Author's Note: I am watching Grey's Anatomy from the very beginning. With the years I realized it was a kind of show that - with its ups and downs - always told me something significant. I learned a lot through the time and even though at a certain point I wanted it to end - instead of facing crucial changes - I kept watching it. Even when Cristina left, even when Derek died, when other characters came and their stories where so unimportant to me. I ran away for some time, but then I came back. And I fell in love with Meredith's story more and more.

So here I am, trying to understand the whole Meredith-after-Derek's story and attempting to tell my version of what happened with Riggs.
I shipped Merthan so hard, everything was so real and amazingly told, that I was very disappointed with the Nathan-Megan happy ending.
So I am going to recollect what happens in the show between Meredith and Nathan from the hook up on and focus on what I think are the reasons that lay under their relationship. There are going to be variations from the original plot. I am going to add scenes that happened but were not showed or just imagine others. I would like to add details about Megan and Nathan, in order to tell who I think Nathan is.

I will do my best in updating, but I am not going to lie: I have no idea when this project will finally be completed. But it will probably be, sooner or later.

English is not my maternal language. I will try my very best in writing as correct as I can. Every hint or correction about the story or the language will be very appreciated. Don't hesitate to express your opinions and review.

The first chapter takes place after s13e04.

What do you want, Meredith?

Can't we learn? Can't we grow up? Apparently not enough.

With this thought Meredith let herself collapse on her bed, after a rough day in which among other things she happened to question her medical judgment because of Riggs and she continued to play dumb with Maggie over again.

She wanted to talk to Nathan after the way he left the room where they were talking about a patient now paralyzed after the surgery. She knew he was upset and disappointed. She had insinuated something stupid she could have avoided it. But she felt confused and insecure, she needed to ask him right about it and got a terrible reaction in return. When she found him with a grumpy face sitting on the hospital's stairs, she approached him wanting to give him a sort of apology and clarification and even though it was not the most private of all the places, it was needed. The very moment the point of the discussion was reached Maggie showed up and caught them, she completely misunderstood the situation and made everything extreme awkward. Meredith was now experiencing a feeling of dirtiness and duplicity, but mostly of loneliness and confusion. Why must everything always be so complicated? Why can't she get simple for once? This was proving she shouldn't looking for anyone to be anything near in her life or everything would get awkward. Look how it went with Thorpe…

She still cannot believe she had put herself in this position with Nathan Riggs of all people and Maggie, too. Too much water had passed under the bridge to let her think she could hang out with a guy, a guy that was all over her sister's speeches. She had learned about love, she assumed. She had learned to decipher herself, to know what she needed. And life got her used to talk straight, no more running issues, walk high headed. But apparently, no matter how many things we went through, we are never really prepared to handle change. Despite our story, despite the steps we have made, the unpredicted eventually hits us, feelings will always kick our asses and make us look like brand news.

Want do you want? – she remembered he asked not so long ago.

That was exactly the heart of the matter. How was she supposed to know? Did she want him, Riggs? Was she falling, as he pointed out causing her to smirk that night at Owen and Amelia's place?

He was being around a lot lately, in his good-looking and caring way, and it was becoming hard not to notice his kind of hovering felt good actually. Not that it was always pleasant to be stuck with him: she could still feel the urge to run away, to avoid him or abrupt the conversation. But eventually she would come back, a smile would escape her lips ignoring her efforts to shut it down. She was pretending to find him annoying mostly. He wasn't annoying at all. Sometimes she couldn't help but feel completely at ease and fully understood at his presence. And no, it had nothing to do with the flirting or the sex.

They hooked up and had sex once – well, four times or whatever – and occasionally she could hardly manage the impulse to kiss him – like the night Alex got himself in trouble and Nathan knocked at the door demanding to know what the problem was. But there was more, a layer of comprehension that kept her by surprise. It was not an itch, something to scratch to feel fulfilled once removed. She didn't want him to look after her, to be attached and to care about her, and still they were becoming attached and she predicted it since the very night he appeared out of the blue at her front door.

He never let anything drop. He showed up at her place like he deserved to know everything that was going on through her mind. She had felt hunted for a little moment, pursued, forced to find words to explain herself to him, while she was having bigger matters to handle in that particular moment, like Alex spending his first night in jail to name one. But she couldn't deny she had made an effort to push him away.

