If the train falls off the tracks
Meredith and Addison talk during a low point in their lives.
"She's all that I had-" Thatcher Grey's words echo through Meredith's head the entire way through the rest of the day, through Richard's talk, through the intern exam.
And Meredith just feels frozen, standing still as she replays the events of the past twenty-four hours of her life in her mind, trying to figure out why she didn't take Susan Grey's hiccups more seriously. Trying to figure out what she did wrong.
The test starts, and the test is over.
And George noticed she didn't write anything, but it hardly registers for Meredith. And when he sits down next to her, he tells her some metaphor about a train going too fast, and all Meredith gets from it is that she isn't aboard that train anymore.
"You should go," says Meredith. And George does.
Meredith sits there for a while as every one of her friends sits down to talk to her, and offers some words of encouragement, or advice, or in Alex's case, just grunts beside her.
And Meredith just sits there staring into space until Addison Montgomery sits down next to her.
"I'm barren," says Addison.
"What?" says Meredith, fazed out of her own current problems.
"It's ironic, you know? I'm an obstetrician who's barren. I have two eggs left, but zero chance at a possible pregnancy, and I'm not even out of my thirties. And the only baby I've ever had was Mark's, and I didn't keep his baby, because it wasn't Derek's, and I didn't know at the time that it would be my only shot at one so…" Addison sighs.
"Are you here to give me a motivational speech?" asks Meredith.
"What? No. I'm here to complain about being barren," says Addison.
"Good," says Meredith. "Then you can stay. And talk about how your life sucks so I can forget about mine for a while."
"Deal," says Addison. "Oh, and I'm also alone. Let's add that to the list."
"My father slapped me," says Meredith. "He told me he wanted me out of his life. And he blamed me for my stepmother dying. And then he told me he didn't want me at the funeral. And then Molly led him away," says Meredith.
"Okay, so your life sucks too," says Addison.
"Yeah," says Meredith. "It's like George said. It's like the train is moving too fast, and we can't get off and just stay on the platform. It just keeps going, and I'm not on the train anymore," says Meredith.
"I'm not on the train anymore either," says Addison. "At least not the baby-making one," she sighs.
"You could marry someone with a child, and become their stepmom, and then get the hiccups and die," says Meredith bitterly.
"That was really dark, Grey," says Addison. "Let's see… You could cheat on Derek, become pregnant with someone else's baby, why not Mark for example, and then not keep it, and then never have a shot at motherhood ever again," says Addison.
"There are other trains, y'know," says Meredith.
"There are other trains for you too," says Addison, as she squeezes Meredith's hand into her own, and then lets go again.
"Hey, thanks," says Meredith. "For complaining about life with me," she smiles.
"Anytime," says Addison, smiling back as she heads off to her next patient.
***** FIN