randomfic_Queen
The white halls of Seattle Grace Mercy West pulsed with a nervous heartbeat that only the newly merged interns could hear. Somewhere between the scent of sterilized steel, rushing blood, and boiling resentment, she walked in like she owned the damn place.
Zaria Phoenix Bellamy didn't flinch under fluorescent lighting. Her boots echoed louder than any heartbeat in Trauma One. Interns stopped whispering as she passed. Even Alex Karev blinked twice, like he wasn't sure if he was seeing a new surgeon or a supermodel in navy scrubs.
She had no white coat. No ID clipped to her chest. Just a slim leather folder tucked under one arm and eyes sharp enough to slice through the tension thickening the corridor.
"Who the hell wears heels on her first day?" Jackson Avery murmured behind Cristina Yang, loud enough to be heard. "What is this, runway rounds?"
"Shut up," Cristina muttered, though her eyes were watching, too. She didn't like that Zaria looked unbothered. Or that her edges were laid better than her own sleep schedule. Or that she seemed like she knew something none of them did.
Zaria stopped in front of the nurse's station.
"Intern Zaria Bellamy, Mercy West transfer. Neuro-peds track," she said crisply. Her voice had the warmth of a winter scalpel—clean, exact, cutting.
The nurses exchanged looks.
Bailey turned the corner, squinting before she even spoke. "You the rich one?"
Zaria didn't blink. "If you're asking if I've paid my dues, I'm four surgeries ahead of schedule and one psych rotation short of bored."
Cristina let out a short, involuntary laugh that turned into a cough.
Meredith Grey, silently leaning against the wall nearby, said nothing. But she was watching.
Zaria turned her head slightly, scanning the whiteboard, the patient charts, the radiology display blinking on the monitor. A craniotomy case—severe swelling post MVA, likely subdural hematoma, suspected vessel tear.
She tilted her head.
"Patient 37-B is bleeding behind the orbital ridge. Probably anterior communicating artery rupture. It's not on the chart yet. If they open him midline instead of high left, he won't make it."
Bailey froze.
She turned. "What did you just say?"
Zaria handed her the leather folder, already open to a sketched diagram—freehand. Every vein, artery, and compression angle annotated with scalpel depth.
"I reviewed the scan in the elevator," she said. "Call it a hunch. Or we can wait until he codes."
Bailey stared at her like she was some kind of alien.
"You sure you're an intern?"
"No," Zaria replied. "I'm sure I'm right."
Fifteen minutes later, Zaria was scrubbed in.
No one said she could be. No one said she couldn't.
"Who the hell let an intern in this OR?" the attending barked.
"Call it a glitch," Bailey muttered, watching from the gallery.
The bleed was exactly where she'd said it would be.
Zaria didn't touch the patient. But she hovered just behind the assist, speaking quietly. "Cut four centimeters higher. Rotate left. Gently, or the pressure spike will—"
The attending blinked as the monitor flatlined and then corrected—just like that.
"—stabilize," she finished.
The surgery ended ten minutes faster than expected. The bleed was contained. The attending credited luck. Bailey credited fear.
Back in the locker room, April Kepner was panicking. "She's like… a robot. Or worse. A Cristina with money."
"Worse," Cristina said, peeling off her cap. "She's clean. Too clean. Like she doesn't sweat."
Zaria entered as if on cue, setting her tablet down.
"Nice save in the pit, Kepner," she said. "You held the retractor upside down."
April's face flushed.
"You memorize every surgery?" Cristina asked, tilting her head.
Zaria smiled, just barely. "I don't memorize. I see."
She walked to the mirror, adjusted her hair with surgical precision, then turned.
"You're sleeping in that dump?" she asked, gesturing toward the intern housing map scribbled on April's planner. "How cute."
"Where are you staying?" Meredith asked suddenly.
Zaria met her eyes in the mirror.
"Someplace with enough beds for all of us. I like not listening to people whine in hallways."
Cristina narrowed her eyes. "You're inviting us to your billionaire Barbie house?"
"Billionaire's an insult," Zaria said. "I inherited assets. I live alone. That's a bigger problem."
Alex Karev leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed. "So what, you're buying us off with house keys?"
