A/N: I lied again. This isn't the last chapter haha. I really love the enthusiasm you guys have shown for this. It really does make my day. So I decided to make this one chapter longer. No Henry in this because I decided to switch things up and write from Teddy's POV which I think works nicely because you get to see things from her side. Also, I'm using the detail that Teddy has a little cottage by the water which she mentioned back in Season 6 in case you get thrown off by the setting a bit. So, here's the third chapter. Enjoy! :)
Disclaimer: The characters are Shonda's. The song is Kesha's. The plot, however, is mine. XD
Chapter 3
This place about to blow! Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh!
Having been so rudely awakened, Teddy groaned and threw an arm over her face. Who's brilliant idea had it been to make that awful song a ringtone?
Oh, right. Hers.
Flinging her other arm out in the general direction of the noise, she fumbled blindly for several seconds before her hand found her cell phone and silenced the offending ringer without even bothering to see who it was, leaving her to lay in the stillness of her room. Her eyes struggled to stay shut but with the early morning sun filtering through her curtains, she was fighting a losing battle despite the sheer exhaustion that was weighing down every muscle and bone in her body. She had slept fitfully that night, tossing and turning as a million thoughts crowded her head, all of which seemed to revolve around one person: Henry.
To say that she was conflicted would've been the understatement of the century. It was unbelievable how one man could make her feel so much. He infuriated her, confused her, irritated her but at the same time could turn around and make her knees weak, her head light, and her heart explode. She wanted to slap him and kiss him all at once, push him away and spend forever wrapped in his arms. Damn you, Henry Burton. You're driving me in circles.
Just then, her doorbell rang, interrupting what undoubtedly would've been another one of those maddening circles. Grudgingly, she hauled herself out of bed and stumbled through her nearly empty house, all the while trying to fix herself to look at least half-way decent, although whoever deemed it appropriate to show up at someone's door at this ungodly hour shouldn't expect anything much better. She opened the door and jumped slightly at the sight of her visitor.
"Andrew! What're you doing here?" In the past 12 hours, she hadn't even spared him one thought and the fact that in 24 hours she would be getting on a plane with him and jetting off to Germany suddenly hit her like a brick wall.
He smiled and raised an eyebrow at her appearance. In all her preoccupation upon arriving home last night after driving back from Henry's, she had failed to change and was still in the clothes she had worn yesterday. "Well, I didn't see you all yesterday so I thought I'd take you out for some breakfast." he said, lowering his phone which she assumed had just called hers.
She blinked. "Oh. Uh…"
"I was thinking we can take my car and I'll just drop you off at the hospital after. I can wait in the car if you're not ready yet though." He jerked a thumb at his immaculate black BMW rental that was parked neatly in the dirt driveway.
Teddy waited to feel something for Andrew's sweet gesture, butterflies in her stomach, a smile tugging at her lips but nothing came and at that moment she finally realized where those endless circles were leading her.
"I can't."
Andrew cocked his head. "You can't what?"
"I can't go to Germany with you." she said softly.
A silence fell between them and she fought to hold his gaze.
"It's Henry, isn't it?" he asked a moment later but it was more a statement than an accusation.
"How—"
"I'm a shrink, Teddy." The corner of his mouth twitched. "It's my job to know these things."
Another pause. She'd never been good at break-ups.
"You're a great guy." she finally said. "A really great guy. And I've really enjoyed being with you but…"
"But I'm not Henry."
She allowed her silence to be her answer.
"So I guess there's no chance of convincing you otherwise." He stuffed his hands in the pockets of his usual suit trousers.
"I'm sorry, Andrew."
He flashed her one of his small, roguish smiles. "Don't be. If he makes you happy then you shouldn't be sorry for that."
She returned his smile then stepped forward and wrapped her arms around his neck, thoroughly grateful for his understanding.
"Take care of yourself, Teddy." he whispered, hugging her back. As he broke away, he planted a soft kiss on her forehead before turning to head back to his car.
She watched as he drove off down the dirt road until his car disappeared from sight. Andrew Perkins may have walked out of her life but damn her if she was going to let Henry Burton do the same. Retreating back into her house, she knew what she had to do.
...
An hour later, she strode through the glass sliding doors of Seattle Grace-Mercy West, her alert green eyes scanning the people bustling about the lobby. Despite the fact that the hospital had only been open for all of 30 minutes, the place was already crawling with people, all of whom had their own agendas and plans for the day and she was no different. Currently, her plan consisted of dodging her gossip-mongering coworkers as she made her way up to the patient floors, knowing that even the briefest run-in with any of them would result in her being made into rumor mill fodder.
Careful to keep her head low, she ducked into the elevator, grateful that her fellow passengers were no one that she recognized. Four floors later, she arrived at her destination and proceeded to disembark the lift, making a beeline for the nurse's station. Maybe she just would complete her task uninterrupted.
"Hey!"
She froze. Of course, she had spoken too soon. Turning in the direction of the voice, she saw a blonde woman skating towards her, her infectious dimpled grin in full form.
"You're late." Arizona said as she came to a stop in front of her.
And she was. However, she wasn't here to work. "I—I called in sick." There goes being inconspicuous.
Arizona arched an eyebrow. "You called in sick on your last day here?"
"Yes." But it's not my last day.
"Then why are you here?"
"I…" Teddy's eyes darted around to glance at the patient rooms before coming to rest back on her best friend. "I'm not. I'm looking for someone."
