Later that night, long after Cristina had left, Meredith trapsed upstairs to her bedroom. The bed was unmade; Izzie's bright yellow cover was in a heap at the end of it.

With all the time she spent at the hospital, Meredith hadn't bothered to unpack. She simply pulled her possessions out of her suitcase as she needed them. Retrieving it from the corner of the room, she unzipped it's side pocket and removed a jumble of letters.

Most of them were from Cristina. Meredith sifted through them until she found what she was looking for- a Kodak photo of a tiny girl with Burke's dark skin and Cristina's wild hair.

She had learned through letters that Cristina was pregnant and would be walking Burke down the aisle with "a gun to his head". There were no wedding photos. Meredith assumed they existed, but Cristina hadn't gone out of her way to send them to her.

If it was out of character for Cristina to have a child, she made up for it by naming her daughter after herself. (Like Rory, from Gilmore Girls- she had written). Tina for short.

Meredith stared down at the photo in her hands with desperation. Cristina was in a hospital bed at Seattle Grace, in one of the neonatal rooms, holding a bundle in her arms. Strands of her hair were askew from her ponytail, plastered to her face with tendrils of sweat.

There was a strange tug in Meredith's midsection. She wanted that. She wanted the pregnant belly and the swollen ankles and the happy exhaustion that came from childbirth.

Just then someone knocked lightly on her bedroom door. "Meredith?"

Shoving the photo into her suitcase, Meredith rose to her feet. "What?" The door creaked open, revealing Lexie standing in the hallway. Meredith snorted. "Got tired of Alex?"

"He fell asleep," Lexie said quietly. Her eyes drifted to Meredith's belongings in a disarray on her bed. "Is it a bad time?"

"No." Meredith shoved her suitcase to the floor and climbed into bed. Lexie sat tentatively on the edge of the bedspread. She met Meredith's eyes and her own widened in horror.

"You're crying!" she exclaimed.

"I am?!" Meredith asked, bewildered. She wiped the underneath of her eye and stifled a groan when she felt dampness. She had to stop doing this.

"What's wrong?"

Now that Meredith had recognized her predicament, the tears were more difficult to control. "I don't - I have no idea." she thought back to Cristina's photo, and buckling Tina into her carseat after work the day before. Dammit. She wanted that. Disguising another sob with a cough, she choked out, "I want kids."

"Oh." Lexie looked taken aback. She and Meredith were friendly and yes, technically sisters, but their relationship was still fairly surface level. "And that's a problem, because you don't have a uterus. Right?"

Meredith nodded mutely.

"Well, there are other options. You could adopt. You could hire a surrogate."

Meredith shook her head. "I want a baby that's mine."

Lexie shifted into a more comfortable position. Meredith could tell she was a natural at this- giving advice and being a comforting presence. For some reason she wanted to resent her for it. "You can still do that, Meredith. My sister in law did it, she had her best friend carry her baby- but it was her egg, and her husband's sperm-"

"Stop it Lexie." Meredith muttered. She was too tired and had consumed too much tequila to receive practical advice at the moment.

Lexie smiled softly. "You were the one whining about being a 28 year old barren woman living in a sorority-"

"Frat house," Meredith corrected. "The bathrooms are filthy, so it's a frat house."

"Whatever. Frat house." Lexie laid down on her back beside Meredith and stared up at the ceiling.

Meredith turned to look at her. "I'm not good at being a sister, am I?"

Lexie shrugged. "I think you're a great sister."

"Yeah, well, you're all bright and shiny. Your opinion doesn't count," Meredith said, citing deeply.

"What is that supposed to mean?" Lexie asked, giggling.

"It means you should absolutely not be sleeping with Alex Karev," Meredith mumbled, turning over in bed and throwing the comforter over herself.

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AN: reviews were lacking last time :( pleeeease ramp those up! i tried to follow through on a few requests to make the chapters a tiny bit longer