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chapter forty five ━ poker face
season eight, episode six

❝ i'm just that good, karev. ❞

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Aliya knew the lies (some) journalist laced into their articles, in the words on the pages, in every single splash of ink, and even jamming letters into their keyboards.

Being a famous surgeon's daughter in Malibu of all places, she knew how much journalists lived and breathed for the drama. And, how every move her mother made whether she was declaring her hatred, spilling red wine down someone's shiny white dress, or pioneering a ground breaking surgical procedure, it'll always end up in some low budget paper by the end of the week.

Growing up, Aliya watched her mother become obsessed with these articles, shoving the clippings into hat boxes, storing them away for safe keeping, like an archive in a library.

She kept everything, the good and the bad.

Aliya was never often mentioned in such articles, and if she was, it would only really be in brief passing comments.

Mainly because she never did anything to warrant an exposé.

She got good grades, she was nice to everyone in town, she held herself well. She was only ever labelled out of control by her own mother for that matter.

But, it was hypocritical seeing as her own mother was out of control. Every week she was plotting and scheming, every day she was thinking of new ways to be the best of the best, to climb the surgical hierarchy.

Molly Levine wouldn't give up. She wanted to be the greatest.

Nobody knew where she had gotten that from.

But, it was no shock, determination ran in that family's blood.

Even her own mother and father, Aliya's grandparents, never questioned her, never stopped her from tearing the ground up from beneath Aliya's feet, clipping her wings.

With a mother like that, everyone suspected Aliya to be the exact same.

And, she may have been the loudest person in the room, but she definitely didn't stoop as low as her mother.

Which was why she was as shocked as she was in this moment in time, frozen blue as she stared vacantly at her lit up phone screen, casting glows across her features.

She couldn't move, not even an inch.

She couldn't even form the words to reply to Mae and Summer, who were speaking from the other end of the phone call.

Hell, she couldn't even hear what they were saying.

She had just fully switched off to the world, her brain unable to process any of this, and why it could possibly be happening.

All her life, she had been perfect.

And now, she was the punchline in a shitty article, slating her for only dating the people she worked with.

What was she even doing wrong? If perfect was never good enough, what more could she possibly do?

Because, even if she was kind, and she got good grades, all they ever cared about was how many men she had slept with.

And the rage was enough to consume her whole.

No where in this article was Mark Sloan, who slept his way through the nurses like it was an olympic sport.

It was only Aliya, who poured her heart and soul into every relationship she had ever been in only to have her heart destroyed, who ended up as a passing comment.

Labelled a "slut" for the whole world to see.

For her patients to see. For her coworkers to see.

But, Mark Sloan would never even be mentioned.

Because, he was a famous plastic surgeon, but he didn't have the shiny famous parents.

He didn't have that last name that held a legacy.

And, he wasn't a woman.

"Aliya!" Summer snapped through the mic so loud she could finally hear it.

The Levine woman swallowed the lump in her throat, her jaw clenched, her heart doing god knows what in her chest.

"I've got to go." She managed to get out, before hanging up the phone, not able to focus on the call right now.

She brought a hand to her face, pressing down on her mouth in an attempt to stopping herself from actually being sick.

Just reading that made her feel nauseous.

How could this even be happening?

And now, Catherine and Jackson were waiting for her, no idea what was happening with her outside.

This could constitute as the worst first impression in the world.

Catherine would hate her, she would force Jackson to hate her too, and then—

She couldn't think like that.

"Hey, are you okay?" Now, Joe was standing before her, and she didn't even see him appear there.

"I—" Was all she managed, and Joe looked visibly concerned for her.

At how her hands were trembling, her grip tightening around her phone, and how her lips had gone blue, her face paling, her eyes darkening.

"It's okay, come on." Joe slipped off his jacket, placing it gently around her shoulders, and guiding her pack into the warmth of the bar, the heat hitting her in the face, but she was still freezing cold, all her muscles stiff. "Let's find that boyfriend of yours."

Joe smiled down at her, but she wasn't even processing anything around her, it was all just a haze.

"Hey, Jackson—" Joe approached the table, where they were sat, his arm around Aliya's shoulder. "I found her outside like this, she hasn't spoken a word, I don't know—"

"Oh, Aliya, honey—" She heard Catherine say as Jackson sprung out of his chair instantly, placing his hands on Aliya's shoulders, as if to ground her, to stop her from falling, leaning closer to her face so all she could see was him.

He was the only person she could take in right now.

"What's going on?" He spoke softly, the warmth of his palm now on her cheek pulling her back into reality. "Is everything okay? You were outside for a while."

Her face broke out into a grin. A total grin of complete denial and shock warped together.

And, she did the most Aliya thing ever.

She burst out into laughter.

The kind of laughter where you hunch over, the kind that you couldn't exactly breathe.

"Oh, Dr. Avery, I'm so sorry—" Aliya tried to steady herself, though now she was pretty sure she was hyperventilating. "I'm not usually like this, I promise."

Catherine nodded her head, sharing a look with Jackson as the brunette pushed her hair back away from her face. "It's fine, honey, my whole residency I was accused of being hysterical. Hysterical my ass." She huffed, rolling her eyes at the very distant memory.

"Mom, now really isn't the time," Jackson stated, turning his attention back to the matter at hand. "Do you wanna go somewhere more private?"

"You wanna hear something funny?" Aliya asked through a very violent burst of laughter. "I was just called a slut for the whole nation to see!"

Joe had seemed to have left them to it, disappearing across to the other side of the bar.

However, the two people still left with her stilled, their faces conforming into complete and total shock at what she had just said.

"Did you just say what I think you said?" The Avery man's knuckles clenched, because now he looked like he wanted to physically murder someone with his own bare hands. "Because if you did—"

Aliya placed a hand on his arm to steady herself, because she was pretty sure she may in fact faint right there and then. "I really wish I was joking."

