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chapter thirty two ━ not responsible
season seven, episode sixteen

❝ do you think there's just
one person for everyone? ❞

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"Aliya, what are you wearing?" Alex Karev raised his brow at the brunette that had just entered the kitchen, and even Meredith and Derek who were at the table looking over the floor plans for their house glanced up, tracing Aliya's outfit in awe.

Looking down at herself, Aliya frowned, because she personally didn't think the clothes she was wearing were all that bad. "What's wrong with my outfit?"

"You look like a farmer." Alex bit into his slice of raspberry jam toast in disgust.

It was true, to a certain extent. She was in fact wearing a pair of blue dungarees with her hair in a loose braid that hung down her back. But the similarities to farmers ended there, because it wasn't as if she was wearing a flannel underneath her dungarees too, she just had a plain white top on.

"Where have you been?" Derek questioned, straightening up from where he was leant over Meredith's shoulder. The blonde was currently oddly squinting at Aliya, which threw her off massively.

Aliya appeared to squint at the blonde back, wondering what the hell had gotten into her. "Oh, I've—"

Alex rubbed the crumbs off his hands, tutting as he shook his head. "Five times this week Aliya, that's a record."

"What's a record?" Meredith asked, still squinting around the room like a crazy person.

"Nothing." Aliya gave Alex a pointed look in an attempt to make him shut up, but that man had no understanding of when to stop speaking. She didn't either, so she couldn't really say much when he carried on explaining.

Alex raised a brow at the couple. "You don't notice her leaving the house early each morning, then coming back over an hour later?"

The Levine woman took it upon herself to death stare Alex as he exposed Aliya's illicit car rides to the entire kitchen.

"Yes," Meredith nodded, Alex helping her piece it all together. "Aliya, why do you do that?"

Aliya shrugged her shoulders in dismissal, making her way to the refuge of the coffee station, reaching for a filter and making a fresh pot via muscle memory.

"She drives to Andy's house, stops in the drive, never gets out the car, and drives all the way back." Alex explained to Meredith and Derek with Aliya's back turned to them as she turned her concentration to the art that was coffee making. "She's been doing it for three weeks now. First week, it was twice. Second, it was four times and this week, five."

"Aliya." Meredith murmured, softly and sympathetically, looking towards Aliya carefully as if that brunette would spook if a gust of wind hit the house.

"It's really no big deal." Aliya said, waving around the bag of coffee as she spoke. "Go back to talking about your bath tub."

The other three people in the room didn't move, their eyes remaining on the dungaree-wearing woman.

Aliya sighed, feeling said three pair of eyes on her back. "Stop looking at me, go back to planning Barbie's dream house."

"Okay—" Derek pursed his lips, pointing back at the dream house floor plan. "So, do you want me to move the tub, or do you want to share as sink."

"I—" Meredith narrowed her eyes again at the paper in front of her. "Have one opinion."

Alex crunched down on a bit of toast.

Obnoxiously.

"And, that is I just want a tub deep enough that covers my knees and my boobs." The Grey woman informed.

"Knees and boobs at the same time." Derek spoke at the same time as Meredith as he relived the same conversation yet again. "Yeah, I gotta go. You're useless, love you." He leaned down, planting a kiss on Meredith's forehead before leaving the kitchen.

"Th doo bvldu ream how." Alex spoke, yet again through a mouthful of toast meaning the two women in the room had no idea what he was trying to communicate.

"Ew, Alex, digest your food first please!" Aliya's faced screwed up in disgust at the crumbs Alex was spraying all across the counter.

Alex made an act of gulping down his toast, wiping his hands on his shirt before continuing on. "The dude's building you a dream house."

"I can't read these stupid things." Meredith complained with a scowl, gesturing towards the floor plans.

"You just don't give a crap." Alex scoffed, clearing up his crumbs by sweeping them off of the counter and onto the floor when Aliya wasn't looking.

"I'm taking baby drugs to make my uterus less hostile."

