Sorry for the delay, but I have a tenosynovitis so it's kind of hard to type stuff. I hope you'll enjoy this chapter anyway.


Chapter 52

People are really romantic about the beginnings of things. Fresh start, clean slate, a world of possibility. But no matter what new adventure you're embarking on, you're still you. You bring you into every new beginning in your life. So how different can it possibly be?

Meredith walked into the Chief's office. "Meredith" Dr. Sanders greeted her.
"Dr. Grey" Meredith corrected him "Dr. Sanders."
"You wanted to talk to me." Sanders turned around in his spinning chair.
"I did. I was wondering whether there is a way to specialise in both general and neuro." She smiled. Throughout the past week she had realized that she wanted both. "I mean, I putting in all those extra hours and…"
"Meredith, I'll look into it, I'll figure something out" he nodded.
"Derek, Dr. Shepherd can't find out" Meredith insisted.
"How are you planning to specialise without the head of the department knowing about it?" Sanders laughed.
"I don't know; you are the Chief of surgery. Figure something out!" Meredith told him. Sanders nodded and looked at her.

"I'll perform the surgery on Richard today" Sanders said.
"Who's assisting?" Meredith wondered. She had not seen the procedure on the OR board.
"Your intern."
"She wouldn't know her hand from her ass." Meredith rolled her eyes.
"Well, she'll have to learn. She's in the skills lab. I showed her the procedure once and now she's practicing." He said "I won't let her near Richard in the OR though, she's in there to observe- before she doesn't have the necessary certification she can't assist on a laparoscopic procedure – you know that."
"Alright." Meredith nodded and walked away.


Cristina was doing some charting at the nurse's station when Owen ran into her "Cristina." He noted when they crashed. She had not been sleeping since the breakup, in fact she had not left the hospital. Those walls felt safe.
"I can't apologize Owen; I won't apologize for how I feel." She spat out. "I can't control how I feel. The sun doesn't apologize for being the sun and rain doesn't apologize for falling. Feelings just are. I can't change who I am. The person you want me to be, is not me"
Owen nodded and looked at her "I was going to ask you for Ms. Hovers chart."
"Oh." She looked at him and nodded.
"You can pick up your stuff tonight." He offered.
"It's Zola's birthday party tonight." Cristina said. She had not planned to go, but maybe it would be a nice distraction or the proper excuse why she couldn't make it to their apartment.
"I didn't know." Owen said. Amelia had in fact not told him.
"I'll try to make it anyway." Cristina nodded. "It's a kid's party, probably won't be long."


Meredith walked Richard to the OR. "Alright, Richard, you go in there and kick cancer's ass. I'll give you her number and you can call her. How about that for motivation?" she smiled
"We have to go now." Dr. Hillman said softly. "Dr. Grey, you know how things are going."
"I'll wait here. I'll watch from the gallery." Meredith said "I'll try to be there when you wake up."
"No, you won't. Family doesn't get to be in the gallery." Dr. Sanders said. "Rules are rules."
"Wow." Meredith sighed as the doors to the surgical unit opened.


Mark saw Callie on the bridge that connects both surgical areas: "How are you? I mean with Sofia and everything." He wondered. He knew how hard it could be to be separated from your child.
"I'm okay. I'm getting used to working out time schedules with George." She nodded, but seemed absent. When she noticed that Mark was still looking at her, she sighed "It's…different."
"You know I'm always there in case you need to talk -and I know all about the lawyers and the resentment and… the accident…" Mark smiled "I'm always up for a drink if you need one."
"Thanks. But right now, I have to figure out how to live like this. I'm still trying. I'm still going to physical therapy every second day. I'm training my hands and I try to learn how to take care of Sofia." Callie listed what she was doing every day "Arizona, she helps me, but right now we don't get a whole lot of time to ourselves."
"Yeah, I was exhausted all the time after Maria was born and I …" he paused.
"Thanks, but I'm only trying. How are you?" Callie asked.
"I'm trying… Lexie. I can't get her out of my head." He sighed.
"Get her." Callie smiled "If I learned anything… it's that you shouldn't hold yourself back"
"So if you are up for a drink, just call me. I'll be there" Mark nodded and walked away.


