A/N: If I owned Grey's Anatomy things would be so very different. But alas, I do not and my opinions matter very little.
The scene from episode 3x16 in which Addison enters Meredith's trauma room has always been very intriguing to me. I spent some time speculating what the characters were thinking. Meredith and Addison are some of my favorite characters because their stories have been, so far, both compelling and complex. Addison's expression was particularly moving and I was a bit disappointed the writers didn't expound on that.
You don't know what moves you to make a detour to the coffee shop after your shift but you order two hot chocolates—to go—and as you drive to a house you never thought you'd step foot in to see a woman you never thought you'd care about, you think it must be because of the sad, preoccupied expression Derek had that day at the hospital. After all, you may be divorced and you may be Satan, but that doesn't mean you don't care. Because you do. Sometimes you think it would be easier if you didn't. It would be less painful if you could hate them. Hate him. Hate her. But you can't because even though for eleven years—eleven Christmases, eleven Birthdays—you were Derek-and-Addison, you never had that. He never felt that way about you. And so you can't hate them because you know it's not some cheap thing and you can't hate her because she's just as much a victim as you were. And though you both played equal roles in ruining each other's lives, it was never once out of spite. The pain you caused each other was unintentional which makes it damn near impossible to hate her because you hurt her just as much as she hurt you. Plus, it's hard to hate someone who's already got other issues and whose life is obscenely complicated to begin with.
Which is why you're holding two cups of juju, even though you know tequila is Meredith's preferred poison (because juju is powerful stuff that won't give you a hangover and you think she could use all the help she can get) and standing on the porch of a very nice old house. You've been standing there for several minutes and you're starting to wonder if this is a mistake and you might still have time to get back to your car and drive quickly away before anyone notices, when too late—you hear the sound of light footfalls slowly approaching the door and then—she shuffles into view from somewhere off to the left, her appearance slightly distorted by the glass of the door. She opens the door and her expression is one of bemusement.
"Dr. Grey"
"Add—Dr. Montgomery? What are you doing here?"
"I came to see how you were doing."
"Oh." She looks surprised but she is staring at you not unkindly. A pause. "Would you like to come in?"
"That would be great." Because really, it is very cold outside. She steps back and opens the door wider for you to step in. She's dressed in black sweats and a gray Dartmouth t-shirt. Her hair is pulled back but several dark strands are swept to the side and they only serve to accentuate the paleness of her skin. For a moment it's that day again and you've just opened a door that in retrospect you'd have much rather left closed, because there, on that table, is Meredith Grey. Meredith Grey. The woman your husband (now ex) can't stop looking at. And her skin is the color of her surname, and her lips have a slightly bluish tint to them, and your breath catches painfully in your chest as the door swings open because Oh. My. God. Meredith Grey. And you've not only literally opened a door into her trauma room, but you've opened a door to worry and caring and that's painful. Ex-wives are not supposed to be worried or concerned about their ex-husbands' girlfriends. But you do and it hurts. It hurts to see her lying there and it hurts to see him sitting right out there. And it hurts even more to want to save her.
She shuts the door and you're jolted back to the present. The present where you're standing in Meredith Grey's entryway and she's looking at you curiously, if not uncertainly.
"Here, this is for you" you say as you thrust the cup in her direction. "It's juju" you add unnecessarily. She looks at you again and you notice the dark circles beneath her gray eyes and she looks exhausted.
"Thank you, Addison" the corners of her lips turn up into a small smile but her voice and eyes belie her sincerity. You nod once and you're beginning to feel awkward when—
"Let's go sit down?" and you notice that even the short journey to answer the door was enough to leave her drained. "Sure, of course. It's probably better that you're off your feet." She turns then and uses her free hand against the wall to help her slowly down a hallway. You follow and enter a bright, warmly lit kitchen and it smells delicious. She sets her juju on the kitchen table and you sit down on one of the chairs as she stiffly walks over to the island in the middle of the room.
"Izzie's been baking again." She certainly has. The counter is covered in muffin pans and pie dishes. Meredith grabs a pan of muffins and sets it on the table before sinking onto a chair herself with a small grimace.
"It's a lot; I know it's a lot, but she says it's comfort food, and it's sweet, and her muffins are really very good. You should have one, you know, uh, if you want to." She says it all very quickly and possibly without breathing before her eyes dart to your face and then back to the table. She begins fidgeting and she picks up her cup and takes a long swig for something to do. You laugh in amusement because really, this is all very funny. You're sitting with Meredith Grey at her table, in her house. The house of your ex-husband's ex-ex-mistress (ex-ex because she's no longer the mistress, she's his girlfriend and actually, now that you think about it, you guess it's almost his house too). She glances sheepishly up at you and then smiles nervously.
"Sorry. I seem to ramble. It's an affliction."
You smile at her in response and reach over, liberating a muffin from the pan. Izzie's miniature soldiers, standing at attention row upon row, ready for combat in the War on Grief.
"Izzie's muffins are good." That's what you recall anyway. Through the haze of alcohol and self-pity, you seem to remember devouring a whole basket in an attempt to get fat (because that was such a novel idea). "So Grey…Meredith…how are you?"
She worries her fingers before offering her vague standard reply, "Oh, you know, I'm fine." You raise an eyebrow. She stutters on. "I mean, I've been a little tired so I guess it's good the chief gave me the week off, but I'd rather be working. It's not been too bad though. Usually Alex, or Izzie, or George, or Cristina is here for a couple of hours. Or Derek," she clears her throat and her voice gets a little higher "when he's not at the hospital uh, being a surgeon. Surgeoning…" Her fingers twist the watch around her wrist more rapidly the longer she speaks and she trails off weakly.
