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chapter eighteen ━ shock to the system
& superfreak
season seven, episode two & three

❝ did i just walk into
a coming of age movie? ❞

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When Aliya was a baby her mother thought she was the wrong one. Mainly because she read in the newspaper that children were being swapped around in the nursery. But, the main reason to her thought process was that her first two children were perfect.

Perfect temperament.

Perfect drawings that were hung on the fridge.

Perfect sleepers.

Something Aliya was not. She was nocturnal as a baby. She stayed up screaming all night that drove her mother to insanity. Her mother did, however forget to mention the colic part of the story but, who was Aliya to correct her.

That certain characteristic of being an insomniac carried over as Aliya grew up, even though when she was a baby, it was mainly illness induced.

It might have something to do with the amount of coffee she consumed on a daily basis but, Aliya would never give up her beloved coffee.

So, in summation, it was no surprise that after the shooting Aliya couldn't sleep.

No amount of concealer, eye cream or colour corrector could conceal the dark circles that adorned her under eyes. And, sometimes the pills she was prescribed didn't even work.

She just simply lay awake at night with her childhood walkman (that Alex claimed was outdated, but she found it incredibly comforting), staring up at the ceiling questioning her existence.

At around two in the morning and four hours of trying to actually go to sleep, Aliya reached blindly over to her bedside table, turning it on.

She blinked a few times, her eyes adjusting to the infiltration of light as the noise she had heard just a few seconds before sounded again over her music, loud enough that even her ear buds blasting music didn't block it out.

The brunette tugged one of the buds out, her face strained as she paused to see if she could hear anything. When there was nothing, she assumed it was just a cat screaming or a wild animal going feral, but her hand paused with the ear bud again as the noise sounded once more.

(Spoiler Alert! It was definitely not a cat.)

Aliya took the other ear bud out, abandoning them both on her besides table as she slipped out of her bed. Not worrying about the cold hardwood floor on her bare feet, she pulled back the creaky door to look out and down the corridor, the tree lurking in front of the window sending reflections out onto the hallway walls, making this whole thing even more sinister than it already was.

She narrowed her eyes at the continuing screams, padding further down the hall, searching for the source of the noise, her own heart drumming in her chest.

Finally, she stopped short in front of Jackson's room, pausing in front of his door as the scream appeared yet again through the wood.

She pressed her against it, her face screwing up as she heard his screams, and something seemed to possess her as she burst through the door, her eyes instantly settling on the Avery man, tangled up in his blanket, shaking back and forth in a battle with his sheets, a panic look on his face as his eyes remained bolted shut, his limbs thrashing around on the mattress.

"Jackson?" She whispered, cautious of him as he continued to kick around. Her hands knotted around her stomach as she moved closer into the room.

"Charles!" The name slipped out from his mouth during mid-scream.

"Hey! Hey!" Aliya approached him quickly, placing her hands on his shoulders as she tried to steady him. And, in an attempt to wake him up, she pushed him down onto the mattress, trying to ease him back into consciousness.

As soon as her skin made contact with his, Aliya watched as Jackson's eyes flew open from the contact, widening and dazed as he finally woke up from the nightmare he was reliving.

His chest began to heave, and he flew bolt up right, trying to get his breathing under control.

Aliya racked her brain around for some helpful advice, but believe or not she never found herself in this kind of situation before, so she just settled on: "Just breathe, okay?"

Totally unconsciously, her hands found their way to his cheeks, as if willing him to breathe at the same pace as her.

His eyes fell onto hers, his pupils wide as he focused on her, and how there was the tiniest ring of lighter brown in her eyes, that almost looked like the colour of a corn field.

He had never noticed that about her eyes before, and he mentally kicked himself for that. And, he could only imagine how they looked like in the sun.

"Your hands are cold." He spoke, rather breathless and disorientated.

"Oh." She pulled her hands away carefully, balling them into her lap quickly, away from his cheeks. "Sorry— Bad circulation. The worst in the state, let me tell you, um—"

He wiped his eyes with his hand. "Did I wake you up?"

She shook her head as he shuffled on the mattress, before slouching against the head board. "I was already up."

Jackson nodded, reaching across to grab his water from the bedside table, bringing it to his lips before taking a long sip.

Aliya tried to look everywhere but him, but it turned out that was impossible. "How long has this been going on for?" She asked, carefully.

"You know, you should get back to bed. We have to be up in—" His eyes flickered over to his clock, clearing his throat. "Five hours, and I need my beauty sleep."

He placed the water back down, his eyes wandering back to Aliya, though she clearly had other plans seeing as she remained sat upright on the end of his bed, staring at him intently.

Though, he simply raised a brow at her, frowning away the curve of his own traitorous lip. "You're not moving."

She sighed, throwing her head back, realising how insanely and overwhelmingly tired she actually was. "I'm rallying up my last available iota of energy."

Jackson looked at her more closely then, the small amount of light in the room casting reflections across her face, lighting up her sunken cheekbones and drowsy eyes. "You can't sleep too?" He deduced, truly seeing how much she had changed over the past however many weeks.

"What's it to you?" Aliya brushed him off, her voice light-hearted.

Jackson clicked his tongue, shaking his head at the brunette. "Don't do that."

"Do what?"

"Pretend it's all fine when it's not." He replied back instantly, watching her facial expression shift, her eyes dropping away, boring holes into the floor. "Which brings me back to the original question. You can't sleep?"

Aliya sighed, begrudgingly answer him. "No, Jackson, I cannot sleep, is it that obvious?"

