Second Person, Twenty-Nine
The room is dead quiet as they operate on Meredith Grey. You're not there as a surgeon, officially, but you are scrubbed in, anyway, in case there are, God, forbid any gynecological complications to her appendectomy, which seems unlikely, but you want to be ready at any time, anyway.
Your hands are shaking a bit. Your hands almost never shake in the O.R. Ever.
But your hands are shaking a bit now, and you sort of know why; it's Meredith Grey they are operating on.
She's the love of your life, you think, even if you never get to be any more than a best friend in hers.
Somehow it makes you both happy and sad to think that you'll never be able to get over her if she dies, and you'll never be able to find another partner to match up to what you've never even had with Meredith Grey.
You've had a great friendship in your life, and you know, that at least that part is mutual.
She said that as a friend she loves you, and you said that as her friend that you love her back.
It's enough for you to survive on and more. You're honored you get to be this close to her, even if you feel so, so, so far away from her at the same time...
You feel a hand on your shoulder. You want to pull back because you know it's not Meredith's.
Obviously it isn't Meredith Grey's hand because she's lying open on the table in front of you. But you know it isn't her hand just by the way it feels from behind you.
%%%
When Meredith has her hand on your shoulder, it feels like warm rain on a hot day.
When it's Meredith who lays a gentle hand out for you, her fingers feel like butter to melt on your skin and her fingertips feel like the icing on top of a cake and her touch sends you into euphoria at every hour of the day...
You know this is not Meredith because the hands feel brittle and worn, and they don't give you butterflies or any goosebumps or shivers. Thank God not.
This is Richard Webber, who is saying to you "are you alright, Addison? If you want to take a break you can, I understand if this one is hard for you…"
He's talking to you as if you might still be holding a grudge against the Grey girl for sleeping with your husband back before you ever met her.
You're glad he's talking with you like this because it means you know he does not know the actual truth.
You tell him you're fine, you want to stay where you are, you're just a bit dehydrated and you could use a glass of water.
%%%
Richard Webber gets it for you because he's always felt loyal because you never judged him for his own affair even if you knew about it, and because you're a good friend to his wife, Adele Webber.
Both of you used to bond because you felt neglected by your husbands who would never come home from work to watch 'real housewives' with you.
You felt like real housewives even though you both were successful career women in your own right. Adele is an excellent nurse and you were already a surgeon.
So you two would talk. You never had a crush on Adele Webber in the least bit, she was never more than a friend and you never wanted her to be. Of course you know now, she's not your type at all, no matter how lovely she is.
You were just friends with Adele, Richard's neglected wife through your fellowship from an unlikely place, and you vaguely sort of realizing that you met Meredith under sort of vaguely similar circumstances.
The wronged women of the world, uniting together from the lies of their lovers…
Miranda Bailey looks up from George's stitching once he successfully pulls on the purse strings without snapping them and gives you a 'thumbs up' of an expression.
You release the breath you didn't know you were holding as you know that now, Meredith Grey is more likely than ever to come out of this not only alive but alright.
It's a routine surgery; there's no need for you to be this freaked out.
%%%
You hope that Miranda Bailey chalks this up to be because you found out through Izzie or George or Alex or Cristina or something about why they used to call George '007'.
You had to ask someone because Meredith said that while she was on painkillers and you wanted to be sure it wasn't a drug thing.
They laughed at you when you mentioned that, and said that Meredith didn't do drugs that they knew of since they met her, not even weed, but that she did love tequila.
You note this in your inner list of things you know about Meredith and you focus up again on the look Miranda Bailey is giving you over George O'Malley's shoulder.
You realize it's something else, that she's pointing to George with her eyes.
You realize this is the first time you've been in the same room alone (because Richard is off getting you water) with her and George since the 'delivering Bailey's baby while Meredith is holding a bomb and her husband was on your then-husband's table' thing.
You see her nodding towards George and then you realize this is because you never thanked him for real, about helping with insisting on Bailey's treatment and you never apologized for the yelling.
So you do because he looks like he could use a confidence booster.
