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chapter twenty six ━ 'tis the damn season
season seven, episode ~
❝ i can't even look
at you right now. ❞
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two weeks later
It was five in the morning, and Aliya was running.
For the sake of clarity, she was not running away from anything, she wasn't in a horror movie or anything sinister along those lines.
She was actually running for recreational reasons, which was a shock to anyone who knew her well enough because she never had the time nor the enthusiasm to exercise.
And, she would much rather buy cups of coffee than a gym membership. At least those gave her joy and energy, rather making her even more tired and irritable.
After coming home from California a couple weeks ago, she found that every time she closed her eyes, all she could think about was Summer and if her chemo was actually working, if the tumour would have a chance at coming back, her mother still putting her at the end of the table during Thanksgiving, and oddly the fact that she had to pick up more kibble for Reese, and also the appointment she had with Andy's lawyer.
And, that a recent study that showed caffeine drinkers have a smaller lifespan than herbal tea drinkers, though there was no validity to that statement in the article.
However, that didn't stop the so-called fact from entering Aliya's mind.
She could not switch to herbal tea.
Therefore, instead of staring at her ceiling blankly and listening to Jackson's quiet breathing that made her think he was actually dead from how he slept so soundly now that he was on his sleep medication, every morning at an ungodly hour whilst most of Seattle slept, Aliya would run.
It started about a week ago, she was on a seven day streak.
Every morning, she would slip out of bed just before five o'clock, dodge the creaky floorboards in her room that Lexie pointed out were old just three weeks ago to avoid waking up Jackson who only occasionally stirred when she left the room, slip into her just as old (practically ancient) sports leggings and jacket, lace up her trainers outside after she locked the door and put on Reese's lead to take him with her.
It could be said that she was running away from something, but that's a statement only her therapist would say.
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"I still think it should be a double-blinded study." Aliya pointed out from where she was spinning around on the chair across from Derek, a mass of clinical trial papers (that Aliya had rewritten) covered the whole surface of the table.
"I know you think that but, single-blinded gives us more control." He looked up from where he was scribbling down notes on paper. "We know who's getting the placebo and who's getting the drug."
"Yes, but, that might be a problem. You know, being a total control freak and all." Smirking slightly from her chair, Aliya shuffled the papers apart, picking the one she was after.
Derek quirked a brow. "We're both equals in that department."
Rolling her eyes, Aliya passed him the first page of the clinical trial write up — titled Alzheimer's NGF (Nerve Growth Factor) Clinical Trial. "We need to think of the validity of the trial. We might be unconsciously biased."
"We won't be." Derek assured, analysing the page he had just received with a keen eye.
"It could be discredited." She continued to point out.
"It won't be." Derek tried to convince, placing the paper back onto the table, reaching for the one on the far end.
"Only if we do something meaningful."
Reaching for her coffee with a smile, she took a long slip, simultaneously reading the hypothesis the two had refined.
The pair were in a tiny predicament about whether or not they should do the study single, or double blinded.
Aliya was defending the latter, seeing as she poured what felt like every minute of every day and sacrificed her sleep schedule for this study.
She noticed Derek looking at her with a raised brow, studying her and what she had said.
"Kidding, of course we will."
"Should we flip on it?" He offered, beginning to dig into his pockets for a dime.
"We can't keep making major life decisions with that damn dime!" Aliya exclaimed with passion, watching Derek pat down his pockets, retrieving a silver coin. "We did that and it told me to get decaf coffee, it was the worst night of my life. I don't trust the coin."
"It's not the coins fault you're a coffee snob." Derek chuckled, getting ready to flip the coin. "Heads or tails?"
Aliya sighed, crossing her arms and narrowing her eyes at the man opposite. "Tails."
He flipped the coin, and the pair watched it flip above them, landing satisfyingly in Derek's hand before he slammed it onto his arm, revealing the smug head side of the coin that taunted her.
"Single-blinded it is!" He smiled in victory.
"I'm beginning to think that that's a trick coin." Aliya theorised, bitterly, taking another sip of her fully caffeinated coffee.
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After another hour of discussing various factors of the clinical, the pair had gotten paged to the ortho ward for a consult because, despite it all, they were still surgeons.
"Oh good, you're here." One of the new interns, Jeremy, ushered them into a patient room, where a young man was led on the gurney, drifting in and out of sleep.
"What's going on?" Derek questioned the wide eyed intern, who appeared to be shaking.
"Cameron Brentwood, aged twenty six— um—" Jeremy's face flushed as he began to stutter on his words.
"Could I take a look at the chart, please?" Aliya asked, after several unsolicited second of Jeremy looking like a deer in headlights, new bands of sweat appearing at his forehead by the millisecond. The intern nodded, giving up the chart gladly. "Dr. Torres placed a percutaneous screw fixture in his knee yesterday after he fractured it but just recently, he's been complaining of headaches and blurred vision."
Aliya read from the chart, her eyes narrowing.
