The night they met, Meredith's laughter had been one of the most intriguing things Derek had ever heard. It had become one of his favorite sounds, and for a while it'd been so rare that it still gave him a flash of triumph. By extension, long before he'd let himself admit to causing any of it, any indication of her pain was tinged with his failure. It pulled him instinctively in her direction, no matter what he was doing; if they were fighting, or if she'd want him there. When he heard her scream, the only thing that could stand in his way was the toddler who was smacking her bath water to fling drops at his face.

"Mama?" She craned her head toward the bathroom door.

"Mer?" he called, stopping Zola from standing up to see further while leaning away to avoid yelling in her ear. She showed no such consideration.

"MAMA?"

His throat had gone dry in spite of the room's humidity. Today had been a good day. She'd been able to observe Amelia performing their shunt migration patient's revision. The ventriculocystosromies and fenestrations wasdone exactly as she'd described while he was in the gallery. Her own surgeries had been successful, and she'd actually told him about having to call Webber in for an assist. She'd said he was cordial, but maybe….

No. At one point he couldn't have counted on the sisters downstairs, his perspective of her mood, or Zola being awake as diversions, but that had changed. The cry itself fit better with the conclusion he should've probably come to in the first place. The baby.

The reply came from Amelia. "Nothing to worry about, bro! I've got her."

Derek closed his eyes, taking a long breath. If the plans they'd been making for months were going to work, he had to take that—

"I'm fine!"

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Derek snorted. "Your momma doesn't alway use that word correctly," he told Zola. "For instance, she was fine at the meetings with the CDC, even though I could see her wincey scowl every time she picked up a pen. To her, 'fine' doesn't mean nothing's wrong; it means she doesn't want you to fuss over her. She doesn't always mean it. Right now we're in kind of a…gray area. Yeah. That's a Grey pun. You'll get those and Shepherd puns."

"Aun' Meilya Shepherd."

"Aunt Amelia is a Shepherd," he agreed. It would've been so much easier to teach her to say Aunt Amy, but there hadn't been a good time to ask if she minded. He didn't want her to start off annoyed at his kid. "You're getting along with her, huh?"

"Ecksy, aunt, Meilya, aunt," she sing-songed.

"That's right. Amelia is Daddy's sister, and Lexie is Mommy's. She's a Grey. You and your brother are gonna be Greys and Shepherds, even if Momma was right about how long the hyphenate would be. We didn't know you'd be so good with ABCs."

"A, B, baby!"

"Oh, that's a good rhyme!" he said. "Where's the baby,?"

"Him growin'."

"Growing in Mama, yeah. And looking out for him means she's a little less careless with 'fine.'" he said, filling a cup with water. This kid had a way with glue. It didn't matter that it was Elmer's and barely worked on paper; no teacher-to-student ratio was enough to keep her from getting it under hair-bands, braids, beads—with a two-year-old's regard for having had her hair washed and styled the night before.

"Yay, wash!" Zola cackled as the water cascaded over her head, and he had a moment of suspicion. She wasn't old enough to put together the cause-and-effect well enough to have facilitated this yet.

Probably.

They might need to ask her teachers to put the crafts for the week on the calendar to strategically plan her hair-washing.

"She'll say she's fine to redo these cute braids," he continued. "So, how about we say Aunt Amelia needs to learn? She won't have to do it often," he acknowledged. Mer rarely gave up that time, even if it was just quickly smoothing morning flyaways. He did it a few times a week, but he didn't think Lexie had been asked to pinch hit more than once or twice.

Amelia didn't have to know that.

Zola was generally calm having her hair styled, but while she was being shampooed, she became a bobblehead. The best solution was the one he'd seen used on nieces and nephews who hated having their hair washed—

"Me-dusa!" she exclaimed, pointing at the mirror he'd grabbed off the sink. He wiggled one of the "snakes" he'd put in her hair and made it lick her cheek He was sure that one of these days, she'd put knots in "Soapy's" hair to give her pal a treat and ratting him out. Mer would pretend offense, but she'd love it. Callie and Arizona, maybe less so, depending on the state of the hair.

Downstairs, he found Lexie in her standing frame, dressed to go out, Amelia just visible past the back window, and Meredith on her side on the couch reading her tablet. Everything was deceptively calm.

"Ladies," he said, pulling Zola's highchair back from the counter.

"Ladies," she echoed. Jf he'd been going for a tone, he'd failed. "All scrub!"

"You are," he said. "What do you want to play with while Daddy fixes your hair?"

"I can op'rate."

"You want to operate on Joanne? We can do that."

Meredith sat up. He snapped Zola's buckle and got his hands on her shoulders before she managed to stand up.

"I'm getting the doll."

"Mm, don't think so."

"I'll let you do her hair, whatever. I can reach the choking hazards."

"What's hurting?" Behind him, Lexie snickered, and Meredith's lips twisted. "What?"

"Lexie's a child is what."

"Oh, and your sense of humor is so sophisticated?"

Meredith rolled her eyes at her sister and turned back to him. "Your son is already getting on my nerves."

"Rimshot!"

This look in Lexie's direction was significantly less amused. "Yeah, lightning crotch is hilarious." Meredith snapped. "Fetusheadbutted my nerves, or ligaments, or—we don't even know—just to amuse his puerile Aunt Lexie—"

"Hey! There's not another term—"

"Which just goes to show how little the medical establishment actually knows about the way the human race repopulates itself!"

