So, because this was a really long wait, here's a really long chapter, enjoy!
February 2005
"The board is … interesting," Mark commented as he sidled up next to her.
Addison shrugged. "At least it's not empty. Better overcrowded than empty," she answered with a hint of superstition. "When's your last surgery today?"
"Uh, I'm somewhere down there," he answered, pointing at the lower tier that was a mess of patient and surgeon names. "I should be out of here by four-thirty, actually, barring any complications. What about you?"
"I have a c-section scheduled for three which normally I'd be done with in less than an hour, but I'm letting Foley – my resident – do it and I decided to let my intern assist, so we'll see how long it takes. The jury is still out on how competent those two actually are," the redhead answered. "I have a couple of old patient files to catch up on afterwards, but I might just take them home with me and leave my service to Foley for the night."
They stood in companionable silence for a couple of moments until Addison nudged him with her elbow. "How's my favorite Sloan doing today?"
"Are you telling me I'm not your favorite Sloan?" Mark asked back, making a great show of looking wounded. "Have you replaced me with a younger member of the great Sloan line?"
"I'm very sorry, Mark. You know you'll always be in my top two for any Sloan rankings, but I cannot promise more than that," she laughed with him.
"Well, my admittedly adorable daughter is doing well. I think she's a little bored in daycare, though, so I've been trying to come up with some other activity for her to do on some afternoons or maybe early evenings of the week. Unfortunately, I haven't had any great ideas yet," he said.
"Any great ideas for what?" they heard another voice behind them.
"Who is that stranger? Do we know him, Addie?" Mark asked jokingly as he turned to give his best friend a manly hug.
Addie laughed, too. "My memory might be a little fuzzy, but that hair – could he be my wayward husband, emerging from the depths of the OR?"
Derek shook his head. "Yeah, yeah, gang up on me, why don't you?"
Mark looked at Addison again, catching her eye. She looked relieved, probably because the awkward atmosphere between the three of them had finally dissipated. Derek hadn't ever confronted his friend after his fight with his wife, but he had eyed Mark suspiciously for the last two weeks, which hadn't helped Addison when she was still coming to terms with the fact that she had come very close to kissing Mark in her – their – bedroom.
"So, what do you need ideas for?" Derek asked. "Picking up some women?"
"Not picking up," Mark corrected, "and the female party in question is Annie. I'm looking for some free time activities outside of daycare."
"Well, what about ballet?" Derek suggested.
"Ballet?" Mark questioned.
Derek shrugged. "Addie did ballet when she was little, right?" he asked as his pager suddenly went off. "Oh, shoot, got to go," he threw over his shoulder as he sprinted off.
Mark looked at her expectantly. "Yes, I did ballet, about ten years in total. For the most part it was fine but sometimes I felt really awkward when I was kind of growing into my limbs, but I guess I liked it overall," she sighed.
He wriggled his eyebrows at her. "So, do you think that has made you more flexible? You know, in all aspects of life?"
"Very funny, Sloan. If anything, it has made me more rigid. I can sit so straight, you'd think I've swallowed a stick," Addie answered sarcastically. "I did have a great teacher, though. She was very talented but quite nice and somewhat motherly. Probably the closest I got to any kind of mother figure beside my nannies," she paused for a second. "And ballet was a good compromise for my parents: it was Bizzy-approved because it is classy, and it was Captain-approved because he got to watch Madame Bielle in very figure-hugging tights."
Mark shook his head. "Your family," he commented. "Sometimes I wonder how you made it out of there as normal as you are. Not saying that my man Archer isn't great too, but maybe not quite as well adjusted."
Addie laughed. "I'll let him know about your thoughts the next time I talk to him, I bet he'll take it as a compliment. He is his mother's son, so standing out is never going to be a bad thing for him."
They fell silent again for a couple of beats until Mark spoke up. "So, how do I go about the ballet thing? Do I just call up the next best place?"
Addison laughed a little, trying to hide her reaction. "Oh, Mark, you poor, innocent soul. There are waitlists for these kinds of things nowadays, you cannot just call them and expect to bring by your kid tomorrow. Or at least you can't."
