warnings

descriptions of PTSD and its effects on briar; dissociation, anger, suicidal thoughts (no actions or attempts)

discussion of religion in a non-positive light by a grieving character. I want to preface this chapter with the fact that I respect all religions, truly. briar is grieving and angry and doesn't want to hear about a divine plan after so much suffering, and she lashes out. this is a very real trauma reaction and is because of trauma, not a general hatred of religion.

✦

They're rescued on the fourth day.

Briar only knows that it's the fourth day because Cristina has kept track. They're huddled together, Meredith and Derek sleeping next to them. Briar has just finished examining Derek's hand, resentment growing with every moment that passes without him, Arizona and Mark getting proper medical care.

Her stomach contracts again, her right hand flying to cover it. Cristina tracks the movement.

"You know, I'd happily eat a horse right now." Cristina states, her voice shredded. There's been a lot of screaming and crying, and Briar is pretty sure that drinking her own pee didn't help hydrate her. "I never understood that saying before."

"I thought I did." Briar says softly, wincing at a particularly rough contraction. At some point previously her hunger had her dry heaving, her body going crazy with all the mixed signals she's giving it. The poor thing is trying to heal her while she starves and dehydates it. "I . . . I would go hungry a lot, growing up. I'd make food for my brother and never leave enough for myself, or I'd feel too sick to eat. I kind of hate myself for it now."

She would kill for one of those struggle meals right now. Back when she would dig through the kitchen and assemble something edible out of anything she could find, even if it was stale or didn't go together, she always labeled it a struggle meal. Briar would happily eat even the most disgusting food right now: she'd go dumpster diving with joy.

She thought she knew hunger then, but she had no idea. Back then she was still getting some sustenance: chugging mugs of black coffee in place of food, eating what the school would provide, slowly working through a bag of chocolate chips or whatever else she found buried in the cabinets. She's never felt hunger like this, the kind that lives in her bones and is tearing her apart from the inside out, the only thing she can think about, making her shake and shake and shake.

She should get them all more water.

She can't even sit up, let alone walk, and she's not sure she remembers where that creek was to begin with.

"If we don't get rescued soon, I might eat you." Briar tells Cristina, who huffs out a noise that's almost amused. Almost a laugh. "It's not personal."

"Please, if anyone's eating anyone, I'm eating you." Cristina scoffs, shaking her head. "I can't eat Mer."

"We have to spare Derek for Meredith." Briar continues, knowing that they're having the same train of thought.

"We haven't put in all this work to keep Mark alive just to kill him."

"And Sofia needs all the parents she can get." Briar says softly, looking over at Mark and Arizona. They're huddled together in the cockpit, Mark lying on Arizona's lap. She'd insisted on it. "And..."

And Lexie's already dead. Lexie's already being eaten.

She's dry heaving as soon as the thoughts enter her head, leaning forward and letting out a sob at the burst of pain from her chest, her bruised body not liking the torture she's putting it through. Cristina's hand is freezing when she puts it on her neck, bunching her hair and holding it away from her face.

They're developing frostbite.

When her body finally stops, the only contractions being the now normal hunger ones, Briar falls back and stares at the sky. If she wasn't so dehydrated, she's sure she would be crying again, but she doesn't think she has any tears left.

When she hears it, she thinks she's hallucinating again. She's imagined them being rescued so many times, jolting up to the sound of helicopter rotors that don't exist.

"Cris . . ." She starts, about to beg Cristina to knock her out. She can't live through this again, she just can't. The noise grows louder, Cristina jolting up from next to her, and Briar squints when a bright light shines on them. She doesn't have the strength to put a hand up and block the light, instead just gaping at the helicopter above them.

They're rescued on the fourth day.

✦

Briar gets her wish, getting knocked unconscious by the paramedic team. She fights them as they struggle to place the IV, her body too dehydrated for them to find a vein easily. She doesn't want to get on the helicopter.

