A/N: This just kinda happened after my mom told my brother not to touch something. Slightly AU but, hey, that's what fanfiction is for... right? Hope you all enjoy :) Reviews would be really appreciated! Oh, right, I own nothing.
"No, honey, don't touch that."
It's her patient's mom who is talking, telling the toothless little boy not to touch the stethoscope hanging around her neck, but it sends her years into the past where's it's a man talking to his daughter. It's not a stethoscope she's trying to touch, though, and his voice is nowhere near as soft as the woman's had just been.
xx
"No, honey, don't touch that!"
His words aren't slurred but seven-year-old Lexie can smell the nasty alcohol radiate off of Thatcher Grey in nauseous waves.
"Molly, c'mon," she urges her younger sister, even tugging on the soft blue night shirt she's wearing.
"Secrets are bad, daddy," five-year-old Molly giggles as she opens the cardboard box that had been sitting on the living room coffee table.
"I said no, Molly!" Thatcher swats her hand away, maybe a little harder than he had meant to, and swoops the box up into his unsteady arms. "Now go to bed, both of you."
Lexie can see the tears building in her sister's eyes, knows that full-blown sobbing fest was about to go down. But her mom isn't home and there's no way that her dad is in the right state of mind to handle it, so she takes her sister's hand and pulls her towards the stairs.
"Mols, don't cry." It's a pointless whisper, pointless to hope for something not to happen when she knew it would no matter what.
"He yelled at me!" The whimper is punctuated with a hiccup, tears streaming steadily down her cheeks.
"He didn't mean it," Lexie promises and for a fleeting moment she wonders who she is trying to convince - herself or her sister. She puts her arm around her sister's shoulder like she's seen their mom do thousands of times and leads her into their room. Because it's late (they had been up in search for water) and because her sister was obviously hurting, she allows the younger girl to climb into bed with her.
"W-why would he do that, Lex? Why would daddy yell and hit my hand?" Molly's shaking her head, trying to make her five-year-old mind find sense in what had happened. "What'd I do wrong?"
"It wasn't your fault, Molly, daddy just doesn't feel good." It's an excuse (one even her four-year-old self had known when her mother had said it to her years ago after a drunken Thatcher had yelled at her) but it's the best she has at the moment. "He didn't mean it," she whispers into her sister's hair as she hugs her close.
"I just wanted to see what was in the box," the younger girl whimpers quietly, curling into Lexie's side.
"I know," Lexie smiles sadly as she rocks them both.
It's quiet in the room, save for the sounds of Molly's occasional whimper and the loud thuds coming from the living room downstairs. Lexie begins to wonder if her sister has fallen asleep when she feels the girl stir, looking up at her.
"Tell me a story," Molly requests with a soft voice.
"What kind of story?"
"The kind where Lexie's a doctor," the younger sister grins and her eyes show that she's flashing back to when the older one had made the announcement.
"As you wish, madam," Lexie almost rolls her eyes but she's told this story so many times that she's grown used to it - could probably recite it in her sleep.
"Once upon a time, in a land about 10 miles from here, there were two Princesses by the names of Lexie and Molly who were visiting their grandmother, the Queen." She pauses in her story, moving around to shift her sister and herself under the covers, hoping the story lures the girl to sleep. "The two Princesses were outside playing in their tree house when suddenly the younger Princess fell, breaking her arm. She cried and cried and cried until the Queen took them to a far away place called Seattle Grace, where finally the younger Princess' arm had a huge Band-Aid put on it."
Lexie brushes her sister's hair from her face, watching as her eyes slip close and the whimpering stops. "The man that fixed the young Princess was a doctor and he promised that in no time the Princess would be back to climbing tree houses and playing outside. It was because of this man that the older Princess decided to give up her title of Princess and become a doctor, helping people all over just like the man had helped her sister."
"I'm sorry you gave up being a Princess for me," Molly whispers through the grips of sleep, eyes fluttering open to look up at her sister.
"It's just a story, Mols, don't worry." She pulls the covers higher, holding her sister a little tighter.
"Sorry I made daddy mad," she mumbles before her breathing evens out and her grip on Lexie relaxes.
