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chapter one ━ invasion
season six, episode five

❝ this must be some sort of
sick, cruel joke! ❞

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"It looks like orange threw up in here." Alex announced, bitterly as he leaned over the bars, grimacing down at the overly crowded hospital reception below. The five residents — Izzie, Cristina, Lexie, Alex and Aliya —watched collectively as bright orange Mercy West scrubs slowly started to weave in and out of the light and dark blue Seattle Grace ones, infesting each and every possible corner of the hospital.

But, Aliya guessed that's how infections worked, sneaking up on you when you least expected it.

The thing about infections was that they were unwanted. Nobody wanted strep throat, or bacterial meningitis. It's not something you would willingly sign yourself up for.

The orange-clad infectors in question must know that they were unwanted in this hospital by now. Just using one iota of critical thinking would allow them to decipher that specific fact, even if it was only their first day. They could gather their evidence from the way everybody looked as if they were an abomination to the art of medicine.

Which, in sincere and totally honesty, they were.

They were all single handedly taking an axe to the surgeons of Seattle Grace's careers, and that was enough to declare war.

Though, Aliya was really trying her best to be optimistic about this whole situation.

However, even she couldn't hide the scowl on her face.

Because, orange really was the worst colour in the world.

"I mean, really? Orange scrubs?" Lexie replied with a scoff, crossing her arms in a huff, annoyed at this whole ordeal. "You can't get any worse than that."

"Anyone who says orange is the new black needs a consult." Cristina insisted, running a hand through her hair as she too leaned over the rails to stare down at the parasites — a nickname coined for them long before they even arrived, shortly after they were informed of the merger.

"I heard the nurses had to wear purple." Aliya added to the slanderous conversation, resting her elbows on the bars, as there was nothing these invaders could do to change the groups already made up mind that they were no good. "I mean, orange and purple? Were they running a hospital or a Halloween store?"

Usually, the residents of Seattle Grace would not be so hyper fixated on outfit choices but, when these so called doctors were waltzing around their stomping ground, all morals (and integrity) appeared to go out the window, and everything they did was astronomically irritating.

They had only been here for thirty eight minutes and they were already marked as hospital-wide villains.

They dropped a piece of paper?

Incompetent.

They smiled too hard?

Big-headed.

The list of insults they had cultivated for the Mercy Westers went on.

They really were parasites, the brain sucking kind.

To think, just several hours ago Aliya had rather unceremoniously fallen out of her bed in an attempt to wrestle with her alarm clock to get it to finally shut the hell up, and now she was stood, staring down at the people who could, quite frankly, ruin her life was a sick, cruel joke in itself.

Mentally, she was still at the dining table, half falling asleep over a bowl of Rice Krispies, one hand attached to the handle of her coffee mug and one hand holding a spoon, contemplating her multitude of life choices that led to her current predicament.

It had to be said, Aliya Levine wasn't the greatest adult.

Though, at the age of twenty seven, she would've at least expected to own her own home, not living in a house with two bickering married couples, and a woman who her ex-boyfriend left her for a month or so ago.

Aliya reckoned that fact alone damaged her pride because in her past relationships (three to be exact), she was usually the one that did the leaving. She was the chronic runner in relationships, always searching for a reason to leave, even if there weren't any to be seen for miles. That may even be the reason why none of her relationships lasted all that long.

From her previous relationship ending a month or two ago, she did however get the last laugh by storming out of his apartment and actually vocalising the words 'we're over' directly to his face before she nearly slammed the door neatly off of its hinges.

Ha, she did get the last laugh.

But, the girl scout that still lived inside her couldn't hate the woman he left her for (correction: cheated on her with), no matter how hard she tried.

Oh, how she would sell her soul for another box of Thin Mints.

However, in unfiltered honestly, Aliya wished she hated Lexie Grey. Maybe a part of her did, but she could never hate her as much as she hated herself.

Because, truthfully, for months Aliya saw exactly what was going on right in front of her eyes, but she wilfully ignored it, and resented him endlessly for it.

She kept pushing through, she held onto the raft for dear life even though she knew she couldn't keep going on like this — fighting every single warning sign, every single red flag. Effortlessly and completely blind.

Which she usually wasn't. Before him, every relationship she had ever been in always ended up with her inevitably driving away, slamming doors, as if she was looking for a simple excuse to leave. Though, it wasn't like she ever needed one.

A bolter never needed an excuse.

A lot of people may have called her delusional behind her back (and directly to her face) to ever think Mark Sloan could have changed, just for her, and she was lured in by that fantasy, the con of it all and the proposition of so much more. Of messy kisses on the forehead, of waking up in a tangle of limbs, of feeling the heat of his breath against her neck.

Completely and totally blind-sighted, exactly like the women her and her friends used to pity.

Maybe it was her own tendency to self-destruct, that she already knew he was a lost cause. And how, even though loving him destroyed every inch of her, she couldn't get enough of him.

And now, she was left with all these broken parts of herself, and angrily scrambling to put herself back together — though it seemed as if, ever since she was born, she was always destined to be, well, alone and broken hearted.

It was a possibility that she was a lost cause too, but she vowed the day she slammed that door that it wouldn't happen to her again. Not ever.

Aliya buried her head into her hands, unable to physically look at those orange scrubs any longer.

They were an eye sore.

An ugly, metal tower in a forest of trees.

This day would go down in the history books. The day Seattle Grace and Mercy West merged to create a franken-hospital — Seattle Grace Mercy West, and no one was going to get over it. And, how could they? Seeing as a large proportion of the previous doctors, nurses, interns and various other Seattle Grace hospital staff were let go to let the others from Mercy West in. And even then, the place was still horribly overcrowded.

Aliya heard a rumour from one of her favourite Nurse's (another correction: her favourite nurse), Andy that Richard was going to have to let even more staff go.

"They took George's cubby." Izzie told them, sadly, looking off into the distance at the ugly orange scrubs.

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THE RESIDENTS LOUNGE
seattle grace (mercy west) hospital
( exactly ten minutes ago )
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"Oh, hey, you can't put that in there." Izzie pointed to the locker a Mercy Wester was heading straight towards to put her bag in. A photo George had put up there from when he became a resident was still taped onto the wood — a picture of the six original interns, sitting on the very bench Aliya was sat on currently.

It looked like some sort of deranged family photo to everyone else — George and Izzie were sat there nicely, smiling at the camera. So were Meredith and Cristina, standing behind them, wide grins on their faces as they were looking at each other rather than the actual camera. However, as the photo was being taken, Aliya was trying to retrieve her stolen cereal bar from Alex, both of their arms outstretched as the girl in the photo tried to reach out for it with one hand pushing off of Alex's shoulder.

Shortly after that photo was taken, the pair had fallen off said bench.

The girl looked back at Izzie, about five foot three with short, red hair. She looked at Izzie as if the blonde had committed a crime, which she had when she cut the LVAD wire, but the Mercy Westers wouldn't know that, not yet anyway. One minute at the Nurses station would probably give them all the information they needed to know about every staff member in these hospital walls.

"They told us to grab a cubby." The red head explained, her voice flat and emotionless, like it was a chore to actually be there and talking to another human being.

The Mercy Wester set her bag down carelessly next to the photo, and unzipped it. Another girl was stood next to her, wearing the same orange scrubs, and she looked up from where she was scribbling in her notebook, next to her own newly claimed cubby, not seeming to care someone had to loose their job so she could get it.

Careless. That was another thing to add to the ever-growing, antagonising list the Seattle Grace residents were growing fond of making.

