Fic: Fairytales (SPN/GA)
Title: Fairytales
Fandom: Supernatural/Grey's Anatomy
Pairing/Character: Dean Winchester/Izzie Stevens
Spoilers/Warnings: Grey's Anatomy: 3x01.
Disclaimer: Not mine. ;/
Word Count: 3024.
Rating: PG.
Summary: It isn't Meredith who helps Izzie realise she's not alone.
Notes: This is the result of seeing some icons with text on it that cause you to think of possible plotlines for either that picture or text, and BAM! Here this is. Even though I loved how Meredith helped Izzie off of the bathroom floor, it was kind of predictable. So, let's bring in the unpredictability, and the Winchester boys. I had a hard time picking which Winchester boy, but I've always had a liking for Dean/Izzie. :p
There's a history with the boys and the hospital. I tried writing in a different 'style' - it switches P.O.Vs, but not in the nasty way of "I, me, my".
AU, 3x01. Most of the GA quotes are from the episode, which may not be 100% accurate, but I'm playing it by ear (the 'scenes' that aren't "complete" were firstly written via youtube and from videos from the AMAZING site, Grey's Media.).
She hears George sigh through the door, and even though they may think they're quiet, they're not. She hears him speak, and can picture his hand shaking at his side, lusting to touch his manly-cut hair, "Okay, she's been in there all night. We have to do something."
Everyone agrees, and she hears Meredith in shock, "Why are you all looking at me?"
She's heard every quiet, whispered thing they've said about her, and yet she can't bring herself to care.
She feels there is nothing left for her to care for.
-
When he gets the phone call, he's on the road before Meredith even says goodbye. He senses Sammy doesn't quite understand why he's suddenly being dragged back into the Impala.
They're abandoning a case for one that's almost lost.
-
She lays there, in a world full of roses and laughter and colour. But when she blinks, she's in a world of black and grey, and she's drowning in the dull sound of death.
-
"Dean, why are we at a hospital?" Sammy asks him, and Dean continues to stride fiercely to the elevator. He punches the button, and Sam's huffing behind him, repeating his wretched question that causes his blood to boil and almost spurt within his veins.
"I never should've left her, Sammy." He grits out just before the elevator dings open and he storms inside.
-
She can almost feel George's warmth from his position on the cold floor. He's almost adorable, puppy adorable, and she wonders if Callie ever thinks this when she thinks about George.
"Izzie," he says, breaking her out of her trance, "Hey Izzie."
"What?" She bites back in a fierce whisper.
He looks scared, almost frightened out of his pants of her, and she feels guilty. She feels the guilt swell in her stomach underneath the pain of anger and fear, for she is afraid that this is real. She's scared out of her wits that reality is, simply, a fierce bitch whom simply hates Isobel Stevens.
"Maybe y-you should change your clothes," he stutters, "Maybe you wanna wear something a little more comfortable."
The damn dress. It feels almost cold, a thin piece of material that is slicing her heart into little strips.
"Stop it."
"Izzie," George's voice pleads for understanding. She's not strong enough to stand up and take this like a stronger person, someone like Meredith Grey. Her heart is aching, and it feels so heavy in her chest that she figures she'll never be able to stand again.
It's way too hard for one person to deal with this pain, she figures, and that she'll be left with a disgusting scar that runs so deeply into her heart that she'll be this hollow person before the Angel of Death claims her and takes her to a place that is fluffy and white and smells like chocolate.
"Stop it. I mean it. Stop talking. There is nothing to talk about. Do you understand me? There is nothing to discuss," she tells herself to breathe, to remember that if she inhales the toxic air around her that maybe she'll be able to come out of this unscathed.
There's a silence that bites at her ears like wild dogs feasting on meat.
George fidgets, it's almost comforting, and he breathily whispers sincerely, "I'm so sorry."
Thinking about George, who is alive and in front of her, makes her not think of Denny, the man who is gone, dead, cold, and in a bag - or somewhere way worse than a sheet of plastic - where she'll never see his face smiling brightly or hear his stomach-fluttering chuckle ever again.
She makes eye contact with George, and she feels the burning sensation behind her eyes, "Yeah. Me too."
But it's not George to whom she's apologising to.
-
He turns at the corner and almost stops in his tracks. A black bag lies on a trolley, and Miranda Bailey looks like she's choking back bile and tears. "That's him. That's Denny Duquette," she manages, and he's already on his way towards her.
