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kaitidid22 · 1 year

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On Friendship (Conrad/Nic, Nic & Billie, Billie & Conrad)

Summary: Conrad and Nic walk to dinner and have a conversation about Billie, much to Conrad's annoyance. (Canon-friendly & set before Gigi's birth and very early in Billie's return.)

A/N: I set this one from Conrad's perspective, so that was different to write. I'm not sure I'm going to do that again-it was very hard. But let me know if you like it, and maybe I'll give it another go.

I guess this one isn't really set in the Lost Years, but it sort of feels like it in my head. Working on more Conrad/Billie centric pieces!

I cried during the finale. I still haven't recovered. I must have a season 7. I MUST. Please. I beg.

On Friendship

“I invited Billie,” Nic said as they strolled down the sidewalk, arm in arm.

Conrad waited for the flare of dread and loathing in his chest that usually followed the sound of Nic’s best friend’s name. But it remained mostly quiet, the steady thuthump thuthump thuthump of his heartbeat accompanied only by a slight twinge of irritation.

Huh, he thought. But he was trying to keep Nic calm and stay on her good side, so he just shrugged a shoulder and said, “Okay.”

Nic gave him a stern look, and Conrad made a who me? gesture. Secure in the knowledge that she found him adorable, he watched his wife battle against amusement at his cheekiness. In the end, though, Nic won the war, and the stern expression remained.

“What is it?” he asked, resigned to a lecture.

“No comments,” Nic said.

“No comments about what?”

“Anything,” Nic stressed. “Work, Syria, the past, the future. Nothing.”

“The past and the future are off limits? What’s left to talk about?” Conrad asked, but he kept his tone teasing.

“I have faith in you, Mr. Gabby.”

“That’s a terrible nickname,” he said.

“You have the gift of gab,” Nic told him. “Embrace it.”

“Uh-huh.”

Without thinking about it, he reached over and caressed her pregnant belly. Nic made a humming sigh of contentment in the back of her throat. A slow smile spread across his face.

If anyone had pulled him aside ten years before and told him he would have a beautiful wife, with a baby on the way and zero desire to run for the hills, he would have laughed himself silly.

And, yet, there he was with a crackerjack, whip smart blonde in a little red dress on his arm. And their baby was in her belly, and they were strolling towards dinner at their favorite bistro—because they had a favorite bistro—in their own neighborhood, just a few blocks from their house. And chickens. So many chickens.

Conrad loved his life.

“And there’s one other thing,” Nic said.

“This should be good,” he murmured.

Conrad waited. But Nic didn’t speak. Finally, after a few beats of tension, it dawned on him that whatever Nic was trying to tell him was serious—even more serious than their exchanges about Billie usually were. Slowing to a stop, he unthreaded Nic’s arm from the crook of his elbow and stepped in front of her. He brushed a lock of blonde hair out of her face and took in her expression.

She looked hesitant, and that wiped the smirk right off his face. Nic knew she could tell him anything.

“Nic, what is it?” he asked.

“She doesn’t like compliments,” Nic said.

The words came at him in the serious voice Nic employed to tell him that a patient’s labs were dire or their sats were dropping. Conrad would be the first to tell anyone he was an idiot, so he should have known not to focus on the words themselves but listen to the way she’d said them. And, still, he didn’t. He only heard the literal meaning, and an incredulous expression slid onto his face.

“I beg to differ,” he said, almost laughing at the absurdity. “Billie Sutton’s ego would shock Liberace.”

“She’s not that person anymore,” Nic said. She wrapped her hands around the open front of his leather jacket to pull him closer. “And she was never as bad as you made her out to be.”

He let out a loud, humorless laugh, and Nic dropped his jacket entirely, lips thinning. He braced himself for all the things he had heard from her over the past three years any time the topic of Billie had come up in conversation—a topic that had turned any conversation into a fight about eighty percent of the time in the months following the whole, awful mess with Conrad’s patient.

“You know I understand why you turned her in,” Nic had said, shoving her sweater in her bag.

Conrad had thrown his arms wide. “Then why are you mad at me? I had no choice.”

