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Meredith is sitting in her office, staring at her computer screen, mind somehow teeming with thoughts and completely empty at the same time.
She clicks her pen over and over, the sound hypnotic.
Last time she did this – wait, that’s not right.
Last time she did this, his fiancé came back from the dead and he never met her kids.
Last time she did this, she hadn’t really thought about it, it just kind of came to her.
There are some similarities, she supposes; then, she’d been inspired by seeing how well Nathan interacted with a little girl in the hospital. This time, it had been necessitated by Andrew accidentally being seen by Zola, and she actually got to follow through on her plan.
Not like last time.
She can’t shake the feeling that the other shoe is going to drop; that before he comes over tonight, Sam will return from Switzerland or his childhood girlfriend will show up on his doorstep.
Or maybe something darker. Maybe he’ll be on that stupid motorcycle and get hit by a car.
She feels herself falling into a trance of imagining bad news getting worse inside her head.
Luckily, Alex appears at the door of her office before that happens. “You busy?”
Meredith shakes her head. “No, the opposite.” She gestures to the chair next to her.
Alex looks like hell. If he slept at all last night, he didn’t sleep well. He hasn’t shaved and he’s abandoned the shirt and tie of the last few months for his scrubs. He throws himself into the chair and starts rifling through her desk drawer.
“What are you doing?”
“Protein bars.” He finds what he’s looking for. “I didn’t have breakfast.”
Meredith raises a brow at him. “Or dinner last night, or sleep, it looks like. What happened?”
Alex is staring at the wall next to her head, chewing. Meredith remembers that her least favorite thing to do with Alex is watching him eat.
“Alex?”
He lets out a breath. “I screwed up. I yelled at her.”
Meredith feels her anger spike. “What? Why?”
“I thought it would help,” he says, the disbelief rolling off his tongue.
Meredith shakes her head. “Jo needs allies. Unquestioning allies. No one knows what happened and she’ll tell you or me or a priest or Bailey when she’s ready. She doesn’t need you yelling at her.”
“I know.” Alex looks defeated. “She’s drinking too much.”
“No kidding. She stunk of vodka by the coffee bar yesterday.” Meredith certainly knows a drinking problem when she sees it.
“I just don’t know what to do, Mere.”
Meredith resists the urge to roll her eyes. “Exactly what I told you to do yesterday. Be there for her. Support her. You’re there when she’s ready. You’d be a lot less pissed right now if you’d listened to me.”
Alex does not resist and rolls his eyes. “Yes, I know. What’s eating you?”
Meredith curses herself. Alex knows her too well. “Nothing.”
Alex kicks at her chair leg. “I show you mine, you show me yours.”
She’s got to say it. Saying it makes it real. “I told the kids about Andrew last night.”
Alex nods. “And now you’re freaked out?”
Meredith exhales. “Yes. And I know when I was younger, I would have been freaked out for an entirely different reason. But last time…” She trails off.
“Last time what?” Alex looks vaguely confused.
“The day Megan came back, before I knew, I told Nathan to come over and meet the kids. He was going to, until the explosion and the disaster and Megan…” she trails off again.
“So you think something’s going to happen?”
“Can you blame me? Every time I have something good, it goes bad.” Meredith feels a little childish, hears how scared she sounds.
“You could say the same for me.” A tiny smile is quirking up at the corner of Alex’s mouth.
“We make quite the pair.” Meredith smiles, tiny but there.
Alex’s smile fades. “I don’t know how to help her, Mere.”
Meredith knows this will pass – at least, she hopes it will. Of everyone she knows, she wants Alex’s happiness the most. She knows their friendship is symbiotic – they feed off of each other’s energy – and if she brings him down, she’d never forgive herself.
“Alex,” she murmurs, “right now, the only way to help her is be there, and make sure she doesn’t fuck up her whole life. That’s her biggest risk right now and it’s the thing you can help with if you can’t do anything else.”
Alex nods, again. “She’ll hate that.”
“I know. But she’ll thank you the most for it after this passes. Which it will.”
Meredith doesn’t know this for sure. Every time she thinks something’s going to pass, it doesn’t. But she wants it to be true. She wants to believe that if Alex protects Jo from herself, it will, eventually, get better.
