Author's Note: Oh look! It's an update and it hasn't been a few years... :) I know they're short, but they're coming and that's what counts, right? Thanks to everyone who commented on the last chapter. Your enthusiasm for this story is the engine driving me along.

So this chapter is the bulk of what happened between our girls to get them where they are now. The next chapter will look at how it plays out:)

Chapter 10

"We have nothing but time." I kiss a soft smile onto her lips.

The longest breath in the history of breathing leaves my chest at the sound of the door snapping shut after Piper leaves. A breath of I-can't-believe-that-just-happened, and did-we-just-do-that? The jelly in my knees starts to win out and I fall back onto the bunk, arms and legs spread like a starfish. Apparently sitting is a little too much to ask of my body right now. God, what the hell did she do to me? A smile creeps onto my face as I realize the answers to those questions don't even matter. What matters now, is how long before she can do it to me again.

Piper… Doctor Chapman…

I know I have to get back out there—I wasn't kidding about the charting waiting for me—but I can't go anywhere with what we did still written all over my face. The feel of her still bristling against my skin, so just thinking about touching her body makes me break out in a sweat. The things I need to do to that body…

Loud static ruins the pocket of bliss I'm wrapped in, as the walkie Piper left behind comes to life.

Ten four, ten four, are my ears deceiving me, or was that Miss Goody Two Shoes being called to the principal's office?

It sounds like Bennett, and he's openly enjoying this little bit of information. Another crackle signals an incoming reply, and now there's laughter.

It's about time you people learn. Can that be Fig?

Learn what? Bennett again. And who's you people?

Hey guys… This time I recognize the voice instantly—Mendez. I'm listening to the channel secured for the attendings. Eavesdropping, not listening. I shouldn't be hearing this. I should get back to work, so naturally I stay riveted to my spot on the bunk. Some of us are trying to work, Mendez continues, so can you save the bullshitting for the lounge later?

Hold up, I'm curious. What's Natalie talking about? Bennett asks.

I nod my agreement with Doctor Pretty Boy. I'm curious too. What kind of trouble can Piper be in? We've been busting our asses all night, and I was with her for most of it. Nothing happened that could've set this off. I'm watching the abandoned walkie like it's a television set, waiting for it to go on with the show.

I'm talking about attendings getting into pants they have no business getting into, and then making life hard for everyone else who doesn't have that particular privilege. You can relate, right John? Fig disappears with a static break, and I try to swallow, but have trouble getting around my heart that's in my throat.

Fuck. For the second time in the past two minutes I'm asking myself what the hell just happened, but in a totally different way. A holy-shit-this-can't-be-good kind of way…

Uh, this isn't a closed channel you guys. Another voice—female—but I can't make out who it is.

Screw the channel (Mendez), I wanna know who Chapman's been cheating on me with, he ends with a chuckle.

Breathing is starting to suck, and my brain is working really hard to freak out, but I'm using all my energy to pick up the rest of the water cooler discussion going on. I don't want to miss any of it. The freak-out will have to wait.

I mean it, the other female voice says. Shut up about Piper. We all have more than enough work to do. Harper. Has to be…

Look (Bennett), obviously the big deal is not Chapman getting reamed for fraternization—we all do it, and yeah I'm talking to you Figueroa. The big deal here, the shocker, is that Chapman even knows how to fraternize! Now he's laughing too.

I'm bored (Fig). You bore me. Shut up and get back to work.

Voices are still taking turns to say things between rips of static, but I don't hear any of it. I'm thinking about Piper making her way up to the Chief, with no clue about what she's walking into. And I'm thinking about what I'll be walking into once I leave this room…

By the time I get to the trenches, the confusion of loud voices and authoritative instructions being yelled from every direction is like music to my ears. I'm dying to get into it. The incoming rush is over it seems, and everyone's got their hands on something that needs saving. Everyone except me. I scan the area for my attending, hoping to find her ankle deep in someone's blood. The perfect way to get this day going on a smoother track.

"Vause! Incoming!"

My attention snaps to the doors and I find Wash with Brook, already in their gowns and heading out. I break into a run to catch up, and when I step outside, it's at the same time as a truck rolls in. I make sure I'm right at the door when they offload.

"Head on collision becomes a pile-up," the EMT says. I recognize him from my old beat but say nothing as I fall in step beside him to take over the oxygen bag.

Brook and Wash have stationed themselves on the other side of the gurney and I can feel Brook's eyes on me, probably pissed that I get to bag and she doesn't, but I can't think about her now. The EMT starts rattling off the patient's stats as we roll inside.

"Unrestrained driver, hey Vause what's up, depressed skull fracture, texting behind the wheel what a jerk, distress to torso, digging your scrub game girl, call me…" he ends with a laugh and hangs back while we push the patient into the first available room.

"On my count!" Wash gives the order and several hands work to lift the stretcher from the gurney to the bed.

