, she hadn't made it through.

The next time they'd been at the park for Bailey's second birthday party. She'd been sick that week—six weeks pregnant, it'd turned out—but when he'd caught her eye he'd known nausea wasn't the issue. "Please just hold me here," she'd murmured when he managed to get to her through the knots of parents and preschoolers. "I wanna run, and I need to stay."

Between her knee and the baby, letting her go had never become ideal, but he'd prioritized not hurting her. Only once had he felt it was worth taking the risk of grabbing her. In retrospect, it was the only time she'd really been running from him. He'd found her standing in the kitchen in the middle of a panic attack, and she'd tried to take off into winter rain. He hadn't been sure she could take another fall. It'd been so close to the anniversary, and she'd barely healed from Ellie's birth. He'd caught her at the door, and she'd struggled for a moment that might as well have been forever before crumbling.

Artemis has been ready to follow her outside, and as soon as they'd gotten to the couch, had jumped into her lap. Meredith had buried her face in the dog's ruff, trying to protest her fineness through angry, exhausted tears.

"Truth, Mer."

"I...I don't wanna be... I can deal, and...and you had to... Another C, another catastrophe. It started all whatever, baby blues, twisty Meredith, but then... Ellie and I weren't even alone, you and the kids had Artie at the pond, and...and—she was asleep, Derek, she was safe."

"Of course she was. You've never put our children in danger."

"I hafta protect them. To be aware. It can't be all on you. We're…we're a team?"

"Absolutely." That had been the mantra while she was pregnant and still having semi-regular episodes. She'd feel guilty about putting the kids in his charge after work, and start in on being broken again. "You said it started then. How often?"

She'd shrugged. He couldn't think ofmany times she'd been close to alone with the month-old baby, but he could imagine her waking in the small hours and being overwhelmed by the quiet of the house.

"It's okay. You're not expected to be right back to where you were at the end of December." He'd gone over what she'd said again. She had to be aware. Very attentive to keeping his voice level, he'd shared his conclusion. "You're not taking anything when it happens."

"I can't."

He'd been lost. It wasn't self-sabotage, he'd known that much. The shame about needing meds had been an issue while she'd been working. (There had been lost licenses, he knew, but he'd like to see someone try with the support she would garner.)

"You know none of your medications affect her?"

"Yeah."

"Do they make you drowsy? Your body chemistry—"

"They make me less aware of what could happen."

"Less hyperaware of what won't happen."

"They could! Babies suffocate. They get kidnapped from grocery stores. Cars crash, planes fall out of the sky. You can't just go around confident that just because nothing bad is happening, nothing bad will!"

"I know. You've learned that the hard way so many times. But...could you have ever anticipated what did happen? You hadn't seen him in decades; there were no threats, the hospital had security protocols. We're ready for what we can foresee. Ellie is safe. That doesn't mean there's no danger. It means there's no danger that can be anticipated or prevented."

"It'd still be—" She'd paused and shook her head. "It'd feel like my fault."

"Why?"

"Because I wish it hadn't happened, and...I swear I don't, I don't...don't wish she…. I love her so much. H-How can I wish for anything to be different?"

"Sweetheart. Ellis Caroline Shepherd is not a consequence of the assault. She just came after. I would've come home. I can't imagine staying there past the end of January. February? March? No way. I'd have come home, and your not-all-that-hostile uterus would have known that her genes exactly were the baby we needed to have. The baby who loves the grunge music that helps you focus, and already smiles on ferryboats."

"Epigenetics," she'd countered, and then smiled.

"You're mocking me."

"Challenging you. That's why you love me, right?"

"It's...I love that about you. I don't think I have a why for loving you these days. I just love you."

"Same,"she'd signed as she yawned. Her jaw cracked, and she'd shuddered. She hated that on good days.

"Okay, tonight, you sleep. Tomorrow, we'll call Wyatt. You might need a different dosage of the baseline meds."

"I do take those." She'd sounded like Bailey when he was afraid of being in trouble. "I should—"

"Nope. You're having a flare-up of a chronic illness. The medications control symptoms so you can live your life. Suffering through can cause further trauma."

