Searching for a Seattle Sky (8/10)
Title: Searching for a Seattle Sky
Author: chicleeblair
Rating: PG
Summary: During the turmoil of trying for a baby, adopting Zola and nearly tearing apart her marriage, Meredith forgot her fears about becoming a mother. Now she remembers, and Lexie’s the only one who can help rid her of them for good.
Pairings: Meredith/Derek, Mark/Lexie
Thanks literary_critic to for beta, waltzmatildah for the fanmix and onlywordsnow for the fanart!
Written for the Big Bang at ga_fanfic
Fanmix:
Fan Art:
Nothing good can last. This was what kept repeating itself in Meredith’s brain while she dashed from the ER drop-off through the automatic doors and then bypassed the nurse’s station. Zola’s stuffed frog tapped her side with every step, since it hung limply from one of the baby’s tiny hands. Zola had stopped crying, but her body shuddered against Meredith’s chest every time she inhaled, and her cheeks were tear-stained.
The bustling ER usually seemed efficient to Meredith, a controlled level of chaos. Now she saw it how the patients must, as an overwhelming mess, where no one seemed to see the important things, like a woman and child standing in the middle of the floor, desperately searching for help.
“Mer?” She whirled around, and Zola grabbed her shirt tightly, her tiny fingernails clawing at the skin underneath the fabric. Lexie had approached them, her head tilted curiously, someone else’s chart tucked under one arm. “Couldn’t stay away? Hi Zola! Oh, what’s wrong sweetie?” Zola had begun to whimper again. Lexie put a hand on her arm, and her eyes widened. “She’s burning up.”
“No sh-.” Meredith bit her tongue, telling herself to breathe. How many times had she told parents that panicking wouldn’t help their children at all? “I know. That’s why we’re here. Dr. Robbins is on her way down. I should have called an actual pediatrician, but we don’t have one of those. We were so unprepared for this. She deserves so much better.”
“Meredith!”
She raised her eyes, and shifted Zola so the baby could put her head on her shoulder. Lexie’s tone was sharper than she’d ever heard it. “What?” She flicked her eyes to the other side of the ER, hoping to see Dr. Robbins skidding around the corner at any second.
“Don’t you say that! If it weren’t for you, Zola’d still be stuck in that hospital bed, or she’d be back at an orphanage without the kind of medical care she can get here. More than that, she wouldn’t be as loved as she is now.”
“Love isn’t going to help break her fever.”
“You’d be surprised.” Meredith lunged toward the voice, holding Zola out, but then drew her back in once she saw who’d spoken.
“You. This is your fault. She should have been here, being monitored.”
Alex rolled his eyes. “She’s a kid. They get sick. Let me look at her.”
She clutched Zola to her chest. “I paged Robbins.”
“She’s in surgery. You got me. Do you want me to go away?”
Meredith took a deep breath, which was incredibly difficult when each one of Zola’s whimpers made her chest contract. “No,” she said. “I didn’t want you to go away.”
Alex glanced at her sharply, catching the tense shift, but before he could say anything Zola began to cry again. Meredith held her out, biting her tongue to keep the words fix her from coming out. Not, she thought in the way the physical therapist meant.
“This way,” Alex jerked his head toward a cubicle, and his coat swirled around him. God, he acted like some kind of cocky vigilante. With bitterness still swimming in her veins, she could see why people hated him, but if he made Zola better she promised she’d try to ignore that part in future.
“I’ll start a chart,” Lexie offered, but Meredith barely heard her. Instinctually, she slid onto the gurney herself to settle Zola in her lap. Alex shook his head, and Meredith reluctantly got down and put Zola down on the gurney. As she’d predicted would happen, Zola began to scream. Heads in the ER turned, and she knew people wondered what she’d done to this beautiful baby.
“What’s she presenting with?”
“High fever, irritability. She’s slept a lot today, too. I thought she was teething, but nothing helped, not the frozen teething rings or anything. She’s doing it even when I hold her and-.”
Alex held up a hand, and began to run his hands over Zola, under her bright pink t-shirt. Meredith hadn’t seen him touch anyone this gently since Izzie. Zola wasn’t soothed. She grabbed his thumbs, trying to push him away. “I want to get an IV started before we do anything. Mer, can you calm her down?”
The familiar way he said her name made Meredith’s mind swirl. She wanted Robbins, who’d known how to soothe Zola when she didn’t. And wasn’t Alex, like, the hospital baby-magnet? But if Robbins were here, she’d have to do her job, like Alex did. Now Meredith’s job was to be the mother, and this would be a test of that-one more challenging than even her intern exam. She leaned down to Zola.
“Hey Zo, I know this sucks. But Doctor Karev made you all better before this and he’s going to do it again.” She shot a look at Alex, hoping it said don’t make a liar out of me. “I know it’s pretty scary around here with all the bright lights, and all the people, and I know you don’t feel good. One day you’ll be able to tell us what hurts, but right now we need to figure it out for you. For us to do that you have to calm down.” As if a six-month-old would know what she meant. She stroked Zola’s hair lightly. Tears kept falling down the girl’s face, but her eyes focused on Meredith, and her hitching sobs turned into whimpers.
“Hold her down, okay?” Alex said.
Meredith put both her hands on Zola’s shoulders, feeling like the ultimate of all traitors, especially when Zola’s face crumpled in shock at the additional pain of the needle going in. Once he had taped the IV down, Meredith let go. “See Zola? All done. It’s all done.” She made the sign for ‘all done’, hoping that any additional familiar gesture might help. Zola flailed, and one of her tiny feet hit Alex in the chin while he took off her diaper.
Secretly, Meredith was kind of proud of this, but she searched for some other way of keeping Zola’s attention. The stuffed frog lay forgotten on the side of the bed. She picked it up and stared into the wide mouth of the toy. Zola’s next pitiful wail set her into action.
“Zola, why are you crying?” she said, in a voice she hoped sounded vaguely like a frog’s. Heat rose up the back of her neck. Sure, she’d taken an acting class or two in high school, mostly to piss her mom off, but that was different than doing…this in the middle of the ER. If Nurse Tyler saw he’d mock her for the rest of her life.
This is Doctor Grey. You’re in good hands; she does a fabulous frog impression.
But Zola stopped crying. Her eyes were fixated on the frog, with one tiny eyebrow lifted just a bit. She tilted her head, adjusting to this strange new world where frogs talked.
Unfortunately, within moments of her quieting down, Meredith was completely at a loss as to what the frog might say next. In desperation she thought of a mom she’d seen on the floor a few months before, playing with a toddler and a teddy bear. She pressed the frog to the side of Zola’s face and made kissy sounds, alternating with pretending the frog was gobbling Zola up. Either the noises or the feel of the fuzzy frog made Zola burst into a grin that somehow made Meredith’s fear recede into the background, like a rainbow overshadowing the few clouds left after afternoon rain.
