Only Mama Knows

is the fourth episode of the eleventh season and the 224th overall episode of Grey's Anatomy.
==Short Summary==
Secrets from Ellis Grey’s past come to light when Meredith watches old videos and reads through her mother’s journals. Meanwhile, Maggie rocks the hospital with an unexpected announcement. Alex gets new responsibilities and Callie focuses her attention on the Veterans' project.
==Full Summary==
In the middle of the night, Meredith is watching a video tape of her mother talking about the Grey Method and her residency at a press conference. Derek comes inside to see what she's doing. He and Meredith share a cold look, after which he leaves. Ellis proudly says how she stood out as the only girl in the boy's club. She jokes she dedicated her first Harper Avery Award to the supportive men. Meredith pauses the video. Meredith's voice over says that the happy and proud Ellis in the video is how her mother wanted to be remembered. However, Meredith's memory of her is different. There's a flashback to Ellis being brought into the hospital, suffering from Alzheimer's and yelling at Meredith not to bother her at work.
While the voice over says that probably everyone has their own memory of Ellis, Richard is talking at an AA meeting, remembering his affair with Ellis.
There are more flashbacks of Meredith struggling to care for her mother suffering from Alzheimer's, the time when Ellis slit her wrists, and a young Meredith waiting in the hospital while her mother is being treated and again while Maggie's being born. Another flashbacks to the carousel.
In a hospital lounge, Meredith and Derek are fighting again over the day she took to drink with Alex. Meredith is frustrated because he's waiting for her to pay up for the sacrifice he made for her, but she can't do that with him hovering over her. He's waiting for her to shine, as that's why he stayed. She tells him to go shine in D.C. and reminds him he made his own decision. She's done feeling guilty for him and done measuring up her accomplishments against his. "You sound just like your mother," he says.
Another flashback of a lucid Ellis telling Meredith she's disappointed that Meredith is nothing but ordinary.
In 1983, Richard and Ellis just finished making out. He feels bad about it and expects to be caught any time soon. She doesn't think what they're doing is so bad. He says Seattle's a small city with a small town mentality. She proposes to leave Seattle then, because he deserves to be happy.
Back in present day, Stephanie ends up with Alex in an elevator. She's surprised to see him at the hospital. Although Bailey got the board seat, he was hired again as a pediatric surgery attending. She kind of sarcastically congratulates him. He says he's a great surgeon and he's doing the board a favor, not the other way around. And besides, Alex heard from Robbins that the vote was very close. Stephanie and Bailey on the other hand heard from Robbins that it was unanimous. 
Alex finds Arizona, who tells him to check up on one of her patients. She's swamped as Herman keeps her really busy. Although Alex asks for only a minute, Arizona wanders off to answer Herman's page. 
Owen and Bailey just read an e-mail from Maggie about her resigning, and they ask Jackson about it. He knows it's a PR nightmare to lose the cardio chief again. Owen's not looking forward to going through the hiring process again. Richard walks by. He heard about it too, but he doesn't seem to mind. He doesn't know anything they can do. Bailey thinks the board should come together to talk to her. As the new blood in the board, she's determined not to make this place look like a clown car anymore.
Amelia enters the cath lab and tells Maggie she cannot quit. Maggie is more focused on her patient Roy while Amelia asks her why. Maggie says that's between her and her employer and then sees diminished perfusion to the spine. Amelia asks Roy to wiggle his toes for her, but he can't. Amelia checks the Babinski reflex. The toes wiggle now, which indicates high spinal injury. Roy realizes now he can't feel his legs. Maggie explains the graft may have cut off the blood supply to his spine, but she's gonna fix it.
Meredith brings up Maggie's e-mail to Richard. He's not gonna talk to her again, because she won't listen to him. She's angry he didn't tell her sooner, and so is he. Meredith still can't remember her mother being pregnant, so she asks Richard for her mother's journal of spring 1983. As Richard leaves to get it, a woman asks Meredith to come with her.