Zaria tossed a set on the bench.
"No," she said. "I'm offering silence. And walls that don't smell like bleach and regret."
That night, the house wasn't a house—it was a goddamn palace.
Three stories. Steel and glass. Mood lighting. Aromatherapy in the vents. Fireplaces that looked like museum pieces—though Zaria never lit them.
"Okay, this is not okay," April said, staring at the wine wall.
Cristina opened the fridge. "She has caviar in here. Who even eats caviar?"
"People who see brains in 3D," Alex said.
Zaria walked into the living room with her laptop.
"Don't touch the black cabinet. That's where I keep trauma kits and bourbon."
"You're a head case," Cristina said, almost respectfully.
Zaria looked up, deadpan. "Aren't we all?"
Later that night, she stepped into her private bathroom. She lit a match—to burn sage. But the flame flickered wrong.
Too orange. Too fast.
A sound filled her ears—the pop of gas, the shattering scream of her mother, the heavy thud of ceiling beams collapsing.
She dropped the match.
Her hand trembled.
She sat on the floor, breathing too hard, gripping her scalp.
Don't burn. Don't burn. Don't burn.
It was 4:23 a.m. when Zaria opened her eyes to the scent of lavender mist and silence. Her bedroom, encased in smooth obsidian walls and blackout glass, sat at the highest point of her mansion — alone, suspended over the Seattle skyline like a throne.
Her palms were still slick from the nightmare. The match. The scream. The thud.
But she never let herself linger.
Downstairs, in the guest wing, Jackson was snoring on the Italian leather couch, a journal half-fallen from his chest. April was curled on a memory foam lounger with earbuds and a devotion book clutched like a Bible. Cristina had taken over the den and was muttering surgical terms in her sleep. Alex had snuck out around 2 a.m. with a nurse named Reese and a six-pack of someone else's microbrew.
Typical.
Zaria wasn't sure why she let them stay.
They weren't friends. Not really.
But she liked the noise. The human static. She could ignore the fire if the house was full of breathing.
She padded down to the kitchen barefoot, her silk robe flowing like shadows. The house was motionless. Still. Until she opened the fridge, poured herself a glass of oat milk, and heard a voice behind her.
"You always this composed at sunrise?"
Zaria turned.
Leaning against the doorway was a nurse — tall, genderfluid, mocha skin, half-shaved head, an eyebrow piercing glinting under the dim lights.
"I'm Atlas," they said. "From Neuro. I crashed here last night with Alex. He passed out mid-kiss. Your wine is expensive. I stole a glass. Sorry."
Zaria tilted her head. "You're forgiven. You're hot."
Atlas grinned. "You're terrifying."
They walked over. Slowly. Deliberately.
Zaria didn't move.
"I've seen you in surgery," Atlas said. "It's like you're… I don't know. Inside the body already. It's kind of sexy."
Zaria raised an eyebrow. "You're attracted to holograms?"
"No," Atlas murmured, stepping into her space. "I'm attracted to whatever the hell you are."
Zaria didn't smile. But she didn't pull away either.
She didn't sleep again.
They tangled in the sheets like two strangers trying to forget their names. It wasn't sweet. It wasn't soft. It was surgical.
She whispered, "Don't stay."
Atlas kissed her collarbone and left without another word.
Exactly how she liked it.
By 6:30 a.m., Zaria was back at the hospital. She didn't look tired. She never did. But her eyes were glassier than usual as she stared into the surgical schedule.
Pediatrics consult. 7:15. Hydrocephalus.
Her name wasn't even on the docket. But she showed up anyway.
Arizona Robbins looked up from the chart as Zaria entered. Her prosthetic clicked against the tile.
"Bellamy. You're not on this case."
Zaria pointed to the MRI. "He has Dandy-Walker. The cyst's pressing on the vermis. His fontanelle's off. Tap the wrong spot and he's a vegetable."
Arizona's brows furrowed. "I know what Dandy-Walker is."
"I'm just reminding you that I do, too."
"Why are you even here?"
"I like kids."
Arizona raised a skeptical brow.
Zaria hesitated — the first crack in her armor.
"They remind me of... what you lose before you learn to hide it."
There was a beat of silence. Arizona looked away.
