After picking her son up from school, Addison took him back to the practice with her while she finished up with her last two patients for the day. He sat down on one of the stools at the kitchen Island and propped his iPad in front of him so he could watch YouTube while working on his homework.

"You know not to bother anyone while they're working, right, sweetheart?" she asked as she watched him scroll through videos to pick one.

"Yeah, I know."

"And if you need anything and everyone is busy, you can ask the receptionists at the front desk if they are not speaking to anyone else."

"Okay," he said, placing his little hand in the waistband of his navy blue school uniform pants as he leaned back onto the back of the chair to watch a video.

Addison froze in the doorway when she noticed it. She felt someone come up beside her and glanced over to see Pete. "What are we staring at?"

"He put his hand in his waistband."

"Is that something your ex used to do?"

"No, it's something Al Bundy from Married with Children does. And my little creature is very into that show and I pretend I don't notice him watching it, but now he's acting like the main character and that's not okay."

"You're letting your eight year old watch Married with Children? I would picture you as the kind of parent who only allows educational programming without misogynistic characters and sexist storylines." Pete admitted.

"I tried that. He started watching it behind my back after we moved out here and I haven't been able to stop him. I don't want my son to grow up to be like Al Bundy. I want him to have strong role models who empower people to do their best. I just...I guess I'm hoping this is a phase."

Pete nodded. "Do you want me to go in there and tell him it's not okay to stick his hand in his pants?" he offered.

"You'd do that for me?"

"Sure, it's no big deal. Just a little man to man talk."

Addison sighed, "His father was supposed to be responsible for man to man talks. But, I don't know, Derek's been less present lately. He must be busy with work or something. So yeah, if you could have a little man to man talk with him about this, I'd be grateful because I definitely don't know what to do about it."

"Sure," Pete agreed.

"Let's just hope this one is a girl," Addison mumbled to herself, her hand moving the swell that was building over her midsection. "I'm clearly incapable of being a boy mom. I've been a single mom for a few months and my son has his hand in his waistband in the kitchen of a medical practice. I clearly went wrong somewhere."

Pete laughed off her concern. "He's just a kid. It's fine. Don't be dramatic about it," he said, going into the kitchen and closing the door behind him so he and Christopher could chat alone. Addison took a few steps toward the waiting to get her patient, but stopped and turned back to glance in through the window. Her hand moved to her belly again and she found herself whispering, "Please be a girl."

"How was your visit with your mom?" Dereanna asked Derek over lunch at the cafeteria at the hospital. She poked at her chicken on her plate and made a face, "Does this look cooked to you?"

"Yes," he paused, tilting his head a little, "No, actually, maybe not. It looks like the safer option is to not eat it," Derek replied, crinkling his nose a little at the appearance of the chicken on her plate. Addison would have definitely opted for a pudding cup over letting that chicken get near her plate. Stop comparing them, he reminded him. "The visit was good. I hadn't seen her in a while so I was really nice to be back. And all the homemade food was great. Definitely didn't miss eating at this place."

"Do you have a lot of family back east?" she asked.

"Yeah, I have four sisters. One is in New York, two are close to my mom in Connecticut. No one ever really knows where the youngest one is." The only one that really made an effort to keep in touch with Amelia was Addison. At first, he was so upset that Addison would go behind his back to keep in touch with Amy that he would leave the room anytime his wife mentioned his youngest sister's name. Eventually she learned not to bring it up and he never cared to ask. He wasn't sure if Addison was still in touch with Amy after their separation.

"It sounds fun to have family in different states. My whole family is in Washington so I never have a reason to leave the state for the holidays. I've always wanted to."

"Yeah, the holidays on the east coast were great. I miss it." He missed having a wife that loved the holidays as much as he did. He missed how they'd hype up the occasion for their young son. He missed the effort she put in getting presents for their family. Holidays were always the best when he had a family to celebrate with.

"Are you close to your family?" she asked.

"I used to be before I moved out here. Nancy, she's the oldest, she's an ob/gyn, Kathleen is a psychiatrist with a very upscale Manhattan practice, and Liz is a pediatrician. We were all in med school around the same time so it was a great support system. And they have 14 kids between the three of them, so it was always fun to be around all those kids. But it's hard to keep in constant contact with that many people when I'm this far away working the schedule that I have."

"Yeah, that's a lot of kids."

