alaska | grey's anatomy

⇢ CHAPTER 40

season 7 episode 9

April slowly opened Jackson's bedroom door before creeping over to Holly's side of the bed and shook her sister lightly.

"Holly." April whispered, making Holly groan as she buried herself more in the covers.

"I'm sleeping. Let me sleep." She whispered back, not wanting to wake up Jackson.

"...There's french toast." 

Holly's eyes opened as she lightly threw the covers off of her and put her slippers on, "Let's go."

Having gone downstairs, Holly wasn't able to listen to Jackson's yells-- luckily, Lexie, who was on her way to the bathroom, heard Jackson's screams coming from his room and walked inside.

"Aah! Aah!" Jackson screamed, kicking the covers off of him.

"Stop." Lexie told the screaming man, walking over to move his leg to wake him up.

"Aah!"

"Stop!" She hit his leg, "Hey, hey, Jackson."

"Aah!" Jackson woke up, holding himself up by his elbows, "What?"

"Stop. Stop." Lexie placed her hands in front of her, "I'm sorry, but you need to take something."

"Holly?" Jackson looked around worriedly, "Charles? Where's Charles? Charles? Holly?"

Lexie frowned her eyebrows, "Hey. Hey. Hey, stop." She grabbed onto his legs that were moving around, "It's Lexie. Wake up."

Meanwhile, Holly munched on the french toast April made as Derek walked inside, closing the front entrance door behind him.

"Hey," Holly smiled, walking over to see him, "did you get the grant?" Derek shook his head and looked down, making Holly's face fall, "Oh."

He chuckled, bringing his head up with a smile and nodded, "I got the grant."

"You--" Holly chuckled, looking back at April, "he got the grant!"

"Oh." April smiled at Derek, "Congratulations, Dr. Shepherd."

"Thanks, Kepner." Derek nodded before walking over to grab toast for himself.

"I'd be happy to help you out with the clinical testing." Holly smiled, nudging him to the side.

"Usually fifth years are on clinical cases." Derek frowned his eyebrows, taking another bite of his french toast.

Holly nodded and shrugged, "I'll just bother Nelson until you come crawling back then."

Derek laughed, "Holly--"

"It's okay." She shrugged, biting into the french toast as she walked to the stairs and started to go up, "I'll wait."

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Bringing a hand up to cover her yawn, Holly and the rest of her friends walked out of the elevator.

"Red!" Mark yelled, making Holly jump in shock, "Did you just yawn? Was that a yawn?"

"No." Holly responded tiredly.

"Don't tell us that you're tired after getting to sleep all day." Teddy pulled a face.

April, who also yawned beside her, defended Holly, "It's not as easy as it sounds."

"Not easy?" Bailey frowned her eyebrows, "Not e--" Bailey scoffed, "When I was a resident, I actually worked for a living. I did every other night call for five years."

"There were days that I didn't go home for seventy-two hours." Stark added, lying to act cool in front of the residents as he shrugged, "I loved it."

Alex lowered his voice as he spoke to his friends, "As you trudged through the snow while you whittled your own scalpels." 

Holly snorted as Jackson snickered and Lexie hid her laugh behind a hand. Dr. Stark didn't look up as he continued to write on the chart, "Sorry. I didn't quite catch that, Karev."

"Dr. Kepner." Nelson's voice was heard from the corner as he approached the group, making Holly's head turn, "Glad to see you're the resident covering my patients."

"Dr. Nelson." Holly smiled, reaching out to grab the five charts from his arms, "Glad to be here."

✧

After spending a few hours with Jackson in the E.R. and O.R., Lexie approached Holly, who was updating charts, to ask her about him.

"Hey," Lexie greeted, leaning against the Nurse's station Holly sat in, "has Jackson talked to you?"

Holly frowned her eyebrows before looking up slowly, "In what context?"

"About..." Lexie fidgeted around with her hands, "his nightmares?"

Holly blinked at her before looking back down, "I do talk to him, he tells me as much as he wants and I don't rush him." She flipped the page and continued to write, "He talks at his own pace, I don't like to pressure him into talking to me about it, so when he does, I tell him I'm glad he chose to share that piece of him with me." She looked back up, "Why? Do you want to know--?"

"No," Lexie shook her head, "I just..." She frowned her eyebrows, deciding to not tell Holly about Jackson waking up screaming, "he was acting a little weird in the O.R. so, yeah."

✧

Holly sat in the back of the car in between April and Jackson. She had her head peacefully resting on April's shoulder until April moved her head onto Jackson's to steal a slice of pizza.

"I had to use soap and water." April told Alex, who advised her to use acetone to separate the couple that glued themselves together.

"What?" Alex questioned, moving his head to face her.

"The acetone didn't work on the superglue till I mixed it with soap and water."

"I could use a little soap and water right now." Jackson commented, closing his eyes after having them on Holly, "I feel disgusting."

"I can smell you from up here." Meredith spoke from the driver's seat.

"I want a beer." Alex admitted, making Jackson open his eyes again, "Who's up for a beer?"

"Mm." April hummed.

"Where are you gonna get a beer at six a.m.?" Lexie asked with a smile, looking at the rear-view mirror.

"At home." Meredith answered, smiling as they continued making their way home.

Jackson chuckled, his eyes glancing at Holly's face that was slightly covered by her red hair.

It made it impossible for him to see her blushing.

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holly rn : 😳✨