Chapter 10 - Day 01
Day 01 : Alice in Wonderland. . .
"We can do anything now."
"Why?"
"Because we're free."
Seven Years Ago
If only Derek had paid more close attention in Professor Miller's lecture in college, he would've known all about the butterfly effect. He would've known what chaos theory is - the science of surprises, of the nonlinear and the unpredictable, the science that explains to expect the unexpected - and how even the smallest cause can have a larger effect, and that even the smallest act of rebellion, can change the course of things in the future.
But even if he had known coming home late tonight, ergo completely failing to meet his wife for their dinner plans would change his life forever, he still could not have made it home on time.
It all started with a key.
A little set of keys that he had forgotten up in his locker. Only realising them missing when he was already rummaging through his pockets at the parking lot. He groaned and cursed because it was basically a five minute walk back to the hospital.
And as he was rushing back upstairs to get them - so he could in turn quickly get into his car and not spend another evening arguing with his wife - a doctor, who worked with her, asked him for a consult on a pregnant woman who had just learned that her baby is anencephalic.
And after a much heated debate on him needing to be home in twenty minutes to watch the game since it was the playoffs season - oh, who was he kidding?
Because that just had to be the worst lie told by men to this date. It wasn't even April, to begin with. And for a neurosurgeon, who was suppose to be excellent at thinking on his feet, his was laughable. But it was a lie nevertheless needed to be told because Addison would have him executed if he'd, even by accident, aired out their dirty laundry to another doctor, let alone one that was in the same department as her. Because in everyone's eyes, they needed to be the perfect couple, the relationship everyone dreamed of having.
And he guess they were kind of and in a way the Brangelina of New York Presbyterian - they laughed, they smiled, they kissed in hallways, they lunched together and waited for each other whenever they can. She was his accessory and he was hers. They go together like two peas in a pod.
Oh, but Mark knew. He was the only doctor at the hospital who knew the truth about their seemingly perfect marriage.
And a few short minutes later, he found himself existing the elevator to obstetrics, hurriedly putting one foot in front of the other so he could quickly get the consult over and done with. Because, really, however hard it may be to believe, he still would like to be married by the end of the night. But regardless of the wrath and consequences he might have to face when he gets home, he's not about to let Dr. Sutorius steal his thunder.
Of course, his ego mattered more than his wife.
How else did he became one of New York's most sought out surgeons?
And once he was done consulting, he went back to the parking lot, only having to not remember to get what he went back up for in the place.
Shit!
He was already thirty minutes late, they would never make it to their reservations in time.
Shit! Shit!
And then, as if he wasn't already late enough, there was that rain that further slowed down traffic on 12th.
He swear the city streets were engineered to create traffic congestions, to slow down traffic just to annoy and mess with his life.
Shit! Shit! Shit!
Oh, and to make matters worser than worse, his phone ran out of battery, so he couldn't relied of his fate to Addison - that he'd be home late as usual once again.
Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit!
Nonetheless he made it home, almost two hours too late and parked out front. He felt so epically shitty as he climbed up those steps to their front door that he almost - just almost - wanted to turn back around so he could sit and cower in his car, and wait until the lights in their bedroom were turned off.
But he didn't do any of what instincts had told him to do. He wanted to make it up to her - needed to actually, because that pride thing he has going on, the one that's always stopping him from apologising when he knows he's at fault, is kind of ruining their marriage.
He turned the knob and pushed the door open, almost calling out a 'Honey, I'm home!', but of course he didn't because he sensed it.
He sensed it the moment he stepped into his own house. What? To be honest, he doesn't even know what he had sensed - just...it. A vibe. The ambience. A feeling. It was different. He doesn't really know what the it was. Or, more accurately, doesn't want to know what the it was.
But he was dead sure that something was off in his home. He felt it in his bones too.
And it all ended with him picking up Mark's leather jacket from his hardwood floor.
But that was further from different and out of place and ordinary because Mark is always leaving his things here and there and everywhere, and yet tonight the piece of clothing that was haphazardly laying on the bottom step of his staircase is all the same and ever so different altogether.
And then, in the darkness of his home with almost all the lights turned on, he heard it - sounds. Sounds that were crawling and chafing and slicing into his flesh, leaving him cold, infected and poisoning his blood too.
Two sets of sounds he has heard before but never together and in sync.
And he clutched the jacket in hand tighter, crescent shaped moon bled into the leather as he made his way upstairs.
The sounds were only getting cruelly evident and louder and louder when he got closer and closer.
Their bedroom.
His favourite sheets.
If it was anywhere else but on his favourite sheets, he thinks he might have just been fine with it and them breaking his soul and entire being.
"Seriously, Addison." It was all he could say as scene after scene panned out it slow motion. But the ache that hit him hard and fast was never-ending.
He opened the door to see too pale flesh on too pale flesh.
He blinked and blinked - oh, how he wished he was blind.
He heard Mark cursing, Addison shrieking.
He saw Mark rolled over, still cursing, while Addison grabbed the covers to hold it up to her chest.
He was still frozen standing by the doorway, watching a Mark scurry for his pants, watching an Addison bury into her hands, playing the victim as always, and at that moment, he wasn't thinking about what they had done, the utter betrayal, the shock and pain, he was actually contemplating what he ought to do next.
According to Hollywood, he should already be beating the fuck out of Mark, so much so that he sees God...And maybe, maybe his wife too.
Maybe.
He thought about it for another second too long before walking out.
He never was up to par with Hollywood standards anyway, but what he is is a person who runs. And that's exactly what he's doing.
He went outside for a run because...what else can he do?
He's a runner. Not a doer.
Maybe even a professional at it.
He felt nothing but pain in the wake of their seemingly perfect marriage.
They're done.
Years of being married together, gone, just like that. Their marriage ended with Mark.
They can't end, though.
Even through the numbness, it was head-throbbing heartache that he had felt. He felt nothing in everything and everything in nothing.
If he had known that that was what he would see when he opened the door to his bedroom, he wouldn't have opened it at all.
He would have done anything to save himself from having to actually witness that, to have that image singed forever into his brain and his heart. On the other hand, if he hadn't seen it with his own eyes and if someone had told him instead, he would've laughed, he wouldn't have believed it to be true.
That was something he had not seen coming.
Should he have?
But he had seen it anyway.
He didn't know and definitely knew at the same time. Perhaps he didn't want to know and believe what he was hearing and that's why he opened the door - to prove his auditory hallucinations wrong.
Tonight, he can't believe he actually planned on righting the wrongs he had done to his wife. He actually was going to apologise. He actually was going to try to be a better husband - oh, he's aware that he isn't the best.
The tables have turn, she's much much worse of a spouse than him.
And he only stopped sprinting when his legs began to burn and walked slowly back home.
He doesn't want to go back home, though.
So, what's the rush?
Mark was gone by the time he was back. Thank goodness he had the good sense to leave. He wasn't sure what he would do then. Addison was clothed. Thank goodness she had the brains to put on some clothes.
"Derek, I'm sorry."
He caught a glimpse her as he rushed past her, and he was instantly hit with a pang of queasiness.
He can't stand the sight of her.
"Please listen to me." Her cries were lost beneath the thunder that rolled overhead, like a prelude to a great song, impetuous rumbling permeating the air every bit as much as the heavy rain.
Oh, the irony.
"Derek."
He was stomping up the stairs very purposefully loud, so he wouldn't have to hear her voice - it's and she's itching the irritation out of him - each and every harsh step voiced his burning rage.
"Derek."
He can't even get himself to look at her - doesn't or couldn't or wouldn't - he doesn't know which but either way he does not dare give in. He'll vomit if he even so much as glimpse at her; his temper and stomach are churning relentlessly, so he opt to look right past as he marched for the closet.
"Derek! Derek! Derek, listen to me -" Her words were cut midway as a clap of thunder shook the blackened sky which only seemed to have pester and fuel his anger. A boom like that could only mean that the heavens above were about to let down a deluge of misery - he knows it to be true.
It rained heavily too the night his father was murdered.
God never liked him too.
"Listen to me. Derek, you can't do this. Please...We have to talk about this."
"No, we don't." he corrected her.
What is there to discuss about?