She changed her mind. She likes the woods, really. She's never been camping before, and she'd much rather stay on the ground then fly in the sky, where engines can fail and break apart and send her flying out the hole in the side and kill her best friend and–

They sedate her.

✦

She wakes up screaming for Mark.

There are hands on her, pushing and pulling and hurting, and she can hear herself sobbing as she tries to get away from them. The lights are blinding and her head is pounding and her injuries have their own heartbeats and strangers are touching her.

There's a shout of pain and a crashing noise, and then her hands are being yanked down and when she tries to move them, she can't.

Panic tightens her vocal chords as she keeps screaming–for Mark, for Arizona, for Lexie–all while an aggravating beeping fills the room. People are talking to her, faces swimming in front of her, but she can't make sense of what they're saying. They aren't who she wants to see.

"Alex. Where–Where's Alex?" She asks, frantic, her head whipping around as her hands form fists. She needs Alex. He always, always knows how to calm her down. He'll be able to fix this. He'll be able to fix her.

She wouldn't be restrained if Alex was here.

"I need–I need to s–see Lexie." She tells them. "We were–we were on a plane. Mark kept–is he alive? He kept dying. Lexie–Lexie should be with him."

Lexie always wants to be with him. He deserves to have Lexie with him.

"He needs–he needs Lexie." She tells them, annoyed when water hits her lips, a salty taste filling her mouth. She needs them to listen to her, and she doesn't think they will if she's crying. Why is she crying? "Mer–she's her sister. She needs her sister. Where's Lexie?"

She can hear them talking now, the ringing in her ears stopping–and when did that start?–and being replaced by familiar noises: machines beeping in ways that have her wanting to fix whoever's hurt but her hand is held down when she tries to move.

"Doctor–"

"Need–calm–"

They're not listening.

"Go get Lexie." She orders, her voice breaking. "And–and Callie. Arizona needs Callie, and I need–"

"Doctor Sinclair, there was a plane crash–" A voice says, loud and firm, and Briar is gone, her voice trailing off before she can say Jackson's name.

A plane crash.

"We're not supposed to be this close to the ground."

Mark dying. Briar laughing until she cries when she finds a lone blueberry bush. Cristina screaming when she popped her shoulder into place. Jerry laughing at her jokes while she tightens the c-collar, trying to distract him. Meredith splitting her last piece of gum. Derek playing tic-tac-toe with her in the dirt with his good hand. Arizona comforting Mark while her femur sticks out of her leg, her face tight with pain. Meredith sobbing next to . . .

Lexie.

Lexie, choking on her own blood. The color staining her teeth, her face, her hands. Lexie, telling them that she was dying. Lexie, self-diagnosing. Lexie, telling her that she loves her, and making her promise to tell Meredith and Zola. Lexie, whose last words to her were "find Derek." Lexie, dying in agony.

Dying.

Dying.

Dead.

✦

"I had them remove the restraints, so please don't make me regret it by punching me in the face." A long pause, weighed down by heavy sighs. "I taught you everything you know. So I know that you know that I know you're awake. You aren't fooling anyone, and I'm no damn fool."

Another sigh.

"You worked yourself into a panic attack before Webber and I could get here. Knocked yourself unconscious. You've been out for a few hours, although you–you still have dark circles under your eyes. You're not really fitting your name, Sleeping Beauty. So, we, uh, we're gonna sedate you until we can get you back to Seattle. Meredith didn't think any of you would want to be awake while flying–"

A loud beeping fills the room while fear fills Briar up.

"Yeah, that's what we thought." Bailey lets out another sigh, and now that Briar is paying attention, she can feel her hand on hers. "You're going to be okay. We've got you. I've got you. You–you've always been one of my easier kids. Izzie was running around cutting LVADs and Alex was fighting everyone who walked through those doors and George . . . you've always been easy. In control. But you–you can let go now. Let me take it from here."

