Dreams of Love
Chapter 37: Dark and Twisty
"Quit it!" growled Cristina.
"What?" Meredith asked.
"That! Smiling. It's creepy. I need the old dark and twisty Meredith," Cristina moaned sourly, tying her scrubs.
"Derek asked me to live with him officially, Cristina. We're building a home by his lake."
Meredith glanced in the mirror as she pulled up her scrub pants. She did have a completely annoying, relaxed, happy look on her face from two days off with Derek, spent planning the revisions and decorations of their new home. Cristina's black curls were extra frizzy and all over her head, a sure sign that she was, caps lock, GRUMPY. Meredith made an effort to at least look less bright and shiny for her person.
"What did Burke do now?" Meredith asked, knowing it had to be the 'M' word – or was that the 'W' word now?
"Burke told his Mama," she spat the word, "and my mother that I said 'yes' – on the same day! I didn't even get a half day off! They're both still hounding me, only now it's not about the proposal, it's about the wedding! ... Wedding! Ugh! Cake and colors and registering for gifts! No blood anywhere," Cristina grimaced, and then whined irascibly, as they both donned white coats and electronic leashes, "I need a good surgery today, Mer."
"Cristina, maybe you should just tell Burke that you'll marry him, but you don't want a wedding," Meredith said practically, "You can be married in a judge's chambers or something."
Lockers slammed all over the intern locker room as doctors rushed out for morning rounds.
"I did! Then Mama sank her teeth into Preston," she said bitterly, "and Burke has ignored me ever since. I don't want a big wedding – it's out of control!"
"Cristina, you didn't want a wedding at all," Meredith reminded her darkly.
Cristina glared, "Thanks, Mer, thanks for that reminder."
Meredith gave a half shrug and then chuckled, "Burke – a Mama's boy – who knew?"
"Shut up, Meredith," Cristina wadded her frizzy curls in a clip on the back of her head and looked daggers at Mer.
They rushed in unison for Bailey's group by the main nurses' station. Alex was going over a chart with Bailey, while Izzie tried to talk to George again. His face was hard and his mouth down turned. He brushed Izzie away, preoccupied with his own mess and unable to deal with her codependency or even her friendship. Both hurt right now. He needed to be alone, but Izzie took it personally. She couldn't see that his need was about George. It wasn't about her or them. All she knew was that her friendship was sinking far away from the shore and there was nothing to hang onto.
George unhappily looked away from Izzie. He knew Callie was happy, and the happier she acted the more trapped George felt. He resented her happiness deeply. Did he love Callie? Maybe. He hadn't had enough time to feel it, if he did. But he was an O'Malley man and his father had loved Callie. George's dad would have expected George to do the right thing by Callie and the baby. So he had... the right thing. He was a husband and father on top of a surgical intern. His depression deepened and hardened. It was a struggle to think straight.
As Yang and Grey joined them, they heard Izzie say, "George, I'm your friend. You can talk to me about the baby... or Callie."
When everyone just stared at Izzie with raised eyebrows she said, defensively, "Okay, it's true, I haven't been supportive before about Callie..."
Izzie flushed under everyone's continuing stares, "Okay, I've been horrible, alright?! But, I'm over that now... really."
George sighed, "Izzie, if you are my friend, mind your own business for once, okay?"
He turned away to follow Bailey, leaving Izzie, white faced and crushed, in the uncomfortable silence behind him. Then everyone rushed after Bailey. Izzie painfully made herself follow.
Okay, George, I'll leave you alone, Izzie silently promised her erstwhile best friend.
To Izzie 'best friend' meant 'I'm all up in your business and you're all up in mine'. What she'd just heard George say was that he was no longer a friend, let alone her best friend. She'd tried to be his friend every way she knew. The last thread tying her to George broke and Izzie was adrift in a sea of loneliness, grief over her loss of George stirring up grief over Denny, the two blending until she could no longer tell one from the other. Izzie followed the group, drenched in sorrow, trying to keep her chin up.
They rounded on one of Dr. Shepherd's patients and Bailey asked Stevens to report. Mechanically, Izzie opened her notebook and began reciting. Like Meredith, she'd had plenty of practice working while grieving. She only faltered once when she looked up and saw Meredith's face as Mer glanced between Izzie and George.
Meredith knew that the crack between Izzie and George had just widened, perhaps irreparably, and it saddened her. Izzie and George had been her surrogate siblings when Derek had ditched her. They'd helped her so much just by being there. Now they were breaking apart. She started out of her thoughts when her pager shrilled with a 911 code to the Pit.
"You're not on call to the Pit, Grey, what ... go!" Bailey caught herself and waved Grey away, "And make sure I know what this is all about later."
