"Is it Boston?" Derek asked. Meredith took his uninjured hand and tucked her fingers between his, rubbing her thumb against the back of his palm; giving him confirmation that he'd been heard. He'd waited for her to be facing away from him, in case this was one of those conversations she'd have wanted to have in the dark.

What a joke. Meredith Grey, child of darkness, scared of the dark. Her Bostonian friends would've busted their guts laughing at that, and she'd have to sew them up.

It could happen. Sort of. Someone from school or the scenes she'd haunted could show up at the Brigham; a short-term coworker, someone she'd met tending bar, or dancing on one. It couldn't get weirder than her father and a sister she'd never met, could it?

"If it was, do you think I'd have applied to the Brig and MGH?"

"Yes. Your mom's old hospital, and their rival? If you're as enthused after turning the Brigham down as you were about telling MGH you needed better benefits, I won't object."

You would. You want to leave. You want the new job.

"This is your show, Mer. I'm along for the ride," he murmured his chest vibrating against her shoulder. She couldn't press against him fully with his other hand elevated between them, but they made every point of contact matter. "But any time you want to burst into the study and mount me before I know what's happening, have at it."

"Unfortunately, I can't refuse the position my mother held every day." If he could see her smile, he'd be insufferable. All you call me smug? "I did pause to make sure the chair wasn't gonna topple us. Maybe the pain meds affected your perception of time; they weren't holding you back any other way."

She felt the leering smile against her shoulder. If she shoved him down and slung a leg over, they'd both be ready for it. It'd been like that all week, but it wasn't what she needed, now. The sex they'd had since Boise had been frenzied and desperate. One or both of them taking the way she had in his office. Life affirming in the final rush of euphoria, but also because it blocked out everything but the their pulses and heaving lungs. They'd pull each other into closets and on-call rooms while cycling between Mark and Lexie's rooms, visiting the daycare, and lingering in front of the window of Cristina's room, wondering what was wrong with her that she hadn't shattered—

"Hey, not doing that." Derek tugged her wrist to move her fingers away from the scrape on her forehead.

"Crap. I'm not this stupid."

"You're not stupid at all. Sure you don't want to cover it?"

"Been there, bye, kitty. People already stare at me like they think I…like maybe I parachuted out or something. The ones who don't tell me how awful it must've been—like I don't know."

"God forbid anyone sympathize with you."

"Exactly. You get it."

"Rest assured, I do not. Roll over." With a huff, she grabbed the Ziploc off of the bedside table, and tossed it at him. It wasn't snapped; he could handle it.

He flipped up the hand sanitizer lid with one flick of his thumb, and then doing the same with the antibiotic ointment. Aside from lowering the minimal risk of infection, the film of it would make her more likely to notice where her fingertips were.

"Don't know what I'm doing. Palpating? Felt like it should be my skull was broken. Wanted it to be a dream…but we're home, and—"

"And it's okay that you're not fine." He smoothed a greasy clump over the scrape she prodded most, the one that stung dully around the edges, protected from infection, but irritated, on the edge of inflamed. His soft fingers slid across the smaller spots, and once the dabs were smoothed out, he kept stroking her face, skillfully avoiding the unhealed places.

"It's not not Boston," she admitted.

He brought his thumb to the corner of her mouth and kissed her. She inhaled deeply through her nose, taking in the scent of him tinged slightly by the gauze and Ace wrap over his other wrist. When he lifted his head again, he rested his thumb on the cleft of her chin. His eyes said everything he wouldn't. That he was surprised that she wasn't taking the out. That he knew she was trying. That this time she was determined that the near-death experience wouldn't come between them. That something in her had cracked as cleanly as Lexie's bones when she landed in that clearing, with their baby five hundred miles away.

She put the ointment and Purel in to the bag and returned them to the bedside table. Any other time, her hand would've gone to the switch off the lamp, but it barely occurred to her.

In Zola's room, a nightlight that played music and cycled through colors. Meredith didn't remember having a fear of the dark as a toddler, and by five she'd known the truth: the most terrifying things could happen in broad daylight.