She had been rushing around his apartment, gathering up her belongings. He had been panicked at first, thinking something was truly wrong, but then she had explained that Billie had accepted a surgery position with Patients in Health. Only the recruiter had told Billie that she had needed to be on a plane that same day, and Nic would have to meet her at the airport to say goodbye.

“There’s always a choice, Conrad,” Nic had said. “And there was a hell of a lot more nuance involved than you were willing to admit.”

“What nuance? She wasn’t supposed to cut, and she did. It seems pretty black and white to me.”

“Oh, yes,” Nic had snapped, startling him. “Because your decisions are always so black and white. You fucking live in the gray area, Conrad.”

Conrad had told himself to take a deep breath. He had known when they started dating how close Nic and Billie were. He hadn’t liked it, it hadn’t been convenient, but he had known.

“My patient will never walk again, never talk again. He was young, Nic. He had his life ahead of him,” Conrad had said.

“I know. And it’s awful. And I’m so sorry for him and his family,” Nic had said. She had stopped rushing around the apartment. “I have to go. Billie’s flight is in three hours. If I don’t leave now, I’m going to miss her.”

“Fine,” he had said.

Nic had given him a look that held so much disillusioned disappointment that it had felt like someone stabbed him in the chest. And, then, Nicolette Nevin—the most even-keeled person he had ever met—slammed his front door on the way out. Yet another thing that had been Billie’s fault.

As Nic watched him brace for an attack, she morphed into sharp edges before his eyes. But all she said was, “You promised you would try.”

Yeah, I did that, he thought, regretting it for the ten thousandth time.

Conrad drew a breath in through his nose. “I did. And I am.”

Nic continued to watch him. Her eyes were sad and irritated and fierce and determined. Conrad shoved aside the irritation that was sharpening itself against his gut like a lode stone.

“I am,” he said, trying to convey a sincerity he didn’t really feel.

But Nic, of course, saw right through that. “Conrad,” Nic said, sighing and looking away into the night.

They had reached the small business district of their quiet neighborhood. Strings of lights zigzagged through the air over the street. A few couples were walking hand-in-hand, and the smattering of restaurants had set their sidewalk tables out for the night. Laughter floated through the air.

“Aronson was a lazy hack with rusty skills. He hid behind his residents,” Billie had said.

And didn’t that ring true? Nic’s voice—the voice of his conscience—pointed out in his brain. You hate Aronson.

Conrad shoved the thought away. He didn’t want Billie and her issues taking up any of his brain space if he could help it. He placed soft hands on Nic’s shoulders, cupping around the tension. Nic deserved more from him.

“I am trying,” he said again, trying to convey his sincerity.

She drew in her own deep, calming breath, but her face still troubled. “Okay.”

“Now. Explain,” he murmured. “Why doesn’t Billie like compliments? And why are you warning me about this?”

“She does. She’s a human being. Everyone likes compliments. But…” She stopped and folded her arms over her chest, muttering, “I feel like I’m betraying a confidence.”

Curiosity piqued, Conrad studied her face. “Are you?”

“No,” Nic said, with a rush of breath. “She’s never said… She’s never explained it to me. It’s just a spidey sense. A best friend thing.”

“If you map it out, then I can avoid stepping on a landmine,” Conrad said, dropping his hands.

“She likes compliments about her brain, about her work. Because she is actually quite brilliant, and she knows that,” Nic said. Then she gave him another stern look. “Which is a good thing. More women should be confident in their abilities. And, yet, when they are, society treats them like—I’m rambling.”

Conrad waited, quiet.

Nic rubbed her fingers across her forehead. “She doesn’t like compliments about how she looks.”

Conrad’s eyes narrowed to a squint. “Come again?”

“She doesn’t like anyone to mention how she looks,” Nic said, arms still tight across the top of her pregnant belly.

“Billie Sutton,” Conrad said, drawing the words out slowly to highlight how little this made sense. “Doesn’t like being told she’s pretty?”

“That’s right,” Nic said, calm.

“I find that hard to believe,” he said. He made the words teasing, throwing on a disbelieving half-smile for good measure.

“Well, believe it,” Nic said, not at all charmed. “And this is a nice place. So, she’s going to dress to match. Billie is very careful about that sort of this.”

“What sort of thing?” Conrad asked, confused.

