Fear

When I was a little kid I loved Disney. I still do to be honest but I no longer live in the fantasy of fairy tales and happy endings. Life has taught me better at this point. I guess there comes a moment in our lives when we all realize that life is harder than what our parents made it look when we were kids.

The reason why I liked Disney so much was that I always dreamt that my prince charming would carry me away to a castle on a hill, far far away from my father and I'd finally be happy. But eventually I grew up, we all do. And one day we simply open up our eyes and the fairy tale disappears. We are faced with reality and we can't turn our backs on it. We wish we could but we can't.

And we stumble, we fall and we try to keep standing. That's why we all turn to the things and people that we can trust. So we can keep trying.

I've been drying my hair for two minutes straight when I notice that Rachel's been staring from her spot on the bed.

"What?" I chuckle at her pensive stare. It's like she's trying to see through me with how intense her eyes are.

"I was thinking that we should spend the night at your place tonight" she proposes and I turn back around to face my reflection in the mirror as I comb my hair back.

"But I like it here"

"I know you do but we're always here. Why are we always here? Do you even have a place?"

Her questioning is amusing, you have to see it from my end. I sit with her on the edge of the bed to put on my boots and then I kiss her cheek.

"What kind of place?" I ask and she playfully glares at me.

"A house. With a closet and your stuff in it. Your personal stuff. Do you even have one of those?"

"You already know my place" her eyes widen and she stares at me comically.

"The hotel?"

"The hotel."

I don't wait around to see her gawking reaction and leave the room. Ever since her roommates found out that I was the one dating Rachel, things have improved greatly. I can see why Rachel cares for them as much as she does and vice versa.

"Good morning" I enter the kitchen smiling but as soon as I see the amount of pancakes that Marley has baked I falter in my step.

"Hey" Anderson says through a full mouth. "You guys want a cupcake?" his eyes rake Rachel's legs in the skirt she's wearing but I only smile to myself. She's beautiful and sexy, he'd be a fool not to notice.

"No, thanks" his eyes snap up to meet mine but he quickly looks away.

"Marley made them" he says as if Rachel is paying attention and not giving me the same look she was giving me upstairs.

"If you don't want to tell me the truth, that's fine but you don't have to lie"

"I'm not lying" I laugh but it's clear that she isn't believing me.

"You are lying, you can't be living in a hotel"

"Wait, you live in a hotel?" Marley asks and then nods to herself, as if everything makes sense now.

"There are people who life in hotels" Blaine shrugs, still eating pancakes. "It's normal"

"Thank you"

"She's lying" Rachel says again.

"What's the big deal anyway? I'm barely there lately and you know I like it here. You said so yourself last week, that you like having your things around, sleeping in your own bed. I'm just making your life easier"

"You're like a health nut, aren't ya?" Anderson says motioning to my bowl and the cereal I just served myself. "You eat muesli every morning"

"No, I don't" I huff and start eating.

"The muesli thing, you do" Marley agrees and Rachel nods before kissing my cheek on her way to the counter. "The last seven days, at least."

I laugh now, I haven't been here for a week. "Come on now. I haven't been here for that long" they all give me incredulous looks and I turn back to Rachel. "Have I?"

"See?" she pecks my lips and smiles sympathetically as she sits. "Even they think it's weird."

I keep quiet as we all eat breakfast before we leave to the Hospital. I haven't really thought about getting a place here. To be honest, I thought I didn't need it. At first I tried to stay as much as I could in the Hospital so I wouldn't have to go back to the Hotel and then it was Rachel's place.

Thinking about it, I really do need a place to fall into that's not a Hotel room or Rachel's house.

"Are you okay?" she asks as we all get out of her car in the parking lot.

"Yeah, yes. Of course" I take her hand and together we start walking.

"You seemed really distracted during breakfast"

"I'm okay."

Marley and Blaine are laughing in front of us, and I realize how well I've gotten to know them during the last couple of weeks. Not only as interns but as Rachel's friends.

"You sure?" she asks before we get inside.

"Yes."

