"pictures of us"
by beabadoobee

" pictures of us
buildings and rust
i don't know what i means to get better
last night's emergency
her and me
she reminded me that God starts with a capital
but i don't think i could do it all
no, i don't think i could do it "

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"enough is enough (no more tears)"

season 2, episode 2

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eleanor often found herself in between things. right now, she was perched on the toilet hugging her knees, in between meredith who layed on the floor, and cristina who layed in the bathtub. she was in between meredith's hungover and cristina's sober state. she was in between on her stance of what exactly was the problem at hand: boy penis's, tequila, or estrogen? before last night and the dreaded morning after, she was in between derek, meredith, and addison. before that, she was in between two boys -- (who she was yet to know both had a thing for her) -- fighting about syphilis.

she was between things.

she was always between things.

"it's not us. it's them. them and their stupid boy... penises. they didn't tell me they had a wife. they gave absolutely no warning that they were going to break up with you." meredith said from the bathroom floor.

"it's not that burke broke up with me. it's how he broke up with me -- like it was business, like it was a business trans-- like he's the boss of me?" cristina rambled as she slid open the door of the shower/tub she was lying in.

"well i mean to be fair, he is the boss of you." eleanor commented.

"what's worse is that i care." cristina groaned.

"i'm gonna throw up again, el, move." meredith urged. with wide eyes eleanor quickly moved off the toilet lid, totally prepared to hold back meredith's hair as she puked. "no. wait. false alarm."

"the problem is estrogen." cristina said.

"no, the problem is tequila."

"i used to be all business and then he goes and gets me pregnant."

"with his stupid boy penis."

"now i'm having hormone surges. he ruined me. i'm ruined. he turned me into this fat, stupid, pregnant girl... who cares." cristina whined. "estrogen."

"penises."

"maybe we're the problem." eleanor sighed.

"oh shut up mcperfect, don't try and act like your alex crush is nearly as bad as a married boyfriend and being a pregnant intern." cristina snapped.

okay,

ouch.

but fair, eleanor supposed.

her stupid school girl crush on the bad boy didn't really amount to a whole ass pregnancy or married boyfriend, did it?

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"male, 46, unrestrained driver of the car that jumped lanes. b.p. 80 over palp, tachycardia, last pulse -- 138. got 2 liters l.r. running wide open. significant abdominal tenderness." the paramedic briefed.

"any history?" bailey asked.

"wife says he's got a bad liver. he's on the transplant list." he informed.

"abdomen's rigid. okay, hands off. we need to page burke and domner. prep this guy for the o.r. who wants it?" bailey asked her interns, who -- of course -- all screamed and yelled "me, me, me!" like a bunch of pathetic children. "no, you're too late." bailey told cristina. "stevens, take it."

"yes!" izzie exclaimed.

"karev, take the boy. shepherd, take the mom. i wanna be looking at their films in 15 minutes!"

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"my husband bob's a really good driver. safe, you know? i think he saw something in the -- in the middle of the road and swerved to avoid it. the crash -- it just -- it just came out of nowhere. we'd been having a really nice morning. one minute, everything's fine. and the next -- i could see the guy's face before we hit." the patient explained to eleanor. "do the surgeons know that bob has a bad liver?" she asked.

"they know." eleanor assured.

"how's scotty?" she asked.

"your son's in the next room getting x-rayed, no serious injuries have been identified, he should be just fine." eleanor smiled. "okay, i'm just going to gently roll you over for an exam" she informed. as she lifted up the gown a large yellow bruise revealed itself to eleanor. "oh. this looks pretty bad. how'd you get this?" she asked concerned.

"well, we hit so hard." the patient said.

