The Origin of Species (1/1)
Title: The Origin of Species (1/1)
Author: truhekili
Characters: Alex/Meredith/Cristina (Friendship)
Rating: PG-13
Standard disclaimer: All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. As this work is an interpretation of the original material and not for-profit, it constitutes fair use. Reference to real persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context, and are not intended to be libelous, defamatory, or in any way factual.
Word Count: 3,800
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Post Season 6 Finale. Set one week after the finale. How does Meredith manage Momma McDreamy plus a mini-zoo? One-shot. Complete.
He never sleeps on his back.
That’s her first thought when she enters Alex's hospital room near midnight, after another day that seems to have started…weeks ago.
He sleeps on his stomach in his bed at home, sprawled like a star fish, and equally prone to clinging when you try to pry him out before six a.m.
Or, he sleeps curled up on his side on the couch, purring like a big plaid house cat, when he dozes off watching cheesy old sci-fi movies. That’s where he should be now, leaving pop corn crumbs on the coffee table, while giant killer tomatoes attack an unsuspecting Nebraska farm community.
She takes her usual chair, pokes her hand through the bed rails - raised higher then usual, for when he starts fighting back, again - wraps her fingers around his. They’re too warm, though hers might just be too cold, since it’s late and she’s almost shivering.
“Cristina said you did good today,” she volunteers, trying to steady her voice. “She says you’re harder to kill then a cock roach.”
She watches his eye lashes flutter, feels his hand close loosely around hers, and squeezes back forcefully. She let go for too long two days ago, and then fell asleep in Derek’s room many hours later, before jolting awake to the image of Alex tumbling wordlessly down a bloody elevator shaft, and to Cristina’s assurances that he’d be fine, that he’d be awake again soon… though he’d just been returned to his room, after Altman had taken him back into surgery.
She wouldn’t let go that long this time.
She watches as his eyes vaguely track hers - bewildered and groggy and empty - and knits her fingers more deeply through his. He’ll probably pull his own away the instant his head clears; she would, too, she imagines, since that’s the first thing you learn when nobody wants you; it’s instinct; it’s just how you survive.
She moves her chair closer, leans back for a moment, and drifts into the dim fluorescent haze surrounding the I.C.U., before nodding off. She wakes nearly an hour later, meets a more focused gaze, wonders if he has much feeling in his limbs, and if he can move.
“I’m still here,” she whispers, squeezing his hand again. She waits for some sign that he knows her voice, knows that he should be home, sprawled on his own bed or curled up on the couch. His fingers close more tightly around hers, startling her, and they don’t twist free or drop away, and she almost has to look away, because Alex doesn’t do the look she sees in his eyes, and Alex’s hand would never be wrapped so determinedly around hers.
She wonders wildly if he remembers her dream, remembers spiraling down that elevator shaft; she grips more firmly, just in case.
“Mere,” Cristina’s voice breaks in sharply from behind her, almost making her jump. “Momma McDreamy is looking for you again.”
“I thought she went back to the hotel?” Meredith snapped impatiently. “I was going to stay in Derek’s room tonight. Next to his sister,” she grumbled under her breath.
“I know, right,” Cristina retorted, as she crossed over to the foot of the bed, immediately grabbing a well-worn clipboard. “They never leave. McDreamy’s fine,” she huffed, shaking her head, her hands on her hips. “Did you tell them I’m a rock star?”
“Didn’t get around to it,” Meredith admitted, rolling her eyes as she watched Cristina pouring over Alex’s chart and labs.
“His mother’s not that bad,” Cristina conceded, flipping impatiently to the second page. “Not as bad as mine,” she added with a shudder. “But his sisters,” she snorted, with an exaggerated grimace.
“I know, right,” Meredith grumbled, her twisted frown mirroring Cristina’s.
“These look…good,” Cristina said more quietly, still scanning Alex’s labs. “Better then last night. They look…good.”
“Come here,” Meredith replied, motioning to her and shifting in her seat.
“Huh?” Cristina asked, looking up.
“I have to go talk to Derek’s mother,” Meredith reminded her. “Come sit with him.”
“Me?” she retorted. “He’s-“
“He’s almost awake again,” Meredith insisted. “He’s…he’s… I don’t want him to be alone.”
