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CHAPTER ELEVEN
deny, deny, deny.
season two, episodes four and five.

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"You smiled at her," Billie pointed out once she noticed that Alex had dedicated Izzie a small smirk from across the room.

The blonde was sitting by the bar, waiting for her drink, staring at the man longingly while him and Billie played darts together on the other end. The brunette had made up her mind to push aside her feelings and support Alex and Izzie's relationship, so when she noticed the way he had smiled at her, she couldn't help but point it out loud.

"I didn't smile at her." Alex rolled his eyes, launching another dart and landing it terribly.

"You suck at this." She gestured with her head towards the board, then added: "You did smile at her, I saw you."

Alex didn't answer, seeming a little serious all of a sudden, so Billie huffed and turned towards him.

"We're friends now, okay? You're supposed to tell me this type of things."

"Friends who used to make out."

"It happened one time."

"Three, actually," Alex corrected, throwing one more dart distractedly. Billie rolled her eyes.

"So? Why should that matter? We're over that now. We've grown out of it, no feelings involved. Plus, friends kiss," she said, although she knew that at least half of the things she had just said were most likely a lie. "You don't have to be a baby about it."

They stood quietly for a second before Alex smiled tiredly, laughing softly through his nose and allowing her to take a turn at the board. He booed when her dart landed perfectly on the middle and she did a little curtsey.

"But you're into Izzie, right?" Billie asked after a few more seconds, and when Alex didn't answer, her smile grew wide. "You are."

"How's Cristina?" he deadpanned.

The brunette rolled her eyes once again. She wasn't oblivious to his evident attempt to change the topic of conversation, but she rolled along anyway.

"She said she was fine before I left, but I know she's not." Billie sighed. "She's tough and I will be there every step of the way, but... she just lost a baby. I don't know why she's not letting herself at least feel a little vulnerable about it."

"Some people like keeping their feelings to themselves. Besides, Yang's not a vulnerable person. Even if she was sad, she'd never admit it. She's too stubborn." Alex shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly.

"I know, I'm just worried."

"Well, I mean... you were there, all knight-in-shining-armor catching her," he said.

"How do you know that?" She frowned.

"Izzie told me."

"Oh, Izzie." Billie grimaced, but when she noticed Alex's expression, she cleared her throat and rephrased, in a much perkier voice. "I mean, uh... oh, Izzie!"

Meanwhile, Izzie had already gotten her drink and now sat together with Meredith and George. They chatted along nicely until her eyes landed on Alex and Billie, with some sort of hidden jealousy she failed to hide.

"Why is Billie hanging out with Alex?" she asked, elbow on the table and chin propped on her fist. The two remaining turned towards her.

"You hang out with Alex, too," George pointed out the obvious.

Izzie's eyes landed on him for a second before she shook her head. "It's different."

"Billie and Alex have been friends ever since we met." Meredith laughed.

Billie had decided to update Cristina and Meredith about her relationship with Alex, all the time. The two friends did not miss a single detail.

"What? No, Billie hates Alex." George scoffed.

"But why are they hanging out though? I mean, they're just laughing together. Like, what's so funny?" Izzie shrugged her shoulders, grimacing at the couple.

"That sounds an awful lot like someone I know." The remaining blonde laughed again, swirling her glass of tequila in her hand and reminiscing over the first time the interns had seen Alex and Izzie together, laughing uncontrollably as if there was something so amusing.

"They can't be friends, right?" Izzie turned.

"Billie hates Alex!" George yelled.

☆

"Cristina Yang, post-op day three from a unilateral salpingectomy-" Meredith began presenting, but was sorely cut off by Cristina herself, who still laid on the bed with a patient gown and a mess of tousled curls on the top of her head.

"-and ready to get back to work," the mentioned smiled.

"Is she?" Cristina's mother craned her back from her spot on the couch, holding a magazine she'd been reading.

"I'm taking solids and my pain is controlled with oral meds. I'm ready."

"Didn't the nurse say this morning you had a fever?"

"Mother," Cristina warned.

"Actually, that was me." Billie took a step forward, knowing that, during the pre-rounds, she had checked up on Cristina, who, as a matter of fact, did have a fever.

"Cristina, did you have a fever?" Bailey asked, deadpan.

"Billie!" The woman in question huffed, annoyed, but under the resident's imposing gaze, she had no choice but to answer. "Temp spiked to one hundred and one last night. Big deal."

"She worked two shifts last month with a hundred and two degree flu," George butted in with a shrug.

"Yes, exactly, George. Thank you."

"Cristina's not ready to go back to work." Billie sucked her lips inwards, earning a glare from the woman mentioned.

She wasn't trying to sabotage her friend in any way, but as a person who had gotten very little demonstrations of love as a child, watching one of the only people she loved in this hospital crumble down to the floor and nearly die in surgery had really affected her emotionally, which was why she wanted to make sure Cristina was one hundred percent healed before she went back to work.

