(Untitled)

[drownondryland]

It's the story of Meredith's life, really. Every time she starts to get back on her feet, something new comes along to bowl her over, and it's all the more frustrating for the fact it forces on her, the realization that she's grown soft here. Things were so good for a while, so peaceful, at least compared to the lives she and Sean had led before;

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[lexiepedia]

The response is about as good as Lexie can hope for, really, if not better. At least they aren't snapping anymore. She can hold her own, when she needs to, when she reaches a breaking point, but that doesn't mean she likes it all that much, particularly when she doesn't actually think it will accomplish much. It's hard to say if she honestly thinks there's anything to be gained here, if Meredith will ever come around like she did back home, but Lexie certainly wants her to. To call this a step in the right direction would probably be naïve, but it's better than several alternatives.

"Oh, yeah, I have a hut now," she says, nodding in confirmation. "It's not much, but it's something. Better than staying in the Compound, I thought, anyway. I think I might actually go crazy if I tried to live in here long term." As soon as she's said it, that last sentence, she's sure Meredith doesn't need to know it, but for her part, she doesn't find herself wanting to take it back. There can't be any harm in sharing things. It's a tactic she's tried

[drownondryland]

Meredith nods slowly. Every tiny connection annoys her because she can't seem to avoid them altogether, and it's not like that isn't a common enough sentiment. The building isn't very welcoming. Neither is she, but she can't make up her mind yet anyway, whether she should try or run. She likes her life; anyway, she likes the bare bones of it and the way she's seen it before, the way it's slowly, slowly becoming again, though things still aren't fixed. She doesn't need to add to it. Lexie's problems aren't hers.

She's tempted to turn tail and run, but something's needling at her, inexplicable, until she caves. "I moved out almost as soon as I got here," she says. "The clinic's about the only good part. And the kitchen." It clicks then. She's not about to make much effort, but she'd be a complete hypocrite to send Lexie packing now when she wants so much for Sean to fix things with Theresa. There's still only so much of this she thinks she can handle.

[lexiepedia]

"The kitchen definitely isn't bad," Lexie agrees, ducking her head with a small, almost sheepish smile. It's something, and the fact that they agree on it isn't insubstantial, as ridiculous as she feels for thinking so, when there probably isn't a person on this island who wouldn't say that the kitchen is the best part of it, and the clinic if they're a doctor. Mostly she's been avoiding the latter, knowing that it's Meredith's territory, and that, too, seems absolutely stupid now. It was different before, when she was an intern and Meredith was a resident and they didn't know each other in the slightest. Now, with Meredith running the whole place, it would be too weird having her as a boss. She's a doctor, though, and a smart, capable one, and maybe there isn't much to be done, but she shouldn't let herself be scared off by her sister. "It's going well, then? Everything in the clinic?"

[drownondryland]

There are questions Meredith's afraid to ask, things hanging on the tip of her tongue, not fully-formed in her mind, so when Lexie asks, she's in a near-daze. The question snaps her focus back to the girl and she nods quickly. "It's... slow," she says. "Not a lot of patients. But everything is... well, yes."

It's hers, more importantly, a sentiment she rarely expresses aloud except to Sean. There are other people who spend as much time in there - nearly as much anyway - or who have been here longer, and Peter built the O.R., but she keeps things in perfect working order now. It's what keeps her sane, the clinics and Sean, a little world she finds is increasingly hers to run. The world Lexie comes from isn't hers anymore, so the things in it shouldn't matter, but they do and there's so much she wants to know, so much she's afraid to know.

"The O.R. took some damage in the last storm, but it's fine now."

[lexiepedia]

"That's good! Not the damage, of course, but I'm, I'm really glad it could be fixed," Lexie replies, a little more enthusiastically than she'd intended. Just talking about it makes her miss surgery, but it's not like she's missing much - or anything at all - on that front here, and that ought to be a good thing. It means people are healthy, and not getting injured. The operating room is a necessary thing to have around anyway, and she's as genuine about being pleased it sustained no permanent damage as she is about what it means for Meredith. Awkward though it may be, she doesn't mind that so much when she can think of several worse alternatives off the top of her head. "It's pretty new, still, isn't it? The O.R."

