Author's Note: Prompted by Waltzmathilda's "The Sound of Your Sorrow Comes."
"Move and I'll gut you," Cristina snapped, struggling to steady her hands. The antiseptic would burn, and the metal would pierce, and blood would flow, but he'd damn well better stay still.
"Just do it," Alex hissed, gritting his teeth as her gloved fingers dug into his flesh, pulling the skin taut as she moved to retrieve the steel shell.
"You're lucky this isn't infected," she chastised, almost half truthfully, because angry red lines already streaked the bruising along his torso.
"Hold still," Meredith insisted, pressing down on him as he half turned to glare back at Cristina. This was unauthorized, and the room was un-sterile, and it was entirely unwise, and they all knew better. But he needed to have it done in private, and Cristina needed her hands to stop trembling whenever she picked up a blade, and Meredith needed them to be Alex and Cristina again, and she couldn't have that while Cristina was reading home décor magazines and Alex was toting a bullet into her home every evening.
"Damn it, stop," Cristina muttered, forcing her eyes to focus and her fingers to bend as she paused millimeters from the bullet's entry point. He hadn't squirmed, but his chest moved lightly under her trembling fingers with each breath, and the glint of the blade caught the light, and it was all too much metal, and the blood roared in her ears, and her stomach poured into her shoes, and they weren't in an OR room, weren't in that OR room, but it felt like that whenever she fingered a ten blade, or smelled antiseptic.
"Cristina," Meredith called, eying her closely, and she should have stopped her, but she didn't, and she should have gotten help for them, but she couldn't, and she should have shoved him right off the gurney. But it was already too late, and she shouldn't have listened to his agonized gasp, or watched Cristina's tears as she collapsed against the wall, bullet firmly clasped in surgical tongs, and she shouldn't have pressed the gauze so tightly to the bleeding, as if stopping it would put an end to whatever this was.
"I got it," he grumbled, pushing her hand away as he sat half up abruptly, still dizzy from the pain killers and nauseous from the antibiotics.
"Down," Meredith snapped, pushing him back too hard, dislodging the gauze as his blood trickled through her gloved fingers. He was pale and shivering and probably inches from hurling, and she grabbed the antiseptic, dousing his side again before he could protest the burn and grabbing more gauze and taping it roughly in place.
"Hack," Alex muttered, his breathing still ragged, a vague smirk directed at Cristina, as she stood unsteadily, the bullet clutched in her bloodied gloves.
"Stupid, Evil Spawn," she retorted, holding it inches from his face. "It was your stupid idea to keep it in," she added more smugly, fingering it closely.
"Crack whore," he mumbled, his eyes fluttering as the second round of pain killers slammed into him. His ragged breathing steadied, as did theirs, and they were lucky they hadn't been caught yet, and they still had to get him somewhere where no one would notice, even at 10 p.m.
Checking the dark corridors carefully, they half walked, half shoved him to the nearest on call room, relieved that it was empty, and that the grape vine had apparently missed this unwieldy threesome. Settling him onto the bed, they threw a blanket over him, as Meredith sat on the floor, exhaling heavily and running her hands through her hair.
"I should go home to my husband," Cristina announced, smirking as she sat across from Meredith. The words tumbled out, shattering on the floor like a broken glass.
"You should," Meredith agreed, narrowing her eyes, and they both knew she meant no such thing.
Cristina stood quickly, checked Alex's breathing, and sat back down again, adding ill advised marriages to the list of things she'd never admit they had in common.
"I'll stay," Meredith noted, sighing and leaning her head back against the bed frame.
"We have to hide him," Cristina noted suddenly, because it was Friday evening, and Bailey wasn't letting him back in on surgeries until the bullet had been removed, and her and Meredith hadn't been cleared at all yet, and she already had her idiot interns' cutting party on her record, and it wasn't like the whole place wasn't enough on edge already.
Meredith nodded, staring blankly ahead. They had to hide him, because now he wouldn't be the invincible guy with the bullet in his chest and the big story; he'd be the guy who gasped when you cut into him, and avoided elevators, and went wobbly when you stuffed him with pain killers, and queasy when you loaded him with antibiotics.
