(interlude ii)

You shouldn't be in here, Mer. Go use a scalpel somewhere else. (You shouldn't be here. Go on to Boston. I would've. I would.) We're all so good with knives; none of us knew how to hunt. We've saved so many idiots who get themselves lost in the woods, and think it's fun to jump out of a plane. Yeah, you did that once. You believed you couldn't be a surgeon. I wanted to be happy in a lab. We were both young and stupid.

You would've loved Smith, Mer. You might've rolled your eyes at the pretentious girls, and gone on and on about how all the townie guys thought you were a lesbian—all Jesus Christ, boys, bisexuality exists. You would've been sincere, but I doubt I would've seen it. We might've bonded over thinking The Bell Jar was over-rated, but not for the same reasons. I find the narrator insufferable; you think books where bright girls try to dull themselves down for their mothers belong to our moms' generation—which, to be fair, Plath also belongs. I believe you that her poetry is better, and you're not into poetry. (Except for hers. Dickerson. Erdrich. Millay.) I'll never read it.

I'm a surgeon.

I was one of the girls who thought they were smarter than their moms. (Most do) If knowledge is quantifiable, I do know more. My mother wouldn't have known what was happening under Sloan's skin. She does know a chest can cave in, and that someone's ribcage can become a weapon.

She hasn't seen it happen.

I underestimate her.

She used to be the smartest person in the world to me. (Also normal.) I didn't know that letters didn't twist and elude the eyes of most people, and I thought her ability to wrangle them into a story was magic. It's so easy to impress a kid. They believe what you tell them; things like you could do it if you tried harder.

My mom didn't say that. I used to listen to her talking to Dad while I pretended to pack the bag I'd filled the night before. "Her mouth is so smart," she'd say. To this day I don't know if she knew the idiomatic implications. I spoke my mind to my parents, because I didn't have other friends. "She learns everything we tell her." Not remembers, learns. I felt so understood.

My dad signed off on having me tested, but he and I never talked about school. He took me to the Tar Pits and the Griffith Observatory. He said you didn't have to read to be a scientist. He was right, but if Mom hadn't read dozens of books about learning disabilities, I wouldn't have adapted well enough to get my bachelor's, much less a Ph.D from his alma mater.

I'm a surgeon.

I wish the lab suited me. Researchers don't get put on planes and sent to Bumfuck, Iowa. They don't get shot by grieving husbands. Academic lab grunts are expected to be asexual lumps.

They do get steering wheel columns go through their chests with only their nine-year-old there to help.

When I told her I was going to need school she said,"You cannot save Appa. Not your fault as a little girl. As a grown-up, you will only ever be trying to fix himif knowledge is quantifiable." She was wrong. (But not entirely.)

I doubt most people can pinpoint the day they became suspicious of adults. (You think you know, but you were there before Ellis's blood hit the floor. I'm sorry.) For me, it happened somewhere between an EMT saying "we've got him, sweetie" and the surgeon telling my mother that her ex-husband was dead. He said he did everything he could. I knew grown-ups could lie, but he also that he didn't.

I asked what everything in his explanation meant. He went through it all, even though I didn't understand ninety-five percent of it. I don't know if he was the best cardio surgeon at Cedars-Sinai in 1986, or if he was a resident learning to fight the news. It doesn't matter. He did everything he could for my dad. (If I could've made him explain a million times, I would've.)

Working in a lab wasn't doing everything I could.

God, I wish I could've stayed there. I wish I could be like my mother; married to a good man, perfectly happy never having seen the inside of a chest cavity. She's a pain in the ass, but she loves me.

She was here. After the shooting, I promised to try to be home for a birthday or a High Holy Day once a year, and she didn't start showing up like Pennywise, or Catherine Fox Avery without the cool penis surgeries.

Go work at the Brigham with Catherine. You've dealt with all your Seattle baggage. Go face the place where you were a dumbass teenager. Ellis's ashes will set the scrub-room sink on fire.

Thanks to Berkeley and Stanford, I lived in the Bay Area for seven years, and I would've happily shoved most people I knew into the water.

What did you do to me?

I'm a surgeon.

My mom loves me. I didn't get how big that was until the day of Dad's accident. The eighties were a weird time to be a kid; either you rode in the bed of a pick-up truck, or you stayed in the backseat of the station wagon until you were almost nine. I was a brat about it; I wanted to see where we were going, so I'd knew how to get there myself. Leaving Cedars-Sinai, I told her I understood. She'd been afraid of having to hold my heart in her hands by the side of the road.

She said I was her heart. I thought that was nuts.

I voluntarily got in the back for a long time. Then, I bought a motorcycle.

I'm not a perfect daughter.

When you drowned, I understood what she meant. Should've been when Burke got shot, maybe, but he stayed conscious. No arterial spray. There were people who knew what they were doing everywhere. We weren't on an empty catwalk. Wasn't definitely fatal. You died. You died, and if you'd been brain damaged—if you hadn't been you—you'd have been living your nightmares. I've only done that the other way around. (Do you know how many times you've been on the side of the road with my hands in your chest?)

You're my heart, Mer, insomuch as a metaphor can be true. The heart shouldn't be outside the body. The heart-in-a-box was eerie for a reason. Fixing that is why we have surgeons.

