Surgeons must be very careful when they take the knife! Underneath their fine incisions stirs the culprit – Life! - Emily Dickinson
He pushes through the crowd assembled in the ambulance bay jamming his hands into his pockets as he reaches the front of the cluster of people. The fifth-year residents file slowly, ominously out of the bus dispatched to bring them back to Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital in a single file line, and he ignores the pointed looks tossed between the other surgical attendings as they grumble fearful words under their breath.
The line of residents – the five that managed to survive the last five years – offer their superiors, their mentors unreadable expressions, and he suddenly feels sick with fear because there is no way all of them pulled a Kepner. This hospital may no longer be number one but its surgical program is still in the top ten and—
The wide grins on the faces of the surgical residents betray their life the words 'we passed!' fall from their lips in a simultaneously shout of excitement. He sighs in relief joining the other attendings and the chief in a big round of applause; he sighs in worry because he already falls for the tears and doesn't need her having this skill in her arsenal. And then he offers a wide, lopsided grin when she smiles brightly at him, when she temps forward to meet him as the rest of her class scatters towards their mentors.
He can feel Callie breathing down his neck as he reaches her, as he curls his hand around her waist and pulls her aside before the ortho posse – or, whatever it is she and Callie are calling themselves these days – can monopolize the celebration of her accomplishment. And he suddenly feels hot as she curls her hands around his left bicep, as her lips skim across his cheek; the frigid night air doing nothing to alleviate the heat creeping up his neck as his fingers brush against the small, velvet box in the pocket of his monogrammed winter coat.
"Alex! No need to go all caveman on me," she informs him as he pulls he towards the open doors of the bus, as he pulls her away from the group so he can have a moment alone with her. "It's only been t—"
She cuts herself off as he sinks down onto one knee. Her mouth snapping shut as he stands again and then moves to bend down on the other knee; her mouth falling open as an 'oh my god' or two falls from her lips as he cracks open the small, velvet box. He watches her eyes widen with surprise sending a cold shiver running down his spin – one that makes him wonder how she can stand to wear a short, sleeveless dress – only to be chased away by a creeping fever as a smile tugs on her lips.
"Josephine Wilson, love of my life, please, please, please be crazy enough to marry me and bare the possibly evil spawn of—"
"No freakin' way," Alex interrupts harshly before taking a long drink from the beer bottle in his right hand. His response causes Meredith to laugh, to look over her shoulder and offer Cristina a smirk before turning to rummaging through the cabinets in her former house once more.
"Not enough pleases in there?" Cristina questions with false chagrin. "Or, was it the bit about Wilson passing her boards?"
"Shut up," Alex snaps slamming his now empty beer bottle onto the counter. The harsh reaction causes Cristina's eyebrows to raise and her eyes to dart towards Meredith in a pointed look. "She's gonna pass."
"Well," Cristina offers in appeasement as she slides from the barstool at the counter beside Alex and joins Meredith in her search through the cabinets, "after a year of living with you two, I can attest she has no virginity to lose and then freak out over."
"Seriously, Alex," Meredith interjects into the conversation jumping in to redirect the conversation just like she does several times a day when Bailey and Zola quibble as she slams another cabinet door shut. She turns to lean against the cabinet pausing just long enough to glance into the unfortunately empty cookie jar. "How do you not have any alcohol in this house?"
"There's beer in the fridge," he informs her sliding off the stool and heading towards the fridge in order to demonstrate. Yanking open the door, he points the assorted bottled brands either still in a six pack on the shelf or jumbled as singles amongst the ketchup and other condiments.
"Doesn't Sleepy or Bashful or whatever her name was live her?" Cristina questions as she opens one of the lower cabinets. She pushes aside a box of popcorn and a few packets of ramen with a sigh. "She has to have something stronger than beer stashed around here."
"Steph moved out like two years ago," Alex corrects as he pops off the top of another beer bottle and kicks the fridge door shut with his foot. He takes a swig as he slides back onto the stool he recently vacated setting the bottle down on the counter only after he glances up to see Meredith and Cristina looking at him expectantly.
"What? Jo and I like beer. Besides, I thought the Twisted Sisters were off tequila. Mer's got her clinical trial and her kids. Cristina's got a Harper Avery."
