Chapter 2:

Addison's POV:

AUTHORS NOTE: Didn't realize my mistake until um…. Like right now editing this, but apparently Amelia also lives, and works in NY. They all work at the same hospital like in Seattle, only NY. I wrote stuff mentioning Amelia and then was like "Oh wait…" -_- . Also, I don't if the timeline makes sense, but we're going to go with it, because reasons that I don't know yet. I did make a whole word document page timeline, so I am thinking about it. Please review and let me know what you think : )

Chapter 2

CURRENT TIME

ADDISON's POV

"Are you OK?" I ask, walking into my office, taking off my jacket and hanging it on the hook. I've lived here so long, and I'm still not used to the bitter cold of New York. It's a whole different type of cold, you can feel it in your bones. She's been trying her best to avoid me since I warned her about Derek. Since she declared her love for me and promised me, we'd figure this whole mess out. Beyond me showing up once a month and turning in incident reports we haven't spoken. I don't blame her. She has Noah to look after now. If Derek decided to kick off it'd be a bigger problem than just protecting herself. I'd like to say he'd never hurt a baby, but he's capable of so much more than he seems. I want so badly to leave. When things are bad, I dream of the life Olivia and I had. It was the only time in my life that I was truly happy. The only time when things made sense. Maybe she thinks about us too. How could I have been so stupid as to screw that up? I bet she knows, just like I do that we can never go back. Everything has changed. It's been so long. Sometimes I wonder if our relationship was really just a dream. Something created out of nothing in my head to fill the long, dark hours after work, alone in the house with Derek. Something to give my life meaning. Something to give me hope and remind me that I am worthy of loving and being loved. I frown as I get a good look t her. Her skin is pale. She's trembling and clinging to Noah or dear life. Her eyes are puffy and red from crying. She's lost at least 15-20lbs since I last saw her. It was only a month ago.

"Hi Noah! How are you doing today sweet boy?" I coo at him when she doesn't respond right away. Giving her time. He looks up at me, smiles big, babbling. I reach down and hand him his favorite plushy animal he dropped on the floor. He signs 'thank you' to me, and shakes it up and down, laughing as it rattles. "You're welcome baby."

"I'm sorry Addison. I shouldn't be here. If Derek finds out… I understand I'm putting you at risk…" She starts "I just. I need your help." She stammers, looking from me, to Noah, and around the room anxiously.

"What's wrong?" I ask, genuinely concerned. I hate it when she says she's fine. It's just about as bad as when I say I'm fine after an altercation with Derek. Neither of us are ever really 'fine' just getting through the day one moment at a time.

"I'm pregnant." She says, looking down ashamed. "I should have talked to you, I'm sorry."

"You can talk to me now; it's going to be OK." I insist. " We can work this out together, that's what we do right?" She hands me Noah, and grabs the trashcan, sinking to the floor as a round of sickness overcomes her. I kneel down next to her, Noah in one arm, rubbing her back with my other hand until the vomiting subsides. When it is done, and she is sitting upright on the floor, back up against the couch, crying and apologizing I hand her a can of ginger ale from the mini fridge.

"This may help, tiny sips."

"This is the worst." She murmurs, taking a sip. "It's too complicated." She watches me holding Noah, smiling a little as he rests his head on my chest, and I gently pat his back, thinking maybe he's ready for sleepy time. "I just… I don't know how; I don't know the right way to process or to say what I'm feeling."

"Everything is going to be OK." I repeat. "Whatever you decide. I'm here for you. Don't worry about the consequences. It's you, I'm concerned about. Let me worry about you for a change."

*FLASHBACK*

NOVEMBER 2002

"Something happens, you panic, you freeze. You want to hide it and pretend that it didn't happen. So, pretend like everything's fine, but everything's not fine."

