If leaving her ghosts behind had been the goal, Meredith had failed.

Had it been in the back of her mind somewhere? A just-in-case factoid she'd avoided filing? Had she started going south because her mother went east? She'd had the kids' birth certificates. Continuing until she reached the lowest edge of the continent had been possible. She could've gone to Portland. She liked Portland.

The second day, she put the kids back into the car and kept driving.

The third day was less of a blur. She stopped for longer intervals, trying to make herself focus on making a plan while watching the kids explore the bright plastic tubes of a play-place. They were patient, used to being told soon, and not yet; happy with extended time with a parent who showed no sign of leaving for work. She might not be as there as she should be, but Zola, at least, understood being distracted about Daddy dying better than she understood surgery. At rest-area picnic tables, both of them ended up in her lap more than they would typically. Bailey seemed to have forgotten that he'd started only nursing at night in February, and she was glad. He didn't talk himself to sleep about Daddy, the way Zola did. She couldn't be sure he understood much beyond "long bye-bye" and "ride car more." That he was seeking comfort was reassuring, even if the way one of the extended-Shepherds had heard him fussing at the funeral and said "early days" was the biggest joke she'd ever heard.

"More like late days. His dad is 'late,' and he should've gone down for his nap two hours ago," she'd said, because he was a baby. He hadn't had a clue what all these people were doing, and they'd be long gone by the time his unhappiness had to do with Daddy instead of his routine being upended. Not that she was helping with that.

Daddy wasn't part of his routine. She flinched away from the thought, and every one of its brethren flashing in her mind.

In whatever ways the changes affected her baby, Meredith would be there, and they'd start a new routine.

Her mother wasn't her only reference for leaving a life behind. Derek had done it. After Addison. Did he drive across the country, and stop to stare broodily at rock formations, or did he drive straight through, motel-to-motel? No, she knew her husband. She'd seen the statements for his rewards cards. He wasn't a motel guy. Trailer, yes. Quality Inn? No. Not by the time she knew him. He'd lived in a trailer in the interest of fly-fishing and mountain views, but the thread-count of his sheets gave him away. Had there been family trips where he was crammed into a motel room with his sisters? Had there not been, and by the time he could travel he could pay for comfort? Was it Mark's influence? Didn't matter. Not a motel fan.

Did he fly, like her mother had? No. He hadn't had much stuff, but he'd had too much for that. He hadn't been thinking things through enough to pack. Mom had, and they'd left so much behind. How long did it take him? Why had she never asked? She didn't have to ask. Derek wouldn't have flown. Not even before flying became an issue rather than a chore.

They'd wanted to travel once her career was established. He'd wanted to take time off, soon. To drive out to New York, make putting up with my family worth it for all of us. Why the fuck had she ever told him they had to wait? They should've taken off the day after Lexie… after his hand… after Bailey… after the president…. They could've driven to D.C. She could've taken a sabbatical. There would've been sight-seeing. Interstate hotels. Diners. Another adult to take over driving. A daughter who didn't have to ask where her daddy had gone. Someone to commiserate with when the baby twisted himself in twelve directions trying to stay out of the car seat. A journey that was more important than the destination.

No, D.C. wouldn't have been that. She was a realist; she could admit that. It would've only worked if he'd been guaranteed to pull out in six months, which he wouldn't have done if they'd been with him. Her nascent career would've taken a hit. Whatever the hell she was doing now was going to make a much larger impact than that would have.

Her mother did the same thing, you know.

Ellis Grey had been open about her ambition to move up in the Seattle Grace hierarchy. The medical community had expected her to go back with a prestigious fellowship on her resumé. She'd been wooed long before her shift to focusing on research, and Meredith didn't pretend that not uprooting her daughter factored into her decision to stay at MGH. Her journal claimed that most other cities either had component women doing the work or were as averse to it as the "jock cocks" she'd already shown up. "I am not interested in resetting the dominoes." Staying at a hospital with a bigger name and greater resources wasn't all that questionable, in Meredith's opinion, but her mother had always been on the defense. She'd had to be.

Derek renouncing his successful private practice was the kind of decision profiles referred to as "an exciting change of pace," or "the next rung on an ornate ladder." Her mother had made an "unusual move." Write-ups that had followed her mother's first Harper Avery couldn't have made it clearer that had she not found "success at Massachusetts General, that bastion of American medicine," they would've disapproved of her "risking such a promising career" when she'd already "won over the more liberal West Coast bracket." Wasn't impressing one set of old white men enough?

If Meredith retraced Derek's route and started a private practice in a Manhattan brownstone, the press would be all about Derek, but it wouldn't compare her to him "…reeling from the unexpected loss of her husband, innovate neurosurgeon Derek Shepherd M.D/F.A.C.S. (Columbia '92), the daughter of Dr. Ellis Grey, author of Beyond the Grey Method, and a pioneering female surgeon. The medical community on both coasts joins the young widow in mourning Dr. Shepherd, known for his work with the National Institute of Health's brain-mapping initiative, and the Shepherd Method, an FDA approved treatment for otherwise-inoperable malignant gliomas. Dr. Shepherd began his career in Manhattan, running a highly successful practice with the late plastics trailblazer Mark Sloan M.D./F.A.C.S. (Columbia '94). By the end of the decade, both innovators felt the need to take on more challenging cases and transitioned into running their respective departments at the former Seattle Grace Hospital, later renamed in memory of Dr. Sloan. Returning to her husband's former stopping grounds, Dr. Grey, a general surgeon, joins her sisters-in-law who all followed their brother's footsteps to medical school, in serving the population of Manhattan. As he also leaves behind a daughter and one-year-old Derek Shepherd Jr. [sic] (Perhaps the next Dr. Shepherd? Class of '38, watch out!) we hope this familial connection provides the support a working mom needs to thrive!"

It would've taken her pointing it out for him to see what an article like that had done wrong; how overbearing it could be being the daughter of Ellis Grey, on top of being married to a man with a transcendent career. Every choice she made would be brought up and questioned for decades, no matter how many awards she won.

"You think no one questioned my decision to come out here?"he'd asked once. She'd been providing commentary on a piece about a pediatrician's initiative to sponsor further education for the gifted caretakers she'd encountered over a decade of running a non-profit that bussed providers between Indian villages that were days from the nearest ospital.

"They don't harp on it! 'Hopefully, I'll render myself unnecessary!' Kegan says. Perhaps, she has minimalized her regret over disenrolling her children from school in Roanoke, taking them away from soccer teams and scouts to make rounds of the subcontinent that take several years to complete.' What is the point of that?"

"It's is pretty bad," he'd admitted. "Was it like that with your mom?"

"Google me. They've scanned a couple of them from '89. 'Dr. Grey's daughter Meredith does not seem to suffer from her mother's devotion to her career. Indeed, if the sixth grader keeps up those A's in Science the men of the next generation will have their own Dr. Grey to contend with!' Now find me a guy whose Harper Avery profile gives anything but his kids' names."

"I'm going to assume I can't," he'd allowed, kissing her to distract her from the magazine he was taking from her hands "Did you ever see the article that ran in Katie Bryce's hometown paper?"

"I'm going to assume you did."

"Only because Nancy found and framed it. 'Luckily for Miss Bryce, Dr. Shepherd's sudden career move wasn't your average midlife crisis.'

Shit. That hadn't been the middle of Derek's life. The Boston move was came 57.34% of the way through Mom's life. If Meredith kept mirroring her, and this was her… whatever crisis, she had about twenty-seven more years left, twenty-four of those lucid. Derek, who'd been alive alive alive yesterday— no, not yesterday; days ago. So few days. His move to Seattle happened 84.01% of the way through his life. Eighty-four percent of the way into her life, they'd been married. If she was at 84.01% now, she had another six years and ten months or so. She might avoid the Alzheimer's, but if it was destined to take up the last seven percent of her life, it could show up within three years.

Only seven years to wait. The thought came with bile; made her pull over. With that, and for all the effort it took to reassure the two uneasy faces in the back, she couldn't deny that comfort came before to disgust. Let the inevitable do whatever. She wouldn't get involved; she'd never make that choice, but…maybe she wouldn't have to live without him longer than she'd lived with him.

Sixteen percent of his life had her in it. Almost eight years; Seven and three-quarters. He'd turned forty-eight in D.C., but that didn't mean it hadn't happened. The same amount of years as there'd been hours in her first shift. He was a significant part of those two days, but how much of it had they actually spent together? Had it been more or fewer than 7.75 hours? More or less than sixteen percent? What was that? Sixteen percent? It was nothing. It'd been everything.

Sixteen percent of her life was something around five years and nine months. January of 1984. About the time they'd settled in Beacon Hill, seven minutes' walking distance to Mass Gen. Sixteen percent was significant.

For eight years, she and Derek had been the most important feature in each other's world, together or not, and now the rational, statistical part of her mind wouldn't shut up about how little that actually meant. Wasn't everything Derek supposed to be processed in the metaphorical, McDreamy, "love is real" part? Where was the brain-cartographer when you needed him? (Dead, the answer was dead).

When he's all you can think about, all parts of your mind are going to respond. Thank you, rational Meredith. You should maybe move to the front seat now, please.

