The carousel jumper she's straddling is white. A "sibearian" tiger, she thinks. That's what Zola would say. Where is Zola? Why is she on the zoo carousel without her, without Bailey held in front of her? All that's there is the baby bump, and she puts a hand on it, relieved in a way that doesn't make sense.

"Meredith!"

She catches him in the corner of her eye for a split-second, not long enough to be sure. The faces along the railing pass too quickly, like they're on a separate platform that's also moving.

"It's relativity."

It's not fair that this time she can jerk her gaze to the speaker. She expects the woman with frizzed, dirt-caked hair to be Lexie, and can only be sure it's not when she smirks.

"One sister is the same as another, right?" Lizzie taunts.

"N-no. That's not…" She couldn't recognize Lexie the last time she'd seen her; half the skin on her face had been in strips, clawed exactly like one of the 'animal attack' illustrations in her medical school textbooks. Exactly like that.

She didn't see Lexie like that. Why does she remember seeing Lexie like that?

"Any of the four of us could've donated to darling Derek." Lizzie's voice is wrong, and Meredith doesn't know why until she coughs and a stream of water arcs out of her mouth. Meredith tries to avoid the trajectory, but she can only move so far and hold onto the pole. She can't let go; Mommy said, "Don't let go."

"Didn't want to ride with you, did she?" Lizzie says—gurgles.

"Meredith!"

Again, she tries to see him. She raises one hand, but the air pulls at it like quicksand. Wave at me; Mommy said, "I'll be right there. You can wave at me."

"What do you think happens to your soul if you drown? If you don't have a big, strong neurosurgeon to fish you out? Think you'd end up in that precious hospital if you'd rotted in the bottom of the Bay?"

"I don't know. Neither do you. You're not dead."

"You might as well be. Leaving all your friends to mourn you."

"Leaving isn't the same as dying."

"Isn't it? That's not how we felt when you stole our Derek."

"I didn't —"

"You took him from us, Meredith. You killed him, and then you let him take my leg."

"I didn't."

"Oh, no?" Lizzie is wearing the dress and petticoats of a woman in a painting of a carousel. Meredith thinks she saw it in the Louvre, or was it somewhere in Barcelona? She hikes them up, and there is a rotting lump hanging from Lizzie's knee.

"What happened?"

"Meredith!"

"Derek!" She strains, trying to use the stupid pole to rotate. If she doesn't see him now, it will be too late. She knows that. She doesn't know why she knows that.

Lizzie is laughing, cackling, the laugh of a witch, of a weird sister. "I'll be with him. A part of me will be with him always. Can you say that?"

Meredith forces herself to stare at the face that has become bloated over the course of this conversation. "I can hope."

"What good has hope ever done you?"

Plenty, she wants to say, but the carousel jerks, and something growls. It growls near her. It growls under her, and the thing she's sitting on bucks. She can't hold on. She goes flying, and the thing lunges for her. It's not a tiger; it never was. It's a wolf. A wolf that's going to tear her apart.

"There's more than one way to drown." Lizzie laughs, but it's not Lizzie, it's Amelia standing over her, smirking. "One sister's as good as another."

The wolf lifts a paw, ready to swipe; it's going for the baby first, she knew that would happen, she tries to get away, to curl up around her, but there's nothing she can do. There's never anything she can do.

"Hold on, Meredith!"

"Mom? Mommy!"

She woke up, her own cry echoing in her ears. She expected one of the kids to be calling for her; it wouldn't be the first time that bled into her dreams. The condo was silent enough that she could hear the waves breaking outside. Shakily, she threw off her tangled covers and went to the window. It mystified her that the view could be calming even in the face of the ferry-boat dreams that resurged after her excursion into the water with Sadie.

"Some water of the womb bullshit," she observed, putting her hand gingerly against the spot where she'd last felt some small body part collide with the inside of her uterus. Did she expect it to come back sticky? Coated in blood from the wolf in her mind? "You're not big enough for that word."

The baby moved, and Meredith went still. "Hey. That was pretty hard. Think you can do it again?" She let the curtain go, and the room went immediately dark. She backed up onto the bed, discarding Derek's shirt and tugging up the hem of her t-shirt. It took a minute, but she could definitely feel the next kick from both sides. "Rationally, I'm aware this means nothing, but you should know I'm good with dancer or soccer player. I'll even accept softball. If you want to pick one that doesn't involve standing on the side of a field in all weather, that'd be great, though."

Another kick, this one barely a flutter against her fingers.

Several hours later, Meredith put a bowl of Cheerios and banana in front of Bailey and went down the hall to find Zola carefully fitting the plastic baby under the hatch on Anatomy Jane.

"Hey, Zo?"

Zola startled, flinging the baby onto her pillow. "I'm gettin' my shoes on!"

"Oh, yeah?"

"I'm gonna be getting my shoes on?"

"Better. I'll help you with the tying rhyme in one sec." She moved the pretty pink swirly sneakers to the foot of the bed and sat down. "Give me your hand."

Zola held her hand out without question. Meredith guided her to the right spot and pushed down gently. Zola frowned. "I'm not hurting you?"

"No, not at all. This is about as hard as doctors press to feel for breaks and bleeding. And you remember when you went to the doctor with me, they moved the ultrasound wand all over to get an image of the baby?"

"When they put that slimy goo on your belly?"

"Exactly. That's a little bit like what we're doing, without the goo. Oh, here." She slid Zola's hand down and to the left a little, pushed a little harder, and— "There! Did you —? Whoa, that's the strongest kick yet." This time she knew Zola felt it, based on the silver-dollar size of her eyes.

"That's baby girl kicking?"

"It is."

"She doesn't hurt you?"

"No, sweetheart."

"But um, it hurts me when Bailey-bird kicks hard. He doesn't mean it. Ssometimes he does, but if we're in your bed he is asleep, he doesn't."

"He does do that. He's pretty strong, but a big boy can kick harder than a tiny fetus who's about as big as…." She glanced around at the guys Zola had collected on her bed, and picked up Rawr. "She's about as long as Rawr. A little skinnier, but her organs weigh more than fluff."

"Oh, Bay's much, much bigger an' stronger than—Mommy! I felt her again!"

"I think that was her head. She's really excited to hear your voice, Zo."

"She loves I'm her big sister."

Meredith wrapped an arm around Zola's shoulder and kissed the top of her head. When she sat up to grab the swirly sneakers, Zola went up on her knees and touched her cheek.

"Happy tears, Momma?"

"Yes. Absolutely."

"Good." Zola stuck a foot into her shoe, sticking her tongue out of the side of her mouth while pulling up its tongue. "Do you think Daddy was happy I'm getting a sister? Or he might wanted another brother." The way she was mixing up her tenses while talking about Derek was new. It didn't evoke concern in anyone who knew what they were doing—Carolyn, Fatimah, her teacher, so Meredith could only wait to see if it signified anything.

"What do you think?"

