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chapter nineteen ━ can't fight biology
season seven, episode four

❝ did she actually use
the word hostile? ❞

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"Crap!"

The brunette woman buried the heels of her palms into her eyes with a groan, the morning sun spilling into the room from beneath the curtains.

The man beside her's eyes flew open. "What?"

"Crap, crap, crap, crap!" Aliya spoke rapidly under her breath, her head still on his pillow that didn't even smell like him, seeing as he slept on the right.

Which was handy, seeing as she always slept on the left side of the bed.

This whole unspoken arrangement thing was working out very well for them, so it seemed.

"What!" Jackson now darted upright in bed, his eyes scanning around the room for some sight, any sign, of danger. "What's going on? Are you okay?"

"No!" Aliya cried, her hands falling down onto the bed sheets with a sigh. "I forgot to do my laundry!"

Jackson paused, staring down at her on his bed, where she was buried in the sheets. "You forgot to do your laundry? That's what's been keeping you up at night?"

"Yes, Jackson, that's what's been keeping me up at night." The Levine woman spoke with an over-exaggerated sigh, grimacing up at the ceiling, looking down on her as if it were mocking her for not being a very good adult. "I have no clean underwear! This is a disaster!"

Jackson smirked, despite the panic mode Aliya was currently in. "You can borrow a pair of—"

"Don't even finish that sentence." Aliya held up her hand, because there was no way she was going to wriggle into one of his boxers. "There's no way—"

There was no way in hell!

Jackson seemed to find her squirming pretty amusing. "How long have you been up thinking about laundry?"

Her eyes flickered over to the alarm clock on his bedside table, reading 7:45am, doing the mental calculation in her head. "Um— maybe three hours? And, I haven't just been thinking about my lack of clean underwear, just so you know."

"Humour me." Jackson grinned, propping his head up with his arm. "What else has been going around in that head of yours?"

A smile tugged up on the corner of her lips against her will. "What do you wanna know?"

"Everything." His eyes started to sparkle in the morning light flooding through the curtains, sending Aliya's stomach into knots.

It was annoying, that eyes had the ability to render a person speechless.

"Okay," Aliya straightened up in the bed, crossing her legs so she was facing him, her hands balled on her lap as she readied herself to start. "So, first of all, the elephant in the room, Reese—" She gestured her head over to the dog, fast asleep on the blanket Jackson had laid down for him on the floor two weeks ago. "He needs kibble, but the kibble he likes is sold out for miles, and he doesn't eat the other ones. Believe me, I've freaking tried, but he's a stubborn arse— Sorry, Reese."

Jackson snorted, looking over to the dog who was completely unaware of the slanderous conversation going on about him, snoring away without a care in the world. "So high maintenance, nothing like you." He added on, reverting his eyes back to the woman before him.

"So, I have to find a day where I'm not working, or doing the laundry," She gave him a pointed look, in which he nodded, understanding exactly the point she was making. "To drive an hour to the pet store where they have his stupid fancy kibble in stock."

"Obviously, that makes complete sense." Jackson said sarcastically. "Reese has expensive taste, he needs the best kibble."

"Exactly," She slammed her hands back down onto the mattress. "And also, to add to it, I forgot to pay my parking ticket, so that's great."

"Aliya." Jackson pursed his lips at this particular piece of news. "You had five letters about it!"

"And oh, how could I forget," Aliya waved her hands about again, crossing her arms finally in a huff. "I was nearly scammed by the nice lady in the general ward the other day."

The Avery man tilted his head to the side. "A nice lady tried to scam you?"

"She was selling vintage purses," She began to explain her side of the story. "But, she actually bulk bought them, I mean, the nerve! Jackson, can you believe the nerve?"

"Oh," He chuckled, his shoulders shaking as he laughed. "I can. You should always watch out for the nice ladies trying to scam you."

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"I don't understand why you don't just go for it. Get back in the saddle." Mae's matter-of-fact tone echoed through the phone speaker about half an hour after the discussion about Aliya's unwashed underwear.

And now, as Aliya was hunting for a clean pair (that she probably never find), she was on the preplanned three way call with Mae and Summer.

"Ride into the sunset." Summer added to the debacle of Aliya's love live, her voice distant and distracted.

Now after the conversation with Mae, Aliya began to notice a change in Summer during the past couple of weeks, both physically and in her communication.

She didn't know if she as being superstitious, but even her voice changed from her usual sarcastic tone, to one where her words appeared just a bit more lazy, where she would drift out of the conversation at any given minute, detaching completely from whatever was going on.

