just a chance that maybe we'll find better days {alex/izzie}
Title: Just A Chance That Maybe We'll Find Better Days
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Characters/Pairings: Alex/Izzie
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 853
Author's Note: This is so not my normal fic; i guess you could say it's a reaction to last night.
Summary: Spoilers for 5.19, jumps a few months forward. Her hands are cold.
Her hands are cold.
In the past, they’ve always been warm, and he’s starting to notice the differences between then and now more and more. Her fingers are limp when he takes hold of her hand, but they squeeze his in reaction a moment later, eyes fluttering open.
“Hey,” she says, a faint smile on her face. She’s got dark circles to match his own, and the machine next to her makes a soft whoosh that falls in time with her breathing, serving as an audible reminder that, yes, this is closing in on as bad as it gets. Her eyes flit to the clock on the wall, and then back to him, with a, “Shouldn’t you be doing rounds?”
Alex looks down. “Bailey told the Chief I was in need of a few days off.”
There’s a nod, then, “I think she meant to sleep too.”
“I’m fine,” he dismisses, easily.
“Okay. So am I then. You go get the nurse to discharge me and I’ll pack; let’s blow this popsicle stand.” She’s laughing by the time she finishes her sentence, pausing to cough in the middle of It, and he runs his thumb over the back of her hand, feeling pinpricks and raised skin there - too many IVs and veins all tapped out. Her laugh tapers off and he thinks it stops being funny when they both realize that she hasn’t seen the inside of Meredith’s house in weeks. “You shouldn’t be spending all your time here,” she says, a moment later, soberly.
They have had this conversation, in one form or another, several times in the past few weeks. It never ends well. Still, he manages, “I don’t have anywhere else I need to be,” like he’s trained to say it, some trick he was taught and never unlearned, even now that she seems to want him to.
She closes her eyes against the bright lights, giving him a sigh and, “You should.”
It sounds a bit like giving up.
He stays in the chair by her bed while she sleeps.
---
One Year Later
Her hands are cold.
After a while, he’s gotten used to seeing this as fact, for getting words like ‘was’ and ‘before’ finding them unnecessary and uncomfortable. Sentences like ‘her hands were warm, before she was dying of cancer’ bite, settle in the pit of his stomach and make him wish for times when everyone around him didn’t seem so mortal. ‘People are only there for so long,” Meredith said once, on a sigh, and it made the pattern of his breathing shift, catching in his throat.
Today, now, at the present, he lets his arms slide over the skin along her sides, wrapping around her and folding her hands in his own, pulling them down beneath the sheets. The alarm clock went off five minutes ago, but she spent a few months in the hospital so now she sleeps through anything, and he doesn’t feel particularly inclined to wake her up until he absolutely has to.
Izzie shifts in his arms, sinking below the sheets a little more, so they cover her bare shoulders, as if just realizing she’s cold, and he presses a kiss to the back of her neck. She mumbles incoherencies into the pillow, and he whispers, “sleep”, into her ear, which seems to have the opposite effect on her.
“Hmm,” she murmurs, her leg sliding into contact with his, as she says “Alex,” in some needy, half-conscious tone that never fails to get a reaction out of him. She used to tell him to stop looking at her like she might break at any moment before she figured out that, like the coldness of her hands or her newfound ability to sleep straight through whatever all-night sex marathon Derek and Meredith cooked up, that wasn’t really ever going to go away.
He almost lost her, and now he’s got it in his head that the other shoe is going to drop at some point and all he can do is hold tight, and try, and fail.
Maybe his grip tightens on her, because she makes some little sound in the back of her throat, a man caught in a sigh, and tries to turn, managing to free her hands as she does, ending up on her back and turning her head to look at him for a second before she leans over to get a good look at the clock, blinking sleep out of her eyes. She yawns, falling back down against the mattress and him. “I slept through it again, didn’t I?”
“Yeah,” he replies.
“Why didn’t you wake me up?” She asks, stretching a little. He can feel her arch her back, hand against the curve of her spine, traces his fingers along the line of it.
“It’s only been ten minutes,” he tells her nothing but what she already knows, but she doesn’t ask anymore of him.
“Okay,” she says, instead, exhales, “We have time.”
It sounds a bit like giving in.
