For the second time in her life, Meredith stood in front of her father's house, wondering if it was worth ringing the doorbell. Making an aborted attempt at ding-dong ditch wouldn't be simple this time; she couldn't turn on her heel and flee. Last time, she'd hoped he'd have a satisfactory answer. This time, she was pretty sure he wouldn't, but she pressed the button far more decisively. She wasn't here for her own sake.
It was jarring to have Dani come to the door. This wasn't a replay. It couldn't be. The two other people who featured in that night were dead.
"Dr… Meredith. Thatcher!" Dani stepped back, and it took Meredith another moment of blank-eyed staring—not pregnancy brain, or PTSD, simple, pure befuddlement—to step over the threshold. Part of her expected to ram into an invisible barrier like a vampire on Buffy.
She hadn't been in the house before, and that made it easier to see its layers. The entryway was bookended by the living room, and on the other side the kitchen. Pausing in front of the stairs, she was sure she could point at every item and say, Susan, Lexie, Dani, Molly, or occasionally, Thatcher. A cookbook spine or forgotten utensil might even jar Ellis from her lips. Somewhere, in a box, maybe, there were pictures not of the two girls smiling along the stairwell in matching dresses, but a third, who shared the smaller one's hair, and the older one's long fingers. A girl never pictured beyond the age of five. On one of the devices in the living room, forensics might match her up to the pixels in images sent by the older, darker girl to her father; although, Meredith doubted they'd actually been saved. She'd existed nebulously to her father for twenty-five years. Why would her reappearance not be relegated to the cloud? Regardless, between the ages of five and thirty—Thirty-one? Thirty-two? When had she turned up in a photo Lexie deemed worthy of sharing?—her influence here would've only been in the gaps. In words never said. In designations given to Lexie with a second's pause—only, oldest, first.
Dani took her through a living room containing a worn in sofa, and another dozen photographs on the mantle. The familiar shade of pink caught her eye. She saw it regularly in another image from the day Zola called "Z is one birthday." What pulled her out of the path Dani was making was the photo next to it. Another familiar day and dress. Not "Z is two birthday," although, there it was, to the right of the first, Zola on her push trike, with Derek and Meredith crouched on either side. Possibly the first photo of the next iteration of their family, with Fetus still an embryo she'd only half-imagined surviving long enough to be visible.
There was more in that image; visible bandages on Derek's arm, an invisible bandaid under her jeans, a caster that meant Lexie was barely out of frame—She was in many other frames up there. Meredith could tell they had once been arranged linearly; the shots from a wedding allowing her to deduce that, unlike many people, Thatcher did the courthouse and then the church, followed by the girls growing up.
Several of those had been moved out of line; Eric and Molly on their wedding day placed beside Thatcher and Susan. Lexie wore her Scout uniform happily around fifth grade. ("I dropped out," she'd lamented in the woods, before her preparation saved them). Molly as a Brownie moved down next to Laura wearing her Daisy uniform. A Susan-and-Molly pairing of mother-daughter ballerinas, decades apart.
A series of Lexie in graduation robes. One of her as a teenager that made Meredith's stomach drop: a fall day definitely too warm for the Harvard sweatshirt. The newsstand behind her was a fixture outside the T station.. The girl blowing smoke from her perch on one of the stone plinths ringing this area, called the Pit, was not Meredith. Too old, too much hairspray, not enough eyeliner, in Harvard Square within a week of student move-in. But Jesus, she thought, her mind suddenly twenty-two, nipping off someone else's cancer stick—"Mother, for the last goddamn time I do not smoke"—it could've been. She'd skateboarded out there, read books bought at the Coop, the bookstore a cross street out of frame, killed time before gigs, parties, buses.
She wouldn't have her ended up in the picture in the Yard with a more familiar Lexie. Apart from how rarely she'd been on campus once she went to college—Sadie visited; she didn't like being visited—by then she'd have been in Hanover, or…. She squinted at the orange date in a corner and immediately looked away to the last cluster. The numerals hit her anyway. 05.26.07.
"Mom came up to help me pack. She was supposed to be back with Dad for Commencement. Then she got hiccups."
A little girl on a sled.
And the picture that had drawn her over. A green dress with a taffeta skirt. She'd loved that word. Taffeta. It'd felt different in her mouth, like the words she'd heard at the hospital—still "the ho'pital," or "the hopsital," if she really tried to remember the s—Not a lisp; that came later, followed by the stammer. It all made reading aloud so awful that her test scores always shocked the teacher who'd mentally put her in the slow reading group.
"You don't need speech therapy, you need to speak up. And to have that tooth come in. Would missing class make that happen? Have you seen a dentist this year? Go check my calendar!"
All of that came later. With six, seven, and eight. Birthday dresses with flowers and birds, in blue, pink, and yellow—A spring birthday; shopping with college-aged babysitters, the childless housekeeper, an intern. No wonder she'd gone far in the other direction once the choice was hers.
Never green again. Mom said it washed her out. But it did match her—
"You loved that dress. You got it on yourself before dawn. That picture hardly shows it, but the design on the top has—"
"Bunnies. I said they were Peter Rabbit's sisters. That's how Cottontail got his name." (He'd have been Taffeta if someone hadn't claimed it'd be a better name for a girl dog. Not her mother. Ellis would've said it's a dog and a fabric. Who gives a shit?)
Someone had said, "look at you, honey. All dressed up for your party."
"Meredith, honey, time for presents!"
"He already loves you, honey. What a smart guy, huh?"
"Not a rabbity thing about him. Probably should've gone with a rabbit. You wanted one."
