Room:
Authors Note: Thank you to everyone who is still reading this story. Reviews are like little rays of sunshine! Notes for this chapter... I don't know that Addison (or Meredith or Derek) ever actually spoke French, however I remember Addison's father sleeping with her French Tutor, so I am imagining maybe she knows French, but just doesn't speak it because Kate Walsh speak French, well and it's an American TV show. I am learning French, but still in the baby stages. I had a friend help with the translations. : ) . I thought it would be funny if Derek was fussing at Meredith in a different language expecting Addison wouldn't understand.
About 2 weeks after the last chapter
I wake up to Mark shaking me hard, calling my name. I am drenched with sweat and gasping for air. My nose is stuffy. My eyes are blurry when I open them, I blink hard and they burn from the tears I hadn't even known I shed.
"You were screaming. Are you OK?" He asks. He stops shaking me but doesn't move right away. I guess he wants me to know he is close, that I'm safe. I don't feel safe though.
"Fine." I murmur, but I'm not fine. "Just a dream." I say, trying to sound convincing, to unsee the panic in his eyes. I don't remember the last time that it's been 'just a dream'. "I'm sorry I woke you." I stand up. I pull on my house robe and my slippers. I pull my hair up into a messy bun. He grabs my hand, looking up at me, concerned.
"Addison you don't have to leave."
"We both have to work tomorrow. You need your rest."
"What about you?"
"I can hang out on the couch. It's only one night." I grab my pillow and one of the smaller blankets from the bed. "I only have to check on Meredith and sit with her tomorrow. It's not like I am actually working a full schedule like you are." I say, trying to imply that my work is less important than his. The truth is though…. I would give anything to be able to do surgery again. Sitting with Meredith daily is dull, and the lack of brain stimulation is exhausting. You'd think I would have learned how to be bored with all the time I spent in Room, but it was never truly a skill I've mastered. I don't know what to do with all the empty time. It makes me anxious and restless.
"You take the bed; I'll take the couch." He insists.
"No, that isn't right." I protest. "You need your sleep." I repeat.
"Do you want to talk about what happened?" He asks. "You still look really shaken."
"No." I hate nightmares. Despite being free of Room I know I will never be able to escape. I wonder if Emmerson has nightmares like I do. He hasn't mentioned anything, and he doesn't cry, or wake in the night. I don't know. Maybe children are more resilient. Last night was the worst, the past, mixed with present day. I strain my brain, but I cannot remember specifically what made it so bad, and then it comes to me. I knew It wasn't real. I knew I was dreaming, but I couldn't make myself wake up.
"You're not OK, Addison this isn't the first time this has happened." Mark catches up to me by the door. "I'll stay with you tonight. I know you're not going to be able to sleep, we can watch a movie or… something."
"You don't have to do that." I offer. "You didn't ask for this."
"Neither did you." He reminds me.
"I'm sorry I woke you." I say again, I feel like a broken record. I know he is right though. I won't be able to fall back asleep, and I don't really want to be alone.
"Addison-"
"I'm fine Mark. Seriously, go back to bed." I pull him close and kiss him gently on the lips. He pulls away from me, surprised, confusion in his eyes.
"I'm sorry." I immediately apologize. "I don't know why I did that."
"You're lonely." He says. We sit down on the couch together. "You feel broken and you want something, anything to make you feel whole again, alive again." He guesses.
"Something like that." I agree. I am thankful he doesn't say 'You're broken.' I tell myself that all the time, 'you're broken' 'you're not worthy of love or kindnes'. I don't mean to, but Derek's words echo over and over in my head. They've become my internal monologue. Somehow 'you feel broken' seems kinder, less invasive.
"What do you want to do about it?" He asks me.
"I don't know. I just wish…. I wish I could be normal again; I wish there was a time machine that could take me back. I wish there was one decision I could have made differently that day, that could have changed everything. I want things to be the way they were before Derek took me. Do you remember that day?" I ask him.
"How could I forget? It was the last time I saw you before you disappeared, you told me you were heading to the abortion clinic and I never saw you again."
"I'm sorry I did that." I admit. "I was scared, but that's not an excuse. What I did was unfair. It was cruel to you."
"You didn't get the abortion though."
"Obviously not."
"What made you change your mind?" He asks me. I sigh, trying to think back. Was it one specific thing? Or was it several? I was going to leave Derek that day. I was going to go home and tell him I've had enough of this back-and-forth toxic tango we're dancing.
"You asked me to give you a chance. You told me you'd help me leave Derek, so we could raise our child together. You told me we'd move to Paris, or New York, or LA, wherever I wanted, and give our child the world. You gave me hope."
"You didn't say anything, you didn't tell me he was OK."
"I didn't have a chance Mark." I explain, a cold chill overcoming me. "I was going to come over that night. I was packing my bags to leave, but that was the night he took me." My voice is full of regret. How different would things have been if I had gone straight to Mark's home that night instead of to mine? We could have had a beautiful life. Our son could have been spared of all the horrific things he's had to witness. If only I had known. The what if's are what nightmares are made of.
"You're crying." He says, pulling me close, and gently wiping the tears from my eyes with his thumb. "It's not your fault. You didn't deserve what happened to you Addison. Nobody deserves abuse like that."
