Disclaimer: Everything Grey's Anatomy related belongs to Shonda Rhimes and ABC. These characters do not belong to me. (Though if they did, they would probably be a lot happier.)

The Sun From Both Sides

"To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides." - David Viscott

-Chapter Six-

"George."

The whisper was a warm breath in his ear, and George stirred, a lazy smile spreading across his face.

He opened his eyes, and Izzie was there, leaning over him in the dark. She was illuminated only by moonlight, her eyes bright in the reflected glow, and on her lips was that smile, the one he had been dreaming about. She was beautiful, and George felt something rise up within his chest, an awed sort of happiness that had him reaching up to place a reverent hand on her face. His thumb stroked a gentle line across her cheekbone, and Izzie closed her eyes, leaning into the touch. He couldn't resist then, drawing her down into a tender kiss. Her warm, willing lips parted against his, and it was everything he remembered and more.

"Izzie," he murmured against her lips, and she smiled again, bringing one leg up and over to straddle him. He gasped as he realized that she was naked, that he could feel every curve of her body against his.

"Like that?" she whispered, and he could only respond by pulling her back down into another passionate kiss. The ends of her long, pale hair brushed against his chest, and George slid his hands into it, holding it back out of her face.

Izzie broke the kiss, and straightened, shifting back against him teasingly just there. She grinned when he moaned, and started to grind her hips in a rhythm that had him chanting her name like a prayer. "Izzie, Izzie, Izzie..."

He felt her reach down to pull him out of his boxers, and then she lifted herself on and down and he was suddenly sinking into a warm, wet heat that was the best thing he had ever felt. His hands grasped her hips as she found a new rhythm, and now she was panting in pleasure, too, as she rode him.

He tried to keep his eyes open, to watch her as she moved, an unearthly silhouette in the moonlight, but it was all too good, and his eyes shuttered, head tilting back against his pillow...

A droplet of something warm and wet fell onto his chest, followed by another, and another. Confused, George opened his eyes. Izzie was staring down at him, tears falling from her eyes.

"Izzie," he said anxiously, reaching up to cup both damp cheeks in his hands, "what's wrong?"

"George," she whispered, sounding anguished. "Why?"

And it wasn't Izzie's voice at all anymore- it was Callie's. George tried to comfort her, but her sobs only grew louder, and the tears kept pouring down her face until-

CRASH.

He woke with a start, panting as he stared up at the ceiling, aroused and horrified. Another crash of thunder sounded, and George realized that must have been what had woken him. There was rain pouring in from his open window, and he put a hand to his chest, felt the dampness there that he had not imagined.

He groaned, and rubbed his eyes. His mind was cruel, he thought, to turn such a wonderful dream into a nightmare. He had already cheated on Callie in reality- now he was doing it in his dreams, as well? He really was a horrible person. And to make matters worse, he was still hard.

George turned his head slightly to glance at the clock on his bedside table: 9:10 a.m., it read. He might as well get up. Wincing slightly, George climbed out of bed. There was a wet, sticky patch on his boxers that made him grimace, and he quickly exchanged them for a clean pair, carefully pulling his jeans from yesterday on over top.

His walk to the bathroom was uncomfortable one, and that managed to distract him enough that he didn't register the sound of the shower running until it was too late. He opened the door, and froze.

And this just wasn't fair, because Izzie was in the shower, wet, and naked, and just a shadowed glass pane away. He could see the outline of her figure, as she moved beneath the spray, and he felt himself harden all over again.

Izzie must have felt the cool air drifting in from the open door, because she called out, tentatively, "George?"

And that shocked him back to life. "Uh, sorry," he said, mortified, and bolted from the room, shutting the door tightly behind him.

He leaned back against it, and sighed, frustrated. Why was this so difficult? He had lived with Izzie before, had shared a bathroom with her, even. He had spent many mornings with her as she pranced around in her underwear, teasing and taunting and sharing his toothbrush. But here, now, the situation was not as innocent as it had been when he'd lived at Meredith's. He and Izzie had not been housemates for a while, certainly not since they'd slept together, and George wasn't used to seeing her away from the hospital.

It occurred to him then that he was in so, so much trouble. Because Izzie was probably the most attractive creature on the planet, and she was here- with him- and definitely nowhere near a hospital.

And the truth was, George didn't know how much longer he could keep fighting this thing between them. He didn't even know if he wanted to.

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The rain continued to fall through the morning, and by early afternoon, both George and Izzie were going a little out of their minds. The concept of vacation was completely foreign to them after their hectic year at Seattle Grace, and they were at a loss for what to do, unused to having so much free time on their hands.

