*~Handful of Eternity ~*
Super glue can't exactly fix up hearts

I don't really have much to say, except for the crossover killed me and for a while, I couldn't write anything. But I still have hope, which is a long, rambling story you prolly don't want to hear right now.


Sommer's chest is still rising and falling rapidly, but it is the cool air, perhaps, that has cooled the tears on her face, making them fall slowly and causing Addison to shiver when they drip onto her chest. One hand is woven through her daughter's mussed pale sunshine curls (it's been forever since they've seen a brush, much less a bed) and the other is holding the small body to her as tightly as possible without strangling the child.

"I can't do this," she'd said before wiggling out of Mark and Derek's protective grasps, hurrying through the halls of Seattle Grace to the diaphanous strands of whispered rumors until she reached the outside. They haven't found her yet, although the tip of Sommer's sloped nose has turned strawberry pink with cold.

It's not that she doesn't want to help Madeline, because despite only a glimpse of dark hair and rushing blood from outside the girl's room, she sees Derek's nieces and nephews, some of whom she delivered herself. But the intrinsic instinct to protect her child is more powerful and heady than anything she's ever known and difficult to overcome with just pure logic. She doesn't want Madeline to die and she doesn't want Sommer to hurt, and somewhere in between something has to give.

She feels his presence even without turning to see those perfectly coiffed midnight curls, the temples of which are now frosted with silver, and the soulful blue eyes that used to cause her to swear on eternity. She still knows him, because eleven years aren't nothing.

They allow snowflakes to decorate heads of fire, light, and onyx for a few more minutes before he speaks. "I'm sorry," he offers, but she doesn't answer. Sommer shifts in her arms.

"Sorry about what?"

"I'm sorry that she has to hurt to make Madeline better. I'm sorry they matched."

"You're not sorry," she refutes. "Your daughter is going to live because they matched. You're sorry because you're worried that now I won't let Sommer and Brenner donate blood to Madeline. That is why you're sorry."

He doesn't deny it. "I shouldn't have said those things."

"You meant them."

"No I … I was in shock, Addison, I couldn't think. Seeing you with him, it was like the night I left. I couldn't look at you." Derek runs a hand through his hair, and she feels his eyes on the back of her neck, but she still doesn't turn. "You're not Satan. I don't hate you and … and it's hard to look at you and Mark. But none of this has been easy."

She finally turns, icy sky dancers swirling around her as their eyes meet. She finds contriteness there, regret, sorrow, anger, nostalgia, emotions that match the ones she conceals on the inside. This is Derek, Derek whom she's known for seventeen years, Derek who swept her off her feet, Derek who pushed her to the breaking point in their marriage. She isn't in love with him anymore, but she does care about him.

"You might have to hold her," she whispers. "I don't know if I can watch."

He moves awkwardly, as if to hug her, but at the last second doesn't. "I'm sorry things ended up this way."

"I'm sorry too."

~*~

She lay in the bed, wondering if she had any insides left, or if the baby had taken all of them with her on her journey out of her body. Her entire frame ached, a strange kind of soreness, not exactly as if she'd ran several miles, but not like she'd taken a beating either.

Derek hovered over where they wiped her baby girl free of the remains of the placenta and amniotic sack, and his scrub covered back (he'd ran straight from surgery) obscured her view. The child's cries had quieted slightly, but she could still hear oxygen being taken into healthy lungs.

As if able to detect her gaze, Derek looked over his shoulder and she thought she's never seen a face so full of joy. She gave him that, that precious little being to hold, that small girl to nurture, to tie satin bows in dark curls, to steady on a bike until she could balance on her own.

'I love you' Derek mouthed, just as one of the nurse announced, "Eight pounds, one ounce, and 20 inches long. Congratulations Dr. Shepherd, Dr. Grey."

