Meredith Grey


 * Status = Alive

Former Seattle Grace Hospital Seattle Grace Mercy West Hospital
 * Alias =
 * Big Grey
 * McGyver
 * Mrs. Impossible Tumor
 * The girl in the bar
 * Mer
 * Blondie
 * Death
 * McMeredith Grey
 * Magpie
 * Dirty Mistress (along with Mark)
 * Slutty Mistress
 * Adulteress Whore
 * Butterfingers
 * Medusa
 * Chatty Cathy
 * Twisted Sisters (along with Cristina)
 * The McDreamys (along with Derek)
 * Typhoid Mary
 * Mrs. Derek Shepherd
 * The Slutty Intern
 * Sunshine
 * The perfect 12-year-old
 * Child of Darkness
 * Cindy Lou
 * The Good Sister
 * Widow Grey
 * Our Lady of General Surgery
 * The Good Grey
 * Grey Junior
 * The Annoying Twins (along with Cristina)
 * Nurse Grey
 * Title = M.D., F.A.C.S.
 * Born = 1978
 * Marital = Derek Shepherd † (husband)
 * Children = *Miscarriage (with Derek)
 * Zola Grey Shepherd
 * Derek Bailey Shepherd
 * Ellis Shepherd
 * Siblings = *Lexie Grey † (half-sister)
 * Molly Grey-Thompson (half-sister)
 * Maggie Pierce (biological half-sister)
 * Parents = *Ellis Grey †
 * Thatcher Grey
 * Other family = *Susan Grey † (stepmother)
 * Carolyn Shepherd (mother-in-law)
 * Mr. Shepherd † (father-in-law)
 * Eric Thompson (brother-in-law)
 * Nancy Shepherd (sister-in-law)
 * Kathleen Shepherd (sister-in-law)
 * Amelia Shepherd (sister-in-law)
 * Liz Shepherd (sister-in-law)
 * Laura Grey-Thompson (niece)
 * Aunt
 * Nine nieces
 * Six nephews (one deceased)
 * Job = *Head of General Surgery
 * Board Director
 * Workplace = Current Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital
 * First appearance = A Hard Day's Night
 * Seasons = 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14
 * Portrayed by = *Ellen Pompeo (adult)
 * Nicolette Collier (young)
 * Claire Geare (age 3)
 * Aria Leabu (age 5)

"'Quote"' At some point, you have to make a decision. Boundaries don't keep other people out. They fence you in. Life is messy. That's how we're made. So, you can waste your lives drawing lines. Or you can live your life crossing them. But there are some lines … that are way too dangerous to cross. Meredith Grey

Meredith Grey is the current head of general surgery at Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital. She is the daughter of the now-deceased Ellis Grey, a famed general surgeon, and Thatcher Grey. She was married to Derek Shepherd until his death; they have two daughters, Zola and Ellis, and a son, Bailey.

Early Life
When Meredith was young, her father, Thatcher, would bring her to Seattle Grace Hospital to visit her mother, Ellis, at work. As a small child, Meredith got to see her mother perform surgery. As a gift, Meredith was given an "Anatomy Jane" doll by her parents, which contained 24 parts/organs to take out, and extra parts to simulate pregnancy. Meredith would bring the doll with her to the hospital. Years later, an adult, and now a doctor, Meredith uncovered the doll while she and Derek were unpacking boxes in their house, which was previously owned and inhabited by her mother and father before their divorce, and by her mother after, until Meredith was forced to place her mother in Roseridge Home for Extended Care, due to Ellis suffering from early-onset Alzheimer's. The doll brought up old memories for Meredith, along with a renewed attachment to the doll that resulted in adult Meredith bringing it to work with her one day. Upon recognizing an Anatomy Jane doll and her own remembered fondness for her own as a child, Dr. Miranda Bailey allowed Meredith to scrub into a surgery that day on a patient being treated for an inoperable tumor. During the surgery, it was obvious that Dr. Richard Webber was quite disturbed, and also feeling a little guilty, at the sight of the doll, as he had been reminded of a young Meredith craving her mother's attention and love, yet not getting it since Ellis was not only very focused on her surgical career, but also because he and Ellis were having an affair when they were both interns and residents.

Meredith's parents had a troubled marriage, though part of this was due to Ellis spending too much time working and normal everyday problems. But a large part was due to the fact that for years, Ellis had been involved in an affair with one of her colleagues and best friends, Richard Webber. Their marital issues proved too great, and eventually Thatcher left the home when Meredith was five years old. He tried to visit her on several occasions, but he got nowhere. Eventually, he stopped seeing his daughter and subsequently started a new family with his new wife, Susan Grey, and had two children.

When Thatcher left Ellis, she continued her relationship with Webber, although he still had a wife, Adele. Although Richard tried to conceal his relationship with Ellis, Adele always knew, so if she was in their company, she would just play with Meredith. Eventually, Richard broke off his relationship with Ellis, as he felt he was being the better man, by walking away from Ellis, with Meredith only meters away, riding on a carousel. Meredith vaguely remembered her mother's pregnancy with Webber's child after he broke it off. In the memory, Ellis made it clear that she did not want to even look at the child. Shortly thereafter, Ellis accepted a fellowship opportunity at Massachusetts General Hospital. She relocated to Massachusetts with Meredith, and Thatcher lost all contact with his daughter. As an adult, her only childhood memory of Thatcher was giving her cereal in the morning.

