(no subject)
Title: Expand, Contract [4/?]
Author:
more_awake
Rating: PG-13
Pairing/Character: Mark (and a supporting cast of Archer, Sam, and Naomi, with the rest of the Oceansiders coming in later)
Summary: In the aftermath of Addison's sudden death, Mark is left to grieve and raise their newborn daughter with the help of Addison's brother, friends, and the words she left behind. Set in an AU in which Addison kept the baby and went straight from NYC to LA after leaving Mark instead of taking a year-long detour in Seattle.
Previous chapters: one, two, three
Disclaimer: All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. As this work is an interpretation of the original material and not for-profit, it constitutes fair use. Reference to real persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context, and are not intended to be libelous, defamatory, or in any way factual.
Chapter Four
xx
With a few extra sets of hands around the house, it doesn’t surprise him when he wakes up one morning to find an empty bassinet. He knows that Naomi sometimes just can’t help herself and simply has to hold Aurora, even if the little girl is asleep, so he doesn’t worry over her whereabouts. Instead, he is thankful for the extra sleep that he can now take advantage of. It’s been yet another long night, and he’s just so incredibly tired as he collapses back into bed, face pressed into the pillow and sprawled out on top of the covers in his sweatpants and t-shirt. Laying there, he hopes for another thirty minutes of rest, maybe an hour if he is really lucky, but the obnoxiously bright sun shining in through the skylight and from behind the blinds makes sleep impossible. Groaning, he gives up and pulls himself off the bed, deciding to see what his daughter is up to.
The first thing he notices while walking downstairs is that it is awfully quiet. Usually, he can hear Naomi and Maya cooing at the baby if she is awake or bare feet pacing the wood floor in the kitchen and the low volume of the television if she is not.
They aren’t in the living room. They aren’t in the kitchen. They aren’t in any of the rooms downstairs.
“Naomi?” He calls. “Sam?”
There is no one out on the back patio either.
“Is anyone here?”
He almost to the top of the stairs again when Naomi opens the door to what has become her and Sam’s room.
“Is everything okay?” She asks through a yawn.
“Oh. Yeah. I just couldn’t find you guys. Is she asleep? I can take her now.”
“What?”
“The baby.”
“I don’t have the baby.”
“You don’t have her? Sam doesn’t have her?”
“Sam took Maya to school, and no, I don’t have her. I just woke up.”
“Well, I put her back to bed at about 4:15, but I just woke up, and she’s not in her bassinet. Wait… is this a joke?” He asks, standing on tip-toe to look over Naomi’s shoulder for any sign of his daughter. “Where is she?”
“I'm not kidding. I don’t have her,” she answers before opening the door all the way to prove herself. “Maybe Archer and Bizzy came by this morning so that they could spend time with her.”
He shakes his head. Upstairs is silent, downstairs is silent, and if Archer or Bizzy were over, he would surely be able to hear them. “I looked everywhere. There’s no one in the whole house except us.” He’s panicking now. He may not know a lot about children, but he knows for a fact that an 11 day-old baby cannot just disappear on her own. Someone had to move her, but Naomi doesn’t have her, Sam doesn’t have her, Archer is back to living at his house, and somehow, Aurora is still gone. As his mind races, he begins to assume the worst. “Naomi, I don’t know where she is. Something happened.”
Ever the cool, calm, and collected one, Naomi takes a deep breath as she places a reassuring hand on her friend’s shoulder. “Look, let’s go downstairs and look to see if anything seems out of the ordinary, and then we can take it from there, alright? We can call Archer, too, just in case he took her somewhere. I mean, he has a key to the house.”
“Where would he take a week-and-a-half-old baby?” He asks almost angrily while hurriedly leading the way down the steps. “And why wouldn’t he ask me first?”
“Are you sure that you-” Naomi stops mid-sentence and mid-step as the front door creaks open to reveal Archer carrying a diaper bag and a carseat containing the missing baby. She takes her hand off the railing and places it over heart with a sigh of relief, “Oh, thank God.”
Of all the stupid, selfish, boundary-crossing things Archer has done, this is beyond infuriating. Here he was thinking he might never see his daughter again, when all along Archer had her. He is relieved to see that Aurora is safe, but he now has the overwhelming urge to strangle her uncle. As Archer sets her carseat on the rug just inside the door, Mark quickly paces across the room to confront him. “Where the hell have you been?”