Oh God. Surgeoning? Surgeoning? Seriously. What are you thinking? Clearly nothing. You blame the absence of intelligent thought on the fever. And the drugs. And the dying. The dying. That must be it. The lack of oxygen killed a few too many brain cells. You make a mental note to have Derek do some sort of Brain Man test when he comes home.
"You look tired," she confirms and you mentally sigh in relief because she has graciously decided not to acknowledge just how uncomfortable your reference to Derek was. I mean, the both of you can only handle so much awkwardness.
"It's to be expected though," she continues, "you're body was under so much stress…you're probably sore too." She's staring at you concernedly and you shift again in the hard seat and flinch when your ribs twinge in protest.
"Yeah…yeah, I'm a bit sore," you admit wryly and she looks at you knowingly. You're more than a "bit" actually. Your entire torso is covered in bruises in varying shades of blue and purple, the result of hours of lifesaving chest compressions. You have a few stitches too—up near your clavicle where the central line was inserted, on your lower abdomen from the peritoneal lavage, and on your right inner thigh from the cardiopulmonary bypass. They spent a lot of time, effort, and resources bringing you back. That's what Bailey told you anyway. Plus, you read your chart while George was eating lunch in your room the next day. You can't help but think that if you were anyone else they would have given up and called time of death.
"Meredith? Can I ask you something?" You nod. "What are you doing?" She looks at you and you can't discern the expression upon her face. You stare up at her with your mouth working silently as you struggle desperately to formulate some kind of response.
"Wha…what? I don't know what you mean..."
"Look," she begins slowly, "I can't even begin to pretend I know what you're going through…" her gaze lowers to your breakfast table before sweeping the room and taking in the empty tequila bottle sitting on the end of the counter with the rest of your recycling and then to the kitchen chair stacked with files and records and arrangements for your mother. Her eyes flash back to you and you feel as though you're being studied. As though you're a blurry CT scan, something she can't quite read. "And I know things have been difficult with your mother…But it seems like you and Derek have something good. You have something real. It's not some sham," her last few words come out bitter as she shakes her head, her expression slightly pained, "you're not lying to yourselves" she stares at you hard and her voice is now strong. "What you have is something worth holding on for." Well. You never thought you'd live to see the day when Addison Montgomery would argue in favor of your relationship with Derek. Actually, you never thought you'd live to see another day at all.
"Derek's not—he's not the reason I drowned," you shake your head quickly as you explain. You feel your cheeks flushing in embarrassment and your mouth curls upward as you rush to correct her while you fidget uncomfortably under her penetrating gaze. God. You're really regretting answering the door right now. The juju is so not worth the agony of this conversation.
She speaks again gently, her voice without accusation, without judgment, "Then what is? Because you need to explain to Derek. Help him understand because he's blaming himself like the fool that he is…"
You sit there quietly for a few moments thinking, thinking back to that day. That day when everything changed, when everything was so clear. And the water was around you and the cold in your heart was caressing your skin, swallowing you, consuming you, washing you away. You fiddle with your watchband and stare down at the table as your arms prickle with gooseflesh. You can feel her watching you as you begin to speak slowly, your voice low "I didn't… try to kill myself…"
You swallow, your throat feeling tight as you remember the day when you were five and your mother sat down with you on the floor, a scalpel in hand, and attempted to let her pain flow with the life from her body, like the blood from her arms. Flow from her body, flow from her arms, flow all over the floor. That was tryingto kill yourself. You? You just stopped swimming. Tragically ordinary. You chose to let the death of your body coincide with the death within you. You let yourself drown, you let yourself disappear, but you didn't actively seek it out. You doubt Derek would see it that way.
"…But suddenly I was in the water and it was cold and I was cold and my mother…" You stop for a moment and try to gather the words swirling inside your mind. You take a breath and start over. "I was fading away, tired of trying to…trying to be…. and I let go…" you sigh, your voice quiet, "I disappeared." Your eyes burn and you continue to avoid Addison's gaze. You flinch, not in pain, but surprise, when you feel her hand on your arm. You nod and brush at your face and the two of you sit in companionable silence for a long time, the Dirty Mistress and Satan's Whore.
"I'm sorry about your mother."
Your chest tightens at the mention of dead-mommy but you force yourself not to think about it. You're supposed to be okay now, fresh and new. "It's okay. I think it's okay." You say it more for your own benefit than hers. Your eyes are beginning to droop and now you're not only physically exhausted, but mentally too. She seems to notice because she stands up with a smile and says, "It's probably time for me to go." She swings her black dress coat on over her clothes, grabs her purse, and heads for the door, you trailing weakly behind her. She stops with her hand on the knob.
"I'm glad you're okay. And," she smirks "I don't hate you." And with that she turns and slips out the door and you're left thinking that something about her words is vaguely familiar.
Anyways, I hope that was believable. You may think Addison seems a bit repetitive in the beginning where she keeps correcting herself about her marriage to Derek (the whole "husband, no, ex-husband" thing). To me though, after eleven years of marriage, I think she'd sometimes have to keep reminding her subconscious that their eleven year old marriage is no more.
Meredith. I've always thought that in some ways Meredith doesn't quite believe she killed herself. It's the difference between active and passive. She let go but she didn't slit her wrists. She let her death happen. Ellis caused her (almost) death to happen. So ya. Ellis actively killed herself and Meredith passively did. But in my opinion in Meredith's mind that makes all the difference. Let me know what you thought!
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