ON ANOTHER PATH
In another life, where Mark and Addison are happily married, there are still a number of seemingly insurmountable struggles to overcome.
Trigger warning for miscarriage and infertility.
Massive AU, no spoilers to be seen.
Because they always have been and always will be my OTP, and I still can't let them go…
It doesn't make sense. You're a freaking OBGYN, you've been spending your life fixing mothers, fixing unborn babies and bringing babies into this world for so long that you almost forget there was something before it. But there's this other fertility specialist in front of you, telling you you've got something like six eggs left. And Mark's sliding his hand into yours, but yours is cold and clammy, and you can't help wishing you'd taken your husband up on his offer to go to LA and get the tests done by Naomi. Because then at least you could drown your sorrows, your wishes, your memories (of what seems right now like everything you'd ever wanted) in the sunshine. As it is, you're still in New York, in the cold, and the rain, and despite always having loved the city, it suddenly feels grey and dull and suffocating.
"There are things we can try, Dr Montgomery…" the man's saying (Jake something, you think he introduced himself as. He seems nice enough, but he doesn't seem to understand that this woman sitting in front of him right now isn't even close to Dr Montgomery. It can't be. Because Dr Montgomery will have to get up tomorrow morning and talk to patients about babies and pregnancies like they're her everyday life. Which they are. Addison, however, Addison can cry all night into one of the old pillows and get left at home during the day.) "There are IVF possibilities – I've had a lot of success on similar cases to yours, and then there's egg donors, surrogate mothers and even adoption… there are people I could put you in contact with to discuss any of those…"
Mark puts his hand up, his face whiter than you're used to seeing. "I think we need time, time and space right now Dr Reilly. I think we've got a lot to talk about…" He looks at you, as if he's expecting you to say something, but you can't seem to stop staring down at your hand in his. It looks tiny, in that moment, tiny and insignificant. Dr Reilly's backing out of the room, as if the two of you alone for a moment will solve anything, and Mark's taking his hand from yours and curling his arm around you, but you can't move, you can't lean into him, as you always have done, since you were two best friends who suddenly considered maybe you were supposed to be more than just best friends, after one too many messy failed relationships. You're cold and rigid with his arms around you, but his fingers stroke patterns in your skin even so.
"We'll figure it out, Addie. We always figure it out."
He makes you a coffee when you get home, but you just sit and silently stare at it. You know what he's doing, he's waiting for you to speak, but you don't have anything to say. You can't even begin to wrap words around what you're feeling right now, and so you're not going to try. You watch the steam coming off the black coffee until it isn't anymore, as Mark busies himself behind you preparing something for dinner.
You feel… inadequate. So much of an irony you want to scream. Almost like a joke. Somehow deserving, because you've spent so many years thinking one day and now you don't have the time you always took for granted. So many things, flitting so quickly through your mind you can't put your finger on any one of them.
Mark sets a plate of spaghetti in front of you and a fork and a spoon, and seconds later a glass of water. You stare down at them for a moment, almost not comprehending, because eating is something normal people do. Something people who can have children without even thinking do.
"You should eat something." He half-whispers, and you pick up the cutlery, but you don't look at him. You can't. Not right now. Because everything will come crashing into reality if you meet his eyes, you think. Because Mark's the other person who's dealing with this, and you're not sure you're ready to comprehend that.
You manage to shovel a few mouthfuls into your mouth (they taste like polystyrene) before scooting your chair back and taking your glass of water in your hand.
"I'm going to get an early night." You murmur, and start out of the kitchen door, towards the stairs.
Somehow he knows not to follow you, not to argue.
He sleeps on the sofa that night.
When you wake up in the morning, you're somehow expecting to feel different, and maybe you do, almost imperceptibly, before you get in the shower, but as you climb out, dress, put your make up on and pin up your hair, everything falls away. It's stepping into the shoes of Dr Montgomery, and she has other people's babies to worry about, not the absence of her own.
Mark's cleared out of the house before you get downstairs, and you sigh. You don't like leaving it like that, you never have. You should have known, so many years ago now, when you'd thought he could never be anything but your high school best friend, when the few arguments between two completely platonic idiots had left you weeping, feeling bereft and alone, when you'd been able to shake yourself and laugh off the last stupid boy to have dumped you.
