A month had passed since Meredith had surgery to reattach the baby's placenta. Not long after the surgery, her mother died. Derek had become greatly concerned that this would put more stress on her pregnancy and that was the last thing she needed. However, Meredith seemed to take Ellis' death in stride. She had decided to forgo a funeral and had her mother cremated. Claiming that it was what her mother would have wanted, Derek and some of her friends doubted this. However, Ellis did seem to be an extreme version of Cristina and probably would have thought having a funeral would have been a waste of time when people could have been in surgery.
But whatever the case, no one argued with Meredith because one, she didn't need the stress of a funeral, two, funerals cost a lot of money and three, Meredith had been put on bed rest for a month to ensure that the placenta didn't un-attach again.
Upon having a placental abruption, not only was she put on bed rest except to use the bathroom and shower, but she had to visit her OB/GYN every week for the rest of the pregnancy to make sure everything was on schedule developmentally. Meredith was now considered as having a high risk pregnancy. After her latest appointment, her doctor told her that she could go back to work but not to overexert herself. Of course, being a doctor, that would be difficult to do. But, she was more than ready to go back to work. Most people consider being able to lie in bed all the time a great luxury but after a week straight Meredith got bored and antsy. However, she did her best to do as the doctor ordered. She didn't want to go through another scare of losing the baby again. So, during her time off when everyone else was at work, Meredith had begun shopping online for baby things. There was an ulterior motive to buying things online; she was able to get up and answer the door when the delivery man arrived. She always justified it by saying that she couldn't just let delivery man leave her son's things outside and she wasn't going to have the man ring the door bell five hundred times either.
The nursery was actually near complete now. One weekend that Derek had off, he had painted the room in a pale blue color that matched the color of the ferry boat bedding that they had bought earlier. And, Meredith had bought a dresser, changing table, and rocking chair that matched the wood finish of the crib. There were several small things that she lacked. She needed to buy more outfits, a car seat, a baby monitor, stroller and etc. While the nursery was getting completed, there were still things left unfinished, namely Derek's mother.
After Meredith was discharged from the hospital, Derek decided that he should at least let his family know what was going on. He purposely called his mother at a time when he knew she wouldn't be home. Even though knowing it was kind of mean of him, Derek still didn't want to directly talk to her after her visit.
So, his message went something like this, "Mom, it's Derek. I just thought I'd let you and the others know that Meredith had a placental abruption and we almost lost the baby."
He hung up after those two sentences. Needless to say, later that day he got calls from all of his sisters and his mother. Hearing that they almost lost a nephew and a grandchild respectively, their harsh criticism over the situation turned to concern and somewhat acceptance. Derek's mother of course wanted to come out and help but he reminded her of how Meredith didn't need any stress and considering what had happened the last time they met Derek refused her offer. Plus, Derek didn't like how it took almost losing the baby to have her want to be apart of his new life. So, he told her that maybe in a few months or when the baby was born that she could come out again.
Today was finally Meredith's first day back after the accident. She trudged down the stairs into the kitchen to find a hearty breakfast on a tray and Derek cleaning up. Turning around when he heard her, he asked, "What are you doing up? I was going to give you breakfast in bed."
Sitting down at the island, she took the plate off the tray, "I have been in bed for a month straight. I don't want to be in it any longer than I have to now."
"I just didn't want you to over exert yourself." Derek looked at her concerned.
Smirking, she replied, "I think I can manage walking down the stairs without over exerting myself. Besides, Dr. Gallagher cleared me for work so I think going down the stairs is minor in the grand scheme of things."
Meredith began eating the bacon on front of her when Derek commented, "I just worry about you and Michael."
In between bites, Meredith raised her eyebrows, "Michael? No way. There was this bastard that I dated in high school that cheated on me and dumped me a week before prom. To this day, every time I heard that name it reminds me of him so we are not naming our son that."
Raising his hands up in defeat, he conceded, "Alright, no Michael then but do you have any suggestions?"
Meredith hesitated before she spoke, "Well, I've kind been contemplating the name Jamie."
Looking at her incredulously, Derek quickly dismissed the idea, "It's kind of feminine, don't you think?"
"It's a gender neutral name!" Meredith insisted.
"You know the first thing you thing you think of when you hear the name Jamie is a female." Derek countered back.
At this moment, Alex, who recently had moved in since George had gotten married, walked into the kitchen and began to rummage through the refrigerator. Derek decided that he would prove his point to Meredith, "Alex, when you hear the name Jamie what's the first thing that you think of?"
Taking the orange juice out and pouring himself a glass, he replied, "I don't know. Some chick, hopefully a hot one."
"See! What did I tell you?" Derek said triumphantly.
"Alright, we won't name him Jamie. But, seriously, Derek we need to come up with a name."
