Chapter 44: Your Daughter Got Suspended

Luckily since the house was paid for in full their escrow on the house was little to no time at all. They were moved in after a week and loving all the extra walls in the house. Bella had no complaints whatsoever regarding her room being on the other end of the house as Meredith and Derek.

Meredith was finding Bella's presence in her life as a hidden blessing. She was seeing that she felt more apt to teach her residents. That she had more patience and was open to instructing them. I guess now she saw her daughter in them a little.

"I need suction right there, Dr. Peterson."

"Thank you, Dr. Grey." She smiled through her mask with appreciation.

They heard the doors open but as typical Meredith didn't bother looking. Her patient was her top priority.

"Meredith." She heard in her husband's disgruntled tone "We have a problem."

"Whatever that problem is, it'll have to wait." She replied "I'm dissecting a temporal lobe here and if I stop, then I'll have a problem."

"Your daughter is getting suspended."

"My daughter?" she raised her brow "If I remember correctly you were there for the conception too. Actually, I don't remember details all that great due to the amount of alcohol I had that night, but since we were in a closet, I can almost guarantee we were doing the bendy thing."

"Meredith." Derek mumbled with embarrassment as he looked around the room of people. "We're getting off track."

"Right." Meredith sighed as she pointed for suction again "Why did Bella get suspended, already?"

"She put superglue on a girls' chair right before she sat down for class and well... I'm sure you can imagine what happened after class."

"Really." Meredith laughed "I knew she'd figure it out."

"I'm sorry." Derek scoffed "Did you encourage her to do this?"

"I told her to stick up for herself Derek. I told her that she's got to stand her ground, and there's nothing wrong with that."

"She super glued a girl's ass to her chair!" Derek yelped "It took them an hour to get her out! She was very embarrassed, I'm sure."

"Well the kid probably deserved it."

"Meredith!"

"What!" she hissed and turned around finally "What do you want me to say? That she was wrong! I'm not going to. Because not all of us were popular the second we walked onto school grounds. Some of us had pink hair and wore combat boots with our uniforms. Some of us dared to be ourselves and we had to earn the respect we got because we didn't want to conform. Bella is different and likes who she is, she's sticking up for herself and NO, there is nothing wrong with that!"

"If this pattern continues Meredith, we'll be bailing her out of jail someday. There is something wrong with that."

"Do you see me in jail?" Meredith asked "No, I'm standing here holding a scalpel earning a six-figure income. I was that girl. And now is not the right time to piss me off!"

"That's not how parenting works." He sighed "Someone has to be the grown up."

"Are you saying I'm being a bad parent?"

"You know I think you're doing a good job."

"Until now."

"Meredith." He sighed "You need to be harder on her."

"I'm pushing her out of the nest Derek, I don't know how harder it can get."

"She needs to know that humiliating her classmates isn't the answer."

"Oh and what is Derek!" she snapped "Throwing money in their faces? Buying her popularity. They're kids! And kids are little shits sometimes. She's in the real world and we can't shelter her."

"She's nine."

"I know how old she is!"

"Look." Derek shook his head with frustration "I'm going to go get her from school and we both need to sit down and talk to her."

"Somehow I have a feeling it'll be two different conversations."

Derek rolled his eyes and walked out of the OR in a huff.

"Suction Dr. Grey?"

"No, I'm perfectly capable and confident of doing it myself!" she snapped. She grabbed the suction and sighed.

"For what it's worth?" Dr. Peterson mumbled "I think you're doing a great job with your daughter. I wish my mom would've told me that when I was her age."

Meredith looked over at her resident and let out a soft sigh.

"Ok, you can suction."

Who do you agree with, Meredith, Derek or both of them?