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CHAPTER THIRTY
don't stand so close to me.
season three, episode ten.

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Billie and Cristina sat in an empty on-call room late at night, leant against opposite walls with their eyes on each other. The atmosphere in the encompassed space, which was only interrupted by one window, was tense, like the air was poisonous and the words they both had on their throats were nothing but mere specks of the thousand questions they wanted to ask.

Billie was confused. Shocked, unforgiving, but mostly, confused.

Cristina was ashamed. Silent, unambiguous, but mostly, ashamed.

The former opened her mouth as in an attempt to speak, since the million questions that were yet to be answered were making her thoughts rally. But before she could actually say anything, the words died on her throat and she closed her mouth. Cristina noticed and looked away very slightly, not daring to look into her friend's eyes.

With her knees bent in front of her and her chin propped on her fist, Billie shook her head. A frown overlooked her features.

"Why didn't you tell me?" she asked, not trying to impose any accusation on her friend, just genuinely curious about the answer.

Cristina scoffed. "Stop acting like I committed a crime."

"I'm not acting like you committed a crime, I just wanna know why." Billie shook her head in rightful denial. "Why didn't you tell me that Burke had a tremor? I could've helped you."

"So everybody keeps saying. No one could've helped me. It was a fight or flight situation, and I chose to fight," Cristina said harshly, "by myself."

"I know, and I respect you for that." The brunette nodded softly, stone-faced. "But I thought I was your best friend, I thought... I thought this were the kind of things we told each other."

Cristina bit her lip, but didn't dare to look into her best friend's eyes. Something behind them felt like a finger pointing straight at her chest and the thought made her cringe, even if Billie's intention was nowhere near accusing.

"I couldn't say anything," she finally said with qualm. "I'm sorry."

Billie nodded her head softly and switched her gaze, so now she was staring at nothing in particular. She let out a tired sigh.

☆

That following morning, Billie arrived at the locker room, where Alex, Izzie, Meredith and George were already changing. She smiled briefly at them before making her way further into the space, where she met with the blonde. Billie rolled her eyes and simply paid attention to the topic that was being discussed.

"Maybe she'll be on 'look, but don't touch' patrol too," Izzie said. "At least I'd have some company."

"Whatever she gets, I hope it's bad. Really bad." Alex slid into his lab coat. Billie's head shot in his direction.

"Are you guys talking about Cristina?" she asked.

"She made a mistake." Meredith spoke from behind a locker cabinet.

"Mistake?" George scoffed. "She was going to let Burke-Burke, with the shaky hand-operate on my father."

"Cristina shouldn't have done what she did, but it's not like there was anything else-" Billie began, but just as she intended to keep going, the woman in question walked into the room, already on her scrubs.

Everybody stayed quiet. Once she walked by, Alex slammed his locker shut and glared at her. The girl paid no mind to him and walked further down the aisle to her own cubby. In the end, she met eyes with George.

"Could you stop looking at me like that?" she said harshly in regards to him. "It's creepy and it makes me feel like you haven't been fed."

George stood up and left the room, followed by Alex and Izzie, who all stormed out. Billie walked up to Cristina and Meredith and leant against the locker cabinet with her arms crossed over her chest.

The blonde sighed. "How's it going?"

"How's what going?"

Billie frowned at her. "You and Burke, are you... you guys okay?"

"We're existing in total silence." Cristina sighed in disappointment as she hooked her pager to the hem of her scrub pants.

"He's not talking to you?"

"Well, I'm not talking to him either."

"I'm sorry. Are you okay?" Billie took a step forward and sat next to Meredith on the bench, watching Cristina shuffle through her locker speedily.

"Stop asking me that," she said.

Billie glanced over at Meredith with a frown, "We're making an effort here."

"Please don't."

☆

During rounds, after Addison pulled Meredith apart and Cristina got luckily assigned to Harold O'Malley's case with Dr. Erica Hahn, Alex, Izzie, George and Billie followed Bailey into another room.

"Dude, I wanted that surgery and she hands it to Yang. I haven't had a cardiac case in ages." Alex huffed.

"It's not a case, it's my father," George corrected.

"It's not a case, it's his father," Billie chorused.

"Guess there's a double standard now. Yang does something wrong and she gets rewarded, that's fair," Izzie whispered under her breath, brimming hatred from every corner.

