Author's note: I'm really sorry for generally not responding to individual feedback this time around. Every time I've tried, I've typed something and realized that I spoiled my own story so then I'd erase it all. Nevertheless, I read and appreciate every comment I get, and some of them have even helped me shape the story, so thanks!

Also, I've gone back and changed Meredith's age to 58 (first chapter) and Julia and Chase's age to 21 (second chapter) to make the timing of it all slightly more plausible. In my mind, Meredith was 28-29 when she started her internship, 35-36 when she finished her fellowship and 37 when she gave birth. Chase and Julia skipped a grade somewhere along the way allowing them to graduate college at 21.

After a few more minutes on the couch, the adrenaline shock from the evening's revelation dies down, allowing my body to assess its wants and needs again.

"Do you want to eat something, mom?"

She stifles a yawn before responding, "Sure."

I dish out the enchiladas on the breakfast table and multi-task by doing some serious contemplation while I chew and swallow. Mom isn't quite as talented in that area – I can tell she's thinking but she mostly hasn't touched her meal.

"What did dad mean when he said you wanted to make sure we didn't have it without finding out for yourself?" I ask, when the snowball of a question rolling around my mind becomes a giant snow boulder.

She takes a bite before responding. Stalling for time, perhaps. "It means that we went through standard IVF procedure but told them we wanted to make sure that our children didn't have any of the mutated genes that cause Familial Alzheimer's. You could only get it if I had it, but I didn't want to know if I had it. They were legally bound by contract not to tell me one way or another."

My mouth-brain filter doesn't have time to catch my next question. "Why the hell not? You could have started treatment so much earlier." I don't want to judge, I really don't, but I just can't wrap my head around it.

She sighs deeply. "I don't expect you to understand. I don't expect anyone to understand. Your dad and I have gotten into countless arguments about it over the years." She fidgets with her food and takes a sip of water before going on. "I think..." False start. "I was..." Again. I've never seen her speak without confidence. I don't know if it's the subject matter or a byproduct of the disease that's crawling through her brain. I'm afraid to speculate. "If I wasn't so happy, if I wasn't so content with my life, I would have gone for genetic testing myself. And I know that's the most backwards logic ever, but everything in my life had finally fallen into place. I didn't want to have a dark cerebellum-shaped cloud hanging over my head, just ready to dump all over everything. I wanted to be able to enjoy things like anyone else without having to worry about the potential ticking clock in my head. The treatments aren't a guarantee. I just didn't want to know."

If it were anyone else, I think I would understand. But it's my mother and I just can't get perspective. I want her to live forever. I want her to be there at my future wedding and to hold my future children and just be there. Why wouldn't she have taken the best course of treatment right off the bat? Preventative therapies. She's a fucking doctor, for God's sake.

From the corner of my eye, I can see her head tilt upwards. She's looking at me, but I can't make eye contact. If she looks at me, she'll know I'm mad and I don't want to be mad at her. I just can't believe the irrationality of her actions. I know I'm being selfish; this isn't about me. But she was being selfish, too, when she declined to do everything so that she could live in denial.

She looks back down to her plate. "Julia, I know it's hard. I know you think I'm selfish, but... If I knew for a fact that I was going to have early-onset Alzheimer's, I wasn't going to be able to go through with it. Starting a family, I mean. If I started having symptoms when my mom did, you two would have just been teenagers. If I knew for a fact that I was going to have it, I didn't want to put you through it. Call it reckless and stupid, and really, I do, but I wanted to hope. I was never a hopeful person but, you know, my life had finally stopped sucking at that point so I was optimistic. And when I passed fifty-five, I started to think that I didn't have the gene. I lucked out. I should have known... I've never been a lucky person," she finishes with an ironic smile.

My anger abates and I reach across the table to grasp her hand. "You don't know for sure. And even if it is..." I swallow down the sobs that are waiting for me to break again. "We'll get through it together, as a family."

I've never seen my mom look so vulnerable. She suddenly looks so young, like all the lines have disappeared and her eyes are wide but full of tears. She's always been so strong and it's hard to reconcile the person sitting in front of me now with the woman I've known my whole life. I know that feeling might become familiar, but I push that thought aside. I have to hope, like she did.

We finish our meals without saying much else and mom excuses herself to go to bed. The emotional impact of the evening has taken its toll and I feel incredibly sluggish as well, but I find myself flipping through cable news shows instead of going to sleep. Watching the world fall to shit helps me remember that I'm extremely fortunate. I have a loving family, a roof over my head, food and water, access to the nation's best health care and education... my life is good. Great. This is just a thing, and it sucks, but I'm in better shape than billions of others.

