"He's heading our way."
Cristina, Izzie, and Meredith were still huddled together at the Nurses' Station, gossiping about the Doctor Shepherd situation, when Cristina noticed that he had stopped talking to the Chief, and was now walking in their direction.
Meredith and Izzie both glanced over, and immediately stopped talking, trying their best to look professional.
"Which one of you is Doctor Stevens?"
"Um, that would be me."
Izzie hoped to god she wasn't blushing as the neurosurgeon smiled at her, and stuck out his hand.
"I'm Derek Shepherd, I'll be working here for the next week or so. And apparently you're going to be my intern on the case I'm working on."
Izzie shook his hand, unable to stop herself from returning his dazzling smile. "It's nice to meet you, Doctor Shepherd. This is Meredith Grey and Cristina Yang," Izzie said, pointing to her friends in turn.
Derek greeted the other two interns, then turned back to Izzie. "Alright, Doctor Stevens. Why don't we go see our patient? I'll fill you in on the case as we walk."
"That sounds great." As she walked away with Doctor Shepherd she glanced back at her friends. Meredith looked amused, but Cristina looked jealous. Izzie wasn't surprised. If he had been brought in to consult on a case, it must be something big.
A big case with a seriously dreamy surgeon. There were worse ways to spend a day. Of course, it was made a little awkward by the fact that the doctor in question was the previously unmentioned husband of a doctor who was in a relationship with one of Izzie's fellow interns. Izzie had noticed that he was wearing a wedding band. Doctor Montgomery-Shepherd didn't wear one, obviously. Izzie desperately wanted to know what was going on. Unfortunately, she couldn't think of bringing it up without seemly horribly unprofessional.
But once Doctor Shepherd started talking about the details of the case, Izzie found herself forgetting all about the gossip surrounding the handsome doctor. Like she thought, he was here because the case was incredibly complicated. There would be a lot of hard work involved. But it looked like she would be able to scrub in on a really amazing surgery. And Doctor Shepherd was great. He treated her like an equal. He didn't talk down to her, but at the same time he was careful to make sure that she had a firm grasp on all the concepts he covered.
Later, after they had checked in on the patient, Doctor Shepherd turned to Izzie.
"Doctor Stevens?"
"Yeah?" Izzie noticed that he looked a little uncomfortable.
"Chief Webber mentioned that you had done a lot of work for Doctor Montgomery-Shepherd."
Izzie suddenly felt quite awkward herself. "Yes. I've worked for her quite a bit."
"How is she?" Doctor Shepherd ran a hand through his hair, "I mean, you've spent a lot of time with her. Does she seem alright? Does she seem...happy?"
Izzie bit her lip, not sure quite how she should respond. She knew it was unprofessional of him to ask her this. But it wasn't like she could blame it. This was his wife, after all.
"She does, actually." Izzie's tone was gentle. "She does seem happy. I think things have been really good with..." Izzie trailed off.
"With Alex Karev?" Shepherd asked with a sigh.
Izzie just nodded in response.
He was silent for a long moment, staring off into space. Then he seemed to pull himself back together. "Okay. That's good to know. I'm scheduling Mr. Wilson's surgery for tomorrow afternoon. I'm going to have you scrub in, but I don't really need you anymore today."
"Okay," Izzie said softly. "And thank you for the opportunity to get in on this case."
He nodded at her, but didn't say anything. Still feeling the awkwardness from the brief conversation about his wife, Izzie turned and walked away. When she glanced back over her shoulder, he was leaning up against a wall, looking sad and lost in thought. Izzie had no idea what had gone on between him and his wife. But right now, her heart was going out to him.
---------
"I don't want to talk about it."
Miranda looked at her intern, sitting alone on one of the benches in the locker room.
"You don't have to talk about it to me, Karev. Not if you don't want to."
"Good." Alex was leaning up against his locker, staring directly ahead of him.
Miranda took a seat by his side. "But you should talk to Addison."
Alex snorted and turned to glare at her. "You're my Resident. I get that you can boss me around when it comes to work. I have no problem with that. But my personal life is none of your business."
Miranda shook her head. "That's where you're wrong. It is my business. My interns are my business. And when one of them is so upset that he can't do his job, I'm going to get involved. Especially when he's upset because of another Doctor in this hospital."
"I'm not upset," Alex said simply.
Miranda rolled her eyes. "No, of course not. Why would you possibly be upset about your girlfriend's husband, who you knew nothing about, showing up here?"
"I thought you said I didn't have to talk to you about this?"
"Well, you have to talk to someone. And if you aren't going to talk to the actual cause of the problem, then you're going to have to talk to me."
He looked at her, a questioning look on his face. "You didn't know, right? That she was married. You didn't know?"
Miranda pursed her lips. "No, I didn't." She couldn't keep the bitterness about that fact out of her tone. "And I was working under the assumption that we were close friends. Marriage is not a detail that you expect people to leave out when they're telling you about their pasts."
"Especially not if you're dating them," Alex added.
"Yeah."
They sat in silence for a long moment before Alex spoke again.
"Why'd she do it? That's what I don't understand. I don't usually do the relationship thing. If it had just stayed a one-night stand, then I could understand." Alex shook his head and sighed, leaning his head back up against a locker. "It figures that the first real relationship I have is with a woman who turns out to be married."
"I can't tell you why she did it, Alex." Miranda frowned, "The only person who can tell you that is Addison. But the thing I can tell you is that she really does care about you. I don't think this was about wanting to get away with cheating on her husband. She told me that Derek was a part of her life that she wanted to pretend never happened. She cares about you. And if you really care about her, than you owe it to yourself to find out what happened." Miranda stood up. "But at the end of the day, it's your decision. And if you chose not to talk to her, then I won't ever bother you about it again."
She walked to the door, but stopped with Alex called out her name.
"Thank you, Doctor Bailey," Alex said simply before returning to stare into the space in front of him, trying to figure out what he should do.
-----
Addison was just coming out of a long surgery. She was tired and her whole body ached from the hours of standing in one spot. She was putting some final notes in her patients chart when she felt a presence behind her. She turned to find Derek standing behind her. He held out a cup of coffee to her.
"I missed the opportunity to get you some before the surgery. But I figure with all you've been through post-surgery juju is just as necessary as pre-surgery juju."
Addison couldn't help but smile as she reached out and took the offered cup. "Thank you, Derek."
Derek returned her smile as he took a sip from his own cup. "Do you have anything to do right now, or can we talk?"
Addison stared at him for a moment. She wasn't sure if she was ready for this yet. But sooner or later, they did need to get everything out in the open. Addison knew that. But she also knew it was going to be hard.
"Okay," she said eventually, "Let's go talk."
A/N: Sorry that it's been over a week since I updated. Time sort of got away from me. Coming up in the next couple of chapters: Alex hears Addison's story, Addison has to make a choice, Alex forms a friendship with a fellow intern, and a certain steamy male comes to Seattle.
