¸.·´¸.·*´¨) ¸.·*¨)(¨*·.¸)¨´*·.¸´·.¸ Runaway World ¸.·´¸.·*´¨) ¸.·*¨)(¨*·.¸)¨´*·.¸´·.¸
2. All of Yours
Haha, I just realized that Bizzy is evil in pretty much all my fics. Oh well, somebody has to be evil, and since there doesn't seem to be a lot of love between Addison and her mother, she gets to be the sacrificial lamb. Anyway, All of Yours, the chapter title, is a song by Making April. I know this chapter took a little while to get out, but I'll try to do the next one quicker, I promise. Also, thank your for the very inspiring reviews! I'm glad people are interested!
Eight Years Ago: The Truth
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
The blurry world slowly came into focus again as Addison opened her eyes. Something was wrong, but not the cotton-dry feeling in her mouth, the goosebumps covering her shivering limbs, or the too-clean smell of the hospital. She was empty. It confused her for a moment. Then she realized what was wrong. There was supposed to be two beeps, two heartbeats, two people. And there was only one.
Automatically, her eyes swept the room, her arm reaching for an incubator that wasn't there. Her eyes widened in horror, and she looked at her mother desperately, questions she was unable to word clouding her eyes with tears.
But she didn't truly believe it until her mother uttered the life altering words, "I'm sorry, Addison. He's gone. Killed on impact."
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Suddenly, life was pretty much a nightmare.
As he entered the room and first set eyes on the sight of a red haired boy in Addison's arms, he wanted to run. That picture haunted his deepest, darkest dreams every night. Addison with a red haired child. He could almost pretend it was their child, the one she aborted. True, that kid would be several years younger, still little more than a baby. But he could still see it, and the image made him go cold all over.
He'd watched her sprint down to the ER, a strange, lost look dominating the features that were never far from his thoughts. He could see the breakdown lingering on the horizon, ready to overtake her once the stress got to be too much. He followed her, unable to stop himself, even if all he could provide was a shoulder to cry on and a shirt to ruin with her tears. Not that he wouldn't keep the shirt for months after, pretending he could still smell her perfume on it. It had happened before. Damn it, he still had the Yankees onesie.
Both Addison and the boy turned, and his heart gave a strange thump, as if it had contracted too far, and he resisted the urge to clap his hand over it, to stop the pain. Not her child. Not your child. Stop it, Mark! he thought to himself.
Luckily, Addison interrupted his masochistic thoughts a second later. "Mark," she breathed, and he thought he heard relief in her voice.
"Hey, Addie," he said, in a brave attempt to sound nonchalant. "What have we got here? You okay, kid?" He addressed the boy, paying full attention to him for the first time since walking into the room. When his eyes met the spring green ones looking back at him, he suddenly wanted the kid to be okay, more than he wanted food or water or air. Which wasn't good. Mark made sure to never get emotionally involved with patients. He couldn't care about this boy seconds after meeting him, especially since he didn't know what the hell Addison was doing. She looked, in her desperate, dejected state, half attached already. Which really wasn't good, because it looked like one more patient that didn't make it would send her over the edge.
"He's got some deep lacerations that look like they're from glass, some of which is still in him, a broken collar bone, and he's definitely going to need a CT, ASAP," she rattled off quickly. As she did, Mark noticed her shirt was covered in blood, and realized it was coming from the boy beside her.
"Jeez, kid, what happened to you?" Mark asked as he checked the wounds covering the small body. Addison glared at him, possibly because she hadn't thought to ask it yet. Mark wasn't surprised. When had she gotten to be such a mess? Not physically, of course. Physically she looked nothing short of breathtakingly beautiful. Emotionally? He was willing to bet not so much.
"I was hit by a car," the kid admitted, biting his lip as if he were in trouble. His head still rested on Addison's shoulder in the chair beside him, but he allowed Mark to take a look at his cuts.
"You were hit by a car!?!" Addison asked in alarm, pulling back to stare at him. "Didn't someone call an ambulance? Mark, page somebody, anybody, he needs a CT now!"
"I'm fine," the boy said with a shrug. "I didn't need an ambulance. They called one, but I ran away."
