it's a green christmas in this town (6/?) {ensemble}
Title: It's A Green Christmas In This Town (6/?)
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Characters/Pairings: Ensemble. Meredith/Derek, Alex/Izzie, Mark/Lexie, Cristina/Owen, Sadie. Other characters in other parts.
Word Count: 2,202
Rating: PG-13
Author's Note: Through hell or high water this fic is going to end Saturday or Sunday. There's maybe three more parts left. Just...let's pretend Thursday's episode doesn't happen.
(part 1) (part 2) (part 3) (part 4) (part 5)
“The power is definitely out.” Derek announces, when he comes back up from checking out the breaker, sometime later.
“I could’ve told you that,” Alex grumbles from the couch, looking several kinds of annoyed with the current situation, and that his little attic-exploring, tree-decorating adventure was all for naught. A lot of good that will do in the dark.
Derek doesn’t even bother to glare at him. Maybe it’s out of pity or maybe it just takes too much energy at this point. He just mumbles a, “yeah, thanks for that,” and sits quietly back into the chair he’d been in this morning. They’re all pretty much in the same exact places they were this morning, actually, Sadie notices. They just seem to fall into position like they’ve been this way their whole lives.
“We burned a crapload of candles last time, so we’re kind of…low at the moment.” Izzie says, fingers bending the matchbook that she still cradles in her hand. Watching the flames from at least a dozen candles bounce off the walls Sadie would’ve never drawn that conclusion.
“There should be more in the closet upstairs.” Meredith replies, rising and going towards the kitchen, in search of something.
“Is it still snowing?” Lexie pipes up, looking out the window but in the dark it’s hard to see, no streetlights or lamps to light the background.
“You want to go outside and check?” Alex asks, a bit more callous than earlier. It’s the lights, probably, or whatever’s up with him and Izzie. He’s got to be the most inconsistent man she’s ever known - and she’s known a lot of them.
Apparently, Lexie will glare at him, which is a nice change of pace from the way she normally reacts to things like that. “Shut it.”
“Don’t even start in there,” Meredith yells, from the other room, still listening in. She makes a sound like she found what she was looking for, and must take the back way to the stairs because soon Sadie can hear her footsteps as she ascends them, without a word as to her direction. Everyone’s certainly less talkative compared to earlier, she’ll say that much.
“We should probably all just get some sleep. We can’t do anything like this.” Derek finally says, after a long stretch of silence. Like she said, everything comes in short bursts at the moment. There are a few mumbled replies, a few groans in agreement. Everyone seems perfectly okay with that plan.
If the air in the room didn’t feel quite so explosive she’d almost believe them.
---
So maybe Meredith hadn’t really made a plan here. It was kind of just a feeling that maybe this would all stop being so suffocating if there was tequila involved, except her feet didn’t exactly decide to carry her back to the living room. Maybe because she usually reserved drinking tequila straight from the bottle to something she generally only did around Cristina somewhere private.
Nights like this, she really misses Cristina.
She ends up on the bathroom floor, back against the cold side of the shower, bottle next to her, candle in the corner so she doesn’t accidentally miss and knock the bottle over because she mostly wants to drink and not clean the floor. It feels oddly familiar, sitting on the cold tile floor, and it’s sad that two days before Christmas she’s musing about a bathroom of all things. She never was very holiday. She never was very fond of that good old trapped feeling, no matter how much she’s been trying to ignore that part today.
The door opens, and Meredith blinks in the dark, making out an outline of a person, before they focus and the candle stops flickering from the sudden burst of air, of movement, and she can actually see it’s Sadie.
Not that she expected her to, but Sadie doesn’t really wait for an invitation so much as close the door behind her, sidestepping the candle although nearly hitting it, and takes a seat next to Meredith so that the tequila bottle is between them, or it is for the two seconds before Sadie picks it up and takes a long swig. Because this is also something they used to do together, too many years before. She makes a relieved sound as she hands the bottle to Meredith without being asked. “I’m sure Derek’s wondering where you’ve run off to.”
Meredith nods, wiping her lips with the back of her hand, and sighing because while he’s not doing anything to bother her, everyone is bothering her today. “Probably. But he won’t come looking.”
