Summer came, and with it the chants of "Sofia! Sofia!" started up so frequently that Amelia started singing it to the tune of "Shakira, Shakira," and added a dance that she insisted she did not intend for Ellie to see, much less pick up. As an apology, she volunteered herself to make dinners for the next week. On her end, Meredith posted video of her youngest's newest moves to an Instagram account she'd never bothered sharing with Amelia, and three of her college friends commented variants on definitely your kid, Grey within twenty seconds of each other.
They made signs to greet Sofia with at the airport, loaded everyone in the car, and suddenly a way-too-tall-now, muscular Latina girl was running toward them. Meredith showed her ID and signed the form thrust at her by the harried airline employee who'd accompanied Sofia from the gate while Zola and Sofia stood at arm's length, staring at each other, like they didn't quite know how to relate in person.
Ellie broke the silence by poking her sister in the arm. "Zoie, my turn. Hi, I'm Ellis-sometimes-Ellie. Can I hug you?"
"Of course!" Sofia chirped, and Meredith fumbled the phone she was taking pictures on. Two words in, and she could hear Arizona in her.
Amy grabbed her arm, muttering, "Steady, Grey."
"Auntie Meredith!" Sofia bounced over for a hug and when Meredith let her go Amelia was deeply engrossed in her phone. Meredith cupped her hand over the screen, forcing her sister-in-law into looking at her.
"Her eyes," Amelia said, tucking the phone into her back pocket, and trying for casual while her own eyes misted over. "Those are one-hundred percent Mark Sloan."
"You'd know."
"Screw you."
"Nope. He tried. Didn't fall for that one. Sofi, what color is your bag, sweets?"
"I'll show you! Moms tied a pride ribbon on it!"
Bailey shyly offered his should've-been, was-in-all-but-law-and-blood cousin his hand on the way to baggage claim. Running ahead at the sight of a rainbow ribbon on a purple suitcase, Meredith took a picture, and made a mental note to send it to Addison, preceded by a warning. Do not look until sitting down. Shepherd&Sloan ride again.
The next few days were a blitz of kids-work-kids-hospital (Zola, soccer ball, shoulder)-work-kids. Meredith was almost taken aback when she woke to a Google Calendar alert for Seattle Pridefest. Or, she would've been, if she hadn't had a countdown going in her head for the previous month.
It isn't a big deal, she told herself, as she poured five bowls of sugary cereal, and Bailey asked, "No emergencies, Mom?"
"No, baby." She tousled his hair, which was shaggy, starting to come in Shepherd-dark at the roots. "I'm not on call."
The rainbow beads she'd braided into Zola's hair the night before clicked at a disparate rhythm to the thump of her feet on the stairs, but she still called out, "Hey, Mom?" at the base of the stairs, like she thought her approach hadn't been heard. Maybe Meredith's behavior as a teenager wasn't as atypical as she'd believed. "You said Sofia and I can wear makeup, right?"
"I did."
Zola smiled and then plunked the box of starter makeup Maggie had given her for her birthday on the table. She slid a couple of the drawers open and shut, and then thwacked several eyeshadow selections in front of her brother. "Which palette?"
"That's what you're wearing?"
"No, I put on an entire outfit's worth of clothes just to come downstairs, and ask – "
"Zo-la! If you want a favor, be favorable."
"Sorry, Mom. Sorry, B. Yes…obviously."
Meredith turned, quietly. Zola hadn't let her see her outfit in progress. The focal point was the denim jacket that must have been white once but was now tie-dyed. She had it on over black jeans, a t-shirt Meredith couldn't see from this angle, and a pair of Converse high-tops had been given the same tie dye treatment. When Zola went thumping back up the stairs, she saw that the jacket had LOVE IS LOVE stenciled across the back. It was a little too big, and Meredith imagine her wearing it four years on, the words almost illegible in a sea of patches and pins.
"That one." Bailey pointed with the green index finger of his POC-LGBTQIA-flag painted nails – He'd discovered a book about Gilbert Baker during their last library trip and had half-a-dozen different variations pulled up on her phone while he picked polish colors – "You're older. Haven't they taught you color theory?"
"You have an eye, B, whatever."
"Zo, bring the sling Link gave you. You don't have to wear it unless it starts hurting but keep it in your bag."
"Uh-huh!"
Yup, the next few years were going to be fun. Meredith meant that almost as sincerely as sarcastically.
It isn't a big deal, she told herself, putting on the t-shirt she'd come across online, which had a drawing of a hypodermic crossed with a stake and said "Disease Slayer" in a Buffy the Vampire Slayer-style font. She liked that it symbolized a lot without being obvious. Before finding it, she'd planned on wearing a Hole shirt from high school, which still fit, incredibly. When she didn't see it on her dresser next to the newer addition, she had a feeling she knew which t-shirt was under her daughter's jacket. The studded belt she threaded through her jeans was a holdover from that plan. It was forecast to be too hot to wear one of Derek's old flannels as an over-shirt, but she held one for a good minute, wondering if the comfort might be worth the risk of heatstroke.
It isn't a big deal, she told herself when she had to swallow twice to respond to the knock on the door. Sofia came into the room in rainbow-socked feet, wearing a shirt that said, "I Have Two Mommies. Wanna Play?" above an illustration of a boxing glove. Mark would've thought it was hilarious.
