I Won't Let Nobody Hurt You

36

The next morning Meredith woke up big, snuggling closer into Addison's arms, smiling when the redhead tightened her hold on her. She blinked her eyes open and started to panic when she realized they were late for work. "Addie! Wake up! We're late!" She pulled out of the redhead's arm and sat up.

"Honey it's okay that we're late." Addison sat up with a yawn. "We didn't want to wake you up because we weren't sure what headspace you'd be in and if you were still in your one year old headspace I was going to stay home with you until lunch and then Arizona was going to come home so we could switch."

"You guys are missing too much work because of me." Meredith groaned. "I'm so sorry."

"You have absolutely nothing to be sorry for." Addison wrapped an arm around Meredith's shoulders and kissed her temple. "You come first and right now you need to be able to regress as much as possible. There is nothing wrong with that."

"I don't even want to be a surgeon anymore." Meredith confessed, her voice barely a whisper. "I'm not sure if I ever really wanted to be a surgeon or if I just wanted Ellis to love me and I thought being a surgeon was the only way."

"Do you want to take a leave of absence?" Addison asked. "If you decide you want to go back you can, but if you realize it's truly not what you want then that's okay too."

"If I take a leave of absence, either you or Arizona will have to too and that's not fair." Meredith sighed. "I manage to stay big during work for the most part, but it's really hard and I feel like it's hurting me more than anything else. If I take a leave of absence I'm going to be little the majority of the time so I won't be able to be alone."

"Baby, we don't mind." Addison assured her. "You are more important to us. Both of us prefer being with you over working anyways. In fact we'd probably argue over who gets to stay home with you like we did this morning, which is why we decided to just split the day." She chuckled.

"You guys argued over who was staying home with me today?" Meredith giggled. "Am I really that fun? Or do you both just hate your jobs?"

"We don't hate our jobs, we just love you more than our jobs." Addison laughed. "You need to do what's best for you and as your mother's we also need to do what's best for you. You have parents who love you now Mer, I know that it's new and it's strange, but we love you more than anything in this world. You will always be our number one priority."

"But why? Why do you guys love me when my biological parents couldn't?" Meredith sniffled as tears fell down her cheeks. "Clearly I wasn't the problem since the two of you would burn down the world to protect me, but sometimes I still can't help but think if I was better that they would have loved me. I just can't help but blame myself."

"I don't know why they couldn't love you, but we love you because you make us laugh, you have the world's biggest heart, you are loyal to those you care about even when they don't deserve it, and you don't hide any facet of who you are. You are worth loving and I am so sorry that it took so long to find the parents that you truly deserve." Addison wiped the tears from Meredith's face, pressing a soft kiss to her forehead. "We are never leaving you. We love you and we will never abandon you."

"I want to ask for something but I'm scared." Meredith's voice broke as she wrapped her arms around Addison and buried her face in her neck.

"You don't have to be scared, you never have to be scared to ask me anything." Addison murmured softly.

"I don't want to be a Grey anymore." Meredith sobbed. "I want you and Arizona to adopt me. I've looked into it, and it's possible."

"Oh baby, we want that too." Addison felt tears fall down her face as she pulled Meredith back and cradled her face in her hands. "We've talked about it a lot, we just never want you to feel like we're pushing anything on you."