a/n: Thanks so much everyone for the reviews on the last chapter. I'm just stepping back a little with this chapter. I wanted to get a little inside Izzie's head before she talks with Alex.
Izzie lay in the bed. It was only 4am but she was wide awake. She couldn't sleep, something felt different; not different in a bad way, just different. She felt an urge to go bake something and she didn't know why. She tried to ignore it, she wanted to go back to sleep but she'd been laying there for half an hour.
Slowly she climbed out of the bed and walked to the kitchen. She turned on the light and opened the pantry. She began pulling out flour, sugar, coconut extract, coco; from the fridge she pulled out eggs and milk. She wasn't following a recipe but somehow she knew exactly how much of everything she needed to add.
After the first batch was mixed and in the oven she began mixing a second, and then a third.
She was about to put the third batch into the oven when Alex walked in.
"Morning." She smiled at him.
"Morning." She watched him rub his eyes, blink a few times. "Izzie what are you doing?"
Describing his look as surprised would have been an understatement. His mouth hung slightly open, his eyes were open wide. It amused her a little.
"Baking." She said, smiling at him. "What does it look like?"
"But why?" He didn't understand why she was doing it and she didn't really understand either.
"I don't know." She picked up one of the muffins from the tray and took a bite out of it. "It just felt like the right thing to do."
/\/\/\/\
While they waited for the nurse to arrive Izzie packed the first two batches on muffins into a bag for Alex to take to work. They didn't talk while she did this. She needed to concentrate way too much and Alex was mesmerized just a little. He hadn't seen Izzie like this for a long time.
When the nurse finally arrived he kissed her goodbye and left.
When Alex left Izzie stared around the kitchen. There was flour, and sugar and muffin mix everywhere. To describe the scene as a mess would probably be an understatement but for some reason it made her smile. She pulled the mixing bowl over and began measuring ingredients again.
She ignored the nurse who was standing on the other side of the counter staring at her. It wasn't that she didn't like her, she didn't even know her but today she wanted to be independent, she didn't want help from anybody. After a while the nurse got the message, she wasn't wanted. She went and sat down in the arm chair and pulled out some knitting.
/\/\/\/\
Three batches of muffins later Izzie finally stopped baking. She'd run out of flour. She thought about asking the nurse to go with her to the shop to buy some more but she didn't really feel like talking to her. Besides they really didn't need anymore muffins. Slowly she began cleaning up her mess. She washed the dishes, and she arranged the muffins into three baskets. She was pleased with her work. Something about it just seemed right.
With the kitchen clean she began looking around the house for something else to do. The nurse looked up and offered to play a game with her but she ignored her. She'd spotted the box with the photo albums and stuff Alex had taken to the hospital to show her. She hadn't looked in the box for weeks. She hadn't wanted to look in the box. It was full of memories she couldn't recall, it was full of people she didn't recognize. She hadn't wanted to look in the box because it was painful and frustrating, she'd changed and she didn't want to know what she had lost.
But now today, she felt different, she was intrigued. She pulled the photo albums out of the box and carried them over to the sofa. Slowly she began going through them and as she did things began coming back to her.
At first it was slow and fragmented, like trying to piece together an old movie or recall a dream. The images were there but they were far apart, didn't make sense. She started remembering moments, feelings but she couldn't remember the situations surrounding them.
She started remembering people, George and Meredith and everyone else from the hospital. She looked at a picture of her and George at a park laughing, she could remember being there, she could remember laughing but she didn't know what was so funny. Tears began flowing down her checks. She could remember the friendships she'd had with him. She'd been so horrible to him. What had she done?
The more she looked at everything the faster it all began coming back. Things became more vivid and clearer. She began remembering things that weren't in the photographs. Like the time she'd refereed an eating contest in the cafeteria between Alex, George, and Christina. She chuckled quietly to herself that had been a good day.
/\/\/\/\
Izzie had gone through two photo albums already. The amount of information that was hitting her was over whelming but in a good way. For the first time she felt whole, she had a past, everyone needed a past.
She picked up the third album and as she did a whole stack of photos fell out and hit the floor. They'd been tucked right up in the back, never filed, almost like someone was trying to hide them. She picked them up and began looking through them first.
The photos were of her and another man, a man she'd never seen before. They looked so happy, there was a spark in their eyes she'd not seen, it was similar to how she looked when she was with Alex but not quite the same. She didn't know who the man was but she felt instantly drawn to him. She closed her eyes and tried to remember who the man was but nothing came. She opened her eyes again and kept staring at the photo, she turned it over in her hand and as she did she saw a message written on the back.
Dear Izzie,
A kiss from you says a thousand words.
Love Always
Denny.
"Denny." She said the name over inside her head and closed her eyes again. It took a moment for the images to come but when they did they came hard and fast.
She began shaking all over, she could remember who this man was, she could remember how she felt for him and she could remember what happened to him. She felt like her insides were being torn apart, her whole body ached in way she hadn't felt before. It wasn't physical pain it was totally emotional.
