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chapter fifty three ━ have you seen me
lately? & if only you were so lonely
season eight, episode fifteen & sixteen

❝ i promise i won't miraculously
get lost and end up on the
other side of the country. ❞

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EXACTLY TWO WEEKS UNTIL
TRENT & APRIL'S WEDDING
( thursday 23rd february 2012 )
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"I can't believe you're leaving me here, in this house, with a married couple, their baby, and my ex-girlfriend." Alex frowned, disappointedly at the brunette who was packing away her clothes into a cardboard box.

The Karev man wasn't helping in a form of protest. Instead, he was sneaking things out of their rightful boxes and placing them around the bedroom when he could be bothered to move away from where he was sat on Aliya's stripped bed.

However, it wasn't exactly her bed anymore, seeing as she was in the process of moving all of her stuff out of Meredith's house and into her own home.

"I'm only moving twenty minutes away." Aliya chuckled, folding up a red sweater and slipping it into the cardboard box, not even noticing the blue one she packed earlier was now on the floor. "You can't get rid of me that easily. And besides, it's a six bedroom house. What are Jackson and I gonna do with six bedrooms?"

Alex let out an evil laugh, and Aliya really wished she had never asked that question because she knew exactly what he was thinking. "Christen them."

"Oh," Aliya snorted, reaching into her closet for another shirt to fold up. "We've already done that."

"Ugh!" Alex covered his ears, flying back onto the bare mattress with a screwed up. "You're like my little sister, I don't want to hear about you and Avery going at it like—"

"As a matter of fact, I'm only a year younger than you old man." The brunette pointed out, spotting the blue sweater on the floor at last and rounding the bed frame to retrieve it. "And, quit chucking my stuff on the floor. You think I can't see you but I've got eyes in the back of my head."

Aliya winced, her head pounding like it had been doing for the past two weeks.

"You okay?" Alex raised a brow, noticing the shift in Aliya.

She nodded her head, folding up the sweater and putting it back in its rightful place. "Yeah, I'm fine! Why wouldn't I be? I get to have my coffee each morning on my porch overlooking a lake, how perfect is that?"

"You just look a little pale." Alex said, worriedly, sitting up in bed to look at her a little more closely. "Are you stressed about the move? About the boards?"

"I just have a slight headache." She waved him off, denying the fact that anything was wrong, aside from the headache and nausea. "Nothing related to the move, I couldn't be more excited. We finally have a gap in our schedules so we can actually move in. Think, coffee. Porch swing. Boat."

Worry passed over his face at the thought of Aliya manoeuvring a boat across her private lake. "Oh, please tell me you're not getting a license, that's a death wish, Aliya!"

"Jackson is, but I failed the online test." Aliya announced with a frown, because that was ten dollars down the drain on her end.

"Thank god." Alex let out a sigh of relief now that that was all cleared up and Aliya wasn't going to be a captain of a boat anytime soon. "How long have you had this headache? A day?"

The brunette shrugged her shoulders, taping up the box once she had deemed it too full to shove anything else inside. "Give or take."

"Give or take? Two?" Alex guessed, watching her pick up the box and manoeuvring it into the hallway, where all her boxes were waiting to be taken down to the rental truck or Jackson's car.

"Maybe slightly more?" She called from the hallway, doing a box head count.

"A week?" Alex tried once more.

Aliya reappeared with another box in her hands, placing it on her ottoman so she could move onto her books. "Plus another."

"Two weeks? Twelve days!" Alex exclaimed, glancing over to her bedside table where she kept her paracetamol. "Maybe you're pregnant—"

Aliya sighed, even though she didn't even hear what Alex had to say. "April, I've already checked, don't worry."

Alex furrowed his brows, because the brunette may finally be slowly going crazy. "I know both of our names begin with an A, but I'm Alex."

"She's on the bluetooth." Aliya whispered, pointing to her ear where she was wearing a small black bluetooth ear piece.

"So the dinner reservation for the seventh of March is at six o'clock?" April questioned through the speaker, where she too had a bluetooth.

Aliya really wished the walkie talkie idea won.

"Six o'clock on the dot for sixteen people." She confirmed, loading more of her many books into the box.

"Why is April in your ear?" Alex mouthed, gesturing his arms about to grab her attention.

Aliya clicked her mute button, turning back to the man sprawled across her bed, not helping one single bit. He wasn't even taking any boxes down, that's how bad the protest had gotten. "Well, as you know, the wedding is in exactly two weeks, which means we're now on operation finish line."

"Still doesn't explain the bluetooth." He pointed at her ear piece, as if confused by technology all together like the grandpa he was.

"So April can get a hold of me," Aliya explained, placing a hand on her chest. "Chief wedding planner, at all times."

The Karev man nodded his head slowly, looking. a tad creeped out that she had a person in her ear at all times. "It all makes sense now."

"I can mute her from here, so it's pretty funny pretending I can't hear her sometimes." Aliya smirked, taping up her box of books and picking it up in her arms. "And, she forgets to mute herself. She talks to herself a lot, how haven't we noticed that before?"

Alex watched her exit her now empty room to add the box onto the pile, suddenly overwhelming feeling that everything was changing so fast, right before his very eyes.

A little too fast for his liking, with no way to make it stop.

"Hey!" Aliya's voice sounded from down the hall, which followed by the sound of boxes shuffling about. "Could you please make yourself useful and help me take some of these down to the car?"

Alex grunted as he shuffled off of the bed, pursing his lips at Aliya's now empty room. "Fine. But, I won't like it." He stepped out into the hall, his face dark and gloomy.

"Excellent," Aliya grinned, ignoring his previous statement as she gestured her chin towards the stack of boxes. "Pick any box and follow me."

"Everybody's moving on." Alex did what he was told, retrieving a box from the pile and following the Levine woman down the steps.

"It's not like I'm moving to Greece," Aliya pointed out, a tired looking Derek holding a very lively Zola, opening the front door for them, grumbling a drowsy 'good morning'. "I'll be twenty minutes away!"

"Twenty minutes too far." He grumbled as he stepped outside, heading down the steps to the sidewalk, where Jackson was loading everything else that wasn't in Aliya's bedroom into the rental.

"What was that?" Aliya questioned, looking at Alex from over her shoulder, one brow raised at him.

"Nothing." He muttered, stopping short by the opening as Aliya passed her box up to Jackson, who accepted with a wide grin.

"How many boxes are left in there?" He asked, loading the box onto the truck.

"About seven or eight." Aliya called up, stepping aside so Alex could pass up the box he was holding, though he didn't look too happy about it. "How's it looking up there, Bob?"

Bob, the middle-aged balding man whose truck they were borrowing, stuck his head up from behind a stack of boxes. "Looking good, Aliya. It's looking good. We've got room for eight or so more boxes!"

