Pieces
Chapter 1
"Alex." Meredith stood in the doorway to his room. She didn't know what to say to him, how to find the word to make any of this make sense. She'd come a long way in the past years, but at her core she was still dark and twisty. She'd forced Christina and Derek to come with her, and they hung back unsure if their presence was even a good thing. "Alex." She tried again.
"What?" He snapped and barely took his eyes of the textbook he was studying. He was lying stretched out on his bed, the book open in front of him. He'd heard them come up the stairs a few minutes ago, and he'd heard bits and pieces of the hushed conversation they'd had a few feet from his room. He'd heard Christina and Derek try and beg out, and Meredith order them to stay in that "do not argue with me" voice she'd mastered over the last couple of years. He knew they had they had news. He was pretty sure it was bad. Good news didn't require whispered conversations outside his door. "What?" He snapped again when Meredith hesitated and looked back to Derek and Christina before looking at him again.
Meredith hovered in his doorway without actually going into his room. She looked down at the cell phone she still had grasped in her hands. How she wished she'd had it turned off this afternoon so she wouldn't have had to get the call. "It's Izzie.' She finally said.
Alex's hand froze in the motion of turning the page. Good news never came from huddled whispered conversations in the hallway. He flipped the page and tried to keep reading. "Izzie." He repeated her name. He could honestly say he hadn't thought about her in awhile. They'd gotten married, she'd gone a little crazy, and she left him. It was the story of his life. "What about her?" He asked despite the fact he wasn't sure he wanted to know. It wasn't good.
Meredith looked down at the phone again and then took a deep breath. "She died, Alex, I'm so sorry."
Alex looked down at the textbook and fund the words a blurred jumbled mess. He slammed the book shut and sat up. "I don't care." He spit the words out and got off the bed and went to the window turning his back on his friends.
"Oh come on Evil Spawn." Christina interrupted incredulously. "That's crap. She was your wife. Even I care." Izzie had never been her favorite person. She found the blonde entirely too bright, cheerful, and optimistic to be useful. But she had done everything she could to save her life, and in the end Izzie had run off on all of them and then died anyway.
"That's right, I married her. I loved her and I married her. I gave her everything I had, and she left me. She left me in a Dear John letter, with an astronomical medical bill that I'm still paying off and divorce papers." He was yelling at them, and he'd managed to knock the contents of his bedside table to the floor.
"I know." Meredith acknowledged quietly. She went into his room and sat down on his bed. She rolled her eyes as Christina and Derek took the opportunity to escape. She'd wanted them to show a united front so Alex would know he wasn't alone. But deep down she knew Alex better than anyone did ; they were too similar for their own goods. "What she did to you sucked, and you deserved better."
Alex let out a defeated sigh and came to sit next to Meredith. "I thought she'd be the one to stay." He admitted. Izzie had known all about his baggage and is issues. She knew first hand just what kind of an ass he could be. They'd seen each other through their worst. He'd thought she'd stay.
"She left all of us." She knew it didn't make it any better. They hadn't all been married to her.
"Why didn't she call and let us know she was sick again?" His voice was rough, but he refused to cry. He wasn't going to turn into a freaking girl.
"Her mother said that it was very aggressive when it came back. It was very unexpected, her previous scans and tests were all good." While Meredith knew it was more than likely true, she also knew it was an excuse. She couldn't think of one good reason Izzie had to not tell them her cancer had come out of remission. She thought that they'd all meant more to each other than that.
"I don't care." Alex repeated in a whisper. He didn't care. He kept repeating that to himself silently. He'd lost Izzie years ago.
"Her funeral's day after tomorrow. Here in Seattle. She wanted…" She trailed off knowing that even though he kept saying he didn't care this next piece of news would sting. "She wanted to be buried next to Denny."
Alex let out a humorless burst of laughter. Wasn't that just freaking perfect. "Of course she did. He was the one great love of her life."
She didn't say anything. Saying she was sorry wasn't going to change anything. It wasn't going to bring Izzie back, it wouldn't erase all the ways she'd hurt Alex. She didn't say anything she just took Alex's hand in hers and squeezed hard. She'd sit with him however long he'd let her, because she couldn't be one more person who walked away.
