A/N: This story starts around January 2022. Concrit accepted!

"As cool as I am,

I thought you'd know this already

I will not be afraid of women."

—Dar Williams, The Mortal City (1996)

"Mom, Mom, Mom!"

Meredith Grey jerked the almond butter knife just a tiny bit too hard every time one of her daughter Zola's shoes hit a stair, flicking flecks of bread up to with it. Bailey wasn't going to notice or care, and while somewhere in the back of her mind she could hear a voice telling her that a mom who spent more time on a-href=" /2cTdLLN"Pinterest/a wouldn't spray sandwich bread twelve years into this, she could acknowledge and ignore the intrusive thought.

She would have to get something done about the staircase before any of the kids discovered Doc Martens. It was just a little bit satisfying to know for sure that during that one, endless yet too-short summer she and her mother Ellis spent in Seattle, her comings-and-goings would've been very audible in the study Ellis locked herself in to write up the study she'd come to work on. She'd done her best to be present in the townhouse, to remind her mother that if she'd insisted on dragging Meredith across the country with her, she could remember she existed.

The last time Meredith had redone the cupboards she'd noticed a hinge that'd probably been bent from her oh-so-conscientiously putting up dishes. Now, no matter how loud the hustle and bustle of the house got, the echoes never felt louder than her own footsteps had that summer as she threw lithe, fifteen-year-old limbs around a room that'd now gone through a half a dozen occupants, leaving the door open and the volume up every time "Exile in Guyville" played through again.

Zola's feet thumped into the foyer, and Meredith prepared herself to react to whatever had her daughter so excited. She had a pretty good idea, simply from it being five-thirty on a Sunday. She stuffed the last of Bailey's sandwiches for the week into its ziplock and idly started reconfiguring for Ellis's preferred "nut butter and honey." Her littlest was within five minutes of finishing this watch-through of The Princess and the Frog, and she'd be thrilled if she got to "squeeze the bear" onto all five slices of bread. Bay was upstairs crashing matchbox cars together; she had to strain to hear the smack of metal-on-metal, but he let out regular enough whoops of joy that she'd notice if he got too quiet.

She wondered, sometimes, if her mother had the same sense for Meredith that she had for her kids. If she did, had she repressed it, or simply ignored the pull? They were questions she'd never have answers to at this point, but that didn't stop her from wishing that her younger-self had realized that everything she thought she did to make it harder for her mother to ignore her had actually made it easier. If she hadn't been it so present, would her mother have sought her out? At fifteen, she'd been sure that was a no, even in an unfamiliar city. Sure enough that she hadn't risked it, making sure she was where she was supposed to be during the few times in a week their paths crossed, and not flagrantly ignoring the locked front door on the nights her mother spent at the house.

If she hadn't made a point of storming down the stairs to steal the last cup of yogurt while her mother poured coffee into a thermos, would Ellis Grey have gone upstairs to make sure her bed was occupied, suddenly realizing that she'd heard a window snick open the night before, and never heard it close again?

It didn't matter. She'd gotten branches pruned from the tree while the room above it had been Zola's, and if Maggie wanted to give it a go, well. She was an adult, and maybe it was a right of passage for Ellis's daughters. These days what their mother knew, or didn't know, didn't make a difference. Meredith knew her kids, and she worked hard to make sure they knew her, too, even though sometimes she wished she could shove all of her history into a box and put it in the back of the closet.

"Mom!" Zola made it into the kitchen and stopped directly in front of the island, plopping her tablet down impressively smoothly considering how fast she'd been running. Sofia Robbin Sloan-Torres blinked at Meredith from the screen. Her steady brown eyes and small smile were a contrast to Zola's exuberance, but Meredith knew that she'd masterminded some of their most elaborate mischief.

"Hi, Sof. How are you?"

"Excited," Sofia said, matter-of-factly. She was standing in front of whatever device set-up she'd used for this week's call, and she bounced just a little bit on the balls of her feet, giving Meredith a quick glance at the Princess Leia print on her pajama shirt.

