Title: Leave a Trail (13/x)
Rating: T
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Addison Montgomery, Alex Karev, Izzie Stevens, Mark Sloan; est. Kevin/Addison
Summary: Set a few years post season four, Addison Montgomery finds herself back at Seattle Grace, albeit to find that things are quite different. Along with her life set and in order, she sees that many of the doctors have also come to terms with love life. As time progresses, however, these doctors will witness the phrase 'the more things change, the more they stay the same' manifest. (AU post mid-S4)
Note: Saying it's been awhile is an understatement at this point--I just want to stress how sorry I am for the lack of updates. I faced a huge creative decision and block for this story as well because anytime I tried completing the remaining chapters, it was all crap. Fortunately, my muse if finally cooperating! I want to thank those who have come poking around this story asking if it'll get completed, and those who've been here from the start (or middle) for supporting it. I especially want to thank LisaLevine for her always kind reviews--and for reminding me that LJ had two more updates than here on this site! So here's to me giving you timely updates, this story getting it's finish, & hoping ya'll enjoy this. I only ask for patience! Okay, I've dragged on. Just enjoy!
"So you feeling better, Iz?" Alex asked, still concerned for her because of the confrontation she had with Mark Sloan the day before, that she had told him about.
Izzie dried the last dish from breakfast that morning, wiped her hands and answered him, "yeah. I'm perfectly fine. Why wouldn't I be?"
She failed to give him eye contact, but Alex wasn't in the mood to push a subject that Izzie would end up trying to dissolve, so he let it pass for the time being.
"Good--I'm going to take Marie, so you can relax some more minutes before heading to the hospital."
"Okay, thanks Alex."
He put an arm around her shoulder, pulled her close for a second and kissed her cheek.
"If working with Sloan starts getting too difficult, tell me Iz."
"There's nothing to worry about, Alex. It's not as though he has some hold over me."
"Yeah, well let's just be glad you were never in love with the guy," he smirked and rubbed her back.
Her throat tightened, but she managed to nod and smile along with him, "yeah, thank God for that."
He let her go, and told her goodbye, while grabbing Marie who was in the living room playing.
"Bye sweetie!" Izzie called to her daughter.
"Bye mommy!"
When the door shut, Izzie let out a breath she had been holding since Alex made his last comment. Feeling like she needed someone to talk to, she picked up the number and dialed Lexie's number.
"Hey Lexie…I'm alright…listen, how about I pick you up on my day to work today? Kind of need an ear to talk to."
---
"You need me to pitch in for gas?" Lexie asked after she hopped in.
"No, that's fine."
"Cool, so I'm saving taxi and gas fare," Lexie said.
Izzie rolled her eyes.
"Sorry," she apologized, "you wanted to talk to me about something?"
Gripping the steering wheel tightly, Izzie ran over her thoughts and put together what she was willing to say.
"Sometimes I really miss George," Izzie breathed out after a second.
"Yeah, he was a really good listener," Lexie agreed, "too bad he decided to finish his residency at Mercy West."
"But at least you didn't take him up on his offer and go with him."
Lexie chuckled, "I may feel guilty about it, but I'm glad I stayed."
Silence enveloped them for a minute, but soon they'd be arriving at the hospital, so Izzie began.
"Lexie, remember when I said the Mark and I thing was just something that happened out of the blue, and we agreed on staying friends?"
"Uh huh."
"I lied. We never agreed on anything."
Lexie tilted her head towards Izzie, and her mouth moved to form words, but she kept silent, not wanting to interrupt Izzie's thought process.
"He was such a good friend Lexie, which I know is difficult to imagine, but when he really got a hang of the friend thing, he was a good one. Eventually, and without warning, I just realized that I…I was attracted to him, which led to the grand revelation that I loved him. Not just loved him, but was in love with him."
When Lexie didn't gasp or say 'oh' or anything that indicated that she was surprised. Izzie eyed her face but there was no inkling of surprise there either.
"What, no comment?"
Lexie met her eyes, and smiled embarrassingly. "I sort of…figured that already."
Izzie's eyes dilated, but the fact sank in, and she rolled her head back.
"God, I must so bad at hiding these things," she laughed.
"Oh don't worry, Alex has no idea. He's kind of clueless like that," Lexie shrugged
"It's better that way."
Having arrived, Izzie parked, but the girls remained seated.
"But it's kind of curious?"
"What?"
"Well, you know how you had that argument with Mark yesterday?"
"Yes."
"It's curious how the same day you fight with Sloan, Alex has his own argument with Dr. Montgomery."
"What?"
"Yeah, the Chief called them into his office and everything," Lexie paused, and turned herself in her seat, "what, he didn't tell you?"
Izzie shook her head. "No, he didn't."
