Accidental Babies, a grey's anatomy fanfic

"What do you suppose it feels like? While it's happening, you know." Maybe like this: a series of non-linear, vaguely-intersecting moments.

Much of this rather enormous piece was written on a train. What that says about it, I'm not sure. It's been kicking around for months and I realize I'm not going to be able to bring myself to change much, so here it is. It's very long and somewhat exhausting, and I'll be very honest that I'd be fascinated to see what others think of it. If you make it through, please let me know what you thought.

I had one. And I was embarrassed, and scared. I was everything a woman shouldn't be.

Accidental Babies/Pinball

"Not really," he says.

"Oh, yes." She nods, smile spreading.

"Wait. Really?"

"Really!"

He grabs her in his arms then, lifts her off the ground and spins her around like she weighs nothing at all. She loves it because the top of her head clears his hairline in bare feet, they wear the same size hospital clogs and it's nice sometimes to feel small, sexy, precious in her husband's arms.

"I can't believe this," he marvels. "We weren't even trying."

"You're not even trying," he says and she hates the sarcastic tone, the way it makes her feel small and insignificant.

"I am," she hisses. "I want this to work, I do, it's just...he..." She trails off.

"He's not here, Addison. He's not trying."

"Can you try to get home early tonight?"

"Probably not."

"Okay, what about tomorrow morning then, can you get off then?"

"Maybe. I don't know, Addie, the second surgery's scheduled for eight but - hey, what can't wait until tomorrow?"

"I want to talk." Her hesitant tone embarrasses her a little. She fidgets with the clasp on her bracelet.

"Talk to me now," and he pulls her onto his lap as she pads by in her stockings, skirt half buttoned. She smiles, enjoying the attention. He squeezes her bare waist once and stands up, tipping her gently back to the floor. He's already dressed.

"We'll talk tomorrow, then?"

"Okay," she says to his retreating back.

"You're okay, right?"

"Yeah. I'm okay."

"Look at me," he urges, gently, but she doesn't.

"Stop looking at me like that."

"Like what, Addie?"

"Like there's something wrong with me."

"Something's wrong with her!" Mark yells. "Derek, get in here, there's something wrong with Addison."

"Shit." Derek crouches in front of her, she's bent double, hands on her knees, and then Mark yells for Nancy.

She hears him shout outside the door "Nancy! We need you, Nancy," and Addison thinks it must be bad because he doesn't say "Nancypants" and there's blood on her legs, blood on the blue ticking stripe sheets she likes and Derek doesn't.

"Oh god, Addie, you're okay. You're going to be okay."

"It's okay." Addison covers the woman's hand with her own, just like she's been taught, and says "It's okay to be scared."

"I'm not scared." Her voice is muffled by her pillow.

"What, then?" Derek asks.

He brushes some of her hair off her face.

She says "I'm just not ready to try again. It's too soon."

"Soon," she says. "She's coming so soon, Nae, you're going to meet your little girl, so you have to keep going. Count with me, one-two-three-"

"I can't!"

"You can."

"I want to push!"

"You're not ready to push again yet. Slow down, Nae, breathe."

She's panting and sweating and perspiration drips down Addison's back.

"Breathe, keep breathing. Come on, one big, slow breath. Slow down."

"You could slow down a little, Addie."

"Red's putting us all under the table again," Mark snickers.

"Come on, honey, this is our last hurrah," she slurs. "Our last hurrah before we're real doctors."

"Doctor, you need to tell us what you want us to do."

She leans over the tiny infant, his arm no thicker than Addison's pinky, presses the tiny chest. She is hurting him, she thinks, this tiny boy whose unresponsive lids don't blink, she's been pumping medication into him for hours. Restarted his heart twice.

"I - I don't know. Push the epi again, it's our only choice."

"It's not working."

"I don't know what else to do!" Panicking, Addison grabs at the sleeves of her scrub top.

Her scrub top pulls across her chest, her belly, no different from the way it fit last week but he insists it's tighter.

She tells him he's ridiculous and he just grins, pulls her into his arms and wrestles a hand underneath the salmon-colored fabric. "See, I can barely make it in there," he laughs. "Just wait a couple of months, though."

"Mark!" She laughs a little too as she pulls his hand out.

He pulls one of her hands away from her face. She looks up at him from under her wet bangs, at his moist, kind eyes.

"My baby died."

"I know," he says softly.

She's wearing her street clothes. Her eyes feel gritty, heavy. She hates Dr. Webber, hates him, and if this is what she has to do to learn distance, then she doesn't care. She's finished. It's too hard. She doesn't want to learn distance.

He closes the distance between them and his mouth is on hers, they're actually kissing, she can't believe it, it's shocking and inevitable all at once, his tongue stroking hers, his hands everywhere.

She doesn't say a word until she breathes "more, please more," and he rolls her onto her back.

His back is to her when she wakes up; he's looking out the window, the slope of his shoulders telling her anything she doesn't already know.

"Addie, I'm sorry," he turns around, takes her hand when he sees she's awake, brings it to his cheek. "They couldn't -"

"I know," she says.

He tries again anyway, one more time before she presses her fingers to his lips to silence him. "The baby..."

"This baby is your responsibility, Dr. Montgomery. I expect him to be alive when I get back in the morning."

"I understand," she says.

"You don't understand!"

"What don't I understand?"

"I told you. I've said it and said it and you don't understand."