She’d given Zola her third round of amphibian hugs when Alex tapped her on the shoulder. The baby took advantage of her distraction to yank the frog out of her hand and shake it, frowning inquisitively when it didn’t scream in protest.
“Have you noticed an increase in her urine output?”
Meredith bit her lip. A good mother should’ve known the answer to this. “She just came home a few days ago. She wets a lot of diapers but… but I don’t have anything to measure it against.”
“Yeah, I figured. Okay, next step, I want to take her for an ultrasound.”
The panic returned. “What do you think is wrong? Is it another hernia? Did they miss something last time?”
“I’m not sure yet. I have a theory, but it should’ve been in her file. However, her medical history being what it is, and where it’s from, I’m not ruling anything out. We’ll put something in the IV to sedate her, and take her up.”
“I’m coming.” Alex frowned, but Meredith wasn’t about to take no for an answer. Not from him. “You owe me.”
Alex scowled, not even arguing that sending Zola home had been payment enough. “How long are you going to pull that?”
Meredith crossed her arms. “Your bar tab at Joe’s? It’s going to have nothing on this.”
Alex’s face hardened for a second, but then he nodded. “Okay. I’ll go put in the order for the Versed.” Meredith turned back to Zola who had the frog’s flipper in her mouth. Zola watched her movements, and cooed. Then she held one fist out. Meredith slipped her finger into it, and smiled. “You bear absolutely no resemblance to the little devil who’s been screaming in my ear all day. If you’re better behaved in the hospital, we’ll have to bring you here more often. For social calls only, mind you.”
She put her hand on Zola’s chest. Her tiny heart beat steadily against her palm, and she felt sure she’d never tire of the sensation.
Someone touched her shoulder a second later, and she jumped.
“It’s me,” Lexie said. “Just me. How is she?”
“Perfect,” Meredith said without thinking. “I mean. Better. She’s calm. Alex wants an ultrasound.”
“I know. I heard him give the order. How are you?”
Meredith shook her head. “I don’t know if I can do this, Lex. I’m not sure when I was last so terrified-that’s a lie. I am, and it involved Derek standing face-to-face with a gunman. Her whole life could be like this. I don’t know if I’m strong enough.”
“Oh, Meredith.” Lexie’s breath ticked the side of Meredith’s face, as she surprised her by wrapping her arms around her. “You’re strong enough. I’ve always known that.”
There was the always again. Lexie kept saying it, and Meredith didn’t get it, but before she could question a nurse came in a syringe, the contents of which she injected into Zola’s IV. Soon the baby’s eyelids flickered. “She always fights falling asleep,” Meredith murmured as Zola’s fingers slackened their grip on the frog. “She’s afraid she’ll miss something.” As if illustrating this, Zola twitched awake one more time before sleeping.
They took her down for the ultrasound. Meredith sat on a chair next to the bed, one hand in Zola’s, the other flipping her phone over and over in her hand, debating about calling Derek. He’d want to know where they were, but what could he do from there? She’d call him once she had a diagnosis.
She craned her head to see the ultrasound, but Alex must have warned the tech against her, because he kept the screen turned away from her. Back in the ER, Zola slept with one arm wrapped around the frog. Meredith sat in a chair next to the gurney, wincing with each time Zola whimpered in her sleep. She jumped up only when Robbins came wheelying around the corner. If Alex had paged a superior, it must be bad.
“What is it? What’s wrong with her?” All kinds of possibilities flooded her mind, most of them involving dire prognoses.
“Relax. She’s going to be okay. Karev’s theory was right, but he wanted me to confirm.”
Meredith shifted her eyes to Alex, who stood behind Robbins with his arms crossed. Had he thought she wouldn’t believe him?
“Her kidneys are infected, because her bladder isn’t emptying properly. It’s pretty common with kids who have spina bifida. Sometimes they grow out of it, but if they don’t it can be controlled by catheterizing her a few times a day. If she still needs to do so when she’s older, she can do it herself. She’ll still go in her diaper, so don’t go selling your Pampers stash yet.” Robbins smiled, but Meredith stood with her mouth agape, trying to process this.
“But…wouldn’t it have been going on since birth? Shouldn’t this have been something you people noticed when she was here for almost two months?” Lexie put a gentle hand on her wrist, but she shook it off.
Robbins didn’t flinch. “Sometimes it comes and goes. They might have done it when she was born, and thought the muscles had strengthened enough to handle voiding on her own. Or she might have developed problems as she grew. There’s no way of knowing. Is she still taking her antibiotics?”
“Of course!”
“Then she’s simply developed an infection resistant to those. We’ll give her new ones, take a culture and make sure you have supplies to cath her a few times a day. She’ll be right as rain.”
Zola’s snuffing snores were the only sound for a minute, but then Meredith let out a shaky breath. “Okay. Will you show me what I need to do? I’ve done catheters before, but not…” Not on my kid, she’d been about to say, words that shocked her into silence.
“Sure. We’ll be right back.” Robbins jerked her head at Alex, who followed her out. The privacy curtain fluttered shut behind Arizona, and Lexie came around to face Meredith, who sank back into the chair with her hands in her forehead. She knew she should have been overwhelmed by this diagnosis-another thing Zola would have to set her apart-but to Meredith it meant she had a way to take care of things. The antibiotics would do their job, she’d do hers, and Zola would get well. Having a concrete goal almost stopped her shaking. Almost.
“You roared.”
She removed one hand from her face to stare at Lexie. “What?”
Lexie curled her hands into half-hearted claws in front of her. “Roar. Like a mother lion. My mom used to do it with doctors. And teachers. And ballet instructors.”
Hearing herself compared to Susan, the fake-mommy who she often wished she could have known better, gave Meredith pause, but she’d barely considered it when her phone rang. Derek Shepherd (Cell). She sat up and ran her hands through her tangled hair before pushing ‘talk’.
“I want you here,” Derek said, with hardly any preamble.
“What?”
“For Mom’s surgery. I want you here.” He drew in a shaky breath. “I can’t be without you if something happens, and I want her to...if something happens…I want her to meet Zola.”
For a split second, Meredith thought of Susan and how she would’ve liked her to see Zola too. Then reality bit her. “What about the shunt? You said the other day-.”
“I know what I said, but she flew before we put in the shunt. You’ll be with her the whole time.”
She bit her tongue for a second to eat the bitter statements about trust. “Derek… It’s two days from now.”
“If you don’t want to come, just say it.”
