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chapter fifty ━ hope for the hopeless
season eight, episode twelve

❝ i'm beginning to think
this is a trick coin. ❞

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"I don't see what was wrong with that house. I liked it." Jackson Avery remarked as he held the front door open for his girlfriend, who looked at him as if he had just said the most offensive confession in the entire history of the world.

Aliya Levine did not know what to say.

She paused by the open door, her head slowly turning towards him as her jaw dropped, gawking as she processed his wise words of wisdom.

"You—" The brunette stuttered across her words, her hands frantically moving about in circular motions as she tried to put whatever she was thinking into coherent thoughts.

"Oh," Jackson clicked his tongue, not even attempting to stick one foot into the house seeing as she was currently stuck, motionless, on the porch.  And, it was probably for the best that he didn't enter the house. "Here it comes."

Her jaw line twitched, her hazel eyes squinting at him as she processed his previous statement of the mediocre value of the house they had just looked at. "How! What!"

Trying his best to suppress a smirk, Jackson continued. "I just think that—"

"No!" Aliya shut him down with the wave of a hand. "Dare I mention the gargoyle on the front lawn!"

Jackson crossed his arms at the mention of the seven foot stone sculpture that stood towering over the couple as they turned up to view the house this morning. Something that was most definitely conveniently left out of the listening. "I don't think the house comes with the gargoyle."

"Yeah, well, it may not come with the house, put every time I pull up onto the drive, which will be everyday multiple times I day may I add—" Aliya didn't even take a breath, and Jackson blinked his lashes at her as she stormed on with her rant with unsolicited passion. "I'll think woah, gargoyle."

Jackson snorted at that, even though he was really trying his best not to crack.

"Brushing my teeth in the en-suite I'd been thinking, 'huh this is where Hilarie and Frank had that cherub shaped toothbrush holder'." Aliya really wished she was joking, but it seemed two ninety three year olds really felt a thrill about collecting cherub memorabilia. "When I wake up in the morning, I'll see the dark wood furniture set in my minds-eye and Jackson, don't you even try to convince me that the door fell off its hinges because they were extremely old doors, that house is haunted!"

With a raised brow, Jackson regarded the brunette stood before him. "Are you done?"

Aliya frowned at the question, and the smirk adorning his face. "No. And, to top it all off the house smelled like stale bread and out of date granola bars."

And with that all cleared up, Aliya turned on her heel to swiftly breeze up the stairs with the sound of her knee high boots hitting the hardwood floor, leaving the front door wide open and Jackson standing there, bewildered.

"I guess that solves that mystery." Jackson said with a smirk, following her to the kitchen, where he really needed a bowl of cereal to get his energy back up.

"Damn it. I screwed it up." Meredith muttered, frustrated at the cake she was attempting to decorate for Zola's birthday cake, bright purple frosting up the side of her arm.

Jackson peered at the blonde's handiwork, raising a brow. "'Gag Zola', really?"

"Those aren't G's, those are Y's for "Yay"." The Grey woman snapped, shooting Jackson a look as she pointed at the cake. "'Yay Zola'."

"See," Jackson started all-knowingly, side stepping past a random woman in the kitchen to reach for two bowls, loading both of them up with frosted flakes. "A normal person would've just written, 'Happy Birthday'."

He listened out for the grunt that came from the blonde, retrieving the milk from the refrigerator and bringing over the Lucky Charms.

"Well, I couldn't fit all those letters on the cake." Meredith defended, beginning to scrape the 'gag' off of the cake, stepping back to look at it from a distance before making a dissatisfied sigh with it. "What are you doing?"

Jackson looked up briefly from where he was pouring the Lucky Charms into the centre of Aliya's bowl. "Aliya likes her cereal with a perimeter of frosted flakes and a Lucky Charms centre."

"Of course she does." Meredith said with a nod, regarding the cake once more. "I should've just gotten Aliya to do it."

"Gotten me to do what?" The woman in question stepped innocently into the kitchen, racking her hands through her hair. Though, her face contorted at the sight of the very poorly decorated cake. "Oh sweet mother of God— I told you I'd make Zo's cake!"

She let Jackson place the cereal bowl concoction in her hand as she rounded the table to Zola in her high chair, kissing her on the forehead. "It's okay Zo, your Mommy loves you very much, she's just got other talents aside from baking."

"My talents are surgery." Meredith pursed her lips, placing down the piping bag in defeat, grimacing at the cake. "That's it. And, surely baking is surgery but with—"

Aliya raised a brow, a spoonful of cereal in her mouth. "Food?"

"Yeah." Meredith sighed with a frown.

