a bright yellow.

[izstevns]

welcome to a highly selective, mutuals only, and canon divergent roleplay blog for isobel "izzie" stevens from abc’s grey’s anatomy. this version of izzie never slept with george o’malley— because some lines were never meant to be crossed. their friendship still splinters, but not like that. this is a low activity and 18+ only blog. ooc ramblings will surface much more often than izzie herself. expect explorations of grief, survival, reckless hope, and the impossible tenderness of a girl who keeps believing in love— even after everything. she’s still the bright and sunny one. still the girl who beat cancer. still trying to be good in a world that isn’t. as interpreted by flo(rence), she / they, twenty six, revamp late may 2025, tracking #izstevns.

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「 1. 」 INFORMATION. ∣ 「 2. 」 SIDE BLOG. ∣ 「 3. 」 MULTI MUSE.

[izstevns]

izzie has been moved back to @chrometics for now!

[sm4llville-a]

she's surgical when opening him up. PUN INTENDED. she finds it in a matter of seconds, that crack in his armor which works to disarm the surefire smirk he had been wearing —  confidence shaken, but not shattered. the grin exposing slightly crooked teeth loses its strength, the brightness in his eyes dimming in the shadows of INSECURITIES he'd collected in high school and never managed to let go of. every so often, they come back to haunt him. a familiar voice of a loved one that has long since LEFT HIM ring in his ears. a tease, a taunt: CLARK KENT, MAN OF MYSTERY. words that marked the beginning of their end.

" i don't —  " he tries to defend himself in vain. this part is always uncomfortable, when the truth he cannot reveal is used against him and the only way to refute it is through lies. clark lied without pleasure, without pride. it away at him, in fact. now, it results in a dry, humorless chuckle. " i don't think i look like that. " why deny the disappearing act? he could trademark it by now. " and it's not feelings i'm running away from, i've just —  sometimes i've got places to be, that's all. " it's all he can say. little does she know: the last thing clark kent would run away from is people thinking that HE IS HUMAN.

maybe this was a bad idea. an old story retold, set up in an all too familiar way that makes it bound to have an all too familiar ending. if izzie can see through him now, if she's already put off by the pieces of the clark kent puzzle that don't quite add up —  quitting while he's ahead should be the logical next step. but when she draws closer, logic loses every last bit of territory it had claimed in his mind. when her voice becomes coated in something too sweet to resist, clark remembers to smile and forgets all about reason. " you're not half as scary as you want to seem, stevens. " he tells her, matching the force of her jabs. if she wanted to hold up a mirror in front of him, he could borrow it too. " i'm not interested in spoilers. if i knew how the story would end, i wouldn't be here. " answering his own question, holding on that pesky thing called hope that insisted on shining before him. maybe this was a bad idea, but maybe this time he could change the ending.

" don't worry, izzie —  " he finds his cocky grin again, almost more infamous than his disappearing acts, and leans even closer to her. " i'd never talk over the bridge in landslide. " a beat, he perks up his eyebrow. " i'll wait for you in the lobby after our shift. i'm hoping you won't try and get an act in vegas of your own. " while clark was running towards something, she was desperately running from it. out of the two, he would put his money on her being the no-show.

[izstevns]

for just a second — barely more than a blink — she let herself look at him. really look. like she might be the one holding the chart now, reading symptoms in the tilt of his grin, the way his eyes crinkled too early, too easily. like maybe behind the dimples and the charm and the ocean-blue deflection, there was something waiting to be named. something she already knew. and she did know that look. that quiet, aching kind of smile that said: i’m still learning how to believe i deserve this. the kind of smile that costs something. it twisted in her chest before she could stop it. she exhaled through her nose— slow, controlled. not quite a sigh. more like a reset. like if she calibrated just right, she could stay upright. “        you say that like you want to be scared,        ” she said, voice light but no longer soft. not with her heart hammering like it remembered something it shouldn’t. a different hospital. a different hallway. a name on a chart that used to be hers. a marriage that ended before it really had the chance to begin.

and still — somehow — here she was. still showing up. still crossing her arms like it could protect her from the things she already felt. she tilted her weight forward, just slightly. a lean toward him, like gravity was debating its loyalties. her gaze flicked to his. “        you know,        ” she said, tone laced with something between curiosity and caution, “        if you were anyone else, i’d say that was a pretty romantic line. ‘if i knew how the story would end, i wouldn’t be here.’        ” she repeated it, barely. like a shadow of his voice. then she angled her head, catching him in a glance that felt too close. “        but you’re not anyone else, are you?        ” the words landed in the air between them and just… stayed there. a little too sharp. a little too honest. she didn’t mean for them to sound like that. or maybe she did. because this wasn’t simple. it wasn’t the kind of thing you could wrap in clean lines and tie with surgical tape. and god, if she’d ever been good at neat, her life wouldn’t look like this. and him? he didn’t exactly scream risk-averse.

