fic: A Million Numbered Doors | Part Two (Alex + Amber)
Title: A Million Numbered Doors
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Characters/Pairings: Alex, Amber, OFC (also Alex/OFC, Alex/Lucy, Meredith)
Rating: R
Warning: Graphic violence, rape, sex, drug use, language and serious amounts of angst
Word Count: 10370 (in two parts)
Disclaimer: At my user info. page. Title and cut text from Truth, Alexander Ebert.
There's a Portuguese restaurant not far from the main entrance to the hospital. The Seattle weather settles lightly on their shoulders as they hurry towards it, elbows linked.
She orders without even looking at the menu. Greets the young waitress by name and converses freely with words that sound Spanish but that he knows instinctively are not at all.
He smiles at her over the lip of his bottle of Sargres Preta. Tilts it in her direction appreciatively.
“I told you you'd like it.”
He rolls his eyes, shrugs his shoulders as he brings the beer to his mouth. “What can I say? I'm easy to please.”
*
Her boyfriend ties her up using a pair of football socks. Waits until the weed has numbed her senses just enough and wrenches her hands high above her head.
She's crying but not because she's scared.
These days it is only the unknown that terrifies her. And this? This is fast becoming a familiar routine. She shuts her eyes and lifts her hips. Knows that if she plays along it will all be over soon enough.
It's never over soon enough...
In the aftermath he smooths his fingers over the tear-stains on her face, like maybe he's oblivious to his part in their existence. Cuts lines of coke for her like he's serving the family dinner and settles back against the couch to watch CSI.
She staggers to her bedroom, three quarters to high already and with one hand heavy on the wall. The only thing keeping her upright.
She drags a folded photograph out from between the mattress and the box-spring; only just manages not to tear the long since faded memory to shreds.
She'd been lifted onto her brother's shoulders, laughing. Wild hair a mess of unruly curls that rarely saw the calming bristles of a brush in those days. Skinny legs tucked through his wrestler arms as he held her securely in place. She never dreamed that he'd drop her.
Never once entertained the notion.
*
Landing in Las Vegas does nothing to quell the quiet panic that is rising up in his throat. He bumps into things, people, can't seem to keep himself on a path that is mostly straight.
The cab ride from the airport to the University Medical Center where he's been told she was taken is an exercise in self restraint. He wants to scream; at the traffic that creeps along, bumper to bumper; at the driver who chats incessantly about only God knows what; at the shrill ringing of his own blood in his ears. He cracks the passenger window slightly, loses himself instead in the hot air that rushes forth.
If the driver instructs him not to, then he doesn't hear it.
*
Her fingers are warm. He's got his own laced through them tightly.
That they still feel so alive fills him with a degree of hysteria that he's not entirely convinced he can contain. His heart is beating painfully in his chest. He can't even calculate how many days since he landed. Since he took off from Seattle at a run and jumped head first into self-destruction.
He can still feel the sand lodged beneath his nails. A phantom pain of sorts that hasn't faded any in the few short hours since Megan screamed at him to get the hell outta Dodge. He can't even remember dumping the gun. Just knows that he wiped it down with the towel it had been delivered in and now it's gone.
Everything is gone.
He pillows his head on the new cast he's just received, his second in less than a week. Scratches the rough surface across his skin in an attempt to feel something, anything, that isn't sheer helplessness. Grits his teeth defiantly around a scream that wants to split him in two.
“Alex?”
The soft call is instantly familiar. Drowns out the constant beeping of the foetal monitor and other machinery and settles somewhere low in his gut.
And he doesn't think he can lift his head. Doesn't think he can breathe. Twists instead so that his face is forward onto her mattress, his arms bent up over his head. Tearing at the hair at the nape of his neck. Scrabbling for some kind of desperate purchase.
He can hear sobbing. Guttural and raw.
Grief at its most primitive.
Hands ghost against his shoulders, pull forcefully in an attempt to sit him upright. It's not until arms twist through his and circle around his heaving chest that he realises the sounds are coming from him.
“Oh, Alex.”
Meredith.
She pulls him over and up against her. Solid and sure.
He let's her.
Has no energy left with which to put up a decent fight.
*
The car comes out of no where.
A lie.
He comes out of no where. Steps from the police station and out into the Las Vegas traffic like it's not even there there and it's only when he's sliding across the hood of a maroon sedan that he registers the sound of horns blaring.
He's dumped unceremoniously on the asphalt with a bone jarring thud. Considers laying right where he falls and waiting for the on-coming vehicles to devour him whole. He keeps his eyes shut for a beat, catalogues the damage with a quick internal audit. Gives himself the all clear until a good samaritan latches onto his right arm in an attempt to haul him to his feet.
He screams then. Feels the bones move under his skin.
Only just has the self-awareness required to twist away as he vomits into the gutter. Uses his good hand to wipe the filth from his lips and chin and tries not to laugh at the fact that he'd kinda always figured this is where he'd end up.
The gutter.
He argues with the paramedics that are summoned by the gathering crowd. Eventually lets them usher him into the back of their bus and shove a Penthrox inhaler between his teeth.
He tells them it doesn't even hurt.
Another lie.
Everything does.
He gets a white plaster cast for his troubles. Wastes the best part of the rest of the day in and out of x-ray rooms and examination cubicles. Avoids reconstructive surgery by the skin of his teeth.
They discharge him with a sling and a prescription for pills he knows he won't bother to fill. Heads straight from Emergency to his sister's ward and sleeps in a chair by her bed for three hours.
Dreams dreams filled with rain soaked skies and the dancing image of a little girl he once knew.
Loved.
Lost.
*
When her boyfriend tells her they're moving to Vegas she can't help the swell of something that tastes a little like hope that fills her insides to over-flowing. Conjures images of flashing lights and beautiful people and sun soaked days spent by crystal blue swimming pools.
Googles Las Vegas area schools and dreams about one day sending her child to exotic sounding colleges like 'Wassall Academy' or 'The Meadows'.
Cooks them both celebratory steaks for supper and tries not to be too disappointed when he scowls at the potatoes and slams the lot into the trash.
”What is this horseshit?”
Closes her eyes and devours every morsel of her own serving as the front door ricochets to closed and then open again. Waits for the accompanying smash and shatter of glass that fails to eventuate.
Figures it's only a matter of time before the whole lot gives way.
