A/N: Happy new year! I'm alive, I'm back, and I'm sorry I let so many Sundays go by without being able to post a new chapter of QPQ. Let me make it up to you? Here's a long chapter picking right up from the chaos of the last chapter. It's so long that the second part of it had to become a new chapter. So start with this one, and if you're still on board, you'll get the next chapter before you know it. Maybe even before the long weekend is up. I am so grateful to everyone who's stayed interested in this story while I haven't been able to write it. Your enthusiasm powered this long-delayed update, so I hope you enjoy it!
Practice Makes Progress
Gestational Age: Nineteen weeks, five days
Baby is the Size of a: Magic 8-ball (thanks to the new baby website her niece Chrissy suggested, which views fruit- and vegetable-dating as too gendered)
Total Number of Shepherds Currently in Seattle: 7 (including fetus)
Total Number of Shepherds Normally in Seattle: 3 (including fetus)
Total Number of Shepherds Currently Starring in a French Farce Nightmare: 4 (excluding fetus as well as extrauterine children)
Total Number of Shepherds at Fault: Still unclear
Total Number of Shepherds Who Will Likely Get the Blame: 1 (carrying said fetus, but not including said fetus)
..
For one long moment after Carolyn's entrance, no one says anything. The foyer by the elevators remains frozen, crackling with exposed secrets.
And then she turns to her son.
"Trailer?" she repeats. "Who lives in a trailer?"
. . . so she heard enough.
"I do," Derek says after a moment.
Carolyn turns to Addison. "You're living in a trailer?"
Glancing nervously at Derek, Addison rests a hand on her bump, hoping it might distract her mother-in-law.
It doesn't.
Damn it.
"Um, actually . . . . "
". . . not anymore," Mark supplies, annoyingly. To make matters worse, his eyes are twinkling with more amusement than malice. He's stirred the pot this morning and he's boiled it over since his arrival in Seattle, but it's hard to hate him as much as he deserves while Lilly, holding both his hands now, is attempting to redirect his attention for a flip. And while Claire, hands clasped with glee, is somewhat patiently waiting her turn while gazing up at Mark with hopeful anticipation.
That's Mark, charming his way out of whatever messes he causes.
. . . oh, but then it's much easier to hate him when he starts talking again. "Hey, Mom – you want to know where she's living now?" he asks.
"I think we should go back to the room," Derek interrupts, before his mother can respond.
"You go," Nancy says quickly. "The girls and I will go downstairs. You four can stay here and finish this . . . conversation."
Is that what this is?
And then Addison sees her husband's expression at the word four, clearly not considering Mark someone who should be involved. Not that she can blame him.
"Mom," Derek mutters.
Their niece has a similar expression, staring at her mother, presumably for a different reason. "But we can't go downstairs!" Lilly's eyes are wide with concern. "Our breakfast is coming up here. We'll starve without breakfast!"
Nancy, with some effort it seems, doesn't respond to this. Instead, with a very pointed look at Addison and Derek – and then Mark – she turns to her daughters.
"You're not going to starve. We'll get something to eat downstairs."
It's a sign of how very confusing this morning has been that Carolyn doesn't even protest the shocking waste of food this suggests. "Girls … let's go," Nancy instructs, holding out her hands to Lilly and Claire.
With a sigh indicating the major concession she's making, Lilly releases her grip on Mark to join her mother.
Claire, on the other hand, who has been pulling at Mark's pant leg in the hopes he'll flip her next, stays by his side.
"Can we get hot chocolate, Mommy? When we go downstairs?" Lilly asks, reaching out to press the elevator call button helpfully; Addison has to admire her sheer opportunism.
"Fine." Nancy massages the bridge of her nose, turning to her youngest, and as yet unconvinced daughter. "Claire."
Just then the elevator doors open, but before Nancy can hustle her daughters inside, the telltale metallic clack of a wheeled table announces they're too late.
There's the clang of covered dishes, that faint rattle of ice against crystal glasses, and a heavenly scent that reminds her she's pretty hungry herself.
"It's our breakfast!" Lilly shouts, ignoring a glare from her mother.
For a moment time freezes again as the uniformed bellman pushing the cart, with an impressively neutral expression, takes in the chaos around him.
Addison tries to imagine the scene from his perspective. Let's see, the cast of characters at this morning's unscripted performance include:
One disapproving looking elderly woman in a housecoat.
One less disapproving looking, definitely less elderly woman, attempting to herd two children.
Two little girls with morning mussed hair, one of whom is being semi-successfully restrained from leaping at the room service table.
One smirking manwhore—okay, the bellman might not realize that, although if Mark has been staying at this hotel then probably the whole staff has figured it out.
A very handsome, and no she's not biased, non manwhore with perfect hair and an express somewhere between irritation and resignation.
A rather pregnant woman cradling her bump.
A well concealed Sheplet.
. . . and a partridge in a pear tree.
"Did you bring us our breakfast?" Claire asks eagerly.
Addison snaps back to reality.
There's another hectic moment when Addison is certain her mother-in-law is going to whip out the piercing, two-fingered whistle she's only witnessed on a few occasions – but it's smoothed over when Nancy quickly and effectively convinces the bellman to keep the food warm for them instead, and then ushers her girls into the waiting elevator with a quick mouthed sorry to Addison, who still hasn't heard an answer as to why her husband apparently summoned Nancy to Seattle without bothering to warn his wife.
The elevator doors close on Nancy and her chattering daughters, and it's only adults – well, assuming Mark counts as an adult.
Assuming any of them counts as an adult, considering that currently Mark and Derek are standing ten feet apart in equally annoyed postures, Derek with his head turned away and a glare stamped across his face and Mark with furrowed brow and hands spread as if to claim he's an innocent victim of this drama.
Addison, for her part, is leaning against the gold-and cream papered wall – half because she's genuinely tired, half in case this reminder of her delicate condition helps her position with her husband or her mother.
(Mark's opinion of her, she's well aware, is low. She can't do much about that right now.)
Carolyn is looking from one of them to the other. "I hope you three are ready to explain yourselves."