%%%
"George," you start with his first name to let him know you mean this as an equal…
"George, first I wanted to apologize for yelling the day of the explosion. I panicked because of all of the drama and I shouldn't have lashed out at you and I'm sorry. You were there for Bailey and I wasn't as good a doctor as I should have been," you say this and you mean it.
He knows, and he nods even though he doesn't turn because he is lacing stitches.
You tell him he's really calm under pressure, that he "could be great in an ER one day, or in a challenging, adrenaline-filled environment". You realize he would be an amazing trauma surgeon, but you don't suggest this so soon because it's too early for them to set their path in one place.
George smiles even as he stitches, and you turn your head back to Bailey who gives you a nod at both of your statements.
You nod at her back to thank her for 'bringing it up'.
You realize that you and Bailey have always also had some sort of understanding, as the most experienced female surgeons who have faced an amount of prejudice.
For her, it's her looks and for you, it's your past actions. Either way, she does empathize at least with the way some people snicker at female lead doctors as if you're 'not as good' as the men as doctors that they're expecting.
Bailey is always kind to you, and less stern to you as she is with the interns.
You're not exactly friends, but you're not exactly 'not friends' either.
She seems to know you and Grey have been hanging out a lot, though.
You can tell that, at least, by the way, she is studying you, because she must-see on your face that it's not 'hate', it's at least a friendship sort of love glazed over your eyes as you stare at Meredith Grey being closed up on the table.
%%%
George is almost done operating by the time Richard Webber comes back with a water bottle for you.
He holds it up as you sip it because your hands have to be sterile.
You feel like a child being nursed with a bottle and you try to banish the weirdness of the thought from your mind; he's just trying to help you, and this is the name of being sanitary, after all.
You drink the cool liquid and it pours down your throat. It feels nice to have it, even though as your lips touch the plastic you sigh because there are no traces of Meredith Grey's lips there from before yours.
There's obviously no traces of anyone else lips there before yours, either, because you saw Richard crack open the bottle himself for you.
You're watching George put in the final stitches for the Chief and for Richard to check over. Or, rather, for 'Richard The Chief' and 'Bailey The Resident Who Feels Like The Actual Chief' to check over.
Bailey was the one there the whole time, after all.
And you mean that in both senses of the words, the personal and the professional, as you will.
You mean it in that she's stayed faithful to her Tucker, her husband, her baby's father even as you think he's been a bit distant. And she's been there for the interns every step of the way and she's been here for Grey's surgery every moment today.
%%%
By contrast, Richard has not earned your trust as much, personally, or professionally. But he is a good man, mostly, and he's good for you, now.
So you let him feed you more water, even as you can see the interns looking on. Alex, Izzie, and Cristina and Callie are in the gallery now. Come to think of it, Preston Burke is in the gallery as well, sitting next to Cristina and Alex is sitting next to Izzie. Callie is sitting alone, just staring at George O'Malley.
You can see Preston Burke's lips moving to answer Cristina's questions about the surgery. The only people missing are Derek and Mark. You realize that Derek, as Meredith's 'significant other' is probably not allowed in the gallery and that Mark is probably comforting him.
You're glad that Mark and Derek are now sort-of-friends again, even if it took hating you for them to reconcile.
But you stop thinking about all those other people now. Because George has finished closing Meredith Grey up, and Bailey and Richard are inspecting the sutures.
And you're inspecting the sutures, making sure they will be staying still. You don't touch Meredith. You wouldn't feel right about it, somehow, even if it would be in a medical way.
You'd do it to save her, but that part is already over, and you touching her now wouldn't be on her stitches, it would be to feel the curve of her hairline and to smooth her hair out of her face.
And you don't do that for any patients, much less the ones you are in love with. Much less your ex-husband's ex-mistress, now-girlfriend.
So you just watch and nod as they prepare her very alive, just resting, body for the ICU.
You take a longing look at her as you watch her being wrapped up in blankets.
You think she looks beautiful like this, because she always looks beautiful, and now is no different than before.
