A/N: This chapter contains very vague spoilers for Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Wynonna Earp. Familiarity with these franchises will not affect your understanding of this chapter.

Time passed. The rumor mill did its job. So did Meredith's reputation. For a week or two, Amy and Maggie entertained her with the wilder stories they'd overheard via the resident-intern-nurse chain. The most common involved Addison. Meredith's favorites were the ones that didn't simply recast true stories, like the one about her, Elizabeth Cohen, and an unnamed nurse having an OR threesome during a blizzard.

"They're just making up erotic fanfiction at this point," Maggie complained, to which Amelia, and Jo, at the house to discuss future programs at the childcare center, chorused, "Are you new?"

The blizzard version was Meredith's particular favorite, because at peak circulation, BokHee had approached her in the scrub room and said, "You want me to really blow their minds and tell them I was the nurse?"

After almost busting one of the few guts she had left, Meredith choked out, "Wouldn't your husband mind?"

"Jae and I married while you were in San Diego; otherwise, you remember the wedding. Or maybe not. We had open bar. Before, I had lovers. Man, woman, whatever. I care about insides. And what's inside."

They went into the OR together, laughing.

She was laughing more, overall. Sure, her days were mostly the same, but there were these…moments. Dr. Schmidt making sure she saw an ad for a kid-friendly LGBTQIA movie night. Not having to avoid Joe's eye when a tourist made four "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" jokes in the hour she spent there catching up. Helm coming by her office after a shift to loan her DVDs of Wynonna Earp.

"The lady romance is the second main relationship. Well. third if you count the sister bonding, and you will. I mean I think you will. From-from what you told me. And they get so close to a multiracial triad."

"Okaaaay." Meredith had picked up the first box, and had to say she saw something in the eyes of the girl with the gun. When she dismissed Taryn and read the blurb—whiskey-soaked, cursed family, angelic sister—she texted Jo. Sometimes, she hesitated before making contact there. Jo knew Meredith was aware of what Alex had done, and where he was, and for all she knew could be a spy reporting back to him.

MEREDITH GREY: don't think this is a sisters night show for my specific sisters. you in?

it's nsfys (Not Safe for Young Shepherds) but i don't think lily's old enough to understand the stuff mine would repeat

DR. JO WILSON: aka Ellis is getting too big to carry and it's killing you.

Bailey would love it. adult Bailey

MEREDITH GREY: you mean miranda?

JO WILSON: fuck no. i am not ready to call her that, sis

Meredith laughed. Hopefully, Jo really did understand that marrying Alex made her family. even though Alex…did what he did.

It wasn't a bi-monthly TV night she'd expected, but it was one she came to love. Of the few longtime Grey Sloan employees who knew Meredith's story, Bailey and Jo most understood the parts of her that identified with Wynonna Earp.

"I know you're all into this chick's hard drinkin', sex-positive, ran away to Greece, always been a screw-up, inherited legacy side," Jo said. "But consider also: if that woman is straight, I'm a nurse."

"Not in those pants, she's not," Miranda agreed.

The two of them were on either side of the couch, while she'd slid down to the floor beside Lily, which made gaping at them as uncomfortable as it was necessary. She'd come to the same conclusion, but assumed she was projecting.

"I didn't make it to Greece," she admitted. "But I do take the point."

"Doc Holliday, too," Miranda chipped in. "Kinda creepy, having the hots for the however-many-greats grandfather andhis heir."

That was true. It would've only taken a few more longing looks there to get his bisexuality from mild wish-fulfillment, to subtext, to text. The character was 164 years old, but he spent the time from the 1880s to 2015 literally in the dark (at the bottom of a well), so the network got away without labeling him.

One sapphic romance with a bisexual character, and a primary couple who both might not be straight. The same summary could've applied to Buffy, which was the last show Meredith actively watched—though whenever Miranda was speaking to her she kept up a working knowledge of most things Peak TV—It wasn't actually as much progress as she might have hoped for. But who was she to hope? She hadn't done any more advocating than the average ally.

"'Course, I once thought Richard had done the do with Pierce," Miranda continued. "So, I'm not innocent of—"

Meredith did not squeal. She was not a squealer. The noise she made was not a squeal- exactly. "You what?"

"Oh, hush, none of us knew she was his damn child, and she clearly shares traits with his—"

"No, nuh-no-no. You're not coming back to this house if you finish that sentence. Hell, I'll leave again if you finish that sentence. He's thirty years older than her."

Miranda rolled her eyes, theatrically. "A Grey and an older man, whyever would I assume that was the situation?"

"Twelve years!" The eyes narrowed. "Fine, eighteen, but Mark was mentally eighteen on a good day. Besides, you said you didn't know Maggie was a Grey. Pick an assumption, Miranda."

"Oh-kay," Jo grabbed the remote from Meredith. "As much as I love hearing hospital history, and believe me, I do, I should get Lily in her bed within the next hour, and I want to watch more of the hot people shooting demons."

"Lily's fine right here," Meredith said, stroking the toddler's hair. She'd been playing with an old carousel Duplo set of Zola's and more-or-less flopped over on Meredith's leg. No one was complaining.

Jo shook her head and hit play.

