SHE | alex karev

chapter thirty

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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.