Becoming your Mother

by Willow

The sun sat over the harbor and a lone figure watched as the ferry took it's last departure for the night. Sitting on the hood of her car she sat and just watched as it slowly sliced through the dark waters away from her. Her head bowed down and she hugged her knees as she pulled them to her chest and buried her head against them. Why did this always happen to her? Just when she was okay. When she let herself feel comfortable, happy even. When she let her guards down and let herself feel. That was always when it happened. Why did she even bother anymore. She knew the truth. Hell, even her mother knew the truth. No one could ever love Meredith Grey. It was just one of those things that would never happen. It was just the way life was.

Meredith would become what life had dictated for her, nothing more than her mother. It had already started and this was just the final nail in the coffin of the mold of her mother. Oh she had started on the path to being her mother in complete innocence. In fact she had wanted to be just like her, Ellis Grey, the most notable female surgeon known. So she had studied her way through school making perfect marks until she had made it to her junior year and told her mother that all she wanted to do was follow her in her footsteps and become a surgeon. Her mother had laughed at her. Told her she would never make it. Meredith decided that she would prove her wrong even if she had to sacrifice everything to do it.

Meredith lifted her head and stared through blurred eyes at the stars that had come out while she had been lost in her thoughts. She wiped the tears from her cheeks and blinked back those still in her eyes. Never again. She would never again cry over a man. No matter how perfect he seemed to be. It only ended in heartache.

A wife. His wife. And she had looked every inch the part. Meredith shook her head and sniffed. A married man. Derek was a married man. Well that was the last step. Now she was truly her mother. Barely any friends, none that actually knew her. A surgeon always trying to prove that she was the best for the job. And the woman who put herself directly into someone else's marriage. Meredith didn't bother adding in the fact that she hadn't known he was married while her mother had definitely known that her lover was married. It didn't matter. Married was married.

Meredith slowly stretched out her legs over the front edge of her car and wondered what she had ever really saw in him. She didn't have to think for very long or very hard. Her heart still longed for who she thought he had been and ached because of what she now knew him to be. He had been so charming that night at the bar. She hadn't been to that bar in so long. Not since she had graduated and left for college in Boston.

She had been so determined to get away from Seattle and everyone who knew about what had happened. No one knew who her mother's lover had been, not even her, but that didn't stop the pitying glances of those who knew that Ellis Grey had only tolerated her daughter's existence. The fact that she hadn't even wanted her; the fact that she had tried to abort because she had been so afraid it would damage her career. She had fled and she hadn't spared one thought about what she had left. Until then, when she had come back for her internship and had fled the memories of her mother's house, and while driving around she had seen the bar and wondered if Joe's old man still owned it.

When she entered it and saw Joe behind the counter she had almost smiled. Almost. Thankfully Joe didn't bring up her departure and neither did she. He merely pulled out the bottle of tequilla and poured her a shot like his father had before she left. It hadn't mattered that she'd been underage then, none of the police would ever mess with anything that dealt with the Grey family. It was invariably the matriarch of that family who sewed up at least one of their members each and every year. She had been there less than ten minutes when this man had come up beside her and asked if the seat next to her was empty. He had been okay looking. Alright, he'd been gorgeous and she was so emotionally drained. She nodded. He sat. He bought her a drink and before long they were leaving the bar for her house. She knew she shouldn't have done it. Her internship started the next morning and it was a forty-eight hour shift and she really should get as much sleep as she could. But she would be damned if she would spend her first night back in Seattle, in her mother's house, alone. Joe had tried to tell her something about the guy as she left but true to form she didn't bother to listen. She had woken up the next morning to her alarm beeping insistently and jumped up alarmed at the time and had all but shoved him out the door never intending to see him again.

Meredith sighed and watched the mist slowly rise over the water. If only she hadn't seen him again. If only she had listened to Joe. If only... But she did take him home and she had seen him again, within hours actually, and at work nonetheless. And how much her mother would gloat if she could stay coherent long enough to find out that Meredith had come back only to have a one night stand with the man who turned out the next day to be her boss. And if her mother only knew how she had tried to avoid him but dammit if he refused to be avoided. Then if she knew about how she had given in and dated him in secret for more than two months, opening up her heart, only to find out on the day that she left herself completely vulnerable to pain that he was married. Her mother would look at her and laugh. Tell her that that was just the way it was. That she had been right all along. Since Meredith hadn't really needed to be fate hadn't planned for her like it does for everyone else and so therefore nothing would ever go her way. It was her destiny to be ground into the dirt and kept there where no one would notice her.

The sun started to edge it's way over the horizon and Meredith watched as the ferry trudged its way back across the water towards her. He would be on the ferry. He had the early shift that day. She should go. Meredith slid off the hood of her car and walked over to the door. She paused with her fingers barely touching the door handle. What if he wasn't on the ferry? What if Derek had gone with her to wherever she was staying? Her fingers curled on the handle. Or worse, what if she had gone with him and they were both on the ferry. Biting her lip Meredith opened the door and slid inside before she slammed it behind her. It didn't matter. They could have each other. He was a liar and an ass and it didn't matter. She blinked back tears as she started the car. But damn did it hurt.

The End.

And before anyone says anything...yes I am still working on my other story however it is hard to type while nursing an active six month old. So it will be completed...not anytime soon but at least the next chapter goes up today.