Hey, long time, no update... Here it is...

Chapter Eleven: Just keep going

She sometimes felt like time was getting away from her. Surgeries and paperwork and afternoons stranded with Bonny blurred together and she barely noticed the weeks crawl by. Time passed without touching her and nothing ever seemed to change. It was so easy to slip into trance. She went through the motions, the daily routine, and watched time run away from her, watched her life slip through her fingers.

Even sadness became monotonous. She barely noticed the dull ach in her chest any longer. Tears came at night and she let them fall in the bathroom, dried her eyes in front of the mirror and slipped back into bed beside Derek.

She was always careful of the space between them, the gap they both knew not to cross, the gap occupied by the third, invisible person sleeping in their bed. If she could find any excuse she slept with Bonny. That bed wasn't big enough for three.

Maybe she was making things worse, going where Derek couldn't touch her, even if he wanted to. But she wasn't sure she wanted him touching her. She could still feel the bruises left by that last disastrous attempt, still remembered the suffocating tightness of his arms around her, the feel of her heart beating against her ribs, like a bird beating its wings against the cage Derek's arms held clamped shut.

She had never felt so trapped in her life as she had by that last physical contact with her husband. After that Derek's steadily increasing absence was almost a relief.

Almost.

Because she couldn't help wondering how his absence was affecting his daughter. Bonny was quieter now. She whined less but Addison rarely saw her smile anymore. She had mentioned it to Derek once, leaving her fears about her inadequacy as a mother unvoiced.

What if spending so much time with me is doing this to her? What if she turns out just like me?

Instead she'd said she thought they should move into a neighborhood where Bonny would have other children to play with.

Somewhere where making her happy isn't entirely up to me.

Derek said it was too much hassle and she didn't have it in her to fight him for it. He suggested they put Bonny on a soccer team instead and took her non-committal silence as an agreement. Beyond signing Bonny up he showed little interest in the team so somehow, without quite knowing how it happened to her, she became a soccer mom. The games, which she hated with an emotional intensity she'd thought herself no longer capable of, were the highlight of Bonny's week.

Addison glanced at her watch and sighed. Hardly five minutes had crawled by since she'd last checked the time. Watching a clump of shrieking children swarm around a ball seemed to drag fifty minutes into an eternity, an endless stretch of mind flattening boredom. She'd never really understood the appeal of soccer.

She knew the release of athleticism, had excelled at cross-country running in her early teens. Long legs helped her build a lead and after that it was all about endurance, physical and mental.

Just keep going. Don't stop now. Just keep going.

So she understood what people got out of sports. But soccer had always baffled her.

When Derek had played in college she'd gone to watch occasionally and had always been amazed at how someone who claimed he wanted to be a neurosurgeon could enjoy striking a speeding projectile with his head. But she'd cheered politely through the games and told him he was wonderful afterwards and now she did the same for Bonny. Still she found it impossible to make it through fifty minutes without something to distract her.

So while the other parents crowded along the sidelines, shielding their eyes from the sun, squinting to get glimpses of their children and gasping whenever someone hit the ground Addison hung back on the bleachers reading medical journals.

The other parents rarely approached her. Maybe they sensed that she was not like them in ways that went beyond a lack of enthusiasm for the game. Maybe she was simply intimidating, her black Prada coat and three inch heels communicating a desire to isolate herself from the other mothers and fathers.

Even Miranda Bailey, who had a son on Bonny's team, seemed to prefer the company of the other parents, got along better with the women who's jeans and white trainers matched her own than she did with Addison. They'd spoken twice and Addison could barely remember what they'd talked about, could barely remember anything about Bailey herself, apart from that she was an excellent surgeon, she was Meredith's resident and she was just entering her third trimester of pregnancy. Addison wasn't even sure if the baby would be her second or her third.

Miranda Bailey believed in charity. You paid your church tithe, supported your local food bank and chose an organization to make a special contribution to at Christmas. If you had time, you volunteered. If not, you gave money. Miranda believed in charity. But she did not believe coworkers should be the recipients of that charity. That was messy. Among people who worked together there were certain boundaries to be established and maintained.

