Um... okay, so apparently summer and free time does not mean you get more time to write, which I was expecting... Oh well. Here's the next chapter anyway. Only one more to go. I didn't plan this one from the beginning, but after the previous chapters I really wanted to have some fab five scenes, so I decided to actually write about the slumber party Izzie convinces the others to have earlier. I thought it would be a bit of a filler, but it turns out Meredith needed her friends to get some perspective on the whole telling Derek about her past thing.
Read and enjoy and happy summer to you all!
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Meredith sighed and looked around her. Her kitchen desk was overloaded with pans, oven mitts and greaseproof paper. On the table stood a shocking number of small bowls, most of them yet empty but eagerly waiting for something to go into them. Izzie was on the other side of the kitchen, gesturing sweepingly while talking to George. The knife in her left hand made the conversation look mildly dangerous. Cristina sat at the table, looking exasperatedly at the various vegetables lying next to the cutting board.
"How am I supposed to do this?" she muttered and glared at the colorful peppers. "Who has salad on their pizzas anyway?"
Meredith saw Izzie cast them a sharp glance from the doorway.
"Get working," she called at them. "Those vegetables won't cut up themselves. Mer, you can start with the minced meat. It takes some time."
Meredith doubtfully eyed the package of meat, still wrapped in plastic. She hesitantly lifted it and held it at an arm's length.
"What am I supposed to do with it?" she whispered to Cristina.
Cristina shrugged. "Put it in a bowl. Everything else seems to go in one."
Meredith pondered for a moment in which cupboard Izzie or Derek might have hidden the bowls. She rummaged half-heartedly through the three ones over the oven before finding a large white one in the corner cupboard where they stored the pots.
"Why are the bowls with the pots?" she muttered. "No wonder I can't find anything in here with this logic." She sat down and lined up the bowl, the scissors and the package of meat before her like the kitchen table had become her own surgical tray. "Now what?" she asked Cristina.
"Just put it in there," she answered, frowning at the red pepper that stubbornly refused to not sprout seeds and strange green hard things wherever she tried to cut into it.
Meredith unwrapped the piece of minced meat and dropped it in the bowl. The meat bounced a little until it lay there like some kind of broken organ.
"Um... I should chop it a little, I guess?" Meredith said uncertainly. "I've never seen a pizza with a gigantic lump of meat."
She looked around for one of the wooden forks that she had seen Izzie use for baking a lot of times, but nowhere in the mess Izzie had managed to make of the kitchen table could she locate one. Having no desire to search the whole kitchen for it, she reached for a regular one instead and poked the meat for a couple of minutes until it had transformed into small shreds, looking suspiciously like a heap of lifeless worms. She glanced at Cristina for approval, but she was glaring madly at her second pepper so she found it better to be quiet.
She wondered why Izzie had said the meat needed some time. It had just taken minutes. Now, Meredith knew her kitchen abilities hadn't got the best reputation, but clearly Izzie had misjudged her this time. She decided to fill some of the other bowls too and scrutinized the ingredients on the table. There were still vegetables to cut up, but she decided to leave Cristina to that. Izzie had bought the feta cheese and the pineapples prepared, so all she had to do was placing them in the small bowls for a nicer presentation. She could do that.
"Mer, have you moved your booze since I lived here?" George asked as he strolled into the kitchen, two bottles of liquor in his hands. "I brought some, but apparently, Izzie doesn't think it's a good idea for us to drink tequila while we're studying."
"That sucks," Meredith replied, smiling as she turned the jar of feta into a yellow bowl. "I bet you'd be better at pronouncing brachioradialis or semimembranosus after some shots. I moved my stash to the basement. Second shelf to the right."
George nodded and turned on his heel, but caught sight of the meat in Meredith's large bowl. "What's that?"
"Yeah, I'm done with the meat," Meredith said. "It took not at all as long as Izzie seemed to believe," she added proudly.
George paused and looked down in the bowl. His face twitched a little, but he managed to keep his voice in control as he spoke.
