It took until nine o'clock the next morning for her discharge to e processed, and Meredith was sitting on the end of the bed, dressed in jeans (which barely fit over her cast), a t-shirt and a denim jacket, when Olivia finally came in with the papers all signed. George was driving her home, and she was more than ready to leave the hospital for a few days. Maybe by the time that she was able to return, in three days, the whispers would have died down.
"Meredith, the chief wants to see you before you leave," Olivia said, as she helped Meredith maneuver into the wheelchair that George was holding steady. Meredith looked up at her incredulously, but the nurse just shrugged. "Sorry, but he said that it was urgent. George can take you up to his office and then you can leave from there."
Meredith took the crutches that Olivia held out and looked up at George, "You heard her then, drive." George laughed and Meredith attempted a weak smile, but her hands were suddenly shaking. She had the worst feeling that the chief was going to toss her out of the program. She had been one of the ones to cause trouble the week before, and then she had accused him (rightly, but still) of breaking up her parent's marriage. All she could think was that her actions recently might have even more dire consequences than they already had.
She had George park the wheelchair in front of the chief's office, and she pulled herself up on the crutches, clumsily going into the outer office, where Patricia glanced up at her from the desk and waved her in, silently. Still feeling very uneasy, Meredith made her way slowly to Dr. Webber's inner-office, determined not to fall, but coming close as she opened the cracked door all of the way.
She was surprised to see that Chief Webber was not the only one in his office waiting for her. His wife, Adele, stood just off to the side, watching as Meredith struggled with the crutches.
"For Pete's sake, Richard, help the girl out!" she chastised, and Meredith almost put up a hand before realizing that this would cause her to fall.
"No, that's okay, I got it." She positioned herself in front of a chair and slid down, propping her cast up in the chair beside it. "There. I'm good."
"Liar," Adele blurted out, and Meredith looked up at her, startled.
"Adele, please, let me," the Chief murmured, and Meredith turned back to him, now feeling somewhat suspicious. Surely the chief didn't need his wife around when he fired someone.
"Meredith, I have had three people talk to me about you in the past two days," he began, leaning forward and holding her gaze steadily. He then sat there quietly and it occurred to her that he wanted a response.
"Oh?" she said the soft sound the only noise that she could produce as her throat constricted. Whatever this was, it could not be good.
"Preston Burke mentioned it when I went to check on him yesterday, having been spoken to by both O'Malley and Yang; Miranda Bailey came in as soon as you were brought in the other night and Derek Shepard accosted me before I could leave last night." Meredith lowered her eyes, staring at her hands, at the bruise on her wrist from the IV. "The three of them came to me because they know; they know that when I was younger I had a drinking problem."
Meredith's head snapped up. She was torn between shock at the chief's admission, annoyance at being talked about like that and a small thought that the affair between the chief and her mother. "Oh, Dr. Webber, I--"
He held up a hand to keep her from speaking. "Quiet for a minute, Grey. Like I said, I had a drinking problem. Now the issue that you are facing may not be as bad as my situation was," here he glanced momentarily at his wife. "But we can't have our interns being...distracted by issues like that. I knew when Bailey first came to me that it would be difficult to get you to accept what I am going to offer, Grey, because you are independent and self-sufficient; however, I also know how highly you value your place in this program."
There it was. Whatever he was about to offer, it was that or get kicked out of the program. Meredith slumped a little in her seat and wished that Derek was there with her to tell her that it would be okay, but she had told him that she needed to straighten herself out on her own, and she would
"Okay," she said slowly. "What is it?"
"I want you to go to an AA meeting with Adele. After I got sober she remained very active in the program, more so than I could be. She can't sponsor you, but she can be a familiar face to help you start out. You're young, and strong, you'll do fine."
"And my other option?" Meredith asked, more to be certain than anything.
The chief raised an eyebrow, "Your other option is to be put on probation and have a negative mark on your file. You are an asset to this program though Grey, I wouldn't suggest--."
Meredith stopped listening to him. She stared at the heavy white cast on her leg, her mind moving in slow motion. She wanted to jump up and proclaim that she did not have a problem, that it had just been an accident and that she was fine. However, what she wanted to do was at least physically impossible, and she knew that it was not what she should do. She remembered all of the men she had slept with after nights of binging, of George's comment about quantity. She remembered wondering herself if one day she was going to get in too deep. If once she might somehow forget about her insistence on condoms, or agree to go to his place and end up in trouble. She was lucky, really, that the eye-opening experience had been a fall and not something to do with one of those men.
"Meredith?" Adele Webber had come to Meredith's side and was crouching by her chair. Meredith turned to her, remembering the woman from when she was younger and Meredith had seen her a few times at get-togethers, she remembered her as a nice woman who always made Meredith laugh as a child. "I know that this is not easy to face. You may feel like we're blowing things completely out of proportion, but I think that on some level you know what is best for you."
She stood back and Meredith rested her head in one hand, feeling everything from the past two days hit her at once. She was still weak from the surgery and the anesthesia, her leg ached. She had fallen from a tree, because she had been too drunk to realize that she wasn't sixteen anymore, and that Cristina and George weren't out to get her. She knew she had a problem, hadn't she told Derek that she wanted to make it all go away? And this was a way to do that. A part of her though, a very loud part, was telling her that she did not need their help, that she could dig herself out of it again. She had done it before.
Did they come back?... Well then it didn't work. Words that she had heard Bailey tell patients before crept back and she winced. Maybe doing this on her own wasn't such a good idea.
