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10. I Knew I Loved You

The chapter title, I Knew I Loved You (yes, corny song choice, I know, but you'll see why … besides, this use of it is much better than the dumb music video.) comes from the song by Savage Garden. Also, thank you so so much for the reviews! Keep it up :D

Nine Years Ago: Once upon a moonlit night

He was vaguely aware of the alcohol clouding his brain, making the world spin and shapes twist and turn, but he was still aware of her, standing there, beautiful before him. Mark wanted a way to preserve these memories because he sensed that, by the morning, they'd be gone, a hangover in their place. Faraway the ocean kissed the earth, pulled back, and reached forward again desperate for its unattainable lover, causing the crash of water on rocks, but it all seemed very outlying and unimportant.

Moonlight reflected off her flawless bare skin as exposed by the low cut of her dress as they spun to the distant music of the party they'd vacated long ago. Mark wasn't sure whose roof they danced on, nor hardly what moon they were under, but it wouldn't have mattered if he did, because she captured his entire attention. His heart soared free tonight, free of expectations and conditions. Her soft gold curls fascinated his muddled brain, and as they rotated slowly, she curiously moved her hand up his bare chest, white light reflecting off the muscles he'd spent months building, to the key that hung over his heart.

"What's this?" she whispered, and when her intense cerulean eyes traveled up to his, he gulped.

He couldn't help the flood of memories that overwhelmed him, and he was six again, holding the paper-dry hand of his dying grandmother.

"Marcus," she whispered, and he leaned in closer in order to catch the elusive strains of her fading voice. "I have something for you."

He swallowed painfully, trying not to cry, because one of the few things the father he never saw had ever told him was that men never cry. "What is it, grandma?"

"I was going to give this to your father for the girl he loved, but he left and I never saw him again until you were born. So now I give it to you. I know you'll think this is silly, but give it to her, the right girl, when you find her." From underneath her hospital gown she produced a glimmering crystal key.

"How will I know if it's her?" he asked as he accepted one last present from the woman who raised him.

"You'll know," she assured him, smiling as she caressed his cheek one last time. Those were the last words she ever spoke, and without her he wandered, a lone lost boy, until the Shepherds took him in.

"My grandmother gave it to me, for the right girl," he said, and she smiled, an angel's smile that blinded him to all else. He fumbled with the clasp, gave up, and pulled it gently over his head. It dangled for a moment in the moonlight, throwing sparkles on their bent faces, and then he slid it over her crown of curls, settling it on her bare skin.

Their eyes met, and he reveled in the fact that no words were needed. His past girlfriends always needed assurances: that he loved them, that they weren't fat, that he wasn't cheating on them, that he cared … but she could read it all in the planes of his face, no words needed. Then his lips were on hers and it was like tasting liquid heaven and it was wrong but he was too far gone, and he was falling, falling so fast, and they were moving so, so fast …

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"That one," he said, singling out a dark haired intern, "is sleeping with that one." He pointed out a tall blonde one.

"You can't know that," Addison laughed from beside him. "And you could at least refer to them by their names."

"I do know that, I can tell," he argued. "And at least I don't have them do my dry cleaning anymore."

"No, you have them do other things," she said sarcastically as Lexie walked by. If he had heard her comment, maybe he would have replied with a sarcastic retort, but he was distracted by the shine of her scarlet hair, by the way her navy silk blouse brushed up against her lush skin, by the way her skirt made her legs seem to extend for miles …

"Okay, fine. Tell me more," she said, not seeming to notice his staring, nor his blatant observation of her swirling her fingers around the lid of her coffee, trying not to let his brain drift and remember what those fingers could and had done.

He wondered at her sudden interest, and then he remembered that Sage was being taken home today. "Nurse Olivia has slept with every doctor in the direct vicinity."

She laughed, and he marveled at the sound. Whenever she was gone, the sound of her laughter always seemed to escape him. "Except me."

"Yeah, and me," he lied quickly.

"Liar, you did too sleep with her. Callie told me about the pact the nurses made against you." She seemed vastly amused by his indiscretions, but inside, he was cursing himself. She had always eschewed his polygamous ways, even when no one had ever cared to reprimand him before, and he still felt like he was betraying again whenever he fell back into his old ways.

"What else has Callie told you?" He had forgotten that she and Callie had become friends even before he and Callie had, and he made a mental note to drill the fiery resident next time he saw her.