"We need to get him out of here," Meredith announced abruptly, after a long silence. They all needed to get out of there.
"Right," Cristina snorted, motioning to Alex. They'd begged, borrowed and damn near stolen enough meds to drug him into oblivion; their next step had been hazy at best.
"I'll stay," Meredith repeated finally. "You're not involved." She'd cover for Cristina; she'd cover for Alex; she'd answer the questions; she'd concoct a story; she'd have to, really, since she was too tired to remember who'd done what, or when she'd stopped lying awake at night, listening to Derek breathe, or when day and night had still come in a regular pattern, back before whatever this was.
"I did it," Cristina countered, shaking her head as she stood. "I'm hungry," she added, as she moved toward the door,
Crawling into the bottom bunk across the room, Meredith stared at the mattress hovering above her, a wave of thoughts washing through her mind until the door opened abruptly, harsh lights from the early day shift flooding the room, as Bailey hovered in the doorway.
Looking sharply over at Meredith, she moved to Alex, and sat beside him.
Meredith watched her warily, as Bailey brushed her fingers lightly over his hair, mumbling something – a curse, or a prayer, Meredith couldn't quite tell – and it was all a bewildering blur, as tears streaked Bailey's face and her hands trembled and she wasn't Bailey any more then he was Alex or Cristina was Cristina and Meredith wondered again why the Hospital only left a memorial for the dead.
"You get it out?" Bailey snapped suddenly, staring abruptly at Meredith, who just froze, staring back wide eyed.
"Did you get that thing out of him?" she demanded more forcefully.
Meredith nodded hesitantly, as Bailey's words cut through her; she couldn't quite remember whose idea it was, but stupid was the order the day. She stared at the floor, her head swimming, until the door opened again, as April's wide eyed, startled stare met them amid the light pouring in from the hall.
"Take him home," Bailey insisted, her voice a low rumble as she glared at them. "You all go home," she added hoarsely, her rough voice shaking as she rose to her feet.
April found him on the bathroom floor at 2 a.m. Aspirin: she was just looking for aspirin, after Meredith tore out of the house, off to the police station again, and Cristina had fallen asleep on the couch, and the first kitchen drawer that she'd reached into left her with a handful of condoms, and the dull throbbing in her skull played tricks on her eyes in the darkened hallway, and she almost stepped on him as her sight adjusted to the dim light.
He was wet, and hazy, and shivering slightly and she tried to look away from him, and from the still soapy swath of chest that Cristina had dug into. She wondered if he was looking for his bullet, or still trying to wash away the blood, or if maybe Dr. Yang had just removed the one thing that had been holding everything else in for him, and if maybe that was why he was dripping, as he stared blankly at the cabinet under the sink.
Grabbing the aspirin bottle and a glass she sat cross legged across from him, avoiding his glassy eyes. She couldn't look, because he'd already seen the ghost that was following her, had seen Reed's ghost being born – in a bloody puddle in a darkened supply closet – and seeing it in him would just conjure her up in this house, too, and she was pretty sure that Meredith Grey's house was already haunted enough for all of them.
She couldn't tell him the rest, either, that she thought maybe Reed had held his hand- in the elevator – that Reed was like that, once she liked you, that Reed was bold, and brave, and wouldn't have left him alone, that Reed wouldn't have run away if he needed her; she couldn't tell him that sometimes she figured Reed had watched over him, until they found him; she couldn't tell him that sometimes she figured Reed saved his life.
His hands didn't shake. They held rock steady, even as another shiver rippled through him, even as April stared at him – or at anything but him – even as cold porcelain dug into his back. He didn't get it – the bathroom floor thing. They'd all come here before, Mere and Yang and Iz – he was sure he'd feel Iz there, somewhere – but she was gone, and his hands held steady. They'd always held steady.
He'd done it for Bailey – the bullet – done it because her voice shook whenever she talked to him about it, done it because of that freaking look in her eyes, done it because no matter what they said, his hands were rock solid. Yang's shook now; even Bailey's shook sometimes, but his held steady, even if he damn near hurled at the thought of an elevator, even if he was shivering on a bathroom floor while another wild eyed chick was staring at him with a bottle of pills clutched in her hand, even if the fucking shrink would be slipping more appointment cards into his hands – they wouldn't shake.
