Searching for a Seattle Sky (3/10)
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, waltzmatildah for the fanmix and onlywordsnow for the fanart!
Written for the ga_fanfic Big Bang:
Fanmix
Fan Art:
Meredith stood outside in the gray predawn light, hugging her torso against the chill in the air. Derek stood next to her, suitcase propped up on the curb. His eyes stared down the street waiting for the cab that would take him-after a fashion-across the country. She knew this departure didn’t exactly mirror what he’d done to Addison, but the similarities were making her stomach clench.
“My sisters are all heading over. Amelia is getting the red eye. Kathleen and Nancy are already there with their families. It’ll be crazy.” His hoarse voice betrayed his fear.
She flexed her fingers. She wanted to clasp his hand, to climb into the approaching cab with him so she could be there, to be his rock amidst a sea of family members who didn’t understand him the way she did.
“Tell your mother she needs to get well soon. Zola should meet her… and she’ll have a room at the house.” She forced a smile. “On second thought, maybe she shouldn’t come out too soon. I think she’d want walls.”
Derek handed his suitcase to the tired looking driver who’d stepped out of the cab and opened the trunk, then he turned to her with his head cocked slightly to the left. “You still… want the house?”
The muscles in her throat tightened so much that her next words were a series of chokes. “Derek. We have a lot of things to work out, but that doesn’t stop the ball from rolling. The baby we’re adopting is asleep inside. The house we’re building will have a roof one of these days. Time isn’t going to stop because we had a fight.”
He ran his hand through his hair, and a wan smile came onto his face. “I gave you a speech like that, once.”
You’ve never done this before. She remembered the shock in his voice when he realized how few real relationships his girlfriend had had. Funny how he’d had more experience with marriage than she had, but she seemed to understand the definition of the word better.
“Mister, you going to kiss the lady good-bye so we can go or what?” the driver said.
The kiss Derek placed on her cheek was a ghost of the deeper kisses she’d come to expect. To cherish. Something contracted in her chest as she remembered saying I couldn’t remember our last kiss. She wouldn’t want this facsimile of a kiss to have been the last one, and this made her determined to fix things. Somehow.
“Derek?” she called as he opened the door. “I love you. That hasn’t changed.”
His mouth opened slightly, like he was surprised. She raised one hand in a small wave and turned back to the house, ears perked for a response that didn’t come.
Had he become uncertain about that, too?
Her first thought upon entering the house was that she didn’t have the energy to deal with Lexie’s perky smile. Zola made a noise from upstairs, not quite crying but obviously seeking attention. Meredith headed for the staircase.
“I’m off today,” Lexie announced, following. “So we’re going to go shopping.”
“Shopping?” The word sounded foreign, superficial, when compared to the depth of emotions that were causing the pounding in her brain. While researching for her meeting with the social worker she’d cringed at a webpage where someone had asked “Is spina bifida contagious?” Now her head felt so full that she could almost believe she’d caught hydrocephalus.
“For Zola. She needs a real crib, clothes, toys, and diapers. All that stuff.”
“All that stuff,” Meredith repeated. She’d made the list mentally the night before. Each ring coming from her cell phone had become another thing she’d have to do before she could consider herself at all successful in this baby endeavor.
In her room, morning light illuminated the detritus of Zola’s first night, cementing this thought. Her clothes and the baby’s were cast aside next to the dresser. An empty bottle sat on the nightstand, and Zola’s pink blanket lay twisted in the port-a-crib.
But from the crib Zola gave her a toothy smile, and light danced in her eyes as she reached a hand out for Meredith. The sight made Meredith want to give her everything in the world, much more than the basics Lexie had suggested.
“Let me put on clean clothes.”
“Sure. Do you want me to take her downstairs?”
Meredith glanced over at Lexie for only a second to shake her head, and then stepped over the pile of things to lift Zola out of her crib. “Nope. Zola can stay with me. She’s going to stay with me.” The words would have felt ominous to her the night before, but the sunshine kindled the spark of optimism in her chest.
After Lexie closed the door, Meredith lost the small amount of energy she had left. She sank down on the bed. The mattress sagged invitingly, and covers were tantalizingly smooth under the hand she put down to balance herself.
“Lexie can wait a little while, don’t you think? It’s been some kind of a night.” She lay down and settling Zola next to her. The baby curled her hands around the corner of the blanket nearest her and tugged it to her mouth. “Am I supposed to let you chew on that? A good mother would know the answer to that.”
Zola drooled onto the fabric and gave a tiny coo, suggesting she was immensely pleased with herself.
“I hope Derek’s mama is going to be okay, because I think she’d really like to meet you. Actually, I sort of figured we’d be calling her a lot when you came home. I guess I really am cursed when it comes to mothers.”
If something happened to Mrs. Shepherd she’d really believe that.
Zola blinked, and her tiny eyes stayed shut for longer than a normal blink. She widened them again-her gaze fixed on Meredith’s face-then yawned. A tiny frown crossed her lips, like she didn’t want to be sleepy.
