Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The night a social worker took the baby he already considered his, Derek Shepherd didn’t go directly to the hotel room he’d checked into for her benefit. He couldn’t. Just like he hadn’t been able to go home the night he’d spent squatting in the bones of a house, not knowing she’d come home. He could barely stand to see the car seat in his rearview mirror. Calling the concierge to get the hotel’s pack’n’play taken out while he wasn’t around might be a coward’s move, but he might have to do it. The rest of Zola’s stuff was strewn on every surface of a suite that should’ve comfortably held more than an average-sized man and a seven-month-old who wasn’t yet crawling.

Driving the familiar route through Queen Anne was an instinct, but it didn’t feel like going home. It felt like the nights he’d driven by the house, then Meredith’s house, because he couldn’t bring himself to go back to the trailer alone, or to Addison trying to pretend that things were fine. Nights that made him realize how not-fine they’d been since…when? Before his niece, Allegra’s, high school graduation? Before Carly ran away, and Addison had been the only one who didn’t all react like it was Amy all over again, not just a kid whose mom didn’t like her boyfriend? Before Addison decided to apply for the fetal medicine fellowship in ’04?

He had no idea.

With Meredith, there were big pivotal moments. It was more like life with Amy than with Addison. Maybe he should’ve let himself think about that. He’d told himself that having to do CPR on both of them, and the timing of their similar childhood traumas didn’t make them the same. They didn’t. But there were other things that did.

Meredith could be as secretive as Amy. As destructive. As volatile.

She exploded at you, did she? He tightened his grip on the steering wheel at the facsimile of his mother’s voice. He hadn’t married his mother, he’d married his sister.

Mom liked Meredith more than she’d liked Addison.

Mom liked troublemakers. But she’d taught them to respect the rules. That they were made for a reason.

She’d sabotaged their trial. Why she’d done it didn’t matter. He’d wanted to help Adele, too! He’d wanted to help everyone; that was why the study was blind! Then, she’d lied to the social worker! If she’d just been honest and let him tell Janet…what?

Something closer to the goddamn truth was what. They weren’t separated. He just needed time. It had nothing to do with the baby.

The baby. Every thought of her sent a bullet fragment into his heart.

He parked in front of the house next door. He used to be able to see Meredith and her roommates in the living room from here, and then keep driving. He’d felt like a stalker; told himself he just wanted to make sure she was safe at home. What he would’ve done if he’d pulled ip one of those nights to see her going inside with a stranger, he didn’t know.

He wasn’t intending to get out when he killed the motor, but he opened the door before it stopped humming. Standing by the car, he remembered being in the same place on a late summer night, watching a wisp of a woman dancing alone in front of the house. He never could’ve imagined what was to come.

She’d had a disciplinary hearing the next day, hadn’t she? He should’ve—No. She’d owned up to having her glove snap, and possibly nicking a patents heart. Her own honesty had gotten her in trouble. Where had that gone? How could that woman become the one who could sleep next to him for weeks—could marry him—with that kind of secret? It wasn’t even the first time she’d done it. When Richard—

“What are you doing here?”

He hadn’t noticed the door opening, but Alex Karev was standing on the stoop. Part of Derek wanted to storm up the steps and strangle the guy. To go back in time and let Meredith do whatever she’d been going to do with those tiny, ineffective fists. But Karev had brought Zola to them, and he’d always be grateful for that. It was a milder version of what he felt about Meredith.

He hated this. He hated what had happened. But seeing her walk down the hall that evening with her eyes blank in a way he hadn’t seen them since he’d pulled her out of the water had been more than a fragment hitting him in the heart. It’d been an entire bullet.

He’d wanted to go to her. More than wanted. Something primal had pulled him toward her, as strong as the force that had made Addison repellant to him the night he’d thrown her out of the brownstone. It’d been all he could do to resist it from one second to the next.

But he had, for the same reason he was standing on the grass being stared down by Karev.

“I live here.” And, last he’d known, Karev didn’t.

“Yeah? Sounded like you being AWOL for the past week played a big part in the shit that went down today.”

“That was Meredith’s—“

“Mer panicked. It’s not the craziest thing she’s done to protect someone she cares about this month.”

“Zola wasn’t in danger.”

“Dude, you’ve never been anywhere near the system, have you?”

Derek took an involuntary step backward.

He wasn’t an idiot. He knew where Janet had taken Zola—Well, he didn’t, that was the problem, he didn’t know where his baby was—but for all he’d wanted to sneer at Meredith saying Janet would take her to a “nice family” like she was rehoming a dog, he’d fallen for it. (He did that. Fell for her.) He trusted Janet enough to believe that wherever Zola was tonight, she was safe and taken care of. For how long could he be sure of that?

“Yeah.” Karev said. “And no offense, dude, but you can’t really point fingers when it comes to taking off.”

“I told her I needed space.”

“Lexie says they had to take her keys that night. Kept talking herself in and out of going to look for you. She didn’t want you missing her first night. There was a whole spiel about how you might not be answering your phone, but you’d kill her for not sending out flares. If she went after you, you’d be mad about her taking the baby out in a storm. She’d take that, because you deserved to be there, not alone in the airstream. Our lord and Gunther Avery hid her keys, promised to give them back in the morning. That’s what it took to get her to calm down enough to lie down with the baby when she slept.”

“She doesn’t like thunder.” It’d stormed on the second of the three nights he’d had Zola. He’d closed the blackout curtains, and then thought it might be better for her to see the noises were connected to something, even if she didn’t understand.

“You’re just like your mama,” he’d told Zola, who’d stopped crying to stare at the sky lighting up. “She hates thunder, but during a storm, she’ll sit outside to watch the sky.” She had put her head on his shoulder and let out a tiny sigh. Holding her in front of the window and seeing their reflections, he kept expecting Meredith to materialize at his side.

It was a moment he’d remember for the rest of his life, but Meredith’s absence warped it. He hadn’t considered that she’d be having that feeling, too.

She fucked up a trial with the FDA, risking both of their careers. She deserved to suffer a consequence.

Losing time with Zola shouldn’t have been part of that. She was Meredith Grey. She took time to bond.

Again, he pictured her in the hall that evening. That wasn’t a woman having attachment issues.

Dammit, Meredith. Every awful thing he thought was something he’d heard her say about herself, and he’d grown accustomed to automatically presenting counterexamples. Why did she have to be such a damned contradiction?

“Look, I get that you’re pissed off at her, but I know both of you, and I doubt you’re planning to throw in the towel. If you can go in there and be the guy she listens to when she’s like this, you should. But if you’re gonna start in about the trial—”

“That’s why—”

“Go. You need to go.”

“What, you suddenly have Meredith’s best interests at heart?”

“Yeah, I do. I didn’t go about the whole whistle-blowing thing in the right way. I did it for selfish reasons. If it’d been the other way around, she’d have protected me. This is how I can do that for her. It’s not about work. This is about losing her kid, and maybe you, I dunno.”

“Did she say—?”

“She didn’t say anything. She hasn’t said a word since we left that room. Lexie broke out the tequila, thinking maybe it’d loosen her up. She took the shot, but she’s still just sitting there, like we’re taking our intern exams again. There are two people who can snap her out of moods like this: you and Yang. The one move Mer’s made was to smack the phone out of my hand when I started to text her,. I’d say you’d be the best choice anyway, since this is your family. But you saying the wrong thing won’t just piss her off. It will break her.”

Derek scoffed. “Meredith’s—”

“The strongest fucking woman you’ve ever met? Exactly.

“Everything in her life almost got blown to pieces today. She lost job, doesn’t know where she stands with you, and spent four hours bonding with her kid only to have her taken away. Pretend she’s someone you give a shit about, and—”

“That I give—?” Derek stepped forward, barely holding his balled fists at his side. “She’s my wife.”

“Tell her that. Step up, and be here for her, or back off. Otherwise, you’re the kind of man who’ll kick a woman who’s lying on the ground.”

He felt like a magnet with Meredith as his pole. If the shell she was forming wasn’t gently cracked soon, it would calcify, making the inevitable break stronger. But any time he looked at her, his mind went back to what she’d done. How long she’d lied.

That didn’t have anything to do with Zola—

“I don't know how to raise a child with someone who doesn't understand that there's a ... a right and a wrong in the world.”

—He took another step backward.

For a moment Derek thought he saw disappointment flash on Karev’s face. Then, his lip curled into a sneer.

He got it. He should be able to put the anger aside; to be her knight in shining whatever. But he remembered more than he wanted to about the night Richard had sent her out to the trailer. He’d been unable to stop himself from spewing vitriol at her, and.then his anger had been generalized. She’d saved him from truly destroying things by leaving him there. She’d protected them from destruction.

God. No wonder she hadn’t known how to let him save her.

He might’ve been right. There might be no fixing Meredith Grey.

That he could think that proved Karev’s point.

“You don't care about the damage you do to her along the way.”

He’d never before wished that Ellis Grey had been right. This would be so goddamn easy if he didn’t care. But he did.

He cared enough to walk away.

Chapter Text

Meredith woke up in an empty bed. Rather than coming in flashes, the events of the previous day engulfed her. Zola taken from her arms, being fired, “What did you expect,” Janet walking away with her baby. Zola laughing at her playing peekaboo in the basement. “Red flags.” Zola taken from her arms. “Maybe you want to be a mom too.” Derek’s eyes boring into her, “You will let him.” Janet walking away with a baby that wasn’t hers.

She couldn’t breathe.

What did I do? What did I do? “What did I do? What did I do? What did I do?"

Where is the baby? I want my baby.

“Mer! Mer! Meredith, stop!”

Alex grabbed the fist she’d been slamming against the headboard, and she was back in the hall, Alex leading her from the exam room, Derek standing there, glowering.

“Mer. Mer, listen. You need to breathe. You don’t have to look at me, just inhale when I squeeze your hand, and exhale when I let go. You can do that. It’s an easy rhythm.”

“…pretend that I'm someone you like. Whatever you need….”

Derek should’ve been there. Even if he was mad, if he hated her. If she said things. He promised, he promised, he fucking promised.

“I’m gonna tell you something, but I need you to keep breathing. Can you tell me something you can hear?”

“Uh…um…the…the shower.”

“Good. Two things you can touch.”

“The…the blanket.” Zola’s blanket was on the bed. She hadn’t been able to move it. “Pajamas.”

She didn’t remember changing. She remembered Janet taking Zola. Derek staring. Derek being gone. The sharp burn of tequila. Her head hurt, the pulsing pain at her temples that Derek could always detect, but it wasn’t a hangover headache. Alex took her out of the room. He…drove her home? Yeah. She remembered staring at streetlights from his truck. She remembered Lexie handing her a bottle. Finding nothing in it.

Nothing.

There was nothing.

“I…I don’t….” She couldn’t make herself say what the fuck is wrong with me? She was too afraid of his answer.

“Yeah, last night you kind of…you went intern exam spacey.”

Dissociated, Wyatt’s voice said, in the amused way she got whenever Meredith dodged psych words.

“Oh. I’m here.”

“Okay. Give me three things you can see.”

“The dresser. Z-Zola’s crib. Your ugly mug.”

Alex smiled. Crap, she really must’ve been gone. She wished she knew how to go voluntarily. It would be better than pain in her chest that had nothing to do with her stupid choppy breathing.

“Tell me…whatever.”

He clasped her hand in both of his. “Shepherd came by last night.”

“Derek?” She shot fully upright, looking around like he could somehow be hiding in this cramped room. “Did…Did something…?” She’d done the space cadet thing a few other times in her life, and she wasn’t always totally frozen. She had no recall of the twelve hours after telling her mother she’d gotten into med school, and she’d boarded a plane to Paris in that time.

“He didn’t come in. I didn’t let him.”

“What? Why the hell not?” She tried to yank her hand away, but he held fast.

“Because when I asked him if he could keep his shit together for you he didn’t say yes, absolutely. The last thing you needed last night was him yelling at you.”

“He w-wou—He w-wouldn’t want…. She wasn’t— We hadn’t met her! I never thought—”

“Hey, hey, I know. Shepherd knows, even if he’s blocking it out.”

“He…He said…He said—”

“A lot of bullshit that hit your soft parts, and made you lash out right back? Even I know that’s what he does.”

Meredith bit her lip. What he’d said wasn’t that far off from calling her a lemon. Accusing her of running while he was out in the woods.

She had written a lot of books.

One night, between that and Izzie’s surgery, she’d confronted him about those words, and made him face the fact that if he’d said them to her a year earlier, it would’ve broken her—and that was what he’d expected to happen. That was what made her hold herself together yesterday, leaving the hospital. It’d taken everything she had to keep from collapsing. More than she had, if her mind had checked out.

“You can be mad at me for it, but I don’t think it would’ve made things better.”

He hadn’t let her hot-head husband come in and berate her for something that was already tearing her apart, and he thought she’d be mad? Her laughter was breathy, and she could feel the line that would turn it to crying if crossed.

“What’s funny?”

“That. Literally nothing in my life, except that.

“I…I’m not totally over it all, Alex. I don’t know what…what I’d rather have happened, because that kind of secret…I know it’s corrosive, I just.…” She swallowed. Going down that path made her chest start tightening again. “You think I’d be mad at you for protecting me?”

“Uh, that’s absolutely what I’d expect from you.”

“Maybe fair, but…I couldn’t have fought for myself. I’ll deny it if you repeat that, but… Derek…he’d have wanted to, but he can’t…. Compartmentalism isn’t his thing….” She pressed her forehead against her knee. “God, what did I do? What do I do?”

He moved one of his hands to her back. “You get up and go to work. Shepherd will come around. He’s thinks the sun shines out of your ass, and he won’t want to be fumbling around in the dark for long.”

“He told me once…. After…well…after the…thing with George. He told me to…to apologize. To make him listen. I tell him I’m sorry. Just tell him again and again and again until he listens.

“I think…I think it’s what he wanted from McSteamy, you know? Maybe he wanted it from me, for screwing George…trying to screw George. Trying to let George screw me…. Whatever. But I…I’m not sorry.”

“Yeah, don’t tell him that.”

She glared at him and jerked a hand through her tangled hair. “Ya think?”

“Hey, you’re the one asking me for advice.”

“Desperate whatevers,” she muttered, looking over at the crib.

“They freaked out because you were fired. That’s solved, and because he wasn’t sleeping here, which hasn’t even been a thing for a week—”

She was here less than a week. How can I feel like this about a baby who wasn’t here for a week? Yes, she’d spent a month with her at the hospital, but it hadn’t felt the same. With her home, it had been impossible not to imagine her being there in the future. Especially the immediate future.

“We were gonna go to the park tomorrow.”

“You didn’t hear half of what I just said, did you?”

She sat up and shoo her head sheepishly. “Summarize?”

“Pick a day. Not tomorrow, maybe Sunday or Monday, and tell him that’s when he needs to be living here, so you don’t have to lie to them next time. You’re respecting his whole needing space thing, and showing your focus is on the kid.”

“Huh. That’s not bad.”

“A broken clock is right twice a day.”

She smacked the back of his head, not quite lightly. “You’re not a broken clock, Alex.”

As she slid for the end of the bed, he grabbed her wrist. “You’re a great mom, Mer, and you deserve to become a great surgeon. I didn’t mean… I put together this huge thing; almost ruined my life over it, and it didn’t give me any more of a chance at being chief resident. They all saw me as the screw-up. I wanted credit, and I…I screwed it up.”

A rock formed in Meredith’s stomach. What did you expect? She was a second away from snapping and yanking her hand back. Alex looked totally defeated. She’d been there—and she hadn’t thrown anyone under the bus because of it!—If she took out on him what Derek was taking out on her, would it do anything other than hurt him, and make her feel powerful?

She wished she didn’t care. Her mother—

She’d be exactly like her mother.

“I know you didn’t.” She stood up. “I’m going to take a shower. You—whoa!” Alex caught her arm as she flailed, keeping her upright. “Did you…sleep on my floor?” she asked, staring at the balled-up blanket she’d tripped over.

“Uh, yeah. You were pretty restless, so I figured…. You have some rough dreams, Mer.”

“Yeah,” Those she remembered. All about losing someone or being lost. One where she was drowning, and Derek stood on the dock, glaring down at her. “You coded yesterday. You should’ve slept on the bed.”

“I didn’t want to freak you out when you woke up.”

“YI managed that all by myself.” She picked up a pair of jeans that were clean enough to wear for an hour. “I’m glad you’re not dead. If I’d been in there—”

“You’d have stabbed me on purpose.”

“Possibly,” she acknowledged. “But I sure as hell wouldn’t have done it accidentally.”

“Oh, your bossy ass would totally have been the Gunther. Bailey and Torres….”

“Didn’t think I’d be finishing my fifth year,” she said for him. Crap, now she really had to prove she deserved to be in this freaking program. Again.

“I didn’t want you to get fired, Mer.”

“Only for my bossy ass to not be chief resident? You did a cut-throat thing, Alex.“ Her list of accomplishments was going to look as shit as it ever did, compared to a sleaze-bag who drank through the past two years. No trial. Not in charge of anything. No kid to show for being distracted by personal matters, possibly no husband. Just a collection of near-death experiences and strays. She sighed. “Just…. Sleep in your room tonight, okay?”

“I’m on call. But I get your point,” he added, when she whirled on him. “Are you…?” He trailed off. He knew she wouldn’t say that if she didn’t mean it.

She hadn’t forgiven him, yet, but she knew she would. She wasn’t sure she could hold a grudge. That was how she’d ended up in so many toxic friendships, and probably would’ve had even shittier relationships if she’d been less afraid of commitment. Someone could treat her like a doormat, and sure, she’d let them have it, but she’d only manage to shut them out completely if she took off. Dropped them cold turkey. That wasn’t something she could do with Alex. It would hurt too much..

Derek knew how things affected ner. He knew that once she let herself get attached, that was it. He had to know she’d just been scared yesterday.

He did. But it wasn’t enough to get him to see past the trial.

The fucking trial. Fucking Alzheimer’s.

She got in the shower wanting to scream. Instead, she banged her fist against the wall.

She’d wanted to do something to repair the wounds her mother had made. In the process, she’d given herself new ones. Some of them right on top of the old. Being nothing more than Ellis Grey’s daughter for so long, and then trying to reject it whole cloth, had put her on this bizarre, zig-zag version of her mother’s path. One lined with funhouse mirrors. She’d looked into one yesterday. She’d tried to take off with her daughter, and she’d ended up in the hands of social workers.

What made her sink to the porcelain floor, feeling like she might faint, or puke, or both, was the voice in the back of her head saying, Maybe she’s better off.

She couldn’t make it stop sounding like Derek.

Chapter Text

Meredith jumped as Lexie bounded into the study, and flipped over her phone like looking at pictures of Zola was a misdemeanor of some kind. I’m stupid. He’s smarting….

“I’m in here,” she said, when her sister went to the bookshelves without acknowledging her.

“Derek in your room?”

“Not yet.”

She wasn’t risking it. Two nights ago, he’d yelled at her for using a highlighter on the bed. She’d pointed to the wall tumor, and then been afraif he was going to put his fist through it.

Having him storm out had almost been a relief, even if she’d stopped breathing when midnight passed with him AWOL, again. She’d gone to the porch, where the stuffy summer humidity hadn’t helped at all. When he’d pulled in, she’d almost fled upstairs, just like she would have when her mom’s key scrapped the lock.

Instead, she’d sat there while he looked at her, his lip twisted in a way the shadows of the porch light made ominous.

Even if he didn’t blow up tonight, he’d sulk, and she’d had enough of that, too. She’d been working with Hunt today, and he’d called Bailey in to assist. She’d said little, but the looks and sounds in reaction to every move Meredith made had led to her snapping, “I think the patient might appreciate you paying more attention to your work than mine!” Hunt had said nothing, and she’d wanted to strangle him for it.

”Oh,” Lexie responded. “Um. I’m looking for…. Didn’t your mom have a video of a mitral valve repair?”

“Left-hand case, third shelf down, fifth tape over. Grab the tricuspid valve replacement, too. Her attending has to step in. It’s hilarious.”

“Where—?”

“Right, fourth down, uh…second over.”

“Thanks.” Lexie stacked the two VHS tapes and came over to the desk. “Prepping for your next…um….”

“My next solo surgery is going to be a compound fracture with Callie. This week, depending on what comes in.”

“Right….” Lexie tapped her fingers against the cassette cases in a disparate rhythm that made Meredith want to snatch them from her. “Dartmouth has a multidisciplinary course in neuroscience combining elements of neuroanatomy and neurophysiology.”

“Where the crap did you read that? I don’t even—”

“I was looking at med schools a year after you.”

Meredith snorted. “You say that like I had a compare and contrast list. I had legacy status, was an undergrad alum, and had a recommendation from a  Dartmouth Medical faculty member. I didn’t apply anywhere else.”

“But you’d majored in neuroscience.”

Klaxons started going off in Meredith’s head again. “Lexie, do you have a point? Because while my guess is you read more than my blood type in my file, I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t go throwing that information around.”

“Does he not know?”

“There’s nothing to know! Continuing on to neuro from this program—”

“—was your plan. Wasn’t it? The whole time. Before you’d even met him.”

“My plan was to prove I could get through my internship. I had it on good authority that I wouldn’t make it that far, let alone to the point of declaring a specialty. My best-case scenario was becoming a surgeon.” She put the leg she’d had pulled up on the edge of the chair down, planting her feet to keep her body grounded. Acting crazy around Alex was one thing. Lexie didn’t need to see that.

“I just don’t think it’s fair.”

Meredith laughed. “‘Fair’ left for cigarettes and never came back a long time ago. You of all people should see that. Is…Is it having an even amount of kids in your family that makes you think it even exists? Derek has four sisters, but Amelia’s so much younger….”

“Derek kicked you off—”

“It was my idea! I almost got fired from the program. Do you know what that means when you’re a fifth year? It means internal medicine. It means working at a clinic—not slumming it when they really need doctors. It means suburbs. It means having to go over it again and again. It means never doing research, maybe one day training some kid I’ve known since their mom was asking if licking rocks was developmentally appropriate, for one sixth-month period of their two-year residency.

“I’m not gonna be a neurosurgeon. I....” She swallowed. She hadn’t said those exact words aloud before. “I’m going to be a surgeon. I’m going to keep my marriage together. I’m…I’m going to be Zola’s mom. How I do that isn’t….  You’re allowed to have an opinion. You’re my sister. But you can’t decide that it’s Derek’s fault because you don’t like it.”

“You did the right thing!’

“Not in the eyes of the FDA. And…what I did isn’t the point. Not for him. It’s that we forgot…. What kept Derek and I from being wildly inappropriate, even to me, was that when I met him, he wasn’t Dr. Shepherd, neurosurgeon. I wasn’t Meredith Grey, intern. We were a girl and a guy at a bar.

“He’s…He’s been my teacher, but we never…. The times he tried to position himself as my superior, he was trying to prove a point.” Usually to Richard. Huh. Ironic. Or something. “I didn’t really see him as my boss…my boss’s boss…my superior…. So, what didn’t occur to me was that the things I do…did…they weren’t just gonna reflect on me.

“I didn’t expect to be fired, but I did think that any repercussions would fall on me. That I was putting Derek’s career in danger didn’t occur to me. Maybe I don’t think ahead enough. but mostly, I didn’t see him as my boss. But he was, and if I went into neuro, chances are he always would be. He’s always going to have over a decade in practice on me. With the hours…it’ll be better for us to be in separate specialties. It’s a compromise.”

“A compromise is getting Mexican when one of you wants sushi and the other wants Indian—”

“Sure, when the other person is your roommate! He’s my husband, Lexie. One-hundred percent legally. We’re adopting a baby together. Whatever…Whatever plans I might’ve had, I hadn’t made anything official. There’s a reason for that.” Lexie rolled her eyes.”I’m serious! No one would ever have believed I made that decision independently. That didn’t bother Cristina while she fucked cardio gods, but it’s one reason I kept my mouth shut.”

“What else?”

“Isn’t it obvious? Imagine if Teddy kicked Cristina off her service. For real this time, before she had all the procedures she needs to qualify for a cardio fellowship. What would everyone think?”

“It…wouldn’t be good.”

“I’m Meredith Grey the walking catastrophe…. Meredith Grey, four days late and twenty dollars short. The self-saboteur who’d write an essay early and hand it in late so no one knew I cared. The girl who finally got her fucking shit together, but had to pretend she overslept on the day of her first clerkship, because she couldn’t explain why she’d had to drive to Boston at two a.m. It’s a goddamned miracle I got through my residency interviews.

“I gave up so much for my mom. Not just the kid stuff I go on about: the Halloween costumes and Fourth of July picnics. Honestly…I made my own kid stuff, even if I was a freaky one. I mean the dreams. What’d you want to be when you were seven?”

She couldn’t have asked this of everyone and proved her point. Even Alex had wanted to be a doctor by the age of six, though his reason was sad as much as it was everyone tells the smart kid they should. But her appendectomy had come up after the liver transplant, and Lexie had told her about the night Molly got one, and how it’d inspired her. Meredith had been surprised. She always assumed there’d been some connection to her mother.

“I saw pictures of a lady in a white coat,” Lexie had told her. “I knew she was Dad’s ex, but nothing more than that. Not enough to get that Dad’s negative reaction to the idea wasn’t about me.”

(Meredith hadn’t mentioned what Molly said, about how proud their dad was of Lexie. It’d made her think of the time in the assisted living facility in Somerville, where she’d spent Meredith’s last months of med school. Her mother thought she was a neighbor they’d had when Meredith was in junior high. She’d “caught her up on Meredith” circa 2001. Times when she’d been that far gone had been rapidly becoming less rare, but Meredith hadn’t been able to imagine becoming accustomed to them. “She’s taking time off. I’d hogtie her and drag her back up to Hanover if I thought she’d stay. But I’m the one who wanted to give her stability. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that she’s not as hungry for it as I was. She claims she needs time in the world. Maybe it takesl exposure to humanity to decide that the reasonable choice is to devote your life to fixing people. I just look forward to the day when her problems are solidly in my wheelhouse. Maybe then she’ll talk to me about them.”

After that visit, Meredith had taken a cab to their storage unit, stopping at a package store on the way. There were several kitschy vases and a lamp that hadn’t made the trip to Seattle, and that was because she’d already demolished several boxes full of crockery over the years.)

“At six? A cowgirl,” Lexie admitted.

Meredith smiled. She could picture it, and the image was adorable. “I didn’t get to have dreams like that. There weren’t options. If Thatcher ever said, ‘or she could be a teacher!’ it didn’t register as true. No other adult ever discouraged me. No one said that’s a great thing to be, but you’re doing so well in my class, you could be a lawyer, or a museum curator, or a journalist.

“I was planning on med school,” she added off Lexie’s expression. “I had extracurriculars, same as anyone. ‘Playing with an all-girl band’ makes for a decent essay, if you slant it the right way. It doesn’t secure your admission. Neither does Rainbow Coalition, when it came to getting into  Dartmouth Med. It’s on there, in the middle of my Organizations and Interests, but there were other things.”

“I…of course there were. Did you…do student government?”

“Hell, no,” Meredith said. Lexie’s cheeks went red. “I’m not a change it from the inside type. Or, I wasn’t. Still not, I guess, since the inside doesn’t like my changes.

“No, the protests stayed off my C.V., too. Uh, in high school, it was candy-striping, weekend tutoring at the library. No one from Boston Prep would’ve hired me. They didn’t get ‘impress the bourgeois Meredith.’ Which is funny, when you realize I was mimicking them.

“I submitted some truly derivative poetry to the literary magazine, reviewed a couple of albums for the paper, and kissed a girl who got them in. Suffered through piano lessons from nine to ninth grade. Two years of drama club, which led to the Debate Debacle…. Structured arguements and I aren’t compatible.  Model U.N. Sweden, then Italy,” she added, when Lexie’s eyes lit up. “Uh, Latin Club, NHS, Future Doctors of America. Nothing special, just, I had to get into college.

“There, I didn’t have to care as much about what things looked like. Med schools liked ‘unique’ activities—even Mom had to admit that. I got a slot on campus radio, freshman year. Just played tracks, never used my voice, until, some guy tried to explain my own damn choices to me. God, I hadn’t thought of this stuff in…. Thanks to him, I became Grey Death on the Graveyard Shift. It’s heinous, right?”

“It’s cute,” Lexie said. “I mean…earnest.”

“Same jackass called into the station to complain about the one a.m. Tuesday-Thursday slot going downhill ‘since it went to that chick.’ I played a month of only female artists to spite him.

“My one physical thing was Cycling Club, until sophomore year. Break-up. Patty actually did races; she needed the club more…. Crap, that’s where I started, right? Sacrifice.”

“Yeah, but you can get back to it. I mean, if you want to keep going….”

“Oh. Um, I guess it’s stuff you’d know if…things were different. I didn’t really…. I think I expected to. Find this deep, overpowering passion. Didn’t get that you don’t have to have it for everything you did, so I kept dropping stuff. Tried Model U.N. freshmen year, because it’s what I knew, and I really dropped the ball. Don’t even remember…oh, yeah. The Netherlands. Used it as a line more than I worked on it. I was that freshman. Obviously, Pre-Med Society—oh, excuse me, the Nathan Smith Premedical Society. Why use fewer words when you can be pedantic and pretentious? Didn’t feel much passion there, either. Some good lectures, but mostly: here’s the overwhelming list of things to do to get into med school that you already have your mom riding you about….

“I did like…. Dartmouth has this weird student discussion group. AGORA? It’s very ‘spoiled eighteen-year-olds think they can solve the Middle East,’ but for a girl who had a fundamental belief that her opinion doesn’t matter? I kinda loved it. Same for Women in Leadership. Got to meet some powerful women, top of their fields, who didn’t expect their kids to become Xeroxed copies of them. That uh, didn’t help my relationship with my mother. Her feminism was so freaking selfish.” She clenched her fists, as irrate at thirty-two as she’d been at twenty-two.

“She only cared—Oh! There was C.A.R.E.—Coalition Against Absuive Relationships Everywhere—I will go to my grave contending that the name was reverse engineered. I mocked the hell out of it—But the stuff I picked up working the helpline is probably why I never ended up with someone who gave me the apologies Mom never did, but treated me worse than she ever had.”

It was true, such as it was, and a good line. No one could really understand the double standard she’d been raised with: She was better than everyone, but never good enough.

“The one thing…. We had Amnesty International on campus, and I…. Something like that…. The closest I got to dreaming. Advocacy, travel…. Actually making the world better….”

“You’re doing that.”

“One patient at a time.”

“More than that. And you’re a role model.”

Meredith snorted. “Haven’t I fallen off the pedestal, Lexie?”

“It’s true!”

“Whatever.” She wasn’t blushing. She just didn’t know how to deal with heroine worship. Was it an older sister thing? Derek would…. Derek would tell Lexie how much of a zeroine I am. “Before that dive into old drafts of my C.V., I was saying, except for, like, brief fantasies of falling for an Italian man and being fed pasta by his doting noni for the rest of my days, I didn’t have a concept of what another life could be. I didn’t make connections that could’ve provided opportunities. I didn’t…. I was afraid of commitment, yeah, but if I hadn’t gone into every relationship…every friendship, knowing that I was going to have a job that required four more years of school, followed by…by five to…to seven more years of training, one major move, at minimum.… Life could’ve been better.

“And there’s more than that. There was being afraid that if I ignored Mom crying, I might find her dead. That she’d decide driving was better than waiting for a cab during a storm and end up on someone’s table.

“I went to Dartmouth, because she insisted on an Ivy, and being a double legacy held weight. If she’d helped me pay to travel, I might have started med school sooner, but she didn’t believe I’d come back. I would’ve. I would’ve come back knowing that what I wanted, the only thing I wanted, was to be a surgeon. For the first time in my life, I was gonna give something my all.

“When I think of the confidence I gained just from a few blind grades and encouraging professors…. Then, Mom got sicker, and yet again I was the only person who could call 911.”

“You could’ve—“

The rush of fury came on so fast it made Meredith’s head spin. “Don’t you dare! You think I didn’t consider everything? I had no choices! Anyone she might’ve trusted had written us off before I needed a bra. She’d given up opportunities to stay in Boston. She should’ve had another twenty years to use her name, and maybe to be shunned for it, because she deserved that, too. What I got was…well, you’ve seen my file. What’d I get, Lexie?”

“A forty-four on the MCAT.”

Meredith could only feel the smirk her lips twisted into. She had no idea what her eyes were doing other than not burning, which was fantastic. “I didn’t tell Mom I registered. She’d harassed me for years, but if she’d known, I’d have been so anxious about telling her my score, I’d have failed.”

“Jackson’s family—“

“Do you think she threw me a party when she did find out? That she celebrated my high score on the exam she’d been prepping me for for my entire life?”

“She…yeah, why…why wouldn’t she?”

“Why wouldn’t she? Why wouldn’t she?” Laughing was unhinged, maybe cruel, and she couldn’t stop. “I bet Thatcher was impressed by your thirty-eight. It’s one point below what Mom got. My forty-four was a waste of money, as was the deposit I’d already put down at Dartmouth, because I was just going to besmirch her name by failing out.

“I didn’t get to be happy about something I genuinely kicked ass on. Long before that, any time I’d overslept, or forgot something, or got an A-, it’d been proof I couldn’t make it to, or through, my internship. But if I didn’t try, I was no daughter of hers—so who was I? It wasn’t like I had any other people who cared. How many letters of rec did I have, Lexie?”

Lexie moved her hand from her mouth and turned it around to flash four fingers at her.

“I’d stopped skipping, learned how to study, for real. But you had a taste of what it’s like to parent a parent. They don’t give up the power, so everything’s a fight. The PCAs quit, the alarm didn’t go off, the alarm did go off, the cops—“

“Why not tell your profs? She wasn’t omniscient!”

“That’s easy to say when you didn’t know her.  And some of my professors did. When I tried to tell her…to hint at how stressful…. She said no circumstances are extenuating for a surgeon. Why wouldn’t I assume they’d agree? And there were some who’d have thought she deserved it, without questioning if I did.

“I was prepared for it all to be the same here. I’d be Meredith who appeared at the sound of the starter gun, but wouldn’t hand over the baton. It looked like it, what with screwing the boss…but he never doubted I’d make it. He had to be reminded that I was an intern. That wasn’t always a good thing, but it was…. It was a revelatory thing.”

“So, now you’re making the sacrifices for him?”

“I’m making a choice. I get to. I know what my options are. I know what the alternative looks like! I want the baby who’s caught up in all of this—“

The front door opened. Meredith’s muscles locked, and the volume was turned up on her breathing, so that each inhalation echoed in her head.

April came in and thumped up the stairs without glancing to the side.

“Mer?” Lexie’s cautious tone made Meredith dig her nails into her palms to keep herself from picking up a paperweight and throwing it so that it just missed her sister. “Do you want to dance it out?”

“Seriously?” The additional peal of laughter that came out of Meredith’s mouth tasted vile, but she couldn’t stop it. “Having my husband walk out, and the baby that’s supposed to be mine taken from me isn’t something I can just dance out!”

“Derek kissing a nurse was.”

“That was what’s known as denial. I think you’ve heard of it.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Lexie, come on.”

“Hey!” The sharp interruption from a male voice made Meredith startle, even if there was no way for it to be anyone other than Jackson. She caught Lexie’s eye and raised her eyebrows at the man in the threshold. Her sister’s eyes narrowed.

“Oh, yay, the Gunther is here to solve everyone’s problems.”

“Grey, are you—?”

“Believe it or not, I haven’t been drinking my miseries away.” Not for the first time in this conversation, her eyes cut to the dry bar in the corner. She couldn’t deny that the pull was strong, but alcohol was numbing. A painkiller. This pain, which had throbbed with every beat of her heart for nearly a week, made her think of Zola every time she felt it.

At some point, her father had let whatever pain he’d felt go, and stopped thinking Meredith. He’d stopped searching for a mess of blonde hair in the grocery store. Skipped past PBS without thinking of how much she loved Grover. He’d given her up. For most of her life, Meredith had been terrified of becoming her mother. In this situation, that wasn’t the danger.

A word problem: Losing Zola after knowing her for a month was crushing Meredith. Thatcher was demonstrably bad at dealing with grief. He’d known Meredith for sixty-two months at the point where she was taken. If there was no evidence that he’d experienced a a tenth of the grief he’d displayed after Susan died, how much could he have loved her?

She knew love was subjective. She couldn’t stop the thoughts.

“I don’t need you to stand up for me, Jackson,” Lexie said.

“She doesn’t get to use her problems with Shepherd as a reason to be a bitch to you!”

“She kind of does.” Meredith and Jackson both gave Lexie a baffled look, and she straightened her shoulder. “God, only children. You can’t fight against his level of pissed with equally pissed, and she’s supposedly the one who screwed up—”

“Sup—?” Meredith started to repeat, but Lexie didn’t let her.

“—she’s upset over the baby, he can’t put his ego aside to be there for her, and that’s maddening. All that’s gotta go somewhere. She can’t take it out on him. I’m here being the annoying little sister, pointing out the holes in the plan she’s agreed to because it’s the easiest way to get things back to normal. Of course she’s gonna bitch at me. I can take it.

“I’m not going to let you pretend you didn’t do something incredible for a patient, Mer—”

The door opened again. Be Alex, be Alex, be Alex.

“Avery. Lexie.”

“Evening, Dr. Shepherd.”

“Hi.” Lexie looked pointedly at Meredith. Presumably from Derek to Meredith, but she couldn’t say that for sure. She was staring at the shelf of VHS tapes.

On September 27^th, 1981, her mother was scrubbed in on a coronary artery bypass graft where the chest cavity caught fire. Meredith had first watched it on an interminably long, rainy Saturday eleven years later, and cracked up when the attending said, “Gives a new meaning to heartburn, doesn’t it?” She’d repeated it for weeks. When she’d shown it to Derek a couple of yeas ago, she’d told him that, and added, “I looked the guy up, intern year. He sued, settled. He and his wife sailed around the world for another twenty years before she died. There was an article in the Times.”

He’e said, “If I ever needed someone to understand exactly who you are, I’d tell them that.”

She would rather have been lying on a table having been accidentally given a paralytic and not a sedative (February, 5^th, 1982, an amputation. Anesthesiologist noticed before the bone saw was turned on. PGY-4 Grey says, “Well, hundreds of soldiers made it through awake amputations through the civil war, and they were twenty-year-old boys. A sixty-year-old woman has been through worse.” While reading her journal, Cristina had gasped and shown Meredith a note. 4.17.83 Dr. Ortega informed me Trish Dawson ATK amp. 2.5.82 came to the E.R. DOA yesterday. Non-accidental severing of both radial arteries. Shane.)

Her imagination combined them. Put her seeing the flames leap up into her visual field, not quite knowing where they were coming from. There would be pain, but if you were already feeling the pain of having your chest slit open, and then cracked, you wouldn’t notice that. Really, that would be what convinced her she’d simply fallen through the metaphorical ether (propofol, etomidate, and ketamine) into a nightmare.

If she slept tonight, would she dream of seeing flames catch over Derek’s chest? She’d heard his sternum being cracked and the Finochietto retractor being used to spread his ribs from the scrub room. Knowing how annoyed she’d been whenever he was too cautious with her post-CPR broken ribs as an intern, it’d taken her too long to be able to hug him back, after. She regretted that.

She kept staring ahead while more bland words were exchanged around her. Derek never addressed her. With Jackson and Lexie looking at him, she could convince herself that she’d disappeared; taking on the coloring of the chair and blending in. That had always been her superpower. In college, she’d been working in common spaces and had couples come in and start going at it on the nearest couch more times than she wanted to count.

Blending in was how she found things out. It always had been.

Derek had always insisted on seeing her. She didn’t need him to. She’d make herself seen, if she wanted to be. She just…didn’t want Derek’s eyes to fall on her. His words were daggers, but the darts from his glares would be her death from a million bullseyes.

His footsteps were heavy on the stairs. Had he had a rough day, or was the hard part coming home?

“This can’t be new for you,” Jackson said. “Ellis Grey’s day didn’t affect the mood of the whole house?”

He had his back against the doorjamb. For a very short period, her mom’s liturgy about lurking had made Meredith imagine that a doorway was going to be her portal; where she’d be sent to Narnia, or a midnight garden, or back to a time when her knowledge of antiseptics and sutures would make her a heroine. She almost smiled at the idea of Jackson being transported somewhere through one of the first doorways she’d lingered in, cementing his position as the golden boy. He’d been that at four years old.

“They did.”

“So, it’ll blow over. He’ll have some wins—You seriously impressed the scrub nurses with your clip, by the way. You’ll do that in other ORs. The system will clear you. You’re well-educated, well-off white people looking to take in a black baby; they love that shit.”

“Jackson,” Meredith said, heavy exhaustion settling on her shoulders. “Feeling like I’m walking on cracking ice from the time I wake up? Arguing back so I remember that I can speak, even if the person I’m talking to is going to twist my words into something they’re not?  That wasn’t a bad day with Ellis Grey. It was a day. Any day.

“Your mom, what were fights with her like? Did she make sarcastic asides about anything you did wrong for the next week? Or did you blow up at each other, and then the next time you both came out of your rooms, pretend it never happened?”

“That’s pretty accurate. The last one.”

“With mine, there were no guarantees. Sometimes, it was like she’d go to work, forget all about me, and come home reset. Once, I made us late by spilling orange juice on my uniform, and she didn’t speak to me for a week. Another time, same thing with coffee, but that night she decided we were gonna drive up to Two Lighthouses and eat dinner at The Lobster Shack—”

“—love that place!” Jackson and Lexie said, or basically those words, over each other. A discomfort close to the someone walked over my grave feeling hit Meredith. She’d encountered Jackson as a kid, and it still disturbed her to think about their lives overlapping at any other point.

The gawky teenager desperately trying to seem adult while cracking lobster at a picnic table, had held onto that evening. The Atlantic breeze might’ve made Mom comment on the length of her hair, but with its gorgeous sunset, and companionable drive home on I-95, she had considered that to be one of the best of her life.

It looked pathetic from the outside, but if she let herself settle into the memory of padding out of her room in her pajamas, and going over to Mom’s desk to say good night, she could feel how carefully she’d said, “I had a really nice time tonight,” and how thrilled she’d been when Mom responded, “You know what? So did I,” and tugged her ponytail. She could smell her mother’s mix of lotion and hospital sterility as she’d kissed her cheek and gone off to bed, amazed that the night hadn’t turned sour.

“Derek’s mood is more consistent than I’m used to,” she continued, not acknowledging them. “Not just because of my mother. I attract volatility. What it’s not is what I’m used to from him. Yeah, he can be moody, but… Look, when the person who taught you to expect better is the one who can’t look at you, or touch you….” She pressed her lips together. That was further than she wanted to go. “It sucks in a whole new way, all right? Especially when I’ve done literally everything I can bring myself to do to make it better.

“The past week has been a lot like my childhood, you’re right. Complete with the threat of an unexpected visit from a social worker. I let myself think that life with Derek would never look like this.”

Lexie snickered, and Meredith’s fists clenched. “Sorry, sorry.  Life with….There’s this show…. Um, social worker?”

Not entirely sure if her irritation at Lexie should’ve spiked or not, Meredith looked up at Jackson. Maybe that was a her-thing that she’d only coincidentally shared with Sadie. He nodded, once. “How old were you, the first time you were home alone at night, babe?”

“Oh. Um….”

“Not a trick question.”

“Twelve.”

“Eight,” he returned. “Early July, the summer I got chicken-pox and couldn’t go to camp. Patient going septic at four in the morning. She was back by breakfast.”

Meredith heard the echo of her mother’s grumbling as a phone call sent her out the door. “Her professor taught her a trick she can’t remember? Here’s a mnemonic for you: I am surrounded by incompetents. Interns are such bloody imbeciles.”

The other two looked at her expectantly.

“Seven. The sitter was on her way, but the snow….” As though she needed to defend her mother, twenty-five years later. “Eight, planned. Overnight.”

“Usually, she took me in with her,” Jackson allowed. “ Gen X might be the latchkey kid generation, but my mom was a Black single mother. I wasn’t the most responsible kid, and they ask more questions once the streetlights come on.”

It could’ve been bad for him. If someone decided not to listen, it would’ve been harder for his mother to reclaim him, no matter what degrees she had. But he talked like it would’ve been an inconvenience, or at worse an embarrassment. He’d never taken the threat seriously enough to be afraid of being manhandled into a car, with no idea where he’d end up.

Where had Zola ended up?

“He’ll come around, Grey. No surgeon likes being undermined, but you’re more important than his pride.”

Was she?

“Anyway, I came down ‘cause Karev’s at Joe’s and wants us to meet him.”

“Sounds great!” Lexie exclaimed. “Mer?”

God, it was tempting. She’d love to get out of this house, and hang out with her friends for a few hours, but it wouldn’t let her the feeling of mild suffocation. The embers of her anger at Alex were still hot; alcohol would fuel that fire. Even if she could really check out for a few hours, she’d have to come home and get in bed with Derek. Whether or not he said anything, there’d be looks. There’d be her own guilt when the pain came back. If Zola was scared or lonely, she had no way of making that stop.

“Nah, I have stuff to do,” she lied. Jackson crossed his arms, a doubtful eyebrow rising. “We’re off the clock, Gunth. Can I call you Gunth? It’s not the worst nickname you’ve ever had.”

The second his eyes widened was the sweetest she’d experienced in over a week. “You can suit yourself. Lex?”

“Be there in a second.”

“No problem. Later, Grey.”

“Bye…Avery.” She watched Jackson tense as she paused, and gave him a falsely sweet smile when he turned around.

Gunther, he might be, she’d once heard him say, “My name is Jackson Avery, I’m seven and five-sixths, and I’m my mama’s hot date!”

At just over ten, Meredith had wondered if I’m Mom’s plus-one didn’t sound as grown-up as she’d thought.

She didn’t have enough on him to be a credible threat, but It was their fifth year, and almost everything was still in her back pocket. Catherine had been an effusive bragger. The terms of endearment alone would trigger his blush reflex, and she remembered a couple of “precious” anecdotes that might be able to get her surgeries. Unlike her, he’d had schoolmates whose parents attended the same events. Just in passing, the wannabe cool guy running interference between them and his mother had given her some gems. Meanwhile, what he knew about her wouldn’t surprise anyone.

Once he’d gone out the door, Meredith stood up to at least make it look like she had an idea of how she was going to spend the rest of the evening. Being mid-summer, it wasn’t fully dark. She started to the bookshelf, thinking maybe she’d take a book out onto the porch.

“What’s up?” she shot in her sister’s direction. “I really don’t expect you to be my punching bag.”

“I could take you, shorty.”

“One day, I’ll be mad enough or drunk enough to take that as a challenge.”

“It’s something we would’ve done as kids.”

“I’m not putting it on the list. Been a while since we struck anything off of that.”

“I could stay. We could watch one of the movies. Your choice.”

“Cruel Intentions?”

“You were twenty-one when that came out! It doesn’t count.”

“I would have absolutely dragged my sixteen-year-old sister to the nearest theater. The whole world should see Selma Blair pop that cherry.”

“You’re disturbed.”

“That’s the consensus.” Before she could focus on any of the book spines, Lexie grabbed her arm.

“What?” she asked, letting Lexie turn her. Without saying anything, Lexie embraced her.

Lexie had changed her dressings and helped her shower while she recovered from donating her liver; they’d had just-stay-in-here sleepovers when Derek was on call. She didn’t identify her touch as foreign anymore. They hadn’t hugged much, but she returned the embrace without having to think,

After the other morning, Alex had been tentative with his reassuring pats and punches, and Cristina, too, was acting like she was brittle. She hadn’t been sure that she wasn’t one affectionate gesture away from crumpling.

She melted a little, but she didn’t break.

“Seemed like you needed that,” Lexie said when she let go. “It’s another thing sisters are for.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

A sudden noise from upstairs made them both step backward. Derek had turned the volume up on the baseball game. That was another thing he’d given her: the ability to know which sport was being played with a few seconds of commentary.

Lexie’s expression held more than realization.

“What?”

“Nothing. It’s just…. He and Mark have their Yankees-Mariners game on Friday. You basically have to come out with us then.”

“I know when the game is. I bought the tickets.” She thought of Derek coming in, drunk on cheap beer. Would he be more relaxed, or would she be a lemon? “Why do you?”

“Uh. Mark brought it up. Which is why…why I know that’s the Mariners at Yankee stadium.” She pointed up to the ceiling.

“So?”

“So…they played there June twenty-ninth, thirtieth and July first.”

“Oh.”

“You sure you don’t want to go out with us?”

“No. Um. I had her on…on the thirtieth. I think…maybe there was something said about them having watched a ball game at Sofia’s.” She started to reach for her phone, but it was still on the desk. “Do you know…?”

“The Mariners won twice. On the first, the Yankees took them four to two. It was an afternoon game—”

“He sets the DVR weeks ahead. Okay. Good. I’m not even gonna mock you for knowing all that.”

“Jackson played in high school!”

“Good for him. Go, before he thinks I did decide to show you my right hook.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I probably wouldn’t have. When we were kids. I didn’t punch down.”

Lexie squeezed her shoulder, and then she was gone, leaving the two VHSes she’d grabbed on an end table. Meredith started perusing the novels she’d shoved onto the shelves by the handful when she decided to stay here. Her childhood escapes to imaginary worlds, adult stories of love that had felt just as fantastical. The thrillers that had been all that could hold her attention through med school, with their promise that there were lives worse than hers.

She recognized them all by color and the shape of their well-worn spines; the lines like tree rings conveying how many times she’d escaped between those pages. That must be why she felt like she’d been shocked when her fingers went a book from her favorite childhood series, the Tessa books, to The Stranger Beside Me. Escape wasn’t something she got to have. She started to turn away, and then noticed the horizontal placed haphazardly on the nearest shelf.

Caring for Your Baby and Young Child

Baby 411

The Montessori Baby

Adoption Parenting

She’d started going through them after they’d been allowed to do a condensed, two-on-one version of the required parenting class over a few evenings in a hospital conference room. The last night, Derek had gone the long way home, stopping at the bookstore without her having to ask.

The memory felt like taking a right hook to the face.

Resolved, she scooped the books under her arm and headed for the desk. On the way, she stopped for her phone, and gasped when she flipped it over to see Zola grinning at her.

Enough pain could cause a vasovagal response in the human body, causing a drop in blood pressure that made people pass out. It came with sudden, excruciating pain. The nervous system overreacting to a threat. When your nervous system wasn’t startled by the stimuli, you were SOL. Left to fight, or to freeze.

Meredith didn’t want to do either. She wanted to feel. She put the books down, stacked her phone on top, and went over to the dry bar. With practiced movements, she poured a double shot of tequila steadily in spite of her shaking hands. The burn settled in her chest. Her heart.

Having your chest cut open and your ribs cracked wouldn’t mask the pain of the fire, she decided. It gave you something new to focus on, and that made everything that came before seem to hurt a little less in comparison.

Chapter Text

Yang was on his service, and Derek was suspicious. Her shrugging assertion that she needed neuro hours didn’t assuage anything.

Sure enough, once he’d overseen her removing the skull flap and moved in to evacuate the hemorrhage, she spoke up. “I see your side of this.”

Okay, he hadn’t anticipated that.

“She’d have told you eventually, if that helps.” He raised his eyes to her, dubiously. “She did the last time.”

He wasn’t sure what she was referring to. The miscarriage? Maybe, but—

“Before you were Interim Chief,” she prompted.

Ah. Right. That wasn’t really the same, was it? She’d been covering for Richard, and this time he’d covered for her—except she’d done it for Richard’s wife.

“She didn’t.” That was what mattered. Meredith was the one with trust issues. How she’d considered keeping a secret like that to be okay….

A lot of people in her life kept big secrets. Many that she thinks she’d have been better off not knowing.”

Yang’s tone was even, but it was likely that everyone in the room knew his contribution to that. One of his graver sins was not telling Meredith he was married. He’d had infinite excuses. That she’d think he was stringing her along. That there hadn’t been a good time. Really, he hadn’t wanted to acknowledge what had happened. Hadn’t wanted to sully what he and Meredith had with the realities of divorce, adultery, sanctity. Then, she’d told him her secret—she’d lived so long as a girl with secrets—and he’d planned to come clean.

Richard had ruined that. Addison had.

But he hadn’t answered the phone.

“She tampered with the trial,” he repeated. That was what mattered. It didn’t seem fair that Adele wasn’t meant to get the treatment, but if following the rules was what it took to process to the next step toward helping millions of people, what right did she have to break them?

“And she can’t undo that. She didn’t expect it to affect…anything else.”

“So, she lied again?”

“What was she supposed to tell the woman? That you left the house to go sulk in the woods?”

He gritted his teeth. He wanted to tell her to shut up. The operating room was supposed to be the one place where he could escape this mess, and she was bringing Meredith into his O.R. without actually having her there.

But for all that Cristina had been a part of his relationship with Meredith, she rarely inserted herself into it.

“She’s been avoiding the nursery since they started calling her Dr. Tann—”

“What does that even mean?”

“Georgia Tann. She wasn’t actually…just Google it. That’s not the important part.  She’s not eating. Not enough. She was while Zola was here, so it’s not about you.”

“But it’s my problem?”

In spite of Cristina’s moderate attempts at discretion, he had no illusions about what the nursing staff knew about everything that went on in this hospital. It’d been clear since the looks he got after the train crash. He’d been able to tell who thought he was doing the right thing, and who Meredith had unknowingly endeared herself to. So, when he glanced past Cristina and caught BokHee’s disapproving expression….

He thought through the days he’d been home. Meredith had never been someone who cooked, but she could fend for herself, even if it was eating cereal crosslegged on the bed. He’d only seen her pouring coffee in the morning, but she’d been the last one downstairs. It hadn’t been unusual to assume she’d eat something at the hospital. He’d come in late most nights, and found her holed up in the study. It was her fifth year; he assumed she’d eaten before settling in to reconfigure her research requirement. At lunch, he’d only seen her from across the cafeteria, but Cristina would know.

He sighed. “I’ll see what I can do.”

When Meredith saw him in the kitchen that night, she stood in the doorway staring like a spooked deer. He hated causing that reaction, but he might as well get used to it; in twenty years, that could be the only one he got.

She hadn’t been thinking of that. She hadn’t been thinking a second ahead of the moment she was in.

“What are you doing?”

“Making dinner.”

“Yeah. Uh. Why?”

“Because I’m tired of takeout. And I’m not the only one in this house who needs to eat.” He looked up, and maybe he really hadn’t been seeing her. He hadn’t noticed how sharp her cheekbones had gotten. Even gaping at him, the contour of her face was becoming concave. The hair in her ponytail wasn’t just messy waves, it was unbrushed, like she’d taken it down after surgery, and that was it.  If they’d been in the hospital, he might’ve thought they’d been thrown four years back in time.

Well. A little less than that.

He started to say something else, then grabbed a stack of plates off of the sideboard, and handed them to her. Once she’d started laying them out, he managed it. “Starving yourself won’t bring her home.”

Plates clattered onto the table, and he scowled. Here we go. He waited, preparing the food on autopilot, and waiting for the explosion. It didn’t come. From the corner of his eye, he watched her arrange the silverware. When she came over to get napkins, he braced again for argument.

“You’re making lasagna?” She said it softly, like she didn’t quite believe it.

“I am.”

She watched him for a moment, her hands counting out napkins. “Thank you.”

By the time he turned, she’d disappeared. She didn’t return until Lexie and Kepner came in, closely followed by Karev. He left with his plate almost immediately citing a paper, but a look between him and Meredith made Derek wonder.

It wasn’t his business. Karev had done what needed to be done. Maybe it would’ve been better for him to come to Derek first. What would he have done? He thought about it through dinner, while Lexie and Kepner tried to carry a conversation.

He’d have tried to protect her. He resented that knowledge enough that it was all he could do to glare down at his plate, and not up at her.

It was done.

It would’ve been done. He would’ve driven himself crazy wondering which patient hadn’t gotten the drug that had been given to Adele. His hand clenched around his fork as he thought back to that debacle with William Dunn. Meredith encouraging him to injure his open brain to benefit one kid, rather than face justice. Making him the executioner—or that was how he’d seen it.

She’d been destroyed when he picked her up at the prison that night, and he’d never tried to understand. He’d been on the side of the family members who came to watch their personal boogeyman die. Meredith hadn’t had to consider them until she sat in that room.

Was their vengeance worth more than that kid? Would knowing the guys who’d shot his dad were dead rather than imprisoned have changed things for him? For Amelia? He didn’t know. That was why it wasn’t his decision to make.

Wasn’t she the one who told him he wasn’t God?

How did she make him question everything without a word?

It was an incredibly awkward meal, but before she’d swept it off the table and started corralling Kepner toward the kitchen to help him and Lexie clean—“I don’t care how many schedules you have to color-code, you’re not in charge here!”—he saw that Meredith’s plate was mostly clear.

That was something.

Once he left the kitchen, he didn’t know what to do with himself. He went out on the porch, discovering that the intense heat of the day had broken. Amar had called that morning with a question about the kitchen tiles. He’d said he’d leave the samples out, and Derek had planned to go by on the weekend.

As he started down the front steps, he noticed the light in the study clicking on. He could go back in and go up to their room, but it was early, relatively.

Once he was in the car, he took out his blackberry.

He started the car, paused, and thought of her expression the other night on the porch. It hadn’t been raining, and she wasn’t lying in wait to snap. She hadn’t asked where he’d gone, but when they got upstairs, he saw she’d been to bed and gotten up. What had baffled him initially; that she’d been sitting there clutching the landline, had clicked.

There were multiple ways to not come home.

DEREK SHEPHERD: be back by 11.

It didn’t take long to pick the tile, but he lingered on one of the lawn chairs in front of the trailer, staring at the side of the house.

Amar hadn’t started on the deck. He’d never built anything that…elaborate, but he’d done woodwork in high school before deciding he wanted to be a surgeon, and should maybe be careful with his hands. He’d done enough projects with his brothers-in-law over the years. He could build a deck.

He had a flash of next summer; a grill on the finished deck, Zola running around the yard. And Meredith. Meredith would be done with her boards, and none of this would matter anymore.

After a couple of circular arguments with himself about going for one of the six-packs in the trailer fridge, he busied his hands with his phone instead.

“The Woman Who Stole 5,000 Babies.”

Baby Thief: The Untold Story of Georgia Tann, the Baby Seller Who Corrupted Adoption.

“Babies for sale: the Tennessee Children's Home adoption scandal.”

“Together Again: After 44 Tortured Years, a Mother Finds Her Stolen Child,”

He didn’t have to open many of the links to get the joke. Did the idiots who’d made it understand how sick it was? This woman had coerced parents into signing away their rights and told children that their families died. All to facilitate adoptions of poorer children by richer families; regardless of the suitability on either side.

Jesus, why was Meredith taking that? It wasn’t like her not to speak up for herself. To get into locker room fights, and show up straight from Joe’s to curse someone out. He knew; he was the one pulling her off, while Yang prepared to be her second.

Maybe that was it. She wasn’t taking the risk without him to reel her in at the last second.

She was in bed when he got back to the townhouse. The light was off, but she was awake, her eyes shining in the darkness. “You came back,” she said as he got in.

“Said I would, didn’t I? You’re a girl with abandonment issues.”

A wisp of her smile flickered across her face. Even with as much as she looked like her PGY-1 self, she wasn’t a girl anymore. She was a woman,  a wife  A mother,.

With abandonment issues. That he’d brought right back to the forefront. As much as he wanted to keep lashing out at her, to make her miserable and conflicted for as long as he was, if he was gong to be a man, a husband, a father,, he had to take responsibility this time.

He’d be there. He’d make sure she kept eating. He’d show up, and until he could be sure he wasn’t going to say something blistering that made things impossibly worse—“Should you be worried that I met a woman? No. Should you be worried that, for me, flirting with that woman was the highlight of my week? Yeah, you should be worried or something.”—he’d build a deck.

It wasn’t brain surgery. How hard could it be?

“No… don’t take…Mommy…no breath…bloody lemon, okay? Mom? No no no no, Derek!”

Derek rolled the earplug he’d taken out been his thumb and forefinger. He could easily pretend he hadn’t heard anything in the morning. Chances were it wouldn’t be necessary. He’d have to ask how she slept, and call her on the lie she’d give as easily as breathing. If he could just figure out what the dream was about…. If it was Zola, she’d be getting a taste of what he’d been through on Thursday. But a few weeks ago, they’d passed a Saturday at the hospital, and only Zola had taken the shadow of pain out of her eyes. No anniversary of her mother’s “pseudocide” was the same as another, but they did uniformly revive the dreams where she woke expecting her hands to be sticky with blood. And, earlier in the month, his follow-up with his cardiologist had taken her back to moments that were blurry to him, or that he’d been unconscious through. If that day had gone differently, he’d never have woken up, and Meredith would’ve never been free from one of her worst nightmares.

Other words he made out while she thrashed suggested the water, the execution, the explosion. His explosion. The words he’d said, meaning them to burrow into her psyche, and regretted before her headlights disappearred.

He wasn’t sure he’d get there this time, but she wasn’t muttering about right and wrong.

“Mom…. Mommy!”

“Daddy, I need Daddy!” Amelia would scream, trying to shove Derek away. He’d tell himself she wasn’t fully awake. He’d taken to sleeping on her floor, so he got to her faster than Mom or Pop ever could. Then, those black eyes would open and narrow. “Go away, Derry. I want my daddy!”

Once, just once, he’d snapped, “You think I don’t?” Decades later, he worried that had hurt her, but in the moment, she’d wrapped her arms around him, a little kid who hadn’t known she wasn’t the only one. (They’d taken advantage of that.)

The first times he’d encountered her bad dreams, Meredith had pushed him away, too, but when she was fully awake, her green eyes would shine with disbelief before darting bashfully away. “Sorry I woke you.”

“I’m not. I’d rather be awake than forcing you to be scared and alone.”

“There’s no reason to be afraid of dreams.”

Sure, Ellis. “There is when you’re in them,” he’d insisted. “And if you don’t wake up fully you might go back to it. It’s good to have someone help with that.”

“Not like I’ve never had anyone here before.”

“Not often enough to expect it,” he’d countered, wrapping his arms around her. In that moment he’d decided to change that.

One night wouldn’t cause enough damage to erase three and a half years of consistency. That was the thought that made him roll toward her, the Hail Mary repeating in his mind. A different mother’s accusations playing on a second track.

“Meredith,” he started. He winced at his own voice, the sharpness clear when it was the only stimulus in the dark room. He closed his eyes. This wasn’t the time to care about something work-related, not if he’d meant it that he could separate the two.

He wasn’t sure.

He had to try.

“Mer, you’re okay. It’s a dream.  You’re safe at home, ba—Mer. Open your eyes.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “Meredith….”

“Derek?” Only the shine of her sclera made it clear the question was wakeful. She looked so vulnerable in that moment before she thought to hide it.

“Yeah.”

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to wake you.”

Seeing her eyes fully open made him realize how closed off they’d been during the day. He wanted to kiss her, to reassure her, and put a stop in the door.

He couldn’t.

“It’s okay.”

A sweaty piece of hair was stuck to her cheek. He’d just decided to fix it for her when she rolled onto her side, pulling her legs up. He wasn’t sure how he knew her eyes had fallen on the empty crib, or if he didn’t until he heard her reply, “No, It’s not. Nothing is.”

He started to mirror her, but ended up on his back. It felt wrong to not have one arm around her, anchoring her, especially hearing the tiny gasps that meant she was fighting tears.

She’d gotten them here. She had to face the consequences. The real ones.

He had that thought dozens of times over the days marked by calls to Janet. He’d taken those on; Meredith couldn’t be trusted to use her adult voice with her. (There’d been daggers in her eyes when he’d said that, but the truth was the truth.) Often, their only exchange at the hospital was her asking about the call. As though he wouldn’t tell her good news immediately.

“I want her home, obviously,” he told Mark over a table at Joe’s. “But it’s gonna feel like she got away with something.”

“How? She’s as miserable as you. She’ll have missed out on just as long with your kid.”

She wouldn’t be blacklisted by the FDA, and she’d freed herself from the charge Ellis put on her to cure Alzheimer’s. The possibility of her having Alzheimer’s would and only with loss, and she’d ensured there was nothing he could do about it.

“She woke me up. Made me inspired,” he told his mother.

“Derek Shepherd, don’t tell me you can’t find a way to be innovative without involving the FDA.”

“I—“

“Your wife is going to have breakthroughs of her own. If she were to go into neuro, would you have expected her to share those all with you?”

“I-I’d hoped we’d work together, but no, of course not.”

“Hmm. Well, you were creative long before Meredith entered your life, and I’m sure she’ll be there to give you that push when you need it.” He covered his mouth as though she could see his scowl, but his mother could read her kids’ silences as well as their words. “Remember, you’ve thrived out there because your career hasn’t been in the driver’s seat.”

She wasn’t wrong, but work, specifically in the O.R., was the only place where he wasn’t trapped in a cycle of thoughts that ended in the same place. Having a different resident at his elbow every day was a reminder, but he could pretend that Meredith simply needed hours on another service. That was part of the truth.