What Meredith didn't say—what she barely wanted to acknowledge to herself, was that the main character's relationship with little sister reminded her of her and Lexie so much that at one point she'd had to slip a pillow under Lily's head and gone to refill the chip bowls and wine glasses.

The problem with letting yourself be known was that people knew you.

"So," Miranda started, while she and Meredith sat on the porch swing watching Jo and Lily's Lyft disappear down Harper Lane. "Sisters who reunite after one hits on the other's boyfriend, huh? Where do they get these things?"

And since when was Dr. Bailey the one who could read her that easily? She used to think the only one she'd have that kind of connection with was Cristina. Her twisted sister. Anyone else, Derek, Sadie, her mother, she had to spell things out for. Then there was Lexie, her sister-sister, and how could she have imagined all the ripples her one little pebble would cause? Amelia, and Maggie, and Jo even with Alex gone, and shit. Meredith rolled her eyes up toward the overhang and swiped underneath them. Miranda put a hand on the top of her back. When had she stopped pretending that she didn't like being touched?

"Right?" she spluttered. "I should sue."

"I don't know if you'd have a strong enough case. If you combined it with a certain other vehicle featuring a daughter-of-destiny, supposed delinquent who keeps dying, and having sisters pop up outta nowhere…Joss Whedon would deserve it, too."

"Would that make you my Watcher?"

"I did train you, and better than some milquetoast Brit ever would." Meredith chuckled. "I admit those similarities did not occur to me until you started calling that girl Hellmouth. Then, boom." Miranda imitated an explosion next to her ear.

"Helm and I discussed that, recently. Lexie saw it a long time ago." If she concentrated, she could hear her sister laughing; maybe the first time she'd openly laughed at Meredith. "She'd have loved this. Not just the show. Us existing together. You don't get that as a resident The show, too. She'd think the parallels to our story were hilarious."

"She'd already be planning your Halloween costumes. Probably try to make you be Waverly."

"What? I'm the older one with the rap sheet, and the running away issues. She's the…" Meredith swallowed. "The angel. Or whatever."

"She was the brunette. Until she tried to become Izzie Stevens for a hot second. What was it with that man? He shoulda gone to work for a stylist, convincing women to bleach perfectly nice hair." Miranda shook her head. "You weren't exactly the town pariah, either."

"Maybe not when Lexie got here, but she only missed it by, like, six weeks."

"Spare me that bullshit. We were all rooting for you, Grey." She stretched her legs out, and then pointed them, the toes of her shoes brushing the wooden boards. "Before I met you, I'd had a single encounter with Ellis Grey. She lectured at Wellesley, and I got tapped for some honors student cocktail thing. White networking bullshit. I could tell you were nothing like her from day one."

"Gee, flattering."

"In a good way. I imagine she can't have always been a machine, seeing as Richard wouldn't have stood for it, but by that point…. Not everyone coulda heard it under the polite chitter-chatter, but whenever she got serious. Woof. And you'd have been maybe sixteen. Not a good age to have a Robo-Mom, or so TV movies of the eighties taught me."

Maybe intern-Meredith should've paid more attention to Dr. Bailey on a personal level, instead of being so lost in her own head. Miranda didn't flaunt her life outside of work, but her personality hadn't been put in a box with only a few loose trading cards floating around for people to pursue, either.

"Richard stood for a lot you know. I get that he's your mentor, and these days he's my pseudo-father, but as long as she wasn't Elsa-Ellis with him, he might've stayed quiet."

"Mm, true. He can be a pushover for women he loves." The look she gave Meredith was pointed, and Meredith looked away, hiding the small smile she couldn't stop. Accepting Richard's paternal love for might always be something she struggled with.

"Not everyone can be willing to upend the world to do the right thing," Miranda continued. "However many times I've had to punish you for it, I admire that about you."

Thank you would've felt weak at that point. I'm sorry had been said hundreds of times. Meredith nodded and leaned forward over her clasped hands.

"I miss her," she admitted, not quite sure which "her" she meant.

"Of course you do."

"I'm not always fair to Maggie because of it."

"How could you be?" That wasn't a response Meredith could've predicted, and it made her shift to face the other woman. "Pettiness is a perfectly natural reaction to having Pierce show up not all that long after Little Grey died. Being like her in some ways, but not her. Being like your mother, without having had to live with her."

Meredith huffed. "I think how similar Maggie is to her, in the ways I'm not, would've killed Mom, actually. All the effort she put into molding me, and the daughter she didn't raise came close to being the clone? If she'd been at all interested in Psych, I'd think it was an experiment."

"You two are a very interesting nurture versus nature case, that's true. You and Lexie happened to have more in common. And Pierce didn't need you. Not like Lexie did. She didn't come here for you. She didn't come for your mother; didn't need her, and she'll never truly get it, will she? What it was to be Ellis Grey's daughter? You resent your mother, and you love her. You accept her legacy, and you wish you could've made your name yourself. You'll criticize her all day and defend her all night. Meanwhile, Pierce can choose to reveal who her biological mother is, and she isn't having to clean up her messes more than a dozen years after her death.

"All of that, and it took almost no time for her to bond with Richard. You never mention how hard you took that, because you're you, it all got mixed in with losing Shepherd, and you're afraid it might have something to do with skin color. It might; could be some biology in there, too, but I'll tell you what you know: it's guilt."