You can't see any inappropriate skin and no one else can, that's not the point, the point is that you're staring at her because you 'can' stare at her as a 'doctor' and her 'friend' as you watch her be whisked out on a gurney.
%%%
You follow her all the way out until she is transferred, and then you stay by her side as you pull out a storybook from the Nicu they had left over so you can read to her.
You get through ten Doctor Seuss books before she starts to stir a little bit. Derek sees you waiting and asks you to page him when she ends up awake. You wonder why the hell he is not staying, and why he's still being comforted by Mark.
You rationalize it might be a 'because you were her doctor' thing, but you never quite figure all of it out.
Either way, you take it and you don't question it at all. Mark texts you halfway in, to see what's going on. You tell them (well, him, but you know Derek is still with Mark…), you tell them that she is doing fine, and she's not waking up yet just twitching a little.
Mark asks if you need anything, and you text him to bring you a Toblerone bar because you are hungry. You say it's for you and not her and he seems to believe you. They seem to believe you.
It's not Mark, though, it's Derek who arrives at Meredith's patient room door to see you doing the voices for 'The Cat In The Hat'.
You flush with embarrassment because even with 11 years of marriage and dating before that, he's never seen you read a book while 'doing the voices' before, much less to his slumbering unconscious girlfriend.
He doesn't look angry though, of course Derek wouldn't, because he knows you are friends now and he doesn't know you are gay and he doesn't know how you feel.
So when he walks in he just sits down and asks if you want to do a joint reading of 'One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish'.
You say yes even though you don't want him here but it would be rude to say no.
So he slides over a chair as you slide yours away from him and closer to Meredith. And then you open the book as he starts it all off… "One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish, black fish, blue fish, old fish, new fish..."
He lets you read the part next "This one has a little car. This one has a little star.
Say! What a lot of fish there are…"
%%%
You ask him which fish he thinks he would be. He can't decide for a while but then he says he wants to be the one with the star and you roll your eyes because he always thinks he is 'The Sun'.
He asks you which one you think you would be, and you say you'd be the 'old fish' because you're almost forty and you feel like you're only getting older and older.
He doesn't say something like 'you look young for forty', even though he looks like he wants to. He might have said that before you got a divorce. But you don't let him compliment you in front of his drugged-up girlfriend.
Because the last thing you need is for Meredith to wake up and tell you she heard her boyfriend hitting on you, his ex-wife, while reading her a storybook.
He says that he thinks Meredith would be the 'one with the little car' because her car is much smaller than his car is. You nod at this, even though in your head you think she would be the blue fish because her eyes sparkled big baby blue like the sky.
And also it was mentioned twice in the story so you know it's sort of the most important one. If Mark were here, he would have probably called you the 'red fish' because he always called you 'Red' for your hair.
But Mark isn't here and you don't know where he is and you don't ask Derek because you know if you bring up Mark to Derek he might talk to you about your dead unborn baby again.
So you just let him think that Meredith is the fish with the tiny car, even though your own car is probably smaller than hers is.
If she were awake now you think Meredith would know that and laugh about it with you, and you have no idea why Derek doesn't know this off by heart seeing as he's obviously been driven places by both of you at some point in Seattle.
%%%
Eventually Derek seems to notice that Meredith is not near waking up yet, so he says he's hungry and wants to get dinner and he asks if you want it. You say no because you don't want dinner from Derek, and he just grunts and says he's getting takeout with Mark.
You shrug and he asks if you're going to eat that chocolate he brought you. You say you'll eat it later and he accepts this and then he goes to leave before stopping right at the door.
"What?" You ask him, because you don't know why he is staring at you.
"Just…" Derek clears his throat and you're terrified he's going to say something like 'I know you're gay and you like my girlfriend so stay the fuck away from Meredith when she wakes up.'
But he doesn't, he just says to you something familiar 'Just don't hurt her… Don't hurt her, again."
