Hey Guys, here goes my take for what happens after the 13x09 finale. This story is set 3 months into Owen and Amelia's marriage, before they had any children (It would be sort of the Prologue to 'My Boys').
My Boys Drabbles – The One Who Got Away (Part One)
"Don't make this all your fault. I know you. That's what you do. But please, please, don't do that."
Owen could still hear the words echoing in his mind as the airplane landed roughly against the ground.
After two weeks of late nights at the hospital and burying himself into work to ignore his personal life completely, he could feel the toll the stress was taking on his mind. And when the first signs that he was unknowingly triggering his PTSD again started to show, Owen quickly took a deep breath, deciding to take action before the situation got out of control.
In the past, he would simply ignore the warnings and move on with his coping mechanism, telling himself he was managing and all would be fine. But Owen knew better now. After going through so much pain and hurt in the past, he had learned that in order to move on and keep himself sane, he had to deal with things instead of pretending they weren't there.
So now there he was, making his way through the busy influx of passengers that rushed in every direction of the Los Angeles Airport. Owen didn't know the city very well. He'd been there a couple of times but never long enough to actually be familiar with it. Rushing outside, he managed to get a cab through the mass of people, giving the driver the address he'd printed out of an email he'd found in his wife's personal computer.
At the thought of Amelia, Owen let out a long, frustrated sigh. When he'd found the note she'd left for him on the kitchen counter of their home, he'd been devastated. Confused. Heartbroken. And many other adjectives he didn't have the emotional intelligence to define. But soon after, he'd started to grow angry, but not at her. Even though he was mad at Amelia at some level, he was mostly angry at himself for allowing his optimistic spirit to believe that, that time, things would actually be different and that that woman could actually make him happy.
Well, three months after they'd married and he'd been left standing alone in the living room of his own house, finding himself in the same crossroads he kept going back to it over and over again. Owen knew Amelia had a lot of trauma and that she'd been through hell in her life. He understood why she acted the way she did. But it didn't make it less painful for him.
When he realized she'd left, he waited, hoping that after a couple of days of being granted time and space, Amelia would clear her head. But when two days became a week and he still hadn't heard from her, Owen had angrily decided he wouldn't act on it anymore. If she'd taken off without bothering to make a phone call to let him know she was okay, without even telling him where she'd gone to, it could only mean she didn't care about him enough, discarding him from her life like a disposable object.
But when one week became two, Owen's anger slowly turned into worry. He thought back about her relapses and her history of drug abuse. The idea of Amelia lying somewhere injecting needles in her arms made Owen cringe. He paced back and forth during days, performing back to back surgeries, hoping to get an email, a text, a phone call, anything to let him know she was alive and well. People didn't dare to ask him about her, afraid of his reaction. And Meredith and Riggs, the only ones who did, also had no idea about his wife's whereabouts.
After coming back home on a Tuesday night, having nearly lost control of his anger during a particular rough discussion with a colleague about a course of treatment earlier that same day, Owen realized he had to do something. Sitting around waiting wouldn't do anymore. Not only was he worried to death about what had become of his wife, he was also driving himself to the edge of a PTSD relapse again. After picking up the phone, Owen called every hotel and hospital in Seattle he could think of. Realizing it was unlikely that she was still in the city, for she wasn't even showing up for work, he'd called her family in New York and found out she wasn't there either.
Doing everything within his power not to panic, Owen had gone through her personal things, looking for any signs of where she might have gone. In her personal notebook, he found her email opened on one of the tabs and scrolled down to find a receipt to a plane ticket to Los Angeles. A little extra digging through her contacts later, Owen discovered the address to the house of the only person he could imagine Amelia had run off to: Addison Montgomery.
After paying for the cab, Owen closed the door and saw the car driving off before he could turn around and face the lovely seaside house. He'd heard a lot about Addison before and even met with her a few times in the past, but Owen didn't really know the woman so he had absolutely no idea how the famous world class surgeon would react to his surprise arrival at her door. Telling himself there was only one way to find out, Owen took large strides to the front door and rang it, trying to control his anxiety for the wait that followed.
Seconds later, when the door finally opened, Owen could identify the obvious shock in the eyes of the red haired woman when she noticed who was standing outside her house.