"And you can?" Mark asked skeptically.
"Well, there is this ballet school on Madison Ave whose director had a rather complicated pregnancy three years ago. She still sends me Christmas cards with photos of her son, so it's worth a try, right?" she asked.
Mark shook his head. "Only you, Red. I've given so many nose and boob jobs to all kinds of women, you'd think I'd have favors to call in but –"
"Oh, well, but they come back to you to get other things done all the time, so you cannot be too bad," Addison joked. "Anyways, I have to go back, see if my c-section is prepped yet, but I'll call the ballet teacher right after. I'll let you know tonight if I can get Annie in, okay?"
Mark nodded, watching as Addie walked back towards the maternity ward. He spent his afternoon in the OR, doing a liposuction on a woman who would probably look fine even without it, and thought cynically about where this got him. Sure, in the old days good plastic surgeries had often translated into drinks and sex after his patients were discharged, but he would never be in a position to call one of them to ask a favor for his daughter. His melancholic mood dispersed, however, when he got a text from Addison on the way up to daycare to pick up Annie.
Bumped some kids down the waitlist. Meet at the nurses' station at four tomorrow afternoon. Have Annie wear leggings or bring gym clothes for her, we can go tutu shopping sometime soon if she likes it.
'Only Addie,' he thought with a grin. There was nothing she couldn't get done when she put her mind to it, and Mark kind of liked it that way.
**\\*/ *** \\*/**
"Aunt Addie," Annie shouted excitedly as her father escorted her from the elevator to the nurses' station on the surgical floor the next day. "Daddy said I'm going dancing, like Barbie in the movie!"
"Like Barbie?" Addison hissed under her breath, looking at Mark threateningly. "Only that you're way prettier than Barbie, honey," she said more loudly to the toddler. Annie continued chattering excitedly whilst Addison still glared at Mark.
"What, Red?" he asked exasperatedly.
"Why Barbie?" she asked. "The only thing Barbie cares about is Ken, do you really want that for your daughter?"
Mark laughed. "Is this your feminist side, Red? For your information, there are also doctor Barbies and pilot Barbies, and all kinds of movies that don't have anything to do with sending women back to the kitchen with their kids."
Addison only shrugged her shoulders, still not looking particularly happy.
"Did Bizzy not allow you to have a Barbie?" he teased, poking her in the ribs as they caught up with Annie. "Poor you. Just so you know, though, you don't have to be jealous of Barbie, Annie likes you better anyways. And if this is some vanity thing, Red, your legs are probably longer than Barbie legs would be, too."
She shook her head but had to laugh nevertheless. "Still, she won't get all her ideas about ballet from a Barbie movie. I'll take her to the NYCB to see a live performance sometime soon."
They talked to Annie about daycare on the way to the dance studio, occasionally digressing to some of their surgeries of the day but mostly enjoying their time together without work conversations. Mark opened the door to the ballet school for them when Annie hesitantly took Addison's hand as they walked into the building.
The space on the Upper East Side had high ceilings and light cream walls that were decorated with black and white photographs of student performances.
"Hi," the redhead said as she walked up to the reception, giving the elderly woman behind the counter a friendly smile. "My name is Addison Montgomery-Shepherd, I talked to Ms. Bookstein last night about having my – uhm – having another girl joining the toddler ballet class? Her name is Anna Sloan, she should be on your list for today?"
The woman pulled up a chart on her computer briefly going through her records. "Ah, yes, we have an Anna here, three years old. The class meets twice a week at 4.30 in the afternoon, on Tuesday and Friday, and is led by one of our most talented teachers, Daniella Hanley. Daniella will want to talk to you briefly before class starts, so just go right ahead. It's the door to your right at the end of the hallway."
"Thank you so much," Addison said, giving her a grateful smile as she steered Annie down the hall, Mark following them with a smile on his face.
"Dr. Shepherd," they suddenly heard a voice behind them. "Dr. Shepherd, is that you?"