"You're one to speak, Isobel." Billie rolled her eyes. "Hypocrite."

Finally, Bailey came to a halt in front of a patient room. The resident was particularly touchy that day due to the incident with Cristina and Burke, so she immediately glared them all down until they stayed quiet.

"If you thumb-suckers don't stop whining, I swear I won't show you what's behind this door. And trust me, you wanna see what's behind this door."

The four interns looked at each other expectantly until Bailey finally opened the door to the patient room behind her, making all of their jaws drop collectively.

"Excuse me, doctors, you're gonna have to wait a few minutes," one of them said.

"He's gotta pee. Every five minutes, he's gotta pee!" the other one clarified.

The two men, who couldn't have been over thirty-five, wobbled around the bed to get to the toilet, and when their backs were on full display through the patient gown they shared, the four interns noticed they were conjoined at the lumbar section.

Bailey turned to them, "Now, which one of you thinks that Yang got the better case?"

All of them turned to each other with excitement brimming all over their features.

"That's what I thought."

☆

"Jake and Peter Weitzman, thirty-five-year-old pygopagus conjoined twins attached at the lumbosacral junction," Bailey introduced. Webber, Derek, Mark, and the remaining intern class stood in the room, staring at the two men who sat on the bed.

"But not for long, right, Dr. Webber?"

"The Weitzman's came over six months ago for a separation procedure. They opted out because of the risks," the man in question explained.

"Pete chickened out." Jake rolled his eyes.

"Well, forgive me for wanting to live longer, even if it meant living with you!" Peter argued.

"Yeah, well, you wasted six months of our lives. Thank you very much."

"Oh, c'mon. Stop it."

Billie snorted. Alex, on the other side of the room, heard her and smiled, but as soon as she caught sight of him, any trace of a grin was wiped away from her face.

They hadn't talked since last night-not personally, at least. And Billie was still very much hurt, and although she hadn't dared to tell him, he knew. He knew he'd promised to wait for her and he hadn't, and he'd lost his chance.

"You guys came back at the right time," Billie then said awkwardly, trying to shift her focus off of Alex. "We just scored New York's top plastic surgeon."

"Mark Sloan, plastics. And you remember Dr. Shepherd, your neurosurgeon." Richard introduced the doctors, who both stretched each of the twins' hands awkwardly due to the patients' tendency to act like a single person.

"Yeah, we used to work. As a team, actually," Mark said.

"We were never actually a team," Derek corrected under his breath with a disguising smile.

"Mr. Weitzman?" George took a step forward.

"Call me Pete."

"Call me Jake."

"Jake, Pete. Uhm..." he continued. "Do you mind me asking, why now when you thought the procedure was too risky six months ago?"

"Well..."

Just then, a blonde woman walked into the room, causing both twins' faces to light up in joy. Billie squinted her eyes in suspicion.

"Guys?" she called out, but her eyes landed on the people around her. "Woah. That's a lot of doctors. I'll just come back later."

"No, no, no. Elena, come in. Come in," Jake stopped her, turning towards George. "You wanted to know why now? This is why: the love of my life, Elena."

"Jake, don't." She laughed nervously. "I told him not to do this. Not for me anyway, 'cause that's just crazy. Because Pete said that they could end up... paralyzed? He could end up dead."

"Why do you tell her things like that?" Jake scolded, turning towards his brother.

"I wasn't telling her, I was telling you! She just happens to be the only one who listens to me."

Billie arched an eyebrow, sensing the romantic-family-drama-slash-love-triangle that was lingering around the room. Next to her, Alex seemed to notice the same thing to which they both titled their heads rightwards in sync.

"She happens to be right," Derek interfered.

"Do you know what it's like to have to be stuck to the same person? Do you know what it's like to have to be with the same person every minute of every day? To not have anything that's just yours? Not be able to do anything on your own?" Jake said as Peter shook his head in annoyance next to him. "Well, nobody should have to live like that."

"What do you think, Pete?" Derek turned to the other twin.

The man in question paused. "I think... why would I wanna be attached to someone who doesn't wanna be attached to me?"

☆

Billie sat by Cristina at Really Old Guy's room as she picked on her salad, not exactly hungry, when Izzie and Alex walked in talking, followed by Meredith and George. Each of them had their own set of problems, including Harold O'Malley's cancer and Meredith's sister, Molly, coming into the hospital for a c-section.

