A/N: QPQ Sunday is back again ... and this time it's actually still Sunday on the east coast too. (LoveandLearn, I really wanted to hit that early mark today, but I hope you'll enjoy the chapter even if you don't name your baby Winter Junior.) This chapter was hard to write. i knew it was coming - but it was still hard. A big part of what I love about Addek is their history, and that means a lot of hurt and a lot of love and the whole mess of both of them together. We all knew the secrets had to come out, and things are going to have to be harder before they can get easier. The truth is messy and complicated but it's finally coming out, so I hope you'll stick with Addek - and me - through the rest of this process.
Real
The truth will come out. In time, it will come out. It always does. It just does.
..
Just four words, and her life is a telenovela. That's all it takes.
That's not your baby.
"Whatever game you're playing, Mark, we're not interested." Derek is glaring, and we, he said we, so – he's still on her side.
But he can't be, not for long.
"It isn't a game." Mark looks right at her, his gaze knowing and disgusted all at once and she swallows hard. "Addison – are you going to tell him or not?"
"Tell me what?" Derek asks, his voice sharpening when she doesn't speak. "Addison – what is he talking about?"
"Derek," she says quietly, her voice shaking, "can we just – "
"Tell me what?" he repeats, interrupting her.
And then he steps back, away from her, his arm falling from her shoulders while he looks from her to Mark and back again.
She's reminded very unfortunately of that last night in New York: Mark drops a bomb and then he's gone, leaving her with the fallout. The other night, the New York night, he said sorry and he said I'll call you and then loped down the same stairs she bolted down minutes later. The ones she hung onto for dear life a little after that.
Except this time, Mark hasn't left. He's standing there with his arms folded, watching.
Is he – enjoying this?
Her stomach turns over.
"Derek." She reaches for his arm. "Listen to me."
"Tell him about the baby, Addison," Mark interjects, evenly – like this is rational, like any of this makes sense, like he isn't destroying her world. "Tell him, or I will."
She turns on him. "You just did."
"No, I didn't. Not everything."
"Stop it," she warns him, her voice shaking, "don't do this, Mark, not here – "
" – where should I do it, then?" He raises his eyebrows. "You ignore all my emails, you don't care what day it is, you probably don't even remember – "
"I remember," she whispers harshly, cutting him off. "And I know you're hurting, Mark, but you can't just – "
"Addison!"
They both turn.
Derek is staring at her.
Two words.
In the form of a question.
"What baby?"
..
He pulls away from her as soon as the door closes, leaving Mark on the other side.
Leaving the two of them alone in the empty call room, with nothing between him and the words she keeps hurling toward him.
All he can do, at first, is stare.
Because the words aren't sticking. He can't quite capture them.
They're standing in a fluorescent-lit call room that smells of bleach and sanitizing soap but for some reason the memory sticking to him right now is at least a decade old, drenched in summer sunlight: a game of sack toss on the sloping lawn of his sister's house, and Addison, frustrated by her uncharacteristically poor performance, finally chucking all the bean bags one after the other with less aim than desperation.
"Derek," she says.
And he sees it again, that memory. She just keeps missing.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I should have told you," she whispers. "I know I should have, Derek, but I was … embarrassed, and scared, and … and there was never a good time."
"Never a good time."
He repeats her words, trying to make sense of them.
"Never a good time," he says again.
"But I should have told you." She's pacing the room, hands twisting with anxiety, and he forces his gaze away from the rounded curve of her belly.
That's not your baby.
It is, of course it is. He has no doubt. What his mind is trying to wrap itself around now – with limited success – is that there was another one.
Another baby.
"You were pregnant."
There are tears in her eyes when she looks at him. "I was pregnant."
In his mind, again, is the hard thump of a bean bag against a painted wood board; the sun is high enough to blind.
Another try … another miss.
"Why?" he asks.
She seems to understand the question. Not why were you pregnant but why weren't you.
She's silent for a long moments, her chest rising and falling with visible breaths. "I didn't know what else to do," she says finally. "It was – it felt – like the best choice in a – a bad situation."