At this, Arizona's eyebrows rose a little further into her forehead. "Okay." she said slowly after a moment and Teddy could tell that she knew that there was more going on than Teddy was admitting. But Arizona simply flashed another one of her million dollar smiles. "You better stop by the lounge this afternoon though. Callie and I are throwing a little good-bye party for you. It's gonna be super awesome."
With that, she kicked off on her skates and continued on down the hallway and out of sight. Teddy let out a relieved sigh. If she had to run into anyone, Arizona Robbins was her first choice, knowing that the pediatric surgeon would respect her privacy and let her cryptic answers slide at least until the blonde managed to corner her friend and cajole her into spilling what exactly was going on. But for now, she remained invisible to her coworkers and the sooner she got out of there, the better.
"Has Henry Burton been admitted?" she asked a young woman at the station who she recognized as one of the nurses usually assigned to Henry whenever he was at the hospital.
"No, he hasn't, Dr. Altman."
"Could you just check if he's scheduled for anything today?"
The nurse nodded and began typing away at the computer. "No, he's not scheduled to come in until Thursday."
"Okay, thanks."
As she headed back to the elevator, she considered her options. With her calls to both his cell and house phone continuing to go unanswered, no doubt due to the fact that he was still going out of his way to avoid her, he once again had fallen off the face of the earth, a fact that frustrated her to no end. She knew as she had driven to SGMW that the chances of him being at the hospital were slim but she had to start somewhere and going back to his apartment after what had happened last night was probably not the smartest move. However, considering his absence at the hospital, she couldn't think of anywhere else to go.
Groaning softly as the doors of the elevator slid open in front of her, she made up her mind and got on.
...
"Henry? Are you there?"
She pressed an ear against the green door, listening for any sign of movement on the other side but silence was her only answer. She knocked several more times.
"I just want to talk. Please?"
Again, she heard nothing. Stepping back, she looked at the door for a moment. Under any other circumstances she never would've even considered her next move but she needed to see Henry whether he wanted to see her or not. Quickly, she glanced up and down the hallway and after making sure that no one else was in sight, raised herself on her toes and reached for the small ledge above the door. Her fingers groped around for a moment before she felt cold metal beneath them. A second later, the key was in the lock and the handle turned, allowing her into the apartment.
As she suspected, it was empty and dark, the closed blinds and stillness of the apartment alerting her to his absence. She stood by the couch, recalling the events that had transpired in this very room just 14 hours ago.
She was angry when she had shown up at his door last night and one look at his clenched jaw and steely eyes told her that he was too. Somewhere in the part of her brain that was still operating rationally, she knew that they were in no emotional state to have a civilized discussion about their situation but all notion of that went out the door the moment she opened her mouth.
Even as she stood before him, his normally soft amber-green eyes blazing in front of her, she wasn't quite sure what she expected to accomplish. The papers that had been shoved unceremoniously in front of her the night before had been burning a hole through both the coffee table she had placed them on when she arrived home and her conscience and there was no escaping them. Even as she spent her day performing surgery after surgery, what Henry had said as they sat in Joe's replayed in her mind again and again, wearing at her already muddled feelings. Knowing that nothing would improve if she didn't talk to him, she proceeded to bombard his phone with calls until it became clear that he wanted nothing to do with her, which only served to eat at her temper even further. Soon, what had originally started out as a nagging irritation had quickly morphed into quietly boiling anger and by the time her shift ended that afternoon, she was thoroughly intent on giving Henry a piece of her mind.
The only problem was she didn't exactly know what that entailed. She had spent a majority of their "marriage" convincing herself that it was nothing more than a business deal, that at the most, he was a friend who needed help which she was more than willing to provide and for the most part she succeeded. But when Henry slid those papers across the table, a dark, unpleasant feeling settled in the pit of her stomach, a sensation that confused her to no end. Because if Henry Burton was indeed nothing but a business deal then signing those papers would be no different than signing her patient charts at the end of the day. And yet there she was, stinging from his decision to end their relationship as they knew it without even asking her.
Turning to look at the door, her mind briefly flashed to when Henry had pinned her against it, his lips attacking hers as his hands wandered over her body. She never condoned cheating in any form but at that moment, she just couldn't bring herself to care. The man all but turned her to putty and it was all she could do to not pull him back when he broke away. Despite the haziness of her mind after that earth-shattering kiss, she had seen the look that had fixed itself in his eyes as he leaned his forehead against hers, a look that told her she was an idiot for ever thinking that they could be in this situation and keep to their strictly "business" relationship. And now they were both paying the price.
She sighed and took another glance around the apartment. Having already established that he wasn't at the hospital nor was he going to be any time soon, she had run out of places to look. Despite it being only 8:00 in the morning, as an early riser, he could be anywhere and while she had half the mind to start searching the streets of Seattle at random, doing so would only get her nowhere fast. Stepping closer to door, her gaze fell upon one of the framed pictures decorating the wall, a beautiful 17th century British man-of-war sitting frozen in time in a ripple-less sea, its sails full in the wind and flag unfurled proudly.
It struck her then, as she stared at the picture, that there was one place she hadn't checked, a place he'd mentioned only once months ago as she sat by his bed after one of his first surgeries under her insurance. It was a long shot, she knew, but with nothing else to go on, it was her best shot and she was willing to take it.
She only hoped it wouldn't be in vain.
A/N: So…? What'd you think? I struggled a bit writing the last part. The complexity of Teddy's feelings threw me somewhat and it didn't come out exactly how I wanted it to. But c'est la vie. Also, as short as her part was, I loved writing Arizona. Her character is just so much fun. Anyways, I'd love to hear your thoughts. And I will post the final chapter as soon as I can. And this time it will be the final chapter haha. I can only drag this on for so long. XD