"Oh, fun!" Aliya enthused, chin deep in a cup of coffee.

"I don't know." Meredith frowned. "It makes my eyes dry, and I have to squint to see, and I don't really care enough about the tub-sink relationship, you know—"

"You should talk to that hot OB—"

"Did someone say hot OB?" If this were a cartoon, there would be a lot of exaggerated attention on how Aliya's ears pricking up at Alex saying the words 'hot OB'.

"You are always drumming up reasons to talk to that hot OB." Meredith mocked, laughing and pushing on Alex's arm.

The brunette practically skipped over to the two, invested in this rabbit hole. "Hot OB? You have a hot OB and didn't tell me."

"I'm not pregnant, Aliya." Alex frowned, though his face heated in a sort of pink blush as if the thermostat jumped up a couple degrees.

Aliya grinned wide. "So, you like the new hot OB, huh? This is priceless." 

"No." Her best friend grumbled, avoiding her eyes.

"You so do!" Aliya slapped Alex's shoulder light-heartedly in the midst of her jumping up and down like a kangaroo.

"I think you made a mistake mentioning the hot OB." Meredith pointed out to Alex.

"Tell me about it." Alex grimaced at Aliya's interrogations which continued as they rushed upstairs to brush their teeth, get changed, and then the whole entire drive to the hospital.

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"Oh!" Aliya exclaimed as she came to the sudden realisation that the universe was conspiring against her.

Jackson studied the brunette look up at him quickly with wide and surprised eyes. He could relate to that, he wasn't expecting her to be here either. He was on cardio and—

"I'm on cardio today." Aliya seemed to have read his exact thoughts, answering the question as to why she wasn't halfway across the hospital on the neuro floor. "It's Mer's clinical trial day."

"Oh." Jackson nodded his head, regaining his posture as he attempted to snap out of the haze she currently had him in. "Well, I'm on Dr. Altman's service, I guess I'll see you around." He began to walk off, hearing Aliya's brief sigh from behind him.

In the way totally opposite to a stalker, she followed him.

"This must be some sort of—" Jackson started to mutter to himself as he realised the steps behind him weren't just a figment of his imagination, but Aliya. "You're on Altman's service too?"

"I'm on Dr. Altman's service too." Aliya's voice overlapped Jackson's.

The Avery man's brows were lowered, seemingly not too impressed with their run in, seeing as Aliya never gave him an answer to his previous question.

"Oh." Aliya laughed nervously, bouncing on the balls of her feet. "Well, um, I guess you're stuck with me."

"I guess I am." Jackson crossed his arms over his chest. "It's not so bad though, you spend most of your days avoiding me, you'll probably still find a way."

Aliya's jaw dropped as Jackson's brutal honesty slapped her around the face.

What a way to rip the bandaid off.

"I do not." She protested, her voice strained because even she could sense the lie.

The green eyed man smirked. "Don't lie to yourself, Levine. We all know you do. I know, the nurses know, hell, even the lab techs know when you hide out in their offices."

"I do not hide out in their offices, it was a one time thing. Because they had bagels. Like the ones they do in New York." Aliya informed him, though Jackson nodded along as she spoke, incredibly sarcastically as he didn't believe a word she was saying. "You know, you're delusional. Go see a doctor." Aliya blurted out light heartedly with a pink flush on her cheeks.

"Well, we are in a hospital—" Jackson stated matter-of-factly. "It wouldn't be hard to find one who doesn't pretend I don't exist."

Aliya stood stunned for the second time this morning. "I don't pretend—"

"Right!" And as Teddy rounded the corner, chart in hand, Aliya was saved by a cardio goddess. "You two ready?"

"Yep." Aliya gulped and nodded, following Teddy quickly as Jackson casually walked behind, hands in his pockets, looking incredibly proud of himself.

"Ricky!" Teddy beamed as the trio rounded into the room where a young man and his supposed girlfriend were in. "Big day!"