"So remind me." He holds on to her when she tries to pull away. "Remind me, Addie."

She wants to remind him that she learned to perform a D&E in medical school. Naomi sat it out. Turns out it feels only slightly different from the inside. She wants to tell him this, but Derek just grips her knee gently, shushes her.

"You need to rest," he says. "Lie back."

"I want to-"

"Shh," he brushes back her hair. "Close your eyes."

Savvy's eyes are round. "Can they...can they feel it?"

Addison shrugs, a doctor's daughter.

"Ask," Savvy elbows her and Addison tugs her navy sweatshirt tighter around her in response.

"They said we could ask questions."

"Shh. I'm trying to listen, Sav."

"Ask if there's any pain," she whispers.

There's pain, at night, and she doesn't sleep, digs her fingers into Derek's palm, and he strokes her hair, her damp brow, and whispers to her.

"You're going to be okay, we'll get through this, we'll try again," he says over and over, until she wishes she could cover her ears. Maybe it comforts him.

When Derek has to leave Mark takes over the spot by her bed. He doesn't say anything, just sits in the chair at her side and reads out loud from the sports section.

"Yanks were crushed today," he says. "This could mean the end of a record run."

He curses softly, pauses, and she can hear him rustle the paper.

"Keep going," she says.

"Keep going. Don't stop." He pants. "Don't st - God, Addison -"

She laughs, and he seizes her arms, drags her back up to him and kisses her fiercely, groaning again when she curls a thigh around him.

"You're dangerous, Red," he growls and this is fun; she laughs and bares her teeth.

"It has teeth, you know." A girl Addison's own age, in a red knit cap, with stringy hair. She's well behind the line as she jogs next to them, so there's nothing Addison can do except stare straight ahead and wrap a protective arm around the woman she's guiding, stride fast on her long legs.

The woman clutches her fingers closer, against her chest, and Addison can feel her thumping heartbeat.

"It has teeth, and it's going to have fingernails soon."

"Stop it," Addison snaps, "you're wrong," even though she knows they're not supposed to engage.

"You're still wearing your engagement ring," he says. "And your wedding band, and I'm supposed to - I'm not the one with the problem here. I'm the one who's ready. You're the one who isn't."

"Fine!" She goes to pull them off, it's meant to be a grand gesture but they're stuck and sometime between the first flail and the final tug it's funny again, not sad. Mark kisses her swollen fingers and doesn't say anything more about them.

A week later, slick with the oil he's massaging into her back, her legs, her hands, he dangles them triumphantly in front of her. "See?" he says. "Off. I bet you didn't feel a thing."

"I don't feel anything. Derek, I don't feel anything," she whimpers because it's after the quickening - how quaint, a top-ranked fellow in maternal-fetal medicine, still saying quickening - so she should, but she presses her hand to her stomach again and Derek catches it, squeezes it.

"Okay, Addie, it's fine. You're fine."

He presses the back of his hand to her cheek. "Feels like her temp may be dropping," he says to someone else.

"Keep her talking," a voice warns from the front seat, from somewhere far away, and she feels Derek's hand on her face again, reorienting her.

"I can't feel anything," she whispers as he cups her cheek.

He murmurs "You're okay. Stay with me." Over her head he says "Speed it up, Nancy."

"Squeeze my hand, Addie." His face is very close to hers now. "Come on. Stay with me."

"Stay with me," Mark says.

She's still crying, taking long shuddering breaths, the words "where am I supposed to go now?" sore on the tip of her tongue.

Mark's loft is bare and chilly. She'd hailed a taxi to get there; under a ruined taffeta trench coat she's wearing nothing but Derek's tee shirt. Her teeth chatter. Mark throws a wool blanket over her trembling legs, draws sharp breath at the cuts on the soles of her feet as he lifts them onto his couch.

"Stay with me," he repeats. He rubs her arms, fingers soothing down the gooseflesh.

She swallows a sob. "Really?"

"Really," he says, presses his warm mouth to her cold hand.

Derek holds her hand.

"The important thing is, you're okay," he says.

"We can try again, when you're ready," he says.

"Sometimes, it just wasn't meant to be," he says.

It sounds like he's reading from the pamphlets they distribute in the NICU, on the bad days. She can't meet his eyes.

That night Mark just reads her the scores, no commentary. "Yankees-Rangers twelve to five," he says. "Reds-Cubs two-nothing."

She's crying a little and she's grateful, more than a little, that he pretends he doesn't notice. Just keeps reading. "Pirates-Astros five to four, after a tiebreaker."

"Not that tie!" She whisks it out of Derek's hand as she walks by, replaces it before he can say anything.

"I like that tie." He reaches for it and she pulls it away.

"Honey. The green goes better with my dress." She turns slowly for effect, the silk lifting and rippling against her as she holds it closed with her hands.

She lounges against the doorframe, knowing she looks good, wanting to feel his hands on her. "Zip me up?"

He takes her by the hips, bending to kiss the small of her back. His lips lead the way, closing the teeth of the zipper very slowly over skin he's just warmed. It's excruciating pleasure, more than she expected or hoped. She's almost unbearably aroused by the time he's finished, turns lust-lidded eyes his way.

"Derek..."

He kisses her once, just next to her mouth, snatches the hostage tie from her limp fingers and grins.

"I'm wearing the blue."

"Code Blue, tell him it's a Code Blue."

"I did," the nurse is patient, heavyset, old enough to be Addison's mother.

