She was standing in complete darkness, there was nothing around and then he was there. Alex was standing before her. He smiled at her, a crocked coy little smile, like he wanted something. It made her laugh. He held out his hand for her, she took it and he started leading her away.
-8-8-8-8-
"Thank you for allowing us to use your house today Meredith." Alex's mother said as she picked up her bag. "Please tell Isobel I'll be thinking of her and if she needs anything I'd be happy to try and help."
"Sure." Meredith smiled and opened the door for her. "Drive safely." She said and she willed his mother to leave.
"Goodbye." His mother said and she walked out the door. Meredith quickly shut the door behind her and walked back to the kitchen where Christina and George were sitting with Derek eating the last of the food.
"Is everyone gone?" Christina asked as Meredith sat down in one of the chairs.
"Yep." Meredith replied reaching for a chocolate brownie and biting into it. "Everyone is gone."
They all let out a sigh of relief. It had been a very long day for all of them. They'd spent most of it hiding out in the kitchen but out of obligation they'd felt they should spend some time with everyone else to make up for the fact Izzie had not been seen all afternoon. The time with everyone else had been the hardest, mainly because the Alex they spoke of wasn't the one they wanted to remember. He'd changed a lot in the four years they'd known him and it was the person he'd become they wanted to remember.
"I think we all deserve a drink." Derek said standing up. He walked to one of Meredith cupboards and pulled a bottle of wine from the back of it.
"Has that been there the whole time?" Christina asked, shocked that someone hadn't thought to bring it out sooner.
"Yep." Derek smiled opening the bottle. "I wanted to save it for the end. You know to use to unwind with."
"Right." Christina looked back at him, not convinced with his explanation. "I could have used that three hours ago."
"Yeah, but then we'd have to shear it with everyone else." He poured the wine into four glasses and handed them out.
George took his and held it in his hand. He took a small sip, he wasn't much of a wine drinker but it tasted alright. He took another sip and then put his glass down. "I'm going to go check on Izzie." He said standing. "Let her know it's safe to come back down."
"You don't have to do that George. I'm sure she'll come down when she's ready." It was Christina who'd said that. She didn't want Izzie to join them, she didn't want to interact with her just yet, she wanted to relax and unwind as Derek had put it. Izzie was her friend but she couldn't relax around her, not at the moment.
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George stood up and left anyway. He walked quietly up the stairs and gently tapped on the door, when there was no response he opened the door and entered the room anyway.
"Iz," he whispered quietly. "Everyone is gone; it's safe to come down again." But she didn't move, she was curled up in a ball on the bed, clutching a pillow, sound asleep. George watched her for a moment; he thought about waking her but decided against it. Instead he walked to the cupboard and pulled out a blanket. He placed it gently over her body and walked quietly out the room.
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"What was that about?" Meredith asked Christina as George walked out the room.
"I just don't think he needs to get her. She'll come down when she's ready." She took another sip of the wine. "This is really good." She said changing the subject.
-8-8-8-8-
They were talking about wine when George came back to the kitchen. Derek was telling the story of where he found the bottle. Apparently it was a very good, hard to find bottle. George picked up his glass and lent back against the counter. He took another sip; it didn't taste very good to him.
"Where is Izzie?" Meredith asked turning to George.
"She's sleeping. I didn't want to wake her." He took another sip of the drink and waited for Christina to say something but she didn't so he continued. "Do you want to go sit down?" He reached for the last tray of food and walked out the room. He didn't wait to see if the others were following him. A part of him didn't really care if they did or not. He sat down in one of the sofas in the lounge room and started eating. He'd been eating a lot today. Having food in his mouth seemed to make him feel better. The others joined him a few minutes later. They brought with them four more glasses and a bottle of Scotch.
They all slumped into the chairs and exhaled. It had been a very long day, a long week. They spent the evening talking, something which none of them were very good at. Their conversation seemed to go around in circles. "I can't believe this has happened." Someone would say and everyone would agree. Someone would mention the wedding and Izzie and then they'd asked how she was. No one really knew how Izzie was though. All they could pick was she cried a lot and slept even more. The evening dragged on and eventually it was late. George and Christina left, Meredith and Derek went to bed. Izzie had not made an appearance all evening. Meredith checked on her briefly before she went to bed. She was still sound asleep.
-8-8-8-8-
At 3am Izzie woke up. At first she didn't recognize her surrounding. She tried to reach for a call button for a nurse then she remembered she wasn't in the hospital anymore. She was at Meredith's, in the room which used to be hers. She pulled the blanket tighter around her and tried to fall back asleep but she couldn't sleep. She was wide awake. She rolled to the edge of the bed and reached for her bag, she was going to take more pills to make herself fall back asleep but then she decided against it. She knew the pills were bad for her and she shouldn't be taking them, it didn't change the fact that she wanted to take them. Not this time though. Instead she climbed out of the bed and walked down stairs.
Down stairs it was dark and eerily silent. Completely different from the last time she'd seen it. Everyone was gone. She walked into the kitchen and turned on the light. She blinked at the brightness of it. The kitchen was untidy; there were a stack of plates by the sink which people had put their food on. There was another stack of cups and saucers which people had drank tea and coffee from. On the counter sat the now empty trays of food. She looked at the mess unsure of what she should do about it, this wasn't her house. Then a thought occurred to her, how many times had she actually seen Meredith do house work. The times were few and far between and usually coincided with enforced time away from the hospital. The thought made her smile just a little and she turned on the tap and began cleaning up.
Washing the dishes using only her left hand was tricky. She had to push the plates and cups up against the side sink to wipe over them. She kept banging her right arm on things, every time she hit it pain would shoot up and down it, a reminder that she was still alive, still here, still hurting. It took over an hour for her to clean everything. When she was finished she didn't feel any better, she still felt hollow, and tired, but she couldn't sleep. She exhaled and looked around she needed to do something; if she wasn't going to sleep she needed to do something. She walked to the pantry and opened the door. She began pulling out flour and sugar; she was going to bake something.
She measured the ingredients into a bowl, that wasn't too tricky but when she went to stir it she found she couldn't, the bowl kept moving. In a moment of frustration she reached up and untied the sling supporting her right arm. Her arm slipped down, she was expecting it to hurt but it didn't hurt nearly as much as she expected. With her arm free she gripped the side of the bowl and began stirring. She started operating on auto pilot; she finished the first batch and placed them in the oven. She mixed a second batch and put them in too. Sometime between the second and third batch she lost track of time. She opened the oven to place the third tray in and she was greeted by a plume of smoke, the first batch was burnt. Instinctively she grabbed a cloth and pulled the tray out but she grabbed it with her right arm and as soon as she took any weight on it pain shot up it and she dropped the tray. And then the smoke detector started wailing.