"Like music to my ears, Bob." Aliya gave the man a thumbs up, who Aliya found out was in the space of two minutes of him arriving that he used to be in an a capella group in college, he has three kids, and he worked in a factory before driving trucks. "Want a pop tart?"

"What flavours have you got?" Bob asked from behind the boxes, his voice cheery.

"Chocolate, strawberry, or s'mores!"

Bob considered his options for a few seconds, before calling out: "I'll take the chocolate!"

"On it!" Clapping excitedly, Aliya practically skipped back up the steps and into the house.

"You know," Lexie held her mug of tea in her hands, taking a long sip. "Alex won't ever speak to you again."

"Oh, sure he will." Aliya shrugged as she stepped back into the house, realising she hadn't packed away one of her coats on the rack, hooking it over her shoulder. "He will get over it eventually when he realises I'll let him take the boat out for a spin."

"I have first dibs on the boat." Derek reappeared again with a squirming Zola in his arms, stepping out into the hall. "There might be some fish out there."

Aliya bent down to stroke Reese's head, who was sat in the hallway, seeing as his bed was packed away safety on the back seat of Jackson's car. "Of course, you've got first dibs on the fishing, trust me, I'm in no rush to sit on a boat staring at wire for hours on end. I'd rather take a fish hook to my eye."

"You might find fishing quite freeing, it helps clear your head." Derek advised her, though the brunette looked unconvinced.

"You know," Aliya laughed, glancing up at his scruffy hair, though it wasn't even that scruffy, he always looked annoyingly put together, even five minutes after waking up. "I'm gonna miss your philosophical advice in the mornings, it really helps with the whole perspective thing."

"I'm gonna miss this." Derek said nostalgically, watching as Alex stormed through the hallway and back up the stairs to retrieve another box, Lexie yawning into her palm, and Aliya severely judging his sentiment. "You know, at first I hated that this house was so crowded but now—"

"I'm not dying." The Levine woman snorted, standing back up after smuggling Reese a dog bone. "And, I'm pretty sure Alex will be still living here when Zola moves out." Aliya reached out to shake Zola's hand, beaming at her as she turned away, moving towards the steps to help Alex out with some more boxes.

"I'm betting ten bucks she conveniently leaves a box here just for an excuse to come back." Lexie smirked as she heard the distant arguing of Alex and Aliya, struggling to decide who will be taking which box to the truck.

Derek shook Lexie's outstretched hand. "I'll take that action."

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—✩—
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TWELVE DAYS UNTIL
TRENT & APRIL'S WEDDING
( saturday 25th february 2012 )
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Aliya stood with her arms crossed in the kitchen of her new house, the large window by the sink overlooking the lake out back, where early morning light was spilling through the glass and she could just about see where Reese was curled up on one of the deck chairs (which he had deemed his new favourite spot).

"Good morning!" Jackson grinned happily now that they had finally managed to get all of their stuff into the house in an organised chaos kind of way, delicately kissing Aliya's temple before making his way to the toaster.

Though, Jackson hadn't realised he had just walked into a bear trap.

"Don't move!" Aliya called out as soon as he passed her, stopping the Avery man rather abruptly in his tracks. "Stay where you are! Don't move a muscle!"

Jackson chuckled at the outburst, continuing to move past her despite her warnings (wrong move on his part). "I just need to—"

"Stop! Stop, where you are!" Aliya exclaimed yet again, seeing as Jackson was really getting in the way of the vision she was trying to picture in her head, and his shirtless frame was a) obstructing said vision, and b) distracting her entirely.

Jackson raised a brow, though he did however stop in his tracks this time. "What, is there a red laser pointed at my forehead or something?"

"Does it feel natural to walk from there to the toaster?" Aliya questioned, her tone a little calmer than before as she pointed from the entrance to the kitchen, to where Jackson had swerved left to go around the kitchen island, to the toaster on the countertop behind.

He never thought it could be possible, but his brow appeared to raise a little bit more at the brunette's question. "I'm sorry—" He tried his best to stifle a laugh, but it was no use seeing as the brunette was now looking him awfully seriously that made him want to laugh even harder. "Did you just ask me whether or not it feels natural to walk to the toaster?"

The Levine woman pursed her lips. "Yes, if you must know, I've spent the past hour trying to figure out the right place for the toaster!"

"Well, as a matter of fact, I think it fits well there." Jackson assured, though Aliya still didn't look quite convinced, lines appearing on her forehead from staring at the toaster a little too hard. "Would you like from the door to the toaster again for you? So you can really see how the room flows?"

He had meant it as a joke, but now the brunette was clapping her hands, a wide grin he couldn't say no to spreading across her features. "Would you? That would be amazing!"

His face fell slightly, and with a sigh, he walked back into the hallway. "The things I do." He muttered as he disappeared.

"Thank you! And—" Aliya watched in closely in anticipation, her hands pressed together against her face, her breath holding as she watched the Avery man practically strut over to the toaster, his pyjama bottoms trailing across the ground as he arrived by the toaster, looking back over his shoulder for dramatic effect. "Perfect! That's perfect! It's perfect there!"

With an overwhelming sense of victory, she ran over to him practically squealing like a high school cheerleader and he had just scored the winning touchdown, jumping straight into his arms just like how he carried her up the steps to the house when she first laid eyes on it.

The past ten days had been full of flat pack furniture waiting to be built in various corners of the house, delivery boxes that haunted the couple in the middle of the night, a full body work out conditions of running up the steps of the front porch to drop boxes into the house, and Aliya reminding herself to actually answer the door and the home phone when it rings, instead of thinking Alex or Lexie or Derek or Meredith will answer it instead of her.

She had missed her five deliveries so far, and she wasn't interested in missing six, seeing as the sixth would inevitably be her beloved coffee machine.

Though she wouldn't change any of it. Not in the slightest.

This house was everything she had dreamt of and more, and there was no one else she wanted by her side.

"You know," Jackson smirked into her hair that smelled distinctly of rose petals. "We need to figure out where to put the bed upstairs."

Aliya chuckled, the corners of her lips turning upwards slightly at what exactly he was implying.

And it was as if they were living their lives in a romantic comedy, because as soon as she was about to take him up on that offer, the door bell went off, echoing through the walls of the house.

"Ah!" Aliya jumped out of Jackson's arms at the sound. "That must be the coffee machine!"

She skipped to the front door, leaving a slightly disappointed Jackson in her wake, who shook his head and put a few pieces of toast in the well placed toaster.

"Hello— oh!" Aliya made a noise of surprise because when she opened the door with excitement, she was faced with the delivery driver with her new coffee machine, but she was also met with Alex Karev, falling back at her feet.

