SPIRALLING OUT IN A DIFFERENT DIRECTION
What if everything was different, divorce onwards, what if the affair was reversed, what if they had different choices to make? A shortish Maddison what-if fic, because someone had to.
Um, the CROSSOVER:
Not sure I'm ready to discuss that in a mature, adult manner yet. My initial reaction mainly involved me throwing things.
But anyway, the Maddison take-over has begun.
Please subscribe to Echante's community Maddyson, we're going to keep them alive even when Shonda seems intent on destroying them!
Disclaimer: Believe me, if I even had part-ownership, things would be very very different. Kind of like this fic ;)
"He's gone, Mark."
"Wait, what?" he could hardly hear her over the music in the bar, and the chattering of the little blonde next to him.
"He's gone."
Even through the two or three Scotch-on-the-rocks he knew who she meant. "Shit."
Was she crying?
"Mark… I think… I think I need you."
She was sat on the third step on their staircase, her hair was wet from the shower and she was wearing Derek's old Yankees T-shirt… or maybe that was his, he couldn't remember. She didn't look like she'd moved since her husband had walked out the door. He closed it behind him and sat on the step above her, putting his hands on her shoulders.
"What happened?"
Her shoulders shuddered, jerking, and she twisted her neck to look up at him slightly. "I followed him to the hospital on his extra shift last night."
He traced circles on her bare shoulder with his thumb.
"Turns out it wasn't an extra shift at all."
Somewhere inside him, he couldn't decide on his emotions. Derek had let her down, Derek had let them both down, but somewhere deep, some twisted little voice was telling him he was glad that his friend had proved himself unworthy of her.
"She's about ten years younger than me." She brought one of her hands up to clasp his. "Do you think that's what it is?"
"Never." He breathed, "it's not you. He's not worth it."
She leant her head gently on his hand, and his fingers ran slowly through her hair.
"Addison, you can't just sit at home all day doing nothing!"
"Why not?"
"Addie… come on, listen to me… you're going to work, you're coming home… you're sat here watching Gilmore Girls…"
"There's nothing wrong with Gilmore Girls… Lorelai and Rory are-"
He stood in front of the TV. "Addison. Derek left you. Derek's an ass. It's been a month. You're better than this."
She didn't say a thing, but the corners of her mouth drooped slightly.
"Look, Addie… I've got a plastics convention in some spa upstate at the weekend… and it's one day on conferences, the rest of the time to use the facilities… and I get a plus one and-"
She raised an eyebrow, watching him squirm.
"Come with me?"
The tears were pouring forward like a dam's really burst inside her, and she didn't know why, not now. She and Mark had just had an expensive meal in the spa's restaurant, and they'd sat in the bar listening to a jazz band and talking about anything other than Derek, and he'd even forced her to dance to one song… and all of a sudden he was about to go into his separate room for the night and she was crying… sobbing, even… and she wasn't even sure where it had come from.
And his arms were around her and he'd managed to kick the bedroom door closed with his foot.
"Hey… hey…" he was whispering, but she couldn't stop choking on her own tears.
She was grabbing fistfuls of his hair, her face was chafing against his evening stubble and suddenly she realised something – this… this wasn't close enough to him.
"D… Derek left m… me…" she managed to hiss into his neck as he pulled her tighter to him, as if he could squeeze out the pain and the anger and the self loathing. "I… I'm all… all alone…"
And he was shaking his head. "Never alone, Addie. Never alone."
He pressed the lightest of kisses to her forehead, finally sleeping soundly, before picked up his ID badge from the couch that he'd slept on and leaving the room, closing the door gently behind him, hoping not to wake her. She needed her sleep, after he'd sat with her for hours the night before, letting her cry into his shoulder, marvelling at having her so close to him. And when the tears had finally dried and she'd managed to force a smile he'd got up to leave and she'd ordered he stay on the couch, right there with her, until the morning.
