redamancy

The taxi drops Alex outside Meredith's house. He slams the door and runs up the steps. He bangs loudly on the glass pane that serves as a front door. He keeps banging until Meredith appears.

"Alex." Meredith says with an exhausted tone as she opens the door.

"Is she here? I went by her place and she wasn't answering, so I figured here would be the next place she would be." Alex stands the door way, with a pleading look in his eyes.

"She's just gone off to sleep. She's exhausted herself. I don't think now is the best time." Meredith says leaning against the door.

"Mer, please. 5 minutes, that's all I want." He asks her. His face full of regret.

"Alex, She's your best friend, and you slept with her...whatever Addison is to her. You don't walk back from that easily."

"I didn't sleep with her! That's the thing, Addison kissed me and I asked her to stop and think about what she was doing, because I knew that if Charlie found out, it would cause something exactly like this." Meredith takes breath.

"Wait here." She says with a roll of her eyes.

"Tell her 'I guess we're even for Aimee Mendez.' She'll know what you mean." She flicks her wrist and goes into the house, shutting the door and leaving Alex on the porch.

Charlie burritos herself in the comforter. Cristina sits beside her, making sure she doesn't start crying again. She's not quite asleep and not quite awake, in the in-between.

"I heard Evil Spawn, is everything okay?" Cristina asks, sitting up in bed.

"He wants to apologise to her, I said no. Is she finally asleep?" Charlie feels the bed dip and she stirs slightly. She lets out a groan and sits up. "I take that as a no. How you feeling?"

"Exhausted. Is he still here?"

"He won't leave until he sees you." Charlie groans a flops back down on the bed. "He told me to tell you that he's sorry and that he guesses you're even for the Aimee Mendez situation." Meredith tells her. Shrugging when Cristina gives her a look.

Charlie lets out a laugh and grabs a pillow and covers her face with it.

"What happened with Aimee Mendez." She removes the pillow and sits up, gripping the pillow in her lap.

"Alex and I went to medical school together and...Aimee was a girl who he liked and at that time I was sort of figuring out who I was, so was Aimee. I slept with Aimee and he was heartbroken and basically this is a massive déjà vu situation." Charlie laughs and then rubs her face with a hand. "Ah, shit."

"Go and talk to him. I want to see you punch him again." Cristina says, he eyes wide and a grin on her face.

"Cristina!" Meredith scolds, smacking her leg.

"What?! It was funny." Cristina grins as Charlie gets up and heads to the bedroom door. She mimes for Charlie to punch him again, Charlie just rolls her eyes and heads downstairs.

He sits on the garden wall outside the front door. His head hung low and resting on his hands

He jerks up the front door opening. Charlie puts her hands in her pockets and smiles sadly at Alex.

"Hey."

"Hi." He breathes out. "Look, I'm sorry. Addison kissed me but what you saw was not us having sex, it was me talking her out of it, because that it would destroy you. We kissed once and that was it." He explains to his best friend.

"I'm sorry I punched you." Charlie says nonchalantly, with a shrug of her shoulder.

"I deserved it." He laughs and sticks his hands in the pockets of her jeans. "Are we okay?" He asks nervously. In all the time she had known him, Charlie had rarely seen him so scared before. This was one of the few times where he genuinely was sorry for his actions and wanted to right a wrong.

"Of course we're okay, you doofus." She says, wrapping her arms around him and hugging him tight. He smiles and picks her up, spinning her around in his arms. "We got pizza, do you wanna come in and we can watch a movie?"

"I would love too." He smiles and places a kiss on her head, following her inside.

*

"Have you spoken her yet?" Meredith asks in the locker room.

"No. I don't know what to say to her." Charlie says pulling her scrub top over her head, then adjusting her pony tail. "I really hope that Bailey has mercy on me and doesn't put me on her service. I can't deal with seeing her, not yet." She groans and shuts her locker following her fellow interns out of the locker room.

Bailey stands at the nurse's office, a pile of folders in her hands.

"Okay so we have Yang with Shepard, Beck with Montgomery, Grey in the clinic, Stevens in the pit, Karev; scut duty and O'Malley you are on Ortho today." They all disband, with Charlie mentally preparing herself for a full day with Addison. "Actually," She calls, stopping them in their tracks. "O'Malley and Beck swap over, I don't want another boxing match. You're not gonna go Rocky on my ass will you, Beck?"

George elbows her in the ribs and she's drawn for her imagination back to the real world.

"What? No! No, I..."

"I don't care. Now, move your asses, you have jobs to do!"

Thank god.

In Charlie's opinion, Callie Torres is great. She's a woman who doesn't take no for an answer, she dances in while cutting bone, it's kind of bad ass.

"Heard you punched Karev. Nice." She smiles at her. "Just for that, you can cut the tibia." Oh yes. Charlie definitely likes Callie Torres.

She almost manages the entire day avoiding her. Almost.

It was pretty inevitable that they would see each other in the cafeteria.

"God, Charlie please just fix what happened between you two, I'm pretty sure George is scared for life."

George sits at the end of the table, his eyes wide, mumbling stuff to himself.

"Not now. Give me another...day. Just so I can figure out what to say to her, after that, maybe...maybe I'll apologise."

"Why are lesbians such hard work." Cristina groans and thumps her head on the cafeteria table.

It doesn't last a day. In fact, it lasts about 7 hours.

*

Addison stands outside Meredith's house. She bits her lip, trying to work up the courage to knock on the door. Before she does though, Meredith opens the door. "Looking for Charlie?"

"Yes, actually Do you know where she might be?"

"She's with Alex, he said something about the batting cages, I think." She looks away, as if raking her memory.

"Oh, okay. Thank you, Meredith." Addison smiles at the Grey woman and turns to leave. Meredith watches as she goes. She's dating her ex-husband, maybe it was time they had a drink.

"Addison!" The red-haired doctor turns around. "Do you wanna come in for a drink?"

"Oh, it's okay, you don't have too." Addison tries to refuse.

"You're my boyfriend's ex-wife and are sort of dating my best friend you can come in and have a drink." She deadpans and walks away from the door, leaving it open; an invitation for Addison. An olive branch.