"And we appreciate your dedication, but you're staying in bed until it normalizes," Bailey demanded, not leaving room for complaints.

Again, Cristina turned towards Billie with a glare that said so many things and nearly burnt a whole into the girl's skull, so the brunette simply replied with a shrug of her shoulders and an innocent smile.

"I keep telling her that there's more to life than surgery and career," Cristina's mother interrupted from her stance on the couch.

"Mother, go upholster something."

Billie and Alex snorted in sync, the latter nudging the former on the ribs with his elbow and drawing a playful smirk up his lips.

"Look, I need you to relax, shut up and get better. You're a patient this week, so you can be a doctor next week, understand?" Bailey interrupted as her final word, leaving the room with a tow of interns behind.

However, Cristina stopped Billie and Meredith by grabbing their arms before they could leave, causing them to turn around to meet her eyes.

"You, Billie. Why are you against me? You're supposed to be working to get me out of here. Team work." She turned towards the brunette with an annoyed frown.

"You're not ready yet! And for the record, I hate team work."

"And you, Meredith, you cannot leave me alone with her. I am flying over the cuckoo's nest here," Cristina then said, gesturing towards her mother. "You have to save me."

"You need time to heal." Meredith glanced briefly at Billie, and they both universally agreed to leave the room at the same time.

"I'm healed." Cristina huffed, earning a disapproving look from Billie. "I'm healed!"

☆

"You okay, Mer?" Billie plopped down next to Meredith on the gurney right after rounds.

They were on the tunnels. Meredith sat there, looking like she'd been told she was dying, and Billie, in a desperate attempt to escape Derek's pleading need to apologize, had rushed down there only to find her person looking completely spaced out.

"Addison gave Derek divorce papers." Meredith sighed, staring straight ahead into the nothingness.

"She did?" Billie's voice went a couple of pitches higher near the end of her sentence, hint of shock to her tone.

The blonde glanced at her for a second, deadpan. "Yeah."

Billie's eyebrows raised up to her hairline and she turned her head away slowly, lips parted slightly in a physical manifestation of her surprise. She hadn't spoken to Derek ever since Addison had arrived, but as her best friend, she was surprised the attending hadn't chosen to tell her about this, mostly because it would play a huge part on their reconciliation.

"Damn." Billie sighed out under her breath.

Before any of the two girls could say anything else, however, Alex popped up through the door, seeming a little alarmed. Meredith and Billie looked up at him and they all stayed quiet for a second in some sort of awkward silence.

"I need Billie," Alex then said with a long sigh, chest heaving ever the slightest in what seemed to be nerves.

"I'm using her right now," Meredith fired back, and Billie's eyebrows shot together. "She's mine."

"Billie, I need to talk to you." The man then turned towards the brunette, who watched the brief interaction amused. "Please, it's urgent."

For a second, Billie didn't know what to say, but then caved as soon as she heard the urgency in Alex's voice. She would always succumb to him, so she looked at Meredith with apologetic eyes. The blonde took a second to realize, and then she frowned in false disappointment.

"Seriously!" she said.

"Please?" Billie smiled innocently.

"Fine. Only because you're my person." Meredith rolled her eyes, standing up, planting a kiss to Billie's cheek and yielding her seat to Alex who, as soon as the blonde was gone, sprawled down on the gurney next to Billie.

They stayed silent for a second, the woman in question looking at him expectantly while Alex looked straight ahead, almost as if he was in shock. While Billie's back was craned completely straight against the wall, Alex's was fully slouched in a way that his body was almost falling down from the gurney, and both friends were sitting at very different height levels.

"So?" Billie urged an answer out of him, starting to get impatient at his lack of words.

"Izzie and I are going on a date tonight," he finally breathed out in a rush, almost as if he had been holding in his breath and was just now letting go of it. "God, I really needed to tell you that."

Billie's expression dropped ever the slightest, detail Alex would've picked on if he hadn't been utterly focused on the wall in front of them. The girl's lips parted a little, but she quickly cleared her throat, unsure whether she had heard those words correctly.

"You and Izzie... are going on a date? Tonight?"

"C'mon, at least pretend to be happy for me." Alex grimaced, clicking his tongue.

"No! No, no, no. Really, I'm- I'm happy for you, I'll-" she stuttered out in an attempt to hide her evident disappointment. God, she had to work on her emotions. "You know what? I'll even go to your place tonight and help you get ready, if you want me to."

Alex's head shot in her direction, eyes meeting. "You will?"

"Yeah, sure. You're my friend." She nudged him with her elbow, a playful yet conspicuously forced smile on her lips.

"Right." He swallowed harshly. "You're my friend."

Billie bit her lip anxiously, staring straight ahead.

☆

"So you got fucking divorce papers and weren't planning on telling me?" Billie intercepted Derek as he charted near a nurses station, and the attending turned with a sigh as soon as he heard her voice. "I'm mad at you, true, but this is the kind of things we talk about."