"I can't - I don't know what else to -"

"Doctor Montgomery, we need you tell us what to do."

"I can't," and her exhausted head falls to meet her arms on the plexiglass shell of the incubator. "There's nothing left to do."

"Just do it," she breathes into his ear.

"Are you sure?"

"Please," she begs, and then her world narrows to a tiny explosive point as their bodies finally join.

In college she joins the volunteer team at a clinic, the medium-sized one in West Haven. Puts her arms around women she's never met, many of them older than she is. Guides them inside.

Past the people with the signs, who say things to her. They yell, sometimes.

You're stopping a beating heart.

Addison has given the patient her headphones, so the only beating she hears is the steady throb of the music.

Someone actually spits in her face, once. She tells Naomi this, years later; when Naomi says what did you expect?, Addison doesn't speak to her for a month.

"A month," she says. "I think it was a month ago. Maybe five weeks."

"Okay," Addison smiles. "We'll get you checked out."

"Am I going to be okay?"

"You're both going to be just fine."

"Fine!" she screams. "Don't come with me. I'll go alone."

"Just calm down, please, Addison." He rubs a weary hand through his dark hair. "I'm not talking to you when you're like this."

"When are you going to talk to me, then? When?"

"When you're ready, we'll try again," he promises. "There's no rush."

But she sees the way he dandles a nephew on his knee, delights in teaching a niece to fish.

"And if I'm never ready?" she asks. "If it's always just us, only us, is that okay too?"

"It's okay," he assures her. "As long as we're together, everything will be okay."

He kisses her and she's silent, worrying about what she can't give him.

"We're going to give you something to help you relax," the nurse says. Whatever it is makes her limbs heavy, her lids droop. When she tries to lift a hand it's slow and slippery like she's underwater. Her eyes slide shut. She pretends she's swimming.

"It's almost like they're swimming in there."

"Look at that." Addison smiles, clicks the mouse to record the second baby's in utero weight.

"My husband was on the Duke swim team."

"Really." Addison nods politely. "Maybe they'll grow up to be swimmers then."

"Maybe. I just want them to come out healthy. Be healthy when they grow up."

"Grow up, Addison," he snaps. "Be in this."

"I'm in it. I am." Her voice shakes.

"Yeah, you really sound like you mean that," he says scornfully, but mocking and hurt battle in his voice.

Tears spring to her eyes at his tone.

"Go ahead and try it again, Addie."

"We'll try again," she says urgently. "We will, I promise, but I can't think about it right now, okay, Derek? Not this time."

He's poised over her, balanced on his forearms, six a.m. sunlight in his hair and he says "Okay, okay."

She pushes at his shoulders, encouraging him to flip them over, then slides down his body, appreciative and wanting to show it. "Next time," she whispers.

The next time they're out at the beach house, maybe it's Labor Day, she sees the same blue ticking stripe sheets.

"Addie, what are you doing?"

"Nothing."

Someone has gotten most of the blood out.

Most of the time it's good; sometimes, she cries afterwards. He's different, so many things are different, with his bigger hands and round thrusting jaw, and she didn't think she'd end up here, in this stark Chelsea loft so far from home. With this man.

When the tears come he holds her. He understands, he says, he misses him too. When he finds her crouching on the floor of the shower, weeping, he slides open the foggy glass door, squats behind her and pulls her into his lap. He doesn't turn the water off, just lets it pour over them.

"Pour another one."

"It's Red's turn to stand her round," Mark objects and Addison giggles, trying to balance the glasses, Derek's hand warm on her waist.

"To Addison and Derek!"

"Hear, hear," Mark says and throws back the shot. He sucks a lime between his teeth just as Addison does the same thing and they shudder in sync at the sour taste.

A sour taste fills her mouth when she spies the scrap of lingerie, balled up in his scrub bottoms, and to add to the indignity it's a smaller size than she would have bought. "Honestly?" She asks. "Are you even trying?

"Tell me," Mark says, urgently. "Tell me to stop. Tell me to just be with you. Tell me you're ready, and I'll do it."

"Do what you want," she says.

"What do you want from me, Addison?"

"I want you to come home sometimes. I want you to call me just to ask how I'm doing. I want you to care."

"I'm not talking about this now."

"Derek..."

"Enough, Addie." He brushes her cheek with a kiss. "You're too sensitive."

Her wind-chapped lips are sensitive to his kisses; she wraps her coat tighter around herself within his arms. The park smells like stale coffee, like cigarette smoke and rubber soles and cold bright sunshine.

Crumpled leaves and a page from yesterday's sports section skitter past her sneakered foot. Mark's leather-clad arm is tight across her.

"Three of us, Addie." The top of her head knocks his collarbone. "I can't believe it. There'll be three of us when we're here, in the spring."

"It starts in the spring," she says. "The trainings for the clinic. I think it's going to be something good. Something good we can do, you know?"

"I guess."

"I want to do it. I really do. Give it a try with me, Sav?"

"Sure," Savvy says. "I'll try."

"I'm trying. Mark, I'm trying," she says. "It's ... I don't mean to miss him. I'm not doing it on purpose."

"That's not enough. Not anymore."

"What can I do, then?"

"You can stop hanging on," he says.

"Hang on, Addie, just hang on."

Hands hover at her wrist, flap at her cheeks.

"Her pressure's dropping."

"I'm not trying to pressure you," Derek says.