"Who the hell said that?" Jackson said, furious, looking around the bar to see if anyone was there.

But, for all Aliya knew, the journalist might be a thirty-something year old, living in his mother's basement, eating stale chips and watching old tv show reruns.

"C'mon, let's go somewhere a little more private." Catherine jumped up from the stool, putting a hand around Aliya's waited and gently guiding her towards the door, with Jackson in tow, holding her bag and her jacket. "And, you can tell us what's going on, alright?"

Aliya nodded her head, and Jackson opened the door for them, and she allowed Catherine to walk her through it, and carefully up the steps.

"It's just, I think I might be in a little bit of shock, and when that happens I go slightly—" Aliya rambled as Jackson slipped her jacket over her shoulders, now that they were walking along the sidewalk, over to the hospital.

"Hysterical?" Catherine filled in, before crossing the road over to the entrance of the hospital.

Aliya's lips chattered, and she tugged her jacket tighter around her. "Yeah, you could say that."

"Was it your mother?" Jackson immediately questioned her. "Because, I swear Aliya, if it was your mother that said it, that's it."

Catherine looked across at the pair alarmed at the proposition. "Your own mother would call you a slut?"

"She's called me slutty before if that counts?" The brunette replied, her voice hoarse. "But no, it wasn't her, at least I don't think it was her."

"What do you mean?" Jackson raised a brow, looking over at the woman moving slowly beside him, her eyes fixed on whatever was in front of her. "You don't know who it was?"

"There was an article, this shitty magazine in Los Angeles, the one that's always publishing articles about my mother." Aliya explained as they walked through the hospital entrance and into the warmth. "It was about surgeons dating surgeons or whatever."

Jackson scoffed at the thought of the crap article, his jaw stiffened. "Do they have anything better to do with their lives?"

"It doesn't look like it." Aliya murmured. "And, the article mentioned me at the end, because it's distributed across my town back in California, and well— slut." She pointed back at herself, her arms falling back down to her sides in defeat, desperately trying not to cry, to not fall apart.

"Oh, honey." Catherine spoke softly, her expression and her tone sympathetic. "The articles are cruel, they never get the story right. And, you don't want to know some of the insults thrown my way back in my day."

"It's just—" Aliya's face tensed, making every effort not to cry, she didn't want to give the journalist the satisfaction. "It's so unfair. You're a successful woman, and all everyone ever wants to talk about is that. We're surgeons, isn't that more interesting? We save lives for a living for godsakes!"

"I agree," Catherine nodded her head, gently running her hand across the brunette's back to comfort her. "Some papers don't care about that though, all they care about is gossip, Aliya, and that's all it is. Gossip."

Jackson was growing impatient, and he quickly pulled out his phone from his pocket, opening the web browser in search for this article. "Don't worry, we're gonna get it taken down, it's completely irrelevant. It's sick. That nobody journalist is gonna wish he never published this darn thing!"

Catherine reached for his phone, taking it clean out of his hands. "Let me call them, honey—"

"I got it, it's fine." Jackson protested.

"No, it's not fine." Catherine pursed her lips, her eyes skimming over the article as she drew her own phone out of her pocket. "You're too emotional, and you'll make it worse by hurling abuse down the phone line, stay with Aliya."

"It's not like they wouldn't deserve it." The Avery man said loudly, because as much as he wanted to be the one to make the call, Catherine was too good at getting her own way. "It's ridiculous! How dare they—"

"I didn't say they wouldn't," Catherine answered, already beginning to punch the number into the keypad. "I'm just saying, let me handle it. As far as I'm concerned, that article never even existed."

And, with one final look of reassurance, Catherine was off, her phone pressed to her ear.

"We'll fix this, alright?" Jackson told her, turning back to where Aliya was watching Catherine disappear. "Whoever wrote that shit article won't even have a job to go back to, how ridiculous does a person have to be to stoop that low, god. You couldn't even find one single brain cell in their—"

"I love you."

Jackson paused at her very sudden interruption, and how she had actually calmed down, and how she was actually no longer hysterical, because now she was just watching him intently, without a care in the world.

Because, even though they called her a slut, she knew it was worth it for once.

He smiled, pressing a kiss to her forehead and wrapping his arms around her, her head burying into his shoulder. "I love you, too. I don't care what low-budget articles say, well I do, I want to beat the journalist to a pulp but, all I care about is you."

Aliya leaned up as far as she could, seeing as Jackson was a whole five inches taller than her, pressing her lips gently to his, her arms snaking around his neck, his hands instantly finding her wait.

It wasn't like their messy top lip kisses, it was slow, and delicate.

It was so different from how they used to kiss slow. Because, before, they were getting to know each other, and every groove of each others skin, every freckle on each others face, the soft lines of each of their lips.

Now, they knew exactly what to expect, which freckle was where, where every single dimple was.

Completely lost in the moment, secluded in a random hospital corridor, Aliya hadn't even realised her father clearing his throat from behind them.

Breaking away from the kiss, she turned, alarming Jackson as he too looked up, both of their eyes pinned on Travis, looking like high schoolers caught red handed.

Sometimes, Aliya still felt like she was in high school.

"Dad?" Aliya questioned, her hands slipping away, resting on Jackson's chest, her fingers intertwining with the collar of his jacket, as if it were her lifeline. "What are you doing here?"

Travis dug his hands into his deep pockets of his trench coat, clearing his throat as he straightened up, regaining some of his composure after just witnessing the PDA. "Hi Aliya, Jackson. I wanted to see if you were alright? That article was cruel, and vicious, and Ladybug I can promise you, I'll do everything in my power to find the crook responsible and make sure they're reprimanded for such heinous—"

"Dad." Aliya interrupted, her brows knotting together at the redness of his cheeks from all the ranting. "Catherine's sorting it out."

"Catherine?" Her father said, confused.

