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CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
freedom.
season four, episodes sixteen
and seventeen.

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Billie, Meredith and Cristina were on the latter's bed, each laying on a different position. Meredith was on her back, staring at the ceiling and rummaging her brain in the search for a solution. Cristina was on her side, wrapped inside a blanket like a burrito. Finally, Billie lay on her back with her legs against the wall, running her eyes along the makeshift patterns in the ceiling.

"Do you wanna dance it out?" she asked.

"No," Cristina answered, voice muffled due to her face against the pillow.

"Do you wanna drink tequila?" Meredith suggested.

"No," she said, again.

"Do you wanna call us names and mock us endlessly?" Billie proposed, starting to freak out at the fact that Cristina was so welled up in her own depression that none of the suggestions seemed attractive to her.

Notwithstanding, at the words, she emerged from under the blanket as if the words had called her attention. She kept the stance for a second, but in the end, she simply let out a prolonged huff and hid back under the sheet.

"No."

"We're trying to cheer you up," Meredith informed.

"Yeah? Well, stop it. It's annoying. And it's not working. I'm deep in the wilderness here," Cristina said.

Billie slowly opened her eyes, retrieved her sparkle pager from the bedside table, sat up on her elbow and looked at Cristina. "Do you want the sparkle pager?"

Cristina rose once more from under the bed and looked at Billie. "That's not funny."

"You're sad. Actually sad. Do you know how I know it's the right thing to do to give you the sparkle pager? Cause you're so sad, you're not even asking me for it. So I'm giving it to you. Plus, I don't even want it. I don't need a pager to get surgeries, I can bribe them out of anyone without it. And I'm only gonna offer once, so if I were you, I'd take me up on it," Billie explained, handing the device to her person. "So here. Shiny, shiny pager with lots of shiny, shiny surgeries."

"If I were the kind of person who kissed people-" Cristina said as she took the pager. "-I would kiss you."

☆

Billie went down to the kitchen that morning in order to make herself some breakfast. True, she wasn't normally the kind to eat anything in the mornings because it would just make her feel nauseous, but she was past being who she was.

Why? Because she was falling back for a man who was unavailable, plus, was her ex, plus, currently kind of hated her.

Speaking of which.

Billie wasn't all that pleased to find Rebecca and Alex in the kitchen that morning. The woman sat on the table wearing some of Billie's clothes, puffy-eyed and still seeming numb. Alex, on the other hand, brought up a plate of breakfast to the table and set it in front of her.

"Morning," Billie said softly, concerned at the sight in front of her.

"Hey," Alex replied, then proceeded to put the fork on Rebecca's hand. He struggled at first due to the unusual limpness to her body, but finally managed himself. He looked up at Billie. "Hey, can you take my cases this morning? Check in on my post-ops?"

"You're not coming to work?" Billie asked.

"No, I'm gonna hang with Rebecca, watch some movies. So, if you could cover for me..." Alex said, walking over to the counter and pouring some orange juice into a cup. He looked up at Rebecca, who sat, motionless. "Hey, take a bite."

"Yeah," Billie said, reluctantly. "I'll cover for you." As Alex was about to head over to the table again, she stopped him and lowered her voice. "Alex, she's not looking very good."

"She's fine." He shrugged, then walked past her towards Rebecca. Billie shook her head.

☆

Already in the hospital, changed into her scrubs and after having received word of a major trauma having come in, Billie towed her interns over to the trauma gown rack. Everyone fetched one for themselves just as Cristina ran over to them, intending to do the same thing.

Bailey walked towards them, followed by Hahn and Mark. "What do we have?"

"I don't know," Billie replied.

Mark smiled at her. "Hey, Bil."

"Hi. Can you tie this for me?" she replied, turning the other way for him to help her knot the string of the trauma gown.

"Black, didn't you volunteer to cover Karev's post-ops?" Bailey asked.

"I got two of my interns on it."

Everyone was putting the trauma gowns when Callie walked in, already wearing her own. She faltered a little on her confident stride when she saw both Mark and Erica, which Billie noticed and squinted her eyes at, but she dismissed it.