"Bring it on." Ricky smiled, weakly, before regarding the brunette doctor. "Hey, Dr. Levine."

"Hey, Ricky, how are you holding up?" Aliya smiled stopping next to Teddy by his bedside.

"I've been better." Ricky shuffled in his bed. "I haven't seen you for a while, where have you been?"

"Very important clinical trial business."

"I knew one of these days watching me cough and sneeze would exhaust you." Ricky chuckled, light-heartedly.

Aliya gasped, jokingly, giving him a smile. "It could never."

"Is this your sister?" Teddy asked politely, with a smile.

Ricky shook his head, taking the girls hand. "This is my girlfriend, Julia."

"You're kidding!" Teddy looked at Julia, her eyes widening. "He's been talking about you for months."

"I figured if there's ever a day to take off work, it's when your boyfriend's getting new lungs." Julia explained, placing a hand on Ricky's shoulder as he began to cough into his hand.

"Smart, she waited for the real fun." Teddy flicked open the chart. "All right, let's do this."

"Well, your new lungs should leave Portland in about two hours." Jackson explained to him. "You haven't taken any of your cystic fibrosis meds since last night, right?"

God, even when he's talking about lungs his voice sends the butterflies in Aliya's stomach to freak out like wildfire.

Wrong time, Aliya. Wrong time.

"No food, no water, no drugs." Ricky recited, giving Aliya a knowing glance as his eyes went back and forth between her and Jackson.

She can never keep anything to herself, especially with patients she sees almost every day.

Aliya cleared her throat, straightening up and putting on her most convincing face of encouragement. "That's what we like to hear. So, Ricky, we just need to do one last quick work up, and then we'll get you those new set of lungs, sound good?"

Ricky nodded. "Like music to my ears."

"Oh, and Julia, wrote down your number, please, and give it to Dr. Levine." Teddy asked.

Julia's face seemed to drop at that. "Why?"

"So we can call you when Ricky's in surgery if we have any news."

Julia nodded in response, unable to vocalise any words as she stared nervously down at Ricky, something that Aliya caught on to. Call it intuition, or the fact she was on the edge of something that she couldn't quite put her finger on, but something didn't seem quite right.

And on that note, as they were leaving the room, Ricky whispered in a hushed voice. "The boyfriend?"

Aliya drew in a breath. "It's complicated."

And well, Jackson, who heard this quick exchange, smirked at the prospect of being labelled 'it's complicated', rather than nothing at all.

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"Did something seem— I don't know, off with Ricky and Julia?" Aliya asked Jackson as they left the room for a brief minute to grab a couple things they needed for the work up.

Jackson sighed, turning to look at her from over his shoulder. "Stop being cynical, it's fine."

"No— it's not that, she just seemed." Aliya paused in thought as she retrieved her stethoscope and turned back towards Ricky's room. "I don't know, defensive, I guess."

"And how did you get there?" Jackson raised a brow, grabbing his own stethoscope too.

"Excellent deductive skills." Aliya answered back, but quickly switched back to the point at hand. "You didn't see it?"

"Everything's fine, Levine, okay?" He reassured as they brushed shoulders as they passed through the door way at the same time, Ricky already sat on the edge of the bed, ready for Jackson as he put his stethoscope to his ears, listening to his heartbeat.

Aliya reached for the chart, clicking the pen in her hand. "Did you sign the forms?"

"Pretty sure I signed two hundred of them." Ricky joked.

"That sounds about right, you just gave us your first born." Jackson agreed with the strenuous paperwork process, just before Julia began to cough from the chair, lurching over slightly whilst clutching her chest. "You need a drink of water, Julia?"

Aliya didn't want to be right about this one, but even the sound of her cough was an indicator to what she think might be happening here.

"Just—" Julia waved her hand at Jackson, reaching for her bag in a hurry. "—asthma. Sorry."

"Nothing brings people together like respiratory disorders."