"Coffee." A disgruntled voice passed through the door, and everyone looked over to see Alex walking like he had just been dragged through a hedge backwards.

"Fresh out, chief." Jackson announced, spooning his cereal into his mouth.

"What?" Aliya snapped, her head dashing over to her boyfriend, her jaw hanging low. "We're out of coffee? You're kidding!"

"You're out of OJ, too." A voice Aliya did not recognise at all chimed up from where she was practically in the refrigerator.

"Oh, hello?" Aliya looked alarmingly from Meredith to Jackson, trying to work out who this blonde woman was. "May I ask, who the hell are you?"

However, the mystery woman in the leopard print didn't respond, and by the smell coming from Alex and the overall appearance of her best friend, it wouldn't take a detective to determine what was going on here.

"Hey, you're still here?" Alex spoke, his voice surprised at the appearance of said mystery woman, who Aliya was staring at in a slightly horrified manner.

"Oh, yeah." Mystery woman shrugged her shoulders, moving closer to the Karev man. "I was on my way out, and then I saw these cheeks, so cute—"

The woman moved closer to poor, innocent Zola, and both Meredith and Aliya moved as quickly as humanly possible towards Zola to save her from the Mystery woman with the dirty hands.

"We don't touch the baby because we don't know where those hands have been." Meredith said with her teeth gritted, picking Zola up from her high chair and holding her as far away as possible from the woman. "Okay, I have a meeting with Owen, Aliya are you still okay to get Zola dress and drop her daycare?"

"Of course," Aliya nodded, jumping in for the rescue, seeing as she was taking the whole Auntie thing very seriously. Her voice softened as she picked up Zola from Meredith's arms, holding her in the air before bringing her to her chest.  "Come here, Zo! Auntie Aliya's gonna dress you up so nice for daycare! Are we thinking dress, or jeans?"

Zola looked at her puzzled, sucking her thumb.

"Jeans? I agree." Aliya nodded at the one year-old. "It's too cold to wear tights, what was I thinking."

Though, she was being slightly hypocritical seeing as she was actually wearing a skirt and tights, which Jackson stared knowingly with one brow arched in the air.

Meredith shook her head with a smirk, grabbing her keys from the counter. "Party is at 8:00, don't be late."

"Roger that." Aliya waved the blonde off as she moved out the door.

"I got twenty minutes before work." She heard Alex whisper to the leopard print lady. "You wanna, you know..."

"Ugh." The Levine woman made a noise, her face scrunching up in disgust as she reached one hand up to cover Zola's eyes so she didn't have to bear witness to the sight of whatever was going on in the kitchen.

Leopard print lady beamed at his proposition, and Jackson met Aliya's eyes with an alarmed look. "Yeah."

"Good." Alex shovelled a handful of frosted flakes into his mouth, ushering the woman back upstairs to finish where they left off. "Come on."

Aliya was pretty sure she heard him slap her ass when they began their hike up the stairs.

She quite frankly wanted to remove the last thirty seconds out of her brain, but alas she was stuck with the memory.

"I just threw up in my mouth." Aliya stated with a frown, dropping her hand from where she was covering Zola's eyes, protecting her from the sight of the previous events.

"Is it making the gargoyle house look pretty good right about now?" Jackson questioned the brunette, who turned slowly.

Her face flashed with the haunted memory of the equally haunted house. "I wouldn't go as far to say that."

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"Right, Zo." Aliya stood flustered in the middle of the hospital, juggling the one year old in her arms. "Where's your Daddy? Because, as per usual, he's paged me to a room that doesn't even fuc— fudging! Fudging exist! Don't repeat a word of that, you hear me?"

Zola innocently reached for the Levine woman's cheek with a wild grin and Aliya smiled, though frowning at her pager with the room code 'C350'.

Spoiler alert, there was no room 'C350' in Seattle Grace Mercy West.

And, she had been testing her luck with every single room in this hospital.

However, that was an overstatement to say the least, she was now opening the door to the fifth room on her list of possibilities.

"Catch!"

Aliya, who was still holding a very content one year old in one arm and a diaper bag on her other shoulder, caught a flying coin in her one free hand. "Quarter! Nice!"

"Heads, we do it. Tails, we don't." Derek, the thrower of said quarter, propositioned.

The brunette raised a brow. "Do what?"

"This." Derek gestured to the scans behind him, and Aliya took a step closer, her jaw hanging slack as she took in the images displayed on the light boxes.

"Woah, neuroblastoma—" She marvelled, her eyes seeming to brighten slightly. "Yes do it! Do it! Heads!"

Derek chuckled whilst Aliya still had her eyes still trained on the scans ahead of her, Zola beginning to play with a loose strand of her hair. "It's a gut check. I get a feeling when it's in the air, what I want it to land on. Flip it." He nodded towards the coin in her hand.

