Searching for a Seattle Sky (7/10)
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, onlywordsnow for the fanmix and waltzmatildah for the fan art!
Written for thega_fanfic Big Bang!
Fanmix:
Fan Art:
Meredith glanced out the window by her bed at the blue sky. It seemed wrong to keep Zola cooped up inside after the morning they’d had, particularly when Seattle was being so inclimate lately. “What do you say, Zo?” she said, securing the tape on what felt like the zillionth diaper change of the day. “Want to go to the park?”
Zola gurgled, which Meredith took as consent. The speech therapist had been impressed with Meredith’s initiative with the signing, though she warned it might take Zola a while to catch on, because English wasn’t her first language. Meredith had time. Bailey had come to meet her armed with the news that the chief was fighting with the board to put Meredith on suspension. He suggested a month, but believed the board might fight for longer.
“He implied that you could meld it into maternity leave, if you wanted to.”
Meredith wondered if she should’ve been more surprised that the idea already seemed a little appealing. It’d give Zola the chance to get truly acclimated before she had to start daycare, and she could supervise the move to the new house…
Further delaying the end of your residency, Meredith? her mother said in her head. It’s bad enough that you’re not going to be chief resident.
She ignored the warring mother-figure voices to slide Zola into the Snuggie and set off for the park down the road, a place she hadn’t been since she was five. The whole way there, she spoke softly to Zola. The few people out walking their dogs didn’t give her a second glance.
“You know, Zola, one of the perks of having you around is that people don’t think I’m crazy for talking to myself.”
She put her hand firmly on Zola’s back as she crossed the street, imagining a day in the future when she’d hold her hand to do the same thing. Or would she be pushing her in a child-sized wheelchair? “They said today they might want to put braces on your legs when you’re bigger. Bet you’re not going to like those very much,” she added, thinking of the three times Zola had flung her socks off during her evaluations. “But if they’ll help you, we’ll make it work, won’t we?”
Bailey had made sure to reassure her about that when they’d gotten coffee after the long morning. Meredith had Zola crooked in one arm to feed her, her own coffee growing cold in front of her. Even with Bailey sitting across the table, Zola’s inquisitive eyes had captured her. She couldn’t help but wonder if people would always see those eyes in days to come. Would they see whatever equipment came with them instead? She’d treated innumerable kids with spina bifida, and never focused on the accessories, but would everyone?
“Have faith,” Bailey had said, reading her mind. “Whatever this girls legs can do, she’s going to climb mountains.”
Meredith hoped she got the chance. All the therapists’ reports would go back to Janet for approval.
They arrived at the park and Meredith settled herself on a swing, with Zola still strapped into her carrier. “I loved these swings when I was a little girl,” she admitted, letting the wind sway them. “I used to think if I could just swing over the bar, I’d be in a whole new world.” A world where her mommy and daddy didn’t fight. Hopefully Zola had found her new world early, and she’d never have to make wishes like that.
The thought made her remember the beginning of the conversation she’d had with the physical therapist. “You’re a neurosurgeon?” the woman had said, in what could only be a sneer.
“I’m training to be one. My husband is.”
“Hmm.”
“Is that a problem?”
“Well…it’s just, when we see kids whose parents are doctors there’s usually a hidden agenda of fixing them. Neurosurgeons and spina bifida…well…it adds more complications to the mix now, doesn’t it?”
“I don’t want to fix her,” Meredith had said then. “I want to give her the best life she can have. I’m not about to ruin it by subjecting her to a million medical tests she doesn’t need.”
She’d thought of the clinical trial, and by the look on her mentor’s face she knew Bailey had, too. What was different about wanting to save people-and their family members-from going through the ordeal of Alzheimer’s, but being willing to let Zola’s body betray her in other ways?
Meredith had been considering it the whole afternoon, but it wasn’t until she sat in the sunshine with Zola babbling happily at her that she came to a conclusion. Alzheimer’s took a life. For Zola, they’d be making a life, and the best life possible didn’t involve “fixing” her. It involved reminding her that she could be extraordinary all on her own.