Avoiding her was the best option for both of them. He could see the flashes in her eyes every time he snapped at her, and he wasn’t saying half of what he thought. When she snapped back, he could conveniently forget that her anger was often a scrim for pain. Most of the time, he didn’t want to hurt her. That didn’t mean he could stop.

They were still surgeons at the same hospital, and he’d learned that his eyes would always search for her in every hallway.

One morning, he was finishing off rounds, and he stopped at the nurses’ station to sign off on charts. The only reason he found himself glancing at the figure hanging back from a pack of interns getting assignments from Lexie. He didn’t look up, but he couldn’t focus on the familiar forms, either.

“…Logan, you’re with…uh, Altman. Morgan, you were late; you’re doing scut—”

“Dr. Grey, I can explain—”

“I need someone to be on the code team today. Who hasn’t had a chance?”

“Me!”

“You were in the O.R. when Schacter’s patient coded last week!”

“See one, do one.”

“Dr. Grey? I was with Dr. Torres yesterday, and the surgery got pushed, so shouldn’t I—?”

“He’s been on ortho all week—”

“Enough! Give me those charts. Okay. You, code team. You, Pit. You and you with Torres; hope your backs are strong. You’re with Dr. Grey on cardio. Go on and report to Altman. Dr. Grey, talk to Peterson; she looks like she’s about to pass out.”

There was momentary silence. Derek glanced up. Lexie was giving Meredith the look of sibling-worship he knew well, but the interns were shifting awkwardly.

“Um, are we supposed to take orders from you? Dr, Bailey was pretty clear—”

“That was when she was fired, dumbass.”

“Wait, what?”

Whispers followed, and if they reached him, they reached her. “Trial tamperer….” “Stole a baby….” “Grey, Tann, what’s the difference, right?” “…stepped down…” “….close the program….”

“She’s not only employed here, she’s a fifth-year resident, making her the boss of all of us, so go!” Lexie ordered, clearly bolstered by her sister’s take-charge attitude. Five pairs of sneakers squeaked against the linoleum, He looked up again to see Lexie pointing the wane-looking intern to the locker room. Then, his eyes met Meredith’s. Magnets.

He expected her gaze to be accusatory. Is this what you wanted? It wasn’t. She looked to him searchingly, and when she didn’t find what she wanted, she didn’t look mad. By the time she walked away, all anyone would see on her face was fatigue. But there was a second, just one, where the only correct descriptor for her expression would be “crushed.”

The last time she’d been at the heart of hospital gossip, he’d wanted nothing more than to go to her, but that would’ve only made it worse. This time, going to her would’ve made it better, and he couldn’t bring himself to move.

It didn’t surprise him that he wasn’t woken up that night. How bad could a dream be, when their lives felt this nightmarish?

Chapter Text

Dr. John Harvey Kellogg and Ella Ervilla Eaton (Huge marketing opportunity miss there, Kelloggs) were married for forty-one years, and they never had sex. Kellogg believed that sex was not only a sin, but the cause of any number of illnesses. His belief was that the key to repressing sexual desire lay in eating plain foods, such as cereal and nuts. Both granola and Corn Flakes were inventions owed to his obsession with curbing horniness.

Meredith wasn’t the Grey who could perfectly recall everything she’d learned in school. She wasn’t entirely sure when she’d picked up those facts—someone else’s nutrition textbook, maybe? That wasn’t a course she’d bothered with— but she remembered them because one of the few things that proved her mother had lived through the sixties and early seventies had been her thing for granola. Where or when it she’d come across the information mattered less than her memory of deciding that her mother was proof that Kellogg hadn’t been totally insane.

It’d been long before she knew the true story of what made her mother into the surgical Mrs. Havisham, but the truth didn’t change much. As far as Meredith knew, she’d locked down in 1983. That couldn’t be natural.

Those were the kind of thoughts she tried to distract herself with, when there was nothing else to do except stare at a cereal box.

It was a Thursday morning, the second since Derek had come home. Mornings were the most awkward. The two of them not discussing cases rang through the house, and while the others would attempt small talk, it fizzled out.

She longed to tell him to stop pretending that being present meant not being absent, and go in early. Personally, she would’ve been happy to sit in the car for twenty minutes. Pride forced her to sit across from an empty high chair, and have him glower at any and every thing she said. She hadn’t found a limit for the number of times she could be shut down and continue on in twenty-five years of life with Ellis Grey, but Derek Shepherd might get her there.

She hated it.

Derek had given her mornings. Her nocturnal tendencies had always made the time between waking up and having to be out the door hazy and miserable. With him around, that period wasn’t all running around searching for lost keys and frantically spilling coffee. Derek was full nights of sleep and waking with time for morning sex. Breakfast made and coffee fixed while she showered. While he was still sort of doing that, it wasn’t the same. Unlike with dinner, he didn’t try to pretend that he was cooking for whomever wanted it. He’d jerk open cabinets, and slam bowls down in front of her.

This morning she snatched hers off the table before he could dump rabbit food into it. She was long past pretending to enjoy muesli. “I can pour my own cereal.”

“That’s not cereal,” he said, scowling at the box she was pouring from. “It’s cardboard injected with high-fructose corn syrup “

“And marshmallows.”

“That look like my little sister’s chewed up pencil erasers.”

“You can order bags with just the marshmallows online,” April chirped.

“Hey, there we go. Maybe the diabetes would off me before the Alzheimer’s.”

“That’s not funny.“

“It kinda is.” Alex came into the kitchen, in an undershirt and work pants. He poured black coffee into a mug before adding, “Since she weighs about a hundred pounds.”

Meredith felt heat rushing to her face. The flash in Derek’s eye said he was thinking something like and that’s when she eats. It wasn’t like she’d been starving herself. She just hadn’t been hungry, and the effort of making food, or even scrounging through cabinets had felt like too much. She’d gotten used to the slight dizziness, the out-of-body, in the moment feeling. It reminded her of med school, and more than a few times in her childhood when meals had been late, or cash hadn’t been left on the counter. She’d known that even her basic needs came last, and Mom would say it was good practice. You didn’t get to pause a fourteen-hour surgery because you were hungry.

And maybe there was a tiny amount of self-flagellation involved. Having Derek throw that in her face had been humiliating, but he’d been right. Visible craziness would be detrimental to their case. More visible craziness.

“No one asked for your input,” she snapped at Alex.

Derek smirked. “Karev was just being honest.”

Lexie slammed her spoon into her own bowl of erasers and cardboard. “Oh my God, would you two please start having sex again?”

The room went completely silent. Lexie’s cheeks went bright red, but she kept her chin up.

Meredith stood up and took her mostly-full bowl to the sink. “I’m not the one eating cereal that would make John Harvey Kellogg cream himself.”

Lexie got it immediately, snickering into her spoon. Jackson waved his in the air for a second and then said, “Isn’t that…? Yeah, okay, I see what you’re going for.”

April scrunched her face up. “I don’t get it.”

Lexie and Meredith’s eyes met. Their laughter drowned out Jackson’s attempt to explain.

“Anyone going in with me has five minutes,” Meredith announced, jingling her keys. Then, she nabbed the first thing she touched out of the fruit bowl just to prove to the man watching her like an actual hawk—seriously, he had a certain beakiness that got more pronounced when he glowered—that she hadn’t dumped her cereal to avoid eating.

She was in the car by the time she realized she’d grabbed a banana. She let her forehead hit the top of the steering wheel.

I want him

He’s all gone.

It might’ve been nothing more than an embarrassing outburst from her sister, if it hadn’t rained that night. She was upstairs prepping for a solo gallbladder removal the next day, and the door opening made her jump, flip over her notes, realize they were work-related, and flip them back. “Forget something?”

“No. It’s raining.”

“Which means you can’t do whatever you’re doing at the house?” She was dying to know what that was, but asking wouldn’t be seen as “showing interest” it would be “nagging,” maybe even giving him “the third degree.”

“Yeah.”

“Got it.” She started stacking up her papers.

“What are you doing?”

“Getting out of your way.”

“Did I say you were in it?”

“You’ve made it very clear that you don’t want me around.”

“That’s not….” He ran his hands over his face and sat on the bed. “I want to get past this.”

“You being gone every night isn’t helping.”

The shadows on his face got deeper, and she bit the tip of her tongue to keep herself from apologizing. It was true. That didn’t keep her from jerking her head up so hard it hurt at hearing him sigh and say, “Yeah. That’s probably true.”

She rubbed the sharp pain at the back of her neck. “Ending up at each’s other throats all the time isn’t gonna help either. We can’t talk about work, Zola…isn’t here, and you can’t look at me without thinking about how I screwed you over—”

“That’s not true!”

“Sure, that’s why you take off to go picture my face on the beer cans you’re batting around the property—”

“You’ve been shutting yourself up in the study for longer than that!”

“Because I didn’t wanna be up here having you look at me like I’m someone you don’t know!” Her voice cracked slightly. She imagined he’d hear it as shrill, but she wasn’t gonna stick around to let herself fall further than that. She chose flight, but Derek caught her hand as she passed. Her momentum made her turn to him, and she couldn’t make herself jerk away.

“Meredith…I know you. I do. I’m…. I hate that I think about it so much. I—“ He cut himself off, and tugged her closer, boxing her in with his other arm and kissing her with bruising intensity.

She pushed a hand against his shoulder. “Would it…Would it be different, if they hadn’t taken her?” She caught the flash of pain that matched the one that she felt constantly, the one she wasn’t sure she deserved to escape from.

“I don’t…. No. I don’t think it would.”

That was something. If he’d said yes; if this was all about her panicking in the face of Janet’s questions, she wouldn’t be able to let herself do this,

He took her research material from her arms and set it on the bedside table. In the back of her mind, a script played out. I did it. Let me make it up to you. Some version of her would already be on her knees. No. Not some version of her. Some other woman, because that wouldn’t be her.

She ran a hand through his hair, and said, “Prove it.”

“Prove…?”

She stepped closer, noting that his dick was already starting to respond to her implications. “Prove that you know me. Prove that you can look at me for more than ten seconds at a time.” She punctuated the instruction by kissing him, her hand planted firmly against his cheek. For one terrifying, desperate heartbeat, she wasn’t sure he’d respond. Then, he did, one hand went to the small of her back, pulling her against him to maneuver them both onto the bed.

Once he’d gotten her lying below him, he sat back on his heels to take his own n shirt off—a power display, hut not a strong one.

“You’ve been thinking about this all day, haven’t you?” she taunted. “Ever since this morning, it’s been percolating.” During all those surgeries you kicked me out of.

I’m stupid, he’s smarting.

Her second of hesitation gave him the opportunity to pull her shirt over her head, and smirk at her, snaking his arms around her to unhook her bra. He peeled it off of her slowly, staring only at her tits in a way he rarely did. She braced for him to squeeze, was ready for an abrupt flick. His hand appeared at her waistband and slipped under her sweats.

“Tell me you haven’t,” he said, pressing his palm against the crotch of her panties.

She cried out, and pelvis rose to press more firmly against his hand. “Don’t wanna lie to you.”

It kind of amazed her that she could make that sound matter-of-fact enough to cause the obvious widening of his pupils. She’d berated herself all day, wirb every dirty thought that popped into her mind. It wasn’t like she hadn’t realized they hadn’t had sex, but with Derek not showing any desire to touch her, she’d known those balls were in his court.

No.  Not just that. She’d been afraid he’d reject her.

He started to withdraw the hand, and she flashed through everything that would have to happen before he attended to the heat he’d drawn to her vulva.

She raised her ass higher and reached down to take her pants off. She fumbled, not managing to hook her panties in the same move. Before she could course correct, Derek blocked her.

“In a hurry? Maybe you should switch in the cereal that would make JohnHarvey Kellogg…what was it?” He thrust his hand between them, pressing it firmly against her crotch, bis thumb almost centered on her clit. A moan escaped her before she could think to hold it back. “Cream his pants?”

He stripped her in one pul. It took a significant amount of self control to keep her hand from going to tend to the sudden increased throbbing in her clit. Instead, she grabbed his arm to pull up and went for his belt.

She cupped the bulge in his pants while she took his zipper down tooth by tooth. He let her draw his penis out of confinement, and watched his face contort as she got it moving, stroking and squeezing a little less than gently.

“Did you expect me to be repentant? To service you?”

“I know you better than that.” He dragged his knuckles over her thigh, and as she braced herself for the same light sensation passing over her clit, he pressed two knuckles soundly on either side of her glans.

She moaned helplessly, her body shuddering with pleasure. It would be so easy to lose herself in this, and she almost let it happen, until tipping her head to the side put the crib in full view. No. She didn’t get that. Not the way Derek could do it, truly taking her mind away from everything.

Where is the baby?

“Mer?” The familiarity of his tone almost broke her. It was him doing exactly that, pulling her back to the moment like it was all that mattered. It wasn’t. It couldn’t be.

She placed her knees on either side of his legs. “I know you, Derek Shepherd. You’re still mad at me. You hate me, even if you love me. Let yourself.”

“That what you want?”

What she wanted didn’t matter, but saying that to him, here, now, might be a step too far. “Isn’t that what I do?” she asked, putting her lips to his ear, and then nipping at the lobe. “I do what I want, and I get away with it.” Zola. I didn’t get away with….“I broke the rules, and you had to send your trial off to Phoenix. I encourage you to be innovative, and then I get you blue—I mean, blackballed by—Eek!”

Okay, the squeak kind of broke the spell she’d been trying to cast, but it had already taken hold. Her head hit the pillow with a fwhup  His hands slid from her back to her ankles, squeezing her ass midway down. He propped her feet on his shoulders. That position had been common in the trying-to-conceive days, and she didn’t have great associations.

That was okay, the stronger part of her claimed. It was good for her to think of all the hurdles they’d slammed into, to build up momentum to surge over the last—it was never the last— next one.

Derek swept the pillow out from under her head, and propped her ass on it. Before she could steal his, he put that under her, too. Anticipation made her squirm.

“You just can’t be patient, can you? Already so wet. Always sure you’re a step ahead.“

She was, kinda was, but not because she thought she was any better— Derek leaned forward, looming over her before he kissed her, sucking slightly on her lower lip. “Leave that lip alone. Let Lexie hear her wish come true.”

She laughed, and had to fight not to close her lips on that. As a teenager, she’d been told that she should never settle for someone she couldn’t laugh with in bed.

“While you’re doing it?” she'd exclaimed. Before Derek, she’d rarely experienced laughter during sex that didn’t make someone start going red from embarrassment that often became anger.

Marty, who’d had the basement room in the house next door had been the first person whose laugh she thought of a a guffaw. “Oh, Meri Berry. Sex is a lot of things, many of them absurd, all very human. When you have a connection with someone that’s strong enough to appreciate that, no matter what else is going on, you’ll know they’re a keeper.”

She’d been incredibly dubious at the time, but the times it happened had buried the skepticism. She’d run from the keepers of the past, but not anymore.

She hadn’t run.

She lifted her hips so that her crotch made connect with his cock, sliding along it nicely. She sighed, but before she could do it again, he’d taken his cock in hand. She considered mimicking him, just to get a reaction— He clamped his other hand down with his palm centered at her clit.

“CRAP! Oooh. Derek, that’s a lot. Like I—Aaaugh—mock you for teasing, but—mmmmph—“

The whimper followed a jolt that made it a fight to stop from throwing herself out of reach. This was so close to the border of not okay, but once he found a rhythm, it became bearable, more than bearable…. Was it a message? Being with her was almost unbearable? Was he trying to push her over, breaking the rules in his own way? Was he planning to take himself over, and leave her open on the table? She deserved it,

Derek didn’t do that. He’d promised her years ago that he would never do that, a promise made to build trust, and get her past expectations she hadn’t known she had. But he’d broken a stronger promise. A vow. He’d run. Getting space was running if you didn’t answer the—

“Is this not worth your attention, Dr. Grey?”

She blinked up at him, trying to determine what would be worse: looking away, or letting him see the shimmer she could feel forming over her eyes. He’s stupid, I’m smarting. Derek never got offended by her tendency to fall into her thoughts. He made a point of bringing her back, and keeping her there.

He looked as stricken as she felt. “Meredith, I.... I didn’t—”

“I thought I was the one who didn’t think. You say the first thing that comes into your mind. You say it, and then you do damage control. Sound familiar? You are not better than me!”

“You think I don’t know that? You think I like knowing that what you did wouldn’t actually change the results? That I’m ignorant of the fact that I have done worse to you and been forgiven?”

No. No, none of that is the same. Not with Zola. “You’re hurting me.”

He jerked his hand back.  She wasn’t sure if the sound she made was relief or misery. She started to disengage herself from him, but he caught her ankles, lowering them from his shoulders, but still holding her. Rose white, rose red, rose up in my head.

“Mer, I….”

“Don’t.”

Her mother had been right. She wasn’t a force of nature. She wasn’t strong. She was an ordinary girl, who wanted to break. Who wanted to give in to tears, and apologize a million times, just like he’d taught her to.

If she hadn’t had a niggling fear that he’d react with disgust, she would’ve. She didn’t think that was Derek. It was Ellis. if she hadn’t had him giving her that look in her memory, she might’ve been certain.

“It’s okay. If you…you can’t do it.”

“Can’t….” He closed his eyes. “Can’t do what?”

“Can’t love me and be mad at me. It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not. That’s not okay. It’s not true. Meredith, you know that.”

Do I? “You have a strange way of showing it.”

“Because you weren’t provoking me?” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “That shouldn’t matter.”

“I wasn’t letting you forget,” she acknowledged. “But loving me means loving me. You can be mad at me. I de—I get it. But you…you’re not cruel, Derek.”

His jaw tensed. Again she tried to turn onto her side, and he put the back of his hand on her shoulder. He drew it lightly back and forth over her skin. “It was raining the night that Addison and I…. She called it ripping the band-aid off.”

Meredith swallowed, flinching at the burn of stomach acid. He sounded so calm, but she’d dated more than one person who could profess his love and tear her down in the same sentence.

“It’d been months. It was Thanksgiving. I couldn’t— I’d known you an hour or so before all I wanted to do was find every sensitive spot on your body. My mental map of her had been formed by twelve years worth of surveying. But I didn’t…It was easy to make her scream loudly enough to startle the birds. I wanted to. I wanted to make it work. But I wasn’t compelled to. She knew me, too, obviously. Those things…hadn’t changed. But the whole time, I had to keep reminding myself to pay attention to her. To think myself into the past, without imagining Mark….” His voice went up slightly, and she put her hand over the one on her shoulder. He blinked down at her like she was baffling, but that was almost comforting, it was so familiar.

“None of the boys were you,” she said, and then, because they were here, “Thanksgiving was Preppy Sweater.” She lowered her eyes to his chest. She’d used his jealousy sometimes, but she didn’t want to see him think that’s what she was doing. “He was the first.”

“We…? On the same…?”

“Yup. Because together we saved a man. We gave him and his son hope, and we took it all in one day. We couldn’t help each other forget….”

“And we couldn’t forget each other…. God, your certainty when you told me he looked at you. Even as an intern, you were an incredible doctor. I- I wish I could—“

“Don’t. You’re not cruel, remember?” He looked doubtful, and she searched for a redirection, like she’d done when one toy stopped holding Zola’s attention in the tunnels. “I wasn’t…. I wasn’t thinking myself anywhere—or when."

Confusion clouded his face momentarily, his hand stilling on her shoulder. In spite of the change in tone, she felt the loss between her legs, and her contempt for herself got a little bit stronger. Then, he hung his head, and contempt transitioned into something more active. She was pathetic and manipulative. He was allowed to be annoyed at her fucked-upedness right now. She should’ve just let it—

He kissed her. She pushed him off. “Don’t. I shouldn’t’ve—”

“I know you weren’t. That you weren’t doing anything purposefully. Hell, I was purposefully overwhelming you—“

“No! It felt good, just—“

“That wasn’t about you. It was me. I keep thinking of that night and wondering how the hell I can feel so differently about you— I can know that I want to let it go fully, and I can’t. Not yet.” He looked up, a momentary appeal to the deity he hadn’t been certain about the last time they discussed it. “I’m mad about something you did, Meredith. That doesn’t mean I want you to be miserable, or to berate yourself—”

“You shouldn’t—”

“You messed up. You did something wrong, and there have been consequences. Some of them you don’t deserve. I’m mad that it happened, and at myself for not being over it. I don’t want to ruin our marriage because of it, that means not being cruel to you. You were right to call me on that, okay? You’re allowed to do that. I want…. Hell, I need you to. Okay?”

“Sure.”

“Meredith—”

“Okay!” It was a pleading Meredith, not the exasperated one, but they sounded so similar, and the can’t-you-just-get-it subtext felt the same.

He sighed, his nostrils flaring, slightly. “I love that you’re always you. It’s incredibly frustrating sometimes. You know that. You use it. I just.... Let me show you. Let me try again. Sex…it doesn’t make the problems go away, but…it’s something.”

“It doesn’t mean you love someone.”

“No. It doesn’t. But I do. Love you.”

“And you’re mad at me.”

“Meredith.”

“We can’t—I can’t just pretend….” She had to wake up every morning and remember, and then, too often,a watch him remember. The change in his eyes put another chip in her somewhere—her armor, her heart. Having him pull away from her in the moments directly after he’d looked at her like she was the most perfect being on the planet—and letting herself believe it—would do more than that.

She couldn’t fall apart. Zola needed her to be as whole as she could be.

“Okay,” he said. “No pretending.” He kissed her. She let him. She may’ve waited a second before kissing him back, but she did. She gasped as he caressed her sides, and the heat rushed back into her body. He moved his lips slowly over her cheek to the spot behind her ear. She closed her eyes and scratched her nails over his back.

“You like that, hmm?” The question was a translucent excuse to hum against that patch of skin. Her noise of assent came out with a tinge of neediness, almost pleading that she couldn’t help. Derek eased her backward, and when he put one hand to caressing her thigh, she cracked her eyes open.

“D’you need…?” She trailed off, seeing that he’d fully recovered from the pause in proceedings. “Never mind.”

“What about you?” Instead of giving her a chance to answer, he put a finger directly on her clit.

So gentle compared to what she’d braced herself for, but she couldn’t have held in the sigh it triggered. She raised her legs, aiming to get them back up on his shoulders, but he grabbed them, removing his fingers from her clit seconds after having brought a second one into play.

“Derek….”

“Uh-uh. You’re gonna tell me if you don’t like something. If you’re getting overstimulated. If…If something hurts. Otherwise, you take what you’re given. Understand?”

Her mind raced in circles. Did he want her to argue? What was he planning to give her? Why did it matter? It wouldn’t take long for her to come, and if he got her off again fucking her, so what? Why did that feel like too much, when it was as close to routine as they got? She didn’t know. It did. She couldn’t.

“Meredith?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I do. Understand.”

“Good girl.” He smiled, sharper than she was used to, but more than she’d seen in weeks, and slowly brought her legs the rest of the way up.

She tried not to show her eagerness, but she could see how red his cock was. Even if he’d been angrily jacking off thinking of her being fired, that wasn’t close to being them, together.

Once her ankles were on his shoulders, he brought his hands to her hips. She waited for him to shift closer to raise her pelvis, her breath catching in her throat as he brought the head of his cock closer. When he let it drag over her clit her lungs let go of everything they were holding, and a moan that lasted as long as the spasm that followed. Lifting her hips further rubbed her against him again. The weight of his cock made up easily for the lack of active pressure, and she couldn’t stop her hips from rolling. Her heels dug into his shoulders.

Derek clearly enjoyed having her masturbate with his cock, dragging it back and forth with agonizingly long strokes. Whether it felt good, or he just liked watching her lose control, she wasn’t sure. He liked having attention paid to his head, but when she managed to focus on his eyes they were too clear, and his expression too strained.

She gave in, rocking on her tailbone and letting her moans pitch upward into whines when her ability to gain speed peaked long before she could.

She almost bit her lip before letting a “Derek,” slip out, and then pivoted. Taking what she was given had had to be her style with random guys who didn’t take instruction well, but that hadn’t been Derek. He’d started off annoyingly interested in what she wanted, and discovering what she liked. He’d encouraged her bossy streak. He didn’t always listen, but his teasing usually overcame her impatience. It made things better; he didn’t just stop this close to—

“Whoa, wha—AHHH/”

He’d shoved into her without warning, and planted the heel of his hand where his cock has been. She hadn’t been expecting that at all, and she screamed at the intensity that never let up. He met her eyes this time, and she knew that beyond their safe-word she could call yellow or red to get him to ease off. She didn’t. He kept his hand on her clit, only adding pressure as he pounded into her.

For weeks he’d been avoiding her, leaving her to catch whiffs of him in their bedroom and glances across the halls of the hospital. He hadn’t kissed her since before Alex’s blabbing reached him. To be inhaling his scent, have the heat of his mouth breathing into hers, letting his body fill her vision all at once would’ve been overwhelming on its own, and there was more, so much more.

Too much. Too good. More than before? But she hadn’t liked…. Fuck, she couldn’t take it, couldn’t stand it this time. Not with Derek’s eyes holding hers this way, where she could absolutely see his anger, but not just. Having it mixed in with his usual hunger for her was one thing, but there were also the other things; the ones that had once scared her. The ones broadly summarized as love.

“Keep your eyes open,” he instructed before kissing her.

She started to reach back to grab the headboard, but instead grabbed onto his back. She’d kept her nails almost obsessively short since she popped a glove while holding a heart, and it also kept her from biting them. It was a shame, they were always so jagged when she did that. As he kept pushing her beyond what she thought she could possibly endure, it stopped mattering; there would be red crescents all over his shoulder blades. He would wear the reminder of her into the O.R. he’d banned her from.

Between having her raised legs being angled back toward her head, and his weight on her upper body kept her from being able to move enough to release any of the tension taking over her body. She was so close to cracking open.

“Let go,” Derek growled into her ear.

“I can’t…I ca-ah—-!”

“I’ve got you,” he murmured, wrapping his arm more tightly around her. That was pure Derek, for a moment just long enough for her to topple into oblivion. “Oh, good girl. So, so good. I have you, baby. Ride it out for me. God, you’re so gorgeous.” She heard Derek’s words distantly, but his feelings were right there, straining against her vaginal walls as he rubbed her through the come down. Even the aftershocks were strong enough to make her scream. It amazed her that he was still rock hard. Any other time she’d have used that, building up again as fast as she could. It’d be fast; it’d feel incredible after that, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t give in. She nudged his hand away, and he kissed her gently. Rather than being too sensitive to be touched, she wanted more so much that losing that contact was as painful as anything could be in the haze of endorphins and hormones. She clenched, hoping he’d assume that was for his benefit, and shifted a little. It was impossible not to feel his girth against the interior of her clit, but she’d done her best.

She moved her focus to him, reaching down for his balls.His rhythm went jerky for a moment and then sped up. She canted her hips for him and another aftershock rippled through her. She clenched harder. Derek’s cock jerked. She drew his head down, kissing him as he came, taking the satisfaction that holding him in place as his body tried to pull up gave her. It wasn’t enough to keep her from feeling him stretching and filling her, sliding over her g-spot and in, in, in. The pressure in her clit was building fast. He spurted into her, and she groaned as her brain latched onto the implications of what she was feeling.

Derek rolled to the side, giving her a smirk that was almost a smile. “Not done, huh?” He put a hand on her abdomen, just below her navel.

She pressed her legs together, and angled them away from him. “I’m fine.”

“Hey.” He moved the hand to her shoulder. “I know you were getting close just then. Part of loving you is making sure you get what you need.” He twirled a piece of her hair around her finger.

It’s the oxytocin. The endorphins. Usually, she was the one who got all afterglow-y. Usually he didn’t need the boost to be loving and positive. The look was in his eyes with nothing else. The enchanted look.

Another comedown she didn’t want to see.

“Mer.” He kissed the spot behind her ear. “We can forget for a little longer.”

She desperately wanted that. She wanted his touch, his praise, his reassurances. She didn’t want S&M, where they only existed as them in here.

He kissed further down her neck, and she turned her head. The stuffed elephant in Zola’s crib stared at her. The heat drained from her body.

“I can’t.” It came out small and wobbly, too much like she felt. “I have research to do.” She sat up, and almost couldn’t bring herself to turn back. He wasn’t glaring, but he wasn’t enchanted, either. She kissed him, pressing her fingers against the prickle of his stubble.

She hadn’t been sure of when she’d be able to do that again.

“Fifth year,” she added, putting her t-shirt back on. “Derek…I am sorry you lost your trial. They should’ve let you keep it, once I got kicked off.”

“That’s not how it works. It wouldn’t be fair.”

“I bet CPS thinks they’re being fair, too.”

“That’s not—” He cut himself off, and she wondered if she’d gotten through at all. “Maybe they are. The red flags are there because something was overlooked, at some point.”

“You sound like Kepner.”

“She’s an effective chief resident. Or she would be, if y—any of you…could work within the system.”

The correction didn’t lessen the blow. She wished he’d just say you would’ve failed, if you’d gotten the job. But he left just enough doubt that if she called him on it, he’d say he didn’t mean that. Maybe he didn’t. Probably he did.

A sudden vision hit her, of failing the boards, and him saying what did you expect? She took her time pulling on clean socks, breathing through her nose to fight off the queasiness it caused.

“You know me,” she said. “You just don’t understand me.”

“Yes.”

“Join the line or whatever.” She sighed.  As she started to leave, she leaned toward him without thinking. He kissed her back, but that was all she could say about it.

She didn’t understand him either. He’d come home. He’d said he wanted this. She’d gotten a consequence. What was he holding on to? Why was he still punishing her?

The obvious answer was Zola. That he was lying about not blaming her.

It explained a lot, but didn’t tell her how long it would last, or if she even deserved the reprieve. It was easier to hope it was about the trial, his ego, work. That, he did need to get over on his own. She was done trying to explain.

In the study, with the tequila buzz calming her body, she was halfway through the article she’d started the night before when she realized she’d left her work research upstairs.

If Derek noticed, what would he think? That she wasn’t showing enough appreciation for the gift of keeping her job? She was sure he’d have all kinds of assumptions about what she was doing in here. If he actually asked, and believed her answer, he’d probably say it was good that she was studying. Her perspective wasn’t one that should be passed on.

If this was where it’d gotten her, maybe he’d be right. Hadn’t she already started ruining their daughter’s life?

Chapter Text

The problem with hangovers, Derek contended, was that you always had time where you thought you’d gotten away without one. Sometimes, you got as far as the shower before it hit. Others it was a few seconds, a disappointing whirlwind of realizing you had not, in fact, cheated your body, you had to get up, and that was the worst of all possible fates.

It only got worse looking up to find Meredith leaning on the doorjamb holding an emesis basin. “You did know this was on the bedside table last night.”

“I’m sure I knew a lot of things last night.”

She stepped over his legs into the master bathroom that gave most of its space to the tub. It took him a moment to realize the tune she was humming was the one to which she recited the liquor before beer adage.

She would know.

“You’re chipper this morning.” God. He wished he could will himself to puke again, just to have an excuse to look away. He hadn’t meant it to be accusatory. Except he must’ve, because it was.

She turned to him, toothbrush in hand, and said, “Schadenfreude,” but the levity was gone. “Aspirin? Tylenol?” she asked a moment later, rifling through the medicine cabinet.

“Is it poisoned?” he asked, and only then did his own voice play in his head. …take some aspirin with the banana bag…. Dammit, he’d only meant…well, to reference a possible serial killer, but….

Somehow, she managed to pull herself even more tightly together.

She was wrong the other night. He could be cruel.

“Actually, in Seattle it was Excedrin. Arsenic-laced, planted by a woman who wanted insurance money instead of a husband.”

“I didn’t…. Jesus.”

She placed the pills and a cup of water on the counter behind him. “You need to know it was all your idea. Mark was adamant about that.”

“He brought me home?”

They’d been together, celebrating the anniversary of his discharge—not the day eighteen people had died—and he hate the thought that he’d been the worst off.

“Not the first time he’s brought you back after you hit a limit.”

“Now who’s holding a grudge?” Was it possible he was still drunk?

“A wife whose husband went AWOL three weeks after open-heart surgery, and turned out to have gone hiking.”

“It was a gentle stroll.”

“And that’s why you couldn’t get out of bed for two days? That’s the anniversary I want to celebrate. One year since an act of idiocy proved you didn’t have brain damage—you were the same stubborn jackass.”

He wasn’t hungover enough to think that was all leftover from a year ago, but he was hungover enough to let it go.

“For what it’s worth, Mark wasn’t walking straight, either. He told me you guys always used the buddy system.”

“Didn’t you?”

“When I was a party girl who brought strange men home?” She let her robe drop without so much as glancing at him, which meant she didn’t see him cringe. “You know the answer to that. Any references you want to make about the girl in the thriller, I’ve heard. Same with admonitions about self-destructive behavior. If you wouldn’t say it to Mark, I don’t want to hear it.”

She stepped into the shower, which was hardly bigger than the postage stamp in the trailer.

He understood her frustrations—in terms of morals, there shouldn’t be a difference—but the danger wasn’t equal. Mark had been mugged. Derek had, too, at knifepoint. (If last year wasn’t the first time either of them had been on the wrong side of a gun, Mark had never told him.) That was probably how Meredith justified things. If you could be killed anywhere, at any time, why worry?

The world would be better if a five-foot four woman with toothpicks for bones could be as safe as a muscular, straight, white guy, but that wasn’t the case. And if anything had happened to her, a woman who owned her sexuality, but had also measured so much of her worth by it….

Having such a brutalized rape victim on his table so early on his arrival in Seattle had erased his assumptions that it would be safer than New York. (The Meredith in his head scoffed. Seriously? Serial killer Mecca?)

Any sense of anytime, anywhere Meredith might’ve gotten from having the same shoes had only made him more scared for her whenever she’d started taking guys home again. You couldn’t trust a good neighborhood, a familiar bar. With their origin story, he’d known he had no right to be worried for her, or jealous of them. He’d only been able to blame himself for that. His anger had been taken out on her….

That wasn’t what was happening, now.

No, because then she didn’t believe she deserved it.

Then, she hadn’t deserved it. It wasn’t his fault Zola’s adoption had gotten wrapped up in this. That was life. If he could comfort her, and be mad at her, he would, but he just…. She had Yang, and Lexie, and somehow still Karev—She could forgive someone who almost got her fired.

She’d been right to point out that Derek wasn’t better than her.

When he did puke again, he waited for the shower to cut off to flush so that this place’s ancient plumbing didn’t douse her in freezing water.

When she emerged from the shower a second later, she laughed, and then clapped a hand to her mouth.  “I’m sorry,” she gasped. “It’s just you look so pathetic.”

“Yeah, well. I’m alive.”

“That a complaint?”

“No. Definitely not.”

“If it helps, you do look better than you did a year ago. I…wasn’t laughing then. Lean forward.”

“Hmm? Oh.” He reached back to hold the washcloth she’d put on his neck. “Thanks.”

“It helped.” She slid down beside him, squeezing her hair with a towel. “Last year…. I-I’m a doctor, but the nursing I’d done…. It was this. Looking after people who don’t have the intelligence to get it over with the night before.”

“Intelligence, huh?”

“One—” She held up a finger.  “One, knowing I’m a puker means that on the rare occurrence—“ He raised an eyebrow. “—I misjudge my limits, I can keep it under the radar. Two, I rarely wake up with…this issue.” She gestured at him. “My morning headaches were all sleeplessness and shame. Sadie was useless before noon, and I’d get so frustrated…. “ She cut herself off, and he watched her pull herself inward. Like she’d crossed a line by letting her eyes sparkle. “Anyway. I’d dealt in hangovers, bad trips, and the myriad bugs contracted by adolescents who laugh in the face of rest and hygiene.”

She wrinkled her nose, and he had a flash of her at twenty-three, vacuuming around stragglers who’d last seen her doing shot luges.

“And the only examples of…of being taken care of I’d had since I was maybe seven, were from the hospital, which isn’t....I dunno, individualized?—and you taking care of me after Elliot Bay, and the surprise organ donation.”

He knew that, but she’d never spelled it out. No wonder…just, no wonder.

“Your mom came in all…washcloths and pillows, and knowing how to comfort you—how to touch you, which was the one thing I’d thought I had a handle on. And I was like, you know, I suck.” She hesitated, glanced at him, and kept going. Did she…? Yeah, God, she’d expected confirmation. He hoped she hadn’t gotten it.

He should know. He should know how he was looking at his wife, who’d tear up saying, “It was how she looked at me,” after repeating the poison her mother had poured into her ears without flinching.

“But, uh, first she took on getting you to cough, and that…made her the bad guy.”

He shuddered. He’d wanted to personally apologize to every open heart patient he’d put through that. He had apologized to her, since it’d been part of the routine while her ribs healed from being broken during CPR. He might’ve had more breaks, but that didn’t change how excruciating it would’ve been for her. He hadn’t clocked that. He didn’t think he’d been that great at taking care of her then, honestly.  There’d been other things that her friends figured out first, and he’d taken that personally.

Without a clue about where his mind had gone, Meredith reached up, ruffling the hair at the back of his head. It hadn’t occurred to him, but she hadn’t done that in quite the same way before last summer.

“I don’t know how any of you got away with anything, because that woman…. She parked Liz at your bedside and marched me down to the Seattle Pres cafeteria. My second meal in three days, maybe? I thought she’d guessed about…you know. The bleeding had mostly stopped, but I had on one of those diaper-thick pads…. Instead, she told me that not only were sick and injured men trying to be tough her specialty, she was your mother. She’d learned you before you ever thought to hide an emotion. She’d watched your tells form, and that’s not easy to counter-engineer.

“Funny thing is, it also reassured me about…about being a mom. I’d never thought of it as…. I thought there was some connection that was either there or-or not. Thinking of it as learning…. I can do that.” She smiled, and for a heartbeat, they were just them on a Saturday morning. Then, she blinked. “Contrary to popular belief, these days.” She pressed down on his shoulder to stand. Her hand was gone before he got his there. “Hence, volunteering for a SeaFair Saturday. It’s the triathlon this weekend.”

He knew there were people being hard on her—he couldn’t blame them—but he wouldn’t blame her if that wasn’t her only reason. He was cognizant of the fact that he hadn’t been great company. “Could be worse,” he offered. “Could be—“

“—Fleet Week,” she finished with him. “Believe it or not, that has never been my thing.”

“Nah. Too cookie-cutter. Too vanilla. Too violent. And, uh…too adherent to authority.” He’d admit that he’d once have thought the…fleeting… nature, coupled with the possibility of a peripatetic lifestyle, would have absolutely had her making stop-offs in the port cities that celebrated.

“That’s it exactly. Plus, the assault and homophobia. You didn’t exactly have time to interview them, like—are you one of the good ones? ‘Cause a bigot doesn’t...deserve me.” The moment of hesitation was minuscule, but not enough for him to convince himself it wasn’t there.

“My family takes the kids to watch the Blue Angels every year. Maybe next year….”

Her mascara cluttered onto the counter, and he realized why after she’d already said, “Yeah. Next year.” In spite of how the conversation had started, he’d mentally returned the airshow to Memorial Day weekend, like it was in New York. Here, they still had two weeks until the jets flew. He’d implied that he doubted Zola would be home by then.

If she just hadn’t lied….

She flitted in and out, getting dressed, and he dragged himself back to bed.

“Looking back…. When I told her about the miscarriage, she wasn’t as shocked as I’d have expected,” he said, watching her yank her hair up. “Mom. I think she did guess. I’m sorry I didn’t.”

Sorry I made you suppress that pain while tending to mine.

“You’ve said.

“I’ll be off by six, hopefully. We can…eat or whatever.” She came over to the bed and took his hand. “I’m glad you came home, Derek. That you’re alive.” She was referring to the shooting. But he also thought…maybe she wasn’t only referring to the shooting. She continued, “there’s no reason not to celebrate making it through a near-death experience. That’s basically what my twenties were.”

No it isn’t. You were trying to escape your life. If you want to try celebrating, we can. You’re worth it.

Why couldn’t he say that?

“Get some sleep. I’ll tell the heathens to keep it down. April should get it; she was kind of a mess the other day. Reed. Don’t know why Jackson wasn’t looking out for her,, but…like I said, drunks, I can handle.”

“You’re a good friend.”

“Or I’m sucking up to my chief resident.”

“Mer…. The night when…when she came home. If I scared you, I’m sorry.”

“It’s…. Thank you.” She kissed his cheek, and disappeared, leaving only the scent of lavender behind to prove he hadn’t dreamt the whole morning.

Was there more spring in her step? From something that small?

How could he know he didn’t deserve her, and his feelings toward her still seem frozen? If the situation had been reversed, he couldn’t have been as kind as she was.

After dozing for a while, he slowly made his way upright. When that was successful, he decided he couldn’t stay in the house.

He really had become a horrible patient once he could tolerate stairs and cars. If there’d been a way he’d been destined to die, it was a gunshot. If he had evaded that, he’d believed he was safe.

That kind of logic was found in so many of Meredith’s stories, and he’d always flinched at it.

1…1…2…5. He’d reset the key-code for their property monthly since they broke ground, but he wasn’t sure he’d be able to change it from Zola’s birthdate next week.

Derek loved Central Park. As a kid, it’d been an adventure to go uptown with a picnic, go to the zoo, the playground. He’d played sports there, and thought he’d learned to get lost in nature. Then, he’d gone to Bowdoin and discovered true quiet. It’d been a revelation, but so had the college town where places were shut by ten. Seattle had given him the perfect in-between.

How had he manage to become so rigid?

He’s wanted Adele to get the drug, but he wasn’t God. Probability did what it did. If anyone knew that…. Okay, Meredith did. But she knew you couldn’t try to massage things the other way. Full or empty, the glass was even.

She never would’ve done it for herself.

He grabbed his fishing gear, bypassing the six-pack leftover from last time Mark was here. Mom had always said they should call hair of the dog “venom of the snake,” because that was a better illustration of what you were doing, staving off withdrawals. It worked, and might not hurt, but you needed to be honest with yourself.  He was trying.

He texted Mark an invitation and received a flat-mouthed, not-impressed emoji in response. The last message Derek had from him with only words marked the installation of an emoji keyboard on his first iPhone.

On the surface, that suited them. Over the years, trading expressions that were unreadable to anyone around them had become a significant part of their communication.

In retrospect, that might not have been as ideal as it’d seemed to be on the rink, or at his mother’s dinner table. Rather than making him value the stuff Mark actually said more, he’d started to dismiss it. After all, he wasn’t married; he didn’t have sisters; his dad might be a dick, but at least he had one.

That’d been the basis of one of their worst fights. On a morning not all that different from this one. Liz had banged on their shared wall and yelled that Dr. Sloan was on the phone. Mark had muttered about them being on the Cape until the fourteenth, and Derek had held up his watch that showed it was the fifteenth.

Mark had gone pale, and stumbled out through the piles of Derek’s possessions that Mom was always telling him to pick up, like there was any space in the house.

When Mark returned, he’d thrown himself into Derek’s desk chair. “Gaze upon my majesty, man. Really take your fill. You may never see me again.”

“Sure, Sloan.”

“Man, I’m serious. He thinks he’s being all pater familias, when anyone else’s old man would rather have me coming over here than turning their place into some crack den—“

“You did throw a party there two days ago. I offered to help you clean it up.”

“You’re a real saint. Patron saint of guys whose dads gave a shit. Swear to God, if someone tried to stick up the old man’s practice, I’d hold the door for them.”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about.“ At sixteen, Derek had finally (not for long) had an inch or so on Mark, and could loom in that position.

“No one’s dad is actually any good. Look at Stan Prescott, beating all eight kids, and Mr. Morano being taken away for those pictures. I bet yours had some nasty secrets behind the nice-guy—“

Derek had tackled him, sending the desk chair onto the floor. It was sheer luck that this hadn’t been when he gave one of his friends a brain bleed.

Kath and her boyfriend had been over, and between him and Mom’s drill sergeant yelling, they’d broken apart. He couldn’t even remember how it’d ended, what Mom or Kath had said, if they’d settled things by the next game, or if it’d had been worked out on the ice.

What he did remember was knowing Dad would’ve been disappointed. They’d have gone fishing, and he’d have gone on about what Mark had said. Dad would’ve listened, adjusted his cap, said, “Well. You’re got your Ma’s temper for sure. Listen, buddy—“ Would he have been ‘buddy’ at sixteen? Or always ‘son,’ no longer Dad’s shadow, just trying to catch up.—“Mark’s seeing through different eyes. His dad…. He gives him a lot of idea about what a man shouldn’t be, but he’s still his dad. It’s hard for a boy to see their pop as a person. But we all are. Dr. Sloan cares about Mark, but doesn’t know how to show it. Eventually, the bad stuff is all that’s visible.”

“You were—“

“A person. Ask Mom. You’re getting old enough to know.”

“I’m older than you got to be,” Derek said, suddenly his adult self. He’d lost the day in daydream. “Why can’t I let this go, Pops?”

Dad took his time tossing his line in again. “Seems to me like you aren’t trying too har. Blocking her chances of becoming a neurosurgeon, spending your nights out here playing at being a carpenter.”

“I’m not—! I….  She’s lucky to have a job—“

“You say that to your wife?”

What did you expect?

“I wanted her to choose neuro. She’ll be great in any field.”

“Seems like a pretty big sacrifice. She’s being a sport for you.”

“She broke—“

“Is that what you’re mad about, son?”

“Yes! None of it would’ve happened if she hadn’t, once again, done something huge without caring about what would happen to her! She’s worked too hard for that.”

His dad clapped him on the shoulder. “Won’t be long before that baby won’t let you protect her, either. I hope I didn’t teach you that women can’t defend themselves by asking you to hold onto a five-year-old.”

“No, but you did teach me to look after family.”

Dad tossed his line out again, his face starting to settle into the expression that meant he’d be silent unless interrupted. The edges of his features blurred. “That wife of yours seems to have learned that on her own, Green Eyes.”

A bird squawked overhead. Derek tried to tell himself the sound belonged to his dream, but then he could feel the white heat of noon sun, and the twinge in his back from the lawn chair.

Green Eyes? He called Meredith that, sometimes, before making her laugh with his attempts to compare their current shade to something ridiculous. Dad wouldn’t have meant that.

He’d have meant the Green-Eyed Monster, and that meant Derek had spent too many off-hours browsing the kids section of the bookstores around Pike Place. (He’d seen several bags from Meredith’s favorite place in Ballard on the top shelf of the closet.) He could be jealous, sure, but he’d wanted Meredith by his side in the O.R.

That wife of yours seems to have learned that on her own, Green Eyes. He scrubbed his hands over the rough stubble on his face. He definitely wasn’t jealous of her family. He could see Dad rolling his eyes at that interpretation.

“So be explicit!” he snapped. Grimacing over speaking aloud to his dead father, he hauled himself up and started to pack his stuff. Fishing had lost its appeal for the day. Alone with his thoughts was the last place he wanted to be.

Chapter Text

Meredith didn’t know what to do with her hand. It was a Saturday morning, and she’d woken up to find Derek, up and bearing coffee, telling her he wanted to show her something. She’d been on autopilot getting dressed and into the car, chugging her coffee while he drove to the dock. When she’d put the empty thermos in the cupholder, she was suddenly at a loss. Resting her hand on the console would make it look like she expected him to take it. If she didn’t, he might see it as her shutting him out. She ended up with her wrist resting on the console, bent so her hand lolled just above her lap. It wasn’t comfortable. Was she meant to be comfortable?

She had no idea what they were doing. She’d texted Cristina, “in case this is a Laci Peterson situation.” She felt like a jerk as soon as she’d pushed send. If Derek snapped, it wouldn’t be calculated. It would’ve been in those first moments, the ones where all that existed within him was fire, and his words were tongues of flames that he couldn’t control. They were past that.

She thought they were past that.

She lost all her innocence, gave it to an abscess.

“You can relax, you know.”

“I’m relaxed.” Just can’t get it out of my head. Can’t get out of my head.

“Yeah,” he drawled, the word ending with a scoff.

She glared at him. “I am.”

“Okay.”

“Derek!”

“Meredith.”

The line of cars moving onto the ferry moved forward. She jabbed the button to turn the radio on.

“Makes no difference who you are….”

The dreamy vocals of the Disney song jarred her so much that she’d pressed the button again before she processed what she was doing. His radio was always tuned to either NPR or the SiriusXM 1^st Wave station, which was most likely to play songs they both liked. Occasionally, he put on ReachMD, but that was mostly to entertain her by talking back at it.

He hadn’t been interested in entertaining her lately.

“Ah. Guess I haven’t turned it on since I had Zola in the car. You, uh, you can change it. Put it on Lithium.” —The 90s and grunge station she alternated with stations she refused to refer to by name. (“The Coffeehouse” and “The Loft.” Could you get more pretentious?)

“Nah. That’s okay.”

“Seriously, you can.”

“Seriously, it’s okay.” He sighed, and she could feel the atmosphere in the car starting to shift toward the increasingly familiar palpable tension.

“I gave Zola one of my presets. You’re right. All three MLB channels don’t need their own button.”

You’re right. How long since he’d said that to her, with no sarcasm in his voice?

“How hard was it for you to not overwrite mine instead?” she asked, because she couldn’t keep her freaking mouth shut.

He didn’t say anything as he pulled into a space on the car deck. She turned to the window, almost startling at the sound of his voice breaking the silence once the motor stopped.

“I couldn’t have done that.”

“Really?” He’d done all he could to blast Addison and Mark out of his life four years ago. Something that small should’ve been simple.

She expected the exasperated Meredith that meant she’d missed something simple, even though the things he’d once promised her were easy—you’re going to say things. I’m going to come back—were now followed by dozens of asterisks.

“Really,” he said, like that was it. “I wasn’t…. I didn’t want to leave you, Meredith. I wanted…I want to raise Zola with you, and to watch you become a remarkable surgeon. I just needed to figure out how to do that.”

“Need,” she corrected. He squeezed the locked steering wheel and nodded.

“Do you want to go up?”

“Up to you.”

A muscle in his neck bulged, another silent, annoyed Meredith. “Okay. Let’s go.” He threw his door open.

As it slammed, two images hit Meredith in the chest. What this weekend should have been, Disney music playing as the three of them headed out for a picnic out to the site, taking Zola up to the Sun Deck for the first time. Where is the baby?  Someone else taking her on her first ferryboat ride. Who took my baby? They could be doing it right now; she could be up there, and they wouldn’t be allowed to go to her, even if she cried for them, and if she didn’t, Meredith wasn’t sure she’d make it. She’s not mine. She’s not ours.

It didn’t matter. Her heart would break regardless. Had broken. Hurt. Hurt so badly, and she deserved that, she—

“Meredith?”

Go away, Derek. Go away, before I say my chest is cracking open. She saw him bleeding out on the catwalk, like she had in her sleep every few days since that night he’d spent not answering. She’d known where he was, but she hadn’t been sure. He could’ve wrapped his car around a pole on the way there—

“Mer, look at me. You’re having a panic attack.”

That was too easy. Something was wrong. She couldn’t breathe; she was going to drown sitting here in the car, and maybe that was okay. Maybe they’d let him adopt Zola. He wouldn’t have to try to answer the questions she’d had for most of her life about how her mind worked—

“You can breathe, I promise. C’mon, try to match me.” Their hands didn’t understand that they were having problems. They folded together easily, and she gasped. “Good. Exhale. Inhale. Good. Good girl. You’ve got this. Exhale. Okay, okay, with me. In. Out. In…and out. In…and out. There you go. That’s it.”

The pinpoint her vision had condensed to started to open. Derek’s eyes were locked on hers. She searched them for disdain, annoyance, disgust; the looks that he’d been tossing at her for the past few weeks. Instead, there was worry, but under that was Derek looking at her, like things were normal. Like he loved her. It was the first time she’d fully believed that since he’d claimed it the night he came home.

If the next time her chest hitched, it was actually a sob, neither of them acknowledged it.

“I-I’m okay.”

“Yeah. You are.” He reached up and tucked a tendril of hair that had fallen from her haphazard bun behind her ear. “What…?” He pressed his lips together around the question. Like he knew there must’ve been a trigger, and didn’t want to know, or didn’t want to give her the chance to lie. She was okay with that. It sounded stupid to say she’d panicked at the possibility that one foster family in King County would be heading to Bainbridge at nine in the morning on a Saturday.

“Do you want to go up and get some fresh air?”

She wanted him to stop sounding like that. Like he didn’t care about anything else in the world. It wouldn’t last. He’d remember, and go back to glaring, and not touching her purposefully, much less tenderly.

“You go.”

“I’m not going to just leave you—”

“Go!” He leaned back against the door of the car, and his grip on her hand loosened. “No…. I didn’t mean…. I need a minute. Just...please.” She stared at the windshield, not wanting to watch the shadows returning to his face.

“Yeah. Okay.” He took his hand out of hers, and she had to squeeze her fingers against her palm to keep herself from grabbing it back. A month ago, he wouldn’t have given up that easily. “I’m taking my phone. If you need anything….”

She turned her face a little bit further so he wouldn’t see the side of her lip curling. She needed her baby. She needed her husband. “Sure.”

“Okay.” He started to straighten up, and then, so quickly that she thought she might’ve imagined it, he kissed the side of her head.

He left her door open. She watched him walk away in the side mirror, counted to thirty, and then slammed it. As soon as it closed, she crumpled. The crown of her head hit the dashboard, and she clasped her hands over the nape of her neck, like she was anticipating a blow. Keeping her lungs going at an even pace took up most of her focus for several minutes. Every time she found herself wishing Derek had stayed, her rib-cage seized, trapping the air in her lungs.

Any other energy she had was going toward not crying. Tears didn’t change anything.

The first time her mother tried to feed her a line about how undignified crying was, she’d been so outraged, she’d forgotten the rules. “You cried all the time when I was five!” she’d accused from the ripe old age of seven.

That was the only time she’d ever been afraid her mother might actually slap her. “You don’t know what you’re talking about!” she'd said through her teeth, seething with more rage than a child should ever witness.

She didn’t know what would’ve happened if her mom’s friend Marie hadn’t been there. She’d only been in Boston for a few months at that point, but she was around enough, usually in the evenings, that Meredith called her Auntie Marie. She’d put her hand on Mom’s shoulder, and then crouched to be eye-level with Meredith.

“Sometimes big feelings, sadness, pain, even anger—” She ran her thumbs under Meredith’s eyes. “—are so big they fill us up, and have to come out as tears. It’s natural, no? Especially for a little thing like you, who feels so big.”

Mom scoffed, and Auntie Marie shot a look over her shoulder. Meredith couldn’t see it, but it didn’t matter. In that moment, the sophisticated Spanish doctor who made paella, not mac-and-cheese had been her favorite person.

“Not everyone understands this. They think tears mean that you are weak. Sometimes that’s no bad thing. You can surprise them with how strong you are. But most of the time, you will want to be what?”

“Strong, like titanium.” (This was during Meredith’s space phase. Most of her classmates had lost interest on that side of the Challenger disaster. She’d watched the shuttle explode, before her teacher could almost knock over the AV cart in her eagerness to get the TV turned off, and determined that if the worst case scenario was dying fast like that, she wouldn’t be scared of it.)

“Precisely. The trick, my darling, is to hold those feelings in, until you’re alone, or with someone you can trust with your biggest secrets. That is when you let the tears fall.”

Over Auntie Marie’s shoulder, Meredith had looked up at her mother. “You trust me?”

Mom’s eyes had gone wide, and Meredith had started to deflate. Auntie Marie must’ve just been saying one of those things adults said to—

“Yes. I suppose I do.”

“Do you know what it means to be trustworthy, dearest?” Auntie Marie asked.

Meredith nodded. “Guidance said it’s doing what you say you’ll do, and keeping secrets. Except if the secret is about someone being hurt. Then the trusty thing to do is tell a grown-up.”

“Hurrah for guidance, then,” Auntie Marie winked and stood up, pretending to use Meredith’s head for balance. She’d gone toward the kitchen, leaving Meredith and her mother alone in the living room.

With twenty-five years of hindsight, Meredith could see that this was where her mother should’ve the truth about that day in the kitchen. Instead, she’d sighed and said, “There are worse things in life than missing a field-trip, but I suppose there’s something to be said for experiential learning. Find out how long the exhibition is open, and I’ll try to take you to the museum before it closes.”

She didn’t remember if Mom had followed through on that. it didn’t affect her recall of the delight she’d felt at the idea.

Would knowing that calling 911 wasn’t the wrong thing to do then, versus figuring it out three years ago, have changed her sense of right and wrong? She still would’ve been doing the right thing by disobeying. She just wouldn’t have thought it’d been the right thing for her and the wrong thing for her mother for as long. Well. Not the wrong thing for Mom. The thing that went against her wishes.

No. Her understanding of the ethics of making that call would have been that trusting her instincts was the right move. What would be gone was the fundamental beliefs that she wasn’t worth living for, that she’d selfishly forced her mother to live, and…and that sometimes disobedience was the brave choice.

So, maybe.

She pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes. Her body knew she was alone, and didn’t care that Derek would be back. Didn’t understand—believed he was trusted.

He was. Generally. But he couldn’t see her weakness now.

She sat up, gradually, sinking into herself again whenever her thoughts circled back to Zola, to Derek, to how deeply screwed up everything was. Then, she’d berate herself for feeling that way when things were objectively better than last year. A year ago, he’d be winded from going up on the deck. Anything was better than him dying, even if she lost him. He’d lived through being shot, through open heart surgery, through the pain and humiliation of that recovery. The trial had been him seizing a new direction in his career, after being Chief turned out to not be for him. She’d destroyed it. Living through his anger over that was nothing.

That didn’t even touch the Zola of it all.

By the time Derek returned, she’d reached a compromise, sitting upright with her legs pulled up on the seat.

“Not wearing shoes,” she said as the door opened.

“Meredith, that’s not….” He sighed. “Thank you. How are you feeling?”

Stupid. Guilty. Crazy.

Two things he usually disagreed with; nothing she wanted to see him acknowledge as true.

“Fine.”

He side-eyed her. There was some comfort in knowing that he didn’t believe that, even if he let it lie.

Let her lie.

Except she hadn’t. For her, for now,  this was fine.

The ferry docked, and they disembarked. The drive was so familiar, and yet that they were making it felt unreal. Each turn and light made that sense increase. She started to feel detached from the truth of it, like her mind couldn’t deal with the juxtaposition of their current situation and the last time he’d brought her out here, the morning Janet saw the house.

Suddenly, she was jolted back into her body—into the moment, by the feeling of the car picking up speed.  “Derek!”

He slowed down immediately, which did nothing to stop her pulse from continuing to spike. “Sorry. Wasn’t thinking.”

“About what? That I’m here? Have you been drag racing out here all month?”

“No.”

“‘No,’ that’s it? No ‘there’s never anyone else out here,’ or ‘it’s a straight shot in broad daylight?’”

“No,” he repeated. His mouth twitched like he was going to say something else, some other excuse or explanation, but they’d reached the turn off. “I made you a promise, and I’ve kept it, okay?”

“So what was that?”

“You…. Nothing. I’m sorry. I know you hate it.”

“Feeling like I’m a second away from being in an MVA out here, where you have to be medevaced out for anything more than a broken ankle? Yeah, I do hate it. I spent most of my life sure that I was gonna die in the passenger seat of a car on I-90.” Then, I found out it’d probably be Alzheimer’s. Backing away from that truth made her trip into a different one. “I-I…don’t wanna be afraid to get in a car with you.” Lately, there’d already been enough similarities with riding somewhere with her mom, constantly waiting for the next barb.

He stopped the car and turned to her. “I don’t want that either.” He smiled at her. She almost resented how quickly a sense of calm settled over her. Out of the car, she realized how nice out it was.

“There are walls,” she observed. “Sort of.”

“Yeah, there are. We’re going around back.” He started picking his way around the construction site that was their future home, and then he turned back and held his hand out to her. She took it. They walked past the trailer, and around the side of the house.

“There’s a deck. Is that what you’ve been out here doing? Building a deck in July?”

“See, I’d planned for my next line to be ‘don’t be too impressed,’ but you got there before me.”

“Sorry, I’m a doctor, my first thought was heatstroke. Why shouldn’t I be impressed?”

“Watch closely.” He let go of her hand and leapt onto the deck. An empty beer bottle was sitting on the railing. Meredith crossed her arms. She knew the baseball bat wasn’t about to make a reappearance, but that didn’t sooth the part of her that was wary.

Derek set the bottle down lengthways on the deck, and it started rolling toward her. She blinked up at him. “It’s not level.”

“It is not,” he agreed, ruefully.

“You were out here in July, building an off-kilter deck?”

“I was.”

She raised a hand to her mouth. He had moments where he couldn’t handle being laughed at, and being bad at something made him particularly sensitive. Most of the time, she didn’t care. He could deal with being butthurt, but right now—She didn’t feel like tipping the scales back again.

He jumped back down to her level. “You can laugh,” he told her, pulling her hand away. “Everyone else did. I figured I should show you before you heard about my folly from Karev or Avery. Or Mark,” he added. “Mark, especially.”

“If they were all out here with you, it’s their faults, too.” She swallowed, a little uncertain about bringing the word fault into any conversation.

“Does that mean I can make one of them call Amar?”

“I think you’re going to have to take care of that for yourself, bud.”

“Me and my hubris.” He shook his head and put a hand on her face. “I know I take myself too seriously. I withdraw when I’m upset, and it takes me too long to get over things. I’m trying—” Something in her shuddered at the word she’d always associate with the months he lived out here with. Addison. Maybe it showed, or maybe he heard it too, because he corrected himself. “I’m working on it. I really am.”

“I know.” It wasn’t all on him. She’d done it, and she’d gotten their baby mixed up in it. Making her movements as determined as she could, she wrapped her arms around him and kissed him. He kissed her back, not with the ferocity she’d gotten accustomed to when they fucked, but softly. Sweetly. Like he loved her.

She longed to accept that. To let herself just be content in this moment of warmth and sunlight, but she had to know. To be sure it wasn’t a lie.

“Derek? Are you sure you’re not…?” She bit her lip and drew her arms back to her chest. Breathe. At least breathe for yourself. “Are you trying with me?”

“I—“

“Because I know you see what…what I did as a betrayal, and that I didn’t doesn’t change anything. But….you forgave her, or I think you did, but you didn’t love her anymore. You say it’s the other way with me, but…but I’m sure you told her things too, and staying for the vows versus staying for the post-it, or Zola—“

“Meredith, stop,” he said, his tone miraculously still gentle.

“Thank you.”

He smiled, and then looked away, toward the trailer. “Addison and I had foundational flaws. Maybe it’s truer to say that I did. The world we lived in…I adapted to it. I wanted it. I hated it.”

“Like being Chief.”

“Precisely. Except, I didn’t know how miserable I was until I wasn’t in it anymore. Until I discovered that as much as I missed my family and Manhattan, I was happier in a trailer in the middle of nowhere than I’d been there for a long time.

“When Addison got here…I could see how I’d pushed her away. I told myself the problem was who’d been there to support her, shifted the blame to Mark. But I didn’t…I didn’t start designing a house, or look for a bigger trailer. I didn’t make a point of taking her to nice restaurants or to the symphony. I just…kept living my way. She had to figure out how to fit herself in.”

“Like you felt you’d had to do. Her consequence.”

“Mm. Maybe not a fair one. But the way I saw it…. This was who I was, and if she couldn’t handle it, tough.

“But that’s not how a relationship works. My folks…. Ma was happy enough to demob once Vietnam became such a mess, but she never really got the travel and opportunities she’d joined up for. Dad didn’t expect her to give up nursing to run the shop. He saved to take her on trips. Our life was probably more what he thrived on, but I know they had ideas about seeing the world together. Traveling like she does, now.

“They used to say that’s why there were so many of us. We could look out for each other while they went on safari, or touring Greece.” He was staring into the distance, now, his smile wistful. “Maybe I’m hero-worshiping him, but I think it would’ve been hard to get Dad away from the hyphen-Shepherds.” Him using her collective noun for his niblings shouldn’t have made her heart skip. It did. “Mom made sure we knew that ‘perfect for each other’ was an impossibility. They worked to work.”

“And you’re working on it,” she murmured.

“I am. Whereas with Addison…looking back I think the most effort I put in was giving you up.” He took the hand she’d let hang by her side once she was sure he wasn’t going to start in on her. “I didn’t do a very good job of that.”

“You tried.”

His lips twisted. “Everything that’s happened, and you still think I’m better than I am.” He took her chin in his hand, and ran his thumb over her lips. “Eleven and a half years of marriage, and I never thought of another woman in bed, until I met you.”

“You…did? Think about me?”

“Every time.”

“I hope not.”

Confusion crossed over his face, and then he looked down at the grass. “I think I blocked that out.”

“Oh, no.” She pushed his shoulder. “You don’t get to. I had to be the dirty mistress on the phone hearing Addison going on about having sex with you.”

“Bad sex. That was…. When I managed to not think of you, we weren’t connecting anymore, and it wasn’t working. And you weren’t a dirty mistress.

