Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There’s a kind of quiet that settles in after everything falls apart.

Not peaceful quiet. Not the kind that lets you breathe or think.

It’s the kind of quiet that suffocates. That wraps itself around your lungs and makes every inhale feel like punishment.

That’s the quiet I was sitting in.

Locker room silence. The kind that presses down on your shoulders while the rest of the world moves on like nothing happened. My scrubs were sticking to me, hours-old sweat and too many shifts layered over each other. I couldn’t remember when I last ate. Or slept. Or existed without this pit in my stomach.

Derek chose her.

Of course he did.

I don't blame him. My own parents didn't even choose me.

Addison Montgomery. Neon sign of perfection.

And I, Meredith Grey, was just a slutty surgical intern with abandonment issues and a wreck for a mother.

It wasn’t that I expected him to choose me. I didn’t. But some awful, hopeful part of me had wanted it. Had clung to the idea that maybe I was worth choosing. That maybe, just maybe, I wasn’t always going to be the one left behind.

I don’t know how long I sat there, hunched over, elbows on my knees, fingers digging into my scalp like I could press the thoughts out. My pager went off twice before I even registered the sound.

Rounds. Of course.

I stood up. My legs felt heavy. My chest even heavier.

⸻

Bailey didn’t say anything about the dark circles under my eyes or the fact that I nearly walked into a crash cart because I wasn’t watching where I was going. She just handed me a chart, clipped her pen to her coat, and started walking.

I followed. I always do.

George, Izzie, Alex, and Cristina walked infront of me.

The hallway was the same as always, beige and buzzing and full of beeping machines. I checked vitals. I nodded when I was supposed to. I scribbled notes I wouldn’t remember writing later.

And then the elevator dinged.

I didn’t even look up at first.

“Female, late fifties,” Cristina said. “History of Alzheimer’s. Altered mental status. Found agitated, combative. Collapsed earlier during dinner service.”

I looked.

And my stomach bottomed out.

“Patient name?” Bailey asked, already halfway flipping the chart.

Cristina hesitated, as she looked at me. Not knowing how I felt.

"Yang, the patients name?"

“Ellis Grey.”

My feet were moving before I could stop them. I pushed past the interns, past the gurney, until I was standing at the head of it, looking down at my mother.

Ellis Grey, world-renowned surgeon, looked like a shadow of herself. Her hair was matted from sweat, eyes unfocused but angry, always angry. Her hands were fisted at her sides like she was still ready to fight anyone who got in her way.

For a second, she looked right through me.

And then she squinted. Her face twisted. She recognized me.

Sort of.

“You,” she hissed, her voice sharper than I’d heard in years. “You’re supposed to be at school. What the hell are you doing here?”

Bailey’s head snapped toward me.

“She thinks I’m sixteen,” I said quietly. “Just… let her calm down.”

But it was already too late.

They admitted her within the hour. Bailey pulled me aside, told me I couldn’t be on her case, hospital policy, conflict of interest, and honestly? Thank God. I couldn’t handle it. I didn’t want to handle it.

But I also couldn’t leave.

So they let me sit in the room. Not as a doctor. Just… as the daughter.

The bed was too big for her. She kept shifting, twitching, muttering under her breath like she was mid-argument with a ghost.

I sat in the chair near the window, trying not to make noise. Trying to disappear into the wall.

Didn’t work.

The door opened.

Derek.

Addison.

Bailey.

Richard.

I felt the dread hit my spine before anyone said a word.

“We just want to give her a clear picture of what’s happening,” Richard said gently, like I was a porcelain doll with a crack down the middle.

Ellis’s eyes snapped open.

“You can’t just hide in hospitals every time something goes wrong!” she screamed.

I flinched.

Derek’s brow furrowed. Addison stiffened. Bailey looked like she wanted to crawl into the floor.

“You think I don’t remember?” Ellis barked, staring straight through me. “Sixteen years old and already slitting your wrists because you couldn’t handle a bad grade or sex with some boy you apparently didn't want. Of course you did! Because you were a little slut, always having sex with boys then crying about it! You never said no! Then you would slit your wrists! They called me, they always called me. As if it was my fault you were broken.”

No one breathed.

“God, you were so dramatic. Always wanting to die, always making me look like a terrible mother. Do you know what it’s like to be scrubbing in on a triple A repair while your child is in the psych ward for attention?”

I couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak.

Addison’s hand was covering her mouth. Derek’s jaw had tightened so hard I thought it might crack. Bailey’s eyes were wide in a way I’d never seen before.

And Richard… Richard just looked at me. Like he’d known, somehow. Or maybe he hadn’t. Maybe this was all news to him, too.

I wanted to sink into the floor. I wanted to disappear. I wanted to be anywhere but here.

Ellis kept yelling. Screaming, really. Words I had buried for years now dragging themselves back to the surface in front of everyone.

“I should’ve sent you away. I should’ve let them lock you up so I could do my job in peace. But no. You always had to be the victim. The poor, fragile little girl. The scarred, pathetic disappointment. YOU JUST WANTED TO RUIN MY CAREER!”

I stood up.

No one stopped me.

Or even tried comforting me.

Not Addison.

Not Richard.

Not Bailey.

Not even Derek.

I walked out of the room and didn’t look back.

Chapter Text

I don’t remember walking to the supply closet.

One minute I was in the hallway, heart pounding, face burning, ears ringing with the sound of her obnoxious voice. “Slitting your wrists," and the next, I was inside the tiny closet on the third floor. The one behind the OR wing. The one no one uses because it smells like antiseptic and dust.

I locked the door behind me.

My breath came in short, shallow bursts. Too fast. Too loud. My hands were shaking.

I dropped to the floor.

Everything felt too small. My skin. My chest. The room. The hospital. My body.

Her voice was still echoing in my head.

“You always had to be the victim.”

I pressed my palms against my ears like that would help. Like I could keep her out this time.

But it was too late.

⸻

Flash.

Me, sixteen. Sitting on the edge of the bathtub with the razor in my hand.
Her voice on the other side of the door—cold, furious.

“If you’re going to make a scene, do it quietly.”

Flash.

Seventeen. Drunk at a house party I didn’t want to go to. Someone pushing me into a bedroom. My wrists pinned. The music was too loud for anyone to hear me say no.
I stopped saying it after a while.

Flash.

Eighteen. Emergency room. Stitches. The nurse wouldn’t meet my eyes.

Ellis didn’t come. Richard did.

He didn’t say anything. Just sat in the chair like he was waiting for me to apologize for existing.

⸻

I couldn’t breathe.

There was something heavy pressing down on my chest, and I clawed at it, but it wouldn’t move. My fingers curled into fists, nails digging into my palms, and I squeezed until I felt pain, just to make sure I was still real.

The walls were too close. My throat was closing. The tears burned.

I curled in on myself on the floor, arms wrapped tight around my knees.

I can’t do this. I can’t do this. I can’t—

The door handle turned.

Then knocked.

“Meredith?”

It was Derek.

Of course it was Derek.

I didn’t say anything. Maybe if I stayed quiet, he’d go away.

“Meredith, I saw you leave. Can you... can you open the door?”

No. No, no, no.

I stood too fast, stumbled against a shelving unit, knocked over a tray of syringes that hit the floor like gunshots. My knees buckled. I sank back down and pressed my forehead to the cold tile.

“Meredith.” His voice was closer. “I’m coming in, okay?”

The lock clicked. He had a key.

Of course he had a key. Fuck.

The door swung open, and light spilled in. I turned my face away. I didn’t want him to see me like this. He wasn’t supposed to see me like this.

Not like this.

“Hey,” he said, kneeling in front of me, too close. “It’s okay. You’re okay. I just...”

“Don’t.” I interrupted him. “Don’t touch me.”

He froze.

I couldn’t look at him. I didn’t want to see pity in his eyes. Or guilt. Or that same horror I saw on Bailey’s face earlier. I didn’t want to be seen at all.

“I’m not going to touch you,” he said gently. “I promise.”

I nodded. But I still couldn’t breathe.

Everything in me was unraveling. The panic was a storm, ripping through every nerve ending. My heart was slamming against my ribs, like it was trying to escape my body. My lungs were on fire.

“Can you breathe with me?” he asked. “Just… look at me, okay?”

I couldn’t.

“Okay. That’s okay.” His voice dropped, low and calm. “I’m going to count. In and out. Just follow me. That’s all you have to do.”

I closed my eyes.

“In. One… two… three…”

“Out. One… two… three…”

I didn’t follow him at first.

But I wanted to.

I wanted it to stop. I wanted me to stop.

So I tried.

My breaths were still shaky, uneven, but slower. Just enough to keep me upright.

Just enough to keep me from completely falling apart.

When I finally opened my eyes, Derek was still there, sitting across from me on the floor. He looked worried. Like genuinely, achingly worried.

I hated it.

“What you heard in that room…” I said quietly, “You weren’t supposed to know.”

His face softened, but he didn’t interrupt.

“I’ve spent my whole life pretending it didn’t happen. That if I was good enough, worked hard enough, saved enough lives, it wouldn’t matter.”

I laughed, but it came out hollow. “Guess that worked out great.”

“Meredith...”

“I don’t need you to fix it,” I said quickly. “I don’t need you to save me. You already made your choice.”

He looked down.

I pressed my back to the wall, wiped my face with the sleeve of my scrubs, and stared at the ceiling.

"You shouldn't be ashamed of what happened in the past. Even if your mother is ashamed."

I didn't answer. Not only because I didn't want to. I was exhausted.

Work.

Boys.

Moms.

Families.

Derek.

Addison.

Living.

Everything.

I'm not living, I'm surviving. And I'm tired.

"You should leave, I'm fine. You probably have... surgeries... or something. Whatever." I pleaded him. Even though I wanted him to stay, I wasn't going to admit that.

"Okay.. You should go home. Take care of yourself, okay?" Derek told me.

"Sure." I replied. Hmph. Like I was going to listen.

Chapter Text

The hospital always smells the same, like bleach and blood and too much memory.

The second the door to the locker room closed behind me, the pressure came back. It wasn’t the full-body panic from before, but it was enough to make my knees shake. Enough to make me grip the edge of the locker so tight my fingers went white.

The adrenaline was wearing off, and in its place was something worse: shame.

I could still hear her voice.

“Slitting your wrists at sixteen.”

It didn’t matter that she was sick. That her mind was warped and lost somewhere in the past. That moment, the way she said it, the way everyone looked at me... felt like being cracked open in the middle of a trauma bay with no anesthesia.

I opened my locker and stared inside, not even sure what I was looking for. My coat. My keys. My dignity, maybe.

I heard the door open.

I didn’t look.

But I knew the sound of those footsteps.

Cristina.

She didn’t say anything right away. Just stood in the doorway, arms crossed, like she was deciding whether to yell at me or hug me.

“What the hell, Grey." She said finally.

I let out a slow breath, still not turning around. “Not now, Cristina.”

“Yeah, now.”

Her tone wasn’t angry. Not exactly. Just Cristina level concerned, which mostly sounded like irritation with a sprinkle of emotional constipation.

“I’m fine,” I said, automatically. Reflex.

“You’re not,” she said, walking toward me. “You disappeared in the middle of rounds. I had to hear from Addison that you locked yourself in a closet and Derek found you hyperventilating on the floor.”

I winced. “Addison talks too much.”

“She’s a surgeon, not a vault.” Cristina moved next to me, leaned against the locker. “What happened?”

I hesitated.

She sighed. “Okay. Let me rephrase. Tell me what the hell your mother was talking about when she said..”

“Don’t.” My voice cracked on the word.

Cristina blinked.

“I can’t,” I whispered. “Not yet.”

She didn’t push.

She just nodded slowly, like she got it in a way only someone broken in the same places could. Then she sat down on the bench across from me, pulled out a bag of chips from her coat and popped one into her mouth like we weren’t knee-deep in my psychological trauma.

I laughed. It startled both of us.

“You brought chips to a breakdown?”

“I didn’t know it was a breakdown,” she said through a crunch. “Could’ve just been another emotional implosion about McDreamy’s hair.”

I rolled my eyes, but my lips twitched.

Cristina looked at me seriously then. “You don’t have to talk. Not right now. But I’m not leaving you alone in this room acting like nothing happened.”

I stared down at my hands. The little tremor in my fingers still hadn’t stopped.

“You’re not scared of me?” I asked quietly.

Cristina narrowed her eyes. “What the hell kind of question is that?”

“After what she said.. about the cutting. The suicide stuff. You looked shocked.”

“Yeah, because she said it in front of half the hospital, Meredith. Not because I think you’re some kind of monster.” Her tone softened.

The silence settled between us, not heavy this time, but solid. Real.

“I used to hide it,” I said after a long pause. “The scars. The bruises. Everything. I thought if no one saw it, it didn’t count.”

Cristina nodded slowly. “It still counts.”

I sat down next to her.

She passed me the chips. I took one, because what the hell else was I going to do? Eat my feelings or starve with them.

“You don’t have to fix me,” I said quietly.

Cristina looked mildly offended. “Good. Because I’m not a fixer. I’m a cardio goddess with zero patience for your ‘dark and twisty’ monologues.”

I smiled.

It didn’t last, but it was real.

And that was enough... for now.

Chapter Text

As I walked out of the locker room, I quickly went into the storage room. I grabbed some one time use scalpels and shoved them in my pocked.

I closed the hospital door behind me like shutting a coffin lid. The corridor’s hum, the smell of antiseptic and whispered conversations, all of it was supposed to mean something. Supposed to be part of a place where people fixed things. But tonight, all I felt was the weight of everything I couldn’t fix... myself most of all.

I grabbed my car keys. I didn't notice my hands were still shaking. Why were they shaking? I'm not weak. My mom said only weak kids cry. Well, when she found out I tried killing myself, she knew I was more than weak. If I know I'm weak, why am I going back to this? Why?

I opened the door to Joe's.

"Hi Joe. Could I get 4 bottles of tequila please?"

"Woah, what's the occasion? Are you having a party."

"No, not with doctor friends. Everyone's busy. We ran out of it, so I'm getting some for Izzie and George too."

"Ohh. Why aren't you at the hospital today?" Joe questioned as he grabbed the bottles from the back.

"I got sent home. Wasn't feeling too well."

"Well, don't drink too much if you don't feel well." He insisted as he placed the bottles in the bag.

"Haha, I won't." I replied as I paid.

"Hope you feel better."

I smiled at him and took the bag of tequila.

As I got into my car again I felt the urge. The urge to slit my wrists. But I'm not 16 anymore. I'm not the weak girl damaging my mother's career. I'm not the weak girl who was too drunk and scared to say no to boys, right?

Right?

The drive home was too quiet, like I was holding its breath. I wanted to scream, but the sound wouldn’t come. So I stared at the road ahead. Praying I wouldn't do something stupid.

The house was cold, darker than I remembered, like it had been waiting for me to break the lock and step inside. My mother's house. My childhood home. With aching memories and the past. I dropped my bag and let my fingers run along the counter’s edge, grounding myself against the invisible fall.

I peeled off my scrubs slowly, almost ritualistic. The smell of antiseptic stuck to me like a second skin. It clung to my hair, my hands, my soul.

And then I looked at my wrists. Bare. Clean. Unmarked. That was the lie I told everyone, that I was past it. But lying to myself was harder than anyone else.

The itch came first, an urge gnawing at the back of my mind, twisting and pulling like a thread ready to unravel. My fingers trembled, almost on their own, reaching for the little knife hidden under the sink. It wasn’t something I wanted to admit I still had. It wasn’t something I wanted anyone to know about.

I sat on the edge of the bathtub, the cold porcelain chilling my skin. The blade caught the dim light, sharp and unforgiving.

I pressed it against my wrist, the sting like a spark in the dark, reminding me that I was real, that I was still here. But I stopped. I never die. I can't die. It'll hurt Cristina. It'll damage my moms reputation, won't it?

Tears pooled in my eyes, hot and bitter. Memories flashed, my mother’s voice, sharp and cruel. Ellis accusing me of being weak, of dragging her down, calling me a failure. The look in Derek’s eyes when he turned away that morning, like I was already gone.

I swallowed the lump in my throat and bit my lip until it bled.

The knife slid down my skin again, a quiet rhythm in the silence. This time it was on my forearm. I wasn’t sure if I was punishing myself or begging for a release I didn’t deserve.

After a few minutes, I dropped the blade and leaned back, the cool porcelain against my spine grounding me. But the ache didn’t stop. The knot in my chest was tighter than ever.

I reached for the tequila bottle I’d hidden behind the cereal box. The cheap stuff burned going down, but it helped dull the edges, smoothed out the jagged thoughts slicing through my mind.

I poured glass after glass, staring out the window into the city lights. Everyone else was moving forward. I was stuck in place, frozen in a moment I didn’t know how to escape.

My phone buzzed on the counter, Cristina.

"You okay?"

I stared at it. Could have called her. Could have told her. But the words wouldn’t come. I was exhausted from fighting just to keep the mask in place.

I deleted the message.

I wasn’t okay. But I wasn’t ready for anyone to see how broken I really was.

The silence pressed in on me until the room felt too small. I curled into myself on the cold floor, wine glass still in hand, the tears finally spilling over.

Maybe tomorrow, I thought.

Maybe tomorrow, I’d be strong enough to ask for help.

But tonight, all I could do was hold onto the pain until it didn’t feel quite so sharp.

Chapter Text

The house was too quiet. I woke up with a headache pounding behind my eyes and my mouth dry like paper. I didn’t remember how much I drank. Just enough to make the walls stop pressing in. Just enough to sleep without dreaming.

The sun was leaking in through the window, too bright and too real. I sat up slowly, my entire body aching. My shirt sleeves had slipped up just enough to show the edge of the bandage wrapped around my wrist. I pulled them down fast, like I could hide the truth from the walls. From myself.

In the kitchen, Izzie and George were laughing about something, a patient, a nurse, something petty and small. I stood in the hallway for a minute, waiting for someone to notice me. Say something. Anything.

They didn’t.

I poured a cup of coffee and stood there, invisible. Izzie didn’t even glance up. George mumbled something about the weather, and then they were back in their own little world, chirping like birds in a tree I couldn’t reach.

I left without saying goodbye.

By the time I got to the hospital, the weight in my chest had gotten heavier. It was harder to breathe. Everything felt like I was underwater, slow and muffled. I kept my head down during rounds, avoided eye contact, stayed quiet unless Bailey forced something out of me.

I almost slipped with a patient’s chart. My hand shook when I passed it off to a nurse, and I saw the way Cristina looked at me. Like she knew something was wrong. Like she was tired of pretending she didn’t.

I tried to outrun her but she found me anyway, in the stairwell, of course. She always knew where I went to fall apart.

“You look like hell,” she said.

I turned around slowly, swallowing down the shame like glass. “Thanks.”

“I’m not saying it to be a bitch,” she said. “I’m saying it because I care. What’s going on with you, Mer?”

“You don’t get to act like you care now,” I said. “You’ve been busy being perfect. Judging. Staring. Waiting for me to implode.”

Cristina’s face didn’t change, but something in her eyes hardened. “You think I don’t know what it’s like to fall apart?”

“You don’t,” I said, too fast, too cruel. “You wouldn’t understand.”

Cristina looked at me like I’d slapped her. Then she shook her head, stepped back.

“You’re right. I don’t understand. Because I show up. I tell the truth. You’re the one walking around like a ghost.”

She left. I didn’t try to stop her.

Later, Derek caught me by the nurse’s station. I should’ve kept walking.

“Meredith,” he said. Just my name, but already I wanted to scream.

“What?” I asked, turning, arms crossed tight over my chest.

“You’ve been off,” he said, voice too calm. “You’re distracted. People are noticing.”

“Oh, so now you care?” My voice cracked, and I hated that it did. “You chose Addison. Remember?”

“This isn’t about that,” he said. “You need help. You’re not okay.”

“You don’t get to decide what I need. You don’t get to care anymore.”

He looked stunned. But I didn’t wait for him to speak again. I walked away and didn’t look back.

I locked myself in the on-call room. The walls were too close and the bed too cold, and the bandage on my wrist was soaked through. I grabbed the first aid kit from under the cot and peeled the gauze back. It was worse than I remembered.

My hands shook as I tried to re-wrap it, but I couldn’t get it tight enough. Everything was slipping... the bandage, my control, the last thread of strength I’d been holding onto for days.

I picked up my phone. I typed Cristina’s name. I’m sorry.

Then I stared at it for five minutes and hit delete.

From somewhere down the hallway, I could hear George and Izzie laughing again. Talking about coffee, or lunch, or nothing that mattered.

No one came looking for me.

I curled into the cot and stared at the ceiling until it blurred.

I’m screaming inside and no one even hears me breathing.

Chapter Text

The hospital was quieter than it should’ve been. That strange, dead time when even the machines seemed to breathe softer. The kind of silence that makes your thoughts louder. I stayed after my shift ended, pretending to be catching up on charts, but really I was just avoiding going home. Avoiding the silence there too.

I wandered down the hallway without thinking, just letting my feet move. My fingers tingled from exhaustion, but I didn’t feel tired. I didn’t feel much of anything. That numbness again. The kind that lives under your skin and makes everything ache without reason.

And then I heard her voice.

Ellis. Screaming.

It was coming from the third floor. Geriatrics. Her room. Someone must’ve left the door open.

“No, I don’t want to see her! She’s not my daughter! My daughter is weak. She carves herself open for attention. You think I raised her? She was in a psych ward last year! She tried to kill herself because she couldn’t take being a disappointment!”

Her voice was sharp enough to cut bone. Every syllable landed like a slap. She still thinks I'm 16.

“She is always like this,” she continued, yelling at whatever poor nurse was in the room with her. “Always a mess. Always bleeding. Never strong enough. She makes me look like a failure.”

