All Fun and Games Until... (Ben Solo/Kylo Ren)

Chapter 36: Sleepless in Seattle

After what happened, Diana put herself into an exile. Banning herself to the places her and her friends used to spend their free time with. She didn't frequent the circulation desks anymore. The abandoned hallway where their unproductive but colorful littering from last year was strictly off-limits.

It has also become a habit of her to buy lunch an hour and a half earlier to beat the rush. Or to simply put, to avoid running into too familiar faces. Diana couldn't still shake off the dispirited and failed look Rose had. She wouldn't be able to handle it if she saw the same disappointed and alienated look five times.

As pathetic and sad as it sounds and looks, she found her one and only bunker at the basement of Alderaan Grace where rows of cadavers lay in the cold metal slab. It's the only place in the hospital where it's sure that she wouldn't run into anyone. As a matter of fact, she's now near perfecting a two-layered continuous suture from anastomosis, an advanced surgical procedure, because she's got a lot of cadavers to practice with.

But at what cost? Pitifully munching a stale and dry salad in isolation while tucked in a corner of a cold, silent room where rays of sun could never reach is the small price to pay. It has the same heavy and pitiful weight in the chest to a person who experienced eating lunch at a school bathroom. Just like that, the ever-so-bubbly and congenial Dr. Diana Montgomery hit rock bottom and became an outcast. 

Just like Rose said to her, alone. Pathetic. Lonely. And she's not doing anything about it. Letting the complications worsen. Signing her own death sentence.

She’s acting like this not because she’s angry or mad at any of them. Was it because Pride? Bruised ego? No and no. It's because even after an angry deliberation, she realized that Rose was completely true, whether or not her execution was good. Diana is embarrassed. Painfully ashamed of herself because she was served a piece of humble pie by her friend and she took it the wrong way because she couldn't handle the truth. 

Diana started to arrive early to the hospital and leaves late. Too early that the sun is still on its early wake; and too late that the roads and streets are quiet and empty. Oftentimes, she begs for an unnecessary amount of extra responsibilities and midnight rounds just to stop herself from going back to her place. She couldn't stay in her apartment for too long when his scent still lingers. It's like having a ghost around the house.

Assisting hardcore neuro surgeries and effectively teaching her interns put her mind away from thinking about everything. About him. Ben Solo . Diana became a hardcore yuppie junkie from the 80s who didn't want to get off of the high because the reality is too gloomy and messy for her to handle. 

The high was working. Until she needed something stronger.

After three muted knocks, Diana entered the film viewing room. "Dr. Holdo, you paged me for a consult?" Diana inquired, tucking in the pager back to her scrubs.

The room was dark except for the wide LED film viewer occupying the whole wall that gives the pitch black room a bright opaque white light. The illuminated MRI scans placed side by side mesmerized Diana that she didn't get to give the room a full sweep.

"I did. I thought it'd be better for you to see it so I can teach these to you." The faint lines of crow's feet on the sides of her eyes deepened as Amilyn Holdo gave her resident a small kind smile.

Diana pulled out her eyeglasses to remove the smudges she managed to put on in the lenses. Until now, Diana doesn't know how she always keeps on getting them dirty. A sound of clicking of tongue rang in her mind. She could see a picture of Ben pulling it out away from her face with his long fingers. Eyebrows furrowed as a peeved expression is painted in his face.