like faulty cameras in our minds {grey's - lexie; alex/lexie}
Title: Like Faulty Cameras In Our Minds
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Characters/Pairings: Lexie. Definite Alex/Lexie, slight undertones of Mark/Lexie.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1,497.
Author's Note: Pure reaction to last night. Written between 11PM and 1AM. The first of many fics to come.
Summary: Post 6.24 - Death And All His Friends. The adrenaline wears off. And then it's just her and these four walls, trading one hospital for another, and she can't think straight, even if she's got all the time in the world to try.
Lexie has a lot of time to think.
Sure, her head is a swirling vortex - which is probably true on a normal day, yes, because god knows they call her Lexipedia for a reason; her brain is packed with facts and random trivia that she’ll never have any use for - except it’s not just facts and trivia today, it’s thoughts and feelings and the crash that comes when the adrenaline wears off.
It wears off.
It wears off somewhere in the intervening hour that takes her from her feet pounding the linoleum of Seattle Presbyterian to watching the nurse on-call check his vitals.
It wears off and his hand is heavy in hers and each breath is coming far too quickly to be considered remotely normal.
When she curls her fingers around his, blunt nails against his palm, he squeezes back, weak but with just enough pressure to be discernible.
She laughs but nothing’s funny.
She would cry but nothing’s left.
-
The click of the door startles her awake.
Her whole body jerks and her hand pulls and there’s something on her that wasn’t there before.
She blinks. There is a blanket spread over her and she is alone with a sleeping man who doesn’t look quite as pale as she remembers.
It doesn’t make her feel any safer.
The click of a door can sound like a click of a gun and the white floors can still look tinted with red if she isn’t paying enough attention.
She doesn’t think she’s going back to sleep anytime soon.
-
Teddy says he’ll be fine. She says it with a smile like her words and her expression will make it all better.
Except it doesn’t.
Except it pulls away that one thing she was choosing to panic over, the one thing she was choosing to hold onto (her fingers are still tangled with his and there they will stay), and gives her permission to freak out over everything else.
Like the fact that a few short hours ago there was a man telling pointing a gun at her. Like the fact that she doesn’t know if her friends are alright. Like the fact that she doesn’t know if this is all over yet, or if there’s going to be more causalities and more injuries and more blood.
She’s a doctor and blood doesn’t bother her - it’s a general rule, if you’re going to be a doctor, you get over it - but it’s different if it’s coming out of your friends and you can’t stop it. It’s different when it’s compounded by helplessness, literal and unimagined.
Lexie asks about Mark, an afterthought in this cocktail of fear and exhaustion, and Teddy’s smile turns sad at the corners. He left, maybe went back to the hospital, maybe went to make a phone call. Teddy doesn’t elaborate and Lexie doesn’t ask.
It’s not to say she doesn’t care. It’s just to say that there’s too much that she cares about right now and the option of focusing on one thing just isn’t working anymore.
“Just you and me,” she breathes, when Teddy’s gone. Alex doesn’t respond, doesn’t move, doesn’t acknowledge. He sleeps like the dead, through anything that isn’t the piercing beep of his pager, and she doesn’t think even that would wake him with the drugs they surely pumped into him.
She rests her forehead on their joined hands and wishes for him to wake up soon, just to hear him crack jokes or make death threats he can’t carry out. Just to have something else to fill the silence and monotonous beeping of the machines.
-
The next time the door opens it’s Cristina and that tired look on her face, the one that doesn’t even change when her gaze falls on Alex, answers Lexie’s question before she can ask it.
Yes, there’s more. No, she probably doesn’t want to take stock of it now.
Cristina swallows and Lexie’s eyes rest on the column of her throat, the way it moves when she does, the way her shoulders move up as she breathes in deep.
What she asks isn’t what Lexie thought she would. “Is he going to make it?”
Cut and dry, yes and no answers only, and it leaves no room for rambling details and the nice round of word vomit that she’s felt coming on since she got here. She just hasn’t had an opportunity yet.
‘GSW to the chest, Teddy operated’, she could tell her, but instead she says, “Yeah.”
“Good,” Cristina says, her mouth set in a firm line. There is blood on her scrubs and it makes Lexie run her free hand over her knee, a futile attempt to cover the splatter they all know is there. “Good.”
Cristina’s gone after that.
-
At some point, she looks at a clock, but finds she can’t remember what time it was when she got here.
She can’t remember what time the first shot was fired, for her anyway, doesn’t know just how long it was where it was just her and Alex and Mark and the elephant in the room that took a backseat for once.
Alex groans in his sleep.
Lexie looks out the window and starts counting hours and making timelines in her mind.
-
She’s heard about Derek by two. About Owen. She’s heard about Reed and Charles Percy and countless nurses and surgeons and the freaking security guard she passes everyday, the one who always smiles at her.
She figures the processing will come with time. For now, it’s just more facts. More thoughts. Few feelings.