"Auntie Meredith? Mi mamá sent this for you. They said if you don't wear 'em, they'll, uh…." She tip-toed closer, and leaned in. "'Call in the panties,'" she whispered, the last word breaking up in a giggle.
"Callie said that did they?" Meredith asked. The pronoun felt right. How long had Callie been considering it? Was it better to not know something was an option, or to decide something wasn't an option for you at that time? Probably it depended on the you. Not unlike her mother, Meredith Grey preferred universals. Eat your heart out, Alanis, I have irony covered.
"Yes." Sofia's smile kept wavering with suppressed giggles. It must've been killing her not to share that directive with Zola. Meredith wouldn't make it harder by telling her not to do so, but she'd have to figure out a version of the story that could be shared with her preteen and her in-laws. It might slip out of Zola's head during a week with the Shepherds, but it was more likely to slip out of her mouth. Meredith tried to stay one step ahead of Murphy's law.
"Can I see what we got you?" Sofia asked.
"Of course." What were the chances that the gift would be enough to make Sofia forget about "panties," and wouldn't be equally salacious? Callie wouldn't have put anything too bad in their kid's backpack, would they?
Meredith didn't exactly hold the small square box like it might explode– been there, done that– but she did cup it to give herself the first glimpse, just in case. A pair of earrings sat innocuously on a poof of cotton inside.
"Pretty!" Sofia exclaimed. "Mamá has pan-pride ones like that!"
The earrings were drops, not unlike what Meredith wore every day, a cylinder made up of three segments. Pink, purple, and blue stacked one on top of the other.
MEREDITH GREY: They're beautiful. Thank you.
DR. CALLIOPE TORRES: you're welcome. Sorry for the threat. Thought you should be properly motivated.
I know that the whole 'coming out to the hospital' thing is stressful.
MEREDITH GREY: It's never easy. But you know that.
Actually, no. It is easy. What it isn't is simple.
DR. CALLIOPE TORRES: you're not alone there. Talk to teddy.
Sitting at her vanity with her ponytail making the new earrings a focal point, Meredith scowled at the phone. Teddy's return had Callie trying to connect them constantly, like there was a transitive property of friendships. It wasn't that she didn't like Teddy, or that they weren't friendly, especially post-Covid just… just.
MEREDITH GREY: Widows who slept with women in the past and kept it mostly secret. Doesn't erase the history.
DR. CALLIOPE TORRES: which is?
MEREDITH GREY: Her playing happy families with Owen like… She's seen the way he treats people.
DR. CALLIOPE TORRES: she loves him.
MEREDITH GREY: So did Amy. And Cristina.
Not sure what he loves. aside from the babies, but I suspect it's an idea, not a human woman.
DR. CALLIOPE TORRES: i'm confused, are you pissed at teddy or at owen & kinda concerned for her?
MEREDITH GREY: that's not the… ok it may be the point.
But I don't think she can advise on this whole coming-out thing. her epic love story is on the Dl.. Either only a few of us heard, or the…. intercom thing…made a better rumor.
DR. CALLIOPE TORRES: i have given her a lotta shit for korasak. never imagined him really falling for someone.
DR. CALLIOPE TORRES: as for coming out, apparently my strategy is to just keep doing it.
MEREDITH GREY: Got that memo from a very giggly kiddo. Proud of you!
DR. CALLIOPE TORRES: *checks to make sure message isn't from Arizona*
MEREDITH GREY: Shut up. Glad you guys are doing well.
Still genuinely sorry you went through all that for penny and it didn't work out.
DR. CALLIOPE TORRES: i know. That's why I've kept you around. You're a secret romantic, & you care more than you hate.
MEREDITH GREY: Keep saying that, and you'll be the next one slammed against a locker room wall.
DR. CALLIOPE TORRES: is that a promise?
MEREDITH GREY: You wish
DR. CALLIOPE TORRES: if Stevens hadn't gotten between us? Who knows?
MEREDITH GREY: That rumor got traction this spring. Izzie included.
DR. CALLIOPE TORRES: hot.
Texting Callie kept her occupied until it came time to leave the house, although if it made it a tiny bit hard to face Callie's kid for a minute or two. She and Callie had almost always been on the edge of flirting; especially once panties changed hands. It'd been fun while she stayed at the old house– when the house she now lived in again had been the old house– and when Callie asked her if she was turned on by vagina, she'd been honest then. No. No, because there was Derek; there was Derek, and a Post-it, and a line she'd once crossed with him, for him, and would never cross against him. Now, well, Callie would hopefully remain the unattainable, flirty friend who she'd never seriously pursue. There was hospital incest, and there was soap opera. Having been with George, Alex, and Mark would put Callie into soap opera material for Meredith, even if they were in Seattle. Had Callie and Lexie ever realized how many hospital men they'd both been into? And Sadie had definitely eyeballed both of them, even if Lexie wasn't looking back.
Thank everything that Arizona popped into Callie's life. Sadie would've discovered how soft they were underneath the steel, and it could've been bad. Could've been hot but could've been bad. Although if anyone could've tamed Sadie at that time, it would've been Callie. Maybe she would've done what Meredith couldn't, and made Sadie admit to being who she was.
