AN: If some of you are worried about Derek's reaction then don't be, he's just in shock. Later, though, it'll start to sink in.
For all of them.
Crouching beneath the Seattle Grace fruit cart when it was about to rain was not something Izzie Stevens did on a regular basis.
Lurking? Maybe. Eavesdropping? Definitely. But crouching? Crouching was what people did when they wanted to hide. Crouching was for people who weren't drop dead gorgeous; people who didn't put themselves through med school with modeling; people who weren't Izzie.
Yet here she was, the former centerfold queen, crouching beneath a fruit cart and scrambling to catch syllables and vowels.
Mark, Derek, Meredith, and Christina where a few feet away and looking incredibly flustered-well, everyone but Christina, she had a prominent smirk etched across her lips-and that's what had first attracted Izzie to the potential hiding place. She had been walking through the double glass doors, pink thermos weaved underneath her fingers, her mouth already half open to complain about a particularly gruesome appendectomy that morning when she had spotted them at the other end of the quad.
The voices had grown steadily louder and she had heard Meredith begin to shout something at Mark, then Derek was the victim, then Christina started to laugh…
And that was when she realized how badly she needed to get a life.
Straightening to her full height, she flipped her hair over one shoulder and ignored the incredulous look that the fruit cart guy was throwing her way; making her way over to the group of socially inept adults. She buried her spoon into the strawberry yogurt that she had accidentally swiped from underneath the kiosk and simultaneously decided against wearing her hair down, instead pulling it up into a messy bun and sticking one of the many pens she kept in her pocket in to keep it up. She was almost there, just steps away from speaking, an arm's length away from where Christina was standing when a red-headed someone brushed past her.
Nobody noticed as she shrank back against the wall to watch, forgetting about her earlier fear of crouching and becoming a full-blown, no-joke wallflower.
"No," Mark was saying, "But when else are we going to tell her? When Hannah's thirty?"
Izzie coughed and held a fisted hand up to her mouth to stifle it. This is what they were talking about? Meredith's worst nightmare and quite possibly the end of Seattle Grace as they knew it was happening and Izzie had just happened to stumble in on it? This was definitely her lucky day.
"Possibly," Derek muttered to the ground.
Who said crouching was a bad thing?
--
"What's going on?" Addison asked, desperation creeping into her voice, "What about Hannah?"
"Wait a minute-are you sure you want to do this?" Meredith cut in anxiously, "I mean; do I really have to actually be here for this?"
"Can somebody please tell me what the hell is going on?"
"Addie," Mark began, "There's something I didn't tell you that I probably should have a while ago…"
Addison rolled her eyes. "I know that Meredith's been dating Derek, okay? I already-"
"Meredith is Hannah's mother," Mark blurted while Derek seemed to have just been hit with the realities of the situation.
"Derek, that was my shoe!" Meredith cried, horrified at the green-brown liquid dotting her converse, "Couldn't you have turned towards Mark?"
Derek looked like he might throw up again, so she stepped out of his way.
Addison wasn't saying anything.
"Christina, could you?" Meredith asked, motioning vaguely to the limp figure leaning heavily against the table that was Derek Shepherd. Christina looked disappointed but she dutifully looped one of her arms underneath his.
"You better not barf on me," she warned, "It's already happened once today."
Once they were gone, Meredith turned back to face her boyfriend's wife, only to be greeted with a hand connecting with her cheek, followed by a sharp jolt of pain. She stumbled and brought a hand up to cradle her stinging skin. A blonde appeared in front of her and she mentally thanked whatever had possessed Izzie to spy on her.
"What the hell are you doing? It's not her fault, it's his!" Izzie shouted, pointing at Mark, "He's the one who got her pregnant and left!"
Addison's eyes were glazed, like she couldn't really figure out if she was awake, if she had really just slapped her husbands' mistress, and if her husbands' mistress was really the mother of her daughter.
"Addie, honey, don't you think you're overreacting?"
Her eyes widened, and suddenly she knew that she was awake, and that she had slapped Meredith, and that Meredith was Hannah's mother. She knew, like she knew that she was going back to New York as soon as this was over and taking Hannah with her; like she knew that she was going to slap Mark.