"Slipped," Alex rasped, groping blearily for his clothes and still unsteady as Meredith hauled him up and dragged him down the hallway. She rolled her eyes, and snickered at April's gasp, as the young woman trailed her to his room, averting her eyes.
She only had sisters, Meredith knew, and she'd obviously never lived in a frat house; she'd never done a lot of things, apparently.
Depositing Alex in his bed, Meredith bundled two blankets hastily around him, then ran one finger lightly along the still swollen scab. She'd hated him keeping the bullet in, and was relieved it was gone now. But she got it: It had plugged the hole Izzie left in him. It probably even hurt less.
"Chicks like it," he murmured smugly, his breathing ragged as drifted off.
"We do, huh?" she smirked, shaking her head again as his eyes fluttered lazily. There'd been no chicks since the shootings; but she didn't count it as a lie, since he needed to believe there were.
"Oh, yeah," he muttered.
"McDreamy still in jail?" Cristina groused, popping her head abruptly into the room and sizing up the scene. It was nearly 5 a.m., and Owen was still on call, and there were rules – new rules, now, but rules nonetheless.
"Yup," Meredith answered angrily, stepping away and following Cristina back out into the hall, where April hovered in the shadows like a spooked ghost.
"I bought you ice cream," Meredith called tiredly to April, as she watched Cristina retreat into her bed room. She'd stopped on the way home, at the open all night post catastrophe grocer. She got Tequila for Cristina, and chocolate milk and cereal for Alex, and double fudge crunch ice cream for April.
"Thank you," April peeped finally, her voice trembling as she ran her fingers through her frizzy hair.
"He'll be okay," Meredith said quietly, following April's quick glance toward Alex's door. "I got him Coco Puffs," she added wryly, meeting April's timid smirk as they both retreated into the darkness.
April alphabetized the cereal boxes over the next few weeks, and lined up rows of vitamin bottles by country of origin, and wrote affirmations in her journal and posted chore lists that nobody followed and read the newspaper while he polished off his Frankenberries, ignoring the fruit she shyly pushed in his direction. It was always bad news – her horoscope – and she really should stop worrying about mud slides in Asia and currency fluctuations in the futures market and genetically engineered Tuna and whether Cristina would ever stop turning up at 3 a.m. with Tequila and nachos.
She could organize the pots and pans instead, and put all the forks facing in the right direction, and iron all the cloth napkins, and sort all the recyclable paper by size and color. She could keep busy, while Meredith argued with Dr. Shepherd, and Cristina clung to anyone awake in the middle of the night, and Alex ran, and lifted weights, and drank, and – she suspected – always put the cereal boxes in the wrong slots just to annoy her.
She was fine, too, she decided, and it just made sense, now, to stop off at an unfamiliar church in the middle of a summer day, and light a candle for Reed – the self-proclaimed Heathen Extraordinaire – and gaze up at the stained glass windows, like she had as a kid during Sunday School, back when she still believed in souls and angels and… all of it.
Izzie baked; Yang chugged; Mere screwed; April organized. They were all just different species of Chick crazy, he imagined, though he drew the line when she started arranging all the fruit according – he suspected - to their Latin scientific names. They were surgeons, not botanists, and the vitamin thing was total overkill, and curtains couldn't possibly need to be washed every week and all the recycling went in together just fine on the truck.
None of it mattered at work, though, and everyone was under-staffed, and Hunt was an ass but trauma was trauma, and he wasn't going to be the guy who shied away from the gun shot wounds and the stabbings and the car accidents that kept coming, and the Chief could think whatever he freaking wanted, but he wasn't afraid of elevators, either.
He wasn't, he made sure of that, and he wasn't one of those people who looked twice at supply closets, and his hands didn't shake – they could bring it on, the sirens and the screaming and the blood and the adrenaline rush and he wasn't going to be the one who ended up on the shrink's shit list, since he'd had enough of every body's crazy.
