parallel lines {alex, hannah, others}
Title: Parallel Lines (Our Paths Will Never Cross)
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Characters/Pairings: Alex, Hannah, others
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1,324
Author's Note: This is the sequel that was all but demanded yesterday, however I'm fairly sure this is not what people had in mind. That's kind of the point.
Summary: Sequel to Nature's Cruel, She Laughs At Me -- read that before this, otherwise you will end up more than a little confused. She understands the hierarchy, understands how this hospital works, that if the attendings and the residents aren't torturing you they're probably trying to sleep with you, or already are. It puts ideas in her head.
She doesn’t understand why they’re so nice to her. Alex (she should be calling him Dr. Karev, he’s her boss, on of her bosses - she really has too many to keep track of - but you know, he calls her Hannah instead of Dr. Klein, so she guesses that means they’re on a first name basis), and Dr. O’Malley, and Lexie Grey who keeps looking at her like she can sympathize, and Hannah just isn’t completely sure what she seems to be sympathizing with. When she asks it just gets passed of as a too-quick “nothing” before she runs off, probably to find her boyfriend or whatever. Live-in lover, she doesn’t really know.
This hospital, more specifically the relationships in this hospital, are probably more complicated than your average quadruple bypass.
And she’s seen the way the residents and the attendings treat the interns. Like they’re incapable, inferior, newborns. Like they’ve forgotten what’s it like to be one. Hell, she gets that sometimes. A lot of the time actually. Pretty much anytime that doesn’t involve Alex or Dr. O’Malley - George, she should really start thinking of him as - and she gets the impression that George is just a nice person anyways, kind, understanding, accepting of mistakes, all of those things you’d want in a teacher. Those qualities do not apply to Alex, not even remotely. She’s seen him with some of his interns, and there’s really no better way to put it other than he’s an asshole.
Not with her. With her he’ll smirk at her across the room, and she’ll drop her eyes and bite her lip and try not to read into it. But it’s hard not to. Because, come on, she knows what goes on her. Attendings and residents sleep with their interns - and you can always tell which ones are being used as sex toys by who is getting the best surgeries.
Hannah finds him in an on-call room once, on the top-bunk (she’s noticed that a lot, that he sleeps here more often than his own apartment and it’s strange and she’s always wondered about the why behind it but never had the guts to ask). Apparently though she has the guts to ask this, “Are you trying to sleep with me? Is that what this is?” She watches him sit up, stare down at her, and she crosses her arms, hugs herself almost instinctively in reaction to the stare she’s receiving. “Because I know how things work here and I know how you treat everyone else, and you don’t treat me like that. And I can’t think of any other explanation other than your trying to sleep with.”
“I’m not,” he tells her, after a sufficient pause to make sure she was done apparently. His face never changes, never looks surprised and never looks caught red-handed either.
“You’re not?” She asks again, just to check. He shakes his head. It’s more than a little embarrassing, she thinks, to be that off base, and she ducks her head and can’t quite meet his eyes. “Oh, well…,” she exhales, tries to come up with something to say, ends up with, “Well then why are you always like this with me.”
This time his answer doesn’t come quite as quickly, like he has to think on it. She tries to read his eyes, gets nothing but careful complacency. “Trust me when I say you don’t want to know.”
The other thing she’s come to find out about Alex is that he’s honest, most of the time. Brutally so. Here it doesn’t work so well in his favor, because he could’ve just blown it off as nothing but instead he changes it to something, plants the seed that maybe she’s missing something in her head.
And so she starts looking. And talking. Or maybe more like demanding answers from the person she thinks is most likely to give them. It means cornering Lexie in an exam room, figuring she seems to be the most easily intimidated, and the closest to her age, to being her peer.
“You keep looking at me like you know something that I don’t.” Hannah says, and Lexie’s eyes widen enough that it would be pointless for her to play dumb and claim innocence. “You do know something, don’t you? What is it?”
“I can’t,” Lexie keeps looking at the door, like she’s hoping someone will walk through it and get her out of this. It’s locked anyways, Hannah’s smart about more things than textbooks. Her voice drops down to a harsh whisper, despite the fact that no one would hear them anyway even at full volume. “This isn’t my business. Anything I know is completely by accident.”
“Just tell me,” Hannah insists, growing more and more anxious by the second.
“You’re kind of related to someone that everyone used to know.” Lexie says, her words coming out fast, strung together with no breaks in between. Hannah thinks on this, the wheels turning in her head.