He'd been in of twenty-two percent of her life. That would only decrease. More of her would always belong to her mother. More of him to the Shepherds. That doesn't make it more important. Derek hardly disclosed anything about his 84.01%-of-life crisis for the same reason her knowledge of his family was piecemeal; he considered himself to be a different person in the sixteen percent. A small percent of that—One? Five? Sixteen?—was him needing to believe he wasn't the dreary ass who'd been married to Addison. He hadchanged; that was obvious whenever anyone from his past showed up. She'd been skeptical about the idea of a person becoming unrecognizable overnight. She'd returned to Seattle a work-in-process and trying to skip steps had been a disaster. Her mom had gone from Mommy-in-Seattle, Mommy-Crying-at-Auntie's, to Mom-in-Boston, but Meredith wouldn't have been as confused if she hadn't been fundamentally the same person. The man who'd left New York had been Derek.

He'd been Derek for a hundred percent of his life, and knowing there would be no more of it, made her yearn to have all of it. He might've been different at different points, but he was Derek. Derek was all she wanted.

He'd left Manhattan without telling anyone, sometime in June. Could've been the nineteenth, the day her mother set everything in motion. Not that left right away. While researching a paper for a psych class, she'd discovered that seventy-two-hour holds had been mandatory since 1967. Seventy-two hours that she'd remembered very well the next time she sat in a social worker's office. So, she and her mother couldn't have left much earlier than the last week in June. That was enough time for him to have gotten to Seattle from Manhattan, but what about the land?

"I was not the midlife crisis," she'd determined the first time he'd shown her the surveyor's report. His expression had been rueful, and she'd wondered which Derek had written that check. Had that been the declaration of rebirth, or whatever, that let him hide it all behind the façade of the guy at the bar? Had he been close to the man batting beer cans into the trees? He'd proposed a little under a month after that blow; that he'd made the first turnaround in a similar amount of time on his own was impressive. What would it have been like to have come across him earlier? She wouldn't have been reeling the same way. It might've been easier to ignore the magnetism.

Maybe.

Until they scrubbed in together.

They would never scrub—Her mother had flown them, but she hadn't started working for months. Meredith had spent way too much time over the past six months wondering how she'd arranged that. She'd been a fellow. Fellowships had start dates. Meredith had seen a few that went from September-to-September to avoid turning over a whole hospital three days before a fireworks holiday. Mom had Opinions about the July first start-date, which Meredith had mocked for years. She now shared them. Beyond September, an attending could possibly negotiate, and one non-standard start led to the next, but general surgery fellows were not hard to find, and the competition for a spot working under Harper Avery….

Had her mother been head-hunted by Jackson's grandfather? She'd been promising, but that showed real certainty. What had she told him? I have to finalize the divorce. Custody hearings. I need to sell the family home, and get Meredith prepared for such a big change. Pah. If she'd used that excuse, it'd been a pretense.

Meredith the airport. She had not been prepared.

Mommy, they have pizza at our airport! We can have pizza? Do you want me to cut yours up? I'm good at bite-sized. The knife could slip, and you'd cut—I meant it'd be an oppsie! I'm sorry! I know it's our secret. Where are we going to vacation? Is Boston pretty? Do they have a needle? Do we have a pool hotel? Have I been to Auntie's before? Will she like me? Do you have a new hos-pi-tal! Mommy, did you hear? I did it used the grown-up word! How long do we sit on the plane? TWO PLANES? Will we do two planes AND pizza too on the way home? …you said we're going to Boston. Boston is not going home. Seattle is going home! I don't want a plane! I want to go to my house. You taught it to me! You say! My name is Meredith Grey. My daddy's name is Thatcher Grey. MY MOMMY IS DR. ELLIS GREY, AND I BELONG AT 613 HARPER LANE, SEA-AT-TUL WASH-IN'-TON!"

How that tantrum ended, Meredith didn't know. Her memory went to staring at her mother's wrists through both flights, terrified something about the plane would make them reopen, and she didn't know how to get help. The button to summon the lady with the tray was too far up, and she didn't have anything to hold up and extend her reach. Anatomy Jane would've been good for that.

Had her mother told her superiors about her injuries? She hadn't had full use of her wrists for weeks; she must have. What did she say happened? There was no valid excuse for having incisions on both wrists, and someone could've easily disproven a claim that it happened in an OR. The combination would've given her away—wouldn't it have been talked about? Your first months at a hospital could define you for a long time. Not showing up would've made its own impression. Meredith's conclusion was that to push a start date from July (at the latest, September) to December (January?) her mother must've hidden behind a different stigma. Told someone the other truth. The Maggie-truth. Someone had known. Was it Harper Avery? Was that how Mom expected Richard to find out? For the news of her second daughter to cross the country, while she led her first-supposedly-only child across airports and onto planes? Did that mean she'd never considered keeping Maggie without Richard.

When had Derek called Richard? Did he have Seattle in mind on the George Washington Bridge? He and Burke had had that who pissing contest about who'd been promised Chief, but until Adele left, Richard couldn't have been planning on that being imminent. She wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't something he'd said leaving New York for Seattle, "Keep me in mind, Derek. It's never too early to start to a successor!"

A call when the head of neurosurgery announced his departure, "Derek, I need someone good. You don't want to leave the practice, I understand that. Possibly, not even Adele could convince Addie to leave the Upper East Side. But if you could send someone my way, I'd be grateful."

Then, in June, with Larry Jennings' assistant calling every other day to discuss the search, a note from Patricia. Derek Shepherd called. "I'm looking for a change of scenery. Long-term. That possible?"

"The head of neurosurgery would be in a very good position to make an impression on the board, that's for sure. Let me have some conversations with peds and OB; we'll arrange—"

"That won't be necessary."

"Addison—"

"Will not be joining me. Hey, I'm going to lose you, what do you need from me?"

"The board will need to meet you, but between us, I'd say that if you're here at the end of the month, we can bring you on with the new intern class."

"Fantastic. I'll know the faces to avoid."

"Uh-uh, remember, we're a teaching hospital. You work for me, you teach."

"Richard."

"I hear Amelia is a teaching fellow, now? Over with Geraldine Ginsberg? She's a little green for a department head, but with some work—"

"God, I regret introducing you to my mother. Fine."

"Give Carolyn my regards, and don't disparage these kids before you meet them. We've got Ellis Grey's daughter starting this year."

"A name isn't everything. For instance, you could have any one of five…six… Dr. Shepherds working for you, but trust me, I'm the one you want taking on your hospital."

"Let's start with my neurosurgery department."

Derek would be grinning as he continued down I-80, but it would've been the grim one. The one that didn't quite meet his eyes. He'd toss his phone on the passenger seat…hitting the gas and swerving past a semi….

They were everywhere on I-5. Being aware of them made her want to get away; to weave through lanes like she was playing Frogger to keep regular cars surrounding her, filling her mirrors with anything other than a grill taller than her entire car. That would be stupid. She'd have to drive as erratically as Derek had in those months after the shootings—Before that? Had he floored it past cornfields? —She'd be more likely to have a different vehicle slam into her, jamming a door into a car seat…. No. There was no escaping them. Evasion and avoidance would only reinforce discomfort, until it became fear. She needed to be able to drive.

Without a destination, without a plan, all she could do was drive.

Had Richard or her mother planned on going to Boston? What if Ellis had only gone east because it was as far from Seattle as she could get? Chosen Boston because she had a sister there, and then MGH because she had a good reason to believe Harper Avery would hire her? Even not knowing about—remembering—Maggie, Meredith had sort of remembered not moving into their new place immediately. She'd had experience with Boston real estate, it may've just taken time to find somewhere, but if they'd moved in right as her mom started work….

Maybe she hadn't accepted a job the day she sat down on the kitchen floor with a scalpel. Maggie had given her a reason—an excuse—to stay holed up in her sister's apartment; her ambition wholly overwhelmed by loss; not caring what happened to her; ignoring the girl who haunted her doorway….

"For god's sake, stop hovering! It's not a hard choice! You're in or you're out!"

It was hard. In meant being asked, "now what is it that you need?"

She'd needed to ask where Daddy went again. If she was sure. If she was going to go to kindergarten, or was it different in Boston? Wasshe going to work at t'ho'pital—the hospital—a hospital? She said Meredith could always ask questions, but she was crying so much, and Meredith didn't want her to get sadder, not again—I'm doing it to them. I'm just like her. Derek, I told you; I always told you…. You… you knew it…. Last year, you….

Not for the first time, she jerked onto the shoulder; the danger of it nothing compared to driving fully blind. It only made the muscles in her chest clench tighter. Her eyes burned constantly from both sides. The sun was impossibly bright, but if she didn't bother digging out her sunglasses, she could blame it for the tears that kept escaping in spite of her determination to hold them back—she wasn't like Ellis….

He didn't mean it like that. He didn't know you'd—"What happened to you?"—He had no reason to remember that. Most people don't remember every harsh thing someone says to them. He didn't phrase it like that on purpose. He didn't mean you were like her. Leaving Seattle doesn't mean that. What else did he say?

