Hello. I have decided to give this story another try after finding it yesterday. I rewrote the all thing so if you first read it a long time ago bear with me and read it again from the beginning. I have already wrote a good part of the next chapter and I will post it after some editing.
Please let me know what you think. All kind of comments and advices are welcomed.
The paper came out of the machine. The test was positive.
Dr. Remy Hadley was standing in the biology laboratory of her hospital and screening the little piece of paper that the machine in front of her had just printed. She had just performed a genetic test on herself to find out if she inherited the disease that took away her mother. She had thought about this moment many times in her early years but always believed she would rather not know if the future was holding something like that for her. She always figured it was best not to know while taking advantage of life as much as she could. She felt certain the uncertainty was better than a potential death sentence. At least, she firmly believed it until she saw a tremor in her hand the other day. She brushed it off and attributed it to stress from the long hours she was putting in those days. But when she felt another tremor last week, she could not block frightening thoughts from arising in her mind. She started seeing her mother in her dreams and watching carefully every move she executed to the point where it began an obsession. Every clumsy mistake was misinterpreted and made her more likely to be on edge and maladroit. Nobody at her work knew about her family story and she intended to keep it that way. Being a doctor gave her the privilege to answer by herself the question she had been obsessing over. She had access to devices that could be used to perform the biological test she needed to do and she remembered the tricks of molecular protocols from her internship in the genetic department. So she decided to diagnose herself. And now, she was standing in front of this small device that had just printed a small portion of paper that would momentously change her life. A millstone came around her neck as she read again the results, making sure her mind did not trick her into reading what she feared the most. But it was true. Her death sentence was in her hand and there was no way to escape it. The only unpredictable variable left was 'when' it would happen.
She felt blank. Every part of her just felt the life threatening to leave her body.
Her numb hand dropped the piece of paper and her vision went blurry. For a minute, she imagined reasons for the results to be wrong and mean something else. For a minute, she tried to envision some hope. But her imagination worn out quickly and she started to feel again. Fear and sadness found their way to her motionless body. She quickly reacted, blocked the emotions before they overpowered her and left the room.
She hurried toward the entrance of the big building that was the hospital, hoping not to see anybody that would need to talk to her before she could escape. She mainly wanted to escape her boss, Dr. House. He had a tendency to be inquisitive and would pick up on her emotional state. She was not in a mental state to play twenty questions. She was not in a state to deal with anybody, even with herself.
She felt the need for some alcohol. Some good, strong liquor would block thoughts from her mind. At this very moment, thoughts were a threat looming to accelerate the dementia that would eventually defeat her. And, maybe, drunkenness would make her feel alive, if that was still possible.
She ended up walking in the nearest bar, in the street facing the secondary entrance of the hospital. It was a small and smelly place where you could mostly see medical and nursing students, due to its short distance from the hospital and its cheap prices. A ping-pong table was installed in the back room and she could hear some drunken people cheering on the contestants of what she guessed must have been a game of beer pong. Normally, she hated this kind of place. It was not only the smell of the beer sticking to the floor that was repulsive to her. She was already spending so much time at the hospital with the same people that she did not like to spend her time off around them. Besides, she had a tendency to be impulsive when a bit tipsy and she preferred minimizing the odds to see a past encounter at work. She quickly considered exiting the bar and walking a bit farther but she gave up the idea just as quickly. She had no energy to be picky. She just needed to clear her mind from the scary thoughts flowing it despite her best resistance. So tonight she would just drink here and she would not care about who was surrounding her.
She chose a stool in front of the bartender and ordered a tequila shot. She quickly downed the little glass, put it back on the counter and made it slide toward the bartender, as a cue for him to fill it up again. She repeated this pattern a few more times until her head started to feel lighter. She indulged in this sweet feeling the alcohol offered her. She intended to keep indulging for a while. The bartender watched her intently as a small smile came to creep on her face. The alcohol gave her the impulse to grin at him, rising her empty glass as a form of salutation.
"Seems like it was a hard day", he stated in a friendly way that he must have used many times on other customers.
She did not reply but nodded to signify she heard him, while sliding her glass toward him again.
He poured some more amber liquor in the small glass and added, "You should be careful when all the alcohol kicks in."
She downed her newly full glass impassively, in the blink of an eye.
The sympathetic man in front of her put his hand on her free left hand, which was lying on the counter, and patted it. "I won't give you a refill. You might not survive it".
A crooked smirk on her face, she replied without a frown, "I will die anyway".
He gave her a startled look, which quickly turned into a pitiful look. He then gave her an apologetic smile before turning his attention toward another customer.
