A/N: This story is back for a final chapter that I'm pretty excited about. I planned it way back when I realized I wanted the sassy first chapter to expand into a longer piece. Not too long, but long enough that Meredith and Derek could work out their differences and follow all the new rules on Zola's pink pony pad (remember those?). I wanted Meredith to find joy in her work and her family and Derek to realize how much he missed them while they were in Seattle. And mainly, I wanted Meredith to realize that making a change that keeps your family together doesn't mean giving up your independence or your personhood. Whew! Soapbox done. Thank you for reading this story and I hope you enjoy this chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it. Stay tuned for more notes at the end.

... endings and beginnings ...

Have you ever noticed the words we use when we talk about holding onto memories? We use the same for images: capture. It's the kind of word you use when you're afraid something's going to disappear.

This always seemed strange when I was a kid. Moments, they don't disappear. Moments take forever … the moments until Christmas, especially. It started to make a little more sense when I grew up.

But it didn't really make sense until later … when I had my own kids. That's when you start hearing a lot of capturing the moment. Take the picture. Ink the palmprint. Fill the photo album. Hurry up … before you lose it.

...

"Zozo! Hurry up!" Meredith tilts her head back, calling up the stairs.

"Too bad we sealed up the dumbwaiter," Derek murmurs from behind her, hand in hand with their son. "We could have sent a message right to her room."

"Did you say dumbwaiter?" Zola swings around the banister curve, eyes wide. "Are you going to open it up again?" she asks eagerly.

"We are not going to open it up again." Meredith shakes her head at her husband.

"Zo, we should get your ears checked." Derek tugs lightly on one of her pigtails. "Your hearing is too good."

"Doctors don't make your hearing worse, Dad," she explains, still in her sweet voice … but her expression reminding both of them that their loving little girl is going to be a teenager one of these days. Not yet, not for a while … but one of these days.

"What?" Zola asks, a little suspicious, when she reaches the bottom of the stairs, looking from one parent to the other.

"Daddy is just being silly."

"Daddy is just being cognizant of his daughter's excellent hearing," Derek corrects her; truthfully, they're both cognizant of it. Apparently Eternity was cognizant too, because she somehow found them a house with double-sealed walls around the master bath, and a rainshower head so powerful Meredith is pretty sure they wouldn't even hear Vesuvius while they were … showering … in there.

(That, or the house actually figured it out on its own. She's not sure she'd put it past this particular house.)

"Me too." Bailey tugs on his father's hand and Derek lifts him in the air, then flips him upside down to make him laugh. Their son dissolves into laughter that doesn't require Zola's sonic hearing to appreciate.

Meredith takes a moment to enjoy it.

Their mornings are a little busier now. It's been a few months since she started working at Carver, first at 75% and then slowly ramping up. (Not that 75%, for a surgeon, is all that slow. But she appreciated the slope anyway). She accepted the position with her family's blessing and with all the weirdness that goes along with both those things.

Have a family.

Getting their … blessing or whatever.

Getting their blessing or whatever to work, of all things! Meredith has always worked. Working meant independence, when she was young enough that the jobs were unskilled. And surgery is more than just work. More than a career. It's a calling, and this time she waited until she was called.

"Mommy." Zola signals for her attention. "Don't forget Dash is coming over for dinner tonight."

… a calling that saved one of Zola's closest friends in Washington. A pretty amazing calling.

Mornings like these—busy, but reasonably seamless, with both parents trading off tasks and children until they've bundled into two cars and headed out to start the day—mornings like these sometimes stop her in her tracks.

They make her wonder, just for a moment, how she could have considered not coming to Washington.

It's been months now since she and Derek wrote down the new rules for their relationship on Zola's pink pony pad.

Get help when we need it. They're good at that one. From their couples therapist to Mrs. Poppins—Rollins, whatever—to Eternity to the understanding chief of surgery at Carver who let Meredith ramp up in a way that worked for her family.

Us First. That one never seemed like work. Can something be a rule if it's also a goal?

Home means all four of us together. She thinks about this one a lot.

Dinner together, all four of us, every night (work permitting). If you'd asked her a year ago if she could imagine prioritizing this type of sit-down, she's not sure what Year Ago Meredith would have said. She probably would have though it sounded crazy. And it's not a hard and fast rule, it's … fine, it's a little aspirational. But they've sat down together to eat—the four of them, the family—more times than she can remember in the year before they left Seattle. Far more. And she's not advertising this to Cristina, who loves Meredith's kids but isn't exactly a Hallmark card when it comes to kids in general … but she loves it. She loves the feeling of completeness when the four of them are together at the table. It's not something she ever had before she met Derek, before she had a family—and no matter how long or short their time in Seattle, it's something she plans to keep as a cornerstone.

