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CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
these ties that bind.
season five, episodes eight
and nine.

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Billie knocked on Meredith's door, but used the simple action as a mere warning of her entrance, since she didn't wait for an answer before Cristina and her were breaking into the room. Inside, Meredith and Derek opened their eyes in sync.

"You up?" Billie asked, holding the drink carrier with the three coffees that she had picked up on her way from Ian's place to Meredith's.

"Yes," Meredith said as she sat upright on the bed.

"No," Derek groaned in chorus.

Immediately, Billie and Cristina sprinted towards the bed. The blonde forced her boyfriend to shuffle over in order to leave space for her persons, who promptly jumped under the bedding next to the third part of the trio. Billie gave out one coffee for each.

"The Wicked Witch, is dead," Cristina said eerily as she received her beverage.

"Metaphorically dead, or dead dead?" Meredith frowned.

"Who are we talking about?" Derek asked with his eyes closed, evidently annoyed at the presence of two more people in his bed.

The three girls turned. "Hahn."

"Her name is off the surgical board. Her surgeries have been canceled. We don't know how or why but we do know: Hahn is gone."

"It's too bad, she was really talented," Derek said. Immediately and once again, the three girls turned towards the man, whose eyes suddenly opened. "You're not talking to me."

"Uh-huh." Billie shook her head as she took a gulp from her coffee.

Derek nodded and proceeded to jump off the bed, quite tiredly, before he was out of the room. The three girls took upon the new piece of space left and made themselves comfortable.

"Oh, and check this out," Billie said, taking out her phone from the back pocket of her jeans. "Alex texted me that there was something he wanted to tell me."

"What?" Meredith gasped, peeking over the screen in order to catch sight of the eery (and pretty ambiguous) text. "Why?"

"I don't know!"

"I thought you were over him." Cristina frowned over the rim of her coffee cup.

"I was! I am! But that's not the point. Point is-" Billie shook her head. "-what does it mean?"

"Means he has something he wants to tell you." The former shrugged.

"You don't think he's gonna confess your love for you, don't you?" The blonde smiled excitedly.

"Oh, no, we're over that. I just-"

Suddenly, however, their conversation was interrupted by the sound of rushed stomps up the stairs, which soon concluded in Meredith's room. The door opened violently to give sight to a perky-looking blonde.

"Death!" she yelled, giving no warning when she jumped into bed and onto Meredith, nearly crashing Billie's leg in the process.

"Die!" Meredith screamed back just as loudly. "Oh, my God, it's been-!"

"Forever!" Die (a pretty crappy nickname, if you asked Billie) laughed into the hug.

"Uh, hey, you're kinda crushing me." Billie pried the perky blonde off of her, but she paid no mind and, instead, kept her eyes on Meredith.

"You look like..." both blondes said. "Death!"

"Is the guy in the pajamas your boyfriend?" The girl wondered as Billie and Cristina shared looks. "Cause if so, then hot."

"Right?"

"Uh, hey!" Cristina interrupted the squealing. "Who are you?"

"I'm Sadie. Who are you? And you?"

"I- I'm Cristina."

"Uh, Billie."

Immediately and for whatever reason, both blondes burst into a fit of high-pitched laughter.

☆

"Apparently, they went backpacking around Europe together or something, before med school," Cristina groaned as her and Billie sat by Derek on the kitchen counter, having left Sadie and Meredith upstairs alone to catch up (or whatever).

"She was so loud. I hate loud people." Billie shook her head with a disgusted grimace.

"Surprisingly, you do your own share of loud," Derek fired back.

"That woman all but kicked me out of bed!" the brunette complained.

"That's terrible." The man yawned.

"And Death? Meredith's name is not Death, it's Mer."

Derek made a sarcastic grimace. "I really feel for you."

"You know, she's never even mentioned this woman. How good of a friend could she be?" Cristina lowered her voice.

"Good enough to kick us three out of bed," Derek said as he refilled Billie's cup with coffee. The two girls whipped their heads in his direction, shocked, but he simply smiled. "Welcome to my world."

