A/N: Meredith Grey is my all time favorite character... But I am supremely fascinated by her mother Ellis. I think she gets a bad rap among us fanfiction writers (not that it isn't called for.) But this story, I think, gives a look into her mind. And how... in her own way she knows and loves Meredith.
Anyway,
Takes Place during 3x17 Some kind of Miracle.
Enjoy!
Present
I stare at nothing. Or a Nothing. There's a man on the sofa in my room. He's upset, I can tell . He can't quite take a full breath. His eyes are wet and bloodshot, like he's been crying. He keeps fidgeting, checking his watch, running his hand through his hair. Breathing. Sniveling.
I can't stand it. He should be doing something useful. "Water. Get me some water."
He gets up with a sigh and hands me a cup with a... doo-hickey. A slide? No, a straw. Yes. Well, at least he's obediant. The water relieves my raw throat, but I still don't feel like myself. Something's wrong. I feel like I've been someone else... I feel like I'm supposed to be someone else... but it's like trying to stitch Peter Pan's shadow back on and the shadow is elusive.
The man strokes my hair and stares. Stares. Stares. As if he stares long enough, somehow, he'll see inside my head and find the answer to the why-why-why he keeps asking with his face.
"You broke her," he says finally, voice hoarse and raw and heartbroken. "You called her ordinary..."
Who?
Ordinary...?
"You taught her time and time again, that nothing she ever does is good enough," he continues, voice biting the edge of anger. "Every good thing Meredith is happened despite you," he grits. "She may not survive this... That's on you. Thatis on you!"
"Derek!" Another voice, another Nothing, pulls him away.
I blink. What is he talking about? Who is Meredith? Who is this man? Wait, what does he mean, I broke her?
I drift...
Are you planning on coming to talk to me anytime soon?
So, tell me about yourself. What's your life like? I... I really do want to know you, Meredith.
I drift...
I stare at the door. I'm alone. Someone was here, I thought. Someone... Where's Meredith? She's supposed to... I look around the room, but it's empty. An empty room. But it's not my room. There's a machine, with wires and tubes that connect... To me.
I'm in the hospital.
Did I have a breakdown? Meredith. Please. I just want to go home.
This is your home. You have Alzheimer's, mom.
No!
No!
There's an anvil on my chest. It's hard to breathe. My neck. I feel my carotid artery racing at a gallop, and then it's a jackhammer. I can't breathe. "Mere..." I gasp. My vision blurs...Black spots explode as I struggle to take in oxygen. A shadow passes by my room. "Meredith?" I croak painfully. I hear beeping. Voices. Shuffling. Meredith?
"Code blue!" I hear as everything goes black. But in the blackness, the minute before my brain shuts off, I wonder... What happened to her?
You wanna know why I'm so unfocused? So ordinary? You wanna know what happened to me? You! You happened to me!
And then it's gone. The pain, the anvil on my chest. Even the mental fog is gone. I know who I am. Lucid, I open my eyes to see I'm still alone in my hospital room. But something is different. I feel strange, light. This place seems strange, like it's not even real. "Hello?" I call out. "Richard?" I press the call button, but nothing happens. "Meredith?" I step hesitantly onto the floor.
A shadow passes by the window, "Someone there?" I call out, shuffling through the room. The hospital is empty. Deserted. I'm alone. All alone. "No," I breathe as fear rushes through my body. "No..."
"You rang?"
The voice startles me. I spin around. A woman leans in the doorway, mouth etched in a frown, clacking her long manicured nails against the frame. But I know that face. I know that frown. I'm not alone.
"Liz? Oh, thank God!" I step toward her, wrapping my arms around myself for comfort and warmth. "What happened? Where is everybody? I remember..." I blink, trying to think back, but it's hazy. "Water... I was tachy... My heart." Liz meets my questioning gaze with a glare of her own that reveals nothing. It makes me feel cold. Empty. "Am I dead?" I ask.
Liz steps into the room. "It's close," she says.
"Close? Isn't someone doing something?"
She presses her lips together... "Not that I'm God or anything, but... it's really not up to someone else."
"You mean... it's up to me?" I ask.
She smiles, but it disappears all too fast. "It's good seeing you, Ellis, but I have to go."
"Go?"
"Someone else needs my attention, but I'll be back." A blink and she's gone.
