"Can't you see I'm busy here? I have a patient." Dr. Grey placed a stethoscope over the man's chest to listen to his breathing. She looked at the man. "Do you feel flushed? Any heart palpitations?"
"Uh..." The patient glanced nervously between the nurse and Dr. Grey.
Olivia saw security approaching with who she presumed to be was the ER director. Not wanting to disrupt things further and cause a scene, she raised a hand as if to say 'got this' and carefully approached Dr. Grey. "Doctor?"
"I told you-"
"I understand." Olivia discreetly showed her badge. She pulled Ellis to the side. "Listen, that man is a suspect in the shooting, and if he's not in serious condition, the police would like to question him, is that alright?"
Ellis glared at the nurse, "As long as they get his ultrasound."
"Of course." Olivia nodded to the nurse, who huffed and went to get the equipment. "Now, Dr. Grey, don't you have a surgery you had to get to? You were in such a hurry this morning..."
"Right- thank you for reminding me. A Cholecystectomy. Or was it a colon resection? I can't remember. I had it written down here..." She reached into the pockets of her lab coat and came up empty. "Oh, where are my notes?" She checked her shirt pocket, and spun around frantically. "I..."
Olivia could see the evident panic in the woman, "I think I saw them over here," she said, guiding Ellis down the hall to a staffroom.
"Oh good."
They entered the room and Olivia closed the door. Ellis peered into the room and stopped. Confusion colored her face,"What am I doing here? What's happening?"
"Dr. Grey..." Olivia said softly. "Do you know where you are?"
"I..." She swallowed, and her face turned a shade paler. "I need to go home... I need to go home."
"Ellis, I'm a detective. Your maid called me this morning and reported you missing. She was worried because of your Alzheimer's. I can't take you home just yet, I need to take you to the station until your daughter gets here."
"I knew I couldn't trust that maid, but Meredith insisted," Ellis sat down, it was clear that the recent events had drained her.
Olivia sat beside her, "It's a good thing she did... with all the chaos going on it's a good thing I was sent to find you."
"The shooting."
"Yes."
"I don't know what came over me this morning. I've already resigned from performing surgery... but today-"
"You were moving and you got confused."
"You don't know what it's like- to have decades of knowledge and experience ingrained in you as surely as the abc's or the multiplication tables, but the instant you need to recall it?" Ellis shook her head. "I have lists and journals and calendars marking appointments and medications and things I am supposed to do- but my mind forgets to even look at it. I can tell you in minute detail the steps to a very complicated surgery... but I can't even tell you how I got here today."
The detective sighed deeply, "I'm sorry..." she said sincerely.
"There is nothing to be sorry for," Ellis said. "Well, I suppose I will have to go with you."
xxx
"Hello?" Meredith called into the brownstone. "Margarita? Mom?" She plopped her bag by the door and took a few more hesitant steps in. What was going on? The moving truck was still outside the door, there was boxes everywhere still... she thought most of this would be done already.
"Oh Senorita! I am so glad you are here... did you get my message?" Margarita, the maid slash caregiver scurried into Meredith's view
"Uh... message?" Meredith reached into her coat pocket for her cellphone. She hadn't bothered to turn it on yet.
"Dr. Grey- she ran away this morning... out of the house- I couldn't stop her- she yelled at me and said she had a surgery to get to."
"What?"
"I called the police. You need to call them," Margarita handed her the business card.
Meredith stared at the card in shock. Of course this had to happen to her. They were supposed to pack and clean, and put the brownstone up for sale. Ellis would move permanently to Boston and Meredith could continue her studies at Dartmouth. That was the plan. That was the plan, but her mother had Alzheimers... and now nothing ever went according to plan when it involved her mother.
She turned her phone on and dialed. It rang twice before someone picked up, "Benson," The woman said.
"Hi, um this is Meredith Grey... I was told to call you, my mother went missing this morning?"
There was a short pause on the other end, and then Benson spoke, "Your mother is fine, we found her. But we need you to come down to the station."
"Oh."
"I'll text you the address."