"I think it's romantic. Two brothers fighting-" The blonde stopped herself when she saw Cristina and rolled her eyes. "-over the same woman."

"You know what's freaky? The whole 'conjoined twin having sex in front of the other one' thing." Alex laughed in reference to a conversation happened earlier that day, where Elena had confessed to have fallen in love with both twins. "How do you do that?"

"Family is complicated." Meredith sighed with conspicuous duplicity, sitting next to Billie.

Alex's eyes fell on Cristina, oblivious to her presence until then, and he frowned, "You're here. You haven't been kicked out of the program yet."

Billie glared at him, but said nothing.

"No, not yet. I'm still here." Cristina drew a fake smile on her face.

Alex shook his head, "How'd you do it? I mean, did you have some kind of signal in surgery so that the nurses wouldn't know, or did you-?"

Billie glared at him again. He frowned at her.

"What? I mean, I'm just wondering how to get ahead around here," he said. "Me? I get coffee for Sloan. Yang? She gets surgeries none of us would get."

"Got a head count on how many patients you two lied to in the past month?" George asked glaringly.

"George," Meredith glared at him.

"Leave her alone. Her patients lived, so she gets to scrub in." Izzie rolled her eyes.

Billie's eyes landed on her, completely deadpan. "Hey, why don't you go fuck yourself?"

"Meredith, Billie, please. Can't we just stop defending me?" Cristina shook her head in exhaustion, grabbing her food tray and leaving the room. Everyone, excluding Meredith and Billie, glared at her until she was gone.

The latter shook her head and stared her friends down-especially Alex.

"Are you proud?" she huffed then.

☆

After leaving Really Old Guy's room due to tired frustration towards her friends, Billie wandered aimlessly about the hospital, waiting on an update on the Weitzman's case and overall just looking around. It was a quiet day at Seattle Grace Hospital... until Mark walked up to her.

He placed a heavy arm around her shoulder, almost causing her to lose balance, and smiled widely. "Hey."

Billie frowned, "You look dumb."

"You look pretty," he flirted in retaliation, which was just typical Mark Sloan attitude that Billie had learnt to oversee throughout the years. "I really do like the hair, you know? Short suits you."

"Did you know conjoined twins happen once every two hundred thousand live births?" Billie arched an eyebrow at her own statement as both of them kept walking. "Only eighteen percent of conjoined kids survive, approximately thirty-five percent of them die within the first twenty-four hours, and only another eighteen percent make it past the first day alive. Jake and Pete are a statistic."

Mark's smile faded. "You completely ruined the vibe."

Billie looked at him deadpan. "No vibe, Mark. No vibe."

"I thought you and Karev were broken up. Why won't you have sex with me?"

"We are, but that doesn't mean you're getting any, Mark. It's just not right, I won't let it happen."

"Why not!"

"Because!" Billie laughed at the man-child that walked by her side.

"Oh, nice answer, okay."

The girl laughed again, but then allowed herself to think for a second. Alex and her were broken up, and apparently, after three days, he was tired of waiting for her. So what was the point of getting better for him, if he didn't want her anymore? They weren't waiting to try it out again. They were officially broken up.

So what was stopping her from actually jumping straight into bed with Mark? It's not like Alex had had any problem doing it before with Izzie...

Billie was about to comment on her train of thought, but her pager went off 911 to Harold O'Malley's room before she could say anything else. Her smile faded immediately and she ran off, leaving Mark behind to wonder what the hell had happened.

☆

"What's going on? Talk to me." Billie walked into Harold O'Malley's room, where the man was clearly having trouble breathing amongst the rapid beeping of the heart monitor.

"Tachycardia," George mumbled distractedly as he attempted to hold his father down, pressing the oxygen mask against his face.

His family, including George's brothers and mother, were also there, confused as to what was happening. George himself and Callie worked on Harold, but at the sight of it, Billie walked up to the former.

"George, let me take over. You can't work on him, you're a family member."

"Recycle his BP," Callie demanded, causing George to dismiss Billie's words and click one of the buttons on the heart monitor.

"Uh, push, uh... verapamil. Five milligrams," he ordered the nurse, then looked back at his father, who kept struggling. "Dad! Dad! Stop fighting the mask!"

Burke walked into the room, attracted by the sound of the commotion, "O'Malley, what's going on?"