We shouldn't have multiple hearts, but there's you, and Owen, and Callie, and Zola and Sofia who are too small to understand how much they matter. They're hardly people. They think flushing the toilet is funny. They skip along the halls squealing. McDreamy's chasing after them.

If he can't operate, it won't be your fault. He wouldn't have any functionality if it wasn't for you. I'm not sure I could've done what you did. I spent all those weeks trying to train my left hand for an edge in the O.R. and when it could've actually helped us, it turned out I was useless.

Owen can see who's going to break. I don't get how. O'Malley? Kepner? They were Chinese pottery. Except they weren't. (George knew how to hunt. He'd have been an asset out there. We were young and stupid.)

I'm a surgeon. A heart surgeon. I deal with traumatic injuries. I'm not a trauma surgeon. I stayed awake. That's nothing; don't tell me you never stayed awake for days. You were a club kid, you went to med school, and you had insomnia as an intern.

My mother came to me every time I had a nightmare. She let me tell her about the sirens and the blood again and again. I never considered that she'd loved the man whose death I was describing. I could believed she'd do her best not to die. I never thought to stay up to hear her breathe.

She took me to a kiddie shrink; I colored a lot of red. I dealt with it. That made the whole thing after the shooting more frustrating. I'd gotten through my childhood trauma; you'd only stopped living yours a couple of years ago, maybe. How did almost losing Shepherd, Webber, Lexie, me; losing a baby—all parts of your heart—how did that not push you backward?

I'm a cynic. I expect people to be awful, but Dad's death was the worst thing that ever happened to me. He wasn't the only person I've loved who's died. I wasn't close to Mom's parents, but Bubbe and Zayde didn't expect grandkids; they were happy to have a Korean step-grand. By the time they died, they'd followed their bridge partners to Miami—Cliché, I told them, but they had reasons to hate the cold—I hadn't visited. Not much changed when they were gone.

Evil Spawn is off to Baltimore. Kepner will pass next year; some hospital in Idaho will leap up in the rankings. Take Zola away from here. Let Callie close her circle. Jackson can help with Mark. Go chew out your father, make him show up for Lexie. You can do it; he owes you his life. He owes her his life. Wasn't she supposed to be all Daddy's little girl? You can take care of everyone from Boston. If the worst happens to Sloan, Shepherd can deal from a distance, closer to his family.

I didn't think we'd make it out of that clearing. That helicopter landed, and I thought we were dead. I expected Megan Hunt to get off that helicopter—and if she'd given me a choice, I would've said no. No, I don't want to wake up in Seattle. It's hell. (You've never heard that name.Ask Owen about her. Someone else should know.)

I'm in purgatory because of that. Because I would've agreed to die out there; knowing what it would've done to Owen. To my parents. To Teddy, maybe. (If a deep-down part of her was vindicated, I wouldn't blame her, but I don't think it's there. The hint of hardness under that smile is a shell.) To you—because you were going to get out somehow. I was drowning; I couldn't stop, and God, I wanted to.

I'm a surgeon.

We're supposed to keep fighting. We're supposed to do all we can for the family. You're my family, which means so were Lexie, and Shepherd, and Sloan through him, and Arizona through him. Losing the two of them would break Callie.

If one of us could become your mom, it'd be her.

You've guessed Ellis married Thatcher for stability after her dad died. Not an exact parallel, but close. Ellis saw your dad in George. (She often saw you as her best friend.) Mark was an affair; Arizona didn't want a kid…. Zola wasn't the one who'd have grown up like you if we'd died. The little girl with the single mom who was alienated from her family? It would've been Sofia.

I'm her godmother. I had to get Arizona and Mark to the helicopter. I did all I could.

I wish Megan Hunt had been on it. Owen deserves to get his whole heart back. He can keep mine.

He loves me. He wants more than I can give. He didn't give me everything, either. His heart is broken.

I'm his wife. I should believe his sister is out there, somewhere. She shouldn't be my grim reaper. I shouldn't have expected one.

That's what it was. Expectation. I didn't want to die. You were checking vitals, and redressing wounds wounds. When you passed out, I stopped doing that. What was the point? I stopped Mark from dying. I fended off wolves who wanted to start picking us off. But I'd stop caring.

Saul's parents were his aunt and uncle. They adopted him to get him out of the Rhineland. His birthfather was registered in Auschwitz; his birthmother was on the same train, and didn't make it through selection. He was the one who arranged to have Shoah survivors speak at my school. They told us that they ate moss and leaves on the death marches. Some of them admitted to thinking only their own survival. Admitted to doing "horrible, selfish things." Most of them said the only made it because of luck. We weren't having that. We were only out there three and a half days. Nothing compared to months, years, of being tortured by actual Nazis, and I was slipping—I never told Saul what we called Bailey. At the time, I thought of it as a reclamation. It's not mine to reclaim—I wanted to stop caring.

Isn't that sick? That surgeon, the one who operated on my father, I idolized him because he cared, even for those few hours. But no one can decide. They want me to care. Then, they drape a patient's face, and want me to be a machine.

I wouldn't have chosen you to care about. You and Izzie, and your bonding over how few women were there. Like you didn't benefit from being hot blonde chicks. Like you weren't Ellis Grey's daughter. You know how many "Dr. Yangs" I've been asked about? I'm related to none of them. My dad was a Ph.D.