Lexie and Jackson waved Jackson's mother goodbye. Seattle-Tacoma airport was busy and everybody at the airport. As his mother waved them one last time before making her way through security, Jackson looked at Lexie "She left, she finally left. Thanks Lexie. Thank you for everything, you can stop pretending now."
"Yeah." Lexie nodded. She had almost forgotten that she was only his pretend girlfriend.
"But it was fun, I forgot how much fun we had together." He smiled.
"Yeah, it felt pretty good. Even though the fake almost proposal on the space needle was a bit too much." She giggled and looked at him with sad eyes.
"It could have been real. You have to admit that it would have been pretty romantic if you would have proposed to the person you loved." She nodded.
"What if I do?" he wondered. Lexie went silent and looked at him.
"Hold on, are you trying to say that you still love me?" she wondered as she didn't know what to say.
"We have to get back to the hospital." He said without answering her question.


While Richard was in surgery Meredith had been paged to the laboratory that had been set aside for the islet cell trial. Derek was waiting in front of the lab with the kids and smiled at her "The kids wanted to see you."
"Go away, I want to set up the lab properly." Bailey told him.
Derek whispered "I guess we have to go" into Meredith's ear while her intern looked at her.
"A research project is a brilliant idea. This idea is like a baby in a mother's womb. It grows and gets bigger while the mother provides everything for it to flourish." Bailey made an introduction "Let's see what's behind this door."

"Mice? Really?" Meredith looked at the room full of cages.
"You are going to insert two hundred devices into these two hundred mice. We are monitoring another group next door. They don't have the device." Bailey nodded.
"Two hundred? I'm going to be stuck here all week." Meredith noted.
"Great practice though." Miranda Bailey smiled "These mice are tiny and you can vastly improve your technique."
"Am I supposed to place the device at the same position for all of them?" Meredith wondered.
"Why are you asking?" Bailey wondered.
"Well, maybe the location affects the effectiveness." Meredith's intern suggested.
"Try it." Bailey said.
"Half and half?" Meredith wondered.
"Works fine for me. We'll take turns once we get to the stage where we gather and interpret the data." Bailey said "I'm scheduled for a liposuction."
"Who's cleaning their cages?" the intern wondered.
"You are. I'm not cleaning their cages. I'm an attending." Bailey said.
The intern looked helplessly at Meredith. "Hillman, you are on the trial now, clean the cages." Meredith smiled "Congratulations."


George unlocked the door and looked at his girlfriend "Anna? Can I come in?"
"Why wouldn't you? You live here too" Anna noted.
"We had a fight." George said and waited at the door.
"That doesn't mean that you're not allowed in your own house." Anna came up to him and took his jacket and his keys.
"It's your house. You paid for it" George said.
"I asked you to move in -and you did. That makes it your house -and I don't…." she paused
"Sophie couldn't have a better role model. I'm just telling you, I want kids someday. We would have amazing kids." George said without realising that he had brought up the original topic of their fight again.
"George, I don't think I can do it. Sophie is amazing but I don't think I could do it on my own again."
"You wouldn't go through it alone." George said "I mean…"
"You don't know this." Anna said "You don't know if you'll be there."
"You don't want another child?" he wondered.
"George, I'm not saying I don't want kids at some point in the future but I can't guarantee that I'm going to change my mind. If you stay around, you have to know that there's a possibility we won't have kids -and my mom died, why do you have to push something like this now?" she wondered.
"Is it because you'll always be in love with your dead fiancé?" George asked
"I'll always be in love with the father of my daughter." She said and grabbed her coat.


"I told her to page an attending" Cristina cried in Dr. Sanders office. "And she said "Dr. Singer, do you see an attending?" I wanted to call someone!" In the meantime Cristina sat next to her and rolled her eyes.
"You performed a procedure you are not qualified to do. "Dr. Sanders said "How many procedures outside of cardio have you done in the past three months?"
He knew the answer. Cristina hadn't been assigned to a patient outside of cardio in two weeks and she had assisted on four general procedures in the past three months. "She survived, I couldn't have been so bad" Cristina shrugged.
"You should have paged an attending…" he yelled "This isn't the first time you violated our new teaching protocols, Dr. Yang"
"Dr. Hunt was the only one available and you wouldn't want me and him in the same OR" she challenged him.
"I want an attending and a resident in the same OR -and I don't care about your personal problems." He insisted "I can't do my job if everybody here keeps doing what they want. You will be banned from any surgical procedure for four weeks, Dr. Yang and dr. Singer, I'm going to assign you to Dr. Kepner until Dr. Yang is reinstated.".