She kisses me before she jogs to catch up with her friends. My pager beeps and I don't have any more time to stop and stare at her.

Puckerman is in the patient's room and I have to control myself before I walk inside and remember that I specifically asked this guy on my service for the mere reason to keep him on a straight line.

"What do we have?" the girl on the bed looks at me from head to toe before smiling suggestively at me but I look at Dr. Puckerman smiling softly.

"Seventeen year old female hospitalized for excessive bleeding, status root canal. Also had a significant new heart murmur associated with fever. Now afebrile on antibiotics."

"If I'm gonna die, can you page my parents?" she asks as I read her chart and then get closer to her bed.

"You're not dying" I tell her as I check on her. Her coughing is rougher that I'd like but I need to see her lab results before I come up with any conclusion.

"Yet" she says.

"Where are you parents?"

"In the cafeteria. My freak father likes hospital food" she smirks at me, a flirty little smirk and I have to take a step back, just to be safe.

"Well, you're in excellent hands here. Dr. Puckrman is going to run some labs and I'll see you with your parents in a little while" I hand him back the chart as he nods. "Add a bleeding time to the coughs."

The gossip of the day is a psych's patient who apparently is an actual psychic. I'd like to meet him just to see it for myself. As a doctor I was taught that everything happens for a reason but there are things out there that don't have an explanation at all. I'm always fond of finding these things. Call me crazy but sometimes I like to prove that even as Doctors, we don't know it all.

"Is it true there is a psychic in the Hospital?" I ask Rachel as soon as I see her.

"Are you making fun?" she asks confusedly. "Because if you are, you have to stop. This guy actually predicted the death of a patient!"

"Baby" I chuckle at the shocked expression on her face. "I can predict that every day but I'm no psychic. This is just a Hospital."

She stays quiet and when I look at her she's smiling softly, almost shyly. "What?"

"Nothing" she smiles a bit wider. "I love having you over, you know that, right?"

"You've made me feel very welcomed, yes" she rolls her eyes good naturally. "You always think I'm talking about sex"

"Because you always are" I laugh as she pushes the door to the stairs open.

"You know me so well"

"That's the point" she stops and turns around. She's standing a stair above mine and for the first ever, I look up at her. "I hardly know anything about you"

"That's not true" I place my hands on her waist and pull her closer to me. "You know I'm from New York. I like ferry boats, my boots high and my jeans tight"

"Enough about your fashion style. What about friends?"

"I'm a surgeon. I don't have any friends" I kiss her collar bone but she doesn't let me kiss her any further and I have to stand steal as she eyes me seriously.

"Everybody has friends. Who do you hang out with?" I huff at that. I never leave the Hospital and when I do, I do it with her. "What do you do on your days off?" I raise an eyebrow at her and she shakes her head too quickly.

"You"

"Don't make fun of this. These are important question that I don't have answers to"

"Not that important"

"We're having sex every night. I think I deserve some details" I smile as she combs my hair back with her fingers.

"You have more details than most, trust me"

"This is going somewhere weird. I want facts and until I get them, my pants are staying on"

"Or you could just roll with it. Be flexible. See what happens" I ignore her threat but she glares at me.

"I'm not flexible" she crosses her arms above her chest as I laugh.

"I have to disagree" my pager beeps just in time now. "I have to go but I promise that you're not in the dark. This is the fun part of our relationship. Of any relationship, you know? This is the gravy." I kiss her cheek and hurry up.

"That's what I'm talking about" she raises her voice. "I don't want the gravy. I want answers."

"I'll see you later." I yell right back.

My past isn't something that I want to discuss with Rachel, with anyone really. I left that life behind, I don't need to be bringing it up now that I've found a new and good thing.

I know I'm avoiding her important information of me, but would it be so hard to just get to know me in my present?

Puckerman and I study Devo's labs results and together we plan her surgery before we go back to her room, were her parents are already waiting for us.

Is it weird that every time a new patient comes in, I beg for surgery to not be a must? Don't get me wrong, I like to cut as much as the next surgeon does. I love the thrill of saving a life, of getting my hands dirty in the process but there is also the potential outcomes that never leave my mind.