At thirty-three, she'd discovered that darkness could transport you back in time. It could take a place where you thought you were safe and turn it into a dream, return you to a nightmare.

She'd slipped into the habit with Derek in the hospital, and panic had shoved sleep out of its path. It receded with the light, leaving a cavern for thoughts she didn't want to have. She'd berated herself for not filling the prescription Bailey had already written for her that day, saying, "I am not a psychiatrist, but I pay attention to my people. You've got Yang, Shepherd, and your sister here. It's not going to help anyone if you pull the same stunt she did—"

"The last time her boyfriend almost died?" Meredith snapped. Bailey had narrowed her eyes, and Meredith had taken the script. She'd planned on filling it the next day, because, loathe as she was to admit it, not sleeping was a Grey thing.

(Which meant Lexie would wake up.)

"Chances are, we're going to be needed here, Derek," said she pointed out, settling into Derek's arms again.

"Make it a thought experiment."

"Were you that guy in college? The 'I'm just playing devil's advocate here; you're the one getting all pissy. What, are you PMSing?' guy?"

"Wow, Dartmouth had some real assholes."

"If you're telling me Bow Down to Me University didn't have them, it was you and Mark."

"'Have you been talking to Liz?"

"Why would I ever?"

"That's what she called Bowdoin."

"Not hard to get there. Not when you're the alumnus I know best."

He made a disgruntled face, and she kissed his cheek.

"Assuming Lexie comes around quoting an article about a cure for incomplete paralysis, Cristina heads to Mayo tomorrow, Arizona doesn't go septic, and Mark—" Pulls off a miracle. "—gets better….

"It's…you had a different life in Manhattan, but if I'd gotten an interview at Sinai…."

It would've been for neuro, and I'm not living in anyone's shadow, whatever my specialty. Forget jumping you afterward, I'd've sat on your face while I turned them down.

That was an idea to file; he didn't need two functioning hands for that.

"You would've had your family. People to catch up with. Places you still love…and…and I have those. Places at least. All the bands I hung out with had great people, but most of them are gone. A weird number moved to San Fran, actually, and a few still tour."

"You really came close, huh?"

"Drumming was the one thing I would say I was good at until…well…I liked some of my college classes, and I started to be able to picture…. More. Some form of grad school." Ask. Ask. Ask.

"Always better when you can choose what you're learning. And start the day at noon." Ass. Ass. Ass. "You're good at a lot of things, Meredith. I'm glad there was at least one that Ellis didn't make you question." How are you like this? So insightful and so oblivious?

"She tried, but I had people telling me I was good before she knew a thing about it. If I'd been a little more savvy, she wouldn't have known."

"How so?"

"Uh, I didn't think to put a false heading on the drum lessons entry in her checkbook."

"You—"

"She almost never looked at the register as long as it was balanced. It took her weeks to notice we had a cable box, and all she said was that my grades had better not fall. I bought myself a new bike for my thirteenth birthday."

"You balanced her checkbook?"

"Thatcher must've been good for some things after all. Get the phone turned off as an on-call surgeon, and you start paying more attention to your second grader's math homework."

"Second grade?"

"Open the envelope, find the last number, write it here…. She signed and mailed them at first, but eventually, I could reach a mailbox and we both stopped pretending she'd signed every school form I'd ever handed in. I sorta liked the responsibility."

"Huh. I guess it's not that different from doing the store ledger, but Lizzie liked that so much that I…I hadn't learned, yet." His voice got husky, and because of everything he was facing, she turned the conversation bus around.

"I did grow up there. I don't feel from there. I had some friends. Too many, in Mom's opinion. They liked me when I could promise an unsupervised weekend, but even that didn't start mattering until right before Sadie showed up. She was…an escape. She got things about me no one else did, and she didn't know the nerdy kid whose hair was a rat's nest wherever Mom worked overnights, because I screamed at the babysitters who tried to brush it."

"You were thirteen when you met?"

"Mmhmm. Before that, I had Will, the boy next door, but his parents decamped them to the suburbs for junior high. We'd been the neighborhood ragamuffins, going between our places and the house on the other side, where the queens lived.