"Yeah—"

"If I wasn't me, I would've done the midwife thing. At least they didn't avoid touching people for half of recorded history."

"You could still get a doula," Lexie said. Derek stepped to block Meredith's view of her, just in case, but the glare scale did not rise to murderous.

"Yeah, I'd do great with a stranger telling me to breathe!"

"They could tell you not to breathe."

"Let's don't," Derek interrupted. "So…you're okay?"

"Mostly, until it happens again. Amelia says he's probably dropping."

"Amelia says?" She raised an eyebrow at him. "I mean, she's not…. Being in practice with an OB-GYN doesn't…." He'd just be digging himself deeper if he said she'd avoided their sisters when they were pregnant. It was true, but she'd been at home for the first…three? Four? If Stevie had been big enough to grab a fistful of cake at his wedding….

God, his family could be a whole math book of word problems.

"Pregnant women do present with more brain tumors." Meredith pushed past him, going for the shelf that held Anatomy Joanne and her box of organs.

When he started to follow her back to the highchair, he noticed Lexie was staring at him, looking like she wanted to say something. Before he could inquire as to what, a horn sounded from out front.

"Jeep!" Zola announced. Lexie didn't react to the announcement, and she'd gone pale.

"Lexie?" he asked, going over to lower her.

"Huh? Yeah. Fine!"

This time, Meredith was the one to laugh from the other side of the room. "She's going on a daaate."

"I am not!"

"Oh? Is he not going into the restaurant with you? Are any of the Thorns going to be joining you?"

"We're friends! We're going to dinner as…as friends."

"Derek and I were friends. How'd that go, husband?"

"We, uh…that was…Well…. Let's get you transferred."

She could hold more of her own weight moving to her chair, but the professional part of his mind noted that it was due more to practice and PT than enervation. She'd gained some feeling, some flexibility, but he was glad that he wasn't going to have to make a prognosis.

She could also come up with a retort for her sister while making the shift. "All you're saying is that I can tell the difference between friends and—"

"Okay!" he interceded. Taken any further, this would not end well. "If Lexie says it's not a date, it's not a date." Opening the front door, his voice pitched low he added, "You realize she's saying that if it was a date, that'd be okay?"

Staring ahead, she asked, "Is that your way of saying it?"

"It is. Tell him that you saved a life yesterday."

She nodded, and then headed out toward the cab. Having seen Jean-Philippe a minimum of once a week for six months, he felt sure the dark button-up shirt and ironed trousers were signs that in the cab driver's view it was a date.

"He worked extra shifts to get use of the cab for tonight," Meredith reported as he closed the door. In spite of what she'd said, the caddy with Zola's haircare supplies was on the table, and she'd already started in on braiding a brushed-out segment.

He went over and picked up the brush. "You think she's ready?"

"She likes him. And her driving lessons are going okay, so if she's not, and he bails, it'll be manageable. She needs to see she's attractive to someone besides the Lloyds of the world."

He put a hand on her shoulder. "I'm pretty sure he'll be patient with her."

"George was patient."

"He really wasn't," he said, knowing there was no arguing with her on this point.

She shrugged. "She's jumped into every other relationship she's had. The last two were proxies for Mark. That's…. We know what that's like. This time…she still loves him; probably always will, but it's becoming a shield. She throws it out there to block anything that cuts too deep.

:To think, I thought I got that from Mom." She smirked.

Typically, Amelia came banging in right as he leaned over to kiss her.

Zola was thrilled to have her hair become a group project, and once they'd finished she was rubbing her eyes. After putting her to bed, Meredith stayed upstairs. He was anxious to go to her, but Lexie wasn't the only sister needing counsel, or a sounding board, on her relationship.

"One of our best general surgeons has a husband who's doing his surgical internship in LA."

"Meredith's polygamous?"

"Ha ha. One of. I'm saying, it's possible."

Miranda's face during those meetings with the CDC was a white elephant; impossible to avoid thinking about. She'd been given paid leave, separate from her PTO, to allow the Bactrim to work. She wouldn't take his calls, and would answer questions about patients only if they came from students. Payback, Meredith insisted, but he wasn't sure.

"Der, come on, do you think I can handle long distance?" Amelia's legs were draped over the arm of her chair, and he had to swallow a chastisement that would've come out sounding exactly like Mom.

He ended up quoting her directly. "I think you can handle anything, but only if it's worth the struggle."

"I do know a thing or two about struggle."

"We have an E.R.. He's a trauma guy, right?" Hunt wouldn't object; more hands would keep them at Level One.

"Not everyone can drop everything and move across the country."

"Amy…."

"I did it, too."

"You did. I appreciate you doing it again." She shrugged, and her shoulders stayed up. "And for being there for Mer tonight."

"I was right there when the pregnant lady screamed, what else was I gonna do?"

"Sorry. I've had a quarter century of being told how overprotective I was going to be as a dad, and it turns out that it's been true."

"The other part was true, too."

"What?"

"They said you'd be a great one. Zola's a spitfire."

"Mer deserves credit for a lot of that." Amelia's forehead wrinkled. "I'm serious. It's uncanny sometimes. Here, look at this." He took out his phone and swiped to his pictures. "Her first birthday. She'd been home three weeks, and that's Meredith's nose scrunch."