They'd trailed after Mrs. O'Malley for a while, like two bored children whose summer vacation had lost its novelty, doing chores, and helping her out around the house, until she'd finally shooed them away, claiming she wanted to catch up on some reading.

So they'd gone to the kitchen instead, and made macaroni and cheese for lunch, which had given George some unfortunate flashbacks of his years as a college undergrad. When he'd mentioned that to Izzie, it had led to a discussion about their college experiences, and they'd compared classes and shared stories until they'd finally run out of words.

Now they sat at the kitchen table, picking at the remains of their dessert, the cake they'd made yesterday. The rain fell steadily outside the window, a dreary but appropriate soundtrack to their boredom.

George sighed, wondering when they'd forgotten how to function outside the walls of a hospital. "We could play a game," he suggested.

Izzie raised her head from where it had been resting in her crossed arms on the table. "A game?" she asked. "I'm intrigued. What kind of game?"

"Come on," George said, pushing back his chair, and leading her toward the stairs that would take them down into the basement. "My mom kept all our old board games. I think she's been holding out for grandchildren."

Izzie made a small, involuntary noise, and he turned to glance back at her. "What?"

She shook her head. "Nothing. Never mind."

George looked at her doubtfully, but didn't press the issue.

At the bottom of the stairs there was a door leading into a small closet, and he headed toward it. The door creaked with disuse as he opened it, reaching blindly inside for the string he knew was there. He found it, and pulled, and a single, bright bulb illuminated the small space before them, revealing that the closet was filled top to bottom with one big shelf covered in board games.

"Wow," Izzie said. "That's a lot of games."

George shrugged. "Well, my parents had three boys to keep entertained." He reached in and pulled out a dust-covered box. "Monopoly?"

Izzie raised an eyebrow. "With two people?" she asked skeptically.

"Yeah, maybe not." He slid the game back onto the shelf. The next box he grabbed contained Scrabble, and George quickly shoved it to the back of the closet, out of sight. He picked up a smaller, more colourful box instead, holding it up for Izzie's inspection. "Candy Land?" he offered.

"Seriously, George?"

He grinned. "And here I thought you had a sweet tooth." He didn't have to turn around to know she was rolling her eyes.

He rifled through a few more games, before Izzie stopped him.

"Wait," she said, placing a hand on his arm. "Is that... Operation?" She sounded excited.

"Uh... no," George said slowly, using his body to try to block her view of the shelf. "No it is not."

But it was too late. "Come on, George," Izzie pleaded. "I've always wanted to play that game."

"It's so annoying though," he protested half-heartedly, "and loud and stupid. And why would you want to operate on a fake person, anyway? It's totally lame."

"Who are you, Cristina?" she asked.

"It's lame," he repeated. "And did I mention the loud and stupid?"

Izzie stuck out her lower lip. "Please?"

And how could he resist her when she looked at him like that, all wide-eyed and earnest? He couldn't, and she knew it.

George sighed. "Fine," he said grudgingly, and Izzie clapped her hands as he brought out the game.

"You're the best, George!" she told him, and George rolled his eyes, though he couldn't help the smile that stole across his face.

They took the box upstairs to the living room and settled down onto the carpet. The game itself was fairly uncomplicated, and it didn't take them long to get into it.

Izzie, who could be as competitive as any other surgeon when she chose to be, was serious about the game, focusing hard to cure their 'patient' of his ailments. George, on the other hand, had played Operation enough times to know it was futile to even hope he'd do well at it. Instead, he leaned back against the couch and allowed himself the guilty pleasure of watching Izzie.

She was so beautiful, he reflected, that it hurt to look at her sometimes, left his head pounding and his heart aching from wanting her. He'd always wanted Izzie: he knew that now. And he was both amazed and terrified by the fact that she claimed to want him back.

He still didn't know what to think about that, or even if it was really true. When she had told him in the scrub room that she didn't have feelings for him, it had been painful, but so easy to believe. Her confession in the locker room, however, was more difficult to trust. George wasn't supposed to get the girl, especially not a girl like Izzie.

He watched her now, as she concentrated on the game. She'd let her hair dry naturally and the damp air had made it curl into soft ringlets that fell across her face as she leaned over the game board. George wanted nothing more in that moment than to reach out and slide his fingers into it, like he had in his dream.

But he didn't have the right, had given up the right when he'd married another woman, and now Izzie was even farther out of his league than before. So he'd have to content himself with looking.

And, really, that wasn't so bad. In fact, it was rather amusing at the moment, watching her start and curse every time she made the game's buzzer go off.

"How is it possible," Izzie asked, the funny bone piece slipping from her grasp, "that we're so terrible at this game? We're actual surgeons!" The buzzer went off again as the metal tweezers she held bumped the side of the cavity, and Izzie sat back in disgust. "Oh, my god, I hate this game!"

