A/N: I'm sorry if some of the information in this is incorrect. I found all of the information online, and I'm not to sure if it's accurate. If it offends you, I'm sorry, because that was not intentional.
Disclaimer: I do not own Grey's Anatomy.
It's their wedding anniversary and she wants to do something nice. Derek's working late, but not too late. He'll be home early enough for them to enjoy a nice dinner and fall into bed together, because today is not one of those days that should pass by without celebration.
They've been married for a year, and it's been a tough one, with Derek undergoing intensive physical therapy after the shooting, and both of them undergoing couple's counselling to get through the death of their child.
So she pulls out a recipe book, despite the fact that she has no cooking skills, and decides to make him dinner. If Izzie was still around, the blonde would be baking while Meredith just sits and watches, but Izzie is long gone, and Meredith's the mother hen now. She has to do everything for herself – it's called growing up.
The recipe doesn't look confusing. She has all the ingredients out on the side within five minutes, and the oven preheated soon after that, but then it becomes more challenging.
She can read the recipe just fine, it just isn't making sense. She knows what she's supposed to be making, she knows what ingredients she needs to use and she can read the steps, she just can't follow the directions.
They don't make sense.
She yells for help, hoping someone (anyone) will be home to help her, because maybe it's okay to have help sometimes. After all, she's been helping everyone recover, and surely, they won't mind helping her.
But no one's home, and she can't call Cristina, because her person is in surgery, something that she still finds challenging despite the fact that the shootings were a year ago. She can't call Alex, because he's a worse cook than she is, and Lexie is with Mark on a mini-vacation.
So she packs away all the ingredients, turns off the oven and puts the cooking book back on the shelf, before ordering Chinese food. She'll just reheat it when Derek comes home.
She freezes in surgery. It's her first day as an attending, and she knows what's she doing, knows the next step and the step after that; she knows exactly what she has to do to save this patient's life.
She just can't seem to get her brain to connect to her mouth.
She extends her hand, waiting for the nurse to hand over an instrument, but she can't remember what she's supposed to be asking for.
She knows what it looks like, she knows that it's shiny and silver, and that it fits comfortably in the palm of her hand, and that it's a vital tool in this surgery.
She could even look at the tray of surgical items and pick it out. She could probably pick it out with her eyes shut, just based on the feel of the instrument.
She just can't remember its name.
Luckily, Cristina is watching the surgery and she comes flying down to help. She stays there for the entire surgery, and listens to the descriptions of the instruments her person needs and informs the scrub nurse.
The patient lives and everyone congratulates Meredith, but Cristina has this worried, calculating look in her eye that scares Meredith.
It's Alex's birthday, and she buys a cake from his favourite bakery. Everyone's there and there's candles on the cake, and there's crumbs on the table left over from the Italian feast they ordered for lunch.
She lights the candles and walks in the room, her eyes all shiny. Her smile gets bigger and bigger as everyone starts to sing, and a tell-tale blush spreads across Alex's cheeks.
"Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear..."
Everyone's voices soar, covering the fact that she can't remember who she's singing too. She recognizes his face, and she knows his voice, but she can't quite piece it all together to get his name.
No one notices, except the person they're singing too. He looks at her, his head tilted, like she's a puzzle he can't quite figure out.
She avoids his eyes as she places the cake on the table.
"Meredith, you said you'd take care of the electricity bills this month. I just got a final notice in the mail... what is going on?" Derek said softly as he sat down opposite her on the couch.
"I don't know, I guess I just forgot" she answers, her fingers playing with the hem of her shirt. He just sighs, kisses the top of her head and walks out of the room.
"You're forgetting a lot of things lately", he calls over his shoulder.
She didn't forget. She knew that the electricity bill was due and she knew that she had to pay. She even attempted to pay. It's just, their check book is so confusing and she didn't know what she was supposed to do.
"Maybe you should manage our check book from now on", she calls back.
"That's probably a good idea", he chuckles.
Cristina asks her to go to Joe's, but she says no. She just doesn't want to go out drinking tonight. Derek asks her to go for a walk on their land, but she says she doesn't feel up to it.
Alex asks her to visit George's grave on the anniversary of his death, but she says she has plans with Lexie, and when Lexie asks if she wants to go out to dinner so they aren't alone, she says she has plans with Alex.
Mark asks if she and Derek want to join him and Lexie at his apartment for dinner, and she picks up an extra shift at work so she has an excuse not to show up.
She just doesn't feel like doing the things she normally does.
