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Chapter 4
What happens when you feel alone in a room full of people?

Boston present day
It had been a long day and an even longer night. The fellowship was an unique opportunity to research use of emergency medicine techniques in oncology, but it was hard to juggle motherhood, research and surgery. The key slipped into the lock and Meredith opened her apartment door. Three at night and she knew she probably wouldn't get to sleep soon. Maggie had called her that Ellis was running a fever.
"Ugh, what's that?" Meredith wondered. Maggie and Ellis were cuddled up on the sofa, but the living room looked like a huge mess. Meredith looked at a magazine cover with Derek's face. It was the issue that had been published after the malignant glioma trial. She hadn't looked at anything from that box since she arrived.
When she walked into the room Maggie looked up. "She just fell asleep. I went through one of your boxes" Maggie admitted. "I didn't know it was that box"
"I figured as much" Meredith nodded "I was working on that trial" This was an understatement. She had invented the method.
"You want to tell me you kept this because of the trial?" Maggie knew that it wasn't the reason Meredith kept it. She had avoided any recent article about him like plague, so this memory must have been special.
"Yes"
"Okay"
"Don't give me the look, I know the look" Meredith insisted. "She's sleeping?"
"He was your husband" Maggie nodded. "I understand" 'How could she though?' Meredith wondered to herself. Her relationship with Dean had crashed and burned and one night she had knocked on her door and asked to stay the night. She hadn't left since. She had taken over and now she was living in a house with her half-sister.
"I'm tired" Meredith mumbled "I've been in the OR for 13 hours straight"
"Ellis is running a fever, I checked her temperature every 20 minutes" Maggie looked at her sister.
Meredith nodded. Being a mom was more exhausting than she had imagined, but the whole pregnancy had been exhausting. "She's teething. I'll take over, you can go to bed"

Seattle 19 months ago
Cristina stormed into the attendings lounge and yelled "What have you done to her?"
Heads turned and everyone was looking at her. "To whom?" Derek asked. He figured she was talking about Meredith, but he hadn't done much since she had been suspended. He was not able to do anything because it'd be something he'd hate himself for. Cristina was about to punch Derek, but Mark held her back. "Relax, Yang. Whom are you talking about?"
"Meredith" Cristina clarified "I find it hard to believe that you weren't the one that made her do this"
"Made her do what?" he wondered. There were ample possibilities.
"Leave". One word – very powerful. 'No one walks out'
"Meredith has vanished" Cristina clarified "OH, well, she left a note, 'I left, don't go looking for me'… so just tell me what you did?"
"I went to get my stuff last night" he said. She was there when I left.
"You just walked out on her?" Cristina wondered "What happened to all this post-it crap"
"They took Zola because of her and she basically destroyed my career" Derek yelled "Now get out of here. I'm not the bad guy here. I just had to… I… get out of here Cristina."
Mark asked everyone to leave and asked Derek to sit down. "Are you okay, Shep?"
Derek shook his head. "I just feel like I walked in on Addison and you except this time it's a thousand times worse. Meredith left." Derek sighed "Cristina said she cleaned out her room and left a note. She walked out. She just walked out on us."
"To be fair buddy, you told her to 'Get the hell out of here' when she tried to talk to you last night." Mark sat down next to him.
"I did." Derek nodded. "She was folding Zola's clothes and put them into a box. I just flipped. I didn't expect, she would. Meredith never does what you tell her to do."
"Well, sometimes people do what you ask them too." Mark sighed "and sometimes it's just life."

