JEAN-PHILLIPPE HIPOLYTE: bon jour, sunshine
LEXIE GREY: sun where?
Wait, never mind, Zola is up.
[img]
JEAN-PHILLIPPE HIPOLYTE: I particularly enjoy that she wears both the lion ears and the tiara.
LEXIE GREY: she's a lion-ess. Duh. '
JEAN-PHILLIPPE HIPOLYTE: Ah, of course!
Your baby niece is better at puns than I am.
LEXIE GREY: you've met her dad.
Also she's a big girl niece tyvm.
JEAN-PHILLIPPE HIPOLYTE: yes, I did not expect a brain surgeon would know the whole verse of a Taylor Swift song.
LEXIE GREY: oh JP
JP, JP, JP.
Let me tell you about the weirdest game of chicken ever.
Do u no what chicken is? aka trying to get someone to cry mercy or cry uncle.
JEAN-PHILLIPPE HIPOLYTE: King of the Mountain!
LEXIE GREY: Ok. D was supposedly in the punk scene in 70s/early 80s nyc I've seen pics & it's still weird.
punk as in the clash? Sex Pistols? I have no idea if you know this. What got to the DR? how do we talk about Bieber and not real music?
Mer was a riot grrl. Do you…ok Look I'll explain that l8r. 90s punk. Sorta. Say that to her. She won't punch you. Promise.
N-E way, their love story can be told in T Swift songs. I made the playlist. They both have her albums in their collections.
They
Don't know where those came from!
Don't like country.
Don't want to fall totally out of touch!
Have to know what patients/nurses/annoying sisters are talking about.
Play it for Zola ! Blame the baby?
They both adamantly do not listen to or identify with or sing along to Taylor Swift in front of each other.
As though she'd make them soft.
JP. Friend. Once upon a time that could've been true. Which is probably how this started. I've lived with them off & on for 4 and a half years. They have rough times. They argue. I referred to them as a broken home once which I regret bc I think I cursed Zola's adoption
it worked out.
Obviously
But they r also stupidly goofily preciously in love. The kind of love that makes you believe in Taylor Swift songs. My sister is feared at work. She has a glare that's getting her called Medusa. When he comes in a room? Heart eyes.
D came out here to be all loner grumpy woodsman. His broody is intense. I'm the only one who didn't see him w/ his ex but Mark said he's totally different w/Mer. That he always had something dark pushed down deep & it gave him drive but also he could be volatile. He was weighed down in NYC and partially it was from holding that in. She handles it.
They're so damn perfect for each other. And they won't admit to feeling it Taylor style.
Sorry 4 the essay. They r just…aaaah.
Mer closes herself off too. I know there's stuff she's not letting me in on & it's cool. Molly doesn't ask me for marital advice.
Perfect example, tho. Mer & her bff are in a fight. C was the red car in last night. Our project had to happen without the ex husband she screws knowing so she's hiding here.
C knew Mer better than D once but now? no way & I don't blame Mer for hunkering down after how everyone else she's opened up to ends up shutting her out.
JEAN-PHILLIPPE HIPOLYTE: sometimes we grow out of sync with people we love. Time passes, and out of nowhere they are at your side again. Such a lot you have to share with them, then.
Other times, screw them.
LG: how do you know the difference?
JEAN-PHILLIPPE HIPOLYTE: a posteriorily.
LG: l8r, gotta go wash that out with numbers.
—
TEDDY ALTMAN: Getting some weird msgs from Owen.
ARIZONA ROBBINS: Teddy, I love you. I can't say anything.
TEDDY ALTMAN: hey, I kept things from him for 10 yrs.
Still do.
ARIZONA ROBBINS: b/c you're afraid of rejection. That's allowed.
Yang's stonewalling him.
TEDDY ALTMAN: I see.
ARIZONA ROBBINS: you ARE his best friend.
TEDDY ALTMAN: I'm the one he has left.
ARIZONA ROBBINS: 'Heavy is the head?'
TEDDY ALTMAN: No. Maybe.
The service did a number on his world. He still has this view of the finish line that's two-point-five kids, etc., and he can't accept that the life he made, the woman he loves, isn't getting him there.
I don't know what going down with the ship looks like when it's a hospital, but he'd do it.
ARIZONA ROBBINS: it looks like Pegasus.
It sounded nice to me, Teddy. It sounded like having higher-ups make decisions for me, knowing exactly what to do and when to do it. Having officially requisitioned supplies, and not having the time to get too close to every kid.
It was everything that used to make me sure that joining up would suffocate me, and I was fine with it.
TEDDY ALTMAN: Sweetie, that's grief. After Allison, I joined up to fight back, yes. Because I felt expendable, yes. Because I could say I was taking control, yes. But actually? It took control away from me. I didn't have to make decisions about anything. Not for years.
Maybe it's specifically trauma-related grief, but I met her right after my folks died, and I didn't fight it. I let love sweep me forward the same way the war would even once it had nothing to do with her memory. Sometimes, I let myself forget it ever had.
What made you change your mind?
ARIZONA ROBBINS: Miranda. She's an incredible doctor, an independent thinker, but she sticks to the rules. She trusts the system. When she loses faith in it, there's something very wrong.
And I realized, I survived, and I can treat the kids who need more than that. That's the one thing….
TEDDY ALTMAN: the one thing…?
If this is about what you can't have Owen know, I swear I won't say anything to him. He stopped texting.
ARIZONA ROBBINS: No, it's me.
Sloan was basically Derek's brother. He was Callie's best friend. He and Lexie were going to try again. It's cruel that he only got sixteen months with Sof. Less, really.
I don't regret that I survived. I'm not saying anything like that. It just seems like…he took a lot from the world. I want to put more in.
TEDDY ALTMAN: You would've taken equally as much, Arizona Robbins.
ARIZONA ROBBINS: I want that to be true.
I thought Callippe was meant to be representing Sofia's interest in all of this. She's his heir, that was clear, even with part of his estate going to Sloan Riley. But sometimes….
