"Son of a bitch!" The only male voice in the house exclaimed. After George's Dad had died, he and Callie had gone on vacation somewhere. The girls didn't know where all George had said in his quick phone call that he was taking sometime off. They just figured he needed some time to cope about the loss of his dad. Meanwhile, at 10:03 am on a Sunday morning, Derek Shepherd was trying to put together his unborn son's crib.
Of course, trying was the definitive word. It was one of those rare days that both Meredith and Derek had off without having to ask for it. As most people would do, Meredith took the opportunity to catch up some much needed sleep however, Derek decided he'd face the day head on. Along with some more cursing, he exclaimed yet again, "The number three bolt!? There is no number three bolt!? Agh!" Derek had become so loud that he finally awoke Meredith from her slumber.
Opening her eyes slowly, she focused in on the clock on the night stand. It was 10:13 now. Groaning, she threw the sheets off of her and went to go find what all the fuss was about. Her first instinct was to go downstairs but the sounds were too close to be coming from down there. So, she made her way through the hallway until she arrived at the room that would become the nursery. Her eyes widened at the site she beheld. The room had been cleared of all of her mother's things and Derek was now attempting to put together the crib they had bought only a week earlier.
"What the hell are you doing?" She questioned.
"I'm trying to put this damn thing together." He said while trying to screw some pieces together.
She sat down beside him and picked up the assembling instructions and glanced at them before commenting, "Oh, so now it's that damn thing when last week you were raving about how perfect it was." She teased him.
Sighing, he took the instructions from Meredith and compared them to what he had screwed together. It still didn't look right. "No, the bedding is perfect it's this that's evil." He motioned at the unassembled crib.
She looked around at the empty room, "What did you do with all of my Mom's things that were in here?"
He ran his fingers through his hair while concentrating on the instructions in front of him, "I moved them to the attic."
She looked at him curiously, "And you did all of this when?"
Throwing the instructions down on the floor, he lied down on his back, "I got up around seven and since everything was already packed up in boxes it didn't take that long."
"I'm surprised I didn't hear you before now." She said.
"Well, I'm surprised that you heard me when you did over your snoring."
Meredith glared at him, "You can't complain anymore I got you those wax earplugs."
He laughed, "True but just because you can't hear the sound doesn't mean it's not there. Sort of like the tree in the forest."
Leaning back to lie on the floor next to him, Meredith turned on her side and placed her hand on his chest, "Don't think for a minute that you're going to be able to use those earplugs to get out of waking up in the middle of the night to tend to the baby."
"You don't have to worry about that. Although you probably should be concerned that your snoring is keeping Adam awake in there." He said the name in hesitation.
Recently, Derek had been concentrating heavily on the baby name book since they found out they were having a boy. He had went through and circled some of the names he liked and Adam was the first one to pop into his head, probably because it was first on the list of his favorite names.
Propping herself up on her elbow, she raised an eyebrow, "Adam?"
Derek shrugged, "I was just trying it out. Why? You don't like it?"
She groaned a little, "Eh, not really, it reminds me of Adam Sandler."
"The comedian? What's that got to do with naming our son?" He questioned.
"Everything, I don't want to be reminded of Adam Sandler every time I say our baby's name." Meredith justified.
Looking at her in disbelief, he replied, "Somehow, I think that the last thing you'll be thinking about when he comes is Adam Sandler."
Lying back down beside him, she said, "Probably, but I still don't like the name."
He put his arm around her and they both stared up at the ceiling, "What name do you like then?"
She shrugged, "I don't know but definitely not Adam."
"So, I guess we can mark Adam off the list. That only leaves the rest of the list of boys' names." He replied sarcastically.
"Don't be a smart ass. I'm definitely not going to go the celebrity route and name my kid Rainbow or something."
In a joking tone of voice, he exclaimed, "Seriously? You don't like Rainbow? I think it has a nice ring to it, Rainbow Shepherd. And, it definitely won't get him made fun of when he goes to school."
Playfully punching him, she replied, "Oh, shut up!" In response, he kissed her. Things were going better than they had in a long while for the two.
While things were going great for Meredith, things were about to take a turn for the worse. It was the next day and Meredith was trekking down the halls of her mother's nursing home early in the morning. She saw one of the nurses outside of her mother's room. Something was wrong or at least that's the feeling Meredith got when the nurses called her that morning. They didn't say that anything was wrong just that she needed to get down here immediately. A myriad of things went through her head as she proceeded to get closer to the nurse – she had a fight with one of the nurses and they were going to kick her out or she was threatening to kill herself. Or maybe she was dead. When she finally reached the nurse, Meredith saw that she had a confused expression on her face. Looking into the small window, Meredith watched as her mother paced around the room; it was nothing unusual.