He gave her a weak smile then, fighting the overwhelming urge to reach for her hand. "Ever since—"

"Ever since." She confirmed with a slight nod, smiling lazily at him. Though, he knew it was all an act to tell the world how fine she was, but he hoped that one of these days she wouldn't have to fake it around him. "Sleep depravity never looked this good, I'm sure of it."

He chuckled quietly at her attempt at a joke at two o'clock in the morning.

"Ever since, huh?" She angled her head in his direction.

He narrowed his eyes at the woman dressed in a shirt which he was pretty sure had a mitochondria on it with a six pack, and he wondered how his life had resulted to this particular moment. "You're pushy."

She smirked, shrugging her shoulders. "I prefer delightful, thank you very much."

"And, stubborn." He looked her up and down, causing Aliya to suddenly feel heat to rush up her neck and to her cheeks, glad that this interaction was happening at night, so Jackson couldn't see her blush like a sixteen year old with a crush on the captain of the freaking football team.

"Pushy and stubborn." She marvelled, shaking off the erratic butterflies fighting for survival in her stomach. "Remind me on my deathbed to not make you write my eulogy."

He nodded, thoughtfully in the dim light of his bedroom. "Noted."

"So..." She moved around, causing the old mattress to creak slightly as she settled her back on the head board right next to Jackson.

She didn't know what she was doing.

And, she wasn't sure she even had control over her own body.

She didn't know whether or not it was near death experiences, or the life long trauma accumulated over the years that made her stay in his room, she didn't even look at Jackson's reaction to her making herself comfortable in his bed.

"Michael Jackson?" She commented on the stack of CD's on Jackson's bedside table, and she found herself wanting to know more about him.

Because, even if she didn't actually want to admit it, she wanted to know everything about him.

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"Sounds big." Jackson commented as pagers buzzed from pockets, tables and benches all at once in the residents lounge. "I'm betting M.V.C."

"Multiple M.V.C., or an apartment fire." Alex chimed in, pulling his stethoscope from his cubby, slipping it into his pocket.

Aliya narrowed her eyes at him, lurching forward to prod him in the abdomen, her hand contacting exactly where his gun shot wound was. Even under her fingertips she could feel the jolted, unnatural edges of the bullet at the surface of his skin.

"Ow!" Alex reacted, pushing her hands away with lowered brows, rubbing his side in agony. "Are you crazy?"

"You're crazy for still having a foreign object lodged inside you!" The brunette exclaimed angrily, reaching to poke him in the same space again.

"Back off!" He batted her hand away yet again, attempting to dodge her.

"You're a coward, Karev!" The Levine woman yelled back as he stormed out of the lounge, her hair swinging around her face as she turned back to Mer, Cristina, Jackson and April, who were all watching her carefully. "He's being ridiculous." She scoffed, turning back to the door, watching as if expecting him to magically reappear, declaring he'd get it removed first thing in the morning.

"Just give him time. He'll come to his senses." Meredith ensured her, reaching to squeeze Aliya's shoulder in comfort.

Aliya simply frowned. "He never comes to his senses. I make him come to his senses. Every good decision he makes is because I force him. I'm basically his moral compass." She stated, pushing up from the bench to grab her scrub top, shrugging it over the top of her red long sleeve.

"It's true." Lexie appeared behind them, having heard the very last section of the conversation, she could vouch for Aliya, having witnessed many occasions Aliya had saved Alex from eternal moral damnation.

"When is the staring going to stop?" April whispered, cautiously looking back at the other residents in their year behind them, all of them giving the group judging looks, some even looked at them in awe.

Jackson swivelled his head slightly to make eye contact with one of the gawking residents. "As soon as the novelty wears off."

Aliya did the same, frowning at one who instantly averted his eyes as they met hers. "Or, when they find something else that excites them more than their own lives."

"Just ignore them." Jackson advised, slipping on his own scrub top, similar turning his back on the gawkers.

The thing was, Aliya really tried to ignore the whispers.

"How are they even alive right now!"

"They should be dead—"

"Grey's the one who crazy in the ER—"

"Wasn't that Levine?"

"She was the one who had a gun aimed at her head—"

"Wasn't that Yang?"

"I think they both did—"

"Man, I'd go crazy if that happened—"

But, sometimes it all just got a little too much.

"Yes!" Lexie finally cracked, reaching her breaking point. "Okay, I'm the crazy one! I am the one who freaks out and screams at people! Like that." Her pager buzzed from her pocket and she reached down to retrieve it, mumbling something incoherent under her breath.

Meredith took a sip of her coffee, before turning to the residents on the other side of the room. "Go gawk at each other for a while." They took her order and filtered out of the room, trailing behind each other with their tails between their legs. "Are you okay?"

"Would everybody please just stop asking if I am ok? Ok?" The youngest Grey snapped, untangling her hair from her white coat, pacing out of the residents lounge and down the hall.

"Do you ever think we are just going to be like this forever?" Aliya pondered, dropping her chin into her palm, gnawing on the inside of her cheek, wishing all of this would actually make sense. It seemed like it never would, because how could someone go from alive and breathing, to stone cold? "The laughing stock? It can't be like this forever, can it?"

The brunette furrowed her brows, searching for reassurance from Meredith or Cristina.

Though they proved no help.

Cristina just pulled a disgusted look at the brunette, her eyes flickering down to her.

"Why does she have to be in her feelings all the time?" Cristina questioned to Meredith meanwhile pointing at Aliya with her oat granola bar.

"Yeah, yeah." Aliya shrugged her off with a pout.