“Mere-“she interrupted.
“Just come here,” she insisted, motioning again. “It won’t kill you.”
“How do you know I won’t kill him?” Cristina snorted.
“He’s a cock roach, remember?” Meredith needled. “He’s Alex. He’s… indestructible.” She’d been telling herself that for a week; she was sure she’d believe it...soon.
“And clammy,” Cristina noted, scowling as she took his hand. “Or is that you?”
“Shut up,” Meredith snickered, checking her pager for messages and turning to leave.
“Be nice,” Cristina taunted. “She’s like your post-it mother-in-law.”
“That’s your great advice?” Meredith smirked.
“I’m trying to be helpful,” Cristina retorted. “I don’t do mothers, or mother-in-laws.”
“Me neither,” Meredith agreed, leaving the room.
Slipping into the darkened hallway, she paused briefly, leaning against the wall and exhaling heavily and trying to clear her head, as her legs still trembled unsteadily beneath her. She watched through the ICU window, staring blankly as Cristina rearranged his blanket and whispered something to him, without letting go of his hand.
It was all wrong, she thought. Alex didn’t do fear, and Cristina didn’t do hand-holding, and Meredith Grey didn’t do families, especially not normal families like Derek’s, and she was sure that her alarm clock should have gone off hours ago, but there was still no end in sight to this particular nightmare.
She stared at the gleaming floor, which was so freshly polished that the shadows dancing across it were making her dizzy, even amid the muted lights of the night shift. The steady dull hum of his vent still echoed through her head, though it’d finally been removed the day before, and the occasional clattering of gurneys still made her jump, and every sharp sound was still a gun shot, and every stranger was still a mad man.
She remembered when this had all been the comforting rhythm of her childhood, the only place she ever called home; in retrospect, that seemed even sicker now.
Pushing herself away from the wall, she trudged down the long hall way, ducked into another familiar room, and spied Derek’s youngest sister perched in a hard plastic chair, trying to read a vapid romance novel in the dimly lit cubicle.
“I sent mom home,” the raven haired young woman said crisply, barely looking up. “She can be a little much sometimes.”
“She’s fine. She’s…nice,” Meredith stammered, dredging up that this sister’s name was Amelia. She was a brilliant neurosurgeon, of course, though she barely even looked old enough to drive, and a colleague of Addison’s, of course, since she’d always be the slutty intern or the dirty mistress or the mid-life crisis - depending on which sister you asked.
Meredith almost snorted internally, still amazed that none of his siblings were Noble prize winners, or the Surgeon General, or Harper Avery Winners, or, or…senators - yet.
“She’s a mother,” the young woman shrugged, abruptly shoving her book in her bag and standing as she grabbed her coat. The bag was Coach, the coat was precisely tailored, and even the book cover matched her designer shoes, as if she had an entire outfit just waiting in her closet for the day that her brother got shot by a raving lunatic, and could pack it at a moment’s notice, wrinkle free - of course.
“You’re leaving?“ Meredith started, puzzled.
“Yeah,” she said, pushing her long unruly curls over her shoulder as she searched the large bag for her phone. “We thought you might want a break from us tonight, might want to be alone with him.”
“It’s fine, really,” Meredith sputtered. “You can stay. He’ll be asleep, anyway.“
“He’s fine,” Amelia said reassuringly, forcing a weary half smile. “I looked over his labs. He’ll probably be out of here in two days.”
“Yeah,” Meredith agreed tiredly. “That’s what Cristina said, too.”
“He’s got four sisters,” Amelia shrugged, her voice almost sympathetic, “and an over-protective mother. She’ll be back at seven, you know, visiting hours or not. You’ll have plenty of help. I requested another week off, and mom can stay as long as you need her.”
Meredith nodded, settling into another familiar chair as she scanned the monitors above his bed. She’d read his chart until her eyes went bleary, double checked his labs with the calculator on her phone, listened to Cristina’s and Teddy’s blunt reassurances over the past five days, running them over and over in her mind. She’d done everything she could for him, which amounted to nothing, really, since all she could do was wait.