Aliya scoffed, balancing her phone in the nook of her shoulder as she searched her drawers for an appropriate outfit to wear in public that wasn't infact her pyjamas. "What is it with the equestrian metaphors to describe my love life?"

"Or, the lack of one." Summer muttered through the phone as Aliya sighed, rolling her eyes and reaching for her coffee mug, taking a sip only to realise it was stone cold.

"We're just saying, Liy—" Aliya tugged out a pair of trousers as Mae spoke. "—put yourself out there. After all the shit you've been through the past couple months, you deserve at least some happiness."

"I am happy." Aliya lied through her teeth, her voice straining. After broken off high school romances, ex-fiancées and infidelity, she didn't have the greatest luck in love. And, now she was finding herself in the bed of a man who should really be on the cover of a magazine.

What the hell was her life resorting to?

"I call bullshit." Summer pitched in.

"Hey!" Aliya defended, finally finding a clean pair of underwear. "I can be content without a man between my legs." A splutter sounded from Mae's line over Summer's loud chuckle.

"Crap, I got coffee on my carpet!" Mae swore down the line.

"Language!" Summer fired back.

"You said bullshit two seconds ago!" Aliya called her out out, wriggling out of her pyjama bottoms to slip on her denim jeans. "Anyway, in less dirtier terms, my happiness does not rely on men. In fact, I found a rare neuroblastoma in a baby. It didn't even show up on the scans, but—"

"I have no idea what you are saying but it sounds cool, well done." The Vasquez woman replied, as Mae laughed lightly on the background, but she was more concentrating on the coffee stain on the carpet.

"Long story short, the baby survived." Aliya reflected, her lips twitching slightly. "I saved someone the pain of loosing their child. If I can do that a thousand more times in my life, I don't see how I can be unhappy."

Yeah, even she wasn't convincing herself.

And, she didn't bother to mention the fact that every life she saved didn't help the pain she felt whenever she was reminded of Andy, and the fact she couldn't save her, no matter how hard she tried.

She hadn't even said her name.

How could she? It felt like poison on her lips.

"That's lovely Al—" Mae started before Summer quickly intruded from her end of the call.

"Shut up." The Vasquez woman scoffed loudly at the supposed idiocy. "Yes, Aliya, saving people is amazing and everything, but you can't truly be happy if you're alone. Humans need people. We need intimacy! God! We need someone to rely on. So, shut up and stop acting stupid, and get back in that goddamn saddle. I don't want you to be alone when—"

Aliya moved out onto the hallway, jogging down the staircase to locate the sweater she had taken off a few nights previous. "I'm not alone." She assured, entering an empty kitchen in further search for the sweater.

"Summer. How's the new designs coming along?" Mae switched the subject, sensing Aliya's temper rising, trying to steal Summer's attention away from Aliya's so called bottomless pit of loneliness.

Because, Mae knew when Summer and Aliya clashed, all hell broke loose.

"Oh! Yes! I—" Summer started, as Aliya rested her phone on speaker on the table, pressing her palm to her temple with a sigh, moving towards the laundry room in search for her missing red sweater.

She let out a sound of victory as she spotted it underneath a pile of laundry, so she reached out her hand, tugging the red sleeve out from the pile.

Aliya didn't even notice the detergent there as she sent it tumbling down onto the floor.

The sound didn't resemble anything Aliya relived each night, but it didn't stop her heart pounding erratically in her chest.

It didn't sound like a gunshot, but it might as well have been one.

The brunette quickly knelt back down to pick the bottle up, slipping it back onto the correct shelf instead of by the laundry basket and moving back to her phone and retreating back to the safety of her room.

Because, she really was trying to take her own advice, that she wouldn't let a murderer named Gary Clarke haunt her every move.

Alex always leaves the detergent out anyway.

She made a mental note to tell him to put it back when he used it.

"Pffffh! As if leopard print is coming back!" Summer stated. "I would simply die if someone dressed me in leopard print in my casket."

"You'd already would be dead." Aliya announced, closing her door behind her. "You wouldn't care."

"I would die twice." Summer spoke, though quickly afterwards she descended into a coughing fit that vibrated through Aliya's phone speaker.

"Hey, Summer? You okay?" Aliya interrogated, furrowing her brows at the vigorous coughing happening directly into her ear lobe.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm fine." Summer replied in a raspy, breathless voice. "I just have a small cold. No biggie."

"Fine." Aliya sighed, returning her phone back to speaker mode. "If you die unexpectedly, which you won't — I won't allow it, I'll put you in that blue dress you wear every summer."

