˚♡ ⋆｡˚

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
scars and souvenirs.
season three, episodes eighteen.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

SIX WEEKS LATER

The water was boiling hot as it sprayed over Billie's body, steaming into the room and causing the air to be thick to the lungs. The mirror, windows and shower screen were completely fogged due to the temperature of the water, but Billie simply sat in the tub with her casted leg up high and with a bag wrapped around it so the plaster wouldn't get wet. Her hand, however, was on the middle of her throat where her incision scar remained.

She ran her finger back and forth above it, feeling the little abnormality on her skin that was not typical, but she had had the time to memorize its feel in depth. She knew just where it was without having to search for it and, whenever she touched it, she knew exactly what kind of memories would resurface.

Billie was still healing. Not only physically, it wasn't just her multiple incisions and wounds she'd sustained during the ferryboat crash that were still on the process of mending. It was also her mind, her head the one that had to heal. Her sadness, her grief. Everything she'd lost.

Whenever she touched that certain little two-inch scar on her neck, her skin would become sterile with goosebumps, allowing the memories to flood right back in and take over everything in her head. She'd remember it as a sign of the voice she'd lost, the words she hadn't spoken, the heartbeat that was still missing, even after the flatline.

Her finger took a sprint up and down the vertical scar once more before Billie was shutting off the shower. It took her a second to stand up due to the cast that didn't allow her to bend her knee, but she finally was able to stand on her two feet and she stepped out of the tub. She removed the bag from around her leg, grabbed one of the towels and began drying her body, but suddenly, as she still stood in the middle of the bathroom butt-naked, the door opened.

She froze in her step with the towel only barely covering her body, watching as Alex walked into the room, shuffled around a bit, and then tossed his toothbrush into the holder over the sink. Billie arched an eyebrow.

"What the hell are you doing?" SHE said calmly.

"I'm not looking. I'm not interested," he answered wryly.

Billie held the deadpan expression. "Okay, but what the hell are you doing?"

Alex turned towards her. "Moving in."

They made eye contact for a second and Billie simply looked at him as though she was too tired to even talk to him, judging by the dark rings that circled her eyes. Alex frowned a little at her state.

"You're taking George's room?" Billie asked, finally wrapping the towel around her chest in order to cover herself.

"Uh." Alex cleared his throat. "Yeah."

"Okay." She shrugged and grabbed a bottle of body lotion from the sink, letting the towel drop to reveal her naked body beneath it carelessly. "Don't walk in if I'm using the bathroom, Alex."

Alex's jaw dropped at the sight and he couldn't help but rake his eyes up and down her beautiful body, but didn't get a chance to further stare, since Billie was shutting the door on his nose. Without any mind, she turned towards the fogged mirror, ran her hand along it to get rid of the moisture, and let out a sigh when she saw her own eyes looking back at her.

☆

Billie arrived very early at the hospital that morning because she had been involuntarily scheduled for continuous three-week appointments with her past psychiatrist. After being bedridden for over five days in order for her incisions and fractures to heal, she had been reluctant to assist to the psychiatric appointment since she knew the last thing she needed right now was a shrink, but when she told Webber she didn't want it, he had started ranting about legal stuff she didn't understand, so she simply said yes to get him to stop talking. Now, she was on her way to May's office.

Mark rolled her wheeling chair. She was still recovering from the multiple fractures she had sustained during the ferryboat crash, the toughest one being a broken femur that she still had to wear a very uncomfortable cast to fix. Overall, with the two casts on her leg and arm, the two surgical incisions on her neck and chest, the post-surgery look and the lack of makeup, Billie looked like crap.

With her cast leg stretched out in front of her, Mark wheeled her all the way down the hallway and up to the door to May's office, which read a few words Billie didn't care to know on a small golden badge at the top. Her best friend behind her didn't hesitate to knock thrice in order to be let in, and soon, the voice on the other side granted the needed permission. Mark pushed down the handle and wheeled her into the office, then up to the love couch in front of May's seat. He then claimed he'd be waiting outside and left the room.

"Good morning, Billie." May smiled from her seat.

As usual, she looked flawless, wearing a burgundy striped suit with a white low-cut tank top beneath it, and the usual black stilettos. Her hair was held up into a tight bun and she sat with poise, one leg crossed on top of the other and the symbolic notebook on her lap, waiting to get the secrets dumped on it.