"Great," the coroner says almost enthusiastically, "Load him up." They're about to take the body away when Miranda stops the man.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," she leans towards the bag, whispering to the man inside in a way that suggests the bag is just a figment of Dean Winchester's imagination.
It's the sudden feeling of a hand choking his heart that Dean suddenly realises that the smell of death is far too thick for it to be a simple loss.
-
Cristina is talking to her, trying to bring some normalcy to the bathroom floor, but it's not working, and Cristina Yang isn't blind. As she lays there, watching Cristina turn to her side to look at her, the silence is so deafening she's sure she'll burst into flames.
It's when she starts talking that the words can't seem to stop, she can't breathe and everything just flows between her lips like water over a raging waterfall, "You know they took his body away."
Cristina's face shows emotion; sympathy. She hates that emotion, the pity her friends are giving her, she just wants them to understand. "We'll never see him again. How would you feel if you never saw Burke again?"
To understand what, she's hasn't quite figured out for herself.
-
"Is Isobel Stevens gonna be in anytime soon, Richard?" Dean asks as he sits in the chair opposite the Chief of Seattle Grace, his foot almost digging a hole in the floor as he bounces it up and down in anticipation.
Richard sighs, and Dean knows that what is coming isn't something he wants to hear. "Dr Isobel Stevens has resigned as of last night. I'm sorry, Dean."
There are too many questions running through his brain, blocking his voice in his throat with stones or rocks that are also helping with his suffocation, but Sam picks up the pace, and thanks Richard for his time and that they should catch up soon.
For the sake of their father, and for the sake of a friend.
-
Meredith sighs, her hair is scattered all over the flawless blue floor, resembling her broken heart and her jittery mind. "I don't know what to say to you."
She jumps off of the cliff, falling and falling as she knows she'll be rescued - or at least put in a coma - from Meredith Grey. The air isn't as tense and thick as it was before, but it's almost thin and nonexistent as she breathes in. "When Dylan died, when the bomb went off, did you feel like -"
She stops. She doesn't know what to say, how to explain how she's feeling without crying or ripping her hair out. Izzie's always been good with words, but tonight, they've left her for dead.
"What?" Meredith says, urging Izzie's brain to search for words that are actual English and aren't tears or fierce eye staring.
She whispers out desperately, grabbing onto this branch for dear life, "Like you were moving in slow motion?"
Meredith inhales, "He was there, and then he wasn't. Like, I blinked and he was gone."
This is enough for Izzie to want to talk, to get words to pass her dry throat, "I feel like I'm moving in slow motion, and everything around me is moving so fast, and I just want it to go back to when things were normal. When I wasn't Poor Izzie laying on the bathroom floor in her prom dress with her . . ." she can't finish her sentence. She doesn't want to even think it.
Saying and thinking it only makes it real, and Izzie Stevens only wants this to be a bad dream. A really horrifying dream that she can't seem to wake up from.
"With her dead fiancée," she whispers, and she feels so lost, like she's in the darkest part of the world and somehow God forgot to give her a flashlight.
"But I am," she continues, her words colliding together so fast that she's sure they'll start messing with her head, "So I can't, and I'm just stuck, and there is all this pressure 'cause everyone is hovering around me, waiting for me to do something or say something. Flip out and cry some more, and I'm happy to play my part, I'm happy to say the lines and to do whatever it is that I'm supposed to be doing if it'll make everyone feel more comfortable, but I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to be this person. I don't . . ."
As if she's admitting this to herself, she looks desperately into Meredith's eyes, finding herself become calmer as she feels like she's about to become hysterical, "I don't know who this person is."
"Izzie," Meredith breathes, and how she says it separates her from how George said it. Izzie knows Meredith understands; Meredith always understands.
"How did this happen? How did we end up here? Why am I alone? Where's Denny?"
"You're not alone Iz."
Meredith grabs onto her hand, and Izzie feels Meredith Grey's strength transfer over into her. She grips her hand almost desperately, and even though she's sure she feels strong - like Meredith Grey strong - she knows Isobel Stevens is a glass figurine, smashed all over the bathroom floor.
She knows that glass, smashed and ruined, is never exactly the same when super-glued back together.
-
He knocks on the door of a house that looks so beautiful that he's not sure she'll be here. He can still picture her in pigtails, standing outside her trailer with her mother hissing at her to get inside before anyone got any ideas about the two of them.
