Meredith was alone, and she hadn't stopped breathing.
Yet.
Okay, she wasn't totally alone. Amelia was up in her room, and she'd already come thundering down once with an article on the anatomy of the optic chiasm. "Read this, and see if you think I can do anything if it's pre-fixed," she'd instructed before disappearing again.
Rather than try to recapture her attention, Meredith had Googled the article and used her hospital log-in to download it on the iPad so she could mark it up. Usually, she did the opposite, preferring a physical highlighter, but those were across the house. She'd checked the end-table drawer, and yeah, Amelia had cleaned out their stash. She did find a new dry-erase marker, already the last in its pack.
She didn't have a clue what the errand Derek was running with both kids might be, and she had a sense that it was a test. For her, for Zola, maybe for Amelia. She'd cover if Derek objected to his sister putting the stairs between them. She'd waited for Meredith to be sure her meds would silence the whisper telling her she should've turned Derek's Find My Friends on, so she could see it stop at the airport and continue across the country.
Zola had been fretful, and Meredith had wanted to echo her reminder that "you said all the weekend." But, like a good adult, she'd taken Derek's side. Without words, she'd made sure Zpla had Anatomy Joanne in hand, and reminded her that she could FaceTime and sign with her if she wanted, and she'd missed Daddy this week, hadn't she?
"Your mom is pretty magical, did you know that?" Derek had asked Bailey as they watched Zola run to the car through the front window.
"Yeah." The toddler had grabbed Meredith's hand and waved it. "So magic! Abby-Dabby!"
"And what does Abby Cadabby do?"
"Poof!"
"That's right! She comes and goes like magic." Derek had grinned at Meredith. "That's what we're going to do. We'll be back before you know it."
"Going where?"
Derek had glanced at Bailey, who was driving a scarlet engine (James) through the air in spirals. "Play-G-R-O-U-N-D," he signed. "Maybe library."
She hadn't been able to stop from smiling. She'd learned that sign to boss Wilson around; Derek picking it up was one of the tiny reassurances she was trying to hold onto, to the point of starting a list on her phone. That was a step beyond Wyatt's suggestion on Friday, and the psychiatrist was going to be shocked that she'd been heard at all. The appointment had been an hour before Derek landed at Sea-Tac.
"They need some time out of the house, and you haven't taken a break since this guy woke up." He'd dipped Bailey backward, startling a shriek of laughter from him.
"Not tired," she'd signed, after tickling the baby while his shirt fell over his face. "True-biz," she'd added, in case he thought she was being petulant.
"You seemed to sleep soundly last night," he'd acknowledged. "Wringing out the last drop of energy isn't the way to keep that going."
"Oh, yeah?"
"Oh, yeah." He'd kissed her. "Before you know it," he promised. "Right, Bails?"
"Go to bye-bye. 'Cause, 'cause, Abby-Dabby gotta poof!"
Meredith had kissed the hand he waved at her, and blew him another from the front window. Only once she heard Derek's car door slam had she let the devious smile form.
"What?" Amelia had asked.
DIDN'T U HEAR IT?
$5 SAYS HE YELLS
"DADDY, WE GOTTA POOF"
FS? NOT HIS STRONG SUIT
EITHER HE'LL DROP IT
OR MAKE IT A P
BEST CASE? A T.
Amelia had tilted her head, mouthing the words and likely running through Bailey's common mispronunciations. "No takers," she'd decided. "Too bad we couldn't arrange for Zola to film it."
SHE'LL EGG HIM ON.
Four out of five times, it was Zola who made Bailey realize he was funny. From there, it was all him. He'd wanted the spotlight since the day he was born, but hadn't yet figured out how to wrest it from his big sister.
Prior to going upstairsthe cup that had held the broth of Meredith's lunch and replacing it with an Ensure she'd be expected to finish before the next "substantial" drink. The realization that part of Derek's plan was almost definitely involve food he'd deemed unfair to eat in front of her. It reminded her to text Callie.
