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CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
all by myself.
season five, episode ten.

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All of the residents (excluding Cristina, who, apart from having been removed from the running from solo surgery, was also pretty much still mad at Billie, although the latter could say the same thing) stood by a nurses station, waiting for the Chief to come out in order to finally reveal the winner of the contest.

Billie didn't have much hope for herself. Of course, she was dying to finally get to hold a scalpel and she knew her performance had been impeccable from the very beginning, but she'd never had much confidence in her abilities.

"You think I have a chance? I have a chance, right?" Alex whispered to Billie.

The brunette looked up with a small smile. "Of course you have a chance, Alex. You're an excellent surgeon."

"Really?" The man's eyes lit up.

"Really." She grinned widely.

As Alex's eyes traveled down swiftly in order to appreciate the beauty of her curved lips, Webber came out of the conference room, followed by Cristina, who Billie immediately looked away from, and stood in front of them, causing all of their heads to whip in his direction and their attentions to gain a single focus.

"I am happy to announce that the first solo surgery will take place tonight. A below-the-knee amputation, bone cancer," he said.

"No appy?" Meredith whispered, taken aback.

"Saw action," Alex mumbled. "Sweet."

"Choosing who gets the first solo surgery isn't just about who has the best surgical skills or who's logged the most hours in the OR. It's about the highest form of trust. The trust to put a patient's life in one of our resident's hands. And for the first time that I can recall, every single attending picked the same person."

Billie leant onto the counter, propping her elbow on it in order to support her tired self. However, her energies were instantly renewed when she heard the name. Not in the best way.

"Dr. Yang," Webber said, causing Billie to frown. "However, Dr. Yang is out of the running. She is going to pick the winner instead. Dr. Yang will post her decision on the OR board at four p.m.. Also, since your interns are still banned from the OR, the winner will be allowed to pick a fellow resident to scrub in with them. Good luck."

☆

Billie walked into the ER, already wearing a yellow trauma gown and ready for whatever came her way. Or so she thought.

"It wasn't my fault! I had to tell John and those guys where to meet us!" She heard a young girl yelling. She was laying on one of the ER beds, clean cuts littered over her face.

"I said I would do it, that way you could drive! I'm telling mom and dad!" a second one retaliated. They looked oddly similar.

"I'll kill you!"

"Okay! Girls, you need to calm down." Billie laughed as she arrived, standing next to Alex in order to examine the patient. She looked up at him and smiled. "Hey."

"Hi," he replied with a big grin.

Behind them, Sadie noticed the weird interaction and frowned.

"Tell her!" the first girl yelled.

"Shut up!"

"What happened?" Billie then asked Callie, who analyzed a leg wound.

"Sisters, fifteen and sixteen, crashed their dad's car, and that's all we know since they won't stop screaming at each other," the ortho surgeon replied. "We need your names. Now."

"Don't tell her, don't you say a word!" The one that seemed to be the oldest one immediately turned to her sister warningly.

However, out of spite, the younger one looked at Billie. "Her name is Holly Anderson. She was driving. And texting. While driving! Is there a police officer here? I would like to press charges."

"You suck-up!" Holly insulted. "You suck-up assface!"

"Hey, hey!" Billie interrupted them. "We need your number so we can call your parents."

"Here," the younger one said, taking out her phone and handing it to Billie. "I speed-dialed my dad."

"You are such a bitch!"

"No, you are!"

Billie handed Callie the phone for her to take care of it while the two sisters argued. Soon, Owen approached Billie and Alex.

"Make it stop." He huffed.

Immediately, Alex opened his mouth. "Shut up!"

Efficiently, both sisters went silent. Billie and Alex shared smirking looks.

There was a moment of peace and quiet which she relished. She made it her job to check Holly's wounds, but while she thought things were back to normal in the ER, again, they started fighting.

"You are so dead when mom and dad show up. The doctors are just gonna have to save you again!"

"I hate you!"

"I hate you more!"

"I hate you both," Billie whispered under her breath, staring into space while she tried to keep calm.

☆

An hour or so went by. Billie had some spare time while the remaining doctors checked on the two sisters, who hadn't stopped arguing, and she decided to spend that time somewhere fairly quiet. She chose, just to be safe, a deserted storage closet.

She currently found herself snacking on a bag of cherry Twizzlers and a carton of apple juice, delighted by the sugary mixture and more than excited to drink her favorite beverage after so long. With her mouth full, Billie analyzed absentmindedly the tag on a syringe box, acting like the words hypodermic and ampoule meant absolutely anything to her in this particular instance.

