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CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
(i always fee like) somebody's watching me.
season six, episode three.

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"I talked to Callie last night about the residents at Mercy West. She said they don't suck," Cristina told Meredith and Billie as they got on the elevator. "You're safe 'cause of Derek. Billie's safe 'cause... well, she's Billie. Izzie's safe 'cause of cancer. Alex is Bailey's new favorite. You know, even George would've been spared 'cause he's Owen's guy. Cardio has been a revolving door around here, and no one's got my back!"

"So, Arizona's your cover?" Meredith pointed out.

"She's merger-proof. She keeps little kids alive. No one likes a dead kid."

"Right. Do prefer them quiet, though," Billie confessed absentmindedly.

Meredith eyed her. "You're sick."

"They're under anesthesia half the time anyways," Cristina continued her rambling, shrugging her shoulders nonchalantly. "How bad can it be?"

Meredith and Billie watched Cristina get off the elevator. Then, the latter arched an eyebrow.

"Fifty says she lasts a day."

"Deal."

☆

"You know, we really should get some sleep before rounds," Meredith suggested as her, Billie and Cristina now walked into the ER.

Billie rolled her eyes. "Sleep is for mentally stable people."

"Sleep is for wimps," Cristina corrected. "Sleep is for Mercy West residents. Let's fit in another trauma before rounds."

"I'm pretty sure I could last two more days on a few-hour sleep," Billie commented.

Meredith eyed her sideways. "You know, being emotionally injured is not something to brag about."

"I can brag about whatever I want."

They stopped at the nurses station and, just then, Alex approached them. Billie felt a little pang to the chest, as this was the first time she was seeing him since their fight. However, he didn't seem interested on her in particular, as he leant in and lowered his voice nervously.

"Don't say anything about the wig," he whispered.

Billie, Meredith and Cristina shared weird looks, but just then, Izzie walked in behind Alex, wearing her scrubs and lab coat and a strange red wig that seemed far too unnatural. The three girls immediately took a step back out of surprise.

"I am back," Izzie claimed. "Yes, I am early, but whatever. I'm back. And because I've been gone so long, the first trauma that comes through those doors, it's mine. Got it?"

The three girls didn't say anything. They simply stared at her in a manner that was far too creepy to seem normal, with strained smiles on their faces, so Alex had no choice but to glare at them. However, it was Izzie who spoke.

"It's amazing, right?" she said.

"What?"

"What's amazing?"

"What do you mean?"

Izzie smiled and shook her head. "The wig."

"Oh, it looks so real, I couldn't even tell," Cristina said immediately, urging Billie and Meredith to smile and nod along. 

"I always wanted to try out being a redhead, so I just thought... now's the time."

Alex frowned. "Well, what's wrong with your own hair?"

"It's peach fuzz chemo hair. I really wanted to put my patients at ease, make them feel comfortable," Izzie claimed, satisfied with herself.

Billie leant into her friends and whispered. "She looks like a Stepford wife. You gotta tell her."

"She can't handle it, just don't stare," Meredith whispered back through her tight smile.

They did stare though. At least until Bailey, who had now climbed up to the position of a general surgery attending, walked up to them, slipping into her white lab coat.

"MVC! Who do I have?"

All of the residents, minus Billie, immediately began shouting at her to be chosen. The brunette simply crossed her arms over her chest and watched her friends bicker.

"I'm not your Chief resident anymore. Figure it out!" Bailey said, so the residents, instead, began bickering to each other.

Billie rolled her eyes and skipped past her friends. "I'll do it."

"Fine, let's go."

☆

"Jodie Crowley, sixty-year-old driver who lost consciousness and hit a parked car. Vital signs stable, complains of abdominal pain," the paramedic explained as they rolled a stretcher into the ER, alongside a man with a cast on his shoulder.

"It wasn't a parked car," the man said. "It was them. They hit us."

"Uh, sir, who are you?" Billie asked.

"Who am I?" he asked warily. "Who are you?"

"He's my son," the woman on the stretcher said.

"Oh, why don't I take you to the waiting room then?" Billie suggested.

"No!" Jodie exclaimed immediately. "He needs to stay with me. He's a paranoid schizophrenic."

Bailey's eyes widened, but she had no choice but to sigh and accept. "Okay."

They rolled the stretcher into the trauma room and placed Jodie on the gurney in order to start working on her. The woman's son walked into the room, seeming as though he felt unsafe, judging by his hyper-vigilance.

He leant into his mother. "Listen to me, mother. They're tryna get to me through you. You have to believe me."

