Alex and Izzie occupied an entire table at the library of the local community college. History books describing World War I and World War II were open on the table. Various papers were scattered around them. Alex stretched his weary arms and legs. They had been there since eight am that morning, nearly thirteen hours. He had written the ten thousand word essay, thirty-five pages by hand. He was going to spend Sunday typing it up. Now, all he had to do was prove that he prepared for the history exam.

"Who fought in World War I?"

"The central powers, which lost the war," Alex began. "They were Germany, Austria-Hungry, and the Ottoman empire. The allied powers were France, Great Britain, Russia, Italy and eventually the United States."

Izzie wrote something down on the piece of paper in front of her before she responded. "Which country left the allied forces before the end of the war and why?"

Alex answered the question. Izzie spent the next half hour asking Alex questions in relation to World War I and World War II. After each question, she would write something on the paper in front of her regardless if it was correct or not.

"Trench warfare," Alex answered Izzie's final question.

She made a few more notes on the paper in front of her. "Not bad. If you were to take the test today, you'd get a C plus."

"Great. Let's go to the party."

Izzie shook her head, her hair flying around her face. "I'd said I go to the party with you if you could prove that you could pass your history exam."

"A C-plus is a passing grade." He knew that she would do this. She would come up with an excuse to get out of going to the party. But he wasn't going to let her get away with it.

"Yes, but you need to get a B on your exam to be eligible for your little sports thing. And that's assuming that you get the full fifteen points of extra credit."

"You asked me open-ended questions. Mr. Long's history test is multiple choice. I'm sure some of those questions that I got wrong I would have made an educated guess on and gotten them right. So you see I've already got a B."

"Do you seriously think that I'm going to buy into your twisted logic? If you don't know the answer cold, you'll only be guessing on the exam. You might as well just have not studied to begin with."

"No," he said. He stood up quickly causing his chair to topple behind him. "If I have a general sense of what the answer could be and I see that on the test, I'll get it right." He folded his arms across his chest as he stared at her.

She stood up becoming eye level with Alex. She shoved the piece of paper that she had marked his answers on toward him. "Take it." She sat back down but kept her eyes on him. She shifted in her seat. "I took guessing into consideration. As you can see," she said gesturing toward the score sheet. "I gave you four points for correct answers, two points for partially correct answers and one point for answers that hit on the general idea."

Alex examined the paper. She had made notes on the margin of the sheet indicating the confidence she believed that Alex had answered the question with. She also ranked the questions by degree of difficulty, giving him an extra point for each challenging question that he answered correctly. He got three of the five difficult questions correct, seven of eight easy questions but only four out of ten of the remaining questions. She had inflated his score to give him the C plus.

"Excuse me," an elderly woman interrupted them. She wore a knee length flower print dress. Her gray hair was in a neat but and glasses were planted firmly on her face. "The library is going to close in fifteen minutes."

"Thank you," Izzie said. The librarian left the area. "Gather your things, we have to leave."

Alex quickly gathered his text book and papers and stuffed them in his backpack. He closed the library books and placed them in the bin. They walked out the door together and stopped in front of their cars. "Come with me to the party," he asked.

"Why are you so insistent that I go to this party with you?"

"Because you seem like a person who needs to have some fun."

"I have plenty of fun."

Alex smiled. He had her exactly where he wanted her. "Prove it. Come to the party with me."

"Fine. I'll go with you, but tomorrow you have to study even harder for the exam than you did today."

"Whatever."

It was raining when Alex and Izzie arrived at the party. It was at Derek Shepherd's house, a large two-story home painted an ugly pea green. Izzie shook out her coat as she stepped in to the expansive foyer. Half the junior and the entire senior class were there. Most of them were already wasted. Couples made out on the overstuffed couches and in dark corners. Several bedrooms were occupied with random people hooking up.

Meredith was in the center of the living room, obviously drunk. Her shirt was nowhere to be seen as she danced provocatively to the music that blared from the stereo. Finn Dandridge stood behind her, grinding against her back as his fingers traced the curvature of her breasts. She leaned against him as George O'Malley swayed in front of her, his fingers digging into the soft flesh of her hips.

Derek was there too. He stared at Meredith as Finn slipped his hand beneath the waistband of her jeans. She swatted it away. Her face flushed. She pushed past both George and Finn and stopped in front of Derek. She took the bottle of tequila from his hand and took a swig. She placed it on the counter next to him. She grabbed his hand and led him toward his bedroom.

Somebody stepped behind Izzie, his hands sliding around her waist. "You're hot." His breath smelled like cheap beer. "We should find an empty room." He slipped his hand beneath her shirt to fondle her breasts.

