You, Love

Chapter 1: Lucky

Fallyn hadn't spent more than an hour and a half in Seattle before she realized that she didn't like it.

It rained too much, for one. She didn't like the rain: it was too cold, and she'd nearly slipped in the airport parking lot more than once.

And it was too dark. Even in the heart of the city, Seattle didn't hold a candle to New York. Fallyn felt like she was flying blind in the backseat of the cab, squinting out the window at the hazy night beyond. The torrential downpour didn't help matters.

The people were strange too. Quiet, and a little nervous. Not that she had room to complain— Fallyn was quiet and a little nervous, too— but she suspected that the residents of Seattle were like that because of the rain. God knows what was wrong with her.

She couldn't concentrate. Julie Phillips, thirty–one. She was in her second trimester with twins, and diagnosed with Twin–to–Twin Transfusion Syndrome, a stage one on the Quintero staging system. They were connected by blood vessels in the placenta— And that was as far as she got on the patient file resting in her lap.

TTTS, blood vessels in the placenta. That was where she would lose focus. The words would get lost on the page, and instead of her voice in her head all she could hear was the raindrops on the window of the cab.

She laughed to herself. It was so frustrating that it looped back around to being funny.

"Dr. Montgomery–Shepherd," she said to the woman sitting next to her in the cab. "Does it ever get easier to live with this rain?"

Addison looked up from her case file— the same one that Fallyn had been struggling to get through— and smiled. "Not really, no."

"Oh. Well, does it ever stop?" She looked hopefully out the window, barely able to make out the lights of the city past the rainy night. It was like they were in a world apart inside the cab, just the two of them and their silent driver.

Addison followed her lead and peered past Fallyn out the window. She considered for a second before replying, "Sometimes it snows."

Fallyn laughed, though she felt really quite miserable. "Good thing we're only staying for a couple days." How could anyone live in such a terrible state?

"Good thing," Addison echoed.

She turned away, towards the window on her side, and Fallyn got the feeling that the conversation was over. Addison had been doing that a lot since they'd gotten to Seattle: turning away and zoning out. Freezing. It was a little creepy, but Fallyn didn't think it was her place to feel concern. She was just an intern— the lucky intern that Addison had hand–picked to come to Seattle Grace for the TTTS case, sure, but still just an intern. She thought Addison liked her as a Dr., but they weren't friends.

So she let the silence fold over them. She stared at the back of their cab driver's neck for a while: a thick–set man in his middle–age who hadn't said a word to them since getting the address of their hotel. He was a good driver, at least. Safe. And Fallyn respected anyone who routinely drove in the rain.

Her mind turned back to the case. Julie Phillips, thirty–one. Julie Phillips, thirty–one. Julie Phillips, thirty–one.

It was only a few blocks to their hotel, which was enough time for the name to get properly stuck in Fallyn's head. She'd seen all the woman's ultrasounds, knew all her medical history, but she'd never seen a real picture of her. Of her face. Was it weird that she was nervous to meet her?

The cab pulled to the curb of the hotel and their driver waited for them to get out. Fallyn took her umbrella out of her purse and opened it as she got out of the cab. As she stepped out, her feet slipped, and she had to splay out her arms to stay on balance. Fallyn cursed to herself as she rounded to the trunk.