“Etiquette,” Nic said, sounding annoyed with him. “Dress codes.”

“Etiquette? She tried to make Devon park her car,” Conrad pointed out.

“Devon tried to steal a parking space she was already pulling into when she was in a hurry to get to my hospital room,” Nic countered. “You’re telling me you wouldn’t have stonewalled some stranger trying to pull rank in a parking lot over an unassigned space?”

Conrad’s brows slammed together. He really wanted to argue with that. But she would see right through him if he tried.

“For the record,” Nic added, because Nic was always fair. “Billie wasn’t right, and she knows that. She felt bad about it later.”

“Oh, did she?” Conrad murmured. He doubted that.

Nic wrinkled her nose. “Kind of. She felt worse about the impound fee than Devon. She might have said that she would make it a goal to annoy him until his hair vibrated.”

Conrad choked and swallowed down the inappropriate laughter that wanted to escape. “Wow,” was all he said.

“We’re still working on the anger management.” Nic cleared her throat. “I know Billie. And she’s going to wear a dress to dinner because that’s what would be expected.”

Conrad paused. As he stopped to think about it, he realized that he had rarely seen Billie out of scrubs, and, when he had, it was long sleeved shirts and sweaters and pants. If Billie Sutton owned a sundress, she had never worn one around him.

“So, no comments,” Nic said. “Just pretend she’s in jeans and a sweatshirt. Got it?”

“I have seen Billie dressed up before,” he pointed out.

Turning, he slid her arm back through the crook of his elbow. He was encouraged when she settled her fingers on his forearm and leaned into his side.

“Oh yeah?” she asked, wry. “When?”

“The first-year resident’s reception,” he said, triumphant.

Nic snorted, unimpressed. “Seven years ago? And you don’t think that’s a little weird?”

“Do you?” he asked, pointed.

“I don’t know. A little, I guess.”

“Okay,” he murmured. “Why?”

“Billie blossomed young.”

“Blossomed?” he echoed on a laugh.

“Fine. She got boobs,” Nic snapped at him, but she didn’t sound irritated. “And she was so pretty and friendly and suddenly she looked like a teenager. But we were only eleven? Maybe twelve. Mom was still alive.”

Conrad squeezed her arm.

“Anyway,” Nic said on a sigh. “Boys started hitting on her, and she was still just a kid. And she wasn’t even all that interested in boys. She liked to read, and she had this chemistry set that her dad gave her that we were obsessed with.”

Conrad felt a warm rush of love picturing a miniature Nic in safety goggles. “You must have been so adorable with your tiny microscope and beakers.”

She hummed in acknowledgement, but she was distracted. “I remember it made Billie uncomfortable, but the other girls were already getting boy crazy, and they were all so jealous. She got bullied a little.”

“Ouch,” Conrad muttered, uncomfortable with the pang of sympathy he felt.

He couldn’t really relate, but he knew how teenage boys were, and he wanted them nowhere near his daughter. He had already started coming up with elaborate plans to keep boys away from her forever. A moat around the house had seemed like a good idea in the wee hours a few days prior.

“We stopped going to the pool. She started wearing these bulky sweatshirts.” Nic sounded thoughtful, like she had never really considered all of this so deeply.

“She had you,” Conrad reminded her.

Nic’s smile twisted. “Until her family moved away. Anyway, the next time I saw her, we were eighteen, and she was already a lot like she is now. Or was. Before she left.”

Nic stayed quiet, and he could almost feel her brain turning. They were only a block or so from the bistro, and he nudged her gently with his elbow.

“You know, you never told me how you got back in touch,” he said, knowing she would bite at the chance to tell a sanctioned—nay, requested—Billie story.

“I haven’t?” she asked, surprised.

Conrad shook his head, throwing her a little smile. Talking through all of it had seemed to help Nic relax. She had even stopped rubbing her belly every few minutes as if she were checking to see it was still there.

“I found her on one of those social media sites freshman year of colleges,” Nic said, voice perking up a bit at the happier story. “I was thinking about her one day… Missing her, really. Facebook had just come out, so, I searched her name, and I didn’t really think I would find her. But there she was at a school only a couple of hours away. It felt like fate, so I sent her a message.”

“And that was that? You were just back to best friends like no time had passed?” he asked, mostly teasing.