"How are you doing?" Olivia asks, walking into my hospital room. "Dr. Schance called to let me know everything went smoothly with waking you up, but he wouldn't allow visitors until today. I'm sorry I wasn't here when you woke up." I don't say anything, and just watch as she bustles around the room fluffing and watering the flowers, re arranging the get well soon cards, balloons, and gifts my colleagues had sent in. When I woke up my doctor told me that Olivia had been at my bedside round the clock for the last week. He finally sent her home for the night, not knowing my stats would improve enough to take me off the ventilator and sedation. "Can I get you anything?" She asks.

"I'm fine." I say, coughing a little. My throat still a little sore from the breathing tube.

"The surgery went well, you're recovering well." She says, brightly.

"I ended up in a coma."

"Amelia says you'll be back to work soon, and you didn't die which was your only other alternative, so I feel like things went better than expected giving the circumstances." She says almost cheerfully. I absolutely hate this side of her. She doesn't mean to, it's not her fault, but she's talking to me as if I'm sick. I'm not sick. I'm just…. My brain cannot even find the right word. Inconvenienced maybe? I wonder if it still counts as a win on your neurosurgeons record if they almost kill you worse trying to save you? The bleed was bigger than the scan indicated. I feel like I've been runover by a dump truck. Nothing makes sense anymore.

"The baby died." I respond, numbly. "That's worse." I say, and I am thankful that she doesn't point out if I would have died the baby would still have died. A twenty-week fetus cannot live outside the womb. Medical intervention just isn't there yet.

"I know." She confirms, sadly. "There was nothing that could be done, I'm so sorry Addison."

"Something can almost always be done." I say, but I know this isn't the truth, someone would have attempted to save the baby if it was able to be saved. Marion is as good as I am. She operated. She took the baby. There had to be a reason. My brain is just too tired to piece together the clues.

"What happened? Why did you allow Derek to do this to me?" I ask Olivia. She sits down on the plastic chair next to my bed, taking my hands. Gently outlining the IV's with her fingers, careful not to press down, it's already bruising. It's so loud in here, and I can't move to pull my pillow over my head and block out the constant beeping of machines, 'code blues', and the sound of running feet. I wish they would have transferred me to the labor and delivery ward. Perhaps they thought it would be too difficult to be around the other mothers, and their babies, even when in a private room as you can still hear their cries. Maybe it's just that I was too fragile to move. Either way, it would have been more peaceful than being here. She looks down at the book she sat on my bedside woefully. I am betting she hoped I'd be asleep, so she'd be able to sneak in a chapter or two and distract herself from her life. That's what I'd do anyway. As interns we used to go read to the elderly patients in the memory care ward during our breaks. It was humbling, and honestly, I loved making new friends with the patients.

"Allow?" She asks, a mixture between shock, callousness and hurt. "I understand you've been through a lot. I understand you're deflecting but that is a bit much, Addison, even for you."

"He did this, he's to blame, and you were there. I remember you being there." The past week has been an absolute blur of missing time, missing information, and incomplete memories, like shattered glass on the ground. I woke up in the hospital last night with no recollection of how I got here. The doctors came in 1-1 to update me on my 'condition'. Marion from OB, Amelia from Neuro, and my regular doctor Dr. Schance. They tried filling in the missing pieces, gluing the glass back together, but everything is still hazy. I can't remember things as well as I could. Amelia says that is a result of the bleed, and the concussion, but it will pass as I continue to recover. We had argued about it. I just want to go back to work. I want to go back to my life. When I am working, I don't have to think, or feel. I can get busy with something and just be.

*MINI FLASHBACK TO THE NIGHT BEFORE*

'I'm only saying this, this bluntly because you're my sister…' she had started. 'but you need to find different living arrangements. Another concussion like this could kill you, especially if this one hasn't healed yet.'

'How am I supposed to work like this?' I asked her, panicking. There's no sick days when you're married to Derek.

'You're not!' She responds forcefully. 'You'll go home with me, or you'll go home with Olivia and you'll rest. You'll recover. You've been through hell Addison. I will not clear you to practice medicine until six weeks has passed at the very least. Marion agrees, it's best to reassess in six weeks."

'That's not fair!' I exclaimed. 'I'm needed here. There's not another neonatologist. Joyce quit last week."