The doctors immediately followed the ortho surgeon in question towards the ER, Billie making sure to keep her interns on tow. However, when they arrived at the exam room where the patient was, they all froze.

"Oh, my," Erica said.

"Jesus." Robbie took her hand to her mouth in horror.

"Wow," Billie whispered to herself at the sight of the kid, who couldn't be much younger than herself, trapped inside a big mold of cement.

One of the firefighters looked up. "So how you wanna handle this?"

☆

Bailey, Billie, her interns and the remaining firefighter were now alone in the exam room. The rest of the doctors had been instructed to come up with a plan in order to save the kid, whose name was Andrew and whose eyes were filled with unshed tears.

"So, what do you want to do first?" the firefighter asked.

"I don't know," Bailey whispered, examining the hardened vat of cement.

"Okay, well," he continued. "What do you want us to do first?"

"I don't know," she repeated.

"Alright, look. We blasted him out of the job site, but we figured, don't blast him too close. This is a lot of concrete, so if you're planning on treating him, we need to get started. So-" he said, "-what do you want to do?"

"I don't know!" Bailey screamed for the third time.

However, this prompted the wake of Andrew's tears. Billie was the first to notice, so she nudged Bailey with her elbow to make sure she knew.

"I'm sorry," she whispered to the young boy. "Okay, I- I know I'm not doing my best to instill a sense of confidence in my abilities. It's just that... you are trapped in what I'm guessing is several tons of cement."

"We've just never seen a boy- wait, how old are you?" Billie asked soothingly, taking a step towards him and trying to show comfort.

"Nineteen," he sobbed shakily.

"Oh, well, then you're a man." She smiled. "And we've never seen a man trapped in several tons of cement before. However, now that we have, we're gonna figure this out. I know how scared you are, so Dr. Bailey and I are gonna work with the other surgeons and we're gonna come up with a plan in order to save you. And hey," she called in order to get him to look into her eyes. "I never promise life to anyone, you hear me? But I am promising life to you. I promise you you'll live, I'll make sure of that. Do you understand?"

He nodded softly, still crying. "I do."

"Okay," Billie said. "I don't know that much yet, but the one thing I do know is that the cement you're encased in is slowly leeching the water from your body and you're gonna need all the water you can get, so no crying. You're a strong young man, you can do this. And if you need anything-" she wiped a tear from the man's face, "-you can tell me, okay? My name's Billie. And we're gonna save you, you hear me? You will not die on my watch."

☆

While all of the surgeons were in the continuous room trying to come up with a decent plan in order to save Andrew, Billie (along with her interns, that were technically chained to her) decided to stay in the exam room with the patient. She had gotten herself a chair and was now sat next to him, talking to him about trivial matters in order to keep his mind off things however she could.

Through the small talk, she had now found out it had been his 'friends' the ones to incite him into the vat of cement as a dare. Now, the term was no longer used by the resident, since she knew the people that put him there weren't even close to being his friends.

Billie and Andrew had already gone through the topics of school, relationships and Billie's work as a surgeon when she noticed Andrew's eyes on the door to the continuous room, where the rest of the doctors were discussing. She stayed quiet for a second, and when the room was fully silent, she managed to catch the sound of the very heated argument going on between all of the surgeons, which, she figured, was altering Andrew.

"I'm gonna be right back, okay?" she said. "I'll be right next room for a second."

"You'll come back?" His voice was shaky when he spoke.

"Of course I'll come back. It'll be quick." Billie smiled soothingly with sympathy.

She proceeded to give his hand a firm squeeze of reassurance before she stood up and strode towards her interns, making space for herself through the door angrily. As soon as it was opened, the sound of the argument was quickly magnified tenfold; the screams echoed in the room and no one was paying enough attention to notice Billie's presence by the sill. She immediately shut the door behind her.

"HEY!" she yelled at all the doctors, hands on her hips. Her voice efficiently shut them all up, Cristina, Erica, Mark, Callie and Bailey all turning towards her. "Are you all out of your damn minds?"

"Excuse me." Erica frowned at her, not knowing why the second-year resident was screaming at them.

