CHAPTER THREE
winning a battle, losing the war.
season one, episode three.
"GEORGE'S ROOM IS BIGGER THAN MINE!"
Cassie startled awake at the sound of Izzie's screeching, her dream coming to an end just as abruptly. With a groan, she begrudgingly got to her feet, brushing the tangled hair from her face while stumbling out of her bedroom with heavy steps.
Swinging the door open, she was met with what could only be described as chaos; Izzie, who stood in the hallway, mid-scream with her arms crossed tightly over her chest, and George, who seemed to be pressed for time as he simultaneously rushed to get ready and screamed back, and finally Meredith, who'd opened her door only moments after Cassie did.
The two shared an exhausted glare.
"Izzie," Cassie emphasized, her voice coming out far deeper than she intended, "House rules. No yelling before 7 in the morning."
"But it's not fair! I have more clothes, so I should have the bigger room. Tell him, Cassie, tell him that I—"
"No!" George's voice was muffled by the toothbrush in his mouth. "First come, first servfhdj—"
He choked on toothpaste, and even from across the hallway, Cassie caught Meredith roll her eyes.
As hopeful as she was regarding her roommate situation—roommates are like built in friends, so surely it will be significantly better than living in Derek's trailer, because there's no possible way it could be worse—she could admit that maybe, she was being a bit too optimistic.
Maneuvering her way past Izzie, Cassie finally reached their shared bathroom; there were boxes in front of the door, and so with all the strength she could muster, she pushed them out of the way. As she did, George came storming back down the hall, and ran into the boxes with a thud.
The toothbrush fell out of his mouth and onto the carpet. Cassie smiled at him, half-apologetic, and half-wondering if she subconsciously did it on purpose.
George only narrowed his eyes at her before saying loudly. "Hey Izzie, you know, Cass has the biggest room out of all of us, right?"
Izzie paused, and slowly turned her attention onto Cassie, who almost slapped George across the face.
"Yeah, you're right, I have more clothes than her too."
(Okay, so, Cassie had been awake for less than a minute, and she already kind of wanted to kill herself.)
With no other choice, she looked at Izzie.
"If I let you use my closet, will you be quiet?"
"Yes."
Cassie sighed. "Left corner is yours."
"Thanks—wait, only the corner?"
"Ugh! Just put your clothes somewhere else!" George suggested—well, shouted—as he quickly ran into the bathroom to spit into the sink. Cassie followed him, impatiently waiting for him to leave so that she could pee.
"Everywhere else is filled with Meredith's mom's boxes," Izzie argued, despite promising to shut up mere seconds prior. "Meredith? When is your mom coming back to town anyway? Because maybe we can put her boxes in storage or unpack a few things, make this place a little more homey. Maybe some throw pillows and lamps, a few paintings."
"Oh, paintings would be nice," George mused, leaving the bathroom with toothpaste still on his cheek.
"Yeah! You have all this amazing stuff just packed away. In the back hall, I found this box with like a hundred tapes of your mother performing these amazing medical procedures."
"Really? We should watch them."
"Meredith, you want to watch—"
As the two spoke, seemingly forgetting the arguement they were currently in the midst of, Meredith had shimmied her way past them and joined Cassie in the bathroom, when she promptly slammed the door in their faces.
Cassie, who'd quickly given up and decided to just pee with the door open, smiled at her from the toilet.
She didn't say anything, partially because she was peeing and partially because she simply didn't have the energy, and Meredith seemed to appreciate the silence.
The blonde slowly leaned back against the door, sliding to the ground with a cup of hot coffee in her hand that Cassie hadn't noticed her grab. She shut her eyes, half-asleep for several minutes while Cassie cleaned up and brushed her teeth.
After finishing getting ready in record time, she glanced at her through the mirror.
"Want some privacy?"
Meredith sighed longingly, "I wish they were more like you."
Grinning, Cassie turned around, leaning back against the sink. "When we can finally afford this place alone, we're so kicking them out."
"Trust me, you got a deal."
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"I know they're my friends, but Jesus Christ."
Derek actually laughed at Cassie's misery.
They stood at the edge of the parking lot, waiting to cross the busy street. In an attempt to get some brief peace, Cassie had driven herself; the last thing she needed was to be stuck with Izzie and George in yet another enclosed space.
"That bad?"
