I apologize that it took me so long to update! I had six pages or so written a while ago, and then school started and I really needed to update my other story, so this kind of fell to the wayside. This is a longer chapter to make up for it, though!

Also, huge thanks to everyone who reviewed!


The hospital lights were blinding. Addison tried her best not to squint as she made her way to the surgical patient wing. She was surprised that no one was giving her funny looks; to her, it seemed blatantly obvious that she was supremely hung over, but perhaps that was because she was experiencing it first-hand.

She'd taken a shower as soon as she'd gotten back to the Archfield, standing under the spray until the water ran from scalding hot to icy cold. She'd scrubbed herself until her skin was raw and pink like raw chicken, but no amount of cleaning could rid her of the sensation of griminess that accompanied a hangover. A few minutes were wasted contemplating her reflection—pale face, bloodshot eyes ringed with deep, bruise-like shadows, and all of it framed by limp, tangled, red locks—before she'd turned away, unable to look at it any longer.

Getting dressed—an endeavour that normally took at least a half hour—had barely taken more than a few minutes. Normally, her appearance was something that was carefully constructed every morning in a routine that took a couple of hours; it was something that she'd taken great pride in since she'd been a little girl and had over the years become a part of her reputation. When people heard her name, they expected her to appear looking immaculate. In light of recent events, however, her appearance had become something that she couldn't care less about. She'd grabbed the first clean clothes on top of her suitcase—which was still sitting on the floor in the middle of the room, fully packed—more preoccupied with getting to the hospital as quickly as she possibly could to relive last nights horrors with Derek and get his advice on what exactly she was supposed to do about the bloody mess she had landed herself in.

Thoughts of last night had caused icy tendrils of panic to creep out of the pit of Addison's stomach again. She hadn't even told Derek—who had become her closest confidante over the last few days—what had happened with Bizzy, or the fact that she was in love with Mark, and yet his wife and God-only-knew-who else knew about it. Stay calm, she's told herself. Derek's no stranger to getting himself into messes, especially messes concerning love. We'll be able to figure something out.

She wouldn't have bothered with makeup if it hadn't been so necessary to make her look something akin to human. Covering the signs of last night's shenanigans had taken more time than the shower and dressing put together, but within an hour, she'd been hurrying down the road to the hospital, hoping that a walk in the crisp, damp air would help her to think.

It hadn't, but—coupled with the pair of aspirin she'd downed on her way out—had lessened the pounding headache, making her feel a little bit less miserable, so that now, as she arrived at Derek's room, she felt that she'd at least be able to make sensible conversation without feeling the desire to turn out all the lights and bury her head in her hands.

"Interesting evening, was it, Addie?" Derek, propped up in his bed, arm encased in a cast, grinned. He was doing markedly better, and was most likely going to regain full function of his hand. Callie had even hinted at the possibility of him being able to go home in a few days.

Apparently, being in a could-have-been-fatal plane crash and getting stranded in the woods for two days with a severe injury, suffering malnutrition and possibly losing all function in his hand hadn't damaged his ability to see through all the carefully constructed façades. Addison groaned, sinking into the chair beside Derek's bed and pushing her hair back from her face. "You don't know the half of it. Unless Meredith's already been by and enlightened you?"

He chuckled. "She came by a few minutes ago, looking definitely worse for wear, but she didn't say anything other than that she was pretty sure she'd drank more tequila last night than she has in the last three years. Which is a pretty impressive feat, even for her."

Addison chuckled, though secretly, she was incredibly relieved. Derek didn't know anything, which was both a blessing and a curse. Sure, she wanted to tell him herself and not have him finding out from another possibly more biased source—like his wife—but at the same time, it would have been nice not to have to voice all her misadventures out loud again. "Yeah, well, I think that's a statement that can apply to all of us."

Derek's eyebrows arched upwards. "Oh really?"

She sighed, rubbing her eyes, in the hopes that they would stop aching. "Let's just say that I won't be drinking anything for a long time."