"I'm going to hold you to that." Summer paused for a split second. "Anyway, I'm running late. I'll speak to you two soon, okay? I'll send you both the design patterns, I'm not sure which one will looks best. Look out for them, okay? Love you, bye."

Her line disconnected, but Aliya could still hear the faint breathing of Mae.

"She's totally acting weird." Aliya stated now she knew Summer was officially off the call.

Mae exhaled, background noises of dishes clattering. "You think it has anything to do with Eliza?"

"No, it shouldn't. I have access to her files and Jackson would tell me if anything was wrong." She paused, questioning whether or not he would actually tell her.

The tumour was only benign anyway, surely there wouldn't be any complications?

Right?

Mae made a noise from the other line, something you would hear in middle school whenever crushes were mentioned, something resembling a squeal.

"You like him." She sang, descending into a fit of laughter.

"No!" Aliya instantly denied, shaking her head. "I do not! And, we were talking about Summer, not me."

"Yeah, yeah." Mae said, her voice all knowingly. "I've got to go, love you."

"Love you." The Levine woman replied with a sigh, and she couldn't quite shift the feeling something was wrong with Summer.

So, she pushed through her door, making her way to the bathroom which was seemingly being guarded by Meredith and Derek.

"This is not normal." Derek exclaimed, watching as April brushed her hair, whilst Lexie simultaneously shaved her legs, as Jackson stepped out of the shower in a towel, and as Alex brushed his teeth.

"Oh, it's totally normal. Summer and I backpacked around Europe for a month or two before college, this was an everyday activity in hostels." She paused, forcing her eyes off of Jackson. "Oh My God! My mother was right! I do live in a hostel!" Aliya cried out, burying her face in her hands, entering her tenth existential crisis this week.

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"Larry Davis, fifty eight years old, sustained crush injuries during a crash where he was trapped between the car and a washing machine at a laundromat." The paramedic handed Aliya the chart, pushing the gurney out of the ambulance.

"Clear the way to Trauma two." Owen ordered, and Aliya nodded, rushing ahead of the gurney as they all began to rush through the automatic doors. "He's coding!"

The trauma surgeon jumped up onto the gurney, starting compressions as Aliya cleared the path leading to the trauma room, telling everyone to get out of the way.

"Charge the paddles to 150." Aliya instructed after attaching the pads to Larry's chest, now finally in the trauma room. "Clear."

Almost immediately afterwards he began to stabilise, his heartbeat sounding again on the monitor.

She began to feel around his stomach, which was blotched with bruises in many different shades of red and blue from the accident, so she reached behind her, grabbing the ultrasound to take a closer look.

"What do you see?" Owen asked from where he was examining the multitude of his other injuries.

"He's got a ruptured spleen," Aliya observed, narrowing her eyes. "And, he's bleeding internally, he needs an OR stat."

She was out of the door to locate an OR before Owen could even ask her to.

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"What do you have for me?" Aliya approached the front desk of the ER, exhausted from Larry's surgery where they had to remove both his spleen and one of his kidneys. She watched as the nurse behind the desk, Carla, looked at her, sceptically.

"Aren't you meant to be at home?" Carla replied, tapping the keys on the keyboard obnoxiously loud as she pulled up the timetable for the residents. "You have a day off." She pointed out to the woman who couldn't care any less.

"Is that a no?" Aliya smiled lightly at Carla who meant well. The nurse simply raised her eyebrows, leaning behind her to grab a chart.

"Lena Sanderson, twenty eight years old, complaining of abdominal pain after fainting in the airport lounge." Carla handed the clipboard to Aliya, eyeing her up critically.

"Thank you." She turned on her heel, ignoring the stares and making her way to the bed with the closed curtains. Aliya reached her hand up and pulled the curtains back, clearing her throat to begin. "Hello, I'm Dr. Levine—"

"Aliya?" A male voice exclaimed to her right, causing Aliya's eyes to dart his way, away from the wide eyed, blonde haired woman led on the gurney, to Kai freaking Park, standing across from her, his mouth hanging open as he simply stared at her.

Like he had just seen a damn ghost.

Aliya's jaw dropped down to the floor with his, caught completely off guard by his presence.

Why was he even in Seattle?

From what Mae has told her, he still lived in Los Angeles. This was the very last place she would expect to see her high school ex-boyfriend!

"Kai?" Aliya squinted at him even though she could see perfectly fine, her voice shrill. "What are you doing in Seattle?"

"We're visiting Lena's family." He replied in a fast and nervous tone, his eyes darting to the woman on the bed, dodging Aliya's eyes at all cost.

