A/N - So this is my second chapter. It's been a long time, and it might be like that between chapters as I obviously am a terribly slow writer. But I'm not gonna abandon the story, so hang in there even if it will take forever. I thought this chapter would be shorter than my last, but it turns out it became much longer than expected. I was gonna let Derek appear in the end of this chapter, but I had to rearrange some scenes to not make this too long. So this is completely Mer-centric. Next chapter she will have some interaction with humans as well as with old memories, I promise.
Thanks for all nice reviews! They make me ridiculously happy and keep me writing. It's interesting to see what you all think, so please share. Anyway, this chapter takes place immediately after the last one ended, so it's not that much to say about it. Simply read and enjoy. And PM me if you find any errors :)
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Meredith turned off the ignition and pulled out the key. She lingered in the car seat, looking out the window at the rain that so often filled the skies of Seattle and feeling comfort in the splattering on the car roof. She had always liked rain. Even as a child, she could stand outside with her face tilted upwards, her eyes closed, and try to feel the salty drops on her tongue. Her mother usually told her off for doing that. Even though she seemed to be at the hospital all of her time, she complained of the rain whenever she got a chance. None of her friends had understood her fascination either. They had always tugged her jacket and urged her to hurry, or left her standing on the road, running towards the warmth inside. Coming to think of it, the other interns didn't seem that keen of rain either. Izzie used to drag her capuche over her head even the short bit between the entrance and the car, even though she had lived her whole life in Washington and should be used to it. And Derek cast her funny looks whenever she stopped to catch some raindrops.
She sighed and stepped out of the car and reached for her bag in the backseat. It was more out of habit than for thinking she might need something in it. Her ID was unnecessary; the nurses knew her well by now. Usually, they even seemed eager to chat with her whenever she came. Sometimes she had given in, but most of the times, she had already compromised with her time and her conscious felt bad enough. She hadn't wanted her mother to wait any longer than she already had. Not that she had been aware of the frequency of her visitors or even of the purpose with them. Meredith wasn't sure of why she had even bothered to visit whenever she had a day off. Her mother hadn't exactly been a mama bear. But she had managed to alienate everybody else in her life. And she had asked Meredith to keep her Alzheimer's a secret. There was no one else. But deep down, Meredith knew that those hadn't been her only reasons for having visited her mother regularly. Alzheimer's had really been a cruel joke of fate. Back in the days, Ellis had barely noticed Meredith's existence, and if she had, complained about it. After her diagnosis, she had even had an excuse for doing so. Whether she really wanted to admit it or not, Meredith knew she had spent her life seeking her mother's approval and confirmation. Though she should have realized that at this time, it was kind of pointless to keep doing that, there had still been this hope lingering in her mind that her mother would recognize her efforts. That she would like her.
She considered leaving her bag in the car. It wasn't as if any of the Roseridge residents would wander the parking lot and steal it. Well, at least she had some aspirins in it. She felt like they could be of use before the night was over. With her hands thrust in her coat pockets and face hidden in her thick, knitted scarf, Meredith slowly made her way up the slushy driveway. She felt gratitude for her scarf. After Finn and Derek had effectively taken her mind of knitting-in-celibacy, Izzie hadn't given up on it. When she had finished both her and Meredith's sweaters, she had started her next knitting project. She had given the striped scarf to Meredith only a few days before the triage and insisted that she should wear it. Meredith knew she had her own outerwear somewhere in the house, but she hadn't had the heart to let Izzie down.
She saw the big red brick house appear behind the curve and felt the same mix of emotions that she always had felt all those times she had walked this way. She knew her mother had been taken care of here. The nurses were kind and genuinely interested in their residents. She could have found much worse homes for her. Still, it wasn't like this it was meant to be, having to visit your mother in a home when you were only 30. Your mother should have her own home, her own life. Your mother should be there for you when you needed it. Given that Ellis Grey had been nothing but a regular mom, Meredith knew it wouldn't have been that way. At least now, she didn't have to get in those fights they always seemed to had in her teens. And she didn't have to defend her ordinariness over and over again. There were some advantages with a mother that didn't recognize her after all. She grimaced at her cynicism and stopped outside the solid iron door. It was decorated with a small chiseled rose and a little glass window on the top. Meredith could see movements inside, a nurse who studied the notice board and a few residents in the living room sofa. The dimmed spots in the ceiling spread a soft light over the carefully decorated hallway and made the dark outside seem so much colder. Meredith shivered. She took a deep breath and reached for the door handle. She could do this. Rip off the bandage. No anesthesia. She closed her eyes for a second before she opened the door and stepped into the warmth.