MEREDITH GREY: Not getting actual cheeseburgers may suck more than the abstaining from the metaphorical ones.
CALLIOPE TORRES: no one has cleared you for strenuous movement.
MEREDITH GREY: Come on, Callie, what kind of bisexual are you? The whole problem is that there's only one way to satisfy a craving for a real cheeseburger.
CALLIOPE TORRES: ah. I'm sure Shepherd would blend one up for you.
MEREDITH GREY: That would be disgusting. & the Internet says the flavors no good.
But yeah, he 's good like that.
CALLIOPE TORRES: he… hasn't?
MEREDITH GREY: He's tried. Medications are still affecting the…temperature. Flavor's ok, but no burgers have been in my blender.
The magic bullet has not beaten any meat.
CALLIOPE TORRES: remember when you couldn't communicate?
MEREDITH GREY: Yup. It sucked.
CALLIOPE TORRES: it did. Even if you're forcing me to consider Shepherd's technique outside of the OR.
MEREDITH GREY: About that.
CALLIOPE TORRES: don't. I know you ghost wrote half of what he said the other night
MEREDITH GREY: Only half? He must've off-script .
You've gotta give her the chance to fail. It'll be harder than letting her fall while she was learning to walk again, because you can't catch her or help her up. know that you're trying to help by making sure Derek's there to catch Amelia, but it's the same thing. All you're doing is making her think you don't have confidence in her.
Meredith hit send without clarifying which "her" she meant. It could be Arizona or Amelia and get the point across. Both were questioning themselves enough; she'd seen that from her hospital room, and it was only clearer from her house across the sound.
She'd finished her estimates for Amelia and was spreading the journal open on her lap by the time Callie replied. While she was reading that, she got a text from Derek, containing a picture of the kids. She couldn't tell which park they were at, but it must've been one of the good ones. They were both smiling at the camera, and she could almost see them vibrating with the desire to run—Together.
Maybe this week they could load the wheelchair up and go to the playground a few minutes away. It connected to one of the many horse farms on the island. She wouldn't be able to climb up on the fence with Zola, but she was pretty sure the path that led to it was smooth. Specific patients had made her consider the lack of accessibility in her day-to-day, and the evaluations they had done to ensure Zola's diagnosis was certain led to her doing more research about the effects of spina bifida than the causes. It was a different way of thinking, one that Arizona had had to take on full-time.
It'd been difficult for Meredith not to compare Arizona's situation to Derek's. She'd gotten lucky, in a messed-up way. Surgeons who used wheelchairs had to be able to quote the ADA back-to-front. One of her classmates had Cerebral Palsy and had had to report a surgeon on her clinical rotation for promising to "go easy on her" since she wouldn't need to be able to operate to work as a PCP. Last time she'd checked, Nadine was working plastics in Worcester. Otherwise, accommodation was rare. She'd known of a few Deaf surgeons, and while she was in med school there'd been articles about a blind student being given an M.D.—the second in the country, the first since the nineteenth century. Regardless of whether you could continue to do the job, they'd been conditioned to pride themselves on ignoring every warning sign their brains sent them. It wasn't safe or healthy. Having to acknowledge pain she couldn't control didn't affect Arizona's abilities, but it would've been difficult for it not to change the way she saw herself. Callie's job would've made the dissonance worse, and she'd known it. She'd gone so far in her attempt to not see Arizona as "less" or "limited" that she hadn't seen any change at all.
CALLIOPE TORRES: I know I'm being weird and hovery. It's just that for twenty-one months (thanks so much for having a kid the day my wife cheated on me) our status has been complicated, but we were still something. I don't know how to shut that off.
MEREDITH GREY: I get that. But that's not all, is it?
CALLIOPE TORRES: don't you dare let this get past those wires; I'll put you in them for another six weeks
(never. You know I would never.)
I don't know why Owen thought Cristina would change her mind—hell her nature. She was honest with him. Arizona was too. It was a big deal for her to choose to be Sof's mom. If she'd said trying/losing was too much I know I don't rly know her now or w/e, but how is Herman the Hermit's life what she wanted more? (shut up, you've said worse) is being a different person not having anyone instead of not having kids?
