142. Nine Months Old

Disclaimer: Last I checked, Grey's still wasn't mine.

Thank you as always for your patience! I've been writing this fic for five years now, so to still have so much interest and support from you guys means the world to me. Enjoy!

Derek pressed the record button on the video camera, fully charged and ready for another day of filming. It was March fifth, which meant Lilly was officially nine months old. And while they couldn't say with certainty, they had a feeling that after months of practice and three days' worth of video footage, today would be the day.

"Come on, Lilly! Come to Daddy!" Derek encouraged.

"She's gonna do it. I can feel it," Meredith said, clapping in support for her daughter.

Lilly looked at Derek, her blue eyes wide in willpower. Her hands had finally learned how to keep the rest of her body upright and stable, and with a little coaxing and a lot of pep talks from her cheering squad, the moment she evolved from her signature inchworm move to actual crawling was imminently close. She stretched out a tentative hand, getting a feel for the carpeted surface beneath her, then stretched out the other. The result was a slow slide onto her belly, and she quivered her lower lip in frustration.

"You're okay, peanut. That was a great try," Meredith said, setting her on her bottom briefly, then kissing her forehead. "Here, Mommy will embarrass herself to show you."

Derek zoomed in on Meredith's butt in the air as she assumed a crawling position, too good of an opportunity to pass up. "This is kinda hot," he commented from behind the camera.

Meredith tossed a nearby stuffed giraffe at him and smirked. "Seriously? What if this is the video where she finally crawls that we send to everyone, and there's a nice close-up of my ass for all of your family to see?" she scolded him before turning her attention back to Lilly. "Okay, Lilly, look at Mommy. It goes knee, hand, other knee, other hand," she demonstrated.

Lilly watched with interest as Meredith crawled a few feet across the floor, and the look of pure concentration on her face made Derek smile. "She's soaking it all in like a sponge. We have a genius baby," he boasted.

"Okay, now you try," Meredith said after sitting back down across the room from Derek where Lilly was. She set her back on her hands and knees, and they waited with baited breath as she tried again.

A few seconds passed before she moved forward, just wiggling her tiny butt to get some momentum. And then, without warning, she did it. She pushed off her knee, keeping herself balanced with her hands. She stopped again as she figured out the right knee-hand pattern, and when she did, she took off like a pro.

"Oh my God," Meredith whispered, looking over at Derek, whose mouth was just as agape in surprise.

They watched in silence as she repeated her motion, switching from her right knee to her left then back to her right. She kept her focus on Derek, determined to make it all the way over to him a few feet away. She picked up speed on the last few inches, and when she finally made it over to him, he scooped her up immediately and pressed victory kisses to her cheek.

"Lilly, you did it! That was perfect!" he cheered.

"I can't believe she just did that," Meredith said, joining them on the other side of the room. She pried Lilly away from Derek to get in a few kisses of her own, then hugged her close. "Nine months ago today, I was in labor, waiting for you to be born. Then I blinked, and boom, you're crawling. What did we say about growing up too fast, huh?"

"We're so proud of you, Lillybug. Performing under the pressure of a camera. You'll make a great surgeon one day," Derek said.

Meredith's pager beeped from inside her pocket, and she froze. "No. No no no. I don't want to go to work. This is Lilly's nine month birthday," she said, checking the page as it scrolled across the tiny screen. "They bumped my cordotomy with Nelson up to today instead of tomorrow. Damn it."

"Call out. I'm sure we could come up with an excuse," Derek said as he put Lilly back on the floor, so she could keep on crawling. "We haven't had sex in two weeks. You could use that. Say you need to stay home and get laid."

"Yeah, okay. When that memo lands on the Chief's desk, he won't have a problem with it," Meredith joked, letting out a sigh. "I could really use the OR hours, though. The more I have, the better it looks for the boards. But I really could use the sex, too. And the day off."

"I offered you sex this morning," Derek reminded her.

Meredith rolled her eyes playfully. "Lilly was between us. A baby in the bed isn't exactly conducive for hot sex," she said. She smoothed her fingers through Lilly's dark curls, swept away from her forehead by a flowery hair clip. "How am I supposed to be productive at work when you just blew my mind with your crawling? I'll just be bragging about you to everyone all day."

"If it's just for a cordotomy, you should go. Get a fourth year to monitor post-op. You'll be home in three hours, four tops. It'll still be early enough to celebrate with Lilly," Derek said.

"Fine. But don't reach any milestones while I'm gone," Meredith told Lilly, who giggled at her in response. "I'm serious. No walking or doing cartwheels or anything."