"Your mom…she wasn't my favorite person…but—hey, there's a but, let me get to it—But not being a great mom doesn't mean she got it all wrong. She was a great surgeon, and I'm sure she made mistakes. You've already mastered the major things she messed up on as your mom. Zola knows she's loved. You don't make her show that she loves you in roundabout ways. She's eleven months old, and you think more about who she is than who you want her to be."

"She's a tiny person, Derek. We…in four months, we missed—"

"We'll be there for the next four months. And the next. She's going to have you as her mom forever. She is the luckiest little girl in the world, because you're just as determined to be good at that as you are to be a world class surgeon. You've put so much thought into it. It also seems like you decided you can't do anything your mother would do, and I'm a little, tiny bit concerned that the first time you quote her to Zola-and you quote her a lot-you're going to panic."

"You are telling me that there's a gray area?"

"I am. Come on, there's nothing your mom did that you appreciate?"

"She...she let me…told me to ask questions. She was big on looking things up, too, but she'd…she wouldn't say 'you should've looked that up,' she'd say, 'this is what I know' or 'you're not going to understand all of this,' and that kept me…she could be really good at making me feel stupid once she'd decided I should know something. But not…never at first."

"That's something."

"Barely. It's making your kid into an intern."

"Do you ever hesitate before making an intern feel stupid?"

"Occasionally. Everyone has a bad day."

"Do you think your mother did?"

Years had come between this conversation, and that fight, but she knew which he'd defend. She was spinning out. Doing one thing Ellis Grey did was not wrong. She did things her mother had done every day. She did them better.

"Hey, Zo, you can ask me any questions you want to, remember?" she said, with the car in neutral, needing to confirm as much as to remind. "That's an always rule."

"Mmm-huh. Being curious is how to be smart."

"It's one way. Can you tell me another?"

"Books." She held up the picture book she was flipping through. Meredith didn't recognize it. Derek must've bought it. She'd thought he went too far making up for not having presents with him on arrival. Supposedly, in the suitcase the NIH collected from his short-stay apartment and shipped to them there'd been several "not just for the kids"—He was planning to come home. It wasn't just that woman answering his phone—but she hadn't confirmed that. She hadn't been able to touch the zipper.

"And playing 'magination," Zola added. "Um, but earlier, I did pretending I'm a princess in a carriage, and instead of the car doing vroom the horsies would sound like—" She clicked her tongue.

Bailey looked up from the tablet he was taking his turn with. "Ho'se foot."

"Good job, bub," Meredith praised him. "We've seen horses out the windows, haven't we? What do they say?"

He didn't speak the word "neigh," he shook his head and whinnied. Meredith was stunned both by him, and by the fact that she could smile at him almost as delightedly as Zola giggled.

"Where'd you learn that?"

"Ho'sie."

"You did sound like a horse. Who showed you to do that?"

"Ho'se sho'."

Horse show? Really? Or was he informing her that horseshoes existed?

"He learned it from a phone video, Momma," Zola said, and the all-or-none nature of being four had drained all the joy from her voice.

"Ah." She swallowed. The lump in her throat only expanded and shrank; it never went away. "Did…did Daddy look it up?"

One of Zola's fingers twisted in Anatomy Jane's hair.

Meredith closed her eyes. What she really wanted to do was press her hands over her ears, but it wouldn't have shut out the echoes. "He's gone. That's all you need to know. He was gone before we left Seattle!"

"It's okay, baby. Daddy's dead. That means he's not…his body's not with us anymore. That doesn't mean we're not going to talk about him. We're...we're going to talk about him because we're going to be thinking about him a lot." Crap. She should've gotten off somewhere she could get out. She'd needed to pull over, but it would've been better for them if —

"What about I don't wanna make you sad?"

Thirty-five years of not putting her emotions on display, and now she couldn't mask well enough to get past a four-year-old? It took everything in that moment not to press her forehead into the steering wheel and admit defeat. She didn't know how to do this.

"What else did your mom get right?" he'd asked her that night.

"Derek…."

"One more. I'm not asking for a fully annotated list tonight."

"'Tonight,' he says."

"You think you're going to be able to let it go?"

"I don't think you're supposed to be so insulting when you're building self-esteem. Speaking as someone not born with an overflow."

"Hey, the lists were essential through the Zola process. I fully respect the lists."

"As you should. That's not an Ellis thing. Well, it's a result of Ellis, but what isn't? Um…she…I sort of hate this because it feels like I was…was misled or …she…I think her fellowship must've had a September start around when I went to kindergarten. Does that…?"

"I don't know anyone at MGH. When Amy was at Harvard, she said the whole city turns over on September first."

"You have no idea. The bus drivers are total assholes for the next two weeks. Public transit hazing. It's great. What? Being a kid in a city full of universities means putting up with a lot of condescension. When you can bus-surf around corners without holding on, and the dudes in Harvard sweatshirts end up dumping their armfuls of Vonnegut and Nietzsche in the aisle? It's a rite of passage."

"We didn't ride buses in Manhattan."

"Who'd want to be above ground in a city that smells like that?"

"So, your mom started in September?"

"Ugh, yes. I guess. I don't really…. We lived with my aunt for a couple…for…I don't know how long. Finding the house must've taken…it was after September. I switched schools. There was a mix-up. I got put in first grade for a…for…or maybe…it was snowing, but… I don't know…I don't remember…a lot of…of…a lot of right after…after…."

"Mer, it's okay. That's normal. You were five. The only person who remembers everything about being five is Lexie, and I love her, but she can be a weirdo. You have to wonder if that's because she never forgot what crayons taste like."

"You're ridiculous. Lexie was definitely a marker-licker. She's the one who painted her hand with rubber cement and peeled it off in the next period. The stuff that's borderline too weird, but your mom won't notice."

"As opposed to?"

"Dipping the tips of your very blond braids in paint and using them as brushes. That was…it was here. Daycare. Richard called me punk-rock pipsqueak…I didn't know what he meant, but…um. I think…I think maybe Thatcher…I think Lexie must…not have done that."

"Mer…? Did he do something?"

"No, he never…Not like at the hospital. Or what he did to Lex. He was just… I just remember when I actually dyed my hair…I had this sense that it was something really bad, but Mom didn't care."

"That's a decent thing. My mom couldn't stand it whenever Kate dyed her hair, and it was a natural color."

"I think she thought I did it for attention. That was fifteen percent, tops. Uh. One thing…. This sounds like a Thatcher thing. One of those things I did that Mom didn't like, and half the time Lexie does them, too, so Thatcher thing. It's not. I swear, it was Mom."

"I believe you. This…I didn't want to upset you over this. We can drop it, if you want, or if you need to figure out—"

"No. Thank you.… Mom taught me…told me explicitly…. She cried a lot. From-from that day to…to… I don't even…it stopped. Or I heard her, but.… What I think now is that she didn't want me asking questions, but she'd told me to always ask, and she'd…. She'd say that crying was just something your body did. It was a natural reaction to emotions. Oh, she'd say I needed to stop getting frustrated so easily, or whatever, but she never…she never made me feel ashamed for crying in itself. Not if it was just us, anyway. Not in front of people. 'A woman cannot afford to seem weak. It's unfair, but until a man can show all his emotions without being judged, a woman would do best not to show any.'"

"Geez. We'll leave that out."

"Initially. Then, we'll use it to teach her to recognize patriarchal bullshit. I wish…I wish she hadn't been sort of right."

"I wish she'd made sure you knew 'people' didn't mean 'anyone who isn't her.' What about it made you feel misled?"

"That's not the right word. I don't have it. Not quite. It's only…it was Richard. All that. She just didn't want to tell me about Richard."

"You thought it was about your…Thatcher?"

"I didn't know. She…she wanted me to ask questions, so she couldn't keep saying it wasn't my business. It wasn't that…. She wasn't…."

"Mer? What…? Oh. God. You thought she was going to try again."

"I'd…if I heard her, I'd sit outside the door, and listen, and just-just make sure she kept breathing."

"I have to amend my earlier statement. Your mother wasn't my favorite person. She might be my least favorite."

Meredith undid her seatbelt and twisted to sit on the console. It wasn't the first time she'd ended up using her history of creatively positioning herself in a car to get to a kid. Every other time, Derek managed to mocking her silently, and to drive without sending her toppling into the backseat on top of the baby who was screaming, or puking, or whatever. This was less emergent, but more important.

"Zola Grey, look my way," she said. Zola obeyed, the hint of her smile there already. "Are you listening?"

"Yes."

"You sure?"

"I'm sure!"

"Every neuron firing in your Zola brain is paying attention to me?"

"Yes, yes!"

"Okay. It's not your job to worry about making me sad. I like that you're thinking about some else's feelings. It's a very important thing to think about, because you're right, it's not nice to hurt someone if you don't have to. I'm proud of you for that." She held her hand out for Zola's and brushed her thumb back and forth over the little girl's wrist. "But things are different right now. They're maybe…they're going to be different for a while, because…. Some things are just sad. That doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about them. The sadness after someone dies, it's a big feeling. What happens with big feelings?"

"Um, if it's a mad, sometimes you yell, but you gotta say sorry. And hurt, or sad, or scared it's you cry, but it's okay."