her eyes narrowed slightly, lips tugging at the corners in something that could almost pass for a smile if you squinted. “        you don’t get to guilt-trip me for ghosting when your best party trick is disappearing the second someone asks you what your favorite movie is.        ” and then — because she couldn’t help herself, because teasing was safer than telling the truth — she added, “        and for the record, if you actually had encyclopedic knowledge of stevie nicks, you’d know not to trust a girl who says she won’t poison you. that’s exactly what she’d say before she spikes your hospital coffee with hemlock.        ” she nudged his shoulder with hers. barely. a touch so brief it could’ve been a misfire of motion. but it wasn’t. “        lobby after shift,        ” she repeated, like she was trying on the shape of it. the idea. the risk. “        just… don’t expect me to be nice. i’m off-duty after ten pm and roughly seventy-five percent scotch and worse decisions by then.        ” a breath. a pause. then, softer— realer: “        but i won’t flake. not this time.        ”

and that was her cue to go. because staying too long in one place — especially with him — had a way of making her feel like she might start coming apart at the seams. like if she let herself settle, she might vanish. still, just before the hallway curved and took her with it, she looked back. eyes finding his like a lighthouse might find home. “        i’m not scary, clark,        ” she said, voice low, but steady. “        i’m just… still figuring out why you don’t run when everyone else does.        ”

[oncalls]

silence was a rare gift for someone like alex, a reprieve from a world that got too loud. it started when he was just a kid himself, but had to be the man of the house. for his mother. for his his brother and his sister. his main priority was always finding somewhere quiet for them to hide when his father was . . . his father. alex wanted to hide with them, but sometimes it was better to let his father take out his anger on him, get it out of his system so that it would be over. so the family could stop hiding. and the house would be quiet again. but it was never quiet for long. and it was never quiet enough for alex. he had never quite learned how to sit in silence by himself, but he welcomed the quiet with izzie. with meredith. with cristina. not the family he was born into, but the family he chose.

seconds could have passed like that— minutes, hours, days, weeks. alex didn't know how long he sat there next to izzie, body folded in an almost unnatural way that would have made his spine hurt if he stayed like that too long. maybe months hadn't passed, but several minutes had. they hadn't even greeted each other when they found each other at m.a.g.i.c.'s spot. they just took their respective places on the gurney, not touching and not talking. just existing in the same space, finding solace in the same silence, breathing in the same air. until the silence got too loud and izzie broke it. there was something different about her that he hadn't figured out yet. like that light he knew and had learned how to love was dimming and he didn't know why. her hands were trembling and he wanted to reach out and take one of them, squeeze it and remind her that he was there. he was there, and he wasn't going anywhere. even if she tried to push him away.

there was a haunted look in her gaze now. when he looked into her eyes, he didn't see his. he smiled back and it was the smile he saved just for her. you know, she said, but he didn't know. he had no idea where she was going with this. they hadn't seen much of each other all day, both busy with their own jobs in their own wings of the hospital, dancing around each other without ever colliding the way they used to. he missed a simpler time when he could just curl his fingers around her wrist and pull her into an on call room even if it was just for a kiss. a whisper of a breath against her lips that said hi without saying anything at all. too much time had passed, weathering them both in the storm that was life.

"you saved me." that wasn't what she meant and he knew that. she wasn't fishing for some type of praise or thank you. but he felt the need to say those three words anyway. because they were truer than anything else he could have saved. @izstevns saved him. she brought him back to life when he felt like he was so far lost in the dark there he would never see the light. she was his light. even now when that light was dim. he finally took her hand, squeezing it before he slid closer to her, leaving no space between his side and hers, like he couldn't tell where he ended and she started. like they were one single being. he ducked his head down and kissed her shoulder as he settled close to her. "you saved me," he repeated those words like a broken record. "—but you can't save everyone. and you're not doing yourself any favors by pretending like you can," he reminded her solemnly.

[izstevns]

she didn’t mean to flinch. but she did. just a fraction. a breath caught between reflex and regret. not because she didn’t want him to touch her— but because she did. because wanting, these days, felt dangerous. like leaning too far off the edge of something she wasn’t sure she could climb back from. it had been days — maybe longer — since anyone had really seen her. not as a resident, not as a checklist in a coat with a pen behind her ear. but as izzie. just… izzie. skin and sleep deprivation. fear, and secondhand scrubs, and the kind of loneliness that makes you forget what warmth feels like until someone gives it back to you. his hand found hers. and even then, even with that small miracle of contact, she still felt cold somewhere inside her bones. then he said it. words soft as breath on cold glass: you saved me. once. then again. like if he said it enough, it might seal something shut inside her. patch the cracks. mend the fracture.

it didn’t. if anything, it split her wider. her fingers curled around his— not out of panic, not out of need. just presence. a quiet kind of i’m-here-too. a sentence made of skin. she let him lean in, shoulder pressed steady to hers. let his breath ghost over the slope of her collarbone, saying all the things his voice didn’t know how to. you’re not alone. i’m right here. she closed her eyes. just for a second. just long enough to imagine what it might feel like to believe that. completely. honestly. without the static of doubt or the quiet panic pulsing in her bloodstream. because the truth was, she was already halfway gone. her body had started betraying her before her brain could catch up— cells slipping sideways, symptoms whispering things she wasn’t ready to name. and still. she didn’t tell him. she swallowed around it— the confession, the scream, the please stay that lived just under her tongue. instead, she leaned in, letting her cheek brush his temple, light as breath. like gravity was trying to hold her in place for once. like maybe if she stayed very still, the ache wouldn’t crack her open.