In the 8th grade, her English class had to read Romeo & Juliet. For extra credit, their teacher Mrs. Snyder made them act out all the parts. A boy named Sal Scafarillo was chosen for Romeo, and all the girls were jealous of Meredith, who was chosen for Juliet. But Meredith was not happy, and she complained to her teacher that Juliet was an idiot because she had fallen for the one man she knew she could never have. Then she blamed fate for her own bad decision. She told her that if Juliet was stupid enough to fall for the enemy, drink a bottle of poison and go to sleep in a mausoleum, then she deserved whatever she got. Therefore, at the age of 13, she was very clear that love, like life, was about making choices. Meredith later described her high school years to Cristina by saying, "I wore a lot of black. Had the whole angry pink hair thing going on. Wouldn't have been caught dead at prom."

She went to college at Dartmouth, and despite excessive drinking and partying, she graduated. Following her graduation, Ellis suggested that Meredith find another direction in her life, not being convinced that her daughter had what it took to survive medical school and make it in the surgical world. Following an argument about Meredith's future, Meredith spent two months traveling in Europe with her best friend Sadie Harris, who also hated Ellis. But during that time, Meredith's mother Ellis Grey was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease and placed into a nursing home in Seattle. Ellis's diagnosis gave Meredith the push she needed to go to medical school. After graduating from medical school, Meredith moved back to Seattle from Boston and into her childhood home in order to begin her internship at Seattle Grace. Meredith was the only one who knew about her mother's condition outside the nursing home staff, whose personnel were bound by contract to keep Ellis's condition confidential. Ellis also made Meredith promise not to tell anyone. Cristina later helped "diagnose" Meredith as having a case of "severe abandonment issues," as the cause of her relationship problems with Derek, due to the fact that Thatcher left her, when she was a child, that she had to suddenly leave her childhood home when she was five, and that Ellis was absent for most of her childhood, due to her work and the affair she was having with Richard.

Beginning Relationship with Derek Shepherd
After having a one-night stand with Derek without knowing that he was her boss, she and Derek began dating, initially discreetly. But soon Bailey, Meredith's resident, caught her and Derek together and made it her mission to make Meredith's life at work as miserable as possible, as she was involved with her boss, who was also Bailey's boss. Meredith soon learned that Derek was still married when his wife, Addison, came to Seattle to get Derek back. At first, Meredith was angry with Derek for not telling her, but she later admitted to still loving him and begged him to "pick me, choose me, love me." When Addison handed him the divorce papers to end their relationship officially, Derek remained hesitant and soon after decided to stay with Addison, much to Meredith's dismay. Although the two constantly flirted and Derek still hinted at having feelings for her, they both agreed to remain friends and Addison, too, attempted to be friends with Meredith.

When Derek's best friend, Mark Sloan, visited Seattle, he was quick to realize that Meredith was "the one" for Derek and tried to persuade Addison to stop fighting for her marriage as Meredith was Derek's true love. Meanwhile, Meredith rescued a dog, Doc, in an effort to move on, but after her housemates, Izzie Stevens and George, gave her an ultimatum to choose them or Doc, she gave the dog to Derek and Addison. Doc was taken to the vet and diagnosed with bone cancer. Meredith started to date Finn the vet, much to Derek's annoyance. Meredith dating Finn also caused Derek to end the friendship with Meredith and call her a whore.

On the night of the Seattle Grace Hospital Prom, Derek went with Addison, while Meredith went with Finn. The two soon after met with each other in an exam room where Derek confessed that he still loved her and they had sex. Addison discovered Meredith's underwear in Derek's pocket and the two finally agreed to divorce. Meredith, however, was still dating Finn, and issued a contest between the two boys to see which she would settle with. She ultimately chose Derek and they reconciled.

Drowning in Elliot Bay
Meredith, Izzie, George, Alex, and Bailey went to the site of a massive ferry boat accident. After Meredith finished stabilizing a patient's badly wounded leg with the help of a little girl just by the water, the man panicked and pushed Meredith off the edge into the bay. Later, when Derek was shown Meredith's fate by the little girl, he jumped into the water and then retrieved a pale, seemingly lifeless Meredith. He tried to perform CPR in the ambulance, but she did not respond. The doctors all tried to revive her, but she flatlined. Then Meredith entered a seemingly state of limbo in her mind, where she interacted with deceased acquaintances like Denny, Dylan Young, Doc, Bonnie Crasnoff, Liz Fallon and her own mother, Ellis Grey. Eventually, she left this state of limbo, and came back to life slowly. Meredith recovered, but Derek remained concerned that Meredith was a good swimmer, and that perhaps she had not tried hard enough and had given up.