Then the little bundle of pink was placed on Meredith's chest for a first time, and she ran a finger over one seashell eyelid as her child squirmed, huddling into her warmth. Motherhood wasn't something that her childhood had prepared her for, but now, as she held her daughter against her chest and marveled in her perfection, she was suddenly sure she'd do whatever it took to give her baby a different childhood.

She never figured on the things she'd be unable to provide, unable to save her from.

Derek kissed their little daughter's forehead so tenderly she might have been made of the most fragile glass, and then he met her eyes before joining their lips. A brief rush of passion filled Meredith as their mouths collided, but Derek pulled away an instant later, apparently unable to keep his eyes off them.

"What do you want to name her?" he asked softly, tucking a strand of damp golden hair behind her ear.

"I …" she considered the list of names taped to their fridge, added to almost daily by Izzie but only by Cristina when she thought nobody was looking, even by Alex, but none of those names seemed to fit. "I like Emily, but I don't know that I want it to be her first name. There's a lot of Emily's."

"For her middle name, maybe," Derek suggested. "Or Emilia, that was my great aunt."

"I know you have a name," she teased. "Don't hold out on our kid."

"I would never," he vowed, tracing one curved cheek with a dexterous surgeon finger. "Madeline?"

"Madeline," she tasted the melodious syllables. "Welcome to the world, Madeline Emilia."

~*~

The ruby marker skates across the page in Madeline's tiny hand, creating a wobbly oval. Pearly teeth sunk into her lip, Madeline throws the red aside and selects grass green in its place, carefully swirling the tip in circle until two uneven dots appear. She adds a curved yellow slash. A triangle nose.

"That's pretty," Meredith observes from the cushioned chair she stole from dermatology (apparently skin care patients got the comfy chairs) that has become a permanent fixture in Madeline's room.

"Isth you, Momma," the little girl informs her, adding pink hair, and Meredith hopes she hasn't gotten into her old high school yearbooks before remembering that she hasn't been out of the hospital in months. "Next I's gonna draw Daddy and Sommer and Brenner and Issie and Tina."

As if Madeline's words have summoning powers, the two doctors appear a few seconds later and the ICU slides open to admit them. "Hey, Madie," Izzie greets cheerfully, flopping down on another, less comfortable chair with a chocolate muffin in one hand. "Oh, sorry, Madeline," she corrects when she catches Meredith's glare. "Hmm. My muffins are much better than this."

"Nobody cares, Martha Stewart," Cristina quips, still standing, one hand fluttering against her periwinkle scrub pants as she periodically checks the door. Meredith raises her eyebrows, causing Cristina to sigh heavily. "I'm hiding from Burke," she admits.

"Do you ever do anything else?" Meredith asks.

"I do surgery with him. And I sleep."

"Also with him," Izzie adds.

"Hello? Kid in the room!" Meredith reminds them, although her daughter is oblivious, Derek already has a block-shaped square for a head and curly-Q's for ears. Then, because Cristina will fidget until she asks, and then likely not answer her, which is apparently irrelevant, she asks, "What about Burke, Cristina?"

"Oh, he's just being all couple-y. Usual Burke crap. I want to hear about Derek's closet skeletons," she says, stealing one of the animal crackers left in here by Faye earlier. It's strange, Meredith thinks, that her entire life has changed in a day. Derek was married. His ex-wife's kids are helping Madeline. Addison cheated on him. He never told her."

"Does everyone know about that already?" she moans morosely.

"No. But Derek's outside with the redheaded she-devil and McSteamy is chasing that kid Brenner because he stole four boxes of rubber gloves but has yet to make a balloon out of one and now they've got his drool all over."

"Derek was married to her. Married! I mean we've talked about," Meredith gulps, her chest tightening as she thinks of Derek, all that might have been and all that might still be. She knows why he hasn't proposed yet, because Madeline's illness has devastated them, and she is torn between wanting to claim him as her own and being afraid he'll run away.

"We've talked about it. He never told me. Now he has this perfect ex-wife with these three perfect kids who are going to save my daughter."

