I don't really have much to say, but I hope you enjoy this chapter and I don't own anything.

Addison knocks tentatively on the door. Despite the confident front she puts on in front of her friends, she's not one hundred percent certain she can pull this off. Not now that she's actually faced with the prospect of being alone with Mark Sloan.

Thankfully, Izzie pulls open the door. "Hey, Addie, come on in," she smiles.

"Thanks." They enter the living room. "Is Mark here?" she inquires.

"Nah. He rarely makes it home before five."

"Oh. Okay." Addison breathes a sigh of relief.

Izzie studies her friend with a frown. "Are you okay?"

Addison considers her options. She doesn't want to admit to marital problems, but doesn't screaming at your husband then having sex on the kitchen counter constitute marital problems? And Izzie is one of her best friends. If she were going to admit marital problems to anyone, it would be her. "Alex and I had angry sex on Sunday."

"Hot," Izzie grins.

"No, not hot," Addison replies. "Distinctly not hot."

"Liar."

"Okay," she admits. "The sex itself was hot. Really hot. Really, really hot."

"Okay!"Izzie jumps in. "Let's not relive the angry sex in my living room please!"

Addison blushes bright red. Izzie decides to throw her a life preserver. "So the angry sex was hot and…?"

"And nothing," Addison sighs. "We've barely spoken since then."

"Why?"

Addison doesn't want to answer that question. She's not sure she can answer that question. So instead, she asks," Did I ever tell you about the first time Alex said he loved me?"

Izzie shakes her head...

"You don't have to stay," Addison whispers, smoothing their sleeping little girl's hair affectionately.

"It's not a problem."

They're still a little awkward around each other. They've been friends for nearly four years now, but dating for not even a quarter of one of those years. They stare at their daughter. "Thank you," Addison says quietly.

"For what?"

"For sticking around. I thought I could do it alone, and I don't think I could. Not well, anyway."

"You're a great mom, Addison."

She shakes her head with a bitter laugh. He's surprised when tears start rolling down her cheeks. He recovers quickly and leads her out of Emma's room, sitting her down on the couch. He pulls her close and lets her soak his shirt with tears.

"I thought about getting rid of her," Addison admits in little more than a whisper.

"What?" he asks.

"When I found out I was pregnant. I thought about getting an abortion."

"Why?" he asks, barely breathing.

"Because I didn't want a baby alone. Because we weren't talking and I didn't want to ruin both our lives. Because I thought that's what you would want me to do."

He catches her eye and holds contact, even though it means that he has to grip her chin softly so she won't look away. "I never would have…"

"You say that now," she interrupts. "But would you two years ago?"

"Addison, listen to me. Emma is the best that has ever happened to me and I knew that from the day you told me you were pregnant. Yeah, I was scared out of my mind, but I never would have wanted you to do something like that."

Addison studies the carpet. "I almost made the appointment," she admits quietly, ignoring his statement. "I had the phone in my hand and everything."

"So what happened?"

"You don't remember?" she asks, a little surprised, her eyes sliding up to meet his. "You called me. I picked up on the first ring and you made fun of me for sitting by the phone."

He does remember that. He remembers the tremor in her voice when he announced that it was him, and he remembers that she stayed silent while he told her that he didn't think one stupid mistake should ruin their whole lives. He remember that she almost said something, but then swallowed whatever it was and agreed with him. "Jesus, Addison, why didn't you say something?"

"I didn't need to. When you called, trying to make everything up to me, I knew you'd never ask me to do something like that. I knew that you're one of the good guys."

They sit in silence for an eternity, until he breaks it. "For what it's worth," he says, clearing his throat. "I'm glad you didn't make that appointment."

"Me too."

"I wasn't done, Addison." There's a slightly angry edge in his voice. "You should have told me about Emma sooner. You should have let me be there for you. You should have let me help you. Because," he hesitates, "because I love you and I would have done anything you asked."

She inhales sharply. "Don't say that," she commands. "Don't say things you don't mean."

