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Chapter Text

She wakes up slowly, rolling over and curling closer to her husband, breathing deeply as she tucks her face into his shoulder. But as soon as she breathes him in, Addison freezes. The whispers of cologne she can smell don't match the one she's used to. Her eyes snap open in confusion, because there's no way she would be in bed with anyone other than Jake. Addison turns her head just enough and immediately feels her eyes sting with tears as she gasps, staring at the man she is laying beside.

Addie can't help but throw herself at the man beside her, wrapping her arms around him in a hug as tears trickle down her cheeks. The man now beneath her makes an oomph sound and wraps his arms around her on instinct. “Lex—wait, Red? Addison?? What the hell?” Mark stumbles over his words and Addison pulls back sharply when he almost calls her Lexie, as in Lexie Grey, whom neither of them should know exists yet if they're in bed together.

“Mark, oh my god! What the hell is going on?!? You were-” she cuts off painfully as she wipes her eyes, staring at Mark with wide eyes. After a long moment, Addison swallows thickly. “You thought I was Lexie,” she whispers and Mark's eyes widen.

“You know who Lexie is?” Mark’s voice is ragged and Addie can see the anguish in his eyes as he almost chokes on Lexie's name.

“You were dead, Mark. Derek was dead and-”

“Derek died???” Mark exclaims in shock and Addie nods as she wipes at her eyes again.

“Three years after you,” she confirms quietly.

“Whoa whoa whoa. What the hell is going on? Where are we? Are you dead too?” Mark asks questions rapid fire and Addison shakes her head with a confused frown. Am I dead? She wonders silently, trying to remember everything about her previous night. She and Jake had tucked Henry into bed, she'd taken a hot shower, and then she'd crawled into bed beside her husband.

“I don't…I don't know,” she murmurs, gaze flicking briefly around the room as she tries to come up with a logical explanation. “Even if I was, why would we be here? Shouldn't you be with Lexie Grey in some perfect version of the afterlife or something?” Addison asks slowly, looking down at him from where she's sitting up now, Mark propped up on his elbows. Both of them are ignoring the fact that they're both crying, but Addie thinks they both have a right to their tears.

“How long?” Mark looks up at her and Addison doesn't need to ask what he means.

“Almost thirteen years,” she tells him, watching his eyes widen.

“Thirteen years, Red?”

“I can't believe I'm looking at you right now,” Addison says as she wipes at her eyes again. Then her eyes scan the room again and she sucks in a sharp breath. “Wait. Is this…is this the house in New York?” She slowly stands from the bed and spins in a circle, gaze really taking in the room around her before her gaze returns to Mark, who is looking at her like he's just come to the same realization. “What's the date, Mark?” Addison whispers and Mark reaches for the cell phone on the nightstand.

“Thirtieth of June,” he replies. Addison takes a deep breath and presses a hand to her bare abdomen as she lets her breath out slowly. She can't quite look at him for a long few minutes, closing her eyes as she thinks about what she's about to say.

“I don't know what's going on, Mark. I don't know if I'll wake up from some crazy freaking dream and you'll be dead again…” she trails off for a second as she sniffles and wipes her cheeks, finally opening her eyes to look at him. “Lexi Grey is your soulmate, Mark,” she starts again, heart clenching at the way Mark looks broken at the thought of the younger Grey. “If this is real, if we are somehow actually freaking back in time, then she's alive, Mark. But…” she says in a whisper, fingers flexing where they rest against her abdomen, “I don't think I can do it again,” she finally admits.

“So don't,” Mark's words are quiet, filled with an ache Addison recognizes well. Then she sees his lips turn up in a little half grin that has always done funny things to her insides. “I was pretty good at the co-parenting thing last time around, wasn't I, Red?” A surprised, slightly choked laugh escapes her lips and Addie brings her hands to her mouth to stifle the sound. Mark grins at her and she can see the way he is haunted even with the smile on his face. Shaking her head, she leans down and grabs a shirt off the floor and throws it at Mark before ducking into the closet.

She starts grabbing clothes and stuffing them half-hazardly into a suitcase, only pausing for long enough to actually get dressed before going back to filling the suitcase. When she turns to drag the suitcase back out of the closet, Mark is still sitting in bed, watching her. “Come on, Mark,” she says, her voice wavering on his name. God, she hasn't spoken his name in so long, every time it crosses her tongue her heart aches even though he's sitting there in front of her.

“Where are you going?”

“We are going to Seattle,” she tells him pointedly, watching as his eyes widen in terror that is so unlike the Mark Sloan she remembers. “We're driving,” she adds, and he instantly relaxes. Addison gives him a frown. “I wasn't going to make you get on a plane, Mark,” she says softly as she sits on the edge of the bed and grabs his hand.

“This is stupid. It's going to take days if we drive, Red. I can handle a damn plane,” he tries but Addie can tell even Mark doesn't believe his words.

“We're driving, Mark. Besides, we don't even know if this is real. Who knows if we'll even make it out of the city,” she frowns as she glances out the bedroom window at the city skyline beyond. Mark gets out of bed slowly and Addison watches him get dressed before packing his own bag. His hands shake as he stuffs clothes into a bag and Addie reaches out for him, unsurprised when he pulls her into a tight hug. She returns the hug fiercely, pressing her face into his shoulder. For now, she is going to treat this as if it is real, which means Mark is alive and she is pregnant, and they are going to Seattle.

Chapter Text

Meredith wakes up with a groan and tries to remember the last time she drank enough to feel it in the morning. She doesn't remember drinking at all the previous night; Jackson, April and Harriet had come over for dinner, she'd helped the kids with their homework, put Bailey and Ellis to bed, then watched a movie with Zola before Zo went to bed.

A second groan that definitely doesn't come from her makes Meredith open her eyes in surprise. When her eyes find the ceiling of her mother's house, she practically springs out of bed. This isn't the first time she's had a dream of that first morning after she brought Derek home from the bar, but this is the first time it's felt quite so real. She looks at the clock and grabs some clothes, pausing when Derek stands up. For a long moment, Mer just stares at him and he blinks at her. Usually she doesn't know she's dreaming until she wakes up, but this time, she's aware.

“I um, I'm gonna be late, so uh, goodbye…” she barely stops herself from saying his name, since she's not supposed to know it.

“Derek,” he tells her and she manages a smile. She can feel her eyes stinging so she just nods.

“Goodbye, Derek,” she says as she rips herself away from him and hurries up the stairs. This is one hell of a dream, and Meredith doesn't know why it feels so real, but if this feels real, she can only imagine that Bailey's wrath will feel just as real if she's really late. Mer doesn't even realize she never gave Derek her own name until she's already in the shower. When she gets downstairs after her shower, he is gone and Meredith hurries out the door.

Her arrival to the hospital confirms in her mind that this is some crazy dream, because everyone around her is acting exactly the same as in the dreams she has occasionally. She is apparently the only one “awake” but why wouldn't she be, since it's her dream. Mer walks through her first shift, waiting for the dream to end, but it never does. Katie Bryce’s case is one she remembers well, and she waits for the girl to be brought in while doing her best to avoid Derek. At least since it's Meredith's dream, no one else knows that this isn't how things went last time.

When Katie finally arrives and Meredith is put on her case with Derek, she manages to grab Cristina and pull her aside an hour later. She is testing the waters of this dream and seeing just how much she can alter before she wakes up. Meredith catches herself staring at Derek far more than she knows she did back then, but she can't help it. Even after everything, he had been her husband.

She suddenly wonders if Addison had felt something like this, watching her husband from afar. Part of Meredith aches to simply fall into him—she remembers telling Nathan that she would if she got the chance. But that was a long time ago. And this Derek is so different, so…strange to her now. Meredith doesn't know if she can do it, no matter how much she aches to. She shakes herself slightly. This is a dream, she reminds herself, unsure as to where these thoughts are coming from. She decides to keep herself away from Derek if she can. It will just make waking up a little easier if she doesn't let herself fall.

Somehow, she manages to successfully get Cristina in on Katie's surgery and finds herself taking a moment in an on-call room. She's pretty sure she should have woken up now. This dream never goes all the way through this memory. But her shift goes on and on with no end to the dream in sight. There is a small voice in the back of her head that suggests maybe this isn't a dream, but that makes no sense. Things like this didn't happen in real life.

They save Katie's life quicker this time, and the rest of the forty-eight hour shift goes by in a haze of Meredith pretending to be an intern while trying to figure out why she isn't waking up. By the end of the shift, she is exhausted, which also never happens in her dreams. She is practically dead on her feet, but still makes her way across the street to Joe's for a drink—after essentially reliving the first shift of her intern year, she deserves it. However, as soon as she steps through the door, she feels as though someone has thrown ice water over her head.

She is frozen just inside the door of the bar, eyes locked on a table across the room, where a familiar redhead sits talking to a man who has his back towards Meredith. But her eyes burn without her permission, because even after thirteen years, she would know him just as much as she would know her baby sister; the man she's certain she would have called her brother if they'd had more time. Suddenly, blue eyes flick towards her and catch Mer’s and she watches the other woman's eyes widen, recognition obvious as the redhead grips the man's hand on the table. When he turns, Meredith's breath catches and she's moving towards them before she can even think about it. She doesn't know what they're doing in her weird dream, but memories flash across her mind and Meredith reaches for the man as he stands, gaze flicking back and forth between the two people.

“Grey!” Mark's voice is warm and surprised and Meredith lets an exhausted, shocked laugh escape her as she hugs him.

“Meredith? You know…us?” Addison’s voice is a mixture of confused and intrigued as Meredith finally peels herself away from Mark to hug the older woman.

“Of course I do, this is my dream…” Meredith trails off when both Addison and Mark look at her and then each other. “Isn't it?”

“We both woke up in New York five days ago. I went to sleep in L.A. with Jake and Henry, then I woke up in New York with Mark,” Addison murmurs and Meredith feels her eyes go wide. If Addison and Mark had woken up five days ago, they'd been in this weird… situation two days longer than her.

“I was in Boston with the kids. Then I woke up almost three days ago…the morning of my first intern shift…” Mer trails off and bites her lip, and by the way Addison's expression shifts, she knows the redhead understands.

“What are you two looking at each other like that for?” Mark asks, effectively breaking the slightly awkward air between her and Addison.

“She woke up like we did, but with Derek,” Addison says with a look at Mark, who's eyebrows go up before he nods in understanding. It's strange for Mer, seeing Mark act a little more reserved, but she has a feeling that if what Addison says is true, then Mark has his memories of their last life; the plane crash, Lexie's death…his own. Looking at him a little closer, she can see the tightness and grief in his expression even as he tries to appear normal.

“Derek’s not…like us,” Meredith explains. “Do you guys have a place to stay? If we're stuck in this weird…whatever, I need roommates,” she tells them quietly.

“You want us as roommates, Grey?” Mark asks with a lift of his brow. “How ya going to explain that to Derek?”

“I'm not,” she replies with a sigh. “I don't…I don't know if I can go there. Not after…everything,” Mer glances at Addison with a curious expression but the older woman shakes her head.

“I doubt he'll want anything to do with me when he finds out I'm pregnant,” Addison says softly and Meredith does her best not to let her jaw drop. When Addison looks pointedly at Mark, Meredith gasps softly, a slightly fuzzy memory from over a decade ago flickering across her mind.

“You kept it,” she murmurs and Addison nods. Mer takes a moment to process the fact that so many things could be altered in whatever this situation was before nodding to herself.

It's not long after that revelation that the three of them head to Mer's old house. Mark ends up in what would have been George's room and Addison takes what would have been Izzie’s. Mer goes to sleep thinking she's bound to wake up back in her real life, but when she eventually does wake up again, she's still there. She thankfully doesn't have to be to the hospital until later in the afternoon, so she makes coffee and tries to keep her emotions at bay when Mark Sloan walks into her kitchen.

“I don't think she knows about me yet, but she’ll be an intern next year,” her voice shakes as she speaks, because dammit she hasn't talked about Lexie in years, and she hates herself a little for that. Mark sits across from her at the table and Meredith can see the pain in his eyes as he looks at her.

“How am I supposed to even look at her if she's not like us, Grey? After-” Mark's voice breaks and Meredith reaches across the table to grab his hand.

“We'll cross that bridge when we come to it,” she tells him, her own voice wavering just a bit as she thinks about her baby sister. With a deep breath, Meredith takes a sip of her coffee and decides to redirect their conversation. “Didn’t you have a daughter already by now? You could look for her. She'd be what, about fourteen right now?” Mer watches Mark's eyes widen and her lips turn up in a small smile at the successful redirection.

“Mer's right,” Addison's voice brings Meredith's attention up and she smiles at the older woman as Addie walks into the kitchen. She joins them at the table and Meredith can't help but let out a small chuckle. Both Addison and Mark look at her curiously and Mer just shrugs.

“This is just…bizarre,” she says quietly. “At least both of you are already attendings in this time. I'm stuck pretending I'm an intern,” she groans softly.

“I'll call Richard and ask for a position as soon as I take care of everything at the practice in New York. He asked me to stay the first time around so it should work out,” Addison announces. “You can be on my service so you don't have to pretend as much,” she adds and Meredith gives her a thankful smile.

“Oh I'm sure Derek will love that,” Mark comments and both women chuckle and shrug.

Then her phone rings and Meredith jumps slightly, standing up and grabbing it. She sucks in a sharp breath as she hears the woman from her mother's home speaking. That is one thing she hadn't really had a chance to think about yet—her mother. Ellis Grey is still alive.

When she hangs up the phone, Meredith sighs, leaning against the counter as she runs a hand through her hair. “My mother's nursing home,” she says to no one in particular with a motion at the phone she set down. The first time around—or in real life or whatever—she had been forced to keep this a secret. But Addison and Mark already know about her mother, so it doesn't really count, does it? It will be nice having at least a couple people who know, for however long this lasts. “I should probably go take care of a couple things there before my shift at the hospital tonight,” she adds, stepping back towards the table and grabbing her coffee. Meredith takes a long drink and dumps the rest down the sink. “I have an overnight shift, so I'll be back to shower before heading to the hospital, then I'll be back in the morning,” she tells them before heading up the stairs to get dressed.

Chapter Text

“Hold…my hand,” she whispers, breath audibly catching in her chest as she looks at him.

“I'm not holding your hand because your not dying,” he denies with a frown, shaking his head slightly.

“Please. Hold…my…hand,” she tries again, flexing her fingers as she reaches for him to the best of her ability. Her breathing is shallow and labored, but he can't bring himself to accept it

“No, you're not dying. You hear me? You don't die today,” he says it firmly, like he has any control at all over the reality he doesn't want to face. He shakes his head and stands, trying yet again to move the giant chunk of metal, but to not avail. When he finally lays back down in the dirt, he swallows the lump in his throat as he finally takes her hand in both of his. He watches tears stream down her face as they lay there, his entire body shaking as he holds her hand. “I love you,” he whispers, fighting his own tears as he looks at her.

“You…don't have…to…say it…just because…I said it,” she forces the words from her lips as she shakes her head but he shakes his head in response, holding her hand tighter.

“I do,” he half interrupts her, “I love you. I love you,” he repeats the words twice over as he tries his best to smile at her. “I've always been in love with you. I will always be in love with you,” he tells her, his eyes stinging as she smiles at him.

“Yeah?” She breathes and he nods.

