Thank you so much for all the response to this story. I know the last chapter was rough, and more than one of you wanted to punch Derek in the face (which I totally get), so I appreciate your bearing with me. Story warnings about abortion continue. More notes after the chapter, which is a little on the longer side since I may not be able to post the next update quite as fast.

..

waiting
..

Here's one of the many benefits when you refuse to shed a tear: there's no need to waste time washing your face when you have limited moments to pull yourself back together.

I do pause to grab a bottle of water from the nurse's station and swallow half in a few long sips. Derek plucks the bottle from my hand as we walk – if he notices it's shaking a little, he gives no indication –and drains the rest. I just act busy with Hannah's chart so he doesn't try to hand me the empty bottle to recycle.

"I'm sorry we had to rush out," I tell Hannah when we return to her room, my tone nice and professional. One of the perks of being a surgeon is you can always fake an emergency, and she nods, seeming to believe it.

I encourage her to tell me how she's feeling about her options.

"Um … well, so Tad and I have been talking. And we… we decided we want the … the thing we talked about," she says.

"Okay." I nod, smiling at her as reassuringly as I can. "There are a few more steps before we'll get started; I'll talk you through them now."

And I do. And we talk.

"Dr. Montgomery?"

"Yes, Hannah."

"Will he look … normal?" And then she stops and covers her mouth with her hand, presumably as she remembers that the son she's carrying will never look normal. Whatever normal is.

"Your son will be – " intact is a clinical word, I avoid it, "-able to be held, and touched, and you can spend time with him."

"Not … pieces," she whispers.

God. Just once I'd like to be able to take one of those awful signs with the gory pictures of thirty-two week fetuses pretending to be first-trimester products of conception, the type of signs that lodge in impressionable minds – and just – snap it in two.

But you're not supposed to engage. So I never did engage.

(Except for once … and that's a story for another time.)

"Hannah." I wait for her to look at me. "Your son will be whole. He will be your son."

I remind her again of her options. I remind her of her choices. And she tells me she's choosing the termination.

Then she turns to her boyfriend. "Right, Tad?"

He looks conflicted.

"We talked about it," she continues, her tone getting higher with nerves. "How, like … if we do this … then he never has to see what a crappy place the world is. The kind of place where babies get made with no brains."

Tad swallows hard; I know this because I can see the tattoo on his neck flutter as his throat constricts.

"Hannah," I say gently. "This is your decision, and you need to be certain of it. So if you need more time, then you should take more time. But I want to make sure you understand that your options change as time passes. So time … counts, here."

And we go through it. Again, we go through it.

"Right. Okay." She wipes tears off her cheeks. Tad is holding her hand now, and I try to make out the blue-ink symbols on his bony knuckles.

"Would you like me to give you more-"

"No." She shakes her head firmly. "No, I don't need more time. I want to do it like you said."

Tad nods along with her this time.

"Okay. Then tomorrow morning we'll do the first step we talked about, where we soften your cervix-"

"We can't do it now?"

"Hannah…"

"You – you said there's no waiting period!"

"There's not," I say gently. "Not legally, but in this hospital, we need to file certain paperwork before we can get started. Additionally, for the softening-"

"Okay," she says, waving her hand. "Okay, I get it. But, just – what if I go home tonight and change my mind?"

"Hannah." I look right at her; this is important. "You can change your mind at any time before we start. For any reason."

"What about after?" Her voice is a thin whisper.

"After the sticks are inserted and your cervix starts to soften, you must continue to receive medical care or you risk serious infection and even death." I say it firmly, bluntly, because of the very real risk nudging at me that Hannah could turn into a runner.

Nurse Taylor and I exchange a look. I know she's been a GYN nurse for thirty years and the expression on her face says she's seen a runner before, too.

And she knows it's not pretty.

"It's important that you understand that, Hannah."

"I understand."

"Good. Thank you," I say. "So … once the sticks are inserted, you'll be staying at the hospital until we deliver your son."

"Oh," she says in a small voice. "Okay. What do I, um … what do I do now?"

"Nurse Taylor is going to help you with everything you need to do before you leave. And then you'll come back to the hospital tomorrow morning for the insertion step."

"Dr. Montgomery?"

"Yes, Hannah."

"You'll be here, right? In the morning, I mean, for the stick things."

"Yes. I'll be here."

..

Derek hasn't said a word this time, but I did notice him working the soft eyes and hopefully they made Hannah feel a little better about her impossible situation. He distributes warm farewells and reminds them they can come to him anytime with questions (of course he does).

After that, he stands against the open door for me to exit the room first – now you're a gentleman? – and then follows me into the hall. I'm ready to take my leave of him, to take my leave of everything and let the bottle of wine waiting in my hotel room wash away some of the sting of his harsh words, but the next thing he says interferes with that plan.