"It won't be like it forever," However, taking her by surprise, Jackson piped up, shrugging on his lab coat as she rose from the bench. "They'll find something new to obsess over, just you wait."

His smile reassured her, and as a reaction to that foreign feeling inside her chest, she hid behind her coffee cup.

For the first time, Aliya felt like she didn't actually need coffee. She didn't need it to stay awake because, even though she only got three hours sleep, because most of her night was spent talking to the green eyed man standing before her, it was the best three hours sleep she had gotten in a long time.

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"Ok, multiple burn victims, two with paralysis, three with vision loss, one— uh— blown eardrum and one dislocated hip." Callie shuffled through the patient clipboards as Aliya, Lexie and April approached her.

Lexie reached to tie up her trauma gown, peering around the emergency room. "House fire?"

"Explosion?" April guessed.

Alex appeared behind the trio, seemingly not a grouchy as he was a few minutes ago. "Car wreck?"

"Uh, act of God." Callie described what was going on the best she could, her eyes scanning over the charts in her hand.

"Act of God?" Bailey questioned, sceptically.

"Yeah—" The Torres woman nodded, turning to the woman behind her. "Lightening strike."

Alex shook his head, disbelieved. "All this from one lightening strike?"

"One lightening strike, eight victims. Took out a whole flag football team." Callie sighed, beginning to hand out the clipboards as she finally got them organised in her hand.

Aliya's jaw hung wide in surprise, moving out of the way as an injured patient was wheeled in front of her, burns all across his chest. "Someone must've really pissed the big guy off." She commented, with widened (and semi-excited) eyes.

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"So," The Levine woman clicked her tongue as she sutured her patient's head lac, whilst Aled was working on his foot at the same time. "Flag football?"

"Let me guess, you're gonna ask Why don't you play just regular old football?" Warren muttered with a grimace, casting a look in the doctor's direction, his arm crossed over his stomach.

Though, Aliya shook her head, pulling back on the suture. "I wasn't going to ask that." She promised, narrowing her eyes to focus on her work.

"Yeah you were." The patient sighed, a frown on his face. "You were going to ask why I play it."

"I promise you I wasn't." She replied back, her voice light hearted in an attempt to get him to see that she wasn't actually mocking him. "Some of my friends in college used to play it in their free time, and I played a couple times, so I would be a bit of a hypocrite if I was judging you."

"You played flag football?" He questioned at the same time Alex scoffed and exclaimed the exact same thing, which to that Warren frowned at the Karev man. "It's not a bad thing." He defended, quickly, his brief smile falling from his face.

"I mean, I'm not a professional, but I know my way around a pitch." She shrugged, tying off the end of the suture, before adding: "And, don't listen to him. We don't listen to him." Aliya angled her head to her best friend (who she wasn't actually speaking to).

"We're like a family. Our team." He cleared his throat, wincing as Alex pulled the suture on his leg wound. "I— I don't know what I would do without them."

"I'm looking for Warren Griffith." Meredith's voice called across the emergency room.

"That's me!" Warren called out, raising his hand as he shifted on the gurney. "Oh, I feel kind of queasy." He announced, placing a hand on his stomach.

"You've got a little fever. That may be why." Alex informed him, finally finished the sutures as he wrapped a bandage around his leg. "You got hit the hardest. Looks like it went into your neck and came out your foot."

"And, you're saying it bounced off me and hit everyone else?" Warren gulped back the lump in his throat, pressing a shaky hand to his head. "I took out the whole team?"

"It's not like it's your fault." Alex grumbled a reply, looking up at Warren who was on the verge of tears, though it seemed the Karev man meant the very opposite.

"Kinda feels that way." He said, self-deprecatingly.

"You can't blame yourself." Aliya said softly, though she was more concerned with the way he was gripping ahold of his abdomen. "Do you have any stomach pain? Do you mind if I take a look?"She questioned, and once he nodded his head, her hands moved over to examine him.

"I mean, a little." He winced slightly as she applied some pressure to his stomach, making a sharp intake of breath.

"I'm going to need an ultra scan." Aliya said to herself more to anyone else, pulling the one next to his bed a little closer.

"I can't remember any of it." He shook his head in disbelief, looking away from all the doctors, as if he was embarrassed about the whole thing. "How about my friend, Kerry? Is she okay?"

"She's wondering the same thing about you." Meredith responded as she approached his gurney, causing the guy on the bed to the left of them to dart up from his previously slouched over position, leaning closer into their conversation.

"She what? She asked about— me? Specifically?" Warren pushed himself up even further, a broad smile dancing across his lips. "Well, what did she say?"

Meredith blinked, gawking as she assessed all the grown ass men eavesdropping into this conversation. "Are you people in junior high?"

"I almost told her!" Before anyone could confirm or deny that questions, a blonde haired man rushed over to Warren and the dark haired man to the right of them, adding to the complete chaos. "I tried to but I— I'm going to tell her."

"What are you talking about?" Warren questioned whilst Aliya tried to sort out the ultrasound in the middle of the crowd huddling around them.

"Kerry. I tried to tell her I— I love her, but her, her ears are all messed up and—" The blonde man announced with rapid and clumsy hand gestures.

"Ah!" Warren groaned in pain as he slipped from the gurney, away from where Aliya was just trying to give him a damn ultrasound.

Aliya opened her mouth to protest, but it really wasn't any use. That man was on a mission. "Oh— Warren—"

"Woah, woah, woah, you gotta sit down!" Alex moved from his stool towards Warren who caught himself on the mattress of the gurney, holding onto it to support himself.

"Where are you going?" The blonde haired love confessing man asked him.