He'd spent most of the night watching her sleeping, there was no point lying to himself. And again those demons were battling inside of him because yes, she was a wreck right now, but he finally had her when Derek didn't, he finally had the opportunity to show her that the manwhore wasn't everything, that was Mark without Addison, and that if he could have her, he could be someone else entirely.
He hoped she slept well.
When he got in from the conference in the afternoon, Addison was curled up in the foetal position on her bed, a bill for at least six expensive spa treatments on the table beside her. For a moment he was silent, and he sunk into the bed beside her, absent-mindedly tucking a red curl behind her ear and smiling to himself. Her eyes flickered open.
"Good day?"
That smile made her heart melt. "I guess. You did, apparently."
"I'll pay, don't-"
He shook his head. "This is my treat. From one best friend to another."
She wrinkled her nose. "What's the time?"
"Only 3 o'clock… you want to go take a look around?"
"Sure, give me five minutes."
She was wearing a short red sundress that literally made him want to rip it off her and have her right there, but of course notions like that had to be quelled. She took his arm, eyes laughing, as they walked down the open air corridor between the spa bedrooms. The elevator doors closed behind them, but she didn't let go of his arm, and the feeling of being that close to her was keeping him from breathing normally.
"Mark?"
"Yes?"
"Thank you… thank you so much for all of this…" she trailed off, eyes suddenly occupied staring at her shoes.
"Don't mention it." He breathed, "I'd do anything for you."
Eyes met, breathing hitched, they seemed to lean towards each other.
The elevator doors slid open.
After a while they found a quiet balcony and were leaning on the fence, close enough to lean against each other, too.
"What do you think Derek's doing, right now?" she whispered, and hated herself for the look that crossed Mark's face.
He shrugged. "I dunno, Addie… but it doesn't matter anymore."
"The thing… the thing I just can't get my head around is why he waited around as long as he did…" she frowned, "If he was with that intern for as long as people say he was… if he was really in love with her… why did he bother to stay, Mark? We weren't… we weren't together… not for a long time… jeez, I don't even think we were in love with each other anymore…"
Her hand flew to her mouth, not because she was guilty, but because she hadn't realised until now.
And she hadn't realised until now how close Mark was… how his eyes were darting between her eyes and her mouth… how she was a hundred percent at ease in his company…
There was a fire lit somewhere when their mouths met.
Only Addison and Mark could find themselves in a broom closet in a five star spa. He was against the wall, and she was pressed as tightly against him as possible, because all of a sudden he was everything she'd been missing these past few years – she'd always loved him, so to speak, but it hadn't even occurred to her that this would be this good… but then she'd been married…
He spun them, kicking the door closed with his foot, and suddenly she was the one in the passive position, in a wall-Addison-Mark sandwich, and she couldn't think of anywhere better to be, not now, not ever. She felt like the red-head with braces on Prom Night, like this was all new, but it was only a thousand times better than Prom Night, and this was Mark, her Mark, manwhore Mark… but all of a sudden he was all of those things and not any of them at the same time.
Suddenly it wasn't just kissing, their hands were all over each other… and she couldn't help herself, it was like she didn't even need to think… her hands were at the button of Mark's pants before he drew her dress over her head in one movement…
The lights flickered on.
"What was that for, Addie?"
A kiss to the side of his jaw. "I want to see you." She breathed, and nothing could have been more seductive. "I want this to be…"
Her cheeks flushed slightly more, and he kissed the side of her mouth. "Special?"
Nodding, before she buried her face in his neck again, trying to hold her own through the heady scent of him, her heart thumping against her chest almost painfully.
Only Addison and Mark could get walked in on by the cleaning staff in a state of almost complete undress, and only Addison and Mark could find that hilarious as they staggered back towards their bedrooms down the corridors, clothes hanging off their shoulders, hand in hand. It was like a spell had been cast over them, like there was only one thing in their worlds – each other.