"We will. We still have a few more months." He assured her. "By the way, with all of this time you've had off all you could think of was Jamie?" He asked.
She sighed in frustration, "Well, I want the name to be perfect for him. And I don't want to saddle him with something that he'll hate for the rest of his life."
"Well, don't worry about it right now." He said as he looked at his watch, "We better get a move on it. You don't want to be late for your first day back."
Nodding, Meredith finished off her breakfast and proceeded to get ready for the day.
At Seattle Grace, the five interns had arrived in the locker room to get changed into their scrubs. As per usual, someone was complaining about some aspect of their lives and today it was Izzie. She was going on and on about Alex moving into the house and how George would be left homeless after his 'loveless' marriage crashed and burned. At least she managed to shut up about it right before George arrived. When George did finally arrive, he asked Meredith a question that was on everyone else's minds, "How are you doing?"
Sighing, determination filled her voice, "Ok, everybody, let's do this once. I'm fine. She's cremated. I picked out a beautiful urn and she's hanging out in the back of my closet. And, the baby's healthy. I wouldn't have been able to go back to work if he wasn't. Now, any more questions about my dead mother or unborn child? Or can we get back to work?"
After a brief discussion over who the outside candidate for chief would be, Bailey came in to give the interns their assignments, "O'Malley: you're with Shepherd today. Yang: Dr. Montgomery, Stevens: to the clinic, Karev: Jane Doe, Grey: scut."
Sighing once more, Meredith countered, "Once again, I'm fine."
Bailey rolled her eyes, "You can tell everybody that you're fine until you're blue in the face. You're Mom died and your baby almost joined her. You're taking it easy. You can't just come off a month's worth of bed rest and jump right back into things." She instructed Meredith before she swaggered out of the locker room leaving Meredith to accept the situation.
After spying on the new chief candidate and his rather 'touchy' reunion with Cristina, Izzie and Meredith were walking down one of the hospital corridors to their respective assignments.
"What are you doing tonight?" Izzie said as she ate an apple, "Because I don't want to go home and find Alex there and it's just the two of us and all weird and awkward. And he doesn't know if he should talk to me or not talk to me. This is such an awkward situation. I rather it be group awkwardness, you know."
As Izzie continued to ramble, Meredith spotted her father and step mother in front of her and quickly escaped into a nearby closet to avoid them. Izzie, confused, looked around for her roommate, "Meredith?"
She didn't have enough time to figure out where she went before Cristina approached her asked, "Have you seen Montgomery?"
"No." Then she got a bright idea, "Hey, what're you doing tonight!? Want to come over? You and I never really get a chance to hang out." Her beeper started to go off and that was when Cristina saw Collin Marlow approaching and quickly entered the same closet as Meredith.
Continuing to rant about Alex moving in, Izzie looked around to see that Cristina had disappeared as well, "What the hell?"
Meanwhile inside the closet, Meredith claimed her territory, "This is my hiding spot! My father's out there. Go somewhere else." She motioned towards the door.
Of course Cristina wasn't about to leave either, "I need the closet Meredith!"
Meredith pushed Cristina's buttons, "Collin Marlow!"
Cristina sighed, "Yes, he was my professor. We were close."
Meredith began criticizing her, "He had his hand on your ass. I sure hope you were close." Her criticism soon turned to teasing however, "You were that girl, huh? The girl who slept with the professor. We had one in my class. She only got to the radiologist though. No one got near the cardio god."
Cristina, clearly uncomfortable with the situation, responded, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I scored big. You know, hide in the bathroom!"
Scoffing, she bit back, "My awkwardness with my father is well established. You and the cardio god on the other hand have loads to catch up on." She wiggled her eyebrows in Cristina's direction.
She groaned in dismay, "I don't want to talk to the cardio god."
These statements caused Collin Marlow to speak from behind the door, "You know we can hear you in there."
Meredith and Cristina glanced at each other before Cristina opened the door and exited while being followed by her former lover. This left Meredith to face her step mother. Susan Grey stood in the door way to block Meredith's path in case she tried to run away again, "We heard about your mother. We're so sorry."
Giving her the normal response, Meredith said, "Thank you."
Continuing to question her, Susan asked, "There wasn't a funeral or anything?"
Meredith shook her head, "She didn't want that." Figuring they were here for one reason, Meredith stated, "I hope everything is ok with the baby."
"Oh, we're not here with the baby. We're making sure you're alright." She said glancing down at Meredith's protruding stomach, noticing she was pregnant. Susan was about to ask when Meredith responded.
"We don't have to do this. I'm not in shock. I'm not wracked with grief. I'm just moving on."
"You're pregnant?" Susan indicated.
Glancing down at her stomach and then back up to Susan, Meredith stammered, "Uh, well, yeah."
"How far along are you?" She asked surprised.
Clearly uncomfortable, Meredith answered quickly as she could, "Six and a half months."
