A/N: Thank you for all the reviews! It really helps motivate me! This fic is still McStizzie or Lexie but really it's supposed to be about friendship too so hopefully no one will stop reading if you don't like the coupling! Oh and in this fic Izzie and Addison weren't friends but Izzie thought she could trust Addison but, well, she was wrong! Izzie's too distracted to be mad though.

Right…

Izzie opened the door to the house slowly. She was relieved to find Alex and Meredith were both out and she could finally relax in her own home. After sitting outside the hospital for nearly an hour, she realised she had to return home.

She fell back against the couch and buredi her head in her hands. Her brain was buzzing. She had to return to radiology to have the biopsy done tomorrow. She'd also have to retake all the training day tests. She also had to face Callie again. She also had to work out what to do about George. And what to do about about her friends.

"Izzie? You left the door open?"

Izzie jumped up from the couch and looked up at the figure standing in the doorway. "Dr. Sloan, what are you doing here?" she asked, irritated.

"You can call me Mark," he replied smiling.

Izzie ignored his comment and repeated her initial question. "What are doing?"

Mark leaned against the wall before ansewing slowly, "I was looking for Derek. Hoping he would be here."

Izzie shook her head. "Well he's not."

"Oh."

Izzie noticed he looked a little disappointed. "What did you want him for?"

Mark hesistated for a moment, "I… I heard Addison left. I just wanted to check. You know. She didn't say goodbye so… I thought he might know something."

"He might be at Joe's."

Mark for a moment was looking vulnerable but he gained composure quickly and smiled again. "Well it's no rush. You don't know anything do you?"

Izzie remembered Addisons text. 'Except that she's ruined my life,' she thought. "No I don't, I'm sorry. "

Mark nodded. "You know, that cut is still bleeding. I could look at it for you."

Izzie became irritated again. "It's fine. I'm fine. I'm a doctor to you know?"

"And I'm a specialist in plastics. I know simple lacerations from the nasty ones." Before Izzie could stop him he pulled back her hair and began examining the cut.

"Dr. Sloan!" Izzie protested.

"I told you. Call me Mark. I'm going to call you Izzie." He smiled at her slightly. Izzie never understood why people fell weak at the knees over this man. But for a single second she appreciated the smile. It was the only one she had received all day from someone other then Dr. Berry.

"Nasty laceration this one," he commented. "Quite a blow." But he said nothing else. Izzie expected him to comment about Callie ask about George but he mentioned nothing. He left after cleaning out her cut. He didn't put sticthes but Izzie had a funny feeling he would harrass her at work about it.

Even if Sloan was trying to get into her pants or seduce her, at least he was talking to her.

The next morning….

Izzie lied back on the chair as she watched the intervention radiologist preparing the needle. She had come in early into the hospital to have the needle biopsy done before her first official day as a resident. She had an ultrasound taken before hand so that the radiologist could guide the needle to the correct area.

"Ok," the radiologist said, smiling at Izzie, "I'm just going to anaethesize the breast with an injection of lidocaine which should numb the area. You may feel some pain but hopefully it will be minimal. I'll have to get a sample of around 2cm of breast tissue so that will be about three insertions. Is that ok?"

Izzie nodded. "Yeah that's fine."

"I'm going to use a 16 gauge needle – it is quite large and has a cutting edge. Are you ok with needles?" she asked, kindly.

Izzie nodded again. "Yeah, I'm a surgical resident at this hospital so I'm ok with them, thanks."

The radiologist slowly inserted an injection of the anaethetic before looking up at Izzie."You're a surgeon?" she asked, mildly surpirsed. She glanced over at Izzie's notes. "Right, you're Dr. Stevens." Izzie noticed the smile vanish from the radiologists face. "You're the girl who cut the LVAD wire?"

Izzie looked up sharply. "What?"

"You're famous around this department." Her eyes narrowed as she picked up the gauge needle. She took one look at the ultrasound before jabbing the sharp needle forcefully onto into Izzie's breast tissue.

Izzie let out a scream, caught off guard. "Ow… you didn't give the anaethetic time to work…" she said, looking up at the radiologist who had a slight smile on her face, but the not the friendly smile she had before.

"The biopsy may leave some bruising but not an external scar," she explained. She took another sample, she did it slowly but with the same unnecessary force. "I'm Janet Karr. I went to medical school with Dr. O'Malley"

"O'Malley?" Izzie asked.

"Callie O'Malley. We were good friends. Actually, we still are." She pulled out the needle and took another look at the ultrasound. "Here's the thing, there's a rumour going around that the doctor who cut the LVAD wire, as in you, has been screwing around with my friends husband. What do you think Dr. Stevens? Is it just a rumour?"

Izzie didn't know what to say. Overnight she had become the home wrecker, the mistress, the scarlet woman, the McLifeRuiner. But somehow the persecution she was facing was so much worse then what Meredith had been through last year. Maybe that's why Addison had done it. Some sort of twisted revenge.

Izzie just turned away from Janet as she inserted the last needle almost stabbing her with it, although by this point the anasthetic was beginning to work. "Do you believe in karma, Dr. Stevens?"