“Hey, keep it down. She’s sleeping,” Archer warns, his voice giving no indication of guilt or remorse. “I had to drop Bizzy off at the airport for an early flight.”
His casual tone only incenses Mark more since, apparently, Archer sees nothing wrong with coming into someone else’s house and stealing a baby. “And you thought it was okay to kidnap my child and take her with you? Are you insane?”
He rolls his eyes. “Oh, please. Come on. I didn’t kidnap her, and I brought her back in one piece. I just thought Bizzy should be able to-”
“No. She’s my daughter. You can’t just pick her up and take her somewhere without asking. God, Archer, I woke up, and she wasn’t in her bed, and Naomi and Sam didn’t have her, and you had gone back to your place last night, so I had no fucking clue where she was.”
“I’m sorry. I thought we would be back before you woke up. I didn’t think it would be that big of a deal.”
“’Not that big of a deal’? I was about five seconds away from calling the cops! You had absolutely no business coming in here and taking her without me knowing!”
“Mark, you’re going to wake the baby,” Naomi warns calmly as Aurora starts to restlessly squirm and whimper in her sleep in response to the commotion.
“Why aren’t you backing me up here?” He questions, too upset to lower his voice.
“Because I can’t yell at him as loudly as I would like to while there is a sleeping infant in the room,” she hisses back before kneeling down to try to soothe the baby back to sleep.
“Fine,” Archer says, throwing his hands up in defeat. “I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done it. It was a stupid thing to do.”
Mark scoffs, “That’s an understatement.”
“I’M. SORRY.”
Archer’s loud, insincere apology echoes through the foyer, and before Naomi can shoot him a disapproving look or Mark can yell something back, Aurora is awake, very unhappy, and adding her own angry voice to the argument.
“God, Archer, now look what you did.”
xx
Maybe he overreacted. Maybe he should have known that Archer had taken her instead of jumping to the conclusion that some anonymous criminal was responsible. But he was tired, and she is his daughter, and what else was he supposed to think? How else was he supposed to act other than severely pissed off? Archer had completely crossed a line.
“She is his sister’s daughter,” Naomi shrugs from the doorway of Aurora’s bedroom where Mark is pacing with the now-quiet baby held against his chest.
“She’s my daughter,” he responds adamantly.
“He and Addison were close. You know that,” she reminds him. Not finding that to be an acceptable excuse, he shakes his head bitterly and moves to sit on the loveseat. “Mark, I’m not trying to defend him, but he is devastated. He is hurting just as much as the rest of us are.”
“None of that gives him the right to just come in here and take her from me.”
“You’re right. It doesn’t,” she agrees as she sits down next to him. “You have every right to be furious with him, but he understands now that he made a mistake, that there are boundaries, and that he absolutely needs to respect the fact that you are her father.” He doesn’t look at her when she says this, so when he fails respond to her calm demeanor, she puts a firm hand on his knee and continues more sternly. “Look, he’s sorry, and I know you’re angry now, but you need to talk to him about this. For better or worse, he’s going to be part of Aurora’s life.”
Barely taking a second to consider Naomi’s words, he launches into exactly what he has been thinking since Archer walked in the door.
“I just can’t believe he thought it was okay to do that. Un-fucking-believable. He always does whatever the hell he wants. He has always gotten whatever he wants his whole life, and now he still acts like a spoiled little shit, and he still gets away with it even though he’s forty-one years old,” he whispers irately, trying not to upset the baby.
He opens his mouth to say more but pauses because anger isn’t the only thing he has felt this morning; there was also a substantial amount of fear.
“I really thought she was gone, Naomi,” he finally admits softly, feeling himself getting choked up as the resentment disappears and the feeling of helplessness from an hour earlier returns. “All I could think was that it was my fault, that I was right there in the room, and I didn’t hear anyone come in and take her. I thought that I had lost her, too, and that, once again, it was my fault.”
“Mark…” she trails off sympathetically.
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore. It’s over. Can we just pretend it didn’t happen?” He pleads. He is embarrassed for having revealed so much.
“Archer is still downstairs.”
“Tell him to go home. I’m not ready to talk.”
He isn’t sure when he will be.