I'm a surgeon.

I shouldn't be here. I should be starting at Mayo, doing surgeries, and trials, and maybe finding a way to shut myself up in a lab after all.

You're still here. There are interns. There are green interns, staring and flinching like we did. They don't know their asses from their elbows. They should get out of Seattle Cursed Mercy Death while they can. Maybe you're just strong enough to withstand it.

Maybe you're cursed, too.

"Will there be a service?"

Meredith stumbled as she strode out of the room where Jackson was eating lunch, claiming to have no idea where her husband was. Trying to make her grip on the threshold look casual, she decided she really wasn't going to be able to make wearing heels her thing. Some women couldn't pull it off. She could, but that meant wearing heels, carrying her toddler, and multiple bags? Not her skill set.

In her head, her mother bitched about the pumps she wore every day, and how they messed up women's feet forever. "I wear them because if I didn't people would thin about my shoes. Meeting expectations in one way allows you to thwart them elsewhere."

All the wrong reasons in Meredith's opinion.

One correct reason was intimidation. She made sure she got a good swoop turning on the intern. It was…one of the blondes on her service. Badge said…. "Excuse me, Dr. Murphy?"

"Dr. Sloan. My mom…knew him. Patricia Murphy. She was Patricia Erskine…. Anyway, she asked me if there'll be a service. I've been looking for Dr. Torr—"

"The man's not dead yet! He is a patient, and Dr. Torres is his family, my hus—I am his family. If your mom is—Where?Mars?—and needs to make travel plans while he's still breathing? You do it off the clock, and you work on your empathy!"

"Mars 'pace," Zola said into her neck, and Meredith hummed in confirmation while the intern groveled.

"Yes, ma'am. I-I care. I wouldn't be…. I didn't mean to upset you."

"I will be upset if you waylay my grieving friend while she's working. Right now, I'm just annoyed that you're delaying my search for my husband."

"Dr. Shepherd?"

"The one and only…at this hospital."

"I Shepherd. Zola Shepherd. Grey. Hi, lady."

"Zola Grey Shepherd, that's right!"

Zola repeated her full name, and Meredith kissed her forehead. She'd never get tired of hearing her say that.

"Nice to meet you, Zola," Murphy said. Without stammering or stuttering, she made it obvious that she'd never spent time with a kid. Meredith made a mental note to tell Richard to put her on peds. Alex would kill her, but needs must. "Your, uh…father is in the chapel."

"The chapel?" Meredith repeated, too stunned to go off on the 'uh'. Maybe the intern just didn't know how to talk to kids. "Dr. Shepherd? Dark hair that's sort of extreme? One hand, one Ace-wrap mitt?"

Derek had had his most recent surgery right after the interns started. Just because most cohorts knew him within their first—"Yes, ma'am."

"Oh…kay. Thank you, Doctor Murphy."

"T'ank 'oo, Doctor," Zola repeated.

The girl's spine straightened and her shoulders rose. She'd only been hearing that for two weeks, and she'd answered an attending's challenge without balking. She'd be cocky for a while, and have to be watched for simple mistakes.

Meredith headed downstairs. Sure enough, there he was, sitting in a side pew in the hospital chapel.

Where do you go if you don't want to be found by Meredith Grey? From the time this building had been her playground, she'd been intimidated by this room, even after her mother explained it as a quiet waiting room, and she couldn't explain why.

She didn't know he was thinking that. She didn't know what he was thinking. She couldn't judge based on the expression turned on them, thanks to the happy chirp of, "Daddy!"

"Hey, Princess! Did Mama pick you up for lunch?"

"Barely. Webber generously let me get practice doing solo follow-up appointments." She rolled her eyes. That was something residents had plenty of experience in. "But they'd only gotten their lunches from their cubbies when I got there; they hadn't sat down, so Herr Welch let me have her." She'd come close to taking off the damn heels for that run. Once lunchboxes were open, parents could join them, but not pull the kids out. Too much potential chaos. It put a real limit on adult conversation.

She sat Zola on the floor and handed down a quarter of a PB&J from said lunchbox. Sometimes, she got cafeteria tenders or mac'n'cheese, but they always sent her in with a sandwich, in case they couldn't get her by twelve-thirty.

"Is it sacrilege if I put my legs up here?" she asked, sitting beside him.

"I won't tell."

"Didn't think God needed narcs."

"The priests do. We were trained to watch other alter boys, and I cannot stress enough how much Kate and Nancy going to Catholic school for twelve years explains them."

Meredith hummed and reached into another bag. If God was caring, It, He, She, Whatever, would be glad she'd come to make sure this lost Shepherd ate. The coffee cart parfaits weren't the healthiest, but he needed the protein and the sugar. He hadn't started regaining weight as quickly as the rest of them; too stressed over Mark and Lexie, and prone to eating less when he wasn't able to exercise. She and Callie tried to frame OT as a workout, but it took surprise food drops and threatening to call Kathleen—the dual threat of a shrink and a big sister. A real big sister. Meredith suspected a few words in the right tone might be enough to pull Derek out of a coma. Meredith could make the new interns startle—not difficult, they were jumpy little bunnies—and had gotten all of them producing perfect stitches in one skills lab session. She'd tried those tones on her sister, as well as gentler ones that came when brushing through her hair and putting lotion on her elbows, just like she did for Zola. Lexie was opening her eyes, going from coma to unresponsive wakefulness, but if she heard, she didn't listen.