"And tingling on his left side— it could be a brain bleed due to the blood thinners he was given, we need to take him up to CT." Aliya said, glancing back to Derek.
"Let's do it." Derek confirmed, and Jeremy seemed to take it as his cue to scurry away, never to be seen again, making Aliya questioned if Jeremy even worked there.
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A few moments later, Derek and Aliya were scrubbing into surgery to repair the bleed, after the CT confirmed their suspicions.
"I would like you to repair the bleed." Derek announced, spontaneously over the sound of running water.
"You're joking aren't you? You're just messing with me, right?" Aliya spat out, her mouth hung open as she stared at him in a mixture of shock and excitement.
Sure, she had seen a lot of brain bleeds. Probably more she had seen her mother this year and it was nearing Christmas, but she had never flown completely solo on a brain bleed before, even though she had the steadiest hand out of all the residents, if she was being braggy. "If this is a sick joke I'm going to be so angry."
"You're flying solo, Levine. You've seen me do it a million times, you're more than capable. You could've done it on your first year of residency, but we don't met newbies poke around in the human brain."
Aliya grinned at him whilst he spoke, nudging off the tap with her elbow.
"You ready?"
"Always." She confirmed, pulling her face mask up.
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"Dr. Levine? Mr. Buchanan is ready to see you now." A young woman named Sophie with thick round glasses and bright red hair, who was Harry Buchanan's assistant, stopped in front of her.
"Great." Aliya smiled, taking her purse and following Sophie down a hall which was filled with oil paintings of different landscapes in golden frames.
The adrenaline of finishing her surgery merely an hour ago was still keeping her awake after the all nighter she didn't mean to pull.
For a brief moment? she thought of what her mother would say if she told her that she just repaired a brain bleed without any assistance, just herself, but she knew that her mother would only diminish it. So instead, she thought of what Andy would say to her, and that made Aliya only miss her even more.
Sophie stopped at one of the many dark wood doors, the plaque reading HARRY BUCHANAN. She brought her knuckle up to the glass and softly knocked on the door.
"Come in." Harry spoke through the door and Sophie opened it, ushering a hand for Aliya to enter. "Hello, Dr. Levine. It's nice to finally meet you."
"Yes, hello, Mr Buchanan." Aliya smiled nervously, taking Harry's outstretched hand. He looked as if he was in his late thirties, with dark indigo eyes and dirty blonde hair styled away from his face. "It's nice to meet you too."
The door shut behind them, and Aliya noticed Sophie had slipped out.
"Take a seat." He smiled, warmly, gesturing to the brown tartan fabric chair opposite the desk as he took a seat behind it. "Thank you for taking the time to come here, I know it mustn't be easy."
"Oh, don't worry. It's fine." Aliya shifted in her seat, crossing her legs and placing her bag on the chair handle and quietly thanking her past self for telling her she should wear tailored trousers, not the skirt she bought last week just because it was cute.
"As I said on the phone, Ms. Burman has left everything to you." He turned his gaze to the computer, tapping the keys on the keyboard.
Aliya wondered how he could say that so bluntly, but then again she did not have any leg to stand on seeing as she was a doctor and delivered all kinds of news each day.
"I just have— I'm slightly confused as to why she left everything to me?" Aliya questioned, narrowing her eyes slightly at the random glass ball that was placed upon Harry's desk.
What was it with men and random glass balls?
"She always talked about saving the stray cats, why didn't she leave anything to the cat shelter? Or that third cousin, twice removed that lives in Indiana? I think his name is John, maybe Jeff—"
"Miss Levine, Joseph died two years ago." Harry replied, without looking away from the computer screen.
"Creepy cousin Joe! That was it!" Clapping her hands together enthusiastically over remembering the name of a dead man was probably something that was frowned upon in a lawyers office, Aliya realised. "Oh."
Aliya rested her very restless hands in her lap, shrinking back into her seat and turning her head to look around her room inquisitively, from the relatively large fireplace to the gold accents present in the picture frames and the decor, it looked like she had stepped into her grandfathers study he had when she was ten years old.
"I know all this must be overwhelming." Smiling weakly, Harry met Aliya's eyes over the monitor.
"If overwhelming had an evil older sister." Aliya joked, before pressing a hand to her mouth. "Sorry. I've never spoken to a lawyer before, I've watched a lot of Law and Order though."
Harry chuckled, waving her off. "It's fine, really. It's a good thing you've never needed a lawyer."
Aliya raised an eyebrow. "Are you allowed to say that as a lawyer?"
"Probably not." Harry said with a shrug, jabbing the enter button harshly.
"Thought so." Aliya spoke with a nod, tapping her palm against the arm rest, further inspecting the other side of the office, where a bookcase overflowing with old leather books stood.
"So." Harry clapped his hands together, pushing his monitor further back on his desk. "I wanted to start this whole thing off by saying, I am sorry for your loss Ms. Burman was a lovely woman."
