(interlude seven)
From the Desk of:
Katherine Wyatt, M.D., A.B.P.N.
Seattle Grace Mercy West Hospital
15000 Centennial Drive
Seattle , Washington 98109
(206) 555-6000
Client Name: Meredith Grey
DOB: 04/10/1978
Diagnosis(es):
309.81 Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, chronic
296.33 Major Depressive Disorder, recurrent, mild, full remission.
Session Date: 12/02/2011
Start Time: 08:04 a.m.
End Time: 8:55 a.m.
Data:
Client reports concern about self-injurious behavior. Insists she's "not depressed this time." During last treatment, admitted to such as something done "a few times" in adolescence. "I was…evasive. You didn't ask when the last time was. It didn't feel like a lie, because I didn't feel like a grown-up." Reports having stopped by the point of seeking therapy. "Before the drowning, even." Now seems serious about wanting to end the cycle; can imagine what that looks like. but not how to do so.
Initially reports only using scalpels, but as discussion progresses includes rubber bands "when they leave a mark" and fingernails; husband has remarked on bruises from pinching she's unaware of in the moment.
Going through her history shows intervals of behavior receding. When asked to plot incidents on a timeline admits that "it's more than I thought."
Believes resurgence began as a response to flashbacks. "Snapped myself out," Subsequent incidents are "closer to what I've experienced before. Like…like I'd forgotten it helped." Reports nightmares "about everything" specifically plane crash survived 6mos ago and hospital shooting—specifically miscarriage caused by incident.
Assessment:
Client has a history of self-harm related to core beliefs of worthlessness and abandonment. Triggers vary, often seem related to rejection or feelings of extreme guilt.
When asked to describe experience before, during, and after a recent act of self-harm, she describes a period of rumination that leads to increased feeling of detachment—"not totally dissociated. More like…uncomfortably numb."—Cutting "revives" her. The most common emotions mentioned in relation to the period of revelation is guilt. Many uses of "I should" and "if I had/hadn't."]
Plan:
Dr. Grey's case is complex. She is not a suitable candidate for DBT, for instance, because of her professional concerns, and because unlike many patients, she does not have significant difficulty with either/or thinking. Similarly, presenting her with a manual for Manual-Assisted Cognitive Therapy would lead to immediate disengagement. Rather, I will use techniques from several forms of evidence-based treatment of non-suicidal self-injury, particularly underlying psychological isssues must be given significant focus, both in the immediate diagnosis of PTSD, and the long-term issues that have triggered resurgance of behavior. Initially, the will take the form of identifying emotions and tying them to a source. Client has been asked to outline the before, during and after of two other incidents from her history.
From the desk of:
Katherine Wyatt, M.D., A.B.P.N.
Seattle Grace Mercy West Hospital
15000 Centennial Drive
Seattle , Washington 98109
(206) 555-6000
Client Name: Meredith Grey
DOB: 04/10/1978
Diagnosis(es):
309.81 Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, chronic
296.33 Major Depressive Disorder, recurrent, mild, full remission.
Seassion Date: 12/15/2011
Start Time: 08:01 a.m.
End Time: 8:55 a.m.
Data:
Client appears despondent. Reluctantly describes "extreme" incident of dissociation with accompanying amnesia—no memory of reopening scar on left calf from plane crash, only preceding thoughts. Extreme difficulty explaining surrounding events—"I kept thinking I didn't deserve to be named on the suit. But I was out there. I'm affected, right? But I couldn't…couldn't hold that in my head without…a reminder." In addition to describing said reasoning as "freaking stupid" she is prone to returning to shame of behavior described as "puerile," "adolescent," "juvenile."
Admits to having difficulty accepting that pregnancy won't miscarrry. Jokes about problems "conceiving" that she won't lose it.
Also expressed concern over upcoming judgement on law suit related to plane crash.
Designates husband as primary support.
Assessment:
Having difficulty processing lack of injury during crash—"I'm not trying to put myself in there places, or punishing myself. It just feels…wrong that I didn't lose anything. Suffocatingly wrong." Reluctantly agrees that belief about what is deserved has made her afraid that loss is still to come, specifically in the form of pregnancy loss. This is an understandable fear due to previous experiences.
Sister's career is a loss, even if worse for her. Same for husband's.
"We gave up Boston. I lost four days with my daughter. Was afraid I'd lose her again. It doesn't seem like much. It was, right? Cristina left. But she's back, so…. You're going to say that counts."
Eventually conceded that did cause feelings of abandonment. Prrvioisly described this friend as her "person". Now seems reluctant to discuss feelings with her. When asked she becomes defensive. "She is! I told her that, in the woods. She showed up on my doorstep when her geriatric bestie died. Nothing's changed! Just…. Things get weird sometimes when…. We were on the same track as interns." Says she could see possibilities for her own future through friend's experience in similar situation. Reports that as this changed, such as her sister being included more often, differing choices regarding motherhood, or not sharing reaction to trauma,"things get weird. She gets distant." Says it wouild be unusual for her not to voice concern about choices.
Admits having experienced feelings of abandonment—"she didn't ask to go psycho for the summer," but having her leave immediately upon recovery, "was crap."Feels resentful of that period because "she missed the fallout." When reminded that intent didn't affect effect, insists that having passed out for the final hours of being lost made her friend feel abandoned, and possibly caused her break with reality. Cannot answer whether she believes she is being blamed, or she blames herself."