And when he laid her down gently amongst freshly pressed sheets and made love to her like she could hardly remember her husband doing, she was tiny in his arms, malleable and perfect and warped all at once.
And when she cried, he knew it wasn't like that. So he held her tightly.
The next day was perfect, hilarious, new. They went swimming, and it was bordering on inappropriate the number of opportunities they found to touch each other. And they sipped wine on a veranda, Mark survived dinner with Addison wearing a plunging, beaded neckline, and this time when they fell into bed it was natural and easy.
"Mark?"
"Addison."
"Mark, what are we doing?"
The bed rumbled with his chuckles. "Fuck knows."
"Seriously. I've been divorced two weeks."
He shook his head with conviction. "You haven't been in love with Derek for a long time."
There was a time when she would have argued, but not now.
"Is this coming home with us?" she sounded like a frightened child.
He took a deep breath, "If you want it to," whilst praying to every God whose name he could remember.
"Please."
He rolled over so he could look into her eyes.
"You're going to have to tell me to leave."
"What?"
"I'm not going anywhere by myself. Ever."
He never went back to his apartment. It was odd, at first, being in the brownstone, the house she'd shared with Derek, but it grew easier. Because it wasn't just the house she'd shared with Derek. It was the house she'd shared with Mark, when Derek was absent, when Derek was cheating, when Derek was gone.
He loved her dressed up to the nines for parties, he loved her bare and beautiful beneath him in the starlight, he loved her in her scrubs, he loved her curled up on the sofa in her pyjamas with a cold.
He told her he loved her in Central Park in the middle of winter, and she put her gloved hands around his neck, kissed him lightly and said, "But I knew that anyway."
She told him she loved him on Christmas Day, after they'd both worked obscene shifts, as they lay, too exhausted for anything other than sleep, his arms around her.
"Mark?"
"Addison."
"You… I guess you… I think… I… well, I love you."
And he'd laughed at her, and spooned his body around her as she slept.
Derek had the cheek to send Mark a wedding invitation, and the pair of them took great delight in burning it. They went out that night, drank far too much and ended up behaving very badly in the ladies bathroom at the bar.
Naturally, they were too drunk, and Derek was too close to the forefront of their minds to let anything as trivial as contraception hinder them, and, naturally, that always has consequences.
"Shit!"
He knocked on the bathroom door. "You ok in there?"
The only thing he got in response was a fairly indistinguishable noise.
"Addison?"
The door opened and she stood there, hair tousled from the shower, a white stick in her hand it took him moments to recognise. And then his eyebrows went halfway to Alaska.
"Shit…"
"Uh huh…"
"So I booked the afternoon off work to come with you to your next OB appointment… and I've marked out my diary for the four weeks surrounding the due date… so they can't send me out on any conferences…"
She turned his face to hers as she got down from the breakfast bar and pressed a kiss to his cheek. "I love you."
And no matter how many times she said it, it would always feel like this.
"Addison, jeez… can't a father-to-be get any sleep around here…"
She pressed kisses to his neck, her eyes wild, slinging her legs over his.
"I already told you… my hormones are going crazy…" his jaw, his face, his mouth… "And… since when did Mark Sloan turn down sex?"
He tried to laugh, but buried his face further into the pillow. "Since he's already had three rounds tonight and he has to get up for the early shift."
"I love you."
He rolled over, and then some, until she was underneath him.
"Dammit woman, you know I can't refuse you…"
Olivia Samantha Montgomery-Sloan should have been an October baby, but the combined stubbornness of both her parents and the fact that it was a cold Autumn that year, Mark supposed, compelled her to stay in the warm until November. He was about to scrub in for an elective correctional surgery when the nursing intern came sprinting into the prep room to tell him his daughter was finally on her way.