Amy and Derek stood in the operating theatre together. The tumour in front of them needed more than one skilled surgeon. "So who is this mystery man you are meeting every night?" Derek smirked when they waited for the radioactive seeds to do their work.
"I don't know what you are talking about." Amelia smiled and looked away.
"Staying out late, smiling, I know that face." Derek laughed "Your sisters do it too. Same face, same laugh"
"Well, I have a thousand things to say to him and a thousand reasons not to, I can't tell you whom it is." She smiled. "It's just sex anyway."
"So I it's someone I know." Derek concluded.
"I'm not telling you anything, you will tell mom and she'll be over before you know it." Amelia smirked. "I heard Meredith wants to go back to neuro." -at least Dr. Sanders had talked to her about it.
"I didn't -and I'd be the first to know, wouldn't I?" Derek looked at Amelia.
"Yeah, I guess." Amelia nodded.


"How is he?" Bailey wondered when she saw Meredith in front of Richard's room in the intensive care unit of the hospital.
"He hasn't woken up yet." Meredith bit her lips "But they got it all out."
"Thanks" she nodded.
"You don't have to thank me. We don't know if it worked yet. Can I talk to you about Dr. Yang?" Bailey wondered. "Dr. Sanders asked me to."
"No." Meredith declined. "He can ask me himself, if he wants me to say anything which I won't."
"Well, you could become Chief resident." Bailey suggested.
"I won't if it means that I have to betray my friends." Meredith smiled softly.


Lexie stood in the locker room when Jackson walked in. He sat down on the bench in front of his locker and let out a sigh. "You look like shit and you said things and now you're not talking to me…" Lexie rambled "and it's driving me insane because you said that you still love me or at least you made it sound like it and…"
He looked at her "You look beautiful." She had tied her hair to a 1920s style updo and was wearing a green dress.
"I'm going to Christopher's birthday party. You can come if you want" she suggested "If you give me an answer"
"I don't know Lexie. Being with you felt good." He said "but I don't know if I'm in love with you"
"What do you want me to do?" Lexie wondered.
"Just do what makes you happy." He said.
"So do you want to come? There's cake and … yeah… beer… there'll be beer."


"You must be Anna, George talks about you a lot" April greeted the brown haired woman that came into the kitchen with her daughter and George.
"And you must be April. I didn't realise all of you would be there." Anna smiled "Sophie, why don't you go and play with some of the kids outside?"
"She looks like you." April noted with a smile.
"Do you have kids?" Anna looked around.
"No, but I want some, once I got married. A boy and two girls. The boy will be called Samuel. It's a biblical name." April rambled.
"That's nice, I guess." Anna smiled "So your boyfriend…"
"I don't have a girlfriend" April admitted.
"Nobody would want her. She's annoying" Cristina walked up to them and grabbed a beer from the bridge.
"Hey Cristina." Anna greeted Cristina, but looked at her phone "Oh, I'm sorry, I have to go, the hospital is calling."
"Isn't that supposed to be our line?" April loved
"Yeah" Cristina nodded and walked away.


When most of the kids at the party had left or went to bed, the adults finally had a chance to focus on themselves. "Whoever invented the term happily ever after should have his ass kicked." Meredith mumbled.
"You are cherophobic…" Lexie laughed.
"Cherophobic?" Cristina wondered.
"Everything is well and you're just afraid something horrible is going to happen" Meredith explained. Lexie and she had discussed that concept a while ago.
"Like your boyfriend proposing after we decided to pretend to be a couple after I cheated?" Lexie wondered.
"No like Derek wrapping himself around a telephone pole or I don't know. The world is a horrible place." Meredith said "I have this dream and he keeps dying and there's nothing I can do"
"Owen is seeing someone." Cristina said out of blue.
Both sisters turned their heads. "He told you?" Meredith wondered.
"No, I found a pair of panties when I cleaned out my stuff." Cristina said "So now I have a bunch of stuff in my car and a pair of panties."
"Wow" Lexie laughed, but was interrupted by a noise in the living room. "I have to go" she excused herself after she saw that Jackson and Mark were at the centre of attention.


