TITLE: Burning Sky
AUTHOR: Lora Perry
RATING: R, M
WARNING: Swearing. Lots of swearing. Did I mention swearing?
PARINGS: blink it, you'll miss it Addison/Alex
DISCLAIMER: Don't own! Don't sue!
WORD COUNT: 2,117
SUMMARY: Alex always got off so lucky. It was offseason, or his dad was unable to stand, or Meredith was really good at CPR. He's wondering when his luck is just going to run out.
When he was little, Alex has a doctor named Mr. Onser. He, being a doctor and of higher learning than Alex, never really grasped the idea that his numerous bruises and assorted scraps over the years weren't always straight out of the "boys will be boys" mantra he proudly said with every visit. Even Alex at the tender age of 6, was able to grasp that sometimes, daddies weren't supposed to do was his daddy would do. Even Alex, with the blonde hair that more often than not was in his eyes, knew that what daddy drank sometimes was not water, or orange juice. Even Alex, who his mother always told teachers had some "discipline" problems, knew that things at home just were never quite right.
His doctor, the great Mr. Onser, (Mr., not Dr., so the kids wouldn't be afraid. Alex thought that was total bull shit. He still gave out shots. It wasn't the name the freaked the kids out asshole, it was the needles) was an idiot at best. Young Alex never really figured out how the man had achieved his medical degree, but he figures it's because by the time he got to experience the wonder of having him as a doctor, the man was old enough to actually have created medicine. That was always Mr. Onser's problem when Alex was young. He always believed so fully in the way things had been when he, himself, was young. When rainbows and butterflies and cowboys all got together and had high tea. There was no room in the great Mr. Onser's mind for the idea that a father would deliberately smack his six year old son hard enough across the face to leave a bruise. He'd always give such a smile to his mother and say "oh, don't you worry Mrs. Karev. Sometimes boys will be boys. They get into tuffles. Isn't that right, young
Alex?" He'd always ruffle Alex's hair at the point, and try to pull off a Santa Clause laugh, which never really ended up working in his favor.
It's Dr. Onser, who later, is more docile when he talks to Alex in slow murmurs about his test results. He doesn't mention the "boys will be boys" when he tells Alex, at the ripe age of 17 that the blood in his semen isn't some nasty version of The Clap that the whore Vanessa gave him. The dull ache in his groin for the past week isn't indigestion.
"Alex." He says, and really at this point, Alex is fucked as shit scared. Because this guy is supposed to be warning him against unprotected sex and have a stern lecture face on. This guy should no way in hell have a look of pure sympathy and pity on his face. No fuckin' way.
"Alex." He sighs again. Like this is all his burden to bear, like it's not 17 year old Alex, wrestling star and ladies man's burden. Alex just really wishes he would try to make the Santa Clause laugh, cause that would be so fuckin' sweet at this point.
"I'm sorry Alex. Your test results show testicular cancer." Alex is mute as a horse for what seems like hours. Dr. or Mr. Onser, Alex really doesn't give a flying shit anymore, continues on, talking about amazing advances in technology and how it has a 95 cure rate, and how lucky they are that they caught it so early. Alex's hearing is going in and out in inverse synchrony to his vision; he can see clearly and not hear a thing. He can hear the doctor going on, but he can't see the old man's white beard. His whole entire body is so fucked up scared at this point that it can't even get its shit together.
Alex would really, really like it, if the great Mr. Onser would just say "boys will be boys" and smile, and leave, and this can all just be a lie.
Lucky for Alex, it is offseason. He goes through all the shit he has to go through, has poison injected into his veins and all the fuckin' jazz. By the time senior year wrestling comes around he's almost a hundred percent. He wows the scouts from all over the nation, and even gets their heartstrings tugged by his tale of being a cancer survivor. He signs his letter of intent with only his coach in the background. His mom is too far gone these days to care. His dad never cared.
For the next years at college and then Med School, Alex doesn't think of Dr. Onser. Well, once or twice when he sees needles up close and personal, but those are in-between times. He thinks about the cancer scare his freshman year of Med, and how it fucked him over until the test results came back clean. He almost drove the entire way home just so Dr. Onser could be the one to tell him the cancer was back. But there wasn't time. And it wasn't needed. Alex was fine. Alex was in remission. And Alex would stay in remission so help him God.
After he graduates from the Medical School he makes a pit stop in his home town before heading out to Seattle for the next three or four years. He stops by the old high school and hugs his coach, thanks him for more than he can express. His old coach's eyes are soft and wet and filled with untold emotion when he tells Alex, who's no longer a boy just how proud he is of him. Alex laughs and hugs the man who was more of a father than the one who he's actually got.