"You said ex-wife," Izzie observes. "So they're not married anymore. What happened?"

"She cheated on him with Mark." She watches as Madeline adds a small figure to her picture, one with a sun for a head. Sommer. "I mean I get it, Mark's hot, but then I don't get it. Derek's, well …"

"McDreamy," Izzie and Cristina supply at the same time, and then look at each other, disgusted.

"Who cheats on McDreamy? I mean, I know I'm not married to him and he's not perfect, but I have raised a child with him and I just can't imagine why …"

"There are two sides to every story," a voice says from the doorway, and they all turn in time to see Addison, mascara a little fuzzy, with Sommer in her arms, before the redhead walks away.

~*~

It's not the right time, she told herself, to justify her next downfall, her latest self-inflicted tragedy. It wouldn't work. He thinks he wants to be a father now, but he has no idea.

The taxi pulled up to the curb and she descended the brownstone's steps toward it, feeling as though he were looking over her shoulder but knowing it was just the guilt talking. He was at the hospital, performing a facial reconstruction that would take hours. That was why she was doing this now.

He'd get bored. He'd leave. It's better this way …

She was impeccably dressed, so she could pretend that being put together on the outside would force her insides to conform, but it wasn't true. She stepped into the cab, willing herself not to throw up.

"Where to, Red?" the cabbie inquired in what she judged to be an Irish accent, slowly turning New York. She gave him the address mechanically. They were silent for a couple blocks. If she opened her mouth, she might have told him to turn around.

A baby. Her baby. Their baby, in a Yankee's onesie, one minute with his hair, the next with hers.

"You're awfully quiet," he observed, but she didn't respond. "It's all right. If it doesn't bother you, though, I'll talk. Something to fill the silence." She didn't answer.

"My daughter learned to walk last week. She's been standin' forever but then, all of the sudden, last week she just took that first step, and then another, and another. You have to take things one step at a time, you know. You have any kids?"

Yes. "No," she choked.

"Well, I wasn't too sure about being a father at first. See, we didn't exactly plan it, and I wasn't into that whole scene. But it changed me. Kids do that to you."

"Yeah," she whispered, but wondered, could Mark?

"Never done anything better in my life. I loved her mother and I love that girl. But you're probably tired of hearing about that. How's about them Yankees?"

She was able to tune him out until they pulled up to the clinic and her heart lurched uncomfortably. She had tried to convince herself that this was the only way, but what if it wasn't? She had forbidden herself to feel even a scrap of emotion, save sorrow, for this baby, but now tears pooled in her eyes.

If she hadn't known what it was, she wouldn't have guessed that it was an abortion clinic. It was an upper class women's health care clinic, where you paid for privacy and seats that were cushioned but didn't make the dreadful waiting any better. The atmosphere was tense, as the cabbie had just realized he had talked for five minutes about his child to a woman about to have an abortion. She didn't blame him, though. He seemed like the kind of person who deserved a child.

She should have asked him to a stop a few blocks before, but she didn't think of it.

She gave him a wan smile as she handed over several crumpled bills, and he nodded at her as she climbed out, but she saw the haunted look behind his irises, the look of someone who had almost made a terrible decision but backed out at the last minute.

She stood in the crisp New York air. An autumn leaf blew up and brushed her calf. She lifted her phone to her ear.

Five minutes later, a taxi pulled up. It was him again. "Changed my mind," she said by way of explanation.

~*~

She supposes they must have checked into the Archfield, because she sees the outline of the card key in Mark's pocket as he bends down to press a kiss to Sommer's cheek where salt still stains the milk white skin. The cotton candy pink of Cinderella collides with the misty blue of Wall-E as Brenner drapes an arm across his twin's stomach, as if he can prevent another nightmare like today from occurring in her life. They fight, like all siblings, but as she was told by the nurse who helped deliver them, twins have a special bond.