Derek's Proposal and Wedding
When one of Derek's patients, Jen Harmon, found out that Derek was going to propose to Meredith, the two started to become friends and she wanted to help with the proposal. When she died, Derek blamed himself for her death. He ended up quitting his job and he moved back into his trailer. Richard told Meredith later that day that Derek was going to propose to her. Later that night, Meredith went to the trailer to find Derek drunk and hitting empty beer cans into the woods with a baseball bat. They started to argue and Meredith said, "I know there's a ring!" Derek froze. Meredith then told him that the chief had told her about the ring and that she was not going to give up on them. Derek then hit the ring into the woods. The next time Meredith went to see Derek at the trailer, she told him Izzie had metastatic melanoma and that it spread to her liver, skin, and brain. And that he was the most qualified surgeon to remove the tumor. Derek later asked Meredith to marry him, but she rejected his proposal. Derek ended up going back to work and removed Izzie's brain tumor successfully. That night, Derek proposed to Meredith in the elevator, which was decorated with surgical scans from their past cases. This time, Meredith accepted. Izzie Stevens began to plan the wedding, but right before, Derek and Meredith decided to give the wedding to her and Alex Karev. Later, Derek and Meredith got married in the resident's lounge, on a blue Post-It note from Cristina Yang.

George's Death
When Meredith was treating a John Doe, who soon would be identified as George O'Malley, he attempted to write on a pad before surgery, but wasn't successful. While recovering in the ICU, he attempted again to write on Meredith hand, and she soon realized that it was George after he traced "007" on her hand multiple times. Meredith was alarmed and alerted the other doctors, who originally believed her when he was taken in for brain surgery. During George's brain surgery, his brain swelled and he was declared brain dead. Lexie thought it wasn't George because she didn't think he was tall enough, so Callie checked for a Texas-shaped birthmark on his hand, which she saw, confirming it was George.

Hospital Merger and Richard's Drinking
During the start of the merger with Mercy West Medical Center, Meredith was hospitalized from having donated a portion of her liver to her father, Thatcher Grey, since he was unable to be placed on the transplant list due to his alcoholism. Richard's drinking escalated again, causing him to make an error during surgery which almost killed a patient, until Dr. Bailey stepped in, fixing the problem and scheduling weekly followups with the patient to ensure he had no lasting effects. Richard's alcoholism led him to do one-on-one teaching sessions where he showed Meredith various surgical techniques and she discovered his drinking again. She kept this from Derek, but he became very angry with Meredith, and made her tell him what was going on. When Derek found out about the drinking, he reported Richard to the board, forcing him to either step down from surgery and go to rehab or retire. When he chose rehab, Derek was named the interim Chief of Surgery.

Shooting at the Hospital
Near the end of their third year of residency, Meredith revealed to Cristina that she was pregnant. She also planned on telling Derek, but the mass shooting intervened. The husband of a deceased patient, Gary Clark, entered the hospital and shot many people, killing many, including Dr. Reed Adamson and Dr. Charles Percy. The hospital was placed in lockdown while the shooting occurred. Gary Clark also shot Derek in the chest while Meredith watched from afar. Cristina had to do his surgery herself after barring Meredith from the OR. When the shooter entered the OR, Meredith entered too and told him to shoot her. However, he ended up shooting Owen, though his injuries were comparatively minor. While tending to Owen's injury, Meredith suffered a miscarriage.

After the shooting, all involved were made to go through a psych consult to be cleared for surgery. Meredith was the last one to be cleared. She was cleared by Dr. Andrew Perkins only after she admitted her pregnancy and miscarriage.

Derek began speeding to cope with the trauma and was arrested several times for "reckless endangerment." The only people that knew about Meredith's miscarriage were Cristina, Owen, and April. Meredith ended up leaving him in jail on the night of Cristina and Owen's wedding. The next day, angered at having been left in jail overnight, Derek had an argument with Meredith in the hospital hallway. Derek tried to calm Meredith down and Meredith admitted that she had been worried about him since he started speeding and the only time she got relief was when he was in jail, because she knew he was safe. She then told him about her miscarriage. Derek and Meredith kissed and hugged, and Derek agreed to drive more carefully from that point on.

Alzheimer's Trial and Adoption of Zola
The couple had recently been told that Meredith had a hostile uterus and conceiving a child would be difficult. Meredith and Derek met Zola when she was brought to the hospital for a spina bifida operation as part of Alex's program. Derek immediately bonded with Zola and suggested adoption. Meredith took a little longer to bond with Zola, but eventually, she was unable to avoid falling in love with the child. However, Derek found out that Meredith had tampered with his Alzheimer's trial just as the couple was granted temporary custody of Zola. When the social worker on their case, Janet, discovered that Meredith and Derek weren't living together and that Meredith had been fired, red flags were raised in the system. Fearing that she would lose Zola, Meredith hid with Zola in the basement of the hospital for 4 hours. Zola was taken away from them for a time, during which Meredith and Derek rekindled their relationship. They were given a date to see a judge about the adoption after Alex went to the judge directly. That date was subsequently cancelled and Janet told them that it was unlikely that it would end in their favor and suggested that they move on. But the decision did end in their favor, and Janet brought Zola to them, finalizing the adoption.

Plane Crash
At the end of her residency, Meredith, along with Derek, Mark, Lexie, Cristina, and Arizona, was involved in a plane crash on the way to Boise to help in a conjoined twins case. Lexie died due to a part of the plane crushing her, and Meredith was horrified and mourned. The plane crash also led to Mark's death, Arizona's loss of her leg, and Derek's severely damaged nerves in his hand.