"Yeah, I know, it's just—" Izzie sighed, her breath shaking at the memory of George's stuff that was once there, her hand dropping into her lap in defeat, his death still fresh in everyone's mind. "We keep it empty, for a reason. Can you just take your stuff out there, there's plenty of ones over there you can use."

She gestured to the other wall across from them, where they had earned quite an audience.

His death didn't even feel real.

It felt wrong, to have to save his cubby.

Because it should be full of his stuff.

It shouldn't be empty.

"I don't think so." The girl replied and the other girl smirked smugly, causing Aliya's stomach to clench in anger, her brows lowering.

Unreasonable. There's another word. Aliya should have really gotten a better grade in Literature.

"I said take it out." Izzie's voice was now stern, her eyes narrowing and unwavering as her patience was beginning to run thin.

"Great, I get the crazy one next to me." The girl (Pixie Cut, Tweedledee) shook her head in a sort of mock frustration to get a rise out of Izzie, giving her friend (Notebook, Tweedledum) a pointed look.

Aliya knotted her shoelace, rolling her eyes at the one who didn't ever shut up. "Was that really necessary?"

She said to herself she really was going to try her hardest not to let the Mercy Westers get to her and give them the benefit of the doubt, but they really were smug assholes and sometimes, sometimes, she just couldn't help herself.

The Pixie Cut girl opened her mouth to speak, but Izzie quickly interjected.

"Oh, you want to fight?" Izzie snapped, taking the pixie cut resident's previous challenge. "Because, I will." She rose from her seat, taking a step towards the Mercy Wester, whose white Mercy West lab coat was now visible — the name reading Reed Adamson.

"Oh, shit," Aliya muttered under her breath so no one could hear, quickly joining Izzie's side. "Izzie, stop, don't bother, just walk away." She advised, staring at the blonde who looked straight through her, her eyes trained on Reed Adamson.

"Because, I can fight you—" Izzie continued, and Aliya sometimes thought why she bothered. She knew exactly why, these people she had spent the past two years with were the closest thing she had to how a family should be.

"Okay, woah—" Aliya stepped in front of the blonde and red head.

"—You're pretty tiny I could take you!"

"No one is taking anyone!" Aliya snapped, eyes wide as she looked back and forth between the two women either side of her.

"Izzie!" Alex suddenly appeared directly behind her, his eyes darting to Aliya for some sort of explanation as he heard the tail end of the conversation his wife was having. He reached out for Izzie's elbows, attempting to move her away from the argument, and a potential fight, with Aliya stood in front of her, trying to do the same.

"I can take you down in just a second!" Izzie announced loudly to the already dozen pairs of eyes assessing her, wondering if they should page psych.

At that, Alex finally managed to pull her away despite her resistance and bargaining, leading Izzie against her will outside and into the hall, however she still managed to cast Reed a final, disgusted look on her departure.

"Crazy, am I right?" Reed repeated, as her friend giggled, yet again.

With a short sigh, Aliya rolled her eyes, taking her pager from the front pocket of her bag and slotting it inside her pocket. "Look, we keep it empty because a friend of ours died. That cubby was his." Aliya gestured her head to where the Mercy Wester had put her bag, pointing at the photo on the back board.

The room fell silent at Aliya's explanation, all those dressed in orange stopping to listen, to see if another so called 'fight' broke out between the brunette and the red head this time.

Notoriously, hospitals liked to gossip more than reality television, mainly because they never really had time to watch TV.

And the way Reed turned around, her cheeks flushed slightly and Aliya pin pointed a slight look of embarrassment on her face at the reasoning, would be talked about for a week, tops.

Despite the arrogance and complete lack of regard, Reed didn't even look up, even she knew that as doctors, the least you can do is respect the deceased. Especially if it was one of your own.

"Just go find another one. Don't be more of a jerk than you already are." Aliya promptly turned on her heel, slightly bumping into another orange-scrub wearing Mercy Wester on her way out.

They really did enjoy barging into people.

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The pair realised two minutes later that Reed Adamson, had taken the cubby anyway.

Well, Aliya guessed she was a jackass after all, and she really did wish she hadn't stopped the blonde from punching her.

"The lot of them are self righteous pigs." Alex grumbled, crossing his arms in distaste.

Cristina nodded her head in agreement at the presumption. "Why did Webber even think this was a good idea?"

"Beats me." Aliya grumbled, her eyes remaining pinned on the orange scrubs.

Overall, the last week had been eventful for everyone in the hospital. However, in all honesty, the past three years at Seattle Grace was a rollercoaster, without the handful of other (unwanted) people tagging along for the ride.

From crazy medical cases, to watching her fellow intern put her hand inside a body cavity (which just so happened to hold a bomb), to drilling burr holes with a construction worker's screwdriver for the first time ever as a surgical intern, to interns operating on each other, to sneaking about the hospital with the notorious plastic surgeon, and to burying a friend, Aliya Levine had seen it all plus more in the time she had been in Seattle.

That didn't even begin to skim the surface of what the young brunette doctor had seen.

And it wasn't exactly an easy transition to say the least, especially when the Mercy Westers were now parading around the hospital like it was their own, ignoring the fact that Aliya and her year had been there years before them.

They were practically raised here.

How dare they!

Cristina let out a heavy sigh. "Why did the merger even have happen in the first place? They really are screwing with our chances."

"Margot from the fourth floor was fired yesterday." Aliya announced to the group in dismay, watching as one of the orange scrub wearers walked right into a Seattle Grace attending — earning a lecture from said attending.

Seattle Grace, 1. Mercy West, 0.

"That has screwed with my chances of ever having a good blueberry muffin in this hospital ever again." Aliya continued, seeing as Margot did bake the best blueberry muffins.

"No way." Alex turned to her, shock and hurt displayed ever so clearly on his face. "Why didn't they fire Betty? Her peanut brittle tasted like tree bark."

"This morning." Aliya informed, yawning into her palm. The brunette rubbed at her eyes, the long hours she had been working lately in an attempt to prove herself was painfully catching up on her that no amount of coffee could begin to fix.

"No!" With unsolicited passion, Alex clamped a hand over his mouth.

"You said you wanted her fired!" Narrowing her eyes at Alex, Aliya pointed an accusing finger at him. He had contributed to the high percentage of peanut brittle found in the trash over the years. Betty was the only Nurse who seemed to actually like him, therefore she always gave him Peanut Brittle, but one could argue it may be because she too, disliked him like the rest of them. "You hated her brittle!"

"You hated it too!" He argued even further.

"Yes!" Aliya fired back, not able to deny that certain fact. "But, it was nice having the option of peanut brittle if I ever felt an overwhelming feeling of self-loathing."

"Bullshit!" Alex replied, while he still had the chance, before being interrupted by the sound of pagers, all ringing in a satisfying unison.

"Thank you, surgical gods." Cristina mocked, now that Aliya and Alex's bickering match was well and truly over, though they only ever fought harmlessly like siblings.

Every other day.

Scrap that, everyday.

"That's Meredith's room." Aliya commented as she looked at her pager reading ROOM 309, SOS.

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Now that the residents were in the refuge of Meredith's hospital room, eating their breakfast, they could finally relax.

Though, relax was a relative term for what they were doing.

If relax meant gnawing at their finger nails, staring out the window as they watched the Mercy Westers strut (yes, they strut) past, unknowingly, and apparently not batting an eyelid at the eight doctors crowded in a patients room.

"They're locusts." Meredith Grey stated, frowning from her hospital bed where she was recovering from donating her liver to her alcoholic father.