Sometimes it's like she's playing the part of his widow, which should go to Lexie, if we're not penalizing people for not wanting a kid until she entered the world.
I couldn't have gotten through this without Callippe. I can't imagine how hard it was for her this summer, and I haven't been a good partner. Of all people making it clear that's possible, it's the McDreamys.
There's just something about…. She lost him. We lost him and parts of ourselves. Then I think, I lost my best friend, too, and I can't even inventory what was me, and what was Nick. So, losing Mark must've also taken parts of her. Maybe she doesn't know which ones.
Here's what I'm afraid of: she's part of me. I'm part of her. What if we both lost too much of the overlap?
TEDDY ALTMAN: then you move forward and start putting new things in the center of the Venn diagram.
ALEX KAREV: No sign of him today.
CRISTINA YANG: Thanks.
He's not the trailer either.
What's the story w/ the gauze on her forearm?
ALEX KAREV: What's the story with whatever you're doing?
CRISTINA YANG: 3's out with friends, but Zola wants everything identified and explained. Why not wear sleeves?
ALEX KAREV: Does she look cold?
CRISTINA YANG: No. The fire's on.
ALEX KAREV: That's why. It's her house.
I get it, okay? You've been in each other's back pockets for years, and this is something you don't understand. But you giving her the evil eye across her living room isn't going to make anything better.
CRISTINA YANG: Are you texting her too?
ALEX KAREV: Holy shit, you were? Jeez, Yang.
It's not like her other coping mechanisms were self-care! the booze?
if the randos had made her feel better that would've been cool. but they didn't.
CRISTINA YANG: That's been years. She's got Shepherd. When he was shot, she lost a baby, and she was fine.
ALEX KAREV: her people lived, she was threatened, she lost a baby, but she'll say she brought it on herself.
CRISTINA YANG: She did bring it on herself. She was brave, or whatever, but she left the scrub room. She told him who she was.
ALEX KAREV: did she grab his hand and train the gun on her own head?
CRISTINA YANG: She's holding the blade, now.
ALEX KAREV: when hunt tried to strangle you, was he in control of his hands?
CRISTINA YANG: She doesn't think she's going after the cougars.
ALEX KAREV: meaning it's ok if you're delusional?
CRISTINA YANG: he has documented ptsd. Brain injury level ptsd. It was a flashback.
ALEX KAREV: she got hers while her brain was forming. And what do u think she has? This shit isn't new. She had stuff going on while u were gone.
CRISTINA YANG: she never told me that. so much for being her person
ALEX KAREV: she's got multiple people. u don't like the emotional stuff. shepherd does. idk, i'm not in her head.
wasn't there stuff you told hunt not her?
CRISTINA YANG: Go flirt with your intern.
ALEX KAREV: She's on a date with some OB-Guy
CRISTINA YANG: ew. people with dicks shouldn't be going into OB-GYN.
ALEX KAREV: you always hear ppl say shit like oh, they just wanna look at cooch all day. if you're getting turned on by a patient's anything in that situation you've got problems.
CRISTINA YANG: Do guys say the same thing about, say, Catherine Avery?
ALEX KAREV: not that I've ever heard.
probably better for women to do that too. Thinking about some of the things she does makes my skin crawl.
CRISTINA YANG: I didn't have that problem until recently.
ALEX KAREV: why's that?
CRISTINA YANG: She started doing Webber.
ALEX KAREV: NICE.
ADDISON MONTGOMERY: should I be looking into taking on an ortho and peds duo?
CALLIE TORRES: Shit, it's gotten that far?
Oh wait. You have a Shepherd.
ADDISON MONTGOMERY: trust me, that doesn't mean much. My sources are many and varied.
BokHee. Mostly BokHee.
CALLIE TORRES: I ask her once a week if she's considered world domination.
When you were vying for chief…. Why?
ADDISON MONTGOMERY: to beat the boys. To have a reason to be there.
Because Richard told me it was mine.
To have some reason for putting myself through all of that,
CALLIE TORRES: it was personal
ADDISON MONTGOMERY: yeah.
CALLIE TORRES: no big ideas for your Seattle Grace?
ADDISON MONTGOMERY: Salmon scrubs for all!
Kidding. Henry's having a sleep regression. It's no joke.
I wanted to expand the NICU. Offer birthing mothers way more options. Implement more evidence based care.
I'd started putting out feelers to recruit another fetal medicine specialist, since I'd be off the floor a lot, and I wanted to offer a fellowship.
Wouldn't have had to fly me in for you. (I would've come anyway.)
CALLIE TORRES: thnx
Did you ever have a summer job?
ADDISON MONTGOMERY: Are you taking a really weird survey?
CALLIE TORRES: Did Mark? Sry should ask Derek that. Apparently that's the only way you learn the value of money.
I'm not making Sof get a JOB at fifteen! School will be her job until she decides it's not. Look at Yang, she's got multiple terminal degrees!
ADDISON MONTGOMERY: OK scooping ice cream at the mall over the summer isn't going to interfere with her future as a professional student.
Is this about the suit money, or your trust? Or part of another argument?
CALLIE TORRES: What other argument would lead to her saying "if your parents had made you get a summer job…"
ADDISON MONTGOMERY: well I don't know, do I?
"If your parents" tends to come before something you can't change. It's personal.
CALLIE TORRES: Yeah…. It's never been a big deal, or I didn't think it was, it doesn't make sense. If she had 15mil in trust, Sofia definitely wouldn't be working in the summer but there's something wrong with me because my parents didn't make me?
Mark understood it. Being the rich brat.
Sofia won't have my childhood. A lot of it was Papi being protective, and we had SO MUCH privilege, but we were isolated, too.
Doctors' daughter is good. Doctors' daughter has a safety net. The worst thing possible happened, and we hardly know how to deal with the compensation, because there's a point where it doesn't change anything.
Even with my family, I wasn't prepared for this. none of the numbers seem real. I learned "the value of money" with the first card that had my name on it, sure, but I did. I had most of the money for the Ashfield b/c my parents thought they'd been paying rent on an apartment for months. Didn't know what to do with it, but figured I'd get caught eventually.