"Here goes nothing." She smirked, placing the coin on her thumb, flicking it and sending the quarter up into the air.

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"His neuroblastoma is more complicated than most I've seen." Derek explained now that Aliya had dropped Zola off at daycare and was dressed in a clean set of scrubs.

Doing surgery in knee high boots and a mini skirt may have been potentially problematic.

Derek looked back through the window at Wes Connors, the eleven year old boy with the deemed 'inoperable' neuroblastoma. "It's very rare that someone his age—"

"They're mostly in younger kids, I know." His mother, Lynn Connors, assured, her arms crossed as she stared nervously at the two doctors before her.

"It's in a very large region of his spine." Derek stated to Lynn, though it was very unlikely she was going to go home without getting her son a surgery for his tumour. There is the very likely risk of paralysis—"

"From his upper body down." Lynn finished, as if she had heard that line a million times before. "There's also the risk of death, a death that he is gonna meet in three months anyway if you don't do this surgery. I understand the risks, Dr. Shepherd. The surgeon in Boston compared it to dismantling a bomb with your eyes closed." She shook her head at the novelty.

"Have you had the one about patching a damn with gum? Bandaid over a bullet wound?" Aliya added, recalling a few sayings she had heard in her time as a doctor.

Lynn chuckled slightly, despite it all. "Chicago and New York, as a matter of fact. And, tou're the ninth surgeon I've talked to. So what I want to know it, are you gonna say anything different, or do I have to take my kid somewhere else?"

Lynn stared desperately at the Shepherd man, waiting for his answer.

He turned away briefly in the moment of silence shared between the three of them, circled outside Wes' room. After some thought, he took an intake of breath, returning to look towards the woman stood before him.

"There's only a five percent chance of success. Maybe a little less." He recalled the statistics.

But, you see, the problem with statistics and numbers was that it really didn't consider anything else. Statistics doesn't think of the person, their life, their resilience.

It didn't consider any of it.

Derek looked back at Aliya, and as she met his eyes, he gave her a slight nod, returning his gaze back to the mother. "Yes, if you're willing, I'll try."

A mixture of relief and shock passed across Lynn's face, and she instantly drew Derek in for a hug, smiling gleefully against his shoulder at the news.

"Shall we go tell Wes?" Derek smiled as Lynn drew away from the hug.

"Wait. There's something else." Lynn said abruptly, stopping them before they could go into Wes' room. "He doesn't know about his tumour."

Aliya was stunned. How could she keep this from him? How could she act to him that everything was fine when really, it wasn't in the slightest? "He doesn't know?"

"He's eleven. A young eleven." The mother explained, despite the looks on the two doctors' faces. "Knowing that he's very likely gonna die is not something that's gonna do him any good.

Derek stiffened. "Why does he think he's here?"

Lynn looked to the floor. "A backache."

"A backache?" Aliya echoed, the tone of her voice in complete and total shock.

"A very bad backache." The mom clarified, but it wasn't like it needed any clarity for that matter.

Neuroblastoma. Very bad backache.

Yeah, well, the two were interchangeable!

Aliya blinked, disagreeing with whatever the mother was doing. "You don't say?"

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"Fort Ticonderoga is probably my favourite." Wes, a very chatty dirty blonde child, stated to Aliya as Derek tested Wes' reflexes. "It's not giant like Gettysburg, or famous like the Alamo."

"Fort Ticonderoga's in New York, right? Near the border of New Hampshire?" Aliya questioned him, and Wes' face seemed to brighten up like Times Square on the first of December.

"Yes!" He enthused, his hazel eyes shining.

"You feel any pain here, Wes?" Derek asked, briefly interrupting the conversation regarding Forts in America.

Wes shrugged his shoulders slightly. "A little— still, it was a really important fort." He continued on with his story despite the tests being ran on him simultaneously. "It changed hands a bunch of times in just a few years. Benedict Arnold even fought here."

"He's got a thing about battlefields." Lynn informed Aliya, who had been on the receiving end of Wes' ten minute monologue on Fort Gaines in Alabama.

"I've got to say, it's very impressive." Aliya smiled at the mom and her son as Derek moved on to test his knee reflexes.

"My mom says I get it from my dad. He died when I was two." He said, as if it was the most casually thing to say.

"Oh, I'm sorry, that must be hard." Aliya sympathised as Derek told him to hold still whilst he ran the tests, seeing as Wes hadn't really stopped squirming since they arrived.

Wes, however, continued on without a care in the world. "We've gone to eighteen battlefields in the past year."

