Embryos were emergy-sucking parasites. Meredith had never wanted to curl up on a hospital bed this badly. Granted, Lexie's bed had the nice sheets she'd bought for her, but it was the same—wait, no, it wasn't Hill-Rom like the beds at work. She drug herself out of her slump on the visitor's chair she'd claimed when the floor nurse let her in, and ran her fingers over the brand logo: HARRIS&CO.

Alone, tired, with about one brain cell left to get her through this visit and home in time to read to Zola, it was an achievement that she managed to snap a photo right as Lexie appeared in the doorway, followed closely by one of the floor techs—here called ADL aides, Activities of Daily Living aides.

Activities of Daily Living were a subject Meredith had read a lot about over the past few months. What qualified as an ADL differed, depending on whose list you looked at, but the basics were: walking, eating, bathing, toileting, dressing and grooming, and transferring—And if you broadened transferring to mean getting in and out of a crib, those were all goals they'd were working with Zola on, and would be for the next year. Maybe, Meredith hoped, just in time to start again. Maybe living with them would make Lexie feel more infantilized than being with Thatcher.

She'd been familiar with the concept for a while; losing ADLs had marked her mother's journey from home, to home health aide, to a care home. How many a person could, or could not, carry out independently went into consideration when it came to receiving Medicare benefits, or qualifying for other forms of assistance. They came up in Quality of Life (QoL) discussions, too; although, as she moved out of the hospital's research portal and onto the broader web, she'd begun to see how much more emphasis healthcare put on ability. They'd cured polio, and it'd taken another twenty-odd years for the survivors to convince lawmakers to make schools, federal workplaces—even hospitals!—accessible, and another decade for that to become a general requirement for public places.

Focusing on ADLs made sense from Lexie's viewpoint—or what Meredith understood of it—She wanted to start off knowing her baseline. Improvement, or prioritizing QoL, which might mean not forcing herself to do a task that triggered spasms or took too long, would come next.

"I'm good from here, Adelaide," Lexie said, swallowing the meds the aide handed her, once she'd transferred onto the bed. "No Zo-Zo? I thought you were all coming for dinner."

"We were," Meredith said, ruefully. They'd done dinner in the cafeteria instead, before separating for Derek to take Zola home for her bath. She'd asked "Mama, you on-kol?" enough that Meredith was more than a little excited to see her understand that she really wasn't, thank fuck. She'd been run ragged on last week's overnight. When she'd asked Tyler what had caused the busy E.R., he'd shown her the revised page rotation, which had her just below April, meaning it she went available Meredith was called. She hadn't remembered April's place on the previous one, only that hers had been much lower, giving many others the chance to take a case before she was paged. Maybe Kepner being removed and rehired had screwed it up, and they'd just fixed it?

Or Owen knew she was pregnant, somehow, and was bitter.

The change in the plan for that night was directly related to her surprising fecundity. The lingering scent of the rehab's onion-heavy meatloaf made her want to gag as much as the idea of it had that morning, when Derek had left Zola patting her shoulder and saying, "Z'okay, Mama. Sick no' bein' bad," and come back with the menu they'd had on the fridge. He'd retooled their plans for the day based on how pale she'd gone while he read off the main courses. Had it made her want to punch him in the face? Absolutely, but t'd also been one of a dozen solicitous things he'd already come up with that she wouldn't have done for herself.

"It's a good sign," she'd pointed out. "And it's not just…. I thought Alex was gonna peg me yesterday, I had to get out of a patient's room so quickly, for no reason other than four-thirteen, time to puke."

Derek, by then on the floor with her, had held a saltine out to Zola, who'd dropped the brush she'd been tapping his hair with to take it. He offered the other from the packet to Meredith, along with a can of ginger ale. She'd taken that. Two months ago, they'd been in the same place, except his friend had died, and she'd been a crappy wife. This time, she'd been doing something right. Hopefully.

Five weeks until they could be faced with an ultrasound tech saying, "Oh. Oh, um…you know what? Stay right here for just a minute. Let me get the doctor."

"It's a sign the ba—embryo," he'd corrected, at her glance at their highly-verbal child. "Is implanting. That's good. It doesn't mean you have to suffer unavoidably."

"I'm not trying to be a masochist about it," she'd snapped, and because she wasn't sure he'd believe her—or if she'd believed herself—she added, "Just…it's working. It helps to know it's working."

"I understand," he said, resting the cool backs of his fingers against her cheeks. Whether he really got it, or got why, for her, hurling occasionally wasn't the worst trade-off didn't matter. "But I'm worried that it's why your dreams have been…what they are."

"Derek, I've known for, like, a week. I only started actually throwing up two days ago."

"You started feeling nauseated the Saturday I burned the leaves. You woke up thinking I'd been shot at two Sunday morning. That's been regular enough that you didn't fall asleep until threethis Tuesday—

"How…?" He'd definitely passed out by eleven on Monday, The check on her Positions That Will Be Off the Table in 3mos list had been well-earned. There was more space in this house, more levels, and they'd made some discoveries compensating for his hand. Tuesday had been one of those. She'd been in bridge pose by the bed, her back at the perfect angle for him to grab her hips and fuck himself with. She'd made up for the hand that couldn't grab by pressing her foot against the bedframe, and matching his rhythm on the right. She'd never been more aware of how much blood was in her body, all of it rushing to her head, initially. She was sure her face and chest had been lobster red, but then there'd been more filling her tits, and making every square millimeter of her cunt tender, swollen, wet. Ten liters in the average body, and she'd never been more aware of the life it represented.

