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"You're worse than Zo."
"Mmm?" Meredith hummed, looking up. She removed one hand from the book she was reading to take her toothbrush out of her mouth.
"Zola. She reads while brushing her teeth, because she reads while doing everything, then just ends up sitting on her bed and eating her brush for two minutes."
"Oh. Right. Sorry, Dad ." She apologized sardonically
He smirked. "What are you reading that's so interesting that you're willing to put your teeth's health at risk?"
"Baby milestones." She answered, shutting the book to reveal a cover of an awfully happy woman holding a two-or-three-month-old baby. She definitely wasn't a mother; she would have messy hair and black eyes if she had a baby that young. Meredith and Derek knew that far too well.
"Why?"
"Just...reminding myself." She said with a simple shrug. She knew them all off by heart, but she liked to check the range of ages on them and look at the kind of signs that children often presented before performing a particular milestone.
"Which one were you reading about?"
“Standing and walking.”
He sighed. He didn't know how he didn't guess that. “She’ll walk in her own time Mer.”
“The average age for a child to stand and walk is twelve months."
“And she’s eleven, Mer. I know it's been a while since you went to school, but eleven is definitely less than twelve."
“Some walk at nine.” She rebutted, not smiling at his slight quip.
"So what if she walks late? Are we going to label her a disappointment?" He asked, knowing it would force her to rationalise. He also often needed help to stop the kind of panic Meredith was exhibiting, but it was different when it came to walking for him.
"No. No, of course not, she just..."
"Just?
"I don't want her to be behind, you know? What if it's just the first thing that she doesn't do as fast as other kids and then-"
"Meredith. We're not at twelve months yet. She's not behind. If she walked today, she'd be doing it early. Besides, you do know when she walks doesn’t constitute anything about her life. In fact, she could never walk and still grow up to be the most amazing person in the word.”
She smiled. “I feel like you are just a little biased.” She murmured, looking at him, and his chair.
“Hey!" He exclaimed. "I can stand…for uh- for thirty seconds.” He replied, the second half of his sentence an awful lot quieter than the first, almost at a whisper.
She finally smirked, almost laughing. Whether she was sad, or worried, or stressed, or angry, she knew Derek's claims could always make her smile, because he was so, so deluded about it all. Well, not really. He just pretended to be because he knew it was the cure for her sadness, and worries, and stress, and anger. “Sure Derek, whatever helps you sleep at night.”
The Grey-Shepherd family would have liked to say they spent their Friday night watching a movie together. But they didn't. They just sat and watched Meredith as she placed her hands under Ellis' armpits and forced her to her feet over and over and over again. She must have done it two dozen times in the last hour. Every time, Ellis would just sit back on the floor and look at her mother like she'd done nothing wrong. She hadn't really. She didn't know what her mother wanted, and what Meredith was doing was an act of desperation.
"Mer, I think you should stop."
"She's getting there." She said in a desperate kind of tone that made her realize how much she was lying to herself.
"Yeah, totally." Derek muttered sarcastically.
"Ellie tired." Bailey said, agreeing with his father. "She only small. And doing stuff is hard for her."
"Why does Ellie not talk?"
"Mmm?" Meredith hummed, not quite paying attention as she stroked her thumb over and over against her youngest's head.
"Ellie not talk to me." Bailey stated, this time a little firmer.
Meredith had almost forgotten that Bailey was new to having a younger sibling, and that Ellis had only been home for two days, so he still had very little experience with babies. "Baby, she doesn't talk to anyone. She doesn't know how."
"Oh." He breathed. "Why no?"
"Because...because babies don't know how to do anything when they're born except...well, breathe and sleep and cry awfully loudly." Meredith explained.
"So when does she does things?"
"Well, she'll speak in a few months, but probably just a word or two. Then she'll learn more as she gets older, just like you. Then...uh, she'll start walking when she gets to about one year old. Then she'll start to read, go to school, write- you know, the stuff you do now"
"Cool. So...I'm like Zo now. Cause she more old than me."
"Yeah. You're Ellis' big brother, just like how Zola is your big sister."
He presented a toothy grin as he repeated, "Big brother."
"Mmm mmm. That's you. Ellis' big brother."
"She just need a little more motivation."
"Meredith, there's only so much someone can take when learning to walk...trust me." He said before winking.
"Learning how to walk after a car crash is a little different than learning how to walk for the first time because you're eleven months old, Derek."
"Plus...Dad failed miserably at that, and Elle won't." Zola muttered with a smirk.
"Zola Grey-Shepherd!" Derek exclaimed through a chuckle. He had to scold her, but the burn was so funny at the same time. "Jeez, you mischievous little monkey, that hurt."
"Sorry Dad." She apologized, despite the fact that she didn't look very guilty. The massive grin on her face told him that.
"No. That was a good one." Meredith muttered, only just about resisting a laugh. "You should say things like that more often. It might knock your father down a peg or two."
"Discrimination." He stated with a serious face before failing to hold back a smirk and letting it spread his lips.