Suddenly, the door opened and a head popped through the gap-Alex's. "What you doing in here?"

"Twizzlers," she replied through a mouthful, toying mindlessly with the straw of her drink. Soon, with her eyes on the syringe tag, she extended the package out to Alex. "Want one?"

He seemed to hesitate for a second. He looked back over his shoulder at the hallway, then at Billie, before he let out a laugh and walked into the small room, closing the door behind him. It wasn't long until he was sat next to Billie, grabbing one of the candies from the package and tossing it into his mouth nearly whole. He eyed the girl by his side.

"Is the syringe tag interesting?" he asked.

"Oh, plenty." Billie nodded, smiling softly at him, although they both knew she knew almost by hard anything that was written down on the tag. "You wouldn't believe the things that can be found in empty cupboards."

"Oh, really? Enlighten me."

She chuckled maliciously under her breath.

"Condom," she said. "Used."

"Nasty," Alex exclaimed, letting out a disgusted laugh while he scrunched up his nose. Billie snorted.

They kept quiet for a second.

"How's Holly? And Emma?" Billie asked.

"Annoying." He rolled his eyes. "It's impressive how much words can come out of their mouths in, like, three seconds."

"God, I hate people that are so loud." Billie ran her hands through her hair-though uselessly, since the overgrown curtain bangs that framed her face (product of that one time after she got out of the psych ward, she recalled) still fell messily over her eyes right after she did. Alex found the simple action weirdly attractive, although he hesitated to decide whether it was hot or just. cute.

He felt mesmerized by her for a second. So mesmerized that he failed to notice when she turned to him and caught his intense gaze on her.

"What are you doing?" She frowned, hands hanging on her neck.

Alex shook his head. "Nothing."

Billie arched an eyebrow. "Don't be weird."

"I'm not!"

"Yes, you are. You get all creepy and start looking at me like that," she accused.

(Funnily enough, Alex knew exactly what she was talking about, seeing as he'd caught himself in reverie more than once, but always with his eyes stuck on her-the realization would always hit him and he'd look away just as fast as he'd find himself attracted to her.)

When her statement was replied by mere silence, Billie changed the topic. "Hey, wasn't there something you wanted to tell me?"

Alex caught up on her words, remembering the ambiguous message he'd left on her phone a few days back, but had failed to explain.

"Oh, yeah, it was..." he began, but the words simply did not roll off his tongue. "Nothing."

"I hate it when you do that." She rolled her eyes playfully, but didn't dwell further on the topic, jumping to her feet. "I'm gonna go check on the loud twins. Coming?"

Alex paused, but soon nodded. "Sure."

They both stood up, cleaned the mess and began leaving the room. Billie took her hands to her hair and made an attempt at arranging a makeshift bun on the top of her head, but at the lack of a hair-tie, she was forced to turn to Alex.

"Hey, you got a hair-tie?" she asked.

"Yeah," he replied simply as he naturally handed her the black hair-tie around his wrist.

☆

Alex and Billie arrived back to the ER where the two sisters lay. Somebody had luckily drawn a curtain between the two beds, which was enough to keep them apart and quiet for at least a little while, so Billie enjoyed the silence while she still could.

She approached Holly's bed, seconded closely by Alex, and smiled softly at the patient while she eyed the wounds beneath her bandages, which had already been cleaned up. Next to Holly stood Sadie, talking quietly.

"Listen, I've been here. Lots," the blonde told the patient with her particular British accent. "Your dad won't be pissed. He will just be happy that you're safe."

"He'll kill me. He'll take away everything," Holly replied ruefully.

However, while Billie glanced in her direction, she noticed something off about her eyes-her pupils. Immediately, she pushed Sadie out of the way and leant down onto Holly, taking her flashlight from the pocket of her lab coat and using it to illuminate her eyes.

"How long have her eyes been like that?" she asked as Alex took a closer look next to her.

Sadie eyed the patient over Billie's shoulder and frowned. "Her eyes?"

"Page Shepherd," Alex exclaimed. "Tell him she might have a basilar skull fracture. Let's get her up to CT now!"

Billie and Alex began arranging the gurney in order to transport it, but Sadie still seemed inappropriately surprised.

"I didn't see anything-"

"Yeah, you can do scut." Billie shook her off with a glare, annoyed, as Alex helped her roll of the gurney. "I'll call you when she needs another pep talk. Right now, I need you to get out of my way."

