GREY'S SECRET SANTA: IF ALL YOUR LOVE WAS WASTED, THEN WHO THE HELL WAS I?
For
rorylie
This fic was supposed to be a short piece, and I don't know what happened, but it snowballed into this. I hope you like it!
If all your love was wasted, then who the hell was I?
Lexie/Alex (hints of past Lexie/Mark, Lexie/Jackson, and Alex/Izzie)
Rated - R (just to be safe)
The secret is, she’s been falling for as long as she can remember.
There’s a picture of ghosts, people she can hardly remember. There’s her mom, laughing at something Molly had said. Molly’s still little, barely seventeen, with a mouth full of braces and matching braids running over her shoulders. Her father looks young and happy and his hand’s cupped over her shoulder. She’s wearing her cap and gown and he’s just told her how proud he was of her.
A lifetime’s worth of proud.
It’s early November when she slips back down again. She’d been doing so well up until then. It’s not Mark’s new girlfriend that sets her off. That would be so simple. It’s the call from the police (the second that month) and her dad’s declining health and her inability to vocalize what’s really going on.
How can she tell Meredith her dad’s decided to throw away her liver, his second chance at life? Meredith and Cristina would probably laugh at the irony over drinks and Lexie would shrink away, alone again.
Molly can’t be bothered. She doesn’t understand. He’s the epitome of every father he’d shook his head at while they were growing up and Molly can’t fathom how bad he is now.
Lexie’s spent the better part of the night taking care of him. She’s hid his keys, cleaned the house, and re-stocked the groceries. She’s dumped the liquor, finished off the last three beers in the fridge, and finds herself laughing hysterically on the kitchen floor.
Her mother would be appalled.
And for the first time, Lexie finds that she truly doesn’t give a shit.
She keeps these secrets like April keeps checklists and charts. They’re more than habits to her; they’re familiar. Jackson’s not one to ask about her family and that’s when she decides to keep him too. This double life is easier. She can keep the good and hide the bad and it feels so easy and somehow frees her.
Except on her mom’s birthday. The Catholic guilt eats away at her, and the smell of her father’s beer cans linger under her chewed away nails.
It’s not Mark’s new girlfriend that sets her off.
It’s the heat of the moment and the memory of her high school softball games and her parents in the crowd. It’s the thought of what she’s doing to herself and how, if she’s not careful, she’s going to end up back in the psych ward. It’s the conjuring of what her mom would be doing now, on her fiftieth birthday, if things had ended differently. It’s the realization that nobody knows what’s happening to her and that Mark of all people can stand there, kissing that woman without even noticing. She’s running out of people who truly know her and she’s grasping to hang onto the few that are left any way she can. And when she understands that he’s slipping away from her, that he doesn’t see through her act anymore than Jackson can, she finds herself pegging the ball at his disgustingly annoying girlfriend.
“Good arm,” her father whispers and she grins.
“My mother’s not like yours was,” Jackson remarks.
Lexie turns away from him.
“Oh come on,” he sighs, wrapping his arm around her as he slides closer to her beneath her red satin sheets. “You don’t know what it’s like to have a parent like that...to never feel good enough. Plus, she’s embarrassing.”
You’re a selfish bitch. Your mother would be ashamed of you. She wouldn’t even be able to look at you.
Words from earlier that night still sting. She doesn’t care if Jackson’s mom is strong and motivated. She doesn’t care that she demands the best from him. She knows that she should, but she doesn’t have it in her. Maybe she is a selfish bitch, after all.
“It’s fine,” she remarks after a few minutes. Because she doesn’t really want to meet his mother anyway. That signifies something and she’s tired of meaning that much to someone else. She can’t be that person right now.
He talks about Molly and how much fun she’ll have, as if he’s met her. As if he knows her family already. She wants to explain how different everything is. How Molly counts the number of drinks she has as if at any moment she’ll go crazy too.
When he kisses her goodnight, she realizes that he’s falling in love with her and all she can do is continue to fall apart.
“So it’s over?”
Alex slides his beer down the counter towards her as she takes a seat next to him at the bar.
“Yeah.” There’s really nothing more to say.
“So what are you going to do now?”
It’s a strange question to ask, but she’s wondering the same thing. It’s hard to pretend you’re happy when you don’t have anything in your life left to hide behind.
“I don’t know.” She pauses then offers a slight smile. Maybe move into a trailer and sleep with half the hospital?”
He grins. “You’re off to a good start.”
She rolls her eyes and laughs. “At least I get doctors. All you’re bringing home these days are nurses and X-ray techs.”
A half-hearted smile for a half-hearted joke. She turns to him slightly, wondering when they were last able to talk like this. Before the shooting, she thinks. They’re changed since then, she knows. Everyone has. People are married and having babies and getting their lives together. But not them. They have yet to get anything together. She wonders idly if they’ve grown up at all.
“We had it too, didn’t we?” he says after a beat.
Lexie frowns. “Had what?”
Alex turns his head towards Meredith and the rest of the gang. Lexie follows his gaze, understanding. “That,” he remarks. “We had it too, and we just fucked it right up.”
Lexie sucks in her breath. She doesn’t ask him if he’s talking about her or Izzie or hell even Lucy. Part of her knows he’s implying her relationship with Mark, but she can’t quite rid herself of lingering doubts, because honestly, they had something too. They had something.
So, she tells him the truth for once.
“Maybe we did,” she begins cautiously. “I’m not so sure how to tell anymore.”
She watches curiously as Mark and Jackson grin at some secret inside joke. Jackson laughs as Mark re-enacts some event she’s not privy to.
She’s not sure if it stings because she misses Mark or because she’s realizing she doesn’t. The former makes about as much sense as the latter.
“I’m surprised they haven’t ordered matching tee shirts yet,” Alex remarks. His feet rest inches in front of hers, his face brushing against her hair. He reaches over her shoulder and grabs the chart behind her.
Lexie smirks as he backs away from her slightly. “Yeah, because everyone wants to be a part of the Plastics Posse.” She rolls her eyes and scoffs. “It sounds like a lame fraternity or something.”
Alex snorts. “What’s Greek for douchebag?”
Lexie tries to catch the laugh in her throat as Mark and Jackson head towards them, but Alex is grinning at her and she explodes into a fit of hysterics.
Jackson eyes her warily and Mark frowns. “Everything okay, Grey?”
Lexie stiffens and considers for a moment about telling him all of the things that are not okay. She considers, but it’s much more fitting to keep quiet and hold back. They’ve always been good at that.
“Of course, Dr. Sloan,” she replies cautiously. When she turns on her heel and walks away, she realizes she doesn’t even want to look back.
“Kinda late,” Alex remarks from his perch against the kitchen counter. I
Lexie winces as her eyes take in the bright, florescent light. “I was...I was just...”
“Not prepared to run into someone at 3am?” Alex grins. “Need more time to make up a good cover story.”
“No, I just...I was out.” She runs her hand through her hair in agitation. “What do you care anyway?”
Alex shrugs. “Don’t care. Just find it interesting.”
“Well, it’s not.”
Alex smirks. “You don’t really go out, except for Joe’s.”
“That’s not true,” she remarks, even though they both know it is. “And maybe I was at Joe’s.”
“You weren’t at Joe’s,” he insists. “I was at Joe’s.”
“So, I went somewhere else,” Lexie remarks. “What are you my...”
She freezes.
