five

, her hand around the white mug, when all of the sudden she sees Meredith walk down with Lexie and Alex behind her. Lexie sits down in the high chair, looking guilty as Alex stands behind the counter.

"Izzie leaves, and Mark gets a kid and you two decide that the best way to deal is to get drunk and mash your genitals together?" Meredith lectured them making Allison raise her brows.

"Oh my God, you both had sex." She chuckled finding this amusing. Alex glares at her making her quiet down and look at her mug.

"Look, no freakin' way you get to judge us or give relationship advice. Besides, you were a total dirty mistress, like two weeks ago." Alex then glances at Allison, "And Allie, here she hasn't hooked up or been in a relationship with anyone since she started working at the hospital so she can't give us relationship advice either, for all we know she's a virgin."

"Are we calling me a dirty mistress?" Lexie held up her hand.

"That was two years ago and his wife didn't have cancer." Meredith spoke up, ignoring Lexie.

"And I was left by my ex-fiancee, kind of hard trusting guys." Allison spoke up shrugging her shoulders before she chugged her coffee. Alex, Meredith and Lexie look at the Carter in surprise not believing what she said, "What?"

"I've only been with like, six guys in my whole life. Okay, Alex and I—we've done it before. That was recycling. It was like good for the environment"

"The environment being your vagina?" Allison tilted her head looking at Lexie who looked guilty knowing Allison was good friends with Mark.

"Izzie's gone, I was horny, she was there." Alex shrugged his shoulders making Lexie groan as she covers her eyes saying she was a dirty mistress.

Lexie head immediately shoots up as she stares between Meredith and Allison, "Oh crap. You're gonna tell Derek and then Derek's gonna tell Mark that I'm a whore."

"No, I am not going to tell Derek, and neither are the both of you." Meredith told Allison and Lexie before looking at Alex, "And you're not gonna say anything. We are keeping our mouths shut. Izzie is coming home. No one needs to know."

Alex looks up seeing Izzie standing in the kitchen doorway making everyone turn around to look at her. "Know what?"  Everyone stayed silent not knowing what to say.

***

"Your husband has me doing post-ops" Allison walked inside the empty O.R. as she makes her way to the table putting her tray down.

"He is your best friend, don't look at me." Meredith defended herself as she continued practicing for her surgery with Webber.

Allison groaned as she sat down next to Cristina, "What are you guys talking about?"

"She's on this thing—-" Meredith wanted to explain but was interrupted by Cristina.

"Okay, if you had to choose between the thing you love surgery and the person you love, which would you choose?" Cristina asked.

Meredith looked at Alex, "You'll choose Izzie, right? Because you two are gonna get back together"

"Shut up."

Allison took a bite of her sandwich, "Wait, why do you have to choose?" She heard a familiar voice speak making her look up as she stared into green eyes. Why was Jackson here? Why didn't she notice him?

"That doesn't matter you just do." Cristina dismissed. "Which is it, surgery or love?"

"I want both." Jackson spoke up staring straight at Allison when he did so making her look away feeling her face heat up.

"That's what I said."

"No, you can't have both." Cristina dismissed.

"Why the hell not?" Jackson asked wanting to know. He would want both, he would want to do the thing he enjoyed the most and have the person he loves next to him.

"Why the hell is he here?"

"I said he could be in here because he's in the whipple too." Meredith dismissed as her hands use the instruments.

"Whatever. Once again, you can not have both. You have to choose." Cristina groaned repeating herself.

"Choose what?" Izzie asked as she walked in making everyone look up at her. Allison eyes go to Alex who only ignored the stare as he tried working on something else.

"My pet-scan got pushed back an hour, so I thought I'd join you for lunch." Cristina motioned for the blonde to sit next to Allison, who scooted some more to give her space to sit.

"Okay, that. You have to give up that—learning the procedure, tuning out the world until you get it, like, you know doing the procedure is the only thing that matters, like if you don't get to do it, you'll die. That's what you have to give up!" Cristina exclaimed.

"For what?"

"Love." Everyone in the room said unison except for Jackson.

