Penultimate chapter 3 These last two chapters are not very long. I considered combining them, but I decided they would lose their impact if I did.
A month after the car accident, Addison was able to return home. It was a difficult month for Natalie in the house without her, but knowing her mother was awake and that she could visit her every day made the wait easier. Natalie and Derek ticked the days off on a calendar and filled the house with balloons and roses on the day she returned home.
Addison's first month home wasn't easy for her. She was still unable to walk on her bad leg, and it frustrated her that she had to use a wheelchair and couldn't do the things that she wanted. Their friends from Seattle had long since returned home, but Archer, Savvy, and Weiss swung by frequently to help out.
The car accident had changed her life permanently. Mark had been able to rebuild her cheekbone, but even he couldn't return her face to its exact previous state. A shallow scar ran from the middle of her cheek back toward her hairline. While she knew she was lucky to be alive, Addison was bothered by the scar, no matter how many times Derek told her she was still as beautiful as she'd ever been.
It had taken pins, plates, and hours of surgery, but Callie had been able to reconstruct her leg, too. The leg had healed enough for Addison to begin physical therapy to learn to walk on it again, but her first session had been brutally painful, reducing her to sobs after taking only a few steps. She had exerted so much effort to do something she used to do without even thinking about it, and it destroyed her.
She had dreaded the second session, and as Derek wheeled her toward the physical therapy ward, she wanted to beg him to turn around and take her home. With pain like that, she wasn't sure if she cared if she ever walked again.
"I can't do this, Derek." Addison's eyes filled with tears when Derek parked the wheelchair. "It's too painful."
Derek knelt down beside her wheelchair, taking her hands in his. "Yes, you can do this. You want to do this. I want you to do this. You know why?"
"No." Addison looked down, picking at her cuticles.
Derek reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a teal blue box tied with a white ribbon. "Because I want you to walk down the aisle to me on our wedding day."
Addison's mouth fell slightly open. "Derek… Are you…"
"I know that the physical therapy unit of a hospital isn't exactly the most romantic place for a marriage proposal, but, 'in sickness and in health,' right? I love you, Addison Forbes Montgomery… Will you marry me?"
The tears in Addison's eyes turned to happy tears. "Yes… I'll marry you, Derek."
From his kneeling position, Derek wrapped his arms around her and kissed her. A few physical therapists and patients who were working in the ward applauded, and Derek and Addison laughed as they'd almost forgotten that they had an audience.
"Open it." Derek gestured to the box.
Addison opened the box to reveal a 2.5 carat round diamond set in white gold and surrounded by smaller white diamonds and a ring of pink diamonds. "It's gorgeous."
"Natalie helped me pick it out." Derek smiled, pulling the ring out of the box and sliding it onto Addison's left ring finger. "She thought you'd like the pink."
"Natalie knows?" Addison asked in surprise.
Derek shrugged sheepishly. "I had to tell someone."
"She has great taste already." Addison commented, watching the ring sparkle on her hand.
"It's time." Derek said gently, receiving a groan from Addison. "I know you can do this, Addie. It will get easier every time."
He extended his hand to her and helped her stand from the wheelchair, biting his lip as she winced in pain. He escorted her the few steps to the parallel bars that would help her learn to walk again. She grasped them, taking the weight off of her leg and waiting for the physical therapist to direct her.
It would be painful, and at times excruciating, but he had given her the best incentive she could think of go through the agony of physical therapy.
I may go ahead and post the last chapter tonight… :)