It's just another day at the hospital. She's still an attending, although she does more consults and paperwork than actual operating these days, mainly because she's scared she'll freeze in surgery again.
She's finished talking to a patient who she really, really likes (he has a great sense of humour and he reminds her of that man she used to know... the one who died before joining the army), and she's just slightly lost.
She normally knows the hospital like the back of her hand but she just can't remember where her office is.
So she walks around for a little while, hoping to see something that will spark her memory and lead her back to her desk and her comforting, familiar pile of paperwork.
She sees her husband's best friend (his name has just slipped her mind) and her best friend (oh come on, she should know this one) but nothing is leading her back to her office.
So she sits in a chair in the waiting room, and just waits. Her husband will stumble across her soon enough and help her back, even if he does it unintentionally.
"Have you seen those damn things that open my car?" she screams to no one in particular (it's not because she doesn't remember their names, it's just because she doesn't know whose home).
After everyone yells back, all of them saying 'no', she looks under the couch, that thing in the kitchen they prepare food on, and even in the fridge.
She eventually gives up and goes to get herself a cup of coffee. That's where she finds what she was looking for (in the mug no less) she realizes that she has no idea how they got there in the first place.
At least she can go to work now.
Her day goes from bad to worse. She lost her pen (which turned up in the bin), she lost an important document (found under a table in the cafeteria) and she forgot all about a vital conversation she and her best friend had, causing said best friend to storm away from her in anger.
And when her husband's eyes avoid hers, it's just another thing to add to the list of crap that's happened today. She doesn't think anything more of it.
When she gets up the next morning, she can't find the things that unlock her car, even after she's looked in every single mug they own.
"Mer...", her husband whispers from behind her.
"Have you seen those damn things?" she asks, her eyes not meeting his but sweeping over the kitchen again, desperately trying to locate the shiny silver metal that is normally so visible.
"Do you want to go for a drive Meredith?" he asks, instead of answering her question.
"Can you take me to work?"
"Sure"
And so she gets in the car with him, because he's her husband and she trusts him and he'd never betray her or hurt her because he loves her.
She may not know the way to the hospital (she's had her GPS directing her every day for the last few months), but she knows what the outside of the hospital looks like.
And the small, grey building they're parked outside of is definitely not Seattle Grace.
"I'm so sorry Meredith", her husband whispers from beside her, his hand squeezing hers tightly, as tears roll down his cheeks.
"What are you sorry for? You haven't done anything wrong", she says softly, her eyes staring at the building as she tries to find out what it is.
He just cries some more, loud, choking sobs just exploding out of his body, and it scares her, because she's never seen him like this before.
A man comes to help her out of the car, and another man grabs a bag from the back seat – one she didn't even know was there. The two of them lead her into the building, leaving her husband crying in the driver's seat of their car.
As they walk inside, her eyes stop on a sign placed strategically next to the entrance door. That's when she realizes what's happening: her husband has just had her committed.
She discovers that the events she deemed insignificant were actually the signs of early-onset Alzheimer's. She discovers that her husband (Derek, her doctor reminds her) couldn't look after her by himself, and after talking to her best friend (Cristina)and her roommate (Alex), he decided that committing her to a full time facility was the best way to go.
They come and visit and most of the time, she doesn't know who they are. She recognizes their faces, but she forgets that Derek is her husband, and cries when he visits, because she eventually begins to relive the time when Derek picked Addison over her.
She latches onto Cristina, and is wary of Alex, and begs for Izzie and George. She doesn't understand who Lexie is or why Mark is visiting her.
She doesn't understand why Addison is letting her husband visit his ex-girlfriend. It just doesn't make sense.
Over time, they stop visiting, until eventually only Derek and Cristina still stop by. There will be times when she remembers that Derek is her husband, and that they were going to have a baby together – that they were happy, and in love.
But the times get fewer and fewer, and eventually, he stops coming in to see her, choosing to sit just outside, watching her.
She can feel his eyes on her.
And eventually, Cristina stops visiting on a daily basis, only coming on birthdays and anniversaries and really crappy days when she misses her best friend.
And over time, the people are just replaced with pictures. Pictures of her and Cristina in a bar, and her and Alex laughing as they lug boxes up the stairs, and her and Lexie with linked arms, and a post-it note that's framed on the wall.
She spends her days in a semi-depressed state, where her person and two roommates take care of her, and the man she loves picks his wife.
And in her lucid moments, she spends her time alone, in a semi-depressed state, because their post-it note vows have been broken.
He was supposed to love her, even when he hated her, he was supposed to never walk away and he was supposed to take care of her even when she was old, senile, and smelly.