The gross part of her dislike for a certain dreamy neurosurgeon could be attributed to his failure to respect the boundaries between himself and her intern. Her young, impressionable intern. Her intern.

And he had a wife. A wife who Miranda had watched with great curiosity for two weeks now.

Addison Shepard was an puzzling woman. She'd arrived suddenly and unannounced, throwing the hospital into a confusion that had only subsided as the dirty details of the Shepard's marriage began circulating the Seattle Grace rumor mill. Through it all she had been an unwavering pillar of professionalism, winning the grudging respect of most of the hospital staff and winning Miranda's admiration. Miranda Bailey did not admire lightly.

It was fascinating to see how this woman she admired so much as a doctor and a surgeon disappeared completely outside of the hospital. She'd approached Addison Shepard after the first soccer game of the season, introduced her son, Tyler, and said that Bonny seemed like she'd really enjoyed the game. She was shocked to see the other woman's eyes contract with something that almost looked like fear at the mention of her daughter. Addison's nervousness seemed to increase as they talked so that by the end of the conversation she was clearly struggling to conceal her anxiety.

The conversation had left Miranda perplexed. Surgeons weren't supposed to be shy. Self-confidence was an essential prerequisite for a career in surgery, even more so in a specialty like neonatal, where the mortality rates were so high. But Addison Shepard, outside of the hospital, was resolutely introverted, avoided eye contact with the other parents and buried her nose in medical journals.

Only by watching Addison's interactions with her daughter did Miranda begin to understand what it might all be about.

Bonny came tearing off the field after the game and threw herself at her mother. Addison was obviously overwhelmed by her daughter's physicality.

Bonny twisted and bounced in her mother's arms and barraged her with questions.

"Did you see me? Was I good? Did you see me?"

"I saw. You were great," Addison answered wearily. Usually she hadn't watched the game.

Addison struggled to herd her hyper, bouncing child into the car. Once inside she leaned her head against the window and sighed, her eyes, tired and hallow, betraying exhaustion she didn't dare communicate to her daughter.

Miranda could relate. She knew from personal experience the difficulties of balancing a demanding career with motherhood, and she expected she got a lot more support from Tucker than Addison did from her husband. She knew how hard doubts and insecurities about your adequacy as a mother hit when it was late and you were tired and you found yourself resenting your baby because he wanted your attention.

Miranda could relate. But she couldn't begin to understand what it must be like to go through that when your husband was cheating on you, and making it pretty damn obvious what he was doing, what it must be like to go through that when you were in a new city where you didn't know anyone and nobody knew you.

Miranda did not believe in being charitable to your coworkers. But she had a feeling she was about to make an exception.

Addison startled as Miranda sat herself on the bleachers next to her. Her entire body tensed, like a deer caught in headlights and for a moment she looked so heart wrenchingly frightened that Miranda was tempted to put an arm around her. Instead she launched herself into what she'd come to say,

"I think Bonny and Tyler might get along. Would you like to drop her at my place some time and if they hit it off we could work out a couple of play dates?"

Addison stiffened.

"I couldn't ask..."

"You're not asking. I'm offering."

"But I'm sure you must be busy..."

Miranda inhaled through her nostrils, a trick she used when her interns were trying her patience. Addison was not making this easy for either of them.

"I'm very busy. So I would really appreciate it if Tyler had a friend to keep him occupied while I catch up on some things I haven't been able to catch up on since I've been too busy entertaining him." She stared at Addison.

Don't be stubborn.

Addison swallowed and ducked her head. Miranda thought she caught a glimmer of tears in the other woman's eyes and had to strain her ears to hear what she said.

"Thank you," Addison whispered. She took a ragged breath. "She's just with me all the time."

"I know." Miranda gingerly placed a hand on the other woman's shoulder. "I know."

I think by now you all know what I'm going to ask you to do...