My first Grey's fanfic; angsty and obviously my own interpretation. I don't own Grey's or any of the characters but I love the show and am grateful to the writers and actors and everyone else who helps make the show for creating characters that speak to my heart.

Dead. Corpse. Actually – not living.

The floor was cold, some distant part of her brain registered. It didn't matter. She knew she would never feel warm again, never feel whole again.

The memory was there, before her eyes; she knew it was a memory, from the past, and yet it seemed to show up more clearly than the bathroom she lay in.

The room. The bed. The instruments. And—

"It's not Denny…not anymore." The words, spoken gently but striking her heart like coarse sand rubbed on an open wound, reverberated without end. If only the words would stop, the thoughts, the pictures her mind kept pulling out of her memory—if they would go away, maybe she could think.

Something was knocking, someone was speaking. But Alex's voice spoke louder in her mind: "not anymore…not anymore…"

Unconsciously, a scene formed in her mind. She stood at the door of the room, arguing that it was her turn. She had her say, and saw the light in…in his eyes. His eyes…

Her muscles twitched, eyes blinked – who was this person, lying on the bathroom floor, thinking about Denny's eyes and watching her hands shake?

Did it matter?

No. All that mattered were Denny's eyes…the way they had lit up when she'd told him 'yes.' They were deep and brown, and welcomed her to lose herself in them. Relieved, she focused through the pleading voices outside the room; focused on the eyes that were the whole world.

She opened her eyes, and realized that she should be startled. There was someone on the floor with her. Of course, it didn't matter. But something – something told her that it was weird that she hadn't realized when someone had come in. To make that part of her shut up, she turned her gaze towards this someone, and forced her eyes to focus. She heard her name. She realized she was expected to respond.

"What?"

"Maybe you should…change your clothes?"

It was George. Her best friend. But he was talking, still talking, and didn't he know that this was a time to be quiet? Words broke the sacred silence, words fell to the ground and shattered, making an unbearable cacophony of sounds that threatened to push her mind past its limits.

"Maybe you want to wear something – more comfortable?"

"Stop it."

"Izzie, I--"

"Stop it, I mean it, stop talking. There is nothing to talk about, do you understand me? There is nothing to – discuss."

The trick of this talking thing, while it was necessary to make George stop talking, was to not. Not focus, not think, not anything. Don't think about what is going on, why you're lying on the bathroom floor in a prom dress; why George's eyes look like that. Like a puppy's eyes, sweet; yet also hard, sort of like movie characters when they're speared right through. But that's not the point. The point is – make him shut up. He wasn't doing any harm where he was, if he would just shut up and quit talking nonsense.

"Izzie, I'm so sorry…"

Concentration broken, her eyes flickered back and focused on his face. Just for a moment, and then –

"Yeah, me too…"

And Denny's eyes filled the vision of her mind, eyes which held hope and despair in them, as well as life and death – and truth and disbelief.