She's tromping through the woods, branches snagging her hair, and scraping her cheeks. It's cold with her jacket, and it's getting dark. She can't remember, which direction she came from, and she can't hear anyone else. She shouts for him again, and gets a reply; not from her husband, but from a pack of wolves, howling in a round, one starting after the other. Twelve, twenty, she can't tell. How big are wolf packs? She stands still, trying to identify the direction of the sound. Behind her. Meaning, she turned at some point, yelling for Derek and climbing over logs and rocks. Or…Or their pack has already found hers.
That possibility ignites her body in panic, and she knows. She runs. The tree branches whip at her face, and she's going to have a spider's web of cuts on her face, and it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. She runs, only stopping to triangulate the sound, her ears sharper than anyone else on that plane would know, because it's her hands that make her a surgeon.
It took her forever to get so far away from the clearing their crashed plane created and returning to it without wandering for hours should be impossible. It's not. She catches the scent of smoke and engine fuel on the air. The wolves aren't howling now, but she can still hear them growling and yapping at each other. She is sure of what she will find; she wants to stop, to prepare, but her legs keep moving, and she rounds the bottom of a rock.
They got Lexie out from under the plane. Wait. Did they or—no. No, they didn't. Her arm is missing. The damage done by the metal on top of her saved her from being torn into further. Derek found the fuselage. If she'd stayed—but she didn't, she left, she left Lexie, and Derek, Derek is on the ground, his clothes shredded by claws eager to slash through tissue. Jagged gashes start at either shoulder and join a few inches below the—his—ribcage. There is no visible blood; soaked up by the leaves—emptied, suctioned, replaced. In the yawing chasm—Incision, cavity, abdomen, the sterile words she knows are gibberish—she can identify torn organs, and his eyes are open, brilliant blue eyes, deadened and accusatory, and she can almost hear him, this isn't how it was supposed to be.
She screams, is screaming, will always be screaming. She wants to run, to run, and keep running, and never stop, but she can't move, she can only see—
"Mer! Meredith! Wake up!"
"Derek!" He was there; he'd been there—he'd been dead. The wolves had—no, that couldn't be right. His sisters were the wolves. Derek was…she needed to find him. "Derek!" She couldn't move. She shoved against the weight holding her down.
"Mer, you gotta calm down. You're gonna hurt yourself."
She needed to get away, to find him. In the woods. She was in the woods. The clearing. Derek. Lexie. "Lexie!" Her whole body shuddered. It was dark, still dark, she couldn't see—
"Hey, hey, look at me. Easy. You're safe."
"Alex?" The weight eased off her shoulders, and there was only the darkness. "Alex!"
"Right here." He grabbed her hand.
"The baby?"
"Sleeping." She glanced over to the co-sleeping bassinet, her eyes taking in just enough light to see it was empty. "In the swing," he added.
"What about…?"
"Sleeping. Here." She took the monitor Alex handed her and toggled between the two rooms. Bailey and Zola were sleeping soundly. "Jesus, you're trembling."
"It'll stop."
"You were thrashing pretty hard before I got in here. Can I check your incision?"
"If you must." She started to sit up, and groaned, wrapping her arms over her abdomen. "Shit."
"Yeah." He piled up the stack of pillows that she must've kicked off the end of the bed. "Number?"
"Five."
He went into the ensuite, and she focused on the sounds of bandage wrappers being ripped, pills shifting in a bottle, water running. Anything that wasn't howling, wolf or wind. The blackout curtain made the room almost pitch black, and she was tired enough that blinking too long could send her into the clearing. A spleen. A lung. Intestine. No! She forced her eyes open and groped around the side of the bed until she found the Rowlf plush Fati gave her, running her fingertips over the fur, the beady nose, the smooth stitched on eyes. The textures kept her closer to the surface, gave her mind something else to process. Knitting was similar, and while she hadn't picked it up in two weeks, she'd gotten everything together for a baby hat. If she only kept it up until she started operating, it'd be good for her dexterity. She'd watched Bailey playing with Tiggy's tail at bedtime that night, and she'd wondered if what she'd had to discover came to him instinctively.
"Close your eyes," Alex instructed.
Meredith grimaced but obeyed, rubbing the side of her thumb over a seam on the plush until light popped in front of her eyelids. It illuminated the detritus of Ellis's first week outside the hospital: a mix of onesies, damp washcloths, Zola's current read-aloud, one of Bailey's Duplo boxes in the corner. She hadn't been surprised by the way the kids moved their base of operations from the living room into her room, but she kept expecting them to retreat again, in favor of being able to hear a full movie. Bailey was too little to be engaged by a baby who was too young to react to him. Zola had done the baby sibling thing already, although she didn't remember Bailey's early days. Their interest in watching their little sister ebbed and flowed. They still congregated wherever Meredith was.
"Here," Alex dropped three pills into her hand. Two painkillers and an antibiotic. She took them with a swig from the nearest water bottle. "Have you called Yang yet?"
"No." Meredith began unbuttoning the flannel she'd been wearing without an undershirt around the house. Derek would've loved it. "Does Wilson know how often I'm striping for you? I mean, first I steal her Alex…."
"Does she know you have an abdominal wound and are breastfeeding a newborn? Yeah."
"I think I should be insulted, but if you'd been complimentary, it'd be grosser."
"Torres?" he suggested, picking at the edge of the tape securing the abdominal pad to her incision. "Sof's going to be stoked."
"I know. No."
"Webber? He's acting chief, so he'll have to—"
"I haven't called anyone, okay? Wild guess, you knew that."
"They're on my ass. Really not into playing middle-man."
"Block them all. What can they actually need from you up there?" You're just an actual surgeon with actual cases.
"Arizona took over all my emergent cases. I had stuff upcoming with Pierce and Torres. Bailey… I'm just scared of Bailey." He grinned up at her, and she turned away. Not fast enough. "Mer—"
"Baby hormones, and Zola warned you, this just…it just fucking happens. You should go back after my three-week. I'll be fine driving, and the rest of it…I can handle it."
"Duh. First." He held up a finger, and she was pretty sure that with a few years' less maturity, or another day or two of sleep deprivation, it would've been the middle. "A few Steris are off, and they were ready, but these—" He indicated a half-inch length of adhesive strips. " —are half detached, and the incision isn't closed. I'm going to replace those, and redress. Second." This time he did flash a V, and she had no idea if he knew that was the an equivalent to the bird or not. "Yeah, duh, you can handle it. But I'd be a jerk if I let you." He set the bin with the bandage supplies down on the bed and moved next to her.
"I've seen how much you can carry, okay? I know how much you love Shepherd, and how devoted you are to the kids, and balancing those this year must've been hell. I know you had help; I'm really fucking glad you did, but this?" He gestured at the room; the diaper genie in one corner, the makeshift changing table on the dresser, when mostly they used a pad on the bed. "This is a two-adult situation. I shouldn't be the one with you. That should be Shepherd. I'm glad that you had him going through this with Bailey, but that probably makes it harder. Me not being him?"
She shrugged, and then nodded, trying to make wipe her face with the sleeve of the flannel a subtle part of the motion. Failing.
"And except for the fun-for-all of your appy, I'm pretty sure he was there for all the injuries and exploits, since what, the bomb? So, you got used to letting him take care of you, and you hate it, because now he's not here. It's cool if you get pissed at me over that. I'm here, and I can take it. We've done worse to each other. You need to drop the wall, though, because it's not helping you, and I don't give a shit. You can cry, okay? Whenever. 'Cause yeah, you have a really adorable baby, who looks less like a potato than most, but her dad is dead, and maybe you thought you were ready for that, but really? That's not a thing you can deal with until it's true."