Not long after Callie's father showed up for the second time in a year, yelling and slamming people into walls– apparently it ran in families– Meredith had gone into the lounge to find Callie sitting there, clutching a balled-up tissue tinged with mascara.
Whatever she'd needed slipped out of her mind as she took the chair beside them and pulled her legs to her chest. "No one thinks Cristina and I are a couple because we're not one. We're not coupley," she'd said, her eyes fixed on the closed door. "That doesn't mean…drinking tequila and screwing boys doesn't mean…it got me called a whore around here, and that's without them knowing…knowing it's not just boys." In her periphery, Callie made a full body turn in her direction. "My drowning…. It wasn't about him."
"Grey, you don't have to talk about – "
"It's okay. Some stuff has been rearranged in my head since then. I'm not…I didn't try to drown myself. Cristina's very straight. She's kind of sensitive about it. Berkeley, Smith – her mom thought she was a lesbian for years – and she knows, so she must've thought I wanted you to think I have a…Derek, obviously I'm not with her. No one thinks we're a couple because we were devoted to male attendings; here's how devoted, she drowned herself for him. I didn't.
"And my point that night actually was, they assume I'm straight, because they have no reason to go digging. Mommy issues, daddy issues, screwing all the boys. Literal dirty laundry pinned on bulletin boards. Sleep with a male attending, and they don't notice if you look twice at a female attending. Helps if your childhood is a hospital scandal, keeps them from looking too closely at the other twenty-five years."
"Even if your hot ex is organizing secret intern cabals?"
"Um…I thought George wasn't involved in that?" Meredith tried.
"Not my hot ex, and he's not your ex-anything."
"Nope, he's my current stupidest mistake. My 'should've been rock bottom,' The grand marshal of my daddy issues parade. You're supposed to tell me to shut up at some point, you know. I wasn't socialized properly as a child, I have very weird boundaries, and sometimes I think I was so quiet until I was, like, twelve that I'm making up for it because I just kind of keep going…."
Callie continued to say nothing and side-eye her.
"Ugh, fine. Yes., even if. She's not my ex, exactly. We weren't anything official."
Callie smirked, and Meredith sucked the inside of her cheek. It was possible she and Sadie self-destructed because they were too similar. Apart from each other, they had the same type. Occasionally at the same time.
"I'm sorry she took advantage of your big queer revelation, or whatever. And that I misled you at Joe's."
"Hey, no, you gotta do this stuff on your own time. And I didn't exactly mind flirting with the cute blonde girl."
"Yeah. Well…That's…good."
"You, uh, remember how you said George was my McDreamy?"
"I do. In retrospect, I'm sorry if I cursed your marriage."
Callie snorted. "God, if I'd slept with Mark before George and Izzie knocked boots, we really would've been the mirror Shepherds. No thanks. No offense."
"Knocked boots?" Meredith said, giggling. "I'll let you off the hook for that."
"Whatever. When you said that, I really thought I loved him the way you love Derek."
"You did. I don't designate McDreamys without careful consideration, Callie."
"But then…. Erica said, um, that you can't 'kind of' be a lesbian."
"Bullshit," Meredith declared, and Callie's eyes brightened. "Definitionally, maybe not, strictly speaking, but none of this stuff is strict. I blame Buffy – Willow's vampire alter-ego could be 'kinda gay,' but in real life she was just 'gay now,' like her other relationships…." Callie's eyes were narrowing, so Meredith cut herself off. "The world doesn't like to acknowledge other options. And, yeah, your sexuality can change, but I don't think.… Were you not into the sex with Mark? If George is your preferred type of– "
"No! Sex with Mark was…He's uh…I'm never gonna marry him and have his babies, but attraction was not a problem."
"So, okay. You're kind of a lesbian. Or you're 'pansexual,' or 'bisexual,' if that's your word. There are others."
"Which is yours?"
"Bisexual." Meredith jerked her head to the side to meet Callie's eyes.
Callie put a hand on her arm. "Thanks for telling me."
"Yeah, sure. I thought more people would figure it out, with Sadie, but since they didn't…I don't think Debbie has any ledgers with my name on them, and it'd be nice if things stayed like that for a while."
"I won't spread your business. But can I…you seem to know what you're talking about. I know not everyone wants to educate a baby gay – baby bi? Biby? Babi? With an 'I?'"
"Bi-babe," Meredith suggested.
"If you say so." Callie preened. "Seriously, though my main go-to for this has been Mark." Meredith grimaced. She could only imagine. "Erica didn't know much more than I do – "
"But she acted like the authority on everything, huh?" Meredith got up to fulfill her original goal of coffee. "I'm a nerd, Callie. I'll answer questions all damn day unless they get too personal, and considering how much of my business the whole hospital knows…and the panties, I'm around, whatever you need."
While she was doctoring the sludge in her Styrofoam cup. Callie got up and drifted over to the counter. "Debbie does have a pool going for when Shepherd is going to propose."
"Oh. I'm kind of okay with that."
"I'm happy for you." Callie leaned over, her breath heavy against Meredith's ear. "But if you hadn't built that house of candles, this talk could've been way more interesting."
