Full Cirlce, chapter 42
There are about 3-4 chapters left after this chapter. :)
And I started to map out the first few chapters of another fic that I've been thinking about. LOL, I have WAY too much of an overactive imagination!
Anyhoo...here is the new chapter...
Life quickly returned to normal. The previous angst and drama and grief of the past month was simply just that-past. And really, it felt more like a bad dream, a nightmare that was finally over, rather than something that had actually happened. Quickly, life moved on. Summer was winding down and the house was almost completed. John, the contractor, assured the Shepherds that they’d be moved in by Halloween, just in time to host Thanksgiving. The coming of fall also meant the appointment of the new Chief of Surgery and everyone at Seattle Grace knew that it would be Addison and likewise, everyone was talking about it…except for Addison. Addison was the only one not talking about her impending promotion to Chief of Surgery. In fact, she was hardly thinking about it.
When Derek walked into the Operating wing, Addison was standing in front of the surgical board, looking quite frazzled. She was chewing on her thumb nail, staring intently and shaking her head.
“What’s the problem?” Derek asked casually, as he came to stand beside her.
“I have to move….everything. I need at least two more open ORs and I can’t bump anything else between three o’clock and five-thirty because everyone’s already started their procedures or its an emergency surgery and….I need to move everything.”
“Something happen?
“Power outage at Mercy West…something hit the main power source or something…and a helicopter is going to be arriving in less than five minutes with a patient who can not wait to get into an OR and then in about fifteen minutes more will be arriving who also need to get into the OR and all my ORs are booked…in use, unavailable…for two hours. I’ve moved everything that I can. Its not like I can just walk in on Bailey’s gastric bi-pass and tell her to get out, just like I can’t walk in on Mar…”
Derek stepped in front of her and grabbed both sides of her face. “Breathe, Add.” She looked at him, staring intently into her eyes and nodded, “Right. Breathe.”
“In and out…deep breaths…” he told her. He watched her close her eyes, slowly inhaling then slowly exhaling. “That’s my girl…just breathe,” he told her as he gently ran his hands over her cheeks.
She nodded and opened her eyes, “Okay, let me take another look.” Derek stepped out of the way and she stared forward again, then grabbed the eraser. “Yang’s four-fifteen can wait an hour or so…and…” she paused and glanced over at him, “Can you push your three-thirty to…five-ish?”
He blinked at her, “You mean the patient that I am literally on my way to operate on?” He stared at her and sighed, “You’re serious?” She nodded. He looked the board, squinting his eyes before finally offered a resigned sigh. “Fine, it can wait.”
She smiled, “Good. Thank you.” She erased the penned in surgeries.
Derek let out a dramatic sigh, “Oh, the perks of sleeping with my boss.”
Addison’s head shot around and an over dramatized look of shock and hurt was on her face. She mockingly gasped, “You’re sleeping with Richard!?”
He rolled his eyes and grabbed her, pulling her in by the waist. “Not the boss I was referring to.” He gently kissed her lips, “And, watch what you say-that really isn’t a rumor I want spreading all over the hospital. You never know where a nurse or intern might be lurking.” He kissed her again, “Besides, I was referring to you.”
“I’m not your boss, Derek.”
“Hmm, rumor has it that you are-Richard’s letting you run the show under his watchful eye and in a few short weeks, you will be the new Chief of Surgery, therefore, you are my boss.”
“That’s in a few weeks.”
He eyed her, “Why so reluctant?”
“Who says I’m reluctant?”
“Me. I say you’re reluctant. You’ve hardly mentioned the promotion.”
She shrugged, “Well, I do have to work with the other three applicants. I don’t want to gloat about it.”
“You’ve never been modest, Add.”
She shrugged, “I don’t want to make waves.” She pulled back from him, as her pager sounded. “Gotta go…” As she backed away she grinned, “You coming?”
He tilted his head, “Why would I come? I have to go explain to my patient why she’s not in the OR because someone cancelled my surgery.”
Addison grinned at him. “Have Izzie do it,” she told him, still backing away from him, down the long corridor. “You have another surgery.”
He raised his eyebrows, “Yeah?”
“Yeah, a fractured spine just landed on the roof.”
He started towards her. “Oh, the perks of sleeping with my boss,” he teased.
She turned forward and kept walking, with Derek close behind her. “I’m not you’re boss, Derek.”