And he walks away before you can ask how the hell you hurt her the first time, or maybe more than one time, and you think long and hard about what you did that hurt her the most…
%%%
You ruminate in your mind, as you put the storybook down and realize you are a bit hungry but you're never going to cave and ask Mark or Derek to bring you some food.
So you just drink more water and stare at Meredith now, as you realize this is the one time she is not wearing that ring of yours because she couldn't have it around the X-Ray machine.
You spy it on a table next to you, and you feel the instinct to put it on her finger again. But you don't, because you don't feel right about doing that.
In case she doesn't want it on her finger anymore, like she wants a break from wearing it, and wants a break from you.
You let it sit on the table as you let it sit in your mind, all the ways you could have caused her pain, all the ways you know that you did, and all the ways that you didn't…
You think about how you burst her bubble walking in through those doors.
You think about how you called yourself 'Addison Shepherd' even though you never called yourself that anymore.
You think about how you literally called her 'and you must be the woman who's been screwing my husband' and how that must have really broken her.
You think about how you sort of hated her on principle until you started liking her since the first day she was on your service, how you changed your mind somewhere along that day.
%%%
You think of how you said to her 'chin up, Grey, I'm tough on all of my students, not just the ones that my husband slept with'.
You think of how you also said to her 'good girl, you didn't go back to him' when she did not go back to him right away.
You think of how you also told her the truth about you cheating with Mark in front of a patient right away when they were all but calling her a slutty whore to her face.
All of these moments of past conversation float through your mind as you realize you started liking her somewhere along day one of working with her, even as you tried to hate her for seducing Derek in one day...
But you get it now, because she had seduced you in one day as well. You didn't know it then, but you knew it soon and even wrote about it in your diary about how you already thought you were in love all the way back then.
And if you thought you were in love then, that has nothing compared to how you feel for her, now.
After all those outings, office chats, stairwell conversations… You had been falling slowly since the minute you laid eyes on her and he called her Meredith. And you didn't know then but you certainly know how you were hooked at first sight…
She seems to be stirring now, she's starting to be waking up. You watch as she blinks her baby blue eyes open, and you decide to herself, that for her eyes along, that she is most certainly the blue fish…
%%%
She grumbles "mmmphmm" or something like that as she wiggles her toes and her muscles and wakes up as if she's been asleep for a decade.
You're extremely delighted when she sees you and she says "Addie, you're here!" Cheerfully, and when she doesn't ask right away 'where the hell is my Derek?'.
You say "hi" to her, and she laughs and you ask how she is feeling.
She says she feels better already, and you're extremely happy for her.
You ask if she needs anything and she melts your heart when she says "no, I just need you right now, just stay next to me because I just need you now…"
And you understand she just wants her friend by her side, so you nod and you say that you will. And you don't page Derek or anyone else you just sit next to Meredith for awhile.
%%%
She sees you starting to get hungry so she motions towards the Toblerone and says you can start it because her stomach is still not settled because of the morphine.
You feel bad about it but she can tell, and she says not to feel bad at all, that she would if she could and it's the thought that really counts.
So you unwrap (her?) chocolate bar, and you ask again if she's okay with you eating it. And she says next time she'll just buy one and not share with you if you feel all that bad about it.
And you laugh loudly at this because it's such a Meredith snarky thing to say.
And then you realize that, in saying this, that she's promising you that there will be at least one more 'next time' when she goes out searching for chocolate with you.
"I'm not going to stop wanting to get chocolate, Addie," Meredith says to you gently, when she sees your relief.
"I'm probably going to want it even more now that my stomach will be all healed right up!" Meredith finally exclaims.
And you try not to literally jump up for joy as you know by the look on her face that she's really saying to you 'I still want to be one of your very, very, very, close friends…'
"I'm glad," you say, and you let the weight of that sink in as you eat small bites of the chocolate to settle your stomach. It works well, but not as much as Meredith's words:
"I'm not going to not want to get chocolate with you, Addie, not because you're gay, or because you don't want to kiss me or you do but not while I'm with Derek, or because Derek or Mark might be mad at you. I still want to be your friend. I still want you in my life, Addison," Meredith finally says all in one breath.