I'm still attached to the oxygen bag, while someone else, I'm not sure who, wheels the gurney back out to the EMT.

"I have to crack his chest," Wash says, and takes a pair of scissors to the guy's shirt, ripping it all the way up and through. "A little room, please!" This one's aimed at Laney. Laney? I hadn't noticed her til now. She jumps back, abandoning the IV she was about to set up.

"Hey Alex," she says with a nod when she sees me looking at her, and I'm still trying to decipher the look she's giving me when the bag I'm pumping feels like it's being tugged out of my hands.

"He's seizing!" My voice tears into the chaos around us. Laney's cryptic expressions fall to the back of my mind and my penlight is out and checking the patient's dilation without me even thinking about it. God I love this place.

"Back off," Wash says abruptly, and I stumble back to give her the room she's elbowing into.

"We need neuro in here… now." It feels like I'm out there, on the road, the way I call the instruction without hesitation. Taking charge even though I'm not the one in charge. Brook looks at me like I've lost it. Like who the hell am I to tell her what to do…

"Get Doctor Chapman!" And even with the fullness of the activity, machines and constant talking from both inside and outside the room, Wash's words echo. Since I'm not bagging anymore, I turn to carry out her order but her voice comes again and stops me dead in my tracks. "Not you. You." Her eyes move from me to Brook, who hands over her new spot at the bag to Laney before rushing out.

"Your assistance is no longer required here, Doctor Vause." Wash's words slice through my trauma-induced tunnel vision. "Go see if you can help out with one of the other cases."

"What?" The guy is still seizing on the bed and the clattering metal combined with all the other sounds gets jumbled with her words in my head.

"You don't need to be here for the rest of this," she says, as if she's explaining something to a child.

But I was at the drop. I get to follow the case. The rules say-

"What do we have?" Piper appears in a rush of cold air and sweet jasmine, and it's like everything else fades into the background.

She goes straight for the patient. The look she spares me is fleeting at best and once I catch Wash looking at me – looking at me and the way I'm looking at Piper – it hits home. I'm not needed here, because here is where Piper is. My teeth sink into the inside of my lip and I only let up once the metallic taste of blood fills my mouth. Is she for real? Kicking me off a case to keep me from working with Piper? As if I'm going to forget about the life we have to save and start fucking her in the middle of triage. The rush of adrenaline that's been pumping through me starts to cloud over with the beginnings of a seething anger.

"Alex, take over." Laney's voice comes to get me out of my head and I see her stepping back from the oxygen bag for me to take it.

"No need," Piper cuts in just as I'm about to rush over. "We have to get him to an OR. Move."

She and Wash start wheeling the patient out with Laney shuffling along, still attached to the bag. Brook and I follow closely behind, but once we hit the elevators, Wash turns to us, gives me the once over, and says, "You two sit this one out. Help out down here. I'll find you after the surgery." The elevator dings its arrival and we stand there like idiots, watching the attendings usher the patient inside.

The doors are just about closed when Brook turns on me. "This is all your fault," she hisses. Like a snake. Like a scaly, evil, reptile.

"Take a breath, Soso." I brush her off and start back into the trenches, back to see if I can find work for my idle hands while I make sense of what just happened.

But she's after me like a rabid dog. "I'm never going to see the inside of an OR as long as I'm with you," she says, and I have no choice but to stop and hear her out because people are starting to look and suddenly I'm thinking about this stupid review form and how I have to keep the negative shit people can say about me down to a minimum.

"I didn't make the call. It was the attending's decision to-"

"Are you blind or just stupid?" she cuts in, not even trying to keep her voice down.

"Excuse me?" Just when I thought she couldn't be any more annoying, she finds a new line to cross. A new low to reach. And she's chosen to reach it in the middle of the ER, which isn't exactly helping my rising temper.

"Wake up, Vause. We're not scrubbing in because they are going to make sure you're nowhere near Doctor Chapman until the check clears. It's so obvious they've all been briefed. As long as that money's not in the bank, there'll be no surgeries for us if she's there too."

So they all know. Well that's just great. "Do you have any idea how insane that sounds? This is a hospital, not a middle school playground." I hear myself making the argument, but the words are empty. Because I think she may be right. I'm slowly starting to grasp just how big of an asset Piper is to this place, and the lengths the Chief will go to protect that asset.

"Maybe so, but you're the one who started all this, walking around here like you're better than everyone else-"

"When have I ever-"

"-but now we all know how you did it. How you got the favor of one of the best attendings at this hospital."

"Shut up." I'm done. Enough. Fuck the form and fuck Brook Soso.

"It's probably how you get anyone's favor, am I right? How else is a blue collar going to make it?" A cruel smirk tilts the corner of her mouth as she says it. She's enjoying this.

My jaw starts to ache with the way I'm clenching, balled fists at my side. "I swear to god, Brook…" I don't even know how the words get out, I'm biting down so hard.

