˚♡ ⋆｡˚

CHAPTER TEN
make me lose control.
season two, episode three.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

It was (weirdly) a nice day in Seattle. The sky atop shone bright, clear, as opposed to the usual weather. No clouds marred the beaming blue and a soft summery breeze blew the treetops sideways.

Cristina had crashed at Meredith's place last night, and as Izzie and George had been out at the hospital, it had made it easy for them both, plus Billie, to mess around all night. They could have slept in, but Meredith had to ruin the mood by waking them both up at five in the morning to go for a run, without letting them refuse.

So, now, the three friends panted heavily as they jogged.

"You're a stupid evil sadist and I want to kill you," Cristina cursed at Meredith, stopping and propping her hands on her knees.

The two remaining girls stopped as well. As she panted, Billie placed her hands on her hips and did a little 360 turn, trying to recover. Meredith stared at them both with a frown.

"Endorphins are good. Endorphins are mood elevators," Meredith said. "This is supposed to make us feel better."

"Well, I don't feel better." Billie glared up at the blonde, who jogged on her place not to lose her pace. "Do you feel better?"

"Slutty mistress," Cristina said to Meredith, then looked at the brunette. "Unrequited bitch."

Billie and Meredith looked at Cristina. "Pregnant whore."

"Sleeping with our bosses was a great idea." The latter covered her face with her hands.

"Don't count me in," Billie panted out, knowing she hadn't slept with any attending. Well, she hadn't slept with anyone in general.

"You know what's ruined for me?" Meredith said. "Ferryboats. I used to love ferryboats. And Derek's got a thing for ferryboats. Now, every time I see a freaking ferryboat..."

"You know what's ruined for me? Coronary artery bypass grafts," Cristina added, laying down on the grass and urging Billie to do the same. "And aortic aneurysms. God, I used to love aortic aneurysms."

The three girls laid down on the floor and stared up at the clear morning sky.

"I think love is ruined for me, like, in general," Billie thought out loud. "Yeah, that's it. I'm tagging out of romance for the rest of my life."

Cristina and Meredith looked at Billie, who laid in the middle, both of them with weird expressions.

"I thought you wanted kids." The former frowned.

"I can adopt, or get a sperm donor. I hate kids, anyway."

"I think we should all cry together," Meredith suggested, but Billie and Cristina immediately panicked.

"No!"

☆

Billie left the bathroom of the locker room after changing into her scrubs, simply to find the weirdest image she ever thought she'd see: in front of her, apparently, Izzie had brought Alex coffee, and now they both stood very close against a wall, laughing at whatever jokes they were telling each other. Billie frowned in disgust, joined Cristina, Meredith and George, and pretended to gag.

"Ew."

"What is she doing?" Cristina asked.

"She's hanging out with Alex," George drawled out, shocked.

"Why?"

"I don't know. I think they might be friends," the boy said fearfully.

Billie didn't want to admit it. Of course she didn't. But as the two laughed uncontrollably at whatever oh-so-funny joke, she felt a tug to her stomach, and it wasn't the usual swirl she felt whenever Alex was too close. It wasn't excitement or anything of the sort. It was different, new, and fucking horrible.

It was jealousy.

Izzie and Alex's laugh dissipated for a minute, and somehow, as if he'd known she'd be looking, Alex turned and met eyes with Billie. Immediately, she cleared her throat awkwardly and looked down at her feet. She could feel Meredith and Cristina side-eyeing her subtly, worriedly, but she ignored them and simply kept her gaze fixed on the very interesting tiles of the floor until she was sure Alex had looked away. Just then, she looked back up.

"This is fucking gross." Billie rolled her eyes in defeat, walking past her friends, then the couple, and leaving the locker room, annoyed.

☆

"Kelly Roche, twenty-three-years old, in for a scheduled ETS for treatment of erythrophobia and hyperpyrexia," Alex introduced the blonde patient.

"Erythrophobia?" Izzie asked to Cristina, who researched the term on her book. Before she could answer, Billie explained.

"Blushing."

Both Izzie and Cristina both stared at the patient, shocked. Billie didn't; she already had a clear idea of what the disorder would look like, as she remembered clearly the patient her mother had treated years back with the exact same condition.

It was really weird to Billie how everything personal she knew about her mother was just a huge, blurry haze in her head that she could not seem to make out, but when it came to medical bits of their ten years together, the memories were engraved in her brain. As if, somehow, Ivory knew her job would come in handy for her daughter in the future, so she had made sure she remembered.

