Throwing back shot after shot of tequila wasn't the way to deal with his problems, Stiles knew that. But it sure didn't hurt things any more than his entire body ached with pain when he thought about Derek. Derek. That's why he kept throwing back the tequila, to numb the flutter of memory that wormed its way into his brain when he thought back on all of his time with the man he loved that happened to be married.
Stiles slammed the empty shot glass on the counter of the bar, beckoning the owner of the bar back over to him with a sloppy wave of his hand. "Hey hey, I'll take another one."
"You might wanna slow down there, champ." The grizzly bear of a man told him, even though he still poured him a shot of amazing anejo tequila. "You been here before? You look crazy familiar."
Laughing one short singular chortle, Stiles nodded. "One time. Seems like forever ago. Worked out amazingly, as if you couldn't tell by my attendance back at this darkly lit, boozy bore." Seeing the hurt look on the bar owner's face, Stiles scrunched up his face in apology. "Sorry, I didn't mean that. The tequila is just kicking in." He furthered his mea-culpa but wildly throwing his hands around when he spoke. "This place is great. I work at the hospital across the street."
"Ahh, a doctor?" Stiles just nodded at the bar owner. "I see. Well, I know that look you've got. Either your boyfriend is riding your ass or your boss is."
"Would you believe me if I said both?" Stiles scoffed. "And both we're great at riding my ass." The look on the bar owner's face would have been priceless if Stiles wasn't already too deep in the bottle. "Was that an overshare?"
"Just a little bit, but I'm used to it."
"My boss is my boyfriend, which was the problem. Now it seems like such a small detail now that I've learned that my boyfriend turned boss has a wife."
"Here." The owner said, pouring him a top shelf shot of tequila as he shook his head and winced at Stiles' misfortune. "This one's on the house, buddy."
A little too greedily, Stiles took the shout, help it up in mock cheers, and tossed it back like his life depended on his body consuming that precious gulp of alcohol, and Stiles didn't care how much he had. Just as long as when he thought of Derek, he forgot who he had been and how much he had meant to him before the mess of marriage made Stiles the dirty little lover boy.
x
"Julia, what in the hell are you doing here?"
Derek spoke to her with newfound rage. How dare she show up in Seattle like nothing had happened between them. And especially, how dare she put Stiles in that position, to find out like that. He had always meant to tell Stiles, in time, once he knew that Stiles would understand, but having to find out like this, by Julia showing up looking like a glossy model off the pages of Vogue magazine? Unacceptable.
"Your hair's different, longer." Julia purred in acceptance. "You actually have bangs, spiked as they are. I love it."
"Yeah, a lot of things are different." He almost spat with malice at her. "Why are you here?"
"Why are you here?" She spat back at him. "You left everything, your house, your job, your friends, without even thinking about it? You had a life in Beacon Hills."
"Had being the important word there."
"And what you have in Seattle is a boyfriend." Julia smirked with judgment. "I knew you were bisexual, but I can't say I'm not still surprised. But he seems charming."
"Don't talk about him." Derek roared, not wanting Julia to even learn his name if he had to hear it being spoken in her twisted tongue. "You're handing from a very thin thread as it is."
"He's young. An intern?" She didn't look angry, just utterly amused. "He's got that 'I'm shacking up with a brilliant brain surgeon' thing all over his face, but still charming. That's what you wanted right?" She smirked again. "The juxtaposition of Julia?"
"If you're here because you want me back, or to work on us, you can forget it and get on the next flight back to Beacon Hills." Derek said, no sympathy evident in any part of his tone and voice.
"Will you relax?" Julia rolled her eyes at the high school sweetheart kind of sentiment. "I didn't fly all the way out here to shove our wedding photos in your face, Derek. I'm here for work. I'm going to be working on the TTTS case that you guys admitted last week and, by the way Alan was talking, you're going to need my expertise."
"Alan?" Derek hated the copper taste talking with Julia was bringing to his taste buds. "Deaton called you out here? He knew you were coming?"
"He begged me to get on the next plane the minute the patient was admitted." She feigned surprise. "He didn't tell you?"
"No, no he didn't tell me."
"Guess you aren't in the running for Chief then if you're not his brown noser with all the info." In her taut little witchy way, Julia came up beside Derek until she was purring into his ear. "The hair though? You know I've always liked men who look like Tyler Hoechlin."
He watched as Julia pounded the lobby floor like it a spotlight was following her around a stage, putting on a show that she had basically just uprooted his entire life here in Seattle, and claimed it as her own.
x
Lydia and Scott were the first to find Stiles at the bar. Granted, they had been already been heading to the car to let loose after the crazy intense day they had just been through, but once they saw him on his way to being totally out there wasted, they knew that something was up with him.
"Damn, Stiles." Scott said as he took a seat next to him, Lydia sitting on the other side of their buzzed friend. "Slowing down sounds great, yeah?"
"At least let us catch up." Lydia laughed.
"Let's play a game." Stiles said, fumbling with his very messy gestures.
"What game?"
"It's a game I just made up. It's called 'Who's Life Sucks More'. I'll win. Tonight, I'll definitely win."
"You don't want to play with me, Stilinski." Lydia scoffed.
"Oh, I do wanna play. Hell, I'll even be the first one to go." Stiles threw back another sip of tequila back before he continued, trying to set his pain ablaze with the sting of alcohol. "Derek's married."
Scott immediately choked on the beer he had ordered, unable to catch a breath at the shocking news Stiles had just delivered to their collective senses. Lydia's eyes were wide in surprise, but she didn't say anything except take a drink of her own beer.
"See? I win."
"Terrible, but you don't win." Lydia shook her head.
"Maybe you misheard me. I said Derek's married. As in, legally wed, to a woman married! Liar, adulterous, lady-loving, even though he was so willing to bottom, wedding chapel, throwing rice in the air at the end level of married!"
