To say Lexie was obsessed might be an understatement, but she didn't like to think it went that far. She liked to think of it as taking on a project that made things simpler for her sister. Whether Meredith would've ever known if Wilson hadn't stumbled over it was moot. Lexie knew. She wasn't sure she wanted to, but she did, and she couldn't hold onto the secret forever.
"Aren't you going to tell me I wanted to be caught?" she asked Dr. Wyatt in her second therapy session.
"Why would you think that?"
"It's what they say when you get found out as a teenage klepto."
"Sounds like you know something about that."
"Safe deduction. It's cliché, right? Fourteen-year-old with twenty bucks in her pocket, nabbing jewelry from Claire's."
"Does it matter if it's cliché? Did it feel that way at the time?"
"I mean, kinda. I wanted it to. It was…doing something…it felt normal. My parents spent a couple weeks thinking the call from a mall-cop was a call for help."
"What makes people think that?"
"They don't get why you'd do it. They don't get that it's complicated. You have to be able to think of all contingencies. The last thing you want is to be caught. And if you're usually good at…at everything, you're not supposed to just…mess up."
"Meaning that a perfectionist is always perfect?"
"People think that. They think you can't, like, just forget something, or drop a lipstick, or have your brother-in-law wake up in the middle of the night."
"There are always variables we can't control in life."
"Right, and I've got a lot of them."
"That must be frustrating for a surgeon."
"I'm not a surgeon anymore, Dr. Wyatt. I'm a part-time ECCH Board Liason, and a full-time tetraplegic."
"Are surgeons perfect? In the O.R. when you mess up, do you secretly want the surgery to go wrong?"
"No, of course not!"
"Can you control every variable?"
"You have to trust the people who can. The anesthesiologist, and your assists. And sometimes you still have to go in blind."
"That's true for a surgeon performing life-or-death procedures. Can it also be true for a woman with Tetraplegia covering new ground?"
"All I do is rely on other people. And I mess up all the time. I still have bruises from wiping out on the obstacle course last week."
"Is that something you did a year ago?"
"Clearly not."
"But driving is, right? If you want something normal?"
Lexie groaned. "What is it with all you people and driving? I said I wanted something normal as a kid. I don't mind using cabs."
"You don't like driving?"
That threw Lexie. She'd expected a comment about J.P. or something. "Um, sure, yeah, I did."
"What did you like about it?"
Lexie shrugged. "It's not a big deal for me to not do it. I didn't have a car in Boston."
"That's a far more compact city than Seattle, wouldn't you say? And you didn't have to consider accessibility."
"I hardly do now. Mer or Faye always have places looked up before I can type them into my phone."
"Does that bother you?"
"It should, right?"
"Why should it?" The psychiatrist sat back in her chair, and Lexie noticed that she'd leaned forward as much as her trunk muscles and corset would allow.
"Because, I'm twenty-eight years old! I've been an adult for ten years, and on my own for twelve. I shouldn't like having another thing done for me."
"Why not? You don't think that's different from helping you in and out of your chair? Faye isn't someone who helps you with primarily physical things, is she?"
"Not especially. She drives. But Mer's already doing so much. I can figure out where to get lunch, since our favorite dim sum place is out." They had stairs, and while Joe's back entrance just took her by his tiny office, the other place was one of those that was a maze of boxes and bags that should've already been in the dumpster.
"You can. That might be a nice gesture, since she has taken a lot on recently. Shows that going to lunch with her is important to you, doesn't it?"
"I get it! It's contradictory, though, isn't it?"
"What?"
"It's just, like, I really don't mind letting people doing all these things for me, but…but…my pills were mine."
"Something you controlled."
"I thought I did."
"I don't think that's so contradictory, and even if it were, would that be a problem?"
"N-No, of course not. People are…. People are complicated."
"They can be. They can also be quite predictable."
"Why don't we work on finding something new that's yours?" Wyatt suggested. Lexie almost trusted the woman who reminded her of her mother too much, but she managed to swallow I have something: the search for a sibling I stole from my sister.