But the question was always there for him. Because he couldn’t understand the bond Nic and Billie had. He couldn’t reconcile the Billie from Nic’s stories, the love and affection in Nic’s voice, with the arrogant, smirking, superior, and razor-sharp Dr. Sutton who had hated him moments after meeting him.

“She answered within three minutes.” Nic sounded smug. “Said she’d missed me, too, and asked if I up for a field trip that weekend. So, I drove out to see her, and the rest is history.”

Conrad kept the comments rolling around the back of his mouth to himself. He hadn’t seen her so easy and carefree in months. He liked it. He liked the color in her cheeks and the soft smile playing with her lips.

And he knew that Billie was a big part of it, which stuck in his craw but was getting easier to swallow each day Billie stayed in Atlanta. The week prior, he had heard them laughing through the floor, shushing each other more loudly than the laughter, in an effort not to wake him after a night shift. He hadn’t heard Nic laugh like that in… He wasn’t sure how long.

He would never admit it to anyone, but the sound had made him grin.

“I just want her to be home,” Nic said. “I know that’s selfish.

“She’s your best friend,” Conrad said, hoping he didn’t sound as grudging as he felt saying it. “Of course, you do.”

Nic squeezed his arm. “Thank you for understanding. I know this isn’t easy for you.”

“Eh,” he said, uncomfortable with her gratitude given how much he still resented Billie’s presence in their life.

He didn’t like having her back. Everyone knew that. But he also found her confusing as hell, and all the times Nic had insisted that Billie wasn’t the same Billie Sutton who had left Chastain in disgrace were starting to lodge themselves in his brain. He had started to wonder if Nic wasn’t right.

“Yes, I understand what I did. And I will never get over it,” Billie had said.

He had been able to see she was holding back tears by sheer will alone. He had heard it in her voice, seen it in her face. And, yet, she had still been looking him dead in the eye because she was Billie Damn Sutton and absolutely nothing scared her.

When Conrad had started as an intern at Chastain, he had been older than the others thanks to his time in the Marines. And the others had all seemed like children compared to his war-worn brothers in arms. It had been hard to take any of the interns seriously. Lives were in their hands, and all they had been able to gossip about was which attendings had been sleeping together.

But Billie. One look at the surgical intern cohort, and his eyes had locked in on Billie without hesitation. He had disliked her on sight. She had held herself apart from the other interns—everything about her had screamed I’m not here to make friends.

Conrad had known with one look that she had zero life experience to back up the confident tilt of her chin, the superior look she had settled on her peers. She had been a day one intern. She had never even cut on a living person before stepping into Chastain. She had never earned the right to call herself a surgeon, to volunteer for thirteen-hour surgeries, and tell everyone she was neuro as if her success had been a foregone conclusion and everyone else had simply been a beat behind.

But Conrad had seen that glint of fearlessness in new recruits’ eyes too many times not to know that Billie was going to fuck up if she didn’t get that ego in check. His biggest fear had been that someone else was going to pay the price for her arrogance.

And over the ensuing years, she had proven herself to be talented. Even Conrad had to admit that. She had scared the hell out of the other interns on her rotations—always with the right answer, always the attendings’ favorite, always Billie Damn Sutton and you had better know her name.

It had taken five years to prove Conrad right. So long that even Conrad had started to question his instincts, to ask if she had merely been unpleasant and brilliant enough as a surgeon to be tolerable. And then Billie had screwed up in an irreversible, horrible way. And someone else had paid for that arrogance. Someone Conrad had cared about.

God he had loathed her. And he had taken satisfaction in punishing her. Even if it had punished Nic in the process.

But then, eight years later, Billie Damn Sutton had sat down across from him and admitted he had been right to take away the one thing she cared about. But with her chin held high, of course, which had just made him raise an eyebrow, even as he had studied her with new eyes.

And then a half-second later, she had let the wall of pride crumble away and added, “Man. That was really freaking hard.” Which had made him want to laugh.

Conrad swallowed a groan. He didn’t want to like Billie Damn Sutton.

And I don’t, he reassured himself.