The group ended up spending four days out in the woods before they were found and airlifted to Boise Memorial Hospital, where they were treated before being sedated and flown back to Seattle.

Lawsuit, Pregnancy, and Buying the Hospital
All the survivors of the plane crash filed a lawsuit against the plane company. Their attorney informed the survivors that they would be pursuing action against the hospital instead of the plane company since the hospital put them on the plane. This alarmed the doctors. However, they decided to go ahead with the lawsuit, because Derek went to see the plane wreckage and believed if they settled, they wouldn't properly investigate what went wrong so it couldn't happen again to someone else.

The doctors went to trial and were awarded $15 million each. Callie decided that their win should be celebrated, and Meredith, Derek, Callie, Arizona, and Cristina all went to dinner to celebrate, where Meredith revealed that she was pregnant.

During Meredith's pregnancy, Dr. Alana Cahill was brought to the hospital to assess efficiency, as the plane crash verdict forced the hospital into bankruptcy after its insurance refused to pay the penalties after finding a loophole. The doctors learned that Dr. Cahill was planning to clean up the hospital so that it could be sold to a company called Pegasus Horizons. But Richard and Callie conducted additional research of the company and learned that it would be a terrible asset to the hospital. They brought the survivors together for a secret meeting and discussed purchasing the hospital so they could maintain the hospital in which all the doctors had been trained and which they still loved.

The doctors went to investors looking for a partner to come up with enough money to purchase the hospital. After exhausting all their other investment options, they eventually were given $175 million by the Harper Avery Foundation to purchase the hospital. The Harper Avery Foundation, led by Catherine Avery, made Jackson Avery their spokesperson on the board, which was upset all the other doctors. They, however, all resolved the conflict when Jackson tried to bring the board together by proposing the hospital be renamed to reflect their beliefs and reasoning behind purchasing the hospital in the first place. This resulted in Seattle Grace Mercy West Hospital being renamed to Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital in 2013, after Lexie Grey and Mark Sloan, the two fatalities of the plane crash.

Giving Birth and Richard's Accident
Despite Derek's warnings to slow down, a heavily pregnant Meredith couldn't keep from joining in on a surgery at the beginning of the superstorm. However, Meredith was forced to leave when there was a risk of explosions in the OR. She talked to Alex about beating up Jason Myers, only to find out that Jo was the one who had beaten up Jason. She followed Jo into a staircase, where Jo promised she would never let Alex take the fall for what happened to Jason. As Jo left, a construction worker told her that they were done with the grinder in the OR. "Then why aren't I up there?" she angrily asked, and as she ran up the stairs, she slipped and rolled down the stairs. She sent Derek a message and got checked out by Connie Ryan, and she promised that everything was fine with the baby. While the surgeons were preparing the hospital and the storm hit Seattle, Meredith's water broke.

Meredith was admitted, but had to wait for Connie, who was busy with other soon-to-be mothers. Cristina, who found it typical for Meredith to go in labor during a superstorm, stayed by her side while Derek went to look for Connie. He found her, but as she did a check-up on Meredith, she told them that there was face presentation. As she mentioned that a C-section was necessary to deliver the baby safely, the lights went out and the back-up generators failed to engage. Even though they were, at first, hesitant to perform surgery in the dark, they realized there were no other options. The surgery went well, and Derek took his newborn son to the NICU to make sure everything was fine. While closing up, Connie got called away for another mother in need, and she and Meredith trusted Shane to close up. However, Heather and Shane discovered heavy bleeding, and Meredith realized that she had suffered an internal bleed from her fall on the stairs. Before losing consciousness, Meredith instructed Shane, who had found out that her spleen was bleeding, how to stop the bleed. Meanwhile, Heather went to find Dr. Bailey to assist them. Bailey overcame her fear to operate and pulled Meredith through. Meredith was kept in the OR until she was stable, and later moved to a room in the maternity ward, where Derek and Zola visited her and their new family member.

During a board meeting in her room, the others informed Meredith what had happened during the superstorm. She tried to help out as much as she could, but Derek and the other told her to rest after her major abdominal surgery. While the others left, Cristina stayed behind to chat a little until she got paged. Though it was said at the meeting that the ER had to close, Meredith got confused when she witnessed Stephanie and Jo exchanging supplies to use in the ER. When a stressed Alex entered her room, Meredith managed to calm him down by letting him hold her son. He told her about Richard and Heather, and he gave the baby back to her so she herself could recover her own calm. Meanwhile, Cristina and Bailey started arguing over the course of treatment for Richard, only to find out that Richard had listed Meredith as his medical proxy, which in turn had forced her to choose between Cristina's and Bailey's plans. She decided to do so by relying on science, and asked to rerun some tests. While waiting for the results, Callie sat down in her room to have a little chat about how she was doing. When Richard's results came back, Meredith decided to side with Bailey and allowed her operate, which Cristina had advised not to be done. While Bailey operated on Richard, Meredith asked Cristina to admit that the decision was right, and Cristina did.

