A/N: This is a story that I originally started writing for NanoWriMo but unfortunately uni essays got in the way and I had to abandon it. However this morning I read what I had written and decided to pick it up again. But before I take on the challenge of writing it alongside the exam revision and extended essays I have to do, I thought I would post what I have so far on here to see if anyone is interested in it.

An extended summary

Beautiful Disaster

One moment. One woman. One girl. Two lives destroyed.

Meredith Grey isn't sure she can remember a normal family life anymore. She has vague memories of making snow angels in the yard and of happy birthdays. But reality is no longer like that. The snow angels have long since melted away and there's no family left to wish her a happy birthday.

Her memories now are of blood staining the clean kitchen floor; of strangers instead of her parents; of no one wanting her.

Ellis Grey's suicide leaves Meredith alone in a world that she is far too young to understand. Passed from home to home, unwanted, she must struggle to find out just who she is and to attempt to move on from the disaster that is her childhood.

Meredith watched intently as a drop of condensation slowly made its way down the side of the glass in front of her. It landed silently on the table, merging with the others that had already fallen in the previous minutes that the glass had stood untouched for. Carefully she traced her finger through the miniature puddle, writing her initials with the intensity that only a young child can offer towards writing. The 'MG' was visible for a matter of moments before it too disappeared, just like the now indistinguishable water drop.

"Drink your milk Meredith," an older woman snapped as she entered the eerily silent kitchen.

Silently she obeyed the command, wrapping her hands around the tall glass and feeling the contrast between the heat of her palms and the coolness of the liquid that had been hypnotising her before she was disturbed. Gingerly she picked up the glass and raised it towards her lips. However it appeared that she overestimated the weight of the glass and in a split second the milk went from being contained to soaking through her new dress, the glass smashing to the floor.

Meredith froze, unable to move, even if she wanted to, due to fear. The kitchen was silent, aside from the steady drips of milk that were falling from the edges of the black fabric onto the vinyl floor and, to Meredith, the sound of her racing heart as she waited for her aunt's reaction.

It only took a few seconds, though it felt like a lifetime, for the older woman to respond. She strode across the kitchen and raised a hand, slapping Meredith hard across the face. Her head was forced to the side due to the blow and tears automatically began to well in her eyes as her cheek began to sting.

"You stupid girl. Are you trying to make this day more difficult?" she spat, surveying the drenched dress and the liquid on the floor. "Get up!"

She grabbed her arm and viciously pulled her from the chair, eliciting a loud cry of pain that was ignored. The aunt dragged Meredith out of the kitchen and up the dark flight of stairs. All the while Meredith sobbed due to the pain in her arm, her rapidly reddening cheek and for the entire reason that she was currently stuck in this situation.

She was so lost in her tears that she didn't even notice that she was now stood in the bedroom that she had currently claimed as her own until her aunt was roughly pulling the dress over her head. She let out another loud sob as she felt the zipper tugging at her hair as it became caught.

"Would you stop making such a fuss?"

The wet dress was discarded onto the salmon pink carpet that her aunt frequently complained about. When she had first shown her the tiny bedroom, she had muttered something about getting around to changing it. But to Meredith it was one of the few things in the house that was familiar to her. The colour reminded her of the scrubs that some of the nurses used to wear back at the hospital and that meant that the colour reminded her of the one the few places she was actually happy. She had taken to dragging her pillow and duvet off the bed every night and curling up on the carpet to sleep, so she felt just a little closer to the life that she had a feeling was now gone forever.

She was so caught up in staring at the fading carpet and remembering the kind nurse who would always sneak her a lollipop when she sat waiting for her mum to finish one of the long surgeries, that she didn't even notice the new dress being pulled over her head and done up. In fact she only became aware of anything when she was suddenly outside and the cold October winds were causing her hair to whip into her face. That was when she looked up and saw a small group of people stood around her, them too dressed in black clothes, all with sad expressions on their faces.

She knew most of them thought that she had no idea what was going on but she did. She knew why they were all sad, why they were dressed in black and why even her aunt was crying.

As her aunt lead her down the garden path, clutching her hand tightly within her own, Meredith couldn't stop staring at the hearse that was parked on the road, nor at the coffin that was resting within it. The image of the polished wooden box transfixed her and she stared at it intently, desperately trying to understand. She knew her mum was lying in that box and that she wasn't coming back; that her aunt had explained to her yesterday. But she still couldn't understand it. The box seemed too small to hold her mum. Her mum had always seemed so big. When she was yelling at her, she had always seemed to tower over her. And when she was hugging her tightly, it felt as if she was enveloping Meredith completely. So how could her mum be lying in a box so small?

She wanted to ask her aunt, to have her explain it all to her once more, but she wasn't even looking at her, or at the coffin. Instead she was looking towards the black cars parked behind the hearse, as if she didn't even want to see the hearse or what it contained.

"Come on Meredith!"

Meredith let herself be pulled into one of the waiting cars, allowing herself one last glance at her mum.

Meredith fidgeted uncomfortably on the hard wooden bench as she tried to listen to the man at the front talking. He was saying something about her mum, she knew that much. He was saying something about her being a talented woman who had saved so many lives. And Meredith knew she should be listening but it wasn't her fault this bench was so hard and that her dress was so uncomfortable. The dress was all itchy and she could feel the zipper digging into her back. And she felt all hot in it with the long sleeves that draped over her hands and the skirt that almost reached her shoes. Meredith had wanted to wear her blue party dress today, the one she could only wear on special occasions. It had a big bow on it and puff sleeves that made her feel like a princess, like Cinderella. Her dad had always called her 'mummy and daddy's princess' whenever she wore it and she really wanted to feel like their princess today. But when she had asked her aunt she had told her to stop being so insolent, whatever that meant, and had forced her into the black dress that was now coated in milk.

"Is there something wrong with that child?" Meredith heard someone say behind her. "She looks like she's having a fit."

Instantly she froze. Her mum had hated her embarrassing her, calling her ' a silly little girl.' And she didn't want to embarrass her mum today; today she wanted to be a good little girl. So instead she sat perfectly still as the man at the front finished talking and four men in suits stood and made their way towards the coffin. Meredith only recognised one of them as her aunt's husband, meaning he was her uncle, though she didn't really like him. He never let her play with any of her toys in the living room and he always forced her to go to bed at six o'clock when her nanny had let her stay up until eight.

The other three were unfamiliar to her though. In fact she didn't really know anyone at the funeral aside from her aunt and uncle, not that there were many people there. Only three rows of seats were filled and aside from that, the church was empty. She could recognise a few people from the hospital but only from passing them as she had wandered down the corridors.

"Stop gawking Meredith," her aunt said, now suddenly stood in front of her. "Come on."

Meredith let her aunt lead her down into the aisle and they slowly followed the coffin out of the church and into the graveyard. She had always hated graveyards, ever since Tommy from her class in pre-school had told her how the dead would wake up when it was dark and eat anyone they could find. She'd said that he was lying but she had refused to walk home through the churchyard, forcing her nanny to take the longer route home.

They came to a stop by a large hole in the ground and Meredith watched silently as the coffin was slowly lowered down into it. If she stared hard enough, she could read the words:

'Ellis Grey

1949-1982'

But the dirt that was scattered onto the coffin soon covered them. She was barely listening as different people made their way towards the grave and made their small contribution. Instead she just desperately kept trying to keep reading the words that were engraved onto the tiny plaque and trying to understand that it was her mum that was now lying in the ground.