Callie stayed far closer than necessary leaving the room, and Meredith had stared at her coffee, flabbergasted, for far too long.
Until Penny turned up, she'd assumed Callie might only be into blonde women, and the time they'd claimed they'd never been friends, "because you thought I was a freak, and you're blonde" had only supported her hypothesis.
As she searched for parking around Capitol Hill, she had a visceral memory of Cristina cutting the rest of their intern class off in the then-Seattle Grace lot with her bike. Definitely could've been a Smith dyke, she thought, and forced her fingers to relax on the wheel. Reclamation is a thing. That's not just a word you have shouted at you on the street now. You used to use it constantly. She couldn't flinch at every sign she saw. That was the opposite of why they were doing this.
The post-Covid Pride (more between variants, but hey, she couldn't begrudge hope.) event in September hadn't been enough to placate the Seattle community, judging by the crowds around Capitol Hill and Seattle Center. Maggie and Amelia had originally planned to come along, but a weekend with such a big event in the city meant that between Maggie's honeymoon and Amelia being Amelia, their limited PTO had come around to bite Meredith. Owning the hospital only got one so far. Jo had overheard her complaining and surprised her by offering to be her Support Adult for the outing. Her former loft mates were attending somewhere, she could use the older-kid experience, and Lily could happily spend the day at the childcare center. Their Saturday programming was always a step above to compensate for it being Saturday, and even Meredith had heard, "are you sure you're off all weekend?" once or twice. If there was more to the offer, Meredith was the last person with the right to pry.
Once everyone was out of the car, Meredith handed Jo a bottle of sunscreen, letting her corral Bailey while she slathered it on Ellis's wigglier limbs, and kept an eye out to make sure the older two didn't miss anywhere vital.
"All right!" she said in her best Medusa-voice, once she was reasonably sure they wouldn't burn. "We have two grown-ups, two bigs, and two littles. No one try to talk to me about how old they are, that's how we're categorizing it today. Zola, Sofia, hold onto someone. Each other, one of the littles, a grown-up, take your pick. Ellis and Bailey, take a grown-up's hand now, release it at your peril." Jo extended a hand to Ellie at the exact same time Meredith held hers out to Bay; she had been paying attention through their years of working together. The littles complied, but she could see the question forming on Ellie's face. "Unless you are actively on the potty," she added. She'd looked up the port-a-potty situation, and she wasn't thinking about it again until she had to, but at least it would be hard for one of them to escape with someone literally standing against the door. "Deal?"
Ellis nodded solemnly, pigtails bobbing under her Angelina Ballerina snapback. If nothing else, they would get adorable pictures out of the day.
The sheer amount of people was daunting enough for all four kids to willingly start out walking three-by-three. Ellis shadowed a step behind Jo. She'd need the reassurance of being carried early on. Of all the kids, she'd lost the most socialization to Covid. Scout had been too young for it to matter; B and Z had made it through the most essential years already. Gatherings like this weren't easy for anyone, but Ellie still got overwhelmed during all-school recitals at dance.
This might've been the best way to reintroduce them to the street festivities the city specialized in. There were plenty less dangerous than the Dead Baby Bike Race, but Meredith hadn't anticipated how much here would enrapture the kids. She'd been aware of the way the rainbow had taken over events that she still mentally associated with memorials, fundraisers, and not a little kink. Her Facebook friends had long posts about the pros and cons of cooperate appropriation of pride versus the shift to inclusion, but through her kids' eyes, everything was fascinating.
There were multi-colored balloon arcs everywhere. The walk to the festival stage was lined with booths selling pride-related arts and crafts. Music was being piped through loud enough for dancing, but not too loudly for her to hear the kids' exclamations, and she could still spot four or five vendors providing information that this population – her population – specifically needed.
She was getting up from crouching to help Bailey take a picture of a dalmatian with rainbow-dyed fur when Jo put a hand on her shoulder. "Look now," she said, pointing at their eleven o'clock. "Isn't that Richard?"
Even out-of-context, it didn't take her more than a second to identify him. Unlike the times she'd seen a bald, Black man as a child and thought maybe? this wasn't her active imagination. He was sitting on a lawn chair, holding a pamphlet out over a blue-skirted table. Her mind was only saved from being totally blown by his khaki cargo shorts and red button-down that was the opposite of ostentatious. If gaydar was a thing, hers was screaming "ally."
"Do we go over?" Jo asked. "Or – Do you think it's an AA thing?"
"Not here. He's too…community pillar-y." A hand squeezed hers. She glanced over at Zola. When in the world did that become a glance over?
"Smile," her daughter advised. "Uncle Richard already saw us."
Meredith looked again, and, yup, he was doing that wave-and-fake-jog that men over sixty specialized in. Not even the replaced knee replacement was going to give her the time she needed to process this.
"Letting go, taking B and E," Zola commentated. With one pointed look and one extended hand, she got her siblings in line to intercept, with Sofia trailing good-naturedly along.
"She's good," Jo commented without moving her lips.
"The best."
Not long after her sister turned one, Zola had asked why she didn't get to smash her first birthday cake. So much for her not remembering, Meredith had thought as she explained about Richard's ten-thousandth surgery. Zola's response had been "Okay if it made him happy. I was only a baby, I didn't know." Eleven years on from that party, Meredith pretty was sure her daughter been equally happy if she had known, at any age.