"There she is. Good morning to you, too." He smiled innocently. "I didn't think you'd wanna hear from me and honestly, I'm a little scared that you might chop off all of my fingers if I even look in your direction. That's why I didn't say anything. You hate me, don't you?"

"Well, yeah, but that's just temporary!" Billie's voice raised a couple pitches. "Don't you think you telling me you're getting a divorce will help me get over it?"

"I didn't say I was getting a divorce." He frowned.

Billie sighed, rolling her eyes. "You know what I mean."

Derek gave her a deadpan look and they stayed quiet for a few seconds. Once he noticed she hadn't yet left, he turned, scanned her up and down, and immediately knew there was something she wasn't saying.

"Okay, out with it," he said.

"You are gonna sign them, right? The divorce papers," Billie asked hesitantly as soon as she was given the green light to speak, chewing on her lip anxiously, which was a habit she had picked on a very long time ago.

"Yes," Derek replied with a lot of confidence and so much as a blink of doubt.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"Sure sure? Like, one hundred percent sure?" Billie insisted, and when the attending's guilty face gave it all away, she huffed loudly. "I fucking knew it."

"No, wait, Bil, it's not like that-"

"Then how is it, Derek? Because honestly, I know you and Meredith are all made up now, but you've screwed her over enough as it is, and I apparently can't stress that enough," she explained, recalling the same words she had said to him a few days prior as soon as she'd find out he had a wife. "It's a simple question: Meredith or Addison. And I just want you to think for a second who it was that cheated on you."

"Billie, Addison is my wife. We've been married for eleven year. That's a lifetime, it's half your life. You don't just throw that away, you work through it," Derek stated his pretty valid point, and at the look of disappointment on his best friend's face, he sighed. "Please, can't we just be friends again?"

Billie remained quiet for a second, considering her options.

"Meredith's forgiven me, why can't you do the same?"

The brunette glared at him before sighing. "Fine. But just because I miss you. And you're still a little shit, don't get the wrong-"

Derek broke into a relieve smiled and cut her off by pulling her into a hug, in which he trapped her tightly for a few seconds before she pried herself off. Then, Billie slapped him.

"Ow! What was that for?" he exclaimed, rubbing his cheek.

"You ever pull that shit again and I'm choking you to your fucking death," she said.

Derek swallowed. "Noted."

☆

Cristina Yang was usually a very stoic person. Apathetic, harsh, cold. She didn't feel things too deeply; in fact, it was doubted that she even had feelings at all. She could endure hardship and pain without a single tear.

That's why Billie was so surprised to walk into a room where Cristina was sobbing uncontrollably, almost hyperventilating and evidently in distress.

"What the hell happened?" The brunette walked in right after Meredith. She had rushed towards her person's room as soon as George had paged her 911.

"I CAN'T STOP! I CAN'T- I CAN'T STOP!" the girl yelled from her bed, face contorted to allow space for the tears to delve down her cheeks.

"Crying. She can't stop crying," Izzie clarified uselessly, causing Billie to roll her eyes.

"I can see that."

"What did you guys do to her?" Meredith raised her voice a little over Cristina's sobs, although it was hardly useful since her cries were all that filled the room.

"Nothing!"

"She's going to dehydrate," George pointed out, leaning into the crying girl and raising his voice. "Cristina, do you want some water?"

"No, no, no!"

Billie and Meredith looked at each other in concern for their person, so they universally agreed to hug her out. However, as the two approached her, Izzie and George grabbed them by their elbows and pulled them away, screaming in unison for them not to go any closer.

"I already tried that, it just made it worse," the blonde explained with a hard frown on her face.

"That's because she doesn't like you," Billie said, deadpan.

Izzie was about to defend herself, but before she could, Cristina's mother spoke.

"I knew she'd break sooner or later, just a matter of time," she then interrupted, hand on her chest at the sight of her daughter crying so distortedly.

"I WILL KILL HER!" Cristina used her finger to gesture towards her mom.

The woman's face contorted in anger, eyebrows tensed together and jaw dropped open, and Meredith immediately approached her, grabbing her by the elbow in order to pull her out of the room. She fought for a second.

"I am her mother!"

"We don't do well with mothers here!" Meredith counter-argued, pushing her out of the room. "Why don't you leave and come back later?"

"Cristina-"

"MAKE- MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT STOP!" the woman in question yelled as George approached her warily, almost with fear, to hand her a paper tissue. However, the Kleenex jolted out of his hand when Cristina yelled again. "SOMEBODY SEDATE ME!"

☆

Billie woke up the following morning to the sound of a thunderstorm breaking past her open window. The cold current of air flowed freely into the room and a couple of stray drops that had been blown out of trail by the wind wetted the windowsill, as well as the occasional flash of lightning that illuminated the sky followed by the ground-shaking sound of thunder.

She loved thunderstorms. Actually, she loved all sorts of rain: drizzles, hail, snowing. But there was something she particularly loved about thunderstorms. Maybe it was the wreck.

