Title: Taking Turns
Author: emily64cooper
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairing: Denny/Izzie
Summary: AU in which Denny lived to see Izzie through her cancer.
Author's Note: Takes place during the end of 5x18 and all of 5x19.
Denny being so, so used to life attached to an IV, gets it. He gets (at least, to some extent) what Izzie is about to go through, what it's like to live in a hospital, to do nothing but sit and wait for your expiration date to come around. He knows what it's like to do it alone and how insanely better it is to have someone to love by your side through it. He knows how it feels to be a vibrant, vivacious person trapped in a failing body. He knows when "leave me alone" means "I need you" and when "I need help" means "push me to do this".
He knows all of this because he lived it. He spent his year on death's doorstep, even had one foot in the door at times, praying that another man would get there first and give him a heart. So when Izzie tells him that she has a stage four cancer, his heart breaks just that little bit more. Because he gets it, and now she will too.
When she admits herself, he stands there beside her, holding her bag with one hand and her hand with the other. Her friends are there too, and together the six of them walk to her room. She pauses outside the door. This may very well be the room she dies in and they all know it.
"Hey Iz," Denny says quietly, squeezing her hand gently, "this time I'll knit you a sweater." The joke has its intended effect and she smiles slightly, taking a step into the room with the others trickling behind her.
Her friends inspect the room. Izzie Stevens is one of them, so she will have the best. The best room, the best care, the best of everything and anything they can offer. They put fresh, forest green sheets on the bed. They're hospital-issued, but Christina may or may not have gone through a stack of unopened sheets to find the softest ones, so these too are the best. Medically, the room is well-equipped, directly across from the nurse's station, and not far from the crash cart.
She steps into the bathroom to change into her gown. When she comes out, she sits on the edge of the bed to let Denny tie it. He knows from experience what kind of knot hurts less, digs less into the skin. He knows that the tie feels better the further to the side it is, and that you don't want to tie the middle one if you can get away with it, and he explains this to her as he works. Meredith puts her ID bracelet on while Christina checks her vitals. Alex finds a spare pillow and blanket, which he places in the chair beside her bed. It's a nice concession, and Denny nods his thanks. When George comes in, she stands to hug him, then she settles back fully on the hospital bed and into the beginning of her journey.
010101
Later, after her friends have left for the night, he climbs into the tiny bed with her. "Tell me I can do this," she says, burying her face in the crook of his neck. Her affect is flat, but Denny knows that it's done on purpose, to help her keep her emotions in check.
"You can do this," he whispers, pressing a kiss into her hair.
They're silent a moment. "Did I ever tell you," he asks, "about the first time I was admitted here at Seattle Grace?" He knows he hasn't, and honestly there isn't much to tell, but his joke about giving the hospital a bad rating in the Zagat guide makes her laugh, and the feel of his voice rumbling low in his chest soothes her enough to let her drift off to sleep.
When he's certain she's asleep, he buries his face in her hair and lets himself break down. Even if, by some miracle, she survives the cancer ("there's a 5% survival rate," she'd said, pacing back and forth in front of him as he sat on their bed, "with aggressive chemotherapy and radiation"), the treatment is going to be the most difficult challenge she's ever faced, and he knows that neither her body nor her spirit will be the same after it.
They wake early the next morning. While she showers, Denny unpacks her bag. She hadn't brought much, but as he dutifully places her clothes in the tiny hospital armoire, he wonders for the first time if maybe she's not as prepared for this as she thinks she is. Still, he places her heels next to her flip-flops in the bottom of the closet and her jeans behind her sweatpants in the drawer. He makes a mental note of things to pick up from home: necessities, like sweaters and extra socks, and comforts, like her own shampoo and that shirt of his she always liked to sleep in.
Dr. Webber stops by during breakfast. "Hello Denny," he says as he goes to check Izzie's vitals, "this is a familiar sight."
"Can't get enough of Seattle Grace," he smiles. His tone is sarcastic, but no one fails to catch the hint of sadness in it. No one comments on it either.
