Meredith usually found herself searching hallways hoping to see Derek's silhouette. She could judge his mood before most people would be able to identify the hair. This time, she was afraid she would see him. It wasn't like she was inconspicuous, at almost thirty-five weeks pregnant. Luckily, there was no sign of him, or anyone who would casually comment on her going into an orthopedic exam room.

"You realize he's gonna notice if you comply here," Callie commented from where she was already sitting on the room's rolling stool. "Unless there's something…else going on?"

"What, like Derek sleeping on the couch because he keeps suggesting I cut my hours back? Nah."

"I don't care, as long as you're getting sleep at home. What about—?"

"I'm on call one night a week. Save it." She had concern from multiple sides, including her own—with another reason tacked on. While some said sleep issues signified Alzheimer's (bad) some experts leaned toward caused (worse.)

"Kicking him out would be sort of maybe be more of a punishment for me."

Callie nodded. "I get that. When Arizona was being…in the fall—" That was the way to put it, even if Callie didn't realize it. They'd all had times of being caught in the fall. "—I'd wake up at Mark's and think she was still missing, or that she'd never come home from Malawi. That I'd dreamed the past year didn't seem any crazier than what was happening."

Meredith couldn't imagine wanting to be alone in those weeks or months. That hadn't had been the issue for her, Derek, Lexie, or even Zola.

To her surprise, Callie followed up with a smile. "You never know what's coming, do you?"

"Before you get too arrogant, Zola keeps wanting to watch 'Aunt Callie on the 'OoTube,' so that could be inflating your TEDTalk views."

"Oh, that's not my only reason. Travis Reed, the Olympic snowboarder wants me to do his hip replacement—"

"Cristina told me about that."

"Oh. Good. I'm glad you're…. I don't know if I will. He wants me to use a specific replacement joint that I'm not familiar with, but it's not like I'm not willing to learn. They need him to have significant flexibility. Supposedly, it can give him that."

"It doesn't give you very much."

"No. It doesn't. But it'd be a great career boost. Enough snowboarders, and I could build Arizona and the kids our own dream house."

"Kids?"

Callie went from smiling to beaming. "Arizona said she wants another one."

"Oh, wow! I didn't think that—"

"Was a possibility? Me either. She might've just had baby fever—it came up at your shower—but she kept mentioning it. She even wants to carry, which is fine with me. She must've seen that it didn't totally wreck my body—that was the car crash."

"She…. I knew she was worried about having kids as a peds surgeon, but pregnancy doesn't…?"

"She never really considered it as anything she'd face. In her training it seemed like just another way women were alienated from their bodies. She didn't see the good parts. And it's not like not carrying Sofia affected their bond."

"Of course not." Fetus moved, a feeling that was eerily similar to what her mind was doing. Something squirming, but not fully identifiable.

"Enough about my amazing life. You noticed the pain, when?"

"Um…it's been off and on for a couple weeks. I thought it was just that I've been spending time in the skills lab, doing neuro stuff. Easiest way to avoid…certain situations."

"Webber?"

"Mmm." Meredith stuck out her wrist. She didn't want to discuss it. The situation had led to her doing a lot of smaller, solo surgeries, and there wasn't a soul who wouldn't say, well, isn't that better in your condition?—Like she was sick! —She couldn't deny it was a better arrangement, though, especially as the workload picking up without Bailey. "It really hit me taking notes at all the board meetings "

The look Callie gave her proved she saw through that. Typical. She took her hand, running her through Phalen's and Darkin's Tests. They were specific to this situation, but similar enough motions to the ones she'd been watching Derek, and then Lexie, do all year that her brain was twisting.

Isn't this what you wanted?

No. She didn't want attention for this; she didn't want to work less. Her pregnancy had nothing to do with the crash.

"Pregnancy-related carpal tunnel," Callie declared.

"You're…sure? The 'related' part?"

"Did it hurt seven months ago? Two months ago?"

"No and no."

"We can do imaging, but unless it doesn't resolve…. Do you have reason to question? Did you forget to mention spraining your wrist in the crash, because if so, I'm LODOXing you biannually just to—"

"I did the Macgyver wound closures, remember?"

"Is that supposed to mean something to me? I think you'd have tagged Cristina or Arizona if you had something worse than a dislocation going on, but since it was Derek—I know you can stitch in pain, Meredith."

Callie's hand covered hers, turning her forearm enough that she could almost see the scar, right above where it would've affected her scrubbing in.

