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CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE
state of love and trust.
season six, episode thirteen.

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"Either one of you know what this big meeting's about?" Jackson asked as he, Charles and Reed caught up to Alex, Lexie and Billie.

"I heard there was a coup," Reed said.

"Webber's out, Shepherd's in. Is it true?" Charles asked.

"We know what you know," Lexie said.

"Bull. Alright? Your sister's married to the guy. You expect me to believe you don't know what's going on?" Jackson argued.

"Don't you have your own loser friends to talk to?" Alex turned to look at Jackson.

The blue-eyed man dedicated him a defying glare, one which Billie missed.

"Also heard Shepherd plans to clean the house, maybe he'll start with you," Charles told Alex condescendingly.

"Dude, I'm safe. The guy's my roommate. You're the ones who should watch your backs."

"Why? What do you know?" Reed asked.

"Simple math," Alex replied. "Shepherd hates the merger. You're from Mercy West. You're toast."

"Derek's not gonna fire people just because they're from Mercy West," Lexie argued hopefully. "He's not like that. He's loyal and fair."

"Yeah, tell that to Webber." Jackson chuckled.

The two other Mercy West-ers laughed as well, and Alex and Lexie shared looks. Billie was still quiet, which Jackson noticed, so he grabbed at her arm and pulled her apart from the moving group.

"Hey, babe, what's wrong?" he asked.

"What? Why?" She frowned.

"I don't know. You've been off since I picked you up this morning and you haven't said a word. I'm worried," he explained.

"I'm fine," she replied curtly, then quickly scurried away before he could further question her.

Jackson watched her run away with his hands on his hips, slightly concerned about her.

☆

All of the doctors and nurses were gathered at the main lobby, by the stairs, waiting for Derek's speech. Everyone, including Billie, was wondering what it was all about, but the brunette didn't seem too interested on the matter.

Derek appeared on the landing of the stairs, wearing a shirt and a tie beneath his lab coat. Billie felt Jackson's presence behind her, followed by his hand on her waist, then heard Callie scoff.

"What the hell is he wearing?" she asked.

"He looks good. Chiefly," Owen said.

"He looks like an undertaker," Cristina corrected.

"I promised him we'd clap," Arizona informed.

"Oh, now?"

In front of them, Derek was sorting through his flashcards, ready to give out his speech. He stood up straight and cleared his throat loudly, so everyone in the hall went silent awaiting his words.

"I wanna thank you all for being here. I know you're busy, so I'll try to make this quick," he began. "As you may have heard, I have been appointed the new interim chief of surgery." A murmur traveled the hall. "It's my personal goal to make this transition as smooth as possible. I know we've had a rocky few months."

"Here it comes," Alex whispered.

"Mistakes have been made."

"He's talking about the merger," he added, and Lexie shushed him.

"I intend to right those wrongs and—"

"Told ya."

"—bring this hospital back to its former glory," Derek said.

"Former glory?" Cristina laughed. "Undertaker needs a speech writer."

"We are screwed," Jackson noted.

"Yes, you are, sucker," Alex replied, although perhaps his statement was slightly directed specifically to him.

Reed suddenly gasped. "Check it out, Chief Webber."

Everybody turned and in fact, Webber walked into the hall, following behind Jenkins from the board. At the sight of them, Derek went suddenly silent for a second before continuing.

"What I meant, uh, by that is... what I'm trying to say is I wanna thank you for your support, in advance," he said nervously. "And that's, uh, that's all. Okay, let's get back to work."

There was an awkward pause before Arizona began clapping.

☆

Much to her dismay, Billie was assigned to Arizona's service alongside Alex. She was palpating a young child's abdomen while the attending spoke and Alex simply stood aside.

"How long would you say Brad's been having the pain?" she asked to the parents.

"Off and on for months," the mother replied.

"Brad, is the pain constant or is it worse at times, better at others?"

The kid thought for a second. "It's usually bad in the mornings, like right after breakfast."

"Which, I might point out, is when he has to go to school," the father said. Billie eyed him subtly.

"But I feel it at other times too," Brad added.

"Right, like when you have a Spanish test or have to give a presentation in history class," he continued.

"Stress can exacerbate abdominal pain," Billie told with a glint of annoyance.

"Please, doctor, don't encourage him. He's just faking so he can miss school."

"I am not!"

Billie rolled her eyes. "Abdomen's soft, non-tender, not rigid. Bowel sounds are good."

"Still, I'd like to cover all the bases," Arizona said. "Dr. Karev, how would you proceed?"

"We could try a triple contrast CT." He shrugged.

The attending seemed satisfied. "Let's do it."

"Brad," the father interfered. "This is gonna cost us thousands of dollars and insurance only covers part of it. You know that, right?"

