Exactly What She Needs
Alex/Izzie One-Shot: takes place after 4.15, the Rebecca "pregnancy" has not happened
Izzie goes home after a long day at work and sits on the couch, staring into space. After she lost Denny, she didn't think that she could ever experience more pain than she did then. She was wrong.
She had loved Denny; he was her fiancé. But now she had to bear a greater loss. George was her best friend, and that her Izzie at the very core. The man who she trusted more than she trusted herself was pretty much gone from her life.
She heard the door open and close, and heard footsteps making their way toward the living room. She knew those footsteps.
"Hey, Iz," he said.
"Hi."
"Man, I don't know how this is possible, but I almost miss Montgomery. I was in the mood for a good Gyne case today, but I got stuck doing appendectomies with Bailey all day. At least you got a craniotomy." Silence ensues, and Alex notices that Izzie looks upset. "Are you okay? That's a stupid question. You're not okay. What's wrong?"
"It's George. I lost him. Today is the day that I lost my best friend. And I didn't really see it coming."
Alex was always jealous of George's close friendship with Izzie, and the way she was always so at ease with him. But Izzie was upset, meaning that Alex couldn't be happy.
"Oh, Izzie, I'm so sorry. Do you want to talk about it?"
"I just never thought that things would turn out this way. George has been a constant in my life since day one of our internship. And now he's gone. And I honestly don't think that we're ever going to get back what we had," Izzie says as Alex puts his arm around her and absentmindedly strokes her hair. "Time after time, everyone picks someone else over me. Meredith picked Finn, then Derek, then Cristina. Stop laughing Alex. You know as well as I do that Cristina and Meredith are like this exclusive little circle. Anyway, Hahn stopped picking me for her surgeries. You picked Olivia and Addison and Rebecca. But at the end of the day, George always picked me. Until now."
At that moment, Alex wanted to kill everyone on that list for hurting Izzie, for abandoning her. But he too was on that list and he knew that he done a number on her. He had to do something to fix it.
"Izzie, I can't apologize for everyone on that list, as much as I would like to, but I can apologize to you for what I did. I am so sorry for hurting you. The absolute last thing that I want is for your heart to be broken. I want to help put you back together in any way I can. I know that I could never replace George, but I…"
"Thank you, Alex. I'm really sorry for laying all that on you."
"It's no problem. That's what friends are for. Can I ask you a personal question?" Izzie nods. "Have you cried?"
"No, not yet. I don't know why, but I didn't feel like I could. But now that you're here, I feel like it's safe."
"Okay, here's the game plan. We're going to go upstairs and go to your room, and then we're going to sit and talk and you're going to cry. Then, you're going to go to sleep and I'll leave."
"Okay."
They go upstairs. Izzie sits on the bed with Alex and immediately starts crying. He holds her and rocks her gently.
"Alex, don't leave me. Please don't leave me."
"Okay, Iz. I won't leave you. I will never leave you."
And that is exactly what she needs to hear.