"You're done?" he said neutrally. "You sure? I mean, weren't you planning on... um, frying it?"
"Frying?" Meredith echoed dumbly. "I thought it should go in the oven anyway."
George took one look at her other bowls, where bits of pineapple and feta swam around in juice and closed his eyes for a second before thrusting the bottles of booze in Meredith's hands.
"Why don't you put these with your stash, as you know where it is? I can... um, finish for you here."
Meredith frowned but when she heard Izzie approaching, she found it best to retreat. She shrugged at George and left him to deal with whatever tantrum Izzie would throw about the apparently unfinished meat.
When she returned to the kitchen a good fifteen minutes later, having taken her time in the basement and even sneaked up in her bedroom to look for her study notes, the smell of frying meat met her. Everybody had gathered around her kitchen table. Izzie and George were bent over a tin, preoccupied by spreading out pineapples and pepperoni. Alex was doing the same on another tin and Cristina was sitting beside him, looking impatient.
"Hey Mer," Izzie said as she looked up. "We've saved you a bit on each tin. Decorate them with whatever you want on your pizza."
"We're starting to get really hungry," Alex added. "You'd better get going."
Meredith cast a glance at Cristina and sat down beside her. She studied the small colored bowls before her. Many of them were half empty already. Without inspiration, she spread some minced meat and salami on Alex and Cristina's tin and ham, olives and pepperoni on Izzie and George's.
"They'll be ready in about fifteen minutes," Izzie said after putting the tins into the oven. "Let's just get started with the studying while we wait."
She strolled into the living room with Alex and George in tow. Cristina rose and attempted to follow them, but Meredith remained seated at the table. Cristina looked at her.
"You coming?"
"Would you tell Burke about your past?" Meredith blurted. She wasn't really sure of what answers she was after, but the urgent need of certainty made her desperate to talk to someone.
Cristina raised her eyebrows. Slowly, she sat down again and studied Meredith's face.
"What do you mean?" she said apprehensively.
"I don't mean things like being barfed at on your high school prom or graduating with a minor in French." Meredith picked up an olive and bit into it. "Would you tell him about your dad?"
Cristina stiffened and gave her a sharp glance. "What do you mean?" she said again.
"You told me you had a stepdad," Meredith shrugged. "Ever told Burke about that? Or what happened to your dad?" She saw in Cristina's face that it was best not to mention what Denny had told her in the creepily empty O.R. Cristina herself had never mentioned how her father died – not even the fact that he had, coming to think about it.
Cristina's eyes narrowed. "This is about Derek." She snatched the second olive from Meredith's hand and put it in her mouth.
"I scrubbed in with him today," Meredith admitted, avoiding her gaze. From the living room she could hear George rattle off the common causes of post-op fever.
"I thought you were avoiding him."
"Yeah," Meredith muttered. "I was."
"And you want to know if that's what you should be doing," Cristina stated.
Meredith squirmed uncomfortably. Cristina's voice was not what she would call supportive. Still, she gave her a tiny nod. She did want to know. Being unable to shut out the others quizzing from the other side of the wall, she heard triumph in Alex's voice as he pointed out to George that the fifth W indeed was wonder drugs.
"Well, he's a McBastard," Cristina said. "He let you down when he felt like it." She made a pause, but seeing Meredith's expression, she sighed before the silence became too awkward. "Would he go along with your bank robbery?"
Meredith looked confusedly at her.
"Bank robbery? Remember? Would he turn himself in?"
"Oh," Meredith said slowly as she remembered Cristina's weird, desperate reasoning that morning in her bed not that long ago. "But Derek's not a complicit participant in this. He's totally innocent."
"Okay," Cristina said. "But it wasn't your idea either. You're innocent too." She bent over the table, hesitating only briefly before quickly squeezing Meredith's hand. "He would turn himself in, Mer." She looked like she was about to say something more, but when the oven's alarm shrilled, she withdrew her hand as if she'd burnt herself. "Okay, that was me being supportive for at least a week. I don't even like the guy," she muttered as Izzie came rushing into the kitchen.