☆

Later that day, already in the hospital, Billie found herself with nothing to do. She was sat behind the counter on a nurses station with her feet up on the desk, a clicking pen on her hand and a compulsive habit to turn the rolling chair around for no particular reason every few seconds.

So far, she'd ran into Ian (he had given her a fifteen minute lecture about how he had been worried all morning due to the fact that she was not in the house when he woke up, and that she should never do that again unless she wanted to give him a heart attack), Izzie (she had acted oddly strange, to which Billie had chosen not to even try), George (who couldn't seem to find his interns, apparently), and once again, Sadie, but amongst these people, not once had she seen Alex. The curiosity was killing her.

However, as she went about her reverie, her intern, Robbie, ran up to the station and dropped a total of six charts on the counter, letting out an exasperated huff once she got rid of the load. Immediately, she displayed them over the table and opened all of them, beginning to sign them one by one.

"Keys," Billie called out with a frown after a few seconds of watching her keep up the tiring task. Robbie looked up, oblivious to her resident's presence until then.

"Yes?" she said, high in alert.

"Why the hell are you updating six charts at the same time?" she asked, stopping her spins on the chair in order to pay full attention to her intern.

"Oh, well, I was supposed to deliver these two to Dr. Sloan, these three to Dr. LeBlanc and this one to Dr. Bailey yesterday night, but I got behind on Dr. Shepherd's post-op notes, so I'm hoping I can finish these before nine, or else I know for a fact Dr. Sloan will have me fired," she said in a rush. "Oh, and don't worry about your charts. John's got them covered."

"Why are you covering everyone's crap?" Billie squinted. Robbie simply shrugged, eyes fixated on the many charts she was shakily scribbling down on. "Hey, give me that."

"Wait, no, no, no. I need to finish these."

"Uh, no, you don't. I'll have Miller on these."

"No, Adrian's on Yang and Karev's pre and post-ops. Please, I just need to finish these," Robbie practically begged, causing Billie to frown.

Soon, she squinted at her intern, as if catching her on a lie. However, she said nothing.

☆

With an incoming trauma and lots of charts to catch up on, as well as a particularly rallying mind at this time of the day, Billie found herself sprinting down the hallway behind a pile of medical supplies she'd need to treat the patient that was coming into the ER. More than once, she'd stumbled and almost knocked over the entire stack, but she'd managed to catch herself right in time. However, right now, she was met with the floor-amidst her hurry, she had failed to notice the floor boundary, so she'd tripped.

"Fuck me," she cursed under her breath as she shook off her now sore ankle and rushed to pick up the mess.

"Billie?" Alex caught sight of her as he turned a corner, and immediately ran to her aid, helping her pick up the supplies from the floor. "You okay?"

"Yeah, in a bit of a hurry. There's an emergency trauma coming in and I'm already late. Hunt is gonna kill me. Also, d'you know what's going on with the interns? It's like they've disappeared. I actually ran into Keys this morning and she was acting all weird and panicky and it just makes me think, you know? I haven't seen any of the little suck-ups yet either, it's weird. Oh, and hey, do you have a hair-tie? I can't seem to find mine. I think Meredith took it, I'm pretty sure I saw her wearing it this morning," Billie blurted out in a rush all of the things she had in mind as she picked up the supplies quickly, but it only made Alex look at her in shock as he digested the new pieces of information.

"Uhm." He cleared his throat awkwardly. "I, uh, don't know where the interns are."

"What about the hair-tie?" Billie rose to her feet, followed along by Alex, although in slight delay.

"Uh," he cleared his throat yet again, "yeah, sure."

Soon, he reached out for the black hair-tie he had been keeping around his wrist for the past few days. He'd never admit it out loud, but as he'd live the situation twice already, he wanted to be prepared for the next time Billie was in need of him, so on the same day she'd asked the second time, that afternoon, Alex had ran into the bathroom, searched through Izzie's makeup bag and stolen a little black hair-tie, which he had kept on his wrist for the next couple of weeks, waiting for the day when Billie finally was in need of it. Now, he felt slightly proud of himself as he handed her the item, which she took thankfully-when she did, Alex couldn't help but notice the thin, delicate red thread that still remained laced around Billie's left ring finger, as if representing a promise. It made him blink hesitantly for a second.