Meredith ran through the halls towards the Pit, wondering why she'd been paged. She and Burke both slid to a halt in front of the emergency doors at the same time. They glanced at each other and then pushed through, looking for their patient. Nurse Tolliver, a tall, big man with perpetually tired eyes and rumpled brown scrubs, waved them into trauma bay three. Chief Webber was there ahead of them. Meredith stopped abruptly in her tracks and Burke ran into her from behind, knocking her forward into an instrument tray.
"Grey!" he sharply exclaimed as he caught his balance, and then her elbow to haul her back upright.
Meredith ignored Burke's scowl, focused only on the slight, dark honey haired woman on the gurney.
"Mom?" Meredith queried unsteadily, and Burke looked up in surprise, followed by a certain resigned comprehension.
"What's happened now?" Meredith asked the nursing home attendant, "Is it the diverticulitis again?"
Then, glancing at Burke, she answered herself before anyone else could, "No, you wouldn't have called Dr. Burke for that. What's wrong with her heart?"
Meredith looked anxiously at the Chief then at Burke as he examined Ellis.
"Meredith, don't make a fuss, it's nothing," Ellis Grey looked directly at Meredith in her old pre-Alzheimer's critical fashion.
For a moment Meredith was disconcerted, then she said, "Hi Mom, I'm sure you're right," offhandedly, before she anxiously looked at Burke again.
"Dr. Grey," said the Chief, drawing her attention, but was interrupted by Ellis Grey's acerbic voice.
"Richard, do you know how surreal it sounds to have you call my screw-up daughter, 'doctor'? I just can't believe it. One moment we're fighting over her gallivanting all over Europe with her loser friends, and the next she's a doctor, a surgical intern, no less," Ellis said, both ignoring Meredith and deliberately piercing her with words and a look aimed at her through a third party.
It had been one of Ellis Grey's favorite tricks to intimidate and cut her daughter down to size throughout the years – that and the backhanded compliment. Meredith stared at her mother and then at Webber. A sharp stab of anxiety made her swallow rapidly and press a hand to her backflipping gut. If she didn't know better, she would think her mom was lucid. But... she knew better... she had five terribly difficult years of diseased dementia to know better.
"Still not very swift on the uptake, are you? I would have thought four years of medical school would have sharpened your wits a little, Meredith," said Ellis sarcastically.
"Dr. Grey, your mother is lucid. It's very rare for an Alzheimer's patient to have a lucid day, but it does happen," the Chief took mercy on Meredith, and calmed Ellis with a hand on her shoulder, "It's a gift."
Meredith's mouth dropped open as she fought for control of her swirling emotions, runaway thoughts, and transparent expression. It was happening again. Another huge familial tsunami gathered strength and raced towards her across an ocean of loneliness and pain. Tolliver, who'd been assisting Dr. Burke, stepped behind Dr. Grey and laid a large supportive hand on the small of her back, concerned for his favorite intern.
"She woke up this morning lucid, doctors," said the nursing home attendant to Dr. Burke and Meredith, "She doesn't remember the last five years, so when we explained her situation to her, Dr. Grey became very agitated, grabbed her chest, and collapsed."
The Chief, gently stroking Ellis Grey's hand, said again, "She's lucid, Meredith. It's a gift, but there's no telling how long it'll last. Burke?"
While the Chief and Burke spoke, Ellis turned piercing, completely present eyes onto Meredith. Mer pressed a hand to her belly again as she absorbed the gut punch of Ellis Grey. She'd wanted this for five long years, a second chance with her mother. All the things she'd dreamed of saying to her mom, if they ever found a cure, jumbled inanely in her head.
The last few years before her mother's diagnosis had been fraught with bitterness and outright fights over Meredith's so called dilettante choice of playing the piano. Even though her undergraduate grades were top notch, Ellis resented the time she spent on music. Her acceptance into Juilliard's graduate music program rivaled her acceptance into Dartmouth's medical school. There had been absolutely no contest in Ellis' mind. When Meredith had elected to take Master's piano classes in Europe the summer before both programs would start, Ellis had gone ballistic.
"I never should have let Thatcher teach you how to play the piano. It's ruined you! And then Guiseppe finished the job, filling your head with all kinds of ideas about being a concert pianist!" Ellis' voice had dripped vitriol and her eyes had blazed disgust, "You have always been a disappointment to me, Meredith, why should this be any different?"