I watch the minutes tick by on the bottom right corner of the television screen. I logged into our family's nav system earlier and saw that they took the Land Rover, but it hasn't left the island so Chase and dad must be coming home soon. There isn't much that's open late out here.

Just over an hour later, I hear thumping followed by a lot of cursing near the front of the house. I open the door to find Chase with his arms around our limp spaghetti-like father. He's drunk. Drunker than drunk This is the first time I've ever seen him drunk. Chase looks up at me with desperation and I help drag dad inside and settle him on the nearest couch.

"What the hell happened?" I ask my brother, following him into the kitchen.

He pours himself a glass of water and gulps down half before speaking. "I chased after dad and got into the car, like, a half second before he put it in reverse. He didn't tell me to leave. He didn't say anything at all until after we stopped at the liquor store. He bought an expensive bottle of scotch, drove out to the water and got out. We just sat on the beach for an hour while he drank back half the freaking bottle, Jules. I've never seen him like this." He runs a hand through his hair in a way that reminds me of the passed-out man in the living room. "He started talking a bit. He said he thought she was over pulling shit like this. He said he couldn't lose her again. Fought too hard to lose her again. I didn't ask him what he meant."

I cross my arms over my chest. "I don't care what he meant. Nothing could excuse his actions. He just left."

"Jules, you didn't see what I saw. He's really broken up about this. He's not thinking straight at all. After the beach, he tried to drive again but the car wouldn't start because of his BAC. I had to fight him out of the driver's seat. I took him to that seedy diner near the marina and forced him to eat something to sop up the alcohol in his stomach. We sat there for forever, not saying anything. He looked so... tortured. I've never seen him look like anything but this totally strong guy, but he was destroyed."

I start to feel a little sorry for my dad. He's got to be feeling guilty about not noticing earlier and plus he completely fucking worships the ground mom walks on. But he still should have stayed.

"Do you have any anti-hangover pills?" Chase asks.

I have them in my bag upstairs but I don't know if I want to give them to dad. He deserves to suffer a little. I shake my head in response.

"Come on, Jules, I know you have them. We had to take some after we stopped in Montreal. I know you want dad to feel like shit tomorrow, but he's going to feel like shit with or without the hangover and we need him functional."

Damnit, why is my brother so right today? I hate his rationality right now. "Fine, I'll go get them."

I return to the living room couch with a glass of water and a couple of pills. "Dad?" He grumbles his response. "Dad, I need you to get up and take these pills." He doesn't move.

Fine, if he wants to be like that. I tip the glass of water over his head, just slightly. He jumps up and runs his hands over the water on his face. "Dad, take this. They'll take care of your hangover."

He looks at me as though he's trying to remember who I am before reaching his hands out and taking the proffered water and pills. He swallows them down and lies back on the couch, losing consciousness again quickly.

"How's mom?" Chase asks when I return to the kitchen.

"She went to bed earlier. Rough night for everyone, I guess." I recap for him all the things mom told me tonight. "Remember what I said in the car this afternoon?"

"Yeah."

"I kind of wish we were back to not knowing anything." I can't fight back the odd combination of tears and laughter flowing from somewhere inside me.

Chase pulls me into a brotherly hug. "It'll be okay," he says, giving me the reassurance that mom wouldn't earlier. I nod into his shoulder, wiping my eyes and nose on his shirt without a second thought. He can deal. He walks me up to my room before retiring to his and I give into my exhaustion, falling into a fitful, restless sleep.

The phone is ringing. It's 7:30 and the phone is ringing. I stumble around my room before remembering that I don't have one up here. Everyone else must still be down for the count, which is expected from Chase because he wouldn't wake up in a tornado, but mom and dad are used to pagers and phones waking them up all hours of the night.

I rush down the stairs and grab the phone from the kitchen but it's too late. I hit "Play" when the message signal pops up and watch as Bailey's stern face appears. "You're late, Dr. Shepherd. I need to ask you something. Call me immediately when you get this."

I bring the videophone over to my dad, who's still passed out (quite uncomfortably, it appears) on the couch. I know I should just bring the other phone, but I think Bailey needs to see for herself what we're dealing with here.

"Dad, it's time to wake up," I say softly, reaching out to shake him a little. "You have to call the hospital. Talk to Bailey. Tell them you won't be in today. Or for a while."

"Whuh," is his response. I give him a few more seconds to get lucid.

"Bailey called, dad. You're late for work but it doesn't matter because you're not going to work. You have to call her back."

He jumps up then. "What time is it?" I tell him. "Shit."

I dial SGH and punch in Bailey's extension at the switchboard. Her face pops up on the screen again.

"You look like crap." Bailey's not very sensitive when it comes to my dad. Or people who aren't children, in general.

