Questions for you all:
Is this unbearably slow-moving? I like the dialogue, but I'm concerned that there's not enough action to hold you guys. What do you think? I'm going to tell the story mostly through character interactions—is that viable?
Do people not comment as much a few chapters in, or have people stopped reading?
What other ships do you want to see?
Let me know what you think of this chapter. Enjoy!
- Leems
Chapter Four
"She looks awful, George," Izzie breathed into her cell phone, trying to talk around the tears streaming down her face and her too-deep breaths. "She's dying. My. Daughter. Dying."
"Izzie, breathe. I'm coming, okay? Where are you?"
"In the hallway, where we usually sit. With the huge window and the abandoned stretcher."
"I'm on my way. Do you want me to stay on the phone?"
"Please…"
"I'm right here. Are you okay?"
"No, George, I'm not okay. Hannah…" She brought up a sob that made her lungs climb up her throat. "has about three months left. And I gave her the marrow! You were there! I gave up a whole piece of me but even that didn't save her."
"Izzie. Listen to me. This is not your fault. There is nothing you could have done to stop this."
"Was there something in me that made her sicker?"
"She was so sick before she came. I'm almost to you. Five more minutes. Hang in there."
"She's so sick… what did I do?"
"This is not your fault," he repeated. "There. I'm at Seattle Grace. I'll be right there." Izzie wiped some of the saltwater from her cheeks, but it kept coming. She heard his heavy, running footsteps through the phone.
"I'm turning the corner… here I am." She saw his silhouette at the end of the hall and shoved her cell phone into her pocket. His hair stood up from where he had fallen asleep on it, and he was wearing one of his college Frisbee-team shirts over pants from two days ago, but he was there. He came over to where she sat and put his arm around her, wordlessly, letting her cry into his chest.
"Think about something else," George told her, pushing pieces of blonde hair out of Izzie's eyes. The crying didn't stop.
"Look at me, Izzie." At last, she looked, up, sniffing. "I'm right here. It's all right. You did your best."
"My best wasn't enough. Don't you get it? I gave everything and that still… wasn't… enough."
"I was thinking," George began. He was forging ahead with what he had intended to tell Izzie when she got home, and instead said it now to distract her, to give her something to latch on to. "I…."
"Shh…" Izzie said. "Not now. I need my best friend right now, okay? Not married, cheating, stuck-in-triangle George, but George who sits here and says the same thing over and over to ground me. Okay? Because I do not need a declaration of love. I need you to sit here and make sure I'm okay, and then take me home." George rested his chin on the top of her head.
"Just tell me when you want to go back," he mumbled.
"Promise you won't leave?"
"I am your friend, Izzie. This sitting in the hallway in the middle of the night when I should be asleep preparing to repeat the whole intern nightmare—I am doing this because I love you, not because I'm in love with you. Do you understand?"
"Friends," she said, as children coming to the end of a slapping match declare truce.
"Always," he promised, and Izzie nodded and leaned into him. After a few minutes of silence, George looked at her again.
"Are you ready to go home?"
"All right."
George took her by the elbow and led her out into the parking lot. They left the car Izzie had come in behind and took the second one, entering the sleeping house as quietly as they could. Up in Izzie's room, she collapsed on her bed.
"Can you stay here?"
Wordlessly, George knelt and settled himself beside her. The room was dark—they hadn't ever turned the lights back on—but lighting and dawn eventually lit it up enough to see shadows. And anyone who went into that room would see George, propped up against the headboard, watching Izzie sleep. The expression on his face was a mixture: tenderness, worry, and something that looked strangely like regret.