She hadn't had to keep a bandage under wraps since then. She'd had moments; a small collection of cat scratches that were starting to look like tally marks on the inside of her upper an increasing amount of her epidermis was becoming difficult to access made her afraid of where the blade would land if she went into a full spiral. Stitching up her own leg would involve contortions that it hadn't eight weeks ago.

No one expected it all to go away on Fetus's birthday, either. Wyatt was already counseling her on dealing with sleep deprivation, and would be monitoring her for signs of postpartum depression. Weirdly, she wasn't as worried about that. Maybe it was one thing too many.

"Show me a female surgeon who can't," she countered. "I probably…. I had a concussion. I had a gash on my leg. My whole body was bruised, but no other red flags."

"There you go. If it doesn't clear up once the rugrat is here, we'll reassess. Meanwhile, there's this." She glided over to the desk and tore into the plastic packaging from the brace shop. "Big kid sized."

Meredith grimaced. Her hands felt a like the only part of her body that hadn't ballooned. It wasn't reassuring to think about how all the stretching and swelling might not be enough to make up for her natural proportions being shared by sixteen-year-olds.

"Okay," Callie said, over the loud rip of fresh medical-grade Velcro. "If the gloves were the issue, does that mean what's been killing patients is the cookie infection?"

"The…." Meredith cracked up as she recalled the night of the ruling, when they'd all been drinking and she'd been punchy with the adrenaline. It wasn't purely amusing. She could still remember the weight of the lighter she'd pilfered from Arizona in her pocket driving home; knowing that as soon as Derek stopped snickering over Lexie's balls jokes, the voice telling her that she didn't qualify as an injured party, and that she'd be bound to let Lexie down if she stayed with them, would win out.

Hurting herself hadn't been that inevitable in a long time. She was getting better. Her body was doing irritating things, but none of them were as severe as what anyone out there went through. If that was the goal—if there was a point—it wouldn't be enough, even in the short run.

"Probably," she said. "She's never mentioned contracting any other infection. That doesn't mean she couldn't have been a carrier for something, but…. Yeah, I'm going with Sex on the Beach MRSA.

"We can never bring it up."

"Never," Callie agreed.

"It's awful. People have died."

"They have."

"Ben and BCB just wanted to spice stuff up on their honeymoon."

"She should've gone with vajazzling,"

"That would've made it more difficult for him to eat her cookie."

They laughed until they were breathless. It was a stress valve releasing, but it did feel slightly disloyal. Bailey had taken her side with Richard, and done her best to provide counseling with her genome report.

"I was leaving about the same time as her and Richard the other day," Callie said, focused on arranging Meredith's hand in the brace. "He went to comfort her, and she went off on him. She's seriously pissed. Says he threw her under the bus, while she covered for his drinking."

"She…?"

"You know how she is. She doesn't want to be aware of anyone's business. She must've figured it out, being his work-wife, but she wouldn't have let herself really…."

"Acknowledge it, to decide between getting to take over procedures for her drunky drunk mentor, and doing what's actually best for everyone? I don't blame her. Kept him from having to gaslight her, which I'm sure he appreciated."

"Adele thought they were sleeping together."

"Bet Adele didn't cry and beg her for her husband."

"They separated, so no."

Meredith huffed. "I'm not on his side, but…we needed to be allowed to treat that patient. He wasn't…. Not saying it's her fault!—She did everything right. Pegasus is to blame. Which sort of means we—"

"Don't do that. We're doing good here, Grey. You know it. Owen brought in Cahill. Are we putting this on him?"

"A lawsuit wouldn't. It'd be on us. We own this place. We should've gotten rid of everything they brought in. We—"

"Are doing everything we can. We're going to do all we can to support Bailey, and we'll add gloves to the list of things we never cut corners on. Gloves and charter planes."

"Gloves to charter planes," Meredith corrected. "That's why it's so hard." She tested the movements that had been coming with sharp pain, and felt only the moment of tension that came before it. "Unless I'm in surgery?"

"Correct. One day, maybe, we'll have a machine that can sterilize something as bacteria-loving as velcro, multiple times a day, and get the Standards of Practice changed to allow for it to be worn over a glove."

"Not in this lifetime."

"One of my professors knew of an orthopedic surgeon in the seventies who lost an arm in a major car crash, before he even went to med school. A Dr. Robbins. No relation. He used a prosthetic he'd made himself, but I don't know how it worked in the O.R. Fewer guidelines, probably."

"Likely." Meredith agreed. "He knows, by the way. Derek. You were at the shower, and you think I'm able to hide anything from him right now? He was worried about my having operated with Bailey, which…. None of my…spots were ever open, so he's just being Derek."