Meredith told it to Cristina straight the following month: She'd married Owen for better or worse. She hadn't added that she was half sure Owen was the worse – or that Derek's asinine speeding was giving Owen's idiocy a run for his money. She didn't need to add that the "worse" part could curl innocently in a test tube or a blood sample, or sprawl across building plans to a house that she might get lost in someday, like Ellis had.
She didn't add that marriage was forever, either, at least, not with Alex in ear shot, and she didn't add that forever could be shorter then she'd ever imagined, and she didn't add that buying a fire house when your own life had just gone up in flames was beyond dark and twisty, and she didn't add that Dr. Wyatt could probably help Alex with his on-going fear of elevators, and Cristina with her sudden fear of scalpels.
April didn't go to church anymore, hadn't since she was a kid, her occasional visits now – bordering on weekly – notwithstanding. It was as good an explanation as any for why she'd help to cause so much carnage: maybe God was mad at her. Maybe being a doctor wasn't enough, even if her parents were proud of her, and her sisters were finally jealous of her for a change, at least, until…until…until the frantic news reports.
She was doing great, though, she assured them: she lived in a beautiful old house now, with her new friends. She was too busy to return all their phone calls, but she thought of them always, she promised, and would be home for Christmas like always. She couldn't wait to sample her mother's pecan pie, like always, she insisted, and to go shopping with her sisters, like always, and to ice skate at the rink on 4th and Main, like always, and to go to their old high school's rivalry basketball game on the twenty second, like always.
She'd even send Reed's family a card, she assured her mother, and possibly a plant, and that whole conversation echoed in her ears as she joined them all for lunch again. She listened to them squabbling like she had with her sisters, until two pagers beeped; then listened to Meredith complain about how Cristina wouldn't go near an OR, and about how Alex was throwing himself into trauma to prove who knew what to who knew who, and about how her husband was obsessed with the relative merits of slate vs. granite tile.
Meredith never mentioned the baby she didn't have, and April noticed that that seemed to be how they all dealt – by grumbling about how everyone else dealt – so she just noted in passing that Cristina still ignored pages sometimes, too, and that Alex used to seem less jittery and stressed when he was on Peads instead, and that slate tile is lower maintenance then granite and that her husband had a display of kitchen cabinet fronts in his office, too.
He wonders why Bailey is still nagging at him - since he'd gotten rid of the freaking bullet months ago, and he imagines that maybe Hunt is just dogging him because he's pissed about Yang and he figures that people stare furtively at him while he works because they like blood and carnage and its all just medical rubber necking.
He forces himself to chart after his latest shift, runs his eyes over the procedures he did in the ER, before passing his latest patient along to Cardio. He reminds himself that that's what trauma is all about – quick assessments and stopping the bleeding and patching things up as best you could, by any means necessary – before the specialists come in to do the more intricate, but less hardcore, definitely less hardcore, surgeries that followed.
He answers his phone after his shift, and its become a running joke with him and Aaron, about the flesh wound he snagged in a hospital, and Amber has more teen age crap going on then he could possibly keep track of, and they all lie to his mother – as usual – since crazy is unpredictable and the pills are still working and that's all that matters.
The pills are still working, he reminds himself, exhaling slightly, since Bailey's hands still shake and Yang's wheels have come off completely and Mere's a mess over idiot McDreamy and the maybe baby and April spends hours scribbling chick crap into fancy spiral journals and he's starting to think crazy just comes with the X chromosome.
"Not those," Meredith corrected, a few weeks later, replacing one identical cereal box with another in the shopping cart while April looked at her, baffled. "That one has the toy truck," Meredith pointed out, indicating the colorful box now sitting in the cart with a brisk nod while moving on to the Produce section.
It was technically April's turn on the chore list, but they'd driven in together that morning, and Meredith wanted to pick up more Tequila for Cristina, anyway, since she was now seeing Wyatt daily, and was almost back in the OR, but was still married to Owen, and spreading free range angst through the house like a wild fire.