Plan:
Given materials on adult NSSI to address negative view of own "immaturity." Bringing husband into recording incidents of "numbness" or "spiraling" to practice identifying primary and secondary emotions. Creating initial list of replacement skills to ground, regulate, or distract depending on stage of experience. Next session will discuss plans for upcoming holidays.
It was unusual for Lexie to see her exact feelings reflected on other people's faces, lately. At Roseridge, everyone's experience of the same symptom was different depending on their level and type of injury, how it had been acquired, if there was additiional damage, and what their outlook was from day to day.
The people she was currently with hadn't all been paralyzed, but that mattered less than what they had experienced together. Lexie was used to numbness; the others shouldn't have to take it on along with her. For the first time since she'd gotten her powerchair, Lexie reached over and took Meredith's hand as they left the courtroom. When she squeezed it near the door, and Meredith looked over at her, she said, "I want to go home."
"Sure. Let me call Jean Philippe—"
"No!" People were still leaving the courtroom. Lexie's sharp tone made the latest wave of lawyers glance at her. "Or…sure, you can. But I meant, after Roseridge, I…I want to come home. To your house. The new one, which I guess hasn't been my home, yet, so you could've thought I meant—"
"Take a breath, Lex." Two lines appeared between Meredith's eyebrows. "Are you…are you sure?"
"I am," Lexie said. "If you'll have me?"
To her surprise, Meredith hugged her. Lexie closed her eyes for a second. When she opened them, she saw that the person who'd been holding the door open for them was her dad. She'd given him the date off-handedly once they'd been informed it, but didn't know what to think about his appearance. Best case: this was a grown-up version of a recital, and he was there to support them. Worst case was feeding the distrust in Meredith's eyes.
"Seems like congratulations are in order, eh?" His hands were in his pockets, and she noticed them stay there as Derek shifted toward him with his hand out.. Just as it became obvious that her father wasn't going to remember the nicety—it was that, wasn't it? He was absent-minded, not passive-aggressive. Not like that. Right?— the phone in her cupholder buzzed. She checked it, and almost snickered.
DEREK SHEPHERD: porcupine.
She looked up at him, impressed by the one-handed stealth, even if it'd sent a typo. With a flick of his eyes he indicated Meredith. Oh. Yup. She'd moved in front of Lexie, just far enough to the right that she wasn't blocking her, and she was absolutely hristling as she asked, "Congratulations on our blood money?"
"Grey," Callie snapped.
"People died, and it's not like the money came from the ones who caused it. We had to do this, but fifteen million each? I didn't come close to losing a hand insured for—"
"You came close to dying," Cristina snapped. "We all did."
"We're doctors. We know better than anyone that the equipment Lexie and Arizona need shouldn't be as expensive as it is, but I can't imagine spending thirty million dollars on prosthetics, and powerchairs. Maybe a fully bionic body. If you take inflation into account maybe The Six Million—" She shrugged off Derek's hand on her shoulder. "It could fund the type of research that could get Lexie playing ping-pong with you, yeah. You, Torres and I could afford to do it and all the trials required pro bono, and still send our…our, uh…. Excuse me." In the same cloud as her storm of irritation, Meredith strode off toward the restrooms.
Derek, Cristina, and Lexie all moved in that direction. Uncharacteristically, Cristina was the first to stop. She made a show of grabbing Derek's arm. "Going into the ladies' room at the courthouse?"
He shrugged. He would, if Meredith needed it. Callie was looking between all three of them, baffled. "Little Grey, your dad—"
"Oh, uh, no. I'm going." He put a hand on Lexie's head. She noticed Callie wince. She had had exposure to basic wheelchair etiquette, then. "You'll get to see your sister at Christmas. We'll get a room set up, make it easier for you to move around the house this time."
Lexie started to turn to Derek, confused. Had Dad not heard the exchange between his daughters from three feet away?
"She'll be here a whole week this time."
Molly. He meant Molly. For most of her life, everyone had meant Molly. She wasn't sure when she started thinking Meredith first.."I'll probably do what I did at Thanksgiving."
His smile faltered. "Ah. Well, that doesn't mean it won't have been worth the trouble to have a place ready for you. Having your company will be enough repayment,"
There was an eesh behind her. She wasn't sure if it came from Cristina, Callie or Robbins. "Well, I planned on coming for Christmas Day, like always." Even when it means missing the main day with my…friends.
"You'd all be welcome to join us," Derek added. Lexie glanced at the restroom door, almost sure Meredith would pull a Maleficent over that. But her sister wasn't a slighted witch; she'd have had every right not to want Dad at her Christmas. Derek wouldn't have offered if she hadn't agreed at some point.
"Oh, no, Dani already has it all planned out. But Lexie, honey, I don't know who'd pick you up out there on Christmas Day."
"We know a guy."
She hadn't made a decision about a car, yet. Hadn't even done her driving assessment. She hadn't had personal transportation for most of her adult life, only in Seattle. More new skills, the vehicle becoming the only place where she was alone; it would all be too much like being sixteen again, except without a clue about what would come after spinning her wheels.
She could certainly afford to keep paying Jean-Philippe. He could be her cab driver on retainer.
"Little Laura's going to be disappointed you're missing Christmas morning."
"Littler Zola would be more disappointed. Laura's old enough to understand I'll be there at lunch, and she'll have another present to open."
