A Fight to Remember

I Think I Stole a Baby Pt. 2

Derek.

"Dad," Bailey, barged into the room like he owned the place. I guess he did in a way... "Amy said... she said, you remember up to the tsunami?"

"Yeah," I croaked, looking up at him. He'd grown up. So much. The last I remembered of him, he was all skin and bones and hair sticking every which way. Now, he was... he was, "You're all grown up."

He shrugged, and his eyes twinkled mischievously like his mother. "Not really," he smirked.

"Mm," I agreed.

He approached the bed, offering the glass of water. I took a few sips. "Did you find her?" I asked.

He shook his head, "We're still looking," he sighed sadly.

"She has Alzheimer's." I stated, more to myself then to him. I missed it. I'd been missing, lost for ten years, and Meredith... had to face her greatest fear, without me.

"Yeah."

"How... how long?"

"Four years, give or take," Bailey said, staring at his shoes.

I should've been there. This wasn't fair. It was so messed up. Ten years. I was practically dead to them... "I'm sorry," I said. "I'm sorry I wasn't there."

"I know," Bailey said softly. "It's okay dad."

It wasn't okay, but I was too tired to argue the point. I set the cup down and leaned against the pillows, suddenly exhausted. "How bad is it? The Alzheimer's?"

"It's..." he sighed.

"You can tell me."

"It's... hard, some days."

"Does she...?"

"She remembers you," Bailey smiled a little. "She always remembers you."

xxx

2023 Meredith.

"I know what it's like to be forgotten," I said. "To feel like you've disappeared. I don't want you to experience that. I don't want our children to experience that."

"Mere, that's not-,"

"It could happen," I interrupted. Derek. I loved him, but sometimes his optimism was thinly veiled denial. "I have some of the genes. We both know it."

"I'll be there, Meredith. Post-it remember?"

"I know, I know, Derek. That's not... that's not what I-," I bit my lip, turning my head to the lake, the little ripples of water that rocked slowly to shore, watering the dry cattails along the edges. "Remember the water?" I asked.

Derek's expression morphed from hopeful to forlorn. He cast his eyes downward, avoiding me. I silently berated myself. Stupid. Even though we were lightyears beyond that moment, it still haunted him. "Of course I remember," he muttered.

"Okay," I sighed, "Well, before that, my mother said things... my lucid mother said things."

"You told me. She called you ordinary, and blindly in love. Mere, I thought we were past that."

"We are. Please, just listen."

He released a long hard sigh and ran his fingers through his thick hair. "I'm listening."

"She said things. Hurtful things. Selfish things. She wanted to refuse the surgery, because... she didn't want to live like that. And I was angry and said things too, because... deep down, I had this hope... just this sliver of hope, that one day, in a few years... maybe we could start over." I cleared my throat and played with the loose thread of my sweater. "My mother... Der, it's hard to explain how I feel about her. Yeah, she was a crappy mom. She didn't bake. She wasn't nurturing. She neglected me a lot. But I- Derek, I thought she was pretty amazing for a long time. Because she was a surgeon, and she could fix people. And I wanted to do that too. Well, that was before the pink hair and the black and the boys."