One Thing Leads To Another

Tom Sez: Holy cats, this chapter was a hard nut to crack. Write. Revise. Rewrite. Revise. Cry. Drink. Cry. Revise. Cry. Etcetera...

But I got it. Plus something else - wait, can't tell you about that just yet. But very soon, I promise...

Instead, a teasing haiku...

Next to last chapter
Formal on the horizon
Seeds will bloom - trust me...

Okay. So I suck at haiku. But you'll forgive me, won't you, O Kind Reader? Pretty please, with hot fudge and a cherry on top? What if I threw in your choice of sprinkles? Gummi Bears? Chopped nuts? Hurry up and pick; the ice cream's melting...

O Say can you disclaim: Grey's Anatomy. I own the DVDs, and that's it.


EIGHT

George's leg started throbbing again as he rode the elevator to his room. He'd put too much strain on it. He could have just stayed in the room, like his dad had suggested. He could have laid on that plush mattress and found a movie on TV and raided the honor bar - he had earned a seven-dollar chocolate chip cookie, dammit, and he could have had one. Hell, he could've had two. All he had to do was not go to the high school. Definitely could have skipped that trip.

Should have, he corrected. Should have skipped.

He tapped his head repeatedly against the rich oak-paneled wall. Dammit. Dammit. Dammit.

Jillian kissed him. He could still feel the tender force of it on his lips.

She kissed him and she meant it. Like she did on prom night.

Before she slipped a motel room key into his pocket.

Before they bared more than their souls to each other.

Before he woke up and found her - well, he didn't find her, actually.

George's leg throbbed. So did his head.

The elevator doors opened, and he began to limp toward his room. With every step, his stomach knotted tighter and tighter. He couldn't face Jillian again; Dar was being quintessentially Dar-ish; not to mention that now that the crowd had partied with The George, they would be expecting him to show up bigger and badder - which, he feared, was something that he'd promised them the instant before he lost all conscious control at the mixer.

Plus Izzie. The person he'd dreaded being with the most this weekend was now the only one he truly wanted to see, and she wouldn't be behind the door. Why? Because she was a grownup. He'd forgotten what she knew: the real world had caught up to him. This reunion, every blessed second of it, was conspiring to intoxicate him with the fragrant memory of his adolescence, to keep him from acknowledging that he was finally past all that. He'd grown up. He was a man.

And he was. Most definitely.

He found his rented tuxedo - classic black and white - in the closet. George set his jaw and started to undress. He'd show them. He'd show them all. George O'Malley was a man now. They'd see.


Dar sat on the big couch in Izzie's living room. He'd promised to wait for her. And of course, he would. Chivalry was not dead in the eyes of Dar Torvald. Besides, it was the first time in years he'd actually been inside a house where George lived.

He noticed a batch of picture frames lining the ledge over the wide brick fireplace, and curiosity lifted him to them. Some were antiquities - a tin-type wedding photo from before the invention of the smile, a couple of yellowing color images of a lonely-looking girl in a windswept red dress, knobby-kneed and all - but mostly new pictures. A party snap of a drunken George being hugged from behind by Izzie. A sharp-cheekboned strawberry blonde in hospital scrubs leaning against an identically dressed ebony-locked Asian woman who seemed to be leaning back. Another one of George, in his Sunday best, grinning wildly, and standing shoulder-to-shoulder (well, kinda), with a sharply-dressed and square-jawed African-American man who appeared to be a millisecond from laughing out loud. Another one of the strawberry blonde, this time at a table with Izzie, their noses pressed into books. There were more, too - but Dar's vision was blurring as he found himself staring at one of George sleeping soundly, his head in Izzie's lap.

"You like that one?" he heard Izzie ask.

"Yeah," Dar said, his voice rough. "Actually, they're all - they're all pretty good."

"I took some of 'em, Cristina did a couple. Meredith took most." She stepped next to him and pointed to one that was hiding in the back. "That's George's contribution."

Dar took a look. It was Izzie, her blonde hair a ratty mess, flour and chocolate streaking her face, arms, and the apron she was wearing. And laughing like she thought she would never do it again. It was the closest thing he could imagine to how George's eyes saw her. That made him smile. "What was this?" he asked.

"The Great Fudge Brownie Disaster of 2005," she said with no little affection. "Started as a bake-off, ended as a war. There were no survivors."

He let out a breathy chuckle. "Sounds like you and George have a really great group of friends."

"Yeah," she said. "Yeah, we do."

Dar looked her squarely in the eyes. "Six years," he said.

"What?" she asked.

His gaze was soft. "Since I saw him last. Six and a half, even."