He'd never heard such crude words escape a woman's mouth as came firing out of Addison's during the 17 hours of labour. Olivia wasn't a small baby, and Addison didn't have the world's highest pain threshold, and coupled with the three extra weeks of pregnancy she hadn't been banking on, he supposed she had a right to curse. He held her hand – well, she squeezed the life out of his hand – and he kissed her bright red, sweat soaked forehead, and he prayed a little bit, though he'd never admit it.
And when Olivia lay in Addison's arms and she leant back in his, everything was worth it.
All of a sudden, they were this awfully sickly-sweet, regular family. Olivia was followed by Cameron, three years later, and they went picnicking in Central Park, Addison had a soccer mom sticker in her car and Mark got dragged to ballet recitals. They had blazing family rows over school excursions and homework and what time dinner would be. Olivia walked in on Mark and Addison possibly conceiving her brother and had refused to talk to Mark for days.
Cameron pushed Olivia off the rope swing at the park and they were in the ER for seven hours, Olivia decided it was a good idea to tell Cameron that pencils were for sticking up your nose.
They didn't hear from Derek again, not for years, until Mark was in Seattle for surgery and spotted a birth announcement in the paper for Eloise Lilian Shepherd, third daughter of Derek Michael Shepherd and Meredith Grey… and he binned it. Even after all those years, he wasn't sure how Addison would take it.
He shouldn't have worried, however. When Olivia, twelve years old and fascinated by the long, clean corridors of the New York hospital that had become her home away from home, ran into a man who stared at her for a full five seconds, looking at the red hair and grey eyes, before asking her if she was related to Addison Montgomery, and told Addison about it, her mother merely laughed slightly to herself.
Derek was gone, Derek had been gone for a very long time, and it was a sign of a secret lack of self-esteem that led Mark not to realise it.
They took Olivia and Cameron to ski in Brecken Ridge when they thought they were old enough, and spent their days on the slopes and their evenings beside a roaring log fire in their chalet for two blissful weeks, and it was there, beside the hearth, when Olivia had just kissed her parents and skulked up to bed, that Mark got down on one knee, his eyes bright, and presented the simple but beautiful engagement ring his son and daughter had helped him to pick out.
Addison stared at it with her mouth open for a good five or six minutes before she threw herself off of the couch and into his arms, and they ended up having sex on the wooden boards and the age-old rug, whilst she whispered her acceptance into his ear as quietly as she could manage.
Olivia was thirteen and Cameron ten when they finally got married, in a nice hotel in New York, and Addison wore white and her hair down and looked as beautiful as she had the first day he'd met her, and smiled more than he thought he'd ever seen.
It wasn't a conventional wedding, as neither Mark's parents nor Bizzy and the Captain had "been able to make it" they danced the second dance with their children, Addison with her son and Mark with his daughter.
Olivia had a little too much champagne and ended up snoring on one of the chairs at the side of the room, and Savvy had too much to drink and threw red wine over Addison's veil, but as she and Mark drove off, headed for JFK and a week in Antigua, she realised it couldn't have been any more them.
She sometimes stops and wonders where time's going… because it seems to be flashing by, and there seems to be nothing she can do about it. It seems… it seems like it was barely five minutes ago that she was holding her daughter in her arms, wrapped in a pale yellow newborn blanket, and this evening she's spent at least two hours sat on the end of her fourteen year old's bed, consoling Olivia over a boy in her Math class, who was apparently dating someone who had legs longer than Addison's and was allowed to get highlights in her hair.
As she sinks into the couch next to Mark and he reaches an arm around her shoulders and pulls her closer, she begins to feel old.
When they were called up to the school to discuss Cameron's behaviour, Mark was very silent and angry and Addison was the one screaming the house down whilst Olivia sat at the kitchen table, pouring over her textbooks, music vibrating out through her headphones to create some sort of bizarre ambient noise.
When they realised Cameron had punched the senior because he'd cheated on Olivia, Mark chuckled and ruffled his son's hair whilst Addison had "quiet words" with him about getting himself hurt. Olivia, chewing gum and staring out of the window, gave Cam a little smile as he stalked upstairs.