"6 are Nancy's. She's a baby breeding machine. To her credit though, the last pregnancy was unexpected and it was twins so she didn't really see that coming. The other two have four each. My youngest sister, Amelia, she's still young and trying to figure out life. No kids for her yet. At least not that we know of."

"I bet your mom loves having so many grandkids. Does she ever pester you about it?"

She did, the first few years of his marriage before Christopher was born. She kept insinuating that Addison was putting her career ahead of their family and that if his sisters can manage both at once, so could she. It still annoys him when he thinks back to it. "She used to, but not anymore."

"That's good. That pressure is just so unnecessary. I don't want kids and my family is not fond of that lifestyle choice. My mom says it's selfish."

My mom would start with selfish and get more and more insulting from there, Derek thought to himself. "You don't want kids?" he asked as he bit into his sandwich.

Dereanna's eyes got wide. "Sorry, was it too early to mention that?"

"No, it's okay. I respect your opinion."

"I just don't like kids. They are very loud and need so much attention, you can never just do what you want to do, it's always about what they want and what they need. I just don't think I'm built for that life. I mean, sometimes my cat annoys me and she barely ever even comes near me so that should say something."

Derek laughed at the comment, but he couldn't help wonder how she'd feel about the fact that he has a child and another on the way.

"Do you like children?"

"I love them." Well, this got really awkward really fast, he thought to himself.

"Yeah, your family is huge. You're probably a pro with kids," she thought aloud. "What's your mom like? Is she hard on the women you date?"

Derek froze mid-chew. He took a second before he realized that a mouthful of a food was the perfect excuse to think of his next words. He slowly continued chewing as he thought, then he said, "She's only met one girl I was with and she was a little critical but very welcoming." That sounds like an honest answer, he thought. His mother went out of her way to make Addison feel welcomed; she was just very critical of her every move and judged her behind her back. He always hoped Addison didn't notice, but later learned that she very much so did notice. He tried to protect her by denying the whole thing, but he knew that she knew he was lying.

"Sounds like a typical mom," she thought aloud. "I hope to meet her one day."

Derek nervously nodded, "Yeah, I hope so too."

After getting out of surgery, Addison glanced down at her phone and saw three missed calls from Richard. She frowned in concern, it was unlike him to call her so many times rather than just leaving a voicemail. She sat down on the bench in front of her locker in the attending lounge and called him back.

"Richard, is everything okay? I just got out of surgery and saw a slew of missed calls from you. Is Derek okay?"

"Derek? Yeah, he's fine. What does Derek have to do with anything?"

"I just thought something might be wrong given the multiple missed calls," she replied. "But I'm glad all is okay. Was there something you needed?"

"One of the OBs here delivered a newborn this morning with a large invasive mass on his left kidney. The mother did not have consistent prenatal care so it was not caught early. They are considering surgery and I thought you might be up for the challenge. You haven't been back here in a while."

"You don't have a neonatal surgeon on staff to review the case?"

"I don't have an Addison Montgomery on staff, not anymore, at least. And this is a great case. You could probably publish if you wanted to."

"I don't really have time to focus on publishing right now, Richard."

"But you have time to come out to Seattle for this case?" he asked hopefully. "As a favor to your former resident who could have but didn't have you fired your intern year for everything you did in those filthy on call rooms."

Addison chuckled at the memory, "Still holding that against me, huh?"

"Every chance I get," he confirmed.

"Send over the file, I will go over it and try to rearrange my schedule to fly out there."

"Let me know when you arrive and I'll book your hotel. I promise to get the biggest suite they have. Anything to lure you back."

"You're not luring me back. I'm coming for just this one case and this one case only."

"Mhmm, that's what you thought last time too." he said before hanging up without even a goodbye. Anything to get the last word, he reasoned.

"Can I come?" her son asked, bouncing on her bed as she packed a bag for her trip to Seattle.

"No, honey, I'm going for work and I haven't heard from your dad since you two went to visit Grandma. I'm not sure if his schedule will give him time with you and if it doesn't there will be no one to stay with you while we are working. And you have school here."

"That's not fair! You get to go on a trip!"

"It's a work trip. I have to go help a baby," she reminded him gently.

"Yeah, but I'm your baby!" he told her, reaching into her suitcase to unfold a pair of maternity jeans. "What are these? Why do they look like yoga pants on top but jeans on the bottom? Are they yoga jeans?"

"No, they are like that so they can fit my belly."

"Oh, so when people get fat they have to buy stretchy pants like this?"

