So I have a couple chapters saved up from a writing spree last weekend - I'll be putting them up as time permits. So I won't disappear, and you won't forget me completely.
"You need to-"
"Don't tell me what I need to do." she snaps at the young intern; he retreats, looking hurt, and she feels momentary flash of regret. He's just doing his job. It's just that he's shy and nervous and the most logical target in the room for her rage.
She rips the cuff from her arm, watching the numbers die on the screen. Nancy glares at her as she slides off the examination table, hunting for her shoes.
"Addison Shepherd, what the hell is going on?" she demands as the babyfaced intern leaves the room at a forcedly slow pace.
"Nothing." she says with exaggerated calm. "BP's normal, blood sugars' normal, I'm just a little dehydrated."
"From puking your guts out?" she hisses back, and they stare at each other, each willing the other to back down. She knows that Nancy knows. It's their job to know.
It's just that until she admits it, it isn't real and she doesn't want it to be real because it would push this nightmare over the knife-edge of reality she's clinging desperately to.
"You need to - " she exhales frustratedly, running her fingers through her dark hair. "Addie. If you're - you need to slow down. Take care of yourself, for the -"
Baby?
It doesn't feel like a baby. It feels like a cold lump of terror inside of her, conceived in coldness and nurtured on wine and stolen cigarettes. She should be happy, glowing, proud. Excited. All she feels is sheer, white-hot fear instead.
It must have been...three months ago? It was hot and still that night, the air thick and sticky on her skin. She slept in an old t-shirt of his, he didn't bother with one. It was the first time in weeks that they went to bed at the same time, too tired to talk, silent, in their own worlds. She doesn't remember who intiated it; it might have been her, when she caught his eyes, held them with her own. It might have been him, when he kissed her, hard, like he was forcing her to remember.
He was gone the next morning, and that evening she kissed Mark as the heat broke in waves of rain, cascading against the windows of his office, muffling the sound of Amy's footsteps.
Just a kiss she told herself. Just a kiss.
They avoided each other for weeks, circling around each other in a blatant dance that Derek never noticed.
Amy left two weeks after that. Another secret she keeps. She flushed the pills she found down the toilet, dropping them in one by one. The ones from her root canal. The ones from Derek's shoulder sprain. She thought he'd thrown them out. She never asked.
She never told.
She lets a hand glance over her belly, lets herself imagine. A baby. What would that mean?
..
"Where have you two been?" Carolyn frowns, looking askance at them. "Addison, dear, are you all right?"
She looks alarmed now, rising to brush a cool hand against her clammy skin. The concern in her eyes turns her stomach.
I don't deserve you.
"She's fine." Nancy says brusquely. "I thought you went home."
"I came back." she says easily. Of course she did. He's her golden boy. He can do no wrong.
She knows, now, what Amy means when she calls herself the black sheep. She feels blacker than black right now, because this time, he has truly done nothing wrong. It wasn't his fault that she's a cheater who threw their vows away like so much trash. It wasn't his fault that Amrk was there, it wasn't his fault that she's weak, that she seeks fleeting pleasure to numb her pain. It wasn't his fault that he came home early that night. It wasn't his fault that he walked in on them.
Nothing that happened afterward was strictly his fault either. And now someone is dead and he may never operate again and Mark is eyeing her like she might explode and her stomach is knotting itself into ever-smaller twists.
What now?
She feels the secrets swell inside her, her betrayal and Amy and the baby. She feels like she might burst like a dam, spilling them for everyone to hear. Carolyn wouldn't be brushing back her hair, then, and Nancy - Nancy who knows something is off, but surely not exactly - wouldn't be whispering comforting words in her ear.
Mark. He's the only one who knows, and he's the only one not looking at her. He's looking at Derek, past the glass, through a gap in the uninspiring gray block-patterned curtains.
And Derek is looking back, and then his hand - the left, of course, and she's swallowed by a fresh wave of guilt - moves, beckoning him inside.