“Knowingly. Yet.

“It was the same for me. Thankfully, I hadn’t really switched to saying your name, ‘cause with all the guys…I had to. But…no one was ever gonna be you.”

“Exactly the problem.”

“Is it a problem?”

He tilted his head, making her think she’d have to elaborate when she really didn’t want to. Then, he smiled. “That no one else is you? No, because I’m not looking for anybody else.”

“Okay.”

He kissed her again, and then wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “Come on, we’ll go eat at that ridiculous sports bar you like.”

“You don’t want to stay out here and build something else? A gazebo, maybe?”

“Hey, I learned plenty doing this.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I needed to practice. Zola’s gonna need a tree-house.”

“She…She tell you that?”

“Look at the trees around here. If you were a kid, wouldn’t you want a hideaway in one of them?” He pulled back a little, studying here. Her heart-rate sped up. “Oh, okay, so, trees are like supply cupboard shelves, but they’re outside.”

She laughed. “Shut up!”

“It had to be translated into Meredith.”

They’d arrived at the car. She paused at her door, looking back at the house. For them, it was a little strange that this hadn’t ended up in construction-site sex, or at least sex in the trailer.. but she was okay with that. What she missed were the other things. The things she hadn’t had with anyone before him.

She flexed the hand he’d been holding. Maybe they were starting to get them back.

Chapter Text

“Who are we spying on?” Cristina asked, as Meredith waved her over to a corner of the lobby.

“We’re not spying,” Meredith scoffed. “We’re ambushing.”

“Who are we ambushing?”

“We’re—” Meredith indicating herself and Cristina, “—not ambushing. We’re look-outs.”

“Meredith….”

“Dr. Robbins called in the heat on a mom.”

 “And you’re involved because…?”

“I’m her resident, but if I can’t control my face I need to disappear for an hour.”

“You’re not on board with the call?“

“It’s not about Zola! She doesn’t need to butt in! This kid’s fifteen. There was an accident. She’s fine, but Mom’s diabetic, needs observation. Both are used to hospitals. They’ve been in the system before. Mom had to learn how to balance solo parent with her own health. Got her back before she could remember.

“She sprained her wrist; we could easily keep her for the night. I offered to check in every few hours, but no. Robbins would rather she spend a week or so in a dorm room of kids with a revolving door…. That’s why I’m sitting here,” Meredith finished, sliding her chair behind a pillar. “That and Janet was the DFCY android on-call. Alex is gonna get news on Zola by happening to run into them, and needing information to send to Lilongwe. Which he does. Wouldn’t want to offend his honest sensibilities.”

"Lil-long-who?”

“Lilongwe. Capital of Malawi.”

“Of course. Meredith, focus for me: why are we here?”

“You’re going to watch for her, and I’ll signal Alex.”

“You hear how bonkers you sound?“

“The timing has to look natural. If he’s hanging out up there, Robbins will notice. It’s you, or attempting spycraft with my front-facing camera.” Pointedly, she showed how she had to bend to see the doors. Less obtrusive to sitting there staring. 

“You as Bond would answer the question of what Q stands for. It’d be ‘Quit.’”

“Steal that joke from the geek invasion?”

“Those guys don’t try for Bond. As a kid I wanted to be him. I loved ciphers.”

Made sense. For Cristina all reading was decoding glyphs, and she always wanted the next challenge.

“April didn’t know what a hobbit was?.”

“What? I had her down as a total High Fantasy dork.”

“Apparently, some weird little guy had read her the same way, and she dashed all his hopes for a themed wedding, exchanging One Rings facsimile.”

“The same guy who had Alex mocking him for saying she looked like a Dorothy princess?”

“Dothraki,” Meredith corrected. “She doesn’t.”

“Why did Alex know that?” 

“Are you looking out?”

“Yeah,” Cristina said, staring directly at her. “We’re not exactly hopping this late at night.”

“Just turn around. Pre-Evil Spawn, pre-Rocky montage, Alex was a librarian’s kid? A card-collecting, D&D player? The rest was a survival mechanism.”

“That doesn’t explain you”

“How many books get left behind in hospital waiting rooms? I had some of the best libraries and bookstores in the country at my doorstep, but I read a ton of paperbacks while waiting for mom. Even in high school I’d stop to give her a chance at dinner, and she’d find me still reading after I should’ve been enforcing my own curfew.

“Point is, April is not Dothraki. You’ll see when the TV show starts—or maybe not, who knows, maybe that kid works for HBO and knows they switched things up—but Dothraki are based on Mongolian steppe tribesl. Dark-hair, almond shaped eyes, nomads. There’s a ‘foreign’ princess embedded with them for a while, but she’s blo—”

Cristina flapped a hand at her. Meredith scowled and took her phone out, trying to focus on the mental image of Kepner with white-blond hair and violet eyes.

MEREDITH GREY: the dragon has landed. (Kepner would be Ygritte! )

ALEX KAREV: Well. She did have a crisis of faith or w/e w/a Stark last year.

MEREDITH GREY: a Robert “Bob” Stark. 

No. She’s Sansa.

Her phone displayed the ellipses of waiting, and she gripped it so tightly that she almost turned it off. Maybe she should? No, that was a crazy thought. Janet wasn’t going to look at his texts, and if she did, Meredith couldn’t do anything about it.

She couldn’t do anything about any of it, and if she tried, it’d blow up in her face. She’d lose absolutely everything. She’d end up where her mother had been at the end of her fifth year.

It was getting easier to see herself on the kitchen floor in June. If her choices were: Truly become her mother, without anyone to pull her away from work, or die…. She wouldn’t be directing a stunt.

“Mer?”

“What?” She jerked her head up, expecting to discover her thoughts had been spelling out on her face. Derek would lose his shit. She would never…. With Zola still a possibility, it was a hypothetical. Just...she was afraid that she was slanting too close to the intercept.

“She’s in the elevator,” Cristina said, a hand on her shoulder. Good. That was a good way to explain away her panic. 

“Okay. She’s Alex’s…. You know what it is?”

“What what—?”

“If z April was allowed to read more than the Bible, she was a Sweet Valley brat.”

“Weren’t they meant to be for popular kids?”

“Exactly.  Tell me you don’t see her studying them like they’d give her the secret.”

 Cristina didn’t say anything, which Meredith took as agreement. They’d have to find the worst…best…chance to ask their chief resident if she was an Elisabeth or—

“Mer….What’s your deal with social workers? Even if Sully, Sullen Uncle Sal, doesn’t hate MSWs like you, and I could see you becoming one in some universe.“

“Just call me Dr. Tann and get it over with!” Meredith snapped. Cristina raised an eyebrow. She rubbed her forehead. The pinching pain at her temple had been going since mid-afternoon, and she had six hours left on this shift.

“Are you exiled to here, or just off of the floor?”

“Pit duty.”

“Pager.” Cristina held her hand out. Meredith scowled at her, eventually slapping the device into her palm, and letting Cristina haul her up. 

When she’d had the sparkle pager, this would’ve been a lot harder. She’d earned that by being a miserable, hospital-parasite, who hadn’t wanted to go home if Derek wasn’t going to be there. If she’d let go, then, would she be chief resident? The one to watch? The Gunther?

Would she have failed out?

Would she at least know where her future lay?

She didn’t know where they were going. It was a random, rainy summer Wednesday night. The whole place was quiet, with a crackle of energy underneath.

That could’ve just been Meredith.

This late, there weren’t many empty on call rooms, and she exhaled when Cristina found one at the end of the ortho wing. She wasn’t up to having this talk in the tunnels.

Zola had been amazed by the vending machines. Meredith had guided her finger through pushing the buttons, and she’d bang on the glass as the snack released, always jumping and giggling when it dropped.

“I didn’t realize it was after midnight,” Cristina murmured as they went in 

“It doesn’t matter. It’s another day.” Meredith sat on the closest bottom bunk and kicked her shoes off. 

“You want me to play along? I can leave you here to get some sleep. The CICU is stable for the night; I can answer your call, or at least take the measure of it. If I stay in here, you don’t have to talk, but you also can’t pretend everything’s okay.”

That should not feel like such a relief.

“That’s what I figured.” Cristina grabbed the pillow from the other lower bunk, and then climbed over Meredith to lie against the wall, draping her arm over her.

“Being a social worker would kill me. I get that they do a lot of stuff, and it’s not all CPS. I absolutely know there are shit-bag parents out there. But I get too involved with patients. With kids? No way. Didn’t like ‘em when I was one, but now…. I wonder what every little shit who made fun of me in first grade had dealt with before then, and how they got to where we were at graduation. 

“That’s before you consider my whole ‘the rules are suggestions’ problem.To them, policy and procedure is universal, when everything—everything about real-life situations is case-by-case.

“When…When someone I knew in high school was obviously being hurt, I went to Mom, and she told me what we both knew: her rich dad would make it go away. She’d get sent to McLean, or if she did end up in the system, which would’ve meant a group home—They’d never have been able to be consistent with school, or to really…keep her safe from other monsters. And chances were, the call would get traced back to Mom, and he’d ruin her. Both of us.”

“Where was Harris’s mom?”

Meredith folded her smile back in on her lips. “At that point? Heading toward rock bottom with an abusive boyfriend. We were graduating by the time she used the bribe money Dr. Harris, Himself sent for rehab, not drugs. Got her license back, even. S’why I always had hope….”

Cristina squeezed her hand. “What made you so afraid they’d take you?”

Where is my baby?

You took my baby!

“Because they did.”

Cristina opened her mouth again, but Meredith barreled on. She couldn’t deal with questions. 

“We left the night she picked me up. It was so fast, I decided that someone must be after us, and if it’d been my dad, or Richard, she wouldn’t be running. Who else was there? The social workers must’ve changed their minds about letting me go. For ages I was afraid that they’d come banging down our door, like police in a crime drama. I don’t know if I got that from the stories I’d heard from other kids that weekend, or…or what. I started keeping all my important things in my backpack. Every day, I was afraid that by lunchtime someone else would be living in our place, and I’d get snatched by a social worker as soon as I left school property.

“In kindergarten, Mom would come get me when I freaked out. She was still devastated. Boston hadn’t been the plan. I think she had to find a fellowship, but she was working by Christmas. I dunno, that whole year is all blurry in my head. Constant panic mode. You don’t remember stuff right if you’re older than six. 

“Once she was employed, there were some concessions. Afternoons, I could call when I got home, at six forty-five if she hadn’t already nixed dinner, then at bedtime whatever the reason she wasn’t there. 

“At the hospital, I didn’t have to go to the daycare as long as I sat quietly in a waiting room.” Cristina scoffed. “I did’ That was usually during weekend rounds. Not enough time to explore. MGH didn’t really become my hospital. It’s bigger, with more clinics, offices, buildings, and I’d learned here that out of Mom’s sight was out of Mom’s mind. At the beginning, I had this fear that if I wandered too far, I’d run into a social worker, and when they paged Mom, she’d say she didn’t have a kid.”

She’d had nightmares where she’d jerked awake screaming that she was “just out of mind!” At least her crazy was consistent.

“By the time I got over it, I was more interested in listening to people while alone l in the cafeteria, or staying home so I could eat the take-out hot. That’s how the scrub nurse Mom head-hunted across the country never met me.”

There’d been nurses asked to keep an eye on her, of course, but they weren’t scrub nurses. Hospital hierarchy encouraged so much hostility. Was she right to think there should be a less toxic way to ensure the patient got the best possible care, or was there a messed-up-Mer film in front of that?

“MGH has a great transplant program.”

“Yup. And urology. Makes me wonder if Catherine Avery just didn’t wanna work directly under her father-in-law. I liked the Brigham. More like here, atmosphere-wise.”

“They do a lot of innovation in neuroscience these days. Heart disease. Trauma care.”

“You and Owen would be very happy there.”

This time, Meredith squeezed Cristina’s hand. She didn’t know if that was going to be a consideration for her going into fellowship interviews. Possibly, she didn’t either. 

“Eventually, I settled into the routine, and she took more hours. I got old enough that the cops would likely show up before the social workers, and I knew at least one person who’d take me. I never really ran away. I wasn’t sure she’d let me come back, and apart from all of my codependency issues, I never thought any of them would let me stay for long. I never considered forever.

“I was a lazy, selfish girl with no ambition, who didn’t deserve the expensive education I was squandering.”

“Wait, so…in college?”

“That was junior high. She’d gotten a sufficient enough promotion that my scholarship got reduced. By the end of high school, she paid most of my tuition. She liked to say that sending me to college was sunk-cost fallacy.”

“Sheesh.”

“Not going say that there weren’t times where I thought some random old couple, or even a group home, would’ve been better. If I’d been totally sheltered, who knows? Not haunting the hospital hallways enough to start an urban legend doesn’t mean I wasn’t there a lot. I eavesdropped in the cafeteria, the lobby, the E.R. I mean, it started as always listening to the adults, because Mom never told me anything. Self-preservation. Occasionally having an answer.

“So, I picked up stuff that was a world away from the lives of my robber-baron heir classmates. Kids who sounded like I’d felt that day. Who’d called 911 from a hotel, because their baby sister spiked a high fever. The right choice got her, the baby, and their brother removed from parents who’d left them to sign on their new house. That would’ve only been a weekend placement, but how long did it feel to them? 

“Life with Mom wasn’t ideal, but it was better than a lot of things.”

“Is that how things are with Derek?”

“It’s.... Having Zola home would be ideal. I can’t factor her out of it. Beyond that…it’s better than if he hadn’t cone home.”

Cristina stayed quiet. A moment later, she nuzzled against Meredith’s shoulder. Her first anniversary with Owen was approaching. One of the few they got that wasn’t totally confused by new firsts. Was she starting to think about statistics again?

“I’m not sure it’d be this way without the paperwork,” Meredith admitted. 

Derek might’ve pointed at the Post-it, but she kept spiraling around to the universe where other papers weren’t on file at city hall, a few blocks away.

“Maybe he was just trying to show me what following the rules looks like.” She sighed. “I don’t actually think that’s it. He’s making an effort.”

“Generous.”

“I’m the one who screwed up, and that I wasn’t being malicious, or…or whatever, makes it harder for him. He has to see past the tip of his ridiculously long nose.”

Cristina snickered. “Did Sloan break it? Do we know?”

“No, he was all noble and stood up for some kid being bullied his junior year. Thing is, it wasn’t because he took a punch. It was on the bus, driver put on brakes, and he hit his face on a pole.”

“Oh my God, that’s perfect!” Cristina’s laugh made the little room slightly less dreary.

“I’ll see if I can goad him into thinking telling the story is his idea some time. It’s a sickeningly bashful and adorable performance.”

“Still your McDreamy.”

“Unfortunately.” It was getting harder to keep her thoughts untangled from one blink to the next, and while she wanted to ask if Cristina was feeling that way about life with Owen, there’d be chances for that. “Cristina?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry I was so weird the day…last month. About being a mom. I was reeling. I know you don’t want kids. I respect it. But I…I thought I shouldn’t for so long, it took Derek acting like there was no question that I could handle it for me to admit that I wanted them. If you’d just looked at my mom, or something, and thought female surgeons shouldn’t…. I wanted you to know you could reconsider.

“I didn’t want to not operate. I’m sure I would’ve had to do something, but as overwhelming as it all was, I loved the idea of spending more time with her. I’ve never loved anyone else that way. Just rocking her, making up dumb lullabies parodying Alanis songs is my new favorite thing. 

  “I-I remembered how lost you were when you weren’t cutting, and I wanted you to have that experience. I think…I know that I’m…afraid that once she’s home, and I’m just…like that, you’ll decide I’m too softcore for you.”

“Don’t be stupid. You’re hardcore by definition. You’ll just be a hardcore mom and a hardcore surgeon.”

Meredith wasn’t sure that was possible, but Cristina said it like it was a law of physics. An object in motion must stay in motion. If Meredith Grey does something, she does it.  hardcore.

 There were so many counter-examples. College courses dropped, phone calls ignored, jobs quit, friends lost.

True:  If Meredith Grey loves, that love is hardcore.

True: If Meredith Grey wants something, she fights hardcore. 

True: If Meredith Grey falls, she gets up. Hardcore.

And it’d take far longer than  a month for that to change.

“I miss her too, you know,” Derek said a minute after she’d rolled off him, and actually been caught in his arms.

Since the band-aid ripping—more like having a whipstitch yanked out of a wound that wasn’t healed—she’d been able to get on top and keep things focused on him. She got a moment of blissful nothingness. She wasn’t being all Angel on Buffy ‘can’t come, must brood on my sins.’ Just, if she couldn’t be with Zola, she could be thinking of her.

“I know it hurts,” he continued. “But you’re not going to feel better if you keep….” Moping. Sulking. The words he hadn’t used were buoys in the bay that was between them, no matter how physically close they were. “Don’t tell me you can’t believe we’ll get her back. You knew we’d make it through…that I’d be here.”

“Because you care about marriage,” she explained, rolling onto her side of the bed to face him. “So do the people in charge of Malawian adoption waivers.”

“I care about you, Meredith. I love you.”

“That’s not….”  She sat up, mentally coaching herself through the actions of swinging her legs off of the bed and standing, while the pressure moved upward. It took only a second to yank her pants back over her hips. He’d either had a great day or an awful one, and she didn’t get to know which.

That wouldn’t be sustainable. He’d have to talk to her about neuro, and she’d have to keep herself from throwing things at the tumor on the wall. They were more important than surgery. Even if in her head a younger version of herself was screaming that relationships never lasted and her specialty would be forever

 “I’ve been here before, Derek. Here, in this room, this bed, telling myself that what I felt was real. It was meant to be. It would be enough. I loved you, and the f-freaking trailer, and…” She swallowed. If she said this wrong, he’d misunderstand and storm out again. She wasn’t trying to take anything back; she wasn’t complaining. Just trying to tell the truth. “The hospital.”

With you. Looking at you across the table. You walking me through techniques I’d only read about. “I…I even believed you loved me, which for me was…monumental. But it wasn’t enough. 

“I…I was only in that limbo there ten days. For thirty? I can’t always….. Wishful thinking…, thinking positively…, optimism…. I’m trying, okay? It’s harder that  even then nothing got better until a lot got worse. Slmost nothing has ever worked out like that for me. There was always something….

“There was an issue with my Match. Have I told you that? I was lost in the system, or something. An NRMP rep called to tell my dean I’d be at Seattle Grace. That moment where you find out that you got your first choice with all your classmates around you? Yeah, no. Didn’t get it. I got panic and Grey, come with me. There’s been an error.”

Derek’s expression was the one that had him studying her. Maybe she didn’t care. 

You applauding my first clipped aneurysm…didn’t get it.

The baby we conceived after barely having to try…not for me!

My mother, proud I’d gotten an internship? If she hadn’t been sick it might’ve earned a phone call. Maybe.

My dad being thrilled to see me, after twenty-four years…didn’t get it.

“I liked Dartmouth, but it wasn’t my first choice. Mom had me so convinced that I’d only get in locally, or where I was a legacy….. She really ruined getting accepted there for med school. 

“Even when I get what I want…I don’t. Not really. And when I do, I don’t expect it. I’m happy my positivity impressed you. Really. But it..,,I can’t promise it.”

“You…You said I wouldn’t have been the same guy if I hadn’t tried with her.”

For years, Meredith had appreciated that he let her talk while looking away. Now, she wished she’d let him see how she cringed whenever her words were tossed back at her. 

“You had to try, because you’d been ignoring all of your problems. Because you didn’t sign immediately, even though she cheated on you with Mark, and you loved me. You’re loyal to the core, Derek. You had to be sure that you couldn’t just mold yourself back into the person who made those vows and lived through all those birthdays and Christmases. I wanted to think that if I’d been war worth it, you would be loyal to me the same way.”

“You were worth it, Meredith.”

“Yeah, now I know I was.” Once upon a—He put a hand on her shoulder.

 “You are,” he added, like he’d remembered, for a moment at least, how to access her frequency. “I didn’t…. I was clinging too hard to what I knew, and…. I’ve never said I’m sorry, have I? For the scrub room, and Joe’s, and…prom. I knew you didn’t want to be.…”

“The knowing dirty mistress? Yeah. Well.” Her next words came out jagged, their edges tearing into her throat. She opened the door. “That took two.”

“Hey, where are you going?”Through the door. 

Into the hall. 

Down the stairs. 

To not fall for that again. 

She knew better. Nog just that he wasn’t looking for Wife GPS, but that she was capable of giving it to him. She wanted to. She wanted to let him smother her to demonstrate how he’d come to terms with her as the woman he’d agreed to raise a child with.

Maybe she would’ve, if she believed he wouldn’t turn it around on her. She knew him. He could only take on so much blame. And he was right. She’d acted without considering what the ramifications would be for her family, exactly like her mother. She’d deserve the guilt. Not because of what she’d done, but what she hadn’t.

“I’m not leaving the house,” she managed. Strain made her sound sharp. Derek scowled, and she got halfway down the stairs before she had to stop and push the burning sensation behind her eyes back with her fingers. She just had to get to the dry bar, fight those off with a stronger fire. Then, she could focus on Zola. She’d be prepared when l baby came home.

She’d lied up there. She couldn’t replace all the whens with ifs in her thoughts. That was his fault for not being able to let her go, and for reminding her that Meredith Grey didn’t give up.

She’d told the truth up there. She hadn’t been this miserable since her intern year, and she hadn’t learned how to stave it off. Not when he…. Not like this. And she had to keep it contained, couldn’t let it show at the hospital. It was too risky. Something could get back to Janet—seeing her like this reminds me: did you know she tried to drown herself?—Even if it didn’t, back then people had fallen all over the spectrum between sympathy, pity, and judgement, but they’d seen there was a wound. Over the past few weeks, anyone who’d spoken to her, outside of her immediate circle, had said something like, “Such a shame that didn’t work out.” Like they’d been trying to buy a house and couldn’t get a loan. Like it was over. Not like her heart had been put in a meat grinder, and was trying to reshape it, with no idea how long she had.

She’d taken much stronger blows without being winded, but she’d opened herself to a man who knew how to ease pain, but couldn’t always avoid causing it. (When he’d been hurt first. She wasn’t the victim in this story.)

Putting her feelings out there had gotten her here. Most days, she knew it was better than the life she’d have locked up and alone. But Mom hadn’t been like that as a resident. Being attached to a little girl wasn’t something that made her unique. In spite of it all, her mother had cared about her daughter. The problem was that Meredith had grown out of that mold.

“I should never have had a kid.”

Because Richard suddenly hadn’t wanted to be her stepfather? Or because there was a change that came with motherhood? The one that made tiny smiles a gift and little fingers fascinating? Had Meredith embedded herself in mother’s chest like Zola had for her? She hadn’t been snatched out of it, but maybe when Richard exorcised himself, some of that had fallen out.

Maybe a truly extraordinary woman didn’t let anything wedge itself that deeply into her heart. If that was the case, it was too late for her. Meredith had followed her mother’s lead like she’d been possessed by her, and if she lost Zola, she might have the breakdown Ellis had believed she had upon waking up at Roseridge.

Yeah, there was a difference between an adult child you’d raised on your own for thirteen years, and a baby you’d known for three months, but it would be about more than that. Her body wasn’t equipped to give them a baby, and if they couldn’t even adopt in a situation where there were no birthparents, or next-of-kin placements….

She said, ‘I am not a feminist.’ 

It’s not yours!

Whenever nurses at the hospital acknowledged that someone lost a pregnancy three months in, they’d say a variety of things that always circled back around to: you can try again. Meredith didn’t regret that almost no one had known she was pregnant. She’d been raised in a house where trying wasn’t enough. And we might not get that much. Her bitterness matched that of the tequila she was swallowing. By the time CPS worked its way around to telling them, sorry, you screwed yourself, the rest might stopped caring.

She hadn’t known for sure that she was pregnant for more than a few hours before her miscarriage, and everything was relative but, to her, this would be losing a child. It was a belief born of pessimism and self-preservation. Not wanting to face her culpability, and being sure it was likely to have happened anyway. She’d seen so many pregnancy complications from the time she entered a clinic in med school. Fetuses were a possibility, not a certainty.

Zola was certain. Zola’s gurgling giggle transitioned into a contagious belly laugh if you kept doing the silly thing. She’d stopped crying at all for a little while once Derek got her hydrocephalus under control. Then, she learned that she could demand at the hospital, where the orphanage had run on strict schedules. She’d developed a squall that Meredith could recognize from anywhere on the peds floor. 

She’d lick whatever was in her hands, and if her reaction made them laugh, she’d kick her legs and flap her hands. The only time her eyes weren’t huge and everywhere was when she was taking a bottle before her nap or night-nig—There is a baby. There is no milk.—before she slept.

At least, she had done all of that. A month had passed, and Meredith knew exactly how quickly she could change. 

She sank into the desk-chair, absently pulling her legs up to her chest. She counted to ten with her forehead pressed against her knees, giving in to the pounding pain behind it, and the heat that had outlasted the jigger she’d poured. She couldn’t try again. Not until she was sure it wouldn’t affect her ability to focus. Breathe, Grey. Hold it together. 

Last night had been bad.

Last night, it had been a month. She’d lied to Cristina at Sloan at midnight. It wasn’t just a day. She’d lost it a little. Luckily, she’d made it to the point where she could do that in here, unobserved. 

Tonight, Derek hadn’t even tried to take her zip-up hoodie off, so she hadn’t had to lie about the scratches. For the first time in her life, she understood that you could want w that attention, even if she was on the fence.If no one notices the cracks, did you even have a breakdown?

Eventually, she sat up, opened the laptop, and made her way to Google. The glow of the screen made her realize she hadn’t turned on a light.

Eight month old + toys + development

Derek was right. There was no benefit to moping. If Meredith knew one thing, it was how to channel her pain into caring for someone she loved. And if it left her open to the blow of being told she’d never see her again, well, it would be less jarring to go from eight to a ten than if she got down to zero.

Chapter Text

Once he’d gotten the basics of the situation, Derek wondered if he’d been sent to give Dr. Logan a neuro-check. The intern had called Hunt when the a sweet Black woman in her fifties had introduced herself as Chief’s wife. It was August. They should’ve caught on to the fact that his wife was Dr. Yang. Then, Hunt revealed that Richard was in surgery.

That was one thing that seemed to genuinely please the older man about his demotion—resignation—Derek remembered what a relief it had been to return to the admin responsibilities of head of neurosurgery, leaving Chief of Surgery behind to spend most of his day in the O.R.

“He should be done before your next procedure, Shepherd,” Hunt said as Derek sat in a waiting room chair perpendicular to Adele’s. “If not, maybe Grey…?”

“I babysat that girl; she doesn’t need to babysit me.”

Derek nodded at Hunt. “It’s not babysitting, Adele. It’s keeping you company.”

“Richard was Chief up until a few weeks ago. It slipped my mind that he stepped down.”

“I understand.” Derek wished it would slip his mind. Maybe then every reminder that Richard wasn’t in charge wouldn’t send him into a tailspin. Meredith hadn’t asked him to do that. She hadn’t wanted him to. (No sense of self-preservation! None!)

“Strange to think, he’d never have done something like that for me when I was asking him to travel, or celebrate a holiday. Now, I can hardly tell one from the other, and he wants time.” Adele smiled, and Derek noted how perfectly her make-up had been applied.

Meredith had once commented on how strange it was that at Roseridge her mother never looked different, regardless of where her mind was in time and space. “They say it helps them to hold onto who they are, and Mom wasn’t the loungewear type. She was always dressed to be called in.

“When I get Alzheimer’s, we’re gonna gave a bonfire with everything in my wardrobe that comes close to business casual.”

He’d laughed, because he could see her doing it, and the possibility of her losing herself had been so much more abstract. Then, he’d started seeing patients who had small children. Who’d been diagnosed before they were forty. Who were caretakers for their parent who shared a diagnosis.

“She was a sweet little thing, your wife.” Adele said. “I remember once, someone had brought in a sheet cake for a nurse’s birthday. I was pulling out a chair at the break room table, and guess what I found under there? She said she’d wanted to play with the balloons, and when people came in, she got stuck, because she didn’t want to be caught in a nurses’ place.

“So, I pulled her onto my lap, and told her I’d say she came in with me. I offered her some of my cake, and her eyes went wide as silver dollars. ‘I’d like it,’ she said. ‘But if I wasn’t being sneaky, you would get your whole piece.’ I told her I’d only planned on eating half of it. I am absolutely sure she didn’t buy it, but she was all of four years old. She wasn’t going to do an in-depth investigation if it kept her from getting a frosting flower.”

“No. She wouldn’t.” Derek pressed his mouth against his clasped hands.

She’d screwed up his chance to keep her in their lives for more than the twenty year deadline Ellis’s trajectory gave them. They might all suffer from that.

Adele put a hand on his arm. “She adored Richard, you know. One night, he’d gone in to assist Ellis on a procedure that went long, and I took Meredith down to the cafeteria. It was closed, but there was a janitor there who knew exactly how she liked her grilled cheese.”

“With tomatoes.”

“That’s right! While I was cutting it up for her, she asked if I wanted to know a secret. With any little one there’s no telling what they’re going to say, but that child….  She told me that she pretended Richard was her ‘hospital daddy.’ I’m not sure if she’d heard of a work spouse, or made it up herself, but…mmm-mmm. She added that he shouted less than her home daddy. Just goes to show…when I first met Thatcher Grey, I’d have told you he didn’t know how to raise his voice, but there’d been I don’t know how many scenes by then. Richard told him to tone it down, and the awed way that baby looked at him…. She was the one innocent in the situation, and she might’ve been the most damaged by it.”

She might be right, but that didn’t mean she was…what? Guilty by proxy? “That’s not your fault,” he said.

Adele nodded, and then turned to him, sharply. Hearing the different tone in her voice made him think of an actress who’d just gotten into character. “How’s that baby sister of yours doing? Richard told me it’s been difficult. That she’s given you a time, leaving the facility after she promised your mama she’d stay.”

“Oh. Um. Yeah, that’s…it…it’s…it was a betrayal.” It’d been terrifying. Amy had disappeared for weeks, and then called him from Providence. Richard had been the one who smoothed things over when he’d taken off in the middle of a shift..

“Mmhmm, I know that feeling. Boy do I. I suppose it seems easier, when you’re married. There’s a line. An ultimate betrayal. But the truth is…. Now, I’m going to say this, and I don’t want it to affect how you think of my Richard. We’ve settled it between us, you understand?”

Would Adele be upset by him saying I know what you’re going to say, I know who it was with. If your husband choosing you turned her into an angry ghost of herself, would she have…?

…yelled at her for laughing too loud? …asked what she was smiling at, and sneer at the answer? …made her feel responsible for what they lost?

He didn’t need to ask.

“Uh…yeah…. Yes, Mrs. Webber.”

“Boy, I have told you to call me Adele! All right. Well. Richard had an affair, very early in our marriage. They were interns together, already falling for each other when we met.  She was married. Had a baby. Sweet little thing. Took years for it to become physical, but I was not some naive little wife who didn’t have a clue. I was a nurse. Your mama’s a nurse, you know: nurses know everything.”

How well he knew.

“It ended with their residency. I told him I wanted to get out of Seattle, for a while, away from my family. Nadine, the nursing director here? She was one of my professors back at UW. Put in a good word for him. All of that to give credence when I say: I’d rather he be cheating than drinking.”

“Oh,” he murmured, taken aback. She patted his hand.

“Drinking hurts him. It affects his ability to do his job. But there is some truth to the cliché of alcohol becoming his mistress. It may not feel like it, but the person who cheats, or betrays, is never doing it with a mind to hurt you. Matter-of-fact, they know the truth is gonna hurt more than the lie. Everything they do is in the interest of two things; getting whatever their fix is, and keeping everything else  normal. Trouble is, the high, whatever it is, affects brain chemistry. You do things you wouldn’t ordinarily do, and eventually those bumps in the road can’t be smoothed out. That’s when folks hit rock bottom.”

She was speaking of Amelia, still facing consequences from the keys he’d given her not knowing she was high; and crashing the car. She’d sworn up and down that she hadn’t OD’d on purpose, but some other things she’d said— “I knew you’d never trust me again.” “All I’ve ever done is cause Mom more pain” —had always made him wonder. Pushing air into her chest, he’d remembered thinking she didn’t seem any bigger than she’d been on the floor of Dad’s office.

“It’s been a long time since I talked to anyone about all of that. Even at Al-Anon, there’s a look folks give you when they find out you stuck with a cheater.” Derek had to stop himself from commiserating. “I’d swear I was going to leave him. There are times when I think it might’ve been better for everyone if I’d let him go. He loved her, and his drinking escalated fast out here. Maybe if I’d had connections somewhere with fewer cabs ready to pick up a soused surgeon….”

Derek laughed, remembering why he’d always sought this woman out at events in Manhattan.

“But Richard…. It’s why he’s so good with all of you baby doctors. He’s charismatic, of course. He’s got a way of shaping the world to his favor, while convincing everyone that they made their own choices. You all screw up, and you still leave his office wanting to make him proud. He’s never the bad guy, and the person who takes the blame is just as devoted to him after. There’s a world out there where he decided to put those powers to real use, and he’s some kind of dictator. Instea,d he’s just training surgeons.”

“How do you start moving past the betrayal?”

“Well…. I suppose I think of it as showing me something new about the man I love. He loves deeply, and sometimes sees limits as lines not walls. He’s proud. Strong. Arrogant, and I’d like you to show me one of you who isn’t. Wants to get his cake and—”

“Adele! What are you doing here, sweetheart?” Richard came running into the room, his hands still dripping.

“Gossiping about you with your resident.”

Derek watched Richard’s face as he embraced his wife. His fear gave way to confusion, and then resignation. How or why she’d made her way here might not ever be clear to him.

“I, uh, wish you wouldn’t do that. It makes them insubordinate.”

“Good. About time you learned to earn that authority. You’ll never be Chief Webber if you keep relying on how eager to please they are.”

“You’re right, you’re right.”

“There’s your secret to a happy marriage, Dr. Shepherd.” Adele laughed. “Your wife’s always right.”

“Leave the boy alone,” Richard said, taking Adele’s hand. “His…uh…She’s one of mine, too. Chances are neither of them’s a hundred percent right.”

“Hmm. Now that might be the secret of how we’ve been doing this so long. That, and leaving the hospital when your wife shows up looking for dinner. He’ll see you later, Dr. Shepherd.” Adele paused, and then turned back to him. “Show the girl grace. The world’s doing a number on her, and your support will do her more good than your anger.”

“Even if it’s her own fault?”

“Oh, I am sure you know better than that. Whatever got her to this point, I guarantee you, it’s not where she intended to be. Haven’t you ever had a simple mistake spiral out of your control? If not, I assure you it’ll happen soon.”

She turned back to Richard, and Derek saw her spine and shoulders stiffen. “Where…Where am I?’

“You’re at the hospital, dear. You came to visit me.”

“Oh, I don’t think so!” Adele pulled away from Richard, and started wringing her hands. “I’m a married woman.”

“You’re married to me,” the strain in Richard’s voice was heart wrenching, and Derek didn’t know if he should intercede. “I’m your husband.”

“R-Richard?”

“That’s right.”

“I…I don’t know how I got here.”

“That’s all right. Let’s go get you something to eat, and we’ll figure everything out.” Richard turned to Derek, and mouthed a thank you. Derek nodded. He waited util he’d heard the elevator doors close behind them to bury his face in his hands.

He’d treated patients in the early stages of Alzheimer’s. He’d heard Meredith talk about her mother in the first two years; where her determination to work until it was impossible had made the marathon of med school into an obstacle course. She’d wandered off, or come to herself as she shoved Meredith away from her. It made him sick to think that she’d have to live her worst nightmare, and while, for weeks, a voice that sounded too much like Nancy’s had bitterly assured him, she won’t be there to experience it in his head, it wasn’t true. For a certain amount of time, she’d know what was happening, know she was deteriorating. Would he be there saying, “Well, if you hadn’t tried to give a woman you’ve known your whole life a chance…?”

She was deceitful. Rash, reckless, insubordinate.

She was compassionate to a fault. She’d burnt down a forest in her attempt to save the tree in front of her. That was all there was to it.

Wasn’t it?

“Hey, bud, how are you?”

“Hi, Kath.” Derek didn’t realize how much he needed to hear his oldest sister’s voice. She’d always been the one who could come and clean up any mess before Mom got home. She’d been the one he asked about “real girls,” and told about his break-ups. She’d known about his dreams of living somewhere less urban, “where I’d treat injuries, not declare gunshots DOA.” Then, he’d opened the practice and become a few-trick pony.

He and Addison had gotten engaged when Kath was in a rough spot; isolated from them by a shitty abusive boyfriend—God, he could still hear Amelia screaming that if that could happen to Kathleen why couldn’t they see that addiction could happen to anyone. He couldn’t remember if they’d tried to give her a real answer—and then she’d married the guy who’d helped her get out.

It’d taken years for her to start commenting on their relationships again. Sometimes, he wondered what she would’ve said as his life became more and more urban. He’d shut her out when she’d finally started asking questions about his marriage to Addison, not wanting to have to face the answers. When she’d shown up during the few days he’d spent lying low at Mom’s, he’d accused her of being glad she was right. “Are you gonna tell me to see it from their perspective?”

Her matter-of-fact reminder that she wasn’t a therapist; she treated mental illness, had let to him slamming out into the alley-wide patch of grass they’d called a yard. It’d reminded him of countless afternoons shooting the shit with Mark out there, and he’d stormed back in for the phone, grateful that Mom had gotten friendly enough with Adele to have her Seattle number. New York was tainted for him; he’d needed to get as far away as he could.

“Oh, boy, the sigh. You better be glad Stevie has a one o’clock curfew.”

He glanced at the clock. Eight-thirty, here. Eleven-thirty, there. He’d come to the trailer under the guise of checking out Amar’s fix on the deck. His teenaged niece would be home long before Meredith emerged from the study and began to worry that he wouldn’t come back.

“I don’t love the idea of Stevie being old enough for that.”

“In your day, you had to be an adult to be out past midnight.”

“And preferably in my own place, or get shit for ‘waking’ the teenager I’d caught sneaking out. But, uh, yeah, it’s really complicated,” he continued, not wanting the conversation to land on Amy. He knew she thought all of her issues were the result of something, most often borderline personality disorder, and he figured she’d never admit that Amelia’s brain chemistry hadn’t morphed at puberty; they’d just screwed up. Taken their collective eyes off of the ball at the worst point possible.

“Is it Meredith?”

Her tone made him cringe back against his lawn chair. Nancy had been the one to show up here and call her names, but Kathleen had sent her.

“I’m not interested in having you pathologize her. She’s…. The things she does, how she thinks, there’s a direct line to trauma. Individual events, and growing up with the kind of abuse that doesn’t leave a mark. I…I know that. She’s worked through a lot of it, and I…. She…did something…. “

“Not someone?”

“No! Jesus, Kath!”

“I had to ask!”

“You really didn’t. She…She tampered with a clinical trial.”

“Your Alzheimer’s trial?”

“Degenerative…. Yeah. It had ramifications she never could have anticipated—That I couldn’t have…. But, uh, I…I blew up, and shut her out…. Shut her down.” He swallowed, thinking of that blankness he’d seen the evening Zola was taken. There were still flashes of it; moments when he knew exactly where her mind had gone. “I understand what happened, but I’m still so angry.

“It was one patient. A patient I would have given the drug to if it was allowed. She didn’t tell me because she knows me. I only proved her right.

“The fallout is…it’s hurting her, and I want to be there for her. She…She wouldn’t have said it even before, but now…she needs me. But I’m still…. I’m not over it, and I’m afraid I’m just gonna make it worse. She’s not delicate or high-maintenance…. She’s the strongest person…. But once she lets someone in….. I could lose her, but worse, I could really do damage.”

“Was she fired?”

“No! Not…. The patient was Richard’s wife. He and her mom did their residency together, and to Meredith…when her parents were fighting, he was a stable point. He’s become a weak point. I saw it last year, when he relapsed. She found out, and he started tutoring her to keep her quiet, laying on the comparisons to her mom. Kept saying he’d been medicating his depression the first time around. That he’d never been an alcoholic.”

“Love-bombing, gaslighting. Did he pull that again”

“I don’t know. He says he pressured her, but I don’t know what that means. I didn’t really…. I could barely hear her, Kath. This was our chance to start securing her future, and she threw it away for….

“God, it sounds awful, but we’re…the project is… at the start. The hope is to slow the disease; it won’t reverse anything. She wasn’t saving Richard and Adele from going through what she and her mom did. It’s her future. When she wanted to do the genetic testing, I said we should just live our lives. That doesn’t mean pretending it’s not possible—“

“‘I don’t think you need fixing, but here’s how I’ll fix you?’”

“What? No!”

“We’re going to circle back to you making it all about her again. First, was that her goal?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why would a patient, or their family, sign up for the trial? Other than altruism? More good days. The chance to get to the next treatment. Look, bud, she’s, what, thirty-two? And she started taking care of her mom at twenty-four? Five? Even with early-onset, she looks at it as her mother’s disease. She was in it for the caretakers who had it sprung on them. Who lost their moms day by day. Who didn’t have decades of lead time.”

Whereas he’d already started promising to remind her of who she was. That she wouldn’t suffer Ellis’s loneliness.

“Whether Richard pressured her or not, she did it for him. A man you both idolize. Who, in fact, might be your model for dealing with this down the line.”

“So, you’re saying….”

She did it for me.

He could hardly think the words. Meredith would never say them. She might not know—but it was suddenly obvious.

“I-I didn’t…. God. I was so pissed, and she was trying to defend an act that could ruin our careers. But it was…was personal. What she did, the trial…. It was…. But it wasn’t…. I said she didn’t know right from wrong. It’s awful on the surface, and…and as a kid she had to blatantly disobey her mother to save her life. Nothing has ever been that simple for her, and I…then I doubled down. Told her I wasn’t sure I could raise a child with someone who couldn’t make the distinction.”

At the end of that recap, he felt like his chest had been pried open again. INot a bullet this time. Necrotic flesh being debrided. From any other sister, he’d anticipate indigence, name-calling, derision.

Kath sighed. “Of course. You react with offense as your primary goal, and you know exactly where to hit. Hockey with words. Let me guess, next, you put yourself in the penalty box?”

“I needed space! I-I just…. She lied to me!”

“Did she? Or did she keep her mouth shut so you wouldn’t become prosecution, judge, and jury, declaring her unfit to stand trial.”

“Wh-What?”

“Not knowing the difference between right and wrong. It’s the definition of criminal insanity.”

“I didn’t know that.” But Meredith did. He had no doubt of that.

“Maybe not. We never know what we know.”

“Richard stepped down as chief. I don’t think his heart has been in it since he came back. And…he wouldn’t have done that if he didn’t see himself as responsible. He doesn’t…. In his chess game, he’s the king.”

“And Meredith?”

“She…She’s every pawn. Offense isn’t what you expect, but they can perform it. Mostly they exist for sacrifice.”

“And to herself? In her own game?”

“Same. Not…Not always, but….This time, she was one square from being the pawn that got across the board to be swapped for the queen.”

“You’re mad that she put herself on the line. You want to knock out everyone who tries to attack her, and she put herself in checkmate.“

“Not the first time. She…She almost got herself shot last year, Kath. She did….” God. She’d lost a baby. There was no way she wasn’t thinking she’d done it again. “Why wasn’t I like this, then?”

“Because you understand jumping in front of a bullet. This wasn’t heat-of-the-moment thing. It was getting away with something. You hate that, unless you’re the one doing it. You’ve broken rules, Derek. You’ve done the wrong thing without consequence. In a way, you’re mad because you love her. You want her to look out for herself, but to me it looks like she’s working without blueprints there.

“Identify the emotions you’re feeling. The primary ones, and the secondary ones that you act on. The why only matters in that you need to know why you feel and behave this way.

“But you called me to advise you on talking to her?”

"Yeah. I’m starting to…understand why she took that chance, but…I need to be able to ask about the ramifications without digging myself deeper.”

“You need to not speak immediately. Let her know you need a minute. Any emotional reaction is just that. It’s your amygdala responding, Mr. Brain Surgeon. You’re panicking and proceeding. The 2Ps. You need to activate the prefrontal cortex. You need to pause, process, plan, and proceed. The 4Ps.

“She’ll be defensive. You need to be calm. Ask clarifying questions. Model long-term thinking by considering your damn words. They can hurt, baby brother. I’m sure you’ve lobbed them at yourself. I also think that whatever those ramifications were, you might also need to forgive yourself for them.”

He almost hung up on her.

“How are you feeling?”

“Seriously irritated.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re right, but I wouldn’t have been…. It’s all a result of what she did!”

“What she did, or how you reacted?”

“I…. It…. Both. I just…. Richard was my mentor. Even once I declared for neuro, he still gave me more than Hamilton and Baracass. I adore Adele; she and Addison used to shop together. We hosted them in the Hamptons, threw his going away party. He saved me from becoming a hack for the social caché, and I…I never would’ve thought to do it.”

“Just consider that Richard said whatever it was to her, not you, or someone who directly reported to him. She acted with no expectation of reward or blackmail, that you know of. I’m not saying she didn’t have agency, but…. He got more time with Adele in multiple ways. Didn’t face interrogations about stepping down. Keep that in mind when you talk about taking the fall.”

“What did Richard say?”

Meredith slammed her laptop shut, and put aside the book she was highlighting, like he was going to be offended by her reading What to Expect the First Year. “Wh-What?”

He lowered the volume on her Irish rock as he picked a bottle of whiskey up from the dry bar. He poured a double into a tumbler, and then picked up the bottle of tequila, holding it up to her. She bit her lip, before nodding and coming out from behind the desk to take her shot glass from him. She insisted that the pink novelty glass had been Stevens’s purchase, but she gravitated toward it when no one was around.

No one, except him.

He took his drink over to the sofa in time to watch her swallow hers, one arm still crossed over her chest. Since the night they met, he’d been fascinated by her profile as she took a shot. Tipping it to her lips, flipping it and slamming it upside down on the bar was one gesture, and no matter how many times she’d done it that night, she was always fully in control. Her movements in the O.R. were just starting to hold the same graceful familiarity.

It was once the routine was done that her shoulders hunched, and she shuffled around to face him without moving in one direction or another. He indicated for her to sit anywhere; the room was narrow, but there were chairs in addition to the couch. She ended up in one of them, moving a pillow around to hold in front of her chest. He supposed that was something; once she would’ve brought the tequila bottle with her for support.

They’d pretty much cleared out this room, only for it to become a secondary living room. Meredith used it as a study more than he did.

“The day I found out about the trial, Richard said he ‘basically pressured’ you. I thought he was just being Richard—”

“He was—”

“—and trying to keep you out of the line of fire—”

“Right!”

“But that’s not his style. Not as much as…as getting people to do something and letting them think it’s their idea.”

“It was my idea!”

“In response to what?”

“To Adele thinking I was my mother, and begging me to let her have him!”

He leaned toward her, and put his drink on the coffee table to give the action justification in her scrutinizing eyes. “Was he there for that?”

“No.”

“So, that’s probably not what he was referring to.”

“Maybe not.”

“Do you know what he meant?”

“Not for sure.”

Irritation at her circular answers shot up his spine. He had to get that under control. If he already felt like they were back in that first interrogation, she absolutely would. “Meredith, I’m just trying to understand—”

“It won’t change anything! You know it was Adele. You know I didn’t want to invalidate the trial. If anything else mattered….” She took a breath that looked shaky, but she’d turned her face away from him. “It should’ve mattered when I—When my job was on the line.”

“I didn’t have any control over that.”

“Did I ask you to intercede for me? I’m not talking about special treatment.”

What did she mean? He wanted to pursue it, but it was a bomb he didn’t know how to detonate.

“I understand that your fingerprints were on the envelope, okay? I do. I know it’s complicated because it’s Adele, and she’s the second-most innocent person involved in everything that happened that June. But it’s also complicated because it was Richard. One woman with Alzheimer’s came back into his life at the same time you did—”

“She was my mother. I brought her here.”

“That doesn’t make anything that happened between them your fault. It doesn’t make anything that happened between him and Adele your fault. Figuring out that she had something going on didn’t make her condition your responsibility.”

Her eyes cut toward him. Okay. Richard had been upset over her suggesting that Adele needed cognitive testing. Accusing her of seeing Alzheimer’s everywhere. Probably making some other remark about her mother.

“I-I got her in the study. Circumstances changed, but Richard…he was grateful. I hadn’t really done anything. He just….” She caught herself and glared over at him. A slip. With her, you didn’t get a lot of them.

“When Addison brought Archer to me, or when someone like Stevens is on my table, and I know that people I care about will be hurt—devastated—if I screw up? I’d break the laws of nature if I could,” he confided.

“But you can’t, and if you could, where does it stop, and that’s why someone else makes those choices for us, Meredith. Normal people—”

“Okay, okay. Stop. Mer, I know you tried to talk to me, and I was too busy being judge and jury…. You’re not crazy.” Her eyes widened. Bingo. “i didn’t think that. I don’t. You’re right the world isn’t that easily categorized. I wasn’t listening. I left and turned my phone off. I couldn’t…couldn’t trust myself not to…to make things worse, but…. It looked a lot like running. You didn’t think you could trust me—”

“I’m always gonna find another reason not to trust you,” she said, in the sing-song voice of repetition. It took him a moment to match them to the accusations he’d made after she’d called him out on kissing Rose. Not kissing her, kissing her and not telling Meredith—whom he’d made his mistress, in whose face he’d thrown flirting with her sister, who’d never had a stable relationship of any kind….

“But you do it anyway. I’m grateful for that. And…I’m here. I’m listening, and I’m not going anywhere. Whatever you tell me. I’m here.” He swore tears popped into her eyes, but when he blinked, they were gone. Had that been happening when he wasn’t looking?

He’d heard her crying, or trying not to, twice at night, and told himself he wasn’t the one she’d want comforting her. That it was better for her not to know the earplugs didn’t—always? Were times he’d missed?—block it out. As if she would’ve risked it if something in her didn’t want him to hear.

He was starting to get sick of all the bullshit he’d been feeding himself.

If she hadn’t lied to Janet.

If she’d thought she could trust him to back her up….

“He didn’t give me the idea. I staked out the pharmacy. I memorized the door code. I took Adele’s envelope. If I’d thought to take the one next to her, or if there’d been a lightbox in the pharmacy, or if she’d been getting the drug—especially then—nothing would’ve happened. But I ran into Alex in the hall with the second envelope under my coat. I still went back into the pharmacy and swapped the contents.

“It wasn’t even a perfectly blind trial, you know. We still could’ve treated anyone who got the placebo different at the follow-ups.”

“We—” Pause. Process. She was right. He couldn’t argue for the subjectivity of cognitive tests. Any number of things could lead to a few points’ difference, and Alzheimer’s researchers were desperate for crumbs. Plan. Proceed. “That’s true. I was going to address it in the paper.”

“Oh. Good.” She waited, and he let the silence sit. “It’s just…blind trials…. Mathematically, I guess, but…. Humanely….. The FDA has broken their own rules because they’re not fair!”

“Alzheimer’s isn’t AIDS, Meredith.”

Her jaw set, and he mentally kicked himself.  “I’m aware. I’ve seen both of them. The guys protected me from the worst of it when their friend, who was maybe ten years older than me, lost his mind to AIDS-related dementia. I’ve seen the Alzheimer’s version up close. I’m not some naive idealist, here!”

“I didn’t mean…. The parallel track system was about getting treatments to people who weren’t in the formal studies. It didn’t end placebo trials.  Bias can be a huge factor—when people are desperate, the placebo effect can be huge. Blind trials are only way to stop that, and to keep us—to protect us from having to make those choices.”

“They are, or they have been?”

“What do you—?”

“Trials are flawed! They don’t include enough women, or people of color. They’re done by the drug companies themselves, or funded in other ways that are major conflicts of interest.Maybe it’s time to revamp the whole thing!”

“That’s not our job,” he protested. “There are some issues, but—that wasn’t why you did what you did.”

“If the system was fair, I wouldn’t have had to!”

“That’s not what fair means.”

“Then fair isn’t fair!” She shoved a hand through her hair. “I don’t want to fight about this. I only…I got into this to make people better. That’s what made me decide to actually go to med school. I waited until I knew it wasn’t about my mother, or…or anything more than that I wanted to help people. And this…it was basically exactly the opposite.

“ Before you ask, yes, I think about the other patient. A lot. If I could’ve done it any other way…. For all these families just getting in the trial was…was a chance at more time…. You think it’ll be enough. One more week. One more day. One more hour. It’s not. Sometimes it’s just long enough to make things worse. But some people…they use it right. They make up for things. Like…the woman with the stabby husband— The…The double barrel bypass….”

“Mrs. Booker.”

“Right, Sylvia. I was just thinking: how’d I get all the dick bitings?”

Some days, he thought he’d stop being surprised at the situations in which she could make him laugh. He hoped he’d never be right. “As long as they didn’t give you ideas.”

“For if some sleaze ever tries to put it in my mouth, sure. How are men that stupid?”

“God-complex. Delusions of invulnerability.”

“There are psychopaths in our field.”

“And those with radical empathy.”

“I don’t…. I’m not.…I just…I wanted to do everything I could for h—for them.”

He was grateful.

We do everything we can....

“Did Richard suggest you hadn’t don everything?”

She sat up, letting the pillow slap the arm of the sofa. There. That, or close to it. And she wasn’t happy he’d gotten there. “I wasn’t manipulated. I’m no one’s doll!”

Most people would say puppet. Who’d called her ‘doll?’ Probably someone he didn’t want to know.

“Can you at least agree that he wouldn’t have put it to me the same way?”

She slumped again. “He might…. Well…. He did say…something like…he made a lot of mistakes, and all he wanted was to be with her.”

Mer-lation: He’d said exactly that.

“That would’ve resonated with me,” he acknowledged. “Sounds a lot like what he’d say when he was trying to get me back with Addison.”

She watched him for a moment, her head pillowed on arms draped over the pillow. Then, she stood, holding one finger up to signal him to stay. He tensed, ready to so spring up, and trying not to look like it.

He exhaled when she stopped at the dry bar, pouring herself another and silently offering to refill his. He held the tumbler out, and watched her careful pour. She did it by eye, but he’d bet if he poured it into a jigger the liquid would perfectly brush the top.

She downed the shot, her nose wrinkling slightly; the only reaction she’d show if it burned. She lingered there for a second, spinning her glass pensively. Then, she let it click still, forgoing the extra shot. Extra two.

This time she didn’t go for the protective huddle on the chair. She came toward the sofa, sitting on the coffee table across from the cushion that would’ve been hers. She’d sort of boxed herself in, and there were positions she could’ve taken to avoid facing him without making it obvious.

“It, uh…. A lot of it really was…. She said…I thought we were talking about Alzheimer’s, and…and then she told me to stop, and asked if I was in love with him, and if I was, then she didn’t know what I should do, but she thought he was in love with…with Ellis. Sh-She called me Ellis. She said if I wasn’t in love with him, to give him back.

“Trying to acclimate her didn’t do any good. So…I told her he was hers. ‘Cause he is. But, uh…. I sorta wondered, if she’s with him, and she thinks it’s twenty-four, five, six years ago…is he gonna crush her again like he did Mom?”

He sipped his refreshed drink, remembering how haunted she’d looked when Richard’s focus on his marriage had led to her mother reliving the breakup. If he’d known what that time had been like for her….

If he’d asked.

“But then…the day of the surgery, Richard…. He said he’d made a lot of mistakes, and it took him a lot of years to finally realize that all he wanted to do was be with her. He thanked me for everything I’d done. I told him I didn’t do anything—circumstances changed. He said… catching it first. Looking after her. I’d given them the best chance that they could get. Said again that I’d done everything.”

Not repeated. Said again. Same words different tone? She’d recited without any, and there were places where emphasis could’ve clued Derek in to which of Richard’s tactics was being used. Had that last statement hinted at a question? As though he knew you’d missed a box, but if the checklist was done by the time he scrubbed out, it’d be fine? Was it more of an order? Asking for a favor?

“He wasn’t grateful when you caught it.”

“Of course not. I railed at Mom’s doctors for all their hedging, and their horrible prognoses, and I knew how…how nothing they could know for sure. No one’s grateful for that news.

“He might never see me exactly the same way. My mother told me about her own disease, and I still…. I wish she’d let some strange neurologist do it, because in the mix of everything I feel about her, and her Alzheimer’s, and where I was in my life right then…. I hate her for dropping that bomb into my lap.”

She was turning the face of her watch over and over on her wrist. His fingers kept tensing with the instinct to grab her hand, but he didn’t know that he should. Not yet.

Her gaze had shifted to her shoes, slipped under the couch cushion, but she glanced over at him. “You’re not gonna tell me how awful that is?”

He scoffed into his glass. “You just summed up some of the deeper wounds in my family. Amelia…hates me for being there. I hate that I had to grow up for her. Mom will always hear me saying ‘something happened at the shop,’ before I broke down, and the cop—who should’ve made the call—took the phone. The older three hate that we got to be there. We hate that they don’t have the memory of that sound.… You’re not awful.”

“Bad trauma all around.”

He’d expected not for that. Testing him. She’d doubled down. He took and held a long breath. She wanted him to berate her. Why?

The night he’d told her about Dad, and she’d said, ”It’s been a bad day all around,” hadn’t ended with that. He understood why she’d been lost for what to say. He’d held so much back; telling her that when he had. She’d seen it for what it was, and while she was the kind of person who strangers confessed to, relationships came and went without knowing the other person had parents.

“You said that for anyone else, you could say you had done everything. Why not for Richard? He’s an administrator. Shouldn’t you’ve assumed he wanted you to follow the rules?”

“Probably,” she said, a note of amusement in her voice. “Like, maybe if he’d raised me, I would’ve. But he…I mean, you knew something was wrong when he got so stringent last year. He never wants us to get too caught up in the one way, or the right way, to do something. Bodies aren’t like that. That’s why insurance can be so frustrating, because what works for one person might not work for the next. I only…. He wasn’t using me, okay? I know what that looks like.”

Oh. The puzzle of her defensiveness clicked together. She’d felt like a dupe last year—not seeing she’d been gaslit by an expert, or that it happened to most people who cared about an addict. Right now, he couldn’t try to remind her of that, but while he saw a straight line between the two situations, she needed this to have been a choice.

Why?

“I’ve stood in the way of a lot, for him, and my mom. I-I couldn’t help being alive, or being a kid who needed to be taken care of. Coming back here, I didn’t know what I was getting into…because she didn’t try to tell me,” she added, like she still had to remind herself of that part. “But Adele…. I still don’t know if I think she’d have been better off if Richard had left, like Thatcher was, or if she was happy with how things were, and I just ruined her retirement plans…. Doesn’t matter. I hit the domino.

“And…I got it wrong. Last year. I let the surgery matter too much. Let him imply I was nothing like Thatcher, and could have Mom’s skill without being her. I was in over my head between ‘what…what separates me from…from being the one puking blood on a shoe?’ and thinking…I’d kept Mom’s secrets, and I’d been covered for when things got rough. It’s what you do for…for people who’re important.” She shrugged.

No. It wasn’t. Not if someone was putting themselves in danger. That was why Mom had so much trouble with Amy; she didn’t have four other pairs of eyes on her.

Except.... Had knowing he’d tell Mom been why she didn’t come to him? To any of them? He hadn’t told Mom everything, because Amelia was his responsibility. In his forties, he avoided giving Kath specifics. But Amy had grown up with the shrieks, and you stupid snitch! The secrets had all gone over her head.

“It’s what you do.” He watched her as he said it, catching the tiny flinch. “No, Mer…. Your loyalty…. It’s amazing that it’s lasted. Your cohort wasn’t in there trying to say they’d switched the samples.”

This time, there was more than a flinch. She went perfectly still, and he was sure that if she’d felt safe breaking down, her face would’ve crumpled. She hadn’t thought of it like that. The stakes weren’t as high; she hadn’t put Adele’s life on the line.

She’d put herself on the line for Stevens, for Yang, for Karev—and he’d turned her in. If one of them had the right to feel betrayed, it was her, and Alex had been back in the house before Derek.

Since she’d used the word, he’d been thinking a lot about what made a betrayal. She’d been right that it wasn’t about vows. Not in the traditional sense. It wasn’t just breaking a promise. It was doing that, and it was having it be totally unexpected. It was a vow, a promise broken, for someone’s own gain, and it plowed down everything you thought you knew.

As much as he wanted to justify his own reaction by claiming it; Derek couldn’t call what Meredith had done a betrayal. She hadn’t done it for herself—not knowingly. If part of her had been seeking out one of those moments where Richard treated her like a daughter—they were there, and they were inconsistent…. Could he blame her?

Richard hadn’t made the suggestion to him. He hadn’t made it to Miranda. They had a more traditional mentor-mentee relationship, though Miranda definitely felt she owed him more. But she didn’t break rules.

Meredith…. He couldn’t say she thought she was above them. As much as her mother had destroyed her self-worth, she had gotten her out of some messes. So had his parents. It was the smaller things she’d had to learn to handle herself, and hope for the best. Then, in med school, where she’d probably had millions of questions about the way things were done and been afraid of someone saying, “Ah, you should ask Ellis about that!”

Hell, he’d done a pretty crappy job at modeling strict rule-following, from dating her to not leaving the hospital when he’d been fired.  He didn’t think she’d missed the right-and-wrong day in kindergarten—although, it sounded like she had had patchy attendance that year—but if you really thought about what she would’ve picked up….

When someone is badly hurt, you call 911.

Don’t call 911.

This brave girl saved your life, Dr. Grey.

She’d had no guidance as to which rule took precedent, so she’d decided: You keep people alive.

But the mixed messages hadn’t stopped.

You keep people alive—until their brains are no longer working.

You keep people alive—until it’s time to kill them?

You keep people alive—unless they’ve signed a form that says not to. Not to call…911, a code, 911, Code Blue.

God. No wonder she’d fallen apart that day in the closet,

He couldn’t call it a betrayal. Not when he shouldn’t have been surprised.

He’d been unable to be mad at anyone else. Why?

“I wish you’d told me what he said before you did anything. I understand why you didn’t,” he added, when her shoulders rose. “I don’t know what I’d have done. I think…I think part of why I was so angry about that part is…well…I want to think I’d have been able to do it.”

Her jaw dropped. “Did you lace your glass with something?”

“You kept saying it was Richard and Adele. I wanted it not to matter, but of course it does. It mattered that it was Isaac, and Archer, and Izzie.

“What makes this different for me…the reason he didn’t try me first…. You’ve been in his place. One day, I might be.” A sharp eye-raise. “He would’ve alluded to that. ‘If it was Meredith….’ The problem is…it could be you. That’s why I wouldn’t have been able to do it.”

“Because we coulda lost the trial, and I’d still be a time-bomb. Oops.”

“Mer—”

“S’true.… And you’re not…I’m not…but…. Do most…? He…. He’s not my dad, but, uh, at the beginning, I can see why he wasn’t into…us, but…. But…. Why’s he keep looping me into things that mean keeping things from you, when…when your ex-wife had an affair?”

He put his glass on the table, and gently pried open her grip on the edge of the table to take her hand. Without the strain, he could feel it trembling. What part of that did she think would set him off? Did she expect him to side with Richard?

“I don’t know. He might not. He might not be, but I see the trend. Could still be punishing me for being dishonest with you. Last year, he knew I’d see through him. He knows Amelia; he saw some of it. This….” He ran his free hand through his hair. “I don’t know.”

“It seems like…like the, um…decent thing to have done might’ve been to…to tell you himself, after. Or…or to offer to be there while I did. Because, um…he’s seen you. He’s seen you…like that, and he just bet on it not coming out, and me keeping the secret…. He lets me take the damage. Every time I think…I think he really…cares about me….

“He spent the day they…the day I was…intern day, working to get me a job. So, I could just…. If…If he’d wanted to help me? He’d have been working on you.” She tried to pull her hand away, likely to wrap her arms around herself again. He didn’t let her. “He’s, uh…always….” She stopped and bit her lip.

Her eyes were aimed down at her lap. Her bangs, or what had been bangs, blocked too much of her expression for him to guess at what she meant to say. Not that he thought she’d appreciate his help with words any time soon.

“Do you think…? When I was little, do you think I was…?”

Oh, sweetheart. He almost didn’t care what Kathleen would tell him to do here; he wanted to reassure her so much. But Meredith didn’t do well with simple reassurances.

“You think he might’ve used you to get to her?”

She nodded. “And so…so…if I saw anything, I’d have been on his side. I even wonder…. I remember…from what Cristina and I can figure from the journals, they really got going in 1981, the year I turned three. She’d have been so overwhelmed as an intern. As a resident, you drift from your cohort, Thatcher probably thought she’d be home more than she could be…. Third year here, you feel semi-competent, you’re working a lot, and if most people have stopped telling the other second-year residents to get their coffee…. You’d bond, probably. You overlap your shifts, and maybe moonlight in the Pit, telling your spouse you’ll need the savings.