Billie loved it. The beauty, the way it was misunderstood. She herself never got why she was so attracted to the wreck, but when she looked up and all she could see was angry clouds and lightnings flashing across the sky... she enjoyed it. The rage, the wrath it irradiated, somehow made her feel at home.

Billie liked reaching out her hand towards the sky and feeling like the clouds were tickling her fingers, allowing them to come undone right above her head. She didn't care if the water messed up her hair, her clothes. She couldn't blame the sky for wanting to vent once in a while.

Sometimes, Billie wanted to vent as well.

So, as the thunderstorm washed Seattle in shades of black and grey, Billie's first thought was to ask George, the only person currently in the house, to go out with her. There was a small obstacle though: it was almost one in the morning, and George hated being woken up.

The girl left her bed perkily and stormed into her friend's room who, as expected, slept peacefully on the middle of his bed. She approached him and plopped down next to him, waking him up violently in the process.

"I'm awake!" He sat upright as soon, but when he saw the brunette laying on her back next to him, he grimaced and plopped back down. "Oh, God, Billie!"

"What?" She frowned obliviously, fully awake and evidently happy due to the rain, but genuinely not knowing what it was that had bothered George so much.

"Uhm, in case you didn't notice... I was sleeping!" He turned around in order to face away from Billie, but the girl simply giggled at his back.

Before she could say anything else, the door was opened and the light turned on, and in came Izzie, wearing a pink dress that looked really pretty on her. However, when Billie remembered that she was just now coming back from her date with Alex, she didn't feel exactly good about it anymore.

"Seriously!" Izzie exclaimed, then approached the two people in the bed and sprawled down next to Billie. "Move over."

The blonde looked up at the ceiling once she was down on the mattress, not even bothering to turn the lights off. She looked evidently upset, and for some reason, thinking that her and Alex's date hadn't gone as planned made Billie strangely happy. She felt bad for not feeling bad about it.

George was quick to go back to sleep, but this time, it was Meredith who stormed into the room.

"Seriously?" She yelled, still wearing the street clothes she had put on that morning to go to work. She walked towards the opposite side of George and urged everyone to scoot away in order to allow her space.

George woke up abruptly and glanced between the three girls. "This is a very small bed."

"You know, I really like rain," Billie blurted out, unsure whether anyone was listening. "Thunderstorms, specifically. They're really angry. It makes me happy."

"He's a brain surgeon," Meredith interrupted.

"I look fantastic. I shaved my legs!" Izzie butted in.

"He's a brain surgeon, how can he be so brainless?"

"Hello! Seriously?" the blonde raised her voice.

"Seriously!" Meredith repeated.

"Seriously!" Billie yelled just for the hell of it.

"Shh." George comforted the three girls lazily, just as a particularly rough thunder made the power go out.

☆

"You're an ass." Billie caught up to Alex in the locker room. "You're a fucking ass, you know that, right?"

"Oh, God, what did I do now?" The man pinched the bridge of his nose tiredly and looked down at the floor, almost as if he had a bad headache.

"You completely blew Izzie off! She shaved her legs and you didn't even kiss her!" She threw her hands in the hair on a sign of external frustration, yet on the inside, she still felt guilty that she was a little happy about it.

"Look, I don't wanna talk about this right now, can we just-"

"You don't blow off a girl who shaved her legs for you!" Billie slammed her hand against Alex's chest, who responded by rubbing the impact spot.

"Ouch!"

"Go apologize right now!"

At her words, Alex's expression softened. He looked down at Billie, then around him to make sure no one was in the locker room other than them two and then sighed, bracing himself for his following words.

"I failed my boards," he confessed, not knowing what it was about Billie that made him want to be honest. Her eyebrows shot up.

"What?"

"I failed my pre-med boards. I have four months to retake them. I fail again, I get kicked off the program," Alex explained half-heartedly, hands on his hips.

Billie paused. "Are you serious?"

When her question was answered by silence, the girl frowned, understanding that that had been the reason why he had been so rude to Izzie the night prior. Immediately, Billie felt extremely guilty for ever feeling happy about it.

"Dude, I'm sorry." She swallowed thickly.

Alex bit the inside of his cheek. "C'mon, we have rounds."

Billie watched him go.

☆

"Henry Lamott, age forty-two, is scheduled with Dr. Shepherd for a spinal implant to control the pain of his herniated disc. He's allergic to all pain medications," Cristina, who Billie was extremely glad to know was back, introduced the patient.

The five interns stood in the patient room, Alex behind Billie, when the man on the bed suddenly grabbed the remote and turned on the TV, tuning in a pornographic channel was playing. Billie's jaw dropped open.

"Is that...?"

"Porn," the wife answered nonchalantly as she knitted a sweater peacefully on one of the chairs.

"Porn?" Bailey looked up at the TV. "As in porn?"