*
A pimply faced junior officer hands him a plastic sack containing her personal effects. Those that were found on her at the time.
A wallet. A phone. A watch. Her clothing; maternity sized.
Tells him the coke was entered into evidence. Like maybe he was hoping he'd get that back too.
He doesn't punch the jerk in the face. But only just.
He waits until he's out of the station before separating the zip lock. Pulls her watch from the bag and stares blankly at the face as the hand ticks doggedly through the seconds, minutes, oblivious to the fact that it's owner doesn't really give a crap what the time is these days. He runs his fingers across the tarnished metal before sliding it into his pocket. He feels odd opening her wallet. Stops and starts several attempts before actually prising the flaps apart. Catches a folded photograph as it slides from where it had been stashed. Safe-keeping perhaps.
It's a sonogram snap. Feels like a sucker punch.
A baby girl. He's gonna have a niece.
There's no money tucked into the bill fold. It almost upsets him more than the sonogram print. Store cards in names that he doesn't recognise, a social security card in one that he does. Driver's license, borrowing card for the Iowa State Library. More photos pushed in behind clear windows.
Including one that takes his breath away.
She's on his shoulders. Scrawny and little kid-like. Eyes like saucers, a grin like a split watermelon. It's all he can do to look at the image.
It's all he can do to look away.
*
“Alex Karev.”
A file lands with a slap on the desk in front of her. Papers slide to skewed from between the manila cover.
“Pardon?” She squints at the precise writing across the top. Black felt tip pen. Alexander Michael Karev.
“The brother. His name is Alex. Arrived last night. Keep him close, Decker, yeah?”
“You mean, the brother is the new runner?” Carlos this time as he rounds her desk until they're shoulder to shoulder. Asks the exact question that had just reached the tip of her own tongue.
“No. At least, we don't think so. But he must know something, right? It's your job to find out what that is. You've got twenty four hours and then I want you back here for an update.”
She nods, notes the in unison tilt of Carlos' chin. Slides her gaze to meet his and reads the unspoken are you ready for this almost immediately.
Nods again, just for him. Opens the folder and drags the gathered pages free, gives them a quick skim.
“He's a surgeon? Are you kidding me?” She looks up at her boss for the confirmation she doesn't really need.
“He's a surgeon with a juvenile record and a less than stellar family history. Don't let the cute butt and the fancy title fool you, Decker.”
Juvenile record? Interesting.
“I haven't even seen his butt yet...”
*
She drags him, exhausted almost to the point of hysteria, from the room. Down several flights of deserted stairs and into the University Medical Center's version of the Seattle Grace tunnels. He runs his hand across his face and raises one eyebrow, questioning.
She shrugs back, “I don't know, I guess I figured all hospitals are the same to some degree.”
He nods. Knows from experience that she's right. The colours and the smells and the acrid taste of death. The names may change, very little else does.
“Are you okay?”
He laughs before he can stop himself. An involuntary expulsion of sound that bursts from somewhere low and fiery. Fingers brush deliberately against his, to grab his attention and nothing more.
“Alex?”
He groans. Picks his chin up high and lets the back of his head bounce against the plasterboard wall behind them.
“What are you even doing here, Mere?”
“Don't.” She spins so they're face to face, uses the tone of her voice to command his eye contact. “Don't do that. Don't act like you have no idea why I'm here. Why any of us would want to be here.”
He blinks. Can feel white hot tears carve a straight line path to the knees of his jeans. Pretends not to notice because it's the lesser of all his current evils.
“What am I going to do?” Barely more than a whisper. “What am I going to do? Please tell me what to do. Please...”
She shifts where she's seated, inches forward until her knees are wrapped around his sides. Adds her arms into the mix and pulls him close.
“Please tell me what to do...”
He lets her drag him downwards, still completely encircled by the tangle of her limbs, until they're side by side on the abandoned gurney.
Sleeps then, deep and dreamless.
*
Las Vegas is hot. And noisy. The air conditioning in their apartment coughs and sputters ineffectually in the corner, fills the room with an incessant buzzing but does nothing to actual shift the air about. Leaving the windows open is not an option.
She moves her weight under the single sheet she has thrown over herself. Feels it stick, sweat slick, to her calves, to the inside of her thighs.
Runs hands over the expanse of baby and belly and smiles.
Thinks things could definitely be worse.
Have been infinitely more-so in the past.
Bides her time with baited breath and marks off the days until her due date with a pencil she finds abandoned in the back of the wardrobe. One scratched line into the wood for every time the sun rises again.
Lets herself think of Iowa only when it rains.
It never rains here.
*
She wakes him with coffee. Proper coffee purchased from somewhere other than a hospital cafeteria. He shifts with a wince, reawakens bumps and bruises that haven't quite yet faded to gone. Wraps his broken arm against his chest and pushes awkwardly to upright.
“Didn't know you left.” Voice still low and muffled with the after effects of sleep.
“I didn't.” She holds the coffee out in front of her, as though daring him not to take it.
“But,” he squints, mentally shakes everything back into place, “Where'd that come from?”
“I bought it for you.”
Lucy.
She's standing back, hidden in the shadows that fall sideways through the frosted glass behind her. Barely more than a silhouette.
When he looks around Meredith is gone. The styrofoam cup of coffee on the gurney beside his left knee the only evidence that she'd been there at all.
He wraps his fingers around it. Takes a moment to stall. To create believable lies to weave around all the devastating truths that he knows he'll never be able to bring himself to tell her.
*
In the immediate aftermath of the warehouse being shot to hell she can't seem to keep up with where they're taking her. Everything happens in a manner that is too fast and too disjointed for her to follow. She keeps her arms wrapped around her belly protectively and tries not to flinch at the blood spatter painted crudely across the willowy fabric of her dress.
She keeps asking about the lady cop, is three quarters to convinced its her insides that she's decorated with, but they won't answer her, keep packing plastic wrapped parcels of cocaine into duffels and garbage sacks and any other bag they can find.
There's a guy, Sanchez or Santos or something like that; he keeps looking at her sideways. Like he knows something that she doesn't. A greasy kind of grin slashed across the planes of his face. He's meant to be her baby daddy's cousin, but she's pretty sure Greg isn't Spanish.
Figures 'cousin' is code for something she'd rather not think too long and too hard about.
