The Home and The Heart

Dear Reader

She should have seen this coming. She never should have filed for divorce from him in the first place, the level of risk was far too high. She had no idea what she was going to do, sitting on a bench in the empty resident lounge, the crumpled letter in a ball clutched in her trembling fist.

It had long gone dark outside of Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital, only the odd nurse or on-call doctor passing by outside the closed door. Jo had found the letter in her cubby when she had returned from her final surgery of the day, she had no idea how long it had been there as she had been in surgery since mid-afternoon.

Jo was supposed to have gone home with Alex hours ago, but instead, she had gone into surgery with Pierce and Shepherd to operate on an emergent patient that had come into the emergency room after she had finished her lunch break.

Jo sat on the hardwood bench for over twenty minutes staring at the parchment in her hand before the door was opened, and she visibly flinched at the sudden noise.

"Wilson, Pierce and I are headed across the street to Joe's, you up for a drink?" Amelia asked, but Jo didn't reply, instead, she continued to stare at the letter scrunched in her palm.

"Jo... you okay?"

Amelia Shepherd took another step into the room, and then another before she reached the quiet resident, touching her shoulder she spoke again.

"Wilson?"

This time Jo looked up at the attending who was touching her shoulder, quickly blinking away the tears before answering.

"Hey, yeah sorry... what did you say?"

"Pierce and I are heading over to Joe's before we go home, I'd say we deserve it after seven hours in surgery, don't you think?"

Amelia smiled and offered a hand to Jo, who plastered a smile on her face and grabbed her things from her cubby before following her out of the room.

...

Given the time of day, Joe's was packed with people, but they managed to find three barstools at the far side of the bar.

"So what will it be, doctors?" The bartender asked.

"A glass of white wine, a beer and a soda and lime for me, please. Thanks." Amelia replied.

The trio chatted about their day, and what their day would contain tomorrow. They discussed Jo and Alex's upcoming nuptials too, which made Jo happy. It felt like a million years ago when she felt like just Alex's resident girlfriend.

...

After a drink (or two) they left the bar and made their way back to Amelia's car at the hospital. Amelia had graciously offered to drive Jo home instead of her taking a cab, as Alex had taken his car when he had returned home earlier in the day. The cold air hit Jo as they left the bar, and she sobered up quickly remembering the letter that was stashed away in her pocket. At that moment all she wanted to do was get back to the loft and be with Alex.

"Brooke?" Jo stopped in her tracks at hearing the voice behind her, closing her eyes tightly.

"Brooke." The voice said again.

"Um, I think you have the wrong person." A (slightly) tipsy Maggie Pierce said, her arm still linked with Amelia's.

"No, I have the right person, don't I Brooke?"

Jo felt sick. She could hear the smirk on his face as he spoke. It was a tone she recognised, Jo realised with a shiver. He would speak so softly, and then his tone would change so fast, which would more often than not end with Jo sitting on the bathroom floor holding a bag of frozen peas on the body part that hurt that time.