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chapter fifteen ━ sanctuary
season six, episode twenty three

❝ out of all the things i thought
might happen today, this would be
incredibly low on the list. ❞

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When Aliya was four years old, her pet goldfish died.

Trent had found her in her bedroom with the tank on her lap, her small hands tightened around the edges of the glass as she stared into where the goldfish was, upside down along side the cave she had bought with her pocket money a few weeks prior to his unfortunate death.

She explained to her older brother that the fish was simply sleeping, and she wanted to keep it company. Trent didn't have the heart to tell her that her beloved fish and first ever pet was dead.

Sure, there was Sprinkles the cat, but that cat hated that four year old girl.

(Sprinkles was a menace, to say the least.)

An hour later her mother flushed the fish down the toilet, explaining rather angrily in a very condescending manner that she couldn't possibly have a dead fish in her bedroom.

And, three years after the death of her beloved gold fish, Aliya's great grandmother died, where the 'speech' about death followed shortly after.

The one valuable life lesson she received from her parents was their take on death. By valuable, she meant she learned what not to tell her own kids or any other children when she found herself in the situation of having to explain death to a tiny human.

Travis Levine at first described death as a long nap, confusing Aliya and everyone at the funeral when she attempted to wake her deceased great grandmother up, like Princess Aurora in Sleeping Beauty.

Due to Travis' failure, Molly had then taken the reins, pulling Aliya to the side by her elbows, setting her down on a dining room chair as she sat opposite her, their knees pressed together as she told her daughter that death was in fact not a long nap.

It was where a person simply stopped existing, stopped living, stopped breathing. And, you never got the chance to ever see that person again. They were simply gone from this world.

One thing Aliya couldn't argue with was that at least her mother didn't tip toe around basic facts like her father did.

Several years after Trent's wife died, her nephew, James, asked her what death actually was.

Aliya thought about it for a moment, knowing that her parent's separate explanations weren't enough on their own.

She described death to her nephew as when something happens to a person which means they don't come back. They were gone. It was simple, really.

Their mind, body and soul disappeared. However, that didn't mean they couldn't exist in other ways.

She told James that his mother existed every where around them.

In his smile, in the pictures on the mantle, at the place where she married his father, in the place she grew up. Just because a person dies, doesn't mean they stop existing.

They exist in everywhere they've been, in everyone they loved, in everyone they cared for. They are able to exist in other ways. They don't just go.

There has to at least be some way to hold onto their memory.

As Aliya was surrounded by death when practicing on cadavers in medical school, when laying flowers down at graves, and every single day in the hospital, it was easy to not be afraid of it like she was when she was a kid.

It was easy to not flinch when death was mentioned.

But, that didn't mean it didn't hurt when a patient or someone she knew took a 'long nap'.

It still hurt, and there was nothing anybody could ever do to take the pain away.

And, in all honesty, Aliya wanted it to hurt. It's what made her human.

Though, Aliya Levine didn't realise until that particular day what it was like to loose someone she truly cared so much about, to watch that person die.

And, how painful a dead person still existing around her could be.

Sure, she lost George, but no amount of pain can equate to the pain she felt that day.

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The Levine doctor held the paddles to Mr. Henry's chest, watching the monitor in hope the haunting flat line would start turn into a heart beat.

"Charge the paddles to 250." She ordered, listening as the button clicked, and the electricity surged to the paddles, causing the lifeless man in front of her's chest to rise quickly, before dropping back just as fast.

"Do it again! Do it again!" His wife wailed from where she was watching this all unfold, begging Aliya through her pained sobs. She clutched her bag close to her chest, her cries increasing in volume.

The monitor was still making that cursed beep of the flatline, ringing in Aliya's ears in some sort of mocking rhythm she hated.

"Ma'am, we are doing everything you can. I know it's hard, but please wait in the hall." She assured as best as she could, watching the wife disappear against her will with a nurse through the doors.

Looking back at Tyler, she asked him to do it again, obliging Mrs. Henry's wishes. 

"Charge to 300."

"Aliya—" Tyler started, hesitating at the button, knowing Mr Henry was already gone.

"Charge to 300." She snapped back, not meaning for her tone to be so blunt as she ordered him to give Mr. Henry another shot.

Another chance.