"He was pretty worried that you'd contract something from the woods—Don't give me the look. I know he had wounds too, but his did get far more medical attention. It's not like he's the only one who prefers to worry about someone else."

"Point," Meredith acknowledged. "He wanted me to talk to you earlier. I think he'd love to have a reason to bench me."

"And you wonder why I thought he might've gotten couched," Callie said. "It was also because of the hovering at the shower. You're pretty anti-hover."

"So's Arizona."

The I know what you're doing eyebrow went up again. Meredith didn't feel like admitting that as annoying as it could get, she didn't blame Derek for wanting to look out for her. Apart from all the crazy, her balance wasn't keeping up with Fetus's growth as well as it had through the first two-thirds of this marathon. She'd discovered that piggy-backing Zola balanced her out more than carrying her on a hip, which the toddler loved, but that was its own balancing act, since her back could only handle so much.

The backpack she'd carried while traveling had weighed more than she'd gained. She'd lugged it around all day, and then gone dancing. To think, she would've said she hadn't changed that much between twenty-four and thirty-four.

"You're saying something about me there," Callie observed.

"Not…exactly. Just…I don't know. Connie is after me to make all of these birth plan decisions. I get it, because if I go with no drugs, I want to have it written down; otherwise, Derek would have them medicate me as soon as I scream. But…I've seen a lot of births, and…. It's sort of like…that's just going to make everything that doesn't go to plan make me feel more out of control."

"You're saying something about Arizona." Her voice was lower, and her flat expression made Meredith wish she hadn't said anything.

"Not about wanting a baby. I'm sure she does—" Probably. If she said it at their shower, and she was thinking about how it had been something that let them think about a future beyond the lawsuit and the hospital buy-out…. That wasn't for Meredith to speculate on. "—but…she had to make some big choices for you when Sofia was born. I'm worried that if the situation is reversed again…."

"No, I see that. It definitely doesn't make your body any more familiar. She thinks you're a heathen for not having onesie decorating station, by the way."

"She…did she not see the one I produced at your shower?"

"The Onesie from the Void?"

"Made with envy, just for you!" Meredith quipped. She'd never seen Sofia in it, and she assumed it'd been thrown out like the cursed object it might well have been.

"Yeah, I think being into Puff Paints is a result of being involved in one too many programming events. I liked that you let a party attended by adults be an adult party."

"Lexie planned it. I think that was a nod to—" Her pager buzzed. "—it supposedly being partially for my birthday. Shit, Murphy. She better not have gotten tomato sauce on my patient or something."

"Was it? For your birthday?"

"Originally." Meredith started to slide off the exam table. Callie grabbed her arm. "But we ended up scheduling it late enough that it looked weird, and…I'm not big on birthdays. Though having Zola sing 'Happy Birthday' to me is kind of the best thing ever. I'm not gonna object to having two of them."

"Wow, you're excited."

"I actually am."

"We're gonna find time for me to teach you and Shepherd the counter-pressure techniques that'll help if you go unmediated—it's still natural, by the way, a baby leaving your body is natural.

"You still have time for more concerns to crop up. Don't be a hero. Even if it'll be better in a few weeks, you're going to have a newborn. You need to take care of yourself now, for your sake. Not just the little guy's."

Of the two of them, Callie had a much better idea of what she was talking about: Like most premies Sofia had really "woken up" close to her due date, when she'd already been home. That was when she'd begun connecting to the world more, but also crying for feedings she'd had to be woken for, and having very squawky opinions about events such as her bath.

At the door, she expected Callie to let go of her arm, but her grip tightened. Meredith turned to her, catching the uncertain look that came right before she said, "You and Cristina…she talks to you?"

"Mostly about Paul Dawson, lately, but—"

"What about Owen?"

"He doesn't talk to me."

Callie rolled her eyes. Fair. Owen talked to few enough people that it almost wasn't a joke. "Look, when Travis came in for his consult—"

"'Travis,' huh? You're doing it."

"You meet this guy and call him 'Mr. Reed.' I haven't said yes, yet."

"Yet."

"Anyway, he was flirting with her, and used the 'leave your husband for me' line they always think is anything but kind of gross. She didn't correct him on the husband part."

"It's Cristina. She probably didn't want to have to explain that 'ex-husband' doesn't mean 'single.'"

"It didn't seem like that. She didn't flinch. Are they gonna get remarried, or—?"

"No. No, they're just….They say it's just sex…."

"Yang doesn't do that."

