"How's your arm?" Izzie asked quietly, leaning against the doorframe. Her question echoed through the dimly lit room as she moved to sit beside him on his bed. "It's fine," he mumbled, pulling away from her inquiring touch. "It was an accident," he insisted, motioning vaguely to the bandage under his sleeve, "she wouldn't do this on purpose." "Alex…" she said gently. "She wouldn't do that to herself," he repeated, "she wouldn't just leave me like that."
Izzie sat silently, groping for words that wouldn't come. She could handle angry Alex, who screamed at her that she never did anything right. She could even handle incensed, irrational Alex, who insisted that she was fine, and that he could watch her. But she had no idea how to deal with who he was really yelling at, the frightened child who had begged her hours earlier for a second chance, who sat beside her now, shaking.
She met his bewildered eyes, watching as he lifted his strong hands to her, pulling her forward into a passionate kiss. "Alex, wait," she said, pushing him away lightly as she had at the hospital, when he'd told her that he'd done this all before. She could taste it on him, the roiling grief; its familiar, bitter flavor stung her lips. But he implored her, and she kissed him again, salty tears mingling with strawberry lip gloss and fear – her fear.
He pulled away from it, his head sinking into her shoulder as she slid her arms around him. He lost his battle right then; he could no longer contain the trembling that rocked his body. He lost his own private civil war: He had done this before, and again he had failed her. And the war was over, and he was too damn tired even to surrender.
Several hours later, Izzie shifted gingerly in his bed, careful not to rouse the hornet's nest curled against her, sleeping peacefully. She'd waited for that, but had inadvertently dozed off herself. She'd woken with a start nearly an hour ago, but was still trying to steel her legs to get up. She dreaded leaving him alone, but not as much as she feared him waking to find her there. Alex was volatile under the best of circumstances, and she had no idea what to expect from him now. She'd told him only the day before that he was in over his head; the irony seriously sucked.
It would be easier to get up, she thought, if his eyelashes didn't curl like that; if his face didn't settle so naturally into that soft pout, if he just looked older when he slept, less like the frantic little boy in the hospital who had promised her that he would do better, that he wouldn't let her die this time. It would be easier to leave, if she stopped stroking the silky wisps of hair that framed his profile. It would be easier to leave, if his steady breathing was only less soothing, and if it was less warm where he nestled against her, his head tucked closely into her shoulder.
But easy wasn't an option, and she knew what was coming if she stayed any longer: He would push her away, shut her out, go back into full-on Alex mode, and find some way to make a bad situation worse. Easing out from under him, she slipped silently out of his room and down the stairs, checking her watch as she went. She was not scheduled to work that morning, but she had just acquired full responsibility for running the clinic, and she needed something to do, something positive, anything positive after these last few weeks.
She wasn't home later that evening when Meredith took the phone call, grabbed her keys and her wallet, and drove the forty miles to the Westin police station. Meredith signed the forms, paid his bail, and listened closely as the booking officer explained that they'd have to return the next morning to retrieve his car. She nodded blankly and took the claim slip, watching Alex quizzically as they climbed into her Jeep.
She didn't know the whole story from the day before, only what she'd picked up through the hospital grapevine, which wasn't much. Even Izzie had said nothing to her, not about Rebecca, not about the blood in the kitchen, not about why she had been covering Alex's post-op cases. But Meredith knew better than to ask; he'd tell her when he was ready. "I'll pay you back," he stammered as she pulled up behind the house. "The bail money, I'll pay you back." "That's okay," she said quietly, "whenever. No rush."
"Rebecca's husband called," Izzie blurted as Meredith and Alex walked through the back door. "He said if you don't stay away from her, he's going to have you arrested again! You actually went up there? She's sick, Alex. She needs help. You can't…" she continued, as he grabbed a beer from the fridge and loped up the stairs.
--
Izzie was home five days later when the second phone call came, from Meredith, from the hospital, telling her that Rebecca's second suicide attempt would be her last. Alex had been working then, really - had always been working, since the night Meredith bailed him out. He'd picked up extra shifts, and given her the deposit money he'd gathered when he and Rebecca were saving for an apartment, when they were preparing for the baby.
