Meredith managed to swallow the vomit in her mouth, preventing herself from purging in front of Dr. Bailey and Dr. Webber. She didn't want to imagine how humiliating that would be. She already felt like they thought she was less of a surgeon than they were, because she was the youngest of the general surgeons.

It dawned on Meredith that she'd never seen the driver or the passenger of the red Sedan. The bodies had already been covered when she and Amelia had arrived at the scene of the accident. The possibility that she may know the bodies underneath the covers hadn't even crossed her mind.

"Who?" she asked hoarsely.

"Leah Murphy and Shane Ross," Dr. Webber told her. "They were on their way home from the night shift. Both exhausted. We don't really know what happened yet or who caused the accident; the police are still interviewing witnesses, but my guess is they ran a red light and collided with the other vehicle. Dr. Torres and your sister-in-law are operating on the driver of the SUV now. From what I've heard, it doesn't sound good."

"Oh, God," Meredith's jaw dropped. She could tell from the looks on Webber's and Bailey's face that they didn't know that the driver of the SUV was, in fact, Izzie Stevens.

"Wait, the Crazy Shepherd is back?" Miranda Bailey's face plastered with shock. "I thought she was hiding out in Shepherd's trailer with Hunt, like all the other looneys in this hospital do when they go to the deep end. Now, suddenly, she's back in the OR?"

"Hunt approved her to go back to work," Meredith said dryly; she was tired of people referring to Amelia as 'crazy.' Because, frankly, Meredith didn't believe Amelia was crazy. She might be broken inside, she might be a bit dark and twisty, but she wasn't crazy. She wasn't any crazier than any other doctor at Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital.

"Oh, did he now? Is he sure that she's mentally stable to be in the operating room? I've heard some pretty crazy things about her," Dr. Bailey said suspiciously.

"With all due respect, Dr. Bailey, you of all people should understand that everyone has the right to redeem themselves after a bad situation, and I can testify to that, considering I was the first person you operated on after you'd locked yourself in your research lab for weeks," Meredith said tartly. Bailey's eyes widened. Meredith was tempted to throw up the fact that Bailey had actually killed patients with her infection; what Amelia had done was nowhere comparable. Meredith bit her tongue at that thought, though, since technically, Dr. Bailey had been cleared of all responsibility for the deaths. The deaths had been the result of faulty gloves that the hospital had purchased when Pegasus had tried to take over the hospital. Meredith inhaled a deep, stale breath of air. "Now, not another word about Amelia's competence as a surgeon. If Hunt thinks she's ready to operate, she's ready." Meredith's voice was stern and matter-of-fact. She left a dumbfounded Dr. Bailey and Dr. Webber as she made her way to OR 1, per Amelia's instructions.

She didn't take time to let Leah's and Shane's deaths sink in. It was sad, sure, but she wasn't particularly close to either of them, so she had a hard time feeling too upset about their deaths. They were young surgeons who possibly could have become great surgeons. Now, they were gone. In a sick, twisted way, it was funny, because about a year earlier they'd blamed Leah for the patients who had died as a result of Dr. Bailey's infection. She'd told Cristina that they might lose her from the program. Now, she was really gone.

Shane was closer to Cristina than any of the other attendings. Meredith wondered if anyone had told Cristina yet. The news was still fresh. Surely they would call a board meeting later to discuss how to break it to the rest of the hospital. Meredith was sure that Hunt was waiting to hear about the driver's condition before causing an uprising in the hospital. The possible victim, if Shane and Leah were indeed responsible, who so few currently knew her real identity.

An array of emotions traveled through Meredith's body - anger, sadness, confusion, worry. She entered the scrub room and saw that Callie and Amelia were already operating. She felt mildly lightheaded again as she scrubbed. She inhaled a deep breath and closed her eyes, and then finally entered the scrub room.

It was the first time she'd seen Izzie up close since the accident. Her face was swollen, and covered with cuts, bruises, and abrasions that made her beyond recognizable. Meredith's stomach tied into a knot as sickness swept over her. She couldn't believe what she was seeing. How long would it be before the rest of the hospital realized the true identity of the patient? Could she, in fact, get in trouble for not coming forward right away? She looked at Amelia. Amelia, too, knew it was Izzie and, yet, she hadn't said anything, because otherwise Webber and Bailey would have known it was Izzie.

