Nine Lives
Alex Karev rolled smoothly out of the bed, expertly gathering his clothes without making a sound. The pale moonlight streaming into the hotel room provided all the light that he needed, and he dressed quickly, glancing at the small clock glowing on the nightstand. It read three-thirteen, plenty of time for him to get to the hospital and shower before 5 am rounds. He glanced at her as he pulled on his jacket, but her back was to him, her auburn hair spilling across the stiff white sheets as she slept.
It started with an S he thought, the name she'd given him a few hours before, Stacey, maybe, or Sharon. Not that it mattered much. They never used their real names, these girls; he didn't blame them. He'd already paid her the night before, but she'd been good, given him exactly what he'd asked for. She was quick, efficient, precise, and neat, very neat; he liked that. In a different lifetime, she'd have made a good surgical tech. He tossed an extra twenty on the nightstand beside her and left the room silently, softly closing the door behind him.
Twenty minutes later he swung through the doors of Seattle Grace, passing the Nurses station as he hurried up to the Residents lounge. He recognized one or two of them, vaguely, but the only one he really knew was Olivia, and she was busy. She was good, too, fun, easy, simple. She understood the game, that nurses scoring surgeons for real was a rare coup. She never expected anything more than sex, never even seemed interested in anything more. He appreciated that about her, that it could just be fun, and that it didn't have to mean anything. But she was too much a part of the nurses' network, and not nearly anonymous or discreet enough; the last thing he wanted now was more gossip.
But she'd been way better than Lexi, who didn't get it at all, even after he'd told her all she needed to know. He'd forgotten about it, really, and that seemed to bother her even more. He'd have thought that she'd be happy to forget about it. Girls like her, they didn't usually do casual; and when they did, they usually regretted it. All he did was tell the truth. She'd never admit to anyone, not even to herself, that her legs were still shaking the day after, and that she felt that way still, whenever she was within thirty feet of him.
He'd warned her, but they'd still say that it was his fault, as if it wasn't her idea in the first place. They'd say he was abusing his position as a Resident, as if anything would have stopped Lexi from getting what she wanted from him. As if even she'd thought she wanted anything else from him than what she took, willingly, as he recalled. They'd say the same thing about him and Olivia, as if Olivia was innocence personified. They'd say he was a pig, for the hooker thing, and a pathetic pig at that. But he paid up, and she was
making a living, and there were no damn victims in any of it.
He climbed the stairs two by two, avoiding any unfortunate elevator encounters. She'd be looking for him; he hadn't been home since Ava had been taken away, two days before. He rounded a familiar corner, ignoring the NICU signs and the Say No to Drugs posters. That was his fault, too. Addison Montgomery was still dearly missed, and people had their suspicions about his role in her abrupt departure.
They'd say he had taken advantage of her, even though she kissed him first. They'd say he was just using her, even if the angry nails that dug into his back had more to do with the husband she was trying to love but couldn't, and the husband's best friend, who she was trying not to love, but did. They'd say he was just after her because she was hot, and that he was abusing her raw need for sex, for passion, for being wanted by someone, as if it wasn't obvious to anyone with half a brain that that was all she'd ever want from a guy like him. She'd practically said so herself.
She'd married her prince, but fell for his knight; she'd watched her prince ride off, building a new castle in someone else's sky, while she fantasized about a man who the beloved knight could never be. That was Alex' fault too, apparently, that she'd fallen for a fantasy, and ran off to LA - the epicenter of make believe - in search of the real thing.
He was just in time for rounds, only two minutes late after his shower: not enough time to really piss off the Attendings, but enough to avoid her awkward inquiries. Fourteen hours later, he lay face down on a gurney, his head resting lightly on his arms. It had been months since any of them had gone down to the tunnels, and it was always peaceful there at night, quiet, cool, still. He'd already started to doze off, when he felt her hand on his shoulder. The hallway was eerily quiet; he was surprised he hadn't heard her coming.
She said nothing, she knew better, and he tried harder to steady his breathing. It scared him, almost, that she knew better than to say anything. It bothered him even more that she just sat there, her hand tracing a deliberate pattern around his left shoulder blade. He had never told her, and she'd never asked, and she never would ask. She just knew that that was where the stress in his body settled whenever he was upset; just like she knew how to gauge his mood by how knotted those particular muscles were. He heard her sighing softly, and almost chuckled as he realized that full blown Izzie had arrived.
