Author's Note: I highly suggest skipping this chapter. This chapter is not my best and it sucks, and I apologize immensely. Please just skip this chapter.

I stood at the counter with a stack of discharge papers to the right of me as I began going through them and signing them and making sure everything was in order. No surgeries today which sort of bummed me out. I was a surgeon. Surgery was literally part of my job title, but it was going to be a monotone day of the same speech to numerous patients. I sighed heavily as my left hand began to cramp up from writing so much. I put my pen down and massage my wrist to ease the muscle and get rid of the tension as Mark walked up to me. I looked up at him and smiled but I became suspicious when he started wringing his hands together and kept looking down at his face.

"Hey, I was thinking, you know, with, uh, Derek and Meredith getting married, they, uh, probably don't want us hanging out in the attic much longer." He said nervously. "So, I was thinking I'd start looking for a condo." My smile grew bigger as I felt cheerful for him.

"Perfect, and then you'd finally have a place of your own." I said cheerfully, gathering up my discharge papers into one pile.

"Actually, I was, you know, thinking maybe you'd, uh, you'd come with me."

"Absolutely. No, I-I—I would love to see it. I'm so happy for you. Just let me know when and I'll be there. I have to go deliver discharge papers." I gave him one last smile and grabbed my pile and walked away from him.

GA

Taking a break from patients, Meredith paged me to Izzie's room where they were going over another treatment plan for Izzie for the new tumor that she had in her temporal lobe. Derek originally said that it was too small to remove but apparently, he came up with a plan overnight. Alex stood next to Izzie where Cristina by Swender and Meredith beside Derek with me by the door, listening.

"You want to remove her hippocampus?" Swender exclaimed, placing her hands on her hips.

"One of them." Derek answered. "It's a common procedure for seizure patients."

"Removing her hippocampus could compromise her memory, her speech." Swender protested. "She wouldn't be able to practice medicine anymore." My heart dropped for Izzie at that thought. Izzie was a doctor. Her life was about practicing medicine. And to take that gift away from her…

"I have performed this surgery hundreds of times."

"On cancer patients?"

"No, but it's—"

"If you do the surgery, I could lose my memory?" Izzie asked Derek and he finally looked away from Swender to answer her.

"It's unlikely, but it's possible."

"And if you don't do the surgery?"

"We could shrink the tumor with I.L.-2." Swender answered this time.

"If the tumor doesn't kill me first. Why take the chance?"

"Have you even done a WADA test to see how her memory would be affected?"

"Putting her brain to sleep and asking her to remember a bunch of flashcards is not an accurate assessment of the post-surgical outcome."

"But it would tell us whether or not she could function afterwards, and as Dr. Stevens' primary physician—"

"Fine, I'll do it." Izzie told Derek, never looking in Swender's direction who looked at Izzie as if she just said take her entire brain out.

"It's unnecessary—the surgery is unnecessary.

"The tumor's already symptomatic." Derek told Swender. "She's having hallucinations." Izzie pushed the blankets off her and slowly got up from her bed.

"What are you doing?" Alex questioned her as I pushed off from the bed, ready to jump in if she needed any assistance.

"I'm going for a walk." She sighed as she grabbed her medicine bag and hid it within the folds of her grey sweater as she slowly began to walk out of the room with Alex beside her and Meredith and Cristina and me behind her. "If Derek cuts the tumor out, I could lose my memory, and if he doesn't, I could die. I don't know what to do. Alex, tell me what to do."

"Iz, I can't tell you what to do." Alex told her.

"Of course, you can. You're my husband. That's what husbands do. They stomp around telling their wives what to do. It's your job."

"No, my job is to support whatever you want to do."

"I don't know what I want to do. That's why I'm asking you. Okay, I have an idea. Let's put it to a vote. All in favor of the surgery…" Cristina, Meredith and I looked each other before glancing back at Izzie.

"No, we're not voting. No one's—no one's voting."

Opposed?"

"I'm opposed…" Cristina said, raising her hand and we all turned to her. The elevator bell dinged as Cristina paused. "… to voting." Izzie rolled her eyes.

"Just decide for me please."

"You don't have to know right now." Alex told her reassuringly. "Think about it." Izzie looked at him in bewilderment.

"I don't have time." She turned and walked away from us and Alex look towards Meredith, Cristina, and me with pleading eyes.

GA

Cristina stood us in front of three different sets of scans allowing Meredith and I to look over them. The first set was a female's brain that a tumor in her temporal lobe and mets on her liver and kidneys. The last two sets of scans were taken three months apart but there was a considerable difference between the two as the last one had now mets or tumor.

"It's impressive, but it took two years to get these results." Meredith told her.

"Yeah, but these two scans were taken three months apart." Cristina protested.

"But Izzie may not have three months. That tumor could start bleeding in three days or three seconds and since when are you not about cutting?"

"Since it may not be in the best interest of our patient."

"And Derek's not acting in Izzie's best interest?" Before Cristina could answer, the door opened, and Derek popped his head in.

