chapter sixty one
˚♡ ⋆。˚
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
i will follow you into the dark.
season five, episode seventeen.
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"Dude, he is fried," Alex said truthfully as her, Izzie, Meredith and Lexie admired Derek from the entrance of the living room.
He sat on the couch with the same clothes he'd been wearing the day prior (and the day before that too), hair and beard a little overgrown. In his hands, Derek held a box of Crispy Puffs, which he ate absentmindedly, and a chaos of lawsuit papers and formularies, empty takeout containers, plates, glasses, tequila bottles and soda cans with traces of beverage inside them surrounded him.
After the accident with his patient, he hadn't left the couch. And he knew everybody was watching him, analyzing his every move, but he honestly didn't give a fuck.
"He is not fried. He lost a patient and got hit with a lawsuit all in one week. He just needs time," Meredith tried to defend, but it was obvious that Derek was going through a persistent depressive episode.
"He's been sitting there for three days. The sofa cushions are gonna start bonding to his ass," Alex reasoned, then raised his voice for Derek to hear. "And he's eating all my cereal!"
"He's taking stock." Izzie shrugged. "Something huge and life-altering happened to him, and he's taking stock, figuring out his next move. We shouldn't judge him and we shouldn't rush him."
"Whatever. Sylvia Plath's picking out all the marshmallows." Alex rolled his eyes. "They're the best part!"
"And I'm pretty sure that he's sitting on my keys..." Lexie mumbled, causing Izzie to stifle a laugh. "I'd ask him to move, but he looks so... comfy."
The four of them stood standing by the doorway of the living room, staring at a very messy-looking Derek, until Billie positioned herself in front of them, blocking their views. She crossed her arms over her chest and glared them down.
"What the hell do you all think you're doing?" she asked reproachingly.
"We're just-"
"No! Out of here, all of you." Billie pointed at them all with a menacing finger, closing the door of the living room behind her to offer her friend some privacy. "Derek is going through a rough patch right now and he doesn't need all of you assholes to be judging what he does. He's depressed and having you all looking at him with pity will not help. He's not a doll in exhibition, so all of you, out, now!"
"Whatever." Alex rolled his eyes, walking away.
He was then seconded by Izzie, who followed him out of the house, and Lexie. Meredith stayed behind, seeming concerned, and stood closely to Billie, who still held her arms crossed over her chest and guarded the door to the living room purposefully.
"Billie, I need you-"
"I'll talk to him," she finished immediately. "I know what he's going through, I'll help him. Okay?"
"Are you sure?" Meredith asked, earning a nod. "Thank you, Bils."
The blonde kissed Billie's cheek, then grabbed her coat and bag and left the house, although not before shooting one last glance in the direction of the living room, as if she didn't want to leave Derek behind.
Once everyone was gone, Billie finally breathed out and softly opened the door, once again, catching sight of Derek, who still sat in the same position. He didn't acknowledge her presence.
"Hey," she said, walking over to him and sitting on the armrest of the couch. "You're eating, that's good. Appetite is good."
Derek looked at her with bore as he stuffed marshmallows into his mouth, dark rings encompassing his eyes whole as well as the fading bruises that were the result of the fight he'd had with Mark a few days back.
"You know what else is good?" Billie said with a sympathetic smile. "Showering. Cleansing. Water." She laughed softly. "Are you thinking you'll shower, maybe go to the hospital today?"
"I have to for the deposition," Derek replied hoarsely. "I have to go and explain in detail how I killed a man's pregnant wife."
"Well," she sighed out, "I think you'll feel better if you get cleaned up and come with me. I can drive you to the hospital, maybe get some fresh air with you. I need it too."
"Billie, could you please go away?" Derek rolled his eyes, but Billie knew better than to judge him for it.
"No," she said simply. "I'm trying to help you."
He didn't reply. Instead, he grabbed one of the glasses from the table and took it to his lips. However, when Billie recognized the brown-ish liquid inside it to be tequila, she immediately jolted to her feet and snatched it away from his hands.
"Oh, no, big guy. You get to sulk as much as you want, but you're not drinking booze at seven in the morning, you hear me?" she tutted, ignoring her own bad drinking habits.
Billie placed the glass by her side and looked at his friend for a second, who was glaring at her. In the end, he stood up and harshly pressed the cereal box against her chest, forcing her to take it, and then, got lost on his way up the stairs.
☆
"How's your hand doing?" Alex asked, beckoning with his head towards the brace that still sat around Billie's wrist as they walked down the corridor in direction of the ER.