..
"When are you going to tell him?"
She knows. Of course she knows. She doesn't send her OB consults to her for no reason. She's good.
Another weight on her chest, crushing the air from her lungs. Nancy is flush with excitement, pictures of ultrasound scans and quaint announcements dancing in her eyes. One more person she has to disappoint.
"Oh, cmon, Addie." she whispers, her arm tight around her shoulders. She used to marvel at how easily they touched each other, the Shepherd sisters, their hair, jewelry, clothes, quick hugs, kisses. Casual displays of love that she'd never known. They swirled her into their whirlwind as well, and she delighted in every moment. Bizzy would think she'd lost her mind if she hugged her. Archer would complain she was ruining his outfit. The Captain - if he were ever around - would clear his throat gruffly and hurry away.
So she soaked in every bit. The shopping trips, the clothes sharing. The gossiping and the confidences. She watched their babies grow on screens, delivered them, babysat them. We have time she'd think with each squirming new addition. There's still time.
There's no time now, and if she spills her truth, this is what she stands to lose. What her - their - baby stands to lose. Because if she's sure of one thing, it's that Derek will love this child. He's that man. He will want this baby.
What he doesn't want is her. She imagines herself shut out, dropping off her child at an unfamiliar home every weekend, holidays maybe. Returning to an empty house, footsteps echoing in the chill air. A faceless woman creeps into the picture, standing beside Derek, mothering her child. Strangely, she is alone in this fantasy. Always, achingly, alone.
And so she lies. She will do what Derek wants- because she owes him, because she's too weak to admit the truth, because she's too greedy for this love, because she cannot stand to be left alone. She lies.
..
"What did he say?" she asks, hating how desperate she sounds. "Mark."
He looks blank, shell-shocked. "Nothing."
"Mark, please-"
"Addison." he says, his face carefully expressionless. "I can't do this. I don't understand how you can...but I can't."
"Wh-" she stutters, reeling. They've been talking for a while, maybe ten minutes. She has no idea what Derek has said, but the way Mark looks at her...she shivers a little under his icy gaze.
"How can you lie?" he snaps. "Look at them-" he gestures to Carolyn dozing with her head on Lizzie's shoulder. She smiles at them, eyes closing. She dragged her down to the cafeteria, made her eat what might have been cardboard or pasta for lunch. She tried to make her go home, get some rest. She kissed her pounding head.
She said it's going to be okay, dear.
"How can you lie to them?" he asks of her again, fingers digging into her sore arms. "I can't. You do it, you tell them, any way you want. Or-" She's never seen him look so torn, so anguished. "-So help me, I will."
He smiles when he sees her.
"I take it you've spoken to Mark." he says as she pulls the curtains shut. Double checks the door.
"I wish you'd done that last night." he says, looking amused. "Maybe I might have kept my eyesight."
"What did you tell Mark."
Her voice is flat with undeserved rage, trembling with the effort of keeping it low. She understands now, this game he's playing. This sick joke. This completely justified and utterly cruel revenge. Turning the ones who betrayed him against each other.
He raises an eyebrow at her tone. "Nothing."
"Derek Christopher Shepherd-"
"Don't." his eyes flash. "You don't get to ask questions anymore."
"Who the hell do you think you are-"
"So go ahead." he shrugs. "Tell them. Stop the lies. Tell them how you fucked my best friend in my bed, Addison, go ahead. While you're at it, tell them everything else. Where I was going, and why, and maybe everywhere else you two have been doing it, and everyone else you've been screwing-"
"Really, Derek?" she says, forcing her words past the heartbeat hammering in her throat. "While I'm at it, maybe I'll tell them I'm pregnant, too."
Too dark? Derek's like chocolate in this story- darker the better.
I'm having some twisted fun here.
Anyway, let me know what you think.
Also, more about Amy next time. Promise.