She saw the look in Mrs. Henry's eyes when her husband stopped breathing, during the CPR and the first three 'charge the paddles'.

Her eyes darkened as she watched, her speech catching on the lump on her throat as she pleaded Aliya even more, the look of fear clouded in her eyes.

That damn flatline.

After three more wishful tries, she finally stopped, switching off the monitor to deter the ear splitting beep.

"Time of death, eight fifty eight am." Aliya stepped away from the body with an intake of breath, dropping the paddles as Tyler moved to the desk to call the morge.

"Nick!" His wife called out, noticing the monitor was silenced, noticing Aliya had stopped trying.

Dashing through the door with a hopefulness that quickly disappeared within less than a second when she saw the scene.

Her husband, cold.

The woman dropped to the floor.

And, Aliya held Mrs Henry as she balled, punching the brunette's shoulder in heart splitting pain as he was wheeled away by the pathologists, her screams ricocheting through the small space of the emergency room.

Even though her punches killed Aliya's shoulder, she held the grieving woman anyway.

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"What did he die of?" Jackson asked the Levine woman, whilst she was filling out paperwork for Mr. Henry, now that his kids and grandkids were on the way.

"Coronary artery disease." Aliya said with a sigh, tucking her hair behind her ear, leaning onto her palm as she wrote the time of death neatly onto the dashed line, signing her name carefully underneath, confirming Nick Henry was no longer alive.

She stared, wide eyed, at the time of death.

It was an odd thought, for a person to have a time of death.

Because, surely it was so insignificant to the bigger picture.

That person was gone, who cared when they died? At what time they were ripped from this world and their mind was gone for good.

"Anyways," The brunette rolled her shoulders, her shoulder throbbing with each movement. "Tell me something uplifting."

"Uplifting. Ok, I can do that—" Jackson stared up at the ceiling in thought, racking his brain around for something uplifting. "Good Morning Seattle news said that they were going to plant a tree every time someone bought a reusable water bottle. Coffee?" He smirked, holding the disposable cup towards her.

She stared at the cup in his hand as if it were a weapon of mass destruction, before her eyes flicked back to his.

"No." She flipped the chart shut. "Thanks." The woman added quickly to be polite, rounding past him to disappear out of the emergency room.

Jackson shook his head in a sort of mock disbelief, trailing after her in a light jog, his work trainers tapping on the ground, aligning with the tapping of Aliya's red converse high tops.

"I see you inhale multiple cups of coffee a day, why are you refusing?" He began to tap his finger nails obnoxiously against the cardboard in some sort of tune, as if luring her towards the coffee.

Aliya cleared her throat, turning to look directly at him, though her eyes were pinned on the coffee, staring longingly at it like some sort of crazy person.

"I'm on a coffee cleanse." She breathed, the horror of the herbal tea she had this morning still engraved in the back of her mind.

"You're going to get withdrawal symptoms." Jackson hummed, waving the coffee in front of her nose, tempting and entrancing her with the scent of Felipe's masterpiece. "You're gonna go all pale and sweaty—"

"Hey!" Aliya shooed him away back towards the ER but he quickly rebounded, inching even closer to her.

"Hands shaking in the OR—" He taunted whilst they descended further down the hall, taunting her even more than he already was.

Aliya waved her hand in the air in dismissal at his accusations. "That's what coffee does to you, not what a lack of coffee does." She scoffed as she enlightened him on the inner workings of caffeine, her walking speeding up.

"Yes, but your system works better with coffee now." He explained, catching up with the coffee addict yet again, smirking silently to himself in fascination and amusement of her flustered state, all over a cup of coffee. Or, over the person offering the coffee, so he hoped. "It's reversed."

"Funny." She stopped quickly in her tracks, causing him to nearly trip over her feet.

"I know. I'm hilarious. A national treasure. Drink up." He held the cup in front of her, tapping the same damn rhythm again on the cardboard.

She peered at the contents in suspicion, chewing on her lip as she thought. "Is it poisoned?"

"Yeah, totally." Jackson rolled his eyes, bringing the coffee even closer to her face, causing Aliya to narrow her eyes as she peered up at him.

He caught her gaze and smiled warmly, swishing the coffee about in his hand again. So, Aliya took it into her hand reluctantly, side-eyeing the cup.

