A/N: Thank you for the reviews, especially those of you who review anonymously so I can't reply on the website. I am so very grateful for everyone who's taken the time to review. It's truly motivating and it keeps me going. Despite all my promises to myself, it's hard not to agonize over this story. Good news: Chapter 22 is already half done. Maybe not as good news: this was a tough chapter to write, but I think it needed to happen.
The Climbing Way
Chapter 21
It's just a well-worn scrap of paper. But it's more than that: it's science.
In seventh grade – no, it must have been eighth grade, because that's when they studied Earth Science – he watched a filmstrip on plate tectonics. Filmstrips were the highlight of class back then, second only to the kind of substitute teachers who turned a blind eye to paper airplanes and crumpled note-passing. Naturally, Mark, who sat behind him, poked him in the shoulder with his pen as soon as Miss Ingersoll turned her back and reached up with her wooden pointer to lower the projection screen. Derek turned around with a grin – just for a second, not long enough to jeopardize his streak of A's in deportment, the only subject in which he regularly beat his best friend.
The darkened classroom was overly warm and the narrator's voice was very serious as he described the forces at work in the earth's core. Mark passed Derek a note five minutes in: BORING, the note said, and then in smaller letters underneath, you can kind of see through Elsie Garber's top. Derek crumpled that note up quickly, before Miss Ingersoll could confiscate it, after a quick glance toward the window side of the classroom where Elsie sat. Think of a pot boiling on the stove, the narrator droned. Derek glanced across the room at the large world map hanging on the far wall: flat and unmoving. Every plate is moving, all in different directions and at different speeds. With that, the flat map started to seem like something else entirely, a pot waiting to boil, or a racetrack with cars speeding right toward each other. Derek looked down at his scuffed sneakers on the linoleum floor. The earth felt pretty solid under his feet. But it was exciting to think the earth was alive, and that at any moment it could shift.
So there's a scientific explanation, a simple one, for what's happening to him right now: the earth is shifting under his feet.
It's shifting so much that he has to grip the marble bathroom counter with one hand while the other hand, shaking, clutches the piece paper he withdrew from Mark's leather dopp kit.
There are just a few words scrawled on it the paper, but he would recognize that handwriting - and those words - anywhere.
911, sorry!
Back soon,
A.
How many of those notes has he found waiting for him, over the years, in every home they've shared?
He's received that very message, of course, in the past. 911, sorry! That one was when she was called away mid-sleep to deal with an emergency, and didn't want to wake him. The reason preceding her signature would change, depending on the circumstances.
Interns! That's what she wrote once, adding an uncharacteristic second exclamation point; he knew as soon as he saw it that he would hear be an exasperated story later about some brand new doctor's screwup.
Sorry, honey, bad timing. That was a morning she'd agreed to go fishing with him. He's not sure how sorry she really was, but he appreciated the sentiment at the time.
There were so many of them, and they always followed the same pattern. She never started the notes with a salutation. There was no need: notes like this are clear marital currency, too intimate for anyone but your spouse. She did sign them, with just her initial, every time.
Back soon, A.
But there was never any question who would receive them.
Back later, A.
He'd find notes in the kitchen once in a while, usually torn neatly from square blocks of notepaper with drug company insignias, and the occasional prescription pad.
Back for dinner (I hope), A.
She left notes on her pillow for him sometimes, if she had to leave in the middle of the night.
Don't miss me too much! Back soon, A.
Often, she left notes on the hall table on discarded scraps of paper. She'd tear a piece of paper from the front of an envelope, junk mail usually, and then toss the rest of the envelope in with the recycling. He'd turn the note over, then, and see the insignia of a credit card company or part of a bank's logo.
911, sorry! Back soon, A.
The piece of paper he's clutching now has jagged edges – it's clearly been torn from something, and that something is an envelope.
When he turns the note over, he can make out a partial typed address on the corner of the torn paper:
oan, M.D.
t., Apt. 15B
NY, 10010.
It's an address he knows as well as his own.
Because the paper isn't just torn from the front of an envelope. It's torn from the front of an envelope addressed to Mark.
Mark was more likely to be at their place than they were at his, but he's spent plenty of time at Mark's perennial bachelor pad. It was stark, modern. There was a narrow table in the entryway, sleek and metal and barely big enough for the stacks of mail that would accumulate there. And a pen. Mark always kept a Cartier pen on that table, and Derek would mock him for it. You can't score a game with that ridiculous thing, he would say.
Not for the first time, he wonders how Mark could have gone from the kinds of friend who know exactly the brand of pen the other prefers to the kind who'll sleep with his wife and then…
That's the part that's shifting under his feet.
911, sorry! Back soon, A.
That's all she wrote. It's not addressed to anyone – it never was. But the envelope from which she tore the paper was addressed, and not to her husband.
He lets the implications of that wash over him. First, that she wrote it. And then, that Mark kept it. A talisman. A memento. Of … what?
His heartbeat feels loud to his own ears, like it's echoing off the cold marble. It was one time, that's what she bleated while he ordered her out of their house. He was just here. Then she swept into Seattle and never told him it had been anything more. I messed up. People mess up. And then there was Mark, when he arrived in town: You don't know as much as you think you know, about what happened in New York.
But with the sliding crash of shifting plates – converging boundaries, that was what it was called – he does know. He knows that it wasn't one time. He knows that it wasn't a one night stand.
He stares at the note until it blurs before his eyes.
Like any intern, like Addison, like Mark, he learned quickly that patients lie. They obfuscate and they conflate and they forget and they just plain ... lie. It's his job to reconstruct events. To make them make sense.
Ambiguity has no place in the OR and he's always sought to excise it from the rest of his life as well. It used to work, didn't it?
But he hasn't been able to, not since Addison stalked back into his life. Grey areas discombobulate him. Mark, supporting him through Addison's surgery, all the while – what? Hoping she would leave with him?
Would you have left?
Would you have stopped me?
