A/N: When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one story to be updated really fast because muse ... etc. etc. Thank you for the feedback on the previous chapters. The pace? I'm kind of excited for everything that's coming next, so I can't help it. Hope you enjoy this long chapter.

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New me, healthy decision me, doesn't put off awkward conversations.

Not with people who haven't seen me naked, anyway.

So I find Walter in his office, reviewing some films with a look of concentration on his face. There are a stack of charts next to him – of course he charts on time, and probably his handwriting is even legible.

I don't think I want to know what he thinks of me.

(Actually, he'd probably say I'm great. Because he's Walter.)

And, because he's Walter, he's not even offended by Eleanor's decision.

"Derek hasn't done this procedure on anything less than a neonate," I can't help reminding him.

"True," Walter says, rubbing his jaw thoughtfully, "but his spina bifida work will be very useful, and it's quite impressive – he was part of that third-trimester study out of Sinai and that combined with some of his arterial accomplishments – "

I tune out at third-trimester study.

I'm very familiar with that study.

It was mine.

I mean, Derek's too … I guess. We shared the grant. We coauthored the article.

People thought it was cute and Chief Abrams threw us a joint party when the stupid thing won an award.

Meanwhile, Walter is still standing here in Seattle where I'm pretty sure no one thinks we're cute, touting Derek's many achievements.

Whatever. I know he's good.

That doesn't mean I want to work with him on this case.

Or any case.

Okay, fine. Truthfully … Eleanor is probably best off if they're both involved in some capacity, and when I tune back in – I've been doing the country club thing that's gotten me through a hundred tedious fundraisers, where I nod and smile and look engaged and don't actually absorb a damned word – Walter's offering to consult and join our strategy meeting and of course he is.

"I was hoping you'd say that."

I'm not even lying.

My next stop is Eleanor's room, and I'll spare you the details. Even letting her know that Derek will be working the soft eyes full time on her case isn't enough to make her anything but annoyed with my presence.

Fine.

I have another case. I have other things to do.

I'm healthy now. I can't even feel the hangover, I'm hydrated, I'm caffeinated, and these shoes don't even hurt.

(Much.)

..

I don't want to have too much free time – empty blocks of nothing are dangerous – so I offer to section Goldberg's patient so she can finish a post-op. It's not just keeping busy, either: I wouldn't mind delivering a healthy, full-term baby right about now. For me, it's kind of the surgical equivalent of a really strong drink.

I scrub in and from the door swinging shut to the first cut I get about three quarters Dr. Shepherd to one quarter Dr. Montgomery-Shepherd and I pretty much give up on correcting people. Correcting Meredith Grey is one thing – but I don't want to have this conversation over and over again. Plus, I'm scrubbed in – but even in the outside world, while my new badge just says Montgomery, I also don't think I need to direct every member of faculty and staff at this hospital to stare any longer than necessary at my chest.

The rhythms of an uncomplicated cesarean – I could do this procedure in my sleep, but I wouldn't want to.

I'd be missing out.

I'm checked in, I'm present, and the squalling new life keeps me grounded.

It's a girl.

She's fat and perfect – forty-one weeks will do that for you – and the husband is cutting the cord and everyone is crying.

This high – healthy baby, healthy mama – it's kind of worth it.

Worth what it's like when you don't get the fat perfect baby. When you have to deliver bad news and the tears aren't happy and no one wants to cut the cord.

..

I stop in to see them once they've moved her to step-down – chasing the dragon, maybe, because as soon as the baby was shuttled off the room started feeling oppressive again.

Here, at least, in the room that smells of lemon cleanser and curdled milk, the mother is cuddling her swaddled infant and her husband is sitting half on the bed supporting her with one arm like they're posing for newborn photos.

"How's everyone feeling?" I ask. It's my maternity voice, not so bright that it would disturb the baby, but not so somber that you'd think something was wrong.

"Good," she says without looking up.

"Any pain?"

"No. Not really. And look how well she's latching!"

I move to the side of the bed so I can admire the latch – which is perfect, the benefit of forty-one weeks of palate development.

I've spent so much time with preemies, and then micropreemies, in my career that babies like this one – full-term-plus, we'd call them, or sometimes overcooked – basically look like toddlers to me.

Still, though, even though this newborn is pink and filled out, as ready for the world as any baby can be in what's essentially the fourth trimester, protected by her own layers of fat instead of a warming isolette – I can't help being struck, as I always am, by just how new she is.

She hasn't done anything yet. Her whole life is in front of her. That tiny, dimpled hand wrapped around her mother's thumb – it's going to hold a crayon in a couple of years. A pencil, then a pen, maybe even a scalpel.