Scott left at that moment, receding to go and clean himself up, so he wasn't around for the moment of Lydia's huge secret that she'd been keeping to herself for what felt like so so long.
"I'm pregnant." Lydia chugged her beer for a few seconds while Stiles stared at her with crazy intense irises, even if he was a little foggy reaction wise. "You lose. I win."
Before their talking about her subject matter could take place, the owner of the bar collapsed behind the counter of the bar, shattering glass as he fell, pouring liquor all over himself as he took a tumble and lay unconscious on the floor.
"Okay, maybe he wins."
They both rushed over to him to aid the fallen bar owner, Scott coming over to helping them get the bar owner up as he regained his awareness as they lifted him off of the ground.
"Oh, crap. Sorry you guys, I'm fine. Seriously, I'm fine." He tried to persuade them.
"No, you're not fine." Stiles said. "You don't faint like that, breaking glass on yourself out of nowhere, and end up fine."
"You're going to the hospital, Joel."
"I'm fine!"
"Scott, did you call someone?"
He nodded at Stiles. "Gurney's on its way."
"But I'm alright!"
"You fell on your own dirty floor." Lydia scoffed. "You own this place, so you know how bad the floor is."
"He's radial pulse is strong." Stiles sighed.
"Minor skull contusions." Scott added.
"Who are you sleeping with?"
Lydia gawked at Stiles' question, a laughing scoff spilling forth from her mouth. "You're asking me this now?"
"Why did we not know you were sleeping with someone? We're your friends."
"I'm not waiting." Joel said, getting to his feet before Scott or Stiles could stop him, already rushing out of the door of the bar.
"Joel!"
"Where are you going?!"
He kept walking as he answered Lydia's inquiry. "The hospital is across the street. I can at least make it that far on my own without a damn gurney."
"Following. We should be following." Scott told them, the first of them to run after the bar owner.
Once they were in the safety of the hospital, Stiles ran up next to Lydia in zig zag, his own remedy to try and work the tequila out of his system, even though Joel's sudden collapse was already doing wonders for his sobriety.
"Okay, it's just you and me again. You're pregnant?"
"It's not a big deal." Lydia rolled her eyes, waving him off like it was puny detail of her morning paperwork for a patient, like the crossing of a t or the dotting of an i she had missed the first go around in her scribing in the patient's chart. "It'll be dealt with soon enough. Surgery is everything to me. You know that."
"That still doesn't answer the question of who's baby you're carrying."
Even though she had admitted to Stiles that she was currently with child, she didn't know that she was quite as ready to reveal the sire of her unborn baby just yet. "Just some guy."
"You bring up something like this and that's all I get? Do you really think I'm going to drop the subject just like that?"
"Yeah, that'd be great. Get to work on that."
While someone was helping Joel get admitted into the hospital, the three friends made their way over to the counter in admittance, which just so happened to be manned by the on-call tortured friend of theirs.
Allison honed in on Stiles first, mainly because he smelt like a dive bar. "You're back already? I thought you had a date with McDreamy?"
"You mean McMarried?"
Her eyeballs were tempted to eject themselves from her skull at Scott's words. "McWhat?" Allison pseudo-whispered as her jaw fell on the linoleum.
"I'm only here to make sure Joel is okay." Stiles said, completely avoiding the issue as he messed with his fingertips to avoid their various gazes.
Scott looked worried when he broke the silence Stiles had initiated. "Joel's gonna be okay."
"You think he'll need a surgery?"
No one had time to chastise Lydia for her misconduct thinking, because just at that moment, Derek decided to saunter up to them like some gallant knight. Which they all knew, now that the news had broken, was far from the truth. He was wearing his lab coat, so he was back to working, but he just kept to the medicine.
"He'll definitely need an operation." Derek spurred. "Subarachnoid bleeding, his basilar artery is the size of a blown-up balloon. And his has an aneurysm the size of a ping-pong ball."
"How the hell would you clip that?" Scott mused to himself, still refusing to look at Derek.
"You'd have to have magic fingers to get in to do something like that." Lydia scalded him, feeling like Scott should have known it was utterly impossible to even think about doing.
"Very true. But I was thinking about doing a standstill operation instead."
"A standstill oper-" Lydia began, but was cut off by the devil glares of her friends, gesturing toward Stiles with their heads as the two former boyfriend avoided eye contact with each other. "What? He's talking about a standstill operation."
"Try a standstill operation. At least I'd like to." Derek finally broke his vow and stared at Stiles. "I need overnight labs, a cerebral angio, and some addition patient history though." He hovered the chart over to Stiles, who also went against his self-told words on not looking at him, and the two, for the first time in the few hours that his marriage news had devastated both of them, awkwardly intertwined their eyes.
"I'm too drunk to work."
"Stiles."
The under-the-influence intern fled from the counter then, right as Scott grabbed the chart from Derek's hands and looked over the information Derek had been writing down as the married attending ran after the man that was fleeing from him, the man who he still really cared about.
Lydia pried it from his fingers though, really interested in Joel's potential surgery more so than Scott was worried about his health.
"Lydia…" Scott verbally wagged his finger in her face, a no-no motion in his vocabulary.
"What? Okay, I'm on Stiles side, obviously. But a standstill operation? When do you think the chance for a surgery of that caliber is going to present itself again?"
Stiles had just walked through the automatic doors of the hospital when he heard Derek running after him.
"Stiles!"
"Go away, Derek!"
"I want to talk about this. We need to talk about this!"
Stiles spun around to scream at him face to face. "How about no! Stop following me." He went back to walking away from the hospital and heading into the parking lot.
"Give me a chance to explain-"
"Explain? Are you kidding me?" He had turned back around to face him again as he stood on the edges of the beginning of the parking lot. "You know when you should have felt the need to explain yourself? That night we met at the bar, before any of the stupid memories that were just a small part of this huge lie! You should have explained then, Derek, not when everything's like this!" He refused to let his emotions control him, not letting the tears dare to show themselves in such a vital moment of taking a stand over Derek. "I was falling in love with you, you asshole! But I'm not the man who loved you anymore."