"How is she?" she asked, looking at Amelia, whose face was grim. She hovered immediately hovered over Amelia's shoulder, since she was supposed to be observing her.

"See for yourself," Amelia grimly replied. Meredith looked at the enlarged scan on the computer monitor that showed Izzie's entire brain.

"Is that...holy crap." Meredith's eyes were focused on the cerebral cortex. "That's a massive tumor on her cerebral cortex." But that wasn't the part of the brain Amelia was currently operating on that, and Meredith soon realized. the massive skull fracture on the occipital lobe side of the brain. Amelia was working to drain the hematoma present in that part of the brain.

"The tumor would certainly explain why she stole the car," Amelia muttered as she focused intently on the brain. Meredith hovered over her shoulder as she carefully watched Amelia's every move. Her moves were precise. Her surgical style reminded Meredith very much of Derek's. Like brother like sister.

"It was a stolen vehicle, then?" Meredith had suspected. The tumor would explain everything. The cerebral cortex controlled one's decision making process. It would explain why Izzie ran, even though there was no true reason for her to run from the police. The question was: how long had the tumor been there? It was incredibly massive. Surely, it couldn't have been there four years ago when Izzie left Alex without a word. Derek would have caught it then. Unless, of course, it was so tiny at the time that they'd missed it on the regular MRI. But, still, Izzie claimed to have been getting yearly physicals. Surely, if the tumor had been there for some time, a doctor somewhere would have caught it.

"I overheard the police talking," Amelia admitted. "The SUV was stolen."

"Sounds like we have a bad girl on our hands!" Callie spoke for the first time since Meredith had entered the room. She was on the other end of the table, apparently operating on Izzie's left leg. Meredith stomach turned again, and she inhaled a deep breath. The operating room was freezing ass cold. Her skin was iceberg. The OR was always cold, but after years of surgery, she'd gotten used to it. But right now, the frigid air tingled on her skin. Her hands felt like ice. She could barely breathe. Meredith closed her eyes and slowly inhaled through her nose and exhaled through her mouth. She was okay. She would be okay. Izzie would be okay. Everyone would be okay. "Are you okay, Grey?" She blinked at the sound of Callie's voice.

"Yeah… fine…" she replied, as suddenly her body went from frigid cold to fuming hot. Sweat dripped down her forehead, and she wanted to strip her scrubs off; she was so hot. Was she actually having cold and hot flashes? She'd heard they were awful and sporadic, but she'd never imagined anything like this before. If she hadn't gotten her period the night before, she would have sworn she was going through menopause. But she was certain that wasn't it.

"Oh, really?" Callie Torres lifted a brow. "You don't look fine, and what are you doing here anyway? We didn't call for a general consult."

"She's here to make sure I don't go nuts in the middle of surgery," Amelia said tartly. "The chief ordered her to babysit me. Hey, Mer, make yourself useful. Give me suction."

Meredith took the surgical suction pump and did as Amelia insisted. It'd been three weeks since she'd had her hands near a brain. The last person's brain she'd had her hands on was James Peterson. Before James, she hadn't had her hands near an open brain in two years, when she chose to leave neuro. But here she was, looking directly at the outskirts of Izzie Stevens's brain, and suddenly, she felt high. Like she was on drugs. The pain in her stomach subsided. She wasn't supposed to feel this good from looking at an open human brain, right?

"Oh." Callie's eyes shot wide open as she focused on the leg. "Damn, her entire femur is shattered. She won't be walking for a long time. Are you sure it was a car crash? She looks like she fell off a cliff. Amelia told me that you two encountered the scene of the accident on your way to the hospital this morning."

"The car was completely totaled," Meredith said coolly. "To be honest, I-I didn't think she'd make it this far." Meredith swallowed, recalling the devastating image of the totaled SUV in her head. She felt sick again. She knew the moment of bliss had been too good to be true. Her heart pounded; stomach acid made its way up her throat, and the acid burned down her throat as she swallowed it. The site of the accident was a disturbing thought. She pictured little Blake off in the distance, away from the car. How had he gotten out of the car? Somehow, he'd managed to escape to the sidewalk, and he'd gone unnoticed by the paramedics and police.

Beep beep, someone's phone vibrated on the table that the doctors left their phones while they were operating. "That's mine, can you check that?" Callie asked a scrub nurse whose name Meredith didn't know. The nurse reached for Callie's phone.