"The food's ready," she announced. "Usually, I wouldn't need to state that to people sitting one feet away from the oven, but since you haven't moved one inch, I guess it's not as unnecessarily as I thought." She grabbed the oven mitts from the sink and pulled out the tins.
"Sorry," Meredith mumbled. "Can we help?"
"Nah," Izzie shrugged and placed a stack of plates on the desk. "Just take a plate and scoop up your pizza." She stuck her head out the door and motioned for George and Alex to break off their bickering and come eat.
Meredith was still pondering Cristina's words and didn't pay much attention to the conversation around the table, but upon hearing Colin Marlow's name, she looked up.
"So..." Alex took a large bite from his salami loaded pizza and smirked at Cristina. "You and the cardio God..."
"Whatever," Cristina scoffed. "Mind your own business, Evil Spawn."
Izzie eagerly leaned forward. "Come on, give us something. You did Colin Marlow!"
"Yeah, like we'll be discussing my sex life during dinner," Cristina said dismissively. "But feel free to tell us about yours."
"I don't have any. That's why I have to live vicariously through yours."
"Okay," George cut into their seemingly dead end conversation. "Did anyone have interesting patients today?" He raised his eyebrows as they all looked strangely at him. "What?"
"Somebody's not getting any," Alex said and jerked his head gleefully.
"What?" George said again. "I'm just trying to make conversation. Me, I scrubbed in on a sagittal sinus bypass with Shepherd today. He was pretty upset having to slice open the chest of his old friend."
"His old friend?" Meredith said, surprised.
"Split the chest open? In brain surgery?" Izzie asked simultaneously.
"Yeah," George shrugged. "I think they used to work together in New York. She had a venus air embolism. He had to massage her heart and manually aspirate right in the middle of the surgery."
"Derek sliced open the chest of his old friend?" Meredith repeated. "That must have been..."
"Magical," Cristina chipped in, her eyes shining by the mere thought.
"It was pretty intense," George admitted. "Although Burke seemed to think it was a way of showing off for Marlow. Olivia heard them argue in the stairwell."
"Oh, he's jealous," Izzie said, her eyes almost as shining as Cristina's. "A lover's quarrel! It's been a while since the last one."
Meredith shot her a dark look, knowing all too well that she was the one Izzie had in mind and not liking it at all. Cristina didn't even condescend to give Izzie a glance and the conversation stand-stilled a little after that, the silence only punctured by small attempts from George's side to break it.
When the others moved out to the living room as soon as the last pizza had disappeared from the plates, Meredith lingered a bit. She wanted to contemplate Cristina's points in some peace and quiet. She could see how she reasoned, but she could not really convince herself of its truth. It was not that easy. She couldn't be innocent in this. Could she?
"Mer," Alex shouted, interrupting her barely minute-long peace and quiet. "Come on, take your place, we're starting now."
Meredith did her best to clear her head and hurried into the living room, Schwartz's Principles of Surgery under her arm and a bottle of water in her hand. Alex was sitting next to Cristina on the couch, leaned over the book that lay open at the table. The page was full of illegible scribblings and a couple of drawings meant to illustrate some or another organ.
"Take your seat, Mer," Izzie urged her and shooed her to the only remaining chair at the shortside of the table. Meredith placed her bottle of water at the table, dropped the book on the floor behind her and sank down at the chair.
"Okay," she said. "I'm ready."
"What types of transplant rejections are there?" Alex asked, not even looking up from his book.
"Um... hyperacute, acute and chronic," Meredith listed, counting on her fingers. She smiled satisfactorily when Alex nodded. He didn't compliment her, though, but went on with his next question.
"What's Kallmann's syndrome?"
Meredith hesitated. She knew the answer to this question, she knew she had read about it recently. What was it again? "Okay, wait, I know this," she said to gain some time when she saw the others grow impatient. "Um..."