ADDISON MONTGOMERY: Derek knew money didn't make life perfect (especially for kids, I'd argue.) Usually, "spoiled" came out because he knew I was sensitive about it.
There was a certain amount of The Man Provides going on in his head, too.
CALLIE TORRES: that's what made George freak out.
He wanted to pay off Louise's mortgage within two years of finishing his fellowship. He was already trying to figure out how to get his brothers to accept something similar from their baby brother.
I took care of the house, after Didn't know how to handle Ronny & Jerry as his ex-wife, but I figure it helps them too.
ADDISON MONTGOMERY: Arizona know that story?
CALLIE TORRES: Yeah. Think it might've been be strike one. They weren't my responsibility.
ELIZABETH SHEPHERD-…: Is this some latent desire to own the store?
I thought that was what the practice was. I told you then you weren't going to like it. I told you that every time you talked about being Chief of Surgery, too.
DEREK SHEPHERD: Yeah, it was incredibly obnoxious. I got that job, and I was good at it. I hated it, but I was good at it.
ELIZABETH SHEPHERD-…: Mom's surprised you didn't wait to just announce you owned a hospital.
DEREK SHEPHERD: Considered it. If it fell through I'd have to explain why we'd tried to buy a hospital. Way more humiliating that way.
ELIZABETH SHEPHERD-…: This makes you interesting for a week. Because there hasn't been enough Derek in Mom's updates lately.
DEREK SHEPHERD: Hopefully after this nothing interesting will happen to us until June.
ELIZABETH SHEPHERD-…: Eh. Babies are old news..
When are you finding out the sex?
DEREK SHEPHERD: Not sure. You have to have a hospital to do an ultrasound.
ELIZABETH SHEPHERD-…: Funny, I've had them, and I don't have so much as a clinic.
DEREK SHEPHERD: Ha ha.
I am going to advocate for finding out. I think it'll help Zola connect to the baby.
ELIZABETH SHEPHERD-…: Zola, huh?
DEREK SHEPHERD: That's my story.
She's used "the baby" a few times.
Her reasons for being scared are valid. Obviously. But she's going to go through so much before the baby's here, and once it's here. That's assuming…. Things do happen.
ELIZABETH SHEPHERD-…: Babies happen. I'm not Nan, but I know a thing or two. Not being at-risk by this point is good. You may not own a hospital yet, but you do have hospitals. Sofia was a worst-case, wasn't she? Look at her.
DEREK SHEPHERD: I am, actually. She's playing tea party with Zola. She's thriving. But she was 23.5 weeks. We're at 22.
It's been storming all week. I'm driving like Granny.
ELIZABETH SHEPHERD-…: How do you get anywhere?
DEREK SHEPHERD: Slowly.
We did get to the Mardi Gras parade.[img]
ELIZABETH SHEPHERD-… Awwww!
DEREK SHEPHERD: She's going to notice soon. She's a passenger seat driver. Gets Zola in on it. I'll be going five in a parking lot, and I'll hear, "Daddy, you too fast."
ELIZABETH SHEPHERD-…: Record it for when she's sixteen.
DEREK SHEPHERD: Ahead of you.
I can feel it moving now. Mer's pretty amazed by that.. I'm doing what I can to highlight the good parts. There weren't many of those, waiting for Zo to come home.
ELIZABETH SHEPHERD-…: That wasn't the same. Not as long.
I was going to say you knew she was safe, but she got sick, didn't she?
DEREK SHEPHERD: She did. It was awful. It was also a relief.
For three days, we knew where she was and who was taking care of her. Three out of 123.
Seventeen and a half weeks. We'd known Zola for a month.
Mariah came home first, and that was at two weeks, correct?
ELIZABETH SHEPHERD-…: Yes.
DEREK SHEPHERD: Imagine taking her home, and then having her taken into care a week later. Not for a reason you can do anything about. Everything's been struck off the checklist. Nothing to do, except wait, and try not to take it out on each other. For one hundred and twenty-three days.
Being about that far away from this baby, I can tell you it's easier. Every week brings us closer to the finish line, and we know the baby is safe and healthy. We can feel it.
Then, we weren't allowed to see her. No one told us anything about how she was. Every week made it less likely that she was coming home, and we had no idea if we were halfway there, or only at the beginning.
ELIZABETH SHEPHERD-…: Jesus. Derry, We knew it was taking a while, and that you were probably giving us the positive spin. Mom used to bug Mark about how you really were, but he hated upsetting her more than you do.
DEREK SHEPHERD: He didn't really know. He had Sof, and he'd just met the woman he was seeing 'til May. He knew we were stressed, for sure, but he wasn't coming to the house to hang out. And he'd have been making the same considerations I was, about everything else going on.
Do you talk to her?
ELIZABETH SHEPHERD-…: Mom?
DEREK SHEPHERD: Come on, Lizard. You went there for Thanksgiving.
I have an idea, but I'm afraid she'll think I'm trying to make up for not making it over there while she was in rehab, or to keep tabs on her.
ELIZABETH SHEPHERD-…: You're the one who speaks Amy.
DEREK SHEPHERD: Not as fluently as I used to.
Tell the others I know what I'm doing, okay?
ELIZABETH SHEPHERD-…: You want me to lie for you?
DEREK SHEPHERD: Let me make it worth your time:
[img] Here we have Zola serving Meredith at Zola's Kitchen.
[img] Zola reading to Rawr and Big Bear. (We're thinking of letting her name the baby, what do you think?)
[img] Zola trying to 'feed the baby' right before Sofia smacked the spoon across the kitchen.
MOLLY THOMPSON:you need to talk sense into our sister
MEREDITH GREY:It's her money. She gets to decide what to do with it. We made sure she put enough aside to be taken care of, and hopefully there will be returns.
MOLLY THOMPSON:…on a $20 lunch with Dani?
MEREDITH GREY: A WHAT?