Her okay bro look returned, but she took the phone, studying the picture before she flicked to the left. The discomfort that stiffened his spine made no sense. Anything he wouldn't want her to see wasn't that easily accessible—They lived their lives knowing that any day Zola would figure out how to tap the pattern of a passcode, or, it seemed, wake up knowing her numbers.

"That's Sofia?"

"Yeah. I can make sure you get to meet her tomorrow, if you want. She usually sleeps over every other week or so."

"Surprised she's not a Marcia."

"He already has…had…a Sloan."

She groaned, thrusting the phone back at him. "You…. Do you know what you're going to name him?"

"No. We've started talking, but that's all."

"Not Grey?"

"I doubt it. That's Zola's middle name."

"Right. I did know that…. Has Mom…? She want you to name him for Dad?"

"Mm," he agreed. Amelia had never said that she did or didn't want kids. He suspected didn't, but that she'dhad never said so, because their family would take it as confirmation of her immaturity. Really, it would be her ambition, and her preference for flexibility. Not that he thought she couldn't handle—

"You…You could use it as a middle name," she said, and he leaned closer; the softness of her voice concerning. "Or...or if you use his middle name…. Just don't— If it's not what you…. I-I…I can't…."

He got to his feet a half second after she propelled herself out of the chair. She fought him, and in spite of all the scuffles that had come in between, he could only think of that day in the back of the store. She'd left bruises on his legs with her school shoes, and tooth marks on the side of his hand, but he hadn't felt any of it. He'd only seen the betrayal in her eyes, and the streaks of tears on her face.

She didn't kick, bite, or pull hair anymore, but there was plenty of fight there, and teardrops rolled down her cheeks.

"Hey, hey, Amy. Amy, what is it?"

"Let go!"

"No. You can keep a secret. If you brought it up, you want to let it out."

"I can't—I thought I could…." Her face was going red with fury, but whatever it was made her finally go limp against him for the first time in—more than a decade, certainly. This was about far more than a fight with Nancy, or one of Kate's perky barbs.

"I named him Christopher."

He thought he'd misheard the words when she finally choked them out, but they were followed by, "I had a baby. His name was Christopher."

"You…. Amelia, what? When?"

"Last year." She pulled back, running her index fingers under her eyes. Keeping her tucked under one arm, he reached over to grab a handful of tissues from the nearest end-table. "While you…you were gone."

He closed his eyes against a wave of light-headedness. How did it keep coming back to the damn crash?

"I-I didn't know," she reminded him. "And I…I must not have been switched at birth, because I kept it from everyone. I swore Addison to secrecy."

Addison….

Addison's son…? No. His name was Christopher.

"You're a Shepherd," he told her, guiding her to the sofa. "You're the only one who ever suggested otherwise. What happened?"

"He was Ryan's." His heart sank as he sat on the coffee table to face her. "He had anecephaly."

"Oh, Ames."

"I-Ironic, right? I finally went on a bender, and got myself knocked up. The family's worst nightmare."

"When you were sixteen. When you'd managed to get on the honor roll and end up in juvie in the same week. They weren't afraid of you becoming a mother. They were afraid something would get in the way of the life everyone knew you could have. The life you do have."

"Oh, come on. I was pregnant in rehab. I couldn't tell the difference between withdrawals and morning sickness. You don't have an opinion about that?"

"I do. I'm glad you went when you did. What happened…. Finding someone you love like that…. Deciding to face it can't have been easy. Even if going in started out as punishing yourself," he added, and her eyes locked on his. "Thought so. God. Talk about a rough year."

"You were in a plane crash—"

"And Mark died. We're not playing whose life sucked more. What I went through was…." He paused, trying to find the words to give her the honesty Carr said would have to be part of the process of getting to know Amelia as an adult. "Out there it was…grim. The summer was exhausting. Losing Mark…. It's still hard. When I thought I'd lose surgery…. I reconsidered a lot of things. I'm grateful that the procedure worked. That Meredith convinced me to do it. The domino effects are things we never dreamed of. But we're alive. We made it home to Zola. For a baby we thought was impossible. It doesn't lessen the loss, but it's helping us move forward.

"You lost a fiancé, a baby, Mark—"

"Wouldn't facing it mean staying in L.A.?"

"It could. Or you could've gotten everything you can from there."

"Is that what you call leaving New York?"

"It's what it was. I didn't know it, then. From my perspective, I was evacuating from the an explosion in my rearview. But once Addison came out here…. She'd have been happy going back to New York. I wouldn't have. I wasn't. Moving out here didn't fix everything—I had to figure a lot of things out. But it's…. It's a better life than I could've imagined. And it isn't a life I could've had here with Addison. She wouldn't have had her life there with me."

"You don't think…? You adopted your kids in the same year."

"We got to that place in very different ways. She was ready when she left here, and…. I-I'd decided I couldn't subject a kid to our life in New York. Meredith revived that dream, but we both had growing up to do first."

"You switched places. She's in private practice. You're in an academic facility. Isn't it more competitive? More of a time-suck?"

"Yes and no. Richard's wasn't the only offer I had. Consciously, I took it for the distance, but…. Richard has his flaws, but he'd created a supportive environment at Manhattan Gen. Maybe I sensed I was heading for a crash. I'm not sure, but I found that here, too. We want ECCH to build on what he started. Not, to quote my wife, in a woo-woo way In a way that ensures that being a great surgeon isn't going to keep you from being part of your family."