“Dad?” Alex guesses, looking up at her knowingly.
She panics. She panics because this is not the person she is. Lexie Grey doesn’t sneak in and out of her house. She doesn’t keep secrets (well, not well, at least) and she doesn’t lie.
“Lex,” he says softly. He knows all the signs. He knows what she’s been doing and she keeps forgetting that she can lie to everyone but he makes it impossible to lie to him. She forgets how well he understands her.
She shakes her head.
“How long?” he questions.
She sighs and her gaze falls down at the floor. “Since last Christmas. At least, that’s when I found out.”
“Have you told anyone?”
Lexie laughs. “What and have Meredith make a joke out of It? And what, hold it over my head forever? She gave him a piece of her liver, Alex.”
“You know she wouldn’t do that.” He pauses. “You’re embarrassed.”
She rolls her eyes. “Of course I am. How do you...I mean, Molly doesn’t even want to here it. She wants to pretend it doesn’t exist and hope it will just go away. And I’m stuck there cleaning up after him and trying to hide his keys and the more I do it, the more I realize that I...that I...”
“That you don’t want to do it anymore,” Alex finishes.
Lexie looks up at him, tears brimming in her eyes. “Yeah,” she says in relief. “I just want it to be over with. I’m just so tired.”
Alex walks closer to her. “You have to get him help.”
“He’s my dad,” she begins quietly. “He helped me study for my SAT’s. He reviewed all of my college essays and helped me every step of the way. I...I don’t know how to help him.”
Alex nods. “Because getting him help would mean admitting that he’s not the person you thought he was.”
Lexie’s crying now, and Alex’s arms are around her faster than she thinks possible. Her nails dig into his tee shirt as she fights desperately to regain control of her emotions. “It was one thing for him to start drinking right after my mom.” she begins, her cheek pressed against his chest. “But now, after everything that’s happened, for him to just...he’s not supposed to be this way.”
Alex holds her tightly as she struggles against her own tears. He strokes her hair softly. “None of us are,” he tells her.
She finds a pamphlet on a live-in rehabilitation center in Seattle in the middle of her charts the next morning. She tucks it into her pocket, and Alex, of course, doesn’t say a word.
Meredith sits down next to Lexie on the abandoned stretcher in the hallway.
“How come you didn’t tell me?”
Lexie shrugs and stares straight ahead. “I don’t know. It was too hard, I guess. I meant to, I just, couldn’t or something.”
“Alex said you checked him into Lakeside,” Meredith remarks, looking straight ahead as well. “It’s a good facility.”
“How do you know?” Lexie questions.
Meredith shrugs. “I looked into it.”
“You did?”
“Yeah, you know, just making sure it was up to par...wanted you to get your money’s worth.”
“Right,” Lexie grins.
Meredith rolls her eyes. “He’s important to you, Lexie, and he’s not exactly a stranger to me anymore. You should have told me.”
Lexie nods. “I know. I’m sorry.”
“I know a thing or two about taking care of a parent who used to be the one in control. It’s hard and I don’t just mean the taking care of them part. It’s hard to see them that way, knowing that if they were themselves, they’d hate the way they were acting. It’s sucks and you shouldn’t have to go through that alone.”
Lexie smiles. “Thanks.”
Meredith smiles back. “Okay.” She slides off of the stretcher and begins to walk away. “Oh, I guess you heard? Mark broke up with that eye doctor.”
“Oh,” is all Lexie can manage. “That’s...too bad.”
She nearly means it.
“Mark broke up with his girlfriend,” she tells Alex as she spins around in a circle on her barstool.
Alex stops her spinning with his foot. She crashes against the bar and places her hands on the counter to steady herself.
“So are you two like engaged now?” he teases. There’s a hint of seriousness in his voice.
Lexie shakes her head and polishes off the rest of her beer. They order another round of tequila shots and she waits until they finish before continuing.
“You love Izzie right?”
It says something about their friendship that Alex doesn’t tell her to go fuck herself and run out of the bar right then and there.
“Izzie and I are over,” he says firmly.
“But that’s what I mean,” Lexie says, starting in one another beer. “You’re over, but you still love her, right?” She doesn’t wait for him to answer. “Because, they say when you love someone, when you really love someone, that there’s nothing they can do that you won’t be able to get over. But it’s not that simple. I mean, it’s bullshit. Because, the truth is, there are a million things they can do that maybe they don’t even mean to do, that just hurt you again and again. And yeah, you love them and maybe nothing will ever change that, but you just can’t be with them anymore. You just can’t. It’s just not even an option.”
Alex stares at her in bewilderment for a minute before finishing the last of his beer and setting the empty bottle down on the counter. “Yeah,” he says after a moment.
Lexie turns back to Joe. “We’re gonna need some more tequila,” she tells him.
Alex is nothing and everything like she remembers, both at the same time.
His hands are all over her as they make their way up the porch steps, his fingers sliding under her jacket and up her shirt as he presses her against the door. For a minute, she thinks they’re going to do it right then and there, with the wind nipping at their faces and his teeth chattering slightly as he kisses her.
But, he eventually finds the doorknob and they stumble in loudly, neither caring who might happen to hear them. Alex’s breath is hot against her collarbone as he steers her towards his door. She shakes her head and pushes him towards her bedroom instead. She needs part of this to belong to her too, and if anyone’s going to sneak out in the morning, it’s not going to be her. He doesn’t protest and they manage to fumble up the narrow, wooden stairs to her bed.
He takes her sweater off slowly, and the gesture is strangely intimate and personal. Lexie shivers as he runs his fingers up the length of her stomach and chest, moonlight bouncing off of her pale skin.
“This is how we should have been,” he says slowly, and it may be the tequila, but it may be true. If there hadn’t been Mark and there hadn’t been Izzie, this is easily how it could have been.
Lexie maneuvers Alex out of his shirt and her eyes skirt immediately to the still visible scar on his chest. He lets her fingers trace over the broken patch of skin, because it’s not just his scar, it’s hers too. He’s not some guy with a war wound that she’s fawning over. He’s only here because of her and when she touches his skin, they both remember this. When she touches him, they both remember that there’s something intense, dark, and terrifying between them, and it’s not just because every time she closes her eyes she sees a gun pointing at her head. It’s because they’ve saved each others lives in so many little ways and they keep trying to bury these feelings and memories, but they always resurface.
They can’t bury the one thing they’re clinging desperately to.
They don’t have any reason to be anyone other than themselves in front of one another and she’s realizing that this should be scaring the shit out of the both of them. But she’s not scared, just a little bit nervous, and she keeps telling herself that they’re both drunk and this doesn’t mean anything.
But it’s her name he’s whispering in her ear as he lowers her onto the bed and she’s realizing that he’s the only person she wants to be here with her right now.
He talks about Amber later that night, or maybe early that morning, when they’re lying in bed and she’s half expecting him to bolt and forget that any of this has ever happened. She’s surprised, but she lets him talk. She doesn’t ask questions or pass judgments about his family (as if she’s in any position to). She just listens.
“She was one of those kids who was always so excited around Christmastime, you know? Guess I don’t really like Christmas because it makes me think about her.”
Lexie leans her head against his chest. He wraps his arm around her slowly. “My mom loved Christmas. Molly, too. My dad and I, well we liked Christmas, of course. Who doesn’t? But not like them. The first Christmas that Molly ever spent away from home after getting married was the year my mom died. So it was just me and my dad. I was flying in from school on Christmas morning and he barely knew how to use a microwave, so we improvised.”