MEREDITH GREY: (I know you wouldn't)
She sent that, and then paused. It was nice to be able to think about what she wanted to say without having the other person staring at her. The journal was the only other way she got that, and it sometimes made her overthink.
She flipped to the picture of the kids again. Somehow, with her barely able to make a sound, she and Derek were communicating more than they had in over a year, if not ever. In more ways, definitely. In any other scenario, she'd tell Callie to talk to Arizona, but she'd already ashed that option. She felt for her. Her first instinct was always to open her text thread with Derek, even if she'd thought better of typing.
MEREDITH GREY: She has people. So do you. Sometimes the same people, which is part of why this is so hard. She's not going to be a hermit once the surgery is over (are you kidding? I wish I'd come up with that.)
When Zo was in the system & I took those shifts in delivery, one reason was that I just wanted to see that sometimes someone has a baby, they go home with their family, and that's it. I don't know when Arizona made the choice to pursue fetal medicine, but I don't think it had to do with having/not having another baby.
She paused again, turning to the diagram she'd madek for Amelia. The print of the original article was smaller than she'd been able to manage for weeks, and she'd already be on the edge of having the iPad lock her out. Her bones and joints, the muscles she pulled along the way, those recoveries were easy to predict. There could've been surprises. She could've fallen, or developed compartment syndrome, but overall there was a map. Concussions could pull stunts. This was the fourth she'd had, and it could reappear in the form of PCS. Having that joker lurking in her brain had made her reconsider some things, and that'd been compounded by the symptoms of the invisible injury to her mind.
MEREDITH GREY: We've gone over the "Meredith might've cursed your baby" thing, yeah? We're cool?
CALLIE TORRES: your dark energy isn't that strong.
MEREDITH GREY: So you think.
If she'd been here, the Hermit probably couldn't have done more than Addison and Fields You flatlined for a long-ass minute (bitch). Baby had to come out. At 23.5wks. Earlier than bailey. Earlier than Samuel. Consider: with Arizona's leg, you could've hypothetically done something. Arizona was a surgeon, a tiny baby surgeon. She could do nothing until thhere was a tiny baby, and Sofia was so small that if she hadn't started breathing, she wouldn't have been considered a baby. Arizona couldn't do anything for either of you. Having that experience & wanting to save another parents from it? That's badass, and if you ask me it's very Arizona Robbins, crash or no crash. She's moving forward.
It's not moving on, b/c it has nothing to do with your relationship. No more than your prosthetics do anyway.
A minute after that was sent, the approach of an unfamiliar motor—no, wait, two of them—made her sit up, The journal fell onto the couch. Once she recognized the first car as Wilson's, her shoulders relaxed; though she didn't loosen her grip on her phone. She couldn't make out the silhouette in the follow-car, but it looked male, and wasn't Alex. She scrutinized Jo's body language as she climbed out. Uncertain, but not upset. She held her hand up to the person behind her, and their door stayed shut. Before reaching for her crutch, Meredith texted Amelia.
MEREDITH GREY: Do you know why Wilson is here? Or who's with her?
AMELIA SHEPHERD: no, not Edwards's car.
Be down in a sec.
Not trusting Amelia's concept of time, or wanting to leave Jo out on the porch, Meredith made her way over to the door. Callie might let her put full weight on her leg by Thursday, but she wasn't sure her armpit wouldn't be bruised permanently already.
Both locks were turned. Amelia had made a show of it once Derek left. "I never understood how two city kids could get in the habit of not doing that," she'd proclaimed. Meredith had smiled, gratefully, letting stand the fiction that Amelia hadn't fallen into it too.
"Doooctor Grey, hi," Wilson said, thrown aback by Meredith's appearance at the door. "Nothing's wrong. I don't think. This guy showed up at the house thinking you lived there. Alex is at work, but he yelled at…vetted him...over the phone, and I made him talk to me on the ferry, and it seems to check out that he's…." Wilson gestured to the car. "He says he's your father?"