She added apples and bananas to the cart, too, because April has been after them for weeks to eat more fruit, but keept buying plums, which Alex hated, and pineapple, which Cristina scowled at, and kiwi, which – seriously, seriously? - and she rolled her eyes at the over stuffed display of home decorating magazines, sure that Derek would up-date her on the latest in dishwasher technology and shower heads the moment they got home.
She gets an e-mail from her youngest sister in mid October, while she's filling in the last of her charts for the afternoon. It's only been two months, but her sister already loves college, and has two or three new best friends, and has gone on a hay ride, and changed her major three times, and decided she's going to Paris in the spring of her junior year.
April just shakes her head, because she could have gone to Paris, too, or Spain, or even Iceland, if she hadn't been too scared to leave Ohio; she could have gone on hay rides, if she hadn't been too shy to make friends with any one but her lab partners; she could have considered different majors, if she hadn't been paranoid about getting into med school; she could have had a great time in college, if she hadn't been, well…her.
She's in the pit already when she's paged, along with the whole rest of the staff as far as she can tell, as an endless caravan of ambulances roll in, and she hears shouts and cries and muttering about an early ice storm and a fourteen car pile up on the freeway. Her first two patients are DOA, and she frantically follows Alex's vaguely panicked and clipped instructions as a twelve year old bleeds to death right under their fingers.
Gloves get changed, and a chaos of shouts and beeps and gurneys slamming and demands for more gauze surround her and they lose another patient but manage to salvage three more and she's still shaking behind the curtain nearly an hour later when she hears Dr. Hunt furiously chewing Alex out for using a ten gauge on a twelve year old, as if the boy hadn't already been too far gone before they'd ever extricated him from the car, as if they could have done anything more, or better, or different, as if a smaller needle could have penetrated so much swelling, as if they could've revived the dead, if they'd just picked a different entry way, or a smaller needle, or given him ten more cc's of potassium.
She drives home with him later that night, and she knows better then to say that Hunt was wrong, or that there was nothing else he could have done.
Two days later she wanders into the church she still visits, on any day but Sunday, and she knows better then to ask why – about the freak ice storm in October, about the twelve year old who never had a chance, about the people left behind – and she lights another candle as the afternoon sun filters silently in through the stained glass windows, and she reminds herself that her family is proud of her…for saving lives.
He needs beer. Screw the freaking chore wheel; it's been another week in Hunt's sights, and he needs beer. He tosses a twelve pack of Mer's yogurt in the grocery cart too, the kind with the stupid cows on the little plastic tubs, and cashews for Yang, since otherwise she'll leave a trail of pistachio shells behind her everywhere she goes, and a big box of laundry detergent because the chick offering sample packets can really work that skirt, and milk because April keeps bringing home boxes of Chocolate Sugar Pops, as if she's collecting every one of those little toy cars she leaves on the counter near the phone.
He grabs apples, too, while he's there, and tosses in a slab of Green Mint Ice Cream with Marshmallows, scowling at the carton with a grimace, and wondering vaguely if April checks her blood sugar after she devours it, since she's always fiddling with vitamin bottles and reading articles about nutrients and pointing out that French fries aren't vegetables, as if everyone they ate with didn't have a medical degree.
A bag of weeds went into the grocery bags too, along with some yellow stuff he'd seen her put in a salad once, and broccoli, because she talked about it like it was a miracle drug, and the paper towels with the bird houses, and the pink cup cakes at the register, because they weren't freaking rabbit food, and he drew the line completely at balsamic vinegar, because it was six bucks a bottle, and whatever you put on them, weeds were still weeds.
She'd trick or treated for ears once, the year that she brought her bag of mommy to the hospital, before washing Ellis down the scrub sink. It was the only trick or treating she remembered, and she imagined her own children – off in the dream house, miles and miles from the nearest neighborhood – and she almost envisioned them doing the same to her someday, washing her away, because she deprived them of a proper Halloween.
This occurs to her as she sorts through the cracked Christmas ornaments in the attic, and the broken lamps, and the old clothes, and the faded photos of relatives whose names she has already forgotten, and the antique dishes that had been her grandmothers.
"You should just get new stuff," Cristina announces matter-of-factly, surveying the stash with a scowl.
