2. Close your eyes and think of me.
AN/ Bottom of my heart thanks for the reception, you guys. Each and every one are you the best. Genuinely.
.
.
.
Three minutes into the shift and Alex knew it was going to be dreadful. Three op cancellations, a code red in OR three, and one of her residents had just called in sick.
"Vause, your bypass and angio are about three hours behind."
Alex puts down the clipboard she'd been skimming through, thankfully her pager hadn't gone off in the last few hours which meant she could actually do some work before she was scheduled for theatre.
Alex stifled a groan. "Chief, with all due respect, it's not exactly my fault there aren't any beds in the hospital, those two ops would have been done eons ago if the hospital wasn't so over-stretched."
Dr Fontaine was a slight man with pointy eyes and greying stubble, who held laughably idealistic views over how a hospital should be run. He was all about the numbers, the image, and less about what actually happened on the ground. The man was just so out of touch with reality.
He sighs, crossing his arms together, "We've just gotten an outstanding rating, we really cannot afford to falter."
Alex near scoffs, the second doctors turned managerial it all becomes about meeting targets and counting pennies. She's sat in a few board meetings in her time here, and every time discussions turned heated which they often did, Alex could never resist interjecting with a 'what about the patients?" spiel. That got everyone to momentarily shut up and lower their heads in shame.
She pushes the door of the OR open and starts washing her hands over the stainless steel basin, wishing he would just go away.
"Are you listening to anything I'm saying, Vause?" He's still breathing down her neck. His unflagging persistence was beginning to irritate her, what he lacked in size he made up for in his attitude.
"We'll have a third cancellation if you don't let me get on with this one." Alex hisses through clenched teeth.
He's about to say something but has probably realised he shouldn't tread on the toes of the director of surgery much less dish out unfounded criticisms. Instead he makes do with a theatrical sigh that was supposed to be all threatening but to Alex it just sounds like a wheezing middle-aged man, hiding a chronic smoking habit. "Time is money, doctor. Try and remember that" He preaches just as he walks out.
Alex barely holds herself from rolling her eyes, almost inclined to point out the obvious irony in that, but carries on scrubbing.
There's a perfectly good reason why Alex had ticked 'surgery' on her application form some years ago. Surgery was cold and clinical. None of the how are you feeling? rubbish. Cut there, take a tumour out, put the organ in, stitch up and job done. It's a simple formula that was so easy to follow and if done right, the rewards were almost immediate. She lived for that; the instant gratification. She couldn't deal with the long game, there were always too many casualties and never enough triumph
It was a straightforward case and she was in and out of the operating room in no less than an hour. After de-robing she detours to the recovery room for a quick cursory check on her recovering patient. Pressure was strong, anaesthesia nicely wearing off, they were ready to be de-tubed.
She nods to one of the nurses behind the plexi-glass who smiles and nods back; medical shorthand for everything is good here. Alex quickly scribbles a few observations into the chart and walks out, satisfied.
It's dusk when she eventually retires to the changing room. It's empty, save for a few residents changing into scrubs before the start of their night shift. Alex doesn't envy them. Instead she blanks them, and walks straight to her locker, gladly pulling off her stethoscope and pager before tossing them both into her bag.
She slams her locker shut, and leans her forehead against the cold metal. Memories she's carefully packaged and taped up start seeping out. Apparently not careful enough as she clenches her eyes shut.
Her subconscious has been replaying their storage room encounter throughout most of the day. And it wasn't so much the dialogue or their actions even, but the feelings that had coursed through her that evening.
Anger and happiness, happiness and then anger; a hybrid of emotions each trying to claim the top. She had barely been able to concentrate during surgery, finding herself drifting away too many times before her assistant would nudge her back to cold reality.
Alex wouldn't like to admit to herself but after Piper had left, it had been as though a noose around her neck had all of a sudden disintegrated. She hadn't even realised it had been there the whole time.
Their old familiarity had been so striking yet at the same time, Alex had felt an obvious discordance to their actions where they both didn't quite know how to talk around each other, all crickety and out of sync like a piece of machinery that hadn't been oiled for so long.
It makes her vaguely sick.
It had taken Alex less than an hour to nearly forgive Piper, she could barely imagine how she was supposed to keep on Not Forgiving for the foreseeable future. It terrified her, because sooner rather than later she'd falter, lose momentum and fail.