"I wouldn't have guessed." Aliya smiled from where she was charting, neatly writing notes on the lines. But she was distracted by Julia's purse, falling to the ground, the contents spilling out across the floor as the woman found her inhaler.

Aliya reached down to the floor to put the contents of her purse back into her bag, but she couldn't help see the meds.

"Dornase?" Aliya read as she picked up the pills, glancing up at Julia, then back towards Ricky.

"It's mine." Ricky gave a perfectly reasonable explanation, but Aliya's eye brushed over the name on the prescription.

Aliya sighed, frowning. "Ricky, it has Julia's name on it."

Jackson placed the stethoscope around his neck, leaning in towards Aliya where she was holding out the meds for him to take a look too. "Rick, why is she on dornase?"

"I'm gonna go." Julia said quickly, beelining straight towards the door to make a sudden exit.

"Julia, hold on just one second—" Aliya stopped her quickly, holding out the meds. She pursed her lips, looking at her in the calmest way possible as Julia took her meds back. "Do you have cystic fibrosis?"

"Go!" Ricky angled his head towards the door.

"No—" Aliya said, sternly, narrowing her eyes at Ricky, who probably had never seen Aliya look like that before, mainly because she was usually always so friendly. "Just wait, okay?"

"You know how dangerous cystic fibrosis patients are to each other?" Jackson told them.

Ricky dipped his head, his eyes boring holes into his bedsheets. "We know."

"You can infect each other with bacteria, there's no way you can fight!" Jackson continued reciting the things they probably already knew, but chose to avoid. Because sometimes, even when it truly sucks, you can't help who you fall for.

"Ricky, come on," Aliya spoke softly, knowing that if she exploded onto him, it wouldn't help anyone, it would only make matters worse. "You knew this."

"I know! We know! You know how many times we heard the warnings?" Ricky snapped, descending into a coughing fit which only made Julia rush to his side, and Aliya and Jackson locked eyes from across the room. "Never get closer than three feet from another CF patient."

"Ricky, Julia— Why would you put each other at that much risk? I know you love each other, but—" Aliya paused for a breath in between the madness of the past few minutes.

"You don't understand." Julia frowned, rubbing her thumb back and forth across Ricky's palm. "Nobody gets it. We both tried dating, people can't handle it. People cringe as soon as you start coughing, like you're gonna kill them."

Aliya's eyes flickered briefly towards Jackson, who had been staring at her the entire time she was listening to Julia, her face flinching and contorting as she seemed to know of a similar kind of pain. Which was nowhere near the same as theirs in so many different ways. "I don't even want to begin to think how hard it must be, but, you have to understand this isn't a joke, being together can kill you."

"No, depression is dangerous. Living by yourself, with nobody who understands you, that's dangerous." Ricky pointed out, his breathing laboured. "We spent eight years making small talk on opposite sides of a doctor's waiting room, and one day we decided that life with risk, was better than not really living. We deserve to be together."

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Aliya laid slumped across the table in the lunch hall, her head buried in the nook of her arm.

And as her brain was delayed reacting to the events that happened five minutes previous, and her sending a manic page to Teddy who said she would speak to her when she's out of another consult, she only picked up on the tail end of Cristina and Meredith's conversation.

"Well, 'cause men leave wads of toothpaste in the sink, and when you have your own sink, you don't have to look at it." Cristina explained, and Aliya quickly picked up on the fact that they were still talking about the bathroom debacle. "You know, all dried and congealed and filled with their fossilised oral bacteria."

"I leave toothpaste in the sink." Mer admitted with a guilty disposition. "You're supposed to rinse it every time you brush?"

A fry appeared on the sleeve of Aliya's scrubs, courtesy of Alex, which she manoeuvred her head in a way so she could eat it.

"Nobody parented you." Cristina placed a hand on Mer's arm. "This is to be expected."

