A/N:

I know, I know- I should be updating Until My Heart Explodes. It's a funny story, actually, and if you want to hear it, check the A/N at the end, k?

This little one-shot came about at 1am this morning, when I was listening to Arctic Monkeys and crying because Jolex is perfect. As a result, I give you Snap Out Of It, the insanely good song I based this off. It doesn't really matter whether you listen to it while reading, though I recommend it because it's a great song. Rated T because, well, no reason, really, I just rate everything T.

Disclaimer:

I don't own Grey's Anatomy or Arctic Monkeys, though if I owned either Alex Karev or Alex Turner, I would be one happy girl.

Snap Out Of It

Forever isn't for everyone.

Is forever for you?

It suited her, the domesticity.

At first it was only little shifts in her demeanour- she stopped spending so much time at the bar and instead found herself home before midnight almost every night, choosing to be doted on by her loving, if a little smothering, fiancé rather than drowning in a bottle of gin. She started going by her full name, Josephine.

It was months before she was completely comfortable with sitting back and setting her carefree habits aside, but when she did, it seemed to come naturally to her. Old friends soon forgot the wild side she'd gone to such lengths to bury, and new friends laughed at the memories recalled over bottles of wine at her dinner parties-

Josephine Wilson, a rebel?

Never, no, not possible. The people who'd known her for years must have had too much to drink, because there was no way Josephine had a dark past in the form of Hobo Jo, a promiscuous young woman who drank too much and cared too little.

A year passed, and it was almost as if Hobo Jo was a girl collectively dreamed up by those who knew her before.

No one remembered her anymore, and if they did, they certainly didn't speak about her.

What's been happening in your world?

What have you been up to?

I heard that you fell in love-

Or near enough.

Sometimes, he watched her.

He was well aware that she had a new life- one with no room for him in it- but he couldn't help himself. It was just all so fake- the smiles, the happiness, the way she insisted her love for her fiancé.

So incredibly fake, and he needed to know it- all of it.

Alex Karev was still as utterly invested in her well-being as he had been a year ago, and the sicker, more masochistic parts of him yearned to know everything that transpired in the squeaky clean façade she called her life. He didn't believe a second of it.

Perhaps Edwards and Torres and all of her friends had fallen for the persona of Josephine, but he hadn't. She was still Jo- the same Jo that she always had been, and the same Jo that, deep down, she always would be. It was so strange, he thought, that he was the only one to see this.

Whenever she lied, her jaw moved slightly once she'd finished speaking and was moving to bite the inside of her cheek. She'd always been a terrific liar, but he'd long ago figured out that this was her one and only tell.

Lately, it seemed that whenever he spared her a fleeting glance, her jaw was twitching. Whether she was denying the second drink she claimed not to want, or agreeing to replace her best friend with her future sister-in-law as her maid of honour, there was always a twitch.

There had been whispers when she'd first got engaged about how she didn't love her fiancé, at least not in the way she was supposed to, and he liked to try and convince himself that he didn't believe them, that they were completely false- that Jo, his Jo, wouldn't marry a man she wasn't in love with.

But he watched- and as the rumours died down and everyone fell for her ruse, he become more and more certain there wasn't a single part of her that loved that man- Josephine loved him, maybe, but Jo didn't, and Alex vowed to always remember who was real and who was fake.

It sounds like settling down, or giving up-

But it don't sound much like you.

It was almost fifteen months before his carefully built indifference snapped- in the bar, of all places.

He couldn't stand it any longer. She was there, barely three metres away, with her tongue down her fiancé's throat. It was daring of her, he had to give her that- was Josephine really such a fan of public displays of affection? Perhaps she'd had just a bit much to drink.- but Meathead, as he'd so aptly and affectionately nicknamed said fiancé, didn't seem to mind.

Meathead did mind, however, when the moody paediatric surgeon walked over and punched him in the face, for no apparent reason. He started to say something, no doubt angrily, when she pushed his chest and sharply ordered him to go back to the hospital. Because he'd do anything she told him to, and because he was a smart enough man to realise continuing this fight would not end in his favour, he did as he said, going off in search of Jackson Avery as blood trickled from his nose and slipped into his mouth, over his chin.

Alex hoped that nose never looked the same again.

"What are you doing?" Jo demanded furiously. Her eyes flashed dangerously- a mere shadow of the passion she'd once possessed- but her words were as prim and proper as ever. "Who do you think you are?"

I could ask you the same thing, Alex thought, and so he did. "You know exactly who I am," he said. "But do you know who you are? Because I don't think you do. I don't think anyone knows you anymore. Least of all your precious fiancé."

She rolled her eyes. "Go home, Alex," she ordered. "You're embarrassing yourself." But Alex wasn't Meathead, and she wasn't exactly surprised when he didn't take off straight away. "Please."

Given that she'd asked nicely, he considered it. For half a second. "No," he said, shaking his head. "I don't follow orders- and since when do you? For over a year you've been acting like the Virgin Mary and, well, it's not exactly who you are, is it?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," she said. "I've been nothing but myself."

He snorted. "A highly fictionalised version, maybe," he allowed. "Seriously, Josephine? Jo, you hate your name. Even more than you hate me. And while we're discussing things you hate, what's with your boyfriend? He is literally everything you used to make fun of."

Sighing, she slid into the seat next to him. "Things change, Alex," she said. "He's… He's good, you know? Really good. And he's stable. I've always needed more stability in my life, and I'm finally getting it."

Again, he snorted. "It sounds like you really love him," he said sarcastically. "Really. What a catch."

"Shut up," she grumbled, but she didn't deny the not-so-subtle accusation. "I should go check on him."

Alex ordered a shot of tequila. "But you won't," he said, sliding it across the bar to her. "Things don't change that much."

I get the feeling I left it too late, but baby-

Snap out of it.

A/N: Right, so the story with UMHE is kind of funny, kind of tragic. I realised about three weeks ago that I hadn't updated a month earlier like I'd thought I had, and I have no idea where the file is, so I decided to just rewrite the chapter altogether. I was all set to post it last week when I decided that, due to the fact I'm under a lot of stress from school, I need to wrap it up in the next few chapters, and completely changed my plan for it. I'll try and get the new chapter up by the end of the month, but I make no promises. I'm sorry, you can throw fruit at me if you want.

Anyway, this one-shot was probably complete crap, but I had fun writing it so I suppose that's all that matters. Review?

:)