"Because she—"

"Because he didn't know she existed, but you? He knew you were out there. He should've sought you out. He's told you that?"

"Mmm, mmhmm."

"Good. What I imagine he doesn't realize is you held out more hope for him than for your father."

"I…. I didn't ether." He'd done more to tear her childhood to shreds than Thatcher, but he'd also done more to make amends. To become the father she needed now, not always digging into the past. He took all the blame she threw at him.

Maybe one day she'd run out.

"It took uncovering their whole story for me to remember how she'd…it felt like she'd talked about Uncle Richard coming to live in with us for ages. Took me another decade to realize ages was six months. She stopped hoping when—because—Maggie came, and he didn't. She stopped."

"You didn't."

"They called Thatcher twice. According to the paperwork I cleared out of the attic, the divorce hadn't been finalized at the time of her suicide attempt. You know…?"—Miranda nodded. They'd never discussed it, but she guessed Richard had confided in her—"My aunt was my guardian for a while. Got us moved, twice. Got me in school, twice. Great, right? Except, the second time she wrote my birth-year down wrong. I'd just started kindergarten. I switched right at Thanksgiving and spent two months in first grade."

"You're not serious."

"Oh, I am. Wasn't easy for the teachers to convince Mom I should be put back, either. I choose to believe forgetfulness is a family trait, significant enough that Mom could've dismissed early symptoms of Alzheimer's. Otherwise, I have to accept that there was another adult who just didn't care. She must've called Thatcher after Maggie was born. There's a note in the paperwork. A post-it. All it says is 'Susan.' Lexie was sure they didn't meet until the fall."

"This absent-minded aunt didn't call Richard?"

"If your cyborg of a sister tries to kill herself for a married man, and she believes her child might be the reason he didn't run off with her, do you care what he thinks about his biological child?"

Maybe her aunt had never heard Ellis say, "I should never have had a child," and then left Meredith with her anyway. Maybe Ellis had been referring to Maggie when she said that at Rose Ridge, and Meredith hadn't understood the context. (Who knew what the staff there could say about the surgical phenom Ellis Grey?)

"I do, but I can see why she might not." Miranda flipped her phone over to track Ben's blue dot. "He's not the only one who feels guilt about all that, is he?"

Meredith pushed off the porch to get the swing moving. They'd only been able to remove the nail that held it still a few months ago, and she hadn't stopped watching Ellie like a hawk to make sure she didn't pinch her tiny fingers. "How do you forget having a baby sister?"

"You were a five-year-old dealing with compounded trauma, you don't think you ever actually saw her, and no one was explaining anything to you. What do you even remember?"

"Mom crying a lot." That was definitely the most aberrant behavior. "She stayed in her room, mostly. If she was reading, l could be in there with a book, if I was quiet. Her wrists took a while to heal, but once they did, she'd spent hours braiding my hair. Keeping agile, she said.

"She got big, but I don't know if I…. Zola asked us pretty early, but she had a brother to get her wondering. I really might not have known where babies came from. Mom didn't…It feels like she was constantly spouting off facts, but that might've started later. I told you about how I renamed Anatomy Jane's organs. She let me blather on about the slivvy and the jelly pouch. I don't remember what she told me about the detachable parts. The Mom I had in Boston would've drilled me on their proper names. My illustrated medical dictionary and encyclopedias were the highlight of that Christmas. It was a big thing, like I was being initiated into something. Becoming significant. Maybe it's not only the trauma that made everything before my sixth birthday so blurry. Maybe it's that thanks to Mom, I didn't see myself as a person until I could read."

As a person who'd gotten all her parenting knowledge through cultural osmosis before Zola came along, Meredith sometimes believed her mother shut out all references to the philosophy of child-rearing out on principle. At one point, though, she'd seemed to appreciate that childhood was scientifically different. In Boston, she'd generally treated Meredith like a very small intern, quizzing her on vocabulary during every conversation, and sending her to research answers to basic questions.

Had she been so desperate to have another adult around that she treated her kid as one? Even during her period of self-isolation in San Diego, Meredith had always known Zola and Bay understood everything differently. It'd been a source of relief, to see them continue to find joy and curiosity in a world that otherwise felt like it'd stopped.

"Put that down, Meredith! Why would you ever—? It's a fork! That means—Go get your encyclopedia. Read what it says about electricity, and then flip to toasters."

"I dunno, Zo. We'll find a video about animals that eat sand inside, okay? Just stop feeding it to your brother."

Fine, maybe her mother did know a few things about rearing her child.

"All I really know is, something was happening, and then one day there was a rush of blood. Again. And I conflated the two. There were times my memories of the first time were…weird. No lacs. Different floor. I just figured I was misremembering the kitchen here." Or chalked it up to whatever the hell I was drinking or doing.

"Exactly. Even when it's not a crappy situation, pregnancy can mirror depression. I bet she didn't show the weight long—probably lost some early on with all that stress. You did nothing wrong there."

"I know that. I do. With Ellie…. Now, I can't imagine life without her, but I was so scared she'd come out looking like Derek, and I-I don't look like Thatcher, and Mom still…. Then, I did see Derek in her, and it turns out to be what I needed. But, I couldn't have done it. I couldn't put Bailey and Zola in the position of possibly forgetting a little sister and having her show up after I…. Couldn't do it to her either."