"I understand how you're feeling."
"If you want me to believe that, then you would shut the fuck up, turn around, and get back to work because if you knew exactly what things I was feeling, you'd know that I am seconds away from getting in my car and making you human roadkill!
Derek let Stiles walk away at that notion, Scott blurring past the attending until he was in pace with the still-drunk friend that was fumbling with getting his keys out of his pocket.
"Stiles, give me your keys."
"I'm fine!"
"Stop! I'm taking your keys. I'll drive you home." Scott got a hold of the keys as they walked over to Stiles' jeep.
And Derek just looked on, regret welling within his heart, knowing that he was responsible for the state of mind that Stiles was thriving in right now. And the knowledge of such a fact made Derek sick to his stomach as he steadied himself by placing his hands on his knees to keep from throwing up the dirty misdeed he had done in keeping a secret of this magnitude from the man he had fallen just as hard as the intern had admitted to falling for him.
x
Walking into the Chief's room where he was still quietly recovering from surgery, Derek hadn't expected to find Julia in there. And he really didn't expect to find Deaton and Julia laughing together until they saw him enter, their bubbling hysteria dying fairly quickly after that. Derek just strode into the room and waited.
"Well, I should get back to my hotel." Julia said, eyeing Deaton instead of looking at Derek. "I'll be back in the morning to work on the case. Get some rest, Alan." She playfully swatted his hand. "I mean it."
Not even bothering to look in Derek's vicinity, Julia strutted out of the room and left the two men alone for their potential sparring match. Derek didn't waste any time getting to the vehement feelings he felt for his boss flying out his wife to Seattle.
"What in the hell is she doing here, Alan?"
"Derek, you know as well as I do that Jules is the absolute best in her field, just like you are. Bringing her out here was for the patient. It's nothing personal."
"It's personal to me!"
"Are you forgetting that I'm the Chief of Surgery here? It's not your decision who gets brought in for what. I make the calls here, not you."
"Those calls don't have to include my wife!"
"None of my decisions include your personal life!" Deaton took a breather from the yelling, seeing the throbbing neck vein that was pulsing from Derek's flesh as they both winded down from the heated exchange. "Peter is going to be interim chief until I'm ready to take care of things myself."
"You giving Chief to Peter?" Derek couldn't believe. Half of the reason he agreed to come out to Seattle, aside from getting away from everything that came with his past with Julia, was because Deaton had promised him that when the time was right, Derek could take over as Chief. Even if it was for a short period of time, it pissed him off that it was going to his uncle.
"There's no room for personal feelings when you're Chief."
"And what exactly do you mean by that?"
"How long have you been sleeping with an intern?"
He hadn't been planning on the Chief really finding out about his relationship with Stiles. Maybe eventually, but to find out that he already knew was an entirely different outlook on the previous mentor and student relationship he so enjoyed with Deaton. And Derek could already hear the glass of their friendship shattering in his ears as loudly as a flatline.
"Hmmm, so I guess there is a certain level on personal feelings involved with being Chief."
Deaton rubbed his temples in frustration. "You can close the door from the other side. This conversation is finished."
x
Ramsey entered the interns' locker room, eager to see the look on her interns' faces when she divvied out their assignments to them. They were all finishing getting ready for their official shifts to start and concluding some conversations as she walked in.
"Alright, assignments." She nodded. "Martin, you have discharges. Room E19 is requesting you, McCall. Stilinski, see me after. And who the hell was on call last night?" Allison and Isaac looked between themselves as Ramsey slammed the hoard of charts into their unwanting arms. "Messy. Fix them and they better be finished before you even think about what you want for lunch. Got it?"
"Got it." Isaac said sternly.
Ramsey smiled her feign smile of contentment. "Perfect. Leave."
Everyone except for Stiles left the room then. Stiles, who had been home until his shift started, hadn't slept at all since leaving the hospital that morning. Derek and Julia, Julia and Derek. It'd been swirling around his mind the entire morning. He'd only gotten to the hospital minutes before he was scheduled to be there.
"Someone's gotten a reputation."
Stiles stared back at his resident. "What are you talking about?"
"You've been requested."
x
Peter was going down the hall, going over the list of things he had to do now that he was serving as Chief. He had to admit, he was a little surprised to be granted the position of Chief, even if temporarily, considering the fact that his nephew seemed like the obvious choice. He had to do a whole slew of things he normally wouldn't have to preoccupy his morning with, on top of about twelve calls to return, approve the budget, three staff meetings, and four of Deaton's normal surgeries. And that wasn't even counting his own cardiothoracic consults.
"I guess I should say congrats."
He turned to look over at Derek, the attending sauntering up to him from the little stairwell off to the side where Peter was currently residing.
"It's just temporary." His uncle rolled his shoulders in feign superiority. "I'll only be in charge of you for a few days. Although, I do find it weird that I'm the new Chief when you're the one who operated on him. Clearly he trusts you, so why aren't you Chief?"
"I don't walk to talk about it." He sighed. "And definitely not with my uncle."
"Oh, I'm your uncle now? Since when?"
"Peter-"
They started walking down the hall together as Peter fled from the scene, but Derek wasn't really in the mood for even more people to leave him at the moment.
"And I could have sworn someone talking about your wife being here. Since when are you married? Or is it divorced? I'm still a little new to this family thing."
"Enough." Derek huffed heavily. "Julia and I are separated."
Their amble was halted when Julia came up to them, smiling at Derek before resting her eyes easily on Peter.
"Sorry if I'm interrupting." She grinned, holding out her hand to the new interim Chief. "Julia Hale, Neonatal-Obstetrics."
"Will you stop introducing yourself as Julia Hale?" Derek growled. "Julia Blake is her name, at least until the divorce is final."
