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 8
"Come on, Addie, you're not listening. Claude is that guy to the left, the one with the faux-hawk. B.J's not a guy, she the girl in the Vivienne Westwood rip-off. She's the one who made that evening dress we hated last week."
"We did? Seriously?"
"Addie! Seriously."
Izzie sighed, but Addison could feel her smile, even though the intern was sitting with her back against Addison's front.
They were eating popcorn and watching reality-TV, a concept more or less previously unknown to Addison. Izzie was in a pair of the old salmon scrubs that she had found at the bottom of a drawer and insisted on wearing. They were certainly her colour. Addison hadn't quite realised the hotness factor of those scrubs until she saw them filled out by her smooth curves...
The fact that this activity was weird, since her and Izzie's relationship was based on hot girl sex in inappropriate places, not snacks and bad television, was a thought that Addison pushed to the back of her head.
The simple truth was that she had missed her.
It was a week since the Chief had made Addison remove her favourite intern from her service. The absence had grated on her. She had yelled at poor O'Malley for not catching on in the OR. Izzie would have known what to do. Izzie almost always knew what Addison wanted.
It was about sex, of course. There had been no meetings in supply closets since they stopped working together. Bailey had kept Izzie busy, she had been on call a lot and couldn't just sneak away at will like she used to. So Addison told herself that she was edgy because she missed a competent co-worker by her side and because she wasn't getting any sex, and she had gotten used to epic amounts of sex. Addison was a very sexual person. So it was a question of sex and work.
Today Bailey had given her Cristina Yang, who had second guessed her in the OR and promptly been thrown out on her ass. Izzie would never have done that. Actually, she might, but never in front of the scrub nurses like that. Besides, Izzie understood her, so she would have known where she was coming from when she chose an unorthodox approach.
So, Addison missed Izzie...
Against better judgement, she had called her, asking jealously what she was doing.
"Hold on."
Addison heard her move away from the bar and the other interns. The noise lowered.
"Just having a drink with the guys. I've had a really crappy day, we lost a patient and we couldn't determine why."
"You want to come over? We could talk about it?"
Izzie laughed.
"Talk...You're funny. I'm sorry, I wouldn't be any good to you. I just couldn't manage sex tonight, I'd fall asleep and that's not exactly what you bargained for..."
"What if it is? You could come over just to sleep, I could use the company. My day wasn't so great either."
"No, I heard about your fight with Cristina."
Izzie had listened to the story about how bitchy Addison had been and had to bite her tongue not to stand up and defend her. She had even forced herself to call her Satan once, even though she really wanted to say Darling, Honey, or something else equally ridiculous.
"You want me to come over just to sleep? Tonight?"
"Well, there's always the hope of a quickie in the morning."
Addison tried to keep her voice light. She knew this was weird, calling what was crudely called your fuck-buddy and asking her to come over and not fuck.
Izzie's heart started racing. Addison wanted to just sleep. Together. Like you did in a relationship...
But she tried not to go with that thought, she had promised herself...
"Well, I suppose I shouldn't say no to a request from my favourite attending. Do you want me to come right now?"
"If you want to."
Addison put on her best pretend casual voice.
"Ok.
"Ok?"
"Ok."
"Ok, fine."
"Ok. Good."
"See you soon."
"See yah."
Izzie was too busy steadying the butterflies in her stomach to notice a gobsmacked George listening in to the last part of the conversation.
Izzie had shown up on her doorstep half an hour later and they had settled into a routine, like they had always been doing this.
As they lay on Addison's bed together in front of the strange world that was late night television, she listened in contentment to Izzie's encyclopaedic knowledge of celebrity gossip and TV-shows, both of which were largely terra incognita to Addison.
But most of all, they had talked. Addison remembered then how much she had enjoyed simply talking to Izzie again, that night at Joe's, the first time they had slept together. They had been so busy touching and tasting during these past weeks, that she had nearly forgotten how she seemed to like Izzie almost as much when she was wearing clothes. Sure, she found it a challenge to not just reach out, grab her and kiss her breath away. After all, that was what they usually did. But Addison decided to behave, and settled for playing with Izzie's hair as she lay with her head in her lap and talked about the trauma that had come in earlier during the day, and how the death of the patient had taken its toll on all of them. She softly stroked her forehead and held her hand as a few tears rolled down her cheeks. Addison looked away for a moment as she thought of a patient she herself had lost recently. When she looked back down, she realised that Izzie had fallen asleep, almost mid sentence.
