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chapter twenty one ━ almost grown
season seven, episode five

❝ holy shit! ❞

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Advancing in the medical field felt as if it were a metaphor for life, because everyone knew doctors liked a good metaphor.

(Aliya's med school professors used one every single chance they got.)

One moment you're practicing sutures on anything you can get your hands on until they bleed (an array of fruit, old clothing, or even an animal heart in the skills lab), then the next moment, you're sewing a perfect running whip stitch into a cadaver.

And, before you know it, you're performing your first solo surgery, using everything you had learned up to that moment, no hand to guide you, just you and the serene tranquillity of the operating room.

From the very first day of med school and all the way to the board exams, doctors are treated like adult toddlers.

They still have their training wheels on, they might have had odd moments where they were removed, but they were always put back on.

It was a safety net, a guarantee.

You knew they were going to be put back on, but one inevitable day, you were going to be kicked out from the safety of residency and into the real world of being a fellow, where your choices were completely your own.

No relying on your attending.

No relying on anyone, just your very own instincts and you realise, you're standing completely alone, without a safety net to catch you.

The Levine doctor woke up, the frustrating headache she usually developed in the early hours of the morning that was constantly pounding behind her eyes and ears had seemed to have cleared, and for once her mind felt empty.

Which made for a nice change, seeing as her thoughts were usually clouded with weapons of mass destruction, otherwise known as her memories.

Her lazy eyes finally managed to adjust to the light flooding in from her open curtains that she had left open, where she was greeted by birds outside in the tree in the yard, whistling melodies in the morning wind. It felt very much like a fairytale, and those very birds were going to swoop in and help her get dressed in the morning.

Blinking, she pushed herself from the bed to sit upright, and still cocooned deep into her duvet, she yawned in her palm.

She had a tendency to romanticise her life in the morning, some may call it delusion. Others may call it a way of life.

However, that lasted for about half a second until the flashbacks from the previous night stormed into her mind like a SWAT team.

At that, she froze, the hand covering her yawn dropped into her lap, landing onto her floral print comforter Alex called her a grandmother for owning.

Her brown eyes widened as her lips peeled away from each other, forming a distorted circle as the memories flooded into her system all at once, travelling through her nerve endings as every single inch of her body felt him. "Holy shit!"

Yes, holy shit.

It was a holy shit kind of event.

Because, she had kissed Jackson Avery last night.

More like, he kissed her,

But,

She kissed him back?

Oh, god!

Aliya groaned into her palm, remembering how the kiss had ended, though she mostly remembered the feeling of his hand on her jaw, and how she had melted into his touch. And, the butterflies beating their wings in her stomach in time with the sound of her beating heart.

Because, as Jackson's lips merged with hers, her heart rate sky rocketed.

She was up in the freaking clouds.

It was stupid to say, but in that moment, it was as if her lips were only meant for kissing him. She knew it sounded idiotic, but it was true.

After the kiss, she had remembered him pulling away from her, leaving her heart pounding and her chest heaving as he announced that he better do his post-ops, smirking at her as he leant back towards her to kiss her for the thousandth time in the space of ten minutes.

She remembered calling after him, her cheeks completely flushed, and also out of breath, telling him to not look at her like that. But, he had just left the room, knowing too well that she meant the complete opposite, leaving Aliya with the taste of his lips on her mouth.

Him looking at her like that...

She needed it more than oxygen.

Rolling off her bed rather ungracefully, Aliya padded to her door, suddenly remembering who she might actually meet in the hallway.

So, that cure the psychological breakdown.

She hung back, slowly reaching for the handle, whilst also listening to whoever may be lurking outside her room, casting shadows in the gap at the bottom of her door.

A part of her really hoped it was just Alex so she could avoid this whole thing, but another part of her really, desperately hoped that she didn't actually have to avoid him —

"Oh My God!" Aliya screamed at the top of her lungs, opening the door to Jackson standing right there in front of her, his fist was raised in the air, as if ready to knock on her door. She stumbled back, looking at Jackson with wide and manic, doe-like eyes.

"Woah!" He replied back, equally stunned by her reaction, but also amused by it. Aliya let her eyes drift to his chest, how many times did she have to see him without a shirt?

It was driving her mental.

Certifiably.

