𝙓𝙓𝙓𝙄𝙄.
FATHER!

──────

IT'S SO EASY to fuck up a kid.

Parents have it hard, the whole ideal of raising a child is stacked against you. 

According to psychology you were fucked from the last push; attachment formed quickly and infants picked up your little charming traits from the moment their little eyelashes parted. Before you know it, your alcoholism has been passed down onto your youngest daughter and you're the one paying for her five separate stints in rehabilitation centres.

As kids grow up, they learn, their eyes are wide and attentive and they drink in the world around them. They pick up the way that you smile and the way that you speak and even the way you're not there sometimes. Some of these guys believed that a your experiences in childhood mould your whole life.

Personally, for me, that explained a lot.

***

My Mom always hated my Dads car.

It was a navy blue 1977 Pontiac Firebird, a car that my Dad often treated better than all of us put together. For such a strong-headed and masculine man, I'd seen him shed a few tears over a scratch. It was a bachelor's car- a single mans car, as Bizzy Forbes had always called it. 

It was the sort of car a teen would drive around the streets after dark and drive up to dark haunts to fool around in.

Instead, my Dad would drive to work; he'd set off in the morning and take off into his little private practice on the outskirts of Riverside, Connecticut, and return in the evening with dreary eyes and a bag of pastries from the bakery downtown. 

Sometimes he'd take his kids- Addison, Archer and I would all bundle in the back of the car and roll down the windows as far as they would go. Dad would blast whatever chart-topper it was that day on the radio and we'd all chase the Summer weather until we were parked outside the ice cream parlour with greedy eyes fixed on the neon signs.

I spent a lot of time riding around in that car. I was much younger than my other siblings and sometimes it acted as a refuge; while Addison poured over her textbooks and Archer set off on his adolescent adventures, I was still doe-eyed and stumped, staring over at my Dad as he revved the engine in the driveway. He'd look over at me and smile.

"C'mon Betty," He was the only person who could call me that. A name like Elizabeth had a thousand possibilities and Betty had been his. I'd give him a wide gap-toothed smile and he'd grin, ruffling my hair with his free hand. "Let's go on an adventure."

He liked to be called "The Captain" and in those days it made sense to me. 

We'd go on adventures with him at the wheel. We'd drive around Riverside, sometimes with my siblings, more than often without, and we'd spend the days before I was sent away to a boarding school in a little suspension of paradise.

But my Dad always joked that his best skill was driving drunk and he eventually wrapped it around a tree on the outskirts of town. Bizzy got her way. It was scrapped. The Captain just about managed to salvage his career in his private practice. He got off with a rap on the wrist in the way privileged white people always seem to do— but I never forgot that little 1977 Pontiac Firebird.

Maybe because it served as a refuge, a sanctuary for when everyone was growing up faster than me and I just needed a moment for fantasy and childishness.

Or maybe because with the Pontiac gone and The Captain taking a venture into alcoholism, we'd had to face the possibility that maybe that it was my Dad that Bizzy Forbes had hated the whole time.

***

I'm not often surprised.

I didn't quite understand how this situation had to be an exception.

I'd often asked myself what I would do if, while in New York, the doorbell rang or a letter came in the letterbox and suddenly there was a child, Mark Sloan's child in the universe or knocking at the door. It'd been one of those midnight thought topics, tangled in sheets, perspiring slightly and stationary beside a lightly snoring shirtless shadow. 

I'd count the lightbulbs on the lighting fixture and draw shapes with my eyes on the ceiling and wonder whether it would be the breaking point.

But it'd been a thought, not a reality.

Not even when I'd rushed to the drug store and purchased those little pills that would chase away the anxiety of a night where I hadn't been thinking straight and neither had he and protection had gotten lost in between hands and wine. 

Not even when I'd alternatively gone onto the second aisle and swallowed my pride over a pregnancy test and hidden it at the bottom of my bag until I could stomach it.

Reality was called Sloan Riley.

A pregnant, Sloan Riley apparently.

Somehow, this became a topic that I mulled over in therapy.

This was past Thanksgiving, past Charlie's minor operation on his hand, into the holiday season where work seemed to be piling up and up like pressure underneath me. 

It was like I was back in the field and Laurel was pressing down, hard, on a split artery in an ambiguous limb, keeping me from bleeding out. In the scenario I likened it to in my head, Charlie was in the background, watching with wide eyes and trying his best to assist and Derek was just watching me with vague suspicion, as if I'd done something to myself to get into this situation.

"You're really going to want to put your rates up if you want me to even start talking about my family."

That's what I told Laurel as I collapsed into her chair.

