#i did a thing and wrote another post 16x16 fic

[bishopsbelova]

We Make The Rules

Fandom: Grey’s Anatomy  Characters: Jo Wilson, Alex Karev, Meredith Grey  Pairings: Jolex, Merjo and Merlex friendship  Summary: All that mattered was that they loved each other and they would do anything for the other.They made the rules in their life. Not anyone else. * Can also be read on ffn

“Has Alex said anything to you?” 

Meredith glanced up from her table to glance at Jo. She knew, technically, that it could have been slightly overbearing going to Meredith; but she was tired of Alex being weird. It seemed like no matter what she did; Alex refused to open up to her about whatever he was dealing with. 

Really all she wanted to know was if her husband was okay. And if the only thing she could do to  figure that out was go to his person, then that’s what she was going to do. 

Meredith sighed. “He hasn’t said anything to me, either. Which, mind you, is totally not like him.” 

Jo slumped against the nurse’s station and stuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear. Well that wasn’t helpful.

Meredith placed the tablet on the nurse’s station and turned to face her. “Okay, what’s going on in your head?”

Jo just raised an eyebrow as she glanced at Meredith. 

“And don’t try to say nothing. What’s running through your head, right now.” Meredith said, gently as if she didn’t want to run Jo off. Which truthfully might have happened if Jo had been the same person she was a few months ago. 

“I’m scared,” Jo admitted, her voice nothing more than a whisper. She felt a weight leave her shoulders saying that out loud. 

Meredith didn’t respond, just stood there, allowing Jo the space and time to continue if she wanted to. 

Jo took a deep breath to steel herself. Before she knew it, she was opening up to Meredith about the patient she just had. She opened up about all her feelings and fears and everything in between. 

“It’s stupid, though,” she added at the end, trying and failing to brush it off. Something she was always used to doing with Paul, who always made her feel like her emotions, feelings and fears never mattered. 

Meredith shook her head. “No it’s not. It’s completely valid.” Meredith placed her hands and either of Jo’s shoulders. “Your feelings are valid. Never forget that.” 

“And if you want,” Meredith added, stepping away. “I can kick his ass.” 

“No, you don't’ have to,” Jo laughed, but she thought for a moment. “Unless you absolutely want to, then I won’t stop you.”

///////////

“Talk to your wife!” Meredith yelled through the phone as soon as Alex picked it up. He was definitely taken aback because he sure wasn’t expecting that. 

Alex blinked and then remembered that Meredith couldn’t see him. “What?” he said instead. 

“You’re being weird and Jo is realizing it,” Meredith responded. “She thinks something’s up. And she’s scared, Alex. So get your head out of your ass and talk to your wife about whatever is going on with you.”

Alex felt like he was punched in the gut as he finished the call with Meredith. He had been avoiding talking about what Izzie told him, instead choosing to push it away so he could focus on Pac North and his other side project he’d been working on.

At least for the time being, anyway. 

Alex knew he had to think about it eventually, he had to talk about it eventually. But he was so gobsmacked about finding out he had kids; he didn’t even know how to form actual sentences about it. Let alone allow himself to think about it. 

Besides that, he had so much to do at the hospital, he was actively turning it around and he felt good about it. Alex Karev, former demon spawn, was actually making a damn difference. 

It felt great. 

Alex hadn’t even realized that of course Jo would have picked up on something. She wasn’t blind after all. 

Shit…

He was now realizing his actions were similar to her depressive episode and he was mentally kicking himself. He was a fucking ass. 

Alex really needed to talk to her, and soon. 

///////

Jo sat at the kitchen island with a glass of wine, wondering if she was going to see Alex at a decent time tonight. She was also wondering if he was even going to come home while she was awake. Within the past few weeks, he’d been coming home after she’d already gone to bed and had left before she woke. 

Her own thoughts were answered by the loft door sliding open. She turned her head to see Alex stepping through the doorway. He was definitely struggling with the amount of things he was carrying, or more so, trying to. 

Jo took pity on him. She sat her glass down and walked over to help him with the door. He mumbled a thanks as he made his way over to the couch, dropping some of the bags on the cushion before making his way to the kitchen. 

“Alex, what the hell is going on?” 

