Mark leaned back into the park bench and tried to ignore all the mom-jean clad women staring at him. He awkwardly cleared his through and took his cell phone out of the pocket of his scrubs.
"I am never listening to you again!" he exclaimed as soon as someone answered Addison's phone.
"Hold on, Dr. Sloan. Dr. Montgomery is still operating. Let me get you on speaker so you can talk to her." The observing intern told him.
Mark rolled his eyes and waited until he heard Addison on the other line, "Quickly Mark. I'm up to my elbows in this baby's bowels. I don't really have time for conversation. "
"I am never listening to you again!" he repeated.
"What are you talking about?"
"You told me you had this important urgent surgery so I canceled my abdominoplasty to pick up our daughter from kindergarten. You told me to keep her busy so she wouldn't have to come and sit in one of our offices. You told me to take her to the park and you said I didn't have time to change out of my scrubs…" he rambled.
"What are you talking about? Is there any importance to any of this?" she asked in a semi-annoyed tone.
"Yes!" he exclaimed impatiently, still doing his best not to make eye contact with any of the women ogling him. "Now I'm sitting in a park with a bunch of house-wife with insane doctor sexual fantasies and they are all staring at me. Someone asked me if I was a doctor and I made the mistake of saying yes then she asked if I wanna go into the bathroom with her and give her a pelvic…" he shutter in disgust at the recollection. "She had a mustache, Addison."
Addison did her best to hold back her urge to laugh but the scrub nurse beside her couldn't help but chuckle. "Are you laughing at me?" Mark exclaimed in frustration. "No, your laugh doesn't sound like that. Are random people laughing at my traumatizing experiences?"
"Okay, honey, I'm sorry I wouldn't let you change. And I'm sorry you had to do a pelvic on a woman with a mustache but I don't want to tell this little boy's parents that I'm sorry for losing him so can you just find another way to keep yourself busy. I'm sure Ella is having fun."
"I didn't give her a pelvic, Addison!" he exclaimed in an annoyed tone.
"Is Ella at least enjoying herself?"
"Umm…" Mark glanced at his daughter and grinned. "She just pushed a boy at least three older than her off a swing so she could get a turn. I wonder who she inherited that impatience and aggressive behavior from. Oh, she's calling me to go help her swing. Call me when you're done." He hung up and quickly moved toward his daughter.
"Ella, you made the kid cry." Mark stated in a slight amused tone.
"He's a baby." She replied with no remorse. "Will you push me, Daddy?"
Mark pulled the swings back with no effort and let it glide forward, gradually increasing the height. He turned his head to see the mother of the child one swing over staring at him. After a second she helped her own daughter climb out of the tangled swing and walked passed Mark making sure her hand could grope his ass in passing.
"Okay, El, we gotta get outta here before one of these horny freaks rape Daddy." He decided before abruptly stopped Ella's swing so she could jump off.
She stood up from the sands and brushed it off her clothes, priding herself in the fact that she successfully jumped off when everyone else's parents had to help them. "Daddy, what's rape?"
"It's a crime." He replied after a moment of thought.
"Oh, what's horny?"
"Uhh…" he paused, trying to think of something clever to tell her. "Ask your mommy." He decided after failing to come up with anything.
Addison stood at the nurse's station with a chart on the counter in front of her. She was still wearing her scrubs and she had pulled on her lab coat to keep herself warm in the air conditioned building. That wouldn't mean much to most people but Mark knew exactly how to analyses that. She never wore scrubs and her lab coat, she claimed that was too cocky. She would either wear one or the other. So he knew she must have been too tired after her surgery to change back in her Max Mera dress.
"Mommy!" Ella screamed with too much excitement to contain. She effectively snapped Mark out of his thoughts, caused Addison jump and ruin the signature which was meant to mark the bottom of page she had gone over and everyone else simply stopped what they were doing to watch the four year old squeal and run to her mother.
Addison turned around and opened her arms just in time to catch her daughter. She lifted the child and held her tightly for few seconds before putting her down on the counter beside her chart.
"Did you have fun with Daddy?"
"I made a boy cry." She reported to her mother proudly. "And Daddy was gonna get rapped by a lady with a horn."
Addison looked furrowed her brows and looked at her boyfriend of four years. It was never specifically stated that they were in a relationship but they both knew. It was as simple as the fact that he was bothered by other women looking at him or that she would always pick aside the croutons in her salad because that's the only component of a salad that Mark eats.
"You know, you do look incredibly sexy." She mutter against his chest when he wrapped his arms around her. "Leather jacket with scrubs…who would have thought I'd be turned on by that. It's like the bad boy got in touch with his inner science loving nerd."
"And that turns you on?" he asked whispered back with a look of disbelief. "You never fail to amaze me, woman, never. But moving on to a more G rated topic, Ella and I are starving. We decided we would wait for you to finish before going out to eat. You interested in joining us?"
"Yes! I'm starving. This surgery came in the way of my lunch break." She answered as put her chart in a stack to be filed away and lifted her daughter off the counter to hold against on her hip.
"Cafeteria or somewhere decent?"
"Well, if we go to the cafeteria I wouldn't have to change and I'm very low on time. I've got an OR booked for a surgery in…" she paused to check her watch. "an hour and 15 minutes. But I really want decent food. I'm tired of the goo that resembles mac and cheese but tastes like rubber."