"Alright, what are we watching?" Alex asked, eyes fixed on the pornographic tape appearing on the screen. Billie snorted and nudged him on the ribs with her elbow.

"Karev, go stand in the hall," the resident demanded, so Alex had no choice but to comply, although not before giving Billie a cheeky smile. "Uh, Mr. and Mrs. Lamott, I'm sure you're really nice people, and what you do in the privacy of your own- Look, we can't have porn in here. This is a hospital."

"It's for my pain. My doc says it releases endorphins in the brain and it helps keep my pain at a manageable level," Henry explained.

"Shepherd? Dr. Derek Shepherd told you to watch porn?" Billie asked, amused, and her eyes then landed on George, who stood with his eyes on the screen like hypnotized.

"Yep," the patient replied.

"Really?" George drawled out.

"George. Hall."

The intern complied as well, but had to use his lab coat to cover his pants, detail which wasn't dismissed by any of the girls. Izzie and Billie laughed under their breaths, sharing looks as George walked out of the room just like Alex had done a few seconds prior.

"What is this?" Izzie asked.

"Nasty Naughty Nurses, uhm..." the wife answered, looking up at the TV briefly before nodding her head. "Four."

The four girls looked at the screen, which displayed a position held by the three girls which the doctors failed to comprehend. The remaining interns tilted their heads to try and get what they were seeing.

"Ouch," Billie winced.

"That does not look comfortable," Cristina pointed out.

"Trust me, it's not," Meredith added, earning shocked looks from the three others girls collectively as they realized what her words meant.

"Get... in... the hall!"

☆

After the weird porn case and a few laughs between the two friends, Billie and Alex were assigned to the pit by Dr. Bailey. The former intern grabbed herself a carton of apple juice as the latter waited for her and they both then rushed towards the ER when they were paged for a new surgical patient coming in.

"Pete Willoughby, twenty-five-years old, GSW to the chest. Immediate return of eight hundred and sixty CCs of blood. He's put out more than two hundred CCs over the past hour," one of the trauma nurses introduced the patient, who was apparently part of the police force.

"Oh, man, this hurts!" the patient complained while Billie removed the patch from the wound in order to reveal a bloody hole on the side of his chest, where the bullet was clearly still lodged inside and bled profusely. "They never tell you in movies how much it hurts to get shot."

"Push morphine, five milligrams," Billie demanded as Alex used his stethoscope to check his heartbeat. "Get me those chest films!"

"I'm calling this surgery." Alex smiled devilishly, watching as his best friend placed the chest x-rays against the light in order to reveal that the bullet was, in fact, still inside the chest cavity.

Billie scoffed. "Uh, no, you're not."

"Guys, knock it off. He's one of Seattle's finest, you've got an entire police force watching you," the trauma nurse informed, gesturing with his hand towards the many policemen behind the glass that were watching them work intently.

"Pressure much?" Billie sighed under her breath, pulling out a thumbs-up at the cops.

"Page Dr. Burke," Alex said. "Let him know we're bringing up a GSW."

Billie smiled at the term 'we'.

☆

During the entire elevator ride with Pete laying in the gurney between them, Alex and Billie were weirdly silent for no particular reason, only looking at each other every now and then and not saying a word. Even Pete could notice the tension.

Perhaps it was because Billie now knew that Alex had failed his boards and she didn't know how to help him, or maybe even because Alex was so embarrassed about the fact that she knew that he didn't know what to say.

"So... Izzie," Billie brought up the subject subtly, although Alex's glare didn't go by undetected.

"I don't wanna talk about it."

"Why? Who's Izzie?" Pete asked, looking between the two interns respectively.

"His girlfriend." Billie looked down at the patient, gesturing with her head to a very annoyed-looking Alex. "She shaved her legs for him. Guy brought her out for dinner and didn't even kiss her goodnight."

"Dude, she shaved her legs for you and you didn't follow through?" Pete frowned.

"She's not my girlfriend. And I always follow through."

"You didn't last night." The patient finally laughed, earning a little giggle from Billie as well. Alex dedicated them both glares, leaning against the wall with his hands crossed over his chest.

He was about to defend themself, but suddenly, the elevator jolted and everything turned back. They weren't moving anymore.

"Dude, we're not moving." Alex pointed out.

Billie gave him a deadpan look, "Really? Ya think?"

☆

"How bad is it?" the Chief asked Burke, approaching the elevator where Alex and Billie were locked up in.

Two nurses were using all of their strength in order to open up the doors and they were slowly succeeding, but the situation was getting progressively worse the longer it took for Billie and Alex's patient to get to an OR with a qualified surgeon.

"Two interns and a GSW to the chest," Burke replied with his hands on his hips.

Webber took his hand to his forehead exapseratedly. He didn't know whether he was more worried about the patient in the elevator or about the fact that one of the interns was Billie, a girl whom with Richard would always feel certain attachment towards. Meanwhile, the two nurses finally got the elevator doors open, but it was jammed up so it wouldn't yield any further than a hand-width slit.