Alex had a sheepish grin on his face as he sat more bags on the counter, which Jo finally realized were filled with take out containers. 

“I got Thai food on my way home,” he said, gesturing to the containers he was placing on the counter. “And I got your favorite wine, along with some other stuff,” he pointed at the bags on the couch. “I know this doesn’t even begin to make up for the complete ass I’ve been lately; but hopefully it’s a start.” 

Jo crossed her arms over her chest as she walked towards the kitchen. “We still need to talk.” 

“And we will...we are...over dinner.” 

Jo relented, closing the rest of the distance. She helped Alex dish out the take out onto plates from the cabinet. Once the two of them were seated at the table and Jo had grabbed her wine glass, Jo steeled herself for whatever was coming. 

Though in retrospective, she felt like if Alex was leaving her, he wouldn’t pull out all the stops to do so. There wouldn’t be a need to put on a show, or go through the motions of a dinner from her favorite Thai place. 

“Alex ---” 

“Jo --.”

They both share an awkward chuckle and Jo hated it. Things had never been this awkward between them, unless you counted that period of time in her depressive state. Jo motioned for Alex to go ahead. 

“I don’t know how to say this. Hell, I’m having a damn hard time wrapping my own head around it,” Alex said. 

Jo took a bite from her food as she stared at Alex, wondering where he was going with this. 

“Ihavekids!” he blurted out. 

Jo stopped mid chew, shocked at the words she thought she heard. Because there was no way that Alex had actually said that he had kids. 

“I have kids,” Alex repeated, slower this time, running a hand over his face. “Twins, actually.” 

Jo finished chewing and swallowed, her eyes widening. “Yeah, that’s a lot to take in and it explains why you’ve been weird lately.” 

Alex stopped with his glass halfway to his mouth. “I’ve been a complete jackass to you, you can admit it. Mer all but said it anyway...I just.” he took a sip. “I didn’t know what to do, I didn’t know how to get my head on straight about it. And I didn’t even know who to talk to about it while I sorted everything before I came to you.” 

“You could have just come to me,” Jo said, softly. “You know at first I thought this was just payback for what I did to you.” 

“I would never throw that back in your face,” Alex said immediately.

“I know.” 

They lapsed into a silence, the only sound in the space their forks gliding across their plates. Jo was giving Alex the opportunity to go at his own pace, like he once allowed her. 

“I reached out to Izzie when I reached out to everyone else about Mer’s case,” Alex continued, setting down his fork. “That’s all it was supposed to be, but then I heard kids in the background and damn it if I didn’t ask.” 

“She used the embryos; which was in her right, I said she could do whatever she wanted with them once we got divorced...twins though, Eli and Alexis; they’re five. They live on a fricking farm in Kansas and Izzie’s an surgical oncologist out there and she’s married to a fricking farmer. Apparently they’ve been together the past two years.” 

Jo let out a breath, the married part lifting a weight she didn’t realize had settled on her shoulders. Though just a little, there was still the demon in the back of her mind, whispering, taunting her that Alex could still leave. 

“Do...do you,” Jo tilted her head. “You are going to meet them, right?”

“I don’t know Jo,” he admitted, leaning back against his chair. “I mean, yeah I’m their biological father; but they have a dad. But they’re still my kids.” 

“Even though they have a dad; they deserve to at least know their biological father. They don’t deserve to grow up wondering who he is or making up stories in their heads of the man he was.” 

“I have some personal time saved up...I guess I can take some days and fly out there, leave Pac North in Webber’s hands. He shouldn’t screw it up too bad.” Alex reached across the table then and grasped her hand. He looked directly in her eyes as he spoke. “This doesn’t mean anything. I’m not going to leave you, I’m never going to leave you. I’m a better man with you. I’m with you. You’re the love of my life and the only thing in my life that’s ever made any sense. All I want in life is to be your husband and the father of your kids.” 

Jo used her free hand to swipe away the tears that had escaped her eyes. She just nodded, not trusting herself to speak without her voice cracking. 

“Which brings me to my next point…” 

Jo blinked away the tears. “There’s more?”

“I want to start a life, a family with you, eventually if that’s what you want. I know we haven’t really talked about it too much; but I want that to be a part of the future for us. So, I may have also been looking into the house market….I know it’s even more to take in and you don’t have to agree to anything now but --”

Jo cut him off. “No, Alex. I’ll-- We’ll look into the listings.” 