"Elizabeth," Addison answered with a smile on her face. "You insisted last night I call you by your first name, so I have to insist that you call me Addison, too," she said as the director of the ballet school came up to them. "This is Anna," she introduced the little girl, "and this is her father, Dr. Sloan."
"Oh," Elizabeth said clearly confused. "Uhm, you and Dr. Shepherd, are you –"
Addison started laughing a little embarrassedly. "Oh, yes, Dr. Shepherd and I are still married, Annie is not my daughter. I understand how that might have seemed on the phone –"
"Oh, no, not at all, you are totally fine, I just interpreted whatever I wanted into what you actually said," Elizabeth interrupted her, her cheeks tinged pink. "And honestly, it doesn't matter who Anna is to you, I'm happy to repay the favor to any little girl who'd like to learn ballet here."
"Fantastic," Addison smiled, softly caressing Annie's blonde hair as the girl leaned against her, one hand still in her father's.
"Anyways, I've got to go, but I'm sure I'll see you around at some point. You'll have to see Lucas, he's so precious and meets all his milestones perfectly, thanks to you," Elizabeth wrapped up the conversation, nodding to Mark and waving to Annie before she turned around and disappeared into her office again.
They continued down the hall, entering the big gymnasium that held the toddlers' ballet classes. Two little girls were already there, chasing each other around whilst their mothers chatted a little to the side.
"Hi," a young woman came up to them, "I am Daniella Hanley, the instructor, and this charming little girl must be Anna?"
Annie looked at her with wide eyes, holding on a little more tightly onto Mark's and Addison's hands.
"She's a little shy around strangers," Mark answered for her, "and she usually prefers to be called Annie, that might help. I'm Mark Sloan, by the way, her father," he reached out his free hand for the other woman to shake.
"Nice to meet you, Mr. Sloan," she answered. "If Annie wants, she can join Leah and Caroline in whatever they are doing down there, it might be nice for her to meet the two of them before all the kids get here at once in a couple of minutes."
"You hear that, baby?" Addison asked, squatting down a little to be at eye-level with the toddler. "I bet Leah and Caroline would love to get to know you and be friends with you."
Annie looked a little insecure at first, but at the redhead's encouraging nod her natural curiosity won out and she scampered off to play with the other girls.
"This class is mostly based on playfully learning basic ballet moves," Daniella started to explain as Addison was standing again. "It's a way for the kids to burn off energy, gain more confidence in themselves, learn some basic rhythms, and make friends; it's very low pressure. We have a brief performance at the end of every semester, so Annie joins at an ideal time to take part in our summer performance."
"That sounds wonderful," Addison said, giving the other woman a smile.
Daniella nodded before she continued, "The classes go for ninety minutes twice a week, with plenty of breaks in between so that we don't tax the kids too much. We usually ask that parents come check their kids out personally at the end at the end of class. If for any reason that isn't possible, we ask that you call us in advance, and we will check the person's ID before we let your child leave with them."
Mark nodded. "That sounds manageable. I will try to come myself as often as possible, though."
"If you're stuck in the OR, I can also pick her up," Addison offered, "I don't mind, and Foley seems competent enough after yesterday to not run my service into the ground if I disappear for a couple of minutes."
"Perfect," the instructor commented. "Do you have any other questions, Mr. and Mrs. Sloan?"
"Oh, I'm not Mrs. Sloan," Addison said, "Addison Montgomery-Shepherd," she introduced herself, holding out her hand for the younger woman to shake.
"She's something like Annie's honorary aunt," Mark explained easily, "but if there's ever anything and you can't reach me, I trust Addison to take any decisions for Annie on my behalf."
"That's good to know," the other woman nodded. "Alright, class will start in a minute or two, so I suggest you say good-bye to Annie. If you want, you can come back a little before six, the kids normally enjoy it when their parents watch on towards the end."
They waved Annie over to them, giving her a brief hug each before she ran off to be with Leah and Caroline again. "Pretty hard to believe that she was still clinging to us not ten minutes ago, right?" Mark asked as they left the gymnasium.
Addison laughed. "At least she's making friends."
"So, Mrs. Sloan, would you like to have coffee while we wait for her ballet class to be over?" he asked jokingly.
