As humans, we find ourselves falling into the same patterns. It's not because we want to, it's because it's what we're used to. Once we fall into a routine, we tend to stick to it until we're thrown a curve ball that forces us to change. And even when we get that, our first instinct is to fight it. We don't want change. And the pattern never truly stops. We will always go back to it, even if it hurts us. Even when it hurts us. That's why human nature, human routine, makes us prone to something we can fight until we eventually give in.

Alex was assigned to the girl's case along with Torres and Shepherd. He hadn't been in the surgery, there hadn't been any need, but he had made sure to make it clear that he would be the one to check on her most frequently. Both of them had disagreed, but he made it clear that he was doing it for his person.

Meredith had already suffered so much. He couldn't stand watching her get hurt over and over. Her sister died. Her person ditched her for Switzerland. Her husband left her alone to raise their kids. She ran away and had a surprise baby...

He needed to find out what this girl was like. If she was the type to go around asking questions about Meredith and Lexie, then he would tell her to stick it. No one messed with his person.

He strolled into her room a few hours after the surgery. She was awake, staring out the window. His heart skipped a beat. Lexipedia.

He cleared his throat. "I'm Doctor Karev. I understand that you were in a car crash. You had some damage but it was all fixed in surgery. You have a long road to recovery in front of you." He paused, letting out a breath. "But if you're anything like I think you are, you were coming to this hospital for a reason."

The girl turned to look at him, and her eyes met his relatively cold ones. He was a good doctor, he was good with kids, but right now he was unsure if he could trust this one.

"You know who I am." Was what came out of her mouth. "Why is Dr. Grey avoiding me?"

"She's not..."

The teenage girl glared back in response. "Dark and twisty. I know. Can you please ask her to come meet me? It would mean a lot to me..." She looked away. "And then I will leave, and she can just forget I ever existed."

Alex grumbled in response. "I don't know what you want from her, but leave her alone. She's a lot stronger and a lot tougher than you think. She won't take crap from you too. She's had enough secret siblings to last her a lifetime."

"You think this was what I wanted? To get into a car crash and break my leg and undergo major brain surgery? Some idiot hit me driver's side on my way over here! I wanted twenty minutes with Meredith, not as long as it takes for them to discharge me!"

Alex just stared back at her. "I will tell her, but no promises."

"Dr. Karev, she's my family. And I think she's the family that I am supposed to end up with. I don't know much about her, or my mom, but I think I'm meant to be here. We're meant to be together."

Alex looked back at her. "Okay." He turned around and walked out of the room.

...

"Mer." Alex started, walking up to her as she leaned on the counter, looking at a patient chart and chatting with Edwards. She looked up and saw his 'we need to talk' face.

"Make sure his stats stay in the normal levels. Page me if anything changes." Stephanie nodded and walked away, glancing between Alex and Meredith.

"What did you find out?"

Alex scratched his head. "Give her a chance Mer. For Lexie."

"Did I ever say I wasn't going to?" Meredith smirked, walking away.

"Be nice!" Alex screamed after her.

...

Meredith stood outside the room, looking through the window. The girl, from this angle, looked like a teenage version of Lexie. She was reading a book, and from what Mer could make out, the cover looked like a diagram from a medical textbook. Mer smiled. She took a deep breath, walking into the room.

"I'm Dr. Grey, but you already knew that. My question is: who are you?"

Cassie looked up from the book she had in her hands about pelvic reconstructions. She did a lot of reading, of medical journals and books and memoirs. She remembered everything she read. She didn't know much about where she came from, but she knew she wanted to be a surgeon. She slammed the book.

"I'm Cassie, Cassie Grey." Cassie bit, fighting the tears that were brewing in her eyes. She didn't know why she felt like crying, but something was up. Was it those feelings, of abandonment, of wonder, that she had been trying to bottle back for all of this time? Were they suddenly at the surface because her aunt was most likely going to tell her to get lost?

"Okay, great, who do you belong to?" Cassie looked away, not meeting Meredith's eyes. Meredith bit back a smile. This girl was all Lexie. "I know why you're here, so tell me what I can do to help you. I will try my best to do whatever it is. Might I add, you didn't need to get into a car crash to get into the hospital. You could have just walked in. Any doctor here would have recognized you."

"I wanted to meet you because it was the only chance I had to." Cassie murmured through her teeth. "I have my license, I know how to drive... I just have really bad luck. I think I'm cursed. Or crazy."