Alex lit up. “Really?”

“Well if we’re going to eventually start a family together, we should probably have a bigger space,” Jo glanced around at the loft and smiled. “Yeah, this place was our home for a while and it’s been fricking great; but with kids, I’d want a yard so that they could run and play and maybe a porch swing.” 

“We can have whatever you want.” 

Jo reached for her fork to scoop up another bite. “You really have been busy.” 

Alex just shrugged. “I had some free time.” 

“With running an entire hospital? Really?”

“Multitasking.” 

Jo snorted. “Yeah, I’m sure.” 

They lapsed into easy going conversation for the rest of their meal. Alex informing her about all the changes he was hoping to do at Pac North, how he was loving having this change to really put the hospital on the map, to actually make a difference. Jo shared some of her latest ridiculous patients, especially the bachelor party guy. 

“Wait, they literally swallowed fish?” Alex said on a scoff when they were cleaning and putting away the dishes. 

Jo nodded. “Yup.” 

Alex just shook his head as he closed the cabinet door. He shuffled over to his bag to grab his tablet, while Jo grabbed the bottle of wine and two glasses. “About those houses though.”

Alex held up the tablet and motioned towards the couch. “Right here.” 

It was nice, sitting on their couch, drinking wine, looking at houses, actively planning their future. Despite all the anxiety and nerves she’d been under for the past few weeks, the distrust she was feeling, she couldn’t help but smile. 

Alex really was the one, had been the only one to truly see her. It didn’t matter what life threw at them, what tried to force them apart, if they didn’t make sense, nothing mattered. All that mattered was that they loved each other and they would do anything for the other. 

They made the rules in their life. Not anyone else. 

“Let’s make a promise,” she said and Alex glanced at her.

“What?”

“That from this moment on, we’ll always communicate to each other. No more dodging, no more slinking away into our heads or our own little bubbles. We won’t hide from each other, we’ll just talk. Even if at first it’s just a ‘hey, i’m going through something right now, but I need time to process - just wanted to let you know’ or something similar. So that we don’t freak out.” 

Alex nodded. “It’s a pact, right here, right now.” He held up a fist with his pinkie raised. 

Jo raised an eyebrow. “A pinkie promise, what are you, five?”

“A pinkie promise is very serious,” Alex defended with a shrug. 

Jo just smiled and hooked her own pinkie finger to his. “You’re ridiculous, you know, but I love you.” 

“I love you too.” 

[pagingevilspawn]

You Said You’d Grow Old With Me

again, another one-shot that i never posted on tumblr, only the link, so yeah! im also pretty sure this fic makes no sense, but my 4 am brain wrote it so...

____

"thought we had the time, had our lives, now you'll never get older, older"

~*~

TW// major character death

takes place some time after 16x15, before 16x16.

____

Jo was laying in her bed. Their bed. The bed that felt too cold. The bed that felt too empty. The bed that felt too big. After crying she felt better, having Link comfort her while she broke down. She wanted him back. She wanted him to answer her calls. She needed to know if he was okay. If he left her like she thought he did she at least needed to know if he was okay. One call. One text. Thats all she was asking for.

Except she wouldn't be satisfied with that. The five different positive pregnancy tests to the side of her were an example. She was pregnant. They were pregnant. How the hell did that happen? She was just pranking him about having a baby a two months ago, and now she really was going to have one? And at the best of times too. Right when her husband decides to go MIA.

She wasn't sure how long she sat there for, staring blankly into the distance, her body incapable of feeling anything. Numb. Thats how she felt. She felt like she was bathing in a tub of ice and all her sense and nerves had just shut down. Numb.

She'd only been numb once before, after seeing Paul for the first time in five years. Bu this was worse, oh this was so much worse. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't move. She couldn't talk. She couldn't do anything, she was just numb.

She wishes she could say she was startled by the sound of knocking her door, but she wasn't. She'd gotten used to Meredith and Link coming over at random hours of the day. Sometimes to rant about anything, or sometimes to just talk with her.

Maybe it's Alex, she thinks, and with that thought she gets up from the too big bed and makes her way to the loft's wooden door.