Derek chuckled as they both got up off the floor, Lilly sitting on his arm. "I'll make sure she holds off."

...

"I don't know, Lilly. I mean sure, Stuffy can pull off a good joke, but I just don't know what he adds to the show. Now Hallie, she's the one who needs more focus. She's the nurse, so she's the only one with real medical knowledge to offer, and she's got that old soul wisdom, you know?" Derek said, feeding Lilly a spoonful of her applesauce.

"Mmm," Lilly said as she happily munched, turning her attention back to the cartoon they were watching together on the couch.

Derek's phone rang and he reached for it on the end table. "Uncle Mark," he said, answering the call. "Hello?"

"Hey, are you busy?" Mark asked.

"Not really. Just watching Doc McStuffins."

"I think I rented that on HBO After Dark a few years ago. Wasn't great. Little early in the day for porn, though, isn't it?" Mark replied.

Derek rolled his eyes. "It's a kiddie cartoon on Disney, Mark. I'm watching it with Lilly."

Lilly patted Derek's thigh when he delayed her next bite of applesauce. "Mmm, Da," she requested.

"Bossy just like Mommy," he grinned, spooning some more into her mouth.

"Oh. My bad. Is Mer there with you? Am I interrupting quality family time?"

"No, she got paged into work, so we're just hanging out until she gets home. I think I'm getting delusional, though. I'm literally sitting here analyzing the merits of a cartoon meant for the under five crowd," Derek said with self-deprecation. "Why? What's up?"

"Feel like coming over to help me assemble a crib? This thing's got a million pieces, and I figured since you're a neurosurgeon who's used to working with boring hardware, you could come give me a hand," Mark said. "Ideally, I would've picked Callie, but she's working, so..."

"Well, I'm flattered to be your second choice," Derek said. "Uh, yeah, I guess I could. We just need to keep Lilly busy and away from the tools."

"She'll just sit there. It'll be fine," Mark shrugged.

"Oh, you haven't heard the latest development. She crawls now," Derek said proudly.

Derek could almost picture the look on Mark's face on the other end of the line. "What? Since when?" Mark asked in shock.

"This morning. We got it on video. Mer and I still can't believe it," Derek replied, giving Lilly a sip from her bottle.

"Now you have to come over, because I need to see it for myself."

"Fine. Just give me a half hour to get packed and drive over there," Derek agreed.

"Gotta say, I'm more eager to see your kid than I am to see you," Mark said.

Derek laughed. "Yeah, most people say that."

...

Meredith sat at the nurses' station, replaying Lilly's crawling video on a loop while she waited for her surgery to start. It was the next best thing to being home, so she was making the most of it.

Cristina dropped down into the chair next to her, a bag of chips in one hand, a chart in the other. "Hey. I thought you had the day off for Lilly's fake birthday thing," she said.

"Oh. Hey," Meredith said as she paused the video. "Yeah, I was supposed to, but my surgery got moved up to today. Bailey's surgery is running late, so I'm just waiting for the OR to open up. And it's not fake. She's nine months old today."

"Whatever. Semi-fake, semi-real birthday," she compromised. "What're you watching?"

"Lilly started crawling this morning. We got a video. Want to see?" Meredith asked.

"Hell yeah," Cristina said in the excited tone that she reserved only for Lilly.

Meredith restarted the video from the beginning, so caught up in her mommy pride that she overlooked the part where Derek zoomed in on her ass. Cristina, though, couldn't resist the smirk that came over her face.

"Let me guess. Derek was the videographer?"

"What? Oh. Yeah. Gotta find a way to edit that out," Meredith said.

They watched Lilly crawl toward the camera like a seasoned champ, and Cristina gasped, in awe of her goddaughter. "No way!" she said.

"Right?"

"She's such a badass. I love her," Cristina gushed, waving Izzie down as she deposited a chart in the bin. "Iz, come here."

"What?" Izzie asked as she spun around.

Meredith held her phone in the air. "Guess who's crawling now."

"No way!" Izzie repeated, pulling over a third chair. "How is she old enough to crawl already?"

"I know. I feel like she should still be kicking me from the inside," Meredith sighed. She restarted the video again, then handed Izzie her phone to watch. "Here you go."

"Wow. Great ass shot," Izzie complimented.

"Thank you."

Izzie's eyes lit up like a child's on Christmas morning as she watched Lilly crawl for the first time. "Look at her go!" she shouted, causing curious glances from those passing by in the hall. "Jeez, she's got speed in that little body of hers."