"Tom, they're not real," she said. "Look at me. Look at me, honey."

"Did you feel dizzy or light-headed before the crash?" Bailey asked Jodie.

"No, I felt fine."

"Okay, abdominal tenderness. I feel a mass," Billie revealed after palpating the woman's abdomen.

"I— I've had it for quite a while. Maybe that's what caused me to black out."

"I've been warning her, they're trying to hurt her, but she won't believe me," the son said eerily.

"Tom, look at me," Jodie called shakily. "You know I wouldn't lie to you."

"No, no!" he yelled. "You have to believe me. Someone has to believe me—aliens have impregnated my mother."

Billie and Bailey frowned at each other. However, when Bailey lifted the woman's shirt, they understood the motive of concern: on the woman's abdomen, a giant mass pulsed intermittently.

"Okay, uh..." Bailey stuttered. "How long have you had the growth?"

Jodie was staring at her son, who now stood facing the clock glaringly. "Could you cover the clock? The number five bothers him."

"Of course. Rogers, can you get something to cover the clock?" Billie ordered to her intern, who lately, had been the one to always accompany her on her cases. John nodded.

Jodie's son looked around and then walked towards the opposite end of the room, staring up at the smoke detector.

"Are those cameras?" he asked.

"Tommy, what do we need from the store?" Jodie asked as, Billie assumed, some sort of self-grounding technique.

Tom mumbled. "Why won't they leave me alone?"

"Tommy, do we need fruit?"

"Yeah. Why won't you leave me alone?" he kept going.

"What kind of fruit do we need, honey?" Jodie asked as the doctors watched the scene unfold. "Tom, what kind of fruit?"

Tommy finally looked away from the smoke detector. "Um... apples, pears... strawberries?"

"Make a list." Jodie looked over at John. "Could you give him a pencil and some paper?"

Soon, the intern nodded and immediately searched his pockets for a stack of post-its and a pen. Jodie glanced at Billie with a soft smile.

"He needs something to distract him from the voices," she explained. The girl nodded.

"Uh, ma'am, the growth," Bailey reminded, going back to the original topic.

"Oh, uh... yeah, I'm sorry. I— I've had it for a while. I've been meaning to get it checked but, as you can see, my son's illness is a full-time job."

Tommy sat down by his mother and began making the list.

☆

"Black, I'm gonna need you to get Mr. Crowley's wrist x-rayed while I get her up to MRI," Bailey said once they left the trauma room.

"Uh, fine. Sure." She sighed.

John looked at her. "I can do the wrist."

"Dr. Black has more experience," Bailey argued.

"The patient is paranoid and hyper-vigilant, which means he's bound to pick up on the fact that Dr. Black would rather be somewhere else. He may interpret that as Dr. Black being out to get him," when everybody stared at him weirdly, he shrugged. "My brother was a paranoid schizophrenic. Plus, I aced my psych clerkship."

Billie frowned, but in the end, John was assigned to the son and she had no choice but to make a mental note to ask him about it later.

☆

"An abdominal aortic aneurysm. Eight point seven centimeters," Bailey said in shock while her and Billie sat staring at Jodie's scans in the MRI room. "This thing has a seventy-five percent chance of rupturing."

"She's a ticking time bomb," Billie reasoned. "I'm surprised she even woke up this morning, let alone got into a car."

"Okay, uh, cancel all my elective surgeries this afternoon and book an OR. We need to get in there ASAP."

Billie nodded and walked out of the MRI room to do as told, but as she did, she ran into John. The man seemed nervous, running his hands along his curly hair frantically, making a mess of it.

"Rogers? What's wrong?" she asked.

John hesitated to ask. "Have you seen Tom?"

Billie frowned, confused. "I thought he was with you."

"He was, but he left. Well, he attacked me and then he left," John explained, scratching his head frantically.

The girl's eyes widened noticeably. "Dude, you told me you could handle it."

"No, I— I'm— I— it's under control. Don't worry. I— I called security, I just thought maybe his mom would have an idea of where he could've gone, or—"

"His mom has a AAA. The last thing she needs to know is that her mentally ill son is loose in the hospital!" Billie whisper-yelled.

"I know this is bad. I know this is really, really bad, but—"

"No, okay. I'm gonna stop listening to you because the things you are saying are hurting me," she said. "Goodbye."

☆

For some reason, Billie now found herself wheeling Jodie into another trauma room, where her son was about to be treated after falling down a set of stairs. Owen, the doctor in charge of Tom, stopped them at the door.