"Why'd you do that?" Mark asked slowly, not really focused on what he was saying. Instead, he made sure that all the glass was out of the cut on the boy's forehead before moving to his arm.
"I … I was afraid if they called an ambulance, the people would take me back. I'm looking for my parents, and I can't go back, I have to find them." Mark was surprised by the kid's impassioned little speech. It reminded him of himself, so many years ago, when he begged Mrs. Shepherd not to make him go back to an empty house, and empathy filled him.
"We're doctors," Addison said gently. "Maybe we can help. What's your name?"
"Sage," he answered. "Sage Green."
"Cool name," Mark blurted without thinking.
"Mark, so not the time," Addison said, giving him one of her famous looks.
"You don't like it?" Sage asked her in a heartbreaking voice.
"No, I do," she assured him, the connection between them so palpable he could almost taste it. "But I just think Dr. Mark should focus on your arm. And we can focus on finding your parents. What are their names? Do they live here in Seattle?"
Sage didn't say anything for a long time, and Mark finally looked up to see what was wrong. "I don't know their names. I've never even met them," he admitted. Mark and Addison exchanged a quick glance, both concerned. "I grew up in a boy's home not too far from here. They were supposed to come find me there, but they never did, so now I have to find them."
"How are you going to do that?" he asked curiously, impressed by the boy's courage to run away. Sage opened his mouth to provide an answer, but at that moment the door swung open, revealing Meredith, Alex, Cristina, and a blonde peds surgeon.
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There was a lot going on her life, but she was still aware enough to be shocked.
Meredith had been expecting a fairly normal day. She'd gotten up, kicked Derek out of the shower, eaten a few bites of breakfast so as not to hurt Izzie's feelings, and hurried to work to see what cases she could worm her way onto today. It wasn't long before she was snapped up by Dr. Robbins, who needed help on an emergency peds case. Alex and Cristina, with nothing better to do, had followed quicker than vultures to a corpse.
As the door slid open, all three people occupying it turned to face them, and Meredith barely avoided gasping aloud. Addison's hair mingled with the hair of the small boy on the bed next to her. She stood, unable to move, just watching them. Was she going crazy? Was she seeing things that weren't there? Was she the only one that could see the resemblance between the three?
Arizona Robbins moved forward, asking questions as she went, leaving Meredith gaping behind her. They would know, right, if Addison and Mark had a kid? Derek would know, Derek would have told her, she was sure. But what were they doing in the room of a kid that looked exactly like them?
"Is it just me, or is that really creepy?" Cristina asked from beside her, and she almost shouted in triumph.
But Addison and Mark were answering questions in hushed voices, so she whispered back to Cristina, "It's not just you. If I didn't know better, I'd think he was their kid."
"Are you sure he isn't?" she asked, looking back at them. They jumped out of the way as the boy's gurney was wheeled out of the room. To her surprise, both Mark and Addison stayed beside it. They were arguing about one thing or another on opposite sides of the bed, the boy looking between them, obviously entertained.
While she and Cristina were staring, Alex was following, and Dr. Robbins turned, in surprise, to find him still there. "Fine, Grey, Yang, you can find another case," she called back to them.
"I never thought I'd be saying this, but being off this case is actually a relief. Whatever weirdness is going on between Satan and McSteamy … well, I don't want to be a part of it," Cristina said.
"A part of what?" Derek asked, sauntering up to them and giving her a wide smile. Her heart picked up double time, even though he stopped a few feet away from her.
"Something really weird just happened. I don't know exactly how to explain it. But I have a feeling … this is just the beginning," she struggled to explain. Gone were the days when she kept everything on the inside, within a thick shell. That shell had been melted by Derek, stretched to include him in every thought and every action. His voice, his opinions, his love, he was always there in her if not physically present. She could ask him anything. "Do … do Mark or Addison have any kids?" she asked hesitantly.
Derek balked visibly, but he answered, "Mark … not that I know of. As for Addison … she was pregnant when I met her, actually. But her son died in a car crash before he was born."
"Oh," she said, her stomach lurching as she uncovered a dark well-hidden secret, and wishing that she hadn't. "That's – that's awful. I just got this really weird feeling. Sort of like the bomb, but not really … a something-is-about-to-happen feeling."