There was a pause. Derek was obviously waiting for more details about last night, having gotten none from Meredith and plenty of implication from Addison. One of the things he loved, when not partaking in drunken debauchery himself, was tales of drunken nights out on the town. It was one of the few reasons that he still went drinking with Mark; there were always great stories to tell afterwards. Not that Mark got drunk that often anymore. Middle age had a tendency to sap the party life out of you. Addison, on the other hand, wasn't so sure that she wanted to say anything. The overpowering need to confess to Derek exactly what she had done—or more importantly, what she had said—under the influence had evaporated somewhat now that the time had actually come to confess. It was so much nicer to just keep all these things to herself. It was better when nobody else knew about her inner turmoil.

She twisted her fingers together nervously in her lap, focusing all her attention on the way the digits wrapped around each other, knuckles white with tension. There were words buzzing around her brain like flies, chasing each other in dizzying circles. I'm in love with Mark. I told a bunch of virtual strangers—including your wife—about what happened to my mom, something that half the people I work with don't even know about. I'm in love with Mark. Sam is coming here with my son, and I don't know what I'm going to do when he gets here. Sam loves me and wants to marry me, but I haven't said yes to his proposal yet—even though I've been badgering him about it for a while now—because I've become painfully aware yet again that I'm in love with Mark. Jake's in love with me too, and he and Sam don't exactly get along, but none of that matters because I'm in love with Mark. Lexie's dead, and Mark wants to die, and I'm terrified that he will because I don't know what I'll do without him. I'm in love with Mark. She was going to go crazy if she didn't say something soon, but all the words were stuck in her throat and she couldn't make sense of her thoughts for long enough to actually come up with a coherent sentence. Which was going to very shortly become a problem because Sam was coming and Callie knew about Mark and would probably run into Sam at some point, and could—highly unlikely, but still possible—tell him about Mark. Which would have disastrous results. And even if Callie said nothing, there was still the fact that Addison was a mess, physically, mentally, and emotionally, and couldn't still be that way when Sam arrived, unless she wanted to find herself on the first plane back to L.A.

"You know, trying to turn your fingers into a pretzel is really going to do a number to your muscles. You wouldn't want to strain anything; it means you can't operate," Derek said seriously, startling Addison so much that she jumped a foot out of her chair, heart thumping in her chest like it might explode out of her ribcage. She smiled weakly, trying to pretend she wasn't a trembling, nervous wreck right now, and said, with as much seriousness as she could muster, "I've heard it helps prevent arthritis."

"Hm." He pretended to ponder this, as if she had just told him of a new method for treating aneurysms. "Well, I suppose you'll be operating for many years yet then."

She knew what he was trying to do. He was trying to make her feel at ease, to lessen the tension that was threatening to stifle them both, and she commended him for his effort. She really did. He was good at that: changing the topic, distracting you with something light and witty so you'd forget about the big horrible thing that was threatening to crush you flat under its weight, but she wasn't sure that was going to work this time. There was simply too much...stuff inside. She felt like a volcano on the verge of eruption; before long everything was going to spew out of her whether she wanted it to or not, and when it did, it was going to be messy.

"It was awful," she blurted out suddenly, not able to keep silent any longer. "We all got so drunk, and we were playing this game where you had to try and prove that your life was worse than everyone else's and so I said all these things because I was drunk and I was trying to win and—" she broke off, gasping, realizing, to her great embarrassment, that she was on the verge of tears. Hastily, she looked away, rubbing her face in the hopes of removing any traces of tears, only to realize after the fact that she was ruining the carefully all that carefully applied makeup. The knowledge made her want to cry even more.

Derek's face was full of sympathy. "Slow down, Addie," he said gently, reaching out to rub her arm clumsily, the railing on the bed impeding his progress slightly.

Addison took a deep breath, trying very hard to not fall apart completely. "I just lost total control of myself, and all these things were just coming out of my mouth before I even realized...things that no one was ever supposed to know, least of all people like Meredith! No offense," she added hastily.
"None taken. You and Meredith don't have the greatest track record."

"Yeah." She laughed shakily. "No kidding."

There was another long silence. Addison knew the onus was on her to talk, but she wasn't exactly sure how to say what needed to be said. They were delicate issues, especially when told to someone like Derek; he had known her mother after all, and had had no inkling to what Bizzy Forbes Montgomery had really been like, and he'd been on the receiving end of the warpath caused by her love for Mark. The revelation could easily shed new—and unfavourable—light on her affair, though the fact still remained that she had left Mark for Derek, no matter how much she had loved either of them. And she had loved both of them. It was just that she had loved Mark more.