"Chief, how is Ms. Tullman's recovery going?" Izzie asks him eagerly, "And the colectomy on Mr. Zimmerman, did Christina really get that as a solo surgery?" Dr. Webber shoots a look in Denny's direction, the rules about doctor-patient confidentiality being as strict as they are, so he kisses Izzie's cheek and leaves to let them talk medicine.
He does a few laps around the floor, checks that they're still talking, then decides to head down to the CICU. It's the first time he's been back since his transplant. He leans against a wall, the room he spent months in while he waited for a new heart directly in his line of sight, and just processes. How ironic it is that they began here in this hospital and that… Denny can't let himself go down that path. He made it against all odds; Izzie will too. She's strong and stubborn and she will fight tooth and nail to beat this. And he'll be there to help her in any way he can, just like she helped him.
By the time he returns to Izzie's room, Dr. Webber's already gone. When she looks up at him, he can see the sadness in her eyes, the way the tears are threatening to spill over, so he sits on the side of her bed with her and laces their fingers together. She smiles sadly and clears her throat gently. "There's something I forgot about, with the chemo, there's something… something we should talk about."
"Whatever it is, you can tell me, Izzie," he says softly. When he says "I'm here for you", it's a comfort, and so she continues.
"I'm going to have them harvest eggs from me… just in case." This is a particularly poignant discussion for them, since they've recently been discussing starting a family. So she explains it to him, the how's and the why's, and his part in the whole process. "They store better if they've been fertilized," she explains, her voice beginning to waver. "They'll do it in a lab…" It's then that she breaks down, so he climbs into the bed next her and holds her close. She fists his shirt in her hand and buries her face in his chest. "This isn't how it's supposed to be," she sniffs, "it's supposed to be real."
"It will be real," Denny says, wiping her tears away with the pads of his thumbs. "It's still us, Izzie. It'll be real."
010101
After she's calmed down, she sends him to go tell Bailey to contact OB. Bailey lets him know that they'll be rounding on her soon ("Look, Denny, you know what it's like to have a bunch of people you don't know talking about your insides. This will be her friends and colleagues. It will be worse. You had better prepare her for that"). Then she hands him a specimen cup. "I trust you know what that's for?" she inquires, an eyebrow raised. Denny scratches the back of his neck and nods. "Good. You can bring it back to me when you're done."
He fully intends on taking the cup and going off to contribute his sample, then returning to Izzie to warn her about the rounds. But he finds that his feet are frozen to the ground.
"Denny?" Dr. Bailey questions.
"We were just starting to… try, you know? Before the cancer, we were gonna try for a baby. And now? …Dr. Bailey, I just had to convince my wife… She might not… she might not be around long enough for this to matter."
Bailey puts a hand on his arm and squeezes. "Denny Duquette, you had to put your life on pause for five years while you waited on that heart. And I'm sorry, I really am, but you're about to put your life on pause again. But I promise you, I will personally do everything I can to make sure that's all this is for you and Dr. Stevens – a pause."
He takes a deep breath. "Thanks, Dr. Bailey," he says. Then Denny takes the cup and heads back to Izzie.
010101
"Remember those sexual favors you promised me the last time we were here?" he jokes, holding up the cup, "I think it might be time to cash in on some of those."
Izzie laughs. "Isn't it your turn to promise me?" she quips. Denny smirks, and heads off to fill the cup. He delivers it to Bailey as promised and when he returns, he warns Izzie that her medical team is about to come through. He tells her about how strange it can be to have these doctors tell you they're about to cut you open and pluck at your internal organs like a violin. About how the nurses seem to think their patients have gone deaf, and so will talk about things like getting syphilis from a doctor or who's sleeping with which attending as they stand right outside her door. She knows all of this, she promises—just from the other side. So she tells him about some of her more meaningful patients, and the full story behind the nurse with syphilis. Eventually, she goes quiet and picks her knitting needles back up. They wait.