“Yeah,” he confirms before continuing, “which is why you have to stay alive,” he tells her breathlessly. “We..we…we're gonna get married,” he says as he squeezes her hand, ignoring the ache in his very soul as he keeps going. “And, you're going to become an amazing surgeon,” she smiles again and he smiles back as encouragingly as he can. “We're gonna have…two or three kids…”

“So…Soph…phia…can h-have…siblings,” her breathing is even more labored as she speaks, but he smiles at her even so, resting his chin against their clasped hands.

“Yeah. A sister and two brothers,” he tells her warmly, heart both soaring and twisting when she laughs, wet and weak.

“That's nice,” she murmurs with a smile.

“We're gonna be happy, Lex,” he assures her firmly. “We're gonna have the best life Lexie, you and me,” his voice softens to a whisper as he smiles at her, holding her hand and watching her breathe. “We're gonna be so happy. So you can't die okay? You can't die, because we're supposed to end up together. We're meant to be,” he tells her softly, voice nearly breaking as tears threaten to spill over. She breathes shallowly, lips turning up in a smile again.

“Meant to be,” she barely breathes the words and his heart shatters in his chest as he watches the light fade from her eyes. Tears blur his vision as he struggles for breath, fighting off the sobs that rise in his chest.

“I love you,” he whispers as he reaches for her. “I love you,” he touches her cheeks, her lips, and strokes her hair as he cries. “I love you,” he repeats again, bringing her hand to his lips, kissing her knuckles as he squeezes his eyes shut. “I love you, I love you, I love you,” he repeats it over and over as tears fall down his cheeks, kissing her fingers again and again before he strokes her hair again and presses his face against her hand. “I love you, I love you, I love you,” his words get wetter and thicker as he cries for her. “I love you,” he whimpers again as she lays still, over and over and over.

He wakes in a cold sweat, face sticky with drying tears, trembling with the memories that have turned to nightmares. His breathing is shallow as he grips his pillow and rolls to press his face into it. Three days have passed since he and Addison officially moved into Meredith's house in Seattle, and he has had the same nightmare every night. He hates it, but she is all he can think about. Her last day had been filled with pain and fear and grief, but his last day—his last day awake at least—had been okay—he knows he should think about Callie and Arizona and Sophia, but his mind is consumed by Lexie.

As quietly as he can, he sits up and runs a hand over his face before he stands. Addison and Meredith are both asleep and he doesn't want to wake them. That thought draws a dry chuckle from his throat. Addison and Meredith…in the same house. With him.

He moves towards the bedroom door quietly, stepping out into the hall and making his way downstairs into the kitchen, only to stop short when he finds Meredith pouring two mugs of…is that hot chocolate? She looks up when he pauses at the edge of the room and he sees that he's not the only one who appears to be having nightmares. Meredith gives him a strained smile and he rubs a hand over his face again in an attempt to get rid of the tears on his cheeks. “Juju?” Meredith murmurs, holding out a mug of hot chocolate.

“Juju?” Mark blinks in surprise, because it throws him off to have Meredith Grey offering him a cup of juju when that is very much Addie's thing.

“Addie's recipe,” the blonde replies and he's sure his eyebrows are reaching for his hairline. Meredith Grey just called Addison “Addie” and Mark doesn't know what to think about that. Slowly, he takes the mug from her and watches as she walks past him to the couch in the living room. After a moment, he follows, tentatively sitting beside her.

“You know Addison's juju recipe,” he says slowly, glad for the distraction from his nightmares but also confused. He knows that both Meredith and Addison were supposedly still alive before whatever this is, happened, but they really haven't talked about it a lot.

“I do,” she says with a nod and he finally takes a sip. Sure enough, it tastes just like all the times Addison has made it. “Zola really liked the juju,” Meredith continues and Mark smiles at the mention of Zola, before he catches the way she used past tense.

“Liked, Grey?”

“You have noticed that that life doesn't seem to exist anymore, right?” Meredith asks, and he can hear the bitter pain in her voice. Turning towards her, he frowns.

“You slept with him, hasn't he been following you around the hospital? You can have it again, Grey, come on,” he tells her pointedly, but she shakes her head.

“I didn't sleep with him. She did; past me, intern Meredith, or whatever. I…I've been avoiding him,” she says quietly, looking down at her mug. Mark stares at her in surprise.

“Why? You two were perfect together, Grey!” Mark says, even more surprised when she scoffs softly and shakes her head.

“I'm sure you said that about him and Addie once too, Mark,” she replies.

“Well I mean, come on Grey. You and Derek were different, seriously,” he tells her firmly, but she shakes her head.

“Not so much,” she sighs and he wants to ask what she means, but isn't so sure they're ready for whatever that conversation is. “I can't do it all again,” she tells him and he tenses slightly when her head comes to rest against his shoulder.

“Why not?”

“The man I loved, the father of my children… he’s been dead for ten years. Everything that we went through, everything that happened? I can't do it again. I'm not the same naive girl I was when I was an intern. I'm a forty-five year old woman in a twenty-seven year old’s body,” she sighs and Mark can't help but look down at her in surprise.

“Bullshit, Grey!” Mark exclaims quietly, still mindful of the fact that Addison is asleep. Meredith doesn't lift her head from his shoulder, but she chuckles.

“Yep. I'm older than you now,” he can hear the warm teasing in her voice, but he's slightly more surprised by the fact that she knows his age. He's not sure why that surprises him, though, after everything. “I've always wanted a little brother,” she adds and Mark actually laughs, shifting his mug to his other hand so he can wrap his arm around her in a hug. The two of them laugh for a little longer and eventually finish their juju, but neither one moves from the couch. When Mark leans back, Meredith moves with him and he hugs her a little tighter. For the first time since he woke up in bed with Addison in New York, sleep claims him with no nightmares.

Chapter Text

Surprise fills her when she feels herself wake up. The last thing she remembers is Mark's voice, and tears fill her eyes immediately. “I love you,” he had told her, over and over. She blinks through the tears that burn behind her eyes and expects to wake to the sound of machines; there is no way she won't be hooked up to a million of them, considering she was certain that she was dying. But then she finally opens her eyes and the ceiling above her is not a hospital room. Confused and panicking, she scrambles until she's sitting up, confusion clouding her mind even more as her body moves easily. What is happening? Am I dead??

Looking around, she recognizes the room almost immediately, but that only confuses her more. This is the apartment she lived in before she moved into Meredith's house. Meredith. The thought of her sister has Lexie rushing out of bed so fast she nearly falls, but she catches herself on the dresser. She doesn't understand what's going on or why she's here in this apartment. Am I in a coma?? Is this a dream? She asks herself a million questions as she tries to figure everything out. But she comes up empty, at least until she sees her phone on the nightstand. It's dark outside and she doesn't even pay attention to the time, but Meredith's a surgeon, she won't be upset about a call in the middle of the night. At least, Lexie's pretty sure she won't be. She lifts the phone and dials Mer’s number, trying not to freak out even more as she turns in a circle, looking at the room around her as the phone rings.

“Hello?” Meredith's voice hits her and Lexie gasps sharply and tears continue to stream down her face. Her sister sounds tired, but not like she woke her up.

“Meredith! I don't know what's going on, but I thought I was dying—the plane crashed and I was stuck and Mark held my hand and I was dying and he told me he loved me but now I'm in my apartment and I don't know if I'm dreaming or if I have some weird sort of amnesia—do I have amnesia?? Am I even really talking to you? Am I in a coma? I don't know what's happening Meredith but I had to call you cause I thought I was dying and I didn't get to see you and now I'm really confused and I'm kind of really freaking out and I don't know what happened and I just had to call you…” she finally pauses to take a breath and swears she hears Meredith crying on the other end of the line. “Meredith? Please, I don't…I don't know what's going on,” she adds and this time she's certain that Meredith gasps.

“...Lexie?” Meredith's voice is wet and weak when she says her name and Lexie just feels relieved that Meredith knows who she is even though she didn't say her name. She isn't sure why Meredith wouldn't know who she is, but she just woke up in the apartment she had before she ever met Meredith so she's just confused and— “Oh my god LEXIE!!!!” Meredith practically screams and Lexie has to hold the phone away from her ear for a second. Now she is completely certain she can hear Meredith crying.

“Meredith? What…what's wrong??” She asks in confusion, but then there is a loud series of bangs and thuds. “What was that?”

“That would be Mark falling down the stairs,” she swears her heart stops when Meredith says his name and she can't stop the gasp that escapes her lips.

“...Mark?” Lexie whispers his name, nearly choking on it as she sees him in her mind's eye, laying beside her with tears tracking down his face, telling her all about the life they were going to have. But then her thoughts circle back to the fact that it is the middle of the night and she frowns in confusion. “Wait, why is Mark with you in the middle of the night? What…what's going on? Did you say he fell down the stairs???”

“It's a little bit of a long story, but if I don't hand the phone over he's gonna freak out—”

“I'm not freaking out, Grey!”

“You're shaking, Mark, and you just fell down the stairs. Just give me five seconds,” Lexie listens to Meredith and then she hears his voice and stifles a sob, “I love you so much, sis,” Meredith switches back to talking to her and Lexie grins through the tears streaming down her face.

“I love you too, Meredith,” she tells her sister.

“Lex?” Then she hears his voice and doesn't bother to stifle the sob that claws up her throat.

“Mark?” Lexie cries and she hears him almost choke on a sob too.

“Oh hell, Lexie!! You..you… I can't…” he stutters and stumbles over his words and Lexie half laughs half cries.

“I thought I was going to die,” she tells him, but the way he chokes this time confuses her.

“You did, Lex,” he whispers and she shakes her head even though she's alone.

“What? But I…you're talking to me, Mark,” she tries to make sense of it, but can't. If she died, then how is she talking to him? How is she standing in her old bedroom in her old apartment?

“We don't…we don't really know what's going on,” he tells her in a rough voice and her brow furrows. “It's 2005 again, Lex,” he adds and Lexie almost drops her phone as she spins around to find the calendar hanging on her wall. Her eyes widen when she sees the date.

“How is that possible??”

“We don't know,” it's Meredith that answers her this time.

“Where are you?” Lexie asks as she moves across her room and throws a hoodie on, grabbing her keys and heading for the door.

“Uh, we're at Meredith's house,” Mark replies and she wants to ask what he's doing at Meredith's house, but instead she just gets into her car and drives. It isn't until she gets to the end of the street that it hits her.

“I'm in California,” she says with all of the sharpness of her sudden realization. Her hands grip the steering wheel tightly as tears sting her eyes again, streaming down her face. It's going to take forever to get back to Seattle.

“California?” Mark's voice wavers and her heart aches.

“Stanford,” she murmurs. “But I'm on my way,” she adds. She's driven back and forth plenty over the last few years and thanks to her photographic memory, she has no problem remembering the way.

“That's like a twenty hour drive, Lexie,” she hears Meredith's voice and chuckles through her tears.

“Fourteen, actually,” she corrects quietly as she makes sure her phone is plugged into the car charger so she won't have to hang up any time soon. Then she pulls out onto the road again and starts driving.

At first, she talks with both Meredith and Mark—there's another voice in the background too but she's not sure who it might be. But after an hour, she hears Meredith sigh. “What is it?”

“I have to be at the hospital in six hours,” Meredith says softly, and Lexie knows that means her sister needs to sleep.

“It's okay, Meredith. I'll see you tomorrow, when you get home. I'll be there,” she tells her sister, despite the fact that she doesn't want to hang up the phone.

“I'll leave my phone with Mark,” Meredith says and Lexie almost says she'll just hang up and call Mark’s number, but there's a part of her that is afraid if she hangs up, she won't ever get them back. Part of her is still convinced that this is a dream, and she's terrified to test it.

“I love you, Meredith,” Lexie says firmly.

“I love you too, Lexie,” her sister replies, and Lexie hears her say goodnight to Mark.

“You're really driving all the way from California, Lex?” Mark asks softly and Lexie smiles at the concern in his voice.

“Yes. I should be there around five tonight,” she explains, nodding her head even though he can't see her.

Mark stays on the phone with her as she drives. Sometimes they talk, but sometimes they just listen to the other breathe. Lexie knows the moment he falls asleep, his quiet snores making her smile as she tries to keep her vision tear-free while she's driving. She doesn't hang up the phone though, instead just listening to him snore for the next couple of hours. Normally, she would be getting tired, but the adrenaline from everything she has discovered in the past six hours is keeping her wide awake.

“Lexie? Are you still there?” When she hears Meredith's voice, Lexie's eyes flick down to the phone in her cupholder in surprise.

“Yeah, Meredith,” she replies.

“How long has Mark been asleep?”

“A couple hours. Are you going to the hospital?”

“Yeah. Do you want me to put the phone back, or do you want someone to talk to while he's sleeping?” Meredith asks.

“Who else is there?” Lexie asks curiously. She wouldn't mind having someone to talk to for at least a little while.

“Addie is here,” Meredith tells her and Lexie takes a few seconds to figure out who her sister is talking about.

“Addie?”

“Addison,” Meredith says the woman's full name and Lexie feels shock zip through her. “I gotta shower so I can get to the hospital before Bailey kicks my ass, I'm sorry Lex. I love you,” her sister continues and Lexie chuckles at the mention of Bailey. Lexie isn't really sure what she and Addison will have to talk about, but she is curious how Addison Montgomery ended up at Meredith's house—Mark too, actually. She hasn't actually asked how they ended up there yet. “Here,” she hears Mer's voice again and then another comes on the line.

“Uh, Lexie?” Addison Montgomery sounds a bit unsure, and Lexie chuckles softly.

“Uh, hi,” she says slowly.

“Where are you?”

“Just north of Klamath Falls, Oregon,” she tells Addison. “So how did you and Mark end up at Meredith's?” Lexie asks her question curiously, gaze flicking from mirror to mirror as she switches lanes.

“Mark didn't tell you?”

“I didn't ask,” Lexie explains, “I was kinda distracted,” she adds and she's pretty sure she hears Addison chuckle quietly.

“Right, of course. Well, uh, we woke up in New York and decided to come to Seattle. Meredith found us at Joe's. That was almost a month ago,” Addison tells her and Lexie can tell the older woman isn't really sure what to say to her.

“This is weird, right?” Lexie asks with a small laugh. The other woman laughs dryly and Lexie smiles.

“Yeah, a little bit. But weird seems to be our new normal, Little Grey,” Addison says quietly.

“Did Mark really fall down the stairs?” She finds herself asking, and Addison laughs.

“Yeah, but he's okay.”

“So…you're living with Meredith? Isn't that, I don't know, kinda awkward?” Lexie asks, wondering how her sister and her brother-in-law’s ex wife are living together.

“Not really. But we were friends, before all of this happened,” Addison tells her. Lexie's gaze flicks down to the phone in surprise before flicking back up to the road.

“Can I ask…how long?” She asks tentatively, hoping Addison will understand what she wants to know.

“Um, thirteen years,” Lexie gasps at Addison's words.

“Mark…?”

“He um…he died four months after you,” Addison's voice is quiet and Lexie's vision blurs. She has to wipe her eyes quickly so she doesn't have to pull over, but her heart clenches in her chest. “I'll be right back, Lexie. Mer's phone is dying, I have to go find the charger,” the other woman tells her.

“Okay,” she replies simply, trying to keep her vision clear so she can see the road.

She talks to Addison for just a little while longer until Mark wakes up. Then Addison gives him the phone and Lexie talks to him for a couple of hours. Eventually they fade into quiet, but neither one hangs up. Lexie stops very briefly to get something to eat, but then she's on the road again. It's just past five in the afternoon when she finally pulls up to her sister's house and actually ends their phone call.

