Yes, I'm back, finally! After almost a week of skiing and a short trip to Paris I sat down and tried to get my muse back, but somehow she stayed in Paris and I must say, I do understand that completely…

I can't say how much I appreciate the huge support you gave me with all your reviews! Thank you all so much!

I'm not quite satisfied with this chapter, but instead of deleting it completely I thought I'd post it anyway, because I owe you guys! I also added a little flashback! I hope you still enjoy it and keep reviewing!

Ratings: Mentioning of abuse and suicide attempt

Disclaimer: No, not even during my vacation I was able to come up with a serious plan to take over Grey's… but I did come up with a plan on how to get seats in a bus that's packed full with skiers and snowboarders if anyone's interested;)

Chapter 3

"Is this really happening?" Addison asked herself while looking at the x-rays in front of her. Even though she wasn't a general surgeon, she'd studied enough of the material to know what presumably had happened to this girl and the pure thought of it made her sick. The bruises on her arms and legs were still fresh and would probably turn into a nasty purple only hours from now.

And as if this wasn't enough, she started to feel a little guilty of how harsh she'd treaded Alex when he wouldn't leave the room a few minutes ago. She was still shocked that he had a sister, and one that he seemed to be so attached to that she nearly had to call security to get him out of the room. He never told her that he had a sibling. But then again, he never told her anything about himself. Sex was all he was able to give her and up to now, she'd been fine with that but it wouldn't hurt to have a little more information, especially now with his sister in critical condition. She considered looking for him to get some of the answers but after examining Laura she highly doubted that she'd be able to look him in the eye anyway.

When a few minutes later Dr. Bailey entered the room Addison still hadn't moved away from the board, lost in her own thoughts. This wasn't supposed to bother her. She was a professional for crying out loud.

"What do we have?" Bailey asked when she stomped into the exam room. Her eyes quickly assessed the situation. The patient was still unconscious, hocked up to various machines and two large IV's, which seemed a little odd to her.

Addison quickly turned around and mentioned for Miranda to come over and take a look at the x-rays.

"What do you think Miranda?" Addison said sounding concerned.

"God, she's a complete mess. Look at that" She pointed her finger on her 4th rib. "This has been broken at least twice before. What happened?" She asked the redhead who was still ominously quiet. It seemed as though she was lost in her own thoughts.

"She collapsed in the waiting area. Her results show that she's severely dehydrated and hasn't eaten anything in the last 48 hours, so no wonder she fainted." Addison said, handing the test results to the chief resident.

"Do we have her medical records?" She asked Addison.

"I just sent an intern to get them, but it could take a while. She's not a regular patient here."

"Is someone here with her? Family? Friends?" Bailey questioned further and when she looked up at the redhead she noticed how nervous she looked.

After a second of contemplating she bent down a little to whisper into the shorter woman's ear, because there were too many nurses and interns in the room and she didn't want to expose him more than he already was.

"Miranda, this is Laura Karev. Alex Karev's sister." At that Bailey sent her a surprised glance but before saying something else she went on with the doctor-talking.

"She's got two broken ribs as far as I can tell." Dr. Bailey stated and moved over to take a closer look at Laura. "She probably doesn't need surgery, but we need to observe her for a day or two."

"Yeah that's what I thought too, but Miranda I think you should also take a look at this" Addison said and pulled Laura's sleeves back, so that her left and right wrists were exposed. Dr. Bailey's eyes widened when she spotted the scars that couldn't have been made by accident.

"Where's Karev?" Dr. Bailey demanded without another moment of hesitation and Addison quickly told her that she'd asked him to step outside and that she hadn't seen him since.

"Why does it always have to be my suck ups?" She sighed under her breath before leaving the room to go and look for her ex-intern.

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20 minutes. He'd been hiding for 20 minutes, unnoticed by anyone else. Sometimes he honestly thought about whether anyone would notice if he went missing. Probably not, but that was his own fault and anyway, he'd been the one that wanted it this way, so he mentally kicked himself for even thinking about something like that. As soon as he'd entered the closet he sunk to the floor, his face buried deep in the palm of his hands, rubbing over his forehead once in a while.

His wall was slowly crumbling. That was a fact. They'd find out and everything was going to change. That was his biggest fear right now, apart from not knowing what was going on with his sister of course. He didn't even waste the tiniest bit of energy on the fact that he who had brought all of this on them might be back.

By now, he was sure, they had already seen and examined the scars on her wrists that were never going to disappear completely. They were the most obvious ones but also the most dangerous ones. There were enough others that he knew of. He just hoped that she had found another way to cope. Because time healed everything right? He snorted a little at the pure thought. That was a quote for optimists, so definitely nothing for him or his sister.