“        i don’t want to save everyone,        ” she whispered. a lie, dressed up as mercy. “        i just… i don’t want to be the reason someone isn’t saved.        ” her voice broke on the edge of the sentence, like it knew better than she did. like even her words had limits now. she tried to keep it together, but her body had its own plans: a tremor in her breath, a shimmer at the edge of her vision. she didn’t look at him. she couldn’t. because if she did— if she let herself fall into the warmth of his eyes, or the steadiness in his jaw, or the way he always seemed to show up right before she completely collapsed— she might tell him everything. the blood tests. the dizzy spells. the quiet terror that sang her to sleep. so instead, she leaned in just a little harder. let his shoulder take her weight. let it mean something.

“        you ever get the feeling,        ” she murmured, “        that your body knows something before your brain does?        ” a pause. one heartbeat. then another. “        like something’s coming. or it’s already here.        ” she blinked slowly, like she was moving underwater. reached for the cooling coffee beside her just to give her hands something to do. it tasted bitter. hollow. like pennies and burned time. she put it back down. the hallway around them felt too still. no pagers. no footsteps. no noise to break the spell of it. just her and him and the hum of a moment too fragile to name. “        i think i’m scared,        ” she said. barely above a whisper. like the fear might break if it came out too loud. and somewhere deep inside her chest, something coiled tighter. not yet. not yet. not yet.

[drmontgomery-aa]

ــــــــــﮩ٨ـ⠀ ⠀ @izstevns,⠀ ⠀ * i worship you, do you know that?

how foreign and familiar all at once.⠀ ⠀ addison blinks.⠀ ⠀ once.⠀ ⠀ twice.⠀ ⠀ a single lock of crimson hair brushes against mascaraed lashes as she shifts her gaze to izzie’s face.⠀ ⠀ noting the tiredness behind her eyes, the posture she holds straight after being on call, the fight she gives day after day.⠀ ⠀ resilience, grit, goodness.⠀ ⠀ she's the best addison's seen in years.

and yet the words land deep in her lungs.⠀ ⠀ i worship you.⠀ ⠀ not new, not exactly.⠀ ⠀ she knows compliments like the back of her hand;⠀ ⠀ breathless interns fumbling through flattery, men in tailored suits sending orchids with handwritten notes.⠀ ⠀ she's addison montgomery.⠀ ⠀ she was the girl who always got the solo, the surgical spot, the man of her dreams, the life she always wanted.⠀ ⠀ but that addison didn't implode an eleven-year marriage.⠀ ⠀ that addison wasn't a betrayer.⠀ ⠀ that addison didn't fail.⠀ ⠀ she felt further away now.⠀ ⠀ untouchable.⠀ ⠀ this version, this addison montgomery shepherd, is desperate, unwelcome.⠀ ⠀ the one still clawing to rebuild something long gone cold with derek, the one holding an empire of medicine in her palms while resoundingly exiled in her own marriage;⠀ ⠀ the one filled with shame.⠀ ⠀ she wasn’t sure if worship fit anymore.

is she still worthy of worship?⠀ ⠀ was she ever?

she swallows the thought, lets it settle somewhere in her bones.⠀ ⠀ her entire life might be shattering.⠀ ⠀ the future she envisioned with derek shot to flames.⠀ ⠀ but one thing she knows, she's always known, is that she will never fail this job.⠀ ⠀ everything else can crumble, but her dedication?⠀ ⠀ her brilliance?⠀ ⠀ her commitment to being the best, to saving lives?⠀ ⠀ that's still worthy of admiration.

so she smiles.⠀ ⠀ leans in just slightly.⠀ ⠀ lets the words slip past her burgundy lips like a reflex honed by years of mastering impossible things.⠀ ⠀ ❛ that makes one of us, dr. stevens. ❜

❛ and i see it in you too.⠀ ⠀ if you really want it, the specialty, the brilliance, all of it, you can have it.⠀ ⠀ i believe that.⠀ ⠀ but it won’t love you back.⠀ ⠀ not the way you want it to.⠀ ⠀ it never does. ❜

[izstevns]

there it is again— that thing addison does. that quiet, glinting kind of honesty that doesn’t hit like a punch, but more like a paper cut. small. harmless. until hours later, when it’s still stinging, and you realize it’s been bleeding the whole time. izzie feels it now. right there, under her ribs. a slow, steady ache blooming like something alive. she’s standing in the hallway with her scrubs wrinkled beyond saving, sneakers damp from some mystery fluid in the nicu that she didn’t have the time — or maybe the emotional aptitude — to care about. her brain is cooked from too many charts, too many alarms, and the barely-there caffeine of a forgotten cup of hospital coffee she found behind the resident lounge microwave.