"Not well." Oh, she said shit about scratching an itch, and that Lexie's heart lived in her vagina, but facts were. "Between us, I thought she was close to calling it last week, and that was before Owen started massaging rules for a kid Derek described as a 'pre-teen Botticelli baby.'"

"A what?"

"He's…. Cherubs. Everywhere in Italy. Google it. I'll talk to her."

Historically, she and Cristina let each other make their own decisions when it came to their love lives; generally providing support regardless of their opinion. Exceptions had obviously been made—for instance when Owen had tried to strangle her—but Meredith stepped carefully. She'd lost friends by giving her honest opinion about a guy or relationship during a break-up that didn't last. Maybe it was time to prove that they were more mature than that.

She hustled out of the ortho wing and found Murphy waiting for her at the nurse's desk. "Hemetemesis."

Really proud of that tomato sauce joke, now.

"Aw, Murphy, I remember when that excited you. Give me the rundown."

"Robb Askew is a twenty-eight year-old man who was sent to us by his outpatient neurologist about a week ago, after a tonic-clonic seizure sent him falling down the back steps while taking out the trash.

"His husband reports a history of traumatic brain injury resulting in epilepsy controlled by carbamazepine," the intern said as "Prior to admission, last seizure was a year ago.

"Significant cerebellar contusion, resulting in hydrocephalus treated with VP shunt; mild antegrade memory issues and aphasia. Independently mobile. Presented with horizontal nystagmus on lateral gaze—"

"Which is?" Meredith cut in.

"Rapid, uncontrollable eye movement."

"And he's vomiting blood?"

"Yes. The remainder of the neuro—"

Meredith held her hand up. "What do you think?"

"I….The clinic sent his images over," Murphy said. "They only took x-rays. The shunt pressure was adjusted with no change."

"Which you're telling me, because?"

"It seems like a shunt malfunction. His last revision was three months ago; routine obstruction. Ventriculoperitoneal shunts can move from their placement, either in component parts, or the whole…Sorry."

It took a moment for her to comprehend why the intern was apologizing. "I know my kid's whole shunt isn't hanging out in her abdominal cavity, Murphy."

"Right, yeah, sorry!"

Meredith sighed. "Don't be. Just...save the consideration for your patients."

The man whose bedside Murphy led her to was pale and dark-haired. When he raised his head, her first thought was of Dracula. A second later, the young Black msn leaning over to bring a cloth to Robb's mouth jolted backward, and the intern at Meredith's arm startled.

"Not a migration, huh?" Meredith murmured, grabbing a pair of gloves off the box on the wall before she headed for the bed to confirm that the tube protruding from the patient's mouth was a shunt catheter.

Forty-five minutes later, Robb was being prepped for surgery while she stared at his scans, dumbfounded. "How did they miss that the catheter had detached?"

"Because they were looking at this," Derek said, pointing at the enlarged x-ray sent over from the neurologist. It was focused on the value's gauge. "I did a year of my residency under a Sinai pediatric neurosurgeon who hated programmable valves, did I ever tell you?"

"No." She switched to the CT where the thin line of the shunt catheter could be seen in the patient's esophagus, and waited for him to elaborate on something she felt like she should know; considering the card in both their wallets, and an inner pocket of the daycare bag identifying the particulars of Zola's shunt.

"Not the shunts themselves," he added, touching her arm reassuringly. "We were on the early trials. Not having to go in to adjust them was an incredible advancement. It avoided an invasive surgery. That's always the goal. This is why. Before, a work-up would mean checking the full system, no matter what. With these, if there's not an obvious blockage going on, the tendency is to focus on adjusting the pressure. This guy's doctors adjusted a shunt that wasn't working twice before sending him on."

Meredith turned to him. "You get chest x-rays, CTs, and an MRI."

"Now you know why."

She remembered Alex arguing once that this was a waste of resources, and the shunt would just be disrupted by the MRI magnet. It'd been the first time she'd seen that Derek was as capable of viewing them as total idiots as the other attendings. If they were having to do the tests, the chances were the shunt would have to be reprogramed. Other options mostly involved switching it out entirely. If the patient wasn't seen by someone who could program the MRI to a different frequency, or troubleshoot the shunt before CFS started building up, they had bigger problems.

"Migration isn't common," Derek said. "Complications occur in ten to thirty percent of cases, usually pretty soon post-op. Catheter migration occurs in ten percent of those."

"Intern is gone, Derek," she reminded him, more gently than she would've if she'd been sure he was trying to teach.

When he turned to her, she could see in his eyes that his mind was upstairs with a toddler who'd had the same device inserted just under two years ago.

