𝙓𝙓𝙑.
[ OUCH ]
──────
"SO MUCH FOR being a hotshot shrink, huh?"
I glowered at the nurse as he smirked at me, holding an ice pack in one and hand and his pager in the other. I snatched the ice pack from him, scowling at his smug expression, but let out a hiss of pain as I tenderly placed it to my forehead.
Eli, who had rushed into the room as soon as Tom Crowley had escaped, had plucked me off of the floor as if I weighed nothing and helped me onto a gurney. He just chuckled, shaking his head as if the sight of me was too painful to even watch. It took every inch of my self-control not to stick my tongue out at him like some agitated child as he goaded and teased me.
I'd been unconscious for barely five minutes, according to Eli. He'd roused me from my unconsciousness, explained that I had a nasty cut on the top of my head and referred to me as "Sleeping Beauty" multiple times.
If irritation was some sort of pain medication, I wouldn't have minded, but somehow it just made the situation worse. I pursed my lips, already having some of the leftover gauzes Alex had brought for Tom, wrapped tightly around the incision on my face; from what I'd heard from Eli, he'd found me lying on the floor with blood dripping down my face and Lexie Grey sprawled behind me, conscious but disorientated from hitting her head against the hard, brick exterior wall.
It didn't help that I'd cut myself on some of the shards of porcelain from the vase; my hands were littered with small cuts, all that would pester me for the next week or so, I was sure of it. Eli had told me, rather firmly, that he'd paged Plastics and that someone would come and get my forehead sorted out for me-- I wasn't to leave this gurney, Lexie was sorting out finding Tom and that was that.
As much as I wanted to argue with him, I figured that Lexie was reasonably adequate at accomplishing things; the last time I'd lost a patient, I'd had to work with Alex and George, and although they were both distinctively, um, charming, they hadn't quite been Sherlock and Holmes.
"I called security, they're on their way."
The red-haired nurse from came bustling over to Eli, looking mildly stressed at the thought of a patient disappearing. At the mention of security, I leant forward, my face contorting. Security should have been here ages ago, that had been one of the first things Alex had requested when moving Tom into his private room.
Eli turned to the other nurse, nodding slowly as he shot me a brief glance.
"What about Psych?" Eli questioned, his eyebrows bunched together as she sighed.
"I've paged them twice-- but-"
"You've got me."
I finished for the nurse, letting out a long, exhausted breath. The nurse nodded quickly, rolling her lips together and letting her gaze linger on the blood that probably lingered on my skin. I gave her an empathetic but borderline bitter (at the situation, not at the woman herself) smile.
"Page again, but specifically Dr Chaudhry, she'll be able to help."
Silently, the nurse followed my orders, but we were all interrupted by the sound of a hurried surgical intern approaching us.
My mood worsened as Lexie came bounding along, looking as though she'd faired better than me in that room; her eyes were locked on the nurse, not quite taking into account either Eli or my impassive expression as I drowned in self-pity.
"Olivia-- Where's Psych? I asked you to page them over an hour ago..."
I was rather taken by Lexie's tone; her eyes were slated as she looked down at the redhead and repeated the question Eli had asked only moments ago.
Eli and I exchanged a look and I caught him rolling his dark eyes, clearly displaying a dislike for the younger Grey sibling.
"I've paged them... twice," The nurse, Olivia, repeated to Lexie calmly although a muscle jumped in her jaw. "If you want to see the logbook..."
"I want to know how a paranoid patient managed to get out of the ER," Again, Lexie's tone was far more pointed than I was used to. Her eyes were slated and she hunched her shoulders, attempting to assert her position as a surgical intern. "Where were you?"
Again, Eli shot me a look that didn't look too impressed. Meanwhile, Olivia just glowered back at the brunette, gritting her teeth.
"I had stepped away from my desk to deal with another patient," Olivia responded calmly and sweetly, causing Lexie to falter.
The younger woman lost her edge and stepped backwards, noticing how the Nurse didn't appear affected at all by her bluntness.
"And normally," She added, "Being a punching bag for the doctors is just a part of the job, but there's a merger, and we're all being looked at, and I am not about to go down for a mistake that wasn't mine." Ouch. "So if you'll excuse me, I'll page psych again."
The nurse took off in the direction of the nurses' station, leaving Lexie to frown to herself, a clear look of indecision and guilt blooming across her face. The first thing she registered was the unimpressed look on Eli's face as he shook his head at her again, tutting to himself softly. He briefly shot me a smile, before turning away and joining Olivia. That just left Lexie and I; and when she looked at my face, she gasped.