They abandoned those questions in the air, lingering unanswered like so many before. We have a lot to talk about, that's what they'd agreed, outside in the cool, humid terrace air, before the bleed that threatened her life a second time.
But they didn't talk. Not yet. She fell and she seized and there was another surgery and another revelation and now here he is.
He sinks onto the edge of the bed with no clear memory of getting there. The air feels stale and cold; the hotel room smells like the kind of high end organic cleaner Addison insists their housekeeper use and faint traces of Mark's expensive aftershave.
His fingers stay locked on the crumpled note in his fist.
They lived together.
They were together. And at one point, Mark expected her to be right back. Expected it enough to keep this note with him and, from the condition of the paper when he saw it, maybe grasp it almost as hard as Derek is doing right now. Like a lifeline. Like a broken promise.
He shouldn't have taken the key. Being alone was a bad idea. In the hospital, with its light and clatter, noise and reassuringly ordered chaos, he can focus. He can keep his mind from sliding untethered over the gaps and failures of their past.
Start with what you know. That's what they always say. It's the same with every trauma, the first words they say to the EMTs when a battered body arrives: what do we know?
He knows he caught them in bed together, naked, sweating, panting, ruining forever the bedroom Addison decorated for them. He knows, because Mark and Addison both confirmed it at different times, that she was pregnant. He's known that since minutes before her first surgery. They started to talk about it, but they never really finished. And he knows she terminated the pregnancy.
But that's it, until now. Now he knows something else.
And it's worse than the pregnancy, worse than the abortion, because you get pregnant from sex, but you live together out of … what? Love? There could be other reasons, maybe. Financial? Obviously not in this case. Convenience? Not really. Desperation? Sometimes people do desperate things to get attention, that's what she said when she first arrived, as they took turns stabbing the elevator buttons and he trained his eyes away from the low-cut neck of her sweater.
But living with Mark wasn't for attention. Not from him, anyway, since he didn't know until now. She stalked back into his life, armed for battle, and every brick they've shakily added since then has been built on a foundation of lies.
Could Mark have left the note purposefully for him to find? He discards that notion as quickly as he thinks it. Mark is many things, but he's never been much of a long-term strategist. The blowup of the three of them is proof enough of that. There's also no reason for him to have guessed Derek would open his dopp kit.
Which brings him to the second part: the fact that Mark kept it.
If it wasn't a strategy to torment Derek, then it must have meant something to him. Good luck? A talisman? A memory. A reminder that apparently, Addison left once with the intention of coming back.
Mark supported Derek through Addison's surgeries, brought him coffee, gave him a hotel key, took care of him, even, and all that time he was carrying a crumpled note from Derek's wife, assuring him she'd be back to him soon.
Mark's surgery was on the board for eight in the morning. That means he'll sleep until six-thirty, like he's always done, and Derek just needs to return to the hospital early enough to get some answers. He leans back on the bed, closing his eyes, knowing he won't sleep tonight.
..
Every on-call room of his career has had the same odor, a combination of stale coffee, sweat, and bleach. If exhaustion has a scent, that's the one.
Mark is stretched out on the lower bunk, eyes closed, both arms folded behind his head. He sleeps as insolently and casually as he does everything else, and for a moment Derek just watches him. He doesn't wake up, of course. He's as trained as Derek and Addison and the others: he'll wake up to his pager, but he's learned to sleep through everything else.
He's also slept in that same position since they were kids. Is this what Addison saw in the moments before she wrote that note? Mark was sleeping, and she didn't want to wake him? He thinks of her sliding quietly out of bed so as not to disturb him, maybe smiling fondly as she tiptoed out of the room, and his stomach turns. He draws one foot back and kicks the bedframe.
Hard.
"Jesus." Mark wakes up fast, shaken. "Derek? What's wrong?" He sits half up, rubbing one of his eyes. "You okay?"
Damn him.
Derek's fist unclenches for what feels like the first time since he found the note, and he hurls it into the face of his former best friend.
"What the hell?"
He remembers the summer before tenth grade, tryouts and training, when Mark made varsity and Derek didn't, so he switched to hockey. And didn't tell Mark, not until the end of August when they showed for different pre-seasons for the first time since sixth grade. The hurt look in Mark's eyes. Why didn't you tell me, he asked, I could have switched too. That was the first time Derek considered the possibility that even though Mark was taller, and his hair didn't frizz, and girls flirted with him in the cafeteria, and he was the only tenth grader who made varsity – even so, maybe Mark was the one who needed him more.
Mark grabs for the crumpled paper Derek threw, unfolds it, and there it is, that same expression: hurt.
But only for a second, and then his face darkens.
She didn't stay with me last time, that's what Mark said what seems like a lifetime ago. He neglected to mention that they had lived together.
"You went through my things? I gave you that key as a favor, man."
"Right. A favor," he snorts. "I know how your favors work, Mark. You're always around, always helping out, isn't that right? Full of helpful favors. Then I come home to find you screwing my wife."
"Of course that's your interpretation." Mark swings his legs out of the bunk and stands up; Derek notices he's still clutching the note. "Classic Derek Shepherd. Right from A to G, with nothing in between and no time wasted acknowledging your role in it."
"Which role was I when you were screwing my wife, Mark?" He sees Mark wince and enjoys it. "From what I recall, top and bottom were both taken."
"Always the victim," Mark taunts, then seems to relent. "Come on, what's the big deal, Derek?"
Derek doesn't answer, his jaw clenched.
Mark's eyes widen. "You didn't know. That she stayed with me after you left."
"How the hell would I know that?"
"She could have told you. You know, because you're fixing your marriage and being honest with each other?"
"Shut up."
"It should have been obvious, anyway," Mark shakes his head dismissively.
Should it? Has he been in denial? She didn't stay with me the last time, that's what Mark said, in the blur of the first few days afterwards. But that could have meant anything. It could have meant that she didn't stay in New York. Or that she didn't stay with him, literally – that night he wishes he could forget – when Mark bolted down the stairs of their brownstone stark naked.