Lexie hadn't told her about her research project, but it was possible whatever brought Wilson here also took her to Wyatt's sofa. Lexie doubted it. She didn't seem like she'd trust psychiatrists, even Midwestern Mom-types. It just seemed like Wyatt knew hadn't told her about her research project, but it was possible whatever brought Wilson here also took her to Wyatt's sofa. Lexie doubted it. She didn't seem like she'd trust psychiatrists, even Midwestern Mom-types. It just seemed like Wyatt knew something.
It took a series of "catch up" calls with people she hadn't seen in five years to get someone with access to MGH records. Luckily, that wasn't all that strange; doctors would reach out to people they met once at a conference for information. It was a world that ran on favors, and Lexie had ante. Lexie had a hospital.
Meredith had been Ellis's proxy, and so had legal rights to Ellis's records. Sending a letter signed by her sister was easy, with all the scanned charts. She'd never imagined drawing a rectangle in Photoshop would be exhilarating, but she'd always loved the thrill of problem-solving. She was almost glad MGH had no records for Ellis until she saw an affiliated PCP in 1985.
"You grew up in Beacon Hill, right?" she asked Meredith over dinner. "I'm just trying to picture…. There was a lot of talk about how I'd just missed the real Dr. Grey. I didn't even think that she might not have sold your place. They never really mentioned a daughter…."
She meant for that to imply that she'd have looked into it, if they had, but she bit her lip, knowing it wasn't coming out that way.
"She didn't spread it around if she could help it. Not selling houses was sort of her thing. I think part of her still imagined Richard might come looking. She wanted to be chief here; although, I can't imagine she had that in mind in 1983. I think she hoped we'd be back."
"So, she kept Alex's place, and then turned around and bought property in Beacon Hill?"
"Yeah," Mer said, quickly, catching a piece of ravioli that had fallen off Zola's plate and was heading for the floor. "No, Zo. We don't have a dog."
Lexie had never been grateful that she regularly choked on liquid until that moment. When she stopped coughing, Meredith was looking off, thoughtfully.
"Actually," she said, and Lexie's pulse picked up. "That's not true. We were in an apartment for a while. Maybe my aunt's, except I don't think she was there? They couldn't stand each other. Christmas was always a disaster. Maybe she stayed with her girlfriend—"
All the books said not to interrupt if you wanted answers, but Lexie couldn't help it. "Her…?"
"Oh, yeah. No one ever said it explicitly, but they didn't have to. It might have just been an apartment. Maybe in her building? That time is…blurry—We weren't there long. Six months? Just enough for everyone at BPS to bond for life. I guess with renters here, she must've saved enough for a down payment. She a may have had some of her inheritance. Who knows, with her."
"Where'd your aunt live?"
"Everett."
"Long commute to MGH."
Meredith shrugged. "Probably why our place ended up being within walking distance. No ma'am." She caught the plate Zola had been holding like it might be a frisbee. "You have so much sauce on you, your bath will be tomato soup!"
"No soup!" Zola giggled.
"Yup!" Meredith unbuckled Zola and picked her up. "Tomato soup with ducky croutons."
"Mama silly!" Zola touched her forehead to Meredith's.
"Zola's silly!"
"Baby boy silly?"
The silence lasted long enough for Lexie to catch Derek's eye. He held up a finger.
"If you teach him, your brother will be silly. Can you do that?"
"I teach'im?"
"You'll teach him."
Lexie was surprised by what Mer had said. It hadn't been unequivocal—no promises she couldn't keep—but it'd been more hopeful than anything Lexie had heard her say so far.
Once her and Zola's voices had disappeared, Derek said, "I sort of wanted the surprise, but…he's healthy. And Ellis Grey never had a boy."
It might've been the ice that injected into the back of Lexie's neck that made her respond, "She wasn't a neurosurgeon, either."