"Dr Montgomery, are you alright–?"
"Do I look okay?" I quipped, then chuckled at the look of concern on Lexie's face.
I must have looked pretty bad as Lexie's eyes were fixated to the top of my head and the blood staining my fingertips as I attempted to make the swelling going down, around my injury.
"I'm fine, it's not too bad..."
"I'm so sorry about what happened," She gushed suddenly as if she'd set me up to some sort of death scenario.
I waved her apology away with my free hand; it wasn't her fault at all, she wasn't the psych expert, here. That, sadly, was all me.
"You have nothing to apologise for..." I said softly; Lexie sucked in a deep breath, nodding slowly and repeatedly glancing up at my forehead. She looked as though she was extremely intimidated by my head injury and I just sighed to myself, not having quite seen it yet. "Be honest with me... Does it look bad?"
"Uh," Lexie looked rather caught off guard by the question; she bit down on her lip. "I mean-"
"I'll take that as a yes."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't apologise.
"Sorry."
***
I'd passed all of my work over to Dr Mable Chaudhary, who'd come down from the Psychiatry department with the look of someone who'd just been dragged into their personal nightmare. She'd been the first face that I'd come across when I'd arrived in the department, and she'd been the first person I'd come acquainted with, other than Katherine, the head of Psychiatry.
She was a tall, pretty Punjabi-American woman who had vocalised her distaste of the surgical department to me many times. In fact, most of the psychiatrists had vocalised opinions: the unanimous verdict was that all of the surgeons were too 'up themselves for their own good'.
Knowing people like some select plastic surgeons and neurosurgeons, I hadn't hesitated to agree.
"You just had to get beaten up," Mable shook her head lightly as she approached me in the ER, pulling back the curtain with a curt sigh.
I was sat there, arms crossed over my chest and my head gently laid against the back of the raised bed. I shot her a brief, dry look, watching as she continued to look down at me like I'd received some sort of karma.
Suddenly, a chuckle fell past my lips and I pressed a hand to my cheek.
"You're enjoying this, aren't you?"
"I'm not going to deny it." She echoed my laugh, her lips twitching and her hand coming upwards to smooth her long, dark hair over her shoulder. "This discomfort that you're feeling right now, is your karma for throwing me in with the sharks of the surgical floor."
I'd gotten to know Mable decently well over the past month or so; she was my number one source of places to eat in Seattle and was a good ear to have when I wanted to talk through something related to my cases.
But she had a small smile on her face as she leant against the bottom of the bed, one hand holding a clipboard and the other holding my pager, something that must have fallen from my pocket when I'd been hauled off of the floor by Eli. She handed it to me and I weighed in my palm, gazing down at it with a slight disheartened feeling in my chest. But as soon as it came, it'd left- I stuffed it into my pocket.
"I've got security sweeping the whole of the surgical floor looking for your patient," She explained softly, "The surgical floor upstairs is on complete lockdown until they find him. I was told by Katherine to come to find you and serve you an incident report."
The document appeared out of nowhere, was clipped onto the board and I let out a silent, sarcastic cheer as she handed it over to me. I glanced down at it, seeing the collection of boxes and dotted lines and details that required my attention; my smile dropped and I groaned.
"Is this a new record? An incident report two months into the job?"
"You'd be surprised."
I was about to respond further but I was cut off as a small, portly woman- possibly an intern- rushed up and pulled back the curtain that surrounded my bed.
Abruptly, she gave the two of us hurried smiles, before slapping down a suture kit and drawing up a chair. There were no words that fell through her lips-- all that was exchanged was the look between myself and Mable as we watched the intern scramble to get my incision fixed up.
We both stared at the intern for a prolonged amount of time, our silence causing her to look upwards. Startled by the expressions on our faces, her face flushed.
"Oh right- sorry," She said, "I'm Dr Guzman, and I'll be going your stitches today."
I could tell, instantly, that this was the last person I wanted near my forehead.
My eyes dropped to the stitches that she prepared and I licked my chapped lips, worry building up inside of me. Her hands were shaking wildly and something about the way she kept swearing to herself softly as she failed to prepare the stitching equipment, made me think that this wouldn't go too well.
"Wouldn't it be easier to glue the wound?" I asked tenderly.