"It's Arizona. She wants you to know that Sofia is with Derek, and he's planning on bringing the kids in later, so you're not to worry if Sofia isn't in daycare," the scrub nurse informed Callie. It had been at least twenty minutes since Meredith had left Blake and Arizona, and it had taken that long for Arizona to text Callie? Meredith wondered how things were going with Alex and Blake.

"Oh, all right," Callie looked at Meredith for a second. "Reply and tell her I'm in surgery the other Shepherd and Grey, and I don't know how long I'll be here. Oh, and add "XOXO" at the end of the text."

A giggle escaped Meredith's lips without a second thought. She and Amelia both shared a quick look.

"Oh, come on! Hugs and kisses. You don't send Derek hugs and kisses, Meredith?" Callie gasped.

"Oh, I send Derek lots of hugs and kisses," Meredith insisted, winking. "Derek just hates texting, so I usually give them to him in person, you know."

"Yeah, believe me, she does. I've seen," Amelia said dryly, then she laughed.

"Just like you send Owen lots of hugs and kisses, right?" Meredith pointed out, knowing Amelia had no room to laugh now that she'd walked in on Owen and Amelia doing the dirty. Amelia immediately shut her mouth.

"Wait, am I missing something here?" Callie asked suddenly. Amelia's face flushed a bright pink color. "Hold up, you're sleeping with Owen, aren't you? Dang, I should have known better than to think you hiding out at his trailer was purely innocent. You do know that…"

"Callie," Meredith said sternly. "Stop."

"Stop? You're not at all upset that your sister-in-law is banging your best friend's ex-husband? That doesn't disturb you at all? What does Cristina think about this?" Callie insisted.

"You know, can we, uh, not talk about my love life?" Amelia insisted. "I kinda liked when nobody was prying and prodding into my life, and I thought I could trust you to keep a secret, Meredith. Maybe I was wrong about you after all."

"In my defense, you opened that window," Meredith said tartly, and she exhaled. Her heart was pounding fiercely against her chest.. "Let's just focus on the surgery, okay? We've got a brain open on the table here. One wrong move, and she could die. We don't want that, do we?" Izzie could die.

The door suddenly swung open, and there was Derek wearing his ferryboat scrub cap.

"Amy, step away from the patient," Derek said sternly, his deep blue eyes stared steadily on his sister sister.

"Derek Christopher Shepherd, this is my OR and my patient, so I will not be stepping away from the patient, and you'll be getting the hell out of my OR!" Amelia reacted immediately, her voice bellowed as she looked up at her older brother, whose face immediately filled with anger.

"You've been hiding in my trailer, probably high on drugs and alcohol and God knows what else you put in your system for three weeks, and then Meredith talks to you and suddenly you decide you're well enough to perform brain surgery? It doesn't work that way, little sis!" Derek bellowed.

Amelia's hand froze. Her face was terror-struck as she looked at Derek. "Get. Out. Of. My. OR."

"And you…" Derek looked at Meredith. "You didn't tell me that you talked to her. And here you are, in surgery with her. This is why I hate texting. You led me to believe that Amelia ignored you. I had to find out that Amy was back at the hospital from Arizona Robbins!"

"I did not lie," Meredith said carefully. "I merely said that we'd talk about it later. It wasn't a good time."

"Could you, uh, maybe take this fight elsewhere? I'm trying to concentrate, unless you want this patient to die or never walk again," Callie demanded.

"Derek, you're doing more harm than good. Get the hell out," Amelia snapped. Meredith's heart broke as she locked eyes with her husband.

"Derek," she said quietly, setting down the suction pump. She led him into the scrub room and washed her hands; she would have to re-scrub anyway. "I'm sorry that I didn't tell you that I'd talked to Amelia, but Iit just wasn't good time. And she wasn't ready to talk to you yet."

Her stomach was twisting and turning. She grabbed the metal sink. The cool metal sunk into her skin, and a chill swept through her body.

"Does she know who she's operating on?" Derek asked. "Does she know she's operating on Izzie Stevens?"

So, Arizona had told him. That made at least four people who knew that was Izzie Stevens on the table: Arizona, Derek, Amelia, and herself. She was sure Alex knew by now, too. It would only be a matter of time before the entire hospital knew, and the police would be questioning them.

