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chapter twenty two ━ that's me trying
season seven, episode seven

❝ i'm three seconds away from
kneeing him in the groin. ❞

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One piece of advice Aliya would give to anyone thinking of travelling to Seattle was pretty simple.

Pack a rain coat.

Or, even a trash bag.

Pack literally anything that would provide some shelter from the rain.

Because, the thing about Seattle was god, it liked to rain.

And by rain, we're not talking pathetic downpours of rain here and there that cling to your hair and clothes with dear life.

No, we're talking torrential rain.

That, if you are in it for even one second, you're soaked all the way through to your pants.

Maybe it was pathetic fallacy.

Because, ever since Aliya Levine had moved to Seattle, her life had turned from a shit show, to even more of a shit show.

(And, she didn't even think that was possible.)

"You've got to be kidding me." Aliya frowned, hunched over her steering wheel and narrowing her eyes at the door to the house, which was a solid fifteen second run from her car door, and that didn't account for locking it up, and shutting said door.

The neurosurgeon beside her, the smug bastard, was the only one out of the two that had brought a coat with a hood, seeing as Aliya never learnt from her mistakes.

"You've lived in Seattle for nearly four years," Derek very helpfully pointed out, which didn't make matters any better. "Why don't you ever bring a coat, or an umbrella?"

Aliya sighed, looking towards the back seat of her car, seeing if she had anything, she would settle for a takeout box at this rate.

"My sandwich is gonna go soggy." She complained, frowning down at the sub Derek had bought for her as a bribe to drive him home.

And now, if she hadn't waited half an hour for Derek, she would be home in the dry, instead of in her Mini Cooper, watching the rain crash into her windshield.

"Not if we make a run for it," Derek said, decisively, pulling his hood up as if he were putting a car into sports mode. "On the count of three?"

"Fifteen, I need to mentally prepare." Aliya said with a sigh, wrapping her arms around her sub, holding it close to her chest.

"I'm not counting down from fifteen." Derek let out a very over exaggerated and quite frankly, dramatic, sigh.

"Fine, six."

"What— okay, fine— Five."

Aliya shot him a look. "I said six."

The Shepherd man knotted his brows together, eyeing the brunette. "You already said six, so I went from there."

"I wasn't ready then." Aliya protested, taking her keys out the ignition.

"Fine, okay," Derek cleared his throat, his hand on the car door, ready to make a run for it. "Are you ready now?"

The Levine woman nodded her head, preparing for battle.

"Okay, six—" Derek began. "Five, four, three—"

Aliya shuffled in her seat, holding the sandwich even closer to her.

"—Two, one—"

At that, the pair leaped out the car at lightening speed, and as Aliya locked the car door, they started hurtling up the path to the house they shared, throwing open the front door and hurtling themselves into the dry of the house.

Aliya let out a breath, wiping the rain from her forehead as her wet hair dripped onto the hardwood floor, creating a puddle almost instantly.

She looked, down, assessing the damage to her sub.

"It's soggy," She stated, peeling back the foil, her mouth turning down as the damp bread stared back at her. "I'm inconsolable."

Derek sighed, clearly feeling very sorry for the woman as he handed her his. "Fine, we can swap."

Aliya perked up a bit. "Really?"

"Take it before I change my mind."

"Thank you!" Aliya beamed, taking Derek's dry sandwich, and thrusting her soggy one into his hands, before kicking off her sneakers and making her way to the stairs, jogging up them, ready to get into her pyjamas, maybe watch some Friends, and then eat the most delicious sandwich known to man.

She had the perfect routine all planned out,—

"Sweet mother of—" She screamed at the top of her lungs, the perfect sub flying out of her hand.

—But, Aliya wasn't exactly mentally prepared for the sight of Jackson Avery, led very nakedly out on her bed.

"ALIYA?" Derek Shepherd started to race up the stairs, and instantly Aliya went into full on panic mode.

"Get in!" Aliya left her sandwich on the floor, pushing Jackson by the shoulders out of her bed and into the direction of her wardrobe, which was a bad idea seeing as it was full of clothes.

Jackson, now holding a pillow against him, looked at her in alarm. "Get in, where? 'Cause there's no way I'm fitting into your closet, you have enough clothes to stock a whole mall."

"Right, um—" Aliya scanned around the room, and she heard Derek's footsteps across the hall, her heart hammering in her chest that she was one hundred percent sure that it was going to explode. "Behind the door."

Jackson seemed to think that was a good enough idea, seeing as he let the woman stuff him behind her bedroom door, just in time for Derek to stand in the doorway, complete unaware.

He raised a brow at her, seeing as she was now causally leant across the door, a wild panicked look in her eye.

"Hey, Derek, how are you?" She asked, as casually as she possibly can, the sandwich lurking in the corner of her eye.

It was safe to say that Derek, did not look okay.

The man looked alarmed.

"I should be asking you that question." He spoke, matter-of-factly, his lips pursed tightly together as he looked around the room with cautious eyes, as if something was gonna jump out and eat him alive. "Why did you scream?"

"Oh—" Aliya was now at a loss for words. "I— I didn't, what are you talking about?"

"Aliya," He spoke like a true disappointed parent. "The whole neighbourhood heard you scream."

Before Jackson could even let out a slight trace of commotion, Aliya reached her hand around and clamped it across his mouth, where he fell against the wall, the door swaying slightly.

And, the deal of a grown ass six foot one man (who happened to be all muscle) pushing into the door that a five foot six woman was holding, was that it was sure to go flying.