"Only if you're buying, husband o' mine," she teased back. "I can't believe people thought I was masochistic enough to marry you twice today."
"Masochistic? I'll have you know that women would kill to get a piece of me, not to mention that I have a totally cute three-year-old, so you'd really get two for one," he replied as he walked next to her down the street to a small café.
Addison lifted an eyebrow. "With the operative word being women, as in the plural of only one woman. You do know that marriage means monogamy, so no more mid-twenties on the side?"
"I'd do it for the right woman," Mark replied earnestly.
"And who is that mystical woman that could tame the great Mark Sloan?" the redhead asked.
He still looked at her seriously as he took her hand in his, caressing her knuckles with his thumb. "A woman like you, Addie," he answered.
Her breath was stuck in her throat for a second as she searched his solemn blue-grey eyes, but she couldn't find anything but sincerity. She didn't reply but didn't pull her hand away either. Instead, they waited for the waiter in silence, ordered their coffee, and later emersed themselves in small talk, never severing the connection of their touch.
"You want to go back there?" Addison asked when it was almost quarter to six. "We could watch Annie for the last fifteen minutes."
"Sure," he answered, getting up and helping the redhead into her coat. They walked down the street next to each other again, his hand on the small of her back. When they got back to the gymnasium, a couple of parents were already there. They mingled a little until the music stopped and the toddlers ran over to their parents, excited little voices filling the air.
"Daddy, Aunt Addie, did you see me?" Annie asked enthusiastically, a broad grin on her face.
"We did, sweetheart," Mark answered. "You were really good."
Addison nodded. "You looked like you came straight out of Swan Lake."
Annie smiled happily as Mark held out her jacket for her before he picked her up whilst Addison took her little backpack from daycare.
"I think we've finally found something to knock her out," Mark commented as his daughter fell asleep on his lap in the cab on the way to the Shepherds' brownstone.
"Today was really exciting for her," Addison remarked as she brushed some blonde strands out of the little girl's face.
"Sleep well, Mrs. Sloan," he wished with a grin as the taxi held in front of her house.
"Sleep well, Mark," she said softly with a curious expression in her eyes, but she closed the door before he could ask her about it. The image stayed with him throughout the evening, though, and that night he fell asleep to Addison's eyes in his thoughts.
**\\*/ *** \\*/**
"Hey man," he heard when he was standing at the nurses' station at NYP, finishing up some post-op notes before he went back in to talk again to the parents of a little girl whose cleft lip and palate he'd just operated on.
"Shep," Mark greeted with an easy grin as his friend came up to him, leaning against the counter. "What's up?" They hadn't really seen each other since a little more than a week ago when they'd talked about enrolling his daughter in a ballet class.
Derek shrugged a little, drawing his hand through his dark locks. "You know when I joked you needed help picking up a girl? Maybe I need help," he admitted somewhat self-consciously.
"Which girl do you want to pick up?" Mark asked, his tone a little suspicious if not downright hostile.
"Addie, of course. I barely have enough time for one woman in my life, never mind starting an affair with whatever girl," Derek answered, sounding affronted. "Anyways, things haven't really been good lately, and I know that one good Valentine's date doesn't magically fix everything, but it might help, you know. A starting point for us to try again."
Mark nodded. "So, what do you need me for?"
"You talk to her, right? Like, the two of you are friends so you know if there's something she's mentioned recently?" Derek wanted to know.
"Of course, we talk, Shep. And this might sound rude to you now, but the only thing Addie really wants is for her husband to make it home to her every once in a while. She's lonely, Shep, really truly lonely," his friend replied earnestly.
Derek shook his head. "I'm not looking for your advice or your opinion on my marriage, Mark. Addie understands the demands of my job. She's a surgeon herself, she knows how it goes, and she knows I want to become Chief once Espinoza steps down, so she knows I have to be present here."
"Well, that doesn't seem to help her much when she wants you to be present in your guys' marriage," Mark shot back. He felt indignant on the redhead's behalf, angered at the more than lackluster effort Derek seemed to invest into his marriage, and at the same time surprisingly jealous when he realized his friend made an effort at all. Maybe he wasn't the best person for Derek to ask for help on this. Maybe he should just wash his hands of the situation.
