Follow Me Back Into The Sun
Chapter 3: Revelations
Even though Elizabeth Hansen's scans are clean and good and revolutionary, as her husband says, Derek can't lose the feeling that something is wrong. They are all neurological experts in the team and yes, all the tests they could perform on the rats have looked very promising so far and he usually doesn't doubt his own skills, but – why he? Why should he of all people all over the world working on a damn solution for this illness be the one coincidentally finding one?
Because of your father, Mark said somehow cynically when he'd asked almost the same thing about Addison and left their table in med school, leaving him sitting there alone, thinking about it. Karma. Juju.
It's a beautiful day to save lives.
It's ridiculous. And even if there was a truth about it, there would be no reason why something like this should happen to him now, since he already got the compensation for his father, as Mark said, sitting in front of him.
"Watcha thinking?" she asks and he blinks, somewhat startled. They are in the cafeteria together at their table, eating crappy hospital food. According to Addison at least the salad is good, according to Mark one can't build muscles from that. He doesn't really miss anything when doesn't make time to have lunch with them.
"Nothing," he says simply, but his eyes wander right back to the little coffee stain on the table he's been staring at before. He feels the tip of his wife's Jimmy Choo stroking against his ankle and looks up again.
"Really? Nothing?"
"Hm-m," Derek nods with a smirk and lifts an eyebrow, making an unspoken suggestion. Addison wrinkles her nose, signing that she can't (she has to scrub in in twenty minutes), but appreciates the offer. Mark, who is sitting next to her and has been sitting next to her for far too often not to notice, leans back to peek under the table and throws them a mock-disapproving look.
"Oh come on, guys, there are interns here."
Derek rolls his eyes, gloating a little, and Addison lets out a dry chuckle and turns to Mark. "So? They are old enough to have sex with you."
He gives her a mischievous smile. "Shut up, Red," and she mouths "Ouch," and grins at him teasingly.
Derek's chair makes a nasty noise on the PVC floor coating as he pushes himself away from the table and picks up his half empty tray. This is getting too childish for him. "I'm gonna go check on my tumour-patient."
Addison sighs and he winks almost too hastily for her to see before he leaves the cafeteria. Then Mark pokes a finger into her side and she jumps automatically, forcing some nasty sounds out of her chair too.
"Don't be sad," he says while she rubs her side angrily.
"I'm not," she lies and knows that he knows but whatever. She stares to the swing doors Derek went through a minute ago and leans her shoulder slightly against Mark's. Out of a habit, he thinks. He's always there, his shoulder is always there. "Something is going on with him," she murmurs, while he tries to blind out her perfume and the smell of her conditioner in her hair. "But it can't be about the baby-thing, right? Do you think he's mad that I want to wait until after Christmas?"
Mark clears his throat, but doesn't get the hoarse out of his voice. "He's exhausted and it's very reasonable to wait until after Christmas, because now he probably wouldn't stand a chance to get you pregnant properly."
"Mark."
"What?"
"You're mean."
"You asked."
"Are you all right?" She suddenly gazes at him directly, brows furrowed, lips pursed.
He glances back for a second, then lets his eyes swift to his lunch again, because a bone-dry turkey sandwich from yesterday is easier to concentrate on than his best friend's beautiful wife and her adorable facial expressions.
"I'm gonna be 37 tomorrow, Addison, what else is new?"
She laughs surprised and he senses her hand on his back. He never rejects when Derek asks him to fill in for him, to be the other one on the booked table in some fancy restaurant, to be the other one on the couch in the brownstone when he can't make it home against his promise and knows that his wife has taken the afternoon off for him. Mark's spent more time with her within the past year than during all the years before and they've never not spent much time together. But there is a difference between the three of them and two of them and he wishes he would have known that earlier. Maybe then her shoulder wouldn't lean as automatically against his as her hand mock-sympathetically pats his back. Maybe his life would be less painful then.
"Come on, I'm 37, Derek is 37, what's the big deal? The interns won't care," she offers wittingly. "By the way, if there was a party or something would you want Archer there?"
He rolls his eyes at her. "Hey, I told Derek I'm just gonna go to a strip club and get hammered and ignore everything else about that day, all right? No surprise party or anything. Seriously."
She gets up, biting in a piece of carrot with a knowing grin and winks at him. "Just make sure you stop by at our house before going anywhere else."
