Title: Baked Goods
Author:
ahknaRecipient:
aussiraynePairing(s)/Gen Participants: Izzie/Addison
Rating/Warnings: PG
Summary: Baking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all. Excerpts from Izzie and Addison's relationship
Disclaimer: Not mine. Obviously.
i. cupcakes
“I haven’t been in on an EXIT procedure in a while,” Izzie threw a brief smile over her shoulder as she pulled off her blue cap in the empty scrub room. “Thanks for letting me scrub in, Dr. Montgomery.”
“You can call me Addison, you know.” Addison felt a little unexpectedly nervous. Something major had occurred since her last visit but she wasn’t sure if it was her place to ask. Izzie seemed different than she remembered. More serious, like her inner light had been dimmed by the constant fights she’d mentioned months earlier. She was more confident in her ability as a doctor, a quality that shone through clearly in the OR and she was, if possible, more beautiful than ever.
As Izzie turned around, her large brown eyes locked with Addison’s and she felt her breath catch in her throat. She said Addison’s name quietly, almost like she was testing it, weighing how it felt against her tongue. They stood like that for what seemed like forever, aware of how close they were standing to each other and how intently they stared.
She leaned in and brushed a kiss across Addison’s lips. It was light and sweet, chaste in a way they were both unaccustomed to.
“Izzie...” Addison tried to put a note of warning in her voice but she was afraid that it sounded more like a pathetic supplication.
She just smiled in response. A toothy, movie star smile that made Addison’s stomach flutter. When she leaned in again Addison met her half way, pressing her lips against Izzie’s firmly. They slipped easily from one kiss into two, into three, their mouths opening.
Izzie tasted sweet, like vanilla icing. Addison knew she liked to bake but she didn’t know the sweetness was in her veins as well. So very different.
“You taste really, really good.” She said as she pulled back, breathing heavily.
Izzie smiled and kissed her again, briefer this time. “I brought a cupcake from home for a snack. I’ve got another one in my locker if you want it.”
Addison kissed her again, her tongue sliding easily into Izzie’s warm mouth for another taste. “I’m fine right here.”
ii. cheesecake
As was Seattle Grace protocol, they’d slept together before they ever went on a date. They were both girls who liked to be wined and dined yet somehow always seemed to be having illicit sexual affairs that always ended badly. And so far their illicit sex had only led to some really nice things like hand holding as they left the hospital together and blushing glances from across the cafeteria.
But they had both come to the conclusion that if they were going to officially be dating then there needed to be an official date. You know, for officiality’s sake or something.
So here they were, actually talking and enjoying each other’s company while they ate really good seafood. Addison had half expected it to be awkward. She hadn’t been out on an official date in what felt like a really long time. Mark and Alex had been all inappropriate sex at inappropriate times and Pete and Kevin had been messy pseudo-romantic disasters and before that her last date had been with Derek back at Columbia so it had been a while since she had been on a real date. Plus the fact that Izzie Stevens was a girl - a really pretty girl with really soft lips but still, a girl - so maybe that added a little to the awkward.
Except that it didn’t. They were fine. They were having fun. The conversation flowed as easily as the wine and the food was delectable.
Until the dessert course.
Addison was content with a hot cup of coffee but Izzie ordered a New York style cheesecake. It arrived at the same time as Addison’s coffee and instantly had her regretting her choice. Drizzled with deep red strawberry sauce, the cake looks moist and delicious. And from the noises Izzie was making as she put the first bite in her mouth, it was.
"Izzie," Addison hissed, "Stop making those noises."
Izzie looked up at her, a mask of innocence on her face. "What noises? I'm simply enjoying my cheesecake."
"I can see that. Maybe a little too much."
Addison stared, her mouth open in shock as Izzie dragged her index finger through the sauce and held it out to Addison. Addison leaned forward and sucked the digit into her mouth, swirling her tongue around her fingertip in a tantalizing promise of what was to come when they got home.
When Addison released her finger Izzie leaned forward and whispered hoarsely, "Let's get this to go."
iii. muffins
Looking back, it had started with muffins.
They had both been lost. Love and desperation had guided their actions, leaving them both despondent, mourning what they could never get back. They were empty, left grasping tiredly at air, trying to hold tight to what was left; Addison to warm memories of a shared life built with Derek, Izzie to a few brief kisses and the promise of what could have been.
Most of that night at the Emerald City Bar was a blur, only a few faded snatches of humiliation coming back to her after her tenth or twelfth drink but Addison remembered Izzie clearly. She had forgotten her apparently unintelligible conversation with Miranda and any other person who had crossed her path but she could recall the drained, crushed look on Izzie’s face as she handed over the basket of muffins.
The muffins had been delicious. Addison didn’t recall eating them at the bar but Joe had sent her home with a few and she had devoured them the next morning when her hangover had worn off and knowing hunger had set in.
Even glancing at muffins in the cafeteria turned her stomach now, the taste of bile and betrayal filling her mouth. Though Addison never asked, she suspected Izzie felt the same because no matter how much baking she did, no matter how depressed or angry she didn’t whip up batches of muffins. Maybe to her they tasted like salty tears and her unfulfilled future with Denny.