010101
Her friends (minus George, and really, Denny thinks he ought to try to find the tiny man and give him a piece of his mind for not being there for Izzie) try to stick around after her medical team's presentation, but she shoos them out. "Get out of here, go save lives." She kicks Denny out too, and though he wants to protest, he understands that she needs the time alone to grieve for herself. So he kisses her on the forehead, makes her promise to call him if anything changes, and heads home.
When he gets there, he stands frozen outside the door. Right now, it feels like nothing has changed. Like he'll walk through the door to find Izzie, on the rare occasion she got home before him, passed out on the couch in one of his T-shirts, a blanket she had once knit tangled around her, and the TV on full volume. He'll drop his things by the door, like he has a hundred times, and carry her to their room. She'll insist that she's not tired, that she wants to talk to him, to hear all about his day, but by the time he's finished brushing his teeth, she'll have fallen back to sleep.
He smiles sadly, but fondly, and puts the key in the lock. Everything has changed.
There are a few household chores that need to be done, a sink full of dishes to be washed, laundry to put away, but he ignores them, wanting to get back to Izzie before her surgery. Denny doesn't like to use his money on frivolous things, a vestige of the time when he had none, but he's not averse to hiring a company to come in and take care of things while Izzie's sick.
He grabs a bag from the closet in the hallway then heads to their room and starts rifling through her drawers to find sweatpants and soft t-shirts. He grabs a few of his own t-shirts, the ones he knows she likes best, and packs those too. He picks out sweaters, nothing too bulky, so they can still easily access the port on her chest, but still warm enough. He digs in the top of her closet until he finds the stack of silky scarves he knows are there and puts all of them in the bag. While Izzie may have been determined not to lose her hair, there's a chance she will and he wants to be prepared. Just in case.
When it starts to all be a little too much, he sits on her side of the bed and just breathes. There's this technique, one long inhale followed by a quick, powerful exhale, that one of his first cardiologists had given him for quick relaxation and it's that technique, combined with the unique scent of Izzie he's surrounded by, that calm him enough to be able to continue packing.
He grabs a few more things, socks, slippers, bathroom essentials, and finally tops the bag off with the photo album from her night stand. A hospital room is sterile enough on its own—anything that can be done to it to give it even the slightest hint of home, of life, is something worth doing in his book.
010101
Alex finds him sitting on a bench outside the hospital. He's resting his arms on his legs, his hands clasped together in front of him with his head down. There's a bag by his side, clearly Izzie's, as indicated by the bright pink butterflies on its side. Alex finds that he really doesn't want to go comfort Denny, but he is Izzie's friend and Denny is Izzie's husband and so Alex feels compelled to at the very least go sit with him.
Denny glances over at him, then sinks back into the bench and speaks: "I spent five years in and out of hospitals. Five years. After that long, you pick stuff up. Medical terms, symptoms that are dangerous and ones that aren't. …I live with her. I see her every damn day and I sleep next to her every damn night, but I didn't catch this. She'd been having these headaches, throbbing nasty things, but she kept telling me it was stress. She's the doctor, not me, but I should've known something was wrong, I should have said something. She's in there dying because I didn't know. I didn't know…"
Alex sighs and places a hand on Denny's shoulder. "It's not your fault. You aren't a doctor, Denny, you couldn't have known. George, Meredith, Christina, and me, we're the ones…we should've known."
010101
Denny's got one hand on the door to Izzie's room when he notices Dr. Shepherd and Bailey coming up behind him.
"Dr. Shepherd," he drawls kindly.
"Mr. Duquette."
Denny smiles. "Denny," he corrects, "Dr. Duquette is my father."
"You save that charm for your wife, Denny," Dr. Bailey instructs.
"Yes ma'am."
"Izzie's most recent MRI looks good," Derek says. Whether he's speaking to him or to Dr. Bailey, Denny's not sure, but he doesn't question it. "Doesn't look like the tumor's grown since her last scan. Denny, do you have any questions or concerns you'd like to discuss with me before we brief Izzie?"
