Chapter 10: The Silencing Kind of Moments

"You know," Mark stated.

"I know," she confirmed.

"When?"

"Just… Meredith had her file… She's not…"

"Stevens, you are officially off duty," Bailey said.

"No, I need to…"

Bailey's tone softened. "Izzie, go home, get some rest. There's nothing you can do."

"I can't leave her."

Mark tried to reason with her. "Izzie, it's probably best…"

"No, I can't go home and do nothing!"

Mark looked helplessly to Bailey. His voice came out pleading but at the same time firm. "Miranda, let her stay."

Bailey's jaw twitched. "Fine," she relented. Addressing Izzie, Bailey informed her, "You can stay here at the hospital, but only in the capacity of a visitor. You will not be entering any OR, is that understood?"

Izzie nodded. "Okay." She turned to Mark, her expression softening, "Thank you."

Bailey's eyes flashed warningly to Mark as she mouthed, "She is your responsibility." Mark nodded in recognition.

"I have to see her," Izzie stated.

"Then let's go." Mark started walking in the direction of the cancer ward only to stop when he noticed she wasn't beside him. "Izzie…"

"I can't."

"I don't understand."

"She doesn't… or at least she didn't…" Izzie took a shaky breath. "She doesn't want to see me."

"Circumstances have changed. She may feel differently."

"Why? Because she's dying?"

Mark couldn't control himself. Despite the fact that he truly believed what he'd told Bailey, he couldn't not lie. Even knowing it would hurt her more in the end, he couldn't watch her in pain and not try to alleviate it. "She's not going to die."

"You read her chart! Do you need to see it again?"

"Izzie…"

"No, Mark. Don't. Don't coddle me. She's dying."

"That doesn't mean it's the end. She's not dead yet."

"She might as well be!" Izzie's hand shot up to cover her mouth. "I can't believe I… I didn't mean…" Tears clouded her vision and she started to shake her head back and forth.

After a quick survey of their surroundings, Mark took her hand in his and gently tugged her in the direction of the nearest on-call room, but she refused to move. Before she could pull her hand out of his grasp, he grabbed her a little more roughly than he meant to and forced her into the room.

"What the hell was that?!" She screamed, wrenching her arm from his strong grip the moment the door closed behind them.

"Sorry about your arm," he said as she rubbed it. She just glared at him, awaiting an answer. "You were making a scene."

"So what? She is my daughter. My daughter with cancer who is dying. I can make a fucking scene!"

"I know, I know. If anyone were ever entitled to make a scene it's you right now. But do you really want to deal with all the attention that would bring to you? The questions, the pitying stares, the whispers… Do you want to face all…" His rationale was interrupted by her hand against cheek.

The moment her swing connected with his face, his expression became unreadable. By the time her second punch was thrown to his chest, his blue eyes seemed to have become another color entirely. As she continued to beat upon him, he allowed his eyes to fall shut. Finally, he whispered, "Izzie," as he caught her fists and held them up against his chest. "I know it's not fair."

She slumped against him, exhausted. They just stood there like that for several moments, the sound of her labored breathing filling the room.

"I was happy," she finally said

"What?"

"I was perfectly content. Here, with you. Even having not met her, I was happy. And then now, out there, just for a second, I resented her - for coming back, even though all these years it's what I've quietly longed for. I was happy and now I'm not and I was mad at her for it. How wrong is that?"

"Izzie, it's not wrong to be happy or to want to be happy." She fought the tears she'd thought she'd run out of as they begin to pool in her eyes. "And your confusion, it's understandable. She's back in your life and you asked for it, but you didn't ask for it to be like this. She's your daughter but you're not her mom, so who she is to you and who you are to her, it's all confused. She and you are treading through murky water here. So how do you respond? Where do you go from here? I don't know what to tell you. We'll have to figure out as we go. Can you do that?"

Between sobs, she managed, "What choice do I have?"

"It's a mistake to think you don't have a choice in this. You can walk away right now. But I don't see you doing that. The choice is there though. Or you can walk into her life knowing that when this is all over you'll have to say good-bye to her again no matter whether she lives or dies. There's no good choice here, but there is a choice."

"Tell me what to do."

"I have a feeling that this wouldn't be so damn hard if you hadn't already decided."

"I'm not sure I'll make it to the end."