As they approached the ER door, leaving behind a very perplexed Sadie, Billie heard Emma comment. "Where's she going?"

"Just to run a few tests," Meredith replied.

"Good," Emma said. "Get her out of here, take her away! I hope you die!"

Billie had to stop herself from freezing right on her tracks.

☆

Alex and Billie now found themselves in radiology, waiting for Holly's scans to pop up on the screen. They'd been playing a persistent game of thumb wars for the past few minutes (Alex, for some reason, couldn't seem to hold down Billie's thumb long enough to beat her, but some part inside him knew that he was enjoying the contact of her hand a little too much and was simply trying to prolong it. Of course, he would've never admitted this out loud-pathetic, right?-but God, he could not stand to like that much the size difference between their hands), when Billie finally grew tired and shook him away with a laugh.

She leant back on her chair. "You're seriously not gonna tell me what that message was all about?"

"Eh, no." Alex shrugged.

"Fuck you." She chuckled. "Seriously though. Don't leave me hanging."

"Well, you know, it doesn't really matter right now."

Billie was about to complain (everyone knew she was a stubborn little thing), but suddenly, Derek walked into the room, at the same time that the scans popped up on the screen. He eyed the couple weirdly, thinking to have caught the start of something and reminiscing over a past time where there had actually been something, but decided to ignore it, instead focusing on the monitors.

"She's got a hemopericardium," he said, leaning back and placing his hands over his hips after briefly checking the images. "Let cardio know."

Meredith suddenly walked in through the door, towing Emma on a wheeling chair. She ran up to Derek.

"Hey, I've got a Future Leader outside, she needs a CT," the blonde said, beckoning towards the patient.

Derek leant into his girlfriend. "Hey, uhm-"

"I'm not mad at you for not voting for me," she clarified instantly. "It would've looked like you were playing favorites."

"Meredith," Billie said, looking at her dead serious. "I'm his favorite."

(After the fight, the two girls had managed to sort out their problems, seeing as they both had been partially wrong in the discussion and both had something to apologize for. However, Cristina was an entirely different topic, with Billie completely unable to even look in her direction and Meredith growing substantially tired at her constant sulking and self-isolation.)

They both chuckled briefly, Derek rolling his eyes playfully at her before he turned back to Meredith. "You deserve it. Cristina knows that, even if you two are fighting."

Alex laughed maliciously. "You and Yang are fighting?"

"Billie, too," she added immediately. "But we're not fighting. Fought. Past tense."

"Yeah, well, speak for yourself," Billie muttered under her breath.

Alex looked up at her. "How bad is it? Real bad?"

The brunette didn't want to answer the question, and luckily, she didn't have to. However, the motive of interruption was actually the sound of Holly's heart monitor, which had suddenly gone haywire. She was slipping.

"She's crashing," Derek immediately announced as he called a code, and everyone jumped into the CT room to check on her, walking past Emma in the process.

"Code Blue, fourth floor. Code Blue, fourth floor," the monotonous robotic voice announced through the speakers.

Derek approached Holly on the CT table. Spurts of crimson had bled out from her nose and ears. The neurosurgeon took out his flashlight from the pocket of his lab coat and flashed it into Holly's eyes.

"There's brain matter in her blood. Let the OR know we're coming," he said.

"What happened to her? Holly? Holly!" Emma asked, alarmed, as soon as she noticed the commotion. When she received no answer, she panicked even further. "Holly! What did you do to my sister?! HOLLY! HOLLY? WHAT DID YOU DO TO HER?!"

☆

Sadly, Holly died during the surgery. Billie bared the grief inside, but after having lost more patients than she could count with her fingers, she'd learnt not to get too attached. Emma had gotten a chance to say goodbye to her sister in her ICU room, where the latter lay brain dead, but Billie hadn't dared to watch the scene, seeing as the last words from Emma to her sister had been ones she did not wish to recall.

So, now, after gathering up some courage, Billie had traveled the walls of the hospital up to the skills lab, where she'd found Cristina. The room was dim-lit and empty aside from the curly-haired resident, who analyzed samples through a microscope. Billie opened the door softly, closed it behind her and then leant onto it, arms crossed over her chest.

There was a moment of silence. Cristina noticed Billie's presence, but didn't dare to look up until a few moments later. When she finally did, she met eyes with her person's and fell some sort of anguish growing on her chest like a lump. The space between them, though only a few feet, felt like light years.

Billie sighed wearily.