And why should she? She didn't associate Meredith's touch with safety. Having her fingers trail her scalp, above the healing craniotomy scar, didn't take her back to being Zola's size. Big sister bossiness wasn't bolstered by decades of failing to obey and facing the consequences. If none of it had worked on Cristina, why should it work on Lexie?

Derek jabbed a strawberry with his spoon repeatedly in a thunking rhythm that echoed in the high ceilinged room.

Would he wake up for me?

She closed her fist over his and said, "That's a scoop, not a weapon."

"Anything more from Yang?"

She raised her head. Had she been giving off vibes? No. Having one of their sleepers wake was a big deal.

"Not since we texted this morning." She handed Zola the next piece of sandwich."I can't believe she's gonna just…go. Like it took being home with Owen for her to wake up, so now she has to prove she can be all strong independent woman. But that was just timing, right? He didn't take out an icicle this time. She saved herself. She saved us!"

"If feeling safe at home did help her wake up, what's wrong with that?"

"Nothing! That's what I…. She doesn't have to throw herself into this new life like nothing happened. She was awake alone for a while. I'm sorry for that—"

"Mer—"

"—but she's nuts to think she doesn't need anyone. And what if someone needs her?" She dropped her spoon, letting it sink down into her parfait as she put the lid on, and then returned it to the to-go bag. She gave Zola the last sandwich quarter, zipped up her lunchbox, and reached for her purse.

"What are you doing?"

"Going to stop making you suffer through my oblivious narcissism."

"Hey, I asked about Cristina." He held his cup between his legs to grab her hand. "Stay, please? Until…you have clinic all day?"

She nodded, unable to avoid a small smile. Once that had meant working urgent care at the Duquette Clinic. Now, it was seeing patients in the general surgery suite, where MEREDITH GREY, M.D., F.A.C.S., was on the wall.

Derek took her bags, put them and his parfait on the floor in front of them, and wrapped his arm around her. "Mark…'s condition doesn't mean you can't be upset about Cristina leaving—"

"Obviously."

"—around me. Don't shut me out."

"I'm not! Not intentionally. I…I sound lame to myself, complaining. She's reachable by phone, and she's allowed to make an adult choice."

"Callie is Mark's next of kin."

"What?" They were alone in the room, and Meredith had spent only a few hours in houses of worship over the course of her life; she still expected someone in robes to appear and shush her.

"What! What!" Zola repeated, playing with the echo. Meredith used the moment to clean her sticky little hands.

"What toy do you want, sweetie?"

"Lion truck, p'ease."

Meredith took out the toy, one of a few stashed in her purse. "What kind of truck is it?"

"Bulldozer," she replied, and began slamming it into the pew in front her. "Lion truck bulldozer."

"Is a lion truck a type of bulldozer? Or is that a name?" Derek asked.

Zola made a cacophony of crashing noises.

"Is your dump truck a lion?" Meredith tried.

"Lion truck."

"Ah. The full phrase matters. Is your green excavator a lion truck?"

"Yeah, ex'vator."

"Huh. She's not super into that one.I went through a phase where my favorite things were all 'wickedly cool.' Figured hers might all be 'lion.'"

"But Boston's not your hometown."

"Trust me, there's nothing that says you're not from there more than using that word wrong."

"My wicked wife." Derek kissed the top of her head.

"Hey, you said I wasn't being sacrilegious!"

The tug on her lips from the implication "favorite wife" underscored the literal meaning of his words.

"How'd I miss that about Mark?"

"He was conscious enough to give consent, even in Boise, and it doesn't…it shouldn't matter. Richard filled out his directive. I should've been the one…. If I hadn't been—"

"Having major surgery."

"—in denial…. I didn't want it to be a surge."

"Who would?"

"I stopped seeing him. At some point, in Manhattan I stopped…. Not just him. Amelia. Addison. But with Mark, I really…. Since he showed up here, and refused to let me ice him out, I've tried to pay attention. Tried to catch up. But maybe I didn't…maybe I'll never really know this Mark."

"Mark doesn't know this Mark. Breaking up with Julia? That's a starting a new chapter, and who knew it was necessary? You. You do know him, Derek. The paperwork only allows you one person. The universe gives you more."

The appreciative smile he gave her didn't last. "It makes sense, really. I made so many choices for him—"

"Stop. Derek, Mark loves his life. From what I've seen and heard, he always has. Being part of your family, getting to use his skills to afford the lifestyle he wanted in New York, and then being here right as he was ready for change…. What happened with Addison was messed up, but people are messed up. You should've left the city earlier, maybe. He couldn't have met Lexie any sooner; it would've been a felony. "

Derek huffed. Almost a laugh.

"He formed his own family. That's new for you two. Not knowing everything he's doing is new. Actually wanting him to marry your sister is new. But he could've ditched you plenty of times. College in Maine really doesn't read as Mark to me, and what'd he do when you started med school?"