"No kidding," she'd said, staring out to the rain. "Sorry I tried to bolt. I just didn't want you to see. It wasn't rational." Meredith had said, curling up under his arm. Somewhere she did believe he wasn't going anywhere.

It would've been easy to think she'd been a completely different person thirty minutes earlier, but she needed to know he didn't see her that way. He'd been unable to protect her so many times, but he'd been there for this part, the aftermath, and that was what she hadn't had without him.

"I will continue my quest to convince Ellie that bottles aren't poison. They are, in fact, a combination of her two favorite things: binkies and Momma milk."

"She came out of me. Even on good days, we get suspicious if it feels like we have everything."

The suspicious baby had woken, then. It wasn't until after Meredith had feed her, and they'd both fallen asleep that he'd taken that statement apart. On good days, she felt like she had everything.

Spring was usually difficult for her, but that year it'd been a season of revival. He'd been impressed by her through the previous summer. Circumstances hadn't been ideal for a pregnancy, and returning to work, even part-time, had been stressful. She'd turned a corner around Halloween, and at the time he hadn't realized anything was missing. It took watching her fire rekindle after the postpartum relapse for him to see that spark that'd been intermittent for a long time before he'd left for the NIH had become constant.

The bad days became bad hours, bad minutes. She'd started teaching again, alternating the rest of her time between the skills lab and the office she'd more or less taken over. There'd almost always been at least one child with her; Ellie in her carrier, or Bailey coloring at the desk. Zola had perfected her reading skills "helping Mommy study." Meredith's eyes had only gotten more sparkly.

They were sparkling at him now, even though he could see the day ahead looming in them. "Nothing you do today will be wrong." she said. "Except that," she added as he toyed with the hem of her dress.

"My hand's down here."

"Is that supposed to convince me you'll keep it there?"

"Oh, I didn't say that."

"We have to go."

"Not quite yet." He moved the dress up higher, revealing her underwear. "Went with the comfy undies?"

"This dress doesn't show a pantie line. The last thing I want today is a thong crawling up my ass. I know, not what you'd expect from a bare-legged hussy. I'm a contrad—" He covered her mouth with his, and she shifted onto her knees to give herself the height advantage. Sometimes, she still kissed like being able to open her mouth for him was a gift that could be revoked.

"You don't meet expectations," he said, moving his hand to the front of her underwear, massaging her mons and pulling the fabric below it as he did so. "You are gorgeous, and brilliant, and determined." He pressed his fingers against her vulva through the fabric of her panties. "It's not stress that's got you running hot today." He breached the elastic on her left thigh, finding the hood of her clit and flicking his thumb back and forth over it. "It's power. You have so much of that. In your voice. Your spirit."

He brought his index finger up, watching her face for the flinch that meant she wasn't ready to have direct contact. It didn't come. She pouted at him sliding his hand out, and he sucked on the extended lower lip, drawing her up to tug her underwear off her ass to stretch between the crooks of her knees.

"No one's given that to you. It's all you, Mer."

Her head tipped back as he positioned his hand under her, bending his middle finger up to tweak her glans. Her lips curled into a smile, and repetition brought the tiny quick moans she'd self-deprecatingly call hooting. He kissed her temple.

He kept an eye on the time, and the baby monitor, but he was listening to Meredith. She exclaimed as he slid the finger down and put one down on either side, but almost immediately looped her right arm around his neck to support herself as she bore down against him.

"Harder?"

"Yeah." He compressed the erect tissue more with each circle until her determined grunts stopped. "Oh, better. So better."

He lost her sometimes, here. Having her body ensnared in bliss gave her mind a chance to engage. Once she'd started telling him things, it'd been like having a drawbridge lowered to let him past her mental walls. Today the goal was to keep her with him.

He reached his thumb down, and carefully stroked his nail over the puffy tissue of her labia. She squirmed, her moans rising in pitch. He brought his other hand down, tickling the skin as lightly as he could. Meredith's mouth latched onto his neck, and hearing her scream through the vibrations against his skin made him mentally echo her lament about timing.

"There's a silver lining in these clouds. Sweetheart."

She flicked his earlobe with her tongue. Nothing she did ever made him want to stop saying the corny things she claimed to hate, and she must've figured that out by this point. She shifted her lips to his, and her panting moans sped up. He swapped actions, withdrawing the majority of the pressure from the top of her clit.