It was quiet in there. The only sounds Meredith could hear were a low mumbling from the two ladies and the rustling of papers from behind the desk. The blond nurse who sat there – the one who didn't look a day over 20 – looked up at her and smiled.
"Good evening Meredith."She frowned pensively for a moment, as if she wondered what business Meredith could still have there, before she continued. "Ah, you must be here about your mother's things. Ms Henry told us you would come by tonight." She rose from her chair and motioned for Meredith to follow her. "I'm really sorry. We will miss Ellis," she added, her voice soft and sincere.
Meredith smiled mechanically, but wondered if what the nurses said really was true. There were certainly not many people that had known her mother when she wasn't sick that would say that. She couldn't come up with any reply and they wandered the way to Ellis's room in silence. Meredith could recognize every notch in the hand rail and she automatically avoided the steps that creaked. She felt a pang of sorrow. This wasn't her home, but it had been her mother's. She doubted that her mother had known the stairs well enough to sneak down in the evenings without being seen. When she still had been too little to be alone home, she had made it an art to sneak down without disturbing her mother, but as she had become older, Ellis had not hesitated to work long and late hours and she had seldom had any mother downstairs to hide from. The rattling sound of the key in the door made her stir and she quickly shook off her memories.
"Here it is," the nurse announced a little unnecessarily. "Would you like me to help you take in the boxes?" Meredith looked at her, totally taken aback. She hadn't thought at all of bringing boxes or cleaning equipment or anything at all, really. She hopefully scanned the room, but all she could glimpse was her mother's tarnished suitcase under the bed. It wouldn't do for everything she would need to put in it.
The nurse seemed to catch her embarrassment. "It'll be alright," she quickly said. "We had a resident moving in a couple of days ago and his boxes are still here. I'm sure he'll let you use them." Meredith opened her mouth to protest, but suddenly felt so tired and already overwhelmed with so much of her mother in a day, that she only nodded.
"If you are sure... I mean, I don't want to be... " She quieted, searching for the word, but the nurse shook her head and made ready to leave.
"You won't. I'm sure Philip will be glad to get rid of those boxes. I'll be back with them so you can get about." The nurse disappeared and Meredith pressed her hand against her face. Her head already throbbed and she felt incredibly stupid. To her surprise, she found that she wanted Derek to be there with her. Derek would not have forgotten to bring boxes, and if he had, he would have known how to fix it. He would have told her that it was nothing to be ashamed of. She had gotten the call at work, for God's sake. It wasn't like she used to bring boxes to work just in case. He would have told her all this that she already actually knew, but couldn't convince herself about. Yet, she hadn't invited him to come. She hadn't told him she was going. It was her mother, her business and she could handle it. Well, apparently not that well, but still. He shouldn't have to be involved in this messy... whatever, that was her mother.
She sat down at the bed and looked around the room. It looked pretty much like the last time she had been here. Her mother had been lucid then. She had been lucid and Meredith had had to tell her a horrible truth. She had made her mother unhappy. Meredith could remember her panic when her mother had sunk down. It had been a panic coming from the knowledge that she couldn't do much without equipment and help from other doctors. But at least she had known why. It was not like when she had been a child. She had understood that she wasn't able to help her mother, but she hadn't known why. She had tried hard, but she had never succeeded. Her mother had been unhappy all the time. Maybe she hadn't been the one to make her unhappy, but she certainly had never been the one to make her happy, either. Meredith sighed. It didn't do her any good to dwell on things like these. It was better to get this over with. She tried to decide where would be a good place to start and her eyes fell on the closet, whose door rested ajar. Clothes. That shouldn't be too intimidating. She could start there. She rose from the bed, starting to smooth the wrinkles she'd made before realizing that she would have to clean out the bed later anyway. The closet was pretty full and smelled tidily and maybe a little old-fashioned. The blouses were ordered neatly on their hangers. She took them out one by one, folded them carefully and placed them in a heap on the bed. There was nothing she wanted. Maybe she could give them away to Salvation Army or something. The blouses didn't really remind her of her mother; she hadn't dressed so prim before she got sick. She did the same with all her mother's trousers, her skirts and her night gowns that were all silky and of fine quality. Not exactly like the cotton shirts she sometimes slept in herself. She put aside the dressing gown that hanged in the back and stopped in her tracks. Behind the dressing gown, now the only garment left, was a set of dark blue scrubs.
