Prologue

Learning to Love Again

Julia's POV

It's funny how you can go from having everything, to eventually having nothing at all.

A lot can happen in two years. You can runaway. Go back to New York. Live on the streets for a while. You learn to sleep during the days, walk the streets at nights.

Hunts Point becomes your best friend. It is where you work at nights. It is where you by drugs. It is where you make friends. It is home.

You find Ainslie and her boyfriend Mike. You find out you have a three year old sister.

Their home becomes your home. And eventually, you get drawn into a life that you tried to hard to escape. Drugs. Parties. And Prostitution. Until one day you come home and there is blood, so much blood.

It's funny isn't it? How you can go from having everything, to eventually having nothing at all.

Derek's POV

When you are torn between two people, between two places,

you start to lose sight of who you are.

It's funny how things can crumble to the ground within seconds, minutes, even hours. It doesn't take long after that for a crisis to emerge and for things to continue to spiral downhill.

A lot can happen in two years, twelve hours, seven minutes and thirty seconds.

Your daughter can go missing.

You cheat on your wife during a "hospital prom."

You and your wife can get a divorce. She can move to LA. Start work at a private practice.

You move back into what your daughter would call, the trailer in the middle of nowhere land.

Your sister can relapse. Go to rehab for the third time. Then get a job working for Doctors Without Boarders, leave the country and move to Africa.

Eventually, you can't let go of your daughter's disappearance. You can't let go of the aftermath. You can't stop going to New York each weekend to look for her. You can't let it go. You can't move on.

So you stop going to work because your patients and colleagues no longer you as a God but as a father who is fixated on his missing daughter.

So you lose the girlfriend you were going to purpose to by throwing your mother's engagement ring into the woods.

So you become depressed, cold hearted and alone.

Eventually, things begin to get better. You start going to work again. You start dating again. Eventually, little by little, you do move on.

But the thing is, life is never exactly how it was before.

Addison's POV

There was no reason to stay in Seattle.

I didn't feel anything there. I didn't feel anything at all.

It's been two years since I've moved here. Oceanside Wellness is different than Seattle Grace. A good different. Here, there's no rain. There's no Meredith. There's no Derek. There's no Mark.

Richard begged me to stay, he promised he'd keep my job open as long as he could.

I needed I reason to wake up every morning. To not care that it's raining

He begged. He pleaded. He said I belonged in the OR.

There was no reason to stay in Seattle. I didn't feel anything there. I didn't feel anything at all.

So I moved, here to California, took a job at Oceanside Wellness, a private practice my friends Naomi and Sam owned, or did own.

I run the practice now. Pete, Violet, Cooper, Charlotte, and Sam, they all own shares.

You'd think I had it all; a new house on the beach in Santa Monica; a new job; new friends; a new life.

But there's no Derek. There's no Mark. There's no Seattle. There's no Julia.

Sometimes I miss the rain. I miss the rush of the OR. More than anything, anything at all, I miss Julia.

Amelia's POV

After each of these times I got sober.

After each of these times I vowed to change my life around.

Life can change in a blink of an eye. The thing is though; you don't realize when it does. It is the after match that gets you sucked in, looking for clues, for that one defining moment, when everything shattered, that moment when everything fell apart.

How many times can a person hit rock bottom? And was exactly is rock bottom?

Was it when my father got shot? Was it when I crashed my brother's car into a telephone pole? Was it when I overdosed the second time? Or was it when I peed on a stick and pink plus sign appeared, but realized I couldn't bring another little life into this world, when there was a thirteen-year-old girl that needed me more?

After each of these times I got sober. After each of these times I vowed to change my life around.

No matter how many chances you get, you are always left wondering when you will hit rock bottom again?

Mark's POV

It is hard to watch your friends' lives fall apart.

It is hard to watch them lose everything they have.

Things went from bad to worst. You would think that a kid, that walked into your life only 6 months before, would not have impacted your life the way she did. But she did. She drew you into her lies, and her mysterious eyes. Her eyes held secrets inside, a lifetime of untold stories.

It is hard to watch your friends' lives fall apart. It is hard to watch them lose everything they have.

When Mini D left, things were shit. Amy relapsed and went on a drug binge. Derek became so depressed that he stopped showing up for work. Addie, she decided she had enough and moved to LA.

So you be strong. You hold it together. Despite, the fact that you are missing this kid too, you do it because someone has to.

Then one day, things around you began to get better. So you continue to hold things in because you don't want things to fall apart again.

How long though can someone hold it together? How long can someone be strong, when they are hurting inside too?

Julia's POV.

Eventually, all this is too much. Eventually you hit rock bottom.

Eventually you decide to come home.

You don't realize how much can happen in two years until you experience it, until you take a breath, look back, and recount your memories, recount the moments you've collected. It's then, two years later that you realize how much can actually happen.

Eventually all this, is too much. Eventually you hit rock bottom. Eventually you decide to come home.