That man really picked his moments, and Aliya knew Meredith would rather be anywhere but in a hospital bed, but at least she could observe from the outside, not entirely out of the loop seeing as she employed the others as her spies.

"Comfortable locusts feeding on our surgeries." The Grey woman continued.

"Leeches." Aliya scowled from where she was stood next to Lexie by the window, peering through the blinds. "Cocky, arrogant asshole leeches."

"It's rude, there should be at least a couple days where they act like guests before they put their feet up on the coffee table." Izzie bit down on an apple slice in dismay.

"And, what's up with the scrubs?" Lexie brought the scrubs back up, the cut that always bleeds was the crime of the orange scrubs. "What, ours aren't good enough for them?"

"We ran out. They're on back order." Meredith informed the group of that particular piece of information, seemingly proud that she even knew it at all. "Randall from the supply company says they'll be here in a week."

Aliya raised a brow at Meredith, who seemingly picked the wrong profession. She should've gone into detective work. "You know the guy by name?"

"That's what you learn when you just lie here all day." Meredith sighed, averting her gaze back to watching the virus spread.

It was a disaster.

"Why order new ones?" Ryan, one of Aliya's interns, piped up from the corner Meredith had graciously let him stand in. "We can give these to our replacements."

"We're not gonna be replaced by anybody." Alex grumbled, taking a bite out of the cafeteria blueberry muffin in distaste, though five minutes ago he was swearing he would never touch a blueberry muffin in honour of Margot.

A man's gotta have his blueberry muffin, Aliya guessed.

Cristina waved away one of the interns out of the seat, crashing into it once it freed up. "We watched the sign being taken down today."

Aliya frowned at the memory from just less than an hour ago, where her and Cristina were stood this morning, watching the sign go from Seattle Grace to Seattle Grace Mercy West, almost getting ran into by one of the Mercy Westers.

"There was nothing ceremonious about it." Aliya spoke into her coffee.

Steve, Cristina's intern, looked like he was going to be sick. "If I have to become a coroner—"

"No one is becoming a coroner." Meredith asserted with rapid hand gestures. "Cristina, tell him!"

"Tell him what? They're here," The brunette gestured her head to the door, not in any state to assure anyone that everything was going to be completely fine. "It's over."

Yeah, there was no conspiracy about it. Steve was going to be sick.

"Steve, have some water. You look green." Aliya commented, handing him a glass of water which he accepted gratefully and practically shotted it as if it were tequila. He was going to be a father after all, but if he loved his child more than surgery, he would at least be better than Aliya's dad.

"Hey!" Meredith clapped her hands together, scaring the already spooked residents in the room. "We are not some stupid hosts! They can't invade us! They can't attach themselves to our faces, and while we're eating spaghetti, explode out of our chests and skitter across the floor. This is our ship!"

The rest of the room looked at the Grey woman as if she'd gone insane.

Which, she must've.

They were all going insane at this rate, it was preposterous.

"This. Is. Our. Ship."

"Excuse me," Lexie scratched her jaw. "Are you quoting that Siguomey Weaver movie?

The blonde pursed her lips at her sister. "Shut up."

"That's what happens when you live here." Izzie chuckled, popping a hunk of apple into her mouth from her fruit pot. "You watch a lot of TV."

Aliya shrugged, slurping on her coffee as if it were her lifeline, the only thing keeping her from total brain rot. "At least it's on topic."

"We own this hospital." And, here continued the Meredith Grey pep talk (trademarked, 2009). "We were born in the hospital. And, we hold this hospital with our last gasping breath."

"God," Aliya looked at the blonde with wide eyes, now that Meredith seemingly had a new lease on life post removal of her liver. "Meredith, please stop watching daytime TV, I'm begging you."

"I really don't wanna be a coroner. " The water didn't really seem to help Steve at all. "I don't like dead people."

Aliya narrowed her eyes. "You're a doctor, Steve."

"Go out there and go get surgeries before they take them!" Meredith snapped, clapping her hands in an attempt to spook them out of the room. "Go! And, I want a full report by the end of the day!"

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"Where do you want us?" Cristina asked Owen Hunt as the residents reached the ER, ready to reclaim their turf now Meredith had sent them on their way.

Like a mother duckling, waving her young goodbye.

However, if she were a polar bear, they tend to eat their young. In which case, they would all be screwed.

But, they would be damned if they let the Mercy Wester's steal their surgeries. It was not an option on today's agenda.

"At this point," Owen didn't even glance up from where he was scribbling something into the chart in his hands. "Anywhere is good."

It was safe to say the ER was swamped.

Seeing as Mercy West had closed down, ambulances were being redirected to Seattle Grace, resulting in the current state of the ER.

Which could only be described as pure chaos.

"At Mercy West we do zones." A Mercy Wester, the one Aliya vaguely recognised only just from him nearly ramming into her and Cristina this morning outside the hospital, stepped forward, followed by a posse of other orange scrub wearers. "When it's super busy, we give everyone a zone, a space. If nurses put a person in that space, you know it's your patient. Helps get to them quicker."

The brunette's shared a glance, though it wasn't a particularly terrible suggestion, it was just terrible because it came from a Mercy Wester. An outsider. The locust himself. The root of the infection.

"This is an ER," Cristina pointed out, stepping forward in challenge. "Not a school yard, we're not playing four square."

The interns behind them chuckled, revelling in the enjoyment of a Mercy Wester not getting their way.

"I like it."

All eyes went onto the Head of Trauma and how the hell those three words could come out of his mouth.

A wave of betrayal washed over Cristina's face.

And the interns stopped laughing, and poor Steve really needed to find a trash can, or a bed pan.

"What?" The Yang woman was shocked, and Aliya had been rendered speechless.

"Good idea. Let's try it. What's your name?" Owen finally looked up at the man he was addressing, and Aliya didn't even want to bother looking at him for even a second because, why would she waste time simply looking at someone who was destined to probably ruin her life?

It was written in the stars, and you don't mess with astrology. At least, that's what the fortune teller in Malibu told Aliya when she was drunk on one too many glasses of white wine.

"Jackson Avery." This so called Jackson Avery replied, his voice the definition of smooth and calm, to a judgemental eye it even seemed self righteous, and a little egotistical.

"Dr. Avery, Dr. Hunt." Owen introduced himself, and he did something that released the smallest gasp from Cristina only Aliya could hear.

He shook his hand.

Owen Hunt, Head of Trauma, shook the parasites hand.

And, it got worse.

"It's all yours, zone away."

Leaving the blue scrub residents behind, Owen disappeared off into the abyss of the ER, and the Mercy Westers charged off, waffling on about zones that made Aliya want to physically throw up.

"Oh! This must be some sort of sick, cruel joke!" The brunette exclaimed, whipping her head to Cristina, who had her eyes pinned on the back of Jackson Avery's head, marking it red.

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At this specific moment in time, Aliya was feeling pretty great. Which was a switch up from precisely three minutes ago, where she wanted to scratch her own eyes out and book a spontaneous holiday to the Bahamas.

The reasoning behind this was that she had successfully grabbed the chart of a patient being wheeled through to a free trauma bay from the paramedic, without anyone else stealing it away from her — and when she said anyone else, she meant anyone wearing orange scrubs.

Though, Aliya was pretty sure the patient only had a head lac, nothing else.

But, at least she had a patient.

Poor Steve was gathering dust in the corner, desperately trying to actually make himself useful.

"Okay, Monica," Aliya took her clipboard in hand, noting down that her heartbeat was completely normal after listening to it with her stethoscope a moment ago. "Do you have any other symptoms? Headache? Nausea?"

"I guess I do have a headache." Monica groaned, leaning back in the gurney with a sigh.