Addison was in a minor car crash the year Olivia turned seventeen. There was no permanent damage apart from mild concussion and a broken wrist, but as Mark sprinted down the corridors of the hospital, heart thumping in his chest, he came to the conclusion that he was nothing without her. And in those few, endless minutes in which he had no idea what state he would find her in, the mother of his children and the only woman he'd ever really loved… he realised he wouldn't know what to do if she was gone.
He had burst out laughing when he'd seen her, impatiently checking her Blackberry and fretting over the fact that it was past eleven and a school night and Olivia was still at her best friend's, half-heartedly accepting that her wrist was being put into cast.
But that night, in the half darkness, he'd made sure she knew how much he really did love her.
Addison didn't think she'd ever seen Mark cry until Olivia came down the stairs, dressed and ready for her Senior Prom. He'd turned away, staring fixedly at the window, but she knew exactly what she'd seen in his eyes.
Olivia's date, a tall boy in her Physics class, was smiling proudly from the door… he was a little too tall and skinny, and Addison was reminded slightly unpleasantly of her Prom experience with Skippy Gold… but Olivia was happy, and there was no way she was going to dampen her daughter's spirits tonight…
But like the old Prom cliché, Olivia was home by midnight, tears in her eyes and a rushed whisper to her mother that she'd dumped the boy – Chad, maybe that was his name – because he'd tried it on in the Limo and Meggie Jordan had called her a slag before being crowned Prom Queen.
Before either of them knew it, Cameron was leaving for college in the four-by-four his Uncle Archer had bought him against his parents' wishes, and they were standing on the steps of their brownstone, Mark's fingers digging into Addison's shoulder slightly too hard, and Addison's breathing slightly too shuddery. She kept waving until Cameron was far round the corner, disappearing out of view.
He leaned into her slowly, pressing a kiss to her hair, and she found herself sniffing, unable to hold in her tears. He walked her inside, made her a huge cup of fresh coffee and sat next to her at the breakfast bar, arm threading around her waist whilst she stared blankly at the kitchen table – four chairs for two people…
It seemed crazy.
Olivia became a lawyer, and was as devoted to her work as her mother was, and Cameron became a paediatrician, and married a beautiful little blonde girl called Alice he met in Starbucks, and had a fairy tale Addison would have been jealous of in the years before Mark. And when she danced with Mark at her son's wedding, watching Olivia sat at the bar talking to a well dressed man, part of the bride's party, she couldn't help thinking that however old they had gotten, it didn't matter much now, not really.
Mark tucked a strand of grey-streaked red behind her ear and she found a smile breaking out across her face that she hadn't even known existed.
"You look beautiful…" he breathed, "Did I tell you that?"
And the smile widened, and she kissed him softly. She nodded her head towards their daughter, and Mark glanced behind him. "Not as beautiful as 'Liv."
They both found themselves grinning ridiculously, spilling with pride.
Cameron's daughter, Lilian Olivia-Addison Sloan, or just Lily, because it was such a big name for such a small person, was born less than a year after the wedding. Mark was in Vancouver on a plastics convention, and Olivia was in Brazil with her new boyfriend, so Cameron called his mother to meet them at the hospital, even though it was the early hours of the morning.
Lily was tiny, she fitted in the space between Addison's wrist and elbow, and she had a perfect shock of red hair that dusted her scalp. She had wide brown eyes, courtesy of her mother, and she stared up at Addison with the nonchalant curiosity that only babies can manage.
And Addison was a grandmother, and that didn't seem dreaded, and painfully old, as it had done during Alice's pregnancy, but wonderful.
Something that had come from an entirely different direction to the path she'd once been on, but something perfect all the same.
She rocked Lily gently, and waited for Mark to call.
A/N: I have no more words. Please review :)