She took a step back in surprise, eyes shooting up to the delivery driver in alarm with a thousand questions behind her eyes, then back down to Alex, who smelt like beer and regrets.

"Oh, yeah. There's a man on your porch." The delivery driver very helpfully pointed out.

In honesty, Aliya did feel quite sorry for Alex, because now he was sprawled out on an assuming uncomfortable hardwood floor after being sat at a ninety degree angle against her front door for god knows how long, with an unknown substance spilled down his front shirt.

"Um—" Aliya, still gawking, prodded the man with the toe of her slipper, before regarding the delivery driver once more. "Did you just find him here?"

"Yeah," He nodded simply, passing over the coffee machine into the woman's hands, as if witnessing a passed out drunk man on a front porch was a regular occurrence. "He was just slumped there when I got here. He doesn't look good."

"I look g—great asshole." Alex argued from the floor, but it was a pathetic attempt for a comeback, seeing as the words were barely coherent.

"Sure you do, buddy, you've never looked better. Red carpet ready." Aliya reassured, not even having a chance to say goodbye to the delivery driver as he already made his way back to his van at the very end of the driveway, away from the smell of a rotting man on the porch. "Um—  JACKSON!" She screamed loudly, coffee machine securely in her grasp and Alex's body on her feet.

She couldn't exactly move anywhere, given her current situation.

"Yeah! Is everything alright?" He called back, the clanking of a couple plates he was retrieving from the cupboard came shortly after, then his footsteps padding down the hall. "Would you like raspberry jam, or I got avocados the other day, and I think we have eggs too— why is Alex passed out on our porch?"

With an avocado in one hand, and a jar of raspberry jam in the other, Jackson looked down on the Karev man, smelling out his hallway.

"That appears to be the question of the day." The brunette stepped out from under Alex's passed out body, putting the cardboard box onto the step, jointing Jackson a safe distance away from him.

"What do we do?" Jackson asked, the pair simultaneously tilting their heads to the side as Alex let out snores from below.

"We can't just leave him half on the front porch, half in the house." Aliya placed a hand on her hip, waiting for any sign from him to see if he could actually get up and walk to the sofa. "Can we?"

"I don't see why not." Jackson shrugged, holding up his avocado. "Should I throw this at him?"

"What? No! That would be very insensitive. Our friend is very obviously," She gestured down to Alex, now drooling on the welcome mat. "At a time of need, and it's our responsibility to be there for him, not throwing avocados at him— give it to me."

Jackson passed her the avocado, and unconsciously and impulsively, Aliya lobbed it at Alex's body, hitting his back and sending the avocado flying out of the front door.

"Score!" Jackson celebrated, not arguing with the fact that she did it, but he wasn't allowed to whilst the Levine woman gasped at what she had done, slapping a hand around her mouth in shock.

Though, Alex didn't stir.

He was like Sleeping freaking Beauty.

"Do you wanna go?" Aliya smirked, gesturing her head to the avocado.

"First one to wake him up loses?" Jackson extended the hand he wasn't holding the jam in.

Aliya grinned, taking his hand instantly. "Oh, you're so on!"

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NINE DAYS UNTIL
TRENT & APRIL'S WEDDING
( tuesday 28th february 2012 )
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"When you told me to dig out all of your cases from the past two years to help me study for the boards, I thought I'd get a little help." Aliya frowned from behind a stack of charts she had in her hands, which were actually covering her face so she couldn't exactly see whereabouts she was going. "But, instead, I find that you're lazing around doing absolute nothing."

"Sounds about right." A voice Aliya hadn't heard before spoke up, making her peer behind her stack of charts to see a very pretty brunette woman with bright blue eyes, who Aliya vaguely recognised, looking directly at her. "You must be Aliya Levine, Derek's new protégé?"

"Oh! No way! You must be Amelia!" Aliya placed down the stack of charts cautiously onto the table, making sure they didn't collapse and accepting her outstretched hand. "It's great to finally meet you, I've heard a lot about you!"

Amelia seemed to find that amusing, scoffing as she gave her brother a side eye. "Yeah right, he never talks about me. Ever. I'm a disappointment to the family name."

"Oh, I doubt that. Besides, he never talks about his family that much, only when I won't stop pestering him about his life in the OR. Your brother is a very reserved man." Aliya explained, making Amelia grin both at Aliya, then at Derek, questioning him with her eyes as to why he hadn't introduced her to his so-called protégé sooner.

"I like her." Amelia chuckled, crossing her arms as they all seemed to revert their attention to the matter at hand.

Now that Aliya was looking closer, she realised that the whole wall before them was occupied with brain scans, lit up on the light boxes. "Woah, gliosarcoma! Can we operate on that?"

"No." Derek snapped, which made Aliya make a note to self that when his family was in town, Derek's mood seemed to complete flip to the wrong side of a coin.

"You haven't even looked!" Amelia protested, clutching the brown paper envelope in her hand in frustration at her brother's outright dismissal.

"Amy," The Shepherd man snapped, his tone sharp and a little too cruel for Aliya's liking. "I am telling you, it is unresectable. Let it go."

"How do you know it's unresectable?" Aliya piped up, because she was on Amelia's ship, and they weren't going to sink without a fight. "You haven't even had a proper look and besides, you like the lost causes. That's why we've been doing them for months."

"Yeah! Exactly! What she said!" Amelia clapped her hands, pointing at the only other person in the room speaking with reason. "I came all the way from LA to show you this, you could spend more than thirty seconds!"

"LA, no way!" Aliya marvelled before Derek had a chance to cut in and reject Amelia's attempts to convince him to give this surgery a shot, instead of dismissing it. "Whereabouts?"

"San Francisco!" She replied, regarding the brunette, the only other person in the room who wasn't insulting her.

"No way, I'm Malibu!"

Amelia beamed a lop sided but pleasant smile, throwing her hair over her shoulder. "You're kidding, that's so—"

"I am looking right at it." Derek deadpanned, cutting in before they discussed the local hot spots in their respective neighbourhoods. "It's a gliosarcoma that has invaded the carotid artery. You try and remove it, she will stroke out."

Amelia huffed, rolling her eyes at him. "Stop being a jackass!"

At that, Aliya snorted, earning a pointed look from Derek himself, seeing as he was in a foul mood to say the least. "Dr. Levine, excuse us please."

"I've got studying to do anyway—" Aliya trailed off, beginning to walk to the door for escapism from the bickering Shepherds.

"Dr. Levine," Amelia called out before she left the room, narrowing her eyes at her brother. "Please stay, I need backup."

"Fine, she stays." Derek's jaw stiffened, and he straightened his back, as if trying to make himself a taller against his sister. "You just got out of rehab. I want you to get on your feet, but you can't help her."