“Then you’ve trained him well,” Sadie replies, not at all joking. Men are just animals to her, for the most part. Which might explain the use and discard policy that she already seems to be employing if the hospital rumor mill is even slightly reliable. And it is. But they aren’t going to talk about that because that’ll just make her wish she was anywhere but here, preferably at work. Or the bar. “You do know someone’s eventually going to need to use the bathroom right? You can’t move in.”
“You’d be surprised. Izzie once camped out on the floor for days.” Meredith tells her, giving no details and hoping that Sadie won’t ask for them because, hey, that’s just more depressing. She doesn’t.
“You’re right.” Sadie decides. “Everyone will probably be too busy fighting anyway.”
That gets Meredith’s attention. “Did something happen while I wasn’t down there.”
Sadie shakes her head. “No. Not yet anyway. But have you seen the way everyone’s looking at each other, like someone says the wrong word and it’s going to turn into World War Three. I mean it was fun to watch at first but now it’s almost maddening. Walking on eggshells.”
Which is exactly why she came up here to hide, not that Sadie needs to be told that. It isn’t hard to figure out. “There’s just a lot of unresolved stuff. But really, can’t everyone just hold off the fighting until after Christmas when we’re out of here.”
“Holidays make you insane.” There’s another long swig, then, “At least for those of us who never had the whole Christmas presents at six am in the morning, shuffle off to brunch with the family, where everyone greets you with smiling faces and something other than whiskey breath.” Sadie pauses again, thinking. “Which is probably pretty much just Lexie and Derek and maybe Izzie, although she seems an awful lot like she’s trying to make up for something she missed.”
For someone who hasn’t been around them all for very long she has a scarily accurate grasp of them. “She is,” Meredith sighs out, closing her eyes briefly as the room does this little whirly thing that comes from drinking too much too fast. Even that is preferable to anything downstairs. Somewhere in this her head ends up on Sadie’s shoulder, and it’s not exactly a first but it’s also not exactly helping with the missing Cristina thing. Because this is one of those things that they do, or did, and she really hopes that they are okay, that it wasn’t just something said on the phone to placate her. But she can’t really talk about that, not with her old best friend, and so what she says is, “I’m glad you’re here.”
---
They both end up in the bedroom but neither of them ends up in bed, which was supposed to be the plan. In theory. Except Alex can’t get what Derek said out of his head for very long and every time he thinks on it he wants to yell or confront her or…something. Do something.
So he sits on the edge of the bed, watching her look for something in the dresser, which is much more complicated with limited light, and tries to figure out a way to say something without coming out like a complete asshole. Not that it worked so well last time.
Which leaves him with very few options and a lot of frustration he is going to have to get out somehow. It’s not hard to connect the dots, so he just outright asks, “Are you seeing Denny?”
Izzie jolts a little, the side of the drawer she’s digging through slamming into the side of the dresser. She doesn’t look at him though. “Where did you get that idea?” she asks, with a clear, unwavering voice. He wonders if anyone else has asked, or if she’s just prepared to lie about this.
“Cut the crap, Iz, just give me a straight answer for once.” He tells her. For better of for worse, this is ending tonight. No more lies, no more dancing around the subject. Alex can only play the nice, non-confrontational guy for so long before it starts to wear on him and he knows it really is mostly an act. He is who he is and he’s never made any qualms against that.
“Fine.” She says, gives in surprisingly easily, dropping what she’s doing to straighten and turn around to face him. “Fine. You know what, I am. I’m seeing Denny. All the time. Everywhere I look. And I keep trying and trying to ignore him but he’s there and I can’t figure out how to make him go away.”
He hadn’t exactly expected that. Seeing someone, fleetingly, is one thing. This is another. Alex can’t help the frown, the way he nearly scans the room, as he asks, “Is he here right now?”
Izzie looks down, like she can’t tell if he’s mocking her or being honest. Her “yes” is more than a little mumbled.
“How long?” The question seems to ring out, too loud even if he hasn’t yet raised his voice.
“A few weeks. Maybe a month.” She shakes her head. “Maybe more. I don’t…I’ve lost track.”
For a several seconds, his first instinct is to panic. It’s always there and he always beats it back down where it belongs, which is to say nowhere, but it’s there. It flickers in his eyes, making him look away even if she hasn’t exactly been making eye contact with him this whole time. It makes his heart race and his breathing change and this is not happening to him again. He just went down this road and he doesn’t think he can do this again. But then it dissipates, slowly, like always, and he can think clearly again after a few more seconds. “Where you planning on telling anyone?”