but addison’s words cut through all of that. it won’t love you back. not the way you want it to. and god, doesn’t that feel familiar? wanting something so deeply it makes your chest hurt. pouring yourself into it like it’s a vessel that’ll give something back. time. sleep. sanity. love. only to be met with… nothing. izzie remembers that kind of wanting. sixteen years old, hands shaking as she signed her name to something she barely understood. hope, guilt, and some impossible kind of love warring in her chest. the nurse’s hand had been gentle. the moment hadn’t. nobody ever tells you that love can look like letting go. like an ache that never softens. that sometimes the bravest thing you can do is give up something you’d die to keep.

but addison sees her. that’s the part that gets her every time. not the praise. not even the rare flashes of approval. it’s the seeing. like izzie is already someone. not a tired intern, not a mistake in motion. just… a woman. a surgeon. a human being trying really, really hard. she shifts the chart in her hand, like holding something might keep her from unraveling. “        i don’t need it to love me back,        ” she says, softer now. like the truth is something fragile between them. “        i just need to know it’s worth it. that i’m not wasting… me. that this thing we do — this life — matters.        ” when she looks at addison again, she really looks. past the flawless lipstick, the perfect bone structure, the carefully constructed calm. she sees it. the grief. the version of herself tucked into addison like a secret nobody talks about.

and izzie knows that grief. she’s built her whole life around it. “        you make it feel like it does,        ” she says. “        matter. when i’m on your service. when i’m learning from you. even when you’re terrifying.        ” a breath of a smile pulls at her mouth, half-hearted and entirely real. “     especially when you’re terrifying.        ” she lets out a low laugh, like maybe it’s okay to find a little light in the wreckage. like maybe that’s part of surviving this, too. “        so if this thing’s gonna break me,        ” she says, “        i want to be all in. wrecked for the right reasons. with the right teacher.        ”

[izstevns]

i'm a pretty girl. i'm not being arrogant, it's just... it's just kind of a fact. for a long time, i made a career from my looks, so i get it... i'm a pretty girl. and not in a from "a certain angle" way, in an obvious way. it's the blonde thing and the big boobs thing. big boobs are key to obvious pretty, if you know what i'm saying. that's how men see me. i'm not a smart girl or an interesting girl, i'm a pretty girl. the blonde and the boobs, it confuses guys into thinking that i'm someone else. and i'm used to it. i'm used to them walking away when they realize... but then denny goes and asks me to marry him. he doesn't make me feel like i'm a pretty girl. he makes me feel like... me. i think he might know me. and so if i did cut the lvad wire, and i'm not saying that i did, but if i did... then, no, i don't feel guilty. and i know that i should, and i would if it were anybody else, but i can't feel anything but happy.

[fyeahtv]

This is my daughter. In the picture, she’s 6, but she’s 11 now. She lived in Santa Barbara, but they moved. I don’t know where. But I know her name is Hannah. And she likes pigs. She collects them, like figurines or stuffed animals, you know? I think it’s because her mom read her “Charlotte’s Web”. Look, I know that where we come from, this kind of thing doesn’t get talked about. But I wanted you to know that there’s more than one way to be a good mother. I wanted better for her than I could do at 16.

GREYS ANATOMY (2005—) | 2.15 “Break On Through”

[izstevns]

under 51, the air clung. thick. greedy. heat like breath on the back of your neck, like something waiting to exhale. it smelled of scorched rubber and rusting regrets— metal bones groaning beneath the weight of too many quiet breakdowns. a space for things that hiss and leak and hold. tools. pipes. people. izzie pressed herself into the corner of it. one boot balanced careless on a box of coiled hoses. arms folded like she might hold herself in. rainwater dripped a rhythm off her jacket, hooked beside her like a ghost. hair damp, storm-struck. neck cold where droplets clung— vertebrae of water, chilling her spine like memory.

jay’s voice shattered across the room, sharp enough to cut steel: i'm not sad. i'm pissed off. she didn’t blink. just tilted, soft, a shift in weight like something listening. watched him move — back and forth, back and forth — a metronome of fury. “        i know,        ” she murmured, like the words weren’t meant to interrupt. soft. still. “        you always are, when it’s someone you know.        ” a breath caught on the cusp of finishing. she didn’t let it go. it wasn’t her call. not really. pd territory. but chaos doesn’t care for maps. and she’d been close when the sirens rang too late, when the life drained out too fast, when blood pooled too wide. she hadn’t known the name. jay had. and the look on his face hadn’t been badge-polished— it had cracked, hairline fissures exposing something raw and human.