“No! It’s not that! I do want to come. I want to be there for you. I’m your wife, and I want to be there for you. It’s just…a lot at once right now.”
She meant everything, and from the way he said, “Yeah. Yeah it is,” she knew he did too.
“All right. Let me just… let me take care of the logistics and I’ll… I’ll let you know when we can get there.”
“Okay. And Meredith? Thank you.”
She murmured in answer, barely able to push the red end button on the phone before she thrust her face into her hands to muffle a scream of frustration.
“Meredith? What is it?” Lexie’s hands were back on her shoulders.
“He wants me there. Us. He wants us on a plane to New York. I can’t handle her on a plane, Lexie. I can barely get her to stop crying long enough to drive to the grocery store. We don’t even know if she’ll be here overnight.”
“She won’t.” Meredith raised her head. Alex was wheeling a tray into the room. “Once we get some antibiotics in through the IV drip she can go. I’m comfortable with that.”
“Are you comfortable letting us take her across the country?” Lexie asked, which was how Meredith knew that A. her sister had balls, and B. she’d need to find a flight with three empty seats.
***
“Why in the name of God haven’t you bought a stroller?” Lexie snapped, while she held a fussy Zola in one arm, and tried to balance her carry-on bag back atop the handle of her suitcase. Meredith scowled and opened her mouth to reply, but the airline employee at the check-in counter called to them, and Lexie shuffled forward to help her propel had the suitcase, diaper-bag, car-seat and her purse up to the guy, while keeping her hold on the baby. She silently repented every time she’d ever gotten impatient with families traveling during the years she’d spent flying between Seattle and Boston.
Meredith hefted her suitcase onto the scale and then took Zola from her once she’d gotten the boarding passes. The baby immediately calmed, and Lexie felt a tad betrayed. She’d spent enough time with Zola over the past few days, one would think she’d be accepted at least as a temporary holder.
“Why was Cristina so pissed at you?” Lexie asked, while they maneuvered through the busy airport lobby toward security.
Meredith shrugged, readjusting the strap of the diaper-bag on her shoulder. “A lot of reasons. Her appointment at the clinic is next week, and she doesn’t know what to do if I’m not back in time.”
“The clinic?” Lexie asked. Meredith raised her eyebrows, and glanced pointedly at Zola. “Oh. That clinic.”
“Right. Plus, I think she thinks maybe she’s supposed to always be my partner-in-crime so she should be in on this endeavor.”
In spite of her effort not to, Lexie burst into laughter. “I’m sorry, I just don’t see Cristina running around an airport with a baby.”
“Not sure I saw me doing it before now, either.”
At that moment, Zola let go of the stuffed frog she’d been gnawing on. Lexie caught it. “That’s why you’ve got me.”
She sort of thought maybe they could’ve used about four more people once they got to the security checkpoint. Zola started screaming as soon as Meredith took her hat off, and kicked her feet out of Lexie’s hands every time she tried to take off the tiny pink Converse they’d bought thinking only about how adorable they were, not how annoying they’d be to slip on and off. Once Zola’d been practically stripped, they’d still had their own shoes and jackets to remove. By the time they got everything done, the diaper-bag had been through the x-ray machine for five minutes, and the TSA officers were yelling for the owner to claim it before it got confiscated.
“I’m not flying again until she can take off her shoes herself,” Meredith swore, while she attempted to stuff Zola’s curled foot back into the shoe. “Did you see the way people were looking at us? They probably think I stole a hapless baby.”
“They probably sympathize with how hard it is to fly with a kid,” Lexie argued, leading the way to the gate. Once they found it, Meredith dropped all the bags in a pile with a huff. “Call Derek and tell him we’re on the way. I’ll buy us coffee.”
“Don’t you want to call Mark?” Meredith asked, digging through her purse. She piled a packet of baby wipes, a board book and a pacifier onto the seat next to her before she emerged with her phone. Lexie rushed off before Meredith could get herself together and make her answer the question.
The truth was, Mark didn’t know she was coming out. It wasn’t that she’d decided not to tell him, exactly. More that she’d been busy, finishing out her shift, packing, helping Meredith stuff Zola’s stuff in her suitcase, watching Zola sleep while Cristina and Meredith argued in the hall. All of it was very…busy-keeping. And, okay, sure there’d been a text from Mark about Meredith coming down and how he wished another Grey would be coming too, but in the taxi on the way to the airport her phone had been buried in her purse, so she couldn’t have responded anyway. She considered all of this while she bought the coffee, and warily went back to the chairs where Meredith had spread all their stuff out. She held Zola up on her lap, so the baby stood on her knees, wobbling some, but smiling as she observed the busy airport.
“Lexie Grey, doctor, sister, cupholder,” Lexie joked, settling down with both coffees so Mer could keep her grip on Zola.
“I don’t want to strap her in yet. She’ll be in there for a while once we get going.”
“Think she’ll scream?”
Meredith wrinkled her nose. “Not if that frog and I have anything to do with it.”
“Words I never thought would come out of your mouth.”
“Me either.” Meredith bounced Zola a little, and the baby stuck her tongue out in a raspberry. “Oh so charming. Let’s hope Derek doesn’t think I taught you that.”
“He’s not going to be able to say you’re a bad mom now.”
“Watch him. Once he gets an idea in his head…” She sighed, and shifted Zola so the baby sat in her lap, then she took her coffee from Lexie. “He doesn’t change his mind easily, as proved by the trial thing. He knows I see things as complicated, knows my morals have never been black and white, but he reacts…like that.”
“Did he do the same thing with Izzie and the LVAD?” Lexie’d heard all the details of that from George, and she couldn’t imagine a time when even Cristina had claimed responsibility for something so against the rules to save a friend.
Meredith sipped the coffee thoughtfully, tilting her head. “You know, we never really talked about that. We had so many problems of our own at the time… I don’t think he would have. Derek understands love. He understands grand gestures, and not wanting to live without someone. He doesn’t understand the family ties that aren’t… family ties. Like, he knows my mom and the Chief had a thing, but he doesn’t see the place of Adele in all that, or understand why it makes me willing to keep secrets for Richard or… or be influenced by Richard,” she added, the first time Lexie’d ever heard her admit that Richard had something directly to do with her choice to change the drug.
“Your mother’s legacy was the guilt,” Lexie said, right as their flight was called. Meredith shot her a huh? look, and sat Zola in her carrier. The baby immediately began to cry.
By the time they’d boarded, ahead of everyone else, and stowed everything that wouldn’t be immediately necessary for Zola’s well-being, Lexie had had the time to put her thoughts together. “Your mother,” she said in response to Meredith’s questioning gaze. “Derek thinks her legacy was the Alzheimer’s. It’s why he’s so upset, because he wanted to give you a chance. You see the guilt she left behind. The way you had to care for her. You don’t want anyone else to go through that, but more than that you want to right her wrongs.”