"Thank you." Aliya nodded her head. "She is— she was."
Somewhere within the last month, something within Aliya had healed, even if the past tenses was still vocabulary she had to get used to.
Before, Andy's name always bought pain that came in a tidal wave, knocking the wind right out of her.
It was the kind of thing where it felt hard to breathe, or even speak, like there was a constant ache in the pit of her stomach.
Most days after the shooting she had found it hard to get out of bed, to eat, to drink. Which only resulted in mind numbing migraines she had to go on pain medication for to stop.
With George's death, Aliya had felt hopeless, and a colossal amount of sadness all five of the surviving residents shared.
She knew there was no way of preventing his death, that there was nothing she could've done but, that didn't stop any of the pain.
However, with Andy, she felt as if a piece of her died with her.
She had mended herself before, at only sixteen when Sam died, but for some reason now she was twenty eight, Andy's death felt like the epitome of a cut that always seemed to bleed.
Overtime, Aliya hoped that the cut could scab over just so it left only a scar behind, though she knew it could never fully heal.
Aliya believed that things were starting to get better, even after Summer and the pain of the possibility of loosing her like she had lost Andy.
She had to remain hopeful otherwise she didn't think she would be able to survive.
That's what everyone did, right?
You just keep on living for those you lost, even if you don't want to.
"Is that—?" Aliya gestured to the painting hung up on the wall to the right of her.
"Oh, yes!" Harry spoke warmly. He seemed like a nice man, someone she would expect to be Andy's lawyer. "That's one of yours. Ms. Burman kept talking about your paintings and gifted me one, this is the park a couple block down, isn't it? The bench by the river?"
"It is, yes." Aliya smiled at the picture, the carefully placed shades of green, blue and brown all painted delicately and deliberately.
"It's beautiful." Harry complimented, taking a sip of his coffee. "You have a knack. Do you paint a lot?"
"You could say that." Aliya replied, taking her eyes off of the painting, she didn't really have the time for it anymore.
"I wish I could, I have no artistic capabilities." He chuckled lightly, opening the alarmingly thick ring binder that looked as if it could be used as some sort of weapon. "Anyway, let's get to Ms. Burman's will, shall we? Would you like a cup of coffee before we start?"
"God, yes."
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—✩—
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"You should really call Trent." Aliya sat on the chair opposite the bed in the hospital room, only the tiny beside lamp was turned on, casting shadows across the room.
"I know." Henry Burton, who was Aliya's brother's best friend, admitted from where he was packing his bag, though he didn't look her in the eye.
"Why didn't you tell me you didn't have health insurance? I could've helped you." Aliya told Henry as she studied him intently, still clad in her lawyer's office appropriate outfit. "I can help you."
It was a truth that he had changed a lot in the past few years.
He looked exhausted, handsome, but exhausted.
That's what Von Hippel-Lindau disease did to someone.
It didn't help that he was uninsured with a tumour on his adrenal gland that needed to be removed.
A medical committee had decided to discharge him with nothing but alpha blockers and a medical alert bracelet — information Aliya only found out a few moments ago.
"Aliya—" He looked up at her, smiling warmly, zipping his bag up. "Please, don't worry about me. I'll be fine." He spoke softly at the girl who once saw her give a butterfly a funeral in their backyard.
"I'm going to speak to Dr. Webber, see what I can do." Aliya announced, decisively, pushing herself up from the chair, crossing over to Henry and drawing him in for a hug. "This will all work out, I promise. And, please call Trent! I know he's a dumbass but, he would want to know."
Henry hugged her back. "I will, eventually. And you're right, he is a dumbass. Last week, he tried to make pasta and he ended up nearly blowing up the kitchen." He laughed lightheartedly as the pair pulled away.
Shaking her head at the floor, a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. "That does sound like him."
A moment later, his eyes fixed onto the door behind Aliya. "Dr. Altman?" He greeted in surprise, and Aliya turned back around to see Teddy, stood in the doorway of his room.
Teddy shifted awkwardly in the doorway. "Hi— I can come back if—"
"Oh! Don't worry, I was just leaving!" Aliya smiled, squeezing Henry's hand before saying her goodbyes and exiting the room, and making her way straight to finding Dr. Webber before she lost her nerve.
Not even questioning the presence of a cardiothoracic surgeon, when Henry was a general patient.
"Come in." Richard replied to Aliya's fist at the door of the conference room, after spending half an hour looking for him.
"—it's Day three! It has to be. If you removed the fluid bags on Day three–"
"Hi!" Aliya greeted, poking her head through the door in the middle of Bailey's speech.
"What can I do for you, Levine?" Richard asked, intently, whilst Bailey simply looked horrified next to him.
"What can you do for Levine?" Bailey mocked, spitting out the words. "I just figured out a cure for fistulas! Fistulas!"
"You did!" Aliya reacted, clapping her hands in excitement. "That's great!"