"You have any questions about the procedure?" Bailey asked Kelly.

"Dr. Sh-" Kelly laughed embarrassed when she started sweating and her face turned a deep shade of red in record time, so the heat immediately forced her to start fanning her face with her hand. "Dr. Shepherd explained everything, he was very helpful. He game some literature- sorry."

The boiling blood rushing to her face was evidently burning under her cheeks, so Billie was quick to retrieve a wet towel from the bedside beside her and apply it softly against her skin, trying to cool her down a little.

"Thanks." Kelly smiled at her kindly. "Sorry."

"Don't be. Half the patients who come through here have the hots for Shepherd," Alex joked. Meredith and Billie stared at him, stunned at the blatancy.

"Dr. Karev," Bailey warned.

"What? It's true."

Billie glared at him, hoping to burn a hole into his face.

☆

"Hey, why do you do that?" Izzie asked to Alex as they left Kelly's room, hands crossed over her chest in reference.

"What?"

"Act like an ass when everybody but me is around? They hate you enough as it is," the blonde explained quickly, pissed.

Billie, who was standing by Meredith, waiting for her to get a bag of chips from the vending machine, caught sight of the two talking and immediately heard her heart starting to beat loudly. She kept her eyes fixed on them, listening to their conversation, caring little about someone noticing her staring.

Billie wanted to scream at Izzie, tell her she wasn't all that special, tell her Alex had been interested on her first. That he wasn't an ass to her. But she held herself back.

"So? What?" Alex shrugged nonchalantly.

He didn't take long to notice Billie over Izzie's shoulder, and he was immediately mesmerized by her, even if she quickly looked away and pretended she hadn't been staring. Alex, however, didn't divert his eyes.

"Billie doesn't hate me," he said.

Before Izzie could answer to his unusual statement, Bailey called her interns attention when she was informed about a new case in the ER.

"Hey, there's a new surgical case coming up from the pit. Likely diverticulitis. Let's go," she said, starting to stride down the hall with an army of excited interns behind her.

The group followed their resident down the hallway and into the ER, where the movement and the noise never ceased. Billie waited for Meredith as she grabbed her chips and then, the two ran behind the rest of the class, looking around the trauma bay for the awaited patient.

When a scream reached their ears, Meredith's jaw dropped open.

"Watch your hands off me! I could report you to the Chief and you'd be out on your ass. Where's the Chief?!" the patient, a blonde woman on her mid-forties, yelled.

Meredith's hand found Billie's and she gripped it tightly, although the brunette wasn't sure what was going on.

"Patient's name is, uh..." Cristina began, but didn't finish, a shake to her voice.

Eyes turned from every corner to look at the woman, who seemed to not be completely in her right mind. Her hair was disheveled and her face was beet red in anger, and she kept pushing away anyone who tried to examine her or even touch her in any way.

"Where's the Chief? You're all amateurs!" the woman yelled again, and Billie noticed her wrists were restrained.

"Complaining of intermittent cramping, pain and diarrhea," Cristina kept going with shaky hands, reading the list out from the chart. "Also suffers from, uh-"

"Get away from me! AMATEURS!"

"-Alzheimer's."

At the mention of the disease, Billie understood: the woman on the gurney was Meredith's mother.

"Patient's name?" Bailey asked, unbeknownst. "Yang, patient's name!"

The woman's eyes landed on Meredith.

"What the hell are you doing here? Haven't I told you? How many times have I told you not to bother me when I'm at work?" she shouted. The blonde gripped Billie's hand awfully tight.

Immediately, Meredith sprinted towards the nearest wall to hide behind it, dragging along Billie with her. The brunette didn't know what to do, so she peaked over to Meredith's mother with concern, then squeezed her friends hand reassuringly.

"Ellis Grey," Cristina finally presented.

"Meredith's mother," George confirmed.

"You're amateurs, YOU'RE AMATEURS!"

☆

Holding Billie's hand in a tight grip, Meredith had directed them both to the locker room, where they now sat. The blonde stared into the nothingness pensively, without saying a word. Billie's fingers were staring to grow numb due to Meredith's force upon them, but she didn't mention it.

Bailey, on her hand, was standing by the doorsill, blocking the path to stop the remaining interns from lounging into the locker room.

