"Dad?"
He didn't move.
Sadie shifted her weight uncomfortably, and tried again.
"Dad?"
He didn't move, but the words "What is it, baby?" floated up from where he had his head cradled in his hands. Sadie chewed on her lip.
"I know this is kind of a bad time, but can I go get something to eat downstairs?"
Slowly, Derek brought his hands down from his face and let them lay slack on his thighs. He looked at Sadie in a way that frightened her, mostly because he looked so frightened. They were alone in his office after Dr. Bailey and Meredith had left, and until Sadie spoke, it had been silent.
"That's…fine. Just come right back up here after." He said softly, the distress and fear in his eyes never wavering. Sadie wanted to cry, so much so that her chest felt tight and her throat burned, but she decided that wouldn't help. Derek scrubbed at his face with his hands, and then averted his gaze out the window at the infinite city light below. So she swallowed, and turned as quickly as she could.
She made it about halfway down the corridor before the tears began running down her cheeks.
When she reached the elevator and depressed the down button, she stared intently at her reflection in the metal doors. It was slightly distorted and smudged, but she didn't care, because she couldn't see it. All she wanted to do was get away: get away from the surgical floor, away from that fear in her father's eyes.
After a few moments she averted her gaze from the doors to watch the round indicators above the doors as they lit in descending order, slowly blinking their way to the indicator with a 4 in the center.
When they finally opened, she was just about to step in when two nurses walked by and she heard mention of her mother's name.
Because they were whispering and had already walked by before she noticed, she could only catch a few words.
"Hemorrhage," "transfusion," "pre-term," and "fetal distress" was all she could catch after her mother's name. Fortunately, and unfortunately, they were all words she had heard before, mostly from her mother.
So instead of hitting the Ground floor button, Sadie hit the 7th floor button and took a deep breath as the elevator ascended.
As the doors slid almost ceremoniously open to reveal the neo-natal and maternity ward, Sadie clandestinely poked her head past the gaping mouth of the elevator and looked around. All that were present aside from the patients were two orderlies at the end of the hallway, and a nurse, who was on the telephone at a desk nearby filing her nails.
No one was supposed to be up here, she knew, but apparently security wasn't that tight. She crept along the wall, never averting her eyes from the distracted nurse, even when she stood up on her tiptoes to read the name of the patient on the chart.
She made it to the end of the hall, with no luck, and peered across the nurse's station at the two rooms remaining in the ward. She couldn't make it past the station without notifying the nurse of her presence, and getting caught snooping around would more than likely just upset her father even more.
Resolved, Sadie pouted slightly and turned to make her way back, when a voice spoke her name and made her freeze in her tracks.
"Sadie." Holly Carlisle said again when Sadie didn't respond. Sighing, Sadie turned to face the blonde.
"I'm sorry." She murmured sadly, on the brink of tears. "I was just…looking for my mom."
Expecting some sort of verbal admonishment and prompt removal, Sadie was startled when Holly smiled. Though, it was distinctly a smile of sadness.
"Well, if I take you to her, you can't tell anyone, and you have to be very quiet, okay?" Holly negotiated. Sadie nodded emphatically.
Holly looked around a bit, then silently gestured for Sadie to follow her.
They made their way across the taupe linoleum stealthily, towards the two rooms across from the nurses' station. Holly paused at the second door, looked around again, and then eased it open.
"Just a couple of minutes, okay, Sadie?" she whispered, and Sadie nodded.
When she entered the darkened room, the only thing louder than her own heartbeat in her ears was the sound of the heart monitor that glowed by the window. It had two green lines instead of one, which was odd, but Sadie didn't notice.
There was one light, a tiny little nightlight of sorts, plugged in next to the bed. It cast a weak yellow hue over Addison, as she lay on her side in the bed.
Her eyes were closed, and Sadie knew it was wrong, but in that moment she wanted nothing more than to wake her.
She looked pale, paler that ever, just as she had that morning, when Sadie had bound up the stairs into her parents bedroom. She had said "Mom!" a hundred times, at least, and when garnered with no response, she jumped into bed with Addison, who had been lying exactly like she was at the moment.