Alex smirks. “Chinese?”
Lexie grins. “Hey, don’t knock it. It was fun. I mean, it was different. There aren’t exactly any Christmas songs about sitting around the sadly decorated tree eating egg rolls and lo mein, but it was still nice. I mean, you have this idea of Christmas when you’re little and it changes when you grow up. You have to find new ways to make it meaningful, otherwise, it just disappears and it’s just another day.”
“I guess, if it’s important enough to you.”
“It’s Christmas,” Lexie remarks, as if that says it all.
Alex shrugs and kisses her forehead. “Sometimes it really is just another day,” he tells her.
Alex is gone the next morning when she wakes up. She can feel the weight of him missing from beside her and drapes her arm across the empty space where he was just minutes before.
She’s not sure why she’s surprised. She had been bracing herself for this all along. It’s just Alex and this really shouldn’t mean anything to her.
She shuts her eyes tightly and tries not to fall all over again.
“I heard about your dad,” Mark comments as she arrives at work later that morning.
She finds it weird that these are the first words he’s spoken to her in weeks.
“He’s doing better,” she tells him quickly. “I mean, he was doing better before and then...” She pauses. “I guess there’s no way of knowing for sure.”
Mark looks truly pained by the news. She’s forgotten how sympathetic he can be when he makes the effort.
“Do you need anything? I mean, any help with him? Help with his house?”
Lexie shakes her head. “No, everything’s fine. He’ll be in rehab for another month or so and then everything goes back to normal. At least that’s the plan.”
Mark nods. He’s biting back words that she’s positive she can’t handle hearing right now. She shifts her weight nervously, looking for an escape.
That’s when she notices Alex over Mark’s shoulder, balancing a coffee cup awkwardly in his free hand, a stack of charts in the other. He walks over towards her, ignoring Mark’s presence.
“Here,” he replies, handing her the cup.
She accepts it, baffled.
“It’s one of those mocha foamy things you like,” he replies, already seeming to regret the small gesture.
Lexie smiles. “You got me a latte?”
Alex rolls his eyes. “Yeah, whatever, it was three dollars. Not a big deal.”
Lexie shrugs. “I’m just trying to imagine the word latte coming out of your mouth,” she teases.
Alex grins sheepishly, then looks to his right. “Hey,” he remarks quickly.
“Hey,” Mark says back, staring between the pair. Lexie just watches as he leaves.
“I didn’t bail,” Alex begins quickly.
Lexie frowns. “I never said you did.”
“I mean, I did bail, but I didn’t mean to. I got up early and before I knew it I was just out the door. I just...”
“You don’t have to explain,” Lexie insists, glancing up at him.
“I want to,” he begins quietly. “I got freaked out and I bailed, and I was sitting here wondering what kind of excuse I could come up with or whether I should just ignore you or I don’t know, pretend it never happened, when I realized I didn’t want to do that.”
“Alex, really, it’s fine.”
“It’s not fine. I just...I don’t want to bail anymore. Okay?”
Lexie’s fingers grasp the paper cup tighter as she looks back up at him. “Okay,” she says softly, although she’s not entirely sure what she’s agreeing to.
She waits in a room that vaguely reminds her of her high school cafeteria, long plastic tables scattered across the length of the space with metal folding chairs strewn carelessly nearby. She picks a seat and sit anxiously, her leg bouncing as she stares at the large clock on the wall.
There are a few other people waiting and she watches as their family members come in, one by one, hugging them and talking about their progress.
She grows more nervous the longer it takes.
Finally, a woman in teal scrubs leads her father into the room and she stares at her shoes as he walks towards her.
“Hi Daddy,” she says, out of habit, as she takes the seat in front of her. She folds her hands on the table. She’s not sure how any of this is supposed to work.
Thatcher looks back at her, an expression she can’t quite decipher plastered across his face. Wrinkles that she’s never noticed before are emphasized in the yellowish light and she spots bags under his eyes. He doesn’t look well at all.
This is the first time that she truly thinks of her father as old.
“I brought you some things,” she begins. “Razors, deodorant, some clothes, snacks. I...I left them at the security desk.”
Thatcher doesn’t respond.
Lexie continues. “You look good, you know, considering. How...how are you feeling? Are you...”
Thatcher’s hands fall off the table and into his lap. “Why’d you have to bring me here?” he asks her solemnly. “You should have left me alone.”
Lexie shakes her head. “Daddy, they can help you.”
Thatcher ignores her again and turns back to the clock.
He doesn’t speak for the rest of the visit and doesn’t look back at her when they call for him.
She spends the better part of the next half hour collapsed in a fit of hysterics against her steering wheel.
She’s seven glasses in before she starts to recognize the irony, and she knows she should feel like a hypocrite for denouncing her father’s drinking when she’s intent on finishing a full bottle of wine, but she doesn’t.
Or she doesn’t care. It’s one of the two.
Joe snagged her keys after glass number four and she’s trying desperately to remember what the buttons on her cell phone mean.
She keeps starting her gps, which she finds amusing, because she is trying to find her way home.
“I’ve got it,” Joe says, taking hold of her phone. “Who are we calling? Meredith?”
Lexie shakes her head. “S’on call,” is all she manages.
“Derek?”
“Surgery.”
“Mark?”
She shakes her head adamantly. “Bad.”
Joe seems to follow her drunken train of thought.
“I need a name,” he tells her.
She’s not sure why she’s trying to think of someone else. There’s always April, but that’s an embarrassing story she’ll never live down. She finally succumbs.
“Alex,” she tells Joe, resting her head on the bar.
She doesn’t really want him to see her like this.
“You’re going to hate yourself tomorrow,” Alex jokes, lifting her out of the car.
“I hate myself right now,” she moans, reaching out for his arms. He steadies her, his arm around her shoulders and leads her to the porch.
“Stairs,” he warns, although she trips anyway.
“Stupid house,” she mutters, as he helps her through the front door. She kicks off her shoes and Alex catches her as she starts to teeter backwards. “I’m sorry,” she slurs, wiping a tear from her eye with the back of her hand.
Alex helps her into his bed, the closest of their two rooms, and takes off her jacket. “Any particular reason why you felt the need to clean Joe out of his wine supply?”
Lexie turns on her side, back towards him as he climbs into bed next to her. “He hates me.”
Alex laughs. “Joe doesn’t hate you. Although he wanted me to remind you that it’s not a karaoke bar.”
“Oh god,” Lexie remarks, scrunching her nose in distaste as she remembers singing a few bars of an Adele song. She wipes the thought out of her head and returns to Alex’s question. “Not Joe though. Joe’s not the one who hates me.”
“Who hates you then?”
It takes her a minute to summon the words.
“My dad,” she says quietly. “I saw him today and he...he wouldn’t talk to me, ‘cept to basically tell me he hates me.”
Alex kisses the back of her neck lightly. “He doesn’t hate you,” he insists.
She shakes her head. “You don’t understand. I never...I never saw him look at me that way before.”
“I get it,” Alex reminds her. “He’s pissed off and you’re the only one who cares enough to be there, so he’s taking it out on you.”
Lexie sucks in a breath. “I’m just so tired of all of this. I don’t think I can take much more of it.”
He holds her and kisses her neck and he doesn’t tell her it’s all going to be okay. Because he’s Alex and he knows it most likely won’t be.