Aliya cleared her throat, her brain was definitely not silent anymore.

It was screaming bloody murder.

"How long were you lurking outside my door?" She interrogated him with her hands on her hips, because if she didn't ground herself immediately, she would go crazy.

She would changed that previous talent, it was safe to say he was driving her insane.

"That's not very humble of you." He fired back with a sarcastic and irritating smirk dancing across his perfect pink lips, looking at her up and down from her tangled hair, all the way to her bunny slippers.

"Excuse you? Have you met you?" Aliya remarked, watching Jackson contemplate her words, a hand on his hip as if he were mirroring her frustrated stance.

Leisurely, he leant against the door frame, her door frame, to her bedroom.

Aliya then made it her life mission to not let him pass the threshold into her room.

"No, I don't think I have." He mocked, his green eyes glistening like they were a body of water, like the ocean at her family's beach house she used to go to with her cousins each year.

They were the kind of eyes that should be studied for how breathtaking they were. The kind that should be reported with strokes of watercolour paints on a piece of paper.

"Okay." She responded calmly, closing her eyes for a brief moment before opening them back up again, forcefully against her will. Exhaling out, she put her hand to her forehead to try and at least think clearly. "I shouldn't be allowed to talk to anyone before I have my morning coffee, I need some time to fix—"

She gestured to her face.

"This." She swallowed the lump in her throat.

"You're cranky in the morning. But—" Jackson grinned — yet again — reaching to the hallway table, passing her the largest blue mug with a cat cartoon on it, filled to the brim with hot steaming black coffee. "—I got that covered."

A smile she had tried to resist giving him tugged at the corner of her lips, but Aliya stood her ground, receiving the coffee with a little bit of skepticism, but still taking a long, savouring sip.

"Are you there yet?" Jackson asked, as if he was a child at Christmas, impatient and waiting to open his presents.

Aliya pondered that thought, taking another, even longer sip, just to draw this interaction even more. "Only about twenty five percent."

"Only twenty five?" Jackson mocked a disappointed sigh, reaching back to the mysterious hallway table, handing her a bag of pastries. "The hospital coffee cart had a sale on."

"Hm." She beamed, gratefully accepting an almond croissant, taking a bite.

Jackson took a danish from the bag, putting the bag back on the table before taking a bite out of his own. "You got a little bit of pastry on your lip." He pointed to his own, showing Aliya exactly where it was.

Though she really wanted him to use his own lips as a map.

Oh, my—

"This must be extremely attractive." She joked for her sake, reaching and brushing the crumbs off of her face.

"You missed a bit." Jackson pointed at her cheek, whilst Aliya raised a brow, convinced she had gotten it all as she swiped her cheek again.

Jackson shook his head at her.

"Really?" She continued to brush the 'crumbs' away and after reading his expression, she raised her brows at Jackson. "You're messing with me."

He smiled, and just like that, he leaned down, recreating exactly what happened the previous night.

Only better.

Much, much better.

Was it true that kissing was better in the morning? It must be.

Or, was that a line fed to her by all the lovey dovey romantic comedies her and Lexie used to watch together?

(Well, she was hungrier in the mornings—)

"You wanted the croissant didn't you? You're seducing me so you can get it." She spoke, her tone faux-insulted as his kisses moved down her neck, tickling at her collarbone.

She used her coffee mug as a shield for her croissant, stepping back into the depths of her room, though it killed her as his lips left her skin, where he intended to leave traces of him all over her.

"Oh yeah, totally." Jackson rolled his eyes, wondering if she really ever was quiet, but it was the thing he liked most about her.

And, just like that, Aliya's coffee cup disappeared from her hands, along with her beloved pastry.

The movies were totally right, kissing was so much better in the mornings.

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She avoided the residents lounge like a plague.

She got changed in a supply closet, unable to hide her face, overly conscious of the fact that one of her many roommates or close friends will see the phrase 'I had early morning sex' written across her forehead in big bold capital letters.

They knew her too damn well.

So, with her belongings safety tucked away in a nurses lounge on four, she moved further down the hall until her pager went off, paging her to the residents lounge, funnily enough.

This was karma, she was sure of it.

Aliya in another life time really did something bad.

"Hey!" Alex jogged, slowly but surely towards her, stopping by her side.

