Reflection (GA XO, Isabel, YTEEN) 1/1 [COMPLETE]

[StarGazing101]

Title: Reflection
Author: StarGazing101
Disclaimer: I own nothing, got it? Lines taken from Grey's Anatomy 2.05 "Bring the Pain". Obviously, dialogue from that ep's not mine.
Rating: YTEEN
Summary: This takes place during Grey's Anatomy 2.05 "Bring the Pain"/2.06 "Into You Like a Train" and post-"Cry Your Name" Roswell, with a few aspects from my Zombie series (Zombie, The Easy Kill, and Nowhere Left to Turn, though there's no need to read the series to understand this). A patient of Izzie's leaves her melancholy and reflecting on her past. Very short. Unbeta'd.
Author's Note: This is random, spur of the moment piece. I was watching my Grey's Anatomy DVDs and this popped into my head. It was written in about twenty minutes and is definitely not exactly my best writing (heck, it's 1:00 in the morning, so I'll cut myself some slack), and I since I knew there probably would not be more, opted to share.



Reflection



Izzie stepped inside the room, the white of the hospital unusually blinding as she came and sat beside her patient, whose eyes were filled with slight fear and confusion. As she lowered herself into the only chair in the room, she said, "You have stress cardiomyopathy."


Her patient, Verna, then questioned, "Cardiomyopathy? What does - Can you tell me what that is?" her nervousness more noticeable than when Izzie first entered.


Bluntly, Izzie replied, "It's Ted." In which Verna repeated his name, more perplexed by her doctor's words. "Ted," Izzie said again, and insinuated, "Not just the neighbor you barely knew, was he?"


Verna attempted not let her heart jump into her throat and speak for her, and feigned false knowledge of the situation. "I don't know what you're talking about."


Izzie went on further. "'Cause every year on the day he died, you get a rush of adrenaline caused by stress. Your pressure rises. You have chest pains. And you end up here."


With Izzie's brown eyes piercing into her light blue, watery ones, she gently confessed, "Twenty-seven years... I loved the man next door, and he loved me. I know how this is gonna sound," she paused briefly to compose herself (but was failing), "But Ted was my soul mate. And then he just died!"


Izzie's own heart leapt into her esophagus as old memories surfaced, then quietly spoke, "It's grief. Your heart stops because you're grieving for Ted."


As tears filled her eyes, Verna lifted a hand to her face and wiped them from her saddened eyes. A small smile found its way to her face and she wearily asked, "So, what do I do next? I mean... how do you treat it?"


It was the question that Izzie had been dreading for the last five minutes, and as Verna gazed at her expectantly, Izzie knew that there was not a cure; that there was no special healing ritual or medicine to mend a broken heart. The only thing the blonde could provide the older woman was a weak, "I wish I knew."


When the husband returned to his wife, Izzie explained his significant other's condition, but did not go into the actual 'how'. She left the room with heaviness in her chest she only remembered having experienced during only one time of the year. The time of year when teenagers readied for proms and graduations, the time of year when Izzie experienced the same rush of adrenaline as her patient and would call in sick and suffer the surmounting pain beneath her ribcage.


April 29th, 2001 had been the day her "Ted" had died, but Izzie would rather that he had met the same fate as the actual Ted than the gruesome head-on collision with the semi. Both Alex and their 4-month old daughter had perished in the crash, and the emptiness Isabel had experienced, and continued to on a daily basis, left her heart paralyzed.


Throughout the rest of the day, Izzie walked around the hospital in a stupor, hardly able to keep herself focused on the tasks she was assigned.


<center>~*~</center>


That night Meredith and George came home, Meredith eyes sunken in and George supporting her. Izzie could tell that neither of the two was drunk, but that the entire last two days had been draining.


Earlier, Izzie had seen Verna released from the hospital as she ran around helping victims of the train wreck, but proved to herself that she could keep her thoughts in line and not drift into other areas of her melancholy mind. She had let her judgments interfere with practicing medicine, but luckily Addison was not one to take lightly to others letting themselves be influenced by their opinions when treating patients or in lieu of their colleagues. By the end of the day, Izzie had discovered a mentor in the, (much like herself), statuesque red-head with a mind and heart all her own. Flattered by the woman's compliments and observations, Izzie opted to sleep on her decision to possibly pursue Addison's field.


Izzie was brought out from her contemplations when Meredith dropped harshly into the cushions of the couch, her hair its usually stringy mess. Upon sitting, Meredith lifted herself from her seat and took from under her a photo album that Isabel had forgotten she had been flipping through just minutes previously. Unable to bring herself to stop Meredith from opening it, Izzie figured that George and her would find out sooner or later and let the woman finger through the portraits.


She could see the perplexity in Meredith's blue eyes as she stopped on a photograph of Izzie with a newborn infant in her arms, Alex beside her. Pausing in her viewing of the photos, Mereidth turned to Izzie and pointed at the picture.


"You had a baby?" was all she could manage, observing the photograph once more, caressing the still figures.


Isabel briefly smiled, "Grace. She looked so much like him, and even had his mother's hair." She sniffled, pausing in her description but continued to reminisce. "I was eighteen years old. Young, still in high school, and yet there I was with a baby in my arms and the guy I expected to be with the rest of my life, by my side."


"Was?" she questioned, gazing up at the lighter blonde.


"Yeah . . . Four months after she was born, he was driving and she was in the backseat, when his tire blew, lost control of the car, and collided head-on with a semi. Grace died instantly, and he died just as his ambulance got in to the hospital."


Meredith could only stare with her mouth agape, completely at a loss for words as she looked on her companion with the utmost sympathy. The woman considered for a moment what it would be like, and could not possibly imagine losing your child and the person you believed would be with you for the rest of your life.


Apprehensively Meredith asked, "How old was he?"


"Seventeen . . . We hadn't been together for very long, for someone to believe us to be wrapped around each other's fingers or feel the way we did, but we both knew what we felt was real. Grace was not planned and was very unexpected, but we did our best and made it work as best we could."


Meredith simply nodded, going through the album once more then handing it back to Izzie who rolled it around in her hands. Sighing, she said, "I feel petty, now that you've probably just told me the most intimate detail of your life. Here I am, blubbering because I've just lost Derek to his wife, when I could've lost him to much worse things... I guess."


Izzie stood from her seat, smoothing her pants and wiping the trails of tears from her eyes. "It probably feels pretty similar, maybe not quite as high on the Richter scale, but similar."


Meredith watched as the woman she thought she knew headed upstairs, and George reentered the room with a tray of tea and some baked goods.


"Where'd Izzie go?"


"She's reflecting."