She doesn't bother knocking. Instead, she practically barrels through the door and looks around frantically until she sees them; sees him. Her vision blurs with tears as she leaps towards him, and when he catches her in his arms, she feels like she is home. He holds her impossibly tight and she can feel his tears dampening her hair, but her own tears are dripping onto his skin where her face is pressed into his neck. Lexie cries into his neck as he spins her around and hugs her, feeling his lips on her hair and hearing him murmuring softly. “I love you, I love you, I love you,” he whispers brokenly into her hair, the same words he had repeated over and over as she lay dying in another life.

After a long time, she pulls back just enough to tilt her head and crash her lips to his. He kisses her back hard before peppering her face with more kisses. They cling to each other and somehow, she ends up curled up on the couch tucked against him with his arms wrapped around her. Addison had disappeared into the kitchen shortly after she got here, but now the woman returns, carrying three mugs of what looks like hot chocolate. She takes one of them with a small smile and sips slowly, humming happily at the taste. But her eyes are already drifting closed, so she sets the mug on the coffee table and lets her head rest on Mark's chest, his heartbeat lulling her into sleep as the adrenaline finally fades from her body.

Lexie wakes again when the door opens, and she is on her feet the second she sees Meredith. She crashes into her sister and Meredith clings to her just as tightly, the both of them crying. When she finally pries herself from her sister, she looks around curiously.

“Is Derek here too?” She asks, taking note of the shadows that cross both Meredith and Addison's faces at the mention of her brother-in-law. She hadn't asked about him before, but now that she's here, she would have thought someone would have mentioned him.

“No. He's… not like us,” Meredith says quietly and Lexie frowns in confusion. “He doesn't have any memories of anything past this time,” her sister adds and Lexie's frown only deepens as she drags Meredith back to the couch.

“How long have you guys known this stuff?” Lexie asks, looking around at all of them.

“Mark and Addie woke up June thirtieth and I woke up July first,” Meredith tells her.

“And it's July twentieth now…” Lexie murmurs slowly, “I mean, I don't know what the heck is happening, but doesn't that mean he could still remember eventually?” She asks, watching all three of them seem to consider her words.

“It's…possible, Lexie. But considering I'm living with his wife and best friend–”

“Probably wouldn't call me that at the moment, Grey,” Mark interrupts Meredith with a pointed look at Addison and Lexie is reminded of the fact that the two of them were together at some point before. “Especially since she's keeping the baby this time,” he adds and Lexie's attention snaps back to him in surprise.

“Baby?” She whispers, watching the panic and fear flash across Mark's face.

“It happened before we woke up, Lexie. Before all of this,” Addison finally speaks and Lexie looks up at her as she perches on the arm of the couch next to Meredith. “The first time, I terminated the pregnancy,” she continues, glancing hesitantly at Mark. When Lexie looks at him, she sees the way he looks at her and remembers the last time he sprang a baby on her; well, Sloan's sudden appearance hadn't really been his fault, but then Sophia…Lexie can see how terrified Mark is that she will walk away again.

But surprisingly—or maybe not so much after what they'd gone through—Lexie isn't mad this time. All she can think about is how as she had been dying, all she wanted was for everything Mark told her to come true. We're gonna get married…two or three kids… She is not the same girl that ran away before; she lost her chance the first time, but somehow, fate has given her another one and she isn't going to waste it. She might physically be that young woman again, but this is no longer something she doesn't want; she wants it all. Lexie feels her eyes sting as she leans over and kisses Mark, feeling his arms wrap around her, holding her close until she breaks the kiss. “Marry me,” she whispers against his lips, not willing to go another second without showing him just how much she is with him.

“Lex…” he breathes and she smiles at the surprise in his eyes.

“I want it all, Mark,” she murmurs, “everything you promised me,” she continues softly, and when he kisses her again, she grins against his lips as she hugs him.

“I love you,” he whispers and she is quick to whisper it back.

“You should do it before either of you work at the hospital,” Meredith suggests and Lexie turns in Mark's arms to look at her sister, who is grinning at them along with Addison. Mark wraps his arms around her middle and she is practically in his lap, his chin on her shoulder as she leans into him. She starts to nod in agreement with Meredith, but pauses when something else crosses her mind.

“What about Dad? And Molly?” Lexie asks before her eyes widen. “And Mom! She's…my mom is alive,” she feels more tears trickle down her cheeks at the thought of seeing her mom again, and her baby sister. Even her dad.

“I'm sure we can come up with some sort of story,” Meredith says softly, reaching out and squeezing her hand. Lexie nods and squeezes back, leaning back into Mark’s chest again.

The four of them are still awake long after the sun sets, sometimes talking about everything and sometimes just sitting in comfortable silence. Lexie ends up curled up with her head tucked under Mark's chin, listening to his heart beat with her feet tucked between Meredith and the back of the couch. When she finally falls asleep, all she can do is hope that she wakes up again.

Chapter Text

It's strange, living in Meredith Grey's house in Seattle, but it's not nearly as awkward as she had expected it to be. She and Meredith had been friends later in their lives, and Meredith is the one person she can talk to now about Jake and Henry; the only person that understands the indescribable ache in her chest when she thinks about her life before. She doesn't know if she's dead in that other life, or if that life simply…ceased to exist. Meredith has asked the same questions, and both of them have decided to hope that life just ceased to exist, because neither of them can bear the thought of leaving their children motherless.

She looks up from the table at the sound of Meredith's footsteps in the hall; Mark is with Lexie on UW campus for lunch—it surprisingly had only taken about a week to arrange all the transfer paperwork with Lexie claiming a family emergency—so the blonde is the only other person in the house. The other woman looks tired, and Addison offers her as much of a smile as she can manage. Meredith returns the attempted smile as she steps into the kitchen and Addie watches the blonde make herself a cup of coffee.

“I had a dream about them again,” Meredith murmurs as she sits down across from Addison.

“I see Henry almost every night,” Addie says softly in reply. When Meredith reaches across the table to squeeze her hand, Addison squeezes back.

“Are we terrible for hoping that life just stopped?” Mer asks quietly.

“Are we terrible for hoping our children aren't motherless now? No, Meredith. I don't think so,” she replies before a bitter laugh fights its way out of her lungs. “Is it selfish? Maybe. But I can't find it in myself to care as long as Henry isn't left motherless,” she admits, closing her eyes and rubbing her free hand over her face. Meredith's hand tightens on her own and Addison sighs softly.

“Wanting to protect our children isn't selfish Addison,” Meredith tells her firmly and Addie opens her eyes as she nods in agreement. “You know, if you time it right, you could have Henry again,” she continues, making Addison stare at her for a long moment.

“What if everything that's changed already changes that too? Maybe he won't be there to adopt,” Addie says finally, not letting herself get her hopes up, even though she wants nothing more. Meredith squeezes her hand again.

“Well, we have a few years to figure it out, right? We'll keep an eye out,” Meredith tells her firmly and Addison nods, giving her a tight smile.

“You could have Zola again too, as long as we get Karev on that road,” she tells the other woman softly, watching Meredith's lips turn up in a smile.

“He'll be so pleased to be on your service, Dr Montgomery,” Meredith grins and Addison actually manages to laugh as she thinks about torturing Alex Karev a little bit. Meredith laughs with her. When the laughter finally dies down, Addison decides to change the subject a bit, giving Meredith a half smile.

“So, you kissed Derek in an elevator,” her half smile becomes a full smile when Meredith groans and drops her head to rest on her arms on the table for a moment.

“He kissed me,” Meredith tries to correct her and Addie shrugs.

“You let him kiss you,” she says and Mer lifts her head again. The blonde woman sighs.

“Yeah…” Meredith murmurs and Addison nods in understanding.

“It's Derek,” Addie says softly.

“It's Derek,” the blonde repeats with another small sigh. It's funny how one topic that would have been the most dangerous topic for the two of them once has become one of the easiest to talk about.

“Have you thought about how you're going to explain being friends with me and Mark?”

“Mark's marrying my little sister,” Meredith shrugs and Addison laughs. Mark Sloan is getting married. It's still such a shocking and strange thought.

“Mark Sloan is getting married,” Addison says slowly, her poor mood brightening as her laughter continues. When she stops laughing, she looks at Meredith with one eyebrow raised. “And what about me? You're friends with your boyfriend's wife.”

“He's not my boyfriend, and technically you're his ex-wife, just not in this life yet,” Meredith counters and Addison shrugs.

“True, but the whole hospital thinks he's your boyfriend,” she tells the blonde, who rolls her eyes.

“You sound like Cristina,” Meredith says and Addie gives her an amused look.

“I'm not sure if that's an insult or a compliment, Grey,” she chuckles.

“Cristina would want you to take it as a compliment probably,” Meredith shrugs.

“That probably means it's an insult, huh?” Addison teases with a smirk and the younger woman just chuckles with a half grin. Then both of their phones go off and Addison glances down, seeing a message from Mark about groceries. “Why does he insist on using the group chat when he could text one of us? He's with Lexie and we're both here,” she says while Meredith chuckles.

“You're surprised that Mark enjoys annoying you?” Mer comments in amusement. Addison shakes her head and ignores the text messages, watching Meredith reply to the chat. But then her phone dings and Meredith's doesn't, so she looks down and scowls before showing the message to Mer, who rolls her eyes with a smile. With another roll of her eyes, Addison hits the call button and puts the call on speaker.

“Aw, come on Red!” Mark complains.

“You’re a pain in my ass,” she tells her best friend, who laughs on the other end of the call.

“You love me,” she can hear the smirk in Mark's voice, and clearly so can Meredith because the blonde chuckles softly.

“The two aren't exclusive,” Meredith comments and Addie nods in agreement.

“This is true,” she hears Lexie laugh and she's also pretty sure she hears the younger Grey woman whack Mark, which makes her smile. In the life before, she hadn't spent much time around Lexie Grey, but she is quickly becoming rather fond of the younger woman.

“You can come get the list off the fridge,” Addie tells Mark before hanging up. She and Meredith share an amused look for a long moment before they both start laughing again. “He is such a child,” she manages and Meredith nods in agreement.

“Yeah but he's hot so he gets away with it,” Meredith shrugs and Addison looks at her in surprise. “What? I have eyes. Besides, are you going to disagree?” Mer asks with a knowing look, blue eyes dropping pointedly towards Addison's abdomen. Addison narrows her eyes at the woman across the table, but in the end all she can do is sigh while Meredith grins at her.

A little while later, Meredith heads off to the hospital, but Addie isn't alone for very long. She's just moved to the couch when Mark walks in with groceries. His arms are full of bags and Addison lifts a curious brow—he hadn't come home to get the list, so she can only imagine the things he might have. Her mind comes to a reeling halt all of the sudden at that thought. Home. Meredith's house in Seattle has become her home.

Shaking herself slightly, she decides that little piece of information can wait a little while before she examines it too closely. Addison turns her attention back to Mark. “There was not that much on the list,” she tells him with a motion at the bags he's carrying into the kitchen. She gets up from the couch to follow him, leaning in the doorway as he sets everything on the table.

“I didn't have the list,” Mark replies. Addie chuckles.

“I believe we told you to come get it,” she says with a pointed look. But Mark just grins at her and she rolls her eyes as he starts pulling things out of the bags.

“I remembered what we needed. I just got some other stuff too,” he tells her, turning to put several boxes of cereal in the cupboard. As she watches, her mind drifts back to her sudden realization a moment ago while Mark moves around the kitchen like he's lived here forever. Addie blinks in surprise as she realizes that he probably spent plenty of time here before, when Lexie lived here in the other life, while Addison had been in L.A. after everything.

“What did you get?” She asks and Mark gives her a look. “Don't look at me like that,” she scowls at him.

“Don't ask stupid questions,” he replies with a smirk. Addie rolls her eyes and steps forward, looking through the bags sitting on the table. After another minute of looking through bags, she returns to the couch and lets Mark take care of putting everything away.

He joins her on the couch when he's done, and a little while later, Lexie walks through the door. Meredith is working at the hospital overnight, so it's just the three of them tonight. Mark makes dinner while Addison and Lexie sit on the couch talking about Lexie’s day of classes, Lexie with a glass of wine and Addie with a cup of cocoa.

Chapter Text

Meredith wakes to her alarm and groans. She is not looking forward to this day; Dead Baby Bike Race day. It's been marked on her calendar since she came to terms with this weird new reality.

Rolling out of bed, Mer runs a hand through her hair and yawns. With a sigh, she walks out into the hall and heads downstairs to the laundry room. “Nice panties, Grey!” Mark's voice comes from the kitchen and Meredith rolls her eyes and chuckles softly when she hears Lexie smack him and laugh. It's hard to believe it's been three weeks since Lexie called her in the middle of the night. Meredith and Addison had helped her arrange to transfer to UW for her final semester due to a “family emergency”, though Meredith knows her sister hasn't told any of their family that she's back in Seattle yet.

“Thanks, Mark,” she calls back easily as she ducks into the laundry room and grabs a shirt; weirdly enough she's pretty sure it's the same shirt from the first time around, but she can't be completely sure. It's been weird, not having George and Izzie around and having Mark and Addison—and now Lexie—but she knows she wouldn't be able to handle everything that came with having George and Izzie as roommates this time around. She's made sure George knows she's not interested early on this time, but they're all still friends, thankfully.

This time when she heads back upstairs to take a shower, she finds Addie sitting on the bathroom floor and gives the older woman a sympathetic smile. “Sorry Meredith, I'll get out of your way,” the redhead mutters as Mer sets her clothes on the bathroom counter.

“Don’t worry about it,” she says with a shake of her head as she steps around the redhead to turn the shower on. Meredith strips quickly and steps into the shower as soon as the water is warm enough. After almost twenty years of being a surgeon and living with roommates, sisters and children, Meredith really isn't phased by nudity—hers or others’. “When I was pregnant with Bailey, I was miserable. Ellis thankfully wasn't as bad,” she comments as she washes her hair, her voice taking on a softly wistful tone; she is still struggling to come to terms with the fact that she won't have them in this life.

Addison chuckles but it turns into a groan and Mer feels for her. “Any more elevator kisses?” Addie asks in a strained but teasing voice and Meredith manages a chuckle. Derek had kissed her in the elevator again, just like last time—well, not quite just like last time, since she had at least been somewhat successful at avoiding him at first.

“Just the one,” she replies, continuing before Addie can say anything, “I know, I know. But it's been so long, I still just…I don't know. Besides, it's different this time, Addison. I know a hell of a lot more than I did the first time,” she sighs, flipping back and forth between anger and longing. She loves Derek still—of course she does—but being aware of what he's doing now—and what he did in DC in their last life—and coming home to Addie and Mark after every shift makes it much more difficult. Meredith may remember all the good stuff, but she remembers all the bad stuff just as well—if not more.

“I already have the divorce papers ready, Mer. I'll give them to him as soon as I go into the hospital,” Addie tells her and Meredith chuckles when she thinks about the chaos that will surely happen when Addison comes to the hospital.

“A woman answered his phone while he was in DC,” she says quietly, but loud enough that she knows Addie can hear her over the shower. A slightly bitter laugh escapes her. “Everyone told me it was probably just a misunderstanding, but all I could think about was you,” she admits—something she hadn't told anyone before. That in those few moments after the woman that answered Derek's phone hung up on her, all she could think about was how she had been the other woman once too.

“You didn't cheat on him like I did, Meredith. He wouldn't have…” Addison starts but she trails off and Meredith knows it's because they both know she won't say something she doesn't wholeheartedly believe.