The parents look beyond worried. Devo is their only child and they really don't care who we are as long as we safe her life.

"Your daughter needs a valve replacement. Tests are indicative of Von Willebrand's disease, which explains excessive bleeding after the root canal."

"And that means?" the father asks and I look at Puckerman.

"Devo can't take the blood thinners necessary to maintain a mechanical heart valve." He explains but the parents still look confused.

"We're suggesting a porcine valve instead"

"A porcine? As in pig?" he asks shakily.

"Yes, it's the standard of care for someone in this situation" I look at him and give him time to think. How freighting it must be to see your child like this.

"Pig, huh?" he says after a while and I nod my head.

"I don't care what you have to do. Save my daughter's life" says the mother and the father is quick to agree with her.

"Alright, Dr. Puckerman will prep you for surgery" I smile at the patient but she's barely awake and weaker than before. "I'll see you in surgery."

She raises her fingers in my direction and I smile confidently before walking out of the room. It's always important to make family members feel comfortable as much as the patient. The patients always rely on other people to make decisions.

A car accident suddenly has everyone in ER. Even the Chief has gotten into surgery and every OR is occupied. My surgery has been pushed a couple of hours in order to attend urgent trauma patients.

I just finish intubating a little girl when I hear commotion coming from the next room. When I see Anderson and Puckerman in the room yelling to each other I'm really not that surprised. They are trying to intubate a man but Anderson doesn't seem able to do it and he keeps closing his eyes to think. Puckerman checks the man's chest before taking the tube from Anderson's hands and intubating him himself.

"There. Huh. Got it" even from outside of the room I can tell the state of the patient isn't good and I walk in.

"Are you trying to kill this patient, Anderson?" he gags for words a few times but nothing comes out. It's their sixth month here, he should know how to intubate properly by now. "Maybe we should sent you back to practice on mannequins" I check on the patient myself and then Puckerman hands me the chart.

"No, it's just I haven't done this much. But when I have, it's… it's been good. I can do this, it's just that I haven't…"

"Let's review the concepts, shall we?" I smile at him but he's not stupid enough to buy it. "Never take your eyes away. Always, always know you can follow through."

He nods but quickly looks away from me as his lips purse together, a clear sign that he's annoyed and frustrated.

"Don't ever follow through on one of my patients, Anderson" Puckerman tells him before we both leave the room.

"Get him to x-rays, run labs and call me when you get the results"

"Yes, Doc."

He hurries off, smiling. I have to give it to Puckerman though. He might be a pain but he's a pain straight forward. There's no hot and cold business with him. He is who he is and that's all. I kind of admire him for that. It takes balls to believe in yourself like that.

As I walk inside the ER I realize that most of the staff is gone. Everyone must be in surgery while mine got pushed back. The good news is that the intern that paged me was Rachel.

"What do we have?" she hands me labs results and films.

"John Doe, in his thirties. Came with an obvious chest trauma" I wince at the reddish bruise all over his chest and take a second look at his films. "Was coughing blood when he got in but as you can see…"

"The films are clear" I finish for her and she nods defeated. "He probably broke his teeth or bit his tongue, did you check for that?" she opens her mouth but nothing comes out. "Gloves" Tina is quick to help me with the globes before I open up this man's mouth to take a look.

His tongue is terribly damage. The chart says he was in the car accident, he probably bit his tongue when he crashed.

"He's one lucky guy" I say as I administrate antibiotics until Plastics can get down here.

"I thought he was a cardio patient" Rachel says as I hand her back the chart. I observe for a moment but she's not looking at me. She's upset about something.

"He could have been. The air bag saved his life"

"Yeah, well. We don't always get what we expect, do we?" she turns around with the intention of leaving but I take her hand and impend her from doing it.

"What is the matter?" I ask when she's looking at me.

"Give me something to go on. Anything. What are your grandparents' names?"