"Jesus, Mark, all I really want from you is for you to tell me if there's any place she's mentioned recently, any new restaurant she wanted to try out, or whatever. I'm just trying to still get reservations for tomorrow and do something nice for my wife on Valentine's Day," Derek bit back.
Mark sighed. "There is this new Italian place that Addison has been wanting to try. It's more of a bistro style so they might still have a table for you as it's probably not people's number one venue when they think about Valentine's dinners," he informed him. "It's pretty close to the brownstone, maybe two blocks away?"
"Thanks, man," Derek said, clapping his hand on Mark's shoulder. "How are your daughter's afternoon activities going?" he asked then.
Mark smiled genuinely. "Annie really loves ballet, thanks for the recommendation, Shep."
"You already got her into some program?" Derek asked astonished. "When Nancy wanted to enroll the twins a couple of years ago, they were on the waitlist for months."
"There's this place on Madison Avenue, not too far from here; Addie called them for me. She got the director through her pregnancy and she was happy to have Annie join their toddler class right away as a thank you," he answered.
"Huh," Derek said. "I had no idea. Good for her, though."
"Dr. Sloan?" one of the nurses asked hesitantly as she came up to the surgeons. "Sarah Burr's parents are ready for you now," she informed them.
"Thank you," Mark said, giving her a charming smile that made her blush a little. "Got to go, Shep, but I'll catch you later. And get those reservations for Addie!" He called over his shoulder as he made his way down the corridor.
He walked into little Sarah's hospital room, briefly greeting her parents before he carefully checked over the baby girl, making sure the incisions were clean and her stats were stable. He guided the Burrs through the process, trying to model his behavior on what he would want to know if it was Annie lying in the bed in front of him.
"Anything else I can do for you?" he asked eventually when he had finished his examination.
Sarah's father shook his head. "Thank you, Dr. Sloan," he said sincerely. "This truly means a lot."
His wife nodded. "Yes, you are so good with her. Do you have kids of your own, Dr. Sloan?" Mrs. Burr asked.
He nodded. "A daughter, she's a little older than Sarah, though," he replied with a friendly smile.
"When I was pregnant with Sarah, we would talk about her future, guess what she wanted to be when she grew up, what she would be like, you know?" Sarah's mother continued. "And then we found out about the cleft lip and palate, and we were told that it's very unusual, but rarely life-threatening, but you know, she's our baby girl. And then you came in, and you just fixed it, and she's going to be perfectly fine, so thank you, Dr. Sloan. Now she can just be a vet or a teacher or a circus director again," she ended her little speech, happy tears rolling down her cheeks.
"You're very welcome," Mark told the parents. "And I like that circus director idea. My little girl wants to be a ballerina at the moment, even though Addie tries to subtly nudge her towards the surgical internship," he joked.
"She sounds lovely," Mr. Burr said gruffly, caressing his daughter's little head carefully.
"Do you have a photo of her?" Mrs. Burr wanted to know.
"Melanie," her husband admonished lightly but his wife just swatted at this arm.
Mark laughed. "Don't worry about it, I like showing her off," he replied lightly as he pulled a picture out of his wallet, the one Liz had taken of Annie, Addie, and himself on Thanksgiving.
"Oh, she's beautiful, just darling," Mrs. Burr gushed excitedly. "She looks a lot like you with the hair and the face, but you can just see how much she adores her mother."
He cleared his throat at the – to him – obvious misconception of Addison as Annie's mother but kept mum about it, not quite sure himself why he didn't clear it up. 'Because it's a harmless misunderstanding, it doesn't mean anything,' a voice in his head said, even as another refuted, 'because you like that that's what they assume.'
"Alright," he said with a smile again as Mrs. Burr handed the photo back to him. "I have to round on my other patients, but I will check in on Sarah again later this night. Feel free to have Nurse Laura page me if you have any questions in the meantime."