Two weeks later, Addison was sitting on one of the benches in the locker room, changing from her black Prada pumps into the walking shoes she wore with her scrubs. She’d been so close to going home-she was almost out the door and then her pager sounded and she was called back to the OR. There had been a flu outbreak and Seattle Grace was short four surgeons and as the impending Chief, it was her job to pick up the slack. She rubbed her tired eyes and tossed her shoes into the locker, then tossed her purse in. Just as she was about to close the locker, her pager again sounded. She groaned. She was tired and she wanted to go home. All day, she’d been thinking about taking a nice long shower-possibly with Derek, though at this point, that was optional-then cuddle up under a soft blanket and watch Matthew sleep. But she couldn’t do any of that-the “Chief in Training” had to pull long shift after long shift-never allowed to leave before the sun went down and moon and stars were shining above. She sighed and reached for her pager, reminding herself that she’d signed up for this-this was what she wanted.
When she looked at her pager, it wasn’t what she expected. Instead of another crisis, there was a message from Derek. “Check your messages,” she read aloud. She reached for her cell phone and flipped it open. Sure enough, Derek had sent her something. She opened the message, “Add, prepare to be amazed.” She looked around before opening the file, the last time Derek had gotten bored and sent her a message, it had been a very long voice-mail that wasn’t exactly “work-safe” and this time, Derek had sent her a video file.
A moment later, the file opened. It was video of Matthew-crawling towards Derek. Crawling. Matthew was crawling. Tears filled her eyes. She missed it-she missed one of those precious life moments that you can never get back.
“Dr. Addison Shepherd to OR Five, Dr. Addison Shepherd to OR Five.” She sighed as she heard her name paged over the intercom, but couldn’t move, instead, she watched the short video one more time and all she could think of was that she wasn’t there.
An hour and a half later, Addison had made the final stitch. She washed up and again started towards the locker room, but instead turned in the opposite direction. She knew that Richard was still there, because he had watched part of her surgery from the gallery, as he went over some charts. She took a deep breath and headed towards his office. During her last surgery, she’d prepared a speech-everything she needed and wanted to say. Already, she felt better.
When Addison got home, the apartment was dark. She felt her way through the living room to the bedroom, dodging boxes and toys as she went. She could see Derek lying in bed, the moonlight pouring in from the window down onto him. She smiled and crawled into the bed and cuddled close. Resting her head in the crook of his neck, she whispered his name. When he didn’t respond, she did it again, this time shaking his arm slightly.
“Derek?”
“Hmm?” He groaned.
“You asleep?” She asked softly.
“Yes.”
She kissed his cheek, “I need to talk to you about something.”
“Can it wait?”
“No.”
“Not even til morning?” He asked, groggily. His voice faded with every syllable.
She cuddled against him, “Tomorrow will be too late.”
He sighed, “You’re absolutely, positively, one-thousand and ten percent sure that tomorrow morning-when we wake up at five-which is probably just a few short hours from now, it’ll be too late.”
“Yes.”
Again, he groaned, but this time he rolled over and opened his eyes. “What is it, Addison?” Though his voice was flat, he was awake and willing to listen. “This better be good,” he muttered as he pulled him up into a sitting position. He looked at her and waited.
“I told Richard that I’m not going to accept the promotion-I turned down the Chief of Surgery position.”
Suddenly, Derek was awake. “What? Why?”
She sighed and shook her head, “A million reasons.”
“You wanted that position-we all did-why the sudden change of heart?”
“When I told Richard that I wanted to be Chief, I was a different person with a completely different life. We were divorced and for the most part, I spent my nights alone. My career was everything to me-it was that way for a long time, but then something changed. Suddenly, you and I were back together and then were married and then we had Matthew-suddenly, I have the life that I always wanted to have-I have it all.” She paused, “I always said that I didn’t want to have to choose between having a marriage and a family over my career and I always believed that I could have both. But, I don’t want to spend every night wondering if I’d be better off sleeping in the on-call room…and…” Tears flooded into her eyes, “And I don’t want to watch Matthew grow up on a video.” Derek reached out for her and tugged her towards him. She fell into his arms and he held her for a moment. “When I was kid, I always felt more comfortable calling my dad “Dr. Montgomery” instead of “Dad”.” She looked up at Derek, “I don’t want Matthew to feel that way about me.”