Now he was there, all the time, telling her things and she was always trying to negate everything. Negate that the little moments they shared meant something. Negate every chance of dating or spend more time together as strictly necessary. Advocate her sister as an excuse for letting him down. However, near to the quips and games, she was experiencing a state of perfect unknowing, her actions far from come along with her intentions.

She had just admitted with Nathan she thought about him. He invaded her mind way more than she would have liked to, distracting her, making her spend her time in silly jokes and conversations about coming clean with Maggie and private stuff. She had just asked him to just be colleagues, nothing more. This should have given her a rest, a sense of relief, of self-control, but it didn't. In her huge bed, she only felt trapped in memories instead, in images of the past that kept entwining each other.

She had chosen to confide him her miracle dream. The dream that had disturbed her sleep for many nights, that every now and then her brain still decided to show her as a reminder that she was not over him, her one true love. There was a deep part of her that hadn't let him go yet. She suddenly decided to trust Nathan and to share that memory with him, who happened to tell her his personal miracle scenario. Except his vision could actually turn into a real miracle, hers, on the contrary, was meant to remain a pure illusion, no matter what. Derek was dead, she unplugged him herself. No surprise she reacted to the story of the miracle lady in the ER with the blurt: she's gorked! At her eyes that kind of stories do not happen, she knew well the other stories, those who begin with It was a dark and stormy night, were more likely to come true. But Nathan, he was different. He was kind of hopeful, an optimistic.

She's fully ungorked. Anything can happen, Dr. Grey – she recalled.

He knew disasters were real, people could die or disappear in one instant leaving nothing but pieces to glue up together, pieces we hang on to. Still, he was able to maintain a blur vision, a grey state of mind, to believe not believing, to stay tough and look forward not forgetting the past. He was the one who told her that happiness doesn't last and yet, he was the same person who seemed to never want to give up on her, he was sure that they could be something together.

She had the hint he could empathize, he could understand her world, her being two or more people at the same time: the Meredith who wanted to hate him and the one who was telling him to say no to Maggie when she would ask him out. She was not joking, she was a mess. She was absolutely aware of the fact that she was playing incoherent and what was worse, she wasn't going to tell her sister anything about it.

Maggie was so naïve and sometimes she just would have liked to put her hands over her shoulders and tell her: Stop talking. Stop talking about Riggs. I slept with him, just before finding out that you are so idealistically in love with him. And I am so deeply sorry for that because I didn't see it coming, but you have to get over him.

But she chose the silence for now. It was mean and selfish but she couldn't help but avoid this conversation. Her sister had a concept of boundaries that was not Meredith's. She recalled the way Maggie blamed her for not telling her the truth about Alex having beaten De Luca. She was loyal and caring and affectionate but also cut to see the world in black and white. She wouldn't have accepted the ambiguity Meredith was in, the deep dark and twistiness. She missed Cristina badly at that thought and felt immediately guilty about it. She missed the people she once had, the ones who got her, who knew she wasn't the kind of woman that lived in a world cut with the knife: right or wrong, good or bad, happy or sad. Life taught her all these things were likely to come along altogether most of the time. So, she wasn't to blame for not telling anyone but Alex about this messy situation.

Meredith was absolutely sure Maggie will eventually meet the love of her life, but she was also absolutely sure it was not Nathan. There was no universe they could work. He was hot, no doubt she was attracted by him, but Nathan was Nathan, and Maggie was Maggie. And so, as she knew Izzie wasn't Alex's one true love, so she could tell Riggs wasn't Maggie's.

As for confessing it to her sister that was out of the matter, because the moment she would say it to Maggie, then she actually should have to admit to herself that Nathan was real, that she might be into him for real. And she was not in the mood of let that happen, or…

A cry came from the room in front of her's and cut off her thought. She suddenly stood up and walked through the darkness approaching a tiny bed.

"Oh, everything's okay. I'm right here. Shh, come here. Let's get some sleep in mama's bed".
With those words, she took her youngest daughter in her arms, she cuddled her and snuggled her tight, bringing her into the still lighted room, where finally was dark too and sleepy noises were to hear.