He tries to make sense of it.
"Derek, we were still married – "
"I'm aware," he cuts her off, anger starting to flow to fill in the numb spaces left by Mark's words. "I'm actually not the one who forgot the vows."
She draws a shaky breath. "I couldn't do it. I couldn't have a baby with Mark."
"With Mark." He feels like he's missing something. "You – he wanted to keep it." Disgust trickles down his neck like a cold sweat. "He wanted it."
"He wanted it." She's twisting her hands again. "Or he said he did, but he didn't – "
She stops talking.
He's missing something. Is he missing something?
"I'm sorry," she says again.
He waves a hand, impatient. It's architecture he's interested in: what are the lines of this latest piece of the story?
"So that's it," he prompts. "You were pregnant, you terminated it," he sees her wince at the word, "and that's it."
Slowly, she shakes her head.
..
"Addison, what the hell is wrong with you?"
The door to the call room bangs open without warning, Derek stopping mid-shout.
"Everyone can hear you," Mark announces.
"I don't care," Derek snaps.
So this is where they are. Mark, who never put much faith in OBGYN but spends the bulk of his time staring at women's bodies, apparently thought her second trimester figure looked 40 weeks pregnant. Which is just great. Derek, who actually put some faith in her, now knows what a liar she is.
Great, again.
And now Mark is here, standing in the open doorway, maybe pleased with what he's wrought.
… even better.
"Mark, close the door," Addison hisses, swiping at her eyes.
He does, but he stays in the room.
"I meant without you outside of it."
"So you can tell Derek your side without anyone to remind you what really happened?" Mark asks.
"I already told him what really happened."
"Supposedly," Derek says, glaring at her. "Except you already told me what really happened the last time too, weren't you? When it was just a one-night stand?"
Mark's eyebrows raise. "Of course that's the version you stuck to. Where you're the damsel in distress and I'm the bad guy, right?"
Derek ignores him. "Sorry, a … few-night stand. That was the latest … truth, right?"
She catches her lower lip in her teeth, not sure how to respond.
"Right?" he persists. "That's what you told me – in the hotel – that was the truth. No more secrets." He looks disgusted with her and she feels a piece of her heart she never meant to grow again crack in two.
"I'm sorry," she whispers.
"It wasn't a one-night stand," Derek repeats, sounding like he's processing it. The way he'll sometimes sort through a thorny set of symptoms in a particularly tricky patient, repeating it in different variations while he paces the first floor, scotch in hand. Or he used to, anyway.
I was in love with him – or I thought I was. I didn't want to believe I'd thrown my life away, that I'd thrown my marriage away –
She repeats the words that angered him before Mark burst into the room and he stares past her like she doesn't exist, her jaw set and angry.
"We lived together for two months," she finishes, all in one breath, as if that will somehow lessen this last ugly part of the story.
"I told her to tell you," Mark announces; if he's deflated at all at her characterization it's not visible. "I was going to tell you myself, when I was here, about how we felt, except you didn't listen. But I figured you deserved to – "
"Shut up, Mark," Derek says tiredly, but Addison can't enjoy it because he turns on her as soon as he's finished.
"You had a relationship." He says the word like it tastes bad. "You were in love with him?"
"I – I thought I was, Derek, but I was just – I was scared. I didn't want to be alone."
Mark snorts faintly at this and her cheeks flush.
"I should have told you," she says again, directing her voice to Derek only. Like a broken record.
Which makes sense, since that's how she feels right now: broken.
Mark is still just standing there, leaning his big frame against the door like he's watching a damn television show, and she can't help turning to him.
"You think it makes you look so much better, that we stayed together? You think Derek will want to be your friend again now?"
His brow furrows.
"He's Mark," Addison says, turning to Derek now. "He's Mark and yeah, we did live together, but he – spent the whole time cheating on me."
"Cheating on you," Derek repeats, in that same disgusted tone. "I'm sorry, is it possible to … cheat on someone … who's cheating on her husband? Doesn't that word imply some kind of fidelity in the first place?"