"Mrs. Crowley, there's evidence that your son may have suffered some injury in his fall. Now, we don't think that it's bad, but we just need to do an ultrasound to make sure," he said. "He's been sedated, but I need you to wait here until we've completed this. Alright?"

Owen retreated back into the trauma room and Jodie swallowed. "I never should've left him alone. I knew it. I knew it!"

Billie surrounded her wheeling chair to kneel down in front of her. She shook her head.

"Listen, Ms. Crowley, I need to talk to you about your test results," she began, but Jodie couldn't stop staring past her at her son. "The wall of your aorta is dangerously thin and could burst at any moment. And when that happens, it will most likely kill you. I'm not mincing my words right now because I need you to understand the severity of the situation. We need to take you up to surgery, right now."

"I can't," she said, firmly. "I can't have surgery right now. I can't leave Tom! He's injured, he's upset, this has been a rough day on him. I can't. No. It'll have to wait."

Billie didn't know what to say. "Well, isn't there someone you can call to look after him?"

"No. My ex-husband left when Tom first got sick and friends have fallen away. It's only me," she explained, teary-eyed.

"Okay." Billie exhaled. "We have services. We can arrange—"

"I can't just leave him with a stranger!" Jodie shook her head. "I need time. To hire someone, and train them. To know that, if he's watching TV and he's holding his head a certain way, it means the television is talking to him and he needs to be distracted. He likes shopping, but they can't take him to the place on Lee Road because he thinks they're out to get him. So they have to go to the place on River Road, but they've gotta park in the back, 'cause underground parking makes him upset. And it goes on and on and on. So no, please," she begged. "I need time. A week! I've made it this long, I can make it another week."

Billie shook her head and leant in. "I'm not sure you have another week. I need you to think about yourself right now."

Jodie stared at her, her eyes bloodshot due to the tears. "I have a mentally ill son. I don't get to think of just myself anymore."

☆

Once they arrived at the cafeteria for their lunch break, Billie and Meredith immediately plopped down tiredly on the table where Cristina already sat. She was eating, wearing an ugly pink bear pin over the pocket of her lab coat. Billie noticed it instantly—actually, it was very hard to miss.

"Nice pin," she said.

"His name is Mr. Bear," Cristina replied sorely, "he eats children."

"Not having fun in peds?" Meredith asked.

"Well, my kid wants chocolate pudding really badly—" Cristina stated, picking up from her tray the little chocolate pudding container and taking a spoonful of it, "—this is the last one."

"You are mean." Billie smiled, high-fiving her over the table.

Meredith rolled their eyes at them whilst the two girls laughed. Just then, Alex arrived and sat down by Billie, placing his own food tray on the table. As soon as he did so, he picked up a pack of Twizzlers from it and handed it to the brunette.

"For you. Last ones on the machine," he said absentmindedly with a long sigh.

Billie received the candies and soon felt her face growing hot, indicating the incoming blush on her cheeks. It was as if, in a mere second, her raging anger towards him had dissipated—although, ironically, it angered her that he was acting like nothing had happened. But she couldn't say no the small gift, so she took it, unsure of what it meant.

Alex didn't notice her blushing, but Meredith and Cristina did.

"Thanks," she mumbled.

She then looked at her friends, who dedicated her exaggerated looks of surprise. However, as soon as she noticed what they were implying, Billie immediately widened her eyes and changed the subject.

"My, uh, triple AAA got canceled. You guys got any surgeries I can get in on?" she asked, flustered.

"No. I'm on post-ops and she's babysitting," Meredith stated, smiling cheekily at Cristina.

"I can't stand it any longer." The woman shook her head within a mouthful of chocolate pudding. "Can't you go to the Chief and use your dead mommy connections to get answers? That goes to you too, Billie, by the way. God, why wasn't I born Ellis Grey's daughter? Or, you know, Ivory LeBlanc's? Things would be so much easier.

"Dude, we don't need dead mommy. We're gonna be fine," Billie retaliated, ignoring Cristina's latest statement. "Plus, shut the fuck up, Cristina. If anyone's on the line right now, it's me. I've been doing nothing at all for the past month and my narcoleptic brain's working only on Adderall. I'm surprised I haven't passed out yet."

"Yeah, as if." Alex rolled his eyes. "You're one of the most talented, by far. I'm doubting me."

Before Billie could demur to the statement, which she obviously did not agree with, John appeared and plopped down on the remaining chair with a long sigh. He pressed his forehead to the table and by his expression, they could tell he was having a rough day.

