Just be there

Casey

Izzie sleeps as I drive, it's our fourth day on the road. Two more days until we reach UCLA.

Thankfully since Izzie is sleeping, it means she's not drinking water right now. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad she's well hydrated. It's just that her apparently walnut sized bladder meant I had to make a lot of stops. If she stays asleep for the next three hours I can get us to our stop for the night without having to stop again.

Izzie's phone is on shuffle. I grin to myself as I hear Taylor Swift's "Delicate" start playing. For some reason, Izzie insists she's not a T-Swift fan, but yet this is her phone and her music. Suspicious. I like the song though, it's catchy.

I lightly drum my fingers on the steering wheel to the beat, being mindful to be quiet enough not to wake Izzie.

All of a sudden the car in front of us slams on their brakes. I have to jerk the wheel hard, swerving onto the shoulder to avoid hitting them. The swerving throws Izzie forward and she smacks her face on the dashboard. Izzie is now awake and holding her face groaning in pain. "Shit baby, I'm so sorry. Are you okay?" I say quickly, as I look quickly to make sure we are not in danger of getting hit. It looks like the car two cars up had rear ended a semi truck, causing it to fish tail and block both lanes, which explains why the car in front of us had slammed on their brakes. I have a feeling we are going to be here awhile. I look at Izzie to check on her once I determine we are safe for now. "Babe? You okay?" I say again, realizing she hadn't answered me. I see her nod, so I gently move her hands to check for any serious injuries. Her nose is bleeding, but not profusely enough for me to think it's broken. Her hands are covered in blood though, and I know she really likes the jacket she is wearing. So I pull off my hoodie, it's nothing special, and hand it to her. "For the bleeding babe."

She takes it gratefully and wipes her hands before holding it to her nose. "Ouch." She whines softly, so I lean over to kiss her temple. "I'm sorry baby." I say gently. Izzie shakes her head. "You did what you had to do to keep us safe." She says in a somewhat muffled voice.

I still feel bad, I never want to be the reason that Izzie is injured. I wish I had some ice at least for her.
____

We show up to our hotel for the night nearly six hours later, after midnight, with Izzie's hands and face covered in dried blood. We get a very strange look from the woman who checks us in. Can't say I blame her honestly.

After I put down our stuff, I lead Izzie into the bathroom and wet a washcloth so I can start wiping as much as the blood from her face as I can, so she doesn't ruin her clothes trying to take them off. "Does your nose still hurt?" I ask her, wondering if I need to go get her some ice. "A little but not much." She says, before she looks at me with her best puppy dog eyes. "Take a shower with me?" She says hopefully. I nod, I would have taken a shower with her even without the puppy dog eyes.

We strip and I turn on the water, making sure it's warm but not scalding. It takes some micro adjustments as apparently the only two temperatures easily available in this shower are ice water and hell fire.

When I'm satisfied with the temperature of the water, I offer my hand to Izzie to help her step in. I don't need her slipping and hurting that beautiful face anymore than it already is. She's kind of a klutz too, so I'm taking no chances.

Once she is safely inside the shower I step in behind her before shutting the curtain. She turns to me before wrapping her arms around my waist, turning her head to the side and resting it against my chest. I wrap my arms around her and hold her. "What's up baby?" I ask, she's generally pretty snuggley, just not usually in the shower. "I just want to be held for a minute." I hear her mumble. "Okay, I'll hold you baby." I say holding her a little tighter and turning my head to rest my cheek against the top of her head.

A while later we get out after we are both cleaned up. We get ready for bed and lay down. Izzie falls asleep almost instantly, and I follow quickly behind her. Until I suddenly jerk awake with the realization that Izzie forgot to take her medications before bed. I shake her arm gently to wake her up. I turn on the bedside table lamp and quickly grab her a cup of water, and dig her pill bottles out of her backpack.

I get her out the appropriate dose of each medication before bringing it over to her in bed, where she is blinking sleepily, clearly still half asleep. "Your pills love." I say holding out the pills in one hand and the cup of water with the other. She takes the pills from me and tosses them all in her mouth at once. I can barely swallow one pill at a time, so I'm pretty impressed that she can swallow two small pills and one large pill at the same time. She takes the water from me and drinks to swallow, I take the cup from her and she is already asleep by the time I walk across the room to throw the cup in the trash can.

Izzie hasn't actually ever forgotten her pills before, so I'm guessing she just forgot them in the craziness of getting in late, covered in blood.

I lay down beside her and turn the bedside lamp off again. I roll onto my side and wrap my arms around her waist, pulling her against me. I fall asleep pretty quickly to the steady sound of her breathing.