I didn't mention Mark by name in any of my therapy sessions. He was everywhere in Seattle, my place of work, my home, the hallway. It was beginning to feel suffocating. 

Just a few days before I'd been due to visit Laurel again, I'd smelt his cologne while I was in the shower, through the open window, and I'd had to spray air freshener all around me until I felt as though I could breathe again. Just bringing him up again in Laurel's office felt invasive.

To Laurel, he was just the "ex". To everyone else, he was Mark.

But now, to Laurel he was "the ex with the kid" and that seemed to change everything. She seemed to want to know how I felt about it after every question she asked- "and what are your thoughts about that?"- and eventually, I was tired of feeling.

Addison had once said I felt too much. I was beginning to believe her.

On the topic of my big sister- I'd agreed to weekly check-ins with Addison starting from after Thanksgiving. It was a surprise guilt-trip about Archer. 

Apparently, update texts weren't enough for my sister. She needed verbal interaction too.

They took place usually when I was least busy, in the laundrette while I counted nickels and watched my PJs tumble through the glass, or in the back of taxis while I lamented on how I really should just learn to fucking drive. They were always remarkably uneventful— until a certain call.

"Mark phoned me."

I'd just gotten off a bus and nearly stumbled at that revelation. Addison was currently somewhere loud but the occasional gaps in chaos was filled with the distance sound of her grazing on a salad.

"Really?"

"About his daughter."

"Oh."

"You didn't tell me that he had a kid."

Addison sounded resigned, but there was this hint of a attitude at the back of her throat that was distinctly reproachful. I just rolled my eyes. 

We'd had a little phone call check-in before this and I hadn't breached the subject. In fact, I'd been trying to forget about the subject.

"Yeah well, I couldn't really find a way to bring it up in the conversation." I muttered as I reached the door to my apartment. At that moment, an ambulance streaked by, angry and loud- I shot a subconscious glare at it and shoved my key into the lock. "Hey, Addie, by the way- the guy we were both sleeping with has a kid and we avoided being stepmoms."

In the way only Addison could, she breezed by my wisecrack and elected to ignore it. "Yeah, just like you couldn't find a way to tell me you have a boyfriend."

On the last call, I'd been in the shower and Charlie had been the one to pick up, a little bit too happy to do so. Apparently, Addison had been very confused and very abrasive at the sound of a male voice at the end of the line— so Charlie had taken the liberty of introducing himself. 

In a ten minute time span of the phone ringing and Charlie neglecting to tell me that Addison was on the phone until I was fully dressed, they were getting on swell.

"Well- give it a minute and you can chat with your new bff to your hearts content." I pressed my head into my shoulder, squeezing the phone there as I shoved the door open, collecting the mail as I breezed through the foyer. Addison made some dismissive big sister statement about how she was trying to look out for me that I instantly tuned out. "You know, if you'd stayed in Seattle longer I might've told you sooner."

"I don't believe you."

"Good." I stated offhandedly and then I was at my apartment door. "I don't believe me either."

"How did you and Charlie meet?"

Addison seemed very eager on the topic of me and Charlie, as did other people- and by other people I mainly mean Derek. 

Maybe it was because my relationship seemed nice for once and that was something people weren't used to- not even me and I'd known Charlie for two years now and we'd been dating for just over a year and a half.

"He's a friend of Calums." I passed into my bedroom and glanced over towards the bathroom door- the sound of the radio and the shower could be heard just over Addison's surprised mumblings. Charlie liked his showers, he'd be in there for a while, I suspected. "When I moved to Boston, Calum arranged for me to stay with Charlie because I didn't have any money- Charlie was nice enough to offer me a place to stay."

"That's sweet of him." She commented absently.

"Yeah. He's too sweet for his own good."

I found myself staring at the bathroom door for a prolonged heartbeat, almost in longing, in fondness— in the distance, I heard Charlie singing along to some chart hit, probably dancing along to it without even realising what he was doing. I let out a breath and turned away.

"He's good for me, Addie."

"I'd love to meet him."

Wryly, I smiled and prepared myself to lie through my teeth. "Next time you're in Seattle... I'll consider it."-

"Good, I have a rolodex of embarrassing stories to tell him."

My nose wrinkled in disdain. "On second thought-"

"You should come visit me in Los Angeles." Addison interjected suddenly, as if the thought had hit her out of nowhere. "I've got this really nice house and you can bring Charlie and you can see the practice- and see Archer- he's doing really well, by the way-"

I sighed, loudly.

As much as LA seemed like a dream, it felt wrong to me. In a way, I felt the same towards LA as I felt towards Seattle when I'd first gotten here. LA was Addisons. It was Naomis. It was Sams. It wasn't mine to intrude on. Plus, Amy was there.