She's losing him.
His expression makes that clear.
"I caught him with someone else," she whispers, desperately trying to get him to hear her. She glances at Mark, who's watching her with a furrowed brow. He won't want to hear this and she can't care, not right now. "I wanted you, Derek. When Richard called – and then I got here and it seemed like maybe you were willing to – that you would – "
" – so it was worth getting rid of our kid," Mark interjects.
She shudders. "That's not what I said."
"But it's what you did."
"Mark." She tugs at the ends of her hair with sheer frustration. "Can you please just – go and let us talk?"
"Since that worked so well the last time." He glares at her. "You just – smear my name and you get to be the good guys. You're the good guys and I'm the bastard who wrecked it all."
They're both looking at her as she takes a shaky breath, unable to speak. She's lost the plot, can't figure out which of them to look at when they're both staring at her.
All she knows is that she has to try to make Derek understand.
But when she says his name he presses his lips together, not responding.
"Derek, please just listen – "
Their faces blur as the tears in her eyes overflow.
She shoves her hands against her eyes, not caring if she's trailing mascara down her cheeks,
"Stop crying." Derek shakes his head. "If you're trying to make us feel sorry for you, it's not working."
So now they're an us again.
They're an us, and she's … nothing.
"I'm not trying to make you feel sorry for me," she protests, "I'm just trying to get you to listen to me!"
"I did listen to you." His voice is low and cutting; he doesn't need to yell to telegraph his anger with her. "I'm tired of listening to you."
She swallows hard, swiping at more tears. She accepts it – she deserves it. She can't be here, though.
She can't be with them.
"Where do you think you're going?" Derek demands before she's even reached the door.
"Out," she says, trying to keep some dignity even though she can't even imagine what she looks like right now, a mascara-trailed mess, but it's better than being in here.
"Running away from your problems again," he says scathingly, "I'm shocked."
"You're the one who ran to Seattle!"
"And you ran after me, Addison, but you conveniently forgot to tell me why you ran here. Didn't you?"
He advances on her when she doesn't respond; she knows he's not going to do anything but she takes a step back anyway, automatically.
"Didn't you," he repeats loudly.
"I said I was sorry."
"And I said I don't care how sorry you are!" He's loud enough now that she's certain everyone passing by can hear them and close enough that she can feel his hot angry breath on her face.
Everything is falling apart.
Everything.
Derek is looking from one of them to the other now.
"Seventeen weeks," he says, and hearing him say their baby's gestational age, which he's been speaking with such reverence and joy all this time, in that cold tone feels like a fist to the solar plexus.
She says nothing, not sure what he's getting at.
"Seventeen weeks," Derek repeats. He looks like he's thinking about something.
And then he turns on her. "Did you sleep with him when he was here last time?"
She staggers back.
"No, Derek, of course I didn't."
"Because you're so trustworthy," he says. "It's so easy to believe you, especially about Mark."
"I know I didn't tell you the whole truth," she says, her voice shaking, "but that was about when I was in New York. All of that, it happened before. Everything that happened here has been real."
"That's what you think?" His face is angry enough to remind her of the night he caught them in New York and it makes her stomach turn over with bitter, unpleasant sense memory. "That everything here has been real?"
He's trapping her. She knows this as well as she knows him but she's too tired, too ashamed, too sad to try to outsmart him. So she just nods.
"Nothing here has been real!"
He shouts it loud enough, and from close enough, to make her jump a little and even Mark flinches from his position feet away.
"Derek," he says quietly.
Mark doesn't look like he's enjoying this anymore.
Maybe he thought it would be fun, watching Derek tear her apart for sport.
She gets that – Mark isn't the only one who's tried to provoke Derek just to get a reaction, any reaction, and she can almost sympathize with him. She knows how much it hurts to be ignored.
Then she sees her husband's cold eyes – directed to her alone – and her sympathy for Mark wanes.