It helps.
“What the hell is this?” he demands, storming into her room the next day. He throws the open letter on her bed.
Lexie takes a deep breath. “I just thought she might want to hear from you.”
“But she didn’t hear from me, she heard from you.”
“It was just a card,” Lexie defends. “I didn’t write anything. It was just a stupid Christmas card, but the way you were talking about her, I figured it would mean a lot and...”
“Stay the hell out of my life,” he orders, grabbing the letter from Amber and slamming her bedroom door.
“They’re moving in March,” April announces, sliding down next to Lexie at the deserted lunch table.
“I heard,” Lexie replies.
“Guess we need to find a new place to live.” April pauses. “We were looking for places a few months ago. Jackson, Alex, and I. Well, Jackson and I were looking and we kind of included Alex. You and Jackson had just broken up and...I guess we kind of all assumed you’d get back together with Mark and just move in there.”
Lexie picks at her apple. “Guess you assumed wrong.”
April nods. “Well, I felt kind of bad, and if you want to come look at places with us, well, Jackson’s fine with it and it’ll make for cheaper rent. I just...”
“Got a second?”
April spins around to face Alex. Lexie stares at her tray. “Kind of busy,” she tells him.
He rolls his eyes and bites his lip. “Please?” he finally manages.
She knows it’s killing him to be so polite, so she agrees.
“But what about the apartment?” April asks as she walks away.
Lexie shakes her head. She pictures a chore wheel and April taking charge of the bills and shudders. “Thanks, but I’ll figure something else out,” she calls back to her.
April looks momentarily discouraged, but finally nods and turns back to her lunch.
Lexie follows Alex outside where the cold air instantly causes goosebumps to run up and down the length of her bare arms. He leans against the brick wall and sighs.
“Look, I’m sorry,” she says. “I am. I just thought it would be a nice gesture and I know you miss her, no matter what you say, I know that. But, it wasn’t my place and I shouldn’t have backed you into a corner like that. I just thought....”
“I’m not good at this,” he cuts her off, ignoring her rant about the letter to Amber.
Lexie stops talking and looks up at him.
“I’m going to get pissed off and I’m going to walk away from you,” he tells her. “A lot.”
She nods. “Okay,” she says slowly. “Okay.”
He shrugs. “I’m just telling you, because I’m not good at being someone’s boyfriend or whatever. And I’m probably going to screw it up.”
Lexie leans against the wall next to him. “I run away and get drunk when I don’t feel like dealing with things,” she offers. “And that’s probably not going to change anytime soon.”
“Okay,” he says softly.
“I think I can handle it,” she tells him honestly. She pauses. “Unless...”
Alex looks up at her expectantly.
She grins, “Got any kids?” she jokes.
“What are you doing with Alex?” Meredith asks, catching up with her in the hallway.
Lexie slides the x-rays in her hand back into their packaging. “Nothing. Why?”
Meredith shoots her a knowing look. “You eat lunch together, his room is strangely empty at night, and when he says something to you, it’s not followed by his usual sling of insults.”
Lexie blushes slightly. “We’re just...I don’t know.”
“Be careful,” Meredith warns her.
“I am,” Lexie lies. “It’s just...he’s been...I don’t know...he’s been helping with my dad.”
Meredith pauses. “I’m just saying, you guys have done this before and it ended with a bullet in Alex’s chest and you in the psych ward. Those are some pretty huge signs to ignore.”
Lexie rolls her eyes. “I’m pretty sure there were some other contributing factors,” she reminds her.
“I’m just saying...”
“I know what you’re saying, and thank you for your concern, but I’m not going to let myself get hurt again.”
Meredith frowns. “It’s not just you I’m worried about,” she admits.
It’s the last Christmas dinner in Meredith’s house which somehow translates into a huge dinner and celebration for their usual group of colleagues at the hospital.
“No booze,” is all Cristina has to say as she falls onto the couch. “How is there no booze in this house?”
Meredith looks down at Cristina. “There’s no booze because social workers generally frown upon booze in the house when you’re trying to prove you’re a responsible parent.”
Cristina frowns. “The social worker probably thinks you’re weird. You know, because you’re the only person in the city without a freaking bottle of tequila stowed away somewhere.”
It’s a fine line Cristina walks, joking about Zola, and it’s a remark only Cristina could get away with.
“I’ll run to Joe’s,” Alex offers, reaching for his coat.
“It’s not that serious Alex,” Meredith insists. “Cristina isn’t going to die if she doesn’t get a glass of alcohol.”
Cristina scowls. “You can’t possibly know that.”
“It’s no big deal,” Alex replies. “I have to run an errand anyway.”
Meredith shrugs. “All right. Be back in time for dinner.” She looks towards the kitchen where Arizona and Mark are fighting over the best way to prepare the turkey. “Of course if they don’t start cooking, there may not actually be any food.”
“Got it,” Alex remarks. He turns to Lexie. “You wanna come?”
She shrugs, watching as April pops in a new Christmas cd. Everything’s much too festive for her current mood. “God yes,” she grins.
Meredith eyes them warily, but doesn’t comment.
Mark watches as they leave.
“You’re not going the right way,” Lexie argues. The brown bag at her feet clinks as the car slides to the left slightly.
“Short cut,” Alex insists.
Lexie crinkles her nose. “There’s no short cut from Joe’s to the house. It’s a straight shot back to Mer’s. You’re going the wrong way.”
“Nope,” Alex remarks, turning right into a parking lot.
Lexie crosses her arms. “If you’re taking me into an abandoned parking lot to kill me, just know that I watch Bones and I know all of the forensic technology they have available now. They will find you.”
Alex snorts. “I’m not going to murder you, you freak.”
Lexie grins. “Where are we?” she questions as he parks. She struggles to see through the bright sunlight.
“A restaurant,” he says vaguely.
Lexie struggles to see through the glare on the windshield. “What? Why? I’m pretty sure Mer was only joking about the turkey not being finished in time...”
“I’m not buying food for Mer’s.”
“Then why are we here?”
“To get take out,” Alex remarks blatantly, getting out of the car in front of an Asian Restaurant. He laces his arm around her waist and pulls her in for a kiss. “Because it’s Christmas and on Christmas you and your dad have Chinese.”
Epilogue:
Some genius ignites fireworks three hours early, injuring a house party where family and friends have to be rushed for the hospital. Just about everyone is called in, ruining their New Year’s Eve party at Joe’s. Only Cristina and April, surprisingly, are too drunk to operate.
Lexie’s between patients when the countdown starts. She hurries into her next patient’s room where Sloan and Jackson are examining the burns on his face. Callie’s looking at his broken leg (he was apparently on a ladder fixing Christmas lights when the firework hit him) and she’s supposed to be doing neuro-consult for Shephard.
She reaches for his chart as the countdown outside grows louder. Arizona frowns from a few feet away, motioning to a little girl on a stretcher and Callie smiles understandingly.
“Lex,” Alex remarks, popping into the room. “Hunt said to find an intern to do the consult. Multi-vehicle car crash. Ambulances are on their way.”
Lexie nods and reaches for her pager.
“But first,” Alex begins, setting down the stack of charts and brushing her hair back behind her ear.
Lexie smiles as he leans in to kiss her, tangling her fingers in his hair.
“Happy New Year,” he whispers awkwardly as his lips brush against hers.