"We do placements all the time. I put a VPS shunt in Stevens's history teacher, remember?"

"I do," she said, carefully. Derek put shunts in once a week. Why he'd thought of that one, she wasn't sure, except that it'd been someone who'd mattered to her friend.

"I know she'll need a revision one day," he said. "It's almost a guarantee. Babies grow. But this…so often we don't know a catheter has separated until it's perforated something." Looking at Robb's CT, vomiting caused by the buildup of CSF had likely caused enough pressure in the abdominal cavity to cause a gastric perforation. "Her organs are still so small. When they're that little…. I've seen multiple organs violated. When…When you were taking your boards, I was afraid her shunt was going to separate. I was washing her entire wardrobe, checking her temperature, doing all I could to help her feel better when I had the decided handicap of not being Mama—All the normal dad reasons to be terrified, and I kept imagining that tubing poking holes in her."

"Hey." Meredith grabbed his shoulders, turning his chair to face her. For the first time, she hated the high-resolution monitors surrounding them, and wished she hadn't gotten Murphy to put Robb's x-rays up on the lightbox.

"When I determined that I wasn't just nervous about the boards, or motion sick from being in the back of a van that smelled like Kepner's weird buttered pretzel trail-mix—"

"You swore you didn't know who kept throwing that away last fall."

"Blame Fetus. Everyone would've known in November if they'd figured out that walking past the break room was making me puke." Meredith shuddered. In retrospect, the smell might not have been an irritant if she hadn't already been sick, but the association had been made. "My point is, we stopped at a rest area in California. Everyone went on about the heat. I was freezing, and I barely got into a nasty bathroom stall before I started crying in relief, because it meant I hadn't missed the signs. Her shunt wasn't malfunctioning. I was being a mildly crappy mom—"

"Mer…."

That that was the moment where Derek's eyes started glistening made her sure, there would never be a time where she couldn't somehow fall more in love with him.

"I had a fever, okay? But I'd let her stay in our bed the night before, because she was cranky, you were on-call, and I was freaking out. She woke up with a fever, and she couldn't tell us if her head hurt or not, and I…I….

"One in a thousand doesn't sound like short odds once you've been in a plane crash, I get it. But Derek, there are thirty-thousand VP shunts put in every year in this country. That hasn't been true forever, but it's been common and safe, as neurosurgical procedures go, for over half a century. That's a million people, give or take? So, one thousand migrations. Three thousand American neurosurgeons. Getting one is more than average. You've seen five since I started. Two infants, within months of placement, our new friend Robb here, that post-op of Webber's, and the intracardiac that Lexie got to take out—Cristina wouldn't speak to her for a month after that."

His attempt at a smile was heart-wrenching, and she put her hand on his cheek. "She's lucky, Derek. We're going to drive her a little nuts, maybe, but if it happens, we'll have her scanned and we'll have our pick of specialists. We won't have to fly anyone in from Peru—"

"We could. If…the catheter isn't the only part that can migrate. There have been intracranial migrations. Not many. A handful. Twenty, twenty-five in the literature but…."

"That little brain is so damn amazing that something happening to it is a horrifying idea? Yeah, I know. When she ran her scooter into the coffee-table last month I wanted to get her a helmet.

"We can't protect her from everything. But I'm going to say it again: she's lucky. We educate parents, yes, but…. Intracranial shift is mostly found in infants. It's in cases of severe hydrocephalus where the shunt was placed with a occipital Burr hole, and there's less risk with good anchorage to the pericranium and peritoneum. Which way did you go in with her?"

"Frontal." Derek slumped. "You know the stats as well as I do. You know all of it."

"Not all—"

"Dr. Grey?" Murphy again, hanging onto another doorway. Meredith wanted to quote her mother at her. But why? She was lingering in the doorway for the same reason Meredith had; weighing the consequences of interrupting versus not. "He's ready."

"Okay, I'll….Wait…., Derek, look, could his fourth ventricle be encysted?"

He spun around to follow her finger. "It might be. Let me…." He started to click, manipulating the MRI.

"I need to go," she said. "Still a general surgeon today, and we're short-staffed."

While she was patching the perforation she noticed his appearance in the gallery. She managed to distract herself from the distraction by going over other incidents of shunt migration. She took a particularly perverse joy in noticing the faces around the room react to "scrotal" and "transvaginal," especially once they remembered she'd have to push something far larger than a catheter out of her vagina within weeks—without the accompanying fallopian tube perforation, true.

She was thinking of Zola. What put someone at more risk for that? Had the studies been done?