He saw it with his own eyes. He saw them and he's well aware of what that means. He doesn't need to know anything else other than for what he had witnessed.
"Give me a chance to explain." her voice shook with wary as she watched him reach into the closet.
She winced, then.
"Wait, Derek - What are you doing with my clothes? Derek!"
Her voice is so different, so high with panic.
And in one sharp movement, he had stripped and yanked all of the hangers off the closet.
"Derek, don't!"
And just as quickly, in another sharp motion, he detoured from her pleading form, silk and chiffon and cotton and lace all draped over his forearm. She reached out for him, in an absence of traction and he feels her fingers desperately clawing on his shoulder. He roughly shrugged and slapped her hand away.
"Don't you dare touch me with those hands, Addison! Don't you make me hit you!"
He won't. He will.
He doesn't want to. He wants to.
He would. He wouldn't.
He should. He shouldn't.
He can. He can't.
He couldn't. He could.
He won't. He won't.
Never.
She doesn't say anything further, only pressed her fingers to her lips to mask the gasp she voiced. She looks frightened, if her pupils were any indication.
Her melodrama only irritated him, but then, she was crying, which he hates. He rolled his eyes. And he hates her even more for that because even when she's clearly at fault here, she still manages to make him feel sorry for her.
Then, like the caustic pitter-patter of the roof above, time sped up again and he finds himself up and yanking the sheets altogether and fisting them with her clothes.
"Derek, please don't do this!"
He should've told her that yesterday. Begged her, even, to not end their marriage.
But he didn't know.
He didn't know she'd be a whore and fuck his best friend.
"It was one time. One time. Please listen. It just happened, Derek!"
With the evidence of her sin still heavy in his arms, he stopped and turned around to glare at her in this disbelief. And it's only then that he thinks she realised her mistake.
It just happened?
Nothing just happens when it involves Mark. It's just theoretically implausible since he's a sociopath; his existing moral compass is greatly and even dangerously skewed. He knows how his now-former best friend operates.
"I know that's what people say. I know that's what gets said - I don't know how it happened - I don't know what I was thinking. He was here -" And she immediately stopped her words right then and there, stopped digging herself a bigger grave. A bigger one because from the moment he walked into his house, she was dead to him.
He laughed a chuckle, not in any means of humour, "He was just here?" he just had to inhale as he repeated her statement, forcing much needed oxygen into his lungs. He can't breathe. "You screwed my best friend and all you can say is, 'He was just here.'?" he raised his voice, stomping to open the door so he could throw her fabrics into the pouring rain.
"I'm sorry, Derek. Please."
She was cowering on the step of their stairs when he turned back around to look at her.
He lowered his eyes to study her for a moment - the twisting white hands on the banister, the fearful and pleading bloodshot eyes looking up at him, the heaving collarbones and rhythmic chest cavity.
"Get out."
Confusion, or maybe it's a question, creased her forehead. She shook her head.
"No."
"Get. Out."
"No. No, I'm not going!" she shouted, trying to sound a lot more adamant and sure of herself than the strange voice that was breaking.
"Get out of my house now!"
Our house...
He can almost hear her defiant.
"Get out, Addison. Out."
He's fully prepared to drag her out himself. He doesn't want to have to resort to that. But he will - oh, he will - and she better believe that he will.
"We have to talk about this. I'm holding my ground." she pleaded, her hands holding the banister like her life depends on it.
He took a step towards her, and she backed against the wall, quivering and shaking her head, mumbling incoherents that doesn't reach him.
"Get. Out. Addison."
"Derek."
But he yanked at her arm and pulled her to her feet. Not too roughly, he must add - he really don't think he was, though she did stumble a little before she regained her balance and tried to stumble out of his grasp."I'm holding my ground, Derek." she cried and grabbed the banister again, "I'm holding my ground! We don't quit!"
Oh, but they do.
Addison-and-Derek do quit. They've checked out on one another a long time ago, and they didn't even notice that they have. Or they did noticed and just didn't want it to register in their heads.
Ignorants. Fools. Idiots.
"Derek, I'm sorry." she said again, her voice trembling, and that only made him clench her wrist tighter.
He wanted to hurt her, hurt her like she had hurt him. But he knows for a fact that if she does get hurt, if he were to hit her, it can never amount to the hurt he's in, he will only feel much more atrocious than he already feels.
"Derek..." Her tone bordered on begging now.
He took a deep breath, looked down at her hands and saw her rings glisten as they catch the light, and then he turned his face to look at her one last nauseating time.
She threw their marriage away for Mark.
Gripping her wrists with much intense and unnecessary force, "Get out." he repeated again and again and again and again as he pried and pulled each of her finger off the banister.
"Ow! Ow! Derek! What are you doing? Derek?" she screamed, pulling herself backwards, trying to hold onto something as he dragged her down the step and into the open foyer.
It wasn't easy, Addison is strong when she's determined, but he's biologically with the advantage. Remember? He's obviously stronger and the high with rage was only a bonus to his strength.
"Derek, no, no!"
She was inhaling in sharp gasps. He thinks she's forgotten how to breathe. He's forgotten too.
He couldn't care less about her anymore.
"Noooo!"
He flung open the door with one hand while she attempted to peel off his hand that has a death grip on her wrist.
"Derek, please don't do this -"
He could've told her that yesterday too. But he didn't know.
Remember?
And then he pushed into the rain. She didn't move, just stared with wide set of eyes at him. Most probably in shock that he'd just literally thrown her out.
"Ple-"
He doesn't wait. He slammed the door in her face, doesn't allow her to finish the word.
This was all wrong.
Throwing her into the threshold wasn't a piece of cake, Addison had put up one hell of a fight, he can prove and attest to that with the scratches and pricks of red on his arms. And he can also hear her outside, crying and begging and he leaned against the door, his forehead pressing the cool surface, breathing hard.
"Please. Derek."
She's banging at the door. It's vibrating against him.
This was all wrong.
She was not quiet at all, she was mercilessly loud, fists banging at the door, and he was surprised that their nosy and pretentious Upper East Side neighbours hadn't yet called 911.
"Derek!"
This was all wrong.
He's now slumped against the door, his back in support with the wood, still catching his breath and wondering what to do next. He isn't sure. But he should let her back in. He thinks so.
It was still raining.
It was painful.
He felt nothing but pain.
It hurts. It hurts. It hurts.
It was pain everywhere; she was that too. Pain was in his heart, in his soul, he felt it in his bones too, everywhere was hurting with the pain of her betrayal.
"Please. Please. Please. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. You have to give me a chance. You have to give me a chance to show you how sorry I am. I'm sorry, Derek."
This was all wrong.
He was not about to cry. But still hot tears scorched their way down his face, tracking burning paths down his skin while sobs racked his body.
It hurts. It hurts. It hurts.
He felt like he's being washed away with a flood of bloody tears.
Why did she have to do it? Why?
He doesn't understand. He won't. He doesn't want to anyway.
He couldn't move, couldn't breathe, he was frozen, ice cold, blind and mute, swimming in a dark sea of terror and choking on his own fear coming true - it is his reality now.
He loves her. Why does he still love her?
Addison and Mark. Mark of all people?
It's a double betrayal. His best friend and wife.
Addison-and-Mark - just hearing that in his head nauseated him.
It's disgusting.
The hyphens joining both of their names - Addison-and-Derek - was their thing. Theirs and only theirs.
Addison and Mark.
He hates them.
This was all wrong.
"Derek..." It's low. It's soft and weak.
She's a whisper.
He hears her nevertheless.
It had stopped raining a while ago.
There's a knock. Then, a much louder one that echoed in his home.
He ignored them both.
And when he closed his eyes, he sees her flushed face and apologising, begging, and he sees the one with her betrayal too. But only that seemed to be harder to ignore.
And then she knocked again.
"Derek." she said, her voice breaking on the last syllable.
This was all wrong.
He poured and drank and poured and drank and suddenly his eyes were burning with tears again but he pushed them away, furious.
He drank and didn't forget about anything tonight. He drank some more and everything dulled to stooped hunches; the lights, the heaviness of his head on his shoulders, the noise the glass makes every time he deposited it back on the coffee table. All of it dulled, except for the images in his head and Mark on top of Addison.
He's drunk.
