Addison cringed just slightly, closing her eyes until the pain passed. She tried her best to hide it from her husband who was standing just on the other side of the operating table and everyone else standing around them. Drawing in a breath to calm herself, Addison said, "I need you to have lunch with the president of the board of the Bryson school tomorrow." she told him.
"Why are we talking about this right now?" Derek asked without even bothering to look up from what he was doing.
"Because, Derek, you're never home. You're always spending the night in that stupid trailer on that stupid piece of land planning that stupid house you're never going to build." she replied honestly, drawing in another deep breath when she felt another shooting pain in her abdomen. Her eyes immediately darted up to the monitors when the high pitched beeping went off.
"Pulse ox is dropping." Derek told her. "What did you do?" he asked, laying the blame on her without caring whether or not it was actually her fault.
"I didn't do anything. It's invading the tracheal wall." Addison insisted, hoping that was telling the truth. For a second she feared that her hand may have unintentionally slipped when she cringed in pain. "Clamp."
"We're losing her." Derek informed her.
"I'm working as hard as I can, Derek." Addison replied, doing her best not to slap at him. "You just pay attention to what you're doing." she told him, shutting her eyes tightly for a second to ride out another sharp pain.
"Look who's talking..." Derek murmured under his breath. "You're thinking about enrolling a fetus in pre-school three years from now."
"Derek, I'm capable of operating and carrying out a conversation at the same time. It's not like this is my first time in an OR."
"She's stabilizing." the anesthesiologist informed the surgeons, hoping it would stop the bantering.
The couple worked in silence from that point on, only exchanging information with one another when needed. Addison was sure that Derek never looked in her direction to see her cringe every so often. She had never been so grateful for a surgical mask. It prevented everyone from seeing her bite her lip every time she felt her child kick her varying organs.
"How are you doing? Almost done?" she asked, looking over to see what her husband was doing.
"Yeah, I got the whole tumor. I'm just checking for possible bleeding and swelling then I'll close." he replied. "You?"
"I'm closing right now." she replied, carefully working on delicate stitches along the baby's neckline.
They stepped into the scrub room together and Addison took a deep breath before pulling off her mask. She just hoped that the pain had stopped so she would no longer need a mask to hide behind. "Did you get the whole tumor?" she asked as she scrubbed her hands.
"I told you." he replied impatiently.
"I'm not asking for myself. I'm asking what I should tell the mother-"
"Just go." Derek interrupted. "I will talk to her myself."
They settled into a few seconds of silence. Addison drew in a deep breath and held onto the edge of the sink when she felt another cramp in her lower back. She kept telling herself that it was because she had been on her feet too long, she wanted to believe it was nothing serious. "So we'll talk about the pre-school-" she tried bringing up the topic again.
"It's gonna be late. I'm going to stay here and look into this clinical trial." Derek answered.
"That's great." Addison replied sarcastically. "One more reason for you to stay out of the house." And that's exactly what she knew it would be. One more reason for him not to notice that little things that made all the difference. One more reason he had to push her away. "It's fine, maybe you'll be more interested when the baby come."
Derek looked at her, doing his best not to roll his eyes and scoff. "Right. Because everything is going to be different when the baby comes."
"I..." Addison stopped, closing her eyes tightly. Derek thought it was to restrain herself from crying, what did didn't know was that it was the stabbing pain in her abdomen. "A girl can hope." she said after a few seconds.
"Nothing is going to change." he told her honestly. With a curious glance in her direction, he asked, "What do you think is going to change?"
That's when Addison found herself asking the one question she'd been dreading since she saw the positive pregnancy test. "Do you even want a baby?"
"I didn't say that!" Derek exclaimed defensively, not noticing the audience that was building up in the OR just on the other side of the glass window in the scrub room. "Of course I want a baby."
"I'm not talking about a baby. This baby, with me." She specified with great emphasis, bringing her husband to a loss of words. She turned her head away from him, the brief silence between them ended up striking another question she had been asking herself since her move to Seattle. "Do you love me?"
Derek's eyes were fixed on the floor, no answer leaving his lips. To anyone else, that would have been enough of an answer but Addison just couldn't help herself. She always had the tendency to pick at an open wound, her marriage being the perfect example of that.
"Do you?" she pushed him for an answer when he remained silent. "You know what, don't answer that. I think it's pretty clear, I don't need to hear it to know the answer."
"Of course I love you." he murmured under her breath.
"Derek, you had to look at the floor to say it." Addison pointed out quietly. "You don't have to say it, it's fine."
"I don't know what you expect from me. You asked for a second chance, I gave it to you, you got pregnant and I am trying to do the right thing. I am trying..."
Addison shook her head, unsure of how to reply to that confession. When she opened her mouth to speak a painful groan came out instead.
"What was that?" Derek asked, showing concern for the first time in a long time. "Addison.." he pressed on, ignoring the incoming page to his cell phone.
"It was nothing, I have to go." She left without another word, fleeing the room as fast as her legs could possibly carry her. She knew Derek wouldn't come after her. Despite his concern, his patients always came before her. He had to get to whoever was paging him and for the first time she was grateful that he put work before their family. She needed to be alone.
An hour and a half later, Derek was determined to find his wife. He needed to understand what was going on with her. He knew there was something that she was hiding from him but he had absolutely no idea what it could have been. He figured she was upset about the condition of their marriage, he thought maybe she was furious with him for being absent.
"Ellis!" Derek exclaimed when he stopped the chief of surgery in the hall. He ran to catch up with her and asked, "Have you seen my wife? She's not answering my pages."