Meredith stared at it a couple of seconds. It could have been Derek's, except that she never would find Derek's scrubs in his personal closet. Well, of course it was also smaller than any scrubs Derek could ever fit into. She carefully took the scrubs down and held them. The fabric was clean and smelled freshly ironed. She wondered if her mother had asked to have it washed every now and then; if it cheered her up. If she remembered. It certainly would have made her happier. She lifted the shirt to fold it and noticed that her mother's ID was still clipped to it. The picture must have been taken a good ten years ago. Her mother's hair had been longer and straighter and her skin smoother. She looked sternly at Meredith from the photo. It was not hard to understand that she had been a solemn, maybe intimidating doctor. Yet, she looked brighter in the picture than Meredith could ever recall seeing her at home. There was an aura of ease around her, one that her own daughter obviously hadn't been able to evoke in her.
Meredith bit her lip and studied the picture more carefully, almost despite her will. She could see the resemblance that everyone who had met her mother used to remind her of. In twenty years, maybe she would look just like that. She wondered if Derek resembled any of his parents. She had never seen any picture; Derek didn't talk much about his family. Back when they first started to go out, she had been craving for information. Not until Addison showed up, it had dawned on her why he had been so quiet about his past and after that, well, they had been pretty busy just figuring out themselves to really talk about other stuff. His stuff, that was. Her stuff, he seemed remarkably interested in. She sighed and took a second look at the photograph in her hand. Had her mother seen herself in her when she grew up? Or had she seen Thatcher? She didn't know actually. Meredith's friends had used to complain of their mothers' obsession with their clothes or style, but until the point she came home with her hair several shades pinker than it had even been, she never had to think about those things. She had stopped asking for her mother's opinion when she was about seven. She had known by then that the only answers she would get was 'That's fine, Meredith' or 'I'm busy right now, Meredith'.
A light knock on the door stirred her and she looked up from the ID she still held in her hand. The door swung open and the nurse stuck in her head.
"I'm sorry it took some time. Philip was more than happy to help you out, though. We managed to locate four boxes. Do you think that will be enough?" She smiled broadly at Meredith, who got up from the bed and nodded slowly.
"Thank you so much," she said earnestly. "I didn't know what I was thinking, coming here without anything at all." She took the cartons the nurses struggled with and placed them on the floor beneath the bed. The nurse lingered in the door opening, but Meredith gave her a little smile. "I'll be fine. I'll try to finish as fast as I can."
When she heard the nurse's footsteps grow distant in the hallway, she picked up the first box and started to set it up. While she worked, she tried to empty her mind but it was not as easy as she would like it to be. Not as easy as with a little help from a tequila bottle. Her lips suddenly felt dry and she licked repeatedly to soften them while she put all her mother's clothes in a box. She carefully folded the scrubs and put them in the box she'd prepared for things she wanted to keep. She avoided to look at the ID again and instead searched for something else to pack, hopefully something that wouldn't bring any surprises this time. The bathroom seemed like a safe place. She peered cautiously inside. It looked like it used to. Her mother's little makeup box stood on the shelf. It had been a gift from Meredith a couple of years ago and apparently it had not been despised. Her mother hadn't used much makeup. A mascara tub Meredith was pretty sure was too old to be used lay there together with a lipstick in a shade called coral and a pair of tweezers. A light blue toothbrush rested in a mug on the sink and a few tubes of day cream could be glimpsed next to a shampoo bottle behind the half open mirror above. Apart from the difference in size, the tiny space actually resembled the bathroom that used to be her mother's back when they both lived in the house. It was clean and spartan and held no more personal belongings than absolutely necessary. Meredith didn't consider herself a messy person when it came to things or rooms, like Cristina was, but as a teenager, her bathroom had flooded with makeup, hair dyes and various garments and necklaces she every morning had had a hard time choosing among. It was probably a good thing her mother never entered there.