This made her need a new shot but she was not willing to confront his pity again. Instead, she pivoted on her stool and scanned the room to see if she saw anyone who could help her forget her destiny for a few hours.
As she was examining a cute girl who, judging by her demeanour, seemed unaware of how sensual she looked, someone pushed the front door and entered the place. Remy turned her now unstable gaze to see the face of a doctor she knew. This was Allison Cameron. She used to be in her fellowship just a few years ago and now she was the head of the ER. She found the presence of the elegant blonde at this place peculiar. Having been part of her program, Allison knew her boss and it made Remy uncomfortable. She certainly did not want him to hear about how pitiful she was currently. She turned back on her stool, facing the table bar and hoping the blonde doctor would not recognize her. After all, they did not really know each other that well. Why would she come talk to her?
"Hi" said a soft voice from behind her.
"Fuck", she could not help murmuring to herself, quietly enough for Allison not to ear it. The encounter she wanted to escape was happening. She knew she should not have come into a 'hospital bar'. While turning to face the blonde, she made a mental note to herself to remember this incident and never put a foot into this place again. "Hi", she replied, turning up again, with the most charming grin she could manage. She was planning on not showing how agitated she presently felt.
"I don't often see you outside of work", the smaller woman said in an attempt to start a conversation. Feeling it was kind of lame since she had no reason to see her brunette colleague outside of the hospital, she added hesitantly "Actually, we never see each other outside of work since well… we are not really… close." Her mouth uncomfortably distorted while stuttering an end to her sentence.
Allison's gaucheness made Remy smile. At least, she was not the only one uncomfortable here. "Yeah. Never had the time to chat", she replied to let her know she was not misinterpreting the meaning of her words. "House is a full time job", she added with a smirk.
Her quip relieved the tension and the blonde smiled back, making one of her big grin that made her appear ten years younger than she was. "You're right ! Each day I see him, I feel relief for not having to put up with his B.S. on a daily basis anymore", she added before laughing. Her laugh was crystalline. It sounded pleasant while the way she was saying B.S. in order to avoid swearing was amusing.
"I'm trying to ignore him as much as I can", Remy stated knowingly. She was screening the other girl and realised she might be more interesting than she initially thought. Though she never really thought of her per se, she considered her as a competent but too emotional colleague. When House wanted to elicit an emotional reaction, he still bothered to go look for Allison and gossip about it to his doctors. So Remy knew that Allison was sensitive. Personally, Remy was not skilled for dealing with emotions or emotional people.
"And are you succeeding?", Allison asked, rising an eyebrow while smiling more broadly to her co-worker.
Remy started contemplating that this smile was pretty beautiful. How came she had never realised that before? "Sometimes I do. Sometimes I fail", she replied, flashing one of her own smile to the blonde.
They looked in each other eyes for a few seconds before Allison broke the stare and took a seat next to Remy. "I was planning on eating dinner but you seem to already be at the after-meal drink", Allison bantered her. She was pointing with her eyes toward the empty glass standing in front of Remy. Her gaze crossed Remy's and it made Remy feel self-conscious. Allison obviously understood that the brunette consumed more than one drink before this talk. She always felt compelled to reach out to people whom she perceived as sad or lonely. At the moment, Remy met both criteria.
Remy felt an obligation to smile nonchalantly in order to let her colleague know that she was fine. The alcohol percentage increasing in her blood must have made her a less good pretender because she saw in the eyes of the other woman that she was not convinced when Allison responded to her casual smile with a warm one.
"I will follow you and take a drink. It's been a long day for me too", Allison offered. She sounded nice and jovial but Remy could sense she was acting compassionate.
Allison called the bartender and ordered a mojito. "I would have pictured you more like a sex on the beach kind of girl", Remy said teasingly with a need to lighten up the mood.
The blonde looked at her with fierce blue eyes before answering, "I like a lot of different things".
This made Remy raise an eyebrow questioningly. She believed her colleague was aware of the fluidity of her attractions toward both genders. Her boss had gossiped about it at the cafeteria and she knew rumours run fast in their workplace. So, was she teasing her back knowingly?
"Plus, I love how my tongue claps against the roof of my mouth when I pronounce 'mojito'", Allison added smirking.
She was definitely teasing back.
"Let me try it", Remy replied before she hailed the bartender. "Another mojito, please."
The brunette looked back at the blonde and stated, "You're right. The feeling is nice." She purposely trained on the last words while using her charming look on her colleague.
A little laugh came out of Allison and she turned her gaze away. She was not used to this kind of attention coming from a woman, even if it felt subtler than the masculine attention she was more accustomed to receive. She refocused her eyes on her new glass when the bartender placed two cocktails in front of them.