But, seriously, what neurosurgeon (let alone a fifth-year resident) was able to pivot to pediatric trauma surgery under the pressure of a war zone? He knew that in times of war, especially in crisis response organizations like Partners in Health, everyone pitched in doing wherever was needed. But he had made some calls and asked friends to do some digging. She was respected. Very respected. She was good. Maybe even great.

In the end, what Conrad had learned was that Billie could pursue trauma surgery as a career if she wanted. And that would have been an easier sell than neuro, showing hospitals she had learned her lessons, lowered her expectations, and would avoid treading on familiar ground. She probably could have found a surgical residency in trauma without much effort, really, especially with three years of Partners in Health horror on her resume.

And, yet, Nic had told him the Billie was still actively trying to find a neuro surgical residency. Begging where she thought it might help. Because Billie Sutton never took the easy out, apparently.

“She seems better,” Nic said, pulling him out of his thoughts. She sounded pensive. “Don’t you think?”

He opened his mouth to respond, but she waved a hand in front of them. “Oh, you wouldn’t know,” she said, and then slapped her hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry.”

But he just laughed because he loved when Nic got awkward. It was so rare and such a treat to see her blush. Even when she was mean, it was only an accident, and she was generally right to boot.

Nic hurried to explain. “I just mean, you don’t know Billie well. And you never talked to her while she was in Syria. She’s been so different. This last year, she’s barely even made time for video calls. We used to have them weekly when she could get wifi.”

Nic licked her lips, and Conrad wondered if she realized how tightly she was squeezing his arm. “She seemed edgy when she first got back to Atlanta. But these last few days have been…nice. She’s seemed like her old self almost. Well, the old self I knew, anyway.” Then she glanced up at him and bit her lip. “Sorry. I’m going on and on about Billie.”

He didn’t respond with words. Standing in the light of the bistro’s windows, Conrad pulled her to a stop and leaned in to kiss her gently. Instead of pulling away, he moved his lips to her forehead, wrapping his arms around her body, belly nestled between them.

And he knew she heard him saying, It’s okay. I love you.

“I think if you gave her a chance,” Nic said, quietly, “then you and Billie could be friends. Good friends.”

“I think that’s unlikely,” Conrad said, but he smiled to soften the blow.

“She’s not perfect. But she knows she’s not perfect, and she’s always trying to be better. To do better,” Nic said. “That counts for something, Conrad.”

“It does,” he agreed. Reluctantly, he added, “And I’ve noticed that. I’m just not…sure.”

“I want her to have friends,” Nic said. “She doesn’t make them easily. And you’re the very best friend a person could ask for. I want her to have you.”

Awed by his wife, Conrad pressed another kiss to her forehead. “You have the biggest heart of anyone I have ever met,” Conrad whispered against her skin. “And I love you for it.”

“I love you, too,” Nic said.

“Good,” he said. “It would be really awkward if you just let me hang around because you couldn’t get rid of me.”

“Oh, for goodness’s sake,” Nic muttered. “Go on. Get inside.”

He held the door open for her and followed her through. She spotted Billie almost immediately, and Nic walked to her best friend with arms wide open. Billie’s smile was blinding—white and wide and carefree as she met Nic halfway.

Then her eyes caught on Conrad over Nic’s shoulder, and the smile dimmed. Or maybe dim was the wrong word, he considered. Because nothing really changed with her face. Her smile was still wide. But a subtle shift had occurred, and she looked careful, watchful, less happy.

As Nic let go, Billie’s chin came up, and she gave Conrad that serene, stay-six-feet-away-at-all-times look with her eyes.

“Conrad,” Billie said.

Nic had been right. Billie was wearing a dress. And she looked nice—Billie was probably incapable of looking anything but, even if she made an effort—but Conrad said nothing except, “Hey, Billie. You two hang here, and I’ll get us a table.”

“Thank you, honey,” Nic called after him.

Billie gave him an arch look, but nodded a begrudging thank you. Then she turned back to Nic with that easy, happy smile, and put her hands on Nic’s belly, asking for an update.

Like hell Billie Sutton and I will ever be friends, Conrad thought on a sigh, loving that his wife was an idealist.

#the resident #billie sutton #fanfic #nicolette nevin #conrad x nic #nic nevin #conrad hawkins #gigi is just a baby in a belly

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