A/N: This is sort of like a teaser for the upcoming chapter but more Izzie focused and her view of the Shepherds so...yeah, if you like her or these other sorts of angles I hope you enjoy, otherwise this should be updated soonish. :)
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Bad Habits
- Number One Gun
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She supposes it is normal to wonder sometimes. To think of what happened to her daughter before the bone marrow transplant; before Izzie knew she was dying. She assumes she was a normal happy kid that read bedtime stories and sometimes scratched her knees on the playground. Izzie imagines Sarah (Hannah) had beautiful hair at one point and she's a striking child, of that much the world is already certain, so it's not difficult to piece the puzzle together and tell a tale of glorious girly sleepovers with mismatching blankets strewn over the back of chairs to create a snuggly fort in the livingroom.
It may be unhealthy. It may be masochistic to reflect this way but she can't help herself; she can't change where her mind goes from time to time when she sees girls about the right age begging their mother for more sugary cereal in grocery store aisles or when she hears little squeals coming from the parking lot of the mall. It's just normal. It's habit- maybe a bad one but there's no control here. She relinquished that a long time ago when she signed over her baby to a better life.
She's never regretted it. Not even one minute of one day. Because Izzie was right and she was convinced she was right. If there was any second thought she couldn't have gone through with it; she wouldn't be able to live with herself for what she did. It wasn't noble in the way people make it out to be and it wasn't brave in a world where trailer parks are tiny little mansions in the great suburban wasteland. It was a choice. Her choice and she lives with the consequences silently.
That's her punishment. And she takes it willingly.
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And Izzie has most undoubtedly made better decisions than throwing her surgical career into neutral and taking care of three unreasonably spoiled children but it was, at the time anyway, exactly what she thought she needed. The bond between toddlers and infants alike was something she craved. The biological clock was ticking and sometimes when Addison takes the dog out for a run and when Derek is buried under a pile of papers at work, she plays house. She pretends these are hers and this massive floor plan is something she and her amazing husband bought outright so their children could grow with a lot of space.
And she's absolutely positive that this is not what well adjusted adults do, but it's up there with the daydreaming, unruly and all consuming. Today it's just her. Addison is inexplicably missing and Derek has decided that he'd rather live in his office than deal with Addison's particular brand of crazy this week. Izzie can't recall the exact fight - or was it fights - that leaves her with three kids under the age of three but it's happened and she's coping by shoving an extra goopy peanut butter and jelly sandwich down her throat while trying to wrangle both toddlers into the kitchen for lunch.
They don't speak English well outside of, "dog! go! now! and no!", but somehow she gets them settled and begins the tedious task of monitoring their skills so as not to allow any staining foods to end up on her bosses' beautiful hardwood floor.
There are some things the Shepherd's haven't gotten down yet, pride (or rather when to admit defeat) is one of them and she hates to be the bearer of bad news but it will eventually take a heavy toll on their kids, not that they think it's possible. They just toss the babies at her and run for the door and sure they're appreciative and they genuinely love their children but they don't devote themselves. They aren't giving their all to the family and it sort of drives Izzie crazy because if these kids, these beautiful, intelligent, challenging, crazy mongrels were hers she'd quit her job and watch them grow all day in amazement.
But that's her and this is something different entirely. This isn't her life and she hates how easy it is to get confused.
"Carter eat, don't play." She reminds him and hands over the plastic spoon intent on getting him in the practice of using utensils and not his hands.
Izzie has tried to help. She's done her level best to get them acquainted and comfortable with American culture, as much as one can with a young child, and she's making sure that Carson is hitting all those important infant milestones that normal parents obsess over. Evidently, the Shepherd's are leaving it up to fate and deciding that their biological daughter will be the exact genius they are, never mind if she can't sit up by herself or hold her own bottle.
Izzie dislikes that this has become what her life is. Baths and washing grimy hands, diapers and folding someone else's laundry. She was important once. She was a surgeon. She created a world for herself and then tossed it back hastily when things didn't go exactly as she wanted.
Mostly she hates that it feels like it was for nothing. This was not the answer she came to find. All it's done is set her into reverse, straight back to the days of longing to feel her little girl kick and flip around inside her. Yes, this is clearly unhealthy, but she only has four days left here so in the grand scheme of things she is able to push it to the back of her worries and focuses on feeding the redhead in her arms.
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The first time Collin called her Mama mistakenly it about brought tears to her eyes. Now it is simply commonplace and it's not really fair that they are baffled. She reasons that 'Izzie' is too hard to say and they are challenged anyway so she's stopped correcting them. Addison always laughs when she hears it and then scoops up her child and reminds him that she is the mother but when Addison is gone, Izzie lets it slide and it drifts into her wonderful parallel world of someone else's life.