"Stop it, STOP IT!" she yelled in order to get them to quiet down, but George took advantage of the new silence

"Meredith, are you okay-?"

Bailey placed her hand over his mouth and he immediately shut up. Soon after, the resident began speaking out instructions for the interns to follow, which Billie took as her cue to try and speak to Meredith.

"Hey, Mer? Are you okay?" she asked, leaning down a little to look into her friend's eyes. "It's- It's okay, you know? To be upset. Just know that I'm here for you."

Before Billie could keep talking, another voice interrupted.

"Hey, Meredith, y- you know, uh... my great-grandmother, she died with Alzheimer's," Cristina yelled over Bailey's shoulder in an attempt to comfort her friend.

"My God, why would you say that?"

"Well, I'm just trying to help!"

Meredith's chest was heaving a little and Billie squeezed her hand, feeling completely helpless. Immediately, Bailey began giving out more instructions to set aside all of the interns, and when she was finally done, she walked into the locker room, ready to have a chat with Meredith.

With her hand on Billie's, the two watched as Bailey closed the door.

"Are you able to work today?" the resident asked.

"Yes, I'm fine," Meredith responded, squeezing back Billie's hand as some sort of unspoken comfort.

"'Cause I would understand it if you wanted to be with your-"

"No. My mother and I don't have the easiest..." Before she could say anything else, the blonde cut herself off and started over. "It's just better if I'm working."

"Okay," Bailey said. "You're on scut."

"Excuse me?"

"While we take care of your mother, you can catch up on charting, run samples to the lab, go over-"

"I told you, I'm fine," Meredith repeated. Billie looked between the two with concern.

"Yeah, and I appreciate that you're fine, but you haven't let go of Black's hand in over half an hour, and I have to anticipate a certain level of distraction from you today. Even in the face of all that fineness," Bailey stared her down disbelievingly. "So scut. Now."

With a begrudging huff, Meredith finally let go of her person's hand, rolling her eyes but giving up her ground. Billie gave her resident a tight-lipped smile. The blonde stormed out of the locker room, leaving intern and resident alone.

"Black, you're on the ETS case with Karev," Bailey then said.

"Wait, what?" Billie's eyes widened noticeably. "No, please, give me scut too, I don't wanna-"

"Black."

"Please, I'll do anything! I'll, uh... I'll do your post-op notes for a month! Or- Or I'll take off your plate whatever dressing changes and rectal exams you get for the entire year!" Billie yelled out, frenzied, not even caring about whatever gross tasks she'd have to endure as long as it guaranteed her an Alex-free day.

Bailey stared her down, deadpan.

"I'm your resident, not your hostess. I give, you take, and you don't complain. You're an intern, you have no authority here, and you obviously do not have any authority over me. If I assign you to a certain patient, you take it and keep your mouth shut," she cut her off calmly. "Now, do you have a problem with the ETS case?"

"No, Dr. Bailey, I don't have a problem, thank you very much," Billie said as fast as she could, leaving the room hurriedly with her heart lodged on her throat.

Once she was out, however, she let out the longest sight, knowing she'd have to endure a whole new day next to Alex.

☆

"You paged, Chief?" Billie walked into Richard Webber's office, unsure as to what the meeting entailed.

After she checked on her patient, a painful half hour which she spent avoiding Alex's eyes, Billie was surprised to find her pager buzzing, but even more surprised when she realized she was being called in before the Chief.

She found herself inside the dispatch with him sitting across her behind his desk, hands latched over the table and glasses hanging low on the bridge of his nose. As soon as he saw her, he removed them and smiled ever the slightest.

"Dr. Black, yes," he answered. "Please, sit."

Immediately, nervous, she complied. The office was abnormally silent and Richard's eyes on her were a weighing omnipresence, partially because she'd never been called in before the Chief, but mostly because she feared she'd be scolded about something (even if she didn't recall doing anything wrong, but at this point, her brain was throwing in whatever).

The intern took a sit on the opposite side of the desk, hands between her thighs and an unusually craned back just because of the stress.

"I've been meaning to talk to you ever since I saw you your first day. I- I couldn't believe it was you," Richard pointed out with a smile, and Billie immediately cringed knowing what was to come. "I recognized you as soon as I saw you, so I'm sorry I couldn't address this with you earlier."

"Sir?" Billie cleared her throat awkwardly, unsure of where he was heading.