And that possibility fills her chest with icy anxiety.
The door swings open, voices carried over, filling the room with sudden noise. A group of people stumble in, a blur of blue scrubs walking en masse toward their respective lockers. Alex quickens her pace and shoves everything in all at once. She hated noise. The loudness of it overbearing.
She's about to walk out when she spots Piper amongst the crowd, stood by her own locker and staring after her. Their gazes meet, but Piper drops her gaze quickly to the floor. Alex clenches her eyes shut, and carries on putting her stuff away.
No indication that yesterday night had ever happened. No indication that Alex's existence had been acknowledged. The thought itself pisses Alex off, since when had she become so needy? Since when did she need pithy validation from anyone?
She glanced back up, if anything, Piper looked slightly alarmed, her eyes darted between the people in the room with them, as though worried they'd know that... what? What?
A wave of cold dislike rolls over Alex just like that, surprising her. It's unreasonable maybe, but there had always been a resentment hovering just below the surface, trickling over every now and again.
The door slams open and closed a few times until the room was once again emptied, the last few people brushing past them. Alex can see Piper's eyes following them out, an almost desperate tilt to them, like she'd wished she was walking out with them.
The only thing that probably kept her rooted to the spot was politeness more than anything else, a fact that really grates on Alex.
"Hey." Piper finally mutters, physically squirming.
Alex is almost inclined to check herself over and sarcastically ask whether there's something disgusting hanging off her. Yet she civilly answers back, "How's the face?"
"Fine, thanks so much again, Alex. You really didn't have to."
Piper leant back against the lockers, inhaling deeply, like she was going through the motions of a practiced speech. For an awful second Alex thinks she's going to apologise or acknowledge their past, but instead says, "I didn't think you ever came here."
Alex can read between the lines there. She hadn't always worked here, in fact, had only joined the team some weeks ago. The shocked surprise painted across Piper's face when Alex had been introduced by the board following her inauguration was something she still vividly remembered. She must have mirrored the exact same expression, probably much worse.
She had gone home that night and vomited until she felt as though her guts were going to drop out.
"Round five, nearly every day." Write it down, so you'll remember to avoid me next time. Alex almost adds.
"How was the list?" She hears Piper ask.
"Busy."
There's an uneasy lapse in conversation, until Piper rescues it and breathily asks, "You saw that announcement the Chief made about budgeting? It's pretty bad, huh?"
"I guess."
They stared at each other from across the room, the chasm between them suddenly so pronounced. They never had wasted their time on small talk, even at the genesis of their relationship. It shreds Alex's insides like it always did when she was reminded of random quirks of their past lives together.
"How have you been?" Piper suddenly asks, a question that felt as though it had lain dormant for the last six years. "You look well, Alex. You really do."
But it was a question that was about six years too late. Alex feels herself growing tense, her hands clenched. Six years, two months and three weeks. And only when effectively cornered does she ask how Alex is?
"I'm not off my head anymore, so I guess I'm not doing too bad." Alex glances back. "Wouldn't fare so well in this place anyway."
Piper fidgets uncomfortably at this crudely honest declaration. "That's good."
"Five years actually."
"Alex, that's amazing! I'm so happy for you-"
Alex nods despite herself. It's not enough. A scenario that's been on repeat for the last few weeks pops into her mind's eye now. A stupid, over-dramatic thought where they have a tearful reunion with over-the-top hugs and kisses, profusely apologise to each other, and then head to Alex's apartment where they'd fuck each other senseless. It was so disgustingly idealistic, more than that, it was fucking desperate.
Alex feels almost sick realising Piper may not have spared her one thought over the last six years while she's been living like she'd been on borrowed time. She felt punch-drunk all of a sudden. "You married?"
"No."
"Boyfriend?"
"No."
"Girlfriend?"
"No, you?"
Alex doesn't answer, almost embarassed over how relieved she is.
"There was something brief a long while ago..." She trails off. It's painful to watch but Piper tries for humour. "I mean this job doesn't exactly permit us to have a social life."
"Hmmm."
"How's your mom?"
