A/N: A rogue kudos led me to come back and read this story, and I infected myself with feels again. I needed to revisit these two, I wanted to play with this style again, and I connected to the thread of the emotional journey I was tracing previously and this is what comes next. Uses event from but otherwise not linked to canon timeline.

It was a day for celebrating. Celebrating was what people did on birthdays. They did not scream or cry unless they were tiny and found themselves standing during musical chairs and as Izzie was not tiny and they were not playing musical chairs, those were not things she would do. So she confidently did the things one does for a friend's birthday when they are not tiny like buy presents and booze and usually the present is booze but that was no fun and you still had to have cake and George was dead so she was baking him a cake.

No, wait. It was his birthday. She was baking a cake because it was George's birthday. She didn't know how that stupid wrong reason slipped in.

Because he should be here licking the batter and adding the eggs and doing it all wrong so she could correct him. Because she was drinking the booze that was not his real gift and you can't drink someone else's gift, even if it's not the real one, not unless they're sharing it with you. Because he would if he were here and either he'd never be or already was, her faith was a little fuzzy on spirits and ghosts but it was very clear on where you ended up, and as George was certainly not in hell and didn't need much spiffing up to ascend from purgatory, maybe he was, here, since she was sure heaven had an open gate policy for visiting people who weren't yet in any of those places.

It was George's birthday so she was baking him a cake. That was something which was true. A very simple mantra and if she made it her mantra and made extra sure the eggs were beaten and the flour didn't go everywhere then reality was just his birthday and celebrating and baking. And drinking. Because they were not tiny and when you are not tiny alcohol is a bit like cake.

The wrong "because" started creeping in when the bottle went back on the counter rather than into another hand and it was because he was there but not exactly there, maybe he was in the bathroom, even ghosts could wander into the bathroom. Think of Bloody Mary. Only don't think of Bloody Mary because Bloody was what he was when he-

The cake and the celebrating and booze and the real present she'd wrapped and hidden were all the ingredients for George's birthday. Do not, she told herself, place things you don't need on the counter, because mixing up baking soda and baking powder was not a good thing, unless you noticed in time and could chemistry your way out of it. She'd always done well in chemistry.

She knew what the eggs did and what the flour did and how baking soda was different from baking powder. She knew how dense the cake should be and how fluffy the frosting. She knew his favourite flavours and how big a slice she would cut him and she knew when the guests arrived the door would open but until then she had her mantra.

And just for a second, when the door did open, she knew it was George.

And then she knew it wasn't. Knew from the silence and the tread that it wasn't Christina and it wasn't Meredith, and that left Alex and as Alex had never particularly liked George, and George had never particularly liked Alex, it wasn't the best start to the celebrating but they could put that aside because they were family and it was a birthday and they were not tiny.

And because George was dead.

Salt was one of her ingredients and tears had salt but it was the wrong sort of salt and pretty gross but George would laugh and George would understand.

There was someone behind her and it wasn't George and she was really getting tired of Alex showing up when she was baking and drinking and crying and doing all of those things to not think about why she was doing any of those things.

And a hand was picking up the bottle and it wasn't George's hand but George loved to share and even though he didn't particularly like Alex he would be happy to share with Alex because it was George's birthday and they were family. But the simple little story she'd been holding so carefully was slipping between her fingers and all she wanted was George. Who didn't deserve gross tears in his cake.

Even if he wouldn't mind very much. Not really.

There was a hand and a body was attached and it wasn't George's because it was his birthday and they were going to celebrate but George was dead.

And Alex wasn't dead, but he was looming and silent and that was a little bit like a ghost. If they existed. Which maybe they did, even the Pope couldn't make up his mind.

"You don't have to say it. I know you think this is stupid. But it's still his birthday, and he doesn't deserve to not have one, just because he isn't..." Her mantra was too simple, she was in the real world, she could do it. She could say it out loud. George's ghost, if he had one and it had been there, had left through the door Alex had opened. Or the ceiling or something. Or the toilet. And her little choke of hesitation became a choke of laughter. "Just because he died."

Dead. A corpse. This wasn't a funeral. It was a birthday celebration. Even if George was dead. A corpse. But her lips twitched and she was laughing and accidentally snorted snot on her hand when she slapped it over her mouth trying to stop.

"Iz."

And snot was a lot grosser than tears so it was a good thing that it didn't get in the batter and the tears were starting to sound a lot better weren't they in terms of inadvertent ingredients. That was the definition of not a sobering thought, and she laughed harder.

"Iz. Izzie."

She looked over biting her lips and trying to force her cheeks out of a smile and was almost in control except Alex looked like he was at a funeral and she burst out again before breathing so deeply she regained some semblance of control.

"I don't think it's stupid. It's nice. George would have liked it."

He would. She knew that was true. Though throwing George a birthday party because he was dead would be a little weird if he wasn't dead. That was something Alex would think of. And George would be thoroughly flummoxed. And then he would like it. And maybe like Alex a little more. And Alex thinking of it would mean he liked George.

