Hello people! I am so sorry! I am ashamed for not having updated the story for this long. I am ok, nothing bad has happened to me, I am back to my country and my work life has just been a little hectic these past months. I am so sorry for having done this to you! I hope you are good as well!
I hope you enjoy this chapter and I will try my hardest to get back on track! Thank you guys!
Meredith had planned to stop by her daughter's clinic before going to the hospital. She also needed to drop off Jackson at their parent's home for him to change clothes, but before that Michael needed to be taken to school, she successfully avoided her half sister teacher as to her happiness the hospital had called her once she had parked the car in the parking lot, so Jackson took on the role of getting her child to his classroom safely and on time, as well as checking with Molly Grey Thompson if everything was going fine.
"So everything is Okay?" Jackson asked as he came back and entered the car.
"Yes, they just wanted to know if they should re direct an emergency surgery to another doctor or if I would be available. It wasn't a patient of mine and dad is working, so I passed the surgery to him."
"What kind of surgery was it?"
"Nothing fancy. An acute appendicitis. You won't miss much either." "I would watch it if I was there, I will try to get in the case if I hurry to get back into the hospital. Still it's pretty weird seeing Meredith Grey passing over surgeries like that." Jackson said mocking her. "Well, I try to put my kids in first place and this morning I am going to see Mattie. Decorate her room with some pictures and some toys. My life stopped being only concentrated in a hospital after a little egg called my uterus its home." "The miracle of life…" "You will know it when you become a father." Meredith said with a smile. "We'll see about that… I bought some pink lilies yesterday and a nice vase to put them on water, you will like them, Mike assured me of it. Maggie bought some balloons with a Hello Kittie on them." "Thank you Jackson, you are a great brother and uncle! I am lucky for having such a tight united family."
"Well, you are in fact really lucky but we are too!"
"I agree with that. So what did you think of Michael's teacher?" Meredith asked hesitantly.
"Mrs. Thompson seems a little too young, but really understanding and supportive of the kids. Michael seems to like her and she is really warm with him." Jackson told his sister. "Do you think something is off with her?"
"She seems fine! Well, do you know that she is the sister of one of the interns?" Meredith informed Jackson casually.
"Really? Which one?" Jackson asked curiously.
"Alexandra Grey! She told Derek and I about it after she found out we both worked at Seattle Grace."
"I didn't know that, they don't even look alike! Well, I like Lexie, she seems like a nice girl!"
"A nice girl? Just wait until her claws and pointy teeth will come out after the surgery Battle Royale starts happening. Now you all are trying just to mingle with the others, but in the end this is a competition and you all want the exact same thing."
"Claws and pointy teeth? What do you have against the girl? Interns can become friends too." Jackson asked. "Or more than that!"
"So you are thinking about going to bed with her?" Meredith inquired directly.
"That is a very direct question to ask, Meredith! You never cared about any one of my girlfriends before, why do you care now?"
"I don't care about it! Do whatever you wish to do!" Meredith finally said.
"I sure will! Gosh, this pending issue with Martin here in Seattle is making you really weird!"
"This is not about Martin!" This is about my two unknown half sisters that I wasn't aware of and who are very present in my life right now, Meredith wished to say but the words were never spoken.
"It so is, well my advice is for you to not overthink it, it will be over soon if you do what you are supposed to and please don't take your anger out on innocent interns."
"I will keep that in mind!" Meredith said ironically. "Now go, I still have some stuff to do before my shift."
"I will see you at the hospital then sis!" Jackson said as Meredith pulled over to her parents parking lot and waited for her brother to leave the car.
As she was preparing to continue her drive to Mattie's clinic, her cell phone started vibrating, thinking it was Martin was the first thought that went through her head but to her surprise it was no other than her mother.
"Hello mom!" Meredith said.
"Well it's actually dad! Hi darling! Your mother forgot her cell phone in my office," From the other end of the phone call came the masculine voice of Richard Webber. "Are you coming to the hospital soon?"
"Hi dad, I still have to go visit Mattie. Is something going on?"
"Meredith, could you please come and do an emergency surgery yourself? We are short staffed on general surgeons, I need you to take over the acute appendicitis."
"Can't either you or mom do it instead? I really have to see my daughter!"
"Your mother just went to Mercy West to collect a liver from a brain-dead to bring to her patient! She will only return on the afternoon!"