"Oh! Ha!" Aliya laughed nervously as she swayed, trying her best to hold the door in place, shaking her head to deny all possibly allegations. "I tripped and—"

"Why is your sandwich on the floor?" He interrogated further, his eyes pinned on the now very squished sub, his suspicions rising by the second.

"It fell— out of my hands, see there was a—
um— spider, in the room. Massive spider, and I screamed and dropped it— um—"

Aliya gulped back a lump in her throat, looking very guilty at the neurosurgeon who was definitely not buying it.

All Aliya could now feel and focus on was Jackson's hot breath against her palm as he tried everything in his power not to make a single sound.

The Shepherd man crossed his arms in the doorway, with only one emotion on his face.

Which was extreme concern for his roommates and research partners sanity.

"You know what," Aliya announced, her voice was reaching a higher pitch than she intended. "I'm beat, I'm going to go straight to bed— Goodnight, Derek, enjoy— uh— whatever you do— uh—"

And, with the help of Jackson, the door closed in Derek's face, and as soon as it shut, Aliya pressed her back up against it and sighed the biggest sigh of relief, her hand still on Jackson's face, as she began to fall against the door, her knees buckling from the stress of it all.

"That was a close call." Jackson acknowledged, though he was now certifiably laughing his head off, now Derek's footsteps trailed back down the stairs.

"You think?" Aliya took a deep breath, holding a hand to her heart as if that would lower her heart rate.

Well, Aliya now had no chance of watching Friends in her pyjamas whilst eating her sandwich, seeing as the green eyed man had other plans.

That she wasn't exactly against.

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"Hi!" Aliya hurried to Derek and Meredith
as they exited the elevator, a stack of papers in her hands as she slowed to walk along side them. "So, I did some research and found a couple grants we may be eligible for seeing as Webber gave Hunt the money." Aliya announced, rather bitterly, before regaining her dignified composure.

(Mainly because the brunette doctor did have a less than subtle vendetta against the head of trauma.)

"I'll give you the summary version —" Aliya cleared her throat, before hurtling on. "The Art and Lesley Philips Foundation is a little trickier to get than one's like Francesca Ryan Organisation, or The Henry Lynch Research Grant but, their primary focus is Alzheimer's research so we may have a shot with that one. I also reached out to a couple of doctors that know my parents back in LA and they are also giving out grants, it may be worth pitching to them too. All of them are more than enough to set the wheels in motion for the trial."

Derek took a sip of his coffee, glancing over to Aliya. "You did your research." He acknowledged, dipping his eyes down to the colour coded tabs on the stacks of papers and books in her hands.

"It's what I do—" Aliya paused, her eyes resting on Meredith's own stack of research in her hands. With a sceptical expression on her face, Aliya levelled her eyes with Meredith's, looking back at Derek who had his face practically hidden behind his coffee cup. "—Oh! You're worming your way in!"

"Nobody is worming." Meredith shook her head, denying Aliya's keen observation.

She simply scoffed in response, in a mixture of shock, anger and complete outrage. "You totally are! You want a place on the clinical trial! Poacher!"

Derek cleared his throat as the trio continued to descend the hall. "You both did your homework."

"I'm a great student." Meredith grinned, wildly, side eyeing the brunette. "Just the kind you want around when doing a clinical trial." Derek chuckled, glancing at Cristina as she passed the trio, a strained smile on her face.

"See! You're poaching!" Aliya huffed, tucking her research under her arm. "Look, Derek, you can't just kick me off—"

"I'm not kicking—"

"I helped you come up with the ideas for the clinical trial." Aliya interjected. "You can't just toss me to the side like a candy wrapper."

"I'm not tossing you to the side." Derek stated, turning to Meredith as the dirty blonde looked back at Cristina disappearing down the hall. "How's that going?"

Meredith nodded her head, slipping the notes into her bag. "It's fine."

"Is this because Richard gave Hunt the million dollars and not me?" He questioned as Meredith bit her lip, Aliya glancing back and forth between them. "Is that why things are frosty between you two?"

Aliya quirked a brow. "They are like two ice queens, things look frosty."

"We're not frosty. We're fine." Meredith convinced, shrugging the insinuation off. "But, if you're looking for solidarity, I would be more than happy to skip Owen Hunt's trauma certification lab."

Derek grinned, leaning to kiss Meredith on the cheek. "Go get certified."

"Ok." She grinned, turning on her heel.

Swivelling back to Aliya who was patiently waiting with a fistful of arguments she was going to start with the Head of Neurosurgery, Derek opened his mouth to speak.

"I'm not going to kick you off the clinical trial." He finally said, a sigh of relief leaving Aliya's lips. "Without you it probably wouldn't have happened." She raised a brow at him. "Most definitely wouldn't have happened, okay?"

"Okay." Aliya confirmed, nodding her head and turning on her heel, mentally preparing herself for trauma certification. "Just so you know, I'm going to hold you to that." She called, before disappearing around the corner. 

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"Am I early? I really tried not to be." Meredith approached April, Alex, Aliya and Jackson, who were gathered around a table in the skills lab.

Alex was sipping coffee, removing components from a model of a stomach, Jackson was looking over his charts, and April was stood next to where Aliya was sat, listening as Aliya taught her a few different sutures on the practice kit.

"That doesn't bode well." Jackson replied, biting into his granola bar.

"We did the same thing with Bailey when we were interns. Take turns treating a dummy, get an early lunch, then get back to work. It's lame." The Karev man narrowed his eyes at the blue plastic gall bladder, slotting it back into the model.

Aliya glanced up from where she was suturing. "I'll be fine if he doesn't stab the pigs again."