"Right. You done?" She nodded, and he took her plate. "It's rare that we can see our biggest mistakes before it's too late to do anything about them. This is too late, but…I was too close."
To the trial? To progress? She didn't ask. "Your early career was private. It'll be easier for her not to compare herself to that. What about you?"
"Well, Dr. Carr…."
"Hey, you sent me to psych." Derek turned from the sink and all but pointed at the eyebrow he raised. "I sent myself to psych," she corrected. "Also, I'm her sister. I was in the middle of it last year. I don't know how much you didn't want to see versus how much she didn't let you see. And maybe I'm projecting a little here. I'm not a mom, so…. She was devastated over Zola, but I…I think that underneath the grief she did show…. I mourned my mom with every fiber of my being, but what I could never say—because I was being the dutiful daughter, of course I didn't mind! was that I had Matched at MGH, and I felt the loss of the person I could've been. I resented Dad for it, I resented Meredith, and…and I resented Mom. I still wonder. Maybe it would've been better for everyone…. Not the point. Meredith was grieving that dream. I think you were, too."
He paused, and then turned off the water, leaning against the sink.
"I don't know if that'll be a thing once she's on your service again…. She gives second chances. Getting them is still new to her.
"I want this to work, because I think you work miracles in the OR together. You're also going to have to let her make them alone. She'll be a resident for two more years, minimum. I've seen the plan; you're not her boss. You'll still be senior. She'll make mistakes. She'll make choices you don't like. People will die. They'll live because she did what you wouldn't. She'll win awards for surgeries you told her not to take on. She's not your little sister whose career you could ignore and belittle for a decade." He shot her a look that would've made her cower a year ago. When he was her boss. Now he was her brother. "Mark answered when she called. And I don't know about last year, but when she didn't call after you were shot? He called her."
A muscle in Derek's jaw clenched. She'd seen it when Meredith pushed him. Lexie had been through worse.
"If the two of them win an award from the AANS, you'll be envious. Are you going to let that become resentment? It might not be too late to fix it now, but once you get board approval, you cannot take this from her."
"I'm not Richard."
"I know."
"She's not Mark."
"Also true."
"Any other resident—"
"But she's not any other resident. You've gotten better at understanding her—and applying it in the moment, which was a big thing. But you're not going to magically not care the first time she ignores an instruction."
"I'm going to trust her."
"What if she gets it wrong?"
"Get her reasoning, and figure out where it veered off course."
"What happens when she goes over your head to your baby sister? You have more experience than they do, combined!"
"That won't matter if Amelia is department head. I'll be annoyed. Especially if they're wrong." Lexie narrowed her eyes like Callie sometimes did. "Especially if they're right. But I have to trust them."
"Your junkie sister, and your wife who doesn't know right from wrong?"
"Goddamnit, Lexie, what is this?"
"This is the third degree. Maybe you've given it to yourself, but then you can ignore your answers. The board will ask some of it. Miranda. Richard. You need to be one hundred percent behind her, because she'll know if you're not sure. Dr. Yang should be in my place, but—"
"You're her sister, Lexie." Derek ran his hands over his face and came over to take Meredith's seat, caddy-corner to hers. "You weren't here when we were at our worst—if you had been, I would've gotten the shovel."
"The nurse wasn't the worst? You hitting a homer with her ring? Kicking her off neuro in the first place?"
He huffed, and gave her a bitter smile that didn't suit him. "I wish. Those things were awful. The worst was giving her a second chance, and then not letting her take it at her own pace. Letting her think she was broken and unworthy when I could only see potential.
"She's almost lucky to have had Ellis. Not as her mother, but as a road-map. She knows what mistakes to avoid. She can't always see how far she is from making them, but they're landmarks. The rest of us have to make our own. And I don't seem to be able to count on not going the wrong way multiple times. But I'm paying attention. I'm not speeding through, believing I'm infallible. We've put a lot of thought into this—Both of us. She's asked me most of those questions. This is…it's a second chance for her, but it's one for me, too. With her, with Amelia….