"Fuuuck," she groaned. When she started straining toward the teasing brushes he switched again, and she gasped at the trailing of his nails against the sides of her labia. The third time he returned firmly to her clit, her whole body quivered, including the tattling muscle below her started rocking urgently, and he moved his left hand to catch her before her ass slammed down on her heels. The annoyed moue barely reached her face before he got his palm over her clit.

"I've got you, love. You wanna stretch your leg out?"

"Uh-uh. S'good, promise." She gasped again, a shudder coursing through her before she moaned. "Crap, gonna come so hard."

"That's the plan." He didn't care if he ended up being the one kneeling in a public restroom, if it helped, but this was the best chance to even out her stress level. With that in mind, he kept stroking as he rubbed her, drawing scarce quotes on either side of her cunt. Her neck was turning pink, the color spreading down to her cleavage. Shit.

"Mer, let me—"

"Almost, and we can go."

"Meredith, your— "

"S'uh strong, Der. So good."

She wasn't hearing him. Thirty seconds ago, that would've been great. He could pretend not to have thought of it. Sure, smart Shepherd, and what do you do when she sniffs out the lie, today of all days? He just hadn't considered it in time. True enough? No, she was going to kill him, regardless, and he didn't have time to determine what would make her more merciful. The look she gave him when he paused was anything but. If there hadn't been lasers shooting out of her eyes, he might've made the ultimate mistake of smiling at it.

"Your dress, that's all." He brought his free hand up to her collar, and she grabbed his wrist. "I'm just going to—"

"Screw the dress," she ground out and then blinked, almost like she had coming to herself the night before. "Sorry! There's a D.A. approved extra extra, and it's washable, and I don't ca—"

He swallowed her next words and unpaused, kissing her until she arched back, gasping. "You don't care. That's all I wanted to know." He smoothed her hair. She hadn't styled it yet, but that didn't mean she needed him to muss it more. "What do you want, Mer?"

I wa—I just want…oh, fuck." She clenched her thighs around his hand. "It's too much. Der, it's too much."

"That's what it feels like," he agreed, wrapping his arm around to provide resistance against the small of her back. "What's the truth?"

"I... I'm almost... almost... almost there, I'm—oh yeah, oh yeah, just don't stop—holy shit, don't stop. Keep me here, Derek, please, keep me...oh yes, yes!" She jerked backward, and he moved his hand up to rest between her shoulder blades, propelling her upward when her body sagged. With her head on his shoulder, he put his other arm under her knees, swinging them so that she was sitting across his lap. "Knee's okay. Dress too," she mumbled.

"Good to know. I'd hate to waste Ellie's elevenses."

"She's spoiled." He raised his eyebrows. The baby wasn't taking herself out of daycare multiple times a day. "Shut up your face."

"Good idea, save your charm for later."

"I was never scared of talking to lawyers. Shouldn't a kid be scared, and an adult not?"

"Not when it's a kid who's an expert at answering adult questions compared to a adult who hates admitting that something impacted her. Besides—"

"Being scared isn't the same as not being brave. Blah, blah, blah, pretty on the inside, I know what I tell the kids, and you're just trying to help." She flopped her arm over her mouth and emitted a shriek of frustration. "I hate being a victim."

"You were victimized. That's what he did. I'm not sure there's a word for how you've kept going."

She started to turn away, and he brushed the knuckle of his thumb over her cheekbone, nudging her to keep facing him. She sighed and made eye contact. "Used to."

"Still do. Were cornered, assaulted, and had eight bones in your body broken by someone you'd considered a friend. You've healed, started working as much as you could, started pursuing a new field, and, what else? Right, had a baby. You're a fantastic mom, and such a good instructor that you're going to end up taking a whole resident when you officially switch services."

"Don't be silly. I've had Wilson for ages. You think Zola was the only one holding my flashcards? Besides, she needs neuro hours. There's favoritism, and there's Amelia and Edwards. That's codependency."

He raised his eyebrows at her, and took the opportunity. She'd taken to bending one hand over the other in meetings, and whenever Maggie noticed her signing "hypocrite" at people,she couldn't keep a straight face.

