B E T T Y | Grey's Anatomy

5

By Thursday, Amelia Shepherd has had enough. Amelia has a habit of ruminating over any situation that makes her mildly uncomfortable- her brains way of processing emotion without drugs. It is the sunlight pouring through her window, and the eager toddler wriggling to get out of her lap that unsettles her. She should be happy. She should be content with a perfect child and one of Seattle's rare sunny days, except her brain can only pull her back into rumination with Betty Nelson. Amelia can't decide if she's mad at the girl for taking her consciousness away from her son, or damn right scared for her wellbeing. Thoughts of Betty on drugs leads to thoughts of Amelia on drugs.

At 35, Amelia should have the cravings handled. She's 6 years sober, 8 from narcotics, and has both sobriety chips in her pocket to fiddle with whenever she's anxious. Her usual coping strategy involves vomiting her guts to Link (who, somewhat accidentally, manages to untangle her and stuff her neatly back inside), drinking excessive amounts of herbal tea, and cutting brains (legally, of course), but with this weeks anxious tendencies, Amelia's tea is in short supply, her hands are too shaky for a scalpel, and Atticus Lincoln's perfect chiselled face will only set to aggravate her.

"Mama!" Scout pats Amelia's knees, drawing her back to the present.

"Come here." She exerts and lifts her strong boy into her arms and sits with him on his orange play mat. Scout lunges at his anatomy picture book, a gift from Auntie Meredith, with the cutest grin on his face.

"Ohhhh" Amelia chuckles. "What a surprise!" She opens the book, not needing to read the words to recite them- that's how often the pair read it. Scout babbles along in his own special way, and Amelia is convinced he is a genius.

"Mama! Bwain!" Scout squeals at his favourite page, Amelia's too- the cartoon medulla.

"You're so clever!" She tickles his belly.

"Mama bwains!"

"Yes, I work on brains! That's right. And daddy does bones!"

"Scout bones!"

"You want to be a bone doctor?" Amelia frowns at the one year old.

"Like Dada." Scout nods and Amelia's heart sinks, and then her heart hurts with guilt at her disappointment. The one year old has no idea what he's saying, no idea why his parents are rarely in the same room, and doesn't seem phased at all by Amelia packing him up into his bright yellow coat (Amelia regrets the colour choice, her son looks like a bollard, but it was a present from a fellow surgeon and she feels a duty to put it to use). In Scout's mind, Amelia stuffing his little feet into jelly shoes and grabbing a couple of his toys only means one thing- he's going to Daddy and he's happy with that.

"Let's go Scout. Mommy needs a meeting...."

Meanwhile, Betty Nelson has been mulling over the possibility of going to a meeting also. She saw the disappointment in Amelia's eyes, and a little bit of rage also, when she admitted she'd been avoiding the 12-steps. Betty kids herself, thinks she's not going to meetings incase she bumps into the neurosurgeon, but really, Betty could take herself to the other side of town, the meeting she knows Amelia won't attend (the brunette doesn't like the coffee they serve), but she chooses not to. Working the 12 steps requires an honesty Betty isn't ready for, no matter how much she is craving right now.

But thinking of Amelia's face, and flashing back to her pained expression the last time she got high, Betty finds some motivation.

"I know Scout! I'm sorry." Amelia speaks over her shoulder to the wailing child in the backseat. Scout is finding himself travel sick and with a wet diaper. With each modulation in pitch of Scout's crying, Amelia's cravings increase. At the red stop light she decides her drug of choice, speeding past the billboard posters wrinkled with yesterdays rainwater she decides how many grams, in a traffic jam two blocks out, surrounded by excessively large SUV's, Amelia recites a dealer's number, but pulling into a parking space, her confidence in her decision falters.