AN: For everyone who is reading OVoE and wondering why I'm posting this and not a new chapter, I just wrote this on a whim in between a study break and the new chapter will be up in the next two days. Just a small one-shot for the end of the season that I was thinking about after hearing 'How to Save A Life' come on my phone... I was also trying to keep to the tone of the dialogue in the show.
Hopefully, I achieved that.
The wedding guests were all gone. Richard and Catherine had gone on their honeymoon. Callie went home to relieve the babysitter who was looking after Zola, Bailey, Ellis and Sophia and Jackson and Maggie had pulled out the couches and set them up again in the living room. They both had drunk and Meredith wasn't letting them take any chances with driving. Not with their luck.
While they settled in, still laughing and talking Amelia started to cut some extra cake for them all. It was just as Meredith kicked off her shoes did the door open and Alex walked in. "What did I miss?" he asked, shrugging off his jacket.
Meredith smirked as Amelia started handing out a leftover cake. "Just the party. Where did you disappear to?"
"I bought an apartment and Jo had to go back to work, so I'm here." he said, grabbing a cake off the bench and sitting next to Meredith.
"Mazel tov." Amelia held up her coffee cup in cheers, cutting an extra piece for herself.
"Wait. You're moving out?" Maggie demanded, sitting up.
Jackson sat up slightly too, paying attention.
"Yeah well, I figured if Mere sells this place then she can buy the house back and I can finally get some peace and quiet with my girlfriend." Alex grinned.
"You're moving in?" Maggie said, her voice more alarmed.
"Yeah. But Alex, you don't have to move out." Meredith said, turning to him.
Alex snorted, "Uh, yeah I do. You, Amelia and the kids…"
"I'm moving out?" Amelia raised her eyebrow.
Meredith barely glanced at Amelia as she said, "Well I'm not leaving you here."
"What about Owen and trailer?" Alex asked.
Meredith turned and looked at him and realised, she'd completely forgotten about it. "Oh. Well. I guess the trailer is his. I'm not going to use it and I guess I'd have to look up about him parking it there."
"Why are you selling? I mean, Derek built this place." Jackson asked.
"Derek built this?" Maggie exclaimed.
"We helped," Alex added, nodding to Jackson.
"One night. One night we spent sanding a deck and you make it out like you lifted the scaffolding." Jackson huffed.
"Why don't you keep it? For the kids. Rent it out in the meantime." Amelia said.
Meredith didn't say anything. She turned back to Alex. "You don't have to move out."
"Jo wants alone time. No rugrats." Alex said.
"So you were just going to move me out and not ask?" Amelia asked.
"I was going to offer you a place to stay and not let you say no." Meredith corrected. "Small difference."
"Is there?"
Jackson perked up. "Hey, if Karev is moving out can I move back in?"
"Huh?"
"What?"
"What about Kepner?" Alex asked the obvious.
Jackson shrugged, focusing in more on his cake. "April is going back to the warzone and I just don't want to be stuck in that apartment alone again."
"Hold on." Alex put his hand up. "You're saying your apartment is going to be free? And I just bought one?"
"Well I'd say yes, but Arizona is there too with Sophia and I'm not going to throw her out," Meredith added.
"What if Arizona takes my place?" Jackson asked. "I mean, would she want to be out?"
"She does complain she can't bring people home." said Maggie.
"You don't even live there." Amelia said. "Do you?"
"She practically lives there." Alex said then paused. "Wait. Guys. I actually have to refurbish this new place. Like it needs work. A lot of work. And I need to find out how many people were murdered there before we actually move in."
"This isn't going to happen tomorrow morning, Alex. We're talking about it." Meredith insisted, patting him on the leg.
"Does my free standing right to use the couch still stand if Alex sells you the house?" Maggie asked in a small voice.
Meredith glared at her. "Don't ask stupid questions. Of course. It's still the Frat House. Anyone can stay."
"But we're kicking Arizona out?" Amelia said.
"We're not kicking anyone out. There's the attic upstairs and I don't think anyone really uses the garage for anything but storage…"
"I got dibs on the garage," Jackson said.
Amelia glared at them. "Seriously? We're four grown adults who are going to live together in a place dubbed 'the frat house'?"
"No, we're family," Meredith said. "Richard is the closest thing I ever had to a father and Maggie is his biological daughter and Jackson is now his step-son–"
"And isn't that a scary thought," Jackson muttered.
"And you're my sister," Meredith concluded. "So it's like a blended family. But older."
"Richard and my mom are not moving in." Jackson said.
They all agreed with a chorus of, "No." leaving Meredith laughing.
While Amelia, Maggie and Jackson all debated which room they were going to take and where they would fit the kids, Meredith noticed Alex had turned quiet. She nudged him and asked softly, "What?"
Alex shrugged his shoulders and looked around. "You know. For a second I thought I might marry Lexi."
Meredith raised her eyebrow, unsure where this was going. "Yeah?"
"Yeah," he said. "But I think the most exciting part of my thinking was that I was going to be a part of your family for real and that was really going to piss Yang off."
Meredith smiled, knowing what Alex was saying. "Alex, you don't have to move out."
"For the sanctity of my relationship with Jo, I do."
"But you know it's always your place. Yours, mine, Christina's…"
"George and Izzy?" he asked.
"If George had lived, then maybe," she said quietly. "But Izzy left us."
"Us?" Alex asked, his voice confused.
"Yes. Us. Because over the years this is the family I've been shoved with. Crazy sister-in-law. Missing half-sister. Pseudo step-brother because of a pseudo-step-father. But then there's you. Dirty Uncle Sal."
"Dirty Uncle Sal?" he smirked.
"Yeah." Meredith smiled. "Cristina and you. You two are the family I chose. Not the ones I was lumped with, not the ones who I had to like. You two were the ones I made my brother and my sister and that's the way it's going to be. That's it. No arguments."
Alex looked around the room. "Does that mean I get this lot too?"
Meredith slammed her foot on the table, getting the attention of Maggie, Jackson and Amelia. "Hey. Half-sister, Law-sister and Stepish-brother. Just for the record, if you get lumped with me, you get lumped with him." She patted Alex on the arm. "He's not much but he's mine which means he's yours and you're his. The five of us when we're here, belong together. Like our own little screwed up version of brothers and sisters. Get it? Got it? Good."
They all fell quiet but then Jackson interrupted. "Yeah, but where is he supposed to sleep?"
Hope you enjoyed. :)