Meredith later talked with Cristina and Alex about Richard's decision to make her his medical proxy, wondering if she was in his will too. After Richard's surgery, Owen came to Meredith's room to tell her that Bailey had closed Richard back up once Catherine started yelling at them from the gallery. Meredith also consoled a sad Derek, who had lost Heather in surgery. After Meredith ordered Derek to go home with Zola, who had spent enough time in daycare now, Callie and Sofia came in to drop off some things. Callie told them that she had moved out of the apartment and that they would stay at a hotel for a while. Meredith decided to let Callie stay at their house, and she later told Arizona, who had no idea where Callie and Sofia were, that they were at her house. While trying to fall asleep, the interns bothered her to ask for help finding Heather stories to tell Heather's mother, and Meredith told them what she had told George's mother after he died. When the interns left, Jackson came in to tell her that his mother was planning on moving Richard to another hospital. Alex and April came in too to talk about their problems, and as they left one by one, they all refused to bring her a wheelchair. However, she somehow got herself a wheelchair and went to Richard's room in the ICU with Bailey. Bailey still thought that they should open him back up, and Meredith made the call to book an OR for Bailey. Later, back in her room, Cristina and Alex talked with Meredith about medical proxies, and it turned out that Cristina had actually disapproved of Meredith's decision for Richard. After Bailey's surgery, Catherine still wanted to have a second opinion. Meredith told her that Richard chose her to make his decisions, and not Catherine. They started arguing as Richard opened his eyes, and Meredith enthusiastically greeted him.

Derek Leaving for D.C.
Despite his promise to Meredith to take care of the kids so that she could have a year to focus on her work, Derek started to consult on a time-consuming brain mapping project for the White House. The presidential team asked him to become more involved in the project, but he initially refused the offer in an attempt to keep his promise to Meredith. While at April and Matthew's wedding, Derek received a call from the president himself and ended up accepting the offer to put his name on their federal research initiative.

This caused Meredith to become upset with him since she had wanted to continue with her own research work. Derek later learned that the federal team wanted him to run the project's advisory board. While on a trip to Washington, D.C., Derek was offered a full-time job at the National Institutes of Health, and he found a job for Meredith at James Madison Hospital.

However, Meredith later told Derek that she refused to leave Seattle after Cristina reminded her not to let what Derek wanted eclipse what she needed. Forced to choose between his family and the brain mapping job, Derek decided to stay in Seattle as well and rejected the offer.

However, there was excessive tension between Meredith and Derek. Derek was unsatisfied with his job at Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital, especially because his sister Amelia had taken over as head of the neurosurgery department.

Meredith was upset with Derek for being so attached to the federal initiative position and told him that she never wanted him to give it up for her. Deborah Curzon, a special assistant to the president, came to Seattle in a last attempt to recruit Derek for their team. Derek told her that he was unfortunately unable to accept the offer, but he took her card anyway. Later that day, he got into a fight with Meredith, who told him to take the job in D.C. and leave. Derek called the woman he had spoken to earlier and told her that he did want the job after all.

He packed some clothes and went to the airport while Meredith threw away the Post-it note that had signified their marriage. The next day, Meredith and Derek talked on the phone and decided that they can make their relationship work, even if Derek had to take the job with the president. She told him that even though she could live without him, she did not want to, and Derek reciprocated. They both agreed on wanting to work on their marriage after his resignation.

Although Meredith found it hard to sleep in their bedroom alone, she carried on with her life in Seattle without Derek for the time being.

Derek's Death
Derek was involved in a car accident with serious injuries. Ultimately, he was declared brain dead, and Meredith had his ventilators turned off. He had been on the way to the airport for a final trip to D.C. where he would wrap up his work and hand in his resignation. After Derek died, Meredith took Zola and Bailey and left Seattle in the middle of the night, much like her mother did with her when she was a child. All Meredith left was a note saying that she and the children were safe. Her friends tried to contact her repeatedly, but she didn't answer. Finally, Meredith answered on Thanksgiving, telling Alex to stop calling her, that she and the kids were fine.

Building a New Life
Meredith put out feelers with a real estate agent to see whether anyone would be interested to buy her house. But she forgot to inform Amelia, which sparked a fight between the two. Amelia was mad at her for not having called her before pulling the plug on Derek, so she couldn't say goodbye. Meredith broke down after the confrontation. She later went to Alex and explained that her house didn't feel like her home without Derek, so she asked if she and the kids could stay with him and Jo for a while. He agreed to that, but Jo got mad at him for not consulting her first. Meredith felt guilty about forgetting that Amelia was also supposed to be her sister, and gave her her old phone with Derek's last voice mail message. Later that day, she intervened when Catherine and Richard were too angry to get married. Meredith played the dead husband card and got them to the altar after all. That evening, Meredith hosted a party for the newlyweds at her house. At the party, she told Maggie, who was upset about her own parents' divorce, that she could always come talk to her, about anything. Amelia joined them as Meredith said that a house filled with happy people would be the perfect last memory, as that had been what Derek had wanted. She took Amelia and Maggie's hands and they went inside to dance it out together.