"I…I just…I-I don't…I can't…"
"Words can wait. Add that to the list of universal laws you cribbed from your mom. And Shepherd. Bailey. Yang. Whoever you deem as a 'real person.' Harris is probably on it, and I've got news for you there."
"She…S-Sadie is—"
"She's all right these days. I have notes on her performance as your person when you were kids.
"I'm going to take care of those Steris, and you're gonna wait. I get it. You want to get it out before someone jumps to conclusions about what you're thinking. The people you'll cry in front of…that's Yang, Shepherd, Lexie, Harris…maybe Torres?" He coughed. "O'Malley."
She whacked him with the closest thing to hand. The freaking Muppet plush. Whatever. Life's short, no regrets.
"Little Grey excepted, they're all kind of impatient. Bet your mom was worse. I'm not. When we were kids, Amber would shut down if someone started shouting. Just, poof, gone. We had fosters who'd take it as a personal offense. They'd get loud, and she'd disconnect, and then they'd yell at her, like that would make it better."
"I did that at school for a while. Didn't talk. Afraid I'd say something wrong. M-Mom didn't yell. Sh-she just… she didn't have time to waste. 'Words are for communicating. If you can't get your ideas across, it only makes you sound foolish.' She'd…she'd answer questions. School wanted answers. Eventually she did, too." Meredith fumbled the water bottle open. Baby to feed, couldn't afford the luxury of getting dehydrated. "Sometimes…" She drank, holding up a hand, and there was another tactic she'd honed without realizing it. "Sometimes I want to ask Richard what he remembers me being like as a kid. Most of the time, I really don't. And the thing is…the thing is, in some ways, the mom I had in Boston was…seems to have been better, or more interested, or something. I think I was less afraid of her. Warier, but less scared. She didn't scream, didn't rant and rave at me, until the Alzheimer's. She was a good teacher. Not a good mom. I was five. I …." She squeezed her eyes shut against the burning, knowing it'd be a loss for her side, and maybe this was stuff she'd never let herself mourn. "I still needed a mommy. Alex, Zola's five."
"I know. It's screwed up. Hold that." She held the abdominal pad down while he measured out lengths of tape. "Did you really bake for her birthday?"
"I did." She smiled, not bothering to hold back the pride she still felt about that. "Made their Halloween costumes, too. Well…pieced together. We did Christmas cookies, and science experiments with Jell-O. School cookouts. All the 'good moms' stuff."
"Mer…."
"I had to be sure I could do it. And it'll be easier to do the stuff I want to do again, because I've been through the trial and error. They're getting bakery birthday cakes from now on; they're prettier, but if one of them wants to make cupcakes for some holiday, I won't be totally overwhelmed."
"All set." Alex smoothed the last piece of tape down. "What were you trying to say?"
"Oh. Just…It's not all you. Why I've been…. The wall, or whatever. Logically, I know a few days of baby blues isn't…after Bailey was born, I completely fell apart. I was panicked about being mommy-tracked, and panicked that I was panicked, because it made me a bad mother. Derek had heard a lot of the Meredith-thinks-she-sucks thoughts I'd had during the pregnancy, but not all of them. That day he got all…most of them." There'd been more, she knew now. Deeper down. But at that point, he'd gotten all she'd acknowledge. "It's probably good for me to let myself miss him, and definitely normal. It was a very different thing than this summer, …I don't know how to describe… This summer…..I mean, I'm still a mess, I get that, but I…I don't want to go there again."
"Mer. I believe you that it got worse, but it's not like you were hunky-dory at the funeral." He tossed the bandage wrappers into the trash.
"It kind of went…" She held her hand up and drew a line diagonally downward, stopped, moved it upward gradually, and then added another nosedive. "It was…it was…I didn't care if I infected the happy people. Wishing that felt like I might die that day, and staying in bed anyway. I cannot have gotten this far only to screw up on the dismount."
"Hey, you have a secret weapon this time, remember? Crazy chaser." She laughed. "Seriously. I promise, I'm watching. I'm just not going to tell you your business, unless I think you need to hear it. Light off?"
"No! I mean, yes. I mean…." She stopped. Took a breath. "Can you stay with me?"
"Yeah, of course. Let me get the tater-tot."
Alex put Ellis down in the bassinet, and she glanced at her phone. Two-seventeen. An hour and fifteen minutes before she'd be likely to wake. Would it be long enough to dream? The other dreams dissipated if she woke fully in between. The woods sometimes ensnared her again. She jumped as Alex sat on the bed, and he put the back of his hand against her neck as she started unloading the pillows propping her up.
"You're still all clammy."
"So hot, right?" She reached for the lamp; her fingers hesitant on the button. When she clicked it off, she immediately felt like the darkness was closing in around her, and the plush she was kneading wouldn't be enough to pull her out of it even before she went to sleep.
"Is it the water?"
She almost laughed. Wouldn't that be easy? Big blue wet thing freaks you out, leave it behind. The contradiction that the source of one of her lasting traumas soothed her in the face of another wasn't rational. It simply was.
"No. The plane. Sorta. It's the woods and-and Derek, and Lexie, and…."
Alex gripped her shoulder, bracingly, and it was almost enough to make her tear up again. With the exception of the times Sadie had stayed with her, and the two nights Cristina had been able to spare—should be grateful she could make it at all, but they all left. They just left. Of all the times to listen to me-She hadn't gotten anything close to the reassurance she'd gotten from Derek holding her at night; his arm right under her rib cage. She'd learned to sleep without him, but she hadn't learned not to miss it.
"Only tell me if you want to talk about it. Or need to."
She didn't want to, she really didn't, but if it didn't get the dream out of her system, it'd pull her further away from possible R.E.M. sleep. Alex had dated Lexie, or whatever they'd called it. She couldn't tell him everything she'd told Fatimah.
"I've read his chart. I know what they did in the interest of fixing bleeds that didn't matter or were symptoms of the damn brain bleed. They might as well have been…been wolves. Like the pack we could hear out there. In my worst dreams, they are," she simplified.
"Jeez."
"I'm a general surgeon; an open body cavity shouldn't bother me, but I've seen just enough animal attacks to make it… bad."
"There's a huge difference between a draped patient and carnage, Mer. That'd freak any of us the fuck out."
"Maybe," she pretended to allow. She wasn't sure. Would she be ruined for the O.R., too? A terrible surgeon, wife, sister, clinging as hard to "mommy" as she had in April?
"Meredith! How are you? How's the little love? … Meredith?…Oh, my dear, I know. It's the day."
"Sorry. I shouldn't…I shouldn't have…."
"You can always call. Always."
"I'm not even…never been…I never did a big thing for him. And he…you know, he acted like it was fine…but he was so good at-at the birthday…the birthday thing. I tried to make his nice, b-but I thought there was time. Fifty. I had ideas for his…his fiftieth. Thought I'd have time to get better at it."
"Why wouldn't you? I can tell you for sure he appreciated everything you did. He was miserable over missing it last year."
"I, um. I was…I wanted to fly out. Surprise him, or whatever. Grand gesture. B-but we were…we weren't…I was afraid I'd make it worse. A nothing birthday is better than a bad one, and we were…I should've done it. Called a truce."
"Perhaps. I think the time he was in D.C. was good for him, though. Derek thought he wanted to be a high-flyer his whole life. In Manhattan, he believed he owed Addison a certain kind of life—one we didn't have, and one I don't think she particularly cared for either. She could navigate the upper-crust, and of course everyone had babies, but she didn't stop doing more experimental work. Had Derek done the same, he might not have resented her. Had she been ready for a family a few years earlier they might not have shut each other out. But that home-work-galas life? That wasn't for either of them. He truly believed he wanted it, but the life he had with you suited him far better."
"She's happy now, too. We, uh, we talked for a while when I told her. She asked if it was his driving. She told me more about the motorcycle accident than he ever…That was one of the first true things he told me, and I didn't have time to ask…."