"You can rein it in," she says, standing down, obviously noticing the amount of restraint I'm calling on in this moment and deciding not to push me any further. "I've said my piece. I'm going to talk to Doctor Washington about reassigning me as soon as she gets out of surgery. And while I'm waiting for that to happen, I think I'll tell the other interns about the new pile of shit you've gift wrapped for them." She wheels around and walks away like nothing happened. Like she didn't just stand in the middle of a public space and rip me to shreds for everyone to see.

My original plan was to find another case to get in on, but after that ordeal the doors to the ER are beckoning me. I don't want to get in on anything. I just want out. The drop zone is silent aside from a lone truck idling lazily at the end of the bay. It's empty, which means the medics are probably still inside with their cargo. I take a deep breath. The air feels like a million needles are prickling my face, but instead of shrinking away from it, I lift my head to feel it even more. It feels good. Keeping me on the surface of my skin so I don't have to think too much about what's going on beneath it. I'm alone for the first time since Nicky cornered me in the bathroom earlier, and the quiet of post-trauma chaos fetches me in an instant. I'm not surprised that the place it pulls me to is the same place I've been going over and over in every spare second...

"Alex, we need to talk."

I walk over to her and snake my arms around her waist, pulling her so close against me I can feel her warmth soak through the thin fabric of my scrubs. "I have a better idea."

She pulls away from me as I move in to kiss her. "I'm serious."

"So am I." But her face is still doing that tired looking thing, and not mirroring my smile at all. It makes me think that maybe this is serious. "What's going on?" She drops her eyes but can't go far because my arms are still holding onto her. "I mean, besides one of your pals ratting us out to Daddy Dearest which, if you ask me, I think was Fig."

Her eyes find mine and they're full of startled concern. "What? How do you-"

"The attendings' channel, remember? You left your walkie in the call room." Her face scrunches up and she looks like she's in real, actual pain. "They were just fucking around. Enjoying the fact that Miss Goody Two Shoes has a dirty side." I squeeze down on the delicious flesh of her ass and dip my head to get a taste of her.

"Stop." This time she uses force to pull out of my embrace entirely and now I'm really confused.

"So they know. And they told on us. What's the big deal? You handled it right? Teacher's pet and all… I say we finish what we started. Charting can wait." I reach for her hand, but she's quick to start fixing her hair with it. Okay. I'm clearly on the wrong end of this thing. "What is it, Piper? What happened up there?"

Her shoulders drop with the size of the sigh she lets out and she's looking at me like she's thinking of where to start. Eventually she does. "I can't remember a time when I didn't want to be a surgeon." Her voice is soft and melancholy, almost dreamy.

"Whoa, we're starting at the very beginning? This must be serious." But this isn't the time to be making jokes. She doesn't find it amusing. And if she does, she's doing a great job of not showing it. I realize my mistake and make a mental note to quit with the wisecracks.

"Alex… What I'm trying to say…" She falters off again, her eyes searching mine as if she's going to find her words hidden somewhere in them.

"You're trying to say…" I help her along with a small smile, closing the space between us that she made before, but careful to not be too overbearing about it. I don't want her to have to push me away again. I don't like how that feels.

"Look, I know how hard it was for me to get where I am today. And as hard as it was, I had it easy. Compared to what you must've been through to even get to med school, let alone this program."

My face isn't smiling anymore. Because her face isn't supposed to look like that when she's looking at me. I swallow. "Piper, what did he say to you?"

"I'm just saying… We both have our careers that we worked really-"

"What did he say?" She's stalling, and it's making me edgy.

"Alex…"

"Why won't you answer me?"

"Alex, I need this trial. Litchfield needs it." Finally. It comes out.

I can't stop the incredulous laugh that splits my chest. "This is about some clinical trial?"

She takes it in her stride. Still calm. Still collected. It's that cold-hearted surgeon thing. Cutting yourself off to get the job done. I don't get why she's doing it with me though.

"But for me to do the trial," she goes on, "I have to get the grant first."

"And he's holding that over your head unless you what? What did he say?"

She's not looking at me anymore. Too busy playing with a piece of lint on her lab coat. When she speaks next, I can barely hear her. "The Chief has a lot of… sway… when it comes to the board and their decisions."

The pieces finally start falling into place. I take another step back from her. I didn't want the space before but now I feel like it's the only thing that'll help. So even though everyone else gets to do who and whatever they want, Piper's different because she's the Chief's golden egg. His meal ticket. So he picks on the one thing he knows she'll never compromise and he uses it to make her do what he wants. She doesn't say anything anymore, but she doesn't need to. I get it. I understand completely. After all, I'm standing in front of a woman who walked away from a renowned surgeon she loved for the sake of her career. What chance do I have? I'm just an intern – definitely not renowned. And she doesn't love me.