The Weight Of Water
The Weight of Water: Chapter 2
Word Count: 3133
Disclaimer: They’re not mine…
Story Summary: Implied George/Alex though NOTHING graphic. Mostly about Alex. Starts in the morgue after the ferry crash but completely AU from there as Alex battles to deal with personal tragedy and the emotional fall out from the crash…
Chapter Summary: Alex’s POV.
***
The stark white room was blissfully empty when Alex finally woke. The exact details of why he was actually there in the first place were more than a little fuzzy but something innate was telling him it wasn’t good and he should probably get out of there before anyone discovered he was awake. His head felt as though someone had removed his brain and replaced it with fluffy, white, vanilla marshmallows and as he stepped out into the hallway the sounds of the busy hospital reverberated dully in the back of his conscience. He made it successfully undetected all the way to the locker room and he paused slightly before slowly pushing the door open. Three sets of eyes all darted towards him, the collective gasp making him question again exactly what the hell had happened. Izzie stood suddenly, seeming to look behind him, as though she were expecting someone else to follow him into the room.
‘Alex, hey…where’s George?’
Her face was a mix of gentle concern and unbridled panic, which Alex found particularly disconcerting.
‘I dunno,’ the sound of his own voice shocked him, resonating hoarsely through the fog it felt like he was wading through and he silently sent a quick prayer to whoever was listening, hoping that he didn’t seem as out of it to the others as he did inside his own head, ‘haven’t you guys seen him? He was looking for a missing boy…maybe…’
A sudden flash of the cold morgue, filled to bursting with black, plastic body bags made Alex’s chest constrict tightly as pieces of earlier that day started to click back into place. He raised a hand to his right cheek; the smooth flesh raised and sensitive to the touch as he ran trembling fingers down his cheek.
‘Alex? I’m…we’re all…sorry….so sorry…about…’
Izzie was walking towards him now, closing the distance between them slowly but steadily as Meredith and Christina remained seated and exchanged concerned looks. The closer Izzie got to him, the more claustrophobic he started to feel, taking a step back successfully stopped Izzie in her tracks as more memories flooded his vision with such vigour that suddenly Izzie and the locker room and the concerned glances were little more than muffled background static.
George was there, screaming…no, wait…that’s not George’s voice…it was him, he was screaming. There were body bags everywhere…one open…on the floor…
Alex took another step back; not even registering as his sweat soaked back met the cold locker room wall.
The hospital corridor…screaming for Addison…Mark was there and George still…and he was doing CPR and there was blood on his hands and on his scrubs and he could taste it in his mouth…then Dr. Bailey…then…Jess…pregnant…
‘Alex?’
The sudden sound snapped Alex back to the present, his heart pounding painfully in his chest and the metallic taste of blood, her blood, in his mouth. The three girls were staring at him intently, gazing almost, as though they were expecting him to…well, he wasn’t really sure what they were expecting.
‘Uh, I’ve gotta go…if you see George, can you tell him that I…umm, home…I’m gonna go home…’ Alex could feel his stomach beginning to revolt and he swallowed convulsively, instinctively knowing that if he didn’t get out of there right away he was going to vomit at Izzie’s feet.
He pushed through the door, relishing the cooler temperature of the quiet hallway and began to walk away. He heard the door open behind him as someone followed him out, calling his name but he continued on his way, ignoring the faceless voice.
---
He’d been home all of about five minutes before George burst through the front door with the energy and speed of a small cyclone. He’d not bothered with the lights and was sitting on the bathroom floor in the dark, side on to the wall with his cheek pressed up against the frigid tile.
‘Alex…Alex? Are you here?’
Alex could hear him frantically tearing from room to room, banging doors and switching lights on haphazardly but couldn’t bring himself to stand or say anything. He was having enough trouble controlling himself; he just didn’t believe he had the strength to deal with George too. George’s silhouette appeared in the bathroom doorway at the same time his mobile phone rang, Alex could see he looked torn for a moment before he reached into his pocket and pulled the still ringing device from it’s depths.
‘Hello…Yeah…yep, he’s here…’
Alex closed his eyes and sighed, hating that they had been looking for him, that they thought they needed to look for him, like he was someone that couldn’t look after himself. He rose to his feet unsteadily, leaning heavily on the basin above him as George ended the call and stepped closer, raising a tentative hand to cup Alex’s cheek.
‘Don’t George.’
Alex tried desperately to keep the pained waiver from his voice as the look on George’s face threatened to undo him all over again.
‘Alex…’
‘Please…George…don’t…’
The sob escaped before Alex had time to try and stop it and he closed his eyes and took a step forward, he couldn’t see through the unshed tears anyway and keeping his eyes closed meant it was easier to keep them that way…unshed. He tried to push his way past George and out into the hall, the bathroom was beginning to feel more like a prison than the sanctuary of calm it had been only minutes ago, but instead found himself enveloped in George’s surprisingly strong arms and being gently guided in the direction of the couch where they both collapsed into each other and remained curled together in the dark for an indeterminate amount of time.