He's drunk but he's not drunk enough because he can still rationalise his slurred words and swaying vision into a definition. He can still see them.
He checked his watch, it's almost a quarter to twelve. Addison hadn't knocked or say anything for some time now.
He stumbled a little as he walked towards the door.
Wet bricks, a gush of cold wind and a taxi horn almost killed him.
Her clothes and sin were the only things he brought back inside.
"...bachelor loner converted the garden shed into an impregnable twenty-first century dungeon. The despot's victims have an eerie pallor and appear to be in a borderline catatonic state after the long nightmare of their incarceration."
"...the malnourished boy, unable to walk, is seen here lashing out convulsively at one of his rescuers."
"You could've told me you had a dead wife, Derek. Do you ever think about that?"
"I do."
He does.
Only everyday.
He has got a dead wife, who apparently isn't as dead as she was yesterday or the last seven years, for that matter.
He has got a dead wife, who apparently was abducted the day he threw her out of their home and more.
He has got a dead wife, who apparently was in Poughkeepsie and was a captive for a seriously ill-in-the-head person the entire time.
He has got a wife, and he'll be taking the first flight to New York, a six hour anxiety filled ride, to see her after many many long and difficult-to-get-up-in-the-morning days and he's not entirely sure how and what he's suppose to feel.
Relief? Nervous? Shock? Anger? Sorrow?
And he also has got a very understandably frustrated and threatened girlfriend, who's questioning their entire relationship now since it was apparently built on a base of a lie.
"Do you know how less complicated all this would be if you'd have just told me the truth from the beginning?"
He knows. Oh, he does. But how the hell was he suppose to know she'd resurfaced.
She was dead to him and everyone.
Seven years. It's been seven years since she vanished on that rainy night, since the trail of the investigation into her disappearance went bitterly cold, since his entire world caved in on itself.
How could she still be alive?
He's only recently begun to accept the more likely scenarios that everyone has been drilling into his brain.
He's finally begun to mourn her, to grieve, and now, there's a chance it was all in vain. That he's betrayed her by conceding to the idea of her death, by moving on to the best of his ability, to date, then, love again, with the evidence herring in nine short months.
Shit!
...she's alive...
...and she's been held against her will...
...in a garden shed for the last seven years...
Those were the exact words the detective used when she informed him of the development in his wife's case almost an hour ago.
Alive.
She was hidden and obscured from the world to shine bright like the diamonds in the sky and to even be given a chance to flourish as the great surgeon she was. Locked away for him and the universe to never ever seek out. It's unfair - life is so cruel sometimes because he knows how hard she's worked for her career. He was there to witness it all.
Held against her will.
Partly like their marriage, only she was a very compliant participant in that one, as he was too. God! He can't even begin to comprehend and imagine what horrors she had to go through in that garden shed. The police wouldn't say much over the phone, and he really don't know if he wants to know, just that she's being treated and assessed at the best hospital in that same horrific city.
He has questions - many many unsolicited queries and the most pressing one, the one derived from the media, is whether she's been caged up like an animal all these years. The news have been coming up with speculations and stories that only seemed to be getting even more asinine than the last all night long and, of course, he's been foolish enough to be listening to all, not answering any of the calls he's been getting, and now his brain can't distinguish which one is which.
Just in that room and in shackles...for seven years...For the past seven years, she was existing in a loop, in torture - a routine, imprisoned behind the same four bland walls?
And his Addison...
Is she even his Addison anymore?
The same Addison whose hands would fit in his like they were made just for him. The beauty who graduated on top of their class in med school. The same one who also started a brawl at a bar that almost got them arrested, which in turn almost got them expelled. Addison, who could hardly say yes over all the tears when he proposed on the rooftop of the Empire State. The wife who loved to riddle him with questions she already knew the answers to. And that would always always irritate and annoy the hell out of him because, really, what's the point of her asking them in the first place when her set of answers are the only right ones.
But then, the last riddle before she...disappeared had stuck with him. More so because he never got the right answer.
Why does the sunflower always face the sun?
Why does the sunflower always face the sun?
But solitary confinement can change a person's psyche completely.
For as long as he've known Addison, she's always been miserable when alone. She unequivocally despises desolation, as a result of her lonesome childhood. Maybe that was why she and Mark got along so well so quickly. He understood where she was coming from. And she did too.
But there was a small child too, the one he saw with her on TV, ergo she wasn't completely by herself.
Who is the kid anyway?
The police wouldn't tell him over the phone.
"You don't trust me, is that why you -" Meredith glares, lowering her voice when a creak from the loose floorboards on the stairs echoed, followed by thudding footsteps, indicating that her roommates have been listening in on them, "You could've told me about your wife? Do you ever think about that?"
Only he thinks about that all the time, if only Meredith knew the constant and rampant self-doubt running through his mind on the daily.
Should he tell her? Is today the day that he does? What to say? How will he tell her? What if she thinks he killed her? It's almost always the spouse. But he didn't kill her. She won't believe him. She'll leave him.
It's all stupid anxiety after stupid anxiety that was stopping him, but months went by too quickly and he found himself content and happy again, then a year happened and then another and by then, telling her about Addison would only jeopardise their relationship.
Or so he believed it will.
Because like she had said why couldn't he have told her the truth from the get-go.
What was he hiding?
To be honest, he was actually scared to talk about her. Scared that Meredith will see a certain something where he doesn't want there to be one anymore. Because it wasn't easy to pretend. Because it wasn't easy to mourn - his marriage, his friendship and then, his Addison.
He felt nothing but this...this gut-wrenching heart ache whenever he thought about his wife. His heart would stop beating automatically, stop serving its sole purpose because the pain was really that much. It was like seeing his wife in bed with his best friend over and over again. Everywhere he went left a linger of her betrayal.
The pain, it came unexpectedly and went away slowly but with sure intensity.
Because when he started pretending, he, then, couldn't remember exactly how to stop.
For two years, he woke up anew, to Meredith, to Seattle but still with that same lingering numb feeling. It aches like nothing in this world. He hated it. He needed to reach in and claw it out. But how?
He hates it because he knows what that ache means.
But for two years, he knew and he would pretend like he didn't.
It was easier to get past her that way.
He would pretend like he really liked his new job as head of neurosurgery at Seattle Grace. He would pretend he liked this new city too, and the trailer he occasionally sleeps in and the mad acres of land that he owned and has no fucking clue what to do with it. He would pretend like he enjoyed his new little relationship with Meredith. He would pretend for two years that every time he looked up at the gallery during a surgery that he wasn't actually looking for her, he wouldn't panic and would only pretend he wasn't disappointed when he never caught sight of her red hair. He would pretended that he liked the fact that his sheets doesn't smell like her. Or that he wouldn't be able to hear her at all, the way she would say his name especially in the mornings when there was, once upon a time, a time when she was content and happy that he was the first thing she saw when she opened her eyes.
Oh, he really didn't miss any of that or her.
But then after the two years of feeling numb, and feeling excluded in a world where everyone wants to belong - she's alive and she's going to wreck havoc in the life he's been trying so hard to pretend. He will see her and his heart will stop again. He will see her and Mark and he'll be broken all over again. Because there was no closure, no justice, no discussion, no redemption since she never came back. They never got to do or say what needed to be said seven years ago.
"I do. I know I should have. And I'm sorry that I didn't." he says quietly, reaching out to hold her.
She pushes his hand, "Get away from me!" and grits between clenched teeth.
He would always try to avoid conversations with Meredith of his life before Seattle for the most part, knowing what it will always circle back to.
But her insecurities about not really knowing him entirely bloomed like wildflowers, twining between them like thorns. He doesn't blame her though, doesn't try to cut them down either.
He can't do that.
Meredith's face is hot over wet. She wants to wipe away her tears - but why the fuck is she crying? - before he sees them, but she doesn't have the energy to lift hr hand. She doesn't even have the energy to move to the couch. So, she just sinks down at where she is, landing on the coffee table (it's better than the floor, she guess.) and she sees Derek, McLiar, look up to her silence.
"Did you think about her when we..." she takes a deep breath, looks at him with uncertainty and a hint of disgust shadows her face then, when the silence is all the answer they both need to hear.
Shamefully and sickly, only every time.
