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chapter four ━ give peace a chance
season six, episode seven

❝ i'm guessing you have
to retire now. ❞

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Aliya's hands wrapped around her fourth cup of coffee of the morning, taking deep sips every few seconds until the mug was drained of all of the brown liquid. It was the strongest coffee Aliya had ever tasted but she needed it, seeing as she only got three hours sleep and the worldwide requirement was in fact seven to eight. How was she meant to go to work with three hours sleep? Besides, it's not her fault Criminal Minds was getting exciting at 12pm. Anyone who had seen Spencer Reid's eyes would understand.

Her hands started to tremor around the mug, so she placed it back down onto the safety of the counter, cautious of the many mug fatalities she had to deal with in the past.

She moved towards the coffee machine in a sleep deprived trance — fully prepared to make another cup before Mer's footsteps clattered across the floor in limps. She recently donated her liver to her alcoholic father and had been ordered to stay at home, away from work. Which she described as 'pure torture' and asked the rest of her housemates and Cristina to fill her in every night about what had happened that day.

It had turned into one of Aliya's favourite parts of the day, mainly due to the bribery in the form of chocolate chip cookies.

"Aliya!" The Grey woman shouted from the kitchen doorway, rushing over and prying the coffee forcefully from her hands, clutching it to her chest like a life jacket, holding it out of Aliya's grasp.

"Hey!" Aliya snapped in protest, reacting by thrusting her hands in front of her in an attempt to snatch back the mug.

"Your hands are shaking! No more coffee." Meredith ordered, pointing a finger at Aliya's face before walking off, coffee bag in hand and slipping it on the back of the top shelf. "How do you expect to perform surgery like that? One wrong move." She tutted, slamming the cupboard door.

"But I need it! It's a necessity!" Aliya watched her with widened eyes, crossing her arms to hide her shaking hands. "You do realise I'm taller than you and can reach that shelf if I wanted." Aliya commented.

Though, Meredith turned to her, giving her a disapproving look. Instead, the brunette grinned, turning to the next best thing. Aliya unwrapped a waffle from the cupboard and began eating it cold.

"How many cups?" Mer inquired with a smirk on her face. She grabbed a glass and filled it with water, taking her pills out of her pocket and swallowing them.

"Four." Aliya muttered. Mer's head snapped up and Aliya guiltily nibbled on the corner of the waffle, looking at her through her eyelashes. "Plus two."

"In how many hours?" She placed down her water with a sigh, trying to fight off a smirk with all of her might. The Levine woman threw her another smile, showing all rows of shiny bright teeth. "Minutes?"

"Thirty."

Mer's palm met her face in an instant and began laughing into it out of pity and awe. This only caused Aliya to laugh with her, dropping her head down as her hair slipped around her face.

Mer took this as an opportunity for some extra bribery, seeing as she had no chocolate chip cookies within reaching distance.

"I won't tell anyone if you tell me what happened at work yesterday." She crossed the kitchen dropping into a chair at the table and gesturing to the other chair.

Aliya's lips curved upwards, pacing over to the seat opposite her, glancing at the small clock on the wall, telling her the time was exactly 9:24am.

"Deal. I have 45 minutes." She said, before informing Meredith about everything to do with the hospital.

All from annoying residents to annoying ex-boyfriends.

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The resident placed a scan onto the light box, switching it on as Derek appeared by the side of her, staring at it intently.

"It looks like a meningioma." Aliya commented, angling her head to look more closely at the scan.

"Yes, you see there," Derek pointed towards it, moving his finger along the lines of the tumour in this patients brain, before scratching at his jaw where he desperately needed a shave. "That's where it begins, where we'll have to snip it, and there, that's where it ends."

Aliya nodded her head in understanding, stepping back from the light boxes and crossing her arms tightly over her chest. "Amazing." She mused, though it was far from amazing for her patient.

"Have you filled in Meredith yet?" The man beside her asked with an all-knowing grin, looking away from the scans they were meant to be discussing to the brunette.

"Obviously," Aliya smiled as she recalled the morning, it was a solid deal. Meredith wouldn't tell Alex about her many cups of coffee (he had banned her for the week), and Meredith would hear about all of the hospital goings on.

It really was a perfect deal for the both of them.

"She would have held me hostage all morning if I didn't. She tried to convince me to dye her hair brown so she could look like me. I had to hide her credit card so she didn't order brown contacts."

Derek chuckled, shaking his head at his scalpel-hungry wife. "She's a busybody—" The neurosurgeon began, though he was quickly interrupted by the sound of the door opening with a creak of the hinges as Isaac, one of the lab technicians, entered the room.

"Dr Shepherd, Dr Levine." Isaac greeted the pair and shut the door behind him, before he crossed over to them in his dark grey scrubs, stopping in the space next to Derek.

"Hi Isaac." Aliya responded, greeting him with a warm smile.

"Isaac," Derek addressed him, his lips pressed into a straight line. "If you don't stop calling me Derek I'm going to have to cut you off!"

Isaac let out a laugh. "Alright, Derek." He exaggerated, purposefully.

"There we go!" Derek clapped his hands together in victory.

"I have your scans." Isaac explained, tugging them out of the big brow envelope, as Derek protested, claiming he didn't order any. "I think they are for a consult." The lab tech explained casually with a shrug, though there was something about the way he was going about this that made Aliya wonder something was wrong.

She narrowed her eyebrows in curiosity as Isaac explained to Derek he can come back if he's busy, which Derek simply replied with a shake of his head and saying it was okay.

Tugging the previous scans off of the display, Isaac replaced them with the ones he had bought in. This time it was of a spinal cord, rather than the brain.