"Why?" Izzie asked confused.

"Yeah, that's what I said." Jackson agreed.

"Okay, that's not the point. You know you couldn't do it. You know you'd choose the procedure." Cristina said, knowing that everyone in this room will choose surgery, she was just trying to prove her point.

"Fine! If I had to choose, gun to my head, I would choose surgery, okay?" Meredith gave in fake smiling.

"Ouch." Allison said, "Wait till Shep hears about this one." She joked making Meredith look at her. Allison held up her hands in surrender, "Kidding, just kidding!"

"Thank you. Is that so hard to say?" Cristina chuckled proving her point. "I don't know, why is it so bad to say that out loud?"

"Cause it's crazy." Allison shrugged as she took another bite of her sandwich. Cristina only looked at her friend who looked back at her.

"Yeah, It's crazy. Surgery is just a job. It's the thing you come home from, not the thing you come home to. And if you lose your job, you get another one, cause there's always another one. But if you lose your love, if you think you're losing your love, well, then suddenly nothing else matters." Izzie looks up at Alex.

"This is what you guys talk about during lunch?" Jackson asked taking a bite of his carrot looking at Allison before winking at her making her smile.

"I'm with them. Love comes and goes. Surgery doesn't." Alex spoke up. Allison raised her brows  in surprise. The beeping of the pagers interrupt Alex and Izzie's eye contact as both him and Cristina leave the room.

***

"Ahem." Derek cleared his throat as Allison looked around the room. All the doctors were standing below the staircase waiting for Derek to give his speech as Chief. "I want to thank you all for being here. I know you're busy, so I'll make this quick. As you may have heard, I have been appointed the new interim Chief os Surgery. It's my personal goal to make this transition as smooth as possible." Murmurs began to be heard from the crowd. "I know we've had a rocky few months."

"Here it comes." Alex commented, turning his head briefly at the Mercy West group behind him.

"Mistakes have been made."

"He's talking about the merger." Alex went on, making Allison flick his arm.

"Shut it." She whispered sternly to him.

"I intend to right those wrongs" Derek continued, "And uh..."

"Told you." Alex added.

Allison saw Derek searching for either Meredith or her. Once his eyes came in contact with Allison's, she gave him an encouraging smile with a small thumbs up. "Bring this hospital back to its formal glory."

"We are screwed." Jackson sighed.

"You are not." Allison assured as she gave him a smile. The past week the two have gotten somewhat close, Allison isn't avoiding him anymore so that's a start, they have mini conversations here and then.

"Yes, you are," Alex smirked, "Sucker."

Reed gasped, "Check it out." Everyone glanced to where Reed was staring, "Chief Webber."

"And, um..." Derek stopped himself as he looked to his left, seeing Jennings and Webber walking into the main lobby as the crowd began to murmur, "What I meant...." Derek trailed off once again as he looked at the index cards in his hands and then back at Webber, "Uh, by that is—what I'm trying to say is, I want to thank you for your support in advance. Uh, that's all." He took a deep breath, "Okay, let's get back to work."

Arizona began to clap for support, as a few other joined. Allison felt her best friend's second hand embarrassment, either way she began to clap as well.

"We are so screwed." Jackson groaned to both Reed and Charles.

"You guys are going to be fine." Allison rolled her eyes as she walked away.

Charles waited as Dr. Altman handed Jackson her patient's files before he walked with him, "Dude, when are you going to ask her out?"

"Who" Jackson furrowed his brows in confusion, "Dr. Altman?"

"No." Charles shook his head, "Allison."

Jackson let out a nervous chuckle, "I-I don't like her like that.". Of course he liked her that—he loved her.

"Sure." Charles patted his shoulder, "I'm sure you don't like her especially from the way you look at her."

Jackson sighed, "Okay, I do." He paused thinking about his next words carefully, "We had a past. I love her dude, and I screwed up."

Charles eyes went wide, "What did you do?" He asked curious.

"I left her." Jackson frowned thinking about that day, he didn't leave a note or anything, he packed everything and left her, but he wants to do anything to get her back.