"Touché," she muttered in response to the sign, shooting a finger in his direction. For once it was the index.

"What I was getting at is that you are good at teaching. Kids and adults. So, go up there today and teach. That's all you have to do."

"That's…not bad advice."

"And I thought you kept me around for the sex."

"You've got me at a vulnerable moment, but if we're being honest, you know that's a side benefit right?"

"I had a suspicion. It's mostly the knowing things."

"Truth," she agreed, and then winked at him. Power. He hadn't been kidding about that. "Mm, listen, your daughter's ready for second breakfast."

He caught the sound of Artemis's tags jingling over the monitor, followed by Ellie babbling; most of their family was convinced that the two understood each other.

"She's going to need a new outfit, with the way our lives work," Meredith said. "Can we let them keep each other company for one more minute?"

He took her hand, turning it over to look at her watch. "Yeah."

"I don't want to run," she clarified. "I really, really want to stay." Her skin had already returned to its natural pallor, making her scar stand out, especially without the necklace that usually transversed it. He brushed it with the back of his finger, and she sighed. "I need to go. For the record? I'd…I'd do it, regardless, because it's the right thing. I wouldn't be alone, because there's always a whole hospital involved in my drama, but with you there, I know that it's like everything else. We're going to come back here at the end of the day. We'll have three kids who need to eat, and be tucked in, and a dog who likes walking in the rain. Our lives will keep going until the next big thing. That could happen tomorrow; it could happen in ten years. We're not going to know, so…. As much as anyone can, I know what's next."

Her smile was wavering, because what was imminent was less certain, but it was enough to see that she trusted wholeheartedly in what she'd said. She wasn't afraid that he'd leave for Bethesda, or punish her for something that'd happened at work, a fear that'd cropped up more than once over the year. She trusted that he'd stay by her side in the courtroom. And she had the confidence to know she could've handled it on her own.

"Mer, whatever happens I'm about a million times happier than I was that day."

Her brow furrowed, lines forming at the corners of her eyes, and then giving way to others as her expression changed, her lips twisting gradually from a line to a smile. "It's scary, but…me too." She signed "same," along with her words, underlining their significance.

He held her tighter, keeping her watch turned toward him. He was going to give her until the last second to face this. If the baby demanded their attention before that, he could always bring her in. It would be her introduction to dealing with problems as a family.

Might as well start as you meant to go on.

"Your honor, my name is Dr. Meredith Grey. I'm a surgeon and a board member at Grey+Sloan Memorial Hospital. I was at work when I was sought out and attacked by the defendant, Felix O'Grady, on January sixteenth of last year. It was a Tuesday morning. I'd taken my children to daycare and was paged to consult in the emergency room. I had no reason to expect that investigating an open door on the authorized-personnel side of the corridor would lead to being grabbed and assaulted by a man I hadn't seen since I was fifteen.

"The Department of Veterans Affairs reports that sixty percent of American men and fifty percent of women experience a trauma in their lives. There's no certain way to avoid developing Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in the aftermath, but studies show that protective factors include having social support, disclosing the event to loved ones, and experiencing positive emotions. This was not the first trauma I've experienced in my life; nor was it the first time I've been endangered at the hospital where I felt safe. I was surrounded by the same patient people, married to the same loving man. I had two happy children. The flashbacks, nightmares, and panic are a direct result of this specific event.

"As soon as I stepped within arm's length of him, Felix wrapped his hands around my throat, in an attempt at strangulation. This caused damage to my larynx. My dislocated jaw had to be forced open to preserve my airway, and it was wired shut for six weeks. Combined, these injuries kept me from speaking. At some point while he shook me and swung me around the room, a change of pressure caused barotrauma, resulting in temporary hearing loss in both last thing I heard for twelve days was him saying that he wished he'd facrored in time to rape me. Within moments of grabbing me, he'd groped me, and at some point before he threw me to the ground, I registered that he had become erect.