He had avoided Izzie – wouldn't even look at her – and rarely returned home. He'd slept at the hospital. He'd picked fights with Sloan, bailed on Plastics, and landed at the bottom of the Residents' food chain, working with Dr. Hunter in General Surgery. Izzie had no idea what he would do that night, and had scarcely begun running the possibilities through her mind –again– when she heard the last one she expected - his bedroom door clicking closed.
She knew that she should knock; she also knew her knock would go unanswered, so she didn't bother. "Meredith called," she said, walking into the darkened room and sitting on his bed, where he lay almost face down, gazing toward the window. "Alex," she said, placing a hand on his back, pulling it away hastily as he flinched, moving away from her. "Don't," he warned, "just… don't…"
"Alex," she repeated, reaching toward him again. "Izzie, please," he insisted, straining to control his breathing, "just go. I can't. Not now." "You can't what?" she asked, watching, confused, as he shifted further away from her. "I could have saved her," he snapped, rolling over and glaring at her, "I could have done better. I could have stopped her."
"Alex," Izzie replied, shaking her head, "you did the best you could, it just wasn't…"
"No," he shouted, springing up off the bed, "no, YOU didn't think I could do it. YOU don't think I can do anything. You didn't want me to save her…"
"Alex, that's crazy," Izzie protested. "I tried to help you, I tried to help her, I covered your cases for you, I tried to get help for her when you…" "You didn't want me to help her," he spat. "Admit it, Izzie, you thought, if you can't have Denny, I shouldn't have anyone either!"
"Alex!" Izzie gasped, watching stunned as he bolted out of the room, tearing down the steps and storming out of the house.
--
"Whatever the hell you're doing to her, just stop," Meredith demanded as she approached him, two days and several slammed doors later. "Stop what?" he scowled, straightening up from the pile of charts he was up-dating. "Look, I realize I don't know the whole story, and I know you're upset," she continued, ignoring his glowering expression, "but Izzie's…" "Let me guess," he interrupted sarcastically, "binge baking."
"No," Meredith said, so forcefully that he almost took a step back. "And if you'd been home for the past three days you would know that. She's not cooking, not baking, not redecorating… not Izzie."
"This isn't your business, Meredith," Alex said, snapping the chart shut.
"You live in my house, she lives in my house, it's my freaking youth hostel, remember? She's my friend, you're my friend, it's my business," she insisted, stalking off before he could say a word. He took two deep breaths before hurling the chart he'd been writing on against the far wall, startling several nurses and earning a decorum lecture from Bailey and a week long, all-expenses-paid trip to the Pit. He hadn't even thought to protest when she'd pre-empted his non-comments, huffing that she knew he was thinking them even if he hadn't said a word. He went off to the Pit, wondering what she knew; she went off to her next surgery, wondering why she ever thought idiot Residents would be easier to supervise than idiot Interns.
Two days later, he returned home to slammed cupboard doors, to rattled dishes, to angry glares. "You owe me an apology," Izzie snapped at him over breakfast, tossing her spoon in the sink with a loud clank. He continued to eat his cereal, refusing even to glance at her. "You…owe…me…an…apology" she repeated more slowly. "You owe me way more than that," she seethed, rushing upstairs to get ready for work. He dumped the rest of his cereal down the sink and breezed out the door, jogging to the hospital. He stopped three times along the way, the first two times to vomit, the last time to make sure he'd stopped trembling and could reasonably steady his hands before anyone saw him.
"Careful," Meredith called from the porch as he returned home the next night, "Izzie's…"baking?" Alex guessed again, filling in her sentence. "Sort of," Meredith said, scowling and shaking her head. Izzie WAS baking. Not grief baking, not compassion baking, not friendship baking, but angry – cabinet slamming, utensil rattling, mix master banging – enraged baking. She made chocolate chip cookies, his favorites, and loaded them with walnuts, which he loathed. She made banana cream pie, a recipe she'd perfected just for him, and smothered it with coconut shavings, which he hated. She threw out a perfectly good package of chicken, two days before its expiration date, and made meatloaf instead, with peas, which he detested. She hogged the remote, rented gooey movies, and matched his silence awkward pause for awkward pause.