"Mmm, I think it doesn't matter a lot, because all kids are just kids, but we got a lotta girls." She shoved her other foot into its shoe and did the first over-under knot before dropping the laces. "He had lotsa sisters. And sometimes they drive him crazy." She slumped over the word in a perfect imitation of Derek. "In a love way. I think only one brother is okay. He got the same name as Daddy, and so there's another Derek Shepherd. Boys did most things for a long time. Daddy is a very great princess, but we need more girls to do things, not just be doctors. Grandma Ellis was a pine-ear, but in my family there's you, and Aunt Amy, and Aunt Maggie, and Aunnie Ecksy, and all the other aunts, and Dr. Girl Bailey, and Sofi's mommies. I can be that, or a gymmasticist, or a teacher; and Cal is a baby-sitter and a artist, and a good swimmer."

"You've done some thinking, huh?"

"It won't be long before I'm big and have to get a job," Zola explained.

"I see."Meredith pinched the first loop on Zola's shoes and wondered if learning this skill would be her daughter's first step toward an OR. "Ready?" Zola nodded. Meredith thought for a second to pull up the words of the chant she'd Googled a couple of nights earlier. It hadn't been familiar, but whenever she guided Zola through this process, she could almost feel her mother's hands over hers. "Bunny ear, bunny ear around the tree…."

"Derek had four sisters. Four 'very girly' sisters, he told me, once. I don't know all of them very well, but I assume he made the judgement at seven years old. His mom is a lot of things, but those include steel-spined, and smart, and some other s-word, I'm not an English professor. Not truly the daughter of one. Wonder if that's why I'm so bad at idioms, but I can recite so many Ellisisms? Derek could do whatever he wanted with words."

"And what did he want?"

"I love him. I love him in a possibly going to be a celibate widow, mostly okay with that kind of way, but he was an arrogant jackass. He had issues believing that other people's perspectives mattered. The superiority complex applied to everyone. Until…until close to the end, I thought Derek was the brightest light in Derek's galaxy. I'm not sorry that he was the brightest light in mine.

"Independently of all that, no, Beni, I don't think he did respect me. That what you wanted to hear? He admired me. He loved me. He worshiped me. He chose me."

"And how is that—?"

"Funny, isn't it, how we call men respectful if they'll split the bill and make sure you come, maybe even before they get their rocks off? Night one, day one, that was Derek. True respect, though? The kind where you can accept that a person's thoughts and decisions have the same value as yours, whether or not you agree with them? Where…I looked it up…you admire them for their 'abilities, qualities, or achievements?' Where you're doing your best to treat them the way you believe you should be treated?

"He taught women. He believed in women. He could respect a decision made by a woman, but overall… I thought maybe it was just his arrogance, the ego bigger than he was, but something about how he saw Mark versus Addison, a-and… me. I don't think it was respect.

"Oh, he'd say that he respected his mom, and he did listen to her when it suited him, but, I mean, I've contacted his mom more than he did when he first left! I never went as long as he could without contacting my mom. I was afraid she'd forget about me before the Alzheimer's, but also, she was my mother. I respected that position, and I respected her as a person. Maybe more than she deserved, on some fronts, but becoming who she was in a world full of men who didn't think of her as a person, let alone respect her? Why wouldn't you? But he …. No. Not me, not my mother, not his, not…huh, maybe Miranda, as a friend and colleague, not a… Amelia! The way he spoke about her…to her… Richard's an addict; there hasn't been that much longer since his last backslide, and even disregarding all that, it's…it was not what she deserved, and she can be a real piece of work lemme tell you. He could be really dismissive of all his sisters.

"Addison cheated on him. He didn't just, like, wave it away, like 'oh, poor woman, couldn't resist the big, steamy man;' but he talked like he thought Mark seduced her, or something.… the history is complicated, but if you consider that the level of betrayal almost balances out, his reaction, his assumptions about their motives, which one he took back first… he been raised to see marriage in a certain way. I wanted him to choose me, but I wanted him sure. I think Thatcher, and Mom and Richard, and Adele shaped my beliefs about cheating without my understanding exactly…. Not the point. If Derek wanted to fix things; if that marriage wasn't the lemon, she deserved a chance. But was it about her as a person? Or getting 'his wife' back? He made no concessions. To try again, she had to adapt to this entirely different lifestyle, and he wasn't gonna accept anything less. She took all his shit, and if he'd…. He wanted her to be contrite. To do penance. You can't. I know. I've had to let go of…I've had to do it, okay? To let go of something important and not hold a grudge."

"Can you-?"

"And the way he finally let them both off the damn hook? He couldn't have just said something? Like, 'Addison, Meredith and I are horrible people who fucked in an exam room during prom. I didn't do it to hurt you. Nothing has been going on behind your back, though I understand if you don't believe me. I promise that up until that point, I believed we could revive our marriage, but it's time to call time of death. I know you gave up everything to follow me out here; I can't make up for that, but I'll give you whatever you want in the divorce. I'm a huge-ass hypocrite, I shouldn't have said seventy-five percent of the things I said about you and Mark. I wasn't trying at all in New York. You didn't feel you could come to me, and I wasn't coming to you. I wasn't satisfied professionally—was miserable, overall. I'm the one who's changed too much for this to work. I love you. I want you to be happy, but we're not compatible anymore.'"

"That was very well thought out. May I ask—?"

"No, you may not. Doesn't matter, because he didn't use his McDreamy words, he pocketed my panties, and let her…it was a goddamned symbolic gesture. So freaking petty. I could almost think he was just being a gross dude. I've been around, I know the panty-sniffing thing isn't a cliché, and the way he'd been staring at me…he obviously wanted me in this…primal way. It wasn't either stairwell look. It was jealousy. It was wanting to claim me. Maybe it's wrong that I was into him wanting to possess me, but if it was objectifying, I didn't object to it. I wasn't used to being seen that way. Wanted to the point where it was too hard for him to watch someone else touch me. Being put ahead of something as important as his marriage. Didn't hurt that I knew what his eyes looked like while he was turned on. I shouldn't have been getting all hot from Derek, but I was, I really was, and if McVet's plans involved taking my underwear off, he was doing a much better job at mentally reciting baseball stats at the time. If he'd caught on to where my thoughts were, I'd have been …not screwed.

"Whatever, I ran, Derek followed, we fucked, it was really good, stupid, cheating, porny exam-room sex, and then I couldn't find my panties. Wasn't that hard to figure out where they'd gone, but there was a situation, there always is, and not having them on wasn't the worst sensation ever. I didn't make him cop to it—and let me tell you, he really wanted me to buy that he didn't know they were there. Bullshit, bullshit, bull-goddamn fucking-shit. You don't forget panty pocketing! You don't slip damp underwear in your pocket, put the jacket on, and not remember. Not unless you're the one getting Alzheimer's!

"Especially not when your next step is leaving it for your wife to find. Not when the night you discovered her affair, you walked into the house and stepped on a man's jacket that you knew belonged to your best friend. I don't know if he put the jacket in what passed for a hall in the trailer, or the bed, or…I imagine she stepped on it. What made her check the pockets? She's savvy, and we weren't…couldn't be…all that subtle. She, uh, she washed them and pinned them to a lost and found bulletin board, and…and my friend had been living in the hospital, she claimed them. People guessed, but she saved me from open season, let alone professional retaliation. I don't blame Addison. She didn't…I mean, I don't know how Mark's jacket got where it was, but I doubt she or Mark consciously wanted Dere to find it. He planned his revenge, or whatever it was, I know him. It's dirty, and it's-it's - and it made me….