They sipped their drinks silently for a while, both their mind occupied. Remy was wondering what the blonde was doing at this bar and if there was more behind the smooth surface the woman usually presented. Allison was studying the brunette features and saw her failed attempt at grabbing her glass. She could not help but question the reason behind the brunette's need to numb her mind.
Remy started feeling dizzy and it made her even more interested in the presence of the lovely blonde next to her. She finally turned from the bar table to fully face Allison. The other woman was still playing with the straw of her half full drink. Remy bet she was not used to drinking.
Sensing the gaze on her, Allison raised her face. "Your eyes are telling me you should stop drinking", she said half-playfully, half-sincerely. The brunette eyes' had turned foggy. Her pupils had become shiny and dilated, taking the shine off the combination of light grey and green in her iris that usually never fell to capture attention.
"Is that all my eyes are telling you?", Remy countered. Though she had a bold nature, the tequila was having a full effect on her now. It was making her wild enough to try to make a move on her co-worker. Furthermore, people were always telling her that her eyes were her best feature.
"I'm not sure", Allison answered with hesitation. She was not sure she wanted to make explicit their implicit banter and shyly averted her gaze. She had never felt this kind of nervousness around a woman before. She did not even know if she would be imagining things at the moment if she had not already been aware that the desirable brunette in front of her was attracted to women. Presently, the fact that her young and beautiful colleague was maybe flirting with her made her feel uneasy. She started fidgeting and took another sip of her cocktail.
Remy perceived the blonde nervousness and it somehow felt like a challenge to her. Her mind thrilled on challenges. She bet the other woman never flirted with a woman before. Allison had this somewhat innocent look that matched her conservative outfit. The blonde was squirming in her navy pen skirt and white blouse. Her cardigan was already discarded on the stool next to her, along with her designer handbag. She looked like one of those nice girls every man wanted to present to their mother. Remy wondered why she had divorced recently.
"Did you ever try girls?", Remy blurted out casually while looking straight in her eyes with a side smirk. She knew she was making Allison uncomfortable but she was taking some kind of mischievous pleasure in observing the nervousness in the blonde. It eased her mind to focus on something else than herself.
Taken by surprise, Allison spitted out the liquid she was drinking. She looked at Remy with wide eyes and an open mouth. After a few seconds to gather herself, she answered sheepishly, "No". She bet the brunette found her boring by the playful grin she saw creeping on her face.
Remy did not reply right away after this admission. She took some time to appreciate the light blush that came across the blonde's features. Her naïve expression became more obvious but also more endearing. She was one of those people who displayed their vulnerability openly. It made Remy feel willing to connect to her. It made her wonder what it would be like to be like that.
"I'm sorry. I did not want to embarrass you with my sassiness", Remy offered with a small smile to reassure the blonde and let her know that she was only teasing her. "I like to keep people off balance. I guess it prevents me from getting too close from them", Remy added with a hint of sarcasm and auto-derision while she eyed her empty glass. "I was pretty sure of your answer anyway", she stated with more playfulness in her sea green eyes.
"I can see you getting along with your boss", Allison countered with her own sassiness.
For the first time in what felt like a long time, Remy laughed light heartedly. The blonde was no push over and was defending herself quite well.
"Even I cannot compete with his level of misanthropy", Remy replied with a sincere laugh. "I sometimes wonder if he is a sociopath", she added with a wink.
Allison laughed at this comment. "I have to admit the thought crossed my mind once or twice", she admitted herself, not letting go of Remy's gaze.
The blonde was starting to make Remy feel unsettled like she just made her feel moments ago. "You know what, I might be up for the food you mentioned earlier", Remy stated. "My stomach is starting to feel queasy from the alcohol", she confessed with a little grimace.
"Sure. We can get a table here and have some dinner", Allison said and smiled at her calmly. "Or, we can go to the little thaï place two blocks away", she added with a taunting smile.
"Thaï food it is", Remy answered with a taunting smile of her own. This girl was keeping her off balance with her shyness and her friendliness mixed up in a cocktail that felt intoxicating for her fuzzy senses.
Allison took a bill out of her wallet and expected the brunette to follow suit her actions by adding, "Let's go".
Remy did not fight the blonde's directive and quickly put a bill of her own beside her glass. The bartender eyed them from afar and sent Remy a relieved look. She guessed she might have scared him a little. Weird for someone who dealt with drunks daily.
Remy put on her jacket while observing Allison's meticulous way to collect her belongings. They left the bar together. Allison was leading the way out and Remy took a second to admire how she fitted in her conservative clothes. The blonde had surprised her. Though she could not exactly point her finger on 'how' and 'why', she was intrigued enough to try to find out.