“God, I hope so.” He breathes out again. “I really can’t take another one leaving me.”
“Again, look who you’re talking to.” Meredith means this semi-jokingly, but her voice unexpectedly quivers. Alex’s head shoots up.
“Meredith. I can’t tell you nothing bad is going to happen. But you already took the step and there’s no going back. He couldn’t sneak in and out of your house forever. And he’s a good guy. Your kids will love him.”
Meredith hopes so. She hopes no maybe-dead fiancés, no ex-girlfriends, no deadbeat dads, no explosions, no plane crashes come back to haunt them.
“I have an idea.” Alex has a glimmer in his eye – a happy one.
“Yeah?”
“Sunday. Let’s do waffles at your house. You bring Andrew. I’ll try to bring Jo.”
Meredith’s eyes go wide. “Don’t you think that’s kind of a lot?”
Alex shakes his head no. “He’s meeting your kids tonight, right?”
“Theoretically. If the world doesn’t end before then.” She means it as a joke, but she still kind of believes it.
“Shut up. Sunday, all of us in the kitchen, making a giant-ass mess. It might cheer Jo up, it’ll make DeLuca more comfortable, and it’ll get your kids to see him in a new way.”
Sometimes Meredith forgets how smart Alex is, on top of being her person. Years of hurt and pain have made him one of the most emotionally astute people he knows. She thinks of how he’s been there for her, over and over again, every time life has thrown a curveball. She thinks of how he’s tried to throw himself in front of those curveballs when he could, and how he’s doing that now.
“That’s a great idea. I’ll ask him.” Meredith smiles again, a real one this time. “Are you sure Jo will want to be around kids?”
Alex shrugs. “I have no idea. We’ll see what she says. I slept on the couch last night. Maybe she’ll want to be left alone, in which case it will just be me. Or maybe she’ll want loud kids to distract her from whatever’s going on in her head, in which case, it’ll be both of us.”
Meredith feels a lightness in her shoulders. Who’d have thought, two years ago, that Alex would be trying to make Andrew more comfortable – that he’d welcome him as her boyfriend.
“All right, I gotta go. Residents are being stupid. I’ll text you about Sunday.” With that, Alex gets up and heads for the door. He grabs her shoulder as he leaves, a reassuring squeeze.
Once he’s down the hall, Meredith’s alone again. She feels better, but still somehow unsettled.
She hasn’t talked to Andrew since they shared that glance yesterday, other than a few quick texts. The sight of Andrew with a baby in his arms – she won’t lie, it did something to her. And how he looked at her like she hung the moon for him; it made her chest feel tight and warmth bubble up in her throat.
The way he talked about his cousins – the way he held Avi’s baby – there’s no way he hasn’t pictured himself with a baby before.
Ellis is her baby, and she’s not a baby anymore. And she doesn’t know if she’d want to go through that again. She almost died last time, saved by Zola and Alex and a bunch of doctors she can’t even remember.
But she’s getting ahead of herself. He hasn’t even met them yet.
She physically shakes herself, ridding herself of the thought. First things first. She picks up her phone and taps a quick text to Andrew – do you have a minute – and goes back to staring at her computer screen.
She pictures it in her head – Alex at the waffle iron, Andrew making batter, Jo coloring with Bailey, Zola giving out instructions, Ellis munching on cheerios. She knows the reality will be a lot less idyllic, but the Rockwell painting she’s got going in her head is helping clear the dark and twisty cobwebs of the last few hours.
She’s disturbed from her reverie by Andrew, leaning against the door of her office. “You rang, milady?”
She laughs and he strolls in. She admires his easygoing nature; she doesn’t know how he does it, being a doctor and always having his heart on his sleeve. She doesn’t know how she could have missed his affection; his eyes always on her, gravitating toward her.
“Do you have plans on Sunday?”
He cocks his head to one side. “No. Why?”
Meredith dives right in. “Waffle Sunday. It’s something Alex and I do with the kids. Make waffles, goof around. It might be a good way for you to get to know them; very laid-back, no pressure.”
Andrew smiles. “No pressure, my ass. Alex is probably really good at making waffles.” He walks over to the desk and takes a seat next to Meredith, pulling the chair so they’re knee to knee.