"I hope you guys baby-proofed the mansion," Cristina said.

"Derek's had the house baby-proofed since I was six months pregnant. Seriously, outlets and all," Meredith laughed, mostly because it was the truth.

Izzie rewound the video, eager to watch it again. "I hope you don't mind if I send this to myself after I watch it a dozen more times," she said.

"Go for it," Meredith said. "Now that she's crawling, I think we're gonna have to move her into her crib at night. The books say to wean babies off co-sleeping once they learn how to crawl, because they're more mobile. I don't want her bolting right off the bed."

"She's still in the bed with you?" Cristina asked. "How do you ever have sex?"

"Cristina," Izzie scolded.

Meredith rolled her eyes. "We do our best. She usually naps in her crib, so if we're both home that day, that's when sex happens. Or we'll sneak off into the shower before she wakes up in the morning. Oh, and whenever any of you guys offer to play with her while she's here, we're probably around the corner in the linen closet or up in Derek's office," she disclosed.

"Eww," Cristina replied.

"Hey, you asked. Anyway, it's been fifteen days since we've... you know," Meredith admitted.

"Fifteen days? That's a Guinness record for you two," Izzie said, finally sending the video to herself.

Cristina frowned in pity for her friend. "Oh, Mer, you need to get laid. Immediately."

"It's not that we don't try. We do. We just get interrupted or sidetracked or pagers go off. Setting aside twenty minutes for sex isn't as easy as it sounds," Meredith said, running a hand through her hair. "I don't know. Getting our bed back at night might be kind of nice. I'm gonna talk to Derek about it. We just need to find a way to make the transition okay for Lilly."

"She's a big, bad crawler now," Cristina reminded her. "How's she ever going to go off to Stanford in eighteen years unless you give her a little more independence?"

"She's right, Mer. Lilly will be fine a few feet down the hall. It'll be harder on you guys than on her," Izzie said in support.

"I know," Meredith said. Her pager beeped, signaling the now open OR, and she pulled it from her hip to silence it. "But you're wrong about Stanford. My baby's a Dartmouth girl," she said, standing up from her chair.

Cristina swiveled around to face her, popping a chip into her mouth. "Yeah, we'll see."

...

Mark sat on the floor of his future baby's nursery, a wide grin spread over his face as he, too, watched Lilly's crawling debut. He'd lost track of how many times he'd restarted it, though based on the progress Derek had made by himself in building the crib, he would guess the number was close to twenty.

"Are you gonna help me at some point?" Derek asked, the instruction manual in one hand, a screwdriver in the other.

"One more minute," Mark said, brushing him off.

"Everyone is smitten with you," Derek told Lilly, who sat next to him, surrounded by the toys Derek had packed to keep her entertained.

Lilly looked up at him and smiled, handing him a foam block. "Dada," she said before busying herself with the remaining pile.

Derek leaned down and kissed the top of her head. "Thank you, Princess."

"God, she's a cute kid. I hope mine's just like her," Mark said, handing Derek his phone back after sending the video to himself.

"She will be. Or he. You guys gonna find out the sex?" Derek asked.

Mark hoisted himself onto his knees beside Derek to help him assemble the crib frame. "Not sure. The little girls in her kindergarten class already gave her a few name suggestions, though. They came up with Princess Sparkle and Buttercup."

"Buttercup Sloan. Kind of stripper-ish, but still catchy," Derek joked.

"We've got a few actual contenders that we've been testing out," Mark said, holding the frame secure while Derek screwed it to the headboard. "Boys names are harder. She suggested my middle name for the baby's. I vetoed that five seconds later."

Derek shook his head. "Everett? Yeah, no, don't do that to the poor kid."

"I still don't know where the hell my parents came up with that one," Mark sighed. "Anyway, she has a whole list of boy names. I vetoed most of those, too. The only ones we can agree on so far are Jacob, Connor and Liam. Every other name has already been stolen by the Shepherd flock."

"Meredith said the same thing," Derek chuckled. "Those are good, strong names, though. We actually had Connor on our list, I think. What about girls?"

"Right now, Charlotte's at the top."

Derek nodded in approval. "That's pretty. I like it."

"I wish the kid would cooperate, so I could get this nursery painted before the birth. I'm already positive it's a girl, but until the OB confirms it, Bridget's not letting me touch the walls," Mark sighed.

"How do you... oh, the penis theory," Derek recalled.

"Mock me all you want, but the Sloans are... impressive. My parents wanted to be surprised with me, but at the twenty week ultrasound, boom, clear as day. No mistaking my gender."