Confirmation came with the shock of white hair appearing above the driver's door of the sedan. It was nicer than the old one. She wasn't driving her Jeep, either, but she doubted he'd been promoted, much less that it'd come with that much of a bonus. Not all of Lexie's part of the settlement had gone to the hospital. What model was 2011 it? 2012? How long had he waited to start spending the money meant to make up for Lexie?
"My God, Meredith," he said, his voice barely making it across the distance. She lifted her chin. She knew what she looked like, and how hard it'd been on people who loved her. His reaction was to a sling and a crutch.
"Mer?" Having someone come up behind her had never felt so much like having back-up. She heard Jo repeat her explanation for Amelia, but didn't process any actual words until she heard her name.
"….I'll be your board bitch. Is it in the living room?"
"I'll get it. Just make sure she—"
"Enu'th. 'm ri' 'ere," Meredith managed. Hating the way she sounded was a minor misery in this moment, but she really did. She made sure Amelia was supporting her, and shifted to rest her elbow on the crutch and sign to Jo. "You understand?"
"Not much. No more than I could in the hospital."
"Don't need more for him." When all that got was a smirk, she added, "Tell him."
The translation was stumbled over, and included two "sorry, Dr….Meredith"s but that felt right.
‟He's here, why?"
‟Uh, tell her I went—"
Meredith swung her arm around to grab the crutch's handgrip and smacked it on the porch.
‟She can hear," Jo translated, and Amelia muttered, "Eed-yot." Meredith relaxed against her a tiny bit more. Jo put the back of her hand to her mouth for a second before repeating the question.
‟I went to your house, and this girl said you sold it. Couldn't believe it, after how Ellis... well, seeing this… Gives your kiddos more room to play, right? The baby walking?"
‟For nearly a year," Amelia answered.
‟Oh. You'd think I...I do have the birth announcement. Meant to send a card, but it was the end of the semester, and...hard to believe it's been almost three years, isn't it?"
‟B.B. is—"
Meredith shook her head at Jo. ‟Plane," she signed. She wished she'd learned that sign to play with Bailey, not for Lexie's birthday, but it'd felt like she should be able to tell her story in every way she could. Something her mother would've called sentimental. More and more those things felt worth doing. ‟Why?"
‟Well, uh...I saw the announcement last year about...about your...Derek's appointment, so until recently I thought you'd followed him."
Follow. That was what he'd done. It was what Derek had expected. For the first time in weeks, she felt fully right in her decision against it.
‟Uh, then a detective came by my office. Nice Indian guy. India-Indian."
"B-R-I-T-I-S-H."
"You know him? I guess you would, huh? That's obvious? I don't know—I don't know much about these things beyond Law&Order." Thatcher smiled self-deprecatingly. Meredith didn't move. ‟Couldn't tell me more than that you were beaten up."
Beaten up. That was what'd happened, but it didn't encompase the situation at all. Did he Google the story? Did it seem like nothing to him, like it did to her if she simply wrote out the facts? Did he know anything about Lexie's life in Boston beyond one boyfriend who'd come home with her? Did he think Lexie had made bad choices, or been taken advantage of? Had he told her? Where had her ssiter's definsive bashfulness telling her about her freshman year come from? She hadn't considered asking her, and she'd never say a word to him.
"I, uh, on the news, I saw he...the guy who...who did it... was extradited, and you know I see Richard from time to time."
Behind her, Amelia had an audible epiphany, and then she squeezed Meredith's arm. What did he say, or not say, about her at meetings? What did he say about Lexie? Did he go to the one near the hospital, or one of the others she went to with Richard?
‟He said you'd gone home, and you were doing well, but I guess I just wanted to see for myself that you were...that you were all right." There it was. Meredith couldn't believe how casually he could say that, and he didn't think anything of it at all. He'd come for himself.
‟Why not come see her at the hospital?" Jo asked.
