Chapter Text
One Week Later- Saturday Morning, 6:30 AM
Clem's phone buzzed on her nightstand, pulling her from restless sleep. She grabbed it, squinting at the too-bright screen.
A text from her mother: Found Gran's recipe for her Christmas cookies today. The ones with the anise. Thought you might want it. Miss you, sweetheart.
Attached was a photo of a handwritten recipe card, the ink faded and the edges worn from years of use.
Clem stared at it, a knot forming in her stomach. Kit Hart didn’t send recipes. Her mother wasn’t sentimental—she worked holidays, sent practical gifts when she remembered, and showed love through action, not nostalgia.
This was the fourth text like this in two weeks. First it was her grandmother's pot roast recipe. Then detailed instructions for how to properly iron dress shirts. Then a rambling story about Clem's father that Kit had never shared before, full of details that seemed important somehow.
Each one felt wrong in a way Clem couldn't quite articulate.
She typed back: Thanks. You okay?
The response came immediately: I'm fine, honey. Just thinking about you. How's work?
Busy. Always busy.
Take care of yourself. Love you.
Clem set the phone down, that uneasy feeling settling deeper into her chest. She glanced at the clock—6:45 AM. She needed to be at the hospital by 8:00 for rounds.
Downstairs, she could already hear movement in the kitchen. Definitely Izzie, who had been up at ungodly hours all week preparing for some kind of Christmas extravaganza that involved an alarming amount of garland and enthusiasm.
Clem pulled on jeans and a sweater, deliberately not thinking about her mother's text or what it might mean.
Meredith's House - Kitchen
The kitchen looked like Christmas had staged a hostile takeover. Garland draped across every available surface, boxes of ornaments stacked by the back door, and Izzie stood at the counter sorting through what appeared to be hundreds of cookie cutters with the focused intensity of a general planning a military campaign.
"Morning!" Izzie's voice was far too bright for this hour. "Coffee's fresh. I'm making a master list of all the cookies we need to bake before Christmas."
"It's the first week of December," Clem said, making a beeline for the coffee pot like it was a life raft.
"Which means we're already behind schedule." Izzie held up two cookie cutters. "Snowflakes or reindeer? I'm thinking we do both, plus gingerbread men, sugar cookies, those little thumbprint ones with jam—"
"Both is fine."
"Perfect! I knew you'd get into the spirit eventually." Izzie beamed at her, making notes on her increasingly elaborate list.
Clem poured coffee and leaned against the counter, the warmth of the mug grounding her. "Iz, can I ask you something?"
"Of course."
"If someone you know starts acting different. Out of character. Should you be worried?"
Izzie set down her cookie cutters, her expression shifting from Christmas enthusiasm to genuine concern. "Different how?"
"Just... doing things they wouldn't normally do. Saying things that don't fit."
"Is this about Alex? Because if he's being weird again—"
"No. It's not about Alex." Clem took a long sip of coffee. "Forget it. It's probably nothing."
"Clem." Izzie moved closer, her voice gentler now. "If someone you care about is acting weird, that's worth paying attention to. Who are we talking about?"
"Nobody. Really, it's fine."
"Or you're avoiding dealing with it," Izzie said, not unkindly. "Which seems to be your go-to strategy lately."
"I'm not avoiding anything."
"You've been working doubles, barely sleeping, and disappearing at the same time every afternoon for a week when we're at the hospital." Izzie raised an eyebrow. "We're not idiots, Clem. We know something's going on."
Before Clem could argue, Meredith shuffled in, hair sticking up. “Why is it Christmas everywhere? And why at seven a.m.?”
"Because it's December and we're making this house festive whether you like it or not," Izzie said with determination. "This is going to be a real Christmas. With decorations and cookies and—"
"And way too much enthusiasm before coffee," Clem muttered, grabbing her mug. "I need to get ready for work."
She left before Izzie could push the conversation further, carrying her coffee upstairs and trying to ignore the guilt settling in her stomach.
Izzie was right. She was avoiding things. Her mother's strange texts, whatever mess she was making with Derek, the fact that she still instinctively wanted to talk to Alex about all of it even though that ship had sailed and sunk spectacularly.
But dealing with it would mean facing how completely her life had fallen apart in the past few weeks.