Alex put a hand to his forehead, sighing. "Oh, not the pigs."

"What about the pigs?" April asked, her eyes widening as she looked back and forth between Aliya and Alex, both of whom were looking away from her, avoiding eye contact. "I have pigs. What did he do to the pigs?"

"Nothing. He did nothing to the pigs." Aliya shook her head, pulling a stitch up and tying it off, Jackson craned his neck to watch her, eyeing her careful sutures. "There. You try." She handed the kit over to April, who slipped onto the stool beside her, following Aliya's careful instructions.

"We never did anything like this at Mercy West." Jackson commented, leaning back to throw his wrapper into the bin.

"Consider yourself lucky." Alex replied, his voice low and bored.

The door to the skills lab swung open, bouncing against the wall with a loud crash, drawing the attention of all the residents gathered in the small space. "A charter plane was forced into an emergency landing and collided with a Greyhound bus. Mass casualty situation." Owen Hunt announced, hauling an armful of yellow trauma gowns onto the table.

"I'm going to put good money on this being to do with the dummies." Aliya whispered, however still remaining sat on the stool, showing no signs of urgency.

"Do we need to say it again? Let's move!" He ordered, waving his hand to make the residents follow.

Everyone darted up from the table, rushing to grab a trauma gown. Jackson threw his head over his shoulder, looking back at Aliya. "Okay, I bet you twenty dollars."

Aliya grinned at him, grabbing a trauma gown and slipping her arms into it. "Deal." She took his outstretched hand, giving it one shake before letting it go.

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"Close to thirty victims in the field, some critical, multiple blunt trauma injuries." Owen informed as the group ran after him through the halls, all now dressed in yellow gowns, the ties left undone.

They all burst threw the doors outside, and Aliya felt the urge to announce 'I told you so' to every single one of their sorry asses but, to refrain from being called a know it all by her peers, she simply watched in amusement at the dummies, scattered over the concrete in an unorganised chaotic fashion.

"I guess I'm twenty dollars richer." Aliya spun around, looking upon the dummies who were splattered in blood. She gathered Owen must've gone to the craft store, and went a little too crazy with the fake blood. Or, it could be tomato ketchup.

"I was so looking forward to an early lunch." Jackson complained from beside her, his arms crossed over his chest tightly.

(Though it wasn't just lunch he was looking forward to.)

Smirking, Aliya nudged him playfully. "I take cash or venmo."

Jackson scoffed in response, angling his jaw towards her. "Funny. You're funny."

"This is gonna suck." Meredith chimed in, whilst Owen just watched their looks of complete disgust and disappointment, a smile plastered over his smug little face.

"Welcome to Trauma Certification." Owen announced, proudly, tugging open the doors to the ambulance and revealing it to be overflowing with various bags, filled with supplies.

He positioned himself in front of the ambulance, his hands braced in his hips as he began to explain why he had kidnapped all the residents.

"You will work in teams of four and five. Each team will be responsible for nine casualties." One of Cristina's interns, Steve, passed her, placing a blue sticker onto her trauma gown, the same one had placed on Jackson, April, Alex and Meredith's gowns. "You may treat your patients using only what you can carry with your two hands from this ambulance. The evac helicopter is on its way. You get your patients on the helicopter. You get certified. Are you ready?" Owen questioned, his hands finally resting by his side after making rapid hand gestures throughout his whole speech.

"No." Alex muttered from beside Aliya, frowning.

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"According to this card, this guys got a blown right pupil, an atlanto-occipital dislocation, open book pelvis, large abdominal wound—" April lifted the dummy's shirt, decorated with a whole lot of craft store fake blood. "—Jeez! A sucking chest wound with several broken ribs. This guy is all messed up."

"Or, he's dead." Meredith spoke from where she was working on her own dummy.

"Ah. Right. Yes! Moving on." April jumped up, moving on to another dummy next to Aliya, who was currently working on hers — a humerus fracture that she stabilised with a splint, and a small abdominal wound that missed any vital arteries that she managed to stop the bleeding with gauze.

Imaginary bleeding, that is.

"Right, this one's priority three." Aliya shuffled back, turning to another dummy after she finished treating the one behind her.

"I wish I was priority three." Alex muttered under his breath. "Aliya!"

Aliya turned to him, her eyebrows raised. "What?"

"Break my arm for me." He hissed, urgently.

Aliya made a face, unwrapping a suture kit in her lap. "I would love to, but you need both arms to help me flip my mattress later."

"I'm not helping you again." Alex fired back, reaching over his dummy to grab a handful of bandages from his bag. "Last time you knocked your vase off the night stand and blamed me for it. You wouldn't let it go for a month. I'm not doing it again."

"I'll help you." Jackson offered, watching Aliya's cheeks burn to a bright pink flush that travelled down to her chest, knowing exactly what he was secretly saying.

Blinking, Aliya turned her head slowly towards him, her face completely neutral even though all of her organs were collectively screaming inside of her body. "You know—"

"Grey!" Owen called, interrupting Aliya at just the right moment as he waved his hand. Meredith shot to her feet, jogging over to him. "Congratulations. You're certified."

"What!" Alex snapped in anger, throwing his head back, his jaw tensed in anger. "She's only been here for five minutes!"

Jackson pressed his lips into a line, watching Meredith disappear through the doors leading to her freedom. "Favouritism sucks."

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Owen stood in front of all the residents with his hands on his hips, approaching Aliya's group. "Blue Team. Status report."

"We arrived on the scene to find nine casualties." April started, gesturing around to the nine dummies laid neatly on the blue plastic mat beneath their feet.

