Saving Face Chapter 13
Title: Saving Face - Chapter 13
Rating: PG-13.... it's kind of mild.
Disclaimer: I still own nothing, except for a car :D These characters however, not mine.
Summary: Addison saves two lives, then joins Nancy for an interesting early morning workout, Derek realises he needs to make some changes and Meredith comes to this conclusion also.
A/N: Does anybody else miss the days when you could type something, then click the lj-cut button and 9/10 times it would work, without fail. I miss the reliability of an lj-cut, so much so, I looked into it, apparently The Powers That Be are 'working on it'. It's taking them forever, I was hoping it would be one of their priorities, but obviously not, I'm sure they are doing more important things then making sure that the basic functions of the website are working correctly.. *whistles*
I'm still not entirely happy with this chapter, but I decided I would post it anyway. If I didn't do it today it probably would've been another month before I did, and the lj-cuts would probably be working again.... maybe I should have waited... Anyway, I think Derek is getting a bit too wimpy for my liking. He needs to man up a little more... Also, the whole medical case should be explained a little bit more, I couldn't find the right moment to discuss it in this chapter, I tried, but no matter when or where I put it, it seemed out of place, apparently this was not the chapter for it. This is getting a bit long isn't it?.. On to the chapter!
=
She hates him. She hates him. She hates those meaningful looks he shoots her, his great smile that makes the sides of his eyes crinkle like paper bags, that famous hair of his, the sound of his voice when he says please and thank you, and the ferryboats printed across his scrub cap. And now, the smell of scotch makes her break into a hot angry sweat that she washes away every morning and night, and she hates that she loves him.
She loves him. She loves him so much, but she can’t love him. She cannot love the man who made her fall in love and think about living together as an old grey couple. She cannot and will not allow herself to become ‘the other woman’. Not again. That is not who she is. She is a surgeon. She is focused, hard-working, she’s smart and funny and she will be the person who will achieve everything that she can in her life. She will do it. She will do it without him, because she never once saw that man beside her when she decided that was the kind of person she wanted be. So no, she was not the kind of person who was going to let this love and hate stop her from being who she can be.
She could do greatness all on her own. It seemed she had everything else covered, she might as well do something positive, all by herself.
A sharp piercing beep in her left ear made her shove her covers down to her feet and swing her legs over the side of her bed.
There was a slow movement from the warm body lying beside her.
Impulses. They happen. For some people it happens when they walk through a department store, or a flea market or pass a gym.
“Good morning.” He had light blond hair, short and tousled, but it had been meticulously styled. He had these striking green eyes, not exactly deep and intriguing, but warm and inviting. They gave the impression that he would lay it all out on the table. They were clear and honest. Something about them told her that he hadn’t lived yet. He was just starting out.
“I’m going to go take a shower and..” she stopped, she looked at the alarm clock and then back at his green eyes. Inviting her in.
“You’re not going to take a shower.” he smiled before reaching out and pulling him back to her.
‘And you are not Derek Shepherd.’ Meredith smiled to herself as she let her body lean against the big strong green eyed man and realised that starting over was a good thing, and that she should do it more often. She was going to make active changes in her life, and she was starting with her relationships.
==
“I’m too old for this.” Addison eyed the slim blonde in front of her and tried to figure out exactly how long she would have for sleep if she left this second and had to be back at the hospital at eight. Sleep. In all her life so far Addison could only recall a hand full of times when she had had a longing for sweet unconscious bliss this badly.
“You are not too old for this. Those panties, maybe, but this, my mother could do this. I’m sure she does too.”
“You are not actually talking about your mother right now are you?” Addison winced as she caught a girl madly swinging her long tousled brunette hair counter clockwise as she allowed her body to slide down the metal pole before she landed in a gracefully sexy heap on the floor.
“This is great. They never have classes this early in Connecticut.” Addison shot her a look. “Yes, I know, happily married successful doctor with three gorgeous kids scouring the entire state for a strip club that gives classes before her eight am rounds is not exactly normal.”
“Nancy, when have you ever been normal?”
“That’s a trick question, because I choose to see the world as a place where normal is merely a figment of the populous’ imagination. There is no true way to be normal. You can only conform to other people‘s expectations.”
“And you wonder why your kids can’t just watch Disney Channel with the rest of their friends….” Addison glanced at the gleaming pole to her right and casually wrapped a leg around it. It was hard and uncomfortable but within a minute she had mustered up the energy and conviction to successfully complete a basic chair spin, much to Nancy’s amusement.
“You’re a natural.” she smirked.
“You think these come in neon colours? I’m thinking I could have it installed in his office, right in front of the window, charge it to his card and get the matching dancer.” Addison mused as she watched the instructor demonstrate some more complicated looking back hooks to the slim blonde with a look of utter determination on her face.
“Derek doesn’t have an office. And why in the world would you do that for him. That‘s as good as letting a five year old free in the factory where they make Skittles.” Nancy watched her former sister-in-law, trying to figure out where this was all going and if it was going to interfere with her plan. “Addison.” she snapped when the red head didn’t answer. Addison turned and looked at her, her eyes dark and her body tense.
“He still has my shoes.” she responded, a certain amount of venom laced her words, giving them a slightly edgy tone.
‘Now that will certainly work nicely in my favour.’ Nancy smiled happily to herself before taking a slight skip and jump before flinging her legs in the air above her head and winding them around the pole, letting her body swirl slowly around and around.
==
Derek caught a glimpse of her as she disappeared around a corner. He quickly moved his gaze back to the OR board, nodding in the vain hopes that Burke would take his silence as an awe filled reverie. He let the words and schedules float in front of his eyes as his brain tried to wrangle the right words together in a sentence. He had no problem talking, he enjoyed good conversation. He had always been able to talk to her, talking to her had never been a problem.
He felt like he could share so many things with her, and he had.
Everything except the most important details.
Everything had been fresh and new, they were getting to know each other right from the beginning. He hadn’t needed to reinvent himself, but he had been able to leave out anything that was hard or difficult, anything that he had failed to mention had been because he hadn’t been able to comprehend what happened. He had been able to pick and choose the parts of his life up until the point when he walked into his bedroom and saw his wife and his best friend in his bed, having sex on his favourite sheets, that he wanted to bring forward with him on this new adventure he had created for himself, on the other side of the country. He had been indulging the five year old inside him that still duelled with dragons and won Super Bowls on Sunday afternoons.