"Dean?" A woman in pale purple opens the door, her eyes almost desperate for a positive reply. "Dean, as in Dean Winchester?"
"Yeah."
"Good, oh thank god, she's upstairs, on the bathroom floor. I tried talking to her, everyone suggested I should talk to her, and I did, but, she's not out of the bathroom yet, or out of her prom dress." All he can do is nod stupidly. He thinks this woman needs to breathe, and she does just this.
It gives him time to note that his favourite blonde is not there, behind this woman who doesn't seem to need air to live, and his heart deflates as the anxiety he's been feeling since his drive from the hospital flares into an almost smoky fire.
He doesn't say anything, but the woman before him shuts the door behind Sam and says flustered, "Oh, I'm Meredith. Meredith Grey. I called you earlier."
"Didn't forget."
She leads him up the stairs, Sam just stands awkwardly near the door, and Meredith tells him to go to the kitchen and make himself at home. Dean's sure Sam doesn't know what home is like without Jessica, but he doesn't bother to look to see if his brother's eyes are glittering with regrets and loss as he follows Meredith to a wooden door that he's sure is the dragon and he's the prince about to slay it.
Meredith swirls around, her hands clasping the doorknob as she whispers quickly, "You're Izzie's good friend, right? You'll know what to do?"
Dean nods, "Yeah." He hopes he does. He hasn't talked to her in a while, and as much as he doesn't wish to have acknowledged this, it's true.
Both Isobel Stevens and Dean Winchester have changed since they were reckless sixteen year olds.
Meredith nods, breathing rather loudly, and moves rather reluctantly from the door, "I'll be downstairs." She tosses over her shoulder hopelessly, and Dean is left alone with the dark coloured door.
For once in his life, Dean Winchester isn't sure what to do.
-
"Hey Iz," his rough voice whispers uncharacteristically. She blinks a couple of times to make sure she's not seeing things. She hasn't had a drink since prom, and she doesn't want to know if she's losing her mind due to thirst. "You doing okay?"
"Do you think I'm doing okay?" She bites back, and she should be feeling regret if she didn't feel so angry. "I'm lying on the bathroom floor in my prom dress. I feel cold, alone, almost abandoned, and do you think I'm okay? I'm not. I'm not okay. I don't think I'll ever be okay."
She knows she's telling him things he can't handle, but he's here - for once it isn't a phone conversation - and seeing his face brings back memories and feelings that she's had caged up inside of her since the day he told her he was leaving for good.
He was never supposed to leave.
She closes her eyes as she feels the tears start to attack her again, "Everything is moving so fast, and I - I feel like I can't keep up."
"I'm so sorry Iz," he says, and she nods as she keeps her eyes closed, "I should've been there."
"Yeah," she opens them, and his pupils are surrounded by a light pink and are covered with a shiny sheet, "Yeah you should've been there."
"I let you down, Iz," his voice is rough, and she knows he's hiding his own pain, Dean Winchester always is, "I promised you that you could always rely on me when times were tough, and I gave you a reason not to."
"Dean, shut up." Her voice begs, she doesn't need someone to go down a road she's not prepared to walk on yet. She needs to stay on track, to not let any other piece of her become exposed and ruined by anything resembling a man or death. Her eyes flutter a little as she watches his unchangeable face, "Just stop."
"Okay," he whispers.
"You were there," she sighs, "You were there, and I was there, and you were just . . . there. You were always there, but I chose not to do anything. I've put myself in this position, for getting emotionally attached to a patient who was already a corpse," she quotes Alex, and her body betrays her almost-cool exterior with a furious shudder, "And - and I screwed up so bad."
"Don't Iz," Dean's hand holds hers in place on the floor, "Don't say things you don't mean. It's not you. You and I both know it."
She whimpers, her eyes closed and a tear escaping from underneath her closed eyelid, "I killed him."
"No you didn't. You save lives, Iz. Just like me. Except you save them, from actual death by disease or an accident. You're a hero, a superhero, you're Wonder Woman." She cracks a small smile, remembering her twelve-year-old-self proclaiming she'd be Wonder Woman when she was older to a sceptical thirteen-year-old Dean. "You've gotta get up, Izzie. You've gotta get out of that dress and off of this floor, and you've got to go save lives."
"Why?"
"Denny would want you to," he whispers delicately to her, as if she's a rose that, if spoken loudly to, will shrivel up and disappear forever. He squeezes her hand as she drowns the silence with a fit of sobs.