"I let him take them off, begged him to. I didn't see...I remember, because he had to move his hands, which I wasn't into, but I didn't… No, you know what? No. I didn't see him do it, and I wouldn't have been party to letting her find out that way. I'm not culpable for this…this one thing. He did the easy, cruel thing. He did it. He…with Rose he told her before he'd do more than kiss me. He learned. I just…in terms of respect...he apologized to her. It's-it's—I don't know why this is-is…why I'm fixating on this."

"Did he apologize to you?"

"For stealing my underwear?"

"That. And using it to send a message to his wife. It seems to me like he'd have known that you wouldn't approve. You're right that you were part of turning your unwitting affair into a conscious decision, but you bore no ill-will towards her. He took away your opportunity to approach her yourself without being directly connected to his cowardice."

"No, it just makes me a coward, too. I never tried. Right before…like right before prom, she asked if Derek and I were screwing. We weren't. We weren't friends. Wasn't long after the stairwell. Feels like I lied to her, anyway. I-I think I talked to her the day I had my appendix out? That's all blurry, but I think I asked her about Derek…knowing he was the one. Like…like they hadn't just…."

"Why is that day blurry?"

"Morphine. I'm pretty sensitive to it, but that doesn't change anything! Being high doesn't mean you can… I think…she said something about being the better person, like maybe she…. Ugh, I don't know. I know… I know she was decent…nice…respectful toward me the rest of that year. I know that Derek was disrespecting both of us, but I wasn't being all that great to the vet. He wasn't some patriarchal asshole who thought little ladies had no agency. The toxic masculinity, or whatever. Isn't that the Internet's way of putting it? I like it. It does poison them. Derek wasn't immune. Big whoop. Icalled him out on some…a lot of it, but the larger picture… I can't unsee it. How does that make anything better? I knew he was human. I knew he was a man from moment one. It got really obvious in the cab leaving the bar where he picked me up. Anticipation wasn't usually a problem for him, but he hadn't been fucked in months. Too busy being screwed

"Meredith, level with me. What's the deal?"

"I'm—"

"Not going to get away with blaming the baby."

"Fetus. We're grown-ups. She's—it's a fetus."

"You are, as you say, 'doing the thing.' You've been particularly caustic today, and you make a point of being crude if we're heading for a topic you'd rather avoid.

"Ooo. I don't think I've ever gotten 'caustic' before. Corrosive. I like it. Better than pissy. That's a personality trait. Crude, too. I get the looks, and the 'oh my god's, and the 'yeah, you dirty girl's, and I learned to use it to my advantage. I know it's self-defense, avoidance, whatever, but I was always projecting it onto him…and he'd take it, and he'd help. This time, it's really about him, and I can't…I can't be mad at him. I mean, I can. I am. I'm mad, and I'm pissed about that, because I think—I think if I'd seen it, and said something…Derek, he'd storm, and pout, and then he'd…he'd get it. So, it's not fair to be mad at him if…if even I…but I am, I am, because he did that shit, and he treated people really callously sometimes. I can too, I'm a bitch, I know it, but I'm pretty hard on myself, too. I think I can be pissed on behalf of my gender and not be a total hypocrite. In this instance. For once.

"Just… being mad at him now feels stupid, and pointless, and disrespectful, which I try not to be, and redundant. I spent so long mad at him. Mad that he had a wife. Mad because being with him wasn't a panacea. Mad because he wasn't patient enough. Mad when he was too patient. I was never moving fast enough for him. So much of what I got angry at him about early on wasn't about him. I lashed out at the person I had left. And…and he'd make it about us. A week or so after telling me he'd always come back, he didn't. That is the time he broke me. I wasn't whole, in the stairwell. If there was glue, it wasn't dry. It didn't hold. I could've gotten there, though. He could've been there with me.

"I'm glad, so glad that I regained confidence in myself. That I came to understand that Mom didn't think I wasn't worth it. That she was desperate, and tired, and maybe for a second she thought, 'what if?' That I wasn't ordinary for loving Derek, or for being me. I could be the one he chose, and I would be extraordinary. A lot of it was therapy. But it was also the tumor trial. To inject the virus into those tumors he and I had to be perfectly in sync, and no sex we ever had made me feel as complete in myself and connected to him. My husband was a flawed but incredible man, but he was magical as a surgeon. I wanted to be a fraction of that."

"And yet, you didn't pursue neurosurgery."

"I did for a while. It…it didn't work out. That's not—Just, after that, there was a while where I wasn't…I mean, right after the shooting, but that was…worry…anxiety. Yeah, we argued. The main thread was that I needed move out of the frat house. I get where Mr. So Many Sisters was coming from, but I need…shit, who'd have thought? I need people. I love our house. His—our land. I was happy in the trailer. But being alone out there is worse than being a latchkey kid ever was. That's normal couple stuff, right? We've established, I am a force of nature, and he thought he was a god among men. But real, under the surface, can't shake it angry? No."

"Until?"

"I dunno. We got a baby. I passed my boards. After the plane crash? Not immediately. Not at him. Everything but him. I got a little…impatient, when he wouldn't bring his sisters in to get his hand treated. He'd worked so hard to get there, and he broke it to get to me, and…I was scared. We'd lost enough. But he did, and Bailey was born. Things were really good. I thought…no, we were really happy. Then… Mad because he didn't go to D.C. Mad because he did. If I wasn't mad at him, it was Cristina. The day he got the Obama call was the day she and I got over the fight we'd been having since I came back from maternity leave."

"What did you fight about?"

"With Cristina? It wasn't really…envy isn't my best look, either. She said stuff about me not being great, and I was…Last year, I was. But it wasn't…wasn't what I planned on…I mean, the kids and the house and the husband weren't. I changed, that's all, and so did she, but not...she's the only other one of us who came in knowing what specialty she wanted, and didn't….. She kept getting kicked off cardio, and she did things! She hid things! B-but she still…she got to do it. She got to stay with it, and I...I switched. And I love general, but…my major was Cognitive Neuroscience. I was gonna be a neurosurgeon for a long time. I never said it aloud, because…because I'm me. I didn't want everyone to think it was Derek, or-or Mom's condition…. Losing that, it was hard, but because I was the one who was wrong, I didn't get to cry to my husband about it. He kept training Lexie, and if I'd said anything, it would've become about how I didn't know how to deal with siblings, or whatever. I'm terrible at sisters. Two months of shutting Lexie out in five years, and I'm…

"He waffled about his damn hand, like he was perfectly willing to give up his job within months, months, of slamming that door on me. And his prodigal baby sister, who he has so much moral high ground over—she's a neurosurgeon. They don't always agree, and I know, I know it's different. But we were brilliant—I was brilliant. He said he couldn't work with me, and if he'd left, the state would have…they would've kept Zola…He'd be gone, and my baby… my baby would have…shit, I can't…this is why I don't…why I never…I can't… I c-c-can't…s-s-s-shit. B-Beni B-Beni, I c-can't…I'm dr—I can't breathe."

"You are breathing, Meredith. I know, it's been a while since this happened. That doesn't mean it's not going to happen. You know how to get through. With me, breathe. In. One-two-three-four. Out. One-two-three-four-five-six. In. One-two-three-four. Out. One-two-three-four-five-six. Good. Zola's yours Meredith. She's yours, and she's safe. She's downstairs. You're safe. You're breathing. There you go. That's good."