"No, excuse me!" Billie retaliated, taking a step forward and glaring at all of them. She hooked her thumb over her shoulder. "There is a kid in there trapped inside a hardening block of cement. He's crying and he's on the verge of death, with, I'm sure, more than one problem to take into account. He's scared out of his mind and you're all out here, screaming at each other like that is gonna make it any better! You were talking so loudly I could hear you through the door. And it's freaking him out! So all of you, shut up! You're scaring him and you are not making this situation any better, so SHUT UP! ALL OF YOU, JUST SHUT UP!"

The room was dead silence as all of the doctors looked at a very enraged Billie. None of them said anything, given as they knew she was right.

"I'm gonna go back in there, I'm gonna sit by Andrew's side and I'm gonna call the Chief so that he can help you, but you're all gonna stay silent. You're gonna discuss this like adults, without screaming, and if I hear any one of you so much as raise your voice, you will not like what I do," she said.

Billie took one last look around at all the doctors, then pivoted on her heel and walked into the exam room. Andrew raised his head when he saw her come back in, sit by his side and take his hand.

"Campbell, page the Chief. Tell him it's an emergency," Billie demanded, then turned to her patient. "You'll be okay now, Andrew," she said. "They'll stay quiet."

☆

The Chief had finally managed to offer guidance enough to the surgeons in order for them to come up with a plan, so now, the firefighters were removing the cement off of Andrew. Billie was still in the room, now helping the doctors run tests on the available parts of his body that weren't encased in concrete.

Andrew looked down at Mark, who was taking care of the burns on his body. "What's that?"

"I'm pouring vinegar on your flesh to minimize the burns inside your skin caused by the cement," he explained.

"I'm burning from the inside out?" Andrew asked, seemingly freaked. He scoffed. "I'm dying, aren't I?"

"Hey, what did we talk about?" Billie arched a warning eyebrow. "That word's not allowed in here. It's officially banned from your vocabulary, remember?" Andrew nodded, although he wasn't all that sure. Billie looked down at the limb she was examining. "Can you move your fingers for me?" He complied, slowly wiggling his hand. "Good! Good, that's very good, Andrew."

"I'm not usually this dumb," he said sorely. "Most people think I'm pretty smart. I make the dean's list, I tutor. I'm not- I'm not usually the guy who's dumb enough to jump into a tub of cement for a girl."

Callie looked up in concern, "Wait, not the girl you came in with." Andrew nodded, causing her eyebrows to shoot up. "You did this for her?"

"Lola," he said. "The guys dared me. She was watching. And I-" He scoffed. "She was watching. And now, not only is she totally unimpressed, but after I'm gone, she'll remember me forever as the idiot who was dumb enough to jump into a tub of cement," Andrew concluded his story with a sorrowful expression. "People will write stories about my idiocy and forward them to their friends. I'm gonna die as a bad e-mail forward. I'm the guy who died in a block of cement trying to impress a girl. I'm like Han Solo." He laughed with pain, but when he received weird looks, he clarified. "In Star Wars? He was encased in carbonite?" Billie nodded, recalling the time she'd binge-watched the entire Star Wars saga just for the hell of it. "Oh, God. My poor, poor parents. How would they face anyone at the funeral?"

"Okay, Andrew," Billie tried to calm him down. "You're gonna make a lot of mistakes in your life, but mistakes are- they're just pieces. Like this, it's... well, maybe a dumb piece, but, you know, it's just a piece. You need to be proud of the whole picture. The whole picture defines you, not just this one piece."

"I'm a loser," Andrew whispered regardless. "I'm a loser, I'm a loser." His heart rate slowly began going up, which alerted Billie. "I'm a loser, I'm a loser, I'm a loser-"

"Han Solo was not a loser!" she blurted out all of a sudden, causing everyone to turn to her in confusion. "Han Solo got encased in carbonite and that was a big mess, but that's not what he's remembered for, is it? He's remembered as the guy who made the Kessel run in less than twelve parsecs. Right? And who braved the subzero temperatures of the ice planet Hoth in order to save someone he cared about from the big, ugly Wampa." Everybody was now staring at her, but she was somehow managing to get Andrew's pulse back to normal. "And- And he's remembered as the guy who swooped down at the last minute, blasted Darth Vader out of the skies so that Luke could use the Force and destroy the damn Death Star. Okay? Princess Leia saved him from the carbonite. And they fell in love, and they saved the universe, and had twin Jedi babies that went on to save the universe again. Right?" Billie smiled softly. "That's the whole picture. The carbonite was just a piece, like this... it's just a piece for you."