“They’d have been together for all of ’82 treating that patient with AIDS. Followed by the stress and hope of fifth year….

“I remember a lot of that spring, obviously, but before that, when I was three and four…I remember things like…like him saying to tell my momma he’d take me to the cafeteria, and leave the floor in her capable hands. I think I got ‘Mommy, capable hands, I can have macaroni?’ But she’d laugh, and I’d feel so special.

“He did a lot of things like that. I, uh, used to be afraid of viewing rooms. Not the x-ray machine. The room.” She smiled before looking away. “I thought they kept skeletons in there.”

He imagined how big the old images would’ve seemed to the tiny girl he’d seen in photographs.

“He spent a whole afternoon showing me that it was just a picture of what was under the skin, and then having to explain how it worked. When I did my first project on Marie Curie, I knew her name because of that day—except at the time I thought ‘curie’ was a title. Like, a cure…er. Mom was a ‘Mommy curie,’ and I’d be a ‘Meri curie’ too…. Um. You don’t do that with a kid just to impress her mom, do you? Not like she had to take me in the viewing room often.” She added the last two sentences quickly, not giving him room to comment on how adorable her assumption must’ve been.

“I…don’t think so. Taking charge with you, when Thatcher seems to have needed to be told, would’ve been good. And….”

“And if he’d given her the idea he didn’t want a kid, he’d have had to walk it back.”

“He could’ve encouraged her to let Thatcher keep you. He didn’t do what Susan did. He clearly knew you were important to her. I think… he might’ve been trying to make life easier on her.” This is Ellis Grey’s little girl. “But if he hadn’t come to care about you, just you, he would’ve found a different way to do that, and gotten someone below him to become your favorite grown-up.”

“After Mom.” She sucked in her cheek. “Sorry. It’s messed up—”

“That you adored your mom as a little girl? No it’s not.”

“I just don’t know how she….”

“How she…?”

Meredith pressed her hands against her face, and shook her head. “I can’t. I-I’m sorry.”

He opened his mouth, and then heard Kath like she was standing next to him, Do not push her, Derek!

“Okay. That’s okay. I’m sorry I couldn’t make myself listen that day. I don’t believe you don’t know right from wrong. I don’t have some more mature understanding of how situations like this should go.”

“Well, that sucks. I was hoping I’d get there sometime within the next twelve years.”

“You might get closer than I am.” He was going to have to get used to that disbelieving look, wasn’t he? “C’mon. Bed.”

She didn’t let him pull her up. “I’ll be there soon.”

“Mer….”

“I’m not tired enough. You know if I get in bed I’ll just lie there. Staying up a little bit longer will help.”

That was relatively true, but he wasn’t looking forward to discovering what her definition of ‘a little bit’ would be.

Chapter Text

“They…They’re g-gone. You c-can stop playing Good Husband.”

Derek didn’t let himself react. He understood why Meredith was pushing him away, and it was his fault. He couldn’t deny that—any of it. He had no idea what chemistry had caused the ice around him to shatter as soon as she’d burst into tears, only that it should’ve broken apart weeks ago. With it gone, he couldn’t simply see her pain, he could feel it.

They’d spent the day living the nightmare she’d been having for weeks. All day, every day, the possibility that something could happen to Zola had been in her mind. Even if it’d been something they couldn’t have prevented, she’d have blamed herself. He would’ve blamed her. The potential for this situation was what had made her run from Janet, and he’d have blamed her.

He couldn’t keep lying to himself. He’d seen what was happening. For weeks, he’d treated symptoms without admitting to their cause. Watching her sob, it was obvious. Something was broken. Not between them—not yet—but in her. She’d been doing her best, but it wasn’t healing. He couldn’t shirk his responsibility this time. If he did, he would lose her. How had he let them get back to this place?

“I haven’t been a good husband lately, but I’m not playing, sweetheart.” That only made her cry harder, shaking her head. He couldn’t keep torturing himself with how long’s. It wouldn’t help. (Six weeks since he’d called her anything but her name.) “Shh. She’s okay. She’s a fighter.”

“Sh-She shouldn’ h-have…. I-I-If I…. If I h-h-hadn’t—“ She raised her eyes for barely a breath, and there was a plea there.

“Okay. Okay.” He wrapped his arms around her. “You’re right, she shouldn’t have to be. We’re gonna protect her as much as we can. But…she’ll have shunt revisions. She’ll have arguments with her friends. Heartbreak. She’ll be a fighter, and she’ll have us to tell her that it’s enough. That she can take a break.” He swept the salt-stiffened locks of her hair behind her ears. She’d started breathing more evenly as he spoke, though the Kleenex he swiped from their box caught fresh tears.

“Why…Why aren’t you mad? If I h-h-hadn’t—“

“Stop. Please.”

She narrowed her eyes. He needed to push through the pain before he lost this chance, but he couldn’t hear her blame herself one more time.

“All I saw…. I couldn’t…. You lied about the trial, and to Janetn and all I saw was…was defiance. Arrogance. I didn’t see…. Janet following the rules without getting context is why we lost her. That they wanted us married and stable, and I ran. There are any number of dominos leading there—that you did not tip—and I let them land on you. I’m sorry.”

“I’m strong enough.”

“You shouldn’t have to be.”

“Wh-When Janet asked me that stuff—“ He opened his mouth to tell her she didn’t have to explain, but closed it quickly. If she was saying it, she needed to say it. “I thought I understood…. Zola wasn’t even a consideration when it—when I swapped the envelopes. Then, she was, and she’s….she’s perfect. I never let myself fall in love with anyone—anything, that quickly. I got fired, and I-I…God, I’m an idiot, I thought it must be some kind of sign, or something. Like I should pull a total one-eighty on what my mom did. ‘Cause, even on her first night, I…I wanted you there so much, but she and I? We did okay. It was like, the one way I could picture getting through those things, and that could still put too much pressure on her; I’d work on it, but…it was all just…, stupid, because suddenly there’s Janet asking questions about my job, and us, and I knew…what they would do. I knew.”

He was rarely the one of them who had trouble with eye contact, but he turned away, kissing the top of her head to signal he was paying attention.

“All I could think…. No, I wasn’t thinking.  I had alarms in my head screeching at me to be normal, be normal! All I could do was say what I thought she’d want to hear.  I started to do what she asked, to go get you, but when I got—But, um,  but I just wanted to see Zola.…”

“To keep her safe.”

She started to lift a shoulder, and then nodded. “It wasn’t rational.”

“No,” he agreed. “It was one of your most basic instincts.”

“Following them: Not always the best choice.”

“More often than not.”

He’d seen it so many times in the O.R., as recently as her aneurysm clipping. He’d been right that their relationship in there. wasn’t the one a teacher and student should have. He should’ve been able to calmly ask her to explain, and trust her choice. Instead, he’d pushed her toward bowing to his will. That she stood up for herself at all was one of the many reasons she was a miracle.

“It’s not ego,” he said. “You’re not defiant. You’re trying to protect everyone else from having to face those choices.”  He kissed her forehead. She needed care here, or fragility would harden into a stronger wall. He kept talking as he moved around the room to the sink. “I understand why you didn’t tell me when Richard asked. I didn’t handle it well the last time you shared one of his secrets. I can see your reasoning. I don’t love it, but I do understand it.” She tried to take the wet paper towel, but he returned to his spot to run it over her cheeks. She leaned into the coolness with a soft sigh. “It needs to change. Both of us do. We’re need to get back to the point where confiding in each other comes more naturally than trying to keep things easy, or whatever we’ve been doing since the shooting. When Zola comes home, she’s going to take most of our attention, and then you have your boards, and the house will be done…. We can’t be…how we’ve been. I can’t.”

“Me neither. I…um….” She was interrupted by the chime of her phone. “Aww!” She showed him the picture Yang had sent. Zola, sleeping in one of the hospital cribs. She looked so serene.

“She’s doing great. Look at those stats.”

“She was probably siren-squalling a minute before this,” Meredith said, referring to the wails that many little ones emitted coming out of general anesthesia. “If I’d just…. Sorry.”

“Don’t….” Don’t apologize for almost apologizing? Jesus. “She’s here. She’s safe, and she’s going to heal. We’ll get to bring her home. But for tonight, I’m taking you home, and you’re going to bed. What you said back there made me realize I can’t remember the last time you came up before midnight, or that you were still sleeping when I woke up.”

“I’ve never needed much sleep.”

He shook his head. How many times had someone who was starting to get to know her fallen for that line, and never been let close enough to question it?

She let him take the lead on getting off the floor. It was good that she’d ended up without new cases today. He doubted he looked less wrecked, but she hadn’t had a break in weeks. To this point, he’d let himself do the bare minimum, and he wasn’t sure he could stop her from hitting a wall, only fight to slow the velocity.

They were on a nearly full elevator coming down from the fifth floor when the doors opened on Janet. He was grateful that he’d made a point of taking Meredith’s hand on leaving his office. He met the woman’s eyes, not caring what he was acknowledging. What had she expected? This wasn’t a huge hospital, and she knew how connected they were; she’d interviewed half of their colleagues.

As the door had closed on the social worker, Meredith went rigid. She was looking down, letting her hair fall into her eyes, and he couldn’t tell what was happening in them. He guided her outside. In the daylight, they were solidly in the dog days of August, but a chill gave the hint of fall being titrated into the summer.

He opened her door, keeping her hand as she climbed into the car. After six weeks of battling his instinct to reach for it, pretending not to notice when she flexed it his way, holding it felt like his chest was a puzzle in the vein of her old doll, and something had clicked into place.

He should’ve been with her the last time she’d gone head-to-head with Janet. Maybe he’d been right to think he would’ve made things worse, but that didn’t mean he’d made the right choice. She hadn’t had a right choice, not from her perspective. Getting her to admit to Richard’s hand in any of it had been an ordeal. She’d taken the blame; she’d taken his anger.

He’d started to see it when Owen said, “they don’t make it easy.” He wasn’t sure how much that applied to Cristina, but Meredith hadn’t “made it” anything. She hadn’t orchestrated any of this on purpose. She’d never pointed out that part of her lie to Janet had been covering for his decision to stew in his anger about the trial, when he should’ve been focusing on their family.

It’d hurt to hear her accuse him of ‘playing Good Husband,’ but she’d had reason. Trying to move forward without letting go of what happened was part of what had destroyed his attempt to try with Addison. He’d been pretending, and he wasn’t going to put Meredith through that.

He’d have expected her to find her way into Robbins’s O.R. today. Instead, she’d been the one advocating for the rules, complete with a “whatever”-free idiom. She wasn’t incapable of following rules; she didn’t break them without reason. And he was equally guilty of taking them on with reason. Sometimes, it led to disaster. Other people had been bringing examples of that to him all month, but not Meredith. (When had she stopped fighting back?)

“Any preference for dinner?” he asked, starting the car engine.

“Why was she here?”

“I assume she’s checking on Zola.”

“Where were her…? Why was she alone? She put her with people who just gave her up when she wouldn’t stop crying? I told her they’d be good people—”

“Maybe they had other kids, and couldn’t stay,” he suggested.

The defense sounded weak, because it was. His mind had gone immediately to jammed waiting rooms at Mt. Sinai, Manhattan Gen, and once at Jefferson in Philly after Kath’s Stevie was injured at an away game. He deserved the sharp glare Meredith gave him. When she looked down at her hands, he wanted to slam his into the steering wheel. She’d taken what she got for weeks, given it back to a point. Getting her to trust anything else again would take time.

“Maybe they just don’t like hospitals….” Not the best choice for a baby recovering from hernia surgery, with a recently-placed VPS…. “There’s nothing we can do about it right now. And she wasn’t alone. Not once she came through those doors. She had Karev and Arizona. She’ll have Cristina tonight—”

“Could she be taking her? Get her transferred to Pres? That wouldn’t even require an AMA, and she’d be in another new institution—”

“Which is why she won’t do that. Janet’s hands may be tied here.” He swallowed. He desperately wanted there to be a way to subvert those rules. How far would he go if he could influence someone working on their case? “But I think she wants what’s best for Zola—”

“We’re—”

“—she can’t give her that right now, but having her surrounded by our people is the next best thing, right?”

“And then what? They send her back to negligent know-nothings, or she has to go to another new home? She’s gonna have another incision. If she goes to some place where they’re just in it for the check, she could get MRSA. Alex said she’d been crying all day. She stopped being a crier once she wasn’t in pain. There’ve probably been signs for a week or more.” Each of Meredith’s words came out faster than the next, so that they started tripping over each other. He’d just noted the sharp, quick inhales coming at the end of sentences. “Even if the next placement is better, they’re giving her attachment issues she didn’t need. She’ll always be afraid someone’s gonna take her, and she’s so little she won’t remember why. She’ll just know that we can’t protect her. Th-that I…I couldn’t…I-I-I…I c-can’t….”

“Mer?”

No response. Before he could turn, she grabbed his arm, and he heard the small gasping sounds; close to what her breathing had been like upstairs, but faster. He jabbed the light above the review mirror. Her eyes were still red-rimmed, and her shining, green irises flicked back and forth, until she turned away.

“Hey, no. Look at me. You’re okay. You’re having a panic attack. I know it’s awful, but you’ll be okay. Here.” He laced his fingers through hers, squeezing her hand in even beats. “Breathe with me.”

“I-I c-c-c….”

“You can. I promise you can. Take your time. There’s no rush. Just breathe in…and out. That’s it. I don’t know what will happen here, but  tonight she’s safe. Focus on that.”

“B-But—”

“Here, I have an idea. Just a sec.” Her grip on his arm tightened, and then loosened quickly, like she’d thought better of it. He shifted, settling their joined hands on the console, and taking his phone out with his left hand.

“If being determined to become ambidextrous in med school only gave me Yang’s face today, it was worth it.” The minuscule huff of a laugh he got for that was beautiful.

The phone only rang once. “You lost me five bucks to Karevn by making it this long. I did say—”

“Cristina, we had kind of a run-in leaving the hospital. Has Janet been by?”

“Oh…. Uh, yeah. She confirmed that she’s doing well, and will be in-patient for a few days. Said she’s aiming to get her a medical placement. I guess because it was supposedly so emergent last month…. She left a while ago.”

“So, she was heading out when we were.” That’d been his assumption, but it was confirmation that she wasn’t taking Zola anywhere tonight.

“Probably. Uh….” Yang inhaled audibly, and he waited for her to settle on whether or not to share her thought. “You’re not Mer. is she…?”

She didn’t quite say freaking out or panicking, but either fit into the space she left between her words. Moree evidence that this had happened apart from that time on the ferry. Why didn’t he…? Gee, why didn’t you know, dumbass? He just managed to remember Meredith’s eyes were on him before physically reacting to his stupidity.

“Just… be gentle. I’ll call when I’m back in there, and you guys can tell her good-night, sing her a lullaby, whatever.” For once, Yang didn’t do a good job of trying to sound flippant. Derek thought again of what Owen had said. He’d committed to Meredith without knowing if she wanted kids, and she’d have had plenty of good reasons not to. Being good with them didn’t mean much if you couldn’t spend time with them.

“That’d be great.”

“Take care of her.”

“You too.” He pocketed his phone.

“She…She’s gone?”

“Janet’s gone,” he confirmed. “Cristina’s going to call later so we can tell Zola good night.”

“O-Okay. That’s…That’ll be good.”

“I think she just wants to make fun of our singing voices. Can’t really read a story over the phone.”

“You could, b-but she couldn’t try to…to put the book on her head. No point.”

“God, that’s cute.” He smiled at the memory of a night at the hotel, when he’d finally gotten the wiggly baby on his lap in the horribly overstuffed chair with a stack of books from the Barnes and Noble bag on the floor. He’d opened a board copy of Good Night, Moon, only to have her head-butt it, and sit up with it balanced over her head. She’d been so damn proud of herself, and even more delighted when he crowned himself with Chicka, Chicka, Boom, Boom.

A tear fell down Meredith’s cheek before she could catch it. “Sorry. I’m pathetic.”

“You’re a mom being kept from your sick kid.” And I have lot of ‘being there when you cry’ to make up for. “What song should we sing her?”

She shrugged. “You know that stuff.”

“Mer—”

“No, I’m not…. That just isn’t my.… Playing with her, I did…um…stuff with hand gestures. Interactive, or whatever. Thought it’d help with baby sign, once, um…once we could be consistent.” Her hand relaxed. Giving him a chance to let go. “She…studied my hands s-so intently…. To put her to sleep…I just, like, slowed down Alanis. Sped up Coldplay.”

“…she says like anyone can do that in their heads.”

She shrugged. “I did have to pull up lyrics sometimes. Real lullabies are all creepy, or capitalist. The bough breaks, Derek!””

He couldn’t help laughing at her indigence, just like he had early in the spring when it was “Humpty Dumpty’s dead.” “ Old King Cole’s a miser,” and “Don’t worry if the choking hazard isn’t pretty enough! If your things break, we’ll just replace them with weirder crap!” Instead of freezing up, she smiled, lightly smacking his arm with her free hand.

“Oh, so, I read the other night, apparently ‘Ring around the Rosie’ isn’t about the plague, but it might as well be, because people believe that, and keep singing it!”

“I know.” He’d missed being the one she unloaded these things on, though he didn’t like thinking about where her objectivity came from. Lullabies weren’t like the silly kids songs you picked up in daycare and Pre-K. They became part of your makeup too early for full objectivity to ever be possible.

He started to suggest “Twinkle, Twinkle.” It was a staple; he’d heard her sing it while giving Zola a bottle. His tongue stuck to the back of his teeth.

He’d called Meredith a diamond as soon as he knew her birthdate—Things a man with endless sisters and nieces learned: all twelve birthstones, and most of the alternates—and she’d wanted to ban it. They’d compromised; he got five uses a year and could usually make her agree that the limit didn’t apply on her birthday. She claimed not to be sentimental, because it was something Ellis had told her not to be, but she latched onto symbols as readily as he did.

He’d use the word a million times tonight, if he thought she’d believe him.

So, what, you’ve been trying to see how much pressure I can withstand? She’d have said that a month ago. The day he showed her the deck, she’d been more skittish, but still challenged him. How many blows had he obliviously landed since then? Had she just gotten tired of volleying back? He hadn’t been trying to break her.

He hadn’t.

“How about ‘The Itsy Bitsy Spider?’” she suggested. “She likes it, and  she’s way too little to understand the message, but maybe some subliminal, Jungian collective unconscious thing, sh-she’ll know we’re not giving up on her.”

“I like that.”

“Yeah?” Her smile came back, and this time, it stayed.

“Yeah. Impressive spider. Protagonist of a kid’s song and it doesn’t drown….”

“I’m saying!”

He ran his thumb over her knuckles. “I heard Catherine Avery was pretty impressed with you today.”

She hunched back against her seat. “I’ve done more microsurgery than most of the others. And…she got judgy when I ran out to…to…f-for Zola.” Great job, Shepherd. “But….” She took a long breath that didn’t catch, and when she looked up, his immediate thought was there you are. “I think that was bull.”

“Oh?”

“Jackson’s…He’s always been a momma’s boy. I’m betting she never sent an intern to deal with a page saying he was in the E.R..”

Jeez. It wasn’t the time to dig into whatever nightmare she was referencing, especially because it sounded like there might be more than one. He really wanted to believe that Ellis didn’t realize that there were dads who were stellar surgeons, and would hand off their instruments in that situation. That she wasn’t trying to be such a cliché.

What came to mind instead was the day Ellis had been admitted to Seattle Grace. He hadn’t been in the Pit to witness her arrival, but you didn’t have to be to hear that she’d dubbed them all amateurs, and screamed at Meredith for bothering her at work. Her confusion and pain might’ve heightened the intensity of her fury, but he doubted the message was new. He could picture her turning her guilt around on Meredith; insisting everything was a girl-who-cried-wolf situation—even though she’d undoubtedly taught her daughter not to waste hospital resources with non-emergencies.

“I can’t imagine doing that,” he said.

“Me either.” She shifted, almost unnoticeably raising her shoulders.

“Ready to go home?” She nodded, her eyebrows set to doubtful. He mentally added “saying she’d be a bad mom,” to a list he’d title Peripheral Damage. Most wouldn’t be as easy to quantify. He’d done it. He’d known he was doing it. He wished he knew how to fix it—but he would find a way. That was his goddamn job.

For now, he tried rewinding to the last light note. “Do you have stories about that momma’s boy tendency?”

“You’ll need an NDA. I’ve kept them in my pocket for this long, and if he’s working under Mark for real, his ego will need reigning in. Plus, he’s schlepping my sister.

“He sent her to visit Molly this week.”

In Bahrain? It’d been two years. Had Lexie mentioned a new deployment? “Trouble in the attic?”

“They’re mostly in his room. But…I don’t think so. Maybe the opposite? I was never all that concerned about who met my mom. She didn’t give a crap about who I did things with.” The silence before her next sentence lasted a few seconds longer than normal. Not being completely sure about she’d react had kept her from letting Ellis discover her doing certain things with girls, when he was sure she’d manufactured being discovered with boys to get a reaction. “Catherine Avery talks like she’s a reigning monarch trying to strengthen the bloodline.

“She…She didn’t seem to recognize me. Didn’t know Mom only had one kid. Not that I expected….”

She had expected to be remembred. Once they were out of the parking lot, he’d taken her hand again. He’d forgotten, or just repressed, how well he’d learned to read her via small, silent things, like the strength of her grip, or how she arranged herself in her seat.

“She worked at the Pri—the Brig. Mom used to call it the Prison, because she was a bitch; it’s a great hospital—Harper Avery oversaw Mom’s first fellowship. We went to a lot of Avery Foundation functions. I didn’t talk to Catherine much, but Mom would always go on about her in the cab going home, so I guess I thought I knew her more than I did. Most of those people I couldn’t identify at…if my life depended on it, but it’s not like there were that many single mothers in that circle.”

“Could it be…?” He hesitated, not wanting to say any of this the wrong way. “Avery hid his place in the surgical brahmin. I’m sure she didn’t love that, but maybe she respected that you might not want your connections broadcast. She only knew you…before you were committed to surgery.”

“I was sacrificed to surgery at birth. When they stamped my footprints on my birth certificate, or whatever, Mom probably summoned St. Luke to add them to some scroll, deal-with-the-devil style.

“She asked if Lexie inherited my mom’s talent, too, so, nice try. Nah. People remember things like the Harris heir getting caught making out with the coat boy. I didn’t cause trouble at the important stuff. Not on purpose. She probably hadn’t thought of Mom in a decade or more, and when Jackson mentioned Lexie, thought I got to go to stuff by nature of being the oldest, or maybe that Lexie grew up with our dad—that’s even true. I…. It doesn’t matter.

“I did impress her, but I was…of interest, because I’m Ellis Grey’s daughter, and Lexie Grey’s sister. And, like, that’s fine. It’s always been fine. But the one time I want to be someone’s…. No, not the one time. Shit, I didn’t mean…. Obviously, I wanted to be…you know…yours. I just meant—”

“You had a choice, then. Once... Once we were possible, it was up to us to figure out getting there.

“If it was up to us, there wouldn’t be about who we are to Zola. You can’t build a candle house, or make breakfast to prove that you’re in. You weren’t allowed to be with her while she was sick…. You chose Ellis, too, you know. You talk about that like it was a requirement, and I know you experienced it that way, but there are people who cut off negligent parents. Even if they did the best they could.” He hesitated, realizing this was the second time that he knew of where Meredith had entrusted a loved one to a type of institution, and the system, the rules, had failed her. “With Zola, the choice has been made, and we still have to wait.”

“Waiting sucks.”

“Yeah. It does.”

She didn’t comment when he turned on Republican.

She was a horrible passenger seat driver, It hadn’t taken knowing her for long for him to determine that letting him drive was a concession—“How do I know you didn’t get that license just to move out here, huh?”—and yet, when she did drive, he could see how tense it made her. She’d readily admit to being a city-kid who navigated public transit much more easily, but also mentioned getting private driving lessons to secure her license on her sixteenth birthday—“Boston prep school. AP Basket Weaving? We’ll arrange it. Driver’s Ed? Nah.”—It’d taken a while for him to understand that it’d been an act of self-preservation. Ellis’s mind was always elsewhere, and that had made driving in Boston traffic with her frightening.

A quick glance showed that her eyes were closed, though her features were sharp with tension. That only tempered his relief a little bit. He’d been afraid of finding that wide-eyed blankness he’d seen taking her to see his deck folly. Speeding up like that had been a low thing to do, but it’d been the only way he could think of to guarantee a reaction. At that point, he wasn’t as concerned about her trusting him as he should’ve been.

Had the panic attack that preceded that been the first? How many had come in between?

She opened her eyes when he pulled into the restaurant parking lot. “I’m not that hungry,” she said, the corners of her lips were turning up, regardless.

“You say that now. Usual?”

She shrugged. “I guess. With a—”

“Strawberry shake,” he finished, leaning over to kiss the side of her head before he went in to join what seemed like most of Seattle inside Dick’s Drive-In. The milkshake had been his primary reason for stopping here. She’d have to be actively vomiting to leave a drop in one of those cups.

When they got home, she surprised him by suggesting they eat on the porch.

“No one’s home,” he pointed out.

“Exactly. It’s too quiet. I know having the house full is like being back with your bazillion sisters, but…our place was so quiet that I used to slam cabinets to remind myself that I could make noise.” She looked away after saying that, sucking her lower lip. He put a hand on her shoulder, a thought occurring to him. Usually, when she was mad, the world knew. He’d learned to grab the remote, her phone, her iPod—anything that could be thrown at the sound of the infuriated huff. More than anything this month, she’d been quiet. Was that what it took to placate Ellis in a fight? Were her angry outbursts the same as her crying jags; likely only once she knew she was safe?

“What if it happens again?” she asked, drawing his focus back. “Her shunt could still actually malfunction, and…I know they train people for the medical placements, but she’s not only…. She’d already started to catch up on her milestones. If they’ve got a bunch of sick kids, they won’t have time…. God, I say that like we don’t work twelve to fourteen hours a day.”

“It’s not the same. And…I don’t have all those answers—”

“I don’t expect—”

“But I do believe she’s meant to be ours. That means that whatever happens, we’ll be able to handle it. We’ll be there for her. We’ll get through it. That’s what we do. What you do. You got me through being shot, Mer. Putting my family through that again was my worst nightmare. Without you, I’d have blamed myself a lot more.”

“As opposed to the man with the gun?”

“Yes.”

“Chivalry and testosterone clearly warp the brain.”

With the word barely said, she froze with her straw between her teeth, and for a second he assumed she’d given herself brain-freeze. When she stayed quiet, her eyes only widening, he caught on.

He smiled at her, and she relaxed. Her next pull from her straw gave her mostly air. When she laughed at the sound, he felt a warmth in his chest in spite of the cold of his own root beer float. He didn’t say it, afraid that she might not be ready to believe it, but he couldn’t imagine ever doubting that she was the woman he wanted to raise a child with again.

Chapter Text

“She seems happy enough, tonight.”

“We’ve made progress, but it’s…incremental. This is the first time she’s been in here since June. She asked if I was sure I wanted her to stay five times, and that’s with us having carpooled this morning. I’m reasonably sure she’ll spend all of tomorrow in the study to make up for it.”

“She is a—“

“Fifth year, yeah. I'm frequently reminded. And I know—“ Derek sighed and took a long drink from his beer. “—It’s been thrown off. But she’s read through almost every parenting book we picked up, so it’s not about time. She's eating, but that was only the mot obvious part.

“She’s punishing herself. And… I encouraged it, but this is beyond…. You know how grounding Amy just made us all suffer? Ellis didn’t have anyone to play prison guard. I’m sure Meredith took advantage of that, but to be in trouble is to have been caught. Noticed. And, in all likelihood, that wasn’t going to happen again soon. But there was a chance that if she followed through on the punishment, and if Ellis did check in, she’d be pleased.” He drank through the familiar feeling of disdain for Ellis Grey. “I think eventually it was like everything else. Something she did because no one else did it for her.”

“I let your ma punish me so I wouldn’t be exiled.”

“But if The Asshole had told you to only go to school and practice while they were in Tahiti…?”

“Hell, no.” Mark snorted.

“It’s partially guesswork. She’s been so closed off. Literally. She curls up, makes herself small.”

It’d been similar when she was an intern, after Addison, but not nearly as bad. Her eyes hadn’t been shuttered, even when she glared at him. But it’d taken time getting her to the point where she’d start the night sprawled out on the bed for him. When she’d stopped saying if you’re sure, and you don’t have to in response to any suggestion that focused on her. When she’d let him take his time with her.

“Lately…. We agreed on her consequence at work, and I thought she understood…but under that…..” He hesitated, spinning his glass before Mark refilled it from the pitcher on the table. “She believes in the Post-it. But there are other things—promises I made, that it took her a long time to accept…. I think she considers them all null and void.

“She’s not a penitent person. For sure wasn’t raised Catholic. She doesn’t always think she’ll get good things…or that she deserves them…but she’s never acted like she thinks she shouldn’t want them.

“Doesn’t help that she’s hardly sleeping. She’s had periods of insomnia before. She has a script, but she hasn’t touched it.” He glanced over at the empty shot glasses Meredith had left before going off to join a group of residents at the dart boards. “I don’t think she wants that to get better.”

“Bad dreams?”

Derek’s lip curled. Yesterday, he’d woken to her curled up as far from him as she could be, choking on her own breath. When she’d managed to calm down, she’d only said, “She was home.”

“No,” he said. “Good ones.”

That sound, the gasping, it’d been familiar. And not just from the the day of Zola’s surgery. Not last month, when he’d gotten out of one side of the car with her quiet and gone around to find her terrified. It was another panic attack: one she’d been fighting to hide. And he’d attributed the sounds to suppressed sobs, which was bad enough. Letting Meredith feel like she was drowning alone was a sin he had no idea how to atone for.

“Yeah, I can see how—Oop, heads up.” Mark raised his glass, aiming it over Derek’s shoulder. “There’s our girl.”

“What’re we talking about?” Meredith’s hand came down heavy on the head of the table, and she swung herself into Derek’s lap, ignoring her empty chair.

“How great you were in my O.R. today,” Mark said, smoothly.

“Nope. We don’ talk about work, McSteamanator.” She picked up Derek’s glass.

“Sure you want that?”

“Liquor before beer, I’m in the clear,” she intoned, her voice sharppening like the graveliness in it was a whetstone. “And I’m always sorry in the morning.” The cadence was off on that line. Like she’d almost stopped at sorry.

“That’s not what—“

“Blech! Sewer water.” She drained the glass, and he used her shuddering as an excuse to wrap his arms around her waist.

“That’s what I meant,” he said into her ear. Mark’s laughter made him wish he’d seen her face from the front.

“I don’t get it. He’s a snotty rich kid, and you drank what he bought. How d’you both prefer a beer my jockiest college friends woulda despised?”

What he bahght. Preferah. She was going to be sorry tonight if he couldn’t slow her down, and he had to do it without making her think there was judgement involved. He met Mark’s gaze and his friend at least got the message to engage her.

“You still the darts champ of the Emerald City Bar?” he asked.

Derek drank from the tankard of water that had come with her shots and put it down closer to her. She’d be more likely to go for it with a straw. Could he get one into it without her noticing? He decided not to take the risk.

Listening to her, he gathered that she’d added to the three shots he’d seen her take by soliciting bets from unsuspecting observers. It wasn’t just the Boston that made it noticible. She over-enunciated, and it did keep her words from gliding together too badly. Even eliminated some of the backtracking. Her stammer, if it had made an appearance, vanished. If you didn’t know her, you’d misjudge her sobriety. But the vowels got longer, she got louder, and some consonants began to disappear.

“What are you gonna do when everyone who comes in here is wise to you?” Mark asked.

“Be an attending ‘nd buy my own drinks. Where else is my salary going t’ go? The house is all brain money.”

Mark chuckled, but he’d picked up his phone. Meredith shifted, looking for something more interesting.

“Sorry,” he said, saving Derek from having to resort to literally holding her there. “Uh, Callie’s sending me links—we’re still figuring out the best way to integrate Spanish and baby sign, since as a premie…. Anyway, back to Grey being a hustler.”

Meredith’s hair brushed Derek’s cheek as she shook her head. “It’s habit. I was under twenty-one longer than I was older than it. Not now—I wasn’t drinking at eleven. When I was Messy Meredith. Whatever. I’ve read that the best way to raise a bilingual kid is for one parent to speak each language exclusively. And ASL is it’s own language, so—“ She tapped three fingers to her chin. “—can be both ‘agua’ and ‘water.’ It’s jus’ not Mexican or Spanish sign. Baby sign’s not always exact ASL anyway.”

“We started that way, with Callie speaking to her in Spanish, but Robbins doesn’t have much. Got frustrating for her not to understand what Callie said to the kiddo.” Meredith snickered. “Hey, you could have the same problem. Shep’s been speaking French since Pre-K.”

“I spoke French in Pre-K,” Derek contradicted. “Meanwhile, someone still reads articles in Italian.”

“’S’a good way not to lose it, in case we ever get t’go.” She leaned back, kissing his cheek. “Too bad we did the courthouse married thing. There’s a buncha nude beaches we could’ve used.”

“That’s a destination wedding I can get behind,” Mark said. Derek would’ve refilled his glass from the pitcher, if he’d been sure he’d be the one to drink it.

“So, going back, you’re not gonna have trouble finding resources that’ll give Sof more Spanish than Dora the Explorer. More’n Chichewa for sure, but gen’rally. You could go exclusively with media aimed at native-speaking babies. It might be harder t’ find dialect-specific, if Callie wants her t’learnCuban-Spanish, but it’s better to have books’n stuff from that culture anyway, not dumbing it down for outsiders.”

Except for her diction, “resources” coming out as something closer to “rizz-horses,” Meredith could’ve been giving report during rounds. A moment later she was fishing out her phone. She squinted at it and rubbed her eyes. “Ugh, it’s’like ‘m going blind all over again. Derek, can you…? My bookmarks. The language aca…aquat…acquisition folder. In development.”

He followed the direction, but scrolled up and down in the containing folders. She’d gotten from her documents to Kids to Adoption to Zola. That held roughly a dozen more: Legal, Foster Care, Home Study, Purchase, Parenting Styles…. He clicked on Development and another full screen of folders appeared. Language Acquisition was among them. He nudged her to let her know he’d opened it, but his mind was adding up all the hours she’d been spending in the study. Had she read everything she’d favorited?

Judging by the annotated bibliography she proceeded to give Mark, possibly. She was an incredible student. He wasn’t the only attending who’d say that. Within a week of enacting her consequence, he’d gone into her file to ensure that he hadn’t completely derailed her future. It wasn’t impossible that she’d have made a sacrifice of that caliber, consciously or not. She had glowing evaluations from general, ortho, cardio, and plastics attendings who would’ve had no ulterior motive to give them.

She’d be extraordinary at whatever service she picked. He’d told himself she was no longer beholden to her mother’s charge to cure Alzheimer’s, but he couldn’t hold onto that belief while she enthusiastically evaluated foundational studies in pediatric neuroscience with gestures that led to him reclaiming the phone and moving all the liquid and glass out of her radius.

They’d made a decision that he prayed would keep their marriage and careers in tact. It was best for them. Whether it would be best for the field of neurosurgery—there he wasn’t sure. He’d relied on her for the inspiration that’d taken him from skilled to innovative over the past few years. He’d have to make up for that, and for everything her shine would’ve brought to the work.

“—so that’s why they think…aw, fuck a duck.”

“What?” He leaned to the side to see her face, looking for the tension that signaled she’d started spinning. His hand went to the back of her neck, and then her cheek. Not clammy. Not yet.

“I…I’m ready t’go home,” she said. “Can we do that?” She turned to him. Her eyes were dilated and flicking over to the bar. It took him a moment to see Bailey climbing up on a stool.

“She still harassing you?” Mark asked.

“Harassing?” Derek knew Miranda had been irritated about Meredith getting her position back, but he hadn’t heard anything beyond that.

Meredith’s spine had straightened, and she was no longer sitting but perched. A hummingbird ready to dart. “I just want’a go.”Her voice went up at the end of the word. He wasn’t sure if it was a whine or the start of a break. It didn’t matter; her distress had made the decision for him.

“Of course, love,” he assured her, and her shoulders relaxed just enough. She trusted him to get her out of the situation—that he didn’t prefer her suffering.

“No objections here. I’m only on nights with Sof a couple times a week, and I haven’t been as exhausted since my internship.” Mark stood, casually positioning himself so that Meredith could right herself against him as Derek guided her upward. She grumbled about him being in the way, but let him box her in while Derek got up.

“Betcha you were still seeing out last call.” Meredith commented. “S’what the dirty mistresses do.”

She glanced over her shoulder at Derek, a mix of challenge and uncertainty on her face. He kissed the spot under her ear that could almost guarantee a smile. To his relief, he got one.

The jacket he held for her was rejected. “Don’t need it. M’hot. Don’t say it, McSteamy.” She put a finger in Mark’s face.

Derek laughed, and then murmured into her ear. “You’re incredibly hot, particularly in this jacket, and the car’s at the hospital.”

She groaned, but thrust her arms into the sleeves. Kissing her neck while he adjusted her collar got another smile, but under the hand he put on her back, she still felt like a coil waiting to spring.

“Look where you’re going, sweetheart,” he reminded her as they wove through the bar. Mark went ahead of them, shoving chairs out of the way, so he wasn’t concerned that she’d trip. More that the intensity of her stare would draw Bailey’s attention, which she obviously didn’t want.

She relaxed once they made it onto the sidewalk. Under the streetlight, he could see that the flush in her cheeks had faded. She drooped over the walk down the block and across the street.

“Shoulda driven myself,” she muttered, glaring at several residents’ cars at the back of the lot.

“In no universe would you have your keys right now.”

“No, but I coulda changed shoes.”

Mark threw his head back laughing, most likely at her tone. Derek didn’t think he’d seen the piles of discarded shoes that mounted in Meredith’s backseat, until she swept them into a bag, took them upstairs, and started over again. Then the other man stopped, crouching like he had for Amelia hundreds of times in not unsimilar situations. “Hop on, Big Grey.”

She looked up at Derek, biting her lip. Jesus. She was questioning because it was Mark. That was all. Right? He made a point of boosting her up for Mark to hook his arms under her legs. He pretended to be bowled over by her weight, and Meredith tugged his earlobe in retaliation, complaining about the close cut of his hair.

“All right, I’ll admit, I’ve had backpacks heavier than you.”

“Me too,” she lamented. “It tipped me over if I wasn’ careful. Guy at one hostel called me Turtle, even when he…. Sadie found it hilarious.”

“Too many shoes?”

“Hell, no. Chucks, boots, sandals; all you need for clubbing, beaches, trains, occasional museums, more clubbing. It was more…. I couldn’t be totally sure Mom wasn’t gonna get someone to clear my stuff out of the storage unit.”

It was that bad? Derek had heard her side of the fight, and still couldn’t imagine it. His mom had packed up some of their stuff to make the bedrooms suitable for the flock, but anything that wasn’t where it’d been the day they each moved out was in the basement, boxed and labeled.

Meredith shrieked, distracted again as Mark galloped ahead, and Derek clicked the remote to unlock the car.

“Want me to go grab her a banana bag?” Mark asked, coming around the front once he caught up.

“I think there are a few in her stash,” he admitted. You take some aspirin with the banana bag? Helps with the hangover.

“Shep?”

“Mm?”

“Sure you’re okay to drive?”

“I’m fine. I’m…. I wish they’d just tell us something. I used to make fun of the girls whenever they’d start fussing while the kids were at camp. I had no idea.” It was true enough that he didn’t feel bad about not voicing the htoughts at the front of his mind.

Mark clapped a hand on his shoulder. “I get it.”

You really fucking don’t. Derek had been called a hot-head, but in his experience the fury that could suddenly take over his nervous system was cold. It encased him in ice that kept him from being able to take in another person’s feelings or perspective; it blocked him from taking on new information, and he’d had plenty of opportunities to analyze it over the past two months.

This time, it melted before he could react to it. His fury wasn’t at Mark. (How often had that stopped him?)

“It’ll work out. You’re a Shepherd.”

“Yeah.” What did that mean? Truly? His father had been a Shepherd. Amy was a Shepherd. None of them had charmed lives, and he’d been shot last year, for God’s sake. Once, he might’ve believed the scales would balance, but he’d been questioning that since…since Mark slept with his wife? Or since Addison returned, and he made himself believe that what he had with Meredith couldn’t be his to keep?

“She’ll be all right, too,” Mark added, quickly flicking his eyes to the car. “She’s resilient.”

Derek nodded. It was true. Meredith bounced back. The question was how far down she’d go first.

“Bailey’s not harassing me,” she said while he fished a bottle of water out of the backseat. He’d taken the carseat out once Zola left the hospital, knowing that he wasn’t going to need it without warning. If anything, its absence made him think of her more than its presence.

“No?”

“Nope,” she confirmed, popping her ‘p.’ “She’s bein’ you.” She took the bottle, and he stared, turning the words over in his mind, and then simply watching her. He could admit to himself that some of his irritation had been at the changes he’d insisted on. He hadn’t been able to look at her without seething, but he’d missed her, both in the O.R., and at home—though he knew he hadn’t been behaving like someone she’d want to be around.

As she took the bottle away from her lips, he jumped to starting the car, like that was what he’d been doing all along.

“I figured you had a club. Teacher-Bosses Who Don’t Want Meredith in Their O.R.”

“Hm, doesn’t make a good acronym.”

“You’re both too anal for an acronym. I’d say she needs to get laid, but she hadn’t broken up with Eli yet wh—”

“She broke up with Eli?”

“What rock are you under? I’m the slug crushed by her shoe, and I know that. Got trapped in her lab the other day an’ I heard her unloading on the poor mice….”

“You what?”

“April’s killing Mom’s legacy, and, as she—Bailey’s—fond of muttering whenever I’m in sight, s’my fault that she’s number one on it, so she can’t be Richard’s second, April’s gotta be her number two—word choice purposeful, ‘cause she’s shit at it, because she’s got so much else going on, and I’m there not being allowed to do anything. Sooo, yeah, I work on the mice when Bailey’s not looking.

“She’s gonna get to publish on research started by Ellis Grey,” she said after a silence where they may’ve both been waiting for her to spit out an accusation that made the comparision between that and her sneaking around on their trial. That she didn’t made things easier, but he wasn’t sure if it was good or not. “Do you know how much my mother would love the optics of that? More even than she’d want it to be Richard if it couldn’t be her. She got a trial outta this mess! She knows it was for Adele. Richard told me he told her—” tolt.—“‘Cause he thought he’d brokered peace. Told her to be mad at him, which…yeah, not gonna happen, bub. Having your work-husband be Chief ust be better’n when it’s your home-husband.”

“Thinking of it that way, he wanted more time to spend with Adele. Some part of Miranda may be jealous of that, especially since Adele can’t fully appreciare it.”

Her brows furrowed as she considered that. “Could be. She thinks you’re a stupid fool for keepin’ me as your home-wife.”

You’re my wife. Period. He couldn’t say that without the danger of a fight, and that was the last thing they needed. “She’s said that?”

“Not to me. ” But in front of someone she knew would report back, he felt sure. “She’s…she idolizes Richard. She…. You’re friends, and she respects you, and I guess on balance with her thing for the rules…. But I don’t….” She trailed off, and after they sat through two stoplights in silence, he prompted: “You don’t what?”

“Hm? Oh, um…. Bailey, I-I know that she wouldn’t have done it, but I don’t…I don’t understand why…. After the L-VAD….” She stopped, pinching the bridge of her nose. He was torn between wishing she’d let herself cry, and wanting to give her a night without tears.

Thinking back to the weeks after the prom, Miranda had been furious at her interns, but when Stevens returned she hadn’t iced her out. He’d heard she’d been part of bringing her back.

“But Lexie pretty much begged her to bend rules for Thatcher.” She considered for a second, and a different smile spread over her face. “Bet she wishes she could cut int’a me this time, too. ‘nstead she does it with the looks, and the glares, and the very pointed words.”

“Which is to say, she’s taken over where I left off. Mer—”

“Don’t. We’re okay now. Right?”

“Right. I could make sure she knows that. Start a new club. Teacher-Bosses Who Wish Different Choices Were Made but Remain On Team Meredith.”

“No! She already thinks I’m using my…my who I am. I’d love to not have a legacy, and a history with Richard, and to just let her be his protégé, or whatever. I only…. She’s…. She gave me advice about…about Zola stuff. Getting ready for her. Tuck being with his dad every other week is not what we’re going through, but….”

“She’s someone you could’ve talked to.” She had one real mom friend, Callie, and he was sure that was complicated by the same jealousy he felt toward Mark. Was there any feasible way of getting her in touch with Kath, or maybe Liz?

“I don’t blame her for being disappointed in me. But, as usual, I’m the pariah, when Alex….” She swallowed hard, and he’d been watching her closely enough to know it was words, not bile she wanted to hold back.

“What about Karev?”

“N-Nothing. He did the right thing, right? Turning me in. I should’ve told, so…so, nothing.”

He glanced over. She was wide-eyed, her lip again folded back over her teeth. Not nausea. Fear. How often had she managed to hide that when he wasn’t looking properly?

“Mer…I want to know your side of things. I’m not going to get mad.”

She raised her chin, silently echoing herself: I can take it. He reached over to put his hand on her knee: you don’t have to. if she got the meaning, could she believe it?

“You can be mad at Alex.”

“I’m not…exactly,” she said to the window. “He’s done all he can for Zola, a-and it’s better…Having him go all Deep Throat with the whistle, i’s better for us, long term.

“It-It’s only…. He’s been going through stuff. I’ve been there. I’ve been deep in that hole, alone, and I’ve been majorly self-destructive because of it.”

“But you don’t tell other people’s secrets. Unless they’re in danger,” he added.

Her whole life had revolved around keeping her mother’s confidences, and not being let in on anything she hadn’t witnessed. Nothing like his upbringing, where it’d seemed impossible to keep anything to yourself. Within a few years she’d discovered the downsides of that secrecy, the misconceptions it’d given her, and had the lessons used against her.

“You’re capable of unwavering loyalty.” She stiffened; squeezing her leg did nothing to reassure her. “It’s how your cohort became what it is. Because, like you pointed out, Miranda and I are similar, I wouldn’t be surprised if, deep down, she’s uncomfortable with knowing she wouldn’t have gone as far. So, she’s falling back on defending the status quo. As for Karev—” They turned with only a couple of minutes to go before they reached the house, and he knew that if he didn’t get this right, she’d retreat again. “—He was overwhelmed; thinking his project was going to end in disaster. For years he’s seen you take on monumental challenges and come out ahead. You do that because you’re truly an excellent surgeon, but for someone who feels like the world’s out to get him, I can see him convincing himself that the game was rigged,” he said, slowing on the road he often sped up on. “And he’d originally planned to be on the trial you were messing with. He didn’t tell for your benefit…or to hurt you. He was trying to make himself look better.”

“He’s so good, though. He doesn’t have to fall back on tactics like that. It’s not much better than lying about having testicular cancer in his application.”

“What?”

She smirked. “Lexie told me. Baby sister is a Grade A snoop.

“But the guy who lied like that…made stuff up. I thought he was gone. Not that…. It was the right thing.”

“Was it?” She turned to him sharply, eyes narrowed. “Not a trick. I’m asking. Was it right?”

Her leg tensed under his hand. She was trying to pull it up on the seat. “I…You…. He…. Without him, we wouldn’t have Zola, and our chances of bringing her home would be worse.”

“I think you know he would’ve made sure that worked out, no matter what. It doesn’t have to make up for what he did, because even if it seems like that’s why—even if he thinks it is…that’s not why he made those arrangements.”

She nodded again, and then said, almost too quietly for him to hear, as close as he was. “I pushed him.”

“To let Zola come home?”

She shook her head, tightening her arms around her chest. “To tell,” she said, in a whisper that wasn’t much more than a breath. “I tried…when he saw, I tried to explain, but he’d been—you know how he’d been. Sullen Uncle Sal. I didn’t think he’d understand, and I… I kept asking if he was gonna narc….Taunting…almost threatening him. So, I dunno…. Maybe I wanted that.” To have it all in the open. To be able to be honest without having told, like what’d happened when her mother showed up at the hospital.

“Maybe you did,” he agreed, cutting the motor. “You know how to keep a secret, Mer, but you also know how hard they can be to live with. I’m someone you’re supposed to be able to confide in. That’s why…I need to be able to be on your side. I’m sorry I couldn’t.”

“S’okay.”

“It’s not. This is not all on you. The system….” He swallowed. It had taken the extreme of Zola being hospitalized while they were supposed to be in the dark about it for him to see how arbitrary the rules were. This situation was not in Zola’s best interest. He wasn’t quite ready to extrapolate on that. “It’s not your fault she’s not with us. Okay?” She shrugged. “Tell me.”

She rolled her eyes and reached for the button to undo her seatbelt.

“Please?”

“I get it.”

“What do you get?”

“That….What you said. That…that…maybe it’s not…entirely my fault.”

“Accepted, for now. Stay there. Let me come around.”

“M’okay,” she insisted, but didn’t move. He threw his door open, but before he was all the way out, she said, “Um, I have pictures. Of Zola, from when she was here. You wanna see them when we get upstairs?”

“Yeah. I’d love that.”

Meredith smiled. Within half an hour, she was asleep with her head on his chest. That, at least, she didn’t seem to be sorry about in the morning.

“Do you have kids, Dr. Grey?”

“Are you a mother?”

“If she was your child….”

“Do you have children?”

“Do you have a sick kid?”

“Dr. Grey, I’m sorry, but unless you’re a mother, I don’t think you can understand.”

It’s not yours

Fuck you!

“Why do you think that matters? I’ve operated on people’s brothers, their wives, their great-uncle Bills, and I don’t have any of th—“

“Dr. Grey, take a walk!”

Crap. Meredith’s head immediately started pounding. “I’m sorry, I—“

“Go!” Arizona snapped.

Meredith rushed out of the patient’s room, into the bustling pre-op hallway. She dodged a passing gurney, almost collided with a patient being wheeled to the elevator, and was slammed into by a teenage delivery driver holding a bouquet that almost totally blocked her vision.

“Watch it!” she snarled, feeling like she was speaking to the world as a whole. When she finally caught herself against the nurses’ desk, she realized she might as well have shouted Watch me! Heat climbed up the back of her neck. She wanted to do something worth their attention, like sending all the charts stacked in front of her flying. Like the thought had appeared in a bubble on top of her bead, someone grabbed her arm, and started to steer her down the hall. “Get off!”

“Do you want to get fired again?” Meredith didn’t answer. She didn’t know. Cristina propelled her against the wall, and put both hands on her shoulders. “Look, I know this is rough. But Zola’s fine, and destroying your chances in another specialty won’t help her.”

“Another…?” Meredith couldn’t get the next words out of her head. Cristina thought neuro was another service for her? That she’d ever consider competing with Alex, when peds had never held her interest? You had to have the passion for it. She knew that. She respected the surgeons who did. As for the one kid she was passionate about—“Nothing I do is helping her, and it doesn’t change the fact that all I can think about is how confused she must be! At least the hospital was familiar for her.”

“I know.”

In the pockets of her lab coat, Meredith clenched her fists so tightly that she was sure she was digging red crescents into her palms. “Cristina, I love you, but if you say that again, I will break your face. You got to see her. You got to hold her, and it’s gonna be a while before I don’t hate you for that.”

“That’s fair.” She was so freaking calm, and it only made Meredith want to scream that much more.

“Yang, let’s go!” Altman called from the desk. Cristina looked back at Meredith who raised a hand to her shoulder.

“I’m fine. Go.”

Watching her walk away, Meredith wondered what would’ve happened if she hadn’t said that. Then, she slid down the wall and sat with her legs pulled up out of the way of traffic.

Who took my baby?

Rose white, rose red

Rose up in my head.

She pressed her hands against her eyes. If she just knew how to answer the freaking question. Legally, biologically, she did not have a child. She was a doctor, a scientist. She was supposed to stick to the facts. Factually, she didn’t even have a foster daughter. But flat out saying no made her feel like she was going to hurl.

“They’re paying you to sit around, now?”

Meredith groaned. “Go away, Bailey.”

“Ex-cuse you?”

“I believe she told you to go away.”

“Dr. Robbins—”

“Dr. Bailey, just before I started work here, Tuck was on the peds floor being treated for crush injuries, is that true?”

“What does that—?”

“Dr. Robbins, please don’t.”

“—I know you wouldn’t have been allowed in Erica Hahn’s O.R. during his surgery, but imagine if you hadn’t been permitted to see him at all afterward. That’s what Dr. Grey went through, and now she’s on my service watching other parents snuggle their sick kids. She doesn’t need you kicking her while she’s down.”

I don’t need you getting involved, either. The thought undoubtedly showed on her face, but Arizona was too busy staring down Bailey while she spluttered and turned on her heel. When Arizona turned to her, Meredith couldn’t resist saying, “You didn’t have to do that.”

“You’re not the only one who’s tired of her attitude.” Arizona sighed, and then surprised Meredith by sitting down next to her. “Are you trying to get kicked off of services to make your decision easier?”

“No. That’s actually….” A horrible idea, idiot. It’s a horrible idea. With some appeal. “Uh…no.”

“You’d really settled on neuro, huh?”

No one had said it that matter-of-factly before. A rush of molten heat flooded Meredith’s system. She closed her eyes when it reached them. She’d lost control once, she wasn’t going to do it again this soon. “My mother was a general surgeon.”

“My father’s a colonel. My mom’s an Army wife. What’s your point?”

Meredith shrugged. “Just…. Neuro was never my only option. Not like….The hours will be better once…once we have Zola.”

“And if that doesn’t happen?” Arizona held her hands up, before Meredith could forget who her wife was and give her the knuckle sandwich she’d made for Cristina. “Maybe the better question is: if it does happen, will you see her as the reason you didn’t get to pursue neurosurgery?”

“No! It wasn’t— That wasn’t about her. It’s a compromise to preserve our family, whatever it looks like. But—Uh, I…” She looked down at the linoleum. “I’ll need him. If…if it falls through. And, y’know. As long as we both shall live.”

“I do,” Arizona said, sofrly. “I got a paper. For Sofia. The straw that convinced me was your situation with Zola.

“I thought it wasn’t gonna matter. Even after everything with the car accident, and not being able to make decisions for Callie…. I don’t know. Part of me figured, I’m a pediatric surgeon. If there’s ever a major medical issue, my opinion’s going to matter, even if I’m not legally her parent.

“The world’s improving, but sometimes the pendulum swings back, and…I couldn’t bare the thought of having someone say she wasn’t my daughter.” She put a hand on Meredith’s knee. “I’ve been getting that question for a long time. I used to have all kinds of responses. ‘No, but I am trained to care for them.’ ‘I’m not, but you know, parents don’t get instruction manuals. I did.’”

Meredith laughed. It was hard to imagine Arizona being so flippant with the ‘tiny human makers.’

She’d rarely shared a significant amount of personal information with patients. During the trial she had, some, and part of her felt the same connection with her minor patients’ caretakers. It was just overwhelmed by the imposter syndrome.

“One of my superiors used to say all of her patients were her child for the time they spent on her table, but that sounded offensive to me. You’re the doctor; they’re the parent. I came around to saying that I knew they wanted to be sure I understood how special and beloved their child was. That to them, he’s their whole world, and I might as well be operating on their hearts.”

Meredith nodded, biting her lip.

“I can’t let you scrub in on Lionel’s surgery after that. You’re on consults.” She nodded again. Arizona started to stand.

“Wait. What about…? There are parents who don’t feel that way. I mean, it…it’s right, for Zola. It’s definitely what I…and Derek…feel about her. But…some parents don’t.”

There is a baby

There is no milk.

Arizona gave her a soft, knowing smile. Meredith wondered if there was a hospital where her mother’s reputation wouldn’t precede her, and if she could apply for a fellowship there, sight-unseen.

“When a kid comes out of surgery, they’re always going to ask for the person they trust most in the world. Usually, it’s their mom. Not always. You can see it in the mornings, when they first see their grown-ups, and they light up. That person isn’t perfect. No one is.

“When I did my OB rotations, I have to say, except in cases where the baby wasn’t going home with the birthing person, you see it almost every time. The attachment may not stay that strong, but I happen to think that if it disappears completely…the kid knows. That’s not the person they ask for.”

Meredith considered that. She hadn’t had surgery as a kid, but she’d been hurt, even before they left Seattle. She’d never wanted anyone but her mom.

Had her mother told her patients she had a daughter? Did she understand their feelings toward their little one, and think of the moments she was missing with hers? During Meredith’s first year, her mother had been an intern. Had she started with intentions to seize every opportunity to visit the daycare, and then faced the reality of judgment from the men around her? Or had she shoved studies showing the importance of early bonding in their faces, the neglect happening slowly as her responsibilities picked up?

She could find out. She had sources. But if she knew, she’d either have to face the fact that her mother never cared about her the way she loved a baby she might not get to keep, or live afraid of the day that love started dissipating rather than growing. She didn’t need that.

“I wasn’t going to tell you this, and if it helps, I’m still sorry, because it’ll hurt. Zola was in very good spirits post-op, so I think we can say it’s a personality trait. She charmed everyone on her care-team. But sometimes, usually when someone came in with a bottle, or around shift change, she’d start looking around. She’d get fussy. Not a full-on witching hour, but definitely a grumpy girl. She did it with all of us, I’m willing to say she was looking for you.”

“Yeah,” Meredith croaked, barely able to swallow. “Definitely hurts.” She managed to smile to indicate that it also helped. Arizona patted her shoulder,

“Take a minute,” she said. “Then, we’ve got a vomitting toddler downstairs with a g-tube that may be malfunctioning. Ever placed one?”

“Yeah.”

“Time to teach it. Find a third or fourth year. I remember what it was like, working with Sof in the NICU. I could hardly think about anything else, and when I forced myself to, it felt wrong. I’m sure it’s worse when there are so many uncertainties, but you need to be able to do your job.”

“I can. It was just…that question. I can focus here.”

“And outside of here?” Arizona asked.

“I’m in my fifth year. There’s no outside of—“

“Liar. Don’t bury yourself in stress, Grey. Life’s what you want to share with her, right? Don’t get out of the habit of living it.”

Easy for her to say. The nights she’d spent watching Great British Bake-Off, or wherever she did to unwind, she’d known her baby was with one of her other parents. She went to a conference and missed one milestone. Every other day, she’d been able to cuddle, feed, and play with her baby. Meredith couldn’t do that. She couldn’t protect, or nurture, or comfort. She couldn’t give Zola her attention, or her warmth, or her love. If all she could give were her thoughts, that’s what she’d do.

Chapter Text

“You know I didn’t mean like…BodyWars? If they really got consent, maybe, but it’s sketchy. They get convict bodies, like it's the nineteenth century. I meant like…the Mütter, and it still sounded really fucked up, and like something someone raising a well-adjusted child—“

"Whoa." Derek ducked his head in from the bathroom. "Map that out."

"I’m the Duchess of Dark Humor. That’s not Dora the Explorer friendly."

"Have you met a child? They’re creepy.” He dropped down onto the bed and studied her grimace as the mattress bounced. “You okay?”

“You and Mark never shut up for long enough to drink your share of a pitcher.”

“And you take it for the team?”

“Someone’s gotta.”

He kissed her, and she had a second of being aware that he’d brushed his teeth, and she had stale beer breath--great mom material--but neither he nor his tongue paused.

His hand slid up under her shirt, and she leaned in toward the cool of his skin against hers. “You plan on changing for bed?”

She pointed to the pajamas about to slide off the mattress. “Started to. Got distracted.”

“Meredith-distracted, or one for the road hit you in the face?”

“What I said was not eighth-grader summoning demons on the playground freaky.“

“Spinning webs and spinning out, not the spins. Good to know what I’m working with.” His hand changed course, gliding over her stomach.

“Derek. I’m serious.”

“So am I. Mark was the one going on about plastics requiring artistry. You gave it back.” He lifted her sweater, replacing his hand with his mouth as he worked it up her torso. “I love when you say what you’re thinking, even when it is uncouth.”

“Uncouth?” Meredith teased, and then shrieked when he turned his head to let the wiry stubble on his face tickle bare skin. Better than calling bullshit.

“Uncouth,” he repeated. “Arms up.” She let him pull the sweater off and while she was still upright he unclasped her bra and eased the straps off her arms. “It was germane to the conversation.”

“Was it, Derek? Was it germane?” she asked, dropping onto the pillow. “Or was it just a.weirdo, kidney-collecting Meredith not showing enough empathy?”

“It wouldn't be that far off from donating to science,” he pointed out, placing his lips on the sides of her breasts at intervals as he spoke. “And you can’t convince me that if you lost a patient to unrelated causes after six hours of trauma repair, you'd only be bothered because it’s a waste of precise work.”

“‘Course not, but—“

“One: you go in wanting to give every patient your best. Two: you have crazy amounts of empathy. Three:  every procedure is a learning experience, you're a student; your best is yet to come, and it's going to be phenomenal. Four: if it was all about patients, we wouldn’t have awards amongst ourselves.”

“Selfish,” she pointed out, squeezing the underside of the pillow with one hand as he drew wide circles around her areola and decreased the radii slowly. “All up in strangers’ guts expecting recognition. Unfeeling.”

Derek released her nipple, his eyes so fixed on hers that she didn’t notice his other hand moving until his thumb came up under the other side, his fingers massaging her breasts as he teased her nipples, making her gasp.

“Unfeeling isn’t the word I’d use,” he observed.

“Not related.”

There is no milk!

There is no milk!

“No, you think you’re warped, because you were raised to be a surgeon, and you probably would’ve thrived as a resurrection woman in nineteenth century Philadelphia,” he said. “You've had a stressful week—”

She winced. She’d done her best to keep him from the situaitton. She hadn’t expected to be overheard yelling at Richard, but even that fallout was better than what would’ve happened if he’d told Bailey off for physically shoving her out of a surgical field during a textbook ex-lap. Sure saying, “I told her father his baby would be safe with us,” had been highlighted how personal the unprofesional move was, but none of the nurses were reporting it, were they?

Life would be easier if she kept her head down, became the repentant scut monkey for a month or so, but she couldn’t do that. Being idle would give her mind far too much leeway, and she was no one’s dogsbody. Derek was right. She’d been raised to be a surgeon, and she wasn’t going to let people’s personal feelngs about her stop her. (For once, she wasn’t worried about going full Ellis Grey. She could forget her daughter at will.)

“—several weeks,” he corrected. Maybe he’d missed the latest disater after all. If she told him she hadn’t challenged Bailey, would he even beleive her? “— you can’t stop thinking about Zola, and it didn't get better after you downed almost  half a pitcher of a beer you insist tastes like sewer water.”

“Did shots with Lex, before she chickened out on being around Mark—but she and Jackson are fine, no really—Killed the taste while I still cared. Great anecdote for the judge, right?”

“Mer…” Meredith!

“S'okay. I’ll sleep it off. Just wanted a break from my stupid shadowy mind. Backfired.”

“Shadows need light to exist.” He popped the button of her jeans. “And the night’s not over.”

“If you want... I’m not really—“

Derek caught her lips, pulling back only enough to breathe “up,” into her mouth so he could tug her pants off her hips. One hand went under her, lying flat against her ass until he caught the waistband of her panties with his thumb.

Meredith straightened her legs, not quite letting all her weight rest on his hand, but blocking his next move.

Since Zola’s hospitalization, there’d been something tentative between them. Something that was closer to being them than just…fucking. She wanted to give him that if he wanted it. She wanted to be what he—

No. That wasn’t how it worked. They'd been through that. He'd chosen her. He trusted her, here. He got her, here. He wasn’t going anywhere.

He levered her up, and pulled the blue cotton of her panties away as he brought his hand around. He dropped them onto the pile of her discarded clothes and slid a hand up her leg. She loosened her thighs enough for an exploratory finger. He was careful, gently prodding the dry folds of her cunt.

“Warned you.”

He brought his right hand up to her cheek, softly encouraging her to meet his eyes. “Are you not interested, or is it the sewer water?”

“I…. You can do whatever..just... lube.”

"I'm not interested in ‘whatever’; I'm interested in you." He threaded his fingers through her hair. “You wanted a break from your thoughts. Would you like another chance at it?"

"Doesn't always work."

"Nothing does." He pressed his lips to the pulse point on her neck, sucking lightly as he brought them up to just below her earlobe.

“Taking on another impossible case, Dr. Shepherd?”

He dragged the tip of his tongue along the edge of her earlobe, and she sighed. “Definitely not impossible.” He rummaged through the bedside table drawer. Their sex-life could be mapped out through the detritus in there. The notebook and thermometer she’d used for tracking her cycle and syringes for the fertility meds. The other notebook for all their “experiments” over the years; the reminder that they shared being nerds. Her vibrators, wands, and a single dildo—usually if she wanted girth, she wanted him—A mostly-empty jar of chocolate body-paint, and the cock-ring she’d purchased, because sometimes he was a prude. The diaphragm she hadn’t used in over a year, and a script for the Pill she hadn’t filled; several of his ties and the gag-gift fuzzy handcuffs that turned out to work really well. Wet-wipes, gloves, washcloths, batteries. Various condoms, possibly a roll of glow-in-the-dark ones she hadn’t brought herself to toss out. And, of course, the mess of bottles and sample packets of lube he’d gone in for. The other table held Zola stuff. Burp cloths, pacifiers, wet wipes—every drawer in the house might have wipes at this point—a bibs, a crinkly book, socks, a onesie, a board book, plastic keys.

