thirty-two

. Arizona Robbins—open femur fracture with resultant above-knee amputation." The hospital lawyer spoke as she listed the accidents from the plane crash to the lawyer. Allison, Derek, Meredith sat there with Callie who was there for Arizona and Mark, and Owen was there for Cristina, who was in Minnesota. "Lexie Grey—deceased. Mark Sloan—deceased. This doesn't include extreme..."

Allison looked at the table in front of her as she thought about the plane crash, dozing off from the conversation before she snapped herself out of it, "...Wish for me to extend their deepest condolences."

"How is—" Derek began to ask, "How is the investigation going?"

"Have they found what caused the crash?" Meredith continued.

"The investigation could take years." The company lawyer answered, "That's why we want to help you put this tragedy behind you."

"I think you mean, your clients would like to put it behind them." The hospital lawyer corrected.

"So I am authorized at this time to propose a onetime settlement." The company lawyer passed a piece of paper over to Allison, "Bayview Aeronautics takes your loss seriously." Allison looked at the paper before passing it to Derek, "Now the settlement agreement must be unanimous, and it releases Bayview Aeronautics from any and all other claims, known or unknown, but...most important." Derek handed the paper to Meredith, "—It will allow you to put this painful time behind you and move on with your lives." Callie got the paper before passing it to Owen, who raised his brows before passing it to the hospital lawyer.

***

After the plane crash, Derek, Meredith and Zola moved to the house Derek built for them, Meredith offered Alex to sleep at her old house for a while. Allison has been staying in a hotel, Jackson kindly offered her to stay at his place but she respectfully denied. Staring up at the ceiling she sighed,

Her phone rang, she sighed before reaching over to the bedside table, her phone lit it up with Micheal's name across the screen. She sighed once more before declining the call.

***

"Hey, Alex." Meredith got Alex's attention as she walked inside the attendings lounge seeing Allison and Bailey sitting around the table."Why did an intern just give me a compliment on the crown moldings in my empty house? Are you still sleeping there?"

"Chicks like it better than the on-call rooms." Alex shrugged causing Allison to scrunch her nose in disgust.

"That's gross."

"Now I have to get the place tented." Meredith shook her head, sticking out her hand out, "Give me back my key."

"You don't even live there anymore." Alex sat down at the table with a bowl of cereal, "What do you care?"

"Key. Please."

"Hey, you guys." April greeted, as she walked inside the lounge, rolling her suitcase behind her, causing their heads to turn to look at her. "Can you believe we're in the attendings' lounge?"

"A-April?" Allison asked, "What are you doing here?"

"Oh, uh." April smiled, "Hunt came and got me in the farm in Moline. I was giving the pigs their breakfast, and I turn around and there's Dr. Hunt, offering me my job back." Seeing everyone's confused glances her smile faded away, "He didn't tell you guys?"

"Did anyone else see Dr. Hunt in the barnyard?" Meredith asked.

"When he appeared unto you, was he glowing at all?" Alex teased as Jackson walked inside the room, vomit on his scrub top.

"April?" Jackson's eyes widened at the sight of the red-head before he brought her to a hug.

"Hunt hired her back."

"We think." Alex corrected, "It might have been Jesus."

"I thought you went to Tulane." April recalled Jackson's plans, as they let go of their hug.

"Uh yeah. No, I-I changed my mind." Jackson's eyes travelled to Allison, who was eating a strawberry. Before taking off his scrub top, as Allison's eyes traveled to his chest.

"Hey, you people are attendings." Bailey spoke up seeing the disaster they have been doing inside the lounge, "You do not change clothes in front of everyone like animals or interns, because nobody wants to see all that."

"Apparently Carter does." Alex gestured to the direction where Allison was, and indeed she was staring at Jackson.

Allison quickly looked away, "W-What? No. I-I wasn't staring."

***

"My wife is disabled." Callie placed the pot of coffee down as she approached Meredith, Owen, Derek, and Allison as they discussed if they should take the settlement. "My daughter's father is dead. There's nothing we can do about that, but this money will pay for Arizona's rehab. It would take care of our little girl, Mark's little girl. This is a huge amount of money. It's life-changing amount of money."

Meredith and Derek gave each other a look before Meredith spoke, "All right, so you're saying we take it."

"I'm just saying." Callie shook her head as she sat down, "You don't walk away from a number like this, right?"

Derek's eyes met Allison's seeing as they are hesitant about taking the settlement. Owen spoke, "Well, I'm still talking to Cristina, but I think she'd want to take it, yeah."

Callie nodded, as her gaze went to Meredith, "Mer?"

"Yeah." Meredith nodded, "I mean, I guess, yeah."

"Allie, Derek, what do you think? It has to be unanimous. What do you say?"

Derek sighed, "I say, we have until tomorrow."

Allison agreed with Derek, "We have one more day."

***

The man unlocked the door turned around to face Allison and Derek, "I could get in a lot of trouble for this." He opened the door and Derek went straight in, followed by Allison as they observed the pieces around the floor with numbers on them. The two of them wanted to see the evidence from the crash, wanting to know if they should settle or not.

"Wow." Allison looked around the room, the pieces of the plane bringing back memories.

"The plane's aft broke away from the main cabin." The man said, pointing to the things. "The tail was recovered in, uh, zone one." Allison looked at the tail, realizing it was the one Lexie was trapped in. Derek walked forwards as the man looked at him, "That's a keel beam. It was recovered in zone two about half a mile away." Allison stared before following Derek, "And that's the R-3 cabin door."

"What happens to all of this?" Derek asked, "What happens if we settle?"

The man shrugged as Derek and Allison gazes meet, knowing what they should do.

***

"Sorry." Derek and Allison said at the same time once they entered the room. Derek made his way to sit down next to Meredith, as Allison sat down next to Callie.

Meredith looked at Derek and Allison and went back to the topic they were discussing, "So we all agreed and we—"

"No, wait." Derek interrupted, "We can't do this." Everyone furrowed their eyebrows in confusion, except for Allison, "Allison and I saw the plane. We went to the hangar and saw the...pieces of our plane laid out on the floor like a jigsaw puzzle. If we agree to settle, they do the investigation, and we can't do anything with the results."

"Bayview Aeronautics will take the results and act accordingly." The airplane lawyer spoke up.

"Oh, I'm sure. Big companies are always very good about self-policing—-"

"Mistakes happen, Derek." Callie looked at Derek and shook her head, "Accidents happen. We make mistakes that can cost lives too."

Derek nodded, "Yes we do. But when we do, we have M&M's, we pore over the files, we make sure it never happens again. And we try to make sure future patients never have to go through that grief. They don't have to sleep with the lights on every night because the darkness is too much. We just can't stand by and let this happen to other people's...Lexies and Marks. We have to do something about it. We have to make this right."

"If I could interject for a moment—" The hospital lawyer tried to say but was interrupted by Allison.

"Be quiet."

"Your decision does have to be unanimous."

Owen brought up his hand slightly, "She said, be quiet."

Derek looked at Callie, "Callie...what are you thinking?"

The hospital lawyer tried to speak up again, "My advice at this time—-"

Allison, Meredith, and Owen all looked at the lawyer and slightly raised their voices, "Shut up."

"You're not one of us. You don't know. You have no idea what we've been..." Callie sobbed, wiping her tears, trying to calm herself down, "Derek's right. We shouldn't take the company's money." Callie shook her head, "We can't take it."

Callie pushed away the settlement papers towards the company lawyer. With that, Allison, Derek, Meredith and Owen all gave back the settlement papers as Allison nodded at Derek letting out an exhale.