he paced. she let him. and then — without asking — she moved. workbench. two old mugs. coffee, tepid and bitter, from a dented steel pot that had probably outlived gods. no cream. no sweetness. just heat. just something to hold. she offered him one. kept the other like it might keep her here. grounded. tethered. “        you know what no one says?        ” quiet. not tentative. just real. “        when someone dies, it doesn’t always come as grief. sometimes it’s this thing— this crawling heat in your ribs. not mourning. just… this rage. like if you smash something hard enough, the universe might finally look you in the eye.        ”

she leaned back. let herself sag. like her spine remembered softness now that no one else was watching. grease beneath her nails. shirt torn at the seam. tired. in the way people get when they stop pretending they’re not. “        i’ve been where you are.        ” the words were a bruise, thumb-pressed and familiar. “        you think staying angry means you’re in control. but it’s not that. not really. it’s just what’s left when you’ve got nothing else but fists and the sound of your own heart breaking in the back of your throat.      ” her fingers tapped the ceramic. one. two. a heartbeat, dislocated.

“        you don’t have to talk.        ” beat. “        but don’t tell me it doesn’t matter.        ” she meant it. god, she meant it. and maybe he knew. maybe that’s why he was still here. still storming inside— but breathing. maybe just a little deeper now. above them, the rain punched metal. the sky poured out whatever it couldn’t carry anymore. and in the thick-breathed heat of the boiler room — where silence wasn’t empty, just tired — izzie didn’t fix anything. she just stayed. because sometimes staying is the only thing left when someone else is burning, and all you can do is stand in the smoke. / @x51163 .

[izstevns]

izzie didn’t answer. not right away. not yet. she stood — still, surgical, statue-like — in the blue-lit shrine of the scrub room, fingers clawed white around the cold lip of steel. stainless. sterile. sanctified. above her, the lights buzzed a low requiem. the vent whispered its secrets. shoes scuffed tile in the distance, ghosts in lab coats. the hospital exhaled. and inhaled. exhaled. and inhaled. never asleep. just pretending. addison’s words hovered in the air like breath in winter. not cruel. not sharp. just… scalpel-honest. that clean slice of truth you don’t feel until the blood follows.

doing something good helps with the self-loathing. a sentence dropped like iodine in water — slow-spreading and unignorable. izzie looked up. not at addison. at the glass. at her own reflection. the too-tight cap choking her curls. the eyes ringed in insomnia. the mouth collapsed inward like it had forgotten how to hope. who was that? when did the armor crack? when did the shine go? she used to believe in good. used to wield it like a sword— i want to help people. said it like a spell. a shield. a promise. but promises dissolve in blood.

“        did i tell you,        ” she asked — voice threadbare, thread-thin — “   about the kid from last week?        ” no eye contact. no invitation. just mirror confessional. just talking to her ghost. “        barely eighteen. melanoma. stage four. he wanted to go home. said he was done. said he was ready.        ” pause. breath. “        i wasn’t.        ” she gripped the metal harder. her voice faltered like a flatline. “        i kept pushing. i thought— if i could just explain better, if i could just say it right, he’d listen. he’d live. he’d stay.        ” beat. “        he coded in the elevator.        ” beat. “        didn’t make it to the icu.        ” beat. “        his mother screamed at me.        ” the silence folded in on itself like a shroud. “        she said i stole his last breath. that he died in pain. because of me.        ” and there it was. the confession. the cut. let it bleed. let it breathe. she stood in it. drenched in it. let the ache crawl up her ribs and settle behind her eyes.

“        doing something good,        ” she whispered, barely, “        i don’t even know what that means anymore.        ” her gaze dropped. her palms— red, raw, scrubbed to the edge of penance. she had tried to wash it off. the doubt. the dirt. the trailer park. the lingerie. the look on that man’s face at the register. the shame. she had tried to bleach herself clean with ambition. tried to cauterize the past with purpose. tried to rewrite herself in latin and anatomy and long nights and longer surgeries. but shame doesn’t scrub off. it burrows. her laugh came like glass in a throat. not sound. not joy. just fracture. “        you do something good,        ” she said, “        and maybe it buys you a second. one breath. one heartbeat where you feel almost human again.        ” but the silence always returns. and the pager always screams. and the mistakes pile like charts in the corner.

“        and the self-loathing?        ” she said. “        it waits. quiet. patient. like a page you haven’t answered yet.        ” she looked up, then. at herself. not addison. just the reflection. just the battle-worn echo of a girl who once believed becoming someone else would save her. “        but maybe you’re right,        ” she murmured. “        maybe the answer isn’t fixing everything. maybe it’s just… doing a good thing.        ” one stitch. then another. then another. even if the wound never fully closes. “        i don’t know how to be okay,        ” she said. “        but i can at least try to show up.        ” she let go of the counter, her fingers trembling. but they were open. and maybe— just maybe, that was enough. / @drmontgomery .