Please be you please be you.

The door opens and the sight she sees is one she wishes she didn't.

In one second she knew that her whole world was about to crumble under her feet. Oh god, how badly she wished she stayed in bed, how badly she wished she was at the hospital.

"Ma'am is this the home of Alexander Karev?" the officer asks, looking up from his notepad, his partner standing next to him dutifully.

Jo gulps visibly, already feeling the tears burning in her eyes. "Y-yes, he's my husband, i'm his wife."

The two officer share a sympathetic glance. "We're afraid there's been an accident.

____

After a short phone call with Meredith and one plane ride to some place in Oregon, Jo is standing outside some hospital she's never heard of, Meredith right by her side, holding her hand so tightly, like it was a life-line. Because it was. They knew nothing. All they knew was that Alex was involved in a ca accident that involved a drunk driver, and they hadn't been able to identify him for the past two weeks. They didn't know anything. Was he alive? Was he dead? Had they simply only contacted her so they would know what to do with his body? Was he seriously just okay and he was in a medically induced coma? Did he have amnesia? Did he not remember who he was?

For two weeks her husband had been just another John Doe. One that they see in the pit nearly every day.

He wasn't Doctor Alex. He was even a doctor. He wasn't her husband. He wasn't a best friend, a companion, a lover. He wasn't a surgeon who saved the lives of tiny humans. He wasn't a guy who made little kids less scared of the hospital. He was just another meaningless John Doe, taking up space in the ICU.

But oh, she felt guilty. So guilty. She was worried that he was having some kind of secret affair while he was really just in the hospital.

Meredith squeezes her hand, "You ready?" she croaks out, her red rimmed eyes string up at the hospital in front of her. Meredith wasn't ready. She wasn't ready for what stood behind those doors. She wasn't ready.

"No." Jo shakes her head, a few stray tears already coming down her cheek. She hadn't gotten them to stop. She physically couldn't get them to stop. Ever since those six dreadful words came out of the officer mouth.

Meredith sighs in understanding, "I know." she says, stepping forward and taking the first steps, Jo following behind her robotically.

No, not robotically. Numbly.

How naive she was, thinking that what she felt earlier was numbness, this was a whole new level. This was paralyzing. This was frightening. This was feeling her body start to disintegrate piece by piece.

Without knowing it she was standing on the sixth floor, the ICU. Meredith leans over the nurses station, asking for the room number for Alex Karev.

Jo doesn't see the sad, sympathetic smile the nurse gives the two, but Meredith does. And that's when she knew that things weren't going to be alright. Nothing was going to be bright and shiny and happy with unicorns and rainbows.

Somehow, they end up on the other side of the Alex's room, but Jo had yet to look up from her gaze on the floor. She's never noticed how white the linoleum of hospital floor were. They were shiny too. So shiny that she could see her reflection.

It was when Meredith lets out a soft sob that she finally decides to look up, not at all prepared for the sight in front of her.

The sight of her husband, the love of her life, lying in a bed, tubes sticking out of every possible place in his body.

It was then she felt her whole world crash down. Crash down and burn. A gut wrenching sob escapes her throat, a hand coming up to cover her mouth as the tears come down her face. They come down so fast she cant even wipe them away until her face is soaked again.

"Mer I-i," she chokes out, feeling her breathing start to pick up as she tries and fails to form her words.

Meredith nods, "Go in." she whispers brokenly, watching as a doctor makes his way towards.

The doctor holds out his palm to the blonde, "Hi i'm Doctor Kelsey, i'm the neurosurgeon on Mr. Karev's case-"

"It's doctor." she interrupts him. "Doctor Karev. Doctor Alex Karev." she says slowly.

The man nods, "Okay, Dr. Karev has been here for fifteen days now. There was an MVC on the 45 with a drunk driver and he ended up getting very severely injured-"

She cuts him off again, "I'm sorry, let me introduce myself. I'm Dr. Meredith Grey."

She watches as the man's eyes widen in surprise. He was standing in front of Meredith Grey? The Meredith Grey? Catherine Fox Award Meredith Grey? Daughter of two time Catherine Fox recipient Ellis Grey?

"W-wow. I-its an honor to meet you Doctor Grey, i'm a big fan." he says, smiling brightly.

