Meredith Grey was furious.
Normally, a case like this would have been an intern's job. Even with the intern exam underway, a far less experienced resident should have been dealing with this sort of routine ER drama. Not today. Not this case…
Lexi had immediately jumped to the bedside of a child whose mother was screaming for a "brain doctor". That was the first hint that this would all go downhill. The nurse who had done the preliminary exam handed her a blank chart with only the name "Jessica Taylor" written at the top. There was nothing obviously wrong with the child - correction: teenager - no cuts, bruises, or other outward signs of trauma. What was this woman screaming about?
"Ma'am, can you tell me what happened to your daughter?"
The short, stout woman fixed the young surgeon with a shocked stare. "You have her chart! I told the nurse what was wrong! He didn't write anything?"
Lexi cringed. What had she gotten herself into? "I'm sorry to make you repeat yourself, but it's best if I get your personal account of the problem in case the nurse misinterpreted anything." She prayed that would placate the woman.
After a brief pause and woman stepped into Lexi's personal space, keeping her voice hushed. "She doesn't think right anymore. Her whole life she's been fine, but all of a sudden... something is wrong with the way her brain ticks."
Matching the quieted tone, Lexi egged her on. "Can you give me an example?"
"I'm a lesbian!"
And the world stopped spinning for a fraction of a second.
Swish. Bonk. Swish. Bonk. Swish-
Cristina blinked rapidly as the tennis ball she had been throwing was suddenly clenched in the tight fist of her twisted twin.
"I was playing with that, you know…"
"Knock it off – it's annoying."
The Korean sighed, lifting herself from her splayed position on an undressed gurney they had found in an abandoned hallway near the back of the hospital. She studied her friend for a moment, trying to wrap her head around what could be running through Meredith's head as the blonde stared aimlessly out the window. Her eyebrows were slightly furrowed, but her eyes were entirely blank.
"What's with you, Mer?"
"Today's the intern exam."
A black eyebrow arched. "So? We passed that thing years ago."
Meredith sighed, dropping her eyes to her lap as she passed the tennis ball back and forth between her hands. "Nothing, it just makes me think of George."
An unspoken moment of silence passed between then in mutual reverence of their fallen friend. It happened every year. New interns would walk the halls of the hospital, one or two of them sharing the same innocent enthusiasm that had made George… well… George. The months would tick by and then today would come, the day they would see if the new 007s would make it through. Some did, most didn't. It was George all over again. Year after year after year…
Cristina opened her mouth to speak, but was abruptly cut off by the shrill scream of Meredith's pager. The blonde pulled it off her scrub pants waist band, staring at it with disdain.
"Damn – it's Lexi. Gotta run!"
She watched the troubled surgeon go, the ricochet of a bouncing tennis ball long forgotten being the only sound she left in her wake.
A few minutes later, her ears were overcome by the familiar cacophony of sound found in the ER. It only took a blink for her to find her half-sister who looked like a deer in headlights, staring with her mouth slightly agape at a middle-aged woman who was gesticulating wildly as she ranted about something or other. No blood. No obvious signs of dying. What the Hell?
"Lexi, you paged?"
"Oh thank God!" The younger Grey whirled around and immediately grabbed hold of Meredith's arm, pulling her out of earshot of the annoyingly loud woman.
"What's going on?" Meredith tore her arm out of the woman's grasp. "Please don't tell me you brought me to the Pit to help you deal with an annoying parent…"
"Meredith, she's just… she's… her daughter… and she's fine, but this woman is such a pig and I – "
"Lexi! Breathe!" She cut her sister off, hands on the brunette's shoulders. "Now what happened?"
"She wants her daughter treated by a neurosurgeon."
Meredith stared at her skeptically. "Okay, so page Derek."
Lexi shook her head somberly. "She wants us to cure her daughter of her sexuality. Meredith, she brought her teenager here because the girl was brave enough to come out of the closet."
Meredith's hands dropped from her shoulders and hung at her sides as dead weight, her eyes showing the shock she couldn't find the words to voice.