Izzie paused nefore answering. She didn't know what to say. Clearly Janet hated her and she had every right to. "I… I'm… Er… why?"

She took out the needle and began slapping thin bandages across the insertions. "I think this is yours," she replied. She paused before looing up at Izzie. "You can put your clothes back on. I'll send this up to Pathology and Dr. Berry will inform you when he has the results."

Izzie nodded. "Thanks," she muttered, nervously. In less than 24 hours Izzie had become a shadow of the person she was. The normal Izzie would have set Janet straight about her affair with George and would have demanded to be treated with the same respect Janet would have given any other patient. But today Izzie was alsmot child like. Scared and nervous, she fumbled as she pulled her top back on.

Janet turned to her before she left. "Quite a reputation you have in our department, Dr. Stevens. Get cheated on by a fellow intern, falling in love with patients, cutting an LVAD wire, quitting the programme, being put on probation and now ruining the chief of residents marriage. Not to mention your previous lingere modelling. You're our celebrity doctor around here. "

Izzie could feel her heart beating fast, not sure if she was about to scream or cry. "I didn't mean to hurt Callie. I did't want to ruin her marriage."

"Callie told me you always had a grudge against her. Now we know why. So don't pretend you ever meant well by her. You tried to steal her husband. But he chose her. Not quite the catch you think you are, doctor? Try not to use deodrants, sprays or lotions in the affected area for the next 24 hours, It could cause an inflammation."

Izzie opened her mouth to respond to her harsh critisisms but really had no idea what to say. "I…"

"Have a nice day, Dr. Stevens," she replied dismissively.

Izzie didn't have a nice day. Callie had taken the day of again which just made things worse. It seemed the longer Callie was absent the more people talked.Then Izzie had her first patient as a resident. He was a seriously drunk patient with a heart arythmia. Following Burke's spontaneous quitting there was no Cardiotherasic Attending to help her and Izzie found herself running round in circles trying to treat him. She was relectant to ask any other residents for help too – following her training day she did not want to look like anymore of a failure.

Izzie was slightly thankful for the distraction. She had no time for lunch or break so she didn't have to talk to anyone. She managed to avoid all watchful eyes and inquiring people.

Izzie opened the locker room door quietly, hoping that the others had left already and she could be alone whilst packing up her stuff for the day. She paused as she heard Merediths voice on the other side of the lockers and waited to listen to the conversation.

"Apparently he failed the exam. I don't get it. It's George. He gets nervous at the practical stuff but he is great at the academic stuff. He even made me retake the test. How did he end up failing?" Meredith questioned.

Alex grunted. "Distracted by Izzie, I guess."

"Oh God. Get over the jealous thing," Cristina shot at him. "So she chose Bambie over you, get over it."

"I'm not jealous. I just think it's sick. George. Her? It's like insest. He's like her brother. And he's married. He didn't keep his marriage vows for long did he?"

"You're just mad cause you still like her."

"No I'm not!" Alex argued. "He's just. It's just wrong,"

"What do you think George is gonna do?" Meredith asked. "I haven't seen him with the new intern batch."

"Well apparently him and Izzie had a fight over near the nurses station yesterday and most people are saying he's going back to Callie to be a stay at home dad," Cristina replied, clearly unimpressed.

"Callie's pregnant?"

"No. But she wants to be. Although now she's chief of surgery and seeing as George had an afafir I'm not sure if that is still on the cards!" Cristina explained.

"I still can't believe it. George and Izzie?" Meredith pondered. "One night stand? Full blown affair? I mean Alex is right. He is George. And she doesn't sleep around."

"It's nearly as bad as you and George," Alex said pointedly at Meredith.

"Well when I talked to her she said he wasn't just an easy screw," Cristina said. "Maybe they like each other. I mean they've seen each other naked. He buys her tampons. She makes him muffins. Perfect."

"They are brother and sister, man! I can't believe him. I can't believe her," Alex repeated.

"I don't even know what to say to her," Meredith responded. "It's not like I'm in the position to give relationship advice seeing as Derek is hardly speaking to me. But… she slept with George. George. I didn't even know she liked him. What do you say to that?"

"I don't know," Crisitina added. "But you could ask what's so bad about Alex that she'd rather have Denny, the walking corpse, or George over him?"

Meredith laughed and Alex grumbled at her. They continued talking about what to say to Izzie and why she did it but Izzie didn't want to hear anymore.

She crept out of the locker room and sat outside the hsopital as she had done the night before. She felt so exhausted. All she wanted to do is talk to someone. She wanted to tell them how she felt about George. How she wasn't a home wrecking whore. She wanted to defend herself. She wanted someone to defend her. She wanted someone to tell her what to do. She wanted someone to understand. She wanted to tell them about the lump and Dr. Berry. She wanted to cry. To be held. To be understood.

Her phone interrupted her train of thoughts. "Hello?"

"Dr. Stevens? This is Oncology. We have scheduled you in an appointment with Dr. Berry at 9.45 tomorrow morning. Your test results from pathology are in."

A/N: Right. I hope I'm not taking too long to get to the point! Don't want to loose your interest! Thanks for reading! Things are gonna get bad next chapter! Please review! (Not trying to beg too hard!). Sherry x