"The next thing I knew, I was surrounded by familiar faces. They were putting all possible effort into reassuring me, but thanks to the ghost of Felix's touch, all I could feel beyond pain was panic. My lung collapsed, which required the insertion of a chest tube. It took six days and two surgeries for the eight broken bones and two dislocations to be stabilized. I have hardware in my knee and rib-cage, and was casted from the left foot to thigh, and hand to shoulder. I had a severe concussion, and I might never stop assuming that every headache is a sign of Post-Concussion Syndrome. My son was still nursing at the time, which meant that along with being washed and catheterized, I had to have my breasts handled by colleagues before anyone knew about that part of the attack. Once I could hear, I was afraid to let my children see me for another week. If not for them, and that I could differentiate between my attacker's hands and my husband's, I have no doubt that my situation would be exponentially worse.

"An additional risk factor for PTSD is simply being female. Eight out of a hundred women versus four out of a hundred men will develop PTSD, Women are more likely to experience childhood neglect or abuse, domestic violence, or sudden loss of a loved one. I'm two for three. One in three women will experience sexual assault in their lifetime. Men who hurt us might say that this is because women are weak. Research suggests the opposite.

"I have experienced the fight, flight, or flee instinct more times than I can say. Being crowded, being alone, certain sounds—they still make me feel like I am being held down and have to escape. However, in a 2000 Psychological Review article Shelley E. Taylor presents the "tend and befriend" theory. Believed to be related to Oxytocin, this research suggests that women cope with stress by maintaining social networks, and caring for those around them. I have frequently been the one managing care after the disasters, both because of my job, and in catastrophic situatuions where my loved ones were severely injured. I imagine there is a social component to which of these tactics is displayed during a traumatic event. I resist believing that I do anything because I am a woman, because I was raised by a single mother who—rightly—taught me I could do anything my male peers could do. I wanted to raise my daughters to think the only difference between them and their brother was physical. Fundamentally, medically, I think it is. Gender is a construct. But ninety-one percent of sexual assault and rape victims are identified as female. Ninety-nine percent of perpetrators are male. All other factors being equal, his homophobia might have protected me from that threat of violation, if I had been male, but the attack would still have been rooted in his sense of ownership over women, and, in all likelihood, the kind of biphobia rooted in disdain of femininity—though gender and sexuality are independent traits. ButI'm a woman, and taking advantage did not inspire any shame in him whatsoever.

"When my mother taught me men were dangerous, I thought she meant emotionally. She'd been devastated by a lover, and shut herself off from what she called 'sentimentality.' There was shame in being soft. I thought of myself as as tough as any boy, and it took me a long time to be able to identify my emotions and to accept being cared about. As an adult, I've met my share of good guys and assholes. I've seen women exactly like me hurt by someone who claims to love them. What's shameful is that I thought avoiding dark alleys and never leaving a drink unattended made me better than others. Now, I still believe that it's emotion that makes a percentage of men violent: theirs. Not being able to process or speak out about them, being taught that breaking down is weakness, isolating and lashing out in the face of loss.

"The cliché is to say that I haven't been broken by this, or to say I've bounced back stronger than ever. I don't know. I don't know if the good things that have happened in my life over the past eighteen months would've happened regardless, or if the negatives would've been easier. I'm not up here looking for restitution or vengeance. I think people can change; and deserve the chance to do so. This was not a crime of opportunity. It was not a surge of anger taken out on a stranger. Although our paths had crossed in the past, and he believed he could claim some form of unprovoked vengence, the truth is that the severity of the attack and the motivations behind it were caused not by my actions, either in 1993 or 2013, but by Felix O'Grady's lifelong belief in the inherent inferiority of women, particularly the sister whom he claims as his other half. If he displays remorse and an ability to control his anger, and understands that he can claim no woman's spirit or body—including Felicia's—at the point where he's eligible for parole, perhaps he will be deemed able to return to the society my children will be living in. He is not anywhere close to that point now.

"Lixir, it's not me I think you need to hear from."

[Dr. Grey turns on a tape player. Transcription provided below]

"'This Felicia O'Grady and I'm reading is a poem titled 'twin entity' from volume one issue one of my 'zine 'Sororal Fraternal:'

If we're a twintity

Who gets the identity?

You say the boy and you're wrong

He doesn't have a favorite song

Why can't I have the voice

When I'm the one who makes the choice?

Caterpillars in the same cocoon

One of each such a boon!

Such luck! We'll raise them just the same

They will even share a name

What if we had fraternal little dicks?