"I don't have any left" she takes a deep breath before she looks over my shoulder to where Tina and another nurse are standing. Rachel turns around again and this time I follow her to an on-call room.

"Where did you grow up? Do you have any brothers? Where did you spend your summer vacations?"

"Lighten up" I smile easily as she closes her eyes and walks further into the room.

"I need to know things about you" and the way she says it breaks my heart. She's suffering from this and that was never my intention.

"Rachel" she takes deep breaths until I'm close enough to wrap my arms around her waist and look at her in the eye. "Is it so bad that I want you to know my present and not my past?"

"Yes, it is. Your past is your history, is everything that you are and I need to know who you really are"

"But you know me" I assure her and place both of her hands on my chest. "This is me. I'm not hiding anything. I'm just trying to let the past where it belongs. I want you to know me now, this is me right now and right now I'm not hiding anything"

"I want to know about your family" her fingers are now playing with my hair above my ears as her big eyes look up pleadingly at me.

I look up at the ceiling and take a deep breath. If I open this door, then she'll have the key to unlock all the others.

I look at her again and taking a deep breath I nod.

"I will tell you everything… I promise that I will tell you everything you want to know"

I turn around from her and take deep breath, I don't want to cry but the sting in my eyes is undeniable.

"It's okay" I hear her say before I feel her hands on my shoulders. "I don't know what happened. I don't know how anyone could hurt you as bad as they have but I promise you" she forces me to turn around and make eye contact. "I won't do that."

I let her comb my hair, wipe my tears and then guide me to a bed where she lets me hold her tight until my breathing has gone back to normal.

I have been fooling myself into believing that just because I left a city, I've also left the past behind. Rachel is right, my past in my history. It will always be with me. I have been in such denial that I didn't realize how scared I was to open up like this again, or how much I still cared.

"I need to find a place. I can keep living in a Hotel" she huffs in my arms and her body shakes lightly with soft laughter. "What's so funny?"

"Well, you haven't really been living there. You've been living with me"

"Huh" she's right but I won't say it aloud. "I'll be apartment hunting tomorrow morning anyway"

"Sure you will" she mumbles as my pager goes off. It's a 911 on Devo.

"I have to go" I peck her lips before jumping off of the bed.

"I wanna come with!" I hear her says as I close the door.

Apparently, Devo's father has a problem with his daughter getting a pig anything and he's not signing the forms until we come up with another solution.

"If it were up to me" Devo says once her parents have left the room and it's just Puckerman, me and her. "I'd let you put anything inside of me" she flirty says and my eyes widen as much as Puckerman's, if not more.

"Very inappropriate" I tell her in good nature.

"Suit me" she shrugs before she goes into a coughing fit. Once we stabilize her again, her parents have returned.

"There's another option" Puckerman suddenly says.

"Dr. Puckerman" I call him.

"No, no, listen Dr. Fabray. If we could just replace the porcine valve with a bovine then it should work"

"Dr. Puckerman" I try again but the parents are already listening.

"Let him talk" the father tells me and I surrender.

"Dr. Fabray can transplant a bovine mitral valve instead of the pig one"

"Can you do that?" the father immediately turns to me.

"Dr. Fabray, why wasn't this mentioned before?" the mother asks.

"Dr. Puckerman"

"I read this investigation a couple of weeks ago and the bovine valve has only been an option the last few years" he enthusiastically says, as if I didn't know this, as if this is brand new information for me.

"And it will remain being only an option because it's a much more complicated procedure"

"But you can do this, right? Replace it with it?" the father gets on my face but I won't stand here and be dragged into this.

"I'll study the option and come back when I have all the information that I need. Excuse me."

I only need to look at Puckerman for him to follow me outside. I retract myself. Puckerman just proved that he is as stupid as he looks.

"How dare you mentioning something you know so little about to the patient's parents in that room?"

"But I…"

"What incredibly small fraction of your brain were you using in there?"

"What?" I take a deep breath and stare him down. I really hate his superior attitude.

"Correct me if I'm wrong genius, but did you not present an alternative procedure without consulting your attending first?"