"Thanks," Billie said, snapping him out of his reverie. She took the hair-tie and placed it on top of the pile of items, seeing as her hands were currently busy to do so. "Was there something you wanted to tell me? I got your text this morning."

Alex thought for a second. Yes, there was something he wanted to tell her. There was a world's worth of things he wanted to tell her, actually. He wasn't so sure why though-he wasn't so sure why he felt it necessary for her to know that he was now in a committed relationship with Izzie Stevens. It was a young thing, fragile almost, but as soon as it had become official, the only thing that Alex had been able to think about was what is Billie gonna think about this?, how will she react?, should I tell her? and it had been the first thing that kept him up at night after a long period of peaceful nights. He still had a hard time figuring out why, but he knew that, once she knew and once she'd given him her official reaction, he'd feel calmer. Or so he thought.

But, now, standing in front of her and with the words on the tip of his tongue, it was like his lips were sealed shut. With rallying thoughts, he switched his gaze from one of her eyes to the other, appreciating her creaseless eyes, her delicate eyebrows and the dainty, bruiting freckles that were sprinkled on the curve of her cheekbones, sliding down her skin like stars in a vast galaxy and creating a bridge between her nose and her lips like an unchanging constellation.

"You have a lot of freckles," Alex said absent-mindedly.

Billie grimaced. "What?"

He widened his eyes in realization.

"N- Nothing," he stuttered out. "I- I have to go."

With those lingering words, he walked past and away from Billie, who turned to see his fading figure with a frown upon her face and evident confusion, which she ultimately shrugged off in order to continue her sprint down the hallway.

☆

Billie woke up the following morning at about three thirty in the morning due to a page from a nurse, who was calling her in order to inform her about a possible appendectomy coming in. With the possibility for a solo surgery coming up soon, Billie needed all the practice she could get, so she immediately ran down the stairs struggling to step into her boots, grabbed a piece of bread from the kitchen and jumped out into her car, making sure to leave a quick blur of a note in the kitchen counter for Ian once he woke up.

When she arrived the hospital, even though she didn't get assigned to the appendectomy, she was so very pleased when Bailey put her on Owen's service, since he was currently working on a guy who, sleepwalking, had fell out the window. So, alongside multiple other doctors, she headed into the OR, where she spent a few hours.

Billie currently found herself leaving the operating room, scrub cap still on and a wet towel over the back of her neck in order to soothe her tire. The minimal sleep plus the heavy hours spent standing and operating had exhausted her enough, so she was meaning to find her way over to the coffee cart as soon as possible. However, after she took off the scrub cap and left the wing, she crashed into a figure-more specifically, she crashed into none other than her intern, John Rogers.

"Oh, sorry," he muttered hurriedly, but didn't spare the situation much thought, since he was already getting ready to sprint away.

However, Billie caught his arm. "Rogers! I haven't seen you in, like... forever. Weirdly."

"Uh, yeah, I've been busy. You know, I'm an intern, I've been... interning," John said suspiciously, talking the fastest Billie had ever heard him talk, causing her to frown.

"Uh-huh. Okay, and, amidst all of this crazy interning, did you happen to see any of the other interns? Grey, Harris, anyone?"

"I-" John began, but soon cut himself off. He ran a hand through his hair in stress and Billie thought to be finding the motive of his weird behavior.

"John?" she drawled suggestively. "What is it?"

The man in question heaved out a huff. "I think you should come with me."

☆

Billie, followed by John, ran into the outpatient OR with a scrub cap and mask on and a heaving chest. Immediately, the first thing she saw was utter chaos: there were interns all over, all of them in their light blue scrubs that represented their lack of authority in the hospital, and they were all wearing scrub caps, gowns, gloves and masks, standing and moving around in a circle in a panicky fashion around the operating table, where none other than an unconscious Sadie lay, naked, draped, and with a two inch incision on her stomach.

"What the hell do you all think you're doing?!" Billie yelled in the spur of the moment, sudden anger and shock coursing through her veins. The first eyes that she met were Lexie's; she held her bloody gloved hands by her sides and seemed like she wanted to die.