The kids were happily and loudly giving Richardthe rundown on everything they'd seen on the way from the car. Residual damage from her childhood might always make Meredith go hot and cold toward him, even now that she absolutely counted him as family, but she'd managed to avoid passing it on. That was enough to get her to start crossing the grass.
"Mommy, I don't have to ask," Ellis informed her once she was marginally within earshot.
"That's right," Richard said, bumping her up on his hip, and pulling Sofia closer with his other arm. "I always have a hug for Miss Ellie-Belle."
Meredith couldn't help her smile. It'd been the start of a disaster, but she'd appreciated the way he'd reacted to seeing Ellis's name on the board that day. If his reaction had at all been because of her namesake, or if he ever considered how much she resembled Meredith's childhood-self, it didn't affect him the way he saw Ellis as Ellis.
"Mom, there's an animal rescue here, and Uncle Richard said they have a parrot. Can I go look?" Bailey asked. "I'll come right back."
"Puppies, too?"
"Yeah, probably, Elle," Bailey replied with the confidence of the desperate. "Please?"
"I'll take them over," Jo said. "I assume it's by the sign with the giant rainbow pawprint?"
"That's the one," Richard allowed, putting Ellis down. "Sorry. I knew he'd be interested, and they're closing up soon, before it gets too hot."
"It's fine. Good, even," Meredith said. "We're here to explore, right guys?" Three nods. Bailey was already ten feet away on the sidewalk, his neck straining to get a look at the sign Jo had seen.
"I've got 'em," Jo assured her, taking Ellis's hand.
"No animals?" Meredith asked the older two, who gave her shrugs that made the next few years feel all the more daunting.
"Why don't you go take my place over there for a minute?" Richard suggested. "Hand everyone an information packet and a swag bag. They're pretty nifty this year."
Zola started for the table immediately, but Sofia lingered. "Uncle Richard?"
"Yes, dear?"
"No one says 'nifty.' I don't think they ever have."
Before either adult could respond, Zola returned and took her cousin's arm. "It's part of his 'cool uncle trying to be a grandparent' schtick," she advised. "Go with it."
"She's not wrong," he observed, watching them arrange themselves in a two-person puppy pile on the chair he'd vacated, and immediately turn on helpful smiles. "Sounded just like Torres, didn't she?"
"Better than dealing with conflict Arizona-style."
"Not a tear in sight." He took his cap off and ran a hand over his head. "This is for Lloyd Mackie's foundation. You remember him? He, uh, I think it was your intern year, he came in for a liver transplant. Had O'Malley assigned to him. I remember that, because he went on for months about the boy with the pretty eyes."
"Yeah."
She'd never quite forgotten how the instance of gay panic from George had annoyed her. Sure, he was soft, but did he think she could see how he looked at her, or even Izzie, and think him exclusively attracted to men? She didn't acknowledge his overtures because she wasn't attracted to him. He'd pushed, and she'd been blamed for the disaster – long after it turned out that he made bad sexual decisions with friends. That she'd gotten over long ago, except when she considered how much time they lost because of it.
"I met Mr. Mackie a few times at hospital functions. Did he…?"
"Oh, ah. Yes. Seven years ah – or eight. Maybe six? You know, time just blends the older you get." He was horrible at hedging.
"While I was gone. I never…."
"You did what you had to do to get through. I understand that."
"But when I got back. You were so good to me, with the attack, and… everything about suddenly being a widow with three kids, who voluntarily missed a year of everyone's lives. I didn't…."
"You have done more than enough for me, Meredith."
She smiled, hoping the color in her cheeks wouldn't show. Why was it that she'd heard him say her name far more times as an adult than she had as a child, but it could still incite childlike emotions in her?
"More than I deserve. Mack had a good life. He got more years with that liver than we expected from a man who never stopped smoking." He chuckled. "Never missed a one of these events. He and Ollie were a hoot when they got going, tag-teaming to get folks to stop to read something when they've got a thousand distractions running around."
"Is it for…?"
"Alcoholism awareness? These days, yes. It's always been a scourge on the community, with people so often losing their support system when they come out, or on the other end, thinking they have to be out partying every night to keep their friends."
He must know she knew a thing or two about that, but he didn't pause. Would he rethink her, now? Did he want to ask if her drinking had ever been related to this side of her, not the broken-by-Derek-side the hospital whispered about in the mornings-after, and not the broken-by-Ellis side he bore some part in? Did she want him to?
"AA always has a person or two who lost their loved ones one-by-one in the epidemic," he continued. "Who never thought they'd make it, let alone be the last one standing. They're getting older. Starting to lose folks again, for other reasons, and each other, because luck doesn't last forever, even on the drug cocktail. Mack put his foundation together so that it could be flexible. Give what's needed at the time. Of course, now everyone has a touch of survivor's guilt. Covid inspired a lot of relapses, but some about-faces, too."
"It's hard to accept that there were good consequences from a disaster. There almost always are if you know to look for them."
"Very wise."