"I wondered about that," she replied. "Why he never brought you up or had you over before."

"We kinda lost track of each other after college," Dar said softly. "He was around the first few years, we hung out a lot. But when he got serious about his education - and I am extremely proud of him for that - he drifted off the radar. But I get it. Medical school's not easy, and now the internship and everything, and I know that he needs to concentrate and focus on the task at hand." He smiled, like the sadness didn't show. "It's just that I wouldn't have minded hearing from him once and a while." He shook it off, noticing the opaque garment bag draped over her shoulder. "Well, enough dredging my pitched spirit for painful memories. You found something?"

A cheesy grin spilled across her face. She looked genuinely tickled.

"You did," he said, a conspiratorial smirk warming his expression. "Can I see?"

"Nope," Izzie laughed. "It's a surprise. Just get me back to the hotel so I can change."

"Oooh, intrigue," Dar said. "Is it flashy or saucy or even - dare I hope - a little naughty?"

Izzie held her grin as he opened the door to let her pass. Dar felt like a four year-old on Christmas morning.


George had been out of the shower for about two seconds when he heard the knock. He tied the sash on his bathrobe and walked to the door. Once he opened it to the length of the chain, he instantly regretted it.

"George - " Jillian managed to choke.

He shut the door. Slammed it, really. "Jillie, go away. Go back to your perfect life and leave me alone."

"But I - "

"Go. Away."

"I was wrong," she said. "I'm sorry."

"Apology accepted. Leave me alone."

"No," she declared. "Not until you talk to me."

To the length of the chain again. His eyes were ablaze. "Jillian, you kissed me," he said. "And you meant it."

"Yeah," she stammered. "I couldn't think of anything else to say, and you were there, and I just sort of - panicked."

"Panic?" George asked. "That's your excuse?"

"It's the truth," she shrugged.

"Oh. I see." He went for the kill. "So I guess you panicked on prom night, too?"

"Kinda," she admitted with a wince.

"Kinda? Kinda?!" George slammed the door. "Why do I leave the house? Why?"

"I know you're angry," she said, putting herself close to the frame. "And hurt. And - if you're like me - a little confused."

"A little? Yeah. You could say that I'm a little confused." George voice was making the door vibrate a bit. "Like the Pacific Ocean has a little water in it."

"George," she pleaded. "You have to talk to me."

The door opened to the length of the chain again. "No," he said, exasperated. "No, I don't. In fact, I shouldn't. We have a history - and a present, let's be honest - that sort of...precludes...us talking to each other. It leads to all sorts of things. Like you kissing me. Or you liking me like that or me liking that you kissed me. We can't do that. I can't do that." He started to shut the door.

Jillian's head darted up. "You liked it," she said.

The door stopped. "I didn't say that."

"Yes," she protested. "Yes, you did."

"When?" he argued.

"Just now," she replied, a bit triumphal. "Just now you said something about 'you liking me like that or me liking that you kissed me,' using 'me' in reference to you."

The door opened again. "Fine," he conceded. "I have a tiny spark of 'hooray, she kissed me again' in my gut. That, however, is dwarfed by the inferno of 'Dear God, why did she do that'."

Jillian's eyes met his. "Is that inferno because of your feelings for Izzie?"

"What?" He looked at her through the side of his eyes. "No. Absolutely not."

"George, she is your - "

"Close, personal friend, yes." He was getting thoroughly sick of the phrase.

"Just like I was."

George felt something catch in his throat. He couldn't let her have the point. "You're changing the subject," he said. "You're distracting me and you're changing the subject. And that is simply not fair."

"Fair? I'm getting married, George."

"Yeah," he said. "To 'the best man you've ever known.'"

She squinted at him. "You're the best man I've ever known, you giant doofus."

He blinked. "What?"

"Aw, George," she said, a sweet sadness in her tone. "I didn't intend to feel what I started to feel again. When I decided I was going to come to this, all I had was the hope that I'd simply be able to face you, and that you wouldn't run for the hills. Or worse. But then, Friday night, I was near you again. And you were still that lovely human being that I remembered. And that was more than I could have hoped for."

George studied her for a moment. Then he closed the door.

Jillian's heart sank, until she heard the scratch of metal on metal.


Dar escorted Izzie to his room. He drew his keycard with a flourish, then held the door open for her to enter.

The place was a disaster - empty booze bottles littered the floor, spilled plates of food and half-eaten sandwiches made the chairs unfit for sitting, and the bed...she didn't want to think about what was going on there...

"Do you live like this?" Izzie asked, keeping her bag from brushing against the floor, which she thought she saw ripple at least twice. "I mean, normally?"