She made a quick calculation of which things to keep and which to throw away, and rather than going to get a box inside the bathroom, she pulled the wastepaper basket beneath the sink and started shoving things in it. She worked efficiently, thankful for the absence of potential triggers of unwanted memories and soon, the bin was full and the shelves were empty. She strung together the bag and balanced the few items she'd decided to keep in her arms as she walked out in the bedroom again. She placed them on top of the scrubs and shook her head. The box looked pathetically empty. She cast a glance at her wristwatch and sighed. It was already half past nine. She'd better keep up her pace or she wouldn't be out of here until the middle of the night. She was resolutely determined to finish tonight. Spending another night like this wasn't an option. She fought the urge to sit down on the bed to rest a couple of minutes and started wandering the room, pulling out all drawers and sorting the content. For each drawer she was about to look into, she had to ignore the increasing jolts in her stomach. It was like one of those curves on the charts she had to study each day to determine the status of her patients. It had a steady, regular rhythm. Opening the drawer got her to the maximum point, realizing there was nothing in there that had any particular meaning to her, the curve slowly decreased until it shot way back up again when her hand rested on the next drawer. There were not that many drawers to open, however, or a lot of shelves to empty. Half an hour later, Meredith had managed to split up the room into three boxes, including the several painting that had decorated the walls. The one that was intended for the waste was almost full and the one she had reserved for things that could be given away was still a lot heavier than the one she placed things she wanted to keep in. The only thing she hadn't sorted out was the bookcase.
She sighed heavily at the sight of all books stored on the three broad, wooden shelves. The top shelf held mostly paperbacks of various sorts. Meredith didn't know if her mother had read them while in Roseridge. She certainly hadn't bothered relaxing with a fiction book back when Meredith was young. She didn't think she once had seen her mother sitting in the sofa reading and she couldn't think that it would have been Rosamunde Pilcher, Agatha Christie or P.G. Woodhouse or any of these legible authors now standing in a pretty row on her bedside. She shrugged and placed the books in the Salvation Army box.
At the sight of the middle shelf, she raised her eyebrows. Mostly when she'd visited her mother, they'd sat in the living room downstairs, but she still had been up here numerous times and she hadn't noticed the large number of medical books now placed in the bookcase. She certainly hadn't brought them there, but the confusion of who might have done it was over-shadowed by her curiosity of the books. She bent down and took a closer look. A few of the books she recognized from Dartmouth, but many of them had she never seen before. Key Topics in General Surgery, Lecture Notes on General Surgery, Essentials of General Surgery, Clinical Cases Uncovered... The list could be made long. Bailey would probably know them all, Meredith thought, preferring not to think about how much she still had to learn before she could even be half the surgeon her mother had been. She hadn't even chosen a specialty yet. She briefly wondered when Derek had gone into neuro, and why. They had actually never spoken about that and from what Cristina said, her mother thought you could tell a lot from a person from what specialty they chose. Sadly, their conversation had never steered into the depths of the choice of neurosurgery. Maybe it was for the best, Meredith thought grimly. She wasn't particularly fond of the idea of Cristina and her mother discussing Derek; she had a feeling the discussion wouldn't result in any good conclusions. She quickly returned to the books without lingering at that thought and glanced through the rest of the medical literature. Some of it looked new, but many books were worn and well-read. She could probably sell them cheap if she didn't want to keep them. When she was a medical student, she had tried to buy most of her textbooks second hand to keep the expenses down. She knew many students welcomed that opportunity and would be grateful for those books, but she wasn't yet sure she wanted to get rid of them, so she put them all in the last empty box to save.
The bottom shelf contained not so much yet another row of books, but instead note pads and notebooks and a couple of binders. Meredith quickly scanned the binders' content and found that it mostly held receipts from smaller purchases, some cut newspaper articles and postcards. Some of the nurses had probably made her mother somewhere to store all those little things that otherwise would just have been lying around. She hesitated, but picked up the notebook with red stripes and flipped the first page open. Nothing. The book looked new and not used. She flipped through it, but could find no sign of her mother's neat handwriting. The notepads only contained small lists of things to do or items to buy, mostly written by some nurse that hadn't bothered to rip the page out later. She threw the unused notebooks in the box to save and after a slight hesitation, she did the same with the binders. She could go through the content later and maybe use the binders for something else.