I couldn’t move. I stood frozen just outside the stairwell, pressed against the cold metal of the railing like it could hold me upright. I’d heard it all before... sometimes in person, sometimes in my own head. But hearing it again, now, in this place where I was barely holding it together?

I turned and walked.

The supply closet was dim, too small, too quiet... the kind of place you can disappear inside if you really need to. I shut the door behind me and sat on the floor. My breath felt trapped in my throat. My hands shook as I opened the drawer, fingers automatically reaching for the small sterile scalpel packs stacked in the back.

I held one up to the light.

So clean. So sharp. No judgment. No voices. No mother screaming through my skin.

I peeled back my sleeve and stared at the healing cuts I’d made the night before. Already faded. Already not enough.

I wanted quiet. Just for a second.

So I pressed the blade into my arm.

It was too easy. The skin gave way like paper. There wasn’t even pain at first, just that eerie pressure and a line of red. My heart picked up its pace, thudding against my ribs. My hands shook more. Another line. And another. Deeper than I meant.

I didn’t even hear the door open.

“Meredith.”

Shit.

His voice was low. Careful.

I froze. The scalpel still in my hand.

Richard Webber stood in the doorway, looking like he’d just stepped into a nightmare. His eyes landed on the blood, then my arm, then my face. He didn’t move for a second, like he wasn’t sure if I’d bolt or scream or cry.

I didn’t do any of those things. I'm not weak.

Right?

“Don’t,” I whispered. My voice sounded small. “Don’t look at me.”

He stepped inside. Slowly. Like he was approaching an injured animal.

“I’m not here to judge,” he said. “I just want to help.”

“I don’t need help.”

“You’re bleeding, Meredith.”

I looked down. The cuts were still fresh. My hands were sticky. I felt dizzy, but not from the blood.

“I’m fine,” I said, even though I wasn’t. “I just needed… I needed to shut it off. For a second.”

Richard grabbed a clean towel from the cabinet and crouched beside me. His hands were gentler than I expected, pressing the cloth to my skin.

“You can’t keep doing this,” he said, voice soft but firm. “You don’t have to carry all this alone.”

I didn’t respond. My throat felt tight, like it was trying to choke me from the inside.

“She said I was a failure,” I whispered. “She always said it, but now she says it to strangers. Nurses. Doctors. She said I carved myself open for attention.”

“She’s sick, Meredith.”

“But what if she’s right?” My eyes burned, but I didn’t cry. “What if I never grew up? What if I’m just a scared kid in scrubs pretending to be something I’m not?”

Richard looked at me then, really looked. Not like a chief. Not like someone who had to report me to psych. Just a man who once loved my mother, and maybe, on some impossible level, loved me too.

“You were never just a surgeon to me,” he said. “You’re more than Ellis’s daughter. You’re more than this pain.”

I looked away. It was too much. Too kind. Too honest.

“I don’t know what to do,” I said finally, voice cracking. “I don’t know how to be okay.”

“You don’t have to know tonight,” he said. “You just have to stay alive. We’ll figure the rest out from there.”

I let him bandage my arm in silence. I didn’t fight when he led me out of the supply closet. I didn’t speak when he handed me off to someone from psych for a brief eval.

But when they asked if I had someone I could talk to, someone I trusted... I wrote down Cristina’s name.

And for the first time in days, I let myself hope she might actually pick up the phone.

Chapter Text

The walls in the psych consult room were the wrong kind of white, not clean, just blank. Like silence turned into paint. I sat in the chair across from a woman whose name I forgot the second she said it. She had a notepad. A calm voice. A tilt of the head that meant she’d read one too many therapy textbooks.

I stared at her boots instead of her face.

“You don’t have to say much,” she told me. “You’re not in trouble. This isn’t about punishment.”

It didn’t feel like punishment. It felt worse. Like exposure. Like someone had cracked my ribs open and left me out in the cold.

“Do you want to hurt yourself right now?”

“No,” I answered. It was true. I didn’t want anything right now. I didn’t even want to be here.

“Do you feel safe with yourself?”

I paused. That one was harder. I wasn’t bleeding anymore, but that didn’t mean I was safe. It just meant I was good at hiding again.

“I’m fine,” I said. The lie felt hollow coming out.

She made a note. I hated her a little for it.

“Do you have a support system? Someone you trust?”

I almost said Cristina’s name out loud. But something stopped me. I wasn’t sure if we were okay. I wasn’t sure if I was okay. Instead I shrugged.

“I don’t know.”

After the questions were over, she gave me a pamphlet. Like that would do anything. She told me I was cleared to return to work, “with discretion.” I wondered what discretion looked like. Probably sleeves long enough to cover the bandages. Probably not drinking myself into oblivion at night.

I left without saying goodbye.

Richard saw me in the hallway later that day. We didn’t speak, but he gave me a small nod, like a reminder that he knew, and that I was still here. Still surviving. For now.

I ducked into an on-call room just to breathe. To get away from all the pity in everyone’s eyes. Or worse. The avoidance. No one wanted to talk about what happened. Not directly. Just awkward glances and quiet whispers when they thought I wasn’t listening.

Cristina hadn’t texted. I hadn’t reached out.

Izzie barely looked at me this morning. George asked if I wanted a bagel, but it sounded like obligation, not friendship.

Something had shifted. I felt it everywhere. In the way people didn’t ask how I was doing. In the way Derek walked by me without speaking.

Or maybe that was me. Maybe I was the one who was different now.

Later that evening, I stood by the nurses’ station, finishing up my chart on a post-op patient. Bailey passed behind me and didn’t stop walking, but she said:

“Don’t bleed on the floor, Grey. We don’t have time for theatrics.”

It hit like a sucker punch. But she didn’t mean it cruelly, not entirely. That was just Bailey. Brutal honesty disguised as guidance. I bit the inside of my cheek and kept writing.

When I finally made it home that night, the house felt too crowded.

George and Izzie were in the kitchen, laughing again. Talking about a nurse who tripped in the elevator. It wasn’t funny. But they made it funny.

I walked in quietly. They didn’t stop. They didn’t ask where I’d been.

I poured myself a glass of water, just to have something in my hands. Izzie glanced at me, eyes flicking down to my sleeve, maybe noticing how it didn’t ride up like it used to. George said something about a dog surgery and she laughed again.

It was like I wasn’t even there.

I wanted to scream. I wanted to cry. I wanted someone to see me.

Instead I just nodded once and went to my room.

I locked the door behind me.

And for the first time in days, I didn’t cry.

I don't want to. I'm not weak.

I'm not weak.

Right?

My mother says I am.

I just sat in the dark, waiting for the numbness to come back.

Chapter Text

The morning started the way most of them do now. Quiet. Numb. That awful limbo where I’m not asleep, not fully awake, just drifting somewhere in between. I got dressed in silence. No breakfast. Just coffee strong enough to burn my throat and a fresh bandage under my sleeve.

Cristina hadn’t texted. Still.

At the hospital, everything felt mechanical. Move this patient, check that chart, nod when Bailey talks, avoid Derek’s eyes. Don’t let anything slip. Be invisible and efficient. That’s all anyone wanted from me now anyway.

I caught Cristina near the elevator, halfway through a conversation with Burke. Her hair was in that tight bun she only did when she wanted to feel in control.

“Cristina,” I said, stepping up to her like it didn’t terrify me.

She turned. There was hesitation in her eyes before she nodded at Burke and told him she’d catch up. Then it was just us.

“You haven’t said anything,” I said. My voice came out smaller than I wanted it to. “Since… everything.”

Cristina crossed her arms. “I didn’t know what to say.”

“You usually know what to say.”

“Not when you’re bleeding out in a closet,” she snapped. “What the hell, Meredith? You scared everyone. You scared me.”

I looked down at my shoes. “I didn’t mean to… it just… happened.”

Cristina’s voice softened, but only slightly. “It doesn’t just happen.”

I didn’t say anything.

“You should’ve come to me,” she added. “You always come to me.”

“I didn’t think you wanted me to.”

Her jaw clenched. “That’s not fair.”

I almost laughed. “Nothing feels fair right now.”

We stood in silence until the elevator dinged. Cristina stepped in without another word. She didn’t ask me to follow.

I didn’t.

Later, I walked into the attendings’ lounge by mistake. I meant to grab a chart and keep moving, but the door swung open before I could turn away. Derek and Addison were inside.

Addison stared at me like I was a stain on the carpet. Derek didn’t say anything. Just looked. Looked and looked, like he didn’t recognize me anymore.

“I’ll just..." I started.

“Don’t,” Addison said, her voice cold. “Don’t pretend like you don’t want the attention.”

I froze.

“You’re playing victim, Meredith,” she continued. “You make a mess and expect everyone to clean it up. Derek, Richard, even Bailey.”

Derek didn’t defend me. Not even a word.

I stepped back, heart pounding in my ears. “You don’t know anything about what I’ve been through.”

“No,” Addison said, calm and cruel. “But I know what it’s like to watch someone destroy themselves for pity.”

Derek still didn’t speak.

I left before I could cry in front of them.

At lunch, I sat next to George and Izzie like I used to. I don’t know why I thought it would be the same.

George looked up, awkward. “Hey.”

Izzie just kept eating.

I tried to smile. “Rough morning.”

Neither of them replied.

“Izzie,” I said.

She sighed, put her fork down. “Meredith, we don’t know how to deal with this.”

“With what?”

“With you,” she said. “With what you’re doing. It’s like you want us to watch you fall apart.”

“That’s not fair.”

“Isn’t it?” George cut in. “We’ve all had bad days. But you… you’re pulling everyone down with you.”

My throat closed up. “I didn’t ask you to fix me.”

“No, you didn’t,” Izzie said. “But we’re still here, worrying. Watching you drink yourself sick. Watching you show up to rounds like a ghost.”

They weren’t wrong. But they weren’t right either.

“You think I like this?” I asked, my voice rising. “You think I’m choosing this?”

“You’re not doing anything to stop it,” George said. “And it’s exhausting.”

I stood up too fast, the chair screeching behind me.

“You know what?” I said. “Don’t worry about it. Don’t worry about me.”

And I walked out.

That night, I found myself outside Alex’s room. I didn’t knock. I just leaned against the wall, eyes closed, listening to the hum of the hospital at midnight.

After a few minutes, the door opened.

“You look like hell,” he said.

“Feel worse.”

He didn’t ask questions. Didn’t offer solutions. Just let me sit on the floor outside his room while he pretended not to notice I was crying.

And somehow, that felt like the closest thing to comfort I had left.

Chapter Text

How can something so small and so simple hurt so much?

Just the way someone looks at you. Why is that controlling me.

How someone's face looks like when they stare at me.

Why?

It's so small.

Simple.

But it hurts.

People don’t look me in the eye anymore, but somehow I still feel them watching. Like my skin’s too thin. Like they all know. They know about the bandages under my sleeves. The late-night drinking. The broken parts I can’t tape together fast enough before another shift starts.

And they’re tired of me.

The residents don’t speak to me unless they have to. One of them rolled their eyes when I dropped my pen in the hallway earlier. The nurses stopped saying “Good morning.” Now I just get tight nods and eyes that slide past me like I’m not there.

Bailey snapped at me during rounds when I missed a lab result.

“You’re not special, Grey. Get it together or step aside.”

She didn’t even pause before moving on to the next chart.

I bit the inside of my cheek so hard I tasted blood.

Later, I was checking on a patient with a post-op infection. He was in his twenties, a college kid who wouldn’t stop whining about pain. I tried to stay calm, I did, but his voice felt like needles in my skull.

“I’m telling you, it hurts. I need more meds,” he whined for the third time.

“You just had morphine ten minutes ago,” I snapped. “You’re not dying, you’re just uncomfortable. Welcome to surgery.”

He blinked at me, shocked. Then his girlfriend reached for the call button.

Bailey showed up five minutes later. She pulled me into the hallway, expression unreadable.

“You want to blow up your career? Fine. But don’t do it on my service,” she said.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, eyes on the floor.

“You’re not. You’re drowning, and you want everyone to pretend it’s raining.”

Her words weren’t cruel. They were honest. And that somehow made it worse.

At lunch, I sat alone in the back corner of the cafeteria. George and Izzie walked past me without saying anything. Not even a glance. I heard them laughing as they sat at the other end, right next to Cristina.

Cristina looked over for a second. Then she turned her head.

I didn’t eat.

I saw Derek at the nurse’s station that afternoon. He was flipping through a chart. I stood there for almost twenty seconds, waiting for him to acknowledge me. He didn’t.

When he finally looked up, it was like I was a stranger.

“Need something, Dr. Grey?”

I wanted to scream. I wanted to grab his stupid smug face and ask him why he looked so disappointed in a mess he helped create.

But I didn’t. I just shook my head.

“No. Sorry.”

Addison passed behind him and muttered under her breath, “Still here, huh?”

I walked away before I did something that got me fired.

I paged Alex. I didn’t even know why. Maybe because he was the only person who didn’t treat me like I was already a ghost.

He met me in the stairwell, his expression unreadable.

“Bad day?” he asked, like it wasn’t obvious.

“I can’t do this anymore,” I said. My voice cracked. “I can’t keep pretending I’m okay when everyone looks at me like I’m radioactive.”

He leaned against the wall and crossed his arms. “They’re not looking. They’re judging. There’s a difference.”

I let out a dry laugh. “Thanks, that’s helpful.”

“You still show up. That’s something.”

I sat on the stairs. “Feels like nothing.”

He didn’t say anything after that. Just sat beside me until the pager beeped.

I stayed there long after he left.

That night, I stood in the locker room, staring at my reflection.

My eyes looked dull. My skin was pale. I looked like someone who belonged in a psych ward, not a hospital floor.

I leaned forward and whispered, “You are okay.”

But the mirror didn’t believe me.

Neither did I.

Chapter Text

When a baby is made, it’s made 50% from the mother and 50% from the father.

Everything about you is based off of genetics.

Literally everything.

The 50% I got from my father?

My blonde-brownish hair, my blue eyes, the way I walk.

Well… I don’t really know what else, because he left me when I was four.

But the 50% from my mother?

Alzheimer’s.
Suicidal tendencies.
Split ends.

There’s something awful about knowing your mother is just down the hallway and still dreading seeing her more than a trauma code. Her name on the chart makes my stomach twist. I know what room she’s in. I know her vitals, her diagnosis, her medical history.

What I don’t know is which version of her I’m going to get when I walk in.

Before I can even knock, I hear yelling.

“You’re letting her near me again? After everything she’s done?”

I freeze in place.

“She’s a little slut, I hate her, Richard!”

Her voice echoes through the hallway.
God. Could she shut up?

“Ellis, she’s not sixteen anymore. She’s twenty-seven. Surgical intern,” the Chief explains to her.

“I don’t care if she’s a doctor now. She’s unstable. She’s always been unstable. Cutting herself, running away, trying to die every time something bad happens.”

My throat tightens. I should leave. I should turn around. I should pretend I didn’t hear any of this.

“She was ruining my career at sixteen. Always bleeding, always crying. You think I didn’t have more important things to do?”

I slowly peek through the door.

Ellis is wide-eyed, furious, sweating from the rage. Her hands are trembling against the blanket.
Richard is sitting at her side, speaking gently.

“Ellis, she’s not sixteen. She’s a grown woman. She’s a surgeon here.”

Ellis lets out a sharp laugh.

“I know what I saw. She’s never changed. Still weak. Still pathetic.”

“She’s hurting.”

“She’s manipulative. Just like he was.”

Her voice lowers to a growl.

“You think I was a horrible mother? You think I didn’t care for her? Do you know how hard it is to maintain the career of a surgeon while being a single mom? I left Thatcher for you, but you… you couldn’t leave Adele.”

“You taught her what pain looked like,” Richard says softly.

I don’t realize I’ve opened the door until they both look at me.

Ellis’s eyes narrow.
“What are you doing here?”

I step inside, numb.
“Checking on your labs.”

“You’re always checking something, aren’t you? Always interfering. You ruin everything. My life. My name. My legacy.”

I grip the chart tighter.

“You think I care if you’re cutting yourself again?” Ellis spits.
“You did it for attention then. You’re doing it for attention now. I don’t have time for your dramatics.”

“I should… uh, give you guys your privacy,” Richard mumbles awkwardly. I watch as he timidly walks away and shuts the door behind him.

“I wish I never had you. You were a little slut, always having sex with boys and then crying, saying they raped you.”

Something inside me snaps.

“I was four.”

Ellis blinks.

“I was four when I found you in the bathroom,” I say, voice trembling, rage bubbling under my skin. “You made me stand there and wait until you passed out before I could call 911. Because you didn’t want the world to know how broken you were.”

She’s silent now, but I don’t stop.

“You bled all over the floor, and I sat there and watched. I had to step over your blood. I thought you were dead. And when you woke up, you yelled at me for calling for help.”

“Don’t exaggerate,” she mutters, but I can see her eyes darting. The Alzheimer’s is fighting her memory. She doesn’t know what’s real and what’s not anymore.

“I didn’t learn how to self-harm because I was dramatic. I learned it because I saw it. Because the only time you ever stopped talking about your career was when you were bleeding.”

Ellis shakes her head.

“This isn’t…”

“It is,” I snap. “It happened. You don’t remember because your brain is rotting and your disease is eating you alive. But I remember. I remember everything.”

I slam the chart down on the bedside table and walk out without another word.

When I open the door, I nearly crash into Derek.

He’s frozen, holding a folder, probably her most recent CT results. His mouth opens like he’s about to say something.

“Mer…” he starts.

“No. Just stop.”

And I end it with that.

He didn’t defend me when Addison said I was doing it for attention. He didn’t do anything when my mother told everyone I had several suicide attempts and was raped.

I rapidly walk away from him.

I can barely breathe.

He doesn’t follow me.

Good.

If he did, I’d fall apart.

I don’t want anyone’s pity.

I don’t want to be an attention seeker.

I’m an adult.

Maybe if I had another mother, none of this would’ve happened.

Fuck genetics.

Chapter Text

I feel like I'm suffocating. I can't breathe. I can't keep having these stupid panic attacks.

I'm not going to lock myself in a closet again, because unfortunately, someone ends up finding me.

I need to get out of here, I cannot stay here.

Everything is going blurry, snd I cannot breathe and...

"Meredith?" A voice calls out.

It sounds familiar, but everything is blurry and the voice is distorted.

Finally, I catch my breath.

It's Alex.

"Yeah?" I ask him, trying my best to sound normal.

"Are you fine? You look terrible."

"I'm fine, I'm okay. I'm just gonna go outside and get some air."

"Yeah." He walks away.

Once I know he's gone, I quickly run to the stairwell.

I need to get out.

I go to the intern locker room, and place all my stuff there.

I need to get out.

I can't breathe again, and everything feels shaky. God, why does this keep happening?

I need to get out.

I walk out the front door, praying no one sees me.

I need to get out.

I don't wanna feel anything. So I walk down across the street.

I need to get out.

I open the door to Joe's Bar with my shaky hands.

I can’t feel my fingers. I think I’m shivering, but it’s warm in here... it has to be. The bar’s packed, some classic rock song blaring from overhead, but it feels like everything is underwater.

"Meredith, aren't you working?" Joe asks me.

"Just get me a scotch please." I hear myself say.

I don't think it was me though.

I finish my third shot. Or maybe it’s my fifth. I’ve stopped counting.

The room spins and settles, spins and settles. I welcome the blur. I want it. I want to drown in it.

A man sits down next to me. I think he says something, maybe compliments my eyes. Or maybe my tits. I laugh at whatever he says because laughing is easier than thinking. Easier than remembering my mother’s voice. Easier than remembering Derek’s face.

“I’m Meredith,” I think I mumble.

He says his name, but I forget it instantly.

We keep drinking.

He touches my arm. I don’t stop him. My head is heavy, too heavy. I’m nodding when he leans in, asking something. Or not asking.

“Sure,” I hear myself say. I think it’s me.

We leave.

My legs barely work as we stumble outside into the night. He hails a cab. Or maybe we walk. I don’t know. His hand is on my lower back, steadying me. It doesn’t feel good, but I don’t say anything.

I close my eyes for one second.

Just one.

Darkness swallows me.

⸻

“She’s late for the pit rotation,” Bailey says, slamming a chart onto the counter. “I mean really late. And don’t none of you even try to cover for her. Where the hell is Grey?”

Alex leans on the nurse’s station, brows furrowed. “She told me she was heading out for air. That was hours ago.”

“Page her again,” Bailey snaps. “For the third time.”

Cristina glances around, clearly trying to act like she’s not worried. “I’m sure she just… forgot the time. Or she’s hiding in a closet. She’s been… off lately.”

“She’s always off,” Izzie says under her breath, arms crossed.

George doesn’t say anything.

The silence grows heavy.

Alex frowns, pulling out his phone. “She’s not answering. Not even texts.”

Derek steps off the elevator, flipping through a chart. He stops cold when he sees the group gathered, tense.

“What’s going on?”

Bailey turns to him, exasperated. “Grey hasn’t shown up for her shift. No calls. No answers. No one’s seen her in hours.”

He freezes. “I saw her last around five. She walked away after…” He trails off.

“After what?” Bailey demands.

Derek rubs a hand over his mouth. “She was upset. I thought she just needed space.”

Cristina rolls her eyes. “Space doesn’t last six hours.”

“She’s not in the house,” Alex says, staring down at his phone. “I called her three times. Voicemail. She’s either ignoring us or...”

“She’s not ignoring us,” Derek says. His voice cuts through the chaos, sharp. “She wouldn’t just disappear.”

“She’s done it before,” George mutters.

Cristina looks at him like she might slap him. “She’s never disappeared like this.”

Bailey exhales, her frustration giving way to something heavier.

“Alright,” she says. “We keep trying. Page her every ten minutes. If we don’t hear from her by 1 a.m., I’m calling it in.”

Derek clenches his jaw. “I’ll check Joe’s.”

“I’ll come with,” Alex says, already walking toward the elevator.