'The chief is handling that. For now, you have to recover. Stop being so selfish Addison. What help are you to anyone if you're dead?"

END MINI FLASHBACK

"He is to blame." She says, agreeing sorrowfully. "but…" She closes her mouth, as if deciding something, and then stays silent.

"But what?" I asks. "Just spit it out." I say, getting annoyed. You cannot say anything to me that is any worse than what I've already said to myself." I exclaim, getting frustrated with her, she doesn't speak again until I scream "OLIVIA."

"Fine." She says, throwing up her hands. "Fine. You're not going to like me for this but you're not blameless Addison." I look up at her, red faced and cheeks tearstained. Hurt that she would even suggest such a thing. She knows how much I wanted this baby.

"I didn't kill my baby; I would NEVER hurt my baby. I love my baby." I say, defensively. A baby is all I've ever wanted in this world. I thought things would be different. He convinced me everything would be fine. When he found out about the baby, he was so excited. We picked out names, one girl name and one boy name. Emmalyn and Zachary. Even though it was earlier than advised we decorated the nursery in Winnie The Pooh, with gentle yellow walls. He didn't hurt me again after we found out about the baby….until that night.

"I know." She admits, sighing, and sinking deeper into the chair. "But you went back to him Addison. You know what he is capable of, and yet you went back. You let him lure you back in and unfortunately this is the tragic consequence of that action."

"He loves me."

"No, he doesn't."

"He didn't mean for this to happen."

"I'm confused. He didn't mean to bash your head so hard you needed emergency brain surgery, or is it that he didn't mean to kick you so forcefully that you have three broken ribs and a dead baby? If you honestly think he loves you after this, you're deluded. You need serious help. People like him cannot love Addison. You are nothing more than a possession to him."

"No… it's just … I should have died too." I say jumbling my words.

"You're here for a reason, even if you don't yet know what that reason is." She reminds me, gently, sounding remorseful for her previous harshness. We are quiet for a long while after that. I don't know what to say to her. There isn't anything anyone can say to me right now to comfort me. How am I meant to comfort someone else? I know this would have never happened if I wouldn't have left and gone home. I tried leaving him, more than once. It just never panned out. He always had a way of finding me and bringing me home. I just… I really did think that he was being honest. He always finds a way to 'bring me home where I belong.'

"They won't tell me about the baby." I say finally in a small voice. "I tried reading my medical charts, but my head hurts too much, and no one will really just sit down and talk to me which is extremely frustrating." I respond, moving my hand to my stomach that my tiny fetus previously occupied I wince when I press down a little too hard on the c-section incision. They didn't tell me if the baby was a boy or girl. I never got to hold, or kiss, or even just see what it looked like. I asked the doctor who came in this morning, but he avoided the topic. Brushing it off, telling me not to worry about it. Reminding me that I need my rest and I will have plenty of time to try again once I've recovered. I can tell by the expression on her face I'm whining, but I can't help it. I tried asking Marion when she rounded, but she was very vague. Just telling me that the baby had passed which resulted the emergency c-section to remove the body. Honestly, I should have her job for this. This is not how you treat a grieving mother. Well, at least it's not how I treat grieving mothers. I have sat with mothers for hours, going over ever detail.

"What do you want to know?" Olivia asks, sighing perhaps grateful for the change of subject, maybe just thankful I'm not arguing further. I shouldn't argue. I was told I need to stay calm, that I need to rest. Honestly, what is rest? Is someone who has worked 80 hours + weeks for years even capable of such thing?

"I want to know what happened that night, what happened to my baby." This whole situation is too overwhelming. Hospital admittance. Emergency brain surgery. Medically induced comas. Emergency cesarean sections and losing a baby. I don't specifically remember any of this happening, it's just what the doctor told me as he explained what happened. I can see her biting her tongue. Trying to hold the mad inside. I am grasping at straws here, trying to figure out exactly what went wrong, and why. She looks sad. I watch her distrustfully. She knows something she's not telling me. She almost looks guilty, like she is about to cry. "I want to know what you're not telling me. What the doctors aren't telling me."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. The truth Olivia, please."