"She does, Derek. Your sister is a highly competent surgeon, and she's not the first Shepherd to operate on Izzie Stevens after having a mental breakdown," Meredith pointed out. She reached for his cheek and stroked it gently. "You have to give her a little credit, Derek. So, she made a mistake, but she didn't make it in the OR. That's more than most of us can say. She's a very good surgeon. I've been watching her. You should be proud of her, because she reminds me a lot of you. She's a little stubborn like you, too." Meredith laughed gently. Her eyes felt heavy as she gazed into Derek's shiny blue eyes.

He nodded. "Okay. Maybe I was out of line in there. I shouldn't have burst into that OR like that." Meredith's stomach turned as she nodded in agreement. "Mer, are you all right?" He grabbed her shoulders. "You look pale."

"Yeah, I'm fine," she insisted, trying to shake the stomachache off. It's just a stomachache, she tried to tell herself. It's nerves. You're worried about Izzie. Worrying: it seemed to be what she did best. She tried to stay strong for everyone else, but inside she was a mess. Inside, she couldn't stop thinking about all the things could go around. She thought about Blake and Alex. How were they doing? As soon as Izzie was out of surgery, she planned to go find them. "Did you drop the kids at daycare?"

Derek nodded and laughed lightly. "What, did you think I left them home alone?"

"No, do you think I'm nuts?" Meredith widened her eyes. "I was just asking to make sure."

"Relax, Mer, I was being sarcastic," Derek laughed, leaning in to kiss her cheek. "Are you sure you're right? You just don't look like you feel well. Are you sure you should be in surgery?" He placed the back of his hand on her forehead, seeming to be checking to see if she had a fever. "You're a little warm, too."

"Derek, I'm fine. Don't you have a plane to catch? What time is it, anyway?" she asked.

"It's one o'clock. I don't have to be to the airport for three hours," he said.

"So go down and play with the kids, do something, but stay far away from this surgery. Amelia, Callie, and I have it handled," Meredith insisted.

She saw more confusion sweep over his face. "What's your role in there, anyway? It looked like you were working with Amy." He looked perplexed.

"Hunt ordered me to keep an eye on her," Meredith said; she swallowed. She wasn't about to tell Derek what she'd walked in on that morning. Amelia already was furious because she'd indirectly told Callie. She'd opened that window herself, though. "So, that's what I'm doing. I'm keeping an eye on her."

"You're keeping an eye on her during a neuro procedure," Derek pointed out.

"It's nothing," she insisted, but her husband didn't look convinced. "Seriously!"

"If say so, Meredith." He kissed her cheek again.

"Now, get! Go to DC! We'll be fine. Oh, and you should probably call your sister later to apologize, if she chooses to answer, and if she doesn't - which I won't blame her - you should leave her an apologetic voicemail," Meredith ordered matter-of-factly. Then she added, "It's the brotherly thing to do."

Derek chuckled; his eyes twinkled. "Since when are you the expert on all things sibling related? I thought you didn't do families." He raised an eyebrow.

Meredith exhaled. The truth was, which she didn't want to admit to Derek, ever since Lexie had died, all Meredith could think about was what a crappy sister she was to her. She treated her like shit during the beginning of their relationship. All Lexie wanted was to get to know her, but Meredith had been too stubborn. She'd pushed her away. And just when she'd learn to love Lexie, learned to accept her as her sister, BAM, she was gone. It was too late.

"Derek, just do it. She's your sister, and one day she might not be here and you'll regret being such an ass to her," Meredith told him and started to re-scrub her hands. When she finished, she looked back at him. His eyes gleamed into hers. "Derek, I love you," she whispered.

"I love you, too," he replied sincerely. He was looking at her with concern in his eyes. "Are you sure you're okay? Because I happen to know, you're the queen of saying you're fine when you're not."

"Derek. I'm sure," she said, then exhaled obnoxiously, "Cramps."

"Oh," Derek said. Derek wasn't the kind of guy who got embarrassed at the mention of periods and cramps like a lot of guys. He'd grown up with sisters, so he was used to it. "Well, in that case, if you didn't have to go back into surgery and wanted to escape with me for a little bit, maybe I can help with your cramps, you know." There it was. His dreamy smile. Meredith's heart fluttered in an instance.

"And what? Bloody up the sheets in the on-call room?" she replied. It wasn't that she didn't want or desire him. It was hard to say no to those sparkling blue eyes. She had never been good at saying no. Well, she was good at saying no, but she wasn't good at following through. The fact that they'd gone three weeks without sex after she found out about Derek's new job offer still blew her mind. She was never that good at self-control.

