Shooting Stars

CHAPTER 3

The ER was loud in the way it always was — voices overlapping, monitors beeping, the distant rattle of gurneys being wheeled across polished floors. It should have been enough to drown out thought.

Usually, for Aria, it was.

Today it wasn't.

She was working alongside Derek Shepherd on a teenage boy who had been brought in after taking a brutal hit during football practice. The boy lay on the bed, pale and frightened, trying not to move while nurses moved around him quickly, carefully. His father hovered nearby, tense and impatient, more focused on what this injury meant than on the fact his son was scared.

Aria stepped into the trauma room, pulling on a pair of gloves as she joined Derek, Lexie, and Cristina.

"How's he doing?" she asked, glancing toward the scans that were still pending.

Derek looked up at her briefly. "We're waiting on imaging."

Aria nodded, moving closer to the bed.

The boy's face was still too young, his body too still. There was something about injured teenagers that always made the room feel heavier. They were old enough to understand fear, but still young enough to think adults were supposed to be able to fix everything.

Lexie stood at the foot of the bed, arms folded around her clipboard, her expression troubled. "I can't believe that kid's dad," she said quietly. "His son might be paralyzed and he's still riding him."

The words landed harder than they should have.

Aria's hands stilled for a moment.

And suddenly she wasn't in the ER anymore.

She was twelve, then fifteen, then nineteen. She was standing in front of Ellis Grey, hearing that same cold voice telling her good wasn't enough, that ordinary was failure, that second best may as well have been worthless. She could almost hear it now — the clipped, dismissive tone, the impossible standards, the way Ellis had looked at her like love had to be earned through achievement.

"Yeah," Aria said before she could stop herself, her voice quieter than usual. "Well, some parents have high expectations and work their kids into the ground just to make sure they meet them."

The room went still for half a beat.

Not visibly. Not enough for anyone else to call it out.

But Aria felt it.

Cristina was the first to break the silence. "Focus more on the medicine, Three, and less on the tragedy."

Derek frowned, looking between Cristina and Lexie. "Three?"

Lexie shifted awkwardly. "It's... kind of a nickname."

Derek raised a brow. "Is that what we're calling you now?"

Lexie gave a small, uncertain shrug.

Aria glanced at her youngest sister and saw the nerves plain as day — the way Lexie held herself just a little too stiffly, the way she always looked like she was bracing for rejection before it came.

Derek turned his attention back to Lexie. "So how would you proceed, Dr. Grey?"

Lexie blinked, clearly caught off guard. "Oh. Um..."

Her eyes flicked to the scans, then back to the patient, her thoughts moving too quickly for her mouth to keep up.

"You won't be able to operate unless you realign his spine first," she said carefully. "Would you?"

Derek nodded once. "And how would you do that?"

"Traction halo?" she said, though it came out more as a question than an answer.