"i don't think this was a result of the accident, the discoloration of the bruise tells me it's probably a few weeks old." eleanor said, concerned. while she couldn't see the woman's face, she could feel the fear in the silence. she knew whatever excuse was coming wasn't going to be the truth. 

she knew because she had been here too.

she had been sitting on the couch in derek and addison's brownstone. addison had watched her wince at the hug she gave when she came in. she had seen the bruises on her wrist when she briefly pulled up her sleeves to wash her hands. she had watched her itch at her skin under the turtleneck eleanor wore to dinner that night. eleanor never wore turtlenecks. when addison asked her if she was okay, her answer was quick and insincere -- and addie could tell. so she sat her down on the couch. she told derek to go upstairs so they could talk. she wasn't going to let eleanor leave until she told her what was going on.

leading up to the moment where the words actually left her mouth, was stressful. eleanor was annoyed and wished that addie didn't care and would just leave her alone.

but once she said it. once she actually admitted what had happened. once the tears escaped from her eyes and traveled down her cheeks. once addison moved from the chair in front of her to the empty spot on the couch beside her. once she wrapped her arms around her. once she offered up the guest bedroom for as long she wanted to stay.

once all of that happened,

eleanor was pretty damn glad to have someone like that in her life.

pre-the-unforgivable-affair-of-addison-montgomery-shepherd, she was someone that had been there for eleanor when nobody else was.

this woman needed someone like that.

eleanor couldn't imagine going through -- what she imagined to be -- years of abuse. just one night was enough to send her over the edge. being married to the guy who had done that to her? and having to defend him? yeah, she couldn't even begin to understand what this woman was going through.

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"scott seibert, 18, no fractures or internal bleeding. got pretty lucky." alex spoke.

"recommendation?" bailey asked him.

"keep overnight for observation." he advised.

"damn." bailey said as eleanor turned on the light exposing the patient's films.

"lea seibert, 43, multiple healed fractures on her clavicle and humerus, her third and fourth rib." eleanor presented.

"she's either a bull rider or she's abused." 

"kid said the accident was road rage. his old man got cut off in traffic, went ballistic." alex told them.

"that was not the story i got. she was doing cartwheels trying to defend him, but i knew something was off when i found a large, yellowing bruise over her right kidney tender to palpitation. said she got it from a fall last week, but that's obviously bullshit. she's bleeding internally." eleanor told.

"perinephric hematoma. what do you do?" bailey asked.

"it should take care of itself. we'll keep an eye on it. she needs bed rest, therapy, and, uh, probably divorce papers." eleanor suggested.

meredith entered with the films of her bowel obstruction patient, just as eleanor wrapped up her spiel. "it's drugs." she stated.

"stupid, stupid, stupid." bailey said, taking the x-rays and putting them on the lit board. "one burst and he's dead in five minutes. okay, what do we do?" she asked the intern.

"run his bowel." meredith answered.

"and what does that mean, shepherd?" she asked turning to eleanor.

"running the bowel entails removing all 36 feet of the intestine from the body cavity, hand searching for the balloons and cutting them out." eleanor answered.

"grey, book an o.r. shepherd, karev, you're in." bailey told them. "i need all the hands i can get."

"are you sure they're balloons?" alex asked, getting the heads of all three women who were already half way out of the room to turn.

"you have reason to believe they're not balloons?" bailey asked.

"this one here's got a face." alex pointed.

"so does that one." meredith added.

"they all do." eleanor said.

"I'll be damned. they're judy's." bailey spoke

"judy's?" alex whispered quietly, turning to eleanor for some kind of answer, to which she just shrugged.

"he swallowed the heads of ten judy dolls." bailey said in both awe and disgust simultaneously.

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while waiting for an o.r. to become available for mr. hubble's surgery, eleanor decided to tag along alex's case. not that there was anything surgical there, she just didn't have anything better to do.

she supposed that was why.

she just didn't have anything better to do, right?

that's totally the only reason she was following alex around on his non-surgical case.

totally.

however, she was beginning to regret it because this kid would not stop banging his hand on the rail of the bed.

she figured it was just some kind of nervous tick, and she didn't nescicarily blame him, but that didn't make it get on her nerves any less.

if it was her in his shoes, she'd probably be doing worse things than just hitting the side of her bed. so in some ways, eleanor should've been grateful.

she looked at his hands and then up at alex, who was looking at her and then looked down at the boy's hands.

"this guy came in this morning with ten judy doll heads in his abdomen." alex told him. "is that some kind of sick or what?"

"alex." eleanor muttered through her teeth.

"i mean when you think about it, those things can't be easy to swallow. if they still got their hair on them, that's some bad spaghetti. that dude is crapping toys."