Meredith laughed. "You're not crazy, Cassie, you're a Grey. And because you're a Grey, you're most likely cursed." Meredith furrowed her brow. "Wait. Why is this your only chance to come see me? Where are you going?"

Cassie bit her lip. Should she tell the truth? That she come back to Seattle specifically to meet her aunt? "Molly's husband got deployed again. We were only here to see Grandpa, who's drunker than ever." Cassie rolled her eyes. "That's probably why Molly never made the effort to bring me back here..."

"I am sorry to hear that. About not getting to come here." Metedith sighed.

"He's the reason I was in foster care until I was eleven and Molly and her husband adopted me. They're great, don't get me wrong, but I'm not one of their kids. I'm an outsider. I want to go to public school. I want to be a normal kid that hasn't been the weird foster girl or live on a military base in the middle of nowhere."

Meredith sat down in the chair next to the bed. She was still trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together. "So Lexie..."

"Lexie was 17. Don't know who Dad is, but Thatcher and Susan didn't want me around because Lexie's photographic memory was not working with a baby around or something. I don't know. Lexie threw a fit. So they sent her away until she graduated high school and she got into Harvard and by that point she couldn't find me... or didn't want to..."

Meredith chose to ignore the girl's self demoting statements that could only be matched up to hers, in a way. Family issues were a bit of a familiar subject with her. "So Molly..."

"Molly found me after Lexie was already dead. I never got a letter or picture... all I know is that she died doing doctor things."

Gritting her teeth, Meredith realized she could not have this conversation with this girl right now. "You didn't have any ID on you, so we were unable to call Molly. How can we contact her?"

"Oh please don't call her yet! She's gonna flip out when she finds out I came to see you, and then she's gonna flip out even more when she finds out I was in a car crash that totaled her car!" Actually, it was her grandfather's car that Molly had the keys to because he was so drunk, but she left that detail out too.

"Cassie she's your legal guardian, she needs to know where you are. That you're okay."

"Meredith..." Meredith stopped short when she heard her name. In that moment, it felt like it was her sister calling out to her from heaven or wherever she was. She swallowed the hiccup that had formed in her throat. This was her kid sister's daughter. She was here for a reason. She could hear Derek and Lexie telling her from up there to make the effort, to attempt to bond.

"Yes?" She turned back around.

"Tell me about her. Please. Molly doesn't know anything about how she was as a doctor. We can't talk about it. Please tell me."

Meredith took a deep breath. She would do this for Lexie. She turned around and plopped herself at the foot of the bed, looking at this girl, her niece, sitting in front of her.

"Lexie Grey was one of the sweetest people I've ever met. She came to work here when her mom passed away. She immediately wanted me to be this big sister person that I could not be. For a while, my friends and I were awful to her because I told them to. Slowly though, she wormed her way in. She taught me that family was not bad. Family is a beautiful thing. It's...' she cleared her throat, hoping the lump would go away, "it's my biggest regret that I wasn't with her in her last moments."

"You were with her when she died?" Cassie hadn't known that part of the story. She didn't even know how she died. Molly wouldn't say.

"Yeah. We were in a plane crash. She got stuck under the plane, and we couldn't get her out."

"Where were you? You weren't with your sister when she died for what purpose?" Cassie bit. "I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have-"

"It's fine. I went to find my husband. Cristina, one of the other doctors, told me to stay with Lexie, but I didn't."

"Did you find him... your husband?" Cassie whispered.

"Yeah. By the time we got back... she was gone. Her soulmate or whatever you want to call him was with her when she passed."

"What happened to him?"

"He died too. He said that Lexie was waiting for him. I like to think that him and her and my husband are all up there at the bar in heaven or whatever. It's all I can hope for."

"Your husband died in the plane crash too?"

"No. He died a couple years later. In a car crash."

"Oh," was all Cassie could muster. She could see why Molly had made Meredith out to be some sort of villain. All Meredith knew was how to lose. She had lost her father at a young age, her mother was apparently very cruel, her stepmother passed, her sister passed, her husband passed...

"I... have to go." It had become too much for Meredith. She couldn't cry in front of this girl. It had all come up so fast. The plane crash... her husband's car crash...

Meredith sprinted out the door before Cassie could say another word.

...

Meredith found the nearest on call room she could, locking the door behind her. She sat down on the bed. It was then that the tears just started. They wouldn't stop.