Thatcher squinted at her, and then looked to Meredith. She jerked her thumb at Jo. ‟Well... well...I didn't want to be in the way. I'm not...sick beds were always my wife's thing." He meant Susan, she was sure, but it applied to Ellis, too. She remembered how awkward he'd been in the NICU, and at Molly's bedside before that. But he had been there. He wasn't lying, but he was prevaricating. That he didn't want to face the reminders of Lexie? That here he might find himself facing Derek, but not a whole hospital more or less on her side. Whatever the justification, it was cowardice.
‟And I've been... I'm alone here. Lexie's gone. Molly and Eric are in Bahrain…. I, uh, you met Danielle…. She didn't...I think having a daughter hre age, and having a daughter her age who died…. That's been quite a while now, but there hasn't been anyone else. No looking for a widowed alcoholic whose life story sounds like he crossed paths with a vengeful witch."
Meredith's lips curled into a snarl. She didn't hold a monopoly on feeling cursed, or even being curssed by Ellis Grey—and if he hadn't meant her, then, she had no doubt he'd used the term vengeful witch in the past—but the implication that things just happened to him—Maybe all the guilt she carried was partially made up of the responsibility he should've taken.
"What I'm getting at is that I've been busy preparing to...a student told me about a semester they spent teaching in Zimbabwe. I'm leaving next week. Supposed to, anyway. I thought, if you needed anything..."
"No. You want to hear 'go,' or 'don't.' Suppose, what I say you don't like it? My fault. 'Recently, my daughter, a man attacked her. My life I can't change.' You want to blame-me. Soon, you'lldisappear. I'll see you years later. When R-I-C-H-A-R-D brings-you. Maybe M-O-L-L-Y's idea. You'll think about visiting,when? Never."
The cadence of ASL came to her better than it ever had before; the repetition and emphasis of questions, the timeline, the structure. It made it harder on Jo, and her direct translation probably sounded wrong to Thatcher, especially when they had to pause for Meredith to spell out a word she didn't know the sign for. That disappear was one of them only made her angrier. It hadn't been a common thing to teach babies in 1978; the language had barely been accepted, almost lost in favor of deaf children being made to fit in. It still felt like another way he hadn't equipped her for anything that had happened to her—that he'd done.
"The other day, D-E-R-E-K told me 'sorry.' Why? Years ago, he pressured-me to-eat with you. He said he didn't see. S-U-S-A-N wanted to know me. She felt guilty. She felt lonely. L-E-X-I-E, school. M-O-L-L-Y, married. She thouht I needed mothering. Maybe true.
"June 1983, D-C-F called-you. S-U-S-A-N kneew why?" How strange that out of all the Greys, Thatcher was the one who could keep his face unreadable. He held onto the edge of the car door, stoically keeping his eyes on Jo. "You work together?A-F-F-A-I-R?" It made all too much sense, but him casting herself as the victim had kept her from following the trail.
‟I-I thought Ellis would…. I expected you to end up with us. I did. If she'd seen it as me taking you...I thought she'd be overwhelmed soon enough."
"More? Already, she'd—" Jo lowered her eyebrows. "Dr. Grey, I'm not sure I…."
"You didn't think someone who attempts suicide in front of a child was in over her head?" Amelia asked. Jo's face went from chagrin to horror.
Thatcher finally turned to Meredith. "I-I didn't…. They didn't say…." He sighed and slumped into he run down posture she'd seen from him dozens of times. "Your mother had already requested full custody."
"After everything you didn't want to fight Mom?"
"There wasnever any winning if you engaged Ellis directly. I thought once she...she got you—"
"Out of—fake? Oh. F-O-S-T—foster care!" Jo whistled. "Accurate synonym."
"-to Boston!" Thatcher insisted. "She didn't have anyone… They told me Richard had left town, I-I assumed that was why….