She had to gently coax a dog tired intern into getting out of her clothes before opening her arms and letting her fall asleep again, head resting in the crook of Addison's neck.
She woke up from the pins and needles you get when you let someone sleep on your shoulder all night, and from Izzie's alarm, which went off at an ungodly hour as usual. She vaguely remembered weird dreams, something to do with looking for Izzie in a strange old gothic building. She had been remembering her dreams a lot lately, which was unusual for her.
She ordered room service breakfast for them, as she figured that there would be no point in going back to sleep. She liked having someone to have breakfast with. She used to really enjoy eating with Derek in the morning; sometimes, it was the only time they had to catch up.
Izzie came out of the bathroom.
"What's this?"
"Coconut latte, it's amazing."
"Coconut latte? That's just wrong..."
"Hey, hey! We don't question the coconut latte!"
Izzie pretended to roll her eyes. She tentatively sniffed the coffee. Maybe coconut wasn't so bad after all...
So, now I know something else about her... She likes coconut. Izzie filed this knowledge away in the ever growing mental folder marked Addison. She noticed guiltily how she never seemed to forget anything she stowed away in there. Her heart skipped a beat when she felt Addison wrap herself around her from behind and kiss her cheek chastely. She couldn't believe that she had tucked her in like a baby and then let her sleep on her shoulder all night. And she hadn't even tried to seduce her, which was probably just as well, since she wouldn't have been able to resist her, she never could. She felt in her body how a full night's sleep had done her all kinds of good. Or maybe being with Addison had...
Addison began feeding her pieces of fruit from a bowl of really extravagant fruit salad, which apparently was the Archfield's idea of a light breakfast.
She pretended to object, so Addison would keep taking charge. She adored this new, nurturing side of Addison. Oh, who was she kidding? She adored almost all sides of her...
"You should eat properly. You never know when you'll have the time to eat next; I remember what it was like being an intern."
Izzie made no joke about their age difference, since she had guessed that it was something of a sore spot with Addison.
She obediently opened her mouth for the less healthy dishes, like miniature pancakes, as Addison slightly hazardously fed them both, one arm still around Izzie. She licked a drop of butter from Addison's fingers and saw the attending's gaze become unfocused for a moment, but apparently she had decided to be a good girl today.
"Addie?"
"Mmhm?"
"Why do you call me Isobel and not Izzie? Almost nobody does."
Addison wasn't sure herself, so she had to think about it for a while.
"Hmmm... I guess Izzie is something your friends and patients call you. Maybe I wanted something that was just mine, to separate what we're doing from all of that."
Izzie just nodded. It was a silly thing; there was really no need to feel so damn euphoric about it...
She finished the coconut latte and decided it was the best thing she had ever had. Maybe it was because it tasted so distinctly of happiness...
Going down in the elevator, Izzie briefly felt a wave of nausea and anxiety as it took her a few seconds to remember what Denny Duquette had actually looked like. All she could see was Addison's face, almost ridiculously handsome even with sleepy eyes and bed head, as she had woken up in the morning and pretended that her shoulder wasn't sore from having Izzie's weight on it all night.
She battled with that guilt all morning. Then she found a note in her locker:
Coconut latte tomorrow morning?
She spent the rest of the day feeling guilty about not feeling guilty anymore. The sense of elation was so strong, she just couldn't keep the feelings of remorse in place.
Every night she wasn't on-call that week, she spent with Addison. Some of them, they had hot, sweaty, steamy sex. Others, they watched bad TV and ate their way through the room service menu. On one occasion, they just lay in the dark and talked about life, holding hands. Addison learned that Izzie had a tendency to hog the covers. Izzie learned that Addison had a tendency to talk softly in her sleep sometimes.
Addison tried to sound casual every time she walked Izzie to the door.
"Coming over tonight?"
"I'm scrubbing in on a surgery with Bailey this afternoon, might take some time, but if you don't mind me coming late?"
"No, I'll probably be up anyway." she lied easily, knowing a double espresso after dinner would do the trick of keeping her awake. Both were careful not to mention the white elephant in the room; that some people might call this a relationship...
There were three separate instances of panic for Addison before she ruined everything.