"Transferred to Columbia. I made a huge deal about how great it'd be—Bowdoin was good for him, but he loved New York—Mom was calling all the time about something new Amy had done…. I wasn't sure I could handle it alone."

"If Mark didn't know that, I'm a flying monkey." Meredith declared.

"Still reading that to them?"

She shrugged. Mark had given her a copy of Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West while she was regrowing her liver, not long after they'd talked about Return to Oz in the O.R. She'd seen that first, and been disappointed by the tonal difference in the MGM original. He'd turned out to be a total nerd about the books and the film—"Tell me anyone seeing that in the Depression wouldn't think Dorothy should send the Wizard back to our dusty world, and stay where it's beautiful."

In spite of her initial skepticism—"When have I ever steered you wrong, Grey? The book's as suspicious of the singing and dancing as you are."—she'd actually read the novel, which was more than she could say for most of the books she'd opened that month. Derek mentioning it a couple of weeks ago had given her the idea. She took it out of her purse whenever she found herself sitting silently and alone by a bed, noticing different things about the story and its…inspiration? Parent text…? depending on whose room she was in.

"Better than making them listen to me ramble day in and night out."

"I disagree." Derek squeezed her hand. "If I ask about the leg you're propping in a house of God—"

"Oh, psh." She nudged him lightly in the ribs. "Legs. I've been all over the place all morning, that's all. Pit, O.R., floor, O.R., clinic, daycare, cafeteria, floor, here. Both calves are pissed at me."

"Oh, that's fine, then."

"There's that biting Shepherd sarcasm." He kissed her neck, his teeth grazing her skin. "Now who's being disrespectful?"

"Hm. Once I'd have said God brought us together, and He would have to understand where that would lead."

"Not anymore?" She always felt like a deer walking on eggshells when the religion stuff came up. She'd come to the maybes she believed in on her own. The times she'd wondered if she should be thanking God for getting them home to their baby girl, she'd think of Lexie. Something loving, omniscient, and omnipotent could've manifested whatever plans it had without putting her through what had happened, let alone what was to come. Technology and lucky, well-made choices had gotten them home.

"Ah.… I…." Derek hunched forward, digging his fingers into his temples. She wrapped her arms around his back in time to feel his shoulders begin to shake. "Sorry. I…."

"Try again, buddy. "

"It's not…. When Dad died…. When Amelia OD'd…. When you went in the water…. Mark…I was being a jackass to him, but he…he was right there. Always. And I don't…I don't know how to lose someone without him. But I…I keep thinking…horrible things."

"That's right up my alley." She leaned forward, wiping her hands over his wet cheeks—Beard-level stubble. She'd be making him come home tonight.

She'd never been someone who cried when someone else cried, except when it came to Derek. She closed her eyes to kiss him, and then kept her face an inch from his. "Tell me."

"I…I don't know what I believe. After the shooting…it should've made me…. I lived. I lived because I was here, and Yang was here. I still…I wanna think…. I should've…. If I had to be shot, shouldn't I have gotten to see him?"

"Oh, Derek."

"I'm sorry. I don't wish I'd—"

"I know, love," she murmured, fighting her own instincts to keep her voice audible. She could give him what he'd give her.

She should've had more. Should've thought to sit Mark down at Joe's, called a meeting of the real club they were in, the Supporting Derek Shepherd Gang, and said, "All right, asshole. Spare me the internalized homophobia. You've known each other since you were in grade school. What do you do when he regresses to a broody fourteen-year-old? How do I talk about his dad? When do I actually give him space, and when do I ignore that directive? When he lashes out, how much is proximity, and how much does he mean it?"

He'd have started with, "Can't help, Big Grey. Guys don't think about that stuff," and she'd have whacked him with a menu.

She should've done that, but she hadn't. In the weeks after the shooting, Derek had been masking his feelings as much as she had. Last fall, they'd come together over missing Zola, eventually, but a month or more of hell had come before that. They'd been facing this together, but they were at a dangerous crossroad. Lexie was improving. Mark wasn't.

"I…I have to believe he's somewhere. My dad."

"I know." She swallowed, suddenly feeling like even nerve-ending was on the surface of her skin as she said, "Sometimes, here in the hospital, I get a sense of my mother. A whiff, a whisper, a glimpse, whatever. Maybe a a memory. It feels like more."

"Not at the house?"

"Never anything good. It wasn't her home."

He nodded. "That's something." He kissed the top of her head. For a moment they sat in silence. Then, Derek cupped a hand over his mouth, but a bitter, self-deprecating bleat of laughter escaped. "My best friend is dying, andI found myself envyinghim. How screwed up is that? 'Yeah, man, sucks that you're dying, but I'm mad that you'll get to see my dad first.'"

"You're mad about a lot of things, for a lot of reasons," she said. "And what I hear in that is you believe your dad will be there for your best friend. I have no idea what we're really in for, but in an infinite universe, I imagine you'll get one-on-one time with him, too."

He drew in a sniffling breath and sat up, his face still red. "You think?"

"I mean, the hell do I know? But energy stays in the universe, and…if what I experienced…when…. The day I…."

"Drowned. Still me, Mer. I can handle directness."

"Okay. When I drowned, the people I saw, what they said, what my mom said…. That was the realest part, her telling me to live. Even if it was only in my brain…. Even if it was a delusion, it's real to me. Part of who I am."