Billie and Alex looked at each other in concern when Bailey's head popped up through the doors. "What did you two do?"

"Nothing!" the two interns answered at the same time.

"Dr. Bailey, we need to get this patient to an OR, STAT," Billie explained in a rush, feeling her blood pumping adrenaline like crazy and her body going into overdrive almost immediately.

"Well, that's not happening any time soon." The resident shook her head.

Out of all interns, she, a severe claustrophobic, was trapped inside an elevator with only a foot-wide slit from where she could get some fresh air. This was not going to end well.

Bailey shook her head again, lips pressed together into a tight grimace, before she crawled away from the partially opened elevator doors and her spot on the floor was replaced by Dr. Burke.

"How's the patient?" he asked, a distant thunder rumbling within his words.

"His pressure's been falling for a while now and there's a lot more of his blood in the pleurovac. If he's not in an OR within the next ten minutes, there'll be nothing left to do," Billie said.

Burke pressed his lips together and as Billie noticed the dangerous extent that this particular situation held, she promised herself she'd have that panic attack later, but that right now, her focus was the patient.

☆

"Hey, Pete, what are you doing?" Billie asked as the man laying on the gurney tried relentlessly to remove the oxygen nasal cannula, pulling it out of his nostrils and getting it tangled along his fingers in the process.

"I have to get home," he answered deliriously, sweat building up on his hairline and skin paling at record time.

He fought against Alex, who tried hard to keep the wires attached to his nose at the same time that he glanced up at the slit between the elevator doors, hoping someone would come help them quickly. If the elevator didn't start moving soon, they'd lose the patient along with Billie, who was trying her best to keep herself together but didn't seem to be handling it correctly.

The four grey walls around them were tiring her out, scrambling her mind in order to make her feel like they were constricting around her. Like Pete, a thin layer of sweat was starting to build up on her hairline and on the nape of her neck, and she was so nervous that even the latex gloves she had on were making her feel antsy.

"Pete, you're in the hospital," Alex tried to remind, yet uselessly, since the blood loss was causing him to start agonizing.

"I need to get home, I need to get home..."

Burke popped up on the other side of the slit again. "What's his blood pressure?"

"It's not reading, he's too agitated. Pulse thready, but still there," Billie explained as she read the numbers from the monitor by her side, taking the stethoscope from around her neck and placing it against Pete's bare chest to get a pulse. Hearing his heartbeat somehow managed to calm her down.

"Do you have any instruments?"

"Uh... just the code box and some gloves," Alex answered hastily. He was still trying to attach the nasal cannula at the same time that he searched the underside of the gurney for the materials needed.

"You didn't bring an open chest tray?" the attending scolded with a hard frown tugging on his eyebrows, making Alex roll her eyes.

"No, we thought-"

"You don't have time for excuses. Black, blood pressure," Burke then demanded, looking over at the girl who listened carefully at Pete's heart with the stethoscope.

"I can't hear a systolic over fifty."

The silence flooded the elevator, atmosphere filled only by the sound of Pete's ragged breathing as he tried to get the necessary oxygen into his system. Both Alex and Burke looked at Billie almost apologetically, and the intern understood with no need for words.

She closed her eyes. "He's gonna die."

Billie looked up at Alex for some sort of reassurance, but when her best friend looked back with eyebrows pinched together and a knowing look behind his eyes, she shook her head, placing her hands on the gurney and looking down at the floor for a second as if trying to regain composure.

Her chest started heaving almost immediately. Billie's hands shook and her stomach swirled dangerously, making her feel as though she was going to be sick anytime soon.

Alex, noticing the state his friend was in, placed his hand on top of hers. Despite the physical contact between the two, Billie didn't look up.

"Bil," he called out, making her lift her head. "I got you, okay? Calm down, breathe."

The girl mimicked Alex, who breathed deeply in order to guide her through the respiration. However, it wasn't that what managed to keep her grounded; it was his hand on hers, his reassuring eyes, and the fact that he cared.

Once he realized what was going on, in a quick-though brainstorm of ideas, Burke finally spoke. "Intubate him. I'll be right back."

"No, wait, Dr. Burke, where the hell are you going?" Billie wrapped her stethoscope around her neck, finally regaining enough composure to breathe out the words,

"To get an instrument tray," he explained, slightly out of breath due to the commotion of the moment. "You guys are gonna have to open up his chest."

Billie and Alex looked at each other with wide eyes as Burke finally disappeared, and the girl felt herself breaking down all over again. On the other side of the elevator, Bailey looked up at the attending.

"Are you sure about that?"

He pressed his lips together. "No."

☆

The elevator had been sterilized as much as it could be, yet the procedure they were about to perform wouldn't be exactly sterile regardless. Pete had been placed under anesthesia and he was already completely out, draped and prepped, having Billie squeeze the Ambu bag deeply in short intervals. The two interns were silent with their scrub caps, surgical gowns and latex gloves already on, bracing themselves for what was about to happen, and not daring to say a word.