-
They tell patient’s families to take breaks. Get up, get something to drink, something to eat. It’s for their health, really, and not just physical. Sitting in a room with just your thoughts and an unconscious body for long periods of time, where all you can do is dwell, isn’t generally recommended for your mental health, she’s pretty sure.
So she follows her own advice. She gets coffee from a vendor in the lobby, just like she does at her own hospital, and when she turns Meredith’s in line behind her.
There’s no thought process that takes her from staring straight ahead at her sister to enveloping her in a hug. It just happens. Her arms go around Meredith’s shoulders and she somehow manages to remember to keep her hot coffee upright and steady. Meredith’s arms hang loosely at her sides, surprised, but they find their way to rest high on Lexie’s back.
It’s not the first time they’ve hugged, but it is the first time that she’s felt the warm feeling of solidarity. The kind of feeling you usually get from family.
-
Mark calls when she’s only been back in Alex’s room for a few minutes, just gotten settled in her chair by his bedside.
She hits ignore, not willing to pick up while surrounded by machines - the way her day is going, those warnings about interference will turn out to be true - and heads down into the lobby to call him back.
He sounds surprised to hear her voice on the line.
“I wanted to know if you need a ride home.”
Lexie shuts her eyes, leans back against the wall, something solid and unfailing. Short of a cab, he’s probably her only way home tonight. Meredith will stay here with Derek, for sure. She doesn’t know where anyone else is, doesn’t have the energy to wander around an unfamiliar hospital in order to track them down.
It’s him or no one. Go or stay.
She bites her lip too hard. “No, I’m fine. I’ll be fine here.”
“Are you sure?”
And, really, she’s not. The hospital isn’t exactly her favorite place to be right now, all things considered. The sun is going to set, even though the lights will stay on in the busier parts of the hospital. There will be shadows and unfamiliar noises and her nerves on edge.
The alternative is his bed, at home, and she doesn’t think she can handle that. She doesn’t think she can sleep like that, knowing he might wake up alone.
She knows she can’t. “I’m sure.”
-
She’s curled into a chair when he comes to. There’s a book spread open on her lap, thanks to a particularly sympathetic nurse who’d pointed her towards the research library. She fit right in, still in her scrubs; nobody asked about the blood, long since soaked in and dried.
His hand twitches underneath hers, their connection far more casual than it was before. In a few short hours, that move to cover his with hers has become subconscious, far less deliberate than it was.
When she looks up, in reaction, his eyes are blinking open.
“Lexie?”
It’s the right name, this time.
She lets out a breath she didn’t know she was holding.
“I’m here.” The book in her lap falls closed as she leans in closer. “I’m not going anywhere.”
-
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Characters/Pairings: Lexie. Definite Alex/Lexie, slight undertones of Mark/Lexie.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1,497.
Author's Note: Pure reaction to last night. Written between 11PM and 1AM. The first of many fics to come.
Summary: Post 6.24 - Death And All His Friends. The adrenaline wears off. And then it's just her and these four walls, trading one hospital for another, and she can't think straight, even if she's got all the time in the world to try.
Lexie has a lot of time to think.
Sure, her head is a swirling vortex - which is probably true on a normal day, yes, because god knows they call her Lexipedia for a reason; her brain is packed with facts and random trivia that she’ll never have any use for - except it’s not just facts and trivia today, it’s thoughts and feelings and the crash that comes when the adrenaline wears off.
It wears off.
It wears off somewhere in the intervening hour that takes her from her feet pounding the linoleum of Seattle Presbyterian to watching the nurse on-call check his vitals.
It wears off and his hand is heavy in hers and each breath is coming far too quickly to be considered remotely normal.
When she curls her fingers around his, blunt nails against his palm, he squeezes back, weak but with just enough pressure to be discernible.
She laughs but nothing’s funny.
She would cry but nothing’s left.
-
The click of the door startles her awake.
Her whole body jerks and her hand pulls and there’s something on her that wasn’t there before.
She blinks. There is a blanket spread over her and she is alone with a sleeping man who doesn’t look quite as pale as she remembers.
It doesn’t make her feel any safer.
The click of a door can sound like a click of a gun and the white floors can still look tinted with red if she isn’t paying enough attention.
She doesn’t think she’s going back to sleep anytime soon.
-
Teddy says he’ll be fine. She says it with a smile like her words and her expression will make it all better.
Except it doesn’t.
Except it pulls away that one thing she was choosing to panic over, the one thing she was choosing to hold onto (her fingers are still tangled with his and there they will stay), and gives her permission to freak out over everything else.
Like the fact that a few short hours ago there was a man telling pointing a gun at her. Like the fact that she doesn’t know if her friends are alright. Like the fact that she doesn’t know if this is all over yet, or if there’s going to be more causalities and more injuries and more blood.
She’s a doctor and blood doesn’t bother her - it’s a general rule, if you’re going to be a doctor, you get over it - but it’s different if it’s coming out of your friends and you can’t stop it. It’s different when it’s compounded by helplessness, literal and unimagined.