"I owe that to you, Lex. We say you taught Mer to be a big sister, you know? My advice could've been better.. My relationship with Amelia…I took care of her a lot; so much that I was Mom's proxy. Mark filled more of the brother role. She doesn't need parenting anymore, but—"
"He's gone."
"Yeah. She pulled away from the family. We let her. I let her. I'm picking up the ball. Keep your eye on it."
"What, me?"
"Who better?"
"I'm not exactly neutral."
"Precisely. You don't know Amelia as well, yet, but you know Meredith and me. You're not afraid to tell us we're wrong. The medicine takes precedent, and then Meredith. Amelia and I have enough ego on our own."
"You can speak for her on that?"
Lexie believed this was the right choice for Meredith, and therefore for him, but it took his smile at that to convince her it might work out.
"I hadn't seen Amelia operate until that day she stood up to me. Since then—I've done my research. She's good, and she knows it. Knowing her value has never been Amy's problem. She knows she's loved. That's what made it hard for me to understand for so long….
"She was five when Dad died. By the time she was old enough to need to talk about it, we were too used to seeing her as the baby. She didn't actually have our mistakes as a roadmap, because while we were making them, we hid it from her. She started making them, and we'd say she should've known better.
"Our mom was no Ellis Grey, but she wasn't the same after Dad. Not quite as different as Thatcher with you and Mer, but more withdrawn, working more, less patient.".Lexie nodded. It wasn't the time to point out Dad might not have been as different as they'd thought. "And to be perfectly, painfully honest, I think I discounted…. Did Mark tell you? About our dad…?"
"She was there." In the Clark aftermath it'd become hospital gossip that Chief Shepherd's father had been shot. Meredith had actually been the one to tell her the story, in his ICU room one night.
"I always thought…. I'd kept her from seeing. She was so little…. It took knowing Meredith, and her story to really get how going through a trauma at that age can stay with you. And maybe…for me to see I hadn't failed. That if I hadn't been there, she might've had an even rougher time, which, for her, could've led…." He got up again, and had the chair halfway pushed in before he stopped to press the backs of his hands against his eyes.
"I'm sorry."
"Huh?" Derek put one hand on his hip and the other ran through his hair. It wasn't often that he reminded her physically of Mark, but the posture almost made her gasp it was so similar. "For what, Doc?" She gave him a bemused look and he shrugged. "You won't let us call you Little Grey anymore."
And anything else would be weird when her name was a nickname, and Meredith barely let him call her "sweetheart" in public.
"Maybe…you can. But just here?"
"Up to you. For what?"
"Making you deal with anything close to that again."
His small smile had been inscrutable to her for a long time, but she'd figured out it translated to: there's no real explanation for why you're both like this. "You're not Amy—Amelia. Gotta get used to that—Yeah, that's how I had personal experience, and there are memories there, but…. You ever heard the saying, 'history doesn't always repeat itself, but it does rhyme?'"
"I think so."
"It's true for life. That's why we worry so much about becoming our parents; eventually we're gonna face similar choices or be in a similar situation. It's why I keep stepping in the same holes. But, also, for the record, there's a difference between doctor-shopping and forgery plus grand-theft auto."
He didn't seem suspicious of her laugh, because he didn't know she was laughing at how untrue she knew that to be.
She wasn't ready to drive. She didn't know what she'd do if she could.(Interlude fourteen)
Excerpt from transcription of Emerald City Community Hospital Board meeting:
DR. AVERY: …and the motion passes. Thank you, Dr. Grey. Dr. Shepherd, I assume you want to extend our offer to Dr…well, Dr. Shepherd.
DR. M. GREY: Extend? Derek, you—
DR. SHEPHERD: Yes! Yeah, I'll call her once we're done here. What's next on the agenda? Long-term equipment provider contracts? Didn't we decide to o with Hil-Rom?