"What did I do?" Derek asks, sounding affronted.
"You forgot to tell your mother you and Addison broke up," Mark supplies helpfully.
"We didn't break up," Derek snaps, "not that it would be any of your business if we did."
"They're not living together," Mark announces.
Carolyn looks confused. "Addie's not living in your . . . trailer?"
"I was living in his trailer," Addison manages, studiously avoiding Mark's smirking gaze. "And now I'm, well, now I'm not."
"Was that so hard?" Mark asks, looking far too pleased with himself for her liking.
"Would you just shut up," Derek mutters, glaring at him. "And leave Addison alone," he adds, which makes a little ribbon of warmth run through her, except –
"Derek, why didn't you tell me you called Nancy?" she whispers.
"Never mind," he says, not quite as quietly. "We'll talk about it later."
"Good strategy, man, that one always works out for you," Mark says, chuckling, and Addison quickly rests a hand on her husband's chest just in case his clenched fists are for more than show.
"Boys." Carolyn is frowning at them. "I was hoping you had straightened things out between you." Her gaze at Mark turns decidedly affectionate.
Ugh.
But fine, she'll just let this all peter out –
"Mark wants to sleep with Meredith," Addison blurts before she can stop herself.
Derek's eyes flash. "Excuse me?"
"But you're happily married, Derek." Mark grins. "You shouldn't worry about who I sleep with."
Addison closes her eyes briefly, regretting starting this line of conversation. But it only gets worse.
"Who's Meredith?" His mother asks.
Derek's whole face is a warning, and Mark actually doesn't rise.
For once.
"Just leave Meredith alone. Leave her alone." Derek glares at his former best friend. "She hasn't done anything and she doesn't deserve … that." He gestures in Mark's general direction with uncensored disgust.
"You sound like your wife." Mark pronounces the word wife like it's a big joke.
They're talking over each other again and then there it is – loud and piercing, and this from a woman who spent most of her adult life living in the midst of New York City sirens – the whistle.
Addison winces. Mark and Derek both have guilty expressions, hands shoved in their pockets in surprisingly similar postures.
"Now," Carolyn says, clearing her throat, "back to the room?"
No one argues this time.
..
Inside the suite, Carolyn separates them with her traditional efficiency. "Mark first," she announces.
"You – in there." She points, and Derek frowns, presumably at being ordered around like the child he hasn't been in years.
"I don't think this is – " He falls silent at her expression.
"Addie, why don't you wait in the bedroom, dear," his mother says in a very different tone, causing Mark and Derek to exchange an irritated glance. "Don't go anywhere," she adds to her daughter in law, "I want to give you something."
"What . . . kind of something?" Addison asks nervously, trying not to recall the childhood stories Derek and his sisters have told her about their mother chasing them through the house with a wooden spoon.
"A present."
"A present?" Derek repeats. "Why does she get a present when we're in trouble?"
Mark nods vigorously in support and it strikes Addison that it's the first time she's seen them agree since . . . that time in the on-call room she doesn't want to think about.
Carolyn, for her part, pats her son on the shoulder. "Derek, dear, don't compare yourself to others or you'll always feel like you're missing out."
"But that's not – "
His mother just summons Mark again, acting as if she can't hear her son.
"Did you see that?" he asks Addison; it's clearly rhetorical.
Separate rooms, indeed.
They're all edging thisclose to 40 and certainly don't have to take orders from Derek's mother.
. . .
. . . which would be more convincing if Addison were not currently in the bedroom she and Derek shared last night, while Derek is cooling his heels in the bedroom Nancy shared with the girls while his mother conducts her first one-on-one interrogation with Mark in her bedroom.
All very normal.
Very.
Addison takes the opportunity to sit down in the overstuffed chair in the corner of the room. There's a loveseat too, not to mention a king-sized bed, and she and Derek certainly could have both fit in here. But apparently that's not Carolyn's divide-and-conquer style, and she's not exactly upset that her pregnancy affords her the better spot.
She could leave.
She could leave, of course she could, she's an adult. A married, pregnant(!) surgeon who doesn't need to take orders from her mother-in-law.
But the chair is pretty comfortable, and the ottoman that seems to rise under her feet is the perfect, heavenly height.
As long as she's here, she might as well wait. Throw her mother-in-law a bone or two.
Tipping her head back, just to rest her eyes a bit, she places a hand on her bump. This is your family, kiddo. I guess you'd better get used to it.
..
"Well? What do you have to say for yourself?"
Derek winces a little. At least his mother didn't add a young man on the end of her question – it would be a lie if so, but then here he is, pushing middle age a bit closer than he'd prefer, listening to a lecture like he's still a frizzy-haired kid in a baseball uniform.
Wincing again at the memory, he frees a hand to pat his current hair as discreetly as possible just to make sure –
Relieved, he tunes back in to his mother's lecture. The scolding may be vintage, but the hair is decidedly modern day.
" . . . when she's pregnant. That's a very important time in a woman's life."
"I know that," he says when she pauses, apparently expecting an answer.
"Then you should know it's not the time to upset her."
"Upset her?" His eyes widen at the unfairness of it all. "I'm the one who tried to – "
And then he stopped, because it's not his mother's business, nor would he expect her to understand the way Addison's pregnancy and the subsequent revelations have brought them closer together and further apart in turn . . . and all at once. Isn't he the one who told her not to leave the trailer? Who needed the reminder to stay back the morning their baby moved for the first time?
The distance between them isn't his fault. Not this time.
But he's not going to tell his mother that.
"Why did you call Nancy?"
He blinks at the change of topic. "I wanted her to visit," he says vaguely.
Their son's potential heart defect is off the table, no matter how experienced an interrogator his mother may be.
"But you didn't tell Addie."
"I didn't want her to think I was – " He stops before can say too much.
"Worried about her," his mother suggests with a lifted eyebrow.
Derek doesn't answer.
"What's wrong with worrying about her?"
"Have you met her?"
His mother looks like she's fighting a smile. Then her face falls into serious lines. "Son – pregnancy is a difficult time."