"Do you really have to ruin every introduction to someone new with the shadows of our marriage, Derek?"
"It's fine." Peter laughed off the real way he was feeling about the situation. "Clearly you two have…things to talk about."
"No, we don't."
"This isn't about you, Derek." Julia focused back on Peter's features. "I was just coming to make sure that you got the intern-"
"Intern that you personally asked for?" Stiles shuffled up to them, not bothering to stare at Derek whatsoever. "He did." Stiles just stared right for Julia, who just stared back and smiled back eagerly.
Derek looked from Stiles, to Peter, to Julia, and then finally back at Stiles, really wishing that this type of situation was happening to him right then. Peter smiled at the scene and then walked away, leading Derek to do the same until it was just Julia and Stiles, having the stare down of the century while Julia looked very enthusiastic about working together all while the intern looked like he was ready to commit mass homicide at the idea of working with his ex-boyfriend's estranged wife.
x
Inside their patient's room, Stiles was finding it weirdly…weird being Julia's intern. It was one thing to take in the information that Derek had a wide. It was an entirely other state of mind to be working with said wife as her assigned intern for the day.
The woman, their patient, was sitting on her hospital bed as they walked in, awaiting their speech to ensue.
"Hello, Ms. Lofting, I'm Dr. Blake." Julia smiled at their patient. "Alright, Dr. Stilinski, let's define TTTS, please."
"Conjoined fetal twins. Twin-twin transfusion syndrome."
"And what are the twins connected by?"
"Um, I…blood vessels?"
Julia rolled her eyes. "Placental blood vessels, Stilinski, I expect you to know that."
"Someone told me there was a small chance, if any, that could be done to save both of my babies." The patient, Lorna, spoke with weak committal.
"Your babies' condition is almost impossible to fix. Unless you happen to be kick ass surgeon that is one of the few people on the plant on how to accurately separate the blood vessels of fetuses. Which makes today your lucky day because," Julia looked up at the sky, smiling at her achievements. "I happen to be one of those fair few."
"Thank you. When do you start?"
Julia smiled at Lorna. "Your surgery is scheduled for tomorrow. All your other questions can be answered by the very capable Dr. Stilinski, who I hear is one of the hospital's most acclaimed interns, especially among attendings."
The comment caught Stiles off guard, much that his footing slipped on the slick floor, stumbling a little bit, which the patient noticed with ease, looking to Julia for a further explanation on the incident. But Julia walked into the hallway just outside of the hospital room and waved Stiles over so Lorna didn't get the opportunity to ask.
"I could have gotten that answer right if I had been given enough time to do so." Stiles barked at Julia.
"Calm yourself, Stilinski. I'm hard on everyone, not just the man my husband slept with. Get the ultrasound ready and pre-op all of her labs. I'll come by later."
As Julia walked away, Stiles just stood there shaking his head at what exactly his life entailed ever since Julia Hale had descended upon Seattle.
x
"Chief?"
Scott walked into Room E19, as Ramsey has instructed him, only to be quite surprised to see that the room was occupied by the still recovering Chief of Surgery. People were just now really learning that he even had undergone the knife. Scott was even more shocked at the request that Deaton had apparently requested him personally.
"Let's get going, McCall."
"Alright, I can totally do your exams."
Scott went over to him to start checking up on the Chief but his hands were met with the hard steeled no of Deaton's arm blocking any of his wanted actions.
"No, you're not here for that." Deaton pulled him a little closer, so they were face to face. "Listen closely, McCall."
"Is it possible for me to listen close without thinking you're going to kiss me?"
The Chief, realizing that Scott was indeed within make out range, released his grip on him and coughed and grunted, adjusting his position in his hospital bed. "Right, sorry. Anyway, back to business."
"Yes, Sir."
"I have no idea what's going on in my hospital, with my doctors, my patients, as long as I'm confined to this damn bed. You have one the coveted position of being my eyes today, McCall, my ears. Understand? I want you to be me. Know everything about everyone. That's what I need from you today."
"You want me to be you, Sir?"
"Precisely. You'll come back and tell me absolutely everything that you see today, no matter what it is or how secretive it's meant to be. You'll come back to this room, and tell me everything. Leave nothing to secrecy. Got it?"
"So, you want me to be a snitch?"
"The Chief's snitch." Deaton smiled. "Make no mistake. This is an honor, McCall. Get to it."
Scott nodded, running out of the Chief's room in hopes of grabbing some type of news or gossip that would satisfy Deaton's thirst for knowledge surrounding the hospital and the doctors and patients that were housed inside its walls.
x
Lydia ran into the stairwell after Peter. She had watched him enter the stairs housing and since she hadn't had a chance to talk to him in…days. More than anything, she wanted to talk to him about the baby, about what she was planning to do, what she had to do. But she had zero idea on how to bring it up or talk to him about it. They hadn't even been together that long and she didn't even know if they were, like, dating or something.
"Peter." He halted his ascent up the stairs, turning around to see Lydia below him and walked back down the steps to see her. But he didn't say anything. "So what, you're Chief now so you think it's beneath you to talk to me?"
"What do you want, Lydia?"
She wrinkled her nose at the question. "What?"
"What do you want? You don't want to talk about us, you don't want to do anything but use me to get ahead in this program, so tell me what you do want so I can stop wasting my time with an intern who doesn't even know what it is she's looking for."
"I…" She had to do it, right now, right here. She kept telling herself in her head. Tell him. Tell him. "I…"
"You're wasting my time."
He turned to walk back up the stairs, but Lydia caught his arm, spinning him back around and then crushing her lips against Peter's. Without even thinking about it, he pulled her closer to him, letting a hand go to her waist while the other snaked its way around the small of her back, earning him soft moan from the vivacious redhead. They kept kissing, kept exploring each other's bodies in a way that they thought they'd do it forever. But against the wishes of both of them, Peter pulled away from the young intern and stared into the eyes of the woman who was threatening to steal his heart.