"I wanted a friend," she said, touching a finger to the glass like it was actually what separated her from the puppy who had a bow that matched the little girl's green dress tied to his collar. "From what Lexie says, you got one. But he was mine first."
It was an absurd assertion, and likely not true, since she'd been too young to be in charge of the puppy. But he'd sat with her on the stairs when voices got loud, and never pulled away from her hugs.
Most of all, she'd lost him.
Followed by Jane.
Friends were something you lost.
(She hadn't known she'd lost Daddy too. Not until your father went unspoken for months, and she turned six, not yet knowing that the cupcakes didn't turn up if your parent didn't bring them.)
"Lexie didn't know he was mine, did she?" Had they never had a conversation about it all?
"He came up the last time she was here. I found that and put it out. He's there." He pointed to a picture of Molly and Lexie on either side of a slightly shaggy retriever with a frisbee in his mouth. Meredith couldn't focus on it.
"He's always had that one out." Dani popped in between them and pointed not to the sled but a picture Meredith didn't recognize. Her and Derek. The old house. The party for his appointment as interim chief.
Early, she noted based on her clear-eyed gaze. The pictures she'd seen came from Cristina, during what had started as cleanup but became an after-party. She'd been freaked out over being Chief's wife, and tried to shut her mind up once the board members were gone.
"Table dancing after all?" Derek had asked, coming in from seeing the last blue hair to a cab. She'd frozen like a kid being caught sneaking out. Cristina had bumped into her, and because she'd been the classy hostess until the three doubles (two triples?), her heels were on. She'd almost gone down for the first time since 2002, but he'd caught her. "It is a Meredith Grey party."
She took advantage of being taller to mess up his hair, pretending that she hadn't just heard her mother whispering in her ear. He poured his last drink in toast to her as the hostess. But when he lay her down on the bed that had become theirs, she blurted, "Betcha never hadta carry Addison t'bed after a party at your own house."
He smiled like her petulance wasn't as sour as her stomach felt. "You're spinning, baby."
She squinted at him, sure he chose the epithet for a reason, but not the one that was making it feel right to her. "It'll stop."
"It will." He sat on the bed, raising her up to rest her head on his knee and pressing his fingers to her temple. How'd he always know it hurt before she did? "But I didn't mean your brain. I meant your mind."
"Same thing."
"Dr. Grey."
"Is. I wouldn' think like I do if my brain wasn't screwy. Brain makes me all…all arrested adolescent."
"God, I wish I could show you what I see," he'd said, pulling a bobby pin from her hair.
"I see Messy Meredith in the mirror plenty."
"You shouldn't. You never…. You hold so much together. Of course the pressure causes cracks sometimes. But you're not…. I know it feels like you're playing grown-up. Especially since you attended events like that as a kid. Everyone has that feeling. It gets easier. A couple of years temping and traveling didn't put you behind anyone, and in med school you—"
"People had kids, Derek. Mom was in Boston. I was in Hanover. I blew off steam. And people. And blew people. You get it."
"I do. Pull the spikes in, hedgehog. Tonight was perfect. All of it."
"Nurses hadn't all left. Sleazy slutty intern could be back in the news Monday."
"Do you want it to be?"
"Hunh?"
"You know who's in the room at all times. You know who the gossips are. You can't always control the narrative, but you work with it. I understand being overwhelmed. I also know you draw exactly as much attention as you want when you are.
"You weren't ready for me to be Chief. History makes it fraught for us. You've come so far in the years since, but I…I screwed us up over it. Screwed myself up. So…you want to separate yourself from being known as the chief's wife. You don't want to be seen as getting favors. If things go really far south, you'll find a way to take the blame. Or you think I'm going to blow it—"
"No!"
"—and you want to be able to swing the spotlight."
"No, no, no!" She sat up and immediately regretted it. Staying down and arguing with him were one thing. Going back down would look like she was as pathetic as she was. (Felt, she told herself, years later.) "You're a great chief of surgery, Derek."
"Interim."
"Uh-huh." She pulled her legs up, trying to make it seem causal and not like her brain was making her feel like she was on the fan, not under it.
"This isn't an argument. I'm making statements, okay?" He put an arm around her, and then her head was on his shoulder and his fingers were combing her hair out. "Fact: I'm relinquishing the title to Richard once the contract's terms have been met. Fact: I'll go back to my position. Fact: I'm not going to try to take another chief job somewhere. Fact: You're not doomed to never having another Meredith Grey-style party—"
"Fact: Gotta grow up some day."
"Why?"
"'Cause. If we're having kids…and even if you don't want sleazy, slutty—"
"I want kids with you, Mer. Fact."
"There's a lotta screwy genes here. Lotta screwy mom-ness."
"I think that screwy mom gave you too many markers. There's no line. Mark and I went to a bar during SantaCon a few years ago. I have nieces who are more mature than that."
"Never have I ever worn a slutty elf costume.
"Now I have a goal."
"Derek! I'm not a sorority girl gone hedge fund worker!"
"No. You're a surgeon. An incredible one. And for all your pretend hedonism, I think you believe there's something wrong with you for just wanting to let go sometimes. Something that made you leave this in." He took a long pin out of her hair. "Even though I can see where it dug into your scalp." She felt sick, then; told herself it was because she hadn't eaten enough to soak up any amount of alcohol . "Mer…. Facts: You trust me. That took a lot of work. You've more than caught up from the liver donation. You did the right thing for Richard."
"I shoulda—"
"Facts: You have given so much of yourself lately. To him, to Stevens and Karev, to me. You're not him. Not Thatcher. Not Ellis. Not me. You don't want to be in anyone's shadow. You don't need a name to pull you through. It scares you, because the person you don't trust when you need to? Is you. You don't trust yourself. Not fully."