"There's no easy way to say this, but..." He cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Well, I'm guessing you already knew, but your mother and I were really close friends, Billie."

The intern's breath hitched in her throat, mainly because of the fact that the Chief was calling her by her first name, which meant really personal business. She tried to make it unnoticeable, yet apparently, she failed miserably when Richard's eyebrows tensed a little in response.

Her mother had never been Billie's favorite topic of conversation, and that wasn't any news, but there was something about this particular interaction that was making her feel much antsier than other times. She had a hard time answering.

"I, uhm..." Billie said, feeling her voice faltering near the end. "N- No. No, I didn't know that."

"Your... mother didn't tell you?"

At the confusion on Richard's face, Billie braced herself in anticipation. She wasn't sure if the Chief was about to tell her he had screwed her mother back when they were interns or if he had a secret love child somewhere in the country, but it sure as hell sounded like it.

"Uhm, I'm afraid not, sir."

Webber looked at her for a second, deadpan. She didn't know what to do, so she decided to address her own concerns.

"I'm sorry, sir, how did you know it was me?" Billie cleared her throat once again, and at the silence that came in the form of an answer, she kept talking. "I changed my name, and if you knew my father's name, then I'm sure you know that. My surname is not 'LeBlanc' anymore. So... how exactly did you know it was me?"

The Chief remained quiet for a second, perhaps debating in his head how to answer the question.

"I have known you ever since you were a child, Billie. I can't say I saw you grow up because I didn't, but I was there through your mother's pregnancy, I was there when you were born, and I was there for your first steps," Richard explained wholeheartedly, with an absent smile on his lips. "I used to hang out with you all the time when you were a child, and... you look just like her, Billie. I would recognize you anywhere."

You look just like her.

Once again, Billie's lungs constricted, allowing little to no oxygen into her system. She felt a rush of lightheadedness hitting her out of the blue and, for a second, her throat went bone dry, so she struggled speaking up again.

"So... you're saying we've met before?" Billie raised an eyebrow at the verge of laughing, and when she did, Richard looked at her incredulous. "I'm sorry, sir, but that's just ridiculous. I was ten, not an idiot, and I think I would remember you if I'd seen you before."

The intern felt the need to puke at her own words, because she had been ten years old the time her mother died. She'd never dared to even think anything about it.

"I stopped seeing her before you turned six, I'm afraid. I haven't seen her in a long time since." Richard laughed a little, then added longingly as an afterthought. "How is she doing these days? Is she still operating?"

And that's when Billie thought she heard her heart break.

She gasped audibly, almost like she couldn't stop herself from manifesting a physical reaction. Once she noticed the sound that had left her system, she looked down at her lap and took one of her hands to her lips. Her vision became blurry, clouded by dark spots which signaled an onslaught of tears.

The Chief didn't understand, unbeknownst to the ordeal that his words had wreaked upon her. His eyebrows knitted together once again in physical confusion and he kept his hands latched over the table, staring at the girl who didn't dare to look back.

Before Billie could stop herself, her eyebrows and chin were tensing up, lips curling into an intermittent tremble and body shaking in silent catharsis.

"Billie?" Richard called out once he noticed the girl was crying.

At the sound of her name, the intern looked back up, revealing her eyes, which were brimming with unshed tears, and the cherry red color that her face had adopted during the spillover of her grief.

"My mother is dead, Chief Webber," she whispered, her voice breaking, a small smile upon her face that held no happiness whatsoever.

For a second, Richard didn't react. It's not like he did it on purpose, but he just didn't know how to. The words hit him like such a shock that the numbness took over his senses for a second. Then, he regained his composure and sucked in a sharp breath, eyes wide in pure concern.

"What?"

"She stopped seeing you before I turned six because that's the year she got cancer. I- I wouldn't know why she didn't tell you, but my guess is that she just didn't want to put you through her cancer, too. Maybe she knew you'd care too much, or... no, I don't know." Billie laughed humorlessly. "She deteriorated a lot, gave me four painful years before she died. Maybe that's why. She didn't want you to go through what we did."

None of them said anything. Quiet took over the room and the unshed tears that followed the grief of the loss finally gained control.

Billie couldn't handle it anymore, so in an attempt to hide her evident pain, she stood up, pushing the chair back in the process and heading towards the door. Richard simply stared at her in shock, not knowing how to react at the news that would never be any less devastating.