"My mom." Jackson spoke up, casting a suspicious stare at Travis, not entirely convinced of his 'good' intentions. "She's making calls as we speak, she's sorting this out. Don't worry, he'll never write another article again after she's done with them."

"Good." Travis' jaw clenched as his nodded, his eyes scattered about the place, looking back down the hall, before his eyes returned back to his daughter. "Out of all the things they could talk about? I mean, you graduated top of your class! Why can't they have written about that, huh? Not about—"

"Your daughter's a pretty great woman," Jackson pointed out, watching a tidal wave of shame and embarrassment and what even looked like grief pass over the man's face. "It's a shame you've only just realised that now."

Aliya smiled lightly at the Avery man next to her, but even she felt an odd ache in her heart for her father, looking at the floor, guilt-ridden. "Mom's probably finished in surgery if that's—"

Despite all of his abundance of flaws, at the end of the day, he was still the man that only really called her "Ladybug", who made her awful chicken noodle soup when she was sick.

"I came here to see if you're alright, your mother's back at the hotel." He explained.

"Oh." Was all Aliya could really say, at the sudden act of actually showing up, for once in his life.

"Don't worry about dinner tomorrow both of you." Her father informed, clearing his throat as he prepared for his exit after his very brief visit that seemed to only last a couple of minutes. "I'll see you soon."

"What dinner?" Jackson questioned as soon as Travis was out of ear shot.

"Oh," Aliya tore her eyes off of her dad, and the looming question, the hope, that maybe he was actually changing? "My Mom invited us to dinner tomorrow evening."

Jackson scoffed at the proposal, able to imagining a hundred different things he'd rather do with his time than go for dinner with Molly Levine of all people. "I'd only go to dinner with your mother to throw my spaghetti at her."

Aliya chuckled at just the thought of her mother with red pasta sauce stains down one of her favourite, most treasured blouses. "Now, that's just a waste of perfectly good spaghetti."

"It would be worth it," Jackson shrugged. "Just to see the look on her face."

"Right." Catherine stormed back over across to them, like a woman on a mission. "The online article has been taken down—"

"What? How?" Aliya whispered in shock, her jaw dropping at the miracle Catherine had just pulled.

"Unfortunately, the article was still printed in the magazine that went out this morning, but tomorrow morning they'll be extending a very public apology, tears and all." Catherine smirked, handing her son back his phone, looking rather victorious.

"Thanks, Mom." Jackson bent down, kissing his mother on her cheeks.

Relief washed over Aliya in that second, even though she had been called a slut and that was enough to haunt her every night from this day forward. "Really, Catherine, thank you, you have no idea—"

"Oh, honey." Catherine smiled, placing a hand to the brunette's cheek. "That's what family is for."

At the end of the day, family was so much more than blood.

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The next day, Aliya was unusually energetic for a woman that was just called a slut for everyone and their mothers to bear witness to.

However, dating a famous surgeon's son had been proven to ultimately have its perks.

Seeing as Catherine Avery had gotten the article taken down in the space of an exactly ten minute phone call.

Though, she hadn't forgotten about, and she probably never will.

Even though the article was only online for approximately two hours, and delivered on the doorsteps of about a million people, she wouldn't let it drag her down.

And, quite frankly, she didn't want to give Jeffrey Arnoult (the very distasteful journalist) the satisfaction of knocking her down an inch.

"Aliya, I swear, once I find that John, Jeffery whatever the hell his name is, I'll take him by the freaking arms and kill—"

"Hey, hey, hey." Aliya interrupted, hands in the air to try and calm the Karev man down who had just caught her up in the corridor, his face so red it matched the colour of her thermal shirt. "Take a breath, your eyes are buldging out of your head."

Her voice was very oddly calm, sipping absent-mindedly on her coffee.

"What? How can you be calm about this?" Alex gawked at the Levine woman.

"Oh, don't be fooled." Aliya shook her head with a laugh, pushing her hair out of her face. "I threw up twice this morning."

"I'm gonna kill that guy." He sneered as the pair rounded the corridor, making their way over to the residents lounge.

Aliya shrugged, however she couldn't deny the fact that she too fantasised about kneeing that man right in the groin. "Even though the article was deleted, and the newspaper posted an apology, it was still out there. It's still in print, even if it isn't online. Millions of copies are out there. And, there's nothing I can do about it now."

"There is something we can do about it." Alex muttered under his breath, just loud enough so she could make him out.

"No bodily harm." Aliya threatened, pointing her finger at her best friend.

"But—"

"But, what? It's not like you're gonna get a plane to California just to punch that guy." Aliya stated as the two slipped through the residents lounge, walking straight over to their cubby's.

What Aliya didn't see was Alex pulling out his phone, silently cancelling his early morning flight to California for tomorrow.

"Levine. Are you okay?" Cristina Yang asked from where she was seated on the bench, watching the brunette intently.

Aliya slowly turned to the Yang woman, brow arched high. "Are you okay?"

With a very loud sigh, Cristina pursed her lips tightly, casting Aliya a glance. "I'm being nice."

"That's the problem." Aliya answered back, growing slightly suspicious, because she almost sounded sincere.

"I wasn't the one who was called a sl—"

"Cristina!" Meredith hissed, elbowing her friend directly in the ribs, earning many watchful eyes narrowing at her.

"It's fine, Mer." Aliya waved them off, retrieving her pager from her cubby, slipping it into her pocket.

"Nothing about this is fine, Liy." Meredith crossed her arms tightly across her chest, dressed in her shiny new light pink scrubs.

"You're right." The brunette nodded, ignoring the many eyes turned her way, whispering in not so hushed tones.

"Dude, did you read that article?"

"Didn't they call her a slut?"

"That article, man, that was somethin'."

Aliya swallowed the lump in her throat, angling her chin just a bit higher, making an attempt to phase out the white noise.

"No way, she came into work?"

"That's what sleeping with your coworkers gets you."

"Didn't you sleep with five nurses last week?"