"Yeah, let it all out. What's wrong with you, my dude?" Billie asked.

"Yeah, no. I let a crazy man escape and he fell down a flight of stairs," John explained, his voice slightly muffled due to his downwards position.

"Is it surgical?" Alex asked immediately, hopeful.

"I don't know, Hunt kicked me off the case," he stated. "So then I went to go watch a surgery. I figured—" he shrugged, "—I can't screw that up. But the second I get to the gallery, the shunt went south and started bleeding. I had to run away because I felt guilty."

"Ha!" Billie laughed openly. However, when everybody looked at her, she cleared her throat and patted him on the back. "I mean, tough luck, Johnny."

"Wait, wait, Shepherd's shunt went bad?" Alex frowned.

"Yup. Had to convert to an open craniotomy. Something I'll probably never get a chance to do."

Alex shook his head. "She can't handle a craniotomy."

Meredith frowned. "Who can't handle a craniotomy?"

"Izzie. She can't handle another five hours of surgery," Alex repeated before bolting from his seat and leaving the cafeteria worriedly.

Billie opened her mouth to say something, but a feeling of horrific disappointment invaded her. The Twizzler thing, once again, had been just another time in which she had gotten her hopes up for nothing. God, she had to constantly remind herself that Alex now loved Izzie, despite what he did. A bag of candy meant nothing.

But why was she feeling this way? Why was she fishing for Alex's attention? She was moving on. He was married to Izzie, for God's sakes. And even so, Alex got jealous whenever he saw her with someone else, as if he couldn't let her go. As if none of them could let the other go.

Billie was tired. She couldn't accept Alex getting jealous over her relationships when he was the married one. So she was mad, but she couldn't stay mad if Alex brought her candy and pretended nothing was wrong.

Of course, Meredith and Cristina noticed this. Well, it was far too obvious, as Billie's face was notoriously scrunched up with the sudden anguish and the feeling of the lump in her throat. But before any of them could comment on the topic, John, who was obviously not aware of what was going on, kicked Billie under the table and snapped her out of her trance.

"Just so you know—and I hope you appreciate this, because I don't usually get sentimental—I really admire you, Dr. Black," he said, earning a frown in response. "You know, just in case I get cut off the program and don't get a chance to tell you. You've been a great resident to us and I really hope you succeed in everything you do." He nodded melancholically. "You deserve it."

☆

A few hours went by. Billie had quite an uneventful day; well, except for the part where she got notified that Jodie was finally going to undergo her surgery, therefore, she was able to scrub in and actively participate on the AAA removal. That was her greatest highlight.

But after she left the OR, the adrenaline subsided and she was left with that previous feeling of bitter nothingness. Her life had been feeling so incomplete lately: she felt alone, desolated. She missed George and was unable to sleep for the life of her; she felt little and showed even less. Her days were all the same, meaningless meshes of time that bled together to turn into a single, ubiquitous, unending tediousness that she could not seem to get rid of, despite the many pills she took every morning. She was a little scared that she might be falling back into depression, and she blamed George for it.

The goddamn absence of him.

Now, it had been about an hour and a half since she had gotten out of surgery. She was striding down the hallway, following Meredith's page to the nurses station, when she saw Alex a few feet away.

She scoffed quietly, for the sole reason that the sight of him reminded her of his unfair behavior, but despite how minor a gesture that was, it somehow still managed to catch his attention. Alex turned and once he recognized her, he stopped and waited for her, just to be able to walk by her side.

"Hi," he said.

"What do you want?" she bit back angrily.

"Nothing. Did you get paged by Meredith too?"

"Yes."

"Must be something important," he said, but she didn't answer. "You're mad at me."

"You think?" Billie rolled her eyes. "Why are you pretending like nothing happened? Like you didn't get mad at me over my relationship with another guy when you're quite literally the one who's married? Why are you buying me candy?"

"I don't know," Alex confessed.

"Well, figure it out, Alex. You're messing with my head," she explained. "You can't be jealous. You can't treat me like we're something when we're not. It's not fair to me. You didn't want me. You married the one person I hate the most in the whole world. And now you except me to just sit back and watch you? I've moved on, but it's like you're not letting me live my life now."

Alex looked at her and in the spur of the moment, grabbed at her wrist to make her stop. Billie snatched herself away from his grip, but stood still, waiting for his words. He analyzed her beautiful face.