"You remembered that so well! Do you know one other thing about big feelings? They're the most important ones to talk about. Especially, if you haven't had them before. I have had people I love die, and that doesn't make it less sad, but it does mean you can tell me anything you're thinking."

"I had a Aunt Lexie. She died, and I loved her, didn't I?"

"Yeah. You did. You did, and she loved you very, very much. But you were a baby, then. You couldn't understand what was happening very well. It probably…for you, she was there one day, and.…" And so were we. Shit, this was getting harder, and it was only the first discussion of so many, and she was not going to be able to get through it all. "And the next day she wasn't. You don't remember things the same way as a baby. Now, you're a big girl, and you get sad that you didn't really know Aunt Lexie well, but it's not the same as…as missing Daddy."

"'Acause I do miss Daddy?"

"That's right."

"He won't come home like Aunt Lexie didn't come home."

"Yeah. Ex-exactly. And that's hard. It's big. You might feel a lot of different things, and I want you to tell me about them, okay?"

Zola's expression made her sure they were going to have this talk again. She stayed there for a few minutes, entertaining Bailey with the finger puppets that velcroed to his car seat, and quietly sliding the tablet off his lap, so there'd be less of a battle when Zola requested her turn.

Eventually, she slid into the driver's seat again. It wasn't fully afternoon, and she was exhausted. That wasn't enough of a reason to stop. She didn't remember not being exhausted, and this didn't come with the satisfaction of work, or the knowledge that it wasn't a problem she could solve. During Bailey's longest nights, she'd known he'd sleep, eventually. This didn't feel like it had an end. How could it? Derek would always be dead. She didn't know what would quell the feeling that she had to keep driving, but it hadn't ebbed in the days since they left Seattle behind.

That night, she took an exit as the signs for San Francisco appeared ahead of them. Those signaled a choice. She wasn't ready for choice. She pulled into the first hotel with a luggage cart visible behind the automatic doors.

Had she really once traveled with only a backpack?

Thirty percent of her life had passed since then. Was she a different person?

San Francisco had always been in her head as a somewhere for someday. A maybe place. Doctors there did incredible research from the start of the AIDS epidemic, and epidemiology had been the one "surface specialty" her mother didn't disdain. Meredith thought that'd be a perfect drawback plan if she didn't pass her surgical boards.

She'd interviewed for a fellowship there, two years ago, but Derek had contacts at Harvard, and Boston was familiar. Wasn't familiar better? San Francisco was a place she associated with people who needed a home; she hadn't needed a home. With Derek, she had one. Without him, she didn't want to put down roots. She didn't want strays. She didn't want history that would make her think about her own history. Before Meredith-and-Derek, before being the slut of Seattle Grace, before med school.

What did she want?

What had there been, before? Not Boston. Not Seattle. What else was there?

San Diego was the last city before the border. She stopped.

"This room is so big!" Zola said, pushing open the door to hotel suite with both hands. Two rooms had become a luxury to her in less than a week.

"It'll hold us for a couple of days." Long enough to figure out the next step. She wasn't going to linger. Not in a beach town. Not with the waters of the Sound still featured in her nightmares every few months. She used to love the beach. The beaches in Italy had been her favorite place in the world, until she returned to Seattle. "Will that be okay?"

"Yeah, because they have a crib for Bay, and the bed is big enough for both of us, 'acause I'm littler than Daddy."

Simple. Meredith was good with simple. They needed baths. Bailey in particular had an eau de spoiled milk thing going on. In the morning. Maybe find the pool and dunk him in. That image made her wish she'd headed for Indiana.

Without Derek to take them fishing, it would fall to her to keep them from taking on her discomfort…fear. She'd have to. She didn't want to. She didn't want to have to. She wanted to be able to stay ten, twenty feet back, and be the parent who got buried in sand. That wouldn't happen, now. Alex would have done it. She knew that. She could've gone to Indiana, or some other flyover state, and one day, if she made it back to Seattle, she'd get him to take them swimming. She hadn't. She didn't have Derek. She needed to learn to breathe wholly on her own.

Maybe they would stay in a beach town. With the exception of Cristina's honeymoon, which she'd spent drinking at bars far enough from the shoreline that she couldn't hear the water that was an entirely different hue than Lake Washington, she hadn't been to one in a decade. That hadn't been true for the first two-thirds of her life. After practically having to drag Meredith out of Italy, away from the Mediterranean, Sadie had talked about doing a beach-to-beach American tour to celebrate Meredith's first year of med school. Then there'd been Amsterdam. Aside a few nights out in Boston, she hadn't seen Sadie again until she'd shown up in Seattle. She'd disappeared after that. Meredith hadn't even seen her name since….

In the blackout-curtain darkness of the hotel room, Meredith sat up. Her hands shook as she powered up her phone. Alerts flashed at her for what must've been a full minute. Texts. Calls. Voicemails. WhatsApp—Good, Cristina was safe in Zurich. Fucking Facebook messages, Alex, really? Because she was likely to check that before replying to a text? She cleared the screen. She couldn't deal with her friends. She didn't know what to tell them. She needed to come up with something for HR. She owned part of the damned hospital, but that wouldn't help her…. She was staring at wallpaper on her phone, which she didn't want to look at, and why had she turned it—oh. Oh, yeah.

Google. Harris…. Harris what? Financial? Foundation? Something fiscal-y. Fuck, Meredith, get it together. You only heard her bitch about his company every day for thirteen years. Harris. Medical funding. Donations.

(2011) Headquartered in Boston, the company has a opened their latest clinic in a city with a large and growing bio-tech industry. Run by Harris's daughter, the San Diego loca—

Meredith did not throw the phone at the wall. She very calmly turned it off. She hadn't done this on purpose. She hadn't remembered. The article was two—three years old, and how would she even…. Derek was dead, just dead, fresh in the ground…fuck, who would…what type of person…?

A Meredith Grey type of person.

She'd leave. She'd get up in the morning, put the kids in the car again, and head for freaking Nebraska.

She didn't get up the next morning.

Beds were indispensable to a surgeon; they took pride on being able to sleep on any surface, but the better the sleep, the longer you could stay awake. Hotel beds were middling, even when there was neurosurgeon money to spend, but Meredith had always liked their anonymity. A bed she could jump on without her mother appearing out of nowhere to sneer at her hedonism. This bed offered escape, but not the glee of splurging on freedom. The weekend she'd spent at one of Sea-Tac's hotels in January, jumping on the bed felt like a dream from another life. All she cared about was that it held no memories of Derek.

PAW Patrol and Peppa Pig played episode after episode from her laptop. Zola watched her more than the screen. "It's okay, Mommy. Sometimes our 'motions get too big and crying makes it better. Right? You say that?"

She did. She did say that.

The next day, she managed to get up for longer than it took to accept a room service tray. Had to. Freaking hotel didn't have oatmeal. What kind of stupid, ritzy, damned—it didn't matter. The sky was a shade of blue she'd never seen in Seattle, not even in… April. It was April. How many days of April? She didn't want to know. Not when… It had been April at the funeral, but she hadn't absorbed…. It'd been March twenty-sixth for her, while a week passed funeral, and she'd driven for—for all of it she'd been in a month where Derek would never exist.

She managed not to throw up until they were back in the room. Made herself eat a cup of Bailey's applesauce. Feed the kids. Had she ever given Bailey that bath? Zola's hair needed to be washed and restyled. She was the only one who'd see them. The only one facing her failure at being the mother they should have. They didn't know better when they snuggled against her or made whinnying sounds until she smiled, and really did want to laugh.

She could not listen to that damned theme song again.

She did.

Another day.

April, April, April. How many days? She didn't want to know. She was fine. Bailey nursed at around ten. She was sure that if she hadn't decided to wean him slowly, she'd be in a worse place. The relief of letdown, the oxytocin, the warm toddler who otherwise moved constantly with an attention span of a minute letting her burrito him and rock him. For half an hour or so there was peace.

They room-serviced double chicken tenders and fruit for lunch. She'd been hungry. and attempted safety with ginger ale. She looked at the date on the charge slip. Ten days of April. Of course, ten. She dropped the half a chicken tender she'd picked up and returned to the bed where she fed Bailey his fruit-cup when he lost interest in pinching the small pieces.

She'd meant to move on by this point. She'd opened two suitcases, put stuff from the cooler in the fridge, and there were so many books and toys. Repacking them all wasn't something she felt up to doing. Driving would be impossible. How had she done that? How had she stood up, and put things in bags, and buckled the kids in? How did that work? She was too tired to figure it out. Too tired for anything. That fucking song. "Zo, skip it. You can skip the intro, I promise it's the—okay, okay. Momma's sorry. Daddy did say it was funny, I know. It's okay to be big sad."

Shit, she didn't know what she was doing. She was going to do exactly what her mother had done. She was going to hurt them without meaning to, and it would kill her. She couldn't do this. She couldn't, and she had to, because she'd left Seattle, like an emotionally stunted…runawayer, and Derek, Derek is dead. Derek is dead. Derek is…Derek. Derek. Derek.