"I'm…I'm okay. Just. Fuck. I'm sor—It's never…never hit me like that. Not that night…not any of them. When I was never gonna see her again. We both knew it was my fault…and then…. Parenting is work. Wh-what if he realized that…. What if he realized…what if he couldn't…couldn't parent with me? And…h-he'd said. H-he said it'd be okay. Just us. Even with what happened with the trial... But I don't… I could've…could've ruined everything. I don't know…if we'd lost her…if it was because I… I-I don't know."

"Losing a child is often difficult, and in a situation like that not everyone would've understood. That's not what happened, though. You were okay. I can't tell you what would've happened if Derek hadn't died. It seems like you may've had some hurdles to get over, but also that he was learning."

"Then why…why the fuck…why make me go through all this?"

"He is gone, Meredith. You're going to have to start prioritizing what you want. What you need. There may be times to factor in what Derek might have done, but you have to make sure you understand how the decisions you did make, together and separately, affected you. If you're up to it, I'd like—"

"You've got to be kidding."

"— you to share a good memory. About anyone, or anything, but not exclusively your kids. While you tell me, I want you to try to really feel what you felt then, not how you think about it in retrospect."

"Beni."

"Meredith."

"Beni."

"Take your time."

"Prom sex. There you go. Want the X-rated version?"

"Mm. Would you categorize that as 'happy?' It seems to me that it ended up being quite stressful."

"You're the worst. I quit on my old therapist, you know. I'm sane enough. Sadie'd let me out of the deal."

"I notice you haven't moved."

"Yeah, well. Fetus. I'm lazy. Uh. Okay, so, when I came out to Derek…it was not a good time for me. Not that any point in that year was great, but this was during the time I took off after Mom and I died…. Hey, Beni?"

"Yes?"

"You don't make faces when I say that. And it's not just shrink-not-reacting, because you react. I appreciate it."

"Why would I make faces? You were revived, but in your experience, that's what happened."

"Still. Uh, it was right after that, and even though I'd had this golden epiphany, I was messy for a lot of those weeks. He asked. I'd wanted to tell him months earlier, and I told myself I had to let him see who I was. I gave him the X-rated version, just listing off shit I'd done with people of whatever gender. He reacted with more understanding than anyone I'd been with, and my thoughts were so screwed up. I knew he meant what he said, but I think I expected him to throw it back at me, eventually.

"We broke up. I got myself together. Drew out a house of candles on the land.

There was a nice day a week or two after that, and we were…It was a picnic by definition, but we just had a bin with trout he'd cooked at the trailer, and a bottle of white that I think might've belonged to my roommate. We went up to the overlook he'd picked for the house. It's gorgeous. Makes you feel small, but in the way that reminds you everyone is, too. No human is anything compared to what's out there, and when you spend your days focused on how essential every human life is…. It was incredibly peaceful. I'd ended up on his lap. Those first few months, I was always as close to him as I could get. Reassuring myself he was there, getting rid of the distance. The barriers. He was firming up behind me, but before I could do anything, he grabbed my hips. Told me to snuff the candle for a minute because he wanted to ask me about something. That pretty much took care of it; I knew all the things we needed to discuss, and none of them were gonna be great foreplay.

"He, uh, had this way of holding me that—it'd always been nice, but after the ferryboats, it made it easier to breathe. I'm sure it was a psychosomatic safety thing. His arms were under my ribs, his chest was solid, and behind me…maybe it's daddy issues, I don't know, but I'd never felt that. He said he'd let go if I needed. He wasn't going to push if I didn't want to talk, and if I needed to flee the scene, he wouldn't be mad. This wasn't an us-thing, it was a me-thing; he only wanted to know, because he wanted to know me.

"I expected ferryboats. Maybe Mom's pseudo-suicide. I'd given him the frame, but no detail. Anything other than…than…'In the spring, you told me something, and I'm not sure I didn't push you into it. I'd hoped it'd take a weight off you. Maybe it wasn't enough at the wrong time. I'm sorry people have been shitty to you about it, and that you were worried I would be. If you want people to know, or not to know, that's up to you. I'll be here.'

"It was basically whathe'd said the night he asked. I would've understood if he thought I might not remember; I was trashed, but it was more like he just wanted to remind me that nothing had changed. He said that could be it, but if there was anything I wanted him to know, he was listening. I started to just say thanks, but the next thing I knew, I was telling him about knowing since I was twelve. About the queer-owned coffeeshop in my neighborhood, and about the guys next door. About the summer of Layla, and how I regretted that I hadn't told Mom, but I was glad I had something that she'd never gotten to reject. I told him about college, and giving safe passage to anyone whose coming out to their parents didn't go well— He let me talk, made sure I knew he was listening. It may've been the time he realized it was easier for me to talk if I wasn't facing him.

"When I did turn around, he looked at me like I was a puzzle piece had clicked in, and changed the image, but…but in a good way. He touched my face and he said something like… 'you give so much love. I hate that you never thought you deserved to have it.'

"He took advantage of me totally blanking out by lying me back on this stupid, scratchy blanket—he didn't have much in the way of linens once Addison left— and he went down on me. He…no one else had ever made me so connected to my body and so disconnected from my brain. But this wasn't just…him being into making me squirm so much he had to pin me and continuing past the point where moving was impossible. It wasn't 'you're bi, it's cool. I'm not even threatened enough that I have to remind you how great my dick is.' It was like…no, he was loving me, all but making me take how much he did, so…so that I'd remember he loved every part of me. Even the ones that didn't benefit him or were nowhere near girl-at-the-bar. Letting him know me; trusting him to choose me, was new. And that afternoon…it did a lot for my confidence in him, but also in myself."

"Thank you for sharing that with me."

"Yeah. I'll try to be less caustic next time."

"Be whatever you are, just be ready to explain yourself."

"Exactly."

With the tall ponytail she managed the night of the Panty Hos show, she didn't look much like the Meredith Grey who married Derek Shepherd. She wasn't riot grrrl Death either. She liked the look, but it still took her a moment to decide that was okay. It was only one night.

She couldn't see the toll the spring and early summer had taken on her in her face as much anymore. When she'd paused doing her makeup to apply and admire the lipstick Zola and Bailey had let her apply to their adorable kissy-faces, she'd realized that she was highlighting, not hiding. Her cheekbones were maybe a little sharper than usual, but she'd run with it.

The dress was a lucky find. She'd either been very hopeful, or very near psychosis when she'd agreed to use one of Cal's sitting trials to let Fati take her shopping. It'd take more than being dragged around stores for her to make up for how indebted she felt to the other woman. Even if they were maternity stores.

"There's just something insidious about the way they look at you. Like shouldn't this be the place that makes me feel less like a creepy breeder? And yet."

"And yet."

"I know when I'm being humored, Fati."

"And yet."

The dress, though. She understood that she generally benefited from being made of toothpicks—so dubbed by one of the Boston queens who tailored her school uniforms and gala dresses—but that mostly made the baby into a beach ball; her boobs weren't big enough to make up for it. Clothes that fit either fell off her shoulders or felt like the smock Lucille Ball wore on that pivotal pregnancy episode of I Love Lucy—the sack that said, "We're NOT hiding this, A Baby is Under Here! Aren't We Progressive?" Hiding wasn't her goal, but darts? Yes, please. The black dress belted high enough that supported her boobs rather than accentuating the curve.