"What do you think happened?" She asks me.

"I don't know, which is why I've asked you. If I had to be put into a medically induced coma, I was clearly too weak for surgery. The decision was made to allow Amelia to proceed with the craniotomy. That complicated of a surgery should have waited until the contractions stopped and the baby and I were both stabilized."

"I was there that night, because you called me, 9-1-1. You managed to get away and were hiding in the closet. You let me know you were hurt, and that he had a gun. I called 9-1-1. When we arrived on scene, we attempted hostage negotiation for an hour, but he wouldn't respond, and we could hear the screams as he was hurting you." She is watching me carefully, but I am sitting very still, trying to remember. "I broke in through the basement and got upstairs in time to see him bashing your head against the stair railing and throwing your limp body down onto the ground."

"I don't remember any of that." I say, shaking my head.

"You wouldn't, you were pretty out of it." She says "Derek was taken to jail, and I was left to make your medical decisions as you still have me listed as your emergency contact on your driver's license. You came too briefly, but only for a few seconds."

"And the baby? What was the cause of death?" I press her.

"Placental abruption, caused by blunt force trauma. They couldn't find a fetal heartbeat in the ambulance. When we got to the hospital Marion confirmed the baby had passed. " She says gently. For the first time since learning of my baby's passing the tears and more shattered memories come. I remember laying on the ground, holding my hands over my stomach and trying to move away from him as he kicked me, screaming at the top of his lungs. I don't even know what I did to make him so angry this time. I look down at my arms, admiring the bruises from his work shoes for the first time. Piecing together the shards of my foggy memory like one of those thousand-piece jigsaw puzzles my grandma forced me to do growing up. I don't remember being on the stairs, but I remember laying on the floor in the entryway to our brownstone unable to move. Hearing her voice scream 'NYPD, drop your weapon, and put your hands up.' He must not have complied right away because shortly there after there was the sound of a taser going off, Derek screaming as he hit the ground, handcuffs clicking, and Olivia radioing for the squad to come in, as she checks my pulse, radioing for the ambulance team to hurry.

"When you got to the hospital Marion operated to remove the baby while Amelia stopped the bleed."

"Was it a girl or a boy?" I ask her softly, my voice cracking.

"A little boy." She responds almost inaudibly.

"Zachary." I say. "He would have been called Zachary." I say, swallowing hard.

"He can still be called Zachary." She says gently stroking my bandaged head, carefully watching my expression. "Derek hurt you, but Amelia saved you. It was too late for the baby, but he existed, even if it was only just for a little while, you're still his mom Addison. What happened doesn't take that away."

"Did you get to see him?" I ask her, holding my breath, forgetting to breathe as I await her response.

"Yes, and Addison, he was beautiful." She says, and I break down at this. "I'm so sorry they had to take him before you could be woken up."

"What did they do with him?" I ask, afraid to know the answer. The hospital has a policy that miscarried or stillborn babies weighing under a pound can be processed as medical waste. The thought of my baby laying in a medical waste bin, discarded like trash makes my heart ache to bursting.

"He's here." She says, reaching into her bag I didn't even realize she brought in and pulling out a small brown and ivory teddy bear, a clear soft window on the bears tummy which holds a picture of a teeny tiny baby, dressed in a white gown and bonnet. "They asked me what they should do with his body. I don't know if this is what you would have wanted, but it seemed kinder than the alternative." On a paper tag tied around his neck with an ivory ribbon are the words "Baby Boy Montgomery Shepherd" as well as his birthday, his time of death, his height, and his weight.

"I don't understand." I say, thinking that it was just an ordinary teddy bear, with a picture frame. I look at the picture carefully, trying to figure out who he would have looked like. He has my facial structure, but I'm pretty sure that's Derek's nose. She puts her hands over mine, carefully turning the teddy bear around so his back shows and undoing the almost invisible Velcro reveling a hidden compartment, from which she pulls out an ivory lace bag, "You can keep him here…." She says, carefully showing me the tiny teddy bear shaped tin with his ashes inside. "Or you can spread them somewhere nice when you're ready."

