I have become one of those despicable authors you despise who update rarely and... I'm sorry. Anyway, this chapter is short and it doesn't have that much plot really, but it is useful to future chapters, which brings me to the most important part of this...
What I'd like to do next chapter is have a time jump. This chapter leaves off everybody on a fairly good note – Addisom and Mark are together, Derek and Meredith are together... Now, I need to move forward around seven months to the bad parts following the fluffy beginning. I could write chapters leading us through those seven months, but it would be mostly pretty plotless filler chapters like this one. So, time jump? Opinions? I won't do it if you really hate the idea.
Unchained Melody
Chapter Four: I Don't Need No Doctor
The two of them entered the house soaking wet, hair plastered to their heads and clothes clinging to their skin. Not that they seemed to mind; all their attention appeared to be focused on making out. They continued to do this until they finally found their way to the living room and collapsed on top of each other there, smiling.
"Sorry," Mark said as they paused for air. "I forgot it rains so much in Seattle. A walk in the park under the starlit sky sounded romantic."
She discarded a now ruined Louboutin which was previously worth approximately five hundred dollars on the floor, where it was soon joined by the other. "It was romantic," she told him. "And very original. No other guy has ever taken me out for a walk in the rain."
"Because sane people don't enjoy walks in the rain," he replied, kissing her again.
"Yeah," she murmured against his lips, "but now I'll think of you every time it rains."
It was extremely cheesy, but it was also honest and neither of them really took notice of the cheesiness when too engrossed in kissing.
"Sweet," he replied, pulling away for a moment, "my ego will never be hungry. It rains a whole lot in Seattle."
They continued to kiss until Callie and Amelia entered the room, arms filled with shopping bags. Mark and Addison were by now half-naked and too absorbed in that to notice their friends' entrance.
"I've got that bra," Callie commented. It made Amelia snigger, but was ignored by the couple.
Amelia smirked. "I'm blind!" she exclaimed, loudly so that the two broke apart in surprise, Addison with such surprise that she fell off Mark and onto the floor. "The image of my two role models engaging in coitus shall forever be burned into my retinas!"
"We haven't got to the coitus part yet," Mark grumbled.
"It's the twenty-first century, Amelia," Addison informed her dryly. "Nobody says 'coitus' anymore."
"Mark, a role model?" Callie snorted. "No wonder you turned out so messed-up."
"You wound me, cruel women!" Mark declared, dramatically clutching a hand to his chest.
"Diva," Amelia proclaimed as Addison moved his hand to the left and said,
"Your heart is here, Dr. Sloan. Unless we women are wounding your lungs and not your heart."
By now, she and Mark were once more fully-dressed in their still damp clothes.
"Dr. Sloan," Mark grinned. "Are we playing doctor now? That's a turn-on."
Amelia pretended to throw up.
"Get a room," Callie told them.
"Did you get the milk? We're out of milk," Addison said, changing the subject and looking with some interest at the groceries, which were spilling out onto the table.
"Yeah," Callie said. "You two have ruined the futon."
The futon was indeed pretty wet from their soaked forms, although nowhere near what you'd call 'ruined'.
"It'll dry," Addison said.
"Or we could just burn it," Amelia offered. "Ya know, potatoe, potato."
Addison frowned. "It came with the house," she protested. "Daddy bought it for me."
"But the goddamn thing is ugly," Callie whined.
"It has sentimental value."
"Oh, like that sweater I got you last Christmas?"
"How about you put the futon in storage?" Mark finally intervened before things could escalate. "That way, it's not here but it's not gone, and nobody has to argue about whether it's ruined."
"Fine," Addison pouted. "But I'm not going to be the one putting it there."
"Mark and Derek will," Amelia said dismissively.
"When did I get roped into this?"
"When you suggested storage," Callie explained.
"And I don't suppose you two will be leaving any time soon so I can finish ruining the futon and give it one last good memory before it's put into storage."
Amelia plopped herself down into the small sliver of space between him and Addison, making herself at home there. "Sorry Sloan," she said. "It's movie night and I get first pick."
He groaned loudly but ended up enjoying himself when Amelia picked a horror movie and Addison hid her face in his chest during the especially scary scenes.
"So," Derek said, trying his best to look dreamier than his reputation right now. "I'm guessing you've heard some pretty bad stuff about me."
Meredith Grey smiled from behind the charts she was looking through. "Some," she replied. "Not all of it is bad. I think somebody mentioned that your hair products are environmentally friendly."
Derek sighed. Well, at least there at.
She began to walk away in the direction of a patient's room. He followed her.
"Listen," he said, "I swear, I'm a really good guy."
"I never said you weren't."
"You know, you could find out just how good a guy I am if you go out for dinner with me."
"I have an overnight shift."
"Breakfast, then."
"Weren't you engaged just a few weeks ago?"
"'Were' is our key word here. I'm not married."
She raised her eyebrows, handing Nurse Tracy a chart. "Sensitivity," she said. "I like that in a guy."
"Are you a cereal person? Straight out of the box? Or are you all fruit and fiber-y? Pancakes? Do you like pancakes? I make really good pancakes. Or, if you want, there's this diner near the hospital where they also make really good pancakes."
He gave her his best puppy dog eyes. They took effect. She melted. She smiled.
"Fine," she said. "Breakfast. Pancakes."
The resultant grin on Derek's face was huge and, to Meredith, very cute. He looked like the geek who just got the girl.