Just so much promise.

Completely unmarked by mistakes.

There's so little time before we start screwing things up.

I'm a little lost, just for a minute, in the soft rhythmic sounds of the baby's suckling. It's quiet in the room – peaceful, even.

The mother – she'll feel pain, and soon, and it's going to suck rebuilding her stomach muscles and having to cede a lot of the heavy lifting to her husband. The father – he'll stay besotted, maybe, but when the baby's up all night screaming, he won't be quite as anxious to sit millimeters away.

But still, right now, it's peaceful.

Perfect.

"Well. I just wanted to check in."

"Thank you so much, Dr. …" the husband, who's been completely absorbed in his wife and child, looks up now and is scanning for my name tag.

"Montgomery," I tell him before he has to scan any further.

"Dr. Montgomery," he says, not looking at me anymore. "And, uh, thank Dr. Goldberg for us too."

And then the baby, who's half-sleeping and half-suckling, makes a tiny noise and he and his wife are completely enraptured.

I do all the things I'm supposed to do but I'll admit I linger, a little, in the doorway, absorbing just a little of that sense of newness and promise that isn't mine at all.

..

Maybe it's the perfect newborn, or the good-news-for-once procedure, but when I catch sight of the back of Karev's head walking down the hallway – swaggering is more like it, if you want to be precise – I suddenly want to make up for some of my wrongs.

"Dr. Karev!"

He turns around but doesn't actually acknowledge me – which could either be a busy intern thing or an insolent intern thing.

(I'll let you guess which one he is.)

But it's not like he doesn't have reason to be pissed off at me.

I wait to talk until I've caught up to him.

"I wanted to let you know that we still don't know what's going to happen with Baby C. But assuming we operate … you can have in."

"Yeah?" he asks, raising his eyebrows.

"Yeah."

"Don't do me any favors," he says.

Okay … so he's more pissed than I thought.

Which pisses me off.

(Because anger is easier than guilt, didn't you know?)

"Seriously, Karev? Your career depends on attendings being willing to do you favors, so you should probably check the attitude if you actually want to be a surgeon."

"Why?" he asks. "You're an amazing surgeon, and your attitude sucks."

It takes me a second to parse that, to separate the threads of insult and compliment and – whatever it is, it's totally inappropriate.

He doesn't look the slightest bit sorry, either.

"Karev." I prop a hand on my hip. But I just can't bring myself to yell at him when I've pretty much screwed him over twice today and he's barely fired back. I guess I can give him this one. "Look," I say, lowering my voice a little. "I'm meeting with Shepherd and Graves in…" I check the time. "…twenty minutes. We'll know more about timing after that. We'll be assembling a team. So – are you in?"

He looks at me for a second longer than is strictly pedagogically necessary.

"Yeah," he says. "I'm in."

..

Derek and I are taking turns pacing the conference room.

We're both pacers, but he's always been a clockwise guy and I'm counter-clockwise so if we're not careful, we can pace right into each other.

And I think we've done each other enough damage without adding a concussion to the list.

Walter, meanwhile, is standing still and calm like the fulcrum of a divorced seesaw.

"Identifying the VGM changes everything," Derek announces, like it's news.

Not that I'm surprised. This is probably what it was like when Christopher Columbus told everyone he'd discovered an inhabited mass of land in the Atlantic.

(Thanks a lot for that, by the way, Chris – if not for you, I might not be here in a room testing the boundaries of healthy decisions with my husband.)

Ex-husband.

Ex, ex, ex.

"It changes some things, Derek," I correct him. "It doesn't change everything."

He shoots me one of his recognizable don't be petty looks – I've given them and received them in fair share over the years.

And then we're arguing again – it's not that heated, certainly not for us, but we keep walking over the same territory. Three surgeons in the room: one neuro, who's performed a somewhat parallel co-procedure on third trimester fetus but not this particular procedure, one pediatric neuro with fortuitous expertise on arterial embolization pre-birth, and me. Fetal surgeon – among other things – and healthy decision maker, who doesn't base her requirements for surgical team on dreaminess or divorce bitterness.

Okay?

Good. I'm glad that's settled.

Now I can go back to arguing.

"I'm not saying your opinion is irrelevant."

"Thank you," he interrupts, sarcastically, and we pause to kind of glare at each other, but without any real malice.

"You haven't co-performed this procedure in the third trimester, Derek. And Walter has."

"That fetus was thirty-four weeks gestation," Walter says. "I was working with an extraordinary fetal surgeon – as Derek would be too, of course," he adds, giving me a benevolent smile. I catch Derek half-rolling his eyes once Walter turns around. "And we had an emergency delivery plan mid-procedure and we delivered directly afterwards. And it was a singleton pregnancy."