“I refused to move to DC,” she says as she finally turns the shower off, opening the glass door to grab her towel. Addie has moved away from the shower, but still sits within reach of the toilet, leaning against the cabinet. Meredith steps out of the shower and moves across the room to dry her hair and finishes getting dressed. Just as she moves towards the door, Addison retches again and she changes course to hold Addie's hair back.

“Just get some closure, Meredith,” Addie mumbles as she sits back again and Mer knows what she's really saying. “Don't be late for rounds,” the redhead adds, making Meredith chuckle slightly as she grabs a hair tie and quickly ties Addison's hair back before she stands again.

“Drink water,” she tells the older woman as she finally leaves the room and heads back downstairs. When she gets downstairs, she hugs Lexie, who is getting ready to go to class, finishing up her last year before her intern year at Grey Sloan—Seattle Grace, Meredith reminds herself silently—starts next July. “Make sure Addie drinks plenty of water, Mark!” Meredith calls as she steps out the door, laughing when she hears Addie yell something from upstairs while Mark hollers something else back.

Every time she sees Derek throughout her shift, Meredith thinks about what Addison said about getting closure. She finds herself letting him catch her several times, just like before, though the conversations are not quite the same—she doesn't ask if it's the chase, because she knows the answer. Instead, she leans into him a little more, testing the waters; testing herself and whether she can let herself do this.

This time when she finally makes it home, it's Lexie, Mark and Addie in the living room instead of George and Izzie, but she's not the slightest bit surprised that Lexie has roped Mark and Addison into watching the tapes of her mom's surgeries. It's not the same one, because Lexie made them watch that one nearly a week ago. But Meredith just chuckles tiredly as she collapses onto the couch beside her sister. Lexie grins at her and Meredith feels all the stress of the day fade away; her little sister is alive and sitting next to her, finishing med school and planning a life that she will get to live. There's a pang in her heart when she thinks briefly about her other sisters—Amelia, Maggie, even Molly, whom she hopes that she will get to know better this time—but she doesn't let the ache distract her from all the joy.

She has to be at the hospital early again in the morning, but that doesn't stop her from staying up with them for a while. When she gets up the next morning, she's the first one awake and out of the house before anyone else wakes up.

This shift goes a bit differently since she'd made sure to keep Viper in the hospital for the previous day. Every time Alex opens his mouth, she wants to smack him, and desperately misses her Alex. At least she made it clear early on that she isn't interested in George and he took it alright. She hasn't had any issues with him—they're still friends—and he doesn't follow her around like a puppy. Derek, on the other hand, is still following her around, but she can't bring herself to tell him to leave her alone. Even though she can see all the things she couldn't see the first time and she knows it will end in fire.

She thinks about Nathan and Megan as she goes through her day. Will she regret it if she doesn't at least try? Addie seems to think she will, and Lexie too. Mark stays out of it for the most part, except to throw playful teasing remarks at both her and Addison about sharing a husband. When she'd said something similar to Addie about regretting things, Addison had told her that it was different for her—Addie had moved on while Derek was alive, but Mer had still been with him when he died. She wonders if Addie would say the same now that she knows about DC. Of course, it was never confirmed, but Meredith knew—Meredith knows. After all, she was his resident once. Maybe Addison is right, she just needs a little bit of closure.

Chapter Text

Mark is sitting at the kitchen table with his laptop when Lexie gets home, heart clenching in his chest when she walks in. Even after nearly a month, he feels the ache every time he sees her, mind flashing with memories of her death. He still has nightmares, but waking up next to her has at least lessened them. “Hey Lex,” he greets with a grin. She grins back at him and kisses him, and he can't stop himself from pulling her into his lap. Lexie laughs and he holds her a little tighter, trailing kisses from her lips down her neck to her shoulder.

“Mark!” Lexie giggles and he grins against her skin, knowing exactly where she is ticklish.

“I love you,” he murmurs into her shoulder, lifting his head to meet her gaze.

“I love you too,” she says it back and he kisses her again, feeling her hands slip into his hair. When she pulls back, he just stares at her for a long moment. “Any progress?” Lexie asks and his attention drifts back down to his laptop screen as he nods slowly. He's been looking for his daughter, who is thirteen right now, he's pretty sure.

“I think so,” he says softly, looking at Lexie again. “Are…are you sure about this, Lex?” Mark asks, watching her expression soften as she holds his gaze.

“I told you. I want it all, and she's going to be part of your life at some point, we know that. Besides, I think this is a little better than ‘surprise, I have a kid that's about to have her own kid' don't you think?” Lexie gives him a look and he takes a breath, nodding as he draws her attention to the computer screen. He knows she's right, but his fear of losing her is so deeply ingrained that he can't help being unsure. “So, what’d you find?”

“She’s in Boston,” he says after a minute, pointing at the screen. Lexie turns in his lap and he wraps his arms around her middle as she looks at the computer. He lets his head fall to rest his forehead on her shoulder, waiting to see what she says.

“I can't miss that much class this late in the program, especially after I just transfered, but I'm sure Addison would go with you,” he lifts his head when she speaks, brow furrowing in confusion as he shifts so he can look at her. “What? I thought the plan was to find her and then go meet her; make sure she knows you're here,” Lexie adds and he just stares at her for a minute before he manages to nod and kiss her again.

A half hour later, they are curled up on the couch together when Addison comes down the stairs. “How's the stomach, Red?” Mark asks, chuckling when Addie glares at him and flips him off, no doubt thinking he's teasing her for her morning sickness. “I found her, Addison,” he says quietly then and his redheaded best friend turns back to face him.

“Really?”

“She's in Boston, but I can't miss classes to go with him,” Lexie answers for him so he just nods. He watches Addison's expression shift as she looks at him, and then she finally gives him a tired smile.

“When do you want to leave?”

“I sent Samantha a message, just waiting to hear back from her,” he tells her.

When the time comes to leave a couple days later, Mark struggles with the thought of not seeing Lexie for more than a week. He hugs her tightly and can't seem to pry himself away from her. But she clings to him just as tightly, so it's not just him. Eventually, he manages to pull away to hug Meredith, but comes back to Lexie afterwards. It's early, with Meredith getting ready for rounds and Lexie getting ready for class, and Mark kisses Lexie yet again. “Call me when you get home tonight?” He asks her and Lexie nods with a tight smile.

“Of course I will,” she promises and it quells a little bit of the panic in his chest, but not much.

“I'll take good care of him,” Addison says from behind him and he watches Lexie's expression shift to a playful scowl.

“Not too good,” the younger woman says and the group all laughs as they all make their way out of the house. He pulls Lexie into his arms one last time before finally getting in the car, watching Lexie get into Meredith's car for a ride to UW on Meredith's way to the hospital.

“She'll be okay, Mark,” Addison murmurs and he sighs.

“But what if she's not? What if this is all some crazy dream?”

“We've been here almost two months, and Lexie's been here over a month. I really don't think it's a dream,” Addie tells him and he sighs. He knows she's right. Too much time has passed for it to be just a dream, but he can't help the fear. As soon as Meredith's car is gone, Mark pulls out onto the road and he and Addison set off across the country for the second time.

Lexie calls him every night, and he notices that Meredith calls Addison every other night. Before he knows it, he and Addie are pulling up to a house in Boston, getting ready to meet his daughter for the first time. Well, the first time in this new life they're living. He'd been surprised at how easy it was to convince Samantha to let him meet their daughter, but he finds that he is just as excited as he is nervous. It hadn't gone so well before, but this time, they are years earlier, Sloan being only thirteen instead of eighteen.

The door opens before he gets a chance to knock, and he stares at the woman standing there for a minute. Her gaze flicks towards Addison before returning to him and he isn't quite sure how to read her. “Come on in,” she says with a sigh, stepping back to let them into the house. Mark shares a look with Addison before stepping into the house hesitantly. It takes him a minute before he can figure out what to say.

“Why didn't you tell me about her?” He finally asks as Samantha closes the front door and leads them through the house.

“I didn't think you'd care,” she replies and Mark frowns.

“Of course I care, she's my kid,” he tells her firmly. The look she gives him makes his gut twist uneasily, but then they're stepping into the living room and she is there, sitting on the couch.

“Sloan, honey, this is Mark,” Samantha says before she walks into the kitchen, leaving him and Addison standing there with the girl staring at him with wide eyes. She is so much younger, but he can still see the same features he remembers, they are just more childlike.

“Uh, hey kid,” he says a bit awkwardly, surprised that Samantha just left them alone so quickly.

“Hi,” the girl smiles at him, and he tentatively sits on the other end of the couch while Addie sits in a chair. He glances at Addie and looks back at his daughter, not really sure what to say. Samantha had introduced him by his name…did Sloan even know who he was? Or did she think he was just some friend of her mom's that was stopping by for some reason? “So, are you really my dad?” I guess that answers that question, he coughs slightly in surprise at her question, clearing his throat as he nods.

“I uh, yeah. I am,” he looks over at Addie questioningly, but she just shrugs.

“Mom says you didn't know about me and that's why you weren't around. Are you gonna be around now?”

“Well, uh,” Mark looks towards the kitchen where Samantha had disappeared to, but doesn't see her. “Well, I live in Seattle, so I don't…I don't know how often I'll be able to come here,” he tries to explain slowly.

“There’s a girl in my class, her parents are divorced. She lives with her mom during school and then lives with her dad over the summer. Are you and Mom gonna do that?” Mark blinks in surprise at his daughter's question and looks up at Addison again before looking around for Samantha. Thankfully, before he has to come up with an answer, Samantha reappears. His gaze zeroes in on the large envelope in her hand however as Sloan looks at her mother. “Am I going to stay with Dad?” Mark sucks in a sharp breath when she calls him “Dad” and watches the mother-daughter pair curiously.

“If you want to,” Samantha shrugs and Mark opens his mouth to say something, but then she's handing him the envelope and his eyes widen as he pulls the papers out of it. “That's what you came for, right?” The woman asks with a motion at the papers in his hands. Custody papers.

“I came to talk about the possibilities…” he says slowly, lowering his gaze to skim over the papers. His eyes go wide as he reads, gaze flicking up to Samantha in surprise before he looks at his daughter, who is looking between him and her mother curiously. “Do you wanna come to Seattle, kid?”

“Can I??” His daughter's excitement surprises him and he looks at Samantha.

“When does school start?” Mark asks her and the woman shrugs.

“No idea when it starts in Seattle.”

“Seattle?” Addison speaks finally, looking at him in question and Mark hands her the papers in his hand. Addie skims over them and looks up at him with eyebrows raised and he nods. “You should call Lexie tonight, talk it over with her,” she tells him and he nods.

“Who's Lexie?” His daughter asks.

“Ah, Lexie is my wife,” he tells her, even though he and Lexie aren't married just yet. He hasn't even bought her a ring yet—something he needs to do soon.

“You're not…” Samantha speaks to Addison but trails off when Addie shakes her head.

“I'm just a friend,” Addie tells the other woman and Mark nods in confirmation. Then he looks at Sloan hesitantly.

“Can I talk to your mom for a minute?” He asks and his daughter looks at him and then her mom with a frown before nodding and jumping up off the couch and disappearing down the hall. Then Mark takes the papers back from Addison and turns to Samantha. “What are these?”

“Custody papers, obviously,” Samantha frowns and he sighs.

“Yeah, but why? I mean I'm happy to have her come to Seattle, but this is… she just met me today, and you want me to take her back with me?” Mark frowns. He remembers dealing with Samantha last time, how she'd kicked Sloan out and barely seemed to care about her, but he didn't realize the lack of care went back this far.

“You wanted to take responsibility for your kid,” the woman shrugs and Mark feels a flash of anger as he thinks about his own indifferent parents, that he doesn't even talk to anymore—hasn't in years.

“Alright,” he says with a tone of finality. He'll call Lexie tonight and tell her what's going on, and hope that she doesn't hate him for this, but he won't leave his own kid to live like he did as a child.

“Sloan, honey!” Samantha calls and the young blonde girl reappears from what Mark guesses must be her bedroom. He swallows thickly as she comes back to sit next to him again.

“So do I get to come stay with you?” She asks him and he manages a small nod.

“Yeah kid, if you want to,” he tells her, completely surprised when she leaps at him and hugs him. Mark hugs her back tentatively, meeting Addison's clouded gaze over the girl's head.

“Are you two staying for dinner?” Samantha asks and Mark looks away from Addie to nod at her.

“Sure,” he agrees as Sloan pulls away from him and returns to her end of the couch.

“Awesome!” His daughter exclaims. He and Addison spend the next two hours getting to know his daughter while navigating awkward, tense conversation with the girl's mother until it's time for them to go back to their hotel.

When they get back to the hotel, Mark takes his phone out as he sits on the edge of his bed. He stares at the phone for a long few minutes, until Addison comes to sit next to him. “She loved you before when you sprang a grown kid and a baby on her, Mark. This time she knows all about Sloan. It's not your fault that Samantha is so eager to abandon her daughter,” Addison says with a scowl and he nods in agreement, even though he's beyond nervous about the phone call he's about to make. With a sigh, he lifts the phone to his ear.

“Hey, how did it go? Did you meet her?” Lexie greets him and he smiles at the sound of her voice.

“Yeah, we met her,” he tells her, unable to keep the trepidation from his voice.

“What's wrong? Did something happen? I thought Samantha agreed to everything,” he's not surprised that Lexie catches on to him, but it doesn't make it any easier. With a small sigh, Mark tries to force the words out of his mouth.

“She gave me custody papers, Lex,” he says quietly. Addie rests a hand on his thigh and squeezes before she stands and he watches her disappear into the bathroom, the shower coming on moments later.

“Wasn't that the plan? To figure out some sort of custody agreement or visitation schedule?” Mark can't help the smile that pulls at his lips at Lexie's words. His beautiful fiancée—and doesn't that sound crazy; Mark Sloan, soon-to-be married. Shaking his head slightly, he swallows around the lump in his throat and runs his free hand over his face.

“She gave me full custody, Lexie,” he murmurs. “She wants me to bring Sloan back to Seattle with us,” he forces himself to continue while Lexie is still quiet on the other end of the line.

“...you just met her,” her voice is slightly off, but he isn't quite sure if it's because of what Samantha did or if it's because of the possibility of him bringing his daughter back to Seattle with him. “What kind of mother just passes her child off the second she gets the chance??” Lexie asks and he is pretty sure her anger is directed at Samantha this time, not him, but it still makes him nervous.

“Lexie…” he starts, but she interrupts him before he gets very far.

“I'm not mad at you, Mark. I promise. I mean, I remember the situation last time. I just…” somehow, Lexie has read his mind, he swears. “Mer and I will clean out one of the other bedrooms.”

“Lex, I'm sorry-”

“You don't need to apologize, Mark. I know you, and I love you. Of course you're not leaving her there with a mother that clearly doesn't give a crap about her,” she interrupts him again and he can hear the warmth in her voice for him as well as the contempt for Samantha when she mentions her. He has no idea what he did to deserve Lexie Grey, but he knows he will spend eternity loving her and making sure she knows how much he loves her.

“I love you so much, Lex,” he murmurs, smiling when he hears her chuckle softly.

“I love you too, Mark,” she replies as they end the call. He sits there for a few minutes just staring at the phone in his hand again before finally setting it on the nightstand and leaning back with a sigh. His eyes are closed when Addison comes back into the room, but he pries them open to glance at her.

“How'd it go?”

“I don't deserve her, Addison,” he says softly and Addie chuckles, giving him a smirk.