[izstevns]

here to tell you all my most controversial opinion... i unironically love the musical episode

[izstevns]

sometimes i just randomly remember that time izzie literally drilled burr holes into someone’s skull with a hardware store drill on a sinking ferry with no sterile field, no or, just instructions over the phone from webber and m.ark s.loan like it was a damn tech support call. and she did it. like. babe was out here doing emergency neurosurgery on a broken apart vessel while meredith was actively drowning somewhere and everyone else was losing their minds. and let’s not forget—she was the first intern to open a chest at bedside, pull out a clot, and manually massage a heart. no resident. no attending. just izzie, pure adrenaline, and some kind of divine surgical rage. she really could’ve been a trauma surgeon. she had that in her. like, you cannot convince me otherwise—she had the instincts, the guts, the sheer audacity. and every time she got thrown into total chaos, she powered through and somehow saved the damn day. i love her so much. justice for i.zzie s.tevens always 💛

[izstevns]

meta: the girl she named sarah. izzie stevens + motherhood + memory + sacrifice

sometimes people forget that izzie stevens was a mother before she ever became a surgeon. before she wore scrubs, before she held hearts in her hands, she held a much smaller one — still beating, still forming — beneath her own ribs. she wasn't a mother in the traditional way, though — not in the cribs and lullabies and scraped knees sort of way — but in the aching, belly-heavy, sneaker-clad-feet-on-diner-floors way. in the naming her baby in secret because she couldn’t stand the name “hannah” even though she smiled when the adoptive parents told her sort of way. she called her sarah in her head. soft. sacred. something to hold onto when the ache hollowed her out.

she was fifteen when she found out she was pregnant. sixteen when she gave birth and placed sarah in someone else’s arms, pretending it was a clean cut and not a wound she’d carry like marrow in her bones. and the thing is — no matter how much she tries to push forward, no matter how much medical school or surgical skill or white coat professionalism she layers on — she still cares. deeply. painfully. she always will. and maybe that’s the part she never says out loud.

because people talk about izzie like she’s naïve. like she’s the sunshine girl with the sparkly laugh and the patients she loves too much. but they forget that she grew up in a trailer park with a mother who read her future instead of her report cards. a mother who drained the money izzie had scraped together for college — waitressing double shifts, saving every tip, folding dollar bills like prayers — on psychics and promises. so when people roll their eyes at her optimism, they don’t understand that hope is something she earned. something she fought for. something she chose.

and when she started modeling at eighteen, it wasn’t vanity. it was warfare. it was her looking the world dead in the eye and saying “        i won't be nothing.        ” not after sarah. not after standing barefoot in that adoption agency lobby. not after she watched them drive away. she chose to become someone. for sarah. for the girl she named but never got to raise.

years later, when hannah came to seattle grace needing help, needing her — leukemia, soft cheeks, too many pig trinkets to count — izzie didn’t want to do it. not at first. the thought of opening that scar again made her sick to her stomach. and she told herself she wouldn’t be able to help. that she’d only be a partial match. it wouldn’t be enough. but then she saw the way her adoptive parents looked at her, the way they said please without saying it at all, and she thought about what it meant to be a mother, even in this distant, fractured way. and she said yes. she donated the bone marrow. and afterward, she asked to see her.

they said hannah was tired. they said no. and izzie nodded and smiled and went to the window instead. she stood behind the glass and watched her daughter — her sarah, their hannah — sleep under sterile hospital lights, a pig plush tucked under her arm. and something in izzie broke and something in her healed, and she hasn’t figured out which it was, even now.

she sometimes wonders if hannah’s mother read her charlotte’s web. if she changed the words when she got to the sad parts. if she cried. if hannah cried. if she held her hand when she was scared. she likes to think so. she needs to think so.

because she doesn’t regret her choice. but she carries it. quietly. fiercely. always. and maybe that’s the thing about izzie stevens. people say she’s soft. but the truth is— she bleeds and she builds anyway. she loses and still loves. she gives things away — her heart, her marrow, her childhood — and calls it grace. and she never stopped loving her daughter. not even for one second.

[notmorbid]

jessica jones: season 1 [2/2].

dialogue prompts from the first season of marvel's jessica jones.

what are you doing in here with all the lights off?

the lights are off to suggest no one is here. but you couldn't take a hint.

i was just leaving. you didn't kick me out. i left.

got a dollar?

do you know what shame feels like? real shame?

what you need are electrolytes. something solid in your stomach.

i don't want you in this. i can't protect you anymore.

i only have until 8 to tie up loose ends.

don't talk.

i got a bullshit meter the size of west texas.

glad the demons didn't get the better of you.

you're better than that. i can always tell.

the right people are gonna pay for what's been done.

i don't expect you to forgive me.

you know what happens when you burn a bridge? you gotta learn to swim, or fly.

you probably don't deserve this.

you don't get credit for doing the right thing for the wrong reasons.

you need a better tagline.

you can't freak out. promise.

i hate goodbyes. i've always just disappeared.

no one else will die because of me.

i'm taking myself out of the equation.

i'm still not the hero that you wanted me to be.

you are exactly the hero i wanted you to be.

your judgment is severely impaired.

don't you know it's rude to stare at people?

how do i know this is not like last time?

everyone's disappearing.

i'm tired of missing you.