So she'd keep going to work, keep losing herself in surgeries and patient charts, and keep pretending everything was manageable.
Even if nobody was buying it anymore.
Seattle Grace Hospital - On-Call Room - 12:30 PM
The on-call room was dim, just the emergency exit light casting a faint red glow across the space. Clem sat on the edge of the narrow bed, pulling her scrub top back on while Derek stretched out behind her, one hand trailing lazily down her spine.
"You don't have to leave yet," he said quietly.
"I should check on my post-ops." She reached for her shoes on the floor.
"They're all stable. I checked before I came up here."
Clem's hands stilled for a moment, then she continued tying her shoes with deliberate focus. "Then I have charts to update."
"Clementine."
"What?"
"Stay. Just for a few more minutes."
"I can't."
"Can't, or won't?"
She stood, scanning the floor for her pager. "Does it matter?"
"Yeah. It does." Derek sat up, the sheets pooling around his waist. "If you genuinely have somewhere to be, that's fine. But if you're just running—"
"I'm not running." She found her pager on the bedside table and clipped it to her scrub pants.
"Then what are you doing?"
She finally looked at him. "Keeping this simple."
"Is it working?"
He looked tired, she realized. More vulnerable than his usual composed attending persona. There were shadows under his eyes that matched her own, and his hair was thoroughly disheveled in a way that would have been endearing if she let herself think about it too long.
"I don't know," she admitted.
"That's honest, at least."
"Look, Derek..." She struggled to find the right words. "I can't do complicated right now. I just can't."
"I'm not asking for complicated. I'm asking you to stay for five minutes without making an excuse and bolting for the door."
"Why?"
"Because I'd like to actually talk to you. Instead of just..." He gestured vaguely at the rumpled bed between them.
"That wasn't part of the deal."
"Maybe it should be different."
Something tightened in her chest—anxiety or guilt or both. "If you want something different than this, we should probably stop."
Derek was quiet for a moment, studying her face. "I'm not trying to pressure you, Clementine. I'm really not. But showing up here every day and then leaving before we can have an actual conversation... that's not sustainable."
"I know."
"So what are we doing here?"
"I don't know." The admission felt heavier than it should. "I don't know what I'm doing about anything lately."
His expression softened in a way that made her want to leave even more. "That's the most honest thing you've said to me all week."
"Yeah, well. Don't expect it to become a regular thing."
Despite everything, he almost smiled. "Noted."
Clem moved toward the door, then paused with her hand on the handle. "I really do have to go."
"I know." He waited until she looked back at him. "But I'm still here, Clementine. When you figure out what you actually want."
She nodded and left, feeling worse than if he'd been angry with her.
At least anger she knew how to handle. This gentle understanding was harder to navigate, harder to keep at arm's length.
The hallway was blessedly empty as she made her way to the stairs. She needed to check on actual patients, update actual charts, do something that wasn't using Derek as a distraction from everything else falling apart in her life.
Even if she wasn't sure that was possible anymore.
Testing Center - Downtown Seattle - 1:30 PM
Alex sat in a sterile classroom with fifteen other medical professionals, all of them retaking various board exams. The fluorescent lights hummed overhead with aggressive brightness, and the clock on the wall ticked with the kind of loudness that made concentration nearly impossible.
He stared down at the exam booklet in front of him, his mind suddenly, terrifyingly blank.
Question 1: A 45-year-old male presents with acute chest pain radiating to his left arm...
He knew this. He'd spent the past week studying nothing but cardiology, drilling himself on every possible MI scenario until the protocols were burned into his brain. But now, sitting here with the actual exam in front of him and everything riding on it, the information felt just out of reach.
You're still Jimmy Karev's son, little brother.
Aaron's voice echoed in his head, mixing with older memories of their father stumbling drunk through their Iowa house, breaking furniture and promises with equal ease.
Alex forced himself to focus on the question. Chest pain, left arm radiation, male, 45 years old. MI protocol. Standard treatment. He knew this.
His pen hovered over the answer sheet.
If he failed again, that was it. Webber would kick him out of the surgical residency program. He'd lose his spot at Seattle Grace, have to reapply to other programs if anyone would even take him with this on his record. Maybe switch to a different specialty entirely, give up on surgery. All that work, all those years of medical school and fighting to get here, just to prove Aaron right—that he was just some kid from Iowa playing dress-up, pretending to be something he'd never actually be.