"You couldn't get through forty-eight years in eight, sweetheart. He was so embarrassed about that accident. I don't think he had issues with speeding again until he was being arrested for it."
"Jackass. I mean—shit…goddamn it…sorry."
"He was a jackass. He knew what it was like to worry about your loved ones; he should've…well, he should've obeyed the speed limit, but he really should've realized it scared you."
"I didn't tell him, so… I wasn't great at…still not great at telling people things. Knowing when to tell them."
"You shouldn't have had to."
"Oh."
"If he could've just sat still. Keep an eye on Ellis; he could move his little body all over a blanket before he rolled over. Staying in one place, and building a foundation wasn't his way. If he decided one situation wasn't working, he'd find the next big opportunity. I don't know how many times I asked him if he was sure you would want to leave Seattle. You were settled. I could see that the day I met you. He always said you'd love it; the house was perfect, but I was never surprised that you stayed."
"The houses. Always the houses. He could charm a realtor in seconds, and have the listings they didn't show anyone else, and yeah, I liked the houses, but I don't actually like starting over."
"You know that it's not going to give you a blank slate—or that a blank slate isn't all it's made out to be. I think D.C. did a good job of that for him. I'm sorry if that sounds callous."
"No. Not at all. It's reassuring. I really, really hate that we lost that time. That for the past few months, and the next, any time I think about what we were…what was happening a year ago…s-sorry…sorry, I'm…."
"Don't apologize to me, sweetheart. You're all right. Are you alone down there?"
"No. Well, now, yes. Alex…Karev? He brought the group Zola was in to Seattle? Anyway, he's staying here. He's dropping the kids at school. We're going back with him after my six-week. That's the plan, anyway."
"Sounds like a good one."
"I hope so."
"Meredith, this might not be my place, but in case you need someone to say it, if you're not ready, or if you don't want to move back to Seattle—"
"I do! I want…Most of the time, I want to, but there's also…I know it's the…the tired, and the baby chemicals, and…. He should be with us. He should have gotten to know about her. T-to hold her. And Bailey, he's not gonna…he doesn't remember. I would never…I wouldn't have them without him, and I know the universe isn't fair. That actually, we're pretty lucky. But I don't care. I just want Derek."
"There's nothing wrong with that. Nothing. It's not fair."
"I was better. Things were okay, and I was ready to go home, but I don't know. Now, I don't know."
"They'll get better again. There will be days that are worse. You won't be able to predict them, not as easily as you could this year. Birthdays, holidays, sure. Sometimes it comes out of nowhere. Having him wrenched out of your life is an earthquake, and there will be aftershocks. It's a pitfall of love, I'm afraid."
"Stupid. I used to think love was a choice. Like anyone would choose this…. I didn't mean to break down on you, I called to see if you were okay, because he was such a boy scout about calling on his birthday…."
"Birthdays and Christmas, if they value their inheritances. Not that there's much."
"Christmas! Did you talk to Amelia?"
"I did. She was…hmm…chipper. She's going to go to the cemetery for me, today. Humoring me. I'm less concerned that she's off the rails, but I get the sense that she's going to hit a wall, at some point. She let Derek in at points where she shut the rest of the world out, and she'll have to feel the loss of that bond."
"Yeah. I'll try to…I haven't talked to anyone, but I'll be around in a few weeks if she needs someone. Assuming she doesn't hate me."
"Amelia has never had a sister she didn't hate, but Derek loved you, so that shouldn't be an issue."
"They really…? Oh, little goblin is waking up. She's gonna be ready to eat as soon as her eyes are open. Um, would it be helpful or unhelpful for the kids to call you tonight? We're doing breakfast for dinner, and we'll talk about him, so I thought if there are birthday stories from when he was a kid, it'd be less of an abstract...even for Zo, last year was a FaceTime call. If you don't want—"
"Of course I do. I'll be in all evening. And Meredith? I don't say things simply to be polite. You can call me whenever you want."
Meredith stood on the beach watching the early sunset. The colors were similar to the shades on the fabric of the ring sling holding Ellis tightly against her. She liked being worn, as much as a twenty-five-day-old baby could like anything. She was awake, with her cheek pressed against Meredith's chest, one fist opening and closing in movements that were far less jerky than they'd been a day or two ago.
"It's so pretty, sweet girl. I hope your vision develops quickly enough for you to see. You won't remember, but we will. We'll tell you all about the nice beaches where you were a tiny baby. You've spent so much time here. Do you know that? Does it all sound familiar?"
"Mommy, look at me!"
She turned to wave at Zola, who was almost on her tiptoes trying to reach the push-bar on Bailey's stroller. Alex kept them going with occasional shoves that looked casua, but were well-timed in the face of near-collisions.
"Zo-Zo practice," Bailey explained as they joined her, and she leaned over to give him a hello kiss. He'd gotten less whiny about not being able to be picked up, and counterintuitively, that made her more concerned. She gathered him on her lap as much as possible whenever Ellis wasn't nursing and lay down with him for cuddles at bedtime. She'd only fallen asleep there once. Reading to Zola half-an-hour later had felled her three times.
When she'd gotten through three pages of Ralph S. Mouse and then been running through the woods, she decided they were going to move that activity to the sofa. Other dreams had taken advantage of her frequent and short sleeps and found their way into the rotation. She'd followed Derek through Dillard again that afternoon, and made Alex go through the chart to see if he could find something she hadn't about when or whether Derek had been conscious.
Could he have known?
"I can get good at pushing Bailey, and Baby Ellis will be easy," Zola explained, hugging Meredith around the waist with movements that were as controlled as her sister's were uncontrolled. She'd been fascinated with the fact that Meredith's incision matched up with the bottom edge of Anatomy Jane's pregnancy belly, and was showing more interest in the other organs in the womb's proximity than she ever had before. Maybe she'd specialize in general, after all—or maybe she'd be an accountant.
She'd also been pretending to nurse her new doll, who'd been named Ramona. Meredith had been expecting the question she'd gotten doing Zola's hair on Sunday night, but she'd been glad her daughter was watching the digital picture frame Meredith had given her for Christmas, and not her face.
"Mommy? Did you feed me from your nipples?"
She'd read the research, taken the supplements. Derek had been on-board once she showed him the article that pointed out that breast stimulation made it more likely to work. Well…there'd also been a discussion, and him worrying that if it didn't work, she'd blame herself. It was takes weeks-maybe-months thing, and when she'd given it up, she had blamed herself, but by then a lot had changed. Eight-month-old Zola, who was starting solids along with milk, had been taken from them, and anything done in optimism felt like a curse. He hadn't mentioned it over the long, miserable wait, and she'd known him. She knew that if she'd said something, he'd say something idiotically male, like maybe it's better… she's coming home, but if…better for her to not be bonded that strongly….harder for you…She wouldn't have been able to stay quiet, because if he'd thought she wouldn't be equally devastated either way, or that failure would ever be better to her. Especially failure at something meant to be natural, when Zola felt naturally hers. It hadn't been until he watched her nurse Bailey in the early days at home that he'd brought it up. "Mer, when Zola came home, and I wasn't there… Did the supplements—?"
"No," she'd interrupted.
He'd heard it in her voice, or read it in her face, and she hadn't wanted him to, because it was so much easier to pretend those months hadn't happened. He'd crouched next to the glider and kissed her, leaving his hand resting against her cheek. "I'm sorry. I know that meant a lot to you, and I should've asked a long time ago."
"It's okay," she'd said, even though she was giving away the lie by crying. She'd been perpetually crying for two days at that point. It'd pass. "Not a problem, this time."