"That's the enthusiasm I was looking for!" Bailey exclaimed to Webber, who simply sat next to her, rolling his eyes in displeasure. "See, Levine has enthusiasm." Gesturing towards Aliya, Bailey continued to argue her case, presumably about how Dr. Webber should be more appreciative about the fact that she had managed to find a cure for fistula.
"Your point of all this, Bailey?" Richard replied, his tone bored and tired, bearing in mind it was eight o'clock in the evening.
"My point is that you should be more excited at the prospect that one of your attending's has cured fistula." Bailey deadpanned.
Aliya took a seat opposite the two of them as they bickered, placing her hands on the table. "It's very exciting business."
"Away from the subject of fistulas—" Richard looked at Bailey pointedly. "Levine, what do you need?"
"It's about Henry Burton." She started, picking at the skin around her thumb nervously.
Richard took off his glasses, curiously, wiping his eyes as he placed the frames on the table. "Go on."
"Are you sure there's nothing you can do?" Aliya inquired, both of her hands braces on the table.
"Look, Levine—" Richard began massaging his temples, rubbing at his eyes. "I know you've know him for a long time, but I really can't do anything."
"Please. Anything you can do will help." Aliya pleaded, leaning forward in her seat as if that would help her get her point across. "Sending him away with a bracelet and drugs isn't enough! That's sending him home to die! It's inhumane—"
"There's really nothing more I can do."
"Please." Aliya's voice broke slightly with weakness, her words catching in her throat.
Bailey caught on, looking the brunette up and down. "Oh, please don't cry."
"Bailey—" With narrowed eyes, Aliya spoke sternly, returning her hands to her lap. "I'm not going to cry."
"You're a crier."
"I'm not a crier!" Aliya replied, stubbornly. "You've never seen me cry! My tear ducts are like deserts in there."
Gesturing towards her eyes as if to prove a point, though Bailey still looked unconvinced, and Richard looked down at his watch.
"Fine, you've probably seen me cry once. Or twice. Give or take, but, this is serious. Please, Dr. Webber, surely you can do the surgery pro bono, or get emergency funding, or Henry can—"
"I'm sorry, Levine." Richard interjected, looking at her sincerely. After all, he had spent countless amounts of time with Henry over the years, operating in him, talking to him. "The committee has spoken, I can't go against that. They've made their decision on Mr. Burton."
Slumping back in the chair, Aliya felt defeated.
In the grand scheme of things, what did she expect would happen?
The medical system was corrupt, people always fell through the cracks.
"Thank you, anyway. Good night." She pushed herself up, a small smile on her face as a goodbye, leaving the room.
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—✩—
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"You didn't wear the pan suit, did you?" Alex narrowed his eyes from where the pair were sat on the sofa. Aliya had her legs bent in front of her, rested on Alex's grey sweatpants as she painted her toenails a dark red.
Aliya pulled a confused expression, dipping the polish pack in the pot. "I don't even own a pan suit. Anyways, aside from the obvious and most intriguing question of what I was wearing, the bottom line is that I've basically inherited everything Andy has ever owned."
Alex exhaled sharply, keeping one eye on the screen playing a riveting episode of ER and one eye on Aliya. "That's a lot of stuff. That woman was a hoarder."
"She wasn't a hoarder." Aliya defended. "She was sentimental. There's worst things to be."
Considering what Aliya pointed out for a moment, Alex turned his full attention to his friend anyway from the open body cavity. "What are you going to do?"
"I don't know." She breathed, leaning forward to put her nail polish on the coffee table.
In the space of a few hours, she had acquired a whole other persons belongings.
A part of her wanted to keep everything exactly the way they were, like that would keep Andy alive in some way. But, the other part knew she couldn't leave that house untouched forever.
It seemed like most parts of her life could be labelled with 'I don't know'. She didn't know what was going to happen with Henry, or Summer, or what on Earth she was going to do about the will.
"Are you gonna sell her house?" He inquired as if reading her mind, reaching for the remote to turn the television down, so it was basically soundless.
Aliya retrieved her water bottle, taking a large gulp before dropping her head back into the soft pillows of the sofa. "I don't know." She spoke quietly, staring up at the ceiling and narrowing her eyes at the suspicious beige stain.
"How about her belongings? Her antique watch collection?" He pointed out as he began to read through the copy of Andy's will she was allowed to bring home, flipping through the pages.
"I don't know." Aliya replied robotically.
"Do you want a hot pretzel?" He questioned, the pages in his lap flicking shut.
"I don't kn— Oh! Yes, please!" Aliya clapped her hands as she lifted her head of the cushions, her face lighting up like the Christmas decorations she already put out in the yard and around the house.
She may have lost the contest last year to Asshole Meryl from down the road, but she will be damned if she didn't win it this year.
Alex smirked, stretching his leg out onto the coffee table. "I don't have hot pretzels, I just wanted to catch you out."
"Now that's just cruel." Aliya said with a scowl, crossing her arms.
