I think that Meredith and Derek, with their flaws and successes, helped each other develop throughout the first seasons. Meredith was scared of commitment and had suicidal tendencies, but then became a good surgeon, wife and mother. Derek was at lo...
"Cristina, hang on, Alex is calling too!" Meredith was unusually using her oven, trying to make cupcakes for Zola's daycare, and meanwhile she was video calling with her Seattle friends.
"Hey Alex, has Arizona opened her new private practice yet?"
"Yeah, we've started this week! I still can't believe that Arizona's found a philanthropist to fund it. Only condition? Keeping our Africa project! Isn't it awesome? Mer, what are you burning? I can smell smoke through the screen!" Smoke was in fact coming out of the oven.
"Shut up, I have only two hours to make these damn cupcakes before my surgery! And Derek's batch last month was not great, but not burnt nor bought! It's just that I'm 28 weeks and I'm worried that the baby could have a cleft palate or a heart defect or whatever..."
Meredith had been worrying about the baby's health conditions for weeks, because she thought that if someone had to have a baby with three arms and extra toes or weird illnesses, that would be her. Derek was trying to debunk all her catastrophic hypothesis, but she could not calm down.
"If fetus has a heart defect, I'll be there to fix it! Whatever issue it could have, I'll fix it."
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"What's in here?" Dr. Martins twitched her nose, after Meredith had handed her the box with her cupcakes.
"Semi-edible cupcakes. Bring them to Zola's daycare and then join me for my surgery. You're gonna scrub in!" Her intern was so excited at the idea to be part of a surgery, that she didn't even complain about her non-medical task.
"What does semi-edible exactly mean?" The attending, who'd had a lot to say during her first day at the Brigham, approached her laughing. The day after, Dr. Harris had apologized to her for thinking that she was a fraud and from there on they had started growing closer. She was Meredith's opposite: always punctual and perfect with her neat pony tail and straight back, but she also respected her medical skills and was very loyal. It was not like Cristina, of course, but good enough.
"That's my cooking standard!"
***
That morning Derek dropped off Zola at daycare, leaving his wife cursing in their kitchen. He'd been working at Harvard for a few months already and his research was slowly progressing, but he felt confident, because his team was made of some of the best researchers in the country.
On his way to work, he was thinking about a call he'd had with his former colleague, Dr. Bailey. She'd told him that she was starting an innovative research about human genome mapping. Basically it could give information, that would allow to fight diseases before they happen. He didn't know whether to tell Meredith about this or not, because he was pretty sure she'd want to know if she had the Alzheimer's gene, while he preferred not to.
"You know, my wife thinks our baby may have three arms and eleven toes!" He told Dr. Cooper, one of Derek's fellow researchers, who was already in the lab.
"Well, you'll find it out today! Isn't she having her 28-weeks ultrasound today?"
***
"Is there a huge teratoma growing out of its head?" Meredith and Derek were holding hands very tight, while she was laying on a bed for her ultrasound.
"See yourself!"
The ultrasound technician turned the screen, so that they could see their baby: his little nose, arms and fingers. They even could image seeing a smile on that cute face.
"Wait, it does have 11 fingers!"
"That's not a finger!"
Meredith and Derek looked at each other, with their eyes glowing, at the realization that they were going to have a boy. A healthy baby boy, despite all Meredith's fears.
***
That night Meredith and Derek were playing with Zola. The whole family was wearing crowns and was drinking imaginary tea. Derek was also telling stories about fly fishing to Meredith's belly, because his voice was the only one able to make the baby stop kicking.
"You know, Richard told me that Bailey is carrying this interesting research about genome mapping." Meredith really wanted Dr. Bailey to map Zola, herself and even Derek, in order to know if they needed and could fight for their kids.
"Derek, I need to know, we need to know, so that we can prepare!" Derek wanted to reply that he was exactly working to cure Alzheimer's, but he knew it'd take time. Time that they might not have.
"Alright, let's call Bailey!"
***
"We need an updated will!" Meredith's voice was so firm, that even Zola stopped drawing to look at her. Her parents were sitting at their dining table and had just hung up on Dr. Bailey, who had told them Meredith's genome sequence.
Derek turned her face towards his with his hands, so that she could look into his eyes.
"So you have the gene, but it doesn't mean you're gonna have Alzheimer's!"
"I know what it means, but our will as it is won't work in any case! Now it says that Lexie is Zola's legal guardian!"
He knew she was right. They had survived an unusual number of disasters, including a mass shooting and a plane crash, but at the same time he wanted to stay positive for the both of them.
"Okay, I'll contact the lawyer. But you need to remember that it's potential Alzheimer's we're talking about!" She had a sad smile on her face. She knew.
