An update too soon? Sorry, I was a little impatient. The story's been brewing in my head for too long. Again, if you want me to make lesser updates per week, I could totally do that too :P Let me know!
Disclaimer: All recognizable characters belong to Shonda, I'm just playing with them.
Happy Reading!
Alex knocked on the door for the third time and waited patiently. Patiently because well, he was dead tired. And he decided that it would be easier to crash at Ginny's than drive all the way home. He heard shuffling inside and almost as he raised his hand to knock on the door a fourth time, the door flew open to reveal a giggling blonde, wrapped in the bedspread in a way that just covered enough of her modesty.
Her giggling stopped immediately and her face shaped up into a big O. "I…I thought you were the…the…you" she stammered while wrapping the sheet more tightly around her.
"Ummm…Ginny…Ginevra Fontane…I..no" Alex stepped back to check whether he had got the room number correct or not. 728. That's where he had been walking in for his almost daily rendezvous with Ginny. He looked back at the blonde, who opened her mouth once, then twice, but nothing came out and she hurried back down the passage into the inner rooms.
Alex simply stood there not knowing what to do. He almost considered walking back the same way he had come in, when Ginny walked up to him laughing even as she secured her night gown round her waist. "I was wondering whom she had mistaken for my boyfriend" she had a mysterious glint in the eye, her skin looked flushed and even with all her hair messed up (her sex hair, Alex called it) she still managed to look sexy. Alex took a moment to check her out from top to toe, before realizing the stupidity of his act.
"Aaa…I should just go. I didn't know there would be someone. I didn't mean to interrupt, I should have called. I'll just…" he backed out two steps before Ginny gave him a curious look and he stopped babbling.
"Alex, just stay. She's leaving anyway. Come in" and just like that without giving him any chance to discuss it she turned back and headed down to the room. Alex looked towards the door then towards the direction Ginny had disappeared. Just then the blonde came rushing towards the door. She had hastily dressed herself up and she was patting down her hair. She caught Alex standing there and coloured brightly. "I..I just…we just met…I didn't" she drew in a deep breath. "I'm straight!" it came out sounding more like a question and Alex couldn't stop himself from laughing. The mortified girl simply ran out of the door and Alex closed the door behind her.
Feeling more at ease he strolled into the bedroom just as Ginny came out of the bathroom with a toothbrush stuck in her mouth. As Alex let his jacket fall to the floor he asked good-humouredly "So you are screwing the straight girls in Seattle now? What happened to all the lesbians and the bisexuals?" He fell onto the bed and lay there spread eagle. Ginny came and stood near the bed, hovering over him and slapping his knees so that he would look up at her. "Shoes off" she scolded him with the toothpaste foam still in her mouth. "Sorry" he drawled, but without getting up he kicked off his shoes.
"You look exhausted." She stated simply. "There's leftover pizza" she pointed to the bedside table. Alex tried to follow where she was pointing but he was too exhausted to even lift his head and look. "I need a shower. You" she said bending down and poking his chest with her slender finger (that Alex often remarked were like an artist's) "…eat and sleep." With the last emphatic sleep some of the foam blew into Alex's face. Peppermint. He squinted his eyes. "Aargh… stop talking with toothpaste in your mouth. And get back fast, I need to blow off steam before falling asleep." He looked up at her expectantly.
Ginny just smiled and nodded her head. She walked back to the bathroom not before she had picked up his jacket and thrown it over the chair and kicked off his shoes to the side. Last thing she wanted was one of them tripping over them and falling. Even as she turned on the shower she knew Alex would be dead asleep to the world by the time she came out. She knew from first hand experienced that residency wrung out even the last bit of your energy. And she was right. She came out 10 minutes later to find Alex curled up in the centre of the bed. After applying her moisturizing cream, she slipped into bed herself, pushing him a little to the other side in the process. He grunted then moved his arm a bit. She pulled up the comforter to cover them both. As Ginny let herself fall asleep she felt his heavy arm fall back, this time round her waist. She was too tired to move it.
Callie was tired too. And it was just 8 o'clock in the morning. She had been paged in at an ungodly hour and she had been stuck in surgery since. She decided she had to have coffee and walked in into the attending's lounge. But there she was; the last person Callie wanted to see. Ginevra Fontane was standing with the coffee pot in hand, lost in reading the newspaper she was holding in the other. As she felt someone walk into the room she lifted her eyes and met Callie's.
Callie didn't know what to say. And by the look on Ginny's face neither did she. Since the past week the two had reached an unspoken agreement- do not engage unless absolutely necessary.
"Dr. Torres" she said, for the lack of anything else to say.
"Dr. Fontane" Callie replied in the self-same monotone.
"Coffee?" she asked lifting the coffee pot higher.