"I'm…I…I'm a resident," she said.
She wasn't sure if the alcohol's effect hadn't peaked, or her body was doing some weird fight or flight nonsense. (Now, she recognized more signs than the skin buzzing she'd known then).
"And you're not ready for anyone to forget that."
How soon he'd be calling her arrogant. She'd had moments of arrogance sure. Any surgeon did. She was highly trained. She knew what she was doing, more every day. Dr. Grey was confident in her abilities. But Meredith had been taught to question herself at every turn. She'd been the only person she was meant to rely on, but she was an unreliable—when?—weak-willed—force of nature—rebel—not good enough—graduated with honors.
She wasn't the person her mother had seen. Nor who Derek had seen. And she hadn't been able to see herself. Not until she'd offered herself up to the gunman. Not until Derek started risking his life for the thrill, when she'd been ready to give up hers for him. Not until she'd sacrificed part of her career to keep her family. Not until she'd realized that people could need her the way she needed them. That her instincts were good, if she ignored the ones about her own worth.
Ignored. Not eliminated.
In the picture, she looked grown-up. There was no hint that she'd been pretending. That she'd felt miscast. An understudy who knew none of her lines. The drummer boy on the front lines.
What had scared her the most was how easy it'd been. She'd known how to put a party together, even one that meant top shelves and catering, not bulk buying and pizza. Her own aptitude had triggered her. It was deeply messed up, and she thought Wyatt might use the b-word if she kept following the tracks.
She dragged her eyes away from the picture. "Have you heard from Lexie today?"
She'd imagined a couple of reactions to that question in the time since she'd gotten a call from Faye, with whom, she'd thought, Lexie had spent Sunday night. "Hey, Dr. Grey, Lexie was supposed to come out with us tonight, but she wasn't at Roseridge today. Her phone's going to voicemail. Is she…sick, or…?"
Sitting in the lounge after failing to coax Miranda out of her lab, Meredith had been transported to the park; not getting off the carousel to discover her mother was gone, but waiting at the gate, watching children stream off with no sign of her little sister.
It'd been the first time since she was five that she'd thought he's going to be mad at me and the he had been Thatcher. (If she'd actually thought Daddy will be mad at me, no one would have to know.)
"No. I heard from Molly."
"That's…good? Two of three? The thing is—"
"She asked for your number, but said you might get in touch before she could call. She had a flight to catch."
"To…here?"
"She didn't say."
"To Lexie? With Lexie?" Meredith again saw the images that had chased her off the only commercial flight she'd attempted—the woman broken on the ground was not Molly, the child not Laura. Not possible. He hadn't said a word about Laura.
"I'd assume. The one time Lex tried to run away, she took Moll. They were…let's see…this age." He indicated a picture. Preteen Lexie had stick braids and freckled cheeks. Molly wore a plaid jumper with a Peter Pan collar. "Lexie was scared of starting junior high. She had friends her age, and friends in her grade, but she was young. If we'd known Harvard would come knocking…. She decided they'd go to a my mother-in-law's to become farm girls. That might've been the last day I saw them be best friends.
"Oh, I know about the times Molly drove Lexie's car home from a party without a learner's permit. Lexie once pantsed a boy who teased Moll about her freckles. Molly mailed her a break-up care package, and Lexie helped her with homework. They're sisters. But you two, you're the kind of friend she didn't really have as a kid. There was always a crew. What I heard about her intern year didn't surprise me much, to be honest. Your mother would've loved it."
"Pardon?"
"Ellis very much hoped to find a meeting of minds in her intern class. Unfortunately, she and Richard went in with three third-generation surgeons. All fraternity members except for the Bonesman, and—"
"Yalies belong at Hopkins."
He said her mother's senseless adage with her, and raised his eyebrows when she turned back to him. "She had a way with words. And opinions. Always had to be right."
"And she he couldn't shut up when she was?"'
"As a matter of fact."
"Did she ever let you be right?"
"Occasionally, if I cited sources."
"What if it wasn't about something objective? Did she…? Never mind. I think I have Molly's—"
"Ask him your question, Meredith."
She'd forgotten about Dani, but the woman was sitting on the sofa, looking at them over her laptop. "It's not—"
"It doesn't have to be important. I have so many questions for my folks that never would've occurred to me as a kid, and your mom…sounds like you didn't get the kid questions either."
"I know where babies come from and…. Did I have Santa? Sorry. I should remember. I didn't. After. A Jewish girl at school told me I hadn't been skipped, but I wasn't…. I hadn't been…. I think Auntie wanted to exorcise me early on, but by the time we moved to the house, I…I'd learned to be quiet. Point is I wasn't devastated, or worried about coal, so—"
"If your aunt thought anyone was a demon it was her sister," he said, matter-of-factly. "You weren't a bad kid, Meredith. I wasn't—"
"You didn't see the tantrums. For the rest of the summer, I melted down if I wasn't in earshot of Mom. I wanted to be good in school, but by the pledge I'd be sure she'd forget to pick me up. By snack I'd have mentally put another family in…in our place. I couldn't tell my teachers why I was upset. She said I'd get taken away from her if I did. Eventually, I just stopped talking to them. Since I was sure Auntie hated me, I didn't feel safe until Marie Cerone moved to Boston. She'd have had me raised by nannies, but she'd take me if something happened.