"Hi," He shyly said, hating to be in that situation. Owen was a very private person and he didn't like to do his dirty laundry in public. The fact that a virtual stranger to him might be privy to his marital problems made him extremely uncomfortable.
"Owen," Addison's voice sounded surprised and she swallowed hard before adding. "What are you doing here?"
"Looking for Amelia," Owen said objectively, thinking that small talk wouldn't help at that moment. He had gone to Los Angeles with one goal in mind and he wasn't going to walk around on eggshells, worrying about social etiquette, in that moment he was feeling at the edge of sanity.
"Uh… She is not here," Addison hesitated, shaking her head in confusion. When she noticed the expression of complete surprise and even disappointment on Owen's face, she hurried to clarify. "I mean, she is not here right now. She went out with my husband a while ago to get groceries."
"How is she? Is she okay?" Owen couldn't help asking in a fast pace. He let out a long sigh, more relieved than he'd initially expected to have found his wife and to notice that apparently she was safe, considering she had gone shopping.
"She is… uh," Addison broke eye contact with him, unable to lie but at the same time, unwilling to get in the middle of that conversation. Taking one step aside, the neonatal surgeon wisely suggested. "You know what, why don't you come in? You can wait for her here and when she comes back, you can ask her yourself."
Owen did as told, nodding his head in gratitude, and walked inside the spacious house. He took off his jacket and neatly folded it, thankful to have something to keep his hands busy with. The expectation and awkwardness of the moment were driving him crazy.
He looked up to meet Addison's eyes, noticing she seemed just as uncomfortable with the situation. Both were complete strangers but knew too much about each other's lives to be able to ignore the fact.
"That your kid?" Owen pointed to a framed photograph of an adorable smiling boy who didn't look more than five or six.
"Yes," Addison genuinely smiled for the first time. "His name is Henry."
"He is lovely," Owen added, unsure of what else to say.
At the mention of the kid, the room was involved in an even thicker atmosphere. Owen was pretty sure Addison knew the reason that had led him and Amelia to fight, and that ultimately had made his wife run away. He also imagined Addison probably knew more about his wife's motives than he did, for she had been an important part of Amelia's life for a long time and was still a very close friend.
"She is not using again, is she?" He upfront asked, unable to spend another minute without knowing about that.
"She is not," Addison replied, loyally. She didn't know Owen very well and hadn't been able to attend Amelia's marriage to him due to the short notice, but over the past two years she'd heard a lot about him, especially from Amelia's point of view. Addison knew he had a lot of flaws, but overall Owen seemed to be a really decent guy.
When Amelia had first arrived at her door, Addison had been thrilled to see her, but quickly, after noticing how distressed her friend seemed, the neonatal surgeon had grown more and more worried. On her first night in Los Angeles, Amelia had explained that she needed some time off from everything to set her mind straight and Addison had let her stay but as the days progressed, Addison had demanded more explanations. After a lot of insistence, she'd heard from Amelia the events of the past weeks, about how Amelia and her husband had decided to have kids and how after the first pregnancy scare, Amelia had realized she wasn't ready for it yet, which had culminated into a fight between the two newlyweds.
Amelia hadn't once mentioned her lost son but Addison knew her fear and hesitation had everything to do with the loss of her child. Addison also knew that Amelia wasn't a piece of cake but she'd been worried that her friend's husband might have put too much pressure on her. After hearing Amelia's admission that this time she had been the one who'd avoided talking and communicating, settling for taking some time off instead, Addison had reached the conclusion that Owen was probably as oblivious to Amelia's past than most people in her life were. In the few times Amelia had given in and talked about the problems at her home, she'd always made it clear that Owen wasn't to blame for their fight and that he had done absolutely nothing other than love her and try to build a future with her.
That had made Addison think back about Amelia's ex fiancé, James, and how Amelia had acted the same way a few years before. At the mention of taking one step forward, she'd taken off, running away in her characteristic way. But despite the fact her behavior was the same, Addison could tell everything else was completely different now.
Even though Owen was sitting on the couch, she noticed how nervous he was, looking at his wrist watch every thirty seconds. Addison didn't know the man and had absolutely no idea what she could say or do to keep him distracted until Amelia arrived. She knew her friend would probably be surprised and taken aback to find her husband there, waiting for her. Luckily for Addison, she didn't need to plan much, because a few minutes later she heard the noise of her own husband's car parking outside.