-
He's been lying on this floor for what seems like forever, but he's not too fussed about how stiff his limbs feel. He's still grasping her hand in his, listening to her breathing as she looks distantly into his eyes. They haven't spoken, not since her tears, and he's just waiting.
He's never been tired of waiting for her.
Izzie blinks, and he feels her cold hand slowly move away from his. This feeling is all too familiar; she's slipping away, but it's not so hollow as it was before. She continues to lay there, still and breathing, and her hand is right beside her, just like it was when he first collapsed onto the bathroom floor.
She places her palm flat on the floor, and starts to push herself up. She's shaking, she seems weak, and he knows he can't help her. He's not supposed to. Isobel Stevens is meant to do this herself, she's meant to apply the bandaids and rip them off all by herself.
He isn't meant to be the hero tonight.
She's standing, in her prom dress that looks gorgeous and pink and girly, and it brings back other memories of dresses and tangled hair and hot air being mixed as they breathed together, and she looks at him, she really looks at him and not some distant object over his shoulder, and says determinedly, "I'm ready."
He's standing, too. He nods, "Okay." She turns to the side, where he sees the zipper on her dress, and he moves his hands there, slowly pulling down the fastener. It's nothing sexual or anything like when they were sixteen and downright horny. His feelings are the usual; Dean's always been head over heels for her, in the friend sense and in the romantic sense.
But tonight, it's all about Dean Winchester, the childhood friend of Isobel Stevens, helping his best friend who has lost her way. She simply can't see the bread crumbs on the path before her, and he's helping her get back home by holding her hand and seeking out hidden hints that will lead her to safety.
She doesn't protest to his help, she doesn't protest to when the dress falls in a pile on the floor, and she doesn't protest to his presence being in the same room as her naked self.
He doesn't protest to her arms as they envelope his neck, and she presses herself flat against him, her breath and her tears mixed together as she shakes.
She pulls away, and he gives her his beloved leather jacket, and as she leans in for another hug, he brushes her blonde locks out of her eyes as he takes her back into his embrace, missing the way their bodies fit exactly together.
It finally all pieces together in Dean's mind.
He's the prince, and she's the princess, and they're slaying this dragon together.
-
Fandom: Supernatural/Grey's Anatomy
Pairing/Character: Dean Winchester/Izzie Stevens
Spoilers/Warnings: Grey's Anatomy: 3x01.
Disclaimer: Not mine. ;/
Word Count: 3024.
Rating: PG.
Summary: It isn't Meredith who helps Izzie realise she's not alone.
Notes: This is the result of seeing some icons with text on it that cause you to think of possible plotlines for either that picture or text, and BAM! Here this is. Even though I loved how Meredith helped Izzie off of the bathroom floor, it was kind of predictable. So, let's bring in the unpredictability, and the Winchester boys. I had a hard time picking which Winchester boy, but I've always had a liking for Dean/Izzie. :p
There's a history with the boys and the hospital. I tried writing in a different 'style' - it switches P.O.Vs, but not in the nasty way of "I, me, my".
AU, 3x01. Most of the GA quotes are from the episode, which may not be 100% accurate, but I'm playing it by ear (the 'scenes' that aren't "complete" were firstly written via youtube and from videos from the AMAZING site, Grey's Media.).
She hears George sigh through the door, and even though they may think they're quiet, they're not. She hears him speak, and can picture his hand shaking at his side, lusting to touch his manly-cut hair, "Okay, she's been in there all night. We have to do something."
Everyone agrees, and she hears Meredith in shock, "Why are you all looking at me?"
She's heard every quiet, whispered thing they've said about her, and yet she can't bring herself to care.
She feels there is nothing left for her to care for.
-
When he gets the phone call, he's on the road before Meredith even says goodbye. He senses Sammy doesn't quite understand why he's suddenly being dragged back into the Impala.
They're abandoning a case for one that's almost lost.
-
She lays there, in a world full of roses and laughter and colour. But when she blinks, she's in a world of black and grey, and she's drowning in the dull sound of death.
-
"Dean, why are we at a hospital?" Sammy asks him, and Dean continues to stride fiercely to the elevator. He punches the button, and Sam's huffing behind him, repeating his wretched question that causes his blood to boil and almost spurt within his veins.
"I never should've left her, Sammy." He grits out just before the elevator dings open and he storms inside.
