Medical Center.
After hanging up with Heather, Adam shook his head with a wry smile.
Sheldon really was a child of destiny, huh? Even after eight years, stories from Sheldon's childhood kept popping up around Adam almost every week, dragging him right back to those quirky little moments from Young Sheldon.
Guess that's just life for ya! 😅
Now, though, he had to figure out how to smooth things over with the sensitive Tatiana.
Earlier, Sheldon had stayed up all night reading Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy. In a dream, he'd had a chat with René Descartes himself—the mathematician-philosopher—and got a spark of inspiration. He tried to use Descartes' famous line, "I think, therefore I am," to counter the classic Zhuangzi's butterfly dream paradox.
"I think, therefore I am."
The idea being: if I'm asking a question, then I must've thought about it. And if I'm thinking, then I must exist.
But sadly…
Whenever humans start overthinking, the universe just laughs.
Even if that human's Sheldon.
"I think, therefore I am" doesn't quite debunk Zhuangzi's butterfly dream. 'Cause you can feel like you're thinking in a dream too—endless layers of dream within dream. Nobody can really say which one's the "real" you.
These deep, tangled philosophical debates? Humanity's been wrestling with 'em for thousands of years. Even the most brilliant minds could only pose the questions—no perfect answers to be found.
Even Adam, with smarts close to Sheldon's level, couldn't just whip up a response to these fundamental questions about existence on the spot—and then break it down to comfort Tatiana.
Not that he needed to.
If you can't solve the problem—or the person asking it—just redirect the whole thing!
Adam was pretty confident he could pull that off. He'd just wait for Heather and the others to show up tonight, then whip out some metaphorical tai chi: a little Great Shift of the Universe, some Grafting Flowers onto Trees, a dash of Stars Turning in the Sky—boom, problem handled! 😎
---
Time flew by, and soon it was noon.
Cafeteria.
"Meredith, you've been getting pretty chummy with your stepmom lately, huh?" Cristina said offhandedly.
"She's not my stepmom!" Meredith snapped, super touchy about it. "She's just my bio dad's current wife. Nothing to do with me!"
"Alright, alright," Cristina shrugged. "So you've been hanging out with your bio dad's wife a lot lately, then. Before, you'd avoid her like the plague—now you're not only treating her, but laughing and chatting too?"
"She's…" Meredith paused, "she's nothing like my mom. Really… maternal."
Ellis Grey, the legendary doctor, had always been cold as ice—to everyone, including her only daughter.
But the current Mrs. Grey? Just an ordinary housewife, always focused on keeping the family together, making sure her husband and daughters felt the warmth of home.
And now, that motherly vibe was even extending to her husband's daughter from his first marriage.
"Eh, hard to say," Cristina countered instinctively. "Maybe she's just bored. Didn't her daughter already get married and have a kid? I think she had the baby right here at our hospital."
"…Yeah," Meredith's expression dimmed. "They've got two daughters. The older one's married with a kid now, moved out ages ago. The younger one's studying at Harvard Med. He keeps mixing me up with his younger daughter… Maybe that's all it is."
"Don't listen to Cristina," Adam said, shooting a glance at the tactless Cristina before turning to Meredith. "Feelings like that—someone willing to give you that kind of care? As long as you're sure it's genuine, don't overthink their initial motives. Otherwise, life's gonna be pretty hard to navigate."
Meredith didn't say anything.
Deep down, though, it was clear she still had some hopes when it came to her dad's side of the family.
She was just stuck in that awkward phase: one step forward, three steps back—wanting to connect but scared of getting hurt.
Cristina's bluntness had just yanked her a few steps back again.
"She came to you for a check-up?" Adam asked, smoothly redirecting the convo like a pro.
"Yeah," Meredith replied. She hadn't planned on saying more, but since Adam brought it up—and it reminded her of work—she went on. "She's been having hiccups a lot lately, bad enough that it's messing with her sleep.
She knows I'm prepping for my intern certification exam soon—you know, the one that decides my residency specialty. If it wasn't serious, she wouldn't have come to me.
Adam, could you help me take a look?"
"Of course," Adam nodded. "I'll come with you later to check her out. What's your diagnosis so far?"
"She's got acid reflux," Meredith explained. "She's had hiccups on and off for a while, but it's gotten worse lately. I gave her some chlorpromazine, and it worked right away—but once the meds wore off, the hiccups came back. Now I'm thinking of suggesting an endoscopic fundoplication."
An endoscopic fundoplication involves sticking a tube down the patient's throat and stitching up the bottom of the esophagus to stop stomach acid from irritating it.
"Why not try non-surgical options to treat the hiccups first?" Adam frowned. "We're surgeons, so of course we jump straight to surgery—but she's your dad's wife, and she trusts you enough to come see you. You gotta take extra care here."
Surgery might seem like a quick fix—slice, dice, problem gone.
But every doctor knows: if you can avoid going under the knife, you do it.
Even if the procedure's small and routine.
'Cause nobody can predict what might go wrong. Pre-op anesthesia, mid-surgery mishaps, post-op complications—any one of those could turn a minor issue into a life-threatening disaster.
"…So what should I do?" Meredith mumbled, a little embarrassed.
She knew Adam was right—that's how a doctor should treat a family member.
Safety first.
Not just rushing for the quickest, easiest fix.
It showed she really hadn't been treating this woman—who was trying to offer her maternal warmth—like actual family.
"Start with standard non-invasive treatments," Adam said with a smile. "There's plenty of options out there. Only go for riskier surgery if those don't work."
"Exactly," Cristina chimed in. "Deep breathing, sip-and-bend water trick, holding your breath… there's a ton of methods. Something's bound to work for her. And if not, there's always massage—that can do wonders!"
"No way!" Meredith blurted out instinctively, then glared at Cristina, her face turning red. "What are you even thinking?! Suggesting I give her… a massage?!"
"What's the big deal?" Cristina shrugged innocently. "Just grab a cotton swab, stick it in the patient's mouth, and gently massage the soft palate right in the center. Usually works like magic in a minute. What's the problem?"
"Pfft," Adam couldn't help but laugh.
Cristina cracked up too.
"Shut up!" Meredith snapped, realizing she'd totally called Cristina out for the wrong thing.
The "massage" method Cristina was teasing about was the cheeky one they'd all heard Adam mention before—not the legit medical technique Cristina was playing innocent about now.
Emmm.
It was exactly because Adam had brought up that trick ages ago that it stuck in their heads so vividly.
Now, every time someone mentioned the "massage hiccup cure," they couldn't help but flip it upside down in their minds! 😜
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(End of Chapter)