The skirt flared enough that no one was contemplating her bony hips; she could do a lot with them, but she never pretended her ass was her best asset. Derek had loved that joke. Usually, it'd lead to clothes being removed, and him letting her know he didn't mind bony hips and flat asses. He would've ripped the subtle burgundy tights that provided her outfit's one hint of color, not caring how much maternity hosiery cost—"Guys don't care about clothes, Meredith." —Fuck that toxicity, she'd seen his closet; she'd been the one to pack all the clothes for their move, too, and considering that he'd been able to ditch her house in an afternoon their second year in Seattle, his wardrobe had definitely ballooned compared to hers. Fuck him.

If only. She absolutely would have fucked him, possibly without removing the heeled boots. It'd be worth losing the tights; it'd be—it'd be a fantasy that got traction. She almost had to give into it while wrestling the fucking nylon up her legs and over the bump. It'd be a change from reliving the really good, stupid, cheating, porny exam-room sex. She'd have guessed that everything she'd been thinking about, and told Beni about, would make it less appealing, but trying to remember if she'd noticed him pocket her panties kept her remembering the way it felt to have him take them off, and that didn't get less hot.

She'd gone over it a lot. Her primary conclusion was that, similar to the way the picnic had counteracted the time she actually came out to him— drunk to avoid the nightmares, still not convinced that the Meredith she needed to be was the one he'd love—the prom sex and panties had made everything that had been innocent and devastating for her seedy and illicit. Maybe part of the walls she'd put up during their next period of "on" had been penitence, of a sort. Getting back to where their condom-ad of a workplace relationship felt pure. It had, eventually. She didn't think she believed anything more could've happened with the researcher, these days. She had once promised to kill him if he ever cheated. Why would he have come within a hundred miles of her, knowing how much she'd despised becoming the mistress?

He wouldn't have. Derek could be clueless, but he wasn't stupid. He knew he couldn't hide things; that was why he'd fled from Addison leaving his freaking suit coat behind. This time, she was starting to think, he would've confessed; at least, before he'd said what he did. He wouldn't risk her deciding that was a lie. Before spending that night, and the ensuing nights, reminding her how much he loved her non-discerning ass, and everything else about her. She believed that.

What he would or wouldn't have done wasn't what mattered. He would've thought she was hot. She did. That was going to be something she let matter tonight; she didn't have a lot of time left before the baby got big enough to make that difficult, particularly without Derek around to make her forget her doubts. It seemed like the kind of thing that'd help her seem self-possessed once she went back to Seattle.

She didn't think she'd be packing much of the moderately-sized wardrobe she'd amassed when that time came, but the boots were definitely going. She wasn't sure where she'd wear them, but she'd figure it out.

Sadie clearly assumed she'd be wearing them to the ER from the way she gaped at her outside the condo. Fatimah was the one who offered her a hand up into the accessible town-car with the group she'd met at the cookout.

"I've got these, Die. Not like I'm gonna get wasted," she grumbled. Sadie, sitting on the opposite bench seat and holding the cliché flute of champagne, raised an eyebrow. "Also, I practiced, because I've fallen while knocked up before, and it's not fun."

"Everyone look out for the pregnant lady, got it," Pegs drawled.

"I can look out for myself."

"I really can't tell if you court disaster or defy it," Fati commented.

"Comme ci, comme ça," Sadie said as Meredith said, "Both," and then added, "Oh no, putain."

"Only class I ever bested her in." Sadie's smirk was so punchable. Girls had only ever delivered sharp slaps that always seemed meaner to her than even wallops like the ones Derek gave Mark. They were final. Relationship-ending. Meredith missed being a fourteen-year-old who could get away with roughhousing by pointing out most've my friends have been guys! They don't use their words!

"Shut up, you had a nice old Congolese lady; I had Monsieur le Spits-in-Your-Eye."

"You two are such Boston brahmin bitches." Maro laughed.

Meredith shot forward in her seat, barely getting anywhere but doing it adamantly. "What'd you say?"

"Isn't…? 'Putain' means bitch!"

"She doesn't mean that," Sadie said. "Chill, D, they didn't know."

"I'm not from— !"

"Yes, you're purebred Se-ahttle, Hah-vahd y-ahd."

"Screw you."

"My job," Fati spoke up. The laughter echoing through the backseat made Meredith forget her rage.

She was not from Boston. For the record.

They got to the venue and scoped out their seats. It was a moderately-sized arena, and the view was good. Thanks to Maro they were in the accessible seating area to the side of the stage. With the baby's tendency to add pressure against her bladder at the most inconvenient times, Meredith wasn't about to give up the proximity to the restroom; but the others planned to rotate down into general admittance, including Maro. They were thrilled at the ramp that slanted down to the edge of the pit, and Meredith realized that in most places that would be a step.

"They like corralling us," they commented. "I'm sure they think people'd get run over by motorized wheelchairs, or someone headed here'd get stuck in a crowd. It's ridiculous, if there's an ADA section available no one's got a viable suit. Let folks go down, and if they need a break up here, cool." They shrugged. "Sorry, It's my soapbox. I was more ambulatory as a kid; shit stands out."

"My daughter has spina bifida. She…Her mobility isn't affected, but she has a shunt. There have been surgeries, and there will be surgeries."

"It's okay to say she got lucky. How we experience the world is determined by any number of scales and spectrums, not one thing or the other. Maybe it's unfair to label any good or bad, because that's subjective, but we're humans, and we have made life more difficult for some to make it easier on others. In any situation, being the others is better than being the some."

Meredith usually had a difficult time imagining that one catastrophe in her life happened independently of others. Had that horrible month where everyone died really been random? Losing her mother, her stepmother, her sister, and her husband within seven years made it hard to see each as an individual roll of the dice. It wasn't much easier on the opposite side, the lucky things. How could the way her intern class clicked have been random, or that she and Derek had come to Seattle in the same year—same month?

She didn't believe in a puppet master; a sky-daddy pulling the strings. A deity that created life would be female, foremost, but Meredith didn't need another maternal figure content with letting her progeny self-destruct. What she might believe in (did believe in? Being raised to ask questions made it hard to latch onto the unprovable, even temporarily) was the existence of the strings, drawing people together and toward situations, with the caveat that the world trended toward entropy and would pull at those connections until they snapped.

Although, she considered as she caught sight of Sadie's bright red top, worn over leather pants that fit her better now than they would have fifteen years ago, they took longer to fray than she'd once thought. If she'd been asked in February, she would've said that the string between her and Sadie had broken a long time ago. Death might be the final break, but then, Fati had been right to call her out on not considering further implications of her belief-hope-faith in an afterlife. Maybe they never snapped. Maybe you were always being pulled back toward someone you loved; the same way you were pulled toward the ones you hadn't loved yet.

Could meant to be, MFEO, and multiple compatible people all exist? Was it the strength of the draw that changed? The level of connection? Beni might be certain that there would've been someone else for her, and Derek wouldn't have been at Joe's if some part of him hadn't expected to find an after-Addison. But she'd fit with him in a way that'd been different from night one. A way she hadn't found before him, or come close to in the, admittedly, shorter period that'd felt like the after.