"Did you? Crash?"

"Yeah. Took a year."

"Sounds right. Shepherds don't stop for feelings. Anger's fast enough to catch us."

"That's more or less what Mer says. You two…." He swallowed. Tell you not to breathe…. "You have more in common than I think you expect."

Would it be too much? They were both so stubborn, and as much as Amelia had grown up, she hadn't put down the roots that Meredith had.

Amelia bit her lip. "She looked so…lost."

"When the pain hit?"

"No. When I got over to her."

Last summer. After the hepectomy. The weeks after the ferry crash. He'd made sure someone was at her side, to protect her from having to face that pain alone; especially when it was the only type of pain she'd admit to feeling. He couldn't possibly make up for all of the childhood scrapes and illnesses, not to mention the fights. The car accident in college. The almost-broken ankle she'd bragged about betting on with an x-ray tech—"he was sure it was broken. It was bruised black"—and had led to her preference for flats. That was what he knew about. There'd been allusions to other incidents—"We always went to the Brigham E.R. to spite Mom….""Pass out in the hall enough, and they start believing you about the cramps." "I've been skiing. I can't say I've skied so much as gone downhill ass over whatever, but I've been…."

He needed to make a list. She might have one.

Sometimes, he wished she and Lexie had had a typical sibling relationship for selfish reasons. Such as: there was no chance that Alexandra Grey wouldn't know the contents of the notebooks in a box at the back of their closet.

Actually, what were the chances she'd "come across them" at some point? He could probably ask without asking.

Meredith had colored bruises and cuts on herself in daycare, thinking she'd get taken up to the E.R.—"I didn't quite understand what would get surgery paged, but I knew a skinned knee wouldn't get mom to come." He believed that she hadn't consciouslyhurt herself for attention, but he wouldn't have blamed her for lying about a wound's provenance showing up at the end of her mom's shift hoping she'd dress it herself. He could also see the alternate possibility, where the most she'd done was wearing sleeves that revealed a red line, or flashing a gauze wrap while scratching her leg, just to have someone finally ask if it hurt.

"I tried to do it alone." Amelia sat up and pulled her hands out of his, ending up sitting on them, like she was being lectured in a house across the continent. "Not letting anyone touch me. It was what I deserved, right? The foremost expert in all things baby taught me how to use birth control. It's not like I wasn't taking pills!" She turned away from him, casting her eyes down. "But that's how I got there, isn't it? Dealing with everything by myself?"

"We let you. We…we were kids. Even Kath. We didn't know that supporting each other didn't have to mean denying our own pain. We did our best. We knew it wasn't enough, but we didn't…. We told you to be good, and be calm, and that you were too big for tantrums.

"You were screaming because it hurt, and you were mad, and scared, and confused. We made you think you were the only one with those feelings, so you pushed it all down—until the cork popped.

"If you were 'acting up' it meant we weren't doing enough. Not that we shouldn't be expected to fill in for Dad and Mom, or that of course you were a mess—so were we."

Amelia's eyes widened. Did she still not know?

"We taught you the wrong lessons. Then, we left you with Mom, who'd never dealt with the full brunt of teenage emotions. With the girls, she'd had Dad. Lizzie and I…. We were so sure that she needed us to be strong. We didn't know how strong she could be. We didn't give her the chance to be our mom. Not causing problems for her was the name of the game. Sure, we let her in on the break-ups, and the try-outs, but we downplayed a lot. And at school, everyone knew. I was jealous that by the time you were twelve, we weren't the tragic family—but we gave Mom false expectations. She went too hard on you."

"I did end up in Juvie."

Derek sighed. "Amy, how many times did you remind me that Mark and I drank in high school?"

"Uh…. Any time you gave me that 'holier than thou' look."

"You think that was all we did? His folks left wads of cash every time they were gone overnight. It seemed like ordinary teenage shit, but was it, if the stuff I was trying to avoid dealing with was anything but?"

"You had all that man of the house responsibility. And me."

He laughed, and she gave him a bewildered look. "You were one of the best parts. I didn't love having teachers track me down when your homework wasn't being turned up in, and I probably…I did yell at you more than necessary. That doesn't mean that I didn't love having you around.

"When I didn't want you there…. That was ordinary teenage stuff. It…it felt different, because you were my responsibility, and you knew it. I didn't mean to make you feel rejected, but I knew enough to not let you tag along to high school parties in Manhattan."

"I could've gone full Drew Barrymore."

Kate had called her Amelia Barrymore a few times, actually, but apparently not to her face.

"Amy…. I've said a lot of things about what taking care of you did to me." A moment passed, and he wondered if they were thinking about the same thing—him telling her she was why he hadn't been ready to have kids in his residency—or if something else had settled in her mind as the worst thing he'd blamed on her. "But never what you did for me."

"What, was I your chick magnet, too?"

"No, and it's gross that Mark said that.

"There were a lot of things. Sometimes being in charge of you let me be a kid. You gave me someone to keep going for, after Dad, and…and after Mike. And…look…I don't know how this is gonna sound, so just know I mean it as a good thing, okay?"

"Oh-kay."

"We have a new genetic sequencing lab—run by the surgeon with the husband in LA, actually—and Meredith…. I'd asked her not to do the blood test for Alzheimer's before we had kids, but…with everything this year…she needed to know. She, uh, she has the markers, but that doesn't mean…. It means next to nothing. To help her remember that, I got mine run, too."

