Forever

A Grey's Anatomy fic by Gigi

Disclaimer: Once again, I don't own anything. Stop breaking my heart by making me repeat it.

Chapter 2: Scrubs

A/N: So I really didn't expect this to get such a big response, but I am ecstatic that you all liked it so much! I normally wouldn't be updating this soon, but Juli decided to take it upon herself to nag me every single time she talked to me to update. I have a feeling if I update another story before I update with this one, she would hate me just a little bit. And I don't want that. So here's Chapter 2!

The pit was chaos when Addison reached. Alex was already helping wheel in a car crash victim who, just by looking at the poor woman, would definitely need more than one surgery before the day was over. To her left, Mark was working on stitching up some surface wounds on an old man, while Callie took a look at a rather nasty femoral fracture. Right next to them was Derek, who was checking the pupils' responses to light of a woman who looked to be seven months pregnant. Without hesitation, Addison headed to Derek's patient.

"Hey," she said in a short greeting before paying attention to the woman. With Derek holding her eyes open, she couldn't tell what state the woman was in. "Is she conscious?"

"Hey, and no," the wavy-haired neurosurgeon answered. "She blew a pupil, and she has a skull fracture and very likely hemorrhaging."

Addison called for an ultrasound machine over her shoulder as she helped Derek push the gurney into Trauma Room 1. "Meaning it'll be a miracle if her baby survives without any damage," she muttered under her breath.

Not quietly enough, for Derek shot her a confident grin. "A miracle or Addison Forbes Montgomery," he boosted, earning himself a half-smile, half-eye-roll. "The good thing is that her breathing is stable, her heartbeat is steady and her airway is clear."

"How the hell can someone take such a beating as that and not jeopardize the baby's air supply?" Addison asked herself, shaking her head in wonder. "Maybe this kid is luckier than I thought possible."

When the ultrasound machine got wheeled into the trauma room, Addison lifted the woman's shirt to expose her pregnant belly. Using her left hand to squirt the ultrasound jelly on her stomach and then place the wand on the part of the belly where the baby's heart was, she used her right to click some buttons on the machine so she could get a picture of the uterus, noting absently that it was a girl.

Derek's part of the exam was done, now that he had sent off an intern to clear an OR for him, and so he just stood there watching his ex-wife work. Her focus was always something to watch. The light glinted off of something near the unconscious woman's belly, attracting his attention. His piercing blue eyes widened at the sight of a diamond ring resting on Addison's fourth finger.

"You're engaged?" he demanded, sounding both incredibly stunned and incredibly shaken.

Addison's head whipped around from the machine to look at him in panic before following his line of sight to her hand handling the wand. Biting back an expletive at her carelessness, she just nodded, "Yeah, I am," before turning her attention back to the monitor.

Shell-shocked, Derek sputtered, "To who?"

This time, Addison expected the question. She slowly turned back to look at him over her shoulder and smirked, "Wouldn't you like to know?" Once again, she went back to the monitor. She zoomed in on something. The heartbeat wasn't exactly what it should be.

"I would, actually," he insisted heatedly.

"Later," she dismissed, removing the wand from the patient's body and all focus again. "The baby's heart wall collapsed. She's not getting enough blood. If we don't get an OR soon, we'll lose the baby much faster than we'll lose her."

8D

Alex looked up when he heard the urgent clicking of Addison's heels go past him, wheeling a pregnant woman towards the OR. "Karev, once your patient is stable, I need you to scrub in," she told him when she passed. At that moment, her hair fell in front of her face, and she tucked it back behind her ear with her left hand. The subtle message: I'm doing this for you, so you better get your ass in that OR as quickly as humanly possible.

8D

A few hours into the surgery, Derek looked up from the brain of the pregnant woman to take in his ex-wife, who was currently laporoscopically trying to repair the hole in the baby's left atrium.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked, trying to keep out the hurt from his voice. After all, he left her. Twice.

Never taking her eyes from the monitor, Addison admitted, "You're actually the first to know."

"What?" Derek's eyes were back to being trained on the woman's brain.

"It just happened today," she clarified truthfully. "Nobody else knows." She silently thanked her ex-husband for not letting the nosy scrub nurses hear exactly what they were talking about. She didn't need that gasp of surprise when she was trying to save this baby in utero. "I am glad you were the first to find out, though."