They don’t say it out loud.

They don’t have to.

There’s fear now. Real fear, crawling into the room like fog. Meredith Grey is missing. And this time, nobody’s sure if she wants to be found.

Chapter Text

Everything hurts.

He keeps going. I feel something wet beneath me. I don't know if it's his cum or my blood.

Maybe it's both.

It hurts. I need him to stop.

But I can't say anything. I'm too tired...

"Please... stop." I say hoarsely.

"You want me to stop? Huh? You little slut. Now that the alcohol wore off you want me to stop?"

He thrashes my head into the rough ground.

Everything is blurry. My vision goes black at the edge.

He punches my stomach, face, and...

And he...

His brown eyes...

Why didn't I say no...

And he...

He...

Why is.

Everything.

Black.

My head pounds before I even open my eyes. The floor is sticky beneath my skin, and the air is thick with sweat, beer, and something sour I can’t place.

My bra strap is down. My legs are bare. My mouth tastes like blood and vodka.

I try to sit up. My ribs ache. My knees burn.

I'm bleeding. Everywhere.

Where am I?

My heart starts racing. The floor is hard... tile maybe. A bathroom? I blink. A single fluorescent bulb flickers above. There’s a stall door half-open next to me, smeared with something. My hands shake as I tug my dress up and pull myself toward the wall. There’s vomit in the sink. My own, probably.

I look down.

My underwear is missing.

My stomach turns.

No. No no no.

I'm not 16 again.

My hands scramble over my arms, my thighs, like I’m searching for proof. Bruises. Scratches. Anything that confirms what I already know but don’t want to believe.

My mind is blank.

I don’t remember what happened.

That man. The bar. The cab. Then nothing.

I push myself up and stumble toward the door, grabbing onto the grimy counter. My reflection looks like something out of a horror film.. mascara smudged, blood on my lip, blank eyes staring back.

I don’t even cry. I just stare.

This is what I deserve, right?

Isn’t this what she said would happen? That I’m reckless. A burden. A slut.

I limp out the back door of the building. It’s cold now. The wind hits my face and stings, waking me up in flashes.

Where do I go?

Where do you go when you don’t even want to be in your own skin?

I check my pockets for my phone.

Thank goodness, it was in the back.

Ouch. Everything hurts.

I turn it on, suprised to see 16 missed calls from 4 different people.

Derek, Alex, Cristina, Bailey.

Ouch.

I'm still bleeding.

My nose, my lip, my arm, my legs, my vagina.

Blood.

Everything is going black again...

Chapter Text

The city was quieter than usual. Cold, too. That kind of bone-deep cold that came with early morning fog and unanswered questions.

Alex Karev jogged down the alley behind Joe’s, the gravel crunching beneath his sneakers. “Meredith!” he shouted again, frustration building. “Meredith, if you’re out here, say something!”

Derek trailed a few feet behind, barely registering Alex’s words. His chest was tight. His mind louder than the street noise. He hated how familiar this panic felt. Looking for her, never knowing if she was okay, never knowing how far gone she might be.

“She left with someone,” Joe had said.

That sentence wouldn’t stop replaying in his head.

He didn’t want to believe the worst, but the worst was exactly what his brain conjured.. flashes of Meredith drunk, vulnerable, alone. God, why didn’t he just talk to her? Why did he let so many things stay unsaid?

“Anything?” Derek called to Alex.

“No.” Then, silence. “Wait.”

Derek froze at the shift in tone.

Alex stepped toward the bathroom inside the bar. “Shit. Derek.”

Derek rushed forward, eyes scanning the shadows—and then he saw her.

Meredith.

Crumbled to the side like a discarded doll. Her skin pale. Her limbs awkwardly folded under her. Her head resting against the cold brick wall, blood dried at the corner of her mouth. Her dress torn at the strap. Barefoot.

She wasn’t moving.

“Meredith,” Derek breathed, dropping to his knees beside her. He touched her face, gently, like she might shatter.

No response.

“Hey, Mer...Meredith, come on.” He pressed two fingers to her neck. Pulse. Faint. Too faint.

“We need to get her to a hospital,” Alex said, voice clipped with tension as he pulled out his phone.

“No ambulance,” Derek said sharply. “Not here. Not like this.”

Alex looked at him. Understood.

Not for her to wake up on a stretcher, under fluorescent lights, surrounded by strangers. Not for Meredith Grey. Not after everything.

“I’ll call ahead. You drive?”

Derek didn’t answer. He was already pulling his coat off, wrapping it around her.

She didn’t wake.

Not when he lifted her. Not when her head rolled against his shoulder. Not even when he whispered, “I’ve got you. I’m here. I’m not leaving.”

She smelled like vodka. And something else.

Something that made his stomach twist.

He didn’t say it aloud, but Alex felt it too. The bruises forming on her thighs. The red marks on her wrist. The blankness in her face. They didn’t need to ask what happened.

They already knew.

Her eyes stirred up. The poor girl looked traumatized. Her whole facd was blue and purple and covered in blood.

Suddenly, there was a movement between Derek's arm. Was she conscious? No, that's not good. It's better if she stays asleep.

Her eyes open, barely. She's exhausted, and scared. Terrified. Shaking.

"Mer..." Derek starts.

"Derek...I...I'm.....S...Sorry....." Meredith mustered all her strength to mumble out those words.

"Hey, you don't need to apologize. We're getting you help, okay?"

Meredith gagged, and there was just a blur of red coming out of her mouth.

"Shit. Alex, we need to move fast. She's puking blood."

"Oh gosh, okay."

Meredith fell unconscious once again.

As they loaded her into the back seat of Derek’s car, Alex climbed in beside her, keeping pressure on her shoulder.

“She’ll hate this,” Alex muttered, eyes flicking to her unconscious form. “Being carried out like a victim.”

“She’s not a victim,” Derek said quietly. “She’s Meredith.”

And for now, that was enough.

They drove into the rising dawn, streetlights flickering past, and not once did Derek take his eyes off the rearview mirror.

Not once did he let himself think about what might’ve happened if they’d been too late.

Chapter Text

People only care once you're gone. It's true.

Well, in Meredith's case she was still cutting her arms. But she didn't slit her wrist, did she?

That's why she's called an attention seeker.

It's like they want you to break down, to go through your lowest just so they can see that you're actually struggling.

Why does it take death to realize someone is struggling?

The car was too quiet.

Alex kept glancing sideways at her, at Meredith, curled against him in the back seat like she weighed nothing at all. She wasn’t shivering anymore. That was the part that scared him the most.

Derek’s hands were white-knuckled around the steering wheel. Every red light felt like an attack. Every minute they weren’t inside the hospital made his heart pound harder.

“She’s breathing,” Alex said, not sure if it was more for Derek or himself. “Pulse is weak, but it’s there.”

“She’s ice cold,” Derek muttered.

“I know.”

They both went silent again.

Derek risked one glance in the mirror. Meredith was slumped, her cheek against Alex’s chest, her hair sticking to her face. Blood under her fingernails. Bruises forming like ink blotches across her thighs.

She didn’t even stir when they hit a pothole.

Ten more minutes.

Please, just ten more minutes.

Seattle Grace was buzzing under the early morning lights, but the ER was calm enough. Derek pulled into the ambulance bay and jumped out before the car even stopped moving. He opened the back door and Alex helped lift Meredith out, her body limp between them.

“Help!” Derek shouted. “We need help!”

Bailey was already walking through the corridor when she saw them. She froze. Just for a second.

Then she sprinted toward them.

“What happened?”

“We found her behind Joe’s,” Alex said. “She’s been drinking. And… we think something else happened.”

Bailey’s eyes flicked over Meredith. Her torn shirt, the marks on her legs, her barely-conscious state. She didn’t ask more questions.

“Get her into Trauma 2. Karev, stay with me. Shepherd, go call someone. We don’t need the entire hospital in here.”

“I’m not leaving her,” Derek said, voice low.

“You’re not her doctor,” Bailey snapped. “Right now, I am. So get out of my trauma room and let me do my job.”

Derek looked like he wanted to argue, but then Cristina came around the corner.

“What’s going on?” she asked, and her voice cracked halfway through the question.

Bailey met her eyes. That was all it took.

Cristina rushed to Meredith’s side, taking over from Derek. “Vitals?”

“BP’s dropping,” Alex said, already getting her hooked to monitors. “Pulse is thready. Pupils reactive but sluggish.”

Bailey moved fast, calm and commanding. “Run a tox screen. Get a rape kit prepped. We need to know what’s in her system and document everything.”

Cristina’s hands froze for a second over the IV tubing. Then she just nodded.

She didn’t ask anything else. Not yet.

They worked silently, urgently, the three of them moving around Meredith’s unconscious body with practiced rhythm. But there was something broken in the air. Something different from every other trauma they’d ever treated.

"Okay someone page Dr. Montgomery, she's bleeding from her vagina." Cristina ordered, trying her best to stay professional.

This was Meredith.

Bailey glanced up after a while. “Page psych. And Shepherd’s gonna want to know when she wakes up. But not yet.”

Cristina wiped Meredith’s face with a warm cloth, her jaw clenched.

“I’m going to kill whoever did this,” she muttered.

Addison walked in. She didn't need an explanation, the minute she saw Meredith she knew what had happened.

Alex didn’t say anything. He just kept checking her vitals, his face unreadable.

And Meredith?

She didn’t move.

Not even once.

Chapter Text

Everything hurt.

That was the first thing I noticed.

I was awake.

Wide awake.

I could feel every single ounce of pain penetrating through my bruised body.

I looked at my bandaged leg, arm, and the sutures I felt on my face.

That's the cost of being awake.

Wide awake.

My head throbbed like I’d been hit with a hammer, and my stomach was twisting in on itself. My mouth was dry, like sandpaper. My eyes refused to open at first, like my body was trying to protect me from something.

For a second, I thought I was dead.

Then I breathed.

Big mistake.

Because the air burned. My throat ached like I’d been screaming, or choking, or maybe both. And my skin... God, my skin... felt like it didn’t belong to me anymore. Like it had been peeled off and sewn back on wrong.

I forced my eyes open.

White lights. IV line in my hand. The stiff, scratchy feel of a hospital gown clinging to my body.

Hospital.

Of course.

Of course I’d end up here. Again.

I blinked a few times, trying to sit up. My body refused to move at first, then settled into a dull, pulsing ache. My thighs felt bruised. My wrist was bandaged. My hair stuck to the back of my neck. I tasted blood in the back of my mouth.

And then the voices.

They were faint at first, behind the door, but they grew louder. Angry.

“She’s not some psych case for you to throw meds at!” That was Alex.

“She needs trauma support, Alex..."

“What she needs is time! What she doesn’t need is half the hospital staring at her like she’s some fucking lost cause!”

“Lower your voice!”

“No! I won’t. None of you were out there. None of you found her. You didn’t see what she looked like. You didn’t see her torn up like..." He stopped. Swallowed. “She doesn’t need pity. She needs space. And real help.”

"She will get help!" Another voice said.

"Maybe if you guys weren't being asses and calling her an attention seeker, she would never feel the need to leave and this would've never happened!" Alex yelled.

The door stayed closed.

No one came in.

I stared at the ceiling and let the words sink in. Not because I didn’t know what happened. I think I did. At least enough.

I remembered the bar. I remembered the man. I remembered laughing because it was easier than crying. I remembered walking out with him. I remembered saying no. I remembered how quickly no stopped meaning anything.

Everything after that was fragmented.

But I didn’t need the full picture. I felt it in my bones.

I didn’t cry.

I didn’t even flinch.

Because this wasn’t new. It wasn’t surprising. It was just another addition to the long list of things I wasn’t strong enough to stop. Just another trauma I’d file away in the corner of my brain labeled survive quietly.

The door creaked open, just slightly. I turned my head.

Cristina.

Her eyes met mine.

She didn’t rush in. She didn’t say oh my God, or are you okay, or how do you feel.

She just stepped inside. Closed the door behind her.

And sat beside me.

Silent.

I think I loved her for that.

I wanted to say something, but I didn’t know where to start. My voice cracked when I finally tried. “How bad?”

She didn’t sugarcoat it. “Bad enough.”

I nodded.

She looked down at my IV. “You were unconscious for sixteen hours. They ran tests. Took samples. Bailey handled most of it. So did I.”

Of course she did.

Cristina always showed up when it mattered most.

“Did… Derek…” I started, then stopped. I wasn’t sure what I wanted the answer to be.

“He’s outside,” she said. “He’s been here. But I told him to give you space.”

I stared at the wall. “Good.”

Cristina looked at me. “I’m not gonna ask if you’re okay. I know you’re not. But you’re here. You’re alive. And we’re not leaving.”

“Everyone’s going to look at me like I’m...”

“Don’t,” she interrupted. “You don’t owe anyone anything. Not explanations. Not survival. Just breathe. That’s it.”

I looked at her and tried.

It hurt.

But I did it anyway.

⸻ 

"Ellis." Richard walked into Ellis's room, she was sitting down on her bed. Thinking hard, like she always did.

"What is it, Richard?"

"It's Meredith."

"Again? For Gods sake when will that silly girl get out of the stupid teenage phase."

"Ellis."

"What?"

"She's not 16 anymore. She is 27 years old and a surgical intern here."

"Right. What happened to her this time? Did she slit her wrists? Have sex with another boy."

"She got raped."

"That's what she always says, but she never says no."

"Ellis. She said no. Meredith, she tried to get him to stop. He beat her so hard she was bleeding internally. Meredith is in horrible shape right now. Physically and mentally."

"Could I go see her?"

"Of course, she's your daughter." Richard wheeled her out of the hospital room, and into Meredith's room.

 ⸻

"Mom?" Shit. Why was she here?

"Meredith... What happened?" My mom- Er, I mean Ellis asked me.

I looked at Webber. Why the hell did he bring her here? This isn't the first time I've been in the hospital. She's the only woman that doesn't start caring when someone dies. At least towards her daughter.

"Nothing. I'm fine. I'm always fine. Just go, please, just go."

She didn't say anything, but she looked hurt. That wasn't anything new. It's how every argument would go. Either I would get hurt, or she would. But she introduced the idea of arguing.

Richard looked at me, like maybe I should give her a chance. I looked away. He's the reason my life is so fucked up.

"Um. Meredith, if you need anything I'm here, okay?" Richard assured me.

"Sure." This was the same dude who saw me cutting myself in the closet and decided to tell the whole damn hospital.

Whatever.

It's not like anyone is trustworthy in my life.

Everyone either hates me, abandons me, or dies.

Chapter Text

The second I open my eyes, I know I’m still in the hospital.

The sterile white ceiling stares back at me like it’s keeping score. The beeping of the heart monitor matches the hollow thudding in my chest. Every movement sends dull shocks through my body, reminders of what happened, of what I can’t stop reliving every time I blink.

There’s a chair by my bed. And he’s in it.

Derek.

He doesn’t speak when I notice him. He just watches me, like he doesn’t know what to say. Or maybe he does, maybe he just doesn’t think I deserve to hear it.

“You should go,” I murmur, voice dry and cracked like the rest of me.

“I just wanted to check on you,” he says, soft.

“You made your choice,” I say. “You don’t get to show up now and pretend you didn’t.”

He opens his mouth like he might argue, but then the door swings open.

Bailey.

And Addison.

Addison freezes when she sees him sitting next to me. Her entire body goes stiff. She doesn’t look at me, just at him. Something bitter flashes behind her eyes, and I already know how this is going to go.

Addison doesn’t move.

“Addison,” Bailey says, firmer this time.

“I’m her doctor,” Addison says, clipped. Then she looks directly at me, like her words are knives. “Unfortunately.”

Bailey gives her a sharp look but doesn’t stop her.

“Maybe you should’ve stayed there,” Addison mutters under her breath. I pretend not to hear it. I pretend not to care.

Bailey sets a folder down. “Meredith, we’re going to walk you through what happened from a medical standpoint.”

“I know what happened,” I say. My voice is small, but my hands curl into fists under the blanket.

“We know you do,” Bailey replies, calm but unrelenting. “But it’s still our job to make sure you’re fully aware of what was done to your body, what the treatment was, and what comes next.”

Addison steps forward now, slipping into her OB/GYN voice. Detached. Clinical. Distant.

“You had internal tearing. Vaginal lacerations. We administered a rape kit. You were unconscious when you arrived, so consent was given under emergency protocol. There’s bruising on your hips and thighs. We gave you Plan B. We ran STD panels. Results are pending. You’ll need follow-up in two weeks.”

She says it like she’s reading off a grocery list. I don’t respond.

She clears her throat and continues, almost too quickly. “You’ll need pelvic rest. No baths, no tampons. Antibiotics to prevent infection.”

I stare at the wall behind her. I feel like I’m floating above my own body, watching it all happen to someone else.

“Do you have any questions?” Bailey asks.

I shake my head. My voice doesn’t work anymore.

“You should be glad you’re alive. Not everyone gets rescued twice.” Addison says coldly.

“Addison.” Derek cuts in.

Gosh, why is he all defending me now. I know I’m in a hospital bed, but I’m not that weak.

“Dr. Montgomery, if you cannot act like a doctor and an adult for at least 2 minutes I’ll be sure to bring this up to the chief.” Bailey retorts.

Addison looks at me like she wants to say something else, but Bailey cuts her off. “That’s all. We’ll give you space.”

“I’ll go too.” Derek walks out with them.

They leave. I can still hear Addison snapping at Derek outside the door, her voice rising before it fades down the hall.

Not even five minutes later, Cristina walks in.

We haven’t spoken since before I disappeared. Since she rolled her eyes when I told her I couldn’t breathe. Since she called me a drama queen. Since she said I always made everything about myself.

She doesn’t say hi. She doesn’t apologize.

Alex follows right after her, looking like he’s about two seconds away from punching a wall.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he snaps at her.

“I’m her friend,” Cristina says.

“No, you’re not,” he fires back. “You ghosted her. You said she was faking it for attention. You didn’t even look for her.”

“I didn’t know…”

“You didn’t want to know,” Alex growls. “You didn’t care until it was convenient to care. Until she was bleeding in a hospital bed.”

Cristina’s face twists. She doesn’t say anything for a second. Then she looks at me.

“I was wrong,” she says, voice tight.

I don’t know what to say to that. So I don’t say anything.

Alex looks at me too. “You don’t owe her anything,” he mutters, like he’s trying to protect me from the whole world and her at the same time.

Cristina flinches.

The silence is thick.

“I’m sorry,” she finally says, voice cracking. “I didn’t know it would get this bad. I didn’t know…”

I still don’t answer. Because I don’t know if I believe her yet. Because it hurts to want her to mean it. Because I loved her once, and I don’t know if I still can.

“I’ll be back later,” she whispers.

And then she leaves.

Alex stays.

He pulls the chair up beside me and sits down.

He doesn’t try to touch me. He doesn’t try to fix anything.

He just sits. Quiet. Solid.

“My mom came to see me.” I tried starting the conversation. Well, I don’t know if I wanted to start a conversation or if I just needed to talk.

“What, did she call you a slut again?”

“No.”

“Let me guess, a whore?”

“No. She actually cared.”

“Is that good?”

“She only cared because Webber was there.”

“Oh. Then she’s the whore.”

“Alex!” I started laughing, but stopped because it hurt to laugh.

“Sorry.” He smiled. I thought he was an ass at the start of residency, he’s not too heartless.

“Where’s Izzie and George?” My curiosity got the best of me.

“They wanted to see you, but Bailey and me aren’t letting them.”

“Why?”

“George knew you went missing and he didn’t even go to work that day. Yet he did nothing. I’m not gonna let Izzie go near you for now.”

“Alex, she’s your girlfriend. Isn’t she mad?”

“She is. Whatever, Izzie treated you like crap anyway.”

“How did you guys find me?”

“Well… You disappeared quite out of nowhere during your shift. Derek said he saw you at five and you needed space. You were missing for 6 hours. I texted George because I thought you went home, he just left me on seen.” He continued. “Anyway, it was Derek’s idea to check Joe’s. We still couldn’t find you and he was about to close. So we asked Joe, and he said you were really drunk and went with some guy.”

“Yeah, not my smartest moment.”

“Clearly. Anyway, we were about to give up when I checked in the bathroom and… well, you were there.”

“I kind of remember waking up, I didn’t see you though. Probably extremely drowsy and tipsy.”

“Yeah. You woke up to throw up blood. I was starting the car while Derek was holding you. God, you looked like hell.”

“I’m sorry.” I didn’t realize how… bad it was.

“Mer, for what? You don’t need to apologize.”

“I’m sorry for scaring you and disappearing.”

“Hey, I’m just happy you’re alive. Anyway, have you heard of the new intern joining our group?”

“What?”

“Yeah, she joins in 2 days. Haven’t you heard?”

“No. I mean everyone looks at me differently now and can barely hold a normal conversation with me.” My lip twitches at that.

Alex smiles back at me.

I hear a beeping sound. It’s Alex’s pager.

“Crap, I gotta go. I’m supposed to be in the pit right now. Take care of yourself, Mer.”

I watch as he leaves the room.

And then it’s just me again.

The quiet presses in on me like a weight. The fluorescent light hums above me. I close my eyes to block it out and I see his face. The man from the bar. The way he laughed when I tried to pull away. The way his grip bruised my arms. The sound of my own voice telling him no, over and over, until it stopped sounding like a word.

Suddenly I can’t breathe.

My chest locks up and the beeping from the heart monitor speeds up. My fingers claw at the sheet. My legs feel pinned. My throat burns. The room is too bright, too loud, too cold. I try to sit up but everything hurts, everything screams. My heart slams against my ribs and I can’t tell if I’m still there, or back in that bathroom, bleeding and broken.

I want to scream but nothing comes out.

I want someone to walk in, but I also want to disappear.

I’m not ready to remember. But my brain doesn’t care.

And the memories keep coming anyway.