"Eh," she replied simply.
They finally reached the pit, where Owen was waiting for them to tend to multiple traumas that had come in.
Immediately once the two residents reached the attending, a paramedic approached them and handed the older man a chart. "Beth Dearborn, seventeen-year-old with a history of seizures, had a grand mal during a marching band performance, started seizing again upon arrival."
The paramedic led them into a trauma room, where a raven-haired girl on a green marching band uniform seized violently. Two nurses were already there, holding her on her side, which was a job that Billie and Alex took upon.
"Push two of lorazepam," Owen said.
"She's in v-fib," Alex informed.
"Fibrillate and charge the paddles to two-hundred," Billie demanded immediately, but Owen shook his head.
"Wait, the v-fib could be from the seizure, but if she's in shock and she's not actually in v-fib, she'll flatline. You got a pulse?"
Billie placed her two fingers on the girl's carotid, looking up at the monitor. "I don't know, it's hard to tell."
"Lorazepam's not working, damnit!" Owen grimaced.
"What do we do?" Alex asked in a panicky fashion.
"We shock her and save her or we shock her and kill her," Billie reasoned rightfully.
Owen seemed thoughtful for a second, staring into the eyes of the younger girl.
"What the hell," he said, then grabbed the paddles. "Clear!"
At first, the monitor showed no changes, but the girl slowly stopped moving. Owen shocked her again-this time, the monitor didn't show a heartbeat for a few seconds, but in the end, a small ripple marred the otherwise flatline.
Billie could finally breathe. "Sinus tach."
"It worked." Alex smiled at her.
Arizona, who had been standing by the doorway, also grinned. "Good call, Dr. Hunt."
"The odds are fifty-fifty shot," he replied grimly just as Beth slowly shifted awake.
Immediately, she frowned. "Oh, no... it happened again?"
"Beth, I'm Dr. Robbins, the pediatric surgeon on-call. This is Dr. Hunt." Arizona smiled.
"You got beat up pretty bad while you were marching. We're gonna run some tests, check for internal injuries."
"I seized during the performance? But I took my meds!"
"Relax, it's not like you crapped your pants or anything." Alex smirked as Billie made it her job to close Beth's unbuttoned yellow shirt.
"It is like I crapped my pants! I had a seizure in front of the entire marching band, it is exactly like I crapped my pants." She took her hand to her head. "They're gonna kill me!"
Billie frowned. "Who?"
"Seizure patrol."
Just then, two other young members of the marching band (both wearing the green uniforms) arrived and stood by the doorway. Billie and Alex shared looks, then headed towards them.
"You're the... seizure patrol?" Alex frowned disbelievingly.
"I'm first clarinet, he's young major," the girl explained. "Whenever Beth has a seizure, we have to drop our instruments and go roll her on her side so she doesn't choke on her tongue."
"We were in the middle of the Northwest Regional Parade. We were favored to win." The boy rolled his eyes.
"Yeah, until Beth took down the snare drum, half of the woodwinds... the tubas tried to avoid her but she was right in the middle of formation."
"So, what? You gonna tell her she shouldn't have done it?" Billie frowned in disbelief. "It's not like she meant to."
"Why don't you go call her parents?" Alex asked instead, knowing the brunette was more than capable of throwing fists.
The girl and the boy glanced at each other, rolled their eyes and then proceeded to walk away, to which Billie and Alex shared incredulous looks. Owen walked towards them.
"I'm gonna run some tests, but she's already coded once, so I want you to watch her, standby with a crash cart," he said.
"You want us to stay here and babysit the band nerd?" Alex frowned.
"That's an intern job," Billie added.
"I don't see any interns around." Owen smiled, bro-slapped them on the arm and then left.
☆
Alex, Billie and Beth now found themselves in a settled patient room along with the seizure patrol. Billie was making it her job to update Beth's chart (rather, struggling to do so, since her disabled hand was quite the pain in her ass) as Alex recharged the patient's fluids, but for some reason, the girl who sat on the couch behind them wouldn't stop talking.
"I don't know why Mr. Bimm ever let her even join band," she said. "Not like she's a master flautist-"
"Okay, get out," Billie snapped, turning towards the boy and the girl and letting down her respectful, composed surgeon facade.
"Mr. Bimm says we're supposed to stay with her until-"
"We got it! We're seizure patrol now, so you can drag your little ignorant asses out of this damn room." She beckoned with her head towards the door, to which the two teens rolled their eyes but finally left.