Her father could've argued, but he didn't. Not even to point out that she'd just watched Zola open a slew of presents. He wasn't the dad whose forgetfulness was a family joke, either. Birthdays and anniversaries all went onto his desk calendar, and into his memory.
The ones that mattered to him, anyway.
"I'll call you, okay?" she asked, zipping ahead of Dr. Robbins, who'd taken a step toward the restroom. She doubted this was the situation Meredith wanted to be in when her friends found out she was pregnant.
"We'll need to know soon. Dani's doing her grocery shopping. Her holiday ham is excellent."
Mom always did a roast on Christmas. Four years ago, Lexie hadn't wanted to participate in the facsimile of a Grey Family Christmas with Molly in her mother's place, but it held far more appeal than having to imagine Dani there.
She backed into the door of the restroom. That'd be significantly more difficult in a manual chair. Access, she was quickly learning, was a layered word. "Mer?"
"I'm fine." She was sitting on the counter and as Lexie turned around, shooting a gum wrapper into the trash with a rubber band she then slipped onto her wrist. "Two points!"
"Ever aim one of those at your crush, and have it hit the boy beside him?" Lexie asked.
Meredith grimaced. "Actually, that's the one way in which I was a narc. Mom once caught me throwing rocks, and explained exactly what happened if a small object hit the eye with the right amount of force."
"Very A Christmas Story."
"That was hilarious," Meredithsaid. "Don't look at me like that. He was warned. Anyway, I was the obnxoious kid who'd shoot them at the desk in the middle of a test. And I still aimed my fist at their faces."
"You'd think that wouldn't fly at prep school in Boston."
"I might've been the only scholarship kid who participated in the scuffles, and I was always defending someone. Zero tolerance came later. I'm sure it wouldn't have been okay with Susan."
"Or Dad," Lexie added. "He's all bark….or he was."
Meredith reached down to cover Lexie's hand with hers. She'd learned where she had feeling, putting the pressure there.
Lexie hadn't believed it when George told her what had happened on the day Mom dad. It had explained how the Meredith who she'd met on her first day was the same as the gaping woman Dad had shouted at in the lobby.
"Are you okay?" It couldn't have been easy to get into his face, after the times he'd been in hers.
"I just put my foot in it back there, and I didn't want to keep digging."
It wasn't like her to run before she'd gotten the accusations out, but Lexie couldn't see a sign of anything else. The concerns she'd had at Zola' birthday party had been rendered ridiculous a few days later by Meredith's animated reenactment of a nidnight fall over an ottoman. No doubtshe'd have kept quiet about any less spectacular examples of her klutziness. There'd still been boxes in some areas of the house, and her sister tended toward clumsiness.
"I shouldn't have said the thing about bionics. Derek's doing so well, and there are significant implications there, but I made it sound like the answer is 'fixing' you…. If we ever did get into that sort of research, we wouldn't have you in the trial."
"If I even wanted it."
"Would you?" Meredith asked, and Lexie caught the minty scent of her gum. Prophylactic or clean-up?
"It's like you said. Time. If I could have it tomorrow…. There's still the spasticity, and I don't have all that much stamina—Don't start, I know that'll change. I'm not saying it wouldn't be worth it, but it'd be frustrating to know I could operate, and not…be able to. A year from now? Sure. Research won't be there. Don't know where I'll be, but I'm not gonna wait around for it."
"You could start a foundation, or something. Be the next Christopher Reeve."
"Wrong sister. Supergirl's a blonde."
"Don't."
"If you want me to move on, you need to accept that you saved my life out there. I wanted to get back and figure out how to live infected by Marksloanovirus, but he was so sick…. Seems like something wanted to kill both of us off, and didn't plan for you to be there fighting back, minute by minute."
Meredith turned away, her jaw working the gum. "And you're good with that?"
"I'd rather have Mark than fifteen hundred million dollars. I learned to live without him; I decided I didn't want to, and now I have to. But I do. For you—" Meredith's eyes widened, and she shook her head, once. "Because I wouldn't want to put you, or Derek, or Zola through that. Same with Molly and Dad. I want to see.…what happens with your family, and Molly's. It's bogus that I'll see Sofia grow up, and he won't, but I'm here, for whatever reason. Might as well take advantage of it."
Meredith tilted her head at her. Did she do that before she met Derek, or had she stolen it from him? "I've felt that way."
"The posters in my room are the same, but I'm catching up on dark and twisty."
Meredith smiled. "If you want to switch it up, I have some framed posters in the shed you can—" She was interrupted by the bathroom door opening, and Lexie moved closer to Meredith to give Dr. Robbins room. Meredith put a hand on her shoulder.
"Your dad's gone," Robbins reported, dropping her bag beside Meredith and ducking into a stall. "If you're hiding out."
"Thanks. Lex, you want to go?" Meredith pointed to the accessible stall, in case Lexie couldn't interpret "go" in her mom voice.":You can hang around the hospital for the day. We could also pick you up at Roseridge tonight."
"I can do it at the hospital."
"Or you can do it while we're hanging out in a bathroom, and I'll give you a surprise."
"What, a stick of gum?"
"I'd take it," Robbins said. "If I actually make it through the pack of cigarettes I said were symbolic, Calliope will cut off my other leg."
Lexie raised her eyebrows at Meredith, who'd put a half-empty package of doublemint into the outer pocket of Robbins's bag. Meredith shrugged back, and said, "Do you need—?"