Early on, these calls had helped quell the homesickness that struck Sofia most frequently when a whole week at a new preschool stretched out in front of her. Since chatting with her life-long best friend wound Zola up, the timing was perfect. Even now, when Sofia was confidently showing off boxing moves, and Zola didn't usually need hours to unwind from it, they rarely missed a Sunday call.

"Oh, yeah? Why's that?"

Zola was vibrating with excitement, her lips pressed together, and her cheeks puffed out a little, like the words she was holding in were in there. It said a lot about how much she'd grown up recently that she didn't take Sofia's quiet-nature as an excuse to speak for her.

"My moms say I can come visit Zola for a whole week this summer if it's okay with you."

Zola's cheeks deflated and her eyes went wide, like the last half of Sofia's statement hadn't registered with her until that point. So, Meredith's observant little snoop has finally accepted that she wasn't allowed to read Meredith's texts—no Zo, not even the ones from Aunt Callie—Energetic and excited she might have been, Zola was always observant, particularly when it came to her mother. Sometimes Meredith worried about that—hadn't she scrutinized her mother the same way?—but it'd been Amelia who nipped that in the bud the one time Meredith hinted. She looks to you for affirmation. From what i understand you looked to Ellis out of desperation. Trust me, there's a difference.

Meredith trusted her a lot. Especially in those dark mirror moments—the ones where she knew all the time she'd thought Derek's life was too perfect for her were bullshit, because her path and Amelia's could've looked even more similar than they had at their interception.

Now, she watched Zola take in her face, and saw an understanding in her daughter's eyes that reminded her of those first days; off from a job she'd put in jeopardy, with a husband who wouldn't pick up, and a baby who didn't have a permanent bond to anyone in the world. It took a week for Zola to reach for Meredith when she cried. Then, she got taken away, again.

When she came back, there'd been a month or so where she only seemed to be sure that she'd be fed. She'd be changed. Someone would be there when she cried. That had been enough for Meredith, until one night in January. Slick roads had had Derek on-call while a thirty-six hour shift benched his mini-me.

"First you were my mini-me. Now your his. One day," she'd told Lexie. "They're just going to call you Mini-Grey and leave it."

Lexie would've beenfurious that Amy wasn't Little Shepherd.

"Gross, Mer—Oop, baby fussing."

They'd both gone upstairs to Zola's real, wooden, crib. Lexie lifted her out while Meredith put the monitor into its charging station. Then, suddenly the whimpers of a baby who wasn't sure nap-time was over became screams of impending doom as Zola threw her body at Meredith.

Once Meredith took her, the baby, perfectly content, buried her face in Meredith's chest, like she'd finally let herself believe this was her mama, and if she wanted to prove she'd never let go, Zola would give her that chance. Lexie had caught the tears Meredith let spill with a burp cloth to keep it from falling on Zola's face.

Whether the time in respite care truly hindered their bond was a topic Meredith hoped never had to be addressed; the fact that it didn't date from Zola's first day on earth made their relationship a little different. So did the year in San Diego, and the fact that she had solid memories of Derek, when even Bailey's were suggestions more than anything. Zola not only trusted her, she understood her, at least as well as an eleven-year-old could.

"You already said yes, didn't you?"

"I bet she did, because moms wouldn't get my hopes up if they didn't know for sure."

"Okay, fine." She held her hands up in surrender. "Yes, I said yes. Sofia is going to be with us the last week of June, and—AND—" she raised her voice over the beginning of Zola's skyrocketing excitement—maybe she could get away with only one shriek—"When Sof heads home, you and your brother will fly with her, and Grandma Shepherd will pick you up at the airport."

"Really?" Zola demanded, but she didn't need an answer before her body couldn't contain the thrill, and the shriek Meredith predicted came out of her and bounced off every surface in the house. Upstairs, the hot wheels paused their loop the loops. Meredith tensed a little, but she heard the opening to "Dig a Little Deeper," and the movie kept going. She wanted one-on-one time to sell her kindergartener on a week with Mommy. Preferably, she'd have done it before this, but that would've been putting a heavy secret on tiny shoulders.