Meredith had not been above finding it hilarious whenever Cristina or Lexie forgot which drawer was which. She’d forgotten to warn Kepner when she'd helped out, but that’d been a franker conversation about sex than she’d ever had with Cristina or Lexie. She'd used the word “dirty” a lot less.

“It’s not really about purity. It’s only having that intimacy with this one person He made for you.”

That had made more sense than Meredith expected it to. Casual sex and sex with Derek were different, and she preferred the latter. She liked that she’d been surprised by that; she hadn’t believed, or expected, so there'd been no fear of disappointment, only discovery. Knowing April, she’d be going into her true first time similarly. A grasp on the science, assumptions based on puritan culture—Meredith wasn’t immune—and wide-eyed when it came to the feeling. Was it easier if you anticipated intimacy? Meredith wasn’t sure, but she hoped April got it.

“Hey,” Derek ran his hand along her calf. “Leave the butterflies alone.”

She rolled her eyes. “For someone who hates sex coming up at work, Bailey is incredibly nosy.”

“The best part was that I had to say yes,” he said, putting a hand on her knee, and resting his chin on it. “It’s a little awkward to have to agree when someone asks if your wife goes off with the butterflies in…what'd she say? ‘The throes?’”

“Mmhm, ‘cause if she’d said ‘in bed’ you could’ve dodged. Whatever. Your ego survived, and she won’t ask anything like that again. She’d like to forget I exist, and she’s got half the freaking program on her side.”

He frowned, but ,thankfully, didn’t pursue that. “I like finding out where you’ve been when you go miles and years away. And I love bringing you back.” He caressed her thigh with the tips of his fingers, slow moving up and down, then across her stomach, over the scar from her liver donation, which was still slightly sensitive. He drifted down her other thigh, gently prodding her legs open.

“Relax, sweetheart,” he said, massaging her mons, holding his thumb a hair’s breadth away from the hood of her clit. “Most of the time your body already has this fire going. Tonight I get to start it.”

Get to. Three years of him relishing things like that, and she hadn’t grown accustomed to it. Part of her hoped she never would, but if she didn’t take it for granted, it might be nice to not be…not surprised, necessarily…dubious about how much her husband liked doing things for her. She’d walk through fire for him, and she’d definitely learned the workings of his cock. She’d been on the other side, there was just something particularly Derek in the way he did things like this—the way he delighted in her.

Three weeks ago he’d hated her.

And he loved me. That’s what matters.

Wasn’t it?

His fingers were slick as he positioned them, one on the hood of her clit, and the other two on either side. He rolled them against her pelvis. “Better than nothing, or more than that?”

“Havin’ you touch me is always better than nothing.” Matching her breath to his rhythm was easy. She appreciated the attention he paid to that, and had since he realized—realized, not was told—that arrhythmic beats bothered her. If this was all her body could manage tonight it’d be enough. There were benefits to not being desperate by the time she had him between her legs.

“You like that, huh?”

“Mmm. S’really nice.”

“I think we can do better than nice. You’ve got so many nerve endings down here. They’re just being sluggish. Enough stimulation and they'll get on it. The vessels will get nice and wide, pushing on those nerves and popping your clit up for me. Making it so big and firm. The sewer water might try to constrict them, but it's not very strong. All that blood will head down here, compress those nerves, make they it too hard for them to hold on all that sensation."

It was not normal to be be turned on by a description of vasodilation; it couldn’t be, but he got results whether he was talking her through fantasies, or anatomical processes.

"Nice isn’t bad. That... that feels really good, actually, and I’m not… it could take forever. If you don’t want….”

“I want to give you a break from the doubts for a little while. I want all your shadowy thoughts to have a very particular focus.”

Her thoughts were focused. That was the problem, they were focused on her baby and being distracted by sex couldn’t be the right—but Derek wouldn’t be offering if it was another sign she was disturbed. Would he?

“Right here. Stay right here with me, sweetheart.” He increased he his speed slowly, alternating up and down movements with the circles, working his fingers against her. His fire analogy was apt; except that fire did better in dry conditions. But where they usually had flint, the sticks they were working with were only giving hisses of smoke that kept dying out. She strained as the feeling retreated.

“Derek, it’s not—I don’t think it’s gonna catch. I can’t even—“ feel it, she started to say, but that wasn’t true. He'd stroked the hood of her clit with his index finger, and maybe…. “Okay, don’t stop yet, just…just…”

He brought his thumb down along her labia. “Starting to feel it?” With his index and middle finger crooked, he made air quotes on either side.

“Mmm, yeah. Keep doing that. Faster. Oh. Don’t stop. It’s—oh. Real good. Really, really good, Der.”

He adjusted his middle finger, testing her glans, and she yelped, flinching away. “Sorry, babe.” He stroked downward again, soothingly, the chill of the lube on his finger a burn salve. "Not there yet.”

“No, yeah. Try that again?”

“One sec.” He moved his hand away, and she didn’t expect the whine it elicited. “Hm, starting to want it, huh? Here. Gonna be gentle.” He touched his smooth slick index finger to her glans, watching her face before he started twitching gently.

“Oh, yeah. Faster? Oh, yeah. That’s…yeah.” She grabbed the back of the pillow as spark, an ember shot through her. The twitching-wiggling felt so good, but she wouldn’t be against more than good. Fuck, how could it do that?

Okay, she knew how, but— All the assholes who had said the clitoris didn’t exist, or shouldn’t exist, were jealous, because women had it better. So, so much better. Nothing could be better than this. Well. Technically, it could, but, and…more. Definitely more. “Derek?”

“Yeah?”

“You should…You should see what you’re working with,” she instructed. She pushed up on her elbows, watching him drag two fingers been her labia then tilted her head back, moaning as he continued up, pressing to find the shaft of her clit and running his fingers up and down along it.

"Yeah, good signs here." He spread her legs further so they were bowed out to either side; the way she defaulted to between the more spasmodic muscle contractions that made her stretch them as far as she could. “Very good blood flow.” He trailed the back of his hand along the inside of her thigh. “I love watching you light up like this.”

“Nothing to do with it being your ha—” Meredith stopped, biting her lip too late; a gleam appeared in Derek’s eye at the same time as his lip curled. “Crap.”

“My what?” he asked, breezing the back of his knuckles over her and then letting his palm rest on her hip.

“Not better!” She twisted toward him as his touch traveled back to her thigh, but he retraced the trail to her hip, and her breath came out in a huff.

"Starting to need it, huh?  My what?”

"Derek."

"Tell me what you were going to say.”

“Curiosity kills cats. You’ve used at least two lives.”

“Where are you on that count?”

“Resurrected. For all we know I’m immortal.”

“You know what resurrects cats, right?”

“You’re more frustrating when you’re satisfied.”

“It’s not my satisfaction we’re concerned with here."

"What happened to finishing what you start?”

“Who says I have? Got you turned on, and I’ll get you off, but we knew going in it could take time, didn’t we?”

“Not if you would just get back to it.”

“To this?” He ghosted his index finger over her clit and then returned his hand to her thigh. “That what’s frustrating you?”

“Pretty sure it's you.”

He laughed, like her mouthing off was a goddamn delight. As unfair as he was being, this was so much better than the way things had been. She didn’t feel like she was an elephant trying to avoid tripwires. But losing that level of self-constraint only made the current problem worse.

Being totally bare in front of him was usually freeing, but when he got like this he was eagle-eyed, and even if there'd been a sheet; finding her own way down there unnoticed was unlikely. Her breasts were responding to the same arousal Derek was teasing. She could get her hands on them, but that'd only make the pulsing between her legs stronger while he toyed with her, doing awful things like prodding her glans with his finger, more of an aborted stroke than a true prod. “Agh! No poking.”

“You’ve got some swelling to address just here.” He gestured with the side of his hand like he did to avoid touching a wound or a screen. His control meant he nudged against her just enough to be felt. "It’s not quite sore, is it? Not quite painful. But it's not comfortable." He brought his hand back further, resting it on her knee, holding it so that her legs stayed spread. "It'd feel better if I applied pressure, don't you think? Better, and better, and better."

He could do this for-fucking-ever. He’d mess with her just enough to keep her here, at a place that wasn’t called a plateau for nothing. He knew what to say to keep her mind there, too; not able to simply ignore him and give up, or fantacize herself off—if she could even do that with the sewer water sluggishness.

She knew the game. She’d done it to him. She’d been on the receiving end, without the fuzziness that made her think that last shot was hitting later than she’d originally assumed. She still wasn’t sure that she would come if he'd keep going, but she maybe could, and he'd rub enough to take the edge off. Crap, she wanted…. She needed him to put his goddamn finger back. Instead, he was holding her in place and dancing his fingers all over her legs and belly, kissing her neck with his hand cupped over her quim. Worse was when he drew it away.

"Looks inflamed, huh? Getting a little achy? Pressure, for sure, and maybe something like this?" He circled his finger over the inside of her thigh. "Or do you need something firmer? Do you want me to rub out that discomfort, Meredith?"

“Yeah,” she said, her mouth suddenly dry. "Damn it, your handiwork, okay? You’re a big admirer of your own ‘handy’-work. Your fucking puns have taken over my shadowy mind, and I’d like you to take them back.”

He grinned. “You’re better at them than I am. And as for my handiwork, seems to me that I’m not alone in admiring that.”

“Yeah, yeah. Yuk it up at the drunk girl who didn’t think before opening her stupid mouth, just do it later.”

“I told you.” He returned his fingers. A sigh of relief escaped her only to be cut off by a deeper moan as he started rubbing in sync with his voice. Her head turned, working a trench into the pillow before she could settle into the sensation. “I love your words. Your mind. Your body. Everything about you, Mer. You understand? Nothing about you makes you the wrong person to be a mom. God, Mer, you think that because you feel things so much.”

“It’s a detriment. Detriment of being a conundrum.”

When he laughed she felt it all through her, flowing with the electricity from his fingers. “Jesus, you’re so beautiful, You’re blossoming down here, sweetheart. What do you want me to do for you?”

“You…. Your handiwork. Ooh, you can do that for sure.” She pushed up again, her forehead almost touching his as he teased her left breast. “But, Derek, seriously, whatever you wa—“

“Mere—!” He cut himself off, but not before the exasperated note sounded. The idea that he’d noticed her reacting to it brought the nasty beer taste to the back of her throat. “No, dammit, I’m sorry. That’s on me, too. You shouldn’t  just take anything from me, okay? Ever. Tonight, we’re doing whatever you want. Whatever you need. You want me to keep going? Check in when you’re closer?”

“Yeah. Sorry, I’m not…. Don’t want you to—mmph.”

He kept catching her lips until the flick of his fingers against her nipple was causing her to take small gasps with every other breath. He moved his left hand up to brace himself and took his mouth down to her right side, his right hand continuing to circle her clit. His hair brushed the skin of her chest and she carded it back. it wasn’t the first time she’d found silver streaks in the black; though come to think of it, mentioning it the last time he’d been sucking her clit had escalated the intensity—crap, how long had that been?—maybe—

“Mer?”

“What’d I d—? Oh. Yeah. Yes, please.” He smiled and the index and middle fingers of his left hand stroked her labia the way he had earlier before he very pointedly flipped his hand over and slid them into her cunt. She raised her hips to give him more depth. He held her ass up firmly, squeezing as he found the tissue he’d been seeking and his movements began eliciting sharper breaths.

“Pillow,” he suggested. His right hand shifted to circling her more slowly with one finger, giving her the stimulation she needed without overwhelming her.

“I can hold myself up. I—right there, do that while you’re stroking down—ahhh. Yes, just like that.”

“You’re gonna be mad when your legs give out when I’m doing it just like that.”

“Damn smart brain main,” she grumbled. As her back arched to reach behind her, he pushed in further, and she gasped, yanking another pillow out before positioning herself on them. He brought his smile down to plant kisses at random over her belly, occasionally returning with the tip of his tongue.

She didn’t notice when she started rocking against his hand, but it couldn’t have taken long, because he responded by increasing the force behind his fingers. The promise of more echoed through her, followed by the loss of direct contact. “Derek!”

“I know. Right here.” He pressed his finger down and ran it down toward his other hand. “So firm there, and squishy here.” He waggled his crooked fingers. “You, encapsulated.”

“Yeah. Female. Gonna—Der—“ She clenched and thrust her pelvis up, canting her hips. He flattened his right hand against her abdomen, easing her down.

“Hey, hey. I’ve got you. As long as it takes, remember? If you try to force yourself you’re gonna lose it. Gonna undo all my handiwork.” He moved his left hand, and the lash of heat melted her down. By the time she could process more he’d found her clit again and was rolling his fingers over it.

“Harder. Yeah, that’s it, that’s it, oh yeah, oh, yeah, keep—Just gotta keep going, and I’ll…I can—it’s there—need you closer…more ’n l—like the rolling, lots—quicker, I—oh, yeah.” Her hips jerked as he repositioned two fingers, finding her glans and circling, pulling her with him. “Oh-oh-oh, oh-yeah-uh-uh, oh-please-please.”

“Breathe with it, babe. There you go. What about here?” He circled his fingers inside her, and a spark shot through her; something in the gasping garble of sound she managed registered as encouragement and he repeated the movement. Embers were catching under his fingers, not quite, not—she groaned as the fire died down. Enough sparks remained to coat her skin with sweat, and she could feel herself quivering against him.

“Fuck,” she gasped. “Fuck, that was almost…almost…oh-oh shit, there—faster, yeah, oh-yeah. Harder. Grind me! Yeah! Yeah-yeah-yeah. Oh, oh shit, Derek, I’m-I’m…no, no…noooo, damnit! I was right there.”

“There’s no rush, Mer.”

“Easy for you to say.” This time his laugh made her want to throw something at him, but that would stop his busy, nimble fingers, which would be stupid, so stupid, because they were such good fingers, circling, stroking fingers slick slipping in and out of her setting her on fire, fire was starting in her clit and Derek’s fingers were stoking it, building it up, and somewhere in her was a fuse, if she could just find it, just keep the fire lit until she... oh until she could... could come gonna come, was right there, there now, right right right no, no no—

“Motherfucking balls. I can’t—I can’t. Not s’pposta unless you’re…. Maybe I don’t feel enough; maybe the universe is trying to…trying to punish me for being a creepy…creepy, hard, unsympathetic person.”

“Maybe you spent the evening outdrinking Mark Sloan, and it’s pretty impressive that you’re spinning out, not spinning.”

“Maybe a few shots and…and some beer never—oh-oh-oh crap—never made it this hard for me to get off.”

“Maybe the year you’ve spent dosing with hormones, rarely drinking, has something to do with that?"

“Yeah, but I’ve been…. I mean….ohhh,, there, shit, that’s gotta be it. I needta come, can’t-can’t take…. just-just—unh, harder-harder-harder, yeah, yeah, yeah, faster, don’t let it--almost, almost, ah-ah-AGH—“ The flame caught; Meredith was burning, every nerve-fiber she had on alert, needing to be felt, and too much feeling sending her thrashing from one side to the other, and it wasn’t dying out, was never going to stop, was going to ignite her from the inside. “Yes, yes! Oh, fuck-fuck, Derek, it’s too much—fuck, I can’t—” She grabbed the hand he’d laid on her bare stomach with both of hers and levered herself up as her spine arced, bearing down as spasming muscles inside her clenched again. “—ohhh, that’s happening, still happening, keep touching me, Derek, Derek, Dereeeek.”

She fell back onto the pillow with the last syllable still vibrating in her throat, everything in her vibrating. Derek kept his fingers pressed against her, easing her down as the last sparks died out.

“Done,” she breathed, still shuddering as he drew his fingers out of her, and then pressed them against the side of her clit.

“You sure? I don’t mind giving a repeat performance. ” He pushed down and she bucked toward him. “I bet it’d be quicker.”

“Mm, sleepy. Unless you wanna…?”

“You’re being thoughtful, and the goal was making you less full of thoughts.” He brought the hand she was holding up and kissed the knuckles on both of hers.

“I can be handy.”

“You can. I love these hands.” He pressed his lips to both palms, and set her hands down to rest above her head. “But, you’re about a third goo, and I'm good.”

“Mm, two-thirds, the rest's sewer water. Anticipating dreams of me as a Victorian street urchin?”

“You’d be racing Elizabeth Blackwell to break down the doors at Geneva."

“If you'da said that a coupl’a miutes ago, you could've gotten totally goo.” Her whole life had been about riding through glass ceilings her mother’s generation had broken; he saw her as the one knocking down doors.

“Nerd.”

”Yeah.” She smiled at him. “And you like it.” It’d amazed her, still amazed her, again amazed her,  that he wanted her to be her in bed, nerdiness, butterflies, and all.

”I love it,” he countered, grabbing her pajamas off the floor, and then holding his hands out to her. “Up, boneless, you need clothes. It’s going to get cold tonight, and the heat in this place is nine-tenths of why we’re moving. What?” he added in response to her stare.

“Nothing. Just... I love you.”

“Yeah, I love you, too.”

“I know,” she said. That’s what I don’t get. Somehow, in spite of  being herself, she managed to keep that from coming out of her mouth. Instead, she prepared for the Star Wars joke, or the joke about her getting the Star Wars joke wrong, as she slipped on the shirt he was holding for her like she was Zola’s—

“Hey.” He freed her hair from her collar and brought his hand around under her chin. “She’s going to come home.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I—“

“You can’t, okay? There’s no way. That’s what’s hard, because all we can do until we know is…not know.” She could feel him staring at her this time, and it wasn’t solely because she was balancing against him to pull up clean underwear, and step into her pajama pants. “What?” she finally asked, before she had to spend the time brushing her teeth with him in the mirror, watching her like one of those fake ghosts in Victorian momento mori photographs—She never said she hadn’t been a creepy kid.

“You might be the one with shadows, but we all have things we don’t see.” He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and pulled her in. “We can’t know. But we’re going to not know together, okay?”

“Sounds good.”

He kissed her, first crashing into her lips in the way that started off making her stomach swoop with the reminder that while she’d been going to hold onto their family by the tips of her fingernails, he’d been the one who wasn’t sure, but ended with her knees wobbling at how much he meant his promises. The second kiss was a lighter brush on her forehead.

“And if you need a Halloween costume….” he added, as she headed for the bathroom.

“Do you want the slave-Leia lecture again, buddy?”

“I was actually thinking Elizabeth Blackwell, but that’s not her only outfit!”

“It’s the only one you think of.”

“You can’t prove that beyond reasonable doubt.”

“Give me an MRI and enough time, I could figure it out,” she snapped, and then reached out to hold onto the bathroom threshold. Why'd I say that? I don't care. I don't.

“Yeah. You could.”

She made herself turn, taking in the slump in his shoulders, thinking of the promise in his kisses, and the baby who needed them. “Derek? I love you.”

He met her eyes and held them for a long beat, searching for something. She didn’t know what or if he found it, but he did sit up and smile at her. “I know.”

Neither of them said a word about carbonate, but she wondered if he was wondering the same things she was.

She continued to the bathroom, waiting until she heard him moving around to turn the bed down to lean against the counter.

I’m stupid

He’s smarting.

Zola took up ninety-nine percent of her thoughts, but that last one percent was under a spotlight.

We’re going to not know together. But what happens if he’s wrong?

If giving in ended the fight, but then you both lost, what did you have left?

Chapter Text

“Uh…what are we doing?”

Derek looked up from the campfire he’d lit to the side of the trailer. The lights were aimed to illuminate the slanted deck, and Combat Rock poured from the lowered windows of his car. It amused Meredith that the last time they’d been out here she’d had paranoid thoughts about baseball bats, and now she was locking her car to approach him while he held a sledgehammer.

“We’re taking it down.” He held a bottle out to her, one of her favorite reds that he insisted was too cheap to be properly called wine.

Rose white rose red….

“I checked with Amar, he said to do our worst; it’ll be better than my best.” She almost choked on the wine she was swallowing. “Said he’d stick to carpentry, and I could stick to neurosurgery.”

“Okay.” She took another pull from the bottle before handing it back to him. He offered her the sledgehammer in trade. It’s heft made its use obvious, and she wasn’t sure she should be allowed to hold it. “Why?”

Rose up in my head.

“Because it’s made out of avoidance and spite. Because it does represent my hubris. And, because you’re mad as hell, and you’ve been pushing it down.”

“I’m not mad at you.”

Derek gave her an infuriating smile. “I didn’t say you were. You should be. Mad that I missed Zola’s first night home.”

I’m stupid

He’s smarting.

“You lost out on—”

“That you only had every other night with her. That I wasn’t there for you when they took her.”

What did you expect? She adjusted her grip on the handle. “I-I ruined your trial.”

“Before you had any idea that Zola existed. You were doing what you do for family. Aren’t I the one who’s always pulling that card?”

“He’s not my father,” Meredith insisted, clenching her teeth. She wasn’t sure when she’d brought the sledgehammer up to her shoulder.

“But you care. You care enough that you can’t let a chance like that go, and you resent it. You resent Richard, and Adele, and me, because I couldn’t separate it all. I blamed you for everything, when I’m the one who moved out.”

He’s stupid—No.

“You—You came back.”

“I let them take her. We’ve missed almost two months with her. When I was ready to go haring off and break the rules for her, I still blamed you.”

“It was my fault!” She swung the sledgehammer down on the balustrade. She expected it to barely leave a dent; this wasn’t a TV show, but it actually produced a decent crack. Her next swing, she aimed for the railing, slamming through several like they were bowling pins. “I swapped the goddamned drugs! I took off with our baby!”

“I was jealous of you.”

“What?” Meredith had followed his instructions and put on old jeans and close-toed shoes, but her Converse wouldn’t have been much protection if she’d dropped the sledgehammer on her foot.

Derek climbed up next to her, trading her the bottle back, and then sliding a pair of protective glasses onto her face. “You’ve already put your eyes at risk once this year.”

She gulped from the bottle. Four years ago, she’d been worried he’d be offended that she hadn’t thought to grab wine glasses for their ferryboat date. Much later, he’d admit that sitting there, swapping the bottle with her, had been the moment he realized he was free enough to breathe.

He stopped on the other side of the deck, weighing the sledgehammer in his hand. “It took me far too long to figure it out. To almost understand what you did, and know you didn’t want Zola to be part of any of it…,” he trailed off. She made sure to swallow before watching him bash in half the railing on that side in one sweep.  “You don’t think. You just— You just protected her.”

He’s stupid

I’m smarting.

“I stole her, Derek. There are probably people who could call it kidnapping.”

“It wasn’t. And you were right. If I’d figured out a better way to back you up, she might be with us.” He shook his head, and smashed the fallen railing in half.

No, he had it wrong.

Didn’t he?

She’d run to keep Zola from the social worker, yeah, but that was just her weird childhood surging up in her again. That she hadn’t left the hospital was a testament to everything she’d learned without her mother in her life.

“You lying to her didn’t change things, Meredith. It was me leaving. Not being able to focus on what matters.” He went for the next set of railings. “Zola. And you. Us,” he added, like he knew that without the correction, she’d wanted to scream that he wasn’t getting it. She’d screwed up. She could take the consequences. She just wanted to move on.

“I’m not mad at you,” she insisted, snatching the sledgehammer. She took it down the steps, starting in on the floor from the side.

“What are you mad at?”

The system. Janet and her hands up, there’s nothing I can do prissiness, like their baby was just an ordinary case. Like anyone’s baby was. Alex fucking Karev, growing a conscious exactly when he could use it to slam her in the ass. Everything she’d done for him, all the drunken rants she’d listened to, the lies she knew he’d told. (Lexie, for blurting, “but he lied to get into the program!” as soon as she heard the story). Alex, for being there like the friend she thought she had; more able to separate the professional from the personal than her freaking husband.

Not at that husband.

Residency, for rewarding times they were the worst versions of themselves. Richard for showing up when he needed her, rather than the other way around. Adele, for thinking she was her mother; for appealing to her belief in second chances, and fucking epigenetic guilt, or whatever it was.

She was mad at Kepner for whining about being chief resident. (At herself, for thinking the other woman had been given the position by default.) For not being able to corral the assholes calling her Dr. Tann. (For wondering if, on a much smaller scale, she was trying to buy a baby out of the life she should’ve had, and had put her in a worse position.) For being eager prey for someone like Catherine Avery. At Catherine Avery for making her feel both capable and inferior, in a way she hadn’t experienced since her mother died. For not being the Avery version of Ellis Grey, like she’d expected. She’d been arrogant, wrapped up in herself, and totally devoted to Jackson. She’d looked at him the same way she had when he was four and moonwalking across the hall outside his grandfather’s office. (Waiting for Mom to finish talking to Dr. Avery, Meredith had seethed. She’d be get yelled at for that. Because she was a girl. Older. Not as cute. Clumsy. Never because her mom was meaner. Not yet.)

Not at Derek.

At Lexie for getting to avoid the inquisition. For never having to consider whether she wanted to be known as her mother’s daughter. For being Dr. Grey without ever having to deal with Dr. Grey. At Bailey and her freaking high horse. Bailey, pitying Richard, like he wasn’t a grown-ass man who made his own choices. He had a damn good reason for stepping back, and letting Owen take over.

At Owen, who was trying to shape Cristina into something she wasn’t, and didn’t want to become. He’d known where her passion lay when he married her.

Not at Derek.

She was even mad at Cristina, for being able to get pregnant like it was nothing. For making her think in ways that sickened her about rights she believed in with every fiber of her being. For having a husband who could spend time processing without looking at her like he didn’t know her; like she was trash; like she’d betrayed them, and caused their baby to need emergency surgery. Who didn’t have the power to make her fall for that baby, and the dream of what they could have, only to blame her when things started going sideways. At said husband. At Derek..

She was mad at Derek.

She was mad at herself for being mad at Derek. For letting Janet take Zola from her arms. For letting Derek convince her to take the days Zola spent in-patient off. Like he hadn’t been running over a mental map of the hospital, trying to figure out a way to visit her without being caught.

She was mad at Derek for teaching her to hope, and to stay. For making her walk on eggshells while he sulked, and assuming, the way everyone did, that she’d forgive him, because that was who she was. Meredith didn’t get enough love as a child; she’ll put up with anything.

It wasn’t that. It wasn’t even the overwhelming fear that she’d fall apart without him. It was that she didn’t want to lose him. She hated having to be a doormat to get what she wanted for once in her goddamned life.

That she understood what her mother was thinking in the kitchen; except that Zola would be worth living for. She didn’t believe she could do it without him, but she’d fucking try before doing anything close to what her mother did.

She hated thinking about that.

She hated being mad.

She hated being tired.

She hated being scared.

How much of that stayed in her head, and how much she screamed at him, over the sound of cracking wood, she didn’t know. She was attacking the deck with the frenzy she reserved from the casts Callie had taken to holding back for her—she’d cleared them out twice since July. She’d gone in when she knew Callie was operating, and not there to give her that look, like she knew what Meredith was going through. She’d always known where Sofia was, even when she hadn’t been able to see her.

“I hate that I’m mad at everything, and I shouldn’t be— I shouldn’t— I don’t have the right! It’s my fault.”

“Say it was. Say every bad situation in your life right now traced back to you going into that pharmacy—” Please don’t ask if I’d do it again. Please— “Could you change anything?”

She almost fell to her knees from relief. “No,” she admitted. He took the sledgehammer and put it down behind him before leaping into the pit that had been half of the deck. She grabbed the bottle, before he could decide to leave it there, too.

He held hi hand up, and she took it to jump down next to him. “What else are you?”

“What d’you mean?” Her heart was pounding against her ribcage, and she knew it was because she’d just gone all Tasmanian devil on half of the deck, but the creeping feeling on the back of her neck told her that she’d stop being able to breathe at any second. The dryness in her mouth didn’t help, and the wine went down more like water than fire.

“You’re mad. What else? What haven’t you wanted me to see?”

What did you decide not to see? She washed away that question with another swallow. “I….” She looked up at the sky, where the amount of stars would have seemed impossible a few miles away. Below them, there was a partially-finished house. The uneven mess they’d made would be cleaned up. “I trusted that needing space wasn’t running, but…it was hard. Especially after…. You married me for Zola, so—”

“I married you two years ago, on a Post-it note. At City Hall, we put things in terms the rest of the world could understand, that’s all.” He kissed her, and as he broke the kiss, he slid a shard of wood out of her hair, pulling the piece it’d been stuck on out of her ponytail.

“They think they do,” she said, slightly too much of her focus on his fingers continuing to twirl the end of her hair against her neck. “Understand. They care. I’ve been on Arizona’s service. She apologized for Alex telling us Zola was there. Said it wasn’t fair to worry us when the outcome woulda been the same, we couldn’t have done anything, and we wouldn’t have to know…. I don’t think she knows what hospital she works at.”

Derek huffed in agreement. “I wouldn’t have wanted to find that out from a peds nurse.”

She licked her lips, wondering if his mind went to the same person hers did when he said that, or if he was proving he could let go of something.

“Cristina loves her already, too, and Alex feels responsible, but none of them….”

“They don’t get it.”

“It just gets so frustrating, because…because it’s…lonely.” Especially when you were right there, and nowhere near me.

“Yeah.” He looked behind her at their deconstruction, or maybe his construction. “Even with all of them out here…. I missed you.”

She draped her arms around his neck to kiss him. A breeze made his scent even stronger as she leaned in. It made the kiss more than simply her way of saying she’d missed him too, or even the only way she could think of hinting at how she’d needed him.

She couldn’t go there.

Meredith Grey could take whatever bile someone threw at her; it made her particularly good with irascible patients whose spite was often borne of fear. What she couldn’t take was being treated like one of his fishing lures, reeled in, cast out, reeled in again. He returned the kiss intently. It was difficult to imagine him flicking the pole, but she wasn’t going to give him reason.

His hands cupped her ass, a squeeze and small shift in his weight, her cue to push off the ground. He carried her over to the trailer, but rather than open the door, he dug a blanket out from one of the crates strewn around the Airstream.

“Used it for Sofia,” he explained, returning to the remains of the deck. “I figure, this thing might not suit our needs after this, but tonight, it’s perfect for stargazing.”

“That what they’re calling it?” She took a corner of the blanket, and together they spread it over the boards. It was far from smooth, but there was enough space for him to put her down on it, and start straightening out the wrinkles around her.

She didn’t let his fussing stir her from running her hands over the front of his t-shirt. While she loafed around in old band shirts, or Dartmouth tees on weekends, he almost always had buttons. She had a theory as to why, which made her smile every time she tugged a collar over his hair.

He reached up, and took off the glasses she’d forgotten she was wearing.

“Gotta say,” she said, tracing his pecs. “I’m not against the house-builder look.”

“No?” He kissed her forehead, and continued down her jawline. She leaned toward him, but her eyes had landed on the scar on his chest. Visibly, it barely rose above the other skin, thanks to Mark’s  sworn-by ointments and lotions. That didn’t change how easy it was for her to imagine its progression, from a jagged hole that was far too small for the damage it did, to his chest, open on the table.

Funny, how both then and last month she’d feared him leaving her alone with a baby, and the experiences had felt nothing alike.

She hadn’t lost him then. She wasn’t losing him now. She’d lost that pregnancy. but they’d bring Zola home. They had to, and they had to be stronger than they were after the shooting.

Oblivious to her thoughts, Derek was nipping and sucking the skin over her collarbone. She turned her head, and when he kissed her, she took his face in her hands.

“What’s up?” he asked, the side of his lip curling as he started playing with the hem of her shirt.

I’m sorry I got her taken. Sorry you lost your trial. Sorry I ruined our lives.

“’Sorry,’ is a word for sorry people.” Her mother wasn’t right, she knew that, but it felt like the time for that had passed.

“I know I said it on the day, but I…I’m so grateful that I didn’t lose you.”

His expression softened, and just before he kissed her, he murmured, “Me, too.”

If he didn’t know she meant both then and now, that was okay, but she suspected he did. It was in his expression as he took her shirt off, and then tugged the band out of her hair, letting it fall onto her bare shoulders.

She hadn’t worn a bra, a decision she’d regretted while taking on the deck, but otherwise felt like the best possible choice. Derek took her left nipple in his mouth.

There is no—

She slammed a mental door on the echo of Cristina’s casual observation that Zola was fully taking a spoon.

Focus, she thought, at the same time chastising herself for having to have the thought. Derek knew exactly how to use his lips, his tongue, and the occasional graze of his teeth to make her start squirming underneath him. He left one side, kissing across her chest to the other just before it got to be too much, and used his fingers gently on the tingling skin he’d left behind.

She took advantage of his position by burying her hand in his hair. His sweat had already started to loosen his curls, giving her more opportunities to dig her fingers into his scalp.

He’d settled with his legs on either side of hers, pressed against her hips, and it didn’t takee long for her to pull his hair in frustration. He lifted his head up to her, and her breath caught.

He wanted her. Not just sex, her. She hadn’t been aware of the transition when they first started dating, and none of their fights had played out quite this way.

She bypassed her plan to distract him, moving quickly instead to work her hands between them and unbutton her pants. Before she could slide them off, and take her panties in the same go, he tugged them over her hips,

She groaned at the loss of her only source of friction, but he didn’t use the last layer as a chance to toy with her, at least not in the way she expected. He immediately drew his knuckles over her crotch, and she moaned in relief.

“That what you wanted, beautiful?”

I want—

She flattened her hand against the back of his head, pulling his mouth down to hers. Heat collected in her belly, and she drew her legs up, leaning on her tailbone, rocking eagerly against his hand.

He pulled it back, and she mewled reflexively in protest, chasing the sound with a cry. He stroked the back of his crooked finger against her clit, taking advantage of the tension in the fabric.

“We’ve got plenty of time, sweet girl,” he said, cupping her cheek. Before their lips came together again, her mind briefly protested, but she couldn’t think why. She couldn’t think of anything other than the bolts of pleasure igniting every nerve in her body.

She arched off the blanket, reaching up above her head, her hand searching for one of the few unbroken rails. Derek caught it, lacing their fingers and holding his arm straight to give her the resistance she’d been grappling for.

He scrubbed the base of his hand against her, using her moans to find the right amount of pressure, or maybe he just knew, maybe—Every breath promised implosion. She wanted it, and never wanted it, moaning in relief and frustration when he switched tactics again.

“Tell me you don’t like this,” he challenged, dragging his finger against the bump of her clit, something she wouldn’t have been able to stand without the barrier of the fabric.

She couldn’t, and he knew it. He kept going until she was writhing, sure that one more stroke would be all she could handle. She clenched every muscle she could, whimpering as she caught Derek’s arm between her knees.

“What, Mer?” he asked, his lips back on the base of her jaw. “You need a break?” It wasn’t impossible; wouldn’t be the first time his enthusiasm overloaded her circuits.

“No! I…I…you…I can’t….” She reached for him, gasping at the full-body spasm that the small movement caused. “Want you.”

“Not yet,” he said, firmly. “You can’t wait that long.”

“I—Fuck.” His breathy laughter tickled her cheek, the only cool spot on her body that was still twanging from his finger twitching

“I don’t know exactly what you’re thinking,” he said. “But I know how much you’re carrying. Put it down. Just for now.”

He didn’t wait for her response, but it didn’t matter. She had no choice but to give in, and she didn’t want to do anything else. Her hips were out of her control. She pushed her pelvis hard against his hand, and he pressed down.

Her moans developed an edge of desperation, but before she could get close to overwhelmed, he stuck his hand up through the leg of her panties. His fingers wee soft and warm and—

She pulled up on his hand, curling fully forward as she came, her head tilted up to stars that night’ve been in the sky, or might’ve been behind her eyes.

She just managed to avoid letting her head bump back against the lumber, grabbing on to Derek’s shoulder. He let go of her hand to place his on her back. He ran his nails along her spine, she tucked her head into the curve of his neck, and for a moment, nothing else existed in the world.

He let her reach for his belt this time, and then guide him down again. “You ready?” he asked.

She nodded. Not lying to him was more important than not lying to herself. If, for a second, she thought of the article about attachment issues open on her laptop, or the adenoid removal she’d be soloing on the next day, it disappeared as Derek slid into her.

His weight was a comfort; she could almost twist not being able to go anywhere into not having anywhere to go. She couldn’t stop her body’s reactions to him, sliding in and out of her, his expression as adoring as it had been two months ago.

In spite of the chill creeping into the air, sweat coated their bodies, and the strain of holding herself together, Meredith had a fleeting thought that she’d be happy if they could melt together out here under the stars.

He kept his arms around her for a long time, but it didn’t stop the world from creeping back in.

“Karev said the new foster parents seemed nice.”

Who took my baby?

“I hope they are, and at the same time…..”

“Yeah,” he said, saving her from having to say the horribly selfish thing.

“In any other situation, we’d get visitation.”

Rose white, rose red

Rose up inside my head.

“How hard was it to keep her occupied in the tunnels?”

“Surprisingly not. She took her nap on me, so for two of them, I had a reason to just…stay. When she was awake she waved to everyone who came by. Even interns. We’ll work on it. She’s a distraction. Mostly, I just talked to her while we played with her rings and keys. Did tummy time. It’s amazing how much strength she gained. I’m glad we got her rolling. Cristina says she was rocking on hands and knees already, so we might miss crawling.”

There is no milk!

“We’ll get so many things. Better ones,” he promised, before kissing her shoulder. “The weekend we finished this—“ He ran his hand over her arm as he told the story. She wasn’t used to the return of those casual touches, and she had to concentrate on his words. “—was the one when Robbins and Torres were at that conference. Sofia decided to make finally hitting that rolling milestone into an event—“

“Obviously. Look at her parents.”

“Gets better. She rolled off the couch. It was maybe six inches? She was fine. Mark panicked.”

Meredith laughed. “She’s catching up. He got complacent in those extra months of her staying where they put her.” Most premies met their milestones in alignment with their due date, at least early on. By two, it usually leveled out. Sof might always be small for her age. Not a bad trade for a miracle.

“He must’ve told everyone here twice, She was a little queen with all those guys fawning over her. Hunt totally ditched us to play with her—He is good with kids.”

“He’s good with Cristina.”

He sighed. “Yeah. It’s complicated.” A question sparked in the back of her mind, but she didn’t let herself examine it, lest it slip from her thoughts into the warm air between them. “I love Sofia, and I’m really happy for Mark. I just….”

She sat up, pulling her knees up to her chest, and turning back to him. “Feel like if you get too close you’ll curse her through sheer envy?”

“Basically.” He ran his hand languidly along her spine.

“It’s easier when everyone thinks you eat babies for breakfast.”

“No one who knows you thinks that.”

“It’s fine. I’ve been the resident bitter old crone for most of my life.”

“McDreary and the Miserable Old Crone.”

“Made for each other.” She wasn’t sure if he heard her. Not long after, she l his breathing settled into sleep. She was sure that they weren’t going back tonight. She thought about going on her own—fifth year!—but it felt too much like what they’d both been doing for the past month and a half.

They needed this. They needed the reconnection. Her body knew that, and so did her mind. It was her heart that kept tugging her away from him.

The first story of the house didn’t give the full view of Seattle—Amar had this whole thing about not letting your kids fall off the overlook, which, you know, reasonable—but in the darkness, the lights she could see were like the stars; each representing a solar system she’d never be able to reach. Her baby was out there somewhere.

Not even the languorous feeling that had taken over her body could stop her breathe from hitching at that thought. She pressed her head against her knee, determined not to let Derek wake to discover her breaking. She’d gotten them here.

The abandoned bottle of wine was sitting on the corner of the deck. She slipped Derek’s discarded t-shirt on over her head and brought it back over to the blanket. She took a slug long enough for it to start roiling in her gut. It was a decent distraction from the guilt already there.

“Hey, Ma.” As soon as Derek said the words, Meredith closed her book and stood up. He reached for her, and she squeezed his hand before leaving the room. She headed upstairs, not to the study, which was something. Getting her to come sit with him while he watched TV had been a coup he’d hoped to build on.

“I hardly recognize your voice.”

“Mom—“

“I’m only teasing, darling. You’ve been very understanding of your old mother’s desire for proof-of-life—”

“Ma—”

“I suppose it’s better than your college days when you relied on your sister letting me know you called.”

“I’m sorry for that. That’s what I was trying to say. I’m sorry for any time I didn’t call often enough, or when I said I would, or made you worry for any other reason.”

“Oh. Thank you, sweetheart. It’s nice to hear you apologize for the calls you didn’t make than the ones that were made outside of your control.”

He winced. Had he really brought the shooting up that much?

“Can I assume this means you hadn’t heard anything about that baby?”

Our baby. Ours.

It wasn’t simply the possessive that made him hesitate. She knew the broad strokes of what was going on, but he hadn’t told her about Zola being admitted to the hospital. He didn’t feel like going into it tonight, either.

“We’re waiting for it to come up on the court’s docket.”

“And that’s a matter of weeks, not days. You remember, Francine’s daughter is a guardian ad litem. I hear quite a bit about how backed up family court can be. New York can be any number of times worse than any other city. Here it’s months not weeks. I can’t imagine them hanging a denial on what amounted to a non-event. I’m sure that doesn’t make the wait easier.”

“No…it doesn’t.”

“Say it all, please.”

Meredith had repeated the chastisements her mother used to deliver when her daughter wasn’t getting her thoughts out quickly or concisely enough for her liking. None of them made it sound like she was at all interested.

“It’s—oh, hold on, Mom.” He was interrupted by the sound of a door slamming, and footsteps on the stairs. He looked toward them as though he was about to be caught at something, which was ridiculous.

Lexie and Jackson only nodded at him as they headed for the front door, but their appearance was a reminder that there were still three people in the house. He considered going into the study, but even without her in there, that had become Meredith’s space.

Instead, he went out back. There wasn’t much to the yard, but there was a wall on the back porch, where he sometimes found Meredith if she wasn’t on the swing out front. She’d had a wagon she’d played with out here, she’d told him once, and a push-toy lawn mower. She remembered playing in the sprinkler in the summer, and using sidewalk chalk on the concrete they were sitting on. Being a kid, basically; the purest version he’d heard about from her.

“Okay, sorry. There’s not much privacy here these days. What I was saying…. If I could choose, I’d bring Zola home yesterday.”

“I have no doubt about that.”

“Right, but…last time I talked to the social worker, she said something…. They think we were having difficulties because of the baby. That’s not true. Not at all. But she did say that we could use the time to ensure that’s not a concern in the future.”

“Which it’s not, but what happened did its own damage?”

“Pretty much.” He sighed. “I said things…. She’s terrified she won’t be a good mom. She’s felt that way since it was remotely a possibility. Admitting that she wants kids, in spite of her mom, her job, that it sets her apart from her friends—that’s huge for her. Going through a miscarriage and trying again, not just deciding the universe was telling us something…. Looking back, the fact that she was willing to play roulette with her vision just…. She almost never puts herself first, and with Zola not even here….” He waited for her to prod him again, with no idea how to phrase what he was thinking.

“I wonder, Derek, do you suppose part of what made.you so frustrated with her is that she didn’t consider putting her career first? Leaving your service was a reasonable sacrifice for her, but I can’t imagine you seeing it that way.”

He ran a hand over his face. “I’ve already talked to Kath, Ma.”

“I’m happy to hear that. That doesn’t affect what I said.”

“I-I let her get away with too much. It’s not her fault, really. We met not knowing I was her boss, and i’ve never seen her as below me. You’d think it wouldn’t matter at this point; she’s a fifth year, but that’s exactly when they need to be capable of admitting what they don’t know.

“She has real talent. But it’s different for her. I wanted to go into neurosurgery basically from the time I decided to go into med school. Meredith…only started believing she could be a surgeon after her internship.

“Honestly, putting us…her family, ahead of her career. For her, it is impressive. It’s exactly what her mother never did. I know that. But it doesn’t mean you’re not right.”

He could imagine her expression, the aren’t I always? arched eyebrow.

“I don’t think this is about work. It’s not easy for her right now—there’s no such thing as privacy at this hospital, but the difference is at home. At first she wasn’t eating, and it was like…like she needed permission to stop punishing herself. That’s not like her.”

“That’s after Zola was removed from your custody?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Not when everything came out about the trial?”

“Right….”

“I’m just thinking, that must’ve been a traumatic day for her. Being interrogated by the social worker when she was so nervous about the original interview. On top of that, she’d just been told she lost her job, and clearly didn’t know where to turn.” What did you expect? “It may be that she doesn’t know how to proceed. Remember Amy’s birthday?”

She didn’t have to say which. The one they almost hadn’t gotten. He and the girls had all made it to Mom’s that morning to wake their baby sister up with what was possibly the world’s most off-key rendition of “Happy Birthday.” Instead of attacking them with pillows, which had been her custom, Amelia had stared at them like she thought she might still be dreaming.

“I didn’t think you all would be interested in celebrating me this year.”

“Yeah,” he said, thickly. “I remember.”

He thought of how many times Meredith had confirmed he wanted her at Joe’s, and the excuses she’d had for denying herself in other ways. He should’ve pushed earlier, but he’d been cowed by the walls she’d put up.

Walls meant to protect her from him.

Some of them had gone down at the same time as the deck, but he’d woken at what turned out to be midnight to find her curled in a ball, against him, at least. There’d been a few ounces left in the wine bottle lying tipped next to her dead phone. He’d plugged that in after settling her on the bed in the trailer—an adult insomniac, a doctor’s child, sleeping through transfers, but not phone calls—Photos was the  last app opened.

It was sweet, but he didn’t read it as only that. He’d been paying attention, finally. Getting her to admit to being mad was progress. Getting her to truly let go agaun was, too—but she’d tried every trick she had to resist. Not to last—to get through. He’d almost given in, like every other time he’d pretended not to notice her self-denial over the past few weeks. But he knew her, knew that spasm in her leg, and what that set of her jaw meant. .She’d wanted another release desperately, and was determined to refuse it.

“Let me feel you finish, baby. Come with me. Can you do that for me?”

She’d been gorgeous, lying in his arms, with that satisfied, feline smile, her limbs loose and sprawled. She’d so clearly needed the repite, but as soon as he wasn’t looking, she’d closed herself in again. The pictures were both self-flagellation and comfort when they should only be the second.  It had to stop. She needed to let herself heal, and she wasn’t even letting a scab solidify before scrapping it off.

Chapter Text

“I want my baby

Where is the baby?

I want my baby

Who took my baby?

Rose white, rose red

Rose up in my head

Rose white, rose red

God, I hate you

God is—“

The sound of the door closing made Meredith jump and yank her earbuds out of her ears. She’d avoided the multiple versions of the song on her iPod, thinking that listening to it would only cement it in her head. The earworm hadn’t gone away in weeks, so she’d decided to try a different tact.

Maybe he’d stood there for a while. Maybe she’d stopped being hyperaware of the sounds of him existing. That would be good. —I’m stupid, he’s—No. Fucking song. That wasn’t even how it went. She only had her phone, he wouldn’t lose his mind over her making a mess, or whatever she’d done that hadn’t been a problem in June.

She lost all her innocence

Did her face react to her hitting the button to pinball that thought away from the front of her mind?

“Hey,” he said. For a beat the script continued to play out; her trying not to visibly anticipate having to fake her way through the you okay?’ ‘Yeah, of course,’ exchange,. He’d know she was lying, and try to hide his reaction—hurt, disappointment, and a hint of the lingering exasperation—before going off to the bathroom.

Instead of delivering his line, he came over to the bed. Assuming he’d be sitting, she started to pull her legs out of his space. He caught them and crouched on the floor, drawing her toward him with one arm. The other hand he rested on her stomach. She gasped at the cold, and then noticed insulated cup he’d put down on her bedside table. Her thoughts bumped against each other as they churned. Is he going to…? He shouldn’t…. Trying to show we’re okay? Might not be…. It’s early…. Trying to prove…I’ll go downstairs once he—

“Oh!”

He’d gotten a finger alongside her clit before lowering her leggings. Her face burned—all of her, everywhere was too hot suddenly, except the dot of ice.

“That feel good?”

She shouldn’t— She wasn’t—Hadn’t been—He wiggled the fingee. “Yeah.”

“Where would it feel better?”

“I…I… Nuh—… I wasn’t—“

“Ah.” He pulled his fingertip back, and her hips jerked upward. “That isn’t what I asked, s it?”

“No. I…. I just….”

“Here?” He circled her hood. Gently, so lightly that she could barely feel his skin, but it was nice, and he’d—

“Yeah that’s—“

“Or here?” He drew the finger along, tweaking her clit and then flicking back up.

“I…it doesn’t—“

He repeated the stroke, and then switched hands. He’d been holding the cup with his free hand the whole time, and she gasped. “This doesn’t feel better?”

Her body answered, most of her sinking into the bed while her pelvis pushed up.

“You’re going to tell me what you want. Not what’s okay, or enough. Not what will you wet,” he added as the droplets he was painting onto her clit were followed by hot fluid. “Not just,” he amended, touching her cheek before she could turn away. “You want so much more than you’ve been getting.”

“I….Every time I’ve….”

“You come,” he acknowledged. “You come and you’re gone. Shut down, if not physically leaving. Up to that point, you don’t stop thinking. When we talked about sex being a distraction…. That’s not happening, is it? The deck, that night after Joe’s—“

“I was tired! It did help.”

“I know. That’s partially why you’re fighting me now. You’re…. God, Mer, it’s like you’re—”

“I’m not scared!“

“—shuttered.” he finished. “So, that’s not how we’re playing this. You’re going to talk to me.”

“What if—?“ She clamped her lips shut to swallow the words that rushed past I don’t want to at the sight of him turning so she had the best view of him tipping a hunk of chipped ice into his mouth.

She didn’t know how to not want.

He used both hands to position her. She had to focus on not getting caught up in the rabbity beat of her heart. He wouldn’t open her legs, pull them off bed, breathe frost over her skin to prepare her— He wouldn’t do all that and then leave her wanting. That wasn’t Derek. Not even Derek the way he’d looked at her…. Before. Before they destroyed the deck. He’d been himself again since, like he’d gotten over things. But there’d been times before that, too. Times she’d thought they were okay.

They didn’t last for weeks. He wouldn’t fake her out like that—

Would he? He held grudges. Those kind of things could resurface, and nothing had changed. Nothing was better. Could he take the cup, knowing her usually cold hands would never—

The o of his lips latched onto her, and the tip of his tongue lapped at her glans. She bucked and pulled, but not away. The first shudder was almost strong enough to be the one that caught her, made her shove against his flattened tongue, grunting until the wave of releasr. She groaned when he pulled back, even knowing he was replacing the cold lost to her heat.

“You’ve been holding back,” he said, about to take another mouthful of ice. “And you said ’scared.’ What do you think could happen?”

“I… said…mmm…said not,” she corrected.. “And you said tell you what I want. I want you sucking until I scream.”

She thought he might be doing just that, and when his lips slid off her again, she was willing to claim she didn’t care about the cold any more—he’d know. He knows when I’m lying.

“Just until then?” He kept teasing her with his fingers while he spoke. “You’re so close already. You might want to keep going from there.”

“It’s…I don’t…..” Her heart was pumping so hard that she thought it really could explode, and she wasn’t sure if her breath was quickening for the right reasons. If he wanted her to be all back to normal, he didn’t need to see that.

“Did I ever tell you about Waterboy? He was a guy in Boston. We’d been together a few times. I…I dunno if he was into golden showers, or got the idea when I told him I needed a minute—‘cause, there’s good extra pressure, and there’s dying.…he just ket going.”

Derek slowed the suction, mostly shifting to using his tongue, preserving her faculties; he was listening.

“I finished, and it felt pretty final, but I didn’t…. I mean, you know—fuuck,” she swore at his hum of agreement. He’d been amused by her shock the first time he’d coaxed her past that in the shower. “He was all, ‘c’mon, babe, relax it’ll be hot.’ I was…maybe nineteen? Stone walls and boundaries. I tried…you’d think…I mean, the boy was good, but I just…couldn’t relax enough. It started to hurt—my frst experience with overstimulation. When he finally gave up, it took ten minutes of running the faucet for me to pee.

“You do a much better job of making me feel safe and seen. But having you try to make me piss my feelings out hurts the same way.” Anticipating that his reaction to that accusation would be to recoil, she closed her legs behind him. “Did I say I wanted you to stop? Isn’t that the point? I…I admit I w-want more…more than…mmm, fuck, yes…than I…oh-oh-oh yeah, yeah, go, go, go, that’s it…that’s—”

Her upper body thrashing put her half on her side when she came, ending up with one leg pulled up, and the other still over his shoulder. His hand slid idly along her calf. She’d have to be the one to move; to dress and do something. In a minute. When she could pull away from the soft puffs of breath, and ignore the fluttering in her cunt. A particularly strong twitch made her sigh as she stretched out the other leg, her toes curling. Derek touched his tongue to the side of her clit. It was as much of a question as anything vocal. What do you want?

He’d believe she wanted him to leave her alone; he’d see himself in the wrong for the first time in weeks. She wanted to want that. She didn’t deserve to have him concerned. She’d gotten them here.

It’s not your fault. Tell me.

What she wanted was their baby. That was all. She wanted to know where she was. That she was safe; that she wasn’t scared.

He didn’t have those answers.

If you hadn’t lied to the social worker….

She shifted, putting him closer to her clit. If he took it as an answer—

He didn’t. His return to where he’d been was far more deliberate than her non-committal nudges.

Was the exhalation that made a whimper form at the back of her throat disappointment or annoyance? She needed to get his mind off of trying to hack hers. Switch places, maybe. There wouldn’t be anything wrong with letting her body react to his pleasure like she had at the house. She’d be focused on him; soothing the awakening discomfort in her clit for his benefit would be okay.

She spent too long thinking. Justifying. He turned away to keep his “okay,” from landing on her. There wouldn’t have been much to it. A small brush of air, barely any vibration of his lips. The fantasy lasted a nanosecond. One that was so much better than the nanosecond of reality that followed.

“Don’t. I…I want…I just…I just want to….” She took a breath and repeated the words; the ellipsis intentional, her tone practiced. “I just want to….”

Come on, Derek. You say it all the time.

Derek took her hand, lacing their fingers together. “Tell me.”

“You’re not my boss.”

She pictured the tightening of his jaw, waited to feel it on his grip. “That’s true.”

“You’re not my teacher. You’re my husband. That…It doesn’t give you any kind of power over me.”

“It does not. It does mean that I’m not going anywhere. Whatever you say. I know I went radio silent—“

“I knew where you were.”

“That was only the start. Wherever fault goes…. I took things too far. Seems to be a theme. Maybe I shouldn’t have pushed, but nudging wasn’t getting anywhere. I…. You’re hurting. You’ve been hurting. I’m the one person you should be able to share that with, and I made it worse. Whether the word is ‘shuttered’ or ‘scared,’ it’s my fault.”

“That’s not—”

“I want to fix what I can. For us to. Together. It won’t bring Zola home, but it’ll help us be better for her…. For us.”

He almost managed to keep that from sounding like an afterthought. That he didn’t was what made her meet his eyes. He was preoccupied with Zola, too. He understood that Zola needed them to be better. Anything better for them would help her—or not, considering her parents’ divorce. No, that helped her.

It would’ve gotten worse. They would’ve—Is this not worth your attention, Dr. Grey? The Derek who couldn’t put hiss hands anywhere other than the most sensitive patches of her skin was replaced with the dark-eyed version who’d fucked her—fucked with her—for weeks until Zola reappeared. She flinched.

“Mer? What was that?”

“Nothing. It.… I just wanna feel…. I wanna stop…. I want you to make my brain short-circuit, or drift t-to freaking Jupiter. I don’t care how you do it, just please. change the goddamn channel.” She hated pleading with him. It took her back to a moment when she’d been holding her heart out, and he’d left hee with her chest racheted open.

“As you wish.” He winked at her. Freaking winked. Without any consideration she hooked the pillow he’d slid askew to position her, and lobbed it at him.

He only had one hand to catch it; the other was holding the cup. She fought against squirming with anticipation. Derek was paying attention; he was paying so much attention compared to weeks of watching her from the corner of his eye, letting her slip into the shadows. With a smirk, he ran his finger along the inside of her thigh, the back of his hand barely touching her quim. A tremor coursed through her, and she moaned softly.

She didn’t deserve this. Not from him.

“Hey,” he murmured, cupping her cheek. “You know I love you?”

“Even when you hate me.”

“But I don’t hate you. Maybe…. Maybe, I did.” He moved his finger to circle her glans thoughtfully as he spoke. “Maybe, I hate that you make me face how screwed up the system is. It wasn’t wrong to give Adele the drug. Taking it from someone else was the issue. We can’t play God. You made me see that. The rules… The systems…. They’re supposed to keep things fair. Not just between patients. Between us and the patients, so they’re safe from bias and human error…. We are human. From us, getting overexcited about the science, forgetting the people. But also…also the other way around. It was Adele. That doesn’t mean it couldn’t have been someone else. You get attached, and that’s…. I love it about you, and it frustrates me to no end. I started off biased. I don’t know.… If I hadn’t found out how I did….“

If I’d been honest. If I’d been braver.

I’m stupid….

“That’s not…. I understand why you didn’t tell me.”

“I should’ve trusted you.”

“What have I ever done that would make you expect me to react in any way other than how I did?”

“Yeah, but…your wife sneaking around behind your back…. There’s a history.”

”But I didn’t…. “ He tilted his head, two lines appearing above his nose. “I don’t think I saw it that way. All I meant is, without Karev as a liability—it would’ve been different. That’s not fair—I let myself lose sight of you. I—“

“I want your mouth on me,” Meredith interrupted abruptly. She couldn’t do what ifs. Couldn’t go back to falling and knowing her husband wasn’t equipped to catch her. Richard had picked her up, but only after all other options were gone. She hadn’t wanted them to save her, but shouldn’t they have been willing?

She’d stood in front of a gun for them. She’d taken the bullet she deserved. Either way, she lost a baby.

“Mer—”

“I told you what I want.”

He sighed, and she felt as though the cold had coalesced in her bloodstream and formed ice in her heart. He wanted to share power, didn’t he? Wanted her thoughts? She was still adjusting to the perverse pleasure when the image shifted.

The chip grew, forming an icicle sharper than the one that once pierced Cristina’s side. The point breaking through right where Zola’s head had rested, as though she was a vampire staked in the back. Meredith cringed. She was grateful Derek was moving, and didn’t notice, but she’d needed to feel that disgust. It would be easy to freeze over.

After all the years of not being able to reach her mother’s level of emotional paralysis, she’d discovered her catalyst. She didn’t want to make the transition. She didn’t want to subject Zola to it, and beyond that, she didn’t want to put that barrier between herself and Derek, or Cristina, or even Alex. She didn’t want her patients to sense it. She didn’t want to be entrapped, and her mother had been; however she’d viewed it herself.

But if she didn’t want that—

“Okay,” Derek murmured.

The puff of breath and brush of his lips, the sound waves transforming into electricity as the nerves in her clit reacted to them; it was small, but better than she’d imagined. It didn’t make sense how much was like that. Why did the brain only record the physicality of a memory when the heightening experience was trauma? Before, she would’ve posed the question to Derek, but—

But it didn’t matter. She didn’t have to imagine. He was there, his fingers trailing spirals over her skin.

She bent her legs out, opening herself to him. He stroked her calf reassuringly, but when she dug her heels into the quilt to tilt her vulva up toward him, he pushed her down, and squeezed her hand, pointedly.

“It’s good, I just…harder?” She sighed as he obeyed. That was it. She didn’t have to let herself enjoy this; she couldn’t help it. Whenever she started to think she shouldn’t; that he’d regret it, go back to resenting her, her body drew her back to the moment. Derek did. He knew how to stop her from drifting the wrong way. When he was focused like this, he could ensure that all that was in her head was what he was doing, and the future was only what he’d do next.

Her free hand hovered tentatively above the top of Derek’s head until he squeezed the other. His curls were soft, and he was being so gentle with her. She’d known he’d be back, but what she’d questioned was if they’d be back. Be them. Suddenly, she believed they would.

Her body undulated in response to the pull of tension building up in her belly. He squeezed her hand again.

“I want this. Only need this,” she told him, meaning it in the moment, and more; she didn’t need neurosurgery, or even surgery if she had him. She didn’t care if that wasn’t what she’d been raised for. She wanted—needed—their baby, but he couldn’t give her answes there.

He could do this. He wanted to do this. Wanted to make her feel this good, regardless of what she’d done. It didn’t matter if it was forgiveness, or moving forward. It was that he loved her. Beyond his own views, and worries, and satisfaction. This for her. The trial for her, and she hadn’t seen it. The baby—

“Agh.” Her fingers closed in his hair as he made an abrupt shift to sucking. it was too much, she couldn’t— He found a rhythm, slower, softer, occasionally swirling his tongue around her.

That freaking song had stopped playing in her head.

She needed this. Nothing more. She didn’t need more. She wouldn’t need more, not much. Something else would follow if he kept going.

As soon as she felt the awareness, the promise, tears started streaming from the corners of her eyes. There’d been no warning. No burning to fight. Her throat was only just starting to swell.

Her breath caught. No, no, not now. Breathe. She pressed her arm against her eyes. Her chest hurt from holding in sobs. Why couldn’t she cry quietly? Why was it always ugly, messy sobbing? He’d think she lied. That something was wrong.

Is it that awful for you?

“Mer? What’s wrong?”

“N-Nothing! It’ll stop. Don’t…Don’t stop. I want…I-I don’t want… Stay.” She choked on the word, and the tears that’d fallen into her mouth. She was a phlegmy, snotty mess, and Derek kissed her. His hand was between her legs, stroking her clit like nothing was wrong.

“I’m going to sit you up a little, okay?”

“Not g-g-gonna aspirate.”

“Good plan. Let’s put it inot action.” He levered his arm under her, and after leaning her against him momentarily, fully pulled her into his lap. He moved his hand over to her thigh. “There.”

If he’d been hard at some point, he wasn’t now. Who would. Be with a wife who started crying when you were indulging in something she historically loved—did love! How was he not disgusted, or annoyed, exasperated, like he’d been for weeks?When would he tell her to stop sulking?

“I don’t know….I-I shouldn’t…. Just h-happened…I-I c-can’t….”

“Shh. You can cry, Meredith. I’m never going to be mad at you for that. I won’t just leave you crying alone. if you don’t want me, I’ll get one of your people. But now, like this? You’re stuck with me. What is that?”

“T-True.”

“Good. Good girl.” He kissed her cheek, his tongue catching teardrops like they were rain. Then, a discongruent smile lit up hs face before he leaned them both over to swipe a Kleenex. He was humming when he mopped up the trails that had fallen straight down.

“What’s that?”

“When we were kids, and crying on the bed, or when someone fell, and Mom needed them to calm down, she’d sing this old novelty song. It went, uh…. ‘I’ve got tears in my ears from lying on my back in my bed while crying over you….’”

Meredith wasn’t sure if the sound she made really qualified as laughter, but it was close enough.

“Yeah, see? She never got further than that in my childhood, that I remember. Then, some holiday after I’d opened the practice, one of the lambs was having a real moment. Mom kept singing, and there’s a part that goes, ‘So if I should get water on the brain/You will know you're the one who is to blame.’ Amelia and I just looked at each other. There’s a high chance that if any of us heard that part, it was one of us.”

“I-I can’t decide if that’s perfect for Zola…or totally messed up.”

“For your daughter? She’ll think it’s hilarious.”

Your daughter. Her eyes clouded over again . Once she got that under control, she sat up and moved to face him.

“Mer—”

She put a finger on his lips, and then replaced it with hers, starting in on the buttons on his shirt while she kissed him. He had an easier task in her t-shirt, and when she moved back for him to get it over her head, he propelled her downward so that she was back to lying on the bed. Before she could protest, he kissed her. He was bracing himself on one hand. The other explored her newly bared skin. His nails raked lightly against her belly.

“Tonight’s all you, gorgeous,” he said, and then, right against her ear he added, “Please?”

The fuck was she supposed to do with that? She nodded, dumbly, her mouth going totally dry. He grinned and then scooped her up, dumping her onto her side of the bed. She laughed in surprise.

“We’ve got chilly water here,” he lamented, shaking the cup. “I can go down and get—“

“That’s o—I don’t want you to. Stay with me.”

He smiled.

She didn’t cry this time. Whether she truly forgot about the mess of their lives was debatable, but she did feel lighter, like he’d taken on some of the weight rather than letting it settle back onto her., Afterward she recognized that he’d continually blocked her view of Zola’s crib.

Meredith slept in his arms, her body pressed to his.. Derek didn’t shift her once his left arm started going numb; it was the only part of him that was going to sleep anytime soon.