"I promise that I will be here to make sure you make it to the end. I can't say it won't be hard. It will. It will probably be harder than anything you've ever had to do. But pretend that you didn't. Could you really live knowing you'd had a chance to know her and had chosen not to take it?"

She didn't answer, but he knew her answer before he'd asked. The question was for her benefit not his.

"Let's go home."

"What?"

"There's nothing else you can do here. Let's go home, come back tomorrow and we'll do this then, okay?"

"I don't think I can leave."

"You can." He placed a hand above her hip and steered her out of the room. "We're leaving right now."

"Mark?" Her question was met with silence. She scooted to his side of the bed, but found it empty and cold. Reluctantly, she got up and made her way downstairs to the kitchen, only to find it empty as well.

"There you are!"

"Meredith?" Izzie turned around as Meredith entered.

She smiled softly, "Mark had to go into the hospital early. He'll be relieved to know you slept in this late."

"What are you doing here so late?"

Meredith looked at her awkwardly.

"You're babysitting me," Izzie concluded. "I'm fine, Mere. I don't need a babysitter."

"He's just worried about you. He didn't want you to have to be alone. You know, you don't always have to be the strong one. It can be nice, letting someone else take care of you."

Izzie regarded Meredith indecisively and then looked away. "I have to go to the hospital. Are you driving?"

Meredith smiled at her friend. "The car's out front."

The drive started off in relative silence until Meredith couldn't stop herself.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Hmmm? You mean about Hannah?"

"You could have told me."

"She wasn't… This is just different."

"Different from what?"

"The modeling thing. I could handle that, but this is so much bigger than that. I couldn't… if she was the topic of the hospital gossip, if I had to hear her name whispered everyday, I just couldn't do it."

"But I wouldn't have spread this. I can relate to wanting to keep a family member's sickness quiet."

"I know you wouldn't have meant to. But you would've told Derek and… and it just would have gotten around eventually. Besides it wasn't her disease I was trying to hide, it was her existence. God, that makes me feel sick."

"Izzie…"

"No, don't worry about it."

"In the future, though…"

"Meredith, it's okay. You don't need to do this."

"I know you have Mark, but I'm here too."

"Okay."

"Okay?"

"Can I go now?" Meredith jumped a little at the realization that she'd already parked in front of the hospital.

"Yeah, sure," she said as she unlocked the doors. They entered the hospital at a fast walk, which Izzie didn't allow to slow until they reached the nurse's station.

"Where's Dr. Sloan?"

The nurse shot Izzie an irritated look. "I don't know. Check the board."

"That's the problem with keeping secrets," Meredith whispered as they headed to the board. "No one knows."

"Isn't that the point?"

"But no one knows to tread carefully, to be sympathetic, to avoid making things worse than they already are for you."

She scanned the board, "He's not scheduled for any surgery and hasn't been. What the hell did he have to come in early for?!"

"He didn't say why he had to leave this morning, he just said he had to leave." Meredith's pager went off as Izzie entered interrogation mode. "It's Bailey, I gotta go!

"Wait! Mere!" Izzie sighed as she watched Meredith jog away. "Fine. Whatever. I'll just page him." However, as she was about to do just that, her own pager went off. "What the hell? I'm not even supposed to be here." Tilting the screen to read the message, she was surprised to see it was Mark.

She found him back at the nurse's station, concentrating hard on the piece of paper in front of him. "I must have just missed you," she said joining him by the counter.

"You're here."

"You paged." She gave him a quick kiss.

His smile was tight as he said, "There's been a development in Hannah's case that I thought you'd want to know about." He watched as her face fell. "They want to try another transplant."

"And they want me to be the donor again."

"Yes."

"Of course I'll do it."

"But?"

"But that's not going to be enough, is it? We've done this already and here we are again. Is this really the best they could come up with?"

"There aren't a lot of options right now."

"I know. But isn't there something, anything better? What if this doesn't work?"

"Izzie, breathe." She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Better?"

"Surprisingly, but not much. When do we start?"

"Right now, if you're ready. Are you ready?" A laugh escaped her throat at the absurdity of the question, but she nodded.

He intertwined his fingers with hers as they made their way to the cancer ward, softly adding, "She wants to see you."

"Wants to or agreed to?" Izzie asked slowly.

"Izzie…"

"Right, agreed to. It's fine. I just wanted to know is all."