"Whatever, it's secondary hypothalamic hypogonadism," Cristina interrupted, not caring to wait any longer. "Move over!" She jumped up from the couch and Meredith reluctantly stepped over Izzie's strategically placed feet and traded places with her. She opened her book and skimmed through the pages to find a good question, but before she could come up with anyone, a polyphonic tune of California Dreamin' drilled.
"Fuck," Cristina swore and groped for her phone. Izzie hastily unfolded her legs and crawled up from the floor where she had comfortably lain until now.
"My turn!" she called before anyone else could. She had to push Cristina's shoulder a couple of times before she finally rose and retreated into the kitchen to talk to someone about flower arrangements, sending Izzie a death glare in the passing.
"What causes stricture from a radiation bowel injury?" George asked her. "It's not a vein," he added when all response he got was a blank stare.
"Obliterative endarteritis!" Izzie exclaimed. She looked happily at George and flashed him on of her Crest smiles. "We're unbeatable together."
"Dream team," George agreed.
"Okay, my turn," Alex said, ignoring him. "What've you got? Bring it on."
"What is Littre's hernia?" Izzie challenged him.
"Uh," Alex hesitated. "Littre's hernia is, uh... Meckel's diverticulum in the hernial sac."
"In men," Cristina interjected, appearing from the kitchen.
"In women too," Alex argued. "Right, Iz?"
Izzie flipped the pages in her book, searching for the answer. "Um... I'm not sure," she said. "I can't see it here."
"Alex's right," George said. "Anyone can have it, although it's more common in men."
Cristina stared at him. "How do you... wait, the cards. You're studying with them, aren't you? Did you at least bring them?" Seeing the others' confused looks, she swept impatiently with her hands. "Callie aced her test," she explained, without doubt expecting the very same thing happening to her in just a couple of weeks. "I thought the whole hospital knew about her flash cards."
Izzie's face fell a little at the mention of Callie's name. She started to say something, but George shrugged and threw a little blue box over the table to Cristina, who lit up as a child on Christmas Day and immediately threw herself upon them like a starving lion.
The others willingly participated in her quizzing, but after round three of answering questions from the admittedly brilliant cards, Izzie yawned.
"I'll make some snacks," she announced. "My brain is craving sugar to put up with all this thinking." She rose without waiting for an answer and disappeared out in the kitchen.
Cristina didn't seem to notice. She silently flipped flash card after flash card and murmured the answers to herself before looking at the backside. Meredith, who after all sitting arrangement changes now was sitting next to her at the couch, yawned as well and let her legs rest over the couch's edge.
"Ask me something," she urged. She had thought Cristina was too deep into her own little world, but she posed a question without skipping a beat.
"What is Cantlie's line?"
"It separates the surgical left and the right lobes of the liver," Meredith replied without further hesitation. She couldn't remember it from a book, but Bailey always kept her on her toes whenever she scrubbed in on her surgeries.
"Yeah," Cristina nodded. "Which..." She broke off when her cell phone melody started chirping again. "What the...." she muttered, fishing her phone out of her pocket with vehement motions. "Yeah?" she said into the phone. Listening to the person at the other side of the line, she made a grimace at Meredith, handed her the flash cards and walked out of the living room, impatiently humming to whoever she was listening to.
Alex stood up too. He stretched her legs and started walking towards the hall. "I need some air," he said over his shoulder.
Meredith looked across the room. George was sitting at the same chair as when she had first come into the room, a little behind all the others. She wondered if Izzie's attitude to Callie was hard on him. Did he feel out of their little group nowadays? She had never felt it that way because she was with Derek, even if she knew her friends didn't particularly like him. She didn't think Cristina had either.
"Can I ask you something?" she wondered.
"Sure," he said, straightening up in that manner he had almost whenever she asked him something, looking expectant but calm at the same time.
"Would there be something Callie could say that would make you leave?"
He frowned at her. "Why are you asking that?" He scrutinized her, but she just shrugged and waited. "She's rich," he said at last, his voice flat but Meredith could hear that it was forced. "Seriously rich."