The older girl doesn't even bother to reply, simply watching the rise and fall of her sister's chest. She wants to sleep, wants to dream and forget that it's that day and her daddy's upset. Wants to not be angry at him, or at their mother for leaving them even though she had to know what day it was too. She's only seven-years-old and she remembered.
But she can't be mad at him, not when she hears the bone shaking sobs coming from downstairs; for a little girl that's not there, for a life that he didn't have anymore, for a woman who had broken him completely. She can't be mad at her mom, either, because it wasn't like she had planned for Aunt Ethel to break her leg.
And it's not like she should know about this, know about the blond haired little girl that her daddy sometimes had nightmares over, know about the woman who he sometimes cursed in his drunken fits, know about this date and know that it was best to just avoid him after bedtime. Because this was her date, that little girl that her daddy sometimes cried over and called out for. Meredith. A name that she was sure would follow her forever, and she knew forever was a long time - Billy from class had told her.
Tiny ears heard stuff, though - or that was what Mrs. Garroway from next door had said once. And she had heard mommy telling her friend Maxine about the woman, about the little girl and the life before. Had listened in on hushed whispers, even though she knew it was rude. But she wanted to know, no - needed to know why Daddy was so mad the night before and had hit her. Why he had accidentally called her Meredith as he apologized immediately after and hugged her so tight she thought she might explode.
xx
"Sorry," the mother grins apologetically and pushes her son's hair out of his face.
"It's alright," Lexie assures them both as she tickles the boy's side, earning a giggle and a grin as she steps back. "I'll be right back with the ice pack."
She's out of the room before the mother can acknowledge her and she's on the hunt for her sister, the older one - not the younger one she had just left in memory lane. She finds her rather quickly, standing beside the nurses station and talking to Alex.
It's way out of their comfort level and she knows Meredith is going to push her away at any moment, but she hugs her with all that she can and just hangs on. Hangs on for the little girl aching inside of her, the little girl who couldn't understand how her daddy could hit her or her sister, for her daddy who ached so much for a little girl that wasn't there, for a woman who broke so much with so little thought, for the cardboard box and that date and the bottles of liquor that littered the kitchen on the really bad days.
"Lexie," Meredith groans and she's probably about to push her away but something stops her - maybe she needs the comfort just as much but won't admit it, or maybe she feels the tremor that shakes her half-sister's body.
Alex is staring at her like she should be admitted to the psyhc floor when she pulls away, wiping at her eyes with the inside of her wrist. Meredith's look is worse, mixed with pity and confusion and Lexie knows that she'll never tell her.
"I, uh.." She coughs, clears her throat before simply turning on her foot and high tailing it out of there. She grabs an ice pack from a cart as she passes and steps back into the room, the smile back on her lips as she breaks it and instructs the mother on exactly how to treat the boy's sprained ankle.
Her heart is still aching, still thumping and reminding her of the years following Molly's first incident with Thatcher on the date of Meredith's birthday. They had learned to stay away from him, learned to be at a friend's house as the night rolled around and he got so drunk he could barely see straight. It was never mentioned, him striking Molly - not to their mom and never between them. It was as if it never happened, only a figment of their imagination.
Lexie wonders what will happen this year, with Meredith's birthday coming up in only a few short weeks. She wonders how he'll handle it with mom gone, with Molly safe miles away and Lexie living with the daughter that caused so much ache. She entertains the idea, briefly, of going to stay with him but she doesn't want to have another memory to keep secret, doesn't want to deal with the events that Ellis Grey had set in motion years ago.
She pushes the thoughts away, tries to focus on the story that her patient is telling her but finds herself making a note to call Molly. She needs to check on Laura and see if her sister remembers the date, needs to know if it haunts her too.
She decides as she walks her patient and his mother out of the hospital, though, that she won't let the date be a bad memory. Not anymore. She makes another note to talk to Mark, rope him into talking to Derek and planning something for the date. It didn't have to be big, it didn't have to be streamers and balloons (because, God, Meredith would hate that) but it did need to be something.. better.
It needed to be something besides a grown man sobbing, something besides a cardboard box, something besides a name called out in the middle of the night, something besides liquor bottles, something besides a little blond haired girl, something besides hiding from their dad and shattered hearts and an ache that ran so deep it was hard to determine where it began.
There was nothing she could do about the past but Lexie could fix the future. She was a doctor, after all - not some helpless Princess. Fixing things was part of her job description.