"I'm in love with Mark."

The words came out as barely more than a whisper, and hung ominously over them for a moment.

"Ah." Derek's face was unreadable, which was infuriating. Addison wished he would have some kind of reaction, even if it were anger or disgust. Something was better than nothing.

More than anything, she wanted to know if this surprised him, or if it was something he had known all along. The three of them used to be great at figuring things out about each other before they had even figured it out themselves: she'd figured out that Derek was never going to love her because he was in love with Meredith long before he admitted it to himself; Derek had known things wouldn't work out between her and Mark before she had realized it was best to just give up; Mark had known the marriage between her and Derek was over long before the two of them realized it had even begun to fall apart. She wondered if that ability was still there, or if this piece of news had caught Derek completely off-guard.

She wished he would say something, give her some indication as to what this news meant to him because his silence was driving her crazy, and the last thing she needed right now was more things to make her crazy. She already had enough of them as it was. Had she been telling him this five years ago, she'd have known the reaction she was going to get: contempt, with faint lacings of anger and disgust. And bitterness. There'd be a lot of bitterness. Had she mentioned it a couple of years ago, she would have been met with relief that someone sensible had come along to end to legacy of Mark the Man-whore. Now, though, she wasn't sure. She knew that Derek and Mark had rekindled all of that old best-friend-brotherliness that they'd always had—not that she hadn't expected them to—but she and he had sort of...drifted. Their lives were moving in two separate directions, and they hadn't really kept in touch. She'd hoped when Amelia come out to L.A. that she'd be able to get more scoop about how the boys in Seattle were faring, but to say that Derek kept in touch with his sisters was stretching the truth by impossible means, and if he were hypothetically to call one of them once in a blue moon, Amy wouldn't be the lucky one. There had been brief contact a few months back when Charlotte and Cooper had taken Erica and Mason down to Seattle so that Derek could remove her tumour, but all she'd heard about him then was what he'd done in the OR. It seemed he and Amy hadn't wasted a lot of time getting caught up. Besides, Amy had been more interested in talking about Lexie—a topic that Addison had no real interest in pursuing—than making speculations about her brother's welfare. Sure, they may have rekindled their friendship in the last week, but not enough for her to be able to glean anything about how he might respond to this news. Mostly because she sharing this news with him wasn't an idea that had ever entered her head.

"And now Sam's coming. With Henry," she continued, wondering if elaborating upon the problem was going to get her some kind of response.

"Sam?" Derek repeated, as if he hadn't heard her properly. "Sam Bennett?"

"Yes," Addison said, attempting to conceal the frustration creeping into her voice. How many other Sams did they know? "Their flight gets in later today."

"Oh."

She really wanted to throttle him right about now. The lack of facial expression and monosyllabic answers were really not helping the situation. She'd come to him hoping to get some advice on how to sort out the mess that had become her life, and he couldn't even string together a complete sentence. Was it really that bad?

"And Lexie's dead, so..." Whatever words had been forming in her brain to vanish that sentence vanished, if ever they'd existed at all. The death of Lexie Grey was still something she didn't like thinking about, let alone discussing with someone as closely connected to it as Derek. Especially in light of recent confessions about her love for Mark. She didn't want him thinking that she was glad Lexie was dead. She wasn't. The death of Lexie had turned her life into a living hell that she had no idea how to get out of.

A flash of pain crossed Derek's face at the mention of Lexie's death, and Addison felt a pang of guilt for even bringing it up. She'd been more than just a resident to him; she was his sister-in-law. She'd lived in his house. Been the go-to babysitter whenever they wanted to go out. She'd had so much promise, so much potential, all of which had been robbed from her. And Derek—her teacher and her brother—suffered more than the rest as a result.

His grief couldn't be compared to Meredith or Thatcher or Mark's, but it was substantially more than anything Addison might be feeling—and most of what she was feeling was more related to Mark's reaction to Lexie's death than actually grief.

