A/N: My name is winter, and I have a problem. That problem is that I can't resist a good prompt. A whole bunch of people on Flip the Script suggested working in something in season 3 that included Derek learning about Addison's abortion. Season 3 is such a brutal season that a reconciliation seems almost impossible, but I decided I want to try to make it happen. So I'm starting with the abortion side of the prompt.

This is an Addek reconciliation story. That means if I continue it, it's going to take some time, and a lot of steps (probably both forward and back). The story starts just after 3.05, "Oh, the Guilt" and goes AU from there. I'd like to continue the story if there's interest.

Oh, and I'm writing in the first person for the first time. It's not my usual choice, but I wanted to try something new.

Be advised that this story will deal with the topic of abortion. As always, my intent with sensitive topics is to deal with them in a sensitive manner. Feel free to PM me with questions or concerns.

PS Every writer on this site is a human being spending unpaid time entertaining you for free. Most of you reading? You're fantastic and I am so grateful. The rare but consistent few - please stop leaving rude anonymous reviews complaining about things disclosed in the summary, and without reading the story. I've seen it happen on my stories and on other stories. And it's pointless. And annoying. Not cool. Thanks!

All We Want
..

I know that that may have been my one chance to get pregnant, but still, for me, it was the right decision at the time. (Addison)

All I want is Seattle. I want Seattle … and I want never to see you again. (Derek)
..

"Derek…"

My tone is tentative; I can't help it. It's the first time I've been this close to him since he looked at me with those ice cold imitations of the soft blue eyes I used to love and said he never wanted to see me again.

He glances up from the chart he's holding, his eyes skating over me like a stranger's.

"Dr. Montgomery," he responds coolly.

Dr. Montgomery? Seriously. You haven't called me that since medical school, when you'd whisper it in my ear if I started to freak out studying for finals, to cheer me up. To get me excited for the future. By the time we were interns you liked to call me Dr. Shepherd instead even though it was premature. I would say, I haven't actually said yes yet, and you'd say oh, but you will say yes, I know you'll say yes. And I did, of course. I did say yes. When you asked me, I said yes.

I swallow, willing my eyes to be as empty and impersonal as his. "I need a consult." I'm forcing my voice to stay even and it's mostly working. "On a pregnant patient who's just learned her baby is ancephalic."

"How far-"

"21.6."

"Twenty-one weeks." He frowns. "Almost twenty-two. And she's just learning this now?"

"She hasn't had any prenatal care, came in through trauma after a minor car accident. The baby's fine," I add. "Or as … fine as an ancephalic baby can be."

"Okay." He studies me for a moment. "Why do you need me?"

I don't know, I just know I do need you, and the thought of never seeing you again – even if I deserve it – is tearing me apart.

"I'm not getting through to them. They – the patient and the baby's father – they feel guilty about not having prenatal care, and they're not hearing me about the medical aspects of ancephaly. I think if you explain the baby's condition to them, you're neuro, maybe they'll be able to-"

"Fine," he says shortly.

"Okay. Thanks." I give him the room number and he agrees to meet me in ten minutes. Of course he won't walk up there with me. It's too close to actually … spending time with me, I guess. Tolerating my presence. Would that count as cheating on his girlfriend?

For a minute it's almost funny, thinking that a consult on a case that's depressing even by my standards would be a date.

But then I remember walking into Dorie Russell's room together, what seems like forever ago but was only a few months ago really, introducing him and not really managing to keep the pride out of my voice. We were medical students together, months out of college, didn't even know how to hold a scalpel – can you really blame me for not being able to hide what it feels like to walk into a room together at the top of our respective professions?

(He could blame me, I know. He can blame me for anything.)

I'm waiting for him outside the patient's room when he strides up and he looks almost disappointed, like he was hoping to see me as little as possible.

I want Seattle, and I want never to see you again, that's what he said, so I shouldn't be surprised. But even things you expect can still sting.

"Are you going to do it?"

"What?" I turn around at his question.

He gestures with his head toward the patient's room. "If she doesn't want to carry to term."

"She hasn't decided yet."

"But if she does…"

"I'm a provider, you know that."

You used to say you were proud of me. I would tell you about the heartbreaking cases, and you would say, "I'd do it too, if I could." But you couldn't do it, so you never had to decide whether you would do it. And the thing is … that's the hardest thing. The part you didn't have to do. Deciding is the hardest thing of all.

"But she's …"

"21.6?" I fill it in so he won't have to. "I know. That gives me seven days until the viability clock."

He cocks his head slightly, preparing to say something and I don't think I want to hear it so I just reach for the doorknob instead.

"She's waiting for us," I tell him and he nods; we walk into the room at the same time.

