Mostly, Izzie's too scared to actual think properly. People keep flinging things at her; memory loss and death and a prognosis. All she wants is to flick the pause button to make them all shut up, so she can just have a few minutes to think, for god's sakes. That's all she wants, is a few minutes alone. It's funny, because she used to have a whole lifetime to herself. And now, depending on the way things work out, she will, at best, have two months.
Five years can go by before you know it's even gone. Two months takes a blink of an eye to disappear. Two months, despite what she's been telling herself, is not enough time. It's not any time. It's not enough time to have kids, (Audrey would be the oldest, Jonathan the middle and then little baby Samantha whom they would spoil rotten) not enough time to see the kids grow up and go to kindergarten. Two months doesn't even give her enough time to celebrate Christmas, or her birthday.
Meredith is the first one to come in. She smiles at Izzie. "Hey."
Izzie waves. Her fingers feel a little like lead, and it's stupid, because at her wedding (she can't get over how great it is to say that, even in the privacy of her own brain) she had felt fine. A little wobbly, and dizzy, and okay so she had thrown up after they cut the cake, but it wasn't anything like she was feeling now.
Meredith lingers by the door, a little uncertainly at first. Izzie's room looks naked now, without all the ridiculous articles from the stupid bridal magazines, the pictures of dresses and shoes and bracelets.
"You can sit," Izzie shifts over a little, allowing Meredith room to sit on the bed.
"Iz," she can tell Meredith's not going to play any bullshit; she's getting right to the point.
"Mer," Izzie says evenly.
"Are you going to have the surgery?"
"The brain surgery?"
"Yes, Izzie, the brain surgery," Meredith rolls her eyes.
Izzie sighs. "I.. I don't know. I've been sitting here, weighing my options, trying to figure out.. which one is better and I just.. I can't make up my mind. I don't know what to decide."
"I know what you should decide. I know you should decide to not have this surgery."
"If I don't have it, I'll die."
"If you do have it, you could lose your memory. Or you could die, anyway. There are things, Iz.. there's chemo and radiation and-"
"Mer," Izzie shakes her head. "It's not working. The chemo.. it's.. it's doing shit for me. And that.. that's not what we have to decide on. It's the brain tumor that needs to come out. If Derek doesn't operate, it will kill me."
Meredith looks frantic. "If he does operate, you might die anyway, or you might wake up, Iz, and you might not remember that Alex is your husband. You might think you're eleven years old, you might not even know who you are. I don't want you to have this surgery, you.. you can not have this surgery."
"I'm going to die, Meredith. I will die if he doesn't operate. Soon, I will die."
"Do you want to lose your memory?"
"Do you want me to die?"
"Izzie! I..," Meredith's face relaxes. "Oh god. Iz. No! No I do not want you to die. I want you to live, we all want.. we all need you to live. But I just.. okay, let's say you..you have this operation. You wake up, you don't remember the last five years? The surgery didn't go well, the tumor is still there. Then.. then you die anyway, and you've lost such a huge chunk of your life for no damn reason! It's.."
"Okay," Izzie puts her hand on Meredith's wrist. "I get it. I know."
"It's scary, and it sucks. And it's not fair."
Izzie nods, and she shudders. "Yeah. I know. I'm scared too. I just.. if it does work, right? And I don't lose my memory maybe.. I just, I have that hope, this stupid hope that things will be okay, that everything will turn out the way it should."
Meredith squeezes Izzie's hand. "You never know," she says, resignedly. And then, after a few minutes, "I still don't want you to have the surgery."
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"Izzie?"
"Hm?" Izzie cracks her eyes open.
"We need to talk about-"
"I know. The surgery. It's all anybody wants to talk to me about. First Meredith, and now you."
"Iz, I'm your husband. We have to talk about things like that. About things like this."
"Meredith says she doesn't want me having the surgery."
"What do you want?" he asks.
"I want.. all of this to go away," she decides, sweeping her arm vaugely.
"I know. But it's not going to," he says, matter of factly. "And so we have to decide. I know what I want, what I think you should do."
"And what is that?"
"I think you should have the surgery. It.. it might work, Iz, Shepard's a freakin' genius with a scalpel."
"The tumor's tiny," Izzie offers up. "Really tiny. They might not get it out. And if they do, I might lose my memory. Maybe."
"And if they don't, that's it. You die."
"I know that, Alex," Izzie says shortly. "I'm sorry. I do.. I think I want to have the surgery. It's just a lot.. to think about, and it's a lot to decide. I.. I don't know."
"Look, I'm your husband. I want you to have this surgery. You should want yourself to have this surgery, if you want to live."
"Just because your my husband doesn't mean you can suddenly lord over me and tell me what to do."
"I'm not telling you what to do! Damn it, Iz! I'm just saying.. if you want to live, you need this surgery."
"I know." Izzie's eyes well up with tears.
"And I'm sorry, if I'm being an asshole about this whole thing, yelling and.. and telling you what to do. But the only reason I'm acting like this, Iz, is because of how much I love you. Alright?"
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"George," Izzie sighs heavily, forcing her eyelids open. "If you're here to talk to me about the surgery.. I don't want to hear it. Everyone's shoving all this crap down my throat and I-"
"That's not why I'm here, actually. Sort of the.. opposite of Meredith and George and Cristina, telling you what to do, or what not to do. I'm just here.. because."
Izzie smiles. It seems like a while since the two of them have been together just because. "Okay," she nods. "Thank you, George. That's.. that's nice. And thank you for everything, at the wedding."
"It's.. don't mention it, Iz." George sits down beside Izzie, watching her, kind of curiously, as though he's not sure what she's going to do next. It used to be that he could probably predict everything she was going to do, and say.
"George?"
"Yeah?"
"What do you think I should do?"
"I thought," George smiles kindly, "that you didn't want me shoving crap down your throat."
"You won't shove crap down my throat, you'll just.. tell me."
"All I want is for you to be happy," he tells her. "Which is probably.. not helpful, because.. of everything, it must be hard to be happy. But if you want to just.." George can't say it. He cannot say 'if you just want to die, that's cool with me.' "Whatever you want, Iz, I want too."
"I want.. to go back," she says quietly. "I hate this, George, I hate being sick and I hate.. all of this. This isn't the way everything was supposed to be. And I just.. it's not fair. And I know how stupid that sounds, because we're surgeons, we're living proof that life is not fair. But that doesn't mean you can't want things to be different, right?"
George nods. "I know," he says, comfortingly.
Izzie moves over to George, and he puts his arm around her. She lets her head fall to his chest and, quietly, she cries.
You'll find it hiding in
shadows If that's
way it is I still feel you and
the taste of cigarettes And
you didn't even notice You are the bluest light
You'll find it hiding in cupboards
It will walk you
home safe every night
It will help you remember
Then that's the way it is
What could I ever run to
Just tell me
it's tearing you apart
Just tell me you cannot sleep
When the sky turned blue
And you
couldn't tell the difference
Between me and you
And I nearly
didn't notice
The gentlest feeling