Perfume and Promises

A Private Practice fic by Gigi

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Except Season 1 on DVD.

Chapter 7: I Feel Everything

A/N: Wow, it's been an embarrassingly long time since I've updated this story! I'm sorry, guys! Thank cacooly and BandB4ever for reviewing yesterday and making me remember why I loved writing this fic. This one's a shortie, but enjoy!

Addison trudged back to the practice after her disastrous lunch with Mark, still trying to process everything that had gone wrong with that conversation. She felt numb inside. She shouldn't feel numb. Shouldn't the fact that she was having a baby keep her happy despite the fact that her best friend and ex-boyfriend almost certainly hated her?

Stopping dead in the doorway of her office, Addison gave herself a sizable whack in the forehead. How could she be such an idiot? She hadn't even told Pete about the test result and yet she'd already spilled it to Mark?

A headache was fast approaching, and quite frankly, there was no way Addison could deal with patients at the moment. She glanced at the clock and heaved a great sigh of relief at seeing she had a good hour to kill until her next patient arrived. Deciding to take full advantage of that hour, Addison dropped her bags off next to the couch and promptly plopped down onto it, burying her head in the soft pillows. What she needed right then was a nice, long nap.

Too bad she wasn't going to get it.

Naomi burst through the door of Addison's office literally three seconds after the redhead had shut her eyes in the hopes of some respite. Addison groaned into the pillow, but her best friend was not to be discouraged. "I take it the lunch didn't go well?" Naomi observed as she walked over to the couch and tugged Addison up by her arm.

"No, it did not," Addison mumbled. "What are you doing?" She had given up resisting the woman's efforts to move her from the couch and now stumbled along out the office and into an examination room.

"You, of all people, should know what I'm doing," Naomi replied wryly. She pulled Addison into the room and closed the door behind them, making sure the blinds were closed before she pointed to the table. "Lay down and pull up your shirt."

Far too tired even to protest, Addison allowed herself to be hustled onto the table, and before she knew it, Naomi was squirting ice-cold jelly onto her flat stomach. "It was awful, Nae," Addison exhaled, not bothering to twist her head to see the monitor. She trusted Naomi, and she needed to get used to not being the one reading the sonograms or doing anything else with this pregnancy besides pushing out a baby. "Mark is dating a twelve-year-old."

The wand in Naomi's hand froze halfway to Addison's stomach. "Why does that make for an awful lunch? You're over him and with Pete," she stressed.

"No, no, that's not what made it so bad," Addison hastened to clarify. "It just started it. I guess I overreacted a little bit, because he said that Izzie Stevens is just like me only she actually wants him, which makes sense I guess. It's just that I guess I missed when he was still in love and chasing me, I don't know. All I know is that I accidentally let slip that I was pregnant, and it wasn't pretty."

Naomi's head whipped away from the monitor at that last sentence. "You told him you're pregnant?" she repeated in a somewhat strangled voice. "Have you even told Pete yet?"

Groaning, Addison brought her hands up to her head, covering her eyes. "No, and I feel terrible about that! And it didn't help that Mark got all offended that I want to keep this one when I aborted his, or the fact that he stormed off right after I told him," she finished. That headache had finally arrived, and it was taking the express lane on its way to making Addison's day just a little bit more miserable than it already was. When Naomi didn't say anything, Addison noticed a lack of movement on her stomach. Peeking out from underneath her hands, she saw her best friend looking apprehensively at the monitor. "What's wrong?"

"It looks like you got Mark upset for nothing," Naomi announced hesitantly.

Addison brought down her hands in shock. She couldn't say anything at first, and even after a few moments all she could say was a quiet, "What?"

"It might just be because it's so early on, but I think you got a false positive on your pregnancy test, Addie," she continued. She turned the monitor so Addison could see it. Addison wasted no time in craning her neck and peering into the screen, praying to see just a glimmer of an embryo, anything to indicate the presence of a future life.

"No," the redhead whispered. Tears sprung to her pale blue eyes, making them look like glass.

Naomi placed a comforting hand on her shoulder and offered her condolences, "I'm sorry, sweetie. I know how much you wanted this." Seeing the telltale signs of distress in Addison, Naomi quickly lifted her hand and began backing out of the room. "I'm going to go get Pete, okay?" Addison simply nodded in response, stubbornly refusing to let those tears escape her eyes.

Those tears remained in her eyes until those eyes fell upon Pete, who entered the examination room slowly and carefully. Judging from his expression, Naomi had filled him in on the gory details relating to the nonexistent pregnancy. He rushed to her side as soon as she let herself break down, hoisting himself up onto the table and cradling her in his arms.

"I…actually thought…I thought…" she cried into his chest.

Pete simply rubbed her back and tried to calm her down. "I know," he soothed. "I know you did."

A/N: Damn, this has been getting more and more emotional with each passing chapter! I miss the light and fluffies, because it's not as draining to write those. Anyway, I hope this will be enough to tide you over until the next installment. I will not know if it will tide you over, however, unless you do something I would like to call REVIEW!