None of them needed to know she just couldn't put them all on a plane at once. Not yet.

"What's going on?"

"Sofia's coming here, and then we're going to Grandma Shepherd's!" Zola said.

Bailey's grin, so close to his dad's already, was fully-formed when he turned it to her. He trusted Zola implicitly, but even after all the times his sister had been the first he could look to, he preferred when he could confirm with Meredith. That was a gift she would never overlook.

"Sofia and Shepherd Summer!" he declared. The arrows that had once come with these kinds of reminders of Derek were more like darts now, and if they never got smaller she'd be okay with that.

"Sofia and Shepherd Summer!" Zola repeated. Before long they were dancing around the front room chanting it, Zola holding up the iPad to give Sofia the full experience. Meredith got Ellis to "help" with her sandwiches and it wasn't until bedtime that she judged the older two could handle something resembling a calm discussion.

She took the ballet dancer calendar off of Ellie's wall and flipped it to June, which showed a half-dozen dancers with all kinds of bodies and identities dancing with rainbow colored scarves.

With Ellie settled in her lap, her stuffed bunny held against her sleepy face, she started filling in squares.

"This is the week Sofia will be with us. Between Juneteenth and the Fourth of July." She marked the Wednesday of her arrival, their departure, and when they'd be back. There were some mixed feelings about being with the Shepherd cousins on the Fourth. "Guys, come on, we don't ever celebrate it on the day. We'll have our cookout when you get back. It'll do dual duty."

She said it that way on purpose, partially because it distracted Bay who was the one who clung to the tradition, and for the way his giggling made his oh-so-mature sister roll her eyes. In her lap, Ellie kept mouthing dual duty, dual duty, and Meredith thought she liked the alliteration more than the silliness. More than the other two, Ellie showed a serious interest in words, and how they worked. Meredith was already working on showing her that you didn't have to be a surgeon to be an extraordinary person.

"So, Sofia will be with us this weekend." Meredith tapped it slowly with her Sharpie. "Which is during Seattle Pridefest. Unless—"

"There's an emergency," the kids chorused, and she put the calendar down to tickle them, even Zola, whose little-girl moments were getting fewer and fewer. She was so, so glad that was a family joke, not a constant, niggling fear.

"Yes, smarties, unless there's an emergency, we're going to go."

"For sure?" Zola asked. "It'll be on the Google Calendar?"

"It already is," Meredith reassured her. That was the rule: anything that got put on the family G-Cal got worked around, unless there was a true emergency. It worked out even with her frequent trips to Minnesota.

"Because of Sofia will be here?" Bailey asked.

"Sort of." It was not the time to hedge; not with his nod turning into a yawn, and Zola leaning against her, spent from such a revelatory day. One more. One more revelation. "You know how Aunt Callie likes men sometimes, too?"

"And non-binary people too, Sofia said."

"Right. Well. for a long time… No, that's…. Aunt Callie didn't start dating girls until she was a grownup. Sometimes feelings change. Who you like changes. I don't know if she ever had feelings before that, and we never talked about it…. Even just before you guys were born, the world was different. If you dated the same gender, or even if you didn't, that didn't mean you talked about it. There were a lot more people who thought being anything other than a women who dared men or a man who dated women was unnatural. Which we know is ridiculous, right?"

Her kids, her wonderful, accepting kids gave her the best no, duh looks she'd ever seen. Even Ellie, whose eyes were only half-open said, "Like the dancers."

"Jo-Jo," Zola was quick to interpret. "On Dancing with the Stars."

"I was there, Zo." Thinking back, they'd all thought Ellie's entrancement was more of her nascent dance fever, but, like Meredith, she'd been most attentive during Jo-Jo Siwas's number. Six wasn't too young, not really. Meredith ran her thumb along Ellie's hairline, a Lexie-tinted dart hitting bullseye. Another one came when she looked up into Zola's wide eyes. Oh. "Sweetie, I didn't mean to snap at you. I… I know I miss some things, and I'm grateful that you fill me in, you know that."