“Oh, we all know that,” she teases him and he scowls playfully at her. “But it went okay?”

“Yeah,” he nods.

“Good,” she says and he nods again as he closes his eyes.

Chapter Text

“Do you think this is enough?” Lexie asks as she motions around the bedroom. “What do thirteen year old girls even like anymore?” She continues, looking at her sister, who just chuckles at her.

“It looks fine, Lex. She'll probably like getting to decorate it herself,” Meredith tells her and she nods.

“Right. Of course,” she says as she runs a hand through her hair.

“We're going to be late, you know,” Meredith comments and Lexie shrugs.

“It's fine, it's just Mom and Dad, and Molly. Besides, they don't even know we're coming,” she says as she leads the way down the stairs towards the front door. Her parents and younger sister always have Saturday night dinner together, she knows, so she's made a plan to surprise them.

“Yeah and you're bringing your dad's first kid back to his new family when he hasn't seen me in over twenty years. Not to mention you haven't actually told them you moved back to Seattle,” her sister tells her and Lexie turns back to look at Meredith when she reaches the bottom of the stairs.

“It's gonna be fine, Meredith,” she tries to reassure her.

“How are we explaining this?” Meredith motions between them and Lexie bites her lip for a second before shrugging again.

“I mean, I've known I had a sister out there somewhere, so I could say I was looking at the doctors at Seattle Grace to see who I'd be working with next year and saw your name?” Lexie suggests, turning back to the door and heading out to the car with Meredith trailing behind her. She knows Mer is a little uneasy about seeing her mom again after what happened after she died the last time. But they're the only two that know what's going on, so she doesn't think it'll be that bad.

The truth is, she's a little nervous about seeing her mom again too—her dad too, after everything that happened after her mom died. She's not sure she could do this if Meredith wasn't going with her. But Mark will be home in a couple days, and if she thinks of this dinner with Mer as a practice run for when she introduces Mark to her family, it makes the thought of bringing Mark home a little less daunting. She has no idea how she is going to explain Mark yet, but she can explain Meredith easily.

As Meredith drives them to the house, Lexie thinks about how her family is going to react to not only seeing her back home before school is over, but also seeing Meredith. Glancing at Meredith, she sees her sister frowning as she drives and Lexie can tell it's more of a thoughtful frown than anything else. She knows that the last time Meredith saw their dad was when he died, but she's not sure what might be going through Meredith's head right now.

“Do we mention that I'm living with you? Or not yet?”

“That's up to you, Lexie,” Meredith tells her as they get out of the car. Lexie moves towards the house with a mix of anticipation and trepidation, pausing when she realizes that Meredith isn't right behind her. She turns, finding Mer still standing by the car.

“Mer?” Lexie murmurs and her sister jolts herself slightly.

“I'm coming,” she waits near the porch as Meredith walks towards her, and when she's within reach, Lexie grabs her sister's hand and squeezes.

The door opens just as she releases Meredith's hand and Lexie turns, coming face to face with her mother. “Lexie! What are you doing home??” Her mom exclaims as she steps out to hug her and Lexie has to force herself not to cling to her mother. She just barely manages to keep her tears from falling, and when she finally pulls back, she grins.

“I um, I found someone I had to meet,” Lexie says softly, glancing at Meredith, who is standing a couple feet away looking unsure. She watches her mother look up then and her mom's eyes widen as she stares at Meredith. Her sister seems frozen in place and Lexie reaches out again to grab Meredith's hand. “Mom, this is Meredith,” she says warmly as she tugs Meredith closer. When her mom finally smiles, Lexie is pretty sure she sees Meredith's shoulders drop slightly as she relaxes a bit.

“It's lovely to meet you, Meredith. Please, come in,” her mom motions to the house and she grins as she pulls Meredith into the house.

“Where's Dad?” Lexie asks, looking at her mom over her shoulder. The older woman smiles.

“He's in the kitchen with Molly,” her mom says.

“Lexie, maybe you shouldn't just spring this on our father and Molly at the same time,” Meredith says softly and Lexie turns back to look at her, then her mom.

“Your father will be so happy to see you, Meredith, and Molly would love to meet you,” her mom tells her sister and Lexie grins as she leads the way down the hall.

“Dad? Molly?” Lexie calls out, stepping into the kitchen. Her little sister looks up and grins widely, setting down the knife she'd been using to chop vegetables to practically leap towards her. She hugs her sister tightly, barely keeping herself from crying as Molly hugs her back. When she pulls back, she turns towards her dad to find that he is staring at Meredith with wide eyes. Meredith is staring at him too, and Lexie looks between them for a second before turning back to Molly. “Molly, this is our sister, Meredith,” she tells her little sister. Molly's eyes widen and Lexie watches her look at Meredith and then at their parents—their dad still stands frozen by the stove while their mom hovers in the kitchen doorway behind Meredith.

“Meredith…” their father finally murmurs Mer's name and Lexie is smiling as her older sister gives a nervous smile.

“Hi Dad,” Mer replies quietly.

“How..?” He looks between her sister and her and Lexie speaks up.

“I was looking at who I'd be working with at Seattle Grace and saw her name,” she tells him and he looks at Meredith again.

“You…you work at Seattle Grace?” It's weird, seeing her dad look so unsure as he talks to Meredith, but she imagines seeing his first daughter after twenty years is probably pretty shocking.

“I'm in my first year of residency,” Meredith replies with a nod.

“Thatcher, honey, why don't I take over with dinner so it doesn't burn while you catch up with Meredith?” Lexie looks at her mom as the older woman steps fully into the kitchen with a warm smile. She watches her dad jolt slightly as he turns back to stir the sauce he has going on the stove, but then her mom is gently pushing him out of the way. Lexie grabs Meredith's hand and tugs her towards the living room with both her dad and Molly following them.

It's a little awkwardly quiet as they all sit down, her and Meredith on the couch with Molly sitting down on her other side while their father sits in his usual chair. He's still staring at Meredith, and Mer looks just as unsure as their dad does. Thankfully Molly is much more forward, and their little sister jumps right in.

“So you live in Seattle?” Molly asks and Lexie smiles as Meredith nods.

“Yeah. I just moved back in July to start my residency, actually,” she explains.

“Where did you go to med school?” Molly asks another question and Lexie can see Meredith relaxing more and more as she talks to their younger sister.

“Dartmouth.”

“Oh that's awesome! Did Lexie tell you she's going to Stanford?”

“Actually, I transferred to UW for these last two terms before I try for the Seattle Grace residency,” Lexie says softly, smiling as both Molly and their dad look at her in surprise. “I wanted to get to know Meredith before I start at the hospital,” she adds with a small shrug and a glance at Meredith.

“Where are you going to stay?” Her father asks curiously and Lexie shares a look with her older sister.

“I'm staying with Meredith and her roommates actually, Dad,” she tells him. But before her dad can say anything else, Molly squeals with excitement.

“That means you'll be here when the baby's born!” Molly grins and Lexie grins in excitement too—she’d forgotten that Molly was pregnant around this time.

“Yeah I will,” she nods as Molly hugs her and Lexie glances at her dad to see him smiling.

The conversation is still a little stiff and awkward between Meredith and their dad throughout the night, but Molly peppers Meredith with questions and tells her all about their lives growing up. Lexie has a constant smile on her face at the sight of her sisters getting along and bonding. When her mom finally gathers everyone for dinner, she sits on one side of Meredith and isn't surprised that Molly takes the seat on the other side of Meredith. Her mom is warm and friendly with Mer, and Lexie thinks the night has definitely been a success. She decides not to bring up Mark this time, figuring maybe one shock for her father at a time is probably enough.

It's getting kind of late by the time she and Meredith realize they should be leaving. “Well, we gotta get home, Mer has rounds early in the morning,” she says as she stands, glancing at her older sister, who nods in agreement. Lexie hugs her little sister and both her parents, then watches with a grin as Molly hugs Meredith. Her mom hugs Mer too, and she catches the way Meredith spends a few seconds blinking rapidly before she pulls away and looks at their father.

Thatcher Grey stares at his oldest daughter for a long moment and if it was anyone else, Lexie would have laughed at the awkwardness. But then he finally reaches out and Meredith hugs him back. She can't see Mer's face this time, but when her sister steps back again, she sees the tears Meredith is fighting.

Once they're in the car again, Lexie sighs softly with a smile. “See? I told you it would be fine,” she tells her sister happily. Meredith chuckles as she nods.

“It was certainly better than the first time I saw him last time. We both just kind of stood there and then I left. And I hid from him when Molly was admitted the first time. Though I did get to talk to Molly, even though she didn't know who I was,” Meredith tells her quietly and Lexie looks over at her sister in surprise.

“Really?”

“Yeah. She told me all about you,” Mer smiles at her and Lexie smiles back—she hadn't known about that. “Your mother saw me in the halls later and knew who I was immediately,” she adds and Lexie chuckles softly.

“Just like today,” she says and Mer nods.

When they get home, Lexie follows Meredith into the house and pulls out her phone. While Meredith goes upstairs to get ready for bed—and probably call Addison, she adds with a chuckle to herself—Lexie sits down on the couch and lifts her phone to her ear. At this point she's used to Meredith and Addison’s closeness, but she still isn't entirely sure how it came about or what it means—she has her suspicions, and she knows a little bit, but she hasn't found the time to bring it up to Mer yet.

“Hey Lex. How'd dinner go?” Mark's voice sends warmth through her and she smiles as she leans back.

“It went really well. It was weird seeing Dad act so awkward, but Molly already loves Mer,” she tells him happily. “How was the first day back on the road?”

“It was alright. Addison was sick for most of it, so we had to pull over a few times,” he replies.

“Aw, that sucks. I hope tomorrow is better. How's Sloan?”

“Good so far. At least I think she is. Just asks a lot of questions about Seattle, or plays on her GameBoy,” he tells her.

“Mer and I set up her room, but we left it mostly blank so she can decorate it however she wants to,” she says as she drags herself to her feet, deciding to head up to their room as a yawn escapes her mouth. Sure enough, she can hear Meredith talking to Addison in her room, and she's pretty sure she can hear Addison's voice in the background on the other end of her and Mark's call.

“I love you,” she chuckles softly at his words.

“I love you too,” she replies easily as she steps into their room, setting the phone down for a minute while she changes. Then she grabs it again and crawls into bed with a small sigh. “I miss you.”

“I miss you too, Lex. We'll be home in just a couple days,” he chuckles softly on the other end of the call and Lexie smiles.

“I know. I can't wait,” Lexie murmurs. This is their routine now, since he's been gone; phone calls every night, usually staying on the line until one or both of them falls asleep, whether they actually talk or not. Tonight is no different, and she eventually drifts off to the sound of his voice.

Chapter Text

Addison wakes up to her stomach rebelling the morning after they get home from the trip to Boston. She ends up on the bathroom floor, thankful that she tied her hair back before bed. Her eyes are still squeezed shut when she hears the bathroom door open, but she pries them open to glance up, seeing Meredith hovering in the doorway. “I'm fine, Meredith,” she mutters as she lets her eyes close again.

“I know. Still gonna check on you though. You have your ultrasound today, right?” Meredith asks and Addison manages a small smile as she nods.

“Yeah.”

“Is Mark going with you?”

“He was supposed to, but that was before we brought Sloan home from Boston,” Addie murmurs as she shakes her head. Then she's expelling whatever's left in her stomach and she hears Meredith step into the bathroom and close the door behind her. She groans softly as she leans back, hearing the faucet turn on and off before a glass is pressed into her hand. Addison rinses her mouth several times before drinking the rest of the water, sighing softly when Meredith takes the glass, refills it and hands it back to her. “Thanks,” she says softly before she takes another sip of water.

“...I'm not on call today, if you want the company. I just have to be at Roseridge around two-thirty,” Meredith says slowly and Addison glances up at her. She almost says something about how this is literally her specialty and she's fine to do this alone, she knows the drill. But then she wonders if maybe Meredith needs something to do before she has to go deal with her mother.

“Sure. Thanks, Meredith,” Addie smiles tiredly.

By the time she makes it downstairs, breakfast is already on the table. She watches in amusement as Mark goes to steal a piece of bacon from Lexie's plate and she smacks his hand. Mark's daughter laughs and Addie and Meredith share a warm look. They’ve only been back for less than twenty-four hours and the girl already seems much happier than she did in Boston.

“Can we go to the ferris wheel today, Dad?” Sloan asks excitedly and Addison grins at the way Mark's eyes widen as he looks at the girl. She's been calling him ‘Dad’ since the day they met her, and watching Mark's reaction to it makes Addie smile every time. This time it's not just Addie though; Meredith and Lexie are both smiling while Mark stares at his daughter for a minute.

“Uh, yeah, sure kid. Whatever you wanna do. We also gotta figure out when you start school,” he says and all three women at the table nod in agreement.

“Usually starts at the beginning of September, so you've only got like a week and a half I think,” Lexie says before she takes a bite of her toast.

“You wanna come with us today, Addie?” Mark asks and Addison shakes her head.

“I have my ultrasound today, remember?” She reminds him and his eyes widen before his expression falls slightly.

“I should be there,” he says but she shakes her head with a small smile.

“It's okay, Mark. Meredith's going with me,” she tells him.

“But-”

“Mark,” she interrupts him and he frowns. “It's just the first one. There's not a lot going on at this one, it's okay. The big one is the second one,” she explains with an easy smile. He is still frowning, but he nods with a small sigh.

“What's an ultrasound?” Mark's daughter asks curiously and Addison is reminded of just how little education a lot of kids get on this type of thing.

“It's a machine that can take pictures of things inside your body, like babies before they're born,” she explains. They had explained that Addison is pregnant on the way home from Boston, since her morning sickness had gotten worse.

“Oh, cool!” The girl says with a smile before she looks over at Lexie. “Do you wanna go with us, Lexie?” Sloan asks the younger Grey and Lexie give the girl a sad smile.

“I would love to, Sloan, but I have to go to class. I can meet up with you guys afterwards though,” Lexie tells her.

“Why do you have to go to school still if you're an adult?”

“You have to take extra years of school to become a doctor,” the younger Grey explains and everyone chuckles when Sloan makes a face.

“That sucks.”

“Yeah, kid, it does,” Mark laughs.

Addison picks at her breakfast while Mark and Lexie tell Sloan about med school, trying to decide what she can keep down. Before long, Lexie is jumping up from the table, tossing her dishes in the sink, kissing Mark and heading out the door. Then everyone else is cleaning up and Addison manages to finish her eggs and most of her orange juice before she and Meredith are heading out the door.

She lets Meredith drive, giving her directions to the private clinic she made an appointment at; she isn't going to risk going to one of the major hospitals and letting word get out that she's in town yet. It takes them just about twenty minutes to get there, and thankfully her breakfast stays in her stomach. The paperwork is easy to fill out, though she has to admit, being the patient has never come easy to her, and this is no different. “You might have to come with me just to remind me that I'm the patient, Grey,” Addison chuckles softly and Meredith gives her a half smirk as she chuckles too.

When she's called back, Addie and Meredith follow the nurse into the exam room and Addison goes through the motions of the exam that comes with the appointment. It definitely feels strange to be the patient, but the weirdness is mostly overshadowed by her excitement. There's still a part of her that's paranoid and nervous—as far as she knows, this is her only chance to have a baby, and that's a little nerve-wracking—but she tries to keep it buried under the excitement for now.