"Addison. Do you have a few minutes to talk?"

"Um … I'm not sure I can handle another talk with you today." I try to chuckle a little like I'm joking; we both know I'm not.

"It's about the case."

And he makes a sort of sheepish gesture with his head that probably wouldn't look like anything to a stranger, or a colleague, or even a friend, but eleven years of marriage turns the smallest of inflections into a paragraph.

I know this gesture. It's not an apology, it's not even détente, but it's … something. So I lift my chin a little bit – to say okay, fine – and I can see he still knows how to read that too.

So yeah … I guess I'm willing to talk.

Except I don't know where we're going to talk. I'm not going back into a supply closet with him and I'm pretty sure I'm never going into an empty exam room with him until I confirm which exam room was the catalyst for Dr. Grey's lost panties and ask the janitors to give it a few extra rounds of bleach.

Or, you know, just block the whole thing off with HAZMAT tape.

We end up standing in the corner where two parts of the hallway meet; it's not exactly private, more like … hiding in plain sight. And I know how it must look, after the things he said to me, after the way he tore into me, but here we are. Just … standing.

He studies my face for a moment before he starts talking. Maybe he's hoping to find evidence of the wounds he left the last time we talked.

"You're scheduling the procedure for tomorrow?"

"Yes, Derek, didn't you hear me talking to the patient?"

(I said I was willing to talk. I didn't say I was willing to be nice.)

He doesn't respond.

"I'm inserting the laminaria in the morning and we'll go from there. Maybe you should pay attention on your consults so I don't need to … waste my time … repeating myself."

I lean on the words waste my time. And I can tell three things – that notices it, that he knows why, and that he's not going to deign to address it – all just in the way his eyes flicker after I finish speaking.

…another perk of eleven years of marriage, I guess.

"Tomorrow she'll be at 22 weeks," he says.

"I'm aware of that, which is why now that she's decided we need to move quickly." He's still looking at me, and I can't keep the impatience out of my tone. "What?"

"Nothing," he mutters.

"Oh, don't start censoring yourself now."

"Fine." He glares at me. "Do you know what a baby looks like at 22 weeks, after the-?"

"You know I do, Derek." I pause. "Do you know what a mother looks like when her baby dies in her arms twenty minutes after she spent forty hours pushing him out, knowing the whole time even if he survived the birth he'd be dead within a day?"

"Addison," he says quietly. He cocks his head slightly and his blue eyes are soft.

Damn it.

"No. No. You don't get to do this anymore, you don't get to … manipulate me."

It's just not fair. Not now. Especially not now.

"I'm not trying to manipulate you," he says, sounding innocent. Derek always sounds innocent – when he wants to. "I just think there's a conversation to be had here-"

"There was a conversation, or did you miss that too when you weren't paying attention?"

He doesn't respond.

"Derek … the timing is tight here. I don't want her to lose options. If we go much more than tomorrow, we run into…"

I don't finish the thought, but he gets it; we proceed to have one of those conversations we haven't had in a while, all half-thoughts and unspoken conclusions.

"Could you even-"

"You know it depends on-"

"But then you'd-"

"-in that case."

"So." He looks at me. "You could let someone else do it."

I think I might scream.

"Derek, don't you get it? It's easy for you to say there's a conversation to be had. It's easy for you to say let someone else do it. But there is no someone else! I'm the someone else. I'm who's there when the other people won't do it."

"You don't have to be," he insists.

I start pacing, frustrated. "You just don't get it."

"So explain it to me."

Explain it to him.

I could try … but he'll never get it.

"My job isn't easy here, Derek, not like yours. Your job is just to judge me, to stand there and think you have any idea what it's like … what it's like …" I'm starting to run out of steam.

"You're right," he says. "I don't know what it's like for myself. But I do know what it's like for-"

He stops talking abruptly and for a moment we're both silent, maybe both daring each other to keep going.

Then I shake my head, put a pin in it, and meet his eyes.

"This woman – this girl, she's so young … this mother, she doesn't want her son to have to face a world that's going to kill him. Birth is painful, you know that, right? Birth is painful but the reward is living, which he won't get to do. So she wants to protect him, she wants him to live his whole life with her, but she can't do that by herself. She needs someone to help her and I am that someone."

I stop to draw breath.

"I told her I'd support her no matter what she chose. And this is what she chose."

"That still doesn't mean-"

"Derek, you have no idea what it's like to be the person a woman turns to when having a baby would destroy her."

"So it's all right if not having it destroys someone else instead?"

"Don't you pretend to care about me. Don't you dare, not after what-"

"Addison," he starts to intercede but I don't let him.

"No. Stop. And this isn't about me, anyway. This is about a patient."

"Can't you take a step back here and-"

"No, Derek! I'm done."