And within a split second his luck was up when someone entered the supply closet and said person had carelessly turned on the bright neon light that, after sitting in total darkness for almost half an hours, was enough to send his temper raising to the ceiling.

"What the hell?" He swore and when the small person jumped a little in shock he couldn't help himself and smiled cheekily, because he already knew who it was and she would ask questions if he couldn't come up with a good explanation for sitting in the dark by himself. So he hoped that she'd buy it along with the faked smile and hopefully she hadn't heard from Addison or someone else what was really going on.

Meredith turned around with a confused look on her face, staring directly into Alex's face and saw that he was smirking at her.

"Alex? What are you doing here?" She asked questioningly when Alex pushed himself up from the floor.

He knew that he needed to take drastic measured because for some reason, Meredith sometimes seemed to look straight through him.

"I was just waiting for my on-call-room date, but apparently she can't make it!" He said

"Alex, seriously!" Meredith stated

"What? Don't look so surprised! You're the queen of on-call-room sex in this hospital. So if you don't mind, I'm gonna go" And at that he turned to leave but before he opened the door in front of him he turned back again.

"Or are you interested Grey?" He smirked at her again.

"Alex!" She explained with disgust. They were friends and she'd never go there with him and he knew that.

"Just asking!" And then he left the room without looking back. "That ought to have done it" He thought to himself.

He just emerged into the busy hallway when he spotted Dr. Bailey and Addison approaching him. They looked concerned and he immediately felt like a 7 year old boy again when he had to call the ambulance for his mom for the first time and waited around the hospital for hours.

His legs were dangling around nervously because the chair he was sitting on was too high for him to reach the floor with his feet. His mom had been inside the exam room with different nurses and doctors for almost 3 hours and no one had bothered to tell him what was going on. So he waited. And waiting at the hospital beat the hell out of waiting at home with his father who didn't even give a crap whether his wife came back alive or not, even though he was the reason that she was in that state. 5 year old Laura was playing happily with some building blocs only a few feet away from him. She hadn't realised what really had been going on. Not yet. So he let her be a little girl for as long as he could protect her from everything. Because she shouldn't have to be a grown up at the age of 7, like he was. His hopes and dreams had already been shattered by finding out that what was supposed to be good, always turned out to be bad. A family-life, a loving dad, a protective mother. Alex Karev didn't believe in the good anymore and he was only 7. In his opinion, fairytales never came true. But his stupid teacher at school had already sent him to the principal's office 3 times because he refused to believe that Cinderella and Prince Charming lived a happily ever after.

It was already 10 pm when a nurse came to get them. Laura had fallen asleep on the floor, crawled up like a cat. Alex had mindfully taken one of the blankets that was sitting on a pile in the corner of the waiting room and covered his sister up. The nurse picked Laura up from the floor. She stirred slightly but didn't wake up when they proceeded down the hallway, towards their mom's room.

"Karev, where the hell have you been? We've been looking all over for you!" Dr. Bailey asked but only got a shrug of his shoulders and a muttered "sorry" for a response with a quickly added "How's Laura" that sounded honestly scared. So far he had avoided looking at Addison and when he turned around to do so he saw it. The pity that overcame everyone who knew. Dr. Bailey might have been better at hiding it, but Addison was like an open book lying in front of him.

She was afraid to talk to him. She didn't know what to say.

"Alex, we need to talk!" Bailey said but Alex didn't take his eyes off of Addison. Instead he repeated his question from before.

"How's Laura!" He asked with so much force that he was surprised Addison didn't at least take one step back, away from him. This was probably where she wanted to be for the rest of her life anyway. As far away from him as possible. And in only one second he realised that this was the last thing that he wanted. He didn't want her to avoid him because ashard as he tried to deny it, he needed her.

"Alex..." Addison started, clearly not knowing how to handle this. Why did she feel that way? But before she was able to say or think anything else he spoke up again and cut her off. Not that she'd had any clue on what to say to him next anyway.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to scream but can you tell me how she is?" He asked his big brown eyes still piercing through Addison's blue ones.

"She's still unconscious but hopefully she won't need surgery. We'll keep her here for observation." She told him. "Alex, I reallythink we need to talk." Dr. Bailey said again in a caring tone and he considered running for a second but then only nodded slightly. He could have run from anyone else, but not from the woman that had taught him so much. She led the way towards her office and Alex followed suit. He didn't know what else to do, although he'd probably go to Joe's later to drink himself into a coma so he didn't have to think about all of this.

Addison contemplated going with them for a moment but then decided that it would be better if she went back to check on Laura. That was the only thing she could do for him right now.

TBC

So there you go! I hope you liked it, even though there's not really much going on…. Thanks again for anyone who reviewed the last chapters! I hope to get a few more for this one! ;) -Christine