There was a brief moment of awkward silence between the two before Susan said, while still looking at Meredith's stomach, "We'd, uh, like to at least make dinner for you or something. He's been really worried about you. He's the family you have left, Meredith."
She grinned from the irony of the statement, "I don't see it that way. I have a family." Meredith stated as she placed a protective hand over her abdomen.
Susan just shook her head in disbelief, "When is this going to stop? Yes, he made some mistakes but he's not a monster. He's just an inarticulate person who spills food on his shirt a lot. Please, have dinner with us tonight. I'll make some chili and the whole thing will be over in an hour. Think you can do that?"
Meredith grimaced slightly, she definitely did not want to face her father and go through a whole night of awkwardness but there was this nagging feeling in the back of her mind. She read in a text book once in one of her undergraduate classes about when you become a parent it's really the beginning of adulthood. You can get married and get divorced and be an ex spouse but you can't ever be an ex parent. And over these last few months, Meredith had slowly started to transcend into this new adulthood where she knew that thinking of what she wanted would always come second, which is why she decided to agree to dinner but have it her house so she would be on familiar territory. Meredith knew that she would probably never have a good relationship with her father but maybe she should at least give her son the option of having a relationship with his grandfather.
Later that night, Derek, her father, and Susan were all at the dining room table while Meredith was in the kitchen getting the entrée. Needless to say the evening so far had been anything less than awkward. Inside the kitchen, Izzie put the final touches on the meal and handed it to Meredith, "This is ready. Don't slosh it around! It's all about the presentation." She instructed and waved her hands around to give emphasis.
Meredith, who had insisted on getting the main course herself to get out of the awkwardness, pleaded with Izzie, "Come in and eat with us."
Deciding on going the sarcastic route, Izzie responded, "You need to bond with your people. People are what matters." She was doing this on purpose for giving George's room to Alex.
"I hate people." She said as she continued to persuade Izzie to come back in with her. Apparently, the whole trying to have a relationship with her father for her son looked way better on paper than actually trying to do it. Her own insecurities really caused her to contemplate if going through this complete and utter awkwardness for birthdays and holidays was worth it. She wanted to be able to give the world to her son but Meredith wasn't exactly sure if putting him through these kinds of situations would be healthy. Besides, having to explain why Mommy never talked to Grandpa was something she rather do when he was teenager than when he was five years old.
Rolling her eyes, Izzie replied, "Do your own talking."
Groaning, Meredith spoke, "We talked. We talked hospital. We talked his research. We talked dead mother. I'm out."
Izzie shrugged as Meredith went back into the dining room, "Ask about the baby. Ask if it poos. People can go on about that for hours. Oh! Ask about how to deal with your own baby poo. You know, compare notes."
Meredith just glared at Izzie as she reentered the dining room. As she brought the meal out and placed it onto the table, Susan commented, "The chicken looks delicious."
Meredith's response made the whole situation even more awkward, "It's from the store."
Derek wasn't sure if she was purposely trying to make the situation tenser or not. God knows why she would. Maybe she wanted to make the situation so awful that they would rush through the meal and leave already. When she wanted to, Meredith was an expert at pushing people away. He was just glad that she finally realized that he wasn't going to leave her again and let him in.
Trying to ease the situation, Susan tried to compliment the meal again, "Well, the green beans look great as well."
"I didn't do those either." Meredith retorted.
Yep, she was definitely trying to end the night as quickly as possible. And even though he knew what she was doing, he tried to at least make some more conversation, "It's beautifully presented."
"Izzie did that..." Luckily, Alex entered the house. Quickly getting up, she went to pull a chair for him, "Come! Sit, eat. We're eating."
After introducing him to Susan and her father, Meredith started drilling him, "So, how are you? How was your day?"
Oblivious to the situation, Alex responded casually as he dug into the food, "Ok, hungry."
So, plan A of adding someone else to the table as a distraction had failed. So, she decided to take Izzie up on her advice. Well, not about the poo part, "So, uh, how's the baby."
This elicited a smile from both Susan and Thatcher and Susan began, "Great."
Thatcher then took over by saying, "She's smiling now. She looks exactly like Molly when she smiles. It's amazing."
"I've really missed having a baby around and it's even better as grandparents because we get to spoil her and buy her all the pink, frilly clothes." Susan added and continued, "I'm sure if you wanted you could use some of baby's smaller clothes."
Meredith and Derek side-glanced each other before Derek looked down at his plate and smiled and Meredith answered, "Uh, well, he might look a little silly in pink."
Susan laughed awkwardly, "Oh, you're having a boy?"
Meredith nodded as Susan went on, "That's something new for us. We've only had to deal with girls."
"Little girls are amazing. There's this old picture of Molly and me when Molly was, I don't know, five and she's sitting on this red sled in the snow. And there's this great big fir tree." Thatcher started to tell a story.