[drownondryland]

"Only a few months," Meredith says, almost like she's talking about someone else's child instead of a building. It's precious to her, though they haven't used it much yet. The times they've had to, it was vital and that's reason enough for it to exist, for all the hours and effort put into it.

It takes work not to ask everything in her head now that she's started, and that leaves her stilted and uncertain, fingers tapping against the counter as she takes another sip. "Have you picked a specialty yet?" she asks finally, and it sounds, to her own ear, jarringly like her mother.

[lexiepedia]

"Uh, no, no, not yet," Lexie says, surprised by the question and trying not to show it and probably not doing a very good job of that. It's like going from chilly to personal; it's probably just a formality, but she can't help but hope that there's something good in Meredith's asking, even if she doesn't especially seem like it, wide-eyed and trying to figure out what to say next. With all that's happened between Meredith's time and her own, it seems to her that there are more important things she could be telling, but she holds her tongue for now, to keep from rambling. "I guess I don't know that I ever will here, not that - I do want to keep learning, when I can, and put what I do know to good use, but it's not like we have the same program here. Be hard to tell."

[drownondryland]

Meredith's grown protective of her clinic, her O.R., but hearing that from Lexie just makes her unaccountably ashamed. It's not Seattle Grace, no, and it never can be. It's not even a shallow imitation of Seattle Grace; it's far, far less than that. It serves their purposes, but right now, with Lexie there, it just makes her want home. And okay, so these days, what that means is cloudy, because she's been out of Seattle so long and she loves Sean, Sean is home, but that makes her no less desperate for the sanctuary of her hospital and the rush of real cases. This place can never hope to measure up.

She's asked Lexie essentially the most personal question there is and she doesn't know how to respond now, nodding slowly. "It's not easy to learn," she says. "There aren't many opportunities. What there is... you have to fight." No one on this island fights harder for surgeries than Meredith Grey. "You're not an intern anymore?"

[lexiepedia]

"Nope. I am a resident now," Lexie says, shaking her head a little, though she doesn't sound quite as proud of this fact as she otherwise would have. It's a good thing, a great thing, screwed up as everything around the hospital has been, but she can't see the time difference between them as anything but a problem. If she'd come here from a year earlier, still an intern, this would be so much easier; she would be used to this distance between Meredith and herself. What's more, there wouldn't be so much that she knows, so much that she should tell but hasn't yet been able to just blurt out. "I have been, for a few months. And I guess I... will be, from here on out. I mean, even without being back home, the chances of doing any surgery here are slim to none, right?"

[drownondryland]

"Extremely low," Meredith confirms, tone increasingly absent. She can't help it if she keeps pulling away. Being around Lexie is difficult. She's explained this to her before, a long time ago. It's not by any fault of Lexie's, it's just difficult, looking at this girl - this woman who looks somehow a little more related to her with that blonde hair - and seeing that, even when she talks about the low chance of getting to cut, she looks like a sweet person. A happy person. Maybe her life hasn't been easy, either, but it was easier in so many ways. It's hard not to think, if she'd grown up with the right parents in the right house, she'd have been a different girl, too, a happier girl, one who doesn't still fight not to bolt half the times she hears the word marriage.

Staying here, being present, talking - that's the hard part. Seattle is so fucking far away now

[lexiepedia]

Lexie polishes off the last of her sandwich in three bites, in part to buy herself some time and in part because she simply can't help it. She doesn't know the Meredith here, not really, not inasmuch as her love life is concerned. Whether or not she wants to be married to him now, Lexie can't tell if Meredith wants to be happy back home, or would rather hear that she isn't. The last thing she wants is to make things worse simply by telling the truth, and while she has to hope that the questions mean progress, mean maybe she'll get to have a relationship with her sister after all, she can't shake the feeling that this is about to get a whole lot more complicated.