Briar lightly squeezes Bailey's hand, trying to say thank you when she's too groggy to form the words herself, and then she's out again.

✦

When Briar wakes up next, she's in Seattle, and Jackson is with her. She wakes up slowly, feeling like she's wading through molasses, and frowns in disgust at the taste in her mouth. It takes her a long moment to recognize Jackson, sleeping in a chair next to her with his head lying on her bed, his right hand holding her knee above the hospital sheets.

It only takes a look around the room for the memories to come flooding back, and she tenses, her heart rate picking up before she forces herself to breathe, not wanting to wake up Jackson. He looks exhausted and, although gorgeous, he's unkempt compared to the normal Jackson Avery standard: his hair growing out, stubble forming on his chin, and a deep furrow between his brows even in his sleep.

How long has it been?

Despite wanting him to sleep, she wants to see his green eyes more.

"Jackson." She tries, frowning when the word comes out in a whisper, her voice sounding worse than it had in the woods. It only increases her urgency to wake him up: she needs water desperately. Instead of speaking again, she slowly shifts until she can reach his cheek, poking him until he grumbles and shifts away from the touch.

A second later, realization has him jolting up.

His eyes widen when they see her awake, joy and despair mingling on his face as he shoves himself up, his hands hovering over her as if he's too scared to touch her yet desperate to. She smiles, ignoring the way it wavers and her eyes fill with tears, and then he's leaning in and pulling her in for a hug.

Briar doesn't recognize the noise that leaves her as soon as her face is buried in his neck. It's brutal and animalistic, somewhere between a sob and a scream. He holds her tighter, shushing her as he rocks her slightly, one hand on her back and the other in her hair. The rocking reminds her of her self-soothing, reminds her of the wolves and Lexie and she's sobbing with a vengeance, tearing up her throat even more with every noise that's ripped from her.

"I thought–I thought I was gonna di–die out there." She chokes out, hearing Jackson sniffle himself. She hadn't realized he was crying until then, but now she feels the way his hand shakes as he cards it through her hair. "I didn't think I'd see you again."

He pulls back and she fights him, panic surging at the thought of him not holding her. He quiets her gently, pushing back until he can cup her face in his hands, his thumb brushing away her tears even as they continue falling. Any strength she'd held onto in the woods is gone now, and she feels off-kilter now that she's back in the real world.

Only four days and she somehow feels irrevocably changed.

How is that possible?

"You're alive." Jackson tells her firmly, forcing her to look into his eyes, the green clearer through the shine of his tears. "You came back to me. You fought and you survived."

He lets his right hand drop to her hands, holding them up for her to see all of the cuts and scrapes and bruises covering it. Some of the deeper ones are bandaged up, and there's a line of stitches curving up from her elbow that she recognizes as Jackson's.

"All of these cuts show me just how hard you fought." He tells her softly, pressing a kiss to one of the darker bruises. "I–I don't know what I thought, when you didn't answer my phone calls. I just kept telling myself you were busy, that it was a huge surgery. When Hunt–when we were told that you never made it there, I thought I was gonna pass out. I mean, the fear that hit me–but you don't need to hear about all that. I'm sorry."

He closes himself off, not wanting to make this about him, and Briar frowns. Her protest is destroyed by her voice, and next thing she knows, Jackson is surging off the bed. His hands shake while he gets her a cup of water, placing a straw in it. He has to hold it for her–both the cup and the straw–and he pulls it back way earlier than Briar would like. Her protest gets a wince from Jackson, but he's insistent that she'll be sick if she drinks too much too soon.

She knows that he's right, but it still kills her to watch him pull it back.

"I need antibiotics." She blurts out, surprising both of them. Her voice is still hoarse, but she doesn't feel like she's tearing her vocal chords out as she speaks anymore, the water starting to soothe her throat. "I, uh, I drank out of this really gross creek. I don't–who knows what kind of bacteria I drank. I need–I need–"

"Woah, hey, you're okay." Jackson pushes forward, cupping her face again. "You're already on some, don't worry. Your doctor knows a thing or two about what he's doing."