"Like the leather chairs," Meredith snickered, smirking as Cristina stuck her tongue out at her. They'd bought all new furniture, her and Owen, all new everything, and he'd insisted on two burnt orange recliners which looked vaguely like over stuffed pumpkins.
"We compromised," Cristina shrugged.
"I liked you better when you were impossible," Meredith muttered, because compromise and Cristina Yang never belonged in the same sentence, and she was back in the OR now, and still seeing Wyatt, and she was living full time at the fire house now, and it should all be falling into place. But there were still too many Tequila bottles in the recycling bin, and Cristina still wasn't a single minded Cardio Goddess, and Alex was still trying too hard to be something he wasn't, and the dream house was looming.
"Yeah," Cristina whispered reluctantly, as she poked through another box, "me, too."
April pulled the witches hat and cape off abruptly, ignoring Alex's expression as she dove back into her room. She hadn't expected anyone else to be home so early, hadn't expected anyone to see her in the hall way, and was sure they'd all hear about it, now.
She was dressing up his year, anyway, because she hadn't last year, because the kids coming to the door for the mountain of candy she'd bought would love it, because her younger sister had already been invited to two Halloween parties, and she was sure that her parents had already decked out their own home in full haunted mansion mode.
It had been awesome when she was eight, her parents' version of a haunted castle, complete with dry ice fog and spooky noises and giant spider webs galore; it had been mortifying when she was in high school, when basically everything embarrassed her; they swore she'd grow out of that someday; she was still waiting.
She was dressing up this year, though, because her and Reed had been invited to a party the year before, and she'd told Reed then that she had to work. She hadn't, but she'd been embarrassed by Reed's costume, and she knew Reed would get loud and rowdy at the party, and probably bring some guy home, and she knew that she'd have to talk to a bunch of new people that she'd probably never see again, anyway, and she knew, really, that she'd just stand there watching everyone else and hoping the party ended soon.
She'd dress up this year, though, and she laughed later that week, when her sister sent her a picture of her nieces in their costumes, and she called her parents to inquire about the haunted mansion – which really, was a town legend – and she flipped through a few old photos of her own, of her sisters gleefully preparing to go out trick or treating, while she hung back, sure that her hat wasn't pointy enough, or that her fangs weren't long enough, or that they'd all make fun of her.
She'd done enough of that though, she decided; she should have gone to the party with Reed, and they could all say what they wanted, but she was dressing up this year.
It was Bailey's favorite holiday; he remembered that from his intern years, her crowing happily as the annual chainsaw contest's competitors rolled into the ER. It was one of the busiest nights in the ER, too, and it pissed him off to no end that Hunt hadn't bothered to schedule him – again – during prime time.
Hunt was in on all that crap with Robbins, he imagined, about him going back to Peads; Hunt was in on it with Bailey, with the Chief, even, as if a few days hesitation with the elevators made him a freaking coward, as if he was some kind of freaking Dr. Seuss, as if he was all rainbows and fairy dust crap.
He pulls into the driveway later that afternoon, rolls his eyes at the cob webs and witches' cauldrons lining the walkway, and the sound activated Frankenstein that greets him at the front door, and pushes into his room, tossing his bag aside as he checks the clock for how long until Joe's will open. Not the best plan, he imagines, since he's just worked a sixteen hour shift, and he's not entirely sure all the cobwebs he saw downstairs were…there.
He imagines that the crazy roommate with the witch's outfit has something to do with it, and it reminds him about chicks and holidays and why he appreciates Mere's attitude towards them and his eyes are half shut as he sprawls across his bed when he notices the towering stack of clean laundry folded neatly on his dresser, and sorted – of course – by color and type – and he rolls his eyes again as he crawls off his bed and he's absolutely, positively not dressing up no matter what any of them say.
"Trick or treat?" Cristina snickered, watching Alex struggle to hang a giant, dangling purple spider from the porch roof, as Meredith followed her up the walkway.
"Creepy costume, Yang," he retorted, breathing heavily and awkwardly adjusting his footing as the spider rustled all around him, while Cristina scowled up at him.
"You're off tonight, too?" Meredith asked, studying his hands as he set the rope in place.