"Yes please" Callie said picking off a mug from the shelf and holding it in front of Ginny. She poured the coffee and then the two stood awkwardly for a moment before Ginny lifted her mug and took a sip. Callie did the same. The two looked at each other over the rim of their coffee mugs.
"I have a surgery, I'll catch you later" Ginny finally uttered as she quickly made her way to the door.
"Yeah, see you round." Callie said, wishing that she did not. Then just before Ginny disappeared out of the door Callie said a loud enough "Best of luck" that stopped Ginny in her tracks. She had a look of disbelief in her face, but she quickly schooled her features into a small smile, nodded a simple "Thanks" and left. Callie breathed a little easier. That, that went well. As promised to Arizona, Callie had acted maturely. She felt proud of herself and settled down on the couch to enjoy her coffee.
"So when are you coming back to neuro?" asked Derek as he signed his chart and looked at Lexie who was standing beside him, not working on his case but instead on yet another oncology case. Lexie looked up at him and blinked. She didn't know what to tell Derek. Sure she enjoyed Neuro, but when she was working on Oncology cases, she felt like she was pushing herself further and further. True it had been just a few weeks, but even then, every successful surgery gave her a sense of a miracle being performed. Here were these people coming to them when faced with near certain death, and here was Fontane working her magic and churning out healthy or comparatively healthy patients out of her OR. Even as Lexie contemplated how best to answer Derek's question, Ginny's voice floated over to them.
"Dr. Grey, did you collect Wilson's lab results?" she came and stood beside Derek. "Morning Dr. Shepherd" she greeted him with a smile. "Morning Dr. Fontane" he answered with his usual McDreamy smile. "I see you've completely enamoured Lexie and so I was asking her if she had any plans of heading back to neuro?" he said closing his folder. Ginny looked from Derek to Lexie before answering "Not in a long time, if I have my way." She flipped her hair back and clicked her pen as she took the results from Lexie's hands. Derek laughed and Lexie just stood there surprised. Dr. Fontane, wanted to continue working with her?
"Aha…wait till I have an interesting Neuro case and Lexie will come floating back to Neuro on her own" Derek caught Lexie's eye and winked before wishing Fontane a good day and walking away. Fontane called out a "Best of luck with that" to his retreating form before turning to look back at Lexie.
"Prep up an OR for the afternoon, I'm going to talk to Altman right now. We'll operate on his tumour immediately." Lexie was still a little pleasantly surprised by Fontane's earlier reply to respond to her as required. "Lexie, stop staring and get to work" Fontane said in a warning tone even as a small smile played on her lips. She turned back to look at the reports, but Lexie just stood there staring at her.
The woman was a mystery. One moment she was warm towards Lexie, talking to her like she was a child and showing and teaching her things in the OR. And almost in the next she would treat her with indifference, almost rudely at times. She had heard from Meredith who had heard from Yang, who had heard from Teddy that Fontane thought Lexie had potential, but never once had she actually said anything to Lexie herself. Not even a perfunctory "good."
"You think I'm good enough for Oncology? You would keep me from working on Neuro cases?" Lexie decided to ask her directly.
Fontane looked up from the reports "I haven't stopped you. You can go work in any department you like. Or rather any department that would want you." Lexie could feel her heart constricting a bit. "And you definitely wouldn't be good enough for oncology if you keep standing here. So off. Now!" she made a motion of shoo-ing her away. Lexie turned with a shocked expression on her face. That woman had MPD, thought Lexie even as she raced down the corridor away from her.
Arizona Robbins who crossed Lexie as she rushed away, didn't take time to guess the reason for the girl's odd behaviour.
"Ginevra, what have you been upto?" she asked as she came to stand near the brunette. Ginny looked up in confusion. "What? What did I do now?" Ginny tried to rack her head to recall anything stupid that she had done lately.
"That." Arizona pointed to the retreating form of Lexie as she rounded the far corner.
"Dr. Grey?" Ginny asked incredulously.
"Yes. Dr. Grey. Stop screwing with her head Ginny. I know you enjoy doing that to them, but don't. This could turn out ugly." Arizona turned to face her friend and crossed her arms across her chest.
"Who them? I have no idea what you're talking about Zona." Ginny stared back at Arizona in defiance.
"She is young, brilliant, impressionable…Stop doing this to her." Arizona looked dead straight into her eyes.
Something stirred within Ginny and she uttered out even before she could stop herself "That was me right when you first met me? Young, brilliant, impressionable…you mentioned it yourself one day. What did you do?"
She saw Arizona turning pale even as she said it. She bit her tongue. She shouldn't have said it. But now she had. And Ginny was too egoistic to take it back. So she simply turned her head and picked up her file. "I know Dr. Grey has potential and that she'll be great in whatever field she chooses. I'm teaching her the way I know. Your ways and my ways are different Arizona" and with those final words she walked away.
Arizona felt tears stinging her eyes. She knew what she had done to Ginny had been wrong. And Ginny had every right to be angry at her. But she still hadn't expected Ginny to throw the fact at her like that. Arizona hadn't felt this wretched in a long time.