AA. Alcoholics Anonymous. She did not want that label. She did not want to be known for the rest of her life as an alcoholic. But the chief had just said, she was young, if she stopped now she could avoid the label. It was better than being the one who got HIV because she was too drunk to think better of sleeping with some sleaze-ball.
Slowly she raised her head to look at Dr. Webber. She felt vulnerable and see-through as she took a breath to speak. "Okay. I'll do it. It's not worth risking my spot in the program and...And I guess, maybe, I do have a problem." She accepted, although she knew that he would not do this for just any one, and that this would just be something else that she would have to make time for.
Dr. Webber nodded solemnly. "Okay then, I have to go check on a patient, I'll leave you two to talk." He left, leaving Meredith alone with his wife.
"That's the first step, hun," she said comfortingly, "Admitting it. You're doing the right thing, Meredith. It may not feel like it now, but you are."
She put a gentle hand on Meredith's shoulder. "Incidentally, I heard that the Shepards are finalizing their divorce."
Meredith looked up at her, wide-eyed. "Yeah. Wait, you're friends with Addison, aren't you? And you don't, like, hate me?"
Adele shook her head, as Meredith pushed up with one crutch and positioned the other under her arm. "No dear. They tried, and failed. It happens sometimes. Addison knows that, Derek knows that." Meredith stared at her. "Richard and I worked. It's as simple as that."
"We're waiting," Meredith blurted out. "Just so you know, I'm not throwing myself at him or-- We're waiting until things are better, for both of us."
"Smart," Adele said, approvingly. Meredith didn't know why she was seeking her approval, but getting it made her feel better. "The meeting that you're coming to with me is tomorrow, at four, at the YMCA three blocks from here. But then, you're not able to drive, are you?" Meredith shook her head. "In that case, I'll take you. Are you in Ellis's old house?"
"Um, yeah." Meredith said, suddenly uncomfortable at the mention of her mother, the woman who to Adele what Meredith was to Addison. Except that Richard had stayed with Adele. "Okay. So, I'm going to go now."
"All right, I'm sure you're tired." Adele held open the door for her and Meredith went back into the outer-office and then out to George.
He was sitting in the wheelchair, waiting for her, and she laughed at him, the tension that she had felt easing. "George, mine," she said, and he stood to let her get in. She positioned her leg on the outstretched leg-rest.
"You okay?" George asked.
"No. But I think I will be," Meredith told him, honestly, and he began to push the wheelchair towards the elevator.
Izzie was waiting for them at the house, and she came down the steps to help Meredith in. "It's easier if you lean on a person and the rail to go upstairs," she said, handing George Meredith's crutches. "Less chance of one of the crutches slipping out."
Meredith put an arm around Izzie's shoulder, and followed her advice, dragging her bad leg up after the other one. Izzie was right, this way was easier. George gave her the crutches back inside, and she used them only to get to the couch. 'How'd you know that, Izzie?" she asked, smiling at Izzie. She did not look as well as she had over the past day or so, her eyes were red-rimmed again, and her hair was barely pulled back into a messy ponytail.
Izzie shrugged, "I broke an ankle playing soccer when I was thirteen."
"You play soccer?" George asked, around a mouthful of a muffin that he had gotten from the kitchen. Izzie had been baking again. Meredith took the muffin that George offered her as Izzie nodded, sinking into an armchair.
"I did, in middle school and freshman year of high school. It was something to do." She shrugged and looked away.
"I never played sports," George said. "Dad always tried to make me, because my brothers played football, but Mom made him stop."
"What about you, Mer?" Izzie said, quietly.
"Huh?" Meredith said. She had heard their conversation, but a part of her was not focusing on it. "Oh. No. Well, I swam, but after junior high I didn't do it on a team. My sophomore roommate got me into jogging."
"Mine was into power-walking," Izzie commented. "And scientology, but that's a whole 'nother story."
George sniggered. "My freshman roommate was an engineering major who was on the boxing team. He had a nervous breakdown midway through the second semester."
Meredith, who had been smiling, let the smile fall off of her face. "Fourth year," she murmured.
"What?" Izzie said, turning to her.
"My last year of med school. Mom had just been moved into Roseridge, I was applying for residencies, studying for the boards. You know. Anyway, I had a break down. A janitor found me hyperventilating in a bathroom stall at two AM, in the building where my faculty advisor's office was. I still don't remember how I got there or why I was there. It was December and I was dressed like it was June. The girl that I shared my apartment with said she hadn't seen me since eight when I had left to go visit my advisor, but I never went to his office," she shrugged. "I wasn't drinking, or anything. I just... lost it."
George and Izzie looked at her, seriously. "I nearly broke down," George admitted. "The night before the first board exam. I thought seriously about running away and becoming a cab driver, until I realized that I would probably kill more people that way than being a doctor."
"No one ever thought I could do it," Izzie said, quietly. "And so I did it. A lot of my life has been like that."
"I know the feeling," Meredith said earnestly.
"Yeah," George agreed. "If you're okay, Mer, I'm going to go buy groceries."
"Sorry, it was my week, wasn't it?" Meredith said guiltily.
"Don't worry about it," he assured her, grabbing his keys. "I'll be back."
When the door closed behind him, Meredith lay back on a throw pillow and Izzie curled up in her chair. "Meredith?"
"Yeah?" Meredith said, propping her head up so that she could see Izzie.
Izzie bit her lip before blurting out, "I threw out the tequila. I figured..." She trailed off.
Meredith nodded, and lay back again, then shifted so that she was mostly lying on her side, feeling triumphant at the fact that she had not fallen off of the couch in the process. "Thank you, Izzie," she murmured before closing her eyes.
A/N Review please!