𝐑𝐈𝐒𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐏𝐇𝐎𝐄𝐍𝐈𝐗 ━━ 𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐤 𝐬𝐡𝐞𝐩𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐝

fifty nine | thankful

Thanksgiving Day

"When did the bleeding start?"

"This morning. He's had these before. I just. . .I've never seen a nosebleed go on like that."

Lexie and I take turns dabbing away the blood under the little boy's nostrils while Arizona and Derek examine his films.

"There's blood on Timmy, Mom."

Drops of red stain his drawing of a turkey.

"Mr. and Mrs. Jacobsen, can I see you?" Derek waves them over to the monitor.

Lexie flashes an assuring smile. "Go ahead. We'll be fine."

As the two walk them through the treatment of his arteriovenous malformation, the two of us glance down at Nicholas.

"So, you named the turkey Timmy, huh?" I point at the pink-colored bird.

"Timmy the turkey." The young resident lets out a small laugh. "Very creative."

We work through the pre-ops for his surgery when Lexie stumbles upon some. . .interesting news about Mark — he has a daughter.

"She's eighteen. That's not very much younger than me —" Lexie hyperventilates in the middle of the O.R..

"Well, it's not that shocking."

"Dr. Shepherd, be nice."

"All I'm saying is the way Mark got around before he met you, there could be a gaggle of Sloans. Sloan Jones. Sloan Smith. Sloan Sloan." The elder doctor laughs at his own joke.

My eyes narrow for a split second. "You are mean."

"Ah, damn it. Son of a bitch." He halts all movement. "I can't access the feeders."

"So. . .what does that mean?"

"It means I can't get at it. I can do a temporary fix, but once he starts bleeding again — which he will — there won't be anything we can do."

"We can't let him just go home and die."

Derek simply releases a strained breath.

"Happy Thanksgiving, Jacobsen family."

Christmas Eve

"Cristina's finally getting in brownie points with Teddy, Meredith's off getting private lessons from Webber. . .and I'm stuck with the odd couple."

Mark slumps against my shoulder, pouting at the situation in his hands. Meanwhile, Derek works with a model of the brain to figure out how to operate on Nicholas.

"I wanna bolt. I wanna quit. I wanna. . .go back to New York, or. . .I don't know, Arkansas. Somewhere no one can come looking for me."

My palm pats the top of his salt-and-pepper hair.

"I don't know how to talk to her. And I don't know what she wants from me."

His cheek presses further into my arm.

"It's the guilt, you know? It's, like, every time I look at her, it just. . .the guilt is like a punch in the gut every day."

Derek finally opens his mouth. "Well, you shouldn't feel guilty. You didn't know."

"I did know."

Both of us look up at Marks' revelation.

"I knew when her mom got pregnant. She told me. But I gave her a couple hundred bucks and left town. I never saw her again, so I, you know, figured she got an abortion. Hoped. But I did know."