"What are you doing here?" Amelia wondered. She had snuck to Zola's room to check if her niece was sound asleep.
"I wanted to talk to you" he said "Cristina cleared out our apartment."
"In the middle of my niece's birthday party" Amelia suggested that this wasn't the right place or time to discuss whatever what was going on between them "Are you insane? What happened can never happen again!"
"Why not?" he wondered.
"Because it's messy and I don't need a man right now." Amelia insisted.
"But I need you, Amelia" Owen took her hand and put it on his chest. She was able to feel his beating heart. "I'm crazy about you"
She moved towards him and started to kiss him. The kissing lead to touching, she slowly unbuttoned her shirt while he took off his shirt. "We should move" Owen suggested while he opened his belt.
"No, somebody will hear us" she whispered and continued to kiss him.


Five minutes later Meredith noticed weird sounds over the baby monitor and decided to check with Cristina. "What's going on here?" she asked when she saw Owen and Amelia. "Amy, what are you doing in my daughter's bed room?"
The door swung opened and revealed the scene to Cristina "Owen, seriously?" Cristina starred at him.
"Oh my God!" Amelia whispered and tried to cover up her naked body.

Cristina had fled the scene; Meredith had followed Cristina onto the porch.
"I can't believe you kept this from me. You knew" Cristina yelled at her, but both didn't notice that they had an audience.
"I thought it happened once, Cristina. I wasn't aware…" Meredith tried to defend herself.
"When was the first time?" Cristina wondered.
"The first time I noticed?" Meredith sighed "Christmas"
"They've been doing this behind my back and you fail to mention it once in months!" Cristina started to walk to her car.
"It wasn't my story to tell." Meredith got in between her friend and the car.
"Friends tell each other if their partner is cheating on them, Mer." Cristina said and moved her eyes in a way that tried to suggest for her to move away.
"I told Owen to tell you and she wants kids. She wants what he wants" Meredith insisted.
"Are you saying this is my fault?" Cristina coughed. She couldn't believe the day she had.
"I'm saying that, I don't know what I'm saying. Amy… she's my sister in law. She isn't a bad person." Meredith insisted.
"Is this supposed to console me? My boyfriend cheated on me, but at least the girl isn't a bad person." Cristina opened the door of her car.
"No, but you and Owen. You fight. You don't want the same things Cristina and it's, it's not going to change." Meredith insisted "You are having problems and there's no fix to one person wanting a baby and the other not wanting a baby. Maybe you are not meant to be, you want different things and it's what keeps you apart."
"You believe in all this meant to be bullshit? I love him, Meredith. Do you know what it feels like to walk into your ex-boyfriend kissing another woman?" she wondered "No, you don't. It's embarrassing. I love him, Mer. Don't you dare talking to me like this."
"Cristina, just let me explain. Please!" Meredith begged.
"Explain, Christmas, that's when you should have explained this. That's when you should have explained."
"I'm not the person that cheated on you" Meredith reminded her.
"You are the person who should have told me that I get cheated on." Cristina said and started the car "You should have been my friend. You should have had my back."


After all the mess everyone had left the party quickly. Mark had punched Jackson after a few drinks and the fight between Cristina and Meredith had been less than private. Lexie and Jackson looked at each other. "You know, she's gone. We don't have to pretend anymore." He said after she had handed him a cooling pack.
"What if I want to pretend?" Lexie smiled.
"Lexie, your ex punched me, I think it's safer for me to stop pretending." Jackson looked at her.
"No, no, shut up, you wanted me to do this" she insisted "and I did it and now I see the way you look at me and I know that you want to kiss me too."


When Owen saw Amelia the next morning he was relieved that she had found the strength to come to work after half their colleagues had seen them naked. "Amelia" he yelled.
"Don't talk to me Owen." Amelia walked past him.
"Cristina saw us." Owen followed her, but whenever he caught up, she walked faster.
"I happen to remember. My brother and my sister in law saw me naked and your ex or girlfriend or whatever yelled at me. So please, stop talking to me because you'll run back to her anyway." Amelia stopped and screamed at him "I worked very hard on not being broken and you are not a good person. You used me to hurt her. – and you wanted to hurt her because she had the audacity to want different things than you do. You are a horrible person – so please leave me alone. I have to go."


