(no subject)
Title: (Why Am I) Home For The Holidays
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Characters/Pairings: Alex/Izzie, Meredith
Word Count: 4,276
Rating: PG-13
Author's Note: Huge thanks to
bebitched for the initial concept (though I didn't end up using a part of it), and
ladybeth for telling me that it was postable.
Summary: "This is like the whole meet the parents ordeal that they write how-to books and Miss Manners columns for. If it wasn't stressful do you really think they would need those?"
“Do you know where you’re going?”
A brief glance, as he takes his eyes off the road for a split second. Doesn’t matter, the roads have been all but empty for a while now. Then, “Are you really asking me that?”
“Sorry.” Half-hearted, she doesn’t mean it. “It’s just this isn’t the kind of thing where you’re a guy so you won’t ask for directions, right?”
“Izzie.”
“What? It’s a perfectly reasonable question.”
“You -“ another glance, and he stops the sentence, rethinks it. “It’s dark, I’m trying to see street signs, and if you keep making me look away then we’re going to be lost okay?”
She slumps back in her seat. “Fine. Sorry.”
“Would you stop with the sorry?”
“God you’re an ass when you’re jetlagged.”
“No, I’m an ass when I’m doing something I don’t want to do.”
“Well you have to.”
“I don’t have to. I chose to.” She scoffs at that. “If I said no what was she going to do? Fly to Seattle?”
“I don’t know.”
There’s a long pause.
“How much farther?”
“Not much.” Her fingers start drumming on the armrest. “Are you okay?”
“I’m nervous.”
“Why?”
“Um, hello, why do you think?”
“Would I ask if I knew?”
“This is like the whole meet the parents ordeal that they write how-to books and Miss Manners columns for. If it wasn’t stressful do you really think they would need to do those?”
“First of all, parent singular. Secondly, that only applies if you’re the girlfriend.”
“How sweet.” Her voice is thick with sarcasm. “I’m still nervous.”
“I never should’ve told you I was doing this in the first place.”
“Yeah, I think I would’ve noticed if you just up and disappeared.”
“Not necessarily.”
“Oh, thank you.”
“This is going to be a long trip.”
---
It’s on a particularly slow morning, six days before Christmas, just before what she knew would be the Christmas rush from hell (drunk drivers who wrap their cars around trees, people falling off roofs hanging last-minute , you know, the regulars), when Alex comes in looking like a nervous wreck. That’s an emotion she wasn’t entirely aware he had.
“Is something wrong?” She asks, the both of them en route to one of Sloan’s patients to check up on him, yet another shared patient of theirs.
“I don’t want to go there.” He replies, gruffly, sending a glare the way of an intern who attempted to beat them to the elevator.
“So you’re just going to act like an ass all day instead?” Izzie asks, watching him punch (and she’s being pretty literal here) the ‘4’ button as the metal doors shut out the hospital. Now he glares at her. “Come on, it’s almost Christmas, lighten up. Three days from now this place will be swamped. You’ll forget all about it.”
“Three days from now I’ll be on a plane.”
She frowns, confused with this new development. “What? Where?”
“I’m leaving for the holidays and like I said, I don’t want to talk about it.” The doors open and he practically runs out of the elevator, probably thinking he can just leave it at that. He would be very wrong.
“Leaving? You’re leaving?” She hurries to catch up, gets on even pace with him.
“That’s what I said.”
“Where?”
“Iowa.”
“Why Iowa?” He cocks an eyebrow, and a brief flash of his IOWA shirt comes to mind. Duh. “You’re going home?”
“Unfortunately.”
“Why?”
He stops, giving up on outrunning her. “I thought I said I didn’t want to talk about it.”
“You did. I don’t care.” She tells him. “So again I ask why.”
“Because my mother’s guilt trip has finally worked and my sister has decided to flake on her.”
“What about your dad?” Steely gaze from him, but no answer. Touchy subject. “You’re not close with your family are you?”