While she swung them, she watched the other families on the playground. There were only a couple, and all of the children were older than Zola. A few of the moms sat on a bench talking, or reading, but one mom about her age sat on the edge of the sandbox, helping her son pile dirt into a pail. “We’ll do that when you’re bigger, Zo,” she promised. “Get you really dirty so you can splash around in the tub as long as you want.”
To Meredith’s surprise, Zola had loved her bath the night before. Her delighted shrieks had drawn a grin out of Cristina, something Meredith hadn’t been able to do all week, no matter how hard she tried.
While she watched the mom and boy dump the pail over to create a tower, her phone buzzed in her pocket. She twisted to pull it out, and Zola shrieked gleefully as the swing jerked.
“Hello?”
“Hey, it’s me. How’d it go?” After she’d dressed Zola that morning in the purple dress Lexie had picked out, she’d sent a picture to Derek along with a brief explanation of where they were going.
“Really well, I think. Zola charmed everyone.”
“Of course,” he echoed, and she imagined the proud smile on his face. He didn’t know how uncharming she’d been the day before. Today, having Meredith in her sight seemed to have been enough. Bailey had suspected the familiarity of the medical environment had something to do with it. “She’ll fit right in with you two hospital-addicts,” she’d said, but Meredith had gotten chills, thinking of her own childhood spent haunting hospital hallways for a glimpse of her mother. That wouldn’t be Zola’s life.
“They, um, said she’s pretty young for them to make a prognosis, but they were surprised by some of her milestones. The rocking on her hands-and-knees thing she does? Plus, she’s sitting almost completely unaided. With so much time spent in a busy orphanage that’s pretty impressive. Still, they’re worried about the muscle tone in her legs.”
“Her medical records state that the lesion was pretty low.”
“Yeah, but the effects will still vary. Derek, you know that.”
“I know.” He sighed. “But she was good?”
“She was perfect. She is perfect.” Meredith smiled down at Zola, who was watching her lips intently. “She misses you.”
“I miss her too. It’s weird, I’ve only known her for a few weeks, but…”
“But it seems like forever? You’re telling me. Heck, she’s only been here three days and I can’t believe there was a day she wasn’t.” And I don’t want to. “How’s your mom?”
“She’s… all right. They pushed back the operation because the specialist I requested wasn’t available yet.”
“The specialist you requ-Derek, you didn’t.”
“It’s my mom, Meredith. He’s the best cardio-surgeon I know.”
“What happened to not trusting him? After he lied?”
Already Meredith had begun the internal debate about telling Cristina. She hadn’t realized Derek even knew where Burke was. Not that it mattered, but now that she knew the words would weigh on her tongue every time she spoke about Derek to her friend.
“His hand is fine. That’s all I get to care about right now. People…people make mistakes.”
Meredith wondered if an apology lay in there, but she wasn’t going to accept it if there was. She hadn’t made a mistake. “I get it. You want the best for your mom. You’re flying specialists in from Peru, or whatever. I’m just surprised.”
“I was too. I’d called him before I really realized what I was doing. Anyway, Mom’s the least worried of all of us. She’s bossing me and my sisters around constantly. If she tells me to go home to the baby one more time I might just do it.”
To the baby. But we can’t just do this for the baby.
“It’d be nice if you were here. I was thinking… she really loves the water. I mean, in the bath last night, she loved it. I mentioned it to the PT and he said water’s good for kids who have low muscle strength. It helps them learn control where it’s easier to move. I thought maybe once you get back we could take her to the pool, or something.” A hawk called overhead, and Meredith twisted and pointed to try to show it to Zola. “Bird, Zola. Bird.”
“The pool… Mer, you’re afraid of more than a tub full of water.” It wasn’t something they’d acknowledged, after she drowned. More that he never invited her to go fishing the way he had with Cristina, and she stood far back on the grass if she had to speak to him while he stood in their lake, fishing pole in hand.
“Zola shouldn’t be deprived of something she loves just because I had a traumatic experience. I just don’t want to take her on my own.”
As soon as she said this, she regretted it. A good mother wouldn’t admit this kind of weakness. Plus the implications of the statement were in case I freeze, and something happens, and she drowns too. All stupid thoughts when she’d be going to a community pool with a lifeguard on hand, but they were there nonetheless.