%%%
You tear up at this admission, and it takes a minute before you register what she just said about you 'maybe wanting to kiss her, but not while she is with Derek'.
You hope this is all from the way you were talking about potentially kissing as friends the other day, and not something she's already known for a while about you…
"Are you gonna read me a story?" Meredith points to the books by her bed.
You don't tell her you've already read them all to her twice.
You just nod and bring the books over so she can pick one out for herself.
She picks 'The Cat In The Hat," and you start reading while doing the voices again.
You're endlessly relieved that Derek never walks in on you this time.
Meredith giggles every time you bring in a new 'accent' for a new character.
You exaggerate them more because they make her smile so wide.
She reads a few lines along when she can, but you can tell she is tired now.
Once you get to the end of the book, you put it down, and then she starts talking to you and saying "thank you, Addison," over and over, and softer and softer…
%%%
You move closer and closer because you can barely hear her. You're leaned in as she whispers and this seems to have been her intention because she strokes your hair back with her hand.
"Come snuggle with me?" She asks you. "Mer… I don't know if that's a good idea…"
You trail off because you don't know what to say to her. She says right away that "you're not really my doctor anymore, it's not a problem for me, you're not a burden to me and you never will be, no matter how much you might think you put your problems on me. And the door is closed and the windows are shut and you can put something noisy by the doors if you really don't want anyone to see before you or I am fully awake and upright!" Meredith rationalizes.
"Please? I really want to cuddle. I've been hurting and you make me feel better and I feel like I need a friend beside me right now, and I want it to be you and only you, as my friend, my chocolate-sharing friend who knows all my mommy and daddy and everyone problems and I just really need you to be my Addie with me…"
She's asking you again, and you know she really must need it because normally she never asks you for something you hesitate about the first time.
You want to crawl up with her because you're exhausted too; she was under the knife but you felt like you had a knife digging into you watching her surgery and every time the monitor beeped you thought something terrible was about to happen.
It made your adrenaline spike, but it is crashing now. And all you want to do is lay down. And she's asking you. She's pleading with you with her big baby blue eyes and your nickname and it's making you melt even more. And eventually you realize it might not be able to hurt, because it's pain relief for her and it's not like she or you is going to try something x-rated while she's just had an appendectomy…
"Come on Addison, we've snuggled before and after we talked about the kissing. I'm not going to try something like that with you, and I already know that you won't with me…"
Meredith seems to know what to say to make you feel right about this.
"Look, we snuggle all the time in your car or my car or in your office, but we can't go to any of those places now because I'm not allowed to move, but you are, and you can come up and sit with me and lie down if you want to. You look like hell you're so tired and I just want to feel better and to let you rest a litte with me…" Meredith keeps pleading with you.
You've never seen her beg this hard before, for you. You've never seen her want something so much because you realize she has no idea if you're going to give her a 'yes' or 'no'.
You realize by making her wait for you to say 'yes' that you're hurting her, and her body is already in pain.
And you don't want to hurt her more, you want to take her pain away…
%%%
"Okay, for a little while, I will stay, because I can tell you really want and need me to, and you are my friend and I will do that for you, of course!" You finally smile up at her, and you sit on the bed, and she uses every ounce of strength she has to move you next to her on the pillow and help you lay down beside her.
You sit close, then closer, and then she tucks herself right into you, to hold you close, because she needs to feel you close to her, for her, too. And it's just the thing you both need, and you feel relieved that she asked you for it because you never would have asked her for this, but she was right it was what you needed to, from her, all along, just to have your body held be a friend...
You realize you've never said in a bed together, you've just curled up in a car or on the couch in your office a few times while she was feeling really, really, really ill. You realize that this might lead to bad things happening, but she's giving you a look that says 'I promise I won't try anything stupid with you…' And you smile as the simple platonic touch from Meredith mends your soul.
And now she's nodding at you, and she's tucking you under the covers with you. And she's laying her head on your chest so you don't go away. And she's wrapping her arms around you. And you find yourself wrapping your arms around her right back.