While Charlie was good for me, Amy was bad for me.

"I'll consider it." I lied again because I wouldn't consider it at all. 

Addison must've sensed that as she just sighed, drawing away from the conversation in a little emotional way that she always seemed to when she didn't get her way.

"Okay."

Addison let a lengthy pause stretch out between us, one that had the hairs raising on the back of my neck. I pressed my lips together and felt my heart squeeze tightly in my chest. I suddenly felt bad, felt guilty for a reason that I couldn't quite explain- before I knew it, I was trying to make up for something by confiding in her.

"Can I tell you something?" My tone dropped into a quieter tone and I was halfway out of the window, pushing through the curtains for privacy and out onto the makeshift balcony. "Something... something big-"

"Of course." Addison answered immediately and my heart ached— there was something about her tone that gave me intense deja vu. Of a life lost, gossiping and confiding over takeout. Smiling and dishing out dirt on whatever it was that we found scandalous today.

I let go of the nostalgia as soon as I got a grasp of it.

"Charlie... he-" It felt stupid to say it aloud to her. "He keeps proposing."

"Oh my god, Beth." Her tone turned bright, almost scalding and I flinched. She sounded happy, squeaky and delighted, as if she was a rubber ball bouncing with energy around a hardwood floor. "That's fantastic!"

"Like- it keeps happening-"

"Keeps?" 

Addison's momentary delight was overshadowed by suspicion. Her tone dropped as she caught onto the main word of the sentence. Usually, someone would put stress on the proposal. I didn't.

"Yeah." 

I felt foolish, suddenly. I shouldn't have told her. This was going to unfurl into one of those situations- Addison's going to call me stupid again and I'm going to remember why I don't let myself feel nostalgic.

"Oh."

I failed to gauge Addison's emotions. She sounded flat, like a balloon that had just been drained dry. There wasn't any sense of disappointment, nothing too noticeable in the way she lingered in a pregnant pause. I paused, staring down at my bedsheets.

"I'm sorry."

She was apologising. My eyebrows squeezed into a frown, my lips turning downwards. Why was everyone apologising these days?!

"It's not your fault." I interjected with a sense of iciness. Did she really still think that everything was about her? That the world seemed to revolve around Addison Forbes Montgomery? Addison sighed.

"But it kind of is." I felt like lying on my bed and kicking my feet up into the air like I was in some sort of teen rom-com. More and more, I was getting turned into a poor man's Alicia Silverstone. "I feel like it's because of us."

Again, I scowled. "Us?"

My skin crawled with the thought of Addison twisting this into a "I'm so sorry for what happened with Mark, I'd take it back if I could!!!". Every time I picked up the phone, I was set on the edge, waiting for it to come up in conversation. I waited. I waited with a sense of exhaustion and trepidation.

"Our family."

That wasn't what I'd been expecting Addison to say.

"I mean- it's not like I've had a good relationship with marriage." Her voice was hushed and there was a sense of restraint in her voice. I sat on the bed. "I've thought about them a lot, y'know?"

"Who?" I asked, even though I knew who she talking about.

"Dad." Addison said, and the sound of it weighed heavy on my ear drums. I looked down at my jeans and played with a lose thread on the hem, pressing my lips together. I didn't say anything, just listened. "Well, Mom and Dad. They ask about you a lot, by the way."

"You talk to them?"

"They talk to me." She said dismissively. "Do you...?"

I hadn't spoken to them in a hot minute. 

The only one who really still bonded and vibes with them was Archer, he'd always been the one who'd liked them both at the same time and equally. He was good like that. 

Addison had liked Mom. I'd liked Dad.

"I sent them both emails from Toronto. But I don't know if they ever responded. Haven't spoken to them since."

"You should speak to them."

"I know."

"We're not our parents."

"I know."

"Good." Addison then proceeded to quickly tell me that her lunch was over and she was due back in her office in a few minutes. I smiled to myself and nodded along with her apologies. "I'll speak to you later. Try not to give Charles too much hell."

As if summoned by his own name, the door opened, revealing the man of the hour- he was half-dressed, messing his hair through with a towel. He raised an eyebrow at the sight of me, his eyes going to the phone in my hand.

"Addison?" He mouthed. I nodded.

"Honestly, at this point I think that's one of the reasons he's still sticking around." Addison chuckled on the Charlie paused in the doorway, cocking his head to the side as he gradually realised I was talking about him. "Or maybe he's just institutionalised."

"Definitely institutionalised." Charlie deadpanned, causing me to stick my tongue out at him. He just chortled, grabbing his t-shirt off the back of the armchair in the corner of the room- I watched him out of the corner of my eye.