A louder, not so quiet voice spoke up above all of the coherent whispers, gaining everyone's attention, especially Aliya's.

And, there he was, Jackson, staring at Adam (another resident) from where he had just walked into the residents lounge, glaring across at Adam with narrowed green eyes.

"Or, was that just this morning?" Jackson asked, rhetorically, because he was also pretty sure Adam wasn't going to reply.

He looked like he was going to faint.

But, if he stopped running his mouth about this whole damn hospital, then maybe he wouldn't look as green as he did right this second.

"Thought so." Jackson replied to his silence, taking his eyes off of him and advancing towards his own cubby, pressing his lips to Aliya's cheek as he passed her, retrieving his own pager.

"Everybody quiet down." Owen ordered as he entered the room, hands braced on his hips as he watched everyone settle. "Fifth year is the hardest year of your residency. Every surgery you do will go in your record, the wins and the losses. In just a few months."

"You're in OB now?" Jackson remarked as he stared down at the Grey woman in the bright pink scrubs. "Oh, the might have fallen, huh?"

"She misses Zola." Alex grumbled a reply. "Her uterus hurts."

"Oh, leave her alone, dirtbag." Cristina snapped under her breath, rolling her eyes at the Karev man, before turning to her friend in disgust, despite defending her. "You're embarrassing me."

"I'm getting to deliver babies." Meredith spoke with a newfound sense of optimism. "I'm making life, you know?"

"Yeah, you know what? You're making me gag." The Yang woman curled her nose up in a further sense of disgust. "Okay, slumming it in OB for a few weeks is okay. Whatever. But, wearing the vagina squad scrubs in public?"

Meredith looked down at her new scrubs.

Whilst, Cristina just looked at her in pity. "We have standards, Meredith."

"It is extremely important that you rack up as many good outcomes as possible for your boards. I am implementing a system." The five residents only just realised Owen was in fact still talking. "I will receive an email if any of you exceed more than ten bad outcomes in your OR. Ten. Any more is unacceptable."

Then, April rushed past him and into the room, whispering apologies as she dropped down onto the bench next to the three women.

"Welcome, Dr. Kepner." Owen said, giving the red head a very pointed look.

"Sorry, I got stuck in the lab with Bailey." April justified in a hurry

"I don't care where you were, I care that you already have, let's see, two bad outcomes in your OR." The Hunt doctors announced to the whole lounge, holding up the tablet displaying April's bad outcomes.

"Loser." Alex muttered with a smirk, and April glared at him over her shoulder.

"Of course," Owen cleared his throat, punching the keyboard. "That's nothing compared to Karev's impressive five bad outcomes."

The Karev man's grin dropped, and April looked victorious. "I keep getting dud patients."

"They're children, Alex." Aliya pointed out, her hands braced on her legs to stop them from bouncing. "Gotta stop calling them duds."

"Tell that to your board examiners, Karev. The point, people, is to keep your bad outcomes to a minimum, or you will be hand-pressed to find a fellowship next year." Owen informed the residents, who weren't finding any of this particularly thrilling.

"Who are you texting?" Meredith whispered, peering down at the Yang woman's phone.

Aliya moved her head in to, catching the end of a not very PG message. "God! Yang! My eyes!" She groaned, cramming her palms over her face.

Cristina smirked at the scarred brunette. "Who do you think?"

Then, Dr. Hunt's phone buzzed from his pocket, and as he retrieved it from his pocket, a hundred different expressions passed over his features.

"Dr. Yang," He cleared his throat, straightening his back. "Are you sure that you're getting this down?"

"Bad outcomes are bad." Cristina spoke, coolly, the edges of her lips pulling into a grin. "Which is why I have zero of them. A perfect record I plan to continue during my ortho rotation this week. No one dies during a hip replacement."

"Let's hope." Owen added, turning on his heel and leaving the room in a hurry, and all the residents reverted back to what they were previously doing.

Gossiping.

"How many do you have?" Alex interrogated as Aliya hopped up from the bench.

"Zero." She smirked, victoriously, stepping over the bench to her cubby.

"In freaking neuro?" Alex gawked, shaking his head. "Dude, that's like a bottomless pit of bad outcomes."

"I know," Aliya shrugged, reaching for her claw clip to put her hair up, the bangs she impulsively cut last night slipping out of the clip. "I'm just that good, Karev."

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Now, when Aliya had received a page from Meredith Grey twenty minutes ago, she in all honesty ignored it.

But, it proved pretty hard when the Grey woman proceeded to page her an extra nine times.

On the tenth page, Aliya succumbed to the realisation that she couldn't exactly ignore the pages all morning and afternoon. And, it wasn't like she could turn off her pager. She was a doctor at the end of the day.

"You paged?" Aliya raised a brow, meeting Meredith outside a random patient room on the OB floor. "Oh, and while I have you here, your husband's being mean today. I got him his sixteen freaking towels and what does he do? Yell."

"He's on edge," Meredith explained, taking her eyes off of the couple holding their newborn, and over to the brunette. "But, this is beside the point."

"The point being pink isn't your colour?" Aliya remarked,

"Ha ha, funny." Meredith said, dryly, though a smirk crossed her face, because at least the brunette wasn't snapping at her about the clinical trial. It was progress. "I have a tumour."

"Okay, Izzie Stevens." The words tumbled out of Aliya's mouth so fast she physically couldn't have stopped them. And, she almost felt a tiny bit bad.

"My patient." Meredith corrected, rolling her eyes, and pointing towards the blonde woman holding her baby. "These are her scans."

Aliya accepted them, holding them out so she could see them more clearly. "No freaking way! A butterfly tumour!"

Her mouth dropped to the floor at the sight, because other than Isaac's tumour two years ago, this tumour has got to be the best tumour Aliya's ever seen.

And, if she said that out loud in a grocery store, she would probably get a dozen concerned looks, so thank god they were in a hospital.