"Not fat, pregnant," Addison sighed, rubbing her face tiredly. "Honey, maybe you should go start getting ready for bed. Uncle Cooper is going to be here any minute."

Christopher shook his head in defiance. "Do you think we're going to have a boy baby or a girl baby?"

With exhaustion from her day, a half packed suitcase, a child bouncing around on her bed, and an inbox full of emails to get through, Addison's patience was wearing thin. She took a deep breath and tried to remind herself that her son was just trying to spend time with her. "I don't know what the baby is yet," she admitted. Rather than ending it there, she urged herself to give her son the attention that he needed despite her exhaustion. "Do you want it to be a boy or a girl?"

"I want a boy baby," he told her quickly, needing no time to think it over. "Because if it's a girl, then we have two girls in the house and I'm the only boy and that's not fair."

Addison laughed at his reasoning.

"And Robby said the girls always get to decide what to watch and where to eat because there are more of them and that's not fair."

"Yeah, Robby does have a lot of sisters."

"So I want a brother."

Addison nodded, "I hear ya, but we don't really get a choice, okay? We have to be happy no matter what the baby turns out to be because no matter what, you will be the big brother."

Christopher frowned, "I guess," he muttered.

She held her arms out for her son and when he stepped into her embrace, she kissed her forehead. "You are going to be the best big brother, I know it," she assured him. "Go get ready for bed, sweetheart. I will be in to tuck you before I head out to the airport."

With exhaustion seeping out of her every pore, Addison showed up at the hospital the next morning to find Richard waiting for her right outside the main entrance.

"There she is!" He exclaimed, greeting her with a hug. "Thank you for coming, Addison. I don't know who I would have called if you didn't agree to come out here for this case. I didn't think you would, given," he quickly glanced at her midsection in explanation.

"You know about the pregnancy?"

"Derek mentioned it." he asked, glancing down at her belly.

"He did?" she asked in surprise. "I'm at 18 weeks and four days, and I'm at that point where I feel like he or she is sucking the life out of me. I'm surprised Derek mentioned the pregnancy to you. He and I haven't spoken in a while, I thought maybe it was his way of telling me he didn't want to be involved anymore."

"Derek's just been busy. He is very excited about the baby and I'm sure he will be thrilled to see you." Richard vaguely replied, carefully avoiding the detail that it wasn't the hospital keeping him busy, rather his new girlfriend. "I haven't even seen him to let him know you'd be here today. It'll be a nice surprise for him, I think."

"A surprise, yes, but I'm not sure it'll be nice," she chuckled. "Shall we go see the patient? I don't want to waste time. I've got to get back to my kid and my practice."

Richard nodded, "Let's go get you all caught up," he led her into the building, turning toward his office when he noticed Addison stop.

"Derek?" her voice cut through the early morning silence of the hospital lobby. She stepped away from Richard to move toward her ex-husband, promptly reaching for one of two coffee cups in his hand. "How did you know I was going to be here? I thought Richard didn't mention it to you."

Derek glanced over her shoulder at Richard for help, but when the older man didn't say anything Derek chose a different plan. He gave his former wife a charming smile and shrugged, "Something in me told me to get an extra cup of coffee this morning," he lied, hoping his charming smile wouldn't give away his deception.

"I'll give you two some privacy. Addie, I'll be in my office when you're ready," he told her before walking away as quickly as he could to avoid being a part of whatever might occur in the next few minutes.

Addison smiled in response and took a sip before scrunching up her nose, "What is this?"

"Hazelnut latte with an extra two pumps of hazelnut syrup and one pump of vanilla."

"That would explain why I feel like I need a dose of insulin after one sip," she responded, noticing a woman come up beside her and reach for the coffee in Derek's hand. Addison watched her take a sip of the hot liquid and cringe.

"Did they give you the wrong drink? This is just black coffee," Dereanna asked him after opening the lid to check what was in the cup.

"No, that's my cup," Derek responded, his heart pounding in his chest as his girlfriend turned to look at the cup in Addison's hand.

"I'm sorry, I thought it was for me," Addison admitted rather shyly as the puzzle pieces came together in her head. Derek had purchased coffee for this woman and was waiting to give it to her. This was what had been keeping Derek too busy to give their son the attention he craved. She wanted leave as quick as possible but her brain was too busy processing the scene in front of her to communicate that desire to her legs.

"I'm sorry, do you two know each other?" Dereanna asked, looking from Derek to Addison and back again.

A/N: This might be the fastest update in at least a year and I think I deserve extra reviews for that, just sayin'