"Is it a VIP patient? A regular patient wouldn't be enough to make Dr. Ellis Webber leave her throne at Seattle Grace!" Meredith stated. "Is it Obama? Or Brad Pitt?"
"Neither one of those! And it's no one special! Just please come to the hospital as soon as possible!"
"Well, what about you?" Meredith felt like there was something she wasn't being told, Richard never stammered and right now he was uncoordinatedly speaking, he was clearly nervous.
"I am not feeling my best right now! Do it please for me, I will cover your rounds from next week, you will get the time to visit Mattie in the afternoon."
"I have pending matters to resolve in the afternoon! Dad, please tell me what is the issue and then I will make my decision!" Meredith stated determined.
"Look, enough of this, I am the authority here!" Richard argued upset.
"You are not my father in the hospital!"Meredith said not giving up.
"But still I am the boss. Go do the surgery Dr. Grey! I am the interim chief while your mother is out of the hospital. Get right here and go perform this emergency surgery."
"Look I will go! But I am not blind to not see that something is really off regarding this!" Meredith gave up and soon started making his way to the hospital.
After finally arriving at Seattle Grace and getting off the car, Meredith approached the hospital entrance exhausted, Michael had slept calmly after coming to her room last night, she just couldn't fall asleep again. She was really looking forward to having a free morning to visit her daughter calmly, without being bugged by the constant worry that Michael needed to have dinner and go to sleep early or that she needed to get back to the hospital, she also needed to think of everything that had happened to her life in the last few days.
Additionally there was a discomfort on her body for feeling unsatisfied from the dream of the previous night, she just hoped she wouldn't come across with her main sleep disturber at work too. It seemed like the odds weren't on her favor though, from the corner her knight in a white lab coat appeared.
"Good morning Meredith!" Derek greeted as both entered the elevator. That was so bad being in such a small place with Derek, she felt her hormones jumping up and down, she felt herself sweating and incredibly nervous. "So did everything go smoothly with Mike's trip to school this morning?"
"What? Why wouldn't everything be ok?" Meredith asked nervously.
"I don't know! You seem weird… Are you sure that you are feeling fine?" Derek asked as he went to put his hand on her forehead. "Your cheeks are so rosy, it looks as if you have a fever."
Meredith let herself appreciate Derek's touch, closing her eyes while he touched her and pushed her hair behind her ears.
"You are hot, but thankfully not because of a fever. It's just a natural trait of yours." Derek joked flirtingly and charming as always, this wasn't helping Meredith right now."So what about this morning?"
"What?" Meredith asked startled.
"Our son Michael, how was the morning trip to school? What is going on?" Derek repeated looking at her in a suspicious way.
"Michael is fine, he was actually excited this morning."
"Good. So what are the plans for after school?" Derek asked.
"My mother might pick him up and take him to her home." Meredith informed him. "If you are ok with it! Obviously."
"My day is impossible today, back to back surgeries but I really wanted to be with Mike today."
"He really wanted to be with you today as well! What time do you finish work?" Meredith asked.
"My shift will only end at 8pm… I will probably be out of it to take Michael to get dinner out though."
"Well, come and eat dinner tonight with us at my home." Meredith suggested impulsively, remembering Michael's words of him missing his father.
"I'd really like that a lot!" Derek said, smiling to Meredith. "I will bring the food."
"I won't really say no to that!" Then Meredith asked. "Do you know what's going on with my dad?"
"Is something supposed to be happening?" Derek asked.
"I don't know, it seemed like something was off."
"I honestly have no idea!" The elevator finally stopped and they both left, as they got close to the Nurse's station, they noticed Richard hurriedly walking to the Nurse's desk and handing a chart to one of the nurses, then leaving. Meredith saw the nurse depositing the patient's file close to all the others from the other patients.
"Maybe it just a bad case he is in…" Derek suggested, his pager started beeping loudly and he left. "I have to go, we will talk about this night's plans over lunch if you don't mind."
"Seems good to me!" Meredith said as Derek left already in a fast pace to attend to the emergency.
That's when Meredith realized that she had her own emergency surgery to attend as well, but before leaving to get changed to her scrubs, she picked up the chart that her father had left in the nurse's station.
At the attending's locker room, she was just finishing getting changed when her brother in law came inside.