At the mention of rehab, Amelia let out a light scoff, though she silently retrieved a picture from the envelope in her hand, slipping it into the light box for the other two to look at.

The picture being of a young boy with mousy brown hair and a wide grin, sitting on a pavement decorated with various colours of sidewalk chalk.

"Look at his face. His name is Mason. This gliosarcoma belongs to his mother, Erica." Amelia began, pausing slightly for the two to look, but instead Derek looked away, knowing exactly what angle she was taking. "He's a great kid. I don't know him that well, but he seems great. I do know his dad well. His name's Cooper, and he works with me, and he's a good guy. He's a good dad, which means he's the one who is gonna have to tell Mason that his mom is dead. That he doesn't have a mom anymore because we didn't do anything."

One thing Amelia was was persuasive, so it seemed, because she had Aliya as soon as she put the picture of Mason up, and some could argue Aliya was invested before hand too. "Can't we give her a chance! C'mon, Derek, this is the lost cause we've been waiting for. And, besides. Look at Mason's face."

Derek cast a glance over to the picture, though he tore his gaze away, his arms crossed tightly across his chest. "You tell Cooper you're sorry. You tried. Let it go."

"But, you haven't tried." Aliya looked pointedly at Derek, who had already started to walk away which was completely unlike him. "You dismissed her as soon as she stepped foot into this room."

"We have a surgery." Derek ignore her point, partially because he knew she was only telling the truth. "Levine, let's go."

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—✩—
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"You guys studying for the oral boards in the middle of the day?" Meredith narrowed her eyes at April and Jackson, who was holding a stack of flash cards in his hands whilst April updated the OR board.

April nodded her head, grinning over her shoulder at the two women behind her. "Just another benefit of having a study buddy. You should get one!"

"I have one," Meredith acknowledge with a frown, scowling at the OR board. "It's just that my stupid study buddy is too busy trying to save her stupid marriage to actually help me study."

A wave of betrayal passed over the brunette's face, and she whipped her head in her meant-to-be study buddy's direction. Traitor is another name that comes to mind. "Hey, I thought I was your study buddy."

"You were—" Jackson began to defend, but Aliya quickly interrupted him just from the mere use of the past tense.

Aliya gasped, whilst both April and Meredith stood there watching this unfold. "Were!"

"Are!" He quickly and rapidly corrected himself after his rookie error. And besides, Aliya had been unusually crabby for the past few days. "You are but—"

"There's a but!"

Again, but was the wrong choice of words for Jackson's part. Because, a bit implied she both was and was not his study partner.

"You're a little—" Jackson racked his brain around for the right choice of words, all while the brunette was readily waiting for him to say his piece with her arms crossed. "Distracting."

"Distracting!" Aliya echoed, though her tone was much more outraged.

"Yes, but—"

"Outrage!"

In an attempt to dig himself out of the whole he was plummeting down, Jackson decided to take another angle: "You're very—"

"Betrayal!" Aliya quickly cut him off, not letting him get a word in seeing as this was the greatest betrayal she had ever come to face.

Which was slightly dramatic.

But, Aliya was in a very dramatic mood at this current point in time.

"Well, you know what's better than a study buddy?" Alex announced, looking much better than he did three days ago when he was passed out on her front porch. "A study lackey. Check it. Hey, you. Brown haired girl—" The Karev man proceeded to click his fingers in the general direction of a brunette intern, who everyone but him actually remembered the name of.

Aliya nudged his rib. "Her name's Morgan."

"—You're up." Alex ordered, not paying attention to her name.

Poor Morgan beamed, seemingly fitting into the role of 'study lackey' nicely. "Trauma incident or a surgical situation."

"You made your interns come up with study questions?" April said, shaking her head in disapproval.

Alex, who was pretty proud of himself, wandered off with his intern. "Surprise me."

"A twelve year old boy fell off his bike, hitting his abdomen against the handlebars, complains of progressive abdominal pain and is short of breath." Morgan began as the two disappeared down the hall, away from the OR board.

Aliya, still scowling, reacher up to tie her hair into a low bun, seeing as she had surgery with Shepherd on twenty minutes. "My supposed study buddy is too busy being an arrogant asshole to his sister."

"I don't have a sister?" Jackson said, confused, looking up from April's flash cards.

"Derek." Aliya sighed, and Jackson was about to open his mouth to say how that could be constituted as fairly hypocritical seeing as she had been scowling at him for the past five minutes for finding a different study partner, but April swiftly cut his train of thought off.

"Hey, if you want—"

"I don't need help." Meredith snapped at the red head, her eyes narrowing. "I'm an excellent surgeon. You know it, and I know it. Everybody here knows it."

The Levine woman looked across at the blonde as she gave herself a mini pep talk. "Can you be an excellent friend and have sex with Derek? He's all wound up."

"He's always wound up when Amelia's in town." Meredith frowned, appearing to now be in a trance, staring at the OR board as if it were the end of the finish line of a marathon. "I don't have to prove myself to anyone."

"Except to the American Board of Surgery." April so helpfully pointed out. "Aliya do you still have your bluetooth?"

"Hm?" Aliya made a noise, though really she was trying to avoid April's question.

"Yeah, there's them." The blonde mumbled, and with a sigh she turned on her heel, disappearing away.

"Your bluetooth." Poor, innocent April smiled, pointing to her own bluetooth in her ear. "Do you still have it?"

Jackson, the traitor, snorted in the corner, and wide-eyes April looked over at the same time Aliya shot him a look of warning.

"Is that the time?" He straightened his posture, glancing up at the clock on the wall. "I have a surgery." And with that, he disappeared down the corridor, leaving April with her eyes pinned on Aliya, waiting for her answer to the current location of the bluetooth.

"Oh! I dropped it in the bathtub, freak accident I swear. Way too many bubbles to fish it out in time." Aliya lied through her teeth, but luckily April believed it, sighing a sigh of relief to know that it the brunette didn't loose it. "It might have some water damage."

Now, that wasn't a lie.

What April didn't know was that the bluetooth was probably (most definitely) at the bottom of the lake with the fish.

⠀
—✩—
⠀

"You paged?" Aliya asked as she slipped through the door of the room she was in a few hours previous, before she went into surgery with Derek to operate on a subdural hematoma.

"Look, I can removed the tumour and the diseased carotid together." Amelia ushered the brunette further into the room, practically dragging her over as she began to point at the tumour on the light box. "All I have to do is run balloon catheters in through the femoral, place them in precise position, inflate them to stop the blood flow, do two arteriotomies, then feed a helarinized shunt into place."

Aliya nodded along as she spoke, wrapping her head around the process. "And re-establish blood flow."

