Imperfect Dinner

chapter 8

 "Oh my God, your turn!", Meredith cheered a little too excited, caused by the four glasses of wine in her system.

"Here, read.", the blonde rolled her eyes and gave her friend the phone, not in the mood to do it herself, because nobody ever wanted anything important from her around that time of the day. And as always, maybe she should have been more careful with that assumption.

"Hey Teddy, the deal with the estate agent is final and you could buy the house in Germany for 250000 euro. I couldn't talk him into decreasing the price further, but I mean, you saw it when I filmed the rooms during the tour he gave me. This is amazing, especially for a family of four like you are. I guess it's time for you to talk to Owen about it. Smooches, Sandy.", the general surgeon read the message.

"Oh no! No! No! No! No! No! No!", Teddy whined and hit her forehead with her own hand. During the evening, she had totally forgotten that her German friend wanted to update her on the house deal today.

"Wait, what?", Owen asked in disbelief. "Why the heck would a Sandy from Germany message you about a house deal?"

"Wow, the tea is piping hot today.", Carina judged and drank some more wine. She had definitely been surprised with all the secrets, which were exposed this evening.

"Doesn't matter anymore anyway, so why would you care?", the cardio surgeon asked her ex-boyfriend and shrugged.

"Why would I care? Teddy, you just got a message about a house in another country on a different continent!", the redhead repeated. "What the hell were you thinking? You can't just decide something this huge for our family! Especially when my son's mother is living here in Seattle!"

"Are you really arguing about that right now, because it concerns Leo or because you're in love with Amelia and don't wanna be away from her?", Teddy challenged him.

"Both would be my guess.", Tom interfered, taking another bite of his lasagna.

"If even.", his ex-girlfriend kind of agreed. "And that is exactly why I planned on moving back to Germany. With you, you know? I wanted us to start over and I am pretty sure that if it was for Amelia, she would've allowed it, because other than you, she cares about Leo more than about herself."

"Well, easy to assume something like that, as long as the child's mother doesn't get to know he's referring to her as such. Just saying.", Maggie meddled into the conversation.

"Maggie! Leave her alone.", Andrew warned his ex-girlfriend in shock. She was definitely a handful when drunk.

"Would you please say something?", Owen asked Amelia as he shook his head at what Teddy had done without waiting to hear his opinion.

"I don't know what to say.", the brunette mumbled. She was feeling a lot of things at the moment. "Like, yes we can sit here and judge Teddy for making decisions about our son. Yes, all of us can attack her about the fact that she didn't tell me about my position in Leo's life until this evening. But how about, we give her a chance of explaining herself first? Because honestly, I do understand how it feels to be insecure about losing the life you built."

"Thank you!", Teddy sighed, as tears ran down her cheeks. The neurosurgeon softly stroked her arm in support. "I know you don't think what I did was right either. Please don't understand her wrong.", she added, so the others wouldn't start fighting Amelia, too.

"Well, take your time and tell us what made you look for a house in Germany.", Link suggested to the blonde, who nodded.

"I feel like when I re-moved here, I tried to forget why I moved away these few years ago in the first place. And it worked in the beginning, because I was pregnant with the baby of the man, who I thought was the love of my life. But what I didn't really expect was that he had already created a family with another woman. A woman, I saw him with for a few days. A woman, who in my opinion hadn't ever truly cared about him the way I did.", the cardio surgeon started sadly, ashamed of herself.

"Why would you have the right to judge what Amelia and I had?", Owen wanted to know angrily.

"I didn't, I know that. But when you were in Germany, you told me how you loved me, that you wanted to build a life with me and I had your baby inside of my belly, so excuse me for wanting to live this dream.", Teddy shot back. "Anyway, Betty went missing and was pretty troublesome for the both of you, so I tried to help. Meanwhile, this wonderful man was there for me throughout my pregnancy and I was so sure that he was the answer. That if I was with Tom, I could get over Owen."

"Did you ever have any feelings for me?", Tom showed his vulnerable side, as he was still so in love with the blonde.

"I did...just not as many as I had for Owen. And when he and Amelia finally broke up, it didn't take long for her to move on with Link and for Owen to tell me, he had been in love with me. By the way, great to know that all of this was a lie.", Teddy explained.

"And then you wanted to savor what you finally had with moving away from Seattle to not lose it again in all this craziness.", Amelia finished for her friend, looking at her plate.

"I am sorry for who I thought you were, Amelia. I just wanted to be with Owen.", the blonde whispered.

"I am sorry, too. For what I've done to you.", the redhead finally apologized to his ex-girlfriend. "And to you too, Amelia. All of the time you were worried about losing me to Teddy, that when you broke up with me, I thought she and I were, like you always said, meant to be. What you felt, was something she didn't have to feel, because you were with another man and she didn't have to worry. But you believed I'd leave you for her, when in reality I just left her for you.", he realized. "And that is one of the many reasons, why you are the love of my life. If we hadn't separated the way we did a few months ago, then I have no doubt, that we were still a couple."

"Uhh, hello?!", Jo interfered, drunkenly pointing to her best friend on her left, who the trauma surgeon had completely forgotten about during his speech.

"You are so keen on getting her back, it is annoying!", Link rolled his eyes.

"Can we concentrate on the topic at hand, please?", Meredith suggested.

"I will move back to Germany and I want to take Allison with me.", Teddy announced to her ex-boyfriend. "I don't want to stand in the middle of you and Amelia, if the both of you decide to somehow make it work. But I think that we should talk about that tomorrow or on Sunday, when we are sober again."

"Maybe you are invisible to them?", Alex mused, talking to Atticus, who still remained ignored.

"Probably.", the ortho surgeon nodded.

"Well, that was a shocker for all of us. I feel like it is time for more wine.", Tom shared and stood up to fill all the glasses with the red poison again.

"I survived the party until now and I didn't drink anything but water.", Amelia reminded her ex-mentor and chuckled.

"As we were able to determine during this rather weird and surprising dinner, you are for sure a force of nature, Shepherd.", her friend noted.

"Not again!", Andrew cursed, seeing his display lit up once more. "Lincoln, feel free to take a look. I trust you the most out of all the drunk people here."

"Hello?", Carina, Maggie, Meredith and Amelia exclaimed at the same time, causing the DeLuca to laugh.

"It's just Cross.", Link calmed his buddy. "He wants to meet you tomorrow to study.", he read the message.

"Thank God!", Andrew happily sighed.

"Cross...and God...that is funny!", Maggie giggled, making everyone at the table laugh, too.