It couldn't have been more obvious that Richard wanted to stick around. Meredith had been grateful, if surprised, by how readily Bailey left her alone once she'd set Zola in her crib. It was almost comical, listening to her try to nudge him out the door, while he again asked Derek if he was sure they wouldn't need anything, where they wanted the discharge papers, if the prescriptions went in the kitchen or upstairs.

"You'll call if you need anything," Bailey had instructed Meredith. "I'm on tonight. I'll keep an eye on your sisters."

Meredith had let her eyes well once Bailey's footsteps were on the stairs, blurring the purple-pajamaed toddler she couldn't take them off of. Zola's sleep-heavy inhalations were as even as Lexie's on the vent, but they were nothing alike.

Everything about Zola was so soft and warm. The afternoon light in her bedroom was a world away from the hospital fluorescents that made the truth so sharp, but kept Meredith from returning to the smoky haze of the clearing.

"All right, let's let them get settled in before the little one wakes up."

Meredith scrutinized the items on Zola's dresser like it was a Find the Difference exercise. Testing her own memory, trying to see what had changed while Alex and Callie had been in here, not knowing how long they'd be responsible for her baby.

Her hand shook as she picked up the rubber giraffe Zola called "Gigi." She'd felt like she was moving in a dream this time last year, and then, too, she'd been transported into a nightmare.

This wasn't the same. They were home. They hadn't gotten her back, just to be taken from her.

"...up there? She does have a head injury."

"And he's a neurosurgeon." Bailey was downright snappish, and Meredith imagined the desperate expression Derek must be wearing. Probably something akin to the ones he'd gotten recounting Richard's "gentlemen's evenings."

Richard clearly thought he was still to Derek as Bailey was to Meredith; oblivious to the role he'd actually shoehorned himself into, or pretending to be.

She wasn't being fair. He'd been worried for them, and he couldn't have done anything more—so, of course, that was when he tried.

Meredith cycled back to the crib, putting her band on Zola's back. She should go down. Run interference like she'd been doing all week as the least injured, the sister, the wife, the responsive one. Not responsible. This one wasn't her fault. She'd been tossed out of the sky with the rest of them. She could let Bailey take over, just like she had as an intern.

"...give the man time alone with his wife." Bailey sounded as pained as she had after discovering Meredith and Derek together, five years ago. That night, Meredith had gone to Derek in the interest of casting responsibility aside. She hadn't been able to dream that one day heir baby would be sleeping in the room that had been hers as a child.

She blinked as the front door closed; suddenly cast back to that night, to the clearing where she'd imagined standing in this spot again and again. How could she know it was real when the odor of smoke and fuel was still in her nose? She'd been transporting herself to this house in her sleep for decades. She'd seen the slats of Zola's crib in closely aligned trees, She'd dreamed of bringing Zola home so many times last fall that the soft, warm fabric under her hand didn't have to mean much of anything—

"Meredith." Derek wrapped his arms around her. "We're home. We made it."

She balanced his bandaged wrist on her hands. The rough hewn Ace wrap under her fingers was real. The weight of him resting his chin on the top of her head. The rhythm of his breathing.

Carefully, she balanced the base of his splint on the crib railing and turned to face him. His smile was hardly fathomable with all he was facing. She left it unadulterated, taking her lips to his neck instead. With them on his pulse point, she could feel his heart beating in two places, and her own blood rushed at the strength of it. "You're alive."

"We are," he responded, working the fingers of his right hand up into her hair, pulling until the elastic released her messy ponytail. She shivered as it hit her neck, and it made her realize that for the first time in a week no part of her was cold.

"Again," she murmured, her mouth just below his ear. They needed to move, needed not to wake the baby; Lexie wasn't upstairs to—

"Hey. Eyes here," Derek instructed, combing his fingers down through a loose knot.

She looked up. His eyes were so clear; how long since he'd last taken the pain meds? He hadn't been a total martyr after the shooting, but—He kissed her, his lips pulling her into the present, away from the crib, out of Zola's room.

"I'm not going to mess with your head today, Rapunzel," he said, letting her back him onto their bed.

"S'already a mess."

"I know." He kissed her just to the side of the cut on her forehead. "But I'd rather find other ways to keep you with me." His hand went to her abdomen, the warmth of his skin on hers weakening her objection along with her knees. He prodded his other arm against the small of her back, urging her onto his lap.

"Your wrist."

"I'll let you know if there's a problem," he promised, tilting his knee up and moving it gently against her until she pushed down, grabbing onto his shoulders first for balance, then for leverage. "That's it. That feel good, baby?"

She parted her lips to respond, but her words were overtaken by a moan as he raked his nails gently over her stomach. All the heat she'd been missing for the past week was there, spreading out under her skin.

She arced forward, bearing down against the layers of fabric separating them. Her thigh brushed against him as her hips canted. It would've taken less than a minute to reach out, to slide over, to feel him pulsing in her; she needed that, needed him, but she couldn't, couldn't stop.

Selfish…. Shouldn't even…. Supposed to be taking care of him.

"Meredith. Stay with me, sweetheart."

"I...I.…You're...I can't..."

"Open your eyes, Mer."

She hadn't even realized she'd closed them. "'M okay. Not there."