"There was actually another kid from our year on the block; she was a year or two younger, but she wasn't allowed to go over there—even after we could play at my place on our own. I snubbed her for not disobeying her parents. I'd feel bad about it if I hadn't heard her telling people that Will wasn't like other boys because he'd been corrupted by 'a phalanx of fags' during a vocabulary lesson. They were just good with kids, they weren't agenda-ing us, or—" Derek pushed down more firmly than necessary as he rubbed it along the skin of her arm, and she focused on that. On the way the fuzz of the cotton padding the splint on his wrist tickled the small of her back where her shirt had ridden up. "Sorry. I just…don't get it. We were kids. All the boys were scrawny little twerps, and at least he wasn't trying to see up our skirts, just because it got a reaction. For all I know, she's gay. I never did the Facebooking random people thing, and she hasn't added me. Maybe now…." She shrugged. She hadn't thought like that at all after drowning. She'd wanted a happy ending, not a reconnection with her gloomy past?

"And he moved. Pre-Sadie."

"Mmhmm. Then, the Sadie-Cycle. She was actually the one who started me going to shows. She lost interest early, but there was a girl…were a few people at school into grunge and…. Oh!" She shoot up, and immediately twisted. "Shit, sorry. Did I jostle you?"

"What? No. Mer, what's wrong?"

She narrowed her eyes at him, watching his face for the twitches she'd discovered after he was shot. There were none; only the open bafflement that made her remember that no how much she let him in, there were times when she remained inscrutable.

That was normal, right? She didn't understand him all the time, either. Cristina didn't always get her—but Cristina looked at her like she was interesting, not unfathomable—It wouldn't last, but it scared her a little that they'd gotten so far, and nowhere.

"It's—"

"If you say stupid—" he said, sitting up, shoving pillows around and giving them the same frustrated look Zola got whenever a toy didn't do what she expected it to do. "—I'll…uh…."

She snorted. "Our lives are so fucked up right now that you don't have a threat."

"More like I can't deny you anything. Can we try bribery?" He'd traced her spine with his good hand and then took one of hers, resting their laced fingers on her bent knee. There were still scratches up and down her legs from branches her scrub pants hadn't protected her against. "Don't call yourself stupid, or dumb, or ridiculous. Fine. Crazy. Cold. Disturbed. Emotionally stunted. Stop insulting yourself, and your thoughts at all, and…you call it."

She immediately thought back to the idea she'd had considering the hypothetical Sinai fellowship. He expected something like that. Seemed like a shame to waste a bribe on something he'd do for nothing, though. "Leave the hospital at the end of visiting hours for the rest of the week."

"What?"

"You haven't been home before Zo's bedtime three times. You're not helping Callie. The only thing that's gotten her to leave was the time I was an absolute bitch and told her I couldn't watch her child seven days a week. Jackson's with Mark? She's with Arizona. April's with Arizona? She's with Mark. You're with Mark? Doesn't change anything, because you're there ninety percent of the time. I'm watching to see who collapses first.

"Come home, model the damn behavior, and then offer to take a few nights with him. Maybe she'll follow your lead, maybe not, but when she's admitted for exhaustion, you can be with him while I hang out by her bedside."

"Okay. Okay, I can do that. You don't do that." He pulled the heel of her hand away from the line of steri-strips on her calf.

Better than crying. Better than reminding him.

"I wasn't picking it."

"You weren't leaving it alone. Mer…. "

"I'm not doing it on purpose. I'm not crazy. I'm not. You got that, Dr. James?"

"Not Freud?"

"Freud was an idiot. James had some thing right. These'll heal soon, and I'll stop—"

"Those aren't the injuries you need to focus on."

"They're the only ones I have."

"They're the only physical ones. That's…. You're not always hurt, directly, but when something.…When your mom died…." He ran a hand through his hair; she'd washed it for him with the shower-head, rather than dealing with garbage bags and cling film, and the curls stood up all over. There was more gray than she remembered there being a month ago. "Addison had a root-canal not long after Amy's OD, and I was afraid she had an abscess she was in so much pain. That was the first time—"

"You count pills."

"Yeah. Turns out, she thought it might upset me to see her on them. Made me more upset that she'd suffered for two days. I've never had to…Sadie's were a couple doses off, after her appy, but not a concerning amount."