"No," I cry out. "Don't leave me-" The room is silent, the air dead. There's nothing here that's real, and it's terrifying. But after awhile...I hear something. A low hum. A vibration that changes tempo.
Music.
I follow the haunting sound out my room, down the hall, down the stairs, around the corner. And then I stop, realizing where I am. The hallway to the OR. The music is much louder, bolder now, coming from a single string instrument. A cello, I'm sure. I push the door open to the scrub room to OR 1.
Through the glass, in the middle of the OR, a woman plays. Her fingers press mercilessly on the strings while she glides the bow across the mantle, creating a familiar melody.
I step through the doors, "who are you?" I ask.
Her answer is to play harder. Drawing the bow faster and faster through her violent arpeggio, only to stop abruptly. The room echoes and vibrates with her final note. Eyes closed, she raises her face to the ceiling as the bow leaves the strings.
Who is she? A former patient? Somehow, I'm drawn to her."Do I know you?" I ask again. The woman sighs. Her posture relaxes just slightly as she rests, still clutching the cello between her legs. "Beethoven. He was extraordinary. But just so intense," she draws her bow, the cello rumbles a deep low note. "Not many people really liked him. But he was still one of the greats." She nods and draws the bow across again for another familiar refrain... something I can vaguely identify as Beethoven's fifth symphony. "But Bach? Everyone loves Bach."
The melody changes key, becomes high and sweet as she plays. Her bow seems to dance over the strings delicately, drawing out sweet and playful notes.
As I observe her, she feels more and more familiar. She's classy, but in an unassuming way, with her string of pearls and her carefully styled hair. But I know she's not one of my patients.
"My son will always love you, you know," she says finally.
"Mrs. Webber," I realize.
She continues playing. "Gale," she says.
"Gale," I repeat. Richard told me about her once, as I lay against his chest in an on-call room. "Did you bring me here?"
"I didn't. But you have some unfinished business and there's not much time."
My life is so unfinished. I'm not finished.
"What are you talking about?"
"I always dreamed of being Principal Chair in the Chicago symphony..." she says. Lifting her bow, she resumes churning out another mysterious and haunting tune.
I shake my head, confused. What does she mean? Not much time? For what? For who? What unfinished business? "Gale!"
"You still love him. My son."
Oh. That unfinished business. I look back into the scrubroom and my younger self looks back. She's not jaded or scarred. She's alive and in love... hope dances in her eyes. My stomach turns.
I remember Richard, the way his smile creases all the wrinkles around his eyes when he sees me. The way, after a surgery, we glance at each other over our masks, expressing whole paragraphs in a single gaze. Those few intense moments during and after lovemaking, I'm invincible. I'm not a Mrs. or a 'nurse,' or somehow 'less'. I am a woman... equal and a part of, and necessary to the act. Those moments, with Richard pressing me to his chest, color didn't matter... We could do anything. Break all the barriers, forge new paths in medicine and surgery... and in love.
You leave Adele, and I'll leave Thatcher and...we can be together. We'll be happy.
But we didn't.
I do still love him. The newness wore off. The intensity, the fearlessness wore off, and became bitter. I ended up facing the world without him... and nothing about love ever made sense after that. Yet despite his cowardice, despite his seeming abandonment...
"I still love him," I confirm.
Gale nods. For a second she looks like she wants to say more... but instead, she turns back to the cello, and plies the bow across again.
"Gale? How do I get out of here? Gale?"
The music grows louder, deeper, and more intense at such a rate my ears ring. I can't stand it. Covering my ears, I leave the OR.
Suddenly, I'm in front of the CT scanner in Radiology.
"What's the diagnosis, Doc?" asks the intern sitting beside me.
I stare at the black and white CT image of a brain. "Severe hemorrahage to the frontal cortex. How did the patient even make it to-?" I turn- but he's not an intern. He's dressed in a simple gray shirt and slacks, and he's older. In his late thirties at least.
"I didn't," he says as a gaping bloody hole appears in his forehead, and blood drips down.
I'm immediately struck with panic, and grab his hand to press it over his 's still conscious and breathing so something right must be happening. "Hold pressure! I need bandages, I need to get you to an OR!"
But he lets go. "It's too late. It's too late for me. Ellis..."
