TRIAGE | grey's anatomy (ON HOLD INDEFINITELY)

011: "my body is a cage"

THREE MONTHS LATER

CLEMENTINE SAT ON THE STEPS OF THE NEW YORK COUNTY COURTHOUSE, SUCKING DOWN THE FILTER OF A NEWPORT IN A DEMURE GREY SWEATER-SET, AND HOLDING BACK TEARS.

Her knees were tucked to her chest, probably flashing her panties to the Congo line of schoolchildren trudging past. She felt grounded only by the cold of the concrete seeping through her pantyhose-- the kind that she normally wouldn't wear but that Patti, the secretary of Smith and Moriarty Law, had insisted on. She'd shown up at Ani's door the night before, holding the package with such a smile it had seemed like she'd somehow convinced the fleet of Burning family lawyers to drown themselves in the ocean. Clem had blanched at the gift, at the expectation behind it, but Ani had whispered that only the best lawyers insisted on perfection, even in the smallest details.

Only, Clem couldn't do perfection, quite obviously. Patti's pack of pristine pantyhose had come with several different kinds and no instruction. She hadn't gone with the prude-nude ones, but the black thin ones, which was the wrong decision. Apparently. Clementine could see right through Ani's expression when they met at the court house that morning, even though she'd offered an encouraging smile. And now, seven hours later, she could see the skin and bone of her knee through her stupid goddamn hooker tights.

She wanted so desperately to burn a hole in them with the cherry of her cigarette.

For mid May, the sky had faded into a monotonous storm reminiscent of Seattle-- where Clem longingly wished she could've been. Long gone was the burgundy pantsuit of her first day at work, long gone was Seattle Grace's light blue scrubs and a lavender shirt underneath, long gone the neon lights reflecting off of Joe's barter and the sage green sweater whose sleeves she would roll up while playing darts.

It was only grey. Grey clothing, grey concrete, grey ashes from the cigarette she shouldn't be smoking. And Meredith Grey-- who Clem missed desperately and whose nightly calls were the only thing keeping her sane.

She would stand on the balcony of Ani's Upper East Side apartment, wrapped in a thick cardigan as the night darkened and the wind teased knots in her hair, listening to Meredith update her religiously on the intern's day. She drank a coffee while Mer spoke-- Clem had been going through pots and pots these past few days in an attempt to ward off sleep. Even if half their conversation was spent lying through her teeth and barely acknowledging Mer's blatant breach of doctor-patient confidentiality, the ebb and flow of her roommate's scratchy voice was a surrogate for a lullaby. Clem would wait until Meredith was yawning (a night owl in her own right) and then say her goodbyes, before falling asleep on the couch of a city three hours ahead with predawn light already streaking its sky.

Her dreams would be filled with blood-- the only color her black and white week saw.

(a simmering sunset casting shadows on a santa monica beach house, the skin around her wrists and ankles as they chafed and began to bleed, his saliva hitting her cheek and a booming laugh as she flinched, the clip that had unloaded into beck's surprised chest and left a festering sanguine hole, the swirl of her own blood in the shallow depths of the needle, helpless and dreamy)

It had taken Ani forty-eight hours to ask, which was practically unheard of; Clem's mentor was anything but demure. She waited until after picking up Clem from the airport and handing over the files the lawyer had faxed, after they ordered in and watched trashy reality tv, after she'd gone to work the next morning and instructed Clem to buy something homely from Saks and visit some of her school-friends in the meantime. She'd been silent and sweet for just the right amount of time, and let Clementine think she was in the clear.