DISCLAIMER: Grey's Anatomy and its characters are the property of Shonda Rhimes and ABC. No infringement intended.
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.
SPOILERS: Seasons 1-3.
The Good No-longer Shepherd
By Reallybigpineapple
Part 15
Izzie looked shocked when Addison walked up to her and said that they needed to talk.
"Isobel, it's not what you think... I really need to talk to you."
She had to actually grab her physically and drag her into an on-call room and lock the door to make her not walk away.
"You are not transferring to Mercy West. I'm leaving." she said simply.
Too much had happen between them to pussyfoot around this.
"What? How did you know about Mercy West? And what do you mean you're LEAVING!?"
Her voice sounded desperate. Too late did she remember that she was supposed to be indifferent to this, indifferent to Addison.
"I've accepted a job offer in Los Angeles. I'm leaving at the end of the month."
Then, to the utter amazement of Addison Forbes Montgomery-no-longer-Shepherd, Isobel Stevens bowed her beautiful head and cried. The soulful cinnamon eyes that gave Addison such butterflies in her stomach welled up with salt water, overflew and closed in pain as a sob went through her statuesque body. Drops trickled down the porcelain slope of the perfect cheek, fell from her face and wet the sky blue of her former lover's scrubs.
"Oh… erhm… Oh, dear."
She knew she sounded like a blithering idiot, but she so hadn't seen that coming. She had thought that Izzie was still angry, maybe even hated her.
"Izzie… Isobel, honey…"
The endearment sounded awkward and clumsy coming from her unpractised mouth, not having whispered sweet nothings for a long time. Annoyingly, she heard her voice break a little as she reached out to pat the shaking shoulder.
Her stomach burned and her hands trembled as she cleared her throat.
"Don't cry. Please."
She sometimes felt the need to cry herself. Oh, who was she kidding? In the last few years, Addison had felt the need to cry a lot. And that was ok. Seriously. But Izzie? The frown on her brow, the slumping of her shoulders, the quiet sobs. That was NOT ok.
She had only seen her cry once before and that was on the day of Denny Duquette's death and she couldn't bear to be the one who had caused it now.
Izzie was completely shocked at her own reaction. She had really thought that she hated Addison and wanted to get away from her by transferring to Mercy West. All the heartbreak and bitterness melted away as soon as Addison said the word leave and just desperate, aching love remained. The tears were impossible to hold back, so Izzie just let them flow.
Addison threw her arms around the intern and pulled her close. At first, she resisted, but relaxed into her embrace when she coaxed her.
"You're leaving me."
The soft whisper was almost inaudible.
"I told myself that I wasn't going to do this, that I wasn't going to think about you any more. I was going to live in the moment. Because trust me when I say that tomorrow, we might quite literally, be dead!! Just ask Denny about that! We were getting married, did you know that?"
Izzie was shouting now, tears still running down her face.
"No."
Addison shook her head. Funny, how the jealousy tore at her like a savage beast. Jealous of a dead man... And besides, she was starting a new life and she was not in love with Isobel Stevens, even though her body pressed against her own felt like heaven, like home.
"I once told the chief that I loved Denny so much for making me feel like ME and not just a pretty girl. Maybe you don't care, but what I l… liked about you is that you made me feel like the woman I saw reflected in your eyes, like I was worthy of you. You were the only one who could make the trailer park go away."
When Izzie turned her head and looked into her eyes, Addison was lost.
(Roxy Music, Avalon)
The movement was spontaneous, Izzie turned her face up in the same instance that Addison bent down to meet her and when she felt Izzie's lips against her own, she was the one with tears in her eyes. Her lips were the answer to a question Addison hadn't even known she'd asked.
She kissed the salt water off her face before gently laying her down on the hard on-call room bed, never leaving her skin with her lips.
Izzie gave up trying to stop herself and arched up into Addison's touch. She had no defiance left, she didn't even have the strength to feel guilty for giving in. Oh, those hands, those devastatingly competent hands... They understood her, understood what she needed. She kissed Addison back with complete abandon. She had missed her so much...
Addison put all of her weight down on Izzie, she just couldn't get close enough. They moved together, very slowly, still kissing, like they had never meant to stop in the first place.
