DISCLAIMER: Grey's Anatomy and its characters are the property of Shonda Rhimes and ABC. No infringement intended.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: So, this has been way overdone, but it's been sitting on my harddrive for probably two and half months now. I thought I would post it for those of you who can't get over the end of Season 2, beginning of Season 3. This is a bit AU, considering what happened between with the Meredith/Derek/Addison triangle and the fact that Izzie lives in Meredith's house, but that's besides the point. If Finn can go to visit Izzie, then so can Addison.
SPOILERS: 2.27 Losing My Religion, 3.01 Time Has Come Today.
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.
Shimmer
By seventhave
Izzie opens her eyes.
Somehow Addion is there, lying beside her on the tiled floor.
It seems odd, mostly because it's Addison (Forbes Montgomery-Shepherd, for god's sake) and because they're in Meredith's house, and because Izzie and Addison have barely spoken since the whole quint thing. But she's here.
And had it not been for the quintuplet thing (which Izzie hasn't forgotten) and the whole McWife thing (which Meredith, her roommate, fellow intern, and second closest friend, will never forget), Izzie thinks they probably could have been friends and then it would have almost been normal to open her eyes and see Addison lying on the bathroom floor beside her.
Almost.
But, then again, she supposes that this - Addison lying there - is what that - being friendly - is, in probably the most serious sense of the word.
Addison tilts her head towards Izzie but doesn't say anything. And she doesn't have that look of "oh, poor Izzie Stevens who went crazy and cut her fiancee's LVAD wire and is now lying on the bathroom floor in a pink prom dress" that everyone else seems to have or even that look of questioning that follows the pity look... the one that wants to ask what they're supposed to do now. Instead, she's just looking at Izzie like this is normal, like this is something that they would do on a normal Saturday afternoon.
But today is anything but normal, and Addison looking at her from beside her on the bathroom floor isn't all that normal, really, and now she wants to ask what McWife is doing here, what she wants.
Addison seems to sense this and she looks away, up towards the ceiling. "I was lonely. I thought maybe you were too."
Somehow this hurts in a way that Izzie can't really comprehend right at this moment and suddenly Izzie is crying in deep choking sobs with few tears but a sort of reaching pain that makes Addison gasp, initially, as well.
Then Addison is reaching for her, helping her sit up and move into Addison's arms. She gently rubs Izzie's back and breathes in and out deeply - a sound which Izzie concentrates on, tries to mimic. Addison's good at the calming thing, though Izzie supposes she should be, what with the babies and the soon-to-be-mothers and the nervous fathers and all of that.
After a while, Izzie exhausts and sort of settles in Addison's arms, which seems right at the time: her arms are already around Izzie, holding her, and the natural reaction would be to relax forward, to rest her head on Addison's shoulder, to stop thinking and just let things be for now.
In the spirit of just letting things be, she hardly flinches when, after a long while, Addison reaches up to Izzie's hair and starts removing bobby pins, one by one. Izzie watches them pile on the floor. She had lost count putting them in, wanting every single hair to be perfect for when Denny, grinning (she imagined as she got ready) with his seemingly perfect brand new heart and the beginning of their seemingly perfect brand new life together, saw her.
And then she pulls away. Because Denny never saw her and she's not sure she's ready to let go just yet.
Addison looks at her. Now Izzie recognizes the look, that one that she was giving her before. Patience. Just waiting. No questions, no suppositions, no anything. Just waiting. Izzie looks away and stares at the pile of bobby pins on the floor.
"Is this okay?" Addison asks, quietly.
"Did they send you in here to get me to change?"
"No. I came to see if you were... how you were... O'Malley told me you were in here. That's all."
Izzie smoothes her hands across the pink skirt falling over her legs and just over Addison's knees. "I want to keep this..."
Addison nods and Izzie slowly moves back into Addison's arms. Izzie can feel her breath against her temple as she continues removing the pins in slow, fluid motions that release a curl or two along Izzie's shoulders. When Addison finishes with the pins, she slips the hair bands out of Izzie's hair, then, lastly the matching pink ribbon that still clings to the strands. She places it in the pile with everything else by her knee on the floor then relaxes just a little against the porcelain bathtub.
Izzie closes her eyes as Addison slowly runs her fingers through the blonde curls and down over her neck, her shoulders.
"I'm not okay." Izzie tells her. "I'm not okay and everyone wants me to be but I can't."
"Your fiancee dying isn't okay. You don't have to pretend it is."
"Okay."
The End