Billie didn't answer. Instead, she simply dedicated herself to look straight forward, fiddling with the red thread that still resided upon her ring finger absentmindedly. She chewed on the dead skin of her lips, not caring about the sting, and felt May's observing eyes on her.

"So, Billie," she began. "How are you doing?"

The girl didn't look up and simply limited herself to shrug, not daring to open her mouth or express any of her feelings in any way. Her throat was still pretty much sore from the surgery on her larynx and her voice had not still recovered completely, but that was not the reason she didn't want to speak.

"Okay, then." May nodded at the lack of answer. "Let's get started."

☆

On their first day back at work, Billie and Meredith walked into the locker room, where their friends were already changing into their scrubs. However, when they saw the two girls that somehow managed to defeat death time and time again, they dedicated them weird looks filled with consternation. Meredith, primarily because she had drowned, been dead and come back to life only to find out her mother was dead. And Billie, because she had also died, and she had also come back to life, but she had also lost someone very important to her.

"Okay, everybody, let's do this once," Meredith announced. "I'm fine. She's cremated, I picked out a beautiful urn and she's hanging out in the back of my closet. Any more questions about my dead mother or can we get back to work?"

They all looked at her weirdly for a second before they turned to Billie expectantly, waiting for her own explanation.

She frowned. "What you all looking at?"

"Dude, your best friend died. You're allowed to be a little sad." Alex raised his eyebrows.

"I know what I'm allowed to do. I just don't feel like doing it." Billie rolled her eyes with a sigh, then turned to her locker without sparing any glances in her friends' direction.

Cristina, who obviously sensed the tension in the atmosphere, changed the subject. "Does anyone know who the new Chief candidate is?"

"Chief's bringing in a ringer in case he doesn't want to give the job to one of your boyfriends," George joked, glancing over at Billie, Meredith and Cristina.

"Wait," the former frowned, "who's my boyfriend again?"

Just then, Bailey walked into the room. "O'Malley, you're with Shepherd today. Yang, Doctor Montgomery. Stevens, to the clinic. Karev, Jane Doe. Grey, Black, scut."

"Once again, I am fine," Meredith complained.

"You can tell everybody you're fine till you're blue in your face. Your mom died and you almost joined her, you're taking it easy." Bailey demanded, but when her statement was followed by silence, she turned to Billie with a weird look. "Black?"

"Yeah?" the woman in question asked mindlessly.

"Aren't you gonna complain too?" The resident eyed her up and down.

"No. Scut sits just fine with me," Billie deadpanned before she was slipping into her lab coat and limping past Bailey, heading towards the door.

☆

After a few hours of running labs and doing sutures up in the pit like she had been rightfully instructed to do, and avoiding anybody she could possibly know, Billie walked into the main hall as she typed a message on her phone. However, she was surprised to see a crowd of people gathered up at the bottom of the stairs.

"What are you doing?" she asked Meredith, who was standing at the very front.

"Checking out the new Chief candidate," George explained.

"Chief's in with the ringer." Cristina gestured with her head towards the conference room, where Richard was talking to someone they couldn't quite recognize through the half-closed blinds.

"We're lurking. In a way that was subtle when it was two of us, but isn't now that it's twelve." Meredith nodded, glancing over her shoulder at the big crowd of residents.

"I heard it was someone from Stanford. All the professors there loved me." Cristina smiled haughtily.

"They loved you?" Alex laughed just as Burke approached them.

"I was a great student."

Burke stood in front of Billie and Meredith. "How are you doing, Grey, Black?"

"I'm fine, sir, thank you," the blonde replied instantly, but the brunette simply limited herself to shrug her shoulders uninterestedly, much to the attending's confusion, and lean against the railing of the stairs in order to take the weight off her cast leg.

"The ringer's in there with the Chief," Cristina explained, pushing Burke aside so that he wouldn't cover her view.

"Yeah, and whoever it is loves Cristina. Everyone at Stanford just loved Cristina," Izzie mocked.

"Shut up."

"She's a motivated student, there's nothing to be ashamed of," Burke said, causing his fiancée to crane her neck proudly. "A bit of a kiss-ass, but that's hard to control."

