I Drove All Night
Disclaimer: I do not own Grey's Anatomy or any of the characters
Author's Note: In my version of events, at Cristina's wedding Alex didn't go back to the hospital to find Ava and give her a reason to stay. There was no Ava; he went back to the house to get something for Izzie.
PART FOUR
They'd been living in different states for over a year, but Alec still missed Izzie every day. Which is why he jumped in his car at 10:05 p.m. to drive four hours to her house in Portland. No, not just her house. The house she shared with George.
George. Izzie's fiancé. The guy who had left his wife for her. They guy who has probably either done something awful or diagnosed with pancreatic cancer from the way Izzie had sounded on the phone. It was almost like after Denny died.
There was one thing that Alex was sure about, he thought as he drove, and that was that he loved Izzie more than he ever thought he would be capable of. It was too bad he had never gotten to tell her. George had gotten in the way of that.
"Nothing is worse than missing out on an opportunity that could have changed your life." Addison's words at Burke and Cristina's wedding still echoed in his head. That day, after Addison's advice, he went back to the house. He has a gorgeous necklace waiting in his dresser drawer. He has planned on waiting for the perfect moment to give it to Izzie, but Addison had taught him that sometimes you have to make your own perfect moments.
He grabbed the necklace and drove back to the church. But there she was with George. He went back to Meredith's and tried to calm himself down while simultaneously scolding himself for ever thinking that he had another chance.
And then she told him she was moving. It completely broke his heart. He told her that moving was the wrong thing to do, but she wouldn't listen. She insisted that she was in love. "Either you can support me, or you can stand back and watch me go and be angry. But either way, Alex, I'm going," Izzie had told him. He didn't take back what he had said earlier; he couldn't. But he still loaded the car and wished her well.
He still had that necklace. It was one of the few items that he threw in his duffel bag. Maybe it wouldn't be the right time to give it to her. Maybe the right time would never come. But he had to give it a shot because he loved her. And as he continued to drive into the night, he began to believe that his love for her was all that mattered.