"We homeschool him because of the back pain." Lynn clarified.

And, Aliya didn't know how she felt about this secret code that 'back pain' actually stood for 'fatal, life threatening neuroblastoma'.

"It's so cool." Wes grinned, manically. "I wake up, and we get to decide what I do that day. Next week, we're going to Pearl Harbour."

"Pearly Harbour, huh?" Aliya replied. "You're really getting around the US aren't you? I've always wanted to go to Hawaii."

Wes nodded, enthusiastically. "That way, my mom can have a beach vacation too."

"Actually, Wes, we may be postponing Hawaii." She stroked his shoulder lovingly. "Dr. Shepherd may be able to fix your back."

"Really?" Wes whipped his head to the neurosurgeon, with a hopeful grin. "Then I won't have these aches any more?"

If you had a microscope, or some sort of facial expression detector, anyone could not the way Aliya faltered, how she desperately wanted to tell him the truth but she knew it wasn't her place.

She didn't want this child to die without knowing the truth. At the end of the day, it was his life. Surely he should get to know why it could be ending?

"Well, that's the plan."

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JACKSON AVERY (10:28am)

What do you think about this house?

It's got a garden, porch swing,
five bedrooms...

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ALIYA LEVINE (10:32am)

and termites! how fun!

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JACKSON AVERY (10:33am)

It doesn't say anything
about termites.

Surely it doesn't have
termites?

I'll ring the realtor now.

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ALIYA LEVINE (10:35am)

the termites will be doing the
whole neighbourhood a favour

that house is an eyesore! it's way too
modern. i hate modern houses
almost as much as i hate
brussels sprouts

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JACKSON AVERY (10:36am)

I'm gonna take that as a no?
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ALIYA LEVINE (10:38am)

think of graham's house from the
holiday. that's our inspo

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"Are you married?" Wes asked the hundredth question of the day, and it was only eleven o'clock.

The kid sure enjoyed interrogating Aliya about every single aspect of her life.

Wes now knows that Aliya hates tuna, loves Pop Tarts, is allergic to carrots, has size six feet, and drinks an ungodly amount of coffee each day.

Aliya chuckled as she helped him onto the wheelchair after his fMRI scan. "Noisy much?"

The boy laughed, a wide grin spread across his face. "Are you?" He continued to pry.

The Levine woman tucked a blanket over his lap with a frown she didn't mean, eyeing him up. "No. As a matter of fact, I'm not married. Are you?"

He scrunched his nose up at her deflection of the question. "I'm only eleven."

"I'm on twenty nine." Aliya replied back in the same tone he had used, which seemed to have made him laugh as she unlocked the brakes of the wheelchair, beginning to push him towards the door.

"Did the tumour grow more?" Wes questioned before they could leave the room, and Aliya froze at his question, bringing the wheelchair to a grinding hault.

He knew. Oh God—

For starters, Derek will in fact kill her if he knew that she knew that Wes knew and his Mom didn't know that Wes knew and that Aliya knew that Wes knew.

This whole situation was turning into some sort of riddle.

Aliya slowly put the brakes of the wheelchair back on and silently crouched before him.

He stared at her unwaveringly, but there was nothing similar to fear behind his eyes. He wasn't even scared.

Not even one bit.

"I know what I have." Wes stated, matter-of-factly to the brunette, still stunned by what he had said previous. "I heard some doctors talking about it at the last hospital."

Aliya dug her hands into her scrub pockets, nodding her head, suddenly feeling sick. "I'm so sorry, Wes."

The young boy shrugged his shoulders. "My mom's been dragging me to every hospital in the country. I was gonna find out sooner or later."

"What did you overhear the doctors say?" Aliya asked him, her voice soft.

Wes looked at the tiled floor, his fingers tapping against the arm rests. "They said I have a neuroblastoma, not a back ache. And, I have four months to live. Well, now it's only three."

"I can't imagine what you must be feeling." Aliya spoke, her words breathless.

In this world, Aliya loved many things.

She loved her dog, Reese. She loved strong coffee, both the taste and the smell, and of course the smell of new books. She loved the beach, sand between her toes, the ocean water in her hair and the scent of the sea breeze. She loved clothes, and neurosurgery.

(Of course, she loved Jackson too.)

What she loved most about neurosurgery was the unknown.

The nervous system was like the deep waters around the coast of Malibu where she grew up, you'd never know what you are going to find.

However, as much as she loved operating on these deemed 'lost causes', it didn't stop the gut punch when the lost causes are actually deemed lost causes.

"I've gotten used to it pretty quickly." Wes admitted. "But, you can't tell my mom I know, she'd just freak out."