The staccato beat of automatic weapon fire blanks out bits and pieces of what goes on. Echoic memory and all that as someone shoves a mirror full of lined up hits her way.
She shakes her head. Feels the twist and kick of life under her skin as Cooper or Maddison or Tyler or Grace (she changes her mind almost weekly it seems), digs a tiny foot up under her ribs.
“Did it seem like I was asking you a question?”
She brings her eyes up under black mascara'd lashes. Wants nothing more than to hide behind them for eternity.
“No.” A hesitant whisper.
“Well...”
The mirror is shoved towards her again then. Heaped lines shifting a little to the left in protest against the sudden movement.
She takes the rolled bill with a hand that shakes. Feels betrayed by her own useless body. Snorts the powder with a practiced ease and sits back on the couch to wait for a fake form of bliss to descend.
Murmurs apologies to her baby under her breath and shoves her fingers deep into her mouth to stop herself from screaming.
*
She hoists herself up onto the bar stool by her new target's right shoulder. Leans over the sodden runner and orders herself a shot of tequila and a bottle of something to chase it with. Fore-goes the lemon and the salt and downs the lot without taking a breath.
Tilts her head in the direction of the bartender and nods out her request for a replacement.
“Make it two,” she adds, last minute.
Waits until they're lined up in front of her before using the back of her hand to slide one in the direction of her new target.
Doctor Alexander Karev.
The cast on his right wrist throws her for a beat as she recognises him finally, the empty guy from the hospital waiting room with the eyes that held all his secrets.
“You look like you could use one,” she quips. Wraps her fingers around the second shot glass and tilts it slightly in his direction. She's read his file back to front seven times.
It didn't really give her much to go on. Married, divorced, Isobel Stevens. A stint in juvie as a teenager. A dead-beat dad and a mother on more meds than the local pharmacy.
Nothing new there.
The surgeon thing still has her somewhat stumped.
They end up in the bathroom stalls. Pressed solid against a grafitied wall.
For a good time call Aimee, 555-98- His head blanks out the rest of the number as her fingers work impatiently at the zipper of his jeans.
She's not entirely convinced this is what her boss meant by 'get close to him', but she figures it'll do for now.
Closes her eyes and dares herself not to think.
Uses the sudden darkness to creates half truths and excuses that she'll feed to her expectant partner in a few hours time.
*
The photographs that he pulls from the yellow envelopes Mick provided tell him all he could ever need to know and then some.
His sister, his sister.
He presses his fingers into his eye sockets and takes a deep, jagged breath. Manages not to dry heave all over the thread-bare carpet, but only just.
Wonders if it's humanly possible to hate yourself any more than he hates himself right in this very instant.
There are shots of her alone, hands resting on the swell of her belly as disco lights illuminate the sway of her dress. Lips parted as he imagines her singing along with the pulsing music like she used to when she was just a kid jumping on her bed with her hairbrush, radio dialed up to window shaking loud.
Shots of her with the cop he's fucking for information; Megan Decker. Visibly flinches at the sight of them captured together. Feels dirty in a way that he can't quite reconcile.
Even more of her with a guy he doesn't recognise. He has his arm wrapped loosely around her shoulders in one. She's smiling, has her head tilted back by degrees. Looks almost like she might have been happy.
Once.
Shoves his knuckles into his mouth to muffle the screams he can no longer clamp down.
Drops the shots back onto the bed, watches idly as they bounce and slide off the handgun still nestled in the twisted sheet by his left knee.
Counts to ten inside his hollowed out head, racks up the few choices he thinks he has and picks one from the queue. Vows to see it out to the very end.
*
She'd naively hoped that leaving Iowa behind would be more than just a symbolic shift. That she'd be able to build a new life for them in Vegas. Set up a home and eagerly await the completion of a family she'd hungrily craved since the one she was born into fell apart slowly but surely.
They're in the new city three days before the back of his hand leaves a scratch under her left eye. It's on the fifth that she makes her first drop.
A mixed bag of pills and powder that she exchanges for a fat wad of cash.
He smiles at her when she walks back through the door. Runs his fingers softly over the faded bruising and whispers good girl, hot and breathy, against a spot just south of her left ear.
And she thinks maybe this won't be so bad after all.
*
He tucks the gun into the waistband of his jeans. Pulls his shirt out over the bulge before dragging a jacket over his bulky cast. Hesitates as the thick plaster gets caught in the sleeve. Makes a decision then, forces himself to stop for a second. To stop and think.
Buys a file from the hardware store a block away and sets to hacking at the protective shell on his wrist. It takes too long and it hurts too fucking much but he does it anyway.
Smokes a cigarette or several in a misguided attempt to quell the tremors that twitch involuntarily at his limbs.
Hires a car with cash and carefully folds out the papers Mick had supplied him with on the passenger seat. Names and addresses and photographs to fill in any remaining gaps.
Greg Sheridan.
Top of his list.
Drags his cell phone from his pocket and dials the lady cop. Fills her in on his plan by way of a giant fuck you, too. Knows he used her every bit as much as she used him but can't quite manage to reconcile the karmic balancing act they'd been in.
*
He knows even less about the mess his sister was tied up in than she does. And she doesn't need to sleep with him to figure that much out.
Doesn't stop her from doing it anyway.
More than once.
She finds scraps of paper in the back pocket of his jeans. Waits until he's sleeping to slide out from underneath his dead weight and piece them together into some semblance of order. Phone numbers and lists of questions that he wants answers too. Doesn't appear that he's managed to find any of them just yet.
Flinches as he shifts in his sleep. Restless even now.
She crawls back in beside him and tucks her chin down against where the plaster cast meets his elbow.
Waits for sleep that never quite manages to claim her.
*
He's waving the weapon maniacally. Can't seem to keep the fucking thing steady as the weight of it builds and builds. Voices scream at him, a different one from every side, all morphing together until he can no longer pick one from the other.
“Alex.” Pleading. Pleading. The sound tears at defences that have already been torn to rack and ruin. “Alex, put the gun down.”
He shakes his head. Defiant.
Vows to at least get this part right. Even if the rest of his life has been one pathetic failure after another.
“No.”
The prick that impregnated his sister is on his knees in the desert sand. Has his hands behind his head as ordered but won't shut the fuck up no matter how many times he threatens to blow his brains out, a constant bellowing that echoes off the surrounding rock formations, bounces around inside his chest. Fills him to full and overflowing with words and syllables that he can't quite manage to decipher.