As Jo found a loft for the two of them, Alex moved out of the house and sold it back to Meredith, who moved in with her kids and sisters. The sister started carpooling to work, and Meredith started to teach an intern anatomy class at the hospital. Initially, there were some tensions among Meredith and Amelia, including an argument over whether or not they were going to tear down the wall between the kitchen and the living room, as a drunk Meredith had mused about. Maggie intervened to call a truce. Meredith and Amelia apologized to each other, and Meredith admitted she doesn't know how to talk to Amelia as she's a lot to handle sometimes, and Meredith doesn't totally like her. However, she considered Amelia as family, so she didn't have to. She then decided it was okay to tear the wall down.

After a busy day where Bailey, the new Chief, dumped all her patients on Meredith, Bailey rewarded Meredith with a promotion to Head of General Surgery. However, Bailey made Meredith an offer with a low salary. After consulting with other department heads, Meredith stood up for herself and asked for the salary she deemed fit. It turned out that Bailey was actually testing her to see if she would stand up for herself.

Growing Closer to Nathan and Supporting Alex
When Nathan Riggs arrived at the hospital, it did not take long for Meredith to discover the reasons regarding his feud with Owen. Out of loyalty, Meredith asked Owen if they hated Nathan, to which Owen said yes.

The day Owen sold Derek's trailer, Meredith witnessed Amelia being happy in her new life with Derek's job and a possible engagement to Cristina's former husband. This all resulted in a particular bad day for Meredith, resulting in her snapping at everyone in the OR, including Nathan. Alex later told her not to crap on everyone's life just because she was choosing to be unhappy and pointed out she had choices. Later that night in the parking lot, Nathan brought up her behavior and that he understood the way she felt about living a life without Derek, comparing it to Megan's disappearance. Things got heated and resulted in her kissing him, which led to them hooking up in her car four times in one night.

On the day of Owen and Amelia's wedding, Meredith and Alex talked about possibly having only one true love in your life. At work, Meredith made it clear to Nathan that she didn't want him to get too attached, which he assured her he wasn't. She then went to the church to get Amelia down the aisle, which included a quick getaway and more debating about having one true love. Meredith concluded it would be better if you believed you can have more than one. This led her to open up to Nathan shortly before the ceremony, when they discussed her wedding and his wedding plans with Megan. During the ceremony, Nathan gave Meredith a loving look. However, Maggie misinterpreted his look as being for her, and she confessed to Meredith that she had a crush on Nathan, leaving Meredith in an awkward situation.

At the wedding reception, Nathan invited her to dance but she declined. As he was suggesting they get out together, Maggie interrupted and ended up dancing with Nathan. Meredith continued to avoid Nathan after Maggie's confession and told him they had a problem. Before she could elaborate, Jo called her about Alex assaulting Andrew. She went to the hospital to check on Andrew's status and, knowing what really happened, kept Alex updated on Andrew while lying to Maggie about what had happened to Andrew. She and Ben both knew that Alex was the culprit, but she kept protecting Alex to make sure his good side would win. She learned the truth about DeLuca being with Jo through Stephanie and went to tell Alex, whom had thought that DeLuca was raping a drunk Jo. She advised Alex to go and tell Bailey what happened, but he went to try and stop Andrew from pressing charges. Nathan found her sitting in a lounge and sat with her at her request as she decided to tell Bailey the truth. She did so, but Alex turned himself in before Bailey could have him arrested. Maggie was upset when she learned that Meredith had lied to her. Meredith said she just did so because they were still figuring things out and promised not to lie to her anymore, like a real sister. However, she immediately broke that promise when she hid the fact that Nathan came to see her that night, asking about the problem she had mentioned as he really felt something between them. She replied someone would get hurt and, since Nathan brushed it off, then lied and said she didn't feel the same way about him.

Maggie later told her about her recurring sexual dreams about Nathan and decided to ask him out like a grown woman ready for her big love. Meredith then accompanied Alex to the courthouse, where he was charged with felony assault in the second degree. This made Alex think of himself as just another piece of trash but Meredith reminded him of his career and remained confident that he wouldn't go to prison. In surgery with Maggie, Owen came in to invite Meredith for a housewarming and Maggie volunteered to come after finding out Nathan would be there. Meredith later rode an elevator with Andrew and talked about how she was assaulted and forgave the man who did that to her. She added he should be focused on surgery instead of the case, which he interpreted as a threat. Meredith arrived at the dinner party and she made Owen give Maggie a tour so she could have a private talk with Nathan. She told him Maggie was going to ask him out and she asked Nathan to decline nicely, which Nathan took as a signal that Meredith herself felt something for him, which she denied. At the party, she also asked Jo to talk to Alex even though Jo was more concerned about Andrew. Later at the hospital, Bailey confronted Meredith about her threat to Andrew and warned Meredith not to go down with Alex, but Meredith insisted on standing by him. She and Bailey than had to operate on Alex's patient following a mistake he made, and Meredith invited Andrew to scrub in to clear the air between them. Back at home, Alex told Meredith about Bailey's decision to let him work in the clinic and that he supported that decision because his head wasn't in the game. Meredith then told him about her sleeping with Nathan, just before Maggie came in and told them Nathan turned her down. However, she didn't plan on giving up since he just told her he wasn't dating right now.