MOLLY THOMPSON: There we go. I'm cool with the hospital thing. What's life without risk?
FWIW there's no way Dad would have had the follow-thru to have her declared incompetent or w/e.
MEREDITH GREY: What about Dani? Isn't her appeal follow-through? Putting aside the obvious?
MOLLY THOMPSON :Groooossss.
Lex thinks he ghostwrote those Facebook posts.
MEREDITH GREY: Is that possible?
MOLLY THOMPSON: Sure, but why? He posts on the page with his profile. They both interact with the "resilient ones." (If they become a cult, I'm disowning him with you.)
MEREDITH GREY: He must have known Lexie wouldn't be okay with what they were doing.
MOLLY THOMPSON: it's definitely not impossible. Her profile, and a lot of early updates on the "store," read like she was still texting statuses from a flip phone. Smilies, not emoticons, abbreviations all over.
MEREDITH GREY:The Lexie updates are more coherent than that. Are they in his style?
MOLLY THOMPSON: Thaaaaaat's the thing. He doesn't have one?
OK, if you read his articles, they have a voice. But when we were kids, we could basically get him to write our papers by asking him to proofread something with a modicum of structure.
We never got called out on it. Freshman year of HS, I got a C on a history paper. Dad was totally perplexed as to why I hadn't let him "look it over." I wanted to be graded on my own words.
I was so full of myself.
He used us to do first read-throughs on his students' papers. Let us mark basic grammar and punctuation errors. I got so good at that shit that I really was being graded on my words, you know?
Anywho, it's not impossible that's what was going on there. I don't think that lets Dani off the hook.
MEREDITH GREY: My guess? Lexie's trying to get a feel for who's manipulating whom in that relationship. I think they're as bad as each other.
MOLLY THOMPSON: I used to think that about Mom & Dad sometimes. She'd go off on a rant about someone who supposedly wronged one of them, and he'd ask transparently encouraging questions. If it was something worth "dealing with" they'd come up with a plan. Just workplace stuff, but it got Dad a chair position that came with a bonus.
MEREDITH GREY: He's never minded letting his partner give him a leg up. And…we did wonder if the hiccups were a ploy.
I'm sorry they weren't.
But even if he manufactured none of this, I think it's good for her to get Dani's POV. She doesn't know what to think about anything that has to do with your parents right now. She needs to figure it out her way.
MOLLY THOMPSON: That, and you're busy trying to buy a hospital.
MEREDITH GREY: Correct.
MT: Are you terrified?
MEREDITH GREY: You could say that.
MOLLY THOMPSON: I can't imagine.
But I do think it's really freaking cool.
"Stop doing that!"
"What?" The bafflement on Yang's face could've been genuine, Derek wasn't sure.
"Every time I argue, you capitulate! I'm not going to go slit my throat because you disagree with me about outpatient follow-up protocols!"
"Ohhh-kay," Callie tried to cut in, leaning across the table to get in Meredith and Cristina's sight lines. "Do we want to take a break here?"
Cristina sighed. "Why can't you believe that you convinced me?"
"All I said was 'I'm not sure we can do that!'"
"According to the National Public Safety guidelines—" Lexie started.
"A break sounds great," Robbins cut in
"Don't interrupt her!"
"Mer, it's fine."
Derek stood up. Meredith and Cristina both turned to him like he'd done it out of nowhere. "Time…for a break," he said, swerving from "time out," though it was tempting to send them to opposite corners.
It'd been a long week, and it didn't help that the babysitter they'd engaged for today had canceled due to a family emergency. They'd arranged for someone else for their meeting tomorrow, and had a back-up just in case. The girls would be at Callie's, where it'd be easier to find a pinch hitter. They had been generally good, but that meant they were on and off laps, bringing crayons to the table to "work," and then needing an adult to draw a horse, a house, a tree, a "stet-a-cope." It meant shrieks and squeals, and refilling juice cups, and snack bags being overturned on the floor. Most of the time, getting up to deal with the latest "uh-oh" was more stimulating than the business in front of them.
Supposedly, Julian Crest or whomever they partnered with, was supposed to take care of the finances, but you couldn't tell that from the direction Stan took every discussion, saying, "The details can wait. The people you'll be talking to want to know what's going to cost money, why it's necessary, and how it'll make money."
The questions they cared about were different. What do we want to change? What needs are we not meeting? What can we do better? Stan's questions were overwhelming. Their hypotheticals were enthralling. Derek hated having to reel that in, if only because they could get even Arizona's eyes shining the way Callie's had last week. They made Cristina stop checking the phone Meredith and Callie had threatened to throw into the garbage disposal and the fireplace respectively. Numbers interested only Lexie. They all tried, but hospital administration was an entirely different degree program; one that was advertised on daytime TV.
"I could look into it," Lexie had offered last night. "We haven't exactly decided on the job description I'll have as…what title did we settle on? 'Board liaison?' But I want to actually be doing something. Plus, if we fold in a year, I'd have something to show for it."
Once she'd had retreated to her room for the night, Meredith had returned to the living room where they were surrounded by printouts and legal pads, and asked, "Before tonight, had you heard her planning for the future beyond the best timing for nerve transplantation procedures?"
He'd admitted that he hadn't.
If he couldn't stop hearing Mark outline the future he'd wanted for himself and Lexie, it must've been far more difficult for her to imagine anything different.
They'd struggled to keep him down by the fire initially, because it put him so far from Lexie. "I'm ambulatory," he'd insist, forcing the word out like it made him stronger than "mobile." Even if it was true, he'd needed the heat. But he and Lexie were the most at risk, and giving them time together felt more important to all of them. They never acknowledged that they'd heard the promises Mark made her, over and over while they both struggled with consciousness. He had no doubt that they all remembered every word.
"We… we... we're gonna get married. And you're gonna make an amazing surgeon. And we're gonna have two or three kids. So Sofia can have siblings. Yeah. A sister and two brothers. We're gonna be happy, Lex…. You and me. We're gonna have the best life, Lexie, you and me. We're gonna be so happy."