A vice slashes through Alex's chest and it nearly knocks her sideways. She already feels sick, reliving a moment she spent years trying to forget. She's almost jealous Piper had lived in ignorant bliss for so long. Angry, Piper didn't know, even though Alex had never told her.
Alex sits down, suddenly weak. "She's dead."
For the first time since acknowledging each other, Piper drops her restrained demeanour and nearly collapses into a boneless mass. Alex watches with strange clinical detachment her face crumpling into itself, racking sobs escaping from her, her back against the lockers. Alex has done her grieving in isolation, she'd gone through the nightmare of it: the frenzied funeral arrangements, the panicked realisation she didn't have any of her mother's friends contact numbers to tell them about it, and the eventual resignation that she'd never be able to utter a single word to Diane Vause ever again.
It's almost ludicrous to think that someone other than Alex would ever care so much about her mother's death. But then it's not so ludicrous at all when she thinks back to Piper and Diane giggling like old school girls when she spilled red wine all over herself one summer.
Her eyes twitch back to the present. Only now the present consists of watching the person Alex had loved, maybe still loved, or never stopped loving, fold in on themselves, and mourn over the only other person they had both loved.
"Why didn't you tell me?" Piper asks through tears, her voice shaky and catching every few words. "How could you keep something like that to yourself?"
"Yeah well, you weren't there to tell." Alex shrugs calmly.
"Alex..." Piper freezes, stopping mid-sentence, her face a volcano erupting. She wipes her tears before quietly whispering "When?"
Alex doesn't look at her. Not because she chose to do so but because she physically cannot. "A couple of weeks after you'd left."
"And you didn't tell me?" Her face is suddenly flushed angry, glistening eyes blazing with hurt. "You couldn't call me, or text me? Or fuck…" Her voice collapses into fragmented syllables, "Any-anything, at all?"
"You wanted a clean break, Piper. That includes me telling you anything that happens in my life after you fucked off."
"It wasn't your life to keep to yourself!"
"Well I guess you know now."
Alex was finding it hard to keep her distance; watching Piper's grief shatter open in front of her was turning her skin inwards.
Six years Alex had cried and sobbed on her own, no-one to comfort her, no-one to hold her when the tentacles of grief had wrapped themselves around her. No-one to tell. The funeral had been the worst thing Alex had ever experienced. She remembers looking to her side, hoping that Piper had somehow figured out Diane had passed, had somehow scoured the obituaries, and magically turned up.
She hadn't of course.
She'd been forced to suffer through it alone. Which was why she stayed rooted to her spot, let Piper share even an inkling of the pain she had felt.
"Do you really think I didn't care?" Piper mumbles, more to herself than Alex. "Enough for you not to tell me your mom had passed?"
"I don't know what to think, Piper. All I remember is wanting to fucking call you, wanted to tell you so fucking bad…" Alex shuts her eyes, an impulse of wanting to walk out of the room arresting her speech so abruptly. She hadn't realised but her heart was hammering against her chest so hard, and her breathing had turned erratic, it felt like she was going to have a heart attack. At least she's in the right place if that ever happened. "And I thought I could do it on my own, give her the best funeral she could have, buy the best flowers, wear my best fucking dress, but do you know how fucking stupid that is?" Alex swallowed a stream acrid bile back down. "Because why would any of that even matter if she's dead?"
"Alex..."
"Don't."
Piper stays quiet, hugging herself like she's trying to take up even less space than she already did.
But then she starts shaking her head, her eyes glazed over and lost. "You should have told me. You should have told me. I can't believe...you should have-"
Alex screws her eyes shut, "Piper, stop. Just stop."
It abruptly stops.
There's a white noise silence.
Alex watches her stiffen up, a strained expression marring Piper's features. Alex's heart feels like it's being tugged out out of her chest, pulled out of its confines and thrown into the open.
"Alex, I still...I still-" Piper lifts her head as though she was having an epiphany but trails off, like she's having an internal argument with herself but Alex cuts her off before certain words she most dreaded were unleahsed out into the open.
"I don't care, Piper. You don't get to rehash any of that ever again."
"What was all that about then? Last night? You cared then?" She stumbles over her words, a forced hope covering them. "What was all that?"
For a moment, Alex wants to spill the truth. Let it douse all over them. Of how she had wanted to hug Piper so bad that her ribs felt like they were going to rip out. How she had wanted to wrap her hands around each and every part of her and just hold her.