"I'll buy you one tomorrow."
Aliya regarded the old, nearly broken clock on the wall. "It is tomorrow."
"Today then." He smiled, sympathetically, and she dropped her head down onto his shoulder, her arms crossed over her stomach. "So, I'm intrigued, how much do I have to pay you for the vintage egg cup collection?"
"As long as you stay away from the vintage purses, then the vintage egg cups are all yours." She responded, laughing as she hooked her hand around his upper arm.
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—✩—
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a week later
The faint sound of Christmas music was playing merrily out of Aliya's phone speaker, per Summer's request. The playlist was actually called 'Chemo Christmas', also Summer's request, much to Aliya's dismay.
For the past two weeks, Aliya took some time off during the day to sit with Summer whilst she had her chemotherapy, taking the sessions when her husband was at work, or no one was around to watch Eliza.
Mae had dropped by to visit for a few days, and Aliya tried to remain cordial with everything, knowing that Summer had told Mae a significant amount of time before Aliya stumbled upon the news.
Mae had also graciously informed Aliya that Kai and his fiancée were having a baby boy.
Though, Aliya held no resentments towards Kai procreating, she never really thought about the prospect of getting married, having children, striving for the white picket fence and drawings that just looked like blobs of colour.
She took it the way anyone would take it if they heard their first love was starting in her a family — she smiled and nodded.
"My life was so much easier when all it revolved around was lip smackers and clip on earrings." Aliya sighed from where she was sprawled across the comfier hospital arm chairs, a Cosmopolitan led open across her lap.
She frowned at the smug looking Prada handbag, and even harder at a small stain on her scrubs — a product of being on Dr. Stark's peds service where children's hands were always sticky.
"Tell me about it." Summer replied with a sigh of agreement, sipping on her juice and flicking through Vogue.
"Oh! Now we're talking!" Sitting up in excitement, Aliya showed Summer the page she just discovered, holding it up in the air in triumph. "'Which iconic romance film are you?'"
Summer smiled lightly, putting down her Vogue with a serious expression — Summer never put down her Vogue if she could help it. "You know, I need to meet this boyfriend of yours. You've been together, for what? A month and a half?"
Aliya pursed her lips, slowly disguising her face with the Cosmo. "Question one. What do you like to do in your free time?"
Leaning across for a twinkie, Summer launched it straight at Aliya's head, who managed to dodge it with help from her magazine. "I know we've both been busy but, I don't even know his name! Or his face. You don't show me any photos. You didn't make him up, did you?" Summer eyed Aliya with suspicion.
"No, I didn't make him up." Aliya replied as she rolled her eyes. "I think I'm gonna go for B—" She nodded her head decisively. "Shove myself in a lake."
Summer opted to ignore her. "As I was saying, he's been your boyfriend for nearly two months, and you haven't even introduced us. All I know is that he works in this hospital. You're very secretive."
(Hey, it's the future talking, and to quote Taylor Swift, romance is not dead if you keep it just yours.)
You had cancer for eight months and didn't even tell me, Aliya thought, bitterly, though she managed to leave that where it belonged, in her head next to the trust issues and the need to run from everything.
"You've probably met him before." She casually shrugged.
Summer crossed her arms, frowning. "Well, I want to meet him as your boyfriend."
"Maybe you can meet Jackson tomorrow." She could at least give her one little chunk of information about her boyfriend, she decided.
"Wait!" Summer shot up so fast it blurred Aliya's periphery and nearly knocked over her table, that held the precious stack of magazines they were flicking through, a box of twinkies and a pack of milk duds. "Jackson! Dr. Avery! Dr. Jackson Avery." Summer looked as if she just solved a huge detective case, whilst Aliya just looked flat out alarmed. "The hot one with the green eyes! He always looks at you like you're walking on water, I should've known. And when I told him not to tell you about my cancer, no wonder—" She stopped herself unintentionally with laughter, though nothing was really that funny.
Slowly looking up from her magazine, Aliya let it go limp in her lap, almost falling from her knees.
"He was on your case?" Aliya questioned, her brows knotted and that dreaded feeling washed over her, familiar and unwanted, just like it did the other week when Suzie the nurse handed her Summer's chart. However, even though the feelings were in relation to each other, this one felt remarkably different. It felt an awful lot like betrayal. "Jackson? Dr. Avery? He was on your case?"
"Yeah." Summer nodded, her attention reverting back to the Vogue, the page decorated with designer purses in various different shades of blue. "He scrubbed in, that's what you call it? I've watched too many episodes of those ER documentaries!"
She threw her head back in laughter, whilst Aliya just stared straight ahead at the wall behind Summer's head, trying to piece everything together, though the puzzle was as if all of the pieces were all from different sets, impossible to put together.
The charts were signed by Dr. Peterson. Aliya saw it with her own eyes. She would've seen Jackson's name if he was on the case, right?
This can't be happening, it has to be a joke.