"Lots of stuff," she teased, dangling it on a string in front of him.

"She didn't tell you anything about me and Lexie, did she?"

"Like what?" she asked, curiosity practically leaking out of her despite her reserved expression.

"Nothing," he said quickly.

"Come on, Mark, you know I'm just gonna ask Callie later …"

"Fine," he huffed, unable to believe he was telling her this. Then again, Addison held his master key, and was unable to unlock even his deepest secrets with little effort at all. "There was an incident, a few weeks ago, and Lexie … Lexie broke my penis."

He regretted the words almost as soon as they left his mouth, when coffee splattered the front of his scrub top as Addison burst out laughing. "Hey," he protested when she gripped the counter to hold herself up, attempting but failing utterly to stifle her laughter with one perfectly manicured hand.

"It's not that," she said breathlessly, still laughing, "although it is ironic that you would break that of all things. It's karma, I guess … the day after you left Seattle the first time, I went out to walk Doc, and I didn't want to go back to the trailer to pee because Derek was being an ass, so I squatted … and I got poison ivy in place you really don't want poison ivy."

"I can't believe you got poison ivy there," he said with a wicked grin.

"Well, I still can't believe you slept with Olivia," she retorted with a pout.

"I only did it to forget you." The words slithered out without his permission, and he immediately desired to swallow them up, because her face closed up as she looked away from him and out across the hospital. He would have liked to imagine her expression was wistful instead of blank, but he couldn't really justify such a conclusion because it lacked any basis in fact. His heart was wishing as hard as it could, but it seemed that friendship was all he would ever possess.

Until she looked back, face animated again, favoring him with a slight smile. "Sorry," she said. "I'm not feeling all that great. I have a headache." And his thoughts spun back to the redheaded boy whom he would never see again after today, and he wondered why that distressed him almost as much as Addison, like he was losing something he'd never had.

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A lot of strange things had happened in Seattle Grace, most of them since he'd been here, but even an overabundance of experience with the insane did not afford him insight to why his fiancée was hiding in the stairwell.

"Mer," he called, smirking as she jumped and nearly fell down the stairs. "What are you doing?"

"Hiding from Izzie," she whispered, taking his hand and pulling him up the stairs. "She's like a bridesmaid horror show."

"It can't be that bad," he objected, but her frown made him shut his mouth quickly.

"It can," she moaned, "and you better hide too, because she wants you to pick out your tux and give you an outline for your vows, which we're apparently writing ourselves. And then she'll want you to go over the menus she laid out, which is a waste of time, because Addison says we probably won't have time to eat anyway." All this was said in a single breath and when it was all out, Meredith slumped against him, apparently exhausted. "And I'm tired, and I'm supposed to be on Bailey's service today but I'm hiding from her too."

"We could hide together," he breathed in her ear.

"Hmm, having naughty thoughts, aren't we Dr. Shepherd?" she asked with a grin, leaning up against the wall, her eyes appraising him teasingly.

"In a stairwell? Seriously?" he asked, not permitting her adequate time to respond as he kissed her deeply, stealing her breath and cementing her to the wall. "Rather kinky, don't you think?"

"Shut up and kiss me," she said, capturing his lips again and slipping her hands under his scrub top.

"Your wish, my command," he said with what little air was left to him, and then he resigned himself to leaving conscious thought behind, because Meredith's hands and lips and body wove a spell so heady and thick that escape was a preposterous and unwelcome concept. One hand rested at the base of her skull, entwined in her hair, but the other was left free to roam and bringing forth moans wherever it went …

The door exploded open, and he and Meredith jumped apart like startled animals. "Mer! Bad, no, Derek, stop! You need to focus!" Izzie yelled at them, running up the stairs with her hand over her eyes. "No time for sex! Surgery and wedding only."

"She's like the wedding Nazi," Meredith whispered in his ear as she pulled away.

"Later!" he mouthed in response.

"Hey! I heard that, and saw that. Hands off, Derek Shepherd!" Izzie snapped, reminding him of the time he'd gotten punished by his teacher for holding hands with Madeline Kaminski in third grade.

Meredith grimaced and allowed herself to be led away by Izzie, looking like she was literally being dragged to her death. Bailey soon intercepted them, yelling "Grey! Where the hell have you been?" He headed off to his craniotomy reluctantly, but not before affording himself one last glance. Meredith was looking at the same time, and when she met his eyes, she held up her clipboard, revealing the words she'd written. Later, definitely.

