He was a neurosurgeon, one of the the best. She was just starting off. He had been married with children before his wife left him before one day he received divorce papers in the mail. They had been alone ever since.
He had gotten the hard part over with, he thought. the kids finally knew about him and Meredith and when they were ready they would meet her.
He wasn't sure when they would be but Michael and Violet seemed to be okay with him being with someone who wasn't their mother.
But he also knew that Madeleine would never be ready to meet Meredith so he would wait until she had accepted the fact that he was dating.
He hadn't told Meredith that he had told the kids but he has going to wait until the next time they saw each other.
He had a long day of surgeries and patients ahead of him so he would hopefully go see her at the end of the day, he could mostly likely get Mark to watch them for a bit instead of him going out to flirt with women at a bar.
once he got ready for the day he left his bedroom and went into the kitchen to make the kids breakfast.
as he was cooking in the kitchen he heard small footsteps behind him. he turned around to see who it was.
when he turned to look he saw Madeleine standing at the island behind him.
"You're up early. are you hungry?" he said as he cracked some eggs into the pan.
"Does she make you happy?" she asked instead of answering his question.
"Who?" he was still a bit tired and didn't exactly know what she meant.
"The lady you're dating, does she make you happy?"
"Yes, yes she does," he sad adding some seasonings to the pan.
"Happier than mom made you?" she asked.
"Honey... your mom and I were never meant for each other, we got along with each other, sure but we were never in love," he told her looking back at her briefly.
"You never loved mom?" she asked with tears starting to burn in her eyes.
"I cared about her, I wanted her to be happy and I wanted what was best for her but I never felt that way about her and I'm not sure she ever felt that way about me, or maybe she did and I just never got it because I didn't feel the same way," he says.
"Well, then why did you ever get married to her?" she asked annoyed with what he was telling her.
"We got married when we found out your mother was pregnant with you, we thought that it would be best if you grew up in a house with parents that lived together instead of if we lived in two different houses and you hardly ever saw us with work and it just- we were wrong... we never should have let you believe that because it's hard for you now to find out that we were never in love," he said.
they were young when they found out Addison was pregnant with Madeleine, they were only first year residents and they were still trying to figure out how to take care of themselves without their parents let alone another child.
they talked about abortion but Derek wasn't sure about it because he knew he would always wonder what if. but he also knew it wasn't his decision to make so he kept that to himself and asked her what she wanted to do.
she also felt the same way he did and said she would feel guilty if she had gotten an abortion so they decided to keep the baby and make it work.
and now it was nine years later, one marriage, one divorce, and two more kids later and he was raising all three children alone and had been for the past two years.
"Did you ever think you were in love with her?" she asked. the eggs for done cooking now so he plated them and placed it in front of Madeleine before going to make some toast as well.
"I wanted to be, for you.. you were so small, you were so happy, I wanted to keep you that way.. so I tried to be but.. I wasn't," when Madeleine was two he tried to be in love with Addison so Madeleines entire relationship wasn't an entire lie... but then nine months later Michael was born and it didn't fix anything.
he didn't want to say Michael being born made things worse but it got harder with two kids and when I was just Madeleine he could take care of alone while Addison could go do something else, anything else.
But when Michael came along he needed help, so he could have one child and Addison would have the other.. but that's when she confessed she wasn't 'the mother type' and she just left.
a year later he found out she had been having an affair with his best friend Mark and that's where she was going to escape the children at home.
she said being a mother was overwhelming and she needed a break and he couldn't have sex with him because he was too busy with the kids so she went to Mark instead.
He wanted to divorce her right then and there when he found out she had been having an affair with his best friend for over a year.. but it wasn't just about him anymore so he tried making it work for the kids.
a few months later she fell pregnant again and Derek couldn't remember the last time they were alone so he assumed right away that it was Marks and not his. he thought that the entire pregnancy until she was born.
when Violet came out she looked exactly like him and it didn't seem that there was any chance that she could be Marks and nor Mark or Addison seem to have the DNA to explain it so he believed his gut and raised her as his own.
Even if somehow Violet turned out not to be his biologically she would always be his daughter, he raised her alone for all she could remember.
"Did you ever try again after that?" she asked.
"I think so, I think that's how your sister got here," he chuckles lightly. Madeleine looked at him confused.
"You'll understand when you're older," he said placing the toast on her plate.
"But you're in love with..."
"Meredith, and yes, I'm in love with her," he smiled. he always seemed to smile when he spoke about Meredith.
"Are you going to marry her?"
"I might, I hope so," I said. she nodded her head hesitantly and continued to eat her breakfast without anymore questions.
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