Zola had a shunt. She'd be too close to do that work. Wouldn't she? Or would being able to perform both the catheter excision and the shunt revision put her in a unique place to study VPS migration? it was a crossover point that she hadn't thought of, after months of identifying them to justify her feeling that she needed to make the move.

"Dr. Grey?"

She hadn't forgotten that Derek was watching them, but it still startled her to hear his voice on the intercom just as she told Murphy that she could close the incisions.

"Yes?"

"You were correct. All three outlets of Mr. Askew's fourth ventricle are obstructed. The ventricle isn't enlarged enough for it to be noticeable if you weren't looking closely.

"You connected his symptoms with the images at an incredible speed, but it's more than that. You have a uniquely trustworthy instinct for diagnosis. How would you proceed?"

"I.…" She'd avoided looking up at him by overseeing Murphy's stitching with far more scrutiny than necessary. With the intern now placing the dressings, she didn't have an excuse. "Options are: shunt, stent, fenestrate. I'd have to see the imaging again. You could stent the aqueduct of sylvius, depending on if we're looking at obstruction or stenosis. Commonly, a separate shunt would be put in, but since the existing VPS has to be removed…. If not for that, I'd go in endoscopically, but in this case, I'd go in microscopically with a suborbital approach, to allow for more visibility. There's a higher success rate, and it will relieve the pressure. I'd fenestrate straight through. The foramina of Monoro, Magendie and Luschka, the cerebral aqueduct, and the lamina terminus. The VP shunt wouldn't have to be replaced. But…I'd have to check his measurements. I noticed earlier that there was shift from his previous surgeries."

"Good," Derek said. Safely behind a mask, she let out a long exhalation. He wasn't expecting her to step carefully at first, or say what he'd say. She just had to look ahead, and consider her motivations, which might be equally difficult. "I thought I'd suggest that Amelia take this one while she's visiting. It should give her a feel for how the department is running."

She smiled, a little amazed that he was really going to be making the effort. They were going to do this, she realized, and it would be extraordinary.

And the next time Zola was sick, Meredith wouldn't face the irrational belief that with those few additional months of training, she'd have been able to tell for sure if it was her shunt.

It wasn't until she was in the scrub room, and she almost dropped the soap that she was forced to acknowledge the shooting pain that had been her true reason for handing the closure off to Murphy. Extraordinary would never come easily.

The season and the time change meant that the sky was still bright on days she could get away moderately early, so the next day, she picked up Zola and took her outside to wait for Derek and Amelia.

"Unca Ow'n!" Zola started pulling so suddenly that Meredith almost pitched forward. Her mind hadn't left the moment ten minutes ago where she'd opened the door to the toddler room, and Zola had come running, squealing, "Mommy!"

Mommy. It was the first time she'd been anything other than Mama since Zola had said it at thirteen months.

It wasn't a big deal. Just a word.

Just her baby not being a baby anymore.

"Hey, Zola." Owen stuck his toe under the ball to propel it upward and caught it. The smack reminded Meredith of gym class, which might've been the last time she'd played any kind of organized sport. He motioned to the kid. "Dr. Grey, Zola, this is Ethan. Ethan, Dr. Grey is Dr. Yang's friend. Zola's her daughter, and my pal, aren't you, Zo?"

Zola nodded, her focus totally on Ethan. "Mommy, I kicka ball?"

"If you want to, I think you should ask Ethan."

Zola ducked her head down against Meredith's neck. "Big kid."

"She can play," Ethan said "I'll be careful with her."

"That's very nice of you." Meredith started to put Zola down, but Owen intercepted her. Her immediate fury wasn't rational; she trusted Owen with her. Apparently, today that didn't equate to being able to take her from her arms without a word. She kept her hands on Zola's shoulders holding her steady the first time she kicked the ball. It was a moderately new skill, and the soccer ball was heavier than the bouncy balls she'd recently started lobbing at Derek without warning.

"Yeah, balls are gonna be an outside toy soon," Meredith commented, watching the soccer ball roll past Ethan, who hadn't expected it to go as far—or to list as far right, she was two, after all.

"Good job!" he said. "Um…Dr. Hunt? Maybe we should go over to the grass?" He pointed to the expanse alongside the building.

Owen looked to Meredith.

"Good idea, Ethan. We'll hang out until Daddy and Auntie Amelia get here, Z'okay? Then, we're going to get dumplings. You like those."

Zola's brow furrowed. "Aunnie Ecksy?"

"We'll pick up Lexie."