"Be nice." Addison hummed lightly, almost as to tell me off. I rolled my eyes, attempting to kick Charlie as he drifted past me. He scoffed at me as I missed him completely, proceeding to struggle with his shirt.

"Aren't I always?" I challenged. 

Addison didn't quite have anything to say to that, just laughed and said her goodbyes. I hung up after promising I'd speak to her next week. My attention turned to Charlie, briefly glancing at him as I tapped out a text message on my phone. 

"You almost ready?"

"Yeah," He said, his voice muffled by his t-shirt as he tried to pull it over his head.

I squinted over at him, a smile slowly turning up the corners of my mouth. "You need some help?"

He paused. "Yeah."

Charlie's still very gingerly healing hand was waving around in the air as I helped him; as soon as his head popped up, a sloppy grin appeared on his face. 

I waited for him while sat at the dining table, scrolling down a medical journal on my phone. Sometimes, Charlie would take long to get ready than I did— so I just persevered until he was hopping out to meet me.

"Where do you want to go?" I asked, grabbing my purse and getting up from my seat.

It was a rare night where I didn't have paperwork and Charlie wasn't working. 

He'd taken a gander into doing admin work for his brother, juggling some of Andrew's roles to help get the weight off of him. I'd find him up late a lot of the time, on some video call with Andrew or a member of Doctors Beyond Borders. He didn't like not having things to do, he'd told me as much.

We'd been passing bodies; with me constantly putting in time at the hospital with my patients and consultations and Charlie holed up in the bedroom dedicating all his time and effort onto tasks on his computer. It was the same as it had been in Indonesia, where we'd both been too exhausted to speak most nights and had just had nights together, curled up against each other and instantly falling asleep. 

I would've said it was like Boston, but there was a distinctive lack of sex.

So we'd set plans, tonight we'd go out for a meal. Charlie didn't have any urgent emails in his inbox and I'd finished early to make time for a date night.

Date night.

That was a weird thought, a weird concept.

I wasn't sure where it would end up as we hadn't made any reservations. I'd gotten dressed in the hospital restrooms and smelled vaguely like toilet water, so I definitely wasn't feeling particularly fancy. 

But, with Charlie, I found that there weren't really technicalities. We didn't go on dates, per se, were never the type to roll up to fancy restaurants and blow a couple of hundred dollars on three courses.

We'd had the first weekend in Seattle. Already, that felt like a lifetime away and it'd been very casual and lowkey. He'd never asked me "do you want to go out on a date?" and neither had I asked him. 

But honestly, I don't think a guy had ever asked that— well, other than private school where boys had handled dating as set by pop culture, all following the guidelines of movies and television shows.

I'd once had a prom-posal. It'd been humiliating.

Come to think of it, neither of us had asked each other to be boyfriend or girlfriend. It'd just happened, somewhere along the line, Charlie and I had shifted from roommates, to casual hookups, to not so casual hookups and then to this.

This. Two people living together and just appreciating each other's company.

"Honestly, I'm down just to murder a good pizza." He looked although he was admitting defeat to a pressure that the universe had thrown out to him. His shoulders slumped slightly.

"That's the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me." I gushed, not feeling like going out and eating something horrendously overpriced. Charlie cracked a smile, throwing me my coat with his uninjured hand. "I know just the place."

Conversation didn't stir until we were on the street, hunched against a chilly northerly breeze. Charlie piped up and started talking about how his brother was working up in Alaska, apparently that left Charlie with all of the admin work that Andrew had to do on a day to day basis. 

Then we discussed his hand- he was doing really well, his physical therapy was going great and Callie was taking a personal role in his recovery because apparently "his hands are important to the future of cuisine". He let me look at his finger, I brought it up towards the light and examined it.

"Callie's stitches are a work of art." I observed, my eyes tracing the place where his finger had literally been reattach to the rest of his hand. He'd been very strict with his little finger exercises to the point where it had been extremely adorable to watch his religiously wiggle his fingers at certain points in the day. "You can barely even tell you'd been in a terrible pumpkin carving accident."

Charlie rolled his eyes at me. "Lucky my fingers back on or you'd be throwing salt in my wounds, huh. You're full of wisecracks today, aren't you?"

"I bet you felt lost without me in Indonesia." I claimed loudly.

He paused for a moment, then smiled. "Yeah. I guess I was."

I held the door open for him once we arrived at Joe's, stepping back as he rolled his eyes at me. He was yet to come to this little bar, the hive of nightlight in the area, and I'd briefly mentioned it to him when covering the basics of Seattle. 

As soon as we entered he commented on how it reminded him of the college bars back in Boston- I just gave him a wry smile.