"She probably sold 'em," Meredith murmured. "You monitored me. When Mom died."

"I was afraid you were going to do what Addie did—"

"I didn't know about—"

"—because you're you."

"Hah. Then, you realized I'm me."

"Then, you had to call the funeral home. Your were on antibiotics, you're a doctor, and you had…three, four…maybe five? Callie and O'Malley had technically moved out, but…had Karev moved in?"

"Who knows?"

"Up to five other doctors, who were particularly Meredith-taking-risks-averse, between you and the liquor cabinet."

"I…I wasn't…I mean, the broken ribs did hurt. I wasn't…."

"Mer, that's my point. I think it took one to make you admit to the other." He kissed the side of her head, and then brushed his finger over her lip. She released the hold her incisors had on her bottom lip. "I didn't put it together, then…until now, really. I did realize you'd barely taken any of them, and the over-the-counter painkillers I'd bought hadn't been opened."

"That's why you asked to dose them out."

"Thought I'd be kicked out."

"I figured…." She sighed, and then looked sideways at him. "At the beginning, before I stopped pretending it didn't hurt every time my heart beat, did you think I was going to do something?"

"I don't kn…. No. If I had, I would've been more insistent. I'd have convinced you to let us help you because of how whackadoo you got on morphine."

"How what?"

"That was your word, my love."

"There's no way."

"You can ask…."

She moved just the slightest bit closer. Lexie. Lexie had been his tag-team when she'd asked him to have someone stay with her last time l she was on IV meds. Her mother's day of lucidity had made her skittish about losing time, and not remembering what she'd said, unfiltered.

"Should I have worried?" he asked. "Knowing that you didn't choose to go into the water?"

"I…. Not…I had the thought that maybe I shouldn't have access to another way I could disappoint everyone. I might've been scared of myself. I was sure I wanted to keep going, keep trying, but not…if I could. I didn't understand half of what I thought that year until…. I mean, I still don't get all of it.

"I asked because…I wasn't in that place. Not exactly. But I think I could've gotten there; if things played out differently. So, thanks for risking it."

"Always." He kissed the backs of her knuckles. "Man, it's weird to think of how busy Yang was with Burke. She'd have looked in your eyes, and told me exactly what was going on."

"She might've. She might've tried kicking my ass into gear."

Derek snorted. "Yeah."

"I mean that literally. The day I ended up with a bomb under my hand. I wanted to stay in bed. I had a feeling. She's…not about feelings." She winced. "I don't mean…! She has feelings; I…. Sometimes, I go too dark for you, and I need her. Other times, I need you pulling me out. Like Hades and Demeter. Or…. Sort of Eurydice and Orpheus. Not looking back actually doesn't work for us….

"Sorry, last month I had a patient studying for a freshman lit exam, and I was so used to studying for the boards, I think I memorized her flashcards."

"Sounds like something your sister would do."

"That's what she said…genuinely what Lexie said, not making it…ew, really dirty."

"Mm, you're really tired." He wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her over, and she scrambled to position herself to avoid hitting his elevated arm. Once she was safely leaning against his chest, he kissed the top of her head.

"Do you…. Tomorrow, do you want to go to the hospital, or stay away?"

She raised her eyes to him before letting them slide away toward the baby monitor. It was silent. She could picture Sofia and Zola asleep facing each other, both curled in the fetal position. Zola's hand on top of Sofia's. They were babies, nineteen and fifteen months old, and they already had someone to face hard things with. Those things should've been running out of cookies, not sick and injured parents, but hopefully the companionship helped.

They had so much going on, she wouldn't have been mad if Derek hadn't realized what tomorrow was. There'd been years where no one around her knew. But ever since the first time she'd admitted that it was the anniversary of the day her mother slit her wrists on the kitchen floor, he'd remembered. He didn't make a big deal. He gave her choices, starting as simple as do you want to go to work plike it's an ordinary day?

Some years, she let herself say no.

She'd asked him the same question, after getting Mark to reveal the date his dad died. He always said yes.