"How can she still be perky during glorified torture?" Aliya whispered to Alex, her voice low.

"Maybe she's getting laid." Alex muttered back.

"She's a virgin, Alex, don't think she's getting laid." The Levine woman said, matter-of-factly, glancing over at April as she continued on.

"We identified three as priority one, requiring immediate evacuation." The red head spoke, a wide smile plastered on her face.

"She's definitely getting something." Alex observed.

"Four were priority two, allowing delayed evac. One was priority three and the last was sadly, dead on the scene." Though, by the way she said it, there was nothing really all that sad about it.

Owen nodded his head, drawing closer to one of the dummies on the floor. "Nice work, Kepner, but it seems to me that you now have two dead patients."

Aprils eyes widened, her mouth opening and shutting as she tried to get the words out. "Excuse me?"

"While you were standing around waiting for the helicopter to arrive and not keeping a constant eye on your patients' injuries, this one over here developed a femoral bleed, bled out and is now, sadly, dead." Owen flipped over the dummy, who Aliya had treated and nicknamed John, rather unceremoniously over.

Tilting her head, Aliya scrunched her face in confusion. "What—"

"A femoral bleed?" April spluttered, shifting on her feet. "That wasn't on the card."

"Really? Well it's on this one." Owen clicked his fingers, pointing at the dummy causing Steve to run over, placing a card on the 'dead' dummy, and new ones on all the other 'alive' ones.

April lurched forward. "No! Wait that's not fair!"

"Patients don't suddenly die." Owen explained. "It just seems that way when you are not paying attention. Food for thought."

"On the card it mentioned the crush injury to the femur, and the open abdominal wound but the bleeding was controlled and the femur was stabilised." Aliya explained, her arms crossed over her stomach as she picked up the new card, scanning it furiously, physically feeling her patience dropping.

"It just happens, Levine. Red Team, go."

Aliya exhaled, dropping the card back down onto the dummy, drawing her last remaining ounce of strength to remain calm. "Well, you better kill off one of their dummies seeing as they weren't keeping a constant freaking eye."

"I'm so sorry, you guys." Steve offered in sympathy as he finished placing the cards, moving onto the other teams.

Watching him leave, Aliya glanced back at the new cards with resentment.

Several years ago, Molly Levine came to the realisation that two of her children — Trent and Eliana specifically — were disinterested in becoming a doctor, despite her best efforts (playing episodes of medical dramas in the background while they were in the room). Trent, being seven years old, was only interested in kids TV and the dirt in the backyard whilst Eliana, who was only four, was only interested in watching her brother make a fool of himself and ripping the heads off of her dolls.

Aliya found the box of dolls head in the attic one Halloween and hid them around Eliana's room. Aliya slept with one eye open for the rest of the year.

Therefore, when Molly found out she was pregnant for the third time, she vowed not to screw up her last chance of getting a child who was going to grow up to be a doctor.

Though Travis was cautious at first, he was never any good at arguing with his wife so he watched Molly work from afar.

As soon as Aliya was born, she lived and breathed everything to do with medicine.

The walls in her nursery weren't decorated with trucks or cartoon characters or farmyard animals like the other kids in the class she grew to envy, but with images of stethoscopes, internal organs and different heart rhythms in bright and colourful posters. That's one thing Travis suggested, opposing the tiny font, intricately illustrated posters Molly had originally picked out.

Her mother gave her lectures in her free time when she wasn't at the hospital for years, drilling into her daughter's brain that she was going to grow up to be a surgeon.

That was one way to screw with someone's head.

Aliya believed that becoming a surgeon would gain her mother's approval, something she craved like the feeling of the Malibu sun on her back, or finding the perfect wave when she surfed with her brother. Aliya's relationship with her mother was the most complicated one in her life, constantly determined by how well she did academically. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't understand it.

A part of Molly Levine's plan included something similar to Owen Hunt's Trauma Certification, where Aliya had to diagnose patients, describing what she would do to treat them in long descriptive paragraphs that would take hours to complete. Then the hours turned to minutes, the information solidifying in her long term memory.

Pushing her hair out of her face, Aliya dropped down next to another dummy. "Don't get me wrong, I'm a sucker for games. But, this one isn't fun anymore."

"I thought you said you were going to be optimistic." Jackson replied over the sound of the Red Team explaining their dummies.

"Jackson, that was Aliya ten minutes ago." She explained, sighing heavily as the card read that the patient is on blood thinners, meaning they were bleeding more than usual due to the anticoagulants in her blood stream. "He's a freaking puppeteer!! We've got strings, Pinocchio, and Hunt over there is playing puppet master on the freaking school yard!"

She pointed an accusatory finger over towards the man, chatting to Steve and narrowing eyes at the residents before him.

Though, Aliya shouldn't say residents.

Puppets was a word that helpfully came to mind.

That's when the rain started to pour (seeing as Seattle was in fact known to rain), falling to the ground in heavy droplets, dampening all the equipment around them within an instant.

"Awesome." Alex groaned, throwing his head back to squint at the dark grey thunder clouds hanging above their heads.

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"The helicopter has to be getting here soon! It's been three hours!" April raised her voice over the pouring rain, that had only gotten worse, creating pools of water in the blue plastic. "Just a few more minutes. Right? Right, Dr. Hunt? The helicopter will be here any minute?"

Owen offered her a strained smile, turning to where Alex was working. "Nice rain gear, Karev. Shouldn't you be more concerned with your patient staying dry."

"Yeah. Well—" Alex shrugged from where he was sat, clad in a red plastic bag. "He's a dummy and I'm a person so—"

Owen crouched down beside Alex. "A dry patient is less likely to die."