He thinks about it a lot. Has thought about it a lot over the past seven years. He never stopped. Even on nights with Meredith...he never stopped.
He couldn't.
And he can't stop now.
"Mer..." he reaches for her again, she shrugs and puts her hands up, telling him to simply stop making things worse - yes, that's possible because it involves Derek.
"Do you still love her, Derek?" she drudges.
He has never heard her say anything so heavily before. It sounded like each syllable was tied down with stones.
He don't think he can ever give her a direct answer. Yes or no. He doesn't know what the answer is, if there is one at all.
Meredith is sweet and kind, the light amidst his years of darkness, the woman who became his breath of fresh air when he was drowning, his saviour.
Meredith is good.
But Addison is...
Better?
No, no, it's not necessarily about being better. She's just - different.
He fell in love with Meredith's quiet affection, her soft spoken voice, her gentle heart. But Addison...she struck him like lightning the moment he met her, drew him in with her tenacity, her passion, her fire. Watching her dance is nothing short of a religious experience. Witnessing it once just wasn't enough. Because Addison is like fire on a cold night, like electricity during a power outage, like a beautiful fervour needing oxygen to survive. And she already has him walking straight into her flames again.
He knows the saying, how rare but possible nevertheless, for lightning to strike twice. His first love just hit him with that second bolt.
Finding her and finally getting that call from the police and hearing the word alive, felt like breathing in a crisp breath of fresh air for the first time in seven years. Meredith has been his beautiful respirator. But maybe it's time to breathe on his own again.
Derek scrapes a hand through his hair, squeezes his eyes shut. "I'll always care about her." is the attempt at an explanation, an answer.
It's not enough.
"Are you still in love with her?"
Derek stays silent.
A part of him has, have and will always love her.
Meredith walks out, stopping just by the archway. "Go." she says and turns towards him, almost too calmly. "Go be with your wife. She needs you much more than I do."
"I want to go to bed."
"Just a little while more. We're almost at the hospital."
"No, in room. I've seen the world and now, I'm tired."
"We're never going back there, Christopher."
This isn't Room, I think first when I wake.
Ma is still asleep so I don't wake her. I look past her head. The floor is like rug in room but fuzzy with no pattern and no edges, sort of gray, it goes all the way to the walls, I didn't know walls are green. There's a picture of a monster, but when I look it's actually a huge wave of the sea. A shape like Skylight only in the wall, I know what it is, it's a sideways window, with hundreds of wooden stripes across it but there's light coming between.
"We're in outside." I remember.
The light from sideways window is shining yellow on Ma's face and I try to look the bright but it hurts my eyes.
And then suddenly Ma jumps like an electric shock and I shout a little because she has scared me.
"Sorry." Ma says like she has no breath, "Sorry. Bad dream." I didn't know Ma can have bad dreams too.
"Was it scary?"
"Oh, it doesn't matter." She finds my cheek to kiss it. "It's a beautiful day, isn't it, Christopher?"
I don't know. Ma is not suppose to not know all the answers. She's not suppose to ask me, I want to tell her that. But she's climbing out - quick, quick, and going to sideways window. Still she is in her paper dress from yesterday night when the doctors were having a look at her in a special room, it's all crunched up now.
Is room still there if we're not in it?
I run to Ma to ask but table hits my leg.
Bam!
"Oh, sweetie, be careful."
She rubs it better.
"Are we on another planet?"
"No." she smiles wide and we stare out sideways window, "We're on the same one, just a different spot."
I'm looking out, it's like TV but bigger and the colours are much dazzlier. Outside has many rooms that opens to even more many rooms.
There's grass and trees and tall lamps and people walking, a bit of a white building with many sideways window and three cars - a red and a black and a silver with stripey bits.
"Okay. Let's get cleaned up."
"We haven't had breakfast yet." I tell her.
"We can do that later."
But I don't want to.
"But my other t-shirts are -" They're in dresser, in the lower drawer in room. They were yesterday there so I guess they are now too.
I shake my head. "Breakfast comes before bath."
"It doesn't have to, Christopher."
"But -"
"We don't have to do the same things we did before." says Ma, "We can do whatever we like now."
"I like breakfast before bath."
But she's gone around a corner and I can't see her, I run after. I find her in another little room inside this one, the floor's turned into shiny cold white squares and the walls are gone white too. There's a toilet that's not like the toilet in room and a sink that's twice the big of sink in room and a tall invisible box that must be a shower like TV persons splash in. "Where's the bathtub hiding?"
"There's no bathtub." Ma pushes the front of the box sideways so it opens. She takes off her paper dress and crumples it up in a basket that I think is a trash, but it hasn't got a lid that goes ding. "Let's get rid of that filthy thing too."
My t-shirt pulls my face when coming off. She scrunches it up and throws it in the trash too.
she was thanking me for being a fan.
"But -"
I don't want it threw away.
"It's a rag."
"It's not. It's my t-shirt."
"You'll get another one. Lots of them. Real clothes, okay." I can hardly hear her because she's switched on the shower, all noisy.
"For Sunday treat?"
Ma is shouting from inside shower but not angry, "There will be so many treat, not just on Sundays. I'll get you whatever you want, okay? Now come on in."
"I don't know how."
"It's splashier. Come on."
Ma waits. But I don't move.
"Okay, then. I won't be long." She steps in and starts closing the invisible door.
"Don't."
"I've got to, or the water will spill out."
"No."
"I won't be going anywhere. I'll be right here. You can see me through the door."
She slides it shut.
I can't see her anymore except blurry, not like real Ma but some ghost that makes weird sounds.
I hit it, I can't figure out the way to open. Then, I do it again and it opens.
"Christopher!"
"I don't like when you're in and I'm out."
"Then, get in."
I'm crying.
Ma wipes my face with her hand, that spreads the tears. "Sorry." she says, "Sorry. I guess I'm moving too fast." She gives me a hug that wets me all over. "There's nothing to cry about anymore."
When I was a baby I only cried for a good reason. But Ma going in the shower and shutting me on the wrong side, that's a good reason too.
This time I come in, I stand flat against the glass but I still get splashed.
Ma puts her face into the noisy waterfall, she makes a long groan.
"Are you hurting?" I shout.
"No, I'm just trying to enjoy my first shower in seven years."
"What'd you fancy for breakfast, huh, Chris?"
"No."
"You say, 'No, thanks.'. That's good manners, sweetie - Goodness, I've become my mother!"
"Ma, they're all looking."
"Everybody is just being friendly."
"I wish they'd stop."
"This must be kind of overwhelming for Christopher, for both of you. Maybe a little ambitious for day one?"
"We wanted to see the garden."
"No, that was Alice, who wanted to."
It's strange and oh-so almost frightening how unaccustomed she has become to the outside.
To what's the norm, actually.
To wake up free as a bird and live, not just exist.
To the day-to-day life she was so tortuously left out of for so long. But it's the same world, same people, same streets and cars, sky and trees she left behind for seven long years.
Everything is the way as she had left it. Nothing is missing. Nothing stands out. Nothing is out of the ordinary, different, but her.
She's staring and staring out the window - it's quite the laugh the glass hadn't yet shatter with the ugly that's trying to just catch a glimpse of familiarity - and she sees what and everything she's been longing to, but - oh, she's afraid to say it, to even think it, because with her kind of experience and luck, her wish might just come true.
She's afraid that she'll be a secret again.
But then, that's everything she needs to do right now. Hide. Hide and be locked away, because she feels exposed and still so not in control of her life.
There is some. Not enough, though.
She's exposed to the bare minimum, to nothing but gray coating and she still feels as though she's being locked and away in that room.
She's exposed and everyone knows about her and Christopher and the news aren't being sensitive about it all.
She's exposed and everyone knows about the doctor who cheated on her husband with his very own best friend, who should've expected the unexpected because karma is a bitch.
Karma is everything.
She's looking and looking and she sees tall buildings and green trees and blue skys and fluffy and happy clouds and news vans, ambulances and police cars, but she can't seem to see the right things.
She's finding and finding something out there but she isn't sure what is it she's looking for.
She's blinded by what she sees.
It's a concoction, a collection of testaments. All just happening simultaneously, occurring, existing all at once, in a confusing game called life.