"Well, he 'scrubbed in' on my tumour removal. He really is a good guy. I'm glad you went for it, he's perfect for you. Ha! So, I have met him before. I approve!"
Summer slumped back down her her chair, now perfectly content, discarding Vogue on the read pile and reaching for another magazine, the one she selected was a teen magazine that included a nail polish set and hand cream that was guaranteed to give you a rash that Aliya had bought for the nostalgia.
"Why have you gone pale? Are you feeling okay?" Summer reached her foot up, prodding Aliya's knee with the toe of her slipper. "Have a twinkie." She fanned the near empty box in her face.
Aliya didn't really like twinkies, in fact she hated them, but Summer adored them and had seemed to remember that fact as she offered her the twizzlers instead.
"He was on your case." Aliya voice came out in a whisper as she came to the realisation. "Jackson was on your case."
The realisation was,
He acted shocked when she had told him about the cancer three weeks ago.
As if, he didn't already know.
As if he hadn't kept her secret for eight months.
Eight whole freaking months.
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—✩—
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By the time Summer's chemotherapy finished and her husband came to pick her up, and how Aliya had to bribe Eliza with the remaining milk duds to get her back into her car seat and off of Aliya's back, Aliya had wound up on a breast reduction surgery with Mark Sloan, which took longer than usual seeing as Mark was too busy talking her ear off and taking random dramatic pauses throughout the entire procedure.
"You're quieter than usual." Mark commented as they left the OR to scrub out. "It's unsettling."
Aliya shrugged. "Maybe I've always been this quiet and you don't shut up enough to know that." She grinned at him, following him through the automatic doors.
"Ouch." He turned on his tap with a frown.
"Oh god— I just went from zero to asshole in the space of five seconds, I didn't mean that." Aliya sighed, discarding her mask and scrub cap in the trash.
"You okay?" Mark asked, sincerely, tilting his head toward her.
"I'm fine." She spoke with a newfound fake optimism, leaning forward to her own tap and grabbing the hospital disinfectant scented soap. She looked across to Mark, who was now eyeing her sceptically as he slowly washed his hands. "Really." She tried to convince.
"Sure you are."
"I'm fine." Aliya shot back, her tone stern.
"Hm." Mark mumbled, glancing at Aliya's reflection in the glass window in front of him.
Aliya whipped her head to the man that stood beside her, who also knew how to push every single one of her buttons. "Mark."
He smiled wide, though he probably meant it as a kind gesture, Aliya took it as mocking. "Believe it or not, Aliya, I do know you."
"And, I know you're only asking me how I am because you're trying to avoid something." Aliya fired back with a raised brow, some would call her hostile in this exact moment, but ever since Aliya and Mark ended, it felt like something was always in the air between them, like they were unfinished.
Even though Aliya knew she never wanted to go back there again.
Crying over her laptop, watching The Notebook and eating stale popcorn and oreo's was not something she particularly wanted to relive.
"Are you okay, Mark?" She asked, pointedly.
"Touché." He nudged the tap off with his elbow before clearing his throat before switching up hit tone. "I heard you're with Avery! That's great, really." Mark enthused, whilst Aliya just grunted back at him. "Uh-oh."
"Why did you uh-oh?" Aliya interrogated him, her face tensing as she watched his know it all expression, that was far too infuriating to handle in this moment. "There's no reason to uh-oh. This is not an uh-oh situation!"
That may have been a little lie.
"Okay, okay." Mark raised his hand in surrender, a faint smirk still on his face.
"You're so annoying!" Aliya huffed, hitting her own tap off with her elbow, reaching for the paper towels "You know that? You're like a hyperactive seven year old obsessed with monster trucks and tuna mayo sandwiches."
Mark scoffed, crossing his arms over his chest as he angled his body toward her. "Out of all the analogies you've come out with you opted for, 'hyperactive seven year old obsessed with monster trucks and tuna mayo sandwiches'?"
Pursing her lips, Aliya chucked the paper towels in the trash "Shut up."
"You always judged my love for tuna mayo." Sighing, Mark watched her reach for the door handle, tugging it open. "And, monster trucks."
"It smells funny." She replied, halfway out the door.
"You smell funny." He retaliated quickly.
"See!" Aliya turned around fast, Mark following her out of the door. "You have the emotional maturity of a seven year old!"
Mark tilted his head and clicked his tongue in thought, opening his mouth to speak without hesitation. "Well, that makes you at least twelve!"
"That still makes me more mature than you."
And with that, she left him perplexed in the hallway.
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Jackson Avery was having a good day.
As far as days went.
He was actually being regarded as a competent surgeon for the first time in this hospital, no one died on his watch, his sandwich that he bought from the cafeteria was freshly made, and his fries were not stone cold.
And, the ketchup was in date!
And to mention for the sake of mentioning it, he had been in a stable relationship for a month and a half, which was a win in his book, seeing as he didn't have the best track record for relationships.