"But it was real." She argues with him against her better judgment, through tears that make his angry face shimmer and blur in front of her eyes. "Derek, I swear, I haven't lied about anything here. I haven't – I haven't – "
"Give it a rest." He's pacing like an angry lion and she finds herself gauging the distance between the door and her own body, which is ridiculous but – she does it anyway. He turns on her before she can say anything else.
"You haven't lied about anything?"
She quails a little under his gaze but doesn't say anything in response.
"You lied about everything," he corrects her coldly. "You made me take you back on false pretenses, you made me feel guilty for being in love with Meredith – "
"You can't say you wish you hadn't taken me back." Her breath hitches at the painful thought. "Not if you want this baby. He wouldn't be here if you hadn't taken me back."
"He's the only reason I don't wish that. The only one." Derek is staring her down, letting his words sink in to the beat of her thumping heart. "I want you out of the trailer," he says after long moments. "I want you out immediately."
"Okay." Her voice shakes. "I'll, um, I'll get my things."
"Good." Derek pauses. "You're not leaving Seattle," he adds shortly.
"Why?" She wipes tears out of her eyes. "If you hate me so much."
"Stop with the self-pity for once." He shakes his head. "It's not about you. I'll get a court order if I have to, you're not taking my child."
"Your child is a fetus who happens to live inside of me right now."
"Watch out, Derek," Mark interjects casually. "This is how it starts. One day you're buying a onesie, the next … " He raises an eyebrow and extends a hand, stopping just short of actually miming suction, and her stomach curdles with nausea at the crude gesture.
This is how it starts.
Her head spins.
She loved both of these men. In different ways, at different times, but still … love. She trusted them, bared herself to them, and now in this increasingly claustrophobic room their shared past is whizzing through her memories and falling apart.
Derek turns on her. "You wouldn't," he breathes.
"Of course I wouldn't, Derek – how could you say that?"
Her legs are liquid at the horror. Their breakfast-loving baby, recipient of Derek's verbal fly-fishing lessons and nightly chats, the one they've been talking to and talking about since her husband learned he was going to be a father.
And for a moment, just a moment, Derek's eyes flicker. Like he's remembering too. Like he's still –
"No," he says sharply before she can speak again. "No. You don't get the high horse," he adds, borrowing Mark's words from earlier.
"I want this baby, Derek," she says, her voice trembling. "You know I want this baby."
"She wanted the other one, too," Mark says to no one in particular, "until she didn't."
"Mark, shut up." She turns on him, wanting nothing more than to make him stop smirking, stop talking, not even sure what she wants to do although clawing his eyes out does sound appealing, but Derek intercedes, moving her back before she can touch Mark at all.
He's not rough – his touch is clinical if anything – but something about the feeling of his grip on her is unsettling anyway.
"Let go," she protests, hating how whiny she sounds, and Derek releases her, looking disgusted.
Both men are silent. She wants to tell Mark to leave, haven't you done enough, but somehow this whole mess is all three of theirs and she can't seem to do it.
She can't seem to speak, either.
The silence is deafening.
Derek is glaring at her, one of his hands propped on the metal frame of the upper bunk and her gaze falls on his bare fourth finger.
"You never put your ring back on," she whispers.
The fear Nancy perceptively identified leaves a bitter taste in the back of her throat.
Was it only temporary for you? Only for the baby?
Derek's eyes widen. "You're seriously going to – you're unbelievable. No. You're not going to blame me for this."
"I didn't – "
"Take a little responsibility for once, Addison," he suggests, none too quietly. "Stop blaming Mark for everything, and me for everything else, and blame yourself once in a while!"
"I do blame myself! I blame myself all the time." She's crying again. Did she ever stop? "You don't understand. You won't listen to me."
"I've listened to you a hell of a lot more than I should have."
It stings, but she gets it.
"I know, Derek, okay, but please just listen to me one more time. Just listen to me now."
"No. I don't have to listen to you anymore. I don't have to look at you anymore. We're done," he says, and even though everything from the tone of his voice to his cold eyes to his order to vacate their ostensibly shared home has made that clear since Mark's announcement – it's the first time he's actually said the words, and her heart constricts with fear.