Dar smiled. "Rock star lifestyle, sweetheart. Trashed hotel rooms come with the territory." He opened the closet door and found the transparent garment bag containing his single-button tuxedo.

She noticed it. Recognized the lines. It was something more cosmopolitan than she would have expected from what she knew of Dar's tastes. "Nice," she marvelled. "Very nice, actually."

He shrugged. "Should be for seventeen hundred bucks."

Izzie choked on the number. "Seventeen hundred?"

"It's outrageous, isn't it?"

"What's the gag?" she asked.

"No gag," Dar replied. "Just a common, everyday, hand-tailored seventeen-hundred dollar penguin get-up."

"You?" She was still in shock. "You drive a beat-up Camaro with a broken tape deck, you live in squalor...how can you afford - "

"Same way I can afford to be the lead singer of the Pacific Northwest's number one Foreigner tribute band - " he said, throwing his victorious fist pump, " - three years running." He headed for the door, bag over his shoulder. "See you at the formal."

"Wait, where - " Izzie sputtered.

"What, you wanna change in front of me?" he asked, a bemused expression on his face. "Not that I'd mind or anything, but you might."

"No." Wait, Izzie thought. That's not what she meant. "Well...no to the first thing. Yes to the 'I would mind' part."

"You're a ball of confusion right now, and I can't deal with that kind of static," Dar said, shaking his head in mock-sadness. "I'm gonna go find The George, rattle his cage a little. Cinderella has to get to the ball on time, you know. Besides, you need your privacy. You've got a surprise to spring." He shot her a wink and disappeared.

Izzie looked at the closed bathroom door, which was behind a tipped pile of beer cans. Please God, she thought, if it's not clean, the very least You could do is kill me quick.


Jillian had plopped down on the bed. George was still in his robe, so he avoided sitting next to her, instead finding a chair and putting it at arm's length. To test the distance, he held out half of his third seven-dollar chocolate chip cookie. She took it, but not before silently indicating to him about the empty space next to her on the mattress. "I promise I won't kiss you again," she said.

George frowned his awareness. "Forgive me for not trusting you." He rubbed his temples. "We were finally talking again. I was comfortable with you."

"I know." She leaned forward and took his hand. "You and I were back in our rhythm. And I had missed that. Maybe that's why I kissed you."

He wanted to pull away, but his limb betrayed him. They sat in silence for a moment, then he felt himself asking, "Did I do something wrong? On prom night? Is that - is that why you left?"

"No," she said, almost as if the question surprised her. "God, no. You were good. Very good, in fact."

"Please don't humor me," he said.

She smiled. "Not humoring you, George. Most definitely not."

"So you vanishing into thin air was your way of - what?"

Jillian's smile fractured at the edges. "I didn't want to lose you," she said. "So I tricked you. I tricked you into taking me to the prom, and then a motel, and then a bed. And I knew the second it was over that you were gonna find out what I did and why I did it." Her smile was painfully false now. "And I didn't want to lose you. The definition of the vicious circle."

"Makes sense," George said, with mock understanding. "To avoid losing me, lose me."

"I was a child," she said. "You don't know how much that hurt me."

"You're damn right I don't," he grumbled. Then he sighed away that negativity, and said softly, "Jillie, you didn't trick me into anything. I wanted to be with you. And then you were gone." He grimaced. "I just wish you would have talked to me. Maybe then we wouldn't have wasted ten years thinking whatever we were thinking."

The sound died in the room. They listened to the air conditioner hum for a few minutes, then Jillian asked, "What now?"

"Now?" George shook his head. "I don't know."

More shared consideration in the silence was shattered by a pounding on the door. "Up and at 'em, sunshine! The formal can't start without you!"

"Dar..." George groaned.

"Open up, man. Otherwise I'll have to change in the hallway, and these security cameras never seem to flatter my problem areas."

"Your whole body is a problem area," Jillian said, loud enough to be heard through the door.

"Jillie?" Dar sounded far too happy about this development. "George, you magnificent bastard!"

Jillian stood up and walked to the door. She opened it to greet Dar, who was leaning against the frame. "Dear God, woman, The George is not a machine!" he cried.

"No, he certainly isn't," she said softly, looking back over her shoulder at his wistful expression. "See you later?" she asked.

George nodded at her. Then she turned her attention to Dar. "You, too," she said sweetly, just as she treated Dar's battered arm to another punch. Her knuckles landed with a firecracker-like pop.

Dar gripped his tender bicep, eyes wide, and gasping for breath. "What? What?!" he whimpered to everyone and no one.

This time, it was George's turn to attempt stifling a belly laugh.


To Be Continued...