“No!” Screams this time. Flicks the gun to high above his head and pulls the trigger once. Barely even registers the sharp snap of the weapon's recoil as it slams a path along his broken bones. Buries itself somewhere in the back of his skull.
A reverberating shatter that splits the night sky into perfect halves.
“Alex, stop. You don't want to do this.” She's off to the side, and he laughs then because, honestly, this is the only thing in the whole world at the moment that he really does want to do.
“Shut up.”
“No. No I won't. This isn't going to bring her back. Alex, killing him won't bring her back.”
Like he doesn't already know this. Crystal cut clear.
“And the baby is going to need you, Alex. How can you take care of her if you kill him? There's no coming back from that.”
“Shut up. Shut up, shut up,” Let's his eyes fall to closed for a second or several. “Shutup, shutup, shutupshutupshutup...”
There's movement then. He hears a rustling in the sand before the crack of a gun that isn't his shocks him to still in a heart beat. He waits for agony. Feels his chest explode in anticipation of what must surely be to come.
Is almost disappointed when it doesn't.
The father of his unborn niece is slumped to sideways in sand that slowly shifts to red and black as the seconds tick by. He's steps closer than he was, must have made his move when eyes were shut tight and minds were elsewhere.
“It was supposed to be me,” whispered. “I was supposed to kill him. It was supposed to be me...”
Fingers wrap around his broken arm, twist ever so slightly. He crumples then. Curls into himself in the sand and can't even begin to imagine what pushing up to standing will feel like.
He hears the click and slide of his gun being disarmed. Hates himself for giving it all up so easily in the end.
*
“I was going to kill him.”
He's not sure why he lets the words out. Maybe hopes they'll shock her into a scrambling retreat. Have her taking off back to Seattle in a heart beat. She takes several steps towards him instead and he feels all his insides shift.
“It's okay.” It's not. It's not even close.
“I was going to kill him.” Again. A mantra that he can't quite let go of.
“I know.” He nods dumbly at her revelation, even though he knows it can't possibly be the truth.
Hands settle softly against his face then, one on either side as his jaw is tilted up by fractions. He blinks and the smudge of her blonde hair and blue eyes disappears out behind a wall of salt water. He feels her thumbs swipe identical paths across his cheek bones.
Can't even bring himself to care that he's crying in front of her.
“Alex, it's okay. We'll figure this out, okay?” He doesn't believe her. Wants to so desperately but just can't. Not yet.
He nods anyway. Figures it's the least he can give her, all things considered.
*
She's out of her car before it's even come to a complete stop. Skidding through the loose desert sand as her boots can't quite get the traction they need to keep her upright and running.
She hasn't called it in yet, there is no back-up on the way. She's still clinging to some misguided notion that she'll be able to talk him down off the ledge he seems so determined to walk.
The voicemail message that he'd left her, disjointed as it was, made his position more than clear.
The boyfriend is crouched over, hands and knees in the sand. There's a cut above his left eye which wasn't there this morning according to the latest round of surveillance photos and she wonders then whether she's not already too late to fix things. Whether he's not already too far off the deep end to be brought back.
Shadows creep their way across the wild planes of his face. Shield his eyes in a darkness that is impenetrable. The neon city lights the sky behind him with with an iridescent glow. She can see the barrel of a handgun as he shuffles on the spot.
The cast is gone. She figures he's managed to remove it himself somehow. Guesses then that the adrenalin flooding his system must be set to overflowing.
Curses the chemical for the extra degrees of difficulty it will surely add.
“Alex, put the gun down.” Doesn't for a second expect him to listen to her.
He's screaming then. Non-sensical words that scurry around in the sand at his feet. Drowned out as they are by the sound of his gun discharging high into the sky above their heads. She begs then, uses the only possible weapon she has left in her bag of not so effective tricks.
“And the baby is going to need you, Alex. How can you take care of her if you kill him? There's no coming back from that.”
He stills. Tilts his head back. Raw and wild. Eyes closed. He doesn't notice the scum bag boyfriend make a move. Charge to upright and surging forward in a staggering split second.
Her own gun fires then. Instinct, nothing more, as the slug buries itself deep into his rib-cage. A clean shot. They always did say she was at her best when under pressure.
She's at the fallen body before she registers her own feet are moving. Has her fingers pressed to his absent pulse point. Keeps her eyes up and across to the left.
“You need to go.” Doesn't allow herself to be taken in by the sheer weight of devastation that seems to be suffocating him.
“I was supposed to kill him. It was supposed to be me...”
“Alex, I swear to God. You need to get the hell out of here now. I need to call this in. I need to call it in now. But you need to go. Go to the hospital. Don't... just- Just go.” She's stumbling over the words. Can't seem to get them out in an order that makes sense. Fumbles for her cell phone as his ragged gaze lifts to hers. Taps out her partner's number as he pushes to his feet, nods at her once, staggers on un-steady legs to his car.
*
“Where's Lucy?”
He's back in his sister's room. Night-time is closing in, one more day to tick off, one more calendar page to turn.
“Getting some food.” His voice sounds like it's coming at him from somewhere far away. Has to seep through layers of cotton wool and concrete before he can register it as anything real.
“Okay, good.” She settles in the chair on the opposite side of the bed. Examines him closely and he shifts uncomfortably under the scrutiny. Can't quite predict what it is that comes next.
“I swear to God, Alex Karev, if you ever, ever do anything even remotely like taking off without telling me again...” She trails off, as though waiting for him to drag his eyes up to meet hers. He does, reluctantly. Nods.
Gets the message loud and clear.
“You scared the crap out of her, you know that?”
He shrugs because he doesn't, not really. The monotonous beeping of the machines that pump artificial life into his sister pulses through his veins. Makes the room move in slow, lazy spins.
He reaches out and threads his fingers through hers in a desperate attempt to bring it all to some kind of standstill. He thinks she tightens her grip at his touch.
Knows it's all in his imagination but clings to the heady notion nonetheless.
“We're all in this together, Alex. Okay? You, me, Lucy, Cristina... all of us.” He closes his eyes against her words, terrified to let himself believe they might contain some degree of truth. “I mean it, you're not alone.”
Vows then that he can do this. That he can be an uncle and a big brother and a thousand other things he can't quite yet bring himself to name.