"No, we still have time," I say, though... somehow, I don't quite believe what I'm saying.
"Ellis," he grabs my hand. His wound is gone, erased, like it was never there. Instead I'm staring into his gentle gaze. "It's over. Done. I'm dead. Been dead for a long time." His blue-green eyes are intense, he's perfectly serious."But you still have time."
"Time?" I croak, "time for what?"
"Time to save her," Liz appears in the doorway.
"Who?" I ask.
But then they're gone, and I'm alone.
"Liz?" I call out confused, afraid, lonely. Walking into the hall, my fingers graze the wall and I lean against it. Who am I supposed to save? I wonder, and how can I save anyone if I'm... dead?
Something drips. I look down, and see small pool of blood on the floor. I bend to wipe it but more seems to come out of nowhere, dripping... no, running in tiny pumpling rivlets.
"Blood, it's just blood," I try to reassure myself, but then I realize...
It's my own.
"No..." No. No. "NO!"
xxx
1983
Clack-clack-clack! The curtain slides open, revealing the short skinny form of Dr. Schalk. I turn my face away as he closes it behind him and stands at the end of my bed with a clipboard. "Dr. Grey," he addresses with stoic professionalism, as if I'm just another patient, not a colleague he's known for the last two years. "How are you feeling?"
I feel like not answering him.
My skin, pallid from blood loss, doesn't reveal the flush of humilation. Here is Dr. Grey, Seattle Grace's brightest star brought to her knees by a psychotic breakdown. I stare at my bandaged wrists. I've never felt so stupid in my life.
Dr. Schalk is persistent, though. Numbly, I watch as he picks up my left arm and examines my bandages and the poor excuses for lacerations underneath. The vein! I hit the vein, missing the artery completely! Stupid!
"Can you squeeze my hand?" He presses on my fingertips, noting my cap refill.
I squeeze. It hurts, but that means there really isn't any permanent damage. The wounds are deep, but superficial. I wasn't strong enough.
"Your daughter, Meredith, is it? She wants to see you-"
Meredith? No, no. I shake my head vehemently. "No... no, she can't see me like this. I can't..."
"On your paperwork... there's no one entered for your emergency contact. Is there someone we can call for you?" he asks, with that gentle rumble. Wade Schalk is not a surgeon, but he's a damn good doctor, intuiting those things that can easily be missed. Like the fact that my husband is not listed. He knows I'm married.
Richard's name starts in my vocal chords but I clamp down. "No," I say hoarsely. No... Richard can't see me like this. He can't know I did this, he can never know how weak- . He can't know about my lovesick stupidity... "No, no one. I just want to go home."
Dr. Schalk marks something on my chart. He steps in closer and pulls up a stool. "I can't allow that. We're waiting for a bed upstairs," meaning the psych ward.
I stare at the ceiling. The tendons in my wrists sear with pain as I clench my hands into small fists. I'd made a mistake earlier. A stupid, silly, selfish mistake. I gave up.
Earlier, I wrote the date in my journal, top left corner like I always do. I remember wine. The svelt burgundy liquid filling the glass. I remember I needed it to... loosen up? Relax? The absurdity made me laugh, then cry. But the words... I had no words for the utter... desolation in my heart. Richard is gone. The man I gave up everything for gave me up instead.
The moments after that are not so clear. Tears. Spilling wine. The the flash of the scalpel blade.
Meredith...
I babbled to her. About strength. About independence. Be extraordinary, I told her. Because I certainly... am not. And never will be. Now that there's blood.
Blood. It's just blood, I said. As if the wound was a paper cut.
I told her not to call 911
"Do you want to talk about it?" Dr. Schalk's voice brings me back.
My vocal chords freeze with shame. I close my eyes. How did I do this? Let myself fall so hard for a man? A man with a wife? Pathetic. "No." Sniff. Cry. I will not cry over Richard. He did this. He's the one who misses out. Not me. Not... me. I don't need him anymore.
"I'll be back shortly with your lab results," Wade stops and taps his pen on the clipboard, "Is there anyone who can take care of your daughter?"
I stare at the ceiling... Meredith? There is no one I can think of. No one I trust not to ask questions... not to get involved. Richard is fond of Meredith- I want him. I want him so badly. But I can't risk it. What am I thinking? Not like this. It will break him. It'll break us... Christ, I'm already breaking. "No," I say finally.