Meredith follows the woman outside. She saw a girl outside in the ambulance bay when she brought in her friend. Meredith instructs her to go inside and tell someone to get her a gurney while she runs up to the girl on the bench. The girl, Nadia, is in a lot of pain. She sees the girl has a big belly, seemingly pregnant. Seeing the girl brings back memories of how she waited as a young girl while her mother was being treated in the ER and when Maggie was born.
Meredith, Alex, and Stephanie are examining Nadia in a trauma room. Stephanie asks how far along she is. 10, Nadia says, thinking she's asking about her age. They ask Nadia about her parents, but she's in too much pain to answer. Alex does an ultrasound and luckily finds out that she's not pregnant. It's a giant mass and there's free fluid. The mass may have ruptured, so they need to get to an OR. Meredith also asks Stephanie to call the police and Child Protective Services. Letting your kid get this sick and then abandoning her is child abuse, Meredith says.
Derek enters Amelia and Maggie's OR. Amelia paged him and they update him on the patient. Amelia wants him to take the case, as she has stuff to do. And it may be his last chance to ever work with Pierce, as she's going to quit, which Amelia still thinks is a bad idea. Amelia thinks it's a good idea to have Derek talk to Maggie, as he and Meredith have been here for a longer time. He's easy to talk to, so Maggie can tell him anything. Amelia leaves and wishes them a good talk.
Richard is reading Ellis' journal, which sparks a memory of an article about the Grey Method being published in the Journal of American Medicine. He thinks naming the method after herself is audacious, while she only finds it logical. Meredith asks Richard if that's the journal, snapping him out of the memory. He gives it to her. She thanks him and leaves for her surgery. Bailey comes over, wanting to talk about Maggie. She thinks he may know what the personal reasons she mentioned in her e-mail may be since he talked to her. He says they can't hold her here against her will, but Bailey wants to change her will. She's trying to get the board together, but she thinks he needs to talk to her like he used to talk to her when she first got here. He screams that she's leaving and that he can't do anything about it. She's gotta let it go.
In the OR, Derek is curious why Maggie wants to leave. As someone who just turned down a pretty great job, he knows how disastrous a rash decision can be. She wants to call it a bad fit. She's sure his wife has told him. Amelia comes back in just as Derek asks what his wife should've told him, making Amelia realize she's come back too early. He knows about them butting heads, but he proposes she can just stay away from his wife. However, it's not that simple. Maggie realizes he doesn't know anything about their sisterhood and tells him he should talk to his wife. When they're done draining, they check the reflex again. It's intact, which means the man is still paralyzed. Maggie refuses to give up and asks to prep for a sternotomy. She sends out Jo to get Roy's wife permission for an open heart procedure. She's determined to save this man.
Meredith is scrubbing in. She has flashbacks of the carousel and of her mother telling her in a lucid moment it's a shame that she grew up, as it's awful being a grown-up. But the carousel never stops turning, and you can't get off. Richard joins her in the scrub room, snapping her out of the reminiscence. She asks him about the day he met her mother at the carousel. She remember he came and then they argued. He says he doesn't remember, as it's a long time. That's all she wanted to know. As she enters the OR, being alone in the scrub room sparks a memory of him and Ellis scrubbing in during their residency. He thinks she may have been right about telling Thatcher and Adele, so they can find people that would make them happy. He never wanted to cheat. She says he has to power to change that. She's been ready for that for a long time. Question is, is he?
Jo comes back into the OR with the wife's consent, where Maggie's already started the procedure. She came up with an extraordinary fix. That's one of the reasons Amelia wants to keep her around. Maggie tells Jo to go scrub in. 
Meredith and Alex come up with a plan to remove the giant tumor. Alex brings up that Edwards told him that the board was unanimous for Bailey. He thinks she should have had his back. His speech was good, she says, but Bailey's was better. He would be a fine board member, but Bailey will be an exceptional one. She asks him if she should've given him her pity vote. She knows she wouldn't want it.