"Not actually your two-year-old!"
She could feel that she had to pee, this time. She'd worn a skirt so she could manage on her own. She was learning to catheterize herself in spite of her shitty fine motor, because she didn't always have the sensation. What didn't cause dysreflexia could cause a UTI or kidney infection, something she'd always be more likely to contract. That would've been a lot worse if Meredith hadn't been by her side in the clearing.
"Do you not carry food all the time, now, Lex?" Meredith asked. "It was a fluke that all I had was gum; I'd had Cheerios, Puffs, or Goldfish in my purse consistantly for a months."
"Had fruit snacks in mine, not that we ever found it," Arizona interjected.
"You can replace it with fifteen hundred thousand purses."
"Does that bring back my brother and Nick's Army Ball photos? They were in my wallet."
"Louis Vuttoon won't, but if they weren't digital, there are probably negatives somewhere," Lexie said. "I'd bet military PR keeps those kind of things if the photographer themseves didn't. My sister's husband is Army; I can ask him."
"Be sure to scan the prints," Meredith added. "So next time you lose your purse in a devestating accident you can just print them off again."
"You both call it like it is, I'll give you that," Arizoona said. A moment later, Lexie heard the door again.
"Bah! Grey!" Callie screamed. "You're like that whiney bathroom ghost from Harry Potter."
"Moaning Meredith is a hospital legend," Lexie said.
"I have no regrets. But if there'd been an intern around to hear that, Callie would be putting you back in the double-casts."
"Noted," Lexie said, grinning to herself. Idle threats of violence from her sister were so…normal. "You're more of a ghoul, anyway."
"A monster that sustains itself on human flesh?" Callie said. After a pause her tone of disgust changed. "Ohhh, huh. I guess we do. I'll allow it."
"The Grey Ghouls." It made Lexie think of Saturday morning cartoons. A show where supernatural creatures were disgused as human, specifically a band, to solve mysteries or something she, Meredith and Molly might've watched tohether.
"I'll allow it," Meredith said, repeating Callie in a far more thoughtful tone. "Dunno if you can start even a novelty band with drums and trombone, though. Molly play anything?"
Lexie had to open and close her mouth a couple of times before speaking. Granted, it did sound like a band name, but she loved that they'd had similar thoughts. "She plays piano."'
"Of course she does."
Lexie's success pivoting onto the toilet had made her cocky. She hadn't taken in that the lack of a rail on the right would hinder her from reversing the trick. Attempts to jerk herself up with one bar and her chair only resulted in her underwear falling to her ankles.
She realized she was doomed as the bathroom door shut behind Callie and Arizona.
"Mer? I, uh…."
"Coming in." Meredith scuttled under the divider a crablike move; not flattening herself against the floor.
"I could've unlocked that."
"Ghouls don't use doors. You wanna just leave the underwear off?"
"You're not even the first person to say that to me today. No."
"I'm not big on commando, either, but you're in one of your chairs most of the time, and if they're the only thing you have to get down, it hardly seems worth it. Going up."
The transfer would have looked strange to an outsider, with Meredith being several inches shorter and, for now, thinner. But she didn't show any sign of strain or awkwardness, and shenever made Lexie feel less than steady.
"Hold on, gonna take my own advice," she said, when Lexie reached for the lock again.
Lexie moved over to the stall's included sink to give her sister the illusion of privacy.
"Do you remember telling me I'd let you down in every way?"
She turned, but Meredith was staring straight at the wall. " Mer—"
"It was almost a relief. Would've been, if I'd believed you could only go up from the bottom. Unfortunately, I'm aquainted with about shovels. It wasn't a relief because it made me realize that…you know, I've had friends I consider to be like sisters; I could at least give the person with a legitimate claim a chance. Derek had romanticized hving sister. The one I met hadn't fit the description all that much. I figuted I was bad with sisters. I'd had a lot of relationships fall apart, and I didn't want to put you through the same thing. So, when you said that, it was like, well, we're here anyway, I might as well try to do better. With you, I got the chance to reverse course from perpetual disappointment. Turns out, I like being your big sister. Bit…we both need to remember: I'm new at this. No level of friendshape is quite the same, at least not to me. Tthere's something…else. The feeling of responsibility…it's not just an expectation. It's an instinct.
"This…. It makes me want to take care of you, and to protect you, because you're my sister, and you got hurt. In the past, I took that too far. Didn't give you agency. So, if I pull that kind of bullshit again, just clue me in. Either I totally missed it, or I'm already overthinking it."
Assuming this was inspired by the conversation they'd had at Bailey's wedding last month, she wasn't kidding
"Me too. The overthinking part," Lexie said.
Meredith smiled at her, but it faded as she finished washing her hands and adjusted her jeans looking in the mirror.
"You can't tell," Lexie assured her. "Even if you could, you're at the end of the first trimester, right? Eighty percent of mis—mmph." She jerked her joystick backward to get her mouth away from her sister's palm. "Hands to yourself!"
"Since when have I been 'most,' 'the majority,' or 'normally?' Don't think I'd want to be," Meredith added, unlocking the stall. "Maybe you're right. I'll just let it happen, let everyone figure it out."
"They'll be excited for you."
"Yeah." She paused and spat her gum out in the trash.
Lexie thought again of the paper bullets. They'd been folded similarly to paper chains made with gum wrappers. The first folds were the same as the ones that would be used to make a link in a paper chain. It was only once you folded it more further into itself that the gum wrapper would get dense enough to hurt.