A sinking feeling surged through Aliya's stomach as she stepped closer to it, her mouth dropping wide open. The spinal cord, set directly in the centre of the scan, was completely wrapped in a tumour that branched out across everything it could get its hands on. It was the most invasive tumour Aliya had ever laid her eyes on, and she had thought she had seen it all. "Holy—"

"Don't finish that sentence." Derek murmured, staring at the scan in complete and utter awe.

"You didn't know what I was going to say." Aliya mumbled, barely audible as the tumour in front of her managed to take all of her attention. It seemed as if it was growing right in front of her, though she knew it was just her eyes playing tricks on her.

"It's a tumour in the spinal cord." Derek marvelled, pointing out the most obvious fact more to himself than everyone else in the room.

"Maybe a hemangioblastoma?" Aliya stated with wide eyes, still staring unwaveringly at the tumour.

Oh, how she would kill to operate on a tumour like this.

"You seen one before?" Isaac questioned inquisitively, turning away from the scan dismissively as if he had seen it a million times, maybe he had.

Wait?

"Not this big." Derek informed. "You see how the tumour has wrapped around the spine, all the way up?" He took a step towards the tumour, reaching his hand up and running it up the spinal cord on the scan, that was almost completely disguised by the tumour.

"It's feeding off the blood supply." Aliya acknowledged. "On five levels of the spinal cord."

"The perfect tumour." The neurosurgeon breathed heavily, tugging at the collar of his lab coat. The pair still didn't know whose tumour this was, but they both knew that whoever had this living inside them, was one unfortunate person. "You know if the patient still has leg function?"

Isaac's expression seemed to falter, though he quickly pulled himself together as he cleared his throat, nodding his head in response. "Yes. Incredible leg function in fact."

"That's amazing." Aliya was in awe, unable to believe how whoever this scan belonged to was still alive and standing. "It's a miracle."

"Unbelievable." Derek agreed. "He shouldn't be walking. He should be paralysed. Maybe even dead."

"You would have to operate quickly to get this tumour out then, right?" Issac inquired, pointedly, watching Derek as he tried to contemplate how to answer. What Isaac didn't realise was that Aliya was watching him too, how he was watching Derek's every move, every tiny change in facial expression. He caught it all.

And somehow, Aliya began to slowly piece together the puzzle Isaac was laying out so clearly.

"Oh—" Derek's words caught in his throat, laughing it off half-heartedly, shaking his head and gesturing towards the scans. "I would love to operate on this, but, no. You would have to cut the cord."

"Which will paralyse the patient." Aliya pointed out. All of a sudden Aliya began to think of who this tumour belonged to, who had to deal with all of this. Whose family had to watch as this person would inevitably begin to fade away.

Sighing deeply, Derek turned back to Isaac, forcing himself away from the scans and the fantasy of being able to operate on it. They both knew it was unrealistic. They really did, but deep down, they both also knew that there could be another possible way. Define inoperable though, right? "Who's the doctor on this one?"

"You." Isaac answered, simply, leaving Derek ultimately taken back, but equally intrigued.

"I'm sorry, me?" Derek spoke with surprise, his usual put together expression faltering.

Aliya took a sharp inhale of breath, every single piece of information coming together right before her eyes in that exact moment. "These are your scans aren't they?"

"Yes. The tumour is mine." Isaac confirmed, causing Derek's face to drain of all colour. "I'd like you to remove it." Isaac spoke with ease, without hesitation, as if he was blatantly handing his life over to Derek on a silver platter, which was technically what he was doing. "I'd like you to try."

Frozen on the spot, Derek's eyes pinned straight onto the tumour, his mouth hung open in awe as if he was scanning for any logical reason as to why Isaac would sign up for such a risky procedure — having this tumour removed was practically a death wish.

"I'm so sorry." Aliya offered, giving Isaac a strained smile that didn't quite meet her eyes. He nodded towards her, but shrugged off the apology, like he had time to think about it, to consider all of his options.

"One Doctor said it was bad circulation." Issac began, his hands behind his back as he swayed on the balls of his feet. "Another one said a pinched nerve but, the pain has started to interfere with work. I couldn't keep going on like that. So, I decided to run an MRI on myself." Derek's pager buzzed from his pocket, along with Aliya's.

"Isaac, if I—" Derek scrambled for his pager buried in his pockets. "If I had known this was yours, I wouldn't have—"

"I've been to multiple doctors Derek and every time it's the same!" Beginning to pace the small, confined room, he waved his hand out of frustration. "They look at the tumour defeated, but not you—" He pointed towards Derek, "And not you." He added, his index finger trailing towards Aliya. "You were inspired."

Isaac then went on to tell Derek that he got the job here at Seattle Grace just to meet Derek, saying he researched neurosurgeons, their statistics, the prizes and awards won.

"Isaac." Derek frowned, exhaling deeply. "I wish I could take it out but, this surgery will kill you."

"Please, take the scans. Look them over." Isaac desperately tried to convince. "But stop your mind before the part where it gets to no."

All of a sudden, Cristina Yang burst into the scan viewing room, where they were all stood in circle of melancholy. "Hey! You two, I've been paging you, the patient—"

The Yang woman paused, her eyes catching hold of the tumour on the wall. A thousand different emotions passed behind her eyes but she approached it without hesitation, marvelling at what she was looking at.

"Screw the shunt, let's operate on that!" Grinning in excitement, her dark eyes stared directly at the spinal cord tumour in some sort of admiration. "That's what I'm talking about!"

"Cristina!" Aliya hissed, her eyes darting to Isaac, then back to Cristina, as if trying to communicate unspoken with her, though her efforts just caused Cristina to look even more baffled.

"Your eyes are doing that funny, manic thing you do." Cristina pointed out as she gestured towards Aliya's face.

Aliya dropped her jaw in offence. "What do you mean funny, manic thing?"