"Derek … she was pregnant," Mark reminds him unnecessarily and he grimaces.
"So? It only takes one time."
"You interrupted us, Derek, in the throes, remember? So yeah. I wouldn't call that one time."
"I'm sorry I didn't give you enough time to finish fucking my wife," he spits.
Then he stops talking, breathing heavily.
"I wouldn't mind punching you now," Mark says after a moment, looking disgusted.
"Yeah." Derek glances down at right hand. "Same."
Neither of them moves, though.
"Talk to Addison," Mark says quietly. "Ask her what happened."
"Don't mention her name to me," Derek snaps, just like he did when Mark first arrived.
"Derek," Mark says urgently. "We all made mistakes. All three of us. Don't throw away-"
"With you, there's nothing to throw away," he says coldly. "And my only mistake was letting you speak to me again. Just … stay away from us. We're done."
He glances over his shoulder only once before he slams the on-call room door behind him, but it's long enough to see Mark leaning against the wall, shoulders slumped, holding the unfolded note out in front of him.
Seven Years Earlier
He blinks awake with some confusion, not recognizing the room at first. He's surrounded in shades of soft white and sea blue, bleached wooden shutters thrown open wide. Rolling over slightly onto fat, unfamiliar pillows, kicking layers of delicate blankets from his legs, he remembers that they're in the Hamptons. In their new home.
But where's Addison? She was so excited to wake up here, that's what she said to him last night. Of course, I love waking up with you anywhere, she murmured to him. Even a sweaty on-call room. He kissed her, touched by her openness. Especially if we make it sweatier, right? He teased her, lightening the moment, and she just grinned at him.
But now she's missing, even though her touches are everywhere in the bedroom. There's a candle on the carved wooden table next to the bed, one of those ridiculously expensive ones she likes that look like ordinary while pillars but offer the type of scents that never made much sense to a man whose childhood home had fragrances no more complicated than baking pies or maybe some supermarket brand air freshener.
Salt, that's one this one says when he examines it, on a little label printed in an old-fashioned looking font.
He rolls back over and sees the note on her pillow, picking it up to read her familiar handwriting.
Come find me. I'll make it worth your while.
A.
His heart twitches, along with other parts of his anatomy.
When he walks across the broad pine floorboards she agonized over, he almost trips over a scrap of lace. Leaning over to pick it up, he recognizes the pale pink panties she slept in last night. Addison never leaves clothes on the floor; she's a drill sergeant when it comes to cleanliness.
…unless she's putting on a show.
Sure enough, a few feet away is the shirt she wore to bed, one of those basically transparent white shirts that looks casual in a drawer but is unbearably sexy on her body. It's late October; she turned the heat up. We paid for winterizing for a reason, she said, and he couldn't argue, not when the length of her bare legs slipped between his.
And now she's apparently stripping her way through their new home. God, he loves his wife.
"Addison," he calls, traipsing through the still unfamiliar hall. "Ready or not, here I come."
And she's waiting for him at the foot of the wide staircase wearing a saucy grin and nothing else.
"We're going to christen every room in this house," he growls into her neck when he grabs her.
"Promise?" she murmurs, her voice agonizingly close to his ear, and his body throbs almost painfully.
Two hours later, exhausted but very happy, they're sharing coffee from the drip machine in their new kitchen.
Addison frowns at the taste. "We need an espresso maker."
"Put it on the list." He kisses her.
"And I need a hot bath." She leans against the kitchen island, glancing at him meaningfully.
"Oh, did I wear you out?" He leans in to kiss her neck, running his hand along her bare side from waist to hip. He loves that dip of her body.
"No, I wore you out," she corrects.
"Always with the competition." He nips at her collarbones and she yelps, pushing on his shoulders.
"Call it a draw?" she offers.
"No way." He pulls back and raises his eyebrows at her. "Every room means every room."
"But it doesn't all have to be this morning," she says quickly and he grins at her.
"Agreed. But. We at least need to finish the kitchen."
"What? But we –" she gestures toward the breakfast nook through the archway where the cushions are still askew.
"That's the dining area," he pronounces it haughtily like a realtor and she laughs.
"Cheater."
"You love it."
"Maybe." She leans in to kiss him this time. "Derek?"
"Hm?" He's fitting his hands around her, pulling her close, enjoying how perfectly they mesh together. She slides one foot along his bare calf.
"What about that?" She points to an arched wooden door in the wall with an old fashioned iron latch on the outside.
"That's a cabinet. I'm not a mug and neither are you."
"No, that is a butler's pantry, and technically it counts as a room. I saw the realtor's plans, so I know."
She looks very pleased with herself.
"Christening every room sounded like so much fun when I thought of it," he says mournfully.
"I thought of it," she protests.
"Then we'd better finish the kitchen."
He unlatches the door and peers in. It's about the size of a phone booth, if a phone booth had low ceilings, stripped wood walls, and a large number of very breakable mason jars.
He closes the door again and turns to face her.
"Oh, you're giving up now?" She smirks.
"Nope."
Her eyes widen. "You have a plan?"
"I do. My plan – what's that Chief Herman likes to say about plans?"
"That you can make a plan, as long as you're flexible – Derek!" she squeals when she catches his intent. "I was just kidding before, honey, I mean, it's a very small space."
"So we'll have to be very flexible."
She's laughing as he lifts her against his body.
She's still laughing, thankfully, as she sits cross-legged on the marble kitchen island – still naked – while Derek removes a sizeable splinter from her back.
"This is extremely unsanitary."
"Which part?" he asks, kissing her sweat-dampened back just below the site of his impromptu surgery. Autumn sunlight slices through the kitchen.
"All of it. Let's not forget to sanitize the island after this."
He steps back to take in the long, white column of her back, the elegant length of her neck. He loves this view of her.
Okay, fine, he loves most views of her.