They're driving out to the Island, it's two a.m. because that's when their shift ends and that's when the traffic is almost bearable, but the road crews have the same idea so they're stuck anyway. There's always pressure, there's the bigger house in the Hamptons, five bedrooms, enough for guests and children and it's hot and smells like tar on the expressway.

He touches her bare thigh, near the hem of her skirt, just for a second, then returns his hand to the gearshift. "Do you think you want to try again?"

She studies his hand on the stick between them. Sometimes she'll put her own hand there when he's grumpy from traffic, to make him smile: she'll wrap her fingers around the head of the shift and he'll grin when he sees her and say "that reminds me..." and they'll both laugh.

She holds her purse instead and says. "I don't know when. I just know I'm not ready yet."

"Okay," he says. "All right."

"What...what do you want me to do, Derek?"

He tears his eyes from the road for a second, gives her a brief smile. "Whatever you're doing is fine."

"What are we doing?" she murmurs as she leans over him, stills his lips, that first night.

A slow lazy smile spreads over Mark's face. "Us? We're not doing anything," he whispers hoarsely, teeth flashing in the low light.

She laughs a little, throaty and low and he captures her lips again. They're not fast enough, though. They think they have all the time in the world.

"We have time for a few more questions," the leader says at the clinic training.

"No more questions? All right. Only one more session to go. You're all going to do a good job, I can tell. You're all going to be just fine."

"You're going to be fine, you're going to be just fine," says an unfamiliar voice, echoing faintly, and she senses motion, and lights, and then she feels Derek's fingers uncurling from hers and she tries to lift her head, suddenly panicked.

"Get the husband out of here," someone says.

"He's my husband," she cries. "That's why I called him. It's not like he even picked up," she says, more calmly. And: "Where were you last night, anyway?"

"Does it matter?" he asks. "Like you said, this isn't anything."

He crawls in beside her later, kisses her damp cheeks. "I'm sorry," he says. "I just ... I guess I'm more worried than I thought."

"There's nothing to worry about." She smiles warmly at the patient. "I'll be with you all the way in there."

"But the..." the patient gestures vaguely at the woman with the sign. There's always a woman with a sign.

"Ignore her," Addison says. "Just look at me, okay? Don't listen to anyone else."

The protester doesn't even talk this time, just focuses her eyes right on Addison, like an accusation.

"It's not an accuasation."

"It feels like one." She folds her arms, mirroring her legs.

"I just want to talk." He extends his hand. "Addie, come on."

She shakes her head. "I'm too tired to fight about this tonight."

"Okay." With relatively minimal protest, she lets him unwrap her arms, take one of her hands in both of his. "I don't want to fight, Addie. Can't we just talk about this, like adults?"

"There's nothing to talk about!" She tries and fails to pull her hand out of his grasp. "I can't try again, not yet, and I don't want to talk about it. A little understanding would be nice."

She's tearier than she means to be, doesn't protest when he tips her torso into his lap, strokes her hair from her damp cheeks. She's too tired to argue, just presses her fingers into her temples, sharp pains in her head like she's eaten too much ice cream, too fast.

He brings her ice cream, the real kind, says tastee delite isn't good for the baby, all those chemicals.

There's caramel sauce too, and she laughs, beacuse she's not even hungry, but it's sweet, bringing her treats. Sticky sweet like caramel.

As a joke he holds out a jar of mustard, dangles it over the ice cream while she squawks and covers the bowl protectively. "Should I put it on?" he teases.

"Put it on, Derek."

"Come on, Addie," he tries but she's getting over a sinus infection, two weeks of antibiotics, and she can't be sure.

"Please, Derek," she says, pressing the foil packet into the warm cradle of his palm, "I'm still not ready," and that's the last time he asks her.

"This is the last time we'll meet as a full group," the counselor says. "Does anyone have any more questions?"

Addison shakes her head automatically. Beside her, Savvy slumps in the grey metal folding chair, examines her chipping manicure.

"Then you're ready to start."

She starts as her ankle bone hits the banister hard, cries out.

Derek's wrapped her in a beach towel, he's carrying her down the wide wooden staircase, but he's moving too fast and clumsy and she's out of balance and he bangs her into the spindles.

He hoists her closer. "Shit, I'm sorry, Addie, I'm so sorry," he mutters, and "bring the car around, hurry the hell up!" he yells over her shoulder.

"It's okay," she chokes; it always makes her cry harder when he apologizes, "doesn't...hurt."

"It hurts," one of the women whimpers, and Addison hugs her, even though she's not the kind of person who gives hugs, even though she can't recall ever being hugged by her own parents; she hugs this woman who is old enough to be her mother, and listens to her say it, over and over: "Not that much, it just hurts more than I thought it would."

"They can't hurt you," Addison says. "Don't worry. They can't come past that line, right there." She points.

"We crossed a line. No going back."

"I don't want to go back," she whispers, gasps as he suckles a tender spot at the base of her neck.

Deftly he pulls apart the buttons of her blouse, presses his lips to the flesh he uncovers.

His mouth drifts lower and she closes her eyes, too lost in sensation to look.

"Look!" he says. They're riding the ferry to Governor's Island and she's already embarrassed because they're at least ten years older than anyone else on board but it's easy to get caught up in Mark's offers: We can go to a concert. We can get some fresh air.

We can be a family.

She looks, and it's a toddler with strawberry blond pigtails and a Yankees cap and her parents are young and freckled and all three of them are laughing.