"I gotta tell her. I get to tell her." Warren babbled repeatedly, looking around the ER rapidly in search of the infamous Kerry.

"Guys, guys, look, leave her alone. All right, she could've died out there. And besides, she's, like, mine." Now, the dark haired man was talking, earning a look of disgust from both Meredith and Aliya.

Which then m led to all three potential love interests pushing each other slightly around in a circle like some weird mating battle, where they started bickering about Kerry and who she belonged to.

Though, she really didn't belong to anyone.

And, it was bold of any one of them to assume that fact.

"Warren! You need to sit down!" Aliya called out, but it was no use, they all started to hurtle towards Trauma One like a pack of rabid wild animals.

It was crazy.

The lot of them are idiots.

Insane, freaking love-struck idiots.

Maybe love-struck was a bad choice of words?

The brunette woman looked down at the ultrasound in her hand with a frown, seeing as she didn't even have anyone to use it on now.

"This is why falling in love is dumb." She muttered in disgust.

Now, she was speaking to an ultrasound machine, and she couldn't get more crazy than that.

And, after pausing for a few moments, revelling in her crazy, she snapped out of it to follow Alex and Meredith into the trauma room.

"Warren! I need to check your abdomen!" Aliya yelled as she entered, pushing past Mer and Alex to reach him, although she doubted she was heard over the others arguing over her.

"Guys, stop it!" Meredith shouted over the noise.

"Oh for the love of— did I just walk into a coming of age movie?" Aliya glanced back and forth between all three men, and the woman in the gurney with a mangled ear with narrowed and extremely judgy eyes.

"Everybody shut up! Shut up!" Kerry ordered, silencing the men with one wave of her hand, her eyes widening at all three of her suitors. "Okay, Warren. You talk."

He smiled in victory, moving a step closer towards the girl.

Aliya was secretly rooting for him, she liked an underdog.

"Kerry. I—" He choked on his words, his face growing paler by the second as his lips clamped shut, swallowing back something in his throat.

Aliya moved a step closer, her brows narrowed, and the man began to choke on his own breath, and immediately after that, blood started to leave his lips, dripping down his chin.

"Oh my God!" Kerry exclaimed in panic.

"Warren!" Aliya called out as he lost his balance, falling into the arms of the dark haired man, who looked as if he wished it were Kerry falling into his very arms. "Page Bailey, now!"

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—✩—
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"Warren, you have a perforation, a hole, somewhere in your bowel." Dr. Bailey pointed at the ultrasound scan, now that Warren was conscious again, rather than face down on the floor. "We're going to have to take you up to surgery."

"Tell Kerry I'm sorry." Warren murmured, staring down at his balled up hands in his lap. "Tell her I'm sorry I hit her with lightening."

"Hey," Bailey pursed her lips, patting his arm gently. "Don't you worry."

"You can tell her yourself." Aliya told him, tucking the bed sheet up  over his stomach now Bailey had finished with the ultrasound.

Warren shook his head, clutching a handful of sheets in his hands. "No, she's just the sweetest, funniest— she's just— just please make sure she's okay."

"Okay. We will. We're going to take care of you now." Bailey assured as someone arrived to wheel him to pre-op. "All right, who do I have? Who's free?" She turned on her heel, assessing the options of residents laid out before her.

If it were up to her, she would probably rather do surgery alone, without a resident by her side, especially one of her own.

(Seeing as they all were a pain in her behind, her words.)

"I'm free. I'm good! I'll go!" Lexie, a possible option, rushed over to her, stopping short in front of Bailey with a manic expression of desperation.

"He's my patient! I'll take him." Alex grumbled in return, tucking the chart up and under in the safety of his armpit.

"Hey, he's mine too." Aliya pointed out, reaching over to tug said chart out from under him. "And, besides, I'm cleared for surgery. And, I don't have a foreign object lodged inside me."

Alex flashed her a look, open my his mouth to speak though Bailey got there first.

"Okay, Levine, go prep him. Alex, book an OR, you can watch from the gallery." Bailey ordered, earning a grimace from Alex, who looked at Aliya, his face like a thunder storm as she bounced off victorious.

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—✩—
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"This boy got it bad." Bailey sighed, now they were in the operating room. "Ok, throw a stitch in there." She instructed Aliya, who did exactly that as Bailey held her hand out for the suction, receiving it which cued the gurgling sound over the top of the monitor beating rhythmically.

The general surgeon briefly looked up at Alex, who was standing behind Aliya, watching closely as they operated on Warren.

It seemed Bailey had changed her mind. Rather than making Alex sit up in the gallery to observe the surgery, he would stand right behind Aliya's shoulder, observing.

Otherwise, he would've gotten way too comfortable. And if he wasn't actually going to operate, at least he could gain a back ache.

Besides, he deserved it in Aliya's eyes.

"Staph infection, which causes cellulitis. An abscess." Bailey began to list, her eyes returning back to Warren's bowels.

"Possibly MRSA." Aliya added to the list of reasons why Alex's bullet remaining in his chest was a terrible idea, pulling back on the surgical stitch.

"Possibly MRSA." Bailey repeated with a nod of her head. "Which could lead to sepsis and death. All this could happen in Dr. Karev's chest if he doesn't have that bullet removed."

"I'll cross that bridge when I come to it." Alex replied, earning a loud and exaggerated scoff from Aliya, which he responded with an eye roll she could not see. "Can I leave now?"

"No, you can stand right there to make sure you don't get into anyone else's OR. Not until you're led free." Bailey ordered, and the evil burst of laughter the brunette let out was loud enough to be heard over the suction.

