indecision [MERDER]

SEVEN

- aka SUPERVISED VISITS -

After the overwhelming success of Kaiya and Derek's first meeting, he was left wanting so much more. He had already missed so much of Kaiya's short life, and he didn't want to be an absent father figure for her anymore. He wanted to be there for his daughter, to be allowed to spoil her and to make sure she knew how to properly be treated by a man, then subsequently scare off any of the boys that came near her. Kaiya was beautiful, funny, intelligent, and she'd inherited Meredith's deep emerald eyes that sparkled in the sunlight, her cute giggle; she was just perfect, and Derek wanted to make sure everybody knew it. He wanted everybody to know that his daughter was the most incredible little girl a father could wish for.

Meredith, meanwhile, was no longer conflicted over her feelings of Derek as a father; he had proven it, that he would be there for Kaiya, and be a positive figure in her life. Maybe she was ready to let him back in to their lives, permanently, but she was still apprehensive over where she stood with him. She worried that the two could not simply co-exist and co-parent; there would always be something the two could fight about, or their old feelings would resurface and complicate everything all over again. Despite that, Meredith felt she could no longer use her feelings as an excuse to keep Kaiya away from Derek, because she obviously loved him. The next morning, Kaiya echoed the sentiment that she adored her father, and wanted to see him again, as soon as possible. She wanted to go meet her aunties and uncles, and play with her cousins, get spoiled by her grandma; she wanted to be a part of Derek's big family, and Meredith could no longer deprive her of all that love.

Meredith had the Friday morning off, so she elected to do some cleaning of their house. Entering Kaiya's room to take out the rubbish, she noticed a scrunched-up piece of paper down by the side of the trash can.

"Crap..." Meredith swore under her breath, trailing off.

Kaiya had received an invitation from her school for a daddy-daughter dance, that weekend, and Meredith, knowing that Kaiya had only met her father yesterday, assumed that she had tried to hide the evidence, to avoid the topic entirely. Kaiya always knew she had a father, but to her, he was never there, and perhaps she thought he never would be, so she never bothered to mention it. Meredith always knew that she wanted to ascertain whether Derek would be there for Kaiya, forever, and she would force him to vow to never abandon his daughter like he had abandoned Meredith. Letting Kaiya down like that was something that could never happen.

Now that Derek was in her life, and it looked like, at least on the surface, that he was there to stay, Meredith wanted Kaiya to have all the father-related things she never got to have. The special dances, the boy talks, the spoiling, the princess tea parties; she wanted Kaiya to have it all. Thatcher was never there for Meredith; he left her, alone with her mother, at age five, and never bothered to attempt to make contact, to fight for her, or to return to see how she was getting on years later.

Meredith knew that Derek wouldn't be that kind of father, purely based off the person she knew he was at his core, so she pondered telling him about the dance when she got into work, praying that he would say yes, that it wasn't so much of a big step for him.

That afternoon, as she arrived at the hospital, she noticed Derek lost in thought by the coffee cart outside the foyer. Now or never, she thought.

"Hey... um, Derek." She walked up to him, tapping him on the shoulder, snapping him out of his thoughts.

"Oh... hi, um... Meredith... is everything okay with Kaiya?"

"She's fine... she misses you." Meredith let out a faint giggle, and Derek smiled wide.

"I'm glad I made a good first impression." Derek grinned as Meredith looked down, pulling something from her pocket.

"Here, look... I hope it's not too soon, but I found this in Kaiya's bin..." Meredith began, handing Derek the scrunched-up, ripped, invitation.