She kisses him back feverishly. She doesn’t care who’s watching.
rorylie
This fic was supposed to be a short piece, and I don't know what happened, but it snowballed into this. I hope you like it!
If all your love was wasted, then who the hell was I?
Lexie/Alex (hints of past Lexie/Mark, Lexie/Jackson, and Alex/Izzie)
Rated - R (just to be safe)
The secret is, she’s been falling for as long as she can remember.
There’s a picture of ghosts, people she can hardly remember. There’s her mom, laughing at something Molly had said. Molly’s still little, barely seventeen, with a mouth full of braces and matching braids running over her shoulders. Her father looks young and happy and his hand’s cupped over her shoulder. She’s wearing her cap and gown and he’s just told her how proud he was of her.
A lifetime’s worth of proud.
It’s early November when she slips back down again. She’d been doing so well up until then. It’s not Mark’s new girlfriend that sets her off. That would be so simple. It’s the call from the police (the second that month) and her dad’s declining health and her inability to vocalize what’s really going on.
How can she tell Meredith her dad’s decided to throw away her liver, his second chance at life? Meredith and Cristina would probably laugh at the irony over drinks and Lexie would shrink away, alone again.
Molly can’t be bothered. She doesn’t understand. He’s the epitome of every father he’d shook his head at while they were growing up and Molly can’t fathom how bad he is now.
Lexie’s spent the better part of the night taking care of him. She’s hid his keys, cleaned the house, and re-stocked the groceries. She’s dumped the liquor, finished off the last three beers in the fridge, and finds herself laughing hysterically on the kitchen floor.
Her mother would be appalled.
And for the first time, Lexie finds that she truly doesn’t give a shit.
She keeps these secrets like April keeps checklists and charts. They’re more than habits to her; they’re familiar. Jackson’s not one to ask about her family and that’s when she decides to keep him too. This double life is easier. She can keep the good and hide the bad and it feels so easy and somehow frees her.
Except on her mom’s birthday. The Catholic guilt eats away at her, and the smell of her father’s beer cans linger under her chewed away nails.
It’s not Mark’s new girlfriend that sets her off.
It’s the heat of the moment and the memory of her high school softball games and her parents in the crowd. It’s the thought of what she’s doing to herself and how, if she’s not careful, she’s going to end up back in the psych ward. It’s the conjuring of what her mom would be doing now, on her fiftieth birthday, if things had ended differently. It’s the realization that nobody knows what’s happening to her and that Mark of all people can stand there, kissing that woman without even noticing. She’s running out of people who truly know her and she’s grasping to hang onto the few that are left any way she can. And when she understands that he’s slipping away from her, that he doesn’t see through her act anymore than Jackson can, she finds herself pegging the ball at his disgustingly annoying girlfriend.
“Good arm,” her father whispers and she grins.
“My mother’s not like yours was,” Jackson remarks.
Lexie turns away from him.
“Oh come on,” he sighs, wrapping his arm around her as he slides closer to her beneath her red satin sheets. “You don’t know what it’s like to have a parent like that...to never feel good enough. Plus, she’s embarrassing.”
You’re a selfish bitch. Your mother would be ashamed of you. She wouldn’t even be able to look at you.
Words from earlier that night still sting. She doesn’t care if Jackson’s mom is strong and motivated. She doesn’t care that she demands the best from him. She knows that she should, but she doesn’t have it in her. Maybe she is a selfish bitch, after all.
“It’s fine,” she remarks after a few minutes. Because she doesn’t really want to meet his mother anyway. That signifies something and she’s tired of meaning that much to someone else. She can’t be that person right now.
He talks about Molly and how much fun she’ll have, as if he’s met her. As if he knows her family already. She wants to explain how different everything is. How Molly counts the number of drinks she has as if at any moment she’ll go crazy too.
When he kisses her goodnight, she realizes that he’s falling in love with her and all she can do is continue to fall apart.
“So it’s over?”
Alex slides his beer down the counter towards her as she takes a seat next to him at the bar.
“Yeah.” There’s really nothing more to say.
“So what are you going to do now?”
It’s a strange question to ask, but she’s wondering the same thing. It’s hard to pretend you’re happy when you don’t have anything in your life left to hide behind.
“I don’t know.” She pauses then offers a slight smile. Maybe move into a trailer and sleep with half the hospital?”
He grins. “You’re off to a good start.”
She rolls her eyes and laughs. “At least I get doctors. All you’re bringing home these days are nurses and X-ray techs.”
A half-hearted smile for a half-hearted joke. She turns to him slightly, wondering when they were last able to talk like this. Before the shooting, she thinks. They’re changed since then, she knows. Everyone has. People are married and having babies and getting their lives together. But not them. They have yet to get anything together. She wonders idly if they’ve grown up at all.
“We had it too, didn’t we?” he says after a beat.
Lexie frowns. “Had what?”
Alex turns his head towards Meredith and the rest of the gang. Lexie follows his gaze, understanding. “That,” he remarks. “We had it too, and we just fucked it right up.”
Lexie sucks in her breath. She doesn’t ask him if he’s talking about her or Izzie or hell even Lucy. Part of her knows he’s implying her relationship with Mark, but she can’t quite rid herself of lingering doubts, because honestly, they had something too. They had something.
So, she tells him the truth for once.
“Maybe we did,” she begins cautiously. “I’m not so sure how to tell anymore.”
She watches curiously as Mark and Jackson grin at some secret inside joke. Jackson laughs as Mark re-enacts some event she’s not privy to.
She’s not sure if it stings because she misses Mark or because she’s realizing she doesn’t. The former makes about as much sense as the latter.
“I’m surprised they haven’t ordered matching tee shirts yet,” Alex remarks. His feet rest inches in front of hers, his face brushing against her hair. He reaches over her shoulder and grabs the chart behind her.
Lexie smirks as he backs away from her slightly. “Yeah, because everyone wants to be a part of the Plastics Posse.” She rolls her eyes and scoffs. “It sounds like a lame fraternity or something.”
Alex snorts. “What’s Greek for douchebag?”
Lexie tries to catch the laugh in her throat as Mark and Jackson head towards them, but Alex is grinning at her and she explodes into a fit of hysterics.
Jackson eyes her warily and Mark frowns. “Everything okay, Grey?”
Lexie stiffens and considers for a moment about telling him all of the things that are not okay. She considers, but it’s much more fitting to keep quiet and hold back. They’ve always been good at that.
“Of course, Dr. Sloan,” she replies cautiously. When she turns on her heel and walks away, she realizes she doesn’t even want to look back.
“Kinda late,” Alex remarks from his perch against the kitchen counter. I
Lexie winces as her eyes take in the bright, florescent light. “I was...I was just...”
“Not prepared to run into someone at 3am?” Alex grins. “Need more time to make up a good cover story.”
“No, I just...I was out.” She runs her hand through her hair in agitation. “What do you care anyway?”
Alex shrugs. “Don’t care. Just find it interesting.”
“Well, it’s not.”
Alex smirks. “You don’t really go out, except for Joe’s.”
“That’s not true,” she remarks, even though they both know it is. “And maybe I was at Joe’s.”
“You weren’t at Joe’s,” he insists. “I was at Joe’s.”
“So, I went somewhere else,” Lexie remarks. “What are you my...”
She freezes.
“Dad?” Alex guesses, looking up at her knowingly.