The Shepherd woman gave her a nervous sort of smile, releasing a breath she had been holding all this time. "And I have to do it in ninety seconds. Any more than that and she strokes out."

"So, a piece of cake then?" Aliya joked, because that could definitely not constitute as an easy, simple job. You'd have to be a miracle worker to get all of that done in ninety seconds.

"I'd love to test it out." Amelia murmured thoughtfully, glancing back towards the scans.

"Why don't we set up a simulator?" The Levine woman suggested, because she also wanted to have a go at this too. And, she really did enjoy proving Derek wrong.

Amelia quirked a brow at the suggestion, possibility suggesting that's exactly what she paged Aliya in here for, hoping she would suggest that exact thing. "Don't we need to get Derek's approval?"

"Yes, but I never normally do." She grinned widely, and Amelia took that as the go ahead and began to excitedly gather the scans in her hands, following Aliya out of the door and in the way of the lab.

But, this was Seattle Grace Mercy West Hospital after all.

And you can't go anywhere without bumping into an ex-boyfriend.

"Oh for godsakes!" Aliya sighed, rolling her eyes at the man she had walked into. "You're like a bad freaking omen!"

"Pleasant. Polite. Kind." Elijah, the man who still wandered the halls, began to formulate a list with his hands placed smugly on his hip. "Aren't you just a ray of sunshine?"

Fury washed over Aliya's face, and Amelia was staring at the two wide eyed, wondering why this hospital was a low budget reality show. Why pay for a Netflix subscription when you could just sit in the waiting room? "You can stick a ray of sunshine right up your—"

"Beck!" Bailey unknowingly interrupted Aliya as she came storming down the hall towards the blonde man, who had taken to general surgery it had seemed. "What did I say! I needed those lab results ASAP! Not in a minute, not later, ASAP!"

"You might need to get a dictionary out Dr. Bailey," Aliya, now with her chin up and a new motive, smirked as Bailey stopped furiously by the Beck man. "Introduce him to the definition of ASAP, and while you're there, why not asshole?"

Both Bailey and Amelia snorted, but Elijah's brow twitched in a way, seemingly unimpressed with the brunette, and losing hope that she'll ever back down. "Asshole isn't even in the dictionary."

"Because he's standing right in front of me." The brunette said with a scowl, and Bailey thought now was the right time to cut in before things got a little messy, and before Elijah locked himself in a closet and sobbed for the foreseeable future.

"Now, come on Beck," Bailey clapped him along, practically shooing him down the corridor with waves of his hands. "We don't have all day."

Elijah, without much protesting, turned on his heel with his charts in hand, moping down the corridor like a lost kid in the grocery store.

It was all quite pathetic really.

⠀
—✩—
⠀

"Boom!" Amelia clapped her hands once she had finished the twentieth trial run in which he lab, throwing her hands up in the air once she had finished the procedure.

"Ninety seven," Aliya called out, stopping the time on her stopwatch. "But that's six less than the first try!"

So, naturally, Amelia reached over to grab the stop watch from Aliya's palm and proceeded to throw it to the other side of the room. "Bite me!"

Aliya looked back at the stop watch, though now it was just a bunch of shattered pieces of plastic across the floor. "I think it's broken."

"Sorry, I just— Sorry." Amelia slipped off her scrub cap, placing it down on the side as she braced her palms against the table before her, frowning at the simulator that had made. "I've been at ninety seven seconds for eight freaking tries now."

"But, before that you were one hundred and three." Aliya reminded her, giving her a reassuring smile. "And, I have a good feeling about trial number twenty one."

The pair had been in the lab for approximately two hours, testing out different approaches to resect the tumour. However, they kept getting over ninety seconds.

"I mean, Derek's probably right." Amelia said with a resigning sigh, taking off her gown and gloves. "I'm just— I'm gonna let her down. He should know. I've let him down enough times."

"You just need to keep practicing, you'll get there." Aliya said, optimistically, opening the draw and retrieving a granola bar from the secret stash, passing it in Amelia's direction. "And besides, imagine the look on Derek's face when you prove him wrong."

At that thought, Amelia's lip twitched upwards as she unwrapped the granola bar. "I do like proving him wrong."

"Exactly!" Aliya clapped, now that she had gotten back on track with what the motive was. Which was proving Derek wrong. And saving Naomi's life, of course. "Just think of the look on his face."

Amelia chuckled lightly, now biting down on the granola bar. "So," She cleared her throat with a smirk angled directly at the Levine woman. "That blonde doctor, Beck? You two know each other?"

"If he was standing in the middle of the road, and I was driving towards him, I would hesitate to stop my car." Aliya announced, matter-of-factly as she chewed on her own granola bar. "Or, better yet, I wouldn't stop at all."

At that, Amelia projectile spat her granola bar out.

⠀
—✩—
⠀

"And, that's the on call room where I found Alex having sex with Addison Montgomery."

As a break, Aliya suggested to give Amelia the grand tour of the hospital. Even though this was her second time coming here, she still didn't know her way around the place.

So, employing Aliya as her tour guide, they set out around the halls of the hospital.

"Addison Montgomery!" Amelia's jaw dropped to the floor, staring at the on call room with wide eyes. Though it shouldn't really be called an 'on call room', seeing as much more than sleeping happened here. "As in my ex-sister-in-law?"

"Yes!" Aliya confirmed like the total gossip she was, opening the door for Amelia to have a look around, which she did because she was merely curious.

"Did she screw Mark Sloan in here too?" Amelia asked in a high pitched tone, standing in the middle of the room with a hand on her hip, gesturing around the place.

"Oh no," Aliya shook her head with an amused sort of scoff, finding this whole tour quite the nostalgic time capsule. "That was me."

"What!" Amelia practically ran after Aliya as she made a very swift exit out of the room after dropping that particular bomb, beginning to walk away further down the hall. "You and Mark?"

"Ancient history, don't you worry." She grinned, pushing open the next stop of the grand tour. "And, this is the OR two's gallery, oh and that's Alex, the one who screwed Addison." She pointed over at the Karev man as his head darted over to meet Aliya's index finger angled directly at him, his eyes wide as if he was being convicted of some sort of crime. "And, that's Jackson. He lives in the same house as me."

Jackson's brows lowered, his lips pressing into a straight line. "Is that all I do, huh?"

"He also takes out the trash and drives me to the hospital." Aliya explained at the two women sat down on the first row of the gallery, watching Meredith and Callie operate on a man whose hand got stuck in a meat grinder.

"She's gonna yack!" Alex announced abruptly, pointing down at Meredith who was trying now to throw us at the sight of severed fingers.

"Ew! Gross." Aliya curled her nose up, though she still peered down into the OR to take a closer look all the same. "Oh! She's gonna blow!"