Tiptoeing, so as not to wake the sweetly slumbering Faye, Addison slips into the adjoining room and sinks gingerly onto the duvet, her limbs betraying no movement once she's established her statue-like charade. Mark enters a few minutes later, but she doesn't raise her eyes from the wall, doesn't move a muscle when he discards his dress shirt and fumbles around for his pajama pants.

"Addie." Fuck. He's always been able to read her. "Addison. Don't do this to yourself."

"This is fucked up, Mark. We shouldn't have come here."

"Please stop it with the self-loathing. It kills me to see you hurting, Adds, and you have to stop feeling guilty."

"Don't tell me what to feel about cheating on my husband."

"I can and I will, because I held you for nights before anything happened in that huge bed with that stupid airy canopy thing you insisted on having. I wiped every single tear away from your face and told you it was going to be okay. We all messed up but I love you, Addison. You don't need to feel guilty about that."

She has seconds to appreciate how he always knows what to say, the gruff longing with which he presents it to her, before her lips crash down on his and he has her completely intoxicated. Sometimes, she's worried she'll die at the brink of ecstasy because she can't breathe in his arms, with his kisses like soft petals falling against her neck.

He scoops her into his arms. She crushes her body to his and holds on tight.

She loses her shirt by the door of the bathroom, one foot resting on the white tile as their tongues collide, her other knee hitched around his hip as he presses her into the doorframe. She inhales deeply as his fingers skim the delicate cream of the skin underneath her ribs and they trade heated breath.

He has the flimsy skin of her collarbone between his teeth while she fumbles with his belt buckle and he unclasps her lacy black bra, pulling it slowly down her arms and drinking her in as he does. The rest of their clothes are shed somewhere between the sink and the shower but she can't exactly remember where because one hand is tracing patterns down her spine as he eases her into the pounding water, and the other is hovering at the inside of her thigh, teasing her with gentle touches.

Addison falls into him as the water pours over their bodies and he kisses her heatedly, knowing that she's ready but unwilling to acquiesce just yet. Here, with Mark, she's Addie, a woman who's allowed to be screwed up because he won't judge her, a woman who's allowed to have faults because he has them too.

"Look at me, Addison," he commands, and as her eyes meet his, steely grey with lust, he joins their bodies and they find a rhythm under the falling droplets.

~*~

Winter sunlight, the color of stardust strewn across the sky, seeps into the room and wakes him slowly, gently pushing away sleep's lingering fingers. Meredith's head is pillowed upon his shoulder, and Madeline is asleep a few feet away from them on her bed. They've all learned how to sleep to the beeping of machines.

He doesn't know what today will bring, whether he'll be able to keep Sommer still long enough to steal just a bit of life to save his daughter, he doesn't know what a new day will mean in his and Meredith's relationship and the revelation of his ex-wife. But for today, they're all alive.

A soft rapping on the glass outside pulls him into a sitting position and Arizona's delicate face, framed by sunflower hair, appears on the other side. She beckons to him and he quickly detangles himself from Meredith and gives her a quick kiss on the forehead before heading out into the hallway. Already his body misses her warmth as he braces himself for what is to come. His daughter will suffer. He'll see Mark kiss Addison. He'll hope Meredith will forgive him. He'll watch their sickly twisted triangle gain another dimension.

"Derek," Arizona begins hesitantly as his heart plummets, because good news doesn't cause uncertainty. "I … I don't think the peripheral stem cell donation is going to work. Sommer will have to have four more days of injections, and then blood taken on the fifth, if her parents are able to get to her to cooperate. By that time, Madeline will be in even worse shape."

"What are you saying?" Derek rasps.

"I need you to get Mark and Addison to agree to the bone marrow donation surgery."


So I'm glad that people are enjoying this and alerting it. Srsly. But I'd love a few more comments, even just little ones. The next chapter is already in the works (including a big MerDer scene), but how fast I get it up depends on motivation.