“Maybe,” Meredith said, slowly.
“You’re all about sacrifice. Yourself for others, for your mom, for Adele, for anyone you think deserves it. It’s why you’ll be such a good mom for Zola. It was my first impression of you.”
“First? The first time I met you, I totally bitched at you.”
“No you didn’t,” Lexie said, as the plane engines kicked in and the noise level increased. “That wasn’t the first time.” Meredith’s eyes grew as wide as the flat side of a stethoscope. The plane began taxiing, and Zola began to fuss. They both focused their attention on her, until they’d gotten up in the air. She never burst into her famous wails, and once the plane had finished climbing through the sky her eyelids flickered closed.
Meredith watched her sleep for a long few minutes, and then raised her eyes to Lexie. “You,” she said, and Lexie’s heart began pounding hard against her ribcage. “Have explaining to do.”
Lexie had anticipated this. She’d seen the story coming out since the day Zola came home, though she wasn’t sure why. However she’d known, she’d put the photograph in her purse. She drew it out now. “The first time I flew was on a band trip to play a competition in Amsterdam.”
Meredith’s jaw dropped as she studied the picture, one wavering finger touching her own face. “You were Red?”
Lexie laughed. “Yeah. God, I couldn’t believe Sadie came up with that. I’d only had the red hair a week. I dyed it back pretty soon after.”
“Sadie… did she recognize you while you were here?”
“Maybe. She never said anything. Except for this it was all dark rooms and dead-of-night.”
“True,” Meredith said, ruefully. “But this doesn’t really explain any of it, except that apparently I saved my sister from getting run over by a tram, and I don’t remember it.”
“Um. The tram thing might have been the only time I saw you completely sober, A. Also, B., I was there for your massive fight with Sadie, which you seem to have blocked out.” Meredith frowned, deeply, and Lexie saw in her eyes the memories of the shouting match in the lobby of the hostel, with every patron from the stoned frat boys to Lexie’s classmates hanging onto every word the girls drunkenly screamed at each other.
“Do you remember what caused it?” Lexie said, gently, reaching over Zola to put her hand on her sister’s arm.
“I’d…decided to go to med school. Sadie thought it’d be selling out, doing what our parents wanted us to do.”
“And the reason you decided?”
Meredith squinted, like she might still be having trouble seeing. In a way she was, Lexie thought, but it was the past she had difficulty making out. “The little boy. The sick kid in the hostel. I haven’t thought about him in so long. My staying with him is what you’ve been basing your trust on? Someone had to be there with him.”
“From your perspective. Let me tell you what I remember, and you’re not allowed to doubt it. Photographic memory, remember?” Lexie shifted to face her as best she could in the cramped seat. Meredith kept her gaze straight ahead, but for the occasional glance at Zola. “The night my sister saved me from being squashed by public transportation, she stumbles into the dorm with someone else draped all over her.
“I’m as sheltered as a girl from Seattle can be, and this is the kind of thing my mother has warned me against. So, I’m kind of disappointed in this person who called herself Death. I’m lying there kind of grossed out by what I think is about to happen when I have two realizations.
“The first is that the person making out with my sister is the blonde chick I saw earlier in the day. Die.”
In her seat on the plane, Meredith turned bright red and began spinning her watch around, and around on her wrist.
“The second thing is that there’s a kid in a bunk nearby and he starts screaming. His parents are nowhere to be found-partying judging by the clothes scattered around on the floor. I’m debating whether or not it’s my business when this girl-my sister-shoves Die to the floor, and goes to him.”
“He was burning up,” Meredith murmured. “I’d never felt anyone so hot.”
“You yelled for someone to go for help. I went to get the desk clerk. When he came back, Sadie was sulking, and you were sitting on the kid’s bunk, basically doing an exam. ‘I think it’s appendicitis,’ you said. ‘His abdomen feels hard, and the pain is centered around the right lower section of his abdomen.’ The receptionist had no idea what to do, then the kid started being sick all over the place. You barely blinked, just held his head over the floor and talked to him.”
“Sadie didn’t want me to go with him in the ambulance, but I couldn’t just send him alone. He didn’t let go of my hand the whole time we were in the ER. They tracked down his parents, called social services, and I got back to the hostel around dawn.”
“I saw you. We were rehearsing outside, about to go to the convention center. You seemed so…world-weary. Sadie came out and asked you if you wanted to go grab a joint at a coffeeshop.”
“I just wanted to sleep. She wasn’t happy with that.” Meredith’s head shot up as she remembered, “Asked me if I’d adopted the kid, because I took in strays.”
“You took in another stray that night,” Lexie pointed out. “Did you ask me to dance with you to spite her?”
“Maybe. Who knows? I started drinking early those days. Maybe I liked you, or saw you in the shadows while those other bitches from your school danced. God, Lexie, I can’t believe that was you. Why didn’t you say something?”
“I…” Lexie chewed her lip. “I don’t know. I wanted to get close to you. You scared me, a little. I mean, you’ve always scared me, but…well, I wasn’t lying the time I said you’ve disappointed me. It’s not true now, but then… You had that epic fight with Sadie that night, and I thought, good, she’s put that girl in her place and she’s going to go be a badass doctor, and one day I’ll meet her because I’m going to be a badass doctor, too.”
“It kind of worked out that way.”
“In the end. But the next night, the night before we left, you two were on the dance floor again, like nothing had ever happened. I asked you about the kid, and you shrugged like you didn’t care. So I didn’t want to tell you then.”
Meredith busied herself adjusting Zola’s head, which had flopped to the side as she slept. “I didn’t want to think about. Being in that ER with him made me want to be a doctor more than anything I’d ever experienced. I managed to repress it, until I got the call about Mom. Sadie didn’t want me to leave, even then, but she tried to understand. Eventually, she decided to go to med school, too. Her dad got her in right before the cut-off.” She shook her head. “Seriously, why haven’t you ever told me this?”
Lexie shrugged. “I figured it’d come out, especially with Sadie around. Once she left and it never did…. I just decided to keep things the way they were. It doesn’t change anything.”
“Maybe not. Except it means you saw me at, probably, the lowest point of my life and you still have faith in me.”
“I saw you at a turning point,” Lexie argued. “And you’re at another one.”
Meredith met her eyes, and Lexie held her gaze. Even after three years-or seven, depending on how you counted-she couldn’t read the convoluted thoughts in her sister’s mind, but she didn’t have to. Her job was to reinforce whatever positive thoughts were there to banish the bad ones other people implanted. Those people didn’t understand Grey.