"A little water never hurt anyone." Aliya muttered from where she was kneeled next to her dummy, Tim, father to three kids, suffering from a dislocated hip and three broken ribs. She looked up, her wet hair clinging to her face. "That's why it's called the molecule of life."

"Well, they are less likely to die of hypothermia or shock if they are dry." Owen pointed out, patting Alex on the shoulder as he moved on. "Something to think about."

"Alex, you can't break the rules like that! That's unsanctioned use of a trash bag." April complained, her voice yelling over the noise again. Aliya simply glanced up, meeting Jackson's eyes as they shared an eye roll for once, rather than at each other like they usually seemed to do. "You're gonna mess up our certification."

"You need to relax!" Alex fired back. "This whole up tight thing, this is why you have no friends."

"Hey." Jackson snapped, turning his head over to Alex, who unlocked a new kind of grumpy old man when soaked in heavy Seattle rain.

"Okay. This is why you have one friend." He corrected. In that split second, April lurched towards him, grabbing the red plastic from Alex's shoulders, tugging hard so it ripped in half and fell straight off of his back, placing it on her dummy with a wild look in her eyes. "Give me that back! Are you crazy?"

"There you go, little guy. No hypothermia for you." She began to tuck the red plastic over the dummy's plastic shoulders, patting it down gently.

"Everyone! Green Teams patients are all dead. Only Red Team and Blue Team remain." The green team started to move, only to be waved down by Owen. "Woah. Do you see a helicopter? Take a knee and learn something." He pointed to the soaked floor, where the Green Team reluctantly dropped to their knee.

"Take a knee?" Jackson pulled a face, his forehead creasing. "He's gonna scalp them." He announced, abruptly.

Aliya raised a brow. "You cannot be referring to—"

"We're in Apocalypse Now and we're gonna get scalped." He told her.

Aliya looked back at her patient, and then back up, making direct eye contact with Steve, holding a card in his hands as Owen peered over his shoulder. "Steve! Don't you dare put that card on there!" Aliya ordered, protecting Jim, father of three.

"You don't know what it's gonna say." He argued, bending to put the card on the dummy's chest.

"Yes. Yes I do! It's going to say that this gentleman here has a hemothorax caused by the broken ribs meaning he's bleeding in his pleural space and it's going to say he died." Aliya swatted away the card with the back of her hand, causing Steve to flinch back away from her.

Though, he was rightfully scared, seeing as the manic brunette was dripping wet and he was wearing a rain coat, completely shielded from the rain.

"When I did an extremely, painfully overly thorough exam, I found that was a possibility as the patient experienced hypotension, absent breath sounds and respiratory distress, so I inserted a tube thoracostomy to drain the blood from the chest cavity, meaning in the space of five seconds I've been performed the procedure successfully to me speaking to you now he has not magically died from the hemothorax I saved him from because he is not chocking on his own blood." Aliya breathed out, crashing back onto her heels, out of breath from trying to stop another dummy from dying.

Maybe she was a little too competitive.

Steve's jaw dropped, handing the card to Owen so he could see for himself. "That's what is says on the card."

Clearing his throat, Owen nodded his head, slipping the card into his pocket. "Right, um, good work Dr. Levine."

"I'm three second away from kneeing him in the groin." Aliya spoke after they left, turning around to her three remaining team mates, all looking at her as if she just got up onto a table and started dancing around on it with her shirt off, which she had only done once in her life and that was when she was twenty two years old in Greece.

"I'll hold him down for you." Jackson replied, tearing his eyes off of the brunette reluctantly. "That was impressive by the way."

The corner of her lip curved upwards against her will. "Easy with the compliments already."

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—✩—
⠀

As the hours passed, the irritability level increased due to a mixture of Owen Hunts cards and the rain — it was only natural it would send residents into a fit of rage.

"Red Team's patients have all died! Only Blue Team remains." Owen announced, as if he were some torturous game show host. He pointed at where the four of them were all hunched over their dummies.

But, it seemed that they were the real dummies.

"Keep an eye on Karev and Levine. That's what resourceful looks like." He gestured towards the two, who were currently using various pieces of scraps that they had gathered to fashion a splint to secure a pelvic fracture and a broken knee.

"Good effort, Avery." Owen stood over Jackson, looking down on him, a victorious smile on Jackson's face. "But, this incision you made is too wide. You lacerated the superior thyroid arteries." Jackson's smile faded as Owen flipped over the dummy. "Move on."

"Damn it!" Jackson shot up, moving to another dummy to begin chest compressions on it.

Across from Aliya, April stared up at the sky, her jaw hanging open as her laugh echoed. "I hear it. I hear the helicopter!"

"You what?" Alex spat, handing Aliya more gauze, that were quickly dampened by the rain.

"I— I hear it! I hear it!" April smiled wide, pointing a finger up at the sky in false relief.

"April! You're delusional!" Aliya called out.

"Wake up!" Alex said, harsher than he intended. "You don't hear the helicopter because A, it's imaginary and B, the imaginary helicopter is never coming! Hunt's trying to break us! He's trying to teach us some BS lesson about how trauma isn't fair or whatever! We're not done until he says these dummies are dead. The end!"

"It's not true! No! You are wrong!"

It was good to know that at least one member of the team was still optimistic, even though it could also be mistaken for complete delusion, but how could Aliya judge.

"Screw this. I'm done." Jackson charged up, stopping compressions as he stepped over the bodies strewn across the floor.

Aliya averted her eyes towards him, were he was now moving across the concrete. "Hey, Jackson—"

"What?" April protested, yelling after him. "Jackson!"