"He's making a lot of promises," Derek had whispered to Meredith, who'd been lying with her head pillowed on his leg, reacting only if he adjusted the hand shielding her eyes from the sun. "Building castles in the air."
Mark would want to make them ream, but having Arizona there too devastated over missing her anniversary, was a reminder that the complexity of that situation hadn't changed. (Their celebratory dinner should've also honored Callie's full recovery from her own crash, just over a year in the past. Had they mentioned it on Sofia's first birthday? Would the two-year mark be too late to say, hey, we know we're not the only ones who've survived the unsurvivable?)
Meredith's laugh had surprised him. "That's what I called planning to go to med school," she murmured. Any time she hadn't been actively monitoring Lexie, she'd been half-awake at most, her body fighting to conserve energy. "Cloud castles."
He was afraid that the hospital in the air they were building in Mark's name would be blown apart by fate, the same way his plans had been. Then again, Meredith was providing most of their building material, and her "cloud castle" had been a fortress. It'd stood up to frontal assault from her mother, and sabotage from Sadie, who'd pretended to be on board, only to undermine her in the same sentence. ("You'll show them, Death. Once the Dean of Medicine meets you, I'm sure he won't care that your mother criticized him by name in that paper….")
Before he could check in with his wife, she'd disappeared, and to go after her would be to earn him the same accusation she'd lobbed at Cristina. She'd been…. "Stable" felt like a stupid word to use; none of them was stable. He felt like he was constantly walking on the floor of one of the bouncy houses Nancy rented for every cookout. (It'd taken until party number seven for Derek to ask Liz, "it'd have been cheaper to buy one of those and store it, right? She wants us to know she can afford not to do that?")
Meredith had been anxious, and irritated, and enthusiastic, and invigorated. She'd been on the first curve of a spiral a couple of nights ago, looking at the numbers estimating the effect that losing the hospital would have on the neighborhood. There'd been angry tears yesterday over sample financial assistance eligibility requirements. Bless him, Stan had said something along tine lines of "well, with the ACA in effect…" and the deeper Meredith went into her pro-socialized medicine arguments, the icier Arizona's eyes got. Cristina had been the one who managed to diffuse that one, pretending she'd heard a crash from upstairs, where the baby-sitter turned out to be watching the girls watch Sesame Street.
He didn't doubt that it might be different if her resources weren't being shared. Practically, it meant that although she complained that she wasn't exerting as much energy as she would be at work, she fell asleep early, and if she woke, it wasn't for long enough to ruminate. Yet again, he saw the timing of the pregnancy as a saving grace. He wished he knew how to impart that to Cristina and get her to see the progress Meredith had made.
"Daddy!"
Zola stopping her push-scooter against his leg made Derek realize he was the only one who hadn't vacated the table. "Hey…tigress?" He wiggled the ear of her headband. She giggled and roared, her other hand bringing Rawr. up to attack, too "Whoa! Lions and tigers! Is Sofia a bear?"
"Sofia a baby," she said. Derek cringed. Sofia was napping, but she seemed to have super-hearing when it came to that word
"Zo-Zo, she doesn't like that. She's going to have a birthday in two weeks. She'll be the same age as you, and you're a big girl."
"I not. I Mama's baby."
"Oh, I see." He picked her up. "When the new baby comes out, you'll be a big sister, and when the Ones are playing with your class, you're a big kid. But with all these grown-ups here, you're a little girl. That's kinda confusing, But you know what?"
"No."
"You are always going to be our first baby, no matter how many brothers and sisters you get. No matter how big you get."
"Little big."
"A little too big, sometimes. You want a snack?"
"Yeah, Gol'fish."
"Goldfish…?" he prompted, putting his phone in his back pocket.
"Say, 'wan' snack?' Wanna Gol'fish."
"You say please, even if it wasn't your idea," he clarified.
"Why?"
"Because I'm still getting them for you." He opened a cabinet and let her grab the Goldfish-shaped container that she refused to eat anything else out of.
"You can have Gol'fjsh."
"That…." He filled it from the bag of orange crackers down from the shelf she couldn't reach, even from someone else's arms. "…is nice sharing. But you still need a please in there."
She gave him a dubious look, but when he kept the plastic fish above her head, she capitulated."Please. Sofi have 'em?"
"After her nap, maybe. I like that you're thinking of her." His phone buzzed, so he sat her on the counter where she could chat happily on eye-level with anyone who came by en route to the sink or pantry. The notification was for his personal email. That got used so infrequently that it'd taken Meredith calling him "hotmail" for a weekend in '09 to get him to bother switching to Gmail. Even his sisters had learned that he was more likely to open something sent there, if only by accident.
From: r.
To:
Date: Feb 22, 2012 at 14:51
Re: Future Plans
Derek,
Good afternoon. I hope this finds you and the family well. As I'm sure you can imagine, things are hectic around here.
Perhaps Dr. Torres mentioned that I've been debating taking early retirement. Seemed like there was something to that, when you consider how long Adele spent asking me to retire and spend time with her. Maybe she's pulling strings to get me to see more of the world, even if she isn't physically at my side. But the longer I consider that, the more I realize it's an incredibly selfish thought. It's also a mischaracterization of my wife. She began and ended her career here, and she put up with a lot because she believed in where I wanted to take the hospital, even if I couldn't get it there.
I have no idea what your coterie is up to, but I'm sure you've deduced that I'm hoping there'd be space for an old general surgeon looking to pass on what wisdom he has before he passes on. I'm aware that I have no right to ask you for anything. I've made a career out of getting people to believe my ideas were theirs; be they students needing the confidence, or someone who I've convinced myself can carry the weight of a failure that would crush me. I've done it to benefit my career, to be trusted, and, sometimes, because I could. I am, I'll admit, Machiavellian in the classic sense, especially as I've moved from leader to advisor. But whether we work together in the future or not, I value your friendship, and would like to set it to rights. I'll understand if you cannot believe in my sincerity, but I hope I've not lost all integrity.