For a split second, a thunderous expression fell across Guzman's face; at that moment, Mable shot me an amused looked, as if to say 'this is the ego I was talking about, see it?'. However, it was gone as soon as she noticed the scrubs the two of us were wearing, alongside the mess it had made of my face.
"R-Right..." Guzman stammered, suddenly dropping the suture kit as if it scalded her.
I twisted my neck to the side and felt my brow crease, something that I probably shouldn't do. I opened my mouth to say something, but before I knew it, she'd turned on her heel and ran off, going to grab what she needed.
Mable let out a low whistle. "It's like watching a car crash in slow motion."
I stared after the doctor and felt a long sigh fall out of my lips; I fell back against the bed, shooting Mable a side-glance.
Previously, I'd handed Mable my paperwork at the hope that arose with Dr Guzman's arrival, but had to accept it begrudgingly once again. Mable practically lobbed the ballpoint pen at my outstretched hand and I scowled lightly as I barely had time to catch it. The psychiatrist just chuckled, rolling her eyes at me.
"I feel bad for them, really," I said empathetically as I began to randomly sign and write down things. "It must suck a lot to find out that you're possibly going to lose your job to someone from another hospital. We're very lucky that we're not facing the same thing."
"Yeah, only because our department actually has a structure to it," Mable snorted.
I finished the reports and handed them over to her, watching as she looked over them, checking that everything was in order. Once I had the all-clear, Mable gave me a thumbs up, telling me that she'd drop it off to Katherine and then join the hunt for Tom.
Just as she was about to leave, I stopped her, catching her arm with a hand that was speckled with dry blood from my incision.
"I'm sorry about this all... really..."
She brushed her dark hair over her shoulder, lips dipping into a small smirk.
"It's fine... but you're going to owe me a favour."
***
For such a panicked doctor, Guzman wasn't too bad.
She tried to offer me painkillers in case I developed a headache, but I refused them, getting off the bed and leaving the pit before the bland colour scheme got too deep into my bones. I'd been sat there for too long, listened to too many cases coming in and out, left on my own to watch the breeze of the opening trauma doors tousle the curtains around my bed.
I'd listened to paramedics bustle about, resuscitations, observations and consultations, pagers screaming and phones ringing. It'd reminded me too deeply of things that I didn't need to be reminded of, so as soon as Guzman gave me the all-clear, I was off into a restroom, washing my face off with a hand-towel.
I'd bled a fair bit, the majority of it just being from the large laceration above my right eyebrow, the rest of it being from a few places where the vase had splintered.
Mable had paged me to tell me that Tom, my schizophrenic patient, had fallen down the stairs and suffered some internal damage. He'd had a scare, taken a tumble, and had been rushed into surgery.
She'd then to go on that he was reasonable coherent now, and that I was welcome to take his case back- she'd gotten the antipsychotics that I'd prescribed and now, apparently, Tom was less volatile and more aware of his surroundings. So, I approached the nurse's desk, flashed my ID card and asked where my patient was.
"Look who it is..."
I turned my head, smiling wryly as Eli approached, his arms crossed over his chest.
Once he was stood beside me, I averted my attention back to the familiar room, the room where Tom had unceremoniously thrown a vase over my head. This time, the blinds were drawn tight and the door was partially open, just to allow me to peer inside.
Eli's eyes flickered up to my forehead and his smirk flickered for a moment. "How's your head?"
"No complaints," I gave him a small grin, eyes sparkling, before I looked back at Tom. "How's my patient?"
He was in a bed beside his sleeping mother, his eyes sharply assessing her every feature. The restraints Mable had organised strained around his hands as he smoothed out her hair, before falling back against his pillow and staring out of the window beside his bed.
"I just checked up on him a few minutes ago." Eli's eyes glittered softly as I chewed on my bottom lip. "He seems alright for the moment..." I moved forward but hesitated to go inside. Eli noticed and his lips flickered with another smirk. "Oh, don't worry, we removed all the objects that aren't secured to the floor -- don't want another incident, do we?"
The look I shot him was filthy and Eli chuckled to himself, going back to his station as I finally gently pushed open the door.
He didn't look up when I entered, just continued to watch the nighttime outside. I walked as lightly as I could, my heels muffled by determination and the experience of sneaking around in my teen years and early twenties.
Through the window, he had a perfect view of the late afternoon sun, a brilliant sky that had a tint of orange as a sunset teased the horizon. The whole room was illuminated in soft light, it somehow made Tom look older, more tired as if the weight of his mental health was suddenly a physical mass on his shoulders.
