-v-
On their second night in the woods she jolts awake with a scream; the pain on her lower abdomen unbearable. As always, Cristina is the first to go, followed by Meredith—she vaguely wonders whether Cristina has had the chance to sleep just like the rest of them. She clutches her belly; curling up against the blanket of leaves atop the cold, hard ground. Tears spring in her eyes as she tries to speak to instruct the both of them what to do, but the only thing that comes out of her mouth when she opens it is a cry. Next to her she feels Mark try and move; to find out what was wrong with her but, like her, pain immobilizes him before he has the chance to do so.
"Addison," Cristina rasps, "Addison. What's wrong?"
She feels Cristina shuffle around her; she then feels the resident's hands on her body, quickly searching for wounds she may have missed just like she had Mark's. When she doesn't find anything she removes her hands and says, "Meredith, I don't know what to do. You—you've been on OB/GYN enough to know something. Do something, Meredith!"
"She's in pain, she's having contractions," Meredith states as if it weren't obvious enough, "I need to check if she's dilated, or if she's bleeding."
"Addison, I need to check if you're dilated," says Meredith, "Cristina, hold her steady."
She feels them shuffling around her again; she feels Mark trying to sit up to see what he could do—she so badly wanted to tell him not to but couldn't due to the extreme pain from the cramping in her stomach. Grunts and cries were the only thing that came out of her mouth as she desperately tried to cope with the pain.
"Mark, calm down!" she hears Cristina shout; "We're going to check her and find out what's wrong. Don't move or you'll open the damn cut! Stop fussing, you're wasting time that we should be spending taking care of your wife and finding out what the hell is wrong with both her and your baby."
She feels hands on her again as they turn her so that she is on her back instead of on her side. A sharp pang of pain erupts from within her again; she tries to curl up but finds that she can't anymore. Hands pry her legs apart gently and within the span of a minute she feels something probing inside her. How ironic it was that it was Meredith, her ex-husband's new wife, probing inside her lady parts. She had taught Meredith some things during her time in OB/GYN, after Derek had kicked her from neuro and no other surgeon would take her under their wing. She hopes the resident had retained some of the things she taught her.
"She isn't dilated. Thank God," she hears Meredith say, "she isn't bleeding, either."
"The contractions will stop on their own. I have absolutely no idea what caused it, but she should get some rest."
"Calm down, Addison. Calm down so the contractions will stop."
She wasn't bleeding and she wasn't dilated—she silently thanked the gods. The contractions were probably caused by stress, she notes. The pain caused by the contractions was ebbing away, and the contractions themselves seemed to be getting weaker as the minutes went by. She hears Cristina assure Mark that both she and the baby were fine. She then hears Mark breathe a sigh of relief—muttering an "okay" that finally sent Meredith and Cristina away.
She closes her eyes briefly and upon opening them she finds the sky a soft pastel blue—their 3rd day. She shifts herself so that she is on her side and facing Mark—he was awake, and was looking at her.
"Don't ever do that again," he tells her, "I mean it, Addie."
"The baby's fine," she replies, cradling her stomach, "the contractions were probably caused by stress. You were right, I'm sorry."
"Damn right I am." "You could have lost her, Addison, and we couldn't've done anything about it because we're in here."
"I know, I know." she replies. "I'm sorry. It'll never happen again."
The rest of the day passes by peacefully; Meredith and Cristina collect water from the spring again and she cleans Arizona's wound, trying her damnedest to remove the bugs that had again found their way there. It is only at night that another commotion happens again; one that concerned Mark: he had coded again. His fourth time in three days—he got weaker each time Cristina revived him. She finds it miraculous how the resident manages to revive her husband time and time again; and she is grateful for it more and more every time she sees his chest bob up and down and see him smiling at her despite his condition..
"You can't die, Mark." "Emma needs you. I need you. You need to survive this. You can't die on us. Please, baby."
"Addie," he manages to stammer out, "If it happens… promise me you'll love her enough for the both of us."
"No," she breathes, "no. Don't say that. I love you, Mark. You promised me. You promised."