An intern rushing down the corridor with a steaming Styrofoam cup in one hand and a peach coloured patient chart in the other made Derek snap out of it. Why was he standing there, brooding like some angst-ridden hormonal teenager when he had operations to perform, patients to check on, paper work to do, research to finish and interns to observe. Why was he standing there letting his mind wander until it had successfully mangled itself into a knotted ball of over analyzed and melancholic notions. Derek wondered where the time had gone, he felt that there were whole years he was missing, that his life had been put on fast forward and he and been the one holding the remote.
He shook his head as Addison made her way over to the OR board. She stood beside him, pulling herself up to her full height and crossing her arms in front of her chest. She studied the dry erase board with a sharp eye. She cleared her throat and stole a side ways glance at him.
“I was wondering if you knew where I would be able to find a DVD player?” she asked quietly.
Derek struggled to keep his eyes focused straight, he knew if he looked at her everything would evaporate in a second.
“My patient, her younger brother is here, and he’s kind of panicky. I need to keep them all relaxed, her blood pressure can’t get any higher, she needs to be as relaxed and stress free as you possibly can be when you’re lying in a hospital bed. Otherwise I can’t operate. And if I can’t operate you can’t operate, and if you can’t operate…” she trailed off.
“That would make two of you then.” he smiled gently when he heard her exhale loudly and close her eyes, the muscles in her shoulders and neck going slack as she allowed herself to stop for just two seconds and regroup. “Don’t worry about it, I’ll get it to him before you could even have found one.”
Their heads turned at the same moment, they shifted slightly, you could blame it on exhaustion, slippery floors, maybe even just a little bit of mutual attraction.
Addison glanced from his lips to his eyes and before her brain had time to register the smile on his face her lips were pressed against his and it wasn’t rushed or awkward. It was sweet, and gentle. Two words she would not have even considering using to describe her and Derek in the last couple of days.
She pushed herself away with her hands flat against his chest and turned, she walked away with her hands balled into fists in her lab coat pockets and a smile battling it’s way to her eyes.
“His name’s Joey.” she called over her shoulder before she picked up the pace and ducked around the corner.
Derek smiled and nodded gently, not aware of the dozens of heads that had poked out from behind closed doors, over patient charts or behind coffee cups.
“O’Malley.” he called out when he caught sight of the soft spoken young man’s crop of dark hair behind the nurses station.
George looked around him quickly before hurrying in Derek’s direction.
“Yes, Dr. Shepherd?” he looked almost pained to say it and Derek was reminded of one more thing he needed to do before he left the hospital that day.
“You and I are going to go and get some movies to watch. Unless your too busy doing some very important paper work over there for Dr. Sloan?” he caught George’s eyes and held his gaze.
George shook his head and then nodded quickly. “I would be, happy to, Dr. Shepherd. I can finish that some other time, it’s not a matter of life and death. Just liposuction.” he whispered the last part under his breath and Derek smirked.
“After you.” He gestured for George to lead the way, which he did, unsure of himself and confused, but leading the famous neuro-surgeon anyway.
==
It was raining, as per usual, it had started raining late that morning and the precipitation had only accumulated speed and force as the afternoon ended and night came rolling in.
Nancy was nursing a gin and tonic when they came in the door. With sullen expressions and sodden umbrellas and over coats, the bell above the door was even too cheerful for them. A flash of red in the direction of the toilets made her grab her coat and her partner’s umbrella and dart across the dim bar. She grabbed the red head’s elbow and steered her towards the door.
“We’re leaving.” she said by way of explanation. “I feel like putting our new found dancing skills to work somewhere, and here is clearly not the place.”
Addison gave Nancy one of her patented looks, the one with the raised eyebrow and the sceptical eyes that made people raise the white flag in defeat.
“Ok fine, the slutty intern and her little posse just came in and I really don’t want to relive this day through their eyes. I’m not drunk enough yet.
”
Addison shot a quick glance at the bar before grabbing the umbrella from Nancy’s hand and marching for the door.
Nancy followed suit, smoothing her sleek dark bob before stepping out into the harsh downpour outside.
“Where are we going?” she called to Addison over the rain and the cars flashing past them.
Addison stuck a hand out and stood on the edge of the kerb, a taxi signalled to their side of the road, cut across two lanes and pulled up alongside the two women.
“Somewhere where I can get that drunk.” she answered before pulling the door open and ushering her former sister-in-law inside the cab.
==
Derek gently pushed the door open and stepped into the room. He sighed when he glanced at the sight in front of him. The nurse looked up from the monitor she was adjusting and raised an eyebrow at Derek and then the young boy lying on his stomach on the hospital bed, his eyes glued to the screen before him. The colours dancing on the screen gave the room an eerie glow. Coupled with the dim yellow light cast by the bulbs near the top of the bed the boy looked like a ghost.
“I can finish up here.” Derek smiled and the nurse left with a shrug and a few more notes on the chart. Derek casually flicked it over once she had let the door close softly behind her rose coloured scrubs and let his eyes skim over the details.
“We got lucky today buddy.” he murmured.
The boy didn’t look up from the screen. Derek put the chart back down, letting his eyes pause over the doctor’s names typed neatly along the spine. He furrowed his brow when he noticed the boy’s unwavering concentration on the flickering images.
“You know, when I got you that little miracle machine there I didn’t know it was going to steal your ability to speak.” Derek pulled a chair up closer to the bed and sat down, all the while watching the boy lying on his stomach on the bed, propping his chin on the heel of his palm he looked completely unaware of his surroundings.
Derek sighed and leaned back in his chair. He wiggled his shoulders and stretched his arms up and over his head before yawning. “Ok then, what are we watching?”
The boy, Joey, finally turned away from the screen and met Derek’s eye, he smiled brightly at the older doctor before shifting the DVD player so he could see. “Wall-E.” he said simply. “It’s my favourite.” he turned back to the screen and began pointing at the various robots zipping back and forth throughout the scenes.