George glanced at Callie. "You should've paged Hahn."

"I paged anyone from cardiothoracics."

"He's got a-fib with rapid atrial response. I've ordered verapamil," George breathed out in a hurry.

"What? No, he's got a-tach. The verapamil's only gonna make it worse." Billie shook her head, fearful. George's eyes fell on her in shock.

"Black's right. Push one hundred lidocaine," Burke demanded to the nurse. "Put his O2 mask."

Callie did as told as the attending grabbed the loaded syringe from the tray, handing it to Billie. She proceeded to push away George with her shoulder and inject the drug swiftly, just as Erica Hahn walked into the room.

"Alright, what happened?"

"He went into v-tach. Black's giving him lidocaine. It's already put him back in a normal sinus," Burke explained, hearing as the beeping of the heart monitor gradually slowed down.

"I need everyone out of here," Hahn demanded, placing her stethoscope against Harold's chest to hear his slowing pulse.

Billie bit her lip in concern as he eyed George, who stood in the middle of the room, distraught. However, in the end, under Hahn's orders, she opted to walk out.

☆

That afternoon, Izzie, on Mark's service, walked up to him as he charted near a nurses station. "I got your page."

"Need another capuccino," he said simply.

"Did you think I was kidding before?" The girl laughed in disbelief, referencing a moment earlier that day where she'd pettily refused to buy him a coffee.

Mark sighed. "I am your attending. And if you want in on my surgeries, you're gonna learn how to fetch and stay and heel."

He proceeded to take out a few bills from the chest pocket of his scrub top and hand them to Izzie, who took them reluctantly. She rolled her eyes and proceeded to walk away, but Mark smirked at her.

"Don't fetch angry."

Izzie turned. "You think this means I respect you? If you want me to respect you, you have to do something worth respecting."

Mark simply looked at her with one hand on his hip, but by the time Izzie turned, she came face to face with Billie, who had her eyebrow arched and stared at her with her arms crossed over her chest. Izzie's face fell in fear and she gulped audibly.

"Don't ever speak to him that way again." Billie demanded, then beckoned with her head. "Go."

Izzie nodded and ran off speedily, causing the brunette to smirk to herself with a feeling of power and superiority, and then walk up to Mark with a smile. His eyebrows traveled up to his hairline and a smirk took over his lips.

"I like you all bossy. It's kinda hot."

She rolled her eyes, but then changed the subject. "You know I have a check for twelve million dollars laying untouched right under my pillow? I'm sleeping over a rock and it's literally the least of my concerns."

Mark's face fell noticeably. "What?"

"It's crazy, right? Denny left his whole fucking fortune to me." Billie laughed. "I'm broke as fuck but, for some reason, I feel like I'd be just fine without the money."

The man paused and opened his mouth to say something, but utter shock caused his words to die on his throat. Billie looked at him expectantly, wide-eyed and smile on her face.

"Billie, you should deposit the check," he finally said.

"What would I do with that money?" She ignored his words pensively. "Well, I could literally buy the Bahamas with it. Or at least a Bahama. Oh! Maybe I should buy presents for everyone. But not crappy gift shop presents, I mean big presents. Maybe I should get everyone cars. How do you see yourself driving a half-a-million-dollar-worth Saleen S7?"

"Billie," Mark cut her rant off, grabbing her shoulders. "Don't buy cars for anyone and please don't buy the Bahamas. Any of them. Deposit the damn check."

Billie pouted. "You just love sucking the fun out of everything, don't you?"

Mark collected the charts he was signing from the counter and smiled widely, "Oh, I am really fun, thank you very much. It's not my fault you're too stubborn to find out."

Billie rolled her eyes at his dirty comment, but smiled regardless. Was she really starting to consider it?

☆

That night, after both Harold O'Malley's and Pete and Jake's surgeries were over, Billie walked up to the former's room in the ICU. Next to the bed, sprawled on a chair, George was fast-asleep with his head propped on his chin. However, Harold laid wide awake, staring at the ceiling pensively.

When he saw her, he smiled.

"Hey, Dr. B," he greeted tiredly.

"Hi." Billie grinned at the nickname.

Judging by Harold's grogginess and his sluggish words, it was evident that the anesthesia from the surgery had just recently worn off, but regardless of that, he was fully conscious. His voice was a hoarse whisper in comparison to Billie's, who emitted light from every corner.