"Oh, hi." She cleared her throat, shoving her hands into her pockets in an attempt to not act suspicious.

"What do you think this page was all about?"

"No clue." She shrugged her shoulders.

A pause.

"Alex. I'm worried." Aliya announced quickly, focusing her energy onto something other than this morning, though that thought managed to dominate her entire attention.

So instead, she decided to confide in her best friend, telling him something that had been playing on her mind, leaving her confused during her sleepless nights without sleeping pills.

"It's probably nothing." He replied, thinking she was referring to the page.

Aliya shook her head. "No. It's not that." She took a deep breath. "My mother hasn't called—"

"That's a good thing though, right?" He interrupted, because Seattle was known for its mommy issues, and when mothers didn't call, it was usually good riddance.

"—ever since she showed up after the—" She paused, forcing the word out of her mouth through gritted teeth. "Shooting."

Alex tilted his head, glancing at her, recognising the tense line across her forehead that she got when she was worrying too much. "Isn't that good? Maybe she's finally accepting she can't control you forever. You're a strong independent woman. You're not a baby anymore. To be honest, good riddance, that woman is—"

"She usually doesn't speak to me for extended periods of time because she's plotting something. I can feel it." Aliya looked over her shoulder in paranoia, as if half-expecting her mother to jump out of a patient room yelling boo! "It's Thanksgiving in a few months, and I haven't even gotten an invitation yet. And, if there's one thing I know about my mother and that is she takes event planning incredibly seriously." She looked over her shoulder for a second time.

"Aliya." He said, sternly as they entered the resident lounge, moving to their cubbies. Alex didn't seem to notice the lack of stuff in Aliya's. "Don't worry about—"

"I have great faith in you." Richard Webber continued his speech that Aliya and Alex were unaware he was giving.

He walked past the residents in the lounge, making his presence known as he weaved around them as they paced back and forth, getting ready for the day.

"I can because I chose you." The Chief continued on. "I trained you. I watched you work. I know what you can do. That is why today is different."

Aliya furrowed her brows, turning at just the right moment to meet Jackson's eyes completely accidentally. Though, he held her eye contact, a clandestine smile twitching across both of their lips.

He purposefully brushed a hand across her shoulder, his fingertips grazing her scrubs, causing her stomach to flip into manic gymnastic summersaults, sending goose bumps up and down her arms, her throat closing up in a way she hadn't felt properly in a long time, — the last time being an allergic reaction to carrots which led to Alex stabbing her with an epipen.

She still held onto the fact she will refuse to admit her true feelings if anyone asked, part of her wasn't ready for it, though part of her longed for it.

Sometimes she really did hate herself, especially her gut. But, she didn't have time to worry about the semantics of their relationship. Or whatever the hell they were.

"The training wheels are coming off." Webber announced, coming to a halt at the back of the room, everyone's attention still on him.

"Navy scrubs?" Meredith questioned, her eyes wide and glistening as she looked hopefully at Webber.

As Aliya received them in her hands, she held onto them carefully, as if they were an invaluable family heirloom.

"Attending scrubs." Webber corrected, his arms crossed as he watched the fourth year residents stare giddy at their new uniforms for the day. "You are attendings for the day. Run the cases. Take point. Don't be a fool. If you get in over your head, cry uncle. Until then—" He lifted his flask of coffee up into the air. "Congratulations. You've just been promoted."

Aliya smiled wide, turning to Alex, holding up the scrubs with joy. "No way."

He didn't look very pleased. "As I was saying—"

"Fine." Lexie returned to where Aliya and Alex were sat, huffing as she crossed her arms, interrupting Alex on his train of thought. "If you get to be attendings, that makes me chief resident."

"No," Alex scoffed as he stood up and approached Lexie, leaning closer to whisper in her ear. "That makes you our scut monkey." He spoke matter-of-factly, before turning back to the woman with the existential crisis. "As I was saying, Aliya, you don't need to worry about her."

He offered a smile of understanding, knowing what it's like to have a screwed up, emotionally exhausting family, brushing past Lexie with navy scrubs in hand.

"Good riddance." He turned back to Lexie. "Scut monkey."