"I've had about a dozen near-death experiences," she pointed out, glibly. He smiled, but it was tight, and she thought of how Derek sometimes hated her gallows humor. It'd never occurred to her that it might be hard for Richard to hear, too. "I owe Jo five bucks or something. I said this probably wasn't an AA thing."
"It's not. I mean, yes, Mack and I met Ollie that way, but he sought me out before I'd…. Before. He'd seen your mom and I out collecting information out here– "
"My mom?"
"Yes."
"Ellis Grey."
"That was her name, yes."
"Here as in…" She made a swooping gesture. "Here?"
"Correct."
"At Pride?"
"It may have still been Gay Freedom Day at that point. I'm not sure. Mack clocked me, immediately. Asked what a good-looking, straight, Black man had been doing out here, besides being a temptation."
"And the answer was…?"
"Surveys. You remember the story of our GRID patient?"
She nodded. That lecture hadn't been totally shocking. She'd known her mother had HIV+ patients. They'd attended fundraisers for AIDS research. But Pride? Never would Meredith have imagined Ellis Grey having anything to do with it, unless a rowdy crowd led to crush injuries that got her called in. "Neither of us could stop thinking of him in the intervals between his hospitalizations. Articles were coming out of New York and San Francisco. but no one at Seattle Grace would touch it – very literally. So, we made some calls. Used some contacts, made others. They had studies going at the CDC, but they needed data. We came out to get it."
It was a story that made sense. Fundamentally, it had nothing to do with her. So why did she feel like she'd been punched?
"You…." She swallowed. Took a water bottle out of the bag on her arm – Zola's, plain purple, I'm too old for cartoon characters on everything – to get rid of the dryness in her mouth. "You eventually did a fellowship in New York, right? Did that have anything to do with…? I mean, it was bad there."
There'd been a school trip to Manhattan, in eighth grade for the museums, Broadway and a Shakespeare production, never Boston's strong suit. Meredith had been "asked" to "chill with" the chaperones after she gave the group a mini-briefing on the epidemic. They were lucky she didn't go for the guy who'd seen a man with Kaposi's Sarcoma and started in about faggots; she hadn't been able to goad him into hitting first.
"It was. I did get asked there by someone I met back then, yes, and we did some work on AIDS Related Complex. Derek never mentioned it?"
"No. I guess I never considered when he did his residency, other than knowing I could devastate him by reminding him I was in high school."
Richard smiled, and she took another gulp of Zola's water to hide hers, which held Derek-level smugness.
"Seriously, New York was a difficult topic for us, and we had such different lives in the nineties. I was a riot grrrl, and he was…not that."
"No. He and Sloan could be…." He glanced to the girls, who were talking animatedly with a drag king in a Roaring Twenties-era suit. If she noticed them again, Meredith would ask about their tailor.
"Frat boys?" she suggested.
"Yeah, that sums it up. Never in front of a patient, though. Derek always had an impeccable bedside manner, and with his interest in neuro… interacting with people– young people– wasting, emaciated from recurring pneumonia, KS spots on their skin, in to have brain lesions resected…. It wasn't easy for me, and I had over ten years of experience."
"I can't imagine."
"It turned around, though. Like that." He snapped his fingers. "Made you want to believe in miracles, except then you considered all the time in between." He tilted his head at her, one hand moving like he wanted to go for his cap again. "Meredith, if Ellis ever made you think that who you loved…."
"No. It wasn't like that. She didn't know."
"Ah. I see. I only…. If she thought, I'd been overwhelmed by the possible repercussions of an interracial relationship…. She might worry that anything unconventional would set you up to be hurt."
"Not of having a queer daughter taint her legacy?"
"Never." The edge in his voice was ten-blade sharp. "She wasn't afraid of what anyone thought."
"Except for you."
"I…yes. I should've told her the truth. You both should've known that you were never why…. You were a reason to go. I wanted to see you grow up. To see you become whomever you were going to be. I can't say I wouldn't have made mistakes. Zola's right, I was the cool uncle, and that was how I started out relating to you. Being a father-figure wasn't something I'd considered, yet. But I like to think you'd have known that I'd love and support you, no matter who you loved, or what you did."
She wrapped her arms around her torso and let herself imagine it for a moment. Having someone to tell after that first kiss with Alice Zafrani, or who could've helped her make better decisions about the red-lipped girl in the angel dress. Maybe having him figure it out the minute he met Layla, instilling curfews and rules that she'd have broken, but being on her side when it came to returning to Seattle the next year. Going to the parade with his friends every year, maybe before she'd puzzled out the difference between wanting to be Claire Danes versus wanting to do Claire Danes. Never deciding to police the pronouns she used in stories of her past and smiling at anyone she pleased at Joe's. It would've been nice, and it wasn't the kind of what-if-ing that meant the kids wouldn't exist– leaving the meet and greet and heading to Joe's wouldn't be out of character for any Meredith she could imagine. Her path might've been brighter; that was all.
It would've been nice. That was all.
"I know that now," she said.
The smile he gave her lit up his eyes and reminded her more of the smile that he gave her kids than the one reserved for colleagues. They'd had interactions that acknowledged the way he'd become family for-real, not family by-guilt, but how many of them had been positive? Definitely not a majority. Most about illness. More pertaining to Maggie and the kids than to her. She'd already lost two parents who didn't know her. Keeping him alive through medical emergencies had kept it from happening again, but it was time to stop relying on buffers.