The two laughed together just as the door to the conference room opened, causing all of the residents to act distracted as if they hadn't been trying to eavesdrop on the conversation for the past fifteen minutes.

"Oh, they're coming out. Look away."

Billie, however, kept her eyes on the door and finally noticed Chief Webber, who shook hands with none other than renowned cardiothoracic surgeon Colin Marlow. She had always admired him very much, but for some reason, she did nothing to prove it and simply stood in her place, devoid of any real emotions.

"That's Colin Marlow," Burke said, surprised.

"Like the Marlow transplant?"

"Like the greatest thing in cardiothoracic surgery in a generation." The attending gawked.

He immediately proceeded to approach him, introducing himself as a big fan. They stretched hands but soon, Doctor Marlow's eyes fell on someone behind Burke, who just so happened to be Cristina, so he immediately blew the attending off and walked towards her. They all watched the scene, intrigued.

"Well," Marlow looked down at the intern hungrily, "you gonna give me a hug or what?"

Cristina didn't answer or move one finger, but soon, Marlow was pulling her in and hugging her vigorously, causing her whole body to stiffen up. Billie frowned at the scene happening in front of her, but laughed very briefly once she noticed his hand traveling down to her ass and giving her a generous grope.

☆

"Okay, you told me... Derek," May pointed out. "Is he the one who was your boyfriend?"

"No. My best friend," Billie swallowed harshly, still a little inhibited from talking to the psychiatrist due to her new closed-off stance in regards to everything outside of herself.

"I thought you said Meredith and Cristina were your best friends. And Mark, wasn't he too? And-" She cut herself off. "And Edward, wasn't it?"

"Edward is dead," Billie was quick to correct blankly, staring down at the floor with her lips pursed.

"Okay." May nodded. "Then that leaves the other three."

"No, Edward is still my best friend. He doesn't lose the title because he's dead." She shook her head in disbelief. The psychiatrist stayed silent, waiting for her to further elaborate and finally, Billie sighed. "Meredith and Cristina are my persons. Mark and Derek are my best friends, but they're different things from one another. They're just... I've know Mark since as long as I can remember, but Derek is... he's Derek. And Edward-" Billie came to a halt. His name tasted bitter in her tongue. "Edward is the guy who saved my life, and I then failed to protect."

"Ah." May leant back on her seat. "So you think it's your fault that Edward is dead?"

"I don't think it's my fault, I know it is." Billie shrank on her seat.

The psychiatrist stayed silent for a second before she started skimming through the pages of her notebook, "I wanna bring back something you told me during our first sessions. Here it is, and I quote:" May read off from the little book, "'I'm sort of everybody's friend, so I don't really have any friends. I'm entitled to all of them, but nobody's entitled to me'."

Once she was done reading, she looked up to meet Billie's eyes. The girl was frowning at the sudden statement.

"Well, I mean," she said, "it's not wrong."

"So you still believe nobody's entitled to you after the accident? Mark, Derek, George, Alex, Cristina. You still believe all of these people who stood in your room for fifteen hours, waiting for you to wake up, aren't entitled to you?"

"What's your point?" Billie cleared her throat nervously.

"My point," May leant forward, "is that maybe you're making things out to be something they're not."

☆

Billie was walking down the hallway, typing on her phone, when suddenly, she looked up and saw Derek turning down the corner, heading straight towards her. Her eyes widened and, in the unbearable need to not be asked any 'are you okay?' questions, she opened the closest door, which happened to be a storage room, and hid. However, she didn't expect to find Cristina and Meredith already taking cover in there.

"This is my hiding spot. My father is out there, go somewhere else!" Meredith whisper-yelled.

"I need this closet, Meredith," Cristina counter-argued sternly.

"Colin Marlow," the blonde mocked.

"Yes, he was my professor! We were close!"

"He had his hand on your ass, I sure hope you were close," Billie interfered, raising her eyebrows a little.

Meredith and Cristina's eyes both landed on hers. "Who are you hiding from?"

"Derek," Billie sighed.

"Why?"

"Because if I talk to him, then he'll ask me how I'm doing and he'll ask me about Edward and about my incisions and the cast and crap. And then he'll tell me to take it easy. I don't take it easy!" Billie whisper-yelled in frustration.