“No.”
“So you don’t want to go?”
“Exactly.” He motions down the hall. “Are we done now? Can we get going?”
“Why don’t you want to go?” Alex just outright glares at her. “Fine. Leaving it alone.”
“Thank you.”
---
They park outside of a rambler in what she thinks probably isn’t in the bad part of town but also not in the good part either. The cold air hits her in the face the minute she opens her door and she pulls her jacket tighter. “It’s colder here than it is in Seattle.”
“I’m not surprised. They said it was going to snow when I checked the weather earlier.” He locks the car, looks at the house for a second before he walks anywhere near it. Memories, she guesses. She wonders how long it’s been since he’s been back there.
Now she has to ask it. “Are you okay?”
Alex jolts out of whatever moment he’s in. “Yeah.”
When he starts forward, ever so slowly, she moves with him, in no rush. “Does she know I’m coming?”
“She knows I’m coming and I’m bringing my roommate.”
“And she doesn’t mind?”
“She wanted to know why you were coming, but no, she didn’t mind.” He shoves his hands in his pockets, hesitates a few feet from the door. “I still don’t know why you’re doing this.”
“Doing what?”
“I don’t know why you’re here.”
There are a couple of answers she could give him but she’s not really interested in explaining any of them, so she just tells him, “Because I want to be.”
He nods.
---
Izzie finds it interesting that, even though her and George mutually decided it wasn’t going to work, even though they split under very, very amicable terms, it’s still awkward. It’s awkward at home, it’s awkward at work, and it’s really awkward when they are working the same case. It gets even better when they’re working it with Callie.
Which is today. Sloan’s patient got discharged which means she needed another case and as it ended up so did George.
It’s weird looks and odd pauses all around. Callie probably handles herself the best, seems to have gotten over it, at least enough to conduct herself professionally. George keeps giving her these looks like he expects her to strangle him at any time. Izzie keeps giving him looks, telling him to stop that in hushed whispers. The patient watches them like it’s a three-way tennis match but thank God doesn’t ask why they’re all acting like this.
She can’t wait to get out of that room.
And she does; she goes to lunch thinking that maybe she can rant about it to Meredith. Except it’s just her, George, and Cristina for lunch today, with Meredith and Alex busy on their cases. Cristina watches them carefully, slightly narrowed eyes, uncomfortable silence. Izzie tries to make small talk but they’re both so focused on not looking at each other that they keep losing the conversation and neither of them really cares enough to pick it back up again.
She walks away from that lunch knowing that, even though things will eventually get back to normal, doing this every day until then is a little too much for her to handle.
Izzie needs a break.
---
When she hears the lock on the door being undone, Izzie has the uncontrollable desire to run back to the car and hide. She can tell from Alex’s set jaw, barely clenched fists at his sides, that he shares that desire.
When his mother opens the door, she can’t figure out why in the world he wants to run from her so bad.
Elena Karev is a sweetheart, if you ask Izzie. Not overly sweet, mind you; she’s not one of those mothers who embarrasses you at the worst times and kisses cheeks. She’s just a nice woman. And she takes to Izzie pretty quickly, although Izzie is fairly sure she’s got suspicions that Izzie isn’t just Alex’s roommate. There was a time when she would’ve been right.
She’s laid-back, with a temperament that would’ve done well to rub off on Alex. And Izzie honestly can’t understand why she keeps catching these fleeting looks from Alex that tell her that he’d rather be anywhere but here.
So Izzie decides that if he’s going to act like this, it’s really all the more reason to suck up to the woman, if her own son can’t get it together. It’s Christmas for God’s sake, whatever’s bothering him can wait. But she can’t say that if she doesn’t know what it is that’s bothering him.