"Listen, I'm not gonna pretend like we're okay," she said. "We both said things, some which we meant and some which we probably didn't. For the latter, I apologize." Cristina listened attentively. "You know what I'm here for, but I'm not gonna kiss your ass for it. I want the solo surgery and I'll be grateful if you choose me. I'll probably resent you for a little while if you don't, but it'll go away." She shrugged. "I just want to say, aside from what's happened, that the decision is yours to make, but I am qualified. In fact, I might even be the most qualified of our class. I think you should pick me." Billie paused. "But you don't have to."

The words lingered like poison in the air. They stared at each other, each trying to decipher what the other was thinking about, but none making any progress and failing to succeed. However, they both seemed somehow apologetic.

No words left to say, Billie turned on her heel and opened the door, ready to leave. But as she crossed the sill in silence, she decided to look back over her shoulder.

"Cristina," she called out, although the woman in question was already looking at her.

"Yes?" she replied a little too quickly, almost like she was hoping for the call.

Billie hesitated, but finally gestured with her head in unspoken surrender. "I'm sorry."

Cristina smiled very softly, just a quirk in the corner of her lip which could've gone by undetected if Billie hadn't been so focused on her person's reaction. Soon, the silence was interrupted.

"Me too," Cristina said.

Billie nodded, opened her mouth, said nothing, then spoke. "Okay."

Then, she left the room.

☆

Four o'clock arrived and all the residents gathered up in front of the OR board. Billie didn't have high expectations for what she'd find written on it, but whoever came out, she'd congratulate. After all, Billie Black may have been many things, but a sore loser wasn't one of them.

With the remaining Twizzlers on her hand, Billie, Alex, Meredith and George (Izzie was nowhere to be seen) stood in front of the board. Cristina walked up to it and retrieved a marker. The tension was thick in the air as she wrote. Billie peeked over her shoulder and was delighted by the name she read.

KAREV, A

When Cristina moved out of the way and everyone was able to see, there was a soft murmur that traveled the crowd, the main one being George's as he huffed out. "Are you kidding?"

However, in comparison, Billie smiled widely, popped the last piece of Twizzler into her mouth and turned to Alex with a grin that made the corners of her eyes crinkle and her cheeks hurt.

"Congratulations," she said genuinely.

Alex smiled, but he shrugged. "Whatever."

☆

Billie sat comfortably on the OR gallery. This time, she didn't carry any snacks with her, seeing as the Twizzlers had filled her up enough and she no longer felt hungry. She was almost ninety-nine percent sure that she'd be stopping by the vending machine in a half hour rough, but for now, she was going to watch Alex's job through the glass.

The patient was currently being prepped, already under anesthesia, but not yet operated on. The surgery would begin in a few minutes and Billie waited patiently for the moment her best friend walked into the spotlight. She knew he'd ace it.

However, as she fiddled absentmindedly with the red thread around her ring finger, twisting it for what felt like the millionth time, her pager went off. It was Alex.

With a frown, she jumped up from her seat and ran out of the gallery, down the stairs as fast as she could and into the OR wing, where she knew he'd be. She put on a scrub cap as fast as she could and then walked into the scrub room of OR 2. There, she found him.

"Alex, you paged?" she said once she'd broken into the small room. There was a slight pant to her breath. Soon, though, she noticed his hand under the shower of the tap-she noticed how violently he shook. "Hey, are you okay?"

"I need you to scrub in with me," he said in a panicky fashion, voice trembling with anxiety.

Billie frowned, "Where's Izzie? I thought she'd scrub-"

Alex looked at her.

"I'm freaking out," he said. "I'm freaking out! I told her I love her." He laughed sorely. Billie was shocked. "That's what I wanted to tell you. That I'm in a relationship, a committed relationship with Izzie, and now I told her that I love her. Right before the solo surgery! I can't believe that, who does that?! And now, she's not gonna show up, and I'm freaking out!"

Billie had to swallow the disappointment that had built up on her throat with his words.

"Stop," she said, prompting him quiet. "Stop freaking out. If you screw this up and kill this guy, then I'm gonna be pissed. Then I'll know I should have won this. So you have to kick ass in there. You have no choice."

The door opened behind them and in came Richard.

"Big night, Karev. You ready?" he asked, walking up to the entrance of the OR. When there was no reply, he turned back to Alex and repeated himself. "You ready?"

The door opened once again and in came Izzie, wearing a scrub cap and a surgical mask hanging from her neck.

"He's ready," she said steadily with a smile, and Billie felt like she'd been caught in the crossfire.