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Characters/Pairings: Alex, Amber, OFC (also Alex/OFC, Alex/Lucy, Meredith)
Rating: R
Warning: Graphic violence, rape, sex, drug use, language and serious amounts of angst
Word Count: 10370 (in two parts)
Disclaimer: At my user info. page. Title and cut text from Truth, Alexander Ebert.
There's a Portuguese restaurant not far from the main entrance to the hospital. The Seattle weather settles lightly on their shoulders as they hurry towards it, elbows linked.
She orders without even looking at the menu. Greets the young waitress by name and converses freely with words that sound Spanish but that he knows instinctively are not at all.
He smiles at her over the lip of his bottle of Sargres Preta. Tilts it in her direction appreciatively.
“I told you you'd like it.”
He rolls his eyes, shrugs his shoulders as he brings the beer to his mouth. “What can I say? I'm easy to please.”
*
Her boyfriend ties her up using a pair of football socks. Waits until the weed has numbed her senses just enough and wrenches her hands high above her head.
She's crying but not because she's scared.
These days it is only the unknown that terrifies her. And this? This is fast becoming a familiar routine. She shuts her eyes and lifts her hips. Knows that if she plays along it will all be over soon enough.
It's never over soon enough...
In the aftermath he smooths his fingers over the tear-stains on her face, like maybe he's oblivious to his part in their existence. Cuts lines of coke for her like he's serving the family dinner and settles back against the couch to watch CSI.
She staggers to her bedroom, three quarters to high already and with one hand heavy on the wall. The only thing keeping her upright.
She drags a folded photograph out from between the mattress and the box-spring; only just manages not to tear the long since faded memory to shreds.
She'd been lifted onto her brother's shoulders, laughing. Wild hair a mess of unruly curls that rarely saw the calming bristles of a brush in those days. Skinny legs tucked through his wrestler arms as he held her securely in place. She never dreamed that he'd drop her.
Never once entertained the notion.
*
Landing in Las Vegas does nothing to quell the quiet panic that is rising up in his throat. He bumps into things, people, can't seem to keep himself on a path that is mostly straight.
The cab ride from the airport to the University Medical Center where he's been told she was taken is an exercise in self restraint. He wants to scream; at the traffic that creeps along, bumper to bumper; at the driver who chats incessantly about only God knows what; at the shrill ringing of his own blood in his ears. He cracks the passenger window slightly, loses himself instead in the hot air that rushes forth.
If the driver instructs him not to, then he doesn't hear it.
*
Her fingers are warm. He's got his own laced through them tightly.
That they still feel so alive fills him with a degree of hysteria that he's not entirely convinced he can contain. His heart is beating painfully in his chest. He can't even calculate how many days since he landed. Since he took off from Seattle at a run and jumped head first into self-destruction.
He can still feel the sand lodged beneath his nails. A phantom pain of sorts that hasn't faded any in the few short hours since Megan screamed at him to get the hell outta Dodge. He can't even remember dumping the gun. Just knows that he wiped it down with the towel it had been delivered in and now it's gone.
Everything is gone.
He pillows his head on the new cast he's just received, his second in less than a week. Scratches the rough surface across his skin in an attempt to feel something, anything, that isn't sheer helplessness. Grits his teeth defiantly around a scream that wants to split him in two.
“Alex?”
The soft call is instantly familiar. Drowns out the constant beeping of the foetal monitor and other machinery and settles somewhere low in his gut.
And he doesn't think he can lift his head. Doesn't think he can breathe. Twists instead so that his face is forward onto her mattress, his arms bent up over his head. Tearing at the hair at the nape of his neck. Scrabbling for some kind of desperate purchase.
He can hear sobbing. Guttural and raw.
Grief at its most primitive.
Hands ghost against his shoulders, pull forcefully in an attempt to sit him upright. It's not until arms twist through his and circle around his heaving chest that he realises the sounds are coming from him.
“Oh, Alex.”
Meredith.
She pulls him over and up against her. Solid and sure.
He let's her.
Has no energy left with which to put up a decent fight.
*
The car comes out of no where.
A lie.
He comes out of no where. Steps from the police station and out into the Las Vegas traffic like it's not even there there and it's only when he's sliding across the hood of a maroon sedan that he registers the sound of horns blaring.
He's dumped unceremoniously on the asphalt with a bone jarring thud. Considers laying right where he falls and waiting for the on-coming vehicles to devour him whole. He keeps his eyes shut for a beat, catalogues the damage with a quick internal audit. Gives himself the all clear until a good samaritan latches onto his right arm in an attempt to haul him to his feet.
He screams then. Feels the bones move under his skin.
Only just has the self-awareness required to twist away as he vomits into the gutter. Uses his good hand to wipe the filth from his lips and chin and tries not to laugh at the fact that he'd kinda always figured this is where he'd end up.
The gutter.
He argues with the paramedics that are summoned by the gathering crowd. Eventually lets them usher him into the back of their bus and shove a Penthrox inhaler between his teeth.
He tells them it doesn't even hurt.
Another lie.
Everything does.
He gets a white plaster cast for his troubles. Wastes the best part of the rest of the day in and out of x-ray rooms and examination cubicles. Avoids reconstructive surgery by the skin of his teeth.
They discharge him with a sling and a prescription for pills he knows he won't bother to fill. Heads straight from Emergency to his sister's ward and sleeps in a chair by her bed for three hours.
Dreams dreams filled with rain soaked skies and the dancing image of a little girl he once knew.
Loved.
Lost.
*
When her boyfriend tells her they're moving to Vegas she can't help the swell of something that tastes a little like hope that fills her insides to over-flowing. Conjures images of flashing lights and beautiful people and sun soaked days spent by crystal blue swimming pools.
Googles Las Vegas area schools and dreams about one day sending her child to exotic sounding colleges like 'Wassall Academy' or 'The Meadows'.
Cooks them both celebratory steaks for supper and tries not to be too disappointed when he scowls at the potatoes and slams the lot into the trash.
”What is this horseshit?”
Closes her eyes and devours every morsel of her own serving as the front door ricochets to closed and then open again. Waits for the accompanying smash and shatter of glass that fails to eventuate.
Figures it's only a matter of time before the whole lot gives way.