Tom's dark eyes swung around to stare at me as I lingered on the threshold.
"I'm sorry," I murmured, smiling at him warmly, one foot juxtapositioned to the door as if I expected him to want me to leave. "I just wanted to check if you're okay..."
"I injured my spleen," Tom answered after a pregnant pause; I nodded slowly and his attention swung back to the view out of the window. "They're just waiting to see if it stops bleeding on its own."
"Good," I said, knowing that it was the best scenario we could hope for. I smiled to myself. "It's great to see that you're doing better."
Tom appeared so much better than he did earlier. He appeared more alert, more aware of his surroundings and kept a thoughtful arm on his mothers sleeping form, as if to reassure himself that she was still there. I tracked his behaviour closely, picking out things to compare against my notes from earlier. He licked his lips and continued to dedicate his attention to the world outside.
"You can come inside, you know..."
I tilted my head to the side, my heel scraping slightly against the threshold. I glanced fleetingly over at the corner, to where the vase had been previously before Tom had gotten his hands on it. Then, my eyes tracked to the floor below the window, where I'd crumpled to the floor. When I looked back at Tom, he was humorlessly smiling, expression caught on his otherwise stoic features.
"It's all right," He said, "They've got me in restraints."
To emphasise this, he raised his wrists, pulling his hand away from his mother. The metal and foam cuffs creaked ominously as he continued to smirk at me.
Softly, I stepped into the room, letting the door close- with just a centimetre of light leaking through- behind me.
"I wouldn't be able to hurt you even if the voice told me to."
There was a noticeable falter in my step and I looked at Tom sharply, my eyebrow gently raising. The grin continued.
"It's a joke." He verified although nothing about his tone supported this. In fact, he sounded rather bored, as if there was nothing I could ever do or say that would be able to entertain him. "Schizophrenic joke."
I didn't reply, just smiled at him.
His deadpans could go toe-to-toe with me and Eli, I briefly wondered what a conversation would be like with three of us, but I figured that Eli would rather stand outside and listen to me have my ass handed to me verbally by my patient.
My heartbeat had picked up at Tom's joke, a flash of pain across my temple reminding me of what the man had already accomplished, but I adjusted myself, standing at the foot of Tom's bed and watching as he resumed his musing, replacing his hand on Jody.
I took his folder from the bottom of his bed, checking his medication doses, alongside coming across his ultrasound scans that Alex had carried out earlier, after Tom's accident.
I pushed my hair over my shoulder, reading Eli's observation notes and looking upwards only when I felt the weight of Tom's gaze on me.
"There's this thought that I ... I'm trying to get it out..."
Tom's face contorted and I closed his file swiftly, my face growing stoic as he struggled with his own words. His brow folded and a dent appeared between his brows.
"And..." He said, "I keep thinking that they planted a camera... in my stomach during the ultrasound."
As he drawled on about his delusions, I flicked through his file, back to his scans. I drew out the picture of his lower torso, placing the rest of the file down on the table I'd sat at earlier.
"...And I was gonna wake my mother and have her, you know, talk me down, but she's tired, and..." I interrupted Tom, approaching him gingerly and holding out his scan. Instantly, the man latched his small, beady eyes onto it. Taking the pen I'd stolen from Mable, I gestured to the relevant areas of the ultrasound, watching as his face became lined with confusion. "What is this?"
"Here is your spleen," I explained, my voice gentle and smooth.
He leant forward, detaching himself from Jody and drinking in every detail of the scan as if he was a man stranded in a desert with a mirage just inches in front of him. The pen referred to the parts that confided him to this hospital bed.
"See?"
Tom nodded. He had this childlike air to him, following the movement of the pen with inexhaustible determination.
"And this bright spot right here, that's blood. That's not supposed to be there."
Tom's eyes stuck onto it, blazing holes into it. I knew what he was searching for, any foreign, alien objects, the aforementioned cameras. But, as far as we could both tell, the ultrasound was clean of them.
"But... no cameras."
"No cameras?" He asked, looking up at me as if he needed to hear it one more time.
"No cameras."
The man in front of me seemed to deflate in one long breath, falling back against his pillow. I wasn't sure whether I expected him to be relieved or more distressed by this information; the delusions, the erratic thoughts that plagued his mind could be overpowering.
Even so, he seemed to be satisfied with my answer, settling back comfortably, his eyes lingering on the scan in my hands. Tom looked as though he'd benefited from it greatly.