"The first time he says I love you and I tell him not to!" Addison says, tears starting to glisten in her eyes.

"It was kind of out of nowhere," Izzie admits graciously.

"No, it wasn't. I knew he was going to say it, and I knew he wasn't lying. But I didn't want to hear it then. I may as well have just told him that I didn't love him." She sighs. "It feels like that again."

"What do you mean? Do you not love him anymore?" Addison stays silent. "Addison, do you love him?" Izzie demands.

She's silent for a good long time, searching. "Sometimes," she answers hesitantly. "Maybe."

"You love him sometimes maybe?" Izzie asks skeptically.

"I don't know," she sighs. "I don't know anything anymore."

"What the hell does "sometimes maybe" mean?"

Addison looks up, and this time her eyes really are filled with tears. "I still love him. I just don't know that I want to."

0ooo0

Meredith breathes a sigh of relief. The twins won't be home from school for another two hours and Lucy and Logan are napping. Her husband is at work (big surprise there). She sits down on the couch and pulls out the book she's slowly been making her way through for the past three months. She's almost managed to finish it, but now she can't concentrate…

She can't even begin to start thinking. Because if she thinks, then she's probably going to scream, or cry, or faint. So instead of thinking about the fact that she's sitting in her bathroom waiting for two minutes for the sixth time, she tries to think about anything else.

Izzie admitting that she likes Mark. That was weird. After all, it is Mark Sloan, manwhore extraordinaire. He doesn't seem like the most stable person to fall for. Then again, she supposes, neither was Derek Shepherd, the man in the bar with the secret life and the secret wife.

The secret wife who's bringing her daughter home from the hospital today. Oh, that's ironic. She's finding out she's pregnant on the day her husband's ex-wife is bringing her baby home from the hospital.

There's the thinking! No thinking!

Alex and Addison would make an adorable couple, she decides. And Emma… well, Emma is just beautiful. She looks just like her mom, except prettier because her dad is mixed in.

Any baby of Derek Shepherd's is sure to have great hair.

No thinking. No thinking.

Even Cristina thinks Emma is beautiful. She said so. Of course, she was drunk, but drunken words speak sober thoughts. Meredith is really glad that she felt too sick to do any drinking.

And those gorgeous blue eyes.

No thinking.

They've only been married for a couple months. How is she supposed to do this? How are they supposed to be Derek and Meredith when there's another person? It's not like they can be Derek and Meredith, plus one. That doesn't make sense.

Alex and Addison are making it work and they're not even together. In love (Izzie's sure of that). But not together. They're making it work.

"Meredith, are you okay?" Derek asks, banging on the bathroom.

Meredith looks over at the counter. "Derek, I'm going to say something, and I need you to not freak out, okay? Because if you freak out, then I'll freak out, and I'm trying really hard here not to freak out."

"Mer?"

She sighs. "I'm pregnant, Derek."

She smiles, thinking about how ecstatic he was. How, when her OB had told them they were having twins, he dragged her to buy two cribs, even though she was still in shock and very much freaking out. How when she had a meltdown and flashed back to her own childhood, he held her hand and got everybody to come over to distract her. How he made Addison let her hold Emma (and at the time, Addison rarely gave up her loving embrace of her daughter to anyone but Alex), how Emma had smiled at her, and how Addison had said she was a natural with kids. How Addison had promised to help her whenever she had a problem. How Derek had ignored all the snide remarks she made as she got bigger and more uncomfortable. How he had done the exact same thing when she was pregnant with Lucy and even Logan.

Then she frowns as she thinks about how she told him about all four of her children through that same bathroom door. That's not what makes her frown though. What makes her frown is the fact that five months ago, she had to call her husband at the hospital to inform him. She doesn't even have time for a freak out now.

I keep writing this when I'm in a bad mood. I wish that would explain the depressing nature. Well, I hope you enjoyed it, depressing nature and all. But I'll never know unless you press that actually rather large button and drop me a line!

-Juli-