"You knew a smart, funny little girl. A baby. You don't know what kind of kid or teenager I was. You hardly know me as an adult. My mother…. She told me who I was all the time. I don't know if she saw me, or wanted another chance for herself…. I am good at my job. Maybe great. I am. But saying that makes me want to scream, because it can't be true. I'm a screw up. I don't deserve her name, or her support. I shouldn't have gone to med school, because in spite of being groomed for it, I was destined to fail out. I bend over backwards to blame that one on the Alzheimer's, but if she couldn't be wrong—
"She wasn't. I disappoint people. Richard hates me right now. Lexie and I had a fight on Saturday. It's good she has Molly, because I screwed up the friend thing and the sister thing."
"She's definitely yours, Thatch."
"Isn't she? Meredith, I have something to show you. Sit with Dani."
"No. I'm gonna go—"
"Nope," Dani said, breezily. The next thing Meredith knew, she'd been pulled down onto a center cushion, meaning she'd be stuck without help. "You're on the wrong side of a panic attack, sounds like."
"It's the baby pushing my lungs up. I'm fine. There's a storm. It's stressful. And Lexie…she went—Shit!" She opened her phone. How the hell had this not occurred to her?
"Emerald Ci—"
"Jean-Philippe Possible Middle Name Delva, where is my sister?"
"Dr. Grey! You won me the bet. She insisted I'd hear from Dr. She—"
"You should be so lucky. My husband's a nice guy. You know what they call me, J.P.?"
"I do, I do. Both nicknames, I know, and I know you only want your little sister safe. I have two of them, ma'am. If either of them did this….!"
"What, exactly, is she doing?"
"See, she didn't share the details with me. Only that she had someone she needed to speak to in person, and she wanted to manage on her own. You'd have done all you could for her, Dr. Grey. Not because you believe she cannot, I think, but because you want to ease her way. I do so as well, but it seems our girl needed a challenge."
"So, what, Molly gets to be her fixer?"
"Ah, I told her, I said this would cause jealousy."
"I'm not jealous of—"
"She said Molly hasn't gotten to learn how to help. She says since you got along she no longer has to pick a side. I think maybe always you are closer to different family in different times."
"Sure, good philosophy. Where are they?"
"Ah. Yes. See. This I don't know."
"You took her to the airport!"
"I did not say this! I respect my riders' privacy, Dr. Grey. But I let me tell you about my friend the skycap. He works for American Airlines. He transported a very sweet girl this morning, he tells me—"
"This morning? Where'd you take her last night? Huh, Jean-Philippe?"
"—to a gate where there were no problems. I have heard that they both are safe on the ground. Where that ground is, it was not necessary to tell me. I may perhaps have heard it suggested that their older sister is braver for being willing to take a small plane, and they faced no turbulence—"
"J.P.…"
"I know what I say to be true, Dr. Grey."
"That night I met your cousin.,. not my best."
"I do not agree, and he would not. Our girl had not even woken. That is, I'd say, fast turnaround for trying. Now she must try and do. She will come home. I will bring her to your door. And then, I think, I will leave. Perhaps Dr. Shepherd and sweet Zola will want a ride. Else, we hang out and watch the fireworks, eh? Especially as that baby may decide he wants to see fireworks, too."
"Do you and 'our girl' have a bet on when I'll go into labor?"
"Oh, dear, I am being flagged. Au bien!"
Meredith's phone beeped. She scowled at it. "She thinks she doesn't have a type. Mark would love that guy."
"Mark was the one? Wouldn't he be jealous?"
"He envied one person. My husband. They grew up together. Brothers in a lot of ways. The ways they weren't they never talked about, and they both thought the other had the better deal."
"And these almost-brothers raised together ended up with sisters raised apart?"
"They did," Meredith ran her hands over her legs. "I really don't talk about that stuff much. Being five. Six. The first couple of years in Boston are sort of blurry, honestly."
"The world probably felt like it was spinning too fast for you to keep up."
"I'd lost track of this," Thatcher said on his return. "Dani found it reorganizing her stock."
He sat next to her, and opened the photo album between them. It was like walking into a hospital supplied by the same companies, built from similar blueprints. Familiar photographs taken from a different angles.
"Here." He flipped, and there were pictures she'd never seen. She was four and perched on a mall Santa's lap. "We weren't very good at it, and I could see your gears turning when you got all the items you'd circled in the catalogs, but no puppy."
"You have to be five for Santa to bring you a live animal." The words tumbled out of her, like her four-year-old self had momentarily taken over. "No wonder no one at daycare had heard that before. So…I did have Santa? I just wasn't disappointed, because I'd suspected?"
"That would be my best guess," Thatcher said. "You were right about 'smart.'"
"Richard said those things, once."
"Hm. Why's he upset with you?"
"Oh, uh, I'm retraining. Specializing in neuro."
"I used to know a woman who said that was a soft discipline. I told her that I was no doctor, but to me it looked like they were all pretty squishy."Meredith laughed, and Thatcher blinked, smiling at her. "Hear, uh, that it's a boy?"
"Yup." For months she'd resisted the traditional hand-on-the-belly posture, but as her due date got closer, she stopped caring about embodying clichés and more about remembering the feeling of having another human growing inside of her.
"The entire time Ellis was pregnant with you, she pretended she wasn't. I don't know if it was stubbornness or denial. Maybe both. Nine months, she had to do everything herself. And I had to let her."
Meredith focused on Fetus's movements. Derek had taken her shoes hostage, and otherwise made it less time-consuming to let him help her. She'd done the same when his wrist was messed up.
"The night she went into labor, she came home from her surgery rotation, and she just stood in the doorway, wide-eyed. 'We're having a baby, Thatch. We're having a baby.' As if the idea just hit her, right there. She... She started to laugh. She couldn't stop laughing. Laughed all the way to the hospital. I never heard her laugh like that, so big, so free. And I just thought, wow. What a way for you to come into the world. We weren't perfect. We weren't even happy a lot of the time. But I'd marry her all over again for that night, that laugh. And you," he added.