"You know—" With hesitation, Cristina paused her explanation, glancing slightly towards the other two people in the room, finally realising the tone of the previous exchange. "Have I just walked into a murder confession or what?"

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Aliya returned back into the room where she had left Derek and Cristina, contemplating whether or not they should operate on the tumour, only to find that more doctors have joined them — Mark, Callie, Arizona, Lexie and Owen. All of them were hovered over the small computer screen which had a picture of Isaac's scan on the monitor.

"Oh, come on! It's all the way up to T-2!" Callie pointed towards the tumour, clearly against the whole miracle-operation plot.

"See this is why I got into plastics— Levine!" Mark responded to Aliya's presence instantly, though he didn't actually mean to, it was sort of out of habit at this point. His arms crossed were in a stance as he towered over Derek's chair. "What do you think?" He asked, genuinely.

That man seemingly did not knowing what 'can you just leave me the fuck alone' meant.

Aliya made her way over to stand next to Lexie behind Derek's chair, peering at the updated scans of Isaac's tumour.

If this were last week, Aliya would have probably told Mark to shove his stupid questions in his face. He only asked them in an attempt to extend an unspoken apology, though anything that came out of his mouth didn't really mean all that much to her.

"I think Isaac is one poor guy for having that monster eating away at his spinal cord." She chose to reply, handing Cristina her latte and Derek his cappuccino which they accept with a thanks.

Aliya opted for a fruit juice, seeing as she only just stopped shaking from this morning, and she needed a somewhat less coffee polluted head to hatch a plan of action with Derek on how to operate on this tumour.

She stabbed the straw into the carton with distaste and sipped, angry at how she mixed up the pink of the Strawberry Juice with the red of the Watermelon flavour — which she believed was believe was the villain in every narrative.

Regarding the tumour, it was undeniable that it was the most intricate tumour she had ever seen.

The door to the x-ray room swayed open between the faint arguments of whether or not this tumour could be removed, a lot of people swaying towards 'This is totally crazy! Are you out of your mind?' exclamation.

"Now why aren't you all in your surgeries?" Richard, who was now present in the doorway, demanded, walking into the x-ray room with purpose. Aliya placed her hand on her hip, remaining stood next to Cristina as the others filtered out of the room. "Don't screw up my schedule on day one!" Richard scoffed in aggravation, ushering the imposters out the room.

Derek sighed, conflicted as he leant back into his chair, now it was just the three of them.

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The next day, Derek paged all of the residents into the training lab where a cup with the top cut out was positioned underneath a microscope.

"Microsurgery is about precision. The microscope changes your perspective radically. The hand-eye coordination required can be learned, but right now, we need naturals." He announced at the front of the room, pacing back and forth whilst he spoke, eyeing everyone individual resident in the room.

"Each of you will have a chance to guide this pen through the cup and the person who makes a mark closest to the president's nose and doesn't hit the side of the cup in the process gets to scrub in with me." He held up the dollar, the president's nose displaying with a small perfectly placed red dot. "Who wants to go first?" He questioned with a smile and all the residents except Aliya threw up their hand.

Aliya watched them all, their hands stretched up in the air, eager to prove themselves. The brunette still had lots to prove, but her putting her hand up immediately wasn't saying she didn't want to do it. She just didn't want to go first.

One of the interns in Cristina's group stood up (now resident, but they will forever be known as their interns), making his way over to the microscope.

"Take your time." Derek instructed, setting the dollar underneath the cup.

The resident picked up the pen whilst Cristina mimicked a yawn with a smirk on her face, clearly obvious that she did not believe in her intern's precision skills.

He guided his hand down before hitting the outside of the cup, scraping the edge of it with the red pen — the mark it made serving as a sign that he had failed.

"Do overs?" He inquired, his voice shaky as his face flushed a bright shade of pink with embarrassment.

"No do overs." Derek replied with a shake of his head, sending a very sad looking Steve back to his seat.

Cristina clapped her hands, way too entertained by other people's failures. "Way to go, two!"

Aliya narrowed her eyes, glancing over towards the woman now currently clapping at another resident's failure. "Don't you know his name by now?"

"And you do?" The Yang woman raised a brow.

The brunette pursed her lips, racking her brain to find out his name. All she knew is that it is a name eighteenth Century mother's would name their son.

It was either David, Steve or John.

"Steve!" Aliya clapped her hands. "His name's Steve! Ha!"

Reed Adamson was up next and the pen instantly clashed against the cup, which everyone found humorous due to the fact that everyone hated her.

Cristina grinned broadly, clearly enjoying herself and whispering to Aliya loudly, so everyone can hear what she's saying about the people who fail.

Every time someone would glance over at Cristina's judgemental comments, Aliya would look back at them, offering a shrug and a smile before turning back to watch them. Because not even Aliya could shut the Yang woman up and nor could she stop the vast majority of doctors in the room looking like they wanted to murder Cristina.

After about a dozen misses and Derek declaring his disappointment multiple times, Jackson walked up to the microscope.

Actually, in retrospect, it was more of a strut.

He lazily slipped out of his chair, rolling his shoulders and stretching out his back in a way that would only be seen in a television commercial. Or when Aliya dragged herself to the gym to get over her fear of the treadmill.

The Avery man took the dollar off of Derek and positioned under the cup on the table. Carefully, he held on to the pen at the top and slowly guided it down with precision and ease, without even touching the sides of the cup.

"Nicely Done!" Derek grinned wide as Jackson held up his work.

A dot just a little to the left of the president's nose.

That arrogant arse.

Aliya thought to herself, out of pure anger at the way Jackson was smirking, holding up the dollar as if it were a trophy.

"If somebody improves on that, I'll be out of a job." Derek declared, patting Jackson on the back for a job well done.