"Then she'll be staying with family services. You can see her in the morning if you like."
This is out of my hands now. Damn protocol, I think viciously. "Wade-" I say, trying... wanting... needing to not be some damn patient to him. I need to be Grey. His colleague. The surgical resident that brings him coffee, runs his extra labs, fills in his charts. The resident that used to share his lunch break talking about the strange and unusual cases that come through.
It's me.
He stops. Rubs his eyes wearily. I know he's on the tail-end of a long shift. Who knows what he's already dealt with today.
"Wade, I made a mistake," I say.
"Yeah," he says. He could preach. But he knows me.
"You know me, I-."
"I know." He replies. "I know." He pulls the blanket further up, around my chest.
I grab his hand, desperate. "Tell her-" I struggle not to cry. "Tell Meredith I'm not mad."
"Mad?" he asks.
"Just tell her I'm not mad. Please."
xxx
Dread fills my stomach as I slump against the wall, examining my wrists. Something is wrong... really wrong.
"You could've been happy," the man says, sitting across from me. He smiles faintly and flicks a dark lock of hair out of his eyes.
"How? He left. He chose Adele."
"But you gave up," Gale's heels come in view, and I'm forced to look up.
"Gave up?" I stare up at her.
Suddenly, Liz appears beside me, "The blood in the kitchen?"
"What?" How does she know about that? No one should know... The blood... it was so long ago. I shake my head, "I was a different person then."
"Really?" says the man.
"Listen, let's cut the bullshit," I say. "You said I'm here to save someone, who?"
"You know who," the man says quietly, as his gaze bores into mine.
You broke her. You called her ordinary. Every good thing Meredith is happened despite you! She may not survive this. That's on you. That is on you!
"Meredith." It's a statement, a question and an answer all at once. I slide up against the wall, my legs shaking. "Where is she?" I ask.
But they're gone.
Liz. Gail. The man.
I'm alone.
A shadow passes in the hallway, "Meredith?" I turn to follow, but- I'm no longer by the OR. I'm back in my room.
"She's not ready yet," Liz says, sitting on my bed.
"Why?" I ask. "Meredith- Meredith is-" strong. Focused. A fighter. "What happened to her?"
"She gave up," says Gale.
"No," I reply. "Meredith doesn't give up. Sometimes she avoids... sometimes she stalls, but she's not a quitter... Right?"
"You don't know her anymore," Liz says quietly, "You forgot her."
Do I at least remember her? Do I know her?
You know she's someone who cares about you.
You remind me of my daughter.
I can't respond to the truth. I did forget her... I did... In more ways than one, I left her.
"The cut is deep, isn't it?" says Gale.
1983
I'm upstairs. Away from prying eyes, at least. Though a strange lethargy falls over me. I'm pregnant. As if one child isn't enough, I have to raise another? I can't. I can't be a surgeon and a single mother of two children. It was hard enough with Thatcher, but now he's gone. Richard is married. He already made his choice. What am I supposed to do? I'm not forcing this baby in the middle of his marriage.
So obssessed with my thoughts, I didn't hear the knock on the door.
"Mommy?"
"Huh?"
Meredith hovers in the doorway with her Anatomy Jane doll stuck in the crook of her elbow while the social worker clutches her hand. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Grey. Meredith was very anxious to see you this morning," the social worker takes another hesitant step inside.
Meredith's big green eyes are studying me, but I can't dwell on it. I can't think about what happened. It happened. That's all. Now I'm here, and Meredith is here. Scared, no doubt.
Meredith doesn't speak when bad things happen. She internalizes things like I do.
Despite what Thatcher or Richard or the neighbors think, I do know my child. Her heart is so, so big, I'm afraid to think about how much of this she'll remember later. Meredith is innocent. Selfless. Brave. Everything I want to be, everything I'm not. I can't look at her now. "Take her away," I rasp.
"Mrs. Grey-"
"No. Leave me alone. I can't- I can't- " My vision warps, and Meredith and the social worker blur into a strange two-headed being from my wet eyes.
"Mommy!" Meredith's shoes slap on the linoleum, the doll drops to the floor. My daughter barrels toward me, little hand reaching for mine, but I pull away, and her nails tear my bandage instead.
