It feels like it's been absolute ages since writing one of these, and yet...here we are. Another fandom, another fic that will probably be the death of me (and maybe you, who knows). For those of you who are just now joining me, I'm Emily, I used to be blonde and somehow I made all A's during fall semester while simultaneously clearing through all thirteen seasons of Grey's Anatomy. I've written a few things for this fandom that I've kept mostly to myself because I obviously hopped on the bandwagon a little late, but I figured might as well dip my toe in and test the water and we can always go from there. Fingers crossed I won't drown. This is an AU, and I'll get into technicalities if need be later on in the story but just know that any and all mistakes or factual errors I've made from here on out are entirely accidental, I've done about as much research as one can possibly do for a fanfic and that leads me into the fact that this is a fanfiction. Let's all be nice, shall we? Anyways, I own nothing, which is unfortunate seeing as how if I did, things would go so differently. I'll shut up now. Onwards.

Prologue

The walls were the color of an eggshell, large expanses of colorless and pallid surface that Lexie's eyes kept fixed to. She stared, stared until she could feel tears begin to sprout in the corners of her eyes and she started to see colors she knew were certainly not there. Color implied vibrancy, life, and she was certain the world around her was hollow. The world was the same as the walls.

Eyes burned on her, eyes that had been trying to make the slightest hole at seeing through her and had yet to see the surface show any signs of cracking. Lexie chose to stare at the wall, her hands overlapping the other and her thumb circling around and around mindlessly on the surface of her palm until the path it had made was engrained in her skin and starting to lose feeling. Her lips remained sewn shut, even though there was plenty of commotion stirring behind the walls, her thoughts ricocheting off the sides of her head in a language she still didn't comprehend.

If there had been an analog clock in the room, Lexie would have been able to hear each second tick by at an agonizing rate, driving her slowly into madness. She preferred the silence, anyways.

"Lexie," a voice tore straight through the quiet, calm and a little too smooth for Lexie's liking as it left the last defense she had standing in tatters, and she felt herself bristle at the mere sound of anything other than her own breathing. "Lexie, your session is almost over."

Lexie said nothing, merely blinked a few times and let the walls refocus in her line of sight. Started to study the bumps and raising along the wall where someone else might have missed them, but she couldn't possibly see past them after looking right at them like a gaping hole for the last hour.

A pen clicked, the sound of rustling paper followed as it likely folded back over to where it belonged—Lexie wasn't sure why, there hadn't been really much to take note of to begin with—and then as controlled of a sigh as a person could possibly manage without coming across as anything other than professional. Ten.

Nine. She'd be out of here soon enough.

That was the game, wasn't it; counting the seconds until she could get out of here only to retreat back into the same old same old. Eight.

Seven. Lexie didn't know what was better, sitting here for an hour and having someone wait on her to make the move, or sitting back at home and everyone trying to goad her along.

Definitely at home. The walls were at least a less clinical shade of white. She also had a lock on her bedroom door. Six.

Five. She'd done this countdown a few times before, had it drawn to a science after the first go round.

It was nice having the time though, the time where she got to live in her head and not withdraw. Four.

Three. Well, not withdraw on her own accords. Usually her family pulled her out kicking and screaming whether she was up for it or not.

Two.

The rest of the quiet was taken down similar to a cobweb as a knock on the door tore Lexie from the still, the knock only serving as a courtesy call before the door came swinging open, groaning as it revealed Meredith. "Lex," Meredith said, her voice unnaturally gentle, an attempt at coaxing Lexie along that went all in vain. "You ready to go?"

Those were the words, the right ones anyways, Lexie's head turning away from the wall after the one last second that her sister had unknowingly stolen from her passed and things were moving right back along schedule. "Yeah," she replied in a scratchy and strangled manner. "Yeah, let's go."

As she made her way towards the door, she purposefully kept her sights trained ahead, away from her company whom she was sure was watching her wistfully as she went. Lexie had nothing to say, nothing at all, and she moved right over the threshold without a single inch of her itching to look back as she went. From the corner of her eye, beneath the little hairs tickling her forehead and eyebrows, she caught a glimpse of Meredith looking back into that room still, questions and desperation coloring her features. She was met with disappointment, most likely.

Lexie had only had to do this twice now to understand how it was going to work. Everything was a cycle, innocent evolve to vicious, and eventually the final blow that either sent one hurtling from the trenches of the rut or made it a permanent bed to lie in. This cycle was one of the more uncomfortable ones, and so she kept silent through it all.

"How was your session today?" Meredith tried asking on the ride home, most likely a means to get her talking. There was once a time where that had never been much of a problem, words falling naturally from Lexie's lips without barely turning the faucet on. Now it took a little more prodding.

"Okay," Lexie muttered, her thumb spinning around and around as it traced the surface of her palm.

"What'd you talk about?"

"We didn't talk."

"This is your fourth week now, you have to start talking at some point," Meredith sighed. Lexie shrugged, her shoulders rolling as she leaned back a little further into the seat.

"It's my time, Meredith, I can waste it if I want to."