Okay, so Walter's weighing in … but he's not taking a side.

It's almost like he doesn't realize there are sides.

Come on, Walter. There are always sides. Particularly when there are Shepherds involved.

"So … you think we should wait," I prompt him, encouragingly.

The thing is, the triplet thing? It's a major part of all this.

Because everything that happens to Baby C affects her brothers, even though they're sharing a separate placenta from hers.

"I know taking all three of them out at twenty-nine weeks is borrowing trouble," Walter says slowly, "especially for the twins."

"But we don't have to take out the twins," Derek says. "Or any of them, not if it goes as planned."

"And if it doesn't go as planned?" I ask.

Okay, so … before I go any further.

The twins are Baby A and Baby B. Yes, they're part of a set of triplets, but they're also identical twins. It's complicated in Eleanor's uterus.

And Walter's right about development. The twins are already smaller than their sister, who has the benefit of her own nutrient machine.

So, here are our options:

Option one: we could deliver all three, operate on Baby C, lose her – and the boys have already entered the world underdeveloped and at significantly higher risk for major complications. Brain damage, seizures, death.

Option two: could wait until all the babies are stronger, more developed, and then partially deliver Baby C, do the embolization procedure, and then deliver all three babies. They'll all be stronger and much more likely to survive with minimal or even no complications.

… assuming the surgery works.

If not, we're talking about losing Baby C and sending Eleanor's complicated uterus into major dysfunction … which means emergency delivery of the twins under time pressure that makes crunch sound like leisure.

Option three: we could operate, it's a success, we deliver Baby C but leave the twins in there until they're ready to come out.

And finally, option four: we could operate, make sure it's a success, and not deliver Baby C – but tuck her back into that complicated uterus to finish developing with the VGM crisis resolved. If it actually works –it's essentially saving all three of the babies and giving them the best shot at a healthy future.

Of all the solutions, that last one is the most complex, the most potentially dangerous, and the least likely to work.

So it's not surprising that it's the one Derek is in favor of.

He's pacing again, ticking off statistics on why he doesn't think we should wait.

"There's no spinal fluid buildup," I point out.

"Yet. There's no spinal fluid buildup yet."

"Do you want to risk all three babies for a problem one of them doesn't have yet?"

"Do you want to wait until she's hydrocephalic and we lose all our options?" he counters.

Walter Graves, voice of reason: "Waiting does seem prudent in the short time," he offers, "along with continuous monitoring, at least in the face of no measurable CNS risk at this time."

Derek looks like he's not sure which one of us he'd like to strangle more.

He turns his glare in my direction.

"You asked for a consult," he reminds me, his voice clipped. "And then you informed me I would be joining the team."

"Actually, I informed you that Eleanor wanted you to join the team." And I didn't actually ask him, specifically, for a consult, but I don't feel like arguing about that now.

(Which one of us is less petty, then? Also, don't answer that.)

Derek blinks. "How is that different?" he asks.

"Eleanor asked for you because she thinks you're cute," I remind him.

(Okay, I didn't say I wasn't petty, just that I might be less petty than he is.)

"Excuse me," he says, annoyed. "The reasoning behind the patient's choice of provider has nothing to do with – "

"It has everything to do with how we proceed! Walter knows the case better than you do. You're brand new."

"Brand new." He widens his eyes. "Really."

"Derek." I'd like to start pacing again, burn off some of this energy, but we're standing a foot apart and I don't want to turn my back.

It's not that I think he's going to knife it – not this time, anyway – but turning away is like giving up the fight and I'm not there yet.

"Doctors," Walter says in his calm, oh-so-reasonable tone, "we don't have to decide this right now. With the excellent care you've provided for Mrs. Rivers and her triplets, Addison – and the excellent find you made today, Derek – we're in good stead. We can continue to monitor."

"Not indefinitely," Derek mutters.

"Who said anything about indefinitely?" I ask, propping a hand on my hip.

He shakes his head like I'm the one being unreasonable.

Typical.

"Doctors?" Walter prompts again.

I wonder if he knew what he was getting into when he agreed to work with both of us.

Maybe he and Richard should have a drink. Or three.

Meanwhile, Derek and I are essentially having a staring contest.

"Fine," Derek says after a grudging silence.

"Fine," I echo, even though we're actually doing what I wanted, so I don't know if I have to agree – but this way Walter gets to be the decider and I can compromise. Or something.

"So we'll reconvene tomorrow," Walter says heartily. He still has that wise-grandpa expression but I'm wondering if he's not wishing both Shepherds had stayed on the east coast.