Boston present day
"Do you know that you are everything I ever wanted to be?" Maggie looked at Meredith while she grabbed another piece of pizza from the carton on the living room moving box. Meredith was cradling Ellis on her breast and read the flash cards she had written.
"You wanted to be a single mom with a stressful job who hasn't slept in a week?" Meredith mumbled while she tried to swallow the pieces of pizza in her mouth and turn one of the cards at the same time.
"No, you are successful" Maggie insisted. "You might even win a Harper Avery"
"I'm not nominated, Dr. XXX is." Meredith corrected her sister "and you have been the youngest department head in the history of this hospital - so by comparison you are way more successful than I am -and you are not a single mom with a MIA baby daddy who might be very IA very soon"
"Is it called IA?" Maggie wondered.
"I don't know" Meredith admitted.
"So, what are you feeling about seeing Derek again?" Maggie wondered "It must be hard."
"I don't want to talk about it" Meredith lifted up Ellis and started to carry her to her crip.
"You should" Maggie said "I talked about Dean a lot. It helped."
"I remember" Meredith rolled her eyes. In fact she had talked about him every day since she had moved in.
Meredith put down Ellis and returned to the living room. Nobody said anything for a while. The two sisters sat next to each other and ate pizza.
"I need someone to come to the ceremony with me. They asked us to pick a person. Can you be my person?" Meredith wondered
"Sure"
Meredith smiled. At least she wouldn't be there all on her own. She had not figured out what she was going to do with Ellis, but the hospital daycare wasn't too far away from the venue, so it might be a sensible option.

Seattle 17 months ago
Two months had passed since the day she had left. Derek was still counting them even though Mark had told him to stop doing it multiple times. 67 days and 5 hours since he had found out and nobody knew where she had gone. "She's not a rogue agent, she shouldn't be this hard to find" Lexie ranted while observing him during a craniotomy.
He sighed "I won't go looking for her. She asked not to be found."
Lexie nodded. She knew that Mark had tried to talk to him about it, but he had been just as unsuccessful as she was. Meredith had not answered anyone's calls since she had vanished and she was starting to miss her. "How's the adoption thing going?"
"They told me I need to divorce her last night" Derek sighed "and… it kills me!" This wasn't what he had imagined his life to be like. 'Why is the universe so screwed up?' he remembered her words.
"Meredith left. I think she made her choice" Lexie was about to start crying. "She abandoned us when things got hard."
Derek flipped. As angry as he was with her, he hated when people said negative things about her. "Meredith's mother never wanted her and her father was never man enough to hang around. She has a right to be damaged. And this? It's a big thing for her." Derek insisted "All she ever saw was that things like this, they don't work. She panics. She wants this, but she doesn't know how to have it. And you know what? It's not her fault. I shouldn't have put her on the trial. I shouldn't have allowed Adele to participate. Meredith is willing to do anything for the people she loves."
"Like disappear and stop answering any phone calls?" Lexie wondered.
"I'll hate myself if I sign those papers" Derek admitted "but I'll also hate myself if I don't get Zola back"

Boston present day
Had she forgotten how to sleep on her own? Meredith looked at the moon. Boston was too urban to see the stars in the sky and the moon seemed lonely. She remembered the nights at the trailer and the night sky – the beautiful night sky. He was gone from her life – at least a part of him. The other part of him was mere centimetres away from her. Ellis snored. It was funny that even though she looked just like him, she had inherited this from her. She saw him in her and it was killing her.
She got up and walked over into Maggie's room and lay down next to her "I'm alone"
"What Do you mean?" Maggie rolled her eyes "You woke me up. There are plenty of people around you -everyday. You are working at a hospital"
"That's not what I'm talking about. I have people around me, but I'm alone." Meredith complained. She felt disconnected for everyone around her. "I feel alone. There's this kind of solitude you can feel even when you are surrounded by people. I feel like I'm being swallowed by it."
"Are you okay?" Maggie wondered.
"I'm fine" Meredith sighed "I'm always fine." Ever since she had seen Derek again, she couldn't stop thinking about him and all the people in Seattle. They had no clue that Ellis and Richard had procreated. They had no clue that Derek and she had. How would they react if they found out? What would Derek do?
"You should go to bed." Maggie told her "I'm really tired and I want to go to bed"