"Is it going to uplift me?" She questioned, though it wasn't exactly a question. Coffee helped everything. Not decaf, though. Never decaf.

Jackson shrugged his shoulders, clicking his tongue. "Only if you want it to."

"That's cryptic." Aliya muttered, still deciding to take a sip whilst the two went their separate ways.

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The Oxford English Dictionary defined Sanctuary as a refuge or safety from a pursuit or other danger.

It came from the Latin word sanctus which translated to 'holy'.

A sanctuary differed from person to person, but usually holds a particular special meaning, or memory to the person in question.

A person could have multiple different sanctuaries, or just have that one singular place that could make them feel instantly calm and at ease. A sanctuary could be a building or a city, it could even be a person. It could be anything at all, anything you wanted it to be.

If Aliya was given the choice to choose her own sanctuary, she wouldn't know what to say.

Countless options would spring to mind but neither one was enough, every place she had gone to just reminded her of old memories she tried her hardest to not ever think about. However, she did have two front runner options.

Option one, the coffee shop just five minutes away from her dorm room at Columbia University.

The thing she loved most about that place was the warm glow of the light bulbs, illuminating the rustic wooden bookshelves placed on most of the walls, filled up with old classics and leather bound collectibles, secured safely behind glass and padlocks.

The smell of fresh ground coffee would always bring her comfort. But, a smell could barely count as a sanctuary.

However, that same old coffee shop was the place where she first met Elijah, but it was the place where she found she got accepted for the internship at Seattle Grace Hospital, which brought her so much more than anybody could ever give her, even if it also bought her enough heartbreak for a lifetime.

That brings us to option two, Seattle Grace Mercy West Hospital. Out of the three places she had ever lived, Seattle became her most favourite place, ahead of both New York and Los Angeles for that matter.

She didn't even mind the rain, or the storms. She personally found them quite relaxing.

Seattle would forever be the place where she just fit. Like her missing piece that she had been searching for all this time.

Where she truly felt the sense of belonging because, despite the initial reluctance into become a doctor, she couldn't imagine being anywhere else in the world. Seattle will always be more of a home to her than any other place could.

Hospitals had always reminded her of her childhood, having spent most of her life in one, waiting for her parents to finish surgery. And now, she was the one performing the surgery. She was the surgeon here.

Like Meredith Grey, they both related to how they used to wander the halls as children, watching patients through the windows, colouring happily on old ER charts.

Seattle Grace Mercy West Hospital allowed a multitude of doctors to take their minds of their personal crap and work to save lives.

They all had the same goal in the long run.

Even though the smell of latex gloves and hand sanitizers could never top the scent of coffee grounds or newly polished wood, it was still a sanctuary.

Her sanctuary.

If her sanctuary were a person, however, her sanctuary took the form of Alex Karev.

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Thirty minutes ago, Aliya got the weird page, notifying her that they were currently in lockdown, leaving her stuck on the general floor where she had to spend her time pacing back and forth, weaving around the corridors and visiting a couple of her patients to make sure they were okay.

What more could a girl do when she was stuck in one singular part of the hospital? For no apparent reason.

"Hey." The brunette smiled at Andy as she approached the Nurses station.

Andy's lips twitched as she scanned the woman with suspicion, looking away from the chart on her lap. "You're perky." She commented, returning back to her work.

"Am I not usually perky?" Aliya grinned, resting her chin on her palm.

"You are usually very perky, Aliya, but you don't skip around like a third grader." Andy gestured at her, pushing her chair closer to the computer where she began to type slowly, looking over the top of her frames which rested on the end of her nose.

"Fair point." Aliya shrugged her shoulders in agreement of the statement, tapping her fingertips on the desk, watching Andy with a grin as she tried to work out modern technology, which he seemed to have trouble with. Moving to the other side of the desk, she peered over Andy's shoulder. "You have to press enter to log on."

"I knew that." Andy quickly spoke, pressing the key Aliya instructed her to press.

"That was the backspace button." Aliya leaned to press the correct button, the screen welcoming Andy as it logged on.

"Oh." Andy whispered, straightening in her seat.

The Levine woman chuckled to herself. "Do you know what this lockdown is for?"

Andy shrugged, using the mouse to scroll even slower down the page with a bucketload of concentration.