"Morning Mer!" Alex Karev greeted her, he sat down in a chair next to a table nearby and started reading a magazine.
"Hi Alex! Slow day?"
"Definitely not a busy one!" Alex answered, with his eyes not leaving the magazine.
"How about you do me a favor?" Meredith thought quite quickly as she glimpsed the unopened and yet undiscovered medical chart of her father's patient.
"What do I gain for doing it?" Alex asked, without first asking what she was referring to.
"Next Maggie's fertile cycle, I will ensure both your shifts and hers are covered so that you can be 100% focused in baby making." Meredith proposed. "You will have enough time to put a baby inside my sister."
As soon as Meredith was saying this, her little brother Jackson came inside the attending's lounge overhearing the end of Meredith's sentence.
"I am not really sure I want to know what you are discussing. I have blocked it from getting registered by my brain." Jackson said to both Alex and Meredith.
"What's up Jackson?" Alex asked quickly, not wanting people to know that they were having difficulties conceiving.
"Mer, Dr. Bailey wants to know if she can schedule the appendectomy in 1 hour in OR 2. Are you good with that?" Jackson asked, he came back to the hospital quickly after she had dropped him at home, he managed to be the intern assisting on the case.
"Alex will take it over, I am not available to do it." Meredith looked to Alex, and with her pleading eyes let him know that was the favor she was asking him, even though he was a Pediatrics Surgeon, he would often perform General Surgeries.
"Ok, I will do it. Jackson, go tell your resident to book the OR and to meet me in my office to discuss the case in 15 minutes" Alex ordered. "Hand me over the patient's chart as well."
Jackson left the lounge and Alex went on the same way, before leaving the room he told Meredith.
"It will be next week by the way, mark it in your calendar, on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday all I want to see is Maggie's naked body." Alex said.
"All I can get you is the free time, you are the one responsible for the rest." Meredith said winking. "Ohhh, and don't forget your fertility magazine, it has all the hottest tricks."
Alex came back to the table to pick up the magazine quietly.
"C'mon there is no shame in reading about the topic." Meredith said after noticing how Alex face dropped down, something very unusual for Alex. "You know you can talk to me if you need. I have been gone for some time, but we used to be best friends Alex. Before you and my sister and me and Derek, we were inseparable."
"You don't know how hell this has been, you got knocked up with Matilda by accident, you got Mike unplanned as well. Your kids all have been given to you in a silver plate. You didn't have to go through sessions of scheduled sex, the disappointment of failing to conceive after every month, of fertility shots and doctor's appointments. And magazines and unproven tricks that will help you creating a life into your family. It's been hard on me and Maggie."
"I know I didn't go through that but you can talk to me nonetheless. Alex, this is just a phase, you are a doctor, you know how long it can take. Don't let your marriage fall apart because of this."
"I love Maggie, I love Maggie so much! I really want to give this to her."
"I know you do, you will get your baby soon." Meredith said and Alex nodded.
"Yes, I know." Alex said and left.
Meredith hadn't realized before how Alex and probably Maggie were suffering to conceive a child, truthfully she had been quite absorbed by her own problems that she forgot to look at everything else around her. She would talk to her sister concerning the matter as soon as she had the opportunity.
As she was captured in her thoughts, she remembered that she still hadn't checked on the case that her father was attending to. When she started to open the first page, her cell phone started ringing, announced in its screen was the name of her still boyfriend.
"Hello!" Meredith simply said.
"Hi Meredith" After a short pause, Martin continued. "I was nearby so I thought maybe I could meet you up at the hospital."
"I have just come in, now it is not a good time."
"How about for lunch?" Michael suggested. "We really need to talk."
Meredith remembered promising Derek that they would discuss the end of the day's plans over lunch, besides having Martin come over to the hospital was not something she wanted.
"Look, let's meet up in the café next to the hospital at 17h. Is that ok for you?" Meredith suggested.
"Well, I don't really think there is another option in the table. Ok, let's meet up there."
"I really must go, I will see you there then!" Meredith said.
"See you Meredith!" Martin was sad, Meredith noticed, his voice lacked energy. She was making him sad, she really needed to let him go.
Finally she thought she would have 15 minutes to go over her father's patient chart before returning it to its place. She started in the first page.
