Chapter 21

The cold weather of December woke Jo up because somehow she managed to get the blankets off of her body while she was sleeping. She sat on her bed and looked ahead to the semi-closed blinds in her room and since there was no sunlight peeking through them she assumed it was still early. She decided to get out of bed anyway since she wasn't going be able to fall asleep again. She got up and went to the bathroom to do her morning routine. She was just finishing washing her face when she looked at herself in the mirror and saw the defenseless and pitiful little girl she once was.

From a young age Jo learned not to depend on anybody, she learned that she was alone in this world and that she would be the only person she would ever need. She never thought that one day she would have a family, she dreamed about it of course but never really thought her dreams would ever come true. She learned that nobody was trustworthy and that nobody would ever love her, so learned to love and only trust herself. That all changed the moment she got to know Alex. First she met a person that couldn't care less about her existence, like most people she met throughout her life. Then that person became someone she hated but all that hate went out of the window once they started to get to know each other and before she knew she was falling in love with him. Jo was falling for someone, she never thought she could fall for someone after all she had been through, it was an overwhelming feeling and she got scared. She was scared he would turn out to be like the others so she treated him bad before he could do it, to defend herself. Instead of admitting her feelings she tried running away from them and got involved with someone she thought she deserved. Someone like all those others that ever crossed her life and just like she expected he didn't care about her. And even after that he was still there for her. That was when she realized he cared, she realized she found the person she had dreamed of her all life. She had found someone that she could finally trust. She felt loved and at that moment she realized she could open up and let him in. He was the one she had secretly been waiting for. She still was scared to let herself completely fall for him but he showed her that she could. She then started thinking Alex would be all she would ever need and all she would ever love but life proved her wrong once again. She thought she knew what true love was but she had only known a bit of it. True love, she only felt it when she held her baby for the first time and at that moment she knew that she was the one. That baby was her dream come true and she was worth all the pain she had gone through her life. Her life became something she never thought it would. She felt complete with them and if they were all she would ever have, she would have enough. She let her guard down and life once again punished her for it, she should have known better but just wanted her happy ending too. Why did everybody get their happy ending but her? She knew life didn't like her but she thought life would spare her just for once and let her be happy for good with no interruptions. She just wanted to be happy. She deserved to be happy, she had gone through enough for a lifetime. She deserved a chance to be happy but life didn't think the same way she did. She didn't even get to enjoy to the fullest the little bit of happiness she experienced but if she knew it would end so soon she would have worshiped every little detail.

She snapped out of her thoughts and looked at her teary face in the mirror. She splashed water on her face and then grabbed the towel to dry her face. She walked out of the bathroom and entered her room to get dressed so she could start her day. It had been a week ever since she had talked to Alex for the last time. And there was another thing life had taken from her, Alex. She hadn't actually had a real talk to anybody in a whole week, not that she had been isolated from the world but hadn't had been talking to anybody in particular.

She went downstairs to fix herself something for breakfast. Being alone wasn't anything new for Jo, she was used to be alone once and it didn't use to bother her much but after those eight years of being in a company of someone, she had forgotten how bad it felt to be alone. She remembered back in her high school days that whenever she felt too lonely she would drive from where she was to the only place she knew she was always welcomed. She hadn't talked to that woman in a while. She took her cellphone from the kitchen counter and dialed Mrs. Schmidt number, she heard it ring twice before she answered the call.

"Hello?" she heard Mrs. Schmidt's voice on the phone and before she knew it she was already crying "Jo, darling, is that you?"

"Ye-Yes" she croaked in a voice that Jo herself didn't recognize.

"Oh, honey h-" she was interrupted by Jo's sobs, since Jo was having a breakdown she waited until Jo stopped crying to speak again "Do you feel better now?"

"Yeah… I'm sorry I haven't been returning your calls… I wanted to be okay before I could talk to you and-"

"And did your plan work out, young lady?" Jo shook her head to that question as if Mrs. Schmidt could see her "How have you been? How is everything?"

"Alex and I are getting divorced…" She whispered

"You are what? Did I hear you right? Why are you getting a divorce now for?" Jo didn't answer "Josephine, you can't give up now… Look, I'm going there next week for Christmas and you, Alex and I are going to have a talk b-"

"I won't be here anymore…" she interrupted her.

"What do you mean you won't be there? Where will you be then?" Mrs. Schmidt asked concerned.

"I don't know yet… but I'm leaving Seattle, I'm leaving this state. I can't be here anymore…"

"Josephine, you are being reckless! You can't just leave! I will see you next week and you are spending the Christmas with us."

"I have my bags already done… I need to learn how to breathe again and I can't do it here… So I have to go elsewhere to begin again. It's too hard to keep living here…"

"Then come stay with me, okay honey? You know you are always welcome here with me… Can you just wait until I'm there?"

"I'm gonna meet with Alex today to legalize everything… I just wanted to say goodbye… and thank you for everything you have done for me but I have to be alone for now… I love you" Jo heard Mrs. Schmidt yell her name through the phone and she hung up before she could say anything else.

xxxxxxx

"Mommy!" Camilla yelled walking down the hall from her bedroom to the woman's "Mommy, wake up" she said tapping the woman in the cheek "Wake up! It's Christmas!" she said with delight.

"Good morning to you too" the woman said opening her eyes slowly and meeting Camilla's excited face inches away from hers.