"I'll make a deal," he offers. "How about we christen it again first, then sanitize it?"
Addison turns to raise an eyebrow at him over her shoulder. "Oh, no. I'm closed for business. I'm on medical leave. I'm … semi-retired."
"I get the picture. Wait, hold still for a second." He braces her shoulder with one hand, pushing her forward slightly to stretch the skin, before he pulls out the last part of the splinter.
"Ow!"
"Sorry." He kisses her shoulder. "Okay, good news: you're going to live."
"I knew it was the right idea to marry a surgeon."
"Actually, getting married was my idea, remember?" He reaches for her left hand in his and kisses it, close to her rings.
"True. But I agreed."
"I know you agreed. It's not like I've forgotten the best day of my life."
She swings her legs around and kisses him deeply, her fingers sliding into his hair. Her legs wrap around his hips and she draws him closer.
"I thought you were closed for business, Addie."
"I was, but when you say things like that…."
Talk to Addison. Ask her what happened.
He hates the idea of taking advice from Mark, but he finds himself heading for Addison's room anyway.
She's sleeping fitfully when he gets there, good hand fisting the white blanket loosely. A weak moan escapes her lips. There's a fine line between restless sleep and nightmares; he decides to err on the side of caution.
"Addison." He grips her arm gently. "Wake up."
She blinks awake quickly, looking confused.
"You're okay."
"Yeah." She looks exhausted; the sleep can't have been very healing. "Too much … medication."
"They'll wean you when you're ready, Addison. You need to give it time." Her other injuries have paled in comparison to the brain surgery, but he knows she'll need more work there too.
She coughs, wincing, and he pours her a cup of water. "Drink," he says when she doesn't respond, and she leans forward to take a sip that makes her cough again. "Slow down, Addie." He waits for her to settle, and then offers her more water, one hand supporting her neck this time. She takes a sip, and it stays down.
He releases her, sitting down in the familiar chair next to her bed. "You were dreaming?"
She nods.
"Do you remember…?" The question is automatic.
"He was grabbing me. I felt his hands on my arms … and I was cold. And wet." She shudders slightly and in spite of the reason he came in here, he reaches for her hand, thinking of the patchy frost on the ground in the parking lot and her damp hair, crusted with ice, when he first saw her in the trauma room early Christmas morning.
"Derek … what's wrong?" She touches his hand, looking at him curiously, and he folds his fingers around hers mechanically.
"Nothing."
"But you look upset."
"This isn't the time, Addison."
"Derek, are you okay?"
The same words Mark used. Just as when Mark used them, he finds his stomach clenching. He thinks of Addison trailing him through the hospital so many times since she arrived, asking for answers she didn't really want.
Are we okay? Are you mad, depressed, what? We're okay, right?
He's no hero. He lied, then, didn't he? Yeah, we're okay. Everything's fine, we're fine, Addie.
He tries on truth for size this time, looking right at her instead of down at her hand.
"You stayed with him," he says, "in New York, after I left."
As he speaks, he realizes that even after what Mark said, he's still holding onto a kernel of hope that it's not true.
But then he sees her face. And her expression gives her away.
She's not on her game, he knows – recovering from two surgeries, hospitalized, just a few minutes awakened from a nightmare – or she never would have done that. The Addison he knew never gave ground in a battle. Each battle was hard fought, and they took turns winning, that was their practice; neither of them ever won the war.
"Derek…"
"You're unbelievable," he says before he can stop himself, shaking his head.
Her eyes fill with tears. "I'm sorry."
"Sorry you did it, or sorry I found out?" He disentangles his hand from hers.
She doesn't respond.
"Addison." He pushes his hands through his hair, frustrated. "How could you not think this was something I needed to know?"
"I wanted – but I didn't know how to tell you," her voice hitches slightly; instead of making him sympathetic, it annoys him.
"How about hey, Derek, after you caught me screwing your best friend, I moved in with him? How about that?" His tone is louder than he intends.
"Derek, I wanted to tell you, before, when we were walking," she bleats.
She's telling the truth about that, at least, because he remembers her words. I need to tell you something. But her knees had wobbled, the walk too much exertion for her, and like so many times they abandoned the conversation as she recovered. Convenient.
"You should have told me a lot sooner than that."
"Please, Derek, you have to listen…"
"I don't have to listen. Not when you haven't been honest."
"Just … please, hear me out." Her breath is coming faster now.
"Did you even –" and his tone is angry, louder than it should be, but before he can ask the question her monitor blares an alarm. Her panicked breaths are speeding up, and now she's struggling to breathe.
Damn it.
"Okay, calm down, Addison," he says quickly. "Slow your breathing down."
"I'm – not – " she's gasping for breath, her good hand reaching out blindly.
A nurse he doesn't recognize jogs into the room.
"Don't try to talk," Derek instructs her. "Just slow down. Addison, stop panicking."
The nurse readies the oxygen mask that's already prepared by her bedside, leaning over her. "Here we go, this will help you breathe."
"No," Addison chokes out between labored breaths, jerking her head away. He knows she hates the feel of oxygen masks and her face is still injured.
Her eyes are trained on his, pleading. Not sure which of them he dislikes more right now, he doesn't intercede.
But it's himself.
He hates himself more, he decides, as he stands neutrally while her fingers grasp clawlike at the sheets and her eyes seek his, pretending he doesn't know what she's trying to tell him.
"It's all right, Dr. M – Addison," the nurse trying to fit her with an oxygen mask attempts to be soothing, but Addison is struggling, pulling at the mask with her good hand.
Her panting breaths sound painful and he recognizes his name among them.
The nurse looks apologetically at him. "Would you mind …"
He moves in closer to help and grasps her wrist, intending to pull her hand away from the mask. She cringes in fear.
"Addison," he says her name with surprise, laced with guilt, the choked sounds of her breaths in his ears. She tugs at his grip.