You wait until she's asleep, or so you think, anyway, before you smooth over her hair and whisper "I'm so, sorry Meredith, for all the pain that I caused you. I don't know all the times that I hurt you, but I'm sorry for all of it, and I don't ever want to hurt you over again…"
She murmurs and nuzzles her head deeper into you. You don't know if she heard that, or understood what it meant. But you just keep holding her and she keeps holding you. And eventually, she falls asleep for real, and you suppose you finally do, too.
You stay like that for a really long time. You're surprised you have no pages but then again, you saw most people leave together with their friends or partners right after the surgery. You stay awake, just to hear Meredith breathing, watching the rise and fall of her chest.
You stare at the ring again, and you pick it up from the table for a moment and run it over your fingers. You have the impulse to slide it on your own hand, but you don't, because that would be weird to do since you gave it as a gift to Grey long ago, so you just marvel at its model…
You put the ring down before long, and you wish you had your diary here to write in.
But you don't, so you just feel all your thoughts swirling and you want to write them down somehow.
You try to find a way to do this before all the emotions consume you completely...
-Addison Montgomery
Written for her personal diary. On a notepad next to Meredith Grey's chart that she writes on while Meredith is still asleep in her arms. She reaches for this because it's close and there's a pen there, a shitty hospital one that says 'welcome to Seattle Grace!' with an emoji.
She writes on this because she wants to get it off her chest. Then she tucks the paper into her chest on the inside pocket of her undershirt that she is wearing under her scrubs. She has a page for her diary 'off her chest, but close to her chest', all her feelings still tucked in close to her heart…
***** END OF CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Author's Note:
This one is long, there was a lot of content I wanted to get down.
Thanks to all the loyal fans of this story, I hope you are happy with the frequent updates!
"Second Person" is quickly becoming one of my all-time favorite things to write.
It's really up there! And the biggest part of that experience for me has been the chats in the comments!
SO THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! To followers new and old.
You make this one possible, even more than I do, trust me.
Have a good one, enjoy this long update, it might take me a while to produce a new one.
But fear not, I shall return!
See you around. This one was a lot of work, all I ask for is to know your fav parts of it and what you liked so far about the surgery, the reading, and the Meredith waking up at the end :D.
bobbiejelly
And of course, onto the dedications:
Ao3:
LordOfLezzies you are the MVP for commenting on EVERY CHAPTER! Thanks to Arahneia for the lovely words and Also, of course, thanks to AddisonAddek and LordOfLezzies, all on Ao3
AddisonAddek for wanting more and commenting (a heck-ton) today, plus LordOfLezzies (also, because you're super) and Hotgitay who commented on Chapter 1.
Arahneia, AddisonAddek, Dragoncatcher123, LordofLezzies, and Hotgitay as well as 1 guest left kudos on this work! 1 subscription, 158 hits so far. 110 comments!
Fanfiction:
smountain for the lovely review. 715 views.
Wattpad:
Some people, like addiesrep mostly for now... Read this all in one go and left me a note on almost every chapter and that makes me overjoyed!
Comments and suggestions from Eleven_256, and naylorholby always make my day.
Thanks for the most WONDERFUL shout-out comment from JordynMarie05.
myfairlilymunster for the comments on Chapter 1.
danielaperezsurga, new_being, JordynMarie05, Unicornbaby78, myfairlilymunster, outlawqueenpercabeth, naylorholby, AddisonAddek, and probably some others who don't show up on my phone, voted on this, thanks. 451 reads, 72 comments, and 166 stars.
Also THANKS to everyone else who reads this someday, and to a friend in 'real-life' who beta'ed this for me. Much love.
Ps. Two new MerAdd fics are up:
New Honeymoon In Hawaii Pillow Talk Buzzkill... And there was a new chapter of this yesterday as well, with sexy MerAdd right at the end!
Five Reasons We Knew Calzona Was Made For Each Other & Five + More 6 Sentence FicsFeel free to check them out, hopefully after you leave a note, and have a great day!
bobbiejelly