Meredith smiled. “Wish you didn’t have to sleep? You’ll fit right in here.” She rested a hand on the baby’s warm back. “We’re supposed to be going shopping. And I have no idea when you should nap, but I don’t think it’s at seven in the morning.
“Also, I have a lot of damage control to do. People are going to want to talk to me. A lot of people. But I don’t really want to talk to them. Avoidance. Another lesson I probably shouldn’t teach you.” She yawned. “Oh well. What do you think? Should we blow off the world for a while?”
Zola smacked her lips around the wet edge of the blanket, and her eyes stayed shut for another long second. Meredith inched the covers up to slide them both underneath them. By the time she laid her head back on the pillow, Zola had fallen asleep. The soft baby snores made her smile. Derek would say they meant Zola was meant to be hers.
Or he would have, once.
She nestled her cheek against the pillow, and focused on inhaling the milky scent of Zola’s soft breaths. The warmth became anesthetic, though it felt far more comforting than a sterile plastic mask. Right before she sank into a dream, she thought maybe they wouldn’t bother with a crib right away. Not until she wouldn’t have to sleep in this bed alone again.
Meaning hopefully sometime before Zola started preschool.
***
Lexie spent ten minutes waiting for Meredith in the kitchen before she figured out her sister probably wouldn’t be coming downstairs for a while. She crept upstairs to confirm and peered into the room, leaning on the doorjamb for a second. The light made Meredith’s pillowed hair seem golden. She had one arm wrapped protectively around Zola, who in turn had a tiny fist wrapped around the fabric of Meredith’s shirt.
If Shepherd had the balls to find something negative in this picture, anything that implied Meredith wouldn’t be one of the most caring mothers in ever, then he was totally blind.
“What are you staring at?”
Lexie jumped and shut the door, careful to keep it from making noise. Cristina stood outside of Alex’s door dressed in the clothes she’d worn the night before. They were ruffled now, like the skin under her eyes. This combined with the scene in Meredith’s room proved this would be one of those nights that never truly ended-the ramifications of things said would last a lifetime. (Meredith’s tendency toward profundity must have rubbed off on her or something).
“Checking on Meredith and Zola. They’re asleep.”
“What about Shepherd? Did he show?”
“Yeah, and then he left again. His mom had a heart attack,” she said in response to Cristina’s raised eyebrows. “He had to. Do you want… can I make you breakfast? Or coffee at least?”
What little color there had been in Cristina’s face disappeared as she shook her head. “No. I should go. I have a shift at the hospital.”
“Do you… are you sure you don’t want to call in?”
“And do what? Help Meredith with the baby she may not get to keep while I wait to get rid of one I don’t want? Go back to my house to find out Owen’s changed the locks?” Her bushy curls bounced as she shook her head. “No. I’ll go to work. At least there I know what to do, and what to say.”
Lexie nodded. She remembered how it’d been after she left Mark. Sometimes successfully suturing a wound was all that got her through the day. Cristina started down the stairs.
“Hey,” Lexie called right before she heard the creak of the front door. Cristina leaned her head back to meet her eyes.
“What?”
“Just…if you need anything… I know Meredith’s your person, but she’s going to be busy and… You’ve been there for me before, so I just thought I’d say…I’m here. You know. If you do.” What surprised her most after she’d given this speech was how little she felt like an intern speaking to her superior. Even after the countless times she’d hung out with Cristina-always having Meredith as a buffer or a source of tension-she’d been aware of who Cristina had first been to her. The Nazi. The one to fear.
Now she was a woman who obviously needed a friend.
Cristina seemed to be having the same realization judging by the way her expression morphed from bemused, to wary, to grateful. “Thanks, Three,” she said, and somehow the moniker seemed more humanizing than any time Cristina had actually said her name. “I’ll keep it in mind.”
The door shut behind her, and the house once again became quiet. Lexie crept up to her bedroom, and seeing the disarray that greeted her, decided it was time to stop avoiding her laundry. As she tossed balled up clothes into her hamper she noticed the photo album had fallen off her nightstand. She retrieved it quickly; deciding she’d better put it back in its hiding spot, like she should have done right after Jackson started frequenting her room.
She’d realized the ramifications of the images it contained a long time ago, and she’d been careful not to show it to anyone. Something in her was waiting for the right time. Before she stuck it back in her pajama drawer-the same place she’d hid her tequila bottles in college-she flipped it open. In the center of the album she’d put together when she was seventeen there was a snapshot of her sitting on the steps of a hostel with a young woman.
She’d had red hair at the time, dyed after her first serious boyfriend broke up with her and she’d fashioned herself Alexandra. The picture had been taken by one of the oboe players in the band, on their trip to a competition in Europe. She’d babysat all through the summer and fall to have money for the trip, because she knew her parents; savings went into her college fund. Even then, she hadn’t had the designer suitcases of her classmates.
Three minutes before the snapshot, she’d zoned out while staring at the blue of the Amsterdam sky. Two minutes later, the woman had introduced herself as Death.
Part One || Table of Contents || Part Three