forty-five

as she walked inside the room and slammed a pink post-it right in front of her, "Uh, Can you write down your mailing address for me?"

Stephanie looked confused, looking back at the attending and the pink post-it, "Sure."

"I-I'm sending you an invitation to my wedding." Allison explained as Stephanie wrote her address down and gave it to her, "Great! Thanks, I hope you'll come. Obviously, you can also, uh, bring someone."

Stephanie just nodded. Allison awkwardly smiled before leaving the room, closing the door behind her. It wasn't the plan to invite Stephanie, since she was going to be Jackson's plus one but Micheal doesn't want Jackson to receive an invitation so she went with plan B.

***

"Hey." Allison greeted Meredith, Derek and Ben at the nurses station, holding up the tablet in her hands as Owen walked away.

"Do you have Thanksgiving plans?" Meredith asked Allison and Alex, who just approached the group.

"What do you think?" Alex said, as Allison shook her head.

"My house. Three o'clock." Meredith stated to the both of them.

"Okay, uh Micheal and I will be there." Allison nodded, as she quickly put a mental note to tell Micheal their plans.

"All right." Alex agreed, "I'm bringing Jo."

"I figured." Meredith said, looking down at the tablet, feeling annoyed with everyone seeing as Cristina is using her printer for her project, causing a drift on their friendship.

"Don't sound so excited." Alex sarcastically said, "You know, you were an intern balling an attending once."

"Mm-hmm."

"You kiss my kids with that mouth?" Meredith yelled at a retrieving Alex as both of them walked away and Allison chuckled.

***

"Hey," Jackson greeted Allison, who put her pen away, "So you realize that Stephanie and I are serious, right? You get that?"

Allison furrowed her brows, "Yeah. I think it's nice that you guys are, you know...whatever you are." Allison fixed the tablet on its holder before facing Jackson.

"Right, so—so why is it that you invited her to your wedding plus a guest and you're gonna invite me plus a guest? What's going on?"

Allison closed her eyes, "Right, yeah." She opened her eyes shaking her head, "I wanted to talk to you about that. You are actually not getting an invitation, but Stephanie is, so you could just be her plus one."

"Mm-hmm." Jackson crossed his arms, looking at her, as Allison sighed.

"Look," Allison began, "I put your name on the invite list. Your name is Avery. We don't know any other A's. You're literally the top of the list, first thing we see when we look at it." She sighed, "Micheal felt uncomfortable."

Jackson bitterly laughed, "If he has a problem with my name on a piece of paper, why should I be at the wedding?"

"Because of me." Allison whispered, "Because you're my friend and I want you to be there."

Jackson stared into her eyes, "Yeah, well, I wanna be there, too, but...come on..."

"Jackson, I can't go through with this if I don't have your blessing."

"Well, you have it." Jackson said, "But I don't think I should be there."

***

"The computer diagnostic is complete." Callie informed Allison and Derek from the computer as she checked it, "Everything checks out."

"Finished the robotic prosthetic inspection." Allison nodded, "It's all in order."

"So...We're ready to try again?" Callie asked, as she and Derek move towards the patient.

"Let's get her connected." Derek nodded, grabbing the object they need.

"Every time you do that, I feel like the bride of Frankenstein." The patient said, as Derek and Callie put in the censors before they walk back to the computer, where Allison was seated in.

Allison looked at the visuals from the computer as her phone went off causing her to look at it. She sighed, "I have to go, Micheal's family is here and so are my cousins and they want to take us to breakfast."

"But it's past 10:00am." Derek looked at his watch, before looking at Allison.

"Brunch?" Allison lifted herself up from the chair, "I'll try to be back as soon as possible."

***

"To Micheal and Allison." Rose Carter toasted, raising up her glass, she was followed by the rest of the people at the table.

Allison's cousins have arrived to Seattle for the wedding this weekend, her aunt would be coming the day before the wedding seeing as she didn't want to close her clothing shop for two days.

The Rivers family have arrived as well, and once they heard Allison's cousins were in town they wanted to have a brunch to celebrate the almost newly weds.

Micheal's mom—Camila Rivers smiled at Allison, "We can't thank you enough for making our son happy."

Allison felt the guilt come back again, she knew she made him happy, but he didn't exactly make her happy, she tightly smiled, "No problem." She opened the menu on her hands, "So, Mr. Rivers, how's work?"

Jeremy Rivers was a business man as well, "Always stuck in the office, but it's worth it when you have the person you love waiting at home for you."

"You are so lucky, Allie, he's so handsome." Aaliyah Carter complimented Micheal, causing him to smile at her.

"Speaking of handsome—who is that and why is he waving at us?" Emma Rivers—Micheal's sister asked. Allison turned her head to see Jackson walking inside the cafe his hand waving at Allison, while Emma eyed him up and down.