He frowned, and for the moment before he touched her cheek, she thought she'd hurt him. "Not…. In the woods?"

"Sometimes."

"Sometimes when your eyes are closed?" His were fixed on her. The baby monitor was silent. Meredith was cold. "And sometimes when they're not," he concluded. His eyebrows drew in, his eyes casting a little to the side. "Yesterday, when you were looking at Lexie's scans, and I startled you."

"Yeah."

"When you and Karev got back from Cristina's room? And you got the text from Thatcher?"

"Uh. It did take me a second to read, but…yeah."

"Why haven't you said anything?"

"Because, unless the impact knocked the Alzheimer's loose, I'm not facing permanent disability because I had a couple of flashbacks!"

His expression was momentarily conflicted, and his fingers stiffened on her cheek. Her frustration dissipated, and she was about to apologize for her Alzheimer's humor, yet again when he said, "Stop. You have got to stop diminishing your experience. You were scared. Starving. You closed my wrist with a pin. Freezing…. God, when else have you been freezing and scared, Meredith?"

"I...it wasn't like... You were shot."

"And it took months for us to talk about it. I let you know pretend you were the only unaffected one, and I missed something huge. It'd be so easy for that to happen again. You take Lexie, I take Mark. You have Cristina. We have Zola. Callie's going to need backup for a few weeks. We'll be moving; you'll be starting a new job: your people are scattering.

"We'd do exactly what my family did. We didn't pretend it never happened, but Amelia and I were the only ones there, and we all tried to be strong for Mom. She thought we were coping really well, and probably we were. Still. Not how I'd want my kids to go through losing their father."

Losing him. She'd been so afraid she had. That she'd find him gone. She'd walked and walked and every tree in this goddamn place—forest? Woods?—looked the same, and the ground got more uneven the further she went. A branch knocked the torn leg of her scrubs, and she stopped to wait out the searing pain. The trees were twisting. Oh. It wasn't the trees. That was okay. She could deal with dizziness. With nausea. She'd gone to morning classes in college and puked through her boards. She could find her husband, and they'd go save her sister, and their best friends, and find water to take home to their—

"—baby, I'm here. Right here."

"You were gone. You were lost, and I had metal in my leg, but Arizona was pinioned. There was visible bone; the first-aid kit was gone—and I think the Titanic had better life support—We heard Lexie, and half her body was crushed, but…but we heard her, and I was mad she wasn't you. She's my sister, and I...I had to find you. I thought... You heard me. You said you heard me, but I didn't know you weren't plane mist! Then, you'd practically hacked your hand off in the middle of goddamn nowhere, and I had to...had to..." To believe you trusted me to do field surgery when you don't trust me in a damn hospital. "We're home with Zola, her best friend still has two parents hospitalized, and every timeI get there I think two out of three, because I am an asshole."

"Zola's already lost one family," Derek said. She'd expected him to reject the assertion, not to get the matter-of-fact tone that meant he'd had the same thoughts. "Sofia had so much off her family out there, too, but God, we fought for Zo. If we'd only gotten six months…? It felt like it would've been more unfair. The most unfair would've been two babies losing everyone. Two parents, a godmother, a Lexie….

"We're human, Mer. We want fairness…justice…justification. This... If there was one, it wasn't us."

Meredith knew that. She started to say she knew that, but her mind stuck on Derek knowing it. He trended toward blame. That he hadn't placed it already didn't shock her. It'd only been a week. It was notable. i It'd been a week. (There probably was one, somewhere, even if it was birds flying into the motor, like that crash at Logan her Physics teacher used to reference. Sixty-two out of the seventy-two people on board were wiped out by a flock of starlings before clearing the runway.)

"Neither Mark nor Lexie is going to have a quick recovery, and going until you collapse isn't sustainable."

"Oxygen masks didn't deploy, couldn't get it on myself first."

"They have all the oxygen they need, now. They're safe at the hospital, and I don't think either of them would want us to pretend we're not grateful to have made it back here." He kissed her neck, lightly. "We're all alive. That matters. That we're safe matters." He turned his head, kissing more firmly along the underside of her chin. "What you're thinking. What you're feeling. It matters."

His lips caught her annoyed whine. "You know that," he suggested, his voice gravelly, and she had to stare at the pink undertones in his face to be there, in their room, where water bottles sat in reach on both side tables and the dresser. "You're not new to this anymore. That's true. It's all still true. But there are new truths."

His next kiss took so much of her attention that she hardly noticed him standing them up.

"We're together. We're going to get through the next part together. You and me. That's how we start helping everyone else, okay? Being strong together, not for each other. You get the difference?" he asked with his hand working its way under her waistband. It'd been just over a month since he'd quizzed her for the boards like this. If he'd wanted to impart his wisdom so badly—

Shejerked with a yip, frowning at Derek. "I said I wasn't going to mess with your head," he pointed out, tugging her pubic hair again, much more gently.

"I get it," she said, answering the question to address the self-satisfaction in his smile. "I'll tell you all my repugnant intrusive thoughts, but you have to reciprocate." She took his pants down over his hips. It didn't throw him off as fully as she'd hoped.

"Truth," he said, pulling one side of hers, and sliding his hand over her ass to reach the other. "Needing help is expected."