"You're loving this, aren't you?" Alex questioned her, who was smiling gleefully from beneath her mask.

"Oh," Aliya briefly looked over her shoulder, and though he could only see her eyes, they lit up like a Christmas tree in Times Square. "Absolutely, Dr. Karev."

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—✩—
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One Aliya Levine was feeling pretty joyful, seeing as she had spent the past several hours spent lecturing her best friend on why having a bullet lodged inside of you chest really wasn't the way to move forward.

He really wasn't seeming to get why it bothered her that much.

He wouldn't know.

Because, he wasn't there for the ten hours she was sat by his bedside, willing him to wake up, crying into his sheets at the thought of another person she cared about dying in front of her very eyes.

She retrieved her phone from her pocket, turning it on as her eyes flicked over the dozen messages she had received whilst in surgery.

⠀
SUMMER VASQUEZ (7:35pm)

Hey my fave brunette! (Don't tell Mae)
How are you doing? I tried to call you
but there was no answer, you must've
been in surgery. Are you free next week
at all? I'm back from Los Angeles on
Tuesday so PLEASE tell me you're free,
I need my Aliya fix xoxo

⠀
ALIYA LEVINE (11:23pm)

HAHA you're my fave brunette too!
(don't tell mae) yes you're right, i was
in surgery, lovely bowel obstruction, i
should be free wednesday!

how are you doing? have you gotten
over those headaches you've been having?

⠀
SUMMER VASQUEZ (11:27pm)

Wednesday sounds good, we could
do dinner? I need a glass (bottle) of
wine!

I'm fine, don't you worry about me.

You're okay, though? Taking those
sleeping pills?

⠀
ALIYA LEVINE (11:28pm)

i'm fine, sum, i promise.
i'm taking the pills, they're
working thank god
⠀

Truthfully, Aliya had stopped taking those sleeping pills, seeing as they didn't even work.

As if on cue, she yawned into her palm to prove that fact, tapping off of the messages from Summer and opening the one from Mae.

⠀
MAE PARK (7:45pm)

Hi Aliya, do you notice anything
weird about Summer?

⠀
ALIYA LEVINE (11:29pm)

hey mae, yeah, something
seems off?

i don't know what it is
though, she says the headaches
are fine now?

⠀
MAE PARK (11:30pm)

It might be stress.

Though, Marco from HR's
wife Nina works for the same
company as Summer and
Nina says she's taking a lot
of time off.

⠀
ALIYA LEVINE (11:30pm)

oh crap, really?

i've checked on her a few times
and she hasn't said anything.

⠀
MAE PARK (11:30pm)

I might give her a call in
the morning.

I'll add you too?

⠀
ALIYA LEVINE (11:32pm)

yes pls! i'll be there.
notepad, bright light, glasses
and all

⠀
MAE PARK (11:33pm)

STOP WATCHING CRIMINAL
MINDS YOU'RE NOT A
DETECTIVE.

⠀
ALIYA LEVINE (11:33pm)

NEVER
⠀

As she finished typing, her phone lit up with a call, and as she caught the first two letters of the caller ID, her face lit up. "Hey, Tre—"

"Hey, Ladybug!"

Oh.

Her face paled, and she brought the phone away from her ear, blinking at the contact.

It said freaking Trent.

But, why the hell was it her father on the other end of the call?

"Aliya? Honey? Are you there? Hello?" She heard her father's voice call out in desperation. "Aliya? God, how do I work this freaking thing, I swear technology is a right—"

"Hey, Dad, I'm here. Technology nowadays, am I right?" She let out the closest thing she had to a laugh, but in all honesty, her heart was pounding in her chest, and she couldn't seem to shift the anxiety of whether or not something was actually wrong with Summer.

And, Alex.

God! He could die from freaking led poisoning!

And, shit! She had to buy kibble for Reese, and pick up her prescription for the pills she didn't use, and she needed to renew her license by next week and god she needed to do her laundry!

She had no clean pants!

"Oh, thank the heavens! Aliya!" Travis Levine breathed a sigh of relief at the presence of he is youngest daughter's voice. "I thought the robot had taken you."

Aliya raised a brow, stifling those thoughts down the best she could. "The robot?"

"Yeah, the telecommunication thing." He explained, as if it all made perfect sense. Though, to everyone else, he sounded like a technological impaired crazy man.

"All good here, Dad." Aliya replied back, dropping down onto a bench outside the operating rooms. "I promise, no robotic encounters."

"Great." It had to be noted that Travis sounded utterly relieved, which made Aliya wonder whether he actually was being serious. "I'm glad. How are you doing?"

She knew everyone who asked that question meant well, but seeing as the at was the second time she had to answer it in the span of five minutes, she was loosing her mind. "I'm great. Just got out of surgery. There was a lightening strike, took out an entire team of flag football."

"Woah," Travis marvelled from the other line, and she heard the rustling of something in the background of the call. "That's something you don't see everyday."

Aliya nodded her head in agreement. "Is Trent there? I was expecting him on the other line."

"Sorry about that, kid," Travis said. "My phone's crap, and your mother is on the landline."

The brunette's eyes wandered over to the clock on the wall. "At nearly midnight?"

"She's a very busy woman." He announced with a sigh. "It's all going down tonight. And, I just wanted to check up on you. You do worry me, kid."

"I'm fine, Dad."

From the amount of times she had said the words I'm fine in the course of her life, they were starting to sound robotic. Rehearsed.

And, before Travis could interrogate her even further, or worse, before Molly could hope on the call, her salvation came.

