Chapter 36: Realizations Come to Light

Derek had taken Bella home as Meredith finished up her post op patients. She changed and grabbed her coat and bag and headed towards the lobby. On the stair landing that spilled out into the main entrance, she saw her resident sitting on the floor against the railing. She started to roll her eyes and walk by, but something grabbed at her and she stopped.

"Dr. Peterson."

They young girl looked up at her with conflict built up in her eyes.

"Dr. Grey." She stuttered "I…" she let out a sigh "I don't know what to say to them."

"What." Meredith frowned, suddenly feeling angry "Don't tell me you haven't told the family yet?"

Her expression was blank, which was Meredith's answer in itself.

"I don't know what to tell them." She said "I know what happened to him, I know what took his life. I've been sitting here rehearsing and all I can come up with are medical terms. I thought I was a good doctor. But… but I think I'm not."

Meredith looked at the girl, she was a good doctor. Sometimes easily distracted and overwhelmed but she was a good doctor. She reminded her of herself in some ways. She sighed as she knelt down to face the girl eye to eye.

"I have a daughter."

"Huh?" the girl frowned.

"I have a daughter." Meredith repeated "And I saw her for the first time in nine years. Due to bad circumstances I gave her up for adoption. Her adopted parents died last week in a car accident, so I'm suddenly a mother again."

"I'm sorry Dr. Grey." She frowned "I'm not getting your point?"

"My point." She nodded "Is that I don't know my nine-year-old daughter. And her parents just died. And I don't know how to talk to her. But I'm going to go home, and I'm going to try. Because she's a person."

"She's a person."

"If your parents were in a car accident, how would you want the surgeon who operated on them to come tell you that they didn't make it?"

"Oh." She mumbled "I get it now."

"Being a doctor isn't all about medical terms Dr. Peterson." She said as she stood up and adjusted her bag on her shoulder "We're human beings working on human beings."

She nodded at the girl and turned to walk down the stairs. Wondering if it was the day or Bella's sudden presence in her life that felt as if she were changing. She got to the door and turned to see Dr. Peterson in the lobby sitting with the family in a comforting way as she rested her own hand on that of his now widow.

She drove home in silence and tried to soak the day in and make some type of sense of it. First off, how was she going to deal with Bella, there had to be a way, but she didn't have a single clue how to care for a child. Part of her was still very much a child herself. She had Derek, and thank god for that, but she couldn't let him take care of Bella all by himself. Though he would make an excellent father to Bella, she knew that he wasn't her biological one, not that it mattered to him.

There had to be a way, or a book on mothering. Doubt it, too bad there wasn't a manual though. She pulled into the garage of her condo and sighed. Maybe that could be the first thing they'd change. Until the last month she'd not needed anything more than what she had. But now her life was changing and growing, not necessarily in a bad way. But she needed to mold herself around it and change her shape a little. For starters, buy a house.

She walked into the condo from the garage and smelled dinner cooking. She put her things down on the door side table and hung her coat up on the rack. She walked towards the kitchen and stopped in the doorway as she saw Derek and Bella fixing themselves a snack. She smiled as Derek handed her a piece of toast. She took hers to the table and took a butter knife and dipped it into a jar of peanut butter.

She glanced over to see Derek spreading peanut butter onto his toast as well. Bella folded her toast in half to wipe the peanut butter off the knife, she saw Derek do the same thing. They both licked their fingers, almost in an annoying smacking way, starting with their pinky finger to their thumb. Both at the same time. She wondered if in the hour they were together that she picked that up from him or watched him do it and was mimicking him.

But nine-year old's didn't mimic, especially not their parental figures. And they had their backs to each other. She watched as they both bit the inside corner of their peanut butter toast sandwich at the same time in the same way. She felt a sledgehammer of realization hit her and gasped.

"Oh… my… god."