"Ask for it," she countered. He'd give her the eyes and indicate easily enough, but if he was going to demand words from her, it could go both ways.

He lowered his head, kissing her just above the top of her scoop-neck t-shirt, his unstyled hair brushing her neck. Then, he pulled back, and met her eyes again. "Pull your pants down for me, Mer."

All right, maybe they weren't doing everything all over again. She stepped on the heel of her sneaker, yanking her foot to get out of it and the leg of the sweatpants Callie had brought to the hospital for her. If she'd thought for a moment, she would've reversed the order. Maybe misappropriating her grimace, or maybe knowing exactly where it came from, he sat on the bed again, his good hand urging her forward to get her weight off of her leg.

"Der—" she started, cutting herself off as his knee made contact with her clit. Sharp "oh"s escaped her as she rocked against him. He scooted back until her legs were fully on the bed.

The cotton batting, already unraveling at the base of his fingers, tickled the back of her knee, and then further along so she could've sat on her heels without putting her weight on it. Probably shouldn't crush the other one, either, she thought, just before the fingers on her thigh spread, his thumb sliding over.

Twelve days. It'd only been twelve days since a debate about moving had unspooled until he started taking her apart instead, reminding her that they'd have each other wherever they went.

They'd lived a lifetime in that interval. Long enough to make it seem impossible that he could still navigate her so quickly. He ticked his thumb back and forth over her labia, just brushing her glans. It felt better than anything she could currently remember. Her mind was still trying to wrap itself around the concept of something purely good; her body had already been reminded that more was possible. It bucked toward him, too close for him not to hear the whimper she tried to swallow.

He pressed down, rubbing until she couldn't help but cry out. He covered her mouth with hers, pulling the heat up through her. Definitely not cold. Couldn't imagine being cold-scared-starving. Derek was drinking her in like some part of him was still dehydrated, and she would quench the thirst it caused.

They'd been dying out there. Injured or not, she'd been dying for lack of water this time. Her body had been shutting down, not quickening. The desperate hunger taking her over wasn't anything like that. She wasn't going to die if she couldn't give into it; how could it feel that way, when only a week had passed?

It didn't matter. She couldn't make it matter. She wove her fingers into his hair, keeping him with her as she lowered herself onto his cock. Her eyes tried to roll backward in her head; her instinct to close them. Derek's lips moved against hers. Stay with me.

It wasn't a new refrain, but it'd become rare. It'd been a long time since she used sex only to outrun her mind. Why couldn't she keep herself together for him? She'd done it before, and she wasn't Lexie, who would remember so much more of the time they'd been lost, in spite of having been unconscious for more of it. Wasn't Cristina, who'd stayed awake through it all.

She ran her fingers over his cheeks, his forehead, reflecting the gestures he uses to draw her gaze to him. "I'm here," she promised, and it was true, more and more true every time she thrust against him. He tried to match her, but as much as he protested, he'd taken more damage. It wasn't hard for her to keep him down, to grab his hand and grind it against herself until she needed both of hers to cling to him.

Already, he was trying to compensate for his crushed hand, or maybe it only felt that way. Maybe that fire had cast its haze over her memory. It didn't seem possible that she could've appreciated the thrill of having every nerve in her body shooting electricity through the circuit made by their bodies.

Her innate flexibility had been useful in numerous ways over the years; it was easy enough to enough to picture the map of the bruises the impact left while placing her hands on her back, and to keep herself from pressing against their anterior counterparts, which were far too close to the scar on his chest.

She could've ignored the twinge in her leg. The wound was superficial, hardly worth stitches. But stretching it out let her take him in deeper. He stiffened his shoulders automatically to give her a better grip, his eyebrows sinking at the same time. "Mer?"

"Don't," she said, kissing him again to save herself from having to settle on a second word. "Stop" was a good one; he'd kept his hand moving, attune to her breathing, registering as the ripples from one crested wave began to build a second. "Worry" would be a waste of breath, and for all she didn't want him concerned over her, he was right; they'd kept too much from each other in the wake of disaster. "Move" might be enough for the moment; in spite of the slight lopsidedness of her position, she'd kept a rhythm going, and she could feel him pulsing in her.

What she landed on wasn't a word.

She gasped his name, and shuddered, pleasure solidifying in her stomach at the same time as she heard the echo of her voice begging him to pass out. His expression had relaxed. He wasn't in pain. That was what mattered. She wanted it to be all that breached their room. She couldn't feel it with him inside her, under her, touching her everywhere he could. She shifted just enough to put her lips back on his neck, completing the circuit. They were home. They were safe. They were alive. Home. Safe. Alive. Home. Safe. Alive.

The words pounded in her head as she chased release, in time with their heartbeats.

Her blood had hardly been shed. Her breath pushed out of her for only a moment, her bones unbroken. Her nerves fired, relaying through her body. Her spine arced easily, both her legs continuing to bounce against the mattress, her toes curling. Every muscle in her body tensed as she reached climax. They were battered, she knew, but she didn't feel that. She felt nothing but Derek, his cock inside her, his hand circling firmly on her clit, his body against hers.