It was lively tonight, full of nurses and city-dwellers, all socialising over drinks and games of darts. A television at the back of the bar was playing a hockey game to death ears, everyone too caught up in the moment to pay attention to what was happening in the world outside. I didn't recognise many people at first glance, but I caught sight of Joe behind the bar, busy with his orders and making his money's worth.

"Babe, go get a table- I'll order."

Charlie took off on his mission as I set my destination for the bar, joining the crowd. As I waited, my gaze lingered. I found myself gazing down at the far corner, where some people tended to have a little dance. Finally, I recognised someone.

I squinted.

Richard Webber was having the time of his life, or so it appeared.

My glance was brief, framed by my order being taken and Joe dragging me into conversation. He recognised me from the hospital mixer and smiled warmly, making small talk about odds and ends. He was full of light, a happy face that handed me our drinks. 

I attempted to pay attention to what he was saying, but I kept glancing back over towards the Chief of Surgery.

When I'd finally paid, I hunted down Charlie, but even still, I'd find myself looking over towards Richard, my face fixed into a frown. Charlie noticed it instantly when I found him, asking what was wrong; I shook my head offhandedly, trying to shake off the odd feeling I had.

I liked to think I had a sixth sense.

It was my superpower for battling alcoholism for so long. 

I'd once joked about it in rehab but secretly took it very seriously. 

A feeling would bunch in my stomach, an uneasiness that a therapist had once compared to a cow sensing when it was about to rain. I'd know in an instant what someone's relationship with alcohol was- whether they were casual and laid back, or whether they were problematically in a life-or-death battle...

Obliviously and perfectly, Charlie had found a table in direct eye line of the surgeon. I sat on my seat and crossed my arms over my chest, chewing the straw of my Coca Cola with a twitch in my eye. 

Charlie eyed me, quirking an eyebrow at regular intervals, but didn't comment. Instead, he started talking about his working, fully aware that I wasn't listening but too awkward to embrace the silence.

I found myself obsessing silently.

Richard Webber had a club soda clenched in his hand and was dancing with a group of younger girls, none of who looked remotely like his wife. He looked incoherent, stumbling about and squinting around at the bar as if he would routinely forget where he was and have to remind himself. I let out a light breath, readjusting myself in the chair.

My head spun with thoughts that I hadn't connected: rumours of Richard having an affair, rash decisions, rumours of one of the chief's patients coming back into the hospital after a botched surgery.

Eventually, Charlie turned his head, following his gaze.

"Whose that?"

"That..." I began, looking down at the cocktail umbrella Joe had thrown into my glass. "Is the Chief of Surgery."

A wheel of emotions went over Charlie's face: surprise, shock and then realisation. 

"You have a feeling about him, don't you?" He knew me too well. I nodded slowly. Charlie looked back towards him, mouth dipping as he took a mouthful of his beer. "Poor guy."

"I think Derek knows," I said offhandedly, remembering how off Derek had been with his attitude towards Richard. There'd been so much anger in Derek following the merger, so much outspoken negativity and contempt— I sighed. I'd later discover that Derek definitely did not know.

I wasn't famous for my ability to sense cheaters, but Richard didn't seem to be that sort of guy either.

"Don't think about it." Charlie said in undertone, moving across my line of sight. He blocked off the image of a plastered surgeon with his handsome face, looking slightly miffed as I nodded slowly. "It's not your problem to worry about."

But then I noticed someone else, beyond Richard and towards the bar, someone who looked sadly in the direction of an alcoholic relapsing. It was brief, but Meredith Grey caught my eye— something passed between us and she looked away.

A drunk Richard Webber was a bad omen and had a feeling that I was going to worry about it anyway.

***

"Did you know that Freud believed that early childhood experiences would mould a kids whole life?"

I glanced up over my magazine at Lexie Grey, who'd somehow made it onto my lunchtime table. Honestly, I hadn't exactly noticed her; she'd just kind of appeared out of nowhere and sat beside her sister, looking rather empty inside. 

Her face was pale and she had deep valleys beneath her eyes, showing very clearly she hadn't been sleeping- I cocked my head to the side and chewed on a piece of watermelon.

Something told me she wasn't getting laid either.

"Quoting Sigmund Freud is like quoting Donald Trump," I stated dryly, looking back down at my magazine and flipping the page. "Just don't do it, they don't know what they're talking about."

"Bowlby found that the way children's social skills develop are dependant on the way they are treated by their parents."

Everyone at the table was staring at her, watching as she rattled off a punch of High School Psychology 101, disassociating wildly. I hadn't seen her in such a state since the merger.

"The role of the father in a child's life is believed to be stimulation linked to fun activities-"

"Lexie."