She panics. She panics because this is not the person she is. Lexie Grey doesn’t sneak in and out of her house. She doesn’t keep secrets (well, not well, at least) and she doesn’t lie.
“Lex,” he says softly. He knows all the signs. He knows what she’s been doing and she keeps forgetting that she can lie to everyone but he makes it impossible to lie to him. She forgets how well he understands her.
She shakes her head.
“How long?” he questions.
She sighs and her gaze falls down at the floor. “Since last Christmas. At least, that’s when I found out.”
“Have you told anyone?”
Lexie laughs. “What and have Meredith make a joke out of It? And what, hold it over my head forever? She gave him a piece of her liver, Alex.”
“You know she wouldn’t do that.” He pauses. “You’re embarrassed.”
She rolls her eyes. “Of course I am. How do you...I mean, Molly doesn’t even want to here it. She wants to pretend it doesn’t exist and hope it will just go away. And I’m stuck there cleaning up after him and trying to hide his keys and the more I do it, the more I realize that I...that I...”
“That you don’t want to do it anymore,” Alex finishes.
Lexie looks up at him, tears brimming in her eyes. “Yeah,” she says in relief. “I just want it to be over with. I’m just so tired.”
Alex walks closer to her. “You have to get him help.”
“He’s my dad,” she begins quietly. “He helped me study for my SAT’s. He reviewed all of my college essays and helped me every step of the way. I...I don’t know how to help him.”
Alex nods. “Because getting him help would mean admitting that he’s not the person you thought he was.”
Lexie’s crying now, and Alex’s arms are around her faster than she thinks possible. Her nails dig into his tee shirt as she fights desperately to regain control of her emotions. “It was one thing for him to start drinking right after my mom.” she begins, her cheek pressed against his chest. “But now, after everything that’s happened, for him to just...he’s not supposed to be this way.”
Alex holds her tightly as she struggles against her own tears. He strokes her hair softly. “None of us are,” he tells her.
She finds a pamphlet on a live-in rehabilitation center in Seattle in the middle of her charts the next morning. She tucks it into her pocket, and Alex, of course, doesn’t say a word.
Meredith sits down next to Lexie on the abandoned stretcher in the hallway.
“How come you didn’t tell me?”
Lexie shrugs and stares straight ahead. “I don’t know. It was too hard, I guess. I meant to, I just, couldn’t or something.”
“Alex said you checked him into Lakeside,” Meredith remarks, looking straight ahead as well. “It’s a good facility.”
“How do you know?” Lexie questions.
Meredith shrugs. “I looked into it.”
“You did?”
“Yeah, you know, just making sure it was up to par...wanted you to get your money’s worth.”
“Right,” Lexie grins.
Meredith rolls her eyes. “He’s important to you, Lexie, and he’s not exactly a stranger to me anymore. You should have told me.”
Lexie nods. “I know. I’m sorry.”
“I know a thing or two about taking care of a parent who used to be the one in control. It’s hard and I don’t just mean the taking care of them part. It’s hard to see them that way, knowing that if they were themselves, they’d hate the way they were acting. It’s sucks and you shouldn’t have to go through that alone.”
Lexie smiles. “Thanks.”
Meredith smiles back. “Okay.” She slides off of the stretcher and begins to walk away. “Oh, I guess you heard? Mark broke up with that eye doctor.”
“Oh,” is all Lexie can manage. “That’s...too bad.”
She nearly means it.
“Mark broke up with his girlfriend,” she tells Alex as she spins around in a circle on her barstool.
Alex stops her spinning with his foot. She crashes against the bar and places her hands on the counter to steady herself.
“So are you two like engaged now?” he teases. There’s a hint of seriousness in his voice.
Lexie shakes her head and polishes off the rest of her beer. They order another round of tequila shots and she waits until they finish before continuing.
“You love Izzie right?”
It says something about their friendship that Alex doesn’t tell her to go fuck herself and run out of the bar right then and there.
“Izzie and I are over,” he says firmly.
“But that’s what I mean,” Lexie says, starting in one another beer. “You’re over, but you still love her, right?” She doesn’t wait for him to answer. “Because, they say when you love someone, when you really love someone, that there’s nothing they can do that you won’t be able to get over. But it’s not that simple. I mean, it’s bullshit. Because, the truth is, there are a million things they can do that maybe they don’t even mean to do, that just hurt you again and again. And yeah, you love them and maybe nothing will ever change that, but you just can’t be with them anymore. You just can’t. It’s just not even an option.”
Alex stares at her in bewilderment for a minute before finishing the last of his beer and setting the empty bottle down on the counter. “Yeah,” he says after a moment.
Lexie turns back to Joe. “We’re gonna need some more tequila,” she tells him.
Alex is nothing and everything like she remembers, both at the same time.
His hands are all over her as they make their way up the porch steps, his fingers sliding under her jacket and up her shirt as he presses her against the door. For a minute, she thinks they’re going to do it right then and there, with the wind nipping at their faces and his teeth chattering slightly as he kisses her.
But, he eventually finds the doorknob and they stumble in loudly, neither caring who might happen to hear them. Alex’s breath is hot against her collarbone as he steers her towards his door. She shakes her head and pushes him towards her bedroom instead. She needs part of this to belong to her too, and if anyone’s going to sneak out in the morning, it’s not going to be her. He doesn’t protest and they manage to fumble up the narrow, wooden stairs to her bed.
He takes her sweater off slowly, and the gesture is strangely intimate and personal. Lexie shivers as he runs his fingers up the length of her stomach and chest, moonlight bouncing off of her pale skin.
“This is how we should have been,” he says slowly, and it may be the tequila, but it may be true. If there hadn’t been Mark and there hadn’t been Izzie, this is easily how it could have been.
Lexie maneuvers Alex out of his shirt and her eyes skirt immediately to the still visible scar on his chest. He lets her fingers trace over the broken patch of skin, because it’s not just his scar, it’s hers too. He’s not some guy with a war wound that she’s fawning over. He’s only here because of her and when she touches his skin, they both remember this. When she touches him, they both remember that there’s something intense, dark, and terrifying between them, and it’s not just because every time she closes her eyes she sees a gun pointing at her head. It’s because they’ve saved each others lives in so many little ways and they keep trying to bury these feelings and memories, but they always resurface.
They can’t bury the one thing they’re clinging desperately to.
They don’t have any reason to be anyone other than themselves in front of one another and she’s realizing that this should be scaring the shit out of the both of them. But she’s not scared, just a little bit nervous, and she keeps telling herself that they’re both drunk and this doesn’t mean anything.
But it’s her name he’s whispering in her ear as he lowers her onto the bed and she’s realizing that he’s the only person she wants to be here with her right now.
He talks about Amber later that night, or maybe early that morning, when they’re lying in bed and she’s half expecting him to bolt and forget that any of this has ever happened. She’s surprised, but she lets him talk. She doesn’t ask questions or pass judgments about his family (as if she’s in any position to). She just listens.
“She was one of those kids who was always so excited around Christmastime, you know? Guess I don’t really like Christmas because it makes me think about her.”
Lexie leans her head against his chest. He wraps his arm around her slowly. “My mom loved Christmas. Molly, too. My dad and I, well we liked Christmas, of course. Who doesn’t? But not like them. The first Christmas that Molly ever spent away from home after getting married was the year my mom died. So it was just me and my dad. I was flying in from school on Christmas morning and he barely knew how to use a microwave, so we improvised.”