Derek rolled his eyes. "Okay," he said, simply to appease him.

As her dad and uncle talked, Lilly shook her foam ball in amusement. On a particularly high shake with her hands, the ball flew from her arms, skittered across the carpet, and landed on the other side of the room. She considered alerting her dad to get his attention, so he would retrieve it for her, but instead Lilly maneuvered herself onto her knees. She steadied herself, then with every ounce of energy she had, she crawled over to the ball. Once she reached it, she scooted back onto her bottom, and held the toy like a trophy.

"Dada," Lilly called, proudly holding the ball in the air.

Derek glanced over at the spot where Lilly had been sitting with her toys, the look on his face turning to mild panic when he saw that she wasn't there. He whipped his head around and found her sitting by the door, chewing on the foam ball she'd rescued.

"Oh God, Lilly, you scared me," Derek said as he let out a nervous breath. "You crawled over there all by yourself, Princess?"

"She's quick and quiet. Good luck when she's older. One blink, and she'll be sneaking off with your car," Mark said, shutting the bedroom door, so Lilly couldn't escape.

Derek picked up Lilly and her ball, then set her back in the spot where she'd been. "She would never do something like that."

"Grey is her mother. Former rebel without a cause. You don't think she knew which steps creaked or how to Spiderman herself out the bedroom window?" Mark reminded him, securing a hinge on the crib rail.

"You've got a point," Derek admitted. He looped his pinky finger through Lilly's and smiled. "Either way, we don't tell Mommy that you were a foot away from crawling right out the door. What happens in Vegas, right?"

Lilly giggled at him, unconcerned by the pact they were making. Instead, she flopped onto her hands and knees again, taking Derek's pinky with her as she tried to go for another stroll around the room.

"Ow ow ow," Derek said, crawling alongside her as he tried to free his finger from her tight grasp.

Mark took a swig from his bottle of water, looking on with a grin. "She's nine months old, and she's literally got you by the finger," he said. "Like I said, heaven help you when she's eighteen."

...

Lilly wiggled and squirmed, trying to free herself from her bath towel cocoon. With the new found freedom that crawling offered, being swaddled was not her idea of fun. Derek propped her up in his arm as he walked into the living room with her to get her dressed.

"Anxious to go exploring some more?" he asked, laying her on a blanket on the floor. "I promise, I'll have you roaming around as fast as I can."

Derek reached for her basket of diaper supplies that sat under the end table, but by the time he turned back around, Lilly was zipping away on her hands and knees toward Charlie. "Whoa, where are you going, Lillybug?" Derek chuckled, chasing after her.

"Hey," Meredith called out as she opened the front door.

Upon hearing her Mom's voice, Lilly veered to the right to go meet her. She crawled all the way into the foyer before Derek had the chance to pick her up, and Meredith could only laugh when she saw her. "Hey, you. What are you doing?" she asked, scooping her up to keep her warm.

"Our daughter is an escape artist," Derek joked, joining them both in the foyer with a new diaper in his hand.

"Is that why she's naked?" Meredith asked.

"I turned back for two seconds, and she took off like a flash," he said. "How was your cordotomy?"

"Good. Nelson let me do the whole thing, so I got credit as lead surgeon," Meredith replied as they walked back into the living room.

Derek grinned. "That's great! More stuff to add to your boards," he said.

"And everyone loved Lilly's video. She's the talk of the hospital," Meredith boasted, laying Lilly down on the blanket for attempt number two of getting her dressed. "Why did she get a bath so early?"

"We spent the morning at Mark's assembling the crib, and she had a bottle on the way home. The lid must have been screwed on wrong, because when I went to take her out of the car seat, she was covered in milk. She didn't care, though. She thought it was funny," Derek said.

Meredith took the diaper from him and slid it under Lilly's bottom. "Are you driving Daddy nuts today?" she asked, tickling her belly with her finger. "So, crib, huh? Pick up any hints about the gender, or do you think they really don't know?"

"Mark still stands by the penis theory, so he's ready to throw pink paint up on the walls and get the name Charlotte embroidered on everything. But no, they don't know yet," Derek said.

"Charlotte?"

Derek nodded. "They think that's the winner if it's a girl."

"Now they have to pick it," Meredith said.

"Why is that?" Derek asked amusedly, handing Meredith Lilly's cat pajamas.

"Because I've always loved that name. It would have been on our list, except Charlotte Shepherd is a mouthful of 'shh' sounds," Meredith explained as she shimmied Lilly's pants up her legs.

"Oh. Well, next time I see Mark, I'll tell him you approve," Derek said.

