"I SLEPT AT HOME YESTERDAY," Paisley Suen broke the silence between her and Courtney. The two interns were sitting on one of the beds in the on-call room where the youngest Grey had spent the night again. Paisley's delicate fingers were weaving through Courtney's blonde hair as she was braiding her hair. The former had never learned how to braid hair and the latter was willing to become her Guinea pig. Even though they only knew each other for maybe a month, they had a kind of friendship that seemed like they have known each other for years.
"It felt really weird as if I was sleeping in a stranger's house. All my stuff was there, but it didn't really feel like mine, do you understand what I mean? My sheets were still the same from before I left, but they just felt cold. Everything felt cold. Which is logical, since it's not like a couple of ghosts thought to put on the heating or something," Just like Courtney, Paisley had decided a little over a month ago, that going home hurt her more than it did good. She wrapped an elastic around the bottom part of Courtney's hair and viewed her work from afar. "Um, this doesn't look like yours normally do. I seem to be doing something wrong, but I can't figure out what."
Courtney touched the back of her head. "You did pretty good! You only need to pull a bit tighter when you cross the sections over each other. Look, I'm not even going to redo it," She turned around so that she could face the brunette. "Why did you decide to go home? I thought that you said, well, it doesn't really matter. I'm glad that you're sleeping at home again."
"Well I figured that I should head back one day since I'm still paying the bills for it. Also, Gavin had enough time to clear out his stuff. Now I just have to start redecorating to make my home feel like home again and wash away all traces of him. I have to repaint everything and clean up, help. I don't know when I'm going to be able to do all of that. Maybe I shouldn't redecorate," Paisley sighed. "Okay, maybe I should. I want to start fresh. Since I can't exactly go house hunting again and pay way too much money for a basic need, I need to do this."
"No matter what you decide, I'll help you. We could start on that day off that's coming up."
"Oh that's a good idea! I wonder what sleeping in feels like. How will the world look like when it's not 5 am? Who knows, certainly not me," Paisley laughed. "I'm also planning on seeing my family that day. It's going to be so weird to see my dad and sisters in the flesh again. I think I'm getting used to only hearing their voice. It's been so long, wow. The last time that I saw them was New Year's I think."
"Are you going to Pittsburgh or are they coming to Seattle?"
"I convinced them to come down to Seattle. They're taking an early flight that day and I'm supposed to be picking them up at the airport. My dad is going to take a few days off of work and they're going to stay with me for a couple of days, so I hope that I don't have that many night shifts. They're really looking forward to it. Every time that I call, my dad has to mention at least twice that he can't wait to see my adorable face again."
"I'm happy for you, that you get to see them. Not that I have any experience with it, but being so far away from your family must be hard," Courtney smiled, although the sadness seeped through it. "Have you told them about Gavin? Or are you waiting until you see them?"
"I've told them already. A couple of days after the break-up, they called me and since I'm a horrible liar, I couldn't keep it a secret for very long. You should've been there, Courtney. It was absolute chaos. My dad was yelling about how he was going to kill Gavin for letting his beautiful and smart daughter go. Celina was giving me advice on how to pick up another man that had to be more attractive than him, which wouldn't be that hard. Heather was just being Heather and said sucks for you, before she went upstairs to watch a tv show."
"I don't know why, but that all sounds so endearing."
"It might sound endearing and cute to you, but I was honestly scared that my dad would take the next flight to go and beat up Gavin. Celina calmed him down luckily or he would have absolutely done that. Apparently, he even broke a vase. I think it just brought up a lot of past memories that he would like to forget."
"About your mother?" Paisley nodded, clenching her fist. Courtney had learned that her mother was a touchy subject that she didn't like to talk about, so she figured she would change the subject before Paisley went ahead and broke a vase. "Have you heard anything from Gavin or is he still a no-show?"
"Not really. He hasn't called or texted, which is good since I don't really want to talk to him. He did leave a note on my counter saying that he was sorry for breaking up with me, but that's about it. I still can't believe it. We were together for 6 years and that's what I get as an explanation. A real lousy one at that. I was preparing myself for a proposal, not a break-up. I thought that he was the one, but apparently he didn't want to compete with surgery for the rest of his life. He didn't like the late nights, the early morning and anything in between."
"That's the downside of being a surgeon, isn't it? Our social life is very limited, because all that we do is work at the hospital."