(Obviously, at this point in time, Billie was still entirely oblivious of Alex's eyes on her, staring at her with pride and even some fondness. Although it's not like he would've ever admitted to it.)
Billie glanced at Beth and huffed. "Your friends are asses."
"They're not my friends. Once you spazz out in front of the whole school, friends are kinda hard to come by," Beth replied as Alex checked her motor reactions.
"Well, you can't help the epilepsy, but nobody made you join the marching band," he butted in. "It's like spreading nerd on nerd."
"I like being in the band, okay? It's like the one thing I'm actually good at." Beth smiled. "What'd you two do in high school?"
"Oh, drama club. Hundred percent," Billie replied immediately, reminiscing over the few parts of her childhood there were actually worth reminiscing over.
"So, you were, like, a nerd too?" Beth asked.
"Kind of." She shrugged with a smile.
"I didn't know you were in drama club." Alex squinted at her, small grin on his face.
"Oh, there's plenty about me you don't know." She smirked.
"Well, what about you?" Beth then turned to Alex.
He grimaced. "I wrestled."
Both Beth and Billie looked at him disbelief. "You're a wrestler?"
"You wearing tights under that lab coat, Karev?" Billie asked devilishly, smirk on her face.
"It was a long time ago." He laughed. "That was high school, I'm a surgeon now."
"Fine. Then how would you feel if you seized every time you went into the operating room?" Beth asked, causing Alex and Billie to share looks that stated she's got a point.
☆
"And he just walked out, without saying a word." Meredith gestured with her hands as she finished narrating the end of her story (something about Derek, but Billie had been way too lost in reverie to have known what she was referring to). "He just walked out!"
"Hunt won't even look at me since he went all Apocalypse Now on me this morning," Cristina, who was also finishing her own story which Billie didn't know a thing about, said.
"He had to get all scalpel happy up in that patient's brain and now he can't face it!"
"Like, he thinks I'm, what? Like, this wilting flower? Well, guess what! I'm the strong one."
"Yeah, I'm the strong one," Meredith agreed frustratedly.
"If I had that stomach cancer gene, I would get that gastrectomy no problem. I face things, I don't walk away."
Billie had absolutely no idea what they were talking about.
"Derek walks away. Maybe walking away is the answer," the blonde reasoned.
"It's not emotional, it's science. You have a problem-" Cristina leant in, "-don't ignore it."
"Well, sometimes if you have to pee and you ignore it, it does go away."
Just then, Izzie, who had been listening to them amusedly as she munched on mini-carrots, laughed. "You guys are hilarious. I mean, do you even know what she just said?" She pointed at Cristina. "Or what she just said?" She pointed at Meredith. "Or what she's even doing?" She pointed at Billie.
"Huh?" The brunette frowned, snapped out of her trance.
"I can totally see you three in fifty years in a nursing home just talking at each other, and Billie sitting there with her hearing aid off just smiling and nodding." Izzie chuckled. "Hi-larious." She breathed out, then looked at the carrot on her hand and sighed openly. "Ah, I love lunch."
Billie grimaced.
☆
"Hey, I brought Twizzlers," Billie said as she walked into Beth's room.
Alex was already settled in there, sitting on a chair by the bed in front of a pile of two or three charts which he was updating. He looked up to meet Billie, who just then tossed him the package of cherry candies she very much liked. Playfully, he rolled his eyes, put down his pen and began ripping open the Twizzlers that had fallen on his lap.
"How's she doing?" Billie beckoned towards Beth, who was fast asleep on the bed, as she pulled a chair and sat by the opposite side of it, facing Alex.
"Stable. No change." Alex sighed, sticking one of the sugary sticks between his lips and then passing over the package to Billie, who did the same.
She sighed. "Can you imagine? I think I'd probably kill myself if I had a seizure every so often just because."
Alex noticed her tapping softly the red thread around her ring finger and the thought made him smile. Not by any stretch of the imagination would he had imagined that Billie would still keep the mediocre gift, which had once seemed queerly romantic but now appeared empty. However, what he did not know was that Billie found the incongruous red thread to be, actually, quite meaningful, representing a promise that, even though it now felt distant, she'd always keep.
"Yeah, it- it must be awful," Alex said after a second, eyes still on her hands as he chewed softly on the cherry-flavored candy.
There was a moment of silence. His eyes on her and her eyes elsewhere.
"How are things with Izzie?" Billie asked after a second, touching the topic subtly, but showing genuine interest.
Alex was caught off guard.
"Good," he choked out. "I- uh, yeah. Good, good. They're- We're good. We're fine. Why the question?"