He couldn't believe it. He didn't know why Ivory wouldn't tell him, why she would keep such thing from him and not even call him as she was on her death bed. She had spent the past thirteen years of her life wondering where she was, debating whether to call her or not, looking for her face on magazines... and after all this time, he found out she had left them years back.

"Sir?" Billie called out, snapping him out of his trance. "Do you mind keeping this between us?"

"Sorry?"

"I'm saying... please don't let anyone find out she was my mother, and please don't tell anyone she's-" She cut herself before she could finish, but the Chief nodded in silent understanding.

"Of course, Black." He cleared his throat, blinking away the unshed tears filling up behind his eyelids. Billie nodded her head with a teary smile and left, shutting the door behind her. "Of course."

☆

After Billie left the Chief's office, she didn't go to the on-call rooms for a crying session. Instead, she went to the bathroom and splashed some cold water over her face, ridding the tears and the flushed expression and then walking out like nothing ever happened. She didn't feel the need to reminisce over this again, she couldn't let herself feel that vulnerable.

It was in moments like this that she would've sought Derek for comfort, but remembering she was still supposed to be mad at him, Billie knew she was in this alone.

And then, when she got stuck in the elevator, on her own next to Alex, she didn't know whether to be grateful about the distraction, or annoyed, yet again, at his presence.

She felt like she kept running into him, that wherever she was, he'd be as well, and that gave her the awful feeling that he was following her. It was weird, and truly, a tad creepy, but Billie knew it was probably just a product of her crazy mind in the face of such strong emotional crisis. Luckily, at least she wasn't thinking about her mother anymore.

Things had been tense between her and Alex for no particular reason. They hadn't been alone for a few weeks now and they hadn't discussed any of the unspoken feelings, but they didn't feel the need to. Billie spent all day evidently jealous due to Izzie and Alex's new relationship, but she wasn't about to bring that up in front of him, damaging her ego in the process. However, what Billie didn't know was that Alex missed her every day.

They were supposedly friends now, but in reality, none of them had ever agreed to that. None of them felt comfortable with that. Physical attraction or not, they wanted each other. Izzie was just a distraction for Alex's itching desire to have her.

The two stood in the middle of the elevator, Billie a step forward in order not to see his face through the corner of her eye. But Alex was staring at her profusely, absentmindedly counting her freckles. Her skin looked so inviting; her lips, even more.

He had been dying to touch her, to feel her beneath the pads of his fingers. Her hair, her eyes, her mouth. She was so beautiful to him. He couldn't help himself.

Suddenly, Billie felt a presence behind her, body heat irradiating against her skin and the feeling of his hot breath against her neck. Before she could fathom the situation, she felt warm lips against the crook of her neck, and couldn't help but feather her eyes shut in the process.

She had forgotten the last time they kissed, and she had forgotten how much she liked it.

As in silent agreement, Alex began trailing kissing down her collarbone, placing his hands on her shoulders from behind. Billie didn't move, savoring the intimate moment for a second before she spoke.

"I'm over you," she lied.

"Hm?"

"I'm over you."

The kisses stopped, although Alex's lips didn't leave her skin. She subconsciously held her breath over what was about to come.

"You're over me?" He lifted himself up, staring at her side profile with his hands still on her arms, and Billie didn't need to look at him to know he was frowning. Alex stood close by in case Billie changed her mind, but she didn't.

"Yes," she said confidently, staring at the numbers on top of the elevator door, which increased intermittently. "I know there's nothing to get over. There wasn't a relationship, there wasn't... anything, to be honest. But... I'm over you. Completely."

Alex remained quiet for a second, not budging his position. He stared straight ahead for a second, processing the confession before making his decision. In the blink of an eye, he broke all sorts of physical contact with her in a teasing fashion, standing close to her by her side with his hands in front of him but not looking or touching her in any way. Billie felt a cold current of air traveling through the places his hands once were.

"I'm over you, too," he stated with as much confidence. At the words, her head shot in his direction.

"You are?"

"No."

Billie couldn't help but smile to herself, quickly slapping the grin away before Alex could notice her reaction. The two stood quietly for a few more seconds, none of them saying a word.

"Get over me," she then said matter-of-factly, not as a question, but as a statement, in an attempt to finally get him off his head.

"Well..." Alex began, quirking the corners of his lips downwards. "I mean, it's your loss."

Billie couldn't help but a laugh a little, partially because she knew it was true, but mostly because she knew it was his loss, too. However, it would always be her the one stopping them from being together.