"I'm not faking it!" Brad sat up. "I'm not faking it, dad, I swear!"

☆

"What about that?" Alex said, pointing at a small shadow in Brad's abdominal CT. "That spot, you see it?"

Billie leant in and wiped it with her finger. "That was lint."

"It doesn't make sense." He huffed. "I mean, no kid wants to be the loser missing class to go to the hospital, I don't care how lame you are."

"I loved the hospital when I was a kid. No school, lots of cool medical supplies to play with," Arizona said with a toothy grin, which soon faded. "Okay, yeah. So let's go over it again."

"He presented with severe but intermittent abdominal pain. No discernable pattern."

"Labs were normal, no fever," Arizona continued.

"Soft abdomen on exam."

"We're missing something." She shook her head, then eyed Billie over Alex's shoulder. "Black, why are you so quiet?"

With her hands crossed over her chest, Billie thought. "Chronic mesenteric ischemia."

"Oh!" Arizona exclaimed. "Alright, it's a stretch for a kid, but if he had vascular problems..."

"It fits all the symptoms, it doesn't show up on the scans," Alex reasoned eagerly.

"Yeah, but the problem is, the only way to get an accurate diagnosis is try an exploratory laparoscopy."

"So?"

"Brad's father didn't want us to run a CT, you think he's gonna wanna pay for a ten thousand dollar exploratory procedure that might not even give us the results we're expecting?" Billie suggested like it was obvious.

☆

"You paged?" Billie arrived at a rush to where Cristina chatted with Alex and Lexie.

"Bil," Cristina sighed in relief, handing her some supplies, "come. The rest of you, bye."

Immediately, she grabbed her friend and led her towards a bed. Billie closed the curtain behind them. Cristina then proceeded to bend over the bed and lower her pants, revealing a big burn on her butt cheek.

"Oh, my God!" she exclaimed.

"Not so loud!" Cristina whisper-yelled.

"How did you— What—" Billie stuttered, preparing her supplies. "You have grate marks burned into your ass."

"Yeah, vent marks, but same difference."

Billie didn't say anything else and began applying ointment on the burn to treat it. It was Cristina that turned around.

"I was busy having sex. Will you please just dress the wound?"

"Oh, there's no need to be ashamed," Billie claimed as she worked on her butt cheek. "I once accidentally placed my hand on a burning pan while having sex. Totally worth it."

"Owen's being very caveman-like. It's hot. Vaguely disturbing, but mostly hot." Cristina totally ignored her every word. There was a pause. "I think he might still be a little upset that I offered him to Teddy."

The curtain suddenly flew open, revealing Alex and Lexie on the other side. Billie and Cristina turned.

"Alex!" they chorused.

"Hot cross buns," he said with a cocky smirk.

"That's gonna blister," Lexie added.

"Will you get them out of here!" Cristina yelled at Billie.

Billie's pager went off at the same time as Alex's did. "I'm sorry, Arizona's paging me."

"What!"

"Lexie, will you take over?" she asked in a hurry. "Don't worry, I'm taking Alex with me."

"I hate you!"

☆

"No. Just no," Brad's father yelled. "You are not cutting open our son with no evidence that there's anything—!"

"Dad!"

"NO!" he refused. "Listen to me. That is thousands of dollars we're talking about on what, a hunch? Huh? He's got nervous stomach and crappy grades, that's it. I hated school too, Brad. Okay? I got it. Your mother and I, we have jobs and we go to them. You have school, that's your job. No surgery. It's insane. Just no. No!"

He stormed out of the room, followed by Brad's mother. Arizona turned to their residents.

"You think it's right for them to take him home?"

"It isn't," Brad said.

"Sh, Brad, I'm teaching," Arizona whispered. "You think he's faking?"

"No," Alex replied.

"What are you gonna do?"

"I'd like to push his dad's face into a wall," Alex said, then turned to Brad. "No offense."

"Yeah, no, that'd be good," Brad replied eagerly.

"Well, barring physical violence, what are you gonna do? This is Peds. Your patients can't advocate for themselves. So, in addition to surgery, a big part of the job is advocating for them," Arizona explained. "You think you can do that?"

Immediately, inspired, Alex rushed out of the room.

Billie, on her part, had been gazing out the window distractedly. Arizona's eyes landed on her with a frown.

"Is she okay?" Brad asked.

"That's what I plan to find out. Black!" the attending exclaimed, snapping her out of her reverie. "Outside with me."

☆

"What is it with you?" Arizona asked as soon as her and Billie were out of the room.

"What?" The younger one frowned.

"You've been quiet all day. Now I may not know you much, but if there's something I've been told is that you're really smart and you like to show," the blonde explained. "Why have you been silent all day?"