"Do you want to have lunch on Monday? B and Z will be on the way to see Carolyn. I'll need the distraction." Buffer! How much of what she thought was improvement with awkward conversations was actually her using the kids as ping-pong levers? "I could fill you in on some of the in-between years."
"I'd like that very much. Uh. Maybe you could just humor me, and clarify one thing? Knowing I may be stepping in an anthill?"
"I…yes?" No time like the present. Seize the day, blah, blah, blah.
"Sadie Harris?"
"We were a thing." He raised an eyebrow at her. "Before. Before Derek. Before Seattle. We were a lot of things. It's…."
"Complicated?"
"Actually, pretty simple. I wanted to grow up. She didn't. Short answer, longer story." She twisted the strap of her bag, and then let it flip flat again. "Have you been trying to suss that out for a decade and a half?"
"Hm? No." He blew out his cheeks. "Initially, I supposed it was a crush on her end. I didn't consider that it might've been mutual until you, uh, refreshed the rumor mill recently, but the level of obsession I came to see in her…. It takes something more. It's a flame that has to build."
She pressed a hand against her mouth to stifle the sound that came out, He drew back, startled. "Sorry. Sorry, it's just…Crap…" She waved the hand in front of her face to quell the heat rising to her cheeks. "It was the other way around for the first ten years, and – I guess she did make a grand gesture, didn't she? Huh."
Shouldn't someone who'd known her the was Sadie thought she did– the way Meredith wanted to believe Sadie did – have known how slim her references were? Late at night, she would remember confessing her love to Derek in the scrub room and cringe. Music, and cheesecake, and teen movie clichés were all she'd known of romance. All she'd been able to do was lay out what she wanted to happen, not caring how pathetic it made her sound. Pick me, no one ever has. Choose me, they never do. Love me, I don't know what that looks like. It'd been the exact opposite to the tactic of repression and devotion that she'd used with Sadie, and it might've had the same result: Someone realizing her value only after their rejection made it almost impossible for her to accept their love. It would take time they weren't willing to give. They both made her believe she hadn't let them in when they were the ones who hadn't bothered to dig. She'd broken, and put herself back together, and only then did they see she was worth it. Love wasn't enough, but not for the reasons she'd believed back then.
"I can't say it's the strangest reason we had someone apply to the program," Richard added.
She went from feeling too hot, even with the June sun beating down on them, to cold, static forcing words out of her mouth before she could consider their wisdom. "Did you pull strings with the NRMP for her, too?"
It wouldn't have been the same. She knew it wouldn't. But.
What would be worse: if she hadn't matched with Seattle Grace, after four years of doing all that she could to prove she deserved the title of Dr. Grey, and supporting the original Dr. Grey through the horror that was the first stages of Alzheimer's, while Sadie, whose habits never changed, had? Or if Richard had taken the same measures to collect both of them, and her being Meredith mattered less than her being Meredith Grey?
"No." He shook his head like the idea was absurd. "It was her father who ensured she got her top choice, even with the late application. If I'd known you two were close, I might've agreed to give her a spot in the next class, but I believed in the integrity of our program. Bumping O'Malley up was a coup in my book, much less taking on an intern in January."
Huh again. Another on-paper similarity between her and Sadie that made all the difference. Being Sadie Harris had been what got her into the program, not being Sadie.
"That was the year we merged with Mercy West, too, wasn't it?"
"It kinda blurs at this point," she admitted, smiling. "But…no. That was Lexie's intern year. She was a resident by the merger. Jackson joined her class. He was terrified I'd give him away."
He blinked at her blankly for a moment. It ignited a flash of the terror in her, more than she'd felt as his medical proxy, or while trying to diagnose the cobalt poisoning, followed by a stream of intrusive thoughts about him developing Alzheimer's like two of his three greatest loves. Then, his eyes cleared, and any amount of denial she'd retained about what he meant to her disappeared.
"That's right!" he said, jovially oblivious to her moment of panic. "You two grew up together, didn't you?"
"If by 'grew up' you mean, were dragged to the same functions to show off how smart and cute-then-pretty we were and expected to be quiet for the rest of the night, then yes. Catherine worked for the Brig; Mom was at MGH. They're not supposed to be rivals, but…I mostly knew him as 'that fill-in-the-blank Catherine Fox Avery's son.'"
Richard raised his eyebrows.
"Not 'bitch,'" she clarified. "It varied. 'Shrew.' 'Harridan.' She didn't like gender-based insults so much. 'Insufferable.' 'Self-aggrandizing.' You get it. I learned the concept of hypocrisy early on. The way Mom said it, I thought her name was 'Catherine Foxvery.' I thought Harper Avery was one word for a long time, too. Her first award sat on the bookcase, and I didn't actually look at it until sometime in the early nineties."
"Jackson's name didn't register with you immediately, is that what you're saying?" He was giving her that look of fondness she'd been almost – no, truly – afraid of early on in her residency. While Miranda Bailey, his protégé, spent years trying to intimidate Meredith into being concise, he almost never cut off her rambling. She nodded, preoccupied with the idea of names, and how Jackson Avery out-ran his, even for a short time, while Sadie Harris and Meredith Grey couldn't escape.