"Addison."

"I'll bring you the termination paperwork when it's final."

"Addison, this discussion isn't over."

"Actually … it is." I study him for a moment, determined not to let his warning get to me just as I'm determined not to let him hurt me again. He may have pierced my armor in that supply closet … but I have my own arsenal.

I step a little closer to him and give him my most charming smile. "And you know what, Derek? Here's a little incentive for both of us. Once the procedure is done, I'll get out of your life just like you asked me to … and then you can stay the hell out of mine."

...

I'm lying in the middle of the big white hotel bed later that night – a nice blank canvas as empty as my life here in Seattle – just staring at the ceiling.

Which is also white.

And blank.

I haven't bothered to change out of my work clothes or order dinner or do much of anything other than flick on a light when I first opened the door, because it's not depression if it's not dark … right?

There's a glass of wine on the nightstand next to the bed – it's not like I'm swigging from the bottle, which means yay me I don't have a problem – but I haven't managed more than half of it. Drinking is work; it requires moving.

And I'm not moving right now. Not if I can help it. I don't move even when I hear the buzz of a key card or when the door to my hotel room opens, sending an arc of hallway light across my vision, or when footsteps make their way across the carpet toward me.

Finally I speak, but I move only my lips, gaze still firmly on the ceiling.

"Remind me why I gave you a key to my room?"

"…how graphically do you want me to answer that?"

There's laughter behind his deep voice – this is funny to him – but when the mattress dips down next to me I don't tell him to leave.

I'm weak. I'm weak and he's Mark and the way he rests a hand on my thigh is almost affectionate.

You probably thought Mark was your friend too, that's one of the things Derek said.

"I'm not having sex with you tonight," I warn him.

(I know, it's blunt, but Mark isn't really a subtext kind of guy.)

"What makes you think I want to have sex with you?"

Gee, I don't know, maybe everything, including the very recognizable glimmer in his eyes and the way his hand is moving up my thigh in a way that heralds something very different from friendship.

"Mark … stop." I push on his wrist, and he holds up both his hands in surrender.

"I thought you were done playing hard to get."

"I'm not playing anything," I scowl, hauling myself into a sitting position. Lying down around Mark is never a good idea, and as for scowling – it's one of the best ways to forestall tears, you know. It's in the lesser known Emily Post book Manners for Repressed Young Ladies With Emotionally Withholding Mothers.

"Addison." He sighs my name, then swings himself up higher to sit against the headboard next to me.

"I had a long day," I tell him, avoiding eye contact.

"You had a long day. I get it. So have a drink with me."

"I can't have a drink with you." I rest my head on my updrawn knees; it's easier if I don't look at him.

(Remember when you were little and you thought if you could make yourself into the smallest possible ball, no one could see you? …yeah, so do I.)

"Why can't you have a drink with me?"

Oh, Mark's nothing if not persistent, which he proves by adding, "it's just a drink, Addison."

"It's never just a drink with you, Mark. Just a drink leads to just other things, and I'm not having sex with you tonight."

"You said that before. But I don't recall hearing a reason. I know it's not a customer satisfaction issue, because last night you were extremely-"

"Mark."

"-as I'm sure any of your neighbors on this side of the hallway will attest," he finishes. Then he smiles at me and pitiful as I am right now, it actually makes me feel good for a second.

But then I can see the exact moment my capitulation registers with him and it makes my stomach clench. He does this waiting thing a lot, Mark. Watching me. Lately it just seems like he's waiting for me to give in.

I put my head back down on my knees. I like the feeling of bone against bone right now, like I'm pressing back the thoughts that are swimming in my head, the echoes from the closet. After a moment, I feel his hand on the back of my neck, massaging the tight muscles.

"You're tense," he observes.

I lift my head, which makes his hand fall away. "Come on, Mark, you can do better than that. You're not a freshman frat boy."

"And you're not a freshman virgin so I have no idea why you're keeping it under lock and key."

I know what Mark thinks: that I don't have any virtue left, not with him. That there's no reason for me to say no. He thinks the both of us are the same: just a yes on legs, walking around waiting for a fix. He thinks that he and I are equals. And maybe we are.

Except manwhore is kind of cute, kind of complimentary. And whore? Well … it's not.

"What's the matter, Addison?"

I just sigh.

"Come on, we covered this already. You don't have to feel guilty anymore, remember?"

Oh, you have no idea.

He studies me for a moment. "So it is Derek. Addison," and he says my name in that coaxing way he knows works on me, "it doesn't matter what Derek thinks."

"I know that."

"Then stop letting him upset you."

I think about this for a minute. "Stop letting him upset me because it upsets me, or stop letting him upset me because it upsets you when he upsets me and then I don't want to have sex with you?"