"Derek, please."
Her breath hitches hard, and without warning she finds herself fighting for her next one, suddenly starving for air like she's been underwater. Instinctively, she bends at the waist, trying to catch her breath, her chest prickling with need.
"Addison," Derek says sharply. "What's the matter with you?"
"She's faking," Mark suggests, his tone dismissive, but a little nervous all the same.
She's not faking.
Not really, although she can't lie that it's sheer, blessed relief for Derek to stop yelling at her for half a second to actually worry about her instead.
"She's not. She's a terrible faker," Derek says. He's even closer now and she winces a little, but his voice is much quieter, as he takes both her arms. His grip is firm but not rough at all as he steers her to what she realizes, when she feels the mattress against the back of her legs, is the bottom bunk of the on-call bed. "Sit," he orders, giving her little choice in the matter.
Sitting doesn't seem to help much, except that it lets him sit down beside her – she feels the mattress dip when he does – take hold of her again and tip her carefully forward while she struggles for her next staggered breath.
"Calm down," he says quietly. "You just need to breathe."
Both his hands are on her, supporting most of the weight of her upper body, and she's trying to get control of her breath but it's not working, it just keeps hitching and she hears the gasps that do sound – they sound dramatic, a little scary … maybe even a little fake.
But they're not.
"Derek." Her breath gives out between the syllables. When she turns her head, with some effort, to look at him he swims in front of her eyes and then panic surges again; it's imperative that he know this is real. "It's not – I'm – "
He turns her so she's leaning forward again. "Breathe, Addison," he instructs like it's that simple. "Don't try to talk. Just breathe."
She's trying.
She is.
"Just calm down," he's muttering, moving his hand along her back. "Come on, Addie. Calm down."
It doesn't seem fair when he was just yelling at her, but she's not exactly in a position to debate. She tries to her best to slow her breathing down, but it's not working.
"What's wrong with her?" Mark is asking from somewhere over her head, his voice echoing unpleasantly.
"A flip out, orange level." Derek doesn't sound totally convinced though. "Addison. Stop trying to talk," he scolds her when she attempts to defend herself. "Just breathe."
"I think we should get her checked out," he says to Mark, over her head.
There's that we again.
But checked out – no.
"No," she says out loud. "No, I'm – fine."
But there are still spaces between the words, spaces any medical student would know, much less an intern, and now there are spaces between her eyes, dark ones.
Dark stars.
"Addison!"
..
"I hope you're happy," Derek snaps at Mark, once Addison has been loaded onto a gurney, Bailey – that's who Addison would want; the thought comes to him unbidden.
She's pushed them outside the room, assuring them everything would be fine.
"You think this is my fault?" Mark asks incredulously. "You're the one who was yelling at her."
"You're the one who told me she lied to me!" Derek counters. His heart is still pounding, his loosely curled hands retaining the memory of holding her in place as he failed to calm her down. She was twisting in his grip, trying to talk over her strained breaths – to him, trying to talk to him, trying to apologize to him.
Guilt curdles his stomach.
"Yeah?" Mark glares at him. "Well, you're the one who started dating an intern and made her lie in the first place. If it's anyone's fault, it's yours."
"You're the one who slept with my wife and sent me to Seattle to find the intern in the first place," Derek snaps.
Mark's eyes narrow. "You're the lousy husband."
"And you're the lousy friend." They're both breathing heavily. "And from what I've heard – you weren't such a good boyfriend either."
The sound of a throat clearing startles them both.
"If you two are done with the measuring sticks," Bailey says, disdain evident in her voice, "Addison would like to see you. You," she clarifies, pointing at Derek. "Not you," she adds, pointing at Mark.
"How is – "
"She's fine," Bailey tells him as they walk down the hall. There's a tone in her voice he can't read, but he's too exhausted to try. "And so is the baby."
Relief exhausts him further; he could swear he's aged ten years since Mark walked back into his life.