"So... just friends, huh?" she then said, reaching out her hand towards him for him to shake and, in the process, planting her eyes on his for the first time.

Alex glanced between her stretched-out hand back to her eyes, and when he smirked, eyes glancing briefly down at Billie's lips, the brunette felt the blood rushing straight to her cheeks, the swirl and light tug in her stomach, and the tingling that would always take over her senses whenever he was standing too close.

Alex didn't think about it too much. He just knew he wanted it. In the bat of an eye, he skipped past her hand, grabbed her by her neck and slammed his lips against her own. Billie inhaled sharply though her nose and instinctively tried to pull away, but it only took a second for her to warm up and melt into him.

Billie's hands found his hair and she fumbled desperately to feel him. Alex didn't waste time in delving his teeth into her lower lip, savoring her, his nostrils flooded by the cherry scent of her hair. He felt a rush of lightheadedness that hit him out of nowhere, that intoxicating aroma that filled up his lungs making him dizzy.

God, he'd missed kissing her.

Billie moaned quietly into the kiss when he felt Alex's hand pressing down on her neck, and then, just as quick as he'd pulled in, he pulled away.

The actions were so quick they gave her whiplash and she found herself standing in the middle of the elevator, her hair disheveled, her lips swollen, her cheeks flushed. She panted heavily and trembled from head to toes.

"Just friends sounds good," Alex said cockily.

Billie was still trying to compose herself, but hearing him say that made a spark of anger ignite inside her. She scoffed.

"Fine," she said harshly.

"Fine," he repeated.

The elevator's doors parted, and the friends each went their separate ways.

☆

Something is wrong with Cristina, Billie thought to herself as she looked down at her person through the glass in the gallery. She was always one to jump to rushed conclusions, and the fact that she was almost always right was quite impressive, but also alarming, because it meant she was probably right now, too.

Cristina was watching Burke's surgery down in the OR, but for some reason, her skin was coated by a heavy layer of sweat and she looked almost delirious, fact that no one else in the room seemed to notice. Billie looked around, noticing everybody's eyes were on the body cavity rather that on the agonizing intern.

"Yang?" Burke suddenly called out. "Is my surgery interfering with your daydreaming?"

At his words, Billie bolted to her feet, unsure whether it was out of protection towards her friends, or because she was curious about what Cristina had to answer. She ignored the many people behind her urging her to sit back down due to the fact that she was blocking their views; instead, she walked further and crossed her arms over her chest, hand on her chin and eyebrows knitted together in silent concern.

"No. Sorry," Cristina answered after a long pause.

Before Billie could jump to early theories as she tended to, Izzie walked into the gallery, sitting on the seat next to the brunette's. Billie sighed subconsciously, remembering the events happened that morning and the new relationship between her and Alex, which had sparked her obvious jealousy, but she gave her a tight-lipped smile out of pure politeness.

They stayed a few seconds on silence before Billie spoke.

"Does Cristina seem weird to you?" she asked, eyes squinting in order to get a better look at her person's face. The blonde glanced briefly.

"She seems fine to me."

Billie shook her head and mumbled incoherent words under her breath, and when Cristina stumbled a bit backwards, she clicked her tongue, getting a feeling that there was something truly wrong. She would always know when something was wrong.

"No. No, she's not fine," she whispered under her breath, rushing out of the gallery and into the scrub room of the OR.

She grabbed a mask and quickly placed it in front of her face, not asking for permission before she broke into the OR, where Burke was visibly mistreating Cristina due to her lack of concentration.

That was the main symptom. 'Cristina Yang' and 'lack of concentration' were two terms that didn't belong in the same sentence, so Billie was starting to grow worried by the second.

"Dr. Black?" The attending frowned, looking up from his work when he saw the intern standing by the door. In the process, Billie tied the mask behind her head.

"Dr. Burke, I'm so sorry for interrupting your surgery, but I need to talk to Dr. Yang real quick." She rushed out. "It's urgent."

"This is an OR, not a playground-"

Billie didn't hear the end of it before she rushed towards her friend, who was evidently disoriented and seemed completely unhinged. The sweat had only continued perspiring from her skin and her hair was sticking to her neck, hand on her lower back out of muscle pain and an intermittent blinking of her eyes that was too slow for what was normal. The brunette cupped Cristina's face and turned her head towards her, hearing Burke's angry calls as background noise.