The time finally comes for the actual ultrasound and Addison takes a deep breath as the doctor gets everything set up. Meredith stands to her left, the doctor with the ultrasound screen on her right. She's done this same thing for her patients countless times, but as soon as she sees the blurry little image on the screen, her breath catches in her lungs. If she's being honest, it hasn't actually seemed real until now. Now she is looking at the image and her hand finds Meredith's and squeezes tightly. The younger woman squeezes back and Addison just stares at the screen.

“Do we want pictures today?” The doctor asks and she nods—Mark will kill her if she doesn't bring him a photo at least.

“Yes, thank you,” she manages to speak and a breathy laugh escapes her as she glances at Meredith, who is smiling at her. “Holy crap, Grey,” she murmurs, “I'm having a baby. With Mark,” she adds and Meredith laughs quietly.

“That you are,” the blonde replies with an amused smile. Addison feels her eyes sting and blinks rapidly to keep any tears from falling. She recalls the day she found out she was basically sterile in her life before and it hits her—really hits her—that this is probably the only time she'll be pregnant.

Somehow, she manages to keep it together until they're back in the car. Her vision blurs as tears trickle down her cheeks. The old Addison might have been embarrassed, but this isn't the first time she's cried in front of Meredith. Thoughts of that first day back at Grey-Sloan come to her mind; her breakdown in the elevator, Meredith's arms around her and her head resting against the blonde's.

A hand squeezes hers and she blinks, looking up at Meredith, who is giving her the same soft look full of understanding as she did in the elevator that day. Addie holds onto Meredith's hand tightly as she wipes at her cheeks with her free hand, but after a few seconds, she stops trying to get rid of her tears. She just needs a minute, that's all. A minute to grieve everything all over again, so she can finally move forward in this new life, because she is having a baby and she needs to focus on that. This is her life now—no more L.A., no more Jake, no more Henry at least for now—and she has to accept that. Addison needs to be able to let go of what she had so she can focus on what she has. But damn if it doesn't hurt like hell.

It takes more than a minute, but when she finally gets the tears to stop, Meredith is still holding her hand. The younger woman hands her a tissue and Addison gives her an attempt at a smile. “Thanks, Mer,” she whispers.

“Grief's a bitch,” Meredith murmurs in reply and Addie actually manages a short, wet laugh as she nods in agreement. “I can take you home before I go to Roseridge, if you want,” the blonde offers softly, but Addison shakes her head.

“I'm fine, I'm okay. I'm good now,” she says, though it's probably obvious she's trying to convince herself as much as she is Meredith. Wiping at her cheeks one final time, she checks her makeup in the visor mirror and is thankful she wears waterproof mascara. She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “I'm okay, Meredith,” she repeats in a steadier tone, squeezing Mer's hand before finally releasing it so the other woman can drive.

By the time they get to the nursing home, Addison's face is clear and her emotions have settled, but Meredith looks like she would rather be anywhere else. The blonde sits there for a minute before finally opening her door, and Addie follows her into the building. Addison isn't sure what to expect, as her memories of Meredith's mother at Seattle Grace are a bit fuzzy after nearly twenty years. But she watches Meredith closely, seeing the way her entire body tenses as they walk down the hall.

She stays quiet through the meeting, just watching Meredith and listening. Ellis Grey is not a kind or soft woman in the slightest—this Addie does remember—and Addison knows the confusion that comes with the disease only makes it worse. Thankfully, Ellis is lucid enough and the meeting actually goes relatively smoothly. Before long, she and Meredith are back in the car and the younger woman sighs heavily.

“I don't know if this is harder or easier this time around,” Meredith mutters and Addison can tell there's more she wants to say, so she doesn't reply just yet. “I know it's coming, but does that mean I'm prepared? Or am I just going to be dreading it until it happens instead of it being sudden?”

“Things are different, maybe it won't happen the same this time,” Addie offers quietly, unsure if it's helpful or not. For a brief moment, she thinks about her own mother, wondering just how much they might be able to change, but shoves it back into the corner of her mind for the time being; she's not so sure she's ready to think about that just yet. Meredith nods in response to her words, but Addison can tell she isn't so sure. Her mind then flashes back to the day Ellis Grey died—probably only still such a sharp memory because of everything else that happened that day. Maybe it's strange, how the image of her ex-husband's girlfriend lying cold and blue stuck with her, but it did.

“I'd prefer to not end up in the bay this time,” apparently she isn't the only one who is thinking about it.

“I think we all would prefer that, Meredith,” she replies softly with a nod, suppressing a shudder at the thought.

The drive back to the house is mostly quiet until Addison's phone rings. When she looks down and sees who's calling her, she glances at Meredith. “It's Richard,” she says, lifting it to her ear. “Richard, hi,” she greets her mentor warmly.

“Hey Addie, how do you feel about coming out for a TTTS case I had admitted?” Richard asks in a warm, hopeful tone. Addie swallows a chuckle and smiles.

“How soon do you need me?”

“As soon as you can get here. She was admitted this morning,” Richard tells her and Addie finds herself nodding even though the only person that can see her is Meredith. They've been keeping track of the days, so she already has the day she's supposed to go to Grey-Sloan—Seattle Grace, she reminds herself yet again—marked on the calendar.

“I can be there next week,” she replies.

“Perfect. Thank you, Addie. See you next week.”

“Of course, Richard. See you then,” she ends the call just as Meredith pulls into the driveway at the house and tucks her phone back into her pocket. Mark's car is in the driveway, which means Lexie is home from class and Addie smiles as she thinks about showing Mark the ultrasound photos.

She and Meredith make their way into the house and find that Mark is making dinner, Lexie sitting at the bar with a beer while Sloan is sitting next to her, watching her dad cook. “Grey! Red!” Mark calls out and Addison hears Meredith snort as she herself laughs. Lexie is laughing too, and it only takes a second before Mark joins them, though his daughter looks at them with a confused expression.

“Wow Mark, reducing us to just colors instead of our names, rude,” Meredith teases in amusement and Mark flips her off as he turns back to whatever he's cooking.

“There are children present!” Addison scolds through her laughter with a motion towards Sloan, but the girl just giggles and shrugs. Addison's laughter dwindles to a chuckle and she sits on the other side of Lexie at the bar while Meredith gets a beer from the fridge. Some days she wishes she could still drink with them, but it doesn't bother her too much.

“Hey now, Grey is your name!” Mark shoots back at Meredith and Addie shakes her head, sharing an amused grin with Lexie. Then she pulls the photos from her purse and hands one to Lexie, who squeals excitedly, drawing everyone else's attention. Addison watches Mark's attention zero in on the photo before he looks at her. “Is that..?”

“Yeah,” Addie nods, holding out another photo to him. He hands the whisk he's holding to Meredith and she takes over at the stove while Mark stares at the photo. Taking a long, deep breath and letting it out slowly, Addison smiles. Meredith catches her eye for a moment and they share a bittersweet smile and a nod before she looks at Mark again. He is grinning like a fool, his arm wrapped around Lexie as they look at the fuzzy black and white photos. Then he shows it to his daughter and explains that it's a picture of what will be the girl's brother or sister. Sloan's eyes get big as she looks at Addison and then Lexie. While they had explained that Addison was pregnant on the way home from Boston, they hadn't told her that the baby was her father's.

“Wait, but I thought Lexie was your girlfriend?” Sloan looks between in what looks like both confusion and concern and Addie and Lexie share a look, but surprisingly it's Mark that speaks up.

“She is. Addison got pregnant before I was with Lexie, though,” he tells his daughter.

“Oh. And you're okay with…that?” Sloan looks at Lexie and then at Addison and Addie finds herself actually waiting a little nervously for Lexie's answer. They have been friendly and nothing has seemed uneasy between them, but it dawns on Addison that they haven't actually had this exact conversation.

“Yep. It surprised me at first, but I'm okay with it. Addison really wants to be a mom, so I'm excited for her,” Lexie tells the teenager, and Addison stares at the younger woman for a long moment. When Lexie looks back up at her with a warm smile, Addie smiles back.

It's strange to think that this little group being her family isn't weird to think about anymore. Mark, Lexie, Meredith—and even Sloan—are her family. At some point, she'll have to tell Archer that he's going to be an uncle, and she wants to tell her friends eventually—especially Naomi—but right now, she just pours herself a glass of cranberry juice and enjoys her current company.

Chapter Text

It isn't until she gets to the hospital in the morning that she realizes last night should have been Izzie's big party. George and Izzie are talking about how Izzie never showed up to the party and Meredith wonders where the party was this time. She also realizes that since she took yesterday off to handle everything with her mother, she missed the heart surgery. It doesn't surprise her that Cristina got to do it instead this time.

Without the problems caused by her incident with the heart, the day goes relatively smoothly for her. Part of her misses the closeness she had with her friends the first time around, but it's hard to have the same closeness when things are so different this time around. She can technically invite them over, but she isn't sure how good of an idea that is. Maybe she'll just wait until she isn't pretending not to know Derek is still married.

He still follows her around, flirting and trying to be all dreamy, and she might have let him kiss her a couple more times, but that's it. She's made her decision, and it's not him. The way he dodges all her questions about his life—despite the fact that she knows all the answers, she still asks, just to see—is not endearing or mysterious anymore, it is annoying and she's just frustrated with herself that she never saw it this way the first time. When she gets home that evening after a surprisingly easy, calm shift, she collapses onto the couch with a sigh.

“Long day?” Lexie asks as she comes down the stairs. Meredith shakes her head with a dry chuckle.

“Not surgically. Just Derek being impossible. I'm putting an end to this tomorrow. For real,” she tells her sister, who comes over and sits next to her on the couch.

“You think he'll listen?”

“Probably not, but Addie will be there in less than a week, so if he doesn't respect my decision, maybe seeing me be friends with his wife will do the trick,” she says with a shrug. “Besides, I can't be with someone who doesn't know about all this,” Meredith waves her hand around at the house in a vague gesture, but Lexie nods in understanding.

“I get that. I can't imagine if I remembered but Mark didn't,” her sister murmurs and Mer gives her a soft smile.

“He was terrified of the same thing before you called me,” she tells Lexie quietly, wrapping an arm around her. “Speaking of Mark, where is he?”

“Holding Addison’s hair back,” Lexie says with a fond smile that has Meredith smiling too. “You know, I thought it would be weirder, more awkward or something. But it's not. It's just like…”

“Family?” Meredith finishes for her sister. Lexie nods.

“Yeah,” she agrees.

The two of them sit together for a while until Meredith starts to fall asleep. Then she gets up and drags herself to bed, Lexie heading to her and Mark's room too. Mer makes sure her alarms are all set, changes clothes, and crashes.

When she wakes up, she groans, snoozing the alarm for a few minutes. Then she snoozes it again, slightly dreading the confrontation she knows she's going to have with Derek today. But she doesn't get to lay there for long, because Addison is knocking on her door, making sure she gets up. “Meredith!”

“I'm up, I swear,” she says as she finally rolls out of bed. When she gets to her door and steps into the hall, she's surprised that she gets the bathroom to herself for once. That thought must jinx her though, because ten seconds after she steps into the shower, the bathroom door opens and Addison ends up on the floor. She's about to open the shower door to check on her, but Mark beats her to it, following Addie into the bathroom.

“How long is this supposed to last?” Mark asks, worry and concern clear in his voice. It takes Addie a minute to be able to answer and Meredith feels for her. She hopes the morning sickness will get better soon.

“There's no set time that it lasts. Some women don't get sick at all, some are sick their entire pregnancy,” Addison explains.

“Grey, you said you and Derek had more kids, how long were you sick?” Mark asks her just as she's rinsing the shampoo from her hair. She does her best to ignore the ache in her chest at the thought of her babies that she will never get to have this time.

“With Bailey I was sick for a lot of the pregnancy, but with Ellis I was barely sick at all,” she tells him. “Can you hand me my towel?” Meredith adds as she turns the water off and squeezes most of the water from her hair. The shower door opens and a towel appears. She wraps it around herself and then steps out, doing her best to avoid getting Addison wet as she steps around the woman sitting on the floor and Mark, who is still holding Addison's hair. “I'll see you guys later,” she says as she heads for the door and slips back into her room to get dressed.

She gets to the hospital a little late, and practically runs into Derek getting out of his car. “You're avoiding me!” Derek exclaims as she rushes past him. Meredith groans internally and glances at him over her shoulder.

“Yes, but also late,” she tells him, turning and continuing into the hospital.

“Are we gonna talk about this?” Derek falls into step beside her.

“There's nothing to talk about Derek. Just stop,” she says without looking at him. He follows her over to the elevator and she finally shoots him a glare. “I'm serious, Dr Shepherd,” his grin falters when she uses his title instead of his first name and she turns away, heading for the stairs. She has a feeling that he won't leave her alone just yet, but she's trying at least.

Meredith is in the middle of changing in the locker room when Cristina rushes in. “You're late,” she comments.

“So are you,” Cristina replies, and there's something off about her voice. Meredith glances at her but Cristina is facing away from her.

“What's up with you?”

“Shut up,” Cristina says as they both head for the door and race for the stairs.

“Did you just tell me to shut up?” Meredith frowns at her friend. She isn't so much surprised by the words, but there's definitely something off about her friend. It only takes her a few more minutes to remember that her friend is sleeping with Burke now, so Mer lets it go for now.

Sure enough, when Burke joins them in Ms Connors’ room for rounds, Meredith catches the way he and Cristina look at each other. There's still something that doesn't seem completely right about them, but Meredith just puts it up to her not remembering everything perfectly. The next room they end up in for rounds is a patient she remembers well though. He's an older gentleman with Parkinson's and last time, she managed to convince him to do DBS. She silently wonders if Derek is still going to yell at her randomly when she brings it up this time. Bailey has no knowledge of them since they were never caught at the party this time, so she wonders if—hopes—things might go a little smoother this time.

Sure enough, when she brings it up, Derek is much easier on her, and she doesn't get kicked off the original surgery this time. Lunch with her friends is a little tense, what with Alex being pissed about getting kicked off the massive tumor surgery, and Cristina still acting weird. But she figures Cristina will tell her about Burke soon, and she's pretty sure that Ms Connors is one of the cases that starts to make Alex think twice about being an ass. When she gets back to the DBS patient, she's pretty sure the conversation goes almost exactly as it did the first time, resulting in the man agreeing to the surgery.

Derek is still flirting with her after they finish the surgery and Meredith just starts ignoring him. He really doesn't seem to be getting the hint, but somehow that doesn't really surprise her. She may just have to wait until Addie is around. That will certainly chase him off, she knows. Especially once he finds out about Mark too.

She's sitting in the gallery with Alex watching Ms Connors’ tumor surgery when he tries to get her to go out with him and she just rolls her eyes. She misses her Alex. This one is such a pain in the ass. But then she sees his face after they call time of death on Ms Connors and she knows she was right earlier; this is one of those cases.

Derek tries to catch her as she's leaving, but she slips past him and out into the rain. All she wants is to go home and have a glass of wine with Addie—well, she'll have wine while Addie has something non-alcoholic—while Mark makes dinner. Her soon to be brother-in-law has taken to cooking breakfast and dinner a lot. Meredith thinks it's because he's bored without the hospital to keep him busy, but she definitely doesn't mind not having to worry about finding something to eat—whenever she misses a meal due to her shifts, there's always leftovers in the fridge for her.