Meredith jolts back in shock, eyes narrowing at the man who was about ten years older than her. "It's an honor to meet me?" she hisses, watching as the fellow surgeon's smile falls as quickly as it appeared.

"I-its an honor to meet me? That's what you have to say? You have the audacity to say that, as i stand here, outside of the room of my best friend, who is alive because of tubes and vents? It's an honor to meet me, when the only reason i'm here if because my best friend, my person, is lying there, unable to move or breathe, or talk? It's an honor to meet me?" Meredith yells , tears escaping her eyes, earning the attention from the others in the ICU, but she didn't care.

The man nods furiously, "O-of course, i'm so sorry Doctor Grey, that was very disrespectful of me." he says, going on to explain the extent of Alex's injuries.

___

Jo stumbles into the room lifelessly, seeing the unmoving body of her husband lying on the bed.

The sight causes a whole new round of tears to spring into her eyes and down her cheeks, "Oh Alex," she chokes out, grabbing ahold of his left hand, clasping it firmly in her palm.

it was cold. Way too cold. Normally his hands were warm. Not sweaty or clammy, they were just warm and soothing, perfect for her's to slip into at any time of the day.

She feels the cold band of his wedding ring touch her fingers and that's when she lets the sobs take over.

The gut wrenching, heart breaking, deep sobs as she collapses on the side of his bed and onto her knees, completely ignoring the chair next to her.

She couldn't hold herself up. its like her legs could not longer support her, like they had turned into helpless piles of water, "Alex please." she begs, lips trembling as she places kiss over kiss on his hand.

She wasn't stupid, she was a doctor. She knew what all the tuning and the wires and the ventilators meant.

"Please tell me this is just some joke. Some really mean, really awful joke. Please Alex. Please." she cries.

"Please tell me this is just a nightmare, an awful, awful nightmare. Please tell me this isn't real Alex. Please." she begs, holding his hand so tight as her body shakes with sobs.

She shakes her head, laughing softly at first, then louder and louder, "Oh god." she sobs, her laughter coming to a halt. "This is real." she whispers, feeling as her tears drop from her eyes to the floor.

"No Alex. you don't get to die on me alright? Because, because i cant live without you okay? You-you need to know that. If you, if you die, i die." she says, taking both of her palms and clasping her tiny hands around his big one.

She shakes her head, "No Alex. You don't get to do this to me. You don't get to leave me. We-we meed to grow old a and grey, and we need to have kids. So many kids. We need to have at least three kids. We need to get a dog a-and travel the world. We still need to do that Alex."

Jo sniffles, "But it's not only you that needs me Alex, this baby needs you too." she sobs, standing up and sitting down on the bed, taking Alex's hand and placing it over her stomach, hoping that this would be enough. That this would be enough for him to wake up, to defy all medical standards and wake the hell up.

"Please Alex, this baby needs you." Jo sobs, "Because, i sure as hell can't do this without you. Y-you're the peds surgeon Alex, you were practically born to be a dad." she wipes her tears to no avail, since they just kept coming. "You need to hold this baby in your arms, you need to be there with me to tell them about how we had sex in a shed next to a corpse on our wedding on their wedding day. You-you need to see them grow up and graduate Alex."

"Y-you need to be there Alex. I need you, Mer needs. Zola and Bailey and Ellis, they need you. The tiny children that you save all the time need you. They need Doctor Alex. I need Doctor Alex."

"I-i need you to get so overprotective if it's a girl when she has her first boyfriend. I need to watch you teach our baby how to wrestle if he's a boy. Or a girl, i'm not judging." she chuckles soft'y, holding his palm against her still flat abdomen.

She lays down beside him, laying there in silence for a long time. She lets the thoughts roam in her mind.

Jo sighs, "I hated you at first." she starts, absentmindedly threading her fingers though his hair like she had done so many time before. 'Like seriously, you were one of the biggest assholes I ever met." she chuckles softly.

"And then there was the teen mom who was just going to abandon her baby that i went al crazy on, rightfully so by the way." she smiles slightly, knowing that if he could somehow hear her he was probably rolling his eyes. "And then suddenly, i told you my whole life story, just like that. I'd never done that with anyone before." she sighs, glancing back down to her stomach, where she had her hand clasped in his in a hold over her stomach. "I'd never opened up to someone so easily before. It was like... my heart knew I could trust you before any other part of me could."