Maggie has finished up. The sedation was lightened and Roy is coming around. Maggie asks Roy to wiggle his toes. He's still waking up, but he eventually manages to do it. The staff applauds for her. She thanks them all as she goes to scrub out.
Derek asks Amelia if she knows why Maggie keeps telling him to talk to his wife. She might, but she's not talking about anything she may have learned in AA about someone, because she made a pledge there. But someone else might know what she can't talk about. So, he should talk to his wife.
Alex and Meredith have removed the biggest part of the tumor, 7.8 pounds of lousy parenting. Alex is surprised that the girl does have Dutch braid, which he used to do for his sister when his mother was strung out. It's so hard to do it that only a mother would take the time to do it. Richard comes in, offering an extra set of hands, but Meredith tells him they're good. Alex wonders what mother would take the time to do her daughter's hair, and still let her develop an 8 pound tumor. Suddenly, there's a bleed.
Alex and Meredith find the source of the blood. Richard observes them, which reminds him of himself and Ellis operating on a patient in similar circumstances. Meredith comes up with the same fix that he and Ellis used: a balloon tamponade. Meredith pulls it off perfectly, just like Ellis. Both in the past and present OR, the staff applauds. Meredith doesn't know how she came up with it. She needs a moment.
As he leaves the OR, Richard thinks back to how Ellis convinced him to tell Adele. They kiss as the Chief of Surgery knocks on the door. She opens it and he informs her that the Grey Method has been placed on the short list of the Harper Avery Award. No surgical resident has ever been placed on that list before. He hopes they can convince her to stay in Seattle, knowing she'll have a lot of options after this. She smiles at Richard and happily leaves the room to go talk to the board.
Derek drags Meredith into an on-call room. He apologizes for the thing he said in the heat of the moment, but she thinks he meant it. He wanted to hurt her, he did it, so she'd wish he had to guts to stand by it. She knows he meant it in the way of being a cold and ambitious and selfish person, and a horrible wife and mother. She says he sounds like her mother now, so she now has to live under the weight of his disappointment too. She didn't want him to give the brain mapping project. She tells him to call the President and get the job back so he can just go. She storms out.
Meredith sits down on a gurney and starts flipping the pages of the journal. A red, circle-shaped stain is the only thing on a certain page. It sparks the memory of her mother having slit her wrists in front of her, blood dripping everywhere. Her mother told her not to be afraid as it was only blood. As Ellis falls to the floor, unconscious, a young Meredith reaches for the phone and calls 911. A second flashback shows the paramedics bringing Ellis into the ER. A doctor comes outside and tells young Meredith that she's a resourceful girl to have saved her mother's life.
Meredith is in the waiting room. A nurse points her towards the person from Child Protective Services, but Meredith sees Ana, the woman who brought her to Nadia. Ana claims she stuck around because she was worried about the little girl, but she's clearly shocked when Meredith mentions Child Protective Services. Meredith then sees Ana has her hair in a Dutch braid and puzzles together that Ana is Nadia's mother. Ana said she only did what she did because they have no papers. Ana's afraid to will take Nadia from her, as she's seen that happen with people she knows. Meredith says they don't do medical repatriation here. Ana wanted to bring Nadia to the hospital, but she was too scared. She had two choices. They do the surgery, then they get sent back to their country, where they'll starve or she (and maybe Nadia) may have to work as prostitutes and no one says anything about it. That's one choice. The other choice is she ignored the tumor, and pray that her girl would be okay. After a while, these choices make you crazy and she started telling herself that Nadia was fine, not even noticing the tumor anymore. It's better than the alternative. Meredith has more flashbacks.