"I guess. I…." Zola bit her lip, considering. "I should've thought because i know you were, and it probably made you sad to think I didn't remember."

"Not sad…just…." Just I don't want you to assume I wasn't there, won't be there. I don't want to fade into the background of your life. "I want every minute I can get with you guys, even if I can only hear about some of them."

Ellis shifted, her arms moving between sleepy-but-graceful dance positions. Whenever she slept in someone else's bed, they joked that her kicking was her dancing in her sleep.

"But, so, why were you telling us 'bout Aunt Callie?" Bay asked. "We know about how Uncle Mark is Sofia's dad, because sometimes love doesn't mean forever, and he was gonna marry Aunt Lexie—"

"I'm not sure I ever said—"

"You said he loved her!" Zola cut in. "Like you and Daddy, not a quick love, so… so…."

"It's funny, Mom, the last time we saw Aunt Molly, she showed Zola some wedding scrapbook Aunt Lexie made when she was, like, ten." The last time, like it happened all the time, and not twice, once when she reached out to Molly after Thatcher's funeral, and then that Thanksgiving when Molly came to see her in-laws and pack up the house. There'd been a few FaceTime calls, sparked by the pandemic whether the kids knew that or not. If it became anything more than Christmas and birthday cards, Meredith would be surprised. She knew Molly resented her for "stealing" Lexie. But for as long as Molly wanted her niblings in her life, Meredith would keep her number. Just like she arranged for them to visit Carolyn Shepherd, though the talk they'd had after she reconciled with Amelia had been possibly one of the most blunt Meredith ever had with a parental figure.

"I don't care what mistakes my children make," Meredith had said. "I don't care if they"—she'd hesitated. Carolyn was not Derek, and she wasn't sure of her sense of humor, but she couldn't come up with another example that wasn't autobiographical—"I don't care if they shoot heroin into their eyeballs, you will never, ever get away with letting them feel a fraction of the way Amelia has."

"Meredith," Carolyn had said, through a handful of dry chuckles. "I swear, I won't, but I doubt I could. Amy…she didn't understand how much I loved her. Derek followed too many of my cues, and by the time I realized…well… But your babies, they may not always be sure that you like them—you won't. You won't always like their choices, even if you made the same ones. But they know what it looks like to be loved, no matter what. They won't accept less from someone meant to love them unconditionally."

"It's all brides on beaches and pretty sunsets, and Zola thinks it's prob'ly how they got married, if you get married in what happens after."

In what happens after. That was the only firm belief she could give her kids. That whether it was real, or only the brain giving you something comfortable to go out with, she believed there was an after. She couldn't explain why Bailey's little rambling explanation to sell out his sister felt so true to her, except that the feeling she got from the idea was so close to the one she'd had on their favorite beach in San Diego, where she'd learned how to be just Meredith again, after nearly eight years of Meredith-and-Derek.

She pulled Zola closer. "I think that's nice, Zo."

And, once again, she'd lost the plot. Why couldn't she do this? It wasn't the first time she'd told anyone. Not exactly. Was it the first time she hadn't been asked? Maybe.

"Okay. So. Like I was saying, sometimes feelings change, but sometimes…., especially before people who weren't straight could get married, if you weren't, you couldn't—or didn't—always tell everyone. Sometimes because there were even more people who would hurt you for it. Sometimes because even people who weren't out-and-out mean would still hold it against you." She took a breath. Two. "BLM matters to all of us, right?"

Duh, Mom.

"But, Zo, Aunt Maggie takes you to protests most often because she wants to share something important to her with you."

And there was Zola's understanding expression, so clear and so much more quickly than she expected. "Mom…Do you…you like girls and boys?"

"Yes. I do." She swallowed. Exhaled. Her whole body felt lighter. Looser. How long had she been carrying that tension? "I'm sure you have—"

"Mommy, are you going to have a girlfriend?"