"It wouldn't be a problem regardless. Your his mom. Whether he's on formula, or if we have to supplement with it. Just like you're Zo's mom." He'd meant it, but somewhere in her had been the doubt that he would've felt the same way if she'd been one of the up to fifteen percent. Two years, a death, and a lot of therapy later, she could trace the doubt to its source. That didn't mean she could exorcise it.
I hadn't had a baby yet, Zo, so I couldn't.
Accepted as fact for so long, the fib would've been simple. But she was a doctor, and she tried not to lie to them. "I tried, big girl, but it's not easy for someone who hasn't had a baby to get their body to make milk. You have to kind of…trick it, and it can take a while. You were already eating some grown-up foods, and it was important for Daddy to be able to give you bottles, too. When a baby is adopted, you want to cuddle them so much to make up for all the baby time you missed." She'd hugged Zola close, a little afraid that this would be the day that Zola asked about that time..
"That's a good idea," she told her on the beach, taking the strawberry milkshake Alex handed her. "We're going to switch back to the double, though, until Bailey's too big to ride."
"Then I really gotta practice and be strong."
"How about you finish your dirt cup first?" Alex said holding down a cup for her.
"Dirt cup?" Meredith asked.
"Chocolate ice-cream, Oreos, and gummy worms. There's a pudding-based version on the peds menu. Bailey wasn't into it."
"Dirt nasty," Bailey made a disgusted face. "Spit it, Bay, pft, pft. Got a shake." He held his cup up. "Pretty like Momma's," he pronounced. "Share it Ellis?"
"Not yet," Meredith said. "She only gets Mama milk. You're probably half strawberry shake anyway," she told the baby.
"The rest of her is strawberry Frappy-cinos and Fati's spaghetti," Zola said.
"Excuse you?" Meredith demanded, and Zola giggled. "You know what the best part of baby-wearing is? I have two hands free," she said, casually advancing on Zola, who could've escaped if she'd actually wanted to, but was standing still, wiggling very slightly away from Meredith. The shriek of laughter she emitted when trapped and being tickled made Meredith pause for a second, checking in on Ellis. The baby looked up at her, unfazed. Maybe she knew her sister's voice, but maybe she also knew Zola didn't make unconstrained noise nearly enough.
They continued idling up toward the condo. Meredith could walk farther and for longer than a week earlier; she knew that, but it didn't make it less frustrating to feel herself slowing down within sight of their building. Alex shifted his grip on the stroller, pointedly and silently. She conceded the need and leaned on it, watching Zola switch between skipping, twirling, and running ahead of them.
"Hey, real talk, how much does Wilson hate me?" she asked. "Equal to last year? Was equal to last year, and then you decided to spend six weeks here? More than last year, and now I'm gonna get shanked by a scalpel…?"
"She's had me to herself, in our bed, all year. You're in the black."
Meredith scoffed. "You texted me from Joe's too much for me to buy that, try again"
"She worked more night shifts. You don't have to include her on the apology tour."
"Good to know, but it's not that. I need a favor. For Zola. And Bay, and probably Ellis, eventually."
He raised his eyebrows, and she looked up to check on Zola's position, only to find her standing still, about six feet ahead.
"Doggie! Friendy doggie!" Bailey reported, a boatswain in his crow's nest. Meredith squinted ahead, hoping he'd decided all doggies were friendly, but…nope.
"Shit," she muttered. "Zola—" before she could say by me, please, Zola came flying back to them, and pressed against her hip like she'd been attached by magnets. "Whoa, love-bug." Meredith stroked the top of her head.
"He's gonna be mad I said mean things."
"You didn't. You werepolite, and you told the truth. Alex, hang on."
Looking bemused, he stopped, and watched her unclasp the chain around her neck. She let it fall into the pocket of Derek's shirt and slipped the ring onto her finger. Rather than grabbing onto the push-bar again, she looped her arm through Alex's, positioning her left ring finger in a way that made it visible, if not quite on display.
"Play along," she murmured. "Hopefully, we don't have to intera—"
"Can pet you doggie 'gain?"
"Of course, buddy! Elvis just told me how much he was hoping to see our friends. We heard those sirens a few weeks ago." He'd squatted next to the stroller to speak to Bailey, and seemed as innocuous as he had at the beginning of their first exchange of words, until he looked up at her, and she met his eyes behind his sunglasses. "Glad everything came out all right."
Meredith resisted the urge to clutch the baby against her and held the hard stare until the guy turned to Zola. She stepped between them, no longer caring if that made her obvious.
"Shy little monkey tonight."
Meredith flinched, and the corner of his lip twitched, just enough. Yeah, I meant what you think I meant.
"And this must be the Daddy she's so devoted to." He held a hand out to Alex, who took it without speaking. Meredith watched with more than a little vindictive pleasure at the way the Scarecrow's face went pale, while Alex's didn't change. "What do you do, then? To have a grip like that, and to stash such a colorful family in the condo on the off-season?"
"I used to be a wrestler," Alex said. "Then, I became a surgeon. My specialty is assholes. If you don't stop talking out of yours and leave them the fuck alone, I'll come sew yours shut for you." He shoved Bailey's stroller forward, and this time the guy's foot did end up under it; Alex must've wheelied it just enough to keep the treads from digging in.
Meredith could only hope he had a plan for talking Zola through that, because trying not to cackle in the Scarecrow's face was putting way too much strain on her mostly healed incision as it was.
Derek would've charmed that guy until he'd thought they were friends, and then say something devastating. It would've been a beautiful takedown, but it would not have come nearly as close to what Meredith would've done herself if she'd run into him without her kids to witness it.
"Okay, I'm good. Go, Alex. I'm not gonna start doing calisthenics as soon as you leave."
"I can attest to that."
"See? Alex, Beni, Beni, Alex. Leave. Hey, whoa, not the baby. Er… is that okay, Ben? She ate in the car, and I doubt she'll wake up."
"Fine with me."
"Great. Goodbye, Karev. Good grief, I was about to sign him into play-care. I thought Derek hovered. I didn't even die this time."
"We could've done this on the phone again."
"No, I wanted out of the condo. Progress right?"
"Absolutely. Over the next few appointments, I'd like you to be especially aware of that. Progress you've made in here, and elsewhere."
"Mm. Okay."
"Why do you sound doubtful?"
"I'm not. It's only that I feel kind of stalled. Which is stupid. Having Alex here is like a physical representation of progress. I've had to let him take on a lot with Bay and Zo, way more than I delegated to Fati and Sadie were…were helping me over the summer."
"How has that been for you?"
"Fine. No, honestly. It's hard, sometimes, that I can't get down on the floor with them yet, or watching them out on the beach, but when they're with me…. I've been their primary parent for over a year and a half, but part of that…being the only parent is different."
"And while you've been their only parent, you've spent almost all your time with them. You have a very strong bond and losing that scares you. You've been concerned that allowing another adult into their day-to-day, and far more about your return to work. Both because you don't want to lose it, but because they, like you, won't have another parent to turn to. No matter how close they are to another adult, it won't be the same as having a secondary guardian."
"In so many words. We've had a nice routine here. There won't be daily beach walks and after-school park trips."
"Quantity of time is important to children, but quality time is, too. Consider which activities here they particularly respond to, individually, and together, and see if you can adapt them. Daily can be weekly, or monthly. For instance, I assume Seattle has libraries?"
"Yeah, close to the hospital, actually. We do that. Did that. Um…We used to do Sunday picnics; we could do that once a month. Maybe because I was an indoor-kid I love watch them explore outside. And, hey. We have forty acres of land. I don't know how to have forty acres of land. I was happy in the trailer. There's still so much I don't know."
"Are you ready to learn? To take on the parts of your life that were so tied to him?"
"I think so. I've faced the photos, and the chart, and the insurance; how hard can the land deeds be? I'm not planning on developing it further, and I know who to call if the bears start coming around too often. They're like raccoons; they'll get acclimatized if they figure out where to get leftover pizza regularly."