"George, that's fantastic," Meredith said softly, not really grasping why he sounded so neutral about it.
"No, it's... it's not," he said exasperatedly. "She didn't tell me. And when she did... the 200 dollars I'd been paying her for the hotel turned out to be her tip for housekeeping! She'd let me think we shared the bill. That's not... that's not fantastic."
Meredith could almost have laughed at how George's manliness seemed threatened, but she did understand that he was upset over it. She would have had a problem with that kind of withholding too, and she certainly knew Derek would be completely upset if she'd done it to him. As open-minded as he was in many ways, he was kind of old-school in others, and living off his woman would never exist in his world.
"Didn't Callie have some kind of explanation?" she asked curiously.
"Yeah, she said her parents' money had destroyed every relationship she's ever had." George didn't look particularly compassionate about this. "Guess not telling can destroy one too," he added grimly.
"So you're thinking about leaving her?" Meredith held her breath. If George would leave for that, wouldn't Derek obviously leave when he heard about her crappy past and the fact that she hadn't told him before? They sat in silence for a little while before George looked up at her.
"No," he muttered. "She's my wife. It must take more than that. But I'm seriously gonna have a hard time trusting her for a while."
"So you're staying out of obligation?" Meredith wasn't sure it was a better option. She certainly didn't want Derek to hang around just because he thought he had to. Hell, he probably wouldn't dare to leave her for any reason at all, terrified that she would jump in the nearest bay as he seemed. And then he would be bitter.
George's headshake broke her thoughts. "It's in my vows. I must believe we can get over it, you know? And there are worse things she could have done, I suppose." He sighed. "Why are you asking? What did Derek say?"
"Nothing," Meredith immediately defended him. "He did nothing. I'm just..." She sighed as well. "I'm just afraid he won't be able to take my past."
"Oh, he's ham," George said. "Don't worry about it."
"Did you just say ham?"
George waved with his left hand. "It was the husband of a patient I had once... he was all about ham and eggs. Going by him, in each situation you have to ask yourself whether you are the chicken or the pig."
"Chicken or pig?" Meredith repeated, feeling just as stupid as she probably looked right now.
George smiled. "Yeah, apparently if you have a plate of ham and eggs, the chicken is involved in the meal. But the pig... he's committed."
"The pig is committed," Meredith echoed faintly, wondering if George had lost it somewhere along the flash card parade.
"Yep," he concluded. "So it's really a question of whether you are involved or committed. And Derek is definitely the pig. He's as committed as he ever could be. Although you'd want to explain the whole reasoning behind it before you call him a pig. Callie got kind of mad at me before I did."
"Thanks," Meredith said dryly. "I can imagine. And I don't think I want to hear what that makes me in this equation." Before she could consider what George actually had tried to tell her, she heard Alex's voice from the hallway.
"Mer, there's someone at the door for you," he called.
She sighed and rose from the couch, dumping her textbook unceremoniously on the table. She took her water bottle with her to refill it in the kitchen, but was on the very fine edge of dropping it when she walked out in the hall. She hadn't even heard the doorbell and she wished she'd been smart enough to ask Alex who it was before coming out there.
"Oh," she said sheepishly, at a loss for any other words. "Um... I... we were just about going to bed, actually... " she stammered, hoping it would be a reasonable excuse, having no idea what time it was.
"We heard about your mother. I'm so sorry." Susan Grey wrinkled her forehead in a sympathetic grimace and took a step towards Meredith.
Meredith sighed inwardly. If they had come visited her at the hospital, she would at least have had a supply closet to dive into. It didn't seem like there would be any way out of this, besides making the visit shortlived. "Thank you," she said flatly.
"Is there going to be a funeral?" Susan asked. "Because we'd love to help..."
"Oh, thanks, but no... she wouldn't have wanted that. That was not who she was." She tried to find something to say that wasn't a subject quite as uncomfortable. "Um... I hope the baby's doing fine?"