Sarah's parents nodded, giving him another round of grateful smiles. It felt good to be the hero for once, better than the liposuction that had made him question the shallowness of his specialty and in turn his character just a little over a week ago.
**\\*/ *** \\*/**
Addison smiled brightly as she followed her husband into the cozy bistro-style restaurant. The lights were dimmed to bring out the candles on the individual tables – quite different from what it had looked like when she had stared into the space over the past few weeks – which all in all created a romantic atmosphere that was amplified by the quiet piano music that filled the room.
Derek grinned at her a little as he took her coat and handed it to their waiter before he pulled her chair out for her.
"This is lovely," she commented happily as he took the seat opposite to her, reaching for her hand with his.
"Well, this is our eleventh Valentine's Day as a married couple – I needed to make that special," he answered with his usual warm smile, the flickering of their candle giving him a dreamy look. He quietly ordered a bottle of wine for them as well as some bruschetta as they perused their menus, sitting in comfortable silence.
"So?" he asked as she put her menu aside, looking at her quizzically.
"So?" she asked back, raising one elegant eyebrow.
Derek shrugged a little. "How have you been doing?"
"I've been doing well, thank you so much for asking," she replied sarcastically. "Derek, what are we, third-degree acquaintances who randomly met up on Valentine's Day and decided to have dinner together?"
"Excuse me for trying to be nice," he gave back a little petulantly.
Addison shook her head. "No, I'm sorry. I just feel we're so detached from the other's life sometimes, and you asking me how I've been doing as if I was any random woman from the street just tipped me over."
"We're not detached from each other's lives," Derek disagreed. "You are my wife. You are a big part of my life," he stated.
The redhead nodded mutely, even as her thoughts were racing in her head. Did he really not notice the distance between them? Was it just her? Was it maybe just in her head? But no, Mark was also not seeing as much of his best friend as he wanted, and Derek spending more nights in the hospital than at home certainly wasn't normal husband-behavior, even if the husband in question was a successful neurosurgeon.
"Well, we're doing this tonight," she answered instead, her tone reconciliatory. "How is that clinical trial going that you wanted to look into?"
"I'm still really interested in doing Alzheimer trials, and it would be really good for me to land a break-through or two and publish some more if I want to run for the Chief's position when Espinoza ever retires. I'm looking for co-authors right now, but it will be a significant time commitment, so I might not have as much time outside of work anymore," he told her as the waiter brought their bruschetta.
Addison smiled at him, hoping he wouldn't be able to tell how forced it was, even when she felt bad about it. Wasn't she supposed to support her husband? "I'm working on a couple of publications, too," she informed him. "Vivian Carlsmith and I are pioneering a new method for TTTS that we developed when she came back out here last summer. If things go well, it's going to be in the next issue of the New England Journal of Medicine."
Derek nodded. "Well, that will certainly be a big boost to neonatology. The Meryl Streep and the – what do we want to call Dr. Carlsmith? – of maternal-fetal medicine collaborating on an article in a major magazine."
"Yes. It might make separating the blood vessels in the placenta a little easier, so hopefully there will be more than eight people out there who can help those babies soon," Addison said.
"How did you get the New England Journal of Medicine on that, though?" Derek asked curiously.
"What do you mean?" his wife looked at him, her gaze puzzled.
Derek shrugged. "Just that the NEJM is notoriously selective about which articles they publish, and I'm not sure how relevant the topic is for the broader population of doctors, or even just practicing surgeons."
"Well, how important do you think the results of your hypothetical Alzheimer's trial will be for the general population of doctors? Our method saves patients just as an Alzheimer's drug would save Alzheimer's patients. They might be small humans, but babies are patients nonetheless," she bit back.
"You know what I meant, Addie," Derek said, his tone mildly chiding.
She was getting ready to object to his assessment when suddenly her pager went off, the shrill noise rippling through the uncomfortable silence that had settled over their table. "It's the hospital, an emergency c-section. I have to go back in, I'm sorry," she mumbled as she got up from her chair. "Thank you for organizing this, it was – lovely," she decided on saying.
"Addie, where are you going?" he asked. "It's Valentine's Day and we haven't been out in weeks."