"I notice when you don't snore, too," Derek said, cutting into her memory. She bit a tiny bruise on the inside of her cheek. "I have trouble sleeping occasionally. It's chronic for you. And progressive. You were up from three to four today, and it's only six."

That was all stuff she knew. Why wasn't it more annoying to have him tell her? "It could just be being pregnant."

"It could, and you're going to need sleep more as it goes on. There isn't much data regarding sleep-aids and pregnancy, but what there is agrees that they're safer early on, and we know what works for you. Can we see if that helps? Benzos might be a better option for the baseline anxiety, but you'd have to sip them in a few months. Otherwise, SSRIs aren't contraindicated, and the studies that connect benzos to cleft palate aren't entirely—"

"Der-rek—"

"Mer, listen. We were in a plane crash. Lexie's still recovering, the court date is in two months, and pregnancy itself can cause anxiety in the first trimester. I would rather you be healthy than…than anything else. Look at Zo. She's perfect, right? Even though she needed a few surgeries? And the causal links for anything are so minuscule…there's so much blame put on pregnant women…." He ran a hand through his hair, negating the benefit of shooing away their perfect :toddler, now licking cracker crumbs off of her t-shirt. "Er…."

"I know your source, bub."

"I've mostly been following the journals she suggested year before last, when we were trying. She's one of the country's finest. You could email her."

"Ha!" Having finally been willing to bite the cracker she'd been holding, Meredith had almost sprayed him with it.

"I'm serious! We were never ready with each other. We've both moved on. I think her son's adoption has been finalized; Zo's is almost at a year. You'd respect what she told you, and I…. Well, you remember that night, not long after you told me about the miscarriage, and that I'd been scaring you? Cristina was with Owen, and it was just us? You asked if I was mad. What'd I tell you?"

"That…That you were sad. You wanted a baby with me, and you hated that Clark might've had a hand in taking our first chance away, but…if there had been a choice, the reality of me meant more to you than the potential of a baby."

"All the past few months have done is make that more true. I am so happy about this, Mer. But when it comes to the question of losing it—which I don't see happening—what scares me is…is how much that would hurt you." He smiled, only a little incongruously once he brought his knuckles up to catch the tears she blamed on him first, and hormones, second. "You are the strongest person I've ever met, and also the most stubborn. You're also human, you have responsibilities that would be too much individually for some very strong people, and you're going to have even less control over all of it. That's not how you see things—If you can take blame, you will. Do you understand why I'm worried?"

"I'm not like, having panic attacks regularly. I'd only fly…try to fly for a consult, and I…and it only happened that one time, anyway."

"And if it happened again, en route to a surgery, would you tag out?"

"I…I don't know. It's my first year, I'd have to—"

"That's why I want us to do what we can for you, together. That means not subjecting yourself to meals you can't eat, if there's an alternative. It means figuring out how you can get real sleep. It means talking to people who've dealt with much riskier pregnancies and listening to what they say. Can we try that?" When she'd shrugged, he'd added, "If you don't want to get in touch with Addison, there's always Nancy—"

"Psh. She'd poison me."

"She would not, because she knows she'd have me to deal with. What about Wyatt?"

"Not an OB."

"Meredith."

"I don't have time."

"I could do dinner at Roseridge solo another night, or…what about someone in the community?"

"I…I really don't have time. If…I'd already fallen so far in the eyes of everyone, when I saw her. This is…. The interns, they're more scared of Cristina than me, and I thought I'd be annoyed, but they…they listen to me. I still get Maleficent, but, apparently, I also get Medusa? It's not a compliment, but it is, because when I'm giving them that look, maybe they see it as stony-eyed, but really, it's passing on something that makes them stronger. I get that other attendings go to her, but…but…no one wonders why Hunt has PTSD. Soldier. Hero. Me, they'll think, well, she made it off the plane okay—"

"Mer…."

"And then some nurse says, well, sure, but did you know that as an intern…? And, off we go! It's just how…how Seattle Grace is. Not always gracious."

"I wish we could change that." He split another packet of crackers, and made Zola giggle trying to shake off the clingfilm that stuck to his brace. "Promise you'll keep talking to me?"

"Yeah—Ew, don't, I'm nas—" Nasty had been lost in him kissing her, and, really, it was his fault that her mouth tasted like salty acid. If he wanted to share in the experience, that was his choice.

They'd chosen and kept choosing. That wasn't her full definition of love, but it was part of it. A part that amazed her about everyone who wanted her in their lives.

"We'll descend on you en masse tomorrow," she assured Lexie. Meredith's tastes' had been formed on Italian food, meaning lasagna wasn't a concern—so far.

"I'm glad you still came by," Lexie said, grabbing the bed rail. Before Meredith could move, she pulled herself onto her side. Meredith didn't know if she'd want the feat acknowledged or not. She smiled and squeezed Lexie's hand, and it seemed like enough. She already desperately needed to stop herself from thinking of a year from now when they'd (maybe) all be exclaiming over a (possible) baby doing the same thing. "I know it's not easy, with your schedule."

"Way easier than when I was an intern. I had to either come see Mom before rounds at five a.m., or when she'd be more likely to think I was her sister who died in 1998, or Marie, her friend who moved to Spain and never sent a card."

"For the short period where I knew Boston was your plan, I didn't think you were going to take off, never to be heard from again."

"What other model did I have?" What have I done to make you so sure of me?

"Exactly. You knew how much bring left sucks, and…. Why didn't Ellis send…Marie? Yeah, Marie, cards?"