"You're serious?"
"Ask Alex when he comes back. He lived in the trailer for a while. Then he bought my house. I've never been kidding when I say he's younger-me with a dick.
"I'll have time before going to work. To go through the study and figure it out. Do I…Do I get rid of Derek's stuff?"
"That's up to you. Some find it easier to have fewer reminders; others consider keeping everything the same a tribute of sorts. The question to consider in moving forward is: is the trauma of doing this going to be more than what I'm currently experiencing? And if the answer is yes, give yourself permission to wait."
"Me and Carolyn, holding out Havisham-style. She was nicer to me than I…She was really understanding when I broke down on her on Derek's birthday."
"Not more than you deserve."
"Objectively, I guess not."
"Excellent deduction."
"Did I tell you she…? I don't think so, but tell me if I did, because I have no idea what I've said to anyone in the past four weeks. Right before Christmas, she…. He wanted to be cremated. She admitted…apologized, and it was so thoughtful. Shouldn't that settle something? For me?"
"Last I heard, you didn't think she knew how much it affected you."
"Well…no."
"Your distress wasn't related to her directly, was it?"
"It was about letting her overrule me, yeah. I'm sleeping in three-hour incriminates, all day, and half the time I close my eyes my husband's body is waiting for me. The dead version of his body. Staring at me. Like I…because I betrayed him. The wolves, or the drowning in the grave. He didn't shut out his family, but he'd distanced himself from them, and I still…She knew, really knew, but they all—all Shepherds think they know best, and I saw that they weren't always supportive the way he thought. I trusted him to see what I missed; maybe a little too much, but I couldn't do that for him? Why didn't I push? What if the last decision I made as his wife was a betrayal? And my last choice as Lexie's sister…As Mom's—"
"Meredith—"
"I couldn't do the last thing she asked me for, because I got her wrong. She wasn't asking to abandon me; she knew she was already gone. I could've been with her. I wanted to be with her! I could've stayed with Lexie for five minutes. I was so scared for Derek, and I didn't know—but I knew what a fucking crush injury meant. She knew. She had to know she was dying, and I could've told her…. He wasn't all I had! And Derek…I thought I got that right, and it didn't really matter. But it did. It-it mattered to me. I have a baby, a tiny, sweet baby, I'm between eighty to ninety-five percent Oxytocin and endorphins at any given moment, and my dreams are all about corpses."
"That must really suck, first of all. We can take a moment to acknowledge it sucks, and it's not something you deserve."
"If I—"
"Meredith, listen to me. You know better. You're exhausted, and your default is thinking that you caused the horrible thing, because as much as you believe in the randomness of the universe, you're human. That's all. If you'd known your mother's intentions that day, you would still have watched her bleed out. The trauma would remain. Her requesting that you do it again—"
"Beni, I've asked for the same thing! I don't wanna live with Alzheimer's. I don't want my kids to have a mom who…I told him to euthanize me the second I showed symptoms; I would've let him wait for a diagnosis, if he'd needed it, but I-I don't want the life I made my mother live."
"Your mother made choices. Consider the difference, here. You're prioritizing your children's best interests, based on your experiences. Your mother choosing long-term care versus at-home care allowed you to continue your career. She was not acting in your best interest in requesting to refuse that procedure."
"If she thought I was unfocused because of her—"
"Forty years from now, do you think their only parent's death would make it easier for your children to focus?"
"Someone's optimistic. Mom was forty-eight. Twelve more unloopy years. Six after that, maybe a little longer, if my heart doesn't get too hard."
"You're not her clone. And if it does happen when this sweetheart is eighteen, it'll make her first year of college far more difficult than—"
"Having me drooling in a posh sitting room?"
"You believed your mother was at peace, Meredith, I understand that, but you had, what, three months left of intern year? Would none of that have been less tumultuous if your mother had still been alive? Particularly if you'd thought, which you would have, that you'd been forced to relive a defining moment in your life, and make a choice that felt completely unnatural to you?"
"I believe in quality of life. She could've had a good death, and I would've been there."
"What would that have done to you, Meredith? If she'd been capable of making the choice, perhaps that would've been one thing, but officially she did not have that right. She waived it in the legally binding paperwork. Unofficially, she had a history of not considering her life relative to your best interests. There was no reason to have you in that kitchen. To forbid you from calling 9-1-1 immediately. Asking you to do that again, you don't think that was selfish?"
"Yes. It's possible. B-but if it was what she wanted…."
"When we've discussed that day, you've been pretty certain that 'lucid' might not have meant 'coherent.'"
"I'm not sure. I thought what she said about med school…but there's also…she might not have gone all at once. Richard said she lost lucidity an hour before I came in, but it might not have been as abrupt as we understood it to be. That doesn't mean that she didn't know what she wanted. She might've unconsciously had insight into how she felt while she wasn't lucid, who knows?"
"She might not have. She'd been deemed unable to make decisions for herself. She chose you to be the one to do it. You didn't know her level of consciousness on a day-to-day basis. You didn't know a treatment wouldn't come along any day. There was something that could be done about the condition threatening her life. You weren't ready to give up on her. To give her up. And the last thing she asked you for—that you could be beholden to—was to make those decisions."
"Still shoulda taken the day off and waited with her. I'd have been there. I know she failed, and I probably wouldn't have considered her family if she didn't have my DNA, and I'm a total hypocrite, but she was my mom. She was also Ellis Grey, she would've wanted me to be at the training. It's all.., all the 'good death' stuff is sentimental She hated that. but if none of it was important to her at all—family, or whatever—why keep me? So...so she chose to be my mom, and I…I don't know."
"You did what you could do, with the information you had. What's wrong with sentiment?"
"Tenderness, feelings, nostalgia. Basically, the anti-Mom. And…I guess nothing. I am, more than she'd want. If I wasn't… I think fighting against sentiment might've made losing Derek harder. It also would've made it easier to be sure I made the right choices."
"You and Derek discussed end-of-life plans?"
"Yeah, and he wanted to be cremated."
"You didn't have much experience, if any, with open-casket funerals or embalming. Had he?"
"Uh, his dad was. Some whole thing with the closest undertaker being a customer, and a fellow vet, and going all out to fix the damage…. It feels like a lie…and it might be…my first understanding of funeral homes and embalming came from them refusing to work with adults I respected. Guys who couldn't get their friends home because embalmers wouldn't work on them. Maybe it's all sentiment going back to that. Not about my husband at all—"
"And that would be fine! What about beyond his father?"
"Extended family. An uncle, not long before we met, because there was this whole thing about how Amy couldn't be a pallbearer, because she dropped their uncle—before she got sober, which she is—and I was getting so sick of the Sisters Shepherd, I told her that if she wanted to try to carry the whole damn thing herself. Why couldn't I be that way about—?"
"Was he adamant about cremation?"
"He wanted it. He was clear. It's better for the environment, and we could spread his ashes on the land, and in Manhattan. Always trying to trick me into visiting his mom."
"Did he say anything negative about burial? Beyond the environmental effect?"
"Not exactly. Once, I said something stupid, and uncaring, and…"
"Meredith."
"Okay, but it was. I was out with him and Mark, which meant drinking and heckling them. Mark started in on this whole thing about how plastics is an art, and he did museum quality work. I said that was true for all surgery. It was an art, and you didn't always get to be proud of it. That it's awful to lose a patient for hundreds of reasons, but one of them was that you could do gorgeous work and have it be reduced to ashes within days. Which is gross, and I'd had a few bad outcomes, and it was in the in-between time with Zola, but I still…I didn't mean…I don't want…."
"You weren't suggesting BodyWars."
"No. That's…if someone gave consent? Everyone should be able to learn about the body, but consent is nonnegotiable."