The victor passed Cristina and Aliya with a that same old mocking smirk on his face that seemed to be his only expression, other than deeply confused.

Cristina took the challenge, hopping out of her seat, advancing over to the microscope.

Everyone watched Cristina, secretly manifesting her failure, as she stretched her arms out.

And the powers of manifestation, or plain old karma, must have worked its magic because, as Cristina picked up her pen and dropped it down, the nose of the nib scraping along the rim of the cup cut through the room like glass shattering.

Derek blinked, surprised, and the resident's voices rose in shock that she missed, many of them were gloating.

Aliya's own eyes widened as Cristina stood frozen over the eyepiece, her mouth gawking as she hovered, wanting the ground to completely swallow her whole.

"I guess I'll be scrubbing in then, Yang." Jackson leaned back leisurely, his smile broadening.

Aliya turned her head over towards him quickly, pushing out of her chair. "I wouldn't bet on it."

The brunette slipped out of the chair and walked confidently up to the front of the room, feeling one particular pair of green eyes on her, the ones that secretly accepted the bet in his mind.

"Alright Levine, you're up." Derek instructed. She took the dollar off of him, moving behind the microscope. Cristina had seemed to have trailed her way back to her chair in a sulk of defeat, unwilling to make eye contact with any living soul.

Aliya carefully flattened out the dollar on the table covered in a blue cloth, delicately placing the cup over it — which seemed to have accumulated some red splotches around the rim from the residents who went before her.

The woman gazed through the lenses, squinting as everything came into focus and the image showed the dollar through the cup, the president's nose taunting her relentlessly.

Taking a deep breath, Aliya picked up the red pen and slowly began to lower it, the whole of the room stopped, watching upon her careful hands from the comfort of their chairs. The pen passed directly through the middle of the hole, not coming into contact with any sides before it touched the dollar note at the bottom.

As gently as possibly, Aliya lifted the pen out of the cup, placing it down on the side. She blinked her eyes away from the microscope and moved the cup away, peering at the dollar which had a perfect red dot, exactly on the tip of the nose. Not to the right, not to the left. Perfectly in the middle.

Years of holding a paint brush in her spare time taught her to keep her hand steady. Her handwriting wasn't the most eligible out of most of the doctors for nothing (secretly, the Levine woman took great joy to know the Nurses thought her handwriting was the neatest, it was a form of academic validation that she craved relentlessly).

A smile of victory broke across her face as she held the dollar up in triumph. Derek peered at it and Aliya turned to face him, his face in a state of shock as he ran his eyes over it.

The Levine woman pressed her lips to together, fanning out the dollar in her hand and passing it to Derek. "I'm guessing you have to retire now."

The head of neuro nodded his head with a laugh, patting her on the shoulder. "Congratulations Levine, you'll be scrubbing in with me. Avery, as you were so close, you'll be back up."

Aliya scrunched her nose at the fact she would technically be sharing her surgery with Jackson Avery (of all people) but, she quickly regained her composure, because she was too excited about her win to care that he would be her backup.

Even though it was going to be torturous. Seeing as she had to fight the urge every time to sucker punch him every single time they interacted with each other.

But, it was nice to know that it was her turn to have a smug smile on her face.

"I guess I'll see you in surgery, Dr. Avery."

The green-eyed man studied her, a hand pressed to his chin and his pink lips relaxing from the smirk that was always plastered on his face (only slightly) as Aliya's eyes caught his gaze.

He rolled his eyes at the novelty of it all as she made her way out of the room, disappearing through the double doors.

But, he couldn't help feeling a sense of intrigue as his thoughts seemed to only be occupied by the somewhat overly competitive woman that just beat him.

He was definitely not used to losing.

And, he definitely wasn't used to the betrayal of his mind and his respiratory system every time the passive aggressive woman with famous surgeons for parents and a bit of an attitude entered the room.

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The Levine woman's excitement burst to its maximum level as she breezed into the scrub room, turning the tap on and reaching for the soap to start the process of scrubbing in.

Lexie did the same on Aliya's right, Jackson on her left.

The younger Grey sister was going to be joining them in the surgery to act as some sort of doctor to Derek — to manage his fluids, keep him hydrated, ask him trivial questions on whether they should get a house pet.

Derek had described it as him being the patient, but, what was really happing was that Lexie was on babysitting duty.

Jackson glanced over at Aliya. "You know, I've been thinking—"

The brunette opened her mouth instantly to reply, knowing exactly what to say. "That can't be good."

"I think we might have gotten off on the wrong foot that day." Jackson carried on anyway, taking the high road and choosing to ignore her previous comment.

"Which day?" Aliya then made a choice to choose the easy (arguably to the untrained eye — the most difficult) route, which was to act oblivious to whatever Jackson was droning on about now.

"The day of the merger." The Avery man clarified.

"Oh!" Aliya mocked a revelation, not taking into account Lexie, who was watching the current exchange through the reflection in the glass window. "You mean invasion day?"

"Uh— No— Wait?" Jackson faltered, caught off guard in some way or another. "Is that what you call it?"

He bit back the hurt on his face.

Because, was this woman insinuating he was some sort of parasite? Or virus?

He really didn't know at this point, this hospital was totally mad.

"Or infestation day." Without a moment of hesitation, Aliya began to list some of the various fond and clever nicknames her and her fellow residents had been using to refer to the day that the world (metaphorically) ceased. "Or Code Orange, not to be confused with Code Orange meaning hazardous spills. But I guess the two are interchangeable. Still, that one's a fun one."

Jackson frowned in displeasure at the idea of being compared to a hazardous spill. "I guess I was right about the wrong foot thing."

"If the wrong foot means nearly knocking me out in the middle of the ER, then sure. And let's not forget the whole arrogant ass act you have going for you." Aliya spoke, gravely, recalling Jackson's whole superhero act, and his mannerisms us until this point.