"Addie, stop, it's okay," he mutters. "Just let her help you." Her panicked breaths are coming even faster now. Annoyed with both of them that she's making this so difficult, he restrains her more firmly than strictly necessary, pinning her arm down to her side and pressing her shoulder to the mattress.
Her darting eyes accuse him, her gasping breaths remind him of his failures, but with her other injuries he's immobilized her enough that the nurse is able to fit the mask.
"There," the nurse is saying soothingly, "isn't that better?" She's gently brushing Addison's hair back from the mask. "Just take some nice breaths."
With the mask secured to her face and Derek still restraining her good side she has no choice but to breathe in the oxygen. He watches tears run out of her eyes, splashing over the mask.
"Shh, try to calm down, sweetie," the nurse coos, glancing at Derek.
With one hand on her wrist and the other on her shoulder, he has no hands free to comfort her. Even if he could bring himself to do so.
Addison is still trying to tell him something with her eyes, he knows it, but he can't or won't read it. He shakes his head as her eyes implore him.
The nurse is looking at him again. Judging him. "Just leave it," he says hoarsely to Addison. "You need oxygen."
When she nods very slightly at his warning, he releases her. Minutes pass and her breaths are slightly better, but not normal, when she reaches for the mask again.
"Leave it, Addie. Stop." He moves her hand away, more gently this time, pausing when he sees the marks of his fingers on the pale skin of her wrist.
The nurse leans over her. "You really need to keep the mask on." Addison's desperation seems to get to her. "Okay, but … just for a second, okay?" she says hesitantly. She lifts the mask slightly and Addison gasps out what she has been trying to say, her eyes fixed on Derek.
It's only two words, her voice pained but audible:
Get. Out.
The nurse looks at him uncertainly.
"I'm sure she didn't mean…" her voice trails off.
Oh, she meant it. She means everything she does. She meant to let his best friend fuck her in the goddamn sleigh bed she insisted on buying even though he spent months slamming his hip into it whenever he walked around the bed. He had a permanent bruise until Christmas: theirs was a marriage that left marks.
The mask is back on now, her nose and mouth concealed from him, her eyes boring holes into his.
He backs away slowly.
But he doesn't leave. He promised himself, if not her, didn't he? That he would stay, that he wouldn't run off even if she tried to drive him off. That he wouldn't risk storming off only to find he'd almost lost her again.
So he backs as far as he can without leaving the room, leaning against the far wall, and waits.
From a distance, he watches as her oxygen saturation slowly increases. When she's stabilized, closer to normal, the nurse pats her good shoulder. "Just another minute or two and you'll be ready to take this off, okay, honey?" The nurse glances at Derek and then steps out of the room.
He steps closer. Addison's not fighting the oxygen mask anymore; she looks … numb, if anything, and very small in the white sheets, bruising dark on her pale skin. He winces at the way the mask presses too close into the swelling on her face.
The red numbers on her monitor blink to a reassuring blue.
"I think this can come off," he says quietly. If she hears him there's no indication.
He detaches the mask as carefully as he can. When he lifts it off her face he sees the indentations in her skin. He reaches out to touch the mark on the uninjured side of her face and she flinches. Guilt and anger collide within him: why does she always remember his failures over anything else?
He sits heavily down next to her. Her good arm is lying limply by her side, the faint red marks on her wrist screaming at him from the sheets.
Her eyes are empty. We don't have to talk about this now. Neither of them says it; they don't need to.
Tentatively, he reaches out, and when she doesn't protest, he takes her wrist in his hand, rubbing gently at the marks, wondering why they keep hurting each other, and if it matters in the long run that most of the time they want to make it better.
..
She's asleep when he finally leaves her room, and he's halfway down the hall, his mind adrift, when he feels something grabbing him roughly, without warning. His back slams into the wall.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Mark's voice is loud, his face - very close to Derek's - dark with rage.
Derek sees a few passing bodies casting them curious looks, but no one intervenes.
"Get off me." Derek tries to push him off but Mark shoves him harder, pinning him against the wall. It's an obvious display of power and it's demeaning, as it's intended to be. He's angry and humiliated and, when he realizes it's not that different from what he did at Addison's hospital bed, vaguely nauseated.
"What. The fuck. Is wrong with you," Mark spits again. "You want to throw things at me, you want to curse me out, try another punch, fine. You take it out on her? No. Not fine." He shoves him into the wall again, hard. This time his skull thumps the plaster, and for a minute an expression crosses Mark's reddened face that makes warning bells ring in Derek's head.
He's not afraid, exactly, but he's also not sure he's ever seen Mark lose control this way.
"I don't understand what you're talking about," Derek says as calmly as he can, trying to take the reins.
"Louise."
Derek looks at him blankly.
"The nurse," Mark snaps. "Still don't bother to remember their names, huh? She remembers yours. And how helpful you were in there."
A chill works its way down his neck. "She shouldn't be talking to you about…." His voice trails off. Does that sound like an admission of guilt?
He looks into Mark's angry face and disregards every warning prickle in his skin.
"That means you slept with that nurse, right?" His tone is reckless. "She must be married. We all know it's no fun for you if they're not."
"Shut up." Mark's fingers dig into his shoulders.
"Did you get her pregnant, too?"
Mark's face contorts and for just a moment Derek thinks he might have gone too far.
Another voice echoes down the hallway before Mark can answer.
"What the hell is going on here?"
"Richard," Derek says weakly.
"Chief Webber." Mark releases Derek, who sidesteps him and straightens his scrubs, not wanting to give Mark the satisfaction of seeing rub the ache from his shoulders.
"Derek," Richard is looking at him with concern. "Are you all right?"
"I'm fine," he mutters.
Richard turns to Mark, his tone cold. "Dr. Sloan. It seems your time in this hospital has come to an end."
Derek looks from one of them to the other.
"My surgery was a success today," Mark's tone is bluster, his eyes shaded. "We're that much closer to a full face transplant, Chief, and that would make Seattle Grace the first-"
"There are more important things than top billing in a medical journal," Richard says calmly. "Or even funding."