"Yes," Meredith signed, and waited for the equations to finish flashing through Jo's eyes. "Also, no. My mother wasn't like S-U-S-A-N. Knowing me? Eh. She wanted me. Why?Menthought with me she'd-be slow. If she left me? Better future.Lie,-lie, lie. She didn't believe them. She pretended. Richard said, 'stay with your family. Your child.' Mom said, 'I can't alone.' She wanted him. Not to die."
Thatcher's expression turned patronizing. It fit his face strangely well, in her eyes. Meredith snapped at Jo and drew the index figner of her left hand along her wrist and then bent it up to touch her neck, and then started to prompt her like she would with Zola. "C-A-R—Carotid!" she yelped. "Sorry!" She turned hastily to Thatcher, and Meredith let her forehead touch Amelia's shoulder. "If Ellis Gr—If your ex-wife could cut her wrists, she could've cut her carotid. She'd have bled out too quickly for anyone to do anything. I-It'd be painful. And gruesome. But from what I've heard, she wouldn't want to chance failure."
"No," Thatcher said. "She wasn't."
If she'd known him better, would she have been able to tell what he was thinking? Was he wondering why he hadn't seen it, like she did? Had he known something that kept him from questioning it? Would her role in the situation and the reverse psychology invvolved surprise him? Those questions were more pressing. She would've spoken them, but her hands hadn't moved when he spoke.
"When I found out she went to her sister's, I was surprised…. They weren't on good terms."
"They fought. Mom cried. Five months later, she gave birth. My third sister. M-A-G-G-I-E."
‟What? Th-That…. I...I...I... that's... It wouldn't be..."
‟She's Richard's," Amelia cut in. "I'm Derek's sister, and I'm only up to date on half of their malarkey at any given time, but if you hadn't been divorced a year without signing away parental rights, you'd have been on the birth certificate. In fact, pre-HIPAA, I imagine they said 'congratulations' before 'by the way, your wife cut her wrists in front of your preschooler—'"
Meredith's heart-rate spiked at the word that to her meant "Zola." She couldn't fathom how her father could seem so blasé about having her taken anywhere, much less for good. She couldn't imagine the point at which she or Derek wouldn't have flown to the hospital if they'd gotren a call like that. Derek had, and he'd done it for her, not just to take care of his kids. He'd done what both Richard and Thatcher had been expected to do.
‟'—you want to come pick her up before she gets put in care for seventy-two hours, that we'll extend with hoops?'"
Jo glanced at Meredith, who raised an eyebrow back and signed "a week." It was nothing in comparison to Jo's experience with the system, but it had made her very susceptible to the words they'll take you away.
" Susan, uh…, that is...we didn't want to confuse h-you."
"S-U-S-A-N," Meredith corrected. "You ever fight her like Mom? That bother you? Herdeciding? Mom? Make you feel less than a man?" The sign for man was built from fatherand person. He'd always been less than a father. "You ever want to hurt her? Hit her? Only me? After she died, you yell-at M-O-L-L-Y? Only surgeons?"
"My wife of twenty-four years had died... You can't know…. She'd... It was hiccups, and you promised—"
‟No! Excuse me, sir, I'm missing a lot of context. I didn't even meet the other Dr. Grey, either of them, but it doesn't matter. You don't hit someone for words and make it their fault."
‟I...I... That's not me. Meredith, you know that. The booze and losing Susan...I wasn't in my—"
"Shut up. Not yourself? That's A-L-Z-H-E-I-M-E-R-S. When Mom understood she'd hurt me, she apologized. Embarrassed. She knew itwasn't right. She hit me? Purposefully? Never. I'm not like L-E-X-I-E. Not good. Not bad. If I lived here? Maybe better. Then I thought she didn't want me, why? She did one thing. You and Susan didn't do many-many things. Protecting me? Mom-wasn't the-best. Okay.
"Susan didn't see you gave her all the-choices, why? You appeared powerful. You hate failure, loss, mistakes. Never your fault. At-the-hospital, I took that. She died. You needed to-show power."
‟That's not—you know I'm not like that, Meredith! I never..."
