I own absolutely nothing from Grey's Anatomy...it's all ABC's, and Shonda's (GOD I worship that woman...she's brilliant!). Please enjoy, and don't forget to review!

PS - HOW INSANE WAS THAT FINALE! Can't wait for season three...

It only took a second.

In one second, Denny Duquette was taken. In one second, the life that he had been planning for had been ripped away. Before he could even register what was happening, it was over. His eyebrows knitted together in confusion and his fingers released the newspaper they had held. The edges of his mouth twitched into a brief frown before relaxing one last time. His eyes focused and then faded into a lifeless stare as his lids gently closed, and the last thought that flashed in his mind was what Izzie would have looked like in her wedding gown. One second, and Denny was gone.

In one second, Addison knew that something had irreparably changed. While couples spun together on the makeshift dance floor, while Addison swayed gently to the music with her husband Derek, while the light sparkled and danced on the silver and white balloons floating in the room…the air changed almost imperceptibly. Derek's hand tightened as he grasped her hand, and his body stiffened slightly. She wasn't sure what had gone wrong in that moment, but she knew that something was going to happen.

In one second, Alex Karev knew that Izzie wasn't coming back to him. He watched her turn away from him and continue down the stairs to see her fiancée, the same radiant smile that had once been reserved for him gracing her delicate features. It took one second for Alex to realize that the glow in her eyes would never again be for him. Something in his chest tightened painfully, watching her leave.

In one second, Meredith Grey broke. All of the resolve she'd been building since Addison had shown up in the lobby of Seattle Grace so long ago had shattered, and it was then that she knew that she would always be his. No matter how far she ran or whose arms she tried to enfold herself in…he would come and take her again. It took one second for the air to change in that room. It took one second for the last of Derek's words to escape his lips, and then those same lips were crushed against hers, destroying every wall she'd put up to keep him out.

In one second, Christina Yang lost any and all of the edge she had worked all of her life to gain. When she was working her way through medical school, that edge was what got her through. It made her unstoppable, dangerous. That edge was the reason she had graduated at the top of her class, the reason she'd made it into the intern program at Seattle Grace. That edge had helped her survive the years she had spent at home, under her mother's oppressive and controlling watch. That same edge had begun to dissolve when Preston Burke had brought her that cup of coffee so long ago, and when she had finally admitted that the other interns were her friends and not competition. That same edge was shot straight to hell the second she decided to stop running away and took Burke's shaking hand in her own.

In one second, the light inside of Izzie flickered and died. She had stepped into Denny's room, her glossed lips ready to part and set free the three words she'd been saving just for him ever since she slipped out of his room this morning, when she saw his body. Her eyes flitted from his still chest and pallid skin to his closed eyes, whose lashes lay like soot on his pale cheeks. In that one second, her own heart dropped and tinkled like broken glass against the linoleum floor, her breath caught and stopped in her throat. In the back of her mind, she dimly registered the sound of a flatlining heart monitor.

All it took was one second.