DR. AVERY: Dr. Grey…Lexie, is our guest here?
DR. A. GREY: Yes! I'll let her in.
DR M. GREY: What the hell is this? What is she doing here?
DR. A. GREY: She's my sober companion.
What do you think? She's here to represent Harris & Co. They're a medical supply company.
DR. M. GREY: No shi—
DR. HARRIS: Well, now, little sis has claws. You're my first account, Death—
DR GREY: I was never your first any—
DR. HARRIS: —although that's a misnomer now, isn't it? You're just brimming with life. Don't give me the Death stare, I mean it genuinely.
DR TORRES: Medusa. It's, uh, the Medusa stare these days. It got around that you didn't like…well….
DR. A. GREY: Bugsy saw you going ga-ga over the newborns way back when they'd locked you out of the daycare. Figured out cursing them is the last thing you'd do.
AN ALMOST UNINTELLIGIBLE DOSE OF DOCTORS: Bugsy?
DR. A. GREY: Yeah…. It's short for Bug Eyes. Wilson spent three months staring at me like she knew me, and really didn't want to.
DR. HARRIS: Those things seem mutually exclusive to me.
DR. M. GREY: Stop flirting with my little sister!
DR. HARRIS: It's like coming home again. Here's our current quarter's catalog.
DR. M. GREY: You're…doing this? Working for him?
DR. HARRIS: Inheritance law says I'm working for myself. I'm launching us on the West Coast. That was meant to be the deal all along; there were just some…stumbling blocks along the way. Nearly through with a more suitable residency, and as long as I finish a few more business courses before the old man sees the light, I take precedent over my cousins.
DR. M. GREY: An MBA is a few courses, now?
DR. HARRIS: Now it is, yes.
DR. M. GREY: Oh. That's great, Die.
DR. HARRIS: Helps that I've always been good at sealing the deal.
DR. YANG: I'm sorry, is there some sort of gas in here only I'm immune to? Have we forgotten that this woman sliced herself open and let interns take out her appendix?
DR. M. GREY: We cut an L-VAD—
DR. YANG: We did not. Izzie went psycho—which I know a thing or two about—maybe as a result of the metastatic melanoma that would've gotten diagnosed weeks earlier if she hadn't mixed up the blood samples!
DR. A. GREY: It started before she got here. We all thought that was a ga—
DR. HARRIS: …melanoma?
DR. YANG: Yeah, that was after you took off without looking over your shoulder—which i've heard is a habitual thing, so why we should trust—
DR. A. GREY: Uh, not sure you get to speak, there.
DR. YANG: That's totally different.
DR. A. GREY: April got fired twice. Derek went rogue on Webber and ignored being fired. Mer lost her job after the trial—
DR. M. GREY: Not helping, Lexie!
DR. A. GREY: No one's gonna say you can't go back to neuro. It was a unanimous vote.
DR. HARRIS: Go back? Why in the world would you have ever left neurosurgery? I wouldn't have let just anyone outline the bones of my skull in sharpie.
DR. M. GREY: Yeah, you would've.
DR. TORRES: You shaved your head?
DR. HARRIS: Would you like to see the pictures? They weren't the only bones she—
DR. ROBBINS: Can we please get back on track?
DR. AVERY: Yes. Great idea. Dr. Harris—
DR. HARRIS: Yes, Jacko?
SR. AVERY: I, uh….
DR. M. GREY: Still?
DR. SHEPJERD: What?
DR. M. GREY: She was his first—
DR. A. GREY: No, that was a thr—
DR. M. GREY: —kiss. I was his second. There was mistletoe, and he was maybe ten? Eleven? There was another stupid thing on Valentine's Day, and he—
DR. AVERY: Okay, Dr. Grey.
DR. M. GREY: He proposed to her—
DR. A. GREY: With a ring pop?
DR. AVERY: This goes on the record!
DR. M. GREY: It should! You proposed to a fourteen-year-old with your grandmother's ring!