"I'll let her know that you are here," Addison loyally decided, thinking it would be cruel of her to let Amelia walk into Owen in the living room without a warning.
The trauma surgeon watched as Addison disappeared to the kitchen and waited, patiently, for there wasn't much else he could do. To be honest, Owen was sick of waiting and he did his very best not to let his anger surpass his rationality at that moment. He was just trying to remember everything he wanted to say to his wife that Owen was startled by the low sound of an achingly familiar voice.
"Hey."
Standing up immediately, Owen froze in his spot, forgetting about everything he'd wanted to say. He looked into Amelia's eyes and noticed the dark circles around them. She looked paler and somewhat chronically exhausted, as if she hadn't got enough sleep for a long time.
"Hi," was all Owen could manage to say. He stood there, staring at her for a while, hoping she would initiate the conversation, but she kept looking at him, almost as if begging for something. Owen had no idea what and the notion broke his heart all over again. "How are you?" He asked, sweeping the thoughts about her appearance from his mind.
"Managing," Amelia said, with honesty. "You?"
"People have been asking about you," Owen ignored her question completely. "Do you plan to resume your job? Because Bailey needs to know if she should hire a replacement."
Amelia seemed to ponder for a while, finally settling for saying:
"Is that what you flew all the way here for?" She asked, trying to hold back the tears at the sight of him. His presence was bringing back all the memories and hurt that Amelia had been desperately trying to avoid for the past two weeks.
"No." Owen said without hesitation. "I came here for two reasons," He added, his voice suddenly turning angry and bitter as he once again remembered what had taken him to Los Angeles in the first place. "First I needed to find out if you were alive or not. After all, whether you want it or not, I am still your next of kin," He added, sounding unintentionally bitter and sarcastic. "But I as I can see, I had no reason to worry about that."
Owen's subtle implication that she was doing fine and his direct mention to the fact she hadn't even bothered to let him know if she was alive made Amelia's heart constrict. She didn't dare to reply, knowing she was in the wrong and he had every right to be mad at her for disappearing without any explanation or consideration towards him.
"Secondly, I needed to find out if you're planning to stay here or if you're ever coming back so I'll know what to do with your stuff."
It was clear in Amelia's expression the huge blow the words took on her and she opened and closed her mouth several times before finally finding the strength to speak. She'd spent many nights awake thinking about how Owen would react when they finally met again, and in none of those scenarios he had disregarded her from his life that easily.
"You've really thought this through," She added, unsure of how else to react.
"I didn't think anything through," Owen replied coldly, looking at her judgingly. "You made the decision, I'm just trying to catch up with you so I'll know what to do with my life. Let's make it pretty clear that none of this was my idea. I wasn't even consulted and to be honest I was barely informed."
Once again silence filled the air as Amelia let his words sink in, knowing he had every right to be mad.
"Owen, I know what I did was absolutely wrong and selfish and…" She took one step in his direction but stopped when she noticed he had gotten away from her reach on purpose. "I…" Amelia stuttered, caught off guard by his unexpected sudden appearance. "I left without offering much explanation and you deserved better."
"Yeah," Owen promptly agreed. "I did."
He kept looking at her, expecting Amelia to justify herself. That was her chance to talk to him, to let him in the world she kept so carefully hidden from everyone, sometimes even herself.
"You know what," Owen lifted his hands in the air, as if giving up completely. "I don't even know why I bothered…" He paced back and forth, unable to look her in the eyes. By distance they heard the sound of Jake's car again, he and Addison had probably left the house with Henry to give the couple more privacy. Owen stopped walking and took his hand to his head, running his fingers through his hair with clear frustration. "I am angry at you, Amelia, but I am angry at myself too… I never should have left things to get this far."
"What do you mean?" Amelia looked at him, desperately. Owen had been the best thing that had happened to her in the past years and she loved him with all her heart. Even though Amelia knew she had screwed up badly and had no idea how to fix it, she still wanted to be with him, more than anything. The only thing that kept her going was the notion that with Owen, she actually had a chance at being happy and moving forward. He had been the only one who had actually seen potential in her and loved her despite all her baggage. And he was the only one who could make her feel safe. Amelia was determined to give him everything and she hadn't meant to hurt him, but first, she needed to take care of herself before being the person she wanted to be for him.