Derek and Mark sat in the day-care. Mark was holding a cooling pack. "What's the matter?" Derek wondered when he saw Mark's black eye.
"She keeps pushing me away." He sighed. He looked like a love sick puppy.
"We don't get to choose who we fall for. They may mistreat us, ignore us or hurt us but we stay with them." Derek nodded.
"Is that why you asked Meredith for a divorce after she was fired?" Mark wondered "I mean, clearly this isn't healthy, I never felt like this for anyone before."
"I stayed and not because we're stupid or we enjoy getting hurt, it's because we can see the good in them." Derek said "You tried with Addison and Meredith and me - despite all the arguments, she makes me feel like nobody else can."
"And she can value that feeling and because our brains won't allow them to leave our minds. I keep thinking about her, but she keeps saying no" Mark threw a ball back to Christopher.
"You never took no for an answer" Derek noted "When did that start?"


"You are my neuro consult?" Dr. James Peterson looked at Meredith. He had paged Dr. Shepherd, but apparently she had delegated this consult to one of the residents. He was the new ER doctor all interns were going crazy over, but for some reason the attendings didn't like him. Meredith didn't quite get it. He was about her age she thought.
"Yeah, I guess I'm all you'll get." She joked and looked at Samantha Parker's chart. Amelia had released her before, but she was back and her FSH levels were elevated while the LH was lowered permanently. "Looking at the chart there's a chance there's a tumour at the pituitary gland, I'll take her for a head CT" she concluded as the pharmaceutical treatment hadn't changed the levels.
"Oh, that's more than Dr. Shepherd did last time she has been here." He nodded.


Meredith was able to locate a tumour at the pituitary gland which meant she had to page a neuro surgeon. She was rolling a dice here, it was either Amelia, Derek, Dr. Nelson or the guy who had just moved here from Boise.
"Amelia, good to see you, want to have a drink?" Dr. Peterson smirked.
"It's Dr. Shepherd." She insisted.
"I beg your pardon" he looked at her.
"I never allowed you to use my first name in here." Amelia looked at him. "What are you doing here?"
"I'm working here" he smiled and Meredith didn't quite know what to make of that scene "I used your first name plenty of times before. So what about that drink?"
"What's happening here?" Dr. Hillman whispered.
"I don't know." Meredith said.
"I'm Dr. Shepherd for you." Amelia insisted and looked at the tumour "So tell me, what are you two doing here?"
"They know each other" Meredith whispered.
"I heard you, you talked to your brother about me. I'm flattered…" James said. At least Derek had been quite unwelcoming.
"Shut up, see… I get it… you see me and you see you and you think we worked out great in Baltimore. You think we're about the same age and this could be fun, but I'm about a hundred years older than I look." Amelia insisted "I left for a reason No, I don't want that drink. But you can book that OR."
"Okay" he nodded "but if you feel up to it, I'm at Sam's in the bay. They have excellent fries and I know how much you like fries and I'm there on Thursday nights and you could be there too if you feel like you want to talk".


After getting kicked off her case by Amelia, Meredith had to work in the ER on her own. While it had been a lazy day for two hours, suddenly everybody was alert when two victims with gunshot wounds came in. One head wound and the other one with trauma to the abdomen and leg. Derek and Owen were on high alert.

When the first patient came in Meredith jumped to the ambulance "I thought you wanted to go into general" Derek smirked.
"Yeah, but the patient is here nonetheless." Meredith said hoping she'd scrub in.
"Grey, come over!" Owen yelled when the second ambulance arrived before she had a chance to persuade her husband.