Her pager. OR 1 — 911

"Oh, Dad, I gotta go, I'm getting a page." She darted up from the bench, beginning her walk towards the OR she was being paged to.

"Of course, speak to you soon, Aliya."

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—✩—
⠀

"What the hell happened in there?"

About a few hours later, Aliya burst into the scrub room to scrub out of the surgery she was paged to assist on by Hunt in Cristina's place. They were half way finished by the time Aliya got there, and the rest of the surgery proceeded on in silence.

And, only Aliya was left in the dark on Cristina's sudden disappearance.

Though, you could have probably cut the tension in that operating theatre with a knife and served it up with hot tea at eleven am.

"It's all my fault." Jackson muttered, vigorously scrubbing at his palms, as he too scrubbed out.

Aliya furrowed her brows, still confused as to what actually went down. "What's all your fault? What happened?"

"I— I—" He took a breath to steady himself, screwing his eyes shut. His breathing grew heavy as he blindly scrubbed out, and Aliya noted the slightly quiver behind his voice. "I—" He choked out again, beginning to stutter harder.

"Hey! Look at me." Aliya stared right across at him, thought his eyes were still pressed shut despite her instruction. "Look at me."

This time her tone was more forceful, and at that, he peeled his eyes open, sweat lining his brow as he dipped his head towards her, his blue-green eyes wide as they stared into her own brown ones.

"There. Now, what happened?"

Jackson cleared his throat. "I knocked over a tray and then Cristina—" He stopped himself, chewing on the inside of his cheek. "She went into some sort of shock."

Aliya widened her eyes. "Is she okay?" She spoke, the words coming out in a hurry.

"Grey got her up from the floor." He muttered, shamefully looking away from her.

"Jackson—" She breathed, her head dipping as she sighed. "That wasn't your fault. None of it was your fault." Aliya tried to convince him, trying to catch his eye, though he was avoiding her gaze.

"I triggered her—"

"It was an accident. If you want to point blame, blame Gary Clarke." Aliya said, angry at the man who haunted the many walls of the hospital, and the minds of every single staff member, and of the families who lost the people they cared for.

She felt sick even saying his name.

And, god was she angry.

She was so damn angry at the guy who got the easy way out.

He deserved prison. He deserved to rot in those four walls of a prison cell.

But, he got the easy way out, leaving a trail of carnage in his wake.

"I miss him." Jackson gulped, turning the faucet off with his elbow, turning his back on Aliya as he reached for the paper towels to dry his hands. "Charles. I miss Charles." He sniffed, chucking them paper towel into the bin behind him.

Aliya didn't know what to say.

She was always good with her words but in that moment she had none.

Which confused her, because usually she always had at least one thing to say in any given situation.

One thing Aliya wasn't was selfish.

Everything she had done in her life up was for other people, to make other people happy. That was mainly because she was terrified of disappointing people.

The thought made her feel ill.

If she failed at anything in her life, her mother would find out. And, that thought only terrified her. She would be told that her one mistake would ruin the legacy of the Levine family, the legacy they worked hard for. And, the fated words of disappointment would tumble from her mother's mouth. It was a burden she had to bear.

Because, over the course of her life, her mother had said many of things that couldn't be unabsorbed.

But, she didn't know what to say because, there was nothing she could possibly say to bring him back.

"I know you do." She replied after a few moments of silence, her voice breaking even though she was trying her best to keep from crying at the mere thought of that day. "As dumb as it sounds, things will get better over time. Everyone just needs more time." Her voice was soft as she cut her own faucet off, the room screeching into a silent echo where the only sounds present were Jackson and Aliya's heavy breathing.

"I just—" His breath caught in his throat, and his palms dug deeper into his eye sockets. "I miss him. I miss speaking to him, I miss everything. God, he was a pain in the ass but, he is— he was— my best friend."

Aliya didn't know what came over her, and Jackson couldn't quite contain his shock as the brunette took a step towards him, wrapping her arms around him, drawing him close against her.

Because, they were so damn close. And, nothing could have prepared him for being this close to her. Even when they fell asleep in bed next to each other later that day, waking up with their faces inches apart, or when he tried to kiss her before the shooting had even happened, before they were interrupted wasn't preparation enough.

He would've had to spend his entire life preparing for the warmth of her wrapped around him for an extended period of time. So, when the initial shock wore off, he sunk into her arms, trying desperately not to sob into her shoulder of the girl that was driving him crazy.

Because, the thing about death was, nothing could bring that person back. No apology, flowers, revenge, greeting card could ever soften the blow that the person you love wasn't just around the corner, living their lives as they should be.

⠀
—✩—
⠀

In the very early hours of the morning, Aliya brought her knee up to her chest as she sat hunched over on the bench in the residents lounge, her eye lids growing heavy as they fought for much needed sleep.

Every area of her back ached from being in surgery these past couple of days, after weeks of not being cleared to operate.

She remembered her first year as a surgical intern, remembering the pain she had felt for the first few months of standing in the OR for a countless amount of hours. It was the kind of pain that didn't go away, but you only seemed to get used to it as time passed.

She felt oddly okay when she scrubbed in for the first time on the chordoma. She felt fine in the OR, holding the scalpel, the irrigation. She didn't once think about Gary Clarke and his gun aiming at her forehead, which was what happened the first time she was back in an OR after the shooting.

However today, with Alex behind her with a bullet in his chest, acted like a reminder for her.

Even though she did everything she needed to do in that surgery, her mind was the only thing stolen by something other than Warren's perforated bowel.

