Never Alone//Merder

An Attempt To Tip The Scales

While Morgan slept in the bed beside her mother, Meredith stayed awake. There were too many things on her mind to sleep including the thought of possibly moving to New York. Moving was never an option for her before. Seattle was home. All of their friends and family were there and Meredith didn't want to uproot Morgan. It had been hard enough for her to make new friends. She didn't have to try and do it at a new school.

A lot of things have changed since then. Meredith had noticed that her daughter had started to come out of her shell a little bit since she had met Katie. Meredith then realized that it had been a year since she and Morgan had met Derek and his children. But it had felt like that they always had been a family.

It is funny how some people say that you don't know what you miss until it was gone. Meredith really didn't think much of it until after Derek and the kids moved out. She now believed in that phrase. She missed Derek, Katie and Christopher being around. She missed reading to both girls at bedtime and playing cars with Christopher. She missed having dinner dates with Derek. She missed them playing baseball together in the park. She missed them taking ferry rides together.

It was hard to believe that those days would be over. She could try and talk Derek into moving back to Seattle, but it might be too much on the children. Then there was also Addison. Meredith couldn't help but wonder if she would have moved to Seattle or somewhere close so she could see the children more often than just the summers and holidays.

Meredith tried not to laugh as she thought what Derek had said about splitting the twins up. It would be funny if the twins were split up and they would find each other years later before playing matchmakers to their parents. Of course, it wouldn't work since the twins had their siblings to deal with, not to mention the possibility of the twins being fraternal.

She knew that she had to make a decision about moving soon. That way, they could then prepare for the babies. Of course, Meredith and Derek still had to tell their children that they were going to have two more siblings. It was time to stop hiding her bump.

Meredith's thoughts were interrupted by her cell-phone vibrating. She grabbed it before the noise could wake Morgan up and answered it. Derek's voice then came over the phone. "I'm sorry to be calling so late, but I thought we should talk. I hope I didn't wake you."

"No, it's fine," Meredith assured him as she quietly slipped out of bed. She didn't want to wake Morgan with the conversation. "In fact, I couldn't sleep either."

Derek didn't beat around the bush. "Look, I just wanted to apologize for the dinner tonight," he said. "It wasn't right for me to push you into moving to New York. I realized that I was thinking more about my kids when I really should be thinking about what is best for all of our children."

"I'm sorry too. You're right though. It would be easier to do the custody arrangement if we are in the same state." There was a short pause before she spoke again. "If you don't mind me asking, what arrangement were you and Addison going to do if you would have stayed in Seattle and she would have stayed in New York?"

"Well, she wanted us to split the children up," Derek told her. "Since Katie is so close to me, she would have allowed Katie to stay with me and take Christopher back to New York with her. Then we would switch during holidays and summers. As I told you, I refused to do that. I understand that she was trying to be fair, but that arrangement wouldn't work for me."

Meredith didn't respond for a moment. She was debating on whether she should ask this question. "Derek, I don't know if I'm ready to move away from Seattle yet. And I know that I can't ask you to move back in with us. You just got Katie and Christopher settled in. It wouldn't be fair to the children."