Upstairs, Meredith started to go to Lexie's room to commiserate, but she noticed that the light was out, and she hoped that Lexie had managed to fall asleep. When Meredith got off that evening, she had made sure that Cristina was okay. She had walked into the hospital room to find Cristina on the phone, vehemently explaining to her mother that she did not, under any circumstances, have to come up to visit. After that, she and Lexie had taken her car to Lexie's apartment complex where the girl had steadfastly refused to get out.
Sitting in the parking garage, staring at her half-sister, Meredith knew that she was supposed to be supportive. To gently ease Lexie into going in and seeing that it was not that bad. Instead she had snapped something about 'oh yes, let's make the pregnant one do all the work' and gone inside herself.
Once she was inside, though, she understood why it hurt Lexie so much. In all of his movement over the past year or so, George had gotten adept at packing all of his things and leaving no trace of himself. There were still tack marks where posters had come down. It reminded Meredith of standing in another similarly stripped apartment with Cristina sobbing in a wedding dress. As she threw some of Lexie's clothes into a duffel bag, she wondered if George maybe should not have learned that lesson from Burke, even if Burke had been his idol.
In the car, after throwing the bag into the backseat she had murmured to Lexie, "It's okay. I'm an avoider too."
So, since she did not want to bother Lexie, she went to her own room lying on her side, on the bed, the babies giving her a moment of peace just when she did not need it.
She should have asked him. She knew that. That was how couples worked, wasn't it? But helping her friends was how she worked, because they would do it for her. She was confused. She wished someone could just explain to her how this relationship versus friends thing worked, but that person was normally Derek, and he was angry at her and…
"Meredith?" Derek's voice startled her, but she did not roll over. "Meredith, are you crying?"
"No," she lied. The tears had come unbidden to her eyes and she was trying to sniff them back, with little success.
The bed creaked a little as he climbed up next to her, putting his hand on her arm. "Mer, come on. Let's talk, okay? I'm sorry I yelled."
"S'okay," Meredith muttered, angrily wiping tears from her face. They were making a stain on the burgundy bedspread under her cheek, so she put her hand over it.
"No it's not. It's never okay. It happens, but it's not okay," Derek said. "I'm sorry," he added.
Meredith took a shuddering breath and pushed herself up. Derek helped her, and he sat up too, turning so that they were facing each other on the bed.
"So…" she said, nervously, fiddling with her watch. "I should have asked you. It's your house too, more yours than mind. So I should have asked."
Derek nodded. "Yeah. But it's just as much your house, Mer. And I should have been more understanding. I know you miss your friends.
"This house is so quiet," Meredith blurted out. "I mean, when you're not home. That's why I go to the townhouse… because there are people. I went from college, to living in a very busy apartment with roommates who were just as bad at keeping a job as I was, to hostels in Europe, to more roommates in med school, to Izzie and George. And I know the house will be plenty busy once these two are born," she put a hand to her stomach, "But they're not yet."
Derek nodded. "Well… the house is big. We could have them over more. When people are off. Have dinners. And then have people go home."
Meredith laughed, and then nodded. "That sounds good," she said.
"Okay. And Cristina can stay with us. You're right that she'll need help. But I don't want you wearing yourself out, got that?"
"Yeah. I know," Meredith said with a sigh. The sigh turned into a yawn, and Derek gently pulled her against him.
"How are things going with Cristina?" Derek asked gently, running his fingers through her hair.
Meredith shrugged. "I think they're okay. I mean, she's obviously dealing with some more important stuff right now, but she doesn't hate me. And we talked a little about things today. About us, and that Lexie can't replace her, but I also care about both of them. All that feeling stuff that we don't usually talk about." She looked up at him, accusatorily. "You've made me very in-tune to all the feelings crap," she informed him. "You and the two babies that have formed in my uterus definitely increase the feelings thing."
Derek chuckled, and Meredith felt the vibrations against her cheek. "I take no shame," he said, kissing the top of her head.
She smiled and inhaled the smell of his cologne on his forest green sweater. She closed her eyes and murmured, "Sometimes, I wake up and still can't believe it."
"Can't believe what?" Derek asked, running his hand up and down her arm, as she curled the fingers of her other hand around his.
"That you're here with me," she said, wonderingly. "That you're not going anywhere, and that we have a life together. We're having kids now; we have a house. I'm not the poor little ex-mistress, or the intern screwing the attending anymore. I'm yours, and we're together."
Derek did not say anything, for a minute and she looked up, nervously. To her surprise, his eyes were misty and he smiled at her. "I love you," he murmured.
"Mmm, I love you too," she murmured.
"Meredith?"