"Don't touch me." Her elbow moved back, slamming into his chest. She turned around, prepared to strike if he made another advance at her. It was George. She had met him on the first day of school their freshman year. He was shy, stumbling over his own name when he introduced himself to her. She befriended him when everybody else stayed away. He was the outcast; the one people avoided like the plague. Until the rumors started. Nobody was surprised when Olivia Harper admitted that she had sex with George at a party; she was known for never being able to say no. Meredith confessed to Izzie that during an extended break up with Derek, she drank too much tequila and ended up in bed with George too; a mistake that nobody else knew about. However it was his tryst with Callie Torres that had everybody talking. He had played the bumbling idiot well, convincing everybody that he was a nice guy, inept at making friends and talking to women. He told her that he loved her to get her to sleep with him and then he dumped her. All the guys considered him their hero, admiring him for getting so many hot women to sleep with him. Izzie thought he was a pig and refused to hang out with him anymore. It didn't prevent George from hitting on her and insinuating that they had already had sex to his friends.

George held his side, his eyes darting wildly around the room. A crowd formed around them, most of them too drunk to realize what was going on. George took a step toward her. Izzie took a step back.

"Care to dance?" It was Alex. He emerged from the crowd, a beer in one hand. He offered his other hand to Izzie. She took it. He led her to the other side of the room.

"Thank you."

He shrugged his shoulders. "Do you want something to drink?" Alex put a beer in her hand. "You need to lighten up. O'Malley was drunk."

"So that makes it okay for him to molest me?" She took a small sip of her beer. She didn't like the way it tasted. She set the bottle down on an empty chair. "Do you want to dance?"

"You don't have to do that you know." He finished the beer he had started earlier. He picked up the bottle Izzie had placed on the seat next to her. "I only asked you that so you could get away from O'Malley."

She didn't say anything. If he didn't want to dance, she would do it by herself. She liked to dance. It was something she did for fun. She and Meredith would often crank up her stereo as they danced in Meredith's bedroom.

She started to dance, her hips swaying seductively to the music.

He stared at her as she moved, his lips poised over the bottle. He put it down and wrapped his arms around her. He danced with her, their bodies grinding to the hip hop beat that pulsated throughout the room. His erection pressed up against her thigh, sending a shiver down her spine. She was suddenly hot. Alex too close for comfort. She pulled away from him, allowing the space between them to widen.

Denny Duquette watched Izzie the entire time that she was there. The way she carried herself across the room made him sick. She flitted about like she was better than everybody else; sticking up her nose at everybody that approached her. She treated George, her supposed one time friend like garbage, pushing him away like he had leprosy. Her face contorted from one sip of beer. And now, she was teasing his friend, just like she teased him. He walked up behind her, sandwiching Izzie between himself and Alex.

Izzie screamed as somebody shoved her toward Alex. Denny gripped her hips and pulled her against his erection. "If you want to feel a real man," he whispered. "I can make you feel real good." He kissed the back of her neck. "Or if you prefer. Alex and I can make you feel good together."

She twisted around to face him. "You're disgusting!" Her hand connected with his cheek, causing everybody else in the room to focus their attention on them. "I'm not going to have sex with you."

"Oh please," he shouted. "It's not like you and I haven't done it before."

"Liar!"

"Everybody knows that you and George were screwing before he moved on to Callie. Everybody knows that you and I were hooking up. Just admit it."

"Well, I guess I can't deny it anymore. But as long as we're being honest, I'm just going to have to admit that having sex with you was horrible."

"Don't lie. I'm the best you've ever had."

"No, you're the smallest I've ever had. It felt like I was being poked. No real pleasure. Kinda like this." She placed her finger on his forehead and started poking him.

Denny grabbed her finger, yanking her toward him. He stared at her with venom in his eyes. "You wouldn't know what real pleasure felt like. You don't know how to have a good time. I'll show you." He devoured her mouth.

The scent of alcohol suddenly overwhelmed her senses. She struggled against him as he drew her closer to his body allowing his erection to rub against her again. "Stop," she cried. She pushed him hard. He fell into a table behind him. Bottles of beer crashed to the floor, the brown liquid forming a puddle around Denny. He collapsed back to the floor when he tried to stand up.

Izzie jumped when a warm liquid rolled down her head. She turned around. Alex had a red plastic cup in his hand, beer still dripping from its rim. "What did you do that for?"

"You're being a bitch."

"Excuse me?"

"Ever since you got here, you've been nothing but a bitch. You need to learn to lighten up. You pushed O'Malley away. You pushed Denny away. And you kept your distance from me. All we were trying to do was dance."

"Dancing doesn't require people to grope me."

"I wasn't groping you," Denny said. "I was dancing too close to you and you freaked out. You pushed me into a table for god's sake. You're lucky that I didn't break my arm."

"You were trying to get me to have sex with you."

"All you had to say was no," Alex interjected. "You could have seriously injured him when he fell. He's one of the best wrestlers on the team. We need him on Friday."

"Well then I guess it's a good thing that he's going to be just fine. It's just a shame that you won't be able to compete in that match with him."

"What? You have no authority."

"Do you think that you'll be able to pass the history exam without my help? Because there is no way whatsoever that I'm going to tutor you anymore."

"I didn't need your help to begin with. I'll pass the test on Wednesday and I'll be wrestling on Friday."

"Good luck with that." She grabbed her coat from the pile on the floor. She left the party. Her head held high.