"Alex, do you believe in ghosts?"

The expression Alex made when he wasn't following at all was a funny expression. No she wasn't laughing again.

"What, you mean like whoo-whoo ghosts?" He made the "whoo-whoo ghosts" finger wiggle everyone always makes. But not, usually, when talking about the ghost of a friend.

"I mean do you believe when we die we don't just cease to exist. That some part of us is still out there."

He took a deep breath and then gave it back and when he answered his voice wasn't low and gentle but it also wasn't loud and harsh and there was something discomfiting as it found a place to snuggle in the middle, like Goldilocks and the Three Bears. "I believe it's a bunch of crap people tell themselves so they don't have to accept reality. People die, they don't come back." The version where Goldilocks got eaten because the place she was happily nesting belonged to a bear and that sort of thing tends to piss bears off. "No matter how much we may want them to."

And Alex could be so good at pissing her off. Which wasn't fair because this was a celebration and maybe probably ghosts weren't a naturally celebratory topic, except on Halloween, and also Christmas, and this was a birthday and it wasn't Jesus' birthday, he'd already had his...

"Do you believe in anything at all?"

...and Alex had been there then too. When she was baking and drinking and decorating for a celebration and maybe she hadn't decorated enough for George's birthday and there was a conundrum in there too about giving Jesus presents which was not, at this moment, relevant, because that was not at all part of the angry flicker in her chest.

Confusion tugged his eyebrows but it was a simple enough question, and George wouldn't mind because they weren't even celebrating yet, and anyway he'd gone, but maybe he'd come back but she wanted a fight. When people are tiny they fight and the adults put it to rights but when you are the adults you have to do it on your own or hold on long enough for Meredith and Christina to come home and be the adults and make you feel tiny. Because she was starting to act like she'd lost at musical chairs and Izzie wasn't tiny and Alex wasn't tiny, even if he kept acting that way, and they weren't playing musical chairs.

"Nevermind, Alex. Just... I'm sorry, forget it." Another long sip from the bottle, numbing magic, and whatever was in the oven could use a checkup to make sure it was okay.

It was. It always was. She was Izzie, and Izzie took her baking very seriously. It's something she created, nurtured, making a jumble of pieces whole and into what they were meant to be, and things sometimes went wrong and usually she could fix them and then she waited and she watched and it was like magic how they would rise and brown and become something wonderful she got to share with her people, even if it wasn't quite perfect. Because nothing ever was, and she should know. She'd tried hard enough.

"Hey," and he was soft and gentle and confusing again and when he sat down next to her she turned away so he wouldn't notice she was staring at her own tears in the glass of the oven door and not at the brownies inside which were just starting to crinkle.

"No, Izzie, listen to me. I may not believe in ghosts or all that religion stuff, and maybe I should. But I believe." He moved so close she was watching them like a movie, a ghostly movie overtop her nearly-perfect brownies. Brownies struggling to be perfect. "Maybe I didn't used to believe in anything. But I believe in things now. I believe we're still alive. I believe that's what matters. And I believe you miss George so much because you love him."

They were fuzzy superimposed ghosts and Izzie was watching them and because she was watching them she could see Alex wasn't. Watching them. He was watching her. The real her.

"And I believe that love..." his voice crackled and she wasn't watching her movie, maybe her brownies were, and maybe it was more interesting now because she was looking at -him- and it had been so long since they had been this close. "That love you feel for George, that doesn't die. It won't. It can't. Not even if a part of you wishes it would so it would stop hurting so damn much."

That same stupid expression was in his eyes, the one she kept seeing but maybe never saw. The one she wanted to see but didn't want to see because it was the one that used to mean she would kiss him or he would kiss her and they didn't do that anymore. She didn't want to do that anymore. She was woman. She was strong. Even if she couldn't remember at this moment what it was she was being strong about.

She didn't move to kiss him and he didn't move to kiss her and actually no one was moving at all and he didn't say anything else and she wasn't saying anything, even though it was her turn, that's how conversations worked, although technically she had already neverminded herself out of this one and he was holding it all on his own. So it was more of a monologue. A really short one.

But not a bad one.

Especially when it was coming from Alex.

When he said stuff like this, she believed him, maybe more than she'd believe anyone else, even if they said the exact same words.

She felt warm, particularly warm on her left side, that was the oven, she'd always wanted a fireplace where you could build real, honest-to-god fires, but maybe her real fireplace was always an oven. But that wasn't what was flushing her cheeks and settling a little flicker, a little fire, a little tiny oven maybe in her chest that heated but did not burn. That was down to his eyes, and her eyes, and the fact that sustained eye contact elicited feeling of love, even if nothing had ever been there before. There were studies, she'd read them, and somewhere around vaguely wondering if her little oven could explode if it got too hot, it occurred to her that if they never stopped staring Meredith and Christina would come in to find them sitting in the kitchen in front of an oven full of brownies, engaged in a staring contest like they were indeed tiny and making the adults happy by being very quiet, at least, while waiting for their brownies to be ready to come out of the oven – the big oven, she wasn't sure what was in her little one.