"I'm sorry," she mumbled, wishing he would say something, instead of just sitting there—though it was really more like lying there; he only looked like he was sitting because his bed was elevated—with an expression of incurable agony on his face, like someone had just punched him in the gut. "I shouldn't have—I'm sorry."

She felt clumsy and awkward, which were two things she wasn't used to feeling ever. She was calm, cool, in control, always prepared and put together. Very few things fazed Addison Montgomery. Her life had always been slightly messy, especially when it came to men—there often seemed to be more than one man vying for her love, whether she wanted them there or not—and she was used to dealing with complicated affairs of the heart. She'd weathered many a break-up over the years, and had learned that broken hearts weren't actually as bad as some people made them out to be. In the last week, however, her life had been completely turned on its head, and the messes that she was normally so used to dealing with multiplied in size and heaped themselves on top of each other until she was drowning in a sea of chaos and disaster, the island of calm and in control nothing more than a speck in the distance.

"It's fine," Derek said, after taking a minute to pull himself back together. "It wasn't your fault."

Calm and collected Addison would have scoffed at this and stated plainly that it couldn't be her fault. She hadn't known Lexie at all, and had no control over the plane crashing. Drowning-in-disaster Addison was simply relieved that Derek didn't think that she had wanted Lexie to die.

"I know, I just...I want to be able to do something to help him. I hate sitting here not being able to do anything." She leaned back in the chair and expelled a deep breath, the feeling of drowning beginning to lessen. She wasn't foolish enough to think that it wouldn't be back with a vengeance, but at least she was treading water for now.

"I know. I hate it too," he said wearily, and she realized how hard all of this must be for him. He had lost his sister-in-law; almost lost his life; couldn't do anything to help his best friend grieve the loss of the love of his life; and might possibly lose the function of his hand and therefore his career.

The guilt began to lap at her in waves. She'd been so focused on her own mountain of problems that she hadn't bothered to think about anyone else's. Derek was drowning in problems too, and most of them were a lot more serious than hers. It made her feel shallow and self-centred.

She reached out and touched his arm, hoping to offer some comfort. "Your hand is going to get better, Derek. This isn't the end for you."

He smiled feebly. "Callie seems to be fairly confident that it will heal in time. So I should operate again sometime in the future." The implication in his words was clear: he'd operate again eventually, but depending on how long it took him to recover, his career might not be salvageable. Addison wished she had some sort of reassuring response that wouldn't seem fake or falsely cheerful, but reassurance wasn't really something that she could give out right now, not when she so desperately needed it herself.

"I take it there's something going on between you and Sam." Derek's voice broke the silence. "Otherwise he wouldn't be coming all the way out here, and even if he were, it wouldn't be such a big deal."

"He could just be coming out to see you and Mark. He's your friend too, you know," Addison protested feebly, parroting the words Sam had said to her on the phone.

Derek snorted. "Addie, I haven't spoken to Sam Bennett since he came up when Archer had his surgery, and I'm pretty sure Mark hasn't either. We're hardly what I'd call friends."

"Right. Well it could happen. I mean, he could be trying to rekindle your relationship." The words sounded feeble even to her ears.

"But he's not. So there's something going on between you two."

Addison pinched the near-skin-tight denim encasing her thigh, watching the material stretch with reluctance as she tugged. Things between her and Sam were...To be honest, she couldn't really come up with an appropriate adjective. Complicated didn't even begin to describe it. And to try and explain all of this to Derek would be a long, drawn-out endeavour. "He asked me to marry him," she said finally.

"Wow."

"I told him I needed to think about it," she continued, seeing the questioning look on his face. "Things were...complicated at that time." Which is the understatement of the century. "And then Richard called to tell me about Mark and things just...got more complicated."

Derek chuckled softly, as if laughing at some private joke. "No kidding." He paused for a moment, considering all this information, and then said, "When it comes to matters of the heart, Fate doesn't seem to want to make it easy for us, does it?"

Addison laughed. It came out breathily, almost like a gasp. "Yeah. We're like the Three Musketeers of romantic misfortune."

He grinned. "But by that same token, if you look at me, it means that everything will eventually work out for you and Mark. Fate won't give you a crappy hand forever."

"Try telling that to Mark."

