Work was every bit as painful, and difficult as Izzie imagined. She kept looking around expecting to see Alex standing somewhere watching but of course he was never there. That was hard, it was the moments like that which made her heart ache, but work itself helped. She found that once she started working the routine was almost comforting.
She worked down in the pit, Meredith had thought it was a good place to start, they could pick and choose their cases a little, take some of the easier ones. It was a good idea, mentally she really wasn't ready for anything more than suturing, she wasn't ready to be responsible for other people's lives, or deliver bad news to other families.
She had the all clear from her doctor to suture as long as it didn't hurt, she made sure it didn't hurt but it slowed things down a lot. She stitched up half a dozen people without any problems, her hand ached a little but it wasn't an unexpected pain and it wasn't so bad.
Just before lunch time a man walked in with a massive gash running across his hand. She sat the man on the edge of one of the beds and began the routine she'd become accustomed to. She gave the man a local anaesthetic and began stitching. The cut was deep though and required a lot of stiches. After a few minutes the man got talking.
"Is this like the craziest thing you've ever seen?" he asked.
"No," Izzie said without looking up.
"Oh." The man sounded disappointed. "You want to hear how it happened?"
"Not really." She'd always had a good bedside manner, it was one of her best skills but she didn't have the energy for it.
"Oh, well I'm going to tell you anyways." Izzie shrugged and kept working, and the man kept talking. "It's silly really. I wanted to surprise my wife by cooking up a really great dinner, it's our sixth wedding anniversary today and I'd been acting like I didn't remember. I told her I was going golfing." He paused long enough to laugh at his own plan, and Izzie pulled tight on the stiches. "The idea was when she came home from work there would be this beautiful dinner. So much for a beautiful dinner." He laughed again. "You don't say much do you?"
"No," Izzie replied. She usually talked to her patients but this man was starting to get to her, his voice, his story. He kept talking about his wife, about how much he loved her, about his plan, it really was a good plan, kind of. It got her thinking about Alex though, and what he might have done, and then she started crying. At first the tears were sparse, she wiped them away with her arm and kept working but he kept talking and the tears got heavier.
"Are you okay?" She found the man asking her.
"Yes." She said but she wasn't and that one break in concentration was all it took for her to lose control. "I'm sorry." She said standing up and running to the nearest hiding place.
She ran into a supply closet and shut the door. She leant back against it and closed her eyes. She let out a long slow breath and slid down the door. Once on the floor she allowed herself to completely lose it. She let the mask she'd been wearing fall and crumble and she began sobbing.