i'll love you .

“i spent five minutes staring at this paused screen & you know the logo that everyone stresses out about not hitting the corner ? that’s where my five minutes have been spent … & let me tell you, it has not hit the corner yet.” georgia replied to the other & gestured to the tv that was in front of her. “every time it gets close to the corner it’s just like … PSYCH bitch you thought. i was very disappointed.”

if the was any place to nurse a black eye, a hospital was it. max sat with crossed legs on a stretcher in the most abandoned hall of the hospital that she could find, which was not easy as it’s typically crowded. she held an ice-pack over her left eye, given to her by one of the nice nurses that had known her and her siblings since they were little. 

there was a noticeable split across the right side of her lip, and her face was a little bruised, but nothing life-threatening: just the remnants of a dumb high school fight, though she was still left angry from what had set her off in the first place. at least she had avoided suspension.

that was about where her list of positives ended, though, because she could hear footsteps echoing down the hallway, headed her direction.

a moment of silence, it was all amelia wanted. it seemed every single time that she had stepped into the ER or into a patients room someone was screaming, and if she was honest? her head was pounding, heading right to migraine level. anyone  would take an on call room, but those were hardly safe nowadays, interns really had taken sleeping together to a whole new level.

so instead she managed to sneak away to the hallway, the one on the forth floor that no one escaped to unless there was bound to be tears or they seriously needed time to not be found. maybe she could get some rest, though even that seemed quite doubtful as she rounded the corner, eyes narrowing at the teenager who caught her eye.

“I don’t even want to picture Sienna being older.” Lincoln thought for a moment. ‘She’s going through this phase where she copies everything someone does. Like she’s been swearing and she’s six.”

“i mean, there’s a simple fix to that,” Amelia mumbled in return, playful smirk on her features. “Don’t swear near her. Easier said than done, I  know but like.. change your fucks to fudges.. that whole thing.”

“uh-” harley frowned at her mom. “you sure are a badass, mom,” she agrees weakly. “no, you look nothing like grandma.” normally, harley could match her moms mile-a-minute rambling, but not today. initially, she’d come in to see her mom with the intention of doing something unthinkably terrifying: telling her mom she’s pregnant. still in her scrubs after a god-knows-how-long shift, harley is dead on her feet, and it seems a lot easier to let her mom keep ranting as soon as she enters the room. 

what was she saying? what was she saying? “um…” she swings back and forth on her feet. nope. retreat. too much. wrong time. seriously, wrong time! the air is wrong. her aura doesn’t align, or whatever. she’s not afraid. “nothing, i wasn’t saying anything.” harley forces a smile. “how was your day? not perfect, i take it, mrs. hunt?”

for some reason as she heard her daughters lame ass responses, the last thing on her mind was looking like her mother in law, or being just plain old mrs hunt. something was off she could tell. the quiet of her voice, the lame attempt at matching her mothers pace, that wasn’t harley, not her harley. not really at least, not since the day of the accident that had brought her to them, and that was what worried her. after tugging on her shirt and trying to ignore the stain that had settled on the mini-pocket from the coffee she’d tossed in the sink, she inhaled, let it go and faced the other.

Tears welled up in her eyes as she listened to her mom, thinking of everything she was saying and suddenly Kait burst into tears, her head falling and her breathing became erratic. “I don’t…What if he doesn’t love me back? What if he doesn’t love me and I ruin and 19 year friendship over all of this shit? I can’t mommy. I can’t lose him. He’s the only person outside of this family that makes me feel like I’m special or loved. I don’t…I can’t lose him.” She wasn’t hyperventilating anymore and had moved on to just crying. All this pent up emotion and she was pretty sure she had taken it all out on Dr. Khan. Maybe she’d apologize and maybe she wouldn’t but right now, she just needed her mom to tell her everything would be okay.

The tears, she saw them, could practically feel them before they came. It was such a mom thing but the instantly one trickled down, her daughters body crumpling in on itself? Amelia moved forward to catch her, to pull Kaitlin against her chest, a hand moving to run through her slightly tangled hair. “Shhh,” she hummed softly, closing her eyes as she rocked her daughter back and forth as best she could. How she wished that she could do something.  Sure, it was true that Amelia was mostly the friend parent,  unless the kids were being idiots. Yet, the second she saw tears, it was mom mode in an instant. “Sh, baby. It’s okay.. you’re okay.. you’re gonna make yourself sick if you keep crying like this. Just think about it,  okay? You never know.. for some reason.. I think he feels the same. Imagine letting that go because you don’t want to try. It hurts a lot worse than not knowing, believe me.”