"You're not in this," Owen somberly said, obviously referring to their marriage. "You can't be in this, because you're still out there too much," He sighed, nervously. "I knew it, I noticed it, and yet I fooled myself thinking you could overcome it, but you can't. Just because you want to be fine, doesn't mean you're fine overnight," He breathed out through his nose, angry at himself. "You asked me to marry you and I said yes, even though I knew you weren't ready." He finally looked up to meet her eyes, seeing the anguish behind the tears accumulating there. "I said yes because I loved you and I wanted you to be ready. But that doesn't mean you were."
Owen thought back about the day she'd surprised him with a proposal in the backyard of what would become their home. "I want a real life. And I want it with you". The words had woken up feelings inside him that until then, Owen didn't know he still had. His deepest dream of having a family, a wife, someone to share and grow with, someone to start a family with were suddenly brought to life by Amelia's gentle request. He'd said yes immediately because she was offering the deepest desire of his soul on a silver platter and Owen was blindly in love with her. He wanted more than anything to believe that Amelia could be that one person he'd been chasing after all his life. And he'd told himself that, after all the pain and sorrow he'd gone through, he deserved to have found her.
"Loved?" Amelia sheepishly asked, unable to contain the first tear that rolled down her cheek.
"It doesn't matter now, does it?" Owen said, feeling his throat constrict with pain. "It's okay, Amelia," He added, seeing the heartbreak stamped in her eyes. He knew it was hard on her too. Owen didn't doubt her love for him and he also didn't doubt she had her reasons to feel like she needed to run away again. But Amelia wasn't interested or ready to share that with him, even though he felt like he'd repeatedly proven her that she could and she should. But now, Owen had reached his limit, not knowing what to do anymore. "I know you didn't do this on purpose, to hurt me."
"I…" Amelia sniffed, trying to regain control over her tears. "I wanted to go back. Two hours after I got here, I wanted to go back."
"But you didn't." Owen concluded, trying to make sense of her.
"I didn't know if you wanted me to," She confessed, feeling the weight of the world on her shoulders. Everything Owen had said was true. She had asked him to marry her and later on found out she wasn't where she believed to be. And Amelia couldn't point a finger at him for wanting out. "I thought I was doing what was best for you."
"Best for me?!" Owen unintentionally raised his voice, and took one step toward her, unaware of how intimidating he was when anger took over his entire face. "Best for me?!" He repeated, sarcastically. "You've got to be kidding me, Amelia!"
"I thought that…"
"You thought that you didn't want to deal with your shit anymore, so you bailed!" Owen cruelly said, letting out all the anger he'd so carefully been trying to contain. "You took off, because that's what you always do," He took one step towards her and held her face. Even though his eyes were sparkling with rage, his touch was gentle when he imprisoned her face between his hands. "Babe, don't you get it? You're never going to stop running away until you figure out you can't run away from yourself!" He brought her face closer and forced her to look him in the eye, even though Amelia was trying to look away. "You're only going to get through the pain when you allow yourself to feel it instead of running from it."
When he finally let go of her and turned his back, Amelia broke down, crying convulsively. Her knees became too weak to support her weight and before she noticed it, her body was sliding down to the couch, while everything she'd been working so hard to contain in a box in a very dark place within herself was suddenly being brought back to the surface with full force.
"I love you and I wanted to be with you," Owen confessed, still avoiding looking at her. He couldn't bear seeing her in so much pain and agony, especially knowing he was forcing her into it. But that was it. He needed to finish what they'd started. "I really did. And I wanted to be your husband and the guy you can always count on but I can't keep doing that at the expense of my own sanity, Amelia…" He explained, finally turning around to find the pile of mess that his wife had become. "I wanted us to build something amazing together and I invested everything I have in it. I was willing to try and I put myself out there. I expected you to feel the same but I was wrong." Owen closed his eyes, taking a deep breath to pull himself together. "We've been married for three months and the first time things got rough you ran… That's what you do. You run," He summed up, seeing her cries intensifying at the reality of his words but even though he was feeling like the cruelest person on Earth, Owen couldn't stop, because he firmly believed Amelia needed to hear that for her own sake.
Owen believed she had reached a pointed where either she faced whatever it was she needed to face, or she wouldn't be able to live life with plenitude, walking around in circles like she'd been doing all her life, allowing the past to hold her back from creating a future.