"We have to take Sof—"

"Callie can come get her. Avery or Karev could. We could stay home and order in, or we could take Zola up to visit Mark and Lexie. Let her see they're sick, not…."

"Dead," Meredith supplied. "We have to be honest with her, Derek. Whatever happens, we figure out how to explain so she'll understand."

"We will. I promise. Euphemisms only made things worse for Amy." He shook his head. "Do you think Cristina…? She'd never hurt her purposefully, but…."

"Neither would Mom. I mean, she'd never put her hands on me, until she got sick. Even before things got bad, she could get so frustrated…. I could see it coming. In her face, there'd just be this…rage. That may be why…."

"Why what?"

"Nothing. It's—" He put two fingers on her mouth. She pressed her lips together, and glared up at him, mulishly. "You tell anyone I said this…not that you'd…. I…I love Cristina, and I should…. I'm not hurt, so I should be the one emptying bedpans, and putting on ointments, and planning weddings….

"I wanna be there for her. I'm so scared psych's gonna win Owen over, and they'll medicinally lobotomize her, or…or… I don't know my psych clinicals happened about the same time Mom relinquished her driver's license—after lying to me about it for a year. That's…We had a huge fight about it, but I could…. When she got pissed, I could see it coming. Even if just for a second. Cristina…. Being in there…it's.…"

She felt him inhale, ready to jump in and save her. She held up a hand. He tightened the arm under her chest, and kissed her open palm. She had to remember that telling him things could bring them closer, and not telling him things were what made him withdraw. With so many people in her life, it'd been the other way around.

"When I was up in psych with Lex, she was asleep. She moved and sighed, and did that weird little nose twitch thing she does. She's comatose, and she seems more there than Cristina does. And that…that terrifies me, but not so that I can't sit with her. It's…it's when she gets….

"By the time we came here, Mom didn't always know what was going on, but she could sense the stress. They say 'agitated' so much it doesn't mean anything, but that's…it's what it is. It's aggravated, and frustrated, and scared, and angry. The worst, though, were the times she'd go from that—from yelling at me in word salad—to gone. She'd…She'd shrink. Just like when we were leaving Seattle. She had this vacant stare…. Vacant to me then. I learned better. But she'd…she'd cry, and…yell, and it felt so out-of-nowhere…."

"Like it is with Cristina, now."

"The way she screams…. I thought I could take anything, Derek, I did, and, but being in there…being in there alone…." Meredith trailed off, thinking back to a day not unlike this one; in the aftermath of a tragedy that she came through unscathed, as far as anyone could see. "Sad eyes and screaming…. That's what Cristina said after the shooting. I'm such a—"

"Uh-uh."

"'Hypocrite' wasn't one of the forbidden words."

"Mer…." He rested his chin on the top of her head. "What were going to say when I told you not to say 'stupid?'"

"Huh? That's…. You don't think I'm a horrible person, or horrible as her person, or cold and unable to empathize?"

"Did you have a really horrible guidance counselor?"

She rocked a hand in the air. Mr. Huang had not been her cheerleader, it was true. Her attitude and her grades made her extremely frustrating to someone who thought they contradicted each other.

"I think you've been through horrible things, and so has she. Unfortunately, I think she's going to have to recover on her own before we can help. Her intensity runs deep, and I think when she's processing a lot of emotions at once, parts of her have to shut down to give her mind what it needs to sort it all. You process as you go, and channel emotion into action. Afterward, you put it toward helping everyone else. But with the big stuff there's still some you have to acknowledge and work through."

"You're a pretty smart guy."

"What were you going to say?"

"Ugh. Please don't judge…this is going to sound…. I was gonna say 'messed up,' not stupid. I just remembered, the last time I heard Lexie laugh, I was checking the color of her urine output, and I told her that if she got to join the 27 Club when I missed it by a year, I'd never forgive her."

His chin was still on the top of her head, so she felt his mouth open, close, and open again. "A year and nine days."

"Oh. Yeah." That birthday hadn't been bad, but had been skewed by her mother waking up a week later and getting one last chance to not acknowledge it—beyond selfish, Grey. Except, she couldn't imagine forgetting that November twenty-fifth was the day Zola entered the world and started heading toward them. "Imagine missing it by nine days! That'd be as bad as getting in, and then being resurrected!"