You'll see him on lunch, hopefully, you muse, and all you'll need is a gentle squeeze of his hand. He'll understand you're sorry. He'll understand that in no words at all you're saying it's not his fault, you're not blaming him for anything, you understand it's breaking his heart too.
You shake yourself, then, because Dr Montgomery doesn't think like that. And you need to leave Addison at home.
You manage to do so, until Cynthia Robbins just after lunch. You've been dealing with the Robbins family for almost the last year – they've got two daughters, but on their attempts to have a third child, Cynthia keeps miscarrying at late stages for various unknown reasons. Until today, they've been fiercely determined to keep trying, Cynthia and Nick Robbins, despite all your protestations about the effects this is having on both Cynthia's mental and physical health.
But something's different today. And you wonder, curled up in your bed that night, whether something's changed in the world now, it's certainly changed in yours, but in that moment, you don't expect it.
Cynthia looks brighter today, as she sits down in front of you, and Nick doesn't look as tired.
"We've decided…" she looks up at her husband, like she's waiting for some sort of confirmation. Nick smiles weakly. "It's not worth it, not what it's doing to us. We've got two beautiful girls, and maybe that's all we were ever supposed to have…"
All we were ever supposed to have…
You hold yourself together, somewhat congratulating the Robbins' on their decision, and offering them any advice they need on where to go from here with contraception so the devastating miscarriages don't keep occurring. But when you find yourself in a bathroom with half an hour until your next appointment, you find yourself sitting on a closed toilet lid, head between your hands, and suddenly the words are suffocating. Because you can't make any sense of a God, or a universe, or whatever the hell it might be that's decided you and Mark weren't supposed to be parents to anyone.
You don't cry – Montgomerys don't cry – but you hyperventilate until there are tears running down your cheeks anyway. Because it isn't fair, it doesn't make sense and you don't know what you did to deserve it.
But other lives don't stop, because you're coming to terms with your new reality in a bathroom on the obstetrics corridor, and you've still got an appointment with Charlotte Green, who is ready to deliver conjoined twins any day now, and so you stand up and wipe your eyes.
You let Dr Montgomery descend over Addison before you walk out the door.
Mark's late in that night, and he looks like he hasn't slept in weeks, though you're not surprised – you need a new couch. You serve him dinner without a word, and pour him a glass of wine, but as you turn to walk away he catches your hand.
"We going to talk about it, Addison?"
You swallow. He only calls you by your full name when he's mad.
"We need to talk about it." He tries when you don't answer.
You shake your head, a dry smile on your face and a bitter laugh floating through the air. "What's there to talk about? It's not going to happen, it's too late for me, and there's nothing we can do about it…"
"We could try… you heard all those options Dr Reilly was giving us, right? We should talk about what we do next?"
Your eyes flash, suddenly, and his hand feels hot in yours. You drop it, taking a step back.
"It's not some business plan for the Plastics department, Mark, it's not a multiple choice question where one of the answers is there, we just have to find the right one… it's my body, our futures… it's everything we ever wanted, turned to dust…"
"Addie, I-"
You put your hand up, stopping him. "It's all my fault, and it's something I can't fix… you didn't sign up for this, Mark, and I-"
"You didn't sign up for this either!"
You sink into the chair next to him, your whole body suddenly feeling heavy. "But you could get out. You could go somewhere, you could find someone who could give you twenty goddamn babies… you could find one of those Grey girls everyone wanted in high school… you don't have to-"
He's turned a shade of pale that doesn't quite look healthy. "I married you, Red." He half-whispers, and you muse it shouldn't sound quite so helpless. "And this all became about us. You never know what for better or for worse is going to mean - this is both of us, this is both of our problem. And I don't want one of the Grey girls' twenty goddamn babies. I want whatever comes our way, however it comes our way… do you understand what I'm saying?"
You lean against his shoulder, sniffing.
"We'll find our way, you understand? Together."
