Thanks for the reviews. I've edited Derek Shepherd and Cristina Yang's names in the first two chapters, thanks, anonymous guest, for pointing that out. :) Hope you like this one.

Addison had done this so many times before, that it's sad, really, how good she has become at denial. Denial is easy, simple, it feels so good, up until the second that your façade, along with whatever dignity you have left shatters into a million tiny pieces and the truth hits you in the face like a full and heavy water bottle.

She'd thrown a bottle of water at a girl once, in middle school, all the way from the back of her classroom to the front near the door. It had been a rare and uncharacteristic violent outburst that would've had caused her to get suspended, if her parents hadn't donated two hundred grand to the school and threatened the headmistress with a lawsuit afterwards. May Carter had been borderline obese, not too bright, and she was one of the tough girls that you don't pick fights with, especially if you were a scrawny, had bright red hair that stood out, and wore thick-rimmed glasses. Addison had stayed clear of her when one day, May had walked into homeroom class, shouted that Addison was a four-eyed, friendless nerd and that if Addison didn't do her math homework for her, she'd get her good. Addison had ignored the insult and the threat, but then the bully had begun to march towards her and that had scared her. So she'd grabbed what was nearest to her, which had been her water bottle, and hurled it at May. It'd hit the beached whale square in the forehead. She would've liked to think that she had good aim, but it wouldn't be fair considering the size of her target. "Okay, now that's just mean," she muttered under her breath.

It must have hurt though, Addison thought. It was one of the things she wasn't sure she regretted doing. However, she imagined that it might have felt like how she had felt when she found Meredith Grey's black panties in her then-husband's pocket. Of course, Addison hadn't been literally struck in the face, but it sure had hurt physically. Before that, she'd spent years constructing her perfect marriage inside her head. She'd made excuses for Derek being absent, for her affair, for him running away across the country. She'd rejected the idea that her marriage had already fallen apart, that it was broken beyond repair. In her mind, they had been Derek and Addison, the happy couple in love all throughout medical school, and they would always be Derek and Addison.

If she was able to pretend, for years, that her marriage was perfect, this she could easily ignore, Addison concluded. Nobody knew and nobody has to know. Leila Sloan was just another trauma patient who had nothing to do with Addison Montgomery, who would recover from her accident and leave the hospital to continue on with her happy life. Was her life happy? Addison wondered. What is she like? Is she stubborn like her parents and does she like beaches more than mountains? There was so much Addison wanted to know, so many things she longed to do to make up for lost time. Selfish though it might be, she just couldn't bear to tell Mark that she had rejected and abandoned not only one, but in fact, two, of his children. He would be devastated, she knew. He would feel betrayed, rightfully so, and if he were even remotely sane, he would want nothing to do with her afterwards.

But if you ignore something persistently enough, it doesn't exist, right?

"Hey, Doctor!"

Addison hadn't realized that she had been standing outside room 216 all along now for… ten minutes, she checked her watch. What was she even thinking, being around here? She exhaled.

"You're a doctor, right?" Leila called.

Addison looked around. When she didn't see anyone she recognized, she walked into the room and quickly shut the door.

"So…"

Addison shuffled into the room, finally standing awkwardly at the feet of the bed.

Leila raised her eyebrows.

"Yes, yes I am a doctor." Addison gathered herself together and brought her eyes upon Leila. Her heart leaped into her throat. The resemblance was startling. She felt like she was staring into a mirror, except her reflection had brown hair, a bandaged head and an insane amount of irritation on her face.

"Was it difficult?" Leila demanded, cocking her head to the side

"Excuse me?"

"My question. Was it difficult for you answer? Did you have to think about it long and hard?" Leila asked mockingly. She thought doctors were supposed to be fast and responsive. If she had been having a heart attack earlier, she was sure she'd be dead by the time this "doctor" got to her. "I could've died by the time you got here, you know."

"And yet you're still alive," Addison smirked. She crossed her arms over her chest. She was slightly taken aback; this wasn't at all like how she pictured their first conversation to be.

Leila tried to sit up straight, but it hurt, so she just threw herself backwards. Her voice softened when she spoke. "I wanted to know how long I have to stay here for."

"Well after surgeries like this, a fast recovery would normally be about a week's stay in this hospital. In your case, it would probably be closer to two to three weeks, though," Addison said, moving closer to her bedside. She sat down on the chair next to it. "You lost a lot of blood. We were lucky that we had someone in this hospital who has your blood type."

"I don't think my insurance covers that much," the younger girl sighed. She closed her eyes.

Addison felt a pang of guilt. No child of the Forbes-Montgomery family should ever have to worry about money. She bit her lip. She would take care of this. "That shouldn't be your main concern right now, Leila. Your health is more important."

"Right. Easy for you to say," Leila breathed.

"Excuse me?"

