Note: This chapter takes place about a week after Season 13, Episode 15 (Civil War). If you haven't seen that episode, I would recommend watching it before reading this story because it provides some useful context, especially for this first chapter. The next few chapters will be more or less parallel to the rest of the episodes of the season.

Also, I would like to give you fair warning: this story has a romantic plot between Meredith and Alex. I know a lot of people don't like that ship, but I thought it would be fun to write especially now that it is being implied in the show more and more. If you don't like the idea of Merlex, then simply don't read this story. If you do chose to read on, then I hope you enjoy! Thank you!

The title of each chapter is the name of a song, like the episode names for Grey's. This one is No Rest for the Wicked by Lykke Li.

No Rest for the Wicked

Meredith woke up slowly, just minutes before their alarm was due to go off. The earliest morning light was peaking through the shades, illuminating her half of the bed. She had slept well, almost too well, so her muscles were pleasantly stiff and begging to be stretched. With a lazy sigh, she rolled her head to the right to see if Alex was awake yet.

He was lying on his back, hands folded on his chest. His eyes we trained on the ceiling fan, flicking back and forth to keep up with the movement. Meredith could see immediately that he was deep in thought and had probably been awake all night. She reached out her hand and brushed his arm.

Alex jumped and shifted his eyes to meet hers. "Morning," she murmured, her voice still thick with sleep.

"Hey. Morning." His voice was rough and unused.

"You didn't sleep?"

"I couldn't."

Meredith nodded before finally moving to stretch with a satisfied groan. "What, the bed isn't comfortable enough for you?" She could feel him looking at her.

"No. It's definitely not that. Its just…" he trailed off and turned his gaze back to the fan.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"What, is it Jo? DeLuca? Did Riggs say something else to you?"

He scoffed. "Riggs is an asshole. Anyway, he's too busy trying to get into your pants to continue undermining me."

She rolled her eyes, knowing that even if he didn't see it, he could sense it. They both knew that the incident with the Norwood-transplant debate was still bothering him, but it seemed like neither of them knew why. It had already been a week, and each day there was a version of this conversation. He was clearly battling something, it was about time she figured out what it was. "This is about Riggs."

He rolled over, pulling the covers with him, and abruptly stood. "I'm getting coffee. I can't handle being psychoanalyzed without coffee." He pulled an old t-shirt over his head and headed for the hallway.

"Well, you better start drinking, because this isn't over!" she called after him.

They were silent over breakfast, even as Zola, Ellis, and Bailey cheerfully ate their pancakes. Finally, after what seemed like an hour but was actually fifteen minutes, the kids left to get dressed for school.

Meredith left a minute of silence before she forced Alex to make eye contact with her.

"He was right, you know. I mean, he shouldn't have hidden the UNOS request from you, but that doesn't mean that it wasn't a solid call. It wasn't likely, but it saved the kid." Meredith scooped up slices of apples and dumped them in a zipped bag and added it to Bailey's lunchbox.

Alex leaned heavily on the counter. "Yeah, whatever. I still think he's a snake."

"Uh-huh," she murmured, sipping her coffee. He had said that word so many times that it no longer held any meaning.

"Who scares parents like that? I know what I'm talking about. I work with babies like that all the time. He could have went with it, and Gus would still have made a full recovery."

"But that isn't what happened," Meredith responded as she double-checked her kid's lunches. "Why are you suddenly acting like Old Alex again?"

"I don't know. The more I see him, the less I like him. He just rubs me the wrong way."

"Right. Well," She paused to rinse her hands. "I guess now would be a bad time to tell you that I've agreed to get drinks with him."

Alex's eyebrows shot up. "Drinks? I tell you that the guy is no good, and you are going out for drinks with him?"

"Look, I defended you, but I'm kind of having trouble seeing what your problem is. I want to, I don't know, maybe try having something with him, and it would be really great if my person didn't spend his entire day being angry about it."

"I told you, I don't like –"

"Alex."

"What?"

"Why don't you like him? Really, honestly. Why?"

He grumbled moodily and sloshed his coffee around in his cup. After a moment, he stood and dumped it in the sink dismissively. "Whatever. I need to shower."

"Alex!"

"I'll see you at work."

Meredith poked at her food with her fork, but couldn't bring herself to eat anything. "He's just been off ever since we got back to work. And not normal, off. I was expecting it to be a little weird with the whole DeLuca and Wilson thing and the Minnick fiasco, but he's just been… weird!"

Maggie's forehead folded in concern. If there was one thing Maggie was good at, it was concern. "Do you think he's feeling left behind? A lot has happened."

"Maybe, but I don't know. That's not really it. He's been defensive and judge-y."

"That sounds about right to me."

"No, but this is like Old Alex. I know you didn't know him when he was like that. It was when he was closed off from me and tried to be tough and intimidating. Something is freaking him out. Something big."

"Well, maybe it's just coming back to the job after a while, and people not trusting him as much. I could see how that would make him Old Alex-y."

"He won't even talk to me about it. I even tried to talk to Riggs about backing off but Alex just isn't Alex."