"It wasn't my intention to do that." He defended with all honesty, but that didn't stop Aliya from giving him the side eye. "You don't believe me? Why would I want to nearly knock you out? I don't even know you. And, can we put exaggeration on the nearly. I didn't actually knock you out."

"Hey—" Aliya started, unwilling to back down.

Sure, she was trying to at least make some sort of effort with the Mercy-Westers, but during the initial move in period, they brought only torment, nothing good.

Was it unfair she was pinning some of blame on the man that stood before her? Probably.

But, he deserved it.

"I could say the same about you." Aliya pointed out, truthfully. "I don't know you either, or what your motivations are. For all I know you could take great pleasure out of flooring people on the daily. You may be a trained assassin."

Yeah, she was watching too many movies in her free time. She had to start finding other things to do.

In frustration, Jackson shook his head, his carefully constructed calm exterior slowly cracking with every hit Aliya threw at him.

This woman was going to be the death of him, he could see it right there and then, as if had Magic 8 ball in his hand.

Signs point to yes.

"You're relentless."

"Okay—" Lexie coughed over their bickering, finally drawing a line in the sand. "You both might want to focus on the surgery you're about to watch rather than keeping up with this vendetta, okay?"

"Why are you so keen?" Jackson questioned Lexie, glancing towards her from. "You're wearing a diaper to be a glorified babysitter."

"Yes, but, inevitably, when the two have you have finally bitten each others head off, I'll be the one holding the retractor." Lexie explained, her head bobbing up and down as she went over her master plan to them. 

Aliya quirked a brow. "You're wearing a diaper?"

Lexie ducked her head, guilty as charged.

She broke out into laughter, nudging off her tap with her elbow. "That's genius!" Lexie beamed in response to the praise.

"Well I don't need a diaper, I've been managing my fluids." Jackson said, condescendingly, reaching to turn his own tap off.

"You've be managing your fluids?" She repeated, chuckling lightly as she moved to the door, followed by the two other residents. "Good luck for when you inevitably collapse from dehydration." With how nicely she spoke and held herself, you would almost think she was being sincere, until she added: "They're gonna have to scoop your body off the OR floor."

"Funny. You're really funny." Jackson replied back, and Aliya studied as Jackson's eyes narrowed with the unfiltered frustration she was causing him.

A crease appeared at the bridge of his nose as they stood opposite each other, and Aliya could only assume was a result from him frowning underneath his mask.

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—✩—
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THE SCRUB ROOM
seattle grace mercy west
( present day )
⠀

Aliya emerged into the scrub room, the entirety of her legs aching underneath her from standing for so long. She longed for a steaming hot bath and some form of carbs when she finally got home — her eyes were beginning to flutter shut as she scrubbed out, slipping in and out of a consciousness.

All of the surgery consisted of Derek looking at the tumour. For ten hours.

Which meant Aliya had to look at the tumour for ten hours, making random chatter with the surgical team, including Jackson who seemed to make it his like mission to annoy her every other minute. But, Aliya gracefully returned the favour.

It did get to a point where she ended up kicking him in the ankle in an attempt to stop him from whispering all the words associated with water into her ear in an attempt to make her take a bathroom break.

Shortly after this happened, Richard had walked in, finding out about the 'rouge' surgery, so Derek and Aliya had to close him up.

It's not like they were doing anything anyway other than staring blankly in the general direction of the tumour, and every minute they kept him like that it increased the risk of infection.

"Can we just reschedule the surgery and open him back up tomorrow?" Aliya questioned, turning the faucet on with her elbow.

"It's not as simple as that." Derek sighed, tugging off his scrub cap and running a hand through his hair — he had great hair, balding middle aged men should be jealous.

"I mean, the tumour's a bitch—" Aliya began, running the soap through her fingernails as she lost all filters, mainly due to the tiredness infesting her limbs, and her brain. "It's the most complex tumour I've ever seen before but, you need to find a place to start. Just pick a place where the tumour is and cut."

Derek raised his eyebrow at the simplicity of how the brunette was painting it out to be.

"Strategically though," Aliya added quickly with clarification, because eyeballing it may not be entirely the best way forward. "You don't want to poke and prod around in there without at least half of a game plan. Isn't there a way you could do it without cutting the cord?"

"That's what I'm trying to figure out." Derek murmured, the frustration and exhaustion from the surgery catching up with him. "Go home, get some rest."

And with that, the troubled neurosurgeon exited the room.

"He was not okay in there." Lexie commented, drying her hands with a paper towel. "He was— irritable. I've never seen him like that before."

"He was just stumped, that's all." Aliya defended the manic neurosurgeon. "He just needs time to regroup, and start again fresh tomorrow."

Lexie pursed her lips at the brunette. "You're optimistic."

Aliya shrugged, indifferently. "Hopeful is probably the word you're looking for."

"Interchangeable." The Grey woman replied, freeing her hair out of her bun. "Doesn't change the fact Derek is loosing his mind." She smiled lightly as she spoke the last sentence, pushing the door open as she slipped out of the scrub room.

After watching Lexie abandon her in the scrub room (with the enemy), Aliya turned her attention back to washing her hands.

"Everything's going to be fine. Derek's not going to murder Isaac with his scalpel, and everything's not going to go to shit."

Jackson raised a brow at the woman presumably talking to herself in the middle of the scrub room, suspiciously. "Is that what you tell yourself to sleep at night?"

Aliya scrunched up her nose as she gave him a pointed look, flicking water at him from the tap before turning it off to dry her hands.

He defended himself, water streaking up the side of his face and down his scrubs. "Hey!"