Realizing where this was going, Susan tried to stop him, "You know, I'm not sure that that's..."
But he was insistent, "Yeah, no, honey it's a massive Douglas fir. And in the picture couldn't look more like the baby. I mean incredible." He said rather pleased with himself.
The rest of the room went silent as Meredith spoke up, "That's me. The red sled and big fir tree in the park at the middle school. And the ugly yellow plaid wool coat. That isn't Molly. It's you and me." Luckily, Izzie somehow knocked out the power which eased the tension between everyone by giving them something else to focus on.
Thatcher took this opportunity to leave the room and try and fix the lights and Derek was soon after him with a flash light, leaving Meredith and Susan alone. Meredith began to apologize for snapping at her father, but Susan tried to reassure her, "It's going fine."
Sighing, Meredith began, "I just don't know what to say to him."
Susan began to play with her earlobe out of nervousness, "It's not easy. It's because he's afraid of you."
Furrowing her brow, she said, "I shouldn't have bit his head off. I wish I could have just..." She didn't know what to say. Everything was so complicated.
"Meredith," Susan began, "It's ok to get angry. It's you in the picture."
Meredith just remained silent. She wanted so much to have the normal family where her parents were still together and she had a wonderful relationship with both of them. However, that wasn't the case and Meredith didn't know how to deal with trying to start having a relationship with a man she hadn't seen in about twenty years. A part of her almost hated him. He had been the perfect father for his other two daughters but she just got thrown to the side because Ellis demanded he stay away. Anyone could have the perfect life when there weren't obstacles standing in their way but just because there is a giant one in front of you doesn't mean you should give up so easily.
She would never tell anyone this but she was still a little afraid of becoming a mother. Because in about three months, she would have this tiny boy needing her for everything, to show him how to live in this world when she wasn't sure how to do that herself. And, almost as if he knew she needed it, her son began to kick causing Meredith to let out an 'oh' and look down at her stomach.
Looking at her with a concerned expression, Susan questioned, "Is everything alright?"
Grinning and glancing back up, she answered, "He's kicking."
Susan smiled, "Looks like you have a little night owl. When I was pregnant with the girls, they would keep me up all night sometimes with their kicking. Needless to say the last month, I was very exhausted. Of course, that didn't change when they were born either."
"Did, uh, he get up in the middle of the night to help?" She wasn't quite sure what to refer Thatcher as. Their relationship was a little too complicated to call him Dad.
"Actually, he surprised me with all the things he knew about taking care of a baby. He'd usually change diapers and rock them to sleep during the day but at night he was utterly useless...which I guess he learned from previous experience." Susan replied and hesitated at the last for she knew how uncomfortable talking about Meredith's past with Thatcher made her feel.
Giving a slight smirk, Meredith stated, "Derek says he can't wait to get up at night with the baby but I'm sure after a week of it he'll change his mind."
Changing the subject, Susan asked, "So, do you have any names picked out?"
Laughing, Meredith shook her head no, "No, Derek and I can't agree on anything as of yet. I'm worried that he'll be nameless for the first few months of his life except I know that they don't let you leave the hospital without a name so we might be staying there awhile."
"I'm sure you'll come up with something that's perfect for him." Susan articulated.
During their conversation about the baby, the lights flickered back on and Derek and Thatcher emerged from the laundry room. Walking over to Meredith and giving her a quick kiss on the cheek, he told her, "I got a page. I'll be back later tonight."
Thatcher and Susan both looked at each other before she spoke, "Yes, we should be going as well."
"Oh, ok." Meredith moved the plates on the table, "Would you like to take anything home?"
"It was delicious but no thank you." Susan said politely.
After getting their coats, Meredith walked with Derek, her father, and Susan out to their cars and Susan had a motherly arm around Meredith's shoulders when Susan commented, "I'm so glad we did this."
"I am too. Thank you for suggesting it because I..."
Susan finished her sentence, "...because you never would have in a million years." Giving her a pat on the back, Susan left for the car. Turning to face her father, there was a small awkward silence between them before Thatcher extended his hand, "I'm sorry about your mother."
She gave him a slight nod, "Thank you."
He went to leave but he noticed the porch swing, "The swing's still here."
Studying the swing, she told him, "It, uh, doesn't swing anymore. No one uses it."
Getting an expression on his face as if he had an epiphany, he reached to the side of the swing and pulled out a nail, "I put this in there. You used to catch your fingers." They shared an unspoken moment before he left. It was almost as if the swing was a metaphor for their relationship. It used to work but for years there was something hindering it but maybe it was easy as pulling a nail out to make it start working again. Looking back at the swing, Meredith pushed it a little with her foot and watched it go back and forth.
Maybe it wasn't too late to repair their relationship after all.