Billie laughed and frowned. "Relax, I was just curious."
"Oh." He nodded, a little too frantically for someone who was supposed to relax. However, his expression soon changed. "What about you? Do you, uhm... are you into some- like, are you dating someone? Do you have a boyfriend? Or- Or a girlfriend?" Alex shrank back. "Or someone?"
Billie parted her lips to say something, but soon they were interrupted by the sound of Beth's heart monitor going off. At first, it was just a flatline, a constant beep that caught both doctors off guard.
"What he hell?"
However, it was soon also the sounds of her body spasming violently, her eyes rolling to the back of her head and back arching, giving space to the seizure that was taking over her body.
Alex and Billie rose to their feet.
"Call a Code Blue, now!"
☆
"Why is she coding when she seizes? It doesn't make any sense," Owen asked as him and Arizona left Beth's ICU room, meeting outside Alex and Billie.
"Hm, not in a girl this young. Her heart should be fine," Arizona assured.
"But Beth coded before her seizure, not during it." Billie interfered. "I saw her heart go into v-fib."
"She's seventeen with no heart history."
"I know! But I saw it on the monitor. And I know it," she argued.
"You think you saw it on the monitor. Seizures are chaotic, doctors panic and-"
"I didn't panic! I know what I saw. And Alex was there, too."
"She's right," the man bandwagoned. "I also saw it. It was- she coded."
"See?" She gestured with her arms.
"I'm sorry, what is your name?" Arizona asked her.
"Billie Black."
"Alright, Dr. Black." Arizona scoffed, causing Billie to glower at her, even as pretty as she found her. "Are you two suggesting that I tell that girl and her parents she's been wrongly treated for epilepsy for six years?"
"Yeah. And that I think we should do a cardiac work-up with an EP study," Billie said defyingly.
"You want me to deliberately shock a perfectly healthy child's heart! Absolutely not!" Arizona glanced at Owen for support, but when he didn't immediately agree with what she said, her eyebrows shot up. "Dr. Hunt?"
"If she's right, it would explain the coding," he reasoned.
"If he's wrong, it will kill her," she fired back.
"I'm not wrong!"
"She's not wrong!" Alex shouted in unison, causing both attendings' heads to whip in their direction.
Arizona looked like she felt disrespected. Owen was surprised, but really, he wasn't.
"Then it's your call, Black."
☆
Now, Billie, Alex, Owen and Arizona stood vested in the lap room, ready for the procedure. On her part, Billie stood by the operating table, where Beth was not yet entirely asleep.
"You're gonna be okay, yeah?" she said, looking down at the girl and feeling as Alex softly tugged on the sleeve of her scrub top. "You're in very good hands."
Beth nodded drowsily, slowly drifting into a sleep.
"I'm gonna ask you one more time, Black," Arizona, who had stepped forward, asked, blonde hair hidden beneath a pink flower scrub cap. "Are you sure about this?"
"Yeah," she said with no hesitation.
"Okay." Arizona glanced at Alex. "Karev, you're on crash cart. If she's wrong-" she handed him the paddles, "-be ready to use it."
☆
"Let's take the pace down to three hundred," Arizona requested, watching the heart monitor intently as Alex still stood by the bed, paddles in hand. However, the only one in such heavy scrutiny of the monitor was Billie, who hadn't taken her eyes off of it.
She knew she was right.
"Vitals are still stable," Owen informed.
"This is pointless. The study is showing no sign of arrhythmia." Arizona sighed.
Suddenly, the monitor beeped thrice. Billie's body tensed up, and so did Alex's.
"Wait, v-tach. She's in v-tach," Owen pointed.
"Alright, let's just pace her out of it. Take her to three thirty."
"BP's down to sixty over ten!"
"Three forty, damn it!" The blonde's voice shook, causing Billie to involuntarily take a small step forward, eyes still lodged on the monitor.
Something had to happen.
"Karev-"
She knew something would.
"-get in there-"
It had to.
"-now!"
It would.
"No, hold the shock!" Billie shouted, sprinting forward and stopping Alex from shocking Beth's chest. Her eyes reached the monitor once again.
"Black, what the hell are you doing!" Arizona yelled out.
"Wait! Just wait!" she bit back, arms held high in order to keep the room static.
Finally, the beeping slowed down.
The air made it into Billie's system. "She's coming out of it."
Arizona's next words were slow, careful. "This could be ARVC. The right ventricle's causing arrhythmia."
"The brain doesn't get oxygen."