“Sometimes I forget.”
“Forget what?” she said, standing up. Zola had made a face of deep concentration, which implied that she’d need to be changed within the ten minutes it’d take Meredith to walk them home.
“How brave you are.”
This stopped her in her tracks, even though Zola made a tiny grunting noise, signaling that she was further along in the proceedings than Meredith had expected.
“I mean, you have a choice. You could never go near the water again, but you’re willing to for her. And other things. The bomb. And Burke reminded me over the phone of the time you stood up to him to get that baby in the NICU checked out. And… I still don’t condone what you did. I can’t agree that any of it was reprehensible, or even explicable, but standing up to Richard and to me was pretty brave.”
“Or stupid,” Meredith said, when her throat felt wet enough again to let her speak. “All of those things could be classified as stupid.”
“Hey. Let me see my wife in the light I want to.”
The word wife made her smile stupidly, though she knew he might be speaking out of exhaustion, or desperation, and his anger would probably come charging back after he had time to process everything going on with his mom.
“And I would love to take our little princess swimming.”
“We might have to do a few trial runs to make sure I don’t have a panic attack, or something,” Meredith said, unlocking the front door. “And now I have to go. The little princess has filled her treasure chest.”
Derek laughed, and Meredith realized how much she’d missed this sound. “Okay. Give her a kiss from me.”
“I will. Keep me posted. And Derek?”
“Yeah?”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
And though she knew they still had a long road to travel down, for the moment this was enough
***
Lexie couldn’t help scanning the cars in the driveway at home, and hated herself for the sigh of relief that crossed her lips whenever she noted that Jackson’s wasn’t one of them. Not that she didn’t want him there, but they’d been on a case together all day. He’d been good, hadn’t mentioned his plans, but the question marks in his eyes were impossible to miss.
She parked behind Cristina’s motorcycle, and paused for a moment to glance in through the living room window. The tableaux made her smile. She could make out the hum of a base from behind the glass, and Meredith stood in the center of the floor dancing with Zola in her arms. Cristina stood to the side, watching skeptically, but by the time Lexie’d finished climbing the stairs she’d joined in.
“What are we dancing out?” Lexie hung her coat on a hook and came in with the paper bag she held clutched in the other hand.
Zola’s voice reached her first, a joyous coo that escalated when Meredith spun with her. “We’re indoctrinating her early,” Meredith said, with a laugh. “And Owen tried to talk to Cristina today.”
“All puppy-dog eyes and let’s talk,” Cristina agreed. In the past this would have been the moment when she took a deep swing from the ever-present bottle of alcohol, but now the only bottles scattered around the house were Zola’s. As Lexie thought about this she realized how much they’d all grown up since the first days she’d danced with her sister-not the first ‘dancing it out’ Meredith remembered-and like it or not she’d have to join in with the “being an adult” even though she was six years younger than them.
“I brought something that might help.”
“A shotgun?” Cristina deadpanned, and though the music still blasted from the speakers, she might as well have jammed her finger on a mute button. Meredith stopped, her hand cupping the back of Zola’s head. Lexie clutched the bag to her chest, and Cristina’s curls fell in front of her face as she hung her head. “I didn’t mean that. I didn’t think.”
“No, you didn’t.” Meredith flipped off the stereo. Lexie saw the pain in her eyes for the second before she blinked it away. “What’d you bring, Lexie?”
With a half-hearted flourish, Lexie ripped the brown paper bag off of the carton of strawberry ice cream. Meredith grinned. “I know why I keep you around.”
“Well since you married Derek, we didn’t think it was to pay the rent,” Cristina said. “Should I get the bowls since your hands are full of baby?”
“Unless you want to hear the not-so-dulcet tones of Zola-scorned,” Lexie commented.
“Hey, she’s getting better. She sat in her bouncy seat by herself for fifteen whole minutes while I talked on the phone today, didn’t you Zo?”
“With you more than a centimeter away?”
“Hey, progress is progress.”