"Figure out what you want, Lydia. Because this is what I want. Don't come back until you're sure you can say the same."
Leaving Lydia completely speechless and standing in the stairwell, Peter stormed out of the area and threw open the door. Lydia needed several minutes to collect herself, but finally found the oxygen to continue as she left the stairwell. Leaning over from the set of stairs above them, having heard and seen everything that had just transpired, Scott looked on with wide eyes and an open jaw, shocked at the intimate gathering of the Head of Cardiothoracic Surgery and his fellow intern.
x
"So what did you see, McCall?"
Scott didn't even want to look at Deaton. He couldn't blab about what was going on between Peter and Lydia, right? I mean, everyone was giving Stiles hell for dating an attending, the Chief included from what he had heard, and now Lydia was doing the same thing. At least, that's what it looked like from where Scott had been standing.
"Um…nothing. I haven't seen anything."
"Nothing at all?" Deaton said with dripping disappointment. "No groundbreaking surgeries scheduled on the OR board, no gossip going around the hallways, no news with the nurses, nothing like that?"
"Sorry, Sir. It's pretty quiet today." Scott lied, trying to keep his face from giving him away. "Nothing in the OR or at the nurse's station and definitely nothing going on in the stairwells." Scott laughed lazily. "Nothing at all newsworthy about the stairwells, nope."
"McCall."
"I'll let you know if I see anything else. I mean, anything at all. Because I haven't seen anything, nope, nothing at all." Scott realized that he was rambling and the Chief was looking at him like he knew that Scott knew something more than he was letting on. "I'll be back."
He fled from the Chief's room once again, hoping he could figure out what was going on with Lydia and Peter before he had to tell Deaton about it, or worse, he found out Scott knew about it and he found out anyway.
x
Isaac sat down next to Joel, whom he had gotten to know pretty well since he'd started working as an intern at Seattle Grace. Before he'd really befriended the other interns, Isaac had spent his off days at the Yellow Brick Bar that Joel owned, and he had sort of considered Joel a friend. So when he came into the room Joel had been admitted into, he gave Isaac a smile as he sat down in the chair next to him.
"What are you doing here?" Joel asked, a smirk on his face. "Come to ask me out on a date?"
"Shut up." Isaac laughed. "I just wanted to stop by and see how you're doing."
"Your doctor friends just left." A worried glance replaced the playful tone that had previously been lightening his golden features. "They told me they're going to kill me and bring me back within an hour."
"Forty-five minutes." Isaac corrected. "And it's going to work. Standstills are still a little uncommon, but there's a whole list of successful surgeries that have had the procedure."
"And what about the unsuccessful ones, Isaac? Be real with me. I've looked the other way when you've forgotten to pay your tab for the night, I've ignored the drunk rumblings you've had about your deep dark crush on your roommate that you still don't know what to do about, so just be honest with me. Is this going to work?"
"First of all, don't you dare breathe a word of what I told you that night. I don't want either of my roommates to find out about it until I'm ready."
"Isaac, I'm serious."
"You'll be find, Joel." Isaac let out a hand for Joel to grasp. "Trust me. We've got this."
Joel, minuscule eased of his upcoming operation, smiled up at Isaac and squeezed his hand, glad that he had someone he truly trusted on his side during the entire standstill operation that Derek and Peter were going to work together to perform.
x
Back inside of Lorna's room, Stiles was setting up the ultrasound that Julia had ordered and was working on getting Lorna ready for the procedure. He asked her to lift up her shirt so he could see her stomach, all while she was giving him these crazy intense eyes that were of unknown origin to him.
"It'll just take a second, Lorna." He smiled at her brightly, but he could tell by the angry slit of her eyes that she wasn't feeling the same sentiment as he was sending her way.
"How do you justify going after a married man?"
Floored, Stiles stood there with the ultrasound wand in his hand and staring at Lorna with a shocked blank expression settling against his round face. "Excuse me?"
"My husband did the same thing, flitted off with a younger, sluttier version of me." Lorna scoffed, keeping her eyes on Stiles. "I was three weeks pregnant when he left me for her." While she had started her speech, Stiles had ignored the slap in the face and had splashed the gel on her stomach and was trying to get the ultrasound over with. "That gel is Titanic water cold, you know."
"Sorry." Stiles nodded. "And I'm sorry your husband did that to you."
"Are you sorry for what you're doing to Dr. Blake?"
Deciding to take the high road instead of yelling at the woman interfering with his personal life, the intern just kept working on the ultrasound. "It'll just be a little longer."
"I would have done the same thing, you know. Asked to work with you, I mean."
Stiles stopped and just smiled at her. "I'll be back in a little bit. I'm going to go check on your labs."
Stiles left the room with whatever dignity he had left, wishing more than anything that he could just delete the last few months like it was trash bin on his computer and he could just forget that this sad existence was his life.
x
Walking by Joel's new room, Lydia sprinted in. Not because she was planning on visiting him or anything, but because she had to puke and she didn't want to do it on the surgical floor. She burst into his room and then knocked down the door almost to get into the bathroom in time to throw up.
"Well, hi to you too."
Lydia let Joel's comment go as she finished expelling the bile from her body and flushed the toilet eagerly. Exiting the bathroom, She just set her eyes on Joel as soon as she wore a grimace of absolute terror. "In case you need me to tell you, what you overheard last night at the bar, you don't tell anyone. I mean it. If I hear that you've told someone about Stiles or me or Stiles and McDreamy, I will murder you and make it look like an accident."
Right then, Peter, of course, decided to amble into the room in his superior, effortless way that he seemed to bear, looking from Joel to Lydia and then back again.
"Hello, Dr. Hale." Joel smiled.
"Joel." Peter stared back at the intern, but she didn't want to hear the next words out of her mouth for fear of him finding out what she had been doing there, so she did the only thing she could think to do. Which was present the case to Peter, since she had been assigned to Joel's case earlier.