"She has about six months." Meredith explained, looking through the window, sadly. "I had St. Catherine's send over all her scans, and I need you to show these to Derek."

Aliya raised a brow, eyes still tracing the tumour, still in complete admiration of it. "Why don't you?"

"We have a— uh— Meredith paused, gnawing on her lip. "Rule."

"What rule?" The Levine woman pried, peering at her from over the top of the scans.

"We're not going to talk about work. Ever since—"

"The clinical trail you invalidated?" Aliya finished off, because she knew the dirty blonde wouldn't say the words herself.

"Yeah, and it's the only thing holding out marriage together so I need you to show him these, got it?" Meredith tapped the scans with her finger.

"Hm." Aliya murmured with pursed lips, narrowing her eyes at the woman before her, who was in fact trying to make a desperate effort to fix things with her. "I'll see what I can do."

The Levine woman turned on her heel, taking the scans and leaving Meredith on the OB floor, making her way to find a certain neurosurgeon.

Though, Meredith would never tell her that the scans were actually for Aliya too, to make her feel better after the whole article debacle.

And, as she reached walked through the general floor on the way to neuro, she was stopped rather quickly by a voice she had tried so hard to avoid for the past few days.

But, it seemed now it was rather impossible.

"Aliya—" Elijah stopped her, stepping out in front of her like this whole thing was an ambush. "We need to talk."

Aliya scoffed, stopping abruptly before she crashed into him. "I'm working, Elijah, and so should you. It seems, ever since you got to this damn hospital all you're trying to do is make this situation even more uncomfortable than it already is."

"Just give me five minutes, and then I'll leave you alone." He proposed, ever the businessman.

It's no wonder Aliya broke up with him six times, because each time he convinced her to come back to him.

It seemed like hypnosis at this point.

"Fine," Aliya snapped, waving her scans in the air as he followed her into an empty room on the general floor. "But, if you even think about coming within three feet of me—"

"Three feet apart, got it." He interrupted, running his hand through his sandy blonde hair as he shut the door behind him. "Right."

"Go on," Aliya prompted, hands braced on her hips, her jaw clenched. "Say what you want to say, I don't have all day."

"I made a mistake four years ago, probably the biggest mistake of my life." Elijah spoke, his voice oddly calm for a man currently being stared down by his ex-fiancé. "I shouldn't have called it all off, you're it for me, I see that more than ever now. I wanted to marry you, Aliya, so badly—"

"So badly, huh?" Aliya scoffed at the proclamation. "So badly that you broke up with me and never even told me why? So badly that you fled the state?"

A common misconception about Elijah Beck was that he wasn't actually a bad guy, he was never the villain in the narrative. Without their history, Aliya could probably see herself being friends with him, he was the sort of person you could easily talk to, with his light blue eyes (which were almost grey) and blonde hair.

But, for some unknown reason, the two of them together were never a good match.

When they were together after break-ups and miscommunications, they were a ticking time bomb, and everyone around them were waiting for it to explode.

And, nothing about them would ever change.

Elijah's face flashed with the distinct look of regret, the kind of look a person could map out and sketch from memory. "I know, you don't owe me anything—"

"You're right." Aliya cut in, because even though she agreed to this conversation, she didn't really want to hear what he actually had to say. "I don't owe you anything, and I really don't understand what the hell you're doing here, and why you'd even move here for that matter. You were in Florida, right?"

"Screw Florida. I'm here to get you back." Elijah spoke simply, as if that alone wouldn't send Aliya into a blinding fit of rage. "Jackson seems nice and all but—"

"Don't you dare." She snapped, her voice laced with anger directed towards him. "What gives you the right to come here and make some moronic attempt to get me back, huh? I'm happy. Without you. So, get over it."

"I can't do that." He shook his head, his jawline stiff as he began to pace the room, looking away from her, his brain working overtime to try and solve this whole thing. "I was the love of your life once, don't you remember? We were together for five years, feelings like that don't just go, I won't accept it."

The Levine woman sighed, looking up at the ceiling above her. "And, how many times did we break up, huh? Fight, break up, get back together, fight, breakup— you know where I'm going with this. We could never break the cycle, Elijah. Why do you think you ran away from it all?"

"I tried to get you back two days later." He pointed out, his hands now buried deep into his pockets. "I knew it was a mistake then, and I know even more now."

"You were too late." Aliya told him, even though he didn't want to believe it one bit.

"I know I was." Elijah admitted. "But, Aliya we always found are way back to each other. Always. That was our one guarantee."

"Not anymore. Not this time." She denied, waving him off. "Not in a million years. Yeah, maybe in another life, you were it for me. But, not anymore. And, you're definitely not the love of my life. You never were."

"And, Jackson is, huh?" Elijah raised a sceptical brow, as if he had any right to judge them. "What, haven't you guys broken up before?"

Now, Aliya was pissed off, her knuckles clenching around the scans still in her hand. "I don't see why the hell that's any of your business."

"News travels fast in this hospital." He shrugged causally, trying to get in her head. "You don't trust him. It's simple."

"Oh—" Aliya laughed, but none of this was funny. Not at all. "Shut the hell up."

"I'm just saying," Elijah shrugged, a smirk dancing annoyingly across his lips has he changed his angle of attack. "It's as clear as—"

"What do you think gives you the right to waltz into this hospital and tell me who I do and don't trust, huh?" Aliya interjected before he could even think about what he was going to say. "I don't trust you. I don't believe anything that comes out of your mouth, and I never will. How many times do I have to make it clear that I don't want you back?"

"Have you ever, for once in your life, thought about us getting back together?" Elijah questioned, turning the knife in her chest.

"If I'm being honest," Aliya straightened up, pushing her chin in the air to rise above it all. "I haven't even thought about you once in the last year."

Elijah shook his head in denial and complete dismissal. "You really think I believe that?"

"You're just pissed off 'cause you can't accept that I've moved on from you." Aliya countered, growing bored of this conversation. "I don't want you anymore. Is that so hard to understand? Do you want to me to spell it out for you?"