"Worse than bad," she shook her head, taking a step back from the curb as a stray bicyclist sped closely past her. "Like, I'm from Bed-Stuy, and they're too loud for me, kind of bad."
Her cellphone pinged, and she flipped it open.
Grinning at the text she'd recieved, she quickly began typing back, choosing to ignore how Derek stared over her shoulder at what she wrote. After spending a solid thirty seconds typing no more than 10 words—absentmindedly, she prayed that one day they'd invent a touch-screen for these things—she hit send.
Derek nudged her arm. "How's he doing?"
That was the pressing question; how her step-father was doing, or more specifically, how his heart was doing.
Physically, and metaphorically.
Cassie had lost her mom not even a year ago, but she'd been prepared, as the cancer was a long fight. But her stepfather? He'd lost the love of his life and was at risk of losing his own life, all before the age of 50.
"He's... fine. Sent me a picture of a cat."
"He got a cat?"
"No, I think it lives at a bodega."
Derek hummed, shifting back and forth on feet. Another bicyclist sped by, and Cassie pulled him back from the edge of the curb just in case. Footsteps sounded from behind her, and she looked down to see Bailey waiting to cross the street as well.
"Well, either way, send him my best—"
"Shut up."
Their gazes snapped towards Bailey.
"Excuse m—"
"Shut. Up."
Cassie wasn't sure why a conversation about her sick stepfather warranted such a rude request of silence, but it was Bailey asking, and so she didn't bother questioning it. The last thing she needed was to be put on scut for something as stupid as talking.
Derek didn't have the same qualms.
He tilted his head, oblivious to the fact that Bailey was clearly not listening to a word he said. "You realize that I'm an attending and you're only a resident, right? That you work for me?"
(When the older woman started to mumble to herself, Cassie began to wonder if she was suffering from a psychotic break.)
The crosswalk remained red, and Cassie was beginning to become wildly impatient at the long wait.
"I know I've forgotten something... something is happening today... I know I should know what it is... but I just can't... remember..."
Blinking at her, Cassie and Derek shared a look.
"Alright..." Derek drawled, "Nice talking with you, Dr. Bailey. Great conversation."
Slightly concerned but far too tired to do anything about it, Cassie sent her resident a half-smile, before turning back to face the road.
When the light turned green, Cassie began to walk across the street. All of a sudden, a bunch of people on bikes started to barrel towards her unassuming figure. Before Derek or Bailey could warn her, one of the bicyclists ran directly into her, knocking her off her feet and causing her to hit her head on the concrete, hard.
"Cass!"
The gravel of the road was rough against her skin, but only hurt more when Bailey pulled her back onto the sidewalk, lest she get hit again. Still not entirely sure what happened, Cassie allowed her body to go slightly limp in her hold, wincing when she sat back onto the ground.
(Getting ran over by a bike wasn't even in the top three Most Embarrassing Cassandra Harper Moments, but still, it hurt like a bitch.)
Derek knelt down, brushing the hair out of her face like a concerned brother would. "Oh, that's not good."
"Huh?" Cassie asked dumbly, "What's not—"
Feeling something warm running down the side of her face, Cassie reached up and winced when she touched what felt like a large open wound on her forehead near her hairline. Her fingers were covered in blood, and a lot of it. All she was able to get out was a soft "Ouch," before everything went black.
Somewhere in her subconscious, she was pissed that she got injured in front of Bailey; there was no way in hell she'd be allowed to scrub in on her appendectomy now.
(UGH.)
A vague flash of light was the next thing she saw, only this time, she wasn't outside anymore.
Cassie almost didn't open her eyes. Getting slightly injured was worse than getting really injured, in her opinion. All of the embarrassment, none of the sympathy or gift baskets.
Eyelids fluttering open, she groaned.
A trauma room, at her place of work. Of course.
"Oh, you're awake," Derek's voice came from her right, and she groaned again at the volume. "C'mere, sit up. Can you sit up? Nevermind, just—just look at me."
He shined a bright pen light into her eyes, and Cassie whacked his hand away from her face the moment he did. Derek sighed, taking a step back and crossing his arms over his chest; she ignored him, sitting up straight despite the head rush she got every time she moved.
"Did I get taken out by a fucking bike?"
He steadied her when she wobbled, sighing once more. "Yes, so you really should lay back down—"
"Derek, it's probably just a concussion and a head lack. Chill out," she waved him off. "But seriously, what was that?"