"Thanks to Hunt," he grumbled, yanking the twine to make sure it held.
"He thinks you're a hack," Cristina pointed out, scanning the porch. "Is there candy?"
"Buckets of it," Meredith assured her, pointing her in the general direction of the roaring Frankenstein lurking in the entry foyer.
"He's an ass," Alex muttered, climbing down from the ladder and checking out his work.
"Have you talked to Bailey?" she asked quietly. He had to eventually, she was sure, because he never had these problems in peads, and they'd be applying for fellowships soon, and everyone but him knew he was in the wrong field, and she was sick of not recognizing her family members, and really, he was hanging up a giant fuzzy spider on Halloween afternoon, which wasn't rainbows and fairy dust, but still…seriously?
"No," he said hesitantly, in a way that sounded much more like "not yet," and she knew better then to push the matter any further, and she knew it would be a few more weeks before he could make enough of a mess on Owen's service that he'd have no choice but to move back to Robbins, and she knew that there was no easier way, or at least, no better ego sparing way, and she wondered sometimes how the Y chromosome survived long enough to replicate itself, considering how freaking stubborn and unreasonable it was.
"Giant fuzzy Spiders?" she teased, almost giggling as his face reddened. "Was that on the chore wheel?"
"Shut up," he grumbled, grabbing the ladder and following her into the house.
"This is stupid," Cristina insisted two weeks later, waving a chip at the television. It was 3 a.m. again, and Mer and McDreamy were upstairs "trying" again, and it was Nachos and Tequila on the couch again, while endless sports news flickered in the darkness.
"Why are you here again?" Alex grumbled, grabbing a nacho and sinking back into his seat.
"Because you're so charming," Cristina snickered. "And I'm celebrating," she added smugly, swigging directly from her Tequila bottle. "I aced that valve replacement," she announced grandly, as if she'd just won a Harper Avery.
It had been her first solo surgery, since she'd been cleared; her first high risk procedure, since she'd… since she'd… since she'd finally forced her hands to steady. Not that Mama Hunt would care about that, she was sure; not that she'd care about anything but how the fire house was decorated, and how her and Owen would celebrate the holidays, as if she gave a crap about Christmas or Hanukah or whatever the hell else they called it – the end of year excuse to over eat and over drink and generally make a fool of yourself.
"Owen still thinks you're a hack," she added.
"He's an ass," Alex snorted, grabbing another chip and tossing her the remote. It'd taken a few weeks, but he'd finally worn Hunt down, pissed him off terminally, drove him bug eyed and fuming as he demanded that the Chief himself remove Alex from his service. It'd been worth it, worth every second, just to see Hunt crack first.
"He's a bad ass trauma surgeon," Cristina corrected, eying Alex dismissively. "You're the stork."
"If he's so bad ass, why are you here?" Alex taunted, rolling his eyes. It wasn't actually a question; they'd had this exchange before, over pizza once, when the Nacho place closed early; over turkey subs once, a few weeks back; even over hot dogs the week before, when an ill advised re-heating experiment left the microwave coated with salsa.
"I thought he'd bail," Cristina said quietly, after a long silence. "That's what guys do, right?" she snorted bitterly. She wasn't sure really, if she'd expected that, or simply wanted it; she wasn't sure about a lot of things these days.
Alex smirked at her, sipping his beer. He could have pointed out that she'd run away again, that her husband was probably wondering where she was, and what had happened to her, and what the hell he'd done wrong this time; but then there'd be snarking about Izzie, and taunts about tuxes, and reminders that he'd been shot and damn near died, and his ex-whatever still hadn't even called.
"Right," Alex retorted, glaring back at the television.
"Why is he still here?" she demanded, and she wasn't sure, entirely, if she was shocked that he'd stayed, or angry that he'd proposed, or flat pissed that she'd agreed, or terrified about the fire house, or regretful about it all, or if the Nachos just weren't agreeing with her that night, or if maybe they were interfering with her Tequila absorption.
"Dude asked you to marry him," he retorted, rolling his eyes. "Where else would he be?"
"Sometimes they don't mean it," she snapped, angrily grabbing the bottle again.