"Please, Addison." he replies, "Please. Take her to Yankees games for me. Let her play sports so she won't be as girly. Cancel surgeries for her; always go to ballet recitals, piano recitals, soccer games, or whatever you have her do that requires your presence. Always make time—always. Make her your priority rather than surgery. Love her more than anything else in the world. Love her more than you love me, Ad."
"I can't do this without you, Mark."
"You can, Addison." "You're strong. You're the strongest person I've ever met. You can do this, and you're going to be great at it. I promise. Now promise me."
"Mark…"
"Addison."
"I promise."
-vi-
A flash of bright, white light. Being lifted up gently and placed onto something softer; so much softer than the cold, hard ground she'd lain on for the past… she didn't know how long anymore. A stethoscope against her chest. A sharp, stinging pain on her left hand, followed by the feeling of something starting to flow in her bloodstream – fluids for dehydration and nutrition, she supposed. Hands lifting her scrub top up halfway – she is too tired to protest. Something cold is placed on her belly and she jerks and almost falls off the gurney. A strong heartbeat—her baby's. The sound of the paramedic sighing in relief.
Her hands find her stomach and she cradles it just as she musters the strength to ask, "Where am I? My baby, is she—is she alright?"
"Ma'am, you're okay. Your baby is okay. You're on a helicopter on the way to Boise Memorial."
She quickly remembers Mark, her heart racing as the thought of him once again surfaced her mind. "Where's my husband?" "He was one of the doctors… he was sleeping next to me. We drained fluid from his heart. Where is he?"
It takes a while for the paramedic to answer. "Where is he?" she asked again, panic laced in her voice. "Tell me. I'm a doctor. A surgeon. You can tell me. Please, I need to know."
She tries to sit up, only to be restrained by the paramedic himself. She notices Cristina lying on the gurney next to hers, her face void of any expression and her eyes blank, as if she were thinking of something but at the same time wasn't. It scares her—she had never seen Cristina like that; she seemed damaged, almost scarred from had happened but really: all of them were. She doesn't think she'll ever be on an airborne vehicle ever again after this.
"Ma'am—Dr. Montgomery-Sloan, please—"
"Tell me where my husband is. Please," she begs.
"Dr. Sloan and Dr. Robbins are already in Boise being treated for their injuries." the paramedic tells her.
"Is he dead?" she asked as tears sprung to her eyes once more. "Near-dead?"
"No," the paramedic answered, "He isn't."
She feels relief flood her mind, albeit temporarily. Panic replaces relief when she realizes all the things that could happen while they were being transported to the hospital in none other than a helicopter—a helicopter that could just as easily crash like the plane they were on.
"Sedate me," she told him, "please. I can't—I can't be awake. I can't be awake when this one crashes too."
She tries sitting up again and reaching for the syringes placed on the walls, but the paramedic along with the other paramedic on the helicopter restrain her again. They catch on her IV and accidentally rip it off, sending blood everywhere. Her mind was in circles; she couldn't think properly—she knew what she was doing couldn't possibly be good for the baby but she couldn't stand being awake knowing all the possibilities; all the things that could happen as they made their way to Boise Memorial.
"Dr. Sloan, please. Calm down!"
"Sedate me," "sedate me."
"Ma'am—"
"Both hers and the baby's heart rate are increasing rapidly, we need to calm her down. Baby's vitals are lowering. Her blood pressure is soaring," she hears the other paramedic say. "She might start contracting. We have no other choice."
"Sedate me!" She tries to get out of the gurney but the paramedics are more than prepared. They restrain her once more and strap her to the gurney. She struggles against her restraints but stops a minute later when she starts to feel droopy—and in her mind she thanks the paramedics for finally sedating her.
She falls into a deep, deep sleep and, when she wakes, she finds that she no longer was in the woods or the plane but rather the hospital, on a bed inside a hospital room with no other than Alex Karev sitting by her bedside.
"Hey." he says with a smile, "There's my favorite attending."
-vii-
"Sloan gave the baby away." "She could have given it to me instead."
"I know," she answers, "I'm sorry, Mark. Sloan… she must have had her reasons."
"Do you ever think about…" he trails off, not knowing how to ask her without bringing the pain back for the both of them.
"The baby? Of course I do. Every day."
