Izzie walked towards the hospital as fast as she could, she needed to get away from Cristina, she couldn't listen to her anymore, she didn't want to hear what happened to Alex, she didn't want to know what the last moments of his life were like, knowing didn't change anything. She used her hand to wipe away the few tears which were running down her face and walked inside.
She held her head up high and tried to compose herself, she needed to be clam and in control to do this. She was about to confide in someone she'd never planned on confiding in, she was going to tell them everything, all her secrets. She didn't want them to know, she'd worked very hard to make sure they didn't know but she needed to tell them. She needed help and they were the very best person to give it to her.
She stepped out the elevator on the floor of the NICU and began walking the corridors. It didn't take long for her to find who she was looking for, she was standing at the nurses station making notes in a chart.
"Just tell her." Izzie told herself. "Just ask to speak to her and tell her." She walked the last few steps to the nurses' station and took a deep breath. "Doctor Montgomery can I talk to you?" She asked the question and waited for an answer. Addison lifted her head and looked at her.
"Steven I thought I told you to stay home today."
"You did. I'm not here to work." She spoke the words fast. "I need to talk to you." She waited for her to say something, when she just kept staring at her she added. "Please."
Addison put her pen down and closed the file; she handed it to someone sitting at the station and turned to face her. "Okay Stevens what is it?"
"I can't talk to you here. Can we go in there?" She gestured towards an exam room she thought was empty. This was going to be hard enough in an enclosed space, she couldn't do it out in the open, she didn't want others to know. She wouldn't be able to cope if rumors started going around.
"Okay." Addison walked past her and into to the exam room. She paused at the door and held it open.
Izzie stepped inside and waited for the door to close. When the room was silent she let out a long slow breath. She was trying to find the words she needed, she was trying to work out the best way to go about telling her. It was hard though, she hadn't said the words out loud yet, not properly anyway, even now she didn't think she could do it so she stepped around it.
"Last night," she began. "After you sent me home, I didn't go home. Meredith, Dr. Grey she asked to have a drink with her and I went but I didn't have a drink. I, I wasn't feeling well and I fainted and Meredith got worried and she gave me a blood test and – " She didn't get the next words out, they got caught in her throat and Addison cut her off.
"Stevens you're rambling, what's wrong?"
"I'm." she couldn't say it she couldn't say the words, so she reached for the piece of paper, the one she had brought with her showing her blood results. She handed the paper to Addison and waited for her to read the results.
"You're pregnant?" Addison looked at her, a confused expression on her face.
"That's what it says."
"Okay, why did you need to tell me?"
"Because," Again the words got stuck, Addison kept staring at her, waiting for her to explain herself. She took a breath to try and clam herself. "Because, I've been doing thing, things I shouldn't have been doing." Her voice started to crack; the fear she felt was starting to come out.
"Things?" There was a slight annoyance in Addison's voice, she had no idea.
"Yes." That one word was hard to form but the ones to follow were even harder. "I've been taking sleeping pills, lots of sleeping pills." She let that last words hang in the air. She was waiting for Addison to say something but she didn't open her mouth she just looked at her. "I couldn't sleep." She felt a need to keep talking, to try and explain herself. "I couldn't stop my mind racing, I couldn't stop thinking about him and I needed to sleep. I was so tired." She closed her eyes and tried to bite back the tears which were starting to form. "I didn't think it would matter. I didn't think it could do any harm. I just wanted to sleep." The last words came out almost as a whisper. She used her hand to wipe her tears away, she'd wanted to stay composed but she was already losing it.
"Stevens." Addison finally spoke to her. "Sit down, take a breath. How many have you been taking?"
"Two or three." She wiped more tears away with her hand. "Every time you sent me home, I'd take some and just sleep."
"Okay." Addison seemed to be doing the sums in her head. "That's not too bad."
"That's not all." The nightly doping worried her, it concerned her but if it was only that she wouldn't be quite as scared. "I took an over dose. Six weeks ago, before I came back here I swallowed half a bottle." She watched Addison's mouth drop, and she realized what she'd just said. "I wasn't trying to kill myself," She felt the need to say that, to try and clarify. "I just wanted to sleep so bad I kept taking them until I passed out."
"Right." Addison looked at her skeptically, she wasn't believing her, she didn't understand, but then understanding wasn't important. She just needed her to know, and then she needed her to help.
"I'm afraid, I've hurt him, that what I've done has hurt him." Her voice shook, and she wiped more tears away. "I need you to tell me he's okay, and if he's not, I need you to fix him. I need you to make it okay."
"Okay." Addison slowly stepped forward and placed a hand on her arm. "Stevens you need to sit down. You need to take a breath and calm down." She spoke to her in a soothing, understanding voice. "I'm going to go get a portable ultrasound and the equipment to draw some blood. We are going to have a look at what is going on inside and I'm going to run some tests. We'll find out if anything is wrong but until then you need to stay clam. This level of stress isn't healthy either."
-8-8-8-8-8-
Addison let go of Izzie's arm and stepped out the room. She couldn't quite believe what she had just heard. Her star resident, her favorite resident whom she had been mentoring for the last two years had just told her she had a drug problem. To hear those words come from Izzie's mouth had shocked her. She wasn't expecting it but the more she thought about it the less it surprised her. Losing someone you love can make a person do some outrageous things and it would seem that Izzie Steven was no exception.
