The car finally breaks down on Route 80 somewhere outside of Lincoln, Nebraska. The carburetor, the guy says, and he has to wait for parts.
You were almost home. One more state line after all the days of driving too fast and subsisting on just enough junk food and bad coffee to keep you alive. Almost home, but not quite. You're determined to make it all the way, so you check into a motel near the auto repair place, and lay on the bed and watch TV without taking it in, and drink beer. Because, really, what the hell else is there to do when you've failed everybody you've ever loved?
Some failures end in psych wards; others end in screwing your way to oblivion and then leaving. Which is why you're here now. Caught between a past that kills you and a future you can't handle. Almost home, literally and figuratively, like always.
She let you fuck your pain away. After you shut her out, after you called her a stupid bitch, after you almost gave up your sanity for a hope of salvation that wouldn't ever come. She let you fuck your pain away. For an interval, she suspended reality for you. Hers, where she doesn't trust you; and yours, where you compulsively screw up anything good and where you're never, ever enough.
But that wasn't all it was. It started out that way. You needed something, someone, anything. And she was there. She was just there. But how it ended was something different. Because this time, as your pain flooded into her with your come, as she tensed and shuddered and drew you deeper into her body, you saw her. You saw Isobel Stevens, as she was; unveiled, stark and clear, and beautifully revealed. And she saw you. All of you.
And that's why you left. That's why you're in Lincoln in a lousy motel room. That's why you're only almost home. Because home isn't where you think it is any more. It's not with the pain of failure; it's not with what you've done before. It's with what you could do now. With her. What you could be together. It took you a road-trip to fucking Nebraska and a busted carburetor to find that out. But now you know.
It's not something, someone, anyone you need. It's Izzie.
The car's a heap of junk anyway, so you decide to ditch it. The auto repair guy takes it off your hands for a ride to Omaha airport and a hundred dollars, which you put towards your plane ticket to Seattle.
When you arrive, it's raining, of course. But the rain makes you happy somehow. Being wet makes you happy. And when you arrive home — and that catches you off guard for a second, calling Meredith's house home and not the place in Iowa you never quite reached — when you arrive home, you drip rainwater on the over-cleaned floor and into the mixing bowl where she's taking her anger out on baking ingredients and kiss her, just under her ear, where you know she likes it. But this time she jerks her head away. You suspected she would, but bravado always was your style.
"Hey, Iz," you say, and take a step back to get a look at her.
She stares furiously into the bowl and pounds at the contents with her hands.
"Making muffins?" you ask, a little smirk on your lips. You know you're pushing it, but maybe pushing it is what's needed here. Maybe that's what was always needed. You saw her; she saw you; you went through hell and she was there at the end and you don't want to lose this chance.
"Cobbler," she spits out between gritted teeth and rolls her eyes. "Obviously."
"Cool. I'm starving." You put a hand in the bowl, but before you can grab any of the mixture, Izzie smacks it away. Not playfully, not even irritably, but with a violent, hurt anger that's so intense it shocks you, even though you more or less expected it.
Then she rounds on you. "You left!" she erupts. "You left. After I . . . after we." She takes a deep, almost wracking breath. "I am not going to cry for you, Alex Karev. Not for what happened to you. Not for what was between us. Not for what you, once again, threw away." Tears start to form in her eyes and she swipes them away in frustration at herself. "How could you? How could you leave? Right after. Right after . . . everything? I was there for you. I stayed with you. I let you . . . I let you have me. And," her sobbing is unstoppable now and she pushes the words out through her tears, "we were us. We were us. For each other. And then you left!"
She tries to shove past you, but you block her exit.
All the feelings of everything you'd like to say to her churn inside you. That you felt it too. That, stranded in Nebraska, you realized she was the one; that you couldn't live without her. But words never were your thing. So you say, gently, hoping she'll understand anyway,
"You're right, Iz. I left. I had to." You pause. "But I came back."
She stares at you, and opens her mouth for another tirade, but then her body relaxes. It starts with her hands, then goes to her shoulders, her neck, until finally her face loses the rigid anger and softens. And, with her head slightly on one side, escaped wisps of blonde hair falling into her eyes, she looks at you, wonderingly.
"You came back," she repeats slowly.
"Yeah."
"You came back to me?" she asks.
"Well, yeah," you say and shrug slightly. "Where else would I go?"
Her whole face breaks into a smile. "You came back!" she says. "You weren't just trying to make the pain go away. It wasn't just that you needed to forget. I mean, I guess it was at first. It had to have been. After Rebecca and everything that happened. But . . . but . . ." She runs out of steam.
"You done?" you ask and slightly raise one eyebrow.
She nods.
You move closer to her and cup the side of her face with your hand and she leans, instinctively, into your touch. "I felt it too," you say in a low voice. "That's why I came back."
"It is?"
You nod and briefly press your forehead against hers. You don't need any more words.
You kiss her. She kisses you back. As her soft mouth invites your tongue to caress her and her lips first brush yours and then assault them with the beautiful ferocity you remember from that night, you know. You know you made it. You took the long way round, but you're finally home.