Denny grows serious then. There's something he needs to ask, needs to be sure of, but he feels so awkward even asking, like he's not sure it's the right thing to do. In any other circumstance, it's something he would never question, but this is Izzie and so it needs to be said. So he sticks his hands in his front pockets and speaks: "Listen, I'm sure you're a great surgeon and all, but Meredith and Izzie… well, they talk. …Dr. Shepherd, that's my girl in there. I need to know that you're okay enough to do this."
Derek is visibly taken aback, visibly offended, and when he speaks his tone is clipped, "I can assure you that despite what Meredith may have told you, I am perfectly capable of doing this surgery today. Excuse me," he says, blustering into Izzie's room.
Dr. Bailey gives Derek a moment, checking to make sure he's in Izzie's room and out of earshot, then turns to Denny. "Denny, Dr. Shepherd is a good surgeon. Even on his worst day, he is better than 95% of neurosurgeons in this country."
Denny nods. He's still not entirely convinced, but he is at the very least a little reassured. "And you'll be there?" he asks.
"I will be there," she assures. "And I'm pretty good—I managed to keep you alive, didn't I?"
"That you did," he chuckles, following her through the door.
Dr. Shepherd explains the surgery using the most sophisticated medical terms he can. Denny's certain he does it because he's still angry with him, but luckily for him, Dr. Bailey continues to ask Izzie questions ("what does that mean, Dr. Stevens?", "how would you explain that to a patient?") under the guise of teaching, explaining the procedure for him.
They leave, but Bailey promises Denny and Izzie that she'll be back soon to start the pre-op work. Izzie tries to turn on the TV. Denny picks up his book and plops in the chair next to her. She pushes the power button on the remote a few times in a row, then huffs in frustration.
"You gotta hit it on something," Denny chimes in, grinning impishly, "the nightstand works best."
She glares at him and huffs. "That won't work, the batteries are dead."
"Okay," he singsongs, raising his eyebrows. He watches out of the corner of his eye as she presses the power button a few more times. Finally, she glances in his direction, as if to check that he's not looking, and whacks the remote against the nightstand. When she presses the power button and it works, he covers his smile with his book. He glances over at her, her arms crossed over her chest and her lips pursed and he can't resist gloating a little, "Told ya."
"Shut up," she glares back. He's never been so happy to be glared at. He had almost forgotten how surreal it could feel to be living in the hospital, but, he figures, it just takes moments like this to really remind you that home is where the heart is, and no matter what, his brand new heart is wherever Izzie is.
010101
After a while, Denny steps outside of the room and asks one of the nurses to page O'Malley. George hasn't been by to visit Izzie since the moment she was admitted and while Izzie may be too proud to ask for him, Denny knows she wants to see him.
"What's going on, is she okay?" George asks, skidding to a halt outside Izzie's room.
Denny leans on Izzie's closed door, his arms crossed over his chest. "She's fine. But you and I are not. Now I'm not gonna yell," he says, "because Izzie can see us and she wouldn't like it. But I am gonna talk and you are going to listen."
George, who's honestly a little scared of him, says nothing.
"Good. I don't know what the hell is going on with you, and frankly, I don't give a damn. But Izzie is in there, waiting to go into surgery, and she's sick, and she's scared, and she needs her best friend. She may not have long and she needs you. So you are gonna go in there and you are gonna apologize to her, then you are going to start coming around more often, or I will find you and kick your ass, you got that?"
"That's just it," George explodes, "I'm her best friend, and she didn't tell me! She wouldn't talk to me! All those time I asked her what was wrong, and she told Christina, Christina of all people!"
Denny nods, his lips pursed, and gives George a moment. "Got it out of your system?"
"Yeah."
"Good," Denny says. He opens the door, and George follows him into Izzie's room.
010101
After a while, Dr. Bailey comes in to do the final prep for her surgery. "Are you ready, Dr. Stevens?"
"Ready as I'll ever be to have my skull opened."
"Denny, you can walk with us until we get to the surgical wing."
And so he does, holding her hand tightly the whole way. He cracks a few jokes along the way, trying to keep her spirits light, but the second they see those big, heavy doors to the surgery wing, he goes quiet.