"You do have a nasty head lac there," Aliya pulled on a pair of clean gloves, removing the gauze from Monica's head to take a look at what she was dealing with. "Where did you get this from?" She asked the young woman after finishing off her work up, getting ready to clean and suture up the cut.

Monica's eyes flew wide open, and she placed her hand to her forehead, her fingertips turning red.

"Oh god!" The woman stared in awe at her red fingertips.

"It's okay, try not to worry. I'll fix this up good as new, okay? It won't even leave a scar." Aliya spoke with a reassuring smile, turning to grab a suture kit, trying to avoid the sight of the orange scrubs that appeared everywhere she looked.

Maybe she should buy some pesticide, that would get rid of them.

"It's my stupid boss!" Monica groaned, wincing as Aliya got to work on the suturing with a 3-0 silk, carefully cleaning out the cut to begin with, before slowly and carefully placing her stitches, just like her mother had taught her to do ever since she could say the word suture. "He is an arrogant, self-obsessed dick! Ow!"

The woman on the gurney pulled a face at the needle on her forehead, though Aliya had numbed the area, that still didn't stop Monica from protesting.

"He made me get him books from the top shelf of the library using this big ladder thing, and I was in heels! Stilettos!" Monica exclaimed, passionately.

"You were climbing ladders in stilettos?" Aliya asked, her nose scrunching up with concentration, though she was also wondering how it would be structural sound to climb a ladder in heels seeing as it was a struggle to even walk in them in the first place. "That's a bold move."

"Yeah, bold until I slipped and fell. Right onto my face. It was so embarrassing." Monica took a sigh.

"At least now you know not to go climbing ladders in stilettos, there's a valuable life lesson for you. Try and stay grounded in heels above five inches, that's what my aunt always said." Aliya tried to look on the bright-side for this poor woman, but there really wasn't anything bright about falling off a ladder wearing heels.

And judging by the heels next to the gurney, they were significantly high, so there was a reason why she fell.

"Hm. Valuable life lesson." Monica repeated in self loathing. "I can't believe I was such an idiot."

"Believe me, you're not an idiot, Monica. Gravitationally-challenged, but not an idiot. Your boss is the real jerk." Aliya nodded slowly, finishing off her sutures, though Monica seemed to look even more troubled than before. "You know, when I was in college in New York, it was my first week and when I was going to hail a cab, I walked straight into one of those hot dog bikes, you know the ones?"

Monica snorted, blinking back her tears. "Yeah, the ones with the onions?"

Aliya laughed, taking her gloves off. "Well, I then proceeded to knock over this hot dog bike and all of the food, onions included, went all over the sidewalk, all over my brand new shirt, and I had to pay for the entire thing."

She never had a hot dog since.

The trauma of the whole thing was too much to handle.

"That's made me feel better," Monica admitted, revelling in nineteen-year-old Aliya's embarrassment. "At least I didn't break his vintage book collection."

"See, the bigger picture, and stilettos are so worth the trips to the ER." The brunette smiled at Monica, nodding her head in agreement. "I'm just going to order you a CT, just to be safe."

Monica pulled a face, looking at Aliya as if she had just sentenced her to death. "A CT? I'm not going to die, am I?"

"Oh, not at all," Aliya assured, quickly putting everything she needed to put in the trash. "We just don't mess around with brain injuries here, I just want to make sure everything's how it should be, okay?"

The woman nodded. "Okay."

"Sit tight."

Turning on her heel, chart in hand, Aliya left Monica on her gurney, where she hopped on her phone straight away to broadcast what had happened to her in a three way call whilst her doctor approached the ER desk with meaning, dodging the number of people weaving around her.

Clearing her throat to catch his attention, Aliya grinned at the nurse running the incredibly busy ER, putting on her best grin, just for him. "Hey, Tyler!"

"No." Tyler deadpanned, moving behind the desk with an armful of charts, seemingly very busy.

Or, he was avoiding the brunette.

Aliya scoffed in a light-hearted manner, following him to the other end of the front desk. "You didn't even know what I was going to ask."

Tyler shook his head in complete refusal and dismissal of what he knew Aliya was going to ask, laughing in a sort of mocking, all-knowing way.

"I do." He spoke with confidence. "You want your patient pushed forward! I said last time was the last time."

The brunette frowned. "You also said that the time before that and the time before that—"

Narrowing his eyes at the resident that seemed to take great enjoyment out of pestering him to the extreme, Tyler finally paused in front of her, looking far from pleased. "Okay—"

"And the time before that—"

"I get your point." He interjected, his lips pursed at her.

"This will be the last time. I swear." Aliya pleaded, her hands pressed together in front of her.

Sighing heavily, Tyler rolled his eyes at the woman, putting the charts down as he turned away from her, jamming numbers into the phone, casting a look over his shoulder. "Fine."

"Really!" The brunette clapped her hands together, a wide grin spread across her face.

"Yes." The man grumbled, because at least she wasn't screaming at him.

"Monica Chapman! Head CT! Thank you!" Aliya craned her neck as she called at Tyler, who was already speaking into a phone, waving a hand in her direction as if to finally shut her up.

And, Aliya saw that as a victory on her end.

See? This was a clear example of her being a capable adult, maybe she doubted herself too much to begin with.

"There's people who also need a head CT, you know."

And then, her happiness disappeared as quickly as it had came as she was addressed by the exact same voice from when she had stepped foot into the ER.

And even if she only heard it once in the entire history of her life, she could still recognise it as one of the dreaded invaders.

Who she really did not have the time, nor the energy, or even the patience to converse with the potential ruination of her surgical career.

"Oh, I think I know that." Aliya spoke, her voice laced with sarcasm as she turned, narrowing her eyes at the man stood across from her. "I'm not ignorant to the fact a lot of people on this world may need a head CT."

The Mercy Wester pursed his lips into a line, crossing his arms over his body before opening his mouth to say something else, though he opted against it, seeing as he actually wanted to try and be pleasant with the Seattle Grace residents. So instead, his eyes darted over to Tyler, who was stood by the phone, making various calls.

"So, you have pull with the Nurses?" Jackson chose to say, instead of whatever insult or comeback he had thought of.

The brunette raised a brow. "I don't see why that's any of your business."

Jackson, now losing a small bit of patience with this whole day, sighed. The woman before him really was making his life more difficult. "My patient needs an MRI—"

"No." Aliya interrupted, with a short laugh at the absolute nerve this man had.

"What?"

By the look on his face, it seemed as if Jackson Avery had never been told no before in his entire life.

"Ask them yourself, I'm not bending over backwards for you. I'm not an olympic gold medal gymnast, and I don't even know you." Aliya pointed out, truthfully. Because they didn't even know each other, they were opposing sides — the oranges and the blues, the Montague's and the Capulet's, and though she shouldn't be treating them as such, they threatened everything Aliya had worked for therefore all pleasantries flew out the window. "Ask them yourselves."

"I tried," Jackson said, sheepishly which contrasted with the arrogance from before, his eyes darting over to one of the ER Nurses, Patricia, who casted him a very disgusted glare. Aliya could have sworn she had heard the man gulp in that very second. "They looked at me as if I asked them to run out onto the highway."

The brunette watched as Patricia gave him the side eye, knowing the valuable information that Jackson did not know, that her best friend was let go yesterday. "Their friends were fired, and the merger is the reason why, they're gonna take a while to warm up to you—"

"It wasn't my fault." Jackson protested, digging his hands into the pockets of his Mercy West lab coat, his lips turned down into a frown.