"We just have to find the right person that'll understand," Paisley said. "But hey, if we don't find anyone that will love us and our busy work schedule, we could just start looking for future spouses inside the hospital. It's what everyone here seems to be doing. You got Meredith and Shepherd, Cristina and Burke and I heard that doctor Watkins has started dating someone from dermatology. Who knows, maybe Alex and I will be the next power couple," Paisley started laughing and fell backwards, while tears of laughter were streaming down her cheeks. "Imagine that, ah, my stomach is hurting."
"If it happens or not, Alex would be a very lucky guy. He really needs someone to show him that love is not dead. He's so hopeless, dear god," Courtney buried her face into her hands. "The chances are even higher that I find someone than him finding a sweet girl. And this is me that we're talking about! The one with more emotional baggage than you can count. Even though she wants to find love, she's as scared as hell to find it. Thank you, parents, for fucking me up this way."
Paisley grabbed her hand and squeezed it. "You've gotta find a strong man who can carry all that baggage then. There's someone out there for everyone. I mean, even squirrel guy who has literally no game found himself a girlfriend. Yeah, I was shocked too and you should've seen how all over each other they were. I honestly thought that they would start having sex right there in the waiting room. I had to wash my eyes out with bleach. That's how horrible it was. Everyone, and I mean everyone, of my group was horrified," The brunette was shivering thinking about it again, while her friend was chuckling at her antics.
Courtney grabbed the pillow behind her and fluffed it, before putting it back again. Paisley was inspecting the girl and noticed how tired she was looking. The bags under her eyes were getting darker. It looked like she was the shell of who she used to be. Paisley didn't know the girl from before, but that didn't mean that she couldn't see the difference. She had heard of her fiery character and had seen her in action a couple of times. That Courtney was buried deep down and only rarely jumped out again. Everyone was worried about the blonde, who refused to see it. She would only see when she would hit rock bottom and nobody wanted that. "Hey, can I ask something?"
The youngest Grey looked up. "Yeah sure."
"When are you planning on going home? Because you can't stay here forever, Courtney. I know that it's really tempting, but you have to pull yourself away. Going home might be really difficult, but I think that it will do you a lot of good. You need to start separating your work self from your actual self or you'll be stuck there forever and slowly lose yourself. I don't want that to happen. Nobody wants that. We only want what's best for you, even though you might not see it at the moment. Being at home with your roommates and sister might be hard, but it will be better for you. I'm not asking you to make a decision right now, but promise me that you'll at least start thinking about it?"
Courtney was biting the inside of her lip and refused to look the fellow intern in the eyes. "Sure, I'll do that." Courtney lied to make Paisley smile. She didn't want to admit that she already had begun thinking about the possibility of going home. She missed the daily commute to work, the loud mornings where everyone was eating breakfast together. She missed the smell and warm feeling that her own house gave her. She missed waking up in her own bed and staring at the ceiling for a minute, before getting ready for another day at Seattle Grace. She missed falling asleep on the couch after a long day at work. She even missed the presence of her sister and two roommates. But did she miss them enough to give up a small part of peace from not having to face the past?
Only the future could tell her that.
☤☤☤
Courtney had never really been the type that arrived late. She either arrived way too early or just on time, but never ever late. She hated the feeling of people waiting for her and then complaining about it. It wasn't like she did it on purpose? However, she hated it even more when she arrived late to something and everybody's heads turned towards her as she entered. It freaked her out and she didn't like that type of attention. So, that was why the blonde was currently rushing through the hallways of Seattle Grace hoping that she would arrive at Harold O'Malley's room in time. Her resident didn't like her interns being late and Courtney did not want to get the short stick that day.
Luck seemed to be on her side that day as she just caught up with the group, right before they entered George's father's room. Bailey hadn't even noticed Courtney just arriving, which was a victory in the latter's book. The ones that did know about her tardiness were her fellow interns, who found it odd. She had never been late to rounds. Never. It strengthened their suspicions that something was definitely going on. The big question currently was if they were going to talk to her about it? They wanted to show how much they cared, but the message never came out right. Plus, sometimes, it seemed like she just didn't want to listen.
Meredith and Alex didn't really have the time to talk with Courtney, since one she didn't gave the chance too and second they walked into a quite crowded room. All of George's family had gathered around his father's bed and were having a little party, since his surgery had gone quite well. The moment that everyone saw George's face, they yelled out his name in glee and that cheer got even louder after he presented his father's case. However, the party couldn't go on much longer. "For the next few minutes I think it would be best if the extended family wait in the waiting room," Bailey advised and the crowd left the room. "How are you feeling Mr. O'Malley?"
