It is 7am. She is brushing her teeth and checking her watch and trying to rush and the kids are stirring and she doesn't have time but she is staring at his toothbrush. Next to her bathroom sink. It's green. Derek always favoured a dark blue. But this one next to hers is a bright, pristine green. That shouldn't be as jarring as it is, but she has come to expect the little things to break her. Like how Alex is a lonely sleeper; he falls asleep holding her but they always wake up back to back.
That says it all, when she thinks about it.
So she doesn't. She brushes her teeth and ignores the new green toothbrush. She showers and ignores the soap that smells like Alex. She pulls on her clothes and ignores the mess in the drawers next to hers, where Derek's neatly folded shirts once lived.
She goes downstairs and finds Alex in the kitchen, Ellis in his arms.
"Morning," she says. He looks up and smiles in a way she didn't know Alex could smile. Her heart breaks and clings to itself all at once. She remembers the green toothbrush that doesn't belong next to her bathroom sink and thinks maybe it can stay. For a while. "Where's Zola?"
Meredith bends down to scoop Bailey up from the carpet. "Upstairs," Alex says. "We couldn't agree on an outfit so there's a chance Zola the Cowgirl will be riding with us today."
"Perfect," Meredith laughs. She is putting Bailey's shoes on and he is smiling up at her with his daddy's eyes shining in his face. "Isn't that perfect, Bailey?" He goos in response. Meredith watches Alex as she picks her son back up. He's wiping Ellis face clean and mumbling to her in the sweetest way.
The dark and twisty inside of her thrums and keens, but her heart feels oddly light. She remembers Derek with Zola at that age. She remembers Zola at that age, when she was this tiny miracle and everything was new and terrifying. But here we are, she thinks. This is routine now. Zola is growing up. Bailey is babbling and talking and learning his own sounds. Ellis is in the arms of a man who is not her daddy, but who loves her as if he were. Derek is dead.
"Here she is," Alex singsongs as Zola dances into the room. She's not a cowgirl, but she's still got the boots on. Meredith can live with that. "Looking good, Zo," Alex says, winking.
"C'mon, Zozo, grab your bag. We've gotta get going." Meredith hoists Bailey onto her hip and grabs her own bag. She hears the click of the safety belt on Ellis' baby seat as Alex secures her. They bundle into the car, the three kids nestled in the back. Meredith drives, and Alex looks out the window the whole way. He isn't smiling, but she can tell he's happy.
She is too, she supposes.
She loves Alex. Alex is family. He's a wonderful man, and he's great with the kids, and she loves him. She does. It's not fire and brimstone, flames licking her insides and making her sweat from the inside out. It's a slow burn, water boiling on a hot stove. It's constant. Homely. Safe. Family.
The radio hums in the background. Zola is singing something else entirely.
Meredith smiles. She has spent her whole life singing something else. The wrong song. Derek was all the right words, the most beautiful melody. Alex is the mumble when she's not quite sure of the lyrics. He is a familiar tune that she can't really name, but never forgets.
"Everything okay, Mer?" he asks.
Yes, she thinks, but nods instead because her throat is closing and her eyes are stinging. She knows he can see. She doesn't care. She knows he knows. Understands, even. She is not his Jo. Not his Izzie. She is his comforting tune, his water on the stove.
"Your toothbrush is green," she says quietly, eyes still on the road. He looks at her for a second longer, and then gazes back out the window.
"Your shampoo smells like mint," he says, still not looking at her. "Not berries."
They sit in silence for a while, traffic sounds buzzing around them.
"You sat by my bed for months," she says finally. She turns to look at him but he's still turned away. His jaw is clenched. "Months, Alex."
"I'm your person," he murmurs. She stares at his neck, its muscles tense, and the line of this jaw, set in anger. He is always feeling something, and never by half. She wonders what it's like to feel like Alex Karev. She probably wouldn't last a day. Not this angry all the time. This emotional all the time.
"Alex, look at me." He hesitates. His shoulder twitches, a motion that runs through his whole body before he swings his head around to face her. His jaw may have been set in anger, but his face says something else entirely, something unreadable. "You're my person," Meredith tells him, "but I'm yours too." She reaches for him, a cold hand on his warm wrist. "You can talk to me. About what happened. With Jo."
She watches his lips tremble, try to speak, smile, move. She hates herself for knowing how those lips feel against hers, and for wanting that feeling again. She wants to kiss him. He is almost crying in her car in the middle of Seattle traffic at eight fifteen in the morning, this man who does not cry, and she wants to kiss him.
"No." He slips his wrist out of her hand and takes hold of it instead. His hands are warm and big and comforting. Safe. Home. Family. Alex. "I love you, Mer," he says. There is a promise in those words, wrapped in an apology, tucked inside a confession.
"I know," she says.
The lights turn green. The car in front begins to drive. Zola sings louder and louder. Bailey babbles. Alex looks back out the window.
Meredith drives straight ahead, unblinking, and does not look back.