"—But, they also care about the patients," Aliya carried on, clicking her pen and writing in Monica's chart that she was having a CT. "They're not going to deny patients MRI's just because you're their doctor."

Jackson looked defeated, and Aliya knew it couldn't have been an easy transition for them.

But, you don't sympathise with the devil.

Or in this case, the locusts.

"At Mercy West—"

"Reality check," Aliya interrupted him, disgusted at the mere mention of Mercy West. "This is Seattle Grace, and here we do things a little differently. It took me two years to get pull with the Nurses, or however you want to put it."

"I can see why." Jackson said, his voice flat. "You are all so welcoming."

The sarcasm in his voice was undeniable.

"We are aren't we?" The brunette mused, clicking her pen off and closing the chart in front of her. "I don't think you understand this has been our home long before you, and sometimes welcoming strangers into your home is a little unnerving."

Jackson straightened his shoulders, visibly taken aback. "You—"

"Who knows what they will do," Aliya waved her pen around as if that would help her help her case in point. "They might steal you food, break a couple ornaments — they might even axe murder you in your sleep. Only time will tell."

"Funny." Orange Scrubs scoffed, half-nervously, half at the proposition of axe murderers. "Axe murderers? I've never been compared to an axe murderer before, that's a new one for me."

"There's a first time for everything," She addressed the potential axe murderer. "You must know that by now, seeing as this is probably the first time you've ever been perceived as Public Enemy Number One."

Jackson shook his head, to say the Seattle Grace staff were unwelcoming was an understatement. They were fighting for their lives out there. "You know, you talk a lot."

Yeah, he wasn't exactly wrong about that.

"So I've been told."

"So, you know that you talk more than you breathe?" Jackson clarified, something passing behind his green eyes, that were really fucking green.

She didn't even know eyes could get that green. But, she shut that thought right down into the depths of her self loathing.

"I'm very self aware." Aliya answered, brow raised in challenge, watching him closely, waiting for him to inevitably crack in this undeclared staring contest.

Jackson angled his head to the side in amusement, then leaning in to take a peek at her name tag, seeing as it would probably be a struggle to even get her to tell him her name. "Dr. Levine?"

Aliya raised a brow, her eyes going down to her name tag, then back up to the man across from her. "Congratulations, you can read."

"Dr. Levine, as in..." Jackson trailed off, not needing to finish his sentence.

The ambiguous silence.

Aliya swallowed the lump in her throat back, though she had really hope he hadn't caught onto that.

Instead, she stuck her chin in the air, standing tall. "Dr. Avery, as in..."

"Yeah." Jackson confirmed, his voice lowered and quiet. "Don't tell—"

"I think they'll be able to put two and two together, Avery." Aliya admitted, seeing as five minutes into her internship the whole hospital knew she was Molly Levine's daughter.

⠀
⠀
━━━━━━━
⠀
⠀
⠀
THE INTERNS LOCKER ROOM
seattle grace hospital
( the first day of internship )
⠀

Now in a fresh, shiny pair of blue scrubs and a lab coat, Aliya entered the interns locker room, clutching hold of her thermal cup of coffee as if it were her lifeline.

She blinked at the dozen pairs of eyes darting her way, and the whispers that followed almost immediately after. So, straightening her shoulders, she beelined straight to locker eighteen, entering her locker code and placing her clothes and bag inside.

"Is that—"

"No way!"

"That's Molly Levine's daughter, right?"

"It can't be—"

"A Levine is here—"

"You're Aliya, right?" A voice belonging to a wavy haired brunette spoke from her peripheral vision, speaking over the faint whispers around her.

The Levine woman turned to her right, smiling confidently. "Yeah, and you're—"

"Cristina." The woman replied back quickly, which Aliya was glad about seeing as she had forgotten the majority of the names of the people she had met at the intern mixer. "Levine, isn't it? You're Aliya Levine. Top of your class at Columbia Med?"

"Uh—" Aliya pursed her lips as she gulped down her burning hot coffee. "Yes, that's my name, you want an address with that?"

Cristina narrowed her eyes, as if she were sizing up the competition. "Molly Levine's daughter, huh?"

"Ok, Martin, Robinson, Bond, Hawkins." A voice of a supposed resident called out over the hustle of the locker room.

And, Aliya welcomed the distraction, seeing as now Cristina was more focused on jumping over to the resident, asking him when her name will be called. Though, he simply turned her away, leaving her to trail back over to her respective locker.

Great. Only five minutes and already her mother's name had been mentioned.

"You know, the whole famous-parent thing really sucks." Another voice, this time coming from her left spoke, belonging to a dirty blonde.

Aliya lips curled up, nodding her head in agreement and noticing Meredith Grey on her name tag. "It blows, and I'd rather not chat about my mother all day."

"We have that thing in common." Meredith chuckled, weaving her stethoscope around her neck.

"Patton, Monroe—" Another resident began to call out another list of interns.

"Only six women out of twenty." Meredith pointed out as the four men who had just been called scrambled out of the room.

Aliya made a face, following the blonde's eyes, over to the room populated mostly by the male species. "How can a girl even breathe with this much testosterone? It's suffocating." She curled up her nose.

"Yeah," Cristina reappeared, her face mirroring the same disgust as the other two women. "I hear one of them's a model. Seriously? That's gonna help with the whole respect thing."

"How does she find the time?" Aliya marvelled in awe, knowing that modelling wasn't easy work. "I barely find enough time to shave my legs, let alone model on the side."

"You're Cristina, right?" Meredith questioned her who seemingly had an issue with models, or people in general so it seemed.

"Which resident are you assigned to?" Cristina questioned the two newly acquainted interns. "I got Bailey."

"Same, I heard she's a badass." The brunette replied, shutting her locker door shut.

"The Nazi?" Meredith raised a brow with a sigh as she too closed her locker. "Me too."

"You got the Nazi?"

The women turned to the short man whose voice had cut quickly into their conversation — with wide blue eyes and scruffy brown hair, he looked like a baby deer.

"So did I. At least we'll be tortured together." He blurted out, a pink blush spread across his cheeks, his words coming out in a stutter.

Aliya grinned, warmly at the man. "I wonder what method of torture they'd use."

"I'm George O'Malley, uh— we met at the mixer," He stated, and the women didn't know who he was addressing at first. "You had a black dress with a slit up the side, strappy sandals—"

Meredith gave a pointed look to both Cristina and Aliya, as if she didn't have a clue what was going on. Suggesting she was way too drunk to remember the intern mixer.

Which, Aliya was too. She was in no position to judge.

"Now you think I'm gay." George's face paled almost instantly, beginning to choke on his words. "No, I'm not gay, it's— it's just that, you know, you were, I mean, you were very, unforgettable."

"Levine, O'Malley, Yang, Grey, Stevens." A resident called out, beckoning the intern's attention.

"And, I'm totally forgettable." George muttered, sadly trailing behind the women as they all moved to the door.

"Not totally," Aliya offered him a smile. "It was a free bar, I wouldn't even recognise myself."

George snorted, earning looks from the others left in the room.

"Bailey?" Cristina questioned the resident who had called them out.

The doctor gestured his head. "End of the hall."

"That's the Nazi?" Cristina spoke out as they all looked over at the short woman stood at the desk, speaking to a nurse there.

"I thought the Nazi would be a guy." George admitted, his mouth hanging slightly open as he watched.

Meredith blinked. "I thought the Nazi would be, well, a Nazi."

Aliya walked with intrigue, adrenaline coursing through her veins as she vowed not to let the mention of her mother get her down. "I mean, she looks pretty cool, and it is always the ones you least expect."