"He's feeling great. "Better than ever" he says. Which is why we had everyone come out today. We figured that after today he maybe won't be feeling OK for a while." His wife, Louise, answered for him. Everyone felt great that he was feeling well, but the news that they had to give him put a damper on the mood. They told them that the next surgery was going to change everything. What they were going to see once they open him up was going to change a lot of things. They didn't want to say too much and told the family that the oncologist was going to explain everything.
"So it would be best if the party went home."
After rounding on George's father, they moved onto Preston Burke's room. He had finally let Shepherd operate on his hand to remove the tremor. Saying that it hadn't been awkward or uncomfortable would have been an outright lie. The tension had been thick in the room, since Cristina and Burke were still not talking to each other. She did want to know if he had had any more tremors, but her pride got in the way of her asking. So, she tried to involve her friends, but it didn't really work. Courtney let out a relieved sigh once she got to leave the room to move onto the next patient. She did not want to stay in that room any longer.
The next patient was a young girl who was bent over at the waist. They were all looking at her getting back in her bed, which she didn't appreciate. "What are you all staring at? Really, if you expect me to be the brave and heartwarming differently abled girl, that isn't going to happen. So go ahead and do your thing." Heather Douglas snapped, glaring at the group of interns. Izzie went on to present, but was quickly interrupted by the girl herself. It rendered the blonde speechless and tugged at her heartstrings. Said blonde tried to improve the situation by telling her that removing her kidney stones would improve her quality of life, but that didn't sit well with the patient.
After that, they left the room and went to the NICU, the part of their rounds where Courtney had not been looking forward to. She knew who was down there; her newborn niece, well technically she was her niece, but that didn't mean that Courtney saw her that way. To her, she was just a newborn baby who happened to be her father's first grandchild. She really hoped that he wouldn't show. She didn't know if she was mentally prepared to face the man that left her and her sister. The group of interns gathered around the small baby with Addison and Bailey with them. Meredith was presenting the case. "Laura Grey-Thompson. Born four days ago with Jujenal Atresia. Corrected surgically. Post-op course—"
The door opened and all heads turned at the commotion. Courtney's heart dropped once she saw her father walk through that door. He noticed his two other daughters standing there, but it also seemed like he looked right through them. It felt like they were invisible to him. "Oh, I'm sorry. Am I interrupting? Her mom and grandma have the flu. They asked me to get an update."
"Oh, she's doing very well Mr. Grey. We'll be out of here in just a minute."
"Dr. Grey, you were saying?" Bailey focused on Meredith, who didn't respond. She was in her own little world, not realizing what was happening in the real world. Her eyes were stuck on her younger sister, who stood on the other side. Their father muttered out his apologies and quickly left the room again, but that didn't do anything for both sisters. The damage had already been done. "Grey?" Cristina grabbed the chart from Meredith and went on presenting to save her friend.
Courtney's eyes were looking at her shoes, while she was clenching her fists. She was trying to hold in her tears and trying to calm herself down. Her heart rate was slowly becoming faster and faster. Why did he have to be here? Why did he have to start appearing in their life at this exact moment. They had been fine for over twenty years and they would have been fine for the rest of their life. But his presence brought back a lot of painful memories that neither of them wanted to face. She tried counting down from ten to try to calm herself, because there was no way that she was going to start breaking down in front of everybody.
Three.
It's going to be fine.
Two.
Everything is going to be fine.
One.
You'll be okay.
☤☤☤
"Fuck," Courtney mumbled to herself as she was scrubbing out of surgery. She had just been in a six hour heart surgery with doctor Watkins, but the patient had ended up passing away. Everything had gone so well, until they were almost finished. He started flatlining and nothing they did helped. This wasn't the time for her to start losing patients. She didn't need this. "This is all my fault." The blonde was staring into the operating room, while her hands were gripping the sink pretty tightly.
"Don't say that, Grey. We did everything we could in there," Zachary Watkins said, shooting her a sympathetic smile. Even though he had years more experience than her didn't mean that it didn't hurt any less. He wished that he could avoid death, but that was impossible. It took him years to deal with it. "I have to see another patient. Can you tell the family? Remember, none of this is your fault. I don't want to hear you saying that again."
"Sure, got it."