"Yeah?"
"This is weird, because I usually have a grand gesture. With flowers and everything. Or at least I did with…. With Addison. But… Meredith, once the babies are born… some time after that… will you marry me?"
Meredith's eyes went wide, and she sat up, turning to face him. "Seriously?" she asked.
He grinned. "Seriously."
Meredith leaned in and caught her lips with his, not knowing any other way to express what she was thinking. She should be confused, afraid. Old- Meredith would have been. But instead, all she felt was elation. When she finally pulled back, Derek asked cheekily, "Is that a yes?"
"I should not even have to dignify that with an answer," Meredith said, with a laugh. "I want nothing more, Derek Shepherd."
"In that case," Derek said, reaching behind him and pulling open the bedside drawer, "This is for you." He emerged with a square box. Meredith's breath caught as he opened it. "I may not have had a plan, or candles, but I did have this." Gently he took her hand and slid the ring on.
Hours later, when they were lying in bed and Derek was asleep, Meredith slid up. It did not disturb Derek when she got up anymore; she had to use the bathroom so many times a night anymore. But this time she went down the hall to the empty nursery and sat down in the rocking chair. Looking down at the ring, she opened her cell phone and pushed the speed dial for Cristina.
"I am a patient you know," Cristina answered on the first ring.
"So, I don't know how this will effect the working on not being all 'happy perky family' Meredith, but Derek and I are engaged, and I had to tell you first," Meredith said. "Lexie lives in my house right now, so I'm not positive that Derek wouldn't have said something at breakfast. So I'm telling you now."
There was a moment's silence, and Meredith closed her eyes in worry. "Congratulations," Cristina finally said.
"Thank you. Will you be my maid of honor?"
"You know I will," Cristina said.
"Good. Now get some sleep, you're a patient."
"I believe I said that." Meredith laughed and was about to hang up, when Cristina continued. "Hey Mer? I'm happy for you. Really."
"Thank you. I'll see you tomorrow. Don't drive the nurses too crazy before then."
"But it's fun."
"Yeah, I know, but you and nurses don't have the best track record." Meredith pointed out. Cristina laughed. They chatted for another minute or so, before hanging up, and Meredith looked around the nursery, her hand resting on her stomach. It was hard to believe that soon this room would be filled with life.
In the hall, she was startled to see Derek leaning against the wall, his arms folded and his hair messed up by sleep. She walked over and put her arms around him.
"How was Cristina?" he asked, leading her back to their bedroom.
She smiled and shook her head, loving that he knew her so well.
/ / / /
Meredith rarely knew what to do with days off. When they were weekends, it was okay. She and Derek did errands and things like that. But weekdays, when Derek was still working doing fantastic surgeries that she would have wanted to scrub in on, she had no idea what to do with herself.
By three in the afternoon on Wednesday, the week after Cristina got out of the hospital, she was going crazy. She had done all of the laundry, picked up the house, dusted even though they had a cleaning service that came in once a month, and made new lists of baby names. She had already learned that Cristina preferred to be left alone, unless they actually had something to talk about, which she really didn't. She also could not complain about wanting to be at the hospital to someone who would not be able to go to work for at least two weeks. She would hate that if she were Cristina.
She had spent some time in the nursery putting up the children's books that Derek's mom had sent them. She had flipped through them, looking at the pictures, but she had an idea in her head of discovering them with her children. So, she put them on the shelf and stepped back to look at the brightly colored spines, just waiting for examination by her little ones. Then she looked around the rest of the nursery and frowned in dismay, it looked fairly empty.
Derek had put together the second crib that weekend, something that had been amusing to watch, and they had a changing table and dresser along with the rocking chair, but there was little else. She remembered that some of her baby things might still be in the townhouse. She had a vague memory of a rocking horse, which she would have to get Derek to load into her car, but there might be some toys and she could at least start going through them.
She went downstairs, holding onto the railing. Her growing belly was getting to the point that it nearly caused her to over-balance. She heard someone in the kitchen, and ducked in to see Lexie putting up groceries.
"Oh, hi," Lexie said, slamming the fridge shut like she had been caught doing something wrong. "I was just thinking that I would cook tonight. I mean, I'm pretty good at it and you guys are letting me stay here so…" she trailed off.
"You can cook?" Meredith asked, somewhat surprised. Lexie nodded. "Oh. Well then sure. But Derek won't be home for a while, want to go with me to the townhouse? I'm going to go look through my old baby stuff."
"No! No, um that's okay. I'll stay here in case Dr… Cristina needs anything."
"Suit yourself," Meredith said with a shrug. "And be glad I'm not too big to drive yet. Otherwise I'd make you go."