Derek meets Maggie in a lounge. Maggie is packing and tells him again that he should talk to his wife. Since they don't talk anymore, he's asking. It's not her place to say anything, and she's tired of saying it, because every time she does, things get worse. He asks again and Maggie then reveals Meredith is her sister. Her birth parents are Ellis Grey and Richard Webber. Meredith is terrible with sisters, Derek says, but he loves them. He warmly welcomes her and hugs her, clearly moving her. It starts feeling strange after a while. He has to leave, but he asks her not to leave until they talk again.
Bailey approaches Richard and asks him about the deal with him and Pierce. Because of his reaction when her name comes up, she thinks Maggie's leaving because of him. He tells her the truth. She is relieved, because for a moment she thought he and Maggie had sex. He says Maggie doesn't want anything to do with him. Then she doesn't know him, Bailey says. She urges him to go talk to Maggie. He thinks it's too late for that, but she objects that there's no such thing. Richard thinks back to him and a lucid Ellis fantasizing about the beautiful life they would've lived together if he had decided to leave Adele.
Richard finds Meredith and tells her he lied before about the day of the carousel fight. He remembers everything. He and Ellis made a pact to leave their spouses. Her mother had just received her first Harper Avery nomination. He was hatefully, hopelessly jealous, as if she was already too far ahead to catch up to. Her success illuminated everything he hadn't yet accomplished. The night before the carousel meeting, as he worked up the nerve to tell Adele, he thought of Ellis and what she could do at such a young age. He thought of what she would do and he realized he didn't want to live his entire life feeling like that, so he ruined their pact. A flashback shows Meredith riding the carousel while Richard breaks up with Ellis. Young Meredith asks her heartbroken mother if everything is okay, but Ellis doesn't reply. Ellis says they have to go home. Present day Meredith now remembers they went home, where Ellis then attempted suicide. They would've had a whole other life, Meredith realizes. Everything after that is all his fault, Richard says. He made the wrong choice for the wrong reasons. There hasn't been a day that he hasn't regret his decision. He apologizes. In another flashback, an older Ellis remembers that Richard left her for Adele, leaving her all alone to raise her daughter.
Ana is sitting by Nadia's bedside. Meredith comes in to talk. Ana noticed the suits with whom Alex is talking outside the room and tells Meredith that she promised them they would be okay. Meredith calms her down. She spoke to CPS and told them the whole thing was a misunderstanding. The suits are lawyers from the hospital. They're going to help them. Alex comes in and tells Ana how the lawyers will help them. She only has to come to Alex for all medical treatments. The lawyers come in.
Alex is arguing with Arizona about how she lied to him about voting for him. She apologizes. She didn't tell him she didn't vote for him because she thought he wouldn't take the attending job if he knew. She's only still his mentor if he needs her to be, but she needs him not to need her to do that. She spent the entire day sucking up to a woman she's sure hates her. She needs to take a step back from peds in order to make the fellowship work and if she's gonna keep her marriage from falling apart. The only way she can even try to do that is if he's here, doing everything she can't do. She needs him to be her and he's the only one she can trust do that. He jokes he should be making a whole lot more money. She agrees.
Derek meets Meredith in a lounge. He decided they're gonna stop for fighting for now. A truce, so they can continue fighting later. He reveals he knows about Maggie. He says she shouldn't lose Maggie and he wants her to tell him when stuff like this comes up so they can put all their other stuff aside. He needs to know if she's okay. She says she remembers moving to Boston with her mother, the two of them basically hiding in an apartment, and she remembers her mother cried a lot while her belly was getting big, but she knew she wasn't supposed to make a noise. Then Ellis' water broke on the kitchen floor, which scared her, as it reminded her of the blood of her suicide attempt. She went to the hospital. She was there when Maggie was born, and also when she slit her wrists. They went home and Ellis' belly wasn't big anymore. They moved to a nice house and Ellis just started her fellowship while Meredith started first grade. And then her mother was just Dr. Ellis Grey and things went back to normal. She was just 5 years old, there was no alternative. Derek suggests she talk to her sister, as she's nice. Meredith has a flashback of her lucid mother telling her she reminds her of her daughter.