It's a harlequin of scattered memories.
Missing Doctor Incarcerated for Adultery.
The Price of Infidelity. Did she get what she deserved?
It's a crumb, an atom of a scent; no, even less than that - it's more like the premonition of a scent than the scent itself.
She doesn't belong here anymore.
She's an alien like King Kong. So gigantic and vulnerable but yet so broken and in pain. So out of place in the world that doesn't welcome her.
She don't really know for sure but she does feel like the world doesn't.
She probably shouldn't have switched on the TV because the things you don't know doesn't ever kill you.
Right?
Adulterous bitch. She's an adulterous bitch. It's true what they say, your past will always always hold a noose around your neck.
But she's changed and all she wants is to go back home.
"Ma?" Christopher calls out, walking towards her at the window.
She's still staring, looking, finding and she only mumbles a 'yes' back.
"That's confusing." he points to the smaller bed the nurses had laid out for him earlier when they were at the cafeteria having breakfast.
It was a bad idea - having breakfast with normal people - but she didn't thought it was so bad when she had thought it through.
Maybe she didn't use her head enough.
Stupid! Stupid, Addison!
She doesn't need to prove him right anymore than she already has. But she can't really take back that fact because he's right, she is stupid.
Because all she wanted and needed was to go back to normalcy the fastest and quickest way possible.
All she has to do is put on a false self in front of everyone and push a few buttons and that's that, just like before. The one thing, other than being a good doctor, she was great at.
She needed Christopher to get familiarised with everything else as soon as possible so they could go home and she can be in control of her life again.
She just really really want to go home.
Nothing is the same, she can't even act, put up strong and confident front anymore.
She can't do anything right anymore.
It was a stupid idea of blending in with everyone else - everyone knows - and she can see that her doctor was thinking the same thing.
Stupid, Addison! Use your head!
"Who sleeps there?" his brows furrows and she rubs at the spot between them.
"Hmm?"
She turns to look at her son, eager to know why there are two beds. "Oh, it's for you." she says softly, trying to smile so he wouldn't see that she's upset.
"But I sleep with you."
She reaches for his hair, combing back with her fingers, allowing the calming narrative to stop the boiling anxiety and regret from reaching her eyes. "Well, the nurses didn't know that, sweetie. You don't have to sleep there if you don't want to."
He nods and lets his mother braid his hair. It's always getting into his eyes and making him itchy all over.
It's funny since the boys in outside only has very very short hair or no hair at all.
His mother isn't in a good mood ever since caming back from breakfast. He can tell. She's been so unusually quiet but still he hears whispering and sees her staring and only staring at nothing. He watched and listened but doesn't understand. He watched and listened and was scared because it was just like in room when she wouldn't get out of for a day or two and sometimes when three.
She's looking out of the window. Maybe she's finding someone.
Him! Of course, his mother is looking out of the window for him, making sure he wouldn't hurt him and lock them in room again.
What if he finds them at the hospital?
How could he have forgotten about all him?
"What if he comes?" she hears Christopher whisper.
"Who?"
"He. What if he comes in his truck?" she turns him around and places both of her hands on his sad cheeks and rubs the spot on his foreheads again - one, two - looking into his eyes so he'll believe her.
"Oh, he couldn't. The police outside our door will protect us all day long and besides he doesn't know where we are. "
"Are we a secret again?"
She purses her lips. Everyone knows her secret. Because the past is a tricky thing. Sometimes it's etched in stone and other times, it's rendered in soft memories. But to carry a secret is to play with fire, eventually everyone involved will get burned.
"Yeah. But the good kind."
"About your wrist...it will probably need to be broken again at some point."
"No!"
"Shh, it's okay. I'll be asleep when it happens. I won't feel a thing. The surgeon will put a metal pin in to help the joint work better."
The door is ticking, I tell Ma, and the door opens. It's another nurse, the same uniform but not the nurse I see before. She says we should put our masks back on because we have a visitor. I never had a visitor before, I don't know what it means.
Ma turns and smiles at me with her teeth all big, she looks so funny being happy - not like Ma in room.
A person comes in and runs at Ma, I jump up with fists but Ma's laughing and crying at the same time and the person spins her around and says she weighs like paper.
People in outside say weird things all the time.
They're both crying and laughing; it must be happy-sad.
"Oh, Archer." That's Ma saying. "Oh, Archer."
"Addie -" the he holds Ma's face like she does to me when I'm crying and wipes her tears.
"I'm back, Archer."
"Yea, you are." says the he person and pull her to a big hug again.
"When they called I was sure it was another hoax -"
"Did you miss me?" Ma starts to laugh, a weird way.
The he is crying too, there's drips under his eyes, and he keeps nodding and nodding and nodding.
He's still got Ma all tied up in his arms, he's three times as big as her and taller too. I never saw persons so tall before.
Ma is not moving or saying anymore, he's squishing her so tight, I don't think he's letting her breathe.
"Ma." I try to say but I only hear myself inside.
I can't see Ma breathing anymore. He's not letting her breathe. I panic. "Ma." I say louder. But I don't think she hear me.
Then, I hear he say something I don't know.
"Let me see my little sis without this silly thing for a second."
Ma pulls her mask down, smiling and smiling so bright and she looks up at him. But then, he stops grinning at Ma and saying for one second. After that, he only smiles sadly.
"You look great."
"You don't have to lie." Ma says, not all happy anymore like before and puts mask back up. "There's a really huge mirror in the bathroom."
Oh, oh, there is. And you can see your person, I don't know how it's possible. I saw my person today morning and I press my face to Ma's.
I never saw my chin and my face and my eyes and my nose, it's all like Ma's but only smaller.
"Ma." I whisper.
The he is staring at me now. "I can't believe it, I can't believe any of this."
"Christopher," says Ma to me, waving for me to go to her, "This is your uncle."
So, I really have one.
"Oh, the Captain's gonna freak out." The uncle opens his arms like he's going to wave them but he doesn't. He walks over at me. I get behind the chair. "I got to be here when that happens."
"Shut up, Archer."
I look at Ma because we're not allowed to say that. Only TV people say it. Ma says to never imitate the bad words in TV because that makes me bad too. I want to tell her she needs punishment but my words wouldn't come out.
"Hey, I'm your uncle Archer."
"He's really lovely, Archie. Very sweet and..." says Ma, "He's just not used to anyone but me."
"Of course, of course." The uncle comes a bit closer. "Christopher, you've been the bravest little boy in the world, you've brought my baby sis back."
What baby?
"Lift up your mask for a second." Ma tells me.
I do then snap it back.
"He's got our nose." the uncle says and laughs. "The Montgomery curse."
The uncle goes low like my height and is staring and staring at me. I want to tell Ma to tell him to stop but she's all quiet now and looking at wall like she's thinking.
"Doesn't Bizzy or the Captain want to see me, Archer?"
"Where are your shoes?"
"They make my feet sore."
"I know you're not used to them, but you just can't go around bare all the time. You might step on something sharp."
"I won't. I promise."
Everything is backwards today.
Everything is upside down.
Everything is not the same.
Everything is not normal.
She keeps saying that as if she knows what normal is. Her definition has long been so distorted that it looks like one of Picasso's paintings.
Well, she looks like one too - beautifully distorted.
She needs Archer back. She needs her life back. She needs her brother to hold her hand and tell her everything will be okay, like he used to when they were children.
He'll be back for the next visitation tonight, he said, but she knows he won't. She knows not to anticipate. She knows not to get her hopes up. She knows not to wait.
If any, his visit had only made her much more confused with the things he've enlightened her on.
Derek. Bizzy. Seattle. The Captain. Bizzy.
Confused, suffocating - not from lack of oxygen but from lack of hope, a lack of feeling alive and ability to cope. She's drowning in pain, chest exploding and heart aching, waiting for her demise because she's so tired and inside, she's breaking.
Still.
There's a splitting migraine growing at the back of her eyes and it doesn't make this marvellous day any better than she thought it would be nor did the results from her blood tests.
A day that was suppose to be her happiest is very closely one of her worsts.
Can't she just be happy for once?
She didn't mean any of what she had said when she was younger, every child wishes that upon their parents - it held no meaning whatsoever.
It didn't matter then. It shouldn't now.