The sound Derek made wasn't a laugh, but it was beautifully familiar. The I shouldn't encourage her, it can't be healthy to think that way, but sometimes the shit she says is funny scoff.

She'd only cried a few times in the past two weeks, and this was when her eyes started to leak? Relief, just like when the chopper appeared. Relief that he hadn't finally decided she was too dark.

"I'm a little surprised she got the concept."

"Derek, she's from Seattle. She learned it the same way I did. Kurt." She almost added Cobain, hoping to stall with a needling exchange about his age, and how her high school music obsessions wouldn't exist without his. "I tried to avoid coverage, after…you know…."

He nodded, and rolled them over to face each other again. One pair of hands clasped. His other arm, he propped on her hip. The first time they'd talked about Kurt Cobain's death was hazy for her, but she'd told the whole story; a TV on in her next class, the words "suicide…survived by a daughter," hitting her on the threshold, and slamming her ten years into the past. Because of her reputation, everyone had been watching her, and she'd expected ridicule. Weirdly, she'd gotten a strange respect as everyone tried to claim they'd loved him. She'd hated the assumption that she was suddenly a deluded loser in love with a celebrity, but it'd kept them from prying. It gave everyone an explanation for the spiral she'd fallen into—including her.

"But it was everywhere. I flipped onto some news magazine segment about it. I remember wondering if that's what Mom had been aiming for: to go out in a blaze of glory. You just can't be a gift to modern medicine at twenty-seven. "

"Is that…? You and Sadie were pretty 'live fast, die young.'"

"It was 'twenty-five, still alive.' Mom implied that was where I'd be cut off if I wasn't in med school. Sometimes, it was when I'd stop dragging Sadie out of ditches. At low points, it was the furthest I thought I'd get…that I could imagine.

"It's really no wonder I don't talk to anyone from high school. By the end, I was very 'bring the party', but 'don't bring Grey, if it's not a party.' I didn't do 'hanging out' anymore. If anyone started getting too deep, I'd suggest seeing how deeply I could get my tongue into their mouths. You'd be surprised at the reactions that got. Wish I'd taken notes. Fewer guys went for it than you'd think. They got all flustered, like I was talking about something else, entirely. Not that I never did that, but not in the middle of a room full of people, and not just to shut someone up."

"Not enough bang for your buck?"

"Ooh, that saying is so much dirtier than I ever realized."

Derek's mouth formed a wide "o" before he laughed. "I can't believe I never picked up on that."

"I can't believe Mark didn't," Meredith countered. "I'll let you tell him that he's no longer the most gutter-brained person you hang out with."

"He'll be gutted."

"I hate you," she replied, automatically. The fingers of her unengaged hand curled into her palm. The feeling was in both hands; the memory of binding up such deep wounds in Lexie's abdomen. She didn't know for sure that it wouldn't follow her into the OR, only that she hoped being gloved would keep it at bay, even though it felt like it was rising up from her skin.

Derek laughed. That was what she wanted. "He'll also be interested in the girls' reactions. I got a lot of 'gross, Grey,' but I'd had a reputation for longer than I deserved it. Sophomore year, I leaned in. Plenty of them leaned back. I was the experiment for two-thirds of the girls in the classes of '94 through…I graduated in '98, so '99? Maybe into the millennium, but I didn't hang out with freshmen. I was useful for the queer boys trying to prove they were straight, too."

He repeated "useful" so quietly that she mostly saw it on his lips, and didn't think it was meant for her. To hear.

"As I'd only really dated once; Layla, the summer we spent here. Even before that, I'd given up on the idea that Sadie would fall for me in a real way. It's not how she is. I didn't think it was for me. Senior summer, I finally grabbed her face and kissed her. Told her I didn't expect anything more than that. I think…I think I might've been trying to do something intriguing enough to keep her in my life. Worked."

"It wasn't all you wanted, though."

