Baby Grey (Grey's Anatomy) ABANDONED

One hundred and twenty five

Erin frowned slightly.

"I don't think I can have a favourite. I love all four of my sisters. But my least favourite would be Molly. I barely know her," Erin said.

Erin thought for a few seconds.

"I don't know Maggie as well as I know you or Mer. And Mer raised me, so I think of her as more of my real mom than anything. And Derek always used to say that Meredith thought of me as her first kid. But you are right. We're both very similar. Both of us have lost kids, we've both hit rock bottom in different ways, we've both fucked shit up more times than we can count on our hands. We all bond in very different ways," Erin said.

Amelia kissed her temple, squeezing her for a few seconds before pulling back. She wiped Erin's tears, then her own.

"Enough emotional talk. We have to get coffee and be superheroes this afternoon," Amelia said.

"Here's to being superheroes," Erin said, leading Amelia down the hallway.

"How's it going, superwoman?" Richard knocked on the door of the lab that night.

Erin looked up from the charts she was reading over at the desk, looking exhausted. Her hair was piled up into a messy ponytail with strands pulled free for her to tug on when she was trying to concentrate, and her eyes had grey bags underneath them. Her bottom lip was chewed within half an inch of it's life, the taste of copper lingering on her tongue.

It was well past midnight, nearing three am, and Erin had insisted Arizona take the kids home with Meredith and Maggie. Amelia had a patient, so she was pulling an overnighter with Erin, who was monitoring Lydia and her new growing organs and would be for the next six weeks.

"It's... going?" Erin said weakly.

"Wanna take a walk?" Richard said.

"I need to keep working," Erin said, turning back towards the research.

"You need to take a break. Come back with fresh eyes," Richard said. "Come on. Let's get some juju."

"Sure," Erin sighed.

She stood up and tucked her phone into her pocket, following Richard out of the room. They stopped and grabbed hot chocolate from the cafeteria before heading outside near the memorial garden.

It was April time, so it was still warm outside and the soft glow of the hospital lights illuminated the garden enough that they could see where they were going.

"Have you visited Quinn lately?" Richard asked.

Erin frowned as she thought about when she last visited Quinn, stomach sinking with the realisation.

"No. Last time was my wedding," Erin said. "Makes me a bad mom, right?" she laughed weakly. "I'm so wrapped up in my job that I've barely seen my living kids and I haven't visited the grave of my dead kid in, what, three or four years."

"You're not a bad mother. Life gets in the way sometimes. We all understand that," Richard said.

Erin didn't respond. She turned her head to the side, chewing on the inside of her cheek as she tried to stop the lump in her throat from getting worse.

"Would you like to go and see her?" Richard said.

"Okay," Erin said.

They walked over to Quinn's tree and sat down on the bench, sipping on their hot chocolates quietly.

"You know, whenever I need to think and be on my own for a while, this is where I come," Richard said.

That made Erin feel worse. Her fingers tightened around the cup of hot chocolate and she looked at Richard with a frown. He had probably visited her dead daughter's grave more than Erin had. And she was fine with him visiting, why would she not be? She was just upset at the fact she'd almost started to forget about her first child because of how busy her life was, now.