Part Six|| Table of Contents || Part Eight
Author: chicleeblair
Rating: PG
Summary: During the turmoil of trying for a baby, adopting Zola and nearly tearing apart her marriage, Meredith forgot her fears about becoming a mother. Now she remembers, and Lexie’s the only one who can help rid her of them for good.
Pairings: Meredith/Derek, Mark/Lexie
Thanks literary_critic to for beta, waltzmatildah for the fanmix and onlywordsnow for the fanart!
Written for the Big Bang at ga_fanfic
Fanmix:
Fan Art:
Nothing good can last. This was what kept repeating itself in Meredith’s brain while she dashed from the ER drop-off through the automatic doors and then bypassed the nurse’s station. Zola’s stuffed frog tapped her side with every step, since it hung limply from one of the baby’s tiny hands. Zola had stopped crying, but her body shuddered against Meredith’s chest every time she inhaled, and her cheeks were tear-stained.
The bustling ER usually seemed efficient to Meredith, a controlled level of chaos. Now she saw it how the patients must, as an overwhelming mess, where no one seemed to see the important things, like a woman and child standing in the middle of the floor, desperately searching for help.
“Mer?” She whirled around, and Zola grabbed her shirt tightly, her tiny fingernails clawing at the skin underneath the fabric. Lexie had approached them, her head tilted curiously, someone else’s chart tucked under one arm. “Couldn’t stay away? Hi Zola! Oh, what’s wrong sweetie?” Zola had begun to whimper again. Lexie put a hand on her arm, and her eyes widened. “She’s burning up.”
“No sh-.” Meredith bit her tongue, telling herself to breathe. How many times had she told parents that panicking wouldn’t help their children at all? “I know. That’s why we’re here. Dr. Robbins is on her way down. I should have called an actual pediatrician, but we don’t have one of those. We were so unprepared for this. She deserves so much better.”
“Meredith!”
She raised her eyes, and shifted Zola so the baby could put her head on her shoulder. Lexie’s tone was sharper than she’d ever heard it. “What?” She flicked her eyes to the other side of the ER, hoping to see Dr. Robbins skidding around the corner at any second.
“Don’t you say that! If it weren’t for you, Zola’d still be stuck in that hospital bed, or she’d be back at an orphanage without the kind of medical care she can get here. More than that, she wouldn’t be as loved as she is now.”
“Love isn’t going to help break her fever.”
“You’d be surprised.” Meredith lunged toward the voice, holding Zola out, but then drew her back in once she saw who’d spoken.
“You. This is your fault. She should have been here, being monitored.”
Alex rolled his eyes. “She’s a kid. They get sick. Let me look at her.”
She clutched Zola to her chest. “I paged Robbins.”
“She’s in surgery. You got me. Do you want me to go away?”
Meredith took a deep breath, which was incredibly difficult when each one of Zola’s whimpers made her chest contract. “No,” she said. “I didn’t want you to go away.”
Alex glanced at her sharply, catching the tense shift, but before he could say anything Zola began to cry again. Meredith held her out, biting her tongue to keep the words fix her from coming out. Not, she thought in the way the physical therapist meant.
“This way,” Alex jerked his head toward a cubicle, and his coat swirled around him. God, he acted like some kind of cocky vigilante. With bitterness still swimming in her veins, she could see why people hated him, but if he made Zola better she promised she’d try to ignore that part in future.
“I’ll start a chart,” Lexie offered, but Meredith barely heard her. Instinctually, she slid onto the gurney herself to settle Zola in her lap. Alex shook his head, and Meredith reluctantly got down and put Zola down on the gurney. As she’d predicted would happen, Zola began to scream. Heads in the ER turned, and she knew people wondered what she’d done to this beautiful baby.
“What’s she presenting with?”
“High fever, irritability. She’s slept a lot today, too. I thought she was teething, but nothing helped, not the frozen teething rings or anything. She’s doing it even when I hold her and-.”
Alex held up a hand, and began to run his hands over Zola, under her bright pink t-shirt. Meredith hadn’t seen him touch anyone this gently since Izzie. Zola wasn’t soothed. She grabbed his thumbs, trying to push him away. “I want to get an IV started before we do anything. Mer, can you calm her down?”
The familiar way he said her name made Meredith’s mind swirl. She wanted Robbins, who’d known how to soothe Zola when she didn’t. And wasn’t Alex, like, the hospital baby-magnet? But if Robbins were here, she’d have to do her job, like Alex did. Now Meredith’s job was to be the mother, and this would be a test of that-one more challenging than even her intern exam. She leaned down to Zola.
“Hey Zo, I know this sucks. But Doctor Karev made you all better before this and he’s going to do it again.” She shot a look at Alex, hoping it said don’t make a liar out of me. “I know it’s pretty scary around here with all the bright lights, and all the people, and I know you don’t feel good. One day you’ll be able to tell us what hurts, but right now we need to figure it out for you. For us to do that you have to calm down.” As if a six-month-old would know what she meant. She stroked Zola’s hair lightly. Tears kept falling down the girl’s face, but her eyes focused on Meredith, and her hitching sobs turned into whimpers.
“Hold her down, okay?” Alex said.
Meredith put both her hands on Zola’s shoulders, feeling like the ultimate of all traitors, especially when Zola’s face crumpled in shock at the additional pain of the needle going in. Once he had taped the IV down, Meredith let go. “See Zola? All done. It’s all done.” She made the sign for ‘all done’, hoping that any additional familiar gesture might help. Zola flailed, and one of her tiny feet hit Alex in the chin while he took off her diaper.
Secretly, Meredith was kind of proud of this, but she searched for some other way of keeping Zola’s attention. The stuffed frog lay forgotten on the side of the bed. She picked it up and stared into the wide mouth of the toy. Zola’s next pitiful wail set her into action.
“Zola, why are you crying?” she said, in a voice she hoped sounded vaguely like a frog’s. Heat rose up the back of her neck. Sure, she’d taken an acting class or two in high school, mostly to piss her mom off, but that was different than doing…this in the middle of the ER. If Nurse Tyler saw he’d mock her for the rest of her life.
This is Doctor Grey. You’re in good hands; she does a fabulous frog impression.
But Zola stopped crying. Her eyes were fixated on the frog, with one tiny eyebrow lifted just a bit. She tilted her head, adjusting to this strange new world where frogs talked.
Unfortunately, within moments of her quieting down, Meredith was completely at a loss as to what the frog might say next. In desperation she thought of a mom she’d seen on the floor a few months before, playing with a toddler and a teddy bear. She pressed the frog to the side of Zola’s face and made kissy sounds, alternating with pretending the frog was gobbling Zola up. Either the noises or the feel of the fuzzy frog made Zola burst into a grin that somehow made Meredith’s fear recede into the background, like a rainbow overshadowing the few clouds left after afternoon rain.