Meredith looked down at Ellie; the eyes they had both gotten from Meredith's mother shining in a way Meredith had rarely, if ever, seen from her namesake.

"Not that I know of. Would it be okay with you if I did?"

Ellis nodded, solemnly. "Girls are pretty, and smart, and can do whatever boys can do."

"That is absolutely true."

"We wouldn't mind, Mom," Zola said.

"I might," Bailey countered.

"Bay!"

"Not 'cause of Mom!" the boy protested. "Because another girl!"

"Gender isn't that important."

"But… I know, but if you like a girl, then you like that she's a girl, don't you? So…" Bailey made a gesture meant to sun the whole thing up, which didn't remind Meredith of anyone except himself.

Meredith understood where he was going, and she remembered flashes of clicky heels, and swipes of bright red lipstick—she'd definitely found herself attracted to sheer femininity at times, she couldn't deny it.

"We like people for all kinds of reasons," she said, reaching up to stroke his hair. "Sometimes their gender affects that. Sometimes what they look like. But usually, it's a lot of things." One day, she knew, they'd had this conversation again when one of these nosy children discovered their parents met at a bar, and she'd tell them, truthfully, that Derek's appearance may have had something to do with why she spoke to him, but something more drew them together. Something magnetic that had nothing to do with the way dumb, patriarchal sources described "magnetism."

Zola and Bailey had a few more questions, but unlike the discussion that surrounded her relationship with Andrew, this was a hypothetical that for now affected their lives only in so much as it meant they were going to a street-party with their cousin that summer.

She drew Bailey's quilt up, and turned to tell Zola to go get in bed. Zola spoke before she could. "Did you have a girlfriend first? Or a boyfriend?"

"I…" Flashes of the boys in Boston popped into her mind like the fireworks she'd described to sell her son on spending the fourth with his paternal cousins. The ones she made out with in clear view of her apartment building, while the girls would drag her further along into the shadows. "A girlfriend, actually. I've mostly had boyfriends, but…" She shook herself, and touched Zola's shoulder. "Can you walk Ellis to her room? I'll tuck her in, and then I'll come in to read with you, okay?"

Zola nodded and led her little sister into the hall. If they got through more than three pages of Because of Winn-Dixie tonight Meredith would be a monkey's uncle.

"Mom?" Bailey whispered as she tugged his quilt up. "Funny, because I know the guy who hurt you didn't do it a'purpose, but there won't be someone else who does, will there? Because of you like girls, too?"

"No, baby," she said, making the kind of promise she could only hope he'd never be able to call her on. She'd hoped so hard that he wouldn't remember her attack, but she knew better than anyone how trauma embedded itself in kids' minds. All she could do was remind him that she'd healed, and she was here, with him.

Sometimes, when he lay next to her in bed mumbling about 'the man who didn't mean it' she wished she had given Lou a reason; that her kids hadn't had to learn that violence could be so random. But then, did she really want them to understand violence fueled by hate?

Ellis's room was a shrine to all things dance and music. Meredith returned the calendar to the wall. Tomorrow, they'd look at it again, and she'd start planning special outings for the Mommy and Ellis side of Sofia and Shepherd Summer. At least one event would have to be ticketed with this kid; something at the Seattle Ballet, maybe. If they had a hip-hop performance running over the summer, and Meredith started relaying that she couldn't be paged that day, no freaking matter what, there'd be a chance Ellis would be just as satisfied with her vacation as her siblings. If, if, if.

Did her mother ever try?

With the calendar secured and flipped back to winter, Meredith turned back to see her youngest smiling at her. All three of her kids should've been impossible in one way or another, but if she had to designate one as a miracle, it would be Ellis.

It'd taken Alex longer than Cristina, but they'd both interrogated her about the baby's name, eventually. "It's a little Albus Severus, Mer."