Derek is dead, and how the hell am I supposed to do this alone? She couldn't. Not like this. She needed…just for…No, damn it, are you really this useless, Meredith? She'd left so she wouldn't…so she couldn't…but she couldn't do this. They deserve better, deserve more, deserve Derek. She…maybe this was why she didn't deserve…why…because it's all about you? It's never been about you, not even…no one ever cared that…Derek cared, he always did, and he would've been home. He should've been home. This isn't how it was supposed to be.

Help. She needed help, just to get through a day. Just this day. Who better, really, to show up for the shortest possible period of time? Who else would know if she really was becoming her mom, and…and…what could she do? There was nothing to do about it; she couldn't escape who she was, but she could go home, and let it happen, and she'd be the next Dr. Grey, and wasn't that what she'd wanted? But it wasn't, she didn't want that, she didn't want that, she wanted Derek, with Derek she wasn't going to be that, she wasn't going to be her mother, he wouldn't let her. He didn't hate her mother, Sadie did, Sadie hated her mother, she'd know, she'd tell her.

"Sadie Harris, please….tell her it's Meredith Grey…. No, don't ask her to call me back, tell her…. Yeah, I do know what she's like. Intimately. Want to know about the birthmarks, or would you prefer to take a risk? Trust me, tell her it's the fucking tenth of April, and she'll get it. Or I could describe the face she makes—Great choice."

"Death?"

"It's…fuck… it's not… it's not funny…it's shouldn't—Damn it! No, Zo-Zo, it's okay. I'm sorry. Sorry, I'm sorry, baby.… Yes. Yes, Sadie, there has, in fact, been a death, but I'm gonna start this w-where I'd planned on starting it. You owe me. Big time, you owe me. Hell, you owed Lexie, and since they're...he's...Lexie's not around…alive…to collect, I've inherited the debt."

"Lexie died? Mer— "

"No! Yes. She did. She did, but...but...b-but that was….that w-was…the plane…and it's almost th-th-three years…fuck, I-I can't do it…. I can't. I c-c-can't breathe. Sadie, I can't breathe."

"Where are you? Meredith? Meredith Anne Grey! Tell me where you are!"

"We're at a n'otel."

"Hello?"

"We are at a n'otel, and Momma's crying, but crying is okay, because Daddy died 'afore we came to here."

"Derek—your—is Meredith your mom, sweetie?"

"My mommy is Dr. Meredith Grey, she's a general surgeon at Grey+Sloan Memorial, Grey like Mommy, and my aunt-Lexie-who-died, and my Sofia's daddy who died like my daddy."

'Your.…Okay, your daddy died, and you're at a hotel. Can you tell me which hotel?"

"Uh. The big hotel? It's the biggest we've been at, and we parked in a garage, like the patients, but the pool is closed. And um, um Mommy, you want the food book? Oh, I see! Hee...heel…hilt… I don't know the word. Um. Huh. Hotel? No, because no O. H says hh, I says ii…L says—I can do letters. The letters are H-I-L-T-O-N."

"Good job. You did a very good job, pet…. Hilton...San Diego…crap…is there another word anywhere on that food book?"

"Um…uh…B-A-Y. Bay like Bailey! Bay fr… Bay fr-oo. Bay-fr-oo-nt. Froont. Front. Bayfront!"

"Good job! I'll be there. Can you give your momma the phone?"

"—ank you, Zuh—Zo. Such…g-g-good ruh-re-reading, baby…I-I c-can't. Die, I c-can't—"

"D—Meredith, I'm coming. You're right, I owe you. Just…you just… just, you breathe. Hold that very smart kid you apparently have and breathe."

"Die? Die? Die…. I want to die. No. I wanna wanna die. I don't wanna die. Zo...Zo-Zo, I don't—she didn't—Mommy didn't…she never…never wanted… I just…I just…I want…I want Derek. That's what…that's wh-wh—all I want."

"Who is it?"

"Sadie Harris. Are you Zo? We talked on the phone. You're very good with your letters."

"Thank you! Um, but I'm not s'pposed to open doors. Uh. Are you a doctor?"

"I am! I am a doctor."

"'Acause, I think Mommy's sick, so…so…you better not be a stranger-danger!"

"You're such a smart girl to be cautious. Here, let's flip this, and the door won't be locked, okay? Is that a deal, Z?"

"Deal. My name is Zola. Zola Grey Shepherd. Mommy's in here."

"Mer, hey. Hey, I'm here."

"S-Suh-S-Suh- Sadie. Sadie, I-I-I'm drowning. It's just…just like I'm dr-dr— "

"Shh, you're not, Dea—Mer. You're not drowning. Not this time, babe. You're having a panic attack. We're gonna breathe, okay?"

"Can't…can't breathe. F-for m-me. I learned. I c-could—I learned to br-br-breathe, but he-he-and-and I can't…I really can't…."

"You can. I know you can. Show me. Come on, in. one two three four five. Out. One two three four five six seven. In. one two three four five. Out. One two three four five six seven. In. one two three four five. Out. One two three four five six seven. I'm here. I'm with you, and you're doing so well. In. one two three four five. Out. One two three four five six seven. Good. just breathing. All that matters. In. one two three four five. Out. One two three four five six seven. Good. Nice and deep. Good. Once more. In. one two three four five. Out. One two three four five six seven."

"You're good at that. H-how…? When did you g-get —?"

"Keep breathing. You're really gonna need to be breathing for this…. My job right now is the clinic you called, and a lot of that is selling the idea other places, but I'm…I'm also a psychiatrist. Well. Technically, a resident. I see a few patients at the clinic, but— Oh, well now, you're gonna suffocate again, and I might let you."

"It's…it's not…funny. Shouldn't be. Not…. I'm so…so screwed-up."

"You're not. I get that my promise has very little value to you, but I promise you're not."

"You're really a…?"

"I'm really a. I had some spiraling to do when I left Seattle. Hit rock bottom. Got arrested. Diagnosed with BPD in there."

"Borderline or bipolar?"

"Borderline. Also, pretty gay, turns out."

"Oh. That's…. Good? You figured that out. Good."

"I want to tell you everything. I have some apologizing to do, and some owing. But can you tell me about…about your sister?"

"Lexie. I can say her name, I'm not—I'm—It's been three years. Almost. Almost th-three…. Shit, I don't know why I'm c-crying."

"Because you're sad, Mommy. And sad about Daddy adds sad to your sad about Aunt Lexie."

"She sounds well-adjusted. I'm impressed."

"T-t-trying. So hard."

"I know. I know you are. I didn't mean that to sound… God, Mer, you're exhausted. Here's what is gonna to happen. I'm going to give you something to help you sleep, you're going to get some real rest, and then we'll discuss why you're not in Seattle."

"The c-carousel. I got off."

"Ah. This is triggering the Trauma Year. Stands to reason. Grief like this will probably trigger all of it before it lets you go, D, and I'm so sorry for my part in it. Here, take two, and I'll be here in the morning."

"You don't need to tranq me. All I do is sleep. "

"Do you rest? Z, my best new friend? Is Mom snoring?"

"Not mostly. Sorry, Momma."

"Tattletale. My big-eyed tattletale. Sade? Screw you for never telling me about the snoring. True friend. Lay down with me, Zo. Just for a second. Hey, come on, I'm not mad. I can't be mad at you for paying attention, can I? No. That's a definite 'no.' I cannot. You will always know if I'm angry. I will always tell you why. You know that? You are so smart. So observant. So kind. Love you Zo. Love you so much. You know? We-He-We love you so much…so much." Meredith couldn't keep her eyes open anymore, not even when Bailey's voice rang out from the port-a-crib on the window side of the bed.

"UP AN' OUT P'EASE!"

"Jesus, there's another one!"

"That's Bailey, Derek Bailey, but Bailey like Auntie Miranda."

"Bailey the Nuh-evermind…okay. This is…. What happened to your daddy, Z? Can you tell me, so Mom won't have to?"

"A car hit Daddy, and his body and his brain were too hurt, so he died. And I miss him. We did a fun-real and drove for days and days, but here we're 'posed to make a plan. Mostly we watch Ryder and Peppa and Daniel Tigger—Tiger. Daddy said 'Tigger' 'acause it's silly, and Mommy said it showed his age, he didn't know Mister Rogers, and Daddy'd got all fustered 'cause he did know the Mister Rogers show, and it was the same years old as him, and Mommy said that made him old-old-old, and he would be tickle monster."

"You are very much your mommy's daughter, huh?"

"'Afore we knew it, even. I'm 'dopted. Um, but-but I shoulda said Daniel Tiger, because Daddy died, and Mommy is really said, and she said…."

No, no, no.

"Sometimes we say things we don't mean when we're feeling super sad or mad. Can you tell me? I'm a kind of doctor who takes care of upset people."

"You're gonna help her feel better?"

"I want to."

"Um. She said 'wanna die' and 'Derek' which is Daddy who died."

No, Zo. No, baby. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I'm just like her.

"Oh. Well. Well…. I'm Die. My name is Sadie. S-A-D-I-E. Die is D-I-E. so it's a nickname. Like your mom calls you Zo, because…"

"I'm Z-O-L-A spells Zola. Mommy wanted you?"

"That's why she called me. She needed someone to take care of you two today so she could get good sleep to feel better, and I was her friend when we were girls."