"Maybe it's professional jealousy." Said the voice of a tall woman, who passed the four of them with long strides. "Maybe she's brilliant, and they call her Nazi because they're jealous. Maybe she's nice."

"Let me guess." Cristina's voice monotone as she cast a look of judgment at the blonde. "You're the model."

The supposed model threw the Yang woman a look from over her shoulder, before turning to their resident with a hand stretched out. "Hi, I'm Isobel Stevens, but everyone calls me Izzie."

The resident looked far from amused.

The short woman eyed Izzie, looking her up and down, analysing her every move.

"I have five rules. Memorize them. Rule number one, don't bother sucking up, I already hate you, that's not gonna change."

Aliya could practically hear the O'Malley man gulp.

⠀
⠀
━━━━━━━
⠀
⠀

He sighed, frowning at the Avery stitched onto his lab coat. "That's always a problem, Levine."

The Avery surgeon's, definitely somehow related to Harper Avery, expression faltered, though he quickly regained his composure, not wanting to appear weak in front of the woman that just tore his head off of his shoulders, sending it rolling across the ER floor.

Aliya knew that look. It was the sort of look that only came from people who descended from a whole line of other surgeons. It was the look of a weight on your shoulders, a legacy.

Some people were bred to be surgeons. It was completely out of their control.

And, Aliya was one of those people.

From the day Aliya was born it was written in her DNA who she was and what she was going to be.

Seeing as her two older siblings seemed completely disinterested in the fact that they came from an exceedingly long line of surgeons, Aliya was Molly and Travis Levine's last hope in having a child with a Phd. Sometimes, Aliya thought that was the only reason they had their youngest child.

The Levine family were a well-known lineage of surgeons across America, especially along the West Coast. Go into a hospital or a clinic in Los Angeles, and you were bound to find a Doctor Levine somewhere.

With their many awards for surgical innovation, studies and articles published under a Levine name, they were shown along side great names like Grey, Avery, Hopkins, the list is never ending.

With a mother obsessed with reputation, Aliya couldn't help but note that particular piece of information.

And nor could Jackson Avery, when he heard the last name Levine.

Because, when you grew up in that environment, surrounded by surgical legends, you knew about every single one of those surgical dynasty's ruling the United States. You were born to uphold that legacy, it was hard wired so deep into your brain that it was impossible to shake.

They were programmed that way. Where every surgeon was set against each other.

So, when Jackson Avery locked eyes with Aliya Levine, they both knew exactly what the other was thinking.

They were doomed.

⠀
—✩—
⠀

"Hey, how are you doing?" Mark asked, jogging to catch her up, though Aliya unconsciously began to walk a little bit quicker than her usual pace — half due to the fact she wanted to get away from Mark, half because she had to get back to the ER as quickly as possible, after Tyler successfully managed to push Monica Chapman's brain CT.

Aliya furrowed her brows at the man beside her, her brown eyes narrowing at him. "Fine?"

"Aliya, why are you always so hostile?" Mark questioned, dodging a nurse heading directly toward him, who casted him a disgusted look as she passed.

Mark Sloan wasn't very popular with the nurses, it had to be said.

"I'm not hostile." She pointed out, pushing the double doors open, not bothering to hold them open for Mark, which she did note was rather petty of her.

Her mother and Mark would get along very well, they both would mutually agree that Aliya was 'always hostile!'.

However at this point, she had hardly any dignity left as Mark had seen her in many humbling situations:

Situation Number 1: Hunched over his toilet after drinking too many margaritas and eating too many mozzarella sticks at Callie's birthday party.

Situation Number 2: Falling into a lake near Derek's plot of land after they stayed in his trailer for the night.

Situation Number 3: Projectile sneezed into a bowl of chicken noodle soup.

All three of the above events she would rather not relive.

It could be said that Mark had it worse though, Aliya had witnessed him attempt a backflip into the same lake. But, Aliya only believed it when Alex was feeding into her delusions too.

"Maybe it's because I don't actually want to talk to you?" Aliya fired back, suppressing those memories back into the depth of her mind. "I know how much you can't handle that but, not all of us were put on this Earth to stroke your ego."

"Ah—" He clicked his tongue, smiling slightly with realisation. "I see."

Mark reached out, stopping her by the elbow and Aliya looked at his hand as if he just used it to slap a puppy.

"How are you doing? Really?" He seemed genuine enough, but Aliya stood firm, not allowing herself to get sucked into his cyclone.

"I'm fine, Mark." Aliya tugged her arm back away from him. Stupid puppy slapping hand.

He cleared his throat, readying himself to continue. "Your friend just died out of nowhere, another one of them had cancer and nearly died, the hospitals are merging together, residents are getting cut—"

Aliya pressed her lips into a straight line. "I'm not worried about the merger."

"I know you're not, you're a better doctor than most of the residents here." Mark nudged her arm with his elbow again, and Aliya looked over her shoulder, wondering how fast she could run to the nearest exit so she could put enough space between them as possible. "See, I'm being nice."

"More like trying trying too hard." She corrected for him.

A wave of hurt passed over his face, his expression softening in a way that almost made Aliya feel bad, then she remembered the amount of times she was left along sobbing. "Are you going to be like this forever?"

"I'm not being like anything." Aliya snapped back, whipping her head toward him, having enough of his guilt-ridden antics. "I'm just tired of you feeling guilty about what you did therefore trying to act like some sort of martyr to me, okay?"

Mark scoffed, shaking his head in an action of denial. "I'm not acting like a martyr—"

"Hm." Aliya murmured, pretending to hear him out.

"And I do feel—" Shifting nervously, Mark spoke with exaggerated waves of his hands.

"Yeah." Aliya crossed her arms, her head tilting to the side.

"Like I—"

"Go on." She ushered him on with an elegant wave of her hand.

Mark sighed, heavily. "I hate it when you do that." He muttered, a palm pressed against his forehead in frustration.

Even if he didn't understand the true depth of how he hurt Aliya, he knew her hostility with him was justified, he knew she didn't owe him anything. He didn't even deserve her time of day.

But, a piece of him still cared about her, he would never stop caring about her deep down. Feelings like that don't just switch off overnight, that would be impossible.

"Oh, I'm being paged, 911!" Aliya freed her soundless pager from her pocket, smiling manically as she turned, calling over her shoulder. "You know what they teach on your first day! I have to run!"

"Aliya! Come on!" Mark threw his hands down in frustration but she was already disappearing down the hall. "I hate it when you do that too!"

⠀
—✩—
⠀

"Hey, so my patient is completely fine, just a head lac." Aliya said, with a slight tone of disappointment. Though she was happy that Monica did not have a brain bleed, it just meant she had to troll for cases. Yet again. This merger was really beginning to feel like a kick in the shins. "Can I help?"

Cristina looked at the brunette in reluctance chewing on the inside of her cheek.

"Sure."

She agreed after a lot of deliberation, and, just like the Mercy Westers, Aliya leeched herself on to the case.

"He's got a stab wound," Cristina caught Aliya up. "Conveniently from walking into a knife."

Aliya raised a brow in suspicion, eyeing the patient cautiously. "How does one walk into a knife?"

Frank Newsbaum, frowned, and pointed to a man that Jackson Avery was working on, who had not stopped looking at Frank as if he wanted to physically murder him.

"Okay—" Aliya trailed off, peering at where Frank walked into the knife. "Have you checked for a pseudo aneurysm? The knife might have pierce the femoral artery."

"The bleeding's stopped now." Cristina stated, grabbing the clipboard, she lowered her voice in attempt to ensure Frank didn't hear her. "This is what my surgical life has come to, stitching up stab wounds for this perv."

