chapter sixty three

i always feel like somebody's watchin' me.season six, episode three.

. For the first time in the two months since George's death, her eyes were no longer puffy, meaning that she made it through the entire night without crying.

Her twenty fourth birthday had come and gone in the midst of her grief. As she glanced at the calendar on the wall to her right, it only just hit her that she'd missed the anniversary of her mother's death.

"Cass?" Cristina's voice snapped her out of her thoughts, the girl barging into the bathroom without bothering to check if she was decent. "Oh, you're naked. Cool. Uh, you're boyfriend made breakfast, if you wanted to eat."

Cassie opened her mouth to respond, only to pause as the word's processed. "Why is Mark here so early?"

She shrugged nonchalantly. "All he had to do was walk across the hall."

Watching her leave with a baffled expression, Cassie stayed in place for several moments, before following after her. She didn't put on any clothes, trusting her towel to cover the important bits.

"Cristina, what the hell are you talking about?" she shouted out, making her way down the hall. When she arrived in the kitchen, she saw Mark, Callie, and Cristina eating breakfast, as well as a blonde woman she'd never seen before. "Oh, hi."

"Hi," the woman greeted, subtly looking her up and down as she turned her head to whisper to Callie. "Your roommate is naked."

Callie nodded. "She does that sometimes."

"Cristina," Cassie repeated, still wildly confused. "What did you just say?"

Before the woman in question could respond, Mark grinned widely, holding up a plate of perfectly cooked eggs. "Cass, you look absolutely today. Did you change your hair?"

She narrowed her eyes. "What did you do?"

As the other three watched the conversation like a tennis match, Mark set the plate down, a sheepish smile on his face. "Well, you know how I've been looking for a place to live." Cassie didn't say a word. "The apartment right across from yours was for sale, so..."

With a deadpan expression, Cassie looked from her boyfriend, to the eggs, and back to her boyfriend. "You moved in across the hall?"

"Uh, yep."

"You moved in... across the hall," she repeated, her tongue running along the inside of her cheek.

"I did, but—"

"Let me get this straight... after I explicitly stated, , that I did want to move in with you... you thought it would be a good idea to buy the apartment across the hall from my own?"

Mark awkwardly pursed his lips. "Surprise?"

Cassie just stared at him, stone faced.

"It's nice to meet you," the blonde interrupted with a grin after an uncomfortable lull in conversation. "I'm Arizona Robbins."

Cassie looked at her, attempting to smile back with a curt wave. "Cassie Harper."

With one last glance at Mark, she turned on her heel, storming back into the bathroom and slamming the door with a .

Mark briefly looked down at the breakfast he'd made for her, before taking the plate and dumping the contents into the trash can.

"She's pretty," Arizona smiled, popping a grape into her mouth as Callie and Cristina nodded in agreement. "I like her."

☆

Her head tilted back as she looked up at the front of the hospital, Cassie didn't move a muscle, waiting for the knot in her stomach to untwist before going inside.

If she were completely honest, Cassie didn't miss being a surgeon. Every time she so much as thought about surgery, a flash of Lily's dead body clouded her vision. She didn't want to come back to work.

But with Cristina Yang and Meredith Grey as her friends, she didn't really end up having a choice in the matter. Cassie just hoped that Webber would refuse to give her the job back.

Taking a deep breath, she eventually put one foot in front of the other, keeping her head down as she made her way up to the Chief's office. Knocking on the door twice, she waited a moment before letting herself in.

"I told you, Shepherd," Webber grumbled without looking up from his paperwork. "I'm busy."

"Oh, um, sorry, I can come back later," Cassie quickly apologized, moving to close the door before she was stopped.

"Harper?" he questioned, sitting up straight. "No, no, it's alright. Come on in. Have a seat."

Reluctantly, Cassie did as told, sitting across from him with her ankles crossed. She fidgeted with the long sleeves of her top, her gaze fitting around the room nervously.

She didn't want to come back.

"I'm sorry for bothering you, I just—"

"No need," Webber held a hand up in the air, reaching down for a moment as she frowned. He came back up with Cassie's lab coat and ID badge, folded together neatly. "Dr. Sloan already talked to me. Welcome back."

Brows furrowing in confusion, she looked pointedly at the white coat as she spoke. "I-I'm sorry, what?"

Shrugging, Webber removed the glasses from his face. "Well, the day you quit, Dr. Sloan told me not to process your resignation. He was confident that you'd come back." Sending her a kind smile, he pushed the lab coat closer to her. "I'm glad he was right. With the merger coming up here in a few weeks, I'm glad to know that I have at least one reliable resident on my staff, that I can count on to help bring our hospitals together."