"I'm sure it was nothing then," Lexie quickly interjected.
Izzie bit her bottom lip, unbuckled her seat, and smiled tightly. "Yeah, of course." Izzie stepped out of the car, Lexie watching how she forced herself to shrug the matter off, but Lexie's suspicions were furthered. Why wouldn't Alex tell Izzie, after she told him about her own fight with Sloan.?
---
After changing into her scrubs, Izzie headed to the nurses station for file updates. As she approached the place, she noted Alex and Addison speaking together, but that was nothing new. Usually she let them be, didn't interrupt them, and sometimes she even failed to notice their interaction. She stopped short that day, however, and slowed as she neared them.
Bringing back to mind what Lexie had told her, she wondered why they were so talkative with each other if just yesterday they had been fighting.
Addison had her back to Izzie, but Alex was facing in her direction, and still he didn't seem to notice her. She found it odd how concentrated his eyes were on Addison, and although they did not remain still, they played over her face only.
"Hey Alex," Izzie cleared her voice and brought attention to herself.
Alex, who had been grinning, suddenly stopped his movements and glanced at her with a firm smile.
"Hey Iz."
Addison turned and smiled to her.
"Dr. Stevens, good to see you," she smiled and nodded at her.
"You too," Izzie returned the friendly act.
"Alex, can I talk to you?"
He seemed rather hesitant, but gave Addison a quick apology, and went to speak with Izzie. The two stepped into a vacant patient room, and Alex waited for Izzie to talk.
"What is it Iz?"
He sounded irritated, which confused her, but she shook the feeling off.
"Lexie mentioned that you and Addison had an argument yesterday."
"So?" he crossed his arms in a defensive manner and looked at anywhere but her.
"So…I have an argument with Sloan, and tell you all about it, but you fight with Addison and don't even mention it all?"
"So now I have to report everything that happens with me to you?" he said with a scoff.
"Alex, we're supposed to be able to talk to each other."
She crossed over to him, and rested her hands on his shoulders.
He shrugged them off and moved away from her, nearing the door.
"Why? It's not like you're my girlfriend."
Izzie's eyes shut involuntarily, and her chest felt constricted. He had never said that. Never, and it hurt her to hear him say it. Something that had slowly been shifting since Marie first called Alex 'dad' took it's left turn then, and it cut across her.
Recognizing his mistake, Alex strode to Izzie and placed a hand on her forearm.
"Izzie, I'm sorry, I didn't--"
"Yeah, you did," she flinched away. Through his protests, she hastily left the room, and held herself together to the best of her ability until she couldn't finish the elevator ride she was taking to reach hers and Mark's patient.
She had to bring the elevator to a halt when a tear broke through, and she gripped the metal rail lining the elevator wall. She suddenly felt sick, her stomach turning on itself, churning. She couldn't hear anything, and her legs felt weak. She closed her eyes, held tightly onto the rail, and mentally counted to ten. When she finished, she breathed in deeply, exhaled, and opened her eyes. Finding her eyes wet (but at least not her cheeks) she released her hands from the railing, and wiped at her tears. She pulled on her scrubs, smoothing out the invisible rumples, giving her time to regain her composure, until she was ready to push back in the stop lever.
---
Alex mentally cursed at himself, but decided not to follow Izzie. She would prefer time to herself, or anything that would distract her from her problem. She probably would not want to see him for awhile. Instead, he returned to Addison, with his mask that said nothing of importance had occurred. Somehow she could never buy his masks however.
As they headed towards a patient, walking side by side, Addison commented that there appeared to be something on Izzie's mind.
"There's always something on Izzie's mind," he tried inserting humor into the matter.
"Alex," Addison said in that warning tone of hers.
But it wasn't something he wanted to talk about in that moment.
"You got any plans tonight?" he stopped mid-step and asked her with a smile.
Just dinner with Kevin and some boring cop buddy of his, she thought.
She answered," maybe" however.
"And your offer to talk is still on the table?"
Smiling, she nodded. "Yes, and if say…at nine-thirty you happen to drop by the bar where I'll be, you could definitely take me up on it."
---
Explaining to Kevin why she would not be going on that little double date was a bit difficult. Not that she lied, exactly, as she did tell him a friendly co-worker was in need of an ear to hear them out and she felt up to the job.
"Addison, you expect me to stand these people up?"
Wincing, she let out a puff of air, and in her most comprehensive voice answered, "Kevin, I don't even know these people. You can easily reschedule or go on without me, they don't know me, so they can't miss me."
They bickered back and forth for another two minutes, until he conceded when she insisted that helping this friend was highly important to her.
This friend.
Not once did she mention a name, or even if it was a he or a she, but that wasn't necessarily important anyhow. She didn't even know why she noticed this--it's not as though she consciously didn't mention it was Alex Karev. Right?