Aliya looked back at the blonde, whose head kept darting between Kai and Aliya, completely confused at what was going on before her eyes.

"Oh!" Lena shot up straight on the gurney in sudden realisation. "So, this is Aliya! It's nice to finally meet you!" The annoyingly nice woman reached out her hand.

Lena's wide and toothy smile threw Aliya off as she took her hand, shaking it. "Nice to meet you. I can get another doctor if you'd prefer—"

"No. It's fine." Lena assured her, waving her off. "We have a flight to catch. I'm sure I'm fine. This one wanted me to get checked after I fainted—"

Lena looked across at Kai, grabbing his hand and squeezing it tightly. The Park man forced a smile back to her, and Aliya couldn't help but think how long it's been since she last saw him. And, if she did something terrible in another life to deserve this sort of karma.

"I have a history of iron deficiency! I'll be fine!" Lena smiled, seemingly assuring herself rather than Aliya, the only one in this small confined space with a PhD.

Aliya had to admit, Lena seemed perfect.

The type of person a guy like Kai — who wanted the picket fence, the kids drawings on the wall and the swing set in the yard — would dream of marrying.

"I'll just check you over to make sure you're okay. It'll be super quick so you won't miss your flight." Aliya answered, closing the curtain back behind her. 

"Perfect." Lena nodded, her curly blonde hair bouncing as she moved her head around nervously, her hand still attached to Kai's.

Aliya spoke softly, slipping onto the chair. "Did you hit your head or anything when you fell?" The brunette pulled out her flashlight, checking Lena's pupils.

"Kai caught me before I hit the ground." Lena explained, playing around with the rings in her fingers. "One minute I was in line to get hot tea, and the next I'm staring at the ceiling! It all happened so fast."

Aliya nodded her head, scribbling quickly in the chart. "Have you been feeling sick lately? Headaches? Stomach pain? Nausea?"

Lena swallowed, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, revealing a pair of very shiny silver earrings. "I had some stomach pain a couple days ago—"

Kai's eyes widened at the news. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't want to worry you. Or, Mom. She's been a nightmare recently!" She turned back to Aliya as she laughed, lightly. "My sister is pregnant, and Mom is such a worrier. I think it was from eating the really bad chicken my Uncle Tommy made. I couldn't tell him though. He tried his best."

Aliya smiled nodding her head, leaning back to set up an ultrasound. "I'm just going to take a quick look inside your stomach. The gel is going to feel really cold." She explained, pulling on a pair of gloves.

"You didn't lie about that." Lena laughed as the gel went on, squinting as Aliya held the probe to her stomach, the ultrasound screen lighting up a moment with an image, stopping Aliya's heart for a fraction of a second.

Squinting at the screen, she watched as a tiny heartbeat flickered on it.

Kai, noticing the change in Aliya and the fact that she had stopped breathing momentarily and had frozen completely still, edged forward. "What is it? What's wrong?"

Lena whipped her head towards Aliya in a blind panic. "Is something wrong? Oh My God, something's wrong, oh my—" She began to hyperventilate, wringing the sweat from her fingers.

"Hey! Nothing's wrong." Aliya swallowed the lump that had risen in her throat to get the words out, turning the monitor towards them. "Lena. Nothing's wrong. You're pregnant."

Both Kai and Lena gasped as Aliya pointed at the tiny spot on the scan. "Oh my God." The blonde pushed a hand to her mouth, tears of happiness streaming down her face as Kai brought her into his arms, saying something Aliya couldn't hear over the heartbeat that began to ring in her ears.

The lump in her throat worsened, as she watched the moment they realised they were starting a brand new shiny family. And, though she couldn't help but think this situation wasn't a lot bit comedic, because this is the story of how they found out they were having a baby.

With Kai's ex-girlfriend in the room with them, what a lovely anecdote that was.

"How far along am I?" Lena asked, pulling away from Kai, whose own eyes were wet with tears, his hand secure on Lena's back.

Aliya looked back towards the screen. "About eight weeks."

"You didn't know?" Kai questioned.

"I was busy. I didn't realise my period was that late. I was too busy making sure Kimmy didn't cut her fingers off, or making sure Lucy didn't put Freya in the cat litter tray again." Lena complained, though light heartedly, ending her rant with a sigh, tilting her head to look at her doctor. "I mean, family right?"

"Tell me about it." Aliya smiled back at her, though she couldn't exactly relate, and Kai knew that too. "I'll get your discharge papers ready. Just make sure you book another ultrasound appointment with your doctor back home for four weeks time." She switched the ultrasound machine off, taking the chart and pushing herself up from the chair.