"Hey!" Frank protested.

He most definitely heard her.

Aliya looked from Frank, to the stab wound, to the man on the gurney on the opposite side of the room, and then back to Cristina, running the risk of developing whiplash. "Did you just call him a perv?"

"He's dating his—" Cristina pointed at the murderous expression man. "Nineteen year-old daughter."

"Oh." Aliya spoke, not entirely knowing what else to say, except side eye the man too.

The man did look in his late forties.

"Yes, oh." Cristina lowered her voice even further, leaning into Aliya's ear. "He used to babysit her."

Yeah, perv. Aliya thought to herself. "Gross."

(She had no filter.)

"Oh my god, Frank!" The owner of the voice ran through the ER, as if on queue, pushing past Aliya and holding Frank's face with her hands. "Honey, are you okay?"

"I'll be fine, sweetheart." Frank replied softly to the girl young enough to be his daughter.

Aliya and Cristina exchanged a glance, as Aliya spotted another wound on Frank's leg that as untreated, so she moved to clean it up.

"Get off of her, you perv!" The man on the other gurney yelled over.

The girl whipped her head back around. "Daddy!"

Oh, it all made a whole lot more sense now.

"I will kill you," The father shot up from the bed, moving away from Dr. Avery who was doing his stitches. He reached to grab a hammer from the table, left by one of the other patients in the ER, presumably. "You son of a bitch!"

Cristina waved her hand in the air. "SECURITY!"

"Sir, I know you're upset, but I'm gonna have to ask you to put the hammer away and calm the hell down!" Aliya backed up, trying to stop the man charging at her and the two people behind her with a literal metal tool.

Though, he kept advancing towards the three, that was until the Avery man practically flew across the room, rugby tackling the hammer carrying man across the emergency room within a split second, almost sending Aliya across the room in the process, missing the brunette by less than an inch.

The security guards rushed out of the trauma room, advancing towards Jackson, who had the man pinned — quite literally — to the ground.

"Nice work!" Owen congratulated as he followed behind the security guard.

"Thanks." The supposed rugby player replied, a smug smile on his annoying Mercy West face.

"I got it from here!" The security guard ensured, handcuffing the knock off version of Thor.

Then, the ER erupted with whistles and claps, mainly from the Mercy Westers, and well, Owen.

That traitorous asshole.

Jackson scratched the back of his head, sheepishly, shaking the hands of a multitude of hospital staff with a wide grin on his face, as if he were accepting an award.

"Oh, this is just—" Aliya scoffed, loudly, the ER erupting into a round of applause.

The two women locked eyes as the commotion continued, as if Jackson was doing a victory lap around the whole ER, shaking hands witch his loyal sentries.

"You've got to be kidding." Cristina grumbled.

The pair watched as the trauma surgeon moved towards Jackson with intrigue. "A tackle like that, you had to have played football."

"I played a little in college." Jackson replied, admittedly, securing his stethoscope tightly around his neck.

"Safety?"

"And wide receiver, yeah." Jackson grinned, proud.

Aliya swore she saw that little shit blush.

"Offence and defence. Impressive." Owen gave him a nod before walking off with the security guard.

Aliya turned away, back to Cristina and the matter at hand. "You know what I played in college?"

Cristina sighed. "What?"

"Volleyball," Aliya announced, crossing her arms as she accepted the clipboard from Tyler to write her own incident report. "But, you don't see me throwing people over nets."

Seattle Grace, 1. Mercy West, 1.

Keeping score was a bad idea.

⠀
—✩—
⠀

"This blows." Alex complained as he slammed his lunch tray onto the table next to where Aliya was writing the incident report, sandwich in one hand, and a straw in her coffee for efficiency.

"Getting your ass kicked?" Cristina questioned, her voice low because she too, was getting her ass kicked.

"Shut up." Alex retorted through a mouthful of a BLT sandwich, waving it back and forth in Cristina and Aliya's direction. "I heard yours got a standing ovation in the ER."

"Oh, yeah!" Lexie exclaimed, holding a random little red book in her hand. "Yours is the one who saved the whole ER from the maniac with a hammer."

"Okay, he didn't save anyone." Cristina cleared up, shutting down the whole hero thing. "He did some stupid ninja leap and tripped a guy up. I used actual medicine to stop a person from dying."

Aliya scoffed, more at the stupid incident report than Alex's comment. Because, though news does travel fast around Seattle Grace, the news gets warped ever so slightly. "He's a jackass with a hero complex."

"Say it louder." The Yang woman agreed.

"I don't know what's in the water on the other side of town but oh my," Aliya swallowed the bit of her sandwich, reaching for her coffee to follow up. "What is up with these Mercy Westers?"

"They're crazy," Alex exclaimed. "Completely cracked!"

"Mine has a notebook that she takes notes in, notes of a very personal nature and I stole it." Lexie frowned, explaining the context behind the book.

"You stole it from her!" Aliya's jaw dropped because she didn't know Lexie had it in her.

"You what?" Cristina looked the same as Aliya.

"Give it." Alex piped up with determination, needing anything he could to destroy the locusts.

"No!" The notebook stealer slipped the book into her pocket in determination. "No, I am not sinking to their level. They are vindictive, and they are aggressive, and they're not team players, and if we are not careful, that spirit is going to infect our hospital. We have to fight it!"

Lexie told the group, her voice manic as she tried her best at a pep talk, not quite to Meredith's level of expertise.

"Which is why you stole her notebook?"

"And read it."

Aliya pointed her sandwich at the brunette. "And continue to read it after the whole speech."

The book was back on the table, opened on a page displaying neat cursive handwriting in smudged blue biro.

Lexie frowned in torment. "She's not a very nice person." The Grey woman justified, sinking deeper into her chair.

"Hey!" Izzie approached the table, the only one with a smile on her face.

"Score! You rock!" Alex reached for one of the two coffees in Izzie's hand.

"Oh— no," Izzie moved the coffee away from Alex's grasp. "That's not for you."

Alex looked personally offended. "Who's it for?"

"Charles." Izzie said, happily, and the four residents looked at her, confused.

"Your Mercy West guy?" Alex spat out.

Aliya's jaw dropped at the second Seattle Grace betrayal of the day. "You're on a first name basis with them now?"

"They're handing us our asses on a plate and you're serving him coffee?" Alex spat, taking a sip of soda in self-deprivation.

"Charles is actually kind of awesome," Izzie stated, and that was just another punch in the gut. "And if you could get past your sad little egos, you'd realise you can't write off all the Mercy West residents just 'cause you feel threatened."

And with that, Izzie disappeared out of the cafeteria, her traitor coffee in hand.

"I severely doubt that." Aliya called after her, not letting her get the last word.

"Oh, we don't feel threatened." Alex denied, shaking his head at the prospect.

But the blonde was already gone, and they had no one to prove their point to. Or do anything about it instead sit in complete and utter silence, wondering how they could make the murder of the Mercy West residents seem like an accident.

"Yeah," Lexie cleared her throat, still reading the Mercy Westers notebook. "We feel pretty threatened."

Aliya didn't have the energy to argue, because, it had to be said, they really did feel threatened.

They were the prey.

Anyone could see that the Seattle Grace residents were descending into madness, and nothing anyone could do could stop them — looking over their shoulders constantly.

"Dudes—" Alex whipped his head back and forth, his eyes scanning the ER, manically.

"What?" Aliya sighed, pushing her hair back out of her face.

"They're not here." Alex informed them, though Aliya didn't really see the big issue there.

"Hallelujah."