"You've lost me."

No kidding.

"Forget it." I sigh again.

"Addison … Derek will get over it. You just have to give him some time."

"He said he wants me out of his life." I say it automatically but it's okay because he said pretty much the same thing when I told him I lived with Mark for two months.

"Derek says a lot of things."

"It's not Derek, okay? It's … this case."

"So tell me about the case."

"Yeah?"

"Sure," he says.

I open my mouth and then I close it again.

"… never mind," I mumble. It's easier just to give in, anyway. Especially since his hands are sliding under my blouse, which has come untucked from the skirt I didn't bother to take off when I got home. He keeps his fingers on my ribcage – he probably thinks he should be congratulated for that – but he's Mark and he can turn anything into an erogenous zone.

I let him do it because it feels better than nothing.

And nothing is what I felt before he opened my hotel room door.

"Addison … you have become such a tease." He says it affectionately, though, and then looks at me for a moment. "Okay, I can see you had a rough day. C'mere." He holds out his arms.

"Why?" I sound suspicious. I am suspicious.

"So I can give you a backrub."

I narrow my eyes at him. "A dirty backrub?"

"A clean backrub," he promises.

I'm barely halfway through a slow nod before he starts unbuttoning my blouse. Okay, then. But he leaves my bra on at least, and even though he shuffles me in between his bent legs he doesn't make any extra effort to bring me into contact with the proof that he came in here for sex.

For Mark, that's almost tender.

His warm hands are digging into my shoulders – he does move the straps away first, for access, he whispers when I start to protest and I swallow my response yeah, that's what I'm worried about.

But he's limiting himself to my shoulders, my back, the back of my neck, and those big hands are damned talented so for a few minutes I just sit there drinking in the massage, the feeling of someone else touching me: the loosening of my muscles. The attention.

If I squint … it might almost feel like love.

"Mark … "

"Yeah." He's concentrating on a knot in my shoulders. His hands really are good.

They can't make up for everything – but they can make up for a lot. Or at least cover up a lot.

"Do you think I would be a bad mother?"

The motion of his fingers on my skin pauses. "Last time you asked me that question," he says carefully, "you were pregnant."

"Not this time," I tell him hastily. "I'm just asking."

"Okay." He pauses. "Didn't I tell you then that I thought you would be a good mother?"

"Well, yeah, but-"

"-but now you're asking me I still think that after you got rid of our kid?"

Now I remember why we don't talk about the abortion. I'm starting to pull away from him but he tugs me back.

"Hey …." He starts massaging again. "For what it's worth … I still don't think you would be a bad mother."

He drops a kiss on the top of my head and I lean back against him a little. A small and shameful part of me wouldn't mind being held, but I don't know how to get there without sex, not with Mark.

And I'm tired. Tired of talking in general and tired of talking about abortion in particular, but then my phone rings before I can figure out what to do next.

I have to squirm around Mark's hands just to find out who's calling.

"It's the hospital, stop. Mark, stop."

I duck away from him because he's taken my closeness to mean I'm changing my mind and his lips are skimming over my neck now. "Mark. I have to take this." I wrench away from him in a sort of army-crawl across the mattress, which pushes my already bunched skirt up higher. But he just chuckles and helps me sit up.

And then he starts rubbing my shoulders again (he's still Mark) while I try to hear the voice on the other end of the phone.

"Yes, I'm here – sorry, which – oh, the Fowler case? Yes, I'm planning to – "

Stop it, I hiss at Mark, pushing away his hand as I turn my head to try to hear the phone better.

"Yes, I'm inserting the laminaria tomorrow morning, I filed that with the plan – what did you say? … No, I don't think so. Why?"

"Wait, what?" I listen for a moment."He didn't? But that's … no, of course I understand. Okay. Chief's … yes, got it."

I hang up the phone and turn to stare at Mark.

"What happened?"

"Derek didn't sign the termination paperwork."

"So?"

"He's … he's raising a viability challenge."

"What does that mean?"

"What does that mean?" I find myself repeating his words, maybe because I'm having trouble believing this is happening.

"It means that I can't start the termination tomorrow," I tell him. "It means that I have a meeting in Richard's office at 8 a.m. It means … that until this is resolved, there's nothing I can do to help my patient."

Reviews make my heart sing and, maybe more importantly, they make it easier for me to write and update as speedily as possible.

Notes: A word on Mark - I don't hate him, as anyone who reads my stories knows. I don't hate Derek or Addison either, or Meredith for that matter. Season 3, especially early Season 3, was extremely rough. It's the season post-divorce Derek was brutal to Addison, Mark sold out Addison to Derek and then tried to convince Mer to sleep with him - no one was at their best, and I think this story reflects that. But please give the characters - and me - some time and we will eventually make progress, I promise.