*
A pimply faced junior officer hands him a plastic sack containing her personal effects. Those that were found on her at the time.
A wallet. A phone. A watch. Her clothing; maternity sized.
Tells him the coke was entered into evidence. Like maybe he was hoping he'd get that back too.
He doesn't punch the jerk in the face. But only just.
He waits until he's out of the station before separating the zip lock. Pulls her watch from the bag and stares blankly at the face as the hand ticks doggedly through the seconds, minutes, oblivious to the fact that it's owner doesn't really give a crap what the time is these days. He runs his fingers across the tarnished metal before sliding it into his pocket. He feels odd opening her wallet. Stops and starts several attempts before actually prising the flaps apart. Catches a folded photograph as it slides from where it had been stashed. Safe-keeping perhaps.
It's a sonogram snap. Feels like a sucker punch.
A baby girl. He's gonna have a niece.
There's no money tucked into the bill fold. It almost upsets him more than the sonogram print. Store cards in names that he doesn't recognise, a social security card in one that he does. Driver's license, borrowing card for the Iowa State Library. More photos pushed in behind clear windows.
Including one that takes his breath away.
She's on his shoulders. Scrawny and little kid-like. Eyes like saucers, a grin like a split watermelon. It's all he can do to look at the image.
It's all he can do to look away.
*
“Alex Karev.”
A file lands with a slap on the desk in front of her. Papers slide to skewed from between the manila cover.
“Pardon?” She squints at the precise writing across the top. Black felt tip pen. Alexander Michael Karev.
“The brother. His name is Alex. Arrived last night. Keep him close, Decker, yeah?”
“You mean, the brother is the new runner?” Carlos this time as he rounds her desk until they're shoulder to shoulder. Asks the exact question that had just reached the tip of her own tongue.
“No. At least, we don't think so. But he must know something, right? It's your job to find out what that is. You've got twenty four hours and then I want you back here for an update.”
She nods, notes the in unison tilt of Carlos' chin. Slides her gaze to meet his and reads the unspoken are you ready for this almost immediately.
Nods again, just for him. Opens the folder and drags the gathered pages free, gives them a quick skim.
“He's a surgeon? Are you kidding me?” She looks up at her boss for the confirmation she doesn't really need.
“He's a surgeon with a juvenile record and a less than stellar family history. Don't let the cute butt and the fancy title fool you, Decker.”
Juvenile record? Interesting.
“I haven't even seen his butt yet...”
*
She drags him, exhausted almost to the point of hysteria, from the room. Down several flights of deserted stairs and into the University Medical Center's version of the Seattle Grace tunnels. He runs his hand across his face and raises one eyebrow, questioning.
She shrugs back, “I don't know, I guess I figured all hospitals are the same to some degree.”
He nods. Knows from experience that she's right. The colours and the smells and the acrid taste of death. The names may change, very little else does.
“Are you okay?”
He laughs before he can stop himself. An involuntary expulsion of sound that bursts from somewhere low and fiery. Fingers brush deliberately against his, to grab his attention and nothing more.
“Alex?”
He groans. Picks his chin up high and lets the back of his head bounce against the plasterboard wall behind them.
“What are you even doing here, Mere?”
“Don't.” She spins so they're face to face, uses the tone of her voice to command his eye contact. “Don't do that. Don't act like you have no idea why I'm here. Why any of us would want to be here.”
He blinks. Can feel white hot tears carve a straight line path to the knees of his jeans. Pretends not to notice because it's the lesser of all his current evils.
“What am I going to do?” Barely more than a whisper. “What am I going to do? Please tell me what to do. Please...”
She shifts where she's seated, inches forward until her knees are wrapped around his sides. Adds her arms into the mix and pulls him close.
“Please tell me what to do...”
He lets her drag him downwards, still completely encircled by the tangle of her limbs, until they're side by side on the abandoned gurney.
Sleeps then, deep and dreamless.
*
Las Vegas is hot. And noisy. The air conditioning in their apartment coughs and sputters ineffectually in the corner, fills the room with an incessant buzzing but does nothing to actual shift the air about. Leaving the windows open is not an option.
She moves her weight under the single sheet she has thrown over herself. Feels it stick, sweat slick, to her calves, to the inside of her thighs.
Runs hands over the expanse of baby and belly and smiles.
Thinks things could definitely be worse.
Have been infinitely more-so in the past.
Bides her time with baited breath and marks off the days until her due date with a pencil she finds abandoned in the back of the wardrobe. One scratched line into the wood for every time the sun rises again.
Lets herself think of Iowa only when it rains.
It never rains here.
*
She wakes him with coffee. Proper coffee purchased from somewhere other than a hospital cafeteria. He shifts with a wince, reawakens bumps and bruises that haven't quite yet faded to gone. Wraps his broken arm against his chest and pushes awkwardly to upright.
“Didn't know you left.” Voice still low and muffled with the after effects of sleep.
“I didn't.” She holds the coffee out in front of her, as though daring him not to take it.
“But,” he squints, mentally shakes everything back into place, “Where'd that come from?”
“I bought it for you.”
Lucy.
She's standing back, hidden in the shadows that fall sideways through the frosted glass behind her. Barely more than a silhouette.
When he looks around Meredith is gone. The styrofoam cup of coffee on the gurney beside his left knee the only evidence that she'd been there at all.
He wraps his fingers around it. Takes a moment to stall. To create believable lies to weave around all the devastating truths that he knows he'll never be able to bring himself to tell her.
*
In the immediate aftermath of the warehouse being shot to hell she can't seem to keep up with where they're taking her. Everything happens in a manner that is too fast and too disjointed for her to follow. She keeps her arms wrapped around her belly protectively and tries not to flinch at the blood spatter painted crudely across the willowy fabric of her dress.
She keeps asking about the lady cop, is three quarters to convinced its her insides that she's decorated with, but they won't answer her, keep packing plastic wrapped parcels of cocaine into duffels and garbage sacks and any other bag they can find.
There's a guy, Sanchez or Santos or something like that; he keeps looking at her sideways. Like he knows something that she doesn't. A greasy kind of grin slashed across the planes of his face. He's meant to be her baby daddy's cousin, but she's pretty sure Greg isn't Spanish.
Figures 'cousin' is code for something she'd rather not think too long and too hard about.
The staccato beat of automatic weapon fire blanks out bits and pieces of what goes on. Echoic memory and all that as someone shoves a mirror full of lined up hits her way.