She came with her pulse rushing—the plane bounced, engines rushing—and wrenched her eyes open. Derek's were closed. She let her head fall into the curve of his shoulder, finding a darkness where she hadn't smelled fire, heard animals, had fear creeping constantly up her neck.

Derek's hips jerked. Home. Safe. Alive. Home. Safe—His next breaths were jagged, but his heartbeat was strong—fast—too fast? Too much happening in her head to count, but it took more than that to stop her mind from studying a rhythm. Not tachycardic. Definitely not bradycardic. Not like Mark.

"Mer?"

"Mmm. With you."

"That's good." He drew his hand out from between them. "What else is happening, love?"

She tugged her leg back as a first step toward extricating herself, but twelve days hadn't made her stronger than him— He'd say otherwise They were gonna have that argument again, because how the fuck could he call this strong?—and she wouldn't strain against both his arms. She would've needed to sit up, anyway. Probably should start there.

It took her too long, and this whimper brought him to cradle the back of her head, stilling her attempt.

"You're hurting."

"Just started."

His sigh brushed past the tip of her ear. That probably wouldn't have been as reassuring before she'd spent half a day lying in a position where she could be sure she felt Lexie breathing. "Do you want me to put you down?"

"Just gimme a sec."

"Funny thing, that's not what I asked."

"Don't want you to, Captain Hook."

"Stubborn wench."

Meredith regretted snorting. She was starting to regret every time one of them breathed—Except not, definitely not, breathing good—"What's funny?"

"Con-cuss-ed wench."

His laughter jostled her more. Worth it. "Are we admitting to being concussed today?"

"You're the neurosurgeon." And she didn't have a reason to fight the diagnosis here, safe at home.

"Tell that to Boise."

"I did."

"Oh, Meredith, I didn't mean…." They'd delayed operating on Lexie because they wanted to be too conservative, but that was after they'd gone in on his hand before letting her talk to a specialist. "You did everything—"

A rustling from the nursery monitor interrupted him, and he shifted enough focus to the camera for her to start raising her head off his shoulder. He turned back in time to be eye level with her. His thoroughly exasperated expression was hilarious for the ten seconds before she noted that he wasn't doing the tilty-head thing, and it wasn't just him tilting.

"She's not up yet," he murmured as she let him guide her onto the mattress, a matter of going mostly limp and reminding herself that if she fought he'd involve his left arm just to prove he could. "That gives me time to get you pajamas and painkillers. Do you want me to bring her in here, or—?"

"You can't."

"Can't...?"

"Carry the baby. Your arm."

"I can clear the crib with one arm. I've done it with her on one side and Sofia on the other." He turned her leg up to check her calf after slipping the leg of her sweats off. She'd told herself so.

"But..."

"She's one early morning away from scaling it anyway. Worst case, she learns to do it with a spot."

"Derek, you can't just.… You have to be careful," she protested. "I can—"

"You can stay here." He got up and got his own pants up with only one grunt of annoyance before bringing over a pair of hers.

"Mama, Dadee?" The waver in Zola's voice was clear in spite of the monitor static. Meredith shot up. Derek caught her shoulder, and her hand went to her forehead equally quickly, smacking against the wound that was just starting to heal. "Owww."

"I'm sure. Going down."

"Go to her."

"I will. I will take care of her, and of you, okay? Can I please do that for a few hours?"

"I'm... I'll be okay."

"We all will. It doesn't have to happen tonight." He stuck his head into the hall to reassure Zola, and she let him help her until she was under the comforter. On his way out the door, he casually reached for the wand to close the blinds.

"No!"

"Mer, if isn't too bright for you yet—"

"It…it is," she admitted. Light sensitivity appeared alongside the other initial suggestion of pain."But I can't…. I need it more."

She wanted to close her eyes, and not watch the scales balance in his. During her last migraine in the woods their fire had been too bright for her

"Here." He turned the dresser lamp on to its dimmest setting, before moving it to the floor. He did the same with his bedside table lamp. Then he went into the bathroom and returning with towels he draped over the lampshades. When he closed the blinds, there was just enough light to make the room navigable."How much have you slept this week?"

"Not a lot." His shoulders fell. "S'okay. We're home. I sleep better with you. I...I need you."

He grabbed her hand again. "I need you, too. Don't ever think that's not true."

"I know. This time, I do." She used her free hand to clear the teardrops off his face. "Can we stop almost dying? We're even."

""Let's hope. Although, technically—"

"Speeding is to bomb."

"Ah, I see." He kissed her, and then he was gone, only to reappear a second later on the monitor. "Okay, Zoie, c'mere."

Zola grabbed onto his neck to be swung over the lowered crib rail. "Monkey baby, oo-ah!"

"That's…complicated. You're pretending to be a monkey?"

"Oo-ah-ah! Monkey Mama!"

"Hey, whoa!" Derek dove for her, and there was a flurry of giggles and kisses. "We're going to go slow, and be careful. Because, listen, how many hands do we have?"

"Hand hurt."

"Yeah. Daddy has a hurt on one hand. But we have two hands. Two hands. How many Zolas?"

"Many Zo-Zo?"

"One BIG Zo-Zo!" She giggled again as he stood with her on his arm. "One Daddy. One Mommy. No extras there. So, we're going to be careful with our one family. And we're going to get your one mommy some medicine."

