{chapter fifteen:: into this house we're born || "riders on the storm," the doors}
Six months after the wedding and Addison doesn't know that she's ever been happier in her life. Well. She'd be happier if her daughter would listen to quite literally any other book at bedtime.
"I'm gonna run that book through the shredder," she says, collapsing onto the couch beside Alex.
"In the great green room, there was a telephone," Alex starts. "And a red balloon, and a picture of – "
He's abruptly cut off by Addison throwing a pillow at him. Laughing, Alex sets the pillow aside and tugs her to him.
Addison settles against his chest. She has the book memorized too. She's pretty sure all four of them do. All five of them – Addison can't imagine a reality where her daughter doesn't have Goodnight, Moon memorized, even at the age of three. "There's a whole bookshelf in there," she muses. "Plenty of books. Plenty of different books. And that's the one she wants. Every. Night."
"How many times have you read Jane Eyre?"
"That's not the point." She's lost count and isn't about to admit that Rachel's laser focus on a single book might be genetic.
"I got about three pages into Dragons Love Tacos the other night," Alex says. "I think we're all screwed until she can read on her own."
Addison pulls her husband's arm tighter around her and cuddles into him. He's probably right. At least it'll make Christmas easy this year: instead of everyone asking if she already has the book they want to give her, Addison can just send out a blanket no books message.
"Is it possible to have a book stuck in your head?" Alex asks after a moment. "Because I do."
Addison sits up and flashes him a grin. "You're the one who started quoting it."
"I know," he groans.
The grin turns into a smirk as she shifts slightly, straddling his waist. "We could do something else," she says, raising a suggestive eyebrow. "Take your mind off of kittens and mittens."
Alex's eyes darken and his lips form a little smirk of their own. He settles his hands on her hips. "Have I ever mentioned how much I love how your brain works?"
She shrugs coyly. "Couple of times, maybe." Her breath catches in her throat as Alex teases his fingers just underneath her shirt. "Should probably go somewhere with a door that locks, though." Completely contrary to her words and her plan, Addison kisses him.
They do, eventually, make it to their bedroom and lock the door.
Sitting at the kitchen table, Rachel sighs and kicks her legs through the air. She stares wistfully out the window, the last few Froot Loops in her bowl left forgotten and getting soggy in the milk. Rain pours down in sheets outside in a late summer storm, turning the lake and forest into a smeared mix of colors that are mostly gray.
"What's wrong, kiddo?" Meredith slides into the chair opposite Rachel. She wraps her hands around a mug of fresh coffee.
Pouting, Rachel kicks her legs harder. "Raining," she says. "No outside."
She smiles softly. "Daddy said to stay inside?" Derek had managed to get Rachel breakfast before he rushed out the door. It's Meredith's day off and she's supposed to bring Rachel by the hospital for day care, but given that the road to their house has largely turned into a small river, the likelihood of that is slim; she doesn't mind – she likes Rachel, she's a good kid.
With a very dramatic sigh, Rachel nods.
Meredith glances outside and smiles conspiratorially at her stepdaughter. She didn't have plans for her day off anyway, other than calling the county to have someone look at the road drainage (and that's not going to fix today's river). It's let up a little; not much, but enough that she can see individual trees again. "Wanna go?"
Rachel looks at her a little sideways with an expression that looks so much like Alex that Meredith nearly starts laughing. Rachel may biologically be Derek's and Addison's, but she has aspects of all four of them in her. It's going to make her a handful as a teenager, but right now it's cute.
"We go outside?" Rachel says, eyes wide and voice so full of hope.
"Yep," Meredith nods. "Are you finished?" she gestures at the soggy Froot Loops. At Rachel's nod, Meredith grins. "Get your rainboots," she says before sending a quick text to Derek about the road and daycare.
To Rachel's credit, she doesn't jump off her chair quite hard enough to tip it over as she runs excitedly out of the kitchen.