Seattle 17 months ago
"Have a seat, Dr. Shepherd. I hope you had a chance to have a look at the papers." His lawyer told him. "There hasn't been a prenup, so I just drew up a standard version with all the standard arrangements. As your ex-wife is a resident, I'm inclined to assume that she's asking for alimony payments."
"She'd rip up the papers and tell you to get lost." Derek sighed "If you serve her those papers, it's probably better to exclude it."
"So, she keeps her money, you keep yours. Everything you made while you were married is split into two. No kids, no shared assets. This is actually one of the easier divorces." He said. "Do you want to sign?"
"I guess I need to" he nodded and signed three copies. 'It's gonna be OK.' 'Kiss me. I'm not going to die. I promise.' 'Good. 'Cause that would be the worst break-up ever' Derek was sure that this right now was the worst break up ever -not dying on that table – living and never seeing her again. He moved the pen with his hand and it felt like an out of body experience. Like he wasn't the one that controlled his body. After he had signed the third copy, he looked up. "That's it?"
"Yeah, we'll send a version to your wife and ask for her signature" the lawyer nodded.
"You know where she is?" Derek wondered.
"It wasn't hard to find her, Dr. Shepherd" the lawyer said "The mailing address of her social security number is valid."

Boston present day
Four hours later, Meredith had to get up again. Her alarm went off as Ellis was resting on her breast. The fever had died down and her baby was sleeping again. She put her into her crib and hoped she'd sleep until she was ready. Being a single mum was stressful.
"A Dr. Johnson called for you" Maggie told her when she walked into the kitchen with Ellis after a long shower.
"Again?" Meredith wondered. "They should stop calling me."
"Hold on, the head of general surgery at John Hopkins has called you before?" Maggie looked at her in disbelief. "He said he wanted to tell you about the fellowship they offered you"
"I know, they called me during surgery and a resident put him on speaker" Meredith told her "Have you ever been head hunted at your workplace with everyone around you being able to hear it? It's uncomfortable."
"It's the best programme on the east coast." Maggie reminded her. "What are you eating?" Meredith covertly turned around as she was trying to hide the grilled cheese sandwich. Maggie walked over to her and grabbed the sandwich "Grilled cheese, seriously?"
"Let me have it!" Meredith insisted "I'm having a bad day"
"So this is what you do on your bad days, eat grilled cheese sandwiches and ignore calls from the best programme on this side of the coast?"
"I used to sleep with my married attending when I had a bad day" Meredith mumbled while taking a bite "I think that's a step up"
"I don't know how I can possibly respond to that" Maggie laughed. "How did you ever practice medicine at that hospital? Because if I'd do…"
"I didn't know you were dating again" Meredith looked at Maggie while she prepared a bottle for Ellis.
"I'm not" Maggie sighed "I hooked up one of the interns. In an on-call room and an exam room. Who does that?"
"The father of my child" Meredith quips back with a smile. She didn't know why she smiled. This part of her was done. It was like that part of her life had never happened. It had been a fairy-tale, but fairy tales never came true; it were the other stories that.
"Are you sure you don't want to call him?" Maggie wondered "You've talked about him a lot since the Harper Avery thing. You never talked about him before"
"I'm sure." Meredith looked at her phone "Guess, I won't have to come in for a while. Surgery got pushed. The donor wasn't dead."
"Sucks" Maggie sighed. "Well, it would have been cruel to remove the organs if he wasn't dead. I wouldn't want organs from someone who hasn't died yet"

Seattle 17 months ago
Alex hated working at Seattle Grace, but there was no way to rematch at this stage of the program. Everyone hated him for selling out Meredith even though he had done the right thing. He had done it for the wrong reasons, but it had been the right thing. But no one except a few attendings seemed to acknowledge it. He called her cell again "You've reached Dr. Meredith Grey."
Again. He sighed "Look, cut it out. It's not fair to any of us. Just tell me that you're okay and that you're safe. That's all. Just do that. I'm still sorry"
"You should stop doing that, I'm sure she's fine" Arizona told him.
"She's always fine. She always had my back -and the one time where she needed me to have hers. I didn't." Alex sighed "and now everyone here hates me"
"The patients like you -and I like you" Arizona tried to cheer him up. "That's something"
"I screwed up this bowel extraction" Alex sighed. It was a bad day.
"I know, Webber told me" Arizona nodded "But those things happen. It wasn't your fault"
"I feel like I'm alone all the time… I mean… she asked me to move out the day before she left. I did and… now she left… and everyone hates me and I've never felt so alone. It's almost like when they invited everyone to that party at Mer's house except me because they thought I was an ass and I'm right back to being that person."

