Off the Carousel

You've Given Me Treasure

A/N: Last chapter guys, and thank you all so much! This story has really surprised me, and I hope you too!

Enjoy!

"Hey! It's me, I'm on the ferry. I just wanted to say that, um, God, I wish you could see this! Weather is classic Seattle... Oh, the water is so blue. It may be the most perfect ferryboat ride I've ever had in my life. We're gonna do this a lot more when I get home, by the way. You, me, and the family. We're just gonna take a day and... ride the ferryboat. All day if we want.

I love you, Meredith. I know I just left, and I'm not even at the airport yet, but I love you. I love our family, and we're gonna keep doing this... I'll see you when I get home. Love you."

Meredith stared out at the sparkling blue water of the bay, swallowing a lump in her throat. It had been nine long months since she'd ridden the ferryboat, and Derek's voice made it especially bittersweet. She turned the phone off and tucked it into her pocket with one hand while holding onto baby Ellis with the other.

Coming home had been as difficult as her last attempt. The thought of coming home to Seattle, the house Derek built, the land he kept for her, had been daunting. She'd dreaded the torturous winding roads and climbing rain-soaked mountains and hills on the tiresome journey.

But it didn't slay her this time around.

Now, she watched Bailey chase Zola around in his big yellow rain boots, trying to catch her in their nonstop game of tag. Cassie and Sam looked on as they held hands at the bow of the ferry. Meredith chuckled when Grace jumped into the fray, scaring Bailey away from Zola and making herself the new target.

After being home in Seattle for a month, she'd invited them over to visit. Admittedly, there was a trauma conference that Sam wanted to attend anyway, but Meredith felt the need to settle things with them after she'd left Middleton rather abruptly.

The seat beside her sighed with new weight, and the aroma of earl grey tea wafted past her nose. Carolyn. "Are you all right?" the older woman asked, before sipping her tea.

"I miss him," she said and sighed.

"Me too."

Carolyn's simple statement bumped Meredith out of her own self-pity. She regarded her mother-in-law looking sadly out at Seattle's disappearing downtown towers. There were a few more wrinkles around her mouth, her cheeks just a little sallow and pale, like an old house badly in need of new paint.

"You lost him too." She concluded abruptly. She clamped her mouth shut. She hadn't meant to say that aloud, but–

"Meredith."

"I just realized you lost him too. I'm sorry." It was really the first time she'd become aware of someone else's grief besides her children's and her own. Had she really been so wrapped up in loss she failed to see it in the people all around her?

Carolyn swallowed. Her eyes shone with unshed tears. "You have nothing to be sorry for," she said.

"It's... I can't imagine..." Meredith continued, "If I lost Bailey, or Zola..." She sought solace from the living bundle in her arms. Ellis smacked her lips, then proceeded to stuff her fist into her mouth. Meredith stroked her infant's silky cheek. "Even if they were grown up, it'd be like somebody ripped my heart out and stomped on it. I don't know what I'd do."

"When I heard he died, I couldn't breathe. I couldn't–" Carolyn shook her head, staring out at the water. "Even though he had his own life, a good life, he's my son. Whenever I think about him, I have to stop what I'm doing and–" She wheezed and shuddered as if all the oxygen was sucked out of her. The corners of her lips pressed down and she swallowed again. "A parent should never outlive their children," she rasped.