"What are you laughing at?" He kisses her hair.

"Nothing, honey. I'm just happy."

"Me too." He pulls her hair off her neck, kisses the faint sun lines on her shoulders. "You came up early. Are Mark and the others still down there?"

"I'm tired," she says. "All that swimming. The sun."

The sun slants patterns across the gurney, the sheets warm under Addison's hands.

"You're ready." She slides back. "Let's get you in."

"I..."

"It's going to be fine."

"You'll be with me?"

"Yes. I'll be there the whole time."

"Then I guess I'm ready."

"You really think we're ready for this?"

"We have lots of time," he says, "look -" and he shows her the calendar, the little red heart around her due date - he figured it out himself, counting backwards and then forwards, and he's marked it with red permanent marker, the kind they use on patient files.

The heart is poignantly lopsided.

"It'll go fast," she says softly.

"Go faster, Nancy, can't you go any faster?" Derek voice is worried above her. "There's a lot of - it's heavy, Nance."

He cuts himself off with a quick glance at Addison.

He pushes her hair away from her face again. "You're okay, Addie. Just focus on me."

"If you were more focused, maybe this wouldn't have happened."

With painful satisfaction she sees that Charlene looks crushed. Good, see how she likes it.

Addison eyes the blond nurse, whose pediatric care evaluations she signed herself. She always gave her good marks - she's a good nurse, she can grudgingly admit even now - and look at how she repays her. She's embarrassed, hating herself for becoming one of those women, but she can't help it.

"Get back to work," she snaps. "Don't you have a patient?"

"A patient may feel ashamed, or embarrassed, or scared - but they shouldn't. So find some common ground. You could be one of these women," the counselor says. "One of these women could be you."

Addison leans forward, drinking it in, Savvy slouched next to her, fidgeting with the cuffs of her fair isle sweater.

"It's a major decision for these women, and yours is a major responsibility."

"It's a big responsibility, Mark," she says finally, after he demands, twice, a reason why they shouldn't do this.

"So? We're responsible. We can do this."

She lets her question linger unspoken in the air.

"I am responsible, Addie. I can do this - maybe it's a surprise to you but I can."

She's not even that surprised to see the back of a bright blond head slip out of the on-call room, looking pleased and guilty, swiping the back of her hand across her mouth and Addison has to swallow down the nausea, because next out of the room is Mark and he's tucking his top back into his scrub pants and his eyes look sleepy and satisfied with the twinkle of a man who can get anything he wants, just by pointing and saying "I want that."

"Don't point at me." He pushes her hand away from his face.

"Who is she, Mark?"

"She's no one, Addison, it doesn't mean anything."

"What about me?" she asks "What do I mean?"

"You're mean," she says. "Not showing up is mean. Not calling is mean. Ask me how I'm doing, Derek. Talk to me."

"Addison..."

"Stay and talk to me, damn it." She stands in front of the door, challenging him.

He leans in and kisses her with surprising tenderness. When she tries to embrace him, he grasps her outstretched arms and moves her gently away from the door.

"Not now," he says.

"Now!" Addison says. "Big push, keep going...you've got it!" and she delivers a healthy baby girl into her best friend's arms, ten fingers and toes, satin skin the color of milky coffee.

"Coffee?" the receptionist asks. Addison shakes her head.

There's an espresso machine, of course.

There are tastefully framed prints, muted, swirling black and white photographs, the kind that could be anything depending on how you hold your head. This way, it's a sunset; that way, the inner curl of a peony. The shadow of a weeping willow. A child's small fist, unclenched.

She clenches around him as he cries out her name. Sweat runs into her eyes. He releases her hips and she collapses next to him and it's ages before she can breathe again.

"You want to go again?" she murmurs when she can talk, half teasing, and he clamps her closer to him, laughs throatily.

"You trying to kill me?" His heavy-lidded eyes skate down her bare, flushed skin. She loves the way he looks at her, the moments filled with longing. She trails a finger down his chest, drinking in the attention, dips her head to his collarbone, tasting.

"Why not?" She laughs against his salty skin. "I'm ready."

"You ready yet, Addie? What takes you so long, anyway?" he asks, grumpily. "It's just another -" he stops when he sees her dress, deep blue, short enough to show her legs.

"Wow."

She runs her fingers through his dark curls.

"Worth waiting for, hm?"

"What are you waiting for?" he asks her. "How much clearer does it have to be? He's not coming back. So what the hell are you waiting for, Addison?"

"To know it's right," she says. "To know you're - it's you, Mark, it's still you, how can this possibly be right?"

She sees his mouth twitch with what almost looks like pain, if she didn't know him better.

"You can be a real bitch, you know that?" he says.

"Leave me, then," she says. "Just go."

"I'm not the one walking away," he says. "You're the one with a foot out the door."

"The door is just twenty feet back. See?" Addison points it out. "I'll be with you the whole time. If you don't want to get out, that's okay too." She crouches on the sun-warmed pavement, half in the open car door, rests her elbows on the seat. "You don't have to do this. You don't have to do anything you don't want to do."

The woman, the girl, is crying. "I'm sorry," she keeps saying.

"Don't be sorry," Addison says. "I'm here, whenever you're ready."

"Ready, set, GO!"

Nancy is laughing, she's too heavily pregnant to participate so she's judging the race. Addison is swimming between Mark and Derek, fast powerful strokes, the motion of Mark's heavier body pushing her closer to Derek and they're all going as hard as they can. This is no game, they're going to be surgeons after all, they compete.