…but not together.

"Hannah, this is Dr. Shepherd, he's our head of neurosurgery. He's going to tell you a little bit more about your son's condition, okay?"

She nods, glancing at her boyfriend, who's sitting as close to the bed as he can get, clasping her hand. I know guilt and I can read it in his dark eyes: what if, he's thinking, what if we'd gotten prenatal care.

But there's no place for if in treatment, just right now. Just decisions that get harder and harder the longer you wait.

"I get it," Hannah says, after Derek is done explaining – in layman's terms, compassionately, he's always had a good bedside manner.

(At patients' bedsides, that is. At home, after a while, it started to leave something to be desired.)

"…I get it, doctor, and it sounds ... awful."

She shudders and her boyfriend rests a hand on her shoulder.

"I don't want my son to suffer," she says slowly. "Right, Tad? We don't want…" her voice trails off. "Can you tell me again, doctor? What you would do, I mean, if we..."

Gently, sympathetically, professionally, I walk through them through the procedure again. Step by step. I explain the way I will medically stop the baby's heart. I explain that his life will end while he's still inside her womb. I explain the technique to open her cervix, the process I will use to deliver their child into their arms.

"And then we can hold him?"

"And then you can hold him. You can spend as much time with him as you'd like."

"Okay." Her voice sounds thick with tears, and she wipes some of them away. "But if I want to, um, to wait and then like … have him the normal way…."

"You can do that," I say quietly.

"And he'll be … alive."

Now isn't the time for a complex debate on the nature of life, on what her son's life will be like when he emerges from the womb.

"That's right. And you can hold him, and spend time with him, for as long as you like."

"But he'll die." She covers her face with her hands.

"How long?" Her boyfriend asks the question this time, before I can respond to Hannah. His voice is husky like he's been crying; we've been over the statistics but I can't blame them for needing to hear it again.

"About half of the babies with your son's condition won't survive birth. The babies who survive the birthing process usually live a few hours longer. Maybe a few days."

They're both crying now, faces turned in towards each other. I stand there bearing witness; it's part of the job.

"But I saw him." Hannah's voice is muffled by tears. "The pictures, I … he looks like a real baby."

"He is a real baby," her boyfriend says fiercely. "He's our son."

"But he's suffering, Tad. He's going to suffer."

"He can still live. A little, that's what the doctor said."

Their conversation is private; I start to say something, to give them some time, but then Hannah asks me a question. Except her words are even more muffled now; not by tears, it sounds like she's underwater.

There's nothing I can say that will help, anyway. All I can say are the words that you say, when you do this.

This is an incredibly difficult time, I know, and I'm here to help.

"Dr. Montgomery - Addison," Derek's tone cuts through the haze more than his words do.

"What-"

"Ms. Fowler asked you a question."

"Sorry," I say automatically. When in doubt, apologize. "I'm sorry, Hannah. Can you repeat the question?"

"I was asking, will it hurt him? The baby, I mean. If you … do it. The, um. The thing, I mean."

She can't say the word. No one ever wants to say the word. I haven't said it yet, not this whole time I've been in the room. My own excuse is that the patient doesn't want to hear it.

Now I just give Hannah my most neutral, sympathetic look, and open my mouth to start a speech I've given before. A difficult speech, but a necessary one.

Except instead of the words I expect to hear come out of my mouth – this is an incredibly difficult time for you, I know, and I'm here to help. I can tell you what medicine and science say, and I will do that. I'll explain absolutely everything I can. But ultimately it's your decision - it's just more muffled sounds, like I'm underwater again.

"Addison," Derek says sharply, raising an eyebrow. He shakes his head almost imperceptibly, his lips barely move, but eleven years of marital shorthand make it easy for me to know what he's saying: what the hell is wrong with you?

My lips part; the thing is, they're so dry, suddenly, I'm not sure they can produce words. And I realize I haven't said anything at all. I hear talking, I hear a voice, but it's not mine.

Dr. Shepherd, Addison, are you all right? Take some deep breaths.

I'm planning to respond. I am. "I'm fine," that's what I'll tell Derek and then I'll apologize to Hannah and her boyfriend and get on with it.

Just take some deep, slow breaths. It's not uncommon to feel dizzy, afterwards.

"I'm…"

This is perfectly normal. Nice, slow breaths.

"…"

There's a tapping in my skull, a pulsing. Like a heartbeat … where the brain should be.

In and out.

"I … can't, I'm sorry."

I turn on my heel, the impression of Derek's quizzical face, Hannah's and her boyfriend's confused ones, burned onto my mind like a fizzled-out photograph; the tap, tap in my skull turns into the actual sound of my shoes slapping the hallway when I flee down the hallway.