Gently, Derek stroked her hair. “We could make it work.”
She shook her head. “It works the way it is,” she looked up at him, “I’m happy-I’m happy the way things are. I don’t want change anything; I don’t want to re-work our lives so that I can be Chief of Surgery. It’s not fair to Matthew, it’s not fair to you and it’s not fair to me. If I accept the position, I’m cheating us all.”
“Did he say who was going to replace you?”
She shook her head, “No, he didn’t tell me. He just said that he understood, he kind of saw it coming and that he’d have to think about it.”
“Oh.”
She glanced up at him, “If he asks you, are you going to take it?”
“I haven’t thought about it in such a long time-and it would great-it’s almost what you go through med school to become-you always want to be that surgeon, the one who makes it to the very top.” He looked down at her. “Then, I held Matthew for the first time-and things just changed. I didn’t want so much to be that surgeon, I wanted to be that dad-you know the one I’m talking about-the guy who teaches his son to throw a baseball on a Saturday afternoon, the guy who reads bedtime stories every night and the guy who’s his son’s hero-I want to be that dad. Being that dad is more important to me than being that surgeon.”
They were both silent for a long time. Derek closed his eyes and rested his head on top of hers, but once again, Addison’s voice brought called him back into the present. “He’s crawling,” she said, her voice sounded with a hundred different emotions ranging from wonderment to pride to sadness.
“Yeah…” Derek laughed, “It was so cute. He pulled himself up and moved one hand and knee forward and then hesitated before doing it again with the other side-like he was weighing his options or something. Then he did it again and again. At first he was a little unsure-he moved his hands slowly-cautiously-kind of like you out on the fishing boat-then, all of the sudden I was chasing him all over the apartment.” He smiled, “You’ll be amazed at how fast he is.”
Addison smiled sadly. “I still can’t believe I missed it.”
He ran his had across her shoulder and down her arm. “Try not to worry about,” Derek told her as he closed his eyes. She cuddled closer against him and smiled. “So, you’re really sure about this, Add?” He asked groggily.
“Yeah-I’m sure.” She closed her eyes. “It was really one of the easiest choices I’ve ever had to make.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah-I mean, I love my career-but it doesn’t hold a candle to my boys.”
And I started to map out the first few chapters of another fic that I've been thinking about. LOL, I have WAY too much of an overactive imagination!
Anyhoo...here is the new chapter...
Life quickly returned to normal. The previous angst and drama and grief of the past month was simply just that-past. And really, it felt more like a bad dream, a nightmare that was finally over, rather than something that had actually happened. Quickly, life moved on. Summer was winding down and the house was almost completed. John, the contractor, assured the Shepherds that they’d be moved in by Halloween, just in time to host Thanksgiving. The coming of fall also meant the appointment of the new Chief of Surgery and everyone at Seattle Grace knew that it would be Addison and likewise, everyone was talking about it…except for Addison. Addison was the only one not talking about her impending promotion to Chief of Surgery. In fact, she was hardly thinking about it.
When Derek walked into the Operating wing, Addison was standing in front of the surgical board, looking quite frazzled. She was chewing on her thumb nail, staring intently and shaking her head.
“What’s the problem?” Derek asked casually, as he came to stand beside her.
“I have to move….everything. I need at least two more open ORs and I can’t bump anything else between three o’clock and five-thirty because everyone’s already started their procedures or its an emergency surgery and….I need to move everything.”
“Something happen?
“Power outage at Mercy West…something hit the main power source or something…and a helicopter is going to be arriving in less than five minutes with a patient who can not wait to get into an OR and then in about fifteen minutes more will be arriving who also need to get into the OR and all my ORs are booked…in use, unavailable…for two hours. I’ve moved everything that I can. Its not like I can just walk in on Bailey’s gastric bi-pass and tell her to get out, just like I can’t walk in on Mar…”
Derek stepped in front of her and grabbed both sides of her face. “Breathe, Add.” She looked at him, staring intently into her eyes and nodded, “Right. Breathe.”
“In and out…deep breaths…” he told her. He watched her close her eyes, slowly inhaling then slowly exhaling. “That’s my girl…just breathe,” he told her as he gently ran his hands over her cheeks.
She nodded and opened her eyes, “Okay, let me take another look.” Derek stepped out of the way and she stared forward again, then grabbed the eraser. “Yang’s four-fifteen can wait an hour or so…and…” she paused and glanced over at him, “Can you push your three-thirty to…five-ish?”
