Hey guys, I wanted to say that this probably will be my last update until Christmas break (two weeks). This was a lot of fun to write. My boring English classes definitely got better. My final grade is going to suffer though. :'(.

Chapter 9

"Dr. Montgomery-Shepherd?" George O'Malley walked into the hostpital room nervously and checked her chart awkwardly.

"Dr. O'Malley." She sniffled and wiped the tears from her face discreetly, "What brings you to my room?"

"I just wanted to check if you were alright," he answered honestly.

"I'm fine," she said stoically.

"Is there anything I can get for you?"

"Actually, yes. You could go get me a change in pillows. I would do it myself, but every time I move my stomach starts cramping and my back aches," she said quietly, "Sorry if you can't really hear me. Round Ligament Pain is starting pretty early and intensely in comparison to my normal patients, but I should be fine. It's probably because I got pregnant before," she took a shaky breath.

George walked forward to his attending, "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, can you get the pillows? The position I'm in right now is really painful."

"Yeah, of course. I'll be right back," he ran to the supply closet and brought an armful of pillows, "So, there's fir, extra firm, soft, and extra soft."

"Extra firm," he dropped the other pillows onto the seat and brought the extra firm pillow to her bedside, "Help me up," she ordered softly.

He put the pillow on her bed and wrapped his arm around her waist; Addison winced at the movement. She motioned for him to bring the pillow and place it behind her. He brought her slowly up closer to him and fluffed the pillow. She whimpered and grasped his coat tightly, suppressing the cried.

"Hey, it's going to be okay. Dr. Montgomery Shepherd, you're one of the strongest people I know. So many things are beyond out ability. So many things we can't understand like you got cancer, you got pregnant. But, this is something we can control okay? We can get your baby through to term and we can stop you cancer and we can control the pain, okay?" He held her hand, "We both believe in medicine. We're doctors. I know Dr. Shepherd and Dr. Sloan and this baby wil need you. SO, let's be strong okay? Let's believe in medicine,"

"She laughed softly, unable to roar with laughter; the RPL made her every move painful. "This is an eight. Right now, my pain level is an eight. When Derek holds me, it's a two. You know how much I need hi? I can't do that though. I can't love him so much that I can't live without him,: she started tearing up.

"Yes, you can. He's all yours to love and to cherish."

"Yeah right. I am still second to Meredith," she said disdainfully, "I don't hate her. It's not her fault. It's just that I need him but he's not mine to need or mine to love." I was scary that she revealed her insecurities to an intern that just happened to be a friend of her husband's love interest.

"Dr. Montgomery-Shepherd, I expected more of you."

She interrupted him, "Sorry, pregnant, cancer, and in pain here."

He continued, still holding her hand, "I expected you to be more confident in yourself. Do you know how beautiful you are? You are second to no one. I promise you that she has moved on and so has he. Dr. Shepherd was so worried this morning. He loves you. I swear to that."

"Thank you O'Malley."

"George, you can call me George."

"Okay George, you can call me Addison when we're not working."

"Addison, are you okay?" he asked sincerely.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Can you get Derek, I really need him here."

"Of course," quickly he motioned for the nurse to page Derek with "Addison" as the subject. Suddenly, his pager went off, "I have to go. 911 ER. Will you be okay? I paged Derek already."

"Yeah," she smiled, "Go."

"Mark, hi." Meredith bumped into her lover/sex friend/friend. She wasn't sure how to define him just yet.

"Meredith," he smirked, "On-Call Room?"

She ignored him, "Go talk to Addie," Meredith told Mark, "I talked to Derek. He's forgiven you: for Addison and he's okay with it."

"You call her Addie?" Mark inquired.

"No, I just got used to that. Derek was going on and on. He loves her so much; we obviously never had that. I wonder what happened. Mark, what the hell happened in New York?"

"So much happened; it's a long story." Mark answered with a sigh.

"You'll tell me eventually. You should talk to Addison though; maybe it's time to get your friends back. I think they'll need you now."

Mark agreed, "I'll talk to Addie. I want my friends back."

"Good."

"Are we still on for today?" Mark asked.

"Sure. As long as nothing big comes."

He smirked again, "We could always meet up in an on-call room." He walked away, leaving her smiling thinking of the amazing sex last night.

"Addie?" Mark entered the hospital room, "I missed you."

"Mark," she sighed, "go away."

He loved the pale redhead laying sick on the hospital bed, but he was furious at times, "So you leave across the world, get pregnant, get cancer and refuse to abort Derek's baby, endangering your own life. While we could have had this perfect life with a baby, but without even consulting me, you had an abortion. Addie, I love you so much, but what the hell are you doing?"

"Mark, I can't abort this baby. You understand that I have nothing to live for without this baby right? Derek doesn't love me anymore."

"What the fuck Addie. Derek is so in love with you. I know you want Derek's child. Butt, Addie, Derek and I will not have anything to live for without you." He walked closer to her and stroked the red hair lovingly.

"You'll have Christopher or Ella to live for." She placed her hand on top of his, "I need you to let Derek know he can survive without me if I'm gone. He's going to try to die; you have to stop him"

"Addie, we're not talking about this," he said, scared of the conversation about to unfold.

"You love me right?" He nodded, "Then we are talking about this. I love Derek; you knew that before. But, you are still my best friend. I love you too."