"Are you a nin-ternship friend? Alex and Aunt 'Stina are, and Uncle George Amally who died and didn't meet me but would love me."

"Them I did know."

"Daddy said they were co-diffi-dent nin-ternship friends."

"I see. A sponge aren't you?"

"Up an' ouuuut!"

"Okay, sorry, sorry. Hello there…baby B, let's get you out of that prison. Omph, good boy."

"Mommy, Zo?"

"Bailey is almost two. I had a butterfly cake for turning four. Momma's sleeping, Bay. You did a good nap. This is Mommy's friend Sadie-Die."

"Let's stick with Sadie, Z."

"Daddy in DeeCee."

"He is not. There wasn't gonna be more D.C., and he got too hurt by the car, and Grams said he's in heaven, but Mommy doesn't know, and he's not hurting is what matters."

"DeeCee bye-bye, Bay-ee, bye-bye, Zo. Onna airplane. Whooosh."

"NO, NO BAILEY, THERE'S NO MORE D.C.!"

"Okay, hey, who likes coloring?"

Meredith woke, and for one second the lilt of the voice she heard—"owe her my life, babe."—made her think it could've all been some weird dream. She'd taken something weird, and would discover this hotel bed was a splurge, or belonged to some guy, and she'd dreamed med school, and Mom being sick, and all the loss and love, Derek and her babies….

No! Don't let it be a dream. Please, don't.

Who did she think she could bargain with? God? Screw that.

She opened her eyes and came face-to-tail with Rawr the stuffed lion. Thank—She really, really no longer cared about any god; if one existed, the deity was too cruel for the way people threw the word around, and she was done. Thank the universe? How very woo-woo. Gonna be the widow who gets really into oils and crystals? The widow. A widow. She was a widow. The Widow Grey, like some Victorian novel that she maybe read, maybe skimmed, in school.

None of it was a dream, which meant Derek was dead. Derek is dead. Derek died. Derek will always be dead. She was not dead. Her body continued to function, whether she wanted it to or not, forcing her to leave the empty comfort of the colorless bed. Everything with real color in the room belonged to the real world; her, her kids. She didn't want it to be a dream, but she wasn't ready to wake up. On her return from the bathroom, she lingered in the bedroom doorway. The bed called to her; the blank slate, the a nothing-place, where she didn't have to do anything or be anyone. She turned her back to it, moving on to the suite's small living area.

"Do I look like death?" she asked, the rasp of her voice giving away how raw her entire body felt. The way Sadie Harris raised her eyes from the cartoon playing almost mutely on the TV was exactly the same as it'd been six—no, before that—ten years earlier, in European bars and across a scratched-up kitchen table in Somerville. Her expression was far less familiar coming from Sadie, but she'd seen it plenty over the past two weeks. Two weeks exactly. She hadn't realized there would be two weeks between —

"Mama!" Bailey gave no further warning before toddling into her legs, and she scooped him up, breathing in a whiff of Johnson & Johnson's no-tears shampoo. No tears. No…fuck. "Am I just gonna leak now?"

"Looks like you might start, if he doesn't get what he's rooting for." Sadie had more Boston in her voice than Meredith remembered, but hadn't she more-or-less doubled down on hers, too?

"You mind?" She already had the first button of her pajama top—how long had she been wearing that? —undone. Wasn't anything Sadie hadn't seen. She shifted Bailey to the left side, and—"Ow, yikes, buddy, we should've been paying more attention. Did I get the pump…? Oh. Used it yesterday, didn't we?"— sank down onto a hard rectangular object meant to be a cushion on the hotel sofa. "He's more-or-less weaned. Just nights. Some mornings, lately. Otherwise, it goes in his oatmeal. It's…a reason to remember."

She'd been working so much, and with him mostly weaned, there were some nights he'd been well asleep by the time she got home, and pumping was not how she wanted to spend her nominally free time, but just when she'd decided that it was time to let it go, Derek died. Derek died, and she had forty minutes in Bailey's room every night where no one would disturb them; not her mother-in-law, not Amelia, no lawyers, no funeral directors, no friends who meant so well offering to take the kids off her hands. She had Bailey and usually Zola sitting with her head in Meredith's lap, and they were all that mattered.

He'd be two in May. Maybe then.

She'd had a day of believing her last time with him wouldn't be her last time, for certain. A day when he'd maybe been going to be an older sibling.

"I tried, with Zo. Wasn't enough time. Never enough time."

She glanced at Zola, who was nestled in a pile of pillows and blankets a few feet between the sofa and the TV. She was theirs. She'd been theirs before any of them knew. Bailey curled his legs against her torso, and opened and closed the fist that always held a piece of her hair while he nursed. They were hers, now. Her responsibility. Her burden. Her gift. Her pride. Her tether. Hers. But they would always be theirs.

"It's possible, but it takes time, and she…." Meredith stopped. If she thought too hard about it…. The supplements had been the one way she let her hope manifest while Zola was in the PICU, but they took long enough to work that her breasts were only starting to be tender when Janet showed up at the hospital. Six weeks later, she'd flushed them in a frenzy, overwhelmed by bringing other women's babies into the world, watching them feed them for the first time, not having been able to hold her baby while she was hospitalized, and having everything else in her life twisted for possibly no reason. It'd taken over two more months for Zola to come home, and Meredith had thrown herself into every other suggestion the adoption books had.

"I wanted that for-certain bond, but…." She reached toward her daughter, unable to remember the last time she hadn't been an arm's length away.

"Mommy does her hair best," Sadie said, mimicking Zola's boastful tone perfectly. "Mommy reads to her from books with small words, um, wait, big words with small letters, and she reads the ones with big letters. Mommy does surgeries to fix people's insides.

"From what she showed me with her doll, I infer you chose general?"

"Mmm." She switched Bailey to the other side, wincing a little as he latched, and his teeth brushed her areola. "Like Ellis, like daughter."

"Better, I'm sure."

"Three years in? Hardly." Would she ever be confident enough in her skills to brag, the way Derek had? Brain fixes were sharp and meaningful. In general, results were less immediate. She didn't feel it in the same way; although, she had to admit that sometimes she had an instinct she couldn't explain. A flash to sitting above an OR; or at a table focused on not making a mess with her microwaved lasagna, and then she'd know her next move. She was terrified that that's what she was doing, following her mother's lead, thinking the instinct to be her own.

Bailey paused and stared up at her sleepily, nothing but Mommy, warm, safe in his blue eyes.

"They're getting cloudier, I see it. Grey blue-green."

"They're gonna stay clear blue just like Daddy's, isn't that right Bay?"

They were clear as crystal like she'd predicted, but they were all his. Would it be harder, seeing Derek there? It couldn't. Be harder. At least his eyes would still be in the world. "Shit, seriously?"

"If you do that every time you tear up, my new best friend Z's going to curse like a sailor before kindergarten."

"She knows the 'this tall to say those words' rules."

"And you know your body is doing what it needs to do to get you through. If that's tears 24/7, so be it."

"Fun times at the grocery store."

"About that, if you need—"

"No!"

Sadie's forehead wrinkled in puzzlement, and Bailey startled. Way to fucking go, Meredith. She kept her eyes on Bailey, smiling at him, running her fingers along his hairline. He settled back against her, and she exhaled.

"I came to avoid that. No waking up to find the kids bathed and cupboards full. No willing babysitters to take them so I have 'me time.' No work to obsess over and lose myself in. I. Have. To. Do. It. Or I will lose them. I will let myself lose them. I will become her. It would be so easy to become her, and…and I think it's gonna happen anyway…I don't…I'm not…I'm like her, even Derek… M-maybe I'd deserve it. M-maybe, I'm just…. M-m-maybe—" Sadie cupped a hand over Meredith's mouth, startling her to silence more than silencing her.

"Nope, no more talking for you. Back to breathing. Bailey is breathing nice and evenly. Can you breathe with him? Here, feel that little warm chest rising and falling. You are here with your baby boy, and you are breathing."

Why was that so hard for her? What made her forget that instinct so consistently? Some brain thing that was broken in her? One Derek would never research?— "I can't keep trying to…."—Derek would never research anything. Derek would never. Derek was dead. Not lost. Not left. Not leaving me, but alive somewhere, and she would've—she knew, she knew, she hoped he knew—she would've held out hope forever.

Loss, true loss, not the "I've lost him," type meant more than losing a person. It meant losing the hope. The hope of reconciling further with her mother. The hope of being a better sister to Lexie. The hope of knowing what having a stepmother meant. The hope of watching George become a better surgeon than the rest of them put together. And all the hope of her future with Derek. No growing old. No reminders of who she was if Alzheimer's claimed her identity. No dancing at Zola's wedding.

No more Derek. No more Derek hope. Zola. Bailey. She had hope for them. She couldn't lose that. She couldn't lose them, too. Did Ellis feel that? Did she just not want Thatcher to have her child? They were hers-theirs-her hope.

