TITLE: Only Misty
AUTHOR: Lora Perry
RATING: PG-13, T
WARNING: talks of blood, nothing to graphic
PAIRINGS: blink it, you'll miss it Addison/Alex
DISCALIMER: Don't own, don't sue
WORD COUNT: 1222
SUMMARY: Her hands were stained with the blood of a man who, though she had lived with for more than a year, she had no real knowledge of.
Izzie wonders what death means to those who have died. What death means to those who've played chicken with it, balancing hazardously on the edge of it, tempting Death with its presence. Izzie wonders what Death does to little girls with blue eyes and old men with gentle smiles.
Are all treated to a welcoming buffet? Do they take pictures; does everyone carry id? Are there apartment buildings, lined up by generation of death or by nationality or by race? Do old, deteriorated women transform as they enter, turning back into vivacious young girls with the mischievous eyes and tumbling waves of blonde, bouncing hair?
Or is it just darkness for all of eternity? Izzie can't help but shiver at the idea of being lost in eternal darkness. Of never hearing laughter again; fresh and straight from the vine, giggles that bubble up unconfined.
Her hands are red; red with blood and guilt and sorrow. Thoughts are getting so overly jumbled up in her head. Is she spinning or standing still? Is she even standing? All she can remember is blood, and dirty tile and a whispered, "…Alex?" It was like she couldn't comprehend what was happening in front of her war wearied eyes. She was a doctor for goodness sakes! And all she could do is stand there, her feet starting to waver.
"Alex?"
Meredith can remember the first time she saw blood. She was 3, and she had managed to go down the green slide at the park wrong. For her revolutionary ideas about sliding, she was rewarded with a bloody scraped elbow and a smothering father. She can remember staring at this deep burgundy seeping out of her. After the longest moments of her life, she had screamed. Terrified. Her father has hushed her and cleaned her all up.
She never slid down the green slide again, preferring the yellow or the blue. If her parents had paid more attention, they might have caught the early psychological scarring. As it was, they never noticed.
The first time she saw a dead body she was 8 and her mother had left her alone in her office. She had grown bored and wandered away from the plush carpet and coloring book. She was no longer a child. She had given up coloring with naptimes. She had wandered the hallways, the nurses and doctors completely oblivious to the small, mousy girl weaving in between their rushed paths. In retrospect, it amuses Meredith that no one stopped her. But like all other times, her presence was unnoticed in the grand scheme of things.
The body was old, and grey. His eyes were closed, but his lips were blue. Blue like the color of her room. Blue like her favorite teddy bear. Blue like her favorite cup.
When she came home that day, after her mother was done doctoring, and Meredith had returned to the office (unnoticed that she had left in the first place), she had demanded changes. She told her mother that she was a girl. She needed a pink, red or yellow room not blue. She was 8! She wasn't a child. Her bear was in the trash by the time the night was over. And her favorite blue cup, the one she used whenever she was sick, ended up on the floor in a million little pieces. An accident, she swears. Her mother hadn't even suspected. Her mother hadn't even questioned it.
Meredith may have been scarred, but nothing to the comparison to laughing as she came home to work, only to have Izzie go into the bathroom and start to scream. Nothing compares to the sight of the blood and the lifeless body of her roommate on the floor. Nothing will ever hold a torch to the feeling of the vividly red liquid seeping into her pants as she kneeled.
She has never done CPR and cried at the same time.
There's always a first time for everything.
Izzie screamed at her. She screamed at Alex. She screamed at the 911 operator. She yelled at the paramedics for not going fast enough. (she doesn't know how she knows, but Meredith knows that it took them 3 minutes and 56 seconds to get to her house. But that was already 10 minutes after they had come home to this, this most traumatic of settings. And God knows how long since he had started to bleed.)
The paramedics are up the stairs and taking over for her faster than she can blink. Izzie has stopped screaming, and now she is quiet. Too quiet, but even Meredith can only deal with one crisis at a time. She tells the paramedics to take him to Seattle Grace. They respond with a rapid fire of questions. Was Alex allergic to any medications? Was he taking any medications? Were there any underlying medical conditions? She frowned, unable to answer anything. She looks down at the unresponsive, unconscious man on her bloody floor. How does she not know anything about him? Can she even be considered his friend? She realizes that she doesn't even know his middle name or where his home town is.
She swears when this is all over. If (no. no. WHEN) Alex gets better she'll ask all the important questions. If he's allergic to seafood and who was the first girl he kissed. What he misses most about home: mom's cooking or dad's jokes. She'll ask about his college days. About that tattoo of his, the one that always come uncovered when he runs around the house, in a towel, looking for his razor. Meredith is the worst of friends, but she will amend it all. When (not IF) Alex gets better.
She feels better though-knows it's horrible but she does- when Izzie shakes her head as well; she doesn't know anything either.
Meredith gets up, her knees cracking, her hands smearing blood across her wallpapered wall. Says she'll check the boys' bathroom across the house for any meds. The paramedics only give her a glance. Tell her they can't wait. Tell her they need to go; now.
Alex is the kind of pale that the man from 20 some odd years ago was. His blood is that of the same burgundy that fell from her elbow when she was young. And as the paramedics speed out of her driveway, she turns to Izzie. Izzie's hands are covered in blood. Meredith's knees are soaked through, her hands smothered by it. There's a streak of red by Izzie's eye, cause by uncontrollable tears and the instinct to hide them.
They are both crying, standing in their driveway, looking like rejects from a bad horror film.
The red and blue lights diminish into the night, and Izzie and she collapse to the ground.
They'll have to call George.
They'll have to call Bailey. Have her wake up, and get to the hospital.
Izzie will call Addison, when no one's looking.
But for now;
They cry.