She'd think she understood. She'd think this was like her and Denny, the fantasy she'd mourned for almost a year now. She'd think this was like her lost love, an epic love she'd discovered in two weeks, for a dying man she'd never even seen outside the hospital, for an hours long engagement and a future that could never have been. He could never have tolerated the sighing if it weren't Izzie's, and if he hadn't recognized it for what it was: It was her own private grief; it had nothing to do with him, or Ava. And she knew, already, must have known, that he didn't love Ava; she'd all but said so.
They'd say otherwise. They'd say he had taken advantage of Ava, too, that he was using her. They'd say he'd chosen her face, and her name, and made her into some perverse image of his ideal woman. They'd say he'd committed the cardinal sin, like Izzie had, of falling in love with a patient. They'd say this even though she pursued him, even though she'd been running headlong from her previous life when the accident had stopped her cold. They'd say this even though he knew better than to love anybody, and had already – almost – told Ava that, the night she'd asked him what had happened to him.
Alex knew all about love. His mother told him, when he was a child, that his father loved her, even when he was beating her. So he knew that love was blood, and bruises, and screaming. She told him that his father loved him, too; so love meant fear, and broken bones, and shame, and a rage that damn near boiled him alive. His sister was like his mother; she told him she loved them all the night she disappeared. He never blamed her for taking off; he never even blamed her for leaving him behind. He was older then, almost twelve, old enough to understand that love meant you were always on your own.
But this thing with Ava, this wasn't about love; this was about need. He was her ticket out, her escape from a life she hated. She'd never love him, any more than anyone else ever would; Izze had told him that herself, the night she'd dumped him for a ghost. Ava would never love him, but she was pregnant. She'd need him, and need was nothing like love; it was sturdy, dependable, much less fickle. His daughter would need him, too.
He winced at that, a little. He'd be a lousy father, he'd thought initially. But at least he could protect her. He'd been too young, too weak, too small to protect his sister, or his mother, but he wasn't now. Even if he was a terrible father, he could at least protect her, he could make a little something out of nothing. He could protect her from everything except the truth, that she didn't exist, that she never had, and never would.
It annoyed him that he still thought of her as a she. He and Ava discussed names once, briefly, between her bouts of vomiting. They were both sure the baby would be a girl, and Ava wanted to name her Jenna. He'd suggested Holly instead, a name he told her he just liked. His sister called her favorite doll that when she was a child. His mother had thrown it out two weeks after she disappeared, the day the cops officially declared her a runaway. He liked the name anyway.
But they needed no name, and he held Ava as she sobbed, grieving a life that never was, apologizing to him for losing a future he could never really imagine, anyway. They'd say this was his fault, too, that his failures drove her to suicide. He'd wondered himself, once, if fate hadn't been trying to do her a favor, with the accident, and that maybe he'd interfered with that, and that maybe fate had returned to settle the score. But that was nonsense, just like Izzie sometimes thinking he'd ever loved Ava was nonsense. Fate didn't do favors, any more than love did.
But that was Izze, who now lay beside him on the gurney, sleeping quietly. He gazed at her a long while, gently brushing blonde curls from her face, lightly stroking the soft skin of her arms. She'd always thought he'd been attracted to her because she was beautiful, and he knew that she hated that. They'd say he was shallow, and superficial, and so predictable, going for the hot blonde. The truth was, he loved that Izzie, but not as much as he loved trailer park Izzie, and Betty Crocker Izzie, and cake-has-no-calories-if no-one-sees-me-eat-it-Izzie.
He'd never know how that happened, and he hoped he could make it stop. He could – and would – protect her from anything – except maybe from himself. And he knew what was coming: Weeks of shy smiles and sweet gestures; weeks of maniacal baking and a mountain of chocolate chip cookies. She made those for him whenever she thought he was upset, whether he said anything or not, whether she'd even seen him that day, because she thought they were his favorites. They weren't, really. But he liked that she made them for him because she thought they were, almost as much as it scared him that she always knew just when to do it.
Glancing at his watch, he swung his legs off the gurney, careful not to wake her as he rose. He watched her silently, studying her face before tucking a light blanket around her. He returned to the Residents lounge, changing quickly and pursuing his lips as he pulled his wallet out of his jacket and rifled through it. Stacey, or Sharon, or whoever she was, wasn't expensive, but it was still two days before pay day, and he wasn't about to blow all his beer money on her. He pulled his pager from the top shelf of his locker, distracted by the puff of white fuzz in the far left corner. He'd forgotten the small white teddy bear that he gotten for Hol… for the baby, before… well, a lifetime ago. He glanced at it briefly before tossing it in the trash bin and setting off for Joe's bar, the lounge door closing quietly behind him.