Would we be Fe and Lix?

God divided the world in half

Said who can cry soft and who can laugh

Little loud Lissy let Lixir lead

We share every song every book we read

Brother, twin built-in best friend

Always someone to follow the same trend

A boy not meeting high expectations

A girl running from undeserved reputation

We want you to do all you can do

Be safe, keep a man beside you.

Was every single cunt

Among the sapiens out on the hunt

Only a sheath for fragile cocks

That might get BASHED BASHED BASHED by rocks

Or were they better at stalking quiet

Never imagining we'd need to RIOT

Against meatheads who think they're strong

And take such pride in a crooked dong

Don't believe that you're not free

Those little things are so petty petty

Princess. No longer locked in a tower

Being told it's wrong to cower

Teach the lady's team self-defense

But going further you cause offense.

Say we're carved from one stone

Male and female never one alone

If you have to search for your mate

Going out in the world discovering fate

When you're partnered in a womb

What's the goal before the tomb?'[

Tape player clicks off.]

The young man had light brown hair and wore glasses that made her think hipster. There was something familiar about the shape of his chin, but it wasn't until he spoke, and that she knew who he must be.

"Excuse me, Mered—ah, Dr. Grey?" Boston, it was there in all his vowels, but also the way he started to say "Mer-a-deth" that was uniquely East Coast to her.

"Ricky." He wasn't nearly his brother's size, but she could see in his build that he might've been if several years of growth hadn't been stunted by poison in the form of medicine. From the D.A.'s office, she'd learned that he'd gone through another battle with osteosarcoma at thirteen, but been in remission ever since.

"Yeah. Rich, these days."

"Not Little Dick?" she asked. The beat of awkwardness made her think he didn't remember the day Felicia had egged him to tell everyone he passed that he was "a Little Dick," but then a sheen came over his eyes.

"I'd forgotten that. I've forgotten too much about her, to be honest."

"You were a kid."

"Eight. Old enough, when she spent so much time with me that last summer. I let that be overshadowed by Felix telling me I was stealing his sister, and ifI hadn't been pathetic she wouldn't have given a shit. By the time I could separate it all, I'd imagined the sister I thought I had. Mom and Dad might as well have canonized her. But she can't have been perfect if she... Plus, didn't I catch you two smoking weed in the basement?"

Meredith nodded, saying, "I don't know what you're talking about."

The boy—man, an almost thirty-year-old man—laughed. She'd become more aware of her instincts, examining them, not debating them, and he didn't feel dangerous. Haviinga sister die doesn'tinspire most people to resort to violence. They don't take guns to a hospital or hit their estranged daughter because their wives die. Why did I let that go so easily when he showed up wasted at the ER?

Because she'd learned to let people off the hook for hurting and scaring her before anything else. Telling Derek off as an intern had been another separation between one type of relationship and another. Whether she'd cared about pleasing Richard revolved around if she was seeing him as her mother's ex or her trusted adult. She might feel like she was always fixing her own mistakes, but they were ones she'd been set up to make. Even this one. She'd walked into that trauma room thinking about how much people could change; whether it was her mother's rejection of the past or her acceptance. It hadn't been wrong to hope that someone had dealt with their ghosts. Her misjudgment had been trying to face hers alone.

Rich's ghosts were in his eyes. He hadn't dealt with Lissy, or his parents whose obits said, "natural causes," and it was obvious that the breakdown of their bodies had sped up with the death of their daughter and never evened out again.

"We're back!"

She turned to Derek, relieved to see him even if she hadn't been uncomfortable.

"Mama!"

"Hi, sweetling, are you all done?"

Ellie swiped the air to say, "all done," and then dove toward Meredith. Taking the baby in her arms always grounded her more firmly in the moment, whether the drift was closing in or not. That's what it was most of the time these days, a momentary slip that wasn't very different from what she'd always experienced

"It looks like they'll be letting people in soon," Derek said. "Who's this?"

"This is Lissy's brother," Meredith said. She caught Derek's jaw setting as they shook hands, but Rich's loosened, almost like it might drop. He'd been in more situations like this as "Felix's brother" she was sure.