“I swear I thought having a two year old was bad,” Lincoln sighed sitting down in one of the chairs at the coffee shop, “But clearly six year olds are worse.”

“Yeah, terrible twos are nothing compared to the sixes and up. What’s up with the kid?” she wondered softly, surprised by the company but not saying a word,

“Looking good, Mrs. Hunt; I wish you’d kick my ass.” Teasingly, CJ winked at the older woman. It was obvious to tell that the young girl hung around her brother and her numerous high school friends too much, their personalities were starting to rub off on her even some of her juvenile detention friends were known for flirting with most of the female guards, but she knew better and only did it for fun. “I mean, mad props to you for not depending on your husband to make a name for you, you’re like the next Beyonce.” She sat down in one of the hospital waiting room chairs, waiting for Abby to finish her shift so she could take her home without having her mothers find out. “It’s not important, no worries.”

“must be a nice privilege.” she replied with a grin. “i don’t know if i’m quite strong enough to not let her stay at home.” she let out a small chuckle.

“It is pretty damn stupid, I’m not gonna lie, but it’s what people are saying now.” Olivia has been through a variety of slang terms since she was a kid and she felt like they were getting stupider and stupider by the minute. “Oh thank god, how else am I supposed to get my free boat ride to England?” She teased with an innocent smile, she had always enjoyed joking around with people. “Thank you, you’re a lifesaver and my new favorite person now, but don’t tell Dad or Bailey.” She teased with a small laugh before then excitedly hugging her mom.

“It’s not messed up… I’m engaged and I’m happy.” Bailey admitted. “She said yes. And I don’t know how to tell mom and dad because… mom doesn’t have the best impression of Kiara to begin with and I don’t think she’d take this well.” When she mentioned his face, he laughed softly. “Well, how do I tell them? Because I don’t know how to… I mean, I’m sure dad would take this really well but I’m not sure about mom. How do you deal with her?”

“I’m happy that you’re happy, kid. ” The last thing she was going to do was argue with her nephew but she didn’t know that she was all that sure, still she did her best to give him a reassuring smile. “Oh please, Bail. It can’t be that bad.. Underneath all the layers Medusa’s getting soft in her old age,” maybe not totally true but maybe it would reassure him or something,  not that she was any good at that. “You just gotta sit them down, make sure your mom isn’t holding anything breakable, and then word vomit. I used to do it all the time, and it annoyed her more than what I was actually saying.”

Relief flooded over the youngest Hunt child, she wanted nothing more then the attention from one of her parents. Being a child to a surgeon was a lot hard then some people could understand. Sure her friends back at school didn’t have parents like she did, most of them just wanted to be doctors because it was just a thing, but this was something she had grown up her whole life watching and being so mesmerised by it. “I hope there will be a day where you don’t have to go to a surgery without me because I think it’s going to be so cool when I become and intern and get to work with you and daddy,” Logan grinned, she still had a while to go, she was only in her first year of pre-med so it would be a long way off for her. “It’s okay Momma, I’m not worried I’m sure we could just get something on the way home. I missed being back home,” she replied as she slipped into the elevator behind her mother. Thinking about Quinn she frowned for a minute. “Well I didn’t tell her I was here yet and I’m kind of freaking out about it.”

To be fair, she wanted to go home, she didn’t want to be here but her shift didn’t end for another hour and she was on call for the night. Rebekah wished that wasn’t the case so she could go home and spend some quality time with Ryleigh but this was the career she chose and it was one she loved. ‘Hey Abby was always close to her father, so it’s not as weird as you think,” Rebekah admitted. She always used to remember all the times Elijah and Abigail would go out for countless outings way before his drinking got out of control. “You don’;t have to though, I mean you probably have your kids waiting at home for you,” she paused. “Let me ask you something, do any of your children actually hate you? Or is it just mine?

       “ no one’s catherine fox. “  jackson had to agree.  his mother had a certain degree of fierceness that he’d never been able to replicate.  “ except catherine fox.  the best we can hope for is a pale imitation. “  he snorted.  while he was known for being the ‘ less intense ‘ member of the family, he sometimes envied how easy it was for her to walk into a room and command respect.  not that it had been easy;  she earned her place in the hospital’s hierarchy and put up with more sexism, racism, and misogyny over the years on her way to the top.  “ it’s … tricky. ‘  he paused the chart over to amelia, rubbing at a tension line on his forehead that was throbbing.  

“I know right? Some people can be so… why do they have to show off like that?” Jo groaned. “I mean, I don’t think it’s going to happen to me anytime soon.”

“Dude you’re lucky I like you, otherwise I would fight you. And pffft, like you could. I’m the great Dr. Alex karev. Everybody knows me and they all come here just for me.. Probably”