Chapter Text

The room is too quiet.

It’s not peaceful quiet. It’s the kind of quiet that makes your skin crawl, like the air itself is waiting for something awful to happen again. I stare at the ceiling, pretending I can’t feel the weight of the door opening behind me.

I expect it to be Bailey or maybe even Cristina again.

It’s not.

“Meredith,” a man’s voice says.

I don’t recognize it at first. Then I do.

It’s my father.

Thatcher Grey.

I haven’t seen him in years. Not since he walked out and never came back. Not since he left me with a mother who never looked at me like I was enough. He walks in like he belongs here. Like we’re just strangers reuniting at a dinner table.

Next to him is a woman.

She’s smiling, too brightly for this hospital. Her hair is soft brown, her makeup perfect. She looks like the kind of person who bakes cookies and volunteers for the PTA.

“This is Susan,” Thatcher says. “My wife.”

I don’t answer. My mouth is open, but nothing comes out. I feel like I’ve been dropped into someone else’s life.

Susan steps forward. “We heard you were here. We just wanted to see you, make sure you’re okay.”

We.

He looks around the room, like he’s searching for evidence of the daughter he never bothered to raise. Like maybe he’s checking to see what damage was done without his help.

“You look just like your mother,” he finally says.

It doesn’t sound like a compliment.

“You’re remarried,” I manage. My voice is so flat it barely sounds like me.

“Yes. It’s been a long time.” He pauses. “I have two daughters. Lexie and Molly.”

That sentence hits harder than anything else.

Two daughters.

Not three.

Not including me.

Two.

Like I’m just a past tense he doesn’t claim.

I nod, trying to keep my face still. Inside, I feel like glass shattering in slow motion.

“We’d like you to meet them sometime,” Susan says kindly, like this is a casual invitation. Like I’m not lying in a hospital bed after being raped. Like this is brunch.

Thatcher takes a step closer. “I know we haven’t spoken in a long time, Meredith. But I hope we can move forward.”

Move forward?

He moved forward without me. He built a whole new family while I was patching myself back together alone. He was a ghost for twenty years and now he wants a clean slate.

I say nothing. I look away.

Thatcher clears his throat. “Well. We won’t stay long.”

Susan lingers for a second, then nods, offering me a polite, practiced smile. “Take care of yourself, sweetheart.”

They leave.

The door shuts behind them, and the silence that follows is so complete it hurts my ears.

I stare at the wall for what feels like hours, but is probably just minutes.

Everything feels heavy. My body, my chest, my thoughts. I can still hear his voice saying their names.

Lexie. Molly.

Daughters he loves. Daughters who probably grew up in a real home. With real birthdays and family dinners. With someone who cared.

Why wasn’t I enough?

Why did he leave me?

Why did he get to walk away from everything that broke me and build a life like I never existed?

I try to blink it all away. But it won’t go.

And then the memories start crashing in.

I’m not in the hospital anymore. I’m in the bar. I’m in the bathroom. I’m trying to scream but nothing comes out. His hands are everywhere and I can’t move. I’m weightless and helpless and voiceless and bleeding and I...

I sit up too fast.

The panic hits like a wave I didn’t see coming.

My chest tightens until I can’t breathe. My hands are shaking so badly I can’t reach the call button. I claw at the sheets, at the air, at nothing. It’s too much. It’s all too much.

The heart monitor starts beeping faster. Louder.

I try to calm down but it just makes it worse.

I can’t breathe.

I can’t breathe.

I feel like I’m being strangled from the inside out. My throat closes and my vision blurs. The pain from my ribs flares up but I barely feel it. All I can hear is that voice in my head telling me it’s happening again.

I throw the blanket off and try to get out of bed. Maybe if I move, maybe if I run, maybe if I do something, anything, I can escape this.

But my legs don’t hold me.

My knees hit the ground. I try to stand, try to crawl, try to scream. Nothing works.

Everything is spinning. The room tilts sideways.

And then I hear the door fly open.

“Meredith!”

Derek.

His voice cuts through the fog. I feel his hands on me, grounding me, steadying me, keeping me from slipping further into whatever this is.

“Meredith, hey... hey, look at me. You’re okay. You’re safe. Breathe. Just breathe.”

I want to tell him I can’t. That it’s too late. That I’ll never be okay again.

But the words never come.

And then it all goes black.

“Help!” Derek yells, already halfway to the hallway. “I need help in here!”

Nurses rush in. The room fills with voices and footsteps and clipped medical commands.

“She’s unresponsive,” Derek says quickly. “She collapsed. Her pulse is erratic.”

Bailey is the first doctor in.

“She’s tachycardic. Get her on the bed. We need a trauma panel and call Addison now.”

The stretcher rolls in. Hands lift me off the floor and back onto the mattress. The heart monitor is still screaming. Bailey checks my abdomen, and her face shifts.

“There’s internal bleeding. Let’s move her to the OR. Now.”

“She’s gonna be okay, right?” Derek asks, not even trying to hide the panic in his voice.

“She will be. We just need to move fast.”

They’re already wheeling me out. The elevator doors open. Someone pages Addison overhead.

In the OR, Addison is already scrubbing in.

Her face is pale, but her hands are steady.

“She’s my patient,” she tells the scrub nurse. “Page the OB team. Let’s prep her for exploratory laparotomy.”

Derek is in the viewing gallery, watching silently. His fists are clenched at his sides.

Addison glances up at him once. Her jaw tightens, but she doesn’t say anything.

The incision is made. Addison works fast. Methodical. Brilliant.

There’s bleeding from one of the repaired lacerations. A slow rupture, likely worsened by movement and stress. Addison controls it. Clamps it. Sutures what needs suturing.

She saves her.

She saves me.

Even though she doesn’t like me. Even though we’re strangers standing on opposite sides of the same man.

When it’s over, she finally exhales and steps back from the table.

“She’ll be okay,” she tells Bailey. “But she needs to rest. No movement. No more stress. Someone better keep her in that bed.”

And then Addison walks out without another word.

Chapter Text

Everything just goes on.

On and on.

No matter what.

If you think about it, someone has just loss the love of their life. Someone just lost their mom. Someone has been told that they have a month to live.

Someone has just died.

But everyone else, they just keep going. Even though people are falling apart, they just keep going.

I used to be like that. But I'm the one who's falling apart.

Nothing's changed.

Like my mother said, the carousel never stops turning.

The lights above me were softer this time. Less blinding. Less cruel.

My eyes fluttered open, and for a moment I could not remember where I was or why everything hurt.

Then I saw the IV line, the oxygen tube, the dimmed recovery room.

And I remembered.

Voices outside the curtain reached me, low but sharp.

“You do not get to act like the hero now,” Addison snapped. “You sat beside her bed like you are owed something. Like you are the one bleeding.”

“I care about her,” Derek said.

“You’re married,” she fired back. “To me. And yet you have spent every waking moment trying to be her savior.”

“I was not trying to...”

“Save it,” she cut in. “You made your choices. Stop pretending they are noble.”

Silence. Then retreating footsteps.

The curtain shifted. Addison stepped inside.

“You are awake,” she said, her tone crisp and professional.

I did not answer.

“You lost a lot of blood,” she continued. “We had to control the bleeding surgically. It is done now. You will feel weak for a few days.”

I just nodded, still not trusting my voice.

Addison looked at me for a second longer. There was something behind her eyes I could not place. Anger, sure. Bitterness. But also something I almost mistook for guilt.

She left without another word.

A few minutes passed before Alex pushed through the curtain. He had that look he always wore around me now. Soft around the edges, angry underneath.

“You look like crap,” he said, dropping into the chair beside me.

“Thanks,” I croaked.

He shrugged. “Still better than before.”

I let out a dry laugh that hurt more than it should have.

Alex looked around, then leaned forward a little. “So guess what?”

“What?”

"So you know how we are getting a new intern. Starting tomorrow.”

I blinked. “A new intern? Oh yeah, you told me a couple of days ago.”

“Yup. Apparently she just transferred today. Going to be part of our group now.”

I frowned. “Do I know her?”

He paused for just a second too long. Then said it.

“That's why I brought it up. Name is Lexie Grey.”

My brain stalled. “What?”

“That is her name. She is your sister, right?”

I stared at him. No expression. No answer. Nothing moved inside me. Not even my breath.

“She seems nice,” he added, clearly picking up on the change in the air. “Did you not know about her?”

I shook my head, just once.

“Oh,” he said, realizing it. “Well. You do now.”

He leaned back in the chair again, eyes scanning my face like he was waiting for me to crack.

But I did not.

I could not.

Instead, I swallowed it down, every inch of it. The shock, the betrayal, the sudden sharp twist of jealousy. Of loss.

“Okay,” I said.

Alex raised a brow. “Okay?”

I nodded. “I’m fine.”

“Right,” he said slowly. “You are always fine.”

He did not push. He never did.

Outside, the hallway bustled faintly. The hospital kept moving, like it did not care who just learned their father replaced them.

Downstairs, Richard stood in the hallway just outside the attending lounge. Ellis sat in a wheelchair beside him, still sharp in the eyes despite everything the disease tried to take from her.

“She made it through surgery,” Richard told her.

Ellis did not reply right away.

Finally, she said, “Of course she did.”

Richard gave her a look. “You say that like it was guaranteed.”

“She is my daughter,” Ellis said. “I built her to survive.”

“Survival is not the same as healing,” Richard replied.

Ellis blinked, gaze distant. “She is strong enough for both.”

“She should not have to be.”

That shut her up.

He did not expect much more. After all, Ellis Grey never saw softness as something to strive for.

He looked toward the elevator, wondering what Meredith would think if she knew her mother had sat there for hours without asking to see her. Just waiting. Just existing. Like she did not know how to do anything else.

Little did he know Meredith already knew. That's all she remembered as a kid. Her being Ellis's last priority is the first thing she learned.

Some kids learn how to say Mama first.

Others say Dada.

Others learn the ABCs first.

But Meredith Grey?

Daughter of Ellis Grey, the world renowned surgeon who founded the "Grey Method?"

The first thing Meredith learned was that she was her mom's last priority.

Chapter Text

How can a name make you related to someone?

The name, to close off your identity.

To put a sense of belonging to your father.

A painful reminder to me that I am Thatcher Grey's daughter, I belong to him. Even though he was just the guy who poured my cereal

That's it.

The nurse warned me someone new was coming to visit. I almost told her no, to turn them away. I didn’t want another set of eyes on me. I didn’t want another forced conversation where someone tried too hard or didn’t try at all. But I was too tired to care enough to say no. So I waited, eyes fixed on the edge of the wall, following the same crack in the ceiling I’d been tracing all morning.

The door opened slowly, almost like whoever was on the other side was afraid of what they might find. I turned my head just enough to see a girl step in.

Young. Nervous. Dressed in her intern scrubs, her ID badge hanging slightly crooked.

She smiled, but it was the kind of smile you give a stranger in an elevator, not the kind you give someone who’s just been through hell. “Hi,” she said gently. “I’m Lexie. Lexie Grey.”

I blinked. My stomach twisted.

Grey.

The name hung in the air like it didn’t belong. Like it wasn’t allowed in this room.

She must have noticed the change in my face, because she stopped walking toward me. Her voice softened. “My dad… Thatcher. He told me he came to see you. I thought maybe I should come introduce myself.”

The words didn’t land at first. They just hovered in the air like static. My heart was picking up speed, but I couldn’t feel it. Everything in my chest went cold.

“He’s your dad,” I repeated, like I needed confirmation from someone who wasn’t me.

She nodded, still smiling, still too hopeful. “Yeah. I’m his daughter. From his second marriage. I guess we’re… well, sisters.”

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I had spent most of my life trying not to think about Thatcher. Trying not to remember that I had been the kid he left behind. That he walked away from my mom and me like we were some bad chapter in a book he could close.

And now here was Lexie. His new daughter. His better daughter. His clean-slate family, all smiles and awkward kindness.

“You work here?” I asked, my voice strained.

She nodded again. “Just started. I'm with who they call The Nazi. Bailey, right? We're in the same intern group." Lexie excitedly told me. She was so eager, happy, and bright. "I know it’s probably weird, me being here, but I just wanted to check in. See how you’re doing.”

I forced a smile. It felt like my skin was splitting from the effort. “That’s… nice of you.”

She looked relieved. Like I had handed her a key to something. Like we had just bridged a gap we hadn’t even begun to explore.

“I’ll let you rest,” she said. “I’ll be around if you need anything.”

Then she left.

The second the door shut, the smile vanished from my face. I stared up at the ceiling again, but the crack didn’t comfort me anymore. My entire body felt tight, like I had just swallowed fire and was waiting for it to burn through me.

She was here. Lexie Grey. My half-sister. I had a sister. I had a father. A father who raised someone else. Who gave someone else the love and time and effort he never spared for me. Who looked at another little girl and saw something worth staying for.

And now she was here. Bright-eyed. Eager. Clueless.

I hated her for it.

But not really. Not entirely. I hated that I didn’t hate her more. I hated that part of me wanted to know her. I hated that she didn’t do anything wrong. And that made it worse.

I didn’t get long to sit with it before Alex walked in. He didn’t even say anything at first. Just looked at me and waited for me to explain why I looked like I had just been hit by a bus.

“Lexie,” I said.

He nodded. “Yeah. I figured she’d show up.”

“She’s my sister.”

“Half sister,” he corrected gently.

“Still.”

He sat beside me. “You okay?”

I almost laughed. “Do I look okay?”

He didn’t answer. We sat in silence until Cristina stormed in like a cold wind.

“We need to talk,” she said, eyes locked on Alex.

“I’m not in the mood,” he replied without even looking at her.

“You’re never in the mood unless it’s about Meredith.”

Alex turned toward her then, sharp and unflinching. “Because she matters.”

“I matter too.”

“Not when you treat people like crap.”

“I was scared,” Cristina said, her voice breaking slightly. “I didn’t know what to do.”

“So you ghosted her? Left her when she needed you the most?”

Cristina folded her arms. “She left first.”

Alex stood up. “You don’t get to make yourself the victim here.”

“You think I didn’t care?”

“I think you didn’t want to care. Not until you saw how bad it got.”

Cristina glanced at me, her face pained. “I didn’t know it would get this bad. I didn’t think...”

“That’s the problem. You didn’t think,” Alex cut her off.

I looked at both of them, tired of their shouting, tired of being the reason people were fighting, tired of being the center of this storm.

Cristina turned to me. “I’m sorry.”

I didn’t answer. Not because I didn’t hear her. But because I didn’t know if I forgave her. Or if I ever could.

She left.

Alex stayed.

Again.

Until his pager beeped.

"Shoot, I gotta go. See ya!"

Then I heard them outside the door. Derek and Addison. Their voices low, angry.

“You keep circling her,” Addison hissed. “Like it’s not your fault too.”

“I never said I wasn’t part of this,” Derek replied. “I’m trying to be here now.”

“She doesn’t need you now. Not after what happened.”

“I care about her.”

“That’s the problem,” Addison said. “You always care. But it never stops you from hurting people.”

A pause. Then footsteps.

The silence that followed felt heavier than the fight.

I closed my eyes, Lexie’s voice still echoing in my head, and Derek and Addison’s words laced with regret, and Cristina’s apology ringing hollow.

I didn’t feel like I had a family.

Just a long list of people who claimed to care. People who came too late.

And one girl with my last name, smiling like she wanted to belong to me.

I didn’t know if I would ever let her.

Chapter Text

Remember what I said about the carousel?

How it never stops turning?

Repetition is sort of like that, you know. It just keeps on going. On and on.

But that doesn't make it any better.

When the carousel never stops turning, you just get nauseous. And when it keeps going, eventually you throw up.

And it just repeats.

Again and again.

You get used it.

But, that doesn't mean it stops.

It doesn't mean it gets any less painful.

You just get used to it.

It's like practice makes perfect.

As surgeons, we cut into bodies. Sometimes people die. Sometimes we have to tell families we failed to save someone they valued and cherished.

It happens again and again. We practice again and again. But people still die.

We get used to it, but the failure as a surgeon never submerges.

Because failure for surgeons doesn't mean a small thing, it means losing a life.

It doesn't make anything less painful.

You just get used to it.

⸻

The IV drip beside her hissed quietly, keeping time with the slow tick of the clock mounted on the far wall. Meredith’s room smelled like antiseptic and fading flowers. Derek had left earlier that morning, and Cristina hadn’t returned since their argument.

In another hallway, Ellis Grey entered the hospital with Dr. Webber beside her. She looked out of place in the present, her hair tied into a perfect knot, her eyes sharp as ever. But her memory was fading in fragments, swallowing years whole, leaving behind only jagged pieces.

When they reached an empty consult room, Richard nodded for Ellis to sit, but she remained standing, staring out the window like she was back in the OR.

“I want to speak to the man who keeps following my daughter around,” she said. “The one with the hair. You know who I mean.”

Richard swallowed hard. “Derek Shepherd?”

“Yes, him,” Ellis said. “He’s far too old for her.”

“She’s an adult, Ellis.”

Ellis turned sharply, her mouth tightening. “She’s sixteen. And she’s making dangerous decisions. You know what happened. You know what she did.”

Richard didn’t correct her.

Minutes later, Derek stepped into the room. He glanced at Richard, who gave a small nod, then excused himself, closing the door behind him.

Ellis barely looked at Derek. “You’re too old for Meredith.”

He blinked. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

“You think I don’t see the way you look at her? The way you linger around her bed like you’re waiting for something?”

Derek stayed quiet.

“She always did things for attention,” Ellis continued. “Even back then. The cuts on her arms. The crying. That boy who…”

She paused, her voice flattening. “She said he hurt her. But girls like her... they want to be noticed. That’s all it ever was. She embarrassed me.”

Derek’s jaw tightened.

“I sent her to therapy,” Ellis went on. “She refused to get better. It was like she didn’t want to be normal. Always clinging to people. Always pulling them down.”

“Ellis,” Derek said, his voice low. “She’s not sixteen. She’s a resident now. She is not doing this for attention. She’s hurt.

"Get out of my room. Now!" Her voice lowered to a growl.

He walked out.

⸻

After the door close behind Derek, Addison’s heels clicked down the hallway, her expression hard as she approached.

“Derek, you can’t keep doing this,” Addison’s voice was low but tense. “You think hiding things from me will make it easier? It won’t. It only makes everything worse.”

He answered back, quieter but just as firm. “I’m doing what I have to. For Meredith. For us. You don’t get to decide what’s best.”

Her voice cracked, anger and something like hurt mixing together. “I’m trying to save our marriage, Derek. But you keep shutting me out. Pretending everything’s fine when it’s not.”

“Maybe you should ask me how I’m feeling instead of accusing me,” he shot back. “You don’t know what it’s like, Addison. Seeing her like this... broken, and not being able to fix it.”

There was a long pause.

Then Addison’s voice softened, almost a whisper. “I’m scared, Derek. I don’t want to lose you or her. But we can’t keep tearing ourselves apart.”

“I don’t know if we can fix this,” he said quietly. “Not like this.”

They both parted ways.

⸻

The silence in the hospital room presses down on me, heavy and suffocating. My chest feels tight, like I’m carrying a weight too heavy to bear. I blink, and the tears come unbidden. They slide down my cheeks slowly at first, then faster, warm and salty, tracing paths over my skin.

I don’t bother to wipe them away. What’s the point? They are the only thing that feels real right now. Each tear holds a piece of the pain I’ve locked away, the grief and fear I’ve been trying to hold back.

My breath catches in my throat as the sobs quietly break free, shaky and soft. I curl into myself, clutching the thin hospital blanket like it’s the only thing keeping me tethered. The world feels like it’s spinning, and all I can do is let the sadness pour out, raw and unfiltered.

I want to scream, to shout, but I have no strength. Instead, I let the tears fall, letting them wash over me in waves. Maybe someday I’ll be able to face what happened without breaking, but not today. Today, I’m just broken.

⸻

The tears don’t stop until I hear the soft click of the door opening. My breath hitches. Someone steps inside.

It’s Derek.

He moves toward me slowly, like he’s afraid to startle me. His eyes are softer than I expected, filled with something like concern... maybe even regret.

Without a word, he sits on the edge of the bed and reaches out, his hand hovering before he gently brushes a tear off my cheek.

“I met your mother today,” he says quietly, voice careful. “Ellis Grey.”

His words hang in the air, heavy and strange.

I nod, unable to speak. The name feels like a ghost between us.

"What did she say?"

"Too much."

"Figures."

"I don't understand... how could she have been so... heartless? Even now, and to a 16 year old."

"She's a world-renowned surgeon. This isn't the first time I've been raped. My mother... she has gotten used to it. So have I."

"Meredith. You don't have to push yourself to get over it just because it happened too many times."

He doesn’t push for a response. Instead, he folds his hands in his lap and watches me, patient.

“You don’t have to hold it all inside,” he says after a moment. “Let it out. I’m here.”

His presence is steadying, like an anchor in the storm inside me. I lean into it, my tears slowly calming. His hand reaches out again, this time resting gently on mine.

For the first time in a long time, I feel a flicker of safety.

Chapter Text

What the hell is emotional pain?

Why does it happen?

As surgeons, we're designed to suture wounds and cut open into bodies.

But it is not like a cut or a bruise. You can’t point to it, can’t bandage it up. There’s no swelling, no blood. Just a hollow ache that sits in the chest like a stone that won’t move. It lingers. It pulses. It breathes with you, even when you wish it wouldn’t.

Emotional pain is remembering something that hasn’t happened in years and still flinching like it’s fresh. It’s walking through the world like everything’s fine while your insides are splintering. It’s the silence after a scream. The moment when a voice catches in your throat but never makes it out.

It is grief without a body. Anger without a name. Love that hurts more than it heals. It changes how you carry yourself, how you speak, how you breathe. And worst of all, it convinces you that you’re the only one feeling it.