That’s what perplexes her. She tries to think of all the reasons why he might not want to be here. She can’t think of a single one. And it’s not because he had this storybook childhood, the straight ‘A’ student with the loving parents. It’s because she doesn’t know anything about his childhood. She doesn’t know anything about his life prior to Seattle Grace.
Izzie knows he grew up in Iowa, that he used to wrestle, that his dad was a musician and a drug addict, that he has a sister. That’s it.
It’s scary to think that she’s known him for over two years, and that’s all she knows about him. That’s all she knows about a man she used to think could’ve been everything she needed.
And this is her chance to do something about that.
---
She sidles up to him at Joe’s, later that night, and he looks surprised. Not surprised that someone’s here, but that it’s her. She wonders if he was expecting Lexie Grey or if Jane Doe’s reappearance has ended that. It doesn’t really matter to her, she isn’t here for anything but the alcohol and a possible escape.
“This is going to sound weird, but I’m going to say it anyways.” This is what she prefaces with, which in hindsight isn’t her greatest idea as it only earns her a wary look as he tips his glass back to empty it. “I want to go with you.”
He doesn’t seem to understand at first. “What?”
“I want to go with you. You said you’re going home and I want to go with you.”
He doesn’t say ‘no’, or completely balk at her suggestion, so at least that’s something. He does ask, “Why?”
“Well it’s not like I’m doing anything here. I’m not working on Christmas, and my family isn’t exactly around. So I want to go with you.”
He pauses, motions for Joe to refill his drink, and thinks on that. Then, “No.”
“But - “
“No. It’s a bad idea.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t even want to go home, so why the hell would you.”
He’s usually more pliable than this. “But maybe if it wasn’t just your family you wouldn’t mind as much.”
“Why the sudden interest in my life?”
“The opportunity hasn’t ever presented itself before.” She only realizes it’s not as much of a lie as she thought it was after it leaves her lips.
“You’re only going to end up regretting it.”
“There are a lot of things I regret. This won’t be the last.”
Alex considers this, before, “I’m leaving Friday night.”
And it’s not really a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer but it’s close enough for her.
----
Part 2
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Characters/Pairings: Alex/Izzie, Meredith
Word Count: 4,276
Rating: PG-13
Author's Note: Huge thanks to
bebitched for the initial concept (though I didn't end up using a part of it), and
ladybeth for telling me that it was postable.
Summary: "This is like the whole meet the parents ordeal that they write how-to books and Miss Manners columns for. If it wasn't stressful do you really think they would need those?"
“Do you know where you’re going?”
A brief glance, as he takes his eyes off the road for a split second. Doesn’t matter, the roads have been all but empty for a while now. Then, “Are you really asking me that?”
“Sorry.” Half-hearted, she doesn’t mean it. “It’s just this isn’t the kind of thing where you’re a guy so you won’t ask for directions, right?”
“Izzie.”
“What? It’s a perfectly reasonable question.”
“You -“ another glance, and he stops the sentence, rethinks it. “It’s dark, I’m trying to see street signs, and if you keep making me look away then we’re going to be lost okay?”
She slumps back in her seat. “Fine. Sorry.”
“Would you stop with the sorry?”
“God you’re an ass when you’re jetlagged.”
“No, I’m an ass when I’m doing something I don’t want to do.”
“Well you have to.”
“I don’t have to. I chose to.” She scoffs at that. “If I said no what was she going to do? Fly to Seattle?”
“I don’t know.”
There’s a long pause.
“How much farther?”
“Not much.” Her fingers start drumming on the armrest. “Are you okay?”
“I’m nervous.”
“Why?”
“Um, hello, why do you think?”
“Would I ask if I knew?”
“This is like the whole meet the parents ordeal that they write how-to books and Miss Manners columns for. If it wasn’t stressful do you really think they would need to do those?”
“First of all, parent singular. Secondly, that only applies if you’re the girlfriend.”
“How sweet.” Her voice is thick with sarcasm. “I’m still nervous.”
“I never should’ve told you I was doing this in the first place.”
