a/n: yeah it's been forever since I've updated this. I was busy with uni assignments and I had a massive writers block. Just like Alex didn't know how he was going to move forward from there neither did I. But here is something, lets call it the beginning of the end. Hopefully you'll enjoy it.
The day after things started coming back, Alex talked to Izzie a lot more. He wanted to get a better understanding on where they were, what she knew and what she wanted to know. There were still a lot of holes in her memory but it was easier to connect the dots. She asked a lot of questions and he answered them as best he could. This was the beginning of yet another chapter in their lives. They had a long way to go together but they would make it.
The memories brought them closer. They understood each other a lot better, well Izzie understood Alex better. She understood why he needed to work, why he needed to be a surgeon. She remembered what it felt like to be in the OR, it was a natural high, she didn't want to prevent him from feeling that. With his help she began reconnecting with her old friends. They welcomed her in with open arms. It was almost like nothing had changed but everything had changed.
The night after things started coming back, Alex took her over to the house. Meredith and George hadn't touched her room, everything was exactly like she'd left it. She lay down on her bed and breathed, her sheets still smelt like her. She felt at home, but this wasn't her home anymore.
That night they ordered pizza and everyone sat around the TV and watched Ellis Grey tapes. It was Izzie's idea. She remembered the tapes but the memory she had of them was old, she didn't realize the others had stopped watching the tapes a long time ago. They'd seen every tape at least a dozen times and performed many of the procedures themselves. But they didn't want to stop Izzie being Izzie so they let her pick the tapes and tried to act like it was the first time they'd seen them as well.
Slowly the relationships she had with her friends began to normalize. Things stopped being strained and just became comfortable. They became her greater support network and lessened some of the tension from Alex. Finally he wasn't the only one she could depend on. But regaining her memory was a double edged sword bad things came a long with the good and some good things were bad things too.
She began to understand herself. For the first time since the accident she knew who she was, but she also knew how much she'd changed, how much she'd lost. She wasn't the same person she used to be, she couldn't be, she wanted to be but it was impossible.
So much of her pervious life had been about being a doctor, being a surgeon. She'd thought at first perhaps she could still be a surgeon; she even went as far as talking Alex into taking her to work with him. She had meetings with Dr. Shepard and the Chief and while they wouldn't flat out say 'you're never going to be a doctor again' it soon became clear that was the message they were trying to send. There were so many hoops they wanted her to jump through, tests that she'd have to past, things that she'd have to be able to do that her therapists were telling her she may never be able to do.
The message was simple, physically and mentally she wouldn't be able to perform her job. It wasn't that she was retarded or dumb, everyone made it very clear to her that she was still very intelligent, it was just her mind didn't work as fast as it used to. Her memory wasn't good, she needed things explained to her five or six times before she understood them. She found it difficult to concentrate for extended periods of time or to perform more than one task at once. These were things she was told she could work on and in time they would improve but she would never be the same. Physically her problems were similar, she wasn't disabled as such, she didn't qualify for a disabled parking permit. She could walk and talk and function on a day to day level but that wasn't enough. She needed medication to control her seizures and they still occurred spontaneously every few weeks. The left side of her body had a permanent weakness and she'd lost a lot of her dexterity and super fine motor skills. If she'd been something other than a surgeon it wouldn't have mattered but to be a surgeon you needed to be more than just okay you needed to be perfect.
/\/\/\/\
Seven months after the shooting.
Izzie smoothed the icing on a chocolate cake, she paused a moment to admire her work and then pulled out a knife and cut three large pieces. She placed the three slices of cake on a tray with two mugs of coffee and a mug of hot chocolate she'd made earlier. She carried the tray over to the table and sat it down.
It was Sunday afternoon and Sarah had come over to visit. Sarah had stopped being Izzie's nurse four weeks ago and this was the first time since then they'd seen each other. In the months Sarah had been her nurse they'd developed a very strong friendship. Izzie confided in her a lot and looked to her for advice. It was Alex's day off so he sat at the table with the two women.
"What am I going to do with myself?" Izzie asked sitting downing. She was beginning to go stir crazy at home, she desperately wanted to do something. And she'd been told by her doctors earlier in the week that her condition was unlikely to improve significantly more.
"You could open a bakery." Sarah offered swallowing a bit of cake. "Everything you bake is delicious."
"Thanks." Izzie smiled putting a piece of cake in her mouth. "But baking is for pleasure. I can't bake for a living." She paused for a moment to gather her thoughts. "I want to help people; I want to make a difference."