"Okay," It seemed Elijah had grown some sense in the past five seconds to realise what he was saying was complete and total bullshit. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that, that was unfair to you, and to Jackson."

Aliya's brow arched high, her arms crossed around her chest. "You think?"

⠀
⠀
MEANWHILE OUTSIDE THE ROOM...
⠀
⠀

"We shouldn't be watching this, right?" Meredith spoke up, the only one with somewhat of a conscience, but seeing as they had been watching this unfold for the past five minutes ever since a nurse texted them about it, nobody could take their eyes off of it.

The Kepner woman nodded her head slowly from where she was leant on the general floor desk beside Meredith. "It feels wrong."

"It's like watching a plane go down," Cristina remarked, bring a chip to her mouth. "Or, a car crash. I can't look away, it's impossible."

"Someone should've brought popcorn." Alex added, his eyes pinned unwaveringly on the argument happening before his eyes.

"I shouldn't be watching this, right?" Jackson spoke up, shifting on the balls of his feet. "I mean, she'll tell me about it afterwards right, I should wait for her?"

"Avery you have a front row seat to your girlfriend tearing her ex-fiancé a new one." Cristina waved her hands at the scene, because now Aliya had her hands on her hips, rolling her eyes at the sheer audacity of this man.

Through the glass, Aliya tipped her head back with a groan, looking incredibly pissed off to say the least. "I swear to God, Elijah, if you go through that line one more time I'm gonna break something!"

"Yes, Aliya!" Alex clapped his hands together, her own personal cheerleader. "Slap him! C'mon!"

"Aliya! Just hear me out!" Elijah protested with a frantic wave of his hands.

"I've spent the past ten minutes trying to hear you out, but all you're saying is complete bullshit!" The Levine woman spoke louder, her tone straining as the five residents watched her through the window.

"Oh, I'm going to have to stop this, I mean, Aliya agreed to help me with wedding prep later, and he's just putting her in a bad mood." April grimaced at the scene, ready to diffuse the situation. "I'm their Chief Resident, I can just tell them to go back to work, right?"

"Oh, you don't wanna go in there." Cristina said with a laugh.

"—And I have a freaking butterfly tumour I need to show Dr. Shepherd, so if you'll excuse me."

Then, Aliya moved to the door, and all the residents watching her leaped out of their skin.

"Scatter!" Cristina hissed, and all of them dispersed, though they weren't exactly quick enough, seeing as Aliya was now stood watching them run away.

Though the only person still there was in fact Jackson, hands buried in this pockets. "Are you alright? I would ask you how it went, but I pretty much saw the whole thing."

"He's just—" Aliya sighed, hooking her arm around his and practically dragging herself and him away from Elijah. "A dick!"

A nurse looked up, narrowing her eyes at the brunette, who smiled very apologetically at her.

"That sounds about right." Jackson nodded slowly, looking briefly over his shoulder at the dick in question, watching the couple leave.

The Avery man narrowed his eyes at the guy still pining over his girlfriend, before turning away.

Because, he didn't really even want to look at him anymore, or even give him the satisfaction.

"So, he has come to Seattle to win you back after all?" Jackson questioned, purely from what he had witnessed moments before. And, you didn't have to be an idiot to know why he was here.

"Like the moron he is." Aliya muttered. "But you don't have to worry about him, okay? He's like a bad rash, he'll go away eventually."

"Oh, I know." Jackson said with a smirk, reaching down to tuck a small strand of her brown hair behind her ear. "I just got front row ticket to you practically verbally abusing the guy."

Aliya gulped, suddenly feeling just a sudden rush of guilt. "I wasn't that bad, right? I mean, I was, nice about it? I wasn't too bitchy? Let him down easy?"

Even she knew that was complete bullshit.

But, it wasn't like she owed him any of her kindness anyway.

"You're very nice—" Jackson told her, and she almost sighed in relief, however he added: "Just not towards him. But, it's not like you owe him anything. I wouldn't be nice to my ex-fiancé if I had one, which I haven't, might I add. There's no skeletons in my closet."

"Just mine." Aliya frowned, looking down at the toes of her black converses. "I'm sorry this keeps happening."

Jackson furrowed his brows. "What do you mean?"

"First, my mom coming in trying to ruin everything, now Elijah. It's a miracle you haven't run for this hills right about now." Aliya replied, running her hands along the scans still in her grasp, chewing down on the inside of her cheek.

"Aliya, I'm not gonna run for the hills, not now, not ever. He can't ruin what we have, no one can, okay?" Jackson assured her, pulling her in closer with his hand. "Unless you get a mohawk, then I'm gone. I like the bangs, but god, please don't get a mohawk."

Aliya threw her head back in laughter, prodding her boyfriend ribs affectionately and gently kissing his lips. "That's good to know— Oh! Derek!"

The brunette practically bounded out of his arms, pulling her lips off of him and rushing over to the neurosurgeon, waving the scans in the air.

"Aliya." Derek greeted, stopping to let her catch up with him. "You yelled?"

"I've got somethin' for you." Aliya smiled wildly, practically throwing the scans at him. "Might make you feel better, you know, less grumpy."

"What is it this time, because last time you said that, the cafeteria had a waffle day, and I don't even like waffles, so—" Derek trailed off when his eyes rested on the scans, his mouth hanging open at the sight of it.

"Butterfly tumour! Cool, right?" Aliya enthused, but Derek stayed silent, completely enthralled by the tumour.

⠀
—✩—
⠀

"Wait," Clay, Mary's husband, stopped the neurosurgeon, his hands braced out in front of him, his expression confused, desperately trying to piece together what he was saying. "I mean, all the doctors we've seen said the tumour's inoperable. Surgery could put her in a coma, or kill her."

"It's just another set of scans." Derek informed them, after telling them that he'd like to have another look at it, and the possibility that he could in fact remove it.