so what exactly are you hoping is going to happen here?

not a monster. the word i'd use is 'bastard'.

you were a bastard to everyone else, but you were kind to me.

everyone wants to be the hero, right?

there's us and there's them, and that's okay.

stay out of it. stay safe.

do your actions ever haunt you?

you never talk to me about _____. why is that?

not a day goes by that i don't regret not warning you.

you can stay here or you can be a chickenshit.

i thought you'd left.

are you... you?

i'm not the best one for the job, but i'm the only one.

you could walk away and get on with your life.

there are worse things than death.

you want to build trust? start by admitting what you did.

i will kill you if you die in my car.

you are in no position to ask me to do anything.

i don't like what i see when you're around.

i didn't expect to hear from you again, but i can see why you called.

all that power, and you're too afraid to use it.

all you ever gave me was shame. and remorse. and pain.

what if you and i walked out of here right now?

no one gets under a person's skin like their parents.

the real world is not about happy endings. it's about taking what you have, and fighting like hell to keep it.

don't give me that look.

i crossed a big line to save you from yourself.

help those people. that's your superpower.

i wish i had a 'mother of the year' award so i could bludgeon you with it.

how do you avenge death by a thousand cuts?

your optimism is getting in the way.

it's not optimism, it's survival.

if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.

now that i understand your bullshit, it's all that i see when i look at you.

i feel your sadness, but where is your rage?

it won't happen again because you're leaving.

you can't grow a conscience. there's no pill for that.

after 24 hours without sleep, your short-term memory goes to hell.

assholes are a nuisance. i deal with them every day. you were violent and scary.

nothing says thank you like a rare steak and some cheesecake.

you're strong, but even you can break.

humanity sucks and they don't deserve saving.

still looking out for me, huh?

i appreciate the concern, but i'm not coming back.

well, what doesn't kill us makes us stranger.

you promised not to save me.

just had to be a hero, didn't you?

stop group-texting your location to a bunch of strangers.

it's just every man for himself, then, huh?

no one can help anyone.

it's not the kind of thing people think to ask.

you listen to my show?

i don't need your approval.

people still look up to you.

you can help yourself to... well, there's nothing.

i think you're someone who's trying to survive.

you keep hidden what you need to hide. i don't need to know what that is.

don't talk about me in the third person. i'm standing right in front of you.

they say that talking about a trauma, that it helps. that and jogging: two things that make me feel like crap.

i'll say it every day for as long as you need to hear it.

it's not home for me anymore.

when this is over, i hope you finally allow yourself some happiness.

if there's a severed body part of any kind in that box, i'm going to be very upset.

i hope they have free express shipping in heaven.

breaking and entering. my specialty.

guilt makes people do stupid shit.

i want everything to be my fault, good or bad. means i have some control.

i usually like a little more romancing.

you're the first person i ever pictured a future with.

you make the rest of us look like selfish pricks.

it's like you have this iron will. hold onto it for me, will you?

doing something good helps with the self-loathing. trust me.

[izstevns]

i thought i was a surgeon but i'm not 😭

[babyjapril]

♡Happy Izzie Stevens♡

[sm4llville-a]

so much for sincerity. this whole honesty of the heart policy he's got won't stop backfiring on him. a lesser man would think it was time for a change of pace, but clark kent was not in such a category. with so much to hide, he took the chances to be perfectly honest whenever he could . . . even if it resulted in his colleague basically slapping away the olive branch he tries to offer her. " connect. " he repeats, the single word an explanation in itself. " it can happen sometimes, i hear. very low risk, too. " a little bite to the mouth that the corn feeds, coupled with a smirk that paints his teasing for what it is. a smirk that remains even at the digs against him —  he enjoys it more than she knows. smallville isn't as slow paced as one may think. it breeds sharp tongues, and clark's grown right in the middle of that crop. " do you log the activities of everyone around here, or is it just me? gotta know if i should feel flattered or not. " a beat. " and strange as it may sound to you, izzie-from-seattle, emotional depth has gotten to smallville. it's only high speed internet we're behind on. "

for a moment, he steps back into silence. he watches her carefully, curiosity sparking behind the blue of his eyes. clark pulls away around here, it's what he has to do. she's not the first to notice it, but the first to throw it back at him. her jab is precise. hits him square on the chest, knocks him down a peg or two. but it isn't enough to knock him out —  he's still very much in the ring. always ready to get up, never willing to give up. " so could you. " he tells her softly, quietly. not an accusation, but almost an invitation. something else they shared in common. connection. another thing they had is what he hears in her tone: IZZIE HAS SCARS, SHE'S GOTTEN BURNED. clark's also walked through that fire, he suspects it's what's led them both here, now.

the corner of his mouth pulls into a smirk. " i've got thick skin, high alcohol tolerance and already got an encyclopedic knowledge of stevie nicks. " most those things were true. he would have to do some consulting on the last, despite his reverence for rumors. " like i said, low risk. unless you pull out a knife on me after the drinks we will get post-shift today, but you don't seem like that type. " a beat. " you'd definitely poison me. "