Maggie is about to leave the hospital, but Meredith stops her. She knows Maggie didn't ask for a sister and she probably doesn't need one. She's very accomplished for her age and she seems happy, so she understands why Maggie would want to go. However, Meredith would like to show her something. Maggie agrees, and Meredith takes the journal out of her bag. She informs Maggie that their mother wrote in them obsessively. This one's from around the time she was pregnant with Maggie. Maggie reads a few lines and Meredith explains Ellis wasn't warm. Even Meredith is still finding things out about her mother. From a distance, Richard is watching them. Meredith points out that there are a lot of wine stains, but there's a moment where they stop. Meredith thinks that is when Ellis found out she was pregnant with Maggie, because that's when she starts writing down everything she ate. So she wanted Maggie to be okay and healthy. She at least tried. Richard gets on the elevator with a smile on his face while Meredith and Maggie continue talking.
Back to the tape of Ellis' press conference. When she first won the Harper Avery Award, she thought: screw those boys. She stood there, holding that trophy, and thought about everything she sacrificed and had overcome. She decided to dedicate that Award to all woman surgeons who would come after her. She smiles as the audience applauds. She then appears to lose her train of thought, in a subtle reference to the coming of her Alzheimer's, asking the audience, "Where were we?"
==Cast==
11x04MeredithGrey.png|Meredith Grey
11x04AlexKarev.png|Alex Karev
11x04MirandaBailey.png|Miranda Bailey
11x04RichardWebber.png|Richard Webber
11x04OwenHunt.png|Owen Hunt
11x04ArizonaRobbins.png|Arizona Robbins
11x04JacksonAvery.png|Jackson Avery
11x04AmeliaShepherd.png|Amelia Shepherd
11x04JoWilson.png|Jo Wilson
11x04StephanieEdwards.png|Stephanie Edwards
11x04DerekShepherd.png|Derek Shepherd
11x04Ana.png|Ana
11x04YoungEllisGrey.png|Young Ellis Grey
11x04YoungRichardWebber.png|Young Richard Webber
11x04MaggiePierce.png|Maggie Pierce
11x04EllisGrey.png|Ellis Grey
11x04RoyPepper.png|Roy Pepper
11x04MartinVance.png|Chief Martin Vance
11x04YoungMeredithGrey.png|Young Meredith Grey
11x04Nadia.png|Nadia
11x04Doctor.png|Doctor
===Main Cast===
*Ellen Pompeo as Dr. Meredith Grey
*Justin Chambers as Dr. Alex Karev
*Chandra Wilson as Dr. Miranda Bailey
*James Pickens, Jr. as Dr. Richard Webber
*Sara Ramírez as Dr. Callie Torres (credit only)
*Kevin McKidd as Dr. Owen Hunt
*Jessica Capshaw as Dr. Arizona Robbins
*Sarah Drew as Dr. April Kepner (credit only)
*Jesse Williams as Dr. Jackson Avery
*Caterina Scorsone as Dr. Amelia Shepherd
*Camilla Luddington as Dr. Jo Wilson
*Jerrika Hinton as Dr. Stephanie Edwards
*Patrick Dempsey as Dr. Derek Shepherd
===Guest Stars===
*Annet Mahendru as Ana
*Sally Pressman as Young Ellis Grey
*J. August Richards as Young Richard Webber
*Kelly McCreary as Dr. Maggie Pierce
*Kate Burton as Dr. Ellis Grey
===Co-Starring===
*Rafael J. Noblé as Roy Pepper
*Walter Addison as Chief Martin Vance
*Aria Leabu as Young Meredith
*Sara Rowe as Nadia
*Danny Jacobs as Doctor
==Medical Notes==
===Marty Secord===
*Diagnosis:
*Doctors:
**Arizona Robbins (pediatric surgeon)
**Alex Karev (pediatric surgeon)
*Treatment:
Marty's liver enzymes were good, but Arizona was worried he'd have to go back in for an ERCP, so she asked Alex to keep an eye on him.