"Were you switched at birth?"

"I'd have to have someone to compare it to know that. Feel free. I think…we always knew we had the most in common right?"

"The most like Dad."

He hated that she sounded bitter about that. Then again, hadn't it been something that weighed on him until a couple of years ago?

"One of those commonalities might be inclination toward opiate addiction."

Amelia's jaw dropped. "Seriously?"

"Yup. I know you think the girls and I were squares, and in comparison…maybe. But we started at the same place you did. In the eighties I didn't see needles more than once or twice, but there was crack at some parties, and lines at others. And I'd love to say I was deeply affected by all the lectures Mom gave us about the vets whose lives she'd seen ruined by drugs—"

"Oh, no, you do not get to talk to me about those."

He cringed. "I'm sure. But they weren't what made me abstain—It was knowing I had to set an example for you, sort of, but also…I had to be there for you. Before college, but also after. I didn't want you to lose anyone else."

"Oh."

"I'm not saying…. You were in a totally different situation. It's taken me a long time to fully appreciate that."

She put her hand to her mouth, and he tried not to focus on how it was shaking. "You're welcome for being your anti-drug." Her smile quivered too, but there was mischief in it. "Are you…? You have to stay up? For Lexie?"

"Yeah. It's not that bad. He always has her back before the ferry stops running."

"Do you think she'd mind if I helped her? I'm not going tot go to sleep right away, and I'm sure you want to check on Meredith."

"I can do both. But if you don't mind…."

"I should learn, right? If I'm going to be around."

"You can get your own place. We're happy to have you, but if it's going to be hard for you, with the baby…."

Her momentarily crestfallen look was gone so quickly that he could've easily missed it.

"Henry was born right before I got that ultrasound. For a very short period, I helped Addison with him, and I thought…maybe I could do it. We could raise them together, like Lizzie, Nan, and Kate got to do. I knew I couldn't do it without her."

"Beg to differ."

She shrugged. "Then she did my scan. I'd put it off. Couldn't terminate. I got so…cold. Somehow, the fact that she'd been trying for so long made it worse. Like the timing was all to rub it in.

"I hate being a raised-Catholic atheist. I don't believe in any higher power but I am sure determinism has it out for me. I had one chance to keep us…Ryan and I…going. We enabled each other, but I really did want to get clean with him. I wanted a life with him."

"I know."

"I couldn't deal. I moved to Sam's. I wanted to be happy for her, but I also wanted to claw her eyes out. That baby…Christopher was supposed to be my one thing. The one happy thing to come out of hell. I donated his organs. He'd been my hope, and he got to help other families have it."

That was exactly what Mer would've said and done.

"I'm ready. I've taken care of Henry, and it's better now. I want to know my niece and nephew. You guys are going to need help, and…there's Lexie."

"There is," he acknowledged. "Please tell me if it's too much? I know how Shepherds do things, but we're….Mer and I…. We're trying not to do that."

She nodded. He was almost to the stairs when she added, "Derek?"

"Hm?"

"I know what it's like, to find someone you love…like that. And I'm sorry."

He'd heard, I'm sorry, okay? He'd heard a begrudging thanks, in the same paragraph as it's not like I did it on purpose!

He had not heard that.

He'd just told her to say things, and he didn't know how to respond. He could still see her face that night; her cheeks dipping in, but her cheekbones holding onto teenage baby fat, and her lips turning bright blue.

There might still be expired syringes of Naloxone on top of cabinets at his mom's house, far above the kids' heads. That he'd never needed them had been the surest sign that ODing had scared her, but this was the first time he thought that might be enough.

Zola's adoption had been his excuse for not going down to L.A. last year. It'd been valid. It hadn't been everything. He hadn't wanted to face that he could've lost her.

He went back to the couch and put a hand on her shoulder. "I'm sorry you had to go through that." Amelia reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck.

Upstairs, instead of going immediately to their bedroom, he detoured to the room that was slowly being transformed into a nursery. He picked a stuffed tiger up from the seat of the glider. And sank into it, burying his face in his hands. Maybe he should've gone on into the room where Meredith was hale and healthy, a little moon-faced from the fluid her body was retaining to pass onto their second baby. A baby who would come out conditioned to take comfort from the sound of rushing water. Would they ever tell him about the time Daddy jumped into the bay to pull Mommy out, following the point of a little girl just his size?

In grade school, Rachel Rothschild—who'd ended up being his first girlfriend—got Show and Tell cache every year by reciting the story of how her parents met. It was a cliché, with a twist. Her mother had pushed her father out of the way of a cab. Rachel had always ended the story: "She was his hero." There was nothing after that. Not about road rash or fender-benders caused by the commotion. Not about what could have happened if the best slide on her Upper West Side school's softball team had left her summer secretarial job five minutes later.

When it had been Amelia, he'd gone around saying it was his job, and that he'd have done the same for anyone—Why? Why not let his sister know that she mattered more to him than the majority of the world?—letting the extended family frame him as a hero. Privately, he'd wondered if he wasn't the villain—From Mark he'd gotten: "she would've gotten the script pad from Addie or Lizzie" (but she hadn't). From Addison: "you didn't put the needle into her arm" (but she did.)—All anyone else said was what if you hadn't been there?