A feeling she associated with later disappointment started to form in her chest. "Richard told me once that he made the wrong choice. And he's said he made the right choice for the wrong reasons."
"What's it matter? What's happened, happened, and we have to live with how it turned out. If I'd known he wasn't there…. But I didn't. You grew up with only her, and without your sisters. It's a shame, but, honey…the truth is, we'll never know for sure that making different choices would have made the world better." It struck her that she actually knew her father well enough to note that as a very him thing to say.
Dani offered to make copies of the photos for her. She told herself Zola would love them.
"Lexie's intern year," she said, on the threshold. "The thing started tamely, but the woman who sort of…upped the ante…. She was my ex-girlfriend. It wasn't Lexie. And it was. But…it might be good that we didn't know each other as teenagers. We're both too easily led."
Thatcher's befuddlement made sense, at least. "You're two of the most independent people I know."
"That can make becoming a follower into a very addicting alternative." She wasn't sure the malleable man would understand, or if it was a sufficient explanation.
MEREDITH GREY: OTF. Lexie and Molly are on a secret mission. Don't know if she's mad but she's safe. She'll come home when she's ready.
Zola down?
DEREK SHEPHERD: Just. You okay?
MEREDITH GREY: Need to tell you something.
Need you.
Look where I parked.
She took a picture of her parking spot, the same one he'd sought out the day he told her about Michael.
DEREK SHEPHERD: Bring back memories?
MEREDITH GREY: Let's say, I'd let you give me a hand.
Except it wouldn't be subtle now. Need the hatchback.
That brings back memories.
DEREK SHEPHERD: Get out of the car. Go eat. Be glad no one can tell you have a situation.
MEREDITH GREY: Good plan. I'm ravenous.
Speaking of situations.
Those pants looked pretty tight. Don't take them off. Belt and all. You get one adjustment. Touch yourself more than that? Put your hand in your pocket? I'll know.
Maybe I'll make you wait like that. Let you watch me take my jeans off. Mount you, take hold of your belt buckle, and get what I need grinding against your fly.
DEREK SHEPHERD: Such a powerful imagination. All those ways you take the edge off. don't. I know how worked up you can get.
MEREDITH GREY: Glad everyone expects preggos to be out of breathe and sweaty. Easy enough for you. You can't read a text then cream your pants by accident thanks to the purr of a motor or sliding out of a booth.
Remember what came…. I mean happened next that day?
"Stop," she'd instructed as he'd turned onto their private road. She'd undone her seatbelt and reached for his actual belt.
"Mer, no," he'd said, his cock clearly disagreeing under her palm.
"Is there enough road for us not to slam into the house if you go lead-footed on me?"
"Yes, but I'm not doing this. You're scared."
"Of course I am. But I want to. You're intrigued, and I…it was exhilarating at first. Sometimes…Sometimes I need that from more than surgery."
"You're getting color back," he'd observed, tracing the apple of her cheek. "Okay. But if you need to stop, we stop."
He'd restarted the car, and from there it wasn't up to him.
She'd freed his cock, and, after the initial breath of rapture that always, always coincided with her taking him in her mouth, he'd pressed the gas; his braced hand cradling her head, thumb reassuringly stroking behind her ear.
MEREDITH GREY: That was incredible. Wanna do it again if we're ever alone in the car?
DEREK SHEPHERD: You would?
MEREDITH GREY: Seriously? It was incredible. I could feel exactly what you did through the car. I knew I was safe, and not putting anyone in danger.
DEREK SHEPHERD: Yeah, should've realized, that's exactly your kind of thrill.
MEREDITH GREY: You were hoping the coven would appear.
Had food. Still ravenous.
Going to pee then head back to the car. Everything's wet up here.
DEREK SHEPHERD: How hard was it not to touch yourself, sitting there, where you could reach?
MEREDITH GREY: Take your belt off. And undo the button of your fly. If the zipper starts opening you have to fix it and redo the button.
DEREK SHEPHERD: You're gonna break the damn zipper.
MEREDITH GREY: I am?
How?
I'm just getting off a ferry boat.
DEREK SHEPHERD: I'm going to get a fairy, off.
I bet I can do it with one finger plucking that taut clit.
Bet you're shifting at lights, rocking just enough to take the edge off. Bet your cunt is already clenching.
MEREDITH GREY: Can see the house. Did you not realize we have the place to ourselves?
Infuriating man being who he was, he picked her up at the threshold, and she felt his heart pounding from bolting down the stairs. Before she could let go to be tipped onto the couch, he caught her eyes. "Promise you're with me."
"Very with you."
"What you need to talk about…."
"Will not change how you feel about fucking me silly."
"You're already silly." He put her down, and she dove for his fly. She knew he expected her to draw it out, so she got the button opened and let his dick separate the zipper teeth. His gasp was exactly what she'd imagined while trying to focus only on her sandwich. Her hands went to yanking his boxers down so that the elastic slid along the length of his incredibly stiff cock.
"Jeeesus!" His hips jerked, and she revealed in the groan that told her that for once she'd been the one to almost get him off in the first move.
"In, now." She grabbed, and he thrust against her hand.
"Okay, baby. C'mere." He started to undo her fly, and then flipped his hand, grinding the heel of his palm against her.
"Not a finger. Liar, liar—"
"Over pants. You're on fire." He caught her kicking leg with the other arm, wrestling her shoe off. Her toes curled immediately without the sole pushing back. Pushing, pushing into his hand.