Meredith clapped the phone shut and sighed. Was she in trouble? She couldn't get in trouble for this right?
xxx
Meredith navigated through the crowded police station to the SVU squadroom. She was surprised at the casual office feel it had. Nervously she scanned the area, unsure of what to do.
"Can I help you?" A middle aged man with thinning brown hair and a suit jacket asked.
"Um, I'm here for my mother, Ellis Grey? I was told she was here?"
"Oh... that's with Liv. This way," The man smiled slightly, "Don't worry, you're mom's in good hands... Liv's one of the best." She followed the man to a room that had the blinds pulled closed. He knocked on the door and opened it a crack speaking to the person inside. "Just wait here. Detective Benson will be right out to talk to you."
Meredith stood there, waiting. Finally the door opened and detective Benson exited. When she closed the door behind her, Meredith tried to look behind her, "Is my mom in there?"
"Yes, she's fine. But I want to talk to you first." She led her to a table and chair. "Do you remember me?"
Meredith huffed, how would she remember a cop from New York? Unless... she blinked. She might have been quite drunk, but saving someone's life and getting yelled at by her mother all in one night isn't something one forgets. "Oh, it's you," She said quietly.
Olivia looked different than Meredith remembered. Her hair was shorter, and she looked a little more polished than the patrol cop that gave her a ride four years ago. But there was something else in her gaze. It was harder, defiant.
"How are you?" Olivia asked.
"Fine, I'm fine..." She wasn't going to big-sister her again was she? Meredith picked at her fingernails.
"Ellis said you're going to med school."
"Yeah, Dartmouth."
"So you are going to be a doctor."
Meredith offered the tiniest smile, "Yeah." She looked up at Olivia remembering a particular car ride to the airport, a particular confession. "How's your mom?"
Olivia's gaze darkened, she shook her head, "She uh, she died."
Meredith's jaw dropped and her mouth formed a small 'o'. "That's awful. I'm sorry."
"Thanks," Olivia said. "Listen, before I let Ellis go... I need to make sure that she's going to be taken care of."
Meredith jerked, almost like she'd been slapped. "You think I don't know how to take care of my own mother? You think I'm incompetent? Believe me, I know how to take care of my mother alright?"
"Then what is she doing here in New York, by herself? I found her in a hospital, hovering over a patient! What if she did something and was wrong? What then?"
"It's... I just-" Meredith stammered, her mouth opened and closed as she tried to think. "She's freakin' Ellis Grey! She does what she wants! I'm trying, I'm trying-"
"Try harder!"
Meredith flinched. She swallowed a lump and denied the tearful sob that was threatening to erupt. Instead she brought up her walls again. She didn't care anymore, that this cop knew her... that she had been involved in some dark secret of Olivia's life. Olivia didn't know her and she didn't have any right to twist the knife of guilt any further. "Try harder? What about your mother? Did you try harder with her? Huh? Did you come home and find her dead on the floor because she choked on her own vomit?" Meredith bit down hard on her lip, stopping herself from saying any more. Olivia looked stricken and Meredith knew she'd hit a nerve.
The two women broke eye contact, and Meredith drew her arms around herself, "I'm trying," She said, "she's got a nurse, in Boston. But my Mother hasn't really accepted her disease yet, so... she doesn't always take her medication. Most days she's okay, but we have to take care of this stupid brownstone and she insisted on coming over and taking care of it herself," She rubbed the bridge of her nose, "She took off. I had exams, and I couldn't get here until now..."
"Okay..." Olivia said softly. She reached out to comfort Meredith but dropped her arm when Meredith didn't lean toward it. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-"
"I know." Meredith could sense that Olivia's insistence was really about her own guilt over her mother's death, so she batted her angry thoughts away.
"She's asking for you, C'mon." Olivia opened the door.
Meredith stared at her mother. She hadn't seen her like this since she'd come back home from Europe. The usual strong, proud Ellis Grey sat hunched in her chair, a crumpled paper cup in her palms mirroring her own defeated posture. "Mommy?" Meredith asked.