And then she gets it.
She slams the door on her way out, and asks six doctors on her way where Dr. Karev is before she finally gets one who knows. Surgery.
Hannah waits outside of his car that night, leaning against the side of the car, tapping her nails and her foot impatiently until she sees him coming her way, back in his street clothes, looking just a little more puzzled by her presence with each step towards her.
“You need a ride?” Alex asks, opening the back door to throw his bag inside, straightening to look at her.
She gets right to the point, finding no point in playing around. She’ll feel better once she gets this out and hears what she already knows. “Did you know my mother?”
There’s a pause, but he recovers quickly. “Don’t think I’ve ever known anyone with the last name Klein.”
“No,” she cuts in, almost before he finishes, “They told me when I was eighteen that I was adopted, that the woman who helped me when I was sick was my real mother. Isobel Stevens. Did you know her?”
His eyes flash, something between sadness and anger, and she frowns as he says, “Yeah, yeah I knew her.”
“So that’s what this is?” She asks. “You’re not trying to hit on me you’re just trying to get in good with your girlfriend right? Or do you want her to be your girlfriend? And how come I’ve never seen her?”
“It’s not like that.”
“Well then what’s it like?”
He swallows, hard, sets his jaw, and she gets a disconcerting feeling half a second before, “She died. Ten years ago. Brain tumor.”
Tears sting her eyes before she even knows what’s happening and she feels like the breath was knocked out of her. She feels this enormous, overwhelming sense of loss, not for the woman herself but for what she stood for, who she could’ve been. And yet all she can come up with is, “I’m sorry.”
His voice is too rough to be fine but he tries for it anyways. “Yeah, well, that was years ago.” Alex shakes his head, sadly she thinks, and opens the driver’s side door, pausing to ask again, “Do you need a ride or not?”
No, she doesn’t. Her car is fine, in fact it’s three rows away from his, but there’s this pull to him, accompanied by a strong doubt that she’s going to do anything but sit and stare and try to catch her breath once she gets into her own car so she nods and lies. “Yeah, I could use one.”
They don’t speak once they get in the car. Alex takes the long way there, and keeps looking at her like he’s worried about her mental state, and she can’t tell herself that it’s okay, because it’s not like she lost something she ever really had, anymore than she can make herself tell him that.
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Characters/Pairings: Alex, Hannah, others
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1,324
Author's Note: This is the sequel that was all but demanded yesterday, however I'm fairly sure this is not what people had in mind. That's kind of the point.
Summary: Sequel to Nature's Cruel, She Laughs At Me -- read that before this, otherwise you will end up more than a little confused. She understands the hierarchy, understands how this hospital works, that if the attendings and the residents aren't torturing you they're probably trying to sleep with you, or already are. It puts ideas in her head.
She doesn’t understand why they’re so nice to her. Alex (she should be calling him Dr. Karev, he’s her boss, on of her bosses - she really has too many to keep track of - but you know, he calls her Hannah instead of Dr. Klein, so she guesses that means they’re on a first name basis), and Dr. O’Malley, and Lexie Grey who keeps looking at her like she can sympathize, and Hannah just isn’t completely sure what she seems to be sympathizing with. When she asks it just gets passed of as a too-quick “nothing” before she runs off, probably to find her boyfriend or whatever. Live-in lover, she doesn’t really know.
This hospital, more specifically the relationships in this hospital, are probably more complicated than your average quadruple bypass.
And she’s seen the way the residents and the attendings treat the interns. Like they’re incapable, inferior, newborns. Like they’ve forgotten what’s it like to be one. Hell, she gets that sometimes. A lot of the time actually. Pretty much anytime that doesn’t involve Alex or Dr. O’Malley - George, she should really start thinking of him as - and she gets the impression that George is just a nice person anyways, kind, understanding, accepting of mistakes, all of those things you’d want in a teacher. Those qualities do not apply to Alex, not even remotely. She’s seen him with some of his interns, and there’s really no better way to put it other than he’s an asshole.
Not with her. With her he’ll smirk at her across the room, and she’ll drop her eyes and bite her lip and try not to read into it. But it’s hard not to. Because, come on, she knows what goes on her. Attendings and residents sleep with their interns - and you can always tell which ones are being used as sex toys by who is getting the best surgeries.