"How do we move on from here?" I ask him, it seems like it is impossible. Like there will never be a day that room doesn't haunt me.
"Maybe we don't? Maybe we just move forward? Hey, do you know why God put human faces on the front of your head and not the back?" He asks me. I am caught off guard, Mark has never really been a religious person.
"Um… no why?"
"So you can focus on where you're going. Not where you've been." He answers.
My phone rings later that morning just as I am walking back into Meredith's room. I make a sound of annoyance and answer it. Not even bothering to look at the number. Frustrated by such a simple thing as the phone ringing when I am trying to do something else.
"Hello?" I ask. Such an informal greeting. I miss having a regular job. I miss the days of answering the phone 'Hello Dr. Addison Montgomery Shepherd speaking!' well truth be told maybe not the Shepherd part, but the rest of it holds true.
"How's Meredith?" Derek asks. "How's the baby? I know you're at the hospital with her."
"How do you know where I am?" My mind goes in a thousand directions. Has he hired someone to install a tracker on my car? Does he have someone following me? What is his motives here?
"Give the phone to Meredith." He demands.
"Why don't you just call her? You need to lose my number."
"That's kind of hard to do when she's blocked both me, the prison and unknown callers on her phone, and is not accepting calls on the hospital phone." He says slyly.
"Have you ever thought that maybe she doesn't wish to speak to you?"
"Where's your 'pet'?" Derek asks me. "Oh wait. It's 9:05, he's dropping the boys off at daycare, today right?" He asks. Meredith looks up at me, questioningly. I signal 'just a moment.' And put Derek on speakerphone.
"Don't speak about Mark like that." I say, sounding braver than I feel. I am trembling. "What do you want?" I ask him.
"How is my little family Addison? Are you taking good care of them?" He asks again and when I don't say anything he growls "Give the phone to Meredith."
"We're fine, no thanks to you. I want to know what made you suddenly care?" Meredith asks him. I press my lips together hard. Afraid of his reply. She is much braver than I am.
""Je ne t'ai pas demandé ton avis, pute tricheuse. Et pour être clair, je ne veux plus rien à voir avec toi."." (I didn't ask your opinion, cheating bitch. And to be clear, I don't want anything to do with you anymore.) He says to her angrily. I guess forgetting that I understand languages other than English, feeling a false sense of privacy in speaking something other than my native tongue. I never taught Emmerson French. I wanted him to have a language we could speak together, that Derek doesn't know. Maybe I'll teach him, now that he's older, and we're free.
"Pourquoi tu dis ça?" (Why do you say that?) She asks, and I can see tell she is trying to hide the hurt. Her eyes are bright red, she's been crying even before his call. She looks shocked. I glance at her, concerned, but she shakes her head 'no' at me, and motions me to go. I don't. I stand right next to her as Derek spews his next batch of word vomit.
"Ce n'est pas mon bébé. On le sait tous les deux. Tu étais en voyage à New York avec Mark quand il a été conçu." (He's not my baby. We both know that. You were on a trip to New York with Mark when he was conceived.)
"J'étais déjà enceinte lorsque nous avons fait le voyage à la recherche d'Addison." (I was already pregnant when we made the trip to find Addison.)
"Tu es un menteuse. Tu as de la chance qu'Addison se soit échappé avant que je puisse construire une seconde pièce.
(You're a liar. You're lucky Addison escaped before I could build a second room.).
"Taisez-vous tous les deux! Je comprends le français. Ou avez-vous oublié? Vous ne me cachez rien. Donc vous pourriez aussi bien parler Anglais." (Both of you shut up! I understand French. Or did you forget? You're not hiding anything from me. So, you might as well speak English.) They are giving me a headache, going back and forth like a ping pong match. I need time for this information to sink in. Derek could be lying. Or they could both be lying. Meredith looks at me, if possible even more shell shocked, and Derek is silent for a time. I would have thought he hung up, but I can hear him breathing on the other end of the line.
"So, what did you actually want?" I ask him. "You called me to yell at her or…. expose her? What's your game here Derek?"
"I should have locked the two of you up together. That would be hot." He says, his voice an attempt at seduction, that just turns out creepy.
I realize I am going to be sick. I am shaking so hard the phone is trembling in my hands. I hand it to Meredith, and then go to the bathroom sinking down on the ground next to the toilet just in time for my breakfast to make its reappearance. Thinking of what it would have been if she were locked away as well is overwhelming. Would she have been able to survive? Of course, she would. She's braver than me. Smarter than me. Stronger than me. She would have survived. There's no question. She's a survivor.
Authors Note:
Thanks to everyone who has read Room so far! I really like this story. It is very interesting to me that even the strongest most confident amazing people can be knocked down. They're human just like everyone else, and everyone copes with trauma differently. Please review and let me know what you think? I like that Addison is a little braver and more confident this chapter, but I wonder if she is too brave, too confident and if Derek will do something to knock her back down to his reality. More Emmerson in the next chapter. I just missed Addison and Mark and had the scene with Addison and Meredith on the phone with Derek at the hospital in my head for some time and needed to get it written out. Hope you are all staying safe and healthy during these crazy times! : )