He hadn’t had a solid idea of how he’d expected the night to go, but that hadn’t been it. Had it?

He’d wanted her to open up, and while she hadn’t said anything he hadn’t known, or guessed, she’d let him in in a different way. She’d cried about Zola the day she was operated on, but tonight had been different. This had been about her as much as the baby. It was like she’d accepted absolution— or started to.

Even knowing how closed off she’d been, he hadn’t anticipated so much resistance. For years, he’d seen her walls go down when they were in bed. That was when he could show her that she was safe and loved, and have her believe it. She knew that, and she’d done her best to reject it, which had only proved his hypothesis: she didn’t think she deserved it. Words were easier to dismiss than actions, so when his actions started to get through, she’d block him.

No one could torture Meredith more than Meredith.

That night, he’d used the tricks he’d honed to leave her loose-limbed, her eyes hooded and swimming with multiple blast of endorphins. Still, he’d watched her contemplate going downstairs while putting her pajama pants on commando.

“Stay with me,.”

She’d jerked out of her thoughts and given him a smile that sparkled in spite of being tentative.

He hadn’t expected anything more than that. His hope was for her to fall asleep quickly, before the twists and turns of her thoughts could become nightmares. Her dreams ramped up in times of high stress, but they didn’t always feature the most recent disaster. He didn’t want her to drown when it felt like he’d finally managed to get her on land after multiple attempts left her slipping back under.

She’d nestled against him, and when she spoke, he was glutting himself on the scent of her hair, the sharp floral with a hint of sweat underneath.

“It’s what my mother did, you know.”

“What’s that?”

“Took off with me under the threat of social workers…or lawyers, or whatever. It was documented that she’d tried to off herself; it wouldn’t be totally impossible that Thatcher would’ve been given custody.

“With that, and Susan telling me what she did, about how he’d have had to fight for me…. I just wonder why. I mean, I’ve told you, when she was lucid that day, she thought she’d had a breakdown after our fight. That was part of why that whole thing was so hard—that she could think that me taking off would put her in the condition she was in after Richard….I was just starting to put together the pieces, and at the carousel it sounded like I was why he did it. He kept saying stuff about her child and family. I thought she resented me for that. I still do,” she admitted. “But I never…. Never imagined she might care that way. She started saying she wanted to know me. It felt like things were different…and then they weren’t. Some of that diatribe might’ve been the Alzheimer’s, but it wasn’t any worse than what I’d gotten before. It scares me.”

That was a turn he hadn’t seen coming. He waited, with enough time passing that he wondered if he should prompt her. He’d learned to let her figure out what she wanted to say, but if she wasn’t sure he wanted to hear it—

“I can’t see why she wanted me, except to shape me into Ellis Grey 2.0. I always sensed it; that’s why having her say she wanted to know me…. I’d waited my whole life for that.” He found her hand and slipped his fingers between hers.“Probably why I fell for your ‘it’s not the chase’ schtick.”

“Only the truth.”

“Yeah.” There was a tone to that, and not the sarcasm he’d have expected. “Same thing with Thatcher. If he’d said, ‘I’m sorry,’ or ‘what’s your life like?’ then the thing ith George…. I…I mean, I wouldn’t have been thrilled about crying on you, but that trauma wouldn’t be there.”

He raised his head and leaned over, kissing her cheek when she didn’t turn toward him. So much of that situation had been unfair to her, and he hadn’t understood until she’d told him the full story. For her to be the one shamed, for O’Malley to take off on her in a fit of emasculation, and for him to use it against her—none of it was right.

At Joe’s, during their break-up, he’d almost corrected someone; a new hire crowing “I bet she’s made all kinds of men cry—“ before her gossiping friends shushed her. He’d been even more tempted when the truth had only made her shrug. “Someone leading that sweetie on should cry. It’s like running over a sick puppy.” He’d thought of Doc, and of her devastation any time he’d seen her cry, and left the bar before he started smashing tankards.

He wasn’t proud of making her relive that, but he hated more that she would, even when the crying was exactly the release she needed.

“It makes me think…am I just selfish like her? I’m going to be working horrible hours, I…Part of me does want to prove I can do it, which isn’t that far off from…from how I think Mom thought she had to. I just…. I want them to let us have her so much, but it feels like the universe is telling me something.”

There it was. He’d known that fear was somewhere, niggling at her constantly, when she hadn’t believed he’d listen—or that he’d disagree.

“Us,” he corrected.

“No. It’d be me. You can not blame me all you want, but I’m why the alarms were rung. I lost the last one ‘cause of my hostile uterus, and it’s statistically improbable that I never had a pregnancy scare.”

“Using two forms of birth control,” he reminded her. “Mer, you already care so much about who Zola is. You picked up her preferences, and you can always make her smile. You’re not going to force her to be a surgeon. And…do you think your mother spent time reading parenting books in her fifth year? Or her last year of med school?”

“Absolutely not.”

“There you go. J think your dad was the most selfish one…. Actually, it might’ve been Richard. Maybe he was the most cowardly, in that instance. It’s certainly how I felt, following his example. Your mom…both times, it seems like she was mostly frightened of being left alone.

“I once heard my mom tell one of the girls—Nan, maybe? Not sure—that the most selfish thing you can do is bring a life into this world. No one asks to be born. But Zola, she’s already here.

“Maybe we’re not the only ones who could love her. She’s a charmer. But we’ll love her well, and strongly. We’re already rearranging things so that she takes priority over our jobs.” He thought for a moment, going back over all that she’d admitted, in what she’d said, and what she hadn’t. She’d spent the anniversary of “the day my mom did the thing” in Zola’s hospital room. It was incredibly meaningful, but it didn’t feel like the right thing to bring up.

“You weren’t hiding for selfish reasons. Facing up to everything going on would’ve been a scary prospect, especially when.…When I’d given you reason to think you’d be on your own. You knew what could happen, and you didn’t want it to happen to her. You didn’t want to lose her, but that’s not selfish. And you’re not going to be on your own, so you don’t have to worry about that.”

He’d felt the strength of her exhalation. Like mother, like daughter, in so many ways, though she only saw the negative ones. Then again, Ellis could’ve prevented that fear from being passed along.

There were other things he wanted to ask her, but not enough to risk a shut down.

She’d had one more thing she needed to say that night, before she’d let herself sleep. “The chase. The day you said all that. It was the Dead Baby Downhill.”

“Ah, yeah.” He’d had no idea where she was going with this, but he had vivid memories of that day; seeing that patient grab her and wanting to smash his face in. Her implications she had a history with egotistic, peripatetic guys with names like Viper. Hearing her shout at Karev from the corridor. Alex had been the Viper of the hospital, and right there she’d made the choice to take internship, her career, and the future seriously. And she’d done it by slamming a man against the wall.

It was possible he’d wanted to learn from her.

A year later they’d been involved in Sex and Mockery; though, he’d greeted her at the trailer with a shot of tequila before letting himself feel the jealousy that came watching her interact with another wave of vipers. The year after that, she’d been a week out of surgery, making it impossible to make that a tradition, so he’d done something else. Last year, when he’d seen that underneath her typical dark humor, the name of the race had gotten to her, a different tradition had emerged. Like he’d done with her on bed-rest post-op, he’d given her a new collection of reasons for loving her. Little things, like he’d given her in the locker room. Ones that highlighted that their lives weren’t a race to the next milestone.

“I was right. Everything about this job is a race. No wonder you and Mark are constantly dick-measuring, and you weren’t even in the same year.”

“True.”

Would Mark or Addison’s capability for betrayal have emerged then, if they had been?

God. She was right. That was how he saw this. He drew her closer.

“Everyone’s so desperate to come out ahead. Even Kepner’s breaking rules, getting me to help with Mickey and his crew. Cristina loves Zola, but I’m not sure she gets why I’m letting something come before all of that.”

Had she feared even Yang would abandon her? She’d been staying here that whole week, because she and Owen were on the outs, but it was as likely that she’d have helped out anyway.

“She…She had an abortion. The day Zola...was taken. That’s why Owen was pissed. He wants kids—maybe always has, and she…maybe wasn’t sure? But now she doesn’t and…. In a way, we…we got the same results, for such different reasons. No baby, angry husband. I don’t…. I love her, and she says she gets what I did, but I wonder. . It doesn’t seem impossible that we were both good candidates for Chief Resident, and….”

“You’re wondering if she’d have told.”

She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. What I know is, I wouldn’t have. And I dunno if that makes me wrong, or soft, or…or if this year you came up with reasons you should’ve run instead of chasing me.”

Pieces of small puzzles clicked in his mind. Life with Meredith gave him hundreds of those, and he imagined he’d always be putting them together, forming a bigger picture.

They’d always spoken of Sadie when comparing one of her friendships with his and Mark’s, but she’d used Cristina as a yardstick for the past four years—breaking up with him when Burke left being the most blatant example. The ways they were different were more visible now, and he understood not wanting to face them. Not wanting to untwist the sisterhood.

“Yeah, that’s a pretty close parallel. Even that it was unexpected. Zola’s an adoption accident.” That got her to snicker. “You and I are on the same page about kids. We want them, but sometimes…you don’t get what you want.” He swallowed. “Owen’s the one being selfish there. I’m willing to say it. She’s the one who’d be giving up her body in fifth year, starting a fellowship with a newborn. Your situation—ours—is different. Zola is older. You are willing to make the sacrifices….“ I won’t be on your service. “Whether she’d have told or not…she’s asked you to keep secrets before. She should have done the same.

“There’s nothing wrong with your loyalty. Or your priorities. She can be a stellar aunt to your kids without having her own.”

“Zo-Zo’s version of Aunt Marie,” she murmured. “One who doesn’t leave without a word.”

God. How had no one stuck around for her?

“On the day of the race this year, I didn’t know how to tell you what I was thinking, or how to admit it to myself,” he said, carefully. He’d done the wrong thing here before, in the dark when his words couldn’t give her the images and feelings in his mind. “All month I’d been remembering what my mom said, about how I needed you, you could show me the nuances. But I couldn’t…. There didn’t seem to be any. The trial…. I didn’t understand how you didn’t see what I saw. How anything could matter more than your future. But I’m beginning to see that for you…it was never for you. Nothing was.

“You notice everything, so I’m sure you know I was paying attention to how you were being treated. I missed some of it, and I’m sorry. I really think I could talk to Miranda, but—“ he added as she stiffened “—I won’t if you don’t want me to.

“I saw the interns being snots, and the last weekend of Seafair is worse than the Fourth for intern issues. They’re too confident, not humbled. I know you always watch them. So…yeah, I paid attention. I was in the gallery for the end of your procedure on guy who went ass over tea kettle down concrete stairs.”

“They let me do the exlap work because we were likely to lose him anyway—I can’t believe I used to be into dumbassery like that. Used to be one of the dumbasses.”

“Mm, well you sure weren’t that day. Those interns had been insolent with you that morning, and by the time you closed everything was ‘yes. Dr. Grey.’ You had them. I was so proud of you. You’re going to be more than just a great surgeon. You’re already a great teacher.

“That part I couldn’t tell you because I didn’t think you’d believe it. You’ve taken so much on the chin since last year, and you keep going.

“I’ll never be running from you, Meredith. If it looks like it, you’ve probably gotten ahead, and I’m taking a detour to catch-up. I’ve seen so many reasons to love you that I’d taken for granted in the past few weeks. You’re great with patints, but even better, with their families. You are putting in the work to be sure we raise a little girl who knows who she is, where she comes from, and sees an infinite number of paths in the future. I love you for giving me the space I needed, even if it wasn’t fair to you. I love the sacrifices you make, even if I don’t understand them. I love how hard you fight. I’m soeey I was one of your opponants. I love that you let your undertstanding of your past evolve. I love that you give people chances. I’m grateful for it.”

She didn’t scoff, and again he thought that might be it, until she asked, “So, I’m not unforgivable?” She tried to make it sound light, but the truth was in the softness of her voice, and the time it’d taken her to ask, in this conversation, and overall.

“You don’t believe a person can be unforgivable,” he pointed out. Had he said that? He didn’t remember exactly, but chances were she would if he had.“Maybe that they can’t be rehabilitated, but—”

“I’m not asking about what I believe.”

“I am. I…I’m still learning. I couldn’t separate you from what you did and that from the consequences. I made it too personal—”

“It was personal. But not…the last thing I wanted was to hurt you, or your career.”

“It wouldn’t have hurt me if I could compartmentalize. That I can’t, and it took me so long to see past it all…. I’m gonna work on that. I’m not sure how I feel about the trial, but you…. No. You are not unforgivable, Meredith. You never will be. Never could be.”

Her quiet “okay,” and the exhalation that came with it would stay with him for a long time. He’d make sure of it.

He wanted an hour in an interrogation room with her parents, as well as Richard, Susan, and even Adele. As a young adult, he’d concluded that a kid didn’t have as much influence on their parents’ thoughts or actions as they thought Now, he wasn’t as sure about that. To him, the grudge he’d held against Amy had been proof he was her brother, not her dad. He couldn’t imagine putting the blame for the breakdown of an adult relationship on a child, or not figuring out that they believed it was their fault and reassuring them immediately.

He’d told her he loved her again, and soon after she responded her breathing had changed. He’d listened to her snores, softer when she lay on her side.

He wasn’t sure how he felt about knowing the story behind what Owen had called “trouble” between him and Cristina. They don’t make it easy, he’d said. But the trial, while significant to his career, would be accounted as less important by most people, and he’d been insurmountably angry at Meredith over it.

He wouldn’t have been in Owen’s place, because Meredith wanted a baby, but—If circumstances were different, and facing fifth year and pregnancy was too much, he’d have supported her, the same way he’d supported Addison every time she’d said, not this year. it would’ve been the sort of problem couples faced, in his experience.

In the limited light of the bedroom, he looked at Zola’s crib, and admitted to himself that he wouldn’t trade. Not any of it.

Chapter Text

“Hey. There’s a Nona Estrella’s order going around. You want your usual?” Derek asked, leaning on the doorframe leading into the den.

Meredith lowered the book she’d been staring at and let her arm hang off the side of the love seat. “No…. Well…order it. I’ll take it for lunch tomorrow.”

He nodded, but didn’t move to go update the others. She could feel him watching. You okay?

Fine.

Okay.

The book hid her wince at the thumps of his socked feet landing on the lower level. She forced herself not to curl in more. She wasn’t taking up more than half the cushions.

He lifted her calves into his lap when he sat, running his knuckles over the skin her capri leggings left bare. Was it automatic? Was he performing the acts of husbandship, until it was normal again? Was it normal again?

Would she recognize that?

“Are you feeling okay?”

“I’m….” She hesitated. He’d find out; they shared a bathroom, and he’d want to have sex was at some point in the next few days. “I got my period. Which isn’t a big deal anymore, but….“

“But,” he agreed. She let the book fall again and looked at him. “It’s a reminder.” She nodded. He nodded, slowly, his hand gliding up to her hip. “A painful one?”

The ferocity of her desire to say no was strong. The cramps felt right. For a year she’d been fervently tampon exclusive. She’d had to use pads after the miscarriage, and she hadn’t wanted to deal with that association. This morning, she’d sourced a pack from a supply closet. She should feel la another chance at being a mother. Not this month. Maybe not ever, and experiencing that loss physically seemed important. Zola was something more than the potential life she’d bled for last year, and every second of that had been important and devastating.

“Yeah,” she admitted. Honesty was more important than grief that could be premature. Had to be. Maybe.

His hand moved up again to her abdomen, warm and heavy. She didn’t have to guide him or adjust the pressure of his massage. They’d been here before. She closed her eyes. The heat there was hormones. She wasn’t going to break on him again. When she opened them, he was watching her. She resisted the urge to hide behind her book.

“Derek, seriously, what am I ordering?” Lexie called.

“Remember when she was intimidated by me?”

“Oh, she still is,” Meredith assured him. “At work.”

“Well. That’s good.” If only you’d been that way, she thought for him. “Let me….” He lifted his hand, and Meredith curled up again, turning her face into the couch pillow. “Okay.” Derek got up, but stopped at the threshold. “Lexie? Get her the alfredo and put both of ours on the stove. I’ll heat them up later.”

“You need to eat,” Meredith protested.

“So do you.” He came back over to the sofa. “We’ll do it together when you don’t make that face at the idea. Let’s go.” It wasn’t an instruction so much as a warning before he lifted her.

“I can walk!”

“How long would it have taken to convince you to?”

She scowled, but put her arms around his neck. Arguing with him would’ve been equally futile. And she didn’t want to.

He put her down on the bed. “Pain level?”

She hesitated. He had four sisters; he’d never questioned the times she’d taken one of the stronger tablets in their medicine cabinet. She wouldn’t mind letting the world go hazy for one night. Cramps were what had put her on the Pill in the first place. While both the fertility doctors and her OB said that was unrelated to her hostile uterus, it seemed like a hostile act to her.

What might she let slip, though? Hydrocodone didn’t take her memories, but her filters were vulnerable. What if hazy was stronger than the willpower she could wield with alcohol? Hearing herself stammering, “as long as I can still drink tequila,” two years ago was a better deterrent than any time she’d felt the burn of booze and acid shoot back up her esophagus, or flashed back to some stupid thing she’d done at two a.m.

And he could read her. What if he could differentiate between a physical and an emotional eight? Using pills to escape was something Derek had a demonstrably hard time forgiving.

“Midol.”

“Water? Ginger ale? Wine? Tequila?” She stiffened. “You’re not taking anything that’ll react,” he added. “And you’re gonna take the night off from studying.” Did she imagine that he’d pronounced it study-ing, like the room was the first part of the gerund?

“Am I?”

“Yup.” He smiled. “I’ll make it happen.”

“Then, I’m not giving you an advantage. Water’s fine. No, wait, ginger-ale.”

“Coming up.”

He lingered while she took the meds, sitting on the side of the bed, with his hand back on her abdomen. “Mer…. Do you want to go back on the Pill? Just…until we know what’s going on? I hate to see you go through this every month when we’re not really trying. I know it’d be a blessing if it happened, but the chances….”

“Yeah.” She’d stayed off because of all the stories of women who’d been unlucky longer than her getting pregnant once they adopted, and they did think it’d be ideal for Zola to have a sibling close in age. Now, when her cortisol levels had increased, the probability had gone down. Probably. The idea of getting pregnant while Zola was gone made her skin crawl, but the idea of going back on the Pill gave her the same feeling. “Not yet.”

“Fair enough.”

That was it.

She listened to him setting up the bathroom. This was incredibly familiar; an almost monthly occurrence since the last row of active pills in the packet had been taken. She’d been skipping the sugar pills since she’d read the research suggesting it was safe. As an intern, she’d  blown the edge she’d hoped for with heartbreak and tequila.

It was cold comfort that she wasn’t nearly as much of a disaster as she had been. She hadn’t become the new smelly, sullen Uncle Sal. She’d learned to compartmentalize.

But was that good? Zola felt like hers. She couldn’t say why, only that it was true. Was compartmentalizing number one on the How to be Ellis List she’d never make? Would she one day come out of a “quick consult” and realize her seven-year-old had been in the lobby for hours?

They’d done this enough that she could judge when to drag herself up and start taking her clothes off. Another night she’d make it a show for him, a small link reforged. Tonight she peeled her leggings off, and balled them up with her top and bra.

She had to go into the bathroom to swap her pad for a tampon. If Derek noticed that incongruity, he didn’t say anything. She could feel his gaze when she put her leg up on the toilet seat to insert the applicator. She popped her other leg up and caught the panties that flew off her ankle before tossing them to him.

He smirked at her and brought them close to his face. “Best scent in the world.”

He could change. He used to recoil whenever she joked about his panty thing—He’d pocketed them. What had his plan been? (Had he, consciousjly or not, wanted to signal the end of his marriage with a man’s jacket? Sure. He still had a panty thing.)

“Gross, this week.”

Derek ducked into their bedroom, and she heard the soft fwop of fabric landing in the hamper. When he returned, he’d only taken off his shirt, but when he wrapped his arms around her she could feel his hard-on against her back.

“Every week,” he said. “Every variety of your scent is perfect to me.” She laughed, and while he was kissing her cheek, smacking, sloppily, egging her on, she believed him.

“Bath thermometer,” she murmured as he stuck his hand in to test the water temperature.

“Hm?”

“Oh. Just…reminding myself we need them. For both tubs.”

She stared at the clear water. She didn’t feel like she was faking, the way she had in that period when she’d felt herself disappearing. Sure she’d spook him had been far from afraid she’d lose him. But the same thought was stuck in a craw of her brain or whatever. Why can’t I just be normal?

“ When…When I was little, I used to beg for bubble baths in here, but it’s a pain to kneel by, so they only do it a few times.”

“We’ll bring in a stool.” He held his hand out to help her over the side.

“You’re…You’re getting in with me?” she confirmed.

“Yeah. Unless you don’t want—?”

“No, I want!”

“Okay.”

In the bath, she straddled him, and he put one arm around her rib-cage. The other picked up where he’d left off downstairs. For the first time in a long time, she let herself recall those first days after she’d been pulled out of the bay. She’d been cold constantly, like her bones had turned to ice. Derek had finally drawn a bath, and she’d let him wrap the brace stabilizing her ribs in plastic. Then, she’d frozen in a different way. He’d turned her to face him, and she couldn’t lower her eyes quickly enough to hide how wide they were.

Fear was a useless emotion. It made you hesitant, which a surgeon couldn’t afford. She’d held herself under the water only a few days earlier. Fear was weakness. But she’d never been as strong as people said she must be.

Derek had put his hand on her cheek, tilting her face up. In his eyes, she’d seen the promise. He’d be her knight in shining whatever—not because she didn’t know it was armor, because she didn’t deserve the clichés—Silently, he’d striped off his t-shirt and boxers, climbed in the bath first, and then held his hand out to her.

He hadn’t swooped in to save her that day eight weeks ago—eight weeks, they’d missed two months, two months of growth and milestones—but he was trying to make up for it.

“You’re thinking too much.”

“Always.” All. The. Freaking. Time.

“I wonder what I could do about that.” He turned the arm against her ribs and cupped the underside of her breast. His thumb circled her nipple. “Something that could change that and help with the cramps.”

“Two birds with one—” She gasped as he flicked her nipple. “Whatever.” She felt every wave of his laughter. She hadn’t let herself really feel how much she’d missed that part of them. Now, it was like realizing she’d been going through withdrawal only after she had the drug back.

“Although,” he added a minute later, his other hand moving toward her thigh. “I don’t think you’re relaxing.”

“I will.”

“If anything—“ He took her nipple between two fingers, lightly squeezing. “—you’re tensing up.”

“I thrive on tension.”

“If you say so….” He started to lean up, reaching for the faucet.

She grabbed his wrist. “Wait.” He shifted her slightly to look at her face. She smiled, moving her hand to his cheek. “Not yet.”

“No?”

“If it’s….” Seriously, Grey? She took a breath. “That’s not what I want, yet.”

“Good girl.” Once, that phrase would’ve sent her out the door, but the low growl in his voice took away the condescension. Or, y’know, Daddy issues. Whatever. She didn’t hate it from him. He settled her back against his chest, one arm draped across her body. and used his index finger to lightly stroke the hood of her clit,

“Mmm.” She turned her head, resting her forehead on his shoulder. “Stupid.”

“Excuse you?”

“It’s stupid how perfect that feels. I wear regular person panties; there’s always something touching me there, technically. And, yeah, if you get real wiggly on the right kind of seam you might get somewhere, but, like, specific simulation in one spot. Really, really nice specific simulation—just, just, you’re barely…moving.” She’d been going to say “touching me,” but to counter the water he’d kept his finger in place and his usual light swipes were translated into tiny movements.

“You say stupid, I say brilliant.”

“Wouldn’t trade,” she admitted as the feeling spread, awakening a warmth in her belly. “Boys go on about their dicks, and there’s definitely a benefit when it comes to jerking off, but I don’t need the whole world knowing when I’m turned on. I’m not patient enough for…. Not into any kind of period, refractory or otherwise. And, what else? Oh, yeah, double the nerves.”

“What you’re saying,” he said, adding pressure to his slow circling. She groaned, her pelvis jolting upward. “Is that society really should’ve developed clitoral envy?”

“Oh, I think…mmm….I think you did.”

“‘You’ meaning men as a whole?”

“Duh. Why d’you think history kept ‘discovering’ it? Ye oldie dudes did not wanna admit that women’s pleasure didn’t require their dicks, let alone that it might be stronger.”

“Decent explanation. I’ve never gotten the denial. Aside from just, no part of reproduction hurts for us, I don’t understand not wanting to take care of you.”

“Me…when you’re…when I’m—”

“You always. I do love getting you to squirm, and sigh, and scream, but when you’re grumpy tomorrow, I’m gonna want to be there for you.”

She could feel the objection to her impending grumpiness in her chest, but she couldn’t speak it. The response in the front of her mind would change the mood entirely. Not like the crying. That’d been good. A barrier breaking. With it broken, he’d think she was harping on—

“Mer?” Derek kissed her shoulder, gently. “What’d I say?”

Shit, not now. That was the problem with him holding her like this. He tcould tell the difference between her pulse rising for good reasons, and the spike that came with her ribs were tightening around her heart and lungs. The tension in her legs that made her want to spring up and run.

“Nothing. My mind just…. You didn’t say anything.”

“Something sent you wherever you just went. There’s not much else happening in here.”

“Can…Can I tell you later? I will, I promise. Just…later?”

He moved his hand, stroking her thigh as he said,“Meaning you think I’ll get mad and, what? Leave you here?”

He’s not stupid….

How could she answer that? Confirming would only make him do it anyway. Lying to him would screw everything up again. It]d prove what she’d always been afraid of deep down: she couldn’t do the committed relationship thing right. Pretending nothing happened wasn’t going to work, and she didn’t know how else to make things go back to normal. Lemon.

“Hey, hey. Calm down, little rabbit. I’m here. I’m not leaving you.”Not yet. “Never,” he added, like he’d heard her. “A hundred and ten, remember?” She nodded, fighting not to react to his sigh. To the exasperated Meredith she heard in it. “And never when you’re upset. Thrive on tension though you might, you’ve got the wrong kind going on. Feel how you’re breathing?”

She wanted to scream at him not to patronize her, which was a remnant of a Meredith she’d left behind. The one who had rarely known what her actual feelings were, because no one cared about them anyway.

Derek cared. This wasn’t him playing any part.

“Too fast.” Again.

“Way too fast. Breathe with me.”

She focused on the rise and fall of his chest against her back, and the warmth of his breath gliding past her ear. Not thinking about this as a stay of execution was impossible. It’d been months since she’d been absolutely sure that it wouldn’t be the last time they did something. She used to be a lot better at keeping her body from reacting to those kinds of thoughts with anything but need. She hated fear. She shouldn’t be afraid. It’s just love.

“There you go. That’s it.” His hands started roving again, ghosting over her belly and breasts. His lips found the sensitive place on her neck. “Ready for stupid?”

“Funny man. Yes.”

“Yeah? You sure?”

She rolled her eyes and turned to give him something to do with his mouth that wasn’t mockery.

It said something about how often he did it that she’d stopped being thrown by him kissing her like he loved her. She knew the difference. She’d been a fling. He’d been sweet; a good kisser. Not like the guys who did it perfunctorily, and only until she started taking off her clothes. She hadn’t noticed some lightbulb-igniting change—She didn’t know when it would’ve happened, but she probably would’ve run. It was identifiable only later, after even Finn hadn’t been there yet.

He returned his fingers to her clit, which had calmed down a little during the pause. That signaled exactly how anxious she’d been.

It wasn’t pathetic to want to keep things good between them. It wasn’t.

“Ooo-ooo. Der….” The syllable that started as a protest became a groan of pleasure.

“There you are.” Derek wiggled his finger on her glans. “This should hold your attention.”

She tried to let a nod be her only response, but she might as well have been one of those toys with a press here sticker. As long as the sparks that precursed the longer syrupy sensations loping up into her belly, she would make the stupid hoot noise. Derek claimed to love it. Tonight, she could believe him; his penis started to rise off her leg before his other hand made its way up to her breast. He caught her nipple between two fingers as he massaged the tissue with the rest of his hand.

“That all right, sweetheart?”

“You can go harder.”

“Here?” He squeezed her breast, and when she moaned in assent, he let her nipple slide between his fingers.  She bucked, and he met her angled pelvis with a second finger. He straightened them both and scrubbed them up and down over her clit. She looped her arm around his neck to keep herself in place while her legs refused to let her plant her feet. “And there.”

“Yeah, harder there, too.”

“Like that?”

“I…I…mmm…yeah…yeah, that’s…oh-oh yeah…fuck, I…. Can you…? I-I want….Oooo!”

“Water?”

“Uh-huh. Any longer, it’d be too much.”

“Good logic, but you only had to say yes.”

Meredith bit her lip as he reached for the faucet, letting his hand slide up to her abdomen as he adjusted the taps.

He was absurdly good at this.

“Okay.” He boosted her so that her vulva broke the waterline. His hand covered the faucet, and he moved it carefully aiming the spray perfectly.

“Ah-yeaah,” she moaned. He laughed and it didn’t matter which of them was actually being mocked.

He increased the amount of water that hit her more quickly than he would’ve if things were just getting started, and a good minute passed before she could react with any coherence. “You played a lotta pranks with bubblers as a kid, didn’t you?”

“Bubblers?’

“Water—You—Oh, shut up.”

Derek chuckled, and moved his other hand back down between her legs, gently tugging her labia to let the water hit more of her clit. He pressed his fingertips down, and the amount of stimulation was excruciatingly fantastic. A moment before she let herself get fully lost in it, she carefully arranged her legs so that the inside of her right thigh was touching his cock. She twisted that foot around his, anchoring herself, the last purely voluntary movement she managed for a good few minutes. An incredible few minutes. The only awareness she had beyond the constant stream that promised ecstasy at any second was of Derek reacting to her writhing.

She came fast and with an intensity that seemed like it might never end, and she was more than willing to let that be the case. Then, with almost no warning she was released, and she twisted abruptly away from the spray. She felt like a wrung out washcloth, like she always did at this point, but she didn’t give into the temptation to lie there until her body stopoed quivering.

She flipped over as quickly as she could, maneuvering so her knees were on either side of Derek’s hips. The clean tampon was rough coming out, even though she had to be wet. Something there. Time, water, friction. Whatever. She dropped it onto the floor, which was going to have to be mopped up anyway; if water hadn’t gone over the sides yet, it would.

Lowering herself onto Derek while he was in the midst of processing her intent was worth the burn of the dry cotton. She smirked at the momentary questioning look he gave her as his hand went to the small of her back—are you sure, baby?—She brought her mouth down to his. A spasm coursed through her, ending in a moan as his finger found the side of her overly sensitive clit.

He played with her gently as she found a rhythm, her ass bobbing in and out of the water. It was crappy lube, but it became hard to care when she found the right angle to bump, and then grind herself against his pubic bone.

Derek’s hands were free to roam over her back, his nails grazing the tingling skin at the back of her neck. The cooling water felt incredible as her body grew hot. The hand on her ass started as support, until her ups and downs shifted to rocking, most of his dick staying inside of her. His fingers curled over her butt cheek, squeezing before continuing. He drew his index finger along her crack, and then circled the rim of her hole.

“Okay?” he asked, directly into her ear. She nodded, too focused to find words. He was pulsing inside her, incredibly full,. She expected him to burst at any second, wanted to be there with him, but wasn’t, not quite.

His finger pushed inside her,. She groaned, her forehead pressed against his shoulder. Her body only let her stay there for a heartbeat; desperately needing her to keep moving,.

He’d found his way into all her empty places, giving the exquisite tension filling her nowhere to go. She was ready to scream with it when Derek’s other arm pressed against her back, holding her against him just as her spine started to arch.

It felt right to latch her mouth against his shoulder, blocking one more outlet before she lost sense of everything except the perfect way their bodies locked together, and the explosion that followed.

“Be honest, how long have you been wanting to do that?” he asked later, examining the bite mark her teeth had left on his shoulder.

She gulped, but her “no comment,” came out as blithely as she’d hoped it would. Grinning at her, he pulled on a gray t-shirt, and then threw himself onto the foot of the bed, propping his head on his hand.

She sat pressed against the headboard, her arms resting on her knees. Derek reached for her hand. The apprehension rising in her spine felt wrong in contrast to the warm, loose feeling in the rest of her body. Prickles from the hairs at the back of her neck told her it wouldn’t last. She wished she’d gone with stronger options than Midol and the ginger-ale she’d started sipping almost compulsively while getting drressed..

“So,” Derek said.

“So,” she repeated, suddenly noticing the frayed threads at the bottom of her pajama pants  from walking on them with her slippers. She picked at the spot as she tried to figure out what to say. “I-It’s not a big deal. I mean…maybe it is. I’m just a—I don’t know….

“Not a lot of non-toxic relationships in my history.  We know this. Coming here, I didn’t know how to do the thing where one person apologizes and the other person cries. Got it from Full House.

“Sadie.…. Fighting with her was…. Wild. Irrational. Weird dominance-determining sex games. I could almost never figure out what set her off. It’d seem like some little thing, because it was really something that’d happened months earlier. I guess that should’ve made me wary. Instead, it was more like, if I couldn’t predict her, why bother tiptoeing around her? It just sucked that we could be having a good time, and suddenly I’d have…we called her Sadistic Sadie, but she wasn’t…she wasn’t really. Just explosive.”

Derek’s face screwed up, suggesting that he didn’t believe that. She wasn’t sure if she did either, but she wasn’t in the mood to think back to that period after college, when a life of doing fuck-all contained an incredible amount of havoc.

“L-Living with my mom… I was talking to Jackson about it not long ago, but I didn’t…. I can’t explain exactly what it was like…. Sometimes, she got that I was a kid, and to learn the lesson you have to make the mistake. Other times, she’d give me this look, like…like I was stupider than an ameba. And if she’d had a bad day, or I made a good day bad, she’d suddenly start screaming about something I thought was no big deal.

“Once, I dropped a pen, and she spent the whole evening bitching about how, three months ago, I’d spilled a bowl of chips on the sofa, infomercial-style. She didn[t know until after I leaned it up! Didn’t matter. She could be looking at straight A’s on my sophomore report card, and suddenly be as mad about my seventh grade biology grade as she was in the spring of ’91. Time stopped mattering to her long before the Alzheimer’s.”

Derek nodded, looking thoughtfully off toward the bedside lamp. “So, it’s hard for you to be sure a fight’s over.”

“Yeah. I never had the stereotypical abusive relationship, with the guy blowing smoke up my ass one minute, and exploding the next. But with Mom, and Sadie, and some of the other whackos I hung out with, it could be like playing Operation! blindfolded. It’s gonna buzz, no matter how careful you are, even if you’ve already taken the piece out..”

“I’m not going to do that to you. I want us to get past…maybe ‘through’ is the better word…what happened, and we’ve more than proven that water under the whatever doesn’t work.”

She picked out another thread, thinking of that night where getting in the tub had been a gesture more symbolic than any she’d have puit up with, much less come up with, before him. She’d wanted to wash away everything that had happened since they’d been a guy and a girl at a bar, but they couldn’t do that and be honest with each other—it had gotten rid of all the camping smells.

“I’m not going anywhere, okay? I won’t blow up at you. What did I say?”

“Nothing, exactly…. I dunno, you said…. It’s stupid. Obviously you weren’t gonna be….” She swallowed, and then swallowed again, before reaching for the ginger-ale.  It did nothing for how dry her mouth had gone. “You said always. That you always wanted to take care of me.”

She watched him bristle in her periphery, but his hand doesn’t leave hers.

“I…I got fired, Derek. I know I deserved it, okay? I get that, so don’t…. Don’t. But I—That’s…. I wasn’t gonna get to ignore that and keep working—keep doing impossible, contraversial surgeries. Freaking Logan was a second away from killing someone, and Bailey was so….” She cleared her throat, like that was why it’d cracked. “And I thought, okay, I’d gotten complacent. Convinced myself that holding on for a few years meant something. But hadn’t I’d always known I wasn’t cut out to be a surgeon? Maybe that wass why Zola showed up when she did. I couldn’t be any percentage of the surgeon Mom was, but I could be a hundred times better as a Mom.

“Except, then there was Janet, w8ty all her questions that became no job, no Zola in my head—and-and I was going to get you….”—“What did you expect?”— “I was…. I was, but…but you’d…you’d said…you’d say….”

She lost all her innocence.

Gave it to an abscess.

She wasn’t sure at what point in that mess her chest got so tight that it hurt to inhale, only that it was then that she couldn’t ignore it.

“Mer?”

“I’m fine. I…I just need a s—…a sec—a-a-a seh—a-a seh—….”

“Okay.” Derek moved up beside her, putting his free arm around her shoulders. “You’re okay,” he said, his voice low and bright. She’d heard him use it with Zola when they were spending all their free time in her room.

Would she ever see him holding her again?

Stop. Don’t think that. Don’t think about a white whatever. “Shh. With me.” Rose white, rose red… She’d taken that from him…. “Just focus on my voice.” /’m stupid. I’m stupid…. Gave it to an abcess. “Inhale. One…two…three....” I’m smarting….I’m…. “I know it hurts, baby. All you have to do is breathe.”

She folded her arms over her knees and dropped her forehead onto them. Derek’s hand circled her back, like it had the day she’d lost it in the lounge. How is he not sick of this?

Always….

He’s gonna get sick of this.

“Not going anywhere…. All the time in the world. That’s it….. Good…. Out…Good girl. Keep going…. See? Told you you could do it.”

That claim felt presumptive when every breath took thought. Her skin had gone  clammy, and as she sat up, she was struck by a moment of dizziness, followed by a sharp pain in her temple.

Derek pulled her in, letting her head settle on his chest. “That’s been happening.”

“It….” she started, but she couldn’t find the words to lie. “Yeah.”

“Since they took her? Or…earlier?”

“Kinda…Kinda since the basement, except I had Zola….” She trailed off, hoping he’d finish the sentence with to worry about, because she didn’t know how to explain how the weight of the baby’s head against her sternum kept her lungs going.

“How often?”

She shrugged. “A few times…a month. More at first,” she added, but she wasn’t sure if that was true. “Mostly at night.”

“I..I heard. It didn’t sound much different from when you don’t want me to hear you crying, and…I told myself I was honoring that, but after the ferry, I knew better. I was a jackass.”

She’d tried to keep them to herself in the study, staying until she didn’t have the energy to do anything but sleep. What he’d heard were things like her tripping over her own shoes, because the burn of tequila was the only stimuli that permeated the glass box she was trapped in. If pretending to be asleep was the only way he could justify putting his arm around her, she’d been okay with it.

“Not like I was especially nice to you.”

“That’s not the point.” He raked a hand through his hair. “You had no reason to think I’d support you with Janet.”

“I should’ve gone to you anyway. Zola’s ours. But…But you’d thought it was about her the first time, and…and….” You knew I’d lose her. Her stomach dropped. That was only a feeling, and she really couldn’t explain how his expression when she’d said she’d come about her own crisis had made her feel like scum. Like someone he didn’t know, and definitely didn’t care about.

“I’d made it sound like losing your career was inevitable, and I was okay with that.  It was nasty thing for a boss to say, and I’m your husband.”

Okay, she didn’t have to explain.

“I’d…I should’ve…. Yeah. That’s how it felt. And…wanting to run with her like that—It scared me,” she admitted. “It was so…irrational. Especially with where following my twisted instincts had taken things.”

“Your instincts aren’t twisted, Mer. They’re pure compassion.  Unfortunately, that sometimes need to be checked against the rules.”

She nodded. He needed rules to exist; she respected that. She thought they could sometimes be circumvented, had to be, you just had to be better at explaining things to the people enforcing them.

“What can I do?” He kissed her temple, and put the pads of his fingers on the spot, massaging in gentle circles. He always knew.

“Nothing. I’ll be fine once she’s home.”

His lips parted. Thinking of the hypothetical he was about to pose made her pulse skip. Whatever he thought, she knew she was barely holding herself together. If he’d said it aloud, she was afraid she’d actually shatter. She raised her head, ignoring the increased pain to kiss him. A plea.

That, or something in her expression got the message across.

“Okay. Okay, sweetheart. Hey—” He ran a hand through her hair, gently undoing the knots she hadn’t combed out. “—you did a good job of taking what you wanted tonight. You know there’s nothing wrong with that.”

A statement. They were back to him having more faith in her than she did. Maybe she knew what normal was after all.

Chapter Text

Derek had to park a block away from his own house, and he considered turning around to get on the next ferry. He’d assumed the whispers floating around the hospital were a misunderstanding. But no, there was a party at “the residents’ residence.”

Unlike the last time a late summer gathering had taken the place over, the party had spilled into the lawn. It was cooler out this time, marginally closer to autumnal. Winding through the clusters of people who he hardly recognized out of scrubs, he replied to greetings with nods and waves. Several people understood his preoccupation and pointed him toward—

“She’s on the coffee table.”

Hearing Mark’s voice at his elbow was more jarring than it should’ve been. The last time around, he’d been desperately trying to muffle his mental-Mark, while doing something his friend would have egged him into.

He’d hardly said the words before a cluster of people broke up, giving Derek a view straight into the living room. Sure enough, there she was, dancing with no care for who was watching.

He’d never quite understood the dancing on tables thing. It seemed like setting yourself up for a fall, especially in the heeled boots she’d put on below pencil-legged jeans. Watching her now, he got it. Not for the reasons she’d cite—getting away from sweaty strangers, and pleasing “ass people”—or the reasons underneath that—she got to keep herself separate, aloof, unconnected, except for the people she brought up there with her.

It did present a good view of her whole body, and the heels helped, but that wasn’t what sparked his initial thought: she deserved to be up there. Not just because she was a beautiful sight; although, she was with her hair gold and glittering in a ponytail that danced with her. He wasn’t putting her on a pedestal, the mistake he’d made back then. It was how she danced, as though nothing in the world existed apart from her body and the music. Her smile, loose and carefree. Her movements were smoother than they were day to day, though in recent years, he’d determined that finding her place in the world had been literal. She was a delicate surgeon, but she’d knock over the same coffee tumbler twice, or trip over the cord of the vacuum she was using. Some of that was owed to her mind being several steps ahead of her body, but he had a more complicated theory.  He thought her kinetic sense had been affected by years of feeling invisible and learning to disappear, when her instinct was to stomp and slam, demanding attention. Dancing, sex—some part of their appeal to her was in being forcefully aware of where her body was. She had more of that awareness in the rest of her life, as her confidence increased—Was the blow that had taken what was behind the bacchanalia?—Regardless, she belonged on that table, because this was her party. Not his, not Izzie’s. Meredith was at its heart.

Surprisingly, the brunette at her side was Lexie. As a single lyric of the song playing reached him—“…just dance, gonna be okay…”—he glanced around, and then nudged Mark.

“Where’s Yang?”

“Haven’t seen her.”

“Huh.” Another glance revealed Jackson standing nearby, talking to a burn-unit PT, his body angled to keep his gaze on Lexie. Mark was standing in almost the same pose.

“Hey, Avery, is Cristina here?”

Avery looked around, like Cristina might appear out of nowhere, and then shrugged. “No. Last I saw her, she was in April’s office doing paperwork.”

He’d expected that answer.  He was one of five kids, it didn’t have to be blatant, he knew simmering envy when he saw it. Cristina didn’t like to share. There was codependence in her relationship with Mer, but most often she ended up in their bed. That Meredith had accepted Lexie as a sister, made Cristina feel replaceable, and that wasn’t a feeling she was accustomed to. He didn’t think there was anything malicious to her resentment; though there had been in Lexie’s intern year. He was pretty sure Cristina even liked Lexie these days. But in no world would she not be up there, preferably between them.

The question, then, was why not? She’d been on-call earlier in the week, and he hadn’t heard anything about a complex cardiac case that day. Was Hunt on? Yang might dance it out with Mer, but her own problems got worked out. Maybe worked through. Worked past. All in the literal sense.

He took his phone out of his pocket with one hand, and used the other to steal the beer bottle Mark was holding loosely at his side.

“Hey, that’s mine!”

“It’s my house.” Mark raised an eyebrow, and he was sure that in the next beat they were both hearing Mom say “who owns this house, Derek Christopher? You share with Mark!”— “It’s my wife’s house,” he corrected, holding onto the bottle. “And it’s currently got more people per square foot than Bumbershoot.”

“Did it sell out before you could get her tickets?”

He snorted. “EndFest isn’t happening this year, and she has a whole thing about how it bombed last year because it was ‘basically a sausage fest.’”

“If there’s one thing Grey has, it’s opinions.”

Tapping out the text one-handed made him think of Yang’s left-handed ties the day of Zola’s surgery; he’d done his focus on ambidexterity, in med school. Meredith seemed to come by it naturally, but she’d played piano as a kid, and drums as a teenager, which both required being able to rely on both hands. She’d put as much work into gaining the skills she had as anyone. She deserved more recognition for that.

DEREK SHEPHERD: Not in the mood to party?

“Shouldn’t you be home singing lullabies?” he asked, when Mark reclaimed his beer.

“Nah, man, it’s way past bedtime.”Mark grinned. “Torres and I got a night off.” Mark pointed toward the group dancing around the sisters on the table. Callie was among them. “Robbins’s mom is visiting. She and Sof are at the Ashfield.”

“For…Labor Day?”

In some places that might not mean a spike in E.R. visits, but with Seattle holding onto festival season as long as possible, and UW not starting until late in the month, here it depended on the weather. Rain would bring less heatstroke, more MVAs. In Robbins’ case, school  starting could cause more ‘we decided to get it checked outo visits, but those weren’t often surgical. She could treat it like a normal person’s three-day weekend.

“Nah. It’s her brother’s birthday. I think Callie’s a little miffed over not being included, but could be the mom shit.”

“Still nothing?”

“Nope. Carlos calls occasionally, from the office. Her sister is on Team Lucia in spite of originally claiming to be happy for her.”

“Some sister.”

“Half-sister,” Mark pointed out.

Derek indicated the coffee table with his phone. “And?”

“True.”

“You gonna blink any time soon?”

“Can’t a man appreciate the grace of beautiful women?”

Derek scoffed. He could watch Meredith dance for hours, but her natural sense of rhythm started to slip about four shots in, depending on the interval between them. He’d have to hear her, but his bet was on a minimum of three in the past hour. Lexie was more athletic, but she lacked any semblance of natural rhythm, and tended to execute dance moves that told him she’d spent hours watching MTV in the bubblegum boy-band era.

“One of those women is my wife,” he pointed out.

Mark waved a hand at him. “Don’t get me wrong, she’s a beautiful woman, but Big Grey’s not my type.”

“You don’t have a type.”

“Sure I do. I was never into Twiggy wannabes. Looks like you could snap her in half—“

“She’s not—“

“And secondly, you think I’d go anywhere near that again, man?“

He started to shrug. They didn’t talk about this. Not seriously.

He took back the beer. “She’d never let you. That is…something would have to be really wrong. More than…. Self-destruction wrong. But even if that wasn’t true…no. I don’t think you would.”  He glanced to the side, catching Mark’s smile. “No snapping, but I can punt her.”

“Punt?”

“Mmm. She can be…intense—“

“Grey? No way.”

“—and when we were first together she was used to sort of…getting very single-minded about taking what she wanted. I guess no one ever pointed it out before.”

“Ah. One night stands with boneheads.”

That, and mind games—He was never sure he’d heard everything. When they’d gotten back together, she’d been far more closed-mouthed about her history. He assumed it came from his snap in the stairwell, but there were other possibilities—the way he’d spoken about the man beside him being one of them.

He was reasonably sure that it hadn’t been an issue before med school when her sex life had become occasional one-night stands. There’d been no way to regularly get everything she needed—attention, appreciation, reassurance, praise, distraction, comfort, affection, tenderness, escape—so she’d narrowed her focus to one: release.

“She got incredibly cautious all of a sudden,” he told Mark. After furious denial. “So I reminded her that if I didn’t like what she was doing, or had any concern for my own safety I could not only lift her, I could punt her across the room.”

“You don’t always get that much lead time,” Mark said, grimly.

“Yeah, well, it worked. These days it’s a joke.” One he wouldn’t be referencing in the near future. He’d be all for frenzied, feral Meredith. He knew how to provoke it, but only a couple of weeks had passed since the night she cried. She’d made progress since then, but if he tried denying her release, she might conclude that she deserved thait, or he thought she did. He didn’t see her choosing to go wild, not unless something snapped.

CRISTINA YANG: we’re not interns anymore

u no she’s testing u?

After the party they’d thrown while he was Interim Chief, Meredith had turned cleaning up into an “after party party” Yang had been at her side, he remembered grimly.

Once she was gone, Meredith had baited him, trying to get him to call her immature for preferring her kind of party. It’d been part of a “Chief’s wife” panic that had ended when he assured her he didn’t believe she had some form of Peter Pan syndrome. Was this another incarnation of that?  It might be more simple; she’d given herself permission to blow off the steam she’d been holding in, like she’d held in the feelings that had provoked both bouts of crying.

He finished Mark’s beer while trying to decide what, or if, he’d reply to Cristina. “Want a replacement?” he asked, holding up the empty bottle.

“Huh?” Mark blinked, barely looking away from Lexie. Derek put a hand on his shoulder and pushed him toward the kitchen. “What gives?”

“Getting you a napkin…for the…drool….” he said, losing track of his words as he surveyed the kitchen counter. The spread of liquors and cooler of beers wasn’t unusual. What had him baffled was the centerpiece.

Several of Stevens’s abandoned, tiered cupcake towers had been repurposed to hold a rainbow of Jell-O shots. Mark pushed an open bottle into his hand “Your face makes being dragged in here worth it.”

“You needed to stop staring at Lexie,” Derek murmured.

“I told him to keep his eyes in his head,” Torres said, coming into the room.

“Not my fault that she’s gorgeous.”

“It’ll be your fault when Avery decks you.”

“Psh. Jackson loves me. And he’d never risk his hands that way. Surgeon’s kid. They’re conditioned.”

Derek smirked at the rim of his bottle. Ellis had tried. “You’re a surgeon’s kid.”

“And I was conditioned. To ignore anything the old man said.”

Callie’s hand hovered over one of the cupcake towers. “Does Grey have a favorite flavor of Jell-O?”

“No one cares what flavor a Jell-O shot is,” Mark insisted. Callie’s eyes stayed on Derek.

“Yellow. Since they don’t stock it at the hospital she accepts green. Do you know…?”

“She got started long before I got here.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“She, uh, doesn’t really seem like the Jell-O shot type. Making them, I mean.”

He sighed. “In July, Zola hadn’t really started on solids, but she loved Jell-O.” He could see it when he closed his eyes; the moment she’d accepted the tiny bit of weird stuff from Meredith, and her little eyes had gotten huge. She’d start squealing and wiggling as soon as she saw someone coming in with a cup, and Meredith had loved it. “Jell-O’s a thing I can actually cook!” She’d been so enthusiastic, he hadn’t pushed back against the word “cook.”

“She still will, won’t she? Not like the stuff goes bad.”

Derek shrugged. “It’s not something we ever brought up to Janet. My guess is that Meredith figures that since she’ll have been exposed to a lot more by the time she comes home, it’s not worth having a huge stash.”

“She couldn’t keep looking at it in the pantry,” Callie summarized.

“Exactly.”

Something similar had happened in early August. With Zola already being six months old, it wasn’t a big deal for her to be formula-fed. But back when Meredith would come rushing into the room to show him an article, rather than snapping her laptop shut like it held nuclear armament codes, she’d discovered induced lactation. It was rare enough that he’d never picked anything up from Addison, so Meredith had taken a folder to her OB-GYN. Bonding was something they’d have to emphasize with a baby who’d been through so much turmoil. The supplements could take several months to work, and as far as he knew, there hadn’t been any effect when he’d found them in the bathroom trash can. He hadn’t asked her about it, because they’d hardly been civil that point. Part of him had thought it was a sign she was giving up, but by some miracle, it’d hit him that if they did work, and Zola didn’t come home, Meredith would’ve gone through that much more pain. Juxtaposed with her initial excitement, even he hadn’t been able to blame her.

“Lexie likes orange,” Mark spoke up. “She took Thatcher’s while he was in there.”

Callie picked up one of the orange shots and rolled her eyes at Derek. He shrugged a shoulder. Lexie and Mark had made choices, but that didn’t mean they were easy to live with. Derek knew that first-hand—except, his choice had been the wrong one.

Back in the living room, he watched Callie deliver the shots to the Grey sisters. She pointed him out while handing Meredith’s off. He couldn’t help being buoyed by the smile on her face, alcohol-induced or not. Her fluid movements and that smile was a stark juxtaposition to what he’d been seeing for the past two months.

She tapped her shot with Lexie’s and Callie’s—purple—and held his gaze while swirling her finger around the inside of the cup to loosen the Jell-O before tipping it down her throat. Once she’d swallowed, she made sure she still had his attention and popped her finger into her mouth, sucking off the Jell-O residue.

“Damn,” Mark muttered. “She’s good.”

Derek could only take a long pull from his drink to compensate for how dry his mouth had gotten.

“I saw her out clubbing once,” Avery reveaked, coming over to them. “She has no idea. It was an eighteen and up place, I was seventeen. Should’ve known she wouldn’t rat, butl…. She’d always been nice to me, but it’d been a few years since we’d really talked, and, y’know….” He shrugged. “Ellis Grey’s daughter.

“I remember thinking how different she looked. Not just how she dressed, or anything. I recognized her immediately. And I’d seen her drinking before. She and Harris were infamous for sweet-talking bartenders. The rest of us had to steal the champagne we took out on the fire escape. When I saw her at those things, even when we were little, there was a weight on her. That night, it was the first time I’d seen her stand up straight.”

“Might’ve come back if you’d said something,” Derek admitted. “She’d have thought she’d never find somewhere her mom’s world couldn’t infiltrate.”

“I know that feeling,” Avery said, ruefully.

When he turned back to Meredith, Derek admitted that he couldn’t say that level of transformation had occurred. He was still watching a moment later, when a bump from Lexie caused Meredith to stumble back. Her heel slipped off the edge of the table.

Derek shoved his beer at Mark and rushed over, but Callie got there first. She caught Meredith’s arm, and what he approached was a squabble over Meredith getting down versus Callie letting go.

“May I cut in?” he asked, touching Callie lightly on the shoulder.

“All yours.” Callie stepped back.

“Seriously?” Meredith demanded. “You don’t dance.”

He took Meredith’s arm, and put his other hand on her hip. “Come down for a minute. I’ve barely seen you.”

“Not my fault you can’t dance.”

“Don’t.”

“Can’t,” she repeated, her defiant expression disappearing slowly as she taunted him. “Don’t in public, because you can’t period. I was at prom.”

I never dance in public.

She started to get down, and then her head tilted, her ear cocked toward the speakers. “Hold on!” She held up a finger, bobbing it along with the music. It was something from a musical, but not the Lloyd Webber kind— “I’ve got one thing to say, and that’s…DAMMIT, JANET!”

Ah, Rocky Horror. Of course. About a third of the room had shout-sung the last two words along with Meredith, and he suspected that wasn’t simply because they’d been to—or even participated in—a screening of the movie.

Meredith’s laughter would’ve had her falling over if he hadn’t already been holding her up. “It’s in the playlist...mmm…five or six times. You’ve missed two.”She lowered her foot to the floor, leaning against him as her balance shifted.

“Easy,” he murmured.

“M’okay.” She turned to face him. “Hi.”

“Hey.” He kissed her, tasting lemon Jell-O, and…Jesus, was that Everclear? Then, he led her away from the bulk of the crowd, ending up in the foyer. “I heard a rumor that this was your doing.”

He got the wicked spark in her eyes he’d hoped for, but her bottom lip turned in over her teeth. “It might be.”

“What’s the occasion?”

Her cheeks, already flushed, went pinker. “I…wanted a party.”

He’d had a latent hope it’d been Lexie’s idea, or that she’d cite fifth year stress—well, he didn’t hope that; he couldn’t convince himself that there was a situation where that wouldn’t be a lie.

It was the third of September. Two months and two days.

“It’s a Friday. We’re not gonna get called’about the baby, and hafta be all responsible tonight. We might not even get her back and hafta be all fuddy duddy forever, but soon enough everyone’s gonna go be specialized in plastics, and hearts, and kids that aren’t theirs, and…whatever April’s gonna do. I told her I knew when surgery felt better than sex, and she went tomato. It was wicked funny.”

I knew? She didn’t know. Hadn’t known. He’d tried asking her the last time he’d seen her eyes anywhere close to this glassy, and she’d become remarkably coy until getting him in a position where she could say her mouth was too busy to answer. That’d been…her birthday?

“Hey.” She put her arms around his neck, pressing flush against him. “Dancin’s not all you did at prom.”

“It’s not?”

“It’s not,” Torres said, dryly as she passed through. This damn house.

Meredith cackled. “You want a drink? I can show you where I had all your top shelf crap.”

“I…” He turned to where Mark had been, only to discover he’d moved across the room to a group of nurses. While Derek was watching, he tipped back Derek’s beer, which was nearly empty. “Sure. The beer, anyway.”

She took his hand and started weaving through people to get to the kitchen. “It’s not sewer water. You sure it’ll be palp—paleo—palatable for you?” She shot a flirtatious smile over her shoulder. Turning while walking, she nearly collided with the doorjamb, and then stumbled backward, into his chest. “Crap. M’okay.”

“You are,” he agreed, kissing her cheek, and prodding her gently forward with a hand on her back.

By the time they got to the kitchen, her smile had returned. He took a beer from the cooler, and since the room was otherwise empty, sat on the stool next to the island

“I like the setup,” he said, indicating the Jell-O shot towers.

Meredith hesitated with her finger on the rim of a yellow shot. “Are you mocking me?”

“No.”

“‘Cause I know it’s nothing close to what your Martha Stewart sisters—”

“You really haven’t seen Liz’s house.”

“—I saw fancier arrangements at frat parties. I just wanted t’make it nicer than…to do more than build a pyramid. Did that in high school.”

“Uh…high school?”

She shrugged. “You think Ellis Grey left the hospital on Patriot Day, when the marathon brought sooo many tourists?That I was supervised on Murderous Spaniard Day? There were carefully planned for seventy-twos. Regular forty-eights. Very convenient twenty-fours.”

“Fair. If we hadn’t had Amy, the girls and I could’ve maybe pulled something off. We used Mark’s place instead.”

Meredith’s mouth fell open, her finger halfway through loosening the shot. “Really?”

He raised an eyebrow. “You know I wasn’t an angel, Mer.”

“Yeah,” she said, focused on her swirling. “Guess I mostly think of McSteamy going over to your place. Didja invite the band kids to your parties, or ditch ‘em for the jocks?”

“Uh, it wasn’t really cliquey like that. I mean, hockey wasn’t the most popular sport, and I stopped playing baseball before I stopped looking like a geek.”

“That’s too easy even for me.” She gulped the shot down, and it made Derek think of oysters. He’d had rough plans to take her to The Pink Door after the interns mixer this year; the day that made the most sense to celebrate as their anniversary.

“Lemons for Death.” She laughed, and tossed the cup on top of many of its fellows in the trashcan. Then, her arm went back around his neck while she popped her finger in his mouth. He sucked the sticky sweet residue off of it, and hooked an arm around his waist. “I liked it before all’a that.”

“Yellow Jell-O?”

“It’s lemon.”

“Mmhmm.” He tipped her chin up, kissing her lips slightly off-center. “Hello, yellow Jell-O.”

“You’re ri-dic-u-lous.”

“A ridiculous fellow?”

“Der-ek.”

“Meredith,” he mimicked.

She tried to smile, but the moment in-between expressions stayed on her face for too long. He didn’t catch on until he noticed she wasn’t blinking.

“Mer?” Several chunks of hair had escaped her ponytail while she danced. He caught one of them with a finger and smoothed it behind her ear, brushing his knuckle over her cheek. Her eyes flicked in that direction, and a second later she paled.

Derek was mystified. Initially, the shouts coming from the living room didn’t help, but then he caught what they were saying.

“Shit, where’s the stereo remote?”

Meredith still didn’t blink, but something did change. What or why was a mystery.

“Didn’t she make the playlist?”

“You think she had time to go song by freaking song?”

The song. Not being one to dance, Derek tended to tune out the music at things like this. He made himself listen while their roommates scrambled to skip it. They weren’t seeing her freeze, so it must be pretty obvious....

“Where is the baby?

I want my baby

There is a baby

There is no milk!

There is—“

Jesus.

The song cut off. Meredith blinked, and immediately looked away from him. He didn’t interfere while she reached for another shot. It wasn’t difficult for him to empty half of his beer to pretend he wasn’t noticing how her hand shook above the cup she plucked—Purple, this time.

It would’ve been nice if she’d revived the college tradition of tallying shots on her arm, but he wasn’t sure he’d have a concrete idea of what the numbers represented. It wasn’t only a timing issue. He didn’t have a grasp on much her tolerance had dipped, or how much that had changed over the past two months.

He’d tasted tequila under her toothpaste a few times, recently, but as Meredith might say, he didn’t have a high horse to stand on. He’d come home drunk enough to pass out in his clothes multiple times in the summer. Meredith had made him change, gotten him water—and a banana bag, after the Mariner’s game—and made far fewer sardonic comments than he likely deserved.

His sense of her need to fidget was confirmed when she grabbed one of the toothpick set out to loosen the Jell-O. She swirled it again and again, and then started punching it through the center of the gelatin, watching the holes form and disappear.

That kept him from getting it at first when she said, “That was Hole.”

Behind her, Lexie, Avery, and Karev idled in the threshold to the kitchen. He waited for Meredith to be focused on sucking the shot out of her cup to signal for them to back off. Avery nodded at him and turned around; Karev hesitated, like he wanted confirmation from Meredith, but then followed suit. Lexie narrowed her eyes, convincing him that if he screwed up, she’d make him regret it. She’d had a little sister before she was one.

Meredith swallowed the shot, her nose wrinkling a little. “Tastes like Dimetapp. If Mom hadn’ta been a doctor, I’d’ve faked sick for that stuff. Nothing quite the same as bubblegum antibiotics either.”

“Like the Keflex Zola left the hospital on?”

The mask appeared for a second—not quite freezing, but a forced expression meant to look neutral that she used to hide whichever fight, flight, or freeze response she’d landed on. Then, she smiled and sat on his leg.

“Mmhmm. I might’ve had to show her it wasn’t poison once, or twice, or thrice. Huh. I’d never say that sober.” She put her hands on his shoulders again and kissed him. Knowing she was trying to distract him didn’t make him less susceptible to it. Her lips were sticky, and he kept finding pockets of sweetness in her mouth.

To keep from totally losing himself exactly as she wanted him to, Derek tuned into the music again. Not everything in her party mix was a song Meredith would usually listen to. The Smash Mouth song that was playing she had because it was “bouncy.”—she could go on about BPM, but she had to be asked directly—That was followed by a short Kylie Monogue song.

He wasn’t sure he would’ve recognized the next track as quickly if Meredith hadn’t gone rigid at the fade in, and then returned her focus with twice the fervor.

“What else should I be?

All apologies

What else could I say?”

“Hey.” He clasped his hands at the small of her back before he nudged her head up; trying not to leave a gap where she could find rejection. “This is Nirvana?”

“I’m a good kisser, but I think you could aim a little higher.”

Her eyes sparkled, and whether it was conscious or not, it almost had the effect she wanted. He could’ve let the joke be the end of it—whatever it was—for the moment, but he couldn’t imagine an easy way to come around to it again. It’d be simple for her to say she didn’t remember one song from a blurry night.

“I wish I was like you

Easily amused

Find my nest of salt

Everything’s my fault.”

Jesus H.

“This song is by Nirvana,” he tried again.

“Mmhmm. Before I read the liner notes, I thought they were saying ‘Mary,’ and I almost started letting people call me ‘Meri.’ It’s ‘married.’”

He smiled, but didn’t say anything. He appreciated the openness, but it had nothing to do with what had upset her, and they both knew it.

“It was Hole,” she repeated. “Courtney Love. I usedta…me and hundreds’a latchkey, Gen X kids whose problems were really nothing—not in comparison…. It felt like I was the only one. I…I didn’t wanna be a rock-star, but I wanted…I wanted to be…. I wanted to have…a family,” she said, finally, softly, like it was a shameful confession. “Didj’ou have one? A celebrity or, I dunno, sports player, who’s so important to you that you collect every word you can find about ‘em?”

“Sure,” he said. “I think everyone does, at some point.”

Her lip quirked up. “Maybe,” she acknowledged, sounding hopeful. “The, uh…. There was, uh…. Right after—I think the interview was before, but it hit stands after.... It was the September first, 1992 issue. S’ironic. I hadta work yesterday, s’why.”

She had, in fact, worked a forty-eight on the first and second. Today, she’d come in to round on a few patients, and, apparently, make sure word was spread. Working through the first itself hadn’t been the surefire distraction she’d hoped for, then.

“Why this is happening tonight?”

“Mmm.”