"Scrub in," she said finally. "But stay out of my way."
The OR was quiet.
Zaria stood behind Arizona, monitoring vitals, lips sealed.
But her mind was alive.
Her vision bloomed with the child's brain—mapped in color, showing pressure zones like blinking lights. Her fingers twitched as Arizona made the incision.
"You're off by three millimeters," Zaria said.
Arizona froze. "Excuse me?"
Zaria pointed — not touching, just hovering. "The cyst's pushed left. If you tap there, you'll decompress too fast and spike ICP."
Arizona hesitated. Glanced at the monitor.
Zaria was right.
She adjusted. The pressure stabilized. The boy's breathing evened.
Later, Arizona didn't thank her.
But as they left the OR, she murmured, "Next time, speak *before* the cut."
Zaria smirked. "Next time, don't cut blind."
By noon, word was spreading.
"She sees like she's inside them," one nurse whispered.
"She called a Dandy-Walker mid-MRI," said another.
"She's creepy," April insisted.
Cristina just shrugged. "She's useful."
Zaria's next consult was a burn patient.
She didn't notice until it was too late.
The chart said "scald trauma," but when she entered the room, the smell hit her—burnt skin, chemicals, antiseptic over soot.
The child was small. Maybe five. Hair singed. Face gauzed.
Zaria's breath caught.
The room spun.
Her fingers trembled. Her chest tightened.
"I—I'm not the right doctor," she stammered, backing out.
"Wait!" the nurse called. "Dr. Bellamy!"
She was already gone.
Out into the stairwell. Down three flights. Into the alley behind the hospital.
She vomited.
Twice.
Hands on her knees. Shaking.
Cristina found her twenty minutes later, standing beside a dumpster like she'd lost a fight with a ghost.
"You're not made of steel after all," Cristina said softly.
Zaria wiped her mouth. "Get used to disappointment."
Cristina handed her a mint.
Zaria looked at her.
"You ever see someone burn alive?" she asked.
Cristina shook her head.
Zaria nodded once. "Then don't talk to me like we're the same."
And she walked away.
Later that night, Cristina arrived at the mansion with tequila and silence.
They sat on the rooftop. Stars above. Seattle below.
Neither spoke for a long time.
Finally, Cristina said, "You don't have to be perfect here. Nobody is."
Zaria took the bottle. Drank.
"I'm not trying to be perfect," she whispered. "I'm trying to be better than the last time I failed."
Cristina didn't ask what that meant.
She just refilled the glass.
It was only day four, but Zaria had already become a rumor with a pulse.
They called her The Memory Surgeon. Some whispered that she was a diagnostic savant, others claimed she could smell brain bleeds through concrete. Someone swore they saw her correct an attending without even touching a chart.
Cristina just called her "weirdly useful."
Bailey called her "a pain in my narrowed vessels."
But Zaria? She didn't care what they called her—as long as they stayed the hell out of her head.
"Neuro-peds consult, Room 311. Internal seizure cascade post-cranial trauma," the intern board blared at 10:06 a.m.
Zaria was already halfway there.
She moved like code — direct, silent, decisive. The elevator pinged and she stepped off just as the seizure began. The child—a girl, nine years old, post-car crash—was convulsing violently, eyes rolling back, monitors screaming.
Zaria didn't shout. She didn't panic.
She crossed the room, checked the IV, and turned the girl's head 17 degrees.
"Nasal passage is obstructed from last night's nasal cannula," she muttered. "Her left temporal lobe's misfiring from the impact angle. Diazepam, low dose. Let her ride the edge out."
The nurse hesitated. "The chart—"
"Her *brain* is in front of you," Zaria said flatly. "Not the chart."
They administered the drug. Within thirty seconds, the girl stopped seizing.
From behind the glass, Derek Shepherd was watching.
He leaned against the wall, coffee untouched, hair perfect.
"She didn't even blink," he said.
Arizona joined him. "It's unsettling."
"She's better than half the residents."
"She's *an intern*."
"Maybe on paper," Derek said, "but that girl operates like she was born holding a scalpel."
By lunch, the hospital buzzed louder than usual.