[LAUGHTER]
DR. HARRIS: I didn't have to turn him down. I just told the truth: I couldn't handle the in-laws.
DR. A. GREY: That explains so much.
DR. AVERY: It explains nothing.
DR. SHEPHERD: I disagree. Not about…well, about Avery, but that's not my point. Yang, Lexie was your intern. You hid Burke's tremors for months. When it comes to Kepner, half a dozen doctors neglected to check that patient's airway. And before we start going in on students, I took out most of a woman's brain while Dr. Harris was here—
DR. M. GREY: Derek—
DR. SHEPHERD: I did. And yes, operating on Isaac was the right call, but I didn't stop to wonder why Richard wasn't seeing that. If anyone of us starts making the demands that board made of him, I'd question it, as a person, because that's the point. We're people. We're doctors. And we know mistakes happen. If surgeons couldn't learn from mistakes, we wouldn't exist. Instead, we have all sorts of tools for it. We even have a word for it. Revision.
That's what we're doing here. We're not just copying Richard or Owen's…tone. We're shaping our own. And if we're factoring what Mark would do into that….
My sister's story is going to be an asset here, and there was a time where I would've written her off, if not for him. There were times I almost lost st him before I had to, but he made me reconsider.
I understand this is financial. I'd still argue we take bigger risks daily. We're signing with a company, not Sa—not Dr Harris. Anyone who has worked at a hospital on the East Coast knows Harris & Co. products are high quality. And not to give your pitch, Harris, but they've been donating unsold, outdated, or replaced equipment to medical facilities in majority world countries and disaster zones for a few years now.
DR. A. GREY: Oh! The Syrians!
DR. AVERY: That'd be a great joint PR move.
DR. M. GREY: And a good thing to do.
DR. HARRIS: Why do you think I suggested it?
DR. M. GREY: You…did?
DR. HARRIS: I did listen to you. Just because I popped your Peace Corps bubble by getting the rep to admit they couldn't promise indoor plumbing—
DR. M. GREY: And then pointed out DWB couldn't either. It was my 'there's no Easter Bunny, what about Santa Claus?' moment.
DR. HARRIS: I don't bandy it about, but until my test scores put me on Himself's radar, I lived in some shitholes that could political incorrectly be called the fourth world—undeveloped conditions in developed countries—and I was white and blonde. According to my court-ordered therapist, it led to delayed adolescence and thrill seeking, not valuing myself, never taking blame, pushing people away yadda-yadda. The goal is to keep people healthy enough to experience that level of selfishness.
DR. YANG: Court-ordered?
DR. M. GREY: That is none of our business! She's here as an equipment rep, let her rep the equipment.
DR. HARRIS: Dirty.
DR. M. GREY: Not helping!
DR. YANG: She sliced open her own abdomen!
DR. M. GREY: And you don't see that we should've done more? We bring in outside shrinks when eleven people are shot, but every time I almost died alone, all I had to say was "no, I'm fine." I clashed horribly with that guy, and every study says rapport with a therapist is vital. Why do we not listen to those? Even if we require it, all that matters is surgery clearance, no follow-up, and if we continue anyway, it's a huge deal. That's got to change—and it starts with adhering to our non-discrimination policy!
DR. ROBBINS: Uh, no one's discriminating against the white blonde.
DR. HARRIS: Did you perhaps mean "fraternization," D?
DR. ROBBINS: What?
DR. HARRIS: What?
DR. M. GREY: I did not. But, sure, I slept with her regularly ten years ago. What's public record around here, if not my sex life? We're not judging based on sexuality, disability, mental health status, unrelated history—whatever, unless it affects someone's ability to do their job. What d' you think, Dr. Harris, will our history affect your ability to sell us beds?
DR. HARRIS: Well…. No. Not at all.
DR SHEPHERD: Excellent. Can we let Dr. Harris move on to her presentation?
DR. HARRIS: Yes, let's. We have some projects I think you'll all be very interested in…..