"Feel be'er."

"That," Derek said, his voice going from monitor to muffled as they moved into the hall. "And Daddy hasn't learned how to do a diaper with one hand. There's a lot I'll have to figure out to daddy, let alone to doctor." Meredith's stomach dropped again. One job. "But we'll solve it all. You, me, and Mommy. We're a team."

"Team Mama!"

A minute later Zola bounded into the bedroom and into Meredith's arms. Derek followed with the diaper bag on his shoulder, and water and pill bottles tucked in between his bandages and his body. She could see sweat starting to appear on his face. Ignoring the vertigo until she came within a breath of retching, she shoved over to his side of the bed, and stacked pillows for his wrist on the outside edge.

"Love-bug, can you be a big help and go get some of your books?"

"Yeah!" Zola darted off. She'd be sent for her box of animal figurines next, maybe a couple of DVDs. Enough to keep her busy mind occupied until bedtime since they didn't have the stamina to run out the energy her nap had created.

"Must be nice to be so re-energized from an hour's sleep."

"Yeah," Derek said, his fingers drifting over her scalp. "Think this would be a good time to potty train?"

"I think she's not even—"Meredith was interrupted by their daughter's voice coming over the monitor:

"Rawr, come. Read Cor-roy. 'Big hug!'"

"—I think when she wants to, she'll make it happen."

Derek tweaked her ear. "She is a Grey girl. You fight to win."

"No," she said, turning into his side. "Shepherd girl. Grey girls hafta fight to live."

He circled his hand on her back, and she let herself be lulled into a daze that eventually became sleep. Her battle might've been won, but Lexie was at the front. She needed the strength and energy to pass them on. She needed to do more than stand helplessly in No Man's Land.

Derek hadn't anticipated finding Callie in Cristina's room, but she probably hadn't expected him to show up there, either. Her eyes went wide at the sight of him, and he raised his hands, feeling strangely like the general of an opposing army. Not opposing. Allied.

"Looking for your wife?" she asked, making room for him on the VIP room sofa.

"She's with Lexie. I actually did hope I'd find you at some point today. You're the only one I trust not to disappear in the next couple of weeks. It may not come up at all, but…do you know…? Mark and Juli…they didn't let her in as family in Boise."

"I'm his next-of-kin."

Derek nodded. That had been his question. Why did the answer make the back of his neck heat up? "His folks…." He shrugged. She must've known. She was Mark's best friend; that was the kind of thing you told a friend.

He just didn't know what Mark told a friend. Mark hadn't had to tell him anything since he'd said, "I'm Mark," differentiating himself from the other anonymous kids on the ice rink at Chelsea Pier. Everything after that had been understood. Commented on. Not told.

"They died while you were in school? At Bowdoin?"

"Uh, his dad did. Dr. Sloan…. He's still Dr. Sloan to me…. He had a heart attack. Did you—?"

"History is in his chart. We ask a lot of questions, even when the presentation is 'broken penis.'"

He watched Yang as he laughed, wishing she'd roll over and chide them snidely for thinking anything could be funny, or remark that they needed to retroactively mock Lexie about that when she woke.

"His mom died in '05. Ovarian cancer."

Callie raised an eyebrow, and he shrugged. Addison had treated her. Had they gotten closer through that? Had it been a catalyst for Mark's realization that he wanted a family, even if it put Derek's on the line? Did it matter, now? Did it matter now more than ever?

Hw didn't know why he kept talking, only that it seemed important. "I could've been more sympathetic, but, uh, they weren't close. She was one of those conservative old New York widows with nothing better to do than lever their lifetime of donations into board appointments." Derek glanced at Cristina's back again.

Remember when Meredith called Jennings and his cadre fish dicks? What would she have called Hetty Sloan, Cristina?

"Addison said there was damage that she suspected correlated with Mark being an only child, but while I can't imagine them trying for a second, Dr. Sloan staffed his offices with a lot of good-looking young women, who went on to have their choice of positions everywhere in the city. If there were by-blows, we never found out, but he loved to lecture Mark about cleaning up messes…. He tried to avoid making them."

"I was the one who didn't stop for a condom." Callie turned to him, her head on her hand. "Explains how surprised he was by Sloan Riley."

"He always said it wasn't the sleeping around his old man got wrong, it was how he treated women."

"Such as the wife he was cheating on?"

He shook his head. "The day he retired she got him a nameplate that said The Philandering Philanthropist. They had an understanding, and they obviously loved each other. Mark wasn't expected, and they didn't want to give up…anything. He got the message that some people weren't meant to settle down."

"And he thought he was one of them?"

"There's definitely some Dr. Sloan in him. Enough that I expected Little Sloan, whether he did or not. Sofia…." Derek flicked one of the clasps securing the end of his ace wrap, and snagged the teeth into it again, pulling the elastic taut before moving onto the other. "I genuinely wondered if it was purposeful. I'm sorry, because that meant assuming he was taking advantage of you. The timing was just….

"Every day after I proposed to Addison, I expected to see a ring on the finger of the girl he was seeing. I knew he wanted more than the no-strings hook-ups, but…. Finding him with Addison…. It wasn't the first time he'd picked up a ball I dropped, it just wasn't coaching my nephews' midget hockey team, or helping Amelia with her CompSci homework. He ended up fitting into those spaces better than I did, and I just thought…. Fine, you want my life? You can have it.