"Would ya keep it down? Some of us are trying to sleep!"

Amelia.

Ugh.

Amelia climbed down from the top bunk and stared at her sister. She let out another breath. "It's about Lexie isn't it?"

Meredith just stared at her. She wanted to be alone. And now this one? She would have preferred Maggie over this nonsense!

"Yeah. Of course it is. I get it. I lost my brother. Granted, he was my best friend and I grew up with him, but she was still your sister."

Amelia. Shut. Up.

Meredith took a deep breath, standing up from the bed. She didn't say anything, leaving Amelia standing there like a piece of trash, or so Amelia thought. Of course Meredith wasn't going to say anything to her. It didn't matter if she was her sister. She sighed.

Walking to a patient's room, she stopped at the window Meredith had stared through the glass. The girl was reading a book. Amelia walked in, clearing her throat.

"Hi Dr. Shepherd. My head is fine. Well, I think so."

"You're reading a pretty dense book, so I think you're good." Amelia smiled, sitting down in the chair. "Have they called your aunt yet?"

Cassie resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "I know who you are. You're the sister of the other Dr. Shepherd... that was my uncle." She slowly let out. "I've been trying to put all of the pieces together. It seems like everyone in this hospital is related. Dr. Torres had a kid with my mom's love because they were lovers. His name was Mark Sloan. He was Derek's best friend. Derek was married to Meredith. Meredith's sister was with Mark, but so was Callie, and also Addison, who was married to Derek too... and ugh."

"Who told you this?"

"Um, the nurses love to gossip, you know. I just asked them why the hospital was named Grey Sloan. I had a pretty good hunch though after Meredith told me they both died in the plane crash. Although I don't know how I feel about the nurses calling me Little Grey yet. It sounds like that name belonged to someone else."

"You're not Little Grey. You're Little Little Grey. You're Mini Little Grey. You're Mini Meredith!" Amelia sputtered.

"What? Really?"

"Yes! You're acting just like her!"

"Really? How so?" She dropped her arms at her side, blushing at how self conscious she had suddenly become.

"I just... I don't know how to explain it. You guys are so related."

"Wow. Related to Medusa." She chuckled. "The nurses wouldn't tell me where that name came from, though."

"That's what they called her after..." Amelia bit her tongue. Why did she have to talk so much?

"Oh." Cassie let out a breath. "This hospital has my name on it. That's weird."

"Yeah." Amelia said, picking at the lint on her pants. "Look, I am going to tell you right now that most doctors in this hospital think that I am crazy and talk too much, your aunt included. But, I am also supposedly a very good talker when advice is needed. You need anything, you page me. Understood?" Amelia stood up, placing her hands inside her pockets.

"Yes, Amy."

Amelia glared at her.

"I knew that was going to annoy you." Cassie cheekily grinned. "I won't call you that if-"

Amelia cut her off. She didn't know she had found herself liking this girl she barely knew so easily. She didn't know why she found her brain telling her to agree to it. "-no, that's fine. You can call me Amy. I haven't let anyone call me that since Derek, but..."

The look on Cassie's face of pure joy made her tingly inside. "Come eat your meal with me later? I need someone that isn't a nurse to talk to, and I don't think it's gonna be Meredith."

Amelia nodded. "I would love to."

Cassie's face grew serious again. "One more thing... Meredith has another sister, doesn't she? The nurses... they talk. They're not talking about Molly, are they?"

Amelia rolled her eyes. These nurses need to be talked to if they are talking loud enough, on the peds floor, for everyone to hear. "Her mother had a secret kid when Mer was five. She just came back a couple years ago." Before Derek died, she wanted to add.

"And is Meredith happy about this sister given-"

Amelia really didn't know how to answer that one. "I- I don't know. I watched Maggie and Mer get close, but I know that Meredith and her friends weren't the nicest when it came to your- Lexie. We can talk about this later."

"Okay. Can you bring- Dr. Pierce? I would like to meet her."

"I'll try." Amelia said, finally walking out the door.

Cassie let out a breath. What was she doing bonding with these doctors? It was a bit weird... she would give it that. Then again, didn't she have a right to? Her last name was on the hospital everywhere. It was on the walls, the labcoats, the screens... her name was on there because her mother died. Sure, from what she understood Amelia didn't know her very well, but Amelia was her uncle's sister. So that made her family.

And god, Cassie really wanted this family. She just knew it in the pit of her stomach. She barely knew them, but she knew.