Mark looked beaten up even though he had been the one that had punched Jackson and Lexie wanted to cheer him up while they were trying to graft bones. "Atychiphobia, Mark." She said
"What?" He wondered.
"You suffer from it." She smiled.
"What is it?" he wondered.
"The fear of not being good enough." She answered "You are. You don't have to punch out my boyfriend at my sister's party."
"I was a moron"
"No, you're not a moron, just a case of arrested development" Lexie laughed.
"So you thought about it?" Mark wondered.
"No, Mark, but I kept thinking about you and about Jackson." She sighed. "You punched him"
"You went to Zola's birthday party with him."
"I think we can be happy" Lexie said "Jackson and I can be happy. You should move on"
"We have a shot here, Lex. Right now, we have a chance and I need you to take it."
"Mark, Jackson is a good guy." Lexie looked into his eyes. She didn't know what was going on inside their heads. She wanted to kiss him, but less than two hours ago she had felt the same thing for Jackson.
"You don't have to settle for a good guy" Mark said "You should settle for your one true love".
"I don't want to hurt him again." She apologized "and we… you wanted to get away from yourself, so you moved to L.A. with Addison, but you realized that you can't run from yourself by moving from one place to another and now you are back here and you think you know what you want, but you don't."
"I'm in love with you Lexie, I'll always be in love with you." He sighed as he put the instruments down.


Derek was the last one to finish his surgery. Meredith and Owen sat in front of the scrub room.
"I saved him" Derek smiled.
"He's the shooter" Meredith told him "You just saved the guy that shot Owen's and my patient"
"Did he make it?" Derek wondered even though he knew the answer.
"No, there was an aneurysm, it burst and he herniated." Owen said
"I tried to relieve the pressure, but…" Meredith paused when she noticed that technically Derek couldn't find out about that part of the procedure.
"we couldn't stop it." Owen finished "And now I have to talk to his wife and his two kids."
"The police are waiting for my guy." Derek sighed when he looked at his pager.


Anna sat on her bed with a box of tissues spread around her. She was crying and it looked like she had cried for quite some time. She had left Sophie at Meredith's place and she had been alone all day. "What's the matter?" George wondered. He knew that Sophie was at the hospital day-care and wondered why.
"Mom died. Well, on the bright side it wasn't the cancer that killed her, it was an allergic reaction to one of the pills she was taking to deal with the side effects." She laughed hysterically before starting to cry again. By now she was all dried up.
"I sat by her bed for two hours before you came." George said.
"Why do these things keep happening?" Anna cried "Why is the universe so screwed up? My mom's dead, my dad died, Daniel died and everyone I know keeps suffering, my mom had a miscarriage on the day of my uncle's wedding."
George didn't know about half the events Anna had listed "What's the matter?" he wondered and hugged her.
"I was wearing a white flower girl dress, we were getting ready and suddenly there was blood running down my mom's thighs. She told me that everything was going to be fine and asked me to get garbage bags. My dress got covered in blood when I helped her to wrap them around herself. We drove to the hospital. The whole way to the hospital she told me she was going to be fine… I think I was in the room when they... " she started to cry again.
"did it… " George nodded and completed the sentence.
"Yeah, she didn't cry, she stared. She had eight miscarriages before I was born and two after. I was the only one who made it. She decided that they wouldn't try again after that one." She sighed "My dad started drinking and mom started to work crazy hours -and I was alone… I was alone. I was the most alone four-year-old you ever met."
"It wasn't your fault." George said "You were a little innocent girl."
"But it felt like it. I never felt like I was good enough. A year after that they had a huge fight. My mom went to her aunt's birthday on her own and my dad drank. He drank so much that he passed out."
"What happened?" George wondered.
"I called 911 and probably saved his life He was on the verge of liver failure when they airlifted us to the hospital. I spent the entire day in the ER waiting room on my own. I was a scared little girl…A neighbour who worked at the hospital took me home."
"And your dad?" George wondered. This truly sounded like one of Meredith's horror childhood stories.
"He started rehab and AA – and mom asked me to make sure he was okay." she whispered.
"You were five." George said in disbelief.
"And I stopped being a kid. I used to go to his AA meetings with him. I knew coping mechanisms before I ever knew what an addiction was." She laughed.
"You are strong and amazing." George said "but it's okay to be said now."
"No, it's not. Screw that. I never felt like I was good enough. I was a 4.0 student and state champion in Rhythmic Gymnastics and still felt like I had to do more to be noticed." She yelled.
"Gymnastics?" George laughed.
"Yeah"
"You said your dad died." He said after a short pause.
"He died when I was 17. Liver cancer- who'd guess after he had drowned himself in liquor." She sighed.
"He started drinking again after the first time?" George wondered.
"I always felt like it was my fault because I couldn't stop him, me and mom were never enough to make him stop."
"Addiction doesn't work like that."
"I know, but it feels like this. I was angry at him – for drinking- and for dying. I'm still angry at him... I took care of him… I was so angry… the day he died I was on a date… supposed to go… the first day in weeks… I didn't even make it out the door and when he took his last breath I was angry at him for ruining my date with Daniel… which makes me…" she paused.
"human" George suggested.
"No"
"Yes it does" George kissed her.
"I just don't feel like I want to fight no more I'm tired of fighting for my happiness because whatever I do…" she starred at the wall.
"You are strong and beautiful and amazing." He whispered. "It's okay to be sad for a little while."
"You said I was dark and twisty" Anna said
"Your story is dark and twisty"
"George, you don't need me." Anna told him.
"But I want to be with you." George said and hugged her.