"So, you didn't. You didn't take on your mother's sins; you learned from them. Maybe she couldn't have told you, but I bet she'd be proud. I know Lexie would."

"You ever wonder how they'd get along? Maggie and Lexie?"

"Mmm. Little Grey would've been jealous as hell."

Headlights approached the house from the far end of the street, and Meredith stopped the swing. "She'd have called Maggie a priss, and half the point would've been that it's such a stupid word."

Bailey threw her head back in an open-mouthed laugh. "It's all right to still be missing her, Grey. Your mother, too, mixed was I'm sure that emotion is. And you can't help it if your feelings about Pierce are always complicated. You've been through a lot and lost a lot of people without getting the chance to mourn them all in the way they deserve. Of course, it's gonna hit you when you see it mirrored on TV. The idiot box shows us to ourselves. Helps us deal with our small lives by putting people like us in impossible messes. That's what I told my daddy, anyway, if he tried to get me away from my shows."

"Huh. Among the parents of my fellow latchkey kids, it was a free baby-sitter."

"Lemme guess," Miranda said, pulling herself up with the porch railing as Ben stopped in front of the mailbox. "Ellis Grey wasn't big on television."

"Psh, only if she needed a privilege to take away. In the end, I just got sorta used to not having it plugged in. Drove the actual babysitters crazy."

"I do not like much of what I hear about how that woman treated you," Miranda said, looping her arm through Meredith's as they strolled down the driveway. "But at times, I admit that I feel for her. Maybe I simply enjoy knowing that someone else suffered the way I did from trying to raise your ass."

"I can appreciate that," Meredith allowed. "I think I might've been the result of that thing where someone wishing for your child to have to deal with a copy of themselves. The few details I have about her childhood…. Obviously, my environment never triggered the bionic gene."

"Praise be." Bailey yanked the passenger door of Ben's car open. "I do not want to discover we've been in Black Mirror this whole time."

"She's like this," her husband offered. "Good evening, Dr. Grey."

"Hi, Ben. I kinda started it, I think. Anyway, Mom was a playground hellion."

Bailey's expression went from a wide-eyed gape that did nothing to take Lexie off Meredith's mind, to a fist-clenching glee. "Oh, that's a rumor the Grey Sloan gossip machine needs to latch onto." She had her phone out of her handbag before Meredith could blink. "You got pictures? We could take it pretty far with pictures." Then she lowered the phone—did she already have Instagram running? —"Only if you want to. I know your mother's legacy…."

"Deserves to be complete, don't you think? I'll see what I can find."

"Ex-cell-ent." Miranda's cackle was pure evil, and also the furthest thing in the world from what Meredith would've once expected from "the Nazi."

"Playground hellion, huh? You keeping a close eye on her namesake?" Ben commented.

"It'd be Zola," Meredith and Miranda chorused.

"All right, then." He took the car out of park. "Get your seatbelt on, baby, you've both got work tomorrow."

"Shut up, Mr. 'Two On, Three Off.'"

Meredith returned to her yard to watch them drive off. She'd been aware enough of her childhood, if not family history, to ensure all of her kids knew not to lay hands on anyone else. She'd seen the lawsuits that came out of injuries that shouldn't have even gone to the ER. That didn't mean she didn't relish the mental image of Ellie kicking the shins of some kid Zola caught picking on someone.

Maybe that image inspired the dream. She didn't think the uber-fake demon fighting on the TV show was realistic enough to be triggering.

She was in the ER exam room. Her feet slid on the sand that had covered her elementary school playground. No. Sand didn't roll. Her shoulders were shoved hard enough to shred her balance. The heels of her thin-soled Converse fought for traction on pebbles. Chipped pebbles, white, and tan, and gray.

"Dr. Grey? Bullshit, you're Dr. Grey."

She couldn't identify the voice. Her spine slammed against the ground, which had the give of tile, regardless of its texture.

"Dr. Grey is a life-saver." A boot came to rest on her collarbone. She couldn't breathe. "Not your life." The figure leaned down to her ear, but she couldn't see a face. "She doesn't have time to deal with you. To fix you. To breathe for you." A fist went into her torso, right on top of her hepatectomy scar. "Doesn't matter how much I break you. No one will come. You've alienated everyone else in your life."

"No!" she tried to scream, but she didn't have the air. Her attacker hefted her up by her hair, which changed color every second.

"Too bad, too. You're just like her. A failed homewrecker. A dried-up whore. Everyone knows it. Your dead husband. Your replacement sisters. And one day your kids will, too. You'll be someone they don't want to know."

"No!"

"That all you can say? All that fighting spirit an act, now? How disappointing." As they threw her away, flinging her with supernatural strength, the figure moved into a sourceless light, giving her a moment of recognition before she fell into a deep, dark hole.

For a second, it was Elliott Bay, and then she was lying in an open wooden box. A grave.

She tried to yell again, and pebbles rained down her throat.

Meredith woke, choking, drowning, in the impure darkness of her bedroom. None of the kids had crawled into her bed, a miracle at—she checked her phone—three twenty-six.