"How'd the surgery go?" she asked, retrieving a chair and placing it by his bedside, then sitting up on it with her body slightly leant forward as a sign that he had her full attention.

"Oh, uh... good, I guess. Georgie said he would stay with me, but he was really tired so he fell asleep." Harold chuckled fondly, glancing over at his son. Billie laughed too.

"I'm glad you got the heart thing done. That way, you can now focus only on the cancer. Which you'll beat, I'm sure." She smiled very widely, displaying her whole set of teeth.

However, Harold did not reciprocate the grin this time. Instead, his face fell ever the slightest, enough for Billie to notice. Her smile faded and gave space for a frown to take over her features. He opened his mouth to speak.

"Doc," he called out, so Billie beckoned. "Georgie's told me you two are good friends."

The girl nodded expectantly.

"Billie, if I don't make it through this..." he continued, using her first name which made Billie stiffen. "Georgie and I don't have the best relationship, but he's my boy and he's always come to me whenever he's needed me, even with all our differences. So if I don't make it through this... my- my will is on the second drawer of my bedside table, in my room. Give it to him. And Billie-"

He paused and placed his hand on top of hers, making a shiver run a few laps across Billie's spine. Harold then proceeded to reaffirm his grip on her fingers with a tight squeeze, which Billie gave back to condone her presence by his side.

"I need you to promise me that you'll make sure he moves on," Harold finished breathily, almost as if it pained him to speak.

The girl laughed very briefly, humorlessly, "Harold, you're not gonna die. Cancer can be a stubborn bitch to kill, but you will-"

"Billie." He cut her off and shook his head, making the girl stay quiet in acknowledgement and respect. "Please."

There was something pleading to his voice, like a distant beg hidden behind the sole word. She felt her lungs rattle at the thought of death yet again and, for a second, she struggled to breathe, but that moment was wiped away like a broken palimpsest, ready to be replaced by the oncoming future.

Finally, Billie nodded her head, "I promise, Harold. I promise."

☆

Billie ran down the many hallways of the hospital, looking for a certain person. Her pace was frantic as she searched every room, hoping to find him, but failing every time she peeked through a door and was met by emptiness. Her heartbeat got progressively faster the longer it took, mostly in anxious anticipation rather than concern.

Death. Death came to everyone, all the time, regardless of what they did and what they didn't do. From the healthiest person, to the least. From the tallest, to the shortest; the younger, to the eldest. It was inevitable, an endless cycle, an unbreakable chain. Billie had realized and finally understood that nobody really cared if it was right or wrong. That she was her only obstacle.

Alex and her were broken up, for good. He sure was moving on, so why couldn't she move on as well?

Billie broke into an on-call room, where the person she was looking for laid peacefully on one of the beds, reading a magazine with his hand behind his head. He looked up at her once she was in the room and smiled.

"What's up?" Mark gestured with his head, but Billie ignored him.

Instead, her hand slid down the door and towards the knob, where she clicked the lock, encompassing them both into an empty room by themselves. She proceeded to pick her hair up into a high bun, and as she did, Mark's face fell.

"What are you doing?"

The girl walked up to him with a stride to her step, snatched the magazine from his hand and tossed it somewhere on the floor, causing him to sit up straight immediately in utter confusion. Billie crawled onto the bed and straddled his lap.

"Having sex," she said lazily, wasting no time in cupping his cheeks and slamming her lips against his.

For a second, Mark molded into the embrace, hands falling down to Billie's hips to grip her tightly in a way he knew would leave marks, pressing their bodies together to signal the complex desire he held behind his touch. Notwithstanding, he pulled away.

"What?" He frowned, shaking his head.

"Fuck it, right? Isn't this what you wanted?" Billie laughed breathily, chest heaving in anticipation. "Life is too short to go about deciding what's good and what's not. I wanna make mistakes and not be sorry for them, because if I don't, then I'm gonna spend my entire life pitying myself. So if this is a mistake, then please, let's make it."

Mark paused, "A- Are you sure?"

"Well-" She arched a teasing eyebrow. "-did I stutter?"

His face slowly relaxed and morphed into a smirk, eyes traveling her entire body in fallen lust of the moment he'd been waiting for his whole life. "No, you did not."

In a second, their lips were together again, their bodies tight against each other.