Lexie was pretty sure Meredith didn’t mind Zola’s clinginess half as much as she claimed to, at least not judging by the smile she got when Zola grabbed for her spoon a few minutes later. “Want to try?” She brushed the ice cream against Zola’s lips. The baby poked out her bright pink tongue, and made a face as she contemplated the new taste. Then she waved her arms excitedly and lunged for the spoon again.
“Looks like you don’t have to disown her for bad taste, Mer,” Cristina said.
“Don’t listen to her, Zola. You could stay even if you didn’t like strawberry ice cream. We’ll talk when it comes to chocolate cake.”
“Who were you on the phone with? Derek?” Lexie asked.
“Nope, I talked to him before that. Izzie, actually. I emailed her the other day about Zola. She wants me to drive up there sometime so she can meet her. I said once Derek is back in town maybe. I’ll have plenty of time on my hands.”
“She can’t come down here?”
Meredith shrugged, letting Zola have another tiny lick off her spoon. “I guess it’s hard for her. She says she hasn’t been seeing anyone up there. She still loves Alex, I guess. Just can’t be with him.”
“I understand that,” Lexie murmured, and Cristina nodded.
Meredith went silent for a moment. “Also, I called the contractor.”
“I thought that was Shepherd’s job,” Cristina said.
“Is he here? I wanted to find out what it would take to make the house more accessible. In case… you know. I mean, it’s two-story, no getting around that, but they can widen doorways, put in railings, that kind of thing.”
“Did they suggest that this morning?” Lexie smiled at Zola, who’d appropriated Meredith’s spoon and was attempting to feed herself ice cream.
“No. I just thought we should be prepared. We can’t take it one step at a time anymore. We have to think about the future. Her future.” Meredith took the spoon to help Zola guide it to her mouth. Her words echoed in Lexie’s mind. The future. She’d have to decide her own future sooner than she thought, not just move with whatever happened.
“Anyway,” Meredith continued. “We have some of my baby stuff in the attic. I thought about going to look at it after Zola’s asleep. There’s a really nice rocking horse some distant relative gave me one Christmas, but I think it might be too dusty and full of my old germs to be worth anything.”
“Do I have to teach you about half-lives? Did the mommy-germs erase basic science from your brain?” Cristina raised an eyebrow.
“I’m not going to dignify that with an answer, except to remind you that one of us got accepted to Harvard Med and one of us got waitlisted.”
“You got waitlisted at my school? You almost went there?” Lexie said, the words jammed together thanks to her inability to decide which question absolutely needed to take precedent at that moment. (Deciding things. Always her problem.) “But I thought you only applied to Dartmouth because everywhere else would require references from a professor whose son you slept with.”
“Yeah, well… I actually would’ve gone there if Mom hadn’t wanted to be away from everyone she knew once she got diagnosed. She moved to New York, so there was no point in me staying in Boston.”
“It’s weird. It’s like we kept crossing paths or something.” Lexie said this pointedly, hoping Meredith’s memory might somehow be jogged. She’d been hoping it, in a way, for three years.
Meredith nodded pensively, but before she said anything that might make Lexie think they’d had a breakthrough, Zola opened her mouth to let out a huge yawn. “I better put her down,” Meredith said. “She’s had a busy, busy day. What do you think, Zola? Time to read a book and turn off the lights?” She stood up, and paused only long enough to place her bowl next to the sink before disappearing in the direction of the stairs. Lexie could hear her narrating the trip to Zola the whole way.
She took it upon herself to wash the dishes, while Cristina retreated upstairs, too. As she piled the bowls back into the cabinet, her phone chimed.
Mark:
At least during the surgery I’ll have the chance to beat my top score in Angry Birds.
Lexie snickered, and headed toward her attic bedroom, trying to convince herself she wasn’t a little pleased Jackson was on-call. While she pressed send, and paused in front of Meredith’s room to listen to the phone ring in her ear, she heard Meredith’s voice through the wood of the door.
“Good patting, Zo. Isn’t the bunny soft?” The tone reminded Lexie of the way her own mother had spoken to her, once upon a time. She smiled at this, and not because of the gravelly voice saying “hello” in her ear.
(He needed a friend. She could be that and choose Jackson. If she wanted to).