Boston present day
Meredith liked to take Ellis for a walk-in Lederman Park every other day. She'd sit down on a bench and read for 15 minutes. She liked to look at the bridges and the boats. 'Seattle has ferryboats' she couldn't oppress those memories. She wanted to punch herself. She wanted to forget about him, but ever since she had seen him again, she couldn't stop thinking about him.
She had been to this park a lot when she moved to Boston as a child. It was close to the hospital and every other day, she'd go there after school and look at the ferryboats. Years had gone by and she was there again. The place hadn't changed, but she had. As a teenager, she had promised herself to never turn into her mother, but she had spent so many hours in the OR recently that she wondered whether she was all too different now. "I love you, baby" she smiled and took Ellis out of her pram. "I really do and sometimes I wish that things were different". She remembered the day George and she had looked at the babies and wished she could go back to that day, but life only moved forward. – 'The carousel never stops turning' her mother had always said. She had hated the phrase and she was self-loathing by now. How had she ended up like this? Her phone rang.
"Am I speaking to Dr. Meredith Grey?"
"Yes, hello" she nodded.
"I'd like to talk about a fellowship offer with you. I know you've told me no, but I don't settle easily." He told her "I know you've done great work on Dr. Coleman's project and you'd be perfect for our trial."
"I told you I didn't want to move in summer. Why'd you think that I changed my mind four months later?" Meredith wondered.
"Because you were still involved in the project at that stage, Dr. Grey." He smiled "Our trial is trying to look into the use of islet cells. Your mother…"
Meredith sighed "I know she thought about it, she wrote it down in one of her journals -and I think there's a reason she didn't pursue it." Meredith knew the reason well, it was Alzheimer's. Three weeks after the last islet cell entry in her journal, she had received a phone call while sightseeing in Amsterdam.
"Maybe you want to continue her legacy" he suggested.
'Maybe I already do', she thought to herself and rolled her eyes. "So you want me because I'm a Grey?"
"No" That wasn't the answer she had expected "We want you because you've worked on a number of trials. You showed great promise during the boards. You knew the answers, you knew every possible loophole, every risk, you were confident and I like that in a surgeon. Your last name only adds to the decision. I'll email you the research proposal"
"I have a child" Meredith stated.
"and we have an excellent day-care facility." He suggested "and I'm sure we can find a job for the dad too."
"I'll let you know my decision." Meredith said and hung up. Had she just been offered a job that involved a trailing spouse?

Seattle 17 months ago
"She's gone and I can't live without her"
"Your lawyer knows where she is" Mark reminded him "Plus you have to stop feeling sorry for yourself"
"I shouldn't have told her to go"
"What happened the night before she left?"
"I came home after surgery. She was in the bed room. She begged me to stay, she begged me to call in favours for her and I told her I couldn't."
"That's it?"
"We've fought for hours. -and she left before I left. But I guess she came back afterwards because the room was empty the next morning. I was going to apologize, but she had left a note"
"Apologize?"
"I was going to call post-it – and tumours on the wall -and ferry boat scrub caps" "I was going to give us another chance"
"So you're pissed because she left and you're too stubborn to fly to wherever she is and win her back with some grand gesture?"