"At least it wasn't pesticide." Aliya spoke, quickly, turning her back to Jackson and pushing her way out of the door with a slight limp, hearing him mutter about the water being freezing cold.

The limping however, was induced by the fact she tripped up in the hall just before she entered the OR, where she preceded to stand there aimlessly doing nothing worth noting in the surgery for a further seven hours.

"Crap. Crap. Crap." Aliya muttered under her breath with each step she took to the residents lounge, her ankle screaming at her.

It really didn't help that she had also went on a run for three hours this morning in an attempt to wake herself up without her regular source of caffeine.

It was something about running, that made her forget the world for a couple hours. It took her mind off of her dead friend, her troubled mother, her asshole ex-boyfriend.

Running really worked wonders on her.

"Levine, you look broken." Jackson commented, who had been following Aliya the whole entire way to the resident's lounge for the past couple minutes.

"I have a low pain tolerance, shut up." Aliya threw her scrub cap at him, collapsing surprisingly gracefully onto the sofa, kicking her feet up in one jagged, yet graceful, movement.

Jackson moved towards his cubby, jogging on the spot in front of it, as if he was visually saying to her that she was weak.

It was spiteful and Aliya took great offence to that.

The woman scoffed, a judgemental expression on her features. "You've gotta be kidding, right? You don't feel like you've had fifteen shots of tequila whilst dancing for five hours straight in stiletto's?"

"Believe it or not, I don't spend my time dancing in stiletto's. You know," He replied, cheerfully, seemingly awfully proud of himself. "I was my High School's—"

"Quarterback?" Aliya continued for him, already knowing what was going to come out of his mouth, seeing how he made it his life mission for everyone to know that fact. "The whole damn hospital knows that already."

Jackson turned his head to her, his lips pursed (which she realised he did more often than not, out of habit).

"What's so wrong with quarterbacks?" Jackson defended as he moved into the bathroom, leaving the door wide open as he turned on the faucet, the sound of water splashing coming through the open door way.

"Nothing, I dated a quarterback once." She mused nostalgically, playing with the lining of her scrubs and staring up at the ceiling through heavy eyelids. If she wasn't forcing herself to stay awake, she would be sound asleep by now.

The Quarterback in question was Kai Park, Aliya's first love or whatever. They were in each other's lives from when she was four, all the way to when she was eighteen. She hadn't seen him in years, which Aliya didn't mind — she knew it was for the better anyway.

The invisible string theory did exist, but definitely not for this pair.

Kai Park wasn't going to randomly appear in a puff of grey smoke, declaring his undying love for Aliya. Because that only happened in fairytales, and Aliya's life was nowhere near one. And, she was the one who hurt him, not the other way around.

She was the one who left him alone on the pier on the night of their graduation party.

But, they were two different people at the end of the day, with two different futures they wished for.

Kai wanted the big family, the house in a small town, the shiny bright white pickets fence, and the family volvo.

And, Aliya didn't even know what she wanted.

Usually couples had romantic stories about how they met but, she just remembered him stealing her legos, or pulling at her braids in kindergarten.

However, as they grew older, that slowly turned into her locking eyes with him for months, stealing stolen glances when his sister, Mae, wasn't looking at them. He flashed her that kind of smile that gave seventeen year old Aliya those stupid butterflies.

Maybe it was the whole forbidden romance of it all that made it feel right.

Aliya didn't know, and she wasn't in any position to psychoanalyse a relationship that ended almost ten years ago.

"A Quarterback?" Jackson relayed, emerging from the bathroom with a band of water dripping from his head, a blue shirt and black jeans replacing his scrubs.

"Why are you so surprised?" She asked, offended by his shocked and presumptuous expression.

"It's actually not surprising at all." Jackson smirked, holding his dirty scrubs in one hand, and putting on his belt with the other. "Does that make you a cheerleader?"

"No. I wasn't a cheerleader. I played volleyball in high shool." She assured, her eyes closing as she rested her arm over her forehead.

With a brief laugh that did ridiculous things to Aliya's stomach, Jackson tossed his scrubs into the laundry. "Figures. You don't have the flexibility for it."

At that, the brunette's eyes flew open.

"How do you know how flexible—" Aliya stopped herself mid sentence with a pout, not wanting to entertain whatever he was thinking of. "Let me guess, how many cheerleaders have you dated? The whole team?"

"No— not the whole team." He defended, with his eyes diverting directly to the ground and away for the judgement day the brunette was single handedly hosting for him.

"Three quarters then?" As Jackson shook his head, and Aliya's mouth dropped. "More? Okay—"

She stopped herself, deciding to think about it more logically.

She really had a good streak going in terms of their unspoken rivalry.

It was a solid fifty three to forty nine.

She was winning of course.

"My guess is all but one."

"Cindy McCarter was not into me she was into Daphne Hastings." He defended, revealing why he was one off from screwing the whole cheerleading squad.

A laugh belonging to Aliya, though it sounded as if it was coming from a feral animal, came from the sofa, a hand clasped over her mouth.

However, the laughter seemed to quickly fade as she remembered that she was meant to hate this guy. Surely that's what she was meant to do?

Wasn't it?

For starters, her mother had some vendetta against anyone with the last name Avery, due to the award she should have won — the fact that she had mentioned that past five consecutive family gatherings Aliya had begrudgingly attended made it pretty darn obvious the hatred she had for the Avery family.

Aliya did not know how long Molly Levine had hated the Avery's, she just knew it sparked from her lack of a certain award tied to their last name.

And ever since, she had seemed to have some sort of twitter rivalry with them as well.

But, Aliya would rather not know about what her mother got up to in her free time.

"Are you not going home?" Jackson inquired, standing at the foot of sofa and prodding her shoe with his bag.

"I think I might just stay here," Aliya announced with a content smile on her face, snuggling her head into the pile of cushions behind her, finally getting them in the perfect position. "Lying in my own filth."