“Yeah, I think I would’ve noticed if you just up and disappeared.”
“Not necessarily.”
“Oh, thank you.”
“This is going to be a long trip.”
---
It’s on a particularly slow morning, six days before Christmas, just before what she knew would be the Christmas rush from hell (drunk drivers who wrap their cars around trees, people falling off roofs hanging last-minute , you know, the regulars), when Alex comes in looking like a nervous wreck. That’s an emotion she wasn’t entirely aware he had.
“Is something wrong?” She asks, the both of them en route to one of Sloan’s patients to check up on him, yet another shared patient of theirs.
“I don’t want to go there.” He replies, gruffly, sending a glare the way of an intern who attempted to beat them to the elevator.
“So you’re just going to act like an ass all day instead?” Izzie asks, watching him punch (and she’s being pretty literal here) the ‘4’ button as the metal doors shut out the hospital. Now he glares at her. “Come on, it’s almost Christmas, lighten up. Three days from now this place will be swamped. You’ll forget all about it.”
“Three days from now I’ll be on a plane.”
She frowns, confused with this new development. “What? Where?”
“I’m leaving for the holidays and like I said, I don’t want to talk about it.” The doors open and he practically runs out of the elevator, probably thinking he can just leave it at that. He would be very wrong.
“Leaving? You’re leaving?” She hurries to catch up, gets on even pace with him.
“That’s what I said.”
“Where?”
“Iowa.”
“Why Iowa?” He cocks an eyebrow, and a brief flash of his IOWA shirt comes to mind. Duh. “You’re going home?”
“Unfortunately.”
“Why?”
He stops, giving up on outrunning her. “I thought I said I didn’t want to talk about it.”
“You did. I don’t care.” She tells him. “So again I ask why.”
“Because my mother’s guilt trip has finally worked and my sister has decided to flake on her.”
“What about your dad?” Steely gaze from him, but no answer. Touchy subject. “You’re not close with your family are you?”
“No.”
“So you don’t want to go?”
“Exactly.” He motions down the hall. “Are we done now? Can we get going?”
“Why don’t you want to go?” Alex just outright glares at her. “Fine. Leaving it alone.”
“Thank you.”
---
They park outside of a rambler in what she thinks probably isn’t in the bad part of town but also not in the good part either. The cold air hits her in the face the minute she opens her door and she pulls her jacket tighter. “It’s colder here than it is in Seattle.”
“I’m not surprised. They said it was going to snow when I checked the weather earlier.” He locks the car, looks at the house for a second before he walks anywhere near it. Memories, she guesses. She wonders how long it’s been since he’s been back there.
Now she has to ask it. “Are you okay?”
Alex jolts out of whatever moment he’s in. “Yeah.”
When he starts forward, ever so slowly, she moves with him, in no rush. “Does she know I’m coming?”
“She knows I’m coming and I’m bringing my roommate.”
“And she doesn’t mind?”
“She wanted to know why you were coming, but no, she didn’t mind.” He shoves his hands in his pockets, hesitates a few feet from the door. “I still don’t know why you’re doing this.”
“Doing what?”
“I don’t know why you’re here.”
There are a couple of answers she could give him but she’s not really interested in explaining any of them, so she just tells him, “Because I want to be.”
He nods.
---
Izzie finds it interesting that, even though her and George mutually decided it wasn’t going to work, even though they split under very, very amicable terms, it’s still awkward. It’s awkward at home, it’s awkward at work, and it’s really awkward when they are working the same case. It gets even better when they’re working it with Callie.
Which is today. Sloan’s patient got discharged which means she needed another case and as it ended up so did George.
It’s weird looks and odd pauses all around. Callie probably handles herself the best, seems to have gotten over it, at least enough to conduct herself professionally. George keeps giving her these looks like he expects her to strangle him at any time. Izzie keeps giving him looks, telling him to stop that in hushed whispers. The patient watches them like it’s a three-way tennis match but thank God doesn’t ask why they’re all acting like this.