"I know i know, you're laughing at me. I sound like something out of a cheesy lifetime movie." she smiles softly. "And then came Ben and Bailey's wedding, and then, before i knew it, you were my best friend."

She starts to trace his fingers, something she always did to calm her down, "And then, one day, i was drinking a beer at Joe's with Jason, and all i could think was that i would rather be with you, on the couch that I bought, and watching action movies with you. That's when i realized i was i love with you." she whispers, some new tears building in her eyes.

"And then we wen through crap. So much crap Alex. That's why this can't be the end. Thats why this can't be the end of us okay? Because we've been through too much crap to let a drunk driver end us."

"Please Alex, i'm begging you, come back." she sobs, starting to pound her fists on his chest.

"Come back! Come back you son of a bitch! Come back!" Jo cries, unable to atop the steady flow of water coming down her face.

"Please Alex." Jo begs, her eyes so red and puffy that they looked like she had been crying for years. "You-you have my whole heart Alex. And i-if you die, you will crush it, and I wont make it. I cant live without you okay? You hear me? I need you Alex. I- i cant breathe. I cant breathe, ii cant exist in a world without you in it, okay?" she sobs, hyperventilating as she trues to get her words out, which only came out in barely audible sobs.

Somewhere along the way she cries herself to sleep, waking up a nearly a whole day later to a view of Meredith, Amelia, Tom, Jackson, Arizona, Callie, Link, Cristina, Bailey, and Richard standing outside the ICU.

And for one second, before she opens her eyes, she forgets everything, simply snuggling into the body and the scent she missed so much, a combination of aftershave and spearmint.

And then she remembers.

And oh god, she just wants to die.

She feels like a knife is being driven through her heart, stabbing her again and again and again, with absolutely no intention to stop.

Eventually Meredith breaks her out of her trance by knocking on the door, in which Jo responds by a head nod, letting her know that it was okay to come in.

The blonde enters, flowed by Amelia and Tom. "I called them. I wanted them here to consult, look at all his scans, everything." Meredith mutters, her voice hoarse and broken from trying to hold in her tears.

Jo looks up at the two, a small glimmer of hope shining in her eyes, "P-please." she stutters out, her voice high pitched and squeaky, sounding more broken than they'd ever heard her before, "tell me you guys can do something."

Amelia takes a deep breath, letting a few drops of water pool in her eyes, "Jo-"

"No," she sobs, shaking her head. "It took me twenty-seven years to find him, longer to realize i loved him, and even longer to be able to marry him." she starts to shake, trying to take in every detail of his face.

His overgrown stubble.

The soft creases around his eyes.

The slight wrinkles etched into his forehead.

"Jo, we can't bring him back. I'm so sorry." Tom says, trying to put a comforting hand on her shoulder, which she shakes off.

She slowly nods, unconsciously mumbling something about how she was going to let everyone say their goodbyes before she said hers.

So thats what she did. One by one the said their tearful, heartbroken goodbyes, still i denial that the man they loved would soon be gone.

Jo goes in one last time, lying down next to him, holding his figure in her arms. "I love you." she sobs.

"I haven't said that enough. I love you Alex. God, I love you so much jerkface. I didn't know it was possible to love someone as much as i love you." she cried, her tears an endless flow into a river. "I love you, i love you, i love you."

"And, please, please love me enough to come back." she begs him, still holding onto that tiny bit of hope.

"You said we'd be together forever Alex. You and me. Please, please let there be forever." she pleads with him one last time, giving him a soft kiss on his cheek.

With one deep breath she gives a nod to the nurse, who slowly begins to remove the ventilator. Then she unplugs him from all the machine.

She lays her head on his heart, feeling as he breathes one last time under her.

And then, she places a kiss on his lips, one last time

and all of a sudden,

he was gone.

"we had plans, we had visions, now i cant see ahead. We were one, were golden, forever you said."

"didn't say goodbye now I'm frozen in time getting colder, colder. "

"One last word. One last moment. To ask you why, you left me here behind."

"You said you'd grow old with me."