But she doesn't. "I checked you over." She answers coolly. "It was purely professional. Nothing more, nothing less."
"It seemed more than professional, Alex."
She pushes herself off the bench, "Jesus stop trying to make something from fucking nothing, Piper." Alex laughs suddenly, it's a dark laugh laced with condescension. "You were always so good at that."
"Jesus...you really are still an insufferable asshole." Piper snaps, wiping her eyes with her sleeves.
"Yeah well. It doesn't matter what you think. I used to care too much about what you thought. Not anymore."
"Just…fuck." Piper's voice thickened with unshed tears. Alex blankly watches her grab her bag, shut her locker and storm out of the room.
"Are you fucking serious?" Alex called after her. Her voice on the brink of something she doesn't want to acknowledge. It feels as though she's watching a replay of herself from six years ago, the past cruelly catching up with her. Nothing had changed really. It still brutally hurt like it did then.
.
.
.
Friday evening, Alex finally headed home. The drive took less than the usual time. A good thing under normal circumstances but now she could already feel a stone of unease slowly making its way down the pits of her stomach.
Alex hadn't had enough time to prepare. Hadn't properly shaken off the last remnants of Piper-related thoughts before she'd be able to walk through the front door.
She pulls into the driveway, and cuts the engine. She sits silently, staring out at the dead leaves fluttering in the cold autumnal air. A gust of wind shakes the car and it's the cold chill setting in that finally gets her out of her car and into the house.
She turns the lock in the door and she's right. She wasn't ready.
Al! Babes, you're home!"
Sarah's greeting is full jubilant warmth. She places a quick and familiar kiss on Alex's cheek and proceeds to grab her bag and helpfully slides her coat off. Alex steps into the lounge. The place smells of freshly brewed coffee and it appears though she's cleaned up as well judging from the gleaming floor and plumped out pillows.
It's nice.
She's nice.
Sarah, the friendly and helpful realtor whom Alex had met when she was viewing her would be house about a year back. Tallish, with high cheekbones and easy smile, Sarah had partially filled a void Alex had been carrying for too long. They'd gone on a couple of dates and had liked each other enough to keep on seeing each other.
Fast forward twelve months, and they were sharing a living space. Alex doesn't even remember the exact moment she had accepted someone into her home, allowed them to walk into her personal life. A series of nondescript yes's and here she was, living a pitifully ordinary life.
Sarah busies herself placing dishes on the table. "How was work?"
"Fine."
"Yeah?"
Alex lit a cigarette, and sat by the window, staring at mundane Manhattan life playing out beneath them. She turns her head, dimly recognising she's supposed to expand on the earlier question. She clears her throat. "It was mostly fine, just the usual inane stuff." Alex glanced up, forcing herself to make An Effort. "You?"
"Really good actually. Finally sold that house down in Brooklyn. Good price too." She answers. "You know how long I've been trying to sell that beast, and for it to have actually happened was a shock really."
"That's great." Alex hears herself mumble automatically in between puffs of smoke. She can feel a twinge behind her eyes, the beginnings of a headache looming. The cigarettes weren't helping.
She leans back against the window already wanting this conversation to end, a weary fatigue pulling her down.
Sarah nestles herself beside Alex, eyes bright with uncontainable excitement, "And guess…guess who got awarded shit load of commission and got nominated for realtor of the month?"
Alex forced herself to at least reflect some of Sarah's glee but only managed to push her smile at half-mast. "Congratulations. That's really good."
Alex hadn't noticed until now, she had but it hadn't bothered her that much up until now. There was something vaguely irritating about how too hard Sarah tried. The smiles too big, the patience infinite, the niceties too contrived.
"Hey you good?"
"Yeah course." Alex mumbles. She lights another, surprised she's already on her second cigarette.
Alex tunes herself at the television, absently watching Daniel Craig shoot yet another bad guy. It was Quantum of Solace; the shit one with all the bad ratings and flop at the box office.
It was still better than acknowledging Sarah's fingers running through her hair or the obvious want on Sarah's face.
Fuck, the arousal was off-putting to say the least. Alex feels a hand cover hers. "I've missed you, you know? All these long hours you're clocking every day." Sarah chuckles wistfully. "Barely get to see you."