Truth be told, not even a screaming orgasm could make her feel better right now, because she knew it wasn't just cramps. Her stomach tightened; and if they were cramps, they were worst cramps she'd ever experienced during her life. But Derek didn't need to know that. She didn't want to worry him, especially when he was about to go out of town for work. Right now, she didn't have time to be sick. In this moment, she knew she had to push through. She had too many people counting on her: Owen, Alex, Amelia, Derek, Blake, Izzie, her own kids… she couldn't be sick. She needed to push through. She was a surgeon. Surgeons pushed through. She would arrange for an appointment with another doctor, one outside her friendship circle, as soon as she knew how Izzie was doing and how Alex and Blake were holding up.

Derek's mind was in the gutter. He gave her a cheesy smile. "Well, we could do what we did that one time...the time you left your tampon in…and my mouth..."

Meredith's eyes widened. "No, we swore we'd never do that again, because you hated it."

"It wasn't so bad," Derek shrugged.

"No," she said flatly. "I have to get back into surgery, and I'm already scrubbed." She raised her fingers and wiggled them. "Owen ordered me to keep an eye on your sister, Derek, and that's exactly what I'm gonna do." She looked back at him one last time, realizing this would be the last time she would see her husband for a couple days, then she entered the operating room. When she looked back through the scrub room window, Derek was gone.

Callie and Amelia were operating in silence when she re-entered the operating room.

"Thank you, Meredith," Amelia whispered softly. "Thanks for getting him out of here."

"Don't thank me. He had no right to barge in here like he did. I was just doing the right thing," Meredith insisted.

"He shouldn't have spoken to you the way he did, either," Amelia insisted. "But it's Derek, he lets his rage get the best of him sometimes. He means well, I know, but he doesn't always think about how his actions affect others. I'm just, ugh, so pissed that he actually thinks I was at Owen's drinking and doing drugs. I'm pregnant. I would never expose my unborn child to the poison. I mean, before, it was just my body, which I never really cared that much about. But now I'm housing another human being here! I can't even imagine...Derek doesn't know me at all."

"To be fair, Amelia, you don't really know him, either," Meredith pointed out, regaining access to the suction pump as she proceeded to assist Amelia. "He's not the same person he was eight years ago."

Amelia looked flabberghasted at first, but then she released a sigh. "I guess you're right. I'm equally to blame for our strained relationship. Plus, he's right, I haven't really given him a chance to trust me. It seems every time I show up here I'm looking for help, whether it be professionally or personally. I never just call Derek to talk to him, and I never just come visit for the heck of it. Hell, I never even call before I visit."

Meredith laughed.

"What's so funny?"

"Oh, nothing, Amelia. You've just said what I've been thinking for a long time now. I'm glad you realize it, though," she said.

"Just admit it, Meredith, your husband's an ass," Callie insisted.

Meredith bit her lip and was trying hard not to exhilarate too much pressure on the suction pump, because that could be very, very bad. She exhaled a loud sigh. "My husband is an ass," she said slowly, "but," she continued, "he is my ass, meaning I get to call him an ass. He's Amelia's brother, so she can call him an ass too, because well, I may not be the pro on sibling relationships, since my only sister I ever really knew is dead, and she was only part of my life for a brief period of time, but I'm pretty sure that's what siblings do. That's what I gathered from novels and television shows anyway. They call each other names, they give each other a hard time, so Amelia can call Derek whatever the hell she wants. But you, Callie, you don't get to call him an ass." She exhaled an obnoxious sigh; she was certain that had all been PMS talking.

Callie and Amelia both stared dumb struck.

"Damn, you go, girl," Amelia murmured.

Callie set down her scalpel. "Well, good thing I'm about done here. Just need to close her up. I've done all I can do," she said, and then a phone buzzed again. "That's my phone again." Callie looked over at the scrub nurse, whose color had been stripped from her face after Meredith's sudden outburst.

"It's Arizona again," the scrub nurse announced. "She wants to know if you're operating on Izzie Stevens."

Callie's jaw dropped as her eyes jetted toward Amelia and Meredith. "There must be some mistake," Callie said. "Why does my wife think I'm operating on Izzie Stevens?" Meredith and Amelia both shared a look. "And by the look on your faces, you know exactly why." Callie looked closer at the patient's face, specifically eyeing her eyes. "Holy Hell."