Derek takes one look at the small pair of muddy purple boots sitting next to a larger pair of equally-muddy green boots and shakes his head with a smile. As he left for work that morning, he had a feeling that his request to stay inside wouldn't be heeded. He doesn't mind: Rachel loves the rain and mostly he wanted to make sure she didn't decide to go running out into it alone again. At three, Rachel doesn't do anything slowly and sprinting out into the rainy yard is how she ended up with a face full of mud the other week. Before Derek could catch her, she figured out how to slide through the mud intentionally. God help them if she ever decides to play softball; there won't be a pair of pants in two houses without mud stains.
The sounds of a small child running across the upstairs hall tell him he doesn't need to announce that he's home. He sets dinner on the table and listens as his daughter makes her way down the stairs, fingers crossed and half a wince on his face that she remembers to take the stairs slow. She does – two feet on each step, just like she's supposed to – and then Derek steels himself for the running tackle.
"Daddy!" Rachel shrieks as she launches herself into his arms.
"Hey kiddo," he says, hugging her tightly and giving her a kiss before lifting her up. "How was your day?"
"Outside!" she says excitedly.
Meredith joins them. "In my defense, she pouted."
"Yeah, that pout is pretty lethal," he agrees. Kissing Rachel's forehead, he sets her down. "I brought dinner," he gestures to the table with a grin. She can't read, but she knows how to recognize symbols.
Rachel jumps up and down. Her curly red pigtails bounce with her. "Barbie?" she asks excitedly.
Derek winks. She's one mini doll away from having the entire Kid's Meal collection on her shelf. He'd texted Meredith earlier to check which one Rachel was missing and asked specifically for it tonight to complete the collection before the toys change out in a few weeks.
Once he gets Rachel settled with dinner, he pulls Meredith in for a hug and a proper kiss hello. "Good day?" he asks.
She smiles. "Good day. And it'll be even better if you tell me that," she points at the plastic have a nice day bag, "is extremely spicy Thai food."
Smirking, Derek opens the bag and removes a container of curry for her. "I'm a mind reader."
November rolls in with a stomach bug Rachel picks up in daycare. Addison barely gets Rachel healthy enough that she can stay on schedule and stay at Derek's before she gets hit with it herself. She feels like she got run over by a train and doesn't even try to go to work.
"Addison?" Alex calls softly that evening, not wanting to wake her up if she's asleep.
"Living room," she says, sounding somehow more miserable than when she woke up this morning.
He finds her on the couch, in his red plaid pajama pants and her white SGH shirt from last year's baseball game (7, Montgomery on the back in navy blue), game controller in her hands and Super Mario Odyssey on the TV. There's a mug of ginger tea on the coffee table next to a water bottle and a thermometer. A half-empty sleeve of saltine crackers is open on a plate. She's tucked the throw blanket around her lap, but her cheeks are flushed despite the rest of her being paler than usual.
"I suppose how are you feeling is a stupid question," Alex says.
She sniffs. "Kids are Petri dishes." On screen, she midjudges the length of a jump and tumbles off a building. Mario respawns back at the checkpoint. "I'm really bad at this game," she gestures with the controller.
"You got out of the jungle level," he encourages. She'd been trying for a couple weeks, though that included a five-day rage quit where she did nothing but aggressively read books. He sits next to her.
Addison scoots farther away. "No," she halfheartedly protests. "I'm gross and you're gonna get sick too."
"I live with the same Petri dish," Alex points out, sliding his arm around her shoulder. "I'm already doomed." He feels fine, but he spent the day in her office catching up on paperwork and pointedly not seeing any patients, just in case.
Addison laughs weakly and leans into him. Alex brushes her hair out of her forehead and places his hand on her warm skin. Feverish, but nothing concerning. He kisses her forehead and watches her play for a while. As she rotates the camera to see all the parts of the puzzle, her face turns an interesting shade of pale gray-green. Alex wonders if this is perhaps not the best game for her to be playing right now.