She’d given Zola her third round of amphibian hugs when Alex tapped her on the shoulder. The baby took advantage of her distraction to yank the frog out of her hand and shake it, frowning inquisitively when it didn’t scream in protest.
“Have you noticed an increase in her urine output?”
Meredith bit her lip. A good mother should’ve known the answer to this. “She just came home a few days ago. She wets a lot of diapers but… but I don’t have anything to measure it against.”
“Yeah, I figured. Okay, next step, I want to take her for an ultrasound.”
The panic returned. “What do you think is wrong? Is it another hernia? Did they miss something last time?”
“I’m not sure yet. I have a theory, but it should’ve been in her file. However, her medical history being what it is, and where it’s from, I’m not ruling anything out. We’ll put something in the IV to sedate her, and take her up.”
“I’m coming.” Alex frowned, but Meredith wasn’t about to take no for an answer. Not from him. “You owe me.”
Alex scowled, not even arguing that sending Zola home had been payment enough. “How long are you going to pull that?”
Meredith crossed her arms. “Your bar tab at Joe’s? It’s going to have nothing on this.”
Alex’s face hardened for a second, but then he nodded. “Okay. I’ll go put in the order for the Versed.” Meredith turned back to Zola who had the frog’s flipper in her mouth. Zola watched her movements, and cooed. Then she held one fist out. Meredith slipped her finger into it, and smiled. “You bear absolutely no resemblance to the little devil who’s been screaming in my ear all day. If you’re better behaved in the hospital, we’ll have to bring you here more often. For social calls only, mind you.”
She put her hand on Zola’s chest. Her tiny heart beat steadily against her palm, and she felt sure she’d never tire of the sensation.
Someone touched her shoulder a second later, and she jumped.
“It’s me,” Lexie said. “Just me. How is she?”
“Perfect,” Meredith said without thinking. “I mean. Better. She’s calm. Alex wants an ultrasound.”
“I know. I heard him give the order. How are you?”
Meredith shook her head. “I don’t know if I can do this, Lex. I’m not sure when I was last so terrified-that’s a lie. I am, and it involved Derek standing face-to-face with a gunman. Her whole life could be like this. I don’t know if I’m strong enough.”
“Oh, Meredith.” Lexie’s breath ticked the side of Meredith’s face, as she surprised her by wrapping her arms around her. “You’re strong enough. I’ve always known that.”
There was the always again. Lexie kept saying it, and Meredith didn’t get it, but before she could question a nurse came in a syringe, the contents of which she injected into Zola’s IV. Soon the baby’s eyelids flickered. “She always fights falling asleep,” Meredith murmured as Zola’s fingers slackened their grip on the frog. “She’s afraid she’ll miss something.” As if illustrating this, Zola twitched awake one more time before sleeping.
They took her down for the ultrasound. Meredith sat on a chair next to the bed, one hand in Zola’s, the other flipping her phone over and over in her hand, debating about calling Derek. He’d want to know where they were, but what could he do from there? She’d call him once she had a diagnosis.
She craned her head to see the ultrasound, but Alex must have warned the tech against her, because he kept the screen turned away from her. Back in the ER, Zola slept with one arm wrapped around the frog. Meredith sat in a chair next to the gurney, wincing with each time Zola whimpered in her sleep. She jumped up only when Robbins came wheelying around the corner. If Alex had paged a superior, it must be bad.
“What is it? What’s wrong with her?” All kinds of possibilities flooded her mind, most of them involving dire prognoses.
“Relax. She’s going to be okay. Karev’s theory was right, but he wanted me to confirm.”
Meredith shifted her eyes to Alex, who stood behind Robbins with his arms crossed. Had he thought she wouldn’t believe him?
“Her kidneys are infected, because her bladder isn’t emptying properly. It’s pretty common with kids who have spina bifida. Sometimes they grow out of it, but if they don’t it can be controlled by catheterizing her a few times a day. If she still needs to do so when she’s older, she can do it herself. She’ll still go in her diaper, so don’t go selling your Pampers stash yet.” Robbins smiled, but Meredith stood with her mouth agape, trying to process this.
“But…wouldn’t it have been going on since birth? Shouldn’t this have been something you people noticed when she was here for almost two months?” Lexie put a gentle hand on her wrist, but she shook it off.
Robbins didn’t flinch. “Sometimes it comes and goes. They might have done it when she was born, and thought the muscles had strengthened enough to handle voiding on her own. Or she might have developed problems as she grew. There’s no way of knowing. Is she still taking her antibiotics?”
“Of course!”
“Then she’s simply developed an infection resistant to those. We’ll give her new ones, take a culture and make sure you have supplies to cath her a few times a day. She’ll be right as rain.”
Zola’s snuffing snores were the only sound for a minute, but then Meredith let out a shaky breath. “Okay. Will you show me what I need to do? I’ve done catheters before, but not…” Not on my kid, she’d been about to say, words that shocked her into silence.
“Sure. We’ll be right back.” Robbins jerked her head at Alex, who followed her out. The privacy curtain fluttered shut behind Arizona, and Lexie came around to face Meredith, who sank back into the chair with her hands in her forehead. She knew she should have been overwhelmed by this diagnosis-another thing Zola would have to set her apart-but to Meredith it meant she had a way to take care of things. The antibiotics would do their job, she’d do hers, and Zola would get well. Having a concrete goal almost stopped her shaking. Almost.
“You roared.”
She removed one hand from her face to stare at Lexie. “What?”
Lexie curled her hands into half-hearted claws in front of her. “Roar. Like a mother lion. My mom used to do it with doctors. And teachers. And ballet instructors.”
Hearing herself compared to Susan, the fake-mommy who she often wished she could have known better, gave Meredith pause, but she’d barely considered it when her phone rang. Derek Shepherd (Cell). She sat up and ran her hands through her tangled hair before pushing ‘talk’.
“I want you here,” Derek said, with hardly any preamble.
“What?”
“For Mom’s surgery. I want you here.” He drew in a shaky breath. “I can’t be without you if something happens, and I want her to...if something happens…I want her to meet Zola.”
For a split second, Meredith thought of Susan and how she would’ve liked her to see Zola too. Then reality bit her. “What about the shunt? You said the other day-.”
“I know what I said, but she flew before we put in the shunt. You’ll be with her the whole time.”
She bit her tongue for a second to eat the bitter statements about trust. “Derek… It’s two days from now.”
“If you don’t want to come, just say it.”
“No! It’s not that! I do want to come. I want to be there for you. I’m your wife, and I want to be there for you. It’s just…a lot at once right now.”