"Ohhh, ohhh fuuuck Derek, need you first. I…. Ahh, Derek, please."
His hand stopped, and she curled in on herself clenching everything she could to stop from giving in to the climax a half a breath away from ripping through her.
"You…. Mer…."
"I know what I'm saying. Please, I-I can't…." She twisted to get a hand where it felt like she had to hold herself together, and if she hadn't started rubbing desperately, she would've lost the mind she might actually have back.
"Hey, lemme get you out of these." She moaned miserably when he lifted her hand up, her pelvis surging off the couch, which let him bundle her jeans off.
"Oh, sweetness." His eyes fixated on the crotch of her underwear; her quim as articulated, she was sure, as his cock had been. He pressed his knuckles against the fabric, compressing her labia. She grabbed the arm of the couch over her head, crying out as her body trembled. She was gonna fall apart, and it would be incredible. His finger found her glans, flicking it and stroking her at the same time.
"Crap, love this so much. It's gonna…never…never lasts like…amazing….Oh yeah, oh oh boy, oh oh oooh theeere. Oo-oo-agh, what are you…? Ahhhh, Derek, Derek leggo. Lemme…c—ahhhhh."
Her body wanted to come so badly, but he was tugging back, two fingers holding her glans while the tip of a third kept teasing it, and she was going to implode going to actually do it it was too much too good-good-good. Brain surgeon has stroke from too big orgasm.
"Oh, oh'g…oh god, Derek, please. Wait, hurry. Gonna come so haaard. Gonna flatten you. Fill me. You waited so long."
"I can wait another few minutes. I'd have to let you go. Get those panties off. Get you and the baby in a better position. You like this so much. I'd bet you're gonna have another waiting for me."
"Won't. No more. So much…."
"Mmmhmm so much blood in that clit. So many nerves firing. If you don't think feeling that nice cool air will feel so nice that you just can't hold back…."
"Don't you want—?"
"Oh, I want." He wiggled his finger over her glans. Yes yes yes, just like that until I can't be held anymore and you rub—"I also want you to love every second. Take a breath for me. Good girl. One more." He slipped his hand up through the leg of her underwear and stroked the tip of her glans. Sharp zaps of pleasure shot up into her belly, and back along every limb.
"I can take it. S'not too much. I neeed… need your hand and your cock, now." Her fists bounced against his chest in time with the words, and her jerking hips.
"Okay. Let's see how beautiful you are here." He took her underwear off. It did feel good, but losing even the minimal pressure they'd provided balanced her out.
His cock was a distraction for her, but he could've spread her out and messed around until she was a gibbering mess. Often, she'd let him. This time, she needed more than his fingers finding the right places inside her. She needed all of him.
He shifted them to lean against the arm of the couch, and she straddled him on her knees. Before she could lower herself, he grabbed her hips. "One more thing, Mer. One more." He got her shirt off, and her relief at having him unhook her bra sounded a lot like his when she'd let the zipper on his pants separate. "Thought so."
He kissed her, locking her mouth on his as she eased her hips down and he finally, finally, finally pressed in against the tight walls of her cunt. Their simultaneous moans filled her chest. He brought his hand quickly to her clit, his fingers finding positions that corresponded with her reflexive rocking.
He tugged and twitched, the fingers rubbing her labia spread to accommodate the stretch of his cock, and his thrusts making up for the small distance they put between them. If she'd been able to take him all the way—but that had hurt the last time, and this wasn't pain, it was perfect. The best feeling in the world.
He grinned at her, combing his fingers through her hair. "Not too much?"
"Unh-uh. Dumb worrier. Doesn't actually happen lots."
"Happens…. Doesn't happen every time you pop your hood and can't let off steam, or I'd never…. Here let me…. That better? Yeah, you're liking that—but when you're that ready before you've even been touched? Either you come fast and screaming, or you end up screaming. Slow ascent makes not enough too much."
"Was enough, but…but…needed you. Made you ready, too."
"Not quite as many nerves there. And you were so close. Helping you feel good is goal one."
"You're what feels—oooh!"
"I felt that."
"Yeah, it's back…back to right there."
"What d'you need to catch it?"
She'd learned to appreciate that metaphor, but the first times he'd used it, she'd taken it as mockery. They'd been years from kids, and she was learning to catch a step ahead of Zola.
She grabbed his free hand on one side and the back of the couch with the other. He already had one foot on the floor, balancing them, and strengthening his thrusts.
"Just…let me…. Oh, oh oh yeah that feels so….so…more, more, yeah, that…. Hard, go hard, like earlier like…liiiike—" His hand jerked and stalled as she rode him through his last juttering thrusts. "—ha! Who…was readiest?" She pressed her face into his neck, licking and sucking off beads of sweat, clenching against waves of pleasure that were almost-almost-so-clooo—go-harder-harder-go-go…." He dug into her clit, wrapping his other arm around her so that her tits slid along his pecs, and if she woke Zola it was his fault because she couldn't feel all of this and not scream. That had to be it had to be all she could take all she could possibly—
Two fingers scrubbed at her clit as the end approached and approached and approached and—"MOTHER FUUUCK!"
Gently, Derek tipped her onto her side as she collapsed. Her body was never gonna be done twitching, but she didn't care. The finger that'd wrung out every last second for her she very much cared about and when the lazy swipes over the top of her clit paused, she hissed.
Derek's laughter, also going since her last intelligible contribution, resurged. Still inside her, his cock stirred. If she started coming on him repeatedly now, would he never get fully hard or would he fill her again faster? Usually, that involved a vibrator and a ring keeping him hard, or he'd disengage, getting her there as many times as she could stand before he was up again.