“Wait and hope,” his mother had insisted from day one, from the very first phone call, even. The phrase grated, as did the steady stream of sisters, squabbling and gossiping and jostling to look over the scans and pepper Teddy and Cristina with questions.
“Can I bring you something tomorrow morning?” Amelia asked as she paused in the doorway. “A bagel, maybe? Some yogurt?”
“No, thanks,” Meredith replied briskly, scarcely looking up as she retrieved a blanket from the large chair in the corner of the room.
“Okay, well, good night,” Amelia replied, striding briskly out into the hallway.
It set Meredith seething again, as she watched Amelia go, after yet another reminder that his sisters doubted she could even take care of herself, much less of Derek. They’d have been even worse, she imagined, if any of them knew about the non-baby baby.
But Owen and Cristina had been sworn to secrecy, and April was one loud noise away from a one way ticket to the fifth floor and a padded annex to Dr. Wyatt’s office, and the baby that wasn’t just wasn’t going to be one more way that she failed in his sisters’ eyes.
It reminded her why she preferred her sisters at arm’s length, like Lexi, who’d already moved out of her house and in with Mark - and she wasn’t about to ask why - or like Molly, who she didn’t know at all, really, and didn’t want to.
She could do without pushy, busybody Nancy Shepherd, too - who phoned Addison regularly with up-dates, all the while coolly eyeing her replacement, or high strung, chatty Amelia, or the other two who’d already gone back to the east coast, the ones whose names she couldn’t keep straight.
She could do without the constant reminders that she wasn’t enough for him, too, or wasn’t good enough for him, period - she couldn’t quite tell which - or wasn’t Addison, or couldn’t handle this, as if she wasn’t a surgeon herself, as if she couldn’t read labs or keep track of his meds or urge him to eat by herself, without his entire freaking family weighing in on his care and offering her clichéd assurances and over-sized bagels.
Leaning back in her chair, she pulled the thin blanket around her, closing her eyes as she listened to his steady breathing. She trusted Cristina, trusted the labs and the monitors, trusted the calculator on her phone, and the eerily cheerful night nurse who checked his I.V. with a polite smile. She trusted all of it, but hope would still have to wait.
A different nurse’s bustling work woke her the next morning, sometime around six thirty, almost early enough to evade them all, she thought, until Amelia loomed in the doorway, two coffee cups in tow, her hair still a damp riot of curls, her dark eyes still bleary, and her tone still entirely too calm, and too up-beat for this hour.
“I thought you might need this,” she said briskly, offering Meredith one of the cups as she moved to check the latest chart entries. “Derek said you like it black,” she added, looking up abruptly as she spied Meredith eying the cup suspiciously. “He says you’re usually on your third cup by nine,” she added casually.
“Can you stay with him?” Meredith asked sharply, as she rose and placed the blanket sloppily back over her chair. “I have to check on…on… a patient.” It was a stupid question, and she was half way out of the room before Amelia could even look up again.
“Sure,” she replied, watching as Meredith breezed out of the room, leaving her coffee cup untouched on the bedside table.
Meredith paced down the hallway, fuming at Derek, and at Amelia, and at his mother, at all of them, really, for taking over his room and his medical care, for being so pushy and so chatty, for asking prying questions and eyeing her too closely and offering her food and telling her she should go home, that she should rest, that they could handle it, all of it.
That they could handle him better then her, she thought bitterly.
“What are you doing?” she asked abruptly, walking into Alex’s room, where Cristina sat perched cross-legged on her chair, scribbling furiously in a thick binder.
“Charting,” she said, flatly, without looking up.
“It’s after six,” Meredith pointed out. “Shouldn’t you be scrubbing in with Teddy by now?”
“She wants these done by tomorrow,” Cristina insisted, motioning to the stack of binders towering beside her. “These idiot interns never up-date anything,” she added sourly. “We were never like that.”
“You stayed here all night…charting?” Meredith asked, raising her eyebrows.
“The tunnels were freezing,” Cristina retorted, shrugging. “And they’re still cleaning the conference room,” she added impatiently, rolling her eyes.
“Sure,” Meredith smirked, checking the chart clipped to his bed. “Did he wake up?” she asked, scanning the figures carefully.