Finishing a lap around their pew, Zola rammed her truck into Derek's shoe. The "explosion" propelled the bulldozer up high enough that she had to stand and hold it over her head. Then, she arced it down and dropped it from waist height, all while making the appropriate explosion sounds.

Meredith had figured "car accident" was one of the more normal things she'd played as a kid. Watching her baby enact a construction site being destroyed made her question that, but the toothy grin on Zola's face mattered to her more.

"Whoa! Big crash!" Meredith enthused.

"Yeah! Fix up." Zola wriggled onto her lap. "Daddy cry."

"Yeah, love-bug, Why do people cry?"

"Owie. Meanie. Sad—" Zola listed, turning her hand in the air. "—'fused, fussed. o'elm. Diaper."

"That's a lot of reasons! Mean people don't usually cry. If someone's mean to you, you might cry. You'd be overwhelmed and frustrated. Maybe confused. You cry when you're wet because you're uncomfortable, there's another one."

They'd long ago decided that they'd rather talk a little over Zola's head sometimes than not give her

"Daddy uh'comf'ble?"

"Daddy's sad. You know why?"

"Ask."

"If you want to know, you ask, that's right. Daddy is sad because Uncle Mark is very sick. His heart was hurt, and it isn't getting blood to other parts of his body. Soon, those parts might stop working. What do bodies do?"

"Potty."

"They do that," Meredith said, and Derek snickered. Having the toddler with her almost felt like a cheering-up cheat. "They talk, and run, and eat, and play with truces."

The conversation, which they'd gotten to more organically than she'd expected, wouldn't be cheerful.

"When their body stops working, a person can't use it anymore. They can't talk, or play, or be with us. The brain is part of the body too, and it stops thinking and remembering…." She swallowed against the tightening of her throat.

It would be so easy to accept that the end of brainwaves was the end of everything. She could never force herself to believe in religion, unless you counted Murphy's Law and Occam's Razor. Understanding science, though, also meant humbling yourself, and understanding that laws could be theoretical. Certainties were contextual. She wouldn't know until she truly died, and if the feeling…the hope that there was something more made her fear that day less, it was as okay as all her patients' beliefs. She didn't just tolerate those; if they didn't interfere with the medicine, she sometimes envied their certainty. She did object when that faith in another world kept them from fighting in this one. Most people were motivated by a sliver of doubt akin to her hint of belief; they loved their lives; they feared the unknown.

For her, the unknown could come prior to death. The hope was that there was something more for her mother; free from the constraints of Alzheimer's. That something of Ellis Grey that knew she was Ellis Grey existed somewhere. Whether it returned the memories she'd lost, or possibly not created over the five years of her decline was beyond Meredith.

"Uncle Mark is Daddy's very best friend," she told Zola. "Daddy is sad that he is sick, and that his body might stop working. He might die."

She didn't like hedging, but Zola was repeating more and more. If the next time Sofia cried Zola proclaimed, "Sof sad. Unca die," the baby wouldn't understand, whether it had happened or not. They were hoping to avoid still that.

"So-So no sick."

"Your friend Sofia is not sick."

"Color."

"You like coloring with her?"

"So-So color, Z color. So-So—" Here Zola let out a screech that startled Derek, and clapped her hands over her own ears. "No, no So-So! Bad hav-er!"

"Did the teachers say that?" Meredith wouldn't be thrilled with an affirmative answer—Her twenty-month-old might have left out details, but in the near-future discipline alone wasn't going to be a solution if Sofia's behavior changed in reaction to her daddy being gone. She was barely old enough to understand time-out as it was.

"Z say!"

"Next time, you can say 'that hurt my ears,' or 'I didn't like that,' but the teachers judge behavior," Derek instructed.

"I no cry." Zola fiddled with her ear.

"Not all hurts make someone cry. A big one can, or a lot of small ones. Maybe something small that really surprises or scares you. There's nothing wrong with crying."

"You've got a great daddy, Zo. They don't all say that," Meredith said. "Not all mommies stay it."

"Ellis—"

"Was a hypocrite who told me to quit sniveling, or to finish crying before I tried to talk, then went to work. She also said sometimes you physically couldn't stop it. She didn't have much of a choice. She pretended a lot didn't happen, but I watched her cry out her soul that…. Huh."

"What?"

"I was about to say 'winter.' Fall in Boston must've seemed really cold to me."

"Well, you weren't from there." Derek held his hands out to Zola, waiting for her to reach out to him to take her. "You're a good friend to Sofia, Zo."

"Love me."

"She does. You love her, too." He pulled her close. "I don't know how many times Mark and I planned out our future. It wasn't just going into practice together. People would say, you two ought to marry sisters and we'd laugh. With what happened, it sounds oblivious to say we had different types, especially when he makes it seem like his type is 'female,' but he wasn't…. You know him. Part of him is still a kid trying to make everyone smile. A couple times I liked someone he'd already…charmed. The one time he hooked up with one of my exes, he genuinely didn't know. He'd come up to visit, there was a party, and I'd never introduced her.

"Point is, from the time we were little, Mark would say we needed to have kids who were the same age, so they'd always have a best friend."