So, he'd kept being there. For Amy, when she'd let him. For his other sisters. His patients. Richard, when he needed a dependable guy. He'd drifted away from Addison, who'd always done her best not to need anyone—he didn't know when he'd let himself pretend to believe it.

He'd ignored what he needed, too, and while it'd felt like going into the water had rusted his armor, really it'd been that way when he got here.

He couldn't do this. He couldn't picture Amelia cooling on Mom's carpet, and feel his hands bruising Meredith's still chest, trying to return the breath the patient had knocked out of her. Amelia had haunted him that spring—I can't keep breathing for you—Had the you been plural? His continual fear that Meredith would spook hadn't been based entirely on experience with her. When Burke left Cristina at the altar, he'd seen the voicemail from Meredith, and he'd been sure he'd pushed her all the way back to Boston; exactly like he'd done to his sister.

He'd hovered over Amelia once she'd gotten out of rehab; beating himself up for not being able to take her in, like he'd done every time she'd run away from Mom's. He'd distanced himself from Meredith until she declared herself whole and healed. Neither tactic prohibited a relapse. Neither of them had stopped breathing on purpose—Meredith hadn't gone into the water on purpose, but it wasn't that simple. The only sure thing was that it wasn't simple.

He could implement every life-saving measure, like he'd done for Mark. He could rescue, but not save, like he'd done that day on the pier. He could save one and lose another; his role on the day Dad died. He could be the one lost, which had happened during the second shooting. Taking action wouldn't ensure success. He could've lost Amelia, last year. He'd lost a nephew without knowing it.

Loss could happen.

He thought he'd gone through life understanding that, but had he? Could he really have understood what it would've been like if he'd gotten to her a few minutes later, and continued to hold a freaking car against her at the same time?

No. No, because by then Dad had been dead for more of his life than he'd been alive, and Mike hadn't died—just been gone, like his family had moved to Jersey—and he had been there to save her. His fear hadn't had to become grief, so he'd held onto it until it became resentment. That had been the last thing she'd needed. He'd thought he'd given her all the patience and understanding he had.

Had he given her any?

He had the chance now. He had to; she didn't have another brother. She'd never been close to the guys they'd called "the husbands,"— and how could she be, when they'd received their briefings on her when she was "the problem child?" He'd learned from Lexie. From Meredith. He wouldn't push Amelia away this time, and not just because his hospital needed her, or their family would need all the extra hands it could get.

Because it was time for one of them to stop running. Because she'd heard Dad's laugh. Because she'd sat on his shoulders to watch the Macy's balloons inflate. Because she'd known him before his braces came off, and before he had them. She'd quizzed him on flashcards from the time she could read to his intern exam.

Because he'd once promised her he'd always be her best friend, and he'd be damned if he was going to let another one of those go.

It had maybe been a date.

Lexie wasn't sure.

Lexie wasn't sure about anything right now, and it wouldn't have been fair to J.P. to pretend she could be sure about being with someone.

Maybe some part of her had been disappointed that he hadn't kissed her at the end of the night. That could've been the part that had been thinking of how soft his hands were, without the surgical calluses she was used to. He hadn't exactly not kissed her. There'd been a moment where he'd leaned in, and she'd been lost in his scent. The distance had been hers to cross, and while so much of her had wanted to, she'd had a flash of not knowing what would come next. Not in the next second, but next.

Nothing she'd done with the Lloyd had told her that.

She hadn't wanted Jeep to think she didn't want…something. She'd smiled, and brought her hand to his cheek. It'd been fairly smooth, and she'd wondered how long it'd been since he'd shaved. Managing not to let that slip out, she'd said, "You never know who's looking out the window around here."

"Ah, and if next time, I tried my luck elsewhere?"

"Depends. Do you think you're lucky?"

"I think," he'd said as the front door opened. "I will leave it for you to decide if I will get there, Lucy."

She'd felt…plenty. Her face had been warm, and she'd had the fluttering excitement in her chest that she associated with school dances and sorority mixers. What was harder to measure was what she'd felt below that. She'd been sitting, but by the time she'd really thought about if she'd felt any kind of spark there, she'd been inside with Amelia, so it wasn't a big deal that it wasn't there. Right?

Not being ready to promise anything didn't mean she couldn't be ready. Amelia being the person waiting up for her had seemed like a sign; although, she had to remind herself that this wasn't a one-time visit. Soon, Derek's (actual) little sister would be a person in their lives. One who'd had a real drug problem she didn't treat with a different drug—medication—and known not only Derek, but also Mark for longer. Had more memories of him.

Loved him more?

Differently.

Did it even matter? He was gone. Lexie wouldn't be working under her. She'd be a housemate, that was all, and currently she was a housemate who didn't know what was in the Harris ., box. Lexie's anxiety about having it opened must have been suspicious, but Amelia didn't seem to be in a curious mood. Lexie barely knew her, but that didn't seem to be in character.

"He was always too much of an optimist for me," she said, while Lexie was getting her pajama shirt over her head. Up to that point, their small amount of conversation had been about the Dawson case, but the shift wasn't unexpected.

"Mark or Derek?"

"Mmm, I…tested Derek's positivity. I meant Mark."

"This where you're gonna tell me he'd want me to move on?"

"You knew him, so you know that. I can see it being frustrating. He managed to be a strange kind of hedonist who put everyone in front of himself. But he loved hard, and he went and died before you woke up."

