#and susan reconciling her childhood memories with the life shes built for herself

[fruitsyrups]

I think it's so interesting to think about the unique social implications of things on the islands. Like, the animal hats & how they originally existed for the practical purpose of protection & they kept wearing them even after that wasn't a factor anymore. & how the hats we see in the present day (when Finn & co visit the islands) don't really resemble animal hats, do they? & maybe that's just to make the significant human characters (who do still wear animal hats) seem more distinct but you best believe I'm going to make it into something bigger. Oh I'm so bad at putting my thoughts into words but it's something how the hats evolved into a new meaning. & when robo susan rips friedas hat off its like a very violating moment. Something something hats, the lack thereof, vulnerability. I don't know. Sorry. I was going somewhere with this but I don't know how to explain it. You get it though. Hats are interesting.

I like to think that (when everyone got sick and lots of them died and the rest moved to a new island) there was a bunch of small shifts & the animal -> abstract hats was one of them. And Frieda still wearing her dog hat shows her still holding onto the past in some way. There we go, that's something. This isn't a total nothing post after all

[mctwcsty]

hclfgoddess​: 

SHE CRASHED. Hard. The cool, unforgiving floor doing little to break her fall. Amelia was on her knees, clutching at her sides, clawing at her ribcage, desperately trying to force air into her lungs. All that came out were broken sobs, echoing in the awkward stillness. Every time she opened her mouth, another wail sounded off, as if from very far away. 

Nothing felt real. She dug her nails into her arms, the biting pain hardly registering. The cries were not her own. Amelia felt as if she were floating above her own body, watching the drama play out before her like a badly written soap opera.

Meredith stood there while Amelia cried, looking out the window, into the OR. As if the brutalities, the blood and guts, the pain of other people, were easier to deal with than the turmoil happening in her own life. Amelia supposed she was right. Still, the action only furthered her anger, wracking her body with more sobs. 

She didn’t know what she expected. Comfort? For Meredith to hug, scoop her up in her arms and tell her that everything was going to be okay, like she was a child? That was what Derek always did. When their father was held at gun point, shot and killed, Amelia was only five years old. Derek, who was only a kid himself, held her close and distracted her from the turmoil around them. As she grew older, when he couldn’t protect her from life– the drugs and the alcohol–there was a rift that grew between them, so deep and so far. 

They wasted so much time. Eventually, through a series of complicated near death experiences, they reconciled. Amelia knew their relationship wasn’t perfect. Derek could be a narcissist and Amelia a bitch, and both of them were irreparably hardheaded, but at the end of the day, they had each other. They almost lost each other, so many times. And then, Amelia did lose him, forever. Or so Amelia thought. Until now.

The good and the bad. The light and the dark. The childhood memories to life hardships. They all swirled together like her tornado of emotions. 

It was all too much. She wanted to scream. She was angry. She was scared. She didn’t know what to feel.

All she knew in that moment was she wanted a drink. Anything to numb the confusion and the pain. 

That was what angered her about Meredith most of all, in that moment. She just stood there, numb to the world. 

It was as if a switch went off in her brain. One moment, she was screaming, the next, stoic. She hastily wiped at her tears and rose, unsteadily on her feet. Her stormy eyes fixed on the other woman? What the hell was wrong with her? How could she not feel anything? What the hell was wrong with her?

“What the hell is wrong with you?” // @mctwcsty​

     SHE WAS NOT INSENSITIVE. Meredith was well aware of the depth of what was happening, of how much it hurt, of how much it meant, what ground it was shaking and the hard-built wall they had spent years to build and solidify that it was crushing down all in the matter of a second. Derek showing up on her doorstep was not something Meredith ever expected, or wanted. Because the mere thought of Derek showing up alive after all these years would mean that he had gone on without them. That he had gotten a life for himself and started anew, just like her own father had done when he had met Susan and had Molly and Lexie. He had left his first daughter and life behind and started fresh. Even Derek had done it before, until the wife in question had followed him down to Seattle and crushed his new life plans. 

     But while she felt for Amelia’s pain and more than she could express, while she felt so responsible for it even and was just as confused as Amelia was about Derek showing up alive, Meredith could not hold Amelia. She could not hold her because she could hardly even hold her own kids, let alone herself. Because that was all she thought about, from the second he had showed up on the doorstep. The kids. Zola, especially, who had thought of her dad every day since his disappearance from their lives. Bailey who had never really gotten to know his dad, who basically had been to him what her own father had been to her; the man who poured her cereals in the morning. And Ellis... She had only grown up with pictures and stories, she had no idea who her father was, she had never gotten to know him.

     Maybe that was part of what annoyed Meredith the most about Amelia. Even though her pain was valid, even though she had every right to be mad and upset and confused, she was not the center of the matter. She was making this all about her, and yes, Meredith had pushed onto her the belief that Derek was dead, when she had been right about him being alive out there all along, but still, Amelia was not the center of all this. And yet, she had crumbled to the floor and was crying her heart out in the middle of the scrub room, had screamed at some resident just doing their job. She was out of line. 

     Meredith stared out at the patient being rolled out of the OR and she swallowed thickly before Amelia’s words filled the room. What the hell is wrong with you? Meredith turned to Amelia, her whole body turning around, her gaze finding the other woman’s, and she just stared back at her, her hands joining each other before her stomach as she swallowed thickly. “What do you want me to say, Amelia,” she shook her head. “You were right,” she stated, her voice slightly bitter, her hands showing up before her for a moment before they joined each other again, regaining their previous position. “He was alive, I was wrong, I’m sorry.” She gulped. “There. Does it make you feel better?” She gulped thickly. “Look, I’m trying to work here, Amelia. It’s my job. It’s what I came back here to do.” She stated. She knew it was besides the question, she knew she was avoiding it. And she was, avoiding it. All of it. It was her first day back and it was far from what she had expected it to be.