"Bee-Bee?" Ellie stuck held a fist by her forehead repeating brother, the rolls of baby fat at the back of her neck stretching as she tried to see around all the grown bodies gathering in front of the courtroom door.

"Your brother is at day-care, huh?" Meredith smoothed the cap of sunshine pale hair.

"Go? Go hospital?"

"Not yet."

"Brother. Sister."

"Zola is still at school. Can you show me school?" Ellie clapped. "Yes, she's at school."

"Want see."

"I know," she acknowledged. Satisfied that she'd at least made herself understood, the baby put her head on Meredith's shoulder. Forced to tuned back to the adult conversation Meredith listened to Derek asked Rich what he did.

"I'm a flight attendant, actually." He grimaced. "I came to this hoping to get to tell you I'm sorry. I met up with Fe during his layover at Sea-Tac that day. He didn't say a word about you or her. He'd get obsessed with her for months at a time, but it'd been years since his last spiral. The job had been good, I thought, and…well."

"You weren't in that room."

"I was at the church," he said. Derek's hand gripped hers hard enough that she had to stretch her fingers to get him to loosen up. "They took me out in a wheelchair and all that, but I was between treatments, and well enough to be...to be eight. I got bored being at elbow level, and I followed you. I didn't know what was happening, but I knew he shouldn't be doing what he did. I think Nan was looking for me when she caught him. I was too chickenshit to tell my parents."

"Yeah, of course you were. If I saw the way he and Lissy dealt with arguments, you absolutely did." The flinch was subtle, but she was used to watching for tells and twitches. "Did he wait until you were in remission?"

"He did not. I bruised easily enough that Mom and Dad weren't used to not knowing where they came from. He didn't beat me or anything." He pushed up his glasses. "Just sibling stuff."

"Except you were a third his size," Meredith pointed out. "I should've told too. I blamed myself for every other woman he hurt from that day on. But I was thinking about you, so I think we can call it even."

"You were?"

An indent appeared in the side of Derek's cheek, and she nudged him. Not a true elbowing. That was emergencies only. Alex liked to say that if she'd gotten an elbow in, this might've all gone differently. He'd grabbed her like he remembered that. Derek squeezed her hand twice, in a quick rhythm. Stay here. With me.

"Look, Rich, if we'd both gone directly to your parents, or some relatives who wasn't too overwhelmed by grief to care, what do you think would've happened? It might've gotten him help, but it could've made him worse. I did the cold equation. You didn't have all the variables."

"I still don't. I figured the boyfriend was her growing up faster, and being cut out pissed him off. 'She had me. She should've known she had me,' was what he said. I don't know how to take that, and that's all he ever said. My parents could hardly say her name."

"Trauma does things like that." Around them, the bodies began to move. Derek tugged her gently, subtly putting her in front of him, and moving his hands to her shoulders. Ellie took firm hold of one of his fingers. He twitched it over her lips, and Meredith's next words were accompanied by her daughter blurbling.

"I have the hardcopy of that 'zine, and some other papers and pictures. A couple more tapes with her voice. I gave the D.A. copies of all of it. I can probably sign something so they'll let you see, and this may be entirely inappropriate, but if you're here through tomorrow, you're welcome to come over and see it all."

"Seriously?" The smile he gave her made her lean back against Derek. It was Felicia's smile. Then, she blinked, and she couldn't see it. It was clearer that he was the boy she'd hung out with in the hospital playroom. The flash of his sister might have been the angles. She didn't think it was.

They exchanged information and separated going into the courtroom. Taking her seat in a row of off-duty Grey+Sloan staff, Meredith noted that he wasn't in the rows behind the defendant.

"I hope he's not here alone," she commented, as Derek put his arm around her. He pressed his lips against her temple, meaning you would, whether or not he said it. She passed the kiss on to Ellie, who was gnawing on a chew toy—having a dog had not made her change her opinion on that designation. That small moment was more significant to Meredith than what would follow the bailiff telling them all to rise. The punishment handed down would keep one person from continuing to warp love into hate for a while.

There were so many others out there doing the same thing, intentionally, via indifference, and even self-defense. Meredith would do what she could to bolster the voices they'd silenced. She'd raise her children to watch for chances to use theirs. She would heal. And when she could speak up, she would do it with gratitude.