"Let me organize your wedding. Please let me do it. I need something to keep me occupied, something to think about other than surgery and chemo and cancer. Please let me do this."

That's what Izzie had said to her, she had begged her to let her plan her wedding and she had tried to say no, she'd tried to tell her she didn't want a big white wedding but Izzie kept begging. She kept telling her she had to have a big wedding that a big wedding was every girls dream, and then she'd told her she needed something fun to do, that she was going stir crazy and she needed something to do other than knit more scarves and think about cancer.

She couldn't say no to her, not when she put it like that, so she let her plan the wedding. She let her pick the colours, and the flowers, and even the music. The colours were pink and silver, the flowers lilies, and she was walking down the aisle to something called Cannon in D. Pink wasn't her colour, if she had to pick a colour she would have chosen brown, brown and yellow, she wouldn't have chosen lilies maybe sunflowers, she wasn't sure, she just knew she didn't like lilies. Izzie liked lilies though, she thought they were beautiful, so there were lilies, just like there was pink because Izzie liked pink.

She looked down at the wedding dress she wore, it beautiful but over the top, not her, nothing about this wedding was her, she'd thought maybe if she kept going along with it maybe it would become her but it hadn't. She didn't want this wedding and the truth was neither did Derek. He'd already done the big wedding thing with Addison; he didn't need to do it again. This wasn't her wedding this wedding was Izzie's.

-8-8-8-8-8-8-

Izzie stuck her head inside the church and looked around, the florists had just left, everything was set up and it was perfect, it looked exactly like she had always imagined. She stepped inside and closed the door behind her, there was no one there yet, so she let herself pretend. She closed her eyes and began walking slowly down the aisle and she pretended that this was her wedding, that she was the one getting married today.

She didn't think she would cry, but as soon she started walking the tears began to flow, this was her wedding, this was supposed to be her dream wedding. She took the two steps she needed to reach a pew and she sat down, she rested her head in her hands and tried to make herself stop crying. She wasn't supposed to cry today, she was supposed to be happy but all she could think about was how unfair this was.

-8-8-8-8-8-8-

Cristina ran her hands down the front of the pink knee length bridesmaid dress, Izzie had her wearing. She knew it was Izzie who wanted the pink, she'd listened to Meredith go on about it a few times, about how Izzie wanted to organise her wedding and she didn't know how to stop her. She'd tried to tell she just needed to say no, that she just had to put her foot down but it was a case of 'easier said than done'. Planning the wedding seemed to make Izzie happy and Meredith didn't want to take that away from her.

Planning the wedding had made Izzie happy but now that the day had arrived, she wasn't happy. She could see that even if no one else could, seeing this wedding happen was tearing her up inside.

-8-8-8-8-8-8-

Behind her Izzie heard the door to the church open. She looked up and saw Cristina walking towards her. At the sight she tried to take a deep breath and wipe the tears away from her face, she didn't want anyone to see her crying but she couldn't hide it, the mascara she wore had already started running.

"Izzie," Cristina said sitting down beside her. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah," She tried to wipe her eyes again but she only managed to smudge the mascara more.

"Really? You look like you've been crying?"

"Yeah," She looked down at her hands and began rubbing at the black streaks. She didn't want to talk about it, this was supposed to be Meredith's day not hers, but the silence kept eating at her. "I was just thinking about this." She waved her hand around the empty church. "It is so beautiful, and I was just thinking." Her voice trailed off and she felt the tears run down her face. "This was supposed to be…" She let her voice trail off again, she wouldn't say it, she wouldn't say what she was thinking.

"Your wedding." Cristina finished her sentence for her. She lifted her head and nodded.

"When I pictured my wedding this was exactly how it looked."

-8-8-8-8-8-8-

Hearing the words come form Izzie's mouth broke Cristina's heart. She knew that was what was going on and she wanted to kick herself for not stopping it.

"The lilies they were my dads flower. When ever he would fight with my mom, he would give them to her after to say sorry and…"

Cristina listened as Izzie kept explaining everything to her, she kept telling her why she picked everything. It all meant something to her, everything had a reason.

"You can still have that Iz." She told her trying to comfort her.

"No I can't."

"Yes you can." She reached out and placed her hand over Izzie's knee. "You're going to get better, you're going to get your dream wedding."