"We just want to see what we're working with, another set of scans never hurt anyone." Aliya added on with a smile.

"Exactly," Mary smiled, rocking her newborn daughter from side to side. "And, it'll be good for you to have some alone time with Emma. You know, that way I can die knowing that you're not gonna drop her on her head." The woman smirked, overly cheery for a woman with a brain tumour, but she had seemed to have accepted her fate.

"Fine." Clay smiled, though everyone in that room could tell he was just putting on a brave face for his wife. "Run the scans."

"Okay." The Shepherd man nodded, and the two doctors filtered out of the room and into the hall.

"See," Aliya smirked in an I told you so kind of manner. "I told you it'll make you feel better."

"I hate it when you're right." He sighed, trying not to crack a smile, though neurosurgeons were in fact suckers for tumours.

⠀
—✩—
⠀

"What are you doing?" Meredith questioned as she entered April's office with April by her side, looking from Aliya led out on the sofa to Cristina behind the desk, eyes pinned on the computer as she stared at the screen intently.

"Researching a new surgery for my neck guy." The Yang woman informed, tapping the keys on the keyboard.

"Having a nap." Aliya mumbled from where her eyes were shut, sprawled out on April's very comfortable sofa.

Though she was pretty sure she was led in one of many wedding binders.

"What are you feeding my mouse?" The red head said, her voice high-pitched as she advanced over to the desk. "Q is diabetic. A donut could kill him!"

"Poor guy." Aliya spoke sympathetically, her eyelids still heavy despite having a very quick power nap. "I love donuts. I'd ruin my life for one." She admitted, the donut Cristina had given to her out of pity half eaten in her hand.

"Then why is he in your office?" Cristina questioned, narrowing her eyes at the Kepner woman, who was fishing the scraps of donut out of Q's cage.

"So, Meredith can run tests on him!" April explained as if she should already know, shoving the mouse cage rather forcefully into the Grey woman's grasp.

Cristina looked back and forth between the two women. "Are you really gonna do her grunt work?"

"Bailey blames me for Richard losing his trial." Meredith spoke up, putting the cage on the coffee table, out of her lap. "The last thing she wants is for me to work on it."

"Mice smell anyway." Aliya commented, chewing on a bite of pink glazed donut.

"Which is why you're doing it in secret." April pointed out, happily, her lips curving into a very over the top smile.

(Though, who could really blame her? Wedding planning proved incredibly stressful.)

Though, April's plan seemed like the worst plan anyone had ever proposed.

"Okay," Cristina chuckled, shaking her head as she leant back on the desk chair. "That is the worst idea I've ever heard."

Aliya nodded in agreement, waving her donut in the air as if that was going to help her convey her point further. "Bailey has eyes and ears all over this darn place, she's gonna know."

"Seriously." Meredith agreed with a laugh, the three women finding April's plan not so fool proof.

"I am your chief resident, Dr. Grey!"

Now, that made their laughter died down, because, they never even knew April's voice could even reach that tone.

Wedding planning was turning her into a monster.

"Which means if you cross me," April's jaw stiffened, and she leaned closer to the Grey woman, her eyes growing dark. "I will make your life a living hell. I will put you on call every night. I will assign you dumb interns, and I will make sure that you get every exploding bowel and rotting limb that comes into this hospital."

Meredith's eyes widened at the girl. "Okay. Relax. I'll do it."

"Okay." April nodded in victory, making her way to the door, however, she paused in the doorway, turning back to face the group of them once more. "It's because I made my voice different, right? That's why you—"

"Go away before you embarrass yourself more." Cristina waved the red head off, and she scurried out of her very own office.

"If this was a Scream movie, April Kepner's ghost face." Aliya announced to the room, earning a nod of approval from Meredith.

It just made perfect sense, she's the one you'd least expect.

The very familiar sound of Cristina's phone buzzed aloud from the desk table, but that ring tone proved daunting, because everyone knew exactly what it meant. "Oh, that's Owen. Duty calls."

"Are you two talking yet, or is it just sex?" Meredith asked, and it was a fair enough question, because Aliya had in fact heard that text tone ten times in the past two days.

"Not just sex." Cristina explained, twirling her hair around her finger, which she never did, which made this thing even more alarming. "Hot, dirty, stand on my head sex."

"I'll take that as a no." Meredith so effortlessly deduced.

"Communication is key, Cristina!" Aliya exclaimed, offering infamous advice (which coming from her, was quite hypocritical).

"Says the woman who pretends she has no problems!" Cristina remarked, earning a pointed look from the pretender herself. "And, you know what. Who cares if we don't talk? Besides, if you want to talk about something, how about the fact that you're wasting your fifth year playing around with vagina and mice, huh?"

Meredith pursed her lips, watching Cristina practically race towards the door. "Do you really stand in your head?"

"I'm very talented." The Yang woman smirked, dancing on the spot.

The brunette watched her disappear out the door, running off to do her sexual escapades (as everyone else calls them). "There's no way she can stand on her head."

⠀
—✩—
⠀

"Most astrocytomas spread out through the corpus callosum. It fans out like smoke." The Shepherd man described, pointing to Mary's updated scan. "But, if you look at your tumour, Mary, I've never seen anything like it. Look at the edges, they're smooth, defined. They're easier to cut around. Yes, if I can keep my entire dissection inside and never let it drift outside."

"I'm sorry." A smile danced across Mary's lips, unable to believe what he was telling her. "Are you saying what I think you're saying?"

"Mary," Derek said, softly, looking at the blonde woman dead in the eye, confidently. "I think I can remove your tumour."

"I love this guy." Mary beamed, looking over at her husband who looked cautious, to say the least.

"We don't know this guy." Clay muttered watching the Shepherd man, cautiously, as if he were signing his wife up for false hope.

Mary shrugged him off. "He's amazing, right? Tell my husband."