"It is not! It's Lily Luna, minimum. My mother didn't ruin me. Not totally. She did what she could for Maggie. And, yes, a lot of my foundational memories were of times she physically and mentally couldn't give me what I needed. Fine. But all she wanted was to put more brilliant women out in the world. Ellis's name does that. It honors the times she was there, and the scales she fought to balance." Also, looking at that baby, thinking her name, she was reminded of all her mother went through for her, and for Maggie.

"Mom played piano beautifully, did you know?"

"I didn't." Cristina had said.

"I couldn't focus, too many album liners to look at, and albums to dance to for me to care that playing an instrument increases brain elasticity and hand-eye coordination. I got it all later from a…someone teaching me guitar, and a month or so drumming in a friend's weekly gig at a Roxbury dive bar. But my point is, Ellis will be free to explore music, if she wants. To dance.

"Sometimes, it can be really hard to not resent my mother, even more so now that I know what it's like to be a single mother and general surgeon. But I have family. I have friends. I have a village. She had flighty babysitters, and jokes about Mrs. Grey's ability to handle such a complex position and care for her poor, daddy-less daughter.

"Having it all is bullshit. But I can honor my mother for at least trying to keep be on the scales, even though they never balanced. But it's also... I look at her and want one thing: her happiness. And I remember Mom did her best to help me find mine, in her own way."

Looks aside, Ellis Shepherd was not much like her namesake at all; not the quiet girl in in the oldest album on the living room bookshelf. She was quieter than her siblings, but that was relative. She was fastidious about where her toys went, and would carefully hang up her fairy-wings and firefighter's cap on their pegs at the end of the day, but most of the time, there was no Ellis Grey in Ellis Shepherd.

Next to the calendar hung the tie-dyed smiley face print Meredith put up for her last birthday. Meredith wished she'd known how often symbols were only window dressing before things got so complicated for Lexie. They didn't keep away Moms dying, Dads drinking, boyfriends with too many complications. The time their posters would really have signified a difference between the sisters was over before they met.

But still, she'd hung it on the wall of the child who never met Lexie, but called her to mind the most. In small ways, hard to pinpoint, sharp darts out of nowhere when Ellis came flying to her after daycare to be the first to say why Bar and Zo were fighting, so her mama could fix it. She was always willing to go to extremes for new steps at dance, but had no complaints about waiting for a classmate to catch up. They were almost big sister features, and it wasn't a Scout-effect. Ellis was very firm about Scout's place in her world. He is not our baby. He is our cousin, and I am the baby.

No, Meredith was inclined to think that her baby's big sister traits must come from Aunt Lexie, simple as that.

Ellis was curled on her side, watching from bright baby blues that held far less of the darker colors that would mix in as she aged. "Sleep time, Ellie Belle."

"But I didn't get a book!"

"I know. I'm sorry. Our talk tonight went a little long, huh?"

"That's okay, I like talking. Two books tomorrow?"

"And not Scout's baby books," she agreed. The one rule that could get someone thrown out of Chez Grey was telling Ellie that the books were the same, just smaller, sturdier, simpler.

And really Meredith got it. Labels shifted just as fast in childhood as they did in adulthood, if not faster. Ellie could read books with pages, and she deserved to be proud of that.

Besides, the full version of "Chicka Chicka, Boom Boom," was a million times more fun to read aloud than the abridged one, especially with Ellie-Belle choreographing little numbers to match the rhythm. She was adamant that she'd only perform when Mama put her to bed. That this shining, beautiful creative spirit wanted to share her creations only with her, even though she loved her aunts and uncles, made Meredith feel honored. it didn't matter that every step in her tap shoes looked like shuffle-shuffle-jump-ball change, or that she was totally out of sync with the TikTok Maggie found to demonstrate the moves. She was proud, and her desire to share that pride—it helped Meredith understand how the worlds of dark and twisty, and bright and shiny, could coexist.

"Time to close 'em Ellie-Belle."

Instead of obeying, she blinked slowly, thoughtfully. Like Meredith, she expressed feelings in ways that didn't always qualify as communicating.