"I'm sorry that I have to place this burden onto you. If it makes you feel any better, it never gets better having to tell the families."
"That doesn't really help." The blonde let out an forced laugh. The cardio surgeon patted the woman's shoulder as he passed her by, silently apologizing for making her do this. Sadly enough, it was a part of their job that they couldn't get rid of.
Courtney watched as he left the room, before burying her head in her hands. Why did she have to do this? As if it wasn't hard enough feeling like she was to blame for his death, now she had to look her family in the eyes and tell them that their wife/mother/friend/daughter had passed away during surgery. The moment that Watkins had declared the time of death, Courtney couldn't help but blame herself. What if she hadn't been focused enough these past few days and missed something? What if her loss of focus due to her dear father roaming the halls these last couple of days had caused her to kill a patient? What if in her attempts to avoid her father had she missed something vital or forgotten to write something down?
She took a deep breath, before leaving the room and making her way down to the waiting room. She was about to be the woman that was going to ruin those people's days. In their story, she was going to be the villain who caused the worst day of their lives to happen. Courtney bit on her lip as she saw the family trying to lift each other's spirits. They had no idea what was about to happen. She closed her eyes for a couple of seconds, while rubbing her hands together, before going over to the family with zero emotion on her face.
The moment that they laid eyes on her, they jumped out of their seats, believing that she had some good news. "Doctor Grey! It's such a relief to see you! It feels like we've been waiting for ages here. When can we see our little Grace?" Her father asked with a warm smile, while Courtney awkwardly smiled back.
Now or never.
"I'm sorry to tell you this, Mr. Smith, but a complication arose during your daughter's surgery," The father staggered back, while the mother loudly gasped. Who Courtney presumed to be Grace's boyfriend was shaking his head in denial. The intern breathed in and out, before taking the last step. "We did everything we could, but your daughter ended up passing away during surgery. We're terribly sorry for your loss, Mr and Mrs. Smith."
"No, that can't be."
"This is some kind of cruel joke, isn't it? My fiancée can't be dead. No, this is, no. You're lying to us!" Grace's boyfriend raised his voice, grabbing the attention of people around them. Everyone was staring with sympathy in their eyes. It was never easy hearing that a loved one had passed away.
"You killed my daughter!"
"My fiancée is dead because of you!"
"You murderer!"
"How dare you!"
"My child, my poor baby, is gone!"
The father and fiancé of Grace kept yelling and insulting Courtney, while the mother was in total shock. She was totally silent and had dropped her handbag on the floor. The blonde on the other hand was taking hit by hit as she was being beaten down by some very harsh words. Then, the mother snapped out of her daze and told the other two to shut up. She took a hold of her husband's hand, while grabbing her daughter's fiancé by the wrist. "I think it's time for us to be going. I hope that we never run into you again, doctor Grey."
Courtney watched the heartbroken family walk away from her, while they were still loudly yelling about how horrible Courtney was. She was doing everything in her power to not start crying right there and then. She didn't want anyone to see how broken she truly was and how much their words really hurt her. How much was the universe going to punish her and try to bring her down? Had she not endured enough already? When was all of this going to stop? Was the guilt, constant nightmares and plaguing memories not enough?
Going with her hands through her hair, she turned around and walked away. She then saw George heading her way. He didn't look like he was doing fine, which was understandable. His father had gone into renal failure after all, even though it seemed like he had been doing fine. Once Courtney had heard the news, she didn't know what to do. Should she talk with George and tell him how sorry she was? Did he even want to hear that from her? George didn't spare her a second glance as he walked past her. He seemed furious and hurt at the same time.
"George?"
"Not now."
☤☤☤
Courtney was walking through a hallway, after visiting another patient of hers. They seemed to be doing very well, which brought a smile to the girl's face. At least not all things that Courtney touched broke. She looked up from the ground and saw Thatcher strolling in the distance, a smile on his face. He couldn't be happier that his grandchild was finally doing well. Courtney scratched the back of her head. She had been doing so well, with avoiding him and all, but it seemed that nothing lasted forever. Unfortunately, he spotted her as well and was walking in her direction, since he wanted to talk with her. Courtney, however, wasn't ready for that just yet and ran away in the other direction. She didn't see how his face dropped, after he saw her run away from him. He didn't give up though and decided to follow her.
