long story short ➳ s. reid + l. grey

PROLOUGE | LAST WORDS OF A SHOOTING STAR

ACT ONE | PROLOGUE
"i always wanted to die clean and pretty,
but i was too busy on working days."
･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ.

WHEN SHE LOOKS BACK ON IT ALL, she's shocked at the fact that she ever thought it could last. Ashamed that she was naive enough to believe a good thing could grow. Lexie had been too blind to see that she was watering seedless soil.

She was never meant to stay in Seattle in the first place. She belonged to east coast the second she got the call informing her she matched with Massachusetts General. To stay in her homecity for the sister that didn't want her was only delaying the inevitable.

The Grey girl wished nothing more then to have realized this sooner. There are much easier ways for the universe to send a message. Certainly a brush with death as extreme as a plane crash was unnecessary.

But it was the hand she was dealt. She wished nothing more then to erase the event from her brain. Unfortunately forgetfulness doesn't come easy when you have photographic memory. She had no choice but to let the memory replay, and replay, and replay, and replay..

She'd been banging that seatbelt on the side of the plane she was trapped under for what felt like hours. Clank, Clank, Clank. The sound was starting to make her ears bleed. How much longer till the others found her?

Would they even find her? Before it's too late?

Except they did. And sometimes, sometimes she wished they hadn't. Sometimes she wished they hadn't found her and she could have died there in the woods. It would've been better than freezing her ass off in the cold for four days. Better than to pick bugs out of Arizona's leg and resuscitating Mark every couple of hours. Better than to have to wake up to the nightmares. Better than to have to live with the memory of the plane crash that nearly claimed her life.

All she could say was that long story short, it was a bad time.

There were so many reasons to leave, such as when Meredith told her that even though she was sure Lexie was a very nice girl, she isn't someone she ever wanted to know. That should've been strike one.

Strike two should have been when there was a shooter in the hospital. It was so painfully obvious, staring her right in the face! She doesn't belong here anymore! Quite literally since the man had pointed the gun at her, telling her explicitly he came her to kill her.

Plane crash, strike three. This is what finally opened her eyes and made her realize her it's time to go.

So she was planting her flowerbed someplace new. Far. Now it was time for the east to take back what was rightfully theirs.

She stood in front of the mirror in her bedroom of what had been her home for the past three years. She slipped the white coat over her shoulders, adorned by red scrubs. Her fingers brushed over the blue embroidery the read "D.C. General Hospital" with a stethoscope in the shape of an anatomical heart. It was cute. She was glad they didn't use a cartoon heart, it would've been to cheesy.

Her scrubs had her named embroidered into them, too. Dr. Alexandra Grey they read in bold, cursive letters, stitched in with a white thread.

It was new. It was all new. The thought of not working at Seattle Grace Mercy West anymore. The thought of not living in Seattle. Of walking down D.C General Hospital in bright red scrubs. The kind of new that while it made your heart leap, it made your stomach churn.

But if she didn't leave now, then when? Everyone was leaving, some already gone. Cristina was already at Mayo Clinic, Alex was leaving for Johns Hopkins soon, and Meredith and Derek were maybe moving to Boston. Izzie had left a long time ago. George was dead, as well as two of her class because of the shooting. The others were fired during the merger. Jackson and April had a budding romance. And Mark, well, he chose Julia.

So she had no choice but to get used to it. To adjust to the new life she was choosing. It could be a good thing.

It will be a good thing.

"Nice get-up," she chuckled at the sound of Derek's voice in the doorway.

"The hospital sent me the personalized scrubs early. Do you like them?" she held her arms out in a t-pose so he could get a good look at them.

"They're... bright red," he commented while walking into her room. "Also, personalized? They'll be a pain to wash everyday. Aren't there scrub machines in D.C.?"

"Well we do things differently in the Southeast."

"You don't even live there yet."

"Well I have decided to prematurely adopt a D.C. mindset."

A silence fell over the two at the fact that in two days, Lexie wouldn't be here anymore. Derek liked having the younger girl around, and she liked being around him. The two had grown closer during her time in neurosurgery. While Derek couldn't be prouder that she's pursuing it, he couldn't help feel just a bit betrayed that it wouldn't be with him.

"Is Meredith still mad at me?"

"Meredith isn't mad."

"Uh yeah, she is."

"That's just because she doesn't want everyone gone in case she wants to stay in Seattle."

"But she does."

"She hasn't made up her mind."

"She has, Derek. She's staying in Seattle. I don't think she could ever leave," Lexie told him sternly. She couldn't bring herself to feel bad for Meredith's inability to move on from Seattle. No place on earth could make her sister happier. Seattle was her home. And in a way, it will always be Lexie's too. But not her forever home starting Sunday. On Sunday she's be a whole new Lexie Grey, living in D.C. The thought of this new life, new beginning, new exhale brought a smile in her face. She turned to look at herself in the mirror again.

"Not me though," she said as she adjusted the collar of her white coat, "I'm a D.C. girl now."

･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ.

a/n; so many evermore references. anyways i hope you enjoyed this prolouge 💕 thank you for reading!