He blinked at her, “You mean the patient that I am literally on my way to operate on?” He stared at her and sighed, “You’re serious?” She nodded. He looked the board, squinting his eyes before finally offered a resigned sigh. “Fine, it can wait.”
She smiled, “Good. Thank you.” She erased the penned in surgeries.
Derek let out a dramatic sigh, “Oh, the perks of sleeping with my boss.”
Addison’s head shot around and an over dramatized look of shock and hurt was on her face. She mockingly gasped, “You’re sleeping with Richard!?”
He rolled his eyes and grabbed her, pulling her in by the waist. “Not the boss I was referring to.” He gently kissed her lips, “And, watch what you say-that really isn’t a rumor I want spreading all over the hospital. You never know where a nurse or intern might be lurking.” He kissed her again, “Besides, I was referring to you.”
“I’m not your boss, Derek.”
“Hmm, rumor has it that you are-Richard’s letting you run the show under his watchful eye and in a few short weeks, you will be the new Chief of Surgery, therefore, you are my boss.”
“That’s in a few weeks.”
He eyed her, “Why so reluctant?”
“Who says I’m reluctant?”
“Me. I say you’re reluctant. You’ve hardly mentioned the promotion.”
She shrugged, “Well, I do have to work with the other three applicants. I don’t want to gloat about it.”
“You’ve never been modest, Add.”
She shrugged, “I don’t want to make waves.” She pulled back from him, as her pager sounded. “Gotta go…” As she backed away she grinned, “You coming?”
He tilted his head, “Why would I come? I have to go explain to my patient why she’s not in the OR because someone cancelled my surgery.”
Addison grinned at him. “Have Izzie do it,” she told him, still backing away from him, down the long corridor. “You have another surgery.”
He raised his eyebrows, “Yeah?”
“Yeah, a fractured spine just landed on the roof.”
He started towards her. “Oh, the perks of sleeping with my boss,” he teased.
She turned forward and kept walking, with Derek close behind her. “I’m not you’re boss, Derek.”
Two weeks later, Addison was sitting on one of the benches in the locker room, changing from her black Prada pumps into the walking shoes she wore with her scrubs. She’d been so close to going home-she was almost out the door and then her pager sounded and she was called back to the OR. There had been a flu outbreak and Seattle Grace was short four surgeons and as the impending Chief, it was her job to pick up the slack. She rubbed her tired eyes and tossed her shoes into the locker, then tossed her purse in. Just as she was about to close the locker, her pager again sounded. She groaned. She was tired and she wanted to go home. All day, she’d been thinking about taking a nice long shower-possibly with Derek, though at this point, that was optional-then cuddle up under a soft blanket and watch Matthew sleep. But she couldn’t do any of that-the “Chief in Training” had to pull long shift after long shift-never allowed to leave before the sun went down and moon and stars were shining above. She sighed and reached for her pager, reminding herself that she’d signed up for this-this was what she wanted.
When she looked at her pager, it wasn’t what she expected. Instead of another crisis, there was a message from Derek. “Check your messages,” she read aloud. She reached for her cell phone and flipped it open. Sure enough, Derek had sent her something. She opened the message, “Add, prepare to be amazed.” She looked around before opening the file, the last time Derek had gotten bored and sent her a message, it had been a very long voice-mail that wasn’t exactly “work-safe” and this time, Derek had sent her a video file.
A moment later, the file opened. It was video of Matthew-crawling towards Derek. Crawling. Matthew was crawling. Tears filled her eyes. She missed it-she missed one of those precious life moments that you can never get back.
“Dr. Addison Shepherd to OR Five, Dr. Addison Shepherd to OR Five.” She sighed as she heard her name paged over the intercom, but couldn’t move, instead, she watched the short video one more time and all she could think of was that she wasn’t there.
An hour and a half later, Addison had made the final stitch. She washed up and again started towards the locker room, but instead turned in the opposite direction. She knew that Richard was still there, because he had watched part of her surgery from the gallery, as he went over some charts. She took a deep breath and headed towards his office. During her last surgery, she’d prepared a speech-everything she needed and wanted to say. Already, she felt better.