Meredith had gasped as Ellis mentioned both her fathers in one breath when she'd made it a habit to never speak of either one. The harsh condemnation of herself was normal for Ellis, so Mer had hardly flinched over that. Ellis had been increasingly mean and rude for months. Her outbursts had also been increasing in frequency. Meredith just couldn't decide one way or the other. The pull of medicine and music were equally strong. If anything her mother's constant pressuring was pushing her away from med school. So when the chance came up to study with some of the most preeminent maestros in London, Vienna, and Copenhagen for the summer, she enrolled herself in both Dartmouth and Juilliard, took the Master's classes in Europe, and figured she'd decide which program to attend at the end of the summer.
Meredith managed to avoid Ellis and sneak off to Europe. She'd had an incredible time, and had just screwed up her courage to defy her mother and go to Juilliard, when she got the emergency call to her mother's side. Her mother's symptoms had increased to the point she could no longer ignore them. Ellis Grey was diagnosed with early onset, rapidly degenerating Alzheimer's. Ellis, in one of the few lucid moments she had left, emotionally blackmailed Meredith into promising to go to medical school and give up music. Meredith, grieving and scared, willingly promised to enter Dartmouth that fall.
"Well?" Ellis asked Meredith sharply, "They say it's been five years. Don't you have anything to say?"
"Uh... um...," Meredith stammered, stunned.
Dr. Webber took mercy on Meredith, "Ellis, you'd be proud of her. She's the intern to beat in the surgical program here at Grace."
"Yes, Dr. Grey, your daughter has a promising future as a top notch surgeon," said Dr. Burke seriously, with a nod to Meredith, having forgiven her for her earlier clumsiness in the light of her mama's condition.
Then Burke rapidly gave orders to Tolliver and explained what he suspected to both Ellis and Meredith. He wanted Ellis admitted and tests run. There was a possibility of surgery. Burke and the Chief looked concerned, but not unduly, Meredith noted.
"Dr. Grey, you're off duty, as of now, to take advantage of this time with your mother," Dr. Webber instructed, "Ellis, I'll come visit when you're settled. It's wonderful to see you again."
"Thank you, Richard, you too," Ellis' dimple flashed as she genuinely smiled at the Chief, the beauty and charisma of a legendary and powerful surgeon shining in that moment.
o-o-o
"Dr. Grey, I respect everything I've read about you and by you. You're an amazing surgeon. Would you mind...," asked Dr. Yang hopefully, hesitantly, as she finished examining Ellis in her room.
"What is it, Dr. Yang?" asked Ellis, leaning back against her pillows, slightly flattered.
"What would you say about an intern who chooses cardiovascular surgery as a specialty?" asked Cristina eagerly.
Ellis flashed a sharp look at Meredith, knowing she hadn't chosen cardiovascular, and began to answer Yang. Meredith felt Ellis' condemning look all the way across the room. She wasn't going to choose cardio. It was true.
Meredith had to duck out to breathe. The tsunami was crushing her in an airless wave. All she could think of was air, she needed air. She left Cristina with Ellis, to take refuge on the roof helipad, the windiest place she could think of. She dipped her hot shame filled face against the wind as she held the cold metal guardrail with both hands.
Cristina and her mother were hitting it off like they were the real long lost mother and daughter, while she lurked uncomfortably in the corners and finally ran away to the roof. Cristina's ease with Ellis illustrated to Meredith once again how lacking she was. The wind whipped wildly around the tall building and chilled her back to a crisper clarity of thought.
No, she thought from the healthier state of being that she'd worked hard to achieve over the last five difficult years, it isn't just me that's lacking. Mom is too. We're both responsible for whatever our relationship was – good and bad. Mom never made it easy for me to love her, not once.
An air ambulance flashed and whirred in the distance, heading in to Seattle Grace. Meredith watched it chop it's way through the light grey sky, looking impossible, like it should never be able to fly. It was loaded with patients that needed the top surgical staff at Grace. Surgery. Her mom and she had that in common now. Maybe it would be enough to bridge their ever present gap to meaningful communication. Alzheimer's had only been the block for the last five years, before that it was everything else.
Meredith's hair whipped around her face as she watched the ambulance land and two teams rush out to meet it. She was chilled to the bone. Soon the chill would force her to stop avoiding and face her mom. She firmly listed the top five things she needed to say to Ellis, screwed her courage to the max, and headed back inside. It was most likely that she'd only have this one chance with Ellis. She needed to take advantage of it.
o-o-o
"Mom?" Meredith ventured tentatively to her dozing mother.
"Well, I wondered when you'd show up to talk to me," said Ellis, stretching and actually smiling winningly at Meredith, "Please sit down and tell me how you are. What's going on in your life?"
"Well... Mom...," Meredith didn't trust that smile – she'd seen it's cruel underbelly too many times – but... she had a day or so, possibly just hours, "I'm happy... I'm really happy. I've been dating a wonderful man... a surgeon... I think you'd like him. I... I... love him."