"Why?" he asks her, looking at her with years of repressed hurt in his eyes. "I know I've asked before, but: why?"
"You weren't ready yet, Mark. I wasn't ready yet. You fucked the nurse in peds; I still loved Derek. I couldn't bring a baby into a world where her mother loved another man and her father constantly fucked women who weren't her mother. I couldn't, Mark. I didn't abort the baby because of revenge; I aborted it because it was for the best. We weren't ready for a long time, even if we did survive the 60-day pact. I had sex with Karev, you had sex with some nurse in the oncology department." she pauses for a moment, closing her eyes, "When I found out I couldn't have children I thought that maybe, just maybe, it was punishment for aborting our child. She would have been three by now, you know. I think about her all the time… I like to think it would have been a girl."
"We could have made it work, Addison. You didn't give me a chance."
"We couldn't have, Mark. You know that as much as I do." "I'm sorry, Mark. I—it just wasn't the right time."
"Addison…"
"Mark, please. I regret having done that to our child. I always have, and I—I hate talking about it. I'm sorry I didn't—I'm sorry."
"Addison, I love you."
"What?" she turns and looks at him, and she sees in his eyes the look he's always given her; the look that hasn't changed since the moment they met – the look of love and pure adoration.
"I love you."
"You're supposed to be mad at me," she replies, "you're supposed to be mad at me, Mark. You're hurt; you're delusional and emotional; you're supposed to be mad because I killed our baby without ever even giving you a chance. I aborted the baby so I could go after Derek to save our marriage but there wasn't even a marriage to save. You can be mad at me, Mark. Be mad at me."
"I was going to ask you to raise Sloan's baby with me."
"Mark—"
"I love you, Addie. I always have and I always will. Lexie… I never loved her as much as I love you. I still love you. I want to be with you— I can't stand the thought of you being with someone other than me. I'm not delusional, Ad. I can't ever be mad at you. Sloan made me realize not to let you get away again and I don't want to waste another chance at us. I love you, Addison."
His hand finds hers; he clasps them together and she lets him do so without as much as a protest. "It's you, Ad. It's always been you."
"Give me another chance. You don't have to tell me now, but—please. Think about it. I'll wait as long as you need me to. You're worth it, Addison."
When she finds she's out of words she kisses him instead and, for the first time in what seemed to be a year she feels right: like kissing Mark here, on a bench in the middle of the hospital parking lot on the very same day his daughter gave away the baby he thought he was going to have—was right.
He always loved her more than Derek did—his was a different kind of love; his love for her was pure and it transcended his love for anything else in the world… she knew that. They've both had their fair share of mistakes, with him sleeping with other women and her aborting his child but, she finally realizes, maybe this time love would be enough to make the both of them stay because she has always loved him, too. It just took too long for her to make sense of it.
She does give him a chance and he proves himself to her time and time again that, at some point, she begins to think that she doesn't deserve to have him in her life. She doesn't regret giving him a chance, this time, when she finds herself exactly a year later standing in front of a minister in the middle of the night, wearing nothing but her pajamas as he wed them—she realizes how much she's changed; how much Mark has changed her to have convinced her to get married wearing only her pajamas at her own wedding with only Callie, Teddy, and Arizona in attendance.
She doesn't regret giving him a chance when, almost a year later, she finds out that she's pregnant despite knowing how impossible it was for her to be—and she begins to think that this was how things were so supposed to be; with her and Mark and their unborn child. This was how things were supposed to be.
-viii-
"Mark?" "Mark, honey, are you awake?"
"Ad-Addison," he manages to rasp out, prompting her to grasp his hand tightly against hers.
"I'm right here, Mark." she answers, her eyes beginning to glass over the longer she looked at him. "I'm right here."
He grunts, opening his eyes—her heart stops at the sight of his ocean blue orbs. She wasn't there the first time he woke up and when Alex wheeled her into Mark's room despite Richard's protests—he argued that she needed rest; she told him she couldn't without seeing Mark—he was asleep. She waited by his bedside diligently, staying mum as nurses and residents dropped by in waves to check on his vitals.
"Am I dreaming? Is it really you, Red? I'm not dead, am I?" he asks.
"It's me, Mark." "You're not dreaming… I'm here."
