B for Babies

11

"I never would have pictured them together, but now that it's a real thing it's still hard to wrap my head around it." Maggie told him, Nathan had been the one to mention the couple, but she was happy to weigh in her own opinion. She didn't really have anybody to talk about it with anymore. Amelia lived with Owen, and Meredith wasn't an option obviously. "I think as long as they're committed to their child, who are we to judge them?" She said this part with a smile on her face, the whole best friends to lovers thing was really sweet to her, it reminded her of a movie or a fairytale.

Nathan seemed to take her words in, so Maggie was quite happy to change the topic and start talking his ear off, the natural ability to ramble on and on was both a blessing and a curse in situations like these.

Her voice carried throughout the house, luckily not loud enough to wake the children, or disrupt Meredith who was still sitting prepped up by her pillows, she was sitting in the dark still trying to figure out what she was going to do now. There were millions of thoughts plaguing in her mind, ranging from what Derek would think, to how her mother would point out how much she's failed lately.

She barely noticed the light from the hallway that slowly crept into the room. She had believed that Alex was long gone, on his way to reconcile with Jo like she'd told him to do. That's what he's supposed to do and maybe that wasn't entirely what she wanted, but that's what was right.

He sat down beside her on the mattress, and she let out a sound of surprise. "You're not supposed to be here." Her voice creaked out like the sound of someone opening the trunk of her car. He didn't say anything at first, and she hated that, why was he making her think so hard? "I mean it. You should be with Jo, who you actually love and should be with." She continued, not knowing if she was trying to make excuses or trying to convince them both of something that mightn't be true anymore.

Alex knew that a part of him still cared for her, but too many things had changed in the past few months. It started with the arguments over Meredith, and ended with him choosing Meredith over her, and he knew that was the one thing Jo was scared of, and he made her fears come true. He promised they wouldn't but they did, and he didn't think he could come back from that. It took him weeks to forgive himself, weeks of drowning himself in work and in this baby.

So when Meredith had given him the option to take it all back, to give himself a chance to change the past. It took him less than half a trip down the stairs before he knew.

He knew he didn't want to leave this reality, to leave this baby, this family. He didn't want to leave her. That seemed like the least sane option out of them all, to choose the lie out of all the other options, to pick to stay in the drama instead of using his get out of jail free card.

Listening to the way Maggie had described everything, and the way Nathan tried to hide the bitterness in his tone. It wasn't a movie moment where he ran back to her room and everything was one big happy ending.

He didn't expect it to be like that at all. He sat there beside his best friend without saying a word – because he didn't know which words to say, not at first anyway.

He listened as Meredith poured out excuses for him to leave. He listened to her because he knew what she was doing, she was scared. Meredith was always a ticking bomb who destroyed things in her path, that's how she saw herself anyway. He knew that about her, and he knew this would come sooner or later. She was bound to push him away, to try and convince them both that she was fine with doing this all alone, she wasn't. He knew that too.

"Will you ever shut up?" He asked after a full five minutes of her trying to fix is old relationship, he didn't need Meredith to fix his life for him, he needed her to let him live his life the way he wanted to.

She didn't like hearing those words, but her mouth closed as she looked to him suddenly. It wasn't like she hadn't heard him say that to her before, she had many times. Alex didn't hold back when he wanted to, especially not something PG like telling her to stop talking. She didn't like it, but she didn't have any defence against that. She really had been talking too much, and probably stopped making sense a minute or so back.

"I don't want out of this. I'm here for the long haul, even if you think you're cupid, you're really not. If you were cupid you'd know you were barking up the wrong tree..." He told her, moving his glance to the ceiling this time, feeling comfort in the darkness as he made himself comfortable in the bed next to her.

Meredith let out an almost inaudible snort, she lowered her body down so she was laying beside him, hand rested against her pregnant belly. She didn't make a peep when Alex placed his hand over hers, giving her fingers a squeeze. Maybe she didn't deserve a friend like Alex, maybe she didn't deserve a friend half as good as Alex, but she was glad as hell that he was sticking around.

"Goodnight Mere." His voice came out softer than usual and Meredith's lips upturned into a gentle smile, she let out a content sigh as his body filled the gap between them, his lips leaving a peck against her hair.

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