Four months past from the day that Meredith had found out from a television that her brother had been kidnapped by terrorist in Afghanistan. In that time she passed her first-year exams, as did Izzie, Christina and Alex. They all moved forward with their surgical program and became residents. George had unfortunately failed his exam and would be held behind for another year as an intern. Being upgraded to residents wasn't exactly what they all had hoped for since now they were each responsible for their own batch of lowly interns. One of these interns of course being O'Malley. Another was Thatcher and Susan's youngest daughter, and Meredith's half-sister, Lexi Grey.

"I hate them." Christina groaned as she sat down on a bed in random hallway. Alex, Izzie and Meredeth were all already there. They'd agreed to meet up to talk over lunch about how the interns were doing on their first day.

"You don't hate them." Meredith disagreed. She leaned her head back against the wall. "You hate you."

"This is horrible." Izzie huffed. "I think I'm a bad teacher."

"I have George as one of my interns." Mer frowned. They'd known once they found out that George had failed that he would most likely be assigned to one of them. Meredith had apparently drawn the short straw in that lottery. "The closest he's gotten to surgery all day was he delivered a baby in the O.R. I feel bad for him."

"I'm doing great with my interns. I'm rocking it." Alex nodded, proud of himself and completely uncaring of everyone else's bad mood.

"Why is everyone so tingly and hurt?" Christina huffed, ignoring that Alex seemed quite pleased with himself. "I mean I'm the one who was left at the altar."

"Yeah, and you took Meredith on your honeymoon to Hawaii without me!" Izzie complained.

"Girl on girl Honeymoon!" Alex winked.

"I'm fine by the way." Christina again ignored Alex. "I haven't even seen Burke today."

"Wait." Izzie looked at her friend with concern. "You haven't seen or talked to him since the wedding and you're just fine? You're either incredibly healthy or completely messed up." Christina failed to comment as all four doctor's pagers went off in that exact moment.

George O'Malley stood in the middle of the maternity ward staring through the window at all of the newborn babies who had just been brought into this world. He supposed he was just like them wriggling and fumbling around trying to figure out his place in this hospital. He still had time. He reminded himself.

He still had time to make this right. He had time to pass the exam when he took it again in a few months and he had time to be a better doctor than he was last year. Lexi Grey was walking down the hall. She stopped when she saw George staring at the babies. She came over and stood beside them.

"It's like a cute festival in here." Lexi smiled.

"I delivered that one, an hour ago." He pointed on the glass to a baby boy that he had delivered in an operating room while the baby's mother was having her arm surgically reattached. He decided to spare Lexi the gory details.

"Oh my god!" Lexi exclaimed with pride. "Why...why aren't you jumping up and down?"

"I've done this before!" George couldn't help but snap. "This is Déjà vu for me."

"George, you didn't pass your intern test. You know, it, it happens." Lexi said, trying to make him feel better. She'd never been very good at comforting other people. That was what her big sister Molly was best at. Lexi thought and she tried to say what she imagined Molly would if she were here. "It's, it's nobody's fault. Right?"

"Yeah." George sighed, but he still sounded bitter. "Yeah it's nobody's fault. It's just that Callie, my wife, gave Christina the study cards and Meredith didn't write anything down, and Christina was planning a wedding and Izzie! Izzie just had to...You know, I'm responsible. I've always been the responsible one. I'm not saying What about me? I'm not saying, When do I get what I want? When do I get to be someone other than the guy who repeats his year? I'm not saying that. But..."

"But what about you." Lexi nodded with understanding. "I didn't plan on being here." She admitted for the first time. "I was all set up for an internship at Mass Gen. And then my mother gets the hiccups and I'm at a funeral. You know we all have problems. Moms die, and Dads drink so much that they don't even know what year they're in and sisters? I...I didn't even know that there was Meredith Grey until a couple months ago. And she doesn't even want to talk to me."

"You mean when her brother went missing?" George asked. "That was how you found out you had another sister?"

"Yeah." Lexi huffed. "I saw her picture on TV. And they read a prepared statement saying she was letting the government handle the search for that billionaire guy that when missing. I guess he's her stepbrother. And she looked so much like me and my sister, Molly." Lexi shook her head. "One of the last things my mom said to be before she died was that she hoped Meredith and I could get to know each other. I don't want to be here. You know? I'd give anything to not be here. To have my life work out the way I planned, and to even have time to ask, What about me? So, you...you change. You get over it. I'm here now. So...and you? You delivered a baby today! So stop feeling sorry for yourself."

"You," George chuckled. "Are kind of awesome."

"I know." Lexie said, giving him a small smile.

Meredith, having a few free moments decided to head to the maternity ward and check on the baby that George had delivered. The baby's mother was a single parent and still asleep following her surgery. Meredith wanted to check on the baby so that his mother could have good news when she woke up, but when Meredith turned the corner and saw George talking with Lexi she stopped. She had intended to turn around and come back later. But then she'd heard Lexi say her name so she stopped, and she listened.

She heard what Lexi said about promising Susan that she would get to know Meredith better. She'd also heard what she'd said about not wanting to be there. Meredith knew that if their situations were reversed, she wouldn't be at Seattle Grace Hospital. She would have taken that internship at Mass General, and she would have stayed far away from the sister who didn't want her. Because she was Meredith Grey and running away was what she did. You did that already. She reminded herself as she walked away. She could check on the Baby later.

She'd had all the chances over the years to make things up with Tony. Instead she went to medical school, like her mother. She became a surgeon, like her mother. She pushed away the people who mattered most to her, just like her mother. And for good measure, she moved to Seattle to put physical distance between her brother and his New York based company. At least in Seattle people knew her as Ellis Grey's daughter and not Tony Stark's sister. She'd been a decent daughter, but she'd never been much of a sister.

"Meredith!" Christina came sprinting up the stairs that Meredith had been going down.

"Christina? What's the matter? What's wrong." Meredith was expecting her friend to tell her that something was wrong with her patient, since the surgeon looked absolutely frantic.

"Pepper just called." Christina huffed. "They've found him."