Title: Z is for Zenith (Takes more than just a memory to make me cry...)
Word Count: 400 word drabble.
Characters: Alex, Meredith, Cristina (mentions of George and Izzie).
Rating: PG
Summary: Post season five finale... It takes seventeen days before they are all back on shift together. No one will say a word. A bleak look at the future.
Author's Note: Written as part of the alphabet meme for lving_darkness. Title is a line from the classic Cold Chisel song, Flame Trees. Those of you who don't know it need to hear it like... yesterday. I'd link it if I was anywhere near clever enough.
Disclaimer: All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and all the characters, settings, and events thereof, are properties of their respective owners. As this work is an interpretation of the original material and not for profit, it constitutes fair use. Referral to real persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context, and are not intended to be libellous, defamatory, or in any way factual.
Takes more than just a memory to make me cry...
By Waltzmatildah
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It will take seventeen days before they are all back on shift together. They will return in staggers, Cristina first, the very next day. Meredith second, later than Cristina only because she will become the unspoken 'Alex watcher' that he'll swear black and blue he doesn't need. It will take four days of forced conversation and feigned sleep for her to believe him. The interns will be re-distributed, like commodities to be traded and fought over. A familiar scenario, they have been through that before. Only there will be no fighting this time. No one will say a word.
They will still occupy the same table in the cafeteria during lunch. An unspoken rule from before. No one else will even look sideways at it. Five chairs for the three remaining residents and the ghosts of two more that they will carry with them forever, an almost visible shroud. Two seats side by side, one next to Alex... for Izzie. One next to Izzie... for George. No one will say a word.
And it won't be hard to wonder about a parallel scene at some point high above them, where things are the same as they always were. Where cafeteria seats are not left empty as some kind of tragic memorial, where they don't sit around underwhelmed by sarcasm and biting comments and the tang of knowing that they'd all rather be somewhere else, anywhere else. No one will say a word.
Physically, they will become three, but they will always carry the spirit of five. It's an incomplete circle otherwise, with the most integral bits missing. The fun and the warmth and the crazy and the naïve. They will need those parts to balance out the rest. The dark and the twisty and the sarcasm and the damage. No one will say a word.
But, overtime and despite fervored intentions to never forget, the memories will fade. Faces will blur and voices will become distant echoes of another time, some other place. Cafeteria chairs will break and won't be replaced. Shampoo bottles will be thrown out and clothing will gradually disappear into goodwill bins. They will all notice but no one will say a word.
And the parallel scene at the zenith of where the three of them stand at that point will become a rising song. They will feel the thumping beat and hear the rolling tune but because they won't remember what they are or what they ever were, no one will say a word.