"Thank you, Aliya. I'm glad I had a chance to meet you." She reached for Aliya's hand, squeezing it tightly. "I'm being serious. Without you, he wouldn't have found me."

Aliya's expression faltered, and she managed to get out a: "Congratulations."

She gave Lena's hand a gentle pat before she let go, slipping back through the curtains and into the safety, which was as far away from them as humanly possible.

However, just as she was making her prison escape by reaching the double doors leading back to civilisation, Kai's voice echoed behind her, and she wanted to run. But, she was an adult after all.

"Hey Aliya! Hi." He stopped nervously, his hands shoved into his jean pockets.

Aliya spun around. "Oh, hi."

"I just wanted to say thank you." Kai said, sincerely, his eyes still unable to properly meet hers.

"Congratulations, I mean, that's great. Amazing news. You've always wanted that." Aliya pressed her lips tight together, wincing at the words tumbling out of her mouth.

"Yeah. I've always wanted that." Kai nodded, wanting to say something else to Aliya, but unable to find the words to say it.

Before Aliya could convince herself not to, she asked what she wanted to ask, because even she couldn't deny how weird that whole thing was. "What did Lena mean? When she said without me, you wouldn't have found her?"

"Oh. Um." He scratched the back of his neck nervously, clearing his throat. "About four years ago I came to Seattle, when you were an intern. I was planning on trying to, you know, get you back. I knew it had been five years, but I couldn't stop thinking about you, if I'm being completely honest. I was stupid, you know?"

Aliya's eyes widened, trying to find the words. "We wanted different things. We were too different. We never would've worked."

"You said that before." He smirked, rolling on the balls of his feet. "Anyway, I met Lena on my way here and I— I never looked back."

Aliya smiled, putting her hands in her pockets to stop herself from slapping her own cheek. "I'm happy for you. Truly."

He tilted his head, finally looking into her eyes comfortably, the initial shock of seeing her fading. "Are you happy?"

She scoffed sarcastically, dipping her head, her brown hair dropping over her shoulders in tired waves. "That seems like the question of the day today."

"So? Are you?" He interrogated, pushing the question further.

She brought herself together for the thousandth time and smiled. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm happy."

He grinned back at her yet again, not able to see through her as well as Summer had, luckily for her. "I better get back."

She watched him jog back towards the closed curtains, and the life he had always wanted, leaving Aliya to wonder what would've happened if she didn't end things with him, but dwelling on the past never really worked in Aliya's favour.

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"I just told my high school ex-boyfriend that his girlfriend is pregnant. How's everyone else's day going?" Aliya jumped onto the gurney next to April, lying back in exhaustion.

"I'm having a much better day than you." Cristina laughed, looking towards Aliya with an ultimately smug expression on her face. Though, Aliya stuck her tongue out at her, crossing her arms sternly.

"We're discussing my hostile uterus." Meredith replied, casually in between mouthfuls of a sandwich.

"You have a hostile uterus?" Aliya sat up straight, turning to Meredith. "I'm so sorry." She answered, sympathetically as she reached a hand out to pat Meredith's knee.

The Grey woman shrugged. "Eh, no biggie."

"Did she actually use the word hostile?" Aliya questioned, having known about her gynaecologist appointment. Meredith simply nodded in response, tossing cucumber sticks into her mouth.

April clicked her pen, scribbling out stuff into her notepad. "I'll do research on some treatment options."

Cristina tapped Meredith's arm, pointing at April, contently scribbling into her diary. "Her uterus is friendly."

Meredith chuckled in agreement. "It's sunshiney."

"Filled with rainbows." Aliya contributed with a smile.

Cristina spoke in a dramatic and low voice, causing Aliya to chuckle to herself. "Untouched by scourge of man."

"Peppy ovaries, too." The Kepner woman grinned, continuing to write carefully into her book.

"Hey, the vending machine's working again." Lexie announced as the room fell silent, the only sound of Meredith's chips crunching to be heard, which only made Lexie's face drop as she sat next to the group of women. "What?"

"Nothing." Meredith defended, her eyes dipping towards the lunch tray on her lap.

"Is this the same nothing that has to do with where you were this morning?" Lexie retaliated, narrowing her eyes at her sister.

"I was at the dentist this morning," Meredith lied effortlessly. "I have bad teeth."

April and Cristina laughed, glancing secretively at each other.