-
She can almost feel George's warmth from his position on the cold floor. He's almost adorable, puppy adorable, and she wonders if Callie ever thinks this when she thinks about George.
"Izzie," he says, breaking her out of her trance, "Hey Izzie."
"What?" She bites back in a fierce whisper.
He looks scared, almost frightened out of his pants of her, and she feels guilty. She feels the guilt swell in her stomach underneath the pain of anger and fear, for she is afraid that this is real. She's scared out of her wits that reality is, simply, a fierce bitch whom simply hates Isobel Stevens.
"Maybe y-you should change your clothes," he stutters, "Maybe you wanna wear something a little more comfortable."
The damn dress. It feels almost cold, a thin piece of material that is slicing her heart into little strips.
"Stop it."
"Izzie," George's voice pleads for understanding. She's not strong enough to stand up and take this like a stronger person, someone like Meredith Grey. Her heart is aching, and it feels so heavy in her chest that she figures she'll never be able to stand again.
It's way too hard for one person to deal with this pain, she figures, and that she'll be left with a disgusting scar that runs so deeply into her heart that she'll be this hollow person before the Angel of Death claims her and takes her to a place that is fluffy and white and smells like chocolate.
"Stop it. I mean it. Stop talking. There is nothing to talk about. Do you understand me? There is nothing to discuss," she tells herself to breathe, to remember that if she inhales the toxic air around her that maybe she'll be able to come out of this unscathed.
There's a silence that bites at her ears like wild dogs feasting on meat.
George fidgets, it's almost comforting, and he breathily whispers sincerely, "I'm so sorry."
Thinking about George, who is alive and in front of her, makes her not think of Denny, the man who is gone, dead, cold, and in a bag - or somewhere way worse than a sheet of plastic - where she'll never see his face smiling brightly or hear his stomach-fluttering chuckle ever again.
She makes eye contact with George, and she feels the burning sensation behind her eyes, "Yeah. Me too."
But it's not George to whom she's apologising to.
-
He turns at the corner and almost stops in his tracks. A black bag lies on a trolley, and Miranda Bailey looks like she's choking back bile and tears. "That's him. That's Denny Duquette," she manages, and he's already on his way towards her.
"Great," the coroner says almost enthusiastically, "Load him up." They're about to take the body away when Miranda stops the man.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," she leans towards the bag, whispering to the man inside in a way that suggests the bag is just a figment of Dean Winchester's imagination.
It's the sudden feeling of a hand choking his heart that Dean suddenly realises that the smell of death is far too thick for it to be a simple loss.
-
Cristina is talking to her, trying to bring some normalcy to the bathroom floor, but it's not working, and Cristina Yang isn't blind. As she lays there, watching Cristina turn to her side to look at her, the silence is so deafening she's sure she'll burst into flames.
It's when she starts talking that the words can't seem to stop, she can't breathe and everything just flows between her lips like water over a raging waterfall, "You know they took his body away."
Cristina's face shows emotion; sympathy. She hates that emotion, the pity her friends are giving her, she just wants them to understand. "We'll never see him again. How would you feel if you never saw Burke again?"
To understand what, she's hasn't quite figured out for herself.
-
"Is Isobel Stevens gonna be in anytime soon, Richard?" Dean asks as he sits in the chair opposite the Chief of Seattle Grace, his foot almost digging a hole in the floor as he bounces it up and down in anticipation.
Richard sighs, and Dean knows that what is coming isn't something he wants to hear. "Dr Isobel Stevens has resigned as of last night. I'm sorry, Dean."
There are too many questions running through his brain, blocking his voice in his throat with stones or rocks that are also helping with his suffocation, but Sam picks up the pace, and thanks Richard for his time and that they should catch up soon.
For the sake of their father, and for the sake of a friend.
-
Meredith sighs, her hair is scattered all over the flawless blue floor, resembling her broken heart and her jittery mind. "I don't know what to say to you."
She jumps off of the cliff, falling and falling as she knows she'll be rescued - or at least put in a coma - from Meredith Grey. The air isn't as tense and thick as it was before, but it's almost thin and nonexistent as she breathes in. "When Dylan died, when the bomb went off, did you feel like -"
She stops. She doesn't know what to say, how to explain how she's feeling without crying or ripping her hair out. Izzie's always been good with words, but tonight, they've left her for dead.
"What?" Meredith says, urging Izzie's brain to search for words that are actual English and aren't tears or fierce eye staring.