They hit the dock together, fractions of seconds apart, and push back, treading water, panting, laughing. Beads of water drip off Derek's freckled nose and impulsively Addison climbs on his back, tries to dunk him.

He tickles her sides, pulls her off him easily when she shrieks and pushes her under the water instead. She goes down forcefully, hair flying above her and then pops back up like a cork to see Nancy glaring from the dock, disapproving.

"What?" Derek asks. He's the lone boy, the little brother, played rough with his sisters for years. "She started it."

"Honestly, Derek." Nancy folds her arms on the shelf of her belly. "Addie, are you sure you want to marry him?"

Addison laughs, wrapping her arms around his neck, her diamond solitaire sparkling in the sun behind his hair. "Of course I'm sure," she says.

"Are you sure?" Addison asks. "Try paging him again. Dr. Webber. Just...page him again."

She presses her hands to the infant's tiny, silent chest.

The NICU nurse is tired too. "Doctor, his SATs are dropping again, you need to tell us what to do."

"Page Dr. Webber again. I don't know how to do this myself. I'm just an intern... Please..."

"Please," she pants. "Please Mark please please please"

Her body jerks uncontrollably, spasms around him and he looks proud when her eyes finally roll back to where they're supposed to be.

"That was amazing, baby."

She wrinkles her nose. "Don't call me that."

"Okay," he says agreeably, yanks her unprotesting form against him, nuzzling her hair. "No problem...baby."

"I'm sorry about the baby," Addison says softly, flips a page on the clipboard too fast, so it slices a thin red line into the side of her finger. A drop of blood wells up.

"It wasn't a baby," the other woman says. "Like they told me. It was a pregnancy."

"Pregnancy," he says decidedly, "has never looked this hot."

"Mark!" She throws a pillow at him. "I'm not even showing."

"I'm just saying, this wasn't in any of the medical texts," he lifts his hands in mock surrender and she laughs, pouncing on him.

He kisses the side of her neck, the curve of her shoulder, his hands spanning the width of her hips, palming her breasts. They're bigger, he tells her, but she just laughs and assures him they're the same.

He smirks at her and says, well, they feel bigger.

"What do you suppose it feels like?" Savvy asks one night over three-dollar dive-bar pitchers. Savvy likes to drink after their training sessions and Addison doesn't mind; it's easy to get served at townie dumps like these. This one's a real dive, off the Berlin Turnpike.

She considers Savvy's question and watches two muscled blue-collar types at the pinball machine. They're laughing, the shorter one gives Addison a suggestive smirk, and she thinks maybe what these women feel like is pinball. Like a pinball machine, with thoughts and sensations and memories bouncing off the edges of each other, jumping from one to the other.

Ping, there goes one now.

Ping, it sets off another one, bouncing off the wall.

Buzz - oops, lost a point.

And she thinks maybe all this cheap beer was a mistake because her tongue is thick and her thoughts don't even make much sense to herself, so to Savvy she just says "I don't know."

"I don't know, Derek. I guess I don't know if I'll ever be ready."

"Thank you," he kisses her forehead.

"For what?"

"For being honest with me."

Even though he doesn't say it out loud she hears it: for once.

Just once, she sees a girl she knows. First she can't place her; then she realizes: the dining hall at Commons, Sunday mornings, wet hair, boyfriend's shirt, sleepy eyes at the waffle iron. Addison offers her the baseball cap she keeps in the tote because that's all she has to give and the girl accepts it without recognition. The next Sunday when Addison sees her in the brunch line she looks exactly the same, only different.

"What do you mean, 'different'?"

"I mean things are different now. They have to be different, Mark, there's a baby. There could be a baby," she says.

"Could be?"

"Mark, be rational here -"

"I am," he says. "I'm all in, Addie, I'm - this is great news."

"You really think we're ready for this?"

"I'm ready, Addie, I'm just waiting for you."

The waiting room has high-gloss white walls, thousand-count upholstery and bamboo floorboards because if you have money, if you know people, then you don't go to West Haven or have a fake ID made or get spat on. You come to the Park Avenue office of a friend of a friend of a friend where the receptionist is paid enough to forget your name right after she hears it.

It's after hours anyway, opened especially for her, so there are no other patients to see her and when they say "Doctor Shepherd? Doctor Harris is ready for you now," she snaps her purse shut, stands up and walks in.

"Walking," the counselor says, "is a big responsibility, a major role in the process, and we want you to prepare yourselves for what it's like."

Half the volunteer training class won't stick around, they say. Savvy is one of them.

"It's just not for me," she begins, then takes a long swallow of sangria.

Addison thinks she's right; she knows for a fact Savvy's sleeping with a varsity rower, a senior, but she'll never have to go to the clinic in West Haven. No one will need to lend her their cap or their earphones. It's not for her.

"To tell you the truth," Savvy shrugs, "it creeped me out a little. I just, I'm not sure I could handle it. I kept wondering, you know, what they were feeling."

Addison is silent because she thinks she might get it now, but she's a few too many drinks in to say it out loud.

She thinks: none of your business. And: pinball, but you won't understand.

Out loud she just says "I don't know, Sav."

"What do you mean you don't know? Addison, what the hell?"

"Don't yell at me." Her voice quivers.

"Then don't stand there and lie to my face. What the hell are six calls to Derek doing on your phone?"