"I know that, Mom," he sighs.
"Do you?" She props her hands on her hips. "You may think you do, sweetheart, but let me assure you have no idea what it's like to actually be pregnant."
"Is that my fault too?"
"Don't be fresh." His mother folds her arms until he mutters an apology. "It's a lot for anyone, expecting your first baby, but you're not the one who's exhausted and nauseated and waking up to a different body every morning. . . . that's right," his mother adds, gesturing with no small amount of self-deprecation at the stocky build underneath her housecoat. "Did you forget that Lizzie was married in my wedding gown?"
Gown is overstating it a fair bit, but it's true that Liz, as tall and slim as all the older girls, wore her mother's wedding dress. He's not sure how much he needs to be thinking about the figures of any of the women in his family of origin, and he supposes his mother can tell that from his expression.
"You can't control much about the pregnancy," his mother says, "and that's difficult, but neither can Addison. Everything is happening to her."
"All right." He sighs, resting his elbows on his knees. "Are we finished here?"
"We are not finished here, not with that attitude." His mother frowns at him. "Derek, the least you can do is be supportive when your wife is carrying your child, when she's about to – "
"I am being supportive!" he snaps before he can stop himself. "I'm the one who didn't want her to leave. I'm the one who told her to stay. She's the one who wanted space. And I'm giving it to her. I'm giving her what she wanted. So take it up with her if you don't like it!"
He's breathing heavily, regretting his outburst, but for some reason his mother looks satisfied. "I intend to," she says. "In fact, why don't you send her in?"
..
"Mom's ready for you." Derek pauses in the half-open doorway, realizing from the peaceful sound of her breathing that Addison is asleep in the oversized armchair.
He's ready to turn around and tell his you're too male and stupid to understand pregnancy mother that he's certainly not going to wake his wife up for an untimely scolding.
"Wait – I'm not asleep," she murmurs before he can leave.
"Are you sure?" He eases onto the arm of the chair, muscle memory placing just enough of his weight not to crowd her while he sees her move her closer arm infinitesimally away to give him more room.
"I'm talking to you, aren't I?" she asks, her voice still endearingly sleepy. Some of her hair has slipped over her face and he moves it away, not letting his fingers linger over the warmth of her cheek.
"You talk in your sleep sometimes," he says instead, knowing she'll respond.
"I do not!" She lifts a hand as if she's going to swat at him and then seems to think better of it, her expression growing serious instead. "Derek . . . is Mom mad?" she asks, sounding a good deal younger than her years.
"Furious." But he stops teasing her quickly, recognizing her expression. "She's . . . Mom," he says. "She's not really mad, she's just . . . "
". . . Mom," Addison supplies.
"Exactly." He eases off the arm of the chair and extends a hand to his wife. "I'll walk you," he suggests, only half joking, a flood of memories of making the same offer when they had different classes in medical school.
Addison's expression is soft like she's remembering too.
"It's okay," she says. "I know the way."
He sees the exact moment she stops herself from kissing him goodbye and reminds himself that this space is important to her.
Even if he's pretty sure she's not enjoying it any more than he is.
I need you to choose me.
Simple as that.
All he has to do is solve the most important puzzle he's ever faced.
..
"We got off easy, huh?" Mark smirks at him like it's all a big joke. "No chores. No Hail Marys. We can still go to the prom."
Of course Mark has no idea they already did that; why would he? He's probably thinking of the one they attended together twenty years ago, the one where –
"Maybe you'll stay away from my date this time," Derek says darkly.
"Maybe." Mark sounds almost cheerful.
Is this just another game to him?
Derek has an unfortunate flashback to the terrible argument in that claustrophobic call room. Mark was there. He was the instigator, all but egging Derek on. Not for the first time, he wonders if all of this is just a game to Mark.
All of this. As in his life. His wife, and their life.
"Is something funny?" he asks abruptly when Mark is still staring at him with that infuriating smirk.
"Only if you think your mom flying across the country to lecture us like we just got kicked out of Sunday school for chewing gum is funny," Mark says, managing somehow to sound almost reasonable.
"The chewing gum was your idea," Derek reminds him.
"True." Mark tilts his head, reminiscent. "But it wasn't all bad – that's what got Bonnie Rafferty to pay attention to me, remember?"
He does remember, though he'd rather not. Small town, small world, small wonder he can call to mind Bonnie with her long red pigtails and freckled face. Of course Mark wanted her to pay attention to him. Mark always wanted attention; he went after it like a prize. And no matter how many girls paid attention – first little ones, when they were just kids, and then bigger and bigger ones as they grew – it was never enough.
Not even when he won the biggest prize of all.
Or stole it, more likely.
The truth is, he remembers all of it. And he'd rather not.
"Why are you here?" he asks sharply.
"Mom told me to – "
"She's not your mom," he snaps before he can stop himself and feels a gush of victory . . . and then a trickle of guilt . . . at the stricken look on his former friend's face.
He covers it quickly, pasting on a familiar smirk instead. "What can I say, Derek?" he spreads his hands. "Nancy's here, your mom's here, you're having a reunion and didn't even tell me."
"It's not a damn reunion."
"Well, not before, since I wasn't invited." Mark props himself against one papered wall, his posture as insolent as his tone.
"It's not about you!" he hisses, unable to stop himself. "There's something wrong with the baby. That's what we found out. That's why I called Nancy. Are you happy now?"
Mark looks stricken, though. Not happy at all. He opens his mouth a few times, then closes it again.
Mark Sloan, at a loss for words? Derek has known him since they were five years old and this is a first.
"What kind of a something?"
"None of your business." Derek shoves his hand in his pocket before the shaking can give him away. Saying it out loud – there's something wrong with the baby – was worse than he'd expected. He has to count to ten to gather himself. Ten deep breaths. Ten inhales, ten exhales, and the room isn't blurry anymore, though he can't seem stop his heart from pounding.
"I'm sorry, man," Mark says quietly.
"Yeah, I can tell."
"I didn't know."
"I didn't tell you."
