Storylines
Meredith Grey is the daughter of world-renowned surgeon Ellis Grey, who suffers from Alzheimer's disease. The night before Grey's internship begins, she has a one-night-stand with Derek Shepherd (Patrick Dempsey), a stranger she meets at a bar. She discovers the next day that he is an attending neurosurgeon at her new workplace, Seattle Grace Hospital. Grey is assigned to work under resident Miranda Bailey (Chandra Wilson), and befriends her fellow interns, George O'Malley (T.R. Knight), Izzie Stevens (Katherine Heigl), Cristina Yang (Sandra Oh) and Alex Karev (Justin Chambers). Grey initially resists Shepherd's advances, but they eventually begin a relationship. She is surprised by the arrival of Addison Montgomery (Kate Walsh), Shepherd's wife, having been unaware that he was married. Shepherd struggles to choose between the two, but ultimately returns to Montgomery. Grey is devastated and turns to searching for her father, Thatcher, though their brief reunion fails to give her any closure regarding her childhood. She learns that her father re-married and had two more daughters, which is why he never fought for her. Grey has a series of one-night-stands, including one with O'Malley, who is in love with her. When she cries in the middle of their encounter, their friendship temporarily ends. Grey embarks on a relationship with veterinarian Finn Dandridge (Chris O'Donnell), but it comes to a close when she reunites with Shepherd.
Her mother experiences a completely lucid day, and expresses her great disappointment at how ordinary Grey has turned out to be. Following a ferryboat accident, Grey is knocked into the water and has to be rescued by Shepherd. She flatlines at the hospital, and awakens in an "afterlife", where she interacts with deceased former acquaintances. Ellis dies in the interim, and Grey meets with her mother, who tells her that she is anything but ordinary and urges her to wake up. Grey is subsequently resuscitated. She is promoted to a resident, as her half-sister Lexie Grey (Chyler Leigh), begins working at Seattle Grace Hospital as an intern. Grey initially rejects Lexie's attempts to form a relationship, but slowly softens towards her. Shepherd pushes Grey to make a greater commitment to their relationship than she feels able to, and the two break up once more. He begins dating a nurse, Rose, and Grey sees a therapist, Dr. Wyatt (Amy Madigan), to seek happiness. She initiates a neurosurgical clinical trial, enlisting Shepherd as a consulting neurosurgeon. The trial fails repeatedly, but the final patient they treat survives, which leads them to reuniting and moving in together. When Stevens is diagnosed with stage four metastatic melanoma, Grey convinces Shepherd to operate on her. He agrees to perform the surgery, and later proposes to Grey in the hospital elevator. Stevens begins to plan the perfect wedding for a reluctant Grey, but when, on their wedding day, Shepherd discovers that Stevens has a second brain tumor, the couple let her and Karev marry instead.
Grey and Shepherd marry by writing their wedding vows on a post-it note. Having become a heavy drinker following Susan's death, Thatcher experiences liver failure. For Lexie's sake, Grey agrees to donate part of her liver to him. Thereafter, she discovers she is pregnant soon before a hospital shooting, endangering Shepherd. In the midst of the crisis, Grey miscarries the baby. She learns that she has a "hostile uterus", which leads her to consider her other possible genetic flaws. Shepherd, worried about the possibility that she will develop Alzheimer's, initiates a clinical trial hoping to cure the disease. Grey opts to work on the trial, with Shepherd. When the chief of surgery, Richard Webber (James Pickens Jr.)'s wife, Adele, is diagnosed with Alzheimer's, she receives a spot on Shepherd's trial. Grey tampers with the drugs so that Adele does not receive the placebo. She and Shepherd decide to adopt Zola, an orphaned baby from Malawi, and make their marriage official. When the truth about Grey's tampering comes out, however, a furious Shepherd tells her he cannot raise a child with her. Grey is fired, and tries to conceal both this and her marital separation from the adoption counselor. Although Webber steps down as chief of surgery and takes the blame for the trial tampering to protect Grey, Zola is taken away. She and Shepherd reconcile and fight to get Zola back, eventually having her returned to them. As her last year of residency is coming to a close, the residents travel around the country, searching for the best jobs in their specialties. In order to finish their residency, the residents must take the medical boards, and Grey passes them successfully. She decides to take a job offer at The Brigham Women's Hospital, and is subsequently involved in an aviation accident, killing Lexie, and leaving her and her co-workers stranded. Following their rescue, Grey becomes an attending general surgeon at Seattle Grace Mercy West. Her newfound attitude leads to her being dubbed "Medusa" by the hospital's new interns. In mid-season, Grey discovers that she's pregnant again, and happily tells Shepherd, but not Yang, whom she usually tells first because of her being her "person".
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