"Ten bucks if she throws up in the next five minutes?" Alex stretched out his hand, his lips contorting into a lopsided smirk.

"Make it twenty." Aliya took his hand, which was somewhat disgustingly sweaty, shaking it once.

Jackson turned a page of the very large chart on his lap, glancing over at Alex who wasn't surrounded by his interns for a change. "Where's your study lackey?"

"Of course the one competent intern in the whole program just so happens to be pregnant, and needs surgery for a coronary artery dissection." Alex informed with a scowl, flipping to the next flash card on his hands.

"A coronary artery dissection?" Aliya gasped, because as much as she was a gossip, she didn't know about this. "Oh, poor Morgan, that must suck."

"Wait," Alex looked up with narrowed eyes, confused how she knew about the infamous pregnant intern. "How do you know about Morgan?"

Despite how unfunny the whole situation was, Aliya still laughed slightly in surprise. "What do you mean 'how do I know about Morgan'?"

"Everybody knows about the pregnant intern, Karev." Jackson pointed out, but judging by the look on Alex's face, he was not included in the 'everyone' before Morgan fainted right before his eyes. His pager appeared to make a noise from his pocket, and he pulled it out with a sigh. "There's my ride. Here we go."

Gathering up his books and many sheets of paper, he tapped his hand on Aliya's thigh before leaving the room, which only made Amelia raise a brow, smirking across at the brunette.

"Shouldn't you be there for Morgan?" Aliya questioned him, acting like his moral compass. "You are her resident after all."

"My attending gave me a job." Alex stated, seemingly unimpressed to say the least. "Call the boyfriend. I left like, six messages."

"Chris is a fourth year at Cleveland Clinic, it gets pretty busy over there." Aliya sighed, leaning back into her chair leisurely, fatigue washing over her and it felt as though she could fall fast asleep right there and then.

"Why do you have to be such a know it all? How do you even know his name?" Alex interrogated the brunette beside him, though he quickly was distracted by the happenings in the OR. "She thinks she's gonna be able to salvage bits and reattach because she's cracked."

"That's gonna be so much harder." Amelia whispered under her breath.

"You know what's harder?" Aliya looked over at the Shepherd woman, staring intently down at the operation going down below. "Going through the carotid."

"That would be harder," Amelia considered this, hands braced against her chair as she straightened up. "But, there'd be better control than going through the femoral."

"I think we better go test that theory out." Aliya pitched the idea, and the two woman bounced up from their respective chairs, dashing straight out of the door and back down to the lab.

"C'mon Mer!" Alex clapped his hands together as Meredith dry heaved over the man's decapitated fingers. "Just pile already!"

⠀
—✩—
⠀

"Shepherd!" Aliya practically skipped down the corridor towards her mentor, a wide grin spread out across her face.

"Oh god—" Derek stopped in his tracks, slightly worried as to what she was going to ask him, or tell him. "What have you done?"

"Why do you think I've done something?" She remarked with a frown, stopping a little out of breath in front of him. "I haven't done— yes, April! I told the florist lilies and peonies, not pansies."

Derek, thinking the brunette was going through a mental episode, looked genuinely concerned for her safety, and the safety of others.

Though, April had ceremoniously presented her with a replacement bluetooth for the one with the "water damage", and insisted Aliya kept it on at all times.

Which really was fun for her!

"April, I really am busy, and I would love to stay and chat but I really have got to go." Aliya then took out the bluetooth, shoving it into one of the drawers at the neurosurgery front desk, a sense of triumph on her face. "Right, where was I? Oh, yes! Amelia. Don't be such a jerk."

"Excuse me?" He said slowly, looking as if he was just slapped across his face.

"You're being ridiculous." Aliya said truthfully, and Derek opened his mouth to speak but she quickly beat him to it. "No arguing, because if it was anyone else delivering a gliosarcoma to your doorstep, you would try in a heartbeat."

"It's too r—"

"What, risky?" "I thought I'd never live the day I heard you say that world, but apparently—"

"Okay, fine." Derek sighed, crossing his arms at the brunette who was actually making a good point, rather than talking actual nonsense like she usually did. "Where is she?"

"In the lab." Aliya directed, pointing down the corridor in one swift motion, ushering him to go after her.

Instead, he stayed put, not taking the hint the brunette was quite obviously giving him. "The lab? Why is she— you set up a simulator didn't you?"

With a bright smile, Aliya patted his shoulder to gently send him on his way. "Why don't you go find out?"

"Levine!" A voice from the other end of the corridor called, just as she was about to follow Derek down to the lab. "I need your help!"

"If you make me retrieve condoms for you again," Aliya started, because she did have trauma from the previous time one Miranda Bailey requested her immediate assistance. "I'm gonna find a cliff."

A thousand emotions passed across her features, though the main one was horror. "No! Levine! No!"

"Things not going well with Warren?" Aliya said, sympathetically.

"I can get my own condoms!" Bailey hissed in a hushed tone, the horrified expression taking over her entire face at the brunette's response.

"You've come so far." The brunette congratulated, feeling like a proud mother all of a sudden, seeing as it felt like yesterday she snuck into the supply closet to steal her superior a bunch of different sized condoms.

Moving on from the condom debacle, Bailey quickly changed the subject to the matter at hand. "I need you to knock some sense into your Dr. Pretty Eyes."

"What? Jackson?"

"Yes, Avery!" Bailey looked over her shoulder for prying eyes, leading Aliya to believe she was going to disclose some private sort of information but instead she said: "He just kicked me out of the OR."

And at that, Aliya snorted.

"It's not funny!" Bailey protested.

"It's kinda funny." Aliya admitted, trying to stifle her laughter. "May I ask why?"

"You don't need to know why!" Bailey dismissed with a wave of her hand. "It's rude, disrespectful, I am his superior! It's—"

"Aliya!" From the other end of the corridor, a particular red head came rushing up to her, a determined look on her face. "I've been talking into the bluetooth for ages, why haven't you replied to me?"

Aliya closed her eyes, because now from both directions she was faced with an attending who had an issue with her boyfriend, and a bridezilla.

If she had a shovel, she would most definitely use it to dig a hole in the ground for her to fall down.

⠀
—✩—
⠀

SIX DAYS UNTIL
TRENT & APRIL'S WEDDING
( friday 2nd march 2012 )
⠀

"Hey!" Aliya jumped out at Cristina in the corridor, causing the Yang woman to practically jump out of her skin. "You know, I've been following you, following that brown haired nurse for the past couple days, anything you'd like to share?"

"I haven't been following anyone." Cristina protested, but she didn't even appear to look at her, her eyes still trained on the nurse that had just turned the corner.

Aliya looked unconvinced as they turned yet another corner, following exactly where that brunette nurse just went. "See, your mouth is saying one thing, and your eyes are saying something completely different. What is it?"

