Grey's Anatomy Quotes & Pictures

Alex's letter to Meredith

'Mer,
This is not the way I wanted to do this. The last thing on Earth I want to do is hurt you, but I'm leaving. I already left, actually. I'm gone. This is not the way I wanted to do this, but you know me. Any chance to take the easy way out. Or maybe that used to be true. I don't know. What I do know is I owe you the truth, and I don't know how else to tell you. But you know as well as I do if I showed up on your doorstep, you'd yell or give me guilt or crap or whatever you do that seems to always set me straight. You were always the one to set me straight, to point out when I was being an ass. And when that didn't work, you'd flop in my bed and say the one perfect thing that would make sense. But the thing is, I can't come back. I can't face you. I deserve the guilt and to be called an ass, but I don't want to be set straight. I don't want you to say the right thing because the one perfect thing isn't in Seattle. Not anymore. But I swear, it's not about work or you or Jo. It's about me. I left. And I'm with Izzie. This is probably the part where you're gonna get on your phone and call a million times and leave hateful messages on my machine till I call you back. But I can't, Mer. I can't lie to you, and I can't promise I'm gonna come home because it's not home anymore. When you were in danger of losing your license, when I called everyone to write letters and show up on your behalf, I called Izzie, too. I want to say I hoped she wouldn't answer, but the truth is I hoped she would. I want to say, "I had to call her for you," but that would be a lie. The truth is your trial gave me an excuse good enough to call her. 'Cause I wanted to know where she landed. I wanted to know if she was alive and well. I wanted to hear her voice. When she picked up, I blurted out the whole thing about you picking up trash off the street and needing a letter that proved you're better than that. And she laughed and said, "Of course she'd be trash-picking, trying to save the world.". And then these voices were in the background and a girl was singing this song about "greasy, grimy gopher guts" that I learned in first grade and I started laughing and I asked if she had kids and Izzie got quiet. For so long she was quiet, and finally, she said, "Yeah, I have kids. Twins.". And it turns out they're my kids, Mer. Izzie's and my kids. She had our kids. I love Jo. Deeply. Still. I think I always will. And if it was just about two women I love, I'd choose my wife. You know I would. But it's not just her. Izzie made our kids. She was single and wanted children and couldn't have 'em because the cancer nuked her eggs. But she had our embryos. Back then I was too freaked out to care about what she did with them if we never used them. So I signed papers saying she could do whatever she wanted with them. And so she used them. And she had twins. Eli and Alexis. I should have told Jo or told you, but I didn't. I got through the trial and then I came here and I met the kids. Met my kids, Mer. They're five. And hilarious and stubborn as hell, just like Izzie. Like this little team that gangs up on me with stubbornness and sticky hands. And the second I walked in the door, they wanted to show me their rooms and the look on their faces when they were showing me all their toys and books and asked if they could call me Dad. They both want to be doctors, and Izzie teaches them to bake just like her. And they scribble pictures of stethoscopes all over the walls in chalk. And Alexis, oh, she's got Izzie's eyes. And Eli smiles crooked just like I do. And now I live on a freaking farm in Nowhere, Kansas. And the kids play with the chickens and Izzie goes to work as a surgical oncologist. Oh, and she's amazing, Mer. The progress she's made. She's alive. And she's a miracle and keeping other people alive. And I'm applying to the hospital nearby. And I wanted to be mad at Izzie for keeping them from me, but I can't because all I am is grateful she made them. Oh, they're so damn smart, smarter than I was at their age. Hell, sometimes at my age. And they get to have everything a home where they feel safe and loved, and they play "sleepover," where they just keep swapping beds non-stop, all night until they land in ours at 4:00 a.m. And they wake up with two parents, when I rarely ever even had one. Oh, I love them, Mer, with every inch of me and every cell, and I get to be their dad. I'm the guy who lied and said I only had one ball to get into Seattle Grace. And it worked. I got a job and a career I love based on a lie that no one really cared about, and I made it work. And when I look at my kids and doubt if I know how to do right by them, I just think of you and Zola and Bailey and Ellis. You're so brave. And you've grown into this incredible mother, this incredible surgeon. You did that. You always said Cristina was your person. Then I was your person. But you've always been your own damn person, a force of freaking nature. You've never needed anyone but you. And you can come here, you know? You could show up at my door and and get me to walk away from all this and just go back to you and Jo and the hospital and everyone who helped me get here. But I hope you don't. Mer, you are my best friend, and I will miss the hell out of you, but I'm finally exactly where I should be. I never had that before. So, I hope you do come here one day, but not to ask me to leave. I hope you come to meet my kids and they get to call you "Auntie Mer.". Because you'll love them, and they'll love you. And until you're ready to do that, try not to hate me too much. Please?
Alex.'