"No idea, honey. No one knows." She looked up, a sly smile on her face. "Not even noisy nurse Susan."

Aliya laughed to herself at the nicknames Andy had single-handedly coined for every single nurse and doctor, slipping up to sit on the counter next to where Andy was working. "This floor is nice to be stuck on though, it has the good donuts—"

The Levine girl couldn't even inform Andy that the general floor also happened to be the one she was stuck on, so at least she was in good company, seeing as she was stopped by an ear splitting noise sounding through the corridor.

"Was that a—" Aliya spun her head to look around in the direction of the noise, where she watched a first year surgical resident fall to the ground right in front of her eyes.

That moment in time slowed for her as she watched the lifeless dull blue eyes of a young woman staring back at her.

Aliya's hand flew straight up to her mouth, clasping it tight and suppressing a scream as the footsteps grew closer at an increased speed, matching the rhythm of Aliya's own heart crashing and rioting inside her chest.

It was gunshot.

The noise was a freaking gunshot.

Her brown eyes appeared to be frozen on the blood creating a crimson puddle on the shiny tiled floor, her whole body beginning to shake violently, and all of her thoughts were made incoherent.

Instantaneously, the halls erupted into chaos as everyone occupying them began to scream and dart in opposite directions in frantic attempts to get away from something.

Someone.

A man dressed in a tan coloured coat and white shirt stepped out into the hallway, directly in Aliya's field of vision. He wasn't tall, nor was he short. But, he had a gun lazily held in his hand. Like it was some sort of accessory. Like it was natural to hold it out in the open. In a freaking hospital.

With another gun shot aimed in the opposite direction from where she and Andy stood, Aliya quickly snapped back into reality, whipping her head back to Andy, who was standing still, sat there in shock.

Aliya quickly grabbed ahold of the nurse's scrubs, pulling her to the ground with her so the desk could at least cover them, and she used the tip of her toes to push her back tight against the cold wood of the desk, making a failed attempt at slowing her breathing right down.

"He shot—" Andy murmured, her breath catching in her throat. "He shot her!"

Aliya scratched her neck, trembling from underneath the desk which didn't seem to muffle any of the screams going on around her.

She didn't know what to do.

She had never experienced anything like this before.

Who brings a gun into the damn hospital?

"It's going to be fine, if we just stay here, stay quiet, we'll be— Andy!" Aliya hissed as the woman in question began to crawl away from the protection of the desk. The brunette reached out to pull her back, but Andy was already too far away, moving across the floor to where the first year resident from before lay motionless.

See, nobody even bothered to look at a clock to get her time of death.

It really didn't matter in the long run.

"Shit." Aliya hissed, pressing her head to the cool wood of the desk as she took a deep, but insanely shaking breath, her mind unable to comprehend what the hell was going on.

It was as if everything around her was moving so fast that her brain couldn't even begin to process it.

As fast as she could in that moment, she poked her head around in an attempt to pull Andy back behind the desk to safety, but it was too late.

She was too late.

Nothing in the world could have been useful in the very moment Aliya's heart sunk, as the man with the gun aimed directly at Andy, on the ground trying to help the young girl, and fired.

The shot sent Andy recoiling back in line with Aliya — a gunshot wound embedded deep into her chest, staining her nurse scrubs red.

Now that man was holding that damn gun with purpose.

He was not lazy with it.

He was a killer.

Aliya knew she would look back on that very moment and analyse every single detail of that man's face, how his lip twitched slightly, taking joy in the harm and havoc he was causing, as if ending a life proved satisfactory for him. Like it was a job well done.

That mental image would send a surge of red hot hatred through all the alive staff members of Seattle Grace Mercy West, as they thought about the people he had taken away from their family and friends.

For now at least, Aliya's eyes wandered down to Andy's wound, her voice catching in her throat as panic consumed her fully, no words appeared before her as she stared blankly at the nurse.

She couldn't loose Andy, she just couldn't.

Aliya reached out to her, but Andy shook her head as her eyes widened in blunt shock from where she lay, her brown eyes tear stained and glassy whilst she waved her hand weakly, pointing at Aliya to hide as the man with the gun turned his back on them in search for his next victim.

