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...
Meredith didn't love how things were going in the Grey-Shepherd household, but she also knew that for the moment there was no better solution. The new parents had spent a few months after Bailey's birth at home, because they'd agreed to take both parental leave, and now that they were back to work -finally- Mrs. Shepherd was helping out with the baby. Meredith couldn't say if she was more glad that Derek's mother was allowing them to jump right back into work or more annoyed for having her mother-in-law around all the time.
What had happened to her? How could she have agreed to this? Well, the answer to these questions was: pregnancy hormones. After giving birth to Bailey, her hormones had told her that it would have been nice to have her mother there, to look at the perfect baby boy she was holding, even though she knew that her mother would have been a terrible grandmother. So, when Mrs Shepherd offered to help with the baby, she thought that her kids needed to grow up with a loving granny. And actually she still did believe in that hormones-induced thought and she was grateful that she could focus on her new research (printing portal veins), but a part of her still wished that it was time to say bye to Grandma Carolyne.
***
"Derek, I need a break!"
Meredith had come back home late from work that night, because she'd had to accept that her research, that was what she had been pouring all her work energies on for that past couple of months, had failed. All she had left in her office was a 3D printer.
Back home, things weren't going better for her. Mrs. Shepherd was still there. Actually. Mrs. Shepherd was not the problem. She had been walking on eggshells around her, because Derek had told her Meredith's family history and struggles. The real problem was the family Meredith considered closest to her, the one she didn't have any blood connection with: the plane crash survivors, especially Cristina, Alex and even Avery and Kepner. Having mama Shepherd around all the time had made her want to spend some time with her own family, so Meredith had tried to organize Thanksgiving reunion, but she'd failed at that as well.
***
Derek's research was going smoothly and he was very grateful to his mother for helping out. He knew, though, that it couldn't be a permanent solution, because, even though she didn't say it, Meredith was not completely comfortable with her. Her breakdown only confirmed what he already knew.
"You wanna talk about it?"
"No."
"Wanna a hug?"
"Yes."
They hugged in bed for a long long time, until she fell asleep. He couldn't. He needed to figure out a way to solve the problem. He started staring at the piece of wallpaper they had brought from Meredith's old house to the dream house and then to the Boston house. It was a special piece of wallpaper, because it depicted the drawing of the inoperable tumor, he'd succeeded to remove years ago.
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Later that week, Meredith was still was still feeling lost, even if she had performed some hard and successful surgeries, when Richard told her to follow him to a CT scan room. There she found Derek, who was looking at some scans. It wasn't completely unusual for him to be asked to do surgeries at the hospital, but it was unusual that she didn't know about it. And then, examining the scans, she realized what he was doing there.
"Is it a spinal schwannoma? Extended into the retro pleural space? Is that for me?"
"Us. We're overdue for a date: you and me in fresh scrubs and a ferry boat scrub cap. What do you say?"
In the OR, during the surgery, she made a mental note to thank his husband once again, because standing over that surgical table and cutting with him made her realize that, even though she could carry the portal vein research to the end, she was not a failure and she had proven it times and times again. She only needed to free her mind for a while and come up with other ideas.
***
"Derek, really, we could have spent Thanksgiving at home."
Meredith was not in the mood for a Thanksgiving fancy dinner, but Derek had insisted so much that she found herself wearing high heels and a dress on the way to a nice restaurant, after a long day trying to find research grants. She had no idea what he had in mind, since he'd also asked his mother to take the kids to New York for a weekend.
"Name?"
"Shepherd."
"This way."
The waiter took them to a private room, where ...
... Cristina, Owen, Alex, Arizona, Callie, Jackson and April were all standing in front of her with big smiles on their faces and wine glasses in their hands. Derek had just reminded them how Meredith had made them her family and they had made her theirs, to convince them to show up at her Thanksgiving reunion.
Meredith couldn't believe it. She was at the same time angry, because they had responded "no", when she had asked, and happy, because she felt like home. Derek was holding her hand and smiling back. He was feeling like home too.
Dinner was been spent reminiscing about the past and catching up, but at the end Derek stood up and asked for silence: "It's time to put your comfy shoes on!"
"What? I don't have them!"
"Here!" Derek pulled her trainers from a paper bag.
"And now follow me!"
Still chatting and mocking each other, they were led to a baseball field nearby. They spent the night playing and drinking. Meredith was drunk with tequila and joy.
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