"Other than her being Ellis? I don't actually know. There was some disagreement. I wanted to write while I was in Italy, but Mom said she'd be busy, if she even…." Meredith swallowed, blaming hormones for the way her eyes clouded and her heart sank enough to make her want to pull her whole body in around it.

"She wouldn't have forgotten you," Lexie said. "Your mom couldn't have thought that. There must have been something she didn't want you to know."

"Maybe. I wasn't super curious. Always assumed it was Mom's fault, and her pride—"

"Pride. That's what kept your mom from reaching out. You don't thinkthat way. You might not have a thing for dorky cards like Derek's sisters do, but you do send pictures."

"I copy the format they use," she said, knowing her visit could end if she misjudged this anecdote's timing. "I printed a lot when I was learning the kids' names. Made them into flashcards."

"That's intense."

"Had a couple clandestine Dirty Mistress Club meetings with Mark. He quizzed me, taught me nicknames, basic traits, and interests." She worried she was holding Lexie's hand too tightly, but she didn't try to pull away at all.

"Bet he loved that."

"He kept adding details to my cards; he really knew them. And he was good with facts for someone with such a structural mind."

Lexie smiled. "Thanks, Mer."

"For what?"

"Hardly anyone knows we were together…sort of together…again, and everyone who remembers we were together at all…it's like all they can say is he was funny and a good dad."

Meredith cringed. She'd hate if anyone forgot what a good dad Derek had become, but being sanctified would erase so much else that she loved about him.

"Feel free to talk to me about all the other stuff," Meredith said. "Derek, too. He loves adding to his encyclopedia of Mark's flaws. Seeing there friendship rebuild was how I could to believe he'd still love me when I screwed up."

"You were so sure he'd be back last year, but…but even before that. When he moved out that time…."

"The Night the Ring Got Fungo'd? It's funny, I went out there too soon, then, and last year—I know he chose not to answer his phone, but I feel like I took that first night with Zola from him by not going after him. At the same time, I'm grateful. If he'd been there, it would've been easier for me to think I could only manage parenting with him."

"Seriously?"

"Didn't baby-sit. No siblings. I hadn't spent a full hour alone wit a baby before her. And I had help that night. You, Cristina, everyone. But I got to see myself as a mom.

"That first time, Derek…he wasn't exactly Nelson in New York, but he wasn't using his talent to its full extent. Doing that meant taking chances, and it meant losses. He had to make peace with that. I was a symbol of the change, and he…he had to be ready to come to me. Also… when Addison was here with her brother, and he saw that she believed in him that much…. We've never discussed this, but I think he was regretting all the risks he didn't take in New York."

"Mark really missed their practice. He did a lot of elective, aesthetic procedures, but not exclusively. He said you get to know your patients better. Said he always figured Addison would join them, eventually, and maybe some of the younger Shepherds. I asked him if he'd worried that what he was doing with Addison changed that, and…this wasn't even early on, he said no. He thought if they'd been able to tell Derek the right way, they could'e worked it out."

"Bros before hos?"

"That's what I said! He laughed. So…yeah, I think so. He cared if people he loved were happy, and that was it. He wasn't…wasn't a fighter."

"He wasn't a coward, either," Meredith pointed out. "He gave the impression of only living in the moment, but more and more I saw him playing a long game. I fully believe he could've ended up being chief someday, by gradually winning the board over."

"And operating on their wives."

"There was that. He let you go, but I don't think he'd have closed the door on you." It said something about Mark's attitude toward mnogamy, but she doubted that Julia having a ring would've changed much about what happened in June. There might've been more discussions about polygomy, or open marriages, but neither Julia nor Lexie were the type to agree to that.

"Only me? You don't think if Addison, or even Amelia, called and said, 'we can make this work,' or 'wanna be a Shepherd…?' I mean he…you know he cheated on Addison?"

"I didn't, actually. I don't know a lot about them together, except…Callie told me about the abortion." Lexie's diaphragm sank visibly. "She was afraid it might slip out during one of his and Derek's pissing contests…. I couldn't actually see Mark saying, 'at least I could get Addie pregnant.'"

She could've segued from there. What were the chances it would be a moment that got revisited? That there would be a kid who might one day ask Aunt Lexie when she found out about them? It could wait; she hadn't answered her sister's question. "I don't think you can judge anything by what happened with Addison. He loved her, yeah, but if he couldn't have her and Derek…? I could see him self-sabotaging. If he'd committed to you? Nah."

Lexie nodded, her eyes going unfocused. Meredith tensed. In the hospital, she'd had a glimpse of what she put Derek and her friends through sometimes; although, he said it was easier to get her back.

Luckily, Lexie hadn't jumped down a rabbit hole, this time. "Do you think he'd still want that?"

"Why wouldn't he?"

"Yhis." She flapped her hand over her body.

"Oh! I wasn't even…I'm sorry, I know it's a privilege to be able to…but I kinda forgot."

Lexie's laugh was the fullest she'd heard from her in weeks, even though lying down made her respiration slightly more difficult. "No, no, that's…it's amazing." She held her hand over her lip where she used to cup one or both over her mouth. Meredith liked being able to see her smile.

"First off, his primary concern would be figuring out what worked for you."

"I've…I know that. But that's the thing. He wouldn't do anything I'm not—I wasn't okay with, and even if I…if I didn't care, if I wasn't feeling anything…."

"He wouldn't want to use you. So what?" Lexie raised an eyebrow. "Look, it's no secret that Derek and I have good sex. Great sex, actually—"

"I've heard."