Cristina opened her mouth, but quickly stopped herself, before giving in completely. "I don't know it for sure yet."

"And that is?" Aliya prompted her to continue on with her point.

"I think Owen's having an—"

"Non-cardiogenic pulmonary edema!" Before Aliya could get Cristina to spit it out, Meredith jumped out at the pair.

"Aortic pulmonary dissection." Cristina quickly replied, and she gave Aliya a look as to say let it go, for now anyway.

"Yes! No. Wait. No, that's not right." Meredith stopped beside the front desk as Cristina reached for a chart, notably still glancing at the nurse. "Well, what I'm saying is, I finally understand the complexities of post-obstructive pulmonary edema."

"Hmm." Cristina murmured, not paying much attention.

"That's great! Can you also understand why I keep ending up with a bluetooth in my ear? This is the fifth one." Aliya pointed up, where a black bluetooth was in fact sticking out of her ear. It was getting out of hand.

"No one can explain that." Meredith replied at the mystery Aliya was trying to uncover which was entirely her own fault for getting involved in the wedding planning. "But, I've been up since four am studying for the boards with Callie. Since four am! I haven't seen my husband or my baby since yesterday. I don't even care! Because Callie blew my mind. She blew my mind!"

"What did she do?" Aliya asked with a smirk.

"She blew my mind!" Meredith exclaimed with a multitude of expressive hand gestures to symbolise the blowing of her own mind, which was Callie's doing.

"No way!" Aliya mockingly clamped her hand to her mouth in shock. "You didn't mention!"

"My hair's on fire!" Meredith continued to enthuse, too excited to get the brunette's sarcasm. "I mean, literal flames shooting out of my head."

"Hmm— yeah, that's really— whatever." The Yang woman's attention still seemed to be with the nurse, who Aliya now noticed was nurse Emily, chatting by the elevators. "You know what? I'm gonna catch up with you later."

"I mean, she's that good!" Meredith still didn't get the hint as she continued to follow Cristina across the front desk. "I'm gonna kill the boards! I'm gonna make the boards my bitch."

"Damn right you are!" Aliya agreed, accepting Meredith's very cheery high five.

"Yeah, boards, bitch, got it." The Yang woman mumbled, abruptly stopping in place, causing both women tailing her to crash into her back.

"Because I— Ow!" Meredith protested, stumbling back slightly.

"Ow!" Aliya said also as she also directly into Cristina's back. "You need brake lights!"

"What are we doing?" Meredith looked over to where exactly Cristina was staring rather intently, trying to find what was catching her attention.

"Nothing." Cristina quickly responded, turning around, finally taking her eyes off of the nurse she had been trailing around.

"You look weird." Meredith observed, narrowing her eyes and sharing a look with Aliya, as if to say they both noticed that Cristina hadn't been acting like her usual, bitter self recently, and that it probably had something to do with her husband being a dick. "Why do you look weird?"

Cristina pursed her lips in an attempt to not come across as weird, but however it seemed to have the reverse effect. "I do not look weird."

"Mer's right." Aliya agreed with the blonde's previous statement. "You look weird."

Sighing at the interrogations, Cristina crossed her arms, trying to remember what Meredith had been chatting about. "You were... talking about... uh— the boards."

"I was talking about what a good teacher Callie is, and Aliya was the only one listening." 

"No, I was listening." Cristian defended, though her words didn't even sound like she actually knew she was saying them, and Aliya half expected her to fall asleep right before her eyes. "Your hair is on fire. Callie is that good. The boards are your bitch. I gotta go."

The pair watched as Cristina very quickly darted off in the general direction of the elevators, continuing

"The boards are my bitch." Meredith nodded, determinedly, though she quickly focused on the matter at hand. "You think she's acting weird?"

"Oh, definitely." The Levine woman watched as Cristina crashed into someone pacing the waiting room, not even stopping to apologise. "I caught her stalking a nurse, and she ate a snickers the other day. She hates snickers."

⠀
—✩—
⠀

THREE DAYS UNTIL
TRENT & APRIL'S WEDDING
( monday 5th march 2012 )
⠀

When Aliya found out she wasn't going to be in charge of April's bridal shower, she was quite frankly over the moon seeing as she helped plan the actual wedding and the after party.

But, as soon as Libby, Kimmie and Alice graced her with their presence, Aliya felt as if she was undergoing an interrogation every minute she was with April's three older sisters.

Aliya didn't have enough fingers to count how many times they said she was a "lucky girl" after watching Jackson pass them in the corridor.

They had practically squealed like school girls.

"What have I missed?" Lexie asked as she slipped down beside Aliya, trying to see between the torn up pieces of wrapping paper, bows and a multitude of balloons that had been strewn across the lounge for the bridal shower.

"So far a coffee machine, a bread maker, personalised chopping board and a selection of truffles." Aliya caught Lexie up, biting into a slice of funfetti cake.

"Aliya," Molly Levine, the voice of the brunette's nightmares, pursed her lips in disappointment from across the sea of tissues paper. "You should really slow down with the cake. How many pieces have you had? Three? Four?"

"Sorry?" Aliya said through a mouthful of said cake just to piss Molly off. "What was that? I couldn't hear you, you're too far away!"

With a sigh, Molly picked up another one of April's many, many presents, passing it over to her future daughter-in-law. "This one's from your sisters."

"Oh! Not that one!" Libby lurched forwards in an attempt to snatch the box out of her sister's grasp.

"We wanted to save that one, Duckie, to open in private." Alice said with a nervous grin, the red curls from her ponytail bouncing.

"Oh, my God!" April looked as though she was going to burst into tears as she began to open the box, ignoring her sister's warnings. "You guys! You actually remembered? You remembered how much I wanna wear Mom's veil!"

"No!" Alice quickly darted over, making pitiful attempt to grab it. "We didn't it!"

"Grab it, Alice!" Libby called over, though Kimmie didn't seem too bothered about the commotion and Aliya was eagerly getting too into making a ribbon bouquet.

"I'm trying! Stop!" Alice tried, but it wasn't any use as April picked up the item in box.

The Kepner woman grew pale as she held up a lacy thong. With pearls.

She gulped, and Molly looked horrified at what she was holding. "This isn't Mom's veil."

Both Cristina and Aliya made an inhuman noise that could be considered an evil witch cackle as they fell back onto the sofa, dropping their ribbons as they laughed.

"It's not. Sorry." Libby chuckled lightly heartedly, sipping on her champagne. "That was meant to be for later, but since you've opened it, surprise!"

"It's for your wedding night!" Alice pointed out the obvious, and Aliya was really trying to stop laughing.