"But Derek…." Mark's voice trails off.
"Derek is my head of neurosurgery, Dr. Sloan. You are a visiting physician with temporary privileges. You work here at my discretion. And your work here is finished."
Richard glances at the badge pinned to Mark's scrubs and holds out his hand.
Mark looks at Derek, helpless, and for the second time that day Derek stands back and does nothing.
Slowly, Mark unpins his badge, handing it to Richard.
"Thank you." Richard's tone remains calm. "If I were you, Dr. Sloan, I would leave this hospital now."
Mark's eyes are darting back and forth between Richard and Derek like a cornered animal.
"Okay." His voice is husky and he nods, flexing his fingers. "Okay. Just let me say goodbye first and then I'll go." He's glancing down the hall.
Say goodbye.
To Addison. The fucking nerve.
"That's not up to me," Richard says.
Does Derek hear some pity in his voice?
Both men look to Derek.
Mark's eyes are pleading, his mouth starting to form a word and Derek doesn't think he can bear to hear the other man beg. He feels his muscles soften, starting to relent. He sees Mark's face brighten with hope; he could always tell when Derek was starting to give in. He knows him too well. All three of them know each other too well. He looks right at his former best friend.
And repeats the words Addison said to him earlier.
"Get out," he says coldly, and hopes he can forget the look in Mark's eyes when he does.
..
"How are you feeling?" he asks when he makes his way back to Addison's room.
"Why, did you bring a straitjacket?"
He presses his fingers to the bridge of his nose. He won't rise.
"Addison. You needed oxygen. I know you don't like the mask but your sats-"
"You can't doctor your way out of this, Derek." Her voice chips at him like ice. "I was here, remember? I was here, and I know you. You were punishing me."
"No, I wasn't. I'm sorry if-"
"I'm sorry if isn't an apology."
He pushes down the words he wishes he could scream. Addison is breathing heavily. "Don't get upset," he warns quietly.
"Or what? You'll drug me?"
"Stop it, Addison." He forces his voice to remain calm. She's in pain, he reminds himself, lashing out. She doesn't mean it.
She always means it.
"Where's Mark?" Her tone is innocent, and it grates.
"Why, do you want to move back in with him?"
So much for calm.
Her eyes water. "That's not fair."
"Are we playing fair? Has either one of you been fair to me?"
"I don't want to talk about this now." Her voice trembles. "I'm tired."
"Don't do that." He shakes his head. "Don't say you're tired because you don't want to talk about something real. You want to chat about the weather? I'll get Preston. We're beyond small talk, Addie. We have too many things we need to discuss."
"Mark was supposed to come see me," she bleats as if she didn't hear him.
"I don't know where he is. And I don't care."
She looks worried for a moment. "He said he was going to…"
"Mark says a lot of things, Addison. And when it gets tough he turns tail and runs like the spineless coward he is."
Her lip quivers and he lets himself feel like a terrible person again, shrugs back into it like a second skin. Hurting Addison is easy, sometimes too easy, and she's usually all too willing to help. But then she'll turn on him like a wet cat, never vulnerable for long. And scratch his eyes out.
"You lied to me," he reminds her. "You said it was one time."
"That was true when I said it, Derek, it was true when we were in-"
"No, it wasn't!" He raises his voice, less at her words and more at the image of her on the stairs, hysterical and begging, the image he's tried to block out. "You said it again when you came to Seattle. You said it again when you asked me to take you back. You lied when you asked me to take you back."
"That's what this is about?" She makes a short, sharp noise somewhere between disbelief and disgust. "That's what you're angry about. Because you think you had to give up your girlfriend without hearing the whole story?"
Heat pounds behind his eyes. "But you didn't give up your boyfriend, did you? You snapped your fingers and brought him right to Seattle. Were you keeping him on a leash while you tried to reconcile with me?"
"No," she cries. "No, I wanted you back, Derek, I came here for you-"
"You came here for Richard," he says coolly. "You came here for work. Isn't that what you told me? Weren't you planning to leave if the preemie hadn't made it through surgery?"
That tiny goddamned baby, helpless and addicted to narcotics, abandoned by everyone who should have stood by her. Everyone but Addison.
There's no reason in the world why she should be stronger since this morning.
"Weren't you?" he demands when she doesn't answer.
"No," she whimpers. "No. I don't know."
He inhales sharply. "Was Mark waiting for you in New York when you flew out here, Addison?"
The tears in her eyes overflow.
"Did he even know you were coming out here?" He presses on, refusing to back down.
"Derek-"
He cuts her off, sharpening his tone. "Did Mark think you were coming back?"
She doesn't answer.
Goddamn it. He's been so stupid.
"I wanted to stay with you, Derek," her voice trembles, irritating his ears. "Richard … was trying to help, he … he wanted me to be able to stay because he knew it was what I wanted."
"Did you tell Richard you were living with Mark? Did you tell him you were pregnant?"
For a moment they both freeze at the audacity of the word. Pregnant. It's the first time he's brought up the pregnancy since their first brief words what feels like months ago, and for a moment he wonders if she even remembers that he knows about it.
Her chest moves with her breath and she takes a moment, and apparently some effort, to stop crying. "I was wondering when you'd throw that in my face again," she says finally.
"If you took responsibility once in a while, maybe I wouldn't need to throw things in your face."
"Derek, please. You … chose to try to make it work. With me," her voice quivers on the last word.
"No. That wasn't a choice. Not a real one. Not when I didn't have all the information. You lied to me, Addison."
"Derek, please. I love you." Another tear rolls down her cheek and it angers him.
"You don't withhold information like that if you love someone."
"What about you?" Her jaw sets, prepared for the offensive. "You didn't tell Meredith you were married, did you? You withheld some pretty important information there."
"She has nothing to do with this. And I wasn't lying."
"What do you call it then?"
"You really want to know?" He feels reckless again, like he did with Mark earlier in the hall.