"Vital signs were stable through the night. Today's CT showed the absence of bleeding." The waves of nausea were making themselves known once more within Lydia's frame, and she staggered a little as she closed her eyes and tried to continue. "EKG normal as far as sinus rhythm. No dysrhythmias, no ischemia."
"Good." Peter grinned down at Joel. "Page me if anything changes, Dr. Martin."
Lydia nodded at him as he left, Joel sending her knowing glares her way that stopped once she mimicked the action of cutting her throat at the bartender, silencing him at once when he looked into the dagger irises of the woman who was carrying an attendings baby.
x
Staring down at the joyous scene of newborn babies, Scott was thinking about everything that he had seen and heard during his time in the stairwell. The fact that Lydia and Peter were…getting close wasn't that shocking, especially since Stiles had been doing the same thing, but what made it all the mare difficult to deal with was the understanding that he couldn't talk to anyone about it for fear of the mess he would create.
And he must have been audibly have been talking to himself about his personal turmoils, because Stiles came sluggishly over to him, smirking and saying, "Have you resorted to talking to yourself now?"
Scott scoffed. "No. I'm a terrible snitch. I should be awarded the Razzie on snitching."
"Why are you snitching?"
"The Chief. Deaton, I mean." Scott looked over at Stiles, who, in spite of the current events, looked like he was holding up pretty well considering. "You look…okay."
"I'm trying." Stiles breathed out impatiently. "Which is harder said than done because my ex-boyfriend's wife looks like freaking Jessica Lowndes from the 90210 reboot."
"So it's official then? Ex-boyfriend?"
"I'm a slutty mistress." Stiles said. "The other lover."
"It's not your fault. You didn't know."
"Still, I'm the secret lover boy. I'm a dirty paramour."
"I love their music."
Stiles rolled his eyes at Scott's weak attempt at humor. "What are you muttering about anyway?"
"Nothing." Scott said, looking back at the newborn children and their innocent, yet-to-be-ruined happiness.
"Come on, Scott. I'm right here within muttering listening range."
"Okay, but you can't say anything. Do you know why, any reason at all for why Lydia would be kissing Peter?"
x
Lydia, still feeling sick, was in the elevator, waiting to get to the surgical floor. The doors opened and she immediately saw Stiles waiting for her there, presumably hearing that she was heading back up to check on Joel. He had his arms crossed over his chest and he wore a look of disdain and anger that she couldn't quite place.
After she had stepped out of the metal chamber, Stiles had attacked her with accusations and questions about what Scott had seen in the stairwells.
"How could you not tell me after everything you knew about me and Derek? All those warnings about being with an attending and you were sneaking around with Peter?"
They rounded a corner and Lydia just rolled her eyes as they kept walking. "It's different."
"Bullshit."
"It is, Stiles. You and McDreamy are together, you're in a relationship."
"Were, we were together. And this isn't about me and Derek. So what does that mean you and Peter are in then?"
"I don't know, Switzerland." Lydia shrugged. "It's neutral and they have amazing cheese there."
"Are you even going to tell Peter that you're carrying his baby?"
She couldn't handle this. Lydia was already dealing with enough without having Stiles jumping down her throat about what they had talked about at the bar. It was bad enough that Scott had seen her and sold her out to Stiles without even talking to her about it first. She was in no place to deal with Stiles' line of questioning right now.
Lydia stopped walking to stare directly into her friend's dark eyes. "Stiles, I shared something with you at the bar because, honestly, I wanted to best you and your admittedly terrible love life situation, but I'm not like you. We don't need to go down this path of swapping war stories and comparing wounds. I'm dealing with this okay? My way, on my time."
"Then why did you tell me? Why take the time to admit to me what you were going through if you didn't on some level want to share the burden of the secret with?"
Having enough of her excuses, Stiles walked away from his friend and fellow boss lover and decided to let her have the space she was so keen on having, forgetting that they were even confiding in each other at all like they had back at the bar.
He made his way back to his patient's room, getting back into the swing of things medically and performing the ultrasound again on Lorna. She kept going on about what her husband had done to her, and Stiles was being nice. He wasn't saying anything mean or doing anything besides nodding and keeping an extremely professional façade about him.
"Fifteen years, I was married to that man. And he was so willing to toss that accomplishment in the trash over some woman that answered his phones for a living." Lorna scoffed. "That's why her car ended up getting keyed."
Focusing on nothing but the ultrasound, Stiles remained vigilant and silent. That's when he saw something on the ultrasound monitor that looked off. He clicked away at the keyboard attached and got a closer look at the woman's womb. He knew something was wrong. Stiles just looked at Lorna and then back at the monitor, wondering how long he should wait before telling Julia about what he had discovered.
x
"I didn't know you had the balls to do something like that."
Julia rolled her eyes at her husband's comment. "Oh, get over it, Derek. He comes highly recommended by everyone on the staff."
"Right." Derek said. "That's exactly why you asked for Stiles to be your intern for the day."
"Are you saying you don't recommend him?" The look on Derek's face was crack to Julia's ego. She was glad to see that she was bothering him so much after he had upped and left their life back in Beacon Hills.
"Did I say that?" He sighed.
"So, what you're saying is you recommend him, but not for his medical skills. Maybe you recommend him for a satisfying orgasm."
"Just shut the hell up, Julia."
Not that he liked to see the scene of his ex-boyfriend talking heatedly with his wife, but Stiles had to admit it gave him comfort to see it as he walked up to them, interrupting their rage-filled exchange in an instant.
"Dr. Blake."
"What is it, Stilinski?" Julia sighed, mirroring her husband's earlier action.
"I found something on the ultrasound. I did some labs and they confirm what looks like abnormalities. I think it's bilateral pleural effusion with evidence of sub-Q edema."