"Ahh!" I hiss, clutching the tender wound. "Meredith!"
She freezes on the spot, eyes big and wide and horror-struck.
It takes everything in me to not yell and further traumatize her. "Meredith-" My voice shakes, "I'm alright, you see? I'm fine. Now go with the nice lady and be a good girl, and I'll- I'll see you when I can."
"Mom-"
"Meredith," I warn.
The socialworker steps forward and takes Meredith's hand. "Come on, dear. Your mother... needs her rest."
I turn over in bed so she can't see me cry.
xxx
I'm outside of Trauma room 1.
"Do you believe in love, Dr. Grey?" the man asks.
"Who are you?" I ask. "One of my patients?"
He smiles, but it lacks life. "My son, he works here," he shakes his head. "I have five kids... but I never imagined them being doctors." He taps his forehead, "Though I guess things changed... after I died."
"All five of them?"
"Mm-hm."
"That's... incredible. You must be proud."
"I am. But mostly, I'm just happy they're happy."
My stomach curls, and I rub it. I know what he's going to say next.
"Are you happy? For Meredith, I mean. Are you happy for her?"
I really do want to know you, Meredith.
Well, I-I'm happy, you know. I think when you find someone that you love, that you really love-
Happy? You're happy now?
Mom-
"I believed in love, once," I say to the man who still hasn't told me his name. I get the feeling he never will. "Richard... he made me believe. For a little while," I nod absently. It moved me, inspired me, made me fearless, invincible. I was so in love.
"Seattle...was thrilling," I swallow, trying to keep the memories at bay. It's where I made my name, my brand: The Grey Method. It's where I grew as a surgeon, as a doctor. And where I found Richard, my love.
"But he didn't choose you, did he?"
1983
I'm standing in front of the carousel, the carnival music in the background almost matches the tempo of my thudding heart. Today... today we're going to finally be together! Today, there won't be anything holding us back anymore. No husband. No wife. We love each other, and we're going to be together, and we're going to be happy. Really happy.
Meredith waves at me from her horse on the carousel. She's happy too. She's always happy when she gets to spend time with me. Maybe after... the three of us can have ice cream.
And then I see him, striding in big loping steps toward me. I try not to grin like a love-sick teenager, try to keep myself from acting like one too. I press my fingertips, watching him approach. "Ellis," he says breathlessly.
"Richard," I reply. But there's no smile, no hope or passion in his expression. His eyes are... dead. I press my lips together, still hopeful.
"You have a child," he says.
And then I know. He didn't leave Adele. My stomach twists with dread. He's making the fact I have a daughter the reason he can't be with me. So what I have a child... We can be happy! We'll be happy. We'll make it work somehow. We will. We can. Richard adores Meredith.
"Don't say that," I reply. "I won't listen, Richard."
"I'm sorry," he says. "I can't."
"No, please..." I beg, because I love him. I love him more than I ever thought. I need him. "Please, please!" The words tumble out faster than I can process. All I want is to be with him. All I want is to be happy. To have a perfectly ordinary life with the man I love. Thatcher is gone. I told him everything. I shattered him, just this afternoon. The house is empty now.
Richard raises his hands, shakes his head. "Ellis, no." He steps back. Back, back, away.
Everything hinges on this. Everything is about this moment. All I wanted was to be in love, and to be happy. Richard made me happy, and now...
"Richard, Richard, you can't leave me." I moan desperately. I reach for him, grab the sleeve of his Jacket but he pulls back, and turns abruptly away. "Richard! Richard!" I hear myself shriek. "Richard!"
But he's gone. My face flushes with tears and shame. Everything is ruined. Thatcher is gone... I can't live with him anymore, and I know he won't take me back, even if I want to make it work.
Richard loves me, why can't we be together? Why? Why can't he just be happy? It doesn't make sense, nothing makes sense...
I feel a little tug on my sleeve. Meredith. "Are you okay?"
It hurts to hear her voice. Would Richard really be here if I didn't have a daughter? I want to think that it would be the case regardless, but now... All I know is that he's gone. I have to take care of my daughter alone. I'm on the cusp of a burgeoning surgical career, and I'm a single mother. All because...
I fell in love.
"We have to go home," I take her hand. "We have to go home."
"But mommy-"
"We have to go, Meredith."
xxx
"The carousel never stops. It never stops, and you can't get off," I say wryly.