Alex smirks. “Chinese?”
Lexie grins. “Hey, don’t knock it. It was fun. I mean, it was different. There aren’t exactly any Christmas songs about sitting around the sadly decorated tree eating egg rolls and lo mein, but it was still nice. I mean, you have this idea of Christmas when you’re little and it changes when you grow up. You have to find new ways to make it meaningful, otherwise, it just disappears and it’s just another day.”
“I guess, if it’s important enough to you.”
“It’s Christmas,” Lexie remarks, as if that says it all.
Alex shrugs and kisses her forehead. “Sometimes it really is just another day,” he tells her.
Alex is gone the next morning when she wakes up. She can feel the weight of him missing from beside her and drapes her arm across the empty space where he was just minutes before.
She’s not sure why she’s surprised. She had been bracing herself for this all along. It’s just Alex and this really shouldn’t mean anything to her.
She shuts her eyes tightly and tries not to fall all over again.
“I heard about your dad,” Mark comments as she arrives at work later that morning.
She finds it weird that these are the first words he’s spoken to her in weeks.
“He’s doing better,” she tells him quickly. “I mean, he was doing better before and then...” She pauses. “I guess there’s no way of knowing for sure.”
Mark looks truly pained by the news. She’s forgotten how sympathetic he can be when he makes the effort.
“Do you need anything? I mean, any help with him? Help with his house?”
Lexie shakes her head. “No, everything’s fine. He’ll be in rehab for another month or so and then everything goes back to normal. At least that’s the plan.”
Mark nods. He’s biting back words that she’s positive she can’t handle hearing right now. She shifts her weight nervously, looking for an escape.
That’s when she notices Alex over Mark’s shoulder, balancing a coffee cup awkwardly in his free hand, a stack of charts in the other. He walks over towards her, ignoring Mark’s presence.
“Here,” he replies, handing her the cup.
She accepts it, baffled.
“It’s one of those mocha foamy things you like,” he replies, already seeming to regret the small gesture.
Lexie smiles. “You got me a latte?”
Alex rolls his eyes. “Yeah, whatever, it was three dollars. Not a big deal.”
Lexie shrugs. “I’m just trying to imagine the word latte coming out of your mouth,” she teases.
Alex grins sheepishly, then looks to his right. “Hey,” he remarks quickly.
“Hey,” Mark says back, staring between the pair. Lexie just watches as he leaves.
“I didn’t bail,” Alex begins quickly.
Lexie frowns. “I never said you did.”
“I mean, I did bail, but I didn’t mean to. I got up early and before I knew it I was just out the door. I just...”
“You don’t have to explain,” Lexie insists, glancing up at him.
“I want to,” he begins quietly. “I got freaked out and I bailed, and I was sitting here wondering what kind of excuse I could come up with or whether I should just ignore you or I don’t know, pretend it never happened, when I realized I didn’t want to do that.”
“Alex, really, it’s fine.”
“It’s not fine. I just...I don’t want to bail anymore. Okay?”
Lexie’s fingers grasp the paper cup tighter as she looks back up at him. “Okay,” she says softly, although she’s not entirely sure what she’s agreeing to.
She waits in a room that vaguely reminds her of her high school cafeteria, long plastic tables scattered across the length of the space with metal folding chairs strewn carelessly nearby. She picks a seat and sit anxiously, her leg bouncing as she stares at the large clock on the wall.
There are a few other people waiting and she watches as their family members come in, one by one, hugging them and talking about their progress.
She grows more nervous the longer it takes.
Finally, a woman in teal scrubs leads her father into the room and she stares at her shoes as he walks towards her.
“Hi Daddy,” she says, out of habit, as she takes the seat in front of her. She folds her hands on the table. She’s not sure how any of this is supposed to work.
Thatcher looks back at her, an expression she can’t quite decipher plastered across his face. Wrinkles that she’s never noticed before are emphasized in the yellowish light and she spots bags under his eyes. He doesn’t look well at all.
This is the first time that she truly thinks of her father as old.
“I brought you some things,” she begins. “Razors, deodorant, some clothes, snacks. I...I left them at the security desk.”
Thatcher doesn’t respond.
Lexie continues. “You look good, you know, considering. How...how are you feeling? Are you...”
Thatcher’s hands fall off the table and into his lap. “Why’d you have to bring me here?” he asks her solemnly. “You should have left me alone.”
Lexie shakes her head. “Daddy, they can help you.”
Thatcher ignores her again and turns back to the clock.
He doesn’t speak for the rest of the visit and doesn’t look back at her when they call for him.
She spends the better part of the next half hour collapsed in a fit of hysterics against her steering wheel.
She’s seven glasses in before she starts to recognize the irony, and she knows she should feel like a hypocrite for denouncing her father’s drinking when she’s intent on finishing a full bottle of wine, but she doesn’t.
Or she doesn’t care. It’s one of the two.
Joe snagged her keys after glass number four and she’s trying desperately to remember what the buttons on her cell phone mean.
She keeps starting her gps, which she finds amusing, because she is trying to find her way home.
“I’ve got it,” Joe says, taking hold of her phone. “Who are we calling? Meredith?”
Lexie shakes her head. “S’on call,” is all she manages.
“Derek?”
“Surgery.”
“Mark?”
She shakes her head adamantly. “Bad.”
Joe seems to follow her drunken train of thought.
“I need a name,” he tells her.
She’s not sure why she’s trying to think of someone else. There’s always April, but that’s an embarrassing story she’ll never live down. She finally succumbs.
“Alex,” she tells Joe, resting her head on the bar.
She doesn’t really want him to see her like this.
“You’re going to hate yourself tomorrow,” Alex jokes, lifting her out of the car.
“I hate myself right now,” she moans, reaching out for his arms. He steadies her, his arm around her shoulders and leads her to the porch.
“Stairs,” he warns, although she trips anyway.
“Stupid house,” she mutters, as he helps her through the front door. She kicks off her shoes and Alex catches her as she starts to teeter backwards. “I’m sorry,” she slurs, wiping a tear from her eye with the back of her hand.
Alex helps her into his bed, the closest of their two rooms, and takes off her jacket. “Any particular reason why you felt the need to clean Joe out of his wine supply?”
Lexie turns on her side, back towards him as he climbs into bed next to her. “He hates me.”
Alex laughs. “Joe doesn’t hate you. Although he wanted me to remind you that it’s not a karaoke bar.”
“Oh god,” Lexie remarks, scrunching her nose in distaste as she remembers singing a few bars of an Adele song. She wipes the thought out of her head and returns to Alex’s question. “Not Joe though. Joe’s not the one who hates me.”
“Who hates you then?”
It takes her a minute to summon the words.
“My dad,” she says quietly. “I saw him today and he...he wouldn’t talk to me, ‘cept to basically tell me he hates me.”
Alex kisses the back of her neck lightly. “He doesn’t hate you,” he insists.
She shakes her head. “You don’t understand. I never...I never saw him look at me that way before.”
“I get it,” Alex reminds her. “He’s pissed off and you’re the only one who cares enough to be there, so he’s taking it out on you.”
Lexie sucks in a breath. “I’m just so tired of all of this. I don’t think I can take much more of it.”
He holds her and kisses her neck and he doesn’t tell her it’s all going to be okay. Because he’s Alex and he knows it most likely won’t be.
It helps.