"Oh, yes," Susan smiled. "She's perfect. I've never seen Molly happier." She put her arm at Meredith's. "We just came to see that you were okay. Your father is parking the car. He's been really worried about you."
"That's nice of you," Meredith said politely, returning a stiff smile. "But you didn't have to. I'm okay, just going on as usual."
"Please, Meredith," Susan sighed. "We just want to be there for you. Let us invite you to dinner."
Before Meredith could answer, Izzie popped into the hallway with a bright smile.
"Visitors," she exclaimed happily. "I've made coffee. Does anyone want a cup?"
"I'd very much like a cup," Susan smiled, before Meredith could shoot Izzie a murdering glance. "Thank you, dear," she added when Izzie bounced out with a steaming cup in her hand. In the very same moment, Thatcher Grey stumbled in on the threshold.
"The spot where I always stood when Ellis had parked in the driveway was actually not taken," he announced, first afterwards realizing the number of people beside his wife standing there. "Um... hello."
"Hi," Izzie said brightly. "Would you like a cup of coffee too?"
"He's okay," Susan said quickly. "He's had enough coffee for a lifetime, if not more, and at the very least for tonight. Why don't you take me out to see the kitchen?" she added to Izzie in a tone that probably was meant to sound carefree and spontaneous, but that didn't fool anyone. "Thatcher, honey, I've invited Meredith to dinner."
"And I'm afraid I have a lot going on for the moment," Meredith pointed out, but all to ears that already had vanished into the kitchen, except Thatcher's. "Um, I have this... it's an intern exam," she finished lamely, not really sure what you was supposed to say to your estranged father.
To her surprise, her father smiled tentatively at her. "Yes, I remember very well when your mother was studying for them," he said.
"You do?" Meredith said in surprise. She hadn't thought of it, but of course her mother would have taken the exam too. "I... I guess she aced it," she went on with a small smile, not entirely sure if she wanted to know the answer, but at the same time burning to hear it.
"Yeah," Thatcher confirmed. "She was confident she would, and so she did. Those nights she was at home the weeks before, she made me quiz her. Never wanted to take a break and do something else for a while. I fed and changed you between those study sessions."
Meredith knew she would have been about one year old when Ellis was finished with her first year of residency. Being a general surgeon, she would only have done five years before moving on to the fellowship in Boston. She felt an unexpected rush of sympathy for Thatcher. She could just imagine her dad, as she remembered him, putting up with Ellis's surely frantic behavior and caring for her at the same time.
"So... " she said. "Do you remember any of that stuff still?"
Thatcher laughed slightly. "Well, I did spend a significant amount of time reading through sections of all those text books. At least I know anything with the word cardio is impossible to pronounce and takes forever to memorize."
Meredith smiled. "That pretty much concludes it," she agreed.
They fell silent, but for the first time since Meredith had went looking for her father, she didn't feel that it was awkward. She had so much she wanted to know from him, but all those thoughts whirling around in her head at nights and at occasions she least of all needed them to somehow refused to appear now. Maybe it didn't matter. Maybe they had all the time in the world, starting with that dinner Susan was so keen on. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad after all.
"There actually was an unopened box of cards somewhere." The words slipped before she knew they even were on their way out. When she saw him frown in confusion, she wished she could just stuff them back in and she swallowed uncertainly. "The card," she said quickly. "I... uh, found the card when... in my... in Ellis's old boxes. I had to go there and pack them and... " She knew she was rambling and desperately tried to think of something nice to wrap up this conversation with that wouldn't make her come out like an incoherent stuttering fool.
"I'm sorry," Thatcher said, blinking bewilderedly. "I don't really get... what card are you talking about?"
Meredith's heart sank at his words. He hadn't sent her that card. She didn't know how it could have ended up in her mother's photo album – maybe Susan, maybe someone else entirely – but he hadn't been the one to send it. She felt a blushing red creeping up her face and she tried to find something to say to cover up for her embarrassing, blunt outburst.