"Addie," he sighed, "Red, you can't do that though.

"Do what?" she asked, forcing him to admit the possibility.

"Red. You can't die."

"I might. I already know you won't do something stupid because you're Mark, "he kneeled to the ground besides her bed, gripping her hand like it was already good bye, "Derek is going to do something because he thinks he won't be able to live without me. He needs to live for Ella or Christopher though."

"When did you name it?"

"When I was a little girl dreaming of what I would do. There was always the handsome prince in shining armor marrying the beautiful princess. They would live happily ever after with two children, Ella and Christopher. When I met Derek, I knew he was the prince."

He pulled a chair to the bed and sat down, "Red."

"Mark, in a sense. I'm the luckiest girl in the world. I have two gorgeous men who both love me more than anything in this world: one who would die for me and the other who would live for me. I need you both to live."

He laughed, "To use your metaphor, you are our life source. We're going in circles. This is where we started."

"Mark. Promise me because Derek won't be okay that you will be okay. Promise me that you will stop Derek, that you will move on and push Derek to move on."

"Red," he said, glassy-eyed.

"Promise me Mark because I need you to."

"Red, I promise only if you promise me to try to live and if you see that light at the end of the tunnel, you stay the hell away from it."

"I promise," she said, tears leaking form the corners of her eyes, "I scared Mark."

"Me too, but let's not talk about that."

"Okay," she swallowed, "How's my manwhore doing?" he smield at her sad attempt at humor.

"Being an absolute idiot." He smirked sheepishly.

"Who did you sleep with now?" She asked, exasperated.

"No judgment?"

"No judgment." She affirmed.

"Derek and I have similar tastes."

"Oh my God. Oh my fucking god," she started laughing and cringing at the same time, "Dammit. Ouch."

"Red? Are you okay?" Mark asked worriedly.

"I'm okay: RLP, cramping, all in a day's work. How the hell did you two get together?"

"Well," he started, "we were talking about how if we were smarter or if we were less dark and twisty; maybe we would've had what you and Derek have. Then I asked her out and we went to Alexander's"

"Oh my goodness, you actually took her out? When was the last time you did that?" She asked surprised.

"It's been forever, maybe eight or nine months ago."

"That was me," she realized, stunned.

"I know," he said sadly, then continued, "she actually didn't want to got to a fancy restaurant and do the thing."

"What thing?"

"Dressing up, pretending to care, dinner. She wanted to have sex and I quote, "for appetizers, entre, and dessert,"

Addison laughed softly, "she sounds like your kind of girl."

"She is, I think."

"Mark, listen to me. If you like her that much, don't let Derek get in the way. If he really loves me, he won't give a crap."

"Mer already told Derek. She said that he said she might be able to tame me. Mer said that Derek was so worried about you; she wanted me to come tell you that it happened and to get my friends back," He smiled.

"I can't believe it; Mark the manwhore is falling for someone."

"Don't get too excited, both of us are dark and twisty. It probably won't work out seeing as we're using each other to get over the love of our lives."

"Mark," she said sadly.

"Red, I'm only telling you this as a friend; No one can compete with you."

"Mark," she said covering his hand with hers, "Thank you for being there."

He smiled again, "You're worth it."

"Stop is," she laughed, "Help me up, I need to use the restroom."

"I heard Derek was paged, why don't you wait for him?" he didn't want to break the rules of a fragile friendship.

"Mark," she whined, "I need to pee."

"Fine," he obliged, never being able to resist her. As he wrapped an arm around her waist, she winced for what seemed like the thousand time today, "You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm okay. Continue."

He helped her sit up in the bed and swung her feet over to the side of the bed, "Red? Can you stand?"

"I don't know," she admitted, "Just help me up, okay?"

"Okay," He wrapped her body within his arms and she shakily stood up, "so far, you're good?"

"Yeah, I'm fine."

"How much pain are you in from one to ten?"

She lied, "five" Really the cramping was extreme and she felt faint. Maybe it was around a nine.

They started inching towards the bathroom. Halfway across the room, Derek appeared in the doorway.

"Sorry that took so long, I saw your page like ten minutes after you sent it. Then I ran a red light and the damn policeman took like an eternity questioning me," he looked up and saw Mark and Addison together, wrapped in each other's arms. "Mark, you have ten seconds before I punch you to tell me why your arms are around my wife."

"Addie needs to pee and she can't walk."

"Does that give you the right to be smashed up against her?"

"Derek," Addison sighed, dizzy and short of breath, "Mark as just trying to help."

"Sorry," Mark added.

"I already forgave you. You are still my brother and best friend. I never really said thank you for being there when I wasn't. So," he continued awkwardly, "Thank you."

"Guys?" Addison called softly, swaying unsteadily.

"Addison!" Mark said, "I knew you couldn't wait to go but on my hands, really?" She went limp in his arms.

"Mark, that's blood. That's blood."

End of Chapter 9

So I know you all were a little bit sad about the lack of Addek in these last two chapters. I am really sorry about that; I kind of wanted to explore the dynamic of other characters and how they figure into the story. Also, I wanted to set the platform for a bigger Addie and Derek story than normal. I will be in hiding because of my last couple lines of this story, I can just tell. NOTE: The baby is not necessarily dead if there is bleeding.

What did you guys think of this chapter?

Love,

Shannon