Lexie asks about Mark, an afterthought in this cocktail of fear and exhaustion, and Teddy’s smile turns sad at the corners. He left, maybe went back to the hospital, maybe went to make a phone call. Teddy doesn’t elaborate and Lexie doesn’t ask.
It’s not to say she doesn’t care. It’s just to say that there’s too much that she cares about right now and the option of focusing on one thing just isn’t working anymore.
“Just you and me,” she breathes, when Teddy’s gone. Alex doesn’t respond, doesn’t move, doesn’t acknowledge. He sleeps like the dead, through anything that isn’t the piercing beep of his pager, and she doesn’t think even that would wake him with the drugs they surely pumped into him.
She rests her forehead on their joined hands and wishes for him to wake up soon, just to hear him crack jokes or make death threats he can’t carry out. Just to have something else to fill the silence and monotonous beeping of the machines.
-
The next time the door opens it’s Cristina and that tired look on her face, the one that doesn’t even change when her gaze falls on Alex, answers Lexie’s question before she can ask it.
Yes, there’s more. No, she probably doesn’t want to take stock of it now.
Cristina swallows and Lexie’s eyes rest on the column of her throat, the way it moves when she does, the way her shoulders move up as she breathes in deep.
What she asks isn’t what Lexie thought she would. “Is he going to make it?”
Cut and dry, yes and no answers only, and it leaves no room for rambling details and the nice round of word vomit that she’s felt coming on since she got here. She just hasn’t had an opportunity yet.
‘GSW to the chest, Teddy operated’, she could tell her, but instead she says, “Yeah.”
“Good,” Cristina says, her mouth set in a firm line. There is blood on her scrubs and it makes Lexie run her free hand over her knee, a futile attempt to cover the splatter they all know is there. “Good.”
Cristina’s gone after that.
-
At some point, she looks at a clock, but finds she can’t remember what time it was when she got here.
She can’t remember what time the first shot was fired, for her anyway, doesn’t know just how long it was where it was just her and Alex and Mark and the elephant in the room that took a backseat for once.
Alex groans in his sleep.
Lexie looks out the window and starts counting hours and making timelines in her mind.
-
She’s heard about Derek by two. About Owen. She’s heard about Reed and Charles Percy and countless nurses and surgeons and the freaking security guard she passes everyday, the one who always smiles at her.
She figures the processing will come with time. For now, it’s just more facts. More thoughts. Few feelings.
-
They tell patient’s families to take breaks. Get up, get something to drink, something to eat. It’s for their health, really, and not just physical. Sitting in a room with just your thoughts and an unconscious body for long periods of time, where all you can do is dwell, isn’t generally recommended for your mental health, she’s pretty sure.
So she follows her own advice. She gets coffee from a vendor in the lobby, just like she does at her own hospital, and when she turns Meredith’s in line behind her.
There’s no thought process that takes her from staring straight ahead at her sister to enveloping her in a hug. It just happens. Her arms go around Meredith’s shoulders and she somehow manages to remember to keep her hot coffee upright and steady. Meredith’s arms hang loosely at her sides, surprised, but they find their way to rest high on Lexie’s back.
It’s not the first time they’ve hugged, but it is the first time that she’s felt the warm feeling of solidarity. The kind of feeling you usually get from family.
-
Mark calls when she’s only been back in Alex’s room for a few minutes, just gotten settled in her chair by his bedside.
She hits ignore, not willing to pick up while surrounded by machines - the way her day is going, those warnings about interference will turn out to be true - and heads down into the lobby to call him back.
He sounds surprised to hear her voice on the line.
“I wanted to know if you need a ride home.”
Lexie shuts her eyes, leans back against the wall, something solid and unfailing. Short of a cab, he’s probably her only way home tonight. Meredith will stay here with Derek, for sure. She doesn’t know where anyone else is, doesn’t have the energy to wander around an unfamiliar hospital in order to track them down.
It’s him or no one. Go or stay.
She bites her lip too hard. “No, I’m fine. I’ll be fine here.”
“Are you sure?”
And, really, she’s not. The hospital isn’t exactly her favorite place to be right now, all things considered. The sun is going to set, even though the lights will stay on in the busier parts of the hospital. There will be shadows and unfamiliar noises and her nerves on edge.
The alternative is his bed, at home, and she doesn’t think she can handle that. She doesn’t think she can sleep like that, knowing he might wake up alone.
She knows she can’t. “I’m sure.”
-
She’s curled into a chair when he comes to. There’s a book spread open on her lap, thanks to a particularly sympathetic nurse who’d pointed her towards the research library. She fit right in, still in her scrubs; nobody asked about the blood, long since soaked in and dried.
His hand twitches underneath hers, their connection far more casual than it was before. In a few short hours, that move to cover his with hers has become subconscious, far less deliberate than it was.
When she looks up, in reaction, his eyes are blinking open.
“Lexie?”
It’s the right name, this time.
She lets out a breath she didn’t know she was holding.
“I’m here.” The book in her lap falls closed as she leans in closer. “I’m not going anywhere.”
-