The two remaining girls glanced at each other warily. "Have you considered the possibility that maybe, whatever he has to say to you, might be right?"

Billie glared at them both before she leant into Cristina, changing the subject at record time. "But you were the girl who slept with Colin Marlow, so shut up."

"We had one of those girls in my class, she only got to the radiologist though. No one got near the Cardio God." Meredith wiggled her eyebrows.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I scored big." Cristina rolled her eyes.

"There's nothing wrong with sleeping with your professor though." Billie shrugged, leaning against the racks for some support.

The two girls turned to her, squinting their eyes. "Who did you screw?"

"Dr. Oliver King-Harrison," she said proudly, delighted by the look of surprise upon her friends' faces.

"Shut up!" Meredith's eyes widened in shock. "Like the King-Harrison Method of transcatheter mitral valve repairs?"

"Exactly."

"Wow." Cristina arched an eyebrow. "She scored big."

"Thank you," Billie chanted with pride.

"Back to topic. You, hide in the bathroom, and you," Cristina told Meredith, then turned to Billie and flicked her forehead, "stop avoiding Derek, he's just being nice."

Billie rubbed her forehead, smile wiped from her face. "Did you just flick me?"

"My awkwardness with my father is well-established. You and the Cardio God, on the other hand, have loads to catch up on." Meredith smiled cheekily.

"Well, I don't wanna talk to the Cardio God."

"Seriously, did you just flick me?"

"You know we can hear you in there, right?" A voice, belonging to none other than Colin Marlow, came from the other side of the door, making the three girls freeze. "Loud and clear."

☆

"She's rich, totally rich," George told Meredith and Billie as they sat on one of the cafeteria tables, eating their lunch. "Boatloads of money."

"George, that's fantastic," Meredith said.

"No, it's- it's not fantastic!"

Just then, Izzie came up to their table and sat by them, causing Billie to move a chair further away from her with a deadpan expression, still chewing on a piece of lettuce and pretending nothing was wrong. Izzie sighed.

"Cristina did Colin Marlow," she then said excitedly.

"Callie's rich," Meredith added, but George slammed his hand on the table.

"Don't talk to her about it!"

Things had been tense between Izzie and George ever since, on the night of the ferryboat crash, she had blatantly told him she believed he made a terrible mistake marrying Callie, and ever since then, she'd been straightforwardly downgrading their relationship.

"Her? I'm sorry, I don't have a name anymore?" Izzie shook her head.

"Don't tell anyone, those are my words!" George raised his voice.

The blonde huffed. "Ugh, so she's rich."

"Just shut up about it." He shook his head, causing Billie to scoff as she took her coffee to her lips.

"You really think that's possible?"

George then proceeded to stand up, grab his food tray and leave the table, throwing away his food in order to then walk out of the cafeteria. Izzie shrank a little in her seat, huffing out at the still unresolved situation.

Just then, Cristina came up to them and sat on George's place.

"Colin Marlow! Was it good? Was he good?" the blonde immediately chanted. "Did he make you a better lover?"

"Do you remember all the other times I talked to you about my sex life?" Cristina huffed.

"No."

"Exactly."

Alex came up to their table and sat by them. "Did I miss anything about her doing the old guy?"

"She's not talking," Izzie chanted.

"Oh, she'll talk." He rolled his eyes.

"So, I was supposed to be back in the game today, but instead, I'm planning dinner for my father at my dead mother's house. I don't cook. How am I supposed to cook for them?"

"I will make your stupid dinner." Izzie rolled her eyes, then turned to Cristina. "So were there any little blue pills involved? Or, is he untouched by time?"

"Dude, that's wrong. Don't answer that," Alex said.

Cristina breathed out and looked at Meredith. "Because I am your friend, I will show up at your house forty-five minutes into the dinner with a fake crisis. So, if it's unbearable, you can abort."

"Oh, thank you."

Izzie, again, changed the subject. "C'mon, he's not a young man. He wasn't getting a little help? Popping the pill? Dad's best friend? C'mon, you're gonna give me nothing after everything we've been through... nothing?"

Billie put her salad bowl down on the table harshly, causing everyone to jolt. "No, Izzie! Nothing!"

They all looked at her weirdly, but she simply grabbed her food tray and pushed herself up from her chair, then left the cafeteria, annoyed.