She sat up. That didn't help her catch her breath. She opened her mouth to shake away the ghosts of the wires on her teeth. Swallowed freely with no ventilator tubes going down her throat. The light reinforced her surroundings, hundreds of miles away from the forest where her sister had died. There was no reason for her lungs to be telling her to kick to the surface; no risk of being blown to pieces if she didn't stay frozen; nothing threatening her life. Yet, none of the techniques she'd learned over years of catastrophes made it any easier to breathe.

She fumbled with her phone again, grateful for time-zones in a way that she hadn't been since the one time she'd called Tucker from Amsterdam—he'd picked the sloshed pieces of her up from JFK and driven her around Queens until she'd sobered up enough to face her mother. She owed him more than a Facebook message—and the phone was ringing, had she done the math wrong? She couldn't think anything that didn't land her on the same question: Where had there been pebbles?

"Hello?"

"The school where I went to kindergarten."

"Are you trying to steal your own identity, or are we doing passcodes, now? I did get head-hunted by the CIA. Turned them down, of course. Government peons."

You didn't get all that many people in life with whom you could start every conversation as though the previous one hadn't ended, and Meredith really tried to never forget to be grateful for hers. "I had a nightmare."

"Lou?"

"Kinda." She twisted her charger cord around her finger like she'd done with the phone cord as a teenager under the same—metaphorical, replaced in the remodel—roof. "Poor guy. Imagine, one accident, and you live in some chick's head for the next six years."

"Does your jaw still crack when you're eating?"

"We're old now. Everyone's— "

"Look, Mer, I do have an actual job, and you have five of them, minimum, so let's not do the thing, okay?"

"Fine, Cristina. Yes, and I'm developing arthritis in the leg, okay? The attack had a massive effect on my body, and it's one of the more sizable psychological scars, probably because it's the…one of the most recent. Better?"

"One of." Her voice didn't have the disbelief and derision it once would've, and there was silence. "God, Mer. I'm sorry I haven't gotten over there yet."

"Don't—"Meredith's chest hitched again. She had an urge to dive for the bedside table drawer, where a pulse-ox monitor had lived for the past two years.

"I was on the frontlines, too. I saw what it was like, and look, you play chicken with death a lot, but except for the time you actually died, I only really worried once. If I want to apologize for not being able to check your damn pulse for myself and see two of my godkids in person as quickly as I'd like, I will."

"Okay." She'd gone from gasping for breath to little gasps of laughter, so progress, right? "Come this summer, and you could see all three of them."

"Am I Ellie's godmother by-proxy now?"

"In the sense that if you split them up when I die, I'm gonna haunt you harder than anyone has ever been haunted. In the sense that a religious title means anything to my agnostic ass…. I had to give Amy something for disappearing on her."

"All fair enough. What'd you mean, then?"

"Sofia's visiting in June."

"Aw, they'll love that. I, however, will not be subjecting myself to that amount of squealing."

"That is also fair enough."

"Maybe in the fall? When it's actually drearier here than there? I could come scare the hell out of their teachers."

"They kinda do that for themselves," Meredith admitted. "It took time. Going back knowing it'd be a full year wasrocky. They understand that the vax and boosters mean they're safe, but school's a petri dish, and anyone coughing makes them nervous." She would not feel guilty. She would not. "This would've been a transition year for Zo anyway. She's quieter than she was in elementary, but her friends are all involved in children's theater. I think that will be good for her."

"Ew, does that mean you'll have to sit through children's theater?"

"Mmm, I'll be shocked if they talk her into more than sets or costumes, and she has my skills there, so…."

"Womanning the props table."

"Yup. But like I said, all her friends, so…. If it's on the G-Cal with enough notice, I'm contractually obligated to attend. Bay wrote up an actual contract after his friend's lawyer-mom spoke to their class. All the work I put into keeping them away from our fucked-up system was jeopardized in forty-five minutes."

"And the little one?"

"She's reading well, and very proud about it. No kid is totally on track socially now, especially when they're having to cover so many kindergarten skills"—Thankfully, Ellis Grey would never know how quickly her granddaughter was meeting those expectations; Meredith would've never been returned to her proper class-year—"She also wrote out a petition to be able to count outside activities, such as, you know, just an example, dance classes toward P.E. credit, but I think her siblings helped a lot with that."

Meredith wanted to keep going about the incredible report cards, and the even more amazing observations they shared, but that deserved for that to be its own phone call with her in a better frame of mind.

"You ready to talk about it?" Cristina asked.

"No." She forced the deepest breath she could. Her lungs obeyed. They were clear; they were strong. No damage, according to Maggie. Nothing left over from the cigarettes at twenty-two, or the pot at fourteen. No unnoticed explanation for why breathing never came easily to her. "It started off as the usual stuff, the exam room, Lou. But it wasn't the exam room. It was the playground from where I went to kindergarten."

"Ah, the identity confirmation question explained. That's when Ellis was pregnant with Maggie?"

"Yeah. It might not be significant. Bailey—Miranda—and I were talking about that earlier. Just, I got hung up on it. The weirder part was, Lou wasn't. It wasn't…."

"The person beating you up wasn't Lou?" Cristina prompted.

