I will be there for you | Merluca

Part 2

The next morning went almost as usual. She woke up her kids, made them some breakfast and drove them to school and daycare. She told them to be as quiet as possible, so Andrew could sleep a little longer. Zola asked why he was sleeping on the couch again, and Ellis wanted to wake him up, because she missed him. Meredith tried to find a way to explain her kids, why Andrew wasn't there the past few months and now was again. In the end she told them, that Andrew didn't have much time to come over lately because of work, and that they fell asleep on the couch the night before. Which wasn't a lie but also not the complete truth. She was glad that her kids were satisfied with her answer for now, because she didn't know how to explain what happened to her kids in that moment. They would ask again, but for now they were in school. And she was on her way back home.

When she was back again, she saw Andrew sitting on the couch. She noticed that he looked a bit more relaxed today. Still in thoughts, but at the same time more present than the day before. Not so far away anymore. His eyes were red from the crying last night. But they were a bit clearer, more focused. She remembered how he was just staring into the room yesterday. Now he was looking at something. It seemed like a small picture.

She made her way over to him; he hadn't noticed her until she sat down beside him on the couch.

"What are you looking at?" Meredith asked just above a whisper, trying not to startle him. She saw that he was holding a picture of what seemed like him with his sister and his parents, when he was younger. They seemed like a happy family. But she knew enough to know that his family had fallen apart at some point.

"It's – It's the only picture I have of my family, where we are all in it. My aunt took it, she lived near Seattle. It was before…" He trailed of with that sentence, but Meredith didn't need to hear more to understand what he meant. It was before his father's mental illness got worse, before that 'night' happened, before his mother took him with her to Wisconsin.

"I miss this time. Where everything seemed to be okay. I miss her." His voice was breaking on the last sentence. It didn't take long for Meredith to figure out that he was talking about his mother. While Meredith got to meet and heard a lot about his father, she never met his mother. And from what she knew about Andrew was that he loved and missed her a lot.

His mother looked happy in the picture. It seemed like her and Andrew were laughing about something. The complete opposite of how he was looking now. She saw tears forming in Andrew's eyes again, the longer they looked at the picture "Hey. Andrew. What's wrong?"

He was silent for a long time, she almost thought she wouldn't get an answer, before he quietly spoke "I- I'm scared. I don't want this to happen to me." He was staring at the picture in front of him and before Meredith could answer him he added "I don't want to be alone… I miss her"

Meredith didn't want him to feel like he was alone in this, but she knew that this wasn't necessarily all about her. Although she was part of it. "Andrew you're not alone with this. I'm here. And I'm sure your mother is with you, too." She tried to assure him that she wouldn't leave him alone with this. That she wanted to be there for him. And that somehow his mother was still with him, even if she wasn't here anymore.

It was silent for some time, where Andrew kept looking at the picture. He had it in his wallet since he moved to Seattle, but he barely took it out. It was one of the good memories he had about his family. And while it made him happy most of the times, it also made him sad, because it reminded him of how quickly things had changed after that night.

"I don't want to be like him. I- I don't want all of this happening again." He was scared to become like his father. Remembering the moments with his family and how everything slowly started to fall apart, when his father got worse. The discussions, disagreements and fights that occurred more often when he was a child. How Carina tried to distract him, so he wouldn't notice what was going on, and then how his mother took him to the States with her. And he barely saw his father and sister after that. And then his mother died, and he felt alone. Just like he did now. He kept pushing away two of the most important people in his life over the last few weeks. His sister and Meredith… And now he was beginning to realize what happened. He didn't want history to repeat itself. He was scared to lose the few people he had in his life because of what was happening to him. He saw what it had done to his family.

"You're not him, Andrew. We'll find a way together. We can make this work." She took Andrew's hand, the one that didn't hold the picture and looked him in the eyes. It was the first time in months that he didn't avoid looking at her. That he let her be close and didn't push her away. "I'm here for you, Andrew"

There was so much he wanted to say to her, but he couldn't form a clear thought, with all these memories of his childhood coming back and everything that happened over the last few weeks and months. He needed time to sort through all of them.

"Would you do something for me?" Andrew asked looking up from the picture and turning his head towards Meredith "Would you- would you come visit this place with me? It's near Seattle."

"Of course. If you want me to come with you." She gave him a small smile, while squeezing his hand.

"Thank you"