"Nothing," she muttered and brushed off some invisible wrinkles from her shirt. "It was... just nothing."
"Your mother moved to Boston," Thatcher said cautiously, repeating the words he had thrown at her at his threshold that time she'd tracked him down. "And she told me not to... I mean, I wanted to... but she told me. Not to call or come around. I never sent you a card, Meredith. I'm sorry. I... I should have. I was a coward. You mother wouldn't let me know you... and now I don't know what to say to you, but I should have. I should know."
To her horror, Meredith felt a single tear finding its way down her cheek, and she furiously wiped it away before looking at her father again, putting on a fake polite smile.
"I'm fine. I must have been thinking of someone else in that card," she said flatly. "Don't worry about me."
Thatcher squirmed where he stood and cast an anxious eye at the kitchen door where Susan had disappeared.
"But... I do worry about you," he said. "I worry about all my daughters... Molly, and her baby... and... Lexie and her studies... that's not easy... but I do worry about you too. How you're getting on... I mean, that's not easy either, with your mom and all..."
Meredith nodded and let him finish his sentence, but she knew she already had started to distance herself. His words didn't matter to her as they probably should. She felt tempted to give him a sarcastic snarl, but took a deep breath and showed him a tight smile instead.
"I... I'm sorry, I... have to... I'll get Susan for you."
She turned around, unable to even bother coming up with a reasonable excuse and fled out in the living room. Cristina was once again sitting in the sofa, muttering answers to herself under her breath while flipping the flash cards so fast Meredith doubted she could even read what they said. Alex sat cross-legged at the other side of the table, an apple in his right hand and a worn notebook in front of him. He was the only of them that acknowledged Meredith.
"George and Izzie are in there with your fake mom." He nodded at the kitchen. "Either they wanna blow this test, or she's quizzing them. She looks like she could be convinced to do that." He raised his eyebrows when taking a closer look at her. "What's wrong with you?"
"Alex, I need an out," Meredith breathed. "I can't talk to him anymore. Get him out of here."
Alex eyed her for a moment and took a bite of his apple. She must have looked desperate enough, as he stood up with no further questions. He took a swig from the water bottle at the table and then cast a questioning look to the hallway. Meredith nodded silently.
She could not hear exactly what was said in the hallway, and she had absolutely no desire to. She didn't dare to sink down at the sofa so she just stood there, her fight or flight responses all alert. Cristina didn't even seem to notice she was in the room, and Meredith didn't bother to make her presence known. She could vaguely hear sounds from the kitchen, voices and clinking of coffee cups and occasionally a little laughter. That all quieted after about five minutes of biting her lower lip raw and she guessed that was when either Alex or Thatcher himself came to get Susan.
When she heard the front door slam, she could finally relax enough to find a spot next to Cristina on the couch, just waiting for the questions she knew would hail anytime. Soon enough, Izzie, George and Alex filed into the living room. Izzie carried a large cup of tea and looked pitifully at her as she stretched out on the floor. George stumbled when he sat down in his old chair, not really catching her eye and seeming pretty embarrassed about the whole thing. Alex didn't acknowledge what had just happened and just resumed studying the worn notebook that nobody had touched since he had left the room.
"Susan said hi," Izzie said after a few minutes of silence. "She hoped you would do good on the exam. She might call you in a few days." She paused. "She seems very nice," she added. "Motherly."
Meredith stood up. She felt like she was going to be sick. "I'm gonna go to bed."
"I thought we were all sleeping downstairs," Izzie immediately replied. "It's a sleepover after all."
"Let it go, Izzie," Alex warned. "Yang and O'Malley can sleep downstairs. I'm going up soon too."
Izzie looked like she was about to reply sharply, but following Alex's meaning glance at Meredith's pale appearance, she quieted.
"Well, okay," she gave in. "I guess the sleepover is... over. I'm coming with you upstairs, Mer." Not acknowledging Meredith's faint protests, she took the stairs two steps at a time, waiting at the landing until Meredith had climbed them as well.