She thinks he means himself for a second–he did stitch up her arm–before a voice echoes into the room before entering.

"Hey, so, Arizona is–oh my freakin god!"

Briar's crying again as soon as she hears Alex.

✦

She makes the two of them update her on everyone. Derek is being evaluated for surgery on his hand, where he'll hopefully get function out of it again. Cristina is in a bad mental state. Meredith is physically fine, emotionally shattered. Mark is unconscious and being examined by Owen. Arizona's leg is just as bad as Briar thought, and they're battling an infection. Alex hedges around the subject, not wanting to admit that she could end up losing her leg, but Briar knows that it's a possibility if the infection spreads. Guilt sits heavy in her stomach.

Like a hypocrit, she calls Alex out for his own guilt.

"Don't be an idiot." She tells him scathingly. "You didn't force her on that plane."

"Yeah, whatever." He brushes her off. He's sitting next to her on the bed, refusing to be at any distance from her. Jackson is back in his chair, holding her left hand, while Alex holds her right one. "You want more water?"

It's a clear distraction, but Briar takes it.

She falls unconscious with the straw still in her mouth.

✦

Briar spends a week mostly asleep.

She wakes up for short periods where they force her to drink and eat, and then she's out again. They remind her that it's normal, that she pushed her body and mind to the limit by staying awake for four days, that she's injured. Her body is pressing pause.

When she wakes up, her mind doesn't get the memo to press play.

Even without painkillers, she feels drugged. Her mind is fuzzy. She feels like someone is controlling her, pulling the strings like she's nothing more than a marionette doll.

Someone makes her open her mouth when they bring food in, even though she throws it up more often than not on the first days. Ironically, she feels the most attentive when she's curled over an emesis basin, like her brain correlates throwing up to the plane crash now and needs her to be aware. Survival instincts.

Someone makes her look attentive to the people constantly moving in and out of her room, although she fails at this more than she succeeds. Her visitors don't seem to mind, talking to themselves until they leave. Sometimes she'll blink while someone is talking and find them gone when she opens her eyes.

Someone makes her live. She wishes they would stop.

✦

It takes a week for the haze to clear, and she immediately wants it back.

April is her visitor of the day, and she continues talking to herself without realizing that Briar is awake. Briar lets her, trying to force herself back to sleep, not liking the physical and mental pain that comes with waking up now.

"–and honestly, I've been super jealous." April says, laughing at herself. "Like, of you in general, I guess."

Briar is intrigued now, opening her eyes. April isn't looking at her, instead just staring down at her hands, sitting next to her bed.

"It's hard not to be. I mean, everyone here respects you. The nurses have a framed photo on the desk of you striking with them, that's how much history you have with everyone here. The Chief always asks you what you think before he changes anything in the pit, while I just get the memo that something's changing. Callie loves you and plans her surgeries around your schedule, even if she won't admit that. I've been ordered to switch your schedule around when she finds a cool case, 'cause she says that she works better with you in the room with her."

Briar can't help but smile to herself. She didn't know that Callie did that.

"I so badly wanted to be a trauma surgeon, but I failed, and you didn't. You have more job offers than I could dream of while Hunt rescinded his offer. I can't even work here anymore while you get baskets delivered, everyone wanting a dual-certified surgeon on their staff. Honestly, I've been sitting around and moping about how perfect your life is while you were in a plane crash. What does that say about me? And I–I know that Jesus would tell me why this happened if I could just hear him, but I can't, and–"

"If you're implying that your god made this happen to me, I might actually hit you."

Her words fill the room harshly, yet there's no satisfaction in the way April jumps in shock, looking horrified when she meets Briar's gaze.