"Doesn't count if she's your daughter and I'm your wife." She replied pointedly.
"It does. And I'm offended."
"Derek-" She started with a teasing tone, only to pause when he actually started to leave the lounge. "Hey, hey, hey! That was a joke! Derek- Derek! Come back!"
"Did I- did Dad leave because-" Zola started, standing up from the sofa to see him actually leave the room.
"No, no Zozo. He's being a tease. He's fine." She reassured her. "Go on, follow him."
She smiled for just a second before running off after her dad, only to find the garage door open. It was never open unless there was someone in there, and there was. "Uh- Dad?"
"Mmm?" He asked, looking up to find his daughter in the doorway. He read her as quickly as Meredith had. "What's wrong Zo?"
"Did I upset you? I'm sorry if I did. It was supposed to be a joke but I- I-"
"Zo, calm. I'm fine. I know it was a joke. I just needed to get something from here."
"Oh." She breathed. Her eyes followed her dad as he opened the storage unit that was always locked in the garage. He'd never stated what was in there, but she'd never asked. She always just stared at it for a moment when she entered to collect her bike, wondering what wonders could be inside. "What's actually in there?"
"Here? My medical stuff." He answered simply, pushing the doors wide open so she could see inside.
It wasn't as wonderful as she thought. It looked like one of those storage rooms in the hospital, but it was all contained into one cabinet. "There's a lot of it."
"Well I don't need some of it anymore. But yeah, there's still an awful lot of stuff in here." He agreed as he observed both the shelves, and the larger space above it. There was a by-the-door umbrella bin that was stuffed with three pairs of crutches: two auxiliary (one set from the hospital which he couldn't bear to even touch, and one set that he had bought himself) and one forearm pair, as well as a cane. The bottom shelf of the storage unit housed his old and new sets of orthodontics, as well as a pile of resistance bands, two packs of compression socks, a prescribed TENS and E-stimulation device, half a dozen bottles of cryotherapy gel bottles (they were two for one and Meredith took that deal a little too seriously) as well as wheat bags for thermotherapy. There was a lot. An awful lot.
"So...which one do you want?"
"This-" He started as he pulled just one crutch out of the umbrella bin. "-is what I came here for."
"Why?"
He placed the bottom of the auxiliary crutch near his foot, balancing it between his knees. "For Elle."
"Elle is going to use that?" Zola asked as her father shut the door and mixed up the numbers on the lock.
"No. I am." He corrected, smiling at her briefly before leaving.
"Oh." She breathed as she followed him out of the garage and back to the lounge.
"Now, you think Mom got her to walk while we were gone?"
"Nope." She guessed, finding that she was right when they were met with a defeated Meredith staring at a sat-down Ellis.
“What are you going to do with that?” Meredith asked with raised eyebrows when she looked up to the pair.
“Uh…walk with it?” He suggested as it was the most obvious thing in the world. It was. Meredith just thought there must be some other explanation. But no. Her husband was being his mad self.
"Walk?" She echoed. Unbelievable. He was abso-freaking-lutely unbelievable.
"You heard me; that's what I said." He agreed as he picked the crutch up in one hand, placing the end on the floor. He slipped both feet off of the base of his chair before shuffling to the edge of his seat.
“When did I walk?” Zola asked as she watched Derek pause and readjust the crutch's height, clearly not quite ready to stand.
“We actually have yours on video…or, uh us trying to get you to take your first steps even. Dad had a toy and he was trying to encourage you to walk to it. You were, somehow, more insistent than Elle and decided you’d give up. We finally decided we’d just try again tomorrow and started watching the clip over on the TV. You just stood up and walked around by yourself, right there and then.”
“Did you get that on video too?” She asked, excited at the thought of watching herself walk for the first time.
She shook her head. “I chucked Dad the camera, but it wouldn’t load fast enough.”
“Oh man.” She sighed. “How about Bails?”
“Well, actually, it was you that got Bailey to walk.”
“Me?” Zola exclaimed. She certainly didn’t remember that.
“You two were playing some game with your toys and you took one of Bailey’s. He got super mad and he tried to chase after you to get it back. He’d never walked before then.”
“I did not know that.” She returned, still not remembering a single detail of the story
"Mmm- God, Derek, are you actually going to-" She started, only to pause and change the topic of her sentence as she watched her husband stand. God, he was an idiot. She wasn't even nearby incase he failed. "Jesus, what are you doing?"
"Standing." He answered simply as he let go of the top of his chair. Somehow, he had managed to get up before she reached him with both the help of the side of his chair and the object he was now leaving extremely heavily into. His whole body was kind of just…tilted. It made his posture rather horrendous as he balanced as much weight as he could possibly put into it, but it would only be for a minute.
"You okay?" She asked at his obvious struggles. It had been a while since he had stood like this, especially in front of the kids.
“I’m fine Mer, honestly.” He dismissed with an earnest voice as he reached his hand down to his daughter.
She instinctively reached for it, and grasped it back.