"When he followed me here, ended up with Meredith's little sister, and then there was a baby while we were trying…but seeing him with Sofia, I couldn't think anything other than that he was meant to be a dad.

"I understand why Samantha didn't think he'd was ready for it. I wasn't, then, and I was married, but really, the co-parenting thing makes a lot of sense for him. He's always been better at admitting that he can't do everything himself."

"Where does Little Grey come into things?"

"They're going to have to figure that out."

Callie twisted her ponytail around her hand. Was she reminding herself that this was all real, the way Meredith did? Being out there, it'd been like being taken out of the world, but for her the before and after wouldn't have been as clear cut.

"Does Lexie want kids? His whole 'this could be my last chance' thing made me think she might not. Is it like—" She jerked her eyes toward Cristina. "—or did he make assumptions? God. She dated my baby-daddy for years. Shouldn't I know this?"

He hadn't had many one-on-one conversations with Cristina before the shooting. He'd spent three or four nights a week with her for almost two years at that point, and known her as long as he'd known his wife, but he'd known about her more than he'd known her.

Hey, Yang. Why not point out she didn't know that about Arizona?

Cristina didn't move. She might be listening. Hunt was sure she was. Derek had heard him talk to her a few times, making promises that he thought would make a conscious Cristina bolt, but he wasn't married to her.

"She's afraid of being her mother."

"Meredith? Because that one—" Callie pointed toward the bed. "—is nothing like her—"

"Lexie," he interrupted. Callie stopped looking like she wanted to ask for his name and the president's.

Mrs. Rubenstein had been here for the first week, and like the other times he'd met her, he'd seen hew Cristina could identify as the negative to his mother's image. She had more in common with Saul, who Derek hadn't been introduced to before.

"I had a bat mitzvah," she'd told him once during their talks in the aftermath of Clark. "Not because I bought any of it. I definitely didn't, especially after my dad died. Because being Jewish mattered to him, and so did I. It didn't really occur to me that our relationship could've be different."

"Do you know about Susan?" he asked Callie, adding, "You and O'Malley had moved out by the time she started visiting," mostly to reassure himself that he hadn't totally ignored Meredith's friends.

"She died from hiccups, and Papa Grey blew up at Grey. Made her stall out during the intern exam, and George failed his because they were codependent little twerps. She gave him half of her liver so Little Grey didn't lose her dad, too. Only thing she's ever done by halves."

Derek snorted. "She said she did it for Lexie, but waving him off to hospice…."

"Not her style."

"Wouldn't be mine, either, but in her shoes…." He tilted his head. Thatcher had thrown up blood on her shoes; it must've been at least a small reminder of being in the kitchen with Ellis. "Meredith came here having not had contact with him for over twenty years. No requests for custody, no drawer of unopened cards. When she sought him out, she was just starting to discover how much Ellis had kept from her. He asked if she needed money."

"Shiiit."

"Yeah. That might've been all of it, but less than a month later Molly, her other sister, was transferred over here. I don't know if it'd would've been better if that'd been the first reunion with him."

"I remember that—or I remember the baby. Has Zola met her?"

"The only cousin she's met is Sof. Molly's husband is in the military. They've been overseas for a while, but Molly hasn't ever been very interested in Mer. She had a big sister. And she might've…there was at least one photo of Mer that Thatcher thought was Molly. Purportedly, they didn't know about her, but it's possible she had…hindsight realizations."

"Jeez. Aria and I looked like the same baby, and Mom couldn't do that if she tried."

"Do you hear—?"

"No. I thought maybe…I mean, I didn't…. None of this is about me, but I called my dad, in case they saw the news. I guess he didn't…. He talks to me on his work phone so he doesn't upset her, so…. Whipped."

"Thatcher let Ellis make their decisions, and when she left, he found Susan. Mer used to believe he left first. I'm not sure if Ellis said that, or implied it, or said things about Richard that Meredith assumed were about him. Knowing Thatcher, now, there's no way he was as devoted to Meredith as Mark was to the idea of Sofia, but lSusan said that she'd told him not to push. Not to fight for Meredith. That they were just married, and it was new, and that was what she cared about.

"Lexie didn't want to put any of them, Mark, herself, Sofia, in that position. A Mark who chose her wouldn't be the man she loved, but if he didn't, maybe their love wasn't as strong as her parents."

"Moral being, if they made it, your parents are the barometer, and if they didn't, they obviously didn't get anything right," Callie observed. "Mark…he's wanted family as long as I've known him." Her tone made him think of leaves blowing through the clearing, hardly brushing the ground. How many times had Meredith told him not to dance around things like she would break?

"I know about the abortion."

"Oh."

"Addison and I weren't being a good family. He tried to make me see it, and I did say he'd have to raise our kids, because I couldn't do it in that lifestyle." Callie gave him a side-eye. Back then, he'd been dark all on his own. "I could see Lexie doing what Addison and I did, putting it off for her career. So can she. Makes her afraid of being on the Ellis end of the spectrum. But the world doesn't run on Grey logic, and, it turns out, she doesn't only want Mark; she wants to be in Sofia's life. She does love her."

