Irene's A/N: Welcome back to all the old readers from A Storm Is Going To Come, and welcome to all the new readers! If you guys are new, you'd better read Part 1 first, because we'll make references to it along the way, but we also tried to write the trilogy in a way that they could be standalone stories, so don't worry if you're a little rusty on the details either.

Now, this prologue will leave you with lots of questions, but bear with us. We left our Meredith and Derek deliriously happy, after having signed their post-it footnote and having started to read Meredith's blog. This prologue is how we'll find them a few months down the line.

Enjoy!

Prologue

After

Meredith sighs slowly, blinks slowly, breathes in slowly, overwhelming tiredness settling behind her eyelids.

She watches as Bailey's mischievous face appears from the hole of the t-shirt she's helping him into. He giggles when she tries to style his short hair, now sticking up everywhere, back into its original shape. His eyes are so bright, so light, his lashes so long; sometimes she wonders how she gave birth to him, raised him, shaped him into the toddler he is now.

She feels like she doesn't deserve him.

Bailey bounces a little as she helps him into his training pants, followed by his shorts, then wobbles back to his toddler bed, ready for his shoes. She hands them to him one after the other, checking out his appearance one last time, before her fingers go over the purple, angry bruise on his left knee, kissing his skin softly like she does every morning. Then she lifts up his shirt, repeating the healing kissing all over his soft, round, and now yellowish-purple tummy. She ends her kissing therapy over the bruise on his cheek and the stitched up cut marring the skin above his left eyebrow. She can feel the bumps under the skin-colored bandage, and Bailey giggles even louder.

"Out," he grins. "Out, Mama!"

"No, Bailey, not today. The stitches need to stay in a couple more days."

Bailey's smile disappears, his eyes losing the sparkle in a matter of heartbeats, in a way that reminds her of Derek. Her heart clenches.

"Mama, breakfast is ready!" Zola's voice is being carried out in the hallway, her daughter appearing in the doorway just a second after, her smile softer than her brother's, her eyes still filled with sleep, though her clothes are impeccable.

Meredith raises herself up from the kneeling position she assumed while she helped Bailey with his clothes, picking up her little boy from under his armpits, squeezing him gently before she carries him to the kitchen. Zola is quick to grab her free hand, sliding into step with them.

Her daughter is wearing the apron Amelia gave her for her birthday, her smile proud when she shows Meredith the slice of toast spread with jam in a plate on the kitchen island, then she goes to open the fridge and takes out the milk, cereal already poured in two bowls.

Zola made breakfast. Meredith swallows thickly, partly proud of the way Zola is growing up caring and strong, the other part of her heartbroken that she had to grow up so fast, so quickly. Just like she did.

Meredith's throat closes up even further when she sees the front door opening and Derek coming inside. He has his good jeans on, though he's still wearing one of his soft, worn shirts, the ones she loves putting on herself. She feels like she hadn't worn one of his tees in forever.

Derek barely turns around after closing the door before Bailey barrels towards him, hugging his legs, begging to be picked up. Derek grins, picking him up, but the smile barely reaches his eyes as he does so. He looks worn out.

"'Tiches out," Bailey yelps, poking Derek in the eyebrow, in a place similar to the one he has his own stitches, only meeting pink flesh, though.

"No, we can't take them out yet, Bailey."

Bailey frowns, his face even darker now because of his bruise. "Wim!"

"Yes, you can try swimming in the pool again when you don't have stitches, not now." Derek smiles gently, trying to pacify him. "There are benefits from not being hurt, uh?"

"I fine." Bailey shudders, and Meredith cringes. Bailey already sounds like her.

"You will be fine, yes," Derek pacifies him, poking him in his belly. Both of them share a quiet laugh. Everything seems almost normal when Derek is smiling like that. The smile is suddenly gone when he turns to meet her eyes, his gaze cold. "Mommy is going to pick you up from daycare today, but we're going to try to have lunch together. Does that sound fun?"

Bailey grins, but Meredith frowns, and she feels compelled to break their wall of silence. "I thought it was your turn to pick them up?"

"I'm busy," he quips curtly, his gaze barely shifting towards her. "I have a late surgery."

"Well, I'm busy too, it was your turn," she growls, trying not to snap. Not when the kids are there. They've seen enough trauma for a lifetime.

"So what, are Amelia or Alex going to work as part-time school bus drivers on top of being surgeons? Aren't we able to organize ourselves decently enough to take care of our own kids?"

She doesn't reply, in spite of the seething anger inside her. She focuses on her cereal and her toast, the jam not on the plate, the milk spilled over the granite of the kitchen island.

She's tired of snapping at him, so damn tired.

"In the OR, time loses all meaning. In the midst of sutures, and saving lives... the clock ceases to matter. 15 minutes... 15 hours — inside the OR, the best surgeons make time fly. Outside the OR, however, time takes pleasure in kicking our asses. For even the strongest of us it seems to play tricks. Slowing down... hovering... until it freezes. Leaving us stuck in a moment — unable to move in one direction or the other.

Time flies. Time waits for no man. Time heals all wounds. All any of us wants is more time. Time to stand up. Time to grow up. Time to let go. Time."

Meredith's words reverberate in Derek's head. She'd written that blog entry not long after their prom affair, right after he told her that she had a choice to make, because when he had a choice to make, he'd chosen wrong.

It all feels like a million years ago, sometimes.

Is time really the healer of all wounds?