“Twice,” she replied, closing the binder she was writing in and leaning forward.
“Did he recognize you?” she asked, looking up suddenly.
“Not sure,” Cristina replied, rising from her seat and gathering the binders. “He had a freaking death grip on my hand,” she grumbled, shaking her head. “I told him he was like one of those cock roaches on those commercials, you know, the ones where the car-“
“I’m sure he recognized you then,” Meredith insisted, cutting her off with a snicker, as she moved to take the seat Cristina had vacated.
“The McDreamy Mob back?” Cristina asked.
“Oh, yeah,” Meredith agreed, nodding as she leaned forward, winding her fingers through his.
“You want me to run them off?” Cristina snorted, as she turned to leave. “I’m supposed to check on McDreamy, anyway.”
“I thought you were supposed to be “charting”?” Meredith teased.
“Shut up,” Cristina retorted, scowling as walked toward the door. “Just for that, you can deal with them today.”
“What else is new,” Meredith griped, shaking her head as she leaned back in her chair, scanning the monitors again.
“Meredith,” a familiar voice rang out behind her ten minutes later, like fingernails raking a chalk board. “Here you are. Amelia said you’d be checking up on him.”
“She said I’d be here?” Meredith asked, turning toward the voice with a suspicious frown and raising her eyebrows.
“Well, no, not exactly,” Mrs. Shepherd agreed, settling in the seat beside her and offering her the coffee cup she’d left behind. “Dr. Yang said you’d be here.”
“Of course she did,” Meredith muttered under her breath, awkwardly taking the cup.
“Derek told me that this boy is one of your friends,” she said quietly, motioning to Alex. “How’s he doing?”
“Fine,” Meredith said impatiently.
“His name’s Alex, right?” Mrs. Shepherd asked, glancing up at the monitors above his bed.
“Yes,” Meredith said bluntly, setting the coffee cup down on the nearby table with both hands and then hooking two fingers around his again.
“Where’s his family?” Mrs. Shepherd asked suddenly, scanning the room.
“We’re his family,” Meredith snapped.
“Oh,” she replied. “I just thought that his mother would-“
“We’re his family,” Meredith repeated more forcefully.
“Of course, I understand,” Mrs. Shepherd nodded kindly, settling back into the chair beside her and pulling a well worn book of cross word puzzles from her bag. It had been driving Meredith crazy for days, the incessant scratching of ink on paper. Apparently that’s what hope was - filling in sea after sea of blank white squares.
She almost sighed internally, wondering if Derek had sent his mother to baby sit her. Ten minutes later, she almost snorted again as the incessant scratching grew louder, and tried to distract herself by identifying an eight letter word for cross word puzzle inspired rage.
The noise echoed through her mind - crowding out Derek’s flat lining heart monitor and gun shots and screams and clattering gurneys and Teddy’s voice and April’s sobs and the sharp clip of swat team boots on familiar floors - until it was all she heard.
“Why are you here?” Meredith demanded finally. “Didn’t you come to see Derek?”
“He’s fine,” she said quietly. “He’s with Amelia and Nancy and Mark and the Chief of surgery himself. Why are you here?” she asked, looking up at her over her glasses.
“Because he’s a girl when I need him,” she blurted, motioning to Alex in response to the woman’s puzzled expression, “and he like green apples, and he’s going into Peads, and he picks the cucumbers out of my salad at lunch when he thinks I’m not looking, and he takes the recycling out and tomorrow’s Wednesday and he has to come home or the recycling will be on the back porch for another week,” she sputtered.
It was absurd, all of it, she realized, the moment she heard it out loud; she tried to think of a nine letter word for behaving like a babbling idiot in front of the mother-in-law who will never think you’re good enough for her only son.
“That’s why I’m here,” Mrs. Shepherd agreed, still slightly puzzled.
“What?” Meredith asked.
“He’s your family,” she said, glancing toward Alex, “and I’m yours, and that’s what families do. Even if we can’t do anything else, we can sit with them.”
Meredith nodded awkwardly, struggling to catch her breath.
“Cristina says he’s like a cock roach,” Meredith muttered, after an uncomfortable silence. “You know, tough, a survivor,” she added, when she met another bewildered expression.