"Imagine what you'd hear living at Thatcher's."

"Ew!"

"Hey, you might not hear anything. What do I know? Other than last time he ended up in the hospital—"

"I was there! I remember. Go back to bragging."

"Hey, it was a problem for a while; before I really even knew him…. I mean, he was one of the chattiest partners I'd ever had, but we were both hiding significant parts of our lives, so the best way to pass the time—No. I'm lying. I am. I never…. There was something…something that made it impossible to stay away from him.

"If he'd worked somewhere else, and I'd seen him again in Joe's, when I had the energy to do anything more than sleep between shifts, I might...would have gone up to him. It wouldn't be my first second-night stand, but...it would've been...more." We can do anything you want. "There was just something about him, and it had nothing to do with what happened on the living room floor—or if it did, that was him, too. He was one of the best people—maybe the best person I'd ever had a one-night stand with. Actually knowing each other made it all better. Sex was a big part of me learning to accept him...being him, because those are the wires that didn't get twisted around by my self-worth issues. But even then…it's never been just sex. If one of us couldn't…. We're creative, but if we couldn't, or didn't want to…. I think it'd be okay. The thing we have that I hadn't had with anyone else isn't sexual chemistry. It's intimacy. It's not the end all, be all.

"You and Mark weren't me and Derek. I like freaking Derek out by pointing out the ways I'm similar to Mark, but male privilege and testosterone are important in this thought experiment. Sex was important for him. At times, I think it was the primary way he connected to new people. But I stand by what I said: he wouldn't have wanted to hurt you. If he did, it'd probably be to give you an out. My guess is, that's what it was with Addison. Giving her an out so she could follow Derek here. It's hard to fathom, because he knew him so well, but I genuinely don't believe he meant to break them all apart. I also think it got as far as it did, because it wasn't only sex. That was the problem. He wanted more, a family, but he wasn't ready to lose his family for it. Sex might've been how it started for you two, but it was never why he loved you."

"It's not just…. There's….Okay, I know you're off the clock, and I'm not trying to take advantage, but can you look at something? They said it's barely there, but…."

"What's something? A pressure sore?" Meredith had never imagined Lexie being told exasperatedly to use her words, but her obvious relief at having Meredith say it made her wonder. Maybe it was just having a concern that belonged to patients be foisted onto her. "Where?"

Lexie lowered her chin while twitching one shoulder up. See, that's what I wasn't allowed to be. Noncommittal.

"You officially have your own wound care provider, even if I'm coming off Lump and Bump day. I won't bill. "

"It's on my back.

"Okay. Let's get you flipped. "If thts subject change was meant to suggest that this is something that Mark would object to, I'd wonder if we missed a TBI on the scans. The thing is, I'm pretty sure you cann still use your ability to reason."

"Tell me more about the brain, Dr. Grey," Lexie muttered into her arm.

"You have a small break starting here." Meredith indicated the area where it looked to her that friction, not pressure had been causing tissue to sluff away.

"I can reasoably say that's not exactly Sexy Lexie."

Meredith looked up from the wound care supplies in a basin on Lexie's dresser. "Yeah, I'm sure the plastic surgeon would've been disgusted." Maybe not fair, she thought, opening the padded foam dressing she'd be using, considering that she'd almost hurled during a bowel resection that day, when not being bothered by smells was one of her strengths. She tugged Lexie's shirt up further to give herself a larger field. "Your tops, mostly bought to wear under scrubs?"

"Uh-huh."

"You've gotten better at pressure checking and your shirts are riding up; the cotton folds and the base of the corset are causing friction. The bare skin rubs against the back of your wheelchair, too. Once your trunk muscles improve we can…. If you want, we can cover it, raise the supports, or get more padding. Actual pressure isn't all that's affecting your skin. Nutrition, brain-reworking, microbiome; everything in you is still searching for homeostasis."

"Stress-eating and zits were bad enough." Lexie crossed her arms under her chin. "I wantedato keep my manual chair as light as possible."

"Maybe you get add-ons for bad days," Meredith said. She'd have been advising a third chair if they'd taken the settlement, and long-term, they'd get her whatever she needed. Whatever influence Meredith, her dreamy husband, and their adorable baby had would be channeled toward getting Lexie her life back—or help her build a new one.

"You'd think bodies would be better at dealing with stress. Bonus, we can go shopping on your first weekend out," she suggested. She'd need to, and she wanted to casually drop the news, but Lexie didn't look convinced. She hadn't ducked in and out of dressing rooms as casually as Meredith in the first place. Not only were the big things overwhelming, the small ones were becoming scary. This could be a spiral; Meredith knew that very well. "You know I had my appendix out as an intern?"

"Bailey do it?"

"Yup. First time she cut me open. When it happened, I was still dating the vet and Derek. I'd never been the one who got to choose, like, anything at all, and it was stressful. It was Mark's first day, too, which was only going to make things more complicated. When I woke up with abdominal pain I chalked it up to all that. Couple hours later, I'm puking in front of the whole floor, everyone thinks I'm carrying Derek's lovechild, there's a smoker on oxygen making himself into a fireball—"

"Excuse me?"

"Not so much part of the story as context. That should be what stuck with people about that day, but Derek came running over to me…. Anyway, it was appendicitis, not anxiety puking, right?

"Well, a few months later, you sent me to therapy."

"Whatever."

"Which I definitely needed, because I had a lot to deal with."

"You're welcome."