☆

Ah, I get it. Alex was the one who was your boyfriend, right?" May scribbled down on her notebook, tapping her stilettos on the floor.

"Yeah, but I told you, we're past that. He's just a friend now."

The psychiatrist arched an eyebrow. "Are you sure about that?"

"Why do you question everything I say?" Billie frowned.

"Because sometimes," May pointed at her with her pen, "you lie."

"Are you calling me a liar?"

She laughed. "No, Billie. I just wanna hear about this Alex."

"Well." The girl cleared her throat. "Our relationship hasn't progressed in any way since the last time I was here, so there's really not that much to say. We're both just moving on... as half-friends, or something."

"How are you moving on?" May scribbled down on her notebook.

"Before the accident, I was sleeping with Mark and he was... I don't know, probably screwing random chicks in bars." She shrugged wryly. "That's what he does."

"And you don't want him back?"

Billie hesitated to answer. "No."

"Are you sure?" May asked, and Billie nodded. "Okay, then. So, how do you feel about him as a friend?"

"It's complicated," Billie reasoned. "We're moving on, but we're not exactly past everything yet. We're not friends, we're just not a couple. I know it sounds confusing."

"No, I get it. You still have feelings for each other, but won't admit it so just decide not to interact. You're just trying to protect yourselves, I understand."

The girl frowned, "No, that's not- that's not what I meant, at all."

"No?" May arched an inquisitorial eyebrow, smirking slightly the more flustered Billie got.

She breathed in to try and sort out her thoughts, but in the end, she took a look at the non-existent watch on her wrist and widened her eyes. "Would you look at that? Session's over. I'm gonna go now."

☆

"Billie!"

The woman in question turned at the call for her name and was surprised to see Mark approaching her, but there wasn't a smile on his face like there usually was whenever he saw her. In fact, he seemed a little worried.

"Mark." She drew a tight-lipped smile and went back to her charting, unsure about whether she wanted to have to deal with this right now. He stood in front of her.

"You're back."

"I am."

He stared at her side profile for a second before he leant forward, attempting to hug her. However, Billie took a step back out of reflex and raised her hands in front of her, stopping him from moving any further. Mark frowned.

"Please don't," she said wryly.

"Sorry." He hesitated. "Uhm, how are you feeling?"

"Okay, can we just not?" Billie rolled her eyes. "I am okay. I am completely and utterly fine. I was involved in a crash, I got hurt, I lost someone and now I'm over it. This," she motioned with her finger towards the space between them, "it's not gonna become something regular, where you worry about me and you ask me how I'm doing, because I'm good. I don't need you to be my shrink, I already have one."

The man was a little taken aback by her answer, but cleared his throat and nodded. "Noted. Not asking you about it ever again."

"Good."

"Okay," he said.

He could immediately tell Billie was not the same person she was before the crash. That Billie didn't lose people and then moved past them; that Billie loved so deeply, she could die. That Billie craved a hug every day, and relished it when she got it. That Billie smiled so damn hard that, half the times, her cheeks hurt. But this Billie? This Billie felt shallow, empty on the inside, as if cleared of any emotions she'd ever felt. This Billie pulled away from hugs and didn't plan on letting anyone in. Mark saw that. God, he saw it so clearly that his chest hurt. But he didn't say anything.

"I have a surgery right now, do you..." He lapsed his tongue over his bottom lip and then swallowed thickly. "Do you wanna scrub in with me? Maybe, as a first-day-back gift?"

"Alright. See you up there." Billie finished signing the chart on her hand with a deadpan expression, handed it to the nurse behind the counter and then proceeded to walk away.

Mark watched her go. "Okay."

☆

Now, up in surgery together with Alex and Mark on the Jane Doe that had been found during the ferryboat accident, Billie was assisting the attending to his right, avoiding any attempt at small talk that both him and Alex had been trying to create for the past minutes. She really didn't feel like talking, simply focusing on her job.

"What's the chance she wakes up and remembers everything?" Alex said in reference to the fact that, still being a Jane Doe, the patient also didn't remember anything from her life before the accident.

"I wouldn't count on it." The attending shook his head just as the fetal monitor went off.

Billie looked up. "Baby's having late decels."

"Sometimes the monitor's not on right. You get a false red."