"alex." she warned again, in attempts to get him to shut up. this kid has bigger problems than hearing about the weird guy of the day. eleanor watched as the kid frowned and began to bang his hands onto the railing even harder than before. 

great, now the kid's even more on edge than before.

eleanor gave alex and panicked look, to which he took in for a moment.

he stared at her for what may have been eternity, eleanor wasn't sure.

then he looked away, and took a deep breath in.

"you know, when you're little you can hide. ignore the shouting, the screaming, pretend like you're someplace else." he started. eleanor gave him an apologetic look, to which he would have taken as a pitiful stare had he met her eyes.

but he didn't.

he didn't meet her eyes.

in fact, he made sure to avoid them.

he kept his view straight ahead and kept talking.

as if she wasn't there.

as if she wasn't hearing the words come out of his mouth.

as if he wasn't revealing his traumatic childhood over a patient instead of drinks and jokes.

this wasn't how he wanted to do this.

truthfully, he didn't want to do this at all. 

he didn't want her to know these things, let alone like this.

but right now, this wasn't about him. it wasn't about her. it was about this kid.

so alex could put his pride in his back pocket and take a deep breath in.

"then when you get older, bigger, you feel like you should be doing something. something to stop it. you know, to protect her. and when you can't, you don't know who to be angrier at -- your old man or yourself. usually it's yourself." alex spoke to the kid with tear filled eyes.

"did she tell you?" he asked quietly.

"she didn't have to it's all over her films." he answered. "he's not beating you, is he?" alex asked.

"no, just her." scott answered. "so what do you do about the anger?"

"me? i think about the guy who eats doll heads. he's got problems" alex told him. eleanor had stayed quiet, she just helped push the gurney out of the elevator.

"hey, i've been looking for your guys." izzie said as she approached. 

"it's my father." 

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in the end, scotty had donated his liver to his father. eleanor figured that had something to do with alex, for a reason that she didn't know. she had figured by the way he talked to izzie that he was going to talk the kid out of it. but who knows, there was probably a lot more to it than that.

she didn't really know how to talk to alex, mostly because he was actively avoiding talking to her.

but she was in between things again today.

she was in between alex and scott and their conversation about all things: shitty dad's edition.

eleanor didn't know anything about that subject, her dad was dead.

but she was stuck in between it today. 

she felt closer to alex, though he wasn't telling her those things, she still heard them, and he knew that she had heard them.

but he didn't want her pity, and he knew that was what he was going to get so he wasn't talking to her.

he was trying not to talk to her, at least.

"alex! wait up." eleanor called out, following behind alex's fast pace out of the hospital. without turning around to acknowledge her presence, he just kept on walking to his car. "seriously, alex? i know you can hear me, can we just -- can we talk for just a second." she pleaded.

"look, i don't want your pity, alright? and i know what you're going to say and i just don't wanna hear it. so just go -- go home, elle." he told her as he fumbled with the keys to his car.

"i don't pity you, alright, alex? i admire your strength and your ability to relate to the patient. you did what nobody else would for that kid today. you did good... and you know, i bet -- i bet that your mom is really proud of where you are today." she spoke nervously.

"it was nothing." he brushed off as he opened his car door.

"it wasn't nothing." she told him.

"whatever." he scoffed.

"it's not whatever, alex!" she practically yelled.

"well what the hell do you want me to say? and why do you even care in the first place?" he asked her.

"i- i- i don't fucking know alex, i just- i just don't want you to push me away because i happened to hear shit about your past. i mean we can level the playing field, ask me anything you want." she offered.

"what makes you think i care about your past?" he asked her.

"fine, whatever, you're such a dick alex." she scoffed walking away. "have you ever thought that maybe, just maybe, i'm one of the only people here who actually gives a shit about you? if you're just going to keep pushing me away and being an ass... i'm going to quit trying." she said as she turned around and shrugged.

"elle, wait..." alex started. 

"what, alex? what?" she snapped.

"i'm sorry for being an ass." he stated. he said it like there was more to it, like there was something coming after, but nothing came.

"would you look at that?" she smirked. "progress. i'm gonna crack that shell of yours all the way one of these days, you know?" 

"oh yeah?"

oh yeah.

sorry it took me a million years to get this out I've been really busy and really lazy... anyway lol thank u for 2k reads and 100 votes that's very cool ummmm yeah. also random song for this one i really couldn't think of one that really fit but this was shall do.