"You, and Sof's moms, and the Emerald Men," she listed. Joe and Walter had garnered them that nickname a few years ago, after a visiting Shepherd asked how they knew each other. The second Meredith shut her mouth Walter added, "And we go to the same parent group." Damn him, damn him and his ability to think ahead.

"Dr. Helm, Jo-Jo, Brandi Carlisle," she encouraged, glad that at least this time she'd caught on without having to question the sleepy girl further. She wanted to mirror what she thought her daughter was doing with the listings, but rather than just adding people they knew, she wanted her to remember that there were people out in the world that they saw on TV and on magazine covers who were just the same.

Ellis nodded approval, yawned, and finally snuggled down further under her covers, the stuffed rabbit she'd slept with her whole life tucked under her chin.

"Hey, Ellie-Belle?" Meredith leaned down so that her lips were pressed close to the perfect shell of her baby's ear. "I love you, and there's nothing you can ever do to change that."

"Never not ever," the little girl agreed, so easily. Then, for one moment she opened her eyes and held Meredith's.

It could be difficult sometimes to know what she picked up in conversations with her siblings; the two years between her and Bailey were more pronounced than the gap between the older two. She'd experienced less by six than either of them had, and while Meredith knew that wouldn't always be true, she didn't mind the innocence in Ellis; the way she was still a clean slate in the way Meredith hoped for when she named her. She was smart, though, and more perceptive by the day.

"I love you the same, Mama," she said. "No changes never not ever."

"Thank you, baby girl." Meredith kept stroking the little girl's hair until her muscles began to slacken. Her little dancer slept like dead weight, like bed was where she could let go. Signs of her namesake's need for control. If they needed to work on it one day, they would. For now, her path was clear, and Meredith would do all that she could to keep it that way.

Sometimes that meant going first, and scaling the cliffs so Ellie would see where the handholds were. Or Bailey, or Zola. Scout. Laura, even, if she ever had a reason to need her aunt Meredith. She'd put this part of herself out there for people before, but for the kids to know they could come to her, she had to live it.

She hesitated in the hall between the girls' rooms, her hand on the knob of Elis'a door, because she knew Zola would be listening for the click. Unlike Ellie who might ask her questions related to this discussion and the follow-ups that would come out of the blue over a series of weeks, Zola might have already written a list. Her natural curiosity combined with her never-wavering interest in Meredith's love life were not always an easy combination to satisfy.

When Meredith went in, chiding herself for being afraid of her daughter, she discovered she'd been partially right. A notebook was resting on Zola's lap, but she wasn't immediately ambushed. Zola had fallen asleep with her glittery purple pen still in her hand. Meredith plucked it out first—she'd ruined more than one set of sheets that way in med school—and then rearranged the stuffed animals Zola was leaning on and lay her down on her silk pillowcase.

"I love you, Zo-Zo," she whispered, the way she had every night since she brought her into the house that very first week. "And we are so lucky to have you."

That "we" had never meant just her and Derek, which didn't make the word stick in her throat any less.

She glanced at the notebook before putting it down on her daughter's desk. The questions were predictable. One or two would go in the when you're older box. It was the second to last one that stayed with her as she finished tidying the kid's area and headed downstairs. The one Zola had fallen asleep writing was easy to decipher and had a quick answer. Thatcher never got to know her well enough for that.

The one that stuck in Meredith's head was: Did Grandma Ellis know? If she did, was it okay?

A/N: I haven't written fic for Grey's Anatomy in close to a decade. My watching even got spotty, pre-Covid, but it still has a special place in my heart, and a few weeks ago I was inspired. This fic is essentially sixteen years of headcanon, combined with the knowledge of feminism, bisexuality, and the '90s that I didn't have while writing my older Grey's fic (now all available on a-href=" /users/chicleeblair/pseuds/chicleeblair"Ao3/a, too!) Thanks so much to whoever keeps up the Grey's Anatomy fandom wiki.

The link embedded in this chapter is for the fic's a-href=" /2cTdLLN"Pinterest board!/a