Regardless of his words, the girl took a step forward and lifted the sterile blankets covering the patient's body only to find a stain of blood next to her hip.

"Vaginal bleeding. The baby's in distress," she said through the beeping of the fetal monitor, which signaled the bottoming vitals.

"Damn it. Page Dr. Montgomery, now!"

☆

Billie, Addison, Mark and Alex walked out of the OR after a rough surgery, all of them still wearing their scrub caps. The redhead slammed the door of the room opened and ripped off her mask, storming out into the hallway with Mark following her.

"You couldn't have waited one day?" Addison said angrily.

"She was forty percent vision compromised, her right eye would've been gone tomorrow!" Mark yelled back, causing the redhead to turn around. Billie limped towards them.

"No, it wouldn't actually, but there's this new Chief candidate marching around the hall today and you needed to be a hero. That's what happened today," Addison yelled.

"The patient is fine, Addison! The baby's still in her uterus and she's not losing an eye! Every surgery is risky, the patient chose this one!"

Addison's eyes landed on Alex. "Karev, don't just stand there! The patient's baby was in distress. Go, stay with her!"

"Okay, Addison, what about we calm down-" Billie tried to talk, but Derek approached them.

"Something happen with Jane Doe?" he asked, interrupting Billie's attempt at soothing the argument.

"Yeah, she can see and Addison's got a problem with it!"

"He rushed her into surgery and she almost lost a baby. I had to sew her cervix shut!" Addison yelled in retaliation.

"The complications had nothing to do with the surgery!"

"Why, why do you think Mark moved so quickly, Derek? You think is because a piece of the orbital bone was floating towards the brain?" she mocked angrily, causing Derek to smirk.

"I think it's because Mark wants a promotion."

"You're not her husband, this isn't your patient. Stay out of it!" Mark yelled.

"No, hey, hey! All of you, shut up! Now you're just making this personal!" Billie interfered, causing all heads to turn to her. "You three better sort out your private shit before you even think about getting into surgery together ever again! All of this grudges? Fix them. And you better do it quick!"

Her words only caused all three attendings to start yelling at the same time, saying things Billie wasn't able to understand due to the tone of their voices. She looked away just as Webber appeared in the hallway.

"What the hell do you people think you're doing?" he asked angrily. "You're supposed to be the leadership of this hospital, screaming about a patient in the hallway? Are you out of your minds?"

☆

"Okay, we have that covered, so... how's the Denny situation going?" May asked, finishing some scribbles on her notebook.

Billie frowned. "What situation?"

"Your uncle's death, remember?" She arched an eyebrow.

"Oh, it's... it's okay." Billie nodded blankly. "He's okay."

"What do you mean 'he's okay'?" May frowned at the word choice, leaning in a bit forward on her seat.

Billie hesitated her following words, knowing that she still hadn't shared this particular detail of her experience with anybody. She knew the wounds were still fresh.

She still remembered how hugging her mother, hugging Denny, had felt, and it had felt all so real that she still wasn't able to discern whether it had truly happened or it was just a product of her imagination. She had felt their touch, their scents, she had been able to look them in the eye...

"While I was unconscious, after the accident," Billie swallowed thickly, "I had a dream."

"What kind of dream?"

A smile slowly creeped up her lips, but it was filled with pain. "A nice one."

"Okay." May nodded. "What exactly happened in this dream?"

"I saw him, Denny. And my mom. They were there." Her eyes filled with tears. "I got to... hug them. And we talked. It was... it was really nice."

"Why do you think you dreamt them both?"

"I don't know. They convinced me to come back."

May frowned. "Come back from where?"

"You know, come back. They convinced me to fight and I just... I woke up. I survived." Billie shrugged and wiped the underside of her nose with the sleeve of her sweater. "But I don't think it was the right choice."

"So you think it would've been better if you'd just stayed with them?" the psychiatrist suggested blankly. "If you'd just... died?"

Billie nodded hesitantly. "It's very hard for me to live like this... in a world where they don't exist. It's not... it's just so funny, because I've doing it, and I've doing it well. I've managed to live without them, but I just start thinking about how Denny's not in his hospital room and mom's not waiting for me at home and it's... it's funny. I laugh, because it doesn't feel real."

"So you think you're having trouble letting go?" May arched an eyebrow.