"None of your - " She grabs for the phone in question and he holds it over his head, out of her reach.

"Oh, very mature, Mark."

He throws it, not at her, nowhere near her, just onto the piles of cushions by the windows, but she flinches instinctively anyway and guilt darkens his eyes.

"Jesus, Addie."

She hugs him, desperately, arms and legs wrapped around him, "I'm sorry, Mark, please just give me a chance. Please just give me a chance and I'll make it right."

She hangs on, feeling him start to relent.

"Please." She cradles his head. "I just wanted to know where he was. That's all. He hasn't returned the calls, I haven't spoken to him, I-"

"Do you even want to be here?" he demands. "Do you even want to be with me?"

"With me," Addison smiles, "you get a double deal. The best of both worlds. I can operate on the baby inside and outside the womb. And this baby's condition is ultimately treatable as long as you're one of the few surgeons in the world who can perform the in-utero procedure - which, lucky for you, I am."

"I am?" Addison squeaks.

"Yes, you are," says Dr. Webber. "You are completely responsible for this baby, Doctor Montgomery."

"But..." she says to his retreating back and then the alarms go off, again, as the preemie stops breathing, red and blue lines on the screen jumping frantically.

She jumps as he slaps the marble countertop that traces the windows of their kitchen - in sympathy, not fear, because she's done it and she knows it hurts. Sure enough he shakes his palm out a second later. "Goddamn it, Addison, I can't take much more of this," he says. "Things need to get better."

"They can't get worse," she shoots back, recklessly, because everyone knows that's not true and sure enough she's right, because at least when they fight they're talking.

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about you! I'm talking about these," she throws the stupid too-small thong at him.

"You don't even care enough to hide it," she snaps.

"You don't even care enough to care," he snaps back.

She holds her chin high as he slams the door, eyes swimming with tears.

"Let's go swimming." He whispers it in her ear and then they're on the beach, quiet as a secret, everyone else still sleeping back at the house.

It's not as romantic as she thought it would be, they're both freezing, it's pitch black and she grabs the wrong bits of him by mistake, giggles when he says "quit it, Addie," and muffles his own laughter in her neck.

Before they can find a rhythm she cuts her foot on a shell embedded in the wet sand and the salt stings it; he carries her piggyback all the way up to the house. She folds her arms around his neck to hang on and he teases her: "You're dead weight, how about a little help here?"

"A little help here!" she calls. "Damn it, she's bleeding out."

She thrusts with her hands, wields the paddles, but it happens so fast.

"Doctor Montgomery-Shepherd..." someone says, gently, long after there's nothing more to do.

"We're done here." She steps back, breathing heavily, scarlet blossoming on her scrubs, puddling in the turned up toes of her clogs. "We're done."

"I'm done!"

"You're always done, Addie," and he tosses her discarded blouse at her. "Just go already."

"I'm sorry," he says when he finds her on the stoop of the brownstone, folds her into his arms. "All this fighting, I don't know, I just -"

"Me too, I'm sorry too," she whispers into his neck, but at least they still bother to fight.

"Fight it, come on Addie," he says, but his lap is warm and her eyelids are heavy and she wants to close them.

He slaps her face, not hard but her eyes spring open in shock. "There you go, baby, that's good. You stay awake."

"How long have you been awake?" He places a warm mug in her hand, a cool kiss on her temple.

"A while."

"What's the matter?"

"Don't push, Mark."

"It's time to push," she says and the patient is sobbing, with relief this time because pushing is always a relief, and then Addison is cradling a slippery warm body in her hands, listening to its screams.

She stitches up the mother, whose legs are still splayed carelessly wide, pink naked baby cuddled to her bare chest.

"You can close your legs now," Addison says gently. "You're all fixed."

"You can't fix this by ignoring me. Hey," he nudges her lightly with the hand not on the wheel. "Addie."

The seat belt hugs her flat stomach, the air conditioning raising gooseflesh on her thighs. They're snarled in expressway traffic. She shivers a little under his fingers.

"You're cold. Let's turn off the air," Derek says, but she doesn't want the hot breath of a New York August on her face right now, prefers the blast of antisceptic cold, so she pretends to be asleep.

She opens her eyes when the unwelcome breeze moves her hair, warm and summer-scented. Derek gives her the helpless shrug she recognizes, opening her window a little more.

"I don't want to run the battery down," he says.

"You're run down." The pretty brunette OB snaps her clipboard shut. "That's all."

"Oh." She's relieved, she should be relieved. "I thought I might..."

"Definitely not pregnant," she smiles kindly.

"Right," she says.

Derek isn't here. She didn't tell him she was coming; he doesn't know she almost passed out in surgery yesterday, that the senior attending ordered her to get checked out before she scrubs in again, so she's sitting alone with her legs dangling off the high, cold papered exam table. It's ridiculous, she's five-ten so her legs never dangle. She feels like a child.

"You need to eat better, get more sleep - well, you know this." The doctor pauses. "Were you...trying?" the inquiry is gentle.

"No." Addison shakes her head quickly. "No, we're not ready."

"Wait, I'm not ready!" she squeals, pounding his back but he just laughs and reminds her a deal's a deal, she lost and no, stripping to her swimsuit before he throws her in won't work because that's cheating and she wants to fight him but she can't stop laughing as he tosses her off the end of the dock.

She plummets deep into the cool water, then purposely leadens her body as it starts to spring back up. She could swim before she could walk and she can hold her breath a long time so she lets herself go limp, face down, smirk hidden, her long loose hair floating above her.

