No Time | Grey's Anatomy // Book 1 // COMPLETED |

26 | Happiness

"She's got hyperacusis, vertigo, tinnitus, nystagmus." Alex listed off Hayley's symptoms one by one, hoping something would eventually click. However, neither one of us had managed to come up with a plausible diagnosis for her besides schizophrenia yet. "This blows." Alex huffed and leaned back in his chair, defeated.

"So you and Lexie?" Meredith cocked a brow at Alex, changing the subject to something she was actually invested in.

"Oh, yeah." I turned to Alex. "I forgot you two finally got together for real now. How is that?"

Looking up from the book he was burying his nose in, Alex grumbled. "What?"

"I mean, I'm just saying, you and Lexie," Meredith told him. "It's not just a sex thing anymore. It's a-"

"-I'm acting like a duck," Alex stated plainly as if it made all of the sense in the world. 

I narrowed my eyes at him. "What?"

"I figure, if you walk like a duck and you quack like a duck, eventually you start to feel like a duck," Alex explained. "Lexie is nice and normal and healthy. I'm acting like a guy who can stick with nice and normal and healthy."

Meredith and I smiled, suddenly understanding completely. "You're becoming a duck."

"I am becoming a duck." Alex chuckled as Cristina started walking toward us.

Meredith moved some books to make space for Cristina, but instead of joining our table, she ignored us and sat at another table. "Cristina, seriously?" Meredith called to her.

"What's up with that?" Alex questioned.

Meredith sighed. "She's mad at me because I planted seeds of doubt about her moving in with Owen."

"Don't talk to him about me," Cristina called back, listening in to what we were saying.

"Well, why don't you come over here so I can talk to you about you?" Meredith suggested.

Cristina shook her head. "I'll talk to you when you actually talk. I mean, are you ready to talk?"

"Well, how many seeds did you plant?" I asked Meredith. "Like just enough for casual caution or a whole handful of serious doubt?"

Meredith just shrugged and gestured to Cristina. "I don't know. Enough to make that happen, I guess."

"I see." I grabbed for my drink and took a sip. 

Turning away from Cristina, Meredith huffed just as Lexie pulled up a chair and joined us. "Oh!" Alex looked up at her. "I need the Lexopedia to diagnose Ellie and I's patient."

"She's not a book you can flip through." Meredith tried to defend her half-sister.

"I kinda am," Lexie sighed, unbothered with helping us out. "Go."

Alex nodded. "A sixteen-year-old with hyperacusis, vertigo, tinnitus, nystagmus . . ."

"Cholesteatoma." Cristina piped up from her table a few feet away. "Or temporal lobe tumour."

"For God's sake, will you just come over here?" Meredith groaned.

Cristina slurped her drink. "No."

Ignoring the interruptions, I finished off the patient information we had. "Scans were clean," I said. "She is very sensitive to noise. We have to whisper."

Lexie thought for a moment before something just clicked. "Oh, uh, uh, page 162 in a June . . . 2004 issue of a journal with a mint green cover. It's, uh, sound or pressure-induced vertigo. It's called, um . . . I can't . . . crap. I can't see it. Um, I can't . . ."

"It's like the computer froze." Alex joked.

Lexie rolled her eyes. "June, 04, mint green cover, it's in the research library."

"Got it. Thanks." Alex gave her a quick kiss before grabbing my arm and pulling me towards the research library.

After a bit of digging around, Alex and I were able to locate the journal that Lexie had told us about. After reading through the article a few times, we figured out how to test Hayley for the ailment and got right to work. After explaining our plan of action to Hayley's parents, we took her to one of the exam rooms and followed what the article had told us to do. 

Grabbing a pair special pair of goggles that had a camera on the inside, which would allow us to see Hayley's eyes up close on a monitor, I placed them on Hayley's head and waited for Alex to set everything else up. 

"I don't understand." Hayley's mother seemed skeptical. "You didn't find anything. I just feel like we're torturing her for no reason."