The only item left in the bookcase now was a small book with thick covers. Meredith frowned, but as soon as she picked it up she recognized it. She smiled a little. It was the photo album she had brought what felt like a lifetime ago, to help her mother remember some of their life together. She had seen the photos several times before, but she couldn't resist opening the album. There she was, a one year old with a passy in her mouth, resting in her father's knee. A two year old at the kitchen table, naked except for her diaper, eating from a small bowl shaped like a frog and grinning at the camera. On the next page, her slightly older self held a balloon striped in red, white and blue and she stood in front of her mother in a sun-shadowed lawn. Her mother wore one of her rare smiles. She must have gotten the day off and decided to celebrate Fourth of July like normal people, a custom she hadn't kept when Thatcher left. She turned the page and saw herself as a preschooler, wrapped up in her favorite blanket and full of chickenpox blisters. Thatcher must have taken that picture as well, he was the one who had stayed at home with her, making her ice cream and letting her watch television and bathed her in oatmeal to ease the itching she had found so uncomfortable. She flipped through the pages, stopping once in a while to take a closer look. There she was with her parents outside the house, sitting in her red wagon. There was her mother in scrubs. Thatcher in trunks at a crowded beach. Herself in the bathtub, sticking her tongue at the camera.
Her mother hadn't recognized any of those photos. She knew that it hadn't been on purpose, but she couldn't help the small feeling of resentment that popped up to the surface. She shook her head vehemently, unceremoniously throwing the album on the bed as if it was contagious. The pages began to flip until the album was closed save for the back cover. Meredith sighed at her own reaction, feeling childish, and reached forward to shut it properly. With her arms already halfway in motion, she stopped and frowned suddenly. There was something strange with the back cover. It seemed to bulge. She placed the album in her knee again and examined it closer. There was some kind of pocket hidden in the cover, so thin and with such an invisible line it wasn't strange she had never seen it before. She carefully loosed the opening and felt with her fingers inside. She managed to get a grip of the photos that she felt resided there without ripping anything apart and slowly pulled them out.
An ominous feeling was creeping up her spine, but she tried to blank her mind and tell herself that whatever her mother had placed in there, it couldn't be anything bad. She didn't know why she needed to gather her courage before she could look at any of the pictures in her hand. It was just some stupid photos. Nothing to be scared of. Rip off the bandage. No anesthesia.
Ellis and Richard. Her mother and her chief were what looked up at her from the first photo. Well, not so much looked up at her as looked at each other. At first, Meredith felt relief. This was no surprise to her. Not that looking at pictures of her mother with her lover was anything that came high on her list of priorities, but if this was the only Ellis had decided to keep private, she could deal with it. She thought. As long as the pictures didn't get too private, that was. She began to flip through the approximately ten photos in her hand, but she couldn't resist to take a closer look at each and one of them. The pictures were black and white and from what Meredith could tell, taken about twenty years ago. They were not professional photographs, and she guessed that Richard had taken the ones where Ellis posed alone, but Meredith wondered who had taken the ones that featured both of them. She couldn't think of anyone they would have involved in their affair, so she guessed that the most probable explanation was that they had used the self-timer on the camera. The photos seemed all to be taken at one occasion. Her mother was pretty, Meredith must admit, in a bell skirt in tweed and with her long hair loose over her shoulders. The young Richard looked handsome too, in a striped shirt with a loose collar.
She glanced back at the box where her mother's scrubs lay folded. And she had thought her mother looked bright in that photo. It couldn't even stand a comparison to these pictures. Her mother beamed and looked completely at ease. She looked into Richard's eyes, held his hands and seemed unaware of the camera, which Meredith found unlikely. Her mother was simply relaxed in a way Meredith had never seen her before. She hadn't been able to even imagine it. It wasn't happy. It was... the only word she could come up with was euphoria. Why was the English language so poor when you needed it?
She tried to remember Richard from when she was a child. If she closed her eyes, she could picture herself running around in the hospital, waiting for her mother to finish a surgery or a consult. She hadn't really minded all that waiting. The hospital was an interesting place and everybody was nice to her. She had explored all rooms she found exciting. The women working in the cafeteria had known her name and she could always nick some food if she was hungry. Sometimes she sat with her coloring books in the large conference room or at the nurses' station, but she usually forgot about her pens and pictures when nurses and doctors kept running around and talk about their stuff. She didn't understand half of it, but she found the words fascinating and used to roll them around in her mouth to taste them. Sometimes, when she had dinner with her mother, she asked her about some of the words she remembered. Ellis usually didn't bother to explain them properly to her, but occasionally, she could go into great detail about a surgical procedure or a interesting case. Meredith had loved those dinners. It made her feel almost like her mother's equal, like she was someone who counted.