The brunette opened her eyes. Her voice was harsh when she spoke. "Look at you, Doctor, all decked up in expensive clothing, walking around in high heels that could buy me more thana month of food. How can someone like you have any idea how important money is to regular people when you obviously have plenty to throw around like—"

"Do you have anyone you'd like me to call?" Addison cut her off. "Any family member, friend?"

"No. I don't have any family and all my friends are in New York," Leila replied, calming down.

"The man… the one that was driving the car before you got into an accident—"

"They told me he was dead," Leila interjected. "Is he dead?"

"He is… he died at the scene before paramedics arrived. I'm very sorry for your loss," Addison said carefully. The man had been 42, according to his ID. She wondered if the man was her adopted father. She hoped he had taken good care of her when he was still alive. Addison observed Leila's reaction closely. She seemed to be taking this extremely well. Too well, Addison had found it strange how the girl didn't even seem to be grieving. "Were you close?" She asked.

"I don't know him."

"What?"

"We'd just met," Leila confessed.

"You got on a car with a total stranger?" Addison demanded. She knew it. She knew that any child of her and Mark would be trouble. This was why she'd never wanted children with him, god forbid he pass along one of his many character flaws onto their offspring. Mark had many good traits, she thought. Consequential thought was not one of them.

The girl turned to look at the doctor. This woman was furious! Wow. "What's it to you?" She challenged. "You're not my mother. I don't even have a mother."

Right. It stung a little but Addison collected herself before carefully continuing. As professional and noncritical as she could, Addison asked, "Would you like me to run any tests?"

"I didn't have sex with him yet," Leila said, amused by the doctor's flustered attempt to hide her displeasure. "We met in a diner at a gas station. I told him I was single and that he should give me a ride."

Addison was horrified, and her facial expression showed it. If this was what happened without Mark's influence, she was glad she'd never told him about the baby. If she was completely honest, she'd have to admit that she herself was never exactly the Virgin Mary, but this was definitely Mark's doing. Addison has never, in her entire life, walked up to a complete stranger and offered herself to him. This screams of Mark, not her. It was his whorish genes that this poor girl inherited. She so should haved used a condom, Addison thought, cursing stupid, horny boys seducing stupid, horny girls, promising them that they'd done the pull-out method many times before prematurely ejaculating inside of them.

"Not that kind of ride," Leila snickered, unknowingly interrupting Addison's train wreck of thought. "I was going to say, that I suggested he give me a ride to the Olympic Sculpture Park."

"Oh!" Addison still thought she should have used a condom.

Leila, seeing Addison's reaction, decided to have a little bit of fun, and continued, "I was in the process of giving him the best head of his life—"

"Leila!" In her mind, Mark Sloan was already beaten to a bloody pulp.

The girl in question gave Addison a mischievous grin. "—When a truck ran past. Next thing I know, I was hurting all over and stuck inside an overturned car. I had to break the window with the headrest to get out, you know."

"You fought."

"Yeah, I did." Leila said, proudly. She became serious once again. "I fought and I won. Now how am I going to pay for all this?"

"The hospital has certain… funds, for this kind of situation," Addison lied, thinking quickly. Her pager sounded, and she stood up. "I have to go. I can get the paperwork done for you, so don't worry about it." Seeing her Leila relax, her mind raced. How was she going to pay the bills without proving what the entire hospital already suspects?

"I'd appreciate that. Thank you," Leila said. She offered Addison a small, sheepish smile. "And I'm sorry, for calling you a rich bitch earlier."

An eyebrow raised, Addison's lips quirked in a slight smile. The girl would never have gotten away with this if Addison had raised her. "You didn't. Up until this moment, you didn't."

"Oops," Leila said nonchalantly. Then, she laughed, her eyes sparkling, though her stomach hurt when she did.

"Don't rip your stitches," Addison called, before leaving the room. The talk had been, dare she say it, refreshing. She found herself thinking that Mark would easily like Leila, had he gotten to meet her, and immediately stopped herself. Pretending was good. It was less painful, and Addison knew better than anyone that the truth hurts.

They saw her exit the room and exchanged glances.

"Do you think she told her?" Meredith asked, slightly tilting her head so that she could see her friend's face.

"And walk out smiling? No way," Cristina said.

"Why would she even willingly go in there?" Izzie wondered. "I wouldn't."

"You would, after half a year, which was how long it took you to cash in your nine million dollar check," Cristina responded, to Meredith's amusement.

"This has nothing to do with the check," Izzie protested. "I deposited the check."

"Took you long enough to," Alex said, smirking.

"I heard she was the one that operated on her," George said. "That could be why she was in there…to check up on her. As a doctor."

At the same time, Alex spoke. "The better question is whether she'll tell Sloan. Five dollars says he finds out on his own."

"I think Derek will tell him," Meredith announced. She had inside information

Cristina leaned against the counter. "Who cares how he finds out," she said. "Do you think he'll have a stroke, seizure, or heart attack when he finds out? Oh I hope he'll need surgery."

