There is no point in asking himself why he defends Meredith. He is a belligerent fool on the wrong side of the interrogation table when it comes to this question. He’s a liar who vastly overestimates his ability to outwit the interrogator, even though the interrogator is a fatalistic idiot who thinks there’s no point at all in pursuing this line of questioning. 

It’s a reflex. That’s why number one, and it’s hung around so long that it’s not even a lie anymore. Back in the day, he told himself it was a reflex. Back in the day he told himself it was necessary, because Meredith was a simpering, sashaying disaster, but that simpering, sashaying disaster was his daughter’s mother. So it was his job to defend, to mitigate, to triage, not for Meredith, but for Alexis. 

But there was nothing reflexive about it back then. It was an effort—a constant, draining effort to beat back his own anger, his own unlimited capacity for disbelief at just how badly she would behave at any given moment. For years, defending her was not at all his instinct. It was something he trained himself to do, something he had to work at every single day. 

But the tendency has hung around. It has far outlasted his fury, his ability to be surprised. It has outlasted every feeling he has for or about his ex-wife beyond a kind of wary, weary fondness, because she has defeated him. That’s why number two.  She has long since worn down the part of him that has the energy to protest or chide or even comment on whatever it is she’s up to on any given day. So it is a reflex now. It’s . . . vestigial. 

And therein lies the problem. Therein lies one of the reasons it’s not quite accurate to say that there’s no point in wondering why he defends her. It’s far closer to the truth to say he doesn’t want to wonder, he’s afraid to wonder, because wondering keeps landing him smack dab in the middle of vestigial land. 

Defending her was useful once upon a time. It’s not useful now. It’s not necessary, because Alexis will feel how she is going to feel about her mother. She will navigate the lottery system that seems to govern when Meredith is present, absent, or something painfully, awkwardly in between. She’ll respond to the low-key hostility between her mother and grandmother in her own level-headed, loving way. 

That’s painful in the same way that everything about her growing up, growing away, growing into her own person is painful. It’s also wonderful in exactly those same ways. It is proof positive that he has—miraculously—done well in raising this highly functional person. Or he has at least stayed out of the way and managed to steer clear of most major, lasting, and irreversible screw-ups. 

And it’s a relief. It could be a relief that she no longer needs him to defend Meredith or run interference or manage every damned thing on the rare occasions when she visits her chaotic presence upon them. It could be a relief if he were able to let it be. 

It appears that he is unable to let it be, and this is the truly unpleasant part of the interrogation to which there is no point. He keeps on defending Meredith, but why? Avoiding that question is no longer an option, because he has screwed up here. He has screwed up large. 

It was insane to say yes to Meredith staying at the loft. It would have been insane even if Kate were not staying there, too. But the fact that Kate is staying at the loft drives the whole situation well past the point of insanity and into self-destruction, and stupid things keep falling out of his mouth—vestigial defenses of Meredith—and he’s hurt her. He keeps on hurting her, because he’s stuck in the past. He’s stuck in this pointless, damaging patten of behavior that no one needs anymore. 

He wishes she weren’t so mad at him. He quite devoutly wishes that she weren’t so damned right, so damned reasonable in her anger. He wishes that they could kiss and make up, that they could skip ahead to the part where they’re through this mess and stronger for it. He wishes he could throw himself on the harsh mercies of Kate Beckett, Master Interrogator. 

Because she’s his best friend. She’s his best hope. She’s the one who has the best shot in the known universe of dragging an answer out of him to a question that isn’t pointless at all, a question that he really needs to find the answer to, sooner rather than later: Why the hell does he defend Meredith? 

A/N: The lack morphousness of Meredith rivals the lack of morphousness of this story.