And Meredith and Christina would raise eyebrows and look at each other and then back at their friends doing a peculiar thing and shrug and she would laugh, if she were them, watching her, and there were bubbles all in her chest now, like pancakes getting ready to be flipped, even if that wasn't proper baking. Up and up until they bounced off her lips and floated up her cheeks and drew a smile in their wake. And that drew a smile on Alex's, they were so close she couldn't see his mouth without breaking their gaze and she could see the crinkling of his eyes but really where she saw it was inside his eyes. A different shade, a brighter shade, the barest hint of a bright yellow glow.

She'd anticipated friends arriving and interrupting but forgotten the other thing she was waiting for, a realization immediately following the yelp and flailing which tended to result when a timer you'd forgotten about went off when you've been wrapped so tightly in silence and settled so deeply in an adult version of a staring contest. Because they were not tiny and didn't need to distract themselves and could open the oven themselves whenever they wanted, though it really was important to wait because George liked his brownies gooey and Izzie knew this so the timer knew this and before then they wouldn't be so much gooey as runny.

Sometimes George would do that, sneak in with a spoon before the timer went off and when she came back into the kitchen at the timer's behest, there would be a crater in her nearly-perfect-trying-to-be-perfect brownies. And that crater made them perfect.

But George was dead and her brownies had tried really hard, she knew they had, but they wouldn't, couldn't be perfect.

That was why she wanted to cry.

Alex handed her the oven mitts she'd almost forgotten but he did it silly, tapping her on the head and waving in front of her face.

That was why she wanted to laugh.

Because she wasn't dead, and he wasn't dead even though George was dead. She loved George, and they hadn't always liked each other but Alex loved George too. And George had loved them.

And she needed a moment and the cake batter needed to become a cake so she took care of that and maybe Alex needed a moment too because he went back to the bottle. And with the cake all tucked away warm and safe she turned and accepted the bottle of booze that was George's present but not his real present and he couldn't share it but if she and Alex shared it then it became a toast and a toast was a celebration.

"Alex." Her voice was creaky, like she hadn't used it in ages, even though it could only have been a few minutes and she'd certainly not talked for longer than that many many times with no ill effect.

"Yeah?"

"Why are you so nice to me? When you're not being a jerk." Because he'd definitely started out tough and dead and dry and jerky. Dr. Model had a tenderizer in her back pocket he didn't know about, but nothing in the world will bring jerky back to life. Never soften it back into a human, or rather a cow, the metaphor had taken a bit of an unfortunate turn but she knew what she meant.

"You're Izzie." He didn't even hesitate.

Alex was jerky until she overheard something he let her overhear without seeming to care but also never ever mentioning it. After that he would be a jerk but he wasn't jerky, he was Alex. More like... A Tootsie Roll Pop. Hard thick layer of crystaline sugar, if you didn't believe it looked like just another lollipop, hard to the core. And if you got impatient and used science and leverage and your amazingly incredible jaw muscles you could crack it, and then cut yourself on his line of defense and sort of regret the whole thing. But shine a light and look closely and she saw a shadow and she believed and waited and sugar dissolves and the ride is quite nice and safe, if you're Izzie, or mostly safe, because even melting sugar can hurt the tongue and she couldn't help but crunch down sometimes but the sharp edges were always dulled because of the dissolving and eventually, eventually and way faster than forever because of the crunching... there was Alex.

Alex who was often a jerk and some would say usually a jerk but was often nice to Izzie, some would say unusually nice to Izzie, and Tootsie Roll Pops can't say sorry, they just sort of melt in warm spit but Alex wasn't a metaphor and sometimes when he said things she believed him, more than she'd believe anyone else even if they used the same words because she knew she was near the center.

And the same stupid expression was in his eyes and she knew she was seeing it and she really wanted to see it because she knew that stupid expression was in her eyes too. She knew prolonged eye contact could produce feelings of love even if there was nothing ever there before because there were studies and she had read them only there had been something there before, between them, and she didn't need a medical degree to understand what she felt, and anyway the medical degree spends too much time trying to find and describe all the factors at play and turn them into numbers and it was all very interesting to be the researcher but the research subject always knew more, it was just science's job to try and translate.

She was woman, she was strong, she could do many things and was many things and she was Izzie and had woman's intuition to guide her heart. Her fingers traced up his jaw and splayed and to make up for the turn she hadn't taken in the conversation she'd neverminded out of, she kissed him.

And he kissed her back. And the door opened and Meredith and Christina walked in and raised their eyebrows and looked at each other and then looked at their friends doing something that was less peculiar than it was surprising but not particularly surprising because they were Alex and Izzie doing what Alex and Izzie did best: finding their way back to each other.

(And if ghosts exist, and Izzie's intuition said they did, George smiled on his people being alive. And waited for the cake and found his present and missed the booze and before he left (not through the toilet, though Alex would vote toilet), he celebrated.)