Meredith looked concerned, her eyes probing into the way that Lexie just stared off into the distance. She'd been so concerned these days that I hypothesised that her face was just temporarily forced into that expression. 

Meanwhile, Eli just looked as though he was seriously rethinking using his lunch break to sit with us- I just shook my head slowly, reading some trashy article on celebrity gossip. Admittedly, I was far more interested in Paris Hilton's Las Vegas excursions than Lexie Grey's mental break.

"The absence of a father in a child's life can have crushing effects on a child's ability to build social bonds-"

"Lexie." Meredith grabbed her sisters arm and Lexie seemed to calm down from whatever downward spiral it was that she was caught in. The brunette stared over at her with her round, doe eyes and let out a brief whimper. "You look exhausted-"

"I am." She replied immediately, nodding quickly- but that movement seemed to tire her out further. She bit down on her bottom lip and slumped slightly. "I'm very exhausted."

It was odd. Lexie was a bright and vivid person, forever bright and cheery— but it was like her flame had been snuffed out. 

She leant against the table and rested her head up with her hands. We just watched for a few moments, watching as she seemed to close her eyes and just toy with the thought of falling asleep. But then her lids drew themselves back and she stared over at her sister.

"I'm living with a teenager." The words were carefully chosen. "It's exhausting."

I'd seen the moving boxes in the hallway a week ago and stepped over them, not even throwing a glance into their apartment. 

I'd listened to the loud music that Sloan, Mark's daughter, liked to play sometimes at outrageous times at night. 

I'd heard Lexie closing doors a little harder than she would've usually. 

I'd heard Sloan calling across the apartment, asking for payouts for whatever she wanted.

It sounded exhausting.

I hadn't been as surprised as everyone else when Mark had immediately offered to let Sloan live with him. But maybe that was just me.

"Sloan giving you a hard time?" Eli asked, although he smirked at the double entendre; I looked over at him and rolled my eyes, swallowing a laugh that threatened to surface. 

Meredith wrinkled her nose at his words but Lexie was too tired to even notice it at all-

"I'm trying to be- trying to be supportive." Lexie looked as though she'd been struggling for a hot minute. Physically drained and super sluggish as she mulled over her words. "But, she's- she's making it very hard."

"I don't know what I'd do if Derek discovered he had a kid." Meredith said to herself, frowning.

"You already did," I deadpanned, causing her eyebrows to raise. "I mean- you had to baby sit me. Is there really any difference?"

She scoffed.

"I'm trying to help Sloan get Mark a Christmas present." Lexie sighed as if all of the air was leaving her body. She deflated in front of us, chin pressed into the table-top. "I'm pretty sure shopping with teenagers is a form of torture."

"I was a pretty pain free teenager." I countered wistfully. Eli shot me a look that heavily suggested that he thought I was talking crap. "I did all my homework, I did my chores... and I didn't wake anyone when I snuck out to meet guys."

Eli rolled his eyes. "The perfect child, how could we even compare?"

"I wasn't too bad, either." Meredith agreed, although I vaguely could recall hearing Derek mention something about Meredith drunkenly back-packing around Europe in her late teens or early twenties. She gave Lexie a meaningful look. "And I didn't have Thatcher around to raise me."

Another sigh left the younger Grey's body.

"I've been cramming Google searches on psychology." I could tell. She'd basically recited a whole Wikipedia entry. "I'm trying to find some sort of way to understand why Sloan is-"

"Such a bitch?" I suggested.

"Mean." Lexie settled on that word, letting it sourly sink into her tongue, but her eyes lit up at my suggestion. "But I can't find anything- nothing in any medical journal, a study- nothing."

"The role of the father is ignored by practically every early study." I played with my fruit pot, aware of the fact that I was slowly running out of pages to look at in my magazine. "And you're not getting very accurate information- it's a mother who impacts social relationships. Dads are just kinda, kinda there as far as early psychology is concerned."

"Like I said, I'm alright." Meredith interjected. Lexie didn't look very encouraged by that.

"So Sloan's just..."

"Sloan's just a Sloan." I finished for Lexie, knowing from experience that the genetics in that poor girl was like dynamite- arrogance just waiting to explode. "And you're going to have to persevere, sorry Grey."

I felt sorry for her.

Kind of.

She was being pretty stupid.

I knew what I would've done if it were me. Probably throw a tantrum, get drunk and get myself thrown out of the kids' life for being an irresponsible role model. But Lexie was staying by her own volition.

Like I said, kind of.

