Obligatory disclaimer: sadly, Grey's Anatomy is property of Shonda Rhimes and ABC, not me.
Two weeks previous
Meredith had been surfing through the daytime television shows when she heard a knock on her door. Struggling to get up, she grabbed the crutch the hospital had given her and limped over to the door. Peeking through the glass she saw Susan, Molly, Laura and an older girl who she thought must be Lexie. She manoeuvred to open the door and managed a half-smile due to the pain of moving and the fact that she wasn't so sure if she wanted them in her house right now. The time since her accident had caused her to form a good bond with Molly and baby Laura, but she had never met Lexie, a med student at Harvard, and she still wasn't very fond of Susan.
"Hi! Um… this is unexpected, come in." Meredith hobbled backwards to give them room to enter. "I don't know what we have by way of food, Izzie cooks, not me… and I think the house is pretty clean but the couch is my new room right now so sorry if the living room is a mess. If I had known you were coming by today I would have tried to clean it up a bit, you must think I'm such a slob!"
Molly grinned at Meredith's rambling, loving the trait that she shared with her oldest sister. Picking up Laura, she moved the baby's hand as if to wave and cooed, "Say hi to Auntie Meredith Laura!" Laura's eyes found Meredith and Molly beamed with pride. "See, she recognizes you already!"
Susan had brought groceries again, causing Meredith to roll her eyes and sigh in frustration. Would the woman ever learn? "Susan, we keep telling you that you don't need to get groceries for us, we can get them ourselves! You know they do let us out of the hospital occasionally!"
Susan called back from the kitchen, "I know that Meredith, but you interns are always busy at that hospital and I like to help out any way you can get. I even brought some things that you can make in the microwave or the toaster for when you're here by yourself, you shouldn't eat leftovers for breakfast."
This last comment caused Lexie's eyes to widen in surprise. "You do that too? Oh thank God, I thought I was the only person in this family who did that, no one else understands!" Realizing that she hadn't been introduced she blushed. "Oh um… I'm Lexie by the way; it's really nice to meet you. You must think I'm crazy though, we haven't even been introduced and I'm already going on about my crazy food habits and now I'm rambling and-"
Molly cut Lexie off with an amused laugh. "Yep, we're all related! Anyways Meredith, this is your other little sister and my big sister, Lexie."
Meredith smiled hesitantly. "It's nice to meet you Lexie. Mol, you know where the living room is, feel free to set Laura up in there, I'll join you in a minute."
As soon as Molly had taken Laura and her bags into the living room Meredith turned to Lexie and really looked at her. They had some physical traits but Meredith's hair was light and wavy while Lexie's was dark and pin straight. "You know you can come in from the doorway," she said abruptly, startling Lexie who was unused to the scrutiny of an older sister.
Lexie moved forward timidly, hanging up her coat and putting her purse by the side table.
"What brings you away from school, Lexie? I heard you were up at Harvard."
She beamed with pride. "I just finished my fourth year of med school, we have a week and a half before our exams are graded and they choose a valedictorian for graduation. You went to an Ivy League school too, didn't you? I packed all my stuff and brought it back with me because I originally decided to spend some time with Molly and Laura. Then I heard about your accident and I thought that if you didn't object I could meet you and maybe we could become real sisters? I mean you don't have to be my sister or anything but even if we were just friends that would be cool because I've always wanted a big sister… even though I knew I had one out there somewhere it wasn't the same."
Meredith spoke cautiously. "Yes, I did, I went to Dartmouth and finished top of my class, much to my mother's regret." Seeing Lexie's curious look she answered the question pre-emptively. "Let me put it this way- Ellis Grey was a better surgeon than a mother and we'll leave it at that. Anyway, I don't know Lexie, time will tell. I'm… willing to get to know you, I've spent a fair bit of time with Molly and Laura the past two weeks while I was in the hospital so I don't see why I can't try this one. Just… I am not a touchy-feely person and I like tequila… lots of it. Problems? No? Good. Come in the living room, there has to be something good on this time of day."
With that Meredith made her way slowly to the living room where she started talking to Molly about Laura, leaving a very shocked Lexie Grey behind.
From that point on, Meredith had spent more time with her sisters until they became just that- sisters. It wasn't something she had ever expected to have but she was very glad that Molly had shoved her way into her life and dragged Lexie with her. She was still meeting Molly for lunch at least once a week but Lexie was back at Harvard visiting with friends after the graduation ceremony. Lexie had been disappointed that Meredith wasn't there but understood that she didn't feel up to travelling and she had to go back to work. Lexie had applied for an internship at Grace and had been very excited when she had told Meredith that she had been accepted.
All this led Meredith to where she was now- pacing around the piles of boxes all over her house and waiting for Molly to pick up the phone.
"Hello?"
"Mol! It's Mer, I have something really important to ask you."
Meredith could hear the amusement in her youngest sister's voice as she answered. "Okay Mer, do your worst."
"Is Laura at Eric's mom's today?"
"Yes, tomorrow too, why?"
"I know it's only 10am, but could you do me a super huge favour and help me paint my house? I told my new roommate I'd start it today but I have a lot to do and it's boring doing it by myself. Are you in?"