Richard had been someone kind, someone who used to offer her sweets when he thought her mother wasn't around. He used to let her come into his office when he wasn't too busy and listened to her eager chatter with a quiet amusement. He was in many ways a total opposite to her mother, but he had been her true love. Even if she could have figured that out from the incoherent bits her mother's mind sometimes had let slip, here was the proof had she needed any. Her five year old self might had wanted Thatcher to stay, but he hadn't been the one for her mother.
Meredith looked through the rest of the photos in her knee. She meant to flip them quickly, but somehow, she found herself taking a closer look on each picture she picked up. After eight pictures of the young lovers – luckily, not all too private – she frowned when she noticed that the last item in her knee was a thin envelope. She slowly took it in her hand. Ms Meredith Grey it said. It was addressed to her, to their house in Boston. She looked uncertainly at it. She couldn't remember getting much mail back in Boston, apart from occasional letters from those pen pals that everyone seemed to get in middle school, or more sporadic, postcards from her grandmother. She certainly didn't recognize the handwriting. She hesitated slightly. If this was meant for her and her mother had hidden it, what did it mean? Once again pushing the ominous thoughts that now were returning with full force back in her mind, she slowly opened the envelope. No anesthesia. The only thing inside it was a photograph. Why Ellis hadn't just put it together with the rest of the photos, Meredith didn't know. In contrast to the pictures featuring her mother and her lover, this photo was bright and colorful. It was a family photo. Two little girls. A blond, smiling woman. And her father.
Meredith took a sudden, shallow breath and closed her eyes. Her father. How could it be possible? She had asked him herself not that long ago. Is there a box of unopened cards somewhere? He had denied it. Or had he? Suddenly, she couldn't tell what Thatcher had actually answered her. He had mostly stuttered incoherently, she recalled. She looked at the photo again, now steeling herself for the view. The girls were cute. The younger of them looked into the camera with a shy smile. Her golden brown hair was a little too short for any real haircuts, but still, it was combed sleek and two pink bows were attached to the sides. She fiddled with the hemline of her neat white dress where she sat in her mother's lap, her feet dangling and showing what appeared to be a pair of new, blank shoes in shiny red. Molly had been cute already at the age of three or four.
The older girl looked more confident. Her hair was darker than her sister's and fell over her shoulders. Meredith didn't even bother to pretend that she had to search for her name. Lexie. The one smart enough to go to medical school. She stood behind her father with her right hand on his left shoulder and her head slightly tilted to her side. Her sparkling smile revealed a gap between her two front teeth and she almost seemed to flirt with the camera in a way only six year olds can do.
She guessed that the family had been eternalized by a professional photographer. Maybe they did a photo a year. Like a family tradition. As far as she could recall, she had never done that herself until her graduation. It had been a waste of money really. She had sent pictures to her grandmother and to a couple of friends from home, but the larger part of that photo chart still lay somewhere in a drawer, forgotten and unused. She looked at her father's family again. The Grey family. Susan smiled up at her, younger and smoother, but she seemed as open and gentle as she had done at the hospital. Her father looked happy and more relaxed than she thought he had ever been when he still lived in their house. Had he been the one to send this? Or should she, going by the strange trying-to-be-mothering at the hospital, conclude that it was Susan? She turned the photo to look at its back, to see if there was anything written on it, but she found herself only staring at a blank sheet. Nothing there to explain why they had sent this to her. Or if this was an annual thing. Was there an additional heap of photos hidden somewhere, one for each year? She started to dig through the photo pocket again, suddenly feeling feverish and strangely excited, but even before she knew it was empty, she had stopped, realizing the meaningless. Her eyes fell on the envelope. She picked it up with trembling fingers and studied the post stamp closely. It took her a second to realize what date was printed there. It was the day before her birthday. Thatcher had sent this for her birthday. She took a deep breath and tried to remember that day.
Most of her birthdays hadn't been big deals, they came and went and were hard to distinguish from each other. But this one she actually remembered clearly, because it was the year her mother had decided to stop pretending that work didn't mean everything. She had turned eleven. Ellis had celebrated her in the morning, given her presents and explained that she had an important surgery that evening and that she wouldn't be home for dinner. Meredith had tried not to mind that she would be spending her eleventh birthday dinner alone and didn't object. She was eleven now, old enough to handle a night on her own. It wasn't like she hadn't done it before, anyway. She had shivered a little when she thought about all the lights she would have to turn on to make the house a little less scary, but she had waved goodbye to her mother as if it was nothing. But no time during that day had there been a mention of the letter she now held in her hand. And at all times that day, her mother had had it.