"She needs to rest," Bailey adds as they approach the room.
He nods distractedly.
"Shepherd … ."
He looks up.
"She needs to rest," Bailey repeats.
"I know."
"Which means … you do not upset her."
He blinks at the unfairness of it.
"I don't plan to," he says finally, when it seems as if she's waiting for an answer.
Bailey is still standing in front of the door. He reaches for the handle and she raises her eyebrows, not moving.
"Dr. Bailey?" he prompts.
"Look," she says quietly, "I don't know what happened between the two of you – "
Neither do I.
" – but you need to keep it out of that room."
He nods, impatient. "Can I speak to my wife now, please?" he asks pointedly.
Bailey studies his face for a moment. "Be nice," she says.
"I'm always nice."
She snorts. "We'll talk about that later." And before he can defend himself, she's stepping aside, opening the door, and ushering him through.
He blinks when he steps inside, the door closing behind him. It's dim and for a moment he just stands there, adjusting to the change in light.
It's easier than adjusting to what he now knows to be the truth. Addison and Mark. In … a relationship? In love? I was in love with him, or at least I thought I was. I told myself that, because I was terrified of what I'd done.
A pregnancy that preceded this one.
His gaze falls on the bed, where Addison is lying propped up barely at all, looking at the ceiling.
Her body is taking up little space under the covers but he can see the stretch of the white blanket over her lower belly just from the way her arms are positioned at her sides. One of her hands is resting on the bump; which one of them is comforting which, he's not sure.
He can't imagine another pregnancy starting or ending. He can't imagine – a relationship, Addison buying those expensive coffee beans she insists on – but for Mark – and fussing at Mark not to crease his suits when he rifled through the closet and pleading with Mark to set the thermostat two degrees warmer than anyone would want it because her toes were always cold.
It doesn't make sense.
It just doesn't.
He can wrap his mind around a few more interludes, a several-night stand, two guilty consciences seeking comfort in meaningless release. He was nauseated the first time and not much better when Addison trickle-confessed a fraction of the rest the night they spent at the Archfield. Nauseated … but able to comprehend it.
This, though?
A relationship?
In love. In love.
She must have said it to him, then: I love you. And Mark – did he say it back to her? The words Derek hasn't managed to string together since their reconciliation, not out loud anyway, not to anyone other than their unborn son?
Of course Mark must have said it – easily. Of course it was easy for Mark to destroy everything.
Nausea threatens to overwhelm him; he has no choice but to force it down. If he thinks about it, he won't be able to look at her.
If he thinks about it, he won't be able to breathe.
"I'm sorry," Addison whispers when he approaches, without turning her head, so that her words too are directed at the ceiling. "Derek, I don't even know how to tell you how sorry I am, but I'm so, so sorry."
"Okay." He stands at the side of the bed for a moment, then picks up her hand. It feels uncharacteristically small. "Let's not talk about that now. How are you feeling?"
"Not so great," she admits.
"Physically, I mean."
"Not so great either." She finally turns her head toward his; her eyes are swimming with tears.
"Don't cry. It's not good for the baby for you to get worked up." He moves in closer to brush some leftover tears off her face. "Addie … come on."
She covers her face with her other hand, the one he's not holding – it's her left, and her rings catch what's left of the light.
You never put your ring back on.
He wasn't so far gone that he didn't get her implication. That this was temporary for him, that he was coasting on the endorphins of the flawless life they created together and ignoring the flaws in the life they shared.
"Addison," he says quietly.
..
She hears him say her name, but he sounds far away even though it's her eyes she's covering, not her ears.
Slowly, she withdraws her hand to see him looking down at her. She swallows hard, willing back the tears.
The sadness in his eyes isn't making her any less anxious. Did he come to say goodbye?
… no. He came, she's certain of it, because she asked him to and Miranda passed on the message. He's fulfilling his obligation.
The word obligation reminds her of Mark's accusations.
"Derek."
He looks at her.
"We can do whatever you want," she offers hoarsely, "amnio, whatever you need. He's your baby."