“If you’ve been planning it for two days—”

“I remember the date, ‘cause in Boston leaving the house on September first’s a stupid idea. I had t’get it. They were…they were messy, and…but they were doing it all so much younger than I’d ever be try—“

“Dr. Grey, compliments to the hostess!” A dose of residents from the year below Lexie’s came into the kitchen. Where there’d been a steady ebb and flow of one or two people making drinks or bringing in empty platters, these residents all needed to see the options before deciding.

Their entrance flipped a switch in Meredith. After watching one of them eyeball pour a rum and Coke, she lifted Derek’s arms up, ducked under them, and went around the counter.

“Okay, look. I’m partial to straight liquor, mostly ‘cause dancing with a cup never works out for me. You can only say someone else spilled their drink on you so many times—”

One of the third years—Henson, a tall, Black girl from St. Louis—laughed. “My mom wouldn’t have bought that once!”

Meredith sucked in her cheek. Her mother probably never said anything in the moment, but saved it for her next lecture. She’d have been dealing with beat cops on her walk home. (“The secret? No one ever thinks a student ID is fake.”)

“—but if you’re gonna use a mixer, you need to do it right. If someone says ‘that’s strong’ they better have asked for extra booze. Watch and learn—you want this on the rocks?”

“Uh, yes ma’am,” squawked York, a weedy hosier.

Meredith laughed. “I did this off and on for years, never got ma’amed or maimed, and you do it at a party?”

The third-year went red, but once she hand him his drink, his embarrassment disappeared with one sip. “Holy wow, Dr. Grey, that’s awesome.”

“It’s good rum. And I’m Meredith here. Call me Dr. Grey three times under this roof and you’ll make my mom’s ghost appear.”

“Ha! Wait, really?”

She gave him a cryptic shrug, and started on Henson’s daiquiri.

Derek almost wanted one of them to call her “Dr. Tann” hoping she’d finally throw down, but he wasn’t sure that’d be the outcome. Not yet.

He was as riveted by her as the residents. She wasn’t showy or chatty, but she was steady. If he hadn’t known better, he’d have believed her stone-cold sober. It was a sharp contrast in his mind to the night he’d watched Yang deteriorate behind Joe’s bar.  He’d known she could keep it together for quite a while before losing that control, but this quick transition was less familiar.

The residents—kids, he kept thinking, though Mer had been only a few months further into her third year of residency when they started trying for a baby—held their glasses up to her in salute.

“If anyone comes back here asking me to pour for them, I’ll have you all on scut until Christmas, understand?”

Derek was still chuckling at their faces when she started to come around the island. He took the hand she held out, a request for support made flirtatious with practiced skill. She returned to perch on his leg, and he put a light hand on her thigh. “Very impressive.”

She rolled her eyes. “Hardly.”

“Can you really not…? You have skills outside of work, Meredith.”

“Hope so, or you’d get bored.”

“I don’t mean sex.”

“Who says I did?” She grinned, the tip of her tongue peeking between her teeth hiding the signs of a predator showing dominance. “They musta listened t’Alex.”

“About what?”

“Oh.” Her features went taut for a moment. “Last month, they were sayin’ stuff about us not being with her. Makes sense. We spent all our time there in June. Alex heard-a ‘bout it from the peds nurses, and he gave ‘em a lecture. Can you imagine? Got to be all Chief Resident Karev after all.”

“He didn’t want to cause you more pain,” he reminded her. “What was in the magazine, Meri?”

With the theme of the song and the few facts she’d given, he thought he had the pieces, but the puzzle had too many empty spots to make a picture.

“An article…profile thing.” She waved her hand as though it didn’t matter and grabbed his other shoulder to balance while kissing him. He let her for a minute or so, and then gently pushed her back, rubbing her shoulder reassuringly.

“Why did the song make you think of it?”

“Becausen it was about her.”

“Courtney?”

“Yeah,” she said. Too fast? “Like I said, obsessed.”

“Which is why I wonder: why that article, and that song?”

“Brain spiders are drunk. How’m I supposed to know?”

“Was it about the baby?”

“Good job, you heard the lyrics.”

He clenched his fist around the neck of his beer. She’s testing you….

“Rude, crude, lewd, and nude,” she chanted.

“Hmm.” No. He knew what that looked like, and what was deflection. Provocation.

She reached over for a green shot. “Used tequila in those. The lime. One I had earlier wasn’t very margarita-y, but s’it’s good.”

“Can you just hold—?“ Ignoring him, she freed the shot and tipped it back. “Meredith.”

Her eyes flashed like lightening had lit up the green irises. “Thought so,” she hissed rocketing to her feet.

If her reflexes had been sharp, she’d have twisted away and disappeared into the crowd, but he managed to delay her with one leg behind her, and a hand on her wrist. It was the wrong time to call her any word for cat, but her spitting mad expression made him anticipate an attempt to claw him off.

She’s testing you. He could hear the note of exasperation Yang got whenever she thought he was being oblivious. Basically, ninety percent of the time.

“Thought what?”

Her jaw squared, and he could’ve kicked himself. Amelia would mirror calm rationality if you met her with it. Meredith did not. “Don’t play dumb!”

“Once again—” Still keeping it below her level, he raised his voice, keeping the ration, losing the calm. “—I’m not playing. I’m lost. Make a U-Turn. Recalculate route.”

Another perk of her lack of sobriety was that she couldn’t control her micro-expressions. Her scowl twitched. A smile trying to manifest like something being teleported in the late night sci-fi films she watched when sleep and low-budget horror movies eluded her.

“I knew you’d be mad!”

“About what?”

“All of this!” She swung her hand around, like she was lassoing the air. The words sounded like olive this, and he smiled. It’d seemed like every one of his sisters’ kids had thought they were the first to discover knock-knock jokes, and every one of them proclaiming “olive you!” flashed in his head.

One day, Zola would discover her own ways of playing with language—one he wanted to be influenced by Meredith; her whatevers, her rambling, and the accent that was full-force in her voice.

“I’m not.”

“Do not lie to me!”

“I’m not—!” He stopped and took a breath. He’d walked right into this, and he wasn’t going to let it devolve into something that was whispered about at the hospital for weeks to come. “I’m not lying. If I was mad, you’d know. Okay? You’d know, because I’d tell you, and let’s be honest, I’d be yelling, and would probably say something stupid and hurtful.”

He’d let go of her wrist, and her crossed arms loosened a little. Her lips stayed twisted in a sneer. “What would I say, if I was mad about this?” he asked. She shrugged. “Seriously. What awful, hurtful stuff do you assume I’m thinking?” What are you telling yourself?

Her mouth started to open, and then closed a couple of times before words came tumbling from it. “That I’m an immature brat. It’s bad enough that this place is as full as a frat house; now the whole place is a basement party! Wha’s next, foam? Togas? I better not think of trying this at the new place, and the house is gonna be trashed. Did I really not get this outta my system in the years I didn’t have school, or responsibilities?

“That there’s somethin’ wrong with me not being able to stand being alone with my…self…own thoughts. Aren’t I concerned that even my best friend is judging my shitty coping mechanisms, eh-specially b‘cause it’s pathetic and scary that this is the first night I’ve been able to think about it all, and breathe at the same time.

“Someone here’s gonna mention this to the social worker, an’ I’ll have lost us the baby. Do I secretly not want her to come home, is that it? Have I just been humoring you this whole time, b’cause it shouldn’t be possible for someone to sabotage thfemselves like this, and I already threw away my career, and you’d rather have me back in your O.R. where I can be all bright and smart than hafta deal with my crazy on a day t’ day basis.”

Someone had turned the volume on the stereo up while she detailed all of that; otherwise her energetic reboot would’ve gotten them the audience he’d tried to avoid. He waited for her hands to come to rest in front of her, and took them before she could start twisting her knuckles.

“Yikes. The spiders definitely need time off.”

“They don’t take it. They \ keep spinning. Like when you untangle a yo-yo-’n let it hang.”

He watched her for a moment, figuring out what he wanted to say, and trying to determine if that was a signal that she was spinning.

All of that had likely occurred to her while she accepted the liquor store delivery, and mixed up Jell-O shots. Chances were that as soon as someone else was around, she’d pregamed to shut that voice up. She probably hadn’t eaten much, beyond picking at the snack trays. That early on, she’d have self-regulated well, and being on the dance floor would’ve helped—unless she’d had a bottle in hand. He’d only seen her with the Jell-O shots, but who knew what he’d missed in the last few hours of surgery?

“Okay. First, we chose the open floor-plan specifically for parties, remember?”

“Not like this.”

“The stereo system that plays six types of media and the  speakers in every room are for decoration?”

“No, but that doesn’t mean.... We’re gonna play music more. Make sure her taste doesn’t suck, and…and…a buncha developmental reasons I can’t remember.”

“We are. And, hey, we might not host a Meredith party until it’s Zola party, and we’re trying to be the cool parents—”

“’S’long as we’re not on-call. ‘Cept, she wasn’t. She just heard sirens. Pavlovian. Last supervised anything I had.”

He’d seen pictures, mostly polaroids, from her sixteenth birthday.. Flipping through them, he’d been able to pinpoint where Ellis had left and “a few people” had become “noise complaint from the stuffy neighbors on the left.” In a way, they’d cycled back around—Kurt Cobain had died within days of her sixteenth birthday. He didn’t doubt the event would’ve gotten out of hand regardless, but her ensuing period of nihilism might’ve been less intense.

“I’m surprised she okayed it in the first place,” he commented.

“So was I. I think…seemed t’me like sometimes she tried for the milestones, y’know? Maybe it took two years for her t’notice I wasn’t sucking up, and she tried damage control.”

He nodded, slowly. It wasn’t difficult to imagine a parent feeling like they’d turned around to realize their six-year-old was sixteen—even if that mother was Ellis Grey.

“But this can happen there,” he summarized. “No matter the state of the house. As far as what goes on in your head…. I’d rather talk to sober-you about that, but I’m definitely not mad. And Cristina not wanting to be here is about her, not you.

“I truly don’t think one party would lead to us losing her. We’re not endangering a child. If Sofia was here, and if someone let her have the Jell-O, yeah, sure. Otherwise, that’s not reasonable—” She made a face “—They’re not always reasonable, I know. I’m just saying, it wouldn’t stand up.

“If they tried it, I wouldn’t blame you. It wouldn’t be your fault; it’d be the system, or Janet, seeing red flags when they’re white.”

Her eyes went wide. He hadn’t been sure she’d get the implication, or that he’d seen beyond everything she’d said to discover what this really was: a surrender. Not of Zola, but of—he hoped—the depths of self-abasement.

“I would not rather have you in my O.R. than be married to you. I fell in love with Meredith. Not Dr. Grey, and not the girl at the bar. Meredith Grey, with all the surprises, all the crises, the celebrations, the lamentations. I love the woman you’ve become, and everything you were on the path to here.”

He’d occasionally had the thought that he’d forego loving her only if it came with being able to give her the stability, and love, and trust she’d needed, through time-travel, or having their pasts change. Their age difference would be weird if they’d met at pretty much any other time, and while he argued whenever she insisted he wouldn’t have liked her younger self, it was possible. Tonight, though, with her foggy eyes showing so much hope and vulmerb ility, and her fingers moving with music she wasn’t focused on, he understood that changing her past would change her. He loved who she was. He’d always wanted to make things better for her, but he couldn’t do that with her past. He could only help her meet the challenges it brought forward.

He’d been so angry about something that was fundamentally a Meredith thing to do. He’d had to come to terms with the fact that as much as he wished she’d chosen differently, changing the reason she’d come to that point would alter an infinite number of things about her, and he’d never take that risk.

“Haven’t the past two months shown us that we’re both works in progress?” he asked.

“Yeah, but I’m—”

“Brilliant.” He kissed her. “Clever.” He kissed her again. “Smart.” Again. “Smart-alecky.” Again. “Observant…. Loyal…. Talented…. Gentle…. Independent…. Idealistic…. Resilient…. Hardcore…. Hardheaded….”

She went from rolling her eyes, to giggling with each kiss, to putting in effort to distract him from the next word. She had to have noticed he’d held back the adjectives he ordinarily used; he could keep going far longer than she’d humor him.

Speaking of humoring.

“Empathetic…. Loving….” He let the kiss linger, holding her close, so that once it broke, her face was all he could see. “You would never be in this for a baby you didn’t want. This is hard, and maybe there’ve been times where you’ve wished you didn’t love her so much. Where you’ve tried to convince yourself it’s not real, and your memory is shining days that were as tarnished as any other. It is. To a degree, my attitude tarnished them—but babies aren’t easy. Zola’s sweet, bubbly, and funny; she’s also needy and demanding. She’s the most in-progress type of work, and it wouldn’t be this difficult to let yourself have a moment of peace if you didn’t want to guide her through it. Okay?”

Her lips pursed on the “o,” but then she tilted her head. Without a word, she held up a hand, and one-two-three fingers—“DAMN IT, JANET!”

Half the people he could see in the living room held up their cups or pumped their fists. About ten of them would understand that they weren’t Rocky Horror people—or not just Rocky Horror people.

“Okay,” Meredith finished, straight-faced for about a second. “I listened, I swear,” she added, through her giggles.

“Sure,” he drawled.

“I did! I did.” She took a steadying breath. “Zola is an angelic menace, and I wanna be the menace mommy. You…You felt like that…before? That you wanted that time to not be as bright and shiny as it was, even if there was hard stuff?”

“I did.” He held her eyes, watching her settle into knowing exactly when he was talking about. “We’re married, Mer. I understand that it may not seem like I take that—”

“No! I know you do. Take it seriously. Is what you were about to say. You do. She cheated, and you shoulda told me, but to you it was over, and, and cheated is different than…it’s cheating. Your marriage wasn’t as over as it shoulda been when…when we prommed, but we were…. There’s not gonna be some inspiring intern, or-or cheeky charge nurse…?” The question had started as a statement; he had to watch her certainty about him turn to doubt about herself.

“No. Never. If the affair hadn’t happened I…I might’ve looked at you, but I wouldn’t have acted on it. Not until I was free to do so…or saw myself that way, I guess, but…no. Never.”

“I got it,” she said, wearing a smirky smile that’d appeared when he was honest about how he’d react to her.

“You wanna tell me what was in that article?”

“I want you to know, but not to tell you,” she admitted. “But sure. Maybe I’ll black it out.” Her sigh was too heavy to only be dramatic. “Amelia wasn’t a Nirvana fan?”

“Not really. Kiss, Ludacrist, Twisted Sister—”

“Psycho Raj likes them.”

“Why do you…? Never mind.” He didn’t know why or when Meredith’s disdain for psych had become mostly a disdain for Raj, but he wasn’t going to let that curiosity derail him. “Why Amelia?”

“Hmm? Oh. ‘Cause you’d know, if she’d been into ‘em. You were super busy, and knowing newsstand things about the bands she liked woulda been an easy thing to…to…engage her on.”

“Yeah, it was,” he admitted. He would love to be able to reallocate the part of his brain taken up by Gene Simmons’s biography. The sadness in her eyes didn’t reach her smile. How many little things like that had she dreamed of someone bothering to do for her?

“So, so…Frances Bean was born on August eighteenth. The article ran on September first—” She cut herself off, her eyes bouncing upward.

“Shots, shots, shots, shots, shots, shots!”

He closed his eyes for a second and made a decision. “Hold tight,” he said, standing up. She squawked, but her legs locked around him.

“What’re you doing?”

“Getting us out of traffic.” He started for the counter, determined that wouild put them far too close to the island already being bombarded, and went for the laundry nook by the back door.

He’d barely put her down on the dryer before she swallowed the yellow Jell-O shot in her hand. Wait, no. One of the Jell-O shots in her hand.

“How did you get those?”

“I’m quick. And flexible. They’re gonna be gone. I got you one.”

He took the cup and made a face at the yellow gloop. “Yeah, I’m sure that was for me.”

“Not my fault I didn’t have time t’pick out a red one.”

“I’m putting that up here for safe-keeping.” He deposited the cup on the shelf above her head. She rolled her eyes, but didn’t protest. “The article came out September first,” he repeated. “Two weeks after their baby was born.” That had reminded him of tabloid covers glimpsed in line at Duane Reade, but if he’d known details, he didn’t remember them.

“Mmhmm. It was a profile of Courtney—” Definitely Cour’ney this time, but that might be as much her reluctant mumbling as alcohol. “Supposed t’be…. The writer’s a woman. ‘Says she’s not a feminist,’” she sang, and he caught on. The song was explicitly about what came next. “Dunno how it all got out, but it was known, and we were excited. ‘We’ like, everyone I talked to about ‘em. People with ‘zines and usenet. I braved moving day insanity to get it, and shut myself up in my room…. Not like Mom was home. Heavy E.R. traffic. More on the second. And I knew it was awful, ‘cause I knew Courtney, in that way you think you know a celebrity at fourteen….

“Mom useta say the key syl—the key to that word was sell, like they sold themselves, and it wasn’t any different than whoring, and I was like, so? People should be allowed to do that, too, and now, it turns out, she was loyaler than Mom.

“She was obviously excited for the baby. There were rumors…. But she talked about it all, you know? People said about how horrible it musta been to go through withdrawal and pregnancy, because she quit. I can see why her friends worried, but the CPS case got opened because of that profile, spe-ci-fic-‘lly.

“At some point, I got it in my head that it happened before the magazine went to print. I vaguely knew the process  for if the mom was addicted; checking first diapers, ’nd all. I had this image of the baby being taken from Courtney bedside…even before dammit Janet I had a couple nightmares like…. Doesn’t make sense; I didn’t give birth to her. Didn’ think anything like that could happen. Ha.

“Anyway, I guess I thought, like, the draft of the article caused it, but it’s worse. Cedars-Sinai woulda tested, and checked Frances if they were worried. Either they didn’t see a reason to, or they did and there was nothing. Kurt was actively in rehab there—he hadta be sprung to be with her in labor. They’d have had every reason to do the tests. Nothing. Not until Frances was two weeks old. They had two weeks, and then this woman misa…misconsta…misconstrues stuff she said about before she was pregnant, or knew there was a…a….

“She got clean for the baby, and she still had her taken away. It just…. That long before he…. She made this huge sacrifice in a field…a job where that’s…. As a woman, you’re not supposed to be maternal. But she wanted her baby. They did. The baby, a family.

“An’…An’ then…then they took Zola, after a week, at the hospital, an’-a course I couldn’t stop it, if the two biggest rock-stars in my world hadn’t been able to…. That song’s about the whole situation, and there’s a live version that’s also kinda about losin’ Kurt, …and it’s played in my head a lot. I avoided it, but when that didn’t work, I listened to it a bunch. Probably why shuffling the playlist made it come up. At first I wasn’t sure…. Thought it was me. It was back. ‘Cause it’s been better, but since it’s…

“Ugh, crap, hold on.” She paused, squinting, and then closing one eye.

“Spinning?”

“Mmm. Better now.” She opened her eye, and set both back on him. “They got Frances back fast. She was placed with family; someone they weren’t close to, but family. There’s privilege. Kinda.” She shrugged. She’d hunched into herself, but without pulling her legs up or crossing her arms. Not shutting him out. “That’s the story. No big PTSD-causing trauma.”

Having the song chase her for two months made him wonder. There was another thread in there, somewhere, but he wasn’t going to try to get her to tease it out tonight.

“I’m glad there wasn’t. And I’m glad you told me.”

She nodded, tilting forward until her forehead hit his chest. He put a hand on her back, under her shirt, smiling at her appreciative murmur.

“Doing okay, champ?”

“Mmhmm.” She sat up, locking her hands at the back of his neck. “Not spinny. Not even sick.”

Not even? Spinning came before…. He’d attributed her lack of appetite over the past few days to her period. Maybe that was dumb.

She kissed him like that would prove that she had it together, and he had to admit, she was impressively focused. It held his attention enough that she’d gotten two buttons on his shirt unfastened before he caught her nimble hands.

“What are you doing?” He got a smirk in response, accompanied by her leg coming up between his, bumping the tent she’d caused in his pants with her calf. “Oh, Jesus. There are way too many people here for that, princess.”

“Prom,” she whined.

“We had a door,” he pointed out. A door they hadn’t locked, but the point stood. Then, she pressed her mouth to his again, and snuck a hand down to grab his crotch. They’d gotten up to plenty with her balanced on the washer, and having put her on the dryer didn’t affect the association. He broke the kiss and pressed his forehead to hers. “It’s the wrong season for prom, baby. This is homecoming.”

“Hunh?”

“It’s in the fall. When everything’s new, people are kinda shy,” he explained, sliding her closer to him, and bringing his leg up. “They play Spin the Bottle and Seven Minutes in Heaven, in little nooks like this. Clothes stay on.” She whimpered, and he pressed more firmly against her, putting his lips on her ear. “And everyone still has fun.”

“Yeah?”

“Absolutely.” He pressed on the small of her back, getting her to angle her pelvis forward. She wiggled, aligning herself against the seam of her jeans and then gasped. “Good girl.”

“Show ya good,” she mumbled. She squeezed him with the hand between them. He let out a long breath of his own.

A lot of factors were working against him, here. She responded best to skin-to-skin contact, and that was without who knew how much alcohol playing tricks on her system; making her want more than it would let her have.

He wasn’t new to this game, though. He started off simply providing pressure while she went from squirming to rocking against his leg at a steady pace. With her lips pressed shut, her moan came out as a low hum. He kissed her neck as she tilted it back, sucking on her pulse point. Her retaliation came via a hand sneaking into the pocket of his trousers. He gasped through gritted teeth. Even impeded by two layers of fabric, her fingers were powerful.

He busied his hands with unhooking her bra. Her breasts were full, and he placed his mouth over hers before he touched them. The moan she released at having both of her pebbled nipples roll between his fingers went directly to his cock.

Carefully, he started bouncing his leg, altering the pressure against her clit. It didn’t have the immediate effect he got from doing the same with his finger, but it came close. She tipped her head back, and he could see beads of sweat appearing above the low scoop neck of her shirt. For the first time, he realized she was wearing one of the necklaces he’d purchased for her, a simple black diamond in a pendant. He went back to kissing her neck, just above it, while she hooked her free hand firmly around his neck for stability as she rocked on his leg.

“Keep it still,” she insisted, “Please. I….oh, boy, oh, boy—” She shuddered, pulling against him to keep her spine from arching backward, and then crossing her legs behind him. Then, she brought her other hand up to hold onto him as she re-centered herself over his cock.

“That okay?”

“Okay? Baby….” He pulled the sleeve of her shirt off her shoulder, pressing his mouth to her bare skin to let her feel the growl that’d come unbidden to the back of his throat. She pursed her lips closed, not letting out the “ooh” they formed.

She teased him about getting off from getting her off, and there was something to that. Having this self-controlled, independent, sassy woman become putty—Meredith goo—in his hands was incredible. He loved the choppy, frantic movements she made at the point where her sole pursuit was her own pleasure. Her frantic grinding was nearly at Feral Meredith levels, and after the past few months, he’d do just about anything to ensure she got it.

There was one downfall to that. Her head tilted back again, her half-hooded eyes rolling. Her breathing had quickened, and her mouth hung open; all the tension in her body was being held elsewhere. He slipped his arms under hers, putting his palms on the backs of her shoulders. She watched him curiously, her pupils blown. It took only a second for a jolt of pleasure to run through her. Derek pulled her closer to him, covering her mouth with his. That wasn’t going to do much more than muffle her soon enough, and he had no faith that she had the recall or the will to stay quiet on her own. He tuned one ear into the party, momentarily. The music hadn’t been turned down, and their guests had gotten louder. A few of the voices were nearby, though, and the few words he caught were colors—cataloguing the state of Mt. Jell-O, he assumed.

He spoke so that his breath would brush Meredith’s ear the way she liked, stroking the opposite cheek to keep her attention. “Gonna come for me, party girl?”

“Uh-huh.”

“You—” He cut himself off. Swallowed. In a rush, he’d almost asked You want the whole hospital to know?

He’d learned that was a stupid question years ago. Sober, and nowhere near this close, she’d still answer, “Don’t care.” But any time there were smirks and whispers, she’d be prickly; her spikes brought on by self-consciousness. As observant as she was, she didn’t gossip outside of her circle, and would demand “why do they care?” for weeks.

“I want you to let it take you over, okay? But to do that—Hey, but to do that,” he repeated, putting a hand on her arm to keep her moderately still. “You have to let me help you be sneaky.”

“I’m sneaky!” she objected at close to her normal volume. The kitchen went quiet long enough for someone to listen, shrug, and start talking again. To her credit, the pink in Meredith’s cheeks darkened. “How?”

He rested his fingertip on her mouth. That she didn’t like having a hand there had seemingly been a surprise for both of them the first time he’d tried thatt—“It’s the one method of shutting me up Mom didn’t use.”—But there had been people who did—She didn’t react to being interrupted by being kissed, or having a finger placed on her lips, which made him think there was something sinister underneath, but she’d never copped to it.

“l’ll be okay to breathe?” she asked, and then winced. That was the part of her initial reaction that’d always worried him, especially with what she’d said about breathing being easier tonight.

“Always.”

Her nervous look became cheeky. “Always, if I want to.” What? Did she mean…? No. She hated that feeling. Unless…. “S’about control,” she offered. Then she thrust her hips, and whimpered as she fought against every idea her body had to facilitate relieving the tension contained between her legs. She clenched her thighs in the process, bringing him into the moment. He thrust against her, and let one hand drift back to her breast.

Only a minute or two passed before she twisted away from that stimulation, and he trailed the hand down, letting his fingers drift over the taut skin of her belly. She started straining against his hold, and then pressed her forehead against his shoulder. That was where he could hear the tiny keening sounds she was making. In sharp contrast to weeks of denying herself anything she thought he wouldn’t notice, she couldn’t hold back if she wanted to.

Maybe the beers that weren’t sewer water had more alcohol in them than he thought, or she was that intoxicating, because he lost himself in her. The scent of her conditioner, with a tinge of perspiration and the distinct scent of citrus cocktails. It took her abruptly grabbing his wrist for him to react to her increased restiveness, and the pleading sounds she’d been blocking by biting her lips.

As soon as his hand was on her mouth, she gave in. He could hear the cadence of her climax in the pitch and pauses of what would sound like a solid, soft “mmmmmmm,” to anyone else. Those heels knocked against his legs, but it was when that stopped and the strained desperation on her face became blissful relief that he let himself follow through. She clenched her thighs when she surfaced, and then he was gone, too.

“Maybe I went to the wrong parties,” he suggested, while she was still in cling-mode—which, in this situation, could last a while—“But I don’t remember Seven Minutes in Heaven being that hot.”

“I played it wrong.”

“You…how?”

“On purpose.”

“Okay, but…what’d you do?”

“Gave dudes the most heavenly seven minutes they’d had ever had.”

“You…. Oh! Why?”

“Reputation t’uphold. Didn’t wanna be anyone’s girlfriend. Kissing’s all intimate and meaningful. Somethin’ I could learn to be good at.”

“You definitely did that.”

She snickered, started to sit up, and then draped herself back into place. “Craaap. Room’s spinning.”

There were plenty of responses he could give to that, and had over the years, but he was pretty sure they could all be twisted into mockery. As he shifted to sit her more comfortably on the dtyer, he glanced up at the detergent shelf. If he expressed his feelings of disbelief, and, genuinely, awe, she’d think his words were as empty as the cup he’d placed there not fifteen minutes earlier. And in the balance, Meredith had been given plenty of words. She hadn’t just been held nearly enough.

Chapter Text

“The rest of this place might’ve been swayed to Team Grey by free alcohol,  but I have more important things to do with my nights than attend a rave. I have a child to take care of, for example.”

Where is the—?

No.

Who took my—?

No, no, no!

Meredith closed her eyes. The song had mostly let her go, but it tended to reappear as her chest tightened. Maybe there was cause and effect, maybe association. She only knew it hadn’t followed her in here before.

“Enough, Miranda.” Callie brushed her pinkie against Meredith’s, the only reassurance she could offer gloved and gowned to operate on a survivor of a four car pile-up.

“I’m only saying, it’s one thing to be a corrupt intern; corrupting the interns is an entirely—”

“I was there! My baby was with her mama. She wasn’t being neglected, and I’m offended by that implication.”

“I wasn’t talking about—”

“Was Shepherd corrupting the youth? We’ve had interns older than him, and I bet Norman would’ve attended if he’d still been around when that crew started throwing parties.”

Bailey pressed her lips together and stared at the surgical field like it was the only thing in the room. Arizona was technically her attending, and she’d told Meredith to help Callie with the teenager’s broken pelvis, since it was a procedure she hadn’t done. Meredith had a feeling she’d done that to be the one standing across the abdominal cavity from Bailey.

Her former mentor had been on more of a tear than usual—and she’d been invited to the damn party! Meredith had specifically had Lexie tell her. (And she’d had a margarita waiting for her sister at the door, because there was no way that hadn’t been extremely stressful.)

At some point on Saturday, which she’d valiantly tried to sleep through; she’d wondered if the cheers and thanks from people like that group of third-years would have an effect on her leper status. By Monday, she’d been convinced that her reception from everyone would be closer to what she’d been getting from Bailey. She was one year away from being a fellow—or even being hired on an attending. That kind of ripper was something attendings might crash, but to throw it? When she’d also hosted the board members for snotty canapés?

Derek had talked her down from that with stories about seeing his med school professor out clubbing—“You entered a club? Oh…wait….” “I wasn’t always chasing Amy down.”—and having to bail out an attending who’d gotten picked up for soliciting in the meat-packing district.

That had led to a staring contest where they both tried to figure out if the other knew that, until Giulliani let the NIMBYs win, most of the girls and women working that street were trans. She’d finally cracked; one of the boys she’d known in college had a sibling who’d run away, and shown up at his high school graduation.—“She was so proud of me, as though I’d done anything half as difficult as what she does on the stroll.”—Last she’d heard Kyle and Mirabelle both worked in advocacy, and their parents had joined one of those cults disguised as a megachurch.

“Sorry,” she’d told Derek, at the end of that explanation. “You didn’t need that much detail.”

“I wanted it,” he’d insisted.

That morning, driving in with Lexie, her sister had wrinkled her nose when she recounted a vague version of that exchange. “I don’t get it. You want those details from him, right? Especially if he’s not going to talk to you about his brainstem glioma?”

“His.…” Meredith swallowed. “Dammit, George found the last one of those he had. It’s not a DIPG?”

“No, focal,” Lexie said.

Meredith exhaled. “Good.” Almost no one would operate on a diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma, the kind that had invaded other areas of the brainstem, but she could see Derek doing it. If it went badly, he might be…irritated at her for not being there. Not because she was better than any other resident, necessarily. Just that she knew his preferences. She was good at motivating him.

A focal glioma meant going in at the skull base, which she’d watched him do for numerous aneurysms. He’d be fine. He’d be great.

“I do,” she told Lexie. “It’s just…people say they want your details. If you’re traveling, stuck in a hostel, on a train, waiting for a concert to start, someone will suggest, say, two truths and a lie. I can go with the outrageous stuff: I’ve been to an orgy, my friend in high school jumped in front of a train, I’ve been arrested at a protest….”

“Last one.”

Meredith couldn’t help smiling at that. “Look who pays attention. You’re used to me. To me, that stuff’s borderline tame, but it does not get follow-up questions. I could try: my mom’s a surgeon, I’m from Seattle, I played keys in a grunge band.”

“Third. You play drums.”

“People always guessed two. The accent gets worse when I’m drunk or tired, so…. The follow-up questions there weren’t ones I wanted to answer. I’d end up saying…I dunno, I’ve never been to a nude beach, I saw Nirvana live, my minor was women’s studies. Practically generic, but those are the kinds of things everyone says. Derek gave me coffee ice cream and An Ode to Hemingway’s Dick—I’ve never had the heart to tell him how many guys cite that or A Farewell to Arms as their favorite book—and I gave him my mom has a form of Alzheimer’s that’s often genetic, it’s a secret, and hey, we both like Italian food!”

Lexie cupped her hands over her mouth. “Sorry, it’s not—”

“It’s funny.”

“He did have the wife.”

“He didn’t tell me that.” Meredith sighed. “He’s almost never done it, but nearly everyone else in my life hit a point where details got them to make the face. I hate the face.”

“What face?”

“The ‘okay, I get it, your coffee’s black like your soul.’ ‘No one’s life is that ridiculous, attention whore,’ ‘you went to Dartmouth and your mom consults at the U.N., but Daddy left, and you think that makes you damaged?’ face. I could talk about stuff Sadie and I did—most of which were her idea—and eventually they’d say something about my death wish and disappear. Which…part one might’ve been fair, part two…also fair, but didn’t do a lot for my willingness to share. It doesn’t help that I never learned how to….

“Did Susan drive you home from school?”

“Uh, when we were little. Later on, we usually walked or rode our bikes, unless the rain was really coming down.”

“When did you tell her about your day?”

“Oh! Most days we had after-school stuff, and she drove us. Whomever got dropped off first got to go first, so we didn’t interrupt each other like yappy dogs. If we didn’t have anything, we’d talk to her before doing homework, usually.”

“Not at dinner?”

Lexie shrugged. “Sometimes. Dad wasn’t interested in girl drama.”

Meredith smiled to herself, thinking that Derek would probably end up with a better handle on the players in Zola’s world than she would. The big family had given him different neural circuits for recalling people’s lives and connections, and he’d be deeply interested.

“Obviously, there are other opportunities, but I really think having a parent who just asks ‘what happened today?’ makes a huge difference, and I didn’t. That’s where kids learn to tell stories. How to give context, and pick details, and even to remember what their audience already knows.”

Her sister’s silence there told her plenty, but she still caught her eye at a stoplight. “You see it?”

“Yeah,” Lexie admitted. “You come by the rambling honestly. But  it’s more…what you leave out. Your thoughts and feelings are the last thing you describe, and you alter what you’re saying a lot based on how someone’s reacting. It’s maybe…maybe how you told stories to your mom when you could, more than all the times you didn’t get to. Proves your point.”

“Yeah. Talking about medicine comes more naturally to me. I understand how messed up that is, because it’s not all I am, and it wasn’t who I was for a long time. Derek’s never been anything but curious about other stuff—what I like, what I think. But sometimes…sometimes it’s hard for me to remember.

“I know you think it’s not a fair consequence, Lex, and I appreciate having a sister on my side, but this might be the best thing we could’ve done. We’ve only been talking again for a month, and I can point to several conversations that I would’ve escaped by asking about surgeries. It’s not like we never reference medicine,” she added, thinking of the jokes about body snatchers and Elizabeth Blackwell. “But we do it as people, not colleagues.”

“I guess.” Lexie had her arms crossed, and Meredith laughed.

“You get that even with needing hours on other services, I would’ve been in your spot in a third of the cool surgeries you’ve done since July? It’s hard for me to be secretly seething with envy when you’re not celebrating your good fortune.”

“It’s not my fifth year,” Lexie had said, simply.

To Meredith, that had underscored her point, but she hadn’t known how to explain it. As a fifth year, you were setting the foundation for your career as a certain kind of surgeon, and, by proxy, a certain kind of person. It made sense to her that she was also having to settle into how she wanted to be as a wife. (And a mom. Zola would be home long before next June. She had to be.)

They’d arrived at the hospital before she knew how to put that into words, and Lexie had dashed in t meet her interns. Thinking she was alone, Meredith had sighed, deeply.

“I’m sorry about your friend.”

“Jee-sus crap on toast!” Meredith jumped in her seat, her heart racing enough to make it hard to remember to breathe. “Kepner! I forgot you were there.”

April blushed and squeezed the stuffed koala bear in her lap. He was big, so that when he was taken out of the baby’s spot he’d be noticeable in the passenger seat. One day he’d be a reminder of Zola’s presence, not her absence. It was a trick from an article she’d read about parents who’d left their kids in cars. Unpredictable schedules and sleep deprivation were risk factors.

“I got left behind at the feed store so often Mr. Evans started joking that he’d have to scan me before letting Daddy out the door. If I told them to do something, my younger sisters pretend they didn’t hear me. I love being Chief Resident,” she intoned in The Two Truths and a Lie cadence.

“You got that job on merit. I’d trade places any day. The rest of us were too busy showing each other up to deserve it.”

“Second one. But you’re a better leader.”

“Only if the destination is trouble.” That made the redhead laugh and put the koala back into the car seat Meredith couldn’t bring herself to take out.

Holding Derek’s hand on days where they went into work together had become like a Kevlar vest during the pre-round and shift wrap-up periods where the whispers and looks bubbled up. Monday had been the first day she hadn’t felt the need for armor. Mentions of the party had been few; it’d just donesomething to re-cement her place as one of them. Part of the Seattle Grace Mercy West team. (And thank whatever, because she didn’t think the softball game Hunt was pushing would do the job.)

With that in mind, and Bailey silenced,  Meredith settled back into the rhythm. The O.R. remained unbreached.

It wasn’t until Arizona said, “Grey,” that she realized her stomach had knotted at the sound of her attending’s pager. “Fredrick Balicki is back in the Pit. Mom reports vomiting, fever, listlessness.”

“Crap. Is the tube blocked?”

Arizona made a face at her phone. “Maybe? She says sometimes it seems like it is, but also he’s getting enough in to shoot back up, so…. I don’t think this is on you.”

That was nice, but Meredith didn’t know who else it could be on. He was her patient. She’d placed the gastric tube, and if it wasn’t working that was her fault. Simple.

“Dr. Torres, can you spare me?”

“In five minutes. You’ll owe me a closing.” Callie’s eyes were so expressive that her over-mask thoughts were clear. Her scrunched brow and furrowed eyebrows added weight to her question before she asked it. “Balicki, isn’t that the kid you had to hand off to Karev when your mom got here?”

Meredith froze, something that thankfully went unnoticed when your job required holding instruments steady. She didn’t think today’s Alex would do a cursory exam to get out the door for a party, but she hadn’t expected him to kick her in the head to send her falling off the Chief Resident ladder, either.

“Yeah, that’s right,” Arizona said. “Except Alex barely saw them. He took a feed with no issue in the E.R., and I got him to have one of his interns observe for a few hours.”

“What were you punishing the intern for?” Bailey asked.

“Nothing. I’m not sure what we’re dealing with. He’s only two, so he can’t report how he feels.

“Grey, get a CT, and schedule a fluoroscopy for tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow? Why?” As she said it, Meredith regretted the question. Robbins would be in Derek’s glioblastoma surgery all afternoon. “Never mind.”

“No, it’s a fair question,” Arizona assured her. “He’s your patient. First, I couldn’t have done better on that G-tube placement, so relax.  Why did we put it in?”

“History of failure to thrive. Wouldn’t cooperate with a swallow study, but weight loss was sufficient enough that nutrition intervention was imperative prior to starting work with ENTs, speech and occupational therapists, and nutritionists to determine what the problem is.”

“Was there any other underlying condition that would’ve led to vomiting?”

“No, that’s why we referred out. MRI showed no signs of Crohn’s or other abnormalities, GI tract imaging doesn’t show any blockages.” She searched for more to report, knowing what Arizona feared and not wanting to say it. “You think…?”

“Use your judgement,” Robbins said. Bailey made a disbelieving tutting sound, and Callie glared at her. Meredith wasn’t sure who was justified.

Ten minutes later, she heard giggling as she approached a cubicle in the E.R. Good, Freddie wasn’t in unbearable pain, at least.

“Here comes the doctor!” his mom, Gina, announced, and Meredith opened the curtain to reveal three people sharing the narrow bed. Gina stood up, leaving a suddenly quiet toddler, and a preschool girl who was still giggling.

“Sounds like we were having fun in here,” Meredith said.

“Of course not,” Gina snapped.

“Sick no fun,” the toddler said.

“That’s true, Freddie, being sick is no fun. We’re gonna figure out how to make you feel better, okay?”

“Otay, Doca G’ey.”

“You do remember me! That makes me happy. Can I feel your belly?”

“Hurt?” he asked, looking at his mom.

Meredith moved closer to him, putting herself fully in his visual field. “You’re going to tell me if it hurts, okay?”

She felt around his abdomen, not finding any distention or seeing any reflexive reactions to pain, which was what you had to rely on with a kid this little.

“Does this hurt?” she asked, tickling his belly above the G-tube.

That brought back the giggles. With the hand that was secured to an arm-board to keep his IV from pulling out, the little boy wiggled his fingers over the top of her hand. “Ti-ti-ti!”

“Are you ticklin[ me?”

He grinned, showing her a mouthful of baby teeth. When Meredith turned to speak to Gina, she noticed that she had her arms wrapped around her middle, and was frowning.

“It’s good that he’s this responsive,” Meredith assured her. “Just looking at him, I can tell he’s gained since we placed the tube. Has he vomitted since you’ve been back here?”

“Ye—”

“Not here…. Not here, but um, at home, he sicked up all over his bed,” the little girl shared.

“Mandy!”

“That must’ve been yucky,” Meredith said, turning to address the little girl. She had hair that was a little bit of a darker blond than Freddie’s. Comparing his Carter’s button-up and khakis, her mismatched leggings, t-shirt, Ugg boots and backwards ball-cap led Meredith to assume Mandy had dressed herself today. “I bet you were scared for him, too, huh? With all these trips to the hospital?”

“Not so much,” the little girl said. “I used to be a hospital kid, and I’m all better. I think we just need another baby, and Freddie can have pizza, too.”

“Pizza!” the toddler echoed.

“That’s not how it works, Amanda!” Gina exclaimed. “The doctors are the ones who made you better, and they’ll do the same for your brother. Right Dr. Grey?”

“We’re here to help. Today, that means we’re going to take him to a room upstairs. On the way, they’ll take him in to  CT—that’ll take pictures of his guts, Mandy.”

“Cool,” the little girl said, wide-eyed. A true hospital kid.

“That’d be a good time for you to take Mandy to get something to eat. He’ll be in safe hands.”

“We’ll see,” Gina said, and Meredith could tell she had no desire to leave. She didn’t blame her; going home while Zola was in these walls had been difficult, even when she couldn’t see her.

“Once he’s the floor, we’ll get him started on an anti-emetic—”

“Phenergen?” Gina interrupted.

“Uh, no. We’ll give him a single dose of ondansetron. That can have side-effects, so we’ll be watching him closely—”

“That’s Zofran? I had hyperemesis with both pregnancies; I’m familiar.”

“It is, yes. We’ll be watching him, and he’ll probably be pretty sleepy.”

“Can a cot be put in his room? My back hasn’t recovered from the recliner last time.”

“Talk to your floor nurse about that. I’ll get the balls rolling for Freddie and be back to check in soon.”

She waved to the kids, who both looked incredibly small in comparison to the adult-sized bed, and went to put in the orders.

A couple of hours later, she responded to a page to the peds floor. “Mom and sister just left for the cafeteria, Dr. Grey,” Justina, the charge nurse reported. “Do you want one of us to do it? Claudia’s his nurse. She’s great with little ones.”

Meredith wondered if there was something underneath that statement. “I’ll page if I need back-up,” she said. “Hopefully, he just doesn’t like to eat for Mom and Dad.”

It would make the G-tube seem like a major surgery done unnecessarily, but at that point he’d been dangerously underweight, and fixing that mattered more than why it was happening.

“Freddie, I have a treat for you, bud,” she announced, carrying a tray into the peds room.

“Doca G’ey!” He popped up over the metal railings of his crib. “Outta baby jay-uh.”

She laughed. “That’s what we called it when my little baby was in one of those cribs, too,” she said, before she realized what she was admitting. She’d never told a patient about Zola, but this patient wouldn’t rat her out. “Sit down, and we’ll work something out. On your bum.”

He plopped down, displaying good listening skills for his age. Meredith put the tray down on the rolling table by the recliner and released the side of the crib.

“Open!”

“That’s right! Now, we’re going to open one of these.” She indicated the tray, which held a variety of foods that qualified as clear liquids. “We have soup, Jell-O, and a Popsicle!”

“Brrrr.” His r became a raspberry, and when she laughed, so did he.

“Popsicles are cold,” she agreed. “And soup can be hot. Let’s see if this is just right.” Peeling off the top of the green Jell-O, she flashed to the night of the party. Upstairs, Derek had taken her hair down and called her Goldilocks. Not unusual. Her saying, “Thanks, Papa Bear,” had been.

She was grateful that she could recall  the face he’d made while saying “Why?”

“Duh. Goldie ‘s’obviously his dirty mistress. S’why Mama an’ Papa sleep in separate beds.”

“I’ve always considered her a contemporary of Baby Bear. Why else is it his stuff that’s ‘just right?’”

“Say she’s twenty, P-Bear’s thirty-two, Baby’s ten. She’s closer to his age, but who’s she gonna have more in common with?”

She was pretty sure she’d scarred him for life, and she’d get to be the one to tell Mark.

“Skisshy,” Freddie said, poking the Jell-O she’d scooped for him.

“Eat it up, and it’ll get all squished up in your tummy.”

She wasn’t sure how she knew that would appeal to this kid, except that on the day she met him, he’d been rolling a ball of mixed-up Play-Doh colors. It worked. He’d sucked every bite of Jell-O off the spoon.

“We’ll get you healthy, bud,” she told him, slowly pushing the dose of antiemetic she’d brought for him.

In the hall, she waved Claudia and Justina over while she opened the feed for the room’s security camera on the nearest desktop.

“Anything that goes into his feeding tube needs to come from us. I’m sure Mom has formula already made up—”

“He got the PEG done here?” Justina asked.

“Last month.”

“We use a different kind of tubing than most of the home health suppliers would’ve given them. I’ll clean it up and switch it out. Protocol.”

Claudia, who couldn’t have been more than two years out of nursing school, looked between the two of them with wide, brown eyes. “Is it? The mom said they switched it all out yesterday.”

“Depends on the case,” Justina said. “We’ll keep a close eye on him, Dr. Grey.”

“I know,” Meredith sad. That didn’t stop her from gathering the research she needed from April’s office and settling in front of the monitor. She had one publication, thank goodness. Whatever the treatment had been named, she was listed on the journal article Derek submitted for their last trial. The one that had been her framework for what being a surgeon, and working with him, could look like. Alex was going to be the lead on his African orphans paper, but it was the medical equivalent of human interest. At this point, every fifth-year resident in the hospital would be able to claim a co-author spot on the mouse trial. She’d have to depend on April sneaking her name in prior to publication, and that was if she could make a significant enough contribution.

So, she had to do that. If Richard was taking his name off of the whole thing, she could claim fourth. Not great. Jackson might let her leap-frog him; his plans for next year were all but cemented. One second author, and one third in terms of real research. She could claim more than that in case studies, though she had nothing on Cristina. She’d written up Mr. Levangie, her first DBS patient, talking about the ethics of doing a major surgery for one concrete goal. There’d been the teratoma—she may’ve taken out some of her personal problems on psych in that introduction. Dunn had inspired her to do research on prisoner organ donation, which had seriously affected her perspective on China. The misdiagnosis of Izzie’s history reacher had gotten the most interaction.

Funny, she’d worked harder in her residency than she ever had in her life; she’d kept up, in spite of having to take time off to recover from being the one on the table, being blown up, having her husband shot in the chest. Yet, here she was, facing a paltry showing for her next application.

She wasn’t a partying co-ed who’d resented taking pre-med classes. She wasn’t the phantom of her med school class, who took every volunteer position she could,, but had professors who couldn’t pick her out of a line-up. Fine, she’d been focused on neuro, but her hours weren’t nearly as uneven as Cristina’s. That should make her well-rounded. Instead, it just made her look flaky for leaving neuro behind, without an obvious fallback. Who would want to mentor or recommend someone who’d chosen a service by default?

She was looking blearily between the articles she’d printed and her own C.V. when she heard the rushed, heavy footsteps of a mom in a hurry. She’d been under the impression that Gina stayed at home, which made the heels mystifying. Meredith’s arches weren’t over wearing them for eight hours, four days ago.

She stood up, catching Justina’s eye across the nurses bay, and moved to intercept Gina at her son’s door.

“Aw,” she said, seeing that Mandy was asleep in her mom’s arms, which explained the weight of her footsteps. “Rough day for a big sister. She seems to really adore him.”

“We all do.” Gina said. “He’s a special little boy.”

“He is. I wanted to let you know, he ate a cup of Jell-O for me—“

“What? He’s NPO!”

“Before his surgery for the G-tube, yes, he was nothing by mouth. Today, while we’re trying to figure out what’s going on, and there’s no indication that it’s medically detrimental. There’s no reason not to allow clear liquids—”

“The list of his allergens—”

“We have it. Nothing in green Jell-O was going to send him into anaphylactic shock, and had it, we have an api-pen in his room. Depending on what the imaging shows, we’ll step up to solids as early as tomorrow. As we discussed in August, we really want the G-tube to be giving him supplemental nutrition.”

“He can’t swallow!”

“He got a little stubborn and didn’t comply with the swallow test,” Meredith corrected. “He needs supervision, but I haven’t seen any signs of aspiration.” She put a hand lightly on Gina’s arm. “I know this is scary, but he does seem to be improving. Chances are he picked up some little flu bug, and he’ll be just fine. You’re right to be cautious; vomiting with a G-tube can cause aspiration—”

“He was in serious pain! He didn’t stop crying all through last night and this morning.”

“And you must be exhausted. He’s going to be groggy for a while, if he’s not sleeping right now. You can spend some time with him, and then take Mandy home. Fill your husband in. Maybe he could take the first shift here tonight.”

“My husband doesn’t have a clue about these things.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem; our night nurses know all they need to know and more.”

Meredith didn’t push beyond that. She almost wanted the woman to ask her if she had a child, so she could tell her yes, and that she’d stayed away from her hospital room because it had been in her best interest. Instead, she simply smiled and went back around the desk. A quick tap of the keys swapped her window from her CV to the video feed from inside the room.

Most people assumed that the wide window facing the corridor was why the peds rooms were considered observation rooms, and to a degree that was true. The security cameras weren’t hidden. A small plaque was on the wall explaining that they were installed for liability reasons. The same disclaimers were included in the admittance paperwork, and they were only turned on if there was a medical or safety-related reason to do so.

Meredith picked up her pen, but didn’t look down right away. She watched Gina close the blinds on the interior window prior to putting Mandy down in the room’s recliner. Freddie was lying on his side. His face couldn’t be seen by the camera, but Meredith was sure he’d been asleep. Gina lowered the side of the crib anyway.

After closing the privacy curtain at the door, she walked around the room for a minute, digging through her diaper bag, which was the size of the average duffle, something you saw often enough with moms of kids with medical conditions and disabilities. Meredith exhaled when she took out a diaper and wipes. Runny BMs were common with G-tubes, it made sense for her to be on the ball there.

Then she also took out a package of tubing and a bag of formula. “Good call, Dr. G.,” Justina murmured. Meredith almost jumped like she had when April seemed to appear in the back of the car like a goblin.

“We’ll see.”

As she said it, Gina lifted up Freddie’s gown. Her back was to the camera, but it was easy to see her head turning between the connectors. Eventually, she tossed the tubing to the ground and stomped her foot.

“Why’s she mad?” Claudia asked. “She’ll be able to switch back on discharge. Unless…does our formula have different possible allergens?”

“You could say that,” Justina responded.

Meredith started to relax watching the diaper change. Freddie had woken, and Gina gave him a wub-a-nub. He pulled the pacifier part out of his mouth and drowsily made the animal—an elephant, maybe?—dance above his head.

“What’s that?” Justina murmured. “In her left hand? It looks like a separate piece of the tubing.”

Meredith squinted at her hand, but couldn’t focus before Gina started moving.

“She’s had two babies and she doesn’t roll up a poopy diaper?” Claudia asked, sounding like she’d be clutching pearls were she wearing them. It was a good point.

Gina disappeared into the bathroom. She didn’t close the door all the way, which made sense if she’d just ducked in to toss the diaper. Thirty seconds passed.

“Both kids are in there,” Justina said. “Maybe she wants to be able to see them?”

“I haven’t peed alone at home since Nick-Nick was born,” Claudia commented.

Meredith put her pen down. Her hands were flat on the desk.

Gina didn’t close the bathroom door, which would doubly-block anyone standing in the doorway from seeing in the room, and partially blocked anyone who’d be looking through the blinds.

“Anyone else see a design flaw here?” Justina asked. Any other time, Meredith would’ve laughed, but she was too focused. She’d be going in there, the question was how. If she did turn out to have been scrubbing her hands, she’d make it casual. The hairs on the nape of her neck made her expect something different.

What she saw still didn’t entirely compute. “Is…Is that…?” Justina stammered.

“Syringe!” Meredith responded, shoving herself upward. Her chair went flying; both nurses jumped out of its path. “Get security!”

She threw herself at the door, swept the privacy curtain away, and slammed her hand against the bathroom door. The door closer kept it from slamming, but there was enough space for her to pass long before it shut.

“Dr. Grey!” Gina said, not turning away from Freddie’s IV pump. “This thing was beep—ow!”

Meredith jerked her arm, seeing the syringe in her hand. If she’d held out hope that she was misjudging an overwhelmed mother, it was gone in the moment where she flung away a hypodermic syringe in a small room holding both of her children.

The other single thought that held her attention beyond the effort to keep hold on Gina, who was notably taller than her, was the brownish color of the liquid in the syringe. The adrenaline took her back to brawls everywhere from playgrounds to sports bars. Rarely was she in such an awkward position; she wished she’d thought to jump as she grabbed. She did know how to dodge Gina’s attempts to kick her calf, and wedged the toe of one sneaker against the heel of the pump she lifted, knocking it off her foot. As she did it, Gina managed to bring the other one down on the top of hers. She was lucky that it was a square heel, not a stiletto, but that didn’t stop it from hurting like a motherfucker.

“Mommy? Are you wrestling the doctor?” Mandy asked.

“You’re having a dream. Go back to sleep.”

To Meredith’s astonishment, and then horror, Mandy moved her legs into a different position, and curled up again. Gina, expecting this, took advantage of her stillness and jerked her elbow up into Meredith’s eye.

Retrospectively, she’d wish she’d said I’m so glad you did that. In reality, she cried out, fought her instinct to cup her hand over her eye, and gotten her arms hooked around Gina’s elbows, pulling them back, and leaning the rest of her weight on the woman’s back to push her downward.

“What’d you give her?”

“I don’t know what you’re—”

“She’ll be getting a tox screening. We’ll be testing that syringe—”

“It’s mine! It’s…it’s smack—”

“She’s never said that word before in her life,” Justina said, as a security officer took hold of Gina. Meredith let her go, rubbing her jaw where the woman’s shoulder had managed to connect. The outside of her eye was already swelling. She felt around the socket carefully, and once she’d determined nothing was broken, went to pick up Freddie. This time he was crying.

“My baby! Don’t take my baby!”

“Your baby’s going to stay right here,” the security guard told her. “You’re coming downstairs with me.”

It was incredibly satisfying when the guard neglected to let her collect her shoe, and her assured gait disappeared.

“Mommy hurt!”

“Your Mommy’s not hurt, sweet boy. She’s okay. She’s probably going to spend some time with my pal Raj upstairs, but she’ll be okay. You and your sister will, too.” Part of her hoped this was related to some kind of delusion. Undiagnosed postpartum psychosis, schizophrenia, a manic episode. Something that meant Gina believed she was protecting her kids—where she wasn’t hurting them to garner attention for herself.

“Mommy hurt!”

She didn’t know if he was too young, and too upset to understand her, or if those two words strung together meant something different to him. She went over to the crib and picked up his wubanub.

“My little girl likes these,” she told him. “She takes them out of her mouth to play with the animals, and makes us give her a different binky. That means she goes night-night with two binkies.”

“Silly.”

“What’s silly is that we fall for it every time.”

“Here!” Justina came up from under the bed with the syringe. Meredith wanted to grab and examine it, but she wasn’t going to do that with Freddie in her arms.

She didn’t need to. She took him with her into the hall, retrieved her chair, and grabbed her phone off of the desk.

“Oh my God!” Claudia exclaimed from the doorway to Freddie’s room. Meredith wished she’d picked up Mandy, too.

“Department of Children, Youth and Families, Region 10, how may I help you?”

“Hi, Bev, this is Dr. Meredith Grey at Seattle Grace Mercy West. Can you patch me to Janet? Tell her it’s not about Zola.”

“Tell her?”

“It’s not about Zola, I promise.”

“Okay.” The receptionist sounded doubtful. Great. Meredith had spoken to her all of three times, when she’d become convinced that Janet was purposefully avoiding her calls.

“Janet Meyers.”

“Janet, it’s Meredith. We have a case that’s out of our in-house social workers’ purview.”

“Oh, what’s that?” She sounded like she expected something that didn’t need her at all as an excuse for an ambush. That did seem like where they’d been heading last month, but since Zola was discharged, she’d been standing in the center of the boat to keep it from rocking.

“We caught a mom about to inject feces into her baby’s IV, so I think we can safely say medical child abuse without a twenty-four hour separation.” That, their staff could handle, and often it led to an unusual diagnosis, usually genetic. This was an entirely different level. “The whole case is textbook Munchausen by proxy, down to an older child who miraculously recovered when her little brother was born preemie.”

That had happened here; she’d seen it in the chart she’d pulled before the PEG. Whether that had been entirely natural was something that more informed people than her would be considering.

“Oh. Okay. I’m on my way. Can you find the next-of-kin’s information and send it to me? Your next call needs to be to SPD, if they haven’t already been called.”

“I’m pretty sure security would have, but I’ll check. See you soon.”

She ended the call, and put her phone down. Her hand trembled above it. A nurse had put a cold pack on the desk next to her, and she gratefully pressed it to her eye. Freddie sighed in his sleep, and she rubbed his back. His ribs weren’t sticking out as much as they had a month ago, but she could feel each one. His shoulder blades stood out, reminding her of Derek looking at Zola’s back and telling her that his father said that’s where the wings were. She respected the idea that babies were closer to purity by nature of being new, but in Freddi:e it made her think more of the delicate bones of a bird, not an association that would be made to a healthy toddler.

The hole she’d put in this baby’s body had been unnecessary. It might help him regain nutrition more quickly, but if they’d questioned the mom’s reports of allergies, vomiting, asked Mandy when Freddie had gotten: to try pizza, their interventions would’ve been different. That he’d had the tests done by a private physician when so much of his care was done here should’ve been a red flag—she’d bet anything the physician in their clinic hadn’t told Gina what she wanted to hear. It was possible that the report hadn’t even been legitimate.

Mandy was four. If she’d been “sick” before Freddie was born, this had been going on at least two years, likely longer.

Having Zola taken from her was one of the worst moments of her life. She’d just sounded those alarms on a mother. She felt bad about it.

Truth. Truth. Lie.

The system was fair to kids. The system was fair to parents. The system was fair to the cogs in its wheel. Truth. Truth.  Wait. Oops.

She was trying to lie to herself less, okay?

Chapter Text

Growing up in Manhattan, the seasons had been solidly differentiated. Even if the slog of summer heat lasted past the first days in their non-air conditioned school buildings, they were back in long pants and regulation-length skirts. Later, he still felt the atmosphere of change and hope that swept over the island. (He wondered if al-Queda had known September eleventh was the first day for many schools. hat had been what saved Howard Ludwick. Whatever you thought of the guy, he’d lost the brother he practically raised to the Towers, and he’d lived because he’d taken his son to his first day of kindergarten. That had to mess with a pereso.)

Seattle had seasons. Truthfully, weather here was better than in New York. There were more days of rain, but fewer inches; the summers weren’t as hot, the winters not as cold, with much less snow. The springs and autumns were gorgeous. And yet, as scarf weather emerged, it made him miss Manhattan.

9/11 didn’t help.

People expected to find out you’d been there. They wanted to hear about fleeing the island, about desperately searching for family members. They seemed disappointed when you said you’d lived and worked uptown. That you’d rushed to one of three hospitals near your office, only to wait. And wait. And wait.

“I said we should’ve found a way to NYU Downtown,” Mark said, for the thousandth time in nine years.

“And when we’d ended up on one of the trains that lost power in Lower Manhattan, and Mom and Addison hadn’t been able to get ahold of either of us?” Derek countered, for the thousandth time in nine years. “That would’ve been miserable for them.”

Meredith stood up, starting to clear the table, even though it wasn’t their table.

“Put your ass back in that chair, Grey,” Callie ordered, pointing one manicured finger at Meredith’s seat.

“I’m fine.”

“You have periosteal bruising on your foot. If those tiny bones had taken just a little more pressure, you’d be in a walking boot, not just breaking out the Uggs a little early in the season.”

Meredith rolled her eyes, but she stopped trying to stress-clean, and even propped her foot on his knee under the table.

“Technically, you have a more harrowing story than we do,” he pointed out. Holding things in was what made her jittery, but she’d mever presume to make the claim.

“Hey, I got called to New York Pres,” Mark protested.

Derek’s jaw clenched, and Meredith squeezed his hand. He understood why Mark brought it up. That feeling of helplessness had been so overwhelming that doing something, anything, must’ve been an incredibly relief.

He imagined.

“It was gruesome. They had two O.R.s for the burn unit constantly to treat victims. One of the guys I treated had just been walking by. Tourist from Boston He didn’t make it.”

“A lot of people were from Boston,” Meredith murmured. “It brought New York together, for a while. Boston got combative. The airport director took most of it.”

“Were you flying?” Robbins asked. “That’s harrowing at the best of times, if you ask me.”

“No.” Meredith took a sip of her wine. “My mom was at the U.N. and I spent the day unable to get in touch with her.”

There was more to the story; fearing something happened to Ellis had led to her deciding that the desire to go to med school was her own. The night she told him, she’d said she didn’t want to make a tragedy he experienced about her. She didn’t like hearing that she experienced more than he did that day.

Not on 9/12. Not when the smell was all over Manhattan, and holes were appearing in his social circle. Not when the only version of the skyline he really remembered had changed forever. But on that day.

“It’s kind of incredible that no one in that huge family of yours was affected,” Callie said.

“Not directly,” he corrected. “A guy I came up with worked at the Port Authority—Worst part there is that they were about to move out of the Towers—Kath had college friends who worked at Cantor-Fitzgerald, and there were NYPD officers who frequented my uncle’s bar. Nancy lost at least one former patient. Addison….” He swallowed. He’d forgotten this. “Addison lost a current patient. She was a week out from her maternity leave.”

“I didn’t know that,” Callie murmured.

“It’s not something she talks about.”

“Teddy, either,” Arizona said. “She had a  close friend who was eating breakfast at Windows on the World. Her parents hadn’t been gone a year. It was her last straw before enlisting.”

Jesus. Derek wasn’t sure even his mother—who’d been vocally against the war, making her progeny afraid that the the unified city would turn on her—could fault her for that.

“What about you, Sloan?” Callie asked. “Anyone you spent a night with? Or knew from college,” she added, taking the heat back down.

“Well, you have to remember a lot of people were on their way in,” Mark said. “The girls rushing to be at the desk at eight are less likely to have brought me home the night before. But, uh…yeah. I did see one missing flyer…real sweet girl I’d gone out with in med school.”

“You’ve never. told me that,” Derek said. Meredith squeezed his hand again. He didn’t know what emotion she heard in his tone, because he wasn’t sure exactly what he felt. Mark had every right to keep things to himself, but they’d talked about that day (almost) every year since.

Mark shrugged. “It wasn’t as if I knew her well. Amelia was exactly the same age as a lot of the people working there. She’d never give a straight answer about if she knew someone—I guess because of how she’d met people in New York, outside of the neighborhood.”

“It’s more than that,” Derek said. “At least, once I heard Mom ask if a woman was the same person Amelia went to high school with, and she equivocated. I think it was just too much for her to admit that something that big touched her life.”

“See, I liked knowing that the disaster wasn’t my fault for once,” Meredith said. “But I’m an asshole.”

“So’s Amelia,” Derek and Mark chorused.

At that moment, Sofia began to fuss over the monitor.

“Someone wants her bottle.” Mark stood up.

“Glad she’s yours tonight,” Callie sing-songed.

“Shep, come with? She’s cluster-feeding; she should go back down once she’s done.”

“Oh, are the men going to retreat for cigars and talk of subjects our soft lady-brains couldn’t possibly understand?” Meredith teased.

“Absolutely. We’re going to teach Sofia bow to light ‘em,” Mark replied.

Derek shook his head, and stood, carefully putting Meredith’s foot down on his chair. “I won’t be long.”

“What, you think we can’t entertain your bride?” Callie asked. “Grey, are you not entertained?”

“When someone else picks on him, I always am.”

“Gee, thanks.”

She smiled sweetly up at him, wrinkling her nose. He kissed her, licking a tiny drop of wine from her lip, and then followed Mark into the hall.

“She seems better.”

Derek put a finger to his lips and pointed to Mark’s apartment door.

Mark had switched off the monitor, which made the sudden return of Sofia’s crying at top volume jarring. “Daddy’s coming, baby,” Mark announced, fixing a bottle in four or five movements. “She does better if you go in with her ba-ba. No interest in watching the process.”

“Ah.”

“Hey, hey, Lee-Lee, is that the attitude you want to show your Uncle Derek? You’re far too mad for someone with a clean butt.”