Standing Up for Richard
Bailey and Catherine brought Eliza Minnick to be the new Residency Program Director, effectively firing Richard from the job. When Meredith refused to allow Eliza into her OR to observe her teaching technique, Bailey suspended her. Bailey came to her house to get her to come back to her job. She agreed to come back if Richard could return to the Residency Program Director. Bailey declined and Meredith didn't come to work. Richard came over to Meredith's house to get her to come back and said she'd be fine.

Rekindled Romance with Nathan
Eventually, Meredith finally agreed to dinner with Nathan, but their plans were postponed when Maggie's mother died and Meredith had to take care of her. She found herself on an airplane with Nathan, as both were heading to a conference. They ended up hooking up in the airplane bathroom. Both had to tend to patients when the plane hit turbulence. The experience allowed them both to become closer and for Meredith to open up to Nathan about her history. She agreed to stay in a hotel room with Nathan, marking another step in their relationship.

Megan's Return
After Nathan's missing fiancée Megan Hunt was found and returned home after being held hostage for 10 years, Meredith urged Nathan to go back to Megan, as she was his one true love. When Megan was brought to the hospital, Meredith performed surgery on the wound Megan sustained in a bombing. After discovering that there was not enough skin to close Megan up in surgery, Meredith worked to get everyone on board with a new and innovative procedure: an abdominal wall transplant. The surgery was a success, but Megan rejected Nathan's re-proposal to her because Megan believed that he was still in love with Meredith. Meredith did not take this well, as she did not want to be in another love triangle and believed that Nathan was betraying her by not seizing the miraculous opportunity to be with Megan again. Eventually, with all of Meredith's pushing, Nathan started a new life with Megan in Los Angeles with her son, Farouk.

Because of her groundbreaking procedure on Megan, Meredith landed the cover of the Journal of Surgical Advancement (JSA) and was nominated for a Harper Avery Award. She also being a series of ALPPS procedures - a first for any doctor on the West Coast.

Biography
When Meredith was young, her father, Thatcher, would bring her to Seattle Grace Hospital to visit her mother, Ellis, at work. As a small child, Meredith got to see her mother perform surgery. As a gift, Meredith was given an "Anatomy Jane" doll by her parents, which contained 24 parts/organs to take out, and extra parts to simulate pregnancy. Meredith would bring the doll with her to the hospital. Years later, an adult, and now a doctor, Meredith uncovered the doll while she and Derek were unpacking boxes in their house, which was previously owned and inhabited by her mother and father before their divorce, and by her mother after, until Meredith was forced to place her mother in Roseridge Home for Extended Care, due to Ellis suffering from early-onset Alzheimer's. The doll brought up old memories for Meredith, along with a renewed attachment to the doll that resulted in adult Meredith bringing it to work with her one day. Upon recognizing an Anatomy Jane doll and her own remembered fondness for her own as a child, Dr. Miranda Bailey allowed Meredith to scrub into a surgery that day on a patient being treated for an inoperable tumor. During the surgery, it was obvious that Dr. Richard Webber was quite disturbed, and also feeling a little guilty, at the sight of the doll, as he had been reminded of a young Meredith craving her mother's attention and love, yet not getting it since Ellis was not only very focused on her surgical career, but also because he and Ellis were having an affair when they were both interns and residents.

Meredith's parents had a troubled marriage, though part of this was due to Ellis spending too much time working and normal everyday problems. But a large part was due to the fact that for years, Ellis had been involved in an affair with one of her colleagues and best friends, Richard Webber. Their marital issues proved too great, and eventually Thatcher left the home when Meredith was five years old. He tried to visit her on several occasions, but he got nowhere. Eventually, he stopped seeing his daughter and subsequently started a new family with his new wife, Susan Grey, and had two children.

When Thatcher left Ellis, she continued her relationship with Webber, although he still had a wife, Adele. Although Richard tried to conceal his relationship with Ellis, Adele always knew, so if she was in their company, she would just play with Meredith. Eventually, Richard broke off his relationship with Ellis, as he felt he was being the better man, by walking away from Ellis, with Meredith only meters away, riding on a carousel. Meredith vaguely remembered her mother's pregnancy with Webber's child after he broke it off. In the memory, Ellis made it clear that she did not want to even look at the child. Shortly thereafter, Ellis accepted a fellowship opportunity at Massachusetts General Hospital. She relocated to Massachusetts with Meredith, and Thatcher lost all contact with his daughter. As an adult, her only childhood memory of Thatcher was giving her cereal in the morning. In the 8th grade, her English class had to read Romeo & Juliet. For extra credit, their teacher Mrs. Snyder made them act out all the parts. A boy named Sal Scafarillo was chosen for Romeo, and all the girls were jealous of Meredith, who was chosen for Juliet. But Meredith was not happy, and she complained to her teacher that Juliet was an idiot because she had fallen for the one man she knew she could never have. Then she blamed fate for her own bad decision. She told her that if Juliet was stupid enough to fall for the enemy, drink a bottle of poison and go to sleep in a mausoleum, then she deserved whatever she got. Therefore, at the age of 13, she was very clear that love, like life, was about making choices. Meredith later described her high school years to Cristina by saying, "I wore a lot of black. Had the whole angry pink hair thing going on. Wouldn't have been caught dead at prom."

