Hey all,
This is my first Grey's Anatomy story. Most of the first part will be set in New York, but we'll definitely move over to the West Coast and get the Seattle gang in there in due time. I am going to take a lot of creative license with the timeline once we get to the Seattle part; on the one hand because the Grey's timeline really doesn't make a lot of sense, and on the other hand because it will work much better with the story line.
All that being said, this prologue is going to be comparatively short, normal chapter sizes are probably going to be somewhere between 4,500 and 6,000 words. On the flip side that means I plan on updating this only about every two weeks.
All that being said, I hope you'll enjoy the story!
Prologue - December 25, 2005
She exhaled shakily, drawing a hand through her rich red hair. If there was a special kind of hell for women who committed adultery with their husband's best friend, there had to be a special kind of hell for husbands who fell in love with their interns and were emotionally abusive enough to rub their wife's face into it. After all, that was only fair.
Addison pressed the back of her hand against her mouth. How could anybody expect her to fix her marriage when her husband didn't want it fixed? When he was dreaming of blonde hair instead of red, youthful awe instead of mature cynicism? I fell in love with her, he'd said as he sat next to her drinking his scotch, not even giving her the opportunity to drown her sorrows in alcohol without him sending her disapproving glances as she went from the seasonal butter rum to her usual martinis. He went from sadly dejected to openly annoyed watching her – the only emotions she seemed capable of rousing in him these days. After the fourth martini, he'd almost forcefully dragged her out of Joe's bar, his fingers biting into her upper arm. Not as much as his words had bitten into her heart, of course, but enough for her to pretend for a couple of precious seconds that this was the actual problem in her marriage.
She laughed hollowly. When had she become so – disappointed, sad, disillusioned? – that she thought a drinking problem and a jackass husband was the best she could hope for? He was not saying it to hurt her, she thought ironically, when almost everything he'd done since she came to Seattle had felt as if it was meant to hurt her, with varying degrees of intent behind his actions.
She took a shuddering breath again. It was Christmas morning, and she was at the hospital, having volunteered for the holiday shift because even that seemed better than sitting in the trailer that had to count for home nowadays, staring silently at the furniture to pass the time Derek spent not talking to her. Of course, when she got to the hospital, she had not only found her husband but also her fellow volunteer attendings Burke and Chief Webber as well as Bailey's band of misfit interns, lingering around the nurses' station and gossiping. Maybe this was her preview for the next decade or so of marriage. Being called Satan and feeling less and less like herself with every day she spent in this rainy hellhole.
She missed New York – the snow, the lights, the past, him, them – almost more than she missed the good days of her marriage. Addison shook her head. Thinking about Mark, thinking about everything that had happened before she'd followed Derek to Seattle a little more than a month ago would only hurt her more.
A last deep breath, she told herself, then she'd go out there again, saving the women hoping for a Christmas baby and smiling at the new mothers fawning over their Christmas Eve miracles. Her pager drew her out of her thoughts before her mind could drift off. Small mercies, she thought, as she made her way down to the nurses' station.
**\\*/ *** \\*/**
"So, you and McDreamy again," Cristina asked slyly as she leaned against the wall next to her.
Izzie wiggled her eyebrow. "What about her and McDreamy?"
"There's nothing with me and Derek – McDreamy," Meredith defended herself, crossing her arms in front of her and pressing a couple of patient files against her chest.
"Yeah, then what was that last night in the parking lot? The two of you sitting next to each other on the bench in front of the hospital, looking all – dreamy, for a lack of better word?" Cristina teased.
Meredith shrugged. "Nothing. It was nightmarish, if anything. I told him good-bye and sent him on his way. I can't keep doing this to myself. I don't know what's going on there anymore. Satan is talking Christmas presents for his mother and being all couple-y and he's hot and cold to me, looking at me across the hallway before he kisses her cheek or he walks away from her alternatively with or without talking to either her or me," she stopped for a second. "When did my life become so pathetic?"
"Burke put up a Christmas tree in his apartment. And a Menorah." Cristina complained. "And he keeps talking about spirituality. I'm telling you; I can't stand this much longer. I'm just glad that Christmas is one day only so this is all over tomorrow and we can go back to cutting."
"Derek says Christmas is the time for head injuries," Meredith said morosely.
"Hmph. Maybe I should've gone into neuro instead of cardio, then I could get out of this stupidity for the next forty years of my life," Her 'person' mused dryly.
Meredith nudged her with her elbow. "I am sure there will be lots of cardiac arrests on Christmas, too. All those people who are too enthusiastic about their presents."
"There better be," Cristina mumbled grumpily as Izzie snorted a little to hide her laughter. The ding of the elevator ripped them out of their back-and-forth, drawing their attention to the man and the little girl who had just stepped out of the cart.
"Uh," Izzie said appreciatively, eying his sharp features. "Well, that is certainly a nice Christmas present," she stated emphatically. "Would you look at those cheekbones?"
"Would you look at the girl?" Cristina mocked her. "Clearly, he's not on the market for something no strings attached, not even with Dr. Model."
"She might be his niece," Meredith pointed out. "Or they might not be related at all. He might be watching her for a friend or something in the hospital. In which case he could need some cheering up. He could totally be my McRebound."
"Hey, I saw him first," Izzie hissed.
"If it turns out he's a surgeon with a good surgery and an opportunity to scrub in, I might kick Burke to the curb for him," Cristina added wryly.
"Let's face it, the way it's been going for us, he's married to the ideal woman, has a child with said woman, and is probably a super boring hedge fund manager or whatever with no opportunity to cut at all," Meredith said. "I say we schedule a date with Senor Tequila instead and meet up tonight to drink Christmas away, and everything that comes with it."