"I get that there's no umbrella to catch the next shoe, but putting that aside—"
"If I accept that good can be as random as bad, even if it seems like I get al the bad? It's a gift. And if I allow that if could be one of the few gifts without strings? Yeah, I'm thrilled. I've never been all sappy about needing to carry my kid, but part of me is still searching for new experiences. I'm curious about what a mix of our genes will look like. I want to see Zola be a big sister. Maybe I am excited, but I'm terrified—supposedly that's also normal—and…they've all lost so much. I don't want to be responsible for more."
"They're adults, too. How they feel about it isn't on you, and nothing after that would be, either."
"What it is and what it feels like aren't the same," Meredith said, and shoved the door open with her shoulder. "Am I calling J. P., or…?"
"Nah, I'll come with you. I creamed everyone on the obstacle course yesterday. They can have some time to practice wheelies without me around to show them up."
Meredith laughed. "That's doing the thing like a Grey."
That night would be the first Lexie spent away from either the hospital or Roseridge. The spontaneity of the decision was the strangest part of it. A minute after Callie's toast, Meredith said "Hey, Lex, you're allowed to be gone up to twenty-four hours, right?"
"Uh, yeah," Lexie said, looking up from the food she'd just started picking at. It'd come sooner than she'd expected, and she'd waited to feel the relief from the pill she'd taken in the Seattle Grace bathroom.
"Great, we should be able to get home in time for the babysitter to get the ferry. "
"I don't have any of my stuff. I can just call J.P."
Revealing her pregnancy at the beginning of the meal had rendered an obvious change in Meredith. She held herself more openly, and her smile accentuated the effect of the table's candles. Ironically, the smile gave her an air of secretiveness that hadn't been there while it was a secret. But she was carrying something unknowable to the rest of then; something wonderful and unexpected, something brilliant in the truest sense, and she glowed with it. She laughed at Lexie's statement. "Where do you think the stuff came from? We'll have to unpack now that we know it's not all going to Thatcher's, but it's in your room. You're being discharged any day; if you're coming home, we should do a trial run. You have your meds?"
Thanks to his transplant, Dad had gained fast insight into dealing with a chronic condition. Some of it wasn't relevant, but carrying a day's worth of medication made sense. It was something she might've come to herself, like Meredith's snacks.
Lexie nodded, and that was it. It seemed like Meredith just wanted her home. It made sense. It was a big change that could be rushed; unlike the other she was facing.
"What do they do if she misses curfew, repo the wheelchair?" Cristina asked.
"You're the one who lost a shoe," Meredith retorted.
"And became my own Prince Charming."
"Criperella's what Dani was hoping for," Lexie muttered. Dad had always wanted her to use her major; he'd have had her interviewing at hedge funds if he hadn't been hoping she could take over the spreadsheets he'd taken on at the hint of a pout from that woman.
Callie looked up from her salad. "That's an offensive term."
"It would be if you'd said it. It's been reclaimed for decades. Disability Studies is generally called Crip Theory. By definition, I'm crippled. It's not my preferred identifier, or whatever."
"What is?" Arizona asked. Lexie couldn't tell what sparked the question; her affect didn't even give off curious.
"I have an incomplete spinal cord injury at C-7. I'm disabled. A tetraplegic Some people prefer 'have a disability' but to me…it feels bigger than that. I'm not wheelchair bound. I chose to use them; they're a tool, not a punlishment. I have already been asked by strangers if I'll be able to walk again, as if it's their business. I'd prefer they didn't pray for me. And walking isn't the ur-ability. I know a guy who's a graphic designer. Complete, C-4 he gets why I care more about my hands. Then again, he's already back to work, thanks to adaptive tech, so…."
"People adapt, too," Callie said, putting her hand on Arizona's wrist. "We have a patient who was born with amniotic band syndrome. Prebirth-amputation on the left arm and leg. I did reconstructive surgery on the right hand. She has a prosthetic leg, but never uses an arm. She's only in Pre-k, but she does everything her three brothers do; and they're climbers."
Dr. Robbins cheated a look at Meredith at the same time Lexie did. The restaurant's lighting made it hard to be sure she'd paled. Her knuckles were white holding onto Derek's, but her smile hadn't totally disappeared. Since Zola had come into their lives, Lexie had thought that if anyone could handle a kid with a more severe disability it'd be them, but that didn't mean it wouldn't be a strain.
"Roseridge is good about encouraging people to do what works best for them. One of the women I've gotten to know army crawls a lot."
"The patient Callie mentoned prefers to color with her resudial limb on the left," Arozona said. "But it takes the reconstructed arm to use the forearm crutches that she uses when her prosthetic leg is off."
Lexie's position at the table put the couples on either side of her. She'd caught herself watching their simple gestures for over a year, had come to believe she couldn't long anymore, but that turned out not to be true. She could do other things at the same time, though, and one of those was comparing them.
The twitch of Callie's eyelid and an angled lip conveyed a lot, and there they were both aimed at her wife. There'd been a shift in her at the mention of forearm crutches. Lexie wished she'd seen if there was a shift in Callie's hand, sending a message her wife was impassive to, or if she'd done it subconsciously.
