"Good morning- woah!" Maggie walks past the bathroom, pausing to find a ghostly pale Zola hovering near the toilet.
"Mom warned me about this," Zola begins as she swipes her hand across her mouth, dripping in vomit, "But I hadn't expected my nausea to escalate into this. Especially since I'm almost three months along." She groans, lunging for the toilet again.
Maggie swoops in, gathering Zola's hair in one hand and rubbing her back with the other, remembering how she would try and comfort the kids when they were sick and little. She would be there while they puked, help them back to bed, and return with a damp washcloth, some water and crackers.
But with morning sickness it was a whole different story. She knew this wasn't just an upset stomach but an overwhelming surge of hormones, and she hadn't expected Zola to so suddenly be slammed with it, especially since it had been pretty smooth sailing with the nausea that would usually subside mid-day.
"Darn me, for trusting in your overly optimistic ways." She tries to lightheartedly joke, but Maggie could hear in her voice some resentment towards her.
She could tell that Zola was slightly angry and irritated, but blamed it on the fact that she had been up since four vomiting, and had a big test today. She didn't truly believe Maggie was to blame, she just needed to blame someone. It was "pregnancy anger", Meredith called it when Zola had first snapped, trying not to take it to heart.
"Your mother always says that I'm full of sunshine and rainbows." She laughs.
"You know what else you guys are full of?" Zola spat.
"Okay…. Let's get you cleaned up and ready for the day." Maggie helps her stand when she was positive Zola was done.
Zola sulked as she stood, wishing that she could stay home from school but knew that wasn't a possibility. She felt like everyone expected a doctor's kid to be a straight 'A' student, and she swear she didn't even have a chance to breathe between school and home because she was busy trying to keep up with everyone else's expectations and standards. It was exhausting, but the sooner she began to realize it wasn't true, the better. She decided to let go, and gave the day off thing one more try.
"Actually, I was thinking I'd stay home today." Zola informs Maggie as they walk down the hall towards her room.
"I think that with a baby on the way, work and school should be your priorities. You can't hide and shut down because life got a little tough. There are no "days off" in the real world, and you can't let a little morning sickness, or the opinions of others keep you down."
Maggie pulls Zola into a hug, feeling her rugged breathing as she tries to hold back the tears of exhaustion, and fear, and everything else.
"It's not gonna be easy Sweetie, nothing is. But if you are who your mother raised you to be, you're going to be okay. We've got you, and we're willing to bend over backwards to make sure you get all the help you'll need. But you'll also need to learn to fight for yourself. To find who you really are, and it's not gonna happen overnight."
Maggie lets go, looking at her watch and realizing that she was going to be late for her final hearing with Bailey and the hospital board. She was going to sit across from Owen, mentally preparing for what her future would hold after any decisions were made. But she knew he wouldn't show, that she wouldn't even have to make a case because he was across the world with Teddy, leaving her off the hook. The fact that they even had to discuss was beyond her, but it was protocol.
"Now I have my final meeting to go to, and my job may be on the line, so Aunt Amelia is making breakfast and will take you to school." Maggie informs her briefly before scurrying down the hall to her bedroom.
"Amelia's making breakfast?" Zola repeats to herself.
"Crazy, I know. Don't eat the pancakes, just politely feed them to the dog, because she's hung over." Meredith jokes as she passes Zola down the hall, briefly kissing her on the head before heading down the staircase.
She watches as Amelia flips a pancake in the pan, watching it bubble up as it cooks through, though it smelled as though she was burning it instead. Amelia gags, pinching her nose at the foul smell of the batter burning to the pan.
"You have to grease the pan first, then watch to make sure they don't burn." Meredith informs her.
"I know how to make pancakes, Mer." She sassily reassures her, gesturing around with the spatula, clearly flustered.
"You also know how to clip an aneurysm, doesn't make you an expert." Meredith retorts before grabbing the spatula from her and removing her from the hot stove.
Amelia sits down at the table, head in her hands as she groans. Her head was pounding and she thought that cooking breakfast and having something in her system could help take her mind off of the hangover.
"Okay, what's been going on with you?" Meredith spat.
"Huh? N...nothing. Why would you say that?" Amelia nervously laughs.
"Is this about not being pregnant? About Owen? Are there other things in your life I don't know about? You're not on drugs again, are you?" Meredith worries.