"How the Hell do I tell her to go screw herself without getting fired?"
So that's how Meredith ended up in a homophobic woman's line of fire, being deafened by a disgusting rant. Had it been any other subject, she would have forced Lexi to suck it up and gain the experience of putting up with an obnoxious parent, but this? No. This struck a chord too close to home for her sister who had quickly become good friends with the infamous lesbian couple in the hospital and remained their loyal ally even after her most recent break up with Mark. That wasn't to say Meredith didn't care much for Arizona or Callie – she had an enormous amount of respect for the talented surgeons, but apart from the part she paid in giving Callie Hell for marrying George, she really only had a professional history with them. That was how she hoped to defuse this bomb of a woman without anyone getting fired - personal feelings could be buried.
"Just stop it, Mom!"
The whimpering cry of a teenager broke Meredith from her trance.
"No, I won't stop, Jessica! I don't know what happened or where I went wrong with you! You were fine until you met that… that Melanie girl. I raised you right for so many years and after knowing her for a month you're willing to let her drag you down the road to Hell!"
Meredith jumped between the enraged woman and the hospital bed with her hands, palms out, in front of her chest. "Whoa! Let's just all take a deep breath okay and tone it down. This is a hospital, ma'am, so we would all really appreciate it if you would keep your voice down."
The woman stared at her for a moment before relenting. "So are you going to fix her or not?"
"There's nothing to fix, Mom!"
"Hush, Jessica! The sinful have no say in how they're saved!"
Meredith cleared her throat to bring the fighting eyes back to her – this was getting ridiculous. "Mrs. Taylor, I'm going to say this as nicely as possible. There is nothing medically wrong with your daughter. I'm a surgeon. This is not a surgical case. In fact, it's not a case at all so please take your daughter home so we can free up this bed for a patient who is actually sick."
The older woman's eyes widened in disbelief. "How dare you! If you won't treat my daughter then get me someone from your psych department who will!"
"No!" She had had it with this woman. "Ma'am, I asked you nicely and I'm only going to do that one more time. Take your daughter home."
"Not until I get a psych consult!"
"I will gladly get someone to check your head!"
She could hear the gleeful laugh of the young girl on the bed, but it was all too soon cut off by the echo of a crack and a burning sensation on her cheek.
It paid to be the "adoptive" daughter of the Chief of Surgery – a man who was also fiercely loyal to Callie and Arizona. Instead of a suspension, she got a literal slap in the face and a faked promise from her boss to that tyrant of a mother that she actually would be suspended so long as the woman got her ass out of the hospital. She could have lived without the mini lecture on filtering her emotions and personal beliefs in front of a patient, but that was hardly a heavy price to pay considering what had happened.
The whole incident had just enraged her, though, and that coupled with her dejected feelings about George made her conclude that days like today made her honestly believe that life sucked. It sucked hard and she wasn't sure how some people got through it. She was this mad and she wasn't even gay. She was pretty sure the world would start spinning the other direction if she realized she wasn't straight. Still, Meredith couldn't shake the thought of what it would feel like to truly being on the receiving end of those vile comments that moron had made. How did they do it?
She found Callie and Arizona by mere accident when she stumbled into the attending's lounge after about 20 minutes of aimlessly wandering the hospital halls. They were cuddled together on the couch, cups of coffee in their hands as they smiled down at Callie's phone. Pictures of Sofia. The Latina had her arm draped around the smaller woman and the blonde was leaning her head against her wife's shoulder. They were a picture perfect couple in that one moment. That just made Meredith feel even sicker.
"How do you two do it?"
The happy coupled looked up, a startled expression on both their faces. Since when was Meredith Grey allowed in their lounge? Arizona lifted her head off Callie's shoulder and fixed the young woman with a curious gaze while her wife remained essentially dumbfounded.
"How do we do what?"
The resident leaned against the door with a heavy sigh until it clicked shut. "How do you put up with people hating you just because the person you love doesn't have a penis?"
