Remembering Is The Hard Part (11/?)
A/N This chapter takes place one week after the last chapter. And also this chapter has some stuff in it that you really need to know what happened in the first story to understand it.
“Home sweet home.” George announced as he lead Izzie into the house. It had been one week sense Izzie had woken up and although she has tried very hard, none of her memory has yet to come back. Sometimes she swore she was about to have a memory come back, she would get this feeling in the pit of her stomach and she would close her eyes and try to focus on that feeling but soon the feeling would pass and her head would still be empty of memories. Although the last few days had been hell on earth for her a part of her was sad that she was back home. Her being home meant that she would be left alone during the day while George and Meredith went to work. The only good thing about being in the hospital is that someone was always there- well not just someone- George. George was always right beside her and that helped. He didn’t treat her like some patient who had lost her past, he treated her like his best friend. They would play cards and watch TV and talk to each other into the late hours of the night. She knew George’s constant being there bothered Alex but she kept reminding him that George was just being nice but anytime she said that Alex would just roll his eyes and say “whatever.” then go stock off somewhere. She knew it was going to take Alex sometime but she was sure he would soon realize that he was the only one that she wanted and George was just her friend.
“Wow this place really hasn’t changed has it?” Izzie said walking slowly into the house holding onto George’s arm for support.
George smiled at her “No not really.” he said then looked around the corner at the living room to make sure that he and Meredith hadn’t left any pictures of him and Izzie in any of the frames. The whole house looked like it had been teleported back two years before. “Do you want to go into the kitchen and get something to drink?” he offered.
“No I just want to go up stairs and take a bath.” Izzie answered and let go of George’s arm and started heading toward the stairs.
“Whoa wait!” George almost shouted. He grabbed back onto her arm “Are you sure you have enough strength to walk up the stairs alone?” he asked. Truthfully George wasn’t ready for her to not need him. If she could walk up the stairs alone then that meant that he would have to go to work tomorrow and not be with her the whole day and that scared him because what if she passed out or she fell down the stairs? What if he almost lost her again? He didn’t think he would be able to come back from that.
Izzie looked at him as if he was crazy “George it’s just the stairs.” she said looking over at them. “It’s not Mt. Everest.” she joked and headed toward the stairs again and George slowly let go and watched her walk up them ready to pounce if she started to get tired.
Izzie finally made it to the second floor she looked around and found that yet again nothing had changed, it’s as if time had just stood still and for a moment she thought she was back to the time she thought it was and the past week had been a dream. But then she realized it wasn’t a dream she really was in an accident and she really couldn’t remember the past two years.
Izzie slowly walked toward her room and opened the door, and as if in a rush of emotion she was hit with a slightly blurry picture in her head. She was standing in the door way and it was dark out. Her eyes were heavy from being tired. She looked in the room and there was someone sitting on the edge of the bed. A man. She couldn’t tell who it was but she knew he was familiar. The man stood up and swayed slightly in place and stuttered out very nervously “I need to ask you something.” Then the picture faded away in Izzie’s head and she was back to looking at her empty room that was filled with light beaming in from the window. She shook her head slightly Was that a memory? Did I just remember something? Who was that guy? Was it Alex? It must have been because when I looked at whoever it was I got this tingly feeling that shot down my whole body in one big wave. Or was I just imaging the whole thing? Did I just come up with some fake memory to try and convince myself that I was remembering to make myself feel better? All these questions swam around in Izzie’s head as she took a few steps into her room and sat down on the edge of the bed where her blurry mystery man had been sitting in her head.
Izzie closed her eyes for a moment and tried to go back to that moment and try to clear it up a bit but all she could see when she thought back was the blurry man standing in front of her “I need to ask you something?” Ask her what? What is it that he had to ask her? It sounded urgent but she couldn’t come up with any more to the scene.
“You okay?” Izzie heard George ask. She opened her eyes and found him leaning against her door frame looking at her with concern in his face.
Izzie nodded “Yeah I’m fine. I’m just tired.” she lied “It’s nice to be home.” she said looking around the room. George knew she was hiding something so he walked up to her side and sat down next to her.
“You aren’t ok.” he said. “You have that confused-sad look on your face.”
“What? No I don’t.” Izzie tried to cover up.
George rolled his eyes “Yes you do and don’t even try to cover it up. What’s wrong?” he asked.
Izzie looked down at her feet for a moment “What is going to happen to me George?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
Izzie’s eyes started to tear up “I mean am never going to remember? Am I always going to be like this and not know what happened with two years of my life?” she asked looking up at him. “Am I never going to remember?”
George put his arm around her “Truthfully?” he asked and she nodded “You might not. You may never get those memories back.” he said. George knew that this was a possibility and although he really didn’t want it to happen he couldn’t help but it a stomach ach thinking about it.
“If I don’t remember what do I do?” Izzie asked.
George looked down for a second then looked back up at her “Then you rebuild your life. You keep living life and just build new memories. I know that it might seem like the end of the world but it‘s not. I mean look at it this way you could have died, at least this way you have a chance to live and be happy, some people aren‘t always so lucky. So just rebuild your life one day at a time.”
Izzie wiped away a few tears from her eyes “That sounds hard. I don’t know if I can do it alone.”
Well,” George tucked a piece of loose hair behind her ear “it’s a good thing you aren’t alone than.” he smiled at her. Izzie looked at George and their eyes locked with each other. George’s smiled faded and he got lost deeply in her dark brown eyes. He didn’t know for how long they had been staring at each other but it didn’t matter to him all he cared about was looking at her and her looking back at him. George slowly wiped tears away from her face and for a second he forgot that the woman sitting next to him wasn’t the Izzie he was in a relationship with and before he could catch himself he slowly started leaning in toward her.