"You... are," she says finally, taking a long gulp from her glass, though she doesn't look away from Meredith despite her tentativeness. "Both of those things. Sort of. Happy, yes, married... pretty married. You would say you're married. I don't know if it's legally married. See, you were going to have this whole big wedding, only then you gave it to Izzie, 'cause she'd

[drownondryland]

One thing Meredith knows about Lexie is that she can talk (another thing they have in common on a mental list she doesn't want to be making). It's still a lot to take in, almost too much to handle at once, and she sucks in a deep breath to compensate for the way her lungs don't seem to want to work. "Okay," she says. The panic doesn't creep into her voice until she says it again: "Okay."

His wife.

It's absolutely, entirely, utterly ridiculous to her that those two impossibly small words should hit her so hard, but they do. They leave her reeling, a little dizzy in fact, heat rising to her cheeks. She doesn't want to be his wife, that's her gut reaction (because, is the unwanted, equally immediate answer, she wants to be Sean's). Fighting to keep a calm exterior, she swallows hard. She wanted to know. She asked. She asked for a reason. Happy, she reminds herself. They're happy. They're married (they exchanged vows and meant them; if they abide by them, if their intent was true, then yes, married). That's still true, for however long

[lexiepedia]

Of course. It isn't, Lexie tells herself, like there could have been any avoiding this. The subject of Izzie's illness is too tied into Meredith and Derek's getting married, given that it's both why planned a church wedding and why they didn't wind up being the bride and groom at the actual ceremony, but how the hell is she supposed to tell Meredith that one of her best friends nearly died of cancer? Never mind all that came after it.

She takes a deep breath, too distracted, now, by trying to figure out how to break this news to take note of Meredith's reaction to being told about her being married. "Izzie... was sick," she decides on, an understatement, but not an untruth. "She was sick, and it was pretty much for her sake, anyway, the whole big wedding thing, so you and Derek decided that you should give it to her and Alex instead." And that certainly didn't end up like anyone had expected, but she manages to keep from mentioning that part, if only because it requires more of an explanation than can just be tacked on to the end of

[drownondryland]

"Alex?" She feels like a goddamn parrot, echoing back everything, but that still makes her smile a little when it sinks in. Alex and Izzie got married. She's strangely proud of him for that (and if he can, why can't she?). Meredith nods a moment later, drawing in a deep, unsteady breath. "I, I, I knew. That she was sick, I knew... She was here for a while. Not anymore

[lexiepedia]

"It's really sticking," Lexie confirms, nodding a little too emphatically. It's better than letting herself think about the way Meredith smiles when she says that Alex married Izzie. She shouldn't really feel guilty, she knows, when Izzie's the one who left him, but that little smile, it hurts all the same, enough to prompt her into continuing, because she can't just let Meredith keep on thinking that Alex and Izzie had the same happy ending. "For you and Derek, anyway. It's been months, yeah, since right before my intern year ended, and you're happy. Not so much the other two, though, they, they're not together anymore. Izzie kind of moved out. Away. Stopped answering her phone. Came back and left again. But she's... She's better now, at least. I think it's all gone, the cancer."

And thank God that's one bombshell that she's been spared from having to deliver. To imagine Izzie being here, a place with such limited medical capabilities while being as sick as she was, is so difficult that she nearly has to ask if not anymore means

[drownondryland]

"Oh." Meredith leans back hard against the counter (it jars her - physically, an ache reverberating in her ribs, though they're almost wholly healed now). This is their life (as it once was, as it used to be), this is how they work. Nothing lasts.

Except her and Derek, apparently, for what sounds like the better part of a year, which is, frankly, longer than she can remember their ever being together at a stretch. Longer than she once thought she and Sean would ever make it, for that matter, but here they are, nearly a year and a half down the line, still intact in spite of everything. They've had their problems, she can't pretend otherwise, but they've never fallen apart. (They could do it, right? If she and Derek have, she and Sean must be able to. She hates herself a little for digging for proof, like this isn't something to be taken wholly on faith.)

Anyway, none of it makes sense. She and Derek might once have, but not anymore, and the idea of Izzie leaving - maybe Alex, but all of them? Never. She can't think about it, she can