The PEDs surgeon cringed at the crude comment and locked eyes with her concerned partner. They both silently questioned why a woman who hardly went out of her way to speak to them was suddenly trying to have a very personal conversation with them. A parenting question they could understand as Sofia and Zola now gave them something in common, but this? They never saw this coming.
"What's this about, Grey?" Callie broke the silence as she unconsciously pulled Arizona closer against her.
The young surgeon leaned her head against the door and stared up at the designs on the ceiling panels. "There was a woman in the ER today causing a riot. Lexi was supposed to be handling, but she paged me, which was annoying because dealing with stupid parents isn't something you page a 5th year resident for, but she's my sister so –"
"Meredith!" Arizona cut her off. "Rant over, please."
"Sorry." She took a moment longer to stare up before turning her gaze to the utterly confused women before her. "This woman brought her teenager to the ER because she found out her daughter is gay. She wanted a neurosurgeon to 'fix' her."
She could hear their sharp intakes of breath and part of her felt guilty bringing this up with them. Why was she doing this? They didn't need to know about this patient. She could have left them in blissful ignorance, enjoying the new pictures they had taken of their daughter, but instead she had barged in and dumped this on them. What was wrong with her?
"What happened?" Arizona's gentle voice and patient eyes encouraged her to keep going.
"I lost my temper, said some things I shouldn't have, got slapped for it… the Chief got her to leave." Meredith couldn't hold their gaze any longer. "I just got so angry, you know? I couldn't control it after I listened to all the crap she was saying and I'm straighter than straight – I mean you can tell I'm straight from all the way in Florida or something. It just made me think, though, what you guys must go through knowing those comments are directed at you. How do you not strangle people?"
Arizona let out a soft chuckle as she reached out and entwined her fingers with Callie's. "I've known I was gay for a long time, Meredith. I'm guessing probably since I was the age of that girl in the ER. I don't want to say that you get used to it because you should never become used to people treating you badly, but you learn to not let it sting so much. You learn to not care what an anonymous person thinks of you. Honestly, I feel sorry that they are so insecure that they feel the need to spread hatred."
She leaned heavily against her wife, looking up at the Latina with a supportive smile as she silently prompted the younger woman to chip in. Callie locked eyes with her for a few moments before she leaned forward and pressed a lingering kiss to Arizona's temple, smiling against her skin when she felt the older surgeon tighten her hold on her hand. When she pulled back, she inhaled slowly and then turned to give the resident her attention.
"This might be more of a cynical approach, but I just don't care what random people think of me. For me, their blind hatred of people like us is nothing compared to what it's like when your own family feels that way about you."
Meredith frowned at the sentiment. "How did you get through that?"
The ortho surgeon smiled brightly as she responded without the need to even think of an answer. "By surrounding myself with people who I know love me for who I am and recognizing that only they matter." She turned her gaze to Arizona and dropped her voice to a whisper. "Only you matter."
The PEDs surgeon smiled, her dimples popping as she leaned forward and brushed her lips sweetly against Callie's. "I love you."
Meredith couldn't help but grin as she watched them get lost in each other. Callie had changed so much over the years from the wildly independent, dirty hot badass who was clearly too much woman for poor George to a still fiercely independent and hot, but now gentle and mature wife and mother. It was remarkable. George's Callie she couldn't get along with, but Arizona's Callie? She liked her… a lot.
"Do you guys… uh… do you want to bring Sofia over for a play date sometime?"
The two attendings shared wide smiles at the sound of an offer they weren't sure they would ever hear. They knew Sofia and Zola had spent time together at the hospital daycare and that Mark would bring her over to the Shepherd-Grey house on some of his nights with her, but to have the invitation extended to them? If anything, they assumed it would be Derek extending the olive branch. It was a wonder how life could change in an instant.
"We would love to."
As Arizona's reply echoed in the small room, Callie and Meredith couldn't help but think this could be the beginning of a friendship they had both missed out on for so many years.