"This is your last stop, Denny," Dr. Bailey says kindly as she steps away, "I'll give you two a moment."
"We updated the will, right? It's in the safe in the closet" Izzie says desperately to him.
"Izzie-" he tries, but she cuts him off, continuing.
"There's letters in there, too, one for you and my mom. And my friends, you'll tell them that I love them, right? And, um, just be careful with Meredith because she's more fragile than she seems and I know Christina can be a bit hard to handle, but—"
"Isobel Stevens," Denny says fiercely, leaning close to her, "you listen to me. You know, I, uh, don't really know how to be on this side of this," he admits. "But I know that you are the most stubborn person I've ever met. And you are strong and gorgeous and brilliant and you are going to come through this, Izzie. And I know-I know that you can't go into surgery thinking you're going to die, okay? You said that, remember? You are not allowed to die in there. I can't... Izzie…"
"I love you," she says quietly, laying a hand on his cheek and wiping away a stray tear. "No matter what happens I will always love you." He reciprocates the gesture and leans down to kiss her.
"I love you," he says, brushing his thumb across her cheek, "you come back to me, Izzie Stevens." She smiles at him as he lays a gentle kiss on her forehead. When he looks up, Dr. Bailey has already stepped back by Izzie's side.
"She will see you soon, Denny," Dr. Bailey says fiercely, and if he didn't know any better, he'd think it sounded like a promise.
010101
Meredith finds him in the surgical waiting room. "When did they take her in?" she asks, dropping into the seat next to him.
"About fifteen minutes ago. How does fifteen minutes feel like an hour?" He pauses. "I've got to admit, it's a little weird to be on this side of this."
She chuckles under her breath. "I bet. You know, when you were in for your heart replacement, Dr. Bailey put us in a time out. And Izzie, well, I mean, you know how determined she is. She refused to sit with us, she needed to go check on you."
"That sounds like Izzie," he says fondly.
They sit quietly for a moment. "She's in OR 1, right?" Meredith asks.
"I think so, yeah."
She gives him a sidelong look. "Do you want to see her?"
So Meredith sneaks him into the observation room under the promise that he will not freak out or tell anyone she let him in. He's both grateful and a bit resentful. He's so deliriously happy to be able to see Izzie, to know that she's still alive, but to see her skull cut open with Derek Shepherd's hands on her brain is absolutely terrifying. He feels like it's a car crash; he wants to look away, let the nausea rolling through his stomach take over, but he can't tear his eyes away from her. And he doesn't. He sits there through the entire surgery and only sneaks back out when they begin to close her up.
010101
When she wakes, he's the first thing she sees. He's sitting in the chair beside her bed, holding her hand, a little smile on his face. "Hey," he says quietly, "you did good, Izzie. Dr. Shepherd says they got the whole thing."
"Good," she says sleepily. Her eyes are barely open and she's clearly weak and tired, but she tugs gently on his hand. "Up," she commands.
"Iz-" he tries to protest. He knows that she wants him to come up and lie with her, but he's so nervous that he'll hurt her. But when she tugs harder and commands him to join her again, he can't help but acquiesce. She wraps his arms around her and buries herself in his chest. She's asleep almost instantly.
As for Denny, he lies there awhile, thinking. She survived. She survived this risky surgery, survived having her brain drilled into, survived having pieces of it chopped around, and beyond that, they completely removed the tumor. He knows she's not out of the woods, but for now, she's okay, and that's all he let himself focus on. The here and the now are what he has, and here and now she's fine and breathing and right beside him. He figures that makes him pretty lucky.
He doesn't know what the future holds. And he knows she could die and leave him here alone and in all likelihood, she will. But as he strokes her arm, breathes her in, he can't help but feel like she's going to make it. Something in the core of his being tells him that she will fight this; that she will come out on the other side more resilient and more determined than ever before.
Whether that's naïve hope or real intuition, he couldn't say. Still, he clings to it, and as he drifts off to sleep, he knows that it's that feeling, and the strength of his love for Izzie, that will keep him strong. She was strong for him once. Now it's his turn to return the favor.