Andrew grinned widely, holding back his laughter, but eternally grateful. Billie gazed her surroundings only to catch all eyes on her, staring in amusement of what they had just witnessed. She arched an eyebrow.

"So I like science-fiction, so what? You got a problem with that?"

☆

Once most problems were solved, Billie felt like she could finally breathe. She knew there was nothing to worry about (well, Andrew still had to be freed from the concrete block and he had to undergo multiple surgeries, but they were currently in the clear, so she could at least take a breath), so she finally took a moment to call Alex, who was still back at home with Rebecca.

The phone rang a couple times before he picked up. "Bil, what's wrong?"

"Alex, hey," she replied instantly, hands shaky. "Is Rebecca okay? Has she called her husband?"

"Billie-"

"I'm just checking in, okay?"

"Not checking in-butting in. And I'd appreciate it if you stopped," he said harshly, causing Billie to shake her head.

"I'm butting in because I care," she tried to explain, though to no avail.

"You know how you can show me you care? By covering my post-ops and-"

There was a loud noise on the other side of the line and Alex was suddenly silent. "Alex?"

"Rebecca?" he called out instead, still with the phone to his ear, but seemingly, somewhere else. "Rebecca!"

"Alex? Alex, what's going on? Are you still there?" Billie was alarmed, getting no response. "Alex!"

☆

Billie found herself standing in the ER, waiting for the doors to the ambulance station to open. When they did and she caught sight of Alex carrying a bloody, semi-conscious Rebecca in, she immediately rushed to their aid.

"What happened?" she asked.

"I need betadine, saline and a suture kid," he demanded without answering.

"What happened?" Billie repeated.

"She cut herself. It was an accident." Alex struggled to put Rebecca down on a bed at the same time that he held two tablecloths against the woman's arms. "I've got this."

"How much blood has she lost?" she asked in an attempt to help, but when she checked the cuts on her wrists and noticed they were consistent with that of self-harm (yeah, she knew those too well not to), she looked up at him. "Alex."

"She's fine, I got this." He glared, closing the curtain on her face.

Billie feathered her eyes shut and let out a sigh, not understanding why he kept side-barring her when all she was trying to do was help.

☆

They had a few minutes before surgery, since the firefighters were still working to get the final pieces of cement in order to free Andrew, to which Billie decided to use this spare time in order to go check on Alex again. She knew he was still suturing Rebecca's wounds.

She found them in an exam room, so she stared at them both for a second before she said. "I prescribed her Alprazolam and Clonazepam. Psych will be down within an hour, but I thought it'd be good to have something to keep her calm until they get here."

"She doesn't need any drugs or any psych," Alex argued like he was tired of repeating himself, but at this point, Billie was starting to grow angry.

The man stood up and headed towards the counter in order to get some supplies, to which she approached him and lowered her voice. "She needs a psych consult to be admitted."

"I'm not admitting her."

"You're not taking her either," she said harshly, standing her ground.

"I was watching her every minute until you called," Alex retaliated.

"Oh, so this is my fault then, because I called?" Billie raised her voice slightly to catch his attention, then arched an eyebrow disbelievingly. "You shouldn't have to watch her every minute." She glanced over at Rebecca. "You're not on today, so she was admitted under my name, which means I get to decide the treatment plan. Me, Alex, not you. She needs to be put on hold-"

"Damnit, would you leave us alone, you stupid bitch!" Alex yelled before he walked back to the exam table in order to attend to Rebecca. Billie was shocked.