I should've apologized to you on Christmas Eve for what I said after you ended things with Addison, first of all. You loved her and Meredith better and more honestly than I loved either Adele or Ellis. I let my failures color everything I said to you at that time, and I pushed you toward the job to give myself another chance, while sabotaging yours.
I believed I was protecting Meredith; truly I did. I looked at you and saw the ambitious young man I'd known in New York. I believed that after having broken all those ties, to your wife, your family, Mark, the practice, ambition was what would move you forward. I'd used it to lure you out here, after all. I imagined your feelings toward her, a younger surgeon whose entire career was ahead of her, would become the jealousy that wrecked 're a better man, Derek, with a stronger marriage. My selfishness has caused you two no end of trouble.
None of us has acknowledged that a spark I lit almost burned your chance at adopting Zola. I can't regret that Meredith gave Adele that chance. I did not consider the consequences it would have on her career, or that it could get between you two personally. Yet, it was your O.R., and I would never dream of asking you for the same favor. So, I knew how you would feel about it, and put her in the position of either keeping it from you, or taking the heat. Keeping her from losing her job was hardly sufficient thanks, and I had to be made to see that. I should've found some way to intervene with DCYF, though I told myself that my intervention was how the problem began. You were equally ill-used in that situation, and I apologize for that.
I don't doubt there's more. I'd be happy to sit down with you and discuss. Whatever happens with the hospital, I owe you that.
If there's anything I can do to help with what you're planning, let me know.
Richard
Dr. Richard Webber, MD, F.A.C.S.
General Surgeon/Residency Program Director
Seattle Grace Mercy West Hospital
"Gol'fish fall?"
Derek shook off his second reading of the email. "Did you drop one?" he asked, looking down. "That's o—"
"I not! T'ere! White Gol'fish."
"Oh, what the heck," Callie said, picking up the oblong tablet on the counter behind him. "Good eyes, Zo. This is not a Goldfish. This is a pill. Do you know about pills?"
"Yuck. For grow-ups."
"That's exactly right, they're for grown-ups. Lexie!"
Derek had a moment of confusion, but of course it was Lexie's. He couldn't remember which of her tablets it was, but he could hardly think of anything other than pulling Zola closer.
"Oh, God, I'm sorry!" Lexie let Callie tip the pill into her palm, and then put it in her mouth, swallowing dry. "It must've fallen out of my stupid hand. I-I don't like taking them straight from the bottle around people—"
"Take them in your room. Your bathroom," Callie added, but Derek's jaw tightened. Zola was in and out of Lexie's domain all the time, and they never thought twice about it.
"That's probably smarter." Lexie smiled. How was she smiling?
"Smart would be paying attention. If a pill is anywhere other than the bottle, you need to have eyes on it."
"I'll be more—"
"If I see one of those loose anywhere, and you're not right there making sure it gets picked up, they're going in an automatic pill sorter, and I'm going to be in charge of it."
"Seriously?"
"Hey, Zo, why don't we take your snack into the living room? You can color a picture for Sof to see when she wakes up!" Callie started to take her, but Derek held on, and put one hand on Zola's cheek.
"Do you put something in your mouth without a grown-up knowing?"
"No. A rock. 'Pit it out."
"No swallowing rocks, works for me," Callie said, lightly, but she squeezed Derek's arm. He met her eyes. This could've been disastrous, but they had dozens of potential disasters on their shoulders. He nodded, kissed Zola on the forehead and then turned to lean on the island. If he'd put her down on the other side of the counter, and then gotten preoccupied with Richard's email…. He felt a sudden burst of irritation at Richard, and that made no sense.
"Derek, I'm sorry. I—"
"Have you ever been in the Pit when an overdosed toddler comes in, Lexie?"
"Yeah, I…. Yes. And, no, I don't want that to be Zola. Obviously—"
"Obviously, not enough." He turned to see her stricken expression. "Never let that happen again." He walked away before she could respond. He wanted to go slam a fist into Meredith's punching bag. Meredith. God, she didn't need one more thing—
"Can we come back now, please?" That was her. He went over to the table and put a hand on her shoulder; the tension was visible. Was it the argument with Cristina? Had Richard emailed her, too? Had she been listening to what just happened? She turned to him and even with the red rimming her eyes, something in her face made him sure it wasn't any of that.
"What's up?" he asked.
"Sit down. Please," she added. An afterthought. He held a hand over his mouth for a second. Like momma, like baby girl.
Once everyone else meandered back to the table, she stayed standing. "I just had a call from the mother of a patient I've been treating for esophageal burns since September. Suicide attempt, came in through the E.R.."
Cristina was sitting across from him, which had given him a front row seat every time she'd side-eyed Meredith. In his periphery, he watched her stiffen and stare at her tablet.
"Female, twenty-five. There were several factors that led her to the point of drinking household cleaner. She was in chronic pain. Callie, you and Derek have both seen her."
"Who…?" Callie's eyebrows furrowed.
"There are personal issues, which I've gathered over months of treating her for strictures. She's qu—LGBTQ in a household that accepts her, but a community that doesn't."
Derek kept his hands clasped. Once again, everyone at the table except Stan—and Robbins?—knew, but the fear of having her mom's reputation questioned had shifted onto her own. Hadn't it? That didn't seem likely, even in his head. At first, it'd been to avoid more notoriety, but now…. He should've thought that through a long time ago.
If they did this, he wanted to end the mean-spirited whisper campaigns. Some gossiping was impossible to avoid; it could make a workplace more welcoming. The judgement that existed at Seattle Grace did the opposite. Changes had to start from the ground, with nurses, techs, and residents.
Floor nurses who weren't satisfied complained more and took frustration out on the techs. They resented doctors, especially surgeons flitting in and out—which they'd had to do since the ACGME instituted the eighty-hour work week for residents. They all took on tasks his reachers would've considered beneath them—and that generation hadn't all retired. Theoretically, it lessened the floor nurses's workload, but it also put them at the mercy of surgeons' egos. Those types might show some respect to scrub nurses. That made them pariahs on the floor, unless they broke the unspoken code of keeping mum about O.R. chatter.