"Dr. Wyatt oh-so-helpfully pointed out that I never really dealt with a lot of my trauma. That was a particularly bad year in terms of revisiting low points of my childhood, and stress hormones are triggered whether you acknowledge them or not. Mom had been sick five years, and before that, I'd constantly sought out the rush of almost-dying with Sadie. We were so stupid."

"Young, thought you were indestructible?"

"She did. She had reasons, her father is a demon, but it's not wrong to call her 'a poor little rich girl.' She really didn't consider consequences. I did. If I died, she'd be fine; Mom would be relieved..."

"Very black and white thinking. The Greys never crossed your mind?"

"That's actually a good one." Meredith looked up from the measurements she was marking on a page in the notebook she'd taken from her purse. "You might never have known, about me," she pointed out, goading slightly, to no reaction.

She hadn't realized how much she'd come to know Lexie's physicality until it'd changed. Not just the small gestures they shared. Something more nuanced than that; something about her simple awareness of Lexie's posture in a herd of brunettes under disposable bouffants, and the way she could follow her hands from across the room and figure out what she was talking about. Now she held herself differently; her expressions ran small. Other forms of communication hadn't been their strongest suit. Finishing each others sentences had never been a thing like it was for her and Cristina. They didn't share a frequency no one else used, like she and Sadie had been.

"It's possible that the intensity of that year could've combined with general intern exhaustion, and the whole Derek situation to lead to my appy. Our bodies break down if we demand too much. Once it starts, all we can do is try to stay ahead," she summarized.

"All my stress used to be trying to stay ahead. Once you skip a grade, you have to prove you deserved that. Then that you deserved the spot in Honors. That you aren't just smart, which is how I got popular at a small magnet high school. The dual-enrollment. That you came go to Harvard at sixteen and not be Ted Kazinsky. Remembering only takes you so far.

"You have to be able to apply the information—" Meredith started, intending to say she'd done it with the Unabomber reference.

"You get that you're seeing a general surgery through a neuro lens?"

"An osteopathic one, maybe—"

"What are you doing with all the neuro information you're holding for both of you? All three of us?"

"Nothing, because I quit neuro."

"Revisionist history."

"No, it's not! Derek can't be my boss, so I quit."

"Why can't he?"

"Because we don't work well together."

"Bullshit. I've seen you. There's something different when you come out of an O.R. with him. For both of you. Even when you weren't together."

"That wasn't better."

"I know, b—"

"You know what that tumor trial was like? Going into the O.R. and telling myself that this time I was going to ignore it. But every time, I'd see him, and I'd know he…he was the person who'd cared about me more and better than any partner I'd ever had. I'd have to look into his eyes, for so long, and not long enough—never long enough, and knowing I'd fucked it up. I didn't have a baby to blame my issues on…." Meredith closed her hand letting the small scissors she was using bite into her palm. "I shouldn't have said that."

"It's okay. Kind of true. I…resented Sofia, for sure."

"Still. You're stronger than I am."

"Please. You'd be home by n—"

"Physically you are definitely stronger. The PTs in the ICU were impressed. My upper-arm strength would've needed way more work…. Lexie, if Derek had stayed with Rose? I would've been the one to give up and leave. I can close my eyes and feel what you're describing, and it would never have been enough. It's a….a whiff of what I have being married to him. "

She piled the wound-care supplies in the basin where she'd found them. Giving that feeling up had been nothing compared to having her heart ripped out of her chest, which was what had happened the day Janet had taken Zola from her.

"Mer?" Lexie had gotten herself partially flipped over. Adults figuring out a new method of rolling over usually didn't want to spend time lying flat any more than a baby did.

"You got kind of lucky, not having to start this stabilized. The casts were nothing compared to some of the equipment I've seen."

"It's strange, looking at someone in a halo and thinking, I could've put that on you."

"Iowa wanted to put one on you. I was in there telling people my husband is a neurosurgeon, and not only did the message almost not get through to them, it didn't make it down the hall to the O.R. he was in."

She crossed her arms over her chest, realizing too late that she still had the scissors looped around her index finger. The bent tip grazed the skin over her bicep. Shit. Her eyes went directly to Lexie. She was focused on the bed remote, adjusting it to sit up. Meredith smiled, remembering their incremental build-up to the tilt table, and the days it had taken her to adjust to being upright again. She dropped the scissors into the hasin. No blood. As she headed back toward the bed, she realized she was freezing, and must've been for a while, judging by the goosebumps on he skin.

"Aren't you cold, Lex?" she asked, putting on a knit cardigan that had lived in her closet first.

"Sort of. The thermostat's by the door. It's cooler by default, because some of us are sort of endothermic. They say it's easier to put clothes on than take them off."

"Found it." Turning it up made the heat click on instantly. "They could've re-insulated this place. Hell, Amar would probably do it, and he's based in Bainbridge. I've already gotten used to not needing extra blankets. We have to turn it down in our room, because Zola's such a furnace."

"Still haven't started making her stay in her room?"

Meredith hoped the stupid hormones were enjoying themselves, jerking her in and out of teary exhaustion. "We, uh, we tried, after the move, but she cried, and I…I couldn't do it. Maybe it was just too close to the crash, but I couldn't sit there and listen to her cry."

"Aw." Lexie was probably imagining her taking off for Zola's room—to a room she hadn't seen, from a room she hadn't seen.

It hadn't gone like that. Zola crying like that; crying for them, knowing they were right there. Suffering due to a rule that didn't have an explanation for other than because, which she tried not to give, even if she had to generalize or skim over the truth.