When he stops in the general store off of Main Street for gas and a water he sees Nora Onser, Dr. Onser's daughter headed down to the used book store. He runs to catch her and she hugs him in surprise. She teases him, asking where the small Alex her father used to stitch up after playground fights had gone. When Alex asks, though, where her father is, her smile falters and her eyes grow dim. She says, platonically, as if to express any true emotion would be too much, that he passed away the spring beforehand. That he has passed away in his rocking chair by the window near the old baseball field where he could always watch the home grown boys play on Friday nights. "Boys will be boys, Alex." Her smile is pained, and he knows that the pain she is feeling will never fade, will never stop. "Boys will be boys."
The fuzzy feeling is the first thing that Alex notices when he wakes up. That and the somewhat damaging, confusing thought of why that dear old Dr. Onser is not here with him, waiting for him to wake up after a round of Chemo. Before his thoughts can get un-jumbled, and he can realize just where he is, and who he is, and why he is where he is, Izzie and Bailey walk through the door.
Oh.
He's forgotten. He's not 17 with a fucked up home life and his "chemo buddy" his old doc. He's 28. He's the bad ass doctor with no soul. He'd be Satan if the girl with the
red hair and his heart hadn't already taken that name from him. He's Dr. Karev, the man with no friends, and who, he can faintly remember, no blood. He recalls throwing it all up.
"Hey." Izzie tentatively sits down on the edge of his bed, as if too much vibration would break him. Oh. Hospital. He notices the IV, the blood being infused (figures, he only puked out half of his supply), the heart monitor.
"Hey." His voice comes out hoarse, like used sand paper. He's still confused, but coming around. "What happened?"
Izzie quirks an eyebrow at him as Bailey murmurs in the background of never taking on Interns ever again. Neither he nor Izzie comment on the fact that they are no longer her inters. It's less freighting this way. "You don't remember what happened?"
"I remember the blood." At the Bailey throws up her hands.
"You. You, stupid stupid man! Did you not think that blood being thrown up was a bad thing!? You are a doctor. Is it normal, Dr. Karev, for an otherwise healthy man to be throwing up blood?" She sighs, more frustrated at the sight of one of her inters being rolled in on a gurney than angry. "My god, do you not think!" Done with her tirade, done with trying to pretend like these people have not completely and utterly been infused into her life and body, she looks down at him. Her face softens. Her hands, which just moments before had been flailing, come to rest on his needle free arm. "You, Dr. Karev, need to stop, and listen to your body once in a while. No more of this throwing up blood on the floor of Grey's bathroom. You hear me?"
He nods. Izzie sighs, and scrubs her face with her hands. She, Alex notes, probably looks worse than he does, all red eyes and exhaustion.
"You had an ulcer Alex: a gastric ulcer." His eyebrows flare at that diagnosis. Out of all the possible things he expected to come out of lying on the bathroom floor, this was most defiantly not one of them. For one crazy moment, his doctoring left him and he thought that this was the cancer again, coming back to bite him in the ass for being such a dick to women.
"But, I mean, the blood. I know that some Hematemesis is common with ulcers, but not the amount that was happening."
"But when you factor in a GI bleed, the blood is all accounted for. We think the ulcer caused the bleed, and that the ulcer was caused by H. pylori and stress."
Alex snorts at the last bit. "Stress, Iz? You gonna believe that old wives tale?"
She laughs gently at him; clearly seeing through what he thought was an iron clad façade. "Get some rest, Alex. You're gonna have a lot of visitors later. And probably a stern talking to from Meredith about devising an easier way to make her clean the bathrooms." She gently kisses his forehead, touches his hand for a second before standing. She checks the IV bags, glances at the monitors before heading for the exit. She winks before leaving, closing the door behind her.
"Alex?" Bailey hasn't left yet, and he guiltily comes to the conclusion that he forgot about her while he bantered with Izzie. "I'll let you get some rest, but there's probably something that you want to know. I checked with your GP and he's confirmed what I believed. You're still in beautiful remission. This is in no way connected. You'll be okay. This isn't a relapse. You'll be okay."
Alex only lets his eyes water a small fraction in gratitude. He nods at her, and she nods back in understanding. He can deal with an ulcer, and a GI bleed and being on PPIs for the next few days. He'll deal with Bambi and Lexi and Izzie. He'll deal with Meredith's doe eyes and self pity party when she comes to complain about the state her bathroom is in, if only to masquerade her appreciation that he's okay and to protect him from understand of just how fucked up it was to see him like that on the floor.
But he knows that he wouldn't have been able to deal with the cancer again, if he had had to fight another battle alone. He wouldn't do it without Mr. Onser with the bad imitation Santa Clause laugh and the mantra that rings through Alex's head as he drifts back off into a medicated sleep.
Boys will be Boys.