"The worst. I mean, it would scare a criminal away." Aliya informed the youngest Grey sister, earning a smack on the shoulder from Meredith. "Ow! What the hell was that for?"

"You know what it was for." Meredith pursed her lips at her, as the brunette massaged her shoulder in pain.

Lexie frowned at that. "Oh. Okay. So, teeth are a code for what exactly?"

"I went to the O.B. Today. I have massive, baby-squishing fibroids in my uterus." Meredith explained light-heartedly even though the situation was in fact not sunshine and rainbows. Though, she was already beginning the process of squishing down her problems until they eventually went away.

"Oh, that's terrible." Lexie frowned sympathetically at her sister.

The dirty blonde shrugged her shoulders. "I'm over it."

Lexie turned to April, raising a brow. "But, you knew?"

"Knew what?" Jackson questioned immediately as he walked into the tunnels, dropping into an arm chair.

Lexie cleared her throat, opening her sandwich box. "Nothing. The vending machine's working again." She glared down at the sandwich in spite. Even with her efforts of hiding, the jealously that April knew more than her was displayed rather painfully on her face.

"My patient eats worms." Cristina abruptly added to the conversation.

"Oh, is that the guy who's trying to find a cure for asthma?" Aliya asked, declining the offer of half of Lexie's cheese sandwich. "I read his blog on his research. It's quite interesting, actually. He's actually gathered feasible evidence that the worms actually are seeming to reduce inflammation and decrease the risk of asthma attacks."

"Huh." Cristina pressed her lips together, unconvinced of that fact.

"Dude, Altman fire you yet?" Alex interrupted as he sat himself on a spare wheelchair, smirking over at Jackson who simply gave Alex the side eye warning.

"She is not gonna fire me." Jackson assured him, confidently.

Meredith gasped. "What'd you do?"

"She thinks he's a hot piece of brainless ass." Alex chuckled, chucking fries into his mouth.

Cristina turned to Jackson, smirking. "Oh, you're totally gonna be fired."

"The situation is under control, thank you." Jackson spoke calmly, taking the plastic lid off of his lunch.

Aliya scoffed, exaggeratedly. "That's what you said last time and—"

"If you bring up the pizza one more time I will loose it." Jackson threatened, pointing his fork in her direction.

"You put the carrots on there on purpose." She muttered under her breath, playing with the pager in her hand by chucking it up and down in the air.

"You've got to be joking!" Jackson bolted upright, spilling pasta all down his scrubs. "I asked for no carrots! No carrots! Who puts carrots on a pizza?"

"You tried to kill me!" Aliya remarked furiously, pinning her eyes on him as she pointed an accusatory finger, her pager dropping into her lap.

"You're delusional!" He fired back at her, and everyone in the room wondered when exactly they had gotten this pizza together, and if this were a one off thing or not.

"Hey!" Alex narrowed his eyes, shoving Jackson's arm, because only he could ever call her delusional. Then, he turned his attention towards Lexie. "You got a line on any weird bone cancer treatments so I don't have to cut off my ballerina kid's leg?"

"Right, 'cause my memory is all I'm good for?" Lexie rolled her eyes.

"I read an article about the use of metal plates in surgery to preserve the bone." Aliya told him, still eyeing up Jackson with fury over the incident as he just stared right back at her, his green eyes narrowing as if declaring war right there and then.

"And, there was a story in the news recently where they used a cadaver bone to replace a cancerous one." April contributed.

"You two get my fries." Alex pushed himself up from the wheelchair he was in, chucking the box of fries in their direction.

April caught the box gleefully, offering Aliya the fries by patting her lightly on the elbow.

"Knock yourself out." Aliya urged, looking away from Jackson to continue to chuck her pager up and down in the air.

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—✩—
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After checking up on Larry Davis, who was stable and expected to make a full recovery, she leaned over to the hospital landline, punching in Summer's number.

Because, Aliya really couldn't let anything go.

"Hello?" Summer's responded from down the line, her voice puzzled at the caller ID.

"Hey, it's Aliya. My phone died." Aliya explained, balancing the phone on her collar bone as she logged out of the computer, the screen flashing on to display the hospital logo.

"Oh." She sighed in relief.

Aliya started to chew her lip, leaning forward in the chair and balancing on her elbows. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. Tired. But, fine." Summer quickly defended, hinting to the fact that things were in fact not fine.

"I liked the dark green one. The one with the white flowers." Aliya changed the subject, after looking at the many designs Summer ended up emailing over.

"You think?" Summer replied, and Aliya could tell by her voice she was smiling. "It'll look great on you."

