Alexa sat quietly in a waiting room. She had the chief's wife sitting by her side, telling her stories about herself in the throught the one year span she knew her. She looked up at the older woman with a very depressed look in her eyes.
"I don't mean to be rude, I'm really grateful that you're trying to help but I don't wanna talk. I don't wanna hear about what it was, what it could have been like." she said with a guilty expression. "I just wanna sit here and not think about that."
Adele nodded. "Okay." she whispered.
A few minutes later Derek walked quietly into the room, causing his daughter to jump up from her seat and run straight into his arms. "She's okay." he told her, hugging her tightly and providing her with a sort of wordless comfort. "Her lung collapsed, sometimes that happens for no real reason. But she's fine now. They gave her a sedative so she could sleep comfortably through the night."
"Don't they need her permission before doing something like that?"
Derek shook his head. "If she's not conscious than they get permission from her next of kin. For adults that usually means a spouse. I gave them permission."
"So you can make any medical decision for her right now?" Alexa's brows rose as her eyes sparked. She watched her father nod and a grin grew on her face. "Fix it, Daddy. You need to fix it while you can."
When Addison woke up, a full 17 hours later, she opened her eyes to see her daughter sitting in the chair beside her bed. She rolled her head to the other side and noticed Derek who's head hadlolled off sometime after he fell asleep. She slowly reached for the hand he had resting by the bed. He opened his eyes as soon as he felt someone touch him. It took him a few seconds to gain perspective of where he was and what was going on but as soon as he saw Addison looking at him he was fully alert.
"Addison." he smiled, rubbing his eyes so he wouldn't fall asleep again. "Feeling okay?"
She didn't answer him, only because she wasn't too sure how she was feeling. "What happen?" she whispered.
Derek got up from his seat, stretching enough for her to hear creepy cracking coming from his body. "Do you want me to hold you with your back to my chest or would you prefer to face me?"
Addison looked up at him skeptically, she inclined one of her perfectly shaped brows and continued to stare at him. "I don't want you to hold me, Derek." she answered. "I want you to tell me what happen. I want to know why you're sitting at my bedside."
"Because I love you." he answered simply. "You're my wife, you're in the hospital. Do you really think there is anywhere else for me to be?"
"You love me?" She repeated skeptically. "When did that happen?"
"I met you when I was 22. I was sure that I was in love with you and needed to be with you forever with you at 22 and a half, proposed at 23. Married by 24.. Which brings to total to 15 and a half years." he answered with a smart-ass smile across his lips. "I know I've sucked at showing it lately but I need you to trust me on this one. Okay?...I just need you to believe me. I really do love you and care about you. I need you."
She nodded slowly, trying not to break a tear. "What happen to me?"
"Your lung collapsed." Derek told her softly. "But you're okay, I made sure no half ass doctor touched you. You didn't need a chest tube, they managed to stabilize you without. But since I had all the authority over you and your medical condition, I had you tested. I wanted to know what stage your cancer was at. I wanted to know what the options were."
"I can't say I'm surprised." Addison mumbled.
"I considered getting you into an OR for double mastectomy and immediate reconstruction. Alexa got the idea into my head. Mark talked me out of it when I asked him to do it. He said you would castrate the both of us. He told me that I should talk to you and tell you how I feel about you. And if you still don't change your mind than I should respect your decision and support you."
"Who knew Mark could be so insightful?" she remarked with a smirk. "So what is it that you feel about all this?"
"I want you to fight it, I want to help you fight it. If you don't want chemo, than you have other options. I will support you through anything you choose to do. And if you choose to not do anything than I'll love you anyway. I'll be there for you through every single day and we'll try to be the family that we could have been if all this shit didn't happen. Even if it's for a short period of time...it's still something."
"You wanna be a family?"
Derek nodded, glancing over to their daughter who was still asleep in the most uncomfortable position on a chair placed at the other side of the hospital bed. "We do. Alexa wants her mother. She doesn't want to choose between us. And I want my wife. I don't want a girlfriend, or anyone else for that matter. I just want you. So if you feel that same, if you want us than yeah...we should be a real family again."
She looked up into his eyes, saw the genuine look of sincerity in his eyes and slowly nodded her head. "I do. I do wanna have what we missed out on."
Derek smiled, letting out a breath in relief. "Does that mean you'll get treatment?"
She nodded again. "Thank you for not being like my father."
"What?" he asked, his brows spiking up in confusion. "What does your father have anything to do with anything?"
"I know he and my mom didn't have the perfect marriage, I know they both have their own affairs going... We were the same why. But despite that, you noticed me. You realized something was wrong and you wanted to fix it. You gave up the life you made for yourself here and you did that for me. He didn't even notice something was wrong until she died."
"We are never going to be like them, Addison." he assured, knowing that her greatest fear was to end up in her mother's shoes. "We are not them, we are never going to be. I will always notice you. I will always love you...even if I get sidetracked once in a while. I just need something to knock the sense back into me, that's what this cancer did. It helped me see passed my arrogance. And I'm sorry it took something so horrible to finally get me to understand."
"You're being very charming." she smiled. "If I wasn't in a hospital bed, I'd be turned on."
"The feeling will go away, trust me." they heard Mark interrupt. He stood beside Derek and folded his arms. "Did he tell you what we spoke about? Has she spoken to you about the plans we made for you?"
Addison glanced at Derek then looked back to Mark. "He mentioned that you talked some sense into him." she shrugged, not sure if that was the response that he was looking for. "Is there something else that you two discussed that I should know?"
"We made a treatment plan for you." Mark grinned. "Oh, I just assumed that you two are all smiley because she chose to go through with treatment...Because looking happy wouldn't make sense if she just told you she wants to die no matter how you feel about her."
"She did." Derek answered. "She is getting treatment and we are going to raise our daughter together, we are going to move past this and it's going to make us stronger. I'm actually determined to make this work this time. I usually always get what I want when I'm determined."
"Awesome, so all that planning wasn't for no reason. We booked an OR for tomorrow, we figured we could cancel if you refused. The chief could always use an extra OR, he won't mind us canceling. Anyway, I'll do a double mastectomy followed by an immediate reconstruction. I'll make it identical, I promise. It will look like nothing every changed." he paused, raised a brow as he continued with the trademark 'Mark' smirk, "Unless you want them to be bigger...or smaller."
"Stop looking at my wife's chest, Mark." Derek said dryly as his eyes followed Mark's line of vision.
"I'm an artist, okay? I've got to visualize my canvas so I know that I'm working with." he answered with just the slightest hint of sarcasm. But based on the sound of his voice and the look on his face, Derek knew that his ex-best friend (who had become his best friend again without him even noticing) was being serious.
Next chapter is sadly the last chapter :( I wish I had more ideas to take this story further but I don't want it to be over-kill. I want it to be somewhat realistic so people could actually picture everything that is happening. So anyway, let me know your thoughts :)
On a seperate note, I scored tickets to The Tonight Show to see Kate Walsh on the 16th. I'm gonna have to miss class for it but I don't care! I'm so effing excited!