"Sure Mer, I'll be over in half an hour, okay? I'll give Lisa a call and let her know where to reach me if there's a problem. When I get there I expect details on this new roommate of yours, missy!"
"Alright Mols, thanks so much! See ya soon."
"Ciao Merrybear!" Molly hung up the phone quickly so that her oldest sister couldn't tell her off for the newest nickname.
Meredith just scowled at the phone before turning to look at the pile of boxes and sighing. This was going to be a long day.
Meanwhile in the hospital basement, 3 interns were seated on the empty gurneys holding a conference about their mutual friend. Read: Izzie and Cristina were plotting and Alex was looking at his pager and praying for someone to page him stat.
"I don't get why she's pulling away from us, I didn't do anything!" exclaimed Izzie loudly. "Then I find Addison in our house on our couch sleeping with Mer and it all just went downhill from there. I mean sure, I like Addison well enough but she's encroaching on our territory! Don't even get me started on Callie…" Izzie trailed off with a scowl on her face.
"I know! We had a small argument, sure, but now she's the Chief's favourite just because she almost drowned and Satan is always around. It makes me sick, the happiness that exudes from that woman. No wonder you two moved out!"
Izzie shifted uncomfortably. "Actually Cris, we moved out because we're dating and it's more convenient for us to live right by the hospital, Meredith's is at least a 15 minute drive. The closer we are, the shorter a drive we have and the faster we can answer trauma pages."
"I like the way you think, Barbie." Cristina eyed Izzie speculatively. "Maybe I need to re-evaluate my opinion of you."
Alex jumped into the conversation. "You know for two women who bitch about losing their friend to Montgomery and Torres you sure aren't doing anything about it. You're just sitting here on your asses. Deal with whatever issues you have with Mer and let them go. She's dealing with a lot right now and she'll talk to you when she's ready. Just because she has two new friends doesn't mean she's going to forget us."
Izzie and Cristina stared at Alex incredulously. "That was a disgustingly deep and feminine piece of advice Evil Spawn, are you sure you don't have a vagina?"
Alex shook his head, vowing to remember the look of disgust and awe on Yang's face forever. "No, but when I was hanging out with Mer when she was off we watched a lot of Dr. Phil and Oprah. You would be surprised how little there is on during the day." Alex shuddered in remembrance.
He was saved from further questioning by his pager going off, leaving Izzie and Cristina to stare at his retreating back.
"Think we should do what he said?"
"As much as it pains me to admit it," said Cristina with a distinctly nauseous look, "yes, I do."
Their pagers sounded in tandem.
"Now that this has been sufficiently awkward… see you later Cris!"
"Bye Barbie!" They both raced towards their respective assignments, with Cristina praying that she had a nice bloody trauma to deal with. Others may think it was morbid and disgusting, but hey, she was Cristina Yang. Who were they to judge?
By the time Addison got back to Meredith's place exhausted from her shift at 11pm, she was expecting to find the couch made up the way it had been last night. She was mildly irritated when she found it was covered with boxes and packing papers. Hearing voices in the kitchen, she tentatively called, "Mer, is that you?"
"Yes. Addie, come meet my littlest sister Molly, she helped me decorate today. Of course you already know each other, but just so you're re-acquainted, come say hello! Mols, Addie is the roommate I was telling you about."
Molly smiled warmly. "Nice to see you again, Dr. Montgomery. I can't thank you enough for what you did for my Laura."
Addison smiled in response. "Not a problem Molly, I was just doing my job. You're Meredith's sister- and not one of my patients- so you can call me Addison."
"Okay. By the way, you have to see what we did with your room! Mer and I were working on it until a few hours ago, it looks really good. We got a couple of other rooms done too."
The trio made their way upstairs to Addison's room. She had decided to leave it the lavender colour Izzie had painted it but aside from that it looked totally different. The mahogany bed, dresser and bedside table she had ordered the day before had been set up and matching shelves had been put up to hold some of her textbooks. They had set up her new yellow and green bedspread and hung her favourite painting directly above it. Addison had to admit that they had done a fantastic job.
"Thanks ladies, I love it."
"No problem, Addie. I also talked to a contractor today. I'm going to have the basement reconfigured to have a third bathroom and shower on a separate line from the other two, a rec room put in, a laundry room and an office for you to use. I'm getting my bathroom redone too, it needs to be more modern, although I think I'll get another tub. They said that they could start construction in a few weeks, but I thought it would be nice for you to have your own office space. Feel free to use my mother's old one for the time being though, I'm not using it right now."
"You didn't have to Mer, really. I have my office at the hospital for that."
Meredith just smiled. "I was making changes anyway, and that means you won't have to be holed up in the hospital all the time, you can actually get some fresh air!"
The two sisters and Addison talked for the next half hour or so before they parted ways- Molly to the guest room, Meredith to bed since she worked tomorrow and Addison barely managed to get under the covers before she collapsed exhausted from the day's events.
A/N: Happy almost Thanksgiving to all my American readers! I hope you enjoy your turkey, parade, family time and long weekend. Seeing as it's about 1am my time, you can thank this early update to my inability to sleep. I hope this cleared up any questions you guys had about Meredith, Lexie and Molly's relationship. Chapter 12 to follow this weekend as originally planned. Thanks again to everyone who reviewed!
Posted November 25th, 2009