"A bike." Despite the sarcasm in his tone, he focused on her closely, manually moving her legs back and forth and, presumably, making sure they still worked. Next, he squeezed her fingers, and she winced. "Can you feel that?"
"Yes, 'cause it's just a concussion."
Cassie did her best to ignore the severity of it, how she still hadn't been able to focus her vision on any one thing in particular.
In her defense, she'd finally gained some street cred, being invited into OR's to observe procedures and even a few major surgeries. She was fine, and once she got some fluid and ibuprofen in her system, she'd be even better, fine enough to scrub in on Bailey's surgery like she'd planned.
"Still, I want to get you up for a CT just to be sure. And I'll page plastics to get you sewn up."
"I don't need a CT," she rolled her eyes. "So are you going to answer my question or what?"
Derek looked at her funny. "It was a bike, like I said."
Cassie returned the look, though it didn't last long, and scrunching her eyebrows made the side of her head throb even more than usual. "Okay, first of all, that was not just one bike, so don't go around making me look like a loser. Second of all, do you know why hundreds of bikes are speeding through crosswalks and running over pedestrians?"
He shined the light into her eyes once more, and she slapped his hand away, again.
"Something about a race? Like, uh, The Dying Kid Race, or whatever Bailey said."
Pausing, Cassie's eyes widened. Derek frowned again, tilting his head like he was preparing to diagnose her with a brain bleed, or a stroke, or something.
"Do you mean... the Dead Baby Bike Race?"
"Uh, sure? Are you—"
"That's today?!"
"Well," he blinked at her, "Unless another stampede of bicyclists ran you over, then, yes. You've heard of it?"
"You bet your ass I have!" she exclaimed. "I heard there's literally no rules. You can do anything you want — except eye gouging, which sucks — but isn't that crazy?"
(Cassie wasn't sure if it was the excitement in her tone or the sheer size of her pupils, but he stared at her for a few moments before replying evenly—)
"You concern me," Derek deadpanned.
Shrugging, Cassie just sent him a grin.
"Can I go now?"
"No." Derek, for the millionth time since he'd known her and most certainly not the last, gazed at her as if she were crazy. "Not only did you hit your head so hard you lost some skin, but you lost consciousness, Cass. I'm gonna have to admit you for the next 8 hours, at least."
"Eight hours? No, dude, there's gonna be so many surgeries with my name written on them—"
"You want me to make it 24?"
"You can't just—"
Stopping herself short, Cassie's eyes narrowed, a silent you wouldn't dare hidden behind her irises.
Derek looked back at her, his own eyes glaring with the response of oh, I absolutely would, and she hated the fact that he wasn't lying. It was a game they'd play when he'd babysit her all those years ago; despite her being well into her teens, he'd tack on five minutes to her timeout every time she annoyed him, simply because he was in charge, and he could.
With a huff, she slumped down, giving him the win.
Derek smiled at the victory. "Sorry. Here, to make it up to you, I'll page plastics for that cut."
"No, wait," she stopped him. "You think I'm letting one of the plastics interns touch my face? No way. Just hand me a suture kit, I'll do it myself."
"I'll page the head of plastics if it's that big of a deal," he sighed. "You're not getting a needle in your concussed hands, let alone near your eye."
"Yeah, like I trust him any more. He's, like, ninety. Plus, I know how to suture without leaving a scar."
For a moment, Derek's eyes lost their sparkle.
"Who taught you that?"
Cassie raised a brow at him. "Who do you think?"
She would've felt bad, bringing Mark up, if Derek hadn't been so annoying. But she was missing out on a planned surgery and all the traumas coming in, so rather than feeling bad, she sent him a grin when he begrudgingly passed her the suture kit.
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After stitching up her wound and being put in a permanent room for the day, Cassie stayed in bed all of ten minutes before she got up. Making sure to get one of the hospital gowns that was closed all the way around, she grabbed her IV and headed down to the pit to find a case.
Derek had locked up her clothes and her scrubs, the little bitch. So maybe she was a little injured in the head, but surely she could still practice medicine.
Cassie didn't need clothes to do that.
As she passed by a trauma room, she saw Meredith and another intern arguing over a patient.
Almost immediately, she recognized the intern as Alex, who she was certainly not physically attracted to by any means, because that would be gross and she'd rather think about having a one night stand with a woman, if she had a choice.