Shocked as to what he had just said and the way he'd been treating her up to the date. And, as Alex sat back down on the stool next to Rebecca without paying any more mind, Billie decided that, right now, it was simply not worth fighting it. The battle still wasn't over, but in that moment, she turned and left the room.

No matter how much she wished he was okay, it just wasn't doing her any good. So she walked away.

☆

Billie was biased. Completely, utterly and dishearteningly biased.

She had saved her patient. The surgery had been successful and, even though Andrew still hadn't woken up, she had promised him life and had, ultimately, complied. In work terms, she was proud of herself and of all of the surgeons that had went through with the case and managed to save the boy.

But, in personal terms, she wasn't even close to satisfied.

She knew Rebecca and Alex were still in the ER healing of her wounds, but she also knew that he would be taking her home soon if nobody interfered. Billie knew she just had to find a way to make him understand that.

And he was so eternally mad at him for being so destructive. She didn't blame him, because she knew self-destructiveness all too well to judge it, but she had never realized how hurtful it could be not only to oneself, but to everyone around. She just wanted to slap Alex and force him to listen to her, even if she knew it would do no good.

Billie and Bailey left the OR after Andrew's surgery, and despite the fact that the latter carried a pleased smile on her face after having saved the boy's life, the former couldn't bring herself to feel even a wisp of happiness. Bailey noticed.

"What's the matter with you? Why aren't you all happy and giggly like you always are after surgery?"

Billie looked up distractedly. "Uh, it's nothing."

"It is something, as far as I can tell." Bailey shrugged.

The younger girl bit her lip, trying to hold in her words, but she hadn't realized how much she needed to talk to someone about it until she was asked. She let out a sigh and immediately caved.

"Alex brought Rebecca in. She tried to hurt herself, but Alex's talking about taking her home anyway. He thinks she's fine, which she's not," she explained hurriedly.

"And?"

"She needs to be admitted. She needs a psych consult."

"And?"

"And I don't know what to do! Can't you do something, can't you help me?" Billie threw her hands in the air in frustration.

"No, Black, I have more important things to do," Bailey said, which caused the girl's expression to drop. "I can, however, stand here and ask you what are you gonna do about your patient? Are you gonna do your job?"

"I can't." Billie shook her head, worried. "I don't know what to do."

"Black, she's your patient. He's her loved one. Come on, you know what to do! It's just hard to do it."

It took the brunette a second, since the last thing she wanted was to keep arguing with Alex, but in the end, she simply shook her head. "Okay, I'll try."

"No, you don't have to try," Bailey disagreed. "You're a doctor trained by me, with all the skills that God gave you. You have everything you need." She looked at her in the eye. "I want to watch you put that in practice, Black, you hear me? Put. That. In. Practice." A smile took place on her lips. "And page me when you're done, will you?"

☆

"Rebecca," Billie called as she opened the curtain to her bed. Inside, Alex was dressing the woman in question, but Billie simply pointed over to the psychiatrist who stood behind her. "This is Dr. Shapiro from psych. He's gonna be examining you."

"Bil-"

"He's gonna ask you a few questions while Alex and I talk outside." Billie didn't let him finish, not even daring to look into his eyes. "Alex."

She proceeded to walk a few feet away from Rebecca's bed, and Alex didn't take long to follow her out. However, he approached her angrily.

"What did I tell you?" he said.

"No," Billie stopped him instantly. "No, no. You don't get to call me a bitch and then continue to repeatedly treat me like crap when you know, you know the only thing I've done, or at least have been trying to do, is help you. So, no. You will shut up and you will listen to me. And you ever call me a bitch again, I will hurt you." Alex decided to stay quiet. "Rebecca is my patient. I've decided her treatment in accordance to her behavior, which includes evident self-harm and a potential suicide attempt, and I am not releasing her without a consult. If you try to take her out of this hospital without my okay, I will call the police and have you arrested."

"You can't have me arrested," Alex argued.

"Try me," Billie replied fiercely.

"Look, Bil, you're worried. I see that and I understand, but you're being a little unreasonable," he said.

"I'm being unreasonable?" she asked, deadpan and disbelieving to his words. "I'm being unreasonable, Alex, when the only thing you've been doing is more harm than good?"