Zaria sat alone in the back corner of the cafeteria, picking apart a chicken Caesar salad with surgical precision. Her earbuds played lo-fi hip hop. She wore her scrub top half-zipped, revealing a black ribbed tank and the tattoo just below her clavicle:
Vires acquirit eundo.
*She gains strength as she goes.*
Meredith approached without a tray.
"You're not here to make friends, are you?"
Zaria didn't look up. "Does anyone come here for that?"
"I did."
"You have childhood trauma."
"So do you," Meredith said, coolly.
Zaria looked up, eyes narrowing. "Did you research me?"
Meredith's tone didn't flinch. "You live in a three-story home alone. You've never mentioned your family. You flinch at every fire alarm. You're either a very rich sociopath… or someone with good reason to be this cold."
Zaria stood.
"Don't project your parental abandonment issues on me, Dr. Grey."
Meredith's voice dropped. "Don't confuse isolation for safety, Bellamy. It's just another kind of bleeding."
They stared at each other.
Then Zaria walked away.
Meredith exhaled, slowly. "Definitely trauma."
That night, the house wasn't as quiet.
The interns were laughing.
Cristina and Jackson were drunkenly arguing over burr holes versus trephination. April was crying over a vet video. Alex was half-dressed, cooking eggs shirtless.
Zaria stood in the hallway, unseen.
She didn't go in. She didn't want to join them.
Not yet.
Instead, she found herself in the guest bedroom. The one she never let anyone use.
It still smelled like sage.
She sat on the edge of the bed and opened the drawer.
Inside was an old photo. Two adults. A little girl. Standing in front of a makeshift clinic in the desert with bright sun and broken smiles.
The edges were singed.
She hadn't looked at it in years.
Suddenly, footsteps.
Atlas appeared in the doorway, wearing yesterday's scrubs and a crooked smile.
"Bad night?"
Zaria closed the drawer. "Every night's bad."
Atlas tilted their head. "You know, for someone with a billion-dollar house and photographic memory, you're remarkably sad."
Zaria scoffed. "You came here to therapize me?"
"No," Atlas said, stepping closer. "I came to hook up again. The therapy's just a bonus."
Zaria kissed them before she could say no.
The next morning, she was in pre-op.
Her patient: a six-year-old with Chiari malformation. Posterior fossa crowding. Early symptoms. Seemed minor on scans.
Zaria saw otherwise.
She stood before the monitor, eyes narrowed.
The crowding was deeper. Closer to the foramen magnum than noted.
If they touched the wrong tissue, the kid could seize mid-op.
Derek entered. "You're not scrubbing in."
"I know," she said. "But he's not stable. You need to shift the approach."
Derek tilted his head. "What are you seeing?"
She didn't answer. She picked up a dry erase marker and sketched it on the glass.
Veins. Brain stem. Flow trajectory. The choke point.
Derek raised an eyebrow.
"Okay," he said. "Scrub in."
She worked behind him. Quiet. Fluid. Her vision guided his tools. She whispered where to shift. What to avoid.
He never asked how she knew.
But when it was over, and the kid was stable, he said softly, "You're not normal."
Zaria shrugged. "Neither is genius."
Later that evening, as the sun dipped below the horizon, Zaria sat alone on the rooftop. A match burned between her fingers.
She watched the flame curl and dance.
"Don't burn," she whispered.
And blew it out.
Seattle rain slicked the streets in silver as Zaria stood beneath the overhang outside the hospital's emergency entrance. Her scrub top was rolled at the sleeves, stethoscope still draped around her neck. One hand gripped a coffee she hadn't sipped. The other—shaking, just slightly.
Behind her, ambulances howled.
She wasn't supposed to be out here. But fresh air felt like oxygen she could control. Unlike the air inside, tainted by antiseptic, ammonia, and the threat of combustion in every power surge.
Inside, the trauma bay lit up red.
Code Red — Pediatric Burn Victim.
Kitchen fire. Third-degree. Eight years old. Breathing labored.
Zaria flinched.
The radio crackled.
She turned slowly, heart already racing.
"You okay?" Meredith asked, walking up with a folder in one hand and coffee in the other.
Zaria didn't answer at first. Her jaw clenched.
"I don't like burn cases."