"When did the Alex and Nathan thing start? I was so surprised when Alex called me in to be their counselor, or whatever. I don't remember a time when Alex didn't solve his issues himself. I mean – did Nathan do anything?"

Meredith coughed, "Well, as far as I know, Alex has only really interacted with him in surgery, and this is the first time they've has a disagreement." Aside from that, all that Alex knows or cares to know about Nathan is that I fucked him in a parking lot and ever since I've been trying to avoid him because I know you, sweet, sensitive Maggie, like him. Oh, and now I'm getting drinks with Nathan tonight.

"Hmm… maybe he just needs some time to get back into the rhythm of being back at work." Maggie took another bite of her salad, big brown eyes blinking reassuringly. Then, her eyes looked over Meredith's shoulder. "Oh, head's up."

A moment later, a lunch tray landed next to Meredith's elbow. Alex's mountain of food tilted precariously. He gruffly sat in the chair and looked at the two of them, eyebrows lowered in suspicion. "What?"

"Tough day?" Maggie quipped.

"Yeah. I gotta kid with pyloric stenosis and Bennett seems to think I'm wrong. He actually said, 'you've been known to make snap decisions. Let me run some more tests.' Dude, I've seen so many of these cases. The symptoms are all there, and the scans were pretty freakin' clear. But the guy still acts like I never got a medical degree and that I wasn't his freakin' boss just a couple of months ago."

Maggie shot Meredith a look that clearly said 'I told you so.'

"So what's the problem? You are still Bennett's superior. He can run all the tests he wants, but if your diagnosis is right, and I'm sure it is, it's your call."

"It's a waste of time, and meanwhile the kid is starving and in pain and needs surgery! You know that it's crap. And anyway, you're just happy because you're getting laid tonight."

Maggie immediately tuned in to the gossip. "You're getting laid? Who? When did this happen?"

Meredith glared at Alex. He knew very well that she didn't want to tell Maggie about the whole Nathan thing until she was sure. She knew he was just using it as an excuse to divert attention away from his issues. "Just some guy I met. I don't know if I'm going to sleep with him anyway."

"Just some guy? Meredith! This is a big deal."

Alex scoffed, "You're going to sleep with him. You shaved your legs. You are definitely getting laid."

"How do you even know I shaved my legs?"

"Mer. We share a bathroom and I don't use a woman's razor." He took a huge bite of his sandwich.

She rolled her eyes at him. He was right, but he was still being Old Alex-y.

Maggie could sense that Meredith was getting increasingly less patient with Alex. She cleared her throat in an attempt to relieve some of the tension. "So, where'd you meet him?"

Meredith never broke her glaring contest with Alex. "Oh, um, it was when I was on leave."

Maggie cooed, "Well, what's he like?" but Meredith couldn't concentrate on lying about her date when Alex was being so strange. It was time to stop tiptoeing around his feelings.

"What the hell is bothering you? And don't say 'I don't know' or 'Riggs' anything, because it's something else and you know it."

His eyes sparked with something like sadness. "Do I really need to tell you? Really? You can't see it?"

She immediately went from furious to weak. She really didn't see it. "Alex –"

"Whatever, Mer. Enjoy your date." And with that, he picked up his tray and left.

Meredith and Maggie watched him walk away in stunned silence. Maggie swallowed. "Wow, there really is something wrong."

The rest of the day, everything was wrong. Meredith couldn't focus the way she wanted to. Everything just seemed to remind her of what Alex had said. She was his person, and she was blind to whatever was bothering him. She couldn't think of anything that would have shaken him this much. He had been fine just a week before. He was tired from the legal battle and the Jo stuff, but he was dealing with it just as Alex had always dealt with everything. Now, he was sinking and she needed to find a way to help.

She decided to take her paperwork home to finish. The hospital was too distracting, and this way she would be more likely to catch Alex and try to start understanding what was happening.

Just before she left for the evening, she tracked down Nathan. He was at a nurse's station, signed charts and giving a resident instructions for an overnight follow up for one of his patients. He saw her over the resident's shoulder and winked.

She waited for him to finish, stuffing her fists into her favorite jeans, the jeans she knew made her butt look good. The jeans she wore specifically for her date with Nathan. He sent the resident on her way and turned to smile at her. Her stomach twisted uncomfortably.

"Hey. So are we still good for drinks? I just need to change and I'll be good to go."

"Actually, I really need to reschedule."

His rakish grin faltered. "Is everything okay?"

"Yeah, sort of. It's just that there's something up with Alex and I need to be with him tonight."

Nathan's gaze darkened a shade. "Right. Karev."

"I'm not saying no to any drinks ever, but I need it to not be tonight."

"Uh-huh."

"He's my –'

"I know. He's your person."

Something about the way her said it put Meredith on edge. "Listen –"

"No, it's fine. I get it. You spent months avoiding a date with me, and when you finally convince yourself that it might be worth it, you immediately let Karev talk you out of it."

Meredith felt her goodwill toward Nathan – Riggs – drain away. She quickly put her defenses up and started to make a retort, which he quickly spoke over.