All I can think of is getting space, air.

Good air in, bad air out. There you go.

I bang open the first door that seems promising and then I'm surrounded by the musty smell of cardboard boxes and the piercing lemon scent of harsh floor cleaner. I make it about ten steps into the supply closet before I need to stop and I stand on the far wall, leaning my head against a half-full box of syringe packets.

So intent am I on figuring out how to breathe again that I don't even realize I forgot to close the door.

There's a half-moon of light cutting across the linoleum floor and wafting over my trembling hands; it widens, without warning, splashing more light across my folded arms. I have a sudden memory of playing hide-and-seek with my brother as a kid, back when I thought hiding your face meant you actually couldn't be seen; he'd throw me a bone and pretend to have a hard time locating me when I was standing in full view, only my face covered by heavy brocade curtains or my own pudgy little hands.

We're supposed to be beyond that by the time we're pushing forty, right?

But I'm still hoping he won't see me.

"Addison..."

So much for hope. Which I should really know by now.

When I don't turn around he speaks again: "What's wrong with you?"

It's the kind of phrasing that could sound like anything, depending on the tone – an accusation, shouted angrily – we've definitely done that; a sincere inquiry, murmured gently – we've done that too. This one is neutral, a stranger's question when someone you don't care about has a problem

A doctor's question for his patient.

"Nothing. I'm fine."

The words fall half into the sleeves of my lab coat and half into a cardboard supply box, but … I'm fine.

He's still here, though; I can hear him breathing.

"Are you … sick?"

I wish I could say yes. Sickness, we can fix. Medicine, we can handle. This, though …

"I'm fine," I say without turning around. "Just go. You don't have to do the thing where you pretend to care what's wrong."

"Addison, I'm standing here asking you what's wrong. What the hell else do you want from me?" He sounds exhausted; I feel the same way.

"Nothing, Derek, I don't want anything from you. You said you never wanted to see me again," I remind him.

"What did you expect when you told me you lied to me for months about your – what do you expect, Addison?"

"I don't know."

"You never do. You just know you're not getting it. Nothing's ever enough for you."

Here we go. Shouldn't signing the divorce papers mean he can't tear me apart anymore? Except he can do it without any effort at all … he's always been able to.

"Addison," he says softly, his tone very different now, pronouncing my name with concern ... almost like he cares.

See, the problem is, it's not just that he can tear me apart; he's also always been able to put me back together, too. Like no one else has, before or since.

"Just go." I have to sound dismissive and cold because I can't break down. Not now and not with him. I need this supply closet and I need it to myself so I can gather the strength to go back in there with my patient and do what needs to be done, no matter how much it hurts.

"You're not coming back to talk to your patient?" He sounds so judgmental. Derek would never leave a patient like that. Calm, cool, collected – that's him.

"I can't."

"You can't." He sounds somewhere between bored and annoyed now. "Why is that?"

"I can. I will, but just … give me a minute."

"What's wrong with you?"

It's the same words as before, except now he sounds even more annoyed. So much for concern; I've wasted his precious time.

"Nothing, I said I'm fine."

"Clearly," he says, his tone sarcastic.

I inhale the stale scent of the cardboard boxes around me and try to focus on my breathing; I'm not going to cry.

Good air in, bad air out.

"Forget it. I'm leaving, you can have the whole supply closet to yourself to sulk."

I still haven't turned around but I can feel the way he's looking me over with disgust and I wish it didn't hurt. The problem is … he doesn't know the half of it yet.

"Just leave."

I hear the knob start to turn.

"You know, Addison, you complained I never paid attention to you and now when I – forget it, you know what? You don't get to manipulate me anymore. We're done. You want me to leave, I'm leaving."

You're always leaving.

"Derek…"

His name escapes me like a plea. It's his cue to tell me I'm being passive-aggressive, refuse to let me make it up to him. A door should slam behind him; that's how we do it.

I hear the door open, feel the gust of air and see the slice of light across the box that blocks my vision, but I can also hear his breathing and I know he hasn't left yet. He wants to but he hasn't, not yet.

My voice sounds congested, but I force it to sound confident – chipper, even. The problem is that my voice breaks halfway through anyway:

"I had an abortion." There it is. There's the word. "Three days before I flew to Seattle, I had an abortion."

The door clicks shut, hard, just as I expected.

Except he's still on my side of it. He's still here, and I didn't expect that.

It's enough to turn me around finally; the supply closet is dim but I'm still squinting a little in the comparative brightness. My eyes ache when I try to focus on his blurred face. Everything aches.

"Okay." He sounds calm. "You have my attention now."

to be continued ... assuming you think I should. Thoughts?