"Oh— you're—" She began, unable to find the appropriate insult to finish Alex off with as he was already out of the door and meandering down the hall. "No it doesn't! It doesn't does it?"

Aliya shrugged, tucking the scrubs under her armpit to change into them. "I mean, I don't want to admit it—"

"Aliya!" Lexie exclaimed, shooting her friend narrowed eyes before turning on her heel, calling after Alex. "I'm not a scut monkey!"

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The newly promoted attending freed her hair from her white coat, allowing the waves of brown to bounce down her shoulders.

With a careful hand, she smoothed the creases of the navy blue scrubs out, trying to ignore the nerves punching their way through her stomach.

It's just an ordinary day. Aliya told herself, taking a deep breath and putting on her best and breezy smile in the mirror, her rosy-cheeked reflection grinning back at her.

She had always found the 'fake it until you make it' thing to be particularly easy.

She could go from a nervous wreck, to a person who radiated confidence in a matter of minutes, something she was conditioned to do by her mother barking "Stop shaking, you could cause an earthquake at this rate!", or "If you keep grinding your teeth like that you won't have any left! It's your best feature!" or, the best one yet, "If you can't get a single sentence out of your mouth, what is the point of even being here! Don't be a waste of space!".

She didn't know if her mother had meant it literally of figuratively, but Aliya guessed she could thank her mother for one thing, even though it was a product of her constant insults.

She rounded the corner to the front desk to get the charts she needed before she went up to the general floor with Bailey.

Coincidentally or rather a set up for potential embarrassment for Aliya, Jackson Avery was leaning against the front desk, chewing the inside of his cheek as he flipped through his own chart for the day, his eyes narrowing at the papers in front of him with the most unwavering concentration.

Aliya wondered how he managed to stay so calm, while she felt that even the tiniest gust of wind could knock her straight off of her feet.

It wasn't the fact that she wasn't a confident person, she could talk for the entire state of Seattle to fill the smallest indicator of silence.

However, it was the fact that after the events of the morning, the confusing and bombarding feelings she had felt for Jackson for the past year were dialled up to alarming measures that she hoped for a gust of wind so she could be whisked away to a land of delusion.

Maybe it was her resentment towards his demeanour of seeming perfectly calm that made Aliya feel a sudden burst of confidence as she approached him. If he could be confident, so could she. "Those dark blue scrubs look good on you." She said the words before her brain could even process it. She had to mentally slap herself.

A smile twitched across his lips, causing a crease to appear on the corner of his lip. "Oh, really?" His shocked expression was not what she was going for.

"Why do you looked so shocked?" She questioned, receiving her assigned chart with one hand.

He shrugged, casually, angling his head towards her, his lips parting before he spoke. "I just didn't know something other than an insult could come out of your mouth."

Aliya frowned, flipping open her chart, her eyes tracing the name Holly Manning. "I don't insult you all the time." She answered to with a pout to point out the fact. "Only the times when you're being an arrogant ass—"

"Don't worry, you're filled with compliments." He laughed at her expressoion, shutting the chart and bringing it into his chest, moving slowly forward, enough for Aliya to feel the warmth of his breath on her ear. "Those dark blue scrubs look good on you too." He whispered, moving past her, leaving her before he could see the rosy blush that appeared on her cheeks.

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THIS MORNING
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Aliya found herself taking a step towards him, closing the distance she had created between them, and as she pressed her lips to his, tilting her head upwards to reach him, he took it as an invitation.

He snaked his hands around her hips, and with one swift movement, he had her up in his arms — and he didn't even utter a word as their chests pressed together. One of his arms was supporting her against him, and one he used to shut the door behind them.

The brunette cupped his face in her hands, kissing him in a way that couldn't even be remotely described as soft. It had been about twelve hours since they kissed last night, and twelve hours was too long to go.

It was desperate. As if, they shouldn't have even stopped kissing since last night.

Jackson moved her towards the bed, lowering her down onto it carefully as their kiss deepened, and they fell into each other's touch when her head hit the pillow.

Aliya had made out many men in her life.

And by many, she had only kissed about six men (and two women) in her whole entire twenty eight years of existing of God's Green Earth.

She would've said they were all good kissers, to some extent.

But now, compared to Jackson Avery, god, they were all terrible compared to him.