"I won't tell your mom, I promise." Aliya assured him, gently, and he breathed a sigh of relief. "But, I think she needs to know."

Wes disagreed, shaking his head at her suggestion. "She cries in the bathroom. She cries at night. She cries in the morning when she thinks I'm not awake yet. She cries all the time. And the only thing that makes her happy is to think that I don't know. You can't tell her. If I'm happy, she's happy."

Aliya chewed on the inside of her cheek, unconvinced though understanding exactly what Wes had to say. He was just a kid. He should be playing outside, not thinking about all this stuff.

And then, within a split second she understood exactly what Wes' mother was trying to do. She was trying to protect her son. And, surely that's what all mother's wanted to do for their children, right?

Protect them from the evil of this world?

Perhaps, in this example, Aliya's mother was the evil of the world no one really tried to protect her from when she was Wes' age.

She squeezed his hand tightly, standing up straight. "You're one smart kid. Maybe even too smart for your own good."

Wes shrugged, and she silently moved to pull the break back up, wheeling him out the door. "Do you think I'm gonna die?"

"No." Aliya answered, simply, wheeling him along the hospital corridor. "Because, if you die, your mother would come for my head. How about we get some hot chocolate from the cafeteria before I take you back up?"

Wes nodded his head with a grin as Aliya steered him into the direction of the cafeteria, Wes happily chatting to her about how he always wanted to go to Normandy.

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"Is that pickles?" Aliya burst into the room where Jackson, April and Alex were eating all of Teddy's widow sympathy food.

Alex made some incoherent noise from where he was standing practically in the fridge, halfway into devouring an entire casserole all to himself.

Aliya burst over to the pickles, unscrewing the jar, and biting into one immediately, not even registering Jackson's pure shock that passed his face.

"You're not gonna like them—" Jackson started, and just as he predicted, Aliya rushed over to the trash can, spitting out the half-chewed pickle in pure disgust.

"Ew!" Alex grimaced, seeing as he was standing fairly close to the bin. "Why did you do that? You hate pickles!"

"I just wanted to check to see if I still hated them." Aliya wiped the gross pickle juice from her mouth as Alex handed her a fork for the much nicer casserole. To be quite honest, she couldn't describe where her weird craving for pickles came from.

Maybe she was going through a late-twenties life crisis.

It wouldn't surprise her that much.

She looked sadly, at the casserole. "My patient's got a neuroblastoma."

"How old?" Alex asked through a full mouthful of cold, fridge casserole.

"Eleven. His mom doesn't want him to know, he just thinks he has a bad back ache." Aliya explained, and April looked up from her stack of wedding folders, that seemed to have taken up all of her free time as of late. "However, here's the catch. He does know, but the mom doesn't know he knows. And, only he knows that I know he knows and that his mother doesn't know he knows."

"None of what you said made any sense." April replied, looking totally confused at what she was trying to say.

"Of course it did." Both Jackson and Alex said at the exact same time, seeming to be well educated in Aliya's language that mainly consisted of sit-com references and the word 'coffee'. 

"Do I tell the mom he knows? Because, I don't think I should." Aliya waved her fork in conflict, crossing her arms in thought. "Because surely—"

"What the hell!" Alex protested, because Aliya hadn't even noticed Meredith steal their casserole.

"Mer! Not the sympathy casserole!" Aliya reached for it, but Meredith simply held it away from her, collecting a bunch of various different dishes from the fridge.

"I need food for Zola's party." Meredith explained half-way through her fridge raid. "I thought I was gonna have time to go to the store, but Richard's ten thousandth surgery is gonna take forever. You think Teddy's gonna care if I take some of her widow casseroles?"

"No. Go for it." Cristina answered as she trailed into the room, another dish in her hands to add to the collection. "You know what? Take this one, too. It's turkey tetrazzini."

The blonde's face lit up. "Oo, yum!"

With a sigh, Aliya put the last mouthful of casserole into her mouth, sliding into the chair beside Jackson.

"I've been looking at houses," Jackson stated, turning his laptop screen so Aliya could see what he was looking at. "And, I found this—"

"No." Aliya pointed at the screen with her fork. "Red brick! I hate red brick! We're not living in a fire house!"

"Okay," Jackson breathed, frowning as he pulled up another tab on his laptop, adding 'red brick' to the list of deal breakers, all of which were Aliya's rather than Jackson's. "No red brick."

"You and McQueen finally find a patient who's willing to let you operate on them?" Cristina questioned, a knowing smirk on her face.

Alex, now reunited with the sympathy casserole whilst Mer wasn't looking, sneered at the Yang woman. "Bite my ass."

"Oh, Mer, proctology." Cristina clapped her hands. "There's your specialty. Explore the mysteries of the butt."