She nods, but looks uncertain. He plows ahead.
"There was nothing to tell her. You didn't exist. From the minute I walked into our bedroom and saw you with Mark, you stopped existing to me."
For a moment they just look at each other, both breathing heavily. He considers trying to calm her – he's not sure if Richard will take his side this time if he upsets her into needing oxygen again – but then she nods slowly, her face a mask.
"Well. You almost got your wish." Her voice is cool and polite, that Montgomery voice, but not quite because it still shakes slightly, betraying emotion. "Twice, actually, Derek. Maybe you'll get lucky and the third time will be the charm."
He exhales. "That's not what I meant." And you know it, he doesn't add. How many fights over words have they had? Fights over fights?
"No, I'm sorry. It's my fault. It was inconvenient of me not to die."
"Stop it, Addison, you know that's not what I meant."
He sits down heavily in the chair next to the bed, head in his hand. His anger is dwindling now despite his best attempts to feed it, melting into something else entirely. Some kind of thick shock permeated with misery. "I don't want you to die," he admits.
She releases a breath that might be a mirthless laugh. "We're really lowering the bar for marriage with that one, but I guess I'll take it."
He keeps his head in his hands.
Marriage. Is that what this is? Have they been kidding themselves?
The image of Mark in that stark high rise apartment, waiting for Addison to come home to him. Back soon, A. The image of Addison stalking through the doors of Seattle Grace on heels that were weapons. Derek, I messed up. People mess up.
What did she do to both of them? He closes his eyes briefly, sees both of them moving further away, tunneling out, as if he's about to lose consciousness.
That would be a relief, actually. But then her voice cuts through the fog.
"Derek? Are you okay?"
He opens his eyes. "I can't do this. I'm sorry."
"Derek," she whimpers, "What are you saying?"
Her eyes are darting around the room and he reminds himself how this would look to an outsider, berating his wife three days after brain surgery, two weeks after an attack that could have killed her.
The anger has dissipated. It's emptiness he feels, and the sympathy lacing it is neutral, generic. Her healing face is panicked, but he can't summon any feelings in response. He's too exhausted.
"Are you leaving?" Her voice hitches, panic inflecting its rise. "Derek?"
If you go now, we're not going to get through this.
He's halfway out of the visitor's chair, fingers digging into the plasticized padding.
If you go now, we don't have a chance.
"No," he sits back down heavily. "I'm not going to leave you like this."
It's her turn to close her eyes, and he wonders what she's picturing.
"I want to go home," she whispers, a tear sliding out of her still closed eyes.
For a minute he's back at Joe's on Christmas Eve, the odor of wet wool and stale popcorn thick in his nose, the cool glass of Addison's cocktail against his palm. I want to go home, that's what she'd whispered. And then she'd raised her voice. I want to go home, Derek!
"Addison," he starts tentatively.
He stops, wondering which home she's picturing. Their brownstone? Mark's high-rise? The trailer?
"I know I can't," she mumbles, opening her eyes. "But I wish I could."
He reaches for her hand, his fingers stopping inches from hers.
"You know you're not ready to leave the hospital yet," he says mechanically, like she's a patient.
"That's not why I can't."
"What do you mean?"
"Derek." It seems to take some effort, but she meets his eyes. "I don't have a home. Not in New York. And not here. So, yeah. That's why I can't go home." She covers her face.
Every inch of her shaking body screams don't touch me and he doesn't, but he stays.
..
"Shepherd."
He starts awake to Dr. Bailey, efficient and business as usual, followed by a nurse he doesn't recognize. He didn't realize he was dozing. Addison rouses slowly.
Bailey shoots Derek a suspicious look. He wonders what the traitorous Nurse Louise told her, but realizes Addison's tear-marked face is more evidence than the hastily discarded oxygen mask or whatever tale has been spun in the gossip-starved hospital hallways.
"I'm fine," Addison says quickly, and Derek's not sure which of the three of them she's trying to convince.
At the encouragement of both Bailey and Addison, he takes his leave so they can work.
Then he takes advantage of the break to refuel his body, breathe in enough fresh air to fill his lungs and let caffeine speed his heart instead of anger. His days lack rhythm now, the kind of rhythm he craves. He updates the family and friends who keep contacting him, how is she, how does she feel, what can we do. He doesn't have the answers to those questions, so he answers in tight, clinical language: tells them that the numbers reflect improvement across the board, and doesn't tell them about the damage they keep doing to each other. Briefly he wonders if Mark has left for New York yet, but he forces down the thought. He doesn't care what happens to him. Not anymore.
Exhaustion tenses his shoulders. He showers in the attendings' lounge, changes into clean scrubs. He studies himself in the mirror, briefly. He looks like a man who's survived a war. He's a man dressed as a surgeon who isn't allowed to cut.
Addison's room is quiet when he returns, but Dr. Bailey and a nurse he doesn't recognize are standing by her side.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing," Addison says, looking away from him, but he sees the tension in her jaw.
"Are you in pain?"
"No."
He takes her hand in his; it's trembling slightly. "Addison." He touches her jaw with his other hand, turning her face gently toward his.
Her pupils are dilated, the skin around her eyes tight.
"She wants to wean," Bailey says, the timbre of her voice making clear what she thinks of this idea.
"It's too soon," Derek says immediately. She's in obvious pain, but he can't summon the strength to have this fight with her now. Not again. Wearily, he turns to Bailey.
"Can you just…."
"We have it under control," Bailey says. Her voice is calm: whether intended to soothe Addison or Derek, he's not sure. "Why don't you go get a cup of coffee."
"Okay." He nods. It's not walking away, not really; Addison is in good hands. He'll come back when she can talk again.
But when he tries to leave she clings to his hand, surprisingly strong. "No, Derek, wait!"
He bends over her, surprised. "It's okay, Addison, I'll be right-"
"Please don't take medical power of attorney."
He sinks down in the chair next to her, guilt turning his stomach. He wasn't sure she even remembered that. It feels like a lifetime ago.