Kissing him felt better than any thrill anything could possibly ever give her.

It made her feel crazy that she had spent this whole year verbally sparring with the man.

"All this—" Aliya spoke breathlessly between their frantic kisses when they eventually came back up from air, her hands tightening around his neck, and his hands weaved through her hair, moving to plant a garden of kisses along the soft skin of her jawline. "Because you wanted my croissant, you could've just asked, you don't have to seduce me."

"Oh yeah—" Jackson rolled his eyes, his palms on either side of her head as he stopped for a moment. "—the croissant was what I really wanted."

Now they were this close, Aliya stared at the few freckles that spotted across his cheeks and nose, the green eyes with the lashes Aliya was quite frankly incredibly jealous of, that casted shadows on his face. "You can admit it, there's no shame. I won't judge."

"I can tell if you do though, you have the worst poker face."

Aliya blinked at him, continuing to stare up at him, her arms still around his shoulders. "Do not."

"Do too!" She quickly took a pillow from the side of her, turning in a rapid movement to chuck it towards Jackson's head, sending the pillow ricocheting from his head and onto the floor.

"I'm a very good actress!" She protested, but even she knew she wasn't. Not at all.

Jackson frowned, staring at the pillow on the floor, before turning back to her. "I'll get in touch with an agent. Your talent is wasted."

"Oh—" Aliya pushed him back by his shoulders, managing to flip him on the mattress so now she was the one looking down on him, rather than the other way around.

(Though, Jackson let her do it, just because the look in her eye was a little too amusing.)

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PRESENT DAY
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"Hi, Bailey." Aliya greeted with a wide and very happy smile on her face, stopping next to the woman, who was currently looking through a stack of paper work right in front of her.

"Just because you're all dressed up in those navy scrubs doesn't mean you turn your sunshine meter up to max." Bailey replied matter-of-factly, eyeing Aliya up and down in a very faux disgust.

"Okay, okay." Aliya put her hands up in surrender.

"Today is a boring day on the general floor. No whipples, no foreign objects lodged into a patient's abdomen. No exciting, flashy surgeries you're craving." Bailey explained, her pen tapping against the papers. "I picked a few surgeries for you today."

"Neat."

Bailey raised a brow, passing three charts to Aliya, creating a pile in her arms. Aliya read the names on the spines — Holly Manning, Vera Cuttler and Oliver Diaz.

"Kidney Transplant, Hernia Repair and an Appendectomy." Aliya recited, mainly to herself rather than Bailey.

Bailey raised a brow. "You memorised my patients?"

"I like to be prepared, and technically they're mine now." She responded, turning on her heel to head to Room 310, where Holly Manning and her sister, Tasha, were.

"Will you stop!" The red headed woman on the far left bed dug her palms into her eyes.

"I'm doing this for you! The least you could do is hear me out!" The brunette one of the two whined back, leaning over her bed frame to project her voice.

"Tasha." The red head hissed as she realised they had company. She reached to tuck her hair behind her ears, sitting up in her gurney, straightening her gown. "Hi."

"Hi, I'm Dr. Levine. I'll be performing your kidney transplant today." Aliya smiled, feeling a very overwhelming sense of power.

It's funny what a different shade of blue can do.

"Oh." The brunette stared sceptically at Aliya. "Aren't you like, eighteen? A baby doctor? You don't even know the case."

For the sake of her bad temper, she gathered herself, giving Tasha a strained smile. "Holly Manning, twenty four years old. She was diagnosed with kidney failure after being involved in a car crash. After being on the transplant list for two months, you, Tasha Manning, her sister, thirty years old, volunteered to donate your kidney."

"See, Tash." Holly Manning gave her sister a very pointed look, nodding her head towards their new surgeon. "She's good."

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After completing a successful appendectomy which made her think of George the entire time, Aliya headed to Holly and Tasha's room, passing Tasha Manning, who gave Aliya another classic intimidating glare on her way to getting prepped.

"Hi, Holly." Aliya breezed into her room, stopping by the foot of her bed. "Are you all ready?"

She nodded her head, her hands clasped together in her lap as she nervously picked at the skin around her thumb.

"Do you have any siblings?" Holly asked.

"I do, yes." Aliya answered with a warm smile.

