(no subject)
Title: Gray Area
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Characters/Pairings: Alex/Izzie.
Word Count: 474
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Post 4.16/4.17 - Freedom
Author's Note: And here starts the on-slaught of post finale fic. I owe this one to my bff.
Summary: She guesses this is his turn. And, really, it would be great if this cycle didn't have to repeat and they didn't have any reason to be crying.
She has no idea how long they stay like that. Wrapped around each other, showing no signs of letting go anytime soon. She’s got one hand cradling the back of his neck, and the other bracing herself against his shoulder, where she lets her head rest after a moment of processing the fact that Alex Karev, the stone-faced asshole previously known as ‘evil spawn’, is currently sobbing on her shoulder. And that makes her want to cry, because it’s beyond heartbreaking to see this total breakdown and know there’s just nothing you can do about it.
So she puts her head down. And she tries not to cry. And she doesn’t care that her shirt is probably going to be soaked or that she had a phone call she was going to make, because she’s needed here, and she’s fine here, because even if it’s sad it also manages to straddle the fine line between awkward and comfortable because they are not together, and ideally it isn’t supposed to be her that he’s slung over, but at the same time they’ve still got that gentle understanding between them that never really left since...well since the last time one of them was crying in the other one’s arms. Last time it was her.
She guesses that makes this his turn. She thinks it would be great if the cycle didn’t have to repeat and they didn’t have any reason to be crying.
That’s probably too much to hope for. It always is. But she’s thinking, she has time to think, because that’s how you stay strong, stay sane, you think about silly things, things that distract you from the big picture, the sad story.
She’s thinking about his shirt. The soft cotton under her cheek that smells a bit like the hospital, but mostly like a mix between him and the laundry detergent. It’s gray. Gray like the sky and the place they’re in, the gray area that they’ve found themselves in. Gray like maturity and growing up and all these metaphorical things that she’s trying to find meaning in because that could mean hope. Hope for the future, hope that things will get easier if they just grow up, that somehow they will be wiser and that will keep them from hurting. That experience and knowledge will keep them safe.
They need that hope. They need something else other than the “it’ll be okay” she murmurs in his ear every now and then, because it is, just as he once said, just what they say. She can’t foresee the future; she doesn’t know that it will be okay. There are no facts to back up her words, but they’re there, it’s the thought that counts, and she doesn’t think he really hears her anyways.
It doesn’t matter; she’s here anyways. She isn’t going anywhere.