"No. You know, Lou didn't say anything, during, and it's never his voice in the dreams…. I always hear someone yelling the same shit my subconscious has gone over more or less forever. Being my mother, not being my mother, being Derek's mistress, Derek calling me a whore— "

"Asshole."

"—yes, but I put the word in his mouth! Look, can we not? That was the biggest unresolved issue of my marriage. It would've only grown once the girls got older, but that's my problem now, because Derek is dead. He is dead. The man in my dream had nothing to do with him, because it was the bouncer from the eighteen-and-up club Sadie and I went to on breaks junior year."

There was another silence as Cristina processed, and Meredith imagined the way her face would go from encouraging, to sympathetic and slightly worried a breakdown was approaching, to actual surprise. Concern would be up now, but she'd try to hide it behind professionalism in case Meredith bolted.

"Junior year of college?"

"I said eighteen-and-up."

"And?"

"And…Yes."

"So, you two were what at the time? Fuck buddies? Girlfriends without benefits? You getting off in the bed while she slept?"

"Cristina!"

"I'm just trying to set the scene." All right, she'd try to hide the concern behind crass humor. Given time, Meredith could've predicted that, too.

"We were…undefined, but the handsiness on the dance floor wasn't just about attracting onlookers. For either of us."

"Or so she made you think."

"Cristina." Where Lexie had always been understanding about how she could tell the difference between sincerity and manipulation, Cristina made it no secret that she didn't think Meredith could take off the blinders.

That Cristina was the one who tended to end up with controlling partners was something Meredith hoped she'd never be angry enough to point out. If Cristina would admit to it, she might trust her friend's assessment of the warning signs, but until that point…. No.

"What was the bouncer's deal?" Cristina asked, moving the conversation on.

This time it was Meredith's heart that began working overtime. She flexed her free wrist, and then regretted it when the shadows started to look like fingerprints.

"Meredith? What happened with the bouncer?"

"Nothing. Not… Nothing, really."

"You have four hours 'til rounds, Dr. Grey."

"Um. It was 1998. December. Mom was being wooed by Mayo, and they'd sent a representative to one of the many winter galas she was forced to attend. Sadie had spent the summer giving me shit about how masculine my wardrobe was, 'and not, like, cute masculine, Death. Grunge is out, didn't they cover that in dyke studies?'" The word felt strange in her mouth. She'd said it plenty during that era, but the more time passed, the more she only heard it from men yelling on the street. "Don't—She just said shit like that to get a rise from me."

"Mer, I went to Smith as a legacy with a scholarship, not a Sylvia Plath fan. I can't take the high ground on lesbian jokes."

"Not my fault you have wrong opinions. I might've gone there if I'd known Mom was leaving the state. If Mayo had reached out a few years earlier, we would've been on campus at the same time."

"Good thing that we weren't. I would've hated you in college. I had a lot to say about the granola lesbians at Berkeley, too."

"I really don't know why your mother thought you were one of them."

"Truly a mystery."

Meredith wasn't sure if Cristina realized how sarcastic she was being. As close as they were, Meredith had never told her that until Cristina revealed Burke got her pregnant, she'd made assumptions. Gay ones. Being a good friend could be as much about what you said as what you didn't say, right? Or were her abandonment issues keeping that silent? Either way, she wouldn't risk it. Though, did it bother her that it was a risk? That her best friend might be offended that when bisexual Meredith befriended her, she'd thought they had women in common, not men? It hadn't changed anything for Meredith. Just another secret from before her friend became family.

"But this is the woman who thought Ellen was straight." Cristina added.

"Yikes." Meredith sighed and then started picking at fuzz on her comforter. "Speaking of the de-crowned Queen of Kind…She came out in '97, so in 1998 she was everywhere. Especially after it happened"

"It?" Come on, Cristina. Know me. Know me now well enough to get me then. "…Oh. Laramie." No question to answer. No confirmation needed. Thank you. "I was at Berkeley, by that point. The kid—man—Matt, right? Shit, you were basically the same age, weren't you?" Cristina wasn't emphasizing that she was older, but it felt like she thought Meredith was being…what? Immature, emotional, self-involved? All the horrible things her mother believed her to be, with none of the good? No. That was Meredith spinning out.

"I was younger."

"Uh. Not trying to be crass, but…no relation to…?"

"Different spelling." The damn dream had her spinning out, and lashing out at Cristina, and—damn it, Meredith, breathe.

Something in her voice must've given her away because Cristina's tone changed, like she'd suddenly realized they'd moved on from breezy chatter about the past. "Duh. Sorry. Fuck, Mer, I'm sorry. I didn't…I wasn't…being at Berkeley, or Smith, or anywhere didn't mean anything really. Not in comparison."

It didn't. It didn't, but how many of her straight classmates had been shocked into support? How many "allies" had been born out of a boy's broken body? How many queer students had reburied themselves in the back of a closet? As many as had kicked the door open too soon?

Over the three-week winter break that year, Meredith had four classmates hidden in the apartment at various points. Kids. Kids who wanted their parents to know who they were…just in case. Who were tired of lying about why they'd been shaken up since October. Who'd been hurt and needed support. Kids whose parents were, what? More afraid of a scandal than anything else? Weak, when strength was most needed? True believers in a god who would let that level of violence be passed down, generation to generation?