"Are we still deciding your speciality?" Aliya questioned, and Meredith nodded, her face now hidden behind a stack of dishes.

"Why aren't you just doing general surgery like your mom?" Alex questioned the Grey woman, who simply rolled her eyes. "It's a no-brainer."

"And, good marketing." Cristina added. "When people hear the name Grey, they know they're getting quality."

"I'd rather die than do cardio like my mother." Aliya mumbled, shaking her head mid-sentence at Jackson's attempt at being funny — showing her a picture of a yacht to live on.

Jackson closed the laptop in defeat. "You can't win following the footsteps of a phenom."

Cristina eyed the pair as Meredith took all the sad widow food away from them.  "Said the lame, mediocre grandson of Harper Avery, and the equally lame, mediocre daughter of Molly Levine."

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"So—" Aliya cleared her throat as she began her twentieth reciting of one of the many possible ways to approach Wes' tumour as they stood over the boy in the operating room. "Once the vertebrectomies are complete we take the tumour down off the dura, do a myelotomy—"

"And again, hit the Adamkiewicz." Derek answered her, just as he had done nineteen times before. "Paralysed, dead in three months."

With a sigh, Aliya began to state her twenty first possibility. "And, if we respect it free from the aorta—"

"Spinal shock. Dead." Derek cut her off, and Aliya was starting to get very sick of him. But, she started to get sick of him fifteen possibilities ago.

She racked her brain around for the twenty second possibility. "Harvest a radicular branch that doesn't have tumour involvement?"

"Dead, again."

"You know," Aliya's jaw stiffened when she was met with yet another one of his quick fire responses. "I'm getting pretty sick of you saying the word 'dead'."

The cocky neurosurgeon in question shrugged his shoulders. "I'm only being honest, and besides, what he doesn't know can't hurt him."

Though, he did know.

Wes knew he was going to die in a matter of three months. He knew that if the surgery didn't work, he wouldn't be here much longer.

So, Aliya couldn't help the words flying out of her mouth. "He knows."

"What?" Derek looked up in alarm and disbelief. "What do you mean he knows."

"He knows, Derek." Aliya gestured her head towards the scans on the light box, displaying his complicated tumour. "He knows he has a neuroblastoma, and that his mother is lying to him. He knows everything. I was going to tell you before."

"Crap—" Derek muttered, shaking his head. "The surgery will kill him. We have no choice. We have to close him up."

"What?" Aliya stared at him puzzled, because Derek Shepherd wasn't a quitter. And, neither was she. "No, we have to try!"

"Gelfoam, please." Derek held his hand out, and a scrub nurse passed it to him.

"No— stop!" Aliya pleaded desperately, moving manically to try and stop him for closing him back, and sending him off in the world to die. "We have to give him his best chance! This is what all those lost causes are for, right? To give them a fighting chance! You can't do this to him, it's not fair—"

"Dr. Levine, go cool off—"

"No!" She interjected before he could say anything that would drive her even more insane than she already was. "Don't tell me to go cool off when you're not even trying—"

"Aliya." Derek spoke softly to her, despite the situation at hand. "Take five."

Frustrated, Aliya scoffed, storming out of the operating room without another word, a tear falling down her cheek as she grew further away from Wes, the lost cause that really was a lost cause this time.
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—✩—
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Once Wes had woken up, the pair stood before his bed, and Aliya had to painstakingly listen as his mother convinced him everything was okay.

When in actual reality, everything wasn't okay.

"The surgery wasn't as hard as they first thought, which is good." Lynn stoked her son's hair back, her top lip quivering because she knew everything was far from good. "'Cause that means we can make it to Hawaii now. You're done. No more surgeries or doctors."

Derek shared a glance with Aliya, despite the whole operating room debacle, he gave her a slight nod, though she just shrugged him off, detached seeing as Wes is going to turn into another ghost in the world in a few short months.

And, that in itself was unfair.

"That's it. It's just us." Lynn smiled softly, pressing a kiss to Wes' forehead. "And we're gonna go on another trip after that, too. Maybe even Normandy, like we said. Doesn't that sound fun?"

Wes seemed unconvinced, looking up at the two doctors before him, his eyes meeting Aliya's. And, it wasn't as if she could lie to him. And, she couldn't help it if every single thought she has ever had could always be displayed ever so clearly on her face. "You didn't do it."

"What?" Derek responded to the boy's statement.

"You said, after the surgery, I'd be stuck in here for a few weeks." He murmured, gulping back the rising lump in his throat.

Derek nodded his head. "That's right, I did. You know, sometimes when we get in there, things change. That's why you get to go home."