In her attempt of running away, she spotted a familiar figure, who hadn't seen her just yet. The blonde quickly looked behind her and saw no trace of her father, which was a relief. That didn't mean that she shouldn't be on the look-out though. She wasn't going to let her guard down just yet. "Mark, Mark. Hey!" Courtney rushed over to him and stood in front of him. She positioned herself just right, so that people (which was code for her father) wouldn't see her. Normally, they should just see Mark's broad back.
"Grey?" Mark was about to move a bit to the left, but Courtney quickly stopped him. She placed her hands on his biceps and pushed him back a little. He raised his eyebrows at her, while she mumbled that he had to stay right where he was. He couldn't move an inch. "Am I missing something here?"
"My father has been wandering the hospital since a couple of days ago and until just now I was doing a really good job of avoiding him. But he just saw me and I'm trying, please, could you stay like this? I really don't want to talk to him, please?"
"Father?"
"Yes, that's what I said. I'm not asking much. I just want you to stay like this until I'm sure that he's gone."
"Fine, sure."
They stayed silent for a bit and Courtney inspected his face. "Is something wrong with you? You seem a bit down. Actually, you've been a bit down this entire week. You know that you can talk to me if you want. People have told me that I'm a great listener." She smiled, flipping her hair over her shoulder.
"That's great, really. I appreciate your willingness to listen to me, but I don't want to talk about it right now. I'll find you if I do, okay?"
"Sure."
Courtney moved her head a little to the right to see if her father was anywhere nearby. He was not. How lucky she was. "I heard about the patients cussing you out this afternoon. I hope you know that I have a policy to not befriend murderers. That's just a step too far." Mark joked.
"Very funny. Are you enjoying my pain?" Courtney glared at him, playfully. "Not that I'm about to go admitting this to everyone here, but it did really hurt. It hurt me more than I thought that it would. I knew that it was only their pain and hurt speaking, but still. It felt like they were stabbing me over and over again. Before, I could have handled it and not felt anything, but now. Should I have done something? I don't know."
"From what I heard, you did well. Speaking back to them would have only escalated things. Be glad that they didn't punch you in your beautiful face," Mark said. "There's this thin line between when you should say something and when not to. You choose the right one this time. Don't think about it too much."
"That's going to be a bit hard. They called me a murderer, Sloan. A murderer," She sighed, biting the inside of her lip. With all of what was going on in her life, the incident of that afternoon didn't make things better for her. "What if it's my fault? Ever since I saw my father, I've been unfocused. What if I'm really a murderer that killed their loved one, because I wasn't thinking clearly."
"Look, if you really missed something important, don't you think that the attending in charge would have called you out on it? We're not here to look pretty and smile, you know. We know our stuff and you can be pretty damn sure that we catch intern's mistakes. There's nothing more satisfying than seeing an intern cower in fear before you," Courtney hit him on the shoulder. "Sometimes unexpected things just happen. Not everything is in our control, Grey, no matter how much we want it."
Courtney nodded her head, before looking around to see if her father was anywhere nearby. "I think that I lost him. Even if he was crawling on the floor like a snail, he should have arrived by now. Mission: avoid father is yet again a success!"
"Can I move now? This human statue thing is getting a bit old," Courtney rolled her eyes. "When does your shift end today? Any fun plans that I should be involved in?"
She checked the time on her watch. "In 15 minutes and no, I think I'm going home."
☤☤☤
HELLO!
Another week, another chapter! For like a big part of the chapter, I was feeling so unsure about it and didn't really like what I wrote, but somehow that ended up changing. I'm quite happy with the result and I hope that you are too! We got a big breakthrough today! Courtney is finally going home and I couldn't be more proud of her. She's slowly going back up, but will it last long with all the mess coming up? Because next chapter, Ellis Grey becomes a patient at the hospital and the one after that is the whole ferry crash episode. Phew, things are going to be wild, you guys. I am pretty excited to write it too, because I have been looking forward to writing those big episodes before I even started.
Also, fun fact, at first Courtney was going to talk with her father this chapter. I originally planned for him to catch up to Courtney and Mark would leave, meaning that she would really have to talk to her dear old dad. But then I was writing that last scene and I didn't really feel like it anymore, so we just had some more Martney bonding whoo whoo
Also, also, next week's chapter might be a bit later in the week, since I'm going to be quite busy this weekend and I have to take my driver's test next week on Tuesday, which is a whole thing that makes me v v stressed aaaaaah. Anyway, I hope that you enjoyed this new chapter and please let me know your thoughts!! Reading all your comments really warms my heart!