She shakes her head. Feels the twist and kick of life under her skin as Cooper or Maddison or Tyler or Grace (she changes her mind almost weekly it seems), digs a tiny foot up under her ribs.
“Did it seem like I was asking you a question?”
She brings her eyes up under black mascara'd lashes. Wants nothing more than to hide behind them for eternity.
“No.” A hesitant whisper.
“Well...”
The mirror is shoved towards her again then. Heaped lines shifting a little to the left in protest against the sudden movement.
She takes the rolled bill with a hand that shakes. Feels betrayed by her own useless body. Snorts the powder with a practiced ease and sits back on the couch to wait for a fake form of bliss to descend.
Murmurs apologies to her baby under her breath and shoves her fingers deep into her mouth to stop herself from screaming.
*
She hoists herself up onto the bar stool by her new target's right shoulder. Leans over the sodden runner and orders herself a shot of tequila and a bottle of something to chase it with. Fore-goes the lemon and the salt and downs the lot without taking a breath.
Tilts her head in the direction of the bartender and nods out her request for a replacement.
“Make it two,” she adds, last minute.
Waits until they're lined up in front of her before using the back of her hand to slide one in the direction of her new target.
Doctor Alexander Karev.
The cast on his right wrist throws her for a beat as she recognises him finally, the empty guy from the hospital waiting room with the eyes that held all his secrets.
“You look like you could use one,” she quips. Wraps her fingers around the second shot glass and tilts it slightly in his direction. She's read his file back to front seven times.
It didn't really give her much to go on. Married, divorced, Isobel Stevens. A stint in juvie as a teenager. A dead-beat dad and a mother on more meds than the local pharmacy.
Nothing new there.
The surgeon thing still has her somewhat stumped.
They end up in the bathroom stalls. Pressed solid against a grafitied wall.
For a good time call Aimee, 555-98- His head blanks out the rest of the number as her fingers work impatiently at the zipper of his jeans.
She's not entirely convinced this is what her boss meant by 'get close to him', but she figures it'll do for now.
Closes her eyes and dares herself not to think.
Uses the sudden darkness to creates half truths and excuses that she'll feed to her expectant partner in a few hours time.
*
The photographs that he pulls from the yellow envelopes Mick provided tell him all he could ever need to know and then some.
His sister, his sister.
He presses his fingers into his eye sockets and takes a deep, jagged breath. Manages not to dry heave all over the thread-bare carpet, but only just.
Wonders if it's humanly possible to hate yourself any more than he hates himself right in this very instant.
There are shots of her alone, hands resting on the swell of her belly as disco lights illuminate the sway of her dress. Lips parted as he imagines her singing along with the pulsing music like she used to when she was just a kid jumping on her bed with her hairbrush, radio dialed up to window shaking loud.
Shots of her with the cop he's fucking for information; Megan Decker. Visibly flinches at the sight of them captured together. Feels dirty in a way that he can't quite reconcile.
Even more of her with a guy he doesn't recognise. He has his arm wrapped loosely around her shoulders in one. She's smiling, has her head tilted back by degrees. Looks almost like she might have been happy.
Once.
Shoves his knuckles into his mouth to muffle the screams he can no longer clamp down.
Drops the shots back onto the bed, watches idly as they bounce and slide off the handgun still nestled in the twisted sheet by his left knee.
Counts to ten inside his hollowed out head, racks up the few choices he thinks he has and picks one from the queue. Vows to see it out to the very end.
*
She'd naively hoped that leaving Iowa behind would be more than just a symbolic shift. That she'd be able to build a new life for them in Vegas. Set up a home and eagerly await the completion of a family she'd hungrily craved since the one she was born into fell apart slowly but surely.
They're in the new city three days before the back of his hand leaves a scratch under her left eye. It's on the fifth that she makes her first drop.
A mixed bag of pills and powder that she exchanges for a fat wad of cash.
He smiles at her when she walks back through the door. Runs his fingers softly over the faded bruising and whispers good girl, hot and breathy, against a spot just south of her left ear.
And she thinks maybe this won't be so bad after all.
*
He tucks the gun into the waistband of his jeans. Pulls his shirt out over the bulge before dragging a jacket over his bulky cast. Hesitates as the thick plaster gets caught in the sleeve. Makes a decision then, forces himself to stop for a second. To stop and think.
Buys a file from the hardware store a block away and sets to hacking at the protective shell on his wrist. It takes too long and it hurts too fucking much but he does it anyway.
Smokes a cigarette or several in a misguided attempt to quell the tremors that twitch involuntarily at his limbs.
Hires a car with cash and carefully folds out the papers Mick had supplied him with on the passenger seat. Names and addresses and photographs to fill in any remaining gaps.
Greg Sheridan.
Top of his list.
Drags his cell phone from his pocket and dials the lady cop. Fills her in on his plan by way of a giant fuck you, too. Knows he used her every bit as much as she used him but can't quite manage to reconcile the karmic balancing act they'd been in.
*
He knows even less about the mess his sister was tied up in than she does. And she doesn't need to sleep with him to figure that much out.
Doesn't stop her from doing it anyway.
More than once.
She finds scraps of paper in the back pocket of his jeans. Waits until he's sleeping to slide out from underneath his dead weight and piece them together into some semblance of order. Phone numbers and lists of questions that he wants answers too. Doesn't appear that he's managed to find any of them just yet.
Flinches as he shifts in his sleep. Restless even now.
She crawls back in beside him and tucks her chin down against where the plaster cast meets his elbow.
Waits for sleep that never quite manages to claim her.
*
He's waving the weapon maniacally. Can't seem to keep the fucking thing steady as the weight of it builds and builds. Voices scream at him, a different one from every side, all morphing together until he can no longer pick one from the other.
“Alex.” Pleading. Pleading. The sound tears at defences that have already been torn to rack and ruin. “Alex, put the gun down.”
He shakes his head. Defiant.
Vows to at least get this part right. Even if the rest of his life has been one pathetic failure after another.
“No.”
The prick that impregnated his sister is on his knees in the desert sand. Has his hands behind his head as ordered but won't shut the fuck up no matter how many times he threatens to blow his brains out, a constant bellowing that echoes off the surrounding rock formations, bounces around inside his chest. Fills him to full and overflowing with words and syllables that he can't quite manage to decipher.
