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Meredith stands outside the daycare, and for a moment, she thinks about just taking Zola. She could. Very few people know she's been fired, and fewer still know that Derek ... left her - full of righteous indignation and fury. Oh, maybe it's a separation. Maybe it won't be a real divorce. Maybe he'll come back. Maybe if she begs - again. Pick me, choose me, love me. Like you promised you would.
(All the times you forgave him, a voice that sounds like Cristina says in the back of her head. And he left you?)
So few people know. Meredith could just walk in there and take Zola.
But ... that would be foolish. She wouldn't get far; they'd catch up to her eventually.
More importantly - it would be selfish - and doesn't she want to avoid the sins of her mother?
So Meredith gives Zola one last aching goodbye in her heart, and she turns to go.
~*~
"I'll be frank with you, Dr. Grey," The social worker says. "I've talked to your colleagues. This kind of behavior with you and Dr. Shepherd doesn't seem to be out of the ordinary."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"It means that while your colleagues seem to think it's encouraging that you will make up again, I worry it establishes a pattern of making up and breaking up that is frankly unhealthy for any child to grow up in."
~*~
Maybe the social worker is right.
Maybe the hospital board is right, and she doesn't belong here.
Either way, Meredith knows that if she stays, every time she walks past the daycare, her heart will grieve the child she almost had, the man she had been foolish enough to forgive the way he couldn't forgive her, and the career that may never recover from the damage she has caused it.
So she picks up a phone and calls an old friend.
~*~
"Well," Addison says - one thousand miles and three days later, as she opens the door - "You must be the woman having an existential crisis and causing every doctor in Seattle to blow up my phone."
"Every doctor?" Meredith scoffs doubtfully.
"To be fair... I only care about the opinions of ... four of them... and that's being generous," Addison retorts, and she smiles so warm and bright that Meredith suddenly realizes that the fact that Derek could ever let this go was the reddest of all red flags.
Addison opens the door wider and gestures for her to come in; Meredith does, because her days of making bad decisions have come to an end.