Izzie falls back to sleep a minute later, unintentionally, and he listens to her breathe.
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Characters/Pairings: Alex/Izzie
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 853
Author's Note: This is so not my normal fic; i guess you could say it's a reaction to last night.
Summary: Spoilers for 5.19, jumps a few months forward. Her hands are cold.
Her hands are cold.
In the past, they’ve always been warm, and he’s starting to notice the differences between then and now more and more. Her fingers are limp when he takes hold of her hand, but they squeeze his in reaction a moment later, eyes fluttering open.
“Hey,” she says, a faint smile on her face. She’s got dark circles to match his own, and the machine next to her makes a soft whoosh that falls in time with her breathing, serving as an audible reminder that, yes, this is closing in on as bad as it gets. Her eyes flit to the clock on the wall, and then back to him, with a, “Shouldn’t you be doing rounds?”
Alex looks down. “Bailey told the Chief I was in need of a few days off.”
There’s a nod, then, “I think she meant to sleep too.”
“I’m fine,” he dismisses, easily.
“Okay. So am I then. You go get the nurse to discharge me and I’ll pack; let’s blow this popsicle stand.” She’s laughing by the time she finishes her sentence, pausing to cough in the middle of It, and he runs his thumb over the back of her hand, feeling pinpricks and raised skin there - too many IVs and veins all tapped out. Her laugh tapers off and he thinks it stops being funny when they both realize that she hasn’t seen the inside of Meredith’s house in weeks. “You shouldn’t be spending all your time here,” she says, a moment later, soberly.
They have had this conversation, in one form or another, several times in the past few weeks. It never ends well. Still, he manages, “I don’t have anywhere else I need to be,” like he’s trained to say it, some trick he was taught and never unlearned, even now that she seems to want him to.
She closes her eyes against the bright lights, giving him a sigh and, “You should.”
It sounds a bit like giving up.
He stays in the chair by her bed while she sleeps.
---
One Year Later
Her hands are cold.
After a while, he’s gotten used to seeing this as fact, for getting words like ‘was’ and ‘before’ finding them unnecessary and uncomfortable. Sentences like ‘her hands were warm, before she was dying of cancer’ bite, settle in the pit of his stomach and make him wish for times when everyone around him didn’t seem so mortal. ‘People are only there for so long,” Meredith said once, on a sigh, and it made the pattern of his breathing shift, catching in his throat.
Today, now, at the present, he lets his arms slide over the skin along her sides, wrapping around her and folding her hands in his own, pulling them down beneath the sheets. The alarm clock went off five minutes ago, but she spent a few months in the hospital so now she sleeps through anything, and he doesn’t feel particularly inclined to wake her up until he absolutely has to.
Izzie shifts in his arms, sinking below the sheets a little more, so they cover her bare shoulders, as if just realizing she’s cold, and he presses a kiss to the back of her neck. She mumbles incoherencies into the pillow, and he whispers, “sleep”, into her ear, which seems to have the opposite effect on her.
“Hmm,” she murmurs, her leg sliding into contact with his, as she says “Alex,” in some needy, half-conscious tone that never fails to get a reaction out of him. She used to tell him to stop looking at her like she might break at any moment before she figured out that, like the coldness of her hands or her newfound ability to sleep straight through whatever all-night sex marathon Derek and Meredith cooked up, that wasn’t really ever going to go away.
He almost lost her, and now he’s got it in his head that the other shoe is going to drop at some point and all he can do is hold tight, and try, and fail.
Maybe his grip tightens on her, because she makes some little sound in the back of her throat, a man caught in a sigh, and tries to turn, managing to free her hands as she does, ending up on her back and turning her head to look at him for a second before she leans over to get a good look at the clock, blinking sleep out of her eyes. She yawns, falling back down against the mattress and him. “I slept through it again, didn’t I?”
“Yeah,” he replies.
“Why didn’t you wake me up?” She asks, stretching a little. He can feel her arch her back, hand against the curve of her spine, traces his fingers along the line of it.
“It’s only been ten minutes,” he tells her nothing but what she already knows, but she doesn’t ask anymore of him.
“Okay,” she says, instead, exhales, “We have time.”
It sounds a bit like giving in.
Izzie falls back to sleep a minute later, unintentionally, and he listens to her breathe.