I turned around, pulling the examination board that either Alex or Bailey must've left behind and gave Tom a soft smile. "I can leave this up if you want?" His answer was hesitation, but it was an eventual nod. "So, that when the thoughts come back, you can look and see that they're not real."
I fixed the scan onto the board in front of him, placing the rest of his file back at the bottom of his bed. When I looked back up at him, he was smiling again, but there was a slight warmth to it. I wasn't sure whether it was the golden tint to the light coming through the windows or the revelation that had backed his delusions to the corner of his mind for the time being, but Tom smiled warmly at me.
"There are no cameras," I repeated for the second time, stowing my pen away into my breast pocket. "They're just scary thoughts. They're not real. They're just scary thoughts–"
I was about to continue, but the vibration of my pager against my outer thigh attracted my attention. Tom seemed to sense that something had happened as he leant forwards. I held up a hand.
"Everything's okay," I said calmly, "I just need to go and help someone now- if you need me, tell the nurse to page Dr Montgomery."
Tom nodded softly, his eyes flickering back to the scan, before going back to me. I gave him one last smile before I turned to head for the door-- but, just as I went to leave, his soft voice stalled me on the threshold.
"Thank you-- and I'm sorry about the..." His eyes flashed up to the plaster on my forehead.
"That's okay," I said with a tentative nod, "and you're welcome."
***
My evening ended differently to what I'd envisioned it to.
My apartment had an unlikely treasure, a window that opened over a small utility building that was muffled by a thick concrete roof that seemed steady enough. I hadn't realised it at first, but the previous owners had converted it into a makeshift balcony.
The next step had been purchasing some fancy coffee filters and making myself a caramel macchiato and sitting on that chair on a lukewarm night, watching the moon hang above Seattle.
I sat there, cradling the warm drink and leaning back against the plush chair, a faux fur blanket wrapped tightly around me.
A light breeze tousled my hair as I played soft classical music off of a stereo, being careful not to disturb the apartments around me-- being the apartments of Mark, Lexie, Callie and Arizona. I sighed to myself softly, combing my fingers through my hair and gnawing into the inside of my cheek.
Ever so often, I glanced at my phone; Eli had somehow finessed my phone number from someone and had messaged me telling me that the first round of cuts had come through.
The redhead nurse from earlier, Olivia, hadn't made it and half of the surgical internship programme had been cut.
I'd messaged Meredith about it a while ago, wondering whether everyone got through, whether Cristina's adventure into Peds had paid off and whether Lexie had overcome a day that was disastrous. Subconsciously, I raised a hand to my forehead, wincing when I touched the sensitive incision area.
I let out a long breath, glancing down at my cup of coffee- god, I had something stronger.
I glanced over my shoulder, back over at the window that lead into my bathroom; it was propped open, the lilac curtains swaying peacefully in the wind. It was so tranquil here, so calm and dream-like.
My mind wandered places, from days back in Connecticut when I'd play in the front yard of my childhood home until the street lamps went out to nights in New York when I'd linger in Addison and Derek's apartment, gravitating to the balcony every time so I could gaze down at the city.
Seattle wasn't New York. Not by a long shot.
New York had been my safe space. It'd been the place where I'd bought my first apartment- a fucking expensive one, mind you- and It'd been the place where I'd made the most memories, both good and bad.
Seattle reminded me of New York in the oddest moments, like when the rain sleeted against the window panes or when the traffic lights stalled the traffic and I wove in amongst extensive crowds in the city's heart. The whole state had a different feeling to it-- but here, sat on a makeshift balcony with some stupid fancy coffee and Chopin's Raindrops, it was the closest thing I'd gotten to home in a long while.
It was when my coffee grew cold and Chopin faded into Mozart, when the moon was high in the sky and my eyelashes were dragging against my cheeks, that my phone vibrated against my thigh.
At first, I woke out of my limbo, exhausted state in panic, thinking that it was my pager and that something at the hospital had happened-- but I relaxed when I realised it was only my Blackberry.
I leant over, placing down my mug on a little coaster I'd placed onto the floor and I drew the blanket tighter around me, suddenly feeling the chill in the air. It was once that I was comfortable, that I picked up the phone, checking the caller ID.
I paused for a moment, an internal debate humming beneath my skin. I halted completely, my thumb momentarily hovering over the deny button, just out of habit. But no-- I let out a breath, my shoulders tensing as I thought back on the day.