But emotional pain is also proof. Proof that you cared. That you felt. That something mattered enough to break you. And even in its cruelty, there is honesty. Because no matter how much you try to bury it, pain never lies.

The morning light filters through the blinds, too bright for how heavy everything feels. I sit on the edge of the hospital bed, dressed in real clothes for the first time in days. My hands feel too still without the IV. The silence makes it worse. It feels like I should be more grateful to leave, but all I can think about is how the hallway outside this room holds more stares and more whispers.

Alex shows up just as I’m tying my shoelaces. He leans against the doorframe like he’s been here a hundred times before, but his eyes are softer today.

“So. Big day,” he says.

“Yeah. I get to leave the scene of the crime,” I joke, but it comes out wrong. Flat. Not funny. Just sad.

He doesn’t laugh. “You sure you’re ready?”

“I’m not. But they’re kicking me out anyway.”

He walks in and sits on the chair that still has a dent from how long he’s stayed. “You’ll be okay.”

“Will I?”

He shrugs. “You’re Meredith Grey.”

I look at him. “That’s not always a good thing.”

Before either of us can say anything else, Bailey walks in with a clipboard. She looks me up and down like she’s checking to see if I can actually walk on my own.

“Vitals are stable. Discharge papers are signed. Medications are in the bag,” she says without preamble. “You’ll have follow-up with Dr. Montgomery in two weeks. Any pain, bleeding, or dizziness, you come back immediately. Understand?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She pauses for a second, then adds, softer, “You did good, Grey. You’re stronger than you think.”

I nod, biting the inside of my cheek. She leaves without waiting for a thank-you. Classic Bailey.

Lexie shows up in the hallway as I’m stepping out of the room. She looks nervous, her badge still too shiny, like the intern label is weighing her down.

“Hi,” she says, like she’s afraid I might bite.

I pause. “Hi.”

“I… just wanted to say I’m glad you’re okay. I know we met already but…”

“But now you know what people think happened to me,” I finish for her.

She frowns. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Okay.”

There’s a long silence. She finally says, "I’m your sister."

“Half-sister,” I correct.

“Right.”

Alex steps between us like a buffer. “She’s tired. Maybe back off for now.”

Lexie nods and steps away, and I follow Alex out.

Down the hallway, I hear it before I see it.

Derek’s voice, sharp. Addison’s even sharper.

“You met with Ellis behind my back, Derek?”

“I didn’t know she was still alive,” Derek snaps. “You knew and didn’t say anything.”

“Because I didn’t think it mattered. You’re too busy babysitting her daughter to care about anything else.”

They’re just outside the elevator. Addison’s arms are crossed, eyes narrowed. Derek looks like he hasn’t slept.

“You want to talk about caring?” Derek asks. “I held Meredith while she broke down. You treated her like a clinical checklist.”

“Because I had to!” Addison fires back. “I couldn’t afford to feel anything or I would’ve fallen apart. One of us had to stay upright.”

The elevator dings. Neither of them moves.

“You still love her,” Addison says, not asking.

“And you wouldn't?” Derek asks.

Addison doesn’t answer.

Alex touches my elbow and nudges me toward the stairs instead. “Let’s not make this worse.”

I don’t say anything, just follow..

Chapter Text

The house feels smaller than I remember.

It creaks when I open the door, like it’s surprised to see me. I step inside and close it quietly behind me, holding the bag Bailey insisted I take like it might detonate. The keys jingle too loud in my hand. My heart thuds once, hard.

Everything’s still here... the jacket I threw over the couch, the shoes near the door, the cup of coffee I never finished.

Everything's still here.

Except for Izzie and George.

They left so abruptly, didn't even bother to say goodbye?

It smells like dust and lemon cleaner. Like someone tried to make it fresh before I came back. Maybe Cristina. Maybe Alex.

Cristina left a note. Folded in half, taped to the fridge.

“There’s food. Call if you need anything. Or don’t. I won’t be mad.”
No signature. Just her handwriting. Slanted and stubborn.

I leave the bag on the counter and walk down the hallway like I’m stepping through someone else’s memory. My bedroom door is open. The blankets are still tangled the way I left them. I reach for the light switch but pause. It’s better not to see too much at once.

I sit down on the edge of the bed. I try to breathe.

And then, a knock.

I don’t move. Maybe if I stay still, they’ll go away. But the knock comes again, lighter this time.

I open the door to Lexie Grey.

She’s holding a pharmacy bag, looking uncertain. Her ponytail’s tighter than usual. Her white coat’s wrinkled at the sleeves. “Sorry,” she says. “Bailey sent me with your meds. And, um, some papers from the nurses’ station.”

I nod and take them. “Thanks.”

She stands there like she wants to say something else. “You shouldn’t be alone your first day back.”

“I’m fine.”

“I know you don’t want to see me. I just…” She looks down. “I thought maybe if I kept showing up, it wouldn’t feel so weird.”

“It is weird,” I say. “You’re my sister. And I don’t even know you.”

“I don’t really know you either. But I want to.”

I don’t answer. I close the door slowly.

When I return to the kitchen, Derek’s standing at the window.

He turns when I step in, eyes tired, holding a small box. “You left this in the locker room,” he says. “Figured you’d want it.”

He sets it on the counter. It’s an old surgical notebook. I used to scribble in it during rounds, back before the world shifted. Before everything burned down.

“Thanks,” I say.

He doesn’t leave. He studies me like I’m made of glass. “I saw your mom again.”

I go still.

“She thought you were sixteen,” he says quietly. “She told me things. About your childhood. About what happened to you.”

I look down. My fingers curl against the counter.

“She doesn’t get to tell my story,” I whisper. “She never listened. Not then. Not now.”

He nods. “I know.”

For a moment, there’s only the hum of the fridge.

“Do you think I’m broken?” I ask him.

“No.” His voice is immediate. “I think you’re still standing. And that counts for something.”

He doesn’t try to touch me. Doesn’t move closer. Just stands there, holding space, letting me breathe.

"Did the Chief mention when I'll be cleared for surgery again?" I say, trying to change the topic.

"Well, first you need to fully recover. Then you need a psych evaluation, and if everything is good then you'll be cleared."

⸻

At the hospital, Cristina and Alex are arguing again.

She corners him near the stairwell. “You’re acting like this is my fault.”

“You abandoned her.”

“I gave her space.”

“You gave up.”

Cristina crosses her arms. “You think you’re the only one who cares about her?”

Bailey walks past them. She doesn’t stop, but she tosses a look over her shoulder. “People grieve different. Some disappear. Some pick fights. Doesn’t mean either one’s right.”

Neither of them responds.

⸻

That night, I lie in bed with the lights off.

The house is too quiet. I think I preferred the hospital noise. Beeps. Footsteps. Doors swinging open.

I pull a notebook from the drawer beside my bed. Not the surgical one. A new one. Clean pages. No names.

I write, slowly:

“I am still here. I don’t know why. But I am.”

I close the notebook. And I let myself feel just the smallest bit of pride.

Because I came back.

And that’s something.

Chapter Text

The hospital doesn’t smell like home, but it’s closer than anything else.

Even though I grew up here.

The elevator doors part and I step out onto the surgical floor, scrubs stiff from disuse, ID badge clipped to my pocket like it still belongs there. The lights are a little too bright. The world feels like it’s spinning half a second ahead of me.

People look at me. Quick, darting glances, then look away just as fast. Like if they stare too long, they’ll see the bruises underneath the skin. The ones that haven’t faded yet. The ones they can’t ask about.

Cristina meets me at the nurse’s station, her arms crossed, her jaw tight. She doesn’t say I shouldn’t be here. But she doesn’t say she’s glad I came either.

Things are...

Well, they're not completely normal with eachother, but we don't hate eachother.

Things are just awkward.

“You look like a ghost,” she mutters.

“I feel worse.”

She almost smiles.

There's an awkward pause. Cristina nods, as a gesture that she's gonna leave now.

I start going through the chart in front of me, but the words don’t make sense. Everything’s in English. Everything’s medical. Still, my brain refuses to absorb any of it. I nod like I understand, like I know what the plan is, like I’m still the Meredith Grey who once slept two hours and aced an appendectomy on no caffeine.

Richard walks over, hands in his coat pockets. His eyes land on mine. They’re kind but searching. Familiar in a way that aches.

“I want to make sure you’re ready,” he says.

“I am.”

“You say that, but your hands are shaking.”

I look down. They are. Barely. Just enough to betray me.

He lowers his voice. “You can shadow today. Observe. Get your bearings back. But if you need to go home, you do. No one’s keeping score.”

He walks off before I can argue.

I take a breath. And another. One foot in front of the other. I head toward the OR board.

Halfway there, voices rise. Sharp, fast, unmistakable.

Derek and Addison.

They’re outside the supply closet, not bothering to whisper. I slow, hidden just out of view.

“You’re not over her,” Addison snaps. “You keep circling Meredith like she’s oxygen.”

“I care about her. That’s not a crime.”

“You’re her attending again.”

“It was the Chief’s call.”

Addison scoffs. “You didn’t fight it.”

“I didn’t agree to spy on her for you either.”

“Don’t twist this. You left me to come back to this place and now you’re pretending you’re just a concerned colleague.”

There’s a beat of silence. Then Derek says, low and bitter, “You left long before I did. We just never said it out loud.”

I step backward. Quiet. Careful.

They don’t see me. They wouldn’t even notice if I collapsed between them.

I keep walking.

In the pit, Alex is checking on a post-op patient. He sees me and nods like this is normal. Like I haven’t spent the last few weeks trying to crawl out of my own skin.

“You working or pretending to work?” he asks.

“A little of both.”

He hands me the chart. “This one’s got a low-grade fever. Bailey’s not worried, but I wanted someone else to look.”

I study the chart like it’s a lifeline. Focus. Breathe. Count the numbers. Hear the heartbeat.

It feels like falling into cold water... uncomfortable, shocking, but it wakes me up.

Alex watches me for a minute. “If it gets to be too much...”

“I’ll tell you.” I cut him off.

He doesn’t press it. He doesn’t need to.

Because we both know I probably won’t.

⸻

Later, I sit alone in an on-call room, lights dimmed, head back against the pillow.

The hospital hums around me. Machines beep, pagers buzz, feet move down corridors like a constant heartbeat. I used to find it comforting.

Now it just feels loud.

But for the first time in a long time, I did something normal today.

And that counts for something.

Even if tomorrow is worse. Even if I have to fake my way through it again.

I showed up.

And maybe that’s how healing starts. Quiet. Awkward. Half-asleep. But it starts.

Chapter Text

It felt strange to be back.

Not bad, just strange. Like slipping into an old shirt that didn’t quite fit the same anymore. The halls looked the same, the air smelled the same, but I didn’t move through it like I used to. Everything felt heavier. My steps were slower, my mind quieter, or maybe louder in the wrong ways.

Bailey had cleared me. Said I was ready. Said I’d been through worse and still managed to function. I nodded like I believed it. I smiled the way people do when they want you to stop asking questions.

So I came back.

The ER was packed. There was yelling somewhere near the ambulance bay, someone calling for crash carts, someone crying in one of the waiting rooms. I didn’t have time to ease in. I didn’t want time to ease in.

I just wanted to work.

I grabbed a pair of gloves. The noise helped. It drowned out the thoughts that usually crept in when things got quiet. Cristina was supposed to meet me later. Alex had texted earlier. But right now, I was alone, and it was easier that way.

Then I heard it.

“GSW, male, late forties. Bleeding out. Abdomen’s a mess.”

They wheeled him in fast. He was covered in blood, muttering something I couldn’t make out. Someone shoved a chart in my hand.

And I looked down.

My stomach twisted. My lungs stopped. The world narrowed into something sharp and brutal.

It was him.

His face was older, puffier maybe, but it was him. I didn’t forget. Not even for a second. I had memorized that face without ever wanting to. I had nightmares about that face. The tilt of his mouth, the way his brows furrowed when he was angry, the slurred way he talked when he was drunk.

He didn’t recognize me. Of course he didn’t.

But I did.

I felt frozen. Like my feet were nailed to the floor. I could hear someone yelling behind me to move. The monitor beside him started beeping. The blood was soaking through the gurney.

I had to do something.

But my body didn’t care. My mind was running in circles, flashing through everything I had buried. The door. The way it had locked behind me. The smell. The silence afterward.

I swallowed hard. My hands were shaking.

“Grey?” someone said. I think it was Bailey.

I nodded. I don’t know why I nodded. Maybe because I didn’t want anyone to look at me too long. Maybe because I was afraid if I didn’t, I would scream.

I forced my hands to move. I pressed gauze to his side. I ordered fluids. I asked for a CT. My voice didn’t sound like mine.

He looked up at me once. Just for a second. His eyes didn’t spark with recognition. There was nothing there. Nothing that said he remembered what he did. Nothing that said he ever thought of me again.

I wanted to stop. I wanted to throw everything on the floor and leave the room and never come back. But I didn’t.

I did a quick neuro exam. His left pupil was blown. Great, now I needed to page Derek.

"Someone page Dr. Shepherd, his left pupil is blown." I heard myself say, like a robot designed to save lives no matter what.

Isn't that what a surgeon is though? Mindlessly putting peoples lives before yours.

I saved his life.

Because I took an oath, and because I was still Meredith Grey, even when everything inside me felt cracked and raw.

Derek, I mean, Dr. Shepherd the neurosurgeon walked in because my patient had something wrong neurologically. He's not Derek, he's my attending.

"Mer you okay?" He quickly whispered to me.

I nodded. Him and Alex were the ones who found me there, but they never actually knew who did it to me. Derek was clueless over the fact my rapist was standing right there infront of us.

After he was stabilized, I slipped into the locker room and locked the door behind me. My gloves were still on. My hands were still shaking. I sat on the bench and stared at the wall.

I didn’t cry.

I didn’t scream.

I just sat there, breathing through it, wondering how much more I could take before I finally broke in half.

And then I heard a knock.

It was Cristina.

“Mer?” she called. “Are you okay?”

I didn’t answer. Not yet.

I just needed one more minute to pretend I was.

But Cristina barged in anyway. It was a habit of hers to do that, and it really ticked me off.

"What?" I asked her, but it came out too mean.

"Nothing, you looked like you saw a ghost."

Seriously? She wanted to act like she cared about me again. Why is it that when something horrible happens to you people start caring?

"You don't get to pity me just because something horrible happened. I don't want or need you to." I narrowed my eyes at her.

"Meredith..." Cristina started.

"Just stop." I cut her off.

I watched as she walked away. Leaving me alone with my thoughts again.

Chapter Text

The locker room was colder than usual. Not physically. Emotionally. Like the air had been sucked out and replaced with silence. Cristina stood a few lockers down from me, pulling on her scrubs like she didn’t even see me there. She hadn’t said more than a few words to me in days. Maybe weeks. And every word felt like a wall going up.

I sat on the bench, pretending to scroll through patient updates on my tablet, but I was really watching her. Hoping she’d say something, anything, that might make me feel like I still had my person.

“You seen the guy who puked on Karev this morning?” I asked. I tried to sound casual. Light.

Cristina didn’t look up. “Yeah,” she said. “It was funny.”

That was all. Nothing else.

She shut her locker, tied her scrub top tighter, and walked out like I didn’t exist.

I sat there for a second longer, staring at the wall in front of me. I didn’t know how to fix it. I didn’t even know where the damage started. Maybe when I disappeared. Maybe long before that. Maybe when she realized I wasn’t as strong as she thought I was.

Later, I caught her talking to one of the new interns in the hallway. I didn’t mean to overhear, but I did.

“She used to be sharp,” Cristina said. “Now she hesitates. I don’t know if she’s ready to be back.”

She didn’t say my name. She didn’t have to.

It wasn’t the words that stung. It was that they came from her. The person who used to know how to read me better than anyone.

Before I could think too much, Bailey called me over. “You’re with Lexie today,” she said, handing me a chart. “Grey and Grey. Try not to get the patients confused.”

Lexie looked excited. Nervous, but eager. She smiled at me like we were about to bond or something.

“I’m really glad we’re working together,” she said.

I didn’t return the smile. “Just try to keep up,” I told her.

We were assigned to a man in his early fifties with sudden onset chest pain. His vitals were tanking fast. Lexie fumbled with the monitor leads while I called for a crash cart. She kept looking to me for reassurance, but I didn’t have it in me to give her any.

His heart gave out. We tried everything. CPR, epi, paddles. He didn’t come back.

Lexie stood in the hallway afterward, pale and shaken. She pressed her hands to her face like she was trying to hold herself together.

“It’s your first loss?” I asked her.

She nodded. Her eyes were watery.

“Get used to it.”

I didn’t mean to sound harsh. But it came out flat. Tired. Like I was too hollow to soften the blow.

Her voice cracked. “You didn’t have to say it like that.”

But I didn’t know how else to say it. I wasn’t built for comforting people anymore. Not her. Not myself.

I walked away before she could keep talking.

I found Alex outside the supply room, sorting through gauze and muttering to himself.

“You good?” I asked, leaning on the doorframe.

He shrugged, not looking at me. “Izzie left.”

I blinked. He already told me this. Was he still upset? “I know.”

He dropped the gauze and rubbed his hands over his face. “She didn’t even say goodbye.”

I stepped inside. “I’m sorry.”

He looked at me for a second. His eyes were red. Not teary, just tired. Hurt in that quiet way that people like us get used to.

“George left too,” he said. “They’re both gone.”

There was nothing to say. We both knew the silence better than the words.

“I keep thinking I could’ve made her stay,” he mumbled.

“You couldn’t have,” I said.

He nodded slowly, like he already knew that but needed to hear it anyway.

When I got back to the locker room, I pulled out Ellis’s old surgical notes. They were crumpled and yellowed at the edges. Notes from a time when she was brilliant and cruel and too busy to notice me.

I read them anyway. I told myself it would help. That if I kept her words close, maybe I could find pieces of the surgeon I am supposed to be.

The room was quiet. But not peaceful. Just empty.

Cristina walked in a few minutes later, grabbing a hoodie from her locker. She looked at me, then looked away.

I wanted to ask her what happened to us. I wanted to yell, to cry, to break something. Instead, I said nothing.

“You look like hell,” she said as she turned to leave.

“I know.”

And then she was gone.

Later that day, I passed Lexie in the hallway. She looked like she wanted to say something, but I didn’t stop.

I didn’t have the energy to play nice.

I didn’t have the energy to be anyone’s sister.

Chapter Text

They say that anyone who is working should have the ability to be able to have a good balance between work and personal lives.

For example, you save many lives as a doctor and go home to your significant other and maybe your children. Then you spend quality time with them.

For me, work life balance means being able to separate your personal life between your work life.

But that's difficult for me, considering the fact my mom worked here since her intern year, and her boyfriend is the Chief of Surgery.

In conclusion, Seattle Grace Hospital has been apart of me ever since I was a child. So it's quite difficult for me to separate my work life and personal life.

I sat in the stairwell. It was mid-shift, and technically I should have been in the pit, charting or checking labs or doing something useful. Instead, I was hiding. The kind of hiding where you tell yourself you’re just catching your breath, but really you’re trying to not fall apart where people can see you.

My head rested against the wall, eyes closed. Everything was loud today. The elevators dinging. Monitors beeping. Nurses laughing too close to the nurses’ station. It all grated at me. I couldn’t filter anything anymore. Everything was raw.

The door creaked open, and footsteps echoed on the metal steps. I didn’t even bother to look.

Alex sat beside me. He didn’t ask what I was doing there. He just sighed and rested his elbows on his knees.

“You get chewed out too?” I asked.

He shook his head. “No. I just didn’t want to be near anyone.”

We sat in silence for a while. Not a bad silence. A knowing one.

“I think I scared off the new intern,” I said.

“Lexie?”

I nodded.

“She’s not bad,” he muttered. “Eager. Soft.”

“Too soft.”

“Like you were?”

I turned my head slowly to look at him. “I was never soft.”

He gave me a look, not teasing, just honest. “You were.”

The silence this time was heavier.

I wanted to say something, but instead, I pulled my knees up and wrapped my arms around them like a kid. I hadn’t done that in years. Not since I was actually that kid, curled up on a bathroom floor, hoping Ellis would forget she was mad at me. Hoping Thatcher would come home. Hoping anyone would notice.

But no one ever did.

“I think Cristina hates me,” I said.

Alex didn’t try to deny it.

“She doesn’t hate you,” he said eventually. “She just doesn’t know how to handle… this version of you.”

I hated that there were versions of me now. The strong surgeon. The missing person. The victim. The patient. The disappointment.

It felt like I was becoming someone unrecognizable.

Later, I scrubbed in on a simple appy with Derek. We hadn’t talked much since the day he walked in and found me crying. Since he told me he spoke to my mother. I didn’t want to talk about Ellis. I didn’t want to talk about anything.

The silence between us in the OR was stiff.

“Meredith, your technique’s off,” he said sharply when I missed a clamp.

I corrected it. “I know.”

Afterward, he pulled his gloves off with too much force. “If you’re not ready to be back, you shouldn’t be here.”

I stared at him. “You don’t get to say that to me.”

“I’m your attending.”

“And you’re also the man who said he loved me and then walked away.”

The silence after that was thunderous.

“I’m doing my best,” I said, more quietly now. “Every single day. I come in. I put on the scrubs. I do the surgeries. I try to be normal even when everything inside me feels shattered. And I’m still being punished for not being okay fast enough.”

He didn’t say anything. Just stared at me, jaw tight.

“You don’t get to punish me for being broken,” I whispered.

"At this hospital when you are a surgeon I am your attending! If you cannot respect those boundaries of me being your boss I will be sure to take it up to the chief. I have never, never seen an intern so careless with her attitude and career!" He screamed at me.

I flinched. He broke eye contact.

Tears filled my eyes.

I left before he could see me cry.