"All right." Sadie said. "I'm sure there's logic here somewhere, because I've met you, so let's try to find it, and come up with a comp—a plan." Right, Die, like you've ever compromised in your life. But it's been—how long? Lexie's internship year. Lexie should be an attending. They'd have a neuro attending. They must need one, now. How long until they replace him? Amelia will… Six. Six years, and eight since meeting Derek, and there wouldn't be more with him, only since him. "And I'd like you to take a deep breath between every thought. Got it?"

"My mother….It turned out….When Ellis left Seattle, obviously, she took me, but…. She also…she had a baby that year."

"What?"

"Mmhmm. Maggie. Showed up as the head of cardio when Cristina left, and sheshares my maternal DNA."

"Yang left? Maternal…who's her…? Webber?"

"Correct. He never knew. All the years I carried Mom being so unhappy at being left alone with me that she wanted to die. She wasn't…. She…crap."

"Let them fall," Sadie said. Had she ever sounded so calm? Maybe the night Meredith got food poisoning in Brussels? "Cry through it."

"I t-taught you that."

"So, you know I'm right."

"Sh-she could've cut her carotid artery. She… if she hadn't said, 'Don't call 911,' would I have remembered the digits? Maybe. I learned it at daycare. We'd talked about how pages worked, and how when someone got hurt, they called 911, who alerted the hospital, and they called Mom, so she'd be ready—She knew I wouldn't listen. If I had, she wouldn't have…but…deep down, it wasn't what she wanted. Maybe she wanted to want it. I…I almost …. But I don't. I don't. I don't want to leave them. I just want him back."

"I know, I know," Sadie scooted closer to her on the couch, and Meredith let herself be folded into her arms, because she didn't have the strength to pull away, didn't want to pull away. "You're breathing. I've got you. Tell me the next part."

"She found out she was pregnant during the psych work-up. That's why…"

"Why that year was so weird. No wonder you barely remember kindergarten."

"We lived with my aunt in Everett longer than I'd remembered."

"The gay aunt?"

"The aunt with a long-term female roommate. I dunno if it was a Boston marriage, or a Boston marriage."

"Tomato, Tomahto."

"She took care of me. Mom…sometimes did my hair. I started school. I thought we were there for a few weeks, but it was five months. Mom was like that for five months…. She stopped bothering with me for five months. Sat in that chair and cried, lay on the bed, and cried. And I…I think that's when I learned to be silent. Maggie was born in November. We moved to Beacon Hill. school was a whole thing, and by the time the dust settled…."

"You'd repressed, been moved into the right class, and Ellis had a housekeeper scheduling the baby-sitters."

"It wasn't quite…essentially. She lost Richard. She gave Maggie up. I don't know why she kept me, but if she meant to build the wall around us, it didn't happen. It went around her. I got shoved off, and I shattered."

Meredith ran the back of her finger over Bailey's cheek and hummed the tune of the Humpty Dumpty song that played on their nursery rhyme playlist. The first time she'd listened to it with Zola Meredith hadn't recognize half of the rhymes, if she'd ever heard them.

"I have good friends. They love me. They love my kids. They would do everything they could to get me through this. They did, while…he was working in D.C. a lot for the past year, year and a half. I wanted to prove I could do it without him, and I can, but this…I wouldn't; I would turn into her. A shrewish, shell of a woman whose life revolved around work, and who never moved past losing the love of her life."

"So, you left. I've run away from a good thing once or twice, you sure as fuck know that. But Mer, you are going to need to grieve. You are going to have breakdowns. Your only way out is going to be through. I understand that you're afraid of what will happen if you have an alternative—"

"I can't shut them out. I would."

"Not sure I'm with you, but I appreciate that you believe that. You don't have a job lined up or anything?"

"No. I don't… Derek…the damn lawyer…. We're fine."

Sadie toyed with the plain band she was wearing. She had it on her right ring finger, and it was unadorned, but it definitely held significance. "I meant you're not on a timeline."

"Oh. Nuh-uh." How could she already feel tired again? It felt like the bed in the other room had a gravitational pull and ignoring it made her limbs heavier.

"Let me be the gay aunt."

"She was always there! From pouring the milk into my cereal, to brushing out my braids at night." And yet, she didn't understand that I was in my first year of school, not first grade.

"I'd do it Sadie-style. I travel a lot these days, trying to sell people on our model. I'd leave you alone, for the most part, but you'd have a lifeline. Take it from someone who let hers slip away; you are going to need a lifeline."

"And if I don't call?"

"I will. Weekly."

"Monthly."

"Weekly."

"Biweekly.

"Weekly, for a month, and we can reassess. I could do daily." Meredith waved a hand, too tired to keep arguing. "The company has some rental properties. Apartments with bedrooms, the kind with doors you can shut. Oh, and you're going to therapy."

"What? No. I did that. Multiple times, I did that."

"Really? You've been counseled over the recent death of your husband?"

"It's not even indicated—"

"Correct. Intervention isn't always effective for grief; I've seen the same studies, but it's complicated for you. It's a trauma after how many traumas? Did you go after Lexie? And Ellis, or for that matter, your father— the father you wanted to have?"

"No. For the…the 'Ellis wanted to live stuff.' The I wanted to live, not just be alive stuff."

"And the other times? Getting you cleared to operate after all the shit at that hospital? I know you've been in the middle of it." Meredith shrugged. "That's what I thought. It can't hurt, can it? No one knows you here. Don't start ruling options out, yet."

"Fine." Whatever would get her to the bed. She wanted sleep, needed, wanted sleep.

"I got these for you." She reached over to a bright red purse sitting on the coffee table and pulled out a pill bottle. "Zolpidem. Won't make you too groggy if Z or B needs anything, as long as you take them right before you lie down. Seven days of actual rest will help."

"Ambien. Been there. Works." Meredith held out her hand, palm up.

"Nope. You're going to shower."

"Sadie. I'm just tired."

"You can't have it both ways, Grey. Either you're all in taking care of your kids, which means also taking care of yourself, or—"

"Okay. Fine." She lowered Bailey onto the sofa, stood up, and swayed a little. Sadie grabbed her arm and walked with her into the hotel bathroom.

"D'you want to take a bath?"

"No." Baths were for with-Derek. Safe, because Derek held her. No temptation to slip under the water and stay there. She didn't want to stay there. She didn't want to want to stay there. Did she?

"When did you last eat? Do not shrug at me, Meredith Grey; that's going on the to-do list."

"I'll just throw it up."

Sadie started the water going in the shower. "That's a risk I'm willing to take. I've seen it all before."

As though it had been a discussion with a decision made, Sadie went for the second button on her pajama top—she'd never bothered redoing the first one. Meredith let herself be striped. Sadie was strong. She used to want this. Used to have it. Sadie tugging at the drawstring of her pajama pants, yanking them down. She didn't want it like that, now. She didn't. But she'd had the thought, with her husband not dead a week, she'd had the thought, and what the fuck kind of person—

"Sadie —" She got her head over the toilet in time to heave out a splatter of acid and bile. Sadie put a hand on her shoulder. She tried to shrug it off. Couldn't. "I'm disgusting."

"You're not."

"I'm a disgusting person. You need to leave. Just leave. Please, just—"

"Meredith. Whatever your mind just did? Wherever you went? That is natural. It's natural, because right now everything is. Your mind is still Meredith Grey's mind, and it is reeling." She put a hand under Meredith's elbow and got her to her feet. "We'll get this done, get you something to eat, and then you can sleep. Party like it's 1999."

No. In 1999 this would've felt totally different.

Sadie would've been different. She shucked her sweater off, revealing an unadorned tank top and tossed it to the floor with Meredith's pajamas, but her movements were brusque. Clinical. She let Meredith sink to the floor of the bathtub and directed her through washing the way she must've done for Bailey.

"Almost there." It took Meredith a moment to realize Sadie had put the kids' shampoo on her hands. She didn't remember where she'd packed hers, and the idea of using it made her feel sick again. Not all that different from right after the bomb; she'd borrowed Izzie's peach blossom shampoo for two months.

Damn him for affecting how she felt about her own hair care products. Wasn't taking up half the counter enough?

"You've always liked having your hair messed with. True or false," Sadie pressed her fingers in along Meredith's hairline. "You changed the color so much because you liked the feeling of having it dyed."

"True."

She massaged along her temples; the relief making Meredith realize how much her head had been throbbing. "You know, I overheard Lexie telling…someone…her mother used to do that when she felt bad."

"Bailey-bird, too. S'how I get him to sleep. We had so many little things in common. More big ones than I expected, too."

"Can I ask…?"'

"Plane crash. Was it Mark? That you overheard?"

"Yes."

"When she broke his dick?"

"That secret came out, huh?"

"Mmm. We were sisters. By the end, we were sisters."

"How about the new one? Megan?"

"Maggie. Don't know. One day. It's…they'd be 'bout the same age, but she's not…she's Maggie. It's not fair to expect her to be anyone else. Lexie was my first sister. I let her in, and there's no getting her out. Not that I want to." Out of habit, she swiped at her eyes, but too late, as many of the drops on her face were from her as the shower.

Sadie gave her a teasing frown. "She's your first? What about Yang?"

"Different. Not my sister. My person."

"And what was I?"

Meredith's chest seized, her heart and lungs both straining to keep rising. She'd spent a decade wanting to ask that question in the other direction, but afraid of the answer. "You tell me some time."