Derek mouth twitched, but his face quickly became more serious. "Do you love him, Addie?"

She didn't need to ask whom he was talking about. "I do. But not as much as I'll ever love him."

Derek didn't need any clarification as to whom she was referring to. "Then you can't marry him. You can't do that to yourself again. Besides, Mark's going to need you, whether he wants to admit it or not."

"I know," she said quietly. She'd known it for a while now, she was just still trying to figure out how she was going to tell Sam that the answer to the question she had been hounding him to ask her for nearly a year was no. "It's just, well, I've been waiting for him to ask me for so long, but now..." Now the thought of spending her life with anyone other than Mark made her feel slightly queasy.

"It has to be done though," he said gently, and, looking at his face, she remembered that he had been in the exact same position six years ago when he had told her that it their marriage was over. He hadn't wanted to hurt her, but he knew that he couldn't stay with her when he was so in love with Meredith.

"Yeah," she mumbled, not wanting to think about it anymore. After a moment, she got up, collecting her purse from where she'd left it on the floor. "I should probably head out. Your mom will be here soon."

"He loved you, you know."

Derek's words stopped Addison in her tracks. She wanted to turn and face him, but she couldn't bring herself to do it.

"He told me when you left. I didn't want to hear it at the time, but he was so broken that you left, that you broke that pact or whatever that you had, that he didn't really care. He never cheated on you, but he knew you did, and because he loved you, he was big enough to let you go. At the time, it was the most selfless thing he'd ever done. But he did love you."

Addie didn't know what to say. She'd been waiting to hear these words forever, and now...well, now knowing was almost worse. Now that she knew she could have had a chance with him, if only she'd been willing to stay, then she might not be in this position. She might be married to Mark, with a baby or two, or none, but at least the two of them would be together. The knowledge that she could have single-handedly screwed her only chance at happiness made her sick.

Swallowing the lump in her throat, she walked away without saying anything.


They had given him lunch.

It was the first time he'd been able to eat solid food since the surgery. The nurse had brought it in on a plastic tray: a couple slices of toast, looking definitely worse-for-wear, and a cup of strawberry Jell-O. Mark wasn't sure why they'd bothered; it was no secret that hospital food was absolute crap, and Mark being a doctor knew without a doubt just how unappetizing it was. The Jell-O might have been edible—it was said to be pretty good, as far as hospital food went—had it not been strawberry, the same scent as Lexie's shampoo. Just smelling the sickly-sweet scent of the artificial strawberry flavouring made him sick with longing.

His stomach—traitorous organ that it was—rumbled, anxiously anticipating being fed. His mind, however, was sickened at the thought of eating anything, especially the Jell-O. Closing his eyes briefly, he pushed the tray further away, ignoring any protests from his stomach.

"Somehow, I find it hard to believe you aren't hungry. I mean I know hospital food isn't great, but one would think that anything is good to an empty stomach."

Mark looked up, startled, to see Addison leaning casually in the doorway, smiling. To an outsider, she appeared no different from her usual self: impeccably—albeit casually—dressed and made-up, hair out of the way, relaxed and in control. He, however—being someone who knew her much better than most—could see the subtle differences: her oversized, beige cashmere cardigan was one she only ever wore when she sick or upset—she said because it was so soft and warm; like a hug—the jeans were one of her "around the house" pairs, and therefore not normally worn in public; her ponytail wasn't perfectly sleek or centred, a sign that it had been done without a brush and mirror—she'd probably put it up just now—and every pore seemed to ooze exhaustion and hopelessness, accented by the bags under her eyes and unnatural pallor to her complexion. She'd become a master at pretending to be fine, though she had never been able to fool him or Derek.

He didn't want to answer her question. His resolution to talk to her and seek advice about how to deal with this all-consuming grief hadn't wavered, but it wasn't necessarily something that he wanted to delve right into now. All he wanted right now was to stop thinking about Lexie. He needed a distraction, and Addison had proved to be an excellent one. If he made the conversation entirely about her, though, she'd be suspicious. He'd have to do it subtly.

"Well, you hungry?" he asked, managing a small smile, a shadow of its former glory.