"Noted," Lexie said. "Definitely noted."
Outside, Meredith pulled her coat tighter. It would be snowing soon, she realized. Christmas was coming. That was a weird thought.
She drove the familiar route to the townhouse and let herself in with her key. She had thought about selling the place. Izzie had brought it up several months earlier, assuring Meredith that she and Alex could find apartments, but in the end she kept it. Her mother had kept it for years when they were in Boston, and Meredith was not really ready to let it go either. She could send Derek and the kids there when they drove her crazy.
The house was empty, and eerily quiet. Meredith went straight upstairs to the attic. It was pretty well picked up and organized, even if it was just her mother's dumping ground for things she had picked up traveling over the years. Meredith had not been in there since she and her mother had moved in the boxes from their Boston house, when her mother had returned to Seattle to write her book.
Near the entrance to the attic were the boxes of things taken from Meredith's bedroom in Boston. Her records, tapes and stereo she had moved to her and Derek's study. He had said that there was a way to transfer them to the computer, but she liked to sit in there, reading medical journals with the records she had had for years turning on a turntable.
The things that had been in the attic for nearly twenty-five years were in the back, and Meredith had to carefully wade through boxes to get there. At first she was not sure that she would even make it. Eventually, though, she spotted a brown rocking horse. When they had moved to Boston, Meredith had not want to leave it, she remembered suddenly, putting a hand on the muzzle. Her mother had insisted though, that she was too old for it, and it would not fit in the moving van. She planned on letting her children play with it for as long as they waned.
Just behind the rocking horse, there were boxes marked "Meredith—Baby Things". Meredith was grateful that they weren't piled, just pushed to the side. She pulled the first away and opened it. A pile of books was inside, and she sat down, sliding against the wall, in shock. Slowly she began to pull them out, sneezing at the dust. Some of them were the same as the ones Derek's mother had sent, some weren't, but as she looked at them, she remembered. She could hear her father's voice reading them.
She put the books back, pushing the box aside to get Derek to bring down that weekend. The next box had several stuffed animals. She was surprised to see that they were in pretty good condition, dusty, but they had obviously been stored with care. The bear that she pulled out first, she remembered. Her father had gotten it for her when she got chickenpox at the age of three. The others were not as familiar, but she still smiled to see them.
The rest of the boxes had clothes, boxes and books, all immaculately stored. She wondered which of her parents had done it. It was the last box, though, that made her heart beat faster. She had never had many of her baby pictures. There was the small album that she had found in her mother's desk when she, Izzie and George had first moved in, but those were all when she was older. In Boston, there had only been school photos hung in the stairwell by well-meaning housekeepers.
But in the box, there were piles of pictures. They were obviously old, and not many of them were labeled, but they were there. Meredith pulled a pile out and began to go through them. It was obvious that her father had taken them, since many of the first pile were her mother, holding her. The first few were at Seattle Grace, she recognized the view from the window she could just see. Her mother sat in a wheelchair, wrapped in a lavender robe, a tiny baby, Meredith, asleep in her arms.
Meredith stared at the picture, looking at the smile on her mother's face. She reached out a finger and touched the face. It was a look Meredith could not remember seeing on her mother's face. She looked peaceful, happy and proud. And she was looking down at Meredith. Tears came to Meredith's eyes, and she wiped them away before they fell on the photograph. She stared at it for a long minute before she began to sift through the other photos.
She was not sure how much time had passed before she heard the slam of the front door, but when she looked around she saw that the light in the attic had gotten considerably darker. All of the boxes, it turned out, she would need Derek to lift, but she pulled out some of the pictures to take home with her. The rest she would put in albums, but these she wanted to frame.
She was standing up, when she heard footsteps on the stairs. She turned just in time to see Izzie come in.
"Mer, what are you doing here?" she said, with a small frown.
Meredith laughed. "It is my house, Iz. I'm just going through boxes. Come see what I found."
Izzie came over, and smiled at the photo on top. It was Meredith as a baby, grinning at the camera as she held herself up on all fours.
"Adorable," Izzie said.
"Yeah," Meredith said. "Hey Iz, are Alex and George here?"
"Hmm? Yeah, why?"
"I need to talk to you guys."
Meredith could have sworn that she saw Izzie flinch, but the smile was back within seconds, so she might have been wrong. "Yeah, okay. Let's go downstairs, I think they're in the kitchen."