“Why, Alex? Why would I do that?” She’s gotten up the courage to look him in the eyes again. “So that they could look at me like you’re doing right now? Like I’ve lost my mind? What’s the point?”
“I’m not looking at you like that.”
“Yes, you are.”
He rises, coming towards her, and she backs up until she hits the wall with a soft thud. His hands come up to the sides of her face, before the clench into fists and he lowers them, exhaling. “You need to talk to someone.”
“I know that but…” she trails off. There’s always a but. He feels her breath against his skin, and instead of the excuse he’s waiting for, all he gets is, “You said you wouldn’t leave.”
Which means she’s clammed up. Again. “I know what I said. But this is…this is serious, Iz.”
“I know that, okay, I know that. You think you’re worried. Try living this. It’s a nightmare, every single day and I can’t tell anyone - “
“ - you could’ve told me.”
“Stop kidding yourself.” Izzie all but orders. “It’ll pass. It has to. Or…it’ll go away, okay.”
“You asked a neurosurgeon about it.” He points out. “That’s not exactly something you do if you’re thinking that it’ll all just go away. There could be something physically wrong - “
“Just leave it alone.” She’s loud enough that they can probably hear her down the hall. She also doesn’t appear to care. There are tears forming in the corners of her eyes but he can’t think about that. He can’t let himself back down, not today. Her voice comes out pleading. “Just leave it alone, please.”
“I…” he isn’t sure what he means to do with that sentence, the beginning part just comes out and his mouth stills, and he’s thinking before he speaks at the worst possible time really. What exactly is he supposed to do here? There’s a line between being the supportive boyfriend and being a logical human being, a doctor at that, and he doesn’t know which side he’s supposed to be on. He doesn’t know how to straddle that line. He doesn’t know how to bend anymore. His voice is resolved, steady, as the words just come to him, “I can’t do that.”
His hands fall away from her, his eyes off of her. Without another word, Alex turns towards the door and walks out of it.
It probably was always going to end badly anyway is the only consolation he can muster (he can hear her crying in the bedroom as he walks down the stairs, but he can’t do anything about that now can he).
---
Part 6
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Characters/Pairings: Ensemble. Meredith/Derek, Alex/Izzie, Mark/Lexie, Cristina/Owen, Sadie. Other characters in other parts.
Word Count: 2,202
Rating: PG-13
Author's Note: Through hell or high water this fic is going to end Saturday or Sunday. There's maybe three more parts left. Just...let's pretend Thursday's episode doesn't happen.
(part 1) (part 2) (part 3) (part 4) (part 5)
“The power is definitely out.” Derek announces, when he comes back up from checking out the breaker, sometime later.
“I could’ve told you that,” Alex grumbles from the couch, looking several kinds of annoyed with the current situation, and that his little attic-exploring, tree-decorating adventure was all for naught. A lot of good that will do in the dark.
Derek doesn’t even bother to glare at him. Maybe it’s out of pity or maybe it just takes too much energy at this point. He just mumbles a, “yeah, thanks for that,” and sits quietly back into the chair he’d been in this morning. They’re all pretty much in the same exact places they were this morning, actually, Sadie notices. They just seem to fall into position like they’ve been this way their whole lives.
“We burned a crapload of candles last time, so we’re kind of…low at the moment.” Izzie says, fingers bending the matchbook that she still cradles in her hand. Watching the flames from at least a dozen candles bounce off the walls Sadie would’ve never drawn that conclusion.
“There should be more in the closet upstairs.” Meredith replies, rising and going towards the kitchen, in search of something.
“Is it still snowing?” Lexie pipes up, looking out the window but in the dark it’s hard to see, no streetlights or lamps to light the background.
“You want to go outside and check?” Alex asks, a bit more callous than earlier. It’s the lights, probably, or whatever’s up with him and Izzie. He’s got to be the most inconsistent man she’s ever known - and she’s known a lot of them.
Apparently, Lexie will glare at him, which is a nice change of pace from the way she normally reacts to things like that. “Shut it.”
“Don’t even start in there,” Meredith yells, from the other room, still listening in. She makes a sound like she found what she was looking for, and must take the back way to the stairs because soon Sadie can hear her footsteps as she ascends them, without a word as to her direction. Everyone’s certainly less talkative compared to earlier, she’ll say that much.
