There was a surprise at work - Izzie was too busy chatting with Alex to give her death-stares. Alex had done nothing specifically horrible to Meredith, but he teased George and just spouted innuendo and made crude jokes and she did not have a high opinion of him. She thought Izzie, with her high moral standards and sweet childish fairy-goodness, would never see eye-to-eye with Alex.

They were walking to find Bailey for rounds and Alex said, chirpier than she had ever seen him before, 'Hey Grey! Izzie told me there are some of your mom's old surgery tapes in boxes at your house. I'd love to see them sometime.'

'You can come over and we can watch them together sometime,' Izzie offered. 'I'm sure Meredith is too busy with her family to watch them!'

'You've been going through my boxes?' Meredith said. She wasn't actually angry about the boxes but she was angry with Izzie and rooting through her stuff seemed like a good excuse to get mad. Suddenly her stomach tightened. Some of those boxes had photo albums. They were albums Derek had made over the years. There were ones of her when she was pregnant, her was when she was getting married, her breastfeeding. She squirmed. 'Do not go through my stuff please!'

There was a patient, who blushed uncontrollably and when somebody mentioned Dr Shepherd she turned neon red. Meredith tried to stay nonchalant. Sometimes she wanted to force Derek into wearing an enormous ring with a diamond on it. Either that or she could make him wear sweat pants with her name written across the ass in sequins. Whichever got the message across.

She was pondering it, getting a candy bar from the vending machine, listening to Izzie bicker lovingly with Alex when she heard news of a new patient coming in. And then as the others began to run, to snatch the chart, to swallow up details, she heard familiar screams. It was her mother.

The thoughts that ran through her head were incoherent and she was unable to do anything but stand with her feet rooted to the ground and watch as they wheeled her mother in. Everything seemed to go slowly. An image flashed through her head of her mother in those tapes Alex had mentioned.

Ellis Grey had been perfect in those tapes, poised and clinical and flawless.

Ellis was now without dignity, flailing on the bed, screaming at interns and it was hard to imagine her any other way. Meredith tried to remember Ellis standing tall with a neat haircut, wearing a smart business suit. The image of her wearing a hospital gown now, stuck on the gurney, eclipsed it.

The only thing she could think of to do was hide. She felt a horrible crushing feeling in her stomach. Where could she run to? She went to Derek's office and lay on the couch, tried to remain perfectly still. If she didn't think about it, she could go outside and her mother wouldn't be there. She lay for maybe five minutes before there came a knock on the door. It was Bailey.

'I saw you come in here,' she said. She glanced around the shabby office. 'Are you able to work today Dr Grey?'

'Yes. I'm fine.' If she said it enough times maybe it would come true.

'If you need the day off, I would understand,' Bailey continued.

'I'm fine. I don't want to spend time with my mother.'

'Okay. You're on scut.'

'What?' her face creased and she pulled herself up to a sitting position on the couch. 'Why? I can work.'

'Yes. Scut. You can catch up on charting, run samples to the lab-'

The door opened and Addison appeared. She didn't seem to register that Bailey was in the room because she started talking immediately, saying, 'Meredith are you okay? The blonde doctor told me what happened and I figured you'd be here…'

'I'm fine I'm going back to work…on scut,' she sighed.

'Look you're fine to work but I have to anticipate a certain level of distraction from you today Grey, even in the face of all that 'fine'…so scut, now!'

Meredith sighed and scurried off. Addison and Bailey stood in silence for a second.

'Are you Dr Bailey?' Addison asked.

'Yes. Do you know my intern or something?'

'Yes we uh, knew each other in New York.'

There was more silence.

'Isn't this Dr Shepherd's office? It's awfully small,' Bailey commented. 'When I'm an attending, mine will be twice as big,' she muttered before walking off.

Meredith stood outside Ellis's room. George was meant to be on her case and he was struggling. Failing. She waved him over. 'Are you…are you okay Meredith?' he asked, his doughy little face strained with worry.

'I'm fine.' There it was, that word again.

'Meredith, who's Thatch?' George asked.

'He's my dad, Thatcher. Is she talking about him?'

'Yeah. Uh, do I look like him or something?'

She scrutinised his face for a second.

'Maybe. I've only seen pictures. I moved to New York with my mother when I was five and I haven't seen him since.' What is up with me? She berated herself internally. All her carefully kept secrets were suddenly out and everybody knew everything. She had felt it the past day. It was like all the things she had cleaned up in boxes, stored away in different parts of her mind, were unraveling and mixing and running wild.

She found Derek and they sat behind his desk. She slumped into his chest and let her head roll back. She was so tired. She had been forced to talk to Izzie and Christina. Christina was alright. She was awkward and busy with her own worries but she was the right kind of friend for Meredith. Izzie was apologising repeatedly and not doing any good and her brief minute of contact made Meredith want to drop down with exhaustion.

They sat for as long as they could. They hadn't talked properly, like a married couple, just talked for the sake of talking, in a long time. Meredith didn't want to dwell on her mother and the guilty embarrassment that went along with her. They talked about Michael and Andrew. Derek brought up the possibility of a third child and she clamped her hand over his mouth.

'Don't even joke Derek,' she warned. 'I am not having a baby again until I am at least an attending. Count yourself lucky you squeezed two in before my internship.'

So then they talked about Meredith's future, what she wanted to specialise in. She didn't want to work with hearts or brains or bones or children or old people. She thought sometimes she would like to be an ob/gyn but it seemed like a sell out option. Christina didn't even regard them as doctors.