It seems like, to Derek, that time is the creator of all wounds. Wounds heal, then new ones are sliced open in place of the old ones. There's really no escape.

And scars never heal completely. They just fade.

Derek watches Meredith stew as she stares blankly at her plate and her bowl of cereal, and he feels a lump in his throat.

He doesn't want to yell, he really doesn't, but sometimes it's just so easy, so much easier, than dealing with everything going through his head. Yelling feels freeing, and he has no idea why she feels like the perfect target for it.

"Daddy, I'm sorry I didn't made breakfast for you too, we no gots your cereal no more, Daddy," Zola says, munching on her Fruit Loops, a sad expression on her lips. "We're gonna get more, right, Mama?"

Derek shifts the bowl of cereal with milk in front of Zola, stealing a spoonful of it to quell his hunger. This cereal clogs arteries, but he's too worn out to argue about this too. He just munches on the colorful treat, casting that fight aside.

Zola quietly moves to sit flushed to Meredith's side, barely giving her any room to raise the spoon to her lips. His wife doesn't even flinch at the intrusion in her personal space, but doesn't reply to Zola either.

She looks worn out, and beautiful, but mostly worn out.

"I'll pick them up," he concedes, out of guilt, out of pity, he doesn't know. He just knows that he can barely look at his wife anymore without feeling all these overwhelming, unnamed set of emotions. "I'll pick them up from daycare."

"Okay," she gives in too, her voice barely sounding like hers, her eyes still on her uneaten toast. "Okay."

He feels like they're an echo of what could have been, ghosts moving in and out of their life, their routine, their comfort zones, and he has no idea how to change that. Their world has shifted, thrown them a curveball, and they're still reeling from it.

Sometimes he wonders how long the reeling will last; other times, he's glad they're still standing in the first place. Even if most of the time they are standing so apart he wants to burst into tears.

Breakfast proceeds in an awkward silence, Zola bombarding him with questions and tales and retelling events almost as if she hasn't seen him in years, and he feels misplaced. Like this home is not his home anymore.

"Daddy, can we see ET again?" Zola asks in a small voice, the spoon clinking in her bowl as she finishes her cereal. He takes a deep breath, avoiding his daughter's pleading eyes.

Meredith sends him daggers with her eyes, and he turns towards the cabinets, trying to compose himself.

"Dr. Wyatt was there yesterday, Daddy! I wanna see them again!"

He shrugs the uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach, waiting for a reaction from Meredith, but nothing comes.

"Maybe tomorrow, sweetheart."

Silence settles there again after Zola sighs loudly, getting up to rinse her cereal bowl, then putting it in the dishwasher.

In this deafening silence, without Meredith's giggle and happy soul, no place can feel like home.

After Zola and Bailey finish their breakfasts, Derek gathers both kids to leave for the hospital. He's been working a lot since he's gone back. She's glad he's working again. It's one step toward normalcy. If there is a such thing as normalcy, that is. For her and Derek, she's not sure what normalcy is. It seems like they're always trying to put the pieces back together. Broken has become their normal.

Why does it feel like every time they take one step forward, they take at least a dozen steps backward all at the same time?

Derek slams the door behind him, and her family vanishes.

It feels like they've been gone much longer than just a few seconds, though.

She stares blankly at the wooden door, wishing maybe Zola had forgotten something, so they would come back, and she could sneak a glance at her fallen family. But no one comes.

Silence rings in her ears. It's quiet. Too quiet.

The solemn quiet is interrupted by the sound of footsteps stomping down the stairs. Meredith turns her head only briefly to see her sister-in-law's face. She didn't even know Amelia was still here. Meredith frowns at the sight of her.

"Hey, uh, so Derek left with the kids?" Amelia asks, scoping out the room. When Meredith doesn't answer, though, Amelia says, "So, I know this probably isn't a good time to say this, but I think I'm going to be moving out soon." Meredith just keeps staring, barely hearing what her sister-in-law is saying. Amelia continues talking, though, despite not receiving a response. "I know you and Derek have had a rough year, and I want you to know I'm here for you. If you need me to be a bus driver or whatever, I'll do it."

That's when Meredith looks at Amelia. "You heard that?" Meredith asks, her voice ghastly nonchalant.

"I did. I hope you're not upset, but it's time. I need space, and so do you," Amelia says firmly, but Meredith can't bring herself to reply. Her mind is adrift, her head trapped in a chilling, hazy fog. She doesn't recognize this place. "And just to set the record straight, this is not about last night. I'm not judging you. I'm clearly not in a place to judge you."

Last night. Meredith's body numbs. She doesn't want to think about last night. Her eyes focus out the window. It's a cloudy, humid Seattle morning, but it looks peaceful out there. Calm. Tranquil.

Time stands still. She looks up, and the happy bubble bursts. They're trapped in the eye of the storm.

Nicole's A/N: Welcome back to the Storm roller coaster! We never said it would be easy, did we? That wouldn't be any fun. Now, we've left you with a lot of questions, so please sound off in the reviews with your thoughts. All I can say is: Not everything is as it appears. What that entails, I say no more.

Chapter 1 will pick up approximately six weeks after where A Storm is Going to Come leaves off, so it'll conveniently be around April 2015. Feel free to use this story as your alternate end to season 11 and season 12. That's what I'm doing. As Irene and I always say, no matter what darkness we put Meredith and Derek through, there's always light at the end of the tunnel, and they'll be standing together in that light.