SHE | alex karev

chapter twenty five

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CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
time has come today.
season three, episodes one and two.

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Billie stood in the morgue.

Well, not quite stood, because she was still being wheeled around everywhere on a chair in order for her stitches not to come off again, but her place of preference to hang out had been the morgue. Specifically, where Denny's body resided.

The closed room smelled of lugubrious death. Lack of windows encompassed the small space, making it feel like a locked tin box with no source of external light. The cold lockers were lined up in rows of six and lines of four, each holding in the deceased body of someone who used to live. The walls and floors were tiled, each showcasing a considerable amount of must and dirt within the slots and setting the place to feel even smaller, scarier and darker than it already was.

The only open cold locker was locker number sixteen. Denny's pale body laid within it.

Billie's elbows were rested on the armrests of the wheelchair and her hand was over her mouth as she stared at the soulless body of the only family she used to have. The man she'd considered her favorite person, her everything, her all.

Denny's eyes were shut peacefully, unwinded features laying beneath the veil of death and deterioration. After dying, his body had acquired the same characteristic paleness that he had always had before getting a new heart, but this time, the lack of color meant something completely different.

Billie felt like she might vomit, but yet again, she didn't feel anything at all.

Her head was someplace else and her heart had died together with Denny, so there was nothing left inside her to cherish. There was nothing to look at, nothing to touch, nothing to feel. The world around her kept going and she was stuck in one place, but for once, she didn't care.

Her skin appeared to have blanched and aged years in just one night and her eyes were enclosed by a thick veil of darkness, representing the lack of sleep that the past night had involved.

She had chosen to permanently skip the period of acceptance and simply fall directly into inanimate numbness. She was dead inside, and she knew it.

Billie slowly reached out her fingers. Her hand shook the closer it came up to Denny's cheek, but she didn't care. She slowly ran the pads of her digits along the curve of his cheekbone, down his nose, up his jaw. She traced his features like she wanted to memorize them, knowing that, after the burial, she'd never see him again.

Denny was really dead. Even if she didn't want to admit it, even if she was choosing to turn her grief into anger, even if she was choosing to feel nothing, Denny was really dead.

☆

Back at Meredith's house, Izzie laid on the floor of the bathroom, still wearing her prom dress from the night prior. Her eyes were welled up with tears upon her waterlines and her hair was a mess, but she didn't care.

"Izzie. Izzie! Come on," Alex said from the other side of the closed door, trying to get her to stand up.

"Okay, she's been in there all night. We have to do something," George reasoned.

"Yeah."

"Yeah."

"Yeah." Meredith nodded, but when everybody looked at her, she frowned. "Why are you all looking at me?"

"Well... normally, it would be Billie the one getting her to stand up. You know, she just has that magic, and she's also a little dark inside, so I'm pretty sure she'd understand." Cristina shrugged. "But considering the fact that she's currently fifty thousand emotional miles away from Earth and in the mood to chop Izzie's head off, she's not available, so you're the closest thing. This is familiar territory for you."