"I thought…"

"You weren't thinking! End of discussion. You're off this case. You're off my service. Go find someone who enjoys working with you because I sure as hell don't."

I walk away from him, leaving him with his confusion behind me. I can't believe he'd propose something, drag my name into and give the parents hope like that without even consulting with me first.

I've never done a bovine valve replacement. Like I said before is too complicated and there are only a few people in the country that have practiced it and are experts. Yes, the results are much better, the bovine valve lasts longer but the risks also increment with it. There are a hundred things that could go wrong.

I enter an on-call room with the whole purpose of resting but the moment I step inside I find Rachel laying on a bed.

"If you want some, this isn't a good time" she says with a soft smile before scooting over and inviting me to lay with her.

"No worries."

She snuggles close to me and I instantly start to feel better. Just having her here is already calming me down. It's a nice feeling, a foreign feeling but nice.

"You look worried"

"I am"

"What's wrong?"

"I don't see you enough during the day" she moves to rest her hand on my chest and her chin above it. She looks at me lovingly and not for the first I wonder where did she come from.

"I know" she runs her fingers on my chin, soothingly.

"There's a procedure that I've never done before. A bovine replacement. I don't know nothing about it"

"You can look it up, research it, and get someone to assist you"

"It's not that easy"

"Why?" a million things run through my head and on the edge of another freak out she combs my hair back and I focus back on her. How does she do that? How can she take away all the worry by just moving her hands?

"I can't walk into the dark like that. I need someone to guide me through it, someone who's done this before so I won't make any mistakes"

"This doesn't sound like it was your idea in the first place"

"It wasn't"

"Then find the person who gave you the idea. Call someone who's done this before and ask them to come and land a hand" she sits up then and pulls me up as well. "This is a problem that has a solution, now go out there and find that solution. I ain't dating no quitters, got me?"

"Got ya." She pecks my lips before pushing me out of the room, literally.

The research room is –thankfully- empty and I immediately get to work. I've ready many articles about the procedure before but there are some recent ones that I didn't know about. I imagine these are the ones that Puckerman was referring to. It turns out that there is an expert in Florida and after I speak with him on the phone it becomes clear that I had nothing to freak about in the first place since he is willing to help. He can't come here but technology will allow him to assist me.

I find Puckerman in the hallway after a consult and it's obvious that he's trying to ignore me.

"Dr. Puckerman" he looks at me expectantly. "How long would it take to get a cow valve here?" his eyes widen and he hurries to my side.

"I can find out and I'll let you know"

"After you do that, book an OR for tomorrow morning, you're scrubbing in"

"Thank you, Dr. Fabray. Thank you very much"

"This doesn't get you any points with me, Puckerman. I'm the only one with points around here, okay?"

"Understood" he smiles before he leaves.

As I see him walking away shame washes over me completely. I was scared of his suggestion. I was scared simply because his proposal was new and I wasn't ready for it. I was scared and I shouldn't have been, I should have been prepared and take the challenge without doubting myself.

"Did you work it out?" Rachel asks as we meet in the hallway. She's fresh out of surgery and the glowing in her eyes is beautiful.

"Yes, I did. You were right, research and one call, and I'm all set"

"You see, I told you"

"How was your day?" I ask as I hold the door to the cafeteria open for her.

"Productive. Tired. I assisted Dr. Pierce on a brain surgery" she smiles widely.

"Congratulations" she runs her hand on my forearm before ordering coffee for the both of us. She gives me a look after I pay for the two of us but doesn't say anything. "You know some people would call this a relationship."

"Who? Who would call it that?" she frowns but the smile on her lips gives her away.

"Me. I would."

She doesn't say anything and I don't push it either. She knows how I feel about us, I just have to give her time to catch up and walk with me if she wants.

She is on call tonight but since I have some time off I go apartment hunting. It turns out that Seattle has many offers that are close to the Hospital which I really don't want, and so little in the outsides. Coming from New York, you'd think that I'm used to the noise and on some level I am but it doesn't mean that I enjoy it.