"That means we need to get in the OR." Julia smiled at him, giving one last glance at Derek before she gave Stiles a nod. "Alright. Let's go."
Stiles let her pass him through the open doorway he had entered through. He made the mistake of making eye contact with Derek as he went to leave, which caused the attending to think it was okay for them to speak to one another.
"Stiles. Stiles, just-"
"Don't, Derek. Please don't."
Derek watched as Stiles left him yet again, as he seemed to do over and over now that he knew the truth. And he wanted nothing more than to take back the hurt he had caused Stiles to live through.
x
In Joel's OR, it seemed like the entire hospital was housed in the gallery to watch their favorite bartender's standstill operation surgery. Everyone seemed to have a story to tell about their encounter's with Joel at the Yellow Brick Bar, something that had humbled the bartender into calming himself enough for the surgery. Derek and Peter were working together on the surgery, already have induced hypothermia to keep the tissue viable until they restored the blood they had drained from Joel's body.
They were operating diligently, and Peter couldn't take the silence anymore. "So, Derek, what's your Joel story?"
"I went to the bar the night before I started working here." Derek said candidly. "I'd only been in town for a couple of days, didn't know anyone, definitely didn't know you were coming to town." Peter ignored the comment as they continued to operate and as Derek droned on. "I met someone there, this really cute guy. We got drunk. We started something." Derek sighed, thinking back on all the good times, and bad, that had happened since he'd met Stiles at the bar. "Regardless of what happened, it was an amazing start to my new life in Seattle."
"Hmm, if you're gay, how come you have a wife?" Peter nodded, not accusatory, just simply stating a fact. Stares surrounded the room as Derek felt eyes beaded into the side of the attending's skull.
"I'm not gay." Derek shook his head. "Bisexuality is a real thing. So is bisexual erasure, as evident by your reaction."
"I was just curious, Derek. You know, I do want to know you. Even if you're not ready, it's something I want. For the both of us."
"I know." Derek said, slightly smiling at his estranged uncle. "Give it time."
Feeling a little closer than they had before stepping into the operating room, Peter and Derek worked together to save the life of everyone's favorite bar owner, all while hoping that they could have a real family relationship after everything was all said and done.
In the gallery, Allison and Scott were some of the few people who had turned out to look on over Joel's surgery. They were talking to each other quietly, seeing that both Stiles and Isaac were absent from the watching, Lydia being in the OR assisting with the attendings and Ramsey.
"You were there when he collapsed, right?"
"Yeah." Scott nodded. "It was pretty scary. But I'm great under pressure."
"Apparently." Allison smiled back, grinning from ear to ear.
"So, listen." Scott paused to clear his throat. "About what happened the other day, about what Lydia said-"
"Scott, we don't have to-"
"Allison, I like you, okay?" The blurting of his feelings was a little eyebrow raising to the gorgeous brunette intern. She couldn't say anything more to that except wait for Scott to go on. "I mean, if you wanted, maybe we could go out on a real date."
The weight of the situation wasn't lost on Allison, so much so that she looked back at Scott with a sincere smile before shaking her head. "Scott, I do like you. You're a great guy, but everything with Ramsey…"
"Totally." He acted like he had expected such an answer, or at the very least had thought about the same thing prior to this conversation. "I get it. It's too…"
"Right." Allison laughed nervously. "But friends?"
"Of course."
He beamed at her, while hiding the true shame he held for being rejected by the woman he truly did care for.
x
Following Peter into the on-call room after Joel's successful surgery, Lydia was wide-eyed with amazement at the operation she had just witnessed and assisted with. She closed the door behind her as Peter finished getting dressed. He had had a few minutes to himself before Lydia has burst through the door.
"Hands down, that was the most amazing surgery. Ever! You're like God, you know? Like, you killed someone and then you literally poured the blood back into his body that brought him back to life. The rush…" She stopped to laugh. "It's amazing."
"It is." He nodded lightly, not looking at her like he was fully feeling like she was at that moment. "The rush is definitely something."
"I was thinking," Lydia made her way over to Peter, grazing her fingers across the pattern on his maroon sweater. "Maybe we could grab a reservation downtown somewhere."
"Lydia."
"Peter, I'm saying that's what I want." She smiled up at him. "I'm saying yes."
"There's something we need to talk about."
He had found out. He knew about the baby. No, he couldn't, could he? Lydia tried to shake those feelings away. Even if he didn't know, he deserved to. This was the moment. She had to tell him.
"You're right. There is something."
"It's obvious."
Usually so poised, he caught her by surprise. "It is?"
"We were kidding ourselves, weren't we? Thinking that there would be nothing standing in our way while we did this." Peter scoffed so loud, it rang off the walls and into Lydia's ears. "The Chief…he found out…I found out through Deaton about Derek and Stiles and he's looking for blood…"
"Peter, what Stiles and Derek did-"
"We have reputations to uphold here." He went on. "Careers that need thriving, or in your case, need beginning. Both of us put our work above anything else, that's why we're so much alike. You're focused. It's one of the many things I admire about you."
"Okay…" Lydia didn't have any idea where this conversation was leading. But Peter was just staring at her, like he was waiting for her to draw her own conclusion so that he didn't have to talk about it. That's when it hit her like a truck going over a hundred. "Oh, you're…you're ending this."
"I think it's best, don't you? Before it gets-"
"Messy." She laughed lightly. "Yeah, I…I completely understand." Her words didn't match her thoughts though. This was already too messy. Peter just didn't know how much mess there was between them. "Right, messy would be bad."
"It's nothing personal. What we…I just think it's better for both of us to take what happened to Stiles and Derek as a warning."
"Understood."
She smiled at him, turning and leaving the on-call room, silencing any other conversation from the attending before it could cut her any deeper than the pain she was feeling, her life turning upside down in absolutely every scenario possible.
x
"See? I told you I was the best."