“Lee-Lee?” Derek leaned on the wall in the corridor, expecting Mark to bring the baby out into the living room. When he sat down in the rocking chair,, Derek was left searching for something to sit on.

“Little lady,” Mark said, like it should be obvious. Maybe it was, to him. Was the awkward beat that only Derek seemed to feel how it was for Meredith whenever “normal” family stuff came up?

Mark had originally used this room as a facsimile of an office, which meant it’d had had a desk, and all of his bookshelves. Those were in the hall now, and the desk was in a corner of the living room. He considered dragging the rolling chair in, but ended up sitting down on the floor.

“That’s the most animated I’ve seen her this week,” he said.

Mark grinned down at Sofia, and then shook his head quickly. “Grey?”

“Who…?” Else, he started to say, until he got it and cut himself off. The baby. “Yeah. She took the Munchaussen case pretty hard.”

“Well, yeah. The crazy mom gave her a shiner.”

“Mmm.” Derek acknowledged. He could still feel the adrenaline that had surged through him when Hunt had appeared in his O.R. and told Arizona that “her resident” had been in a scuffle with a parent, and security had been called.

“That resident is my wife, correct?” Derek had asked.

“Uh, yeah. Sorry, wasn’t sure….”

“She’s not on my service; I still know what she’s doing from day to day. Define ‘scuffle.’”

“If I had to guess,” Robbins had cut in, making him wish she had a hand in the field he could accidentally poke with a blade. “I’d say she caught a mom doing something to cause or encourage her child’s illness.”

“You set her up?”

“The patient was always hers,” Robbins retorted. “I made sure her eyes were open, but she’d have gotten there. What was it?”

Hunt glanced down at his tablet and grimaced. “Trying to inject, uh…fecal matter into his IV.”

“Jesus,” Derek interjected.

“He hasn’t really been vomiting; she needed us to see symptoms,” Robbins reasoned, as serious as he’d ever heard her.

“Presumably. Grey got there before she got the line open, had to hold her back; Mom struggled.  When I left, she was giving a statement to SPD and DCYF. “

Even hearing that, Derek had been shocked to scrub out and find Meredith siting at the peds floor nursing station with a heating pad on her propped up foot, talking to Janet. As bizarre as that had been, it was the motley ring of bruises around her eye that had stopped him in his tracks.

He’d hated watching the recording of that woman trying to escape his wife’s hold, but he couldn’t help thinking it was the best possible situation for DCYF to see. If Meredith had been able to get on the offense, it would’ve been satisfying, but he was sure there’d have been more damage. Granted, he’d never seen her descend into real violence, but what he had seen made him sure she wouldn’t have hesitated to scratch, pull hair, and generally consider all rules of engagement null and void.

“She’s strong,” Derek said to Mark. “If she’d gotten the upper-hand, those elbows might’ve earned an assault charge.”

“Self-defense. The woman was holding a needle.”

“We’d have fought it into the ground,” Derek agreed. He would’ve, and he wouldn’t have cared that the syringe had been dropped, possibly before Meredith even grabbed the woman; it was hard to make out on the cameras. Watching that, he’d seen where Meredith held back. She’d been restraining, not injuring. If she’d put effort into fighting the woman, he’d have supported her. That wouldn’t have bothered him in the past, but now, trying to see it through her perspective, he could see where  that and swapping the drugs could be seen an act of rule-breaking for the sake of protecting a patient.

“Unbelievable that someone would do that to their kid,” Mark added. “I can’t imagine wanting her to be sick. Hell, I hardly got to know Sloan, and I would’ve taken on her fear and pain the day she had that baby. It’s primal, you know?”

“I can’t imagine it with any baby,” Derek said, only realizing after he’d spoken that it sounded like he was trying to one-up Mark. He hadn’t been. Not consciously. Possibly, it was just ingrained. “I can almost understand Munchaussen patients; the attention you get in medical settings is so unique. But even just lying about a kid’s history gives them a false view of themselves. I saw kids in the pain clinic who’d show no signs of discomfort whatsoever until a parent entered the room. One verified case came through; it was determined that this girl who’d been in a wheelchair for years could walk perfectly well, once the muscle atrophy had been dealt with.

“I haven’t seen him in person, but Meredith said this guy would’ve been skin and bones without the G-tube.”

“We’re lucky she didn’t go all Diane Downs,” Meredith had said, darkly. (Diane Downs, not Susan Smith. The crimes that happened around the time of Ellis’s breakdown were so cemented in her psyche. He could never make himself ask if she’d read the paper as a little kid. More likely, since the focal point of her knowledge was Seattle, it’d been retrospective research, trying to give her own life context.)

“She must’ve convinced herself that him crying from hunger was part of a sickness—How else do you let a kid starve until doctors are going to be working fast enough that they don’t have time to follow up on his history?”

“I don’t know,” Mark said, and then repeated it in a high-pitched voice, shaking his head at Sofia. “No. Babies should be chubsters, huh? Yeah, You’re gonna need that energy when you learn to make us chase you.”

Derek smiled, but his facial muscles fought against it. Sofia’s adjusted age would put her at about three months, but her development was closer to five. she could pass toys between her hands, and responded to her name. She was small, length-wise, but with a one-pound birth weight, her ten pounds made her visibly healthy.

At six months, after the drain was put in, Zola had weighed thirteen pounds. Having her pain eliminated had taken her up to just over fifteen in July. Since then she’d gotten crawling down—they watched the video Cristina had taken in the playroom regularly—and her bowel obstruction might have affected her appetite and weight gain. She’d grown an inch in that six-week period; she was long, would be all limbs even at a healthy weight.

All that knowledge came from a full month ago. If a parent who gave birth to their kid could let them lose weight like that, what was to stop someone who wasn’t invested in Zola’s life? The majority of foster parents took care of the kids like they were their own, but there were people who did it for the money or social clout.

Janet saw her once a week. She’d promised Meredith that. She’d know if something was wrong long before her ribs were visible.

“Where was the dad in all of it?”

“Hmm? Oh, ah, he claims to have known nothing, and he travels a lot. Not an excuse, if you ask me. Call me a crazy progressive, but I’d say knowing your kid’s medical history to be the bare minimum.”

“You don’t think the mom showed him the same reports she gave us?”

“It’s not just that. Mer’s pretty sure that the kid knew he was supposed to be in pain around his mom. Did he not have one on one time with him, or notice that his symptoms were intermittent? And the four-year-old, Mom had her lying for her, but it’d take one ice cream date and a trip to the park to win over a child that age.”

That’d been something he’d believed whole-heartedly since the time Thatcher had told him, “She always preferred Ellis, anyway. Ask any other kid if they wanted to go to the hospital or the zoo, you’d get zoo.” Derek hadn’t pointed out they weren’t comparable; the hospital had been familiar territory, of course she preferred it.

“Daddy won’t ever have to win you over, will he Sof-er?”

Derek didn’t think either of his parents had asked him or his sisters to lie for them about anything significant, and definitely not to keep something from the other parent. Meredith had seemingly kept nothing but secrets for her mother, and it still affected her.

“Think he’ll step up, or is it a folle à deux thing?”

“You need to ask Robbins; it’s not my case.”

“It’s your wife’s case.”

“She’s focused on her actual patient, not the unconscionable wastes of space that put him in the hospital.

“If the mom had pushed him  down the stairs and the dad hadn’t called an ambulance, would you be this interested? It’s the same damn thing.”

“Yeesh, all right, all right…. Uncle Derek is touchy tonight, isn’t he angel?”

“Oh, for God’s sake.” Derek heaved himself to his feet and left the room.

He was halfway through the living room to the door when he considered how much Meredith had laughed over dinner. After several days of being out of the O.R., and following up with the medical child abuse case, she deserved to unwind. The bruise on her foot was improving, but if she wanted to be cutting again this week, dancing it out wasn’t an option.

He sunk down onto Mark’s couch, and immediately thought of Lexie, curled up on their sofa with a novel he thought was Meredith’s, asking him questions she doubted she’d have voiced with Avery in the house.

“Is he seeing anyone? On the nights he doesn’t have the baby?”

“The baby’s…about seven months, right? Is she crawling? Clapping? It feels wrong to ask him, after…. Maybe it’s weird that I want to know. Is it?”

“Do you think he and Jackson…talk about me? Mer and I let you two have your dick measuring contests because it benefited us, but Jackson’s not the kiss-and-tell type. Not that you are! Just, there are kisses he’s literally kept secret. He didn’t tell his family he was applying for med school. He kept his grandfather’s name secret here. You wonder sometimes, you…. You know. She didn’t see that as a secret! I’m gonna shut my mouth.”

For most of their lives, Derek would’ve described Mark as unfailingly honest. Sure, he was aware that he sometimes went out long past Derek’s curfew, sometimes with the rougher guys in the neighborhood, sometimes with the sons of his parents’ friends. But if he’d asked for details, Mark would’ve shared them. For most of high school, his sex life had been vicarious—other guys in the locker room exaggerated or made up their conquests, but Mark never bothered.

He’d been honest, too.

He’d tried to be.

On 9/11, he’d had privileges at hospitals all over the city, and he’d stayed safely in his glass-walled office on the Upper East Side. They’d been in practice for barely a year, and he’d begun to doubt that it was what he wanted. He’d become a neurosurgeon to save lives, to prevent accidents like Mike’s from ruining lives. It’d been his path toward becoming a hero, and on the day his city desperately needed those, he hadn’t been anywhere near it.

The chances that having taken that attending position at Manhattan General, or the one at New York Pres would’ve put him in a position to be treating survivors were low. At the start of it all, when they’d all expected streams of injuries, he’d run down to the E.R. at Lenox Hill, figuring that they were marginally more likely to be swamped than Mt. Sinai higher up.

The last civilians able to evacuate had stepped out of the South Tower minutes before collapse. Some of them would go to the few overworked E.Rs nearby; ambulatory casualties would continue a few blocks to a hospital treating stragglers who’d cleared the collapse zone before 10:38.

There wouldn’t be enough to flood uptown hospitals with anything more than blood donors. Derek had given blood, and then rounded on patients he’d had staying there. He’d still made it back to the office by noon.

The casualty numbers were blessedly low compared to what they would’ve been if the planes had hit an hour later. The heroes had been the ones who gave their lives getting as many people out as possible. They’d known, unlike the majority of catastrophes Derek had worked in the succeeding years, where uninjured survivors and uninvolved loved ones who rushed to the hospital were able to find their loved one in a hospital bed—where, after the damned ferry boat crash, there’d actually been a patient who didn’t know who she was—the people who could get out would live. Those who were stuck, either above the floors destroyed by the planes, or due to damage, stuck elevators, or, in several, awful cases, their own disabilities, would die.

The relative youth of the people who had already made it to their desks that morning meant that there had been a number of pregnant women in distress. One of Addie’s high-risk moms had gone into labor, seeing the attack on her cousin’s workplace at home, so he’d ended up making his way to his mother’s house. Unsurprisingly, Kath, Liz, and their families were already there.

It was strange to know now that at the far end of the island, his future wife’s mother was being ushered onto a boat to Brooklyn. A Teddy Altman who hadn’t met Owen Hunt had been facing a life-changing loss. It wasn’t unusual to find out someone had lived in New York at some point, but it always made him wonder if their paths had crossed before they were ready to merge.

He’d still been on a three-lane road, then, and he’d never expected it to split. (Had he wanted to to?)

“What was that about?” Mark demanded, once Sofia’s door had been closed. He started to yank the fridge open, and caught himself a second before bending his elbow. Derek heard the ghost of the rattling bottles anyway. Mark held up a beer. “Want one?”

Derek held up a hand in refusal. “Nothing.”

“You were all glum and broody in the presence of a baby who’s pure brown sugar: sweet, but also…wholesome. Homey. Makes oatmeal into something cozy.”

“You don’t like oatmeal.”

“I do when it has brown sugar in it! And strawberries. Can’t be runny. Maybe a little cinnamon for the spice— What?”

Derek shook his head, and put his hands over his face. It did nothing to hide that he was doubled over with laughter.

“Mark Sloan is waxing poetic about oatmeal. How did you end up…? I didn’t count Sloan, you know? You…didn’t get to be her dad, which sucks, in retrospect. At the time you still thought babies gave you warts.”

“I was five when I said that! I mixed toads up with goblins.”

“You called my baby sister a goblin and a toad, then!” That’d been the first time he’d ever hit Mark, which was incredibly ironic when you considered that he was the last person Amelia would ever need to be protected from. “You stepped up with Sloan. Did a better job as her father than Mer’s for sure.

“She was bitterly jealous of Callie last year. I was just happy for you. But now…. Sofia came home before her due date. She’s cluster feeding, and I’m afraid some psycho is taking her issues out on my baby, who wouldn’t be in danger of that if not for me. Every day is a day we’re not getting—”

“Which reeks. And what? You can’t handle being jealous of me for once?” Mark shook his head, and threw his arm over the back of his chair, knowing that the casual stance would grind Derek’s gears.

“For once? For…?” Derek gaped at him. He couldn’t be serious. “Try for our entire lives!”

“Bullshit. I had Dad’s card, but—”

“The money had fuck all to do with it. You weren’t beholden to anyone. You got to basically be parented by my folks without having to work in the store, or babysit for free, or go to Gran’s every Sunday. You chose to let my mom ground you!”

“Exile!”

“You z to take ozff= to Paris for Christmas? Kathleen arranged to ship your presents. You could’ve stayed in Maine when I started med school, and gone to med school across the country without anyone shaming you for not being there for Amelia—”

“I’d have been pretty disappointed in myself.”

“I never had a choice. Even meeting Addison, it was such a textbook encounter, the timing was perfect…. But did I choose her? I’m not sure.

“You act all go-with-the-flow because things just…work out for you. You decided you were ready for it and poof: you have a family without having to settle down—”

“I lost Addison! And Lexie!”

“You let Addie go! Even I see that. Lexie….” He wasn’t going to bet against her coming up with some form of candle house, but he didn’t want to get Mark’s hopes up unnecessarily. He knew how awful that could be. “She was right for you three years ago, but a lot has changed.”

“That’s what you can’t stand. Letting people change.”

Derek’s knees were starting to hurt he was holding them so stiffly. He needed to get up, needed to get out of here. Mark didn’t get to laugh at him. Not with his precious baby girl safely in her crib ten feet away. Mark didn’t get it. He’d never had Derek’s obligations.

And he was here. Thirty-eight years as the one who bore the brunt of Derek’s shit with every chance to live a different life, and he was here.

“No,” he admitted, staring at his hands. “I can’t. Leaving New York felt like the first choice I made in my life. In a month, I started to become the person I’d wanted to be for…I don’t even know…and met the woman who fit perfectly into that life. I had the choice between that and what was ‘right’—I fucked it up. I hurt Addison, broke Meredith, destroyed myself. And I just keep doing it. So, yeah. That other people can face those moments and not make the same damn mistake over and over bugs the shit out of me.”

Mark stared at him for a moment, still sprawled in his chair, a finger set consideringly on his temple. Then, he leaned forward, clasping his hands and aiming both index fingers at Derek. “You’re afraid you made the wrong choice with Zola. That you moved too fast.”

On the phone call where he’d managed to explain what had happened with the trial to Mom, she’d said, “If your first reaction to something is to violently reject it, you need to consider it as carefully as something that you want to jump into whole-heartedly.”

He’d thought she must’ve forgotten that considering the whole-hearted jump had been what almost ruined his life—except by the moment in the scrub room, he’d jumped long before, if not at Joe’s the first night, when he n’t explained anything during their first real date.

He’d flaunted the rules for her. He’d known how deeply involved she got with patients from day one, and particularly with Mr. Levangie, who’d reminded her of her mother. She’d been in on the Chief’s secret surgery, a favor for Richard. Even with all of that, she’d sensed that he’d see switching the drugs differently, but she’d still been doing what he taught her to do.

“I felt certain. Like the day I met Meredith. She’s meant to be ours. I’ve felt it every minute since, but my feeling isn’t gonna matter if the judge decides that we’re unqualified based on that day. Meredith was living a nightmare, and I was too wrapped up in my tantrum to support her…. Maybe we should be judged for that—She’ll be affected by our worst days.”

“They’ll be better than the best days in an orphanage, or in care, or with an adoptive family who hasn’t been around for all of those surgeries,” Mark argued. “I have been crowing about Sofia, but a niece isn’t the same. For decades, I figured I’d be fine having the Flock. Out here I missed them, and I thought, hey, there’s only one solution, ‘cause I wasn’t sure Grey was into the goo-goo crew.”

“You’ve never seen her standing at the nursery window. All the masks, all the defenses—poof. In her eyes? Adoration, wonder? Sure. But mostly, longing. Just took time for her conscious mind to catch up.”

“Sounds like her.”

“So, you wanted a kid because you weren’t sure I’d give you a niece or nephew?”

“Nah. Kinda. Started that way, maybe. But having her. It’s nothing like baby-sitting the Flock, as much as I love ‘em.” Mark sat up again. “You’re going to get her back. I need you to start making the mistakes first, so I don’t look like such a dunce.”

“Ah, see, part of being beholden was that I studied for my med school exams while baby-sitting Carly, and was on the rota for spelling Kath and Reid with Stevie. You got to take Ally and Mack to the park. Same with the triples—the girls and I watched them, you took the potty-trained ones on adventures—but I am convinced all the diapering helped my surgical dexterity.”

“Wait ’til Grey’s up to her eyeballs in board prep, and Zola sneezes green goop.”

“You really want me to have to call you for advice, don’t you?”

“Oh, yeah.”

Their conversation didn’t go much further than that. It was probably a guy thing that any time they actually talked about stuff, it had to settle before things were normal again.

“I told Arizona that once Freddie’s discharged, I’m going to need a break from peds,” Meredith said in the car. “Almost going off on patients’ parents is not good, and I can’t promise ‘almost.’”

“I only ask for footage.”

“Sure. We’ll pretend brawling with a tiny human maker wouldn’t get me served with divorce papers.”

“Mer—”

“I’d be fired. Facing charges. Unless it’s like the time Alex yelled at the meth-head, but I’m me. It’d be something they said, and—”

“It’d have to be vile for you to actually do that.”

“Maybe. I feel like a wound-up rat trap some days. When I was doing the fertility meds, I read these blogs where women talked about resenting other people’s kids. Not just their fertility, the actual children. I already have a pretty low tolerance for other people’s kids, in general. Now, when they’re obnoxious, and I think about what I’d do differently, I get so pissed that they get to screw their kid up.”

“I know how you feel.”

“Really?”

“Mmhmm. My pediatric patient the other day was playing with blocks. His dad kept knocking his towers down, which you do if the kid thinks it’s funny, right? But this little guy had balance issues, so he was working hard to keep them straight. Hed looked so sad every time.”

“Asshole.”

“He didn’t mean to be. His other son—they’re twins—was laughing his head off at the whole thing.” He sighed. “In the scheme of things, it’s nothing. When I don’t know if Zola is picking up blocks yet, it’s everything.”

“Talking about her to the kids helps. When I sat with Freddie, I could tell him all about her love of Wub-a-Nubs without being judged for letting her use pacifiers, and having to explain it wasn’t my choice, and there are more important things…. We looked at pictures. He thinks she’s very ‘coot.’”

“Have a seat, Freddie.”

“Psh, she could take him herself.”

He grinned. There’s my girl.

“What I’m getting is that we can bitterly judge other people’s parenting together while we wait?”

“Oh, I’m pretty sure we’ll be doing that even more once she’s home. She’s going to have friends. They’ll have parents.”

“She has Sofia. One friend was always good enough for me. No one cares if a surgeon is socially stunted, and if she wants to be something else…. She can take classes at the Y. I never met the parents of anyone I played with there.”

Derek thought pictures of Dad coaching club teams starting with Kath’s little league team, and Mom taking on his Scouts group.

“That was an Ellis thing, wasn’t it?”

He stopped the car at the house and kissed her cheek. “Even your mother didn’t get everything wrong.”

“I know that,” she said. Then, when he didn’t immediately move to get out of the car, she looked up at him through her lashes, and admitted, “I’m…glad you came to the same conclusion.”

He tilted her chin up with a finger and kissed her lips, and then each fading purple mark around her eye. There were things he could say, about loving her meant learning to empathize with Ellis, but he didn’t. Ellis Grey was gone, as gone as the Towers. As gone as the life he’d had nine years ago. Zola, her friends, and their parents were in the future.

Tonight, they were just Meredith and Derek, and all that mattered was that they loved each other. How they’d gotten there, and where they were going didn’t affect that. He prayed that it never would.

Chapter Text

“Was there a seventy-two hour hold requirement for suicide attempts in 1983?” was not a question Derek could ask Richard. He could’ve found everything he needed in Ellis’s chart, but records that old were stored off-site.

He’d woken a thrashing Meredith around two, and she’d groggily admitted she’d been traveling between Boston and Seattle. “Sometimes I was an adult searching Logan for Mom, and then I’d be a little girl again, rooted to the spot, because there was a flight attendant nearby…well, not—it was the… an adult I knew from the hospital, dressed like one. I knew to tell an adult I was lost, but I was afraid. I was sure that they’d take me from her again. Then there was carousel music, and Mom telling me that I should’ve told a grown-up, because ‘lost people who don’t accept guidance will never find the right path.’ That was the usual response to ‘stop trying to control my life.’ I turned around, but she wasn’t there.”

“Again?”

“Hmm?”

“You said they’d take you from her again.”

She’d gone still. Caught and frozen. “They…They  wouldn’t let me follow her into the trauma room.”

“Didn’t she yell at them to get you out?”

“She…. Yeah, but ‘get her out of here’ weren’t new words. They were just louder than usual. I knew I could stay quiet, and they’d all forget about me until Mom was ready. Taking me into the hall.... I didn’t want her to forget me.”

That was true, but he didn’t think it was the whole truth. There’d been something else that had made what happened to Frances Bean Cobain resonate with her at fourteen.

He happened to have a fifth-year in the O.R. with him that day, at least. If it’d been Kepner, he wouldn’t consider it a benefir. Avery was better, but not by a lot. He wasn’t someone Meredith confided in. They’d crossed paths as kids, but she’d never been concerned about stories he could tell, like she’d been with Sadie. He did know she and Sadie had been more than friends, and he’d never gotten close to letting that slip. She hadn’t warned him off of Lexie, either, which meant she trusted him.

There was a chance there were other things he hadn’t revealed.

“Pituitary tumors were fundamental for Mark and me in New York,” he told Avery while he watched him threading the endoscope through the cut he’d made inside the patient’s nose. It was a simple observation, but it made him think about dinner at Callie and Arizona’s—more specifically what Meredith had said after it: that she’d been talking to her toddler patients about Zola.

She was more than two years older than Jackson. Had she seen him as a little kid who wouldn’t be listened to if she shared her secrets, or a peer who might understand the difficulty of living under Ellis’s thumb? She’d said it didn’t seem like Catherine recognized her, but as much as he hated to think it, maybe she just hadn’t made an impression on the adults.

JJackson, in spite of being embarrassed by her, was close to Catherine. Meredith and Lexie had started going out for ice cream on Sunday evenings whenever his and Jackson’s call home overlapped.

Derek had known that you could be close to your mom and not tell her everything since before Jackson was born. He’d hidden his pedigree here, and he’d hidden his surgical ambitions until he’d passed the MCAT. More proof that he could keep a secret.

(They’d both been the only child of a single female surgeon who’d been mentored by Harper Avery, and lived in Boston. announcing that they’d be continuing the legacy. He was sure Jackson hard been toasted. Meredith was raked over coals.)

“You think you’ll go back east next year?”

“Ha. Mom would love that, but Sloan’s arranging for an E.N.T. fellowship.”

“You’ll be doing this all the time to take marbles out of noses.” He’d always thought Mark had the better deal, being called in by his sisters whenever someone stuck something up their nose. They were usually kind of proud, and there was rarely pain involved. Being Uncle Is He/She Concussed? wasn’t fun for anyone involved. “You ever do that as a kid?”

“Stick something up my nose?” Avery asked. “Sure, once. Mom went on about how ashamed and humiliated she was that I didn’t want to show my face in the E.R.”

“Was that why you did it?”

“What?”

“Mer tried drawing ‘bruises’ on herself to get her mom paged at three. I know of one incident with a Lego. It didn’t work. They got it out, and Thatcher took her home without Ellis coming down.”

He had a theory that a lot of her carelessness with her body as a teen and young adult had to do wit n that association: Injured people get Mom’s attention.

“Geez. Nah, I was just four and bored. I almost ended up there again when I read about Egyptian embalmers taking the brain out through the nose—luckily we didn’t have a long enough q-tip.”

“For you to…prod your brain?”

“I figured it’d collect some gunk or something I could show off at school the next day. None of the doctors in my family are neurosurgeons.”

“If you touch more than the dura here, we’ve got a problem.”

“Yes sir,” Avery muttered. “Okay, the nose has been decongested. Dr. Sloan recommended a nasoseptal flap.”

Huh. It hadn’t occurred to Derek in a while, but doing that hadn’t been common before they’d left New York. In a way, they hadn’t actually performed the surgery that had been their bread and butter since everything changed.

“And what do you think?”

“That I should use it? It, uh, provides a better seal in the case of CSF leak and provides more visualization.”

“Okay.”

“Performing injections for sinonasal surgery.. Epi. Lidocaine.

“Strange,” Avery added. “To think of Grey putting a Lego up her nose. I remember her being…. You know Dr. Grey did her fellowship with my grandfather?”

“I do.”

“Set Bovie cautery to ten. Sphenoid is identified. Making first cut…. Well, he had them for dinner one weekend when I was over. I remember trying to get her to come play in my room, but she wouldn’t leave her mom’s side. She can’t have understood all the adults were saying, but she just took it in. She was…solemn.

“Next time I saw her must’ve been that year’s Harper Avery Awards, and she came back to where the kids had gathered in a corner—she started off really quiet, but when everyone there has the same sense of body humor it couldn’t last.—Cottle elevator—She made sure the littler ones got the jokes, even though she was keeping up with the nine- and ten-year-olds. She pulled my first loose tooth at a banquet a couple years later, so it’s not like she was incredibly well-behaved. But she’d always have an eye on her mom. Only had to hear her name once to fly to her side.”

“Going to those events were a privilege, wasn’t it?” He’d said it before he realized that might be another difference between the two. Meredith had been forbidden from going to dinners with her mom as a punishment at least once—“They were dull as hell sometimes, but it’s not like she was taking me on regular Mother-Daughter dates.”—At minimum, Jackson would’ve been required to go to anything with his grandfather’s name on the program, which probably included far more than just the annual award ceremony.

“Flap tucked under nasopharynx.

“Oh, speaking of privileges: I remember at that dinner at Grandpa’s—uh, should I remove the sella?”

“That’s the next step.”

“Yes, sir. Um. Yeah. Dinner at my grandfather’s. He was glad she’d decided to bring Meredith, since I was there—Mom must’ve been called in—and Grey—Meredith—said something like…’I’m sorry to impose. I was a holy terror to my babysitter, but I’ll be as good as a ghost here.’ That’s definite, because I told her ghosts weren’t good, and she said ‘they’re better than kids. They’re quiet, don’t eat, and can stay alone at home without anyone getting nosy.’ That night, I told Grandpa that I wished the holy terror had came over to play instead of the ghost.”

Derek huffed a laugh. “Careful what you wish for.”

“Sella bone is removed. Visual on the dura. Am I doing that, too?”

“Is there a reason you shouldn’t?”

“No. No sir.” Avery cracked his neck and then squared his shoulders.

‘You ever ask what she meant about people being nosy? Seems more like the issue would be a kid getting hurt or misbehaving on their own.”

“Yeah, not her I guess. Uh, a couple months ago…like, early July, she asaid something about not expecting to have to worry about visits from social workers again. She probably got left at home for half an hour or something, and the babysitter called in a complaint—There it is!”

“Excellent. Look around. Are any nearby structures invaded?”

“No? No. It looks exactly as predicted from the imaging.”

“Good. Take it out.”

“But you’re…I’m not a….”

“E.N.T.s frequently take out this kind of tumor independently. We’re lucky here to have the staff to support interdisciplinary work, but you need the skills.”

“Yes sir. All right. Um. Suction.”

Avery was methodical and careful with each cut; Derek would’ve known he’d been trained by Mark no matter what. His aim was  to do nothing unnecessarily, but that meant carefully weighing each action. Sometimes, it made Derek impatient; he’d allowed three hours for this procedure, and it shouldn’t take that long. Today, it gave him time to think.

That Meredith had gone through a clingy phase immediately following the move wasn’t new information. They’d joked about how many of her issues could be attributed to how little instruction she’d actually gotten in kindergarten. He understood. He’d gotten summer school after sixth grade because of the shooting, and seventh because he was the one who could coax Amelia down from the jungle gym, out of the janitor’s closet, or off the boys who’d decided to play cops and robbers in her earshot. Many times, he’d just take her home. But she’d had four siblings, a bevy of cousins, and friends at the park. She’d missed some lessons, but hadn’t needed kindergarten to socialize her, or teach her what her feelings were.

What was interesting was the conversation Jackson reported from this summer. He wouldn’t be surprised if the scenario he described was accurate. The house in Beacon Hill had been within walking distance of MGH. Early on, when she hadn’t had any kind of a network or clout, and the sitter was running fifteen minutes late, Ellis definitely would’ve left five-year-old Meredith alone in front of Sesame Street.

Except, five-year-old Meredith had been clingy, tantrum-throwing Meredith, so the baby-sitter might not have found the calm, obedient girl Ellis had left. That she’d caused the whole situation—and known it—explained Ellis taking Meredith along instead—for a while.

First grade, he’d heard, had been a quiet year. Literally. She’d been all but silent at school. Why, if her tantrums had stopped, she wasn’t getting in trouble, and Ellis wasn’t crying anymore? Was one secret enough for a newly six-year-old, who was starting to believe that Mommy would come home if she left, and to trust her teachers? He could see ‘they’ll take you away from me,’ being a terrifying threat for a child with one constant in her life, but it seemed too abstract—

‘Dr. Shepherd? I-I think I have a CFS leak.”

Derek blinked, looking at the monitor. “You think? How do you confirm?” He made eye contact with Knox, who started to move, staying out of Avery’s view until he suddenly said, “Valsalva maneuver. Dr. Knox?”

“Squeezing the reservoir bag now.”

“What’s the most likely cause of a CSF leak in this case?” Derek asked.

“Uh. Patient has a history of radiation.”

“Good.” Derek kept watching the screen. The VM improved visibility of the tumor, and he might recommend repeating it to allow Avery to finish if—

“CSF leak confirmed,” Avery announced, sounding defeated. “Suction.”

“That’s okay. Next—? Wait, what are you doing?”

Avery froze, halfway through handing off his instruments. “Letting you take over.”

“What’s the next step?”

“Finish resecting the tumor, and evaluate the leak.”

“Do it. What’s your best bet for a fix?”

“It, um…maybe I just think this because I did it, but it looked large—”

“You didn’t do it. The tumor, the radiation, that did it. You’re fixing it. How, if it’s large?”

“Perform a fat graft.”

“Describe that to me.”

He listened to Avery confidently explain taking autologous fat from the abdomen, forming it into a dumbbell shape, and inserting it.

“…and cover with, uh, fibrin glue and Gelform. Reconstruct the sellar, floor the dura with an artificial patch and septal cartilage. Oh! More fat goes in the sphenoid sinus, along with a collegen sponge. Then the flap is secured—”

“You did your homework. Time to take the test. I’ll finish resecting the tumor while you harvest fat for the graft. Then, it’s back to you.”

“Works for me. I’m not planning to be working at any hospital without a neurosurgeon on staff.”

Derek rolled his eyes to himself. Never mind that when he’d first planned this surgery, he’d expected to have Meredith resecting the tumor while Jackson opened and closed. A perfect opportunity to get them used to working together, the way they would in the future.

Would have.

That afternoon, he caught sight of Cristina coming out of a supply closet fixing her shirt. Knowing exactly what was going on, he called out, “Dr. Yang!” in his most jovial tone.

She jumped halfway to the ceiling, and whirled on him, her eyes going to the door she’d closed. Hunt was still in there. Derek considered leaning against it, just to see what would happen.

Instead, he said, “Walk with me.”

“Do you have a surgery that a second-year could also do? Altman ran out.”

“Sorry, all I have left today are follow-ups. No, I have a question. You don’t have to….I’m not asking you to tell any secrets, just…. Social workers were Meredith’s bogeymen. Fair?”

“Yeah. Except….”

“They caught her,” he concluded.

“I didn’t tell you that.”

“Understood,” he said. “This conversation didn’t happen.”

“Understood,” she repeated. At the next juncture, they went in opposite directions.

All of his sisters hated guns. Only he and Amelia had stayed in the basement wearing headphones on the Fourth of July. The others would roll their eyes, and say, “Daddy loved fireworks!” and once “Daddy fought in a war, and he wasn’t afraid of fireworks.” (Mom had overheard that one, and Liz had spent the next four weekends volunteering at the VA).

Meredith must’ve been put in care between Ellis’s “suicide” attempt and the move. It explained a lot. If he just knew what to do with his conclusions, that would be great.

Late that afternoon, he went to Mark’s office to talk about his experience with Avery, but he couldn’t focus. Eventually, he blurted out, “Did you ever worry about CPS showing up when you were a kid?”

“In the seventies? With a surgeon for a dad?”

“Ah. Yeah. Right.”

“They probably should’ve. And not just for the shit Pops pulled with the belt.”

Derek scowled down at the black screen of his phone. His parents had rarely put hands on them—there was a story about Nancy’s biting phase ending with Mom biting her back, but he wasn’t sure how true it was.

Dr. Sloan hardly gave a shit about his son, but when he was drinking, angry about a case, about politics, even at his wife, whom he bragged about not hitting, he’d find an excuse to take it out on his son. Derek had heard Mom and Dad talking about it one night, after Mom had made Mark show her a welt. What they’d settled on, according to Kath, who’d been sitting on the stairs beside him, was that interference was unlikely to do anything except make the Sloans suspicious.

“They’re basically his foster parents, anyway, Derry,” Kath had reassured him. He’d accepted that, because Kath knew things. Mom had walked Mark home pretty soon after that and had a talk with Dr. Sloan “as a nurse” about Mark’s “injuries.” He’d eased up, or maybe they’d just sent Mark to the Shepherds’ more often.

What would they do if one day Zola had a friend who fell down the stairs too frequently? They were mandatory reporters. (They’d need to keep their fostering license up-to-date. God knew, their kid would learn to pick up strays somehow.)

Even after that, the occasional lashing out lasted until Mark started high school on varsity hockey and football, and caught Dr. Sloan’s wrist the first time he tried to swing a belt at him.

“They’d have a better case with the neglect stuff, but back then it would’ve taken being raised by roaches in a crackhouse.”

“You think?”

Mark leaned back in his chair, and put his hands behind his head. “Thirty to twenty forty percent of what we did to entertain ourselves would be child endangerment. In terms of the ‘behind closed doors’ shit, Mrs. Bellemonde left at five. Didn’t matter if Mom was out shopping, or schmoozing, or whatever she did. There were plenty of times when she’d meet Pops at the office, and they’d go straight to the Met. Occasionally Mrs. B. would realize it was gonna be one of those nights and pop chicken nuggets into the oven, but as we all knew—

“‘No pay raise would entice her to raise another child,’” Derek quoted with him.

“It’s a good thing Mom respected her,” Mark observed. “Letty Sloan had her positive qualities. Still probably should’ve found a housekeeper who’d at least chase a four-year old who snuck out the front door.”

“Her job was ‘to clean up your messes, not to stop you from causing them.’”

“God, I’d forgotten that one. What a lady. Before your folks took me in, if they weren’t around, or I didn’t want to go home, I’d just attach myself to some group of kids going home to eat. Most of the moms would feed whomever showed up, you know? Meanwhile, I never once came home to find Mom in a state because she’d made a lunch I wasn’t around to eat. She and Dad would just sit down, and if I wasn’t there, tough.”

Derek rarely thought at least Ellis Grey…, but be it via take-out, the hospital cafeteria, or microwaved meals, she had kept Meredith fed regularly enough that the exceptions were notable. Usually, they involved having made plans that kept Meredith from giving up and making popcorn. Both she and Mark had been subjected to out-of-sight, out-of-mind parenting, but for Ellis the mindset stayed at the hospital. Mostly.

“Those jet-setting weekends with the parents of the girls they’d eventually try to set me up with started about second grade—probably because nine times out of ten I could stay with you. If I couldn’t, it’d be up to me to find someone else. They’d only confirm if the mom or Mr. Wozniak called for details. They’d leave cash on the table, and that was it.”

Derek had known all of this, once, even what belonged to the time before he met Mark. The one thing Dr. Sloan did was ensure that Mark was in sports—he’d even show up to games, if he could. Derek was glad that was his way of making it look like he gave a shit, otherwise he might not have crossed paths with the smart-mouthed little kid.

“I could get out of my room and down the fire escape to walk around the block at eight or nine. Same age I picked the liquor cabinet lock. Luckily, I still had a kid’s palette, and thought everything in there was gross. And, you know, didn’t wanna make your dad disappointed in me. He never had to say anything. It was just….”

“The look.”

“I can’t imagine being disappointed in Sofia that way. She’ll sneak one of the cigarettes Robbins thinks she’s hidden, and I’ll be impressed at her for lighting it.”

“If she’s really yours, she’ll find a way to make it Zola’s fault.”

“Zo’s going to be taller, so it’ll be her fingerprints on anything up high. That’s a trick she’ll learn from Short Uncle Derek.”

“I was taller than you for fifteen years.”

“Thirteen, man, I wasn’t born until you were two.”

“And I was still taller!”

“Your old man’s trying to bang our heads together from the Great Beyond.”

“I hated when he did that. You and your buzz cuts with that unnaturally hard skull.”

“‘Keep carping about it, and I’ll do it again!’” Mark mimicked. “I hope my kid hangs onto half of what I say the way we listened to him. I can’t tell you how many times I was on the brink of doing something stupid, and I’d hear him say, ‘Markie, will this make tomorrow better than today?’ or ‘If you get caught, will any of this be worth it?’ Sometimes I got it wrong, but all the advice I had from Pops was, ‘Call me from a police station, and you’re never coming home,’ and ‘if you ever get a girl in trouble, it’s your job to fix it.’”

Derek tapped his pen to his mouth. He’d never really put it all together. Mark had started getting in trouble around eleven. Nothing serious, usually being picked up with older boys tagging or drinking at the park. Derek had understood it would’ve been different if their house hadn’t become a place of turmoil, but doing anything about it had been one responsibility too many for a thirteen-year-old. Ultimately, Mark had been his friend, not his little brother.

Eventually, things settled into a strange new form of normal. If Derek hadn’t had the increased freedom that came from Mom working more, Mark might’ve gotten as bored with him as he’d gotten alone in the apartment. At that age, they’d just wander around the neighborhood. Eventually, they graduated to sneaking out purposefully for concerts. Mark also got his homework done, and had Carolyn Shepherd’s eye on him when she asked, “And what have you been up to?”

He’d sometimes show up at school talking about a fight he’d seen on the other side of Manhattan, or casually mention a “crazy rad party” thrown by the equally unsupervised children of his parents’ circle. He’d have taken Derek along if he’d asked, and he would’ve felt extremely out-of-place. He told himself they’d all be snobs, anyway. Mark only went for the entertainment value. Twenty years later, he’d been proven right, but he’d been hosting the parties.

“Why the question? Once Zola’s back with you, you won’t have anything to worry about.”

“It’s not—” Derek’s phone buzzed, and he stood up after glancing at the text. “Gotta go.”

“What, you have a hot date?”

“Actually, yeah. With my wife.”

He wanted to ask her about what he thought he’d put together, but he couldn’t think of a reason to, other than talking about it might make the bogeyman stop chasing her in her nightmares. (If “it was the…an adult I knew from the hospital,” hadn’t been a social worker, he’d give up his claim to being fluent in Meredith.) Even if he could, he wasn’t going to confront her tonight. They were going to go somewhere she could get a steak as big as her head, with a basket of carbs on the table, and not talk about work or Zola.

He was as excited as he’d been sneaking his bike out of the house at sixteen, with a plan that would lead to adventure, and land him back in a familiar bed by morning.

A Meredith who was sixteen in 1982 Manhattan would’ve found trouble several layers deeper than he’d known existed. He liked to think he would’ve been enchanted enough to follow in her wake. It was also easy to imagine her and Mark making eye contact and laughing at how sheltered he was. He’d always believed that sticking close to the line, even if you crossed over it, would pay off in the end.

Afraid of losing her mother, Meredith had called 911, and been taken from her. That she’d continued to prioritize what she felt was right took an incredible force of will. In a fair world, he’d have understood that from the start.

Deep down, he worried that he had, and he’d been as jealous of her audacity as he’d have been if faced with a sixteen-year-old girl with pink hair, who was willing to embrace everything the city that never sleeps had to offer.

Chapter Text

The buzz of her phone made Meredith scream; not just yelp or startle like a freaking skittish kitten seeing something new. She screamed and leapt halfway off her chair..Thank fuck..She flipped the phone over, and scowled at the name on the screen. She hated having another reason to be grateful to Alex. The message below it was the familiar gibberish of a drunk text, and didn’t need much of a reply. After jabbing the lock button, she did all she could to keep her eyes unfocused while she closed out of the tabs she’d had open. The last thing she needed was to open the laptop tomorrow and get sucked back into that hole. After a moment’s pause, she went in and deleted the night’s browsing history.

“The blows had severed her intestine from its connection to her stomach….”

The warm light in the study felt wrong as she blinked into reality; like she’d been dropped into a scene that seemed real, but would turn into a dream she couldn’t escape. With the computer safely shut, she gave into the magnetic tug of the bottle on the sideboard. The aftertaste of her first shots was long gone, replaced by the burn of bile that had leapt into the back of her throat without warning..With a shaking hand, she reached for the shot glass with the Kenmore Square Citgo sign that Lexie had given her last Christmas..“…a ten-month-old girl, was hospitalized with fractures in all four of her limbs.”

It slipped from grasp.

The glass landed on the carpet. Thinking it’d survived, Meredith went to pick it up, and watched blood pool on the pad of her finger. Popping it in her mouth, she knelt, and discovered that nicking the table on the way down had taken a sharp wedge out of the glass. She picked up the main piece by the base. Underneath it lay the guitar-pick sized chip. With the caution borne of a respect for sharps, she picked it up, holding it to the gap. It seemed to be a clean break.

Putting her bare palm down on the carpet to ensure there were no microscopic pieces that would embed themselves in an unassuming person’s foot was an action she couldn’t justify. Nothing pricked her skin. She stared at the wedge. The sharp end made her think of a diamond. That was her birthstone; something she’d always found incongruous..She picked up the piece of glass between her thumb and uninjured index finger. It made no sense to touch the point to her arm, but she did. Then, she placed it into the other piece of the glass, and dropped the whole thing in the trash-can by the desk, along with the wrapper from the band-aid she found in a drawer.

Muscle memory allowed her to pour a double directly into her mouth. Any other night, that pull would’ve been the last. It should’ve been. Giving herself permission to take another was a slippery slope.

“…three-week-old molested by fourteen-year-old foster brother….”

She couldn’t go to bed like this; couldn’t close her eyes without seeing the images, and hearing voiceovers from YouTube videos. “Was he poisoned by his foster mother?”.“…the family’s license to foster was not revoked….”.“…slammed the girl's head into the bathtub …using belts and an electrical cord to discipline the toddler….”.She sank onto the sofa, her hands clasped over the back of her neck. Dakota…Nubia…Jaliek…. Zola, Zola, Zola. She was a baby, she’d be scared, she’d cry, she shouldn’t learn to be quiet..Meredith had treated survivors of child abuse, but there was another level of heartlessness in someone voluntarily taking in children who’d faced abandonment, and often some form of abuse, and offering them anything but a safe haven. Those that didn’t were why neighbors, and friends, and even kids, could see the bruises left by a parent with no anger management skills and say, “It could be worse.”

“…cigarette burns….”.“…six-month-old, unresponsive with a skull fracture.”

“…three babies alone in an unlocked house….”

“…liver laceration….”

It’d been almost irritating that Sadie had become the one to moonlight in a morgue. She’d say “I’m fascinated by Death,” only for the double-meaning; Meredith had been the true weirdo of the duo. She’d been Death as a macabre middle schooler, who’d reacted with enough interest to Mom saying, “if your attitude doesn’t improve, you’ll only be fit to work with the dead,” that she hadn’t used the threat twice. Through high school, been an undercover creep, as fascinated by bodies and a certain amount of gore as she’d been as a kid doing disturbing Show and Tells..The internet had been a different place in those days. Simpler in design, more complex, less controlled. It hadn’t been difficult to find the twenty-first century equivalents to the sites she’d trawled in the late nineties while telling herself a doctor needed to be desensitized to death.

That wasn’t true. The cadavers they spent a year deconstructing was as close to lifelike as an embalmer could make them. The trend had been to personalize them, where once the opposite had been true..Corpses were different. Corpses were broken beyond repair, with all of the systems a doctor understood permanently stopped. Lividity, rigor, decay—no doctor could be faulted for being disturbed by these processes. They were not the work of the body; they happened to the body. A doctor responded to human life..She’d despised the type of death-obsessed teenager who made dead babies jokes, or searched for Victorian death portraits. Forensics definitely weren’t her thing. But Meredith had watched her mother nearly die at the age of five; she’d spent her life knowing everyone was a future corpse.  What had made her dig deeper into the stories she’d read was a twisted form of preparation, but not only that. It was bearing witness..(This wasn’t her first time revisiting the Early Death Era. She’d made herself look at every image she could find of William Dunn’s victims, made sure they were as real to her as he was.)

The articles she’d found tonight read like the profiles of Dunn she’d looked up in the days between his discharge and the execution, but the perpetrators hadn’t been charming men who could blink the soul out of their eyes. They were people who were approved by the state to care for babies—babies like Zola.

“…bringing in $150,000….”

“…eleven-month-old girl….lived in seventeen homes.”

“…children were removed prior to the application to be foster care providers.”

She and Derek hadn’t been negligent. There were no questionable accidents, no ulterior motives. They’d had a disagreement, Derek had known he needed to step back, or he’d make it worse, and they’d figured it out. She’d been fired for a few hours, yeah, but there were places where one foster parent was required to be staying at home full time!

“…seeking to reverse the adoption.”

The bottle cap almost slipped out of her fingers as she tried to screw it on, a swallow later. If it had, she would’ve held the bottle’s neck vertical and let herself tip onto her side. With it secured, she stood up and put up the bottle. The lights were blurry. She kicked over one of her stacks of articles while crossing the room and left it, a waterfall of notes on family-friendly activities in the Seattle area. She’d pick it up tomorrow. She couldn’t look at smiling kids on swing-sets without wondering if they’d seen something dark already.

“…resembling victims of a famine….”

“…incinerated remains….”.Holding the bedroom doorknob, she took a breath, and shuddered, closing her eyes against a swell of dizziness. Images in high definition played behind her lids. The knotting in her stomach had ebbed over the past few weeks, but she knew her current queasiness wasn’t related to the tequila..“Mer?”

If Derek hadn’t said anything, she might’ve given into the roiling in her gut. He’d have been there with a cold washcloth, and a well-meaning question that made her snap, and then unwillingly let everything out.

Instead, he blinked blearily up at her silhouette, which would mask any pallor or green tinges. His lids were at half-mast, and if she curled into place against him, he might not remember this moment..She would..“…locked room with a bucket for a toilet….”

“…locked in a closet, bound with  a blanket and packing tape….”

She couldn’t sleep like this. She didn’t want to close her eyes. Her skin was buzzing but underneath that, she felt numb. She took another steadying breath, and then crossed the room. She kissed him while she climbed onto the bed, flinging the covers back in the process. When her crotch made contact with his partially swollen cock, his eyes opened fully. Her timing could’ve been worse.

“Hey,” he murmured, taking her arms to steady her while she started working off her sweats and underwear. “Did I miss Yang?”

Huh? Oh. The tequila. She couldn’t stop the laugh that came out high-pitched, and made the fingers idly gliding along her upper arm pause.

“No. No Cristina.” There were roads even Cristina wouldn’t let herself be dragged down. “Just me.” She pulled her shirt up over her tits and paused. “Is that a problem?”

His laugh was familiar, and came with a leer. “Put it this way, if I’m still asleep, this is the best damn dream I’ve had in a while.”

“Take your shirt off.”

He raised an eyebrow and complied while she flung hers to the other side of the bed. No longer having the fabric against her skin, or even the minimal weight of it, was a relief.

She kissed him, and then moved her mouth down inch by inch until she got to a nipple. He drew in a quick breath as he realized what she was going to do, like a patient expecting a needle stick. She closed her lips around it, positioned the edges of her teeth, and abruptly plucked a couple of chest hairs on the other side.

“Ack!”

She looked up at him with her chin on her arm “Not dreaming?”

“Apparently not. Minx.”

She kissed him about where she’d pulled, and pushed herself up again.

“Pull your pants down,” she instructed. She reached over to the sex drawer for the lube. Waiting for her body to get its shit together wasn’t going to work in her favor.

She’d given Derek very little room to maneuver, and as soon as his cock was free it rubbed against her. She sat back on her heels, and grabbed him, spreading lube and pre-cum along his shaft.

“Grab the headboard. Don’t let go until I tell you to.

“Yes, ma’am.” Amusement lingered in his voice. It always took him time to adjust to not being in charge. And, no longer her boss or not, she hadn’t been pushing the power dynamic much. A month had passed since Zola left the hospital, and sometimes when he got quiet, she’d turn expecting to see that disgusted glower. When you were shaped by people who didn’t need a reason to be combative it could be difficult to adapt to someone who did.

She needed to be in control, and she wasn’t sure he was ready for that..He loved her being bossy, independent, even dominant. It’d been part of their push and pull, an equalizer when he had been her boss at work..He thought he’d made her leash too long; that she lacked respect for rules and hierarchy. He might think she was flaunting it.

That was a risk she’d have to take. She needed to determine when he touched her, and where. To push away the words and images making her want to gouge out her eyeballs; not because they’d captured the light her brain identified as images and words, but because that pain might overpower this one.

She didn’t waste time before sheathing him, sinking as far down as she could. She let him catch his breath before splaying her hands on his chest and propelling herself back and forth. Her clit found his pelvic bone, giving her body incentive to find a new use for the adrenaline it had built up. The amount of immediate sensation was overwhelming, miraculously so, and she closed her eyes. That came with immediate regret; she pressed her lips together to muffle a shriek that was mostly frustration.

“Mer, what’s—?”

She swooped down on him so quickly that she could feel the air from his next words against the roof of her mouth. She lifted up as she kissed him, pressing her clit harder against him, but keeping her movements small made up for that. After a minute or so, she pushed up again. This time, she moaned as she dragged her clit slowly over his pelvic bone..Every jolt of pleasure awakened the nerves somewhere elsein her body, slowly breaking through the numbness. Under that were the feelings she’d been blocking out. She rocked faster, trying to fill the void with something else, something good.

“…found doused with chemicals, was covered in burns and was convulsing….”

“Mer….”

“…decomposing in a garbage bag thrown into the back of a pick-up truck.”

 “Baby, I’m--”

“Not yet.”.Without a thought toward the pros and cons of it, she slapped the outside of his thigh, hard enough to make it momentarily red, but not to do more than sting.

“JEEZ-us, fuck! I could punt you, you know.”

It wasn’t a threat. It was a reassurance. He could overpower her, but he wouldn’t. Not unless she lost herself..She needed him. Needed his warmth, the pressure, the connection to something real. Something good in a world that wasn’t just unfair, or messed up, but despicable.

“…three-year-old…also a foster child…fifteen-year-old girl… suffocated…menstrual blood…cross on his forehead….fetal alcohol effects… mental problems…”

It wasn’t right. Nothing in the world was right—except for the warmth coursing through her body, so different from the heat of fury she felt on behalf of every child whose name she’d seen. Victor, Andrew, Jasmine, Dion. Kids whose parents were trying. Whose adoptions were in progress. Who didn’t have their siblings with them. Who did. Who’d have grown up to create the families they’d never had..Derek’s arm muscles were straining from his knuckles, white around the slat in the headboard, down.

“Something trigger…Feral Meredith?” he gasped, taunting her. His hips bucked, but there was nowhere for him to go in this position. She arced her back at the pressure. Her clit was mashed against him, almost painfully, reacting to every movement either of them made..She’d made her family. She was safe. But her baby…..“DHS officials attempted to link the ten-month-old’s seven fractures spread across all four of her limbs to nonexistent brittle bone disease….”

Nothing made sense. Nothing was certain, or fair, or just.

“Look at me.”

He’d only closed his eyes a second earlier, a blatant tell. She didn’t worry about what she’d see in them. He could be mad at her. He could revert to hating her. They’d get through.

She reached between them, tugging on his balls, essentially using her fingers as a cockring. Derek groaned. He didn’t look like he hated her. Maybe like he wished he’d punted her, but she wasn’t an overzealous intern anymore. She could be desperate, Feral Meredith and be in control. But Feral Meredith was single-minded, focused only on relieving the tension that was currently holding her together..She couldn’t let go. Not yet. This was the only thing she could have that was purely good. That was honest. That made her sure that what they had, the connection, the love, the lightning, was unbreakable.

Her body had other ideas. She hadn’t told Derek not to move. She’d learned from interns; never give an order you weren’t sure they could follow. She wasn’t sure if it was voluntary or determined, feral Derek, but he knew how to work her..She carded her fingers through his chest hair, and she felt his anticipation. Instead of the yank he expected, she moved her hands up to his pecks, on either side of the scar from last summer. She hasn’t lost him then. Was that how she’d known she’d get him back in July?

She let herself slide almost fully off of him.and raised her ass so his thrusts would be counterproductive. His heart pounded under her hand, his lungs moved in quick jerks as he panted. The smugness was gone. Any thought of overpowering her had fled. Sometimes, he’d still be taunting her in this position, and she’d draw out her retaliation. Here, in the dark of barely-morning, he only trusted her. It was in his eyes, the slackness of his jaw. She buried one hand in his mussed, sweaty curls and put her mouth to his. How many times had they shared breath like this since the day he tried to force her heart to beat for him? She wasn’t the only one who’d been scared of what that really meant. Now, she understood the word that should’ve been used.

He bridged the distance to stop her from breaking the kiss. With her free hand on his cheek, her thumb gently holding his chin, she pulled his hair..“Jesus.”

She smiled, already stroking his scalp. “You wanted that.”.He might’ve convinced himself she’d fake him out again, but what would be gained from that? She’d have broken the kiss regardless.

“Can’t fool you.”

“You got your once,” she said. “I’ve had enough shame.”.She meant it cumulatively; being the one whispered about had hardly been new to her at Seattle Grace. It wasn’t until he tilted his head that she heard it differently. Before she could determine if she wanted to walk it back, he lowered his chin in a nod of acknowledgement.

She kissed him again, and he leaned into her hand, middle-of-the-night stubble prickling her fingertips. Tightening her grip on his hair again, she held his eyes. Their equally ragged breathing synced, and she felt certain that their hearts were thumping on the same beat.

“With me.”

He nodded again. Her nails were hardly more than stubs, but she dragged them along his chest while she uncurled herself.

She sat up on her knees and took his cock in hand, tracing one of the bulging veins with a finger to make him twitch.

“Meredith!”

Her head shot up; her heart suddenly threatening to pound through her ribs. Expecting a storm, she was met with clear blue—what of it she could see in the face of blown pupils. As she searched his face for shadows, his brows started to knit.

“…impact against a sharp surface…”

She lifted her hips again, and his expression lost any concern. He licked his lips, need radiating off his body.

She’d planned to take him in again slowly, but that would serve only if the goal was still to make him squirm. It wasn’t, and she didn’t want anything slowly..“Oh, yeah,” she moaned as he rubbed against her vaginal walls. Leaning forward compressed more of her clit, and she cried out again when she settled against him. The relief of friction brought something close to a howl to her lips..It took her a moment to notice that Derek’s quick breaths weren’t in line with his jerky thrusts..“Don’t laugh at me!”

“You’re gonna wake the house up.”

“Don’t care,” she said, both a declaration and an instruction. “Feels fucking incredible.”

“Yeah. You’re so tight, baby…you’re…. God…perfect.”

“We’re. We are.” She gasped, grinding against him. She was ready this time. Nothing was numb, not a nerve in her body, and she wanted to let the tension blast out of them. “Oh, oh fuck, there it is. Almost….” She grabbed onto his shoulders to propel herself while she moved her knees farther apart to chase the lit fuse. Her tits brushed against his chest.

“D’you wanna touch me, Derek?”

“Al—” He swallowed. “Always, sweetheart. Always.”

You said always.

Her cunt contracted; she saw him feel it, felt him clench, holding back because she’d told him to..“Let go…of the headboard,” she instructed, allowing it to live another day. He groaned and his hands came first to her face, holding her in place as he raised his head to kiss her, and then raked them through her hair..“Mmm, whatcha gonna do? Get me back?” she taunted. Please. Having her hair yanked while she—“Oh, Oh, Ohhhh, yes! It’s gonna—Der-Derek, h—hol—h-ho—oh, oh, help, fuck, fuck, yes, yes!”.Derek wrapped an arm around her shoulders and flattened the other against her tailbone before she watched his face transform. Her fingers curled as she tried to keep her reaction to feeling him shoot off inside her from being mistaken for anyone’s alarm, and pounded her fists against his shoulders. He held her, following the order she’d been trying to give. The nerves in her clit were screaming; she was screaming, rocking her pelvis in every direction. Something deep inside her demanding more, more, more, move, move, MOVE, until her straining, stretched muscles gave out, leaving her draped over Derek.

She tilted her head up to kiss the side of his jaw, and caressed his shoulder where her fist had fallen. “Okay?”

“You’ve got a real talent for understatement,”

“S’genetic.”mDerek laughed, and she went from drawing spirals on his skin with a finger to propping her chin on her arms. “Why’s it funny?” Her leg twitched. She lowered her forehead to her arms, relishing the vibrations in her cunt..Nerves firing later than the rest? Overstimulated enough that her breathing set them off? The answer was probably in her mind somewhere, but she wasn’t a nerve surgeon anymore. All she had to know is that it made clenching and stretching in response was fantastically satisfying.

Derek scratched her back lightly, smiling when she raised her head. “I’d believe your ‘I’m a genetic experiment’ theory if you turned out to have feline DNA in there.”

She batted the side of his face. “See this is the part when you can laugh at me.”

“It’s the part where you’re adorable. And your life would be easier if you were a pessimist. Or a nihilist.” He smoothed the hair on the back of her head, and kept combing his fingers through it. “Problem is, deep down you believe life means something, people are good, and you hope for things with all your heart—black as you claim it to be. You’re prepared for the worst, you claim to expect it, but the risks you take, the faith you have—you’re a Murphy’s Law accepting pragmatist from day to day, but deep down, under all the defense mechanisms you’ve developed to keep it from being shamed out of you, you’re a romantic.”

“‘Cuz’a you.” She’d let her head rest on her arms, and was seeing mostly his profile, but he shifted to find her eyes.

“Angel, you let me woo you with ferryboats and sappy speeches. And while you were recovering from the liver transplant, who brought your DVDs up here? You mock them, sure—defense mechanism—but for every Tim Burton, psycho-thriller, or Italian softcore porno, there’s a You’ve Got Mail, a Pretty in Pink. Chocolat, Casablanca. You don’t believe in the overwrought, sweeping musical romances, and you don’t need a happy ending, but they’re romantic. Even Labyrinth is a romance in its way.“

”Sarah picks her family over the Goblin King.”

“That’s not romantic?”

“I guess. She’s is, like, thirteen.”

“Point stands.” He let the hand in her hair settle against her scalp, and she glanced upward. “When I say all that…do you still want to run? Not consciously, just…is the instinct there?”

“Umm…. No. Not really. I like it. You knowin’ me.” He nodded, thoughtfully. “Why?”

“Hypothesis I’m working on. You need to get some sleep. It’s late—but not late enough to be early.”

“Tha’s the idea.” She yawned, which supported her claim nicely. “Should be sorry I woke you.”

“You absolutely should not. Fully willing participant. Will you be sorry if you don’t put on pants now?”

“Tired. You’re warm. Not goin’ in ’til eight.”

“That sounds like a suggestion.”

“If you want it to be.”

“We’ll see. I’m going in…five hours from now. Probably let you sleep.”.“‘Kay.”

Derek sat up enough to grab the bedding shoved to the foot of the bed, and she settled against him, her head staying on his chest.

“Your finger okay?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah. I…broke a shot glass. It’s cleaned up.”

“Ouch.”

“It’s not that bad.” With attention drawn to it, she could feel the pulsing heat of inflammation gathering under the band-aid. It was kind of a relief.

It was that simple. If she’d lied—given the only excuse she’d come up with: that she’d caught her finger on a staple, he’d have seen through it. There’d have been questions, specifically about what she thought she had to hide.

What did she think she had to hide?

“You should never be sorry for waking me up if you need something, no matter what it is.”

“Better if it’s sex.”

He sighed. “You didn’t just need sex. I had to build a deck to remember that no matter how much I want to be, I’m not always right, and I don’t know everything. You went from having everything handled to losing…a lot in a very short time. There’s so much up in the air. …. You needed to be in control, and…to know that I would let you…trust you.”

Why should I ever trust you?

He was right..He was wrong.

He had no idea—but he was right.

“I’ve given you mixed messages for a long time. I know that. All I can say is…I guess my promises…my words…they must feel pretty cheap to you.”

She pushed up to meet his eyes, “No!” The familiar tightness was building in her chest, making her heart feel like it was genuinely sinking..“Hey, it’s okay. I said it. It can be true, or not true to you.” He stroked her extended arm lightly. “That it freaked you out makes me think it’s kinda true, but it doesn’t matter. All I was going to say is that I’m trying to show you. To be…consistent. It’s not fair to you that suddenly context matters, because I can’t be everything I’m supposed to be for you. Especially since I’d been your teacher through everything..“I know,” he added, before she could interrupt. “We matter more. That doesn’t mean you can’t be confused, or doubtful, or…anything you feel..“I can say that for the rest of our lives, but you won’t believe it until I prove it. I can’t do that if you don’t give me a chance. Okay?” She nodded. “Okay, for tonight,” he determined. “Lie down. I didn’t mean to….” He took a breath, and when he spoke again his voice was even and quiet. He went back to stroking her hair. “I love that you’re bossy. True. I love your tiny, underestimated fists. True..“You can say things, and I’m going to come back. True. I don’t blame you for CPS taking Zola. True. I blame them.” His fingers went from her hairline around the back of her ear, “True. I need your perspective in my life, and I’m trying not to push back as much. I want Zola to have more of your flexibility than my rigidity. You can be challenging, but bring with you is far more rewarding. True. True. True.”

He went quiet, and she started to drift. The stories she’d absorbed over the course of the night were all there in the front of her mind, as vivid as a day’s patients, or the chapter of a textbook the day of the exam. She didn’t think they’d fall into the depths of long-term memory easily. What she could recall was already different; the image of the articles themselves saved inside her mind, when usually she only got the details, or in the case of something important, the words. This seemed more like how Lexie remembered things: exactly as she’d seen them.

The pictures popping up behind her eyes would always be horrific, but she didn’t feel at risk of losing her mind completely if she didn’t disconnect. Alex had managed to pull her out in time completely accidentally. She had no doubt someone would’ve found her sitting there blankly in the morning, otherwise..What do you call something that keeps breaking down? A lemon.

She hadn’t, though. Not in a while. At the beginning of September, she’d taken a forty-eight that spat her out on the morning of the third, and dove into party planning lest the wave of the weekend sweep her out to sea. She’d had…moments of panic since then, obviously, but those didn’t count. They were nothing compared to what Cristina went through last year..If her brain would stop presenting her with its own Photoshopped creations where Zola had been subjected to the horrors reporters listed off so matter-of-factly, that would help. She was trained to look at injuries and determine exactly how much damage they’d done, and she’d taken enough histories to be able to imagine how they’d been inflicted. Not knowing what her foster parents looked like made her mind try to insert Janet as the perpetrator in the flashes she got, and she didn’t deserve that.

Derek’s hand stilled, but he wasn’t asleep. She considered opening her eyes to investigate. She wasn’t sure if she found them too heavy or decided not to try. The end result was the same..“There are things you won’t talk to me about. You don’t have to. If you’re not ready…that’s okay. Just…I’m here. You don’t have to carry anything alone.”

He was right..He was wrong..He had no idea—but he was right. It was hard not to imagine those promises were as solid as scribbles on strips of paper to which he’d taken a match. Only the Post-it had been protected.

She tried to picture his words, to force them to crowd the front of her mind.

I love that you’re bossy. True.

I love your tiny, underestimated fists. True.

ou can say things, and I’m going to come back. True.

I don’t blame you for CPS taking Zola.

True. For now. But if something happened to her? It wouldn’t matter if he blamed her, she’d never stop hating herself.