Denny/Izzie; PG
One would think a hospital never sleeps, but the corridors of the surgical wing get real quiet at night. There is the occasional commotion when a patient codes or a new arrival is wheeled back from surgery, but in between these interruptions (and Denny thinks it's a little sick that he thinks of them as mere disturbances nowadays, instead of people dying or getting to live), this part of Seattle Grace gets eerily quiet when the night shift begins.
Denny calls it the graveyard shift only to himself, because he'd used the term in jest around a nurse once and her smile had been too polite, too humourless.
The last nurse to check up on him slid the door to his room closed behind her and he's denied what little noise the quiet comings and goings outside of it would provide to distract him. He needs distractions because he can't sleep, won't sleep, and Izzie's not here; and if he doesn't have sleep or Izzie, he'll start hearing the heave of the machines around him, the low buzz of current, their pale LCDs glowing like sunburn on his skin. He taps the heart-rate monitor clipped to his finger against the bedspread, this expanse of loosely-knit blue synthetic fibre he's sick to death (ha!) of staring at. He shifts his legs under it just to reassure himself he still can, just to see the movement beneath the blankets, messing with the fresh rearrangement of them, changing the relief. The satisfaction is fleeting but welcome.
He's mastered a way to hike up the pillows so that he's marginally comfortable but not enough to let himself fall asleep. He knows it's stupid, he needs to sleep at some point, but he'd rather do it when the hallways are bustling with people and sounds, when he's sure to be woken up in a minute by someone or something, or pulled out of sleep by one of his body's new betrayals. But here, now, like this, he'll sit in the dark and think about his house, think about his dog, think about his work and all that's left to do, think of all the places he's not going, all the things he's not seeing lying here in a bed in a room that's all windows but no view. He thinks about his little brother in the Marines and thinks about how nice it would be to still have his mother, who would sit by his bed for as long as it took them to get him a new heart. His mother would've liked Izzie. She would've liked that he's stupid with love for someone whose smile can light up a room. Denny's familiar with contagious smiles; he grins just thinking about his mom, even as he sits in the dark and tries not to listen to the discordant din of the silence around him.
Around three in the morning, before his first check-up of the day, Denny takes the time to imagine Izzie, right at this moment, sleeping. She usually shows up at his bedside by five-thirty, before rounds, so by now she's only got another hour or so left of sleep. She's never talked about the house, the house that belongs to Meredith Grey, the house they also share with George O'Malley, whom Denny has never met but thinks he'd like. He's got this mental image of the kitchen, for all the times it featured in Izzie's stories, and he also has a made-up visual of her bedroom, just because he wants to.
In his mind it's soft and cozy and perpetually lit by the twilight of early morning, grey and dim and fresh the way only mornings here can be. He pictures her hair loose, curly and dishevelled, fanned messily across her pillow, over her shoulders. She sleeps under cotton sheets in little t-shirts and panties, or tank tops and pajama bottoms, or nothing at all if he's had a rough night and just wants to think about something he'd like to curl up next to. She sleeps on her side, her knees halfway up, a hand uncurled by her mouth. Sometimes his thoughts will linger on her lips, on the way they must pout loosely in sleep, on how he faintly remembers the taste of them.
This remembrance will last him till the nurse comes in quietly. He'll close his eyes and pretend to sleep, despite knowing he can't fool anyone with machines around him betraying his vitals. She usually leaves him be, though, and when the door slides shut again, an hour or less before the most zealous of interns do their pre-rounds, he'll spend the rest of his time as a free man thinking of joining Izzie where she is, of slipping beneath those cotton sheets and fitting himself to the curve of her, of kissing a good morning to her shoulder, to her neck, to her mouth.
It's five fifteen when she appears at his side, hair twisted in a clip and her smile happy and rested, like the sleep he'd imagined her having was really as deep and good as he hoped it was. She sits on the edge of his bed and he thumbs the paper tag dangling from her tea mug so he won't reach for the hem of the pink shirt she's wearing under her scrubs today. He bets it's soft like linen and warm from her skin, and he's pretty sure he wouldn't lose that bet. He's got a pretty good imagination.