"Thanks," he responds, his voice scratchy and sleep-filled. "I had a rough night."

She softens a bit at that. "So she told you."

I watch as dad's body becomes instantly more alert. The anger from last night returns. "You knew?!"

"I worked alongside her every single day, of course I knew."

"Why the fuck didn't you tell me?!" Dad yells.

"She didn't say anything; I just figured it out myself. I watched over her and made sure she didn't make any mistakes that jeopardized a patient's health. If it began to affect her work, I would have told you, but she left before it became an issue. It wasn't my business to tell you otherwise." Bailey is incredibly diplomatic. She leads with both her mind and heart in the right place.

Dad rubs his hands over his face. He knows she's right as much as I do.

"I'm not coming in today. I'm not coming tomorrow. I don't know when I'm coming in next, so I'm going to make arrangements for you to be interim Chief. Is that okay with you?"

"Yessir," she responds. "What are you going to do?"

"I know a guy at the Alzheimer's center at UCSD. I'll take her there."

"Good. Take care of her, Derek." The last time I recall her using dad's his first name was when Chase cracked his head on the deck by the lake. "Call me back when you're done talking to administration so you can tell me what you want me to do."

"Bailey," he says before she hangs up. "Don't tell anyone yet. Please."

Bailey's face molds into disbelief. "Do I look like a gossip to you, Shepherd?" she says, before signing off.

I examine my dad on the couch. He looks so tired and... old. He might have a head full of white hair but he's always had a lot of energy. It scares me to see him like this.

He looks up at me with a bit of a smile and I return it with my own. I know he's sorry for last night.

"Do you need anything, daddy?"

"Can you get me some coffee?" he asks, with a charming smile that he uses on people at the hospital to get them to do things for him.

"Sure. And you should shower... you smell like the dirtiest club in Manhattan. No. Long Island."

He grimaces at that, and I head off to do my assigned task. I'm surprised when I hear the sound of water flow coming from the basement and not upstairs. I guess he didn't want to wake mom up, or he's just not ready to see her. I hope it's the former, because I was just starting to forgive him for being a jerk last night.

I leave a steaming mug of coffee on the counter before taking another mug up to my mom's room.

I knock on the door out of habit, even though I know dad isn't in there so there's no risk of being visually traumatized (again). I hear a mumble from inside so I take that as a positive response.

Mom sits up in bed with her hair kind of everywhere. "What's wrong, Jules?" she asks, her voice light as though nothing big happened recently. "Was that the phone I heard a few minutes ago? I think there was a phone ringing in my dream." She releases a huge yawn. "I can't remember the last time I slept that deeply."

Shit. Shit shit shit fuck shit. She doesn't remember. "Oh, it was a wrong number," I lie. "I just made some coffee so I thought you'd want some," I say, hopefully keeping the distress off my face.

"Oh, thanks. It's still a little early, isn't it?"

"Yeah, I just couldn't fall back asleep." I walk over and place the mug on her nightstand. "Stay in bed, I'll come bring breakfast up later."

She laughs lightly. "Next thing I know, you'll be telling me that breakfast will consist of actual food."

I force a giggle. "I'll be back in a bit, mom." I walk out of the room and close the door behind me. Shit shit shit fuck balls. I have no idea what I'm supposed to do. Chase, Chase will know what to do.

I barge into his room and shake him awake. "What the fuck?" he grumbles.

"Chase, she doesn't remember! She doesn't remember last night!" I whisper-scream, trying not to alert mom.

He bolts out of bed. "Shit. Where's dad?"

"He's downstairs making phone calls. He's taking leave from the hospital. He told Bailey he's taking mom to San Diego."

"Have you told him?" I shake my head vigorously. "Let's go tell him."

We race down the stairs and wait outside the room while dad finishes a call.

"Dad!" we whisper-scream the second he hangs up.

"Uh, yes?"

"Mom doesn't remember!" I start.

"Last night!" Chase finishes.

Dad's face drops. He freezes for a second, eyes darting between me and Chase before he runs upstairs into the master bedroom. Chase and I follow, but stop outside the door when we see dad holding mom in bed.

"Derek, what are you still doing here?" I hear mom ask.

"I'm not going to work today. Or tomorrow. Or any day until..."

Movement and rustling. "What's going on, Derek? Seriously?"

Dad doesn't say anything that we can hear, if he says anything at all.

"Oh. Oh. Oh no. No no no no no." Mom's babbling becomes muffled amid more rustling. I peek into the room to find dad sitting up with his arms cradling mom, who's sobbing into his lap.

I pull Chase in with me and we crawl onto their bed together to share a big family embrace.