Derek smiled as Joey suddenly launched into some in-depth character profiles of each animated figure, he noticed the range of emotion that he touched upon with each description and how he seemed to have a particular attachment to each one, although he clearly had some favourites amongst them. He let his mind wander from the goings on aboard the giant space ship Joey was describing and allowed himself to attempt to process the day’s events. He glanced at the patient lying peacefully on the bed beside him and couldn’t help but marvel at the simple fact that she was still alive when she really shouldn’t have been.
There had been multiple moments over the course of today when he had witnessed (not for the first time because they had studied together, learned together and practiced together on more than one occasion) marvellous medicine in it’s purest form. The quick thinking and fluid cutting that had never missed a beat, not even when there had been chaos pouring in from all sides had she faltered. It had been a while since he had seen her take on something this impossibly challenging, and actually enjoy it.
There was a subtle whoosh. And his thoughts were silent.
Meredith Grey walked into the room, casually surveyed the small child lying on the hospital bed, the sleeping woman and the small smile on Derek’s face.
She took a deep breath, focused on a point just above Derek’s head and told him that she had slept with another man the night before, that she had cheated on him.
She told him that it had taken her making someone else (another innocent bystander in the torrid affair that were ‘Meredith and Derek’, of which there were many) into the other person to realise that she was completely and utterly done with Derek Shepherd. She met his eyes once, whispered something about cleaning herself of him and Derek just managed to catch the part that mentioned anything that reminded her of him being in her home was going in the trash, which was picked at some ungodly hour on a Wednesday.
Meredith Grey walked out of the hospital room. She left a deafening silence and booming whoosh behind her.
Derek’s mind began to shout and scream loudly in his head. So much so that he was forced to clap a palm to his forehead in frustration and pressed the call button. He waited until one of the night shift nurses arrived.
==
A drum was pounding on the ceiling. There was someone playing the drums in the attic. Someone had bought and set up a drum kit which had the largest and most deafening bass drum in the world in the attic directly above Addison’s right eye sometime between two in the morning and half five in the morning without her or Nancy noticing.
Addison was jolted upright with the realisation that there was someone in her house playing the drums at five thirty in the morning, and her only source of protection was her pole dancing, Jägerbomb drinking and possibly comatose former sister-in-law (whose current whereabouts Addison wasn’t entirely certain of, although she knew that she was definitely in the house somewhere).
With some form of inhuman strength, Addison managed to pull herself off of her bed and out the bedroom door, the drumming continued, it was getting louder and more intense the longer Addison’s eyes stayed open.
As she crossed the threshold out onto the upstairs landing her bleary eyes caught something shiny and patent under the plant stand near the linen closet. She managed to bend down and grab it, noticing as she so that she was not wearing any pants, a tank top that she was certain Nancy had been wearing yesterday, but not a pant leg to be seen.
Wielding the stiletto as her only weapon, she tried to stealthily climb the steps to the third floor of her gorgeous new almost country home just a ten minute drive away from the city of Seattle, or, more specifically, the lovely, bright, state of the art private hospital that she worked at. Well, ten minutes if you drove as Addison does. Fifteen to seventeen if you’re Derek Shepherd.
‘Where is he anyway? That jackass should be the one protecting our home, not me. I’m supposed to be hidden beneath the fucking duvet.’
Rounding the corner ever so slowly, Addison finally got a clear look into the converted attic. Upon seeing another short set of steps before her she glanced backwards and discovered that she had managed to scale a might four steps so far.
“Screw it.” she muttered and flung her body up the remaining quarter flight of stairs into the brightly lit attic.
There was a loud thump from somewhere to her left and she promptly flung her arms above her head and screamed. Hands were suddenly grabbing at her waist and shoulders. Firm and hot fingers pressing into her skin and making the drummer in the attic and the pounding of her heart intensify. She attempted to pry them away from her, but all she could manage was a feeble slap. She could sense her hair flying everywhere and she had absolutely no idea where the black heel had gone, it was not in her possession, that, she was certain of.
“OH MY GOD SHUT THE FUCK UP!”
Addison let a weak whimper escape her lips. The hands on her hips were gone.
The drumming continued.
Her eyes looked wildly around her.
“Where’s the drum?” she whispered.
Two sets of confounded blue eyes looked at her as if she had just announced she was moving to Uranus.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Nancy hissed, her hair tousled and her skirt backwards, (Addison was unnerved to discover that she at least had something covering her backside) she was undisputedly hung over and in a terribly viscous mood.
A quiet ‘hiccup’ popped out of Addison, who clapped a hand over her mouth and ducked her head, her shoulders shook as she laughed, desperately trying to contain it.
Nancy’s shoulders dropped and an expression caught between amusement and despair settled on her face. She bit her lip and looked at the beams of the ceiling.
Derek looked between the two dishevelled women and felt five years old again. He was five years old, wearing an itchy blinding white shirt and wedged between his mother and his oldest sister. The priest standing at the pulpit had just misread from the Gospel of Luke and was now trying to downplay it as much as he could on a scorching early summer morning. It was too early for Derek to be sitting so still and he could see Mark out of the corner of his eye making a gesture match the priest’s word, and so could Father Andrew who was growing a deeper shade of shame with each massing moment. He could feel his sister’s sides aching with the laughter just tearing up her composed form, on the other side he could sense his mother’s frown at Mark’s unruly behaviour and at the good father’s in ability to pull himself together. He knew that he must not laugh. He knew he could not laugh. But he had to laugh.
Three middle aged successful surgeons were suddenly gripping themselves as the giggles overcame them at five thirty in the morning, in a brilliantly illuminated attic that belonged to two people who couldn’t even remember whether they liked each other and were living together in the house with the attic anymore.
“Why are you in the attic?” Addison managed to ask eventually.
Derek, still chuckling and wiping tears from the corner of his eye shook his head and shot Nancy a look before answering, “Meredith is throwing my stuff in the garbage and it’s being collected in about twenty minutes. I needed boxes.” he gestured to piles of cardboard boxes stacked in one corner of the attic.
Nancy slowly ambled down the stairs and Addison merely stared at him, open mouthed and eyes wide. Her head pounded and she was almost certain that she was still drunk. Things like this didn’t happen when she was sober.