Holly made a noise of understanding. "Do they drive you nuts too?"

"Like you wouldn't believe!" Aliya chuckled, thinking of the time Eliana cut her hair in her sleep because it was longer and shinier than hers.

"Then you get why Tasha is doing this? I didn't want her to do it. We drive each other mental. We hated each other as kids but—" Holly paused, meaningfully, a slight nostalgic smile twitching on her lips. "There's nothing I wouldn't do for her. You forget all the hate, you know?"

Aliya nodded, because even though her and Eliana were at each others throats whenever they interacted, the very few (emphasis on the few) good moments they had under their belt made Aliya always feel guilty about why she never reached out that often.

But, then Eliana would open her mouth, and that guilt will fizzle away along with the hopes of having a normal, loving sisterly relationship.

"But, I do regret one thing." Holly added, looking at Aliya with narrowed eyes.

"That it'll be brought up at every holiday?" Aliya inquired, knowing that would happen if it were her own sister donating her kidney, not like Eliana ever would.

Holly nodded rapidly, slapping a hand down onto the bed in hysterics. "Yes! And, that when we get in argument, I can't be mad because she gave me a damn kidney! If I wasn't dying of kidney failure then I would tell to shove her kidney where the sun doesn't shine!"

Both of them began to laugh hard, clutching their stomachs as they fell into hysterics. After their laughter died out over their shared sister trauma, Holly was wheeled away to get prepped.

Aliya didn't tell Holly that she did have sisters she would give them any organ that they needed, and she had only known them for five years, and they weren't blood related.

But, Cristina Yang and Meredith Grey were sisters to her all the same.

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"So," Aliya clicked her tongue, looking out of the window, hyper fixating on the Seattle skyline, the Space Needle standing proudly in the fog. "Cool." She confused herself that the only thing she could think of was saying a single four letter word.

Her new therapist, Dr. Keanne Kelly, was a tall lady who religiously wore tailored pants and silk blouses in an array of colours. She had dark, black curly hair that was always slicked back neatly into a bun that screamed she was put together, something Aliya was not.

Aliya imagined she lived in one of those modern, new builds with the floor to ceiling windows, about a ten minute drive from the hospital.

"Is there anything you want to talk about?" Her therapist asked her, her glasses propped on the very end of her nose.

She had already moved onto a second notepad, and this was only their sixth session.

"I don't think I could be a therapist." Aliya announced, completely out of the blue, taking a long sip out of her coffee cup. 

"What makes you say that?" Kelly, Keanne insisted on only being called by her last name, clutched said notepad in her hands, her fountain pen ready to write Aliya's random six pm thoughts onto the paper.

Aliya breathed a long sigh. "Silence annoys me, and I'm pretty sure I would start talking about dead cats, or maybe a true crime."

"Huh." Kelly took off her glasses, folding them up and sliding them onto the coffee table decorated with a glass bowl holding very large blue and green pebbles. She opened her mouth to continue, but Aliya got there first.

"Oh! I actually have a good story about a camel that—"

"I think that's quite alright, Aliya." Kelly stopped her from exploring that train of though. "I just want you to be comfortable opening up to me."

"Okay." Aliya sunk back in her chair, not really sure why she was here if she couldn't tell her the story about the camel. She was perfectly fine, she could manage her problems mediocrely well.

"Dr. Perkins tried to tell me the main reason for this referral. But, I said I wanted a clean slate. I wanted the chance to get to know you." Kelly spoke, making unwavering and uncomfortable eye contact with Aliya. "It's been a couple weeks. Is there anything you want to say? You have to work with me here. I'm here to help."

Aliya nodded along, pretending she was listening, though she really wasn't.

"What are you thinking about right now?"

"Um." Aliya bit her lip in thought. "I need to buy more coffee and detergent from the grocery store, but the one that's five minutes from my house doesn't stock the one I like, only the one that's fifteen minutes away stocks it so, I have to add twenty more minutes onto my travelling time. But, one good thing is that the fifteen minutes away grocery store does stock the cinnamon cereal puffs I like so, I think it's worth it, and oh!"

The Levine woman clapped her hands together, lurching forward in her seat.

"I need to find the back to my grandmother's earring I lost. Lexie probably has it, she steals all my stuff."