Then, the nurse dropped the bomb, "She woke up this morning completely aware. She's her old self. It happens. Medically we don't know why. It's just a random gift."
"She's lucid? She remembers?" Meredith asked in awe.
The nurse nodded, "Pretty much everything except the last five years and of course she doesn't realize she has Alzheimer's. We thought she should hear it from you."
She couldn't believe this, "She'll know me? I'm going to walk in there and she'll know who I am?"
All Meredith could manage was to ask questions. Something like this was rare and she definitely didn't expect it to happen to her mother.
The nurse looked at Meredith with an all knowing expression, "She's been asking for you."
Finally, Meredith had the time to try to digest all this. Her mother was lucid and wanted to see her. After a few moments, the nurse left Meredith alone while she stared at her mother. Undoubtedly, Ellis Grey knew she was standing there but Meredith wasn't ready to face her yet. Usually, in circumstances like this, the child's first thoughts is how to tell their parent they have Alzheimer's but in Meredith's case her first thoughts were how was her mother going to react that she was unmarried, pregnant and an intern. Turning her back to the window, Meredith leaned against the wall and sighed. She knew she couldn't stay out here much longer. Meredith was now in her twenty first week of her pregnancy just a little over halfway through and she could no longer hide that she was pregnant anymore even with the looser maternity clothes. Luckily, she had worn her black coat today and the color black did minimize her ever expanding stomach. Maybe her mother would be so upset about what was going on she really wouldn't notice.
Meredith thought that was probably a bad thing to think about but she didn't even know how she was going to mention it when her mother wasn't lucid but now she had no idea what to do. She just figured that eventually she would have told her mother that she was pregnant and that she was going to be a grandmother. Of course, she probably would have either ignored Meredith or told her to stop playing make believe and concentrate on her school work because her mother still thought she was five years old. At least Meredith was prepared for those responses. This was a whole other ballgame.
Taking a deep breath, she entered the room. She made sure her coat was buttoned up and she put her hands in her pockets and sort of held the jacket outward. She figured that it couldn't hurt. Walking over to the bed, she sat on the edge and looked up at her mother. She hadn't been this nervous since she got caught in her bedroom with her high school boyfriend and was waiting for her mother to come back up the stairs to yell at her after throwing him out.
But, now, thankfully her mother was looking her in the eye and seemed very distressed, "Meredith, what is going? When did you get back from Europe?" The elder Grey's words seemed to string together.
Keeping eye contact with her mother, Meredith tried to calmly tell her mother what was going on, "I went to Europe for two months...but that was-"
Her mother sat on the bed and Meredith's pulse raced. Ellis Grey continued, "I've been sitting here thinking about the fight we had. Things I said I-I said some terrible things."
She had indeed said some terrible things but that was five years ago and a lot had changed since then and right now it was the last thing that was important in this situation. Meredith tried to reassure her, "That's fine."
But Ellis wouldn't have any of it, "No, it's not. After you left I was upset..." She took several shallow breaths, "Did I have a breakdown? I must've had a nervous breakdown. I'm in a...Is this a hospital?" She motioned at her room.
Although she remained calmed on the outside Meredith was freaking out inwardly, it was now time to drop the bomb to her mother about her having Alzheimer's. Her mother was still ranting, "Because I can't remember anything about the last two months, Meredith. The last thing I remember is the fight we had."
Her mother was freaking out; it was quite a sight to behold for she had never seen her mother act like this. "And listen to me, if you don't want to go to medical school that is fine. It is your life. Just-Just take me home."
Ellis Grey was pleading with her daughter and that's when Meredith knew it was now or never, "I went to medical school."
Interrupting yet again, her mom still pleaded, "I want to go home. I need to go home." She looked into Meredith's eyes for an answer.
Taking a small pause, she dived right in, "You are home. I went to Europe five years ago. You got sick."
Ellis' face became paled and horrified. "You have Alzheimer's. This is your home. You live here now."
Meredith put as gently as she could but her mother started to breakdown. At first, Dr. Grey couldn't speak but then she managed out a soft no before exclaiming no in utter horror. That must have pushed her over the edge because she began to shake and began to fall to the floor. Immediately, Meredith rushed to her side and called out for someone to call 911.