She mentally shrugged, wishing she would quit over thinking things. She even wanted to completely push off that feeling of guilt that crept in when she walked into the bar and spotted Alex in a corner booth, waiting for her. There was no reason to feel guilty, she was just meeting a friend for a drink. A friend who gave her a sly smile that made the corners of her lips turn up, and had already gotten her preferred drink, and set it up across from him where she would be sitting. Apparently he had noticed her drink of preference, which any friend would be capable of identifying really.
She slid into the seat across from him, set her purse down, and said hello.
"Addison," he nodded, "How are you?"
"I'm…good."
"Yeah."
They looked at one another, and then at their drinks, before Addison laughed.
"God, it's like we're on a date--which we're not," she added quickly.
"I think our partners would have something to say about that."
"Uh, yeah," her eyes shifted to the wall beside them and she brought her drink to her lips.
"But Izzie doesn't even know I'm here," he whispered so low she didn't know whether he intended for her to hear or not.
He raised his eyes to hers. "She probably thinks I'm at the gym. I tend to go there when I'm stressed."
Her mouth formed into an 'oh' and she leaned back into the booth, easing herself into conversing and listening to him.
"Is it the hospital that has you stressed?"
He took a swig of his beer, and rested an elbow on the table, where his hand formed into a fist that came to his mouth.
"No," he responded after several seconds.
He brought both his hands in front of him, and rubbed them, as his chest rose slowly.
"Iz and I…"
His hands movements stopped, and he shuffled his feet. "Marie was never planned, which you don't have to be a genius to figure out," he smirked in self-amusement.
"But she's great, and she made me grow up, which is one of the many reasons I'm thankful for her. But to say it never causes any tension between me and Izzie would be like saying all relationships are perfect, right?"
She looked at him intently, and nodded in understanding.
"The good thing though is that we've always been able to talk, no question. But ever since--" he stopped himself short and consciously looked at Addison, who looked at him expectantly.
"I don't know, lately we haven't talked much," he finished.
"Then talk to her," she said without qualms as if it were such a simple solution.
"That's your grand advice?" he scoffed.
"Yes," she crossed her arms on the table, and leaned towards him.
"You're talking to me, a woman who over one month ago, you had not seen in well over three years, a woman who at one point told you 'you suck, to me you suck. I kind of hate you.' So if you can do that, you can talk to your girlfriend, who is the mother of your child--what?"
She stopped when he just looked at her with a goofy grin. "Nothing, you just remember what you told me at Cristina's wedding."
"Just because I'm old, Alex, doesn't mean I've lost my memory completely."
He looked down, and hid his smile. He brought his head back up, and crossed his arms over his chest.
"You came back a bit over two months ago, Addison, and surprisingly we didn't fight or get into any rifts in that time--until yesterday. It's been me and Izzie and Marie for almost three years."
"Even more reason to get over yourself and talk to her."
"Get over myself?"
She rolled her eyes. "You're being petty Alex, using excuses. Do you love Izzie?"
Without hesitation, he nodded, because yes he loved her. Maybe not in the way you're supposed to love someone with whom you're living and raising a child, but he did love her.
"Then what's the problem?"
That she's too scared to bring anything up that could tear up this lie, so she'll hardly talk about the subject, if at all.
His eyes fell to his drink, and he grabbed it, immediately taking a large gulp of it.
"We all have our secrets, Addison," he murmured after his throat went dry. "This is one of those instances when a secret's the reason something so simple, isn't so simple."
She met his eyes, confused at his words. Something in his eyes made her believe he wanted to just spill and break out all those secrets, and that's when she realized what it was about him that seemed so different since she returned. Secrets.
Since she had returned, she thought that the unchangeable hospital had finally changed. Things were calm, doctors had found peace, drama had been wiped out. But here he sat, with a vacant look in his eyes, a sort of hole that was filled with emptiness, with just an inch of redemption reaching out therein. She could only estimate it was Marie, and even Izzie because he had said he loved them both.
She wanted to ask about these secrets, but she knew it wasn't her place. Instead, she extended a hand across the table, and placed it over Alex's. The two shared a soft smile, the spark of a connection that said that there was a middle ground both at one time had stepped on, and thus could understand each other. She knew that place so very well, a place where she did something right, but something was off-balance, causing her to feel the ache of something vacated. It had gone and passed…mostly.
She had left something on that ground in her haste to leave it, but she didn't know what it was, so she was never able to scout for it properly. But to be able to look at this person and silently communicate the identity of that territory, it inserted some peace in her. Some peace that warmed her, and made her feel as though she came to find something she hadn't even realized she missed.
And the doubt that came along with that realization, she pushed it aside, along with the guilt she had felt for an instant just minutes ago as she sat there with Alex Karev.