"We were trying to take out her appendix," the young girl whispered as Billie assimilated the situation. "Dr. Black, we're so-"

"No, save it!" Billie bellowed, eyeing Sadie's open body briefly. "Rogers, glove and gown me. Grey, control that bleeder. Any of you does or says anything else, I will kill you with my bare hands."

Immediately, John did as told, preparing Billie to operate. Meanwhile, the resident eyed the heart monitor.

"Her BP is dangerously low. We need to push two liters of LR. Somebody get on it," Billie demanded, fuming with rage. "And page Meredith Grey and Cristina Yang, now."

☆

It wasn't long until Meredith and Cristina were in the outpatient OR. Billie now knew, according to Lexie's nervous cries, that the interns had tried to do a practice appendectomy on Sadie due to the fact that, supposedly, they weren't getting correct teaching from their residents. However, things had gone South in a matter of seconds and now, Billie, Meredith and Cristina found themselves operating on the intern, each angrier than the other.

"Should we call a code?" Lexie asked nervously, eyes watery.

"There is no code team in outpatient surgery in the middle of the night 'cause normally, this procedure would be done by a surgeon in a regular OR," Billie huffed out through gritted teeth.

"Page the Chief and go get Bailey, and tell her there's an emergency. You're not to say anything else," Meredith told one of Cristina's interns. "And take that crazy look off your face."

☆

Billie, Cristina and Meredith continued operating in a rush. Soon, Bailey came in, knotting a mask over her mouth and nose. As soon as she was inside the outpatient OR, her brows furrowed, eyes switching from Sadie's unconscious body, to the three residents, to the nervous interns.

"What the hell is going on?" she asked, approaching the table.

"We were trying to take out her appendix," Lexie said.

"Well, whose foolish idea was that?"

The intern held back a tear. "Mine."

Bailey was starstruck for a second, but she seemed to be so angry that she couldn't even get a word out. Instead of scolding the interns, she decided to ran over to the table and stand by Billie, ready to help out however she could.

"Where are we?" she asked.

"Just found the artery in the meso-appendix. Apparently, the stitches that the interns did came off," Meredith said.

"Hand me another 3-0 silk," Billie requested, trying to submerge her anger. "I need some more suction. How's her pressure holding up?"

"Seventy-four systolic."

"She's really bleeding. I can't see anything!"

"The stump isn't closed right. She needs a partial cecectomy." Billie shook her head. "I can't get to the appendiceal artery."

"Yes, you can! You almost had it," Bailey intervened, spurring on her residents as she tried to lend a hand.

After a second in which Cristina worked non-stop, she looked up at Billie. "Is your visualization better?"

"No, I can't-! I can't see anything!" the brunette replied in frustration.

"Look, look-don't panic. Here, put that down," Bailey demanded. "Feel down for the meso-appendix. Find the pulsation. Now follow it to the end."

As the elder woman spoke, Billie complied, guiding her hand around the body cavity. It took her a second, but in the end, she finally managed to find what she was looking for, causing a wave of relief to wash her over briefly.

"Okay, I think I got it," she said.

"Good. Now place your clamp." Bailey handed Billie the instrument. "Grey, tie it off while Black holds the clamp in place."

"Stick-tie or ligature suture?" Meredith questioned.

"Whatever works," the older woman replied. "You have to do what feels right to you."

☆

Now, Billie, Meredith and Cristina found themselves in the Chief's office, standing in front of the man himself.

"I was sleeping!" he yelled angrily. "And sleep isn't easy for me to come by, but I was finally sleeping. Then, I get a call."

"I can't believe it," Meredith said. "I still can't believe it."

"Don't beat yourself up too much about it," Webber said. "I've seen a lot of maturity in the three of you through this whole mess. You handled the crisis, you handled the surgery. You saved that girl's life. And you called for help right away," he added emphasis on the word. "There was a time not so long ago that you would've reached a different conclusion. You could have stuck to the code and saved your own, tried to hide the whole mess. Sometimes, protecting your colleagues is solidarity and sometimes it's just hubris. I'm glad to see you know the difference."