Meredith rested her head against the pillows. She felt like closing her eyes and let herself disappear. But the only option she had for the moment was the bliss of sleeping and she knew that she wouldn't be able to sleep even if her life depended on it. She let her gaze float around the room without really seeing anything at all. Why had Thatcher sent her this? She guessed there was no reason for her to try to find some explanation. She would never know if she was right or not. It wasn't like she would go over to Thatcher's house and ask him. Whatever. There was something else that burned in her mind and even though she was almost afraid to let herself go there, she couldn't help it from popping up. Why had Ellis kept this hidden from her? Why hadn't she told her? She had known that Meredith missed her father. That she wanted nothing more than to meet him again. At least at this point, when she hadn't turned into an angry teenager that didn't share one unnecessary thing with her mother. As a ten year old, she would have died for getting a life sign from her father. To get an explanation. Ellis must have known that.
She dragged her hands through her hair as to clean her brain, to get some of her thoughts straight. Sure, the reasonable Meredith could think of reasons that Ellis could have used to defend her decision. She could have told herself Meredith would get her feelings hurt. That she would get her hopes up. Let her guard down. None of this were things that Ellis Grey would have wanted her daughter to do. None of this were things that Ellis Grey did. But the emotional Meredith, the one she usually tried to repress, felt a burning sensation stir inside of her and all she could do was clench her fists around the bed's edges. Even if her mother and she had lived in the same house, they actually didn't meet that often, due to her mother's loaded work burden. Of course there must have been a lot of things her mother didn't tell her. But the whole Richard affair that she had found out just a couple of months ago notwithstanding, she hadn't thought there were things she actually withheld. On purpose. She had been young after all. An adulterous love affair might not be what you chose as a topic for a dinner conversation with your five year old daughter. This was different.
A thousand feelings swirled around in her mind, making her almost faint. Her usual mechanisms for shutting out reality when it became too intrusive didn't seem to work this time. Her breath came in short, shallow gasps and she almost panicked because there was nothing she could do to help it. She had to gather all her strength before she could make an effort to calm down and think logical. So it hurt that her mother had hidden this from her. And as it hurt even more to think about what more things there could be that she hadn't been told, she actively shut that out of her mind. After all, she couldn't deny that she too had kept a thing or two to herself sometimes.
Suddenly, a long chain of events flashed before her mind; one by one they paraded and hooked onto each other like jigsaw pieces. It only lasted for a couple of seconds, but they etched in her mind nonetheless. Things she hadn't known she knew now each turned out to be a link in a long, merciless ant parade chain. Richard had been her mother's true love. And he had left her. Or rather, he had not left Adele for her, but the result was the same. What had happened afterwards, what then had been scary and inexplicable and utterly confusing, she now knew had been grief on Ellis's part. And then she had shut the world out. She had been too burned, too afraid, too emotionally stunted to let somebody into her life again. Not even her daughter had been granted access. Distance. Expectations instead of unconditional love. Admonishments instead of hugs. Arguments instead of heart-to-heart talks. All that was due to Ellis's inability to let herself trust and love. And as an effect, here she was, doing it all over again. She was raised that way. That was what she knew.
She couldn't deny that she too had kept a thing or two to herself sometimes. To almost everyone, she realized with a pang of horrifying clarification. Cristina, Derek... Everybody that was important to her. She shut them out. Sure, she'd known she used to keep things for herself. But she had thought it was for the best. That they didn't need to bother with her crap. She hadn't known that it hurt.
Derek. She had hurt Derek. She was hurting him. It wasn't really comparable to, say, not mentioning your wife while wooing another woman but she tried her best to ignore that it might be another form of pain, to not be let in on the everyday struggle that you were supposed to share. It wouldn't surprise her if it was those small things that had made her mother's relationship with Richard not work.