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She was sure all of the clocks had joined a conspiracy against her. Their hands sped around the large white disks, passing numbers by at an unprecedented rate, caring not that they were causing the very event she was dreading to come faster.

Representatives from the boy's home were arriving at three to take Sage back, and as she watched him arrange his street clothes on the bed, over and over, she wasn't sure who was dreading it more. He had become, in the past few weeks, not only a stand-in for her lost child but a person she cared greatly about. Addison had thought that, as a top surgeon, she had mastered the concept of distance, but this boy blew all the rules away, worming his way into her heart effortlessly.

She checked her watch: 2:45. Hadn't she just left her bed in the Archfield, feet falling silently onto the carpeted floor, and stumbled toward the shower? Hadn't she just done that eight o'clock c-section and watched those deliriously happy parents clutch that baby like they'd never let him go?

She was alone with the sound of her new Manolo Blahniks against tile, and as she extended a shaking arm towards Sage's door, the truth bore down on her: this was the last time she'd do this, the last time she'd see him, the last time she'd enter this room to find the beaming smile of a certain redheaded boy. The. Last. Time. Ever.

Sage sat dejectedly on the bed, hunched back towards her. "I don't want to leave," she heard him say to the sheets surrounding him; his skinny grasshopper legs sprawled beneath him.

"I know," she replied, being tugged to his side instantly, by instinct instead of free choice. She pulled his limp form to her, wondering at the rightness. They fit together, bodies composed of the same elements, matching hair mingling as they clung to each other, conveying with touch what they couldn't with words. Sage buried his face in her silk blouse, the same way he'd hid his bloody head the first time they met, and she ran her hand through his hair, convincing herself that those weren't tears in her eyes.

As he pulled away, she glimpsed something she hadn't seen before: a thin silver chain hung around his neck, continuing down into his hospital gown to the bump on his chest where she guessed a pendant hung. Curious, she asked, "What's that?"

"Oh," he said, pulling it out to show her. The chain was long, oversized on the small eight year old, and from the end … dangled a crystal key, reflecting mini-rainbows all around the room.

A key that had dangled at her own throat for nine months, nine years ago.

The effect of the ice seeping through her veins was a hundred times worse than when she'd found out her son was alive, because it was impossible. Her son had not been sitting in front of her all this time … it was crazy and improbable and just so unlikely … and yet when ocean blue met jade green, she wanted it to be true so badly.

The power of movement had not been fully restored to her yet … she was still reeling, trying to grasp the implications of the key dangling from this boy's … from her son's hand. What were the chances that she and her long lost child would just happen to be at Seattle Grace on the same day … unless it had taken all of them; her, Archer, Naomi, Sam, Derek, the ones by her side while she carried Sage, to bring him back?

"Addie?" Sage asked when she drew a rattling breath, trying to get oxygen to the cells that had frozen in shock. Tears pricked her eyes, and she hugged him once more, lest he be taken away from her again. "What's the matter?" he asked, his voice muffled. "I can't breathe."

"Where did you get that?" she asked, gesturing at the necklace, her voice unintentionally harsh as she tried to hold back the tears making a break for freedom.

Sage flinched, and her heart contracted. Her child? Could it be? "I didn't steal it!" he said earnestly, celery eyes as wide as coins in his innocent face. "I didn't! It was my parents'. They left it with me."

"I always wondered where it went," she mused, lost in the distant strands of time. The car crash, the glass, the crimson blood leaking from her body at an alarming rate, and then the blackness, the cold, the fear … "I thought I lost it in the crash."

"The crash when you baby died?" he sought to clarify, puzzled by her odd behavior. She had, in one of their lunchtime conversations, told him about her dead baby, but she had neglected to mention he wasn't really dead when she found out.

"He didn't die," she whispered, and understanding dawned on Sage's face like the rising sun. He looked like he was trying to repress an profusion of hope, in case the universe struck his childish expectations down again. "They told me he died, but they lied," she continued, unable to stop, and by they she meant Bizzy, because she couldn't bear to tell this child that his own grandmother had taken him away from her. "They gave him away the night he was born. December 12, 2000."