"Listen, I've got this!"

"No. You don't. I've got this," she counter-argued.

"I'm taking her home."

"No," she said, and when Alex tried to leave, she grasped his arm and held him back. "I said no!"

The man looked down at her hand. "What, are you gonna bodily restrain me?"

"I will if I have to, are you gonna hit a woman?"

"I will if I have to!"

"Alex," she said. "She's sick. She needs help you cannot possibly give her."

"I can take care of her!" he claimed.

"No, you can't, you have no idea what you're doing! You could do more damage by taking her home."

"I can take care of her! I've done this before!" Alex raised his voice, enough for Billie to fight the urge to flinch. "Look, she's just going through a bad patch. People go through bad patches! Alright? I- I can feed her and I can- I can change her and I can bathe her and I can watch her! Until the bad patch is over, I can take care of her!" he yelled, seeming to be at the verge of tears, and the theory was proven correct when his voice broke. "Look, I took care of my mom and I can take care of her."

Billie slowly fell into realization, and suddenly, fighting him didn't seem so attractive anymore. "You've done this before," she said.

"I've done this before!" he confirmed, leaning into her. "I have done this before, Billie! But I was a kid then and I'm a man now, so I'll be better at it. I have done this before!"

"Stop," she said, placing a hand on his chest. "Alex, the fact that you can do this better than before doesn't mean you have to. Before, you couldn't get help. But you can now and I'm offering it. I'm offering help. I'm also offering an olive branch, if you'll take it." She looked at him sympathetically. "Rebecca needs help. And you're not gonna get her that help by fighting me and taking her back home. Okay?"

☆

Andrew was installed in the NICU in the hold for his anesthesia to wear off while Billie cleaned up his surgical incision and changed his dressings. Much to her delight, he slowly peeled his eyes open, coming into a groggy stance of consciousness.

Billie grinned. "Do I or do I not keep my promises?"

"You do," he said softly, still under the effects of the anesthesia.

She laughed. "And remember what I said about the bigger picture?"

"Yeah?" Andrew frowned.

Billie smiled softly as the girl who he liked entered the room smiling. Billie decided to fill up the chart while the two kids talked.

She watched from afar how Lola placed her hand on his hair and softly stroked his head, then leant down and planted a soft kiss on his lip.

Callie, who had also been watching the scene, smiled. "He's been waiting his whole life for that, huh?"

"Yes, he has." Billie nodded her head.

She grinned softly at the sight of the new couple that had, after so long, gotten their happy ending, but the situation only made her wonder... when would her happy ending come?

Would she even get one?

☆

Billie found Alex in his room that night when she got home. He sat motionless on his bed, so she stood by the door and leant against the sill.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"Whatever," he was quick to fire back.

Instead of saying anything else Billie decided to head towards him and take seat by his side. Once she was close enough, she noticed the tears welled on his waterlines.

"Not whatever." She shook her head. "I'm sorry. About Rebecca and your mom." Billie took his hand in his and leant in. "I'm sorry."

Alex turned towards her and Billie felt a pang to her chest noticing the state he was in. However, without letting his tears slip, Alex cupped her cheek and leant in, lacing their lips together. For a second, Billie wanted to let go.

His lips were something she hadn't felt in so long, and something she hadn't realized how much she had been craving. And now that she had them, she didn't want to lose them again. But she knew it wasn't right.

So she placed her hand on top of his and tried to pull away. "Alex."

"Please. Just this once." He whispered within a sob, stroking her cheekbone with his thumb and looking so deeply into her eyes that she wanted to melt into him. "Just for this one night, please. Please."

As he spoke, he leant into her until their lips were together once again, and this time, Billie didn't stop him. She let him kiss her like she had been wanting him to so badly, placing her own hands on his cheeks and feeling the salty tears percolating through the kiss.

However, eventually, she pulled away.

Alex cried. "Please. Please."

Billie felt his pain, so instead of letting him kiss her again (in which case, she knew she wouldn't be able to stop), she allowed him to nuzzle into her neck and she hugged him until he cried all of his tears away.