They're both silent for a moment.
Mark's expression looks troubled. "Hey. You, uh, you want to talk about it?"
"No, I don't."
There's something different in the air anyway; the lingering hint of malice seems to have evaporated, or at least lifted.
It's not that they're brothers. Or that they ever will be again.
But still . . . something's different.
..
" . . . and now I'm mostly just tired." Addison pauses for breath, tucking her hair behind her ears, feeling almost shy. She was expecting to be told off for any number of things; she wasn't expecting to be grilled so gently about her pregnancy. She can't imagine her mother speaking to her like this. Bizzy was pregnant, twice, which is hard enough in itself to believe, and certainly not enough to expect her mother to be interested in Addison's symptoms even if Addison were foolish enough to share the news of her pregnancy. This is Bizzy, the same Bizzy who snapped at Addison not to be vulgar when she told her mother she had a stomach ache.
She was six.
It turned out to be appendicitis, and when she was finally rushed from school to the hospital in a bleating ambulance, she begged the nice men who lifted her onto the stretcher not to tell her mother that she'd stained her school uniform with vomit.
. . . yeah, sometimes she wishes her memory were just a little less detailed.
Then maybe she wouldn't be so moved by the series of ordinary questions. Maybe they wouldn't feel quite so extraordinary.
"I was the most tired with Derek." Carolyn smiles at her, her eyes soft with recollection. "It might have been the three girls who were already here, but . . . I think it was actually my first boy."
"Boys make you more tired?" Addison asks, smiling back at her, fuck all her obstetric credentials for this kind of soul-warming acceptance.
"In my experience." Carolyn shakes her head. "But I'm not a doctor." She pauses. "The books I sent . . . "
" . . . are great," Addison says gamely. "I'm, uh, I'm reading them."
"Good. Some of them might be a bit out of date."
Addison coughs politely.
"But I'm sure you can see the value in them anyway." Her mother-in-law leans back in the chair.
And then, before she can say anything else, Addison's stomach growls.
"You haven't had breakfast," Carolyn surmises, eyes widening.
"Well, no, but – "
"Stay here," she orders in a voice that brooks no objections.
..
"Where's the room service?" his mother demands, without preamble, stalking into the living room.
Derek and Mark both look up, waiting to be scolded for not keeping to separate rooms, but Carolyn seems to have other priorities.
"The room service?"
"The – tray. Table. The thing." Carolyn frowns. "Addison needs breakfast."
"Addison never eats breakfast," Mark says.
"She does now." Derek swallows hard on guilt for not having put two and two together himself. "Mom, I can go get – "
"You stay here. I'll go," Carolyn says, and then she's bustling out the door before either of them can stop her.
"Think the hotel is ready for her?" Mark asks.
"Is anyone?" Derek won't smile, though. They're not friends.
They never will be again.
That's just how it is.
..
"You really didn't have to." Addison's throat feels thick as she looks at the silver-domed tray. There's oatmeal in it – her breakfast-loving baby's favorite, thanks to his father's apparently dominant genes. There's brown sugar on the tray and a little china pitcher of cream and if her mother in law has one good quality, it's that she's never told Addison to eat less.
So it's with a glorious lack of judgment that Addison spoons sugar and fresh fruit in copious measure into the steaming bowl of oatmeal. Her baby wants her to get fat? Well, that's just the kind of sacrifice a mother has to make, isn't it?
She's halfway done, having realized upon first bite how hungry she was, before her mother-in-law speaks again.
"Better?"
"Much." Addison pauses, glancing at the closed bedroom door. "Um. Mom? Do you think they're okay in there?"
She cranes her neck as if it will give her a view into the closed off room.
"They're okay. . . . don't forget, Addie, I've known them a long time. Longer than you have," Carolyn reminds her, apparently realizing Addison isn't convinced, but it actually sounds sentimental rather than supercilious.
It's actually peaceful in the bedroom, low blue-grey light filtering in through the windows, her body feeling warm and satisfied from the filling breakfast.
"You're going to be good mother, Addie."
Tears fill her eyes, in spite of herself. "You can't know that," she mumbles, keeping her eyes on her bowl.
"Look at me?"
With some effort, she does.
"I've known you for a long time too," Carolyn says quietly. "Don't forget that either."
For a moment neither of them speaks.
Then her mother-in-law clears her throat. "There was something I wanted to give you, Addie."
Oh, the present – she'd forgotten about it, first in the intoxicating whirlwind of having a maternal figure actually asking about her pregnancy, and, well . . . the delicious bowl of oatmeal.
"There was something I wanted to give you," Carolyn repeats, "but it's . . . well. It's private."
Addison glances around the room, confused. Aren't they alone?
One eyebrow lifted, her mother-in-law points toward the door. "I wouldn't put it past the boys to be eavesdropping."
..
"That's offensive," Mark says. "Did you hear that?"
Wordlessly, Derek indicates Mark's position at the door and then his own position casually leaning against the wall.
Mark frowns. "That's not the point. The point is, we're adults. Surgeons."
They just look at each other for a moment, and then Mark eases reluctantly away from the door. "Fine. Hey – is there any of that coffee left?"
Derek leads the way back towards the kitchen.
..
" . . . and then Richard basically said I was too . . . pregnant to be chief of surgery."
Carolyn's expression is rewardingly outraged. She looks pensive for a moment.
"And Mark and Derek are both in the running?"
Addison nods.
"They both wanted to be captain of the baseball team, senior year." Her tone turns reminiscent. "They had to get student buy-in for it. And you've never seen such a tense – Mark was still over, all the time, he practically lived with us by that point. But the two of them wouldn't even look at each other."
"What happened?"
"They decided to be co-captains."
"Co-captains." Addison considers this. "I'm not sure that would work this time."
"The stakes are a little higher," Carolyn concedes.
Addison has heard stories of Derek's high school sports career and she's seen his reaction when she's less than attentive, too – as far as she's concerned, the stakes were pretty high back then. It's more –
"A numbers thing," she explains. "It's not just Derek and Mark. There's another surgeon, a – heart surgeon."