“Is he?” Mrs. Shepherd asked quietly.
“Yeah,” Meredith whispered, nodding reluctantly. She braced herself for another sermon on waiting and hoping, and almost added preemptively that people who were raised by wolves didn’t do hope any more then they did mother-in-laws or sisters or flowery words or clichés or sea side ceremonies with miles of taffeta and flocks of white doves.
“Like you?” Mrs. Shepherd prodded gently.
The question startled her, and she wondered how much Derek had told his mother about her - since they all knew about how she liked her coffee - and she wondered if bagels were code for you’ve been through a trauma with the shooting or a metaphor for you’ve had a screwed up life and we can’t let him settle for damaged goods.
“Derek’s my husband,” she insisted pointedly, after another strained silence. “I would have died for him. I’d do anything for him. I may not be-“
“You love him,” Mrs. Shepherd agreed, cutting her off and studying her closely. “You’re good for him. I told him that, last time I was here.”
“You did?” Meredith asked sheepishly.
“Yes,” she nodded seriously.
“Oh,” Meredith said quietly, her stomach fluttering uncomfortably.
“Mom,” Amelia’s voice rang in from behind her. “Dr. Altman’s going over the post-op instructions now. She’s releasing him tomorrow. You want to come speak with her?”
“Yes,” Mrs. Shepherd said, rising carefully and returning her book and pen to her bag.
“Did you speak with her already?” she asked Meredith.
“Cristina told me,” she said. “I’ll double check everything with her and Teddy this afternoon.
“I understand,” she replied, motioning to Alex, “you want to be here when he wakes up.”
“Yeah,” Meredith agreed, exhaling.
“I’ll see you later then,” Mrs. Shepherd noted, smiling and following Amelia into the hall way.
Watching them leave, Meredith frowned, imagining the parade of relatives through her house once he was home, the puttering of his mother through their kitchen, the questions and comments - about her own mother, her childhood, her family photos, about why she chose to be a surgeon, and when they’d have kids, and what to do about her split ends.
She wasn’t their worst nightmare, maybe, but she’d never be one of them: she wouldn’t chatter and text endlessly, wouldn’t forward photos and silly jokes, wouldn’t shop for hours for just the right book to match her shoes, wouldn’t swap confidences or recipes.
She wasn’t dyeing her hair, either, or shaving her eye brows, or teetering down a freaking flower lined aisle, or trading in her Keds for ridiculously uncomfortable designer shoes.
“Yang?” Alex muttered moments later, groggy and disoriented.
“Nope,” Meredith replied, pulling her attention back to his bedside as she closely studied his face, gauging his breathing. “She was here before though.”
“Called me a cock roach,” he mumbled lazily, his eyes fluttering.
“That’s a good thing,” she assured him, working her fingers tentatively through his again.
“Clammy,” he whispered vaguely.
“My hand?” she asked, running her thumb lightly over his palm.
“Yang’s,” he corrected drowsily, tightening his own grip. “Like a freaking lizard.”
“I’ll be sure to tell her you said so,” Meredith smirked, watching as his eyes struggled to open again. She almost hoped that that look would be gone, finally, once he could focus his gaze, or at least keep his eye lashes reasonably separated; but hope was another one of those four letter words that neither of them put much faith in, at least, not until they had tangible proof.
“Um-huh,” he murmured softly, wending his fingers more thoroughly through hers.
She studied his face again, knit her fingers more closely through his, and watched his chest rise and fall peacefully. She was grateful that he didn’t need words, and that the lizard hadn’t eaten the cock roach, this time, and that, being another wolf himself, too, he understood the problems with siblings, and with mothers and fathers, and that his hand was still curled comfortably in hers, almost as if he believed she wanted it there.
She couldn’t do families, not for real, nobody raised by wolves could; but sitting - sitting she could do - sitting, all three of them could do. Brushing her thumb lightly across his palm again, she leaned back in her chair, smirking as she decided to wait a few minutes before letting the lizard know that the cock roach was awake.
Kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species; it was Evolutionary Biology 101. It was practically her first nursery rhyme. It was life in a nut shell, life as taxonomy, as finding where you belonged, in the order of species.