As he was leaving the hospital after his particularly good day, he stopped short in front of Aliya, who was sat down on the bench outside the hospital, staring with wide, brown eyes he had become fond of at a random bush opposite her.
He looked towards the bush in question, but it didn't seem like it held any remarkable quality for her to be looking at it so intensely.
Her hands were nestled in her coat pockets, her cheeks flushed pink from the cold and one of her various winter scarves was wrapped tightly around her neck.
"Hey." He smiled, sitting down next to her, slipping a hand over her shoulders, close enough for him to feel how darn cold she was.
"Have you had a good day?" Aliya managed, her throat dry and hoarse, as if she were developing some sort of cold or flu.
"It was great." He spoke warmly, and a part of Aliya wished she never knew the truth, that she couldn't be angry at the man sat next to her.
Because, as much as she knew about doctor-patient confidentiality, Summer Vasquez was the longest friend Aliya Levine had ever had.
And, surely that should have accounted for something. And, surely her boyfriend couldn't have possibly kept it a secret for eight months.
She didn't want to be angry at him.
At the man who knew her coffee and takeout orders, who made the bed every morning when Aliya took her first dose of said coffee for the day. Who didn't leave his clothes strewn across her floor.
She didn't want to be mad at the man who kissed her forehead as he cupped her cheek. Or, who had massaged her back when she was hunched over papers for the clinical trial.
But, in this moment of time, she couldn't help it, even if she tried.
"Great." She repeated, nodding her head alarmingly slowly. "I had a great day too."
He began to notice something was off. "That's—"
"Summer had chemo today." Aliya looked over at Jackson, her face unreadable. "Though, I don't know why I'm telling you that, seeing as you probably knew that fact already. Because you're her doctor, right?"
His face dropped in a matter of milliseconds. "I can explain."
His words came out in a rushed fashion, carved from desperation, because he refused to lose her, and the good thing they had going.
"No, Jackson." She pushed herself up from the bench, turning to him as his arm dropped down from where it was once on her shoulder, onto the cold metal of the bench. "Just— don't."
"Just hear me out," He jumped up straight after her, trying to reach for her hand but she only backed away from him a step, which hurt him even more than he wanted to admit. "I didn't tell you because—"
"I don't want to hear it! It doesn't change the fact that you didn't even say anything! Out of all the times I mentioned to you Summer was acting weird, you freaking knew!" Aliya snapped at him, her voice raising with every minute that passed, pointing an accusatory finger at him.
Sighing deeply, Jackson pressed a hand to his forehead in frustration, trying to think clearly, but all he could think about how excited he was to go home with her tonight.
"I can't believe you!" The anger in her voice was enough for him to realise that that wasn't going to happen.
"I didn't tell you, because she wanted to protect you, she wanted—" He paced back, trying to think of the right words. "She didn't want you to know, she didn't think it was the right time, and she didn't want to worry you, after Andy—"
"Oh, please. It's been eight months." The Levine woman scoffed. "I'm not made out of glass! Why the fuck is everyone standing around waiting for me to break, because I'm not going to!"
"You're just looking for reasons to fault me!" He fired back to her.
"Looking?" Aliya burst out, picking up that one word, dramatically running a hand through her hair. "You lied to me about Summer having cancer, I wasn't actively looking." She deadpanned, her arms crossing over her body.
"It was doctor patient confidentiality!" Jackson exclaimed, still trying to close the distance between them, this time Aliya let him, she let him look at her with those eyes, and she almost felt like she could say everything was okay, that she could forgive him for keeping Summer'a secret for so long. "I wanted to tell you, but I couldn't."
"You couldn't?" Aliya replied, her eyes and voice straining to keep back her tears. "Please, Jackson, you could've found a way instead of lying about it."
He looked to the concrete, his jaw tense as he didn't know what else to say, it was all happening too fast. It was all getting out of control.
"God," Aliya's voice raised again over the sound of the wind rushing past them and rustling the trees around them. Her words were scrambling out faster than he could react. "Jackson, you acted shocked when I told you! Like you didn't already know! It's been three weeks since I found out, and you didn't even have the decency to tell me you were her doctor!"
"I should've told you I was her doctor three weeks ago, I know I should've." Jackson admitted.
"You lied to me!"
He took another step towards her, and she didn't bother to back away, all she felt was pain, she couldn't physically move away from him even if she had tried. "I didn't lie."
"Oh—" Aliya rolled her eyes. "My mistake."
She shook her head, laughing at the irony of it all, laughing at the hope she had felt. How stupid she was to let herself believe in all of this.
"Withheld information? Does that make it any better?"
Jackson shook his head. "No."
"I can't believe it." Aliya spoke, dumbfounded, opening her mouth to say something before shaking her head with hesitation, as if unable to compute her thoughts. "I can't believe I actually thought—"
"Aliya, I'm sorry." Jackson said, sincerely, reaching out for her once more but this time she jolted away, angling herself away from him, knowing that one look could melt away all her anger. "It was a mistake. I should've told you."