Meredith and Cristina shared smiles, also in Billie's direction, but the latter was still rather pissed. However, as they were ready to go about their nights, Lexie barged into the room, panic-stricken.

"Chief," she said. "I- I can't let you three get in trouble for this."

"Lexie-"

"No, it's not right! People tried to stop me, Dr. Yang told me yesterday to shut it down but I didn't listen!"

"Wait, what?" Billie frowned, catching up on the new information.

The Chief turned to Cristina red in the face. "You knew about this yesterday?!"

"Sir, I-"

He turned to the two other residents. "Did you know?"

"No," they chorused, causing Cristina's head to whip in their direction as pure betrayal took over her face.

☆

"You knew. You knew they were gonna cut her open?" Meredith asked in stark rage once the three residents had left the room.

"No!" Cristina yelled as she paced about the small vicinity.

"Lexie just said you knew!" Billie yelled. "Get your story right, Cristina, is it a yes or is it a no?"

"Sutures! I knew they were doing sutures on themselves, and I didn't think I needed to say anything because I'd shut it down! I handled it."

"Apparently, you didn't, because it almost cost Lexie her job, not to mention Sadie almost died in there!" the brunette bellowed.

"Sadie did that to herself, and let's not pretend any of you two have some sort of relationship with Lexie. Let's not pretend that you care about her." Cristina rolled her eyes.

"Yes, I do fucking care about her, Cristina. But I also care about my freaking job! I care about doing the right thing!"

"Who are you to lecture me on doing the right thing? Are you kidding me?" Cristina shook her head. She turned to Billie. "You. Even though you walk around here with some sort of- of superiority complex, guess what! You're just as stupid and as unexperienced as any of us are. And you," now, she talked to Meredith as Billie glared holes into the side of her face, "you're not an attending, Meredith. You may be sleeping with one, but you aren't one yet."

"Is that what this is about? Derek? It's always gonna be about Derek?" the blonde complained.

Billie shook her head in disbelief. "What part of your brain thinks you're in the right here?"

"No, okay, fine! It's not about Derek and it's not about me being right or not, it's about you two and me, and the fact that none of you had my back in that room!" Cristina yelled at the verge of tears.

"What the hell would you have wanted us to say!"

"I don't know, anything! You should have said anything!" She waved her hands in the air, eyes on Meredith. "You have a relationship with the Chief, you have his ear, but you didn't say anything to defend me, and you, Billie, you're Ivory LeBlanc's little freaking daughter. You could've said no and he would've listened to you!"

"Oh, so that's your problem now? What, because my mom was his friend, now I'm the bad guy?" Billie scoffed.

"No! No, you're not the bad guy! But this isn't just on me. I mean, you just stood there and you watched him take me out of the running for solo surgery. You let me take all the blame! But the fact is, we all had interns in that room. We all failed to supervise them. And if your friend had died in there, if you and I hadn't saved her life, that would have been on all of us too."

There was a moment of quiet. Billie looked down at the floor.

"No, it wouldn't have."

Cristina's head shot in her direction. "Excuse me?"

"No, it wouldn't have," she repeated, glancing between her two persons. "Did any of you two look long enough to notice none of my interns were in that room?"

"Oh, no, you do not get to throw that in our faces-"

"Yes, I do!" Billie shut them up. "My interns, my young, unexperienced interns have been running around this hospital for over a week, covering all of your patients and all of your chores and all of your asses, whereas your interns were hiding in the basement cutting themselves, stitching themselves up and performing clandestine freaking surgeries! And not once did any of my interns ever so much as grabbed a clamp without my permission! So, what the hell does that say about you?" She turned to Cristina. "I may be stupid and unexperienced, Cristina, but at least I don't walk around this hospital claiming rank when all I do is sit on my ass and simply save my own."

"Oh, we get it you're so perfect, Billie. Everything you do is right, whatever." Cristina waved her off.

"No, no. I'm not perfect. And I may not be the greatest surgeon out there, but right now, in this point in time, I am a better surgeon than any of you two. I was in there, saving the woman your interns almost killed for the simple reason that you're my persons and I would never let you down, but I had no business in that OR," she said with a glare. "So no, this is not my fault. This was just me covering both of your asses. Again."