"Yes. Please keep me informed," Derek says to me, and I throw him a bone – since Walter basically took my side – and don't remind him that I'm not his resident.

"I'll keep you both informed," I respond in my nicest plays-well-with-others voice.

(Remember, I never said I wasn't petty.)

Derek doesn't say anything, but I can tell just from his breathing that he knows exactly why I put it that way.

He's the first one to leave the room.

..

I end up helping one of the MFM fellows and then getting pulled into another consult and by now it's not just kind of late, it's legitimately late.

So I decide to leave the hospital, maybe hit the hotel gym and burn off some stress, eat a balanced dinner, catch some restful sleep.

Just seeing if you're paying attention.

Obviously, my actual next step is the attendings' lounge so I can drink some more bad coffee to power me through the rest of the night. A little palate cleanser, if you will, before the glass of wine I'm seriously craving hits my bloodstream back at the hotel.

(Hair of the dog. It's a thing.)

But of course, since the universe hates me, Derek is already in the lounge, standing at the carafe. He's not touching it – he's just standing there with his head tilted a little like he's thinking.

I used to find him like that sometimes – halfway through some menial task because his brain just couldn't seem to help coming up with big ideas when he tried to slow it down to, you know, rake leaves or wash dishes.

He's lost in his own thoughts and I almost hate to disturb him … but I really, really need some coffee.

"Addison." He clicks back to earth when I'm within interrupting distance. "What are you still doing here?"

Oh, I could take that so many ways.

A week ago I'd swear he meant Seattle. His territory. His life.

Tonight, though. I experiment with giving him the benefit of the doubt, even if it feels not-quite-right like a new shoe that still needs to be broken in on one side.

Maybe he's legitimately curious.

Maybe he remembers that I wasn't quite feeling … myself, this morning.

"I had a case."

He nods. "So you're feeling better, then."

I'm still trying to gauge how loaded the words are and I guess if I have to think about it – well, that's a sign that I do need sleep.

Or coffee.

Derek is apparently satisfied that my hangover is gone because he starts in on the Baby C plan like we never left that conference room.

Is he trying to make my headache come back?

I can't listen to this without caffeine. Derek's on a roll – of course he is – so I grab both our mugs while he holds forth on fetal development like I'm not exponentially more qualified to discuss it than he is.

"And then there are the cardiac implications of – Addison, what are you doing?"

"What?" I tune back in at my name.

"That's my mug," Derek says, pointing.

He seems to have just noticed.

"I was pouring coffee," I tell him, a little self-conscious now.

"Well, don't pour my coffee." He moves the mug away from me.

Who's petty now?

(And yes, I know the answer is both of us – meant to be.)

"Very mature. And civilized." I pull open the fridge and, with enough show to enjoy it a little, sniff the milk. "Ooh, now that is not civilized. Guess you'll have to drink your coffee black."

And then I finish filling mine and take a long sip.

Derek is just looking at his mug, so I look at it too. I'm not going to let myself feel – nostalgic. Or whatever I feel when I think about pouring coffee for him, one of those dime-a-dozen moments of marriage that are so natural I swear we could be in a nursing home in fifty years and I think I'd still pour for both of us.

I concentrate on his mug instead of the implications of that.

It's the same Bowdoin mug I remember, of course, heavy ceramic, shaped like a beer stein with that stupid not-quite-smiling sun in the middle. See, one of the perks of divorce: I don't have to look at that mug every day.

(I do have to wonder how it got here. I mean after he cut my wardrobe in half and stormed off, I know he came back, and packed, but the mug? He took the mug?)

"Nice mug," he says, nodding at mine. I guess we've been doing the same thing.

So I follow his gaze to the free mug I got when I signed my contract. As anonymous and sterile as my existence here.

Nice mug.

It's just two words, but it's Derek and it's me so I know exactly what he's thinking. Outsider, he's thinking. This is my territory. If he could I think he'd stamp visitor on my badge again like those first days after I landed in Seattle.

I make a mental note to … buy a mug. Can't let a little thing like depression make Derek think he has the upper hand.

I don't say anything, though, and Derek tilts his head a little like he's evaluating me. I wonder if he's thinking about last night, or this morning.

"So. Baby C," he says.

Right. He's thinking about the case.

"We monitor daily, and without measurable delta we reevaluate fully at thirty weeks," I tell him.

"That's what you think is the best course," he says doubtfully.

"No, Derek, I think it's the worst one, that's why I proposed it."

"There's no need for sarcasm." Now his face is drawn downward in disapproving lines.

Even though he's wrong.

There is so much need for sarcasm.