George was the first to move, rousing Alex from the fitful slumber he had allowed himself to sink into wrapped in George’s familiar, comfortable embrace.
‘I’ll make us some dinner…’
Alex nodded and allowed George to extricate himself from the tangle of Alex’s longer limbs. He nodded again, dumbly, as George asked if pasta was okay even though he already knew he would be eating very little tonight. The fog had returned and Alex could think of nothing better than letting it take him over again, the light, cushion-y softness of denial.
---
Death by traumatic mass casualty causing ferry accidents meant delays in everything: body identification, autopsies, coronial inquests and not least of all, funerals. It was almost two weeks before Jessica’s body was returned to Iowa to be laid to rest in a small cemetery where their grandparents were buried.
‘I’ll come with you…if you like…’ George had offered, cautious and hopeful in one breath.
Yes, please. I don’t think…no…I know I can’t do this without you, I probably won’t be able to do it with you either but at least if you are there I can worry about everything else and leave me to you.
‘No, it’s okay. Bailey probably won’t let both of us go anyway…’
And so he had gone, alone, possibly more alone than he had ever been before and it had been all the different types of terrible and horrible and hard that he had already known it would be. He had felt ill the whole time he was there, had eaten basically nothing the entire trip save for what his aunts force fed him, though even that had a tendency to make a regular, calculated reappearance no more than five minutes after it was consumed and what was starting to become most disconcerting was the continual feeling of being unclean that would overwhelm him at times. No matter how hard he scrubbed or how hot the water was he couldn’t get the feeling of her blood off his hands and his face and out of his mouth. The scratches on his cheeks had taken days longer than they should have to heal because he continually scrubbed at them until the edges reopened and the savage redness returned.
His mother had been worse then he could have imagined, alternating wildly between catatonic silences and raving hysteria. One moment she would be curled sedately on the couch, staring at the flickering television with the sound muted out and the next she would be screaming in his face and belting him with her small fists, blaming him for not saving her.
‘She would never have even been on the damn boat if you hadn’t told her about that fucking specialist. You think we don’t have good doctors here? You think we’re not good enough for you Alex? It’s your fault, you should have left her the hell alone, you should have known you’d screw it up, you always do. It’s your fault…’
‘I know, I know, I know…’ he had whispered into her hair as he rocked her in his arms until the hysteria passed, until the blame filled his soul, until he believed it was the absolute truth.
---
He could see his appearance shocked George the moment their eyes connected in the airport terminal but George being George managed not to say anything to upset him. He knew he looked terrible, he was kilograms lighter, he had stopped shaving in an unsuccessful attempt to convince himself the blood was gone, his clothes looked rumpled and unchanged, which they were, and more than anything, he needed to sleep.
George had simply taken his backpack off him and guided him wordlessly to where he had parked the car, opening the door for him and not moving from his side until Alex was seated and bucked in.
‘So…did everything…was it…are you…okay?’
Alex snorted rudely and closed his eyes, leaning back deeply into the worn cushioning of the seat. He knew George was just trying to be nice, was just caring, was just being George but…
‘Alex…don’t please. I’m trying here…but…I don’t know what…’
‘Don’t then…don’t try…don’t…do anything…except take me home…’
It was the most Alex had left to offer as his thought processes were slowly started to shift towards the red shadowing on his hands that were fidgeting restlessly in his lap. He could see the blood, bright and sticky in some parts, dark and dried in others as he desperately suppressed the urge to scream or slam his fist through the windshield. By the time they pulled into their driveway Alex was positively humming with desperation. He clawed the door open, stopping just long enough to rip his seat belt off and pull his keys from his pocket before bursting through the door with such force that it flung open and back into the hallway wall with a loud crack.
The bathroom was approximately fifteen paces away from the entrance, at the opposite end of the hall, but Alex covered the distance in eight loping strides before slamming the wooden door locked behind him. He twisted both taps on hard, the jet of water almost painful on his already raw palms as he grabbed the nail brush from the ledge above the basin and began rhythmically scrubbing, first one hand then the other, up both arms to his elbows only vaguely aware of the pounding on the door behind him and the frantic verbalisations of George out in the hallway.
‘I’ll be out in a minute…’ he called, forcing his voice to remain level and controlled.
‘I was just…busting for a piss…’ he covered with a smooth lie, one he had practised regularly over the past week.
Finally feeling the tension ebb away, Alex took a deep breath before grabbing a discarded towel and quickly drying his hands and face before stepping out into the hall, almost colliding with a nervously pacing George.
‘Alex…?’
‘So…dinner? What would you like? I’m cooking…’
‘Alex,’ more of a demand this time than a question.
‘Seriously George, I was about to piss my pants…too much coffee on the plane. Now what do you want to eat? Pizza? Maybe I won’t cook, I’ll dial.’