Boston present day
Meredith walked up to Maggie in the cafeteria. "They called again" she put her tray onto the table and sat down next to her "I hate this. I basically had to beg someone the last time I was looking for a job and now they are basically begging me to work for them. I don't know what happens if I put them off much longer"
"Maybe they'll send you a fruit basket. Cleveland send me one after residency." Maggie laughed "I mean what kind of self-respecting employer sends you a fruit basket?"
They both laughed. It was one of the top programmes for cardio surgery. Cristina was working in Cleveland now. She had published a few articles and was on the way become the surgical goddess she had aspired to be. "Cristina works there" Meredith remarked. Maggie had heard a few stories about her time in Seattle now. She had been closed off in the beginning, but now Maggie felt like she knew all those people.
"I know." Maggie nodded "Does she still call your old cell?"
"I don't know" Meredith admitted "I stopped checking after Ellis was born, I hardly have the time to charge one phone, let alone two"
"Mer, I thought about it. I really think you should take the job" Maggie insisted "It's time to move on"
"So, you think I should just pull out my phone, dial the number, accept the offer and move on with my life like the crap in Seattle never happened?" Meredith looked at her.
"Yeah, just like that" Maggie nodded and took her phone.
"What are you doing?" Meredith looked at her.
"Calling John Hopkins for you" Maggie told her.
"Give me that phone" Meredith tried to get a hold of this, but Maggie hung up.
"What'd be so bad about working on the best-founded diabetes study of the country?" Maggie wondered "It'd be great -it's what you wanted to research once you finished your fellowship anyway."
Meredith nodded and hit redial on her phone. "Hey, I thought about it" Meredith said "Just send me a contract, I'm interested" She sighed as she pressed the red button on her phone to hang up.
"Is this the right decision?" she looked at Maggie.
"It is." Maggie said "You need to let go. You have to move on and… you need to have sex"
"You are still screwing that intern?" Meredith laughed. "I haven't thought about it. I haven't thought about sex since that last day. I…"
"I didn't mean to…"
"Oh, it's okay. I have this gorgeous girl" Meredith said "I don't need it, I have her and… I'm fine"
"I'll miss you" Maggie hugged her. "But maybe you'll be less alone there."
"Or maybe I'll turn into a hermit and move into the woods for 30 years"

Seattle 17 months ago

"What are you doing up here?" Mark walked up to the trailer. It should have been a peaceful scenery, but the amount of empty bottles of beer on the deck and the sight of his best friends lead him to decide otherwise. "You called in sick and by the looks of it, you robbed a liquor store" He was growing increasingly concerned. As he had driven to the house he had to cancel another date with Julia.
Derek smelled like he had not taken a shower in days. "They finalized the divorce yesterday. I thought she might call, yell at me, tell me how much she hated me for doing this, but she just signed the damn papers." Derek paused. Mark knew when to keep quiet. They looked at the moon and the stars instead.
"Even Addison put up a fight -and she knew that we weren't worth fighting for" Derek sighed "and now I'm divorced and I still haven't heard anything for Janet"
"No word?" Mark wondered. He knew that Alex and Lexie had tried to call her.
"No, I just need to be right here." Derek said "I look at the house and I… I think about the beautiful life we could have had. I can't take it"
"Have you thought about what you are going to do with the land?" Mark wondered.
"I think I'm going to sell it. I don't need it no more." Derek sighed. He had bought this land the day he had met Meredith and as hard as it felt to admit their love story was over. "I saved Beth, we got this sign from the universe and Meredith build this house of candles-and it doesn't matter because life isn't perfect… and the day we got married her friend got hit by a bus"
"Why are you sleeping in the woods?" Mark wondered "You told me you can't stand it, and you are here nevertheless."
"I just thought… it'd be over… I just thought if she signed those papers, I would stop feeling the pain. It's so much worse now because she left and I haven't heard back from Janet -and…I shouldn't have told her to leave"
"You're still in love with her."
"I hate her" "She ruined my reputation and… I hate myself because… well, I didn't want her on the trial and people insisted that she was perfect for it and I caved, I gave in… despite my better knowledge because I know that Meredith loves people. She cares about the people she loves so much, she'd do anything for them."
"You have to stop loving her, Derek."