(For one, it's a hell of a lot better than sentimentality – and a lot less likely to scar.)

"There are three babies at issue here, Derek," I remind him. "And one fragile cervix keeping them all in there."

I'm not going to say incompetent.

"Can't you deal with her cervix surgically?"

Oh, the nerve.

"Yes, of course we can. Why didn't I think of that? I guess I just like making women lie at inhumane angles for months at a time. Thank goodness for your expertise, Derek."

"More sarcasm," he observes icily.

"More stupid questions."

For a minute we both just breathe.

"Monitor daily, reevaluate in a week," he repeats.

I guess it sounds better to him when he says it.

Not that I'm surprised.

With a fair amount of effort, I tamp down the sarcastic tone. "Yes, Derek. That's what I proposed."

"Fine." He drinks about half the coffee in his mug in one long swallow. He always does that, then dawdles over the second half. I never asked him why – I guess he needs that first hit, hard.

He catches me looking. "Was there anything else?"

"No, but I'm pretty sure I don't to have business with you to be in the attendings' lounge."

"Fair enough." He surprises me by pouring out the rest of the coffee – ooh, his mother would have a fit if she knew he was wasting coffee like a … like a snob, like a rich kid, like a Montgomery … and then rinsing his mug and turning it upside down neatly in the rack. For all the world like someone who used to pour his own coffee, handle his own mugs.

(He didn't.)

He glances at me for just a second and I speak before I can censor myself.

"I ... appreciate your joining the team."

Oh, god. I'm the one who said it.

There's no one else here I can blame.

It's true, which is the worst part of all.

God, I need a drink. A drink, and not to have to parse why it's true.

At least Derek looks pretty surprised, which I suppose is worth saying something so embarrassing.

"… even if I still think you're underestimating the gestational development issues," I finish weakly.

"That's more like it." He looks amused rather than offended. "Keep me posted on the fetal progress?"

"Of course. I already said I would."

"Right."

He looks at me for a second, and I can tell he's about to say something. It has that sense of buildup like I'm waiting for a sneeze and I'm about to yell at him – just say it – when his pager goes off.

"Sorry," he says, gesturing to his hip, and I wave him away like it's fine.

..

When I finally get back to my hotel room – not home, my hotel room – it could be any night since I checked in.

That's the thing with hotels. They clean up all the evidence, start fresh every day.

The bed looks the same. Big, and white, and untouched.

Like nothing happened there, last night. Like everything didn't happen.

I know if I went over to the bed – and I'm not saying I'm going to do this, okay? – but if I did, and I pressed my face into the pillows, there'd be no trace of anything.

No scent.

Nothing human, just … the kind of detergent that's thankfully expensive enough not to smell like detergent.

It smells like nothing.

(Fine, I did do it.)

Nice, clean nothing.

In the bathroom, where I study the lines on my face in the mercifully flattering track lights and consider taking off my makeup, all the towels are dry and fresh and neatly hung, little glass bottles of whatever have all been replaced, and there's some folded clothing on the little marble table.

They always fold anything I leave out, but I don't usually –

Oh, right.

That charity 10K shirt, the one Derek gave me last night to put on. I unfold it and hold it open.

It still has that same ill-advised smiley face that made us laugh, back then.

It's faded and soft. I hold it up to my face for a minute – it hasn't been washed.

One thing in the room that doesn't smell like nothing.

It's one whiff and one rush of memory of his arms around me, his hands in my hair, and I have to stop.

In a room that's mostly, purposefully, expertly filled with nothing – there's too much Derek.

There's way too much Derek.

His first visit here took me long enough, and wine enough, and Mark enough to get over – and the second one sent me into a tailspin, as you know.

A third one might just kill me so I think I need to get him out of here.

The 10K shirt goes in the pretty linen laundry bag.

I wash my hands, just in case any lingering scent might tempt me later.

There we go. If only the rest of him could be freshly laundered.

Because I'm starting to wonder if I've signed on for more Derek than I think I can handle, with the Rivers case.

But that's a long-term problem.

I have short-term problems too, and I should probably think about those first.

Because one of those short-term problems is knocking on my door right now.

Twice, three times … and then I hear a key slide into the lock.

Okay, here goes, Addie. Healthy decision time, take two.

(Wish me luck.)

To be continued (of course). The flavor of Addison's poignant/depressing thoughts about the newborn are Six Day, Part I-inspired. That's one of the top ten saddest Addison episodes, I think, which is saying a lot when pretty much every storyline she ever got was sad. So! Here we are, 24 chapters in, flowing fast. I appreciate everyone who's been reading and I triple appreciate everyone who's been writing. Thank you! So. Review and let me know what you think?