Alex shrugs her off and climbs off the ledge, throwing the cigarette into the ashtray and dropping down on the sofa instead. "You knew my line of work before you signed up for this, S."
"No, I don't mean it like that." Sarah leant back, following Alex out and sitting beside her. She scanned Alex's face, searching and asks, "You sure you're fine?"
"I soon won't be if you keep asking." Alex throws back. She watches Sarah's face curl into hurtful surprise. It's gratifying for a split-second before she regrets the sharpness of her words and her general asshole-ishness for that matter. "Look I'm sorry, I'm just really tired that's all. Didn't mean to take it out on you." She gets to her feet, nearly knocking the remote control off the table, not quite sure where she's headed, before improvising, "I'm going to shower."
"Don't be long though, I made quiche and bought that Sauvignon you liked."
Alex doesn't glance back. "Sure."
Three hours later Alex hears the door softly open. She'd finished showering an hour ago, had slumped onto her bed with the towel still wrapped around her, and she'd been overcome with such a strange urge of just lying there. If Alex didn't move, nothing changed. No decisions made, no consequences created. The simplicity of that was almost poetic in its thinking.
She has to sit up now. The room momentarily spins, the darkness disorientating. Alex's throat feels dry and her head is pounding at full blast now. She hasn't eaten anything since this morning, her stomach reminding her just so.
It scared her sometimes. The hunger, the lethargy…it reminded her of symptoms of her past. Washing up at unexpected moments. She quickly shakes off the thought and braces herself for whatever was going to happen now.
"Hey." Sarah's voice softly floats in. She's stood by the door, hovering.
"Hey."
"You didn't come down for dinner."
"Wasn't really hungry."
Alex could eat an elephant right now. She doesn't even know why she's lying.
She feels Sarah hesitate, her words stalling. "I thought...-"
"What?"
"It's just…it's just you could have told me before you went upstairs…could have saved me the waiting."
"Yeah course, sorry."
Even Alex could hear she sounded everything but apologetic. She should say something. Something fucking cheery. Whatever the fuck couples say to each other when they conversed.
Alex suddenly laughs at how absurd her thinking was.
"What are you laughing at?"
"Nothing." Alex waves her hand, dismissively. "You wouldn't understand anyway."
For the first time, Sarah's voice has lost it's happy edge. Thready and barely audible. "Right...food's in the oven whenever you're ready."
She's once again alone. Alex falls back onto the bed, staring at the wall, shadows of the branches outside dancing across it. and contemplating the reason why she was so determined to fuck things up.
She rolls over, burying her face into the pillow for a few seconds. Alex used to do that when she was younger, scream into pillows, emotional release from dumb teenage problems like why does Frankie from next door not like her. Now she was older, and screaming different sorts of problems into pillows.
Alex peers at the clock: it was pushing past midnight. There was no point going back downstairs. It's ten minutes after when she's rifling through her wardrobe, and the palm of her hand briefly brushes against the sleeve of her scrubs.
It was so stupid and pitiful in its thinking, but Alex can't help it. There's an almost animalistic need drilling into her skin; to reconnect, to relive. She strokes the scrub top. It's the same texture and fabric to the one Piper was wearing that night when Alex had checked her over. If she closed her eyes, she could almost recall the sensation of her hand on Piper.
She snatches her hand back, as though she'd been branded. Fuck, it wasn't supposed to be like this. She wasn't supposed to feel like this. Alex had closed that chapter of her life six years ago, had buried the book for good measure, yet here she was, digging with bare hands into dirty soil, trying so hard to retrieve something lost.
.
.
.
That same night Alex had dreamed of Piper. Real memories, real sensations, interspersed with would be could be should be scenarios of them. It played like a twisted Tim Burton movie; a snippet where they're laughing simultaneously at a bad film, another where Piper's walking toward Alex but at the last minute laughs and climbs onto a train travelling in the opposite direction. There's no logical reasoning behind any of it.
At some point during the night Alex felt Sarah roll toward her, her body moulding against hers and arms slung over Alex's chest. She watches it rise and fall in time with her respirations.
If Alex imagined hard enough, willed her mind long enough, that arm belonged to somebody else. It was almost frightfully jolting of how not so hard she had to try.
.
.
.