Derek had been the one to get her, and he'd done it because he couldn't get through to Meredith. She couldn't remember if she'd heard him, or even seen him. Afterward he'd kept saying, "Your eyes were open. You weren't in the woods. Where were you?"

She'd had nightmares of Zola being taken away in the past, but hearing her on the monitor had been enough to reassure her. This time, when Zola had started talking to her crib guys more than she cried, and she hadn't reacted; it'd scared him. She'd scared him.

"She just…She spent enough of her life crying, and waiting," she'd said.

He didn't think it was all about Zola. He might've been right.

"I would've been okay, eventually," she said. "I don't think I could just stop, like Cristina did."

He gave her a look she hadn't understood. Maybe, she figured, he was thinking of the "if" she usually came up with—the Alzheimer's if. Then he'd said,"If I can help you be okay, 'eventually' will never be soon enough."

"It doesn't matter how I got here," she said to Lexie. "My hours are better for Zola. It's all better for her, and I'm damn good at what I do. I was ready to not be training anymore, and to be a mom, okay?"

"You're a really good one."

"Coming from you that means a lot."

"Why?"

"Uh, because you had one?"

"Yeah, but I don't think…I don't think that helps. To not have a good mom, and still know you want it enough…." It surprised Meredith to see the tear roll from the corner of Lexie's eye, enough that her sister got it smeared away. "I…I was good at Aunt Lexie—"

"Are. You are. Zola loves you so much."

"I love her, too. And Sof."

"Callie wants to bring her by, but—"

"I could've been her relief pitcher. I'd be there for Zo if…if something happened, because I know…I see what you want for her. How you are with her. But people here, doctors at the hospital, they all keep saying I'm young; my reproductive organs weren't affected, and I don't…I don't care. I really think, some day, with Mark, I would've wanted…but…but last year, when Jackson shipped me off to visit Molly, I didn't think, 'this is what I'd want.' Even eliminating the…whatever that made Dad give up on you—"

"Doesn't seem to have been hard for him…."

"Mom believed it was, right? She told me, when Molly met you. She should've pushed the other way; shown us what a family could be.

"It can't be hard to see she sheltered us. Molly married her high school boyfriend. Oh, they were in love, and Eric was enlisting, but Mom…I\ had my Parental Advisory approved copy of Nevermind confiscated. Your mom wasn't consis tent, but ours…. She was strict."

"She'd have had her hands full with me, unless Mom was the one totally out of the picture."

"You think youwouldn't have ended up a riot zine queen?"

Meredith considered. She'd managed in Boston, and while she'd been seeking attention then, she couldn't imagine not chaffing under her fake-mommy's discipline, even if she'd had ten years of experience. Plus, she'd have been in Seattle. "I'd have made you my scribe, that's for sure," Meredith said, thinking of Lexie's impeccable printing. "Oh, shit. I didn't thi—"

"Don't think! I didn't expect you to act like mentioning that I was fully able before the plane crash is taboo. I want you to be normal! Don't walk on eggshells with me." She raised her eyes to Meredith; an expression that Derek had dubbed "the puppy dog eyes" or simply "the eyes." "You only do that when you see me as some girl with smiley-face posters, who only listened to New Kids on the Block. That's Molly! She'd judge someone for being into N-Sync because she was BSB forever. She always knew she was going to get married and have babies—never what she'd want to do 'else.' She begged to be allowed to baby sit.

"I was going to be a doctor; that took a lot of school. i was glad my hormones weren't making me all goo-goo eyed. They were definitely there, but I n high school it was still weird. Everyone knew I was younger, but I still…I dragged my best friend Haley to UW parties, a couple of times. I had a crush on one of Dad's undergrad TAs."

"Mm. I remember thinking college boys would be better."

"Then, you met a Harvard undergrad?"

"Well….Do you know the frat where they made pledges pin up their used condom packets on a bulletin board?"

"Oh my God, yes!" Lexie brought her hand to her mouth, and the familiarity of the gesture made her say, "Scoot," she said, shoving Lexie's legs over, because she might as well remind her sister she did have some movement in those hips and knees. She perched on the foot of the bed. "Okay, so, junior year of high school, I ended up at a party there—" Derek would've raised an eyebrow, and Cristina would've asked, "ended up?" but it really had been like that. She'd go to a show, talk to someone cute in Harvard Square, and the next thing she knew, she'd be at a rave in Revere, or on top of a table in a basement. "—I'd been talking to this one guy who, I shit you not, modeled for L.L. Bean. Not really my type but he was a shower, and I'd mostly had high school boys who didn't know what they were doing. This was the sort of asshole who talked like he might want to teach me a thing or two, and either I'd suck up my pride, or I'd suck him off and take off.

"Then, he introduced me to Trevor, the pledge he'd obviously engaged me for. And, whatever, Trevor had very nice cheekbones, and a room that didn't smell like gym funk. At that point, a catch. Perfect skin. Told me he'd spent the summer with a cousin in Malaysia. The pictures on his wall…. First Asian beach on my list of places to see."

It was strange how her conscious mind knew this boy was just that, a boy, because the memory made him feel perpetually be older than her, in spite of how young she'd judge his doppelgänger to be

"There was just one small problem. A problem that remained small. Poor boy. I don't know if he was gay…. I'd had on baggy clothes, a Red-Sox cap; most of the girls there were in mini-skirts. Not like…I was obviously female-shaped, but he might've hoped…." She shrugged. "Once the clothes were off, I lost any hint of boyishness. And maybe he was just a kid. I tried using a keyring as a cock ring, which would've gone really badly if it'd gotten us anywhere. It…didn't."