"That's not–I mean, I–" She stutters, ripping her gaze away when Briar narrows her eyes, suddenly glad that the haze is gone. It makes room for the anger building in her chest. "You know how religious I am. I can't help it. I don't–I don't know how to talk to Jesus right now, but I know that he knows what he's doing and I know he'll help heal–"

"Oh, he knows what he's doing?" She checks, a scornful laugh leaving her. April flinches back, but Briar isn't done. "Did he know what he was doing when he killed Lexie?"

"I–I–"

"Did he know what he was doing when he made her die in so much pain she couldn't breathe properly?" She forces on, some ugly part of her enjoying the way that April looks sick at her words. Good. Someone else can feel as horrified with life as she does. "When he had her so hurt that she–she was crushed under the weight of the plane? When she–she told me that she couldn't feel her left arm, so it'd probably been cut off?"

April is crying.

It only makes Briar angrier.

"Don't talk to me about some Divine Plan when Lexie is dead. She died! She died and–and I had to listen to animals fight over her body, and I can't–I can't listen to you talk about your relationship with a god that I don't believe in." April lets out a whimper, and Briar's chest feels inflamed, her anger eating away at her from the inside out. Tearing through her to reach anyone it can, with April as the first victim.

"I don't care that you're jealous of me, or that you didn't pass your stupid fucking boards." She spits out, needing this anger out of her. "Maybe you shouldn't have talked about having sex with the administrators, and you wouldn't be out of a job. That's no one's fault but your own, so stop having a pity party in my room when LEXIE IS DEAD!"

April rushes out of the room with a string of apologies, no doubt running for comfort. Even if she goes to Jackson, Briar can't bring herself to care.

The anger feels almost as good as the numbness did.

✦

Briar gets discharged after she passes the hospital's tests. She's given strict care instructions for her ribs, for the burns on her arm, for the other injuries–the cuts, the bruises, the frostbite on her toes–and told to come back if there's any complications. She's told to heal at her own pace.

She's told that her job will be waiting for her whenever she's ready.

She doesn't say anything to Owen, but she's not sure she wants to come back.

✦

Jackson brings her home, carrying in her bags and talking about making dinner. She doesn't suggest anything: as much as she dreamed about food out in the woods, her appetite is gone now.

He doesn't protest when she locks herself in her room, curling up in her bed by herself and crying into her pillow.

He leaves a bowl of soup outside of her door for her. She doesn't eat it.

An hour later, after a quick phone call to Derek, she's packing her bags and temporarily moving into the Dream House. She feels like she can't breathe here, where she's surrounded by Lexie everywhere she turns.

She understands why Meredith hasn't been back.

✦

Lexie's funeral is a blur.

She thinks she gives a speech, although she only remembers the look on Meredith's face. Complete and total grief.

She thinks people talk to her. She doesn't remember anything they tell her, more focused on making it through the night in one piece.

She thinks she eats, if only to have an excuse to not speak to people. She can't talk if she's eating the little appetizers they have during the wake, which is held on the same day, right before they walk into the church.

She remembers thinking that she probably shouldn't be in a church, given her recent exchange with April. Miraculously—or maybe it's a punishment—she isn't striked down as soon as she steps foot inside.

She remembers thinking three hours and I can leave. Two more hours and it's respectable to leave. Only one more hour. Thirty minutes.

Lexie's casket is closed.

When she realizes why that decision was made, she ends up curled over a toilet, which is how she learns that she managed to eat that day after all. Meredith finds her in the bathroom, locking the door behind her and sitting down on the ground next to her. They don't speak.

Meredith is wearing the same dress she wore to George's funeral. Briar is too. She'd borrowed it from Lexie then and never returned it.

She thinks she might burn it after today.

She thinks it might be cursed.

✦

The night of Lexie's funeral, Briar wakes up crying.

Derek wakes up when Briar slowly pushes his bedroom door open, squinting at her from the bed before he waves her over. He doesn't say anything, simply scooting to the middle of the bed. His eyes are tired, and there are tear tracks on both his and Meredith's faces, and Briar thinks that they're the only ones who can understand how she feels right now.