Part Five|| Table of Contents || Part Seven
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, onlywordsnow for the fanmix and waltzmatildah for the fan art!
Written for thega_fanfic Big Bang!
Fanmix:
Fan Art:
Meredith glanced out the window by her bed at the blue sky. It seemed wrong to keep Zola cooped up inside after the morning they’d had, particularly when Seattle was being so inclimate lately. “What do you say, Zo?” she said, securing the tape on what felt like the zillionth diaper change of the day. “Want to go to the park?”
Zola gurgled, which Meredith took as consent. The speech therapist had been impressed with Meredith’s initiative with the signing, though she warned it might take Zola a while to catch on, because English wasn’t her first language. Meredith had time. Bailey had come to meet her armed with the news that the chief was fighting with the board to put Meredith on suspension. He suggested a month, but believed the board might fight for longer.
“He implied that you could meld it into maternity leave, if you wanted to.”
Meredith wondered if she should’ve been more surprised that the idea already seemed a little appealing. It’d give Zola the chance to get truly acclimated before she had to start daycare, and she could supervise the move to the new house…
Further delaying the end of your residency, Meredith? her mother said in her head. It’s bad enough that you’re not going to be chief resident.
She ignored the warring mother-figure voices to slide Zola into the Snuggie and set off for the park down the road, a place she hadn’t been since she was five. The whole way there, she spoke softly to Zola. The few people out walking their dogs didn’t give her a second glance.
“You know, Zola, one of the perks of having you around is that people don’t think I’m crazy for talking to myself.”
She put her hand firmly on Zola’s back as she crossed the street, imagining a day in the future when she’d hold her hand to do the same thing. Or would she be pushing her in a child-sized wheelchair? “They said today they might want to put braces on your legs when you’re bigger. Bet you’re not going to like those very much,” she added, thinking of the three times Zola had flung her socks off during her evaluations. “But if they’ll help you, we’ll make it work, won’t we?”
Bailey had made sure to reassure her about that when they’d gotten coffee after the long morning. Meredith had Zola crooked in one arm to feed her, her own coffee growing cold in front of her. Even with Bailey sitting across the table, Zola’s inquisitive eyes had captured her. She couldn’t help but wonder if people would always see those eyes in days to come. Would they see whatever equipment came with them instead? She’d treated innumerable kids with spina bifida, and never focused on the accessories, but would everyone?
“Have faith,” Bailey had said, reading her mind. “Whatever this girls legs can do, she’s going to climb mountains.”
Meredith hoped she got the chance. All the therapists’ reports would go back to Janet for approval.
They arrived at the park and Meredith settled herself on a swing, with Zola still strapped into her carrier. “I loved these swings when I was a little girl,” she admitted, letting the wind sway them. “I used to think if I could just swing over the bar, I’d be in a whole new world.” A world where her mommy and daddy didn’t fight. Hopefully Zola had found her new world early, and she’d never have to make wishes like that.
The thought made her remember the beginning of the conversation she’d had with the physical therapist. “You’re a neurosurgeon?” the woman had said, in what could only be a sneer.
“I’m training to be one. My husband is.”
“Hmm.”
“Is that a problem?”
“Well…it’s just, when we see kids whose parents are doctors there’s usually a hidden agenda of fixing them. Neurosurgeons and spina bifida…well…it adds more complications to the mix now, doesn’t it?”
“I don’t want to fix her,” Meredith had said then. “I want to give her the best life she can have. I’m not about to ruin it by subjecting her to a million medical tests she doesn’t need.”
She’d thought of the clinical trial, and by the look on her mentor’s face she knew Bailey had, too. What was different about wanting to save people-and their family members-from going through the ordeal of Alzheimer’s, but being willing to let Zola’s body betray her in other ways?
Meredith had been considering it the whole afternoon, but it wasn’t until she sat in the sunshine with Zola babbling happily at her that she came to a conclusion. Alzheimer’s took a life. For Zola, they’d be making a life, and the best life possible didn’t involve “fixing” her. It involved reminding her that she could be extraordinary all on her own.