"Fair. Lean back." The water pressure in the hotel shower made the spray sharp; tiny pinpricks needling her skin. It was good to remember feeling could feel good.

"You've got a brilliant little girl in there."

"She's the product of a village of brilliant whackos."

Sadie pulled her upright and handed her a towel before holding one arm out for Meredith to lean on stepping over the tub. "Now this is 1999," Sadie said. "Every time you decided you could handle high-heeled boots drunk when you couldn't do it sober."

"Drunk would be good."

"Wouldn't get you through. But we can stock up tomorrow, if you want. Gay Aunt Sadie at your service."

"Am I handling it all wrong? Taking her from them?"

"I don't think so. But what do I know about kids? I wasn't one. I came from Daddy's head fully formed."

"The night of the banquet where we met?" Meredith asked. It was easier to think of that night than the ones that came later. She'd been thirteen, on the cusp of giving up on reaching the bars her mother kept raising. They'd been at a New Year's fundraiser, and Sadie had wafted in, a wavy-haired blonde in a dress that sparked in the fairy-lights strung over their heads. "An angel to tempt the devil?"

"Other way around. Devil tempting angels." From the hotel room a song rang out. Meredith didn't recognize it, but Sadie eased her down to sit on the closed toilet before dashing toward the noise.

Meredith didn't want to eavesdrop, but she wanted to hear her own thoughts less.

"Three…. I'll text you…. Thank you, babe. Did we furnish those…? Oh. Are you sure?— I really don't deserve you. Yeah, yeah, kiss your mother with that mouth, sparky? Oh, low blow."

Meredith tried to seem focused on wringing her hair out when Sadie returned, but she paused with the towel halfway down and forgot what she was doing. The fatigue was visceral; she couldn't think about anything else for longer than a minute or two.

"Maybe I should cut it," she said when Sadie reappeared and finished the motion.

"Or you could finally learn how to braid it. You do Zola's. She's very proud of that."

"Derek could, too. He just… he hadn't been around." In the mirror, she caught Sadie's lips pursing. "What'd the kids say?"

"That he was helping Obama by drawing brains."

Meredith's breathy sound of amusement might not have been a recognizable laugh, but it was something. "They always understand more than I expect. Brain-mapping with the NIH. Specifically requested by the president. I had to call the White House to tell them what happened."

Had she? Or did she delegate that to Amelia?

"Ironically, he was quitting. It took him away too much. We'd been…. I thought I'd lost him. He came home. And then he died." She leaned forward, resting her head on her arms. Sadie's palm pressed between her shoulder blades for a second.

"Here. Wrap up in this, and I'll find you clean pajamas." She handed off the hotel robe, which wasn't as soft as some, softer than others. Trailing a towel she'd tried to twist around her hair, she padded out of the bathroom. The nothing-bed was so close. "Freeze."

"Damn it, Die."

"Eat this."

Meredith took the banana and bit the tip off, violently. "Hapfy?"

"Not quite." Propelling her by the shoulders, Sadie forced her to abandon the bed again. A cup of applesauce sat open on the tiny kitchenette table. "I know my BRAT diet. No toast, and oatmeal isn't quite rice cereal, but we'll make do."

"Oatmeal?" While she asked, Sadie whipped a glass out of the microwave and dumped it into a bowl. "I prepped while you listened to my phone call."

"I…who wassit?"

"Don't choke."

"No gag reflex. Old joke, Die."

"Should we let that old joke die, Death? Is that who we are to each other?"

"Death still suits me pretty well. It's what happens to everyone I love. Do you still make them all wanna die?"

"Finish the applesauce. "

"You sound like a mom, just…

"Not my mom!" they chorused.

"Untrue, actually," Meredith added. "She wasn't around to baby me, but she would doctor me."

"She would. I never told you this, but your mother got me started on the Pill."

"Really? When'd she talk to you without me there?"

"Some afternoon. You had detention. I let myself in. Turns out she did live there. I'd had doubts."

"And it came up how?"

"Oh. Something about me not being one of your boys. Was I as active as you?"

"Seriously?!"

"Hey, if we ever did numbers…. And look at that, you're done. Here." Sadie held out Meredith's extra pajamas. She didn't think there were more than that.

"Did I really think I'd do laundry…ever?"

"One day you will do chores again. I have faith."

"Sure. Can I sleep now?"

"Yes. Take this, and I'll brush out your hair while it kicks in."

"Sadie…."

"Meredith. I have been…not where you are. I cannot imagine. But I did hit that rock we all knew I'd been running at full-tilt. I really did. Ask Fatimah when you meet her. And I have woken up from it. Crusted vomit in my hair, blood on my face. Life being life, I've also done it when my hair was the only clean thing I had going for me, and you feel a lot less like a truck ran you over after that bus hit. Oh, fuck. I'm so sorry.."

"It's… actually my first thought was, 'wow something that hasn't happened to me.' Nope, my husband the big, damned hero. Zola only knows the frame. I'll tell her as she asks. That's what the social worker recommended. Derek spent all morning helping people at a crash site. Three teenagers. They came to the funeral. Missed his flight to D.C., lotsa crazy heroic measures. Then he got back in his car, and he was hit by a semi."

"Good God. I am so sorry that happened. C'mon, where's your brush?"

"Toiletry bag. I hung it up. The day we got here. I was okay. Denial. Adrenaline. Didn't last."

"You are a crisis-dealer. Makes it bottle up. Fati is that way."

"She's your…?"

"Partner. Until it's legal everywhere." Sadie sat on the bed with one knee bent; Meredith leaned against it.

"Wow. I'm really happy for you, Sades. I'm sorry I was bitchy on the phone."

"I deserved it. You've got a free pass. Many. We'll discuss it when you're not processing a medication that can cause amnesia."

"M'kay."

"Death? You've gotten a few good scars since I last…."

"Saw me naked? Uh, the laparoscopic one I had when you…I had my appendix out, spring of my intern year. I told you that, right? After you let my sister's creepy friends slice into you like a cadaver?"

"You did mention it. Everyone was particularly fond of pointing out that you went to work within a week. The others aren't laparoscopic."

Meredith's hand went to her right side where the reversed-L incision had faded and stretched, bisected just slightly by the extended C-section. "I donated part of my liver to Thatcher."

The brush hit a tangle, and Sadie yanked harder than necessary. A flash of pain came with momentary shift. A split second where that pain took precedent. It wasn't better or worse than what she already felt, but it had a traceable cause, and provided a welcome distraction. Meredith had always been more into reducing pain than adding to it, but her foremost thought was oh. I see why people like that.

"Sorry! Sorry. Just. Thatcher, your father, Thatcher?"

"Not a common name."

"He hit you! I heard the story. He went into your safe space, and he hit you. That's putting aside the fact that he signed a five-year-old over to your mother."

"Safe space?"

"You're gonna deal with some psycho-babble. Sorry, not sorry."

"Did it for Lexie. It's my Lexie scar. I don't have any from the crash. Walked away with scrapes, like always. Can look at me and think nothing ever happened. It all happens to everyone else. I walk away….Um. Bay was a C-section. Bailey…Miranda…had to take out my spleen 'cause I'd fallen…there was a storm. Hemorrhaged. Power went out."

"That explains his name. After a woman you once called the Nazi."

"Regrettable choice. Didn't come up with it…the skyrocketing antisemitism we've seen in the ER started after she ditched it, but…stupid. After Lexie died, I got the scary nickname."

"What is it?"

"Medusa."

"I love it. I'm all about your hair, too. haven't gotten to mess with it since you started to grow out the dye, and it'd gotten kind of brittle."

"Yeah, took most of med school to fix that. Intern year wasn't great, either. Got better. I really should hack it off this time. Mom said it made a world of difference. Derek liked it long. Dunno if I care. We used to argue over whose hair we wanted our kids to get."

"You'd be on Team His?"

"Yeah. No idea why he wasn't, mine's all…what it is, but whenever he wasn't on Team Derek you had to take him seriously…. I can't do the don't speak ill of the dead thing. Seems more disrespectful than acknowledging who they were."

"Sounds reasonable to me. Okay. All braided up. I'll move Miss Z in here and take the sofa."

Meredith crawled up to the mountain of pillows, ready and willing to lose herself in the blankness—until she closed her eyes. Closed her eyes, and flashed to Derek in that unfamiliar ICU, the ventilator loudly reminding her he couldn't breathe for himself. "I don't think I can keep trying to breathe for you." She was off the carousel and didn't know where she was, and it was dark—"Sadie?"

"I'm here."

"C-Could you lie down with me? I know it's weird, but…please? Just until I fall asleep?" I need an anchor. Maybe I came here knowing that.

"Always, Death. Whatever you need."

She needed her husband, but it was too obvious to say. Putting it out into the universe wouldn't bring him back. Denial. Bargaining. Nothing would. All she could do was make sure she didn't let herself keep drifting; following him even if she was physically alive. That would put too much on the shoulders of her proud-to-be-four-year-old, and Bailey who wasn't quite two.

Grant me grace, kiddos.

Grant me hope.

Grant me sleep.

"Hey, Mer? I know you won't want to hear it, but…happy birthday."