Derek's thin smile loosened a little as Zola kissed his cheek, and then squirmed to get down. Her bulldozer, no worse off for its explosion, started work again.

"We have to make sure they don't take each other for granted."

"We will."

"She's so little." Meredith didn't know if he meant Zola or Sofia. "She won't remember him." That could've been either girl, too. He may have meant both.

"Who better to tell a kid stories about someone than his lifelong best friend?"

"I used to feel guilty that he was always having to catch up. Sometimes…I got tired of being chased. I doubt I was as subtle as I thought."

"I'm sure you weren't," Meredith said. "Note that it never stopped him.

"Derek, I bet he changed his next-of-kin when Callie's dad showed up here ranting about…." She gestured at the room, garnering a pretty decent half-smile. "She barely knew Arizona, she and George were divorced. Maybe Mark made some dumb joke about how you'd be sending him to the hospital—you did punch him in the face around then—just to get her to let him be her proxy, which we know he was at the time of the accident."

"That sounds like him." Derek put a hand on Zola's head while she pushed the lion truck in circles at his feet. "My mom…." He cleared his throat and started again. "She casually mentioned that she's been lighting a candle for him at church. And I felt…mad about that too. Which is stupid. it's her way of hoping.

"I…I held on for so long. Not to the Church—even she'll criticize the intolerance—but to good and evil. Reward and punishment. I mean, look at our life! Look at us! There's gotta be a plan here. But, I don't think…. I can't imagine…. He doesn't deserve this. I know him better than…I know him. He slept with my wife, so if I can say he deserves to live, and see his baby girl grow up, shouldn't that…mean something?"

"Yeah. It should. I…I had to drop a 'Bible as Literature' class because I didn't eve. have a basic foundation, but when I think about us, and Zo…. I think of it like…magnetism. People are attracted to places, and In they align with other people…maybe types of people…. Crap, what do I mean?"

"I don't know, and I want to. Take your time."

"We…We might not be the only couple in the world who could be Zola's parents. But she came here, we were here, she…aligns with us. You and Addison aligned when you met, but you were…out of sync with New York. I don't think Mom was meant to be in Boston; maybe Richard and Adele were better aligned with each other in Manhattan.

"I just think there's something we can't measure, yet. If we're, like, some bigger consciousness's experiment, the programmer is cruel, and your mom shouldn't honor it with light, because…because it's not listening, we invented fire our own damn selves, and I don't think what's next is dark."

She really wasn't sure what she was saying—Candle lighting was a symbolic sacrifice of fire, which so many faiths credited a god for, and they'd managed in the woods. She felt bad for the first caveman to replicate what happened to that tree that'd been hit by lightening—but Derek's eyes went wide, his features softened, and he kissed her. "I love you."

"Remember that when you're complaining about me dragging you home tonight."

"Arizona's folks are visiting this weekend for her discharge; Callie can be here—"

"Great, that's then. Jackson is staying tonight. I already arranged it. And I love you, too."

"Isn't that what you just said?" Derek smiled. "You look very nice, by the way."

"I wanted to rock the street clothes thing, and I thought, just because Mom did it doesn't mean I can't. She liked the shoes but she wore them because if they're staring at your ass, men don't realize they're behind you—" Derek laughed. "—I'd love to go back and see how many people thought she was a man-hating lesbian. Anyway, I like wearing them—and I do, but I forget, usually I'm doing it dr—at parties," she finished, noting that Zola was looking up at her.

"Tea party?"

"The drink starts with 'T,'" Derek said.

Meredith stuck her tongue out at him. "Hey, are you old enough to have fathered an intern?"

"Excuse you?"

"They'd have been born in '87? '86? Mark could've only been nineteen, but he must've made an impression."

"What are you on…about?"

She wrinkled her nose, making Zola giggle and copy her. They focused on her nose scrunching until she got more interested in driving her truck over Meredith's legs.

"One of the newbies apparently knows Mark, or her mom did, and there was subtext there. Said her name was Patrica Erskiene?"

He shook his head, in spite of the understanding on his face. "I forgot he said he'd put a word in for one of the interviewees. I didn't know her mom. They dated one of the few summers he went to the Cape with his parents."

"Urgh. Gonna assume she wasn't local?"

"No, Upper East Side."

"Cape locals can be cool. Anyone can be, I guess."

"Cool," Zola repeated, taking Meredith's sunglasses from the pocket of her purse and sliding them on. "Cool dude!"

Derek started to lift his arms, and then frowned. Meredith scooped her up and plunked her on his lap. "The coolest dude!"

"Daddy dude?"

"Daddy is a babe," Meredith said.

"Don't tell her that!"

"And let her think you're cool?"

"Yes!"

"I don't lie to her!"

"She'd see through it soon enough. Dad used to say they had Amy so he could be a superhero for just a few more years. Come to think of it, Amy's always been into superheroes.

"She was five, and I think she mostly remembers the stories about him. Sofia…. What are you doing?"

"We," she said, flipping the notebook she'd retrieved open to a blank page. "Are making a list."

"You really can do that on your pho—"

"Lists demand to be written, not tapped. It's part of the process."

"The process that made you panic the time you thought you'd lost that with it open to the list of places we'd—"

"Mark Things Uncle Derek Will Pass On to Sofia," she interrupted. "One. Star Wars."