She whispers out desperately, grabbing onto this branch for dear life, "Like you were moving in slow motion?"
Meredith inhales, "He was there, and then he wasn't. Like, I blinked and he was gone."
This is enough for Izzie to want to talk, to get words to pass her dry throat, "I feel like I'm moving in slow motion, and everything around me is moving so fast, and I just want it to go back to when things were normal. When I wasn't Poor Izzie laying on the bathroom floor in her prom dress with her . . ." she can't finish her sentence. She doesn't want to even think it.
Saying and thinking it only makes it real, and Izzie Stevens only wants this to be a bad dream. A really horrifying dream that she can't seem to wake up from.
"With her dead fiancée," she whispers, and she feels so lost, like she's in the darkest part of the world and somehow God forgot to give her a flashlight.
"But I am," she continues, her words colliding together so fast that she's sure they'll start messing with her head, "So I can't, and I'm just stuck, and there is all this pressure 'cause everyone is hovering around me, waiting for me to do something or say something. Flip out and cry some more, and I'm happy to play my part, I'm happy to say the lines and to do whatever it is that I'm supposed to be doing if it'll make everyone feel more comfortable, but I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to be this person. I don't . . ."
As if she's admitting this to herself, she looks desperately into Meredith's eyes, finding herself become calmer as she feels like she's about to become hysterical, "I don't know who this person is."
"Izzie," Meredith breathes, and how she says it separates her from how George said it. Izzie knows Meredith understands; Meredith always understands.
"How did this happen? How did we end up here? Why am I alone? Where's Denny?"
"You're not alone Iz."
Meredith grabs onto her hand, and Izzie feels Meredith Grey's strength transfer over into her. She grips her hand almost desperately, and even though she's sure she feels strong - like Meredith Grey strong - she knows Isobel Stevens is a glass figurine, smashed all over the bathroom floor.
She knows that glass, smashed and ruined, is never exactly the same when super-glued back together.
-
He knocks on the door of a house that looks so beautiful that he's not sure she'll be here. He can still picture her in pigtails, standing outside her trailer with her mother hissing at her to get inside before anyone got any ideas about the two of them.
"Dean?" A woman in pale purple opens the door, her eyes almost desperate for a positive reply. "Dean, as in Dean Winchester?"
"Yeah."
"Good, oh thank god, she's upstairs, on the bathroom floor. I tried talking to her, everyone suggested I should talk to her, and I did, but, she's not out of the bathroom yet, or out of her prom dress." All he can do is nod stupidly. He thinks this woman needs to breathe, and she does just this.
It gives him time to note that his favourite blonde is not there, behind this woman who doesn't seem to need air to live, and his heart deflates as the anxiety he's been feeling since his drive from the hospital flares into an almost smoky fire.
He doesn't say anything, but the woman before him shuts the door behind Sam and says flustered, "Oh, I'm Meredith. Meredith Grey. I called you earlier."
"Didn't forget."
She leads him up the stairs, Sam just stands awkwardly near the door, and Meredith tells him to go to the kitchen and make himself at home. Dean's sure Sam doesn't know what home is like without Jessica, but he doesn't bother to look to see if his brother's eyes are glittering with regrets and loss as he follows Meredith to a wooden door that he's sure is the dragon and he's the prince about to slay it.
Meredith swirls around, her hands clasping the doorknob as she whispers quickly, "You're Izzie's good friend, right? You'll know what to do?"
Dean nods, "Yeah." He hopes he does. He hasn't talked to her in a while, and as much as he doesn't wish to have acknowledged this, it's true.
Both Isobel Stevens and Dean Winchester have changed since they were reckless sixteen year olds.
Meredith nods, breathing rather loudly, and moves rather reluctantly from the door, "I'll be downstairs." She tosses over her shoulder hopelessly, and Dean is left alone with the dark coloured door.
For once in his life, Dean Winchester isn't sure what to do.
-
"Hey Iz," his rough voice whispers uncharacteristically. She blinks a couple of times to make sure she's not seeing things. She hasn't had a drink since prom, and she doesn't want to know if she's losing her mind due to thirst. "You doing okay?"
"Do you think I'm doing okay?" She bites back, and she should be feeling regret if she didn't feel so angry. "I'm lying on the bathroom floor in my prom dress. I feel cold, alone, almost abandoned, and do you think I'm okay? I'm not. I'm not okay. I don't think I'll ever be okay."