She went to college at Dartmouth, and despite excessive drinking and partying, she graduated. Following her graduation, Ellis suggested that Meredith find another direction in her life, not being convinced that her daughter had what it took to survive medical school and make it in the surgical world. Following an argument about Meredith's future, Meredith spent two months traveling in Europe with her best friend Sadie Harris, who also hated Ellis. But during that time, Meredith's mother Ellis Grey was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease and placed into a nursing home in Seattle. Ellis's diagnosis gave Meredith the push she needed to go to medical school. After graduating from medical school, Meredith moved back to Seattle from Boston and into her childhood home in order to begin her internship at Seattle Grace. Meredith was the only one who knew about her mother's condition outside the nursing home staff, whose personnel were bound by contract to keep Ellis's condition confidential. Ellis also made Meredith promise not to tell anyone.

Cristina later helped "diagnose" Meredith as having a case of "severe abandonment issues," as the cause of her relationship problems with Derek, due to the fact that Thatcher left her, when she was a child, that she had to suddenly leave her childhood home when she was five, and that Ellis was absent for most of her childhood, due to her work and the affair she was having with Richard.

After having a one-night stand with Derek without knowing that he was her boss, she and Derek began dating, initially discreetly. But soon Bailey, Meredith's resident, caught her and Derek together and made it her mission to make Meredith's life at work as miserable as possible, as she was involved with her boss, who was also Bailey's boss. Meredith soon learned that Derek was still married when his wife, Addison, came to Seattle to get Derek back. At first, Meredith was angry with Derek for not telling her, but she later admitted to still loving him and begged him to "pick me, choose me, love me." When Addison handed him the divorce papers to end their relationship officially, Derek remained hesitant and soon after decided to stay with Addison, much to Meredith's dismay. Although the two constantly flirted and Derek still hinted at having feelings for her, they both agreed to remain friends and Addison, too, attempted to be friends with Meredith.

When Derek's best friend, Mark Sloan, visited Seattle, he was quick to realize that Meredith was "the one" for Derek and tried to persuade Addison to stop fighting for her marriage as Meredith was Derek's true love. Meanwhile, Meredith rescued a dog, Doc, in an effort to move on, but after her housemates, Izzie Stevens and George, gave her an ultimatum to choose them or Doc, she gave the dog to Derek and Addison. Doc was taken to the vet and diagnosed with bone cancer. Meredith started to date Finn the vet, much to Derek's annoyance. Meredith dating Finn also caused Derek to end the friendship with Meredith and call her a whore.

On the night of the Seattle Grace Hospital Prom, Derek went with Addison, while Meredith went with Finn. The two soon after met with each other in an exam room where Derek confessed that he still loved her and they had sex. Addison discovered Meredith's underwear in Derek's pocket and the two finally agreed to divorce. Meredith, however, was still dating Finn, and issued a contest between the two boys to see which she would settle with. She ultimately chose Derek and they reconciled.

Meredith, Izzie, George, Alex, and Bailey went to the site of a massive ferry boat accident. After Meredith finished stabilizing a patient's badly wounded leg with the help of a little girl just by the water, the man panicked and pushed Meredith off the edge into the bay. Later, when Derek was shown Meredith's fate by the little girl, he jumped into the water and then retrieved a pale, seemingly lifeless Meredith. He tried to perform CPR in the ambulance, but she did not respond. The doctors all tried to revive her, but she flatlined. Then Meredith entered a seemingly state of limbo in her mind, where she interacted with deceased acquaintances like Denny, Dylan Young, Doc, Bonnie Crasnoff, Liz Fallon and her own mother, Ellis Grey. Eventually, she left this state of limbo, and came back to life slowly. Meredith recovered, but Derek remained concerned that Meredith was a good swimmer, and that perhaps she had not tried hard enough and had given up.

When one of Derek's patients, Jen Harmon, found out that Derek was going to propose to Meredith, the two started to become friends and she wanted to help with the proposal. When she died, Derek blamed himself for her death. He ended up quitting his job and he moved back into his trailer. Richard told Meredith later that day that Derek was going to propose to her. Later that night, Meredith went to the trailer to find Derek drunk and hitting empty beer cans into the woods with a baseball bat. They started to argue and Meredith said, "I know there's a ring!" Derek froze. Meredith then told him that the chief had told her about the ring and that she was not going to give up on them. Derek then hit the ring into the woods. The next time Meredith went to see Derek at the trailer, she told him Izzie had metastatic melanoma and that it spread to her liver, skin, and brain. And that he was the most qualified surgeon to remove the tumor. Derek later asked Meredith to marry him, but she rejected his proposal. Derek ended up going back to work and removed Izzie's brain tumor successfully. That night, Derek proposed to Meredith in the elevator, which was decorated with surgical scans from their past cases. This time, Meredith accepted. Izzie Stevens began to plan the wedding, but right before, Derek and Meredith decided to give the wedding to her and Alex Karev. Later, Derek and Meredith got married in the resident's lounge, on a blue Post-It note from Cristina Yang.