In the hallway, I saw Lexie again. She was walking with Cristina. Laughing, even. For a second, I saw everything I didn’t have. Cristina’s attention. Lexie’s ease. A life that wasn’t constantly cracking under the weight of itself.

Lexie caught my eye and slowed, like she wanted to say something. I walked past her without a word.

I didn’t want to be someone she could rescue. I didn’t want to be her project. I didn’t want to be her anything.

That night, I stood outside the hospital alone. The cold wind bit through my jacket. I could see my breath in the air.

I pulled out my phone. No messages. No missed calls.

No one was coming to check if I made it home.

Why would they though? I'm not the little girl crying for my mother to notice me. Or craving my father's attention and begging for him to visit me.

I'm an adult now, with my father's daughter he abandoned me for working alongside me. And my sick mother with alzheimers who still hates me.

I sat on the edge of the concrete bench by the entrance and stared at the street.

The city lights blurred a little.

It felt like maybe, if I sat still enough, I’d disappear.

Chapter Text

Derek found me in the stairwell again.

I should’ve known he would. It was the same stairwell as before. Same position. Same exhaustion wrapped in a surgical cap.

“We need to talk,” he said.

I didn’t respond. I stood up. My joints ached. My eyes burned. My body was heavy.

He followed me down the stairs.

“I’m not trying to attack you,” he added, as if that helped. “But if you’re not ready to be here, you shouldn’t be pushing through just to prove something.”

I turned on him. “You don’t get to tell me what I’m trying to prove.”

“I am your attending, yes I do. You’re making mistakes. You’re distracted. You’re not the same.”

I laughed, sharp and humorless. “Of course I’m not the same. You think I could go through everything I went through and come back here and still be the same person?”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“No. You just meant I’m a liability now.”

His face tensed. “I meant that I’m worried about you.”

“Funny. That didn’t stop you from disappearing. Or being with Addison. Or telling me I was broken the last time I needed you.”

He flinched, just slightly, but I saw it.

“You don’t get to want me only when I’m fixed.”

“That’s not fair.”

I stepped back. “Neither is any of this.”

I walked away. I didn’t let myself cry. Not yet.

I went back to the pit. The ER was buzzing with the kind of chaos I could lose myself in. The kind that numbed everything else. A kid with a broken arm. A teenager with a gash across his thigh from a skateboard. A drunk guy with a split lip. Easy things. Simple things. Things that didn’t ask questions or try to talk about feelings.

I stitched in silence. One, two, three neat loops. The skin folded cleanly under the thread. It gave me something to control.

Eventually, the adrenaline wore off. My hands were still. My chest hollow.

I found an on-call room upstairs. It was quiet. Dim. I didn’t turn on the light.

I lay on the bed, fully clothed, curled against the wall. I didn’t want sleep. I just wanted stillness. Something to press into the noise in my head.

I heard the door open behind me.

I didn’t move. I figured it was someone else crashing for an hour before rounds. It was common. People didn’t check. People came and went.

But then I heard his voice.

Low. Familiar.

Too familiar.

He didn’t recognize me. Not at first.

He just said, “Didn’t think anyone would be in here.”

I didn’t move.

Then the light flicked on. I blinked.

He stopped mid-step. His face shifted.

Recognition.

And I saw it. In his eyes. He remembered me.

I couldn’t breathe.

He smiled, almost uncertainly. “You’re a doctor now?”

I sat up slowly.

My hands were shaking.

“You should leave,” I said.

He didn’t move. “I didn’t know you worked here.”

I stared at him. My heart pounded so hard I thought I might pass out.

“You need to leave. Now.”

Still, he didn’t move.

I stood. My body wanted to run. My knees locked. I didn’t want to show fear. Not here. Not now.

I walked past him. Close enough that my shoulder brushed his jacket.

He grabbed my arm, hard enough to leave an imprint on it.

He was here.

He was here.

He walked in like nothing ever happened. Like he didn’t take something from me I’ll never get back.

"You thought I didn't remember you? When I came in about a month ago. I remembered you, I just pretended not to. I assume you did the same aswell?"

And he knew who I was.

His vice grip was still on my arm. He dragged me towards the bed.

I couldn't breathe.

Chapter Text

He rips my scrub pants off. No, this can't be happening again.

"Did I tell you what an amazing kisser you are?" He growled into my ear, forcing me to kiss him.

"Please... please stop." I whispered.

My underwear was exposed. He didn't even take it off. He ripped it, sending mild shockwaves of pain through my thigh.

He quickly untied his pants, like he was in a rush. He entered me, but it didn't feel good. It felt horrible.

I felt water on my face. Tears. Was I crying? How long had I been crying for?

He shot me a stern look. "You're crying? You little slut. Stop."

I muffled my sobs out of fear. Please. Why is this happening to me.

His pace was too aggressive for me. I couldn't take it. It was too much. I felt a hot liquid dripping down my thighs.

I barely managed to lift my head up to see what was running through my thighs.

Red. Blood.

I sobbed in pain. Everything was too painful. I cried even louder.

"Shut the fuck up you little slut!" My heart dropped when I saw a scalpel in his hands, which he hovered over my throat.

I didn't want to die. Something came over me. For once, I didn't want to die.

At least not like this.

"Please. You can... you can do me more. Just... don't kill me. Please." I pleaded the monster above me.

He smirked, then went faster. Extremely fast. I could feel my insides tearing apart.

I would never feel clean again. He released his load inside me. He moaned out in pleasure while I sobbed in pain.

"You're crying? Fine, I'll give you something to cry about."

He lifted my scrub pants, exposing my thighs. He took the scalpel and pressed hard.

Where did he even get that?

But he wasn't just cutting through my thighs. He was carving something.

I started to scream, but he stopped me.

"If you start screaming I swear I'll slit your throat."

I obeyed his ultimatum, even though I didn't want to.

After 10 minutes of him cutting through my first leg, I tiredly looked at it. Even though my vision was blurry, he carved the words "SLUT" on my thigh.

Why was I still awake? When was I going to pass out from the blood loss and the pain.

My vagina and thigh were bleeding, and everything else was bruised.

He started carving through my other thigh.

Once he was finished, I looked at it. He carved the words "WHORE."

I looked at him smirking.

"I'm a great artist, aren't I?"

When I didn't answer, he looked angry again. He was going to hurt me again.

"Fine you wanna be angry? I get to be angry at you too!" He quietly screamed.

I watched as he grabbed the bunk bed with his bare hands, and threw it.

I didn't scream. Instead, my mouth gurgled as it landed on me. My mouth, it was covered in blood. I was starting to lose my ability to breathe.

My body was giving up on me. At this moment I decided it wasn't too bad to die. Not because I was tired of living, because the pain was too much to take.

He wasn't done yet. He entered inside me again and started thrusting violently as he smashed my head and arms into the bunk bed.

I closed my eyes as he punched and hit me, and threw hard items at me.

Footsteps. Someone was coming towards the on call room.

Quick heavy footsteps.

My vision was starting to turn black.

I couldn't breathe anymore.

My legs were bleeding.

So was my vagina.

And head.

And arms.

And mouth.

I squinted to watch the man who did this to me run away and jump out a window.

The on call room door snapped open shortly after he left the crime of scene.

Someone stood there, a man.

I squinted to see who it was but my vision was going black.

I couldn't breathe anymore, completely.

My heart was beating out of my chest.

Hemothorax.

My vision and hearing was deteriorating.

Head trauma.

I gagged and vomited blood everywhere.

Internal bleeding.

I saw a sharp metal tool on the floor.

The scalpel that the man left behind.

I managed to grab it, and I quickly slit my wrists to end all of this pain.

"No... Mer... I NEED A GURNEY IN HERE!!!" The voice was slow and distorted.

I felt my body go limp, and my eyes go black.

"My legs..." I managed to whisper, before everything went black.

Chapter Text

He opened the door.

And everything inside him shattered.

Meredith lay crumpled on the floor beneath a bunkbed. She wasn’t moving. Her hair was soaked in blood, her face pale and streaked with bruises. Her thighs were torn open. There was blood between her legs, on her arms, on her stomach. The floor was smeared with it. Her body was barely covered, her scrub pants pulled halfway down and ripped, bunched at her knees like they had been yanked off and forgotten.

He noticed the cuts on her thighs. Spelling out the words "Slut" and "Whore." He gasled.

For a second, all he could hear was his own heartbeat.

“Meredith?” His voice cracked.

He dropped to his knees.

Her chest rose... barely. Her lips were blue. Her skin felt cold. Her pulse was thready. Shallow. Weak.

“Help!” His voice broke. “Somebody help me! Code blue! On-call room three!”

Meredith took the bloody scalpel resting next to her thigh, hovered it over her wrists and cut.

It was all so fast, it looked like a blur to Derek.

He pulled her gently into his arms, careful, terrified. Her body was limp.

Bailey was the first to arrive, then Addison. Both froze for half a second. Then they moved.

“Get her on a gurney,” Bailey snapped. “Derek, back up.”

Addison’s voice was tight. “She’s hemorrhaging. It’s bad.”

“She’s been assaulted,” Derek whispered.

Alex came running down the hall, panic in his eyes. “What happened?”

Derek couldn’t answer.

Cristina pushed past him and saw. Her hand flew to her mouth.

“No,” Cristina said. “No, no, no.”

Bailey cut Meredith’s top open. “BP sixty over twenty. HR one-sixty.”

“She’s going into shock,” Addison said. “There’s bruising on her pelvis. Get OB trauma down here now.”

“Airway’s compromised. She’s wheezing,” a nurse said.

“Intubate. Get her O2 up.”

Cristina moved to help without being asked. Alex followed.

“She’s bleeding out from everywhere,” Alex said. “These cuts on her legs, they’re surgical. Intentional. Deep.”

“She has abdominal rigidity,” Addison said. “Prep OR Two. Now.”

“I’m going with you,” Cristina said. Her voice was dead even.

“So am I,” Alex added. “She’s one of us.”

The nurse quickly examined her abdomen with the portable ultrasound.

"Dr. Bailey, she has a bunch of free fluid. Everywhere. She'll need a laparotomy."

“She’s not gonna survive if we waste another second,” Bailey snapped. “Move!”

They raced the gurney down the hallway. Derek trailed behind them, hands shaking. Meredith’s blood was on his shirt, on his arms, under his fingernails.

“Please,” he whispered. “Please don’t die.”

⸻

OR 2

Addison stood over Meredith’s body, gloved and sterile, but her hands trembled before the first cut.

Cristina placed her hand on the table. “I’m here. Focus.”

Alex adjusted the retractor. “Vitals dropping. She’s losing blood faster than we can give it.”

“She’s got a splenic rupture,” Addison said. “I’m going in.”

Scalpel. Cut. Blood poured. Clamps. Suction.

Cristina worked in perfect sync. They opened her abdomen and saw the damage. The trauma. The tissue torn from the inside. Everything about it said violation.

Addison didn’t blink.

“She’s stable for now. We need to repair the uterus. There’s tearing.”

"She has head injury, someone page Shepherd!" Bailey yelled.

"Should he be here?" Cristina asked.

"Agh, page Nelson then. Someone from Neuro!"

Alex froze for a second.

Bailey, watching from the side, said quietly, “Do your job.”

So he did.

They worked for hours.

Three transfusions.

Six liters of blood lost.

One moment where her heart stopped, and came back again.

And still, Meredith didn’t wake up.

⸻

Post-Op Recovery

Cristina sat on the bench outside the OR, her scrubs soaked. Her hands were still shaking.

“She was breathing when we left her,” she said to no one.

Alex sat across from her, elbows on his knees. “She saved a patient today. The guy who did it.”

Cristina looked up. “What?”

Alex nodded slowly. “She was treating him in the pit. I looked at the name on the chart. Same guy she accused last year. He came in after a bar fight. She sewed him up.”

Cristina didn’t say anything.

“She didn’t tell anyone.”

Cristina stared at the wall. “I’m gonna kill him.”

“No,” Alex said. “We’re gonna let her wake up. And then we’ll figure it out.”

Derek stood alone by the window, arms crossed, watching the sky turn to night. He hadn’t spoken in hours.

Addison came up beside him. Her face was pale.

“She’s stable,” she said.

He nodded.

“You did everything you could,” she added.

His voice was quiet. “It’s not enough.”

“She’s alive.”

“For now. Her head trauma... Hopefully she isn't a vegetable when she wakes up."

They didn’t say anything after that.

Not until a nurse walked out and said, “She’s breathing on her own again. She’s in recovery.”

And they all stood up at once.

Chapter Text

The loudest word ever said was the word quiet. Which is pretty ironic. There is also a saying that silence is loud. And it really is.

After something traumatic happens to a patient, psychiatrists usually diagnose them with PTSD. When you have PTSD, you tend to not want to say anything.

Not saying anything can make people see right through you. They can see you're hurt, scared, and weak. Which proves the saying that silence is loud.

I’d been drifting somewhere far away. Somewhere cold and blurry, where time didn’t move and pain didn’t reach me. But the fog started to lift.

I wasn’t sure when I became aware of the light in the room or the steady beep of the monitor behind me. It was faint at first, like listening to a world underwater. Then it grew louder. Sharper.

My eyes stayed closed. They were heavy. My body was heavier.

I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t move. But I could hear.

And I heard him.

Derek.

His voice was quiet, lower than usual, like he was afraid someone might hear him even though we were alone.

“I don’t even know if you can hear me,” he said. “You’ve been out for two weeks. We were starting to think…”

He didn’t finish. There was a pause. A soft sound. Maybe he was moving closer. I could feel his presence now, sitting beside me.

“I came every day,” he continued. “Every morning before surgery. Every night after rounds. I couldn’t leave you alone. I couldn’t do that again.”

Silence filled the space again, and I felt the burn in my chest. Not physical. Something else. Something worse.

“I was in love with you,” he said. “I think I always was. I just... I was scared. Of what it meant. Of losing everything else. Of hurting Addison.”

Another pause. The air felt tight. He exhaled shakily.

“She and I… We’re not together anymore. We filed last month. It was finalized last week. She left Seattle.”

I wanted to open my eyes, to tell him to stop, or maybe not to stop. But my body stayed frozen. My heart was racing under the beeping sound. He thought I was unconscious. He thought I wasn’t there.

“I chose wrong,” he whispered. “And I’ve been living with that every day since.”

There was another pause.

“I’m sorry, Meredith.”

My eyes fluttered open. I could feel him looking suprised.

"Mer?"

I didn't want to say anything. I was too afraid to. Afraid of everything. I've been hurt too many times.

"Mer, can you say something?"

I could, but again, I chose not to.

He shined a light in my eyes for a quick exam to make sure I was not a turnip.

"Can you follow my finger?"

I followed.

"Can you say a few words?" He asked softly.

I didn't. I looked at him.

"I know that you don't wanna speak right now, but please say something. Anything. I need to make sure you're able to speak."

I didn't say a word.

"Meredith..."

I took a look at my bandaged up wrists, which had restraints on them to prevent me from hurting myself. Again.

That again gave me a huge wake up call. I'm a psych patient. Again.

Why does that word keep coming up again and again?

See, it came back just now.

I looked at him again. He was starting to think I couldn't speak.

I mustered the strength to say some words.

"Is he..."

I looked at Derek, to make sure he wouldn't do anything if I spoke. He gave me a small smile.

"Is he in... jail... yet?" I asked.

Derek took a deep breath, then started; "They can't find him currently. But they will, soon."

"Did my legs scar?" I asked again.

"Let's take a look."

He lifted the blanket, and lifted my gown.

It reminded me of him. Him ripping my scrubs to hurt me.

"Stop. Please."

First he looked at me confused, then he understood.

I lifted my hospital gown slightly, to see if there was any scarring.

My heart dropped and I could feel water pooling in my eyes.

The words, the words he carved into my skin. Still there, wide and prominent.

It gave me a huge reminder, that whatever happened to me, whatever he did to me, will always be there.

Forever.

Chapter Text

They say for a hospital to work, you need doctors. Well yes, that is common sense. If there are no people to treat sick people, what is the point of running a hospital?

Doctors require sick people in order to work. But the way I think of it, patients need something to.

I like to say that patients are named after the characteristic of patience.

So really, a hospital requires doctors, doctors require patients, and patients need patience.

Alex sat beside me. He's been with me since the incident. Alex is the only person I don't feel uncomfortable with.

Yeah he can be an ass sometimes, but really, he is a nice guy. Kind. Actually cares about you and doesn't leave when your mental health starts acting up.

"Beep, beep." His pager.

"Crap, I gotta go. 9-1-1 from Bailey."

"You better run, or you'll never hear the end of it."

I was left alone with my dangerous thoughts again. I've been trying so damn hard not to make a big deal out if what happened to me.

I've been trying to act normal, not broken. I just wanna get this over with and act like everything is fine. Even when it's not.

I'm ashamed. The 5th time. I said no, but if I had said no that day in the bar, this would've never happened to me.

The words he carved into my thigh, permanently staying there which were sutured were true. I am a whore and a slut.

5 times.

5 times I was raped.

5 times my cleanliness was taken away from me.

I was 14.

14 when it first happened.

All because I never said no.

What a slut.

I stared at the familiar ceiling once again. My mother worker here. I lived in the Psych Ward here. I stayed after I slit my wrists. I stayed after I got assaulted. Again. Again. Again. Again. And again.

I kept staring at the ceiling, trying so incredibly hard not to think of the past. Which was impossible.

"Hi Meredith, how are ya feelin'?" A voice.

Lexie.

I recognized her.

I didn't turn around.

Not because she was my "sister", not because my dad chose her over me.

Because I was tired.

Bleeding and bruised.

"Fine." I managed to mumble.

"I know you don't wanna see me. I'm not seeing you because of what happened. I don't see you any differently." Lexie paused. "I'm here because well... I care about you. And you're still family. Sort of."

"Blood runs thicker than water, huh?" I chuckle under my breath.

A stupid, sarcastic remark.

"I know your family was and is horrible to you. But I hope I can change that."

I turned around to meet her gaze.

"Did you know about me?" I asked. Why did my mouth work before my brain?

"No. I found out when my dad visited you."

"Oh." I don't know what answer I was looking for.

"Well, get well soon. You gotta kick ass at some surgery soon!"

I smiled at her.

I just needed to be patient. Maybe the time will come where everything isn't so horrible for me and I find real people who care. Maybe I'll find actual love. Maybe my mom and I will make amends.

Maybe Lexie could actually change things around.

Maybe she could actually be good family.

I just need to be patient.

I think.

Chapter Text

I thought coming back would feel different.

That stepping into the hospital again would make me feel strong. Like I’d survived something, and now I could breathe again. Like I’d walk through the doors and reclaim something.

Instead, it feels like I never left. Except everyone’s eyes are louder now.

The hallways look the same. The lights buzz the same. The scent of antiseptic clings to the walls like a warning. I pass nurses who used to nod or smile, and now they look at me like they’re afraid I’ll break in front of them.

Or worse, they don’t look at me at all.

“Grey,” someone mumbles behind a chart as I walk past. Their voice is too quiet to recognize.

I don’t respond. I keep walking.

Bailey cleared me this morning. Signed the form with her usual sharpness, handed me my badge, and said, “If it’s too much, you leave. Don’t make a mess of yourself trying to prove something.”

I nodded. I didn’t have anything to prove. At least, I keep telling myself that.

My feet take me to the pit before I even realize it. The chaos is familiar. Comforting in its own way. I don’t have to talk about feelings here. I don’t have to think. Just patch wounds, stabilize vitals, do the job.

I slide into a case. A head lac. Simple. I suture in silence while the resident next to me rambles about her lack of sleep. I nod, not really listening. My hands shake a little, but not enough for anyone to notice.

After I’m done, I walk to the nurse’s station and start reviewing charts. That’s when I hear his voice.

"Meredith."

I look up.

Richard.

He’s staring at me like he’s been waiting for the right moment.

“I heard you scrubbed in this morning.”

I shrug. “I’m fine.”

He steps closer. “Are you ready for this?”

That question lands heavier than I expect.

I’m not sure what ‘this’ means. Surgery? The hospital? Life?

I want to say yes. I want to scream it so loud they stop tiptoeing around me. But my throat tightens.

“I don’t know,” I admit.

He nods slowly, like he’s grateful for the truth. “Just remember, you don’t have to be a hero. You just have to be honest.”

I nod.

Across the hall, I see Derek. He’s standing near the stairwell, arguing with Addison again. I can’t hear them, but I can tell by their body language. Her arms are crossed. His hands are raised in frustration. Her eyes flick toward me, then narrow.

I hate being in the middle of whatever they are. I didn’t ask for this.

Derek turns like he’s going to walk toward me. I don’t let him. I disappear down the nearest hallway before he can say my name.

I’m not ready for that either.

I thought I was. I thought walking through these halls would make me feel like a surgeon again.

But right now, I just feel like a ghost in scrubs.

After a few minutes, he starts to walk in my direction. We haven't talked much since I got discharged from the... incident.

"Meredith?"

"Hi."

"Are you doing okay?" Stupid question. What did he think?

"Well, everything's healed except for the nasty scars on my legs."

"Those words don't define you."

"It's a mark reminding me he was there." I cut him off.

"I didn't mean how you feel physically. I meant mentally."

I blinked. That caught me off guard.

"I'm fine. I've always been fine."

"Really, because you... you slit your wrists." He said it so suddenly. Derek didn't mean to say it in that way, but still.

It's a vague memory. I don't remember what was happening or when I did it. I just remember Derek's distorted voice, my chest tightening, everything burning.

The scalpel. A surgeon's prized possession. Which turned into my biggest fear.

He marked those words on my thighs. Him. It's always going to be there. Always.

I remember, that I wanted to live. But, at the very last second... I remembered that I've always wanted to die.

I did not realize I'd been staring at him for about a minute or so.

"Sorry. I shouldn't have brought it up... I told everyone that he did it to you, not that you slit your wrists."