For the remainder of the day, he barely puts Aurora down. He holds her close while she is awake and lets her lay on his chest as she sleeps, her weight and warmth a greater comfort to him than ever. He traces light patterns on her back and kisses her little curled fists, thankful that she is safe, and he can continue to keep her safe.
He doesn’t think too far ahead these days, but after this morning, he really can’t imagine life without her.
xx
As the days pass, the confrontation with Archer is forgotten, largely due to the fact that Archer stops visiting. Naomi often expresses worry over his new solitary lifestyle, but her husband and Mark insist that he’s a man, and that, given time, he will be back to being the same old Archer.
Mark has bigger things to worry about. While Archer spends his days locked inside his beachfront home, Mark is fully occupied with learning to be a father. Between books, hands-on lessons, and occasional naps, he is a little overwhelmed, but under Sam and Naomi’s guidance, he discovers that something about taking care of Aurora just feels good. He is tired-beyond-tired, but he has fallen in love with her little wrinkled knees, dimpled elbows, slightly chubby cheeks, and tiny, soft hands and feet that fit so perfectly in his palms. He relishes being able to calm her, hold her, feed her, and get her to sleep. He is doing something that he feels is truly worthwhile, something that has real significance and that he actually cares about. Even as a gifted surgeon who has changed countless lives, none of his professional accomplishments have ever given him the feeling of satisfaction he gets from doing even the simplest of things for his daughter. After having spent so many months trying to convince himself that he didn’t really want this, it surprises him that he has fallen this hard so fast.
But he has.
Still, though, it isn’t all smooth sailing. He is not a characteristically gentle and nurturing person, so he often finds himself feeling incompetent and useless when Naomi and Sam have to walk him through and correct seemingly everything he does. Accustomed to excelling at every task he takes on, it’s a little discouraging that he doesn’t have a natural and instinctive ability to be a perfect parent, but after an eighteen-day whirlwind crash course in caring for a baby, he is ready as he will ever be to do this on his own.
“Mom, come on. We’re just going next door. Rory and Uncle Mark will be fine without us,” Maya says as she impatiently pulls at her mother’s sleeve. The Bennetts are standing in the foyer of Addison’s house preparing to return to living next door for the first time in almost three weeks, but Naomi, who is busy giving Aurora a last-minute cuddle, isn’t quite ready.
“I know. I have complete confidence that they will be, but I-”
“He’s got everything under control, Nae.”
“But if she starts breathing fire or her head starts spinning around like something out of The Exorcist, I’ll be sure to call you,” Mark jokes in an attempt to lighten the mood.
“Very funny,” Naomi remarks sarcastically, lovingly rubbing Aurora’s back while she still can. “Seriously, though, are you sure you have everything you need?”
“We’re good.”
“And you remember how the security system works?”
“Mom,” Maya groans.
“I remember.”
“Okay then,” she relents before giving the baby a kiss on the forehead and handing the little girl over to her father. “We love you guys. I will be over in the morning to check on you, but don’t hesitate to call. And remember to eat! I know it’s important to bond with her, but you can put her down to eat something.”
xx
The silence of the empty house is disconcerting. He hasn’t been alone in nearly three weeks, and when Aurora falls asleep shortly after everyone leaves, he isn’t sure what to do with himself. There are no footsteps, no hushed voices, and no rustlings in the kitchen- nothing but the near-silent sounds of static over the baby monitor. He is suddenly very aware that this is it. This is the first night of the rest of his life. They are on their own now, and this has to work.
For a brief moment, he feels panicked, but the panic is swiftly replaced by a strong sense of determination. This is going to work because allowing the little girl down the hallway to live his childhood is absolutely not an option. She is his daughter, but he also identifies with her beyond just that. Though their situations are very different, there are significant holes in each of their lives: his parents all but abandoned him before he even hit fourth grade, while she is a child who has unfairly lost her mother. In different ways, they are both alone. He doesn’t like to waste time looking back, but he remembers the emptiness, self-loathing, and instability caused by the near-total absence of his parents, and he can’t imagine leaving Aurora to feel that. So he won’t. He has to do a good job with all of this, and he will. Afterall, Mark Sloan doesn’t half-ass anything.