"Sounds fun. You enjoy doing that." He spoke with an undeniably handsome smirk, leaving her and her aching limbs behind.

She was completely unaware that the scrub cap she hurtled towards him just minutes before he left was stuffed into the side pocket of his bag.

⠀
—✩—
⠀

Aliya didn't have a problem with confrontation. Living through years of backhanded comments from the woman who raised her, Aliya learnt a thing or two about sticking up for herself and for other people. She could put up a good fight when she wanted to.

However, she found that as a third year resident, confrontation was key.

Especially when people's lives were at stake.

Which left Aliya, picking at her red nail polish and shifting in her seat next to Derek in the conference room as the pair were trying to convince Richard Webber that they should continue with Isaac's surgery.

One thing Aliya could fight for with enthusiasm was surgery. And, how any film that starred Molly Ringwald was automatically deemed a cinematic masterpiece. And, how pineapple did actually belong on pizza because it was the perfect sweet to savoury ratio.

Clearing his throat, Richard clicked the pen he held in his hand. "So, this patient understands what cutting the cord means? The loss of function in both legs and possibly more?" His face grew stern as he peered at them down through his glasses.

"We have to cut the cord to kill the tumour. There's no other way." Derek answered, leaning back into his chair.

Richard cleared his throat, closing the file. "Okay. That'll only take an hour or two. You can have OR one. Hunt needs it right after so he'll have enough time."

"Thank you." Derek replied, shaking Richard's hand.

"Good luck." Richard got up from his chair, exiting the room with a handful of paperwork. As the door closed behind him, Derek spun around in his chair to face his three residents, his eyes alive with excitement.

Aliya studied his grin and shook her head with the same grin on her face.

"You're not going to cut the cord are you?"

"We're not cutting the cord."

Their voices overlapped and Derek's blue eyes stared unwaveringly at the Levine woman. "Mind reader. You ruined the miraculous moment."

Aliya grinned, spinning slightly in her chair with as much excitement as a kid at Christmas. "You can do it again if you like. I'll just sit here, looking pretty."

He snorted at her comment.

"Wait, we're not cutting the cord?" Jackson asked, shifting to look at Derek, who simply nodded at the question.

"The mistake I made yesterday was that I wanted a plan. There can be no plan." Derek looked between the three of them, resting his eyes finally on Aliya. "I just need to a pick a place where the tumour is and cut, it's pretty self explanatory when you think about it."

Aliya's eyes glistened back at him. "You're quoting me. I'm quotable."

"But—" Lexie interrupted their maniac grinning at each other for just a second, trying to draw them back down to reality. "But what you said yesterday. If— if you cut an artery or hit the cord—"

"Isaac wants us to take the risk." Derek interjected, nodding his head solemnly. "He wants a cure and it's our job to try. See you in the OR."

The Shepherd man pushed himself off of the chair, the door clicking on the latch behind him.

"This is bad. This is really, really bad." Lexie placed a hand to her forehead, breathing heavily as she ringed sweat of her hands.

"He's going to try." Aliya replied, still staring at the spot Derek just was. "I think it's pretty miraculous."

"No one at Mercy West was this badass." Jackson shared.

"I can imagine." Aliya spoke without thought.

"This, this isn't badass!" Lexie argued. "You saw him yesterday! He was spinning himself in— in circles! Mumbling like some crazy psych patient! And he was mean!" The younger Grey finished, waving her hands in the air to convey her point.

The pair continued to fight about Derek's mental stability, and something about diapers that Aliya couldn't quite make out. She just watched as Isaac's tumour spaced out in front of her, a fragment of her imagination. The edges of the tumour curling around the spine, mirroring what she saw on the scan. The image like a projector, or a hologram.

She gazed upon the tumour's mass wrapping around the five levels, feeding off of the blood supply, fighting and aching for survival. It's almost as if she had mesmerised it, from all of that time just staring at it for ten hours straight in the OR.

She wouldn't be surprised if she could draw it straight from her memory.

⠀
—✩—
⠀

"Americano, please." Aliya handed over a dollar to the barista. "Actually—" She paused, the dollar bill in her hand as she frowned at the coffee beans in the class jar. "Can I have a hot chocolate instead?"

Felipé, coffee connoisseur, narrowed his eyes at the brunette. "Are you sure?"

Aliya hesitated, knowing how easy it could be to order an extra large, extra shot americano, but she couldn't do it. She was determined to stick to her no caffeine ban this week. "Take my money before I change my mind."

Felipe raised a brow, taking Aliya's request as he took her money, starting to make her hot chocolate whilst moving onto the next customers.

"Flat white, please." Jackson Avery handed over his dollar, watching as the woman next to him narrowed her eyes at him. "What?"

"Ignore her." Felipé warned, setting down her hot chocolate on the counter, giving her a homemade raspberry muffin for good measure. She needed as much sustenance as possible. "She's in coffee withdrawal."

"Hm." Jackson pressed his lips together, leaning against the counter as he watched her break off the top of her muffin, her face like thunder. "Why don't you just have a cup of coffee, Levine?"

Aliya sipped on her hot chocolate. "I'm turning over a new leaf."

"Is this some sort of plan to self-actualise, or is it just a general end-of-year resolution?" He asked, seemingly curious.

Aliya chewed on the inside of her cheek in thought, tilting her head to the side. "It's just a— thing."

"A thing?"

"Yeah, you know." She watched in jealousy as he took his flat white from the counter. "A cleanse. I'm on a coffee cleanse."

Jackson clicked his tongue, adding his loose change into the tip jar. "I don't think I do know."

He nodded his head, walking away from the woman, leaving her staring longingly at the coffee cart.

Or, so he thought.