She'd wanted to fit with Sadie. It'd taken her another decade to understand that their deeper desires had been incompatible. She and Derek could've crossed paths in New York in the early aughts while her mother had an office at the U.N., and she sure as hell wouldn't have been ready for him. He wouldn't have been ready for her. She knew—hoped—he wouldn't have looked at her twice while happy with Addison. She hoped they'd been happy, five-six-seven years in. How long had the slump that preceded her been? Had this—last—autumn been negligible? Did he have cycles? If he'd been off for years before her…if the Derek he was with-Nancy/Liz/often-Amy was closer to who he'd been then—maybe she reallyhad been good for him. Maybe she'd been seeing disdain where there was just…Shepherd.

Time to make an Ask Amelia note on her phone.

She and Derek had found each other at the right time. Maybe that was the lucky thing, and everything that followed was simply consequence. Dominos that had no choice but to fall into place. Enough, she told herself as the lights swooped down to illuminate the opening act. Tonight is not about him.

She and Derek had gotten entangled over the years, but she maintained an independent existence by holding onto a few parts of herself. This music was one.

She wouldn't have asked him to come to this with her. He would've been okay with it, even enjoyed it, the grunge and riot grrrl movement being direct descendants of 70s punk—The Go-Gos and The Runaways were punk—He'd openly disdained Duran Duran. She hadn't been sure why until Amelia's alarm blasted "Hungry Like the Wolf" through the house one morning. Meredith would've taken her to a gig like this. Callie. Alex's had iPod ended up in her car once intern year, full of Blink 182 and Bowling for Soup. She'd take him if American Idiot hit Seattle. What'd "Dr. Girl Bailey" listened to in the '90s?

Gigs were for friends, not lovers.

Not Derek, anyway.

She'd forgotten what this could be like. To become totally surrounded by music, to have it seep into her skin, draw it onto her lungs, and let it flow through her body with her blood. Forgotten how her heart seemed to sync to the beat, and every lyric sounded profoundly related to her.

The openers played mostly covers; songs by Hole and L7, songs that she'd somehow retained every word of, in spite of years of cramming her brain with anatomy, and dosages, and surgical techniques. Then, the Panty Hos came on, and Meredith both was and wasn't eighteen-nineteen-twenty again, letting everything miserable about her life out at once; all the stress over grades, all the clawing doubts about her future, every word of Ellis's that echoed in her skull.

They performed the songs she remembered blasting in her room to remind the world, and herself, that she existed. That she was powerful, because being a girl was powerful. It didn't matter how she looked, or what she liked, or whom she fucked. There were newer tracks, too, ones she didn't recognize but recognized her. That captured the struggle of being a grown-up the way the older songs encapsulated growing up.

Toward the end of the set, Misty, the lead vocalist and guitar player, who'd grown her shaved head out into bouncing curls, and added to the holes Meredith had pierced herself, took the mic.

"Okay, bitches, boys, and binary-rejectors, I have a hunch you've been waiting for this. Bastards, listen close. And know I don't mean the male-presenting-people. I mean the assholes. The jackasses. The cock-carriers who think they're gonna be owed something for coming here tonight. You're out there. Humoring her by watching these three chicks and one dick—" Manderly gave her a rimshot. "— prance around singing about hating men. They're probably all lesbians, anyway, but if you're into that…. If those words sound familiar because they've come from your mouth, this one is for you. If you've heard them from the person beside you, I love you, baby, and you deserve better. Remember: you don't have to have a penis to be an asshole."

The crowd roared, and Meredith wished she were higher up. Once, watching from a balcony, she'd counted five couple-looking duos separate after a version of that speech. She'd bet there'd be more, now. Getting older could make standards harder to hold onto, and confidence easier to lose. Hadn't she gotten tired of constantly defending worth she hadn't been sure she had?

"Time to prove you're his girl.

These are the rules he'll unfurl

when it's your turn for a whirl

well tell me more boy.

tell me more

draw only his eyes on the floor

don't let his friends think you're a whore

baby, you're so sexy, be my little slut

what're you thinking?

keep that mouth shut!

no one else can touch his toy

well tell me more boy.

tell me more."

"Hey, you okay?" Meredith turned to Maro who'd come up from the house and joined her at the rail fifteen or twenty minutes earlier.

"Huh?"

They touched Meredith's cheek, showing her their fingers came back wet. Tears. What a fucking surprise.

"Yeah. Just happens." But it didn't. It'd been happening less and less, and these tears weren't simply her body releasing an overflow of pain. They were more complicated, the untangling of a knot of memories, a mix of regrets and victories, triumphs and failures, nostalgia and hope. A few drops quickly became a steady rain, but at the end of this storm, Meredith felt refreshed.

"All right, as much as we love making you beg us to come back to the stage." Talya leaned across her keyboard like it was a lover and walked her fingers along it. "We're gonna stay up here, and you're gonna move."

"Up here —" Misty pointed to the front row. "— we wanna see all the old cunts who rioted with us. The ones who had to hire a babysitter or make your husband watch his fucking kids for once. The bitches with boxes of t-shirts and zines in the attic; who're trying to make dyed look natural, when the goal used to be looking anything but. Get your middle-aged asses in gear; whether you identify as a lady, or the word never fit, you're the ones we want to see."

"Come on, Death." Under the cover of the Misty's shouting and the crowd's noise, Sadie had appeared in front of the railing.

"What? No."

"Baby or not, Pegs could lift you down her in a second, and I will arrange it if yu don't get your bony ass moving." Meredith glared down at her. Sadie's expression was equally stubborn, and she shifted her attention to the seats behind Meredith. "Hey! Pegs!"

"Okay, okay." Meredith started toward the ramp, but it was a mess of scowling teens and twenty-somethings searching out their seats for the first time, and chains of older women holding hands to keep the group together. "Screw it."

She grabbed the top rail and lifted a foot onto the second. Without the baby, she could've squeezed under or between them, but she was seizing a moment, not losing her damned mind.

"There is a ramp! Don't—"

She hoisted herself up and swung a leg over. "I don't know what I expected." Sadie grabbed her hips as she clambered down onto the second railing. She started lowering herself down to the floor, but with the way she had to keep her arms extended to account for the baby, she couldn't quite get her foot all the way down.

"I'm never letting you forget this, shorty," Sadie informed her as she pulled up again. "Still got you. Easy." Meredith grabbed the second rail with one hand and extended her leg. "Here." Sadie held up a hand, Meredith grabbed it and let go of the top rail, her boot touched the floor.

"Ha!" she exclaimed, bringing the other foot down.

"I cannot believe you," Sadie groused, moving to stand in front of her as they began pushing through the crowd. "What happened to not wanting to fall?"

"I didn't."

"And you knew that'd work out? You suddenly have spider-powers? Been going to the gym for arm day when I'm not around?"

"Monkey bars. Demonstrating, spotting, holding Bay while he thinks he's doing them himself…." Swimming with the kids after school and holding Zola's hand and a smile while the little girl jumped in from the side. Not letting on that she spent hours in the pool on her own while they were at school or out with Cal, hoping that one day the skill would transfer to open water, whatever she'd said about giving up.

They hit a bottleneck; people trying to squeeze past a clump who were happy to stay where they were. Meredith could see Fati at the front, but the gaps weren't going to be wide enough to get through. She was ready to throw elbows. Too bad the baby bump was just big enough to be a problem and not big enough to utilize.