“No!” Screams this time. Flicks the gun to high above his head and pulls the trigger once. Barely even registers the sharp snap of the weapon's recoil as it slams a path along his broken bones. Buries itself somewhere in the back of his skull.
A reverberating shatter that splits the night sky into perfect halves.
“Alex, stop. You don't want to do this.” She's off to the side, and he laughs then because, honestly, this is the only thing in the whole world at the moment that he really does want to do.
“Shut up.”
“No. No I won't. This isn't going to bring her back. Alex, killing him won't bring her back.”
Like he doesn't already know this. Crystal cut clear.
“And the baby is going to need you, Alex. How can you take care of her if you kill him? There's no coming back from that.”
“Shut up. Shut up, shut up,” Let's his eyes fall to closed for a second or several. “Shutup, shutup, shutupshutupshutup...”
There's movement then. He hears a rustling in the sand before the crack of a gun that isn't his shocks him to still in a heart beat. He waits for agony. Feels his chest explode in anticipation of what must surely be to come.
Is almost disappointed when it doesn't.
The father of his unborn niece is slumped to sideways in sand that slowly shifts to red and black as the seconds tick by. He's steps closer than he was, must have made his move when eyes were shut tight and minds were elsewhere.
“It was supposed to be me,” whispered. “I was supposed to kill him. It was supposed to be me...”
Fingers wrap around his broken arm, twist ever so slightly. He crumples then. Curls into himself in the sand and can't even begin to imagine what pushing up to standing will feel like.
He hears the click and slide of his gun being disarmed. Hates himself for giving it all up so easily in the end.
*
“I was going to kill him.”
He's not sure why he lets the words out. Maybe hopes they'll shock her into a scrambling retreat. Have her taking off back to Seattle in a heart beat. She takes several steps towards him instead and he feels all his insides shift.
“It's okay.” It's not. It's not even close.
“I was going to kill him.” Again. A mantra that he can't quite let go of.
“I know.” He nods dumbly at her revelation, even though he knows it can't possibly be the truth.
Hands settle softly against his face then, one on either side as his jaw is tilted up by fractions. He blinks and the smudge of her blonde hair and blue eyes disappears out behind a wall of salt water. He feels her thumbs swipe identical paths across his cheek bones.
Can't even bring himself to care that he's crying in front of her.
“Alex, it's okay. We'll figure this out, okay?” He doesn't believe her. Wants to so desperately but just can't. Not yet.
He nods anyway. Figures it's the least he can give her, all things considered.
*
She's out of her car before it's even come to a complete stop. Skidding through the loose desert sand as her boots can't quite get the traction they need to keep her upright and running.
She hasn't called it in yet, there is no back-up on the way. She's still clinging to some misguided notion that she'll be able to talk him down off the ledge he seems so determined to walk.
The voicemail message that he'd left her, disjointed as it was, made his position more than clear.
The boyfriend is crouched over, hands and knees in the sand. There's a cut above his left eye which wasn't there this morning according to the latest round of surveillance photos and she wonders then whether she's not already too late to fix things. Whether he's not already too far off the deep end to be brought back.
Shadows creep their way across the wild planes of his face. Shield his eyes in a darkness that is impenetrable. The neon city lights the sky behind him with with an iridescent glow. She can see the barrel of a handgun as he shuffles on the spot.
The cast is gone. She figures he's managed to remove it himself somehow. Guesses then that the adrenalin flooding his system must be set to overflowing.
Curses the chemical for the extra degrees of difficulty it will surely add.
“Alex, put the gun down.” Doesn't for a second expect him to listen to her.
He's screaming then. Non-sensical words that scurry around in the sand at his feet. Drowned out as they are by the sound of his gun discharging high into the sky above their heads. She begs then, uses the only possible weapon she has left in her bag of not so effective tricks.
“And the baby is going to need you, Alex. How can you take care of her if you kill him? There's no coming back from that.”
He stills. Tilts his head back. Raw and wild. Eyes closed. He doesn't notice the scum bag boyfriend make a move. Charge to upright and surging forward in a staggering split second.
Her own gun fires then. Instinct, nothing more, as the slug buries itself deep into his rib-cage. A clean shot. They always did say she was at her best when under pressure.
She's at the fallen body before she registers her own feet are moving. Has her fingers pressed to his absent pulse point. Keeps her eyes up and across to the left.
“You need to go.” Doesn't allow herself to be taken in by the sheer weight of devastation that seems to be suffocating him.
“I was supposed to kill him. It was supposed to be me...”
“Alex, I swear to God. You need to get the hell out of here now. I need to call this in. I need to call it in now. But you need to go. Go to the hospital. Don't... just- Just go.” She's stumbling over the words. Can't seem to get them out in an order that makes sense. Fumbles for her cell phone as his ragged gaze lifts to hers. Taps out her partner's number as he pushes to his feet, nods at her once, staggers on un-steady legs to his car.
*
“Where's Lucy?”
He's back in his sister's room. Night-time is closing in, one more day to tick off, one more calendar page to turn.
“Getting some food.” His voice sounds like it's coming at him from somewhere far away. Has to seep through layers of cotton wool and concrete before he can register it as anything real.
“Okay, good.” She settles in the chair on the opposite side of the bed. Examines him closely and he shifts uncomfortably under the scrutiny. Can't quite predict what it is that comes next.
“I swear to God, Alex Karev, if you ever, ever do anything even remotely like taking off without telling me again...” She trails off, as though waiting for him to drag his eyes up to meet hers. He does, reluctantly. Nods.
Gets the message loud and clear.
“You scared the crap out of her, you know that?”
He shrugs because he doesn't, not really. The monotonous beeping of the machines that pump artificial life into his sister pulses through his veins. Makes the room move in slow, lazy spins.
He reaches out and threads his fingers through hers in a desperate attempt to bring it all to some kind of standstill. He thinks she tightens her grip at his touch.
Knows it's all in his imagination but clings to the heady notion nonetheless.
“We're all in this together, Alex. Okay? You, me, Lucy, Cristina... all of us.” He closes his eyes against her words, terrified to let himself believe they might contain some degree of truth. “I mean it, you're not alone.”
Vows then that he can do this. That he can be an uncle and a big brother and a thousand other things he can't quite yet bring himself to name.