Winter Song
The holiday season. It's supposed to be a time for gathering together with your friends and family, for sharing the things that make you happy. Giving thanks and looking forward to a bright new year.
It's not Meredith's first winter on the island, not by a long shot. She's coming up on two years now and the snow's just a reminder of that, of precisely how long she's been stuck here. As she steps out of the schoolhouse, adjusting the scarf she's put on, it's difficult to believe she's in the same place she was just last week. It looks entirely different, though all the landmarks remain where they were, and while she likes the cold -- prefers it, really, to the perpetual sunshine -- it brings with it too many memories. Frankly, she's not sure if the good ones are any better than the bad.
We string up lights and exchange gifts. We sit around the tree and we hope. We shed what came before in anticipation of what's still to come. And we make promises to ourselves that next year won't be anything like this one.
She's lost more here, after all, than she realized she had when she had it, and if her past is any sign of what's to come, she ought to be readying herself to lose more. With George and Cristina here, things are better, but their presence is as much a reminder of what they've all left behind as it is something to make her feel more at home. And then there's the trouble with that, too -- that she's not entirely sure she needed them for that. She's never really stopped wanting to leave and that doesn't bother her. It's the part of her that wants to stay that she finds worrying. Sometimes she's grateful they can't go, that no one's figured it out and it's still this awful, arbitrary thing. Maybe that means dreading one of her friends will be next, but at least she doesn't have to choose.
That it will be better. That we will do more. We make promises we know we won't keep.
Offering up a little smile, she waves as her students filter out of the school, trying not to think how strange that is, too -- not just Wednesday's resemblance to that paramedic back at Seattle Grace the one time, but that she has students at all, ones she's not training to be surgeons. They're good kids, though, and she has to admire that they're there. If she'd had the choice at their age, she knows she wouldn't have volunteered for this. It's sheer boredom that has her teaching now. She stuffs her hands into her pockets, starting forward. Too much introspection -- it's always been a problem of hers, something that'll drive her crazy one day, she's sure. Squinting up at the Compound, she shakes her head at it, still bewildered by the insipid cheerfulness of its new look, and doesn't notice anyone headed into her path until it's nearly too late. "Sorry."
Because if there's anything this year's taught us, it's that we can't know what's ahead. The hand we're dealt is rarely the one we're expecting or hoping for. But if we're lucky, as we so seldom are, it just might be a good one.
[Set to Friday morning after Anatomy class.]
It's not Meredith's first winter on the island, not by a long shot. She's coming up on two years now and the snow's just a reminder of that, of precisely how long she's been stuck here. As she steps out of the schoolhouse, adjusting the scarf she's put on, it's difficult to believe she's in the same place she was just last week. It looks entirely different, though all the landmarks remain where they were, and while she likes the cold -- prefers it, really, to the perpetual sunshine -- it brings with it too many memories. Frankly, she's not sure if the good ones are any better than the bad.
We string up lights and exchange gifts. We sit around the tree and we hope. We shed what came before in anticipation of what's still to come. And we make promises to ourselves that next year won't be anything like this one.
She's lost more here, after all, than she realized she had when she had it, and if her past is any sign of what's to come, she ought to be readying herself to lose more. With George and Cristina here, things are better, but their presence is as much a reminder of what they've all left behind as it is something to make her feel more at home. And then there's the trouble with that, too -- that she's not entirely sure she needed them for that. She's never really stopped wanting to leave and that doesn't bother her. It's the part of her that wants to stay that she finds worrying. Sometimes she's grateful they can't go, that no one's figured it out and it's still this awful, arbitrary thing. Maybe that means dreading one of her friends will be next, but at least she doesn't have to choose.
That it will be better. That we will do more. We make promises we know we won't keep.
Offering up a little smile, she waves as her students filter out of the school, trying not to think how strange that is, too -- not just Wednesday's resemblance to that paramedic back at Seattle Grace the one time, but that she has students at all, ones she's not training to be surgeons. They're good kids, though, and she has to admire that they're there. If she'd had the choice at their age, she knows she wouldn't have volunteered for this. It's sheer boredom that has her teaching now. She stuffs her hands into her pockets, starting forward. Too much introspection -- it's always been a problem of hers, something that'll drive her crazy one day, she's sure. Squinting up at the Compound, she shakes her head at it, still bewildered by the insipid cheerfulness of its new look, and doesn't notice anyone headed into her path until it's nearly too late. "Sorry."
Because if there's anything this year's taught us, it's that we can't know what's ahead. The hand we're dealt is rarely the one we're expecting or hoping for. But if we're lucky, as we so seldom are, it just might be a good one.
[Set to Friday morning after Anatomy class.]