Do what we love, at home and at work. Ah, this rule. The one that let her take her time finding a job that really spoke to her, knowing that Derek supported her either way and enjoying the unusual amount of time she had with her children. The few weeks off when Bailey was born, what passed for maternity leave … while her body screamed in recovery and poor Zola tried to adjust to an actually screaming intruder … they weren't much. She couldn't have predicted, earlier in her career, how much she would love having a family. And that do what we love, at home would be as simple as being together.

We're still us. If three time zones and a possibly sentient—maybe haunted? Hopefully not—house can't change it, then nothing can.

"I don't think I want to be a heart surgeon," Zola is saying thoughtfully as they load up the car. Meredith is driving Zola today and Derek will take Bailey—that's the plan four out of five days on sheer geography, but it dovetails nicely with Derek's own commitment to making sure Bailey gets one on one Dad time.

"No?" Meredith asks, reaching in to help her daughter with the booster straps. "Why not?"

Zola leans back, settling into the car. "Hearts are a little gross. Not like Valentine hearts. Real hearts, I mean."

"Are brains gross too?"

"No way," Zola says firmly. "Brains are cool."

Oh, yeah. Definitely still us.

As if to underscore the point, Zola spends half the car ride—presumably in support of her younger brother's rapidly developing scatological humor phase—inquiring whether a butt surgeon is a possible area of specialty.

… we're definitely us.

...

You know those parents who take pictures of their kids with blocks and cute signs saying what age they are? Yeah, I'm more the parent who accidentally writes "Gag Zola" in frosting because those squeezy tube things are harder than they look. But those blocks and stickers and whatever are just another way to try to capture the moment. It's a cliché for a reason: kids grow up really quickly. Like … really quickly.

"Bailey," Zola says in a serious tone, her brother tuning in immediately in case it involves his second favorite topic (cookies) along with his first favorite topic (Zola). "It's your birthday tomorrow."

"My birthday," Bailey agrees. He turns to his parents. "Cookies?"

Meredith and Derek exchange a smile. "I think that can be arranged. Your birthday isn't every day."

"No, it's every year." Zola tilts her head. "If you had a birthday every day, you'd be like a zillion."

"Ouch." Derek looks amused, though. "And Mommy would be …" he can't seem to resist prompting.

"… a little less than a zillion."

"Thank you, for that." Meredith shakes her head. "Bailey … how old are you going to be?"

"Eight," Bailey says confidently.

"He keeps doing that," Zola stage whispers.

"How old are you going to be, really?" Derek prompts.

"Eight," their son says, now sounding irritated at his parents' stupidity.

"That's older than me, Bailey," Zola reminds him gently.

"Eight!" Bailey takes a defiant swig from his boat-printed sippy cup. "Eight, eight, eight!"

"How many candles did you order on the cake?" Meredith whispers.

"Nine," Derek says.

"… good call."

...

The morning of Bailey's birthday is the morning of his birthday party, too, because sometimes—believe it or not—things just work out that way.

Sometimes there's golden sun and crisp fall weather at the same time, crunchy leaves and the scent of apple cider (Zola's idea, and a very good one). And sometimes that perfect fall day, the kind you can't really capture with words, is also your son's birthday.

Believe it or not.

...

She picks up her camera a few times as she watches the joy on her family's faces in the autumn sunshine.

There's Bailey's laughter when Zola does a silly dance in the leaves to amuse him.

There's Zola's look of happiness when Bailey loves the apple cider she chose.

There's Derek, carefully setting the nine candles in the cake and shielding the flame from the breeze.

She does snap one picture as Bailey blows out the candles, but … she has to. It's a classic.

There are some moments you feel compelled to capture. And then some moments don't need to be captured … because you know they'll stay with you forever.

"Bailey!"

Dash's little sister, Lilly, is chasing Zola's little brother up and down the lawn. They both look happy bordering on giddy, enough that Meredith isn't concerned about the unfairness of the race when Lilly is a full head taller than their son.

"They're are sweet together," a voice says next to her and she looks up—a whole head—to see Dash's mother, Nathalie, who is pretty tall herself.

"They are," Meredith agrees.

They both watch as Lilly careens a dozen yards ahead of Bailey, seemingly by accident, then pivots in her little pink sneakers and runs back to him.

"She's very thoughtful."

"She's very energized by the delicious food." Nathalie looks amused. "But, thank you."

They watch their children play for another sunny moment until Bailey abruptly stops running and flings his arms around Lilly's waist.

It's pretty freaking cute.

And if her son is a lover, not a fighter? She's certainly not going to complain. Of course, if he ends up marrying Lillian Bakker, their children will be very tall.

" … and very blond," she adds to Derek, holding the screen door open for him as he carries out another jug of cider and, to the children's obvious delight, more doughnuts too.

"Did you just marry off our son?" Derek asks, once he's poured cups of cider for Zola and Dash and they've watched them mosey—yes, mosey—back to the mossy little picnic table under the shade of the trapeze.