"When the results of the DNA test came through I accidentally chopped off the top of my finger." Lexie glumly raised her hand, revealing the bandage at the top of her pinkie finger. That sounded extremely familiar. "I was so overwhelmed I just-"

"I've heard it's an easy thing to do." Eli nodded in an exert of sympathy that seemed forced. He glanced at me in the process. I chuckled, stabbing at a piece of mango with my spork.

"Yeah, it's pretty common."

Lexie just pressed her head into her hands.

"I need to go," Meredith got to her feet and crumpled up her trash, her lips pressed firmly together. 

My head perked up at that; the image of what I'd witnessed the night before flickered through my head. Almost subconsciously, I rocketed to my feet, causing Eli to flinch and almost fall off of his chair.

"I'd love to have a quick chat, actually."

There was a terse pause, something in the ambiance shifting— Meredith looked up from her trash to me, already guessing what it was that I wanted to talk to her about. Eventually, she nodded, looking very hesitant.

That set off alarm bells and reinstated my confidence in my suspicions: Richard Webber was an alcoholic, I was sure of it. It'd been a few days since my date night with Charlie and I'd been on the fence about whether I should approach Meredith. 

Derek had mentioned in passing that Meredith was close with the Chief, that the Chief had known her mother and posed as a stand-in father figure. If anyone would have a good grasp of what was happening, it would be Meredith.I hopped out of the bench and wiped my clammy palms on my legs; there was something about the look that Meredith gave me from out of the corner of her eye, a suspicious moment where she let in a lungful of air and exhaled it out through her nostrils. 

We parted from the table in silence; it was only when we rounded the corner and into a quieter area of the hospital.

"I know what you're going to say." Meredith said before I could say anything.

"Great." I enthused, heart skipping a beat. "Then we're on the same page."

"It depends what page that is."

"I'm concerned about Doctor Webber." I laid it out on the table, turning around to face her, watching as she monotonously watched my lips twitch into a thin, professional line. "And I think you are too."

A beat passed. "He's fine- definitely not on the same page."

"It struck me, that I'd seen him drunk a few different occasions since I've arrived in Seattle..." I pressed my lips firmly together as my mind boiled over Meredith's initial words. She looked at me reluctantly as I spoke, appearing, to my surprise, to not want to play any part in this conversation. "At Izzie and Alex's wedding, at the mixer— and it also hit me that there's so many rumours about him slipping under the weight of this merger... But I have a suspicion it's not just the merger."

"He says he's fine." Meredith dismissed with a shake of her head. "I've been there- done that- had the conversation. He doesn't have an alcohol problem. He's just stressed, stepping back from surgery."

I fell silent, my eyes searching hers as she briefly avoided my gaze. She didn't a believe a word she was saying. She was a terrible actress. I nodded softly, looking over her shoulder and back towards the canteen, back towards we'd left Eli and Lexie to flounder over their own problems.

"Are you sure?"

My question caused Meredith to bunch her brows at me, her slender face filling with strain. I could see it buried at the bottom of her eyes: doubt. She wanted so badly to believe Richard Webber, the man who had filled the space Thatcher Grey had left.

I felt bad for her.

"Fine." I lied, knowing exactly who I needed to go to. "I'll drop it."

***

When my Dad scrapped his Firebird, something changed in our family.

He stopped driving bachelors cars and turned to the same sort of cars everyone else drove- boxy cars with shiny rims and a monotonous trundle to them when the engine got going. 

He stopped offering to drive me to school in the morning, instead, disappearing down the road before any of us were even awake. He stopped welcoming me aboard little adventures and stopped greeting us all when we got home, smothering Addison and I in large bearhugs to the point where we gasping for air.

We stopped going places, we stopped taking summer drives and stopped clamouring into ice cream parlours and ordering slushies until our brains were frostbitten and sore. 

Mom stopped preparing dinner for him when he got back. 

Addison stopped waiting with me for him to get back from work and Archer began tugging me away, trying to engage me in games, trying to get me to do my homework and peal my attention from the front door.

"We need to get on, Beth." He'd say, and that would be that. "Forget about him."

My father would come home and he'd pour himself a glass of scotch and, similarly, that would be that. 

He'd eat whatever leftovers that were left in the fridge, and he'd sit in the family room, all alone, and occasionally throw a glance into the dining room, where Archer helped me with little elementary school math puzzles that I never seemed to understand.

He'd meet my eye sometimes and smile and in that moment, he'd be my Captain again. "Come be a good girl, Betty," My father would drawl, already hazy from the first glass, or the second, or the third. "Go get your Captain a beer out of the cooler- quick."