"So who you banging Fontane?" Mark asked he sat down on the chair beside her, biting obnoxiously into his apple.
"If you're trying to get lucky, I have to tell you to stop trying" Ginny answered without even skipping a beat.
Teddy looked from Mark to Ginny like they had both gone crazy.
"No. You aren't doing me. You aren't doing Teddy, who I still assume is straight." He dodged a flying carrot thrown in his direction. "So who is it? You know the nurses are giving me nothing either." He looked earnestly at Fontane.
Ginny laughed. "What's got you suddenly interested?"
"Oh he's always interested in such things" Teddy answered with a roll of her eye.
"Look it's logical. Working hours at the hospital, and you especially trying to set up a new unit, it's got to be frustrating. So you need to let it all out. The hospital provides you with the easiest pool of targets. But you've been very discreet, and congratulations to you for that, but I was just asking if you are adequately satisfied?" he wiggled his eyebrows.
Ginny roared with laughter. "Oh Mark, you needn't worry about it, I assure you. I'm satisfied, thank you" she went back to sipping her coffee. Further discussion was interrupted by Ginny and Teddy's pager going off simultaneously. "Ah, you done?" Ginny asked looking up from her pager at Teddy. Teddy wiped her face with a tissue before getting up. "Yeah, let's go."
"Hey , hey , hey!" Mark stood up too. "You're leaving without giving me a name?" Ginny thought he looked like superman as he stood with hands placed on his hips. She laughed. "There are too many to give you" she whispered as she walked past him and followed Teddy out of the door.
Callie found Arizona sitting slumped in her office chair with her head held in her hands. "Hey honey, what's up?" She quickly pulled a chair close to her wife and sat down.
Arizona looked up and gave a small smile when she realized that it was Callie. "Is your shift over?" she asked in a hoarse whisper.
"Yeah, I was just gonna head home with Sofia. You done yet?" Callie asked as she ran a hand down Arizona's back. She knew something was wrong with Arizona.
Arizona looked at the mass of papers on her desk. "Not yet. I just didn't get round to finishing my work this evening." She avoided looking Callie in the eye.
"What is it baby? Tell me." Callie was getting more worried by the minute, and so she gently turned Arizona's face towards her. "Did someone say something? Owen? Did you lose a patient?"
Arizona drew in a deep breath. "No. No. Nothing of that sort. I just…I was…thinking about something in the past. And I was feeling a little overwhelmed." She offered a weak explanation.
"Does this have to do with Ginny?" Callie asked her anger immediately flaring up. "Did she say something to you?"
"Callie." Arizona looked up finally and met Callie eyes. "There's a lot in my past. And I was just wondering if…if I've evolved into a better person or not."
Callie knew the answer to that. She leaned forward and before she captured Arizona's lips in a searing kiss she whispered "You are the most amazing person I know."
"You are actually amazing with kids" Alex was startled as Ginny came and stood by him at the deserted nurse's station.
Alex just shrugged his shoulders. "What are you doing here so late?" he questioned her as he signed the charts.
"Wondering if Arizona is still around. I was kind of a bitch to her earlier, I wanted to apologize" she looked down.
"Out of luck, she's gone home for the night. But you could always just go over to her place and apologize. If there's one thing I've learned is that with friends you should put your egos aside." He said as closed his folder and turned to look at her directly.
"Wow, Obi Wan, that's insightful. But there's a little problem, I don't know where she stays. I mean I know it's somewhere around here, but I've never really been over there. Considering my relationship with Callie I didn't think it congenial to visit Arizona at her home" Ginny ran a hand through her hair as she gave Alex an honestly lost expression.
"She lives across the street. You couldn't miss it even if you wanted to" Alex had already started walking towards the elevator when he realized Ginny wasn't following him. "What?" he asked when he saw her shocked expression.
"Which building exactly?" Ginny asked still rooted to her place.
"Umm…the cream coloured one." He answered trying to remember its exact name.
"The cream coloured one next to the red brick building?" Ginny squeaked.
"Yesss" Alex had no idea why she was freaking out.
"Oh shit." Ginny held her hands in her head.
The elevator dinged open on their floor. "What happened now?" seeing her expression, Alex wasn't sure if he wanted to know.
"Today morning after I left you, I signed the papers to purchase the penthouse on that building" Ginny answered letting her hands fall to her side.
Why did her plans always have to go haywire?
So, did you like the new developments? Not enough drama? Too much of it?
Anyone figured out, who Ginny actually likes? :)
As always I love hearing from you, what you think about it. Also thank you everyone who's read it, added it to their alerts and especially those who reviewed. (P.S- even you, who reviewed in Portuguese and I had to use google translate to figure out you weren't abusing me :P :D )
Thank you, lots of love- G