Meredith doesn't wake up when Briar crawls into bed with them, settling down on the other side of Derek. He gives her some of the blanket and she thanks him in a whisper, the first and only words they say to each other. The overhead lights are on, no doubt due to Meredith, who has developed a sudden fear of the dark.

Neither of them fall back asleep.

✦

She sits in the gallery for all of the surgeries on Derek's hand, watching Callie work her magic.

In between the operations, she visits Mark, who is steadily declining. Jackson joins her a lot of the time, along with Derek and Callie, and they keep up a steady conversation with him despite him being unconscious. Jackson updates him on his patients, Derek updates him on his hand and gossip in the hospital, Callie updates him on Sofia.

Briar doesn't talk. She has nothing to say.

The others have all gone back to work, and Cristina has even gone to Minnesota to work at Mayo. Briar is the only one who can't, and she feels like her timeline to come back is narrowing in on her. Owen won't give her a deadline, but how long until he gives up on her? How long until the offer is no longer there?

✦

Mark wakes up.

He really wakes up. He makes sleazy comments to an intern. He talks about patients with Jackson. He tells Briar to get her shit together and get in an O.R.

Briar, stupidly, gets her hopes up. Jackson, Derek and Callie do too. They insist that this is him, that it's not the Surge, that last burst of energy terminal patients have where they reflect on their life and hand out advice before passing.

Briar knows as soon as Jackson gets kicked out of the room, ordered to bring Sofia to Mark, that this is it. He's Surging.

How many times did she resuscitate him, out in the woods?

What was the point?

Every step she takes feels weighed down by lead, but she forces herself into his hospital room. Richard walks with her, and she's thankful to not be alone for this.

With Jackson gone, Mark doesn't try putting up a brave front. He looks exhausted, his head tilted back on his pillow, panting.

"Is this what I think it is?" He asks them, watching as they enter the room. Briar moves straight to his left side, sinking into the chair by his bed while Richard moves to the other side.

"There's no way to know." Richard says, although he had been the most insistent that he was Surging. "We'll just . . . take it as it comes."

"Don't tell Callie. She's about to operate on Derek." Mark murmurs, his voice breathy. Weak.

"Okay."

"Derek doesn't need to go into surgery worried, so don't say anything to him."

Richard carefully adjusts his nasal cannula before lowering his bed down.

"They can reschedule the surgery, Mark." Richard tries to convince him, but he's always been stubborn. "I'm sure they'd want to."

"No." The word is firm, the loudest Mark has managed to speak since they entered the room. "That surgery's gonna get Derek back into the O.R. where he belongs. Nobody's got better hands than him, except maybe Callie. Have you looked at her hands? They're beautiful. Sofia has her hands. Callie . . . really doesn't even know how good she is. Sometimes you wish people . . . would just see themselves the way you do. Listen to me . . . this the Surge talking?"

"No, this is you." Richard tells him, leaning forward to grab Mark's shoulder. Briar wipes at her cheeks before moving herself, grabbing his hand and squeezing it. "This is all you. So keep going 'cause we're not going anywhere."

When Mark turns to her, Briar forces herself to stay where she is. She wants to run far away from that look in his eyes. She can't do this again. She can't lose another friend.

She doesn't have a choice.

She stays.

"You gotta–you gotta take care of Jackson. He's soft." Mark whispers, and Briar nods, her heart clenching. "It's a good thing, but he–he needs you to look after him. You're good at that. You . . . you looked after me out there in the woods, and you–you're so good with Sofia. You were our first pick for godmother, you know? The only pick in my eyes."

"She'll be down here soon." Briar says softly, wanting him to hold on. Needing him to hold on.

"Don't . . . don't feel guilty." Mark tells her, his fingers twitching around her own. An attempt at a squeeze. "I–I know you, and it's not your fault that–that she didn't . . . it's not your fault. She's waiting for me."