His words would cause a heaviness in my stomach. Archer would meet this stare, a silent malevolence about him as I gingerly slid down off of the dining chair, still dressed in my little school uniform. I'd pass my silently petulant mother (she'd always been like a ghost, that woman, like a woman caught in some sort of limbo, working as if on clockwork) and I'd stretch into the cooler, my little fingers seeking out the chilled can. 

My mother would watch me, and then sigh, turning away to stare over the apple green lawns out the window. She'd stare at her husband out of the corner of her eye, in a wish-washy way like she was counting down some sort of wager. Sometimes, I'd catch him staring back— an emotion plastered over his face that I couldn't place as a young child.

Looking back in therapy all those years later, with Laurel sat in front of me and the clock ticking on the wall, I realised it was heartbreak.

When Laurel asked me about my family life, I just kind of shrugged it off, talking off-handedly about how I was very lucky to have the childhood that I had.

We were well off, we had a great house and I spent my whole education in private schooling. My parents were rich enough to support us all and to even set up trust funds for our future. I'd never have to work a day in my life if I'd choose to, but I liked to stayed busy- I needed to stay busy.

To be honest, I didn't like the person I was when I wasn't busy. We'd all seen her and she was lost at sea.

That's why I made it my mission to track down Miranda Bailey as soon as I'd left Meredith to her own devices. I found myself scouring the whole surgical department for the most unlikely individual— she was stood by a nurses' station, in a heated conversation with our very own Eli Lloyd.

I waited until Eli had wandered off until I approached. She didn't look up as I stood in front of her, anxiously shifting from one foot to the other as I laboured over what I was about to say— eventually, she grew annoyed with the sound of my lingering, so raised a brow at me, pointed eyes narrowed.

"Is there something you'd like to say? Doctor Montgomery?" 

She sounded angry. Great timing for me.

"I think Richard Webber is an alcoholic."

I rushed it out; the smaller woman in front of me barely batted an eyelash, just straightened, raising her chin towards me. I was frozen to the spot, wondering whether Derek had been this feverish when he'd been planning my intervention nearly a decade ago.

"What evidence do you have for this?"

It felt like one of those half-ass daytime court reality shows. I was going up against a defendant in front of Judge Judy— only the defendant was a respected surgeon and Bailey was holding the gavel.

"I saw him." Vocalising my words made me feel dumb. From the look on Bailey's face, she thought I was dumb too. "I saw him at Joe's, he was drunk-"

"The Chief is a fully grown man," Bailey countered, closing her chart that she'd been reading over and sliding it away from her. "He is free to do whatever the hell he wants— hell, every Friday night before I finished my internship, you would've been able to find me drunk in Joe's."

"No- but-"

"No 'buts', Montgomery." Bailey dismissed me and I felt the sheer power of her infamous demeanour. I pressed my lips together; how she was able to make me feel like I was a fucking intern again was beyond me.

But I wasn't an intern.

I grilled in a breath through my teeth. "I know alcoholism- quite literally inside and out- you better believe that when I say someone's an alcoholic, they're an alcoholic."

I instilled the energy from Bailey's delivery and threw it back at her face. Bracing from the impact, I found myself worried— dear god, I'd never quite taken the time to realise how terrifying Miranda Bailey could be when she decided to be. The impact was minimal, Bailey shifted from one leg to the other and crossed her arms over her chest.

She conceded defeat, surprisingly, with a single sigh. "Go on."

So I launched into a tangled evidence file. 

I'd managed to ask Joe whether Richard was a regular and, in good nature, Joe had confessed that yes, Richard had been coming to his bar more and more often. Joe often confiscated Richard's keys just so he didn't drink drive— that was a pretty big teller that something wasn't right.

Interestingly, I'd also found out that the rumour about Richard's chole patient wasn't just a rumour: no, Bailey herself had fixed a patient that Richard had carelessly messed up.

She listened to my words with an impassive face, eyes glued to my rapidly moving facial features. I talked fast when I was nervous, and boy was I nervous- Miranda Bailey made me feel pressured to justify everything I was saying. I even considered Harvard Referencing everything verbally- but finally, she cut me off with a wave of her hand.

"I'll look into it." Was her final statement and something within me danced with joy as I sensed that she somewhat believed me.

It had taken considerably less persuasion than I'd thought.

But then she spoke again, repeating the exact same words to me as Meredith had done just under an hour earlier.

Meredith had stopped me as I'd turned to walk away, catching my arm with her hand. Her eyes had swirled with intent, with slight desperation as a sudden thought zipped through her brain. "Don't tell Derek about this- okay? He doesn't need to know-"

"Don't approach Doctor Shepherd with this information." 

I blinked and the image of Meredith merged into a stern looking Bailey— she placed her arms on her hips and dismissed me with a wave. 

"Richard's got enough on his plate without the vultures circling around."