Lexie was laughing, which was relieving. It was impossible for Meredith not to think Mark would've been all about this story, Lexie must've been, and laughing regardless.

"They were supposed to show the brother the used rubber before pinning the wrapper, you know?"

"Uh-huh. I got pinned."

Meredith nodded. They'd had a talk along those lines in the time after the liver donation. If only they'd remembered to slow down between the crashes, instead of just as a reaction.

"Me too," she said. "I put every ounce of what I'd learned during a year of Drama I and had a very loud freak-out over the condom coming out inside me, clocked him just hard enough to leave a mark, and tore out of the place. Few weeks later, different party, same place, condom was on the bulletin board."

"How d'you know? I mean, one Trojan wrapper is—"

"I used to be all about novelty condoms. Calling card." Lexie's eyes widened before she laughed again. Meredith grinned. There was still a rolled of expired glow-in-the-darks somewhere in the bedside table drawer. Derek gave her the grace of never pointing out they'd been hers in the first place. His reaction, how amused he'd been had been part of what made her accept that she wanted so much more for them.

"Four years later, I spent a summer swanning around on the arm of a guy in a Final Club," Meredith added. "I still don't make enough to pay for his watch." Lexie's cheek puckered inward. "Wait, were yout…."

"I was punched, but—"

"Alexandra Caroline Grey, Sadie couldn't buy or bang her way into—"

"But—But! I got cut in the first round, and really, Final Clubs are for rich people to celebrate how impressive they are. I pledged a sorority as a freshman because Mom said it'd be a good way to have friends no matter where I ended up. I lost touch with most of my 'sisters' by the end of med school. There's a chapter here, but I have this actual sister who came with her own frat house, so…."

"Hold on, UW has a whole organization I could pawn you off on? Glad I didn't know that four years ago."

The uncertain look forming on Lexie's face became a smile. "I left undergrad thinking I'd go back to visit all the time. But while I was with Paul I was too busy, and then my friends graduated, and…I just didn't."

"Paul the one who went to Molly's wedding?"

"Oh. Uh. No. Paul was a professor."

"Seriously? You, Cristina, Sadie, Alex banged school nurse, which might be statutory on her part—Am I the only one who didn't think screwing a teacher was worth it?"

"He wasn't my teacher. He just taught at HMS, and lived near Vamdy. Vanderbilt. The med—"

"—student housing on Ave Louis Pasteur, across from the TEMC—"

"Okay! I don't know what you know!" Lexie catch a paw of the bear Zola had given her between her fingers and lobbed it weakly at Meredith. She automatically stroked its head, used to comforting stuffed animals for the thrower's benefit.

"Mom lectured there, and at BU. And I was with a Simmons girl for a few weeks one summer. We'd walk Longwood a lot. Did a couple volunteer things at Children's."

"With kids?"

"What do you…? Oh. I wasn't on my own with them."

"Did you…? You knew you wanted—"

"Did I? I didn't know what I wanted in any other way. I liked kids. I liked the idea of proving I could do what my mom did, at minimum—but I wasn't sure I could. I knew I couldn't do it on my own, and I didn't believe in…anything like what I have with Derek. I hoped that I'd find someone I thought I could stand, even if whatever made them interesting at the beginning, love, or lust, or whatever, died out. For a long time, I thought I'd spend my life in a holding pattern with Sadie, and she sure as hell wasn't going to be a co-parent."

"You could've done it with her child support."

Meredith made a face. It was a joke, but she'd seen surgery legacies, who'd been raised by nannies and housekeepers, like Mark. It wouldn't have ever been what she wanted for her kid.

"What I mean is…." Lexie twisted her wrist in the air, and stared at it; the new version of her single finger thought-reeling. Meredith covered it with her hand, but Lexie's eyes had already welled up. "It wouldn't have been fair."

"What, Lex?"

"I…I…I hoped that Sofia would be enough," she said, and then gasped. Meredith watched her breaths while she processed, ensuring that she was fully extending her lungs. "I-I love Zola and Sofia, I do, and if I'd had a baby with Mark, I would've loved them, but…but if I never have kids versus if I can't work again…that won't be what I regret."

Meredith had been the responsible one of her friends—Dr. Death'll get us to twenty-five alive—She'dforced water on the drunk and high; counseled bad trips, cleaned up mosh-pit wounds. Volunteering for first-aid got her into more than one festival, and in her med school class only she and one other girl had given an injection (that they'd admit to.)—Carla's younger brother had gotten his first insulin pump in their second year. Meredith never copped to administering Naloxone. She doubted any of them had made assumptions beyond assuming it had to do with who her mother was.—At those last conferences she'd done everything for her mother, from dressing to makeup, to the reintroductions of star-struck former colleagues. Everything to get her on a stage, and watch Ellis Grey appear in fifty minutes intervals. She'd be gone again by the time they were alone. If she'd noticed Meredith's efforts they had to have been decent. Subpar would've gotten her reamed out. Hotel room after hotel room. Ten years old again, too afraid of someone getting lost to go investigate the pool, she would curl up on the foot of her mother's bed and watch movies that they probably should have seen together decades earlier. Sometimes Ellis would wake and run her hand over Meredith's hair; existing at a momentary point where their memories met—She'd taken care of people, but too guardeed to be seen as "caring."

In spite of all of that, the skills she used to soothe Lexie had been picked up in the past year.