===Roy Pepper===
*Diagnosis:
**Aortic aneurysm
**High spinal injury
*Doctors:
**Maggie Pierce (cardiothoracic surgeon)
**Amelia Shepherd (neurosurgeon)
**Derek Shepherd (neurosurgeon)
**Jo Wilson (surgical resident)
*Treatment:
**TEVAR procedure
**Spinal cord drainage
**Sternotomy
**Aneurysmoplasty
Roy was having a TEVAR procedure for an aortic aneurysm. Pierce became concerned about the blood flow to his spine being cut off, potentially paralyzing him, so she asked him to wiggle his toes. When he was unable to do that, Amelia checked for the Babinski reflex, a sign of paralysis. His toes fanned out, indicating a high spinal injury. She sedated Roy and then worked to avoid permanent paralysis. She induced hypertension and adjusted the stent, but it didn't work, so he needed spinal cord drainage, which Derek was called in to do. When that didn't work, it looked like he would be paralyzed permanently, but then Pierce had the idea to do an aneurysmoplasty to fix it. She used the aneurysm to build a new aorta just to provide blood flow to his spine. Once she was finished, she woke him up enough to have him attempt to wiggle his toes. He was able to do so, indicating that it was a success.
===Nadia===
*Diagnosis:
**Peritonitis
**Abdominal tumor
*Doctors:
**Meredith Grey (general surgeon)
**Alex Karev (pediatric surgeon)
**Stephanie Edwards (surgical resident)
*Treatment:
**Surgery
**Balloon tamponade
Nadia, 10, was brought into the ER with abdominal swelling. Alex used an ultrasound to rule out pregnancy as the cause and they found a tumor, with free fluid in her abdomen. Meredith suspected the mass had ruptured, so they rushed her into emergency surgery. They removed a large portion of the tumor, which weighed 7.8 lbs. and then removed the rested in pieces as they repaired the damage it caused. When she started bleeding out from her liver, Meredith had the idea to use a balloon tamponade to stop the liver bleeding and give them time to repair the liver. She was successful and Meredith told her mother that she would be fine.
===Ellis's Patient===
*Diagnosis:
**Gun shot wounds
**Penetrating injury to the liver
*Doctors:
**Ellis Grey (surgical resident)
**Richard Webber (surgical resident)
*Treatment:
**Surgery
**Balloon tamponade
Ellis and Richard operated on a patient with gun shot wounds. Ellis used a balloon tamponade to stop the bleeding and give them time to repair the wound. It was successful.
===Ellis Grey===
*Diagnosis:
**Wrist lacerations
*Doctors:
*Treatment:
**Stitches
Ellis's suicide attempt was shown in flashback.
===Patient===
*Diagnosis:
*Doctors:
**Nicole Herman (fetal surgeon)
**Arizona Robbins (fetal surgeon)
*Treatment:
**Shunt
Arizona observed a shunt placement performed by Herman.
==Music==
There was no music used in this episode, making it only the second episode in the entire show's history to do so.
==Notes and Trivia==
thumb|right|300 px
*This episode's title originated from the song , originally sung by Paul McCartney.
*This episode scored 8.43 million viewers.https://web.archive.org/web/20141019112247/http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2014/10/17/thursday-final-ratings-bones-reign-adjusted-down/316356/
*The episode was filmed from August 26th to September 9th, 2014.
*This is the first episode since they became a series regular not to feature Sara Ramírez as Dr. Callie Torres as well as the first episode since she became a series regular not to feature Sarah Drew as Dr. April Kepner.
**Sara Ramírez filmed scenes for this episode, but they were cut before airing.
*Ellis Grey does part of the voice over, making it the third time in the series that the voice over is done (albeit only partially) by a guest star rather than a main character.