Surely things like this don’t ever happen.
Ever.
==
Bare limbs of trees sped past on her right side, every now and then there would be a flash of colour, bright green, dark green, some left over brown or burnt orange that hadn’t been washed away by the seemingly never ending rain. Slowly other cars began to join theirs on the roads. People heading to work, some younger less jaded looking people going to school. Addison glanced at her watch when the third school bus passed them.
“What time do the schools start here anyway?” she asked quietly.
Derek glanced in his left wing mirror and shrugged. He had always hated to the school bus. Being a young boy who had only sister’s, no father, and who played in the school band tended to make his journey’s to and from the school building less than enjoyable. There was also the small fact that it hadn’t been until college that he had successfully completed the Herculean task of growing into his nose. And his hair. He signalled right and switched lanes.
“This is it.” he nodded towards the pleasant looking grey-blue two storey house with an old slightly beat up station wagon parked out front and a large old bathtub standing beside two grey garbage bins.
He glanced up at the front windows, almost certain that he had seen a flicker of movement from the one on the far right. Putting it up to his imagination and the fact that for the last two weeks not one person he knew had managed to save themselves from not acting completely and utterly ridiculous and highly out of their own characters, he opened the car door and stepped out into the fresh spring morning.
“It’s looking pretty nice out there, some clouds so a slight possibility of rain this afternoon or late morning, but for now you can rest assured it’s crisp and dry out there.” a painfully cheerful and awake voice caught Derek off guard.
He turned around in time to see Addison smashing her now empty coffee mug viciously at the radio. When she noticed that there were numerous chips falling at her feet and she had smashed the ‘2’, ‘4’ and ‘5’ buttons from the radio, she stopped.
“Maybe you should get out and get some fresh air.” Derek suggested. “You know, it’s probably a good thing that you’re in this state anyway.”
Addison looked at him with an incredulous and pissed off expression before flinging the ‘5’ button at his head, with added force. Derek stooped down and pocketed the black oval before she leaped out and ground it to dust with her foot.
“You still have my shoes.” she whispered fiercely as she clambered out of his beat up old truck and joined him on the sidewalk.
“Lets get this over with shall we?” he gestured for her to go first, she shot him an angry look before sauntering over to the bathtub.
“I don’t even want to know why it is she’s getting rid of this.” Addison looked at the gleaming white tub as if it harboured some kind of infectious disease. She sniffed at it and shuddered.
“If I had known you were going this way about it, you could have stayed back at the house. Slept off this mood.” Derek shook his head in frustration and ran a hand through his hair. This whole debacle was sending him down the path of premature grey hair.
“This ‘mood’?” Addison stood several feet away from him, hands on her hips and absolute fury in her eyes. She stamped her foot in anger and glared at him.
“You think that I wanted this? You think that I’m sulking like some spoiled brat because I want to?” her voice was trembling.
Derek sighed, his head hanging over his miniscule possessions, he gripped the lip of the tub until his knuckles went white.
“Yes Addison I think this is exactly what you wanted. And yes, I do think you’re acting like a selfish, spoiled immature brat. Going out with my married sister, who is a mother, and getting so wasted you thought your own hangover was a person who broke into our home and started playing the drums? What the hell is wrong with you? You have a patient who is fighting for her life, who is relying on you to save her life and her babies life at a moments notice. You. Just you. You, Addison Forbes Montgomery-Shepherd are the only person in that entire hospital who can save her.”
It wasn’t until a bird darted from a bush that he realised how loud his voice had risen. Surely he had woken the house’s occupants by now.
Addison set her jaw, lowered her hands from her hips and stormed over to him. She invaded his space, her eyes not once looking away from his.
“You think I don’t know that? Do you want to know why I went out with your sister last night? You want to know why it is that I’m so irresponsible? It’s you Derek. You.”
Derek simply stared. There are times when you have no words to say. When it seems that you cannot physically draw in the air to make a sound. For Derek, these times seemed to happen to him more often when he was in the presence of his ex-wife, (whom he was now living with).
“We were happy again. We bought a fucking house. Then we get back here, and it all goes to shit. We get back here and you still have a girlfriend, who loves you and you’ve made promises to.”
“Addi-” Derek was cut off when Addison held up a hand to silence him. He closed his mouth and glanced at his feet. He needed to hear this, but that didn’t mean he wanted to.
“You promised me things too Derek. It was going to be different this time. So, yeah, I’m feeling just a little bit confused.“
“So am I,” Derek exclaimed quickly before she could cut him off. “Don’t you think I feel confused sometimes to? Come on Addison, you and I both know that these past few weeks, months even, neither of us have been ourselves…..” he trailed off when Addison shot him a look.
“But I can tell you right now, that not one of my patients has suffered. My personal life may be shot to hell but I have always remained professional and good at my job. You knew that. So you don’t you ever lecture me about my responsibilities Derek. Don’t kiss me and smile at me and then turn up a few hours later with Meredith Grey at your side with this big grin on her face and flaunting the fact you couldn’t make up your mind. You strung us both along for far too long Derek. So don’t tell me that I’m the selfish one here. Don’t.”
The traditional beeping of a truck backing up signalled the end of Addison’s monologue.
“Hey, you gonna keep that tub or what?” a gruff voice called from the back of the garbage truck.
Derek shook his head and made his way back to the car. “It’s all yours,” he called over his shoulder.
Addison turned on her heel and got into the passenger seat. She cleared her throat gently.
“You still have my shoes.”
“I know.” he reached across the great divide and took her hand. “We have to go to the hospital.” he drove away from Meredith’s house, the only sound in the car Addison’s watch ticking and the suppressed sniffing from Derek.
Addison pressed a tissue into his hand and reached over to run a palm over his damp cheek.
“I’m sorry.” she whispered gently as they pulled up at the hospital.
Derek pulled the keys from the ignition. With one hand on the door and the other still clasped in hers he turned to face her.
“No your not.” he replied before pushing the door open.
She followed suit and stopped, calling out to him as he hurried towards the building, “Give me back my shoes Derek!”
‘My name’s Addison Montgomery.’ she added the latter quietly to herself as his dark head of hair passed through the gleaming revolving doors.