"I have seen her but she asked me not to tell you where she is or what she's doing it." Ellis replied firmly. "She told me what happened between you two after surgery. She says you don't want the baby."
"I didn't mean to imply anything like that." Derek said defensively. "She took it the wrong way. That whole conversation was just completely wrong. I didn't mean for any of it to come out the way that it did."
"You didn't mean for it to come out the way it did? You mean you didn't want her to find out, in public, in front of all her colleagues that you don't want her or the child she is carrying?"
"No! That's not what I meant at all. You're doing it too! You're twisting my words."
"Derek, she may be a woman who is almost 35 weeks pregnant with hormones beyond control but I can safely say that no matter how you worded a statement like that, there is only one implication. She threatened to quit." she informed Derek, giving him a disapproving glare.
"Well, that's why I want to talk to her. I don't want things to escalate to that for no reason."
"She doesn't want to see you. The least you could do is respect that." Ellis informed. "And if she is threatening to quit, you should know that you'd be fire. You don't teach, you don't publish, you do one surgery a day, maybe two then you go off to supposedly build some house in the forest."
"Supposedly? It's not supposed. I am working on it. I want my kid to have a home. I don't want my kid growing up in that damn townhouse Addison insisted on buying."
"Your kid is almost here Derek. Unless you can finish that house by the end of the day, you failed that mission of yours. You're a neurosurgeon, not a contractor. You can't build a house in six months. You can afford to hire a team and if you had, the house would probably be done. You just use that place as an excuse to get away from your family and your job. It's all just an excuse, Derek. So if she actually tries to quit because of you, I'll throw you out on your ass before I let her break her contract. She's much more valuable to Seattle Grace than you've ever been."
"End of the day?" Derek questioned Ellis Grey's earlier statement. "Why would it need to be finished by the end of the day? I've got like 5 weeks. If I hire a contractor now, it should be finished in about a month."
"What?" Ellis asked, realizing she accidentally gave away what Addison begged her not to.
"Where is Addison, Ellis? What is going on?"
"She's in preterm labor and her doctor was not able to stop the contractions. She'd been admitted and steroids have been administered to boost the baby's lung development."
"She's in labor at 35 weeks?" Derek asked. "My wife's been in labor this whole time and no one bothered to call me?!"
"She asked us not to. She doesn't want you anywhere near her or her child."
"That's our child." Derek emphasized. "I have every right to be there."
"Can you blame her for believing otherwise?" Ellis asked before walking away, leaving him to ponder that question.
Derek paced outside of Addison's hospital room for hours. He watched her doctor go in and out every hour or so, he watched as nurses went in to check on her. Every time he asked any of them if he could go in they told him Addison did not want him in the room. He leaned against the wall beside the door and listened to his wife whimpering in pain with every contraction.
He jerked upright when her doctor walked out of the room. "Hey." he greeted the much older woman, Dr. Morton, who was the head of the department before Addison had taken over. "How is she doing?"
"She's at about six and a half centimeters so we've still got a few hours to go. You should go home and rest, you've been out here for hours, Derek."
"And miss my kid's birth? No way."
"Addison does not want you in there, Derek. You're going to miss it regardless." Dr. Morton pointed out. "I don't know what happened between the two of you. I honestly thought you two were the happiest couple I've ever met. But whatever it was, I can tell you that you should honor her wishes. Don't make her any more upset than she is. She's already going through a lot."
"I'm not going anywhere. I am going to wait out here." Derek replied. "Is Addison in any pain? Does she need anything? I don't have to be in there to help, I can get whatever she needs and someone else can give it to her. I can make myself useful."
"She doesn't need anything. She's okay." Dr. Morton assured him.
"What about support? Does she had someone to hold her hand? You know how nervous she was about giving birth. Did she call her family or Savvy or someone to come be here with her? Will they make it before she gives birth?"
"Derek..." the woman trailed off with a disapproving glance. "You know that I can't tell you anything. Doctor/patient confidentiality."
"What about the baby? Will she make it? What are her chances?"
"Addison is at 35 weeks right now, that puts the baby way passed the point of viability which drastically increases her chances of survival. We administered steroids to help with lung development. I don't foresee any major complications but I can't make any promises."
Derek nodded understandingly. "What caused this? The preterm labor?"
"Addison mentioned that she's been stressed lately. That's the only risk factor that she presented, this has been a perfectly healthy pregnancy aside from that."
Derek sighed heavily.
"Just give her space. I'll let you know when the baby is born. We'll give Addison a few minutes with her then we'll take her to the nursery and bring you in so you can meet your daughter."
"Is that what usually happens with fighting parents?"
"No, most parents tend to put the fight aside when something like this happens. I think you and Addison are going through much more than just a fight. From what she tells me, you've been separated, more or less, for a while and you're both unhappy in the marriage and considering divorce. When we've got parents in a situation like this, this is how we handle it."
Derek nodded understandingly. "If Addison really doesn't want me in there during the birth then I guess waiting out here is the only thing I can do."
So I have been working on this since the AU episode aired. For those of you that lost count that episode aired in early February 2012. A two shot that takes over a year and half is kind of insane so I'm glad that I finally feel comfortable enough to publish this. I've changed it a million times, all I knew is that I wanted Addison to go into preterm labor during that famous scrub room scene. I had a million scenarios in my head and picking one worthy of being posted was difficult. Hope you like it so far. Part two will be posted as soon.
Thanks for reading! Please, please review.