She didn't know how she was supposed to react, how she was supposed to feel. Why hadn't Alex told her about him? Things were coming way to fast now for her to make sense of them. She was confused and suddenly she felt scared. Why hadn't Alex told her about him? What else hadn't he told her?
She needed help, she needed someone to talk to, someone to tell her that everything was okay, someone to tell her that she hadn't been living a lie for these last few weeks. She got up and began looking for the phone. The nurse asked her if she was okay, Izzie ignored her. She needed help but this old woman wasn't the person she needed.
She wanted Sarah. Sarah would be able to help her, tell her everything was okay. But it was Saturday; it was Sarah's day off and wouldn't answer her phone. Izzie tried three times before she dialed a different number. She didn't know how she knew the number, she just knew it. The phone rang six times before someone answered.
"Hello?" the person on the other end said.
"Hi, George?" She gulped. "It's me, Izzie."
/\/\/\/\
George practically dropped the phone when he heard Izzie's voice on the other end. She hadn't spoken to him since the shooting and he'd began to think she never would.
"Can you come over?" Her voice was very soft and just a little shaky. "I need someone to talk to."
"Sure. I'm at work. I'll need to find someone to cover for me. I'll be there are soon as I can."
"Thank you."
They both hung up their phones. George couldn't believe what had just happened. Izzie had actually phoned him, she'd asked for his help and he'd jumped right at the opportunity. This was exactly what he'd been waiting for.
/\/\/\/\/\
Izzie tried to compose herself while she waited for George but she couldn't do it. The more she thought about everything, the harder she tried to make sense of it the more confused and upset she became.
By the time George arrived she was a mess. Her eyes were red and swollen; she was on the verge of hyperventilating. The nurse had offered to help her twice but she'd told her to away.
George let himself into the apartment. Izzie was sitting on the sofa hunched over. She looked up at him; he saw the relief sweep over her face. He sat down beside her wrapped his arms around her. He held her tightly as she cried into his shoulder. He didn't know what had upset what had happened but then he saw the photos of her and Denny laying on table, things began to make sense.
Izzie cried into George's shoulder for almost twenty minutes. She didn't want to let go of him. She felt safe with him, she trusted him, he hadn't lied to her or tried to deceive her. He was George; she couldn't believe how horrible she'd been to him.
"Iz," George asked after a while. He let go of her and pushed her away just a little so they could talk. "What's happened?"
She used her hand to wipe away some of the tears. "I remember George. I'm remembering things and I can't make sense of them. I don't understand."
"What do you remember?" He was beginning to get an idea of what was happening. He'd never asked Alex what he'd told Izzie but he'd known there were a lot of things he'd left out.
Spread across the table were photos of her with Denny but there were other photos too. One was from the mixer the hospital had thrown before they started working together. In one of the photos Alex was with Olivia, Izzie picked this one up and handed it to George.
"I remember her with him. They were together." George nodded along. "He was with her when he was with me. He cheated on me with her." George nodded but he didn't say anything. He let Izzie keep telling her story. "He hurt me, so I fell in love with him." She picked up the photo of her and Denny, she ran her finger around his face. "I loved him but he died. I killed him." George moved closer to her on the sofa. He took her free hand in his and squeezed it tight.
"You didn't kill him Iz, he just died." Izzie tried to wipe some of the tears away from her eyes but they just kept falling.
"Why didn't he tell me any of this? Why did he lie to me about it?"
"I don't know." He handed Izzie some tissues from his pocket. "Maybe he was trying to protect you. You were so sick then. Maybe he thought it was the right thing to do."
Izzie nodded but she still didn't understand, she still didn't want to accept it. She felt like she'd been living a lie. If she'd been in love with someone else why had she gone back to Alex? Why was she with him if he'd hurt her before? Why was he being so nice to her now?
Beside her she felt George move. "I'm just going to the bathroom." He said standing up and leaving the room. While she was alone she stared at the pictures again. She tried to make sense of everything again but nothing was any clearer.
While George was gone Alex arrived home. He was an hour early. She wasn't expecting him, she wasn't ready to face him yet. She was still angry and hurt by him.
He stood just inside the door staring at her. His mouth hung open. She looked up at him, she didn't try to hide the tears, she wanted him to see exactly what he'd done to her.
"Iz, what's going on?" he asked. His mine was racing a hundred miles an hour. What could possibly be making her this upset?
"You lied to me." She said, wiping some of the tears away from her eyes. It was the only thing she could think of to say to him.
"What?" He didn't know what she was talking about. He reached down and tried to place a hand on her shoulder but she pushed him away. She didn't want him touching her, she wasn't sure if she could trust him "Iz?"
She took a deep breath and whispered softly. "I remember."
Alex had a good look at the photos that lay across the table. He saw the ones of Denny. "Oh shit." He thought to himself. This was bad, this was beyond bad, but a little part of him was ecstatic, she was getting her memory back.