Communication. That's what I needed.
That's what I needed when I was stressed and overwhelmed and on the edge. I didn't need to plan a party, I didn't need to drown myself in alcohol. I needed to talk. Alex had supported Izzie by communicating, by telling her that everything would be fine. Derek had fought tooth and nail for the people he worked for by setting the record straight.
Communication. That's what I'd been denying Charlie.
"Hey."
My voice was breathless and for a moment, there was silence. It was the sort of shocked silence, as if he hadn't expected me to pick up. I bit deep into my bottom lip, almost drawing blood; I leant over, using a remote to turn down the volume of the music.
For a heartbeat, I wondered whether he'd hang up, realise that I wasn't worth pining for, that all of the radio silence was a clear indicator of how stupid I was when it came to relationships.
But no.
"Hey."
I'd almost forgotten what his voice sounded like. Hearing his voice brought back the feeling of Indonesia, of chasing charity work and catastrophes across the globe. My chest tightened and I looked down at my feet. "
You picked up."
The vague surprise in his voice made my stomach twist and my throat run dry;
I felt guilty, I felt disgusting.
Suddenly, I realised exactly why I'd been ignoring his calls.
"Yeah," I itched the side of my nose, shifting uncomfortably.
Everything within my body was screaming, for what, I didn't know. All I knew was that I hadn't seen Charlie in two and a half months and I didn't know what to say to him. We hadn't been on bad terms. We hadn't argued once. We hadn't even had bad blood between us.
I just felt as though there was so much to say but didn't know how to say it.
"I'm sorry." That was a good start. "I'm sorry for not picking up."
"It's okay."
Charlie was always the patient one, the mature and level-headed one. Maybe it was his PhD in clinical psychology or the fact he'd spent longer than me in a field that demanded empathy, but he'd always been the one that was able to handle anything. I, on the other hand, was slightly less successful.
"I'm sorry for not understanding that you needed space," He said, "I know that you were panicking a lot and it must have been stressful..."
"Yeah, uh, thanks,," I said finally, pressing my lips together and swallowing, hard.
I let out a slightly delirious laugh; I could tell Charlie hadn't anticipated it. I let out a long aghast breath, realising that I found a certain relief in hearing his voice, hearing his breath in the receiver. I pulled the blanket tighter around my waist and folded my legs to my chest.
"I'm sorry," I said, "I'm just really fucking happy to hear your voice."
God.
I was happy to hear his voice.
"Same with you," He mused warmly and I smiled to myself. "I was beginning to wonder you didn't want anything to do with me."
My smile grew estranged. "Charlie, you can't get rid of me that easily."
"God," He said suddenly and my brow furrowed, but he chuckled again. "I really missed hearing you say my name."
Another laugh bubbled through my lips and I could feel my body relaxing; I leant back against my chair and massaged my scalp.
Conversation with Charlie was easier than I'd remembered, I asked him about his work and he told me that he was due to leave in a few days time and that he'd be visiting his brother by the end of the week in Boston.
His brother, Andrew, was a few years his senior and worked in counselling too, but was currently participating in some clinical research.
Charlie spoke about what he was hoping to achieve when he moved back; he wanted to travel around for a little while before he settled down to go back into a clinical setting. There was a clear hesitation, where I knew he was waiting for me to ask him to come to Seattle, but I fell silent. I wasn't sure whether I could handle Charlie being around, on top of Derek and Mark.
In return, he asked me about Seattle and about my plans. I told him about my new apartment, about my job and about Archer's recovery. He displayed audible concern when I mentioned my incident, but I reassured him repeatedly that I was fine and had handled the situation.
Within a heartbeat, he dismissed my reassurances: "Oh no, it's you, Beth- of course you've handled it. You'd never let anyone shove you over and let them live to tell the tale. It's the other guy I'm worried about." and I could only chuckle.
I then, went on to talk about my friends, about Derek, about his girlfriend Meredith and how it was such a small world. I faltered on the topic of George, but spoke about him anyway-- but I hesitated on the topic of Mark.
Charlie had heard my sob story about Mark.
He'd heard it when he'd proposed for the first time. He'd understood, he'd explained that he had a similar scenario with one of his ex-girlfriends back in Boston. His first reaction was anger, at Mark, at the relationship for making me paranoid and a wreck when it came to commitment-- but I'd stopped him right there.