"Basically. You don't forget those eyes, though. Especially when you probably gave the boy who has them his first kiss."
"Really now?" Richard said in that tone of his that reminded her of Debbie. Meredith couldn't claim to have never actively collected hospital whispers, especially not the times she'd been a patient, but she had nothing on him. Richard Webber was purely and simply nosy.
"Please don't tell Maggie that. She, uh, doesn't like it when I…got there first."
"Maggie can have a bit of a jealous streak. Comes by it honestly. On both sides." Meredith cocked an eyebrow. "'That adjective Catherine Fox Avery?'"
She waved a hand to allow the observation. "That I knew him barely comes up, but when it does…it's like, she doesn't want to know, but she also wants to know everything. The kiss was nothing. Mistletoe and misbehavior on my part. He was eleven; I was fifteen – " Missing Layla. Trying to get Sadie's attention. "Outside of the banquet circuit, I remember one interaction– one. A couple years before the mistletoe, I'd gone by the hospital on the morning of Halloween to st– borrow Mom's extra lab coat, and I found him crying in a supply closet." The gloves she'd yoinked and filled with M&Ms had given her her one moment of popularity. "Catherine had some epic surgery at MGH, and she hadn't been able to finish his pirate costume. I wrapped him in gauze, made it look old with Betadine, and boom, King Tut."
She smirked a little remembering being thirteen and singing the Steve Martin song to convince Jackson that the boy pharaoh was an acceptable replacement for Blackbeard. Richard shook his head at her.
"See? You missed that, and you're not acting like I robbed you of something. I love Maggie, and I like her most of the time. I don't always get her. I like hearing stories about Derek's childhood, sure, but I never raked Mark or Amelia over the coals. Now that he's not here to recognize himself in the kids, I wish I'd heard more, but I'm not angry that they got him first…. He and I wouldn't have gotten along much earlier anyway, I don't think."
Richard nodded and kept nodding as a couple on a tandem unicycle road by, a rainbow flag streaming out behind them. "If Lexie had had a history with Derek would that have bothered you?"
"Yes, because that would mean he'd been involved with a twenty-three-year-old med student…." He narrowed his eyes at her, and she slumped, uncrossing her arms. "If the next person I date went to high school with Molly. I don't think I'd care."
"What about Zola?"
"What about her?"
"Ms. Limbani," he said, and she startled a little, surprised that he remembered. "However long Zola stayed with her, she had nine months of carrying her. She had some minutes, or hours, or days with her. So did the orphanage carers. The other foster parents." Meredith winced. "I'm not asking this to remind you of the pain you went through."
"It does, though. I hate that there's any time that wasn't mine, but not…. I'm sad for her– for Zola's birth mother – that she didn't get more time with our bright, sweet, kind daughter. That she might not have known Zola wouldn't spend the rest of her life in pain.
"I understand that it's natural to want to collect every possible moment with someone. I wish I'd known Maggie growing up. Sometimes, with Lexie, I'd imagine what it would've been like having her follow me around in high school. But seeing a sibling change over time is different than a…." She hesitated. What were Jackson and Maggie, at this point? Closer to siblings than exes? "It wouldn't be like it was with Andrew, would it? The fact that I kissed Jackson."
"I imagine not."
"Was this conversation about Maggie?"
He had the self-awareness to look down, treading one shoe along the grass: an adult version of Bailey being bashful. "Habit. I like learning more about how you think. I've had to go about that in a roundabout way over the years."
"I haven't always been an open book. It's…possible I'm a water-damaged tome that has to be translated."
"Always worth the effort, though," he said. It was her turn to look down bashfully.
"So," Richard said, drawing out the 'o'. "Wilson?"
Seriously, how did this man deal with being such a gossip in a program that promoted anonymity? Did he save it for the hospital? That didn't seem likely.
"Came to help me corral small humans." Not even her baby could be called "tiny" anymore. "Voluntarily. Even if it was appropriate to ask questions, I wouldn't. Beyond that, I have no idea."
"And I guess Karev never said…?"
She snorted. "My coming out to Alex was shooting down his 'going gay for the stay, Grey?' jokes when I got sent to prison. We'd been friends over a dozen years. If there's anything there, he wouldn't have detected it, and as strong as she is, she can be sensitive about the personal stuff. One too many 'I'm down with the rainbow' quips from him could've kept her from speaking up about something she's not sure about. Of course, I always thought he was overcompensating, but that could be a total misconception of what wrestling locker rooms are like."
Richard gave her a double-take, and she kept her face as straight as she could. Having rumors that he'd never hear going around the hospital he'd ditched was far from the worst thing that could happen to Alex, although she might have to find a way to warn Jo on the drive home.
"Mommy!"
"Speak of the devil," she added. Jo was being pulled in their direction by Ellis, who was pumping her rainbow-tights clad legs as fast as she could. On Jo's other side, Bailey loped along, speaking as quickly as Ellis was trying to move.
Meredith braced herself. "Ellie, I have eyes on you, let go before you yank Jo's arm out of the socket." Her youngest rocketed forward into her arms, her pigtails and one strap of her overalls flying behind her. Meredith never had the air knocked out of her in a better way.