Meredith arched a brow. "Nobody does."
"No," Zaria said, more sharply. "I mean I *don't like burn cases*."
Meredith studied her for a second, then quietly handed her the folder.
"You don't have to go in. Robbins is on call."
Zaria shook her head once, decisive. "I scrub in."
Inside the trauma bay, the scene was chaos.
The boy was barely conscious, skin sloughed in patches across his arms, face blackened but intact. His breathing wheezed through a singed trachea. Arizona was already shouting orders.
"Get the lactated ringers—fast! No Dextrose! Intubation kit now!"
Cristina was assisting. April froze at the doorway.
Zaria stepped in.
Then the scent hit her.
Flame. Smoke. Burned fabric.
Her knees locked.
Her hands started shaking.
She saw fire. Not here—but then. Back then.
The bed. The door. Her mother. Screaming.
Zaria blinked hard. Gritted her teeth.
And walked to the boy.
"Get a line in the femoral," she said tightly.
Arizona didn't look up. "You good?"
Zaria ignored the question. "If he crashes, you'll lose airway before the ET tube clears the vocal folds."
"He's crashing."
Zaria acted.
She moved faster than she thought she could—adrenaline and memory fusing in her bloodstream. Her fingers found the femoral. She guided the intubation kit into place.
"Now," she snapped. "Cricoid pressure."
Cristina applied it.
Zaria inserted the tube. Air hissed in.
The boy stabilized.
Arizona exhaled. "That was…"
"Necessary," Zaria said.
She left before anyone could thank her.
Later, in the stairwell, she sat alone.
Hands shaking. Again.
A quiet cough startled her.
Derek.
He leaned on the railing, arms folded, watching her with the patience of a neurosurgeon and the eyes of someone who'd spent too many years in pain.
"Do you see it again?" he asked softly.
Zaria didn't move.
"The fire. Your fire."
She closed her eyes.
"I was six," she said. "My mother was a surgeon. My father ran a clinic. I was supposed to be in the car with them. But I had a fever. So I stayed home. The fire took the whole facility."
Derek said nothing.
"I see it every time I smell smoke," she whispered. "Sometimes even when I don't."
Derek finally spoke. "You can't outrun it."
"I'm not running."
"You're freezing."
Zaria looked at him. Her face was stone.
"I'm operating."
He nodded once.
And left her there, alone in the stairwell with nothing but her ghosts.
That evening, Arizona found her on the peds floor, organizing files that didn't belong to her.
"You okay?" she asked.
Zaria didn't look up. "Why does everyone keep asking that?"
"Because you look like someone trying really hard not to break in public."
Zaria snapped the folder shut.
"Are we having a moment, Robbins?"
Arizona sighed. "You saved that boy's life. I've worked with surgeons who would've frozen, panicked, or killed him trying to help."
Zaria finally looked at her. Her eyes weren't proud. They weren't even grateful.
"I didn't help him," she said. "I fought not to see myself on that gurney."
Arizona paused. "And?"
"And I saw it anyway."
The next shift, Bailey had Zaria assisting in a tumor resection. Nothing fancy. A routine frontal lobe case.
Halfway through, the attending misread the scan.
Zaria didn't speak.
Bailey noticed her hesitation.
"You see something?"
"Yes," Zaria said. "The mass dips lower than the scan resolution shows. You need to shift twenty degrees or you'll clip the Broca's area."
Bailey didn't move. "You sure?"
Zaria grabbed the marker and sketched the new angle on the overhead scan.
Bailey followed it.
She was right.
Again.
That night, the interns threw a party.
The house was glowing. Lights strung over the rooftop. Music low but infectious. People danced. Flirted. Laughed.
Zaria stood at the edge, glass of something brown in her hand.
Cristina walked up. "You're brooding again."
"I'm observing."
"You're lonely."
"I'm brilliant."
"Those aren't mutually exclusive," Cristina said.
Zaria turned. "You think I'm messed up."
"I think you're like the rest of us," Cristina said. "Just… shinier. And more expensive."
Zaria almost smiled.
Cristina tapped her glass. "To interns who don't break."
Zaria replied, "To interns who bleed and still cut better than anyone else."
They drank.
In the shadows, Atlas appeared again.