Rating: PG-13.... it's kind of mild.
Disclaimer: I still own nothing, except for a car :D These characters however, not mine.
Summary: Addison saves two lives, then joins Nancy for an interesting early morning workout, Derek realises he needs to make some changes and Meredith comes to this conclusion also.
A/N: Does anybody else miss the days when you could type something, then click the lj-cut button and 9/10 times it would work, without fail. I miss the reliability of an lj-cut, so much so, I looked into it, apparently The Powers That Be are 'working on it'. It's taking them forever, I was hoping it would be one of their priorities, but obviously not, I'm sure they are doing more important things then making sure that the basic functions of the website are working correctly.. *whistles*
I'm still not entirely happy with this chapter, but I decided I would post it anyway. If I didn't do it today it probably would've been another month before I did, and the lj-cuts would probably be working again.... maybe I should have waited... Anyway, I think Derek is getting a bit too wimpy for my liking. He needs to man up a little more... Also, the whole medical case should be explained a little bit more, I couldn't find the right moment to discuss it in this chapter, I tried, but no matter when or where I put it, it seemed out of place, apparently this was not the chapter for it. This is getting a bit long isn't it?.. On to the chapter!
=
She hates him. She hates him. She hates those meaningful looks he shoots her, his great smile that makes the sides of his eyes crinkle like paper bags, that famous hair of his, the sound of his voice when he says please and thank you, and the ferryboats printed across his scrub cap. And now, the smell of scotch makes her break into a hot angry sweat that she washes away every morning and night, and she hates that she loves him.
She loves him. She loves him so much, but she can’t love him. She cannot love the man who made her fall in love and think about living together as an old grey couple. She cannot and will not allow herself to become ‘the other woman’. Not again. That is not who she is. She is a surgeon. She is focused, hard-working, she’s smart and funny and she will be the person who will achieve everything that she can in her life. She will do it. She will do it without him, because she never once saw that man beside her when she decided that was the kind of person she wanted be. So no, she was not the kind of person who was going to let this love and hate stop her from being who she can be.
She could do greatness all on her own. It seemed she had everything else covered, she might as well do something positive, all by herself.
A sharp piercing beep in her left ear made her shove her covers down to her feet and swing her legs over the side of her bed.
There was a slow movement from the warm body lying beside her.
Impulses. They happen. For some people it happens when they walk through a department store, or a flea market or pass a gym.
“Good morning.” He had light blond hair, short and tousled, but it had been meticulously styled. He had these striking green eyes, not exactly deep and intriguing, but warm and inviting. They gave the impression that he would lay it all out on the table. They were clear and honest. Something about them told her that he hadn’t lived yet. He was just starting out.
“I’m going to go take a shower and..” she stopped, she looked at the alarm clock and then back at his green eyes. Inviting her in.
“You’re not going to take a shower.” he smiled before reaching out and pulling him back to her.
‘And you are not Derek Shepherd.’ Meredith smiled to herself as she let her body lean against the big strong green eyed man and realised that starting over was a good thing, and that she should do it more often. She was going to make active changes in her life, and she was starting with her relationships.
==
“I’m too old for this.” Addison eyed the slim blonde in front of her and tried to figure out exactly how long she would have for sleep if she left this second and had to be back at the hospital at eight. Sleep. In all her life so far Addison could only recall a hand full of times when she had had a longing for sweet unconscious bliss this badly.
“You are not too old for this. Those panties, maybe, but this, my mother could do this. I’m sure she does too.”
“You are not actually talking about your mother right now are you?” Addison winced as she caught a girl madly swinging her long tousled brunette hair counter clockwise as she allowed her body to slide down the metal pole before she landed in a gracefully sexy heap on the floor.
“This is great. They never have classes this early in Connecticut.” Addison shot her a look. “Yes, I know, happily married successful doctor with three gorgeous kids scouring the entire state for a strip club that gives classes before her eight am rounds is not exactly normal.”
“Nancy, when have you ever been normal?”
“That’s a trick question, because I choose to see the world as a place where normal is merely a figment of the populous’ imagination. There is no true way to be normal. You can only conform to other people‘s expectations.”
“And you wonder why your kids can’t just watch Disney Channel with the rest of their friends….” Addison glanced at the gleaming pole to her right and casually wrapped a leg around it. It was hard and uncomfortable but within a minute she had mustered up the energy and conviction to successfully complete a basic chair spin, much to Nancy’s amusement.
“You’re a natural.” she smirked.
“You think these come in neon colours? I’m thinking I could have it installed in his office, right in front of the window, charge it to his card and get the matching dancer.” Addison mused as she watched the instructor demonstrate some more complicated looking back hooks to the slim blonde with a look of utter determination on her face.
“Derek doesn’t have an office. And why in the world would you do that for him. That‘s as good as letting a five year old free in the factory where they make Skittles.” Nancy watched her former sister-in-law, trying to figure out where this was all going and if it was going to interfere with her plan. “Addison.” she snapped when the red head didn’t answer. Addison turned and looked at her, her eyes dark and her body tense.
“He still has my shoes.” she responded, a certain amount of venom laced her words, giving them a slightly edgy tone.
‘Now that will certainly work nicely in my favour.’ Nancy smiled happily to herself before taking a slight skip and jump before flinging her legs in the air above her head and winding them around the pole, letting her body swirl slowly around and around.
==
Derek caught a glimpse of her as she disappeared around a corner. He quickly moved his gaze back to the OR board, nodding in the vain hopes that Burke would take his silence as an awe filled reverie. He let the words and schedules float in front of his eyes as his brain tried to wrangle the right words together in a sentence. He had no problem talking, he enjoyed good conversation. He had always been able to talk to her, talking to her had never been a problem.
He felt like he could share so many things with her, and he had.
Everything except the most important details.
Everything had been fresh and new, they were getting to know each other right from the beginning. He hadn’t needed to reinvent himself, but he had been able to leave out anything that was hard or difficult, anything that he had failed to mention had been because he hadn’t been able to comprehend what happened. He had been able to pick and choose the parts of his life up until the point when he walked into his bedroom and saw his wife and his best friend in his bed, having sex on his favourite sheets, that he wanted to bring forward with him on this new adventure he had created for himself, on the other side of the country. He had been indulging the five year old inside him that still duelled with dragons and won Super Bowls on Sunday afternoons.