"You're okay?" he inquires when he sees her clad in the white, paisley-patterned hospital gown of Boise Memorial. It should have been the other way around—with her asking him how he was and if he was okay but, as always, he put her first before himself. "The baby?"
"We're fine," she assures him, "Richard and Miranda demanded they run all sorts of tests just to make sure. We're both fine."
They knew how much the baby meant to her and Mark. Richard, especially: he'd been adamant that Addison stay in bed to get some more rest instead of going to Mark's room but in the end, he had no choice but to let her go. He had always been somewhat of a father figure to her—after all, he did mentor her and Derek in New York during their residencies.
She had no idea what she would have done if she had lost both the baby and Mark. Her life now revolved around the two of them—Mark, her husband whom she loved dearly and Emma, her baby girl, her miracle who wasn't even born yet but whom she loved just as much as her husband; maybe even more. She couldn't live without either of them. She knew Bizzy would be laughing at her right now if she saw what had become of her daughter—a heap of crying mess—but she couldn't quite get herself to care.
He grips her hand tightly, this time, and she realizes again just how close she was to losing him. Her eyes start to brim with tears—again, she notes bitterly (when had she been such a crybaby?)—Mark wipes them away and affectionately rubs her cheek. She stands, a hand on her belly, and silently heaves herself onto Mark's bed, minding all the wires connected to him and the IV on his hand. Carefully she lays her head against Mark's clavicle and intertwines her arm against his; she feels him breathe her in as he says, "You scared me in there, Ad. You and Emma."
"God, Mark. Think about yourself, you just went through surgery and all the crap in the woods. I—I almost lost you; you coded four times in the woods, Mark, not including the one while they were transporting you here. The first time you coded I couldn't even get it together. I was so close to losing you forever… you even made me promise things I should do for Emma if you weren't there to raise her with me and it broke me, Mark. I can't lose you."
"I had them sedate me in the helicopter. I was so tired, and I just—I asked if you were dead, and when they said you weren't I told them to sedate me but when they told me they couldn't, I almost lost it. They did end up sedating me and when I woke up, in my room in a hospital bed with Alex at my bedside, I was so scared because what if you died while I was asleep?"
"Alex had to calm me down because I kept crying and he promised me he'd take me to you, even if the doctors forbade him to do so and even if Richard told me I needed rest because I needed to know if you were fine with my own eyes. They ran all the tests on me before they let me off the hook. And when I saw you, sleeping but alive I thanked the gods because I knew I would have completely lost it if you died."
"You'll never lose me, Addison." Mark says, "Never. I meant every word I said in the woods; every promise I had you make."
"Emma…" she whispers, "When I woke up, she was kicking up a storm. It was the first time I'd ever felt her moving and kicking; it felt almost surreal, to feel your baby kicking for yourself, to be on the other side of things – it made me stop, for a short while, before the crying episode. And afterwards I felt so guilty because it was the first time, Mark, and I barely even acknowledged it because I was so, so terrified at the thought of you dying."
"I'm not going to die, Ad. You don't have to be afraid because it isn't going to happen. Emma… she must've known you were upset. Already the light of her parents' lives and she hasn't even been born yet. Have you felt her since then?"
As if on cue, she feels her baby move within her; she doesn't answer but merely takes Mark's IV-less hand and places it against her lower abdomen, where the baby was kicking wildly. She lets Mark's hand stay there, placing hers on top as she looks at him with a smile on her face—it felt different, almost as if she hadn't smiled in ages when it had only been a week… a week that changed their entire lives.
"God, babe. I love her so much, and I love you. We're going to have a baby girl in a few months. Can you believe it?"
"I know," she answers, "feeling her move around makes it all feel so real. I never thought I'd get pregnant again after… New York, but I did and she's going to be here soon. I can't wait to hold her, Mark. I don't think I've ever loved someone this much asides from you."
"We're going to be okay, Ad." Mark promises with an unwavering hope in his voice, "It's going to be me, you and Emma. I'm going to get out of here soon, and everything's going to go back to normal. Just like before."
"We're going to be okay," she repeats after him, not sure whether she should believe him just yet or not.
Little had she known that it was the first of many battles to be fought.
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