"All those time I said that I - I wanted - I didn't really mean..."
The worry bloomed and flooded his chest. He couldn't keep it at bay anymore. He hurried to where she was sitting and crouched down in front of her. "Addie?" he murmured softly, resting his hands on her knees.
Her shoulders hitched at the sound of his voice. A deep shudder ran through her body and then she was crying again.
When she lifted her head and met his gaze, he felt his own eyes burn with tears. Her face was pale and drawn, her eyes haunted. But the way she was looking at him - he won't be able to sleep tonight.
He needs a drink and five more.
"Tell me everything will be okay."
His chest ached. "Everything will be okay." he hates lying to his sister but he can tell it's something she really wanted to be affirmed.
She combed her fingers through his hair again and then smoothed her hand across his forehead, thumb brushing over that little scar above his eyebrow that she gave him by tripping him over the curb.
He shouldn't have pulled on her pigtails.
Montgomeries are not only great liars but also phenomenal lie detectors.
"The Captain's on his way from London. He can't wait to see you." he reminded her and sighed.
There's a lot going on, a thousand and one problems all hovering around her and all at once, she doesn't understand which to deal with first. But now she's numb and falling down a never ending abyss, a downward spiral.
Derek. Bizzy. Seattle. The Captain. Bizzy.
She feels and she doesn't want to, so she chose the latter.
It is like a switch and she could just turn it off; the emotions, the one thing that's alway holding her back, that's keeping her from getting past things. She has too much of them. Too sensitive when she doesn't want to be.
She realises she could still will herself not to care, but that only works in short bursts.
Short but easy.
Easier to avoid the watchful eyes and sharp whispers all together. Avoid the confused, slightly accusatory looks from everyone at the hospital, the pure worry and concern from Christopher. She was so used to seeing the way he looked at her as love, that it was hard to train her brain to see otherwise.
"Are you crying?" Christopher asks quietly, clutching her tightly like if he lets go, she might puff into thin air.
She was. "No." she murmurs in his ear. But he doesn't believe her - her son knows it when she lies. Maybe it was her voice that gave it away.
"Are you hurting?"
"No." she says quickly, pushing herself to a sitting position. He's too much too young to worry about her. She doesn't ever want him to worry about anything. "Let's go out for a walk. Fresh air, yeah?"
He takes her hand. "Can we not go to downstairs outside? Just here outside is okay."
"Sure."
Christopher watches as his mother holds the door handle, she scrunches her face as she pulls, it must be because of her bad wrist. So, she tries to opens the door with her other hand instead.
He had asked his mother why she was upset when Uncle Archer was here, why she was almost shouting at him, she said she misses him. That's all. But he doesn't think that is all there is to it.
She throws a smile at him and squeezes his hand, "Do you know what this whole thing we're walking on called?" she asks, waving her hands in the air.
"No."
"It's called a corridor or a hallway."
His mother said that it's a long passageway from which doors lead into rooms. And in the hospital, it has yellow walls and windows and doors are all along the opposite side. But every wall is a different colour, which is a bit confusing but that must be the rule here in outside.
"Ma, our door says eight and it's gold." he tells her.
"Gold is a nice colour, isn't it?"
He nods and starts to reach for the handle on a door, but just as he was about to twist it open, she yanks him backwards. "What are you doing? We can't just go opening other doors, Christopher, only ours."
"Why not?"
"Because they belong to other people." she tugs at his arm and they continue their walk.
"What other people?"
"We haven't met them yet."
Then how does she know?
"But so can we look out the sideways windows?"
"Oh, yeah, they're for everyone."
"Is everyone us?"
"Us and everyone else." she tells him and they stop by a window.
Everyone else isn't here, so it's just them.
"You better not tell her about your twelve year old."
"She's not twelve."
"Yea, well, I don't give two shits about your relationship with the intern right now. She's my sister and if it were up to me, I wouldn't dare let you see her. But according to the doctors, she's been asking for you non-stop. I still don't see what she sees in you, but, let me be clear here, Shepherd, she's not the same, she's not the Addison you knew before you threw her out of her own house, so if you hurt her, even make her frown, I will kill you. They're my family."
They?
"You want me to hold your hand or what? Get up there now."
It isn't pretty.
Blues, reds, and purples bloom and blend across her skin (he never thought she could get even whiter. No, she's not white, she's almost blue.), colouring her skin, forming in blotches - some fading, some not so much - across her neck, her jawline, and scatters a few on her arms too.
It's much too painful to look at her.
It's like a tidal wave of emotions.
But he needs to stare. He needs to feel more crappier than he already does. And all he sees is the smile that has haunted his dreams, the blue eyes that have greeted him nearly every time he's closed his, the arms that wrapped around him, and the hands that have held, warmed, and branded his skin like invisible ink.
He needs the pain to wash through him ferociously, seeping into his blood, claiming him in desperate surges.
Oh, darling, oh, darling...
He holds his gaze onto her, fingers digging into palms, his grip almost bleeding. And all he sees is her sitting up on the hospital bed with a surgical mask across her face like no time has passed and they're still in Gross Anatomy catching sneaky glances at each other from across the room.
Oh, darling, oh, Addison...
He needs her closer, can't get her close enough, it's never close enough with her.
His wife looks almost unrecognisable - just almost - because even in the three sizes too large hospital apparel around her broken frame, she looks almost beautifully put together.
She looks so small and so weak, so helpless. That monster has taken half and more of his Addison with him and he would really like to have all of her back.
Please. Please.
And the boy next to her, who's just staring at him too, is causing him a greater deal of guilt because those bright, piercing blue eyes are undoubtedly a copy of Addison's.
The entire journey here, he kept wondering and asking himself whose and who's the child, and of course - of course on some level, if not, on every level, he probably knew the answer all along. He knew it when he saw it on the news. But was relentless to believe it because then, that can only mean she's...
She's...she's been ...
He can't say it. He can't think it. He can't even want to imagine anyone putting their hands on his wife, hurting her, causing her pain and forcefully holding her down, so much so that it left her with a child.
But it's all he can really think about.
What is his name?
He watches her, unable to close his eyes; he clings to her. Visually, can't let her go, ever, ever.
He's afraid to touch her. But soon, her flawed flesh calls to his fingertips. He sucks in a breath for courage, grazes a gentle digit to the curve of her brow, skirting the butterfly bandages stretched across a thin strip of dried crimson and follows the swollen line of her cheek.
Why does the sunflower always face the sun?
And her skin is now hot under the whisper of his touch, throbbing and angry, and his chest tightens, like a vise around his heart, the metal jaws of life squeezing in closer, crushing the worn organ.
He may, once upon a time, be angry with her, brokenhearted and wounded over her and everything else, but like hell is he going to stay mad at the woman he married when she's...when she's already been through so so much.
He swallows, takes every inch in as his eyes skims quickly past the marred skin, the noticeable bones of her cheeks, the beseeching expression, the boy who's just watching them from afar, and he sees her lips part in an attempt to say something or maybe just an exhale, but she never does. Never could, perhaps, since she's clenching her jaws, trying hard not to cry.
She may look damaged in all the colours of the rainbow, but - she is still his Addison.
He wants to hold her hand, cradle her fingers, twine them in the safety of his. They look too delicate to touch. But he does otherwise, only touches his hand to one of the unmarred spots available, cupping her ear in his palm and tracing the shell with his thumb.
Every sorrow is a letter for a coming happines, and every loss is an indication to the coming profit.
It's soft and innocent and so familiar that her skin tingles and erupts in goosebumps all over and she aches with a yearning she's believed had long been lost.
And it has, for too long, it has but he's so gentle right now, she thinks she might just be dreaming.
His chest shudders, begins to cave in on itself, on the litany of sobs threatening to breach his throat and tear past his lips, and he can't - he can't hold it all in anymore.
He didn't have that kind of training.
So, he closes the space between them with a single small step forward, mindful of her frailty, but still throwing his arms around her, feeling her lock around his body without a moment of hesitation, sealing his chest to her, his heart. His face buried in the crook of her neck.
She lets him hold her, feel her close, breathe her in, his nose in her hair, his breath short hot bursts against her neck.
