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I Will Follow You Into the Dark
By CrimsonCat

 

At first, Izzie wondered where Cristina was taking her. As they crept deeper and deeper into the bowels of the hospital, she couldn't help but feel like Alice falling down the rabbit hole. Things would be different now. Everything would be different now. Cristina opened the door to their destination, and Izzie had a sudden image of herself growing too large to fit through the door frame. She stifled the laughter that threatened to spill past her lips. She was afraid of how it might sound. She thought it might be hysterical laughter, and she couldn't afford to be hysterical right now.

Izzie had her doubts about the room they were standing in. Until she felt the air blasting though the vents at her feet. It felt like it would lift her right off the floor. Through the ceiling and right out of the hospital, somehow. Lift her right out of her skin, out of this nightmare, into another life. Izzie did laugh this time. It was a surprised laugh, it didn't sound hysterical like she had feared. But it was still broken. It sounded like glass breaking, and she covered her mouth to hold it in. Cristina didn't say anything. She hadn't said anything since leading Izzie down here. She just watched Izzie as their hair danced on the air around them. Watched, and waited.

When the next blast of air hit them, it pushed the words out of Izzie's lips. She told Cristina about the cancer. The mets spreading through her body like wild fire. She explained about Patient X and the work she'd been doing with the interns. She rattled off her symptoms and test results. Cristina didn't react. She listened, absorbing all of the information Izzie presented her with, not even blinking. Izzie took a deep breath, chewing her bottom lip between her teeth. Izzie didn't want to say it, she was sure Cristina had already figured it out. But she said it anyway. Izzie told Cristina the survival rate. Five percent.

Cristina blinked, her gaze breaking away as her head dropped. She stood there for a moment, arms wrapped around herself, staring at the ground. When the next blast of air hit them, rolling over their bodies like a blessing, Cristina reached up and pulled Izzie's face to hers. It was the softest kiss Izzie had ever received, or Cristina had ever given. Sweet and gentle and full of unspoken love. A lifetime's worth. Cristina pulled away slowly, capturing Izzie's eyes with her own.

There were a million things Cristina wanted to say to her. Izzie had told her this because she saw Cristina as a robot, and someone who didn't like her much. Cristina wanted to tell Izzie she was wrong. She liked her. Of course she liked her. Cristina wanted to tell Izzie that she was amazing, and beautiful, and brave. She wanted to be firm, tell the blonde that she would live. To hell with the percentages. Izzie would live because Cristina was forbidding her to die. Cristina didn't want to imagine how sad and pitiful the hallways of this hospital would be without her. She wanted to tell Izzie that she lit up the rooms at Seattle Grace. Mostly, Cristina wanted to cry. She wanted to rage and scream herself hoarse. She wanted to shake her fist at the heavens and demand an explanation.

But Izzie chose to tell Cristina this because she saw Cristina as a robot. Someone who didn't like her much, someone who could handle this. Another wave of air blasted around them, and Cristina slowly lowered her hands. She stepped back, still holding Izzie's eyes with her own. And she responded the way Izzie was expecting her to. The way Izzie needed her to.

The End

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