An intern rushing down the corridor with a steaming Styrofoam cup in one hand and a peach coloured patient chart in the other made Derek snap out of it. Why was he standing there, brooding like some angst-ridden hormonal teenager when he had operations to perform, patients to check on, paper work to do, research to finish and interns to observe. Why was he standing there letting his mind wander until it had successfully mangled itself into a knotted ball of over analyzed and melancholic notions. Derek wondered where the time had gone, he felt that there were whole years he was missing, that his life had been put on fast forward and he and been the one holding the remote.
He shook his head as Addison made her way over to the OR board. She stood beside him, pulling herself up to her full height and crossing her arms in front of her chest. She studied the dry erase board with a sharp eye. She cleared her throat and stole a side ways glance at him.
“I was wondering if you knew where I would be able to find a DVD player?” she asked quietly.
Derek struggled to keep his eyes focused straight, he knew if he looked at her everything would evaporate in a second.
“My patient, her younger brother is here, and he’s kind of panicky. I need to keep them all relaxed, her blood pressure can’t get any higher, she needs to be as relaxed and stress free as you possibly can be when you’re lying in a hospital bed. Otherwise I can’t operate. And if I can’t operate you can’t operate, and if you can’t operate…” she trailed off.
“That would make two of you then.” he smiled gently when he heard her exhale loudly and close her eyes, the muscles in her shoulders and neck going slack as she allowed herself to stop for just two seconds and regroup. “Don’t worry about it, I’ll get it to him before you could even have found one.”
Their heads turned at the same moment, they shifted slightly, you could blame it on exhaustion, slippery floors, maybe even just a little bit of mutual attraction.
Addison glanced from his lips to his eyes and before her brain had time to register the smile on his face her lips were pressed against his and it wasn’t rushed or awkward. It was sweet, and gentle. Two words she would not have even considering using to describe her and Derek in the last couple of days.
She pushed herself away with her hands flat against his chest and turned, she walked away with her hands balled into fists in her lab coat pockets and a smile battling it’s way to her eyes.
“His name’s Joey.” she called over her shoulder before she picked up the pace and ducked around the corner.
Derek smiled and nodded gently, not aware of the dozens of heads that had poked out from behind closed doors, over patient charts or behind coffee cups.
“O’Malley.” he called out when he caught sight of the soft spoken young man’s crop of dark hair behind the nurses station.
George looked around him quickly before hurrying in Derek’s direction.
“Yes, Dr. Shepherd?” he looked almost pained to say it and Derek was reminded of one more thing he needed to do before he left the hospital that day.
“You and I are going to go and get some movies to watch. Unless your too busy doing some very important paper work over there for Dr. Sloan?” he caught George’s eyes and held his gaze.
George shook his head and then nodded quickly. “I would be, happy to, Dr. Shepherd. I can finish that some other time, it’s not a matter of life and death. Just liposuction.” he whispered the last part under his breath and Derek smirked.
“After you.” He gestured for George to lead the way, which he did, unsure of himself and confused, but leading the famous neuro-surgeon anyway.
==
It was raining, as per usual, it had started raining late that morning and the precipitation had only accumulated speed and force as the afternoon ended and night came rolling in.
Nancy was nursing a gin and tonic when they came in the door. With sullen expressions and sodden umbrellas and over coats, the bell above the door was even too cheerful for them. A flash of red in the direction of the toilets made her grab her coat and her partner’s umbrella and dart across the dim bar. She grabbed the red head’s elbow and steered her towards the door.
“We’re leaving.” she said by way of explanation. “I feel like putting our new found dancing skills to work somewhere, and here is clearly not the place.”
Addison gave Nancy one of her patented looks, the one with the raised eyebrow and the sceptical eyes that made people raise the white flag in defeat.
“Ok fine, the slutty intern and her little posse just came in and I really don’t want to relive this day through their eyes. I’m not drunk enough yet.
”
Addison shot a quick glance at the bar before grabbing the umbrella from Nancy’s hand and marching for the door.
Nancy followed suit, smoothing her sleek dark bob before stepping out into the harsh downpour outside.
“Where are we going?” she called to Addison over the rain and the cars flashing past them.
Addison stuck a hand out and stood on the edge of the kerb, a taxi signalled to their side of the road, cut across two lanes and pulled up alongside the two women.
“Somewhere where I can get that drunk.” she answered before pulling the door open and ushering her former sister-in-law inside the cab.
==
Derek gently pushed the door open and stepped into the room. He sighed when he glanced at the sight in front of him. The nurse looked up from the monitor she was adjusting and raised an eyebrow at Derek and then the young boy lying on his stomach on the hospital bed, his eyes glued to the screen before him. The colours dancing on the screen gave the room an eerie glow. Coupled with the dim yellow light cast by the bulbs near the top of the bed the boy looked like a ghost.
“I can finish up here.” Derek smiled and the nurse left with a shrug and a few more notes on the chart. Derek casually flicked it over once she had let the door close softly behind her rose coloured scrubs and let his eyes skim over the details.
“We got lucky today buddy.” he murmured.
The boy didn’t look up from the screen. Derek put the chart back down, letting his eyes pause over the doctor’s names typed neatly along the spine. He furrowed his brow when he noticed the boy’s unwavering concentration on the flickering images.
“You know, when I got you that little miracle machine there I didn’t know it was going to steal your ability to speak.” Derek pulled a chair up closer to the bed and sat down, all the while watching the boy lying on his stomach on the bed, propping his chin on the heel of his palm he looked completely unaware of his surroundings.
Derek sighed and leaned back in his chair. He wiggled his shoulders and stretched his arms up and over his head before yawning. “Ok then, what are we watching?”
The boy, Joey, finally turned away from the screen and met Derek’s eye, he smiled brightly at the older doctor before shifting the DVD player so he could see. “Wall-E.” he said simply. “It’s my favourite.” he turned back to the screen and began pointing at the various robots zipping back and forth throughout the scenes.