Crutches were another thing Lexie might accumulate eventually. Roseridge residents who could use them were often often as "bound" to their wheelchair in public as any of them. She'd noticed how wide the courthouse lobby was that morning; yards that would feel like miles to people she considered ambulatory. As dense as she'd believed downtown to be, she'd started to note the unnecessary space.
Not speaking up in group meant doing a lot of listening. The walkers came back from family nights and grocery trips loquacious. They were grateful to be able to care for themselves, but frustrated by the looks they got if they walked from the car to a scooter, or stood to reach a higher shelf. She'd made a rare comment to say it was probably the same people who believed they were entitled to know Zola's life story because they'd followed the grown-up pushing her through the store for three aisles.
"I can't wait to take her," Lexie had said. "Double stigma. They'll be knocking down shelves they're so confused." Everyone had laughed, and Tia, the therapist, had eased up on the you haven't opened your mouth glares for a while.
Really, she wasn't in a hurry to go to the grocery store. She did want everyday things like that. She'd have outpatient therapies; meaning that until she found a better way to spend them, a lot of her days would be spent hanging around in the hospital like she'd done today.
It'd made her skin crawl to be in the attendings' lounge—she shouldn't have been allowed in there.—Knowing she wasn't ready to fall behind, Meredith had given her of interesting case reports and studies, but she hadn't been able to breach the threshold of the library. It had been neutral territory through her relationship with Mark. At an angle, her usual spot was visible from the hall, but she'd always sat with her back to the door to stop herself from paying more attention to passersby then the journals spread out in front of her. She'd never been able to miss his footsteps, and no matter how stressed she was, she'd smile at the suddenly meaningless words in front of her. Anticipation would course through her; a whole body stenosis. If they were together, he'd put his broad hands on her shoulders, his thumbs digging into the knots at her neck. Other times, he'd start across the room, pulling out a journal that he could feasibly be, and sometimes was, interested in. Whatever they were, he'd end up sprawling in one of the chairs near her like a friend continuing a chat.
"What are you working on, Little Grey?" Whether she was enthused about Cristina's aortic arch procedure, or frustrated by the craniopharyngioma Derek had brought in, he'd listen and always ask for more information. He'd help her analyze what she'd memorized. There'd be gestures, illustrations, winding stories. She could still remember his cadence, far better than any lecture. A few times, he'd hauled her up and she'd feel like she was floating as he navigated to the skills lab. While he'd demonstrated and then guided her through a technique, she'd wonder if she was truly a visual learner, or if she was kinetic with a memory that led to everyone making assumptions.
Today, she'd ended up in Derek's office, fighting to use her minimal grip strength to manipulate the dials of the etch-a-sketch she'd picked up in the gift shop. Zola's reaction to her attempt at sketching Elmo was the only one she trusted.
"Picture of E'mo?" was moderately encouraging.
"Sure you wanna go live with that?" Cristina asked, toward the end of the meal. Derek was eating left-handed. Currently, his other hand was between Meredith's shoulders, but only because she was sober and moved it whenever he roamed. Callie and Robbins's hands were still clasped on top of the table. "I could talk Karev into blocking off the study for you. You'd have to klepto the furniture from Mer's, but they have enough rooms, they wouldn't notice."
"You could be using one of those," Derek said. Meredith's eyes went wide, and Lexie watched Derek hold her right hand down to be smacked on the arm by the left.
"I'm going to live that far from the hospital? Please."
"Ha! Told you."
Meredith could produce an incredibly effective glare without enacting a full change in her bearing. "That's all?" The strain showing at the corners of her eyes went to her voice, adulterating the tone that was otherwise as light as the bubbles in the champagne. "Our place can be a little…busy. Unpredictable schedules. Secret pregnancies. Sisters in the hospital."
"Alex just texted me to say Wilson bought him a couch. It's going to be an Intern Inn in no time. I'd take Zola's worst days and you two screwing in the next room any day."
"Be honest, you'd be in the trailer with your ex-husband."
Cristina took a long sip from her champagne flute. "We're living in the now," Cristina said. "No box, no label. And I'd rather make him come to me."
"Remember when we tried to be just sex?" Meredith posed the question to Derek, but her posture included Cristina. "It ended with you having a nurse slice your hand with a scalpel."
"Yeah, that was a low point," he said.
"You were lying to yourselves," Cristina pointed out. "We're not."
"One question, Yang," Callie cut in. "How'd he get the divorce through so quickly? Washington State has a ninety-day cooling off period. It's impossible to split in less than ninety-one days, and it usually takes longer."
"That'd put the latest filing date at September twentieth," Derek offered.
Meredith elbowed him, drawing a humph.
"Why do you know…? Oh." Callie wrinkled her nose.
Lexie snickered into her food. For a second she felt like the kid at the adult table. She minded it less than she had while asking the waiter to have the kitchen cut her steak for her.
"So, around when you got back." Meredith's cheeks were pink as she sipped her water, but Lexie doubted it was due to embarrassment. "When they decided to go after the hospital. He asked you, what? Three…about three weeks later?"
"Oh." Callie's lips formed a thin circle. "You, uh…at least, when I did it, you had twenty days to respond to the petition."
"That tracks," Cristina said. "He said he didn't ask me, because I'd reject it, and any legal shit probably went to Rochester. I just changed my address."
"If you want to get remarried once the financial stuff is figured out, we have a really nice yard," Meredith said. "Or we could do the original all over again, except we don't send this clown for ice."
"Hey!"