Julia was sitting down next to Lorna back in her room after surgery while Stiles stood off to the side, listening in while the attending did all the work with the patient.
"And my babies are going to be alright?"
"They're going to be fine. They're doing better than expected, actually. And Dr. Stilinski will be back to check up on you if you have any questions or anything." Julia stood up, preparing to leave the room and take Stiles with her, but Lorna's dagger of dialogue stopped her.
"Sorry, but I was actually hoping you could assign a different intern to my case." Lorna eyed Stiles then. "I want Dr. Stilinski off my case."
"Is there a problem I don't know about here?" Julia looked to Stiles for an answer, but he just stood there shaking his head, wishing that Lorna would let his personal life go.
"He just reminds me of someone I can't stand, someone my husband loves to have kneel at his feet." Lorna nodded at Julia. "You get it."
The neonatal attending shook her head breezily. "No, I'm afraid I don't 'get it'."
"He slept with your husband, right?"
Without missing a beat, Julia stared intently at Lorna, her eyes alleviating the tenseness she had held within her since her arrival to the hospital. She locked onto Lorna's eyes, opening her mouth to speak with the vigor of an entire nation.
"Ms. Lofting, I don't have the type of patience or class that Dr. Stilinski has displayed if you've been giving him this sort of strife all day today, so let me make one thing very clear. My husband didn't cheat on me, I'm the one that cheated on him. So the wrong person, the victim here? Is Dr. Stilinski. So you better shut your mouth, find some mea culpa inside your brain, and deliver one hell of an apology to Stiles once I leave this room."
Julia sauntered out of the room like she was burning the floor as she walked, all while Lorna looked humiliated and Stiles stared off into space in disbelief over the instant change of dynamic between what he thought was fact between him, Derek, and now Julia.
x
Stiles, after learning of the nature of why Derek had left Julia and refuged to Seattle, had agreed to meet Derek at his trailer on his land, just to hear what he had to say. They weren't getting back together, Stiles had to keep reminding himself of that nature. Derek was sitting on his porch while Stiles leaned his back against his jeep, listening on to Derek spin his sordid tale of adultery.
"I got home, and instantly I can feel in the air that this isn't like every other night. Something's changed, different." Derek stopped his utterance by taking a sip of his favorite beer for a split second. "So I go upstairs, like I would on any other night. As I'm heading toward our bedroom, I prepare myself, because I step on man's jacket that isn't mine. Everything shifts into place for me in that moment. I know that the jacket, while it isn't mine, it's one that I recognize, one I got for the owner last Christmas." Derek huffed, taking another swig of his beer. "So I know that when I walk into the bedroom that I share with my wife, I know that I'm not just going to see that my wife is cheating on me, but that's she's cheating on me with my best friend, Jackson." Stiles just watched as tears welled against Derek's eyes. "It was so dirty and disrespectful and damaging. So I left when Deaton called me about a position opening up, and I found my way to Seattle."
"And then you met me in a bar."
Derek smiled, nodding. "Yes, and then I met you in a bar."
"What were we?" Stiles lifted up from resting on his jeep to stand a little closer to Derek. "Was I just the guy you messed around with to avoid dealing with being messed around on?"
"Stiles, you were my oxygen." Derek said, his eyes bubbling over with sincerity and guilt, something Stiles had to make a mental note of later for when he was replaying this conversation when he went to sleep for the night. "Like I was being buried alive and you saved me."
A few moments passed between them as they locked their eyes on one another. It would have been so easy for Stiles to just grab Derek's hand, take him inside, and forget what had happened, forget that Julia had shown up and changed everything between them. It would have been so simple. It might have even been what Stiles wanted to do. But it wasn't right. And things weren't easy anymore.
"It's not enough."
Stiles got back into his jeep as he saw Derek toss the beer bottle into the woods in anger and frustration, both of them knowing that there wasn't even the slightest chance for them to make up, not now, maybe not ever.
x
Walking back into the Yellow Brick Bar, Lydia found Stiles just as she had found him the night before. He was sitting at the bar, knocking back tequila shots. At least this time, it looked like he had just gotten then himself and had just started drinking. She sat down next to him, plopping down on the stool beside of him as he looked over at her, setting down his empty shot glass on the bar's counter. Things hadn't gone so well between them the last time they were together, so Stiles wasn't sure what to say. Luckily, Lydia was the first one to break their mutual silence.
"The clinic I went to," Lydia said, waving over the bartender and ordering a beer. "They have this policy or whatever. Unless I had an emergency contact person, they wouldn't even let me mark the appointment down for good. The person is just someone to be there, in case something happens, and to help me home…after." Lydia looked incredibly forlorn as the bartender set down her beer for her and she threw some cash down on the counter for him, giving him a quick thanks before sipping on the beer and looking back at Stiles. "You know what this is about, the whole dating your boss thing. You know. That's why I told you and only you why I'm pregnant. I put your name down. You're my person."
"I am?" Stiles said, clearly honored but also taken aback at the honest portrayal Lydia was giving him. "What about Allison?"
"It's you, Stiles. You get it. You're my person, alright? Whatever."
A smile on his lips as Lydia tossed back a huge gulp over her beer, Stiles just nodded. "Yeah. Whatever."
A look of defeat glazed across Lydia's face when she finished her beer, the glass banging on the bar counter loudly in front of them. "He dumped me."
Knowing the feeling all too well, Stiles laced his arm with hers as they shared a very rare tender moment, Stiles laying his head on Lydia's shoulder as a single tear slid down the axis of the redhead's skin, holding onto Stiles just as hard as she was holding onto him.
"You know, this is sort of like hugging. I'm against hugging."
Stiles racked his chest with laughter. "Shut up. I'm your person."
They just sat there together, knowing that they at least had one person to fall back on that knew the inner workings of what they were going through. And knowing that they had someone to go to on the hardest days of their personal lives was enough for them to know that they could keep going, no matter what complications seemed to arise.