He finished unfastening the belly band and returned his hand. The other went to the bump, and if he accused her of purring he wouldn't be wrong.
"What happened to 'won't. No more?'"
"Don't yet. Feels…soft."
"Soft?"
"Mmmm."
"Ladies and gentlemen, look who's goofballed."
She snickered. He didn't like goofy ball jokes. They were funnier in her head anyway.
"Do I even have to guess?"
"You said it!" His exaggerated sigh tickled the side of her ear. "Yes, this is what I deal with as wife of a goober. You deserve the experience."
"Goofballed goober Grey."
"I don't think queer girls are fairies. Never heard it."
"You'd be Tinkerbell regardless."
"Goofy Tinkerballs."
"Your reaction to endorphins should be studied."
"Childhood deficiency. I called Sadie my ex-girlfriend in front of Thatcher."
"Did he…?"
"Didn't anything. S'Thatcher. Is it coming out if it's a lie?"
"You want me to play jealous husband and make her define it? I will."
"Ask me that when everything is less floaty."
"Yes, dear. It's a big step, no matter what. Richard wouldn't care either. You never got to tell your mom. Maybe if both of your not-dads... Yeah, naybe I'm goofballed."
"You just want me to have better than I do."
She threaded her fingers into his sweat damp hair, and fit her head into the curve of his neck. The dance of his fingertips on her belly was perfect, but she missed lying flush on top of him and having him absently start tracing parts of his thoughts onto her back. She missed having his weight almost fully on top of her while he gasped for the breath that she'd forced from his lungs along with all that measured carefulness. She wanted to start charting the path to him being rough with her again—no, not just rough, haphazard—which he hadn't been since…since she'd collapsed in the woods.
"A year from now, I want you to throw me on the ground out there and fuck me into the dirt."
His jaw worked soundlessly, and she grinned at the yes she could feel his cock providing. "That didn't come out of nowhere. That what brought you to me so ready to be plucked tonight?"
She shivered at the word and the care he'd used to shape his lips around it. He'd kept the promise of sucking her off as often as possible, and warm anticipation filled her belly and rolled down through her hips.
"No."
"No. Tonight you're bubbly, and perky." She anticipated the tweak of her nipple, but not the hand tilting her tit upward and his mouth hot on her areola, his tongue swirling around and around.
The sensation spread through her body too quickly for her to keep it in and let it build. Her spine arched, and he sucked to keep her from popping out before he relinquished her. She moaned like he was letting his teeth graze her clit, where just the carefully rhythmic swipe of his fingertip was enough for her brain to reflect the ministrations there—but they felt so good where they were. "If this goes back to how it was, I'll let you knock me up again."
"One step at a time," he murmured. He brought his hand up to her other breast, kneading with a strength he wouldn't have used in September.
"Talk to me, gorgeous. "
"Twelve," she moaned. "S'all I can give you. All I have."
"You ready for another go?" He circled her clit. If he sped it up, she knew her breathe would quicken fast and she'd have no regrets…. "C-Could be."
"Mm, you're not. Still want soft."
"Not there."
In unspoken agreement he raised his other hand to the side his mouth had worked over.
He propped her up with his body and let her get lost in the tingling of his fingertips tracing her stretch-marks, fingers kneading flesh, He brought her down carefully, slowing his pace, ending with his thumbs toying with her nipples.
"Once upon a time," she said. "A little over five years ago, an intern had a horrible patient."
"This intern isn't a princess? Strange, in Princess Zola stories, she's the queen."
"How do you know it's the same continui— Ohhh. Unfair."
"Not my fault that little bud's staring to poke out."
"Except that s'totally your fault."
He hummed in acknowledgement and from his fingers shifted, mostly ghosting them along the inside of her thigh with regular dips upward. She kissed him before continuing. They ended up here all the time, talking between rounds, and he wasn't above using a single change in pressure and speed to end the conversation.
"The doctor was an exiled princess. The horrible peasant patient made her film him being mean to people so they'd find out his true feelings when he died. Only…he didn't die. And he wanted them mailed anyway. Bastard.
"The exiled princess had a habit of ending up in deadly situations. Only weeks before she'd told her meddling friends she needed to stay home to not die, but they kicked her out of bed, literally, and she ended up at work almost being blown to pieces, which just goes to show. She figured maybe she should find out if…if both her parents regretted her." Derek inhaled sharply, but didn't interrupt. "Or maybe she wanted to be the mean one. Hard to say.
"She found out where the former prince-consort lived and decided to make a…a pilgrimage or whatever. Even though the best neurosurgeon in the kingdom had cleared her, she might've been working with some impaired judgement resultant from concussion."
"She was not. That wasn't a bad choice, Mer."
"Consider the night as a whole—"
"Nothing after that can be looked at without the context. You didn't give me that, out with Doc. That all must've been…."
"It was. Y-You…You know the frame of what happened. I…The Princess went to Joe's pub. Actively decided not to make the self-destructive choice of letting Mark add her to the list of conquests, specifically women you…the knight in shining whatever loved. Went home. Made the second stupidest sexual decision she could've made that night."
George had given her a speech that said everything Thatcher hadn't, and she'd wondered if she'd distanced herself from the right person when they were right there. (Like Derek had. She'd been desperate to silence that whisper in her head.)
"That was the night the princess stopped believing in stories. Life doesn't have happy endings." She tilted her head back to look at him. "For a while, she had trouble being happy at all. Even when she had the knight—"
"Because more than one person mattered in her life—"
"—but then she realized: happiness, sadness, anger…. They all come and go. Pain, guilt…they seem like they can last forever…but they don't."