When she gets home, she is slightly surprised to see that Mark's daughter is in the kitchen with him, watching everything he's doing. Mer glances at Lexie curiously, who grins at her, and Addison is smiling as well. In just the two days that Sloan has been here so far, the girl seems to have settled right in. Meredith expected the girl to be a little more unsure about living with a father she never met, but after talking to Addison and Mark about what things were like in Boston, she's starting to understand why the girl is so much happier here. She pours herself a glass of wine and goes to join Lexie and Addison at the bar, but suddenly there's a knock at the door.

Everyone looks up at the sound, considering she hasn't actually told any of her friends where she lives yet because of her current roommates. Meredith sets her wine glass down and stands, heading towards the front of the house. The door opens before she can get there, however, and Meredith wonders who the hell would just open her door; a question that is answered seconds later.

“Meredith! Mer, we need to talk! I know this is going to sound crazy, but–” Cristina cuts off when she rounds the corner and sees Meredith and Meredith gapes at her best friend in shock.

“Cristina! How..what..?” Meredith stares at her, but then her eyes widen when Cristina’s gaze lifts to something over her shoulder and the other woman gasps.

“Lexie?!?” Cristina yells and Meredith turns to see that her sister has followed her from the kitchen. But then she looks back at her friend again. Her friend who should not know who Lexie is. “Oh my god!” Cristina springs forward and actually hugs Lexie and Meredith meets her sister's shocked gaze as Lexie hugs Cristina back. When she pulls back, Meredith watches her best friend stare at her little sister. “You're alive!”

“Well, it is 2005,” Lexie comments with a hesitant smile.

“Wait, so I'm really not dreaming all this??” Cristina turns back to look at her and Meredith nods.

“That would explain a few things, Cristina,” another voice draws Meredith's attention back to the door and she blinks a few times, thinking she is imagining it, but no, she isn't. Preston Burke is standing just inside her house, closing the door behind him.

“What the hell is going on?! We were in Switzerland, and then we woke up in a freaking on-call room this morning,” Cristina says. Meredith looks back and forth between Burke and Cristina for a long moment.

“Well, I guess we'll add two more places to the table,” she says finally, motioning them further into the house. This should be interesting, she thinks.

Chapter Text

She wakes up slowly, shifting closer to Preston and feeling his arm around her tighten. “I have to be at the hospital in an hour,” she murmurs with a small groan before she rolls away from him, only to almost fall off their bed . The near-falling sensation forces her to open her eyes and she refuses to admit to the strangled noise that escapes her. But the sound wakes Preston and he sits up in surprise, only to hit his head on the bottom of the top bunk of the very small bed they're laying on. 

“Cristina, what the…” she watches him rub his head for a second before he looks at her and her eyes widen in surprise at how young he looks. He is looking at her with an expression she's sure is similar to her own. 

“Um…” is all she manages as she tries to figure out what the hell is going on. “I'm dreaming,” she says after a minute, sure that this has to be what is going on. “I have to be dreaming,” she mutters as she stands up, searching for her clothes as soon as she realizes she isn't wearing any. 

“Are you sure we didn't just fall asleep at the hospital?” Preston asks and Cristina looks back at him again before she scowls. 

“This isn't our hospital, Preston!” She hisses. “Don't you recognize it??” 

“It's an on-call room, Cristina,” he says slowly and she rolls her eyes. 

“Yeah, at Grey-Sloan! In Seattle!” Cristina whisper-yells. She watches his expression fill with surprise before he smiles at her. 

“I suppose that explains why you look so different,” he says and she gives him a look. 

“Why don't you look at yourself in the mirror,” she shoots back as she pulls her shirt over her head, realizing that she'll still have to go to the locker room to change into fresh scrubs. It's then that she realizes she was just planning to go along with whatever is happening and she pauses for a second. “I definitely have to be dreaming,” she mutters. 

“Something tells me this isn't a dream, Cristina,” her husband says as he stands up and she frowns. 

“What do you mean? I'm back in Seattle, but you're you , not past you. Hence the dream,” she replies with a pointed look, but something about his expression makes her pause before she leaves the room. “What?” 

“By that logic, I could argue that it's actually my dream,” he tells her, but she scoffs and shakes her head. 

“That doesn't make any sense. I know things that I know you don't about my time here,” she says. 

“That's my point. You aren't the only one,” he explains and she frowns in confusion until she realizes what he means. She still isn't entirely convinced though. 

“So what the hell is going on?” 

“Why don't we find out?” Preston nods towards the door and Cristina takes a breath before nodding in agreement and stepping out the door. 

The first thing she does is find a calendar, only to find out that not only does this weird dream-or-not-dream take place in the past, it takes place during her freaking intern year. She groans. Why am I dreaming about this? Cristina decides she needs to find Meredith. If her brain has conjured Preston so accurately, surely Meredith and her other friends will be the same. 

She finds Meredith in the locker room, and the blonde tells her she's late. Cristina thinks she vaguely remembers this day, but she's not entirely sure. The conversation gives her a feeling of deja vu that she absolutely hates, and Meredith sadly appears to not be like her and Preston. 

But then Cristina notices the very distinct lack of flirting with McDreamy and thinks that there is something really weird going on. Instead of making eyes at Derek like she knows Meredith was doing their intern year, it's like she's actively avoiding him. 

As soon as they walk into the first patient room on rounds, Cristina remembers exactly what day this is. A minute after they all walk into the room, Preston walks in and she catches his eye briefly as Alex gives him the patient information. The next patient on their rounds is a neuro patient, and Cristina expects to see Meredith and Derek making eyes at each other. But the only one making eyes is Derek. Meredith still seems to be ignoring him, or at least trying to as much as she can when he's still technically her boss.

She goes through most of the day pretty similarly to how she remembers things going; she gets the history on the tumor, sits through a lunch that definitely isn't the same as last time, and eventually gets to scrub in on the tumor surgery. Even though she knows how the surgery is going to go, it's not like she can tell anyone that. Sure enough, it ends the same—even has the same interruption with Izzie opening some other patient’s chest by herself. 

At the end of the day, Cristina notices something else weird; it seems as if Izzie and George don't live with Meredith. She meets Preston in another on-call room, running a hand through her hair as she looks at him. “Things are different, this is weird. Really, really weird,” she says as soon as he has the door closed behind him. 

“How do you know we just can't remember exactly how things happened?” He asks, annoyingly calm for them having no idea what is going on. She scowls at him. 

“Meredith and Derek were sleeping together by now. They were all flirty and she should have been freaking out about Bailey knowing about them today, but she wasn't. I'm also pretty sure Izzie and George aren't living with her,” she tells him as she paces back and forth in the small space. Then she stops and spins back towards him. “We're going to Meredith's house!”

“Do you think that's a good idea?” 

“It's the only idea, Preston!” Cristina hisses. “Besides, it'll go one of two ways. Either this is just a really weird dream and nothing will happen, or it's not a dream and we figure out what the hell is going on,” she continues. 

“What makes you think Meredith will be like us?” Preston asks and Cristina hates how calm and collected he is being.

“She's my person,” is all she says as she leads the way out of the on call room. Preston follows her at a distance as she heads for the front of the hospital, but catches up to her as soon as they're outside. It isn't until they're halfway across the parking lot that Cristina realizes she doesn't exactly know where they're going. 

“My car’s over there,” Preston motions to the left and she follows him through the light rain. 

“Do you remember where Meredith’s house is?” 

“Do you?” He replies and she rolls her eyes. 

“Of course I do,” she tells him, even as she has to think about it for a minute. It's been at least ten years since she has been in Seattle, but she can still get them to Mer's house. 

When they get there, she's out of the car almost before it stops moving, Preston yelling after her as he turns the car off and follows her up to the door. She knocks, but doesn't bother to wait for an answer—it’s not like Meredith is going to care. 

“Meredith! Mer, we need to talk! I know this is going to sound crazy, but–” she calls out as she walks in, but cuts off abruptly when she sees Meredith staring at her. 

“Cristina! How..what..?” Mer stares at her in surprise, but Cristina’s attention is quickly drawn away when she recognizes the younger woman that follows Mer into the room. Lexie . 

“Lexie?!?” Cristina exclaims, staring at the younger woman in shock. As far as she knows, Meredith shouldn't even know she has a sister yet, let alone have her hanging around the house. Her mind flashes with memories of the plane crash and she finds herself moving forward in a rush. “Oh my god!” Cristina pulls her best friend's little sister into a hug and feels Lexie tense up before hugging her back. When she pulls back, she lifts her hands to frame Lexie's face. “You're alive!”

“Well, it is 2005,” Lexie says and Cristina just blinks for a second. 

“Wait, so I'm really not dreaming all this??” she looks back at Meredith and her friend nods. 

“That would explain a few things, Cristina,” Preston's voice draws her attention and Mer's too. She watches Meredith's eyes widen in surprise at the sight of him. 

“What the hell is going on?! We were in Switzerland, and then we woke up in a freaking on-call room this morning,” she says to her friend, who looks back and forth between her and Preston before she looks at her sister, then back to Cristina before she sighs. 

“Well, I guess we'll add two more plates to the table,” Mer says finally as she turns in the direction of the kitchen. Cristina glances at Lexie again, needing to reassure herself she hasn't imagined the younger woman. 

“You…” she trails off, but Lexie's expression darkens as the younger woman nods. 

“I remember,” Lexie murmurs and Cristina feels the ache in her chest. “Come on, Mark's almost done with dinner,” the younger woman continues. Cristina stops short. 

“Did you just say…?”

“Yang! Was wondering if you'd end up like us,” Cristina’s head snaps up at the sound of Mark Sloan’s voice and her eyes widen at the sight of him standing in Meredith's kitchen. That's not all, though. Her eyes slide over the room and she notices a young girl that looks vaguely familiar, and then Addison Montgomery . 

“Hey Cristina, Preston,” Addison greets them with a smile and Cristina is pretty sure she must be in some alternate universe. 

“Who are you?” The young blonde girl asks curiously, looking at her and Preston, and Mark chuckles. 

“Kid,” he gives her a look and the girl frowns. 

“Sorry Dad,” did she hear that correctly? Cristina gapes at the girl, then looks at Mark. 

“Did she just call you Dad ?”

“Yang, this is Sloan. Sloan, this is Mer's best friend, Cristina,” Mark says in reply and Cristina blinks a few times. She remembers Mark's daughter, but not so… young . Her gaze finds Meredith's again and she silently begs her best friend to explain. 

“Cristina and I are gonna go outside for a minute. Addie, you want to come with us?” Meredith says to the group, nodding for her to lead the way back towards the door. 

“Sure,” Addison nods and stands from her seat at the bar, following them out onto the porch. 

“Okay, what the hell???” Cristina looks at Meredith incredulously. 

“Mark and I woke up June thirtieth, Meredith woke up July first, Lexie woke up July twentieth,” Addison explains and Meredith nods. 

“What do you mean woke up ?”

“I went to sleep in Boston and woke up here the morning after I slept with Derek the first time. Addie went to sleep in L.A. and woke up in New York with Mark. Mark and Lexie's last memories are of dying,” Meredith tells her, her voice getting quiet when she gets to Mark and Lexie. 

“Preston and I were at home in Switzerland and then we woke up in one of the on-call rooms at the hospital,” she tells them, repeating what she said to Meredith when she first got here. “Wait, do you live here?” Cristina looks at Addison and the redhead nods, making Cristina look at Meredith, who shrugs. 

“I needed roommates and I didn't want to have to pretend around Izzie and George,” she says and Cristina can understand that, as well as she can anyway. 

“What about Derek?”

“What about him?”

“You're not sleeping with him,” she says and her friend shakes her head. 

“Now that you're you, you'll see why. I'm not a naïve young woman anymore, Cristina,” Meredith sighs and Cristina nods in understanding as she thinks about it. “Besides, when he finds out I'm living with his wife and ex best friend, I bet that'll go over great ,” Mer adds. Both Mer and Addison chuckle and Cristina finds herself smiling in amusement. 

“Oh, I can't wait to see that,” she smirks, starting to relax for the first time since she and Preston woke up this morning. 

“I report for the TTTS case in a couple days,” Addison says with a smile. 

“So you and Burke woke up together like Addie and Mark? Makes me wonder who else might wake up eventually,” Meredith says slowly. 

“God, I hope it's Alex. He's such a pain in the ass!” Cristina replies with a groan. “I do not miss Evil Spawn,” she mutters. 

“Hey! Dinner's ready!” Lexie's voice makes all three of them turn around to see the younger woman in the doorway. 

“Thanks Lex. We'll be there in just a sec,” Meredith tells her sister and Lexie disappears again with a nod. 

“Oh, one more thing Yang,” Addison says as they step towards the door. “Mark's daughter obviously doesn't know anything about the whole, back in time thing, so careful what you say.”

“What's she doing here anyways? Didn't she show up eighteen and pregnant last time?” 

“He got custody of her,” Meredith is the one to answer her question and Cristina can't decide how surprised she is. She remembers Mark being a good dad before he died, but he didn't get much time the first time. Part of her suddenly wants to ask about Mer's kids, but she decides that maybe it can wait a little while. Right now, she's still reeling from everything and she's not sure she's ready for the kind of conversations that might lead to. For now, she just follows Meredith and Addison back into the house, shares a look with Preston, and sits down to have dinner with her best friend—and two people she thought she would never see again—for the first time in years.

Chapter Text

When he wakes up, it's still dark, and his cheeks are damp. He can still see her behind his eyelids, pinned under that damn hunk of metal and trying her best to smile at him while he clings to her hand and strokes her hair. His breath comes in rough gasps as he tries to shake the nightmare away, reaching out for her, only to find the bed empty. Panic rises in his chest as he turns to look for her. “Lex?? Lexie?!” Mark calls out, hating the way his voice shakes. 

He's halfway to the bedroom door when it opens, revealing Lexie carrying a glass of water. He can only imagine what he looks like, terror clawing through him and tears on his cheeks. Mark sees Lexie's eyes widen even in the dark, and she practically runs to set her water down. Then she's in his arms and he holds her tight against his chest. “I'm sorry, I just went to get some water,” she murmurs into his chest and he shakes his head as he tries to pry himself away from her. This is ridiculous, he shouldn't have a panic attack just because his fiancée got up to get a glass of water. 

“No, I'm fine. I'm sorry Lex, I shouldn't-”

“Stop,” Lexie's voice is firm and he looks down at her in the darkness. He feels her fingers brush his cheeks and closes his eyes against more ridiculous tears. “Hey. Mark, look at me,” she murmurs and he forces his eyes open. 

“This is stupid. You're fine, you're alive-”

“But I wasn't,” her whisper cuts him off again and he hates the anguished sound that escapes his throat. When she takes his hand, Mark follows her back to their bed and when they lay down, she pulls him close and he lets her guide his head to the place above her heart. “I died, and so did you,” her voice breaks and he wraps his arms around her, hugging her to him. Her fingers card through his hair and he takes a shuddering breath. “I died, and you watched,” she whispers. “You held my hand, and you stroked my hair, just like I like,” he can hear the tears in her voice now, and lifts his head to look up at her. Tears trickle down her cheeks as she looks back at him and Mark shifts so that he's holding her now instead. 

Lexie curls into him and he holds her tightly, kissing the top of her head and burying his face in her hair. “I love you,” he murmurs into her hair. “I love you so much,” he says it again and feels her arms around him squeeze tight. 

“I love you too,” she whispers, lifting her head. Mark holds her gaze as he strokes her hair again and she tilts her head towards his. Her lips are soft on his and he kisses her back gently, the taste of salt heavy between them. He feels her shift against him, leaning up into him more while one of her hands slips into his hair. One of his hands is in her hair too, while the other one rests at the base of her spine, holding her to him. She deepens the kiss further and he groans softly as she moves again until she's on top of him. His hand finds her hip and the one in her hair slowly trails down her side. 

