Where You Belong

103

The walls of the hospital were wider than usual, causing Meredith to feel small and insignificant as she walked between them, not sure on her destination but unable to stop her feet from moving forward. Always forward. Though, she wasn't sure how long she had been walking. It felt like a long time, but she wasn't tired like she thought she should be. She wasn't anything, really. She felt...nothing.

Everything around her seemed wrong. Not only were the walls too far apart, but they were the wrong colour. And the light was...wrong.

Everything was wrong.

She was alone. There was no one else wandering the halls. No doctors. No nurses. No patients. No one. Just Meredith.

Maybe that was why the walls seemed so far apart.

She had looked for other people before, but hadn't been able to find anyone. Not her husband. Not her friends. Not even any of the ghosts she had shared the empty hospital with before.

She was alone now. Alone and cold. It was cold here.

It was cold because she was standing in front of the morgue.

Meredith blinked, suddenly realizing she had stopped moving but not having noticed at the time. When had that happened? She hadn't meant to come here. She wasn't even on the right floor. The last time she had been to the morgue it had been in the basement.

She wasn't sure what floor she was on now, but it couldn't be the basement because there had been windows. She had passed windows. And she couldn't remember using the stairs or getting in the elevator.

The door wasn't anything like it had been when Derek had brought her here (had it actually been here? Were there two morgues?) in a wheelchair to say goodbye to her mother after her accident. Back then (she wasn't sure how long ago it had been) the morgue had been in the basement and it had had its own hallway. Now it was upstairs somewhere (she still wasn't sure where she was) and was announced by a normal door and a small sign.

Odd.

She didn't want to go in, but she did anyway.

It was wrong inside. All wrong. A wall of small, square doorways was the only presence in the room. That, and strange light coming from all the wrong directions.

She knew which compartment held her mother without stopping to think about it. After she had pulled open the door the bed pulled out on its own volition.

Her mother's face was deathly pale, a sharp contrast to the dark navy scrubs she was wearing and the vibrant red scars on her wrists.

Meredith stared. And stared. It was nice that they had thought to dress her in scrubs. She would like that. Being a doctor was the only niche Ellis Grey had ever wanted for herself. But it was strange that she was in the morgue dressed in scrubs. Because Meredith had had her cremated. Ellis's ashes were packed into an urn in the back of Meredith's closet. So, why was she here?

She didn't ask the question because she knew she wouldn't get an answer.

There was a creak behind her, and Meredith turned to watch another compartment open and a dead body roll out. Her dead body. She stared at herself. Somewhere in the back of her mind she knew something wasn't right, but still, she stared.

Her hair was flat and dull against her very pale skin. Her face was sunken. She looked lifeless and...dead.

Meredith continued to stare at her own corpse, trying to remember when she had died, but she couldn't remember.