"Come on, get up" Camilla said pulling on the woman's arm that was closer to her "Get up"

"I'm up. I'm up" she said pulling the covers from her body and then got out of bed following Camilla as she ran excitedly down the hall. "Slow down, Camilla. Wait, I'm gonna get the camera" The woman went back into her bedroom and just as she came out of there again Camilla started running down the stairs.

As the woman reached to the bottom of the stairs Camilla was already impatiently waiting for her next to the Christmas tree. She walked close to where Camilla was standing and then sat down on the floor recording as they laughed and their Christmas gifts. When they finished it, they went to the kitchen to make themselves breakfast.

"Mommy…" Camilla said lifting her head up from her plate "The other day umm… Mia said we should get daddy a present too…"

"She did?" the woman asked and Camilla nodded her head "Well… do you want to?"

"No" she mumbled.

"No?" she asked and Camilla shook her head slowly "Why not, baby?"

"Because he doesn't deserve it…" she whispered hurt

"Oh Mimi, don't say that baby…" the woman said reaching across the table to hold Camilla's hands. "…he does deserve it I'm the one who doesn't. I don't deserve you… If something happens to us and you can't stay with mommy I want you to know that I love you-"

"But I don't want to. I want to stay with you." Camilla said and pulled her hands out of the woman's grasp.

"Hey, hey. It's okay, it's okay." She said getting up and then walked around the table to console her child "There's no need for tears, okay? Look at me" she said and the little girl did so "I know you won't understand it now, but when the time comes I hope you'll forgive me and understand that everything I did was because I love you and I didn't want to lose you, okay?" she said and kissed Camilla on her temple.

"Okay"

"I'm sorry we had to leave your dad's house, I know you miss him a lot and you want to see him-" She was interrupted by Camilla shaking her head "You do want to see him, baby-"

"No I don't wanna see him ever again" she cried and put her head on the woman's chest.

"Okay, you don't have to… You know what?"

"What?" Camilla lifted her head from the woman's chest and asked.

"How about we leave here? What do you think?"

"We already live here, Mom" She looked at the woman confused which made the woman giggle.

"No I mean leave this place, go somewhere new wh-"

"Again? Why?"

"I promise that it will be the last time we move. We can go away from here, so you can go to daycare while mommy works instead of staying with Mia all the time…"

"I like being with Mia too, mommy and if we go away I can't sleep at her house again like the other day… Can she come?"

"No she can't but I can try to bring you here to see her sometimes or maybe she can come to see us. And if we go you can make new friends. Don't you miss playing with other kids?" she asked and the child nodded "So let's go"

"Now?"

"Yes."

xxxxxxx

Being alone at the house was something new to Alex. For all those years that he had lived there not once the house was empty. The house was supposed to be a home, it once was a home full of people who loved and/or hated each other but they all managed to live together and were happy there. And now there was Alex, alone in that house that he once called home. He was trying his best to at least make the house a home to his daughter but when she wasn't there the place seemed so lonely, it just reminded him of the child and the marriage he had lost. New Year, New life, they said, never did Alex think his life would be like this. He looked at his watch and decided that he should get the house ready for when Abby came back. He got up from the couch and grabbed the empty beer bottle that was in the center table. Meredith had invited Abby and him to spend the New Year's with them but Alex wasn't feeling it and declined the invitation. Just when he was finishing making dinner the doorbell rang. He went to open the door to who he knew was his daughter and her stepfather.

"Hey…" Morgan greeted Alex and Abby passed by Alex without saying anything and started springing up the stairs.

"Hello to you too little Miss" Alex shouted back to his daughter and then looked at Morgan.

"She went to pee…" Morgan told him and Alex nodded. "I got to go-"

"Are you working tonight?" Alex insisted "Who are spending the New Year's with?"

"With the guys on the department"

"Do you want to come in?" Alex asked and Morgan shook his head. "That way you can spend it with her…" he insisted and Morgan gave in.

"Thank you…" he said.

"Sure, no problem…" Alex said and closed the door "You know the house already. Make yourself at home."

"I thought doctors worked on these holydays too"

"They don't need the whole stash there… besides I worked on Christmas' day, there's someone replacing me now… One question…"

"Alex, I can't reopen the case without new evidences you know that" Morgan anticipated Alex's question and answered it.

"What should I do then?" Alex asked desperately "I can't just give up on her!"

"Look… hire a Private Investigator, maybe they'll see something we didn't and that way you can bring them to me so we can do new investigations. I know that sound really unprofessional of me but I'm out of leads here man. There's nothing else I can do. I'm sorry"

"Yeah I know… this is just so fuc-" he stopped mid sense when Abby walked in the living room "Now you want to say hello?" he said with a smirk on his face

"Sorry" she said hugging him "I'll go get it" Abby said after they heard a knock on the door. Alex was surprised when he started recognizing the voices that were coming from the door and went to check if he was hearing right. Sure enough he was. His friends from the hospital were starting to get in his house with stacks of food and drinks and children.

"Did you really think we would let you spend the New Year's alone?" Meredith said chuckling which made Alex smile back at her.

If they are all here, now who the hell is at the hospital? he chuckled to himself. He couldn't believe they had all cancelled their plans so that he wouldn't be alone with just his child on that day. He thought he would be just fine with Abby, but seeing Abby interact with the other children he realized that day wouldn't be lonely for anybody else but his daughter if it was just the two of them.