‟I don't know! I know you took my—your what?" Jo asked. Meredith blinked at her. She'd forgotten Jo hadn't been here since she started learning organ signs with the kids. It'd been a long-ass week.
‟L-I-V-E-R. You said 'we can try again.' Lexie died...P-O-O-F," she spelled. Amelia chuckled. ‟If you changed, I don't know. I know Mom kept me, and you didn't try. You wrote your name. You didn't read."
She hadn't perused the paperwork fully the first time she went through her mother's files, simply seen the form title and confirmed that it terminated parental rights. She'd returned to it in the fall. Thatcher's name should've been on Maggie's birth certificate.
‟Sure I—"
‟Careful." Meredith snapped and gestured for Jo to face her. ‟No name small child."
The resident's face made Meredith think she'd have to spell it out, but then the confusion became indigence. ‟Seriously? 'Unnamed minor child?' You didn't realize your daughter's name would've been—?"
‟It was all legalese!"
‟No way. Sorry, Dr—Meredith, but I had plenty of my own paperwork. Those things have to define their terms. You waived your rights to Dr. Pierce."
Meredith smiled at Jo's enthusiasm. When the resident turned back to her, she signed, "Child help. S-U-P-"
Jo grinned. ‟It's in the divorce agreement?" Meredith nodded. She turned to Thatcher who was edging toward the car door the way he'd inched away from it. ‟In some jurisdictions she could sue you for back child support on behalf of her mother's estate."
Amelia snickered ‟Look at his eyes," she murmured in Meredith's ear. ‟He's looking at the house and trying to calculate your net-worth."
It did seem likely. Meredith remembered how he'd drunkenly tried to write Lexie a check. Deep down she'd considered that he hadn't been thinking of the daughter in front of him, but of the child he'd ne never supported. It wasn't impossible. He must've seen her mother in her the day Susan died. Now, she suspected that the daughter who moved to the same city as his ex-wife to pursue the occupation he blamed for the deterioration of his marriage was owed plenty of pride.
‟Go. If you want to-know me and my kids—" She signed true-biz, and before she spelled it out, Amelia teanslated, "like, for real?" Meredith pointed back at her, and then to Jo. "—okay.Don't? Okay. One, then another? They'll learn you're F-L-A-K-Y. No chances."
‟Wait, for real?" Amelia asked. ‟I know that's your M.O., but—"
‟He's her dad. You don't just write off—"
The smack of the crutch wasn't as loud this time, but she got chagrined winces from both women. ‟He's here. I want them to not know. Don't want them F-O-O-L-E-D like me. Alone with him? Never.
"I let him hurt me. I believed Mom. I was weak, bad doctor, not rateful child. She told him 'You're P-A-T-H-E-T-I-C, weak, T-I-M-I-D. She died? I started understanding, slowly. Started fighting. Maybe the same for him. Faster. Maybe not. Maybe. Mom was protecting me better than I knew." She wasn't sure she'd meant for Jo to translate that, but she was glad she did. Might as well put it all out there.
‟I wouldn't hurt my grandchildren," he protested.
‟Easy to say. You don't say their names. Who are they? Easy. Your grandchildren. Little blonde girl? M-O-L-L-Y."
‟That was—"
‟Easy. Mom, me, L-E-X? C-All C-O-M-P-L-I-C-A-T-E-D. You don't like that. With S-U-S-A-N your life was easy.. Drinking, easy. A-A rules? One choice.No liver? No choice. Leaving? No past. Easy.Being there? Living? Always choices. All yours. Scary. Normal. Giving up? Easy choice. You chose coming here..Not easy? I see. Don't kn ow what you want? Start choosing..Sorry you worried."
Amelia took the hint and helped her turn away from the door. ‟You slayed that," she said.
Meredith's hand shook while she signed, ‟thanks," but she didn't feel panicky. It took a moment for her to identify what she felt as exhilarated. She'd faced that without Derek. She hadn't stood on her own, or technically spoken for herself, but at the same time, she'd done both, alone. She was still capable of vanishing her own ghosts. The one who looked haunted was Jo. She barely cracked a smile when Meredith thanked her for the assist, spelling ASSIST to clarify that she wanted to allude to the OR. She went for the board.