"You're really gonna move out and sell your house?" Alex spoke in between a mouthful of fry that Aliya had been trying to stop him from doing since intern year. She didn't want to see what he had for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

"Why? Are you going to miss me?" Meredith smiled, and Aliya chewed on another fry Alex had placed down for her.

"No." Alex grumbled back. "I'm gonna miss having a cheap place to live."

"You know, I have trouble seeing fine print, but I can still see your paws on my food." And with that, Meredith slapped Alex's hand away from her food.

"I'm stealing them for Aliya!" Alex exclaimed, pointing to the brunette in a crisis. "You like Aliya!"

"I do like Aliya," Meredith pursed her lips, bringing her fries in close. "But I want my fries."

Finally dragging her head from the table, she sighed, her shoulders slouched over. "My CF patient's girlfriend is a CF patient."

"Holy crap." Meredith exclaimed, her jaw dropping at the news.

Cristina paused with a chip halfway to her mouth at the drama. "You're being serious?"

"I wouldn't want to even joke about it." Aliya frowned down at the table.

Cristina quickly swallowed her chip. "Do they know how—"

"Yes."

"And are they going to—"

"Probably not, they are very adamant on the fact that they love each other." Aliya explained, solemnly, sadly staring at the table.

"That's ridiculous!" Cristina burst out. "They can kill each other!"

"They know all of this, believe me." Aliya informed, yawning into her palm and straightening her back. "They aren't listening."

"What's Teddy going to do about it?" Meredith questioned, intrigued in the star crossed lovers story.

"Probably bust their balls." Alex answered.

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"The fact that the two of you haven't swapped a life-threatening infection already is a miracle!" Teddy snapped in frustration, pacing around the very small, unoccupied area of the room. "So, maybe God had a soft spot for you guys, but once this transplant is done, Ricky will be on immunosuppressants, meaning he is ten times more likely to get an infection."

"Lots of things are risky." Ricky informed, stifling a cough behind his hand.

"Ricky," Aliya trailed off, tucking her hair behind her ears. "You know how detrimental the risks are!"

"It doesn't mean anything to you." Julia pointed out. "You've lived your lives happy, we've been sick our whole lives. Don't we deserve some happiness?"

Jackson crossed his arms with a sigh. "You'll get it." He tried to assure, his voice soft seeing as the pair of them were awfully adamant they belonged together.

"Don't act like it's easy." Julia snapped, rolling her eyes as she looked across at Jackson. "With your gorgeous eyes, and your white coat. It's insulting."

"I won't tell you it's easy." Teddy cut in, her hands braced on her hips. "It's not. But people need these lungs. People can use these lungs for decades." Teddy moved closer to Ricky's bedside, desperately trying to convince him. "Parents with small children, teenagers who are just starting their lives. If the two of you stay together, you could destroy these lungs within months. These lungs are a gift, if you squandered it—"

"What we have is a gift." Ricky interjected, glancing up at a worried Julia. "If you are in love, you know. It's rare. And it's a gift."

Aliya allowed her gaze to shift from Ricky, over to Jackson, who looked across to her at the exact same time.

She held the contact for a couple of seconds, before she felt the overwhelming feeling of how much she screwed everything up.

Because, she knew she did.

She overreacted, like she always did.

And she ruined one of the only good things she had in her life.

If a magic genie or whatever came to Aliya and asked her if she would like to rewind back time to when she was waiting for him on that bench on an ice cold evening of December. the exact moment she chose to be defensive, she would say yes in a heartbeat.

And that's when she understood Ricky, because in any parallel universe, if she couldn't be with Jackson, she didn't want to be with anyone else.

She would rather die too.

The sound of Teddy losing her patience cut through her train of thought. "End the relationship, or you don't get the lungs." She threatened, and left the room straight after.

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"Do you understand now?" Ricky asked, sarcastically as he watched Aliya enter the room.

"I don't think I could ever understand the position you're in." Aliya responded, standing next to his bedside, glancing at Julia who had tears streaming down her cheeks. Aliya passed her the box of tissues, which she accepted silently.