"Cristina, are you okay?" she asked softly, almost in a whisper, heart beating at a thousand miles an hour.

The girl in question looked at Billie briefly and let out a long, almost coaxing breath before her head jerked sideways and she fell forward, right onto Billie's arms. The girl's eyes widened and she was quick to hold her friend steady, stopping her from crashing against the floor.

"Cristina!" she yelled out of reflex, holding her as she laid unconsciously on her arms. "I need help over here!"

"Cristina!" Burke yelled at the sudden realization that there was something wrong with his lover, fact he had failed to acknowledge only seconds prior. "Cristina!"

"Get me a gurney!"

"Somebody help her!"

"BRING ME THE DAMN GURNEY!"

☆

"Her pulse is racing," Bailey exclaimed as her, Billie, Izzie and a couple of nurses rushed her out of the OR on a gurney and with an oxygen mask over her face. "I need her on a monitor to get a BP. Also, I want her started on a liter of LR wide open. Get to emergency, let them know we're on our way."

"Billie..." Cristina mumbled out, grabbing her person's hand tightly and keeping grip on it in order to call her attention. "I'm p-"

She couldn't continue, she was too delirious and in a great amount of pain, but Billie didn't need her to say anything else in order to understand. Immediately, she looked up at Bailey and spoke the truth.

"She's seven weeks pregnant," Billie said.

Izzie and Bailey looked at each other with wide eyes as the gurney was rolled into the elevator. In a quick-thinking decision, the resident turned towards Izzie and stopped her.

"Uh, okay, no. We're going to pre-op instead. Find Addison Shepherd, and Izzie-" Bailey stopped her intern, "-be discreet."

"Cristina, you're going to be okay, you hear me? You'll be fine," Billie whispered at her person.

The doors of the elevator slid close, leaving Izzie behind to find Addison Shepherd.t, and the thought freaked her out.

"You're going to be okay." Billie swallowed, looking up at Bailey for reassurance. "You'll be fine."

☆

After Billie notified Derek she wouldn't be joining him on the ETS surgery, despite his pouts and Alex's disappointment, she rushed towards the patient room, where Addison examined Cristina with an ultrasound while Bailey held the intern's head, asking her for any person she could contact.

When Addison asked Cristina whether she had notified the father about it, Billie cringed externally, although luckily, nobody noticed.

"What is it?" she asked, snapping a pair of gloves on. Addison moved in order to let her see the image showed in the ultrasound, and the intern's lips parted in shock as she examined the black and white image drawn on the screen. "Extrauterine pregnancy. Her tube burst, she's bleeding out."

The redhead and Bailey looked at her in concern, glancing at each other briefly with uncertainty as to what to do.

Addison clicked her tongue. "We need to take her up to surgery, and it has to be now."

☆

Billie stood by Cristina's head, wearing her mask, scrub cap and surgical gown. Her person was intubated on the table, being operated on by Addison, Bailey and Izzie. Despite the two former's claims that Billie was needed on the surgery due to the amazing amount of knowledge she had on pregnancy issues, the intern refused, begging them to let her stay by Cristina's side instead. So, that's what she did, wanting her friend to, even unconscious, feel somewhat accompanied.

"She's gonna be okay, right?" Izzie asked worriedly, glancing up at Addison, and ever so briefly at Billie, as if she was somehow worried about her too.

Addison ignored her. "How attached was she to this pregnancy?"

"I don't know. She's a pretty private person," the blonde said softly. Billie heard the silence that followed the interaction and looked between the two, choosing to step in.

"She had a termination scheduled for the sixteenth," she explained knowingly, remembering the half-conversation, half-confession and half-argument they had had weeks prior in regards to the topic.

Addison's eyes landed on Billie for a second, who sat on a stool on the opposite end of the table. They didn't lock eyes since the intern's were fixed on Cristina; she was adamant on not looking away, memorizing every freckle, crevice and mark on her person's face for no particular reason.

"She's lost a lot of blood, but I'm in control," the redhead decided to change the topic. "Black, Bailey, don't you two have other cases? You can go, I have it all handled."

Both intern and resident looked up.

"I'm fine right here," the latter replied.

Billie swallowed. "I'm gonna stick around."

☆

Even after the surgery was done, Billie refused to leave Cristina's side. She followed the gurney into the ICU, pulled a chair close to the bed and sat by her person's side, holding her hand tightly and propping her elbow onto the bed to get a closer look at her friend's face as the anesthesia wore off. She refused to fall asleep or even leave the chair, not wanting to miss the moment Cristina woke up.

