Vanilla Spice

Pairing: Addison/Izzie

Rating: M

Disclaimer: I own nothing in this fic, save for my own love of baking and the love I have for this pairing.

With a sigh, Izzie removed her scrub cap in the empty scrub room. She and Addison had a successful surgery, yet she couldn't fight the feeling that she'd failed somehow, for she barely made eye contact with the other woman the entire time they were in the OR. And that just wasn't like her, especially given the past few months.

Given the past few months, it was difficult to say when her and Addison hadn't kept their eyes off one another in the OR. During routine surgeries, complications, before and after wounds had been made and stitched up.

And it wasn't even the OR. It was all over the hospital. In the cafeteria, in the hallways, at the nurses' station. More often than not, it was the on-call rooms they liked to frequent the most. A place that they could open up, just be themselves, Isobel Stevens and Addison Forbes Montgomery.

Whether they were trying not to scream one another's name or not.

However, she could pinpoint exactly why today was different. She knew it like an instinct.

With a sigh of her own, Addison Forbes Montgomery walked out into the rainy air of another Seattle afternoon, leaving the doors and drama of Seattle Grace behind her as she walked to her car. Just as nervous as Izzie about the impending night ahead, she barely said two words to the young intern during the surgery that had taken places just a little under an hour ago. And if she were nervous, then she knew for a fact Izzie would be, too.

Because tonight was their first night together.

Not in a sexual way, certainly not like that. They'd spent enough time together in the on-call rooms to thoroughly take care of that aspect of their...relationship.

"Relationship..." Addison said quietly to herself, as a smile came to her lips. "I like the sound of that..."

At 7:53 on the dot, the doorbell to Addison's studio apartment rang. In rushing over to answer it, the redhead neglected to give herself a glance in the mirror, thereby missing what Izzie immediately started to giggle about as soon as the door was opened.

"What is so funny?" the attending surgeon demanded.

"You missed a spot," the blonde informed her, that movie star smile on her face as she crossed the threshold, swiping off the flour the older woman had missed earlier.

"Damn it, I thought I got it all," the redhead muttered, though there wasn't a hint of self-loathing anywhere in the statement.

"Not everyone's perfect," Izzie gently teased, as Addison closed the door and eyed the box the blonde intern held in her hands.

"Is that for me?" the older surgeon inquired, fighting a smile.

"Only if the spiced items I can smell baking in the kitchen are for me," Izzie answered her, the fight with her smile having been lost before she even made it to the apartment.

"You know me too well," Addison told her softly, the truth easily identified in that single statement. "I'll go check on them now."

Heading into the kitchen, as Izzie made herself comfortable on her plush sofa, Addison realized that her statement was, indeed, the truth. Isobel Stevens did know her too well, but then she also knew the blonde much too well in return.

It was difficult to believe that something that made her feel so very good since Derek had left had started to simply.

It was just another day at Seattle Grace, and Dr. Addison Forbes Montgomery lounged at her own table, a finished salad next to her as she sat with one of the magazines from the waiting area open in front of her. So engrossed was she in the article before her that she failed to take note of a certain intern coming from behind her.

"Dr. Montgomery?"

With a startled gasp, the magazine flew to the table, Addison dropping the book, having not even heard the younger woman approaching her from behind.

"Stevens," she answered her crisply. "Is there something you...?"

"Have you tried that recipe?"

The question came out of nowhere, taking her by even more surprise than Izzie's interruption. "I'm sorry?"

"The recipe for the spiced cupcakes," Izzie answered her. "Have you tried it yet?"

"How do you know I was looking at that particular page?" the surgeon inquired.

"I've looked at it so often, I pretty much have it memorized," Izzie answered her easily. "For the third time-"

"Not yet," Addison replied.

There was a nod. "Good," the intern said. "Because I'd use cinnamon in place of the allspice."

Considering her options for a moment, Addison gestured to the chair next to her. "Take a seat, Stevens."

That was it. A conversation about pumpkin spiced cupcakes had lead them to where they were today.

And Addison knew that she wouldn't change it for the world.

Izzie understood her, and saw her for the person that she really was, not just the double board certified neonatal surgeon that she was, but the woman behind the scrub cap and the doctor's coat. The woman who read romantic novels and cried at Titanic, and the woman who loved to bake, a fact that few knew and even less supported.

However, Izzie took this all in stride and with a smile, because she could honestly say that she liked anything and everything she got to know about Addison, and the feeling was definitely mutual.

"Vanilla kipferl..." Addison said, accepting another of Izzie's cookies from the plate between then.

"And the pumpkin spiced cupcakes," Izzie agreed, finishing off a third fall-spiced cupcake of Addison's and reaching for a fourth also on the plate.

This is what their first date came to, sharing homemade desserts and coffee. For them, neither of them would have had it any other way.

"I apologize if I overdid it on the frosting," Addison said, watching as Izzie unwrapped the cupcake and took a bite, some of the cream cheese frosting getting caught on the corner of her mouth.

"Why do I have a feeling you did it on purpose, Dr. Montgomery?" Izzie inquired, semi-rhetorically, reaching for a napkin.

"I believe I told you to call me 'Addison,'" Addison informed her pertly, reaching out to gently grab the reaching hand by the wrist. "Dr. Montgomery is just so...formal." Her voice dropped almost to a purr at her eyes connected with the brown ones across from her, as she let the intern's wrist go. "Especially when we're alone together."

Looking away for the quickest of seconds proved to be a mistake for Izzie, because when she looked back, she found Addison's face directly in front of hers, a heartbeat before their lips met, and she got the taste of something she would never tire of, the icing on her lips quickly and easily being taken care of.

Addison's lips were almost like cinnamon, possessing a warmth that wasn't really tasted, only felt; but when it was absent, the absence was stark and easily noticed. Just like, to Addison, Izzie's lips were sweet, much like the flavoring of vanilla, always playing a background role and never really the main flavoring of a dessert.

And the flavorings were also ones that weren't really thought of as working well together, but once they were tried, the results ended up being a big surprise.