Ellis' eyes flooded with relief, "Oh Meredith! Thank God you're here! I don't know what happened... I just- I need to go home Meredith. Take me home." Uncharacteristically, Ellis leaned into Meredith's side, accepting her embrace.
"Okay mom, let's go home."
"I just need you to sign some paperwork, Meredith." Olivia said.
"Sure... Mom, I'll be right back."
xxx
Olivia pointed in front of the line she needed Meredith to sign, and Meredith signed in a quick slanted scrawl. For a moment, Olivia observed the young woman. She was still the rebel, still defiant- but more grounded now. Her mother's illness grounded her and reality was all too real. She marveled at the irony of it all.
"She's all I have okay? She's all I've got." Meredith had told her four years ago... and now Meredith was all Ellis had.
"Olivia?"
She blinked and looked up at Meredith."Yes?"
"I shouldn't have said that... about your mother, I mean. I'm sorry."
Olivia nodded and patted Meredith's hand. "I know. You're doing your best."
"I'm scared."
Olivia looked at her in surprise, "Why?"
"One day... she's not going to recognize me. I'm scared for that day. I mean I shouldn't be right? I spent my whole life being second, being ignored and pushed away, and I learned to deal with it. I learned to just take whatever attention I could get- but one day, I'm gonna come home to visit her and..." Meredith's voice cracked and she looked away, "She won't recognize me. She won't know who I am... and if I ever accomplish anything- she'll never know, or I'll tell her and she won't remember."
Compassion filled Olivia. She didn't want to be in Meredith's shoes. In a twisted way, she thought about her own mother. What would it be like if her mother didn't recognize her? She actually wondered if it would be better... she would learn so much more about Serena. She wouldn't be that crushing reminder of pain and violence. She could be Olivia, and her mother would be Serena, and maybe they could actually enjoy each others company for once.
The detective looked back at Meredith, "Listen, if it helps... the whole time she was in the interview room with me, she talked about you. She asked for you. She told me she couldn't believe you were going to med school, but she was glad it was Dartmouth, because at least you had a chance. She was glad you were at least striving for something."
"She said that?"
Olivia nodded, "Yeah. I think... I think she's as scared as you are. That she'll forget you and she doesn't even know who you'll become."
Meredith nodded, "I never thought about it that way."
Now finished with the paperwork, Olivia guided Meredith back to the interview room. She opened the door, "Okay, you're free to go now."
"Finally." Ellis said. The broken look she held only moments before was gone, and she was the proud stubborn woman that Olivia first met. "Come Meredith, we have a lot to do. We don't have time to dawdle."
"I'll walk you out," Olivia offered as she followed them down the stairs. When they got to the bottom, Meredith stopped, and held her hand out at her side to stop Olivia.
She met Meredith's searching grey eyes."Olivia? This is going to sound stupid... don't take this the wrong way, but," Meredith sighed. "I can tell you're one of the best, or you will be... and it's crap what happened to your mom, and what she did to you, but don't turn into my mother... have a life. Have friends, because... well we all need someone don't we?"
"Meredith!" Ellis called.
Meredith whirled around at her mother's call and disappeared into the crowd.
That evening, Olivia was gathering things from her locker when she heard footsteps behind her. She turned to see Captain Cragen behind her, leaning against a desk. "How'd it go?" He asked.
"Fine," Olivia smiled.
"Good." He said, but he remained there, watching her.
"Do you think I can do it?" She was hoping the Captain could read her mind. That she wouldn't have to spell it out.
"Do what?"
"Forgive my mother?" There was still bitterness there, her mother's resentment for her very existance caused her so much pain.
"Can you forgive yourself?"
The question flipped her on herself. She hadn't really thought of it before, "I..."
"For what it's worth, Liv, you're a good cop. You have good instincts, you have drive, you know how far you can go to get the answers you need. But this job gets to people... and forgiveness is the only way out."
She walked past her Captain, lost in thought. Could she love herself enough to let this go? She hoped one day she could.
We all need someone don't we?