Zaria didn't flinch.
"You're not dancing?"
"I don't need movement to feel chaos," Zaria said.
Atlas smirked. "Come upstairs."
Zaria hesitated.
"I'm not the solution," Atlas added. "Just the distraction."
Zaria followed.
Later, they lay on the bed.
Atlas traced the edge of Zaria's tattoo.
"What's it mean?"
"She gains strength as she goes."
"You believe that?"
"No," Zaria whispered. "I believe she fakes it until no one knows she's dying inside."
Atlas kissed her shoulder.
"You're not dying."
"No," Zaria said. "I'm just always on fire."
The beeping started at 2:17 a.m.
Zaria had been asleep for exactly forty-three minutes, sprawled on her silk sheets with a post-surgery haze still clinging to her brain. Atlas was gone. The house was quiet.
Then: the buzz. The page. The code.
Emergency OR. Pediatric neuro case. Seizure mid-procedure.
Zaria didn't pause.
She threw on scrubs. Pulled on boots. Hair in a bun. Out the door.
The house was still echoing with the smell of vodka and victory from the rooftop party, but Zaria didn't care.
She only cared about the brain.
By 2:41 a.m., she was in OR 4.
The lights were brutal. The patient: a ten-year-old with a post-op clot that hadn't shown on earlier scans. She had been fine during initial drainage. Now her vitals were crashing, brain swelling out of control.
Cristina was scrubbed in. So was Arizona. Bailey stood near the monitor, barking orders.
Derek wasn't there.
"I need the OR map," Zaria said as she entered.
Bailey looked at her. "You weren't paged."
"I'm not here for permission."
Cristina didn't argue.
Arizona handed over the chart. "She's seizing from an unseen bleed. We can't locate the rupture."
Zaria didn't respond.
She stepped to the monitor.
Closed her eyes.
And *saw* it.
In her mind, the child's brain unfolded like a flower made of blood and bone. She visualized every vessel. Every vein. The arachnoid fold where pressure collected like hidden thunder.
"There," she said. "Left lateral—hidden beneath the falx cerebri. Small but ruptured. You won't see it from this angle."
Cristina adjusted the scope.
And there it was.
A pulse of blood blooming like a whisper from hell.
Cristina made the cut.
Zaria's hands moved—she wasn't even scrubbed in, but she guided them like a conductor.
Arizona clamped.
Bailey stabilized the BP.
The bleed stopped.
The child lived.
Afterward, the silence in the OR was different. Respectful. Almost fearful.
Cristina peeled off her gloves.
Bailey looked Zaria up and down. "You scare me."
Zaria didn't smile. "You should be scared of losing kids because of old habits."
Arizona gave her a long look.
"You keep doing this," she said softly, "and no one will be able to touch you. Not even to reach you."
Zaria turned away.
"I don't need to be touched."
Back at the house, it was nearly dawn.
The others were still passed out. Wine glasses half-full on the kitchen counter. Spotify still looping indie acoustics on low.
Zaria walked to the fireplace.
Lit a match.
She stared at it.
Felt her heart race.
But she didn't flinch.
Instead, she dropped the match into the glass basin and watched the flames curl around the stones. Controlled. Beautiful.
Behind her, a voice.
"You're doing it again."
Meredith.
Zaria didn't turn. "Doing what?"
"Pretending you're not scared."
"I'm not."
Meredith stepped forward. "You can't outcut fear."
"I can outthink it."
Meredith let the silence hang.
"Cristina used to think like you," she said. "Then she realized genius doesn't save you. It just isolates you faster."
Zaria didn't speak.
Meredith placed a hand on her shoulder. It was gentle. Light.
Zaria didn't move.
"You did good tonight," Meredith said.
"I saved a brain," Zaria murmured.
Meredith paused. "And you didn't burn."
Zaria finally looked at her.
"No," she said. "I didn't."
Hours later, Zaria stood in front of the bathroom mirror.
She stared at her reflection like it was a stranger. A threat. An echo.
Then, she picked up a scalpel.
Not to cut herself.
To carve her initials into the underside of the sink drawer—next to a tiny inscription in Latin:
"She cut through fire."
[Chapter 1 End]