DISCLAIMER: Grey's Anatomy and all its characters are property of ABC.
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.
SPOILERS: Season Two finale.
Abandon
By TheAgonyofBlank
abandon: n. a complete surrender of inhibitions. (Dictionary.com)
Izzie had loved once. She had loved hard, loved completely, loved wholly, once upon a time… and now, now she was broken. All because of Denny – dead Denny, who wouldn't have died if she had just thought of the possibility of his blood clotting up, who wouldn't have died if she had just arrived sooner and not worried about which dress to wear. But she wanted to look good, look good for him. If he couldn't attend the prom, then she wanted to bring a part of it to him. But she was too late.
She knew what her friends said when they thought she wasn't listening. She knew of the gossip circulating the hospital about her relationship with Denny. Every hospital staff said that she should've known better than to fall for a patient; it was against the rules, but more than that, they all agreed that it was risky business. Because as Alex had no problem reminding her, Denny was a heart patient whose condition was… well… it could've been better. And she didn't want to fall for him, but after a while she couldn't help herself. He was so sweet, so charming, and those eyes… it certainly didn't help that he was attractive.
And he proposed to her. He proposed to her, and she said yes, but before they could get married and go on a honeymoon, he died. He abandoned her without knowing that he was going to do so; he was healthy with this new heart, and he likely didn't even know what was happening to him when suddenly, it was over, and he ceased to think, to breathe, to live.
And that was how Izzie found him: lying on his bed, at peace and very still.
It had been months since the day Denny had died. Months since she had quit her job as an intern at Seattle Grace.
But the pain was still there – dulled, but undeniably present.
Izzie was still broken.
Addison had loved once. She loved fiercely, loved totally, loved unconditionally, once upon a time… and now, now she was broken. She knew Derek still had feelings for Meredith – she did, but he'd told her that he wanted to work through it, to make their marriage work. So she believed him, because it was the least she could do. But after a while, it became apparent that those feelings he harbored for Meredith were still there. He hadn't let go of her.
And then she found out about the sex.
She found out about it a couple of days after the fact, a couple of days after Izzie left and Denny died, through one of the nurses working on her floor. She wasn't meant to hear the conversation; no one had realized she was there – she supposed they all thought she was tending to one of the new patients in the ward. She had quickly made her way to the supply closet, and she stayed there for the next half hour, hurt and crying her eyes out.
She supposed she should've known better, what with that long bathroom break Derek had taken. But she didn't ask for it, she wasn't expecting it, even if she knew, deep down inside, she might've been partially to blame after what she'd done to him. She knew, after all, what everyone said when they thought she wasn't there to listen to them gossip. She knew they said, or at least thought, that she deserved it, seeing as how she cheated on him first.
But what they didn't know was that the time Derek walked in on her and Mark was the very first time she and Mark had ever done it, and they never did it again after that. What no one knew, either, was the fact that what drove Addison to sleep with Mark was the simple truth that Derek was never home anymore, and Addison was constantly lonely and crying her eyes out. It wasn't an excuse; it simply was.
And even then, Derek hadn't hit Mark. He just walked away. With Meredith it was different. All Mark had had to do was to talk to Meredith, and bam! he got punched in the face. So really, Derek was to blame as well. Because the problem with their marriage, the reason why it wasn't working, was because Derek didn't love her. He may have a long time ago, he may have for the first few months of their marriage. But after that it was just work, work, and work. Addison was tossed to the side, where she was picked up by Mark.
It didn't get any better; now she was tossed to the side again, though this time not for work but for Meredith Grey. It hurt – something Addison hadn't been expecting, not at this magnitude, anyway. It hurt more than it should've. Now they were separated and in the process of filing for divorce.
But Addison was still broken.
The room was nearly completely dark; a sliver of light from the streetlamps outside spilled into the bedroom, only minimally hindered by the partially-drawn curtains and serving as the only source of light at the moment. Steady, peaceful breathing could be heard issuing from the occupant of the bed in the middle of the room, with the occupant being a rather large and oddly-shaped form snuggled under the covers that were dappled in both light and shadow of the streetlamps.
Upon closer observation, however, one would find that this oddly-shaped mass that was the occupant was, in reality, two people with the rhythm of their breathing so in sync and their limbs so entangled with the other's that it seemed impossible that they were two separate entities. One of them – the one with blonde hair and the sad eyes that just a few minutes ago had been closed in ecstasy – untangled herself from the other and rested on her side, perhaps merely wanting more space to herself so she could properly go to sleep. Her bed partner, the redhead, allowed her to move and stayed where she was, perhaps already asleep.
A few minutes passed in silence.
And then Izzie felt the mattress sink slightly on her left as Addison shifted over and closer to her. She didn't move, and for a moment nothing else happened, yet the butterflies were already fluttering in her stomach. Then she felt an arm slinking its way around her naked waist and settle there comfortably, as though it belonged there, and at the same time she felt certain parts of Addison pressing into her back. Then she felt the light brush of lips as Addison kissed her way up Izzie's neck and to her ear, where she whispered, "What are you thinking about?"
The butterflies fluttered again.
Izzie closed her eyes, covering Addison's hand with her own and snuggling closer to the red-haired woman, thinking about what had just happened, thinking about what had happened before, and thinking about what would happen from now on. Thinking about the butterflies in her stomach, and the butterflies she hoped were in Addison's stomach. Thinking about what she would cook for Addison tomorrow, when they got up in the morning.
"Nothing important," Izzie breathed in reply, turning around so that she was face-to-face with Addison and tucking herself comfortably, easily, into the crook of the other woman's neck. She yawned, fighting off the sleep that usually followed the sex. "What are you thinking about?"
There was another moment of silence, in which Addison was thinking about how maybe tomorrow, she would ask Izzie out for lunch because they'd never had a real date, only sex. Thinking about how she was, for the first time in a long while, happy and content. And just as Addison was about to reply, she became aware of the steady rising and falling of Izzie's chest and the rhythmic, heavier breathing that issued from the blonde, and she knew that Izzie had fallen asleep. A small smile formed on her face, and she stroked Izzie's hair gently, before closing her eyes and falling asleep as well.
They were Izzie and Addison. They were broken. But slowly and surely, they were fixing each other, and they were going to love each other hard, completely, wholly, fiercely, totally, unconditionally, and with abandon.
The End