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Alex walked down the corridor of the ICU toward Izzie's room. It was a little after 9am. He was running late. He'd missed the start of her physiotherapy session but there was nothing he could do about that now. In his arms he carried the box he'd filled up last night with Izzie's things. Things he hoped would help her remember who she was. He still wasn't exactly sure what he was going to say to her, how he was going to tell her life. After several hours of trying to structure what he was going to present he'd decided to just show her everything and see where it all lead them.

As he approached her room he heard muffed cries coming from it. He quickened his pace and when he entered the room he found Izzie yelling at her physio. Well trying to yell, she couldn't project her voice to much louder than a whisper but she wasn't happy. The physio was trying to exercise and loosen the joints and muscles in Izzie's legs but she wasn't letting her do it. She kept trying to pull away and crying out for her to stop. She said it hurt and she didn't want her to do it.

Alex went straight to Izzie's side and told the physio to stop. "What are you doing to her?" he said. "Can't you see she's in pain?"

The physio let go of Izzie's leg and stepped back. "Can I speak to you outside Alex?" she asked and headed for the door.

Izzie griped Alex's arm tighter. "Don't leave me." She begged. But Alex pulled his arm from her grip.

"I'll be back in a moment." He promised and followed the physio out of the room.

The physio was waiting for him a little bit down the corridor. As Alex approached her she started talking.

"You can't go in and do that Alex. You can't undermine my authority in front of her."

"But she was crying, she was in pain."

"She's on morphine Alex, she's not in pain. She just doesn't want to do it."

"If she doesn't want to do it why…"

"Because she has to." Alex didn't understand. Izzie was the patient, it was her recovery, why did they need her to do things she didn't want to do.

"I don't understand."

"You are a surgeon you wouldn't. Recovery is a long drawn out process. Everything we do is in the best interest of the patient. But there are going to be times when the patients themselves don't realize this. Physio, especially at the start is very uncomfortable. She's been motionless in that bed for two weeks, her joints have stiffened and her muscles weakened. She's not going to enjoy these sessions until the joints have loosened, but the longer we wait the worse it's going to get."

Alex nodded. He understood now why this was so important. "I'll go talk to her," he said. "We'll finish this session."

"I'll be in there in a few minutes." The physio said and Alex walked back into Izzie room.

Izzie lay alone in her room. When Alex entered alone she smiled at him. He walked over to her bed and sat next to her. He took her hand in his and squeezed it tight. "Is she coming back?" she asked hopefully.

"In a few minutes." He replied. Izzie tried to pull away from him. She trusted him to protect her; he wasn't doing a very good job.

"I don't want her to come back."

"I know." Alex ran his hand down the side of her face. "I know you don't want to do this but it's for your own good."

"I don't want to." She turned her head away and refused to look at him.

"Izzie."

"I don't want to." He gently reached for her chin and carefully turned her head to face him.

"I know. But you have to."

"Please don't make me." She looked pleadingly at him and he was this close to letting her win but the physio had reentered the room and she was shaking her head at him telling him not to let her win.

"I brought a box of memories with me." He began, he was resorting to bribery. "I'll show them to you after we finish the session."

The offer of memories got through to her. "Okay." She whispered, and the physio walked over to resume the session.

The session lasted another forty minutes. The physio with Alex's help moved Izzie's arms and legs through an entire range of motions. Izzie didn't complain once but there were a few times when she moaned in frustration. She didn't have the strength or the coordination to repeat the movements on her own so whenever they tried she'd begin to lose it.

After every episode it would take a few minutes to calm her down but then everything would appear to be fine. By the time the session was over though Izzie was exhausted. It was the longest period of time since the shooting that she'd had to concentrate for, and also the most physical activity she'd done.

She lay there in the bed trying to get her breath back, Alex reached over for the oxygen mask and placed it over her face. "This will help you feel better." He said. She let him place it on her and she lay there for a few minutes before she started reaching for it and trying to pull it off. Alex pulled it off for her and she smiled at him.

"Show them to me." She said. Her voice was even quieter than usual.

"What?"

"The memories."

"Oh." Alex seemed surprised that she wanted to see them. "Are you sure you want to see them now?"

She nodded in reply. She'd just gone through what was in her opinion an hours worth of agony and torture, she wanted her reward.

"Are you sure you don't want to rest a bit first?"

A little part of her knew she should rest, she could barely keep her eyes open but she wanted to see these memories so bad. She wanted to know who she was; she could will herself to stay awake.

"Show me."

Alex reached down for the box and pulled out the photo album that was on top. He placed it on the side of the bed and asked "What would you like to see first?" This was judgment time. Once he started painting the picture that was Izzie's past there was no going back.

Izzie thought about what she wanted to know. There were a million things she wanted to know, a million things that she knew she would never know. What did she need to know, what did she want to know the most. "Tell me about us," she said. "How did we meet?"

Alex nodded, realizing she wanted to go back to the start, she wanted to know everything.

"We met the day before we started working with each other." He began. "We were surgical interns at this hospital and the hospital had thrown us all a meet and greet mixer."

"We were doctors?"

"We are doctors." Alex corrected. He was still a doctor and he hoped Izzie would soon be one again too.

"Did we hit it off straight away?"

"No." Alex shook his head. "Far from it. There were a lot of ups and downs in our relationship. It was only the last three months that had really been right."

"How long have we known each other?"

"Just over two years."

"What happened before things were right?"

Alex gulped. So many things had happened before things were right. Now was the moment he needed to decide exactly which ones he was going to tell her.

"I used to call you Dr. Model." He reached into the box and pulled out the magazine with the Bethany Whisper photos. He opened it up to her centre fold. "That was you before you became a doctor."

Izzie stared at the magazine image of herself. She reached out and touched it, it was real. She didn't remember any of it.

"I photocopied that photo hundreds of times and wall papered the hospital with them." Alex watched Izzie's face for her reaction to this. He half expected her to slap him or something, but she didn't she just smiled.

"What did I do?"

Alex smiled, remembering Izzie's reaction to the whole Bethany Whisper incident. "You striped down to your underwear in the locker room and yelled at everyone. You yelled at me. You used to call me Dr. Evil Spawn."

Izzie closed her eyes and tried to remember. She tried to picture the walls of the hospital covered in pictures. She could see them, she could see the walls but they weren't real, it wasn't a real memory.

"Alex?" She whispered. "What took us so long?"

Alex knew what she wanted to know, he thought he knew, but he didn't want to go there. "What do you mean?" he asked instead.

"Us. Why did it take two years?"

"It's complicated." He dodged the question. He didn't know how to answer it without talking about Denny. He didn't want to talk about Denny. It had taken Izzie well over a year to get over losing him. He didn't want her to grieve him again, there were enough things for her to be grieving at the moment without that. He didn't want Izzie to know that once he really had hurt her, that perhaps he wasn't really the love of her life, just the replacement. "You look tired." He said instead of answering the question. "You should get some rest before the speech therapist arrives."

Izzie was tired. She was exhausted, but she didn't want to rest, she wanted answers. She wanted to know how her and Alex came to be like this. She wanted to know why it had taken them two years to get together. He was the only thing that felt right in her life right now. When she was with him she felt safe, protected, she trusted him to do what was best for her. Being with him was all she wanted. She couldn't understand why it took them so long.

"I'm just going to get something to eat." Alex stood up to leave, he'd completely side stepped the question.

"Don't leave me." Izzie said holding his hand tighter. He bent down and kissed it.

"I'll be back I promise." He slipped his hand out of Izzie's grasp. "You just get some rest while I'm gone." And he walked out the room. He walked away.