she was getting better —- but then she remembered what she was trying to get away from, the person that simultaneously managed to tear her apart & build her up all at the same time. now she’s back at the start, pounding back drinks at a bar, pathetically sulking over the very man who terminally broke her heart. no, scratch that —- she broke her OWN heart. he pushed her away & she let him. his undeviating attempts at driving her away were really a cry for help, a plea for her to stay & freaking do something. instead, she ran. one second of believing his desire to be isolated had costed them year after lost year. so no, this wasn’t alex’s fault. it was hers. it just took seeing that face again, the one that she loves with every fiber of her being, to realize.
& now he is seated just a few short yards down the bar, seemingly dealing with his own noisy thoughts through the form of alcohol. sienna hues obsessively track him, observing his form slowly loosening up with every drink. each glass emptied representing a guilty conscience draining with it, the liquor gradually alleviating more & more stress. petaled lips polish off her (some number she can’t remember) drink, fingers slamming the glass into the mahogany as if it were some kind of huge accomplishment.
eyes waste no time darting back to alex, except he wasn’t there anymore. when she spots him next, he is planted right next to her. the surgeon barely had any time to think a single thought before his lips were on hers, moving with such urgency that for a second she swears he must have missed her as desperately as she missed him —- because with the right person, sometimes kissing feels like healing. when the second of utter shock passes, her lips dance fervently against his, desperate to convey her unrelenting need to repair what was broken. seven years of emotion is thrown at each other & then he is GONE, leaving her more sober than ever & staring where his presence had just lurked.
a 6 a.m. shift never felt so early in all of izzie’s career. remnants of vodka angrily slosh in her stomach & pound behind her eyes, acting as an ugly reminder of what she was trying to forget. he kissed her & she kissed him back. it was a habitual reaction, something that occurred so naturally that it felt like no time had passed at all since she last tasted his lips on hers. the hospital stirred quietly, its inhabitants still in the process of opening their eyes & starting their days. the coffee cart is her only motivator at this point. she turns the corner that leads to happiness & stops dead in her tracks at the sight of alex making himself a coffee. of course he would be there, he’s e v e r y w h e r e . (in her head & now, apparently, in person.)
he is dressed in dark blue scrubs, which causes her heart to swell with a mix of pride & mourning for the years she didn’t get to see that led him to that point. legs carry her hesitantly over to begin making her own coffee, briefly imagining alex proudly slipping on his new, darker scrubs for the first time, shaking the chief’s hand, living his first day as an attending surgeon —- something izzie would never watch him do because she left. gaze is glued to the cup she picks up, words coming out in a hushed tone. ❛ you kissed me. last night, you kissed me, & i kissed you back. ❜ a beat of silence passes. ❛ so, what, you’re going to just ignore me now? ❜
four advil, two glasses of water —— and every noise, no matter how quiet, that fills the air around him, every bright light invading his optics still prompts pain to reverberate within his skull, bouncing from wall to wall. he feels sluggish, like the remaining alcohol coursing his veins has turned to lead. in a futile attempt to wipe the hangover away, palms meet closed eyes. it doesn’t work & he almost collides with a nurse. there’s a REASON he prefers beer to liquor ( not just because it was the only thing his old man could afford when he felt like drinking his vices instead of injecting them ) : his body has always handled it considerably better the morning after. increased dehydration be damned. he needs to get himself a cup of coffee or six or he’ll never make it through the day.
the only good thing that has come of this headache is the fact that his mind has been focused on it for most of the morning. unfortunately, the human brain has a tendency to zero in on the most intense pain a person is experiencing & block out all others for the sake of consciousness, so as soon as thoughts drift to izzie, his headache has all but disappeared! it’s a good old-fashioned miracle that leaves him in a worse mood than before, made apparent by how aggressively he’s stirring a single packet of sugar into his cup of black coffee. now all he can think about is how soft her lips were on his, how she relaxed into him after her initial shock wore off, and how much he regrets it. no, not it. not the kiss. he regrets what it revealed to her —— that like always, his anger is only a barrier.
and he regrets that exponentially more from the moment his eyes ( metal to the magnet that is izzie stevens ) happen to drift her way to the moment he realizes she’s headed towards him. lead veins turn to concrete that won’t let him budge from his spot, only return his gaze back to the whirlpool of black in his cup. he can’t acknowledge her; he won’t. she is persistent, invasive, demands to be not only acknowledged but answered. alex can’t deal with the fact that if she asks him whether or not he still has feelings for her, his answer will be yes, and he can’t deal with the fact that if she asks him whether or not she should stay, his answer will be a firm no. so very simply, alex elects not to deal with any of it. that seems like the best course of action.
it feels like an eternity before muted words break the heavy silence and the concrete in his veins simultaneously. ( where had all the noise that deafened him just moments earlier gone? ) alex doesn’t even bother glancing her way. an unnecessarily heavy-handed toss has his wooden stirrer landing in the trash can, a crumpled ten dollar bill being fished from his pocket and slapped! onto the counter. it’s a wonder he even snags a cap before walking off. and if that wasn’t obvious enough, he taunts her with a quick ❛ yep, ❜ before burning his tongue on his coffee. just like he knew she would bug him about last night, he knows that she’s going to follow him. the worst part? underneath all of the harsh words and bitter contempt that festers just beneath his skin is an ache that wants her to follow him, wants her to just know that she should stay.
because if she has to ask, then she shouldn’t have approached him to begin with.