Meredith and Cristina snort in equal parts derision and laughter before Meredith reminds him that, one, Bailey and Zola are camping with Derek tonight and, two, this is Cristina's first visit to Seattle in a long, long time. It's only fitting they celebrate with a shot of tequila or two.
"Zurich has amazing chocolate, but its tequila is—" Cristina adds with a grimace, and Meredith throws Alex a pointed look as though he should have known before refusing to go out to Joe's with them tonight. He shrugs his shoulders reminding them both that they know where the liquor store is. Neither woman has to be told twice; Meredith and Cristina both reaching to snatch Meredith's keys off the counter.
Alex takes another drink from his beer bottle as the reunited Twisted Sisters file out of the house, and he waits for the slam of the glass front door before setting aside his beer and sliding off the stool one more time. He kicks one of the throw pillows left tossed on the floor back onto the gray couch as he makes his way through the living room towards the stairs and then quickly rushes up the stairs before slowing as he makes his way towards the bedroom door left ajar.
He pauses in the doorway of the bedroom when he spots her seated on the bed with her legs crossed and her back to the door intently studying something in her lap. His eyes travel appreciatively down the curve of her body to stare at the patch of skin peeking out from above the waistband of her dark wash jeans, but his head cocks to the side – a grimace twisting his features – when she leans forward to reach for something near the pillows stacked against the wall and her shirt rises up to expose a mess of nasty, red welts doting her spine.
"Hey," he interrupts softly, although she still jumps slightly at the unexpected intrusion. But she turns to glance at him over her shoulder offering him a brilliant smile before dropping her ear to neck in an attempt to scratch her back.
"Hey," she replies sitting aside her flashcards and shifting her position on the bed to look at him. "Did Meredith and Cristina go? I thought I heard the front door slam."
"Yeah," he informs her leaning up against the wall nearest the door frame rather than crossing the room to sit on the king-sized bed beside her. "They weren't interested in beer and decided to go pick up some tequila."
"Ah," she replies with a knowing look, although she's pretty sure he hasn't told her half of the stuff those two – and him, by extension – got into when they opened up a bottle of tequila during their years as surgical residents. She reaches behind her ruthlessly digging her sharp nails into her back through the fabric of her gray t-shirt, and he pushes himself away from the door frame in response bypassing her position on the bed and heading straight for the bedroom.
The medicine cabinet audibly clicks when he opens it and then clicks again when he slams it shut behind him as he stalks back into the bedroom. The bed dips as he takes a seat beside her, and she reaches out to steady the pile of flashcards, notebooks, and medical textbooks arranged around her in order to keep her materials from cascading into a mess on the floor.
"Take your shirt off," he instructs flipping open the dark pink cap of the light pink bottle in his hand and squirting some of the pale pink liquid into the palm of his hand.
"You could at least offer me a shot of tequila or, better yet, a beer," she teases lightly before reaching for the hem of her shirt and tugging it in one swift movement of her head. His silence says more than an audible gasp or words could convey, and she reaches behind once more to scratch at the patch of hives just above the waistband of her jeans. "That bad, huh?"
"California and Hawaii are becoming Republican strongholds," he jokes as he bats her hand away from her back and begins to slowly, gently rub the calamine lotion across the reddest parts of her back. She sighs contently leaning into his ministrations and reaching up to sweep the curly tail of her brunette ponytail out of his way.
"You have nothing to worry about," he reminds her after a long pause where the only sound is of his hand softly gliding across the red, angry skin of her lower back. "You're going to pass your boards. You're already a kick ass surgeon."
"You think so?" She questions in a teasing tone, although he can pick up on the slight hint of uncertainty in her voice. Five years later, she's still a little cagey about compliments and people helping her out but she – they are working on it, and he gently squeezes her side just above her hip before raising his voice to a gruffer, more demanding tone.
"Bra off, Princess."
"Okay, now you really need to buy me a drink," Jo informs him with a laugh before reaching behind her to unclasp her bra with one hand. She catches the black, lacy cups before they fall to her lap holding them against her chest with one arm as she leans forward to flip over the next flashcard in her stack.
"You know you can come downstairs and hang out with Yang, Mer, and I," he reminds her pointedly because he doesn't want her hiding out in their bedroom feeling sidelined, doesn't want another argument when he thought they laid this particular issue to rest years ago.
