-maggie-
"I love you."
You start at the confusingly affectionate statement.
"No one has ever called my brother 'The Other Doctor Sheperd'," she explains, as you continue to match her pace.
Oh, you think. That's maybe the first time today that you've stumbled into saying the right thing.
-amelia-
The service is surreal.
Body details appear to you. Addison's arm around you, Cristina's and Meredith's clasped hands, your mother's pink-rimmed eyes. It's almost his lack of physicality that reminds you: Mark really should have been here.
Words reach you less easily. The first ones come through Bailey's tear-stained cheeks: We're going to have to let you leave.
Owen has little curves in the skin of his face, and these words: I'm here for you.
Maggie Pierce has expressed her condolences only a minute ago, not that you could recall what she said. Her hands lightly grasp a glass of champagne. Delicate bubbles break the surface.
You're aware of your hands going to fuss with the cloth hanging over your sides.
One of her hands parts from the flute and gestures gently towards you. "You are so gorgeous."
You are so gorgeous. Handsome shoulders and a charming face decompose into cold blue cheeks and lips. Ryan. Those were your last words from him, your last moments with him. You blink. It's Pierce's face there now, looking something like remorseful.
"But I mean you don't have to be, it's not about that…" she ventures, because great, she's noticed, not that she knows you're scarcely concerned with beauty right now. "I mean, but you are," she continues, clearly unable to stop digging herself into a hole.
You try for some kind of polite smile as you excuse yourself.
-maggie, some weeks later-
When the doorbell rings, you turn down the TV volume a bit as a half-assed attempt at hiding and harrumph gently about solicitors. But when it rings a fourth time, you finally get up and open the door, to find Dr. Amelia Shepard dropping her arm to her side.
"Doctor Sheperd," you state, for lack of anything else.
"Amelia, please," she says, the way someone might dryly tell a friend to knock it off. "But I appreciate the use of the title," she adds with a crooked, possibly insincere smile.
She then gestures loosely towards the inside of your doorway, and you— "Oh, of course," step aside to let her in. With no hesitation, she walks in, leaves her coat on your closet door, and crosses her legs on your couch. "Um, I have some… food, I think…" you start to suggest, and she looks up, looking surprisingly comfortable. On your couch. Where she was not invited.
"Nah, I'm good." So far, zero attempts at sugarcoating by Amelia Shepard, who is now surveying your apartment. There's the stack of puzzle boxes, the corkboard, the lone string of folded gold paper stars.
"Oh, okay…. Can I get you a drink?" She looks up from her spot on the couch, eyes possibly more fierce than usual. You don't know how someone can so consistently embody uncertainty and ferociousness simultaneously. It pauses you.
"I'm sober," she says, almost belligerently. Now, you've made this face before. Quite a lot since you've come to Seattle, because it's the face that happens when—
"Yeah, that was the wrong thing to say to an alcoholic," she says, no less Amelia but a little more quietly, a little more gently.
"I kind of keep saying the wrong thing," you start. "To everyone."
"Well, just don't mention cheating to Callie Torres. Or dead brothers to Amelia Shepard," she adds with a tilt in her voice. After a quiet moment, during which she's only raised her eyebrows, she pats the couch twice. "No, I don't need anything. What are you watching?" You cross the room.
You sit.
a/n: Just a short bit to see if anyone is interested in Maggie and Amelia?