Derek smiled as Joey suddenly launched into some in-depth character profiles of each animated figure, he noticed the range of emotion that he touched upon with each description and how he seemed to have a particular attachment to each one, although he clearly had some favourites amongst them. He let his mind wander from the goings on aboard the giant space ship Joey was describing and allowed himself to attempt to process the day’s events. He glanced at the patient lying peacefully on the bed beside him and couldn’t help but marvel at the simple fact that she was still alive when she really shouldn’t have been.
There had been multiple moments over the course of today when he had witnessed (not for the first time because they had studied together, learned together and practiced together on more than one occasion) marvellous medicine in it’s purest form. The quick thinking and fluid cutting that had never missed a beat, not even when there had been chaos pouring in from all sides had she faltered. It had been a while since he had seen her take on something this impossibly challenging, and actually enjoy it.
There was a subtle whoosh. And his thoughts were silent.
Meredith Grey walked into the room, casually surveyed the small child lying on the hospital bed, the sleeping woman and the small smile on Derek’s face.
She took a deep breath, focused on a point just above Derek’s head and told him that she had slept with another man the night before, that she had cheated on him.
She told him that it had taken her making someone else (another innocent bystander in the torrid affair that were ‘Meredith and Derek’, of which there were many) into the other person to realise that she was completely and utterly done with Derek Shepherd. She met his eyes once, whispered something about cleaning herself of him and Derek just managed to catch the part that mentioned anything that reminded her of him being in her home was going in the trash, which was picked at some ungodly hour on a Wednesday.
Meredith Grey walked out of the hospital room. She left a deafening silence and booming whoosh behind her.
Derek’s mind began to shout and scream loudly in his head. So much so that he was forced to clap a palm to his forehead in frustration and pressed the call button. He waited until one of the night shift nurses arrived.
==
A drum was pounding on the ceiling. There was someone playing the drums in the attic. Someone had bought and set up a drum kit which had the largest and most deafening bass drum in the world in the attic directly above Addison’s right eye sometime between two in the morning and half five in the morning without her or Nancy noticing.
Addison was jolted upright with the realisation that there was someone in her house playing the drums at five thirty in the morning, and her only source of protection was her pole dancing, Jägerbomb drinking and possibly comatose former sister-in-law (whose current whereabouts Addison wasn’t entirely certain of, although she knew that she was definitely in the house somewhere).
With some form of inhuman strength, Addison managed to pull herself off of her bed and out the bedroom door, the drumming continued, it was getting louder and more intense the longer Addison’s eyes stayed open.
As she crossed the threshold out onto the upstairs landing her bleary eyes caught something shiny and patent under the plant stand near the linen closet. She managed to bend down and grab it, noticing as she so that she was not wearing any pants, a tank top that she was certain Nancy had been wearing yesterday, but not a pant leg to be seen.
Wielding the stiletto as her only weapon, she tried to stealthily climb the steps to the third floor of her gorgeous new almost country home just a ten minute drive away from the city of Seattle, or, more specifically, the lovely, bright, state of the art private hospital that she worked at. Well, ten minutes if you drove as Addison does. Fifteen to seventeen if you’re Derek Shepherd.
‘Where is he anyway? That jackass should be the one protecting our home, not me. I’m supposed to be hidden beneath the fucking duvet.’
Rounding the corner ever so slowly, Addison finally got a clear look into the converted attic. Upon seeing another short set of steps before her she glanced backwards and discovered that she had managed to scale a might four steps so far.
“Screw it.” she muttered and flung her body up the remaining quarter flight of stairs into the brightly lit attic.
There was a loud thump from somewhere to her left and she promptly flung her arms above her head and screamed. Hands were suddenly grabbing at her waist and shoulders. Firm and hot fingers pressing into her skin and making the drummer in the attic and the pounding of her heart intensify. She attempted to pry them away from her, but all she could manage was a feeble slap. She could sense her hair flying everywhere and she had absolutely no idea where the black heel had gone, it was not in her possession, that, she was certain of.
“OH MY GOD SHUT THE FUCK UP!”
Addison let a weak whimper escape her lips. The hands on her hips were gone.
The drumming continued.
Her eyes looked wildly around her.
“Where’s the drum?” she whispered.
Two sets of confounded blue eyes looked at her as if she had just announced she was moving to Uranus.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Nancy hissed, her hair tousled and her skirt backwards, (Addison was unnerved to discover that she at least had something covering her backside) she was undisputedly hung over and in a terribly viscous mood.
A quiet ‘hiccup’ popped out of Addison, who clapped a hand over her mouth and ducked her head, her shoulders shook as she laughed, desperately trying to contain it.
Nancy’s shoulders dropped and an expression caught between amusement and despair settled on her face. She bit her lip and looked at the beams of the ceiling.
Derek looked between the two dishevelled women and felt five years old again. He was five years old, wearing an itchy blinding white shirt and wedged between his mother and his oldest sister. The priest standing at the pulpit had just misread from the Gospel of Luke and was now trying to downplay it as much as he could on a scorching early summer morning. It was too early for Derek to be sitting so still and he could see Mark out of the corner of his eye making a gesture match the priest’s word, and so could Father Andrew who was growing a deeper shade of shame with each massing moment. He could feel his sister’s sides aching with the laughter just tearing up her composed form, on the other side he could sense his mother’s frown at Mark’s unruly behaviour and at the good father’s in ability to pull himself together. He knew that he must not laugh. He knew he could not laugh. But he had to laugh.
Three middle aged successful surgeons were suddenly gripping themselves as the giggles overcame them at five thirty in the morning, in a brilliantly illuminated attic that belonged to two people who couldn’t even remember whether they liked each other and were living together in the house with the attic anymore.
“Why are you in the attic?” Addison managed to ask eventually.
Derek, still chuckling and wiping tears from the corner of his eye shook his head and shot Nancy a look before answering, “Meredith is throwing my stuff in the garbage and it’s being collected in about twenty minutes. I needed boxes.” he gestured to piles of cardboard boxes stacked in one corner of the attic.
Nancy slowly ambled down the stairs and Addison merely stared at him, open mouthed and eyes wide. Her head pounded and she was almost certain that she was still drunk. Things like this didn’t happen when she was sober.