"Which is a good thing, honey." His mom soothed, and Aliya noticed her eyes were glassed over, and she was blinking back the tears threatening to fall. "It's all gonna be fine. You're gonna be okay. Mommy's gonna make sure of it, and you don't have to worry, I promise."

Wes' gaze fell on Aliya once more, and she couldn't even find the words to say to him.

What do you say to a person you're practically sending off to die?

"You're gonna be okay, too." Wes told his mom, reaching for her hand. "You don't have to worry about me. I'm gonna be with Dad in heaven."

The realisation passed over the mother's face, and she buried her head into her son's shoulder, her own shoulders shaking as she sobbed, the world around her falling apart at her fingertips.

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Aliya frowned into her glass of red wine. Taking a sip, she savoured the taste on her tongue, letting her head lean against the wall behind her.

Today had been quite crappy, to say the least.

And, she had no interest in pretending it hadn't been.

It had been a crappy start to 2012. First, Henry died, and now Wes was gonna die.

It just didn't seem all that fair.

"They're not called lost causes because they're fun." Derek stood in front of where she was sat on the hallway bench, a beer bottle in his hand as he dropped to the empty space beside her.

Aliya softly chuckled, even though it wasn't at all funny. "I know they're not meant to be fun, believe me. I just don't like it when they really are lost causes."

Derek thought about this, before shifting over and reaching into his pocket. "Okay, let's—"

"Oh, god." Aliya scoffed, rolling her eyes as she peered over to see what he was retrieving. "If you pull out another quarter—"

"—Flip."

"Dude," She laughed, a smile passing across her face as she pointed towards the silver coin he had retrieved from his pocket. "What are you, a piggy bank? Saving up to get some candy?"

Derek shook his head with a chuckle, placing the coin on his thumb. "Heads, we keep doing lost causes. Tails, we do the fun stuff."

"I'm beginning to think this is a trick coin." The brunette commented, watching as Derek flipped the coin, catching it and holding it to his forearm.

Though, before any grand reveal, Aliya nudged his arm, sending the coin flying to the ground. "I don't need to know what it is. You can't get rid of me that easily, Shepherd. Now come on, there's a party going on."

Luckily for Aliya, she was exceptional at the whole faking it until you make it routine. She had it well rehearsed and choreographed in her mind, so much so that it started to become muscle memory.

"There she is." He clapped his hand together and grinned, spilling his beer on the floor as she stood up from the bench, holding his hand out for Aliya to take and pulling her up from the bench.

The pair rejoined the party, and Aliya instantly found herself at the snack table, reaching for a potato chip.

She reckoned one of the nurses poisoned the casserole, because ever since she had been feeling slightly queasy, to say the least.

"I thought I'd find you here." Jackson smirked as he stopped by her side, also reaching across for a potato chip. "I heard about your kid with the neuroblastoma, are you okay?"

Aliya shrugged, finishing off her mouthful. "I'm fine. It just sucks. I mean, it really sucks."

"You can't save everyone, but whoever you do save, you always do a hell of a good job." Jackson said softly, attempting somewhat to make her feel the slightest bit better, or to just crack a smile. Either would be a good endgame.

And, it was as if his wishes had been answers, a smile tugging on the corner of his lips. "You really know how to sweet talk a girl, huh?"

As soon as she smiled, he did the same, pressing a kiss to her temple, his hand finding the small of his back as he leaned across to grab her another potato chip. "You know what I don't know? I don't know how to find a house the girl I love wants."

"I know," Aliya shrugged with a faux-conflicted sigh, waving her own chip in the air. "I'm difficult."

"Not difficult. Fussy, but not difficult." Jackson corrected her.

"None of the houses have felt like ours." The brunette pledged her case, her arms snaking up and around his neck. It really didn't seem all that crazy to her. That she was being so picky finding a house they will spend the rest (or a good proportion) of their lives in. "I want our house to feel like ours."

"That would be good." Jackson nodded slowly, his hands finding her wait. "Otherwise, that would be trespassing. Or, breaking and entering."

Her eyes sparked in the light above them. "Who knew we'd turn into criminals after all this house hunting."

Before they could continue on with their criminal analogy, Zola had appeared to be doing the rounds at her own party. "Look who didn't just wake up, huh?" Jackson waved at Zola, who was wearing a bright pink tulle dress and a bow in her hair.

"Aww— Hey Zo!" Aliya reached out to shake her hand, smiling as Zola began to clap her hands. "Looking cute today, did you have a good sleep? Yes? Well you look as fresh as a daisy, sweet girl."

They waved her off as Meredith and Derek continued on circling the party.

"So, you two are moving out." Alex had now appeared before them, looking at them rather displeased.