"Burke didn't," she muttered fiercely, after a stony silence. The name burned her tongue, still, and she reminded herself fiercely that she hadn't needed him, that she hadn't needed any man, that she didn't need Owen, that she wasn't one of those pathetic women who went weak in the knees when a guy with a few too many beers in him started babbling about wanting forty years – as if he even knew he had that many years to promise.
"He wouldn't have asked if he didn't," Alex grumbled back, and he didn't specify which "he" he meant and he just glared back at the television again.
She continued to drink in silence, and chomped furiously on another round of Nachos, and restlessly fingered the remote, rolling her eyes when a familiar ruckus erupted from upstairs. "Those two should get a room," she snickered, clutching her bottle tightly as she sank further into the couch, raising her eyebrows toward Meredith and Derek's bedroom.
"Tell me about it," he grumbled, blinking and working to stay awake as he gazed bleary eyed at the television.
"You don't have to baby sit me, you know," she snapped, almost slurring as the Tequila finally started to percolate through her veins, with a familiar warm burn. "Unless you're like, practicing for your new "specialty" or something," she snorted sarcastically.
"Shut up," he muttered, closing his eyes briefly as he leaned back into the seat cushion.
"I'm glad you didn't die," she said quietly, fingering her drink as she gazed absently at the floor, glassy eyed and definitely feeling the warm burn now.
"Huh?" he said sleepily, glancing up, puzzled.
"I mean, for Mer's sake," she added quickly. "You're still a hack."
"Crack whore," he mumbled, sinking further back into the couch.
"Oh, yeah," she agreed, nodding smugly and finishing off her bottle in one huge gulp.
She missed fall in Ohio, missed the golden orange leaves, and the crisp, clear evenings, free of Seattle's drab mists and grey drizzles, and she wondered what her family was doing for Thanksgiving, since she spent the day in the Pit, listening to Hunt yelling at Alex again, while Alex just growled and grumbled and tuned him out entirely.
She could have mentioned that he always seemed to get along better with Dr. Robbins, and even Bailey, and that he always just seemed happier in peds – well, as happy as Alex could get, anyway – but she was drifting herself, behind in Neuro, struggling in Cardio, repelled by Plastics, or maybe just by Sloan, and just not fitting anywhere, as usual.
She could ignore his latest page, tell him she's just had it with the Pit, too, as an over-worked ER nurse hands her a scan and asks for confirmation of a diagnosis and trails her to the OR, where Shadow Shepherd lets her first assist on an aneurysm, and Shadow Shepherd doesn't intimidate the hell out of her, and he praises her deft movements, and she watches the intricate web of blood vessels settle back into place, and she remembers why she wanted to go Neuro in the first place.
She could thank Alex for sending her the case later, she imagines, since she'd been complaining for weeks at lunch, and she was sure he had a hand in it. But that's really not him, even on Thanksgiving, and he's fine with re-heated Turkey and football replays after work, and she hadn't been sure, anyway, to be thankful this year – since it wasn't her, or to feel guilty, because it had been Reed instead.
Reed was never one for guilt, though, and she wasn't much for flowery words, either, and thanks could come in many forms – she'd seen that on Oprah once, too – and she settled on tickets to a basketball game, instead.
He'd never trusted Hunt, anyway, he reminded himself; not that he trusted Robbins either, he'd never trust terminally perky, anymore then he'd trust terminally ticked off Hunt. But at least Robbins didn't hover, not over the actual surgeries, anyway, and she could squawk all she wanted about the idiot parents, but they weren't his patients, and the freaking scrub nurses could ooh and aah at him all they wanted when he scooped up his latest preemie, but working with tiny blood vessels was way more hard core then patching and duct taping and calling in the real specialists, like Hunt did.
Bailey could chortle, too, for all he cared, because she was another X chromosome, under the Nazi exterior, and they all had their issues, and he just gnawed on his pop corn at the basketball game the following week, while April screamed her head off like a raving loon, and vegetables and vitamins inexplicably gave way to cotton candy and hotdogs, and he reminded himself never to trust a chick jumping madly up out of her seat with every basket and waving a giant foam finger around, either.