XXXXX
Of course Derek's tumour-patient is of little interest for him compared to where he really wants to go. But Hansen isn't there when he arrives at the lab, where he is supposed to meet him. It's Dr Petersen who glances up from his files instead.
"Shepherd," he nods politely and Derek nods back, "Petersen."
"You don't happen to know whether Dr Hansen is working today, do you?" Derek asks as casually as possible, but the other doctor doesn't even look up from his clipboard again and just shrugs.
"No, haven't seen him all day. Maybe something came up with his wife."
Derek swallows hard. "His wife?"
"She has Alzheimer's, you know, that's probably why he signed up for the trial. She used to be one of the top lawyers in this city. Tragic, very tragic," Petersen makes a flicking noise with his small lips, that are hidden under a very thick full beard. He's one of the older generations. "My cousin is a patient too. What about you, Shepherd? In this for personal reasons?" He finally lifts his small eyes.
"No," Derek just says, "I'm professionally interested, that's all."
"Well, you're young. Who knows how things might turn out. Maybe your work here will prevent a beloved one from suffering."
Derek nods, he doesn't know what to say to that, and turns around to leave the room.
"One moment, Shepherd, can you pass me the syringes I put on the third board there before you leave?" he points to the metallic cabinet to Derek's left.
"Of course."
He turns the small key in the lock and opens the cabinet with a jarring noise, as if someone was scratching with a fork on a plate and clears his throat. "How many do you need?"
"All twenty."
"Excuse me? There are only eight here..." Derek's voice drops and Petersen is standing next to him in an instant.
"Are you kidding me? I put a whole new unit in there two days ago!" He slams his gloved fist against the metallic doors and Derek is just quick enough to pull his hand away, one second later and all his fingers would've been squeezed and broken.
"What do you mean, new unit?"
Petersen strives off his gloves ragingly and grabs the clipboard from the table. "Lindner's come across another virus in his researches, probably a more aggressive one that will make it impossible for all rats to develop antibodies."
"But we're not using the same rats as before, are we?"
"Of course not, Shepherd! We cannot pump another virus into them," he chuckles dryly. "Who knows what will come out of that."
Right.
Petersen pats Derek on the shoulder and pushes him to the side to be able to leave the room. "I think it's better to report that to the chief, who knows what kind of idiot took them. Stupid intern, I bet. In case of doubt it's always them."
Derek manages a weak grin as the other doctor passes by and slides down the cool wall. A thousand things are rushing through his head, but it feels like none of them is blood because his surroundings turn black and white and a dizzying sound in his ears tells him unmistakably that he is about to faint.
XXXXX
He tries to call Hansen five times and then again five times on his way to his stupid house in Queens. Nobody picks up, no one opens the door. He doesn't remember if Hansen has told him where his daughter lives, but if he has he doesn't remember the address anyway.
He urges himself not to kick the door in, guessing that it would be more painful than effective, and rests his forehead against the frosty window in the middle of the unresponsive wood. He should call the police. Addison would call the police. His mother would want to grant Hansen a chance to explain this first. And Mark - Mark wouldn't have gone after the light that night in the first place because there was a game on.
He sits down on one of the icy steps in front of the house, wincing a little as the cold gets through his jeans, and takes out his blackberry, dialling the saved number one more time and feeling incredibly stupid. He's slipped. One weak moment of humane understanding, because he knows what it feels like to lose someone too early and there is still a knot in his throat every time he realizes that the only grandfather his kids will know will be the Captain, a man who hasn't spoken to his own daughter in two years and doesn't even have the decency to leave his estate before he cheats on his wife with one of the housekeepers. He isn't sure if he could bear losing someone too early again and fighting against that – he gets it. But as a doctor he should have kept his distance. There is no excuse.
Hansen's voice comes through his ear after seven incredibly long waiting signals.
"Hello, this is Dr Harold Hansen. I'm not available right now. Please try again later or leave me a message after the signal."
It feels like the hundredth time Derek's heard that today, but it's the first time he decides for the latter.
"Hansen, this is Derek Shepherd. Twelve other syringes are missing from the lab and I assume we both know who did that. Listen, you fucking idiot! These injections you stole contain another virus! Do not under any circumstances treat your wife with them, you hear me? And call me back as soon as you hear this or I'm calling the police."