Oh, darling, how I remember your lips, the cure for the darkness within me…
Izzie quietly breathed her in. The familiar scent of her hair, the shampoo Izzie used to love, the scent of her skin, known to her down to the last particle... No perfume in the hospital... It had made her an expert on Essence of Addison. She ran the tip of her tongue along her ear and then kissed the soft skin behind it, slowly, tenderly... She smiled as a visible shiver went through the woman pressed up against her. She knew her body so well... She continued down her racing pulse and sucked on the spot right next to her clavicle.
Addison had craved these sensations so desperately during the time they had been apart... She was close to crying from relief that Izzie was finally, finally touching her again. She turned her face away so that Izzie wouldn't see how shiny her eyes were. She focused on letting her hand luxuriate in the soft curve of Izzie's waist and travel down to the cotton of her scrub pants, while the other was buried in her hair. She rested her hand on her lower back and moved her thumb slowly over the dip of the perfect slope, and tentatively, she moved her hand lower, not sure of how much further Izzie would allow her to go...
The loud beating of her heart coincided exactly with Izzie's soft breaths as they became entwined. The tension in Addison's stomach was suddenly gone, after weeks of dull aching. There was another aching now, as Izzie's skin burned her and made her shiver. She felt so light, like she might levitate if she kept touching her...
She started to toy with the hem of Izzie's scrub top. Even though she dreaded being denied, she looked into her eyes to confirm that this was ok.
And Izzie smiled at her, like the dawn of a beautiful morning. She hadn't seen that smile in so long... It was like oxygen.
Izzie's face almost hurt from the unfamiliar feeling of smiling like she meant it. She took Addison's hand in her and kissed it. She pulled the top off herself and placed the hand gently on her waist. Then, as if she was suddenly self conscious, she looked away and rested her forehead on Addison's shoulder. She had never felt so naked in front of her before, even though she was half clothed.
Addison touched every inch of bared skin, closed her eyes to be able to feel better, opened them again to entangle her fingers in Izzie's silky hair and kiss her neck. She looked closely at how fast and erratic Izzie's pulse was before she put her lips on it to feel just how soft the skin was. Izzie gasped as she touched it with her tongue and she travelled down, to her collar bone and that place... where Izzie's skin was baby soft and she remembered exactly where to kiss her to make her squirm underneath her. And she pulled her closer, as close as she could.
Izzie put her hands on her shoulders and pushed her away. For a brief moment, Addison panicked; please don't stop, please, Isobel...
And she didn't, thankyouthankyouthankyou she chanted in her head, not aimed at a special deity, she just pushed the white coat off Addison's shoulders and travelled up her silk clad arms. With each unbuttoned button, there was a kiss. When her shirt was opened, Izzie gently rubbed her cheek against the exposed skin on her chest. She wanted to drink her, eat her, smell like her.
Addison's breathing was becoming more and more laboured, and it wasn't just from Izzie's lips, it was from the shocking realisation that she had almost given this up, and this? This was better than anything... If she could just have this, then she could face anything, endure anything...
Addison gathered Izzie in her arms and pulled her closer again. She almost sobbed when their semi-naked skin touched. She fumbled with Izzie's bra, but couldn't make her hands obey. Izzie put her arms around her neck and kissed her tenderly, before unhooking it at the back and looking deeply into Addison's eyes, asking her to take the next step.
Slowly, reverently, Addison pulled the shoulder straps down and kissed the marks they had left. When Izzie's chest was naked, she rested her head on it for a few moments, enjoying the sound of Izzie's frantically beating heart.
Izzie got impatient and tugged encouragingly at her shirt. It soon followed her white coat to the floor. Izzie's unsteady hand found a similar challenge in getting Addison completely naked and her attending decided she needed assistance. As they both undressed Addison together, Izzie suddenly paused to put her hand under Addison's chin and make her look up and into her eyes.
They smiled warmly at each other. Izzie leant forward and placed a gentle, chaste but lingering kiss on Addison's lips. Even tough they had slept together many times, and kissed endless times before, she had never been kissed like that. Addison's world collapsed around her as she realised that this was it, this was The Kiss and nothing she tried to tell herself could make her deny it.