"Mom! Wake up! Dad's actually cooking!" she had prodded with delight. When again Addison didn't roll over or even speak, Sadie was about to reach over and muss her mother's hair when she felt the sticky heat through the blankets. Instead of her mother's hair, she tugged the tangled blankets up and saw the moisture to be blood. Her mother's blood.
In the movies she'd always seen, when the dumb characters accidentally stumble upon the bloody gore, they scream. But as she thought about it, she didn't scream at all. She had been too scared. She had felt on the outside like she was in a movie, but she knew if it was a movie, she would have screamed. The fact that she couldn't find her voice until she was downstairs scared her even more.
As she watched her mother sleep, now, she didn't stifle the little sobs that came out. She simply stood next to the bed, gently stroking Addison's hair with feather-light touches.
"Mom…" she whispered. But she didn't speak again. As much as she wanted to wake her mother up, just to hear her voice and see her eyes again, she didn't.
But after a few moments, Addison's eyes fluttered open. Sadie held her breath.
"Sadie?" Addison mumbled, weakly rubbing her face.
"Yeah…I'm sorry…I didn't mean to wake you up. Go back to sleep, Mom." Sadie implored through her tears. Becoming aware of her daughter's distress, even in her depleted state, Addison reached out and put her arm around Sadie.
"Honey, it's okay. Don't cry." She assured her, rubbing her back. But the sound of her voice, paper-thin and soft, made Sadie cry harder and mutter, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."
Finally, to end the crying, Addison edged back into the bed and tugged Sadie onto it.
"Honey, stop crying. You're going to make me cry," Addison whispered into Sadie's hair as she tucked her head under Addison's chin. Her effort to stop crying succeeded moments later.
As a small silence stretched out, Addison continued to run her fingers through Sadie's hair.
Finally recovered, Sadie was the first to speak.
"What happened, Mom?"
Addison closed her eyes. "I'm a little sick."
"That's what Dad said. But what are you sick with?"
"It's a lot of ugly medical words." Addison assured her, thinking of how foreign they had sounded when they had been explained to her, even though she used them several times a day. Of course, this had been a slightly exigent circumstance.
"Well…are you going to be okay?" Sadie's voice brought her back and she began to drift away. The blood loss had taken a toll on her ability to stay conscious.
"I…will be fine." She hoped sound had accompanied the motions of her mouth, but she couldn't be sure. A chill had settled over her, but she still felt the warmth radiating from Sadie.
"I'm scared. So is Dad. Real bad." Sadie muttered into Addison's chest.
"You don't have to be. This…this happens." Addison stopped fighting the pull for her to drift away. "Honey, I'm going…"
Sadie sat up. "Where?"
Addison forced her eyes to open. Sadie's face was only a few inches from hers, searching hers for answers, comfort, anything Addison could offer.
She took a long look at her daughter. Even though she was almost eleven, nearly a teenager, with long, layered hair and distinctly grown up features, in that moment Addison could see the face of the baby would looked up at her for the first time so long ago.
She had been so afraid during her pregnancy that she wouldn't feel a connection with her baby. Not until it could at least speak. How else could she connect with it? She never told anyone, even Derek, about this theory. She was still happy to have a baby, she just didn't picture herself as being one of those mothers who said, "The minute I saw him/her, I was in love!"
But, to her incredible surprise and awe, the moment the nurse laid Sadie's little squirming form onto Addison's chest and those blue eyes had struggled open and peered up at her, she felt everything, all at once. The connection, the love, and the responsibility. Only a few minutes old and not even aware of herself, Sadie had been searching Addison's face, looking, waiting. Aside from the essentials, like food and protection and comfort, Addison had seen a whole lot more in Sadie's expectant expression. She was waiting for Addison to show her everything—how to live, how to laugh, how to cry, how to be a good person, how to do everything. This new person had no idea how to do any of those things, and it was Addison's job to see to it that she found out. That responsibility, she discovered, was the greatest and most fragile one parents assumed.
As her eyelids became heavy and lowered slowly, blotting out the current image of Sadie, Addison hoped she had done a good enough job.
Okay…don't be too angry with me yet!