Billie sighed. "Yeah. Whatever you wanna call it."

The psychiatrist nodded and they were submerged into an awkward silence for a second. On one hand, May kept her intense eyes on Billie, analyzing her every move in the hope to find answers. On the other hand, the girl sat on the couch with her legs spread in front of her, hands hidden into the sleeves of her red sweater and her tired eyes located on the nothingness.

"I understand your mother and Denny are dead, yes?" May finally broke the silence. Billie nodded. "So, in this dream... did you see Edward too?"

The girl looked up briefly. "I didn't know he was dead while I was unconscious."

"Well, do you wish you had seen him?"

Billie blinked multiple times to stow away the tears on her eyes. Her lips pursed and, finally, after a brief moment of hesitation, she nodded, swallowing thickly and still not daring to look into the psychiatrist's eyes.

"The last time I saw him was on that ferryboat. And by the time I woke up, I had gone through so much and I hadn't seen him in so long... that I could barely remember our last conversation," she began. "Our last... our last memory felt so distant, so... nothing. And I don't wanna forget him, so I'm just trying to replay everything we ever lived together but I..." She paused. "I wish I had seen him in my dream, because even if it meant he was dead, then at least I would've gotten a chance to see him again. I don't wanna forget him."

May nodded in understanding. "Billie, forgetting and letting go are not the same thing."

Billie looked up. "Sometimes, they kinda are."

☆

Billie arrived back at Meredith's place that night with a lump in her throat. She took off her coat and hung it by the rack, then proceeded to walk into the living room, leave her bag on the couch, and head towards the kitchen. For some reason, everything was dark.

"Why are the lights off?" Billie asked Alex with a frown once she saw him cleaning the dishes by the sink.

He looked up over his shoulder and stared at her briefly, but then went back to his job. "Izzie blew a fuse."

"Oh." Billie nodded and surrounded the kitchen aisle to stand behind it. "You gonna eat here?"

"I already did. I gotta go," he said.

Alex finished cleaning the dishes, turned on the faucet and dried off his hands with a tablecloth. He turned around and leant against the counter, hands on each side of his body and eyes set on her.

"You got a hot date?" she joked, but when Alex didn't answer, her smile fell a little. "Oh." She paused. "I guess not interested really meant... not interested."

Billie laughed nervously and Alex took a step forward. "Bil... you didn't want me."

"No, you didn't want me," Billie corrected. "I told you to wait for me. I asked you please to be patient."

Alex looked down. "I'm sorry."

"I know." She sighed. "I guess... we're both moving on. And it's okay."

"Yeah," Alex whispered. "But I'm still sorry. And I know I screwed it all up, I know I'm an asshole, and more so for thinking that we should just let this be, for now. But Bille," he paused, "I will never not want you."

Billie looked up. Then, the doorbell was echoing in the house.

"I'll get that," she said, as she had suddenly become flushed.

"Oh, no. Stay here. I'm on my way out anyway." Alex shrugged, before leaving the kitchen in order to answer the door.

That moment in which Billie was alone, she propped her hands on the counter and hid her face in her hands, sighing out in frustration of how difficult life would be from now on. How different. However, she looked up when she heard Alex calling her name, followed by him appearing through the door.

"Billie?"

"Yeah?" She let out a tired sigh.

"Uh, there's this guy at the door looking for you." Alex hooked his thumb over his shoulder, signaling towards the foyer.

"Who?" Billie frowned, knowing she wasn't expecting anyone that day.

"I don't know."

The girl followed Alex out of the kitchen and into the living room, still holding a frown over her face due to the confusion. Finally, they arrived at the foyer, where the door was open. Under the sill, stood someone, and suddenly, the world stopped.

Her breath hitched in her throat like there was not enough air left in the world and her lungs were slowly deflating, walls constricting around her and pushing down on her chest, hard. She felt as if her body was being pushed down into a dark abyss, where nothing could be seen. Deeper, and deeper, and deeper, until there was no more oxygen to breathe in, no more light to hope for, and everything was dark and cold and her thoughts raced and her vision became blurry and the tears threatened to escape and she disappeared, she couldn't move, she couldn't fight, she couldn't...

"Hey, sis." Ian smirked, stretching out his arms by his sides suggestively. "You gonna give me a hug or what?"