She can’t wait to get out of that room.
And she does; she goes to lunch thinking that maybe she can rant about it to Meredith. Except it’s just her, George, and Cristina for lunch today, with Meredith and Alex busy on their cases. Cristina watches them carefully, slightly narrowed eyes, uncomfortable silence. Izzie tries to make small talk but they’re both so focused on not looking at each other that they keep losing the conversation and neither of them really cares enough to pick it back up again.
She walks away from that lunch knowing that, even though things will eventually get back to normal, doing this every day until then is a little too much for her to handle.
Izzie needs a break.
---
When she hears the lock on the door being undone, Izzie has the uncontrollable desire to run back to the car and hide. She can tell from Alex’s set jaw, barely clenched fists at his sides, that he shares that desire.
When his mother opens the door, she can’t figure out why in the world he wants to run from her so bad.
Elena Karev is a sweetheart, if you ask Izzie. Not overly sweet, mind you; she’s not one of those mothers who embarrasses you at the worst times and kisses cheeks. She’s just a nice woman. And she takes to Izzie pretty quickly, although Izzie is fairly sure she’s got suspicions that Izzie isn’t just Alex’s roommate. There was a time when she would’ve been right.
She’s laid-back, with a temperament that would’ve done well to rub off on Alex. And Izzie honestly can’t understand why she keeps catching these fleeting looks from Alex that tell her that he’d rather be anywhere but here.
So Izzie decides that if he’s going to act like this, it’s really all the more reason to suck up to the woman, if her own son can’t get it together. It’s Christmas for God’s sake, whatever’s bothering him can wait. But she can’t say that if she doesn’t know what it is that’s bothering him.
That’s what perplexes her. She tries to think of all the reasons why he might not want to be here. She can’t think of a single one. And it’s not because he had this storybook childhood, the straight ‘A’ student with the loving parents. It’s because she doesn’t know anything about his childhood. She doesn’t know anything about his life prior to Seattle Grace.
Izzie knows he grew up in Iowa, that he used to wrestle, that his dad was a musician and a drug addict, that he has a sister. That’s it.
It’s scary to think that she’s known him for over two years, and that’s all she knows about him. That’s all she knows about a man she used to think could’ve been everything she needed.
And this is her chance to do something about that.
---
She sidles up to him at Joe’s, later that night, and he looks surprised. Not surprised that someone’s here, but that it’s her. She wonders if he was expecting Lexie Grey or if Jane Doe’s reappearance has ended that. It doesn’t really matter to her, she isn’t here for anything but the alcohol and a possible escape.
“This is going to sound weird, but I’m going to say it anyways.” This is what she prefaces with, which in hindsight isn’t her greatest idea as it only earns her a wary look as he tips his glass back to empty it. “I want to go with you.”
He doesn’t seem to understand at first. “What?”
“I want to go with you. You said you’re going home and I want to go with you.”
He doesn’t say ‘no’, or completely balk at her suggestion, so at least that’s something. He does ask, “Why?”
“Well it’s not like I’m doing anything here. I’m not working on Christmas, and my family isn’t exactly around. So I want to go with you.”
He pauses, motions for Joe to refill his drink, and thinks on that. Then, “No.”
“But - “
“No. It’s a bad idea.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t even want to go home, so why the hell would you.”
He’s usually more pliable than this. “But maybe if it wasn’t just your family you wouldn’t mind as much.”
“Why the sudden interest in my life?”
“The opportunity hasn’t ever presented itself before.” She only realizes it’s not as much of a lie as she thought it was after it leaves her lips.
“You’re only going to end up regretting it.”
“There are a lot of things I regret. This won’t be the last.”
Alex considers this, before, “I’m leaving Friday night.”
And it’s not really a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer but it’s close enough for her.
----
Part 2