Derek couldn't suppress the snort that came out in response to her statement. "Yeah, the look of sheer panic on your face when you realized I knew was really you being happy," he commented dryly.

"Well, I did actually want to tell you instead of you just figuring it out," Addison argued calmly. "It seemed only fair, given…everything."

"I guess so," he admitted. "Just…why so soon?"

Addison paused for a second or two before asking in a small voice, "Was it too soon for you?"

Derek winced inwardly, knowing she was referring to the prom incident. She was right. He had no legitimacy in talking about her moving on so soon after the divorce when he moved on during the marriage. He didn't answer, and kept on operating.

8D

Alex came rushing into the scrub room just as Addison and Derek were coming in from the other end, getting ready to scrub out.

"Oh, nice of you to join us, Karev," Addison greeted wryly, bending over the scrub sink and cleaning her arms.

"I'm sorry, Dr. Montgomery," he apologized in a strained voice. "As soon as you left, my patient coded, and we had to get her into surgery before she lost anymore blood. I couldn't leave." His eyes begged for her to forgive him, not wanting to get yelled at by his pretend-fiancée in front of her ex-husband and his boss.

Sighing, Addison nodded in understanding. "It's fine. I did say to wait until your patient was stable." Straightening, she grabbed some towels and dried her hands. She leaned back against the sink and reached up to her breast pocket of her scrub top. Alex and Derek both look on in fascination—although Derek was much less happy about it—as she removed a small safety pin and slid her engagement ring off the prong and onto her left hand, returning the pin to her pocket and fastening to the inside of it. Looking up, Addison cursed inwardly again. It was like this ring was making her increasingly careless.

"So I guess I wasn't the first to know," Derek grumbled, his face impassive.

Rolling her eyes, Addison put her fists on her hips in the don't-mess-with-me pose that women seemed to have perfected from birth and said, "No, you were the first to know. Karev's not surprised because he gave me the ring."

Inside, both Addison and Alex were screaming. What the hell had possessed her to say that? Alex knew it would have come out eventually, but he had always hoped he'd be out of punching range of the neurosurgeon.

Derek's eyes grew as wide as saucers. "You're engaged to Karev?" he choked out. "You do realize that you've lost any right to call Meredith a twelve-year-old."

As much as she hated to admit it, those words hurt. Not by the fact that he brought up her hypocrisy, but by the fact that he found out his ex-wife was engaged not six months since the divorce, and he chose to stand up for the woman he left her for. "I can't believe that's what you're deciding to focus on," she spat, fighting back the tears that suddenly clouded her vision.

"Meredith? Seriously?" Alex asked in disgust. He didn't even realize he'd pulled Addison by the arm into him until he was hugging her protectively while she buried her face in his coat to hide her watery eyes from Derek. "Do you really want to hurt Addie back that much? Because if I remember correctly, you were the one who cheated this time." Alex had no idea where these words were coming from, nor did he fully understand why he was glaring daggers at his boss. He didn't register that he'd also used Addison's nickname.

Derek got no chance to respond, for at that moment, his pager beeped urgently. With one last conflicting look—swimming with confusion, hurt, indignation and loss—he turned on his heel and left the scrub room.

Once he'd left, Addison sniffed and pulled back from the embrace, wiping at her eyes. "Sorry about that," she murmured.

Alex refused to let go of her, keeping a firm, but gentle grip on both of her arms. "Don't worry about it. Are you okay? Shepherd shouldn't have said that. He's an ass."

A dry laugh left her lips as she shook her head. "No, he's not. He was just being one," she corrected. "Thanks, though, for what you said." She looked up into his eyes when she said that. Since she was in surgery, she was wearing tennis shoes instead of her stilettos, making her a good two inches shorter than him. Her left hand rested on his chest, and she'd brought her right down from her face. Alex fought the incredible urge to kiss her right then, reminding himself this was all for pretend.

"You don't have to thank me," he whispered huskily, leaning his head down despite himself. Addison felt her eyes sliding closed as she waited for his lips to fall on hers, anticipation making her skin tingle. Almost outside of her body, Addison wanted to gag at how eager she felt to kiss him again.

Unfortunately, when there was less than a centimeter between the two faces, an angry Mark burst into the scrub room. Ripping Alex off of Addison, he didn't hesitate to throw all his weight into a right hook to Alex's jaw.

A/N: Muahahha! I'm evil, I know. But did you still like it? REVIEW!