(It wasn't her fault that Seattle Grace had a severe lack of women who were openly attracted to other women.)
"I am not backing down so I can do sutures all day while you're up in the OR. This is a surgical case, and you know it!"
Cassie didn't know Meredith had the capacity for yelling that loudly, but the blonde seemed to surprise her every day. Besides, she was yelling at Alex, who was the most annoying-guy-you-just-can't-get-rid-of ever.
She didn't blame her.
"It's superficial," the guy shrugged with a smirk. Cassie found it quite hot, internally cursing herself for only being attracted to egotistical assholes. "I mean, it's cool, but it's superficial."
"How do you know? Those things easily could've ruptured his peritoneum—"
"Yeah, they could've, except that he's sitting up, and he's sitting there talking to us!"
Cassie wasn't sure if she wanted to slap him for being wrong, or agree with him so that she could steal the case once they'd both moved on. Regretfully, despite her head wound, she put the patient's needs first.
(Maybe next time, she'd be selfish.)
"Meredith is right," Cassie said from the doorway, one hand holding herself upright on the wall and the other on her IV.
Alex turned to raise his voice at her, but stopped short, looking her up and down with his jaw halfway open.
It was in that moment Cassie realized how insane she looked; standing in a doorway in a crowded ER, wearing a hospital gown, fuzzy socks, and wheeling around a banana bag.
Beside Alex, Meredith sighed. "Cassie, what—"
"You get run over by a truck, or something?"
Alex cut her off, visibly taking Meredith's last nerve and lighting it on fire with a flamethrower. Cassie scoffed at the question, crossing her arms over her chest as she muttered inaudibly—
"No! ... It was a bike."
He laughed, and she rolled her eyes.
"A bike—?"
"No—multiple bikes, it—whatever. It's no big deal."
"If it's no big deal then why are you in a hospital gown?" Alex cocked a brow.
"I'm sorry, I don't remember asking you to speak." She turned to Meredith, "Did I ask him to speak?"
The blonde responded with an amused shake of her head, putting her hatred for Alex above her friend's wellbeing. Again, Cassie didn't blame her; she would've done the same thing, if Meredith had been the one run over by a stampede of insane people on bicycles.
"Cassandra Lynn Harper," Cassie heard from behind her.
"Crap."
The fact that Miranda Bailey took the time to memorize her full name was frightening enough, but when she turned around to face the scowl on the older woman's face, she genuinely considered making a break for it.
Absentmindedly, she remembered that she couldn't run in fuzzy socks without falling, and cursed herself for not stealing some of the grippy ones from Psych.
"What part of you're on bedrest do you not understand?" Bailey lectured, her hands on her hips while she slowly approached the interns with a menacing step. "Back to your room. Now."
"Technically, no one ever said bedrest—"
"Cassandra Ly—"
"Okay, I'm going!"
Bailey nodded once, sparing a suspicious glare towards the other two interns—as well as the patient, who hadn't said a single word—and unapologetically left her with the fear of God instilled into her psyche.
(God, as in Bailey.)
With a huff, Cassie left the room, but not before sending a sly wink to Alex; after all, it had been far too long since she'd gotten laid.
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Cassie did not, in fact, go back to her room.
Several hours were spent carefully avoiding her resident, Derek, and basically every other attending; spotting a stack of charts on a nurses desk, she decided to fill them out, just to help with the load. Some other nurses noticed, and slyly requested that she fill out theirs, too.
Cassie agreed, so long as they paged her first the next time they needed a resident.
Like the Chief said on her first day; it was all a game, in the end, and Cassie was plenty competitive.
"So, she's a rule breaker, huh?"
Alex hovered over where she sat, on the opposite side of the nurses station. Cassie looked up at him, uncurling herself from her criss-crossed position on one of the rolling chairs, and tilted her head.
"I follow the rules... when they make sense."
"Well, don't work too hard, or whatever," he shrugged, and his eyes bore into her own, "I don't feel like going to a funeral anytime soon."
Cassie squinted, setting her pencil down on top of the charts in her lap. Leaning forwards a bit, she smiled, and he instinctively leaned forward along with her. In the back of her mind, Cristina's previous sentiment of "He wants to bone you" rang true.
"Aw, if I didn't know any better, I'd think you cared about little old me."