“We should probably all just get some sleep. We can’t do anything like this.” Derek finally says, after a long stretch of silence. Like she said, everything comes in short bursts at the moment. There are a few mumbled replies, a few groans in agreement. Everyone seems perfectly okay with that plan.
If the air in the room didn’t feel quite so explosive she’d almost believe them.
---
So maybe Meredith hadn’t really made a plan here. It was kind of just a feeling that maybe this would all stop being so suffocating if there was tequila involved, except her feet didn’t exactly decide to carry her back to the living room. Maybe because she usually reserved drinking tequila straight from the bottle to something she generally only did around Cristina somewhere private.
Nights like this, she really misses Cristina.
She ends up on the bathroom floor, back against the cold side of the shower, bottle next to her, candle in the corner so she doesn’t accidentally miss and knock the bottle over because she mostly wants to drink and not clean the floor. It feels oddly familiar, sitting on the cold tile floor, and it’s sad that two days before Christmas she’s musing about a bathroom of all things. She never was very holiday. She never was very fond of that good old trapped feeling, no matter how much she’s been trying to ignore that part today.
The door opens, and Meredith blinks in the dark, making out an outline of a person, before they focus and the candle stops flickering from the sudden burst of air, of movement, and she can actually see it’s Sadie.
Not that she expected her to, but Sadie doesn’t really wait for an invitation so much as close the door behind her, sidestepping the candle although nearly hitting it, and takes a seat next to Meredith so that the tequila bottle is between them, or it is for the two seconds before Sadie picks it up and takes a long swig. Because this is also something they used to do together, too many years before. She makes a relieved sound as she hands the bottle to Meredith without being asked. “I’m sure Derek’s wondering where you’ve run off to.”
Meredith nods, wiping her lips with the back of her hand, and sighing because while he’s not doing anything to bother her, everyone is bothering her today. “Probably. But he won’t come looking.”
“Then you’ve trained him well,” Sadie replies, not at all joking. Men are just animals to her, for the most part. Which might explain the use and discard policy that she already seems to be employing if the hospital rumor mill is even slightly reliable. And it is. But they aren’t going to talk about that because that’ll just make her wish she was anywhere but here, preferably at work. Or the bar. “You do know someone’s eventually going to need to use the bathroom right? You can’t move in.”
“You’d be surprised. Izzie once camped out on the floor for days.” Meredith tells her, giving no details and hoping that Sadie won’t ask for them because, hey, that’s just more depressing. She doesn’t.
“You’re right.” Sadie decides. “Everyone will probably be too busy fighting anyway.”
That gets Meredith’s attention. “Did something happen while I wasn’t down there.”
Sadie shakes her head. “No. Not yet anyway. But have you seen the way everyone’s looking at each other, like someone says the wrong word and it’s going to turn into World War Three. I mean it was fun to watch at first but now it’s almost maddening. Walking on eggshells.”
Which is exactly why she came up here to hide, not that Sadie needs to be told that. It isn’t hard to figure out. “There’s just a lot of unresolved stuff. But really, can’t everyone just hold off the fighting until after Christmas when we’re out of here.”
“Holidays make you insane.” There’s another long swig, then, “At least for those of us who never had the whole Christmas presents at six am in the morning, shuffle off to brunch with the family, where everyone greets you with smiling faces and something other than whiskey breath.” Sadie pauses again, thinking. “Which is probably pretty much just Lexie and Derek and maybe Izzie, although she seems an awful lot like she’s trying to make up for something she missed.”
For someone who hasn’t been around them all for very long she has a scarily accurate grasp of them. “She is,” Meredith sighs out, closing her eyes briefly as the room does this little whirly thing that comes from drinking too much too fast. Even that is preferable to anything downstairs. Somewhere in this her head ends up on Sadie’s shoulder, and it’s not exactly a first but it’s also not exactly helping with the missing Cristina thing. Because this is one of those things that they do, or did, and she really hopes that they are okay, that it wasn’t just something said on the phone to placate her. But she can’t really talk about that, not with her old best friend, and so what she says is, “I’m glad you’re here.”
---
They both end up in the bedroom but neither of them ends up in bed, which was supposed to be the plan. In theory. Except Alex can’t get what Derek said out of his head for very long and every time he thinks on it he wants to yell or confront her or…something. Do something.