"They're ready for us in radiology." Derek told Meredith, eyeing the scans suspiciously before looking at Cristina and me and then leaving the room and Meredith followed him.

GA

"The test impaired your memory to such a degree that I have to strongly recommend you don't have the surgery." Swender told her after the test.

"Izzie, the test was the worse-case scenario." Derek informed her. "The result has nothing to do with the surgery."

"We don't know that."

"What I do know is that not operating is every bit as risky as the surgery itself, if not more, but it's up to you." Izzie turned to her husband for an answer.

"What do you think?" She asked him.

"I think he's talking to you, not me."

"I'll leave you two alone to discuss this." Derek said and he turned to leave the room, but Alex stopped him.

"Uh, I'll come with you. I have a couple questions."

"Wait, Alex." Izzie pleaded.

"Just think about what you want to do for a second, okay? I'll be right back." Alex got off the bed and followed Derek out of the room with Swender behind them. Meredith walked over to the door and closed it before turning to Izzie.

"You are not having this surgery." Meredith demanded. "You couldn't remember anything. You didn't know my name. You didn't know who Derek was. You didn't know who Alex was. You didn't know who Mayzie was. You couldn't even remember how to speak."

"How come I don't remember any of this?"

"Because the tumor is sitting right in the middle of everything that makes you you. I was standing talking to you exactly like I am now, only you weren't there. You weren't you. You were gone."

"So, what do I do?"

"Well, Swender has a patient—female, twenty-two years old, metastatic melanoma."

"Alison Clark?"

"After three months of the I.L.-2, her mets were gone—all of them. You're not having this surgery."

GA

I stood at the counter and logged the patients that I've discharged for the day and checking to see which one's I still had to do and if there were any new ones that needed discharged. The scent of Irish Spring and aftershave clouded my nostrils as Mark approached me and I signed one more form before pushing it to the side and looked up at him.

"I wasn't asking you to come see the condo." Mark admitted, looking down at his hands. "I was asking you to move in with me… if that's what you want." He looked nervously up from his hands at me as I stared wide eyed at him. Move in with him? I mean, we practically lived together already but to move move in with him? Of course, I wanted to. I wanted to wake up to him every day. Just not right away.

"I do." I answered, smiling.

"You do?" He let out a loose breath of relief and grinned.

"Yeah. Not right away."

"No, of course not.

"In like…" He said, "A year." While I said, "Four years." And his eyebrows furrowed in confusion at my answer.

"I'm sorry, what now?" Mark questioned me and I instantly became nervous.

"Oh, um, well, because I'll—I'll still be a resident for, like, three more years, and—and then I'd want to get settled into my fellowship so… how about three years? I mean, I guess I could get settle into a new house just before I start my fellowship."

"How about two years?"

"I'll still be a resident."

"So? Stevens and Karev are residents. Meredith's a resident, Bailey's a resident—all married or soon to be, and happily…. Or whatever." I slowly blinked trying to process what he was saying and if there was any hidden meaning under it.

"I'm sorry. Are you asking me…"? I let out a nervous chuckle, still not believing that my anxiety ridden mind jumped to this conclusion. "… to—to—to marry you?"

"No." Mark nervously laughed as well. "Why? Would you?" That hit me like a rolled-up magazine to the face as I tried to slow down my though process and come up with something to say. We haven't been dating that long and he was already implying marriage? I couldn't think about moving in with him let alone marrying him.

"Um, should we be having this conversation?" to—to—to marry you? No. laughs why? Would you? Um, should we be having this conversation?"

"No, probably not."

"No, I-I—that… okay." I turned on my heel and walked away from him and he strolled away in the opposite direction. Shaking my hands and puckering my lips as I blew out a lungful of air to calm myself down, I ran into Meredith and Izzie. "What's going on?"

"Going to find Derek." Meredith said.

"Why?"

"She's having the surgery." Meredith told me, never missing a step. Fear clung to me.

"What? Izzie?" She didn't look in my direction as she kept walking so, I reached out and grabbed her arm to turn her around to face me. "Izzie, you can't do this. The risks are too extreme. What happened to trusting the I.L.-2?"

"It doesn't work, Mayzie." Izzie snapped at me, pulling her arm free from my grasp and continuing walking. I looked to Meredith, silently begging her to get Izzie to change her mind.

"Derek says that he can get it out without any permanent damage." Meredith said grimly.

"But that doesn't mean that something could go wrong. Is that something you're willing to risk, Izzie?"

"Yes." Izzie said shortly walking up to the conference room door and knocking.

"Come in." Derek's voice sounded on the other side of the door and Izzie walked in with Meredith and I behind her. Derek looked up from his paperwork and looked Izzie over with concern.

"You can do it. You can cut into my brain again."

"Okay."

"You can do it, but… I don't want to end up a vegetable."

"Izzie, you won't—" I began to speak but she held up her hand to silence me.

"No, just listen. I want the surgery, right now, but if something goes wrong, I don't want to end up on a ventilator so I'm signing a DNR." Meredith and I looked at Izzie with horror and sadness but once Izzie made up her mind, there was no changing it.