The Journey To Happiness

Epilogue

8 YEARS LATER

Harper is now 24, she's now an intern a Grey-Sloan Memorial Hospital, she's returning to Seattle. She attended John Hopkins and hasn't seen her Mom since the first day of Med-school.

HARPERS POV:

I've grown up a lot, the first time I found out I was accepted into a top college, to when I got into John Hopkins. My Mom had always been with me for that journey. I haven't seen her since, I've been busy with Med-school.

Being a Shepherd has its perks, I've got a name and it gets me far. But I'm not a Shepherd by blood, but nobody really knows that.

Here I am in the intern locker room of Grey-Sloan sat by myself looking in the mirror of my locker.

I throw my hair into a low messy bun, I realise it's the hairstyle my Mom usually wore at the hospital. Great! We're going to be matching.

"Hey, I'm Alice Paisley, you?" A pale ginger woman asked me.

"Harper Shepherd..." I sighed.

"Wait as in the Harper Shepherd? The one who won the junior Catherine Fox award and helped Dr Amelia Shepherd on a ground breaking surgery? You're her, her daughter?" Dr Paisley blurted out, which received some looks from the other interns.

Interns were cheering, talking loudly. It was overwhelming and I needed to stim, I needed to overload, but I couldn't do it here.
I ran out of the locker room, I knew this hospital off by heart.

Stood outside my Mom's office, I knocked on the door.

"One minute!" I heard the familiar voice.

"HARPER! Omg look at you, you look amazing! I knew you were gonna be working here, but honestly thought you were going to avoid me" My Mom chuckled, but I burst into tears.

"Hey what's wrong?" My Mom spoke softly pulling me into a hug.

"It was loud, and I needed to stim, and I felt like I was going to overload and all people cared about was that I'm your daughter and it was a lot" I rambled not even taking a breather.

"Okay, breathe, I've got you now, you can stim in my office, I still keep ear defenders in my drawer" Mom said leading me into her office.

"Thankyou" I sighed placing the ear defenders on my head and fidgeting with my hands.

"Do you want to be on my service today? Or your Mama's? I'm sure we can look after you" Mom said.

When I was 18, my Mom married a paediatric surgeon, Dr Beltran. I've called her Mama ever since she started caring for me more.

"I don't mind" I sighed shrugging my shoulders.

"If it's going to be too much today, you know we have accommodations for you to take sensory breaks or anything you need, you come find me or Mama or someone you trust if your feeling down okay" Mom said caressing my cheek.

"Yeah I will" I said smiling.

THE END.

The journey of this story has been amazing, I have a new story up called Shadows Lurking, I also have a Marina story in the making.