"I know, I'm sorry," he confessed. "But, you know how there's just been this talk between us for months about moving on and getting over each other and not wanting each other anymore? Well, truth is, I am not over you. I have never been over you. And I might have not been patient, but I never not wanted you. And I think you never not wanted me either. I think we've both been wanting each other and pining for each for months on end, but for some reason, we're trying to pretend we're not."

Billie was silent.

"I'm not gonna say I don't love Izzie. I love Izzie, I'm in love with her," he said. "But ever since we broke up, I can't get you out of my head. I think about you every day, every minute of every hour and I can't even sleep, breathe without you being somewhere in my mind. And it's crap. And first with Sloan, now with this new dude who I don't even know, and it... I can't stand seeing other guys touch you, kiss you the way I did. I can't stand it, it makes me— it makes me want to beat them bloody because I want you. As much as I'm trying not to, I want you, and I cannot, for the life of me, get you out of my head."

Billie was speechless. She stared up at Alex in shock, unsure what her answer should be now. It wasn't information she didn't already know, but hearing it from him so selfishly, so seriously... was different.

"Alex, I'm with Jo," she said the only thing she was able to say.

"I don't care." He shook his head, then looked down and picked up her left hand. "See? You're still wearing it. You're still wearing the damn thread around your finger. I see you touch it all the time, I see you glance at it all the time. You can't tell me you haven't been thinking the exact same thing, you can't tell me you're over us because I don't believe it. You would've trashed this piece of crap months ago if you didn't have at least a little faith in us getting back together."

"I— Alex, I—" she measured her words. Billie took a deep breath to steady herself. "I was ready to give you another chance, give us another chance. I am ready. But you cannot be talking to me this way, telling me this things while at the same time claiming to be in love with Izzie. You cannot... do that to me. If you mean this, if you really think about me that much, if you really want me... I'm not asking you to leave her, but please... if you're gonna stay with her—and for the sake of me, I hope you don't... then stop acting like I owe you anything. Stop acting like you get the right to be jealous when you were the one who left me alone. Because I cannot go through this. And neither should Izzie. I might not like her but if there is one thing I have never done and will never do is betray someone that way."

Billie and Alex stared at each other for a second. Right then, their pager's went off again with Meredith's call. The girl looked up one last time before she was rushing far and away.

☆

Meredith was already there by the time Billie arrived, at the same time as Izzie and Cristina. Alex got there a few seconds later and spared a glance in Billie's direction, but she didn't dare to look back. She was thinking about something else: right then, now that they were all together, she couldn't help but notice that George was still gone.

"What's going on? You paged us," Alex asked.

"Check your e-mail," Meredith ordered eerily.

"For what?"

"HR," she answered. "If you got cut, you'll have an e-mail." They all shared panicked looks and immediately took out their phones. "I didn't get one, but... I've been calm through this crisis. I have been calm. But if one of us gets cut, I will not be calm."

There was a moment of silence while everyone checked their e-mails, with shaky hands and wide eyes. Meredith stared at them in a quiet panic until Cristina finally gasped first of all.

"No e-mail," she announced, relieved.

A very brief smile showed up on Meredith's lips before she looked at Alex.

"I'm fine," he sighed next.

Then, at Izzie.

"I'm good, too." She smiled.

Finally, at Billie.

They all stared at her, but instead, she stared at her phone, static, silent. She was frozen in place with everyone's eyes on her, utter silence surrounding them and a growing panic threatening to pour out.

"Billie?" Meredith insisted with a shaky voice.

Alex took a step forward because he himself was starting to feel a lump grow in his throat.

"Bils, did you get an e-mail?" he asked quietly.

"I..." the brunette whispered. She looked up with a frown. "I got cut."

There was silence for a second. A lot of silence. Alex looked as though she'd just told him she was dying, Meredith was frowning hard, confused, Cristina looked shock, and Izzie seemed sad. However, Billie's expression soon relaxed.

"No, just kidding. I didn't get cut," she said calmly.

"What!" Izzie shouted.

"Are you kidding?" Cristina yelled, taking her hands to her head. "Fuck you, Billie, you scared me!"

"Jesus, Billie, don't do that!" Meredith shook her head as the brunette laughed.

Alex sighed in utmost relief, but didn't dare speak.

"Oh, calm down, you bunch of idiots." She rolled her eyes. "See? I knew it. No one got cut."

"Yet," Cristina clarified scathingly, starting to walk away as she put away her phone on the pocket of her pants. "There's gonna be another round."

Billie stared at her as she walked away.

"Way to ruin the mood, Cristina!" she yelled after her, even though she didn't answer.

And after a second, all the residents finally dispersed through different hallways.