While she swung them, she watched the other families on the playground. There were only a couple, and all of the children were older than Zola. A few of the moms sat on a bench talking, or reading, but one mom about her age sat on the edge of the sandbox, helping her son pile dirt into a pail. “We’ll do that when you’re bigger, Zo,” she promised. “Get you really dirty so you can splash around in the tub as long as you want.”
To Meredith’s surprise, Zola had loved her bath the night before. Her delighted shrieks had drawn a grin out of Cristina, something Meredith hadn’t been able to do all week, no matter how hard she tried.
While she watched the mom and boy dump the pail over to create a tower, her phone buzzed in her pocket. She twisted to pull it out, and Zola shrieked gleefully as the swing jerked.
“Hello?”
“Hey, it’s me. How’d it go?” After she’d dressed Zola that morning in the purple dress Lexie had picked out, she’d sent a picture to Derek along with a brief explanation of where they were going.
“Really well, I think. Zola charmed everyone.”
“Of course,” he echoed, and she imagined the proud smile on his face. He didn’t know how uncharming she’d been the day before. Today, having Meredith in her sight seemed to have been enough. Bailey had suspected the familiarity of the medical environment had something to do with it. “She’ll fit right in with you two hospital-addicts,” she’d said, but Meredith had gotten chills, thinking of her own childhood spent haunting hospital hallways for a glimpse of her mother. That wouldn’t be Zola’s life.
“They, um, said she’s pretty young for them to make a prognosis, but they were surprised by some of her milestones. The rocking on her hands-and-knees thing she does? Plus, she’s sitting almost completely unaided. With so much time spent in a busy orphanage that’s pretty impressive. Still, they’re worried about the muscle tone in her legs.”
“Her medical records state that the lesion was pretty low.”
“Yeah, but the effects will still vary. Derek, you know that.”
“I know.” He sighed. “But she was good?”
“She was perfect. She is perfect.” Meredith smiled down at Zola, who was watching her lips intently. “She misses you.”
“I miss her too. It’s weird, I’ve only known her for a few weeks, but…”
“But it seems like forever? You’re telling me. Heck, she’s only been here three days and I can’t believe there was a day she wasn’t.” And I don’t want to. “How’s your mom?”
“She’s… all right. They pushed back the operation because the specialist I requested wasn’t available yet.”
“The specialist you requ-Derek, you didn’t.”
“It’s my mom, Meredith. He’s the best cardio-surgeon I know.”
“What happened to not trusting him? After he lied?”
Already Meredith had begun the internal debate about telling Cristina. She hadn’t realized Derek even knew where Burke was. Not that it mattered, but now that she knew the words would weigh on her tongue every time she spoke about Derek to her friend.
“His hand is fine. That’s all I get to care about right now. People…people make mistakes.”
Meredith wondered if an apology lay in there, but she wasn’t going to accept it if there was. She hadn’t made a mistake. “I get it. You want the best for your mom. You’re flying specialists in from Peru, or whatever. I’m just surprised.”
“I was too. I’d called him before I really realized what I was doing. Anyway, Mom’s the least worried of all of us. She’s bossing me and my sisters around constantly. If she tells me to go home to the baby one more time I might just do it.”
To the baby. But we can’t just do this for the baby.
“It’d be nice if you were here. I was thinking… she really loves the water. I mean, in the bath last night, she loved it. I mentioned it to the PT and he said water’s good for kids who have low muscle strength. It helps them learn control where it’s easier to move. I thought maybe once you get back we could take her to the pool, or something.” A hawk called overhead, and Meredith twisted and pointed to try to show it to Zola. “Bird, Zola. Bird.”
“The pool… Mer, you’re afraid of more than a tub full of water.” It wasn’t something they’d acknowledged, after she drowned. More that he never invited her to go fishing the way he had with Cristina, and she stood far back on the grass if she had to speak to him while he stood in their lake, fishing pole in hand.
“Zola shouldn’t be deprived of something she loves just because I had a traumatic experience. I just don’t want to take her on my own.”
As soon as she said this, she regretted it. A good mother wouldn’t admit this kind of weakness. Plus the implications of the statement were in case I freeze, and something happens, and she drowns too. All stupid thoughts when she’d be going to a community pool with a lifeguard on hand, but they were there nonetheless.
