Tom Sez: I just wanted to give my O'Stevens-loving friends something that might tide you over...I haven't been around much, and I miss writing for you...my job is awesome - but it takes me away from you, my Kind Readers...thank you for your continued support, and I look forward to giving all y'all some great new stuff in 2008...and before...

"Every Little Kiss"

At four-fifty-two in the morning, Izzie gave a snoozing George a peck on the cheek as she was running out the door. The sensation of her soft lips against his day's growth of stubble was enough to wake him and bring a small dreamy smile to his face. And when he reached out to touch her, and found no one there, he realized that sometime between her perfumed skin being next to him and the moment that he realized he'd been kissed, she'd disappeared into the day.

At seven-ten, George snuck a brushing kiss onto Izzie's neck while they stood next to a housekeeping cart. He'd found her during rounds - somehow he'd found her, between the hip fracture in 419 and the bowel obstruction in 402 - and, in the guise of needing to consult with her, took her aside, and gave her the thing she'd been dying for all morning: her proper half-caff mocha latte, easy on the mocha. It tasted perfect on her tongue, warm and sweet and satisfying. He cleared a few strands of her golden hair that had fallen loose, and then, with a fluidity that she knew he possessed (but still surprised her), he grazed her neck briefly, secretly, lovingly. It gave her a wonderful shivery sensation, and made her want him to linger around her for a little while longer. But the want for him to stay was overruled by his beeper and her interns, both more insistent than she would have liked.

At twelve-nineteen, Izzie was running her fingers through George's hair in the linen closet - you know, that linen closet - while exploring his mouth with hers. He'd gone there to find a scrub cap for an attending - a superstar neuro visitor who wanted to be magnanimous, sort of, while stealing a patient. Doctor Shepherd had gritted his teeth and sent his intern to find the man the headwear. Izzie had been at a nurses' station, noticed him, and trailed him into the closet. "Hi," George had said. Or maybe it was, "Hey." Didn't matter. Honestly, all she did was take two steps, moisten her lips on the way, and take what she wanted. Which he didn't mind in the slightest. He only wished he didn't have to leave just as the taste of her warm pepperminted breath was starting to become his all-time favorite flavor.

At six-thirty-two, George was pressing a kiss onto the back of Izzie's hand, which was clasped in his. She'd been done for about fifteen minutes, but decided to wait on a bench by the front doors of Seattle Grace. There was a little chill in the air, and she was starting to feel it when he appeared next to her, obliterating the cold. He sat down, took one of her hands, and laced their fingers. They fit together perfectly. He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it gently. She leaned her head onto his shoulder. "I'm hungry," she said, a bit drowsy. He smiled kindly and helped her stand again, then put his arm around her as they walked away from work.

At ten-oh-six, Izzie was laying on top of George, bare and glowing, kissing his chest. He had been alone about an hour before, under his sleeping bag on the living room floor, like usual these past couple of weeks. It wasn't too bad, he'd decided. The carpet was a decent berber, good padding, no weird smells or stains - pretty amazing, considering all the people who'd lived here over the past year and a half, doing who-knows-what who-knows-where. He was starting to drift off when he noticed Izzie leaning in the doorway in dark sweatpants and a pink A-shirt. Her hair was down and a bit rumpled, she was out of her makeup, smelled a bit damp and musky, and, to George's senses, she'd never been sexier. She bit her lower lip - something that always killed him - and then said in a whispery, dusky voice, "Come upstairs with me." As he stood up, she took his hand in hers, and led him to her door, to her room, to her bed, clothing being shed with every step. He laid down next to her, and let his hands trace her, enjoy the sensations of her smooth skin under his fingers and palms. Then her eyes met his, and he felt the psychic ache she couldn't express in words, and understood. She wordlessly opened her body to his, and he tenderly responded. Her cries and moans mixed with his, as their bodies rose and fell with the pleasure of the shared energies exerted. Finally, as they lay naked in each others' arms, warm and satisfied and spent, she spread kisses on his chest. "Nothing breaks us up," she said. "Nothing and no one." He sighed at that, because she was right - their being apart was stupid. Stupid and wrong. Izzie looked at him. "I love you, George O'Malley," she said.

"I love you, Isobel Stevens," he replied.

And before they fell asleep in each other's arms, their lips met one more time, and like every other kiss they'd shared, it was soft and good and right.

THE END