You nod, almost feebly, against his shoulder. His brings his fingers up to your cheek, and you tilt your lips to his, lightly, desperately, almost painfully.
"Together." You echo.
It's madness, really, because you're an OBGYN and you spend your life with women and babies – but suddenly, once they're some kind of miracle, they're everywhere. In front of you on the bus, behind you in the queue in Starbucks, walking past the front window of the brownstone when you glance up. They're all different – you make allowances for the mothers that could have been trying for years and gotten their little one through some kind of miracle, but the girls who look hardly halfway through high school, the expectant mothers' whose disapproving parents bring them to the clinic, the young, foolish women you still have to discuss abortion with – it's not fair, is it? It's not fair that a seeming impossibility to you is nothing but an unhappy accident to others – something to halt the life planned, not to encourage its growth infinitely.
You exist in something of a state of some sort of dysfunctional equilibrium, like life is happening around you and you're not really taking part. After those first days, Mark doesn't bring it up again, as if he's waiting for you to say something or the right moment – neither of which he seems to find. And the world slowly chugs on, as if it doesn't know how hollow you feel inside, how the pure thought of the whole thing is eating away at your soul in every waking moment… and sometimes in your nightmares, too. A somewhat recurring dream has started – all you can here is a baby crying, but it's dark, and you can't seem to move, and the crying is getting further and further away…
Until one day, when you come home and there are candles on the table, Mark's serving up your favourite meal (lobster linguine) and pouring you a generous helping of wine, a smile on his face you haven't seen in weeks. With a moment of cold rushing through your body, you realise it's your eleventh anniversary. There's light music playing in the background, and everything is so freaking perfect you burst into tears.
Mark's face drops instantly, and you find his ushering you into a chair, his arms around you.
"I'm sorry…" you sniff, resting your forehead against his shoulder, letting him trace infinite patterns on your skin. "I… I wasn't ready to say… I wasn't ready to talk about it…" you look up at him. "But it's your problem, too… I should have thought about that… I'm sorry…"
He runs his fingers gently through your hair. "I knew you needed time." He breathes, and it's almost heavier than it should sound, but you give him a tiny smile.
"You always know... I'm sorry." You whisper, and when he frowns at you, you know he knows what you're thinking.
"We need to start figuring this out together, right?" he sounds maybe more apprehensive than he'd intended, but you nod, slightly, sliding your face into the curve of his cheek. There's a moment of heavy silence, despite Frank Sinatra tinkling in the background, and you can smell him. All the reasons you married this man come to the forefront of your mind, and you feel stronger than you've felt in weeks. When you lean back ever so slightly it's only to thread your hands into his hair, and when his eyes meet yours, they darken.
"Tomorrow." You breathe, "We can start tomorrow."
And after the hushed whisper there's nothing to do but crash against him. You can almost feel the hunger sliding suddenly through him, totally unexpected but completely welcome. He tugs you up into his arms with a roughness that triggers a distant memory – you used to be like this, the two of you, when you were in med school and you were young and immortal and had whole futures ahead of you. He pushes you back towards the counter, and you can feel every inch of him against you, your own body suddenly aching for him.
Your teeth tear into the skin of his lips in desperation, and you're both panting and gasping and touching every last inch of each other – with hindsight, when you think about it, you'll realise the passion and the lust and the energy are because you don't want to feel, not right now, but he's so overwhelming you're hardly thinking in the moment.
He half drags you up the stairs, lobster linguine forgotten and clamming up on the kitchen table, individual pieces of clothing discarded on your travels. He presses you into the bed as you stumble into your bedroom, and for a moment he pulls back and stares into your eyes.
There's so much pain, a feeling of inadequacy and an understanding in his eyes you pull him back towards you, closing your own. Now's not the time for that. Real life starts again in the morning.
His hands are everywhere, his lips are everywhere, and you can't remember the last time he took you with that much force, he's usually such a gentle and attentive lover. But as you crash around him, and a choked sob escapes you, you realise it's exactly what you needed.
The usual story - don't have time to be writing this in my life right now, but couldn't stop myself! Not going to be a long one, only a few parts, but I hope you enjoy even so! I would love to hear what you think of this!