"Whoa, hey, make a space! We've got life brewing down there." Misty pointed down toward where Meredith and Sadie were stalled, and a light arced over toward them. "We see you, Mama. You rock."

"Hell, yeah." Wes said, tuning his bass as the chattering cluster broke apart. Somewhere in Meredith a version of herself was dying from embarrassment, but that version wasn't in charge. She let Sadie push her to the center of their group. "You good, Mama?" Meredith laughed and aimed an appreciative two-finger salute at the stage. "Excelle—" He froze, and his next words came out much higher. His real voice, not his stage voice. "Wait. Hey, can you—sorry, hey, uh, hopefully very understanding, nice pregnant lady? Can you look up here again?"

Meredith turned back to Sadie, who raised her eyebrows. The expression was a little bit "up to you," and a lot "dare you, Death."

Meredith raised her head and offered up half a wave. It'd been at least a decade since she'd seen any of them, and except for being Facebook friends with their personal profiles, she hadn't kept in touch. "HOLY SHIT, IT IS. Death! Wait… holy fucking shit, it's Death-and-Die!"

Meredith grinned. She'd forgotten the way people used to tie their names together, like they were the opening act, because they were just as likely to be together as any of the actual duos in their orbit.

"Seriously?" Manderly wasn't speaking into her mic, but Meredith was close enough to hear. "What the fuck?"

"Get up here, bitches," Misty ordered, in the same tone that would've garnered no questions from teenage Meredith if she'd said, "jump."

"And Death?" Talya added, on mic, for the whole arena to hear. "The stairs are right there. Use them, spider-mama."

Behind Meredith, Sadie cackled.

Manderly grabbed her at the top of the stairs, "We have to be off-stage by eleven," she murmured, draping an arm over Meredith shoulders. "It's so good to see you, Mer. You look —"

"Like death?"

"No, you're glowing, babe."

Meredith started to shake her head at the woman who'd once been the girl who taught her to take her shit out on the drums. Then, she grinned. She'd been going for hot, right?

She'd never been in front of so many people. Back in the day, as Misty was now informing the bemused audience, Meredith had filled in while they were between drummers. "And then she had to decide to go off and be a doctor, or some shit."

It hadn't been that simple. She'd been in undergrad, not sure what she'd do afterward, and not quite able—brave enough, stupid enough—to tell Ellis Grey she wanted to take time off to play drums in a band that didn't have a record deal. She'd introduced them to Manderly. Manderly who she'd thought was taking her to watch the encore from the wings, but bypassed them, her hand firmly on Meredith's shoulder as she continued to the drum-kit.

"Mander. Mander, no —"

"Mander, yes. It's 'Kool-Aid Guy.' You came up with that beat."

"Twenty years ago."

"Like riding a bi."

"I can ride a bike. Sort of." Should probably practice that; my job to teach them now.

"I say what I mean."

Meredith tried to scowl, but the smile she'd acquired sometime between climbing down the railing and being forced to sit at a kit bigger than any she'd played wouldn't shift.

"I'll be here. Just like we used to do." Manderly stood behind her and grabbed her wrists. Meredith stiffened for a fraction of a second, Dr. Meredith Grey who'd shored up walls that'd been steam-rolled one time too many, and then she focused on the tattoo on the back of the other woman's wrist. The triangular Citgo logo, representing the sign that overlooked Fenway Park. She'd never admit it to Sadie, but the thought that made her settle in to being guided like a fourteen-year-old discovering rhythm was home.

They'd gotten Sadie up sharing the mic with the Wes. She'd been in the same place a few of times, if they'd needed an extra harmony and Meredith could convince her. She'd trended more toward groupie. Where Meredith had abandonment issues, and intimacy issues, Sadie's were almost purely commitment, to others and herself.

"Wait, doesn't 'Kool-Aid Guy' end with a dr—?"

Wes hit the first chord of the baseline, and Manderly had Meredith's hands moving before she could finish her sentence. She did remember the beat for 'Kool-Aid Guy,' the song Misty had written about Kurt Cobain; the truth of his life, the MTV version, and the "Kool-Aid dyed guys who think they wanna be him."

If she closed her eyes, she could almost believe they were in the seedy basement of the Roxbury club where the band had had a summer residency. Opening them put her above a sea of faces that couldn't be differentiated between the flashing and swooping lights. Those were the times she came closest to freezing, and had to rely on Manderly to guide her rather than her instincts.

Right before the final chorus, Manderly let go. Meredith had a flash from a time she'd been too small to have the strength for the monkey-bars, and dropped, without a parent there to spot her. Then, the same muscle memory that saved her in the OR clicked in. There was something like surgery in making music with other people, or was something a like music in surgery; you had to anticipate and stay in sync, and the way something familiar could require originality out of nowhere— such as when the song had almost finished, and Meredith realized Wes and Taryn had dropped out, and then the light that had been bright became blinding.

"I hate all of you," she muttered. The rush of adrenaline meant to keep her alert to danger was threatening to make her hands shake and clutching the sticks would be counter productive. That tendency was why Manderly had gotten so hands-on in the first place; she was constantly grabbing Meredith's wrist and shaking it. "Loosen up."

"You choke up on Shepherd's instrument that way?" Bailey had finally demanded during a bowel resection in Meredith's third year of residency.

Thinking of that moment twelve-hundred miles and a world away from her life in Seattle made the whole situation all the more surreal. That must've been what she needed because her hands were fully in her control again.

The rudiments that she used to use to show off during solos came back quickly enough. She hadn't done any of the stick tricks she'd mastered in over a decade, and her surgical dexterity had suffered from six months out of the OR, but a couple of twirls, single and double paradiddles, and a roll were enough to impress as a civilian.

She took a breath, rolled her shoulders to release the last of the tension she'd been holding there, and then she dropped the right-hand stick, let it bounce, and caught it. She'd managed more impressive heights, once-upon-a-decade, but she'd failed at those heights, too. This she could be pretty sure of nailing. From there, she disappeared. She wasn't Death, or Meredith, or Dr. Grey. She was motion, and rhythm, and noise that would've been painful for anyone who wanted to hear their own thoughts.

The trick to the cymbal-heavy end of her solo was that at the same time that she slammed the brass plate with her dominate hand, she revived the beat of the song on the snare. Then, she choked the cymbal. It was jarring for the audience, but mentally they were prepared for all three other instruments to come back in on a repetition of the outro.

"They'd drink the Kool-Aid these guys; they'd die to fucking be him."

Manderly wrapped her arms around Meredith the second the lighting engineer narrowed the focus down to Misty again, maybe expecting the way she'd sag against her almost to the point of falling. "You're spectacular, Death. Listen to that."

The audience had visibly thinned out but retained their levels of enthusiasm. Meredith couldn't say it wasn't gratifying, but it wasn't hers. She was a sightseer, the same way she was in San Diego, a long-term visitor, maybe, but never a local.

"Yeah, because to them you guys kidnapped a preggo from the crowd and used her for free labor."

"Guess we're just lucky you didn't go into labor."

Meredith laughed. Through the endorphins that were washing out the heightened awareness brought on by the adrenaline and leaving her all blurry and floaty; she could tell that what she would jones for at the end of the high wouldn't be performing. It would be surgery. She'd taken the right path. Confirming that would be worth it, even if Alex discovered her whereabouts thanks to a really unlikely Google-Alert.