Carolyn nods.
"Just the four of you?"
"Yeah. It's, uh, it's kind of a boys' club." Addison sighs.
"Growing up, it was the opposite for Derek. All girls. Too many girls."
Addison considers this.
"But this – contest – is all boys?" Carolyn confirms. "Other than you?"
She nods.
"All right, then." Her mother-in-law leans forward, bracing herself on the upholstered arm of the couch. "What's your plan for beating them?"
Addison's eyes widen. Even in a morning of surprises . . . she wasn't expecting this.
But Carolyn seems to be waiting for an actual answer.
"Well," Addison thinks for a moment, "I guess I'm going to fight like a girl. Let the three of them drive each other crazy, and then . . . " she gestures, hopefully with enough clarity for her mother-in-law to read it:
Then I'll go in for the kill.
For some reason, it doesn't have the same allure it might have a few months ago.
Her mother-in-law nods. "Not a bad strategy." She pauses. "I had three brothers, you know."
"I know."
She does. She memorized Derek's family tree before he was her husband, before he was even her fiancé, when she was still tracing its roots and branches with wonder at how much life was in the house he grew up in.
(And casseroles she'd never eat too, and fabrics she'd never touch and colors she'd never choose, but that seemed to fade when they got into the swing of holidays, when they were all singing carols and her mother-in-law was directing whichever sister had a crying baby to hand it to Addison, you know she has the magic touch, with a note of approving pride in her voice. What she would have done, once, for a little of that approving pride from her own mother . . . but that's another story.)
Her mother-in-law is looking at her, and Addison returns her gaze.
Really looking this time.
Carolyn Shepherd's eyes are tired. But they're flickering with interest too. Her hands, curled on the brocade arm of the couch, are knotted with age. Even if she didn't know it, it would be obvious Carolyn has no use for the kind of expensive anti-aging products her own mother started using decades ago. She's still wearing a sensible housecoat – an actual housecoat, which she didn't even know was a thing until the first time she slept . . . but that doesn't matter.
She looks past it, looks ta the woman instead.
Addison is remembering that before she was a mother-in-law, a grandmother of soon-to-be fifteen . . . she was a woman. A wife. Someone who fell in love and even, at one point, a new mother.
Almost unconsciously, her hand drifts down to cover the swell of her pregnancy.
This is your family, kiddo.
It's the same words as before . . . but the meaning behind them is different this time. Their son can't respond, but she has the feeling anyway that he gets it.
"Listen to that," her mother-in-law says.
"What?" Addison looks up. "I don't hear anything."
"Exactly." Carolyn nods with satisfaction. "They're getting along."
"Or they've killed each other."
"They never have."
"But that was before . . . ." Her voice trails off. Why is she reminding her mother-in-law of her own betrayal? Is she testing her? Is this some kind of pregnancy brain?
Carolyn is quiet, and there's no doubt she's also thinking about the before.
And the after.
"Do you regret it?" she asks quietly.
So quietly Addison almost doesn't make out the words. Until she does.
There's no need to ask what it is.
"Every day," Addison says.
For a few moments, they're both quiet.
Then she takes a deep breath, not sure her mother-in-law is ready to hear this.
Then again . . . she did ask.
"That's, uh, that's not actually true," Addison admits quietly. "Not anymore. It was every day, I did regret it every day, until I found out I was going to have this baby because now . . . now I wouldn't change anything. I couldn't. Even though I'm still sorry, so sorry, for the hurt I caused. I can't regret it, though. Not anymore."
Carolyn looks at her for one long moment in which Addison is certain she's about to lose all the goodwill she's earned with this pregnancy, a moment in which she already mourns the loss of the warmth and interest in the latest grandchild, the comforting acceptance of their new normal.
Come on, Addie, how long did you actually think it would last? You know she's never really liked you.
And then Carolyn reaches one of her hands with its aging skin across the gap between them—it's the one with the wedding ring—and pats Addison's arm. "I understand," she says.
..
"So?" Derek says when she emerges. "Are you grounded?"
"You could say I got off with a warning." Addison glances toward the closed door. "It's Mark's turn again now?"
Derek nods.
Addison cocks her head, taking in the complexities of Carolyn's interrogation process.
"It's quite a system."
"It does work," Derek says, "at least according to my mother."
"Do you think so?"
"Well." He looks down for a moment before meeting her eyes again, and his are twinkling. "We never killed each other, the six of us, so I guess that counts for something."
They're already back in the living room, Nancy and the girls returned from the lobby with chocolate-croissant crumbs in a Hansel and Gretel trail, and a sheepish Mark having departed for work, when Addison realizes Derek said the six of us.
..
"Just look at all this wasted food," Carolyn says, surveying the room with a heavy sigh as if the bits of congealed syrupy pancakes and rather sticky fruit are burdens for her to bear.
It's quiet in the suite now, worlds away from the chaotic interlude at the elevator. Addison, who has been in the spare bedroom attempting to fix her hair for work, leans her head out.
"You can have the rest of mine, Grandma," Claire says generously, apparently misunderstanding her grandmother's critique as hunger, and indicating the half-chewed corner of a waffle remaining on her plate. Somehow, she managed most of it despite the aperitif on offer in the lobby.
Addison sees Nancy cover her mouth politely with her napkin to stifle a laugh.
"Thank you, sweetheart." Carolyn smiles at her granddaughter and then pushes her chair back, looking from Derek to Addison, and then back again. "This has been a very . . . busy morning, hasn't it? When are we leaving for the hospital?"
Derek coughs, sounding mildly like he might be choking; Addison hastily makes her way back into the room to pass him a napkin.
"For the hospital?" Addison exchanges a look with Nancy, then turns to her mother-in-law. "What hospital?"
"The same one as yesterday, dear," Carolyn says patiently. "I'd like to see where you work. Meet your friends." She pauses, glancing at Derek, and then grimacing toward the misty grey view through the oversized windows. "There must be a reason you're so fond of Seattle, son. It can't just be the weather."
..