"I— I don't know," Billie mumbled, slightly intimidated by the attending.

"You do know."

She looked into her eyes, then looked down at the floor. "Some personal issues, is all."

"Well, whatever it is, you're gonna have to sort it out, because it's interfering with your learning." Arizona took a step towards her and placed a hand on her shoulder. "Is there anything you wanna talk about?"

Billie opened her mouth to speak, but then changed her mind. "Not for now, Dr. Robbins. But thank you."

Arizona was dubious of her response, but decided not to insist.

☆

Apparently, Alex was able to bully Brad's parents into consenting to the exploratory laparoscopy, but after thirty minutes into the procedure, they had found absolutely nothing. Brad had become slightly unstable during the laparoscopy, so they had been forced to put in a chest tube and take him to the ICU, which was where Billie and Alex were now.

Billie was checking Brad's dressings while Alex sat in front of her updating his chart when Reed walked in and towards him.

"Do you really think Shepherd's gonna cut all of us?" she asked him. Billie squinted her eyes at the interaction.

"What?"

"The Mercy West-ers," Reed said. "Do you think we're all gone? I mean, just... tell me if you think that I need to start looking for a job."

Alex eyed her sideways. "I don't know."

Reed seemed to know she shouldn't try to fight a quiet Alex, so she turned on her heel and left reluctantly. Billie eyed him through the corner of her eye.

"Are you two dating?" she asked out of mere curiosity.

"What?" He grimaced. "No. Not a chance. Why?"

Billie shrugged. "Just asking."

Suddenly, Brad's parents broke into the room.

"Is there a reason why our son is in the ICU?" the father asked, irked.

"Did you figure out what's wrong?" the mother added.

"Uh, not exactly," Billie replied. In front of her, Alex stood up.

"Why does he have a tube in his chest? You said you were doing abdominal surgery," the mother asked, her eyes glinting with concern.

"Brad became briefly unstable in surgery, so we had to put in a central line which got a little kinked, so his lung—" Alex began explaining.

"Are you saying you cut into our son for nothing and caused more damage?"

Suddenly, Billie looked down and noticed the central line tube coming out of Brad's chest was filled up with blood.

"Crap, there's blood in his tube," she announced, suddenly high in alert. The monitor went haywire.

Alex's eyes widened. "Get a chest tray and some gloves!"

"He's already put out seven hundred cc's of blood."

"What's going on!" Brad's father yelled worriedly as Billie was gowned and gloved for the procedure by one of the nurses.

"Sir, you need to leave, right now," she said.

"Like hell we're leaving! Somebody tell us what's going on!"

"He's crashing. Page Cardio and Robbins," Alex explained briefly.

Billie shook her head. "No, we can't wait for Cardio."

"What the hell is going on!"

Billie lifted Brad's gown and began applying betadine.

"I need to open him up," she said. "Scalpel!"

"Billie, wait for Cardio," Alex told her.

"There's no time."

The scalpel was handed to her and after a deep breath, amidst the parents' frantic yelling, Billie finally cut him open and introduced her hand into Brad's chest cavity.

☆

Billie was freshly out of the OR and now, alongside Alex and Arizona, in front of Brad's ICU room where he laid unconscious, they were informing the parents of the emergency surgery.

"His heart ruptured?"

"This is unbelievable," the father said. "How could you not find this?"

"Well, his heart symptoms presented as abdominal pain which is an extremely rare presentation. It's almost impossible to diagnose," Arizona explained. "But the most important thing is that thanks to Dr. Black and Dr. Karev over here, Brad is doing fine."

"Fine? You call him being hooked up to tubes and... you call that fine?" he yelled.

"Dude! Seriously, we're the reason your kid's alive," Alex suddenly snapped.

"Okay, Karev."

"If you'd had it your way, you'd have been home when Brad's aorta ruptured and he'd be dead right now," he said. "Think about how much school he'd be missing then, huh?"

"Karev!" Arizona yelled. "We're done here. Excuse me. Follow me, right now."

Billie was after Alex and Arizona, although not before dedicating somewhat of a dirty glance in the parents' direction.

☆

"If you wanna work in Peds, you can't get emotional," Arizona scolded Alex as soon as they were alone. Billie stood aside, listening in.

"You said it was part of the job."

"There's a difference between advocating for tiny humans and berating terrified parents!" she said. "You're good with kids, I can see that. You've got great hands, great instincts. We already knew that. And you're as good as anyone I've seen when it comes to advocating for patients. But until you've been a parent, until you've stayed up nights with a screaming infant or dealt day in and day out with a terrorist toddler or raised a lying teenager, you don't get to judge parents. You have to advocate for the kids, you don't get to berate terrified parents. You clear on that?"

"Yes."