"I—"

"That's a gimme!"

"But I…tainted it. At the prom."

"You…" Desperately she flipped back for a blank back page and with the notebook tilted away from him scribbled that was my taint that tainted your marriage. Either he'd find it, or she'd share it at a better time. "What happened with Star Wars?"

"I've told you. I told Addison that I hated it."

"Do you?"

"No, but at the time…. It was Mark's thing. That, Oz…he 'll watch Alice in Wonderland with the flock any time. It was his. I hated him, so…. Then, I resented him for it. Dad took us to the first one, and he'd have been so pissed at both of us."

Back on the original list, she wrote down Alice in Wonderland, and The Wizard of Oz.

"That was about him," she said. "But you were also goading Addison, and that said you hadn't forgotten. You wanted her to pull the plug on trying." She ran her pen along the metal spirals of her notebook. "That night, I think part of you wanted to prove you weren't the guy either of us thought you were. You were staring at me, and all I could think was 'I never dance in public.'"

"Dance?" Zola took two fingers on Derek's good hand, lifting them above her head.

"I don't," he insisted, twirling Zola. "I've suffered all the public humiliation I care to at the hands of my sisters and their friends."

"All you're supposed to do is make your partner look good."

"You're my partner. Can you make me look good?"

"You want me to back-lead? That's a major faux pas."

"Sounds like back-talking, you're great at that." Derek stood. "Show me your steps, Zola."

Grinning at her daughter's solo soft shoe, Meredith took his hand. "There's a whole movie about this being a bad idea."

"Did I ever tell you that Lizzie met Kevin Bacon? Sometime in the late nineties."

"Giving all Shepherds one degree. Incredible." Meredith shook her head. "Okay, you do have to move your feet. One and two and three and four. Step, step, step, back step. I'd have both hands like this…." She carefully held his left hand to twist his arms around her.

He kissed her neck. "Why didn't I know you were good at this?"

"I'm not. I just didn't ditch as much P.E. during ballroom dance units. And because we never had a wedding, and we skipped Callie and Arizona's. You haven't really seen me dance with anyone."

"Zola? How do you feel about about Mommy-Daughter dances?"

Zola held her arms out. Meredith picked her up, and waltzed up the aisle and back. Zola gave a shriek, her glee too extreme for her language. It cut through the other emotions crowding Meredith with the solidi ty and toxicity of London smog. She laughed and a moment later so did Derek.

"She can have all the dances she wants," Meredith determined.

Derek caught her elbow and pulled her close enough to kiss. "So can you."

As long as I lead.

She didn't mind that. She liked being in control, if someone bad to be. It meant he trusted her. Could it be nice to just give it over if you knew nothing bad would happen? Sure. Getting to show him that wasn't the worst thing.

"The intern asked me if there would be a service," she said, packing up the unreasonable amount of stuff that had been taken out as part of their unlikely picnic. She'd handed her notebook to Derek. "I'm sure we'll do something here, but should we…? Would there be anyone in New York…?"

He shook his head. "Mom and the girls might come out here, but…only child of only children. Last I knew, he wanted to be cremated, but I don't know…."

"You know plenty." She squeezed his shoulder. "To be perfectly honest, when I think of organized religion.,especially the Church…. I think of the Yankee Dodge."

"That's what—Liston?—called ether? I wrote a paper once where I confused him with Lister."

"Easy to do," Meredith acknowledged. "But I can tell you the details because these were my bedtime stories. Lister was there when Liston did the London demonstration where he said that, 'we are going to try a Yankee dodge today.' His nasty apron freaked Joey Lister out so much that he dedicated his life to sanitizing everything.

"Liston was following up on the monumental presentation done at MGH two months earlier. William Morton, a dentist, knocked out the patient with a drug he probably stole from his former boss. The head of MGH took a tumor off the jaw of a guy who reported feeling some scratching. It was incredible.

"And how'd the world react? The churches? Were they grateful that people could be spared pain? No. Pain was supposedly part of the trade-off for original sin. There's still some of that in OB. But you know what? Before we could take out cancers, when surgery was one instance of extreme suffering, followed by infections, no one could control, people turned to the church. That reaction to analgesics? It was fear of losing influence. The churches, and the god they peddle…. They showed their hand. They need people to be in pain, to be confused, to be scared.

"The less pain people are in, the easier surgeons have it. I can't imagine having had to dodge flailing limbs—having to do what I did in the woods every time—and then having someone introduce an alternative. It would've seemed like a miracle. If the church had gotten on board. seen how many lives would be saved…. Hoping for something more doesn't mean you stop caring about what's here."

She sucked the inside of her cheek to hold in a reassurance that she hadn't meant anything about his admittance about his dad. She kept watching and when he met her eyes she didn't see the accusation. He smiled and thumped the backs of his fingers against the list.

"You're brilliant, you know that?"

"When it turns out I'm wrong, I'll go straight to hell.""With me right next to you." I highly doubt that, she thought as he kissed her, and turned back to her notebook.

She'd shoved a banana and a suture kit into her purse on a whim, but left them there. They'd astonished Cristina with left-hand ties a year ago. Practice wasn't what he needed, even as a direction. He was focusing on what was here.