Meredith walked out the room and back to her bedroom. She climbed into her bed, it was still warm from where Derek had been sleeping and she lay down. She needed the extra sleep as much as Izzie did the last few hours had been strange and intense. She hadn't expected Izzie to just show up in the middle of the night and she hadn't expected the reaction from her that she got. Not that she knew what she was expecting, with Izzie it was hard to tell, sometimes she wanted to talk and other times she would do anything to avoid it. Today was one of those days, it was Thanksgiving and Izzie wanted to avoid it. She couldn't really blame her, she always wanted to avoid Thanksgiving but with Izzie it was different. Izzie loved the holiday, she'd said once it was her favorite day of the year but not this year. This year it was breaking her, ripping open wounds which had hardly closed. There was nothing she could do about it though, she couldn't make Izzie happy and she didn't really want to, she just wanted her not to hurt herself.

-8-8-8-8-8-8-

Izzie let her dream world take her away, she went from beaches, to picnics, to star gazing, and back again, she went everywhere, including the hospital. The dreams she had there were brief, merely moments at times where she would gaze into Alex's eyes and try to reach out for him, she would want to touch him but never be able to. In those dreams she couldn't move even when she wanted to and she found herself longing for him to touch her. He usually did, he'd squeeze her hand or run his thumb along her cheek, he'd tuck her hair behind her ear and lay down next to her. She didn't like those dreams so much, there was a powerlessness about the way she felt in them but Alex was always there and she liked being with him, he felt different in those dreams, it was almost as if her powerlessness gave him strength brought him closer to her. She was having one of those dreams when Meredith's voice crept in asking if she was awake.

She blinked her eyes open and saw her standing in the doorway. She was no longer wearing the sweat pants and t-shirt she'd worn earlier, instead she had a pair of jeans and a lavender shirt on.

"Yeah," She sat up in the bed a little and rubbed her eyes. "What time is it?"

"Nearly two o'clock." Meredith stepped forward into the room and she could now see she was carrying two mugs of coffee. "You've been sleeping for hours. I didn't want to wake you but I'm starving so I thought maybe we should get some food, you need to eat something."

"Yeah," She wasn't going to argue with Meredith this time, she'd let her sleep much longer than she was expecting and now that she was awake she was kind of hungry. She couldn't remember when the last meal she'd had was and that wasn't a good thing. Right now she couldn't afford to start losing weight again. She took the mug of coffee and brought it to her lips. It had been a long time since she'd drunk coffee, she wasn't really supposed to drink it but now that it was in front of her she couldn't deny her body of it. She took a sip and let the warm liquid run through her, it warmed her from the inside out and made her feel better.

"Iz," Meredith was talking to her again. "Have you given any thought to where you might like to eat?"

"No," She hadn't thought about food yet, she didn't really care where they ate, "Somewhere where I can keep pretending."

"Pretending?"

"That it's not Thanksgiving."

"Oh," Meredith gave her a smile, she couldn't tell if she understood her logic but she didn't argue with it. "I think there is a Thai restaurant a few blocks away that hasn't gone too heavy on the decorations."

"Okay," She liked the sound of a Thai restaurant, it was far enough away from the traditional Thanksgiving meal that she might be able to convince herself it was just any other day, that she wasn't supposed to be celebrating.

She took another sip of her coffee and they both sat there silently drinking. Neither one of them tried to push a conversation, not that she blamed Meredith for keeping her mouth shut, she'd kind of bit her head off earlier when she tried to get her to talk. Silence was easier and when she'd finished drinking she placed the mug on the bedside table.

"I think I'll go have a shower now and get…" She was going to say changed but she realized half way through the sentence she didn't bring any clothes with her. Meredith seemed to read what she was thinking though.

"You left some clothes in the bottom draw in your old room." She told her.

"Thanks," She got up and walked out the room. She headed towards the bathroom, she'd have a shower and get freshened up and then try and face the world again.

-8-8-8-8-8-8-

The Thai restaurant was a little more than a hole in the wall. There was maybe half a dozen small tables set up in two long rows. They were the only ones there, well them and the owners, the owners sat at a table at the back they looked to be having a bit of a family feast and had been totally surprised when they'd walked in.

"I'm sorry are you closed?" Meredith had actually asked them.

"No, we're open," the owner had jumped up and said. He'd picked up menus for them let them choose their table. He was a nice old man, he took their orders and basically left them alone, he didn't try to make small talk with them, not once he picked up their obvious vibe that they didn't want to talk.

Now they were half way through eating their main meals and the energy between them had some what relaxed. At first it was a little tense and awkward, there was a need for conversation, they didn't want to just sit there silently but they didn't know what to say. Meredith wasn't going to ask Izzie how she was, she didn't want to risk another out burst and she didn't think she could stand her telling her she was okay again. If Izzie wanted to talk she would, but she didn't want to, not about that.

They talked about work instead, about what was going on at the hospital. There was a lot going on there, the NICU was being renovated much to Izzie's delight and Meredith had got her nose in on another clinical trial. Medically speaking it was an exciting time to be working at Seattle Grace. They'd been talking work for half an hour before Meredith felt game enough to broach the topic.

"Izzie, have you thought about what you're going to do next year?"

She was asking the question on a purely medical career wise basis. They were both in the final year of their residency and they needed to start thinking about what was going to happen next. It was that time of year where they needed to start looking at fellowship application and work out what they wanted to do, where they wanted to take their careers.

"No," The question caught Izzie off guard. She hadn't really thought about next year, about what would happen after her son was born, after her residency finished. She'd avoided thinking about those things because to do that was to make plans and if plans were made thing could happen to mess with them. Before Alex had died she'd had a plan, they had a plan to finish their residencies together, and apply for fellowships in Seattle. There had been no plan for children just yet, just each other and their careers'. That plan was no longer in existence though, Alex was gone and she was having a child.

"I was looking at fellowships last week," Meredith started talking breaking into her thoughts. "I saw this one in New York which I thought you might be interested in." She picked up her hand bag and pulled out some papers. She pushed them across the table to her. "It's at New York General working under Dr. Bower. He's the one who…"

"I know who he is." She recognized the name; Dr. Bower was a legend in peri-natal surgery. He'd been the one to train Dr. Montgomery, teach her everything she knew. She picked the papers up and began examining them, the opportunity was there for her taking, without plans she could make plans.

"I think it would be a good opportunity for you." Meredith started talking again.

"Yeah," She was still turning the thoughts through her head, leaving Seattle had never crossed her mind, it was her home but the opportunity was there and now there was little tying her to the city. "Thanks," she picked the papers up and shoved them in her bag, it was something she'd keep thinking about.