Tom and Meredith discuss au pair situation

Meredith took out a folder from her bag and Tom couldn't help but notice the sizeable bump on the otherwise lithe woman's figure, due to the coin and Sarah's wish. Sarah wanted to become an au pair living with him and his family and the only reason to have one would be to take care of children, something that caused him a deal of conflicting emotions initially: he took his oath seriously, he was a one woman man and the idea of having an affair, while based in fantasy, was something he had to come to grips with. Call it simping but he was married to Sarah, at least was in the loosest sense, and now he was married to Meredith (heaven forbid he actually have to do the deed for real). It was all too confusing, really.

"Need help?" he asked, starting to move to her side.

Meredith, for her part, glared at him and hissed. "No thank you, you already 'helped' me enough as it were..." she pointed down at the belly. "God, having to lug these two kids of yours around every moment for months, followed by delivery...jesus, I can't even see my feet now." Meredith sighed and placed the folder onto the table and took a few moments to catch her breath. "I know we agreed on trying to do this ourselves but we can't make it work...not without help. I can't spend time away from my job and you got that deal coming up with BP that you need to close." She sighed again, rubbing her belly absently and Tom just sat there, waiting for her to continue. "I was thinking..."

"You wanted to have an au pair living with us, to help with the kids..." Tom finished for her and, for once, Meredith's face permitted a small smile, one that actually did not bear any venom or fangs at him, and Tom blinked in surprise. "I thought as much, too."

"You weren't the top of your class at Harvard for nothing," she joked lightly before she opened the booklet and rifled through the applications. "We looked through the companies and I know we picked this one, I dug a bit more and had them send us several candidates." She placed each file on the table. "Young, European, healthy with no medical issues, background checks, pre-selection interviews for screening...all of that was done for us. They sent us several finalists for review."

Tom watched as she placed each dossier down on the table and then, after she finished laying them out, he looked at her. "Do you have any preferences? We can start there."

Meredith looked a bit surprised at his candor and willingness to engage her on such a decision, something Tom picked up immediately (But not sure why or even how). "Oh...well, yes, but I'd like to get your sense on this. Whomever we pick, she'll be living with us for a few years and taking care of the kids." She slipped out one in particular and placed it in front of him. "I was thinking, all joking aside, this one. She's a bit older, about 26, but everything looks good."

Tom read through her CV and then looked up at Meredith who dropped her head quickly, a slight flush appearing on her cheeks. He was about to ask her if there was anything wrong when she placed another file in front of him. "This one is a bit younger, 24."

He reviewed her CV as well and then glanced up, noticing that Meredith had her eyes on him, watching him. Tom turned his eyes back to the paper and then slipped it back down onto the table. "Your choice, Meredith?"

She paused for a moment and then handed him the last one, he knew by habit she kept the one that she favored the most last in her hand. "This one is young, she's only 20 years old, but comes highly rated."