(Both objects, and boyfriends it seemed! How fun!)

"Which reminds me that I need to steal back my shirts she stole. Two wrongs make a right, so that should bring good karma." Aliya couldn't see any fault in her logic (there was fault). "I'm pretty sure my mom ran over my cat when I was nine. Her name was Sprinkles and she gave my mom allergies for years, so I think she finally cracked and accidentally run her over to get rid of her."

Aliya shared, rather over-shared, giving Kelly an unwanted glimpse into the depths Aliya's childhood and the chaos that was happening in her mind.

"It wouldn't surprise me if she did." Aliya added on.

"That must have been— traumatising." Kelly replied calmly, looking at Aliya very carefully as if she was waiting and watching for her to spit something else out, or to explode like a bomb.

"I have a dog now though. He's a golden retriever. His name's Reese. He would be a bit harder to get rid of though." Aliya smiled, and Kelly coughed quietly in response, shifting in her seat, because all of Aliya's word vomiting really was saying a lot about her. "Reese is a very apt name, actually. I love peanut butter cups, but it is a coincidence seeing as I didn't name him, my dead nurse friend did." Aliya explained, matching the same calm as Kelly did before.

She didn't know why she had referred to Andy as her 'dead nurse friend', it wasn't very sensitive of her.

If she would have been able to say Andy's name, she would have, but saying her name felt like she was being stabbed in the chest. It felt wrong saying her name when she wasn't just around the corner, bringing in cookies for everyone, or organising the desk just the way she liked it.

She didn't like the fact she wouldn't be able to hear her laugh again, or see her smile in person, rather than just watching her life through pictures. Aliya couldn't even begin to picture her smile, all she could see was Andy's face, cold and tear stained. Motionless.

She blinked away that image.

"You must've been close." Kelly commented, sensing a shift in Aliya's disposition as she mumbled a reply incoherently. "I'm sorry for your loss." She said sincerely, which only made Aliya even more tense than she already was.

They sat in silence for the last few minutes of the session. She didn't know why she was here. Or, why she kept coming back. She could quit, refuse to come.

But, maybe a part of her unconscious knew she needed it. These tidal waves of sadness were getting too exhausting for a girl who was getting so used to falling apart and putting herself back together.

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—✩—
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Aliya stopped quickly in the corridor, turning to a vacant room where Cristina was sat on the gurney, staring blankly out of the window. 

"Hey." The brunette woman moved over to her, sliding onto the gurney next to her, though Cristina didn't reply back, she just stayed completely frozen. "Just another day."

"Meredith already went through that line." Cristina replied, her voice flat, not even turning to her, her eyes fixating on the window. "Just tell me something to distract me."

Aliya pursed her lips. "I feel like doing that is always super lame when—"

"Just tell me something!" Cristina spoke, urgently, her foot tapping against the floor.

"Oh—"

"Tell me!" Cristina exclaimed, shoving Aliya gently in the shoulder.

"Fine! I had sex with Jackson this morning!"

For god sake.

A loud gasp escaped Cristina's lips as soon as the words left Aliya's lips.

"Shit!" Aliya clapped a hand around her mouth as she gasped too, furious she let it slip only a mere eleven hours after it had happened, and furious again at the fact she broke her vow yet again to not swear as much. "Shit!"

"No freaking way!" Cristina grinned wildly, a laugh breaking free as she clutched her stomach, taking joy out of Aliya's sexual escapades. "You finally got laid!"

Aliya's jaw dropped in shock (because it really hadn't been that long to warrant a finally.)

"Cristina!" The brunette protested.

"I'm so happy you told me this, because I can so hold it against you for the rest of your life." Cristina threw her head back in evil laughter, clapping a hand to her mouth. "Alex is gonna loose it."

Rolling her eyes, Aliya dropped her face into the palms of her hands. "I never trust my gut. I knew I shouldn't have told you anything."

"Aliya, thank you. Really. That's made me feel so much better." Cristina clapped her hands, jumping up from the gurney and patting Aliya's shoulder in a very condescending manner. "Our girl is finally having one night stands."

Cristina watched the Levine woman intently, how her mouth twitched, how her forehead creased ever so slightly, undetectable to the naked eye.

"Oh, Aliya."