“Sometimes I forget.”
“Forget what?” she said, standing up. Zola had made a face of deep concentration, which implied that she’d need to be changed within the ten minutes it’d take Meredith to walk them home.
“How brave you are.”
This stopped her in her tracks, even though Zola made a tiny grunting noise, signaling that she was further along in the proceedings than Meredith had expected.
“I mean, you have a choice. You could never go near the water again, but you’re willing to for her. And other things. The bomb. And Burke reminded me over the phone of the time you stood up to him to get that baby in the NICU checked out. And… I still don’t condone what you did. I can’t agree that any of it was reprehensible, or even explicable, but standing up to Richard and to me was pretty brave.”
“Or stupid,” Meredith said, when her throat felt wet enough again to let her speak. “All of those things could be classified as stupid.”
“Hey. Let me see my wife in the light I want to.”
The word wife made her smile stupidly, though she knew he might be speaking out of exhaustion, or desperation, and his anger would probably come charging back after he had time to process everything going on with his mom.
“And I would love to take our little princess swimming.”
“We might have to do a few trial runs to make sure I don’t have a panic attack, or something,” Meredith said, unlocking the front door. “And now I have to go. The little princess has filled her treasure chest.”
Derek laughed, and Meredith realized how much she’d missed this sound. “Okay. Give her a kiss from me.”
“I will. Keep me posted. And Derek?”
“Yeah?”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
And though she knew they still had a long road to travel down, for the moment this was enough
***
Lexie couldn’t help scanning the cars in the driveway at home, and hated herself for the sigh of relief that crossed her lips whenever she noted that Jackson’s wasn’t one of them. Not that she didn’t want him there, but they’d been on a case together all day. He’d been good, hadn’t mentioned his plans, but the question marks in his eyes were impossible to miss.
She parked behind Cristina’s motorcycle, and paused for a moment to glance in through the living room window. The tableaux made her smile. She could make out the hum of a base from behind the glass, and Meredith stood in the center of the floor dancing with Zola in her arms. Cristina stood to the side, watching skeptically, but by the time Lexie’d finished climbing the stairs she’d joined in.
“What are we dancing out?” Lexie hung her coat on a hook and came in with the paper bag she held clutched in the other hand.
Zola’s voice reached her first, a joyous coo that escalated when Meredith spun with her. “We’re indoctrinating her early,” Meredith said, with a laugh. “And Owen tried to talk to Cristina today.”
“All puppy-dog eyes and let’s talk,” Cristina agreed. In the past this would have been the moment when she took a deep swing from the ever-present bottle of alcohol, but now the only bottles scattered around the house were Zola’s. As Lexie thought about this she realized how much they’d all grown up since the first days she’d danced with her sister-not the first ‘dancing it out’ Meredith remembered-and like it or not she’d have to join in with the “being an adult” even though she was six years younger than them.
“I brought something that might help.”
“A shotgun?” Cristina deadpanned, and though the music still blasted from the speakers, she might as well have jammed her finger on a mute button. Meredith stopped, her hand cupping the back of Zola’s head. Lexie clutched the bag to her chest, and Cristina’s curls fell in front of her face as she hung her head. “I didn’t mean that. I didn’t think.”
“No, you didn’t.” Meredith flipped off the stereo. Lexie saw the pain in her eyes for the second before she blinked it away. “What’d you bring, Lexie?”
With a half-hearted flourish, Lexie ripped the brown paper bag off of the carton of strawberry ice cream. Meredith grinned. “I know why I keep you around.”
“Well since you married Derek, we didn’t think it was to pay the rent,” Cristina said. “Should I get the bowls since your hands are full of baby?”
“Unless you want to hear the not-so-dulcet tones of Zola-scorned,” Lexie commented.
“Hey, she’s getting better. She sat in her bouncy seat by herself for fifteen whole minutes while I talked on the phone today, didn’t you Zo?”
“With you more than a centimeter away?”
“Hey, progress is progress.”