"That's my birthday," Sage said, his voice just as soft, like they were speaking at a funeral. Addison drank in every word, every tiny detail, trying, in her mind, to make up for all she'd missed. His smile was slightly lopsided; his skin was a soft bronze from playing in the sun, his scarlet hair flipped out at the edges. Sage too was studying her, and she wondered what he was seeing.

Were mothers supposed to wear designer clothes? Were they supposed to have perfect hair? Did some have tempers and evil parents and manwhore best friends whom they secretly loved? Were they all as lost as her?

"Mom?" Sage asked, as if saying it would make it more real, would concrete his secret wish.

"Yeah, baby, I'm your Mom," she said, so choked up she was barely able to get the words out, enfolding him in her arms a third time. "You're my son," she murmured lovingly, rocking him slowly. "You were right. You did find your parents, or at least one of them. I loved you the minute I saw you, I just couldn't explain it. I love you, Sage Green."

"I wished that you were my mom," he said, turning his small face so she couldn't see his tears. "I wished and wished it and I prayed too."

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Excitement exploded inside Sage like the fireworks older boys used to set off as a dare. Lucky was never a word that was applied that had been applied to him before, but how could it not now, when the very person he'd been dreaming of all his life was right in front of him, somehow even better than he'd imagined?

He clutched Addie, his mother, as tightly as if he were playing tug-a-war with Fate, because he was never letting her go. When wetness permeated the thin material of his hospital gown, he knew she had lost the battle with tears just as he had. She smelled good, like safety and warmth and subtle perfume.

It was all becoming clear to him now. The sense that allowed him to see things others couldn't had disappeared, for the most part, when he set foot in this hospital, and it was because his mother had been here the entire time. The little things, too, began to add up in his mind: their identical hair color, the way they were able to comfort each other and unable to stay away from each other.

He heard the door open, and craned his neck over Addie's shoulder to look. Several official looking people spilled into the room along with Dr. Richard, Dr. Arizona, Dr. Meredith, Dr. Derek, Dr. Mark, Dr. Cristina, and a bunch of Addison's other friends, who, he realized, had come to say goodbye.

The doctors didn't look surprised to see him and Addison hugging, but the others in their dark suits and lifeless faces, licenses to take him away clutched in their cold fists, looked positively shocked.

One man cleared his throat and stepped forward, and Addison whirled around, blanching at the sight of their sudden audience. "May I ask what's going on? I trust you are aware that Sage Green is being returned to the boy's home, from which he ran away almost a month ago, today."

"I'm never going back there," he told them loudly, resisting the urge to stick out his tongue.

"No, he's not," Addison confirmed resolutely, and he grinned, flagrant defiance shining through.

"What are you talking about?" the man demanded sternly.

"Addison …" Dr. Mark muttered softly, trying to catch her eye, but she ignored him.

"He's not going anywhere with you," she repeated

"You don't have the authority to …"

"Yes I do. He's my son." Sage thought, in retrospect, that those words were the sweetest ever spoken, and he repeated them like a mantra in his head. He's my son. He's my son. He's my son. How wonderful it was, to finally belong!

As for the others, well, Addison might have just dropped a bomb in their midst. The effect, he thought, must have been similar to being thrust under an overlarge magnifying glass. Everyone's eyes slid between him and Addie, picking up on slight similarities in their features. But she turned to him and smiled, drinking in his appearance like it was the first time she'd ever seen him, and she reached up to brush cool fingers across his cheek.

"Addison, how can you –" Richard began, but she cut across him.

"It's a long story, but I doesn't matter how I know. What matters is that eight years ago, Sage was given up for adoption without my knowledge. If you don't believe me, look through your precious files," she snapped, completely dethroning all assumptions and disbelief, offering to peel the truth clean and raw for them all to see.

Conversation broke out like a horde of angry bees, but he didn't care. His new knowledge safeguarded his heart, an unbreakable wall consisting of happiness and victory and love and a thousand other emotions that had no name. The social services representatives congregated in a circle, whispering furiously, while the other doctors simply stared.

"Oh my god," Callie breathed.

"I can't-" Derek began.

"-believe-" Mark interjected.

"-it," Richard finished.

"Well, I can," Meredith crowed. "I so called that!"

"She did," Cristina confirmed, rolling her eyes to show how ridiculous she found them all.

So, Addison finally knows Sage is her son! And I can only say that things get even more crazy within the next few chapters ...