"This is beautiful, thank you for doing this." She comes close and gives me a hug.

"I hope it will help you heal." She whispers. "And as you hold him, you'll remember what's truly important."

*END FLASHBACK*

"I'm an obstetrician and a neonatologist. What exactly do you think I do all day?" I ask her, as I take out a soft foam gymnastics floor mat that I use for yoga, and some toys from the cabinet by the bookshelf. I set them up on the floor for Noah, and Olivia puts him down, handing him one of the toys. Smiling for the first time since she's been here as she watches him play.

"With the way we left things I just thought it would be better if I didn't.…"

"Did you really think you being pregnant would what? Upset me? Trigger me? I don't understand where you're going with this, but people lose babies all the time and that's not a reason to treat them -"

"I love you." She says, cutting me off. I stop, and look at her, blinking hard, trying to mentally shield myself from the word vomit. "I never stopped loving you Addison. I love the life we had together. We were so happy." She reminds me.

"We were." I agree.

"But that's not what you want?" She offers.

"I don't know."

"After Zachary you moved back in with me for a month, and then you went back to Derek and ghosted me, for those two years."

"Yes. I remember."

"Why?"

"I don't know."

"Addison….I need you to tell me the truth. I need to know why you made that choice."

"I love him. He doesn't always hurt me, and like I said before, he threatened you. He has a gun; he threatens you all the time lately. He knows I love you and uses that to hurt me." I say finally. Love comes with a lot of investment of time, energy, and trust. It's not easy to just let go of a life you've built with someone, whether they're abusive toward you or not. Maybe it's just as simple as I can't let go? Maybe because I have tried so many times and failed. Maybe because I've been threatened and I'm afraid.

"I'm not worried about him hurting me. If he comes within six blocks of my apartment my people will handle it. I'm worried about him hurting you. What do you prefer? Someone whose never hurt you, or someone who doesn't always hurt you? We don't have to have a relationship if you're not into it. I just want you to be safe. That's it." She asks, and I remember why my anxiety was so much less when she wasn't around. I had no one trying to psychoanalyze me into leaving. I had no one who knew how to read the things I couldn't say just by the way my body moves. I was able to close my heart to how painful love is when things got too painful.

"That's not fair." I object.

"Life rarely is." She says, "But as we stand, you're still with Derek, and even if he wasn't constantly threatening to kill me and I wasn't in fear for your life, you don't want kids, and I have 1, and a quarter-baked." She says, looking like she is about to start crying again. I hand her a tissue, and she wipes her eyes. I try hard to keep a straight face. I have never heard anyone refer to their unborn child as 'quarter-baked' before.

"I made the choice to get sterilized after I lost Zachary. That's very different than not wanting children." I correct her. I had the operation preformed in secret, and afterwards I told Derek that the infertility was caused due to the complications when I lost the baby. I just…. When I lost him, I realized just how much I didn't want to bring a child into my world. Not like that. Not when things are that bad a child shouldn't witness their mother and father fighting. "Let me do an ultrasound, we can check on the baby and determine next steps. Have you had prenatal care, and taking a prenatal vitamin daily?"

"Not yet." She says. She moves over to the table that we had placed in my office during the last remodel and lays down. I get the portable ultrasound machine set up as she lifts up her shirt. I put gel on her tummy, and rub it around with the wand, getting a good coverage, and then finding baby. "It's not cold." She says, surprised.

"No, the machine has a warmer."

"It's nice." She says, making nervous small talk. She's looking away, careful not to focus on the machine. I let it be. When new mothers are unsure, I don't force them to look. They will look when they're ready, or not at all. Either is fine. A decision like ending a pregnancy or not is already traumatic enough. The added guilt of seeing the screen isn't needed.

"Do you want to hear your baby?" I ask her, and when she nods, I turn up the volume on the machine, when the baby's heartbeat fills the room, she looks up at the screen, tears in her eyes as she watches the little baby moving around, she looks so relieved. I go through taking measurements while we listen to the baby's heartbeat.