"I don't want to get remarried. I married him while under acute traumatic stress. One out of two, remember? You two are totally out of the woods, and Owen and I are having great sex. L'chaim." Cristina emptied her glass and poured another.
"Seems like the judge could've done all that math, too," Arizona murmured.
"Hey, speaking of sex," Callie said. "Anyone hear about the husband and wife BCB and I treated today?"
"BCB?" her wife asked, taking the question from Lexie.
"This year's interns suck at nicknames," Meredith grumbled. Callie reached over to put a hand on her shoulder. Lexie took a sip of champagne to wash away her ridiculous sense of guilt. If it hadn't been for the baby-cursing thing, Meredith would've been fine with Maleficent.
"I think 'Medusa' is pretty good." Derek twirled a piece of Meredith's hair around his finger.
"Their first round sucked, then. BCB stands for Booty Call Bailey. They could've done so much better."
"Randy Miranda," Lexie suggested. Everyone looked at her, and again she felt out of place at a round table. Then, they laughed, and the feeling transformed completely.
"I'd try to spread it around if today hadn't happened," Callie said. "This story is layered, and the cream in the center is going to be something none of you knows about, understood?" She swept a finger around the loop. "It's too good."
"You get the pole dancing grandma?" Meredith asked.
Faces around the table lit up, except for Callie's. "Thanks, Grey."
"There's no way that reveal ruins your story."
"I'd planned…. Fine, whatever. Yes, we consulted on an older woman who learned to pole dance for her forty-fifth anniversary. She fell on her husband's…." The hair on the back of Lexie's neck rose so suddenly she couldn't imagine that she didn't look like a shocked cat. "…abdomen. A rib punctured his diaphragm—"
"A rib?" Derek repeated, his eyes round and eyebrows up.
"Exactly. Kepner the Revirginized disappointed me a little by not picking up on the symbolism, to be honest.
"About that," Lexie said, the website she'd seen this on too bright in her mind's eye to be ignored. "Eve is supposed to have been made from Adam's rib? Except, how would anyone come up with that? Men don't have an unpartnered rib. And they wouldn't, because genetics, but when you consider that creation myths…stories…are usually trying to explain…creation. The Bible is full of mistranslations, and men do seem like they're missing a bone…."
"Do we?" Derek asked, and his smirk made Lexie sure he knew Sadie had had nothing to do with Mark's penile fracture.
The heat came to Lexie's face immediately, and for a fearful second she thought, here we go again. It took several even breaths through her nose before she could turn to Derek and say, "Shut up, you spent the day playing with your balls."
Mark would've made a better joke, but he would've been delighted with hers. His best friend seemed to be, too, even if it had been at his expense.
"Well," Callie said, once attention settled back on her. "Our Eve the temptress had vajazzled the area she called her 'cookie.'"
"Uh, since I'm already in a hole here…, 'vajazzled?'" Derek asked.
"Don't worry," Meredith said. "It's not something you're going to encounter."
"Seems like it'd be uncomfortable for the partner," Arizona observed. "I know it's different with dudes, but you'd still feel them…. Um, okay you know what a bedazzler is?"
"Yeah, they were big for a few Shepherd Christmases. Mark used a bedazzled wallet for years. It's basically a staplegun for rhinestones. How…?"
Lexie smiled down at her lap at the thought of the Mark she'd seen in old photos, with the skater hair, paying for drinks at a swaky bar with a sparkling M on his wallet. He could've swapped it out whenever he saw the kids, but he wouldn't have. He'd have claimed to be lazy. It wouldn't have been true.
"I think these go on more like a temporary tattoo," Callie offered. "I didn't ask questions. I was too busy noting that the colleague who seemed horrified by this was not Kepner, but one Booty Call Bailey. And, I'll admit, I've known her to be a little…."
"Prudish," Meredith offered.
"Sheltered. But she seemed genuinely offended by this woman, who just wanted to spice up her marriage, after, I'll say again, forty-five years."
"Mer—"
"If I'm on a pole at seventy-five, it'll be because I believe I'm twenty-one."
Derek shrugged. "I was gonna say I don't think we'll need to 'spice it up' that early."
Meredith rolled her eyes, but Lexie kept watching while Callie continued her tale. Meredith shifted closer to him, her expression both disbelieving and adoring.
"It turns out, Miranda was, in fact, Bitter and Randy Mandy. Her husband didn't understand that sex on the beach is best experienced as a cocktail. As usual, the woman was the one to suffer from the man's dumb idea. Miranda ended up with an infection in her non-vajazzled va-jay-jay and sand-flea bites on her ass, which is just…itch on top of inflamed vagine."
They all shuddered, and Meredith kissed Derek on the cheek. "You are such a keeper. Only guy who didn't want me to take my bottoms off at the beach."
"His ex was an OB-GYN. I'm sure Warren hasn't seen—"
"Addison!" Derek interrupted Callie.
"That was her name, yeah."
"No— Yes— She…God, she'll kill me for this…. Bailey treated her when she…." Derek closed his eyes as though praying to escape from this moment. "In addition to sand, the property had poison oak before we had it taken out at the same time as the land was being cleared for the house. One morning, Addison had to pee while walking the dog…."
Cristina happened to be the one who said "Sure, she did," but Lexie imagined they were all thinking it.
"No, she really…. We weren't…. it was…uh…the day after Mark showed up. The first time."
"Sure. She did," Cristina repeated, in an entirely different tone.
