breath is stolen by the severity of his jabs, each word a canon blowing devastating holes into her ship. he doesn’t mean it, he doesn’t mean it, he doesn’t mean it. she KNOWS this is just how alex is, his defense mechanism. still, a rush of air escapes distressed lungs, the SHOCK finally wearing off. ❛ —— i can’t believe you just said that. ❜ undoubtedly, this is the most hurtful thing he’s seethed to her to date. he doesn’t mean it. she can see his hurt, the catastrophic repercussions of her abandoning him. but she can’t let herself feel the guilt that’s begging to be felt, because if she felt the guilt then that means that the past seven years were for nothing & that was her fault. ❛ you know what? no, you don’t get to blame me for the fact that when i came back all those years ago, YOU told me to leave, you don’t get to talk to me about denny, & you DEFINITELY don’t get to stand here & blame me getting cancer for our relationship falling apart! ❜
❛ maybe i shouldn’t have left when you told me to, but did you ever think that maybe i got tired of your crap, too? you try SO hard to prove that you don’t care about anyone or anything when we both know damn well that that is far from the truth. all hail king alex, protector of babies & rainbows, marvel at his ability to draw you in & then stomp on your heart like a bug on the sidewalk. oo & aa, but don’t you dare fall in love or else you’ll be chasing him seven years later & wasting your freaking breath yelling in an ambulance bay! ❜ a sharp tongue delivers her rant, accompanied by tears that flood doe eyes. scrub-coated legs had carried her closer to him while her hands accentuated each word. with one final icy glance at his equally worked up features, the features that she has come to know & love like her own skin, she heads back inside. leaving him again. he doesn’t mean it, except that he does.
the surgery went smoothly in the disturbingly silent o.r., alex’s stupid face aggressively ignored. the hallway marked ct/mri stares menacingly at her now. nurses could be heard whispering curiously about the quietness. she tried not to, god did she try, to watch him in his element, performing his dance. as reluctant as she would be to admit it, they synchronized well together, a duet constructed of scalpels & sutures; always in rhythm, never missing a beat. his hues glowed with a caring passion & she couldn’t help but wonder if that was really the same man that was in the ambulance bay just hours prior. the door to the ct room is swung open (perhaps a little harder than necessary), & she is INSTANTLY flooded with nostalgia & all sorts of panic. welcome back.
serenity of the large machine encasing her is disrupted at the sound of the door opening. through the cracks of the plastic, hues manage to land on the visitor. alex. the exact person who she hoped would & wouldn’t show up. she feels the pressure to remain still shift from to prevent messing up the ct scan to prevent being seen, as if somehow lying completely still will make her disappear. she feels his eyes on her, & her own irises dart to & from him & the machine’s roof. she swears her heart speeds up, either in appreciation or protest, & her anger speaks FIRST. ❛ i didn’t page you. just get out. ❜
contrition washes over his features as soon as he realizes the extent of what he has said to her. his tongue was too sharp, too careless; he didn’t mean to cut as deep as he did & yet she is sliced from stem to stern, bleeding out before him while he does nothing but avert his gaze. umber hues train themselves over her shoulder, on her lips, on her hair —— on anything but her eyes —— as he stands there and takes what she rightfully throws back at him. maybe she gave up on him, maybe he pushed her away, but at this point, who’s to blame no longer matters. what matters is what he’s choosing to do now that she has come back, and everything he has done from the moment she walked through the doors of the hospital to now has been a mistake. ( everything but that drunken kiss. ) he couldn’t put aside his pride and admit to his feelings for her, talk this out like the adult he claimed to be yesterday. NO, he had to go and push her away again just for him to see how much he wanted her.
the coffee in his hand is flung against the nearest wall as soon as she is out of sight, painting the bricks a sharp shade of brown. he storms out of the ambulance bay only a few beats after izzie, but he does not get the chance to see her again until surgery, despite looking for her in all of their old places. his mouth doesn’t open once while they operate, his eyes don’t meet hers. shame boils beneath his skin. it scalds and scars and doesn’t quite go away, even while his scalpel is moving. only when they close up & she storms out does he risk glancing her way. ( LEAVE HER ALONE! // GO AFTER HER! ) his feet move too late to corner her while she scrubs out. he doesn’t really believe in signs, but maybe that’s what this is: a sign to leave her alone & let her move on. she’d be better off without him —— and yet she came back after eight years, attesting to the fact that her time without him has not been better in any sense. leave her alone. go after her. he doesn’t know which to choose.
he watches the clock in the attendings’ lounge for some time, hands going ‘round and ‘round until he can’t bear to see them mock him anymore. he’s running out of time. if he isn’t there for this appointment, he doesn’t deserve to be there for anything else. lips press together exasperatedly for a moment before he rushes from the lounge, leaving kepner mid-sentence, & finds himself at the door of the ct room. his choice was never a choice. it always has been her; it’s always going to be her.
seeing her in the machine again takes him aback for a moment, washes over him with ice cold water, before her voice reminds him that this is NOT the same situation as it was eight years ago. these are just tests. ❛ i’m an ass, ❜ he begins, feet taking him to her side. ❛ i shouldn’t have —— i was being an ass. you’re back and —— and i don’t know what the hell that means and it’s freakin’ scary, izzie. i’m a different person now. i’m not the same kid i was back then, and i —— i don’t want to go back to that, not after everything i’ve been through since you left. but maybe —— maybe we could… i don’t know, start over or whatever. a fresh start to —— to get to know each other again. because this is scary and i don’t know what’s gonna happen, but i know that i want you in my life. ❜ out of sheer habit does he reach out and take her foot, in hopes that he might provide her some comfort if nothing else.