The answer was C. He was pretty sure. Aspirin, oxygen, nitrates, morphine. Standard acute MI protocol.
He marked C and moved to the next question, trying to ignore the voice in his head telling him he'd probably gotten it wrong.
For the next three hours, he worked through the exam methodically, pushing Aaron's voice out of his head every time it tried to creep back in. Some questions he knew immediately, the answers coming easily. Others required him to work through the logic carefully, eliminating wrong answers until he found the right one.
By the time he finished, his hand was cramped from gripping the pen too hard and his head was pounding from the fluorescent lights and sustained concentration.
"Time," the proctor announced. "Please close your exam booklets and bring them to the front."
Alex stood with the others, his legs stiff from sitting in the uncomfortable plastic chair for three hours. He handed his booklet to the proctor, who gave him the same neutral smile she'd probably given a thousand other test-takers.
"Results will be posted in two weeks."
Two weeks. Two weeks of not knowing if he'd passed or failed, if he'd get to keep his spot in the surgical program or if he'd be starting over somewhere else. Two weeks of wondering if Aaron was right about him after all.
Alex walked out of the testing center into the gray Seattle afternoon. The cold air was a relief after the stuffiness of the exam room. His phone was heavy in his pocket, and he pulled it out, staring at the screen.
Before he'd fucked everything up, Clem had been the one who helped him study. She'd quiz him while they ate dinner in the basement, correct his answers without making him feel like an idiot, somehow make memorizing drug protocols feel less like torture. She had a way of explaining things that actually made sense to him, breaking down complex concepts into pieces he could understand and remember.
She'd spent hours with him in the skills lab, patiently watching him practice sutures until he got them right. She'd made flash cards for him, even though she claimed flash cards were for undergrads and she was above such things. She'd believed he could pass this test.
And he'd repaid her kindness by saying the cruelest things he could think of when he got scared.
His thumb hovered over her name in his contacts. He wanted to tell her about the test, about how he'd almost panicked in those first few minutes but pushed through anyway. She'd understand the spiral, the way self-doubt could choke you even when you knew the answers.
But he couldn't call her. Not after what he'd said, what he'd done.
He scrolled past her name, looking at his other options. Izzie would be too enthusiastic, would make a big deal about it when he just wanted someone to understand without all the cheerleading. Meredith would see through any bullshit he tried to pull about being fine. George... definitely not George.
He had no one to call.
Because the person he wanted to talk to—the person who'd actually helped him prepare for this, who'd believed in him when he didn't believe in himself—was the person he'd pushed away because he was too scared to admit he cared about her.
Alex shoved his phone back in his pocket and started walking toward Joe's. He'd earned at least one beer after three hours of academic torture.
Joe's Bar
The bar was mostly empty this early in the afternoon, just a couple of regulars nursing beers and watching the game on the TV above the bar. Joe looked up as Alex slid onto his usual stool at the end.
"How'd it go?"
"Don't know yet. Results in two weeks."
"That's rough." Joe grabbed a glass and poured him a beer without being asked, setting it down in front of him. "On the house. You look like you need it."
"Thanks."
Alex took a long drink, letting the cold bitterness ground him. The TV played some football game he didn't care about. The jukebox in the corner played something country and depressing that matched his mood perfectly.
His phone buzzed. A text from Izzie: Decorating the house for Christmas! Come home and help! I need someone tall to hang lights!
He ignored it, taking another drink instead.
At least here at Joe's, nobody expected him to pretend everything was fine. Nobody asked questions he didn't want to answer or tried to cheer him up when he clearly wasn't in the mood for it.
And nobody knew that the person he most wanted to talk to right now was someone he couldn't talk to anymore.
Because he'd destroyed that all by himself.
Alex stared at his beer, thinking about how he used to have someone to call after days like this. Someone who understood the pressure and the self-doubt without needing it explained. Someone who made him feel like maybe he did belong here after all.
And how he'd thrown that away because he was too scared to admit what it meant to him.
The beer went down harsh. He ordered another anyway.
Because what else was there?