"Well, we haven't found a house yet." Jackson responded, sharing a look with Aliya.

The pair wondered if they would ever actually find a house.

They'll be living in Meredith's frat house until they are fifty.

The Karev man looked displeased at this particular news. "Living with a married couple, their baby and my ex-girlfriend is really gonna ruin my street cred."

"You didn't have any street cred to begin with." Aliya pointed out, much to Alex's dismay. Though, she just had the best idea. Probably her best yet. "Outhouse. Add outhouse to the list of pros."

"Outhouse?" Jackson raised a brow at her suggestion, seeing as she already had a very long list already, which was making house hunting quite impossible. "Why would we need an out house?"

"For Alex to stay in, duh." Aliya clarified, though it had to be said she really was joking. "We can't leave him behind. He can live in our garden."

Alex looked quite touched by the gesture. "You'd really let me live in your garden?"

"Of course, or we could get a little ottoman to go at the end of our bed for you to curl up on." She patted his shoulder, though that idea seemed to horrify both men stood beside her.

"Happy 10,000th, Dr. Webber." Meredith called as she re-entered the room, holding a cake with a lit candle on top for Richard, signifying his 10,000 surgery.

It seemed the 'gag' was still on the cake, but Meredith had scraped of the 'Zola' to make it a ten thousandth surgery cake, rather than a first birthday one.

"For me?" Richard chuckled as the blonde set the cake in front of him. "No."

"Come on." Meredith gestured to the candle with a smile. "It's not every day you get to celebrate 10,000 surgeries."

"Thanks." The Chief smiled wide as he blew out the candles, and the whole room clapped for him.

⠀
—✩—
⠀

"Hey, do you remember your first surgery?" Bailey asked once everyone had a slice of cake around the coffee table, listening to Webber's stories.

"Well, sure. I was a third-year resident." Dr. Webber explained, sitting up straight on the sofa as Zola pulled at the laces of his shoes. "Third-years could take the lead in surgeries. A gallbladder removal."

"Constantly! You do what works for you. You don't care! Or who gets hurt!"

"It was one surgery! Okay! It was one surgery!"

"It was not one surgery! Do you hear me?

Everyone's attention turned to the voices bellowing from the kitchen, to where Cristina and Owen had managed to sneak off, away from the party.

"What has been your favourite surgery so far, Dr. Webber?" Aliya cut in, drawing everyone's attention away from the bickering couple, and back to questioning Webber.

"Oh, well! Good question!" Webber clapped his hands together, tacking his brain around for several moments, the raised voices still carrying down the hall as Meredith slipped out of the room to try and stop whatever mess was unravelling in the kitchen, aside from the gigantic pile of dishes needing to be washed up. "A whipple, that's a classic, and also—"

"You killed our baby! You didn't ever forget that!"

The whole room descended into complete silence in the wake of Owen Hunt's words.

And, Aliya didn't think it was possible to dislike a person as much as she disliked Owen Hunt.
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( notes! )

anna's returned from her writers block prison!!! yay!! and we've reached chapter fifty this feels like a momentous occasion oh my gosh!! and by the way i LOVED your scrub caps suggestions for aliya on the last chapter, they are literally giving me life!!

i also wanted to put a little timeline of the rest of season 8 here so that everything makes sense (this is mainly for me to keep track of all the dates but i thought you guys might find it useful!!)

l. heads you win, tails you lose — early february (this chapter!)
li. are we soulmates in ever universe? — alternate universe episode
lii. barbie's dreamhouse — february 14th
liii. a family affair — end of february, beginning of march
liv. ladies and gentlemen, will you please stand — mid march (trent & april's wedding day!)
lv. would you rather a lion, or your mother in town? — early april
lvi. you've been levined! — late april
lvii. she can do it with a broken heart — may 4th/5th (boards!)
lviii. my beloved ghost and me
lix. denial is my favourite stage of grief
lx. all angels are doomed to fall — may 9th

(extra chapters may be added, but the names of these ones will stay the same!!)

also, i've been planning out season nine already (guys spoiler alert but that season is gonna be BRUTAL) and i'm thinking about how many chapters will be in that act. act one (season six) has sixteen chapters, act two (season seven) has twenty two chapters, and act three (season eight, current act!!) is planned to have twenty two chapters! so, i was thinking of making act four around sixteen-ish chapters? maybe eighteen? mainly because season nine is my least favourite season of grey's and i just know there's a high risk of me losing motivation whilst writing

i'm gonna miss writing season eight so much (there's on ten chapters left of this season!!!!) because it's lowkey my favourite and it's been my favourite to write too!

love ya!

( word count! — 7,200 )