A/N: Updates will be weekly (sometimes more often, sometimes less). Sorry for those who expected this sooner, in my absence I discovered, to my great shock, that I had a life; but my GA/McStizzie obsession has cut that life short, so I'm back and very glad to be so. On an entirely different note, this is rather short for me, but I couldn't stand not putting at least something up.

Summary: My (hope for) season 4, picks up following "Didn't We Almost Have it All." I can't fit a whole 'episode' in one chapter, so they will be broken up, though I haven't decided on a ratio yet.

Pairings (yeah, so this does essentially give away the direction I'm heading in, but I myself find it frustrating to invest time and emotion into a story and then have characters you don't want together end up that way, so you have been warned): Meredith/Derek, McStizzie centric (although considering I'm writing this as though it were episodes for the upcoming season and it is Grey's Anatomy, it will be fairly Meredith-focused as well), Addison/Alex, George/Lexie, and Cristina/Burke. These will happen eventually, but give me a few chapters to get some things sorted out, as I'm sure you all know the finale left a lot to be cleaned up :)

Rating: T for language, mature themes

4x01: "A Place Called Home" – Kim Richey

MVO: We're born into it. We grow up in it. And then one day we leave it and devote ourselves to finding it again, to making our own.

They could feel the thunder shake the hallway floor beneath their seated bodies, their heads lolling against the cool metal door of Burke's vacant apartment. It was a dry storm, the clouds crackled ominously over the ceiling above them but no rain fell.

"I can't stay in Burke's apartment," Cristina declared matter-of-factly as tears streamed silently down her cheeks. "It's Burke's apartment. His. I can't live there if he doesn't."

"Well, you can't live outside of it," Meredith feebly informed her.

"I gave mine up," Cristina continued, ignoring Meredith's remark. "So I have no where to go. I'm homeless." Cristina threw her hands up in defeat and absently slid sideways against her friend.

"Stay with me," Meredith invited.

"I can't…"

"You don't have anywhere else, you said so yourself." Meredith's mouth uttered the comment before her brain could stop it. It sounded admittedly harsher than Meredith had meant it to, but it was the truth, she reasoned, and Cristina had been stubbornly refusing to swallow reality for the past hour. With a softened voice, she repeated, "Stay with me."

"With Izzie?" Although Cristina's uncertainty was visible in her scowl, her incredulity audible in her tone, the fact that she bothered to entertain the notion at all revealed to Meredith that she'd already acquiesced and her official acceptance was merely a formality.

"And Alex," Meredith gently reminded

"It's crowded."

Meredith agreed, "Very."

"I get unlimited access to your mother's surgical tapes," Cristina stipulated.

"Izzie does laundry," Meredith added.

"Okay."

"Okay."

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"Stevens?"

"Oh, God!" Izzie scrambled up from her position in the pews.

"No, don't get up for me…"

Interrupting Callie, Izzie mumbled an incoherent excuse, "I was just… I thought everyone had left."

"They have."

"Except you," Izzie pointed out, her brows furrowing as she paused to actually consider her own observation. What was she still doing here?

"And you."

Izzie's gaze fell to the abandoned altar. "He didn't come," she offered as an explanation.

"He did, but he left, remember?" Taking a seat next to the intern, Callie studied her face carefully. It was no mystery to Callie who Izzie had meant, but she wasn't going to make it that easy.

"No, not Burke," Izzie clarified.

"George?" There was a long pause during which neither said anything. Callie's eyes flashed dangerously. "What exactly is going on between you and my husband?"

Without directly answering Callie's question, Izzie confessed, "I love him." She took a long hesitant sigh before correcting her statement, "I'm in love with him."

Izzie watched Callie's reaction from the corner of her eye.

Callie clenched her jaw and let her eyelids fall shut in disgust. "Is that…" She tried again, "Is that as much as… is that all?"

"I told him."

"You did what?!"