"What did Derek say?"
"Nothing in the moment, I don't think. Mark and I went off on something else. That night, I freaked about how being a twisted person who didn't deserve a kid, and he said…he said he liked how I would say the thing I was thinking, even if it wasn't couth. I remember he said couth, because I was drunk and panicky, and I thought it was hilarious. It meant something though. I hadn't…that gap….it wasn't good. It wasn't like our breakup. I'd never, ever say that; it wouldn't be true, but…we did…I'm not sure it would've been okay, if we hadn't been able to adopt her, but I could believe when he said it. Right after they took her? No way. We'd both screwed up, and…I mean, him leaving is why they intervened, but if working with me was going to be a problem, it's better that we knew. Whether or not we dealt with it right. And I needed to know that he didn't…that he didn't come back because that's why they took her. And that was one of the stupid things that showed he still loved me.
"I guess I said something about the depths of my shadowy brain, because we ended up on me telling him he could make sure it got sliced up for Alzheimer's research; either because I got it, or I didn't. He said he wished he wanted to go to science, or the body farm, because researchers and med schools have never had enough cadavers, but he'd spent too much time with med students to want them dissecting him. Somewhere in there, he implied that I would've thrived as a body-man in the nineteenth-century, which is ironic at this point, but then was pretty on the nose."
"When did you discuss his exact wishes?"
"Couple weeks after the shooting. I didn't know what he wanted if he wasn't already burnt to a crisp from his damn car exploding… and he had the audacity to say that that would simplify things, and I said I was gonna be the one to kill him. He talked about going to his dad's grave, but, um, said he felt closer to him other places. When George died, I said I didn't want to rot underground. I knew it wouldn't be me, and maybe I'd been traumatized by Buffy—you know, where she wakes up in the casket? Cool, but it skeeved me out. I wasn't pbobic…I'm not; whatever the kids want to do with me…maybe I could still be a grave robber, if all my issues are personal…."
"He didn't say anything to that?"
"Um. I think 'no one would want that?' I guess if it bothered him, he had chances to say so. His advanced directive…I let them disregard that part, but we'd revised it after Lexie. We talked a lot about the kids, and about how neither of us wanted to have to deal with new-person sex. And being unplugged. He, uh, surprised me a little, because I thought he might be all 'wait x amount of time for a miracle,' but, no. I would've. Whatever he wanted. I would've done that."
"They're very different decisions. I can't speak for him, obviously, but it doesn't seem like he'd keep a secret hatred of the idea of embalming from you. Also, that wasn't the last decision you made as his wife. Technically, you were a widow at that point, and figuratively, you're the one who determines when that changed. It doesn't have to be in the same place in all facets of your life. Regardless, whether you'd say are or were, you are his wife, you were his wife, you are his widow, and the only right way to do that is to be you. You were not a terrible wife because you let his mother overrule you on one of the most stressful days of your life. I'd argue that makes you a pretty considerate one. He was the kind of guy who wanted his mom to be happy. If it didn't directly interfere with his plans, that is?"
"That's him."
"We've discussed before that you didn't anticipate being the one to survive him. You're wondering if you didn't pay close enough attention when the possibility came up. You did. You might've been bothered by the idea of burial at the time, but you didn't know his would be as disturbing to you as it had been. That kind of realization is something you're used to sharing with him. You spent a long time figuring yourselves out together; you got through the plane crash that underlies this issue together. But Derek's opinion won't change retroactively. Yours will. Your opinions on him might. That says nothing about you as his wife. And that you were desperately afraid your husband was dead has nothing to do with you being a sister. You were not being rational in the aftermath of that crash. No one would be. You've screwed yourself over here, Meredith, because you told me what Lexie wanted you to know. What was it?"
"That's not the po—"
"It very much is the point. Who gets to decide what kind of sister you are?"
"Beni, she was dying, she—"
"Who, Meredith?"
"Lexie."
"That's right. Your sister. You found out something new about what happened to her posthumously, but not only are you not culpable, it doesn't affect how much she loved you. I promise you, if there's something after this, your sister won't be pissed off about that."
"I slept through it. I can function without—"
"You were not in control of your body. You know what shock does to the system, Dr. Grey."
"I wasn't hurt. And Cristina…Derek must've known…maybe that's why…."
"If Derek knew what happened out there, it didn't seem to affect his opinions on end-of-life decisions. In my opinion, he should've told you, but if he didn't know, he didn't know."
"I could ask Cristina."
"You could. Would it make a difference? Now that you know what happened?"
"I didn't need him to…! But I do understand why he might've. It was horrible out there, and he couldn't have done much to help with his arm. Maybe not."
"That will be up to you, but if the answer won't help, you can let it go. And none of that is related to how Lexie perceived you. What did she say?"
"That she loved me. That I was a good sister."
"Lexie's opinion won't change either. No matter what happens with Maggie. You can be a good sister to one, and a horrible one to another. I imagine Derek's sisters have different opinions of him as a brother. Maggie's opinion can change, by the way."
"I know. I'm glad about that, believe me, because I don't think I've made a great impression."
"Have you heard from her?"
"I haven't called anyone. Again. Still. Every excuse feels stupider than the last. Ellis had her one-week growth spurt, and I wasn't in a great place to take criticism. I didn't sleep between her three morning feedings. Zola wanted me to watch the Doc McStuffins DVD. Bailey distracted me by reenacting a scene from Muppet Family Christmas, because he's two and time has no meaning. And they're the priority. They will always be my priority."
"What has you on the defensive there?"
"I'm not! I only… I walked away from medicine for a year. That's not something anyone does. Sure, maybe you take leave to go work for Doctors Without Borders, or because you got a grant. I didn't do that. I didn't do research; I didn't hone a technique; it took everything for me to get out of bed some days. And I'm not sorry. I wish I could just go back to work and pretend everything…but that's not how it works. I regret missing a year of their lives, and I owe them more than hey, I'm back, any good cases? A lot can happen in three hundred sixty-five days."
"That's true."
"People change. They fall in love, and become parents, and make choices that completely upend their lives."
"Some of those things happen between one day and the next."
"Mmm. George and Callie got married in Vegas over a weekend. Have I talked to you about George? More than the sobbing sex?"
"I don't believe so."
"George was…technically, Cristina was the best, but George was the best of us. The heart. He could be…it's strange to think of him as pushy, but that's the word I'm coming up with. A little bit malleable. He was also brave, and self-sacrificing, and he'd do anything for his patients. I should've fought for him…Lexie did… I should've noticed…he was family. He deserved a better friend than me."
"You don't think you're a good friend?"
"Seriously?"
"Seriously."
"I disappeared for almost a year and had a secret baby! I didn't call, or check in with anyone, and Derek was their friend, or their brother, and I just…poof. And even if you excuse that I'm…I can be…I don't…hold on."
"Good."
"I've never sought out friends. They just kind of happen. I'm not good at keeping in touch, even when I'm not purposefully disappearing. I rarely check social media. So, this whole going back thing? It really didn't work whenever Sadie showed up in Seattle, which wasn't…wasn't…we…."
"You had a more complicated situation than a friendship picking up after a year."
"Right. I'm sorry. I'm tired, and words get harder."
"That's true for everyone. You get significant credit for being here at all, don't worry."
"I even showered for you. She's a great eater which means she can also be a great spewer. Less gets in my hair with it braided, but it's not none. I wasn't the holding-your-hair-back friend, not because I don't care, but because I didn't notice. I got all wrapped up in whatever I was doing…whomever I was pursuing. If someone asks me for help? I'm there. I'll always be willing to give someone a place to stay if they need it. I'm lucky to be able to afford that, and it's been important to me…well, forever, but especially in college. Back when my friends were mostly queer, and clashing with their parents. I'd house, and order food, and listen, but I didn't really get families."