That lesson came straight from a Baby Zola story. She cried, and cried, and cried. Waaaaah. Then Prince Consort Daddy made the hurt in her head go away.
"Happiness doesn't, either. But that's true for everyone."
She could see George's smile in the darkness, feel her determination to keep it there; who cared about the devastation creeping through her bones?
"Tonight felt…if life was a story, it would've been a major moment. And it was…. He can't change the past. He'll never make up for it. Some of that is who he is. I don't expect him to regret the life he had! But he…he doesn't regret not having me as a part of it. He doesn't want to be a father to me. I suspect that…that he was a good dad to them, but he…I'm not sure he saw it as a forever gig.
"So…He's never gonna be the father I wanted, but whatever he is to me…might not be all the different from what it would be like to have Thatcher as my father at thirty-four.
"How I became me can't be changed, and whatever that did to how I am…. The best I can hope for is to Lexie it."
"Which means…. Wait, let me try," he admonished, after stopping her explanation lightly with a finger. "You love Lexie. She's become your sister. If you had grown up together, and you had the sisterhood you have now, it'd be the best of all worlds. You can't expect yourself to think like the person you'd be if your life had been different. Nothing will ever be exactly like it might've been. That doesn't mean it can't be good. Am I close?"
"Yeah. That's pretty much it. Not everything will get there…. I can't expect myself to be like she is with Molly or you are with Amelia. Most of the time, I'm happy with where we've gotten. She is gonna hear a thing or two about not leaving a note."
"I'll second that. And you know…Amelia and I…."
"Aren't perfect? Gee, imagine." Derek blew a raspberry against the side of her forehead. "Thinking about that night…. I have so much that I thought would be impossible. I cried for a lotta reasons; one of them being that I was sure I'd never have a connection like the one I had with you. I'd never get the chance to build my own family, after having one taken from me.
"That he was…similar to Thatcher…. I knew Mom didn't love him the way I loved you, even before I understood the rest…. Thinking I could make it work…using him like that—I couldn't. Not for a second. I didn't see it, then, but it's a way…a way I'm better than her."
She'd felt Derek tense when she said she'd used George; their perspectives on that night would never align. His proud "Ha!" was far more explicit.
"We're not always gonna be happy. But it just means we have to be aware of the times we are."
"And you are. Lexie took off; you had to deal with the perennial disappointment that is Thatcher, and knowing she's safe, accepting that he is who he is…you let yourself stay happy. That's pretty big for you, Meredith Grey."
"He wasn't…at his worst. He told me about the night I was born."
"Ellis never…?"
"I knew it happened during her surgical rotation. She scheduled that last, because she knew that's where she wanted to go, and she wanted a smooth transition—"
"Then you showed up before it ended?"
"I was early. Not enough to be due between graduation and intern day, which was the ideal, but enough. His version made me into much less of an inconvenience. Ironic, huh?"
"Mm."
"But he said…he said he'd do it again. For me. That's…it's different than Mom going on about all she did for me."
"I can imagine so."
"He also said. Ellis took stubborn to a new level," she noted. "Wouldn't let him do anything for her. I think there's something to be said for letting you be at my beck and call. But if she was a med student…."
"You feel pretty impotent."
"Yeah, and I can't imagine this helped." She touched her belly. "She never…. She didn't put that on me. The things people must've said to her…. So stupid. I mean it proves the opposite, right? But fertility is only power if you're a guy—Women can't handle gore, unless they're nurses! Uh, childbirth? We're gonna knock them out for it, so they don't have to worry their pretty little heads, and pretend they haven't been handling it themselves for—why am I still talking?"
"Because I love listening to you, and you're right. In most cases there's no danger. Even if someone just comes in for pain relief, it's usually safe. Some hospitals employ midwives, too, for that reason. Something to consider."
Would Addison come back if she was given the department at a doctor-owned facility? Would it be weird if she did? Henry, Sofia, and Zola were close to the same age. Who would've pictured that five years ago?
"I talked to Callie today. About the SPD."
If anything in the world is fair, he won't have to know. Almost immediately after she'd said that, a secret she hadn't tried all that hard to keep had made Lexie feel betrayed. That was insane to her. Had she felt sort of…weird when she'd thought Lexie might've been cutting, and hadn't come to her about the issue? Sure, but because she was the dark one. She couldn't possibly have thought Meredith wouldn't get it. She must've thought she'd be judged for not having significant enough issues. She wouldn't have. She didn't think. Misery was relative, and it wasn't always about misery. Not exactly.
Even if Derek hadn't come home to find her still on the floor with a can of green beans, she'd have told him.
"She said that pushing with an epidural, I'd have to be careful. Especially since I've had issues in multiple areas. Everything so far will be better after he's born. It…it can take up to a year for relaxin levels to go back to normal. She says s'not likely that I'd do enough damage to make it last, but it's possible."
"Okay. That syncs with your plan."
"It does. You're still…on board?"
"Mer, what did you just say about power and who has it, here? I'd only step in if you start forging into double digits because you don't see an alternative—"
"Then I'll have you—"
"But I don't think you will."
"Me either," she admitted. "It's different, but, um, a lot of places compare migraines to childbirth. I don't know about that, but I know…experiencing it alone on the trail versus with you holding me…. You couldn't do anything. I wasn't going to freeze or attacked alone at that time of day. But being safe…er with you…made it bearable. So. I trust myself to let you see it."
"That," Derek said, helping her move back above him, "Is much more than enough."
The kiss made her light-headed. "Y'know, early I thought of myself as a brain surgeon. Whoa, what are you—?"
"Hold on." Derek held her as he stood up. "We're going upstairs where there are more comfortable positions for you be in while I have you for dessert."