Ethan offered Zola his hand. She took it, still looking a little unsure. It made sense; she'd been almost done with her bedtime routine when Derek brought Amelia in from the airport last night, and the morning had been somewhat chaotic.

"I'm have baby bruver, big kid," she announced. Meredith winced; this kid's family was falling apart—his mom had basically sailed through brain surgery, and only been awake a couple of days before another hematoma caused her death. His dad hadn't woken since the accident, and according to Cristina his grandmother wasn't likely to be able to provide full-time care. In spite of that, he smiled at Zola, and while his voice was low, it wasn't heard to hear the last part of his sentence was cool.

"She's enchanted," Meredith observed. "He seems like a sweet kid. It's a shame he's going through so much. Any improvement?"

"Not yet."

"Bringing Russell in?"

"You've been talking to Cristina. Not that you wouldn't be. I…that's not my business."

"Isn't it? Isn't she?"

Owen opened his mouth, and then closed it. "Cristina's her own person."

"I didn't say she wasn't. I'm standing here seeing you watch that kid, and your face reminds me of Derek's the day we met Zola."

That was what made him turn to her. "That's…This isn't… I like him, and…he likes me. I…I was his age. When my dad…. He needs someone. He's scared and alone, and…I know how to help. But he's…he's not my kid. It's a huge commitment. And his dad…. Don't think I don't believe Cristina can…. I have faith in her abilities, but…sometimes things just happen."

"Sometimes they do," she acknowledged.

Zola was giggling while Ethan crouched next to her, trying to teach her how to move the soccer ball shorter distances with the inside of her foot. Meredith knew she needed to be giving the man next to her a reality check. But she could take a moment to imagine Zola passing on that little bit of knowledge to her "baby bruver."

"Derek knew first, because he's Derek. It took me longer, because…I was scared."

"Cristina isn't."

"She is. For you."

He didn't do baffled that often; although, Meredith thought she might see it more than most. "That?" She gestured to the little boy. "She watched me go through it last year, and you…you don't let a lot of people in. She'll want to support you. If it falls through, you'll keep up whatever you two are doing, until the next maybe. You did that when you decided to work here instead of re-enlisting, and with Teddy, and Cahill—You're a smart guy, Owen. I don't think you ever mean for it to happen, but I think you know it does. Broken people imprint on you. Once they can fly on their own…. You don't stop caring—in fact, you're really bad at letting go.—I understand. The more people you lose, the harder you cling to the ones you have, and the more you pretend you don't—but you don't relate to them the same way. No one wants a family for a single reason. One of yours is wanting someone to take care of. That's okay."

Once-upon-not-that-long-ago, Meredith had thought that could be the one way she'd create an independent identity. If she had a kid, even on her own, she'd want to take care of them. It was much more than that, now.

"You thought you'd be taking care of her again this summer. I'm not saying you didn't want her to recover. Maybe you hoped It'd be gradual, or that…something else would change." The touching your belly with very little provocation thing killed subtlety. Owen blinked. His eyes were stormy; the dark gray of the clouds above them. "None of us turned into completely different people.

"She can't change for you, and she doesn't want to lose you. If you keep treating her like a yo-yo, the string will fray. She will be jealous of the kid who goes from maybe to reality, and she'll hate herself for it. Your kid won't have her in their life."

"GOAL!" Zola exclaimed, throwing her arms up over her head. She was copying Lexie's contribution to the night-time games of keep away. Usually, it signaled that either the ball or Zola had passed under Derek's legs. This ball hadn't done anything more interesting than rolling a few feet ahead of her, but Ethan clapped gamely.

She could see him as Owen's kid.

"I…I pushed her to the altar. A little. Wasn't as crazy about the getaway car idea with my idiot husband in lock-up. I…I needed the world to keep moving. I'm not apologizing; you both chose, and you made her happy…you still do…. But I've been…reading, and to start a marriage in that place…when the slutty shrink had diagnosed most of us with acute traumatic stress, and you were just starting PTSD treatment…. There'd have been bonding through trauma stuff; you didn't have a real baseline…and as the whatever-of-honor, I should've made sure you'd had the kids talk."

"We had. Sort of. It…came up—" Meredith sucked in her cheek. Chances were it had, and they'd been out of condoms. "—She laughed, and said she wasn't going to be the one who got knocked up by an attending again... She was gonna save all her PTO from residency and blow it on a cruise, where she didn't have to talk to anyone for weeks."