"Of course not." Meredith frowns. "I was just saying, if they get married—what?"

"I don't think if means you're not marrying him off."

"Sure it does. It's a conditional."

Derek opens his mouth like he's going to contradict her; she gives him a quick kiss before he can and somehow, he seems to forget what he was about to say.

Their son isn't the only one in the family who's a lover, not a fighter.

...

The afternoon turns even more crisp and golden as the leaves that are falling in the yard. Eternity stops by—her hair now a shade of teal and aqua—with smiles for everyone and a gift for Bailey.

"What is it?" Zola asks with interest.

"It might be a surprise," Meredith reminds her gently. "We should let Bailey open it. But I'm sure she picked out something great."

"Who, me?" Eternity looks puzzled. "I don't know what's in the package either."

"But it's your present." Now Zola looks equally puzzled.

"Oh, no. It's Bailey's present. He's the only one who knows what's inside."

Zola and Meredith exchange a look that reminds her that her daughter is growing up.

...

"These are delicious." Derek leans past her for a cider doughnut. "We were very smart to make a fall baby."

"You were considering the menu at his future birthday parties when we … made him?" Meredith raises her eyebrows. "Think very carefully about your answer."

Derek pops a piece of the cider doughnut between her parted lips instead of answering. She'd be annoyed, but they are, in fact, delicious.

She's already had one.

(And a half, but it doesn't count if it's Bailey's leftovers.)

… and a taste of his cake too.

"What?" Derek asks, seeing her expression.

"Nothing. I should probably just … watch my doughnuts."

"You?"

"Very funny." Meredith frowns at him. "I can gain weight, you know."

"When you're pregnant."

"That was when I was young." She's half kidding, but hey, facing middle age head on does seem to imply a certain … spread, which would explain why her jeans are feeling tight.

And why those doughnuts are so damn delicious.

"Fine," she says grumpily, Derek's eyes still on her. "I'll have another."

...

There's something full circle about having Eternity's big yellow pickup truck parked outside the Maryland house. After all, Eternity was the one who brought them to this house, somehow knowing it was exactly what they needed. All of this was still so new then. Washington was a place they were visiting, not a place where they lived.

Now, though? Well, it's not that this place is home … not exactly, anyway. First of all, she's never going to accept that "the DMV" is anything except the Department of Motor Vehicles. No matter how many good hiking trails they found in that book.

But a pink pony pad rule is a pink pony pad rule, and home means all four of us together. Which is exactly where they are now, on the sloping lawn of the strangest house she's ever seen. The one with the waterproof chess table, the trapeze setup hanging from the trees, the sealed up That's Not a Nice Word dumbwaiter in Zola's room that enticed them on their very first night.

She snaps a picture of Zola and Bailey looking up at the trapeze, Bailey suitably impressed as Zola points something out to him. Her son's party hat is slipping a little, but it somehow makes it look more festive that way. And … she'd like to remember them just like this.

We capture our kids … a lot. For baths, for mealtime, to get their coats zipped. But that doesn't make them any easier to hold onto … so maybe that's why we need to capture their images, too.

"Mommy!" Zola waves from the giant waterproof chess board, Dash grinning at her, autumn leaves crunching around both their feet.

Meredith waves back.

"What wonderful children you have," Mrs. Rollins says next to her. Other people might use those words, but Mrs. Rollins … she always sounds like she means what she says.

"Thank you." Meredith smiles at her.

"I wanted to ask you," Mrs. Rollins continues, "if you know about your plans."

"Going back to Seattle, you mean."

Mrs. Rollins nods.

"We're committed through the rest of the academic year. And the kids love their schools. We'll probably head back in the summer."

It seems so far away from now. It's hard to imagine.

"Ah, I see. So you might be back in Seattle when the baby comes."

"… what baby?"

Their daughter arrives back in Seattle in the middle of the summer, just as Eternity suggested but that, as they say … is another story.

Children never want stories to end—mainly because stories tend to precede bedtime. And who wants to go to bed, when there are so many interesting stories to hear? But one of the best parts of adulthood—even better than the fabulous shoes and the even better sex—is being okay with the fact that sometimes, stories end. More than okay, actually. Because the thing is, stories should end. They should end because they have to end for a new story to begin. Because without endings, there would be no more new stories. And no matter how much you love the story you're in right now – there's another one, somewhere, waiting to begin.

And who knows? It might be even better.

Thank you so much for reading! Anyone guess what was coming before Mrs. Poppins did? (Mrs. Rollins ... whatever.) The "voiceover" at the end rings very true for me ... I have a really hard time ending stories, as anyone who reads my WIPs will know. It's not that I haven't written the endings; it's usually that I don't want to give up writing the middles! At any rate, this story is finished now ... but if you're a fan of my MerDer stories then I have some things in the works coming up that I am guessing you'll enjoy.

Thank you, as always, for reading! Bye for now ... but just for now.