"Of course not!" Amelia quickly assures her, trying to focus on something else: Her work.
Amelia begins to scatter the brain scans of an eight month old baby who was born with only three-fourths of her brain. It was a God given miracle the baby had lived as long as she did, but now she had an inoperable tumor on the part of the brain she did have. It was tricky and it was sad, but mostly it was triggering. Between losing her baby all those years ago, she felt herself pressured into working hard to save little Ivy. Not only pressure on herself, but from the parents.
"How the he-" Amelia begins to mutter before she's given a look from Meredith.
"Whatever is bothering, you need to figure it out! Because the kids are beginning to feel it too. This drinking, it needs to stop."
"I'm having a glass or two of wine on the weekends; I'm not now who I used to be then." Amelia brushes off.
"Amelia, that's how it escalates. You're stressing over things and you unwind with a drink and before you know it, you'll stumble with your work. You have patients that are depending on you, putting their lives into your hands, and if you don't cut this out, you'll be hurting people, only making them worse."
"I operated on Nicole Hermann with a brain tumor, I can operate with a hangover." Amelia tries to unconvincingly reassure her.
"That's just the problem! The drinking. It impairs your judgement, makes you tired! The only difference is you couldn't control the tumor and you didn't know you had one at the time! This is in your hands, Amelia! Your patients, your job! It's up to you!"
Meredith reaches across the table, snatching the wine from the center and stuffing it into her purse, mentally reminding herself to throw it away before getting to work. She didn't need a lawsuit over malpractice, or being accused of drinking on the job. Maggie and Amelia were already in enough trouble, they didn't need all three of them to be jobless.
"I hope you know how selfish you're being." Meredith snarkily remarks. "Figure it out; And keep it away from my kids!" Meredith shouts over her shoulder as she exits the house.
Amelia's mind couldn't stop circling back through the whole conversation, analyzing every word. How she had operated with a tumor, which she felt would've been one hundred times harder than a hangover, but nonetheless dangerous. So she called into the hospital, requesting that Deluca take over her service. Then she grabbed her phone, dialing up the number of an old friend, a favor in mind.
"I mean, I'm a brain surgeon with a brain tumor; C'mon, it's kind of funny." She laughed, trying to get Deluca to laugh with her in the irony as they looked at the scans.
She tapped her fingers anxiously, scooting the scans in together with her other as she listened to her phone ring, holding it between her ear and shoulder. The line clicked, and her friend picked up.
"Hey, I don't know what time it is there, so sorry if I woke you." She greets apologetically.
"It's okay. What's up, Dr. Shepherd?" The recipient replies.
"I have a proposal based on something seen on your facebook page. You in?"
"Depends." She replies.
"I just so happen to be a part of the board that grants the neuro research fund every year, and I'll put in a word for you if you help me. Sound like a deal?" Amelia chews her fingernail.
"Well Dr. Shepherd, let's see what you got." She smiles from the other end.
-XXX-
As Zola ended her first trimester and her first horrible obstacles of pregnancy were seeming that they were nearing their end, she found that pregnancy was not the only thing that would become increasingly difficult. She pondered the idea of transferring schools once the word was out, which she figured would be soon because her "sperm donor daddy" of an ex had a large mouth. The only thing Zola could rely on was him not saying anything because his big ego made it difficult for him to ever do anything wrong.
He would belittle her, tell her how lucky she was to have him, tell her friends how difficult she could be. He would even brag that he brought helped keep her A average up in order to help protect her precious "surgeon's child" reputation. She knew all the hard work was her, but he didn't want to seem superior to a woman. He was a sexist, egotistical, pig.
"Mommy? Why did Aunt Maggie stop having S-E-X with Deluca?" Zola had asked with curiosity in her eyes of why they had been spelling.
"Because he couldn't handle that she was his B-O-S-S. Never Date a man that can't handle your P-O-W-E-R." She replied, smiling.
Zola nodded in understanding before scurrying off with her siblings, and though it wasn't a big deal and she didn't really understand what Meredith had meant at the time, but eventually she knew that the strongest women in her life would be right: She didn't need a man to be powerful, or to feel beautiful, or even be successful.
Zola had known all her life that she wanted to be an independent woman, the breadwinner of the house because she didn't need to rely on a man, much like her mother took care of herself and the kids when her dad died. But that wasn't true at all; Meredith had raised the kids with the help of Alex, Amelia, and Maggie, this wasn't a solo act.