"Avery, where are you going? Avery!" Owen stormed after him as April jumped over the dummies to Jackson's, continuing compressions from where he had left off. "Avery, get back here."

"No." Jackson spoke forcefully, tugging the door handle.

"No?" Owen stopped in his tracks.

"No, sir."

And just like that, three out of five of the Blue Team were left.

Ever since the last nightmare Jackson had, Aliya noticed he was having more, waking her up in the middle of the night.

It wasn't like she was sleeping soundly either.

However, often she would go into his room, sneaking across the hall to sit with him where the pair shared endless conversations to take their minds of off their shooting and the loss of their friends.

The grief was suffocating, so a distraction was welcomed in their eyes.

But, Owen Hunt, making them do this, was all a little too much.

⠀
—✩—
⠀

It was now getting dark, the sky was star speckled, and Aliya had felt as if they had spent weeks doing this.

Even though that was an exaggeration, she couldn't deny the stabbing pain she felt at the small of her back. She was usually good at managing pain, especially after standing for hours on end in an operating room, but something about being crouched over lifeless dummies for hours in the pouring rain made her back age about fifty years.

April gritted her teeth at Owen as she performed chest compression, looking even more crazy than she did before. "Sir! You said the helicopter was gonna be here hours ago! And it's not here! And I'm not complaining, but where is it?"

"Well, the rain's still pretty bad." Owen explained, crouched opposite April.

"Well, over twenty dummies — I mean people — have died, so it's a pretty crappy helicopter." Aliya swatted a wet piece of hair away from her face, though it as no use seeing as she was drenched in rain water regardless.

"It probably got caught in a hailstorm." Owen clicked his fingers, pointing to April's dummy.

"No! No!" She hunched over her dummy, stretching out her arms like Aliya did before to protect it. "I know what that card is gonna say! It's gonna say he has a cardiac tamponade with associated hypotension and bradycardia! But, he can't! Cause, I already did a pericardiocentesis and bolused him with IV fluids."

Steve nodded his head, showing the card to Owen. "She's right. What do I do?"

April scoffed, throwing the yellow plastic covering off of the dummy, grabbing it by the top of the yellow back board. "Aliya get to the ambulance, Karev, grab his feet!"

"Oh!" Aliya darted up, a smile breaking across her face.

"What?" Alex was still sat on the floor, eyes darting back and forth between April and Aliya.

"Alexander Michael Karev grab his feet!" Aliya ordered, her hair whipping against her face as she moved around them, striding towards the ambulance, pulling open the unlocked doors.

Alex leaned down, reaching for Steve's feet. "What the—" Steve jumped back, away from Alex's outstretched hands

"The patient!" April screamed, pointing at the dummy in rapid motions.

Grinning, Alex bent down to do as she said. "Son of a bitch! That's awesome!"

"Hey, what do you think you're doing?" Owen followed Aliya, April and Alex as they hauled the dummy into the back of the ambulance. "This ambulance is not in play!"

Aliya rolled her eyes, throwing open the drivers side door. "This is a fictional world, you can't be the only one deciding the rules."

"You're just making stuff up!" April hopped over to the other dummy as Aliya tugged herself into the drivers seat, smiling wide at the first sign of hope she's getting out of this mayhem as she placed her hands on the steering wheel.

(Though, she didn't know how the hell she was going to drive this, seeing as she could barely drive her own car.)

"Which we can do too, and I say it is in play! You can't fit nine patients on an ambulance, but two will fit just fine!" April said, as her and Alex threw the other alive dummy carelessly into the back of the ambulance. "Seven of our patients may have died today, but these two won't because, we're gonna get them on this ambulance and take them to that hospital right over there!" April jumped into the back of the ambulance, stumbling to the passenger seat.

"Alright!" Alex shut the back doors.

Aliya looked over at April, who practically fell into the seat next to her, slipping in her seat due to the rain. "Do you need a minute to collect yourself or—"

"Drive!" April answered, tugging her seatbelt on.

"Safety first I guess." Aliya popped the key that was on the dashboard into the ignition, just as Owen and Alex appeared by Aliya's drivers window.

"Kepner! Levine! This ambulance was involved in the accident and no longer runs!" Owen lectured.

"We will have to see about that." Aliya shrugged, peering down at April as she reached over her lap, winding the window down beside her.

"The keys are in the ignition! Let's see!" April shouted, returning to her own seat.

Aliya turned the key, the ambulance coming to life, a smile illustrated across her face as she looked back to April, who seemed to share her same happiness, before looking back to where Alex was stood behind Owen, shrugging at him as she tensed her hands around the wheel.

"Looks like we got triple A." April cackled, throwing her head back in fits of laughter as Aliya fidgeted, getting everything in place. She was a very particular driver. "Apparently, they could get here when the helicopter couldn't!" She leaned over Aliya, missing hitting her face by inches. "Now move! Or we will run you down!" Owen released his hands from the ambulance in bewilderment as Aliya pushed the car into drive and April slammed on the lights, the sirens blaring as Aliya drove the largest vehicles she's ever driven around the hospital.

"You know, you're a little crazy." Aliya spoke, turning the wheel around a bend.

"Thank you!" April beamed with pride. "I had to get out of there, I was loosing my mind."

"We were all loosing our minds." Aliya braked as they reached the ambulance bay, April taking that as a sign to dart out of the door, tugging Aliya out of her seat with her.

"John Doe, multiple chest and extremity trauma! Still hypotensive despite two large bore IVs started in the field." Throwing open the doors, April tugged a dummy, which Aliya could only presume was in fact John Doe, out of the ambulance.