Meredith laughs again. “Yes, yes he is. But you can help, and show the kids you’re more than just the sad guy on the couch and the guy sneaking out of Mommy’s bedroom.”
Andrew blushes and looks away. “True.” He takes a deep breath before he continues, meeting her eyes. “I’m not going to lie. I’m thrilled about this – I’m really excited to meet your kids, Mere, and get to know them. You know I’m in this.” He’s laying out his vulnerabilities, and letting her know where he is. Meredith knows this is why women fall at his feet, why tiny human patients grin from ear to ear when he comes in the room, and probably why he has no guy friends to speak of – he’s sweet, and thoughtful, and probably too in touch with his emotions.
It’s why he got all excited yesterday when she told him she had made a plan about how to tell her kids. It’s why he always responds the second she texts and why he’s so responsive to her touch.
“Andrew.” Meredith has grown a lot, but she’s not a sharer. She leans over to where he’s sitting next to her desk and strokes her palm down the side of his face, kissing him quickly, assuredly. If she can’t tell, she’ll show. “Alex is bringing Jo, who’s still having a rough time, so hopefully all of us being there – helps her.” Andrew nods at this.
“Great,” he whispers, stroking his thumbs over her hands, which somehow wound up in his lap. He steals another kiss, and she lets him. “Fuck the rules,” he says, and she giggles.
She sits back. “Now, about tonight –“
Andrew’s eyes focus on her. “You’re not backing out, are you?”
She rolls her eyes. “No, Andrew, I’m not backing out. But I wanted to warn you to eat before you get there.”
Andrew’s brow arches quizzically. “Why, exactly? Do you not have enough food for three children and one adult man?”
She smacks him lightly on the arm. “No, Dr. Smartass, I am a terrible cook, and I don’t want you to have to eat chicken nuggets and fries for dinner.”
“You’re a general surgeon and you let your kids eat that crap?” He’s smirking at her now.
“They’re young. They could eat Saran Wrap and their bodies would digest it.”
Andrew shakes his head. “Then I’ll cook. If for no other reason than your kids deserve actual nutrition.”
Meredith laughs. “They like chicken nuggets!”
“And I like two pounds of brisket, but I’m not eating that for dinner, am I?”
She squeezes his hand. “Fine. But Zola can’t have avocado or banana, Bailey hates eggs, and Ellis is in a stage where she only wants ice cream or cheerios.”
He nods. “Gotcha.” He kisses her, and the hand she’s rested on his thigh feels his phone vibrate. He lets go of her hand and pulls out his phone, quickly reading the screen. “Consult in the pit, so I gotta run. Seven?” He stands up.
Meredith smiles. “Seven. And bring pajamas.” His brow arches again. “For the morning, so the kids aren’t scarred by you in your boxer briefs and nothing else.”
There’s the heart on his sleeve again – he grins, ear to ear, and bends down to kiss her. “Sounds great.” And he’s out the door, and she feels her heart squeeze in her chest.
***
It’s much later when the two of them are in her kitchen. Andrew’s washing dishes and Meredith is wiping them down and putting them away. Dinner had gone well enough – Bailey loved him, Ellis was shy, and Zola sat there in judgment. The kids are now all up in their respective rooms, and Meredith is relishing the quiet and the companionship.
They’ve been trading glances but not really talking since the kids went upstairs, not wanting to break the spell. Meredith puts down the dish she’s holding and creeps up behind Andrew at the sink, weaving her arms around his waist. He’s been singing softly for the past few minutes, and she turns her head so her ear is pressed to his back, feeling the vibrations his voice is making.
He shuts off the sink and turns around, one hand wrapping around her waist and the other weaving in her hair. Meredith feels the dampness of the edge of his shirtsleeve against her neck, and the imperfection of it – the everyday feeling – her heart squeezes again.
The other shoe didn’t drop. Andrew made it. He’s here, alive, no ex-girlfriend in sight.
That’s going to have to be enough for now.
Andrew’s voice breaks into her thoughts. “I hope you’re ready,” he says in a low tone – a tone that goes right to Meredith’s core and makes her shiver.
“Ready for what, Dr. Deluca?” she asks breathily.
“Ready for my extremely sexy pajamas, Dr. Grey.” And they both burst out laughing.
For now, this is more than enough. For now, this is everything.