Kimmie grinned from behind her very full glass of white wine. "For when you and Trent—"

"Oh, God!" April pulled a nauseated face, cramming the underwear back into the box and slamming the lid on top, discarding the box into the present pile quickly before anyone else could see.

"There's no reason to be embarrassed." Kimmie reached over to prod her youngest sister's knee, a grin spreading wide on her face. "We all had our first times, too, right ladies?"

"We wanted to give you the lingerie and some tips." Alice smiled, her voice high pitched and even she couldn't read the total embarrassment on April's face. "The pearls, by the way, are for inside—"

"Stop!" April quickly cut in, unable to hear any more of what her sisters had to say. "Just stop talking!"

"But, Trent is your first real boyfriend," Libby protested, frowning at her sister's justified outburst. "We're trying to help."

"Please, don't."

However, Alice didn't receive the hint. "And, he's a great catch."

"And, you don't have the best track record with men." Libby also added, again not receiving the many signals April was sending to them from facial expressions to rapid hand gestures.

"No, she doesn't have any track record." Kimmie then decided to join in with her other sisters, obviously not receiving the memo as April sat there, her jaw stiff. "When I found out you had a boyfriend, I was like, don't make any sudden movements!"

"Oh, my God! Stop talking to me like no man has ever found me sexy!" April finally broke, rendering the whole entire room completely speechless.

"Duckie—"

"And, stop calling me Duckie! I'm not Duckie anymore." April snapped, and Aliya finally looked up from her ribbon bouquet, everyone's attention resting on the bride-to-be on the very verge of a mental breakdown. "My acne cleared up years ago. I got rid of my braces in college. I wear contacts. I use makeup. I did years of physical therapy to correct my pigeon toes—"

Cristina seemed to snort beside her, but Meredith prodded her arm to shut her up, listening to April's rant with intrigue, because the thing about the red head was that she never really broke all that much.

"—And, in case you haven't noticed, I've learned how to condition my hair." She flicked her curls, a look of shock passing over her three sister's faces. "I'm not your hopeless, ugly little sister anymore. I am not an ugly ducking!"

Molly started to look a little bit bored, and Eliana wasn't really paying much attention to the speech anymore, instead she was picking fluff out of the fabric of her pants.

"I am a swan! And a surgeon! I'm going to be a trauma surgeon!" April confidently announced to the whole entire room before jumping up from the sofa, pointing at the three women. "You know what? You're fired as my bridesmaid, the three of you. I don't want a single one of you standing up for me at my wedding."

Both Libby and Alice gasped in horror, but Kimmie seemed to just laugh at her sister in dismissal. "Honey, don't be silly. You have to have bridesmaids."

"And, I will." April nodded, determinedly, turning on her heel to approach the four residents — Lexie, Cristina, Aliya and Meredith. "These are my people now. Right?"

"Yeah!" They all enthused, even though they didn't exactly know what she was agreeing too.

"These are my bridesmaids." April smiled wide, her hands squeezing Aliya's shoulders a little too tightly.

⠀
—✩—
⠀

THE DAY BEFORE
TRENT & APRIL'S WEDDING
( wednesday 7th march 2012 )
⠀

Whoever came up with the exceptionally bright idea to stuff sixteen people from two different families onto the same table of a very fancy restaurant should have their brain donated to science for examination.

April's three sisters and their husbands were at one end of the table, death staring their sister for kicking them off of the bridesmaid committee whilst Aliya was sat directly opposite the woman who she received her last name and her life's blood from.

But, at least she had Jackson by her side, the one person her getting her through this dinner.

"So, Aliya! You're in April's resident class? Is that what it's called?" Joe, April's father, asked nicely, smiling over the brunette.

April's parents, Joe and Karen, owned a farm in Ohio, and it Aliya was raised by the pair of them on a farm in the countryside, her life would have most definitely changed for the better.

"Yes! I am." Aliya smiled with a nod. "Your daughter's an excellent surgeon."

Joe and Karen smiled with pride, turning to Aliya's own parents. "You must be proud of your daughter, though. How much she's accomplished."

Molly seemed to twitch slightly, and Aliya waited patiently for her to make some snide comments, a subtle dig. She watched on her face as her mother aligned the troops, aiming their snipers straight for Aliya's chest.

"Well, they should be." Jackson spoke up from beside her, not even glancing at Karen and Joe but instead, his green eyes pinned on Aliya's mother and father. "Aliya's a very talented surgeon, and I have no doubt she'll be a great neurosurgeon."

Aliya's lips curved upwards, and she reached over to Jackson's cheek affectionately, a blush creeping across her own cheeks as he glanced away from the expressions of Travis and Molly, leaving them silenced, his eyes resting only on her, the only person he actually wanted to look at at this table.

"We are." Travis spoke up, and Molly looked as him as if the word 'we' shouldn't have been used.

"Well—" Molly cleared her throat to object, setting down her cutlery but Travis quickly cut in.

"What do you do Karen?" Travis looked across at April's mother. "April mentioned you're a teacher?"

Aliya owed that to her father, though it was the least he could've done. But, she was more so grateful for the spotlight being taken away from her for a moment, because the chatter of the two families merged into white noise, and everything became a blur to her for a moment.

She blinked the odd, indescribable feeling away, taking another bite out of her chicken in an attempt to rid herself of whatever this feeling was.

But it appeared to only worsen with every breath she took, and all the voices across the table intertwined together.

"Excuse me." Aliya managed to get out as she placed down her knife and fork, dabbing her mouth with the cloth napkins and pushing off of the chair.

"Are you okay?" Jackson lowered his voice in concern as she stood up from the table.

"Where are you going?" Her mother asked her, a brow raised from behind her wine glass.

"I just need to use the restroom," Aliya pointed behind her, the napkin still in her hand. "I promise I won't miraculously get lost and end up on the other side of the country." She confirmed with a sweet though fake smile at Molly, before heading to the bathroom, not bothering to linger around for her response.

Once she made her escape into the restroom, she immediately braced her palms against the sink counter, some sort of weird feeling taking over her that she couldn't quite place a finger on.

Something she had never quite experienced before in her life.

It was almost as if her whole world was thrown on axis, and she was plummeting down with it.

Then all of a sudden, she turned around, darted into the toilet stall, and threw up right into the toilet bowl.

⠀
⠀
⠀

( notes! )

amelia & aliya, the iconic duo we never knew we needed until chapter fifty three?????? can't wait to write them they're gonna be so slay together!!

also i changed april's bridesmaid from arizona to lexie because it didn't make sense for it to be arizona as they haven't had their friendship era yet!!!!

i've also developed a new addiction to squid game. I FREAKING LOVE THAT SHOW SO MUCH I'M OBSESSED!! istg if netflix hurts player 333 or 222 we ride at dawn.

( word count! — 10,700 )