"Then you realise—" Julia's voice broken, and Ricky reached for her hand to give her some reassurance. "Then you realise how impossible this decision is."

"We're losing either way." Ricky spoke, his words solemn.

"You both are so young." Aliya started, trying not to get too emotional, sometimes she couldn't help herself. "I mean, if I had a second chance at being your age again I wouldn't make half of the mistakes I made—"

Ricky scoffed. "Are you calling us a mistake?"

"Not in the slightest." Aliya replied, and his expression seemed to relax just a bit from the defensive. "All I'm saying is, you two have long lives ahead of you. With these new lungs, you can be whoever you want to be if you allow yourself to live long enough to get there. You heard what Dr. Altman said, you could have decades with these lungs. I have no doubt the two of you can get past this. I mean, after everything you've gone through already, you're both strong and capable to live your lives with the happiness you deserve outside of each other—"

"I need an answer." Teddy spoke as she entered the room, and Aliya stepped back away from Ricky's bed, Jackson stopping beside her. "Is it over?"

"Yeah." Julia squeezed Ricky's shoulder, and the two held each other with their eyes. "It's over."

"Ok." Teddy nodded, moving her attention to Julia. "You need to say goodbye, right now."

"This minute?" Julia winced, tears lining her eyes.

"We need to prep you, and then cut your chest open, so yes, this minute."

Ricky pressed his lips together in an effort not to cry, before he reached up to Julia's cheek, giving her the invitation for one last kiss they never thought they would have.

They pulled away, remaining an inch from each others faces for a couple moments before Julia rushed away from him, with one last touch of his hand, grabbing her coat and bag as she headed for the door.

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"I thought you would be out here." Aliya approached Julia, who was sat down on a bench outside the entrance to the hospital, tears staining her cheeks as she pulled her gaze out of staring into space to look up at the brunette doctor. "Ricky's doing good."

"Gonna tell her I'm here?" Julia asked, her voice cracking in between her words even though she tried to bite back the hurt.

"Oh— no." Aliya shook her head. "I'm not going to tell Dr. Altman."

Julia breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank—"

"Julia." Aliya sat down next to her, perching on the edge of the bench so she could turn and face her, placing a hand on hers to try and give her some level of comfort in an impossible situation. "I could sit here for hours listing the reasons why you shouldn't be here. Why you shouldn't be with Ricky. But, I know you already know every single one of those reasons. I know you love Ricky, there's no denying that, you wouldn't be here if you didn't. But loving someone isn't just about being with someone, it's about caring for them, even if you have to love him from afar."

Julia blinked at the doctor, more tears sliding down her cheeks.

Quickly swallowing the lump rising in her throat, Aliya continued on. "You can move on Julia, I know you love him and right now it seems impossible, but you can find someone who doesn't destroy you. Because, it doesn't feel like it to you, but you're killing each other. And, there's nothing romantic about that."

"You'll tell him he has to find someone?" Julia pleaded, her shoulders shaking as she cried even harder. "He really has to try because, I don't want him to be alone."

"I'll tell him." Aliya put her arm around Julia, letting her sob over what she has lost for as long as she liked.

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It was an understatement to say that Aliya Levine had had a long day. This day felt like a few months squashed into a span of a twenty four hour period. But, her existence felt oddly like that recently, like she was just watching her life unfold right before her eyes, as if it was all out of control.

The fact was that everything around her was changing at bullet train speed and she could do absolutely nothing to stop it terrified her. And sitting there in her car on Andy's driveway, listening to the wind chimes crash about in the wind seemed to prove just that fact.

She wished she could do something, press an imaginary button that miraculously somehow reverted everything back to the way it should be. But that could never happen in a million years because you can't bring people back from the dead, you can't make people who are meant to love you actually love you. And worst of all, it's hard to reverse the mistakes you have made.