Meredith blushed as she tried to tell her mom about Derek. In the back of her mind she thought perhaps Ellis would be impressed by the head of neurosurgery and maybe some of Derek's glamor would rub off on her. Maybe, in this, Ellis would approve of her.
Ellis frowned, "You're seriously dating? As an intern? How does that jive with a hundred hour week? Didn't you learn anything from my mistakes?! For pity's sake use double birth control. You don't want your life derailed by a baby at this point in your career, trust me on this."
Meredith numbly pulled back within herself. All the planning she and Derek had done over the last few days tasted like ashes on her tongue. A baby... Derek's baby could derail her career. Derek's baby would be a 'mistake' to its maternal grandmother. (Meredith was also under no illusions about how its paternal relatives would feel about any baby Derek had by her. She was not popular with Derek's family.) Meredith herself had been an encumbrance to her mother, and poor Zachary...
"What specialty have you chosen?" asked Ellis, showing a smiling interest over sharp teeth again.
Meredith pulled herself together and tried to speak coherently, "I've tentatively chosen... plastic surgery... We have a world class plastic surgeon as head here now... I've... already learned so much from him... I love... reconstructing..."
Meredith stumbled to a halt as her mother flew into a sudden violent rage, her eyes flashing hatefully. Alzheimer's, however, wasn't the excuse this time. Meredith froze to cold, numb, stillness, inside and out. The old silence enveloped her. Her words froze in her brain and melted before they could make it to her tongue.
"What?! Plastic surgery?! That's what you've chosen?!" Ellis literally threw her hands up, "I should have known. Imagine my disappointment when I wake up after five years and discover that you've picked something as lightweight as plastics," she spat, "You may as well have been a baby catcher! Seeing that I have Alzheimer's, I would have thought the specialty you should choose would be apparent! You're a bankruptcy, Meredith, a lazy, selfish nothing, and you always have been."
Ellis' raised voice echoed down the hall so that every staff member and patient in that section of the floor heard Dr. Grey's humiliation at the hands of her mother – the mother they'd all witnessed her caring for so diligently. Several of Meredith's friends, including Mr. Sandage, Meredith's octogenarian friend on the janitorial staff, and Nurse Tolliver, up from the Pit, paused outside Ellis' door, wondering how to help Dr. Grey. Cristina Yang and Izzie Stevens looked up from charts at the nurses' station across the hall. They had perfect sound and picture.
Oh, thought Izzie painfully, I get the dark and twisty, one night stand, too much tequila thing now.
Cristina couldn't help remembering all the times she'd told Meredith how lucky she was to have Ellis Grey as a mother. She looked at Meredith's stricken, frozen face and was ashamed of the envy she'd once felt. As irritating as her mother and Burke's mother were, they didn't despise their own children and would never speak like that. The happiness on her person's face, so irritating to Cristina this morning, was gone as if it were never there. Cristina mourned its loss. She frowned in concern at the old dark and twisty, sorrowful Meredith.
"I... I... Mom..."
"I've been out of my mind for five years. Five years! And when I wake up you're the one who's babbling stupidly. Boyfriends and love and plastics. Whatever happened to you, Meredith?! You've become ordinary... bland... boring! The only thing you've left out is building a house in the country."
Cristina's mouth turned down as she watched dark and twisty Meredith stare at the floor between her feet. Then, Meredith looked up. Her face was empty and hard. No one at Seattle Grace had ever seen that expression on her face. In fact, only those who'd been at her infamous Swiss boarding school would have recognized the look.
"Alright, Mom, let's talk about something a little less ordinary then, like the fact that I have a baby brother," Meredith said, stress churning her gut wildly.
Ellis Grey stared at her blankly.
"That look works most days, but not today. How could you give away Guiseppe's son, without even telling him he was a father?! How could you do such a monstrous thing? Did you know what they did to me in Switzerland and Tanzania while you hid your pregnancy? You called me a selfish disappointment. Well, what do you think you are?!
"Do you have any idea how hard it has been for me for the last five years?! Nursing homes, doctors, experimental programs, legalities, investments, moving, a thousand details – all alone, while I was in med school and internship! You want to know what happened to me? You! You happened to me!"
Meredith couldn't look at Ellis Grey one more second. She needed air. She needed out from under the crushing weight of tsunami Ellis. She rushed blindly past everyone in the hallway, only vaguely aware of bodies in her path. She had no clear idea that she'd brushed past Cristina, Izzie, Tolliver, Mr. Sandage and finally, at the end of the hall, just entering, Derek. She just managed to get to the windswept helipad, where the air could counteract the suffocating ocean, before she vomited.