XXXXX
Mark touches on Addison's shoulder as he hears the keys turn in the lock. She is lying with her head in his lap and it wasn't supposed to be this way today, but then her call came and he noticed the quivering in her voice, because something is going on with Derek and she thinks it's her fault. She always thinks that. So he came over. Again. And now there are wet mascara stains on his shirt and auburn strands between his fingers and everything else is just more broken than before.
She opens her swollen lids and straightens up, hands wiping over the mascara under her eyes and on her cheeks, and blows her nose in one of the crinkly hankies on the couch table. The other ones disappear into the pockets of Derek's sweatpants she's wearing, as if it was a crime to cry when you're unhappy.
However, when Derek comes into the room they're both somewhat taken aback. The corners of his nose are reddish, more than usual in this season or in general, his eyes overly reflecting the dim light of the room, his hair tousled as if he's just woken up from hibernation.
Addison clears her throat, her voice still nasal, her eyes fixing her husband critically. "Honey, did you cry?" It's a rhetorical question rather than anything else, but Mark decides to keep his comment for himself.
Derek lifts his gaze and almost glares at her and Mark wonders if it's always this way lately, because then he would understand why Addison feels guilty all the time. Then Derek looks away again, concentrates on taking of his coat and just mutters, "Did you?" and Mark wants to get up, because this is too much for him. When they were happy he could at least tell himself that it was better this way.
But Addison is standing before him, shouting, "Derek!" in a manner that glues him to the couch and makes Derek turn to her again immediately.
"What the hell is going on with you? And don't say nothing, because I know you and I know there is something." Her voice becomes a little softer at the end and yet Derek's upper lip jitters like Mark's seen it many times before. When his mother didn't allow him to go fishing with his father because he was getting over a sinus infection, when he stood next to his mother and sisters at the funeral shaking people's hands and trying to be valorous, when he came to him after his first big fight with Addison and they didn't speak to each other for a week that seemed as long as a month, when he had to revive Amy.
Of course Addison's seen it before too, maybe even more often than him, who knows, and her hands are on Derek's cheeks in an instant, her eyes looking into his intensely. "Honey, what is going? You can tell me." She turns around shortly, glancing at Mark. "Or you can tell Mark. Or both of us."
Derek swallows hard and she adds with a painful seriousness and almost inaudible for Mark on the couch, "Please."
He buries his head in the crook of her neck then, the comfortable thing about having a tall wife is that you can actually do that, and takes a few deep breaths, his shoulders shuddering a little, his hands holding onto her tightly. Mark gets up from the couch carefully and grabs his leather jacket that is hanging over the armrest on his side. He has the feeling that he isn't needed any more and if it's important, as it seems to be, they will tell him anyway. Her eyes flicker up to him when he turns the knob of the heavy wooden front door, an unspoken thank you he knows, then he slips out into the dark November night. His watch says it's 11:42 pm, not quite his birthday yet. He was born around lunchtime.
In the house Derek is still sobbing into her neck and she isn't even sure if he's heard Mark leave. But that's okay, she can handle it. His tears.
Her fingers run through his inky hair, that's always felt a little wirier than it looks or a little less silky than you'd expect, but still smooth, and after a while she feels his lips against her skin and she really doesn't want to encourage him, but she also doesn't protest when his hands slide to her thighs and lift her up and carry her to the couch where she sobbed into Mark's shirt half an hour ago.
He pulls up the tee she's wearing, the tee that's gotten too small for him since he's started lifting weights once in a while, kissing the warm skin he unravels and she lets him, although if it was the other way around he would insist that she talked to him, she knows that from experience. But she feels that he needs this and he hardly needs her for anything any more and even though it's not the best idea, her body is already too focused on what he does to stop him.
Half an hour later she finds herself lying cuddled against him on their too-expensive-to-mention Persian carpet, her head on his pumping chest, his tears and her sweat covering her skin. It was desperate and bittersweet somehow and she can't remember the last time they had fun-sex, but when his breathing's slowed down he clears his throat and she listens and that's the important thing.
He can't look at her as he explains, casts his eyes over the pattern of the carpet instead, too afraid what she might think of him as a doctor. But when he's finished it's his wife next to him, thoughtfully brushing her knuckles over his chest and kissing his armpit. Not a professional, just the woman he loves. Just Addie.
"It's never your fault to be human, Derek," she says and they call the police anonymously together.
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