Because, after a couple of second some coffee-addicting monster inside her ran after him, jumping beside him.

"Jeez!" The green eyed man exclaimed, the tiniest amount of coffee spilling out of the cup and down his scrubs.

"I'll swap." She held the hot chocolate up to his nose.

"No." He held his flat white back, holding it above his head and out of the crazy woman's reach.

"Oh, come on!" Aliya frowned. "Who doesn't love hot chocolate?"

Jackson sipped his coffee to make a point with judgmental, though curious eyes. "This is a coffee evening."

Who even was this woman?

He had only just properly met her last week, though she intended on making his life a living hell and now, she was running after him, giving him shit about being a quarterback in high school.

And why did he even keep that scrub cap?

That was borderline stalking behaviour.

"It could be a hot chocolate evening, though." Aliya spoke as if she were a salesperson, attempting to convince him in swapping.

"For fourth graders." He scoffed, enjoying watching her squirm.

"Avery! Please! I'm begging you! Felipé didn't let me order coffee! I need it!" The way she spoke was so fast that he didn't even understand half of what she was saying.

"See you in surgery, Levine." Jackson raised his coffee cup to her, disappearing into the men's room.

"That's highly unsanitary!" She yelled to him in a huff as the door swung shut in her face.

⠀
—✩—
⠀

THE OPERATING ROOM
seattle grace mercy west
( many hours later )
⠀

Aliya stared down through the microscope, gazing upon the tumour inside Isaac's back, just as it was the last time they were in this position. Derek just made another cut of a vein, and the OR staff wait in anticipation for a rhythm, declaring that Isaac was not paralysed.

The rhythm played and a sea of sighs of relief chorused through the operating room.

It had gotten down to the point where Derek has to choose between two places to cut.

And which one was the right one was unanswerable.

"A or B?" Derek mumbled, his eyes pressed through the microscope.

"You're done?" Lexie questioned with hope. "You got it all out?"

"Except for the blind cut. I just have to pick one and we're good to go. A or B. Dr Avery? A or B."

Aliya moved her eyes away from the eyepiece, turning her head to Jackson. His eyes widened at the question, looking down at where Aliya was holding a clamp, before returning his eyes back to Derek.

"I don't like to gamble." He replied.

"Dr Sloan?"

Mark crossed his arms, sighing so his mask inflated with air. "What, so you can blame it on me for the rest of your life? This is all you."

"Great. My call. Great." Derek mumbled. His shoulders sagged, a portrait of the weight of the decision tugging him down.

"Why don't you do eeny meeny miny mo?" Aliya suggested, after another few minutes go by of just looking at the tumour.

"Eeny Meeny Miny M—" Derek started, pointing with the scalpel between the two places to choose from.

"Are you two seriously playing eeny meeny miny moe now right now?" Lexie questioned from where she was peering over Jackson's shoulder.

"It was Levine's idea." Derek blamed with a laugh, the surgical instruments clanking together in his hands. "Bad idea?" He asked and Aliya looked at him away from the microscope, smiling mischievously from under her mask, the grin meeting her eyes in creases.

She shrugged. "Potentially."

"Okay." Derek muttered under his breath and she watched the microscope as his tools make a burning, sizzling noise as they cut.

⠀
—✩—
⠀

THE COFFEE CART (AGAIN)
seattle grace mercy west
( a few more hours later )
⠀

Aliya leaned on the edge of the coffee cart, waiting patiently for her latte with a dash of cinnamon and a sweetener. Her no coffee ban broke immediately as she clutched her hands around her cup, taking a deep sip from the contents.

Felipé, the marvellous man he was, gave in and served her the coffee.

"Ugh, Felipé you make the best coffee." She groaned, savouring the sweetness of the liquid burning its way down the back of her throat. "The best, I can't live without it."

Felipé, from behind the counter, ran a hand through his fluffy brown hair, adjusting the glasses on his nose and beaming at her, red painting an adorable blush across his round cheeks. "Thank you, Doctor Levine."

"You already know my coffee orders and have perfected them, that's personal, call my Aliya." Aliya assured at him and waved her hand goodbye, walking back through the hospital halls, clutching onto her coffee like a lifeline.

Her shoes skidded across the ground, creating squeaking noises as she moved, barely managing to pick them off the floor as she ran the risk of collapsing onto the ground.

She dragged out her phone from her pocket, she switched it back to life. A bunch of messages she had received during the surgery flashing up on her screen in beeps. Two from Molly Levine, one from Eliana Levine, a long string of messages from Summer Vasquez and one from Derek Shepherd. She paused at the last notification, a lump storming into her throat as she swiped at the screen, Derek's message popping up.

⠀
DEREK SHEPHERD (7:49pm)

He's awake!!
Moving feet and all 😄
⠀

A smile broke out across her lips as she jumped up and down in celebration, suddenly not caring about the aching pain in her feet or the tension headache pounding behind her eyes, or that her coffee had created uneven splatters on her scrubs.

She was apart of something that saved a someone's life. That improved a person's life for the long run. That gave someone hope for the future, and the ability to live long enough to see it.

Some people didn't even get the chance to say that. But, Aliya found herself happy she had been giving the opportunity, the gift, to say it most days.

With everything that medicine had taken from her, she at least got something back.

⠀
⠀
⠀

( notes! )

aliya and lorelai would be best friends if they ever met, they're both raging coffee addicts with parental problems so that's at least two things they have in common!!! in my head, aliya also dresses like lorelai gilmore, or rachel green!!

also, you can't not convince me that jackson being a quarterback in high school doesn't make perfect sense. quarterbacks have a track record for being hot too, exhibit a being joey burrows. the day i saw an edit of him to wildest dream forever changed my life because the obsession never died live laugh love joey

( word count! — 9,300 )