"We can go to the café across the street and you don't have to change. You look kinda sexy like this. Maybe those women at the park knew something, the doctor look is quite a turn on. You need to stop thinking about the impression you give off. No one thinks you're being a show-off when you wear scrubs and a lab coat. Especially in joints around a hospital." Mark assured her softly.
"How did you that's why I wasn't comfortable with wearing both?" she asked with a curious look directed at him as they moved toward the lobby of the hospital. "I heard my mom say it to my dad once. It was when I fell off my bike, my mom had to rush my to the ER for stiches and my dad came in to check on me and he was in scrubs and his lab coat and my mom said it…"
"You have had a messed up childhood. Besides, I know you better than you know yourself." He replied, taking their daughter out of her arms so we wouldn't have to carry around an extra 35 pounds on her hip.
Twenty minutes later they were seated in the small café. Ella had her own entrée from the kids menu situated in front of her. She was taking turns biting into her grilled cheese and eating her fries while her parents shared a large plate of pasta. She reached out to grab her plastic cup of Coke and sipped it with a smile on her face.
"You let her drink Coke and suddenly she isn't a picky, fussy eater anymore. She's not overly hyper or talkative. She just sits there and takes little sips..." Addison observed. "It's weird. A. Coke is loaded with sugar and caffeine and makes most kids bounce off the wall, B. She's just taking small sips and not trying to drink down it all like her life depends on it. Normal kids do that with soda..."
"I think you over analyses everything a little too much." Mark responded while twirling the pasta on his fork, a technique he never used until he met Addison. Before that he slurped.
Addison looked down at the plate between them then looked up into his eyes. "I'm still having a hard to believing that she's actually my child. I feel like it could be a dream." She glanced at Ella to make sure she was distracted with the connect-the-dots game on the kids menu before continuing to say, "I almost gave this up, I almost ruined this for us. Do you know how close I came to an abortion? Let's just say the suction machine was on and the tube thing was making its way between my legs."
"But it wasn't in you. You asked your doctor to stop and said that you couldn't go through with it because you wanted a child. You didn't abort her, Addison. She's sitting right there, completely oblivious to the fact that any of that ever happened. Her birth changed our lives, it brought us together and…helped us understand our priorities."
Addison nodded. "I just feel stupid for coming so close to giving up on all of it." She whispered. "The last four years have been amazing."
"Marry me." Mark said impulsively.
"What?"
"I didn't plan this so I don't have a ring and I don't have a cheesy speech ready but…does any of that even matter? You know how I feel and we can get a ring over the weekend."
"Mark, I'm in hospital attire, as are you. We are sitting in a café across the street from our place of employment and I have to leave for surgery in a few minutes. This is where and when you decide to propose?" she replied.
"Does it matter where we are or what we're wearing? Does any of that change how we feel about one another?" he replied. "If you don't want to marry me then just tell me."
"Mark!" she exclaimed, instinctively taking the hand he had resting in his lap from his stop beside her on the booth. "I would love to marry you, don't doubt that for a minute. The details of the proposal don't matter at all, I just didn't expect it right here right now."
"We'll we've never done things the conventional way." He rationalized. "Wait, did you say yes?"
"I did." Addison smiled, quickly sneaking another glance at the little girl on the other side of the table.
Ella had no idea anything was happening around her. She was too focused on composing the image made of dots. By the time she finished and deciphered the image of a doctor, (what else would it be at a café based so close to such a large hospital) the moment was over. All she noticed was the fact that her parents were sitting a little closer together, still sharing the plate of pasta while they maintained quiet conversation.
Ella took another bite of her grilled cheese and watched as a woman walked in with her daughter. Her eyes widened and she dropped her grilled cheese back on the plate. "Daddy!" she exclaimed as loud as she could, jumping up from her seat which attracted unwanted attention.
Addison gave her daughter a strict glare. "Sit down, Ella."
"But that's the lady who tried to rap Daddy with her horn!" Ella yelled, pointing a finger at the woman placing her order at the register. "Daddy said rapping is a crime, right, Daddy?"
"Sit down, Ella." Addison repeated more firmly, feeling herself turn red while everyone in the small café stared at her daughter who was now slowly situating herself on the booth again.
"It's raping, honey, not rapping." Mark corrected her softly. He reached across the table and pulled Ella's cup out of reach. "I think the caffeine is kicking in. She probably won't need any more of this."
"I have to go, my surgery starts in twenty minutes." Addison replied as she got up from her seat. "Make sure she finishes eating and don't let her make another scene." She instructed her fiancé and left without forgetting to peck his lips on the way out.
"You okay, El?" Mark asked when he noticed his daughter's odd silence. "You upset that your mom got mad at you?"
"No." Ella replied, her focus fixed on the woman a few tables away. "You said that lady has a horn and I can't see it!" she complained with frustration, biting another fry from the half eaten pile on her plate.
"I said horny, Ella, Not horn." he didn't realize what he said until after he said but Ella didn't seem interested much to his relief.
Ella looked at her father with a serious expression on her face. "That's not even a real word, you're just saying that to make me feel better."
Mark laughed, shaking his head slightly in defeat. He never pictured himself with a child who would have him wrapped around her tiny finger, he never pictured himself as someone who would ever get married but he wouldn't change his life with anyone in the world. He had the perfect life, even if perfect no longer carried the same definition as it did just a few years prior.
I missed writing Maddison! Hope you guys like it.
Not to randomly promote myself or anything, but I wanna be more in touch with all fanfiction people. So I put my twitter link on my profile page if anyone is interested :)