Owen and Alex ran out onto the ambulance bay, stopping in front of April and Aliya. "All right, Kepner. That's enough."

"He needs a full work-up." She hauled the dummy over her shoulder. "Aliya grab the other one!"

"April—" Aliya started.

"Now!"

"Fine!" Aliya sighed, unstrapping the other one from its board to throw it over her own shoulder.

"He needs a full work-up and likely a thoracotomy. I suspect active bleeding in the chest."

"Will you tell us we won or she's never gonna stop." Alex begged, standing beside Aliya, swaying slightly from sleep deprivation.

"It's not a contest." Owen replied.

"Karev, call the OR!" April was now proving it most definitely was a contest. "And make sure there's a room available!"

Alex looked over his shoulder. "Will do."

"I'm not being funny, Dr. Hunt—" Aliya started, pressing her palm to her forehead as the dummy fell limply from her shoulder and onto the ground. "I really need some coffee. And a shower. I think the easiest way for everyone to win here is to tell her she's won."

"All right! All right!" Owen sighed, turning to April reluctantly. "Blue Team wins."

"Blue Team wins?" April stopped in her steps.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." Owen sighed, rolling his eyes as Aprils face broke out into a smile of victory. "You win. He's gonna live for forty more years and have fifteen grandkids. You happy?"

"Blue Team wins!" April threw her hands into the air, sending the John Doe dummy to the ground, hitting the damp ground harshly.

"Yes." Owen confirmed with a nod of his head.

"Yes!" April screamed in victory, running over to where Aliya and Alex, throwing her hands around their necks.

"Woah!" Aliya squealed, patting Aprils back as she squeezed tightly around their necks. "Okay, can't breathe. Can't breathe."

Letting go, April stepped back, only to continue jumping up and down and punching the air, splashing even more water onto the legs of her scrubs. "Yes! Yes! Yes!"

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"Hey, Aliya!" Jackson jogged to catch her up. Aliya, who was now in fresh clothes, her hair still hanging damp around her shoulders, whipped her head back.

Aliya cleared her throat as Jackson slowed down next to her, matching her pace as they walked to the exit. "Oh, hi."

"How was the trauma cert?" Jackson asked, tilting his head towards her.

"Perfectly fine." Aliya nodded slowly, chewing down on her lip, her shoulder bumping into Jackson's, the smallest touch sending her brain into overdrive. "If 'perfectly fine' is defined by April having a mental breakdown, getting rained on so much it completely soaked my underwear and developing blinding back pain. But, I'm not one to complain."

Jackson chuckled lightly, his hands digging deeper into his jean pockets. "You? A complainer? Definitely not."

"But, I have gained something today." Aliya spoke optimistically, her hand clasped onto one of her many patterned handbags she had.

"Is it the back pain?" Jackson asked with a smirk. "Or witnessing April's breakdown?"

"Nope." She shook her head, looking back up at him, her brown eyes catching in the hospital lights above them. "Twenty dollars."

He watched her grin at him. "Damn it. I almost forgot."

"Pay up, Avery." Stopping abruptly, Aliya held out her hand out in front of him.

Jackson stared at her outstretched hand for a long moment, before regaining his composure, straightening his back up tall. "I was thinking—"

Aliya frowned. "That's not good."

Jackson held back an eye roll, continuing without even batting an eyelid. "—that maybe you'd want to use that twenty dollars in a different way."

"Oh my—" Aliya replied, horrified and perplexed, taking a sharp intake of breath, lowering her voice into a whisper. "I'm not paying you— You're not a male escort."

"Oh, totally. That's exactly what I meant." Jackson scoffed, the corner of his lip curled up regardless. "I was wondering whether you want to go to dinner with me."

The brunettes jaw dropped, and she needed to acquire a fork lift to get it off the ground.

"Dinner? As in sit down and eat food?"

Narrowing his eyes at the woman in front of him, Jackson scratched his forehead, suddenly growing more nervous. "Yes, that's usually what the proposition of dinner entails."

"So, like a date?" Aliya clarified, a smirk dancing across her lips.

"Yes, like a date."

Aliya opened her mouth to speak, before shutting it again quickly, then opening it again to speak, like a gold fish struggling to put her thoughts into coherent words.

Though Jackson, who was now watching her fumble over her words, was thoroughly enjoying watching her squirm.

"You're asking me on a date?" She finally said, after what felt like a lifetime of silence.

Jackson grinned, knowing too well she was just playing dumb to avoid the question. "Why are you so surprised? And, why are you dodging the question?"

Aliya gulped, her eyes widening and all of a sudden she felt extremely hot and flustered, like lava was coursing through her veins. "I'm not surprised, and I'm not dodging the question." She denied with a shake of her head.

"Look, Aliya." Jackson sighed, rubbing his jaw as he thought of the right words. "I don't want just sex."

Aliya shushed him quickly, tugging the sleeve of his jacket as she pulled him towards the front door and out into the fresh air. He raised a brow at her as she dropped his sleeve. "What? You know the walls have ears." She replied, as they stopped a few steps outside the doors to the hospital. 

"As I was saying, I don't want just sex with you." He repeated, calmly, staring intently into her eyes. "What I'm trying to say is I want more than that with you, so, it's worth a try. I want to give us a try."

Taking a few moments to think about it (but she knew exactly what she wanted almost immediately, she just enjoyed watching him squirm), Aliya finally answered the only question that mattered. "Yes."

Jackson smiled in surprise, the smile reaching all the way up to his eyes. "Yes?"