"Nothing you're saying makes me think you're a bad friend. In fact, I'd say you're pretty good. Do you know about the concept of the liking gap?"
"No."
"It's a form of negative metacognition; the way we think about how others think of us. We assume that those whom we like cannot possibly like us an equal amount. It can make it hard to reach out to others, because we assume we're bothering them. Consider that your perception of their experiences and thoughts may be inaccurate. Assume that they want to catch up with you just as much as you want to speak to them."
"I can try. And I know I'm not totally despised. Alex isn't big on filling the silences, but he's constantly telling me about cases from this year. He does it like he's testing me, because I've been out of the O.R. so long, but it's obvious he just wants to tell me, y'know? He's good at reminding me he's got his own life going on, too, if I'm being oblivious and narcissistic. He's good at problem-solving. Cristina wasn't always great with emotional stuff either, so she was sort of a drink-dance-distract friend, which…really not as different from Sadie as she thinks. And there are times when distracting me maybe wasn't the right call. Alex makes me be more proactive. I think I'm going to need that. The one thing I had going for me was that I kept going. That's how I coped, but this time I didn't do that. I stopped."
"I disagree. You might not have kept going in the same direction, but you didn't stop, Meredith. You had a full life without surgery, and now you know it's possible. That's one reason you're having trouble reaching out, because you've changed, too. You lived through the same nearly three hundred sixty-five days. A lot happened; a lot changed. You had a beautiful baby, whose arrival into the world was traumatic, by your own admission. You've developed skills, revived old ones your friends don't know about. They don't know the Meredith who has been working to extricate herself from having spent almost eight years as part of a couple, and you're afraid they won't recognize you."
"Maybe. You think I've changed? Like, actually, not just being here?"
"Don't you?"
"Beni. You see that adorable thing? She is a goblin. A goblin with no day/night cycle, whose latest accidental trick is chomping her gums down on my nipple, which feels like having a binder clip slapped on there out of nowhere."
"You've tried this before."
"With sex talk. Breast-feeding talk is totally different. I have never been able to make so many men turn bright red so quickly—and I have revealed both tits in front of groups before. It's the actual job they're meant to do, not their secondary function as a secondary sex characteristic. And women aren't exempt. Like they don't have two of them right there. Ugh. I'm going to care far less about anyone's sensibilities this time. We started B on a bottle at four weeks so Derek could feed him without the whole nipple confusion thing. She'll have to take one by three months for daycare, but I'm gonna try to go down there once or twice a day. I didn't do that with Bay. We thought avoiding making it routine would make it easier for him whenever I couldn't get away, but I'm going to get singled out no matter what. If it's because I bring my kids upstairs for lunch a couple times a week, whatever. Zola starts kindergarten in September, and it'll be harder.
"I'm, uh, it's hard not to wish for her to tolerate a more civilized schedule, but I'm trying really hard not to wish it away. She'll be the last one. And yeah. I do know that. Whatever happens, I had two emergency C-sections. If I met someone tomorrow, and they really wanted an 'our own' kid…. First of all, if you mean that genetically, fuck off. And if they don't, there are older kids who need homes. I'm way better with teenagers anyway. Sorry, Ellie-Bellie."
"There's one."
"Hmm?"
"An example of how you've changed. Would you have named her for your mother in April?"
"Oh. Earning the Yelp review huh? Out of pettiness, maybe. I would've paid someone good money to call my mother 'Ellie-Bellie.' The baby's name…Derek suggested it for Zo's middle name, so he wouldn't have hated it, but I think he would've wanted them switched Caroline Ellis. And that sort of defeats the purpose. I chose it for a lot of reasons, but one of them is getting out of the Egyptian river. I think about my mom all the time. As a surgeon, as a woman, as a mother. An example, a counterexample. To avoid her. To venerate her. I'm not going to pretend I don't anymore. I may spend the rest of my life reevaluating her. It's not a bad thing that I can't separate myself from her. She was my mom. And she chose me. Over, and over, and I didn't…. We didn't communicate well enough for me to know that, then. I also chose her. And I chose my path, for all it looks like hers. Sometimes, I learn from her mistakes. I'm not better than her for choosing to raise my surprise baby. I was in a different situation.
"Being a single mom for me is going to be very different than it was for her. I've got three of them. I want to be involved. I also want to be successful as a surgeon. I don't have a model for that. I don't have a model for being me, for moving forward. For being Derek's, and how to still be his if there's ever someone else. I'm not ruling anything out, because I'm not that stupid anymore. The world is random, and not random, and who knows. I just don't foresee looking. I don't think it's impossible."
"There's another change."
"I'm not ready. I may never be ready."
"That's okay."
"Do I…Will I ever feel whole and healed again?"
"Maybe. Or you'll adjust to what's missing and learn how to keep the wound from festering. Either way, it says nothing about who you are, or what your marriage was."
"Okay. Thank you for not giving me the fake 'of course you will.' I hate that, but I also...it's good to know it's possible. We were so close to it. And we were…we could be so good together. If I hadn't…."
"If you hadn't what?"
"Just another thing I took too far. The day Derek asked what happened to me? Cristina did. She said this thing before she left for Switzerland. She said he was…that he was not the sun. I was. And I thought about it—about how my career had revolved around him from day one; how it changed course because of him; how I almost failed my intern exam just like Mom predicted, because—well, because of a lot of reasons, but if I thought it was all him…And after she said that…gave me permission to prioritize my career, I refused to move to D.C. I was willing to lose him—"
"You were willing to make a choice. A choice, when it came down to it, that you didn't make. You chose not to leave him, Meredith. You cannot retroactively make choices."
"I understand. I do. I understand that this could've happened anyway, too. It's more…I held out. He was miserable in Seattle, and I was so mad about that. I couldn't give—marriage isn't all-or-nothing, except for Cristina, it sort of… She was right. About my job, she was right. I had to stay…but did I? I could've taken a year. Obviously, I could have. I thought...knew that if we'd gone with him, it wouldn't have worked. He would've been getting the cake, and he'd get sulky when it was time for me to get the cake, and he had some big new…opportunity for cake. That's but I wanted him to choose us. I w-wanted him to choose me, even if I couldn't…we fought for a year—over a year…all together, we fought for over year because of the NIH job, A seventh—almost a seventh of our whole relationship. I let my job take priority over—"
"His job. You let your job take priority over his job. Not over him. Not over the kids."
"I didn't visit."
"Because of work?"
"No, which just makes it more selfish."
"He wasn't being selfish?"
"He…."
"Who had the kids?"
"I had them in daycare too much, and with Amy…. Me."
"Did you ever live alone Meredith?"
"Not really. I was alone a lot as a kid, but no. College, Sadie, roommates, internship."
"And Derek?"
"Um. In the trailer."
"During the period he went from dating you, to living with his estranged wife, to you, to dating the nurse, and then moved in with you? Would you say Derek took longer to make choices than you do?"
"Yeah."
"And he was more likely to consider what the expected thing was?"
"Can you make a point please? Goblin-brain."
"During that period, you learned to be your own person, you've said that. You learned to accept love. You made the choice to prioritize family a long time ago. It showed up most dramatically when Zola was in the system, perhaps. But there were other sacrifices. Other building blocks.
"Did Derek choose work over Addison?"
"Over…? No. I don't know…I think it just happened, and Mark…. He'd based a lot of his choices on Mark. On his sisters, his mom, Addison. Me. "
"Exactly. He may have only known himself in relation to others at that point. The NIH wanted Dr. Derek Shepherd. Maybe he felt like had never gotten to see who he was outside an O.R. On his own. You both spent that year making important discoveries that brought you together as people not only a couple. I'm sorry that the circumstances were the way they were. But that's another situation you can't see in light of what happened next.