The patient's name startled her, it was Adele Webber, could it be someone from her father's family? She never heard that Richard had a relative named Adele. She was 56 years old, her mother Ellis was the Main Surgeon in the case, astonishingly Richard name was not on it, he was not overseeing this case, it made sense if the woman was someone from the family, but why didn't her father told her about it? There should have been more to this story.
The patient had come into the ER yesterday at 19h, disoriented, vomiting blood, the diagnosis was end stage Cirrhosis. So this was to whom her mother was getting a liver, the only solution would be a liver transplant, the disease was far advanced, the tests performed on the woman ensured her that this was the only solution for this case.
Meredith decided to go into the patient's room and find out more about her. Once she got there, Meredith noticed that the woman was awake, the woman noticed her and gave her a gentle smile, which Meredith reciprocated, she decided that as she had been spotted, she should come into the room.
Meredith noticed that her dark skin had a yellow tone to it due to the disease, her eyes were yellowish as well.
"Hello love!" The woman said in a friendly manner. "You know you look really like your mother!"
"I am sorry, I …" Meredith said, feeling the need to justify herself. "I just came to check on you."
"I doubt it, Richard is the one who is personally handling my care, your mother as well. I guess the guilt will never wash off." The woman said serenely. "And I don't really believe he told you about me."
"No, he didn't. I noticed your last name in the chart. It's my father's name."
"And why haven't you asked your father about me?" Adele asked.
"He chose not to say anything for a reason…" Meredith answered.
"Richard is not your father, Meredith. I am sick but I still can clearly see the Grey surname on your lab coat from here. Thatcher is the one who fathered you." Adele argued, Meredith noticed how the woman already knew her first name without Meredith having reveled it and her birth father's name as well.
"Richard is the one who raised me. Thatcher, I haven't seen that man since I was 4, I don't even remember how he looks like anymore he was never around for me." This conversation was leaving Meredith sour, she didn't want to talk about her birth father, she had no idea why the woman was bringing it up. "Who are you?" Meredith finally asked.
"I am Adele Webber, that bit I am sure you know. We have met before. You were just a small happy child at the time, your father was oblivious as was I. Thatcher, I mean." Adele clarified. "Thatcher and I were unaware the all time."
"Unaware of what?" Meredith asked irritated, the woman was pushing her nerves, talking cryptically.
"You know Richard never wanted children, I respected that even though I yearned for them." Adele continued. "He was a doctor and a career oriented man, for me it came as no surprise when he started coming back home late after a shift had already ended hours before. I thought he was studying the hardest to achieve everything he most wanted, he was using all the time he had to get into surgeries. But it seems that I was wrong…"
"My father loves his children, he is a good father… I don't know what you mean!" Meredith argued.
"I don't doubt it Meredith! Richard is a good, caring man. Now I can see it, he just never wanted to have a child with me! I was not the one for him, I wished I had knew right at the beginning."
"Tell me now, who are you?" Meredith asked, stressed out.
"I am your father's first wife! I was the one who he cheated on with your mother, I am the one he left once your mother found out she was pregnant with your sister, I am the woman whose heart was completely broken by the man who you call your father. The same man, who with your mother, did the exact same thing to the man who you are completely indifferent to, Thatcher Grey might not be in a hospital bed right now but he is as much a victim as I was, and they know how wrong it was everything they did… They got to have the happy life they wished for and whereas the others were…"
Suddenly Richard Webber put a stop to the conversation by entering the room, as Adele noticed him, she stopped talking. Meredith looked to her father, shocked, she didn't know what to say.
"Dad?" It was only what Meredith managed to utter, she felt so confused, she didn't know what else to say.
"Meredith, go to my office right now, I will get to you in a bit." Richard said severely, Meredith felt that he too was angry for her to be finding out business that did not concern her behind his back. She felt a child again. "And leave the chart with me…"
Meredith went on her way without giving a second glance to the ill woman in the bed. She was trying her hardest to remember the early events of her life, of clear images that would allow her to know what really had happened when her mother broke up with Thatcher and got together with Richard, she was unsuccessful though, no images came. The earliest memories she had were of Richard teaching her how to ride a bike. The only clarification possible on this seemed to only be able to come out from the people who had lived it. She hoped her father would contradict that woman's tale, she knew her parents were not bad people, how could this story be true then?