"You're right," he said, his eyes burning into her soul. "Something is about to happen – the best hour of your life in the on-call room!"
Cristina made a vomiting noise and backed up quickly. "Gross. Please, spare me the mushy gushy-ness or I'm leaving."
"I think you better leave, then," Derek said, and he kissed her, pushing her back into the wall with his enthusiasm. Meredith kissed him back, their tongues dueling desperately, neither one able to get enough of the other.
She pulled back after a minute, realizing that they were not in their own little bubble. "Derek," she hissed with a grin as he grabbed her hips, pulling her close and showering her neck with kisses. He didn't stop to speak or acknowledge the other people around them. Meredith slid along the wall, her hands hitting doorknobs, searching for the on-call room she knew waited, hopefully unoccupied, nearby.
Mercifully, their own private utopia was found behind the third door, after Derek nearly persuading her that they should just use the broom closet behind the first door she opened and an embarrassing encounter with a patient in the behind the other door. Meredith was barely aware of Derek shutting and locking the door, she only counted the seconds that passed when his hands were not on her skin. It seemed an eternity, and she exhaled heavily when he returned, lifting her scrub top up over her head. His lips replaced the thin cloth covering her skin, and the pleasure was so intense that it was all she could do to rid him of his clothes too. They were swept away, both of them existing in a world devoid of everyone else, and before she knew it Derek was on top of her, inside her, all over her, whispering her name as their bodies moved together.
A few minutes later they carefully crept out, looking both ways furtively, their post-coital cuddling cut short by the racket made by Derek's pager. "I would have stayed if it were anyone but Archer," he assured her. "But Addison will kill me if even the tiniest thing goes wrong, so I better go check on him."
His hand lingered on the small of her back, responsible for the feelings still coursing through her body, until the door closed behind them and they were forced to go their separate ways. He grinned at her as he was quickly sucked into the steams of people moving throughout the hospital. He walked backward, their eyes still locked as the distance between them grew, and Meredith couldn't shake the feeling that she was forgetting something very important.
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The name echoed through her mind incessantly, not giving her thoughts a moment's peace. Sage Green.
"You okay?" Mark asked from beside her as they sat outside CT, Dr. Robbins having banned them from entering with a strange look on her face. As a new surgeon, she did not yet have the authority to ask why the head of Plastics and a world renowned neonatal surgeon were not off doing their jobs, but she was clearly wondering. Alex, too, seemed on the edge of inquiring if they'd both gone insane. Addison was grateful he hadn't; she didn't have an answer to that question. She shrugged at Mark, and he let it drop.
Passersby were staring at her, and she did not find out why until someone stopped and asked if she was okay. Addison assured them that she was fine; turning to Mark in the exact same second he turned to her, both completely nonplussed. Something registered in his face, and he reached out a gentle hand to unfold her arms, his fingers burning her skin. That's when she noticed she was covered in blood, Sage's blood to be specific. Sage. Why, suddenly, could she not pull her sluggish brain away from him. Why did her thoughts linger on the details of his injuries, wishing that she could take his pain away, even though she already had far too much of her own?
"Jeez, Addison, you look like a critical patient yourself," he laughed. His smile temporarily melted the icy frost that accompanied her inner being, although the warmth was evanescent and would disappear as soon as he returned to his girlfriend. "You're covered in blood. Come on, let's get you some clothes."
Clothes turned out to be a thermie and pair of sweatpants left in Mark's locker. She protested, but he insisted she looked ghoul-like all covered in blood. Finally, he offered to replace the ruined couture if she would just put something else on. It was his caring kindness that convinced her, although she was already mourning the outfit.
Addison shrugged off the jacket and struggled to unzip the dress. Mark's hands were there in an instant, and oh, the consequences of old, deeply ingrained habit. The dress left her in nothing other than a bra and panties, and there they stood, facing each other, neither able to look away, neither able to move forward. Mark's Adam's apple bobbed in his throat as he swallowed, and her heart burned with the desire to just reach out and touch him. There was a single instant, a bright, shining, expectant instant in time when she thought he was going to kiss her. And then it was over, and she reached for the sweats, her hands trembling.