Sarah put another piece of cake in her mouth. She didn't know what to say. She'd seen this happen before, as people reached the pinnacle of their recovery they sometimes began searching for meaning or reason.
"There's got to something I can do, something I'm meant to do. I was shot in the head and I'm still here, there's got to be a reason."
Izzie was at a loss, she needed purpose in her life, she was sick of just floating and letting others tell her what to do.
"I could talk to the Chief for you again." Alex offered. "If you keep up with the rehab maybe…"
"No Alex. Don't go there." Alex still held hope that maybe one day Izzie would be able to practice medicine again but Izzie had been trying as hard as she could to put that idea at the back of her mind. She'd had so many knock backs; she wanted to find something new. If she was only meant to practice medicine why had this happened to her in the first place?
"I could see if the centre needs anymore volunteers." Sarah offered, it wasn't what Izzie was looking for and Sarah knew it but it was a start. The centre was a non-profit that assisted people recovering from head injuries. Over the years she'd seen the centre provide direction for many people in Izzie's situation.
"Maybe…" Izzie thought but she wanted more than what the centre could offer.
The conversation drifted off to what Sarah had been up to. She had a new patient to take care of, a young boy who'd been injured in a car accident. Sarah was telling them all about him when the phone started ringing.
"Hello?" Izzie asked picking up the phone. On the other end of the line she heard giggling like someone was surprised she'd answered. "Hello." Izzie said again.
"Hi." A young girl spoke on the other end of the line. "Is this Isobel Stevens?"
"That depends. Who is this?" Izzie wasn't sure who this person was, how they knew her name or how they got her number.
"My name is Ally O'Brian. I'm a student at Chehalis High School. Is this Isobel Stevens?" Izzie mouth dropped. It had been a very long time since she's heard that name. She still remembered her childhood in that town; she'd left it behind a long time ago. "Hello?" the girl said again. "Is this Isobel Stevens?"
"Yes." Izzie said shaking her head. "How did you get this number?"
"It's you? Oh my god." On the other end of the line Izzie heard a few claps and someone jumping up and down in excitement.
"How did you get this number?" she asked again. "What do you want?"
"Oh sorry." The girl paused for just a second before she started talking in run on sentences. "We've been going through the phone book looking for you. Yours is the tenth number we've phoned. My English teacher Mrs Sykes wants us to write a paper on someone we admire who we've never met. My dad works as the chef at the Road Side Diner and he's always talking about you, how you got out of this town and made something of yourself. Most people are writing about movie stars and sports people but I'm writing about you. We get extra credit if the person we write about to comes to the school and talks."
The girl finally stopped talking and the line went silent. Izzie could believe what she was hearing.
"I'm sorry." She said. "Who are you again?"
The girl took a deep breath and began talking much slower. "My name is Ally O'Brian. I go to Chehalis High School. I wanted to know if you'd consider coming to my school and talking to everyone. My dad has told me a lot about you and I think everyone would appreciate hearing your story."
Izzie nodded to herself, she was trying to take in everything that this girl was saying, what she was asking. They wanted her to give a speech at her old high school. They wanted to hear her talk about herself.
"I think you have the wrong person." She finally said. "I'm no one special."
"Oh." The girl sounded disappointed. "But you said you were Isobel Stevens."
"I am but I'm nothing special, I'm sure you could find someone better to come to your school."
There was a pause on the other end of the line as the girl tried to think what to say next.
"That's the exact reason I think you'd be perfect." She finally started saying again. "You're one of us, you're from here, you know what it's like to live here and you got away. You went to college and became a doctor. That might not make you special to a lot of people but I think the kids in this town now might find it amazing. I know I do." There was another pause as the girl collected her thoughts, Izzie didn't know what to say, she didn't quite believe what she was hearing. "Please." The girl continued. "Will you at least consider it?"
Izzie swallowed, and agreed to consider it. The girl gave her, her phone number and Izzie promised her she'd hone her back within a few day. Then she hung up the phone and turned to Alex and Sarah who'd been listening to the whole thing.
"You should do it." They both said even though they didn't know exactly what it was the girl had asked.
"You think?" Izzie sat back down with them and began telling them exactly what the girl had wanted. It didn't take a lot of convincing for them to talk Izzie into doing it. It was exactly what she had been looking for. Within an hour she'd phoned the girl back and began to work out the details of when this might occur.