I WAS 5. IT WAS A WEEK.
IT WASN'T THE WORST PART.
NOT GREAT. NOT AWFUL
Jo shrugged, pulling her legs up in the chair she'd drifted over to. Amelia picked up the iPad and started examining Meredith's interstitial radiation notes.
‟I'm sorry. I should've called, but I wanted to be sure of whatyou wanted, and Alex just said you hadn't seen him since your sister died."
U WORKED W/WHAT U KNEW.
MIGHT'VE SAID DON'T COME.
GLAD U DID. SETTLED A LOT
HE'S A DIPSHIT. B/HE DIDN'T NO ABT MAGGIE
& LIE TO ME&WEBBER
HE PRBLY WASN'T ALWAYS A VERBALLY
PHYSICALLY ABUSIVE NEGLECTFUL COWARD
JUST CLD ONLY PLAY DAD IF SOME1 FED HIM LINES
IT WASN'T ME. I WAS 5. I DIDN'T MAKE HIM GO.
COULDN'T MAKE HIM STAY.
YOU WERE A BABY. RIGHT?
Jo nodded, woodenly. ‟Two weeks."
2 WEEK OLDS SUCK. FACT.
That got a surprised laugh from Jo, and Amelia looked over. ‟There's all they can do. They know. They're mad about it."
LIQUID DIET. I'D SCREAM IF I CLD.
I WANTED TO SCREAM THRU B'S 1st WKS
& 1 WAS SGM & LUCKY. I CLD FEED HIM.
I LOVE IT. I GET THE HORMONES.
IF SOMEONE DIDN'T & WAS ALONE ?
XHAUSTED? SCARED? CUTE WLD HAVE 2 WORK HARD.
MYB UR MOTHER WAS LIKE HIM
DIDN'T WANT THE RESPONSIBILITY.
MYB SHE HAD POST-PARTUM PSYCHOSIS.
MYB SHE CHANGED HER MIND 2 STREETS AWAY.
I'M SURE SHE THOUGHT U'D B TAKEN CARE OF. SAFE.
YOU HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH IT.
U WERE BARELY U. SHE DIDN'T KNOW U.
‟He did," Jo protested. For a second Meredith thought she meant her birthfather, but then Jo sent a fearful glance at Amelia. ‟Um. Dr. Shepherd—"
‟I'm not here. I'm traveling through alternate universe versions of Nicole Herman's head."
Herman the Hermit,. Meredith had gotten better at not smiling when she couldn't actually suck it back.
‟Ohhhkay." Jo's uncertain look became a side-eye. Meredith let them figure it out while she wrote.
HE'S THE 1 LIKE THATCHER.
HE WANTED SOME1 SMART B/ VULNERABLE.
SOME1 WHO CLD KEEP UP W/ HIM
B/ WLD LET HIM MAKE THE RULES.
HE DIDN'T CARE THAT
U CALCULATE A DOSAGES FASTER THAN ANY1
U'LL CHOOSE 2 WATCH TINKERBELL MOVIES
UR WRONG ABT KRAFT. (CHEF BOYARDEE 4EVER!)
MYB LOVE IN HIS HEAD. THATCHER LOVEDSUSAN.
HOW MUCH WAS LOVING HER? AS AN INDIVIDUAL?
I CAN'T SAY.
She put the white board on the coffee table to let Jo sit with that and picked up her phone, feeling like hours must've passed. It'd been maybe half of one. If she asked, Derek would come home, but that was a want, not a need.
Amelia was giving Jo a brachytherapy master class with the Anatomy Jane Brain when Meredith heard another motor. This one she knew. Soon, it was followed by the kids voices. Then, Derek's. Then, the barking of a delighted dog. Before she dared to look out the window she returned to her phone.
MEREDITH GREY: Derek Christopher Shepherd, what did you do?