Alex scoffed a laugh, moving backwards to stand up straight once again. "You think too highly of me."
"If I, of all people, think too highly of you, that says a lot about your character—"
Her reply was cut off swiftly, as George suddenly came racing around the corner, quickly collapsing in the chair beside her and slouching so he couldn't be seen.
"Help me."
Cassie looked around, seeing nothing but doctors and the occasional patient accompanied by a doctor. The way the man's chest was heaving, she'd think there was a shooter loose, or something.
"What's wrong with you?"
Across from them, Alex seemed to lose interest in the conversation the second George showed up.
"I'm hiding from the Chief's V.I.P. patient, 'cause he likes me, and I—I—sorry, you're aware that you're wearing a hospital gown, right? What happened to you?"
With an air of insecurity, Cassie reached up to touch the thick cloth taped over her head wound, which was beginning to sting once again now that the pain meds had begun to wore off.
"It's nothing."
Alex snorted. "Girl Genius got ran over."
George blinked. "I—"
"It's nothing," she rolled her eyes, "Whatever, go back to your thing. He likes you, so why are you hiding? Isn't that good?"
With one last glare towards the bandage on her forehead, George let it go, presumably because he cared more about his predicament at the moment.
"No, he likes me likes me."
"Oh. Is... is he cute?"
Eyes narrowing, he replied evenly, "He's 62."
Cassie shrugged. "Wouldn't stop me."
Truth be told, she had yet to meet a man under 30 who was as intelligent as she was, let alone as mature; that being said, mature may not be the best word for a woman wandering around the hospital for hours on end wearing nothing but a thin cloth and batman underwear.
(Normally, she was mature. Usually. Okay, sometimes, when it mattered. When she wasn't concussed.)
"Go for it, man, get yours," Alex nodded in encouragment, giving his fellow intern a thumbs up. "I'm down with the rainbow."
"I'm not gay!" George exclaimed.
"You're not?" he laughed. "Dude, sorry."
Cassie laughed as well, before saying, "I wish you were, honestly. I'm surrounded by too many straight people, it's exhausting."
George bristled, slouching further down into his seat, and she took a moment to watch him.
Honestly, it surprised her that he wasn't gay. Her gaydar had never been off—even when Addison vehemently denied ever kissing a woman, Cassie knew she was lying—and of all people to be wrong about, George being one of them was a shock.
Then again, watching the way he stuttered uncontrollably and shifted uncomfortably any time the mere idea of being gay was brought up, she found herself thinking. Maybe he couldn't accept it about himself, yet, but Cassie knew that when he did, she'd be there.
(Not everyone was lucky enough to be raised by a mother who didn't use pronouns when discussing potential crushes.)
Her musings came to an end when Cristina approached them, not batting an eye at the state of her. Cassie assumed that Meredith had already filled her in.
"How's the head, Cass?"
"Never had any complaints."
Alex shook his head at her, a lopsided grin coming across his face when he mused, "Oh, I'm sure."
Cassie tilted her chin up at him. "I mean, I can prove it, if you don't believe me—?"
George stopped his grumbling to whack her in the side of the arm with a rolled up piece of paper.
"Hey. Hospital. Keep it PG."
Cassie stole the paper from his hands and whacked him back. "Tell that to your V.I.P. boyfriend."
"I am not gay!" George snapped, turning back to Cristina with a heavily restrained, "Hey, do you or Meredith think I'm gay?"
Cristina spared a glance at Cassie, who shrugged.
"Are you?"
"No."
"Really?" she raised a brow in surprise, earning a death glare from George.
Almost as if she were in a horror movie, all of a sudden, the hairs on the back of Cassie's neck rose; like she could sense a presence behind her, watching her, waiting for her notice them so that they could—
"Oh fuck," Cassie blurted, seeing Bailey looking straight at her with her hands on her hips. Without another word, she ran — well, more like sped walked since she was still dizzy — back to her room before she was murdered by her resident.
Tomorrow. She could practice medicine tomorrow.
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After a long day of doing absolutely nothing worthwhile, Cassie was home.
Derek did end up giving her a CT scan, before she left. Cassie was absolutely not surprised to see that nothing was wrong, and that she was right, as usual.
George and Izzie drove her back, since Derek was still adamant that she not drive, or walk, or go outside when it was sunny, or do anything that could hurt her more than she already was. The ache in her head only got worse throughout the day, and no amount of ibuprofen seemed to cure it entirely.