Meredith wasn't sure what to do with Izzie there. She thought she wanted to be to herself, but then again, what she wanted had turned out to be not what was best for her all times. Izzie's presence wasn't actually disturbing at the moment. She decided to just don't take any notice of her until she had to. She searched for her sweatpants on the floor, but found them hanging neatly over the chair and remembered Derek's strange tidying frenzy from this morning. Without caring about toothbrushing or anything resembling cleaning, she changed into them and then crawled into her bed, leaving Derek's side of it still covered.
She had only been lying there for a couple of minutes, feeling Izzie's gaze at her still form even with her eyes closed, before she felt long legs stretching out beside her. They lay in silence for a while, and Meredith was lulled into the feeling from the night before when they had been sitting in the stairs, not needing to say anything. She was strangely comforted by having Izzie there next to her, and even though she hadn't exactly gone to bed in the belief that she would fall asleep, she felt herself on the verge of drowsing away.
"I didn't have a dad, either." Izzie's words broke off her almost slumber. They were soft, but there was something else to them as well, something harder. "I don't think I ever did, at least not for as long as I can remember. It was always just me and my mom." She paused a little. "I loved my mom, I did, but for each man that paraded through our trailer, I couldn't help but wonder if this was him; my father. If he would stay this time. But they never were. And they never did."
Meredith turned to look at Izzie. She had never before heard Izzie say anything at all about her father and she was surprised over what it brought up in herself.
"I dreamed of my father for years", she said slowly. "He always came to pick me up in my dreams. He always loved me unconditionally." She hesitated. "What would you do if he turned up tomorrow?"
"It's different, Mer," Izzie whispered. "My father left me, but he never had me. I may not know anything about him, but if he were anything like all my friends' absent fathers, he was a seventeen year old kid that had quit high school and smoked a lot of weed. One that eventually took his things and moved to any big city to get something more out of life. It doesn't make him less responsible, or me less angry, but... "
"It's not personal," Meredith finished. "Yeah." She thought about this for a little while. "Would you tell... I mean, when Denny lived... Or... I mean..." She quieted, not sure if dragging Denny into this would be a good thing, especially as it really didn't have anything to do with the point. Izzie seemed more composed nowadays, but Meredith guessed the wound really wasn't healed in any kind of sense. "I mean," she started over. "Would you... do you think there are secrets that are best hidden? Or should you really tell everything?"
Izzie was quiet for so long that Meredith started to believe she either hadn't heard the question, or had dozen off.
"I believe... that there are chapters of your history you really don't want to share," she said at last. "I don't know if it's the best thing do to, though."
Meredith felt uneven jerky movements and understood that Izzie was fidgeting with either her cover or her shirt. Meredith hadn't bothered to turn on the lights when she went into her room, and now that the light that had shone in on them from the hallway had gone out, she couldn't really see.
"I did things when I was sixteen that I don't particularly want people to know," Izzie whispered in the darkness. "But those things help me sometimes to understand why I feel as I do about things. Or they give me an understanding of what other people may go through."
Meredith couldn't help but wonder what kind of things Izzie could be talking about, but she knew better than to ask. Izzie had obviously worked hard on keeping this secret, and she didn't want to make her tell her out of some misplaced obligation and then regret it. She tried to think about what Izzie really had told her instead, but suddenly the sleep she never thought she would get tonight drew closer and closer again. Things that helped her understand her actions of today...
Izzie glanced over at her friend. The snorings had just begun, which meant Meredith had been asleep for a little while. She didn't know if she should feel offended for boring her out with her story, or successful for managing to help her friend get some sleep after her no doubtful rough night. She shifted the pillow under Meredith so she would rest comfortably, and gently pulled the covers up over her. She hesitated for a moment, then shrugged and pushed the bedspread over the edge onto the floor, crawled under the cover and curled up at the side of the bed Derek usually slept on. Meredith could use all the support she could get, even if she didn't even notice it.