"Uh, I don't know what you're talking about," Amelia insisted. "This patient's name is Rachel Simmons. Why would she be Izzie Stevens?" Amelia's voice shook; she wasn't overly convincing.

"Is that so?" Callie raised an eyebrow, seemingly uncertain as she looked at Meredith. "Is that your story, too, Meredith?"

Meredith exhaled. She couldn't lie anymore, because she knew Arizona already knew the truth, so it was only a matter of time before she spilled to Callie. "She had a fake ID," Meredith confessed. "I only knew it was her because...because...I found Blake at the scene. I brought him to the hospital and handed him over to Robbins to look after. I wanted to give him time to bond with his father before this all blew up and everyone realized who this really was. It was stupid, I know, but I had good intentions."

Callie's cocoa brown eyes watered up. "No, it wasn't stupid," Callie insisted. "You were doing what you thought was best for Blake. Alex was the stupid one to file the false report. Yeah, we all know that Izzie wasn't a child abuser. This is the girl who got attached to her patients, the girl who barely knew how to kill a fly."

"Alex tried to take back his statement," Meredith said, "but the police still wanted to investigate, because it's their job. And Blake told me that Izzie told him his father hated him. This is the only way Blake could have a chance at getting to know Alex without knowing he was his father. If I told the police upfront who she was, then they'd take Blake away and that chance would be gone. I just needed to buy some time."

"We're done," Amelia said finally, exhaling. "The bleeding has stopped, and now we just need to close her up and we've done all we can do for now."

She and Amelia stood outside Izzie's hospital room. The tubes connected to her body were keeping her alive. She'd made it through surgery, but there was still no indication that she would be her old self.

"I thought about resecting the tumor in surgery," confessed Amelia.

"That would have been a terrible idea," Meredith said, recalling when she had given Lexie the okay to remove a tumor without the patient's permission. The patient had woken up, unable to speak, and she would never speak properly again. It was a horrible idea.

"I know," Amelia said, "and even if she does wake up and is fine, she's going to have to undergo surgery as soon as possible again. I'd say within the next week, though we don't know how fast the tumor is growing. I'm going to keep a close eye on it."

"I just can't help but wonder if it's been there for years," Meredith sighed. "Izzie left kind of sporadically. She didn't say goodbye. It really hurt Alex. It took my calling her to tell her Alex was starting to move on with my sister, Lexie, to get her to come back. Even then...she was weird. Could this tumor have been present all along and we just missed it back then? Could the other doctors have missed it too?"

"It's possible," Amelia said, "especially if the tumor was small. If it's been there for more than four years, then that tells me the tumor is slow growing. It's clearly affecting her now."

"Stealing cars and giving herself and her child a new identity is definitely a little out of character. I mean, she's known for running off, but now, I can't help but wonder if that was tumor related too," Meredith sighed.

"It's possible that the tumor was very small, too, which is why it would have been missed on an MRI or CT scan until recently, and then it just metastasized all at once. I've seen that happen numerous times, too."

"She used to see a ghost...Denny," Meredith said, "her ex-boyfriend or whatever he was - he was a patient that she fell in love with. Derek had trouble locating the tumor that was causing her to hallucinate, but he finally found it. He had to force her to hallucinate in order to find the part of the brain that lit up during the hallucination."

"So, it's definitely possible that this tumor has been here all along," Amelia nodded. "Hey, Mer?"

"Yeah?" she responded.

"Before we arrived at the scene of the accident, you started to tell me something," Amelia said.

Meredith swallowed, deciding now wasn't the time. "It's nothing, Amelia."

"Are you sure?" Amelia asked. "You know, Callie was right, your complexion has been pretty pale today. Are you feeling okay?"

"I'm fine," Meredith snapped. "I'm going to go check on Blake, assuming child services hasn't taken him away."

She darted away toward the peds floor. She was feeling dizzy again. Earlier, she'd planned to tell Amelia it all. She'd planned to have tests run to get to the bottom of the sketchy blood test results she'd gotten the day before. Life had thrown her another curve ball, though. The last thing she'd expected was to find herself on the site of an accident involving her former roommate and close friend. The accident also which involved two of her students. Two of her students were dead now.

Meredith gulped as she entered the peds floor and walked right into Arizona Robbins. Her blood cooled as they locked eyes. "How is he?" she asked, though she wasn't sure if she was talking about Blake or Alex.