The other two nodded, still staring a little forlornly at the stranger who was walking up to the nurses' station.
"Yang, Stevens, Grey, what do you think you're doing?" Bailey yelled as she came down the corridor and saw them lounging against the wall. "Just because it's Christmas doesn't mean you get to hang out around the hospital. Yang, go down to the pit, Stevens you're with Montgomery-Shepherd, Grey do me a favor and finally finish these patient files. They are documents, not your personal security blanket!"
"Later," Meredith said to Cristina and Izzie, clutching her files a little tighter as she walked over to the nurses' station, just catching the last words of the stranger.
**\\*/ *** \\*/**
He held the small girl close to him, shifting her a little on his hip. Annie was still drowsy from the long flight to Seattle, her deep regular breaths telling him that she wasn't too far from sleep.
"Mommy?" she whispered pleadingly.
"Soon, baby," he promised as they crossed the threshold into Seattle Grace Hospital. His heart constricted briefly, thinking of the last time he'd seen her, when she'd thrown the door close behind her and almost ran to the cab that would bring her to JFK.
He shook his head. They were here for one reason, and one reason only. When the preschooler had woken up that morning, almost in the middle of the night still, asking if Santa had brought her presents, he hadn't cared about the fact that it was barely after four in the morning. He'd led her to the Christmas tree that now resided in the corner of the living room in his former bachelor pad, letting her take in the brightly colored packages.
"Santa didn't bring Mommy?" she'd asked, her big chocolate brown eyes slightly glassy from the tears that threatened to fall.
"She'll call in a couple of hours, honey. It's not morning yet where she is," he'd told her soothingly. No matter what had happened between them, no matter that there was now a whole continent between her and the four-year-old, she called twice a day without fail.
"I want Mommy," she'd said, her voice high-pitched. "Please, I want to see Mommy!"
He'd tried anything he could think of, but in the end, there was only one thing he could do. He'd thrown together clothes for the both of them and hailed them a cab to the airport, getting them stand-by seats on the earliest flight out to Seattle, Washington. Annie had asked for her mother during the first hour of the flight but as they continued on their journey west, her whimpers had slowly quieted down, the exhaustion of the early morning catching up with her.
He shook his head, clearing his mind of the thoughts racing through it. Looking around the lobby, he made his way over to the elevators, pressing the button for the surgical floor. He was vaguely aware of the stares of a bunch of interns as he strode over to the nurses' station. Annie had buried her face in his neck, her small whispers of "Mommy, Mommy, Mommy," a quiet mantra in his ear.
He stopped in front of the counter taking a look around to check if she was by some miracle close by. When he couldn't see her, he brought his eyes up to meet those of an elderly woman. Too tired to even give her one of his famous smiles, he caressed the girl's hair briefly.
"Could you page Addison Shepherd for me?" he asked, clearing his throat before the next words could come out. "Tell her, her daughter is here and wants to see her."
The sound of a stack of patient files hitting the floor next to him caused him to turn around, seeing a blonde intern who stared at him incredulously.
"What?" the intern shrieked almost comically shocked as all hell broke loose.
**\\*/ *** \\*/**
He was looking over his files, ostensibly to get Addison's sad eyes out of his head but realistically more to stop thinking about the finality in Meredith's inflection as she'd told him good-bye last night. He couldn't even remember the last time he'd felt so strongly about Addison. At some point, things had just gotten so hectic, and she'd found the family he'd always wanted with her elsewhere.
Derek swallowed bitterly as he thought back to that night in September when he came home to find a leather jacket on the floor in the den and his best friend in his bed atop of his wife. The memories washed over him like a maelstrom, pulling him down, almost like they had the night before he had met Meredith in the bar.
Angrily he slammed his hand onto the tabletop. Why had she come here? Why had Addison felt the need to fly all the way across the country to Seattle, breaking up the only good thing that had happened to him in the past year and a half, or something? A loud noise brought him out of his thoughts and drew his gaze through the window to the nurses' station. There was Meredith who hastily bent down to collect a host of patient fields, and a guy who set a little girl down on her feet, following Meredith in collecting the files. He paused for a second as his thoughts registered, looking back first at the girl and then at the man. He was out of his chair faster than he could realize, almost running out of the room and crossing over the free area to the nurses' station just as the man straightened up again, handing the files back to Meredith.
He was only peripherally aware of reaching back with his arm and letting his fist shoot forward until he felt the pain in his hand as Mark fell to the floor.
"Derek," he heard Addison yell angrily, followed by the clicking of her heels as she ran down the hallway, picking up the little girl who had started crying. "Shh, baby, mommy's got you," she whispered soothingly, her hair forming a red curtain around her and her daughter's head. "Annie, please don't cry. It's going to be okay, baby, everything's alright."
Addison turned around as Mark got up from the floor, sending a murderous look in Derek's direction. "What the hell, Derek?" she hissed angrily, caressing Annie's hair as she tried to calm her down. She was vaguely aware of the curious stares they were drawing from the nurses and some of Meredith's intern friends around them.
"What is he doing here? What are they doing here?" Derek shouted, pinning her with an angry stare.
"You have a kid?" Meredith screamed before either Addison or Mark had time to answer. "And you've never thought it necessary to tell me? What comes next, after the mystery wife and the mystery kid? The mystery dog and the mystery picket fence from the mystery perfect life?"
"That – she is not my kid," he said pointing to Annie, his voice so venomous that Addison looked physically ill, her arms curling tighter around the little girl as if she was trying to protect her from his words. Mark balled his fist like he was about ready to punch him back as he almost spat out his next sentence. "I don't have any part in that little family."
Lots of drama right from the start! Let me know what you think :)