"Oh, god." Meredith gasps, already feeling tears build up behind her eyes. Cristina is beside her in the blink of an eye, looking over her shoulder at the tests.
"Meredith..." she begins, trailing off because she has nothing else to say. Unsure of how to react, Cristina takes the tests from Meredith's hands and places them on the counter, gently helping Meredith up and guiding her to her bed. The blonde quickly breaks into sobs, unaware of anything else happening around her as she tries to manage the flood of emotions she's drowning in.
"Cristina," she hiccups, and the surgeon is instantly sitting in bed with Meredith, holding the distressed woman tightly in her arms. After a minute, the blonde looks up, her face full of pain, and cries, "I'm pregnant."
"I know," Cristina responds, her heart cracking in her chest, "I know."
"W-What do I do?" She manages to speak between her sobs.
"It's up to you, Mer. Whatever you want to do I'll support you."
"I don't have enough to deal with already?" Meredith sobs. "I'm pregnant. I was repeatedly raped and beaten to a pulp, and now I'm pregnant. What the hell am I supposed to do?"
"I think the first thing would be to schedule an appointment with the OB."
"Oh, god," she repeats for the thousandth time, a fresh wave of tears coming over her. Meredith doesn't try to stop them at this point, she just needs to let everything out. Anger, pain, guilt, everything overflows in the form of tears.
After at least an hour of uncontrollable sobbing, pure exhaustion takes over, and she passes out in bed. Slowly, Cristina moves out of the room and downstairs. It's late now, she's hungry and knows Meredith will need something to eat and drink when she wakes up.
"What's happening?" Alex is the first to ask when Cristina walks into the kitchen where everyone is gathered. "We could all hear the crying..."
Cristina pauses, taking in the faces of everyone in the house, then shakes her head. "It's not my place to say. Meredith will tell you if and when she wants to. If any of you bring this up to her, I swear I will kick your ass to next week," she threatens, making eye contact with every person in the room, trying to enforce her point: she's not kidding. "Good. Now, what's for dinner?"
"Pizza will be here in twenty," Jo responds from her seat at the kitchen table, glancing at her phone.
"What time do you switch with the other half of your team?" Alex asks, looking at Derek and Maggie.
"We take twelve-hour shifts. You're stuck with us until...3:00 PM tomorrow." Derek responds, quickly doing mental math to figure out how long it will be until they switch. Alex nods, returning his gaze to his phone, where he's very enveloped in a medical article about PTSD.
He returns to work tomorrow. He's not happy about it in the slightest, but if he wants to keep his job at all, it's back to the hospital. More than anything, Alex wants to stay at the house with Meredith. It's not that he doesn't trust the FBI agents, he would just rather be there himself to protect the woman who stuck by him for years no matter what when she needs him the most.
Not long after pizza arrived, stumbling footsteps down the stairs alert everyone of Meredith's presence, and a quiet falls over the kitchen, each person looking at the doorway, waiting for her to enter. When she does, her eyes are red and swollen, her eyes empty, and one hand lingering at her navel.
She takes in everyone staring, none of them being able to hide their curiosity from her. "Ask." She waves at no one in particular after meeting each person's eye, her tone flat. The blonde moves to the pizza box, pulling out a slice of plain cheese and collapsing back into a chair at the table. No one says anything, nervous glances bouncing all around between them.
"You don't have to tell them anything, Mer," Cristina whispers, leaning over to the blonde.
"I don't? I mean, would it really make so much of a difference? I've already embarrassed myself to a fault, so does it really matter if everyone knows I'm pregnant?" She snaps back, raising her voice. At her last two words, Derek recoils like he's been smacked. Looks of shock are on the people around him. His mouth hangs agape, his throat suddenly dry. Meredith looks at him, calming herself, pain written all over her features. "I'm sorry."
"Wh-what are you going to do?" Alex sputters, unsure of how to broach the subject.
"I don't have the faintest fucking clue." Meredith spits. The room is quiet, allowing this news to sink in. Quickly, Meredith regrets blurting it out in her moment of anger, feeling the judgment of everyone around her.
"Could it be mine?" Derek asks both quietly and hesitantly from his spot behind the kitchen island.
"I..." Meredith is about to say no, but trails off, thinking. "I don't know, I don't know how far along I am."
"Want me to call an OB?" Cristina offers.
"Don't call the hospital, find a private practice or something. It can't be the hospital." Meredith decides. Cristina nods, pulling out her phone to get some names, Meredith will only be seen by the best if she has anything to say about it.
The room is left in intense silence, no one really knowing what to say. After eating a couple of bites of the pizza, Meredith sets it down, muttering curses under her breath. "I'm getting a shower," she announces, then heads back up to the master bathroom, which has been getting more use in the past few weeks than it has in all the years Meredith has lived in the house.
Maggie gives a side glance to Derek, her profiler kicking in and she studies him. Neither agent take notice as Jo and Alex excuse themselves, going to bed as they have to get up early to work at the hospital in the morning.
"You're staring," Derek whispers, still looking at the counter. The kitchen is now empty except for him and Maggie.
"I'm trying to figure out what you're thinking, how you're feeling right now, but I'm stumped. Take off the damn FBI mask you always wear and show some emotion, Shep."