"It was all I was capable of sustaining. We were magnets; sometimes pulling, sometimes pushing. In a way, Amsterdam was kissing her on the bed again. I'd stopped giving her everything by default, which was shutting her out, but I was waiting for her to ask. She didn't, until I was freaking out about Mom calling, and…."

The fingers of his left-hand twitched over the gap of skin below the hem of her shirt; minuscule movements that were disproportionately comforting. "She tried to talk you out of coming back."

"Mmhmm. I had to wonder if she'd really been paying attention. When I landed at JFK…I had a college friend pick me up, and deliver me to the U.N. I did have those. The people they put you with in orientation…. I dunno if it was puppy-love or a trauma bond, but they were the base of my social circle. There was plenty of partying, but enough downtime that I had to learn to hang out again. Made friends in the classes I actually liked. But…I guess there was no one I trusted quite enough to break my promise to Mom. That was my life, outside of school, so I didn't…. I basically dropped them all.

"They're not in Boston, anyway. New York. San Francisco Bay, again. Middle-of-Nowhere, Colorado. Tehran, unlikely as that is. Journalist. If you want to go to Prague or Paris, I have ins. London, too, I think. Almost no one moved down to the city."

"You just said New—"

"Don't try me, brah, Boston is the city."

"What about med school? It seems like people would go to the city from Dartmouth."

"I didn't have friends there. I'd been out of school a few years, which wasn't unusual, but I had to get back into the habits. Mom insisted on finishing her research in Rochester, and I went up a couple times. We saw specialists all over the country. She had speaking engagements she was too proud to cancel. I went as her assistant, or whatever, but…unfamiliar places made it worse she started forgetting people that even I knew. The time she blanked out on stage, she recovered, but that was her last real public appearance. That was '03. We moved her back to Boston—She could've come to Hanover," she acknowledged off his expression. "But she was still mostly independant, and I…I couldn't have done it. Not with her over my shoulder.

"By second year, I was understood to be a snobby result of nepotism. My study group was okay, but…yeah. Not friends. I'm me, so when my car broke down on I-93, I could call someone, but I couldn't explain why I'd gone to Boston mid-week. If I'd been somewhere in Kentucky, or something, where no one knew her, I might've said my mom was sick, but…." She shrugged. "I'm not anti-Boston. I love the house; the fellowship is an amazing chance. I really am just holding off until we see what happens here.

"Just, you need to understand, anyone from high school…I wasn't cold, I was on fire. Felt like I burned Layla and was actively letting Sadie pour fuel on me. Past twelve or thirteen, almost no one would've believed I'd make it as a doctor. Not on track…well, I guess I was on track to be Zola's mom, because here I am, but…. When I remember to post pictures for your sisters, the friends I do have on Facebook say, 'Wow, look who turned it around.'"

"Didn't you go back? After college?"

"Sadie bought a house in Somerville, so yeah. I lived there most of the time. Travelled, some. Bounced around. Stayed until my welcome wore out. There was always a party at the house, which was great ninety-five percent of the time, but not if I was making one of my attempts to be an adult.

"I was there while I worked…. Actually, that's when I knew people who probably have careers at one of the colleges, and kids who have a mix of adoption and birth stories and would be great playdates for Zo. The nerdy, stoned, band t-shirt wearing nerd-geeks I worked with at Newbury Comics."

"Huh," Derek said, with a thoughtful smile.

"What?"

"You loved it there."

"It was a fun six months. I didn't like opening, because I usually hadn't gone to bed—"

Derek interrupted her with a kiss. "In two sentences you made it obvious. You might've been older by then, but riot grrrl Meredith appeared in your eyes, just like when you talk about the band. I don't get that part of you much, but I don't think you're hiding it."

"I'm not?"

"Less all the time. I think surgery, medicine—they appeal to that same side of you. Your passion, your intelligence, even your empathy.

"Did you have a ragtag group of strays?"

She considered the circles she'd sit in on the floor of hardly-furnished apartments, listening to conversations that made her think of eavesdropping on Mom and Auntie Marie, for no reason she could pinpoint.

"I was the stray. I couldn't always keep up on pop culture, and I pretty much disappeared on them when I went to Europe…but yeah."

It doesn't surprise me that that's what came before you applied to med school."