"You don't know that," Izzie closed her eyes and let out a sigh. "Even if I get better I can't have this anymore, this isn't mine now it's Meredith's."

"Oh Iz," She gave her knee a squeeze. "Why did you do it then?"

"Because I wanted to see it, I wanted to see what it would look like." Izzie opened her eyes and looked around the church. "I never thought it would be this beautiful."

"It is beautiful." Cristina agreed before letting the room drop into silence. For the longest time they both just sat there looking around, thinking about everything. Cristina was trying to work out what to do, how to make things right because at the moment they were anything but right. "Will you be okay here for a bit?" She finally asked. She'd come up with an idea but she didn't want to suggest it until she knew it would work.

"Yeah," Izzie said looking up at her. "I'll be fine."

-8-8-8-8-8-8-

Cristina walked out the church and headed towards the room Meredith was supposed to be in. She needed to talk to her and find out what she was thinking, find out if she felt the same way.

"Meredith," she said walking into the room. She found her friend sitting on a chair staring at the service book. Izzie had designed them, they were printed on silver paper and had pink ribbon holding them together. "We have to talk, this – " she waved her arm around the room.

"Is wrong." Meredith finished the sentence for her and looked up. "This isn't my wedding, this isn't what I want my wedding to look like." She put the service book down and let out a sigh. "I let Izzie do this because it made her happy, she seemed so excited about it, so I just let her run and I thought it would grow on me. I thought that when the day came that it would be alright, that it wouldn't matter but it does matter because this isn't my wedding it's Izzie's."

Cristina sat down on the chair beside Meredith and picked up the service book. "This is her dream wedding. " She started saying. "Everything about this right down to the table settings is her dream. Mere it is hurting her seeing this happen, to see her dream wedding unfold and it not be hers."

"I know, I've seen the look in her eyes today. She keeps smiling and saying she's okay but I can see it is breaking her."

"Yeah," There was a silence between them for a moment, the same thoughts were going through both their heads. "We've got to do something." Cristina finally said.

"I know," Meredith let out. "Lets go find the men."

-8-8-8-8-8-8-

Alex stood in front of the mirror in the room all the guys were getting ready in and tried to fix his tie. It didn't look right though, not matter how many times he tried to tie it he could not get the pink satin thing to sit right.

"Do you need a hand there Karev?" He heard Mark ask from a few feet behind him. He turned around and looked at Mark's tie, he had the pink thing tied perfectly around his neck.

"Yeah thanks," He pulled the tie over his head handed it to Mark. He watched him untie the mess which was his attempted knot and then wrap the tie around his neck and tie a perfect Windsor knot in a matter of seconds.

"Here you go."

"Thanks," He took the tie from Mark's hand and pulled it back over his head. He turned back to the mirror and began pulling the tie into place around his neck. It took him another five minutes to get it right and when he finally turned back to face the other two men in the room they looked like they were about ready to laugh.

"What!" He looked at them with an annoyed expression and sat down in one of the chairs. "I don't wear ties okay."

"It's okay Karev." Mark smiled at him. "You need to chill, you'd think you were the one getting married today."

"Yeah well…" He wasn't the one getting married but it was going to be a big day for him. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small black box. "I brought this last night." He said opening the box and showing its contents to Mark and Derek, inside was a small very delicate looking diamond ring. "I'm going to ask Izzie to marry me tonight at the reception. Do you think she'll like it?"

Mark and Derek both stepped closer to inspect the ring. "It's a bit small." Mark said. "I always saw Izzie as the big diamond ring girl."

He should have known Mark would say that. He knew he was right, Izzie would have wanted something bigger, she deserved something bigger. "I can't afford anything bigger." He muttered and he snapped the box shut and shoved it back in his pocket wishing he hadn't shown the ring to them.

Derek glared at Mark and stepped closer to Alex. "Let me have another look at that ring." He asked holding out his hand. Alex looked away from him but he still reached into his pocket and pulled out the box. He placed it in Derek's hand but he didn't say anything.

Derek looked closely at the ring, it was a simple yet elegant arrangement, set in white gold. "The ring is beautiful Alex." He said with a genuine sincerity. "The size doesn't matter. Izzie will love it because it's from you."