Meredith walked into Dr. Sander's office. She had not shaken off the events of the previous night yet when she saw who was sitting on the other chair "What is she doing here? Meredith looked at Dr. Sanders.
"I told you, it's not a good idea" Amelia said and wanted to get up.
"Hello Meredith, nice to see you." He smiled politely "Sit down! Both of you!"
"Why is Amelia here?" Meredith wondered.
"She'll be your mentor." He said.
"They said "Her what?" and "My what?" at the same time and looked at each other. Whatever Meredith had planned to do; this scenario had not occurred to her.
"She'll supervise you and I'll sign off on whatever procedure you are doing with her." Sanders said "You wanted secrecy, you get it. We'll do it this way or no way at all"
"This is not a good idea." Meredith muttered.
"Yeah, I'm not even a doctor yet." Amelia said "I'm only a fellow."
"You passed your boards, you'll do" Dr. Sanders said "Your references are impeccable."
"You are serious?" Meredith sighed.


Owen looked at the new ER doctor who was sitting in the parking lot. He was unaware of who he was when he walked up to him "What are you doing here?"
"Thinking" James smiled "James Peterson, I don't think I got a chance to introduce myself before."
"Why are you still here?" Owen wondered.
"I have nowhere to sleep and the hotel is overbooked." He said "I needed time to think."
"There are on call rooms for that" Owen suggested "You don't have to sit outside."
"Only if you are on call." James said.
"You can sleep on my couch tonight" Owen offered. "We help each other around here."


It's all everybody wants, right? Clean slate, a new beginning. Like that's going to be any easier. Ask the guy pushing the boulder up the hill. Nothing is easy about starting over. Nothing at all.


Meredith sat on her bed and cried. "It's a horrible day, an absolutely horrible day."
"Why are you looking at the calendar like that?" Derek wondered.
"It was a horrible day, the miscarriage…" Meredith swallowed "today was the day she would have been born."
"I… I… you didn't say anything. You could have…" he paused and looked at her "we could have taken the day off"
"I didn't know how to…" Meredith hugged him and started to cry.
"Just say it: I need you. You say the words and I'm there." Derek reassured her "I'm busy, but I'll always try to be there."
"we got Zola back and she and Chris are a handful…" Meredith tried to dry her tears, but kept sobbing "I hardly ever think about her but when I do, it just hits me… I feel like I can't breathe… I feel like I'm suffocating. When it happened it felt like it wasn't me, I was just an observer"
"Do you want to talk about it?" he wondered.
"I guess it's time. I guess it's time to talk. It's like when I was drowning. It just hurts so bad. I feel like I could have done something when I didn't have a chance. I broke down at work. Maggie found me. Is there anything you want to know?"
"Did you leave because of it, is that why you went to Boston and didn't tell me where you went?" Derek wondered. "You went to see mom."
"No, I found out during my second week there. I felt nauseous, first I thought it was a hangover, but the nausea didn't go away, so when I realized I was late… very very late… I took a test." Meredith paused "When I found out, I ..."
"didn't know what to do" he nodded "Were you ever going to tell me? I mean, if you had stayed in Boston."
"Eventually, I mean…" Meredith swallowed "I knew what it was like growing up without a dad, I wouldn't want my kids to grow up like that"
"You could've… had an abortion" Derek sighed "I mean you were alone"
"No, it would have been our child, I couldn't have. This child had a part of you and me. It's something I couldn't"