Surely things like this don’t ever happen.
Ever.
==
Bare limbs of trees sped past on her right side, every now and then there would be a flash of colour, bright green, dark green, some left over brown or burnt orange that hadn’t been washed away by the seemingly never ending rain. Slowly other cars began to join theirs on the roads. People heading to work, some younger less jaded looking people going to school. Addison glanced at her watch when the third school bus passed them.
“What time do the schools start here anyway?” she asked quietly.
Derek glanced in his left wing mirror and shrugged. He had always hated to the school bus. Being a young boy who had only sister’s, no father, and who played in the school band tended to make his journey’s to and from the school building less than enjoyable. There was also the small fact that it hadn’t been until college that he had successfully completed the Herculean task of growing into his nose. And his hair. He signalled right and switched lanes.
“This is it.” he nodded towards the pleasant looking grey-blue two storey house with an old slightly beat up station wagon parked out front and a large old bathtub standing beside two grey garbage bins.
He glanced up at the front windows, almost certain that he had seen a flicker of movement from the one on the far right. Putting it up to his imagination and the fact that for the last two weeks not one person he knew had managed to save themselves from not acting completely and utterly ridiculous and highly out of their own characters, he opened the car door and stepped out into the fresh spring morning.
“It’s looking pretty nice out there, some clouds so a slight possibility of rain this afternoon or late morning, but for now you can rest assured it’s crisp and dry out there.” a painfully cheerful and awake voice caught Derek off guard.
He turned around in time to see Addison smashing her now empty coffee mug viciously at the radio. When she noticed that there were numerous chips falling at her feet and she had smashed the ‘2’, ‘4’ and ‘5’ buttons from the radio, she stopped.
“Maybe you should get out and get some fresh air.” Derek suggested. “You know, it’s probably a good thing that you’re in this state anyway.”
Addison looked at him with an incredulous and pissed off expression before flinging the ‘5’ button at his head, with added force. Derek stooped down and pocketed the black oval before she leaped out and ground it to dust with her foot.
“You still have my shoes.” she whispered fiercely as she clambered out of his beat up old truck and joined him on the sidewalk.
“Lets get this over with shall we?” he gestured for her to go first, she shot him an angry look before sauntering over to the bathtub.
“I don’t even want to know why it is she’s getting rid of this.” Addison looked at the gleaming white tub as if it harboured some kind of infectious disease. She sniffed at it and shuddered.
“If I had known you were going this way about it, you could have stayed back at the house. Slept off this mood.” Derek shook his head in frustration and ran a hand through his hair. This whole debacle was sending him down the path of premature grey hair.
“This ‘mood’?” Addison stood several feet away from him, hands on her hips and absolute fury in her eyes. She stamped her foot in anger and glared at him.
“You think that I wanted this? You think that I’m sulking like some spoiled brat because I want to?” her voice was trembling.
Derek sighed, his head hanging over his miniscule possessions, he gripped the lip of the tub until his knuckles went white.
“Yes Addison I think this is exactly what you wanted. And yes, I do think you’re acting like a selfish, spoiled immature brat. Going out with my married sister, who is a mother, and getting so wasted you thought your own hangover was a person who broke into our home and started playing the drums? What the hell is wrong with you? You have a patient who is fighting for her life, who is relying on you to save her life and her babies life at a moments notice. You. Just you. You, Addison Forbes Montgomery-Shepherd are the only person in that entire hospital who can save her.”
It wasn’t until a bird darted from a bush that he realised how loud his voice had risen. Surely he had woken the house’s occupants by now.
Addison set her jaw, lowered her hands from her hips and stormed over to him. She invaded his space, her eyes not once looking away from his.
“You think I don’t know that? Do you want to know why I went out with your sister last night? You want to know why it is that I’m so irresponsible? It’s you Derek. You.”
Derek simply stared. There are times when you have no words to say. When it seems that you cannot physically draw in the air to make a sound. For Derek, these times seemed to happen to him more often when he was in the presence of his ex-wife, (whom he was now living with).
“We were happy again. We bought a fucking house. Then we get back here, and it all goes to shit. We get back here and you still have a girlfriend, who loves you and you’ve made promises to.”
“Addi-” Derek was cut off when Addison held up a hand to silence him. He closed his mouth and glanced at his feet. He needed to hear this, but that didn’t mean he wanted to.
“You promised me things too Derek. It was going to be different this time. So, yeah, I’m feeling just a little bit confused.“
“So am I,” Derek exclaimed quickly before she could cut him off. “Don’t you think I feel confused sometimes to? Come on Addison, you and I both know that these past few weeks, months even, neither of us have been ourselves…..” he trailed off when Addison shot him a look.
“But I can tell you right now, that not one of my patients has suffered. My personal life may be shot to hell but I have always remained professional and good at my job. You knew that. So you don’t you ever lecture me about my responsibilities Derek. Don’t kiss me and smile at me and then turn up a few hours later with Meredith Grey at your side with this big grin on her face and flaunting the fact you couldn’t make up your mind. You strung us both along for far too long Derek. So don’t tell me that I’m the selfish one here. Don’t.”
The traditional beeping of a truck backing up signalled the end of Addison’s monologue.
“Hey, you gonna keep that tub or what?” a gruff voice called from the back of the garbage truck.
Derek shook his head and made his way back to the car. “It’s all yours,” he called over his shoulder.
Addison turned on her heel and got into the passenger seat. She cleared her throat gently.
“You still have my shoes.”
“I know.” he reached across the great divide and took her hand. “We have to go to the hospital.” he drove away from Meredith’s house, the only sound in the car Addison’s watch ticking and the suppressed sniffing from Derek.
Addison pressed a tissue into his hand and reached over to run a palm over his damp cheek.
“I’m sorry.” she whispered gently as they pulled up at the hospital.
Derek pulled the keys from the ignition. With one hand on the door and the other still clasped in hers he turned to face her.
“No your not.” he replied before pushing the door open.
She followed suit and stopped, calling out to him as he hurried towards the building, “Give me back my shoes Derek!”
‘My name’s Addison Montgomery.’ she added the latter quietly to herself as his dark head of hair passed through the gleaming revolving doors.