"Derek lost his found-family right before he met you. He left his blood-family behind, and he seems to have never quite shifted his view of how close they were. That skewed how he thought of the family you had in proximity versus who you were close to, yes. Perhaps it also made him think that making the choice that prioritized his career didn't change that his family would be waiting. Having to face his sisters, to see that they had changed too, could explain a lot about the hot-cold you noticed in their interactions, couldn't it?"
"Yeah. I didn't think…it seemed less weird with Nancy. More like that was just how they were than…than it came out of nowhere. Nancy told him he needed time on his own, too. He told me that once as a 'ha-ha, Nancy was so wrong.' But…yeah, I can see that. He thought of Mark as a brother, and being betrayed by a brother… he had a harder time with my…Alexes."
"And a rose-colored view of your Lexies. Sidebar…."
"Alexander and Alexandra? Yes, it was weird, especially because they slept together. Ugh, I didn't consider it as incesty at the time, either. Blech. 'Course you can't know Mark and get hung up on who's practically family….Derek wasn't choosing family when he chose Addison. He was choosing obligation. Expectation. The stuff that made me think he'd understand me and my mom better, except that was also…"
"Your mom, who is both an example and a counter to your view of family."
"Yup. The NIH was sort of obligation and expectation, too. It was his career, yeah, but it was also…'Meredith, it's the president!' it was rarely…he was stoked for the job, but…."
"Not the way you would've been?"
"Maybe. I think he could've gotten me excited for it. But from the start it was, I have to break this promise, no compromises, The PRESIDENT, Meredith! The Alzheimer's trials stuff was The Rules. That's why…dropping all his stuff, taking a red-eye home…. He picked me."
"And then fulfilling the obligation, he died."
"Yeah….Thanks, Obama."
"Please tell me what just happened to your face."
"The White House sent a card, and for maybe a day, I couldn't stop thinking…It's inappropriate. Not a Meredith-is-crude way, but not okay."
"Then, I have to know."
"I think it's borderline treason."
"This is a safe space."
"I just…he'd gotten so 'the president, Meredith' that I'd jab him about his buddy, Barry—Poor Barack sort of knew his name, maybe, and he got name-checked so much around our house….Anyway, someone asked what the card said, and my mind just…. 'did they thinkhe was Barry sorry?' Did I break you? Derek's puns were the worst thing that ever happened to me."
"I can say that I once was curious about how you could be so taciturn and yet so verbose. They're both coping mechanisms for your lack of filter. And trauma from your childhood. It's about equal."
"Would it surprise you if I told you a Secret Service agent once interrupted me having sex with Derek?"
"Meredith, I say this with all the respect in the world: I could post our notes online and people would believe it if I said they were a mad-lib."
"It's fair. That was pretty tame, in the end. Oh, that was the day we confiscated a ping-pong ball gun from a patient. I remember, because we were messing with it, and it hit the guy….That was fun. You know, Mom wanted me to be a surgeon. She had all that mapped out. But she didn't map out shit, did she? I'm a general surgeon, like her. I did so much like her, but I'm sitting here, and I know I can't imagine ninety-five percent of what's going to happen to this baby, even if she's doing her internship at Grey+Sloan in exactly twenty-six years. Twenty, if she takes after Auntie Maggie."
"And can you see why she wanted to be certain about that five percent?"
"Yes. But…I can't wait to see my kids surprise me. I can't wait to see the next thing this one does, even if it's a sneeze. I wish…I wish it was enough. That being just a mom…I can see why we tried to force ourselves into that box for so long as a gender. We should've done it as a species. Live on fruit, watch the kids do stuff. Because you blink, and they're telling you they can't talk, they have to gi do a hysterectomy. I mean that, Zola's been doing a lot of OB procedures on poor Jane. I was still calling that piece a 'pastry crust' at that point. Most of my organ names made no sense, but Mom was always on about the 'pastry crust.' I can trace my logic about that if nothing else. Pastry held things. The 'pastry crust' held the baby. The pancreas is what it all revolves around."
"Not the hokey-pokey after all. You took the time to teach her those organs' proper names, like you take time to be silly with them."
"Zo asked. Before Bailey was born, so she wasn't even two and a half. We'd…if we spent a twentieth of the time we talked about the kids discussing ourselves…."
"You were confident enough in each other to have those discussions about your kids."
"Spin, spin, spin. We talked about whether or not we'd correct her, if she renamed the pieces. Derek thought my silly names for the organs were precious, and it's a cute kid thing, right? But it's like, could Mom have thought that, or did she just not take the time? I cannot hear her saying, 'yeah, baby, that's the jelly pouch.' Anyway, a few days later, Zola had all the pieces spread out on the coffee table, and she'd hold one up, and say, 'Momma, which that?' It was 'which that' not 'what's that,' and it made sense when you have all those pieces. 'Which one is that'
"I think we went through the whole thing four or five times, tops. Derek came home, and that kid, that baby, stood next to him, and pieced Jane together, naming organs—she's got twenty-four pieces, not all the organs in a body, but enough when you're searching the house for them—and I think she asked 'which that, Daddy? three times. You really can't plan their lives for them.
"Before The Call was supposed to take point with them for a year, and I was mad that he didn't but now…I'm sad for him. For them. They're not going to get the benefit of having parents who can do that. It's just me. They're my priority, but are they going to know that? I have to go back to work. I want to. And I want to research and do pioneering surgeries. I also want my kids to know that I love them. That I choose them. But I'm a surgeon. I can't always…choose them. We did school stuff this year, but…My mom never went to anything. A lot of my friends' parents, they'd be at the piano recitals, and stuff. But if you're not at regular games, and you say you'll be at the championships…that's how you get neuroses, right? So…is it okay to be at the smaller things, if I can't always…do the big things? I think it would be, but I have no reference."
"I think following through on the commitments you make is most important. That may mean making fewer promises. It may take trial and error. There will be disappointments for all of you, but Meredith, you do have references. You may not have as many good direct experiences, but you've put together more yourself than most people do in a lifetime. What do you think?"
"They deserve to have good memories. Big memories. Mom was an attending in General. She was home seven-to-seven most of the time. Sometimes eleven-to-seven, and she did plenty of twenty-fours and forty-eights. She wasn't pouring my cereal every day, but she was around.
"Being around-Mom is not my goal. I want to be involved-Mom. I have a better idea of how to do it now, and we have traditions. Days that'll be good, and that will be hard. I don't know how adding a third kid is going to work. I believe I can do it. I really do. It's believing I will do it. That I won't get swept back into the competition, and blink, and Ellis is ten, and I'm around-Mom. Her name is a little bit a reminder to me. A cue."
"You wouldn't have acknowledged that in April. You had a lot less faith in your parenting."
"That's true. I don't think Derek was going to pull the rug out from under me. He just…he picked words for the moment, and he never considered what would happen if they resonated. And I'm still better at having faith in other people than myself."
"Does your family have faith in you? The people you consider family?"
"Yes. Misplaced sometimes, but…but no, that's not fair to them, is it? If they trust me, I've earned it. If they give me another chance after I lose it, that's family. And it's not fair to me, either. I deserve…"
"Yes?"
"I deserve people having faith in me. My patients do. I can…I can let my family."
"You're right. You can."
"I will. I'll try."
"Good. Do you have faith in them?"
"Of course I do! I…I do. The value for the first day of Kwanzaa is unity, and I thought about that a lot, the community we've built. To rely on them when I have to. Hopefully to make it even better than it is."
"If you have that faith, put it into action. You can do it gradually. If it's easiest for you to wait until you're there, give yourself that. It might also be better to have the reminder of what you're returning to, rather than what you're leaving behind."
"I ended up with a community here, too. Despite my best intentions."
"Here's the big secret, Dr. Grey: we can't plan our own lives either."