A new story! I promise I'm not abandoning my WIPs, though. This is just an idea I had and I absolutely had to try it.
"Of course I'd take Zola and fetus."
She has an MD and a PhD. She is an unparalleled cardiothoracic surgeon of international renown. She is the head of the premier research institute for cardiac science in perhaps the entire world.
She leads a staff of nearly fifteen hundred, she makes a disgusting amount of money each year.
She has a lover she sees infrequently and a lavishly decorated apartment she sees even less often.
She spends, on average, fifteen hours a day at the hospital.
Two weeks out of every six abroad, teaching, fundraising, networking.
She has allotted herself two weeks of paid vacation each year, and has so far taken none.
She has three shelves of trophies, a closet full of names, walls hung with more names. She has been published in all the acclaimed journals, she has eighty patents to her name, she has people clamoring for her time day and night. She wakes at four and operates at six. She sleeps three hours a night, if that; she recently fired her eighth cook in as many months because there's no point because she's never home in time to eat.
There is a pile of dirty underwear in her sink and mail stacked on her polished dining table. There are a few boxes still unpacked from her move from the States. The kitchen - Japanese appliances, Italian marble, German engineered - contains three bottles of tequila, forty year old scotch from a patient, vintage wine also from patients, a box of bran flakes. Salt, lime, and a linty block of cheese she vaguely remembers buying several months ago.
She does, however, have valances. She learns from her mistakes.
"Of course I'll take them." she says into the phone, sleep thickening her voice to a rasp. "I'll be there."
.
It's cold. She remembers Seattle as mercilessly rainy, but Zurich is cold in December. She wakes a half hour later to snow drifting against her windowpanes, frosting the glass. Her breath spirals into fluffy clouds when she sticks her head out, and flakes melt in her hair.
She has the spare bedroom, of course, and a hastily appropriated housekeeper from her neighbor. Groceries and other trivialities will have to wait.
She calls Ross, makes sure he has everything under control and will not burn her hospital to the ground. She call him again, just to hammer it in. The third time, he lets her go to voicemail.
She has no idea if she needs a car seat. Actually, she has no idea if she has gas. She has a driver now, doesn't have to do menial things like fill up the tank, but she didn't think it was appropriate for them to see her like that. First impressions matter.
It turns out she needs gas, but she's halfway to the airport before she realises this and then has to dig out her dying phone to locate a petrol pump. This wastes twenty minutes, and she has to run to the terminal. This means she can't stop for the latte she likes from her usual airport cart, and is consequently crabby when she discovers the flight is late.
.
She thinks its funny. In a morbid, dark way, but they did call themselves the twisted sisters. Back when they were naive enough to think that all the bad things that were going to happen had already happened and that someday nothing more would go wrong.
Drowning, gunman, shooting, plane crash, traumatic birth. She ticks off the things that could not kill Meredith Grey, the things they laughed about in hindsight, the things that they thought were enough suffering for one lifetime. Surely, it should have insured her against all other harm. There's only so much crap one person can take.
Right?
There were no details for her on the phone, just the knowledge that Meredith, in her classic Meredith way, did not alter her will.
Lexie being conveniently dead as a dodo, there are no prizes for guessing who steps up now.
.
She imagined just the children. Which is stupid, because they're six and four. She remembers nothing about being that age, except that it was boring, but she's pretty sure no one would have let her travel alone.
But she really didn't imagine their escort would be Evil Spawn.
"You could look happier." Alex grunts, hefting Bailey on his hip. The last she saw of baby Bailey, he was a little kewpie of a thing, sucking his fists and shitting in diapers.
"I'm so sorry." she says. Reflexively, because she doesn't know yet how it happened, and maybe a little grudgingly, because she is angry at Meredith for not being resilient enough to survive one more tragedy.
"I should say that to you, you two were closer." he mutters, then uses his free hand to squeeze the breath from her. "Last two standing."
"Huh?"
"You and me." he says. "Just the two of us left, out of five. Who would've thought, eh?"
She chuckles dryly, then falls silent. She always thought it would be her and Mer. That they would be the ones to stick it out, that they would not crumble or wash out or give up.
"There's my girl." she beams when Zola shuffles up behimd Alex, clutching a jacket in one fist and the other tucked in the pocket if her dress. She wipes the grin off, realising it must look manic, tries to replace it with a sympathetic smile, then gives up when Zola stares at her feet with laserlike focus. "Hi, Zozo. Do you remember me?"
"We...she isn't speaking." Alex says quietly. "Not much, anyway, Wyatt says it's shock. She'll come around. She used to think you were the shit, remember?"
"I hope she still does." she mutters, surveying her ragtag troops. "Okay, let's get this show on the road."
.
"Jesus, Yang." Alex mutters. "You haven't evolved. At all." He kicks a damp rain slicker out of his way, frowning at the damp stain it has left on the hardwood.
"I have a housekeeper." she whispers, trying not to wake Bailey, who she is now carrying because his sister fell asleep in the car and there's no way she can hold Zola without throwing her back out. "She'll come in the morning."
"So you're rich and filthy instead of poor and sloppy. Same difference."
"Are you going to be like this forever?" she demands.
"Three days and I'm out of your hair."
"What?"
"I have a job." he says, looking guilty. "I've already been out since the...since they - since it happened. Packing their things, stuff like that. The funeral. Gotta get back."
"You should have called. I wanted to be there, Alex. My best friend -"
"It happened right after." he explains. "The next day, closed casket, they didn't want to ... wait."
"Oh. My god."
"Yup." he says, staring around at the apartment. "We should get them to bed. It's been a long day."
It's a little sad, but I always wondered what it would be like if Cristina were to actually end up with the kids, like they had originally planned. MerDer talk about altering their will after Lexie dies in the crash, and Cristina admits she'd rather be the cool aunt than a full time mom, but then Meredith rejects each of Derek's sisters in turn and we never get to see what decision they made.
I'll mostly be skipping ahead a few years in each chapter, and it'll be a short story.
Please review, and let me know what you think!