She felt a drop of water on her cheek and realised that Izzie was crying again, so she dried the tears with her lips and hands and rested her forehead against hers, before kissing her back, trying to communicate how she felt.
Izzie had no idea for how long they sat there entangled like that, kissing and touching. When her body was calling out to her that she needed it all, she needed all of her, she sought Addison's hands out and slid them under her scrub pants. She wanted Addison to undress her, she wanted Addison to do everything to her...
Somehow, Addison managed to get herself out of her stockings, skirt and heels, with a little inefficient help from Izzie, since she just had to touch every inch of skin that was revealed, get reacquainted with all of Addison. Reacquainted? Like she could ever forget a single touch, a single scent to do with her...
Addison's mind had remembered how Izzie's skin was always warm… Her brain had retained the image of how just a slight caress could cause Izzie to break out in goose bumps in the wake of her hand.
Now her skin remembered too, and her hands spoke to Izzie's body. Her muscle memory knew just how to move, only she tried to slow it down, to make it last… Her breaths sounded shallow and labored as she tried to hold back. She just wanted to beg for her hands everywhere…
And her lips…
As they lay there, pressed against each other, she gasped at the feeling of how wet and warm Izzie was. Addison's heart started racing as she wasn't quite sure whose arousal she was feeling on her skin anymore, where the softness of Izzie ended and hers began.
Their lips locked, sweat merged into one fluid as they reaffirmed the communication between their bodies and the fierce attraction that had drawn then together, against all good sense and reason.
Izzie felt she was so close to Addison now, closer than ever... and she was close in other ways too and she put her hand down between them and Addison looked into her eyes all the time and Izzie could see in them how the tension increased with every second, every motion, and she hesitated, never wanting this to end, but the pleading in Addison's bright eyes became too much, Izzie couldn't deny her... Her eyes darkened into glowing blue embers of ecstasy as the waves hit her. She had to put her head down to rest on Izzie's shoulder, just for a moment.
She could feel how achingly close Izzie was and just increased the pressure where they were connected. Soon, she felt Izzie's body tense up like a coil and her sweetness cover her, mixing their essences and scents until Addison wasn't sure what was her and what was Izzie anymore... She had missed the sound of Izzie's climax and relished her soft, shuddering moans in her ear, as she came back down. She felt a burning sensation on her shoulders and realised that Izzie's fingernails must have broken her skin during her climax. Never had she enjoyed pain so much...
They collapsed in a pile on top of each other, trying to catch their breaths, ability to speak and grasp of rational thought.
Addison was airborne from adrenalin and serotonin and just couldn't get the huge grin off her face. Izzie rolled over and off her and Addison made a contented noise as she crawled closer and spooned her. She ran her fingers lazily over Izzie's divine alabaster skin, shoulders, arms, neck, hips. Izzie lay completely still, which Addison put down to exhaustion.
When she sat up abruptly and started to look for her clothes, Addison just stared at her in shock.
"Isobel? Where are you going?"
"I have a patient I need to check up on."
"But... we need to talk? About this...us? Honey, come back to bed?"
Izzie shrugged.
"Why?"
"We slept together...? And it was amazing..."
"It was just sex, Addison. For fun, like you said."
"But... You cried? You said that you didn't want me to leave?"
"Oh, well, you know what I'm like, I just get all melodramatic sometimes. It was nothing, really, I'm just tired, had a bad day."
Izzie heard her self rambling and tried to stop and just get the hell out of there. She was so sick of herself. How could she have let this happen again? A few kind words and a hug from Addison was all it had taken for her to get on her back for her, like a good dog. And crying like a baby? How could she have given her the satisfaction? And now the pain was back and she had promised herself never again... Damn it!
"The best of luck in California, Dr. Montgomery."
And she left Addison still naked on the narrow bed, the feeling of exquisite post-coital bliss exchanged for a feeling of acute loneliness, devastation and chill.
As she got dressed, she went over things again in her head, trying to analyse what had changed. The sex act had been... mind blowing, to use some of Izzie's favourite words. But it hadn't been lust, it had been... Addison thought carefully about it. Romance. It had been romance. Izzie had felt it too, Addison was sure of it.
And now? She had no clue what all of this meant. She sat on the edge of the bed, the feeling of discomfort growing. Damn it, she needed to think!