"I know. We don't expect her to be Mommy Three."

"If she's agreeing to Mark, she gets all of you. You get her, too. As Mark's partner, not just his resident girlfriend. There are going to be a lot of decisions to be made, not just about Sofi."

"She's the easiest part," Callie agreed, her hand hovering in front of her face, her thumb pressed to her lips. "Every morning and night she asks me to go upstairs to 'four-f'oor.'"

He put a tentative hand on her shoulder. "Mer and I will keep her whenever you need us to. She can help Zo sneak into Lexie's room."

"Bantam Sloan-Shepherd takes the gold," Callie said, in a wavering impression of Mark. "He loves her, too. He and Julia were more compatible than you and the nurse, but—"

"She was willing to take the steps. He's my brother. She's Meredith's sister. He's not Thatcher, and Susan…She didn't try. Really, what Lexie is going to have to work out is what her experience says about them."

"Don't we all," Callie murmured.

"Any change?" They both startled at the new voice, and he grimaced at the pain that shot through his wrist. Callie's expression was so empathetic that he wanted to pull from Meredith's book and remind her that it hadn't gotten infected. Maybe he was the one who needed to be reminded this wasn't competitive.

The person who might know that more than any of them stood in the threshold, his body turned to them, his eyes fixed on his wife.

Come to think of it, having seen them both in this room, Owen's bearing was not totally distinct from Cristina's stepfather's. Or Burke's, for that matter. Derek wondered if her father had been more like the professor, or if that had been circumstance.

"Shepherd?"

"Hm?"

Hunt and Callie made eye contact, and it made Derek feel twelve, with them in the place of Kath and his mother. "I said we've got Ramsey coming in with the ducklings. Will you be here to brief her?"

"On…Lexie?"

Hunt shifted his weight, going from breezing through, cradling a clipboard in his arm, to stepping into the room, the board held loosely, like it wasn't still the focus of the conversation.

"On everything," he said. "She's the new neuro attending."

"They're all kinda like this," Callie said. "Normal people would be at home on the couch."

Derek scowled. He was on a couch, and he probably spent as much time here with his family as at home.

"I'm not looking to rush anyone, but I've been fielding calls from all over the country. Since many hands do not make fast work with new interns, Kepner's staying through the onslaught, maybe even until Seafair ends in August. I'm going to ask Hopkins to give Karev another few weeks. What should I tell Harvard?"

"He's asking what your timeline is," Callie said. "Are you supposed to start next month, or in the fall…?"

"I got it." He envied Cristina for a moment; it'd be nice to be able to gather his thoughts without having people frown over his head—He might owe Meredith a few years worth of apologies—"There are a lot of variables. I'll talk to Mer."

"Fine. If she wants to reconsider staying, we can definitely offer an earlier start date. Assuming you're here, can I tell Ramsey you'll be available? Give her a chance at a smooth transition?"

"You'd have to ask my physician." He turned to Callie, and her sudden change of posture signaled that Hunt had, too.

"That's Schacter. You don't trust him? He is getting your title for the interim."

"I do. He did a great job stabilizing Lexie. There were parts I'd have done differently, but not as many as—"

"You wouldn't have been operating on her," Hunt interrupted. "She's family. And technically, Schacter's being recommended to the board for Head of Neuro. There will be a full search."

Regardless, Derek thought. Whether he left or not. There was a lot of admin to the job, but being in the OR was more necessary then it was for the chief.

He'd always identified with Cristina's certainty about cardio. His mom promised that he'd decided to be a doctor before being exposed to Mark declaring "my dad's a surgeon; he'll cut your insides up!" to shut down pissing contests. He'd settled on neurosurgery at seventeen, and further down the line he hadn't had any difficulty pleasing an attending.

What would he have done if he hadn't powered straight through it all? He was grateful that his parents had been adamant about not limiting any of them, but Meredith's uncertainty had led to her seeing more of the world than he had.

"…see that he's following in her footsteps at Hopkins," Callie was saying as she stood. It wasn't much of a puzzle to fill in Karev and Robbins. He probably hadn't missed much. How did Meredith avoid missing anything whenever she got lost in thought? "She doesn't usually hold grudges." As though usual applied to any of this. She went over to the bed and covered Cristina's hand with hers. "I'll come back soon, sweetheart," she said, over-enunciating her words. "Maybe bring Sofi to see her godmom?"

Derek waited to see her pass on the other side of the window before saying, "Think she was trying to get her to make an attempt at clawing her eyes out?"

"What?" Hunt lowered the clipboard he'd returned to, and did a double take at Cristina. "Cristina loves Sofia."

"Obviously. I meant…" Derek started to rub his left hand against his forehead, and then slumped against the sofa. "Never mind. I should go find Mer."

"When you do,…general might be the only service where we're not understaffed, but that doesn't mean we won't be in over our heads from Independence Day weekend until the Blue Angels migrate south. Think she'd be up to working?"

Doing endless neuro checks, and maybe being married to Meredith, had given Derek experience in following minor flicks of the eye, and he caught the nanosecond's glance at Cristina. Which was more dangerous: the bidding war that'd been staged for Karev, or extending contracts and keeping surgeons who didn't work there on paid leave?