*This episode features flashbacks from season 3, especially from Staring at the Sun.
*Cristina appears in the archive footage flashbacks from the Season 2 episode, Make Me Lose Control, when Ellis is admitted to Seattle Grace. However, only her shoulder is visible.
==Gallery==
===Episode Stills===
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===Behind the Scenes===
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==Quotes==
:Meredith: You're waiting for me to pay up for this grand sacrifice that you made for our family. How am I supposed to do anything with you pressuring me and hovering over me for a decision that you made? And you're waiting for me to fail.
:Derek: I'm waiting for you to shine. Remember? That's why you're staying here.
:Meredith: And I told you, you should go to D.C. and shine there. It was you who decided to stay here and martyr yourself and now make me feel guilty because of a decision you made. Well, I am done. I'm done feeling guilty, and I am done measuring my accomplishments against yours. I won't do it anymore. Just stay out of my way.
:Derek: Wow. You sound just like your mother.
----
:Young Richard: This is crazy. Is has to stop.
:Young Ellis: I didn't hear you complaining a few minutes ago. I heard something. I wouldn't call it complaining.
----
:Derek: I am sorry about the thing I said about your mother.
:Meredith: Why? You meant it.
:Derek: It was in the heat of the moment. I-I just...
:Meredith: You know, you wanted to hurt me, and you did that, so at least have the guts to stand by it.
:Derek: Will you just hear me out?
:Meredith: You could do worse than compare me to a brilliant surgeon, but you meant it in the sense that I am cold and ambitious and selfish, a horrible wife and mother. I got that.
:Derek: Well, I love how you just switch it around so you can make it fit...
:Meredith: You think I sound like my mother? You do. And now I get to live under the weight of your disappointment, too? Because of something you gave up.
:Derek: If you recall, I gave it up for you.
:Meredith: Oh, you gave it up for me, but I don't want it. Go. You should get on the next flight out. Call the president and get the job back. Just go.
----
:Young Ellis: Blood. It's just blood. Meredith, don't be afraid. Don't be afraid.
:(Ellis falls to the floor, unconscious. Meredith picks up the phone to call 911.)
:Young Meredith: My mother tried to kill herself.
----
:Maggie: She's my sister. My parents, my birth parents... Are Ellis Grey and Richard Webber. Your wife's my sister. So you should talk to your wife.
:Derek: That's... so, Richard's your father.
:Maggie: Yes.
:Derek: And Meredith is your sister.
:Maggie: Half-sister. I thought she would have told you.
:Derek: Oh, no, no, we're not, um... uh, Meredith is terrible with sisters, just so you know, and, uh, I-I'm not. I love sisters. I have a bunch of them. And, um... I'm glad you told me. It's nice to meet you!
:(They hug.)
:Maggie: It's nice to meet you.
----
:Miranda: Okay, what is the deal with you and Pierce?
:Richard: Bailey, please.
:Miranda: See, every time I bring her name up to you, you look like I just stabbed you in the chest. Now, I think she's leaving because of you. All right, you don't want to tell me what happened, you don't have to, but... Did something happen?
:Richard: She's my daughter... Mine and Ellis Grey's.
:Miranda: Oh, thank you, God.
:Richard: What?!
:Miranda: Oh, no, no! I thought you had had sex with that girl.
:Richard: Bailey!
:Miranda: Wait. But that's why she's leaving?
:Richard: She doesn't want anything to do with me.
:Miranda: Well, then, she doesn't know you, or she would stay. Now, you have to go talk to her.
:Richard: I think I'm too late.
:Miranda: No such thing.