"I tried to warn you," George said, biting his lip to hold back his laughter.

Sensing his amusement, Izzie shot him a glare. "Shut up," she said. "It's your turn."

George grinned, and reached for a card. Butterflies in the stomach- how timely.

Predictably, he failed miserably at extracting the little white piece, and was soon handing the tweezers back over to Izzie, asking, "Did you want to have another go? Or should I go get Candy Land?"

Izzie stuck her tongue out at him, and swiped a card from the pile between them.

"Your maturity astounds," George told her. "What'd you get?"

Izzie met his eyes. "A broken heart."

"Oh," he said stupidly.

She looked away then, and there was quiet as she tried gamely to pull the piece from the cavity. Then the buzzer shrieked, and Izzie threw her hands up in the air.

"That's it!" she exclaimed. "I give up! Cavity Guy is just going to have to live with all his spare ribs and Charley horses."

"Sounds good to me," George muttered, flopping back onto the rug. "Did you want to pick another game?"

"Not really," Izzie muttered, drawing her knees up to her chest. She rested her chin on them, and tilted her head, considering. "Do you have any movies?" she asked.

George smiled. "Let's go find out."

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They'd gotten through Raiders of the Lost Ark without incident, but George's stomach started growling halfway into Temple of Doom.

Izzie glanced up at him from her prone position on the floor in front of the couch. "Snack time?" she asked, sounding amused.

George nodded, and reached for the remote to pause the movie. By now, it was dark outside, and the only illumination in the room came from the TV screen. He turned on a nearby lamp, and stood, offering one hand to help Izzie up. She smiled and took it, letting him pull her to her feet.

His mother was still upstairs, preparing notes for a class, so the rest of the floor was just as dark as the living room had been, and George flicked on a few more lights as he and Izzie made their way to the kitchen.

"So what do you feel like eating?"

Izzie shrugged. "I don't know. Nothing heavy."

"We could make popcorn, or something," George suggested.

"Popcorn sounds good," Izzie nodded. "Where do you keep the bags?"

George had a sudden thought. "Let's do stove-popped," he said. "I haven't had it for a while."

"Stove-popped?" Izzie asked, looking at him questioningly.

George stared at her. "You've never had stove-popped corn before?"

"No..."

"Then that's definitely what we're making," he told her. "You've been missing out."

Izzie looked unconvinced. "That has yet to be proven," she pointed out.

"You'll see," George said, opening a nearby cabinet where he was pleased to find his mother still kept the oil and corn kernels. "Could you grab a pot? The medium one."

Izzie obliged, opening the drawer beneath the stove, while George went to the fridge for some butter.

"Okay," he said, setting everything on the counter, "first, we need to put a bit of oil in the pot, just enough to cover the bottom..."

He continued to talk her through the process. It was a complete role reversal from yesterday, he reflected, as he showed her how to shake the pot over the burner to keep the kernels from burning. Izzie still looked at bit skeptical about the whole thing, until they heard the unmistakable sound of the first few kernels popping, and then she smiled.

"Not long now," he told her.

Eventually, the corn began to pop in earnest, and the noise it made against the metal lid made Izzie laugh, a bubbly, joyful sound that had George grinning.

When it was finished, they dumped the popcorn into a large bowl, and George put a chunk of butter in the still-hot pot to melt for topping.

"The butter is what makes it good," he said, and Izzie nodded in agreement.

After he'd drizzled the butter onto the popcorn, Izzie popped a piece of it in her mouth, and chewed thoughtfully. "Good!" she declared. "Nice work, George."

"Couldn't have done it without my lovely assistant," he said, smiling at her.

Izzie laughed. "Just call me Vanna," she replied, and George chuckled.

It was so easy, being with Izzie, participating in the playful back-and-forth of their banter. He loved it. He loved her. He was in love with Izzie Stevens, he realized, the thought dawning like a clear day after weeks and weeks of rain.

And it was so obvious, so inevitable. It made George think back to the embarrassing moment in the grocery store, when Mrs. Kennedy has mistaken Izzie for his wife. If a total stranger could see the connection between them, what did the people closest to them see?

He had been annoyed at Callie's jealousy, but now it was clear that her fears had been real, that she had seen what he had missed. It made so much sense, because this thing between him and Izzie has never really felt like a mistake- unexpected; yes, shocking; definitely- but never wrong, and that had been the problem from the start. George hadn't meant to sleep with his best friend, but his real mistake had been marrying Callie.

He was in love with Izzie. He just didn't quite know what to do about it.

The thought was still racing through his mind as they settled on couch, bowl of popcorn between them. Izzie must have read something of those thoughts on his face, because she leaned toward him and asked, "Are you all right?"

