Title: Stay High
Pairings (Mentioned or otherwise): Amelia/Owen, Meredith/Derek
Rating/Warning: T
Summary: 'Amelia Shepherd feels alone, standing in her brother's house six weeks after his death. So freaking is gone or dead – they've all run away from it. And it hurts. Just a little but she can't feel it - she's over the dead brother thing, isn't she?' - How Amelia copes during the year after her brother's death.
...
I've got to stay high all the time - to keep you off my mind.
High, all my life to forget I'm missing you. – Habits (Stay High), Tove Lo
…
Amelia Shepherd feels alone, standing in her brother's house six weeks after his death.
So freaking alone.
Everyone is gone or dead – they've all run away from it.
And it hurts.
Just a little
But she can't feel it –
She's over the dead brother thing, isn't she?
….
She looks down at the patient and then over at the stats monitor before calmly pronouncing time of death.
When she gets out Richard wants to talk to her.
It was a hard loss, he says. Are you alright? he asks but she isn't listening.
It's just work – it doesn't matter really, does it? – it's just a job.
She feels like she's on her own – that no one else sees it that way
She can't home, not back to the ghosts, not again.
She's just lonely – that's what she says – it's no big deal.
She's goes to the house anyway and just carries on – because she's alright isn't she?
Sometimes she thinks she's just a little too good at being lonely.
…
She talks to Jackson sometimes, asks after April – asks how his wife is doing.
They talk too, of surgeries and patients and any other than how much it hurts.
Once, they talk about their babies, the children they lost.
Just once, because it hurts far too much – and once is enough.
Amelia likes talking with Jackson because for a moment she doesn't feel so alone.
It feels good.
But then Jackson's just as broken as she is, isn't he?
….
Callie comes round a few times, Arizona too, but they don't know.
They don't know anything.
They both think they're making it better but it only gets worse.
That's how it's always been for her, even if it's bad it can be worse, everything can always be worse.
They try to tell her that it's not her fault but she doesn't believe them.
They don't know –
They don't know –
They don't know – every man she ever loved is dead and Owen, well Owen was smart.
He knew that a warzone was safer than being with her.
…
Her mother phones twice a day,
Her sisters are constantly texting
And Addison emails her every week
They're all so worried about her –
Amelia guesses it's their way of grieving, making sure she's not going to disappear in to oblivion.
But none of them feel as guilty as she does
She has lost so many people you think she'd have a better way to cope with it
With the guilt
Because it's her fault
Never mind what her mom or her sisters or Addison say
It is.
She knows –
Her dad, Ryan, her son, Derek
She should've saved them all
Oh, but she couldn't -
Amy was never quite good enough, was she?
….
She misses Meredith and the kids more than she lets on
She misses the noise and the people
She misses how it used to be
And she's angry
Why does Meredith get to escape?
Why?
She has no right,
But then again
It's what Amelia wants to do,
Get way
But instead
It's what everyone does to her
They run away
And leave little Amy all on her own
It's just how it's always been
….
Derek knew how it felt to lose their dad -
To watch him die right in front of them
No one else did, ever
Maybe that's why he was always so protective of her?
He knew how it hurt
How it ripped you apart
But no one knows how it feels to lose him - Derek
Like she has
Not when she was already in pieces
Sometimes she wonders if she's been broken into so many fragments that the hurt can't touch her
Not any more at least
But she does, oh she feels it.
Ah well, it was a nice theory.
…
Richard tries again to talk to her,
Asking her if she wants coffee
But she can't take the fussing and the questions any longer
She shouts because she dealt with it all before
Amelia Shepherd doesn't need someone to tell her how to cope
And then she sees him - Owen
And she's suddenly scared
Because she is a hurricane and she can only hurt him
…
She wants to be high
Because being high is the only way she can forget completely
How it feels
But then, has she really felt it yet?
It's why she got addicted in the first place, she thinks,
To stop hurting
To forget
Because everything was always too much
But she knows too that she can't stay high forever
And it's the fall that's going to kill her.
….
Owen tells her she isn't coping
Oh but she is
Just not it the way that is normal
Or healthy
Or right
She's grieving in a way that will destroy her in the end
He saves her
Just for a little bit
…
It hurts
And she doesn't want to feel it
Because she has before and
Amy promised herself that she wouldn't ever have to again
But then again, she never though she'd lose Derek – did she?
She's lost so many people she can't find
People she can never find
Even if she spends her life looking
And she doesn't want to feel it
And then she does
And it hurts just like she remembers it
But this time
She's got Owen
And that makes it better
Just a little
Not a lot
Just a little
But enough
….
A/N Any thoughts?