She Paints Me Blue

It had been a week since Denny died. A week since Alex had taken Izzie to his apartment and held her again while she cried. A week since he'd woken her up, coaxed her into taking a shower, and stood outside worrying as she took what seemed to him an exorbitant amount of time. A week since he'd taken her back to Meredith's house, clad in his oversized sweats and a shirt, her gown folded and tucked carefully in the back of his car.

Okay, so it was closer to nine days. But it wasn't like Alex was keeping track that carefully, or thinking about her every minute he had to himself. And sometimes even when he was taking care of a patient who maybe had blonde hair, or a bright smile, or sparkling eyes… no, he wasn't keeping track.

Which was why it bothered him, the way everyone was avoiding him without reason.

"Don't even ask," Cristina had said when she saw him approaching where she'd stood. She'd given him one of her token looks and spun on her heel to go visit Burke or scrub in on a surgery or do whatever it was that Cristina did.

Meredith wasn't any better. "Not now, Alex." She was leaning against the nurse's desk, filling out some paperwork.

"I was just coming to ask you- "

Meredith quickly pushed together all of the papers, and clutching the binder to her chest began to hurry off in the opposite direction. "I've got stuff to do, and I told you I didn't have time," She called back to him, and he stared in confusion as she scurried away.

He wasn't going to ask about Izzie. Honestly.

So when he opened the door to an exam room later that night to find George and Callie sitting on an empty bed and giggling with each other, he was already expecting the concerned expressions and awkward silence.

"O'Malley, I didn't know you were-"

"No it's okay, we were just taking a break, we weren't doing anything like having sex we were just sitting here eating some potato chips, we weren't even thinking about having sex," George began to hurriedly explain himself (apparently he felt the need to) and Callie elbowed him in the side. "Uh," The man spluttered and looked uncomfortable. "Chips?" He held out the bag to Alex.

"No,…" Alex looked at him with an odd expression. "I was just coming to ask-" Again he was interrupted. "Don't ask me about Izzie, okay?" George's expression wasn't one of embarrassment anymore, but one of emotional discomfort. Callie cleared her throat and then looked away.

"I was just-"

"All I can say is, how would you feel if you lost someone you loved? How would you feel if… if it was Izzie?" George's question threw Alex completely off-guard, and he couldn't come up with a response quick enough. "Yeah. Well, that's how Izzie feels." With that, George hopped off the bed and pushed his way past Alex.

Alex looked at Callie, who was watching him with an expression of sadness and pity. "I wasn't even going to ask him about Izzie," He mumbled hastily, and left under Callie's knowing gaze.

The rest of the night was spent trying to figure out why no one wanted to say anything… why everyone was keeping things so hush-hush. Most of all, Alex tried to figure out why Izzie's best friend reacted in such an explosive manner before her name had even been mentioned.

Five days later and Alex was the one being questioned. Dr. Montgomery-Shepherd was still forcing him to work with her, and on the way from one patient's room to the other she surprised him with a question.

"How's Izzie been?"

Alex furrowed his brow and looked at the woman next to him, with her high heels and designer clothes accented by the white lab coat, red hair perfectly brushed into place. She really was Satan in disguise. "How should I know?"

"Well, Alex, I'm not stupid." A hint of laughter just beneath her tone.

"It's not my responsibility to know how she's doing. I'm not her babysitter. Or her shrink." He slammed into the room of the next patient.

Addison looked at Alex with an amused smirk, thinking to herself about how there was something intrinsically wrong with every male that had ever been born into this world.

Later, Alex was getting changed in the deserted locker room when he heard a pair of voices arguing with each other in hushed tones. One was definitely a female's voice, and the other male. As they drew closer he could peg them as belonging to Meredith and George, and he decided not to turn around to acknowledge them.

"Alex." It wasn't even a greeting, it was more of a command, a statement, and a question all summed up in one two-syllable word. Funny how women had the ability to manipulate speech like that.

"Yeah?" He turned to face Meredith, who looked like she had something up her sleeve, and George, who looked like George usually did. After pulling on his shirt, he reached behind him to shut the door of his locker. "What's up?"

"It's Izzie."

"She won't get out of bed."

"We only see her when she goes to the bathroom, and she won't even-"

"Talk to us, like she's mute or something."

"She barely eats anything, not that we can really cook-"

"And she won't even bake, Alex. That's what's up."

Alex tried to keep up with their hurried remarks, glancing from Meredith to George and back. When Meredith ended the barrage of information with the baking bit, Alex shrugged his shoulders. "Okay. What does that have to do with me?"

Meredith and George exchanged glances.

"I can't believe you're making me do this," Alex complained from the backseat of Meredith's car as she drove the trio back to her house.

"We didn't make you. You had a choice." Meredith grinned as she looked at him from the rearview mirror. George nudged her roughly and reminded her to keep her eyes on the road.

"Don't talk to her while she's driving!" He turned to hiss at Alex. Just as George spoke the words, Meredith swerved for whatever reason and Alex realized he wasn't kidding.

