Fic: Angst Exchange - I dreamed that the world was crumbling down...
Title: I dreamed that the world was crumbling down...
Characters/Pairing: Alex and Arizona (implied Alex/Izzie and Arizona/Callie and ex Callie/George)
Word Count: 700
Summary: He knows he was never enough and she fears she will never be...
Rating: PG
Author's Note: Written for the greys angst exchange. Prompt - Alex/Arizona: not enough.
Disclaimer: All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and all the characters, settings, and events thereof, are properties of their respective owners. As this work is an interpretation of the original material and not for profit, it constitutes fair use. Referral to real persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context, and are not intended to be libellous, defamatory, or in any way factual.
“O'Malley knew, even had the guts to say it to my face... he was the only one...”
Arizona has only taken two and a half steps into the darkened lounge when a rough and desperate voice cuts thickly through the black. She contemplates flicking the light on but, for a reason that she can't quite fathom, fears the clarity will break the spell somehow so she doesn't and sinks heavily instead into a low armchair that she can only just see the outline of. And so she sits.
“Well, I knew too... so I guess that makes two of us...”
She has no idea what Alex Karev is talking about and isn't entirely sure he wants a response anyway. Whatever it is that he is referring to, he seems pretty sure of himself and really, today, right now... it is not the time to be asking vague questions and offering snap judgements.
Arizona is well practiced in the art of dealing with grief. Both personally and professionally she has encountered its suffocating power more times than she likes to think about. It is the reason she wears the wheely sneakers and curls her hair and kisses people she barely knows in random bathroom stalls. But dealing with your own grief and counselling someone else through theirs are two entirely different prospects and, at the latter, Arizona knows she could never, ever be enough. And this is the reason she has sought out the solitude of the lounge and not the crying, screaming, distraught version of Callie Torres that is rapidly falling apart somewhere else. And so she sits.
“He said he doesn't know what she sees in me... saw in me...”
And the she, Arizona guesses, is the wife and the friend and the fellow surgeon who will never be a wife and a friend and a fellow surgeon ever again. She also guesses that if this is what O'Malley thought then, most likely, this is also what Alex was referring to when he said he agreed with him. And how can you adequately comment on that? How do you offer something that isn't trite and fake and ultimately meaningless, all things considered. And so she sits.
“Well, I guess it's all irrelevant now anyway... doesn't matter what either of them thought, it's all completely irrelevant now...”
His grief is raw and exposed and his voice cracks and trips over and around his words and Arizona's blood runs ice cold through her veins. Alex stands to leave, and he is unsteady on his feet, his breath, fast and loud and drowned out only by the thudding of her own heartbeat deep in her chest, a painful reminder that she is still alive and that so many others are not. Stevens, O'Malley, her brother, children too numerous to count. And she can't let him leave like that, without offering him something. And so she stands.
“Alex...” and her own voice hiccups in reply, throat tight and sore, “... Alex, there is nothing irrelevant about love. She married you and you did everything you could, you loved her, and there is nothing irrelevant about any of that...”
He pauses at the door and takes a deep, hitching breath, nods his head almost imperceptibly and whispers...
“Yeah... maybe...”
And as he leaves Arizona thinks that maybe, this time, she can be enough. For herself, for Alex... For Callie, maybe she can be just enough.