He smiled at the feeling of her tiny hand grasping his and bent his elbow up a little so she would be forced to either let go as his hand moved, or stand. Luckily, she did the latter.
Ellis Grey-Shepherd was standing.
It wasn’t the first time; it was more like the hundredth. But the problem wasn't that the girl was unsteady on her feet, especially after all the practice Meredith had been forcing her to do, but she simply refused to place one foot in front of another and move.
He pulled her hand towards him but she didn’t move, her arm just stretching out a little further.
She looked so lost when she looked up at him. Whether that was why she kept suddenly being encouraged to her feet or because her father was standing and that wasn’t something she had probably ever seen him do, he had no idea. Derek was just glad that she could stand long enough to examine him that intently.
They all knew that Derek was extremely unsteady on his feet. Meredith still remembered the day she asked him what it was like to have legs that were connected to the rest of him via partially disrupted neural pathways. He could feel them and not feel them, all at the same time. The pins-and-needles-like sensation that he described when more weight was put into them than they deemed acceptable, honestly, sounded horrendous. She couldn't imagine wanting to stand when it caused so much discomfort, even if it was for his daughter.
“C'mon Ellie Belle, you can do this darling.” He encouraged.
His head turned a little to look just behind him, unsteadily placing the bottom of the crutch just behind where it was before. If he was honest, he was surprised he didn’t fall in that short second. He shuffled one foot back, then the other. That took a grand two seconds of thinking. Each.
Her right foot lifted and she…put it down in exactly the same place.
'Seriously?' was what the whole family sighed silently in unison. She was so, so close.
Derek wasn't really that surprised, considering the fact that his step only moved his leg back a couple of inches back. In fact, it was possible that how far backwards he had taken himself away from the baby was actually smaller than one of her steps. Well, future steps, seeing as she hadn't done it quite yet.
“C’mon Elle, if I’m doing it then you certainly can.”
Meredith resisted the urge to giggle at her husband. He had gone through all this effort and been extremely confident that his idea would work, only for her to refuse to move.
“Hey, don’t look at me like that.” He pleaded to his wife as he glanced at her quickly before returning to what he was doing. What he was trying to do.
She couldn’t help but burst into laughter at the beg. “Sorry, sorry. I’ll go start tea. Leave you to your uh- whatever in the world you are doing.”
He sighed, shaking his head and grasping at his daughter's hand once more. “Hey, you can do this Elle. Don’t listen to your mean Mama over there. I believe in you.”
“She’s not gonna walk because you are Dad.” Zola pointed out, watching her dad as he brought the stick back once more.
“She might.” He offered before shuffling one foot back then the other. He ignored the pain and the heavy urge to simply fall to the floor to relieve the feeling in favour of doing this for his daughter.
“She w-“ Zola started to protest, only to watch Ellis take a step forward as her dad took a step back. “Oh my god! Mom! MOM!"
He went back…and she went forwards.
Ellis Grey-Shepherd was walking.
“Is she…” Meredith started as she rushed from the kitchen to look at where her daughter was standing and walking on the lounge floor. “Oh- oh god! She's walking! Walking! Get the camera! Get the camera!"
Bailey picked up the camera, chucking it at his mother.
Meredith managed to find the on button a lot quicker than Derek had all those years ago, turning the camera on in time for Derek to take more and more steps back.
“Told you.” He murmured, trying to focus on both his daughter and keeping himself. He let go of the little girl's hand and she didn’t fall. She just kept going, following him as he moved backwards.
“I never sai-“ She started, just before she watched her husband stumble backwards, crutch slipping out from under his armpit. Her breath caught in her throat in that second but by some stroke of luck or act of God or alignment of planets or whatever the saying, he crash-landed into the sofa behind him.
"That was...not on purpose." He stated as he sat up from the position he had fallen into, being greeted with three wide mouths. "But I'm fine. Completely fine."
Meredith didn’t even get the chance to rush to his side to make sure he was okay, seeing as by the time she had dropped the camera, he had already sat forward on the couch and was presenting a hand to his daughter again.
“C’mon Baby.” He murmured as he presented his hand, hoping she would walk to him.
And she did. She walked the whole way, completely unassisted, only to collide with his hand when she got there.
His other hand joined, and grasped the girl, causing her to squeal as she was lifted into the air.
"Dada." She said before smiling and looking up to her dad with an expression that said, ‘Did you see what I did? Aren’t I great?’.
"Mmm, you are very, very impressive Elle." He agreed with a broad smile. "Lasted longer than me, in fact."
Then she giggled as if she actually knew it was something that made the rest of her family smirk.
"And now you're laughing at me. First Meredith. Then Zozo. Then you, Ellie. God, you're all so mean." He turned to his son. The good one. "Bailey, let's run away and form a family together away from these rude, horrible women."
"But Daddy-" Bailey started, somehow managing to keep his smile contained. "You can't run."
Betrayed. By every single one of his family members.
Even his ten-month-old baby. His ten-month-old baby, who had just walked for the first time.