"No, Addie, you know that's not-"
"Please!"
She looks genuinely frightened and he glances at Bailey for help again. She just raises her eyebrows with a clear I told you so expression.
"Addison, why-"
"I don't want more." She's babbling, only mostly coherent. "I want to wean, I need to wean, my head is so thick."
"Okay. Calm down."
"I don't want the dreams. And I can't. But I wasn't lying-"
"It's okay. Calm down, Addison."
"I'll take the meds." Her chest heaves. "Derek, please-"
"Addie, stop." He cups her cheek, and she doesn't flinch, but he can't consider it a victory. He's not sure in her panic how much she remembers of the last time they talked. "It's okay. It's okay."
He signals to Bailey, who nods at the nurse and the clear liquid enters her IV. One look from Bailey and the nurse leaves.
"Better?"
"Yeah." Her eyes flutter for a moment, then fly open again.
"But Derek, you won't-"
"No, Addison. I promise."
And don't you dare talk to me about oaths.
"Okay," she whispers, eyes darting around the room.
"You're okay," he says, hoping he sounds convincing. Frankly, he's not sure how well either one of them is doing right now. He tries to twist his face into a smile and then she seems to be trying to do the same, but hiccups on a shaky breath instead. Then she's crying again and he feels every shake of her shoulders, every wince, in his own viscera.
He looks helplessly at Bailey, who's shaking her head, judgment all over her dark eyes.
"Can I-" he gestures toward Addison, toward the bed.
"I wish you would," Bailey says. She closes the door smartly behind her.
He lowers the guardrail on her bed.
"What are you doing?"
Her voice, high and panicky on the stairs as she raised that stubborn, tearful face to his. What are you doing? Right before he'd grabbed her. She was holding on so tightly, he'd had to wrench her fingers free, down to the fourth finger of her left hand with its sparkling rings cutting into his own flesh.
They never discussed it. She swanned into the hospital in full Addison mode – her don't fuck with me outfit – and he never apologized.
"I don't know what I'm doing," he admits now. "I just know we can't do this anymore. We can't keep tearing each other apart."
She glances at him, her breath hitching. The flesh around her good eye is puffy and raw-looking; she's cried so much today. It's his own fault. "Yeah, I know," she whispers, her voice hoarse.
He takes her hand in his, waiting for her to calm down.
"We have to talk more about all of this," he says when her breathing has normalized. "All of it. It's ugly and it's hard and … I don't want to do it either but we have to." A new certainty fills him as he speaks. "We can't push it aside anymore, Addison."
He's not even sure how they would, if they could. They have nothing left to hide behind. The things they used to use to push aside the difficult topics – sex. Drinks. Surgery. They're all off the table now and it's just the two of them.
"You're right." She's nodding slowly. "I know you're right."
"But not the way we were talking before." He grimaces slightly, hears their voices in his head: his loud and angry, hers sarcastic and biting. "We're on the same side, Addie. We have to be on the same side."
"Right," she says, nodding slowly.
"So…" he gestures toward her hospital bed again and she gives him a curious look.
He moves closer to the bed, preparing to ease one leg onto it. "We don't have to be in the same bed to be on the same side," she protests, realizing his intent.
"Maybe we do."
"Honey, it's a very small bed."
"It's not that small."
She looks confused, anticipatory, but she doesn't protest again.
He doesn't say trust me. Not out loud.
Carefully, he makes his way onto the bed with her. It's a complicated dance, protecting her healing injuries, and he takes his time.
"Here, put your – right, like that." He's moving very slowly, afraid of hurting her. She feels fragile under his hands, unfamiliar and medicinal.
Finally he's moved them both enough to be able to lie down next to her. With a pillow between them to cushion her healing ribs, he shifts her very carefully so that the uninjured part of her body is draped on top of his, her casted arm protected and only the uninjured part of her damaged right leg resting on top of his.
He traces the knobs of her spine, slowly. They're more prominent than he remembers. The thin hospital gown gaps and lets his fingers warm bare flesh.
"Cold?"
"No," she says softly against his chest.
"Am I hurting you?"
"No."
"You'll tell me if I am?"
"It doesn't hurt, Derek."
Her fingers brush over his hand, touching cool metal warmed by his flesh, and he's reassured.
The weight of her against him is soothing, lulling him into the serenity that's eluded him for too long. He can't remember the last time he held her like this, full bodied, not the tentative half embrace when he woke her from her nightmare, or the way he'd loop an arm around her mechanically in the trailer if she rested her head on his shoulder.
But his hands maybe remember what he's forgotten, molding carefully where they're least likely to hurt her. Her breathing softens, evens out; she must be asleep. He feels him own eyes growing heavy, preparing to join her. His last though before they drift closed is surprise that even with the bandages and her injuries, the walls between them that have only partially crumbled, the weight of their mistakes, their history, they still fit together so well. Melding. Convergence, he thinks, smiling a little against her hair, like the convergent boundaries he remembers from plate tectonics. There's another name for it, but it's escaping his mind at the moment.
"Derek," she says softly against him. He didn't realize she was awake.
"Yeah, Addie." He opens his eyes with some effort and brushes her hair back gently.
Familiar lips warm his chest as she speaks, and her voice is calm, even affectionate.
"I know what you did with Meredith," she murmurs. "You're the worst kind of hypocrite."
Her words slice through him with a dawning horror. She makes no move to withdraw from his arms; he's stunned, frozen in place, the warm weight of her pinning him to the bed as the ground slides away from him once again.
The pot boils over as Derek remembers the other name for a convergent boundary: destructive.
TBC - Reviews are warmly welcomed and always appreciated. I would love to hear your thoughts, even (especially!) if you've never commented before. Regular commenters, you make my day, thank you again. This chapter was rough on me, but things needed to come to a head. I won't make you wait to long to resolve it - next chapter up by Thursday is the current plan. And I promise things will get better!