Title: In My Blood
Author: TeamMaddison
Disclaimer: If you are easily triggered you have been warned. This story deals with mature topics such as a mass shooting (just mentioned not in detail), the death of a child, attempted suicide, afterlife, arguing, parents dealing with the loss of their child in the best way that they know how.
Thank you for reading and reviewing! I Just realized that I need to edit a previous chapter to make the city they live in and timeline clearer. I will post it here as well. Seattle never happened. Addison slept with Mark. Derek left her. Addison stayed with Mark. Derek started dating Meredith. Addison never aborts Mark's baby (Heavenly) and Meredith ends up pregnant with Derek's baby (Willow) around the same time. Mark and Derek end up forgiving each other and becoming friends again. Addison and Meredith end up becoming friends. They live in Manhattan, New York.
Chapter 3:
*Marks POV*
December 2010
I wake up and rub my eyes, looking at the time on the alarm clock. 2 am.
"Hello?" I ask groggily answering my ringing phone. Derek. What could he possibly want at this time of the morning? Honestly, I haven't spoken to him much since Heavenly passed. It was too painful hearing him speak of Willow. They were best friends. My Heavenly and his Willow. They were both four years old. Born within a week of each other. I think back to how the girls bonded Addison and Meredith's friendship. I flashed back to all the playdates and slumber parties the girls shared. Back to all the time, we had spent together, like one big family. That all stopped when Heavenly passed away.
"Mark we need to talk. It's Important." There was urgency in his tone, and I hear Willow screaming something unintelligible in the background.
"Can't this wa-" I ask in an annoyed whisper. Addison stirred beside me but fell back to sleep easily.
"She won't stop screaming." He interrupted.
"What do you want me to do?" I get up from the bed, slowly, careful not to disturb her further. She had only started sleeping in the bedroom again the night I forced her to go to Central Park with me. She had distanced herself after Heavenly's funeral and had taken to sleeping on the bench seat by the window or in the guest bedroom. Having her back was an adjustment. Not a BAD adjustment per say, but an adjustment all the same.
"I knew you'd understand. Wake Addison up for me, will you? We'll be there in 5." Derek said quickly as Willows screams turned shriller and I could make out the words 'I want my Aunt Addison!' I groaned. This was exactly like Derek. Of course, he wouldn't consider that it is rude to call on someone at two in the morning. Especially someone you've barely said two words to in months. Still, I get up and get dressed before gently attempting to wake up Addison.
"What's going on?" She mumbles but doesn't move.
"I don't know. Meredith is out of town, and Derek is having some emergency with Willow. He needs our help." I say, gently shaking her shoulder.
"It's not an emergency." She said slowly opening her eyes and stretching, pulling the covers over her head to block out the light that I had turned on. "If it were an emergency he'd go to the hospital, not our brownstone."
"She was screaming for you Addison," I say. She thinks on this a minute, and something I can't quite place registers in her eyes, but she gets up and slips her Yale hoody on over her tank top just as Derek came through the front door, carrying a still screaming Willow in his arms.
*ADDISON's POV*
Something about the sound of her screams cuts through the numbness that has become my life and a little sliver of the old me surfaces. When she sees me, she wiggles out of her daddy's arms, running to me. I kneel down to her level, and she hugs me tight, burying her face in my hoodie. I hug her back, stiffly, at first, but then I allow my body to relax and embrace her tiny frame.
"I'm sorry about this Addison," Derek says, and I look up at him, tears shining in his eyes. "I know it must be difficult seeing Willow after-" He trailed off looking around, his eyes fell on a picture of Heavenly and Willow on Halloween. They were obsessed with the Disney movie "The Princess and The Frog.". They had insisted on dressing up like the best friends Tiana and Charlotte. "She saved her." He sat down on the window seat, looking out at the busy New York lights.
"What are you talking about?" Mark asks…. Moving closer to Derek, but I stayed where I was, gently stroking Willows long Dark hair. So much like her fathers'. She is almost asleep in my arms when she looks up at my eyes wide.
"Heavenly saved me from the bad man." Her voice was quiet and trembling. I look from her to Derek questioningly. Panic is suddenly overtaking me at what I am about to hear.
"She's telling the truth," Derek said carefully. "We never knew exactly what happened. Today is the first day she's spoken to anyone since she lost Heavenly. We just came from the hospital. I demanded to see the surveillance footage from that day. " He looked down unable to make eye contact with me. I had gone to a sitting position on the floor under the weight of Willow. I'm not as strong as I used to be.