Alex had managed to keep Billie grounded by holding her hand on his, but now that the makeshift surgery was about to begin, he had had to let go, and the girl had felt herself cold and empty at the lack of his physical touch. However, knowing he'd be there to catch her if she needed it made her feel ten times better.

"We're really gonna do this?" Alex asked, voice shaky in anticipation.

"We have to." Billie swallowed thickly with renewed strength, yet mouth bone-dry out of nerves. "This patient is not dying under my watch."

The two interns nodded at each other at the same time that Burke handed Alex the scalpel in order to begin the surgery.

"Take these," the attending demanded, eyes fixed on Alex. However, he didn't move, causing Billie to frown at the sudden nerves of the person that had kept her calm. "Karev, take the scalpel."

Alex was frozen.

"A- Alex? Take the scalpel, c'mon," Billie called out, staring to grow impatient. Another five seconds went by. "Alex!"

The intern didn't move. Outside of the elevator, the crowd who had gathered up to watch the intervention was starting to get nervous too, given the fact that Alex wasn't daring to move. Billie's heart began racing at record time and she clenched her jaw, handing him the Ambu bag.

"Ventilate," she demanded, taking the scalpel herself from Burke's hand with whatever confidence she managed to gather from her inside. "I got it."

Alex retrieved the Ambu bag and began squeezing it intermittently, eyes lodged on the floor with a sigh of embarrassment and Billie's eyes fixed rigidly on him, mostly out of concern.

"What do I do?" she asked Burke.

"Make a large anterolateral midaxillary incision in the fifth intercostal space. As large as you can," the attending explained with patience. "You need to get two hands in there, so it needs to be long and deep. Use the scissors if you have to."

Billie searched the patient's lateral side with her hand in order to find the space where she needed to cut and, once her hand was placed over the fifth intercostal space, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

She knew she shouldn't be the one doing this, but she had no other choice.

"Don't kill him, don't kill him, don't kill him," she repeated under her breath coaxingly, voice trailing off into a whisper.

Alex finally spoke up. "You won't."

The girl looked up. "I know, I'm just trying to talk myself into this."

Billie placed the scalpel against Pete's skin and as she was about the apply pressure to make the cut, Burke's voice interrupted her and she froze.

"But be sure you don't cut into the lung or heart," he said calmly.

"And how the hell do I make sure of that?" She scoffed.

The attending shook his head. "You just have to be sure."

A second scoff followed Burke's statement from Billie's part and everybody's eyes were on her, causing her heart to pulse in her chest at an abnormally fast speed. She took one last coaxing breath and applied pressure to the scalpel, making the wide incision, but letting out a little laugh in the process.

"Great then." She smiled sarcastically amidst the sound of tearing flesh. "No pressure."

☆

Billie spent over an hour inside the elevator next to Alex, who held a flashlight over their heads to illuminate the dark space, and with Burke, who sent out instructions through the slit in order for her to follow. Throughout the entire surgery, Billie felt the rush of adrenaline not coming to a halt in her veins, and she couldn't believe how much she was enjoying herself.

As a severe claustrophobic, feeling so calm throughout the entire surgery had made her feel weird, but it was as if she had somehow managed to find comfort on the task.

Sure, she was nervous, but when she placed her finger over the hole in Pete's aorta in order to stop the bleeding and Burke told her she was successfully done, Billie's rallying emotions and Alex's proud look made her feel something deep inside her that she couldn't understand, but she loved it.

So, once they got the elevator moving and she was cleared to leave, she started looking for Derek right away.

As soon as she saw him, Billie caught up to his stride, since he walked hectically down the hall with his eyes on his pager. The attending side-eyed her for a second and noticed the huge smile on her face.

"You know, I held a heart today," she said nonchalantly, earning a smile from Derek. "Yep, flew completely solo."

"Heard about it. You nailed it?"

"Totally fucking nailed it." The girl smiled, hands latched together behind her back as she waltzed perkily down the hall next to Derek. She then sighed dreamily. "I really love storms."

"I'm proud of you, Bil." He side-hugged her and Billie leant into him before they pulled away, silence flooding them.

Her eyes were fixed tightly on his and he didn't notice until a few seconds later, where he arched his eyebrows in her direction in order for her to spit out whatever she had in mind. It took Billie a second.

"Well, I, uh... I wasn't gonna ask you this anytime soon, but there's something about cross-clamping an aorta that feels really liberating," she began her rant. "But, uhm... Derek, what was the name of the man who your wife cheated on you with?"

The attending's face fell, eyebrows knitting together into a harsh seam and head turning in his best friend's direction as a way to physically manifest the sudden shift on the conversation. He looked at her for a second, unsure of what to say.

"Where's this coming from?" Derek finally asked. Billie doubted her next words.

"Remember I told you I used to live in New York?" she said warily. "You told me that it wasn't possible, that you'd lived there your whole life."