Hands fasten on her arms, pull hard and she breaks the surface of the water to see Mark kneeling on the dock, looking frantic for some reason.

"What the hell are you doing?" he demands, drags her up by the arms, drops her on the damp planks of the dock and she leans to one side, rubbing her sore ass, annoyed.

"God, Mark, can't you take a joke?"

"It wasn't funny," he says sharply. "I thought - I just -" He doesn't finish. His scruffy face is white under its tan.

Back on the beach, the others are starting the barbecue, poker chips and empty beer bottles mingling in the sand. There's champagne too, because they all know now that Derek proposed, and that Addison said yes.

"Whatever," she says to Mark. "You're just mad because I got you."

"I've got you. I've got you, it's okay, just hang on," and she clutches at his arm, panic digging in with her nails. Is this what it feels like to bleed out, to die? She's only seen it from the outside before. Now some things feel a little fuzzier than usual while other things are sharper. Faint noises sound far away, echoing, like she's in a tunnel.

She hears herself taking fast little breaths that she's not sure how to slow down.

"Just breathe, Addie, keep breathing, you're okay, baby."

"And the baby?"

"I'm so sorry," Addison says, pressing her lips together. "There was too much trauma. The fetus didn't survive."

"No, no, Derek, we can survive this," she cries and he seizes her upraised arm, hauls her to the door behind him like a sack of recycling, and she stops fighting, goes limp and that's how she ends up outside, rain soaking her skin, gritty little pebbles on the wet steps biting into her feet.

When he lets her back in nothing is the same. Everything is different.

"Are you different, after?" one girl asks her and Addison smiles down at her. "I don't know," she says. It's a new question and it wasn't covered in the training so she just says "Maybe a little" and then "but you'll still be you."

"You," he says. It's all he says when he sees them, spits it really, and she doesn't even know if he means Mark, or her, or both of them together, she's wet and sticky and rivulets of fear run down her back, because this isn't how it was supposed to end. I'm sorry, she sobs, but he turns his back and they're alone again.

"I didn't want to spend the night alone," she confesses to Mark and he makes a mock-offended noise, props his feet on the coffee table in the way Derek hates.

"Hey, you're not alone. I'm here."

"Oh, you know what I mean. I - I left him two messages, but maybe he didn't get them..."

He shakes his head, disgusted. "Addie, he's not even trying."

"Are you two still trying?"

It's a well-meaning aunt asking the question but if no one ever asks her that again it will be too soon. So she just smiles vaguely, cuts another slice of watermelon for a nephew.

"Oh, you know," she says.

She shades her eyes with her hand, watches a small niece jump off the dock. Feels the cool water like its on her own skin.

"What do you suppose it feels like?" Savvy whispers to her, again, when they're still doing small-group training. "While it's happening, you know."

"Sav!" Addison pushes her. "I don't know. What kind of a question is that, anyway? How would I know?"

"You're the one who wants to be a doctor," Savvy shrugs.

"I don't want to be a doctor. Not if it's like this," she sobs.

"Addie, stop, Addie, it wasn't your fault, you heard Webber. He was just trying to help you learn."

She can't stop crying; nothing helps: not a warm shower, three glasses of wine, the offer of sex - which she turned down - so now he's just spooned around her, absorbing her cries.

"You'll feel better in the morning."

"Morning," he says, kisses her quick and soft. She's drinking coffee in his open kitchen, elbows on the black tiled counter, half an eye on the television news. He runs a hand down her hair and she catches it, squeezes.

"See you tonight," he says and she nods. There's a ticket to Seattle in her purse.

She purses her lips against him, almost like a kiss.

Mark cards his fingers through her hair. "What are you thinking about?"

His hand drifts lower, drawing lazy circles on her stomach, her tank top bunched under her breasts, skin still flushed from his earlier ministrations.

"I don't know," she says. "I just don't know."

She can't read the expression in his eyes. He dips his head, trails his lips down her neck.

Her stomach is still flat, like it's always been empty.

"Empty," Savvy says with satisfaction, sliding the lightweight plastic pitcher across the table. "Ugh, this place. I'll be glad when we don't have to come here anymore."

Addison just nods, taking a last swallow of cheap beer, letting it warm her throat. The training will be finished soon. There are only a few sessions left.

"It's a little weird," Savvy continues, rolling her eyes. "Honestly, this whole thing is a bit much for me. You're better at this kind of thing than I am. Way better. You really get it."

When Addison still doesn't respond, Savvy sighs and tosses a handful of crumpled bills on the table. "Let's just go. Addie, you ready?"

"Are you ready?" the nurse is smiling pleasantly. "Shall we get started?"

Addison nods. Her feet aren't even cold; the stirrups are covered in soft flannel pads. She could be stepping into a pair of bedroom slippers.

She stares at the ceiling. The walls are pristine white. If anyone's ever bled in here, they've left no trace.

"Now, some patients experience a feeling of discomfort at the start of the procedure," the doctor says. She pauses, rests a gloved hand on a splayed knee. "Are you feeling anything?"

Addison closes her eyes. "Not really," she says.

Attribution: Accidental Babies, from the (incredible) Damien Rice song of the same name. Sourced quote at the top from episode 2.08 of Private Practice, "Crime and Punishment," in which Addison and Violet discuss their respective abortion experiences with Naomi.