"Of course she is." Briar chokes out, her throat closing around the words. "It was always you."

✦

"'In the event that my heart stops beating and I stop breathing, I want to be resuscitated.'" Richard reads off of the form on his clipboard. They're helping Mark fill out his emergency healthcare directive.

Briar has helped patients go through this form dozens of times, and it never gets easier, but it's never been harder than it is right now.

"Well, don't go crazy, but . . . if you can get me back, yeah, get me back."

"I have a pretty good track record." Briar jokes softly, receiving a small smile from Mark at her words.

"I don't know, Yang was almost tied."

"Yeah, well, look around. Yang isn't here." Briar sniffs, fake haughty. "You're stuck with me and my CPR abilities."

"I'm in good hands, then." Mark tells her softly, and Briar swallows thickly, almost relieved when Richard clears his throat and continues down the list.

"Initial here." He directs Mark. "'In the event that I am close to death and life support would only postpone that moment of my death, I, A: want to receive tube feeding, B: I want tube feeding only as my physician recommends, and C: I do not want tube feeding.' Initial one."

Briar isn't sure she wants to know which option he chose.

"This section specifies a time of withdrawal of care. 'Life-sustaining care shall be withdrawn if signs of recovery are not seen after a period of . . .'"

"30 days."

Richard writes that down while Briar blinks up at the ceiling, fighting back tears.

Mark scribbles his signature, and the floodgates open for Briar, tears streaming down her face. She doesn't realize that she's moving until she's standing over Mark, leaning down to press a kiss to his forehead. She remembers doing the same to Lexie when she was dying, and the reality comes crashing down on her: she's really losing both of them.

"Mark, I–I want you to fight. For Sofia, for Callie, for Arizona, for me and Derek and Jackson and–and everyone who loves you. For you. But I–I know that it's selfish to ask you to do that when you've been fighting for so long already, and when–when she's waiting for you, like you said." The words tear out of her, motivated by the glossy look in his eyes. He's in so much pain, and not all of it is physical. How can she ask him to suffer through life when she's not sure she even wants to do the same?

"So, if–if you have to go, then just . . . take care of our girl, okay?"

His breathing is labored but his eyes never leave hers until they close for the final time.

Jackson arrives with Sofia just in time for Richard to receive the crash cart, shocking him as Sofia's cries fill the room. Briar's head jerks up at the noise, watching Jackson pass Sofia to a nurse–his hands covering her eyes so she doesn't see her dad like this–and rush into the room.

And Briar shatters.

✦

authors note

mark. i miss you already.

i know that the episode "going, going, gone" comes before this one but i wanted to write in chronological order so that one's next. you won't believe how much time i spent stressing over the greys anatomy timeline, especially the mess that is the timelines post-crash. my mortal enemy.

briar is going to get worse before she gets better, so buckle up. she's cycling through anger, denial, depression all at the same time. grief is a monster.

things between april and briar are going to be tense for a bit. april meant well and didn't realize briar could hear her, but briar (traumatized, non-religious) didn't want to hear about how the crash was destined to happen, even if that's not really what april meant by that. it's how it sounds when you talk about "god knows what he's doing" to a grieving person. not the time or the place, no matter how kind-hearted it's meant to be. i can't tell you how many times i've heard those phrases tossed around, and while i understand the sentiment behind it, i wanted to touch on how alienating it can make the traumatized person feel. hopefully that came across with that scene. 

i purposefully didn't write everyone's reunion with briar because my girl was heavily dissociating and doesn't remember all of her hospital stay. she's going through it.

also every time i rewatch i get sick at arizona screaming at and blaming alex. their mentorship is one of my favorites and i hate this period with them, although i do understand it and find it realistic to a degree.

this fic has over 100k reads. i love you all SO much and i can't wait to see what this year brings 🤍