So he sits on the edge of the bed, watching her look for something in the dresser, which is much more complicated with limited light, and tries to figure out a way to say something without coming out like a complete asshole. Not that it worked so well last time.
Which leaves him with very few options and a lot of frustration he is going to have to get out somehow. It’s not hard to connect the dots, so he just outright asks, “Are you seeing Denny?”
Izzie jolts a little, the side of the drawer she’s digging through slamming into the side of the dresser. She doesn’t look at him though. “Where did you get that idea?” she asks, with a clear, unwavering voice. He wonders if anyone else has asked, or if she’s just prepared to lie about this.
“Cut the crap, Iz, just give me a straight answer for once.” He tells her. For better of for worse, this is ending tonight. No more lies, no more dancing around the subject. Alex can only play the nice, non-confrontational guy for so long before it starts to wear on him and he knows it really is mostly an act. He is who he is and he’s never made any qualms against that.
“Fine.” She says, gives in surprisingly easily, dropping what she’s doing to straighten and turn around to face him. “Fine. You know what, I am. I’m seeing Denny. All the time. Everywhere I look. And I keep trying and trying to ignore him but he’s there and I can’t figure out how to make him go away.”
He hadn’t exactly expected that. Seeing someone, fleetingly, is one thing. This is another. Alex can’t help the frown, the way he nearly scans the room, as he asks, “Is he here right now?”
Izzie looks down, like she can’t tell if he’s mocking her or being honest. Her “yes” is more than a little mumbled.
“How long?” The question seems to ring out, too loud even if he hasn’t yet raised his voice.
“A few weeks. Maybe a month.” She shakes her head. “Maybe more. I don’t…I’ve lost track.”
For a several seconds, his first instinct is to panic. It’s always there and he always beats it back down where it belongs, which is to say nowhere, but it’s there. It flickers in his eyes, making him look away even if she hasn’t exactly been making eye contact with him this whole time. It makes his heart race and his breathing change and this is not happening to him again. He just went down this road and he doesn’t think he can do this again. But then it dissipates, slowly, like always, and he can think clearly again after a few more seconds. “Where you planning on telling anyone?”
“Why, Alex? Why would I do that?” She’s gotten up the courage to look him in the eyes again. “So that they could look at me like you’re doing right now? Like I’ve lost my mind? What’s the point?”
“I’m not looking at you like that.”
“Yes, you are.”
He rises, coming towards her, and she backs up until she hits the wall with a soft thud. His hands come up to the sides of her face, before the clench into fists and he lowers them, exhaling. “You need to talk to someone.”
“I know that but…” she trails off. There’s always a but. He feels her breath against his skin, and instead of the excuse he’s waiting for, all he gets is, “You said you wouldn’t leave.”
Which means she’s clammed up. Again. “I know what I said. But this is…this is serious, Iz.”
“I know that, okay, I know that. You think you’re worried. Try living this. It’s a nightmare, every single day and I can’t tell anyone - “
“ - you could’ve told me.”
“Stop kidding yourself.” Izzie all but orders. “It’ll pass. It has to. Or…it’ll go away, okay.”
“You asked a neurosurgeon about it.” He points out. “That’s not exactly something you do if you’re thinking that it’ll all just go away. There could be something physically wrong - “
“Just leave it alone.” She’s loud enough that they can probably hear her down the hall. She also doesn’t appear to care. There are tears forming in the corners of her eyes but he can’t think about that. He can’t let himself back down, not today. Her voice comes out pleading. “Just leave it alone, please.”
“I…” he isn’t sure what he means to do with that sentence, the beginning part just comes out and his mouth stills, and he’s thinking before he speaks at the worst possible time really. What exactly is he supposed to do here? There’s a line between being the supportive boyfriend and being a logical human being, a doctor at that, and he doesn’t know which side he’s supposed to be on. He doesn’t know how to straddle that line. He doesn’t know how to bend anymore. His voice is resolved, steady, as the words just come to him, “I can’t do that.”
His hands fall away from her, his eyes off of her. Without another word, Alex turns towards the door and walks out of it.
It probably was always going to end badly anyway is the only consolation he can muster (he can hear her crying in the bedroom as he walks down the stairs, but he can’t do anything about that now can he).
---
Part 6