"Cristina, that is wrong on so many levels," said George.

"Yeah and she calls me Evil Spawn."

"Oh boo hoo, poor Alex," Cristina scoffed, pulling a face.

Izzie snorted. She looked at Cristina. "He's right, you know. You're like the morbid pot calling the kettle evil."

After the failed surgery, he left the OR, grabbed the patient's medical file and headed to the on-call room that he thought was empty to figure out what went wrong. He'd promised Alice a fast and easy operation. She would've been out of the hospital in a month, and now she's dead.

Derek found her alone, sitting on the bed in the on-call room. The room was nearly pitch black, save for the light from the hallways outside the room. She was staring at the wall, but he doubted that she was seeing much. He decided against turning on the lights. "Rough day?" He asked lightly, moving to sit next to her. He made sure to keep at least a feet between them, incase somebody were to walk in and get any interesting ideas. Hospital gossip spread faster than viral disease and he really didn't want Meredith to find out he was still associating with his ex-wife.

Addison turned to look at him with weary eyes.

"You're not speaking to me?" He asked, incredulous. "This is rich, Addison. I should be the one not speaking to you."

"And yet here you are," she drawled. She was exhausted. Surgery does that to a person. So does keeping secrets and putting on a brave and confident exterior when all she wanted to do was curl up into a ball and cry.

"I saw her earlier, your…uh, the patient from the car accident two days ago. Her CT scans are clear now."

Addison occupied herself with staring at the picture on the wall. Please just leave, she thought.

"Once her blood count is up and her abdominal wounds are healed, she should be able to go home," he continued. When she didn't respond, he carried on. "Interestingly, when I asked her if she has anyone she'd like us to contact, she said she was just fresh out of the foster care system."

The trees in the painting were in many different colors. It could've been autumn. Addison would've known what the colors were, had the lights been on. She could tell it was an oil painting though, the brush strokes seemed raised…or maybe a cheap copy of an oil painting.

"She just turned eighteen, you know," Derek persisted. "Told me she was from New York City. I told her that I had lived in New York for a while as well. What a coincident, huh, Addie?"

It was more than a while. Shut up, Derek, just shut up.

"She said she was taking a gap year; she'd already been accepted to NYU but she wanted a year off to travel, work, and figure herself out before diving headfirst into a program." Derek turned to have a better look at his ex-wife's face. "She seems like a pretty level-headed kid. Too bad she has no idea who her parents are, nor do they seem to even care."

She didn't know why she was still sitting there, listening to him taunting her. She clutched the bed sheets, her knuckles turning white.

"And she's only eighteen…"

Her eyes darkened. "Do you have a question to ask me, Derek?" She lashed out in anger. "Yes, that girl is mine, and yes I gave up being a teenage mother to become a doctor. And in case you were wondering, no, I did not cheat on you in medical school. She's eighteen, Derek, do the math. I slept with him long before we'd met. No, I wasn't having an affair with Mark the entire duration of our marriage. Yes, I kept it from you but congratulations Derek, what we had in New York had been real. Can't say much for Seattle, though. Are you satisfied now, or do you wish to continue torturing me?"

Derek watched her get up, and before he could say anything, Addison strode out of the room, the door slamming shut behind her.

"Give him some time, Addie, he'll get used to us being here and being together," Mark soothed, rubbing patterns on her back, trying to calm her down. They were in her hotel room, lying on the bed, cuddling, after not having sex. Or more precisely, he was holding her while she just laid there, her heart pulsing erratically. She'd just owned up to him that Derek had cornered her that night, in an on-call room and that they'd had a 'talk', whatever that meant. He wanted to know what Derek had said to cause this kind of reaction, but Addison had completely shut him out when he asked, so for now he was content with just holding her. One hand on her stomach, he pulled her closer to him and placed a kiss on her shoulder blade. He froze when her head snapped up and she looked straight at him, her eyes filled with resentment. "Addison," he said, surprised.

She hated how clueless he was, because really, how dense do you have to be to not know about the single thing that an entire hospital can't seem to shut up about? A part of her wished he'd just find out on his own. She despised how caring he was being. She didn't deserve this kind of love. "What?" She snapped, untangling her body from his. She moved away to her side of the bed, her hands wrapped around herself protectively, and turned to face him. He looked baffled, and he was hurt, she could tell, and she couldn't stand that, so she reached out to him, touching his face. "I'm sorry," she whispered, inching closer.

Mark grabbed the arm that was stroking the right side of his face. He looked into her eyes; the seductive, beautiful blue eyes he fell in love with, the sparkling crystals with corners that crinkled when she smiled. "I need to know what is going on between you and Derek," he told her. If there were still feelings, if Addison still had any feelings for Derek, he had to know. Mark braced himself for the worst.