[izstevns]

she didn’t blink. not right away. just stared— sharp, suspicious, still. like she was waiting for the punchline, for the curtain to drop on whatever earnest, corn-fed hallucination had just wandered into her hospital and said something that sounded too much like sincerity. ( she’d seen casseroles at funerals, mastered the art of weather-based small talk, been smiled at by strangers like it meant something. truthfully, very little about kansas surprised her now. ) but then her mouth — traitor thing — twitched sideways. smirk. skepticism. the kind of smile that chews its nails and raises one eyebrow anyway. “        well,        ” she said slowly, thoughtfully, like the word itself was on trial, “        guess that solves the great midwest mystery— leave a kansas boy alone with his feelings long enough and he’ll grow teeth.        ” she moved. not much. just enough. a body uncoiling from the countertop with the soft creak of a metaphor. stepped out of the fluorescent cage and into the softer dark— a rebellion in sneakers and sarcasm. arms up. animated. expressive. alive. that dangerous kind of alive. the kind that makes words sharper and ponytails sway like punctuation marks.

“        let me get this straight. you’re keeping track of who’s logging your activities, but you’re not clocking the fact that you’ve got a tell every time you’re about to ghost mid-conversation? come on, kent. you get this look—        ” theatrics now. an impersonation as sacrament. as accusation. her mouth shaped him into a punchline. “        ‘oh no, i feel a feeling, better vanish before anyone thinks i’m human.’        ” grin like a blade turned friendly. “        your disappearing act could win awards. vegas would love you.        ” and still— she hadn’t left. still hadn’t. there was gravity in that. a kind of sacred inertia. so could you. the words stuck. lodged somewhere behind her ribs. not loud. not bright. just true. she didn’t like true things. not on wednesdays. not when she was wearing scrubs and carrying the ghosts of other people’s traumas in her coat pocket. and yet. she hadn’t run. not yet.

“        oh, is that how this works? you roll in here with your corn-fed confidence and trauma-surgeon voodoo, and i’m supposed to believe you’ve got the emotional endurance to survive me and hospital scotch?        ” a pause. the dangerous kind. the kind that breathes in. smiles that show teeth but not just teeth— something deeper. something buried. “        stevie nicks is the easy part. she tells you how it ends. heartbreak, witchcraft, regret. but me? i don’t give spoilers.        ” and now she was closer. not touching. not distant. just suspended in orbit— burning slowly, daring herself to stay. “        but sure, clark,        ” she said lightly, one brow arched, voice dipped in honey and warning, “        drinks after shift. i won’t poison you.        ” a beat. a blink. a trap that might be a test. “        …unless you talk over the bridge in landslide. then it’s fair game.        ” ( and somewhere in that impossible space between yes and no, between run and reach, the story began anyway. )

[rpmemesource]

GREY’S ANATOMY SENTENCE STARTERS.

SEASON FIVE, EPISODE TWENTY.

change pronouns as necessary.

“supporting someone and respecting someone aren’t the same thing.”

“i feel good, i feel fine.”

“i feel like this dress is giving me a mammogram.”

“you gotta stop doing that, it’s not funny!”

“i see you’ve invited more people to witness my humiliation.”

“all i need is plane fare then we’ll be on our way.”

“her face is breaking out, her ass is humongous.”

“is my ass really that —?”

“don’t talk to me about holding grudges.”

“i’ll get over mine when you get over yours.”

“he may not live!”

“great, you lost him!”

“i may be irresponsible and untrustworthy out there, but not in here.”

“you know, i was going to apologize for decking you because i felt bad but —”

“to you, i’m always going to be the charity case.”

“the hairier things get, the calmer you get.”

“you don’t have children, do you?”

“i don’t know what to do!”

“she needs her daddy for this part.”

“just you and me.”

“just relax, we’ll be there soon.”

“we’re gonna have so much fun.”

“don’t.”

“don’t try to make me out better than i am.”

“i thought it would be fun… or funny.”

“i woke up this morning and thought i could be the same person, but i’m not.”

“what happened?”

“he gave me an ultimatum.”

“i cut him off.”

“i mean, if he can’t accept me for who i am —”

“are you okay?”

“no, i mean… yeah?”

“i knew i wasn’t together.”

“i knew i was no good for anyone.”

“i can’t forgive myself for that.”

“that is what i feel today: shame.”

“he’ll be fine.”

“he saved your husband’s life.”

“you know, that’s the first ever compliment you’ve given me.”

“is there anything else you need from me before i go?”

“i’m just, i’m just tired.”

“are you going to tell your husband?”

“it’s more than just cutting.”

“we have to believe defeat is not an option.”

“you’re going to make a beautiful bride.”

“just did what i had to do.”

“i’m not like you, i’m not good under pressure.”

“she’s really sick.”

“so… i guess a big wedding won’t be so bad.”

“you’re my sister, _____. you’re in the wedding.”

“you can stop eating now.”

“oh, thank god.”