Disclaimer: I own nothing. but I have high speed internet now, because my Daddy loves me!

A/N: sigh this is bittersweet. But I like it. It's a nice lead up to an eventual revelation. And, as the author, I promise some very, very hot George/Izzy smut in the following chapters. I will make it NC-17 if there is enough call for it, and put it up on the Grey's Fan-fiction archive. For those who want less graphic smut, I promise to write less graphic chapter versions for anyways, enjoy. I recommend listening to Rilo Kiley's "does he love you," while you read it.

He looks best in the morning. Looks best when his skin flushes, when he laughs. He looks best when he looks at me, looking at him, and he knows we shouldn't even be thinking it.

He looks best at three in the morning, asleep, and fearless, and full of dreams. At three in the morning, He's not lonely. And neither am I. He's making soft sounds into the pillow, and I lay on top of the covers, half wishing I could be underneath them, because it's cold in the night, and George likes the window open.

I shiver a little, and wonder why we shouldn't think it.

I try to come up with reasons why being here isn't right. Why it's wrong. Why I should tip-toe out of the room, and back into my own bed.

A bed where the most I can hope to take up is half, and I feel like I've been half of something for too long, half, and realizing I wasn't whole anymore. –Or that I never was.

Its almost easier, to be with Alex, and let him cut out pieces of me, because I know at some point, I'll almost be completely gone. Because there's nothing worse than being just half. And if I can't be whole, then I'd rather be nothing.

So why do I wake up, feeling scared and alone, and end up lying next to George?

He's turning over in his sleep, trying to find some purchase for his hands in the blanket, and he ends up grabbing my hand instead. I don't bother moving it away.

He's blinking at me, and I think he looks best like this, caught at three in the morning, still full of dreams, swimming in some place that's nearly lucid.

"Izzy?" he murmurs, realizing he has my hand. He's hesitant to drop it, I think. And I think I don't want him to.

"Hey."

"Hey."

A moment elapses, and it feels like the moon should be full, so I could see his face better in the dark. But its not, and that doesn't really matter anyways. I can see him.

And he can see me; see me for everything I love in myself, and everything I wish I could hide.

"I don't need it." I tell him, knowing he knows I'm talking about Alex, knowing its insomnia and confusion talking, "I don't think I need it. I think – I know I'm not, and that I can't, and that its stupid, but I want to – I don't know…"

"To save him."

"Yeah." I breathe. "But I want to save me too."

His hand's still in mine, and he squeezes gently, letting me know he gets it.

"Do you love him?"

and I thing about it. What is love – what does it mean to love someone? Is it sacrifice? Is it giving everything you have for that one person? Giving it unconditionally and gradually disappearing for that person?

I don't know. I don't know if that's love. Maybe its love if you don't care that you're disappearing, and they're just taking, and you're never getting anything of them to fill up the empty spaces.

And if that's true, I don't know.

"I don't know."

Is it love if you wonder if it's worth it?

He shifts, and his eyes gaze at the ceiling. He doesn't bother to ask if I love him.