Where Does the Good Go

[drownondryland]

According to Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, when we're dying or have suffered a catastrophic loss, we move through five distinct stages of grief. The order might shift and we all express our loss in different ways, but the steps remain the same.It's been a while since Meredith's done this, standing in front of the bookshelf and carefully scanning row after

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[noneoftherules]

"Hey." Within a moment of saying it, Sadie realizes that the tone of her greeting was far too bright and loud for the occasion. Though she's resolved to remain in a good mood (she can enjoy herself just as much in here as she could at some idiotic dance, and she'll prove it) it's clear that Meredith is nowhere near as happy as Sadie is pretending to be.

It's been a long time since Sadie was in any position to comfort Meredith, but like so many other things lately, she slips back into it easily enough, lowering herself into a seat nearby seat. "What are we watching?"

[drownondryland]

Meredith looks up at the still blank screen, film clutched tight in her hands, before she glances at Sadie. Yes or no, in or out, do it or don't. She isn't the kind to sit on her hands and do nothing, but she's not sure she wants to tell Sadie the truth about this either.

No, she has to, she has to do it. She can't stand here holding onto it and not tell her, it isn't fair or right, and anyway, it isn't as if Sadie has to watch herself. She left Meredith's life long before this story began.

"It's about me," she says finally. "It's... me. It's a television show. I was... I wanted to see if Izzie's okay and I can't even freaking hit play."

[noneoftherules]

There's no hiding the fact that Sadie is taken by surprise. She's been forced to live here long enough that it shouldn't shock her, but it does. You hear stories; you hear talk of these things, but never once do you suspect it'll happen to you. It's the same with the way that people tend to up an disappear - no woman actively tries to steel herself for the day she wakes up and her husband isn't in bed beside her. No one stands around wondering if they might be fictional.

But this is Meredith's dilemma, not Sadie's. It doesn't matter that her mind jumps to conclusions - if there's program about Meredith, there could easily be one about Sadie. What is Meredith were to find it? What if she were exposed as total fraud and a failure?

Sadie's eyes dart from Meredith to the film in her hands, and she decides that she needs to know, too. She has to see it so that she can believe it, so that she can know what to expect if it's her turn next. She holds her hands out for the film. "I'll hit it for you."

[drownondryland]

Meredith hesitates for a moment, then hands it over: Grey's Anatomy: S5E22 What a Difference a Day Makes printed neat and clear down the side, impersonal. This isn't her. She's tried before to tell herself that and every time she thinks it's sunk in at last, that this doesn't matter, that it isn't her life anymore, she finds herself back here, wondering, waffling, watching a life she'll never live, one she's not sure she wants. Or maybe she wants it desperately, but she can't pick and choose what she gets and what she leaves behind.

"I'm sorry," she says on an inhale, impulsive, truly regretful. "I should have said something, I should... I just never know how to tell anyone."

[noneoftherules]

"It's okay," Sadie responds, immediately, without much thought. Even now, this doesn't quite compare to the amount of secrets Sadie has been keeping from Meredith, and will continue to keep as long as she can help it. With a deep, unsteady breath, she takes the film canister in her hands and steps over to the projector, hoping the whole way that this one takes place before her time in Seattle

[drownondryland]

The sight of Izzie stretched out on that hospital bed, the sound of her voice, her labored breathing, takes the place of the monologue Meredith's actually grown accustomed to, and it hits her like nothing about this ever has before. She's watched more of these episodes than she should have, more than she'll say, and it's always a jolt, watching her own life unfold on the screen. This is worse.

It was all nothing. It meant nothing. She tried to save Izzie for nothing. So fucking much for hope.

"It didn't work," she says, and even though she told herself beforehand that this would be the case, that nothing she does can change what happens there, she sounds bewildered by it. She is bewildered, suddenly and wrenchingly disappointed by what hasn't happened, the change she's failed to effect. Useless again. "It didn't work. She's still... Why did I think it would work?"

And then she's on the screen, Derek with her, and she can't even begin to process this yet.

[noneoftherules]

No. No, that isn't right. Sadie tenses at the sight; her breath catches and chest feels heavy and hollow all at once. This can't be right.

Stevens could be a real bitch when she wanted to but that doesn't mean she deserves to die. It was Sadie who delivered those test results to her, who scared her in that instant because, failure that she is, she can't even manage a decent bedside manner. It was Sadie who then told her she'd be okay, for the most part. That she wasn't dying, except that she is. There she is, fighting for her life on screen for all to see.

"What is it?" Sadie asks in a hoarse whisper. "What is it that didn't work?"

[drownondryland]

"I saw one of these before," Meredith says after a deep breath. "She got her diagnosis. She... I told her. When she was here. I told her about this and... I thought if she knew, she might remember, she might get to it on time, but... no one remembers."

That's the part that scares her, maybe more than anything else about the disappearances. She can handle being left (she thinks she can, she's done it before), but being forgotten, that's totally different. And forgetting - well, that's the worst, that's the thing she tells herself she won't do, one more way she won't be her mother.