❝𝐅𝐎𝐎𝐋'𝐒 𝐆𝐎𝐋𝐃❞ ɢʀᴇʏ·s ᴀɴᴀᴛᴏᴍʏ

CHAPTER FIVE.

Maddox is drinking her first coffee of the morning and browsing Facebook on a bench outside the hospital when the sound of an ambulance interrupts her. The paramedics rush down, and Maddox squeezes out every last drop of caffeine before tucking her phone into her gown pocket. A seemingly unhinged woman is on the gurney, fully erect and shouting nonsense that at other times would perhaps be harmful, but which no one now takes into account.

"What do we got?" asks Maddox, helping to push the gurney with speed.

Bailey and the other interns come to her rescue within seconds, trying to hear over the woman's screams what's going on. "Complaining about intermittent cramping pain and diarrhea. Also suffers from Alzheimer's," the paramedic tells her, and Maddox nods.

If the surprise is great when she sees the patient's name on the chart, it's even greater when the woman's eyes meet hers, and all she's able to see from that point on is Meredith. Bailey asks what her name is, but Maddox can't seem to find the words; instead, in the distance, she sees her friend and roommate hiding behind the nurses' station door, trying not to catch the attention of her mother, who keeps yelling at her. "Ellis Grey," Maddox mutters loud enough for the rest of the interns and Dr. Bailey to understand her.

George, Cristina, Alex, Izzie and Maddox don't take too long to congregate around the patient, trying to get some coherent response, but Bailey gets ahead of them and cuts them off. Maddox sees Meredith run off in the direction of the locker room, but to her chagrin the resident sees it too, so she slows her down. "Right now she'll need to be alone. Leave her alone for a while."

"But we're her friends. We have to help her, we have to make her see that everything will be okay," Izzie says.

"Maybe everything won't be okay, Stevens, and Grey is aware of that. She's been hiding this for months, you think now all of a sudden everything's going to be lollipop country? Gummy street? Huh? To your places, now," Bailey interrupts again. She pulls out five folders from behind the counter, handing them out to her interns. "Maddox, Dr. Shepherds need an intern up in the NICU."

"Wait, both of them?" Maddox frowns. "Together? And me with the two married people who hate each other," against all odds, Maddox smiles. "This should be fun."

Bailey stares at her. "You're sick if you think that's fun. Leave."

The image Maddox encounters when she walks up to the NICU floor is quite different from the one she had in her head minutes earlier. She thought she'd see Derek and Addison arguing, throwing daggers all over the place, but they seem to remain cordial, maybe because of the baby, maybe because of Maddox, maybe because of both. In any case, Derek greets her with a nod even though he seems somewhat disappointed, probably because he expected Bailey's selected intern to be Meredith.

Maddox contemplates telling Derek what is really going on with Meredith, but reflects on what happened and decides not to open her mouth, but to stick to her work.

"Where's the mother?" Derek asks. Maddox is too engrossed with the little baby that she barely reads the information to answer him.

"Gone," Addison answers for her. "Stuck around long enough to get the kid out and then took off. Nice, huh?"

"Addison."

"Derek, I know it's a long shot, I know."

"You told me you had a newborn with an invasive mass. You didn't mention that she was premature, underweight and addicted to narcotics. There is no way this baby is going to survive spinal surgery."

"You don't know that."

Derek looks exasperated. "Even if she does, she has meningitis, seizures. She's going to live a short and painful life."