When Addison got home, the apartment was dark. She felt her way through the living room to the bedroom, dodging boxes and toys as she went. She could see Derek lying in bed, the moonlight pouring in from the window down onto him. She smiled and crawled into the bed and cuddled close. Resting her head in the crook of his neck, she whispered his name. When he didn’t respond, she did it again, this time shaking his arm slightly.
“Derek?”
“Hmm?” He groaned.
“You asleep?” She asked softly.
“Yes.”
She kissed his cheek, “I need to talk to you about something.”
“Can it wait?”
“No.”
“Not even til morning?” He asked, groggily. His voice faded with every syllable.
She cuddled against him, “Tomorrow will be too late.”
He sighed, “You’re absolutely, positively, one-thousand and ten percent sure that tomorrow morning-when we wake up at five-which is probably just a few short hours from now, it’ll be too late.”
“Yes.”
Again, he groaned, but this time he rolled over and opened his eyes. “What is it, Addison?” Though his voice was flat, he was awake and willing to listen. “This better be good,” he muttered as he pulled him up into a sitting position. He looked at her and waited.
“I told Richard that I’m not going to accept the promotion-I turned down the Chief of Surgery position.”
Suddenly, Derek was awake. “What? Why?”
She sighed and shook her head, “A million reasons.”
“You wanted that position-we all did-why the sudden change of heart?”
“When I told Richard that I wanted to be Chief, I was a different person with a completely different life. We were divorced and for the most part, I spent my nights alone. My career was everything to me-it was that way for a long time, but then something changed. Suddenly, you and I were back together and then were married and then we had Matthew-suddenly, I have the life that I always wanted to have-I have it all.” She paused, “I always said that I didn’t want to have to choose between having a marriage and a family over my career and I always believed that I could have both. But, I don’t want to spend every night wondering if I’d be better off sleeping in the on-call room…and…” Tears flooded into her eyes, “And I don’t want to watch Matthew grow up on a video.” Derek reached out for her and tugged her towards him. She fell into his arms and he held her for a moment. “When I was kid, I always felt more comfortable calling my dad “Dr. Montgomery” instead of “Dad”.” She looked up at Derek, “I don’t want Matthew to feel that way about me.”
Gently, Derek stroked her hair. “We could make it work.”
She shook her head. “It works the way it is,” she looked up at him, “I’m happy-I’m happy the way things are. I don’t want change anything; I don’t want to re-work our lives so that I can be Chief of Surgery. It’s not fair to Matthew, it’s not fair to you and it’s not fair to me. If I accept the position, I’m cheating us all.”
“Did he say who was going to replace you?”
She shook her head, “No, he didn’t tell me. He just said that he understood, he kind of saw it coming and that he’d have to think about it.”
“Oh.”
She glanced up at him, “If he asks you, are you going to take it?”
“I haven’t thought about it in such a long time-and it would great-it’s almost what you go through med school to become-you always want to be that surgeon, the one who makes it to the very top.” He looked down at her. “Then, I held Matthew for the first time-and things just changed. I didn’t want so much to be that surgeon, I wanted to be that dad-you know the one I’m talking about-the guy who teaches his son to throw a baseball on a Saturday afternoon, the guy who reads bedtime stories every night and the guy who’s his son’s hero-I want to be that dad. Being that dad is more important to me than being that surgeon.”
They were both silent for a long time. Derek closed his eyes and rested his head on top of hers, but once again, Addison’s voice brought called him back into the present. “He’s crawling,” she said, her voice sounded with a hundred different emotions ranging from wonderment to pride to sadness.
“Yeah…” Derek laughed, “It was so cute. He pulled himself up and moved one hand and knee forward and then hesitated before doing it again with the other side-like he was weighing his options or something. Then he did it again and again. At first he was a little unsure-he moved his hands slowly-cautiously-kind of like you out on the fishing boat-then, all of the sudden I was chasing him all over the apartment.” He smiled, “You’ll be amazed at how fast he is.”
Addison smiled sadly. “I still can’t believe I missed it.”
He ran his had across her shoulder and down her arm. “Try not to worry about,” Derek told her as he closed his eyes. She cuddled closer against him and smiled. “So, you’re really sure about this, Add?” He asked groggily.
“Yeah-I’m sure.” She closed her eyes. “It was really one of the easiest choices I’ve ever had to make.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah-I mean, I love my career-but it doesn’t hold a candle to my boys.”