"Fine," George told her, forcing himself to push his revelation aside. "Just fine."

Izzie nodded, and returned her attention to the television. He followed her lead, and they made fun of Indiana Jones' helpless love-interest until the movie ended, and George got up to put in the third tape.

"This is my favourite of the series," he commented, pulling The Last Crusade from its box.

"I'm still partial to Raiders," Izzie told him.

"But Crusade has Sean Connery in it," George pointed out.

She shrugged. "He's overrated."

George turned to stare at her over his shoulder. "Seriously?" he asked, and she nodded. "Well, no accounting for taste."

Izzie made a face, and tossed a piece of popcorn at him. "Don't even."

George grinned, and pressed the play button. When he returned to the couch, he found that Izzie had moved the almost empty bowl on the floor. He hesitated momentarily, daunted by the idea that there would be nothing between them now, nothing to stop him from leaning over to feel the warmth of her body against his own, and then shook his head, and made himself sit, deciding his impulse control couldn't be that bad.

If Izzie noticed his brief uncertainty, she didn't let on, and they settled peacefully into the movie.

They were three-quarters of the way through before George felt a warm weight on his shoulder. He turned slightly to find that Izzie had fallen asleep, and he sucked in a nervous breath. It wasn't an unfamiliar situation- they had watched dozens of movies together, and there had been other times when she'd fallen asleep against him- but somehow, with everything that had happened, it prickled at his nerves in a new, though not uncomfortable, way.

George reached over to put a gentle hand around her waist, drawing Izzie closer so that she was resting more comfortably against his chest. She shifted a bit in her sleep, but didn't wake, and he smiled fondly, giving in to the by-now familiar urge to stroke a hand over her silky blond hair. It was soft beneath his fingertips, and smelled so clean, and sweet, and Izzie-like, that George couldn't resist leaning down to press a kiss onto the crown of her head.

When he raised his head, his mother was in the entranceway of the room, watching him. He could see her expression in the blue glow from the screen, and it was an odd mixture of puzzlement and affection.

He also could see that she had something to say, and that she wanted to say it in private, so he put a hand on Izzie's shoulder, shaking her gently awake.

"Hey," he murmured. "Iz, wake up."

She lifted her head, blinking sleepily at him. "What time is it?" she asked.

"Time for bed," George's mother said, and Izzie turned, surprised by her presence.

"Oh," she said. "Okay." She sat up, and George felt a little dismayed at the loss of her warmth.

Izzie stood, and headed toward the stairs, but when George didn't follow, she hesitated, looking back at him.

"I'll be up in a minute," he told her, exchanging a glace with his mother. "I just want to talk to my mom for a bit."

Izzie nodded in understanding, and left them be, murmuring her good nights as she ascended that stairs.

"I've always liked that girl," his mother said, as they watched her go.

"Yeah," George said softly, and the affection was obvious in it, even to him.

Mrs. O'Malley looked at her son, a contemplative expression on her face. "She cares about you, you know. That isn't something that should be taken for granted."

George was surprised at her insight, though not by her words, which he knew to be true. "I know," he said.

"I just want you to be happy, Georgie," she told him, coming to sit down next to him on the couch.

"I know," George repeated softly.

"You're not happy. Or at least," she said, fixing him was a knowing look, "you weren't before Izzie got here."

He wasn't really sure what she expected him to say to that, so he only nodded slightly, waiting.

His mother met his eyes, and asked, "Are you having problems with your marriage, George? Is that why you're here?"

He shook his head, unsure of how much to reveal, but unable to lie to her. "Sort of. It's complicated."

His mother looked like she wanted to press this issue, but stopped herself. Instead, she said, sadly, "You never invited us to the wedding."

George reached for her hand. "That's because there was no wedding, mom. It was very... sudden."

She studied his face. "Do you regret it?" she asked, and he was a little shocked at her boldness.

"I... sometimes," he confessed. "And more so than usual lately." He paused, took a breath, before blurting out, "But, mom, I can't just... You and dad were together for so long! I shouldn't just give up. I should work harder, right? I should make it work..."

Mrs. O'Malley considered that for a long time before answering, and when she did, it was in a soft tone that made George sit up and listen.

"Your father and I were together for forty years," she began, "and I am grateful for every single one of those years. I'll admit, sometimes it was a struggle, but, George," she looked at him, "it shouldn't be all work.

"Now, I don't know Callie very well," she continued, "though I'm sure she must be a lovely girl, or you wouldn't have married her. But," she said seriously, "I think you need to ask yourself: is Callie the person you want to spend the next forty years of your life with?"

That night, it took George a long time to fall asleep.