!1
Meredith stood in front of the mirror in her bedroom. She was wearing the same black dress she'd worn to George's funeral. Her hair was pulled back into a simple ponytail. She just stared at her reflection in the mirror knowing they didn't have long before they had to leave for Izzie's funeral. First George and now Izzie.
"Hey." Derek came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her. He'd watched her trying to be strong and take care of everyone else since they'd learned the news. "You okay?"
She leaned back in his embrace. "I'm pregnant." Hostile uterus be damned, she was pregnant. She wasn't going to waste any time in telling Derek this time. She watched his reaction in the mirror as he digested the news.
"Really?" He spoke aloud the first thought to enter his mind. "That's…that's amazing."
She turned in his embrace and kissed him. "I'm really happy. I wasn't sure, you know." Wasn't sure her hostile uterus would ever allow her to get pregnant.
"I know." He held her tighter.
"I want to wait before we tell everyone else. This isn't the day. I just wanted you to know." She kissed him again, and led him downstairs, wondering how any of them were going to survive what the day held in store for them.
!1
"Alex!" Meredith called up the stairs for what seemed like the tenth time in ten minutes. "We need to go." She looked helplessly and Derek. The door to Alex's room hadn't yet opened this morning. He had barely spoken to anyone since he'd learned the news. He worked, he went to the Emerald City Bar, and he came home and closed himself off in his room.
He appeared at the top of the steps still in sweatpants and a black tank top. "I'm not going." He called down and turned to go back to his room.
"Stop being stupid, Evil Spawn!" Christina had just let herself and Owen into the Grey house. "You are going. So get dressed and lets go!" It'd barely been two days, and she'd hardly seen him, but she was already tired of him acting like a petulant child.
"Screw you, Yang!" He called out right before he slammed his bedroom door.
"That was effective." Meredith commented with a sigh.
"He'll be down." Christina said with a confident smirk.
!1
Alex stood between Meredith and Christina at the cemetery. Izzie had wanted a graveside service. So here they all were. Alex surveyed the people assembled. He couldn't say he was all that surprised by the number of people who had come out to say goodbye. Izzie had always been a people person. Only one was missing - Izzie's mother - so they were waiting for her. Meredith insisted she'd be here even if she didn't know the cause of her delay.
Bailey was there with Callie and Arizona. He knew Bailey was silently cursing the fact that she was another of her interns funerals. He knew this because she'd stood in front of himself, Grey, and Yang, and told them they'd better take damn good care of themselves because she wasn't doing this again.
He'd seen the chief and his wife Adele. Sloane, Little Grey, and April were there. He'd seen an assorted group of nurses. The oncology team who'd treated her in the beginning. They'd all walked by, nodded at him and murmured words of condolence. Some of them touched his arm gently.
Addison was the only one who had hugged him. She'd arrived with Bailey, Callie, and Arizona. She'd waited while the others had gone first. "Karev." She'd said his name briskly and then hugged her former intern tightly. She didn't say anything else, just hugged him tightly and stepped away.
He pulled on his tie and turned to Meredith. "If Izzie's mother is not here in the next two minutes I'm leaving." He muttered barely under his breath.
"If you don't see this through to the end you won't forgive yourself." She whispered back all the while scanning for Izzie's mother.
"That has to be here." Christina interjected, as she pointed to a woman rushing up towards them. She had a baby who couldn't have been more than a year old in her arms, and a large bag over her shoulder.
Alex narrowed his eyes as she came closer to them. He focused especially on the baby in her arms. There was no way to know for sure, not until someone explained, and there would be an explanation, but he knew. "If Izzie wasn't dead, I swear I'd kill her." He growled loud enough to garner shocked stares and quiet murmurs of surprise.
"Alex!" Meredith gasped and smacked his arm. What on earth would possess him.
Izzie's mother had now reached them and he could see the baby clearly. He just shook his head wondering how Izzie could have done this to him. "She had my baby. She freaking had my baby and didn't tell me."