That wasn't his problem.

"Might be good for her to get back to routine," Hunt added.

He had a point, and Meredith had never objected to returning to work after a catastrophe. That was what made Derek pause. Catastrophes, no. Liver donation, yes. As though that had been more valid. She'd rushed back after her appendectomy, but that had been laparoscopic, and she'd been an intern.

("I thought it was stress," she'd told him, one night as he'd run his fingers over the scar. "And it coulda been, I guess. I mean…stress hormones are stress hormones, right? They can break down the immune system." ) That'd been before so much, before he'd really understood what she'd lived with for the four years of med school. He'd been surprised by her vulnerability, especially when she'd waited for him to reply without backtracking.

That was how she'd been since they'd gotten home, talking on their bed, facing him, with both of them fixated on Zola sleeping peacefully between them. She'd be upset if he spoke for her, that was always true, but she didn't need to be pushed. Hunt could be patient, but it was a patience of the sort that could make Meredith think she was being underestimated.

"I'll bring it up."

"Great. Don't worry about Massachusetts. The Brigham's still willing to twist themselves in knots for her. Same as Mayo." His eyes went back to Cristina. "Her contract doesn't start for a few weeks. With Kepner here, and general stacked, I figure, even if we end up pressed for time, I can take some off. To be with her. Maybe…maybe go up to Rochester while she gets settled."

"Mmm."

Derek got it. He wasn't ready to spend hours away from Meredith, and they already had a look that led to them heading down to the daycare together without saying a word about it. But if—when Cristina revived enough to take that fellowship, she would still be Cristina.

"She ever tell you about the first time her mom came up?" Derek asked. That'd overlapped with Ellis's initial admit. It'd been the first time he'd seen the way Meredith could care for everyone in her radius, including the ones who'd usually reject it. Thanks to Addison making her entrance, he'd only been able to watch.

"Uh, no."

"She'd had an etopic pregnancy," he said, realizing too late that Hunt might not—-the chief nodded. "It was early in the year. She and Mer had just started the 'person' thing, and her mom was her next-of-kin—pretty sure that changed before she was even discharged. I feel for Helen; she was just being a mom, but they were sniping at each other all day. Mer finally convinced her Cristina was being taken care of; Saul might've been recruited for backup. Point being, she left. Next day, Mer drove Yang home.

"Apparently, the mess in her place usually looked like it could get up and walk." Hunt snorted, wearing a fond smile. "That day, they found a totally clean apartment. Like when you're a kid, and your mom keeps telling you to clean your room, but you know if you don't, she'll do it. Sterile, Mer said. Yang was furious." He paused, letting the other man consider that, and accept that it fit. "Had her phone out before they were through the door. Her mother dared her to find something that wasn't there and was't actual trash. Being who they are, she and Mer spent the rest of the day itemizing the apartment. Literally. Mer's a secret list-keeper. Of course, they didn't have an inventory to compare it to, but of the students I've taught, Cristina's memory is second only to Lexie's.

"They couldn't come up with anything."

"There's no way she admitted that to her mother."

"Of course not. But Mer saw a text Saul sent that night, after Cristina fell asleep. It stuck with her. It said, 'you think she hasn't figured out how to love you?'"

"Sounds like him." Hunt smiled, genuinely, as he went over to check the monitors attached to Cristina, and move her hair away from her face. "Did you mean that as a parable? I know she'll be herself again. You all will." He clapped Derek on the shoulder on his way out of the room.

"He will be good at being someone's dad," Derek told Cristina. "The chipper kind who never gets tired of checkers. Like Mark. Personally, I do." He got up from the sofa. Cristina's eyes were open, but unfocused. It was jarring, knowing her. "I didn't get it, then. That you could become family that quickly. Mer was the only time something like that happened to me. Not sure I've told her that. You can, if you want.

"I doubt you knew what it would become. You have decent folks. I bet they visited you at Smith a lot. Enough that you just came back to this coast for grad school. None of my sisters settled more than a few states away, either. Took me decades to figure out it doesn't take proximity to be a family. You'd think it'd be obvious. Dad's buried in Jersey.

"You made keeping dads alive your job, huh? You just didn't think they'd be dads of people you loved. Dads, husbands. Wives, moms. Sisters. Daughters. The more people you have, the more of those there are. Ask me, you did your job as godmother by getting Sof's parents home. As Mer's person. As a sister to Lexie. I may not be a surgeon right now, but I'm a dad and a husband thanks to you and Mer. We're all home, and free to keep living our lives. You can need distance. Time away.

"She'd be mad, but she'll get over it. She just needs to know you won't leave her life forever. Don't pull a Stevens. Don't make us road-trip to Mayo without warning, so Zola can see her godmother. We'll caravan with Robbins and Torres; we'll bring Mark and Lexie, let them honeymoon in your apartment. Trust me, you're going to want to arrange visits on your terms."

He was almost to Lexie's room on the other side of the nurses' station when he realized he'd not only threatened to behave like one of his sisters, he'd addressed Cristina as if she was one. In the past, he'd always been aware that she was Mer's friend, something close to her sister, but they'd forged a family around a fire that kept trying to give out.

A/N: Review, please!