Lexie was pretty sure Meredith didn’t mind Zola’s clinginess half as much as she claimed to, at least not judging by the smile she got when Zola grabbed for her spoon a few minutes later. “Want to try?” She brushed the ice cream against Zola’s lips. The baby poked out her bright pink tongue, and made a face as she contemplated the new taste. Then she waved her arms excitedly and lunged for the spoon again.
“Looks like you don’t have to disown her for bad taste, Mer,” Cristina said.
“Don’t listen to her, Zola. You could stay even if you didn’t like strawberry ice cream. We’ll talk when it comes to chocolate cake.”
“Who were you on the phone with? Derek?” Lexie asked.
“Nope, I talked to him before that. Izzie, actually. I emailed her the other day about Zola. She wants me to drive up there sometime so she can meet her. I said once Derek is back in town maybe. I’ll have plenty of time on my hands.”
“She can’t come down here?”
Meredith shrugged, letting Zola have another tiny lick off her spoon. “I guess it’s hard for her. She says she hasn’t been seeing anyone up there. She still loves Alex, I guess. Just can’t be with him.”
“I understand that,” Lexie murmured, and Cristina nodded.
Meredith went silent for a moment. “Also, I called the contractor.”
“I thought that was Shepherd’s job,” Cristina said.
“Is he here? I wanted to find out what it would take to make the house more accessible. In case… you know. I mean, it’s two-story, no getting around that, but they can widen doorways, put in railings, that kind of thing.”
“Did they suggest that this morning?” Lexie smiled at Zola, who’d appropriated Meredith’s spoon and was attempting to feed herself ice cream.
“No. I just thought we should be prepared. We can’t take it one step at a time anymore. We have to think about the future. Her future.” Meredith took the spoon to help Zola guide it to her mouth. Her words echoed in Lexie’s mind. The future. She’d have to decide her own future sooner than she thought, not just move with whatever happened.
“Anyway,” Meredith continued. “We have some of my baby stuff in the attic. I thought about going to look at it after Zola’s asleep. There’s a really nice rocking horse some distant relative gave me one Christmas, but I think it might be too dusty and full of my old germs to be worth anything.”
“Do I have to teach you about half-lives? Did the mommy-germs erase basic science from your brain?” Cristina raised an eyebrow.
“I’m not going to dignify that with an answer, except to remind you that one of us got accepted to Harvard Med and one of us got waitlisted.”
“You got waitlisted at my school? You almost went there?” Lexie said, the words jammed together thanks to her inability to decide which question absolutely needed to take precedent at that moment. (Deciding things. Always her problem.) “But I thought you only applied to Dartmouth because everywhere else would require references from a professor whose son you slept with.”
“Yeah, well… I actually would’ve gone there if Mom hadn’t wanted to be away from everyone she knew once she got diagnosed. She moved to New York, so there was no point in me staying in Boston.”
“It’s weird. It’s like we kept crossing paths or something.” Lexie said this pointedly, hoping Meredith’s memory might somehow be jogged. She’d been hoping it, in a way, for three years.
Meredith nodded pensively, but before she said anything that might make Lexie think they’d had a breakthrough, Zola opened her mouth to let out a huge yawn. “I better put her down,” Meredith said. “She’s had a busy, busy day. What do you think, Zola? Time to read a book and turn off the lights?” She stood up, and paused only long enough to place her bowl next to the sink before disappearing in the direction of the stairs. Lexie could hear her narrating the trip to Zola the whole way.
She took it upon herself to wash the dishes, while Cristina retreated upstairs, too. As she piled the bowls back into the cabinet, her phone chimed.
Mark:
At least during the surgery I’ll have the chance to beat my top score in Angry Birds.
Lexie snickered, and headed toward her attic bedroom, trying to convince herself she wasn’t a little pleased Jackson was on-call. While she pressed send, and paused in front of Meredith’s room to listen to the phone ring in her ear, she heard Meredith’s voice through the wood of the door.
“Good patting, Zo. Isn’t the bunny soft?” The tone reminded Lexie of the way her own mother had spoken to her, once upon a time. She smiled at this, and not because of the gravelly voice saying “hello” in her ear.
(He needed a friend. She could be that and choose Jackson. If she wanted to).
Part Five|| Table of Contents || Part Seven