For the first time since Callie's initial greeting, Izzie turned to look at the resident head-on and stated simply, "I told him I loved him."

To her own immense surprise, Callie controlled the anger fuming inside her, her curiosity, however, was untamable and she couldn't stop herself from asking her next question, "What did he say?"

"That he'd see me at the wedding."

"And he didn't come."

"No, he didn't come."

Izzie laughed sardonically, "God, everything is so fucked up."

"Izzie…" Callie admonished, tossing a glance around the church.

Izzie shot her an annoyed glance, "It's empty."

"Yeah, it is," Callie reluctantly admitted.

"We also slept together."

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"What are you doing here?" Alex threw his body violently onto one of the tunnel's hospital beds, under which George sat. "And what the hell are you doing sitting on the floor?"

"What do you care?" George spat, allowing his aggression to find an undeserving target, and, for the first time that he could ever recall, truly not caring.

"Just for today, I do."

The sincerity in Alex's tone caught George off-guard. He felt his defenses crumbling as the emotional strain of the day erupted full-force inside him. "I can't go back home."

"To your wife?"

"Yes, to my wife, to Callie."

Propping himself up on his elbows, Alex peered over the edge of the bed, "What'd you do, O'Malley?" It wasn't an accusation, though the phrasing caused it to come off sounding as one. Instead, it was an invitation. And George was in no shape to turn down an invitation. If he had Izzie's faith, he would've gone to the wedding if only to be in a church, where he might divulge his secrets in confession.

"Izzie," he breathed.

"I guess it was more a question of who," Alex joked, but immediately halted his chuckle when George stiffened. "Sorry, man. I didn't mean to…" Mentally kicking himself for… well, being himself, Alex mustered the sympathy he'd claimed to have at the beginning of their conversation. "But she wouldn't… Izzie's not the kind of girl to…"

"Sleep with a married man? I didn't think I was the kind of guy who'd cheat on his wife either," George laughed bitterly.

"You're a good guy, O'Malley."

"No, I'm not."

"You are," Alex disagreed. "From what you've just told me, you may be a shitty husband, but you're a good person. You're still you. You've been though a hell of a lot and you've made some stupid choices. Maybe you're just now realizing what Izzie's been telling you all along. One of your mistakes was your marriage."

George's disbelieving eyes clashed with Alex's sincere ones.

"She just left. Just like that," Derek emptied the contents of the glass into his mouth, reveling in the burning sensation of the liquid as it passed along his throat.

"Maybe it was purely coincidence."

Derek snorted his disagreement while motioning for Joe to pour him another.

"So what, Cristina loses Burke and Meredith thinks its imperative that she lose you too? That's fucked up."

Shooting Mark a glance, Derek again let his answer come without words.

Mark shook his head, "I don't think Meredith is that fucked up."

Unable to let silence suffice any longer, Derek started to repeat the story he'd already told his friend four times. "Mark, she said, 'It's over,' twice and the look she gave me… if you could only have seen it."

"I know, I know," Mark waved his hand in a rather lame attempt to prevent a continuation of the retelling.

"And before that, after my…"

"Your very romantic speech that she's the love of your life, yes, yes, I know, I've heard it before," Mark interjected.

"Right, she just walked away." Derek looked as flabbergasted as if he had witnessed her departure seconds instead of hours ago.

Mark shrugged, "It's what she knows. It's comfortable."

"No, it's ridiculous, is what it is," Derek cried out, momentarily abandoning his drink.

"I'm not defending her. Here, in this moment, you are the wronged party."

"What's going to happen to us?"

"That, unfortunately, is up to you." Mark let his eyes take in the haggard appearance of the man beside him. In all their years of friendship, he could not remember ever seeing him so miserable. The melancholy that was wrapped tightly around him seemed to reach out and ensnare those close by. Mark felt himself being caught in it, and it was acutely suffocating. He hated being around sad people for that very reason.

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