"Thank you."

He nodded and walked away.

So no one knew?

Oh thank god!

Chapter Text

It’s strange how silence can be louder than screaming.

When you’re sitting in a supply closet, wedged between an oxygen tank and a mop bucket, the air doesn’t feel quiet. It feels heavy. Pressurized. Like the walls are holding their breath and waiting for you to fall apart.

That’s where I ended up. Not in an on-call room. Not in the break room. Not even in a stairwell. I didn’t want comfort. I wanted somewhere no one would look for me.

So I slid to the floor in the farthest closet I could find and hugged my knees to my chest like I used to when I was ten years old and hiding from Ellis after she screamed about missed galas or blood on the bathroom floor.

I should be stronger than this. I survived. I came back. I’m doing my job.

But I can’t get the image of that man’s face out of my head. His face in the trauma bay. His blood on my gloves. The same lips that whispered disgusting things against my neck now slurring apologies and asking for more pain meds. And I said nothing. I stitched his wounds. I saved his life.

Because that’s what we do here.

We save people. Even the ones who don’t deserve it.

The door creaks open.

For a second, I think it’s Bailey. Or Richard. Or someone sent to drag me back to rounds.

But it’s Cristina.

She doesn’t speak. Just steps inside, letting the door shut softly behind her. She doesn’t sit right away. Just stares at me like she’s not sure who she’s looking at anymore.

“You missed the post-op on bed six,” she finally says.

I stare at the floor. “Tell them I had to cry in a closet.”

Her lips twitch. Not a smile. More like a grimace. She finally slides down beside me, careful not to touch.

“You stitched up a rapist today,” she says. Not a question.

I nod.

“Do they know?”

“No one does. Just me.”

She leans her head back against the wall. “You didn’t have to.”

“I did. Because I’m not... because I’m still a doctor.”

Cristina exhales. “You shouldn’t have to prove anything to anyone. Not after what you’ve been through.”

I don’t answer. I don’t know how.

She looks at me again. “You know, Izzie and George used to call you dramatic behind your back.”

“I know.”

“I didn’t correct them.”

“I know that too.”

She sighs. “I didn’t think it would ever get this bad. I didn’t think you’d disappear.”

“I didn’t either.”

Silence again.

“I’m sorry,” she says.

“You already said that.”

“Yeah, well, I’m saying it again.”

We sit there for a while. Just breathing in the stillness.

Then my pager goes off.

Trauma code. ER.

I wipe my face with the sleeve of my scrubs and stand up. My knees shake. Cristina watches but doesn’t comment.

We walk together, but not close enough to brush shoulders.

The hospital is louder now. Brighter. The way it always gets after a code. People are moving fast. Talking fast. And I slip into the rhythm of it. I drown in it.

I’m halfway through the hallway when Lexie intercepts me.

“Hey,” she says, clutching her clipboard like a shield. “Are you okay? I mean, obviously you’re not okay, but...”

“I’m fine.”

She frowns. “You don’t look fine.”

I stop walking. Cristina keeps going, which means I’m stuck with her.

Lexie tries again. “I was just checking in. Because I know what it’s like to feel invisible here.”

I stare at her.

“You don’t,” I say.

She stiffens. “Excuse me?”

“You don’t know what it’s like to stitch up the person who ruined your life. You don’t know what it’s like to have your mother scream at you for being raped. You don’t know what it’s like to wake up with your body ripped apart and the only thing anyone says is, you’re lucky to be alive.”

Her face goes pale.

“You’re just the girl who got to have my father. The one who came after he’d already destroyed me.”

Lexie steps back like I slapped her.

“I didn’t ask to be his daughter.”

“No. But you got the version of him who stayed.”

She looks like she might cry.

I don’t care.

I turn and keep walking.

I can feel her still standing there, alone in the hallway, but I don’t look back.

⸻

Later, after the trauma is cleared, I end up in the stairwell.

Of course I do.

That’s where I always end up when everything gets too loud.

I sit on the bottom step, forehead pressed to my knees, trying to stop the shaking in my hands.

Then I hear the door creak open.

It’s Alex.

He doesn’t ask questions. He just sits beside me.

"Your mom was going all crazy today." Alex finally spoke up.

"Did you have to watch her?"

"Yep. Chiefs orders. Did he bang your mom or something?"

"Richard? He did."

"Well, anyway, she thought I was your dad."

I let out a small snicker.

⸻

When I finally make it back upstairs, Derek is in an argument with Addison near the nurse’s station.

It’s loud enough that passing nurses pretend not to hear it. Loud enough that even Bailey does a double take as she walks by.

“I asked for space,” Addison snaps.

“You got it. That’s why we’re divorced.”

My breath catches.

“I didn’t ask for a divorce, Derek. I asked for honesty.”

“You wanted honesty? I don’t love you.”

Addison flinches.

I can’t move.

“I’m sorry, Addie. But I can’t keep pretending we’re still something we’re not. I want someone else.”

He doesn’t say my name.

But he doesn’t have to.

I turn before he sees me watching. I disappear down the corridor, heart pounding.

Because I’m not ready for that either.

Chapter Text

The first thing I felt when I stepped into the hospital that morning was the cold. Not just physical cold. The sterile, bone-deep kind that lived in my chest. The one that reminded me I was back where everything happened. Again.

But I wasn’t crumbling. Not today.

I checked the board, tied my scrub cap, and found myself smiling, just a little, when I saw Alex’s name beside mine on a post-op case.

I was here. I was working. I was alive.

Even if the hallway still smelled like antiseptic and the same ghosts walked the same corridors, I was walking too.

Cristina passed me near the stairwell. She nodded. Not quite friends again. Not yet. But something was rebuilding. Slowly.

“Don’t screw up in the OR today, Grey,” she said without stopping.

“Love you too,” I muttered under my breath.

For a few hours, I was okay. Charting. Scrubbing in. Listening to Alex complain about the intern who kept mislabeling specimens. The rhythm of the hospital filled my head and pushed everything else out. Almost everything.

Until I saw Richard in the hallway. And he said four words that pulled the breath out of my chest.

“Your mother’s asking for you.”

Ellis Grey.

Of course she was.

She’d been moved to a different wing for observation, and part of me hoped I wouldn’t have to see her for a while. But hope’s useless in a place like this.

I walked in slowly, half-wishing she’d be asleep. She wasn’t.

She looked at me like I was a stranger. Or worse, like I was a disappointment she had to tolerate.

“Still cutting yourself?” she asked, like she was asking about the weather. “Even after all this?”

The air in my lungs froze.

“No hello?” I replied quietly, closing the door behind me.

“You always were dramatic,” she muttered. “I saw the chart. You slit your wrists again. How original.”

“I didn’t...” I stopped. It didn’t matter. The truth didn’t matter to her. It never had.

“You do it to be seen. To force people to care,” she added.

I stared at her. “Do you remember when I was five?”

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t start.”

“You told me to play quietly while you went to ‘take a bath.’ And I came in and you were on the floor. You’d slit your wrists, and I had to wait. You made me wait until you passed out before I could call for help.”

“That didn’t happen,” she said sharply, voice rising. “That’s something you made up.”

“No. That’s something you did,” I snapped. “You showed me that pain was the only way to get attention. You showed me what bleeding looked like. What dying looked like. I didn’t invent this, I inherited it.”

Ellis’s mouth opened, but nothing came out.

“I was five,” I repeated, softer now. “I had to hide the towels. I had to clean your blood off the floor.”

Silence.

For a second, her eyes flickered. Like something inside her cracked. Or maybe her disease was twisting memories again. I didn’t care.

“I didn’t want to be like you,” I whispered. “But here I am. I’m everything you never wanted. I survived you.”

She looked away. I turned and left before she could say anything else.

Back in the hallway, I leaned against the wall and shut my eyes.

And suddenly, I was five again. On the bathroom tile. Holding a towel in both hands. Waiting for her to lose consciousness. My hands shaking. The smell of blood and bleach. Her telling me not to call 911 until she couldn’t stop me.

I opened my eyes again. My chest felt tight, but I wasn’t falling apart. Not this time.

When I made it back to the pit, Alex tossed me a chart.

“You good?” he asked.

I nodded.

“I’m getting there.”

And I meant it.

Chapter Text

There’s something almost soothing about scrubbing in.

The hot water, the antiseptic sting, the rhythm of it. After everything, after the rape, after the surgeries, after the two weeks I lost to a coma... it’s the one part of my life that hasn’t changed. My hands still know what to do. My body still responds. The OR doesn’t care if I was broken. It only asks that I be precise.

Addison is already at the sink when I arrive. She doesn’t look at me. I don’t expect her to.

She’s always been poised, polished, perfect. I used to think that made her cold. Now I’m not so sure. Maybe she just learned to bury the chaos deeper than I ever could.

“This is a complicated fibroid resection,” she says without preamble. “Laparoscopic. High risk of hemorrhage. You’ll assist.”

I nod. “Got it.”

“You’ll keep your focus.”

“I always do.”

She doesn’t respond. Just keeps scrubbing like she’s trying to erase me from her peripheral vision.

I almost laugh. There was a time when I wanted her approval. When I wanted to prove that I was more than the intern who slept with her husband. Now? I just want to get through the damn surgery without someone pulling me aside to whisper that I’m brave or strong or some other word that doesn’t mean anything.

We enter the OR together. Lexie is already there, gowned and waiting, her eyes wide behind her mask.

She gives me a small smile. I don’t return it.

It’s not that I hate her. I just don’t trust her yet. She’s too eager, too innocent, too new. I know what it’s like to walk into this hospital thinking you’re here to save lives and discover the world is just as brutal in here as it is out there.

“Lexie, you’re observing,” Addison says curtly.

“Yes, Dr. Montgomery.”

Addison glances at me as we step up to the patient. “Ready?”

I nod and take my position.

The moment we begin, everything else slips away. The trauma. The noise. The memories. It all fades into background static. My hands move instinctively, suctioning, cauterizing, retracting.

Addison calls for an instrument. I pass it. She gestures for suction. I’m already there.

For the first time in weeks, I feel like myself again. Not the shattered version people keep tiptoeing around. Not the broken girl in the hospital bed. Just Dr. Meredith Grey. A surgeon.

But nothing ever stays clean in my life for long.

“You’re hesitating,” Addison says sharply, not looking up.

“I’m fine.”

“I need more than fine. I need you alert. If you can’t keep up, step away.”

I clench my jaw. “I said I’m fine.”

Silence settles between us. Even the OR feels it.

Cristina walks in halfway through the case, gloves on, ready to assist with closing. She’s been distant again lately. Showing up when it counts, disappearing the rest of the time. I used to think I knew her. Now I think I just wanted to believe that someone could know me without running away.

“Bleeder at the uterine wall,” Addison says.

“I see it,” I reply.

She lets me handle it. I clamp, cauterize, check for residual bleeding. She watches me work, and for a moment, I think I see something in her eyes that isn’t contempt. Maybe it’s respect. Maybe it’s just exhaustion.

The rest of the procedure goes smoothly.

We close.

We peel off gloves, masks. Cristina disappears before I can say anything. Lexie lingers, looking between me and Addison like she wants to say something but doesn’t know which one of us will snap first.

“Good work,” Addison says, finally.

I blink. “Thanks.”

She doesn’t elaborate. Just tosses her gloves in the bin and walks out.

I stay behind to chart.

Lexie hovers. “That was intense.”

“It’s surgery. It’s supposed to be.”

She shifts awkwardly. “I mean… you were really calm. I don’t think I could’ve done that. Not after everything.”

I stop writing.

“You don’t know everything,” I say quietly.

Lexie opens her mouth, then closes it. “I know. I just meant... never mind.”

She walks away.

Alone in the OR, I press my hands to the counter. Let my eyes close.

In the quiet, the flashbacks sneak in.

My mother screaming at me when I was seven, blood all over the bathroom tiles.

That man’s hands pinning me down, my voice breaking in the dark.

The silence after the ambulance left, when I was sixteen and swallowing pills in the hallway because no one ever came when I cried.

My chest tightens.

But I don’t fall.

I breathe. One beat at a time. In. Out.

And then I go back to work.

Because the hospital doesn’t wait for grief. It doesn’t pause for trauma. It only moves forward. And if I stop moving, I’ll drown.

As I walk out into the hallway, I hear arguing from the stairwell.

Addison’s voice, sharp and furious.

Derek’s, louder.

“I’m tired of pretending we’re okay,” he snaps.

“We were never okay,” Addison spits. “You were in love with her the whole time. I just didn’t want to believe it. That's why we divorced."

“I tried. I chose you.”

“You left her to rot in a hospital bed because it was easier than facing your own guilt.”

Silence.

I don’t stay to hear the rest.

Some things hurt more when you already know how they end.

Chapter Text

It was raining again.

Seattle never really let you forget what city you were in. The rain came in sheets, slow and steady, like it had nowhere else to be. I stood by the nurse’s station with a chart in my hand, staring through the glass at the parking lot. The sky was gray, like always, but I didn’t mind it today. There was something comforting about the predictability of it.

It had been two weeks since I got out of the hospital.

Two weeks of trying to be normal again. Two weeks of pretending I wasn’t the girl who had bled out in an on-call room, barely conscious. Two weeks of stitching other people up while trying to ignore the way my own body still ached when I moved too fast.

Two weeks since I heard Derek say he loved me.

He thought I was asleep. I wasn’t. I heard every word. And I didn’t say anything, because I didn’t know how. It felt like standing on the edge of a cliff. The wind was loud, the drop was steep, and for the first time in a long time, I didn’t know if I wanted to jump or run.

He hadn’t brought it up since.

But he had been around. Quietly. Constantly. He lingered in the OR gallery during surgeries. He checked in on my patients when he didn’t need to. He gave me space without vanishing completely. He didn’t push.

And somehow, that was worse.

“Grey.” Bailey’s voice pulled me out of my thoughts. “You’re scrubbing in with Shepherd. A tumor resection in the parietal lobe. Patient’s prepped. Let’s go.”

I didn’t ask why she was the one telling me. I just nodded and followed her toward the scrub room. My hands shook under the water, not from nerves, but from the idea of being in a closed room with him for hours.

I stepped into the OR. He was already there, mask pulled on, eyes focused. He glanced up and met mine.

There it was again. That look.

Like he still saw me.

“Ready?” he asked.

I nodded. “Yeah.”

The surgery was long, tedious, and delicate. Hours of silence filled only by beeping monitors and the steady rhythm of retractors and suction. Derek’s voice came through sometimes, calm and focused, guiding the resident on the suction. I matched his pace. My hands didn’t shake once.

It was almost easy to forget everything else. Until it wasn’t.

Halfway through the procedure, his hand brushed mine as we passed instruments. It wasn’t intentional. But it wasn’t nothing, either. My body froze for half a second, then I forced myself to keep going.

The rest of the case went without complication.

Afterwards, we peeled off our gloves, standing at separate sinks, the silence between us suddenly too loud.

“You did good in there,” he said, eyes on the mirror.

“Thanks.”

He hesitated, then added, “It’s good to have you back.”

I didn’t answer right away. I dried my hands and stared at the floor. Then I finally said, “I don’t know if I’m really back.”

“You’re here,” he said. “That’s enough.”

I looked at him. For a second, I wanted to believe him.

⸻

I found Cristina in the lounge, half-asleep on the couch with a medical journal covering her face. She didn’t look up when I walked in.

“Long day?” I asked.

“I hate people,” she mumbled.

“Fair.”

I sat beside her. The quiet felt more comfortable than it used to. She shifted the paper off her eyes.

“You and Shepherd playing nice now?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “He’s trying. I think.”

“You still love him?”

I blinked. “I never stopped.”

Cristina hummed like that made sense. “Alex told me he saw Addison crying in the parking lot yesterday.”

I looked at her. “Seriously?”

“She and Derek were fighting. Again. Probably about you.”

I sighed and leaned back. “I didn’t ask for this.”

“I know,” she said. “But it doesn’t matter. You’re still in the middle of it.”

“Do you think I’m crazy if I say I still want him?”

“No,” she said. “I think you’d be crazy if you didn’t.”

⸻

Later that night, I found myself sitting on the bench outside the hospital entrance, hair wet from the rain. I didn’t know what I was waiting for. Maybe nothing. Maybe him.

Footsteps approached. I didn’t have to turn to know it was him.

Derek sat down beside me, not saying anything for a long time.

“You always sit in the rain?” he finally asked.

“Sometimes.”

“Does it help?”

I shrugged. “Not really. But it makes sense. The sky crying and all.”

He laughed quietly. Then it faded. “I meant what I said. In recovery.”

“I know.”

He looked at me. “You didn’t say anything.”

“I couldn’t.”

“Can you now?”

I looked at him. Really looked. The hair, the stubble, the tired eyes that still somehow made me feel like I was the only person in the world when they were on me.

“I want to,” I said. “But I’m still putting myself back together.”

“You don’t have to be whole for me to love you.”

I blinked fast. “You loved me when I was broken. When I was bleeding. Why?”

“Because you didn’t stop fighting,” he said. “Even when it hurt. Even when you hated the world. You stayed.”

Tears burned in my throat. “I don’t know if I can survive another heartbreak.”

“You won’t have to,” he said. “Not from me.”

We sat in silence again. But this time, it wasn’t empty.

It was full.

Of something.

Something that wasn’t quite love yet.

But almost.

And almost was enough for now.

Chapter Text

Recovery is quiet.

No one warns you about that part. They all talk about pain and flashbacks and therapy, but not the way silence stretches between the moments you’re supposed to feel “better.” No one talks about how healing feels like floating in the space between who you were and who you’re trying to become.

I sit on the front steps of my house with a mug of lukewarm tea and the early morning sun slanting across the driveway. It’s quiet. I think I like quiet now.

Alex walks out of the front door behind me, his duffel bag slung over his shoulder. He drops it by the door and stretches, looking around like he’s still not used to living here. Or maybe like he’s trying to convince himself he’s not intruding.

“You sure you’re okay with me staying?” he asks for the third time this week.

“Shut up and go inside,” I say.

He laughs and does exactly that. I hear the fridge open. He’s probably stealing my last yogurt again.

⸻

The hospital looks smaller now. I don’t know how that’s possible.

I’m not on call yet, not back in the pit, not scrubbing in for anything huge, but I show up. I round. I observe. I do the little things. And it’s enough... for now.

I find myself standing outside OR 2, watching Derek scrub in. He hasn’t seen me yet.

The way he stands... shoulders drawn, brows tight with focus, makes my heart ache a little. It’s not a painful kind of ache anymore. It’s quieter. More patient.

“Staring at me again?” he says without turning.

I roll my eyes. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

He looks over his shoulder and smirks. “I wasn’t. But I’ll take it.”

There’s a pause. The kind where something should be said, but both people are scared to break whatever peace they’ve found.

“I missed you,” he finally says.

“I didn’t go anywhere,” I reply.

He looks down. “You did.”

I nod. Because he’s right.

But I’m here now.

⸻

Cristina corners me in the locker room. She’s got a chart in her hand and an expression like she’s been holding something in for way too long.

“I was wrong,” she blurts.

“I know.”

“I didn’t believe you. I didn’t see it. I didn’t want to.”

I take a slow breath. “You weren’t supposed to be perfect.”

“I’m not apologizing again.”

“Good. Because I’m not going to either.”

A beat of silence. Then she tosses the chart aside and says, “You still like tequila?”

“Only if I don’t have to drink it alone.”

She smirks. “Deal.”

⸻

Lexie shows up later that day. She’s flustered, coffee spilled on her lab coat, holding a pile of patient charts she probably doesn’t even need.

“Meredith,” she says breathlessly. “I wanted to... uh, check in.”

“I’m not dying,” I tell her. “You can stop hovering.”

“I’m not hovering,” she says, clearly hovering.

I motion for her to sit beside me in the hallway, just outside the nurses’ station.

For a while, we don’t talk. Just sip our coffee. Listen to the overhead pages. Pretend we’re not both trying to figure out what we are to each other.

Finally, she says, “I used to look you up. On the internet. Before I got here.”

I glance at her.

“You were always just a story to me. A whisper. A warning.”

“I was a lot of things.”

“I’m glad you’re real,” she says quietly.

I don’t know what to do with that. So I just smile.

⸻

Later that night, Derek knocks on the door to my house.

I don’t ask why he’s here. I already know.

He doesn’t say anything at first. Just steps inside, closes the door, and looks at me like he’s trying to remember the version of me he fell in love with—and whether or not I’m still her.

“I’m not broken anymore,” I say, breaking the silence.

“I never thought you were.”

“You left anyway.”

He looks away. “I did.”

“Addison?”

“Gone.”

“Lexie?”

“She’s not Addison.”

He steps closer. “I never stopped loving you.”

I nod. “You don’t have to say that.”

“I know. But it’s true.”

There’s no kiss. Not yet. Just a soft moment where we stand in the middle of my living room, inches apart, both of us knowing this time has to be different.

This time, we build it slow.

This time, we make it last.

Chapter Text

The moment I stepped into Joe’s bar, the low hum of conversation and the scent of spilled beer washed over me like a wave I didn’t know I needed. It felt like a different world from the hospital... less sterile, less suffocating, and oddly comforting.

I spotted Derek at the corner booth, nursing a drink. His eyes lifted when I walked in, and for a second the chaos of everything else faded away.

He smiled, that small, crooked smile I’d memorized over the years. The one that made my heart stop and start all at once.

I slid into the seat across from him, feeling the weight of the day... of the weeks, really, ease off my shoulders.

“How was your day?” I asked, already knowing the answer would be complicated.

He shrugged. “Surgeries, drama, more questions than answers. Same old.”

I laughed softly. “Sounds familiar.”

We talked about everything and nothing... patients, the ridiculous hospital politics, that ridiculous fight Addison and Derek had last week. I noticed the way his eyes flickered toward me when he thought I wasn’t looking, like I was a quiet secret he was finally ready to admit.

