Alex had shooed Meredith out of her own kitchen at Zola's request, taking control of the dinner situation as if he had never left to begin with. As frustrated as Meredith was with his actions, she was enjoying sitting with the glass of wine Alex had poured her and listening to Bailey and Zola tell her all about their days at school while Alex cooked them dinner, having started over with a pasta dish that he promised would be quick.
Every few minutes, when there was a pause in one of her children's stories, Meredith's eyes would drift in their direction. Alex stood confidently over her stove tending to the pasta in a pot while grilling a few chicken breasts in a pan next to it. The fact that he was managing both at once was impressive enough to Meredith, but that he was doing it all while holding on to her youngest daughter with one arm made her heart melt a little bit. The way that Ellis had latched her little arms around Alex's neck and refused to let him put her down had thawed Meredith's frigid attitude just enough for her to be able to smile at Alex and thank him when he walked over to tell them that dinner was ready, dropping Ellis into her booster chair.
"Do you have any vegetables that aren't burnt?" Alex asked with a smile on his face.
"There are celery sticks in the fridge." Bailey answered. "And peanut butter!"
Alex turned around to go retrieve them but Meredith caught his snicker and followed him into the kitchen.
"Alex." she said softly. "I appreciate this a lot and I'm excited you're here…" she trailed off.
"But you're also pissed. I get that and I'm sorry for just showing up." Alex told her as he easily found the celery and the peanut butter that Bailey had requested in the fridge. He turned back to Meredith and offered her a hesitant smile. "Can we talk after dinner?"
Meredith sighed and nodded. "We can talk after dinner."
Not only did Alex continue to charm her children through dinner, but he did the dishes and washed up the kitchen while Meredith bathed Ellis and got her kids to bed. By the time she had changed into a pair of jeans and a comfortable sweater and returned downstairs, Alex was sitting on the couch with a full bottle of Cuervo on the table in front of him.
"I'm trying so hard to be mad at you." Meredith spoke with a frustrated sigh. She picked up the bottle of tequila and opened it, taking a swig before sitting down on the opposite end of the couch. "I'm trying so hard to be mad at you right now. You just showed up, fed my family, and cleaned my kitchen and for what, Alex? What are you doing here?"
Alex turned his body to face Meredith and looked her dead in the eye. "You told me to come. You deserve to be mad at me, because I could have told you, but I've been questioning the choice to come back ever since I decided to do it."
"So you're back?" Meredith asked. "Because as fun as tonight was for my children, I don't want to have to explain to Zola why Uncle Alex left her, again." Meredith added the last word for good measure. She needed Alex to know without a shadow of a doubt that it wasn't just her he'd hurt when he up and left for Kansas without a word, but her children too.
Alex sighed and nodded. "I am."
"And your family?" Meredith asked, eyeing the small suitcase by her front door.
"Izzie was pretty pissed at first, but she came around to it eventually. The kids have a few more weeks left of school and then, as soon as I can find a place for us to live, she'll be bringing them up here."
"So you're really staying?" Meredith asked, keeping her eyes fixed on Alex's.
"I called Bailey a couple weeks ago and start back at Grey Sloan on Monday." Alex told her with a grin.
Meredith felt her eyes growing heavy with tears and brought the tequila bottle back to her lips. She couldn't decide what pissed her off the most - that Alex had shown up in her home without a word ahead of time, that Bailey had known he was coming and didn't tell her, or that she was too thrilled to have him back to yell at him.
"I really hate you right now." she said softly as she picked at the label on the bottle of tequila. "Like really seriously hate you."
"Love you, too Mer." Alex chuckled and moved closer to Meredith. He wrapped an arm around her and she sunk against his chest, breathing in the familiar, comforting scent of cedar and vetiver mixed with the stale smell of someone who's spent the majority of their day on airplanes.
"So…" Meredith said, continuing to fidget with the tequila label. "Izzie's pissed?"
