Running in Circles - Lexie Grey x OC

The Art of Getting By

Late Night
Operating Room 3

Eric's gaze remained fixed on the opening in the skull, his gloved hands hovering above the surgical field. His eyes had gone distant — empty in a way Lexie knew too well.

It was the look he never wanted anyone to see.

The fear.

She had noticed it before. The subtle shift when his focus stopped being entirely on the patient and something else took over. The way his sharp concentration faded into something hollow. His shoulders would tense, his breathing would become shallow, and eventually, almost imperceptibly, his body would betray him with a quiet tremor.

Lexie had become accustomed to pulling him back.

With Cristina unable to scrub in with him, Lexie had become his most frequent assisting surgeon. And every time it happened, she watched Eric stand frozen beside the operating table, pale and rigid, as if the weight of the memory was physically dragging him under.

He had admitted it to her once.

One night, when they were lying together, somewhere between exhaustion and vulnerability, Eric had confessed that sometimes, in the middle of surgery, he saw Izzie.

Other times — most times — he saw Lexie.

Not the Lexie standing beside him. The one lying lifeless. The one he almost lost.

He always insisted it didn't bother him. He told her it made him more focused, that it reminded him exactly why he needed to save every patient who came through those doors.

But Lexie knew better.

She saw it in the way his fingers tightened around his instruments. In the breath he held too long. In the way he forced himself to keep moving even when his mind had already returned to that day.

And every time, she was the one who brought him back.

Tonight was no different.

Lexie stretched her neck, trying to ease the ache building from hours under the surgical lights, when she noticed Eric's expression change.

The tenting suture he had placed on the dura rested on the tray.

He wasn't moving.

The fear had returned.

She didn't hesitate.

Keeping her voice calm, she cleared her throat.

"I'm here."

Eric blinked.

Slowly, his eyes shifted toward her.

Lexie's gaze remained steady. There was no panic, no fear, no uncertainty. Just reassurance.

She inhaled deeply.

Without realizing it, Eric followed.

In.

Out.

Again.

And slowly, the tension in his shoulders began to release.

"You're here," he whispered.

A minute later, his hands were steady again.

Eric returned to the surgery.

It had become their routine. A lifeline.

Something he depended on whenever the memories became too heavy. The shooting. The day he almost lost Lexie. The day he lost a colleague he should have saved.