"They're not eating." Alex realised, and then that's when it hit the others. "They're working."

"No— this— wait." Aliya followed Alex's eyes around the cafeteria, no sigh of those eye sore orange scrubs sent to torture them. "They don't eat? Surely not? This can't be right."

"Oh my god!" Alex slammed down his sandwich, sending a tomato flying across the table. "They don't eat lunch!"

"You've got to be joking!" Aliya darted up from her seat, looking around quickly only to come to the truth that Alex was right, and she was out of the door before any of them, sadly abandoning her lunch on the table.

⠀
—✩—
⠀

"You're a poacher! You know that?" Aliya yelled, catching her breath from where she practically sprinted back to the ER, losing Cristina and all of the others in the process.

The Avery man who was only hired to be a nuisance, glanced up. "You weren't here."

"I was hungry!" The brunette exclaimed, and her stomach groaned in response, seeing as she only really had a single bite of her sandwich before dashing off. "Do you not get hungry, quarterback?"

"No," Avery took off Frank's bandage, and he smirked slightly at the nickname. "I'm just that good, Levine."

"You're such a jerk!" Aliya snapped in rage, her eyes not even on the patient — whose expression made him very alarmed at what he was currently witnessing. "A big-headed, arrogant—"

"Aliya—"

Aliya knew exactly who was hovering behind her, and she really did not have time, or the need for his bullshit right this moment in time. Not when her patients were being stolen out from under her, well, he was Cristina's patient too, so she had to defend for the both of them. "Oh for godsakes Mark, I really don't have the time for you, and if you're going to call me hostile again—"

Instead, Mark interrupted her, swaying on the balls of his feet. "I have a patient with a broken jaw, want to scrub in?"

Aliya's lip twitched, and she straightened up, looking back at Jackson over her shoulder. "I can assure you, Avery, that you're not as good as you think you are, so enjoy hanging out around the ER and consider a career change to a recreational football coach, I'm going to go reconstruct someone's jaw."

Jackson blinked, eyes going from the brunette's hazel eyes, then glancing to the surgeon stood behind her.

Leaving him with Frank and his girlfriend, Aliya followed Mark out of the ER, knowing the surgery was only offered because he was feeling guilty, but drastic times called for drastic measures.

"I can see your day is going well." Mark commented, amused by the encounter he had just witnessed.

The woman shook her head, taking a breath to steady herself, and mentally prepare for sharing an OR with her ex-boyfriend (but drastic times called for drastic measures). "Don't start."
⠀

—✩—

⠀
"This day sucked." Alex grumbled as the pair dragged themselves into the residents lounge, finally able to go home after the longest day of their lives.

"Tell me about." The brunette replied, grabbing her clothes from her cubby, and moving into the bathroom to change out of her scrubs. "I mean, who the hell do they think they are! They are rude and hateful lunatics who have no idea how to actually practice medicine without being a pain in the ass to everyone, but themselves."

Aliya stopped her rant to pull on a pair of jeans, now that her scrubs were discarded on the floor in a disorganised pile.

"I had twelve interns complain to me today." Aliya called through the bathroom door, thinking back to the various conversations she had, which really did challenge her sanity. "Twelve!" A Mercy Wester did this, a Mercy Wester did that, and some of the things they said, Alex—"

Pausing again, Aliya shrugged on her shirt, pulling her hair from where it had gotten trapped in the fabric and emerging from the bathroom with her scrubs, now folded in a neater pile in her hand.

"—One of them completely butchered a central line—"

Stopping short in the middle of the lounge, Aliya stopped talking as she saw Alex, frozen on the bench in his tank top, a letter held in his trembling hands.

"Alex?" Aliya's tone shifted as she approached her best friend carefully. "What's going on? Who do I have to kill? Because, I did karate in the sixth grade and I—"

"She left me." His head remained down, staring into the hardwood floor, the letter balled up in his fists.

Aliya inhaled sharply, dropping down to the bench next to him. "What do you mean she left you?"

"Izzie." Alex brought his head up, his eyes were red from the strained effort of trying not to cry, his throat dry which made forming coherent sentences incredibly difficult. "She left me. She was fired, and now she's gone."

"What— She was fired— Oh, Alex." She quickly weaved her hands around his neck, tightly holding him close to her as he sobbed, his hand clutching at the material of her top. "This has nothing to do with you, okay? I need you to know that because, she has got to be a complete and totally, class A idiot to ever leave you." She told him, but he didn't say anything back, his jaw still hanging slack from the shock.

And, Aliya tried to suppress the thought of what she would do if she ever saw that blonde again.

Because, her best friend didn't need her telling him he can do better, that never helped when you realise the person you loved the most, didn't love you enough to stick around.
⠀

—✩—
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⠀
THE OPERATING ROOM
seattle grace hospital
( two months ago )
⠀

The sound of Callie's crying wasn't something a person could forget. Her sobs grew louder and more violent, echoing around the OR as they lost George. Though he didn't look like George. They didn't even know it was him until he traced a 007 onto Meredith's hand.

But, Aliya knew that if he had opened his eyes right there and then, she would be met with those remarkably blue pupils she had shared coffee and cookies with, who was always there whenever she needed him, who always laughed at her jokes.

The man she had met at the intern mixer, who told her the dress she was wearing was pretty, and asked about where she had moved from. Who told her he had always wanted to go to New York, and asked her if the bagels there were actually any good.

She was the woman who helped him study after he failed his first intern exam, who encouraged him to take it again, because one test doesn't show the bigger picture, or how he cares for every single one of his patients without fail.

He was the one, despite the past couple years of long nights, sleep deprivation and emotional roller coasters, who always guaranteed to make her laugh.

So now, standing over his brain, Derek Shepherd declaring this man brain dead, was something she never could have expected.

Because, how could all those memories suddenly result to him dying?

It must be some sort of prank because how could he go from joining the army, to lying on a gurney, completely brain dead.

The woman's eyes tore away from George's swelling brain, and she hadn't even realised the pools of tears in her eyes, collecting in her face mask and dampening the fabric.

She blinked back the tears, though it was impossible now that Callie was coughing and choking from the sobbing. Though Meredith remained as still as a statue, staring into the plain space past George's body.

"This—" Aliya swallowed the lump down in her throat, though it only seemed to grow with every breath she took. Every breath she took now that George wasn't here. "This can't be happening."

In anger, Aliya tore off her gown, shoving it in the trash on the way out, because there is no way she had just left George O'Malley dead in OR one.

It couldn't be her reality.

⠀
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( notes! )

AHHHHHH HEY!!! first of all, thank you so so SO much for reading the new & updated first ever chapter of scrub caps!!! it means a lot that's you're here & i hoped you enjoyed it!! <3

a bit of a backstory in case you missed it in the introduction of this story, i first published this fic in july 2020, when i wrote solely in the first person, andrea burman never existed, and molly levine was slightly less feral. in the first draft of this fic, i reached season eight (productive queen!). however, my writing wasn't the best quality so, in march 2022, i decided to rewrite this book entirely, adding in our angel andy & changing the writing to a third person narrative. then, september 2023 me comes along and takes a sledgehammer to the first rewrite and edits the whole entirety of scrub caps, changing all the chapters, the dialogue, adding in a bunch of new plot lines and publishing several new chapters in the middle of pre existing ones (which is why the dates of the chapters jump back and forth between 2022, 2023 & 2024!).

i'm honestly so excited to rewrite the rest of this fic,,, aliya means so much to me & i hope you all adore her as much as i do!!

hope you have the best day 🫶🫶

( word count! — 12,200 )