‘Fine,’ George sighed defeatedly, ‘Pizza will be fine.’
Alex gave in to George somewhat for the rest of the evening, doing his best to remain calm and polite and to eat two slices of the barbeque chicken pizza he had ordered even if it did begin to swell in his throat and lodge in his stomach by the last painful mouthful. He even let George kiss him and run his cool fingers along his arms and over his lips as they sat together watching reality show after reality show, George’s latest obsession, until night was well and truly upon them. By the time George finally stood and suggested they make their way to bed Alex could concentrate on nothing but the solid feeling of pizza in his gut, images of it mixing with the blood on his lips that surely must still be there sending fierce messages to his brain to get it out.
George used the bathroom first, unknowingly leaving Alex trembling violently on the couch alone, begging the food to stay down til he could deal with it without having George as an audience. The five minutes it took George to clean his teeth and use the toilet felt like an hour and by the time Alex brushed past him in the hall, having deliberately left the television blaring on the music station to drown out any sounds he might make, the pizza was already half way back out.
---
George only tried to convince him to take some more time off once the next morning, coming to wrap his arms around Alex’s waist from behind as Alex stood in front of the bathroom mirror shaving.
‘I’m sure they’d understand…I can…it’ll be…’
‘George,’ Alex had replied testily, pausing with the razor half way to his neck to lock his gaze on George’s via the steam smeared mirror.
‘I’m going back today, my leave ended yesterday, they’re expecting me back. If you’re not going to give me a lift then I’ll run.’
There must have been just the right combination of strength and surety in his voice for George simply nodded and said he would organise some breakfast which Alex already knew he wouldn’t eat more than a few mouthfuls of.
--
Alex made it to lunch without too much drama. Dr. Bailey had assigned him to her and had kept a pretty close eye on him all morning, in fact he would be surprised if she had managed to do any of her own work at all, such was the amount of time she spent checking on him. While he was grateful for her support he was a little less excited about the whispered conversations that would end abruptly as he rounded corners or entered departments and the staring eyes that he felt he couldn’t escape from. In all though, the morning had been a fairly mundane one, filled with stitches and x-rays and nothing even remotely surgical but he hadn’t really expected anything more.
By the time he had collected a tray of food and made his way across to the table the other four were already seated and again he found himself bringing a hushed conversation to a sudden close as fingernails and food and anything but him quickly became incredibly interesting.
‘Not you lot too,’ he sighed, sinking into the one remaining chair between Meredith and George.
‘How ‘bout I do this once so we can all get on with our lives…I AM FINE…’ he ended with a trademark sarcastic smirk and stole a french fry from George’s plate as a way to signal the finish of the conversation.
Izzie giggled nervously and George looked anything but convinced but at least Meredith and Christina seemed to get the message as they started up a discussion on a neuro case Meredith was currently interning on. Alex was pleased for the opportunity to zone out and he leaned one knee up against George’s under the table in a placating manner and stole another fry.
Lunch was almost over, his tray empty and the chat dwindling, before Alex even realised he’d not thought about her once today. Not her blonde hair or her blue eyes. Not her pregnant belly and the little life growing inside her and especially not her blood on his hands and smeared across his face and in his mouth. The harder he tried to flight the images the faster they seemed to bombard his senses until he could see nothing but blue and red and grey. He stood suddenly, roughly, his chair tipping back to land noisily on its side behind him. He bent to straighten it, mumbling that he’d forgotten he was supposed to meet Dr. Bailey five minutes ago. He was vaguely aware of voices around him but they were drowned out instantly by the rushing of blood and jagged breath in his head.
He made it to the bathroom only seconds before his lunch reached the point of no return. Closing his eyes tightly to block out the vision of it swirling away with the water as he flushed the toilet, he sunk to the floor, reaching up quickly to turn the lock on the door of the oversized disabled facility. He sat leaning against the cold wall, relishing the cool on his hot, sweat soaked back, banging the back of his head rhythmically into the wall, trying to use the jarring pain to wipe everything else out. The longer he sat the angrier he got with himself, with his head for doing this to him, with her.
His breathing was harsh and painful and he stood dizzily to move to the sink for some water to rinse his mouth out. The mirror over the basin painted a clear picture of his sunken eyes and sweat beaded brow, his hot, fast breath fogging the glass briefly with each exhalation while he stood transfixed as his image disappeared and then reappeared with systematic regularity.
He clenched his teeth tightly, breathing noisily through them and baring them slightly, giving his appearance a deranged edge. He closed his eyes briefly and brought his fist back before punching his face in the mirror with all the strength he had left in him. The glass shattered as his knuckles impacted the fragile surface, distorting his reflection and sending reflective pieces of silver splattered with bright, shiny red crashing to the tiled floor. He brought his fist up again, unable to tear his eyes from the disjointed image staring savagely back at him, before crashing it repeatedly into the remaining glass fragments, oblivious to the splitting skin and breaking bones as pain and fear lost all meaning.
TBC