----
:Richard: I lied to you before... About what happened that day at the carousel. I remember what she said. I remember what I said. I remember everything. It was a Thursday afternoon. We had made a pact. She would leave Thatcher, and I would leave Adele. Your mother had just received her first Harper Avery nomination. She was so excited. And I was... jealous. Not like healthy competition. A hateful, hopeless jealousy, too far ahead to catch up to. Her success illuminated everything I hadn't yet accomplished. The night before, as I worked up the nerve to tell Adele, I thought of your mother. I thought of what she could do at such a young age. I thought of what she would do. And I thought: "I will spend my life feeling like this, my entire life." So I ruined it.
----
:Meredith: We would have had a whole other life.
:Richard: Everything after that was my fault. I made the wrong choice for the wrong reason. And there's hardly a day goes by that I don't... I'm so sorry.
:Meredith: I bet you are.
----
:Alex: If you didn't want to vote for me, fine, but then why lie to my face about it?
:Arizona: Because I didn't think that you'd take the attending job if you knew.
:Alex: Look, if you're trying to be a mentor or whatever, right now you're sucking.
:Arizona: No, I'm not your mentor! I mean, I am if you need me to be, but I need you to not need me to be. That's why I didn't vote for you. Listen, I spent the day observing a fetal shunt placement, trying to suck up to a woman who I'm 100% positive hates me. The only reason that I could even try to do that is because you handled that little girl's case so beautifully. I need to take a step back from peds surgery if I'm gonna make this fellowship work... And if I'm gonna keep my marriage from falling apart. And the only way that I can even try to do that is if... is if you're here, doing everything that I can't do. I don't need you to be my fellow anymore, Alex. I need you to be me. You're the only one I can trust to do that.
:Alex: I should be making a lot more money.
:Arizona: A lot. A lot.
----
:Derek: You have a sister. You're losing her, Meredith, and you shouldn't. You have a sister and you don't tell me? This can't happen. When stuff like this comes up, you have to let me know. I... we put all our other stuff aside, and it's like I... I need to know that you're okay. Are you? Are you okay?
----
:Meredith: I remember moving to Boston. I remember the two of us basically hiding out in an apartment. And I remember she cried a lot. And I remember her belly getting big. And I knew I wasn't supposed to make any noise. And then her water broke on the kitchen floor, and that scared me because it reminded me of the blood in the kitchen when she cut her wrists. And I went to the hospital. I was there... Both times. And I heard a baby cry, and I heard my mother cry. And then we went home. And her belly wasn't big anymore. And then we moved across town to a house, a really nice house. And then she started her fellowship at Mass Gen, and I just started first grade. And then she was just Dr. Ellis Grey and I was just a kid in school and everything went back to normal. I mean, I was 5 years old. What was the alternative? And I have a sister.
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:Meredith: You didn't ask for a sister, and you probably don't need one. Your parents send you singing fish. You're very accomplished for your age, and you seem very happy. So, you can go if you want. I can understand why you would want to. But I would like to show you something if you have a minute. She wrote in these journals, obsessively... Mostly surgical notes, ideas, but this one is from around the time you were born.
:Maggie: "A surgery can fail for any number of reasons, whether from a patient's morbidity or surgeon's ineptitude." Geez.
:Meredith: They're not so warm. She wasn't, either. But there is more to her than... I'm still finding out things about her myself. She wrote mostly at night, with a glass of wine, as you can see by the ring stains and... But I think here is when she found out she was pregnant because the wine stains stop and she starts writing down everything she ate. So...
:Maggie: This was when she...
:Meredith: Realized she was pregnant with you. So she wanted you to be okay. She wanted to be healthy. She tried, at least.
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:Ellis: The first time I won the Harper Avery, I dedicated it to the men who'd been so supportive. No, I wish. Just kidding. The first time I won the Harper Avery, I thought, "screw all those boys." I stood there, holding that trophy, and I thought about everything I'd sacrificed, what I had overcome. And I dedicated that award to all the women surgeons who would come after me.
==See Also==
de:Ellis Grey (Episode)
fr:La page manquante
Category:All Episodes
Category:GA Episodes
Category:GA S11 Episodes