"And whose fault is that?" she hissed, becoming uncomfortably aware of the eyes of the other patrons that were now on them.
"What is that supposed to mean?" he wanted to know, his tone matching hers in aggressiveness.
Addison shrugged, her expression deliberately nonchalantly. "Nothing. Just that you haven't made it home in days, and even when you do, most of the time you go in so early again the next morning that I don't even see you at home."
"Well, you're the one who's leaving our dinner right now," he pointed out angrily.
"Yes, because I am on call today. I took off Thanksgiving and Christmas if you remember, when you went back to the hospital voluntarily," she bit back. "Have a lovely evening," Addison said in a huff as she turned on her heel, leaving the restaurant and hailing a cab on the street.
He sighed, drawing a hand through his hair once more as the waiter came up to him again.
"Would you like anything else to drink, Sir?"
Derek shook his head. "Can we still cancel the entrees? This should cover the rest," he said as he gave the waiter several crisp bills. "Thank you so much," he said as the waiter nodded understandingly.
He walked out of the bistro, unsure what he was supposed to do now. He didn't want to go back to the brownstone, but he didn't want to go to the hospital either since he had no desire to run into his wife right now. Instead, he wandered through the nightly streets of Manhattan, looking at the happy couples who were sitting in the restaurants he passed.
When had that stopped being him and Addison? He sighed again as he gazed into an old diner-style burger joint. Was that Mark sitting at the table in the back with the corner booth? What kind of date would his best friend bring here, especially on Valentine's Day? He observed him for a couple of seconds but couldn't see any woman with him, so he decided to go in. Maybe they could spend their partnerless evening together and wallow in their misery.
"Mark," he greeted as he stepped up to his friend's table.
"Shep," Mark greeted back, eying at him a little dumbfounded. "Where's Addie?" he asked.
"She was called back to the hospital. Probably for the best, our dinner wasn't going so well," he admitted. "What are you doing here?"
"I was going out with Annie," the other man explained as Derek sat down, finally seeing the little girl whose head was lying on her father's legs, her eyes closed. "She fell asleep halfway through her burger, so I decided to let her sleep until it was time for her milkshake," he shared with a laugh.
"Why not get her home?" Derek asked.
Mark shrugged. "She really wanted a milkshake, the burger was the compromise so that she doesn't have just sugar for dinner – don't say anything, Shep, I know that this is not the picture-perfect healthy dinner, but we can go back to brown rice and veggies tomorrow. Anyways, I didn't want to take that away from her, so I decided to find some middle ground by letting her nap whilst I'm finishing my dinner."
"Only you, Mark," his friend commented as Annie started to stir, stretching her arms and legs across the red cushions of the booth.
"Look who's here, sweetheart," Mark encouraged her to open her eyes.
"Aunt Addie?" the toddler asked sleepily.
Her father laughed. "Close, Annie. It's the not quite so pretty Shepherd." At her puzzled look he explained, "Uncle Derek has joined us."
Annie nodded and sat up, giving Derek a small wave. "Hi," she mumbled, her eyes still slightly glassy from sleep. "Is Aunt Addie coming?" she asked, now more enthusiastically.
Mark shook his head. "Aunt Addie had to go to the hospital, she had a surgery."
The little girl nodded thoughtfully. "Because she's saving little babies, right?" Mark nodded. "Can I save little babies when I'm older?" she then wanted to know.
"So, you don't want to be a dancer anymore, my prima ballerina?" her father asked back, a grin on his lips.
"Aunt Addie says I can do whatever I want. And I want to do what Aunt Addie does and dance," Annie decided as a waitress brought over a small strawberry milkshake for her.
"Anything else for you guys?" the young woman inquired, giving the toddler a small smile as she sucked on the brightly colored straw. The men shook their heads, falling silent until she had gone back to the main bar.
"She really likes Addie, doesn't she?" Derek questioned lowly.
Mark nodded. "Addison is something like the big female presence in her life. I haven't really been dating much besides a one-night stand here or there since she came to live with me, but my usual conquests aren't exactly prime mother material anyways. Apart from her actual mother of course, but I mean that was a relatively long-term relationship, at least by my standards."