Whatever the reason, Izzie no longer bakes muffins and Addison never requests them. Muffins are their past, a reminder of men they loved with all their heart. They can bake their own future of something else.
iv. pumpkin pie
They were in their middle of their first real fight. Addison remembered how much she’d wanted Izzie to like her again after the Russell case. She knew teaching her the lesson was the right thing to do and even what the consequences might be but still, she’d wanted to work alongside Izzie and teach her how to be a surgeon.
It was not like that this time. This time Addison was angry, angry at the way Izzie had flirted with Alex Karev at Joe’s the night before, angry at the way Derek, Mark and even Callie had assumed this was a silly experimental fling when asked for advice, angry at herself for reacting the way she was but mostly she was angry at the negative way Izzie had responded when she’d confessed her fears.
Even thinking about it now made red spots of fury dance in front of her eyes. Graciella held up a chart, trying to get her attention as she stomped past but she waved her off. Her last two surgeries had had severe complications and though all parties were now doing fine, she needed to decompress and not have to worry about interns screwing things up for a few moments.
Addison stalked over to her locker, ready to throw her scrub cap in but paused, her hand hovering on the patterned cap. A piece of pumpkin pie was sitting there, carefully covered in plastic wrap. A piece of paper was folded on top, propped up so she could easily read the words:
Happy Thanksgiving
There was no name but Izzie had sketched a little heart on the bottom.
She lifted the plate from her locker and smiled widely, feeling her fury at the other woman disappear like water down a drain. Izzie's pumpkin pie was the perfect salve for her wound.
v. gingerbread
Izzie loves Christmas. Like, really loves Christmas. Her friends all roll their eyes at her almost childlike excitement but they’re used to it by now so they know better than to grumble and complain about homemade eggnog and finding tinsel in strange places like the refrigerator (no one really knows how it got there. But it’s actually really nice because Addison really likes Christmas too.
At least, she had really liked Christmas with Derek. She felt warm and tingly when his sisters and mother opened their gifts, squealing at how much they liked their presents. His nieces and nephews loved the toys and dolls that their fun Aunt Addison and silly Uncle Derek had gotten for them and they giggled as they ripped through the flawless wrapping like whirling dervishes. Izzie didn’t have a family for Addison to pick out perfect presents for. She sent her mom a nice card talking about how well she was doing at the hospital and some cash but other than that her family was Alex Karev, Meredith Grey, Cristina Yang and George O’Malley.
And Addison really wasn’t going to pick out perfect presents for them. Because that would be beyond strange. Okay, that’s not strictly true. She got Cristina a present. Izzie had explained what Cristina wanted and Addison had to be the one to secure it for a variety of reasons. Most of which had to do with Callie and her girlfriend. That is, Callie’s girlfriend. The thing Cristina wanted most was a juicy, rare cardiac surgery and Erica Hahn was pretty much in charge of that. And Izzie couldn’t go around begging attendings she wasn’t dating to let Cristina in on surgery and she really couldn’t ask a favour of Callie, so the task had fallen to Addison.
When she’d told Callie that she was dating Izzie, Callie had freaked out. Not in a ‘holy fuck, you’re sleeping with a girl’ kind of way, or even in a ‘you’re sleeping with the woman who broke up my marriage’ kind of way but in way Addison had really not anticipated. She had looked her firmly in the eyes and told her that if Izzie came within fifty feet of Erica this time she would grind her bones to dust in front of the entire cafeteria and wouldn’t feel bad about it at all.
So Addison had to promise to buy the next umpteenth number of rounds at the Emerald City Bar if Erica would let Cristina assist on the ventricular septal defect repair that was on the schedule in five days and didn’t act like a jerk to her during the procedure. Addison had her doubts that even Callie would be able to convince Erica to agree to those terms but - against all odds - she had pulled it off.
Izzie had better appreciate how much it was costing her for this present. And have the gingerbread cookies she’d promised ready when she walked through the door.
vi. brownies
“They say a balanced meal is one cookie in each hand,” Addison said, demonstrating by holding up two brownies and waggling her eyebrows comically, her own joke making her grin widely.
“You know, I don’t really think that’s quite true.” Izzie commented, accepting the sticky brownie from Addison, “Plus, these are brownies.”
“I think you’re wrong.”
“No, these really are brownies. I just made them and you just took them from that plate over there.”
“No, not that silly,” Addie rolled her eyes, “I think one brownie in each hand is a very balanced meal.”
“And they let you be a doctor? It’s sad really, the state of the medical profession in the old days,” she said, casually baiting Addison.
“I’m sorry, what? Did you just call me old?”
Izzie raised her eyebrow and smiled wickedly. “No, I don’t think so. Are you sure you can hear me alright?”
“Oh no, you did not just say that!” Addison leaned down closer to Izzie.
"I think I just did." Izzie narrowed her eyes like she was angry.
Addison moved to straddle her hips, careful that her brownie didn't get in hair or on clothes or on the sofa. "You're in trouble now, young lady."
Izzie giggled and kissed Addison. There was chocolate on her bottom lip and Addison swiped at it with her tongue, moaning a little as Izzie opened her mouth. She tasted like chocolate and sugar, sweet in a way that was all Izzie. As they kissed Addison hoped that the rest of her life was exactly like this, filled to the brim with Izzie Stevens and baked goods.