"What?" She furrowed her brows, her mouth pressed into a stern line.

"You poor girl." Cristina sighed heavily, shaking her head. "You like him."

"What? No." Aliya denied, a little too hesitantly, causing Cristina to see right through her. "I don't." She added on, her voice stern in reaction to Cristina's very overly sympathetic gaze.

"You keep telling yourself that." Cristina patted Aliya's shoulder yet again, moving to the wide open doorway. "Champ."

Aliya turned rapidly around, her eyebrows knotted tightly together, watching Cristina practically skip out of the room in victory of successfully tormenting her fellow resident, or attending for the day. "If you tell anyone, you're so dead!"

⠀
—✩—
⠀

"Long day?" Derek asked, entering the conference room Aliya was cooped up in.

After finishing her surgeries for the day, she learnt that being a doctor wasn't about flashy surgeries all the time, some surgeries performed in a day were the standard, and that's doesn't make them any less exiting. What was exciting however, was the look on Tasha Manning's face when she realised Aliya didn't kill her, or her sister.

So, she decided to read different medical books and printed articles to finish off her day before she had to changed out of the navy scrubs, leaving them cooped away for the next two years.

"Like you wouldn't believe." Aliya smiled, placing down her pen and leaning back into the high backed leather chair.

"I have to propose." Derek announced, rather abruptly, sitting across from Aliya, running a hand through his salt and pepper hair.

He wasn't really making much sense.

Aliya furrowed her brows. "I thought you were already married?"

Derek gave her a disappointed look. "No, dummy, a proposal for a grant." He clarified, resting his chin on his palm. "For the first time, I have no ideas. But, seeing Meredith today. Seeing her fix a brain bleed all by herself it's just—"

"She's not going anywhere. You know that, right?" Aliya informed him, not knowing entirely what Derek was leading to here.

"I know. I just don't want her to be affected by the same disease her mother had." Derek chewed his lip in thought, tapping his foot on the carpeted floor.

"You could do a clinical trial." Aliya suggested after a few moments of silence, causing Derek to look at her with intrigue. "For the grant Dr. Webber is giving out."

Derek thought about it, tilting his head to the side as he sat up in his chair, ready for a discussion. "But, how would I know where to start?"

"There's this groundbreaking research involving drug therapies that help increase the lucid periods in patients with Alzheimer's, compared to those taking the placebo. It's said to, theoretically, slow down the cognitive and functional decline in the early stages of Alzheimer's. Sure, there's some pills circling that help, but there could be better treatment options. There must be." Aliya pitched, realising that Derek was hunched over the table, looking at her even more intensely than before. "There's plenty of research out there. Combine all the strengths in those pieces of research together, develop the right drug. It could be a surgical trial."

After a moment of silence, Derek inhaled sharply, which only added drama to the perfectly ordinary exchange.

If you called a perfect ordinary exchange involving pitching a drug trial.

"Oh my god." He met Aliya's eyes, meaningfully, a smile tugging at the corners of her lips. "We're going to cure alzheimer's."

Aliya squinted. "We?"

"Well, I'm going to need some help, aren't I?" Derek replied, smiling wide at her. "You seem to be like a walking dictionary for Alzheimer's articles."

"My grandfather had it when I was young." Aliya explained, her memories of her late grandfather were blurry, and her coping mechanism was to read, so she turned her attention to articles, claiming to her family that she would make him feel better one day. Something about Derek's confidence gave her hope that if her own father ever suffered from this, he could be helped.

"Even more reason to cure it." Derek rose from his seat, opening the door with a click. "Are you coming? We have a surgical trial to propose."

Aliya grinned, gathering up all of her books and papers into a neat stack in her arms, following him eagerly out of the door.

⠀
⠀
⠀

( notes! )

the line about the epipen was feral and unhinged of me i'm so sorry

molly levine needs to be banned from seattle, that's all i'm saying, every time she's in a chapter = burning rage. fun fact though, i did base molly levine off of emily gilmore but i went a bit rouge because i feel like molly is feral with a capital F

april 3rd 2024: after many, many allegations of a robbery and threats of calling 911, i have extended the jackson & aliya morning scene (both the first one and the flashback), you're welcome & that's all you're gonna get for now

( word count! — 6,900 )