Christina winced and let out a low whistle of sympathy.
"Ow!" Mark yelled, while Addison admired the red blotch accenting his left cheek bone. She stared for a few seconds to make sure he was really hurting, and then, with a swift nod of self-appreciation, she stalked away.
After the she-shepherd had vanished into the hospital, Izzie turned to face Mark and Meredith, a frown splashed over her features.
"Was that really necessary?"
"I think so," Mark said, "She took it well."
"How could that have been worse?" Meredith protested, "We're in the middle of the hospital with everyone watching and she slapped both of us! I'm having trouble seeing your side here, Mark."
"She didn't kill us and bury our bodies in the woods," Mark argued, "I think that's something to be thankful for."
"I hardly think that's something to celebrate," she said before pausing, "It could still happen."
Mark shrugged, "But in the meantime you can practice your self-defense skills."
"Mark, shut the hell up. Mer, I'm telling Richard that you need the afternoon off. If he asks why, I'll tell him that you were dating Derek before Addison showed up and that you're Hannah's mother. That should be enough of an excuse."
Meredith nodded weakly and tried to fight off the tears that were threatening to fall. She, like Derek, was starting to feel the full effects of what had just happened. She barely noticed while Izzie slipped out the way the others had left, leaving her alone with the father of her child.
The thoughts wouldn't stop racing.
Mark was here. Derek knew. Addison knew. Hannah knew. Mark was here. Hannah was here. Derek was married.
"I think I need to sit down," she breathed, swaying a little, "Oh my God…Derek-and you-and Hannah….oh my God!"
"Breathe," Mark said, looking a little awkward as he brought a hand up to pat her on the back, "breathe."
"But-"
"Breathe."
"But-"
"Just take a goddamn breath!"
She took a breath.
"Good. Now let's just go over this again. Derek and you…" Mark prompted.
"Dated."
"Right. Derek and you….dated…for awhile. And you and I….dated….for awhile, too. And Addison and Derek…"
"Are married."
"Right. And Hannah and you and I…"
"Yeah."
"Wow," he said, letting out a long breath of his own and closing his eyes. He looked like he should have a cigarette in one hand, she thought.
He definitely looked like he needed one.
"Well, what the fuck are we going to do?"
She smiled fleetingly, realizing that there seemed to be an awful lot of swearing around Seattle Grace lately. She guessed that they were probably both reverting back to the way they spoke in high school-pretty soon they were going to be talking about blowing off the whole situation and going for a motorcycle tour of the city like they used to.
"That better be your 'oh my god this can't be happening, this has to be a really fucked-up dream' smile or else I may just have to strangle you," Mark warned.
"Weren't you the one who was cracking jokes like five minutes ago?" she shot back.
"That was five minutes ago, before we talked through it."
"You know, I've never willingly skipped work to do something else," she mused, "But I think now's the time to start."
"Mind if I tag along?"
She paused, leaning back in her chair and eyeing him suspiciously.
"You want to tag along?"
"Yeah, I mean, I don't know anyone and I sure as hell don't want to be stuck around here all day…"
She frowned, knowing full well that the answer coming out of her mouth in a few seconds would probably be a breathy 'yes' and that they would probably end up at Joe's, which meant a late, late night that would inevitably end up with her curled on the bathroom floor, hoping that she didn't just have sex with Mark Sloane, which would result in another trip to the pharmacy to pick up a pregnancy test a week later, which would make Derek more mad, which would-
And she really, really needed to stop rambling in her head, it was starting to scare her.
AN: Sorry, again, for the late update but in all honesty they probably won't be too close together anymore, considering I'm starting my first semester of college on August 30….AH!!!!! so yeah, busy stuff happening with that. Also I have to somehow come up with enough money to last me the whole year which could be difficult when I have a cushy job where I can come in whenever I want and I'm lazy….wow I'm really rambling now. But yeah, so it might be awhile. But I'm loving the reviews….they keep me writing!! So yeah, let me know all the things I'm doing wrong.
Thanks so much!!!!!!!!!