She meant everything, and from the way he said, “Yeah. Yeah it is,” she knew he did too.
“All right. Let me just… let me take care of the logistics and I’ll… I’ll let you know when we can get there.”
“Okay. And Meredith? Thank you.”
She murmured in answer, barely able to push the red end button on the phone before she thrust her face into her hands to muffle a scream of frustration.
“Meredith? What is it?” Lexie’s hands were back on her shoulders.
“He wants me there. Us. He wants us on a plane to New York. I can’t handle her on a plane, Lexie. I can barely get her to stop crying long enough to drive to the grocery store. We don’t even know if she’ll be here overnight.”
“She won’t.” Meredith raised her head. Alex was wheeling a tray into the room. “Once we get some antibiotics in through the IV drip she can go. I’m comfortable with that.”
“Are you comfortable letting us take her across the country?” Lexie asked, which was how Meredith knew that A. her sister had balls, and B. she’d need to find a flight with three empty seats.
***
“Why in the name of God haven’t you bought a stroller?” Lexie snapped, while she held a fussy Zola in one arm, and tried to balance her carry-on bag back atop the handle of her suitcase. Meredith scowled and opened her mouth to reply, but the airline employee at the check-in counter called to them, and Lexie shuffled forward to help her propel had the suitcase, diaper-bag, car-seat and her purse up to the guy, while keeping her hold on the baby. She silently repented every time she’d ever gotten impatient with families traveling during the years she’d spent flying between Seattle and Boston.
Meredith hefted her suitcase onto the scale and then took Zola from her once she’d gotten the boarding passes. The baby immediately calmed, and Lexie felt a tad betrayed. She’d spent enough time with Zola over the past few days, one would think she’d be accepted at least as a temporary holder.
“Why was Cristina so pissed at you?” Lexie asked, while they maneuvered through the busy airport lobby toward security.
Meredith shrugged, readjusting the strap of the diaper-bag on her shoulder. “A lot of reasons. Her appointment at the clinic is next week, and she doesn’t know what to do if I’m not back in time.”
“The clinic?” Lexie asked. Meredith raised her eyebrows, and glanced pointedly at Zola. “Oh. That clinic.”
“Right. Plus, I think she thinks maybe she’s supposed to always be my partner-in-crime so she should be in on this endeavor.”
In spite of her effort not to, Lexie burst into laughter. “I’m sorry, I just don’t see Cristina running around an airport with a baby.”
“Not sure I saw me doing it before now, either.”
At that moment, Zola let go of the stuffed frog she’d been gnawing on. Lexie caught it. “That’s why you’ve got me.”
She sort of thought maybe they could’ve used about four more people once they got to the security checkpoint. Zola started screaming as soon as Meredith took her hat off, and kicked her feet out of Lexie’s hands every time she tried to take off the tiny pink Converse they’d bought thinking only about how adorable they were, not how annoying they’d be to slip on and off. Once Zola’d been practically stripped, they’d still had their own shoes and jackets to remove. By the time they got everything done, the diaper-bag had been through the x-ray machine for five minutes, and the TSA officers were yelling for the owner to claim it before it got confiscated.
“I’m not flying again until she can take off her shoes herself,” Meredith swore, while she attempted to stuff Zola’s curled foot back into the shoe. “Did you see the way people were looking at us? They probably think I stole a hapless baby.”
“They probably sympathize with how hard it is to fly with a kid,” Lexie argued, leading the way to the gate. Once they found it, Meredith dropped all the bags in a pile with a huff. “Call Derek and tell him we’re on the way. I’ll buy us coffee.”
“Don’t you want to call Mark?” Meredith asked, digging through her purse. She piled a packet of baby wipes, a board book and a pacifier onto the seat next to her before she emerged with her phone. Lexie rushed off before Meredith could get herself together and make her answer the question.
The truth was, Mark didn’t know she was coming out. It wasn’t that she’d decided not to tell him, exactly. More that she’d been busy, finishing out her shift, packing, helping Meredith stuff Zola’s stuff in her suitcase, watching Zola sleep while Cristina and Meredith argued in the hall. All of it was very…busy-keeping. And, okay, sure there’d been a text from Mark about Meredith coming down and how he wished another Grey would be coming too, but in the taxi on the way to the airport her phone had been buried in her purse, so she couldn’t have responded anyway. She considered all of this while she bought the coffee, and warily went back to the chairs where Meredith had spread all their stuff out. She held Zola up on her lap, so the baby stood on her knees, wobbling some, but smiling as she observed the busy airport.
“Lexie Grey, doctor, sister, cupholder,” Lexie joked, settling down with both coffees so Mer could keep her grip on Zola.
“I don’t want to strap her in yet. She’ll be in there for a while once we get going.”
“Think she’ll scream?”
Meredith wrinkled her nose. “Not if that frog and I have anything to do with it.”
“Words I never thought would come out of your mouth.”
“Me either.” Meredith bounced Zola a little, and the baby stuck her tongue out in a raspberry. “Oh so charming. Let’s hope Derek doesn’t think I taught you that.”
“He’s not going to be able to say you’re a bad mom now.”
“Watch him. Once he gets an idea in his head…” She sighed, and shifted Zola so the baby sat in her lap, then she took her coffee from Lexie. “He doesn’t change his mind easily, as proved by the trial thing. He knows I see things as complicated, knows my morals have never been black and white, but he reacts…like that.”
“Did he do the same thing with Izzie and the LVAD?” Lexie’d heard all the details of that from George, and she couldn’t imagine a time when even Cristina had claimed responsibility for something so against the rules to save a friend.
Meredith sipped the coffee thoughtfully, tilting her head. “You know, we never really talked about that. We had so many problems of our own at the time… I don’t think he would have. Derek understands love. He understands grand gestures, and not wanting to live without someone. He doesn’t understand the family ties that aren’t… family ties. Like, he knows my mom and the Chief had a thing, but he doesn’t see the place of Adele in all that, or understand why it makes me willing to keep secrets for Richard or… or be influenced by Richard,” she added, the first time Lexie’d ever heard her admit that Richard had something directly to do with her choice to change the drug.
“Your mother’s legacy was the guilt,” Lexie said, right as their flight was called. Meredith shot her a huh? look, and sat Zola in her carrier. The baby immediately began to cry.
By the time they’d boarded, ahead of everyone else, and stowed everything that wouldn’t be immediately necessary for Zola’s well-being, Lexie had had the time to put her thoughts together. “Your mother,” she said in response to Meredith’s questioning gaze. “Derek thinks her legacy was the Alzheimer’s. It’s why he’s so upset, because he wanted to give you a chance. You see the guilt she left behind. The way you had to care for her. You don’t want anyone else to go through that, but more than that you want to right her wrongs.”