"Do you want to tell me what happened?" I asked her carefully. She nodded but didn't say anything else, just resting on me until Mark and Derek went to the kitchen to make themselves some coffee. I almost think she's fallen asleep when she gets up and goes over to the window seat. How many hours/days / weeks had the girls spent together playing in that window? Too many to count. At some point, Meredith and I had begun thinking of ourselves as 'second mommies' to each other's girls. I sit next to her, and she cuddles close again. Pulling the blue blanket up around her. We sit like that for a while. Watching the cars go by before she speaks again.
"The bad man knew my name. "She started simply, curling as close to me as she could get. "He called me to him, but Heavenly saw his gun. She pushed me out of the way." I begin to cry, almost not believing what I was hearing. "She fell, and she wouldn't wake up. I didn't know what to do." She was whimpering now, and I find myself comforting her.
"Willow it's not your fault. You're just a little girl. There's nothing you could do baby." I try to keep my tone light, but my heart breaks and suddenly an overwhelming guilt fills me. I never called to check on her. I never stopped by. After Heavenly's death I physically couldn't force myself to make that call. I couldn't go by their house and see her. It was just too painful. I delivered this little girl. She was born in the guest room just down the hall, Derek and Mark were on an unavoidable medical conference out of town. Meredith showed up in the middle of the night, in full heavy labor and terrified. I was the first one to hold Willow as she came into this world, I cleaned her off and wrapped her in one of the receiving blankets I had bought for Heavenly. I gently placed her on her mother's chest. We spent our maternity leave together obsessing breastfeeding and baby- carriers, binge-watching Netflix on Facetime on those nights that neither of the babies would sleep. We spent the weekends together and their birthdays and celebrated milestones. They played at the park and we had trips to the zoo, they were almost always over at each other's homes. Every other weekend Mark and I would have both girls so Derek and Meredith could have some time. Then they did the same for us the other weekends. Our girls did ballet together from the time they could walk. They were BEST FRIENDS throughout the early learning program the hospital daycare provided. They did everything together. You never saw one without the other. Until that day. She is too upset to talk anymore, so I sit there cuddling her and soothing her until her eyes grow heavy once more.
"I wish I would have died too." She said her voice eerily final, as if her mind was made up just as Derek and Mark walk back into the room, I sit up straighter and move her so that she is facing me.
"Willow doesn't say that. NEVER say that." Tears are falling; my hands are shaking as I take her face and gently lift it up so that she is looking at me. "Do you understand me? I love you, and I am so thankful that the bad man didn't hurt you too." My voice trembling at the sudden thought of losing her as well too overwhelming.
"Yes, ma'am." She says dully, but I know that look in her eyes all too well, and it scared me. It's the look earned when everything you think you love in the world has been lost. The look of depression and desperation. The look of numb. I nod at her, and she rests her head on me popping her thumb in her mouth and suckling for a few moments quietly before she fell asleep.
We sit there watching her sleep before finally, I break the ice.
"How long has she been like this?"
"Since that day." Derek looked at me, saddened. "Meredith and I took her to doctors and specialists and ran every test imaginable. They all said the same thing. When faced with a traumatic event children cope in whatever way they can to try and block out the trauma."
"That's bullshit…" I said, even know I knew it wasn't. "She needs help."
"She needs you." Derek countered. "Meredith and I… we want you in our lives. In Willows life."
"What could I possibly offer Willow that you can't?"
"Hope," Derek said carefully. "She didn't only lose Willow that day. She lost you too." He walked over to us and caressed my cheek. I look up at him and took a deep breath trying to keep the tears from falling all over again.
"I'm broken, Derek. I can't help her."
"She spoke for you. For the first time in months, I was able to hear my baby's voice. Wanting you prompted her to speak for the first time in MONTHS."
"I think you need each other," Mark said quietly, and without knowing my reasonings, I agree.
"What if I screw her up?" I ask wearily. "I'm not ready. It's too soon."
"You love her like she is your own. I know, because Meredith felt the same way about Heavenly." Derek said sadly. "I know you won't hurt her."
"I've missed her," I admit smiling slightly. It felt strange, like a skill that I've lost long ago.
"I know," Derek said. "Mark's right. You need each other."
Thank you for reading everyone! Please review if you have the time. I had to fit this in. I think it is important for both Willow and Addison to be able to grieve Heavenly. They both loved her fiercely. Maybe they are just the team to help each other through in ways that everyone else can't.