"Meredith, let me make this easy for you. I'm cancelling. Not because I want to, but because I know that no matter what, Karev will always come first for you." With that, Riggs spun on his heal and marched out of the cardio wing, leaving Meredith stunned behind him.

Within a few minutes, Meredith was driving home with a stack of paperwork in her passengers seat and thinking about The Great Date Rescheduling Train Wreck. She knew that Riggs said that he wasn't going to wait around for her forever, but she hadn't thought that she was so close to pushing him away. She had already decided that it was probably good that it had happened this way, instead of later, but nevertheless she felt the old insecurities from her twenties rise up. Bad things happen to her. She was incapable of love and commitment. If it wasn't Derek, it couldn't be anyone. As much as she wanted to be righteously angry about Riggs acting like an asshole, she knew that it was partially because she pushed it too far.

She made it home quickly. When the front door closed behind her, she allowed herself to sigh in relief. It had been a long day. All she wanted was a glass of wine and sleep, but she knew that she would never be able to until she saw Alex. Whatever was bothering him was starting to eat away at her too, and she wanted to find some way to help.

She walked passed the couch Amelia had repurposed as her bed, which was currently unoccupied except for an old comforter. Hopefully Amelia finally decided to sort her shit out with Owen.

She set her purse down on the kitchen counter and went upstairs to check on the kids. They were sleeping. She hated arriving home late and missing saying goodnight to them. She was always scared that a mysterious something might happen and she would never be able to do it again. They were all dreaming peacefully. Their breaths were deep and even, and the sense of rightness about it calmed her.

She quietly closed the door to Zola's room and made her way downstairs to the kitchen. When she walked through the door, she came face to face with Alex.

The first thing she registered was that he looked exhausted. The dark circles under his eyes, which had been present for the last few months, were darker than ever, and his mouth was curved downward in an unconscious frown. She didn't know what to say.

"You're back early. I thought you had your date?"

She shook her head slowly. "I cancelled. Well, actually, he cancelled. I just tried to reschedule." Meredith tried to communicate everything in her eyes. She didn't know exactly how to say that she was sorry, or felt for him, and wanted only for him to be himself again, but she needed him to know. They stared at each other for a while, but the silence never grew awkward.

After a while, he pulled her into a firm hug, nuzzling his face against her. She could feel his fingers splaying across her back. His breath was hot against her neck. He needed to shave. "I'm sorry. I'm an ass."

She sighed as she ran her fingers through his hair, trying to comfort him. "Yeah, you are. I'm sorry too."

"I'm so tired."

"I am too."

"Good."

Sunlight filtered through the leaves. Their shadows dappled her skin and the soft grass she was laying on. It was silent and still. The only movement was the gently sway of the branches above her head and her own breathing.

She reached down to smooth her hand over her stomach. The skin was taught and she could feel the little butterfly kicks of their baby underneath her fingers. His hand reached out, interlocking with hers. She turned her head to smile at him, "Derek."

His playful blue eyes hadn't changed. The laugh lines at the corner of his eyes were the same, and his thin, pink lips were just like they were the last time she kissed them. They shaped her name, but she couldn't hear it.

"Mommy! Daddy!" Ellis squealed. She ran toward them, and flopped down beside them in the grass. Her hands were sticky and there were grass stains on her knees. "Look at what me and Bailey made!"

Meredith slowly got to her feet, a hand protectively cupping her pregnant belly. She took Ellis' hand. "Show me."

Ellis tugged her along toward a sandbox that Meredith hadn't noticed before. When they reached the edge, she watched Bailey adding a leaf to the top of a sandcastle. The castle looked remarkably like Grey-Sloan Memorial. "Mommy, where's daddy?"

With a jolt of panic, Meredith realized her husband wasn't by her side like she thought he was. She spun around frantically. Where is he?

But he was there, right behind her. His familiar smirk was lighting up his face. "I just went and got Zola from the swings."

Meredith grasped her chest as relief flooded her. Their family was together. It was just them, her kids, her unborn baby, Meredith, and… Alex.

"Alex," she gasped, pulling him into a hug, "I though you were gone. You weren't there." She couldn't hold him close enough. Her stomach was too big.

He ran a hand through her hair. A shiver went down her spine. "Hey, it's okay. I'll never leave you. I'm here. Wake up. Wake up. Wake up!"

She woke up abruptly. Alex was looking at her with concern and a little bit of annoyance. She grabbed at her stomach, but it was flat, empty.

"Mer, are you okay?"

She was disoriented. It took a few moments for her to realize that she wasn't dreaming anymore. "Yeah. Yeah… I'm okay."

He stared at her hands clutching her stomach with concern. "Did you have a nightmare?"

"Not exactly… it was Derek. It was Derek and the kids and –" her voice caught.

"Do you wanna talk about it?"

She thought about Dream Alex's arms wrapped around her, tethering her to some serene feeling of safety. She pressed her cheek against Real Alex's shoulder, breathing in the faint smell of sleep and sweat. "No, I'm okay. Let's just go back to sleep."

It only took a few minutes for her to fall back asleep, her hand flat on his chest so that she could feel his heartbeat. This time, she didn't dream at all.