“Maybe,” Meredith said, slowly.
“You’re all about sacrifice. Yourself for others, for your mom, for Adele, for anyone you think deserves it. It’s why you’ll be such a good mom for Zola. It was my first impression of you.”
“First? The first time I met you, I totally bitched at you.”
“No you didn’t,” Lexie said, as the plane engines kicked in and the noise level increased. “That wasn’t the first time.” Meredith’s eyes grew as wide as the flat side of a stethoscope. The plane began taxiing, and Zola began to fuss. They both focused their attention on her, until they’d gotten up in the air. She never burst into her famous wails, and once the plane had finished climbing through the sky her eyelids flickered closed.
Meredith watched her sleep for a long few minutes, and then raised her eyes to Lexie. “You,” she said, and Lexie’s heart began pounding hard against her ribcage. “Have explaining to do.”
Lexie had anticipated this. She’d seen the story coming out since the day Zola came home, though she wasn’t sure why. However she’d known, she’d put the photograph in her purse. She drew it out now. “The first time I flew was on a band trip to play a competition in Amsterdam.”
Meredith’s jaw dropped as she studied the picture, one wavering finger touching her own face. “You were Red?”
Lexie laughed. “Yeah. God, I couldn’t believe Sadie came up with that. I’d only had the red hair a week. I dyed it back pretty soon after.”
“Sadie… did she recognize you while you were here?”
“Maybe. She never said anything. Except for this it was all dark rooms and dead-of-night.”
“True,” Meredith said, ruefully. “But this doesn’t really explain any of it, except that apparently I saved my sister from getting run over by a tram, and I don’t remember it.”
“Um. The tram thing might have been the only time I saw you completely sober, A. Also, B., I was there for your massive fight with Sadie, which you seem to have blocked out.” Meredith frowned, deeply, and Lexie saw in her eyes the memories of the shouting match in the lobby of the hostel, with every patron from the stoned frat boys to Lexie’s classmates hanging onto every word the girls drunkenly screamed at each other.
“Do you remember what caused it?” Lexie said, gently, reaching over Zola to put her hand on her sister’s arm.
“I’d…decided to go to med school. Sadie thought it’d be selling out, doing what our parents wanted us to do.”
“And the reason you decided?”
Meredith squinted, like she might still be having trouble seeing. In a way she was, Lexie thought, but it was the past she had difficulty making out. “The little boy. The sick kid in the hostel. I haven’t thought about him in so long. My staying with him is what you’ve been basing your trust on? Someone had to be there with him.”
“From your perspective. Let me tell you what I remember, and you’re not allowed to doubt it. Photographic memory, remember?” Lexie shifted to face her as best she could in the cramped seat. Meredith kept her gaze straight ahead, but for the occasional glance at Zola. “The night my sister saved me from being squashed by public transportation, she stumbles into the dorm with someone else draped all over her.
“I’m as sheltered as a girl from Seattle can be, and this is the kind of thing my mother has warned me against. So, I’m kind of disappointed in this person who called herself Death. I’m lying there kind of grossed out by what I think is about to happen when I have two realizations.
“The first is that the person making out with my sister is the blonde chick I saw earlier in the day. Die.”
In her seat on the plane, Meredith turned bright red and began spinning her watch around, and around on her wrist.
“The second thing is that there’s a kid in a bunk nearby and he starts screaming. His parents are nowhere to be found-partying judging by the clothes scattered around on the floor. I’m debating whether or not it’s my business when this girl-my sister-shoves Die to the floor, and goes to him.”
“He was burning up,” Meredith murmured. “I’d never felt anyone so hot.”
“You yelled for someone to go for help. I went to get the desk clerk. When he came back, Sadie was sulking, and you were sitting on the kid’s bunk, basically doing an exam. ‘I think it’s appendicitis,’ you said. ‘His abdomen feels hard, and the pain is centered around the right lower section of his abdomen.’ The receptionist had no idea what to do, then the kid started being sick all over the place. You barely blinked, just held his head over the floor and talked to him.”
“Sadie didn’t want me to go with him in the ambulance, but I couldn’t just send him alone. He didn’t let go of my hand the whole time we were in the ER. They tracked down his parents, called social services, and I got back to the hostel around dawn.”
“I saw you. We were rehearsing outside, about to go to the convention center. You seemed so…world-weary. Sadie came out and asked you if you wanted to go grab a joint at a coffeeshop.”
“I just wanted to sleep. She wasn’t happy with that.” Meredith’s head shot up as she remembered, “Asked me if I’d adopted the kid, because I took in strays.”
“You took in another stray that night,” Lexie pointed out. “Did you ask me to dance with you to spite her?”
“Maybe. Who knows? I started drinking early those days. Maybe I liked you, or saw you in the shadows while those other bitches from your school danced. God, Lexie, I can’t believe that was you. Why didn’t you say something?”
“I…” Lexie chewed her lip. “I don’t know. I wanted to get close to you. You scared me, a little. I mean, you’ve always scared me, but…well, I wasn’t lying the time I said you’ve disappointed me. It’s not true now, but then… You had that epic fight with Sadie that night, and I thought, good, she’s put that girl in her place and she’s going to go be a badass doctor, and one day I’ll meet her because I’m going to be a badass doctor, too.”
“It kind of worked out that way.”
“In the end. But the next night, the night before we left, you two were on the dance floor again, like nothing had ever happened. I asked you about the kid, and you shrugged like you didn’t care. So I didn’t want to tell you then.”
Meredith busied herself adjusting Zola’s head, which had flopped to the side as she slept. “I didn’t want to think about. Being in that ER with him made me want to be a doctor more than anything I’d ever experienced. I managed to repress it, until I got the call about Mom. Sadie didn’t want me to leave, even then, but she tried to understand. Eventually, she decided to go to med school, too. Her dad got her in right before the cut-off.” She shook her head. “Seriously, why haven’t you ever told me this?”
Lexie shrugged. “I figured it’d come out, especially with Sadie around. Once she left and it never did…. I just decided to keep things the way they were. It doesn’t change anything.”
“Maybe not. Except it means you saw me at, probably, the lowest point of my life and you still have faith in me.”
“I saw you at a turning point,” Lexie argued. “And you’re at another one.”
Meredith met her eyes, and Lexie held her gaze. Even after three years-or seven, depending on how you counted-she couldn’t read the convoluted thoughts in her sister’s mind, but she didn’t have to. Her job was to reinforce whatever positive thoughts were there to banish the bad ones other people implanted. Those people didn’t understand Grey.
Part Six|| Table of Contents || Part Eight