"How much time does Addie spend with her?" he asked, feeling stupid that he didn't know anything about this part of his wife's life that seemed so much bigger than he had assumed.
"Aunt Addie takes me to lunch," Annie butted in. "And last time she watched me for really long at ballet when she came to pick me up."
"I was still in surgery," Mark explained, "so Addie volunteered. Sometimes she takes her to the cinema or something, too, when I cannot get out of the hospital in time to get Annie from daycare. I think they enjoy spending time together, and Annie really loves your wife."
"And you trusted her to take care of her for almost a week when you had to go to California," Derek said, trying hard to keep the bitter note out of his voice.
"Yes, that too," Mark nodded.
Derek sighed. "I don't think Addie wants to have kids," he then admitted.
His friend shook his head, laughing a little surprised. "Don't be stupid, Shep. Addie loves kids, she's a freaking baby doctor. And she loves your nieces and nephews, and Annie. There's no-one on this planet who wants to have kids of her own more than Addison."
"Why won't she agree to try, then?" Derek asked despondently.
Mark shrugged. "Have you asked her?"
"She said something about us having to get our things in order," he replied glumly, "and that we could start trying in the spring but I'm not sure if she really meant that."
"Why not?" Mark asked, trying to disregard the sinking feeling in his stomach.
"Because we were having an argument beforehand, and I think she might have thought I was giving her some kind of an ultimatum. Either we have kids or –" Derek broke off.
"Were you?" his friend wanted to know. "Giving her an ultimatum, I mean."
"I don't know. It was Thanksgiving, and the three of you were looking all cuddly and family-like, and I just – Addie is supposed to be the mother of my children, not yours!" he exclaimed suddenly. "She is supposed to love my children, and pick my children up from daycare, and take my children to lunch, and go with my children to their ballet lessons or the cinema, but she's never ready. Damn it, for years she's told me she isn't ready, and then this," he gestured to Mark and Annie, "happens, and suddenly she can step up? What the hell is going on here?"
Mark's face closed down. "Maybe you should talk about that with your wife. Maybe it's like she said, it's not so much her who has to get her things in order, but you as you two together, as a couple. In the meantime, there's no need to be jealous of a three-year-old girl."
"I'm sorry, man," Derek said quietly. "I don't know what's up recently. I just feel we're drifting apart, Addie and I."
Mark nodded, softly caressing Annie's hair. The little girl looked somewhat uncertain, he suspected because she felt the tension between the two men at the table in conjunction with hearing Addie's name in their discussion but couldn't quite make sense of what was going on.
"You would tell me, right?" Derek asked suddenly. "You would tell me, if there was somebody else, if – if Addie was seeing someone else?"
"You think Addie is cheating on you?" Mark asked incredulously, a hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach.
Derek shrugged.
"She's not," Mark said emphatically. "She's way too hung up on you, maybe even too much. She's questioning herself, wondering what makes you stay at the hospital, if she's not good enough for you," he exclaimed. No matter what he might think or feel, he had to defend her against that accusation. She didn't deserve to be thought of as a cheater, not if her husband was notoriously absent and her marriage no more than a sham at this point.
Derek snorted a little. "No need to lay it on so thick, Mark. We both know Addie, that woman has the combined confidence and maybe even arrogance of the whole Bradford-Forbes-Montgomery clan."
Mark stared at him impassively. "Anyways," he said after a couple of moments of silence, looking at his watch. "I think it's time for me to take the little miss home. Do me a favor, though, Derek, don't ask Addie if she's cheating. She doesn't deserve to know you would even think that of her."
He helped his daughter into her little coat before he picked her up, letting her lie her head on his shoulder.
"Bye, Uncle Derek," Annie said sweetly before she yawned, her eyes falling closed almost of their own volition.
"See you, Shep," Mark said as he went up to the counter to pay for their meal.
"See you, Mark," Derek whispered into the empty space in front of him, suddenly feeling very alone.
Things are breaking down further with Addie pulling away, too. We'll see how this continues!
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