"Addison." Her name on his lips both a plea and revelation and then it's as if the ground disappears from under her feet as he holds her against him, cradles her to his chest, his arms strong against her back, holding her tightly, protectively, possessively. "Oh my god, Addison. Honey, what - What happened - I - I'm sorry."
"Shhh." She paints comforting sounds onto his skin, words, reassurances to soothe his loving, bruised heart. "I'm here now. It's okay."
"I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry."
She falls against him, willing, pliable, her spine a convex curve against his arm, so tightly wound around her slight waist.
"It's okay." she mumbles into his shirt, holding him so tight that it must hurt him too, but she doesn't want to let him go and neither does he. So, he curls his hands tight onto the knobs of her shoulders.
She knows it's bad when he gets really quiet. When the weight of his sorrows, his worry, anger, disappointment just gets too much and he sinks within himself, drained of everything that makes him, him.
She has broken him. Again.
Pulling him away, just far enough to look him in the eyes. His eyes like midnight blue diamonds, scintillating with urgency, overwhelming desire, unfathomable ache.
"Bizzy." she breathes, gathers her voice. "Really?"
She didn't want to believe Archer before when he told her, but Derek won't lie to her.
He doesn't ever lie.
He's greeted with pain in her eyes when she pushes back, anticipation, confusion and fear, and she wrings one of her hands to his burned cheek.
He holds her gaze.
"Really." he exhales hard, a nod, staccato bursts of breath that pound against his ribcage and she trembles with it.
It was a brain aneurysm, that was what was told to the guests - friends and the extended family. But he was more than just surprised when Archer told him of the truth.
Suicide.
He was the one who found her. Archer.
It's only reasonable that's he's a mess, a drunk - he doesn't blame him. He...pities him.
Yes, he does.
But he don't think Archer told her any of the truth yet.
He watches her swallow, her throat necklaced in fading bruises that resembles fingerprints and bobbing with the effort, but her glistening eyes hold his the entire time, desperate and yearning, begging him not to turn away.
He is the sunlight to her rainy day and she opens herself to him again.
She believes him.
Derek won't lie to her.
She's the one who does.
"Mommy."
She wants to cry.
Not because she really wants to. But because if she does cry, she feels like she'll be doing the whole 'sadness' thing right.
This?
This.
What is this?
She does feel sorrow, in fact she's fairly certain she's depressed, but still, no tears arises.
There is no catharsis.
No resolution.
Just stand-still.
Stand still. Wait. And feel all the emotions.
"How old are you, Christopher?"
"Baby, Uncle Derek is asking you a question."
"Yes, I know. So, why don't you tell him yourself."
"What did he say?"
"He said he's five - okay, okay, I'll tell him. And that he's not a baby anymore."
"Well, you're right, Christopher, in fact you are a remarkably courageous young man."
"Christopher is...he's like a newborn in many ways, despite his remarkably accelerated literacy and numeracy. Now about his immune issues, there are likely to be challenges in the areas of, let's see, social adjustment, obviously, sensory modulation - filtering and sorting all the stimuli barraging him - plus difficulties with spatial perception." the doctor tells them.
Addison shrugs, her shoulders driven by sadness more than anything else. "Is that why he keeps banging into things?"
"He's been so familiar with his confined environment that he hasn't needed to learn to gauge distance."
That stings, the awareness that she is the proprietor for his delayed development.
How else has she ruined her son's life?
She's a bad mother. And she knows Derek thinks so too.
"I thought he was okay," she observes Christopher, who's drawing a picture as asked by one of the other doctors, her voice cracking, "You know, more or less."
She just never thought they'd ever be getting out.
At one, it was barely a thought because all she could think about was keeping her newborn away from him. At two, maybe she did try to find a way out, she can't exactly remember. Three, she stopped thinking completely. And four, she obsessed over it - night, day, dawn and dusk, she hardly slept. Only at five did she actually trusted Christopher and herself.
She should've gotten them out earlier. At least him.
Derek is moving closer again, both hands slipping onto her shoulders and she doesn't push him away this time - thank God - and his thumb brushes the protruding disks between her shoulder blades.
"I can't," she chokes, screwing her eyes shut. She sees those eyes, green - cat-like and haunting. His eyes. They stare back at her and she squeezes hers tighter, tries to change the picture, tries to coerce herself to calm because a panic attack will only set her back tenfolds.
But the walls are closing in, she's in the teeny, tiny room again, and her breathing quickens.
"Addie."
It's Derek and he squeezes her shoulders. The softness of his voice is one that threatens to undo her.
She opens her eyes and chances a glance at him and the doctor. They know. Everyone knows. She gave herself away. His face is twisted and she knows the gears are turning.
Derek addresses the doctor, "Would you mind coming back-"
"No." she glares at Derek, "Let's just get this over with, Doctor. I'm fine."
She is fine. But her body language and tone doesn't coincide with her claims.
She knows she shouldn't be angry at Derek. She knows but she can't help it.
"Addison."
She exhales. "You don't get to control my life, Derek. Nobody does."
If she says it loud, then it must be true.
Right?
Blowing out a breath, his eyes remain downcast, his bottom lip worried between his teeth, but he says nothing.
He knows she's right - for seven years, she's been robbed of that. He doesn't want to make her the same way ever again.
"...ideally a mental health OT with qualifications in play and art therapy would come in but at our meeting this morning, it was agreed that the immediate priority is to help him feel safe. Both of you rather. It's a matter of slowly, slowly enlarging the circle of trust. As I was lucky enough to -"
"Lucky?" he interrupts. He's not amused by the doctor's choice of word. There's nothing lucky about any of this.
"Derek." Addison hisses, and she tries to calm him down with a grounding hand on his wrist.
"Sorry. Poor choice of word." the doctor apologises again and holds his hands up in mock surrender when he takes a threatening step forward.
"You think my wife is some sort of exhibition that you can study."
"Stop it, Derek. He's just doing his job." her voice is sharp and pleading. Maybe another panic is even raising at the berating show of testosterone.
She can't deal with anything anymore. There are too many papers to signs, too many doctors to talk to, people to see and decisions to make.
He apologised once more, adding that he truly is sincere, and there's barely time to acknowledge him with a nod before he turns his attention back at Addison, "...I'm going to be working with you both for the moment with input, of course, from my colleagues in child and adolescent psychiatry, our neurologist, our psychotherapists, we're going to bring in a nutritionist, physiotherapist -"
"Can I just go back home?"
She'll be okay once she's home.
"What the hell was that?
"Addie -"
"Please go. I can't have that kind of behaviour in my life. Not anymore, Derek."
"Okay, Addison, I'm sorry. I really am."
"Please. I just want to be alone for a while, okay? You can come back later."
And he does.
He comes backs up to her room at nightfall, never left the hospital because he has no place else to be and no one else to see.
It's with her that he needs to be - maybe even all along.
The two police officers posted outside her door merely nod at him when he asked if he could go inside. They didn't ask who he was, hardly looked at him, so that must mean they know of him, of who and what he is.
Everyone knows.
But that could also mean they weren't doing their duties right. He'll have to bring it up in his meeting with Detective Baker tomorrow. After all it's Poughkeepsie, not the Big Apple.
Soft light bleeds through the cracks as he opens the door, and he watches as the sheer light kiss their skin, watches them sleep contentedly together. A doleful nightmare. Clinging to each other - almost as if they are in a desperate, heartbreaking embrace. Like they're both dreaming the same dream that someone is tearing them apart.
He wonders if she dreams happy anymore.
He hears the pattering of his soles on the linoleum as he approaches the bedside. And when he does, he only looks at them; everything - every movement, every crease, arch, every intake of breath, every exhale and word is just utterly sad. Even their eyes holds a sorrow that had broken his heart.
Maybe this is futile.
Maybe he should go back to Seattle.
No.
They are a tangle of long colours of strands, different, and he finds her face buried in her son's mane and from the looks of the profile he sees, it's tear tracks; she's been crying and he immediately feels sorry for her.
He wonders what torrid secrets lay under her shell, the tainted stigma of that hidden sin.
But everyone know. Nothing is hidden anymore.
Everyone knows.
"Oh, darling. Oh, Addison."
The words slips over his lips unintentionally and he's surprised at the depth of emotion in his voice.
Why does the sunflower always face the sun?