"He's pretty amazing," Aliya confirmed, swaying on her feet with a grin. "Miracle-worker level."

"This isn't a decision you make on a whim." Clay cleared his throat, not entirely convinced about all this, despite how his wife seemed to be.

"You're right," Derek nodded, reading the look of terror on Mary's husbands face. "You need time to make this decision."

"We don't need time." Mary denied, rocking her daughter in her arms, tracing her fingers softly against her perfect newborn cheeks. "I've decided. Sign me up."

"Emma." Clay said, gesturing his head towards the baby.

Mary smiled down at her daughter, looking over towards Clay. "Yeah?"

"If you get to call brain tumour, I get to call Emma." Clay exclaimed, and Mary's face fell in that moment, and a sigh escaped her lips. "It's not just the two of us anymore. We have a daughter. She needs these six months with you. I mean, you're her mom. Please, Mary. Don't do this."

⠀
—✩—
⠀

"Any luck with the mice?" Aliya asked as she returned back to the safety of April's office, which seemed like a base for all the residents at the moment.

And, it guaranteed Aliya wouldn't see anyone she didn't exactly want to see.

"Turns out I'm pretty good with them." The Grey woman said, looking up from her computer to write on another sticky note (the walls were already covered in them).

"Maybe you should be a vet." Cristina piped up from the sofa where she was sat next to Alex, the pair munching on snacks they got from raiding April's snack drawer.

"How about Derek?" Meredith interrogated, after sending Aliya on the not-so-secret mission.

"Well," Aliya cleared her throat, pulling open April's snack stash and grabbing a granola bar. "We ran another set of scans on Mary, and Derek realised he can reach under the pericallosal vessels, and access the tumour from both sides."

Meredith beamed at the news. "So, he's operating?"

Aliya shrugged her shoulders, retreating towards the sofa, unwrapping the granola bar. "Clay's not too thrilled about it."

"Okay, but did you tell him how good he is?" The Grey woman said, desperately.

"Of course," Aliya bit down on her bar. "But, then Mary looked like she was going to burst into tears, so I thought it would be best to give her some time to regroup. I didn't want to upset her even more than she already was."

"Do I have to do everything by myself?" Meredith sighed over dramatically, pushing herself up from the chair, and breezing out of the room.

"Hot." Alex smirked, staring down at Cristina's phone, where she was still in fact texting Hung.

"I know right?" Cristina grinned.

⠀
—✩—
⠀

"It was incredible." Aliya mused after the surgery had finished on Mary once they had got her to agree to it. Now, she was sat in Joe's recalling it all to both Jackson and Alex. "The best thing I've witnessed in my whole entire life. I mean, he went in blind, and he got the whole thing! If this comes up on my boards, god!"

The brunette woman grinned wildly, bringing her tequila to her lips.

Jackson grinned, chuckling at her excitement whilst picking up his glass of whiskey. "All Sloan taught me today was how to brine a chicken."

Aliya laughed, leaning her elbows on the bar. "Well, I know who's making dinner tomorrow."

"Altman called me a chicken." Alex frowned, sipping his beer sadly, like a puppy that just got kicked.

"You can't let these bad outcomes hold you back. It's just a mind trick." The Levine woman announced, seeing she was giving such great advice today.

"Says the woman with zero." He muttered, bringing his beer back to his lips, however, April appeared out of nowhere, Trent behind her as the Kepner woman tugged the beer from Alex's grasp.

April looked at Alex as if she were about to punch him right there and then. "What you said to me the other day was horrible, mean, and—"

"Oh, god, what did he do? She's gonna go full bridezilla now." Aliya muttered under her breath to Jackson, hiding behind her tequila glass.

"All right!" Alex stopped her, his face all screwed up. "You're doing it again, you're like a friggin' mosquito!"

"Hey, lay off." Trent warned, ordering a beer from Joe himself.

"Yeah?" April straightened up taller. "Well, that's all changing. Jackson, you're touring med students. Alex, you've got nights in the ER for next week. If you two argue with me, and I'll take you off the OR board indefinitely."

"That's my girl." Trent cheered, though judging by the look of horror on Alex and Jackson's faces, it was in fact the wrong time.

"I, on the other hand, just got fired from Bailey's trial, so I'm gonna spend the night drinking." And with that out in the open, April downed the entirety of Alex's leftover beer.

Even Trent looked visibly concerned.

"What about me?" Aliya questioned, because it was better to know what April had assigned her with, because the not knowing would just eat her alive.

"You're gonna help me plan the wedding." April enlightened, leaving Aliya gobsmacked at the bar as she filtered off to go play some darts as a way to release some of that anger.

"Hey, Jackson, you wanna trade? I'll tour the med students, you plan April's wedding to my brother?" Aliya offered a very fair trade.

Because, when you thought about it, what actually was worse?

Med students, or wedding planning?

Jackson snorted into his whiskey. "Absolutely not."
⠀
⠀
⠀
⠀

( notes! )

me 🤝🤝 dropping taylor swift lyrics throughout scrub caps, today's special guests include guilty as sin? and "slut!" !!

ALSO,, i made a google form !! i wanted to hear what you guys thought about scrub caps because i literally love hearing your opinions, so i'm gonna put the link in the comments and i'll keep the form active for a while :)

i also got a couple questions in the google form so i thought i'd answer them here !! (thank you so much to everyone who's filled it in so far, i'm loving your comments!!)

━ will there be the osteogenesis imperfecta storyline? i swear this is one of the most heartbreaking storylines in grey's and i'm thinking of including it but for april & trent, because i think it's such an important part of april's character development (and i've got lots of other traumatic stuff planned for our girl aliya)

━ will lexie & mark still die in the plane crash? yes, they will! i'm genuinely not ready to write the plane crash.

━ will henry still die? yes 💔💔 dare i say one of the best characters in grey's???? rewatching it, i love him so much it's actually sick they killed him off

( word count! — 9,400 )