Arizona nodded. "Good. Then you go apologize to that family."

She began walking away, but before, she turned and called for him.

"Karev, you and Billie saved that kid's life today," she said, now turning towards her as well. "How'd it feel?"

Billie opened her mouth a little, then caught sight of Alex over her shoulder. He smiled and she smiled, then nodded.

"It felt great," she said.

Arizona grinned. "Hardcore, right?"

"Yeah." Alex laughed.

"Welcome to Peds," she said, then roller-skated away.

Billie was now face to face with Alex. She slowly incorporated and took a step towards him, her arms crossed over her chest.

"It's been a while since I last saw you lose it like that with a patient's family," she said. "Kinda missed it."

Alex would've blown her away. He would've blown her away, pushed her apart, simply because he was hurt. He was hurt she'd left him and now dated someone. He was hurt they weren't together, hurt because perhaps she hadn't loved him enough to stay with him.

But Alex wanted to do better. Alex wanted to show her he could treat her right.

So, the old Alex would've blown her away almost immediately. Out of hurt, out of jealousy. But the new Alex was trying to learn from his mistakes, so instead, he dedicated her a timid smile.

"Can't say I haven't missed working together," he admitted truthfully. "Today was nice."

"Yeah." She let out a small laugh. "You know, there's been all this talk about parents today. Like, everybody's having some sort of trouble with their parents lately or stuff like that."

"Yeah, might be," Alex said.

"Apparently, I got a call from my father," she revealed, and his face fell. "He left a voice message which I wasn't able to listen to completely, but... he called. And he left a voice message. And I felt I had to tell you because you're the only person I trust enough. More than anybody else. You're... my person."

Alex was looking at her, trying to decipher that bewildering glint behind her eyes. Maybe it was the light, but she looked extraordinarily pretty.

"I need your help," she admitted, "'cause I really don't know what to do."

☆

That night, Billie came back home with Alex. She didn't know how it happened, but she'd asked for his help and he'd granted it to her, so now, they were together in the living room. The sand-colored landline telephone was on Billie's right hand and she fiddled with the cable absentmindedly, staring down at the device as though she was afraid of it. Alex sat by her, close enough for their legs to graze.

Billie needed a moment and Alex was giving her one.

"I'm nervous," she admitted.

"It's okay," he said. "I would be nervous too. You haven't seen your father in ages."

"Yeah." Billie took a deep breath. "Okay."

Slowly, she clicked the replay button and brought the phone up to her ear. Her eyes welled with tears almost immediately as soon as her father's voice was resounding through the speaker.

"Hey, Lizzie, it's me," it said. "It's dad."

Billie took her hand to her mouth.

"I know we haven't seen or talked to each other in years. Hell, how long has it been? Two, three years?" A laugh. A real, pure laugh. "Anyway. I know I'm probably the last person you're gonna wanna see right now. Ever. I know I hurt you. I just wanted to tell you I'm doing better. Much better. I've been sober for over a year now, and counting. And I'm really looking forward to making things right with you. Even though I don't quite know how much better things could possibly be."

A tear slipped down her cheek. Alex's hand found her own and he squeezed it tight.

"I am so sorry, my Lizzie, for everything I ever did to you," he said. "I know you hate me. I'd hate me too. I've been a bad man and I hope you never forgive me for what I did. I just... after— after your mother's death, I wasn't right. I got very bad, very quickly. Well, I think you know that. And you... you just looked too much like her. I couldn't stand it. That's why I...."

There was a silence.

"Anyway. I hope this message reaches you well. Richard gave me your number and your address, but don't worry, I don't plan on showing up. Unless you want me to, of course. Although I highly doubt that." Another laugh. A pained one. "There's nothing I wouldn't do in this world to be able to make things right with my baby girl. I heard you're working at Seattle Grace now and that you're one big brainiac, my little girl. I am so proud of you."

There was a very long silence. Alex was staring at her expectantly, scared, saddened by her unceasing tears.

"I am sorry for everything, Elizabeth. So sorry," he said then, his voice sad. "I took away your childhood. You deserved everything. You still do. My little baby girl. I was so blind to everything, drunk all the time. I never knew how much I was hurting you. I am so, so sorry." A pause. "If you ever wanna chat with daddy, I'd be very happy. Just call this number. Although I doubt it. But I just wanted to get this off my chest in case I never get to see you again. I couldn't let you live the rest of your life thinking I hated you. Even though you probably hate me."

Silence.

"But I love you. I always have." A sob. "I love you so, so much, my baby girl."

A beep and the message was over. Billie dropped the phone on her lap and covered her face with her two hands, sobbing into her palms, unable to stop the sudden downpour. Her heart felt heavy.

Alex simply hugged her until there was nothing left to cry for.