There have been instances where her leggy boss has been insecure and unsure and questioning of her natural abilities with children. She can't say anything really. Some people have it. Some do not. And she's still not sure where Addison falls in on the line. At times she looks completely at ease with one on her hip and other times the Prada and Dolce & Gabbana contrast so heavily with the baby in her arms that it hurts Izzie's eyes.
Maybe in a few years Izzie will ask if you can have both. Not now though, she knows the answer. There is no balance in this house.
So Izzie pretends and she's quite used to it in her life by now anyway. Besides it doesn't hurt nearly as bad when she is "Mommy" and not crazy Izzie who killed her fiancé and now babysits for a living. Regrettably, that pain can't be showered off with all the daily scum when she gets home. It lingers through her reheated dinner and pokes her in the ribs when she sleeps because the heartbreaking truth is she could already have or at least be well on her way to what she make believes about every other day.
But Izzie wanted better and there's no shame in that. Just bitter, unrelenting regret and old cuts that are too deep to ever completely heal.
When Carson wakes up Izzie is pulled from her thoughts back into her chosen reality. There's nothing wrong with a guilty pleasure and/or a dirty secret from time to time.
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"Addison? Addie!" Izzie hears Derek's voice call out. She flips her watch over and tries to yell back to him over the screams coming from her arms but she can't. She slouches back into the old comfortable couch upstairs and pulls Carson closer as she wails about her teeth that are trying to come in early.
"Oh hey." Derek smiles warmly upon finding all four occupants of his home upstairs and the dog hot on his heels after coming downstairs to find out what was happening. "She sick?" He asks concerned.
"Teething, I think." Izzie explains and brushes a dark curl off of Carter's face who is fast asleep, head resting on her thigh, despite his sister's wails.
"Ah. Where's Addison?" He steps in, feeling like an intruder in his own house, noting how this does not feel like his room; his life. How oddly right it feels that Izzie is holding his kids and not his wife; how she fits so perfectly into the world he is struggling in. It's near infuriating.
"I'm not sure. She's not home yet." Izzie explains and offers Carson her pointer finger to mash her gums into. The blanketed baby accepts greedily and calms herself quickly.
"So that's how you get her to settle down." Derek laughs, "I never thought about that."
"Yeah sometimes you just need to shove your fist into someone's mouth...or finger." Izzie chuckles and offers her up to him. He merely shakes his head.
"She looks comfortable with you, wouldn't want to upset her again."
"True."
"I'm going to go call Addison." Derek mentions trying to escape the room where all of his children are laying by what he considers to be merely an acquaintance, or almost friend, that is if they can be friends.
"She isn't picking up her phone. I tried."
"Figures." He nods, "Well...I..." he points to the hall.
"You should stay. I can go. Get ready for my big day back at work tomorrow and all." Izzie smiles.
Her charade is done. Time to give up the game.
"Right." He swallows heavily. "I don't know what we are going to do without you." He blurts out as Izzie carefully situates Carson and tries to slip out the door without waking anyone and causing the huge scene that happens when she tries to leave everyday. A scene which Addison admitted once, though mostly drunk, makes her feel like the hugest failure in the history of all mothers. Izzie supposes she'd be jealous and upset too if her children always wanted the caregiver instead of their mother. It's fair but that's also just kind of the way kids are.
"You'll manage." Izzie tells him and pulls her long ivory sleeves over her shaking hands. She'll manage too. She'll miss it, but she can still visit, or offer to watch them on certain nights. It's not really over.
"Let us hope." He teases but they can both tell how deadly serious he is.
"It's been an honor to be able to watch them-"
"Don't do that." Derek stops her.
"Do what?"
"Don't make it into that."
"Ok." Izzie nods and she leaves without looking back or offering goodbyes because the fantasy has become too secondary to completely give up on.
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She spends the ride home covered in tears, her eyes competing with moisture inside and out to see the road ahead. Later when Alex asks what is wrong she'll brush it off as a bad day with the kids, and he'll merely pour her another shot and tell her to look at the upside because she is officially done wiping the asses of small children and tomorrow she gets to cut something. She'll simply agree and indulge in the dream at night, safely wrapped in the warm blankets she hopes her daughter still gets to touch.
Her temporary pretend world may have come to an end but she'll never stop the bad habit of secretly wondering the wheres and whats and whos and whens and whys of her daughter's life. No matter how detached she wants to be or how cold she seems about her entire past, Izzie will always dream of pink cupcakes with birthday candles and long pigtails carefully secured with purple clips.
She can't undo her twisted past and even if she could go back in time, she'd do it just the same because the carousel and cotton candy land in her mind is so much better than the reality would have ever been.
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