She buried her head in her hands, feeling her chest ponder wildly and those shallow breaths she had managed to calm down return. Did she want a repeat of her mother's failure? Did she want the miserable life that would follow if she drove Derek away? A heavy shiver went through her body and she started to shudder violently. It was like an ice cold wind had made its way through the room even though there were no windows in Ellis's room and Meredith lost the grip of the photo with its freaking happy family. Even if she had wanted to, she found that there was no idea for her to try to find it, as everything in the room had suddenly become blurry from the tears in her eyes. Derek. She had to fix this with Derek. Without him, she was just a skinny blonde that men ragged up in bars – okay, that ragged up men in bars – that couldn't hold a relationship for more than a strictly limited time. To him, she was... someone to care about. Maybe even someone to love. Whatever. Her point was, she really had to fix this. Her problem was, she couldn't think. And she had a feeling it was really important to think right now. She needed to think. But she couldn't. Even though her body was shivering and the hair on her bare arms stood right up from the goosebumps she always got on cold days, her face was hot and flushed and she just couldn't think. She rose from the bed and closing her eyes to get rid of the sudden faintness, she headed for the bathroom. Maybe it would be better if she only could splash a little cold water on her face.
The bathroom was dark but Meredith didn't bother to turn on the light. She didn't need it to find the sink and she was only grateful not to see her own face in the mirror. She had a feeling that she didn't quite look as presentable as she'd done when arriving earlier in the evening. She held her hands under the faucet only long enough for them to be wet, not wanting to feel colder than she already did. Even as the faucet had stopped dripping and her cheeks were absorbing the water, she heard splashing and smattering from somewhere distant. It still rained. The sound gave her comfort and made her feel somewhat better, until she remembered all the things she still needed to work out.
She needed to give Derek some clues. But the thing was, she couldn't count on him still being there for her if he knew. She couldn't expect that and she didn't. Sure, she might be the girl he loved, but love only did for a limited amount of sharing. She knew, rationally she knew, that he wouldn't turn around and walk out the door if she told him about some of the things he would insist on if he knew about them. He would be caring and concerned and all those things he was so good at. But he wouldn't be able to leave it there. He would prod and he would push and he would make her tell more things. He would never get enough and when she finally had spilled it all, she would be all soaked like a dishcloth. And God knows that was just what she didn't want to be. She wanted to be happy and to be whole and to not have any more skeletons in her closet. That way she could stop him when he would just be so full of all the crap that was her past, that he would want to run the opposite way.
Suddenly, Meredith found herself down on all four, kneeling at the toilet bowl. It was as if her body all on its own had decided to react to the very idea of Derek leaving her. Only the thought of having to go out in the hall and ask for cleaning equipment or letting the nurses come in and see her sick made her still her convulsions and prevent herself from throwing up the tequila she earlier had threw down. Meredith knew she was over analyzing and maybe drawing parallel lines where there was no need for any. Just because she and her mother shared the same name, the same profession and the same workplace and both had been members of the dirty mistresses' club didn't have to mean their ways would go along the same road. Yet she couldn't shake the feeling that all her fears had some core of truth to them. She rose from the floor, grabbed a paper towel from the bail and angrily wiped off the traces of tears from her face, silently cursing herself for being weak and pathetic. The bitterness slowly subsided as she swayed and staggered out to the bed, though. A thick cloud of exhaustion descended and covered her body but she knew she couldn't sleep now. She needed to get out of here before she did something really stupid, or got the nurses' attention, or got herself into a state where she no longer would manage to drive home. But no matter how wrinkled the sheet were or how boring the white linen looked, no bed had ever felt so inviting, so almost calling for her.
Despite knowing better, she let herself collapse against the pillows and promised herself that she would only lie down for a little while. The sound of the rain was louder now and had made its way into the bedroom as well, making Meredith's eyelids growing heavier but she was determined not to close them. She tried to focus on something that would keep her alert, but there was not a single one of the way too many thoughts whirling around in her head that she wanted to acknowledge. She had to try to think of something else. Something happy. Like how she and Derek used to lie in bed together. Derek would slip his arms around her, comfort her with all his warmth and protect her from all bad that might come up in the middle of the night. He really tried to be her knight in shiny... whatever. She blinked a couple of times, fighting to keep her eyes open. Derek wasn't here so apart from all the obvious reasons, it really would be a bad thing to fall asleep, given all the ghosts this night would be able to produce. She was warm now, not shivering like before, but unfortunately that made way for heavy eyelids and languor. She really couldn't bother with the effort of staying awake anymore. The energy she had to use to keep her eyes open way outdid the one she saved when they were closed.
Just a little nap. That was all she needed. Then she would be up and fit for facing reality again.