"Did you think he didn't love you?"
"I knew he loved me. But it's not it enough, is it? He didn't fight... he didn't- and I-"
I stop, and wrap my arms around myself. I can't admit it. Can't admit that I was weak. I did, in fact, give up. I gave up on love. I gave up on family. I gave up on Meredith.
I gave my whole life to Richard, and he tore it apart. Not because of Meredith, but because of jealousy. I knew it. Deep down, I knew... he thought he wouldn't be able to handle it. My career, my ambitions.
That's why, after I moved to Boston, I resolved to never let a man in my life again. To never love like that again. I gave everything to medicine, because it could never leave me, never fail me...
But it did, didn't it?
You have Alzheimer's.
What would you do? If the thing that defines who you are was taken away?
So in five years, you've made no advances, and there is nothing else you can do for me. I don't know how you do it. Day in and day out. Work with people with this awful disease.
"Ellis?" Gale asks.
I blink, my hand catches a gurney. My legs feel weak. "Is this really happening? I'm dying... and this is... some twisted afterlife?"
She opens her mouth to respond, but memories bite at me.
Oh. Actually... I just took a special interest in this case... because of Meredith.
You're what happened to her.
I'm sorry?
I thought you were here for me, to offer me some hope, tell me about some new treatment, but you're here for her... No wonder she's so unfocused. I've seen men like you before, threatened by a woman who's their equal. You just want to someone to admire you, and you don't care about the damage you do to her along the way.
I made a mistake.
It's all a jumbled mess. She told me she was happy, in love... and all I could see was myself, battered and broken by heartbreak on the kitchen floor. All I could see was the damage. My damage. "Meredith. Meredith... where is she?" I have to find her... I have to- I grab Gale's hand. "Where is she? I have to tell her-"
But Meredith wasn't damaged. Not like I was.
Worse yet, I had done this. I damaged her. I could feel my jackhammering heartbeat. "I'm dying, aren't I? This is it?"
"Yes," Gale says.
The man appears again beside Gale. "You," I say. "Your son... he loves her?"
"Yes," he nods.
"He won't leave her? Because Meredith... she's going to be-" Extraordinary. But she can't do it alone. She can't be me. She's different... her heart is soft. Her love is so big... "She's going to need him," I say.
"I know," he replies.
I meet Gale's deep brown eyes. "I still love him," I say to her. "I loved him everyday," I shake my head. "I didn't try hard enough. I didn't fight for him... I didn't give him a reason to be with me." My pregnancy. I gave the baby up, but... maybe... if I hadn't been such a coward... "We could've had an ordinary life," I said.
And I would have been happy just like Meredith says she's happy. And that would have changed everything. Maybe... I would be fine and we could grow old together and life would be so perfectly ordinary.
"My life is so unfinished," I say.
Gale reaches, takes my hand, holds it tight. "You need to finish it. She needs you now."
xxx
1983
The cab drops me off in front of my house. I tug the sleeves of my coat over my wrists as I get out. Weary, I walk up the steps. There's an unfamiliar car parked in my driveway. The socialworker has brought Meredith home, anticipating my return. The door is unlocked, and I step in. "Hello?" I call out.
"Mommy!" Meredith calls as she runs down the hall. She crashes into me, wrapping her tiny arms around my waist. I gasp, not just from her touch, but from the sudden swell of gratefullness and joy she transfered to me. Damn hormones. "Mommy, I miss-ded you," she says. "Are you all better? Did the doctors fix you?"
"Yes sweetie," I tangle my fingers in her soft hair, unable to help myself. I almost lost her. I almost lost this. "I'm better." Behind her, the socialworker approaches. With a nod, I dismiss her for the night.
"Come on," Meredith pleads, "I wanna- can I show you my picture? I drawed a picture for you Mommy," her little hand slips into mine as she pulls me into the kitchen.
I almost stumble at the force of her pull. She is so strong.
xxx
I feel pulled once again, as if through water, and I arrive on the floor of the cardiac unit. "Meredith?" I call out, searching. Maybe... maybe she's waiting in my room.
I have this hope, I hear her say in my memory...