Aliya sighed, scratching her forehead. "Yeah, yeah."

"I mean it. You should come visit the office. Try a few dresses on. We're working on a wedding collection too. I would love to see you in a white dress." Summer teased and Aliya rolled her eyes at the sentiment, laughing at the thought.

You would have to drag Aliya down an aisle kicking and screaming.

"You will someday." Aliya joked, playing with the cable of the phone as she suppressed a huge yawn. "When I marry a rich older man, then become widowed after a mysteriously horrific accident."

"You need to stop reading." Summer chuckled, shaking her head at the plot of the book on every shelf in a bookstore. "Seriously Aliya, you will make a beautiful bride."

Aliya's gut instincts never really were all that reliable, but she knew this time around something didn't feel right with Summer.

She sensed it that same morning, and several times over the past few weeks, but Summer wasn't budging, she didn't let her guard down until now, with her duplicate meaning comments on Aliya's future possible wedding, about what to bury her in. About wanting to see her in a white dress...

It all seemed to weird.

"I've got to put Eliza to bed, okay? I'll speak to you later."

"Okay, speak to you soon." Aliya put the phone back down slowly, her stare hyper fixated on it, like it was the key to finding the truth about Summer.

Just as she was resolving to the fact that Summer would tell her in her own time, Lexie bounded over to the desk in a chaotic whirlwind.

"You like me better than April, right?" She interrogated immediately, panting as if she had just run a marathon.

Aliya blinked at the brunette, her tired eyes straining against the harsh strip lights. "What?"

She picked up a pen, throwing it at Aliya's head, which only made it worse. "Answer the question!"

"Jeez!" Aliya frowned, picking up the pen Lexie threw, just to throw it back in her direction.

"You're hesitating! Oh my God!" Lexie groaned, digging her face in her hands.

"I'm not hesitating!" Aliya defended, receiving a glare from Lexie. "Fine! You're a very good friend!"

"You're dodging the question!"

"What question?" April, the woman in question, inquired at the right exact moment, coming to join them at the ICU desk, leaning against the counter with one hand on her cheek and one scribbling into a chart, unknowing Lexie hated the very ground she walked on.

"Donuts or churros?" Aliya blurted, her eyes widening as Lexie began to point at herself and then back at April mouthing something Aliya couldn't even begin to understand.

The red head looked over at Lexie, who stopped halfway through her manic pointing routine. "So, donuts and churros are code for what exactly?"

"Hey, so reckless driver turned to be a psycho killer?"

Aliya physically and very obviously let out a breath of relief as Meredith joined the group, saving Aliya from Lexie.

"Failed psycho killer, thank god." April corrected, returning back to her charting.

"Not like it was unexpected." Aliya spoke truthfully and thoughtfully, earning a look from both Meredith and April. "Anyway, I'm going home."

She took that as her cue to leave, leaving them with Lexie, who was unravelling like a ball of yarn by the minute.

Aliya reached the lounge to grab her bag, pushing through the wooden door whilst attempting to stifle a yawn. She stopped short as her eyes blinked at what was happening right before her eyes. Jackson was stood, his shirt completely off, abandoned and draped over the bench as he stood right in front of Teddy Altman.

"Now, put your shirt on and take care of these post-ops." Teddy ordered, handing him a stack of charts with a scoff, turning away from the man and moving towards the door, nodding a greeting at Aliya as she slipped past her, who tried her best to look like she hadn't just seen what she thought she saw, desperately trying to mask her surprise with a contorted smile.

It wasn't as if she should care, right?

"Wow." Aliya gasped failing miserably at holding in her surprise, watching Teddy leave before looking back towards Jackson who was slipping his shirt back onto his body. "So, you have resorted to seduction to get surgeries? I thought Alex was just kidding."

Jackson put a hand to his face, rubbing his jaw nervously. "Aliya— it's really not what you're thinking."

"I mean—" She shook her head in awe, making her way over to her cubby, emptying her pockets into her bag to distract herself from him. "It looked exactly like what I was thinking."

He inched towards her, and seeing as his cubby was right beside hers, he watched carefully as she pawed through the contents of her bag, pretending to find something to force her eyes away from him. So, she didn't have to face what was actually going on.

Though all that was in her bag was a packet of mints, perfume, pain killers Bailey had prescribed for headaches, and her clothes.

"I was just sick of people treating me like I was only here because of my grandfather, or just by how I look," He trailed off, staring down at his shoes. "I had to get in on that surgery."