“What the hell is this?” he demands, storming into her room the next day. He throws the open letter on her bed.
Lexie takes a deep breath. “I just thought she might want to hear from you.”
“But she didn’t hear from me, she heard from you.”
“It was just a card,” Lexie defends. “I didn’t write anything. It was just a stupid Christmas card, but the way you were talking about her, I figured it would mean a lot and...”
“Stay the hell out of my life,” he orders, grabbing the letter from Amber and slamming her bedroom door.
“They’re moving in March,” April announces, sliding down next to Lexie at the deserted lunch table.
“I heard,” Lexie replies.
“Guess we need to find a new place to live.” April pauses. “We were looking for places a few months ago. Jackson, Alex, and I. Well, Jackson and I were looking and we kind of included Alex. You and Jackson had just broken up and...I guess we kind of all assumed you’d get back together with Mark and just move in there.”
Lexie picks at her apple. “Guess you assumed wrong.”
April nods. “Well, I felt kind of bad, and if you want to come look at places with us, well, Jackson’s fine with it and it’ll make for cheaper rent. I just...”
“Got a second?”
April spins around to face Alex. Lexie stares at her tray. “Kind of busy,” she tells him.
He rolls his eyes and bites his lip. “Please?” he finally manages.
She knows it’s killing him to be so polite, so she agrees.
“But what about the apartment?” April asks as she walks away.
Lexie shakes her head. She pictures a chore wheel and April taking charge of the bills and shudders. “Thanks, but I’ll figure something else out,” she calls back to her.
April looks momentarily discouraged, but finally nods and turns back to her lunch.
Lexie follows Alex outside where the cold air instantly causes goosebumps to run up and down the length of her bare arms. He leans against the brick wall and sighs.
“Look, I’m sorry,” she says. “I am. I just thought it would be a nice gesture and I know you miss her, no matter what you say, I know that. But, it wasn’t my place and I shouldn’t have backed you into a corner like that. I just thought....”
“I’m not good at this,” he cuts her off, ignoring her rant about the letter to Amber.
Lexie stops talking and looks up at him.
“I’m going to get pissed off and I’m going to walk away from you,” he tells her. “A lot.”
She nods. “Okay,” she says slowly. “Okay.”
He shrugs. “I’m just telling you, because I’m not good at being someone’s boyfriend or whatever. And I’m probably going to screw it up.”
Lexie leans against the wall next to him. “I run away and get drunk when I don’t feel like dealing with things,” she offers. “And that’s probably not going to change anytime soon.”
“Okay,” he says softly.
“I think I can handle it,” she tells him honestly. She pauses. “Unless...”
Alex looks up at her expectantly.
She grins, “Got any kids?” she jokes.
“What are you doing with Alex?” Meredith asks, catching up with her in the hallway.
Lexie slides the x-rays in her hand back into their packaging. “Nothing. Why?”
Meredith shoots her a knowing look. “You eat lunch together, his room is strangely empty at night, and when he says something to you, it’s not followed by his usual sling of insults.”
Lexie blushes slightly. “We’re just...I don’t know.”
“Be careful,” Meredith warns her.
“I am,” Lexie lies. “It’s just...he’s been...I don’t know...he’s been helping with my dad.”
Meredith pauses. “I’m just saying, you guys have done this before and it ended with a bullet in Alex’s chest and you in the psych ward. Those are some pretty huge signs to ignore.”
Lexie rolls her eyes. “I’m pretty sure there were some other contributing factors,” she reminds her.
“I’m just saying...”
“I know what you’re saying, and thank you for your concern, but I’m not going to let myself get hurt again.”
Meredith frowns. “It’s not just you I’m worried about,” she admits.
It’s the last Christmas dinner in Meredith’s house which somehow translates into a huge dinner and celebration for their usual group of colleagues at the hospital.
“No booze,” is all Cristina has to say as she falls onto the couch. “How is there no booze in this house?”
Meredith looks down at Cristina. “There’s no booze because social workers generally frown upon booze in the house when you’re trying to prove you’re a responsible parent.”
Cristina frowns. “The social worker probably thinks you’re weird. You know, because you’re the only person in the city without a freaking bottle of tequila stowed away somewhere.”
It’s a fine line Cristina walks, joking about Zola, and it’s a remark only Cristina could get away with.
“I’ll run to Joe’s,” Alex offers, reaching for his coat.
“It’s not that serious Alex,” Meredith insists. “Cristina isn’t going to die if she doesn’t get a glass of alcohol.”
Cristina scowls. “You can’t possibly know that.”
“It’s no big deal,” Alex replies. “I have to run an errand anyway.”
Meredith shrugs. “All right. Be back in time for dinner.” She looks towards the kitchen where Arizona and Mark are fighting over the best way to prepare the turkey. “Of course if they don’t start cooking, there may not actually be any food.”
“Got it,” Alex remarks. He turns to Lexie. “You wanna come?”
She shrugs, watching as April pops in a new Christmas cd. Everything’s much too festive for her current mood. “God yes,” she grins.
Meredith eyes them warily, but doesn’t comment.
Mark watches as they leave.
“You’re not going the right way,” Lexie argues. The brown bag at her feet clinks as the car slides to the left slightly.
“Short cut,” Alex insists.
Lexie crinkles her nose. “There’s no short cut from Joe’s to the house. It’s a straight shot back to Mer’s. You’re going the wrong way.”
“Nope,” Alex remarks, turning right into a parking lot.
Lexie crosses her arms. “If you’re taking me into an abandoned parking lot to kill me, just know that I watch Bones and I know all of the forensic technology they have available now. They will find you.”
Alex snorts. “I’m not going to murder you, you freak.”
Lexie grins. “Where are we?” she questions as he parks. She struggles to see through the bright sunlight.
“A restaurant,” he says vaguely.
Lexie struggles to see through the glare on the windshield. “What? Why? I’m pretty sure Mer was only joking about the turkey not being finished in time...”
“I’m not buying food for Mer’s.”
“Then why are we here?”
“To get take out,” Alex remarks blatantly, getting out of the car in front of an Asian Restaurant. He laces his arm around her waist and pulls her in for a kiss. “Because it’s Christmas and on Christmas you and your dad have Chinese.”
Epilogue:
Some genius ignites fireworks three hours early, injuring a house party where family and friends have to be rushed for the hospital. Just about everyone is called in, ruining their New Year’s Eve party at Joe’s. Only Cristina and April, surprisingly, are too drunk to operate.
Lexie’s between patients when the countdown starts. She hurries into her next patient’s room where Sloan and Jackson are examining the burns on his face. Callie’s looking at his broken leg (he was apparently on a ladder fixing Christmas lights when the firework hit him) and she’s supposed to be doing neuro-consult for Shephard.
She reaches for his chart as the countdown outside grows louder. Arizona frowns from a few feet away, motioning to a little girl on a stretcher and Callie smiles understandingly.
“Lex,” Alex remarks, popping into the room. “Hunt said to find an intern to do the consult. Multi-vehicle car crash. Ambulances are on their way.”
Lexie nods and reaches for her pager.
“But first,” Alex begins, setting down the stack of charts and brushing her hair back behind her ear.
Lexie smiles as he leans in to kiss her, tangling her fingers in his hair.
“Happy New Year,” he whispers awkwardly as his lips brush against hers.
She kisses him back feverishly. She doesn’t care who’s watching.