"She meant it. You have to think about it, to do this as a woman, Owen. Residency programs aren't known for their parental leave policies. Timing it for a research year, and reallocating leave is the best a lot of people can do, especially if there are complications. It's worse if you wait; you have to hand off your patients…and I'm in under the wire for a geriatric pregnancy. That's one place where the evidence isn't totally exaggerated. Just deciding one day that you want kids…. You're likely to be out of eggs by the time it's practical."

Essays she'd read in support of reproducing as a surgeon still said things like, my colleague uses his PTO to go to Tuscany. He brings back crates of wine for all of us! I used mine to bring another human into the world, and came back delirious with sleep loss! That was not where you should say 'that's what you signed up for!' What parents signed up for was coming back unrested when they took the kid on vacations!

"We ironed out a lot of wrinkles on the HR side, and I get to benefit from the vibe shift. But that can't change the fact that it changes everything. Surgery is an incredibly physical job, and this isn't just carrying a bowling ball around for nine months. It could literally change my DNA. I hurt in new and interesting places every day, and it's not going to be long before I'm not just letting Derek help me out of bed to humor him. And I'm healthy. Connie says I should sit down more, but…. If you use any of that against me, I will kill you, Got it?"

"Uh, yeah, yeah, of course."

"Because we're short-handed in general, and you let me work this summer."

He uncrossed his arms to run a hand over his closely-cropped hair. "I am sorry for that. You were the only one physically well enough. Probably not the best indicator of your emotional readiness, huh?" She almost didn't take her eyes off of Zola fast enough to catch the quirk of his lip.

"Women in every field change their minds. Maybe they thought they wouldn't find the right person, and then they do. I wasn't sure I'd grown up enough, if anyone ever is, until a couple of years ago. Some lucky people just pee on the stick one day, and it feels right."

"That's…not Cristina," he said, and she was sure he was thinking of all the times Cristina's path to heart surgery had been blocked. "She doesn't change her mind."

"She doesn't. She chose you."

Owen's Adam's apple bobbed visibly. "I…I do understand. I, uh…it's a lifetime of responsibility. And it pretty much uproots everything. But then I spend one minute with this kid, and...I can't imagine not doing it.

"You're thinking I'm crazy."

"No. I'm thinking that's exactly the way I felt about Zo."

"Cristina won't get it."

"She will," Meredith said. He closed his eyes, not wanting to face the difference between what she'd said, and what she meant. Cristina would be behind him, but not at his side.

"Daddy!" Zola started to run to Derek, realized she didn't want to leave the ball, and shifted to flapping her arms in excitement.

She'd called Derek Da-dee from the start. There would be years before she shifted to Dad, and Meredith would probably already be Mom. The jealousy she felt didn't last much longer than Zola's shout, but the second thought made it sizzle under her skin. He had positive associations with both monikers.

She'd adjusted to being Dr. Grey. On most days.

"See, Z?"

"We're watching!"

Meredith crossed her fingers, already proud of how Zola steadied herself before swinging her foot. The soccer ball rose up from the grass and bounced twice before it stopped rolling. For a beautiful moment, the only thing that mattered were the giggles of a happy toddler running to her daddy.

"Nice job, kid," Amelia said.

"I kick it! Daddy, see! See Z, Mommy?"

"I did!" Meredith squeezed Zola's arm and leaned in to kiss her cheek. Derek met her eyes, but before the word on his lips was fully formed, they shifted, and she turned to see where his gaze had fallen.

Ethan had picked up the soccer ball and was standing near to Owen, his weight shifting as though he'd like to move closer. Meredith moved her hand to Derek's shoulder. It had only been two days since Rachel Dawson's death had been one thing too many for him. "If I feel like I have the touch of death, think how it must be for Miranda."

"Hi, Dr. Shepherd. You have a cute little girl."

"Thank you for playing with her."

"It was fun. She's strong. She kicked the ball right past me! I didn't even think such a little kid could do that."

"She's surprising," Derek agreed.

"We should go back up," Owen said. "Your grandma's going to be ready for dinner."

"Dad's gonna be surprised. He says she only eats at early bird specials."

Owen laughed and put his hand on Ethan's shoulder. Meredith watched them walk into the building.

She could see it. She could. But she also saw a little boy, an only child, who'd been cherished by his parents. Who'd spent most of his time with them, so got along better with adults. They'd been a unit, a team, and from what she'd heard, he didn't know his grandmother very well. Getting him through the grief of losing both of them would be an endeavor. She was sure Owen could handle it, potentially better than a grieving woman in her eighties. But what about the next part, when Ethan became a teenager who needed to have independence, but also needed to know he was wanted?

What after that, when he was ready to fly?