/ / / /
Izzie had no idea what Meredith wanted to talk about, and it did not matter really. What mattered was that she and Alex and George were going to have to sit together and converse, something that had not really been happening, and Izzie did not know how that would go. Alex still could not get it through his head that she was not romantically interested in George, even though she had figured it out. George had been moody all week, and had not even talked to her, and she knew it was not her that he was thinking of. She supposed she did not really blame Alex, either, when it bore a resemblance to the last time they had been getting back together right before…before Denny, but it was not like he was blameless either.
She sat on the sofa, as Meredith rounded the boys up and herded them into the living room. George had a bowl of cereal in his hand, but had apparently been dragged off before he could get a spoon. Izzie smirked; only Meredith could get them to move like that.
"All right," Meredith said, standing in front of the three of them in the living room. "I want to know what the hell is going on with you people." She put her hands on her hips, and Izzie was amazed at how fierce she looked, even with the heft of the two babies on her small frame making her look somehow more fragile than ever. "Derek and I talked the other night, about having you guys come over more, which we definitely need to do. But I thought about it, and realized how weird you guys had been acting. I would have noticed it sooner," she added, "If not for the pregnancy thing, and the Cristina thing. Oh, and," she said, turning on George, "The Lexie thing." George flinched.
"So here's what I can figure out," she said, "You, Alex are an idiot."
Alex smirked. "Thanks, Mer. How's the hormones thing going for you?"
"Shut up!" Meredith snapped, and Izzie nearly laughed when she saw that this made Alex sit back and shut up. "Like I said, you're an idiot. Anyone who can see the way Izzie has been looking at you for the past few months has got to realize that she's not interested in anyone else, so I don't know what you're afraid of, but figure it out." She took a breath and her face softened. "Look, I know you're dark and twisty. You're like me, only with a penis, I get that. But I also know that things will be a lot better if you let yourself be happy, so seriously? This wounded, nothing goes right for me thing? Needs to stop."
Alex scowled. "Are you through?"
"With you, yeah."
Without another word Alex stormed off. Izzie half stood, wondering if she should go after him, but Meredith made eye contact with her.
"Let him go," she said. "He's got to figure things out. And you need to let him. And then you need to tell him, over and over again until it clicks in, that you're sorry if you ever made him think you don't love him. Or however it is that you feel about him. I assume you've figured that out?"
Izzie nodded, looking down at her hands, which were clasped in her lap.
"Before you yell at me," George said, and Izzie turned to see that there was a hint of a smile on his face, "Can I just point out how much you remind me of Dr. Bailey right now?"
Izzie snickered, but Meredith just raised an eyebrow.
"Will that make you listen to me?" she asked, and then continued without waiting for an answer. "I don't know what you're thinking, George. I know that you don't ever really want to hurt anybody, so that's why you're doing this. But you're hurting Lexie. She won't go into your apartment; did you know that? And maybe it's silly, but it's how she's dealing. It's how she's dealing with the fact that you don't talk about things. You just act. And I know you think you are doing it to protect her. But it would be really great if you could tell her that. I don't know how much she trusts me, but I know she trusts you. Well, trusted you, probably. But you need to talk to her. I don't know what you have to say, or any of that stuff, but you have to talk to her, mainly so she'll leave my house. I've had about all of the sisterly bonding I need for a while."
Meredith took a breath, looked between the two of them, and let her hands fall to her sides. "Okay," she said, pushing hair out of her face. "I'm done. I need to go, but before I do, we…um… need to make plans for the holidays, or whatever. Derek wants to do them at our place so… yeah." She smiled for a second, and then she was gone, the door closing behind her.
George and Izzie looked at each other. "You know," Izzie said, thoughtfully. "I think Meredith is the happiest she has been in a long time."
George stared at her. "Izzie, she just came in here to yell at us."
"Exactly. It takes a lot of happy for Meredith Grey to realize that the other people in the world have problems, and more than that, that she can tell them how to fix them."
George shook his head. "Maybe," he said. "But I can't remember a time when Meredith refused to help when she saw someone needed it. So maybe it's some of both."
Izzie paused to think about that, sitting back against the couch, and she was about to say something else, when she heard Alex coming down the stairs.
"Want to go get a drink?" he asked, just barely turning towards her.
"Me?" she asked, unsure. He was out the door without responding, but George looked from her to the door encouragingly, and Izzie jumped up, barely pausing to grab her jacket before running after Alex.
A/N First off, that was an onslaught of Author Alert adds. Also, in the reviews for the last chapter, it was really interesting to see your reactions. Some sided with Meredith, some with Derek and I thought that was interesting.
Also, one or two of you thought Lexie was being shoved onto Meredith. Maybe so, but Lexie's pretty alone at the moment, and she turned to the only person she could. And I like her. :) Still, interesting. I love that about Grey's; everyone sees it differently and yet adores it.