So her mother-in-law wants to go to the hospital with them. She wants to see their workplace. She wants to meet their friends.
Which is great. No, really, it's great.
It's certainly not a threat to the newfound goodwill she's been basking in.
And she's not, of course, desperate to maintain that goodwill. That would be pathetic, and she's not this . . . pathetic thing. She's not.
And if she has a few tiny concerns about the hospital visit, well, that's healthy, isn't it? She's just trying to be prepared. And they're just a few concerns.
Five.
Well, eight.
One. Carolyn might hear someone call her Satan. This is less about the insult (though Carolyn has her loyal moments) and less about the sacrilege. Does it count as sacrilegious if it's Satan? She's not sure. But Carolyn has never been one to accept any bible characters' names in vain and yes, Addison would love to see her mother-in-law's face just at hearing the term bible characters.
Two. Carolyn might meet Meredith. Which is fine. There's nothing awkward about her fertility-obsessed mother-in-law realizing she narrowly missed the chance to plant a whole garden of tiny Shepherds inside a ten-years-younger womb. Look it up in the dictionary under not awkward, right after the hotel room divide and conquer interrogation of three nearly-forty-year-olds by a seventy-five year old woman in a housecoat. Awkward? What's that?
Three. Carolyn might like Meredith. Addison can admit, French of her though this may be, that she herself has a moved beyond being okay with Meredith and actually – fine, she likes her. All right? There's something called sisterhood, and when a ninety-pound intern catches a cough-cough-cough pound (she's with child, don't forget) fainting attending and keeps her secret pregnancy a secret? It's enough to forgive the fact that she knows exactly where said intern's hands have been . . . and her mouth . . . but the point is, even though Addison actually likes Meredith, a tiny, uncharitable part of her still isn't quite ready for Carolyn to like her too. Or more specifically . . .
Four. Carolyn might like Meredith better than Addison. Petty? Childish? She was raised by wolves, after all. Secure attachment, for Addison, is about the clasps on her shoes, not her laughable bond with her mother. So why shouldn't she worry that Carolyn, after sixteen years of putting up with a daughter-in-law who was too rich, too privileged, too not what she wanted for her son, might be tempted by something new? (Derek was. And yeah, that's unfair, because Addison strayed first, but the inside of her head is not about being fair.) Everyone likes a clean slate. And Meredith is nothing if not a doe-eyed, irritatingly-good-with-patients, smarter-than-Addison-would-have-preferred clean slate.
Five. Carolyn might like Mark better than Addison. Fine, there's a theme here. (Thanks, Bizzy! There's a reason she still hasn't told her own mother about her pregnancy, nor does she have any desire to.). And Mark is no Meredith. Mark is fair game. Carolyn has loved Mark a lot longer than she has . . . whatever it is she feels about Addison. Mark was a Shepherd a decade and a half before Addison first crossed the threshold. Addison still had unflattering bangs when she met her mother-in-law, was still mostly a gawky post-adolescent and her husband would all too quick to say her brain hadn't finished developing yet, either. But she was an adult. Mark? Mark was a first grader with a cowlick and a smattering of freckles and a heartbreaking smile. Addison has never, ever thought she'd win in a competition for Carolyn, and she's never thought she had to. It's just that things are different now. And the hospital is full of . . . things. Even if everyone is nominally getting along right now.
Six. Mark might pull a fast one. It wouldn't be the first time he switched sides faster than a Shepherd niece playing Christmas hopscotch. Mark was Derek's best friend, but he was Addison's friend too. Before the affair, before the relationship, before the abortion and before she left him and before he showed up in Seattle to blow apart her reconciliation with her husband . . . they were friends. Mark misses Derek, and she knows this. He misses all the Shepherds. He might not give up an opportunity to get back in Carolyn's good graces by selling out the woman it's clear he hasn't forgiven. Relatedly:
Seven. Carolyn might find out everything. And she's just not ready for that. She's pretty sure she'll never be ready for that. Carolyn was surprisingly sanguine about the affair – more than she ever could have expected – warm and enthusiastic about her pregnancy . . . but the abortion? Unforgivable is one thing when Derek hisses it at her in a marital spat, another thing entirely when it's Carolyn Shepherd with the weight of the Vatican behind her. It's not like Addison is rushing to tell her but Mark, who values self-preservation above everything else . . . well, he probably won't bring it up. Except that he's the hero of the story, in his own eyes. He's the one who tried to stop her. And he's the one who flew to Seattle expressly to sell her out to Derek with the same material.
Eight. Carolyn might be the messy personal life straw that breaks the hospital's back. This one is unlikely. Isn't it? Richard has forgiven a lot, from the borderline-unprofessional way she and Derek bickered publicly on her arrival to the inadvertently public pregnancy announcement at the prom, to the top-volume explosion of her marriage in a public on call room. Forget don't air your dirty linens in public, there's an argument to be made that Addison has been full on doing her laundry at Seattle Grace since she arrived. Her best friend already flew out for a controversial surgery. Her sister-in-law already dropped in for a spontaneous dip into a double-uterus patient. Richard loves Addison and Derek, sure, but at some point, won't it be enough?
Because that's the thing. When you're Addison, and your husband is Derek, and your mother-in-law is Carolyn, and . . . Mark is Mark, well, there are times when you just feel like a sink with an open drain.
When it feels like there is no enough.
..
"Thanks. I've had enough." Derek hands back the coffee Addison has been offering him, as tradition dictates, whenever the speed of the jeep dips below forty-five. They must have downed gallons of caffeine this way over the years.
A few more miles under the jeep, and then Addison is the next to speak:
"So . . . your mother wants to go to the hospital."
Derek glances at the passenger seat out of the corner of his eye and then more fully when the light turns red. "My mother wants to go to the hospital."
Addison tips her head back, looking like she's gathering strength. One of her hands is resting over the bump where their child is growing. He stares because he can – she can't yell at him about it, not when they're in the car, and after all the secrets and the hiding, her pregnancy is public now.
Public, and visible.
She catches him looking and smiles.
"The sitter really said Doc looked okay?"