It was supposed to be forever, but it's already fallen apart.
Derek shows up one day, with papers for her to sign. She can look at him without crying now because she's come to accept the fact that he's with Addison and he's never going to leave her.
She signs the papers without a second thought because he says they're something to do with a surgery he wants her to scrub in on later that day.
She turns back to her files, and starts filling in details about the patient she'll be assisting with. She doesn't notice Derek walk away with tears in his eyes, or even notice that the papers he's clutching tightly have Petition for Divorce printed at the top.
Most of the time, she doesn't care that she's alone. Hell, most of the time, she doesn't even realize that she is alone.
But on those rare lucid days, she hates it.
The post-it note is gone from the wall, and she doesn't blame Derek for that. He needs someone to love him and although she's the love of his life, he can't be alone. It doesn't work well for him.
She also knows that if she had gotten Alzheimer's when she was older, after they'd had a life together, he would have stayed, because that was what he signed up for.
He didn't sign up for this – an (ex?) wife who couldn't remember his name, who still thought he was with Addison and cried every time he walked into the room.
She understands why he left. She probably would have done the same.
Time passes, and things get worse and worse. She's still living in her intern years, when Derek was McAss, instead of McDreamy, where Burke had a smile on his face and Cristina's heart in his hands, instead of her tears on his conscience.
She misses Izzie and George and she doesn't understand why they don't come and visit her. They're her roommates and they haven't been to see her in such a long time.
(She doesn't remember that George is dead).
So when Izzie, beautiful Izzie with her golden hair and bright smile, comes to visit her, she cries.
"I've missed you Izzie"
"I've missed you too Mer".
(She never finds out that Alex called and begged her to come home because "We're losing Meredith. Just like we lost George, and just like we lost you").
And, over time, she settles into a routine. Maybe she hates Derek because he chose his perfect wife, and maybe she finds Alex extremely arrogant. Maybe she misses George because she hasn't seen him in so long, and maybe she wonders why Izzie doesn't visit enough and maybe she wishes Cristina would just fall asleep next to her like they did so many times before, but overtime, she settles into a routine.
Really, though, it doesn't matter.
They don't visit her enough for it to be a problem.
At first, it was manageable. The carers looked in on her now and again, but most of the time, they left her by herself.
She has a structure that she follows – a daily routine that one kind nurse even typed up and stuck to her door so that she knows that's going on at all times – and that makes life somewhat easier.
Sometimes, she can't sleep through the night, and sometimes, she wakes up multiple times, but in the grand scheme of things, it's hardly noticeable.
But she's Meredith Grey and things always, always, get worse.
It ends on a Tuesday, and she's completely alone. She's been alone for a long, long time now, and she's grown accustomed to it (her friends, her people... they all have a life and she doesn't hold that against them).
Her life has been getting harder and harder recently. Her lucid moments have been few and far between, she's been unable to care for herself, she's had trouble moving and speaking, and swallowing and she depends on the carers for every little thing.
It's just a cold, really, until it's not.
Pneumonia.
Generally treatable, rarely life-threatening, especially not for a surgeon. But Alzheimer's screws everything up, has screwed everything up, especially for Meredith Grey.
So, after bombs, a ferry accident and a mad gunman in the hospital, despite the fact that Meredith constantly beats the odds and never gives up, she meets her comeuppance in the form of pneumonia.
It's a Tuesday when Meredith Grey dies from pneumonia, aged fifty three, after enduring years and years of suffering.
And she's alone.
Her friends and family come to her funeral, because they did love her, even though they left her a long, long time ago.
Derek wears his wedding ring(s), and holds his new(ish) wife by the hand, while he cries for his ex-wife because he just wasn't strong enough to endure years of pain.
Cristina, now the Chief of Surgery (has been for a long time) arrives solo, just like she has been for a long time (no man can compete with her love for the job). She doesn't cry because she and Meredith never cried but she struggles to breathe because her person is finally gone.
Izzie and Alex are holding hands but looking away from each other, because despite the love they share, they could never quite forgive the other for the incidents that occurred before Izzie fled Seattle. Izzie sobs and Alex stays strong, although he doesn't wipe away the tears that are silently rolling down his cheeks.
Lexie and Mark are together, Mark with his arms wrapped tight around the younger Grey sister. He doesn't want to lose her, can't lose her, because he saw what happened to Derek when Meredith was admitted and he can't go through that. So he supports Lexie while she whimpers and tries to ignore that happy feeling in his chest that it's not his Grey that died.
And Meredith is finally at peace.