She swallowed, running a hand through her tangled hair. "You should've."
Eight months was too long to keep that sort of secret.
If it was a month, maybe two, Aliya could've justified it. She could've moved past it.
But, Summer and Jackson both denied her of the opportunity of being there for her friend. They denied her of that knowledge, like a child who didn't know any better.
For eight months, she didn't know her friend was in an unbearable amount of pain.
"I didn't want to hurt you." Jackson said, his voice low, his eyes dark.
"I can't even look at you right now." Aliya finally allowed herself to meet his gaze. And, all she saw was the man who kept the secret. "I look at you and all I can think is how dumb I was to trust you."
She realised that that statement was not far from the truth, and it wasn't a whole lie.
If she could rewinded time, she may have changed the words, so they didn't hurt as much.
But, maybe she wanted to hurt him, the same way he had hurt her, so that in someway they were even. It was as if she had hit her own personal self destruct button right there and then, and her whole reality was unravelling all around her.
"No, Aliya, don't do this. You can't. It was stupid of me. I know that." Jackson pleaded, following her to the parking lot as she turned on her heel before she could let him see her tears starting to fall down her cheeks, meandering down along her the shadowed line of her jaw. "God, I know that."
Aliya picked up her pace, beelining the way to her car, calling over her shoulder. "Just please, please. Leave me alone."
She left him frozen in the sidewalk, not giving him another glance as she disappeared into the dark sanctuary of the parking lot, her cheeks icy cold despite her burning hot tears.
She threw open the car door, bundling herself inside as she drove away, not even bothering to take off her coat.
By the time Aliya had driven home, nearly skipped a few red lights, reached her front door, dropped her keys twice and finally unlocked the door, the upset had rapidly morphed its way into anger — red hot and burning through each and every one of her veins as she swung open the front door with unintentional aggression.
Slamming it (again, unintentional) behind her and stepping into the foyer, she chucked her coat miserably onto the bench.
"OH!" She yelled as she turned suddenly to two bodies practically clawing at each other on the couch.
"Holy crap!" A voice she recognised sounded as she turned on the light, lighting up the living room in front of her to reveal the pair.
"Trent, what the hell are you doing here?" Aliya interrogated, her hands flying up to her face so she couldn't bear witness to what was going on in front of her. "I thought you were in California?"
"I could tell something was wrong— the, uh—" He cleared his throat, pushing himself up from the couch to shield the girl beneath him, who was reaching across to retrieve her shirt. "—when we spoke on the phone the other night so, I thought I'd come back and check on you."
Aliya scoffed, her palms pressing into her eyes as she caught a glimpse of red hair through her fingers. "Well, you're not going to find the answers in April's freaking bra!"
"Oh, Aliya—" April piped up from where she was sat, now fully clothed. "I'm so sorr—"
"Don't— please. Don't." Aliya covered her eyes with one palm, backing out of the living room and hitting her heel against the wall rather brutally in the process.
It hurt like a bitch.
"As you were." The brunette said with a wave of her hand, before running up the stairs as fast as she had ever moved in her life, and crashing directly onto her bed, her door shut securely behind her.
Her brain didn't even have enough time to fully register what was going on downstairs, it only had room for the one thing that had mattered most to her crumbling down in a heartbeat.
She didn't want this to happen.
She was happy, despite everything that had happened, she was happy.
The kind of happiness she would see in movies.
On the big screen, time stood still during the realisation of love, the confessions, where the protagonists run towards each other in the pivotal end scene.
They lock eyes from across the room and all concept of time disappears, as if life seemed to move in slow motion, only for them, as if they were the only two people who counted in that moment.
It was all a lie. It's not what really happens. It's all a made up fantasy. Time doesn't stand still. They aren't the only ones in the room. There's no confessions of love. The girl just stands there, frozen whilst time moves at its regular pace and everybody continues on with their usual, mundane lives. Only then, stuck right in that exact moment, does she realise she's all alone.
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( notes! )
i thought it was about time for a bit of strangers to friends(-ish) to lovers to enemies because i can't let my characters have any happiness :)
also, i planned to do the mark and aliya chapter (like i did the kai and aliya chapter) at the end of season 8 (if you know you know) but i kinda want to do it now for the ✨context✨ because it's giving 'you're losing me' by taylor swift and i have an unhealthy obsession with that song at the moment
also also, a bit of an explanation about this chapter!! it was originally going to be a part 2 of 7x10 but then i decided to make it it's own chapter (with a new title yay — can guarantee whenever i do this the titles will be taylor songs) but the henry storyline is in 7x10 but i've put it in this chapter!! (recap, henry burton is aliya's brother's childhood best friend). i honestly don't know why i made that so confusing
also x3, i added 2 new mark & aliya scenes in the earlier chapters!! one is halfway through chapter one and the other is at the very beginning of chapter four!!
( word count! — 8,000 )