Meredith pulled the matching pajama top over Lilly's head and smiled. "Thank you," she said. "So, uh, I was thinking that maybe we should start easing Lilly into her crib at night."

"Yeah?"

Meredith shrugged. "Well, I don't want to, but I think it's probably a good idea. She's crawling now, though. I just think it's safer, especially since she seems to be a mini Speed Racer."

"Didn't think of that," Derek sighed. "Maybe we could let her fall asleep with us, then move her. Leaving her in the crib while she's awake might be rough for her. I don't want to make bedtime upsetting for her every night. Then she'll never sleep."

"Yeah, we could try that. I mean, she already sleeps in there for naps sometimes, and she's fine with it. Plus, she's a good sleeper. She barely even wakes up in the middle of the night unless she needs to be changed," Meredith said, rolling her watch around her wrist as the nerves already kicked in.

"She'll be fine. She's ready. Right, Lilly? Tell Mommy it's no big deal," Derek said in an attempt to make Meredith more comfortable with the decision, no matter how tough it would be on all of them at first.

"I know. You just have to keep reminding me," Meredith said. She brushed Lilly's curls into a small bow, then set her free on the floor, so she could resume her crawling. "But I guess there's one perk. You and I can be... spontaneous more often."

"Spontaneous, huh?"

"Mhm," she hummed in agreement, trailing her fingers over his thigh. "Remember back in the day when I would roll on top of you naked in the middle of the night, and we would go at it for hours?"

Derek groaned, keenly aware that Lilly was nearby. "Yeah," he said.

"Or when I would wake up in the morning, and feel you hard and pressing against me. And I would do all of your favorite things," she continued to tease him.

He visibly shivered from the feel of her teeth gently tugging on his earlobe, and the images that filled his brain, both of which were a dangerous combination. "I do... remember that."

Meredith kissed his cheek before she pulled away from him. "That's payback for zooming in on my ass," she laughed.

"Evil woman," he said as he regained composure.

"I know," Meredith smiled in satisfaction. "But until then, I have something for Lilly. I stopped on my way home to get her some strawberry banana rice pudding from that organic baby store by the hospital. Until she's old enough for chocolate, I figured we could celebrate with that for her nine month birthday."

"Sounds good. Wanna try some, Princess?" Derek asked Lilly, who was already crawling over to the coffee table where Meredith had set the rice pudding container.

Lilly reached for the table ledge and pulled herself up onto her feet. Meredith gasped, nudging Derek's side with her elbow. "Derek, look at her."

"No. There's no way," Derek said in awe.

But when Lilly planted her palms on the table surface and placed one foot in front of the other, he quickly fumbled for his phone in his pocket, managing to turn on the video mode by the time she took another step.

"Holy crap, she's walking," Meredith whispered, keeping her eyes trained on her daughter.

"She's going for the pudding."

Slowly and steadily, Lilly walked from one end of the coffee table to the other, never losing her balance. When she made it to the pudding on the other side, she held it up and smiled. "Mmm, Dada!" Lilly said, celebrating her victory.

"Lilly, you did it! You walked!" Meredith cheered. She went over to Lilly and picked her up, her eyes blurring up against her will. "How did you do that? You haven't even been crawling for twelve hours."

Derek sent the video to Meredith's phone, and made sure to save it in his own, just like he'd done with the video from this morning. "No one's gonna believe us. They'll think we Photoshopped it," he chuckled.

"I would, too," Meredith said, pressing kisses to Lilly's cheek. "I am so proud of you."

"Crawling was getting old, huh? Needed to reach two milestones in one day?" he asked.

Meredith handed her to Derek, so he could give her a hug, too. "I'm glad I got home in time to see it," she said.

"It was the motivational rice pudding that did it," Derek said, reaching for the diaper bag that sat on the couch. "I guess now we really need to get her used to the crib. A little more practice, and she'll be leaping from the bed to the dresser."

Meredith grabbed a spoon from the side compartment, then fastened a bib around Lilly's neck. "I know. Just... brace yourself for tears. That's all."

"I think she'll be fine; I really do," Derek said as he spooned some of the rice pudding into Lilly's mouth.

Lilly smiled at the sweet taste, looking up at Meredith. "Mmm," she said in approval.

"I was talking about me," Meredith said before leaning down and kissing the tiny pair of lips. "Is it yummy, Lillybug?"

"Crying tears of joy for how much more sex we're gonna be having," he amended.

Meredith rolled her eyes playfully, hoping he was right. "Whatever you say, Derek."