"Mm-hm."

"Well, I, uh... I think we might be more connected than we thought," Billie added, further explaining once she saw Derek's confused face. "I used to have a best friend there. His name was Mark... Mark Sloan."

At the name, Derek's lips parted slightly in utter shock.

"He would always talk about this woman... Addison," she continued. "And he told me she was married, but that he had slept with her right before I left. I didn't know it was you until she appeared last week."

They stayed quiet.

"Derek, was Mark your best friend?" she asked, and when the attending said yes, she sighed.

☆

Billie walked into the locker room, where Alex sat pensively against the wall on the floor. His legs were bent close to his chest and his arms were propped on his knees, eyes fixed straight ahead on nothing in particular. Billie stood by the doorsill for a second, arms crossed over her chest, and observed him before she approached him.

Alex didn't look up when she sat next to him, shoulders grazing together in the process. Unlike him, she plopped down cross-legged and lodged her eyes on his side profile, action which Alex didn't return.

"It's okay, you know?" she said. "It's okay to freeze."

The man paused. "You didn't."

"Well, somebody had to save us both." She smiled playfully, causing Alex to laugh just a little, very briefly. "It happens. We're interns, we're not supposed to preform heart surgery solo without even blinking an eye."

They both stayed quiet, Billie's eyes on Alex and Alex's eyes on his hands. The locker room was silent, but they didn't need anything else interrupting the moment. They were okay.

"I'm a claustrophobic, you know?" Billie said after a few more seconds of silence.

"So you, a claustrophobic intern who's never even held a scalpel before, managed to perform heart surgery perfectly while you were trapped in an elevator? Yeah, that doesn't make me feel any better." He pressed his lips together, and Billie laughed.

At the sight of the smile that tugged on her lips, Alex couldn't help but make a little bit of laughing himself, only because her giggles were too contagious, too beautiful to ignore.

After a few more seconds, Alex turned and looked into Billie's eyes. "I'm proud of you, you know?"

Her eyes lightened up with a characteristic glint that Alex knew so well, and liked so damn much.

"You are?"

"Of course I am. You kicked that heart's ass." He laughed, making her giggle as well. "You're a natural. You're... I don't know, it feels like you were made for this job."

Billie looked at him longingly, smile on her face and eyes crinkled small out of happiness. "You too, Alex. I hope you realize that someday."

The man stared into her eyes for a second, indiscernible expression on his face. They adopted that position for a few seconds before Alex sighed, giving up his tough cover and propping his head down on Billie's shoulder. At the faint contact between them two, the girl smiled, placing a hand on his knee.

They stayed in that position for a few minutes before Billie jolted to her feet, almost scaring Alex out of his mind. He looked up at her confused while she reached out her hand, inviting him to stand up with her.

"What are you doing?" Alex asked.

"Come, I wanna show you something," she said suggestively.

He looked between her stretched-out arm and her eyes briefly before lacing their fingers together, still confused but willing, standing up and letting the very excited girl guide him through the hallway, down the stairs and into the main hall. The entrance, made out of glass, displayed the unceasing rain that poured relentlessly just a few feet outside, also filling the hospital with a sound that resembled that of white noise. Billie immediately smiled subconsciously.

"You're not taking me out there, aren't you?" Alex frowned, confused.

"Trust me, you're gonna love it," she insisted.

"Oh, God, I'm gonna hate this."

Billie ignored him, still holding his hand as they ran down the main hall and through the doors, only wearing their scrubs. As soon as the glass doors were fully opened, they felt the cold current of air embracing their bodies, the deafening noise flooding their ears, and the shiver traveling through their spines, heavy smiles on their faces.

The portico shielded them from the rain for a minute before they skipped it quickly and the storm wrapped around them. Billie and Alex didn't let go of each others hands; if anything, once the cold downpour wetted them from head to toes, they gripped each other tighter, looking into each other's eyes and laughing vividly.

"It's fucking cold!" Alex screamed over the noise.

"Yeah, don't you love it?" Billie replied, huge smile coating her features in pure bliss of the moment.

They stood beneath the rain, hearing the roaring of the drops against the ground added to the screaming thunders that struck right above their heads.

Alex saw her. He saw her so beautifully that he wasn't smiling because he was having fun, he was smiling because she was there. He was smiling because she was smiling, and she would always have that effect on him. He was smiling just because of her.

Gazing into each other's eyes through the thick curtain of water, they smiled even wider, not even knowing what they were doing, but loving it regardless.

Before he could even think further into it, Alex cupped Billie's cheeks and kissed her.

The raindrops percolated through their lips, which made the kiss a mess of clashing teeth, tongues and water, and they didn't know what was happening, but they didn't stop. Their lips met again and again, their bodies collided in loving embrace, and despite the cold that surrounded them, they felt warm inside.

Billie felt warm inside. Alex felt warm inside. And the butterflies never ceased for any of them.

Like she said, Billie really liked storms.