Bailey was sat in front of her, looking at her intern from a chair on the opposite side of Billie. They hadn't said a word ever since they had arrived, but they didn't need to talk in order to know they both felt the same.

The first thing Cristina noticed when she woke up was her hand on someone else's, so she turned and met eyes with Billie, who immediately jumped to her feet and looked at her expectantly. At the sudden noise, Bailey became alerted too and craned on her chair.

"What happened?" Cristina slurred.

"You had an extrauterine pregnancy. Your left fallopian tube burst," Bailey replied, very softly. "Dr. Shepherd... she did everything she could, but there was too much damage. She couldn't save the tube."

Cristina frowned for a second, turning towards her person, whose eyebrows raised in anticipation. Billie placed one of her hands on Cristina's face, cradling her jaw as the fingers of her remaining hand were still intertwined with her friend's. The brunette knew the question that followed.

"I lost the baby?" she asked, something not quite discernible disguised in her tone.

Billie looked at her with an apologetic expression, holding her hand tightly and running her thumb back and forth on her cheekbone in a somewhat soothing motion. Subconsciously, Cristina leant into Billie's hand. They stared at each other for a second on silent understanding, unspoken words hovering in the air.

Cristina then turned and looked up at the ceiling, not saying another word.

☆

After spending as much time next to her friend as she could, Billie was informed by Derek that the surgery with Kelly had gone potentially well, although they wouldn't know until she woke up, so once Cristina was asleep, Billie rushed out of the room and into the other patient's, whose anesthesia was still wearing off.

Alex looked up distractedly, then returned his gaze back to the charts he was doing. However, once he realized who it was behind the door, he looked up again.

Billie knew she looked like crap. It was no news; her messy hair, her flushed expression, her shaky hands. It had been one hell of a day and she hadn't had time to take care of herself in the process, she had been too worried taking care of others. But right now, she didn't really care.

"Hey," Alex greeted softly, clearly unsure of what to say. Billie looked up and smiled, too.

"Hi."

A third person interrupted them.

"Hey," Kelly said, earning both intern's attention since she had woken up. "Is it over?"

"Yeah, the surgery was successful. We're just doing a follow-up." Alex smiled softly. Billie grinned a little at the patient, and the sight made him smile subconsciously.

"Dr. Shepherd will be in to check on you in a while," the girl butted in, hands latched together in front of her. "I'm sorry I wasn't in your surgery, Kelly. A really important matter came up."

Kelly smiled, seeming for a second like she was going to reply to the intern's late statement, but when her smile was wiped and her eyes widened, Billie frowned.

"Say that again," the blonde demanded.

"What?"

"Say his name... Dr. Shepherd..." Her eyes widened even more. "Oh, my God... look at my face."

When Billie realized that Kelly's blushing impulse hadn't fired up at the mention of Derek, who the patient evidently had a crush on, her eyes widened too, followed by a huge smile that took over her features in a matter of seconds.

"Your blushing impulse is gone," she blurted out, sounding amazed. Kelly nodded excitedly, to which Billie turned towards Alex. "Guess it was worth the risk."

The man in question smiled and they both smiled at Kelly, excusing themselves and then walking out of the room side by side. Once they were out of Kelly's hearing reach, Alex spoke to Billie.

"I still think it's nuts; having a major surgery just so people can't tell how you're feeling."

"Oh, you do?" Billie asked, incredulous.

"Nah, I guess not."

The brunette laughed a little through her nose and followed Alex down the hallway, watching as he tucked his pen into the pocket of his scrub top and dropped his chart off at the nurses station.

"You know, I used to think you were just the ultimate asshole, but if you tried a little, you could actually be really nice," Billie observed his side profile, squinting her eyes slightly.

"Did you think that before or after I kissed you?" Alex sucked his lips inwards, looking her up and down with a wiggle to his eyebrows. Billie rolled her eyes. "You're the only person who likes me."

"Who said that?" The brunette frowned, shaking her head then smiling a little. "Izzie likes you."

Alex's head turned towards her, a cherry red shade taking over his cheeks ever the slightest.

"You're blushing," she pointed cheekily.

Alex looked away, a smirk taking over his lips. "Shut up."

"Oh, I will." Billie smiled.