Cristina had joined them, for some reason, and Cassie suspected that Izzie had lured her into their home under the guise of watching Ellis Grey's old medical tapes they'd found the night before.
Just as she was about to walk through the front door, she stopped. Something urged her to grab her phone, and so she did, dialing the all too familiar number.
Cassie motioned towards the device when Izzie turned around to make sure she was okay, signaling that she was going to outside.
"Hey, Bubbles."
The voice echoed through the speakers against her ear, and Cassie couldn't help but feel her headache extend down to her chest when it did.
"Hi, Den."
"What's up, kiddo? You alright?"
It was funny, that she hadn't been homesick for weeks, until she finally heard her stepfather's voice again.
"Yeah, uh," Cassie sniffled, not even realizing that she'd been tearing up until then, "Yeah, why do you ask?"
"Well, you're calling me at... three in the morning... so I'm gonna assume you either forgot about timezones, or your plane is going down and you're calling to say your final goodbye."
Choking on a laugh, she shook her head at him, even if he couldn't see it. "Yeah, no, the second one, obviously."
The line went quiet.
Cassie knew Denny like the back of her hand, but he knew her just as well. She got busy, and would more often than not forget to call and instead settle on a text or a low-quality picture to let him know she was still alive; when she called, it was because she needed something. Someone.
"What happened?"
It was stupid, because she was fine, but a single, stray tear slid down her cheek anyways.
"Um, I got—I hit my head, earlier, and it was bleeding, and I'm totally fine, 'cause Derek was there, and I actually stitched myself up which was super cool, but, um—"
"Give me a minute."
He always managed to read her mind, and she wished he could've moved across the country with her, in that moment.
True to his word, about a minute of silence passed before a record scratch on the opposite line caught her attention, the familiar song playing too softly through her phone only moments later.
It was a song her mom used to sing, when she'd get hurt.
Cassie almost forgot what the original version sounded like, when it wasn't coming from her mother's strawberry-stained lips.
("You... you make lovin' fun...")
"Fleetwood Mac is the cure for all," she joked into the speaker, but Denny didn't respond right away, allowing her to listen for a little while longer. She imagined that he was on the opposite end of the call, doing the same thing; swaying in place, eyes closed and heart heavy.
("And I don't have to tell you, but you're the only one...")
Somehow, whether it was a placebo or Stevie Nicks actually had magical powers, the ache dissipated.
Cassie smiled, opening her eyes when she saw Meredith's car pull up into the driveway.
"Hey, uh, I gotta go. Call me tomorrow?"
Denny must've fallen asleep for a moment, because he responded with a groggy, "Mhm. Love ya, Bubbles. Night."
The line clicked off, and she was met with silence once again. It was more peaceful, this time around.
Meredith's steps slowed when she saw that Cassie was standing outside the front door, and she put her keys back into her purse. Cassie smiled, ignoring the fact that the evidence of tears was surely noticeable on her cheeks.
"You okay?"
It was a simple question, and for the first time that day, Cassie could answer it honestly.
"Yeah. I was just about to go in."
Meredith looked at her for a second, allowing her to say more if she felt like it, before continuing inside. Cassie followed her, only half-expecting the scene they walked into.
Izzie, George, and Cristina sat across the couch, eating popcorn and watching what seemed to be a laparoscopic cholecystectomy.
They paused, staring at Meredith with wide eyes.
Cristina scrambled to find the remote to turn it off, all while George and Izzie hid the popcorn behind their backs, which had the opposite effect as intended, as it tipped over and spilled across the floor where Meredith had just vacuumed the night before.
"We were—we were just—Izzie made us!"
The girl in question punched George in the arm. "Traitor!"
Slowly, a smile overtook Meredith's features.
"What are we watching?"
The entire room let out a sigh of relief.
As the night progressed, with Cassie seated between Cristina and George, Izzie on the recliner, and Meredith on the floor, the house Cassie moved into had finally begun to feel like home.
author's note ━━━━━━━━━━
i forgot how silly this fic is in the first
few seasons... and i also forgot how to
write happiness so you see why this
chapter ended up taking so long!
also, in case you missed it, i published
my CODING-verse lexie grey fic! it's
called LAST KISS, and stars our favorite
intern rue <3