After the funeral, Amelia spent the day with her mother and sisters down by the pier watching the ferry boats. Addison hired a couple of candystripers from the hospital to watch the kids at her condo, so she could drive them, but now she felt like she needed to hang back. Meredith was right to call them wolves. But Addison too was still upset that Meredith didn't call anyone when she found out about Derek's accident.
"You don't know what you'd do in that situation." Liz counters back. "Amelia, no one knows how they'll react until they have to react."
"But I live here and she didn't call me!" Amelia yells back at her.
Unable to stand by and let Liz defend Meredith on her own, Addison steps up to the group, "Derek survived a plane crash and being shot in the heart. Meredith was in shock and probably couldn't imagine that he could be injured badly enough to die. If there was any chance that any of us could have saved him, she would have called us so fast. I heard the stories of what she did in the OR when Cristina and Jackson were operating on Derek and the gunman stood over them threatening to shoot them if they didn't let him die, she literally asked him to shoot her instead. Insisted that it would hurt him worse to lose her, than for him to die."
Amelia looks at her friend and goes over to her. "But I am a neurosurgeon..." she begins to say.
"And Meredith knows how good you are, wasn't she in the OR with you during Herman's surgery? Amy, if there was even the slightest chance that you could've helped him, she would have taken it. We may not like how she handled it, but we need to respect that she did what she thought was best for her family." Addison says resting her hands on the smaller woman's shoulders, unsure whether to pull her in for a hug.
"Are you up for going out to the house to see Meredith and the kids? The hospital sent a caterer over to set up a buffet for the family." Addison asks the women.
"Yes. Girls we are going to the house." Carolyn says decisively.
On the walk back to the car, Addison sends Arizona a text letting her know that they are heading out to the house. They decided that Arizona would go by the hospital after the service and check on their patients, then Addison would be on call for the evening.
Driving out to Meredith's Arizona realizes that this will be the first time Addison has seen the house that Derek built and she wonders how that will feel for her friend. Pulling up, she sees Kathleen out front on her phone, Liz and Amy sitting on the porch and Carolyn sitting in the grass on a blanket with Bailey and Zola.
Zola spots her first and jumps up to greet her, "A'zona!", she says excitedly taking the blonde's hand. "Grandma is playing with us."
Nodding to Carolyn, Arizona squats down and sits on the blanket. Carolyn looks up surprised. "Can I ask what type of prosthetic you have? I had no idea they have improved that much," she asks politely.
"This is a prototype developed by Derek and Callie, then Amelia took it over when Derek went to DC. It's primarily for the veteran's project, but I was approved to test this one. It seems Derek was able to get an exception made for me based on my job and the clinic that I run in Malawi," she explains.
"Ah, yes. Amy told me about that Arizona. It's quite impressive." Carolyn says smiling at her. "I'm sorry that I haven't gotten to know you before now. But I only just found out a few weeks ago, that Amelia was seeing someone."
"Yes, I know she didn't tell anyone but Liz and that was an accidental slip. Carolyn, I'm so incredibly sorry to meet you like this. Your son was an amazingly gifted surgeon and a really good friend to me. We weren't close, but after the plane crash, he helped me a great deal to deal with my situation." Arizona replies tearing up. Then Bailey reaches up and touches her tears and smiles at her.
"Well obviously my grandkids adore you," Carolyn says smiling as she watches both Zola and Bailey leaning against the blonde.
"Sofia is the same way with Meredith and Derek," Arizona says, then realizing that she used the present tense, she starts to apologize.
"It's fine dear. I know what you meant." Carolyn says touching her arm.
Just then Amelia and Liz walk up to them. "Arizona, have you been here long?" Amelia asks her girlfriend.
"No, I just got here actually." She replies, then extends her hand for help up.
Taking her hand, Amelia moves in front of her and Arizona easily pulls herself up.
"I can't believe how good you're getting at that little maneuver." Amelia says softly pulling the blonde in for a hug.
"How are you?" Arizona asks softly into her ear.
"I'm getting there. Addison let us have it today and helped Liz defend Meredith, can you believe it?" Amelia asks.
"Yes, I can and remember that I don't know the same Addison that you do. Plus, I may have given her a hard time yesterday when she was upset with Meredith." Arizona confesses.
"Ah, that explains it. It sounded way to evolved for the Addison Montgomery that I know." Amelia says laughing softly.
"Well then thank you for being the voice of reason. I'm still upset, but I'm not going to judge." She adds.
"What do you think Meredith will do?" Amelia asks Arizona later that night as they get ready for bed.
"I'm not sure. But I can't imagine her leaving Seattle, she'll probably take some time off, but I won't be surprised if she's back at work quickly." Arizona replies.
"When Ryan died, I immediately went to rehab. I did that to get sober and also because I knew if I didn't that I would probably kill myself or overdose again and I didn't want to do either; then I found out I was pregnant and everything went to hell again." Amelia says softly.
"I can only imagine. I don't know what I would have done if I had lost Callie and Sofia in the car wreck. I probably would have gone back to Africa and stayed there." Arizona admits.
"Really? You would have left everyone here?" Amelia asks.
"Yes." She replies. "I don't think I could have lived and worked here with the memories. It would have been too hard. I didn't visit my parents for a years after Tim died. Finally they sold the house and moved, only then could I visit them." Arizona explains.
A/N: I found a little time to work on the sequel this week, but I'm back to working a heavy schedule. Updates will be about once a week at minimum.