The silence is still unsettling, though, so he busies himself with unloading the dishwasher, filling some bottles, and eating the leftover lasagna that Naomi had made the night before. Afterward, he turns on the television to distract himself, and after only about ten minutes of watching a random show about crab fishing on the Discovery Channel, he hears a small whimper over the baby monitor.
Excited to have her all to himself this evening, he quickly strides to the guest room that has become his, where she is impatiently squirming in her bassinet.
“Hey, you,” he greets her softly, sliding his hands beneath her and situating her in his arms. As he leans down to kiss the top of her head, he breathes in and is immediately startled. “Whoa. God. Aurora, you smell, kid,” he tells her honestly before patting the back of her diaper and confirming what he already knew. In what seems an almost perfectly-timed response, the baby starts to cry as she grows more and more uncomfortable with her current situation. “Okay, okay. Shh… I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, but it’s the truth. Fortunately, though, it’s a fixable problem, so you can relax.”
It still feels a little ridiculous to be talking to someone who can neither speak nor understand what is being spoken, but he is getting pretty good at talking to his daughter, even if it isn’t in the cutesy baby voice that everyone else uses with her.
He continues to soothe her as carries her down the hall to the nursery. It’s the room closest to Addison’s, and though no one has ever said that Addison’s room is off-limits, he still hasn’t been inside. He is certainly curious as to what it looks like-whether either Archer or Naomi straightened it up or if everything is just as she left it-but even though he walks past the double doors a dozen times each day, he never goes in. One day, maybe, but right now, it’s easier to forget that room even exists.
“You know, I wish you could somehow do this by yourself because it’s easily my least favorite part about having you around,” he tells the baby as he gently goes about cleaning her up while trying to breathe as little as possible. “Everything else is pretty good, but if there were such a thing as magic diapers that made everything disappear, I would be all over that in a second.”
Sometimes it feels like this is all she does and all she ever will do. He has seen and experienced a fair bit of not-so-pretty things during his time as a surgeon, but it doesn’t make this any less disgusting. Cleaning up after someone in this way is just something that he never in his life thought he would have to do, and up until a few days ago, Naomi was still rolling her eyes at the way he would pull his t-shirt over his nose like a six year-old.
“You know, it’s getting late, so how about some pajamas, too?” He suggests, fastening the fresh diaper and making sure it isn’t too loose or too snug. “Then we can lay on the floor so you can practice holding your head up, and after that, we can get you something to eat, read a book, watch some SportsCenter, and call it a night. Does that sound good?”
She answers with a sudden jolt and two squeaky mouse-like sneezes in quick succession, and he can’t help but fall in love with her just a little more as she reaches up with her tiny pink fists to rub her face. She is perfectly adorable without even trying. He gently pats her stomach, and she emits a soft sigh, stretching out her skinny little legs and kicking at the air.
“I know. It’s going to be an action-packed evening. Don’t get too excited.”
Lifting the baby to his shoulder, he turns his attention to looking through one of the stacks of neatly folded onesies and sleepers in the top drawer of her dresser. There are a myriad of choices in all different colors, patterns, and fabrics. It actually kind of amazes him how many items of clothing this little girl already has, but considering her mother, it’s not too surprising. There are probably enough clothes and shoes in various sizes in Aurora’s room to last her until her second birthday, for which he is thankful because it at least means he will know how to dress her for a while. “Damn, you’ve got too much stuff. Let’s see. We’ve got yellow with pink ducks, yellow with pink flowers, white with purple dots, white with dark-”
He stops. It’s tucked in the back corner, rolled up instead of folded, and nearly hidden behind everything else, but it catches his eye. He’s seen this one before, but not recently: white with dark blue pinstripes and a familiar insignia-the onesie that he excitedly ran out and bought the night he found out that Addison was pregnant.
She kept it.
For some reason, he almost doesn’t want to touch it, but he pulls it out from underneath the other outfits in the drawer anyway, not fully believing that she would have actually held onto this after everything that happened. She did, though. Size 0 to 3 months, the shiny tag with the orange price sticker still on; it’s definitely the same one.
He drops it back into the drawer almost instantly once the realization hits. He remembers the look of uncertainty on her face the night he gave it to her, how she attempted in vain to hide her fear and doubt by feigning excitement. He remembers how not even a week later, she looked at him with such anger and hurt as she walked out the door for the last time.
It was the last time he saw her.
xx