"How exactly am I supposed to feel right now?" He snaps his head up, now meeting his agent's dark brown eyes. Maggie shrugs, not breaking his gaze. "How likely is it that the baby's mine?" He asks after a minute.
Maggie, always one for statistics, narrows her eyes as she thinks.
"When was the last time you two screwed?"
"Um, before. Six, seven weeks ago, maybe?"
"It's unlikely for a pregnancy to survive all the mental and physical abuse she went through. I don't know anything about any birth control she's on either. There's a chance, but it's a very very small one. I'm doubtful it's yours," she tells her boss honestly.
"I've always wanted kids," he sighs, putting more of his weight on the island. "I thought I would have them with Meredith, too."
"You think she should keep it?" Maggie frowns, surprise lacing her voice.
"That's not what I'm saying. I mean, I don't know. I don't know what I'd do in her position or what I'm supposed to say or...anything, really."
"Yeah, well, if you feel like this think about how Meredith feels." Maggie sighs, closing her eyes to think. She opens them again, her gaze hardening as she looks at Derek. "This is not your choice. You don't get to pressure her to do anything, you know that right? It's her body. Her choice."
Derek pulls back, slightly offended that she would even suggest that he would pressure Meredith into making a decision. "I know," he assures sharply, "Whatever she wants to do, she has my support."
Cristina reenters the kitchen, pulling another slice of pizza from the box and beginning to eat it.
"What do you think she should do?" Derek asks the surgeon, plainly out of curiosity.
Cristina stops chewing and answers firmly without hesitation. "If it were me, I'd get an abortion without a second thought. But I'm not going to say anything to her. This is a decision she needs to make on her own, not be pushed into any of her options by someone else." Both agents nod in agreement, no one is going to say anything to Meredith. "I pulled some strings and got her an OB appointment tomorrow afternoon. You think we should call Dr. Wyatt?"
"When does she have her next session?"
"Day after tomorrow," Cristina answers quickly, knowing Meredith's appointment schedule inside and out.
"Maybe we have her on speed dial, just in case?" Derek suggests. Cristina nods, and the three people sit in the kitchen, making small talk until there's a crash from upstairs. Everyone is up in an instant, racing up the stairs. Both agents have their weapons drawn but as they enter the master, there's no immediate sign of danger, only Meredith standing in the center of her room.
She glances up, a spark in her eyes that hasn't been there in weeks. She smiles slightly, then notices the guns in the hands of the agents, and the spark turns to fear. "S-Sorry I just um," she gestures nervously to across the room, where a picture frame lay broken on the ground. Derek and Maggie relax, holstering their weapons. "I...I threw socks at the wall..." she chuckles nervously, now embarrassed.
"You what?" Cristina speaks up.
"I-I have so many emotions at once and none at all at the same time, I don't know how to deal with them anymore," Meredith admits. "I got out of the shower and I was just...mad. Mad at William, mad at you, mad at the world. So, I grabbed my socks and threw them at the wall. I really didn't mean to knock anything over..."
"Is this something Dr. Wyatt told you to do?" Derek asks, getting a nod from Meredith.
"Obviously not the whole shattering glass thing but..."
A smile creeps onto Cristina's face and she joins Meredith in the center of the room, staring at the now empty wall about ten feet in front of them. "Give me a sock," she orders, holding her hand out.
A small smile appears on Meredith's face now as well, and she places the clothing item in her friend's hand. Cristina takes a minute to channel her anger and chucks it into the wall. The sock makes a soft thud as it lands, but Cristina now turns around, grinning.
"That feels great!" She laughs. Grabbing more socks, they're handed out to each person, the three women and Derek taking turns, grunting in effort as they fling the socks at the wall with all their might. Soon, their laughing is loud enough to draw a ragged-looking and thoroughly confused Alex into the room, who joins in the fun as soon as he knows what they're doing.
They're laughing constantly, being obnoxiously loud, and not caring one bit. This is a release. Stress, fear, anger, everything that's been building up in each person for the past few days comes out right now.
Eventually, though, Alex goes back to bed, and Derek and Maggie leave to take their posts around the house for the night.
This leaves the twisted sisters sitting alone in the master bedroom now covered in socks, but neither of them moves to clean it up. Meredith finds her hand resting on her stomach and as she gently rubs the area she notices a slight swelling, sending emotional pain through her.
"I can't have a baby, Cristina," she murmurs. Her friend is silent but looks at her so the blonde knows she has her full attention. "I mean, I'm a complete disaster. I can't raise a child with the way I am right now and if...if it's William's, how can a baby grow up knowing what their father did to me? How can I raise a baby knowing what their father did to me?"
"I got you an appointment at the OB tomorrow afternoon," Cristina tells her.
"What if it's Derek's, though? Before...if I got pregnant and he was the father, I would keep it. I know I would. I just...I don't think I can handle being a mother anytime soon."
"You know I'll support you, whatever you decide. We all will."
"How much trauma can a pregnancy take? I mean, it can't be Derek's, can it?"
"It's likely if you were pregnant before you would've lost it when you were...with William. Five broken ribs and an uncountable amount of abdominal injuries isn't usually something a fetus can stand."
"Fuck," Meredith breaths, familiar tears stinging her eyes, but she pushes them back, and taking a deep breath she quietly voices her thoughts. "I...I think I should get an abortion, no matter who the father is."