She walked to the phone and ordered an ultrasound to be sent up and then gathered a blood drawing kit and walked back inside the exam room.
-8-8-8-8-8-
Izzie lay alone in the exam room. She had her eyes closed and she was trying to concentrate on her breathing. Her heart was pounding in her chest, she was trying to get it to slow down, to get her body back to normal. It was hard though and as the minutes ticked by she got more and more nervous. She needed everything to be okay and she was so afraid it wasn't.
She sat up a little when she heard the door open and Addison walk in. She told her to take her jacket off and then wrapped a tourniquet around her arm. She winced a little as the needle went in and watched the blood streamed into the collection tubes.
"I'm going to get them to test the hormone and drug levels in your blood and look for any other abnormalities. It'll be a few hours before we get the results but in the mean time." There was a knock on the door. "Let have a look inside."
She watched Addison step out the room and return a moment later with the ultrasound. She told her to climb on the bed and lift up her shirt. Laying on the bed she felt half exposed and venerable, she took in a deep breath and let it out very slowly, she was trying to brace herself for what she was about to see.
Addison placed the probe on her abdomen and in a few seconds the images of what was inside appeared. The first thing she saw the heart beat, a tiny little flickering inside of her. The sight made her own heart flutter, so far so good. Addison moved the probe across her belly to get a look from a different angle.
"How far along do you think you are?" She asked.
"Ten weeks I think." She paused for a moment to try and do the sums in her head. "Conception was eight weeks ago, September first."
"Okay." Addison made a note of that and kept moving the probe around. She moved it over and over and over her belly, pausing every now and again to make a note, write a measurement. Izzie watched too, she stated at the monitor looking for problems but she couldn't see any. All she saw were the makings of a tiny human, she could just make out a head and a body, she could see the start of arms and legs forming. The images mesmerized her, she could feel her heart racing but at the same time a calm feeling was beginning to run through her. He was there, he was inside of her.
-8-8-8-8-8-
Addison didn't look at Izzie once as she moved the ultrasound around. She was trying to get a better look at things, work if what she thought she saw was really there. Twenty minutes of moving confirmed it. She turned the ultrasound off and looked over at Izzie, she had a smile on her face and looked happier than she'd seen her in a long time.
"Are you sure it's been eight weeks?" She had to ask the question but as soon as it came out she realized how wrong it was. The smile vanished from Izzie's face and a look or horror spread across it.
"I'm sure." She said. "What's wrong?"
-8-8-8-8-8-
The question hung in the air. Izzie wanted the answer; she needed to know the answer but she didn't want it as well. She'd been looking for problems, she'd been looking but she hadn't seen any, to her the images were beautiful, all she saw was him, she hadn't seen what Addison saw and that terrified her.
She watched her and waited for her answer, waited for her to tell her. Addison adjusted the papers she was holding and began to talk.
"The fetus is small for ten weeks."
"Oh." The one word was all she could form. She hadn't noticed the size, she hadn't seen the measurements Addison took, she'd been too caught up in the whole.
Addison adjusted her papers again. "There are a number of things that could be causing this –"
"I haven't been eating." She used the revelation to cut Addison off. There were lots of thing that could make a baby small. She knew about lots of things but she also knew herself and what she'd been doing. She hadn't eaten properly since Alex died, at first it was because she liked the hunger pains, she wanted to waste away and then after when the pains went away, when her body got used to the lack of food she'd just forget to eat. She didn't like eating anymore, she didn't enjoy food and for week s she'd been having difficulty keeping anything down.
"I see," Addison nodded at her like she understood. "I noticed you were losing weight. That needs to stop now." She reached into her pocket and pulled out her pad. "I'm going to write you a referral to a dietician and prescribe an anti-nausea medication, only take it if you're having problems keeping food down."
"Okay," She reached for the papers and took them. "What else should I do?"
She wanted more, she need more than just a diet plan. Addison wrote on the pad again.
"This is for a prenatal vitamin start taking it now."
"Okay." She took the last sheet of paper and the room became quiet. Addison adjusted her papers again and she started to sit up on the edge of the bed. Things hadn't gone great but knowing what was happening helped. She slipped off the bed and picked up her bag. "Thank you Doctor Montgomery." She said and she started to walk out the door. She'd taken barely two steep when she was stopped.
"Stevens." Addison started saying. "I'll do everything I can to make this pregnancy healthy but you have to start looking after yourself."
"I know." It was the truth she knew Addison was her best chance to make things right but most of it would come down to her. "If I'd known I never would have let it go like this. I would have done things better but I didn't think it was possible, it never even crossed my mind."
Addison gave her a sad smile and for a moment they both lingered in the room. "Stevens, you should speak to your therapist and orthopedist as well. If they clear you for surgery there is a case coming in tomorrow I could use your help with."
"Okay," She let a small smile cross her lips and she walked out the room.
She was feeling calmer than she had before, not great, there was still a fear eating at her but she felt better. She would do everything Addison told her and she would pray it would work, that she could make her baby grow and he would be healthy. "He is going to be okay. He is going to be okay." She repeated the words over and over in her head, trying to convince herself of them. She was meant to be an optimist, Alex had always said he liked that about her, her positive outlook but in the last two months that had been very hard to find. "He is going to be okay." She wouldn't stop repeating the words until she had convinced herself it was true.