Meredith didn't bother to say anything else after that. Lexie could see that her sister was growing increasingly frustrated with the lack of progress; had Meredith had it her way, the world would spin on the axis at a speed she liked it and things wouldn't extend out of the realm of how she wanted them. She saw things through one lens and very rarely did she try and shift gears, and Lexie knew her sister wasn't going to budge on this.

They arrived back at the house, and Lexie begrudgingly went about letting Meredith help her out of the car, keeping her lips pressed tight together as she complied. The sound of the wheelchair hitting the pavement, as much as it still made her recoil, had grown familiar. Her finger kept doing laps around her palm as she made the transition from passenger seat to wheelchair, Meredith's arms waiting for the worst to happen as always.

Lexie could do this in her sleep, quite literally, but as long as Meredith's watchful eye was around, she would have assistance whether it was wanted and appreciated or not.

She rolled herself up the walkway as soon as she'd gotten adjusted, leaving Meredith behind still trying to fetch the rest of her belongings from the car. Derek usually left the door unlocked, something he'd always done and never thought twice about and was now becoming something of a hazard, especially with the addition of Zola, who seemed to have quite the fascination with doorknobs these days. It made Lexie's life a hell of a lot easier though, and that was part of the reason she had the inkling Derek had continued to leave it unlocked despite Meredith's berating. Because it made Lexie's life a little bit easier, and for that very reason did it aggravate her. She leaned over, pushing the door open before pushing herself across the threshold with a sound thump.

Derek didn't have to see with his own two eyes to know who had entered the house. "Lex, you in the mood for breakfast for dinner?" he called from the kitchen.

"Sure, I guess," she called back monotonously. Derek's head appeared from around the door frame, his lips turned up in a thin smile.

"Good thing, since I already started it." Of course he had. No one had to tell her that; the smell of bacon had all but punched her in the stomach the minute she opened the door.

Derek, ever the faithful older brother, a bit more tolerable over the last few months than Meredith was just because he hadn't been as stubborn with her recovery in the way Meredith had. Derek was steadfast in his belief Lexie would heal on her own time, and it would take more than just a few weeks, and she needed enough room to breathe in order to do so. If she needed them, she'd say. It was a quiet appreciation she held for Derek; Lexie had never been one to openly drown him in her gratitude through a form of affection, but rather the small reassurance of a smile across the way. She'd never thought there would come a day where she favored her brother in law over her sister, mostly because for the longest time she looked at Meredith like she'd hung a couple of stars in the sky even when she stole the sun out from Lexie's.

Lexie slowly maneuvered herself into the living room, mostly to get and stay out of the way of the sure commotion that was coming. Zola would come running straight for Meredith the minute she came through the door, and while Zola adored Lexie, no one held a candle to her mother. The sound of the door being pushed back open was faint over the sound of the TV that Derek had left on, but Lexie heard it well enough. "Dry cleaning's in the living room," Derek yelled out to Meredith as she shut the door behind her, throwing her bag down onto the floor next to the exit like usual. It surely wasn't directed at Lexie by any means.

No matter, Lexie had already found it.

Meredith came strolling in, casually, surely not expecting her sister to be sitting right in front of the couch's arm staring at a pile of clothes all wrapped in plastic. She came to a halt, startled, only having to take one glance at the look on Lexie's face and at the dry cleaning resting on the couch to know that this was a very, very bad situation they'd accidentally landed in. Lexie's eyes were still fixed on the article of clothing at the top of the pile, and had her sister not known any better, she would have been wise in assuming she was no longer breathing.

"Lexie," Meredith started, quiet and careful as she made her advance. "Lex, I didn't know he had it cleaned."

"I know," Lexie muttered discordantly, feeling her throat starting to close in on itself. The black dress glared at her through the polyethylene, mocking her with a cruel smirk. She could feel the dull ache in her chest start throbbing again and again and if she knew where it had originated, she would have forcibly ripped it out. Instead, she just stared at the black dress, her mind reeling, body frozen, and Meredith's face crumpled in the distance.

"If I'd known, I would have told him not to bother."

"Just...I don't want to see it anymore," Lexie said, her hand lifting to cradle her temple as she winced.

"Lexie, I'm so—"

"Just get it out of here!" Normally, the flare-up would have evoked a little more emotion in her voice, but nothing in her tone changed, just the volume. Meredith took that as her cue, reaching in and dragging the bags off the couch by the hangars as quickly as she could, not caring if the edges hit the floor and trailed off behind her. Lexie pursed her lips, her hand closing in over her eyes as she tried to keep the exhale pushing its way through her nose as quiet as possible. Meredith was going to give Derek a sure piece of her mind later. Dinner would be an awkward affair. Lexie would spend the rest of the night in her bedroom staring at the ceiling. It wasn't news to her by any means, this was the routine she'd more or less wound up in.

Only day 143, she thought bitterly to herself.

I know things seem a little weird right now and everyone might seem a little off their usuals but I promise things are going to make a little more sense here shortly. Reviews are always greatly, greatly appreciated and they motivate a girl to update faster, just saying. And, like I said, I have some other GA stuff lurking around (it's pretty much all Mark/Lexie and Meredith/Derek) so let me know if you'd maybe be interested in seeing some of that in the near future as well? Just come talk to me. I like talking to people. xo