Every monitor sound and suction and clatter of the surgical tools transported her to that day, the rapid beating of her heart recreated the fatal gun shots that took Andy from her.

She kept her cool, just like her mother had always taught her to. But, now she was out of the operating room and in the quiet and warm sanctuary of the residents lounge, she had the time to think clearly. 

The push of the door on the latch caused Aliya to leap out of her skin, she shot her head around to see Alex, who gave her a half smile as he joined her on the bench, his hands gripping ahold of the side of the wood.

"I'm sorry I was so hard on you." She whispered into her knee, her voice muffled by the fabric of her scrubs.

"Aliya—" He spoke softly, sighing with an exhale of breath. "Why does it bother you so much?"

She sniffled, blinking slowly as she turned slightly to look up at him. Her eyes were glassed over slightly, as if she was in some sort of haze of insurmountable grief. "I didn't want to loose you too."

Alex sighed in response, dipping his head down as she gave him the response he was most afraid of. "You're not going to loose me. When we're old and grey you'll want to get rid of me."

Aliya chuckled, dropping her head back to the position it was comfortable in, her braid falling down her back. "I don't think I'd ever want to get rid of you."

"I wish I felt the same way about you." Alex cracked a joke to try and at least make her laugh, and to that Aliya scoffed, shoving his arm so he very nearly fell off the bench. "Kidding." He replied, shuffling closer to her, wrapping an arm around her so her head laid against his shoulder.

⠀
—✩—
⠀

THE NEXT DAY...
⠀

Grief worked in funny ways.

It had the tendency to sneak up on you, when you least expected it.

But, sometimes one day could be your worst, where the anxiety creeps up on you and haunts you all day long, and then one moment, your mind could clear, giving you just one breath of fresh air.

"So, Karev," Jackson said through a mouthful of potato chips. "How old were you when you had your first time?"

"Fifteen. School nurse. Back of her car." Alex replied, leaning down to drink water from the fountain, not noticing the way Aliya's nose turned up at how illegal that was.

"Was she wearing a halloween costume?" Aliya asked, her voice monotone.

"Fifteen." Jackson nodded his head slowly, raising a brow and racking his brain around for the right choice of words. "That's impressive."

Though, he quickly realised that was in fact the wrong choice of word.

"When I was sixteen, she taught me how to drive that same car." Alex added with a smirk, oddly proud as he strode around the desk to stand next to Aliya, whose face was scrunched together as she started scribbling down on the chart of a man who had warts covering his entire body.

She was transferred from Derek's to Sloan's service, after he chose Cristina to be his resident after what happened in the OR the other day.

"Sophomore in high school. Paul Waxman." Meredith paused, taking a long sigh as she continued the anecdote. "Had absolutely no idea what he was doing."

"Junior prom. Sarah Richardson and Penny Caraway. Together." Jackson chimed in with his own story, causing Aliya's eyes to secretly widen behind the barrier of the chart in her hands. "I knew exactly what I was doing." He boasted, earning a silent scoff from the Levine woman.

"Nineteen." Cristina announced after a pause.

"Nineteen?" Alex shot back in question.

Cristina nodded, flicking her hair over her shoulder. "I was very focused on my studies. It was my chem TA. He was a whole head shorter than me but, man. He was smart." She beamed, resting her chin on her palm.

"Sounds like something you'd find in a porno." Aliya scoffed, mainly to herself as her eyes scanned the chart.

Silence after a few moments alarmed her, so she looked up to see all of the residents starring directly at her, waiting patiently for her own anecdote.

"Oh!" The brunette exclaimed. "High School boyfriend. Seventeen."

Aliya flicked the chart shut, but the residents continued to stare at her, as if waiting for more. As if her story wasn't satisfactory enough for them.

"Fine! On his parent's kitchen counter! We broke the toaster!" She huffed, and they all clapped their hands at her. However, the dynamic of the room changed as April paced off, all the pairs of eyes now on her as she darted away from them.

"Hey, April?" Jackson called out.

"I'm not talking about this." She stuttered, awkwardly. "It was a private— a private memory."

"What happened? Did the guy die?" Alex deadpanned.

"Dude!" Aliya turned quickly to slap his arm.

He lifted his arm quickly in response. "Now, you have to stop doing that." He rubbed his arm with a scowl.

"Did it last, like, three seconds so you don't know if it counted?" Cristina asked as April dipped her head to the water fountain to avoid talking about the subject.

"No!" April replied quickly, her eyes darting rapidly from eye to eye, before looking at the floor, avoiding all eye contact. Though, as the residents remained silent around her, April sighed in defeat. "It was on the beach at sunset. It was beautiful."

Aliya nodded politely at her story, although sensing the lie the red head was serving to them on a shiny white china plate. "Sunsets are lovely."

"Sunset? Really? Weren't there people there?" Jackson questioned the validity of this particular story, raising a brow.

"On the beach? You get sand in places you don't want to get sand." Cristina shuddered at the thought, and Meredith laughed at her joke.

"Mosquitoes." Alex contributed, looking back at April who was now biting her lip, her eyes down at the floor. "Ha!" He bellowed, clapping his hands together to create a loud bang, causing Aliya's heart to leap out of her chest.

"Dude!" She exclaimed once more. "Jeez! I could've had a heart attack!"

"You're a virgin!" Alex threw his head back and cackled loudly.

"No I'm not!" April defended after a moment of hesitation.

If she hadn't of hesitated, she might've been believed.

But now, virgin was painted across her whole entire face.

"She is!" Alex fired back, his face brightening up.