"He'd been attacked, assaulted, before. On a school trip to Morocco. He still had braces. His birthday was World AIDS day. His parents found out he was HIV+ at the hospital." Meredith said, latching onto facts to stop being buffeted by what ifs. She wasn't sure she would've remembered all of that in daylight but sitting cross-legged on her bed in the warm glow of the bedside lamp, she could've been staring at the computer in her dorm room at Dartmouth, scrolling through slow-loading websites, a flask shaking in her free hand. "Fractures to the back of his head and in front of his ear. Crushed brainstem. He never got stable enough for them to operate. Pronounced dead on the twelfth of October."

She made herself stop. Took one breathe. Another. No wires. No ventilator. She could hear the house settling, the traffic along the intersecting road.

"In December, if you were…paying attention, everything resurged. 'Gay Bash Victim Would Be Having Birthday Bash!' I actually saw that headline at a supermarket. Some local rag… I bought them all, and I burned them in the nearest trashcan."

"Good for you. Quick question, how did you never end up with a rap sheet?"

"My bad luck had to be balanced out somehow. Also, I'm a tiny, blonde, white girl.

"Anyway. December 1998. Big banquet. Wanted to impress the girl. I-I bought this suit."

"Did Ellis know? She must have."

"I cleared it with her. I didn't—I might've had a death wish, but I wasn't against her moving to Minnesota. Every flight out of Rochester could get snowed in for the rest of time, for all I cared."

"How much do you regret that now?"

"I gave it one Thanksgiving. From now on, snow better be afraid of my laser eyes when it stands between me and my kids."

"You know how they're doing more surgery with lasers? My mother won't need the machines, she'll just stare at patients and ZAP!" Sadie's laugh had been all it took to make her stand taller then.

"Seriously, I can't believe I once thought Boston was cold. How the fuck did you live there?"

"Poorly. Established. What I meant was, she must've known you were—you use 'queer,' right?"

"Y-yeah. I do." She'd never stumbled over that. It'd always felt right. For her sexuality, and her attitude toward sex. For the ways she did and didn't feel feminine. For everything in her that felt…outside. She hated that she'd spent so long not mentioning it to Cristina that it felt like it didn't belong in their conversation. "No. She just…. She said she wished she had more freedom in what she wore. As a plus-one known for my more 'lackadaisical sartorial choices' I could pull it off, at least well enough that it wouldn't reflect poorly on her."

"Shit."

"She wasn't wrong. Well, she was, I put a lot of effort into dressing for those things. The dresses just didn't always…. They were tailored. They fit; they just didn't always sit right." Alone in her room, Meredith offered up an unseen shrug. There was probably an exact word for how she did and didn't feel about gender presentation sometimes, but she'd have to be able to define it to use it. "The rest she had right. Even now, anything that isn't a pantsuit would get attention, and mine was tailored, cocktail attire."

"Are there pictures?"

Had Meredith ever been asked that twice in one night, especially about such different situations. Actually, maybe not all that different. Her and her mom defying gendered expectations.

"I'll find them. I was both adorable and hot."

"I can only imagine. Which is a shame. Where was this fashion sense at prom? Or at every goddamn wedding?"

"Nowhere near a date with a very masculine vet, or ready to come out to the workplace that considered me to be a super-slutty, dirty mistress? It was a one-time thing, or…it ended up as. For then. Maybe at some point…." She shelved the thought. There'd be some event that had her re-examining it before long. There always was. "Sadie and I went clubbing afterward. Well, after I cut her skirt down to dance in. This place was in our regular route. The bouncer had been there all summer. We knew him pretty well, I thought. It was a sort of ritzy place on the edge of Southie. Do you…?"

"I am potentially the only person you know who doesn't speak Boston."

"Alex, although we don't really talk these days. Miranda. Richard." Meredith rested her elbow on her bent knees and stretched out over it. That category once included Derek, too. Why was it little things like that made the grief wave surge with such strength? "Think finance money. Tech upstarts. More Sadie's type than mine, but more likely to spend money on us. Less likely to cut in if we got really close on the dance floor."

"Like it was contagio—oh shit. Never mind. The nineties were stupid."

Cristina had her own burdens, ones Meredith could only hate for her, but she'd never mentioned a first-hand connection to the cloud that still hung over every queer person Meredith had known at the time.

"It wasn't the nineties," she said bluntly. "It was the fear-mongering and homophobia that still exist. Don't act like…." She took a breath, exhaled. She wasn't angry at Cristina. "Sadie said she was going to the bar. I got tired of white guys with sagging jeans trying to rub up on me, and things were maybe getting a little blurry. I ducked into the corridor that led to the bathroom in one direction and the alley in another.

"He had her against the wall in the corner. Not the first time one of us had been there, but I could see her face. She wasn't into it. And once I saw that, it was like they'd put red bulbs in every light in the room red and turned on the strobe."

"You were the knight-in-shining-whatever. Man, Shep read you wrong."

"He didn't. You can not need one, want one, and want to be one."

"Oh. Huh…" A long pause. "I guess you can." Cristina really sounded like she'd never thought about it. What else hadn't she thought about? Meredith wondered at times, the awkward hug with Colin Marlow coming to mind, how much Cristina liked sex, and potentially romance, versus how much she used them. What probably should've occurred to Meredith ages ago was that even going to Smith didn't mean Cristina ever learned how varied her options were.