"Everything looks fine." I say. I print out a couple of the stills I took, asking her if she wants them. She says yes and tucks them in her bag. "You're measuring right at fifteen weeks."

"Are you sure?" She asks, sitting up before I can even wipe the gel from her. I hand her a towel. If possible, she looks even paler than before.

"I could measure again if it makes you more comfortable, but yes, I am sure, are you OK?" I ask her, concerned as I help her down from the table, and back over to the chair by my desk, where Noah had laid down on the mat, snuggling one of his plushies and fallen asleep.

"I'm fine, everything's fine, I'm ok. I'm good."

"Because that's convincing...'' I say, raising my eyebrows at her.

"No, you just made my decision for me." She says, hugging herself so tightly, I almost tell her to stop she'll bruise. I stop myself though, not everyone bruises as easily as I do. "It's Stabler's… I … I just… he loves his kids so much. He's a wonderful father. I could never do that to him."

"Does he know?" I ask her.

"No, I thought I was only 10 weeks, that's why I've been calling it quarter-baked all week." She looks miserable, and my heart aches for her. "He's married, he has five kids. I just…." She starts to hyperventilate, and I give her a paper bag to breathe into. Coaching her to breathe slowly in and out. "I'll tell him tonight; we have a shift together tonight." She says when her breathing has regulated again.

"Do you want this baby?" I ask her, carefully.

"I don't know, but I should really get going, I'm sure you have a surgery or work or something."

"Actually, when you called, I cleared my schedule for this afternoon. I'm all yours. It's not like you were specific on the phone. I wasn't sure what was actually wrong. I need you to go to the lab and get your bloods drawn, give a urine sample and then, pharmacy for prenatal.

"I don't know what I'm going to do." She says, watching Noah sleep. "I'm 39 years old. Noah isn't even one yet."

"You don't have to do anything Olivia. The choice is yours to make."

"What would you do?"

"I'm not the person to ask about this." I remind her. When I first found out I was pregnant with Zachary I was scared out of my mind. What if things really didn't change, and I brought a baby into my hell hole of a life? What if he got hurt? I was crying all over Olivia's couch when she reminded me that all I've ever wanted, all my life, was a child of my own. She told me how she got pregnant at thirteen. Her mother drug her to one of those abortion clinics, but she couldn't go through with it, she didn't take the pills. Instead, she checked into an unwed mothers home and stayed there until she gave birth to the baby, signing papers relinquishing her parental rights. One of the few who willingly, and without manipulation chose to give her child a better life than what she, at such a young age, could provide. "And really it is not any of my business. Until the twenty fourth week of pregnancy what a woman does with her body is her choice. Your body, your choice Olivia. Just like all those years ago. You know what to do. In your heart. I've done this long enough to know that. You know what you want to do Olivia. I just need you to tell me."

"You still have his ashes." She comments, changing the subject. Looking at the corner bookshelf behind my desk and spotting the little brown and ivory teddy bear with Zachary's urn, and photograph.

"I keep them here so he's safe." I want to add, 'Derek likes to break things when he's angry' but that would only induce a lecture about how I should leave Derek, and I shouldn't allow him to treat me like this. It's complicated. If I bashed his head in with a frying pan I'd go to jail and we'd have a whole different set of issues to work through.

"I have to talk to Elliot. He'll want to know, either way." Olivia says, checking her watch and then gently picking up her sleeping son. He whimpers and cuddles himself against her. "I have to get Noah home to Lucy before my shift starts. I'll call you after I talk to Elliot tonight."

"Ok, good luck!" I say, getting the door for her. When she is gone, I sink down onto the couch. Momentarily exhausted, and overwhelmingly thankful that at least, I'm not the one who has to have that conversation tonight.

Authors Note:

Hi everyone! Thank you for reading Chapter 2 of Rewrite the Stars. PLEASE review and let me know what you're thinking so far. Conversation with Elliot is next chapter, this chapter was just already too long.