But when she had met her ex boyfriend Arnice, her tough exterior would slowly be eaten away as he belittled her in front of his and her friends. She began to shut out her friends when they had warned her about him, and slowly became more dependent on him simply because he made her believe she couldn't be something without him, and she was nothing to her friends. He was manipulative, controlling, but it all flew out the window to reveal his frail inner shell when she revealed to him she was pregnant.
"No you're not; That's not funny." He spat, looking down at Zola who had chosen to continue looking at her feet.
"Babe, you can't fake this kind of thing. Look." She hands him the test from her pocket that read 'pregnant', on it, clear letters.
"That's not yours. It's your friends and you are using it to break up with me. Because you know I'd never stay with a worthless, trashy, black girl like you if that's the case." He continued to ramble informatively.
Zola's heart broke, the first real flood of emotions washing over her that she had felt in months, because up until then, she was blind and emotionally numb towards everything, and like a good little robot, she would cower in fear and listen to his every want.
"My mother is white, you jerk! And she raised us to be respectful and open to everyone no matter the color, or origin. For you to assume I'm street trash because of my race just proves how small of a mind you actually have. Because if you truly believed in anything good, you'd see that you haven't been helping me! You would have seen that sex would have gotten us in this situation, and you for sure wouldn't have pressured me to have it with you!" She screamed, her face boiling in blood red.
He grabbed her wrists, anger glaring in his hazel eyes, and his lip quivered. He knew she was right and didn't think she would have been smart enough to catch on, because up until then she had followed him around like a lost little dog, cowering and obeying to his every need.
"I don't need you to get what I want; I've been nothing but kind to you! Offered you to sleep with me because you know darn well no one else would want to!" He paused and looked at her in disgust before adding more. "Why didn't you make me wear a condom!" He projects it onto her.
Zola's heart wrenched but she was the true him. She knew that no one who had worked as hard as she did deserved to be talked down to like she was. She didn't deserve someone who couldn't own up to the consequences of his actions, but only could think of what he wanted in the moment, without thinking of anyone else's troubles too. He pressured Zola into sleeping with him so that he wouldn't feel depressed, and warned her if she hadn't, that he would show her she made a mistake. Whatever that meant, but she didn't want to know.
The school bell rang in dismissal and Zola hurriedly shoved her books into her backpack, watching as everyone else left. She had to get to the main gym before it became too busy because she wanted to work out. So she slung her bag over her shoulder, rushing to her locker as all the other students poured out of the building.
She changed in the bathroom because she didn't want the other girls to notice her bloated stomach. Zola hadn't exactly looked pregnant, but she knew the girls who were jealous of her and Arnice would spread rumors. Not that there hadn't already been rumors spread about her and him, mostly by the girls who liked him and Arnice himself.
She then remembered that she had left her gym bag in her favorite teachers room, Mrs. Jasper. Mrs. Jasper was a skinny, red haired lady in her mid thirties that was known around as "Mama Jasper". It was because she loved the kids so much she would skydive without a parachute if they asked her to. She was there to talk and open to kids having bad days. But rather than sending them out to talk to a counselor, she was right there, making sure they had the option of talking to her, or whomever they felt most comfortable.
As she arrived at the classroom, she noticed the door was open but Mrs. J wasn't at her desk. So she walked right into the corner of the classroom, looking through the little storage container students often kept their belongings in when they had no place else. Fear raced through her as she realized she couldn't find it until she heard the sound of someone clearing their throat and she turned around, the tall figure dangling the straps of the bag nonchalantly from their hand.
"I believe you're looking for this." He implies and she gasps, running over to grab for it.
"What the heck are you doing with my bag, you perv!" She spat, glaring directly into his evil eyes.
"I have a proposition for you; And in exchange, your bag, which my buddies have filled with things you just wouldn't want to be seen with." His lips curl into a mischievous grin.
"I couldn't care less what's in that bag!" She spat again, her voice now wavering nervously.
"You will once you hear what I've got to say; So what do you say, Zo-Zo? Are you in or not? Because I'd hate for everyone to know that my psycho, pregnant, ex girlfriend tried to come on to me, and several of my buddies." He proposes, Zola gasping as condoms, pills and bottles of lube poured out of her duffle.
"So I'm gonna ask you again, are you in?" He finishes, watching Zola squirm in fear.