"Okay, well – uh, George – I didn't really have a choice. Offering to pay off half my bar tab at Joe's, or coming up with some ridiculous lie to tell him about how I'd never be able to pay it back because I was getting some kind of 'special surgery' done…" Alex crossed his arms and felt like a small, pouting child.

But consciously he had made the choice before they had even threatened him.

Soon they were pulling into the driveway, and George launched himself out from the passenger's side door. "Next time I'm driving," He said sulkily and stormed into the house.

Meredith just laughed and waited for Alex before she went in, her expression growing from one of amusement to one of serious concern before they'd reached the door. "Just… just be you, Alex. None of us know what to say. But you… seem like you know what to say to her."

"I'm not promising anything."

Once inside, Meredith disappeared into the kitchen where George was attempting to find something edible in the fridge, and Alex immediately headed upstairs to Izzie's room. For a moment he stood outside her door and listened for any sounds but there were none – just a feeling of sadness that seemed to emanate from the general area. That could have just been his imagination.

He let himself in without knocking, and Izzie didn't complain. In fact, the lump underneath the covers that he assumed to be Izzie didn't say anything at all, although from the dim lighting of a room lamp he could see that her eyes were open. The blanket was pulled all the way to her neck and she was staring at the wall, stubbornly ignoring him.

"Hey, Izz," Alex greeted her with the same mien he would have had with anyone else. He shut the door and glanced around the room, noticing that she had hung her gown on the door of her closet and had the sweater she'd knitted Denny hung up the same way.

"I don't even get a hello? That's okay, I don't mind. It's the same way at work – no, 'Hello Dr. Karev' – once I'm there they just know, and follow accordingly." Alex took a seat next to her bed, but she was staring at the wall across from him.

He really wasn't sure what to say. He could try to be sweet and coax her out of bed, but that seemed useless. He could get angry with her and elicit some kind of emotion, but he didn't have it in him to be that way right now. So instead of trying to come up with pretty words and sugar-coated, empty phrases… but he was above that.

"I don't understand the She-Shepherd. When she's not wearing her salmon scrubs she looks like she's ready to strut down the catwalk or something. Does she wake up with her face painted on like that? He-Shepherd let himself go for awhile, I used to hear the nurses gush about his hair, and then he grew it out or stopped brushing it or something but his wife always looks perfect. And she practices medicine in heels. Who does that?" None of this was particularly important, but Alex didn't want to touch the topics of illness or death that he'd dealt with for the past two weeks. Instead he chose someone that he'd often heard Izzie herself complain about and hoped that perhaps she would say something – anything – for him to know that she would be okay.

Not a single word was breathed.

She didn't even move.

Alex sat there for a very long moment, his heart thundering in his ears, making him feel slightly dizzy. He couldn't say anything more. There was so much to say but his brain couldn't get its messages straight and it was almost as if he couldn't remember how to talk. All he needed was something for him to know that in the end, she would be okay, because then he would be okay.

Slowly, slowly he rose to his feet. Made it to the door. "At least I tried." His voice was thick with emotion; was thick with the tears that he would never allow himself to shed. Alex managed to choke out the words so that they were comprehensible, and then he hurriedly fled from the uncomfortable situation.

He was sitting on the front stoop, struggling to keep his emotions in check when Meredith noisily opened the door and slammed it, plopping herself down next to him. "Thanks for trying." She nudged him with her shoulder.

Alex nudged her back, and turned to smile faintly. "Yeah, well." She nodded knowingly, and they both sat in silence until Meredith stood up, using Alex's shoulder to lean on.

"George and I are making dinner. You should come back inside."

"I'll come in but I don't know if I'll eat that slop."

Meredith laughed and went back inside as noisily as she had come out.

After what had to have been about twenty minutes, he heard the door open again. Soon whoever it was sat next to him, and before he could yell at Meredith for bugging him he realized it wasn't Meredith.

Meredith didn't smell like that. Meredith didn't feel warm like this, warm without even touching him.

It was Izzie.

Alex didn't turn to look at her.

"She doesn't wake up like that. I've caught her a few times in the bathroom reapplying her makeup and she tries to brush it off like she's just 'fixing' something or that she got something in her eye. And no self-respecting surgeon practices in heels. Or salmon coloured scrubs." Her voice, although not as confident and cheerful as it once was, did not sound as broken and desolate as he figured it would.

Finally he turned to look at her and saw that she was wearing his shirt, the shirt he'd sent her home in with IOWA across the chest in block letters. "Seriously." Alex couldn't help but smile at her. After all, she wasn't wearing Denny's sweater. She was wearing his shirt. HIS shirt.

"Seriously," Izzie agreed. She moved closer to him and hesitantly slid her arm around his waist. "Thank you." It was a simple statement, made all the more meaningful when she rested her head against his shoulder.

"You're welcome." Alex turned to press his cheek against her forehead, his arm sliding around her shoulders.