The Levine woman understood exactly what Andy was asking of her, but she shook her head in dismissal, shuffling across the tiles further to reach out to Andy.

"Hide!" Andy muttered, her breathing laboured, her hand clutching her chest. "Until he's gone."

The odd gunshots were still being fired from the corridors around them, each one resulting in Aliya's heart and head to pound and scream, no matter how quieter they were now going off.

"Like hell."

As her legs shook with fear, Aliya ignored Andy as she rose with bent knees, scanning for any traces of gun holding murderers going on killing rampages. She could still hear the distant screams, indicating he wasn't as close to the pair as she thought.

"Aliya, go!" Andy hissed again through rapid hand gestures, trying to wave her away. Aliya ignored her yet again, wrapping her hands around Andy's arms to drag her through the nurses station door, out of sight. Apart from the blood now staining the ground where she dragged Andy across.

As they reached inside, Aliya shut the door as quietly as she possibly could, propping Andy up onto her lap, pressing her hand tight against the wound in an attempt to stop the bleeding until help arrived.

But, the blood just kept multiplying.

"Okay—" Aliya gulped, her voice wavering, pressing even harder as if suppressing her own rising panic, which only caused Andy to wince more in pain. "You'll be okay. I just need to keep pressure on this, and then help will come."

It was wishful thinking.

Blood began to line Andy's lips, staining away their natural pink colour. Aliya reached over to the draws by the side of her, staining each and every draw handle with fresh blood as she began rummaging through every single one with her free hand until she found some spare gauze, piling them on the top of Andy's wound.

The blood only spilled out through Aliya's fingers even more as the red immediately soaked through gauze. She grabbed some more, ripping each packet open with as much strength as she could channel, piling them onto the wound.

"Aliya—" Andy stuttered through her unsteady gasps of breath, her chest heaving as she attempted to breathe easier, though judging by the placement of the gunshot, it must've gone straight through her heart.

"No." Aliya told her as she shook her head quickly, as if she was trying to deny what was happening around her.

She knew exactly what was coming. She knew Andy would start giving a speech that Aliya didn't want or need right now. But, it was one she wouldn't know she needed until she looked back on that very moment, as she mourned, screamed and cried in a desperate attempt to recover from this.

"You'll be fine! Don't cry! You're going to be okay. More than okay, even." Aliya assured as best she could, though her own head was spinning, her mind lagging behind, unwilling to fully take in what was going on right in front of her, and the possibility of Andy dying.

Andy couldn't die, right?

People like Andy can't die.

There were some people perceived as immortal, so loved that the possibility of them dying wasn't even an option. She couldn't fathom the woman that Aliya saw everyday, who held her hand when she made her first life threatening mistake, who invited her to ever party she ever held, who paged her for all the good cases.

The woman who became a mother figure to her.

She couldn't imagine not seeing her in the halls, the hospital would feel so empty to her without Andy in it. Aliya didn't want to think about her not being just a phone call away, or around the corner, or on the floor below.

Andy brought her hand up, tapping Aliya's elbow to draw her attention back to her, her weak hand dropping back down into the floor instantly, too weak to hold it up for one second. "Aliya, please, listen to—"

"No, I don't need to. Tell me later." Aliya shrugged her off, her eyes blurring through the tears gathering at her eyelids. "God! Out of all the things I thought might happen today, this would be incredibly low on the list."

"Aliya." Andy's hand reached up to her again, this time to her cheek, cupping it gently.

The contact made Aliya finally stop and still in her frustration, her head dropping slightly as she leaned far into Andy's hand. Tears began to stream down her face, leaving rivers down her cheeks, dropping on Andy's palm.

"Listen to me, honey." A small, muffled sound escaped Aliya's lips as she reached a hand up to hold Andy's against her face, she didn't care about the blood on her fingertips, staining her cheeks and forehead. "I'm fifty eight years old. I don't have any children, and most of my family are dead. The only thing I have in this world is this job, my friends, my dog and, well, you. You are the closest thing I have ever had to a daughter, and I'm forever grateful that I was given the opportunity to know you. To love you like you were my own."

"Don't do this— please." Aliya begged, but Andy continued relentlessly, physically ripping Aliya's heart out of her chest.