She knows she's telling him things he can't handle, but he's here - for once it isn't a phone conversation - and seeing his face brings back memories and feelings that she's had caged up inside of her since the day he told her he was leaving for good.
He was never supposed to leave.
She closes her eyes as she feels the tears start to attack her again, "Everything is moving so fast, and I - I feel like I can't keep up."
"I'm so sorry Iz," he says, and she nods as she keeps her eyes closed, "I should've been there."
"Yeah," she opens them, and his pupils are surrounded by a light pink and are covered with a shiny sheet, "Yeah you should've been there."
"I let you down, Iz," his voice is rough, and she knows he's hiding his own pain, Dean Winchester always is, "I promised you that you could always rely on me when times were tough, and I gave you a reason not to."
"Dean, shut up." Her voice begs, she doesn't need someone to go down a road she's not prepared to walk on yet. She needs to stay on track, to not let any other piece of her become exposed and ruined by anything resembling a man or death. Her eyes flutter a little as she watches his unchangeable face, "Just stop."
"Okay," he whispers.
"You were there," she sighs, "You were there, and I was there, and you were just . . . there. You were always there, but I chose not to do anything. I've put myself in this position, for getting emotionally attached to a patient who was already a corpse," she quotes Alex, and her body betrays her almost-cool exterior with a furious shudder, "And - and I screwed up so bad."
"Don't Iz," Dean's hand holds hers in place on the floor, "Don't say things you don't mean. It's not you. You and I both know it."
She whimpers, her eyes closed and a tear escaping from underneath her closed eyelid, "I killed him."
"No you didn't. You save lives, Iz. Just like me. Except you save them, from actual death by disease or an accident. You're a hero, a superhero, you're Wonder Woman." She cracks a small smile, remembering her twelve-year-old-self proclaiming she'd be Wonder Woman when she was older to a sceptical thirteen-year-old Dean. "You've gotta get up, Izzie. You've gotta get out of that dress and off of this floor, and you've got to go save lives."
"Why?"
"Denny would want you to," he whispers delicately to her, as if she's a rose that, if spoken loudly to, will shrivel up and disappear forever. He squeezes her hand as she drowns the silence with a fit of sobs.
-
He's been lying on this floor for what seems like forever, but he's not too fussed about how stiff his limbs feel. He's still grasping her hand in his, listening to her breathing as she looks distantly into his eyes. They haven't spoken, not since her tears, and he's just waiting.
He's never been tired of waiting for her.
Izzie blinks, and he feels her cold hand slowly move away from his. This feeling is all too familiar; she's slipping away, but it's not so hollow as it was before. She continues to lay there, still and breathing, and her hand is right beside her, just like it was when he first collapsed onto the bathroom floor.
She places her palm flat on the floor, and starts to push herself up. She's shaking, she seems weak, and he knows he can't help her. He's not supposed to. Isobel Stevens is meant to do this herself, she's meant to apply the bandaids and rip them off all by herself.
He isn't meant to be the hero tonight.
She's standing, in her prom dress that looks gorgeous and pink and girly, and it brings back other memories of dresses and tangled hair and hot air being mixed as they breathed together, and she looks at him, she really looks at him and not some distant object over his shoulder, and says determinedly, "I'm ready."
He's standing, too. He nods, "Okay." She turns to the side, where he sees the zipper on her dress, and he moves his hands there, slowly pulling down the fastener. It's nothing sexual or anything like when they were sixteen and downright horny. His feelings are the usual; Dean's always been head over heels for her, in the friend sense and in the romantic sense.
But tonight, it's all about Dean Winchester, the childhood friend of Isobel Stevens, helping his best friend who has lost her way. She simply can't see the bread crumbs on the path before her, and he's helping her get back home by holding her hand and seeking out hidden hints that will lead her to safety.
She doesn't protest to his help, she doesn't protest to when the dress falls in a pile on the floor, and she doesn't protest to his presence being in the same room as her naked self.
He doesn't protest to her arms as they envelope his neck, and she presses herself flat against him, her breath and her tears mixed together as she shakes.
She pulls away, and he gives her his beloved leather jacket, and as she leans in for another hug, he brushes her blonde locks out of her eyes as he takes her back into his embrace, missing the way their bodies fit exactly together.
It finally all pieces together in Dean's mind.
He's the prince, and she's the princess, and they're slaying this dragon together.
-