It wasn't just Mark's fault that our relationship had been so poor. I'd been responsible too-- but that still didn't mean that I didn't support burning him at the stake for sleeping with my sister.
"You know..." I paused. I didn't want to be dishonest, I didn't want to hide things as I had in my previous relationship. "I-I found it hard to come here, I found it really stupidly hard to come here to Seattle and even harder to stay. I saw how happy Derek was and I thought I could build some sort of life here as we had back in Sumatra..."
"And did you?"
"Yeah," my lips flickered and I hoped that Charlie could sense the hope in my voice. "Well, I see the promise of one. I've kind of gotten the message that I'm not going to find a calm and stable here, but I'm at a nice crossroads-- a nice place where I'm both who I am now and who I was ten years ago when I first moved out of Connecticut. I mean, sure I have a little bit of who I was in between, but it feels nice..."
Charlie noticed my falter.
"There's something bothering you, isn't there?"
His voice was cool but carried concern. I brushed my hair behind my ear and rolled my lip in between my teeth.
But something about having Charlie on the other end of the line made me feel comfortable; he was like my own therapist in a way, he had the training but he also had the personal edge, the feeling that I could fall and he'd always be there to catch me. Although, as Charlie had always told me, he knew he'd never need to catch me as I always managed to rebalance myself.
"Uh, yeah, there is..." The weight on my chest was indescribable. "Addison didn't tell me that when I was coming back to the US and facing her and Archer and Derek and everything I'd tried to leave behind... I'd also be facing Mark too."
A momentary pause stretched between us, so I continued.
"I almost left, Charlie." I held onto his ear as I said things that I felt uncomfortable to say to anyone else. "I almost picked up all my shit and came straight back to you. Derek and Meredith stopped me but I just- I- I was so terrified of seeing him again, I was so terrified of seeing Addison-- of falling back into that fucking hole again––"
"You're strong, Beth," He said softly and I felt my heart swell in my chest. He was always so wholesome, so comforting and capable of making me feel as though I could achieve the whole world. "I love you, you know that, right?"
I laughed to myself, at the situation I'd found myself in. Here I was, with the guy who loved me unconditionally on the phone, on a whole different continent, and the man who'd broken my heart into a thousand pieces sleeping in the next apartment over.
It was unfair on the two of us, unfair on Charlie who had done nothing but stand beside me and drive me to the airport in the middle of the dead of night, unfair on me, as I had to hold myself upright alongside the patients I was assigned.
It was unfair on the man who'd fallen for me while I'd selfishly used him for his body, until I, to, had sacrificed a little piece of what was left of me to him, then left him stranded on an island covered in grief.
He was a good rock and in that moment, I realised how fucking much I missed him.
Maybe it was the way he made me feel or what he reminded me of- the days where I'd been doing no wrongs, facing no personal losses, void of any struggles. I'd found clarity in the chaos of disasters, found it easier to breath when I could hold someone as the grieved and sobbed on my chest.
I needed that clarity in Seattle... I craved it.
In the same way, I'd spent the whole of my time in Sumatra craving the life I'd left behind.
"I'm scared, Charlie."
I was sure I hadn't sounded that vulnerable since I'd told him, with a shaking voice, that Archer had been rushed into intensive care on another goddamn continent.
It seemed to remind Charlie of the night we'd parted as he sucked in a long breath; if he'd been standing in front of me, I knew he would have sucked in a long breath, dragged his fingers through his hair and then continued to envelop me into a large, comforting hug, whispering words of support in my ear.
"I know," was all he could reply.
I'd tied his hands. He could do nothing to help me if he was stranded in Boston.
So I acted selfishly for the thousandth time in our relationship, but the first time since I'd arrived in Seattle.
"Come to Seattle," I whispered, my heart pounding in my ears. "Come here, please."
He didn't waste a second before he said yes.
But that wasn't the end of the conversation, a smile was shared on both of our ends and we both sagged as the weight was pulled off of us-- I could easily envision the relief on his face. He'd reach out, squeeze my fingers and not hesitate for a second before kissing me.
If we were both in Indonesia, he'd tell me that we'd have a beautiful time and that we'd both explore Seattle together. However, we weren't both in Sumatra and I'd gotten a head start.
So instead, I rested my head against my shoulder, looking up at the light-polluted sky and smiled.
"What do you want to do now?" He asked in his smooth, Boston accent that played on my heartstrings like the sonata's I played into the night.
"Just talk to me... Make me feel better."
And so he did.