The change in hours produced residents who were far more collected, more likely to have a life outside the hospital, and equally capable, but their program needed work. The curriculum wasn't the issue. Meredith's cohort had been trained as well as Richard's students in Manhattan, and had achieved the comradely he'd encouraged. This year's group was promising, and they weren't connecting to each other or the hospital. They were being let down, and it wasn't all due to the turmoil of this year. The damage had been progressive.
Meredith could joke about how many of her friends were socializing with interns, but it was happening because they were having to take on a significant amount of their training. When the resident retention rate had sunk post-merger, he'd done his best to provide chances for them to connect outside of work and on the clock. The board had been more interested in their ranking—not unduly. In spite of his work to keep that from lessening their appeal to med students, they weren't being listed first. Not wanting to be there made the choice to leave after the shooting easier. The fewer residents there were to oversee them, the fewer interns got taken on to cover the same sized hospital. Overworked, under-skilled residents who weren't learning to teach led to undisciplined interns who disrespected everyone below them. It was a cycle they needed to end. He never wanted anyone to think they had to become anything other than themselves once they donned their white coats—or scrubs, for that matter.
Meredith continued, unaware of his epiphany."Her recurrent physical limitations, primarily repeated stress injuries caused by extreme motor tics, have kept her from living independently."
"Larkin," Callie murmured, then, urgently, "What did Deanna say?"
Meredith held up a finger. She'd get there. "When she came in, I suggested she'd be a good DBS candidate. No one else locally has treated a Tourette's case, and psychiatric oversight is required. When Derek was cleared to operate, I promised her we'd work something out once her dilation treatment finished.
"I was told to give her case to a resident last month. I respectfully declined. Cahill has nixed press releases, but that doesn't stop people from noticing things are happening. She came in on the fifteenth, and asked about the situation. I told her…." Meredith paused. To that point she'd been delivering a matter-of-fact case presentation. Her next words wavered under the weight of emotion they carried. "I told her my priority was continuing her care exactly as planned. I wish I'd come up with something more reassuring.
"She's smart. She spent the weekend online, and then called on Monday claiming she'd forgotten her next appointment time. They told her I no longer worked at the hospital, and her case would be passed on. They stonewalled her on the rest, and I'm sure she asked good questions. The only detail she did get was that Derek left, too.
"Her mother called me from Seattle Pres, where my patient is on a seventy-two hour hold. She went with pills this time."
There were hisses and winces all over the table. Derek pressed his fist against his leg, unable to keep the image of Zola pointing at that pill from infiltrating his reaction.
"Her's is an extreme example," Meredith added. "But it's one of dozens. Hundreds. One of thousands of patients we see who each matter. "
"'Whomsoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world,'" Stan quoted.
Immediately, Lexie responded, "Mer's off the hook, then,"
For once, Meredith didn't shut her down. "We all are. I don't see that as a reason to stop. But if some rich person gives us the money to keep doing it, feel free to tell them they'll be world-savers, too."
Callie rested one arm on the table and leaned back in her chair."It might balance the scales for some of them."
"Not Bezos," Arizona muttered.
"Not Bezos," all of them, even Stan, who schmoozed with the richest assholes, agreed.
"Not' Bayzo!" Zola echoed, putting her empty Goldfish container on the table between her parents and squeezing her way onto Meredith's knee. "Feetza come out?"
Meredith smiled. "Not yet, sweetie-pie."
"Hold on," Cristina said. "What's the story, Zo? You're a pizza and your little sibling's the feetza?"
"Ahaha!" Zola shrieked, tilting her head back to make sure Meredith had heard how funny that sounded. "Not pizza. Baby girl Zola."
"Girl-gonzola?" Arizona asked.
"No, hun." Callie put her hand on Arizona's elbow. "Gorgon," she pointed to Meredith. "Zola."
Both of his girls laughed at that, and for what might've been the thousandth time since that day, Derek thought, yeah, that's our baby.
He forced away the thought of where they'd be now if she'd gotten ahold of that "white gol'fish." She hadn't. He had a thing about pills, he knew that. Lexie wasn't Amy. He ran a hand over his face and tried to let it be an avoided accident. The things that had happened that day were more than enough to worry about.
He didn't get to show Meredith the email for hours. Once they ended the official meeting, Lexie disappeared to her room, which he was grateful for. He'd need a day or two to be able to look at her and not see what Meredith would call "the even darker timeline."
Arizona had turned out to be particularly good at design, and she continued to fiddle with the file holding their business plan until Callie started honking. If they hadn't wanted to give Sofia a night in her own crib, they might've ended up with a full house. Stan was waiting for the USB. He had a contact at a printer who, he swore, would have all the copies they needed by the time they met to plead their case with Julian Crest.
Cristina ended up being the last to leave, taking advantage of Owen's being on call to come out of WITSEC. She lingered at the door for a moment, and then looked over to where Meredith was watching Zola "shepherd" her farm animals. "Hey… there isn't anything else you could've said to that patient. The truth would've been what Bailey told that kid's parents—The treatment's there, but we weren't able to do it. And saying that would've done more harm."
"That's what I figured, but…. Just because we're doing the right thing doesn't mean we can't take ownership of the consequences."
Derek paused in the kitchen, holding the bag of takeout detritus he'd been about to dump in the outside trash. That was what she'd done in relation to the Alzheimer's trial. There were more parallels he hadn't been letting himself see, since this time he was on her side. Cristina was in the position Mer had been in; unable to tell Owen the truth. Richard had put the pieces together, while they all lamented that Karev couldn't be clued in. ("Trust me," Lexie had said. "You do not want his credit report anywhere near this.")
"When do we call it even? When we've lost someone else? Owen stopped texting me back. If this doesn't work, he'll never speak to me again."
"Once we buy the hospital, the sneaking around stops. And once Owen finds out what we did, he will be the happiest of all."