When she shivers against him, his hold on her tightens and their lips part for breath. He stares at her for a long moment and she stares back, resting her forehead against his. After a minute of just breathing quietly and staring, Lexie kisses him again, a little firmer this time. Mark returns the kiss, deepening it just a little more, brushing her lips with his tongue. Her lips part for him and he feels her moan just as much as he hears it. His hands on her hips tighten before sliding down to the backs of her bare thighs beneath the hems of her sleep shorts. 

Her hand slides from his hair to rest on his chest while she uses the other to hold her weight as she moves again. Mark feels her hips drag against his and a moan escapes him. “Lex,” he breathes her name into their kiss and he's pretty sure he can feel her smile. 

“I'm right here,” she murmurs back before she's kissing him again. When she pulls away again, he opens his eyes and watches her sit up. His gaze follows her movements, eyes widening slightly when she pulls her tank top over her head. This time when she leans back down to kiss him again, they are skin to skin and Mark can feel the heat of her, chasing away the cold fear that seems to live under his skin these days. He manages a deep breath for the first time since he woke up tonight and as he lets it out slowly, he slides one hand up Lexie's back to rest between her shoulder blades. 

She leans back enough to meet his gaze and he brings his hand up over her shoulder and up her neck to cradle her face. His thumb caresses her cheek as he stares at her and she lets him stare. Then she lifts her hand to cover his on her cheek and gives him a tiny smile tinged with heavier emotion that he can feel in his chest. “Every time I close my eyes…” he whispers. Lexie nods and he knows she understands. 

“I'm here. I promise,” she tells him and he swallows thickly as he nods. 

“I know, Lex. I do. But…”

“I know. Me too,” she whispers. They stare at each other for another moment before he gently pulls her back to him and kisses her. This time when the kiss deepens, both of them moan softly and neither pulls away. Lexie's hand slides from his where it rests against her cheek and he feels her fingers travel slowly over his chest and abdomen. Tentatively, he moves his hand from her cheek, caressing down her body until he holds her breast in his hand. She gasps into their kiss and he squeezes just a little. 

He feels her fingers dance over his abdomen and then she tugs at the waistband of his boxers and his eyes open as she shifts back slightly. It's been over a month since Lexie got here, but they haven't actually gone any further than this. Mark can see the question in her expression as she looks down at him and he smiles up at her; his beautiful, sweet, precious Lexie. “I love you,” he tells her, watching her lips curve up into a smile. 

“I love you too,” she replies. Then he lifts his hips, despite her straddling him. When it jostles her slightly, she laughs and the sound sends warmth spreading through his chest. She shifts and tugs at his boxers, moving out of the way briefly and tugging them the rest of the way off while getting rid of her own shorts before she straddles him again. 

Mark sucks in a breath at the feel of her skin on his and he pulls her down into another kiss that she returns instantly. Her hips roll against his and Mark moans into the kiss. When his lips part, her tongue darts in and he pulls her tighter against him. One of her hands finds his hair again and he lets one of his slip back into her hair while the other slides down over her ass. Slowly, the tension in him melts away and the memories haunting him recede, letting him focus on the present and his beautiful, sweet, very alive fiancée in his arms. 

The next time he wakes, it's to Lexie curled up in his arms and soft light filtering through the window. He sighs contentedly as he tightens his hold on her before moving to roll out of bed. Lexie grumbles in her sleep and he bends down to kiss her forehead before he stands. After locating some pants, Mark makes his way down the hall to the bathroom, acutely surprised when he doesn't find Addie hunched over on the floor. Grabbing a clean towel from the rack, he hangs it on the shower door and turns the water on. As soon as it's hot, he steps out of his sleep pants and into the shower. 

About ten minutes into his shower, the bathroom door opens and he hears Addison retching. “You okay, Red?” 

“Mhmm,” she groans. Mark pokes his head out of the glass door and gives her a sympathetic look and she glances up at him. “It's down to just once a day at least,” she adds and he offers her a smile before he closes the shower door again. 

“Good.”

“While you're out today, can you grab some more cranberry juice?” Addison asks and Mark hears her groan softly afterwards, before she's retching again. He waits until she's done to answer. 

“Yeah. Won't be home till later though. The kid wants to go back out to the pier,” he tells her over the sound of the water. He listens to his friend stand up and flush the toilet before the sink runs for a minute—no doubt she's rinsing her mouth and getting some fluids back into her system. 

“Thanks,” Addison sighs. 

By the time he's out of the shower, Addie is gone. He wraps his towel around his waist and heads back down to his and Lexie's room, lips turning up in a smile at the sight of her still sleeping, now sprawled diagonally across their bed. Leaning down onto the bed, Mark sweeps Lexie's hair back and kisses her forehead, then her nose. Her eyelids flutter at that and he grins as she blinks sleepily up at him. 

“Hi,” she murmurs with a smile and Mark leans down to press his lips to hers briefly. 

“Hey gorgeous. Time to get up,” he tells her warmly, leaning back to watch her stretch out cat-like beneath him. 

After a slow, soft kiss, Mark pulls away and swaps his towel for clothes while Lexie gets dressed too. Then the two of them make their way downstairs. Today, they're taking Sloan out to the pier, as well as taking her to pick out some stuff for her bedroom. Mark is a little nervous about this outing, with it being the first one with the three of them spending time together outside of the house. Their whole group has gone out a couple times, and he's taken Sloan out to the pier before, but he can't help the nerves he feels at the prospect of this trip. As far as he can tell, Sloan likes Lexie, and he knows Lexie cares about his daughter. But this still feels like some sort of big step or something. 

They decide to go shopping first. When they get to Target, Mark parks the car and the three of them head inside. He pulls Lexie close, wrapping an arm around her as they walk, and Sloan charges ahead excitedly. “Hey kid, don't run off too far,” he calls to his daughter, chuckling softly as the girl pauses just until they get closer before she takes off again. 

“Shouldn't we get a cart?” Lexie asks with a pointed tilt of her head. Mark shrugs.

“If she finds some stuff that she wants, I'll go get one,” he tells her, dipping his head to kiss her temple as they follow his daughter through the store—it doesn't take very long before he's sent to get a cart. 

“Hey Dad! How many pillows can I have?” Sloan asks with an adorable tilt of her head as she stands in the middle of an isle full of fun looking pillows. 

“How many do you need?” He asks with a lift of his brow. 

“Uh…I dunno,” his daughter shrugs. 

“I had a whole nest of pillows when I was her age,” Lexie comments with a grin. 

“Really?? How many do you need for a nest?” Sloan’s eyes get big with excitement and Mark can't help but smile as Lexie taps her chin with a finger as if she's thinking hard. 

“Hmm.. it depends on how big the pillows are,” his fiancée finally says, stepping away from him to stand with his daughter as they appear to examine several pillows. 

“How ‘bout these? Will these make a good nest? Can I have these, Dad? Please?” Sloan reaches for a shelf filled with colorful, fuzzy pillows in various shapes and looks over at him when she can't seem to hold another one. 

“I think those would be great for a nest,” Lexie nods and then glances at him with a flash of hesitation. He can tell she's trying not to overstep, but he's overjoyed to see her taking an active part in this trip so he just grins at her, then his daughter. 

“Alright, throw ‘em all in here,” he motions to the cart he was sent to fetch a few minutes prior. His daughter squeals excitedly and tosses all of her pillows into the cart. Mark counts them and then lifts a brow at his daughter. “Are you sure that's enough for a whole nest, kid? I think you might need a few more,” he says with a chuckle, his chest warning at the way Sloan looks at Lexie in question. 

“Hmm, yeah I think you might need a few more, Sloan,” his fiancée nods in such a serious manner he has to stifle his laughter, then she looks around at the shelves. “How about a couple of these?” Lexie suggests, pointing to a shelf of bigger but still unusual, fun looking pillows in various colors and patterns. 

“Ohh! Can I have the one with dogs on it? And the cat one! And the purple one?” Sloan reaches for them, pausing to look back and forth between him and Lexie before she actually grabs one. 

“Sure,” he nods, smiling as she jumps up to grab the ones she wants and throws them into the cart. Mark has a feeling they're going to need another cart for everything besides pillows(he’s right). 

Sloan picks out new sheets, a big comforter, and several smaller fuzzy blankets, and Mark just watches happily as she consults Lexie with each decision, asking what blankets will work best with her pillow nest. By the time they're done with bedding alone, both he and Lexie are pushing a cart, but he doesn't care. The grin on his daughter's face is bright and full of excitement, and that's all that matters. 

“Oo!! Can I…can I get a lava lamp? Please?” Sloan asks tentatively as she stops to stare at a display of colorful lava lamps in the center aisle. When he says yes, he's not expecting the way she runs over and throws her arms around him in a hug. He's quick to hug her back with a smile, but his mind drifts as he wonders how often she ever got new stuff with her mother, with how she's been acting so far on this shopping trip. “Thank you!” His daughter exclaims as she picks her favorite lamp and tucks it safely into the cart Lexie has. 

“Do you want to go look at some clothes before we go to the next store?” Lexie asks Sloan as they wander down the aisles, and his daughter looks up in surprise. 

“Really?” Sloan looks back and forth between him and Lexie and Mark hates the disbelief in his daughter's eyes. 

“Of course, kid. You need some new stuff, don't you?” When he asks this, his daughter shrugs. 

“I dunno. I'm already getting all this. Are you sure I can get some clothes, too?” Sloan motions to the two carts and chews on her lip as she looks back up at him. He has to bite his tongue to keep from cursing the girl's mother out loud, and a glance at Lexie tells him she's feeling the same way. 

“Of course you can get some new clothes, Sloan. Come on, let's go see if there's anything you like,” he motions towards the far side of the store where the clothing is, and his daughter's mouth turns up in a small smile as she nods. She doesn't race ahead this time though, instead walking right next to him as they head across the store. 

It's upsetting how much encouragement she needs to pick out even just a few things, but he keeps that feeling to himself. He smiles as Lexie encourages her to try things on and he knows both he and Lex are watching how she reacts to everything she tries on. There are several things his daughter puts back on the racks that he makes a note of to come back and get later. By the time they're finally heading to check-out, Sloan has picked out five shirts, two pairs of jeans and one hoodie, while Mark has taken note of six other shirts, four pairs of pants, a dress and another hoodie that she definitely liked but didn't put in the cart. He also makes a mental note to stop by a shoe store too. 

Mark's car is packed full of stuff by the time they head down to the pier. They wander through Pike Place Market first, and Mark once again slips his arm around Lexie as they walk with Sloan in front of them. He watches his daughter look at all the different booths, keeping an eye out for what really catches her attention and filing that information away for another day. But when she pauses a little longer than usual to look at some earrings, Mark shares a look with his fiancée and gives her a little nod. 

“Those are really cute,” Lexie comments as she steps up beside his daughter. 

“You think so?” Sloan asks as she looks up at Lexie, and Lex nods. “I wish I had my ears pierced,” his daughter murmurs, reaching out to touch the earrings before dropping her hand back to her side. 

“Do you want to get it done before school starts?” Lexie asks, and Sloan's head snaps up with wide eyes. Then she looks back and forth between him and Lexie. 

“Can I really?” 

“I don't see why not,” he answers with a shrug. “We'll have to find a place to do it, but if you want to, we can,” he tells her. 

“The place Molly and I both got ours done is still open. I think they still do walk-ins, we can call them in the morning,” Lexie adds with a warm smile. Then she looks up in mild surprise when Sloan hugs her, but Mark just grins. 

“Thank you!!!” Sloan grins widely at both of them and Mark steps closer while Lexie reaches down and picks up the earrings his daughter was looking at. Sloan's eyes get big as Lexie buys the earrings for her, and then Lex gets another hug and the three of them continue on their way. 

By the time they make it home, they're all tired. After they were done at the pier, they grabbed dinner and swung by the store for Addison's juice—and a few other things—and now Mark is laughing as his daughter tries to carry as many of her new pillows as she possibly can through the door. Lexie disappears upstairs with his daughter to help her put everything away while Mark puts the few groceries they grabbed into the fridge and cupboard. 

While Lexie’s in the shower, he pops his head into Addie's room and checks on her—Meredith is still at the hospital so it's just Red here at the house with them. Then he moves down the hall and knocks on his daughter's door before he ducks his head in. He finds her meticulously arranging her new pillows into a nest and smiles. “Hey kid. You need anything before I shower?” Sloan looks up at him and shakes her head. 

“No, I'm fine. Thanks, Dad,” she grins at him and he nods. 

“Night, kid,” he turns to go but she stops him. 

“Wait!” Mark turns back towards his daughter, and he can tell by the way she chews on her lip that whatever's on her mind is making her nervous. Stepping fully into her room, he walks over to the bed and sits on the side of it—careful not to disrupt her new pillow nest. 

“What's up?” He asks curiously. 

“When…when you and Lexie get married, do I call her Mom?” Mark blinks at the question, completely caught off guard for a moment. 

“Uh, well…” he's really not sure how to answer, but he does his best. “Well, that…that's between you and Lex, I guess. You definitely don't have to, though, you need to know that. You're thirteen, and we both know you already have a mom—”

“But…” his daughter interrupts him, but pauses, and he waits to see what she says. “But, if I wanted to call Lexie my mom…do you think she'd be okay with it?” Mark tries his best to keep his shock to himself as he stares at his daughter. He isn't entirely sure how Lexie might feel about his daughter calling her “Mom”, considering with Sloan's age, it wasn't something they ever even thought to discuss. 

“You know, kid, I think that's something you'll have to ask her about. I don't think she would have a problem with it, but I’m not gonna give you an answer for her, okay? That wouldn't be fair of me to answer for her, you know?” He tells his daughter slowly, trying to reassure her without giving a definitive answer—he refuses to accidentally throw anything like that at Lexie ever again. 

“Yeah, that makes sense,” Sloan nods, leaning over to hug him. “Thanks, Dad,” she adds as he hugs her back, dropping his chin to kiss the top of her head. 

“Anytime. Night, kid,” he says as she finally pulls back and he stands. 

“Night, Dad,” his daughter calls after him as he steps back into the hall, closing the door behind him. 

He finds Lexie in their bed when he steps into their room, and she sends him a small smile as he grabs his sleep pants and his towel. Then he pauses to lean down and kiss her real quick. “Everything okay?” Lexie asks as they separate, and Mark nods. 

“I think so,” he says softly. “Sloan, she uh, well…” he runs a hand through his hair as he sits on the edge of the bed. “She asked if once we're married, if she could call you ‘Mom’,” he tells her tentatively, watching his fiancée’s face carefully as her eyes widen in surprise. 

“What'd you tell her?” Lexie’s voice is hesitant, but mostly just curious, and he relaxes a bit. 

“I told her that it was something she should talk to you about,” he replies with a soft, pointed look. “I just wanted to give you a heads up,” he adds, and she nods, giving him a small smile. 

“Yeah, thanks. I um, I figured…with Samantha…she wouldn't…” Lexie trails off but Mark nods in understanding. 

“Yeah, me too. Makes me wonder…” he trails off this time, scowling as he thinks about how terrible of a mother Samantha must be if his daughter is already wanting to call Lexie her mom. But Lexie's hand in his brings him back out of his thoughts and he just shakes his head with a sigh. “I'll be back in a few,” he tells her as he stands again, kissing her forehead before he heads down the hall to shower, his thoughts buzzing over the events of the day.