Take it Away Don't Look Down The Mountain
'If the world isn't turning your heart won't return anyone, anything, anyhow.'
Later on, they're in the gallery, and Meredith sees Alex appear, and she desperately wants to know how Addison is doing.
And Alex is on Addison's service, so she asks him.
"So um," Meredith stumbles (okay, so she does that a little. That doesn't make her just like her father, though).
Cristina and Izzie and George are all enthralled with Derek Shepherd's surgery, and before Meredith dumped Derek because he refused to sleep next to her all night without camping outside on a hammock, Meredith would have been too.
But now Meredith is not, because her life is distinctly Derek-less, which is fine, but it's also Addison-less, which is less than fine, in fact, Meredith is trying to fix that last part, so that's why she's asking Alex about Addison.
"So how's it going with Addison?" Meredith bites her lip subconsciously.
"What?" says Alex, in a way that Meredith just knows he's about to say 'dude,' and she's not in the mood for that right now.
"Umm, Laura Grey-Thompson, tiny baby…?" she covers herself up with the fake-family that she's been avoiding/stalking.
"Right…" says Alex. "She's good."
"Addison!? Or the baby?" Meredith narrows her eyes at him.
"Both, I guess," Alex shrugs, and Meredith wants to punch him.
"What?" says Alex.
"Nothing," Meredith scoffs.
Meredith hopes that Addison doesn't have a taste for him or something, even though he's exactly like Mark but younger, and in the past that's what she's gone for.
"Whatever, I gotta get away from the gynie squad. Gotta get back to Sloan," he crosses his arms indignantly.
Oh, so he's just playing tough so people won't figure out that he actually likes neonatal surgery. Meredith can deal with that.
"Sorry for suggesting you poison Mark's coffee with vanilla syrup," Meredith offers.
"Nah, he deserved that," says Alex.
"He kinda did," Meredith agrees with him.
George gets a page then, and so does Cristina, and Izzie. They run off to Mr. O'Malley's room, and Meredith takes a deep breath before she moves to head that way too.
"Seriously, what's your thing with the she-Shepherd?" Alex asks Meredith.
"She's not the she-Shepherd anymore," Meredith glares at him. And then she heads off after George.
The news is not good, but mercifully the news IS good about Laura Grey-Thompson, which means that Meredith's fake-family can go home soon.
"Do you want to tell Molly the good news?" Addiosn offers Meredith as some sort of truth.
"Okay…" Meredith says slowly, searching in Addison's eyes for some sort of answer about their near-encounter the other night, but she doesn't find it, so she heads into her (fake) step-sister's room.
"Your baby will have some recovery time, but she should be fine," Meredith offers stiffly to Molly and Susan and Thatcher.
"Oh, thank you," Susan Grey tries to hug Meredith, and Meredith narrowly avoids it by diving behind Addison, who ends up getting hugged but not seeming to mind too much.
"Bye Meredith-" Thatcher stumbles.
"Goodbye," Meredith says politely.
It's as good a closure as any.
Meredith still doesn't have a resolution from what almost happened the other day with Addison though, and she doesn't want to bring it up first, but it's been gnawing at her, so she settles on staring at Addison as she fills out the charts, and hoping that she'll say something before she will have to.
"Dr. Grey-" says Addison professionally.
"Addison-" Meredith cuts in.
Addison takes in a deep breath, and Meredith feels as though she's going to be let down 'easy,' and her heart sinks a little bit.
(Okay, a lot.)
"Good work on this case. I know it couldn't have been easy," Addison smiles at Meredith stiffly.
It's not what Meredith had been hoping for, but it seems to be heavier than just natural praise between an everyday Attending and an everyday Intern.
***** END OF CHAPTER 2