"Yes. Jackson. I'll go on a date with you." Aliya reiterated, wrapping her arms around her body as a cold gush of wind passed them by.

"Okay good—" Jackson grinned as the pair began to walk side by side to the parking lot. "Because, I made a reservation for tomorrow night, at that restaurant you were raving about last week."

Aliya lurched over in laughter, her shoulders shaking. "You were pretty confident weren't you."

"I was almost certain you were going to say yes." He confirmed with a light chuckle, the sound doing some weird things to her stomach. "If not I had a backup plan. One of the nurses on the third floor seemed like a good idea. They love me up there."

Aliya's jaw dropped. "Oh! You've got to be—"

"Kidding." Jackson placed his arm around her shoulder, walking her to her car. Peering up at him in mock disgust only caused him to laugh even harder, so she slipped her arm around his back, leaning into his side.

⠀
—✩—
⠀

Entering the living room where practically everyone who lived in the house was currently cramped in, Aliya dropped down in the sofa next to Alex, a big bowl of popcorn and chocolate in her arms.

"Okay." Lexie sighed, reaching for the remote. "This is your last time getting up."

"You do keep darting up and down." April commented, agreeing with Lexie and narrowing her eyes at the brunette as she wriggled in the seat to get comfy.

"I have a bad bladder." Aliya protested, just as Reese padded into the room, dropping down next to Aliya, his head resting against her feet.

Jackson raised a brow, looking over in amusement. "We've only been watching for ten minutes."

He was sat across the room, for safety precautions.

Alex side-eyed his friend, whilst she shot Jackson a look of warning. "Unless she's trying to stall."

Aliya shook her head, reaching for the popcorn which had left her lap into Alex's. "Not in a million years. I find Seattle Medical: Road to Recovery extremely riveting." She replied, pulling a blanket over her legs.

"I think we she get this over with." Meredith announced. "Lexie, press play."

Lexie sighed again, aiming the remote at the screen as the documentary resumed, cutting to Alex in the peds ward, telling the camera how his interns get there before him, and wrongly identifying a Demi Lovato song as a Justin Bieber song.

"Did they put concealer on you?" Aliya spoke, squinting at the screen to get a better look. "You had a spot on your cheek that day and now it's gone."

"You get crows feet like that." Alex pointed out at Aliya's squinting, digging his hands into the bowl of popcorn, chucking a handful into his mouth.

"Hey, do you have that—" Aliya's voice sounded through the television speaker, causing Real Life Aliya's head to drop into her hands, a groan escaping her lips.

"Whose great idea was it to watch this?" Aliya spoke into her hands, her voice distorted.

April looked over, sitting up in her armchair. "I thought it would be fun."

"There's nothing fun about this." She groaned.

On Screen Aliya stopped short as she realised the cameras pointing directly at her face, her eyes widening, her cheeks blushing slightly as the ring light shone down on her face. "Oh. Sorry."

"That's okay." The person behind the camera spoke, the shot widening to capture both Alex and Aliya on screen. "We can ask you both questions." Jumping forward slightly, the documentary continued. "Would you say you two changed much since the shooting?"

Real Life Aliya grimaced at the screen, peaking through her fingers as her On Screen double chewed down on her lip.

It was like slowing down for a car crash, she couldn't not watch it.

"I would say the whole hospital has changed." On Screen Aliya spoke up, looking directly into the camera lens. "It's not something you forget."

"But, have you changed?" The camera man coaxed.

"I don't know." On Screen Alex shrugged. Real life Alex looked at the screen, disgusted, his lip curled up slightly. "I got this." On Screen Alex pulled his scrub shirt up, revealing the scar on his stomach.

The camera man zoomed in on it.

"It's a miracle he didn't get an infection seeing as he left the bullet in his body for well over a month." On Screen Aliya spoke, painfully passive-aggressively and only Real Life Aliya knew she was slightly angered by the fact she only came up to peds for the granola bar Alex stole from her bag, and she ended up being roped into a full on interview about something she'd really rather not talk about.

On Screen Alex tugged his shirt back down, narrowing his eyes at her, causing Aliya to whip her head back to him, shooting a similar look as if they were having some sort of showdown.

"Would you say you two are pretty close?" The camera man questioned.

The pair snorted, a smirk tugging at both of their lips. "I annoy her, she annoys me." Alex explained with a shrug, earning a scoff and an eye roll from Aliya.

"As you can see, Dr. Karev is a delight." On Screen Aliya waved her hand towards him, whilst Real Life Aliya moved in slow motion to put popcorn in her mouth. "There's a reason why we call him Dr. Evil Spawn."

Just before it cut to the next clip, Lexie (Real Life) spat out her popcorn, curling over laughing.

"What? I'm great on camera." Alex argued.

Aliya nodded, laughing slightly at how the documentary was paused on the pair looking across at each other, the way they look at one another when they are mutually getting on each others nerves. "You chose the wrong career. You should follow your true passion."

Jackson who was also chuckling at the clip, reached for the popcorn. "I think that was my favourite part so far."

Aliya raised a brow. "It's only been playing for ten minutes."

"I make up my mind easily." Jackson shrugged, eyeing Aliya secretly, his gaze telling her a million different things.

"The two of you are natural on screen." Meredith added, sarcastically.

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( notes! )

aliya alex and april were there chaotic alliteration trio i never knew i needed until now

also please let me know what you think of scrub caps so far!! do you like aliya / her relationship with the other characters?? let me know!!

the opening of this chapter is pure chaos in the best way!! the fact that derek & aliya are the feral mentor/mentee duo nobody ever knew they needed until now!!

( word count! — 8,700 )