"Huh," she repeated. "I never thought of that.

"They got me thinking again, for sure. Engaging. There was this lecture series at The Brigham about music and…." The brain. It wasn't like they couldn't talk about neurology; it took up half their time in Lexie's care team meetings. But she didn't want to get into how much the lecture had piqued her interest. "Whatever. There was a lot of pop-science research going around. I was worried I'd be recognized by someone who'd worked with Mom. Turned out, not many MGH affiliates came down. I walked right by Catherine Fox Avery without being made. I got called out by my…one of my undergrad professors—and med school, eventually, she taught at both—She…she said that if I was taking notes at events like that, then she had been right about me, and to get in touch when I wanted to apply to Geisel." She started to add in the part about her dying over a weekend. He knew she had a professor who had, just not that she'd been her mentor, or that she'd taught Neuroanatomy.

"Was that the tipping point?"

"I bought the Kaplan MCAT book at the Harvard Coop on my way home. Didn't use it immediately, but still.' That might've been the copy Sadie set on fire that time, actually. It wasn't like she'd stopped her."Lexie would've been there by then. I'm glad she didn't know about me."

"If you believe that."

Meredith pushed up on her elbow, raking her hair out of her face. "You don't?"

"She might not have known your name, but it's difficult to know her and think she didn't know something."

"She'd have confronted Thatcher. She's not good with….Well, she can keep secrets, but she's bad at not blurting what she knows."

"That's true. It would've come out, when she went to MGH."

"Maybe." Meredith worked herself closer to his side. "There might not be anyone who'd actually remember me. On nights Mom took me to events, I could've passed my classmates on the streets and not be recognized. Dressed to blend, told to be quiet once I got too old to be cute."

"That why you're never quiet?"

"If she told me to—oh, funny."

"What? Not my fault you're very cute."

She scrunched her face up at him, and he kissed her nose Then, he moved down to her lips. When he pulled back, she found herself admitting, "The idea of you working at Harvard kinda does freak me out. They're in deep with MGH, and I don't want to be Dr. Grey's daughter. Not only. Not yet. I need to be Dr. Grey there.

"Do you think she used it?"

"Do I think who used what, sweetheart?"

"Lexie. They'd've asked if she was related. There's a lotta back and forth between the hospital and the school, even if you're not teaching. I hope she did. I hope if anyone asked her if she was related to Ellis Grey….I hope she paid attention to the tone, because not everyone was a fan, but if it was positive, I hope she said 'yes.' Got me through, would've been a boost for her."

"Meredith Grey." Derek started to push up on his left elbow, then dropped and doubled his hold on her hand to keep her in place. He might think he'd be fine, but he didn't want to scare her. Wanted her to listen. "You got yourself through. Through high school, college, the in-between years. Through med school. Through your residency. You had help; sometimes more, sometimes less, but you did it. You got through. You got out and away.

"If you want to go back and brag to everyone who doubted you, and the ones who didn't, we will. If you want to stay far away from a city that isn't home; that you shared with your little sister, but never got to know her? We'll do that."

Meredith's heart did something that the drummer in her wanted to call a ricochet, but the scientist denied. She had so many reasons for not deciding. Those were the ones she hadn't been able to touch.

"We do need to make a decision. We take a hit if the house isn't on the market with time to spare before—"

"September first." She yawned. "I know. Believe me. Did I ever tell you 'bout the chair Sadie and I found curbside shopping…?"

"Actually, you did."

"Huh." She'd told him a lot. More than anyone else. He'd figured out more than that, and it didn't make her want to break his hold on her and run, tonight or overall. She needed the light he shone on things. They'd brought darkness back from the woods, more than even she wanted. There were shadows ahead, but at least she wouldn't be headed into them alone.

Lexie's age is one of the few mentioned on-screen, and it's screwed up. Now, both times it's mentioned, it's around mid-Febrary. See my profile for my timeline where I show how this doesn't work for her to be tweny-four in s5 -seven in s7. Just let me say, it doesn't, and it especially doesn't if you claim s4/5 took place in '08-'09, whcih people do when they forget about the 2008 strike.

So sorry to those of you who know my soapbox.