Alex held Meredith tighter and sighed. After a few moments of silence he let her go and Meredith, realizing this conversation was likely heavier than she'd expected, turned to face him. "I told her after we talked that I wanted to move back to Seattle. I didn't know for sure it was what I wanted until the words came out of my mouth, so I wasn't super prepared to explain myself when she accused me of still being in love with Jo."
Meredith sighed and offered Alex the bottle of tequila, which he took but didn't drink from.
"Are you?" she asked.
Alex looked into Meredith's eyes and shook his head. "I don't think so." he told her. "But I… God, Mer. It's all just too much. I told Izzie that I'm not, but when I couldn't give her a better reason…" Alex trailed off and squeezed Meredith's hand. "A few days later I told her the rest of my family was still in Seattle and she didn't really like that either."
Meredith laughed brightly and a genuine smile fell on her face for the first time that night. "Alex, no woman would. Hell, do you have any idea how jealous I get hearing about your kids? Your kids, the ones that you helped create and ran off to Texas to raise?"
"Kansas." Alex offered softly, knowing that Meredith both knew better and didn't care.
"You're not the biological father of my children and I was pissed you had another family, imagine being the woman who is the mother of your children and having the same thing happen?"
Alex sighed and took a long drink from the tequila bottle before passing it back to Meredith.
"Where were you planning to stay tonight?" Meredith asked teasingly. She knew the answer but wanted to hear him say it.
"Well," Alex began, a sheepish grin appearing on his face. "I figured if you really do hate me there's always the Archfield…"
Meredith slapped Alex with a pillow and led him upstairs to get him settled in what she now called her guest room, which had once upon a time belonged to Alex.
Alex came downstairs in the morning to find Meredith on the phone
"I'm not feeling too well and um… yes, if you could cover my service I should be back in on Monday." She threw in a cough for good measure and Alex couldn't help but chuckle and the pathetic attempt to fake sick. "Thank you, Dr. Bailey."
"You're not sick!" the younger Bailey chided from the breakfast table, where he was picking all the marshmallows out of a bowl of Lucky Charms and eating them one at a time.
Alex motioned to Bailey to stay quiet, but it was too late; Meredith had already heard him.
"What?" Bailey asked the adults in the room. "You don't drink coffee when you're sick." he provided by way of explanation.
Alex chuckled and moved further into the kitchen to pour his own cup of coffee.
"You're too smart for your own good." Meredith muttered, holding out her cup for Alex to top her off.
They'd ended up draining the entire bottle of tequila in his room last night before he finally kicked her out so he could take a shower and get some sleep. Sleeping alone had been the best sleep Alex had had in months and he felt so well rested he probably could have gone into the hospital and gotten straight to work.
"Why are you sick?" Alex asked curiously as he took a seat next to Bailey and poured himself some of the sugary cereal.
Meredith shook her head at the sight of a grown man stealing her child's marshmallow-filled cereal and grabbed a granola bar and an apple for herself before joining them at the table.
"My best friend came home and isn't going to work until Monday. Do I need a better reason to be sick?" she asked, biting into the apple.
Alex laughed. "No, Mer. You don't. But if you aren't going to work, what are we going to do?"
Meredith's eyes widened with the common realization that she didn't really have much of a life outside of the hospital and she shrugged her shoulders. "We'll figure something out." she told him with a smile.
Alex took that to mean that they'd be day-drinking and watching old surgery tapes, which, after Mer got back from dropping the kids off at school, was exactly what they spent their day doing. When the nanny brought the kids home, she found Meredith Grey and her friend 'Uncle Alex' passed out in the living room next to an empty pizza box with a recording of a distal pancreatectomy playing on the television.
Thanks to HopeCamille1 for reviewing the last chapter! I wrote what may end up being the final chapter of this fic last night. We won't get there for a while but I'm very much in love with it and looking forward to sharing it with you all!
Coming soon: a bit more Cristina and Alex goes back to work!
xx Lissa