Her expression is bouyant, wide-eyed, as she stands in the doorway: That in a year or two years, or five... They're going to have a breakthrough They're gonna find a cure for Alzheimer's, and you and I will have another chance, to get to know each other. You'll have a chance to see, that I'm not even remotely ordinary. So, I wish you would have the surgery. But it's up to you, it's your life.
And then I speak, and tears glaze over her eyes. I don't remember her.
I have to fix this, I have to make it right somehow. I broke her.
What happened to you? You've gone soft. Stammering about a boyfriend and waiting to be 'inspired?' Listen, Meredith, anyone can fall in love and be blindly happy, but not everyone can pick up a scalpel and save a life!
I raised you to be an extraordinary human being, imagine my disappointment when I wake up after five years to discover you're no more than ordinary!
Freeze. Right there, I see it. Pure devastation. Like the day she saw me in the hospital, she reached for me and I pulled away. I turned my back to her.
You wanna know why I'm so unfocused? So ordinary? You wanna know what happened to me? You! You happened to me!"
So let me refuse the surgery...
No! Because killing my mother is not gonna be another thing that happens to me!
My hand smooths the sheets of my hospital bed. "How... how can I fix this?" I say to no one.
I close my eyes. When I open them, I see him, the man with the gunshot wound. "She needs someone who believes..." I say. I can do what I can... but the wound is so deep. "She needs someone who won't fail her." Richard failed me, and I would never recover from the damage. "Can he do that? Will he at least try?"
"He will," he said.
"Then I know what to do."
"Mm," he says... and then, he's gone.
I straighten up and step to the door. Meredith stands at the end of the hall, a man in white behind her speaks in her ear. She presses forward, as do I. I'm an armslength away, Meredith eyes me carefully, defenses up like a porcupine.
Suddenly, I know... everything Meredith experienced. I know what happened, why she's here. I know about the water.
What's the point?
My Meredith is not a quitter. She doesn't give up. But this Meredith is... a little worn, a little fragile from being eviscerated by me. I'm going to fix that. "You shouldn't be here," I tell her.
"Niether should you," she says with an angry edge. I know... deep down, she doesn't want me to die. She never expected to see me here... I feel the same way about her, ten times over. She's too young. She hasn't even had a chance to prove anything yet.
"Just. Keep. Going." I grit. "Don't be a damn-" her eyes blaze with challenge, and I stop. She doesn't need my words, my rants. She needs my strength. She needs every drop of love I can give her in a split second, so I hug her. I pull her so tightly against me,she gasps. I crush her head to my shoulder... remembering now... how often she'd done the same for me, or tried. A thousand hugs, or attempted hugs... but I'd rarely initiated them. I always had more important things to do. Since Richard left... Meredith's presence in my life was a continual reminder of my failure to fight for the love I so desperately needed. A reminder of Richard's abandonment. I gave up being a mother.
But now...
This is all that matters. "You are..." I rasp, because now I see my daughter. I really do know her. This tiny being I denied time and time again, because of my own fear... She'll change the world. "You are... anything but ordinary, Meredith," I tell her. Her whole life... I've never been able to express that. Her body slumps against mine at those words.
I will not give up on her now, Meredith still has a chance. I feel her hand on my back, her tears on my cheek. I slide my hands to her shoulders and push her back to look in her eyes. "Now run," I say, "run."
She has to fight. She can't give up, I won't let her lose her chance at being happy.
Meredith glances at me, a bit reluctantly. She knows... this is it. I'm going to let go. She'll be free.
Free, and extraordinary.
It's okay, I nod. I press her forward and watch as she turns toward my room. To life. I watch her walk slowly away. Go. Go, go... just keep going. You can do this. As if suddenly zapped back to life, Meredith runs.
I clutch the rail... I'm finally finished. Everything fades to white.
xxx
Every once in a while, I wonder the hospital halls, and every once in a while, Richard passes through me, and I shiver. I still love him... and I know he never stopped loving me. He made a mistake, and so did I.
Someday, we will be together, and we will be happy.
Meredith has made me proud... beyond proud. She struggled, but she never let up. She kept going. Now she is extraordinary. Finding love, mastering surgery, and pioneering medicine. Not only that, she's a wonderful mother.
Sometimes, I see her in elevators, or pass by her on the way to the OR, but I hope I don't see her here for a very long time.
Still, when she does get here, I have so much to tell her.
~Fin~