"And she seizes." The blonde was shocked. "Oh, my God."
Both attendings looked up at the residents, who were frozen in the hold for an answer.
"Karev, Black-" Owen finally said, "-you just saved this girl's life."
However, Alex, still standing in front of the bed with the paddles hovering over Beth's chest, was shaking. His entire self was shaking-from his hands to his knees to his bottom lip. His chest inflated and deflated with every ragged intake of air he took.
Billie stepped forward and tugged at the sleeve of his scrub top very softly.
"It's okay," she said. "It's okay, just breathe. Put the paddles down."
Softly, carefully, light as a feather, Billie placed her hands on his elbows, adding slight pressure to his muscles with the pads of her fingers. He remained frozen, marred only by the sound of his heaving chest.
"Can you feel me?" she asked, not expecting an answer. "Breathe."
Alex did so. He let the paddles fall from his hands, pull the black cords taut with a jerk and then swing like two dead men at the end of a rope.
☆
Standing in Beth's room post-surgery, Billie and Alex now found themselves with smiles on their faces as the latter held a mirror in front of the patient and the former made it her job to inform the news.
"It's a pacemaker," she said as Beth smoothed her finger around the little bump on her collarbone. "It's gonna regulate your abnormal arrhythmias, so you won't have any more seizures."
"So... I'm not sick anymore?" Beth asked disbelieving, cautious smile on her face. "A wrestler and a drama nerd fixed me."
"Well, not exactly. You do have a serious heart condition, which is why we're gonna set you up with one of the best cardiologists-"
"But no one has to know." She smiled. "I won't be frothing at the mouth, I don't have to wear a bracelet to school." She placed her hand on the pacemaker and smiled. "I can cover this with a shirt."
Billie and Alex shared looks and smiled too. "Yeah, that's something."
"It's everything," Beth said. "Once people see you as sick, they don't see anything else."
Once again, Billie and Alex shared looks, although rather grim ones, but they didn't say anything, since the seizure patrol was, yet again, walking into the ICU room looking bored.
"Mr. Bimm just called," the girl said. "We didn't get a trophy."
Beth looked defeated, but she still smiled. "There's still next season, right?"
"Yeah, we were thinking maybe you should try out for choir. Or debate," the guy interfered.
"Something requiring less... movement? We're just worried for your safety," she said.
"You don't have to be." Alex glared at them both. "We fixed her. Epileptic bone."
"What?"
"There's no such thing as an epileptic bone."
"Are you a doctor?!" Alex suddenly yelled, startling the shit out of Billie.
Even though there actually was no epileptic bone, the seizure patrol shared looks. "So, she's like... totally normal now?"
"Dude, none of you are normal." Alex glanced at Billie with a smirk. "You're freaking band nerds."
☆
A few hours had gone by. Alex no longer knew about Billie's whereabouts, but he was planning on finding out in order to hug her goodbye before he went back home. After having packed his stuff back into his bag in the locker room, he now found himself in the ICU, heading towards Beth's room for a final check-up.
He peeked his head through the door and caught sight of said patient sitting quietly on her bed, fully awake and skimming through a magazine with as much bore as qualm. He knocked twice on the door and the girl looked up.
"How you doing?" Alex asked with a soft smile.
"I'm fine, surprisingly," she said, closing the magazine and propping it on her lap, then tapping her collarbone softly. "Getting used to this bad boy."
He laughed through his nose. "I was just checking up on you before I left. Dr. Black will probably stay with you the night."
"Billie?"
"Yeah," Alex rolled his lips inwards, "Billie."
Beth tilted her head sideways, squinting her eyes at him. "You have a crush on her, don't you?"
"What?"
"Well, I mean, it's obvious. And, let me tell you, she probably has a crush on you too." Beth smiled invitingly.
"I- I have a girlfriend," he replied, unable to say anything else.
Beth frowned. "For real?" Alex nodded, disconcerted. "Man, there's no way."
"What do you mean?"
"I've seen the way you look at her."
"How do I look at her?"
"Like..." She paused. "Like you're in a dark room and it's the first time you're seeing light. You're, like... I don't know, amazed? Like she's the only one you see."
Alex didn't know what to say. "I have a girlfriend."
Beth shrugged. "Okay," she said. "I was just saying."
He did not take the time to consider her words. He wasn't in a dark room and she wasn't his light. He wasn't amazed. And she wasn't the only one who he saw. He was in love with Izzie.
"Good night, Beth," he said wryly, then rushed out of the room without waiting for a final answer.
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