She frowned slightly, though the way her green eyes narrowed in on the tray contemplatively told him that she was seriously considering it. "I'm not the one who needs nourishment. You just had major surgery, Mark. You have to take care of yourself." There was a hint of panic in her voice, further betraying the image of calm and cool she was so desperately trying to project. Was she afraid he was going to die on her? He wasn't sure, but he knew her well enough to know that there was something going on.

"Which is exactly why I shouldn't be eating this," he argued. "You know as well as I do that hospital food is about as far from nutritious as you can get."

Addison bit the inside of her lip gently, a nervous habit he had picked up on a couple months after they met by noticing that her bottom lip sucked in slightly every time she was stressed. She was obviously seriously considering his words, but wasn't seeing an alternative way to get food into him. "You can't go without eating."

"I won't," he replied calmly, though she didn't look particularly convinced. There were advantages and disadvantages to knowing each other so well. Sure, he knew exactly how to play her to get what he wanted, but she knew when he was playing her. It often came down to whose will was stronger. Addison normally lost. "Look, if it's that big a deal to you, you can get me something from the cafeteria. I'll eat it. I promise." He glanced at her, face full of sincerity—though he wasn't entirely sure it was genuine yet—and he could see her reserve faltering.

"All right," she conceded, crossing the room and drawing up a chair at his bedside, a sure sign that the debate was over. "I'll go and get you some chicken soup later, okay?"

Perfect. Chicken soup was something Mark only ever ate when he was sick—which wasn't something that happened very often. It was a food that was not in any way Lexie-associated, and it wouldn't be too heavy on his stomach, either. "Deal."

Satisfied, Addison reached for the tray, pulling it onto her lap. "You're right, you know," she said, contemplating the toast slices, saturated with butter to the point of sogginess. "This is really disgusting."

"Well, one would think anything is good on an empty stomach," he replied cheekily, using her words against her.

She snorted. "Ha ha. I'm not that hungry, but it's a shame to see this food go to waste."

"Don't kid yourself, Addie. You and I both know that's not food. No sane person would want to eat this."

"Hundreds of patients eat this stuff every day. Some of them even love it." As if to demonstrate her point, Addison took a bite out of a toast slice. Mark tried not to chuckle as he watched her valiant attempt to disguise a grimace.

"Yeah, and I guess you're one of those people?" he teased.

She sighed, rolling her eyes. "Okay, so maybe it's not so great. The point is that you need to eat. And me eating your breakfast is not going to accomplish anything."

"I can survive a few more hours without any food," he replied, wishing that they could move on to something else. All this talk of food was making him ill. "Besides, I'm not even hungry."

Judging by the expression on her face, Addison didn't believe him at all, but she seemed willing to let it slide for his sake. "I say Teddy in the hallway. She told me that you're looking much better. In fact, she thinks you'll probably be able to go home in a week or so."

Just the thought of being home made Mark sick. His apartment was empty, a place were Lexie's ghost was everywhere, haunting him like an unwanted shadow. He'd go crazy if he had to spend day after day alone there. He could feel his chest constricting, as if someone was squeezing his heart in their fist. The sick feeling in his gut—begun by the plastic bowl full of Jell-O cubes—intensified, and he found himself yet again fighting the overwhelming urge to cry. It was too much. This was too much. If this was what it was always going to be like, then he didn't want to live, regardless of what Lexie might have wanted.

Was this what it had been like for Derek when Meredith drowned? Mark couldn't help but wonder. He'd seen his best friend at the time, sat with him in the hall and watched the man who was basically his brother fall to pieces, but they had never really talked about it. The drowning just wasn't something that ever got mentioned. He didn't even think Meredith and Derek talked about it.

"Mark?"

Addison reached forward and took his hand gently. Her fingers were soft, warm, and delightfully familiar; he couldn't help remarking the way their hands just seemed to fit together.

"I'm sorry," she said gently; thumb stroking the back of his hand absentmindedly. It was something she used to do all the time when she held his or Derek's hand; she didn't even seem to be aware of doing it. "I shouldn't have said anything."

Mark wanted to tell her it was fine, but the words got lost somewhere in his throat. She shouldn't have to feel guilty about saying things like that; she knew that he hated having to stay in the hospital and would probably be anxious to get out. And under any other circumstances, he would be. "I—" He tried to push the words out, but they wouldn't come.