There is a little house just outside of Seattle, almost in the mountains that provides a beautiful view of the City and it has everything that I'm looking for. There are no highways or noise cars around. The only neighbors that I have are half a mile away and the interior design is just the perfect mix of modern and contemporary that I instantly fall for the place.

"I'll take it" the owner, an old lady smiles before handing me a contract and the keys to the place.

Since the place is completely empty I have to buy a mattress which is the most important if I'm planning to stay the night here. The rest can wait till tomorrow or next week. I don't really care.

When I check out of the Hotel I realize that I'm not even going to miss this place. It was never comfortable, it was never home.

I don't see Rachel until the next morning and even now, I can't even say hi because I have a meeting with Dr. Chesney, the Doctor from Florida who is going to help me in my surgery today.

When I get to the OR everything is ready to go, the gallery is full and even the Chief has come to see this new procedure. New advances make successful doctors he says before he retires to observe from the gallery.

"This is Dr. Chesney from the Cleveland Clinic" I introduce him, showing the Monitor on my right. "He's an expert on bovine valve replacement surgery and he will be assisting via satellite."

"Thank you, Doctor. Shall we begin?"

"We shall. Ladies and gentleman, let's hit the road."

Dr. Chesney turned out to be a true rock star and I've learnt something new in the process of getting to know him. The surgery is a success and that's exactly what I tell Devo's parents right after. She'll have a long and fulfilling life.

At the end of the day, faith is a funny thing. It turns up when you least expect it but when you need it the most. I was hesitant about this procedure but Rachel made me see the other side, she gave me faith that was I capable of doing it and she was right.

As the sun sets I'm driving Rachel to my new place and now more than ever I realize that the fairy tales may not be exactly the way Disney portrays them but they can exist.

"Where are we going?" she asks worriedly once we've taken an alternative road.

"Do you trust me?" I ask and as the seconds pass by and she doesn't answer I'm forced to look towards her, but she's smiling and looking at me.

"You're driving me into the woods and I'm still inside the car" she points out.

"You trust me" I nod and she laughs lightly.

"I trust you."

As I park she looks all around and her mouth hangs open when her eyes fall on the small house.

The castle… well, it may not be a castle at all.

"Wow, this is…"

"My new house" I take her hand and together we walk to the porch and she laughs when she sees the swing to a side of the front door.

"Wow, so the woods, huh?"

"Shush woman. I'm about to tell you stuff" she nods as I take both of her hands and sit down on the swing with her sitting right in front of me. "All right. My mother's name is Judy. My father left when I was seventeen. We never saw him again. I have two sisters and I'm the middle child, so you can imagine how spoiled I am" I chuckle but her only response is to intertwined her fingers with mine. "My older sister, Charlotte, lives in Los Angeles, she married her high school sweetheart and they have two kids, Ramona and Joseph. My little sister, Amanda, goes to Yale and she visits mom every other weekend. I love them to death. Mmm, I like my coffee with milk but I don't like to drink only milk. I smoke" she scrunches up her nose and I laugh lightly before clarify. "Once a month, every full moon, it's not an addiction, really. I'm a great dancer but I get shy when I dance in public. Favorite Novel, One last thing before I go. Favorite Band, Mumford and Sons. My favorite color is black but also red and I absolutely hate green."

She laughs at the irony because now I'm surrounded by green. I roll my eyes at her and she laughs harder. God! This woman is the most adorable thing I've ever seen.

"You can't hate nature, that's the only exception. Let's see… this scar" I lift my hair and show her a little scar on my forehead. "it's why I don't ride motorcycles anymore and I like quiet even though I'm from New York. I rent because I don't want to buy. I want to build my own house from scratch and knowing that I'll love every single corner of it and that's all you get for now. The rest you're just gonna have to work for it."

She kisses me then and standing up she pulls me to my feet with her. "Thank you" she whispers against my lips as she wraps her arms around my neck and I hold her close.

She kisses me one more time before pulling away and holding out her hand she takes me inside.

She might not be the prince charming I was taught to dream of, but I wouldn't have it any other way.