And then, almost without thinking, I reached across the table and touched his hand. His skin was warm, steady. No hesitation this time.

“Mer,” he whispered, leaning in.

My breath hitched, heart pounding loud enough to drown out the chatter around us. I leaned closer too.

Our lips met gently at first, a question and an answer all at once.

Then it was more.

Warm. Familiar. A quiet promise that whatever the future held, this moment was ours.

When we finally pulled apart, the whole bar seemed to hold its breath.

I smiled shyly.

Derek smirked. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

I grabbed my coat and followed him into the chilly night air, the promise of something new sparking in my chest.

⸻

At my house, the door closed behind us with a soft click that felt like the start of something bigger.

He looked around, taking in the quiet, the stillness.

“I missed this,” he said softly.

“Me too,” I admitted.

We didn’t rush. No grand declarations. Just small moments, his hand finding mine, the way our shoulders brushed as we moved through the rooms.

I leaned into him, feeling like I was finally home.

We started by kissing.

Then taking our clothes off.

But when he took my pants off, my thighs were exposed.

The 2 words that *he* carved with the scalpel.

I needed it to stop. I was getting memories. The blood mixing inside when he was forcing himself inside of me.

Him bashing my head while he thrusted.

Him throwing a bed ontop of me because I was going unresponsive.

"Derek..." I started.

"It's okay, we can stop." He whispered.

We didn't get dressed again, but I tried hiding myself under the covers.

We layed down in bed, with his arms around me, and me leaning into him.

"I know it's hard having those words... it's okay to be scared. You're not weak."

I leaned closer.

He cuddled me, and slowly, we both fell asleep.

⸻

The next morning, Alex’s laugh broke through the quiet like a trumpet blast.

I groaned as I shuffled into the kitchen, coffee in hand.

“So,” he said, grinning, “you and Derek finally getting a room?”

I shot him a look. “Get a life.”

He just laughed harder, like this was the best thing he’d heard all day.

Lexie walked in behind him, a stack of boxes in her arms and a nervous smile.

“Morning,” she said softly. “I’m moving in today.”

The air shifted.

“Right,” I said, setting down my mug. “The family just keeps getting bigger.”

Lexie smiled again, that hopeful little grin that made me wonder if maybe, just maybe, things were finally going to be okay.

We spent the day unpacking, sorting through boxes, and stealing quiet moments between the chaos.

Lexie was awkward but determined, a little fierce in a way that reminded me of Cristina, before everything went sideways.

Alex was the perfect mix of annoying and supportive, never missing a chance to tease Derek and me but always ready to help when it counted.

Derek and I, well, we just kept finding our way back to each other, one small step at a time.

That night, as I lay in bed, I thought about everything... the pain, the healing, the fights and the laughter.

Maybe family wasn’t just blood or history. Maybe it was the people who stayed when everything else tried to fall apart.

Maybe, finally, I was starting to believe in something better.

Chapter Text

There are three mugs on the counter and only two people awake.

It takes me a second to realize one of them is mine, still warm. Derek must’ve made it. The other two are Lexie’s and Alex’s. Half-empty. One has lipstick on the rim.

I’m not used to sharing my house like this. It used to be mine. Mine and Cristina’s. Then mine and no one’s. Now it’s… loud. Lived in. I think I like it. I’m not sure.

Derek’s sitting at the kitchen table, flipping through a patient file. He looks up when I walk in and smiles.

“You’re up.”

“I never really slept,” I say.

He watches me for a beat. “Nightmares?”

“Not this time.”

He nods, then goes back to the chart. I sit down beside him, holding my coffee close like it might protect me from the rest of the day.

“Big surgeries?” I ask.

“Couple. One is a tumor, frontal lobe. Early stage. Should be clean margins.”

I watch him speak, the way his hands move, the ease of it all. Like the world didn’t just rip me apart and stitch me back together a few weeks ago.

He’s treating me normally. I think I love him more for that.

“I’m on pit duty,” I say. “Bailey says I need to work my way back in.”

“You ready for that?” he asks.

I shrug. “No. But I’m going.”

He leans in, pressing a kiss to my temple before he stands.

“I’ll be around. Just… call me if it gets to be too much.”

I don’t say anything. Just sip my coffee and pretend I didn’t memorize the feeling of his mouth on my skin.

⸻

The pit is a mess.

Kids with broken arms, a woman in labor who refuses to stop screaming, two interns arguing over which patient is theirs, and someone vomiting near curtain three.

I’m home.

Bailey gives me a chart without even looking at me. “Get to work, Grey.”

So I do.

I sew up a scalp laceration, order a CT, and talk a teenager down from a panic attack. It’s muscle memory. My hands remember what to do even when my brain hesitates.

Then I hear the familiar voice behind me.

“I need a consult.”

Cristina.

I turn.

She’s holding an echo report and avoiding my eyes like it might protect her from the guilt she’s still carrying.

“What is it?” I ask.

She finally meets my gaze. “Cardiac tumor. Asymptomatic. They caught it during a pre-op scan.”

We walk together toward the patient’s room. Not speaking.

Not really needing to. That’s the thing about Cristina and me. We don’t need a lot of words. Just the truth. And right now the truth is uncomfortable.

When we’re done, she clears her throat. “Are you still mad at me?”

I don’t answer right away. I don’t know what she wants to hear.

“I think,” I say slowly, “I wanted you to show up before I had to almost die.”

She nods. “Yeah. I know.”

There’s a beat of silence.

“I miss you,” she says.

I don’t say it back. Not because it isn’t true. But because the wounds haven’t scabbed over yet.

We part ways after that. No hug. No dramatic declarations. Just a small, quiet understanding.

That’s what we’re good at, after all.

⸻

Later, I find Derek in the stairwell.

He looks tired. The kind of tired that lives behind your eyes and crawls under your skin.

I sit down beside him.

“Rough case?”

He nods. “Frontal lobe tumor ended up bleeding. Took longer than I thought. But she made it.”

“Good.”

He watches me for a while.

“Cristina?”

I nod.

“Lexie?”

“Settling in.”

“Meredith?” His voice is gentler this time. Closer.

I look at him.

“I’m still here,” I say. “Trying.”

He takes my hand.

“I don’t care how long it takes. You don’t have to be okay right away.”

I rest my head on his shoulder.

For the first time in a long time, I believe him.

⸻

That night, we all sit in the living room.

Alex on the floor, Lexie curled in an armchair with a pile of notes in her lap. Derek and I share the couch. The TV is on, playing some late-night rerun no one’s really watching.

It’s not perfect.

It’s not healed.

But it’s ours.

And for now, that’s enough.

Chapter Text

When I was five, I learned that sometimes adults bleed on purpose.

Not from a scraped knee or a paper cut or a kitchen accident. Not like in cartoons. Real blood. Slow and heavy and deliberate. I learned what it looked like when someone you loved bled because they wanted to disappear.

I don’t remember what I was wearing. I remember the tile on the bathroom floor was cold under my bare feet. I remember Ellis sitting in the tub with her wrists open like it was routine, like brushing her teeth.

She told me not to scream. She told me to wait until she passed out. And I did.

I waited.

Because I was five.

And five-year-olds listen to their mothers.

⸻

I wake up choking on my own breath. My hands are clenched so tight that my nails leave little crescent-shaped dents in my palms. My chest heaves like I’m being crushed.

The room is dark, but not unfamiliar. The hospital. My bed. The machine beside me hums steady, indifferent to the war happening inside my ribs.

Then I hear it. His voice.

“Meredith.”

Derek.

He’s already at my side. His hand hovers over mine but doesn’t touch. I know he’s not sure what I need.

“I’m here,” he says softly.

I can’t speak. I can’t even look at him.

The panic crawls up my throat like acid, fast and violent. I feel five again. I feel the blood on the floor. I feel the helplessness. The silence. The shame.

“I can’t breathe,” I whisper. “I can’t...I can’t...”

“Look at me,” Derek says gently. “Just look at me. You’re not there. You’re safe. You’re right here.”

He kneels beside the bed, closer now, his face tilted so I can see the worry in his eyes. He’s not trying to fix me. Just trying to be here. I latch onto his voice like a lifeline.

“In through your nose,” he says, breathing slowly. “Out through your mouth.”

It takes a few tries. A few stuttered, broken gasps. But eventually my hands stop shaking. Eventually the room stops spinning.

Eventually I am not five years old anymore.

I collapse back against the pillow and close my eyes, exhausted. Derek stays beside me.

“Nightmare?” he asks quietly.

I nod.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.”

He doesn’t push.

We sit in silence for a long time. I don’t know how to say thank you. I don’t know how to say I hate needing people but I’m glad he stayed.

So I just let the silence hold it for me.

⸻

The next morning, Addison comes into the room.

She’s alone. No Bailey. No clipboard. Just her and a tight expression that looks like it’s trying not to be hostile.

“Hi,” she says.

“Hi.”

She stands by the door for a second too long, then slowly makes her way to the foot of the bed.

“I was going to come yesterday,” she says, “but I figured you probably had enough of me.”

I shrug. “You’re not wrong.”

She almost smiles. “I deserved that.”

A beat of quiet.

“I know I’ve been… less than professional,” she admits. “And not exactly kind.”

“Also not wrong,” I mutter.

Addison laughs, but it’s tired. “I’m trying, Meredith. I really am. I don’t know how to be around you without wanting to claw your face off, and that’s not fair to you. Or to me.”

I blink at her. “Thanks, I guess?”

She takes a breath. “What you went through, I can’t imagine. And I’m sorry. For everything.”

I look at her. Really look at her.

Maybe she’s being honest. Maybe she’s not. But something about the way she says it, the way her voice cracks just a little, makes me believe her.

“I don’t hate you,” I say.

She blinks. “That’s… a surprise.”

“I did. For a while. But I don’t now.”

There’s an awkward pause.

“Do you want coffee?” she asks.

“I’m not allowed yet. Still on post-op fluids.”

“Right.”

We both laugh, just barely.

Maybe this is the start of something. Maybe it’s nothing.

But for once, it doesn’t feel like a war.

Just two women in the aftermath of too many battles.

Chapter Text

Ellis Grey was being discharged today.

My mother.

The nurses didn’t make a big deal out of it. There wasn’t a celebration or a goodbye party. Just a quiet note in the system and a transport tech with a wheelchair. They rolled her down the hallway like any other patient, but it still felt like something was shifting in the air.

I stood at the nurse’s station and watched through the window as Richard walked beside her. She didn’t even look at him. She stared straight ahead like she was heading into battle, even though the battle had long since ended. Or maybe she just couldn’t tell the difference anymore.

Bailey stopped next to me. “You gonna say goodbye?”

I shook my head. “No. She said hers years ago.”

Bailey didn’t argue. She just placed a hand on my shoulder and then walked away.

I didn’t cry. I didn’t even flinch. I just turned around and got back to work.

⸻

Derek found me in the locker room after my shift. I was sitting on the bench, still in scrubs, staring at the floor like it had answers.

“Hey,” he said.

I looked up. “Hi.”

“You okay?”

“Define okay.”

He gave a soft laugh and sat next to me. “She’s gone now.”

“I know.”

“What does that feel like?”

I paused. “Like something heavy stopped pressing on my chest. But it also feels empty. She was a hurricane and I’ve spent my whole life in the storm. Now it’s just… quiet.”

Derek nodded. “Quiet can be good.”

I leaned my head on his shoulder. “I want to try. I want to really be with you. But I’m still kind of figuring out who I am outside of all the damage.”

He wrapped an arm around me. “Then let me meet that version of you, one day at a time.”

⸻

Lexie cornered me later that evening, walking briskly toward me with a pile of charts in her arms and pure panic in her eyes.

“Hi. I need help. I don’t know why this guy’s potassium is spiking and I think I might have given the wrong dose of insulin but I double-checked and I didn’t, but I think I did.”

I blinked at her. “Okay. Slow down.”

She practically shoved the chart into my hands.

We stood in the hallway, heads bowed over the file like soldiers strategizing. I walked her through the labs, the meds, the dosage. She hadn’t done anything wrong. The patient just had unstable diabetes and was bouncing between levels. Common. Fixable.

She let out a sigh of relief. “Thank you.”

“You did okay,” I said. “Next time, just breathe before you panic.”

She grinned. “That’s impossible. Breathing is the first thing I forget.”

“You’re not bad, Lexie.”

She blinked. “Was that… a compliment?”

I shrugged. “Maybe.”

Her smile was blinding. “You’re gonna love me eventually, you know.”

“We’ll see.”

⸻

Cristina was waiting for me outside when I left the hospital.

We hadn’t really talked, not deeply, since I’d gotten out. There were glimpses of us again... side comments, shared glances, coffee runs... but nothing solid.

Tonight, she shoved a cup of coffee into my hand and didn’t say anything.

We sat on the hood of her car in silence.

“You miss her?” she asked after a while.

“My mother?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“No. I miss the idea of her. The version of her I made up in my head to survive.”

Cristina nodded like she understood. “I didn’t have to survive mine. I just had to escape her.”

“I think I’m done surviving now,” I said.

She looked over at me. “Good. It’s about time.”

I smiled. “Let’s get drunk and talk about everything except medicine.”

Cristina smirked. “You read my mind.”

⸻

When I got home that night, the porch light was on.

Alex had already moved in. His bags were in the hallway. His shoes were kicked off near the couch. A half-eaten pizza box was on the coffee table.

“Hey,” he called from the kitchen. “There’s beer.”

I laughed. “There’s always beer.”

He walked out with two bottles and tossed me one. “You still cool with me staying?”

“Yeah. I like the company.”

“Good. ’Cause Cristina is loud and Lexie talks too much.”

“And yet, you love them.”

He grinned. “Maybe.”

I sank onto the couch next to him, stretched my legs out, and for the first time in a very long time, I felt okay.

Not fixed. Not healed.

But okay.

And that was enough.

Chapter Text

The on-call room was too quiet.

I had slept there so many times, back when things were messier... when Derek and I were a secret, when everything was pain and skin and trying to feel something. But this time, I was just hiding from the rain.

There was a knock on the door, and I already knew who it was before I even looked.

Derek stepped inside like he belonged there. Maybe he did.

“You paged me,” I said.

“You left your coat downstairs. I figured that was code.”

I gave a half-smile and pulled my knees up to my chest. “Not everything is code.”

“No,” he said, sitting down on the edge of the bed. “But sometimes it is.”

We sat in silence for a second.

“I can’t do almost,” I said finally. “I can’t do secret again. I don’t want to be the person you meet halfway in elevators or after shifts. I want all of it or none of it.”

“I filed the papers weeks ago,” he said. “Addison and I… it’s over. It’s really over.”

“I know. You told me.”

“I’m telling you again.”

I looked at him, eyes searching. “Are you sure about this?”

He leaned forward, not touching me, just there. Close. “I’ve never been more sure of anything.”

I closed the distance. His hand was on my cheek, his mouth on mine, and this time it wasn’t desperate or painful or about forgetting anything. This time, it was a beginning.

When I pulled back, I whispered, “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“We’re doing this.”

He smiled. “We are.”

⸻

Lexie’s first solo assist in the OR was a big one.

Not solo-solo, obviously. Bailey was there. Cristina was too, which almost made me nervous for her.

But she held her ground.

Three hours into a bowel resection, Lexie corrected a minor bleed before Bailey even opened her mouth. Cristina nodded — a rare, subtle gesture that meant everything in Grey Sloan language.

Later, I caught Lexie in the scrub room. She looked like she was about to pass out.

“I didn’t faint,” she blurted out.

“You didn’t.”

“I kept holding the suction even though I thought I was going to die.”

“You didn’t,” I repeated.

“I think I’m going to throw up now.”

I handed her a towel. “You get used to it.”

She looked at me. “You’re proud of me.”

I didn’t say yes, but I didn’t say no either. She got the message.

⸻

Cristina found me in the stairwell later that night. She always finds me in stairwells.

“You and McDreamy, huh?”

I raised an eyebrow. “Are we back to calling him that?”

“I’m not calling him anything else until I trust him again.”

“I think I trust him.”

Cristina took a long sip of coffee. “Well. If he breaks you again, I’ll remove his spine in his sleep.”

“Fair.”

“You’re not that broken anymore though.”

That caught me off guard.

“Yeah?” I said.

“Yeah. You’ve got sharp edges again. You’re not dissolving. It’s nice.”

I smiled. “It’s good to be back.”

⸻

When I got home that night, Alex was asleep on the couch with a surgery textbook on his chest and the TV still playing some crime show.

Lexie was curled up in the guest room, notes all over the floor.

And I was in my bed, my own bed, under my own blankets, with a life that didn’t feel like it was caving in.

Maybe tomorrow it would. Maybe there’d be trauma or blood or heartbreak.

But tonight, I was okay.

Tonight, I had people.

Tonight, I had Derek.

And I wasn’t afraid anymore.

Chapter Text

The smell of garlic bread fills the kitchen. Lexie has burned it. Again.

I hear Alex swearing at her from across the room, Cristina yelling that she’s going to take over, and Derek trying to play mediator while fanning smoke away from the oven. I should step in. I should tell them to calm down or just order pizza.

But I stay leaning against the wall for a second longer. Watching.

It’s chaos. The good kind. The kind that doesn’t carry grief or regret. The kind that doesn’t break you. The kind that lets you breathe.

For the first time in a long time, this house doesn’t feel haunted. The air isn’t heavy anymore. It smells like food and bad wine and comfort.

It smells like home.

⸻

Cristina practically slams the tray of pasta onto the table. “Some of us know how to cook without lighting things on fire,” she says.

“I was trying,” Lexie mutters.

“You shouldn’t try again,” Alex says, grinning as he reaches for a plate.

Derek gives me a look across the table. His eyes are soft, warm. Like he’s been waiting to look at me like this again.

He sits beside me. Close. Familiar.

I don’t move away.

The table isn’t fancy. It’s scratched in the corner where Cristina once dropped a scalpel. One leg is slightly uneven. The dishes don’t match. The food is mediocre at best. But it’s the best dinner I’ve had in months.

Because we’re all here. Laughing. Eating. Breathing.

Alex is telling some story about an intern fainting during a liver resection, and Cristina interrupts to say that it’s only impressive if you make the intern cry too. Lexie is laughing so hard she nearly chokes on her wine. Derek looks over at me like he’s seeing all of it the way I am.

It’s not perfect. It’s messy.

But it’s ours.

⸻

Later, when the dishes are stacked in the sink and the wine is half gone, Alex raises his glass.

“To Meredith,” he says, nodding toward me. “For still being here. For not letting everything break you completely. For surviving.”

Cristina rolls her eyes. “That was weirdly emotional. Are you dying?”

“Shut up,” Alex mutters, taking a sip.

Lexie looks over at me. “You’re the strongest person I know.”

I shake my head, smiling a little. “I’m not strong. I’m just stubborn.”

Derek watches me. He doesn’t say anything, not yet. But the way he looks at me says it all.

After a while, they start drifting away. Cristina claims the couch. Lexie curls up with a blanket in the corner. Alex grabs an extra pillow and stretches out on the floor. They all start to fade into that soft post-laughter silence.

I step outside.

⸻

The porch is cool and still. The air smells like pine and the rain from earlier. The wind brushes against my bare arms. I stare up at the stars.

Inside, I hear soft voices. Derek steps out a minute later and closes the door behind him.

“Hey,” he says quietly.

“Hey.”

We stand in silence for a while.

“I missed this,” he says.

“Burnt garlic bread and Cristina yelling?”

He smiles. “All of it.”

He moves closer, until our shoulders are almost touching.

“I meant what I said. At the hospital,” he adds.

“I know.”

“I’m sorry it took me so long to say it.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t say it back,” I tell him.

He glances at me. “You don’t have to.”

“I want to.”

The silence between us shifts. It’s not tense anymore. It’s full of everything we haven’t said, everything we were afraid to believe we could still have.

“I still love you,” he says.

I look at him.

“I never stopped,” he adds. “Even when I tried to. Even when I picked Addison. Even when you pushed me away.”

“I still love you too,” I say. “Even when it hurt. Even when I thought I shouldn’t.”

We’re quiet again.

Then he reaches for my hand. I let him.

He holds it gently, like he’s scared I might vanish again.

I don’t.

I stay.

⸻

Back inside, Lexie is asleep on the couch. Alex is snoring. Cristina is muttering in her sleep about blood loss and suction.

Derek walks me upstairs. The floorboards creak. Everything feels so normal it’s surreal.

I close my bedroom door behind us and sit on the edge of the bed. He stays standing.

“I’m not broken,” I say, looking at him.

“I know.”

“I’m still healing. I still have nightmares. But I don’t want to run anymore.”

“Then stay,” he says.

I nod.

He leans in and kisses me. Not urgently. Not desperately.

Just enough.

Enough to say this is real. That we made it through the worst parts. That this time, we’re not pretending.

He stays with me that night. We don’t do anything. We don’t need to.

We just sleep. Finally.

⸻

In the morning, sunlight leaks through the curtains. I wake up to the sound of laughter downstairs. Lexie’s voice. Cristina’s. Alex teasing someone about snoring.

Derek is still beside me, eyes closed, one arm thrown across the pillow between us.

I slip out of bed and stand by the window.

This time last year, I wasn’t sure I wanted to live. I wasn’t sure I could. I was drowning in silence and trauma and everything I never said out loud.

Now, I have a house full of people who stayed.

I have a sister who forgave me. A friend who fought her way back into my life. A man who chose me. A family that doesn’t look like the one I was born into, but one I built myself.

And I have me.

Wounded. Recovering. Real.

Alive.

I walk downstairs and step out onto the porch again. This time, I’m not escaping. I’m just watching.

Watching my people laugh.

Watching the sun rise.

Watching a life I never thought I’d get to keep unfold around me.

I smile to myself.

I’m home.

⸻

The End.