"Amnio has risks," he says, "and anyway … I know he's mine."
"You do," she repeats uncertainly.
"Of course I do."
Oh.
"I didn't sleep with Mark when he was here in Seattle," she offers next, feeling her cheeks flush with shame that it could even be a possibility, that he actually asked about it in the call room. "I know with the – timing or whatever – but I swear I didn't."
"I know that too," Derek says, sounding exhausted. "That's not the point."
" … oh."
"The point is, you lied to me," he continues. "You told me you were done keeping secrets, but you weren't. You lied."
His tone is nothing like the one in the exam room – the words themselves could be accusatory but not in this sad, tired cadence. Now they sound … honest, and painful.
She just nods weakly. "But I – but it's still our baby."
"I know that, Addison," he repeats. "My feelings about the baby haven't changed."
He stresses the words the baby, presumably just to make his point extra clear. Derek loves to be clear.
"Okay." She takes a deep, shuddering breath. "Okay, I get that."
"Okay." He gives her a smile – a brief, impersonal smile, the kind you'd give a patient.
Except sadder.
"I want you to rest now," he says quietly. "Stress on your body stresses the baby."
"Derek? Can you stay?" Her voice sounds small and congested to her own ears. "Just for a little while, I mean." She pauses, embarrassed. "Stay with the baby, if you don't want to stay with me. I just happen to be … carrying him. You can pretend I'm not here."
She tries to smile like she's kidding, and then she's crying again. Miranda must have given her something strong.
Is this where everything is going to end – in this little room?
They were laughing in a room just like this one, with the same circular curtain. They had fun, that day. Batting a pillow back and forth like they were still medical students who hadn't made a mess of their lives.
His voice cuts through her misery, speaking her name.
"Calm down," he says softly.
But she can't.
She senses him leaning over the bed and then she feels him take her face between his palms. His hands are warm against her skin, soothing. They mold to her cheeks like they always have.
The thing is that hates her now. He's made that clear. Apparently … he just hasn't told his hands yet.
She closes her eyes, letting herself be comforted and pretending the last horrible few hours never happened. That they're still walking down the hall together, laughing about their appointment with Melissa. Talking about the baby. As he murmurs calming words, she brings one of her hands up to hang onto his where he's holding her face. A hot tear drips onto their clenched hands.
"Shh." Derek moves the hand she's not gripping and uses it to smooth her hair away from her cheeks. Her whole face feels damp and sticky from crying so much. She's a mess.
She's a mess … and his eyes are still so soft when she opens hers again.
And it's not fair.
"You need to calm down, Addie." His voice is very gentle, even a little sad. "The baby is counting on you." He moves that hand down from her hair and rests it on the bump where their baby is growing. "Deep breaths. Let me hear."
She tries, sputtering out halfway through the first time and then, at his coaching insistence, tries again.
The next one is somewhat easier. And then the next.
Her breathing slows, letting her jumbled mind slow too – forming the contours of a plan that for now exists only in her head.
As for Derek, he stays until she calms down.
Maybe he's staying with the baby … maybe not.
But he stays, and his face is the last thing she sees before her eyes drift closed.
To be continued next Sunday. I hope you enjoyed this chapter, as much as you can enjoy such a stressful period for our favorite sad ship. They're not black and white, these two - not with the Sheplet involved, not even if they wanted to. They've had all this time rediscovering each other and getting the rest of the Mark revelation out now is different than it would have before. I will say that the original prompt that made me write this story was "a different sort of abortion reveal," and I liked the idea that the abortion and pregnancy were less of what Derek was horrified by than the relationship/living together/theoretically in love part. It was going to be a short one-off; hi from chapter 21. I promise you that things are going to get better, even if it's hard. Addison has a plan, so that's something, at least? it's a bumpy road to the endgame, but the goalposts are there.
All that is to say ... I'll see you next Sunday. And pretty please review and let me know what you think? I'm blue from my poor angsty ship and could use it. Good night, all, and thank you for reading.