"He really did." Derek adjusts the wipers as the light rain that was falling when they left the hotel starts to pick up.
Addison doesn't respond, but he can hear the worry in the sound of her breathing.
Which is why they're on their way in the opposite direction of work, having exacted a promise from Nancy to keep all non-Derek, non-Addison Shepherds away from the hospital until they've received the all-clear. Carolyn Shepherd can be put off an hour or two, but he's known her long enough to know her hospital visit is happening either way.
Even if not, Addison was worried about Doc, and Derek, though he wouldn't say it aloud and risk the consequences, is still a little worried about Addison.
And so they're en route to the trailer instead of the hospital, out of the way though it may be.
Simple.
Quick.
They'll check on their dog, confirm the sitter's report, give him another chance to get some fresh air – should he want it – and then go to work. Simple as anything.
"Uncle Derek? Can I pet your doggie first?"
. . . in the front seat, anyway. In the back seat, where two little girls are strapped in with barely concealed excitement, things are slightly more complicated.
"No, I want to pet your doggie first!" Claire protests.
But wrangling favors from Nancy has never been the easiest, and keeping his mother away from the hospital required some bribery.
"I want to pet him first!"
Addison glances at him. Good practice, she mouths, and he makes a face at her.
"Girls. Hey . . . girls." He waits for them to stop clamoring. "Aunt Addie is petting my . . . doggie first," he says firmly. "Doc missed her. And then both of you can pet him together."
This works.
He is good.
..
Although by the time they get to his land, the sheer excitement of meeting the dog has proven too much for Claire, who turns shy and clings to Addison. Derek finally detaches her with the promise of a ride on his shoulders, and Lilly slips one hand into his and one into Addison's so they're a walking wall of Shepherds toward the Airstream.
"This is your house?" Lilly asks with interest, tilting her head up to see the trailer. "How come it's so small?"
"Houses come in all different sizes, honey," Addison says.
"But your other house is big." Lilly cocks her head, looking reminiscent. "Really big." She pauses as they approach the trailer steps. "I don't know if we can all fit in there," she says nervously.
Derek glances at Addison. "How much did you bribe her to say this?"
"Not a cent." Addison strokes the top of her niece's head, looking amused. "She's smart, that's all."
He makes a face at her in response – and then they're inside, concern over Doc enough to end their teasing.
. . . Doc is fine.
He's fine, as in the same, and Addison can't deny she's missed his familiar shaggy face. She sinks down to her knees to greet him, burying her hands in his fur, while their nieces clamor around him with delight.
"Easy." Derek catches one of Claire's little hands. "Let him smell you first."
"I don't smell!"
"All people smell," Derek says, smiling. "That's how dogs get to know you."
His nieces look unconvinced, but they follow their uncle's instructions obediently and are rewarded with the highest of canine compliments: a slower than usual but still impressively graceful flop onto his back and a presentation of his belly for affectionate scratches.
..
He wasn't sure what to expect when they bartered a visit to Doc with Nancy's daughters in return for Nancy's holding off their mother from descending on the hospital. Addison was worried about Doc, he has no doubt about it. Her soft spot for the dog, if it was ever subtle, is no longer disguised at all.
There's some reluctance for his mother's hospital mixed in there too, he's pretty sure of it, but knows better than to bring it up when they don't have privacy. And privacy is one thing they haven't had since they woke up this morning post-perhaps-ill-advised Shepherd family sleepover.
So here they are, back at the trailer where Addison once lived, shadowed by two little girls excited enough by the dog not to ask too many questions about their aunt and uncle's unconventional living arrangements.
Doc, too, seems pleased with the distraction, though tired. They take him out and he ambles slowly along the shore in step with Addison while Derek, figuring he can throw Nancy a bone, lets the girls run off some energy along the trail.
"It's raining," Lilly says disapprovingly, jogging up to him.
"It rains at home too," Derek reminds her. "We need rain to make things grow."
Lilly seems unconvinced, but she enjoys watching Doc slowly – but determinedly – fetch a stick, and she and Claire are both sweetly impressed with his adherence to sit (he was probably just tired, but they don't need to know that).
They have fun naming trees along the trail, well trained from their New England summer camps, and Derek manages to shoot Addison only a small look of amusement when both girls correctly identify poison oak on the first try.
"Beginner's luck," she says, frowning at him, and there's a moment he has to remind himself not to pull her in for a half-apologetic kiss.
It shouldn't feel so right, if it's wrong.
It shouldn't be so hard.
"Look, he likes me!" Claire beams, and Derek doesn't have the heart to tell her how delightfully undiscerning their dog is.
He just agrees and Doc, who is picking up rather adorable on the girls' energy, spends an enjoyable few minutes investigating their small hands with his wet nose, producing laughter, and eats almost half a biscuit proffered by each of the girls. Derek is impressed that the dog is diplomatic enough to make things equal. Maybe living with the occasionally-at-odds Shepherds has had an influence on him.
Meanwhile, Addison takes Claire in to use the bathroom, and his niece returns wide eyed. "It's so small in there," she says, sounding impressed rather than judgmental.
"I want to see!" Lilly cries with genuine envy, and that plus a look at his watch is enough to get him to hustle all four of them toward departure.
"But I'm wet," Lilly protests, Addison sympathizing even though her rain-spattered pink windbreaker – he recognizes an expensive outdoor brand his mother hopefully has no idea is as costly as it is – is nothing if not waterproof.
He doesn't protest, just sets out more food for Doc while Addison uses the same hairdryer she once shook at him – I hate the trailer! Hate, hate! – to dry damp spots on the girls' clothes before they head out in the drizzle once more, Derek bracing himself for complaints about the weather.
..
But there's a pause in the rain – an actual pause – as if the universe itself was waiting for them to load the car onto the ferry for the ride out of Bainbridge.
And yes it's a weekday, and yes it's indulgent, but it's a rare day when neither of them has a procedure scheduled in the morning.
So they take advantage of it and their nieces are thrilled.
The dog was thrilling.
The ferry is thrilling.