Her eyes flutters open.
Wide, white, war.
They both startle badly. He gasps and jumps back a little while she nearly falls off the edge, her mouth opens in a scream that doesn't transcend. He catches her arm quickly, fears it'll leave her in bruises, but still he steadies her back atop and she pulls herself to a sitting, then. Her movements of arms and legs look difficult and painful and he hovers above. His grip protectively around her forearm as she catches her breath until she realises and wobbles out of them - angry.
She hasn't been sleeping, he can tell. For years she hasn't, most probably.
When they were interns, when they were pulling all nighters, so dedicated to their careers, that she would wear herself so thin he thought she might break. He would have to physically remove her from the hospital sometimes, coax her back home with him at other times.
But he remembers the dark smudges of purple, sometimes blue, that would stain the delicate skin beneath her eyes, the emptiness that would drain the colour from her irises. He remembers how fragile she looked then.
That was nothing compared to now.
She looks worse than fragile, she looks like she's already been broken into a million pieces and many times after that too.
"It's late, Derek. What are you doing here?" she questions without looking at him. Her voice is ragged, rough like sandpaper scraping at his insides.
He swallows, steps past the invisible threshold that's keeping them apart to stand in front of her. He holds out his hand, waits her out. She sighs, accepts his insistent fingers. He pulls her up, keeps her hand in his grasp.
"You know why."
"I'm not your responsibility." she growls, shaking his fingers from hers. He tightens his grip. Her teeth grind, hard enough to cause her jaw to square sharp enough to slice. "You moved on."
"Does it look like I've moved on?"
It's the most honest thing he's said in years.
"Don't - Don't say that. You're not the one who was taken. You're the one who was fucking somebody else."
"I thought you were dead. I couldn't cope with it anymore, so yeah, I tried."
"By replacing me?" her bottom lip trembles. "Trying to - to erase me?"
No! No!
He chokes on her name. "Addison -"
He used to think about her all the time. When? Every time he breathed.
He touches her cheek, strokes his thumb to that harsh slash of bone. It's been seven years, he's dating Meredith - or dated - renovated his entire life in his best attempt to paste plaster over the broken parts of himself that never stopped yearning for her. But the moment he walked into this very room and saw her, his glass house of believing she was dead shattered, and now...every time he's beside her, it's almost as if those seven years never happened to his heart.
It may be in pieces, but it still yearns for her.
"We'll get through it. We're in this together."
"There is no we." she snaps, pushing his hand away from her face. "Not anymore."
"Addison." he reaches for her again, but, this time, she dodges the hand that tries to brush her arm.
She grits her teeth, glares at him with so much pain in her eyes. She's been through hell and back for so long, but she looks as if the last day is hurting her just as badly - if not, much more - ripping open scars that haven't even had the chance to heal.
"I don't need you."
Oh, but she does and they both know it's a lie she tries to tell herself.
She needs him like the moon. She looks up to him, looks at him, can't live without him.
"I was in there and you - you gave up on me. You fell in love with some pretty blonde and forgot all about me." she gets out, her voice cracking over every other word. "I don't even know what I'm doing here. I shouldn't have come back, I shouldn't have lived through -"
"Stop it." he growls, his ribs collapsing within his chest, deconstructing his lungs, devastating his heart. Leaving it all in rubble and ruins.
She's ruining him.
Her hands are shaking at her sides, her breaths trembling past her lips. He reaches for her, catching her by the sleeve of her shirt. Her chest shudders with a sob and he drags her forward, hugs her tight enough to hold them both together.
"I'm sorry." he whispers, brushing his fingers through her hair and cupping her skull in his palm. She exhales against his shoulder, presses her cheek hard to his clavicle.
"I don't know what I'm doing. I'm...I can't even be a good mother..." she rasps, fisting her fingers in the back of his coat.
She's going crazy. Maybe she already is. And crazies can't be allowed to parent.
"You are." he answers, a flare of conviction burning through his chest. "You are a magnificent mother." Why can't she see that she is? He squeezes her harder, feels her bones give within his arms, but she only burrows deeper into his embrace. "Christopher is just perfect. He's every parent's dream. Well-behaved, polite, smart. You've raised him all by yourself under the circumstances and he's turned out to be the most phenomenal, loving and the sweetest child I've ever had the pleasure to meet."
Her body tenses in his arms and she drops her forehead to his shoulder. He thinks he just added to her wounds.
She don't think so. He'll grow up to understand everything - people will talk and he'll be able to read - and then, he'll resent her. They always do. He'll hate her for not getting him out sooner. He'll hate her and he'll leave her too. They always do.
But his hate will never amount to the hatred she has upon herself for not trying sooner.
She understands. Derek doesn't.
She nods, unfurls her fingers from his coat and presses them to her chest as she eases out of his arms.
"He..." she murmurs, drifting across the room and descending to sit on the edge of the bed. He can see the dark splotch of a bruise blooming from beneath the back of her shirt as she moves to slide beneath the sheets. "I wish he would have just killed me a long time ago. I prayed for it every day before I had Christopher."
He's never heard her so defeated.
She's terrified and paranoid all the time, looking over her shoulder. She thinks she's crazy. More so than when she was in the room.
She thought she'd be better once she's out. She thought it was the room that was slowly killing her, but it wasn't - god, it wasn't - it's her.
It's all her.
It's all in her head.
It never sleeps.
She doesn't too.
Before, she wouldn't be able to sleep a wink without the assistance of those blue pills. And the doctors are slowly weaning her off of them now, and she doesn't like that she has to.
Oh, this must be what Amy was talking about.
Derek strides after her, hesitates for only a moment before sitting down beside her. "I don't."
"I don't want to hurt you anymore." she whispers, closing her eyes. "Just go back to Seattle, Derek."
"It - hurts more to be away from you now."
Her eyes flutter, open up to stare at him.
It's so easy to pretend that they're back at the brownstone, that she's simply lying in bed waiting for him to join her, that they are in fact happy, problem-free and carefree as they ought to be, as they deserve to be.
It aches, how badly he wants to go back. It claws him to shreds with guilt.
He loves Meredith, but he never fell out of love with Addison.
She lifts a fleeting hand to graze her fingers to his cheek. He leans in and her eyes fall to his mouth, her fingers finding their way there first.
Her fingertips caress his lips like a kiss, trickle down to his chin, his throat. They hook in his shirt, hang there for a long moment.
Her gaze flickers back to him, ocean blue with dull traces of age. They used to shine so bright for her.
He combs her hair back from her forehead, those wisps falling in violent waves around her face, the sunken in the hollows of her cheek.
Not sleeping or eating enough.
So little. So skinny.
He now knows why guilt is a lone dark wolf. It runs, ducks and weaves, daring him to pin it down. Its doleful howl is unrelenting. He long to put it out of its misery, but it is ever elusive. Taunting him with its agility.
Her hand slips to his chest, pauses to rest over his heart. Her palm seals to his sternum as he bows forward, lips making soft contact with the tip of her nose. She sucks in a breath, but shifts onto her side before he can kiss her lips.
He drops his forehead to her temple, lingers there before drawing back to allow her the space to settle.
She curls back into bed with the sleeping little boy, cuddles him close and he hears her whisper an 'I love you' in his ear. She moves with her back to him and he sees what she's doing, so he takes off his shoes and slides in behind her.
She doesn't deny the tangle of his arms around her, the snug fit of his chest to her spine, his nose at her neck.
"Do you still love me?"
It's a whisper so soft, he barely hears it.
Meredith asked him the same question this morning.
He also speaks to her in wordless silence.
I do.
I do.
He presses his lips to her hair, the bruise on her shoulder too.
Why does the sunflower always face the sun?
He holds her through the terrors that haunt her in the dark and stays until the light of morning spills through the blinds.
It's answer enough.
Soooo...what do you guys think?
Finally updated. So sorry for being so late. I'm really embarrassed.
Enjoyed?
This was by far the difficult-est chapter to write. I hope I did well.
What do you think of Addison? And Derek? Christopher?
There will be more interactions between Derek and Christopher in future chapters. I feel like with their personalities, both of them won't be so forth in becoming BFFs that quick. Right?
I don't know.
Please please leave a review!
REVIEW!