"What's with the grin, man?" Mark asked as he passed by. "What'd you do, get laid?"
The moment was officially ruined.
Addison Montgomery boasted an immune system of steel.
The last time Addison was sick, she had her tonsils out at the age of seven following a dreadful case of tonsillitis. In the five weeks during which she was sick, she was never once visited by a member of her family. Her father was at the time working at the Cleveland Clinic and unwilling to make the journey back to Connecticut, instead sending yet another expensive China doll to add to the collection gathering in her room as consolation. Her brother was away at boarding school in Massachusetts, although he sounded suitably impressed in his reply to the letter she sent him, boasting about undergoing surgery. Her mother had no excuses, except that she liked the full liqueur cabinet far more than she ever had her daughter. As a result, Addison's only company was a firm, Bizzy-approved nanny who had no sympathy or warmth toward the child.
Thus, it is easy to see that sickness bore only bad memories for Addison. Knowing her, the fact that she hadn't really been sick since (hangovers and the occasional cold not counting as sickness), was down to her sheer force of will.
Unfortunately, viruses are not sympathetic to such things, and Addison awoke the morning following her date with Mark feeling lousy as Hell. Her throat was raw and scratchy, her nose was clogged, and her head pounded with an awful headache (and not even a 'Karev-is-my-intern-today' headache, but a really dreadful 'an-inconsiderate-little-man-is-tap-dancing-in-my-head-while-wearing-heels' kind of headache).
Everybody had their flaws. Addison was stubborn as Hell. She hadn't had a sick day since getting her M.D., and she'd be damned if she took one now.
"Good morning, sunshine," Amelia greeted her cheerily as Addison joined her friends at the kitchen table, pale and bleary-eyed yet still dressed in one of her usual designer ensembles. "You look like shit."
"Well aren't you feeling eloquent today?" Addison replied, stealing a slice of Callie's toast and ignoring the resulting indignant 'Hey!'
"Aw, did Markie give you Mono?" Amelia teased.
She was unaffected by Addison's death glare boring into her skull, which was frankly fairly disappointing.
"Serves you right," Callie told her. "This is karma for every time you've laughed at us when we're sick."
"You're annoying sick people. You lay around the house all day complaining that you feel crappy but you still don't wear a coat going outside next time it snows."
"Because you were so responsible yesterday, wearing a coat and immediately changing out of your wet clothes the second you got inside."
"Shut up. Where's Derek?"
"He has a breakfast date with an intern. The-the blonde one, with the..." Amelia frowned in thought.
"Ellis Grey's daughter," Callie supplied.
"Grey! That's it! I nearly had it."
"At least someone gets a nice start to their day."
From then on, Addison's day only seemed to worsen. One of her induced deliveries haemorrhaged unexpectedly during birth, and Addison had to move back all her other appointments in order to fix her. Mrs. Bianchi, the two o'clock with hyperemesis gravidarum moved to half past three, ended up vomiting on her. The interns were useless and the residents are lazy. Chamberlain was moody, dumping huge piles of paperwork on Addison out of what she swore is spite.
She was scowling at the OR board, nose pink and scrub top drenched in Lacey Randall's amniotic fluid, when Mark stopped by beside her. He looked better off than her, although he did sneeze before he opened his mouth and sound rather raspy when he spoke.
"Miss me, Red?" he asked. He was close. She could feel his breath on the nape of her neck, which was exposed by her tied-up hair.
"Take a step away, Sloan," she replied. "It's bad enough that you've given me the flu already. The last thing I need is another sick person infecting me."
"So you decided to go to a hospital? Come on, Red," he pulled her closer into his embrace. "Go home. You'll infect your patients, and you don't look so good."
"My patients will suffer far more if I leave them to the crappy interns and residents of this hospital. And Chamberlain will kill me."
He shook his head in exasperation but didn't argue, instead staying quiet.
"Addison?" he asked a few minutes later.
"Hm?"
"Did you spill your coffee or something?"
"That's just amniotic fluid."
She knew he pulled a somewhat disgusted face despite being unable to see it.
"I have a hysterectomy and a salpingo-oopherectomy in half an hour that you're going to make me late for," she informed him a few minutes after that.
"You have plenty of time."
"I still need to shower and change."
"I can come with you and help?"
She laughed, shaking her head.
"Sorry, not enough time," she told him. "And you're sick."
"So are you. You're hot."
"I know I am."
"No, I mean hot as in temperature."
She sighed heavily, and he knew not to push the matter.
There was a familiar, obnoxious beeping and both of them reached for their pagers.
"It's me," she said. "911. Gotta go." She hoped the Brady Baby, her 911, didn't need surgery, because all this day seemed to do was get longer and she couldn't push yet more of her appointments back.
He blew her a kiss and winked as she left, the former of which was so unlike him it caused her to smile and blow a kiss back.
The Brady Baby required a chest tube but not surgery, and she left him in what she hoped were Stevens' capable hands.
He was there in the gallery when she glanced up during surgery, and although he was in surgery himself by the time she got out, a sour-looking nurse handed her a lily and a container of still warm chicken noodle soup from Dr. Sloan.
JustAnotherIntern14 – thanks, I'm flattered. I'd also love a Grey's where Maddison is real and Mark and Addison are still on the show. :)
Guest (1) - gracias de nuevo!
Patsy – yay, it posted this time! I'm glad you're looking forward to more.
Gale123: and voila, here is the update itself.