"Head of neurosurgery KO'd some guy talking to Grey, and…." Callie grimaced. "Wow. That was an intense forty-eight."
"For talking to Grey?" Arizona had on a bemused expression. Lexie hadn't been there, either, but she knew the story.
Meredith was staring at the nearest candle like she wanted the flame to jump out and set the tablecloth on fire. "For ruining his marriage," she said. "They hadn't seen each other since Derek left New York."
"I…might not have done it if he'd been talking to Addison."
"Why? Because you thought I'd fall for his charm, knowing what I knew? You wouldn't have been alone. There were rumors that I'd hooked up with him, because people saw us talking at Joe'sfor five minutes."
"Because he got to make you smile, and I hated myself for losing that right. I knew you wouldn't…it wasn't my business, but—"
"It would've broken you." Meredith let out a huff of a laugh. "No, I wasn't interested McSteamy—or cruel revenge. Logically, I went home and broke George." Meredith said. Lexie was suprised to see that she didn't try to jerk her hand away when Derek squeezed it. "The next day, he fell down the stairs trying to get away from me. Callie fixed him."
"It was their meet-cute," Cristina put in.
"I put his dislocated shoulder back," Callie said. "If anything broke George, it was his dad dying. Talk about a marriage that shouldn't have happened. He was a mess, and I was tired of Dad asking me if I'd met some nice boy."
"You had," Arizona said, raising Callie's hand to her lips. "He was a very nice boy."
"He was becoming a good man," Derek added.
"He and Mark would both hate us talking like this," Callie said. "Bet they drive each other nuts."
The waiter came by toward the end of the hushed but amused reaction to that.
Meredith got the dessert menu first, and dropped it, cupping her hands around her mouth, and shaking with laughter. Derek took his absenrlyt while looking over her shoulder. She pounted, and he guffawed at the same time Callie murmured, "Madre de dios."
"Oh, no," Arizona said, cracking up. Cristina was positively cackling as Lexie was finally let in on the joke.
She found it quickly. On the paper insert featuring specialties for the holidays, the first item was a Seasonal Cookie Assortment
"We'll absolutely take that," Callie said.
When the platter came, it wasn't just sugar candy canes and Christmas trees, but a true variety. Cristina bit into one of the rugelah and said, "Okay, good, somewhere I can take my parents when my mother decides she needs to be consoled about my divorce."
"Don't you mean—?"
"I said what I said, Three. You made these reservations today, Torres?"
Callie dropped a macaron. "Um. I sort of…inherited them?"
"Oh my God!" Lexie exclaimed. This time she could only cackle as everyone turned to stare at her. It took her a moment to cough hard enough to keep from choking on her ginger cookie…biscuit. She had to think of it as a biscuit. "You took your patients' anniversary reservations?"
"He offered, and it's a hell of a lot nicer than the place I'd found on Yelp!" Callie protested. "Considering the text I just got from Kepner, he'll probably sue and be one of those patients we never get rid of."
"What'd the interns do?" Meredith asked, darkly.
"Psh, you think I let interns in on this? I thought I was working the two surgeons least likely to be awkward with a sex-injury case—"
"—you know I usually get those?" Meredith cut in. "I don't want them, but statistically…."
"Yeah, and it's one situation in which you're good with boundaries."
"Hey!"
"Which apparently you need to teach your department, because after Bailey cast judgement on this seventy-five year old woman, Kepner went and asked her husband if his plumbing worked, and if they did, he needed to screw his wife."
"Go, April," Meredith said, biting into a chocolate chip cookie that looked like it had to have been made from the Tollhouse recipe, and not the one Lexie's mom had made without eggs. "To think, I thought taking a hair ball out of a high schooler was cool."
"Callie was a hair-eater," Cristina revealed.
"I told you that in confidence! It's not funny!" Callie whirled on Arizona, who was shaking with laughter. Her hands were cupped over her mouth, and she shook her head.
"I'm sorry. It's not that. It's…Do….Do you think…?" She gasped, covered her mouth for another few moments. "H-He had to know she calls it…. Do you think…making the reservations…do you think the husband knew…about the cookie platter?"
Silence preceded the next wave of laughter, cued by Callie's stunned, "Maybe she wasn't the only one looking to change those up."
"It's a dirty dad pun," Meredith said, sounding half amazed and half grossed out.
"You're saying that you'd say 'no' if I asked if I could e—mmph." Derek's muffled c'mon Mer was not all that convincing, considering the laughlines at the side of his eyes.
"Calliope, will you share your cookie with me?" Arizona asked.
Callie's eyes went wide, but her response didn't miss a beat. "I'd love to."
Meredith took her hand off of Derek's mouth. "There. You've been scooped."
He made a face at her, and Lexie had no doubt that he'd find an opportunity at some point that night.
Lexie could almost here Mark beside her, mocking his friend, and then murmuring, "I'd love to eat your cookie," in her ear.
Lexie didn't know what they were going to tell Zola and Sofia what they were leaving for Santa in a week, because she didn't think any of them would be able to say "cookie" with a straight face for months.
A/N: In case you missed it, last week I posted a season six one-shot And the Man in the Moon. It's a standalone, but connects to an upcoming storyline.
My second eye surgery was on Tuesday. From this point on, it's a matter of getting fitted for new lenses that will hopefully bring my vision back up to where they were with my contacts! As usual, lmk if you see any errors.