They're not too grown up, Nancy's little ones, not yet, to express the kind of enthusiasm you have to tamp down in your thirties. He may be long past it but he's forgotten, in his time away from New York, just how energizing it can be to witness it. His shoulders feel straighter, his muscles a little looser.
"This is so fun!" Lilly cries, her head tilted back, long dark hair whipping in the wind, as the boat picks up speed.
"Higher, Uncle Derek!" Claire tugs at his collar. "I want to see more!" She's laughing into the spray and she hugs him around the neck, delighted, when he hoists her higher.
Addison turns to shoot him a grin.
They don't need to say it, either of them:
Practice.
They don't need to say anything to be reminded that one day that feels both soon and terribly far away, they'll make this trip with their own child.
This morning, this ferry, it's Nancy's children.
And Addison is beaming into the light spray off the water, her cheeks rosy from the wind. Her hands are resting on Lilly's shoulders, but she takes one off to give his arm a quick squeeze.
His hands are currently occupied with Claire, who having scoped out the view from up high seems determined to recreate the infamous scene in Titanic – not the door scene, the other scene.
(Yes, he's seen Titanic, and yes, it was his wife's fault, and no, he doesn't agree that Leonardo whatever-his-last-name-is was just so handsome, and that twinkle in his eyes – he and Weiss, as he recalls, humored Addison and Savvy just as much as it took for their wives to stop interrogating them about how they would handle a similar shipwreck – at this rate, I'd jump, Weiss muttered, and instead promise that the next group outing would involve sports.)
It was a long time ago, that day. Claire wasn't born. Even Lilly hadn't arrived yet. So he's not sure what's inspiring his niece to attempt to scale the side of the ferry. He just shifts her in his arms so that she still has a good view, but not so much a foothold.
"What that?" she asks, distracted at last, pointing. "Is it the Chrysler Building?"
It's hard to hear her over the wind.
"It's the Space Needle, actually." Derek hoists his niece a little higher. "We're in Seattle now."
"I know, silly." Claire gives him an affectionate smile. "Maybe Seattle has a Chrysler Building too."
"Yeah, Uncle Derek," Addison murmurs, for his benefit only, her warm lips close to his ear. "You don't know everything."
The truth is, he feels better than he has in a while.
The air feels fresh and full of promise, the lingering fears for their son somehow muted into a calmer, steadier pulse of excitement.
There's something oddly gratifying about watching his nieces clamor around his pregnant wife, reminding her an eager chorus that they want to feel their newest cousin kick.
It's not quiet. It's loud, and a little messy.
It's better than quiet.
He glances at his wife; in profile, her open trench reveals the defined swell of the pregnancy. He's missed sharing her bed, sharing the feeling of the growing bump, but last night he traced its contours himself for the nightly ritual he's had to conduct by phone while they've been separated.
Still . . . here they all are, together.
This is your family, kiddo. We've all been waiting for you.
Out here, on the water, there's no room for fear. It's the thrill of the baby's existence he feels. The thrill of what they made together.
There's a reason his heart has always swelled in time with the motor of a boat under his feet.
Here's the bottom line: he has a thing for ferryboats.
(Ferries, fine. A ferry is already a boat, Lilly pointed out, hands on hips like a miniature Nancy, and he can't actually argue with that.)
He looks at his wife with her long windblown hair hiding most of her face and she could be any iteration of the woman who has been his since medical school. He's remembering the long ago February afternoon in residency when both they called out of work to take advantage of the gloriously unseasonal warmth. It was the tail end of a grey and miserable winter and then suddenly – it wasn't. Are you sure, Addison questioned him, her eyes wide, you don't know what surgeries you'll miss. He told her he was sure: there will be other surgeries. But there won't be another seventy-degree day in February, not in our lifetimes. So they called in sick and spent the afternoon riding the Staten Island Ferry back and forth, pausing only to disembark on one sunny dock or another before boarding once more.
Her hair whipped in the wind then, just like now.
She stood in front of him, leaned back so he took her weight against him, so the atypical sunlight warmed them both.
It was worth it, he said to her, resolute, even when he found out that Gleeson – who didn't have nearly the steady hand Derek did – got to drill his own skull flap on one of McCafferty's famously precise craniotomies while they were ferrying back and forth across the harbor.
It was still worth it.
He glances again at his wife, half her face obscured by her hair.
She doesn't look so different from that long-ago February afternoon in New York Harbor.
She catches him looking this time – she doesn't miss much – and gives him a small, knowing smile that suggests she's remembering the same thing he is.
When she turns back to watching the approaching skyline, urged by an excited Lilly, he sees the hand that isn't holding onto their niece come to rest unconsciously, it seems, over the bump where their son is growing.
Their son.
Just like that, he's hit with the full import of the decade between that day on the Staten Island Ferry and this one on its Bainbridge equivalent.
Everything is different.
Some things are the same: he's here, and Addison is here, and there's the powerful grinding of the ferry underneath their feet, a silver-spired city growing closer across the water.
Some things are the same, but everything is different.
They're not residents, not anymore. They don't call in sick. They don't avoid work.
They don't ride the ferry for the fun of it, not together anyway. The thing is, this isn't something that they do. Not their grown up versions, anyway. He wouldn't.
It's a weekday.
It's almost noon.
And he's a husband now.
And he has responsibilities now.
He's an attending. A department head.
But the bottom line – and he knows the woman next to him, then and now, gets it too –
. . . sometimes he'd rather just be on a ferry.
To be continued. No, this isn't a cliffhanger, but sometimes the Nation deserves a happy not-really-the-ending, don't you think? Not much happened in this one . . . on the surface, anyway. In the next chapter: Carolyn Shepherd's anxiety-inducing hospital visit, some wisdom from a long-distance friend, Addison's present, and the fetal echo that brought Nancy to Seattle in the first place. Thank you, as always, for reading. I know I kept you waiting a long time, but your reviews have kept this story alive. So yeah, I'm shameless and I love hearing what you think. Reviews are love and I am grateful! See you soon . . . and I mean it this time.