"All her life she's known this one woman to be her mother, but now her biological mother is suddenly in her life. Give her time to get to know you."

"There isn't time. Besides, it's fine. Don't you think I know that this is hard for her too?"

"I'm just saying…"

"Well, don't just say."

"Alright." She felt her stomach churn nauseatingly when he didn't argue back. She knew she was picking a fight where there wasn't one, that she was taking her anger out on the wrong person, but she couldn't stop herself and she couldn't bring herself to apologize for it either.

Mark stayed with her while, for the second time in her life, she had bone marrow drawn from her hip. He didn't speak a word the entire time, but neither did she. The silence hanging between them wasn't full of anger, it wasn't full of anything but emptiness. She didn't have the energy to speak and he didn't have the words to say.

When the procedure was finally over, he softly kissed her forehead and helped her into the wheelchair. Too weak to protest, she collapsed into it and he wheeled her to the recovery room.

Despite the pain surging through every nerve in her body, she found herself drifting away. "It's okay," he whispered as he lifted her onto the bed. "Go to sleep." With the warmth of his arms wrapped around her, she did. Mark remained there for a time, holding her exhausted form to him, wondering how quickly life got so complicated.

Upon seeing Cristina's face in the window, he disentangled himself from Izzie and opened the door.

"Yang?"

"Meredith sent me."

"And?"

"And she said you'd know what this is about. Is that Izzie in there?"

"Yes it is. You can tell Meredith that Izzie is fine and that's all we know so far."

"Dr. Sloan?" Cristina asked, looking for some sort of explanation.

"What else did Grey say?"

Cristina frowned before responding. "Something about an example and secrets. What is going on? And how did you know that she said anything else?"

"Good guess. Go deliver the news to Meredith."

She hesitated but turned to walk away, he was her attending after all. After taking a few steps, she stopped and asked "Will she be okay?"

"She will be," Mark smiled sadly. He looked through the doorway to where Izzie lay sleeping, but he didn't go back in. I need a drink.

"What do you want?"

"Whatever you've got that is strongest." Joe complied, sliding a nasty looking glass across the counter into Mark's open hand.

"I don't know how to do this," Mark admitted, making a face as he tasted the concoction.

"You're thinking too hard," Derek concluded, sipping his own drink.

"That's not the problem."

"She doesn't need a life-long commitment from you, she just needs you to be there with her today."

"It's not the future with her that scares me, it's the now."

"Funny."

"It's not."

"No, it's not. Does she know where you are?"

Mark looked at the swirling contents of his glass. "I told her I'd be there with her."

"Were you lying?"

"No. It just… It seemed like the right thing to say." Derek gave him a half-pitying, half-disgusted look. "I didn't think it would be hard to 'be there.'" But the more I'm 'there' the more I realize how much everything I do effects her. One wrong move and I could make this so much worse for her."

"You're already making the biggest mistake of all."

"Huh?"

"You're telling me not her."

"Derek…"

"No. You're being a dumb-ass. You're afraid you're going to hurt her, but you're hurting her right now. Don't you see?"

"I hesitated."

"You can hesitate. She won't fault you for it."

"She's not in the most rational frame of mind right now. This has to be about her, not me, and I'm more than okay with that. The last thing she needs is to worry about what this is doing to me."

"Again, tell her." Mark, looking lost and intimidated, showed no signs of response. "Try."

Finally, he rose from his seat, threw down a few dollars and headed out the door. Derek watched his friend's forlorn retreat, hoping he would be okay.

"Sometimes that's all they need," Joe said as he wiped the counter.

"Yeah."

"Do you think he's going back to the hospital?"

"I don't know. It's a lot for him. He loves her, but it's a lot. I just hope he'll be sober by the time he has to explain."

"He's sober now."

"What?"

"There was no alcohol in his drink."

"But I thought…"

"She's like a daughter to me," Joe shrugged.

"Izzie's a good girl," Derek smiled.

A/N: Okay, again sorry for the delay, life kinda got in the way of writing, and a really bad case of plot-block (seriously, I am the most indecisive person ever when it comes to anything, so in a case like this when my choice really effects what I do next, it takes me forever to finally make a decision) limited the progress I made with the little time I had. The next chapter should come more quickly as I know exactly where it's going, but you never know with me. As always, thank you so so much for all the reviews!