Title: For Better or Worse
Rating: PG
Pairing: Alex and Izzie
Disclaimer: I don't own Grey's Anatomy or the characters.
Author's Note: Call it therapy. Call it correcting a wrong. Call it giving people a little bit of hope. This is for my friend Laura. I hope this lives up to your expectations of my writing and to the storyline we both have faith in.
Waiting and thinking is a bit like playing Russian Roulette. Each thought is like a pull of the trigger. You are never quite sure if there is going to be the click of an empty chamber or the gruesome shock of a bullet ricocheting through your brain. A sane person wouldn't play. They would put the symbolic gun down and find a way to distract themselves. Alex Karev never claimed to be sane; especially not where Izzie Stevens was concerned. His heart won't let his mind put the revolver down. Emotions keep him pulling the trigger.
The first week the chambers are full and horrible, morbid thoughts blocked out any rationale he might have found otherwise. Izzie had used him to distract herself from dying. Izzie had left because she never stopped loving George...or Denny...and she would rather be alone with their memories than making a new life with him. Izzie came to her senses and realized she deserved better.
The second week his luck was a little better and the morbid, hurtful thoughts were broken up by semi-rational ones. He reminded himself that she had been the one start the relationship this time. She had been the one to drag him from the depths of depravity he had sunk himself into. And, in a weak moment, he reminded himself that the embryos were half his and if Izzie ever wanted to use him she would have to come back.
On the third week he decided to sober up and call it quits with emotional Russian Roulette. The sick game wasn't getting him anywhere; unless you counted despair as a place someone wanted to be. Izzie loved him; that was why they had gotten married. She had left because she was overwhelmed and confused; not because she no longer wanted to be with hi. It wasn't him. He had done nothing wrong. Whatever had driven Izzie to leave was a demon of her own making and, much as it pained him, it was a demon she had to slay. She wasn't going to slay it alone though. They were married, damn it, and it was time for her to be held accountable to the vows they had spoken.
It took all of the fourth week and part of the fifth for him to decide that Izzie had run home to her mama. Troubled history aside it was the only thing that made sense. Girls always turned to their mothers when they felt like they needed a shelter from the storm. A three hour drive south proved him correct. Izzie had left Seattle and made a beeline for the trailer park she had grown up in.
"You shouldn't be here." was how she greeted him. It should have pissed him off, or at least had him picking up that damn thought revolver again. It did neither. The hope shining in her dark eyes kept him grounded.
"[i]You[/i] shouldn't be here," he shot back, shoving his fingers into the back pockets of his dark washed jeans. He waited for her to say something and when she did, when she told him to go back to Seattle, he felt his calm slipping. Taking a deep breath, he shook his head. The only way he was going back to Seattle was if she got her things and came back with him.
"I can't," she whimpered, her lips trembling slightly. It all bubbled then. The mistake with the kidney. Charles using her to get an edge. Bailey blaming her. Webber firing her. All of it spewed out. Some of it amongst tears. Some of it amongst anger so hot it burned. When she was done, he slipped one hand out of his pocket and laid it on her cheek. She flinched at first and leaned into the touch. "He said that you told him I wasn't mentally ready to work."
"I never said that." Alex argued softly. "I asked him to take into consideration that you weren't back 100% when he was evaluating your performance. I wanted him to remember all you had been through and to not punish you for not being able to work as hard as you use to. He walked away without listening."
Large, crocodile tears formed in her eyes. There was so much hope in her eyes it gave him confidence. Whatever she had to say he wasn't backing down, and he sure as hell wasn't going back alone. "I lost my job Alex, which means I lost my insurance."
"For better or worse," he reminded her. "If I survived the in sickness or in health part I can survive the for better or worse. You leaving definitely qualifies as worse, which means things can only get better. [i]We[/i] can only get better."
Confliction flickered across her face. Emotional warfare was waging in her mind. The thoughts were clicking and ricocheting around. "For better or worse," she whispered, nodding her head slowly. "For better or worse."