"So, you decided to act like it? Like, as Alex said, a brainless piece of ass?" She raised her brows, her expression furious as she angled his head towards him. "Oh, people think I'm all face and no brain. I'm going to live up to their expectations of me by taking my shirt off infront of attendings! Hey! Give me a surgery!" She scolded, pacing to the other side of the room, escaping their proximity that had caused Aliya's heart to pound intensely in her chest, clouding her thoughts in a way that hadn't happened for a long time.

"Why the hell do you even care?" Jackson fired back at her in a challenge, following her into the middle of the room, unwilling to let her escape this conversation with the tricks she usually used to get out of these things.

Aliya scoffed, throwing her head back and she whipped around to meet his eyes that were glaring back at her at with equal intensity, his pupils growing dark. "Because, some people have to work for what they get, and you're over here flashing—"

"It's not even any of your business!" The Avery man retorted, putting his hands on his hips with an overexaggerated sigh.

"You're right, it's none of my business." She nodded, shrugging like she didn't care about this at all, storming back over to her cubby and picking up her bag, angrily tugging it out which only sent the stacks of paper and books she had in it flying out. "Crap!"

She dropped to the floor to pick up the papers in a disorganised pile of chaos she didn't care to organise at this point of time — she just had to get out of there.

"Make everyone in this hospital think of you like a waste of space. See how I care." The brunette made a frustrated groan, shoving the papers messily onto the shelf.

Jackson simply shrugged carelessly at the comment she made, crossing his arms over his chest. "Everyone in this hospital already thinks that so—"

"Bullshit." Aliya interrupted him before he could explore that thought, a few of pieces of paper still clutched in her grasp, her breathing causing her chest to rise and fall, loud and heavily.

She had so many damn things she wanted to say to him, she didn't know where to start.

"Hey!"

"No, that's just bullshit! Not everyone thinks that." Aliya disagreed with him, ignoring her bag strap that had began to slip from her shoulder.

"Oh, really? Prove it." Jackson fired back, because neither one of them were standing down. His jaw was tensing as he challenged her, edging a step towards her, sending both of their heart rates to spike simultaneously as they grew dangerously close to one another, so close the tips of their noses would brush against each other if either one of them took a step. Or even flinched.

Aliya chewed on her bottom lip, her mouth unable to form the words she wanted to say.

Didn't she deserve the happiness everyone wanted for her? Hasn't she given enough?

She thought back to Andy, how she was taken too soon. How she could've done something differently, and how she would give anything to see her one more time.

At the end of the day, it was impossible to ever know when it was going to be someone's last day on Earth.

What would Aliya do if she knew it was her last day on this earth?

"Fine!" She gave in. "I don't think you're a waste of space." The words flew out of her mouth, like a broken faucet she couldn't keep turned off.

Within a split second, Jackson pressed his lips to hers, as if he had been wanting to kiss her ever since the first day he met her, that he had been waiting way too long to do it. His hands met her cheek, drawing her face closer to his as Aliya let herself sink into him, her hands pressing into his chest as the pair grew desperate for each other's touch.

They didn't know what they had been missing all this time.

It felt crazy, how they had spent all this time tip toeing around each other.

After the initial shock had worn off, and a shred of reality settled in, Aliya pushed herself away from him, though it was the very last thing she ever wanted to do.

The brunette scrunched her nose, furrowing her brows at how confusing this situation was, and how it made perfect sense at the same time.

"What the hell are you doing?" She snapped, though she knew exactly what he was doing. She eyed him up, watching as he sighed, his jaw tensing stiffly into a straight line that could cut through glass, and his eyes narrowed back down at her.

"Just be quiet for once in your life." Jackson spoke back breathlessly, resting one hand on her back and one on her cheek, pulling her back in closer to him, like how close they were wasn't close enough.

That this past year had been leading up to this very moment.

"I'm still mad at you." She pointed out in moments between their kisses when they came up for air, which weren't as frequent as people would think. But Jackson simply kept on kissing her, and Aliya let her arms snake up and around his neck, leaning into every single moment of longing.

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( notes! )

JALIYA KISS JALIYA KISS JALIYA KISS IT FINALLY HAPPENED PEOPLE AND IT ONLY TOOK NINETEEN CHAPTERS !!!!!!!!

and to quote miss americana and the heartbreak prince, it's been a long time coming!!! honestly i love how their relationship is turning out so far, and the fact that she slept in his bed before they had even kissed actually sent me away i LOVE them so much!!

let me know what you think of this chapter, i hope you liked it!!

also side note, you can't convince me that kai and aliya aren't midnight rain coded. you just can't.

( word count! — 7,100 )