"I know," she replies confidently as Alex's hand slides towards her right shoulder blade and a portion of hives that, if he squints hard enough, look remarkably like Cape Cod and the islands of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. He squirts another glob of calamine lotion into his palm and then slathers it across Jo's back where her bra strap has aggravated the outbreak of hives. "But I need to study. If I fail my boards—"
"Shut up," he interrupts sharply, gruffly. "You're not going to fail your boards. You had an awesome teacher who spent way too much time showing you how to do cool surgeries in a bag and how to fix tiny little humans for you to fail."
"Hey," Jo rebukes sliding her arm backwards to elbow him in the stomach – an effort that earns her a gratifying 'oomph' of discomfort from him.
"Don't discount cool surgeries like a labral repair or a vertical expandable prosthetic titanium rib procedure or getting to hammer pins into the tibial plateau," Jo adds with a grin and sigh reminiscent of one that escapes as a sign of infatuation.
He hums noncommittally in response as he slathers the lotion of the few remaining spots on her bare back, and she sighs again in reply because ninety percent of her is hiding out upstairs so she can get in some last minute cramming, five percent so he can have time with his closest friends without the girlfriend tagging along, and the final five percent because she doesn't want to spend the rest of the night getting grilled by Doctor Grey or Doctor Yang on what specialty she's picked for her fellowship – ortho or peds.
The jingle of bells against the bedroom as it pushed open widen enough to allow both Meredith and Cristina to peer in on them causes Jo to push the cups of her bra tighter against her breasts, and Alex's twists around to glare at the Twisted Sisters for their intrusion. Meredith holds up the bottle of tequila in apology as the bells wrapped around the doorknob to announce her late night visits without giving the occupants of the house a heart attack continue to clang against the wooden door.
"Jeez, Hairball, what kind of new STD did Evil Spawn give you?" Cristina asks with an evident look of disgust on her face and even more prominent tone of abhorrence in her voice. She grimaces before stepping forward to get a closer look, but Meredith's hand reaches out to pull her back and Alex's glare keeps her rooted in spot just inside the doorway.
"Haha, very funny," Alex sarcastically replies before snarling sharply for them to get out. And Meredith tugs Cristina out of the room whilst mumbling to her best friend that Alex and Jo have rules about unannounced visitors in their bedroom. He wait until he hears their footsteps on the stairs before turning his attention back to Jo, before wiping the last of the calamine lotion on her back, before helping her adjust the straps of her bra as she hooks the clasps again.
"Sure you don't want to hang out on the couch and drink beer?" Alex asks one more time as he moves to stand up and rejoin his friends downstairs.
"I'm good. I have an unsubsiding erection, remember?" She asks with a teasing smile, and he rolls his eyes in response because he knows better than to be taken aback by that particular off the cuff comment now. "Go get sloppily drunk with your friends so I can take pictures later and use it to blackmail my way into surgeries."
"Stop listening to Callie and trade sex for surgery like everyone else," he replies. Jo laughs in response reminding him that's hard to do when you have a boyfriend and aren't into vaginas.
"All the more reason to pick peds," he replies before pressing his lips to hers in a kiss meant to squash any rebuttal. She leans into the kiss snaking her hands up to cup his face, but he catches her right wrist in his hand and pulls it away from his face as he breaks their kiss. Pressing the bottle of lotion into her open hand, he instructs her to use it before the Republicans conquer all fifty states.
"Dude, seriously, stop freaking out," Alex tells her before stealing another kiss. She breaks the kiss this time pushing him away so she can get back to studying and he can rejoin his friends like they had planned. He lingers for just a moment pressing his forehead against hers and mirroring the smile on her face before pulling away and heading out of the bedroom.
Reaching behind him for the doorknob, he pauses in the door frame and turns to look at her watching him walk away. And the suddenly intense and determined look on his face causes her to sit up straighter, to self-consciously reach towards her discarded t-shirt as she looks at him with an evident question on her face.
"You'll kick the interviewers' pompous asses, come back having passed your boards, and we'll do something – I don't know – to celebrate, okay?"
"Okay," she replies with a smile and a nod of her head, which he returns before he pulls the door shut and leaves her alone with her studying materials and the large, pink bottle of calamine lotion – the clank of bells around the doorknob of their bedroom covering the sound of his footsteps on the stairs or the teasing words of Cristina and Meredith as they offer him a shot of tequila and guesses as to how the celebration of Jo passing her boards will go.