Let's Not Stay Away Anymore (Kaimelia)

23: Consulting the clouds

The Minnesota duo walked towards her in tandem, except Kai's head was turned away from her, carefully examining the numbers on each examination room they passed as if they were suddenly the most fascinating thing Kai'd ever seen.

Amelia had offered to travel to Minnesota and do David's check-up there, it was the 6 month mark after his surgery after all, however, he was enjoying making the rounds himself almost too much, showing off essentially his own success to whoever would humor him.

Now all she could do was pace the hallways, pressing her hands into each other, having arrived to greet them a bit too early.

David's visit did make sense. Since Meredith had insisted she wouldn't be splitting her time between two states, at least for a while longer, David thought her seeing his success with her own eyes, would perhaps inspire her to reconsider. The man didn't give up easily, that much Amelia had to give him credit for.

So there they finally were, Dr. Hamilton, walking proudly through Grey+Sloan, with an exaggeratingly distracted Dr. Bartley one step behind him.

Meredith had a little over an hour of surgery left, given everything went smoothly, so she'd asked Amelia to greet them, set them up in a conference room, perhaps entertain David with a short check-up. She'd made absolutely sure Amelia felt up to it, only ever receiving dismissive sure's and it's fine, really's, from her sister, who was so obviously putting on a brave face.

It was just that - work, Amelia tried over and over again to convince herself. And she could be professional. It was a brief fling, yes, that much she admitted to Meredith, but it's not like we got too invested, too attached, she'd said.

She got a bitter taste in her mouth, repeating what was said the last time she'd seen Kai.

No harm, no foul.

While Meredith could see Amelia was trying to convince herself more than anyone else, there seemed to be no getting through to her. She'd tried. She'd employed Maggie to try, even Winston, both of whom had noticed the stark change in their family member as well.

To no avail.

Amelia had become an indestructible wall of avoidance and downplay.

In fact, most of her time away from the hospital was now spent mending her relationship with Link. Any kind of romance was long gone, but she was enjoying being able to share space with the father of her child and not feel like he was sucking all air out of the room.

The conversations never ran too deep, they were mostly focused on Scout, and she found it quite refreshing. Mostly since Link made sure to avoid any questions he didn't want to hear an answer to. The rest of them didn't hesitate to ask, or shoot their worried or judgemental looks. Surprisingly, Atticus didn't.

They took walks, went out to eat, and took day trips to sightsee.

Always with Scout. Only ever with Scout.

It was a fine existence, Amelia mused. Much like she'd imagined it back when she got pregnant with Scout. A nice, mediocre life, a somewhat happy life. Sure, she thought she would be with Link back then, but now that it was out of the question, she knew it'd been for the right reasons, and felt at peace with it.

Things not going exactly to plan was routine anyway - they never did. So, all things considered, it'd been exactly that - perfectly fine.

Now though, seeing the two people who'd changed so much about how she thought about work, life, and herself, in one fell swoop, she felt almost angry.

Why did they have to burst in here and turn everything upside down when they did?

Challenge her, make her reconsider and reevaluate, and question.