The Funeral

Chapter 2

Meredith Grey had often experienced these kind of scares in the weeks following the crash. Her husband had a reputation of needing to be bubble wrapped seeing as he became more and more erotic after every trauma. She knew that Derek would never cheat on her but she couldn't help but remember the time when Derek had lied to her about having a wife, or when he had chosen Addison over her. And now Addison was back. They had become more close over the years, the two women had talked more often, and the younger blonde had updated the red head about all of the gossip in Seattle. Though it had just been over the phone, and minimal encounters a few days maybe, but this time Addison was here for a week in a half. She pushed this thought into the back of her mind as she reappeared at the bottom of the stairs. Many people tried to discern what had happened, but no one ever came close to comprehending.

Arizona Robbins awoke with searing pain up her left leg. She hoisted herself up so that she was sitting upright, terrified to touch her leg. In the far distance she saw two form's laying not to far from each other, the bodies looked as if they were breathing. Arizona let out a sigh of relief, three of them were alive. She couldn't move as a wave of fear struck her. Someone had just screamed Lexie Grey's name.

The living room starts to clear out after a while, seeing as the funeral is in an hour. Now sitting around the living room sat Addison who was accompanied by Amelia on the small orange couch. Derek and Meredith stood next to the duplicate couch scared to sit down. Thatcher Grey played at the foot of this couch with Zola. Thatcher had lost his wife, and now his daughter. And Meredith was scared that anything she did would send her estranged father into another alcoholic episode. In Lexie's will, she had specifically asked to have Meredith speak her eulogy if Lexie had predeceased her sister. She had not asked Molly, her other sister with whom she had grown up with, or her father who and gone to every single one of her dance recitals. Meredith and Lexie had not been close at first, but after Lexie's determination to get to know her half-sister Meredith had finally let in. The doorbell rang, indicating the arrival of the youngest grey sister, her daughter Laura, and husband Eric Thompson. They had arrived in seattle a couple days following the plane crash. It had been two weeks, and Molly who was sweet basically breathed down the two surgeons necks every day. She entered the house, as her father rose to greet them, leaving the remaining adults in silence. The group of people quietly exited the house, and drove the seemingly eternal drive to the funeral.

The first part of the funeral seemed to go on for hours. The coffins were closed seeing as the way Lexie and Mark had died wasn't as gracefully as others. Tears were being shed by everyone, even Cristina, but not Meredith. Her posture was straight as a ruler, as she sat in the uncomfortable metal chairs. The pastor called Meredith up to the small stage to deliver her eulogy. Meredith inhaled a short breath and stood up. As she made her way over, she smoothed the wrinkles on her dress. She stood behind a small podium, and let the air out of her lungs.

"The first day I met Lexie, she was a intern. She blocked my way into the ER, and I yelled at her,"

'Are you Meredith Grey?' as black haired intern asks as I run, pushing my patient past everyone in the way.

'Yes!' I yell, 'Now move!'

'I'm Lexie. Lexie Grey. I'm your sister.'

She chuckles as she releases her first tears of the day, "Then later that week, she told me we do the same hand motions, and that she could draw really well on an etch-a-sketch.

Lexie walks up to me, and I scoff not wanting to be around the person who repersents everything I missed in my childhood. 'I'm not stalking you,' she says 'I just... I hate apples. Hate them. Think they shouldn't be allowed to be a fruit. That's one. And... and two, I can draw really, really well on an etch a sketch. Like, really well, like I could be a professional if, you know, that profession existed. I play the trombone... badly. Uh, I like Math. And I notice that you do this thing with your hands when you're trying to make a point, like... like... like this. And I know that that's about you, but I ... I do it, too. So it's also about me. And that's five. Five things that I'm hoping will make it a little bit harder for you to hate me.'

I realized Lexie was my sister when I forced her to have a dance party with me and Cristina.

'Lexie if you don't get up right now and start to dance you will never feel better about yourself,' I say smiling.

I've never known what family is, but Lexie showed me what it meant. One day, she was taking my ex-bestfriends appendix out and Cristina was convinced that she was cutting, while she was actually starting a league of interns learning how to practice medicine. Derek had asked me earlier in the day what I was going to do about Lexie cutting. I didn't understand what he meant.

'What are you going to do about it?' Derek asks.

'Nothing,' I reply, not knowing that you're 'supposed to do something about family members cutting.

Then a couple of weeks later I was telling Derek that he needed to tell Mark to keep away from Lexie.

'Little Sloan does not enter Little Grey. Are we clear?' Derek says bluntly to Mark.

I had known Mark's reputation for years, and I did not want anything happening to my little sister. Mark and Lexie had the most messed up relationship ever. But through everything, through a shooting, through Mark's daughter having a baby, and then Callie having a baby; They still loved each other.

'I love you. I do. I love you. I've always been in love with you. I will always be in love with you. We can get married. And you're gonna be an amazing surgeon. We're gonna have 2 or 3 kids. We're gonna be happy, Lex. You and me. We're gonna have the best life, Lexie. You and me. You can't die, because we're supposed to end up together. We are meant to be. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you,' Mark ends the last I love you quietly. He lets out a silent sob. He reaches out his hand and closes Lexie's eyes for the last time.

My daughter refuses to go anywhere near apples because of Lexie's hate for apples. I don't know the last time I bought anything having anything to do with apples. When her father needed a liver, she wasn't a match; I was though. I would have never given up my liver if I hadn't known that our dad dying would have broken Lexie.

'I don't know what it's like to have a father. But I do know what it's like to have a sister, and it's good. And if you die it will break her, and I will not let you break her.'

She didn't know she was going to be a bridesmaid at my wedding,

'You're my sister Lexie,' I smile, 'You're in the wedding.'

'I- I'm a bridesmaid?' She looks confused for a short second and then her face breaks out into a huge smile.

She even dyed her hair blonde for a short period of time.

'And you are no blonde, you can't pull that off. Blonde's are either bad ass or funny, and you're.. you're a brunette,' Mark says to Lexie just before she storms off.

Mark told me a couple days after the crash what Lexie had said too me right before she died. 'Tell Meredith that I love her and that she was a good sister.'

Lexie is buried under a the back of a plane. Meredith runs back with some supplies in her hands hoping that she can keep her sister alive until someone finds them out in the deep dark woods. But as she approaches Mark and Lexie, she doesn't hear Lexie's voice. Just Mark's cries.

Lexie Grey wasn't just my sister. She taught me what family is, what it means. She taught me that whatever happens that love conquers all," Tears are now streaming down Meredith's face. Her voice hicks slightly as she finishes, "Lexie Grey was my sister, she was my best friend, and she will always be with me. I love you Lex."