"This guy was a typical, muscular, tattooed bouncer-type. He didn't expect a whirling dervish who came up to his armpit to interfere, I can promise you that, but I don't think I made him say 'ow.'"

"What'd he do to you?"

She could still feel him trying to shake her off like she was some vermin with its teeth latched into his skin. Her feet had come up off the floor, and unfortunately for him, she'd been wearing steel-toed boots. Unfortunately for her, his cup took most of the force she put behind the kick, but he had moved to protect his valuables, letting Sadie get free. She'd hooked an arm through Meredith's, pulling her backwards. "Death, it's okay. Let's just get out of here. Leave him, he's not worth it. He didn't touch me, I swear. Come on, baby, I don't want you getting hurt."

The "baby" did it, she wasn't ashamed to admit that. She'd let herself decide to be satisfied by flipping the asshole off. She'd done it with the arm he'd managed to slam against the wall, and for a second pain cut through everything. It froze her long enough for him to straighten up, meet her eyes, and spit "fucking queer."

"Mer," Cristina breathed, and that was enough to make it obvious, it hadn't been real to Cristina until that. She'd seen where the story was going, but it hadn't been real.

"She got me to go to the Brigham for an x-ray. Sprained wrist. Bruised ribs. Nothing visible."

"You could've gotten him charged with a hate crime. I understand why you didn't, but you could have."

"I had many reasons, but yeah. I don't know why… I'm not afraid of it happening again. Not enough to regret being open about it. Hasn't my life proved that you can't live worried about what might happen—because you can't predict the worst anyway?" Her finger started to throb, and she realized she'd wrapped the cord around it again, far too tightly. "I'm not afraid… for me. Crap. It feels wrong to be afraid for the kids. It's not like I think Callie and Arizona…hell, I can't even say it. They deserve Sofia, and anyone who doesn't think that can suck it. My kids…. They were so scared—it's their trauma, Cristina. It's their 'my mom is mortal moment.' They lost Derek, and then they saw me like that, and they were terrified."

"Didn't you say Bailey asked about this? The day you came out to them, or whatever?"

"Yeah, but— "

"What'd you tell him?"

"That…That if someone had a problem, it would be about them, not me. But that wouldn't— "

"Old ladies with faces like mine have been getting punched out since the beginning of Covid. Do they stop going out? No. Is that hard on their kids and grandkids? Abso-fucking-lutely."

"It's not— "

"My step-grandparents both have parents who survived in Hungary. They didn't convert. Some people did. Everyone did what felt most like it could save their lives. That doesn't mean the same thing to anyone."

"That isn't— "

"That's my point, Mer. None of it's the same. You have a choice. You could take a step back, never tell anyone, never acknowledge your feelings. Who does that sound like?"

"Are you really—?"

"How did you feel, Mer? When you found out about all the secrets Ellis kept? Don't bother trying to lie, I was there."

"Sad. For her."

"And?"

"For myself. And angry, that if she'd been honest, maybe we could've… I don't know…I would've known what she was going through."

"That she was strong, not frozen?"

"You know, they really did queer-code Elsa. Nothing to do with Mom, but the gloves, and…I'm deflecting. Yes."

"Whatever happens, your kids will be better off seeing you hold your ground. Whether or not they are queer or not, they will be better. You know that. I know you do."

Meredith held herself silently for a second, and then slumped, letting her forehead press against the heel of her hand. "I do."

"Good. I am so sorry you went through that, Mer. All of it. It's not 1998 anymore, but you're right, it's not a hundred percent safe. The only way it can be is if the kids are better than us."

"I know," Meredith murmured. Hadn't she been one of those kids once? In this creaky house that was sometimes heavy with the weight of her past, and other times buoyant, full of light and laughter?

"You do." Cristina confirmed. "Hey, so, speaking of, I saw good ol' Die a couple of months ago."

Meredith sat upright again to the point that she wouldn't have been surprised if her hair was reach the ceiling. "You what?"

"Yeah, sorry, hadn't found a way to bring that up organically. It was at that pulmonary conference in Brussels. She looked…healthy. I didn't approach."

"I don't blame you."

"You kept tabs on her, didn't you?"

"I…. She's director of her father's company. Definitely saw his obit. Sent a Congratulations! card." She did not mention San Diego. She might never mention San Diego. "I'm glad she's…if she's okay."

"You're better than anyone gives you credit for."

"Most people don't know every—all the things you do."

"True. You gonna be able to go back to sleep?"

"Probably not. That's okay." The soft knock she'd been anticipating since hearing the tell-tale creaks came, followed by the door opening to reveal all three of her children. She motioned for them to come in.

Her goodbyes with Cristina were a mess of small, sharp feet jabbing her legs, and pillows being thumped while they alternated whispering, "Hello, Aunt 'Stina!", which was fine. It wasn't like their conversations ever really ended.

A/N: Image of the text message in this chapter: .

Why yes, I am working on an unexpectedly long San Diego fic. It'll be up after this one, and I think from hereon out my Meredith is bisexual, so there will be that. Subscribe to me if you're interested, or find me on Tumblr!