Hannah finds him in an on-call room once, on the top-bunk (she’s noticed that a lot, that he sleeps here more often than his own apartment and it’s strange and she’s always wondered about the why behind it but never had the guts to ask). Apparently though she has the guts to ask this, “Are you trying to sleep with me? Is that what this is?” She watches him sit up, stare down at her, and she crosses her arms, hugs herself almost instinctively in reaction to the stare she’s receiving. “Because I know how things work here and I know how you treat everyone else, and you don’t treat me like that. And I can’t think of any other explanation other than your trying to sleep with.”
“I’m not,” he tells her, after a sufficient pause to make sure she was done apparently. His face never changes, never looks surprised and never looks caught red-handed either.
“You’re not?” She asks again, just to check. He shakes his head. It’s more than a little embarrassing, she thinks, to be that off base, and she ducks her head and can’t quite meet his eyes. “Oh, well…,” she exhales, tries to come up with something to say, ends up with, “Well then why are you always like this with me.”
This time his answer doesn’t come quite as quickly, like he has to think on it. She tries to read his eyes, gets nothing but careful complacency. “Trust me when I say you don’t want to know.”
The other thing she’s come to find out about Alex is that he’s honest, most of the time. Brutally so. Here it doesn’t work so well in his favor, because he could’ve just blown it off as nothing but instead he changes it to something, plants the seed that maybe she’s missing something in her head.
And so she starts looking. And talking. Or maybe more like demanding answers from the person she thinks is most likely to give them. It means cornering Lexie in an exam room, figuring she seems to be the most easily intimidated, and the closest to her age, to being her peer.
“You keep looking at me like you know something that I don’t.” Hannah says, and Lexie’s eyes widen enough that it would be pointless for her to play dumb and claim innocence. “You do know something, don’t you? What is it?”
“I can’t,” Lexie keeps looking at the door, like she’s hoping someone will walk through it and get her out of this. It’s locked anyways, Hannah’s smart about more things than textbooks. Her voice drops down to a harsh whisper, despite the fact that no one would hear them anyway even at full volume. “This isn’t my business. Anything I know is completely by accident.”
“Just tell me,” Hannah insists, growing more and more anxious by the second.
“You’re kind of related to someone that everyone used to know.” Lexie says, her words coming out fast, strung together with no breaks in between. Hannah thinks on this, the wheels turning in her head.
And then she gets it.
She slams the door on her way out, and asks six doctors on her way where Dr. Karev is before she finally gets one who knows. Surgery.
Hannah waits outside of his car that night, leaning against the side of the car, tapping her nails and her foot impatiently until she sees him coming her way, back in his street clothes, looking just a little more puzzled by her presence with each step towards her.
“You need a ride?” Alex asks, opening the back door to throw his bag inside, straightening to look at her.
She gets right to the point, finding no point in playing around. She’ll feel better once she gets this out and hears what she already knows. “Did you know my mother?”
There’s a pause, but he recovers quickly. “Don’t think I’ve ever known anyone with the last name Klein.”
“No,” she cuts in, almost before he finishes, “They told me when I was eighteen that I was adopted, that the woman who helped me when I was sick was my real mother. Isobel Stevens. Did you know her?”
His eyes flash, something between sadness and anger, and she frowns as he says, “Yeah, yeah I knew her.”
“So that’s what this is?” She asks. “You’re not trying to hit on me you’re just trying to get in good with your girlfriend right? Or do you want her to be your girlfriend? And how come I’ve never seen her?”
“It’s not like that.”
“Well then what’s it like?”
He swallows, hard, sets his jaw, and she gets a disconcerting feeling half a second before, “She died. Ten years ago. Brain tumor.”
Tears sting her eyes before she even knows what’s happening and she feels like the breath was knocked out of her. She feels this enormous, overwhelming sense of loss, not for the woman herself but for what she stood for, who she could’ve been. And yet all she can come up with is, “I’m sorry.”
His voice is too rough to be fine but he tries for it anyways. “Yeah, well, that was years ago.” Alex shakes his head, sadly she thinks, and opens the driver’s side door, pausing to ask again, “Do you need a ride or not?”
No, she doesn’t. Her car is fine, in fact it’s three rows away from his, but there’s this pull to him, accompanied by a strong doubt that she’s going to do anything but sit and stare and try to catch her breath once she gets into her own car so she nods and lies. “Yeah, I could use one.”
They don’t speak once they get in the car. Alex takes the long way there, and keeps looking at her like he’s worried about her mental state, and she can’t tell herself that it’s okay, because it’s not like she lost something she ever really had, anymore than she can make herself tell him that.