"It's okay." She smiled, squeezing his hand in reassurance. "We'll just talk about something else, okay? You don't have to worry about it anymore."

He nodded, numbly, exceedingly grateful for her ability to understand what he couldn't say.

"Sam's coming down for a visit," Addison continued. Her light, conversational tone seemed slightly strained, and her smile didn't reach her eyes. Something was going on between her and Sam.

"Why?" Mark asked hoarsely. He didn't mean to be rude, but he couldn't understand why Sam Bennett would want to visit now. The last time he'd been in Seattle was when Archer had had his surgery; it wasn't like he and Derek and Mark were particularly close anymore.

Addison sighed, trying to smother her smile. "What is it with you two? Derek said the same thing when I told him."

A few months ago, this statement might have surprised Mark. It seemed, however, that since the accident, they had rekindled their old friendship. They all had. "Because it's the truth. I mean, come on, Addie. Sam and I haven't spoken in three years. Don't tell me he's gotten a sudden urge to come and say hi."

She blushed, free hand fiddling with the hem of her cardigan—further proof that something was up with her and Sam. "He is worried about you," she mumbled.

Mark coughed, pain flaring through his chest. "For old times' sake, maybe. I'm fine," he added, seeing Addison's concern as he tried to suppress further coughs. "He's not worried enough about us to fly all the way out here."

"I—"

"Addie?"

Both of them started: Addison jumping like she'd been shocked, and Mark moving just enough to cause his chest to ache again. Sam was standing in the doorway, surveying the scene with a mixture of concern and uncertainty. His hand was resting lightly on the handle of a stroller, a sight that made Mark's heart clench. Were they—?

"Sam." Addison's voice was strangled and almost panicked-sounding. "You're here."

Sam frowned slightly "Yeah. The flight got in early. Are you all right?"

She nodded, a little too quickly, managing a weak smile. Mark found himself wondering if Sam picked up on it the way he did. "You should have called me," she scolded, disentangling fingers from Mark's and getting to her feet. "I said I'd come and meet you."

Had he been his normal, obnoxious, ass-like self, Mark would have made a comment about her lack of vehicle, but the unpleasant surprise of Sam's arrival kept him silent. He wanted Addison to be happy, but the thought of her being taken bothered him immensely.

Sam shrugged. "It's fine. We stopped at the Archfield before heading over."

"Oh." There was a brief silence, in which Addison fiddled non-stop with the hem of her cardigan. She was a mess. "How's Henry?"

"He seems fine." Sam glanced at the occupant of the stroller fondly, and Mark's gut twisted uncomfortably. "He was great on the flight up."

Addison smiled, the first real smile Mark had seen since Sam arrived, crossing the room to the stroller. "Of course he was, isn't that right buddy? You're just such a good boy."

Mark closed his eyes briefly, hoping that this feeling would pass. It wasn't nearly as bad as the pain that accompanied memories of Lexie or reminders of her death, but it wasn't something he had expected to be feeling either. Lexie was the love of his life. There wasn't anyone else. So he shouldn't be feeling anything towards Sam. He shouldn't begrudge Addison her happiness.

Still, that stroller unsettled him. The baby was obviously hers. Hers and Sam's? It didn't make any sense to him. He knew that Addison had always dreamed of having kids, but the last time he remembered hearing about it, she was screaming about how she was thirty-nine and only had one egg left, so it seemed like her having a baby was highly unlikely. There was no denying the presence of the stroller, though.

"Mark?"

He opened his eyes slowly, hoping that this had all been some bizarre, morphine-addled kink of his brain. Addison was headed back towards the bed—albeit much slowly and more carefully than before—a bundle of blankets nestled in her arms. As he got closer, he could see a face peeping out of the bundle: small, round, pink, and peacefully asleep. He was beautiful, and looking at him made Mark slightly sick. A small voice whispered in the back of his head, He could have been yours. He tried very hard to ignore it. Those were memories he tended not to revisit.

"This is my son, Henry," Addison said gently, gazing at the small bundle in her arms with absolute adoration.

Mark closed his eyes again, hoping that when he opened them, everyone would be gone.


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