Encore Antics: The Panty Hos welcome former stand-in drummer Meredith Grey to stage for solo.

Nah. He'd never buy it.

"We're finishing with 'My So-Called Dyke,'" Manderly said. "Want another go?"

Meredith spun the stool to face her, fairly certain her expression said, I haven't seen you in years, so I'm not going to threaten to cut out and sell your organs aloud, but I would do it.

"I'll set you up backstage. We'll be in the green-room in ten," Manderly said. "Get Security to collect your group. Can't wait to hear how you two finally got your shit together."

Meredith grabbed a cookie off the craft table and stuffed it in her mouth. Anything to put off having to say, my husband died, and…. It wasn't until she caught Manderly staring at her while being introduced to Fatimah that she understood what she'd really meant.

The band's tour manager drove Meredith and Sadie to her condo hours after they'd sent the rest of their gang off in the town car. It wasn't far from dawn when they stood outside the door, trying to get their laughter under control before going in.

Meredith was pretty sure one of Cal's moms would kill her. She'd called them from backstage—a more selective version of: Funny story, I know the band, and I knew I know the band, but I'm an insecure whack-job, so I didn't let myself contact them beforehand. I need your responsible sixteen-year-old to stay with my kids while I reminisce about being a delinquent sixteen-year-old—and promised to have her home first thing in the morning.

"God, Wes's face when you said you had two other kids."

"Like his guitar told him it had reproduced."

"He'd reproduce with the guitar if he could."

Meredith snorted into her hand, failing at both being quieter and catching her breath. "Damn it, Sadie, if you make me pee myself—do you know how difficult the past five hours have been?"

"You went to the bathroom, like, eight times."

"There is a two-pound mass playing bumper cars with my fucking bladder."

"That's…that's an image. Wow. You know, for about half an hour tonight that was my kid."

"Same at the OB. Confused her a lot when Fati went with me." Meredith leaned against the door, suddenly feeling every minute she'd been awake that day.

"You okay?"

"Hm? Yeah. Tired. Shocker."

"That it? Has to have been kind of weird to see them. It was for me, and I wasn't almost one of them."

"I guess."

"Are you —? Stupid question. What thought did you have that you're now afraid you're going to blab?"

"I'm just tired, Die."

"You don't go monosyllabic when you're just tired, you go rambly. What's going on in there?" Sadie tapped the side of Meredith's forehead, and she jerked away. "Seriously, Mer, what is it?"

"It's… Please don't…They were so quick to assume, and since the cookout…or April, when I could hold anything in my stupid…my overwhelmed brain, I…ugh. No. Never mind." She dug her keys out of the clutch that felt dinky after years of diaper-bags and started trying to unlock the apartment door. Her hands were genuinely shaking this time, and she kept scraping the keyhole instead.

"Hey, hey." Sadie grabbed the keys, and methodically unlocked the door. "You're safe, okay? You can run in there and avoid whatever this is, and I'll get an Uber home, but—" She took Meredith's hand, plopping the keys back in her palm, but not letting go. "—I'm right here, and I'll stay right here whatever you say next."

"H-how do you do that? Derek always said things, beautiful things, but it's…you're in my head, and my head is very different from the way it used to be."

Sadie shrugged. "Derek didn't get it wrong for as long as I did. I know what you need because it's what I couldn't give you while we were together."

"You say it. 'While we were together.' You're Gay Aunt Sadie, and all your friends are queer, and I'm barely out in Seattle, but if I'd been with someone…. Why was I never…? Did you know you were gay the whole time?"

"Oh, Death…maybe? Men never did it for me, but I really thought…I don't know how to explain it to you. You were so.… You doubted yourself in so many ways, but that you were always so sure of."

"So, what, is it another envy thing?"

"I didn't know how love was supposed to work. I get how unlikely that sounds. Who doesn't know what love is? Wasn't I watching all those romcoms you not-so-secretly adored?"

"Shut up."

"You watched those, and you saw a model. You saw possibility. I saw…. it sounds horrible."

"I'm not going anywhere, either."

"I saw ways to manipulate people."

The desire to flee into the apartment was physical, standing in place made her calves ache in a way that couldn't be totally explained away by the boots or the baby. "Was I practice?"

"No! You were…. Most people, I wanted around for what they could do for me. Once they did it, I dropped them. I didn't care about who they were, or what they liked. You were a mystery. You'd been through so much, and so much about our situations was similar, but you were this genuinely caring, awkward dreamer. Initially, I wanted to ruin you. You surprised me. You got sharper. You could be cynical. In some ways, you're feral—"

"Why is that present tense?"

"— but you never lost the traits I'd first noticed, and sometimes I was the only one who got to see them. I don't love that I felt that way about your dark times. That I got off a little on being needed. I…" Sadie ran a hand through her hair, which she'd teased for the show almost as much as she had when they were young teenagers going through hairspray like it was—and it'd had been, thank goodness—going out of style. "I know I hurt you with the shit I used to say about being queer, and everything. I'm sorry. It's really true that I didn't understand that the way I used sex with men wasn't…wasn't what you had with Layla, or Sam—"

"He hardly—"

"Exactly. Hell, Meredith, you had more with Paul Waxman than I did with men I 'dated.'"

"I didn't have…. Seriously? Sadie, I heard you…. Saw you…. "

"Doing theater after junior high would've let people catch on to how much acting I did. It was never…great. And I know this is what you really need to know, so I'll just get it over with, I wouldn't let you claim me, or make it obvious in public, because I didn't want to lose the power I had over anyone else. If I was a straight girl who experimented, I could be whatever I needed to be. And because you…." Sadie looked down, her hair falling in a curtain down over her face.

"Because I wouldn't push, you got me too."

"Told you. Horrible."

"I kinda knew that part. Not—you're not horrible. I knew that you played on my abandonment issues. Why wouldn't you?"

"Because I loved you! That's not what someone who loves you does."

Isn't it? Meredith's reaction surprised her, but even Derek had used her fear of being left to his advantage at times, and she wasn't sure "even Derek" was the best way to think. Derek hadn't loved her perfectly. He couldn't. No one could love anyone perfectly. That was how she could acknowledge all the damage and hurt she'd accrued and love him as much as she ever had.

"Sadie, you loved me as best you could at the time. It wasn't enough, because I needed to be pushed, too. Derek—he pushed too much, sometimes, but you met me where I was…and where I was wasn't great."

"We were a codependent mess, is that what you're saying?"

"Basically."

Sadie's laugh was a bark that echoed into the gray light. "Did he ever see you play?"

"No. Pictures. Stories. Not sure how much of it he believed." Meredith leaned on the deck railing, staring out at the ocean that seemed to be calming as the world awoke. There would be three divisions of her life, now. The Pre-Derek, the Derek-Era, and the Post-Derek.

She'd wavered a few times over the past few months, about whether or not she regretted not having changed her name. Being Meredith Shepherd would've made her feel more confident in what they'd had, maybe, but only in strangers' eyes. She didn't wish she'd was, for the same reason she hadn't done it: whomever she loved, whatever they knew or didn't know about her, however well they loved her, she would always have herself—be herself.

Derek is dead.

I am alive.

I am living.