"That happened to you, too." Lexie wasn't sure what made her say it. The other woman looked stricken, like she hadn't expected Lexie to know about that. "I lived with Meredith and Derek before I was the cripple in the back room."

Derek would've told her not to talk about herself like that, but Amelia's lip curled. "I'm aware. Just…." She sighed. "I don't share my business. Even in meetings—People have gone through so much shit in their lives. The…until last year, the worst things to happen to me that weren't related to my addiction happened when I was five. I never went hungry. I wasn't assaulted—I managed to be pretty sheltered, actually. Derek ever tell you about the prescription pad?"

"Uh. Last month, yeah."

Amelia nodded, once, confirming that she knew what Lexie was referring to. "He was the fourth doctor in the family. It wasn't the first time I'd done something similar, just the only time I took a whole pad. My sisters had stopped letting me babysit—I never... I was just too permissive, if you can believe it. I, uh, did once take the trio to the park to hand off a script for someone else to fill. They could've been in danger, but I'd have take my eye off of them longer to meet a hook-up, you know?"

"The trio. That's…."

"Kath's Allegra and Mackie, and Nancy's oldest, Carly. The three of them were more of a package deal than the actual triplets ended up being. Kathleen had just had Stevie. She took her maternity leave before opening her practice, which was a real problem for me—That and to get what I wanted, I had to sell the benzos that I used her scripts for, because a psychiatrist wouldn't be prescribing opiates.—Nancy moved out to the suburbs around then. Liz had gotten a call from a pharmacy, and because she didn't prescribe them often, it had their suspicions up.

"Anyway. I saw some shit, don't get me wrong, but even the bored Upper East Side girls slumming always turned out to have worst stories than I did, if you dug deep enough. I didn't give anyone anything to use against me. I never told a soul what happened to my dad, until Ryan. The professionals got it from my mom, and I made a point not to let anyone else close enough to care.

"Come to think of it, I didn't have to tell anyone at Pacific Serenity, about Ryan. Or Dad. I had Addie there filling out the paperwork, like she was my mom or something. Wasn't the first time. She filled in whenever Mom couldn't bring herself to look at me."

"Did you talk about it there?"

Amelia shrugged. "He wasn't why I'd relapsed, but I…I didn't want him to be why I started using again in twenty years."

"My father almost drank himself to death after my mom died. He...He's like…. I think whomever he's with really is his other half.

"I-I told Mark I felt like…like he was an infection, and I couldn't purge him out of me…. I...it was stupid, but right after it happened, I considered getting people to call me Andie or Xandra, because I didn't feel like I could be Lexie anymore. She was a surgeon. A loyal daughter. An obliging sister. She...she was spontaneous. And she loved Mark Sloan."

She wasn't interested in disconnecting from the world. She hadn't taken anything harder than pot. She'd thought of herself as a slut a couple of times, but would never have been okay with being a whore.

"Did you always?"

"Obviously not. I'd never really been…. Guys didn't really take me seriously, so I learned not to want all that much more than they'd give. I fell for my best friend intern year because he treated me like a person. I was naive. It didn't take much for me to fall for someone, but I didn't need them. I-I didn't want what my parents had. While I was with Mark, I didn't want anyone else, but settling down was so far from what I'd pictured—I knew I'd be able to trust him to hold up his side. Isn't that weird? Everyone thought he was flaky, but he'd never have had the expectations my dad did for Ellis…. You don't need to know all this. Greys ramble."

"I get it. I can't give you much advice, seeing as I'm running away from the man I let myself love in the face of abject terror—I can tell you that's possible. You're not gonna stop loving Mark anymore than you stopped loving your mom. People don't fit into molds; how could they fit into the exact hole someone else Kool-aid manned into your heart?"

Lexie snorted, but her thoughts went to the article she'd skimmed on the ferry yesterday evening. The one about Meredith's sister, the medical prodigy.

Amelia had stacked the extra pillows Lexie asked for at the end of the bed. She'd never been overly shy about sex, and she told herself she wouldn't be flustered if the other woman caught on—Even if she'd needed physical help, it couldn't be worse than an ASIA exam—but that was the thing. She had nothing that was private about her body anymore; couldn't she claim something as personal?

It would've been easier if she could've brought herself to claim she didn't always wear pajama pants, though. There were people who preferred to have third-party PCAs for that sort of reason.

The Lexie of two years ago would've slept with J.P. already. At this point, she couldn't pretend she didn't want to have his hand on bare skin when it wasn't momentary or accidental. She'd stared at his back and wondered about the muscles rippling under his shirt. She'd imagined him tracing her tattoos with the smoothly clipped nail of his index finger. She just couldn't picture anything further than that; first because Mark lurked in the corner of all her fantasies, and second because she—literally—didn't know what she would feel. There'd been hints at Roseridge, but it wasn't as though her heart had been in that—Officially not in her vagina.

Her sister no longer had a condom jar in the kitchen, but there'd been more than prescription medications kept in that cabinet out of Zola's reach. She liked to think it was just the easiest place to stash the basket of lube packets, but she wouldn't have been surprised if the living room had its own box in some knickknack or drawer.

Wrangling a leg out of her pants was frustrating enough that she almost stopped at the thought that if she didn't want to deal with awkwardness in the morning, she'd have to get them back on. For maybe the thousandth time she considered how much easier guys had this.