"You're smart. You're capable. And, most of all you're kind. You're going to go on to do great things in this world, and I have every faith in you." Andy smiled despite it all, her lips trembling as a tear escaped from her eye, her thumb rubbing against Aliya's cheek, wiping her tears away. "I'm so proud of the surgeon you have become. And, I know sometimes it's hard, but don't let anyone stop you from doing what you love, and what you need. Especially those parents of yours. And, I want you to be happy. You may feel like it sometimes, but you're not alone. A person like you could never be alone. Tell me you'll remember that."

Aliya's eyes glistened from the tears and the harsh white lights shining down her eyes.  "I'll remember." She cried, her chest clenching in panic. "I'll remember."

The tears intensified into floods, and she struggled to breath, inhaling quick breathes, blinking back even more tears threatening to escape, squeezing Andy's hand tighter, as if trying to force her to hold on more. To hold onto life more even though she was giving that specific speech you reserve for the last one you'll ever give.

"I love you, Andy." She told the woman on her lap.

"I love you too, Aliya." Andy squeezed her hand back weakly. "Aliya— my dog— he's old, but I don't want him to go to a shelter or a— a p—pound, I—"

"I'll look after him." Her voice sounded more like a croak, barely audible, but Andy still smiled in gratitude.

"Thank y—" Andy froze slowly, her last breath escaping her blood stained and blue lips. Her last tear breaking free from her eye, sliding down her cheek before dropping onto her nurses scrubs.

Aliya's breath caught in her throat, Andy's hand still in hers as she felt her skin already turn as cold as ice.

"No." The brunette breathed through the intensifying panic rising in her chest. She didn't realised the gauze was completely crimson at this point, the red staining everything around her.

The blue of her scrub shirt was now stained a deathly shade of red, so much so that it was hardly even blue anymore.

Her head dropped down as she began to cry heavily into Andy's shoulder, unable to hold in her cries much longer.

As her cries continued, her shoulders only shook more violently, her hands moving from the gauze to wrap themselves around Andy's neck, holding onto her tighter before the cries filtered out into struggling for gasps for air, in between her earth shattering sobs.

After what felt like years sat next to Andy's body, Aliya just knew that her last smile would be imprinted in her mind until she took her own last breath. She now knew that this very place in the hospital would forever remind her of this day. This time. This moment.

She would remember the sounds of the blood gushing, the gauze ripping, Andy's panting breaths escaping her mouth. Her own heart beat ringing in her ears.

And oh god, the gun shots.

Every single life ending one of them. Every time she passed there, she would have to relive that very moment.

The gun shots would inevitably reflect in footsteps, in the nervous tapping of fingernails against hard surfaces. Her heart would beat against her chest, and remind her of those consecutive gunshots.

One after the other.

Especially the one that ended the life of the woman in front of her. That would remind her of the moment where nothing could be the exact same again.

This hospital was no freaking sanctuary to her anymore.

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The line connected with a static crackle as a police officer clicked onto a new call from Dr. Aliya Levine.

"The shooter— he—he just left the general ward on level three." Her heavy breathing crackled through the speakers.

Doctor Webber turning his attention over to her words. "Is that Levine?"

The police officer nodded, pointing over to where her name was on the screen.

"He shot Dr. Francine Zachary, and Nurse An—Andy— Andrea— Burman."

Richard stilled as he heard Andy's name and his head ducked.

"T—They're dead."

Andy had been at Seattle Grace nearly at the same time as Richard Webber, he knew her as a good friend and an exceptional nurse.

"He's headed towards the catwalk." Aliya finished, the radio snapping off as she hung up.

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( notes! )

did i cry whilst writing this chapter? yes, yes i did. was it my own fault? yes, yes it was.

but, i think we can all mutually agree that gary clarke sucks and we all say that in unison whilst holding candles for our sweet andy, the best girlie pops ever, you shall be missed. rip to aliya's only parental figure and the woman who is literally sunshine in a fifty six year old woman's body. we love you andy 💗💗

this episode is SO SO stressful omg my hair grey's every time i watch it just from the five stages of grief i go through whilst watching these episodes!! but dare i say one of the best season finales ever??

check back for the shooting part 2!! emotional warfare take 2!!! our girl aliya is really gonna go through it, our girlie has trauma with a capital T

( word count! — 5,300 )