Aliya stared down at her phone, which chimed again from where she left it in her pocket, and she didn't even have to look at the sender to know exactly who it was. The conversation she had just had with her mother was far from pleasant, yet another time where Molly Levine found that it was her life's mission to make her youngest daughter feel like the least important person on this Earth.

She's been told something along those lines so many times she was starting to believe it was true.

Aliya didn't know what was stopping her from just blocking her number.

The blur in her periphery cleared his throat and dropped down on the bench beside her, despite the metal practically being so frozen Aliya wasn't sure she would be able to get up as it ran the risk of her jeans being frozen solid to the seat.

"You okay?"

Why did he have to still be like that even though Aliya personally broke his heart into two in heat of the moment anger?

Aliya stared down at her hands, her fingertips frozen from the lack of gloves on her hands.

In fact, her whole body was frozen solid from her lack of coherent thoughts — she forgot to bring a scarf, let alone a coat. So, she was sitting there in the cold night of Seattle as it was still changing into Spring.

She was pretty sure her lips were turning blue.

"Yeah." She replied, breathing a breath of cold smoke from her mouth. "Are you?"

"Yeah." He replied, simply, a smile on his lips.

Though she didn't know why he was actually smiling.

Maybe it was because she was going to get hypothermia and die out here.

The brunette continued to stare straight ahead as Jackson shuffled around beside her, and suddenly a heavy material rested around her shoulders, and Aliya squirmed around to see what he had placed on there.

One of her coats.

"You left it in my car and I forgot to bring it into the house. You looked cold so I thought—" Jackson trailed off, swallowing loudly.

"Thank you." The corner of her mouth twitched against her will. Maybe he smiled against his will before , who knows, sometimes you just can't control the expression on your face. "If you would've come back in six hours time I probably would be frozen to the bench. It would have been very tragic. 21st Century Shakespeare would write a play about me."

Jackson shook his head. "Don't do that."

Aliya raised a brow in confusion. "Do what?"

"Make jokes." He quickly said back, and Aliya let herself look at the way he held her eyes with his own.

"Why—"

"Don't make jokes when it's obvious something's wrong." He spoke firmly, pursing his perfect pink lips.

Aliya shrugged. "That's not really my style."

"I know that."

A moment of silence passed between them, but it wasn't necessarily uncomfortable.

"Do you think there's just one person for everyone?"

She regretted the words as soon as they came out.

What kind of a question was that to ask?

Especially to him.

Now, anyway. 

"Excuse me?" He replied back, taken by surprise.

"Julia and Ricky, I can't help but feel bad for them because, what if they were it?" Aliya made a hand gesture that would warrant a special kind of code book to decrypt. "What if they were each others, you know—"

"Soulmates?" Jackson finished her sentence.

"Yeah."

Jackson considered what she was saying, painful
my temporarily breaking eye contact. "I think there's more than one person for everyone."

"Oh." She couldn't help but feel disappointed, and she tried to not let it show.

"But sometimes," He smiled lightly to himself at his thought he was yet to share. "Just one person can be enough to make everyone else incomparable."

They regained eye contact once more.

And it was as if both of their pupils held a map to each others, and they knew the direction off by heart.

"You think so?" The brown eyed woman asked, her eyes catching in the street lamps above her.

"Yeah, I think I do." The green eyed man replied, softly.

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( notes! )

I HOPE YOU ALL HAD THE BEST CHRISTMAS EVER!!!!!! or if you don't celebrate christmas i still hope you had a lovely december!!!

i'm actually so sorry it's taken so long to get this chapter up, i love this story and the next few chapters are gonna be some of my faves so i want to really make sure they are perfect and i'm nothing if not a perfectionist but also a chronic procrastinator which isn't a very productive combination

also, i USUALLY hate removing existing characters off of cases to put aliya on them but today i had to for the plot. sorry lexie, i do still love you xx

P.S. alexa, play back to december by taylor swift

( word count! — 5,400 )