"Blake is doing well," Arizona said; she smiled allowing her perfect white teeth to show. "The police have been by; they know he's here. I've recommended he spend the night for observation. I did find that he has a mild concussion that should be monitored closely." Arizona winked friendly.

Meredith released a sigh of relief. "And Alex?"

"Alex is the doctor on-call tonight. He's planning on keeping a close eye on his patient, Blake Stevens," Arizo

"He's all right?"

"Why not ask him for yourself?" Arizona pointed down the hall. "Last door on the right."

"Thanks," Meredith smiled friendly at Arizona. "You know, you didn't have to…"

"I care about Alex, so of course I had to," Arizona insisted, and Meredith fully understood. They'd both had the same intention: they were looking out for Alex.

Meredith tapped gently on the door. She entered the room to find Alex sitting on a stool next to Blake's bed. Blake was lying in a hospital gown. Alex appeared to be reading a Superman comic to Blake.

"Meredif!" Blake's face lit up when Meredith entered the room.

"Hey, Blake!" Meredith extended her fist and gave the little guy a fist pump.

"How's my mommy? Can I see her?" Blake's brown eyes lit up with hope.

Meredith met eyes with Alex, whose eyes were just a larger version of his son's. The resemblance was uncanny. Blake was, without a doubt, Alex Karev's son. Alex, however, didn't share the same hopefulness as little Blake.

"Your mommy's asleep right now, and we need to let her rest," Meredith told him.

"But she's alive?" he asked.

Meredith nodded. "Yes, Blake, she is alive."

"Yay!" Blake exclaimed. "I was so worried. She's gonna be okay?"

Meredith looked at Alex again, who shook his head. "We hope so," she said, though she didn't want to make any promises to the boy. He'd been through enough already. "But we won't know until later."

"But you said I could see her later," Blake sighed. "It's later."

"I know, honey. You're just going to have to wait a little longer," she told him. "Your mommy needs rest." She took his hand and gently stroked it, while looked at Alex. "So, has Dr. Karev been a good doctor?"

Blake's eyes instantly went from sad to gleaming. "Dr. Karev is the bestest doctor ever! He's reading me Superman comics! I've never had a doctor read me Superman comics before."

"That's pretty cool, Dr. Karev," Meredith winked at Alex. "Blake, you won't mind if I steal Dr. Karev for a moment, will you? He'll be right back, and then I'll bring Zozo up to see you.." Blake's face lit up when Meredith mentioned Zola, and he nodded excitedly. Alex got off the stool and followed her into the hallway.

"So, Izzie must be pretty shit faced if you're not letting Blake go see her," Alex laughed. "Serves the bitch right for hiding Blake from me all this time. Now, at least I have him in my corner. The kid loves me. Arizona told me that this was your idea, Mer. Thank you."

Meredith frowned, giving Alex a stern look. "You're not the least bit worried about Izzie?"

"Why should I be?" Alex shrugged. "Honestly? I hope she dies, then Blake is all mine. He's my son. The boy should be with his father. It's bad enough I missed four years of his life."

Meredith had expected Alex to be more worried about Blake than Izzie, but she hadn't anticipated he'd be this cold about it. Though, thinking about it harder, she wasn't surprised that he was reacting this way.

"Izzie was your wife," she said. "She's the mother of your son. You don't think Blake should have his mother in his life, too?"

Alex shrugged. "Jo will make a great mom. She's been over here today talking to Blake too. Blake adores her. I think we'll be fine as a family. He deserves a little sanity in his life! Something Izzie has never given him."

"Alex!" Meredith gasped just as her heart rate sped faster and faster out of control. Her entire body pulsated. Throbbing. She gasped for a breath of air. Her lungs tightened as she tried to breathe. She felt like she'd just finished running a marathon. Her lungs felt heavy as she tried to gasp for air. Her stomach muscles tightened, and she struggled to maintain her balance. The walls circled faster and faster around her body. Suddenly, she felt like she was on the Silly Silo at the carnival. Gravity was pulling her down.

"Mer?" Alex's voice echoed in her head. The walls were spinning faster and faster and faster. Too fast. Her toes tingled with numbness. She couldn't feel the floor beneath her. She was free falling and her head buzzed louder and louder and louder. She felt like she was about to die. "MER?" Alex's voice echoed louder as she collapsed into his arms.

A/N: I PROMISE you'll find out what's wrong with Mer next chapter!