She'd been in the position Lexie had been in before the crash; desperate enough to convince herself she was ready for something, or risk losing the love of her life. It could also be that the dreams Mark had described to keep her morale up out there seemed too big in reality.

"….And we're gonna have two or three kids.… We're gonna have the best life, Lexie, you and me…."

"Mark loves you," she said, because the man she spoke of was the one who would always be alive in Lexie's mind. "How you would've built your family isn't something we can know. But I know two things that might help. One. Mark knew a kid should only be had for one reason: they are wanted. Two. Shutting yourself off from the future because the past feels impossible is a really easy, and really stupid. I hope that if my mom had a chance for regrets that weren't about the future she was being cheated out of, it was that she stopped herself from living a full life after things were over with Richard.

"You can mourn him; the life you'd have had; the kids you might or might not have raised. I'm not saying you have to find another soulmate. Statistically, there is probably someone else out there who'd match up with you, but I sure as hell couldn't…." Meredith shivered, feeling a different, deeper nausea than she'd been facing over the past few days.

"If you're trying to say I can still have a sex life, believe me, it comes up constantly around here. Like, I expected patients…residents to ask about sexual function; most of the time, they didn't have to worry about if they'd have any other function, and we're conditioned to think scars are a sign that you couldn't outrun the predator, not that you did, and survived. Just, I'm tired of hearing about 'other erogenous zones,' and dudes talking like their schlongs are all they are. Especially, Lloyd, who, yesterday, told us that chicks can't understand. He thought incomplete injuries below T-1 meant you could feel your boobs. If he's gonna pretend he understands the concept, he could look at a chart!"

"Did you tell him it's T-4, because T is for tifs?" Meredith asked.

Lexie's shrug was part pressure shift. Good. "No, I…. That didn't even…. He probably thinks L is leg, so of course C-4 means he should be able to feel his cock. No, I went off on a five-minute explanation of dermatomes, and I think almost everyone tuned out."

"He might actually think C means chest." Meredith almost followed the bridge to what she'd wanted to tell her sister tonight. It would've been a perfect place to admit that part of what had made her realize she was pregnant was a patient whose tumor had convinced his family he'd become a dirty old man, when it'd actually triggered the grab instinct that went dormant after infancy.

"It's obnoxious," Lexie insisted. "The counselors are so into 'preserving body image' that they don't think to point out that sex isn't exactly an ADL. And, yeah, I know what Mark would say to that."

"Do you?" Meredith murmured, putting a hand on Lexie's stiffly crossed arms. "Or is it easier, when you know he might be saying that people want to feel wanted when they're scared, but he'd also be willing to do this at your pace?"

Lexie scowled. "Then why couldn't I do anything at his pace?"

"Because he had sixteen years on you! That's more than growing up with Pong or SEGA Genesis. Superficially, he could be the kind of frat boy who never grew up, only got older, but you gave him the confidence to get past that.

"Everyone here has their own shit, and their own way of dealing with it. Wanting to reclaim sexuality isn't all that unusual, and it's better than assuming that being disabled makes that impossible. I doubt you're the only one facing a whole lot of unknowns. Maybe not the only one who lost someone. But you don't have to be up for making friends. Go hang out next door; get a sense for what it'll be like when I go cuckoo. Ignore them all and focus on strength training, and navigating your wheelchair around toddler-sized obstacles. Also, practice saying no to 'Ride, please?' I can send you a picture of the face to practice against."

Lexie shook her head, and a smile line appeared by her lip. "You suck at that, too. I don't know what you want from me."

"I tell her 'no.' Just not arbitrarily. And I'm…usually the arbitrator."

"Mmhmm."

"I'm gonna have to go soon, or be the evil witch refusing to go through the whole book pile, but my point is, you don't have to be all 'just glad to have survived,' 'today is a gift,' 'embracing life' right away. You just have to be open to having a future with people in it. My mom, she didn't do that. She wanted her career to make up for it, and I think if she hadn't been so determined not to care about anything else, that might've meant more. If she'd been open to…to caring at all."

"Mer—"

"There were ways in which she cared about me, but if you trace them back far enough, it's all about her. Her ability, her worth, her legacy. I want my…my kid to have the best life she can have, which I happen to believe means being a decent person, and being able to chase her own dreams, but if there's something she could do that would make me stop thinking she's a miracle.… I thought it'd die down, you know? At a year since we met her, almost a year since she came home…but no. And my mom didn't feel that way. Yours did. You do, about my kid, so not wanting your own doesn't make you like her. It makes you a person who knows herself. You don't cave."

"I almost wish I had," Lexie admitted.

Meredith didn't point out that the key word there was "almost."

They both knew.

"It could still happen. Having a sibling might bring out the monster in the miracle. We're basically asking for terrible twos."

"A…?" Lexie's lips stayed parted for a moment, pieces coming together on her face. Where once there'd have been shrieking and hugging, she smiled softly. "You'll think she's just as miraculous as a monster, and the same goes for her baby brother or sister.

Meredith initiated the hug. She needed to model being a sister for Zola, and she was relieved her sister was here to help her do it.


Those of you who've been following me know I promised a companion fic to Dawn of Redeeming Grace, but thanks to my eye issues that didn't happen. I considered sitting on it, but this is long, and I have another chaptered fic in the pipeline, with a decent number of one-shots, so... Christmas in July!

Love's Pure Light can be read on its own, but it's in the universe of DorG, set in S16 Ellis's desire for her parents to have a wedding intersects with a major event in their marriage–Meredith's arrest for insurance fraud. Chapters two and three will be up M/W of next week.