"The very first time something came up, you chose not to talk to me about it… First, you spent every night at the hospital… Then, when you told me to my face you didn't want to have a child, you ran off to Meredith's… And two weeks ago, after a horrible day I went home willing to find you and once again, for the thousandth time ask you to talk to me. I was hoping to find you there. But I found a note instead."
He looked at her again, expecting Amelia to say something, but as usual, all he found was silence.
"That's all you thought I deserved," Owen propped his hands on his hips, looking down at her, unable to control a pool of tears forming in his eyes. "A damn note. No explanation. No phone call, nothing. I had to sit at home, afraid that every time my phone rang, someone was calling me to say you had overdosed somewhere. Or worst, that you'd died."
Amelia looked up at him, and through all the pain, she felt a boiling anger starting to consume her.
"You think so little of me that you actually thought I'd go after drugs?"
"Why wouldn't you?" Owen asked rationally and unemotionally. "You've done in the past. Several times, actually." He reinforced, crouching down to look at her, hoping to offer at least some comfort since he was adding to her pain. "Why would it be any different this time?" He asked, almost as if hoping she would give him a good enough reason.
Tell me you love me. Owen gazed deeply into her eyes, expectantly. Tell me you want to be better for yourself and for us.
Amelia opened her eyes to find him on his knees, inches away from her. The weight of his words added to the utter truth their contained drove her to the edge, making Amelia channel all the anger she was feeling about the entire situation. For three months, she'd had the life she'd always wanted and because of her own weakness and incapability to deal with her own traumas, she had let it slip through her fingers, pushing Owen away like she did with everything good that happened in her life.
Owen easily dodged her closed fist when she tried to hit him, uncontrollably sobbing and breaking down. Instead of pulling away, he reached out and held her, so tightly that Amelia couldn't move her arms anymore. And when he did, she broke down completely, shattering his heart when Owen noticed the excruciating pain that every single one of her tears contained.
"Let it out, babe…" Owen said, kissing her temple while keeping his tight grasp around her. "You're allowing yourself to feel it. Feel it. Be angry, cry, do what you have to do. But don't hold it back anymore."
Amelia's scream of agony echoed in the room and Owen stood up, holding his wife when her legs failed to support her again. He held Amelia tightly for long minutes, letting her cry every tear she needed to. And when her sobs finally subsided and her lip finally stopped trembling, Owen pulled apart just enough to look into her amazing blue eyes, allowing a flicker of hope to ignite inside of him again.
"Talk to me, Amelia," He pleaded, giving her one more chance, even though rationally he knew that he shouldn't risk breaking his heart again. Amelia had had too many chances already and he couldn't keep doing that to himself anymore. It was only human to make a mistake, but it was stupid to keep making the same mistake expecting a different outcome.
But that's how love was. Stupid. Irrational. Completely giving.
And Owen loved her, more than he would care to admit, more than he could ever imagine loving a woman. Seeing her in tears, through so much pain, had been his complete undoing. He looked deeply into her eyes, begging her to take out his stretched hand and let him in.
"Tell me what's wrong. Tell me why you've changed your mind," Owen pleaded, aware she knew he meant the subject of them starting a family. "You were so, so into it for so long…" He remembered the time she'd been naked in his arms, joking about having four or five children. And the night she'd told him about the man she'd once loved who'd died in bed beside her, giving him the cue to share his biggest trauma with her too. Owen had really started to believe they could be something amazing together. That evening, he really had thought Amelia was the best choice he'd even made. "You have to talk to me. Please, let me in."
Owen waited, patiently.
Amelia kept staring at him, for long seconds. He could see how tense her body was and how much she was struggling. Her face had become a mask of grueling, agonizing pain. But when seconds became minutes, although he hoped for her to come around, unwilling to believe her silence, Owen finally realized that she wasn't going to talk. Either she couldn't, or didn't want to, but Owen knew in his heart he couldn't let himself keep dancing around so much pain anymore. His or her own. Not without the chance to overcome it.
And even though it broke his heart, he took a step back, making one of the hardest decisions he'd ever had to make.
"You know, I really thought you were the one," Owen said, collecting his jacket from the couch and heading towards the front door. He firmly grasped the handle, determined to leave, but on the last second hesitated and turned around, taking a deep breath before confessing with a broken heart. "But you're really just the one who got away."