"You owe me an apology," she demanded again, bursting into his room two evenings later. "I'm not asking you to apologize, I'm telling you… you owe me." He didn't look up from the article he'd been reading. She stood motionless, watching him, her voice quivering as she chocked back tears. "Alex…" she whispered, watching as he dropped the journal and ran his hands through his hair, trying to calm himself. "Iz," he said, so softly she could barely hear him, "I'm not apologizing. That's how it starts."
"How what starts?" she asked, shivering slightly at the chill in the room.
"The lies, the excuses, the stories – it's how you convince yourself that your husband loves you when he's beating the crap out of you," he said bitterly. "It's how you start to believe that she wouldn't have…that she didn't…" he stopped suddenly, all but gasping, catching himself, drawing in a ragged breath as he turned away from her. "Alex…" she said gently, taking a step towards him.
"I'm not apologizing," he repeated quietly, his voice shaking, almost unrecognizably, as he pulled away from her. "I tell the truth. It's all I've ever had, for real. And I told the truth. You never forgave me, not for Olivia. And I get it, that Denny's who you wanted. And I would have settled for second place, Iz, or even third. I would have waited. But you didn't want me; you never did. And either way, you shouldn't have to settle, and I'm not apologizing for making you see that."
"Alex," she stammered, her voice rasping. "Please, Iz," he said, "don't, just go…"
--
Three days later, the baking continued; the silence persisted. Oatmeal cookies, plain, appeared on the table, as did apple pie. They had turkey for dinner the following day, with a choice of two vegetables. "I was mad at you," Izzie blurted out as they were putting the dishes away, "after Denny died. I almost hated you. You were here, and real, and he wasn't, and I didn't want - to want - anyone else." He continued to stack plates in the cabinet, his back to her, as she loaded the last of the bake ware into the dishwasher.
"And I did forgive you for Olivia. You were an ass, but I forgave you. We obviously don't do apologies," she said sarcastically, "but when I said you weren't good enough for anyone, that wasn't true. You're still an ass, but that's not all you are, Alex, not by a long shot. It never was."
They finished cleaning the kitchen in silence, and rode to the hospital the next day without looking at each other. He did the weekly grocery shopping, as usual, and came home with four sacks of flour, which she always needed, and a block of dark chocolate, which as far as he could tell was chick crack, and the totally wrong sugar, a type she vaguely recognized but was pretty sure was only used to ferment mushrooms. He bought Tequila for Meredith, because he'd never trust Derek Shepherd, and beer for obvious reasons. He bought walnuts and coconut shavings, because he was Alex, but had crossed off peas from the list even though she could find none in the cabinet.
She stopped with the sappy movies the following week, but had gone to the video store late, and came home with Attack of the Killer Tomatoes III, in Spanish, with German subtitles. He raised his eyebrows quizzically as the opening credits came up, but was immediately met with her comment-on-my-movie-selection-and-you'll-get-peas-for-two-weeks look – and said nothing. He got up halfway through the movie to get two more beers for them, long enough for her to lower the volume on the annoying soundtrack and to check the DVD cover, and to learn that the film had been shot in France, and that she had not been imagining the suspiciously French sounding accents on the supposedly Spanish tomatoes.
He put her beer down beside her on the coffee table, and settled back into the couch with his own. Izzie picked at the label on the bottle, watching droplets of water slide down its smooth surface. "What was her name," she asked, almost in a whisper, "your mom?" She all but heard his heart clench, and watched shyly as his face clouded over. She noticed his strong jaw twitch as he struggled for a reply, and reached over to touch his hand, expecting him to pull away. He slipped his fingers through hers, lightly stroking her hand. "I"… he stammered, shaking his head, "Iz…"
"It's okay, if you can't, if you don't…" she said quickly, "I can wait, till you're ready to tell me…" He nodded wordlessly as she slid over toward him, settling comfortably into his chest as he brushed his face lightly against her fragrant hair. She listened for a long while as his breathing slowed to a familiar rhythm, then shifted slightly, sliding her arms around him as he drifted off to sleep, his head settled against her shoulder. "It's okay" she whispered again, gently kissing his forehead, "I can wait."