Chapter Text
Meredith Grey had lived through more loss in her life than anyone would consider fair. Her father had left her when she was five, her mother had gotten Alzheimer's shortly after -and died while Meredith was still quite young. She’d lost her sister to a plane crash and her husband in an accident. All of that, and many more tragedy filled memories, lived in Seattle; she’d spent the last twenty years there, every christmas and birthday -except you count that year after Derek’s death when she escaped to San Diego. Not this years’ though, this was the year Meredith Grey had finally decided to leave behind the terrible times in Seattle and start fresh a new life in Boston. It had ultimately been Zola to convince her to make that choice, after seeing how much she was suffering. There had been drama ever since the second she’d announced she was thinking of leaving Seattle -many people had been angry at her, had tried to guilt trip her into staying to save the hospital, had blamed her for the potential fallout. So she stayed, she became chief of surgery and kept the hospital going through the tragedy. She helped rebuild the place as she’d done ever since she first started -back when it was called Seattle Grace. She stayed because no one afforded her the right to leave -as everyone else already had. She had done everything for that hospital, but it was never enough. So, as everyone else moved on with their lives and went to find happiness elsewhere, she stayed. That is, until it was Zola the one suffering. The panic attacks and all that suffering her kid had been hiding got to Meredith a lot harder than any of the expectations anyone else had of her. Because one thing was certain: there was nothing and no one Meredith would put before her kids happiness and wellbeing; not the hospital and certainly not herself.
They hadn’t been in Boston long but there was already some improvement. Zola liked her new school and she was already planning extracurriculars she could start. Bailey and Ellis liked their new schools and the house they’d just moved into. As for herself, Meredith felt she was doing something useful. She remembered the talks with Derek about his dream of curing Alzheimer's and she wasn’t anywhere near that, but she was working towards it. Sometimes, she’d like to think her efforts towards fighting Alzheimer's were contributing to Zola’s more calm demeanor. Still, her family was happy and that meant she was happy. As the holidays approached, she’d considered visiting Seattle, giving her kids some sense of normalcy by celebrating Christmas as they’d used to. Then, she thought back to the house burning and how they’d just now gotten kind of used to calling their Boston house home; she thought of how little time had passed since they were packing up their life -or the remnants of it, after the fire- to move halfway across the country. She’d ultimately decided against going, instead trying to think of ways to create new family traditions in Boston; they’d seem to enjoy it.
Although it wasn’t that much of a priority in her mind, she was also having a hard time adjusting to life in Boston. She couldn’t help but think about her discussions with Derek -just over a decade ago- about leaving Seattle to move to Boston. She remembered how opposed she was back then, she remembered how much of her life was there; she also remembered how much she’d lost since then. It was inevitable to think if things would have turned out differently had they moved to Boston -or DC- when they first discussed it. Still, she couldn’t bring herself to resent her years in Seattle, or all those years at the hospital. It was where she had the most memories from her family. It’s where she met Derek, where they fell in love. It’s where she met amazing people she now considers her family. Where they met Zola and where they made the decision to adopt her. It’s where Bailey was born. Everything that had happened there had shaped her life to what it is today. And Seattle had been her first and only home, not Boston. But they were in here now, and she really did want to make new memories, ones not tainted by all the pain and loss that inevitably loomed over Seattle.
As she was thinking of new family traditions for the month of December, she remembered the first Christmas she’d had with her little family. Back when it was just her with Derek and little baby Zola. It had been a sad year: the plane crash, Lexie’s death and then Mark’s. Adele had died on the table at the hospital. And yet, there was hope. Because Zola was her tiny baby and they’d gotten full custody. Because Derek was there, because they were happy, somehow. She wanted the same for all three of her kids, for them to be happy despite all the tragedies of the last few years; she wanted them to have a fresh start. So, despite the nostalgia and how much she was missing her life back in Seattle, before tragedy struck, Meredith Grey put her mind into making Christmas the best she possibly could. She baked cookies, with Zola’s help as she was still a terrible cook. She turned on Christmas music and laughed as Bailey made some silly dance moves. She turned on some Christmas movies, and prepared some hot chocolates and candy for the kids to devour. She did all of it, ignoring the fact that Christmas wasn’t for another three weeks. Because she’d do this every day until then, if she had to. She’d do anything to keep those three kids happy. It didn’t matter that she missed Seattle, because there was one truth that would always prevail. Nothing and no one was more important to Meredith than her kids.