The smell of his cologne, still barely lingering on the soft green waffle patterned thermie, made the world seem a little less scary when she pulled the garment over her head. It was too big and clung in all the wrong places, but Mark drunk in the sight of her in the thermie and pale pink underwear as if she was wearing a perfectly fitted silk dress. Addison pulled the sweats over her feet quickly, and rolled them up so they would fit.
"Sorry," he said, she suspected, to break the terrible silence. "I don't have any clean scrubs."
"This is fine," she assured him quickly, trying to erase the leftovers of their strange moment. They left together, their hands nearly touching, out into the hospital until Lexie spotted Mark and waved him over excitedly, nearly jumping up and down.
"Hey, Mark, guess wha – hey, isn't that your shirt?" Addison couldn't help the slightly perverted feeling of pleasure that crept over her when Lexie's eyes widened at the sight of her in Mark's clothes. She was far from hating the young intern, but she couldn't imagine what Mark saw in her bubbly perkiness. Addison was annoyed just watching her. And pigtails? Wasn't twenty-four too old for pigtails? Hell, eleven was too old for pigtails, in her opinion.
"Addison … could you excuse us for a minute?" Mark asked. She nodded quickly, backing up, stumbling over the too-long sweats. But she couldn't keep herself from hearing the next part of their conversation, couldn't make herself leave the spot where she lingered around the corner.
"What was that all about?" Lexie demanded in a sickly sweet voice. Addison couldn't tell if she was suspicious or not.
"Addison introduced herself to you, right?" Mark asked. Addison winced; his voice was too defensive, considering nothing happened. Well, something almost happened. Or, at least she thought that something had almost happened.
"Yeah … but I didn't know your relationship was at the wear-each-other's clothes stage," Lexie whined, as if Mark was in the wrong by not telling her.
She could almost see his shrug, his broad shoulders lifting, revealing the lines of hard muscles under the deep blue scrub top, his eyes wide and innocent. "Me and Addie have known each other for a long time … seriously, her wearing my clothes is no big deal."
Lexie seemed to ponder that for a moment, and then she asked, her voice severely accusatory, "Have you told Derek about us yet?"
Mark coughed, obviously trying to buy time. "Um, well, Lexie, I don't know if that's the best idea …"
Why? Was he saying that because he was afraid of Derek, or because he wanted to, because maybe he didn't want to be in a relationship with her? Addison's breath caught, the thorns of her painfully hopeful thoughts piercing her heart. She wrapped her arms tight around her body, trying to hold all the dichotomous thoughts and emotions inside just one person.
She could still feel his hands, reaching out to brush the pale crest of her hip bone. She remembered the sensation of his lips, so hot they nearly burned, against her skin. She remembered when the only thing between them was the cool rush of ink-black night, soon heated by two sweaty bodies moving in a perfect, even rhythm.
Addison shook herself and readied herself to hear whatever would come next. "Fine then," Lexie snapped. "If you can't even tell your best friend, if I'm not worth that to you, we are done until you can!" Addison flinched as Lexie stormed away, heading in her direction, but wherever the young intern went, she didn't encounter Addison. She heard Mark sigh tiredly. If he took just a few steps, he would find her. What would happen then?
"Addison!" Naomi exclaimed, rushing up with Sam hot on her heels. "What the hell are you doing?" She gave Addison no opportunity to answer as she grabbed her arm. "What are you wearing? Is that aftershave I smell? Never mind, I don't have time to deal with your naughty habits. Derek told us to find you. It's about Archer."
She allowed her best friend to hurry her away, glancing back at where Mark still stood. He didn't look at her, just at the floor, and in that instant she would have traded the world to pull away and go back to wrap her arms around him. But she looked away instead, and because she did, she didn't know that Mark's tortured eyes followed her as she was led away, unable to ignore the strange tingling feeling in her limbs.
Sorry, I know Derek and Sage didn't get to narrate at all in this one. But that's okay, they have large parts in the next one. I hope you liked it! I would be ever so grateful if you would let me know what you thought, but I love you anyway just for reading it :D