The cabbie would've been gentle with that. You'd have to ask him to rip them off you like I did.

She didn't try to block Mark's voice from her head. Messed up, maybe, but the truth was he might as well have been a third in her relationship with Jackson. And not that she welcomed the comparison, but hadn't Izzie technically been dating Alex while she screwed a ghost?

She wasn't picturing Mark's hands on her when she maneuvered hers between her legs.

She had more sensation in her clit than she had in the fall, and although her dexterity had increased, the most comfortable position involved using the side of her hand. Jean-Philippe's fingers were wider than hers, and long, which made it possible that he'd draw them slowly against her, first. He was careful. Methodical. But it took more pressure for her to feel anything.

That's not the only place he can touch you, Little Grey.

She knew that. The point was to discover what she didn't know.

And she was thinking like a seventeen-year-old who thought sex had to hurt the first time, and forgets what she's learned on her own. She brought her hands up to her breasts. The difference in sensation was breathtaking. This, she knew, and knowing made it easier to relax. Easier to picture herself confidently directing Jean-Philippe—

Was that what she wanted?

She'd instructed Mark to teach her while showing him what she knew. She'd never had trouble being assertive—she could tell when a guy really didn't like it: he'd call her "naughty" or "dirty." "Bossy" would come into their next fight. "Controlling" would pop-up in the break-up. Neal, her boyfriend in her senior year of undergrad, had even called her "needy," which had caused her roommate to almost crack a rib laughing.

"You text him for booty calls, and then go back to your Statement of Purpose," Sophie had screamed. "You're, like, the dream girl. What less does he want?" Lexie had known. He'd wanted to be the one making the calls.

Mark had liked that she usually demanded to be on top.

She couldn't do that, now. Not without an amount of support and forethought that wouldn't be practical for a first encounter, anyway. Again, she thought of the times she'd been the one to initiate with a new partner. Impatient, afraid of being overlooked after years of being a non-option for the boys at school, of coming up against the assumption that smart girls weren't sexy; she'd had the tendency since her first kiss with Devon Ascott at the skate park.

Shouldn't she want that more, after almost having so little control over her body?

"What can I do to help?"

"How do you prefer to do this?"

"Is this easiest for you?"

Those were questions she'd gotten from Amelia that night. She got them from the PCAs at Roseridge. Meredith and Derek asked them less, because the steps of her transfers had become routine.

She wanted true spontaneity. She wanted to be read. To have his dark eyes on her face, watching her while he rolled her nipples like that.

Heat began to gather in her stomach, and when she eventually checked with a tentative fingertip, she discovered wetness on her vulva.

This was not the position in which she'd gotten used to inserting a catheter, but the vibrator was made to be used by someone without much dexterity. Propping herself up for the benefit of the angle had seemed like it'd make this easier, but the difficulty of wrestling with her pajamas made her decide to wait on that.

The vibrator slipped in, and she gasped as she started to feel its intensity.

That's good, eh, Lucy?

She heard J.P,'s laugh, and imagined him spreading his hand on her abdomen, then thinking to move it up to her chest.

She wasn't used to her body twitching from anything other than spasms. The uptick in her pulse made her afraid she was on the edge of autonomic dysreflexia. It could happen from sexual stimulation—but she'd only had one other episode since leaving Roseridge, back in December.

Perspiration was also a symptom.

She whimpered into the darkness.

Relax, Little Grey—

It's all right, my girl. You are fine, so fine.

She'd never heard those words from J.P. in that order, but they had his cadence. The melodic ups and downs she often lost herself in. A song was great, so great. The bay was gorgeous, so very gorgeous. He'd press his lips together, humming mmm, mmm, mmm when she teased him. When he laughed, his neck would curve back, thrusting his Adam's apple forward. Facing him at dinner, she'd wondered what it might be like to fit her lips around it.

The first time she'd read about tetraplegia and orgasm had been years ago, not in some medical journal, but the Seattle Times, one Thanksgiving. The article had described female participants of a trial tearfully admitting that they believed they'd become "frigid" because they couldn't enjoy sex in the same way. Words from the article flashed through her mind as part of her considered what was going on in her own body. vagus, mysteries, nucleus accumbens, painkilling.

It wasn't the same as standing without assistance would be, or even the same as the burst of hope she got seeing the analytics on her glove improve. She hadn't lost all her disdain from the men who believed nothing mattered more than their supposed emasculation. But it was something. It was something good, purely good. A surge, not just of pleasure but of power. Independence.

Possibility.

It took another few minutes for her to realize that not only had Jean-Philippe's voice interrupted Mark's, she hadn't heard Mark again after that. Her eyes prickled but before tears could spill, she pictured Mark again, arms crossed loosely, leaning against the wall. All she knew of his past, his relationship with Callie; the night he'd admitted to letting Addison go—she wasn't holding onto him just for herself, she knew that. She was holding on because he deserved it. Because he had wanted her to be happy, whatever that meant. That he'd taken Sloan's rejection, taken Derek's punch; taken her uncertainty. He'd deserved so much more. He'd deserved for people to see that, the way he saw it. He'd waited, he'd hoped, and he'd loved.

He'd loved her.

She loved him.

It's enough, Lexie. That's enough.

"You always did know the right thing to say."

She fell asleep to the gravelly sound of his laughter, knowing it was the last time she'd hear it this clearly.