Cristina looked forlorn standing aloe in the vestibule. Meredith sat forward, clearly wanting to go to her. Being glad that she didn't made him disgusted with himself, but he assumed she stayed in place for the same reason: She didn't know what the result would be, or how that would affect her.
She'd noted the potential for rejection, and determined that she wasn't going to put herself in its path. That was as much of a win as going to the punching bag to work out her frustration over Stan's last explainer. It'd detailed how the hospital industry had slandered physician-owned hospitals, and their lobbyists kept them from doing this the way anyone opened a business. With obscene amounts of debt.
Cristina's face shuttered, and she opened the door. Would it have been impossible for her to cross the space between them? "Hope you're right."
"Bye Aunt 'Stina." Zola knelt on the couch to wave. Derek caught Meredith's eye as she reached over to put a hand on Zola's back.
"Take the trash out, Derek." Trust me for five minutes.
"I'm going, just wanted to forward you an email I got earlier." Humor me. It won't be a distraction for long.
The rain had been replaced by February gloom; the temperature too cold to be comfortable and too warm to be crisp. He loved it out there. Loved being surrounded by life, just as he had been in New York, but nothing like it at all. He could hear Cristina's car in the distance. Even in Brunswick it would've been swallowed by traffic immediately. The reason for their gatherings this week wasn't one he'd ever imagined; he would've preferred to be making use of the fire-pit, but he liked the feeling of a busy house. He liked it most when their friends left at the end of the night.
He went back inside to find the living room empty. Only a second passed before he heard Meredith reading to Zola upstairs,. He didn't realize he'd lingered outside so long. He told himself it would've been jarring on an ordinary day.
They'd already gotten to Corduroy. He listened leaning against the wall to the side of Zola's bedroom door, smiling at Meredith's exaggerated reaction to Zola's hug on the last line.
"Tomorrow you're going to go play at Sofia's apartment. Ms. Yvette's going to come over to spend the day. You met her this summer, and she's very nice. You want to take Rawr to meet her, too?"
"An' Zoe Monster?"
"That's a good idea. What else do you want to take to play with?"
Zola listed off an impressive number of possessions before she drifted off, and Derek was sure Meredith already knew which familiar books, balls, and boxes would be needed to keep her busy through a we-don't-know-how-long play-date at Sofia's.
"You're being a creep, you know that?"
Derek jumped, and Meredith disappeared into their room to keep her laughter from waking Zola. To think, he'd been worried he'd startle her.
"I was giving you time with your daughter."
"While you lurked. Admit it, in the right circumstances you'd be a total stalker."
He cringed. "In my defense—." Another cackle. "In my defense, eighties movies rewarded the nerds if we just outlasted the jocks."
"Nerds?"
"I was not the Jake Ryan, trust me. And all the girls in high school had known me my whole life. They saw crazy curls and headgear long after I had straight teeth and hair product."
He was more than okay with the topic shift. At this point, he'd admit to the things he wasn't sure she knew about. Taking a back booth at Joe's to watch her come and go. Schedules he'd rearranged to be on shift with her. Driving by her house before going to the ferry. One night in particular, it'd been storming. Hers had been the only car. Her's the only light. He'd been so close to stopping, and going to the door. Then, the wind had toppled their recycling bin, and he'd swerved, glass cracking under his tires.
It hadn't been the last time he'd given into the compulsion.
"Everyone at mine just saw crazy."
"Their loss."
"I read the email. That ball is in your court, bub. Check me?"
"You…?" He'd heard the rubber band that'd appeared on her dominant wrist, but otherwise—
"I don't think there are marks." She ducked her head as she stripped her shirt off, and he got it.
"I never considered things with Richard in terms of…of me," he admitted. "Guess that's one for Carr. What hit me was…he didn't have to do it. To make the offer. Yeah, he'd dangled Chief of Surgery before I was serious, but when…when I called…. I was a mess, Mer. Totally unprofessional, in my room at Mom's. Might've revirginized if I'd known it was a thing."
She laughed, and slipped into one of his old t-shirts before taking off her jeans. They did need the sleep.
"He could've said, 'you should know I can't promise you chief. Like he could've talked to us, instead of calling Addison. Warned me that Mark was coming."
"Did he teach you the keep apologizing thing?"
He paused, crouched by her foot, which she'd left alone since Christmas, but might always have the pink spot. "It's possible. That's…That's what he was doing, isn't it? Giving them the chance to apologize."
"But on their time. Before you were ready."
He nodded, and gave her the confirmation she needed, "Nothing new."
She exhaled, shakily, and as she inhaled a smile spread over her face. "Thank you."
He swiped her pajama pants to hold them for her to step into. "My mind keeps turning the camera. Sending you to the trailer. Shoving Thatcher at you. Using you to cover his drinking."
"Isn't it possible part of him knew I'd tell? Same with the trial."
"The first, I can see. The second…I don't think he cared about anything beyond Adele. He'd have accepted the end of his career. But I was angry at you, and he let that play out."
"He really only hinted. Would you have listened if he'd…kept telling you?"
"Yes. For the same reason I'm gonna let him have this chance."
"'They fuck you up your mom and dad.' Your mentors do it just as bad." She waggled her eyebrows at him.
"How is it you can do that, but clichés are beyond you?" he asked, going for his own sleepwear and sitting on the bed to change.
"Other than they're stupid? I don't know, I think it's the rhythm. I remember that, and fill in words to match. It's not all that different, just…'whatever' is a placeholder."
She stood in front of his legs and put her hands on his shoulders. His went to her belly, and she took a moment to reposition one of them. A tiny body part bumped his hand. He'd been advocating for the support a belly band would give her, but he'd miss being able to feel that just by putting a hand under her shirt.
"We're going to need him in this," she said. "Whatever his regrets are, he has the experience. We need to bring on the whole village, not to shrink it. There are more important things. We're alive."
He tucked her hair behind her ear, taking in the openness of her face. "We're home."
"Zola has both her parents."
Derek had been raised in the church, and for a long time, believed in its teachings. Never had any other catechism felt as holy.