"Do it! Do it right now! Alex! Go, deflower her now!" Cristina began to chant, now shoving Alex in the shoulder in April's direction. "Do it!"

April's jaw hit the floor as Alex began to slip his white coat off. "It was on the beach at sunset, ok?"

"Deflower?" Aliya scoffed, crossing her arms. "If she says she had sex on the beach, then she had sex on a damn beach. Maybe they had a towel."

There was no convincing Alex and Cristina, seeing as the Yang woman was no leaping about the place, trying to push Alex towards the Kepner woman, as if forcing him onto April with her own bare hands.

"Leave her alone." Meredith told them, though it was obvious she was trying not to laugh. "April, the beach at sunset is very nice."

April didn't respond, she simply smiled weakly, her eyes boring into the tiles below her feet.

⠀
—✩—
⠀

"Come on, just admit it, you're still a virgin." Now in Joe's bar, Alex turned to April, waving his beer bottle around for dramatic effect.

"No, I'm not." April raised her voice slightly, her hands tightening around her glass of scotch, so much in fact her knuckles began to grow white.

"There's no shame in it." Jackson eased, although he did have the tiniest smirk on his face.

April scoffed and shook her head. "Really?"

"No, there's shame." The Avery man corrected truthfully, redacting his previous statement and taking a swig of his drink.

Aliya let herself slide down in the booth with a groan, leaning her head back against the wood, already growing bored of the conversation. "Just drop it, both of you." She gave both men that she was sandwich in the middle of a look.

Alex laughed anyway, shaking his head. "It's a lot of shame. Tell her, Mer!"

"I, Um— I was gonna say something and then I forgot to stop drinking." She smiled, giddy on too much tequila before her face dropped slightly, seemingly remembering something she was going to say. "Has anybody seen Cristina?"

"Today only one person looked at me," Lexie announced happily as she approached the booth, sliding down next to Meredith. "Like a psycho who might run down the hall naked, and Dr. Bailey screamed like a little bitch baby over a spider. So, I'm feeling pretty good. For a crazy person." The Grey woman smiled to herself, a handful of broken up nut shells in her hand that she dumped unceremoniously down onto the table.

"Nobody gives a crap if your crazy." Jackson replied, raising his hands in defeat. "We're all crazy."

"Look at April. She's still a virgin." Alex continued to mock the red head relentlessly, a loud alcohol induced laugh flying out of his lips.

Aliya was too tired to hit him again, instead her eyes fluttered shut, her head drooping to the side, so her forehead met Jackson's shoulder.

The Avery man looked down at her, because now she was yawning into his shoulder. And, her couldn't even stop the smile tugging on his lips.

"Mark gives a crap." Lexie said, annoyed, dropping the shells back onto the table after picking them up again. "He stares at me like I'm a menace to myself and everyone around me."

Aliya silently rolled her eyes at Lexie's cluelessness over Mark's feelings for her. Seeing as it was so darn obvious. And, Aliya knew what it was like to be caught in the middle of whatever they had.

"Wait," Lexie extended her index finger towards the red head. "You're still a virgin?"

"Stop! Ok? Just stop!" April finally snapped, silencing the group. Though, Aliya was already silenced as her eyes had drifted shut from sleep deprivation, and the pathetic amount of alcohol in her system. "I'm a virgin. Yes. So what? It's not something I talk about. Ok? We all have things we don't talk about."

Alex's eyes grew wide as he started at her, almost inviting April in for her next comment.

"Alex, you've been scared of the elevator for like a month but, I never said anything because it's none of my business."

His face visibly paled as Aliya threw open her eyes, unprepared for April's responses, her defences totally unprepared for whatever she was going to throw her way.

"And Jackson, you wake up every night screaming because you have nightmares. And, don't even get me started on Aliya's need to focus on surgery and everyone else whilst she ignores all of her own problems."

At being publically outed, Aliya grabbed her drink quickly as if it were her life vessel, taking slow sips from the straw as the Kepner woman continued on her verbal rampage.

"And Meredith, you don't talk about Cristina because you're afraid she's never gonna be the same Cristina again and Lexie, for God sake, Mark never thought you were a psycho! He loves you. That's why he stares at you. Because, he can't keep his eyes off the woman he loves."

Lexie stilled, her eyes widening at April's countless list of very keen observations.

"Of course, he's never gonna say anything because he doesn't feel like he can." April threw her hands down in frustration. "We all have stuff we don't talk about! I'm a twenty-eight-year-old virgin. Mainly because I wanted my first time to be special, and then I waited too long. And, partially because I'm pretty sure guys find me annoying."

At that, Alex smirked, though April appeared not to catch onto that, so he had saved himself from another berating.

"I'm a virgin. That doesn't make it drinks conversation. We all have stuff we don't talk about!" She finished with an exaggerated sigh, bringing her glass to her lips as she finished off the rest of her drink in one swig.

Everyone at the table fell silent as they too welcomed the distraction of alcohol, focusing more on tearing up napkins than actually facing their problems.

"Oh, April." Meredith broke the silence first, chuckling into her glass of tequila. "I'm liking you more and more."

April frowned, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. "Thank you."

⠀⠀
⠀

( notes! )

jackson: leave
aliya: no
jackson: 😍

also i'm leaving it a little ambiguous to whether or not aliya stayed in jackson's bed or went to her own, you guys can make up your own mind ;)

anyways i hope you had an amazing christmas & new years!!

i also wanted to ask if there are any flashback scenes you want to see e.g. mark&aliya / molly levine etc. moments for flashback chapters i'm thinking of doing!!!

( word count! — 8,900 )