Suddenly, Addison pauses the game and hands him the controller. With visible effort, she tries to stand. And then immediately sits back down. She presses the back of her hand against her mouth.
Without a word, Alex drags over the small trash can around from the side of the couch. They started lining it with a plastic bag when Rachel was sick and, as his wife throws up into it, he's glad they didn't stop. He gently rubs her back. When she sits up, he hands her the water bottle and takes care of the trash can.
He comes back with gum. "Want me to find you something else to play?" he asks as she takes a few hesitant sips of water.
Shaking her head, Addison lies down. "No. I'm gonna nap on you, though." She shifts around, resting her head in his lap.
Alex tugs the blanket up around her shoulders. He leans over and kisses her cheek. "I'll wake you up in a couple hours for dinner." At her sideways skeptical glance up at him, he smirks. "I've been told I make mean peanut butter crackers."
She manages a small smile. "Thank you."
"Go to sleep," he says. He swaps the game out for an episode of Ozark and keeps the volume low while Addison sleeps. He texts Richard, letting him know Addison will be out for another few days, and then Arizona, letting her know he'll at least be out tomorrow.
A week later and Addison leans her forehead on the cool porcelain bathtub. All of her other symptoms have cleared up – and the rest of her family is completely back to healthy – but she's still vomiting.
"This is exhausting," she mutters to herself as she flushes the toilet. "There is no reason for this." She glares down at her body, as if reasoning with it will make this stop.
Her eye catches the tampon box stashed between the toilet and the cabinet. Frowning, Addison's brow furrows as a thought tries to connect two points together. Another wave of nausea rolls through her and she closes her eyes for a few minutes, breathing steadily and evenly as she waits for it to pass.
Once it does, Addison reaches up and takes her phone off the counter. According to her period tracker app, she's five weeks late. Through the chaos of Halloween with a three-year-old who finally understood the concept, a sick kid, and then being sick herself, she hadn't noticed. And now that she's thinking about it, she hadn't been feeling spectacular before Rachel got sick and brought it home.
Five weeks late. That's when she knew about Rachel, too.
She looks down at her body again. It's been a year of their non-plan. A few times she's thought maybe, but the tests were all negative. Lately they've been definitively not talking about how their non-plan probably needs to become an actual plan.
Maybe they don't need to have that conversation.
Turns out you can get anything delivered. Addison orders snacks, ginger ale, and a pregnancy test.
That night, Addison leans on their closet door, watching Alex put away laundry. She looks down at the pregnancy test again. Her rings catch the light and sparkle. What a difference four years makes.
"You're lurking," he says, a smile in his voice as he hangs up a shirt.
"Guilty as charged." Addison steps into the closet and sits on the little stool Rachel sometimes sits on while watching her get ready in the morning.
"How're you feeling?" He pauses and turns to her.
She's feeling much better now that she knows why she's been feeling crappy. Smiling, she silently hands him the test. He was the first one to know four years ago, too.
He blinks at it and then at her. "You're pregnant?"
Nodding, Addison's smile widens. No loitering in the hallway and counting to ten or twenty. No apprehension, no speech planning. No awkward. Just happy. "Yep."
Alex tugs her up and into a hug. "You're pregnant," he repeats, holding her close.
Smiling into his shoulder, she nods. Two words of pure hope and excitement, with a healthy dose of astonishment. She loves him so much. "I'm pregnant."
Laughing, Alex spins her around in a giddy little circle before letting go. He looks at her, then back down at the test in his hand, then back up to her in awe. And then down at the test again. "Wait, did you pee on this?"
"Yeah," she laughs and makes a face, taking the little stick back. "Sorry." She slides it into her pocket.
Shaking his head, Alex hugs her again. "I don't care. I love you."
Addison's smiling so hard her cheeks hurt. Nothing could have prepared her for this kind of joy. "I love you too."