Derek kept his eyes on Addison, then look a long sip of his coffee to buy himself time. Finally, he swallowed the hot liquid and cleared his throat.
"Dereana, this is Addison. Addie, meet Dereana."
Addison shook the woman's hand and gave her a smile. "It's really nice to meet you Dereana, I'm sorry for stealing your coffee this morning."
"So where do you two know each other from? Why would you even think Derek got the coffee for you?" she asked, hoping the direct question would give her clarity.
Addison looked over at Derek, "I think I should let you answer," she told him softly. She decided she would go along with any story he'd choose to tell. She expected him to say we went to medical school together or we worked together in New York. What she didn't expect were the words that came out of Derek's mouth.
"Addison is my ex-wife," he honestly explained without being able to meet either woman's eyes.
"Ex-wife." Dereanna repeated.
"Right, and she's the mother of my children," he added, noting how Dereanna winced at the mention of children.
"Well, for now it's just one child. We've still got a few months before it'll be children," Addison clarified, her hand fluttering over the small bump that had begun forming, still mostly hidden with the right clothing and/or heavy coats. In this case, it was the latter.
"You're pregnant," Dereana muttered, eyes roaming to Addison's midsection to gauge the guised pregnancy.
"She is," Derek confirmed while Addison focused her eyes on the ground.
"You have a child and a pregnant wife," she repeated, this time addressing Derek.
"Ex-wife," Addison quickly corrected.
"I have a son and a pregnant wife." Derek confirmed, speaking at the same time as Addison. Then corrected himself when he realized what she said, "Right, ex-wife."
"I should get to my patient," Addison awkwardly took a step back. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cause trouble," she added, before leaving them as fast as her Jimmy Choo pumps would let her.
"You have an ex-wife and two children."
"Yes."
"And you never thought to mention this?"
"I thought it was too soon to bring it up?"
"We've been dating for two months! When did you think would be the time?"
"I don't know, I just know I thought it would be too soon. I didn't want you to think I have too much baggage. It's really not baggage. Addison and I are on great terms. There is no drama, there is no baggage."
"Derek, she's in love with you. That's baggage."
"She's not in love with me."
"She's in love with you," Dereana repeated surely.
"She's not. After we found out about the baby, we discussed possibly getting together again but she was against it. She's moved on. She's not in love with me."
"She's in love with you," Dereana repeated for a third time. "And you wanna know what else? You're still in love with her. I saw the way she was looking at you, and the way she was smiling at you. And I saw how you were looking at her, and smiling at her and that's love, Derek."
Derek shook his head, "Addison and I are not going to get back together."
She gave him a dumbfounded look, "That doesn't mean you're not in love with one another."
He signed, running his face tiredly even thought it was barely 11 am. "What do you want me to say?"
"Nothing, there is nothing to say," Dereana assured him. "But in the future, you should tell the person you're dating about your ridiculously attractive wife before she shows and makes the announcement herself."
"Yeah, you'd think I'd learn that after the last time."
"There's been a last time?! You've hid your family from someone else you dated?! What is wrong with you?" she snapped, suddenly annoyed with him. "You need help, Derek."
"It was an honest mistake. Both times!"
"I can't have this discussion right now," she decided, turning back to go leave the lobby and go back to her office. Derek stood there, frozen for a few seconds. He could either go after Addison or after Dereana. Without thinking, his feet carried him in the direction before his mind could make the choice. He went after Addison. And managed to catch up to her in the hallway right outside the NICU.
"Addie!" He called to stop her from going in. "Addie, I'm sorry. I didn't mean for you to find out that way. I've been meaning to tell you about her."
"I have to get to my patient."
"Okay, I can wait for you out here," he offered. "Just believe me, please. I did not mean for you to find out this way. I didn't know how I felt about her and I didn't know if it would be a serious relationship or not and I didn't want to upset you until I knew for sure."
"I'm not upset."
"You're not?"
"No," she told him calmly. "You're a single, young...ish, attractive man. You're a brain surgeon. I think it's safe to assume women are taking their shot with you. I was against getting back together so I can't be mad."
Derek remained silent. Everything she was saying was true, but he didn't want to agree with her and risk upsetting her. "Addie, I'd never ever date someone just to upset you or hurt you. You're the mother of my children and you will always be the most important woman in my life."
"That's not true and we both know it."
"You're right," Derek conceded. "If there is a little girl in there, she will probably de-throne you and become the most important girl in my life."
"That's not what I meant," Addison replied. "One day, you're going to move on and that's okay. You'll remarry and probably have a child with someone else and then she will also be the mother of your child or children and she'll also be your wife and she will automatically be the most important woman in your life. So please, stop selling me this act that I come ahead of all else. If that were true, we wouldn't be here right now. We'd be in New York, in our Brownstone, with our son together as a family." She strategically avoided eye contact, and turned toward the NICU instead of answering.
"Addie," he reached for her hand to stop her. "Please believe me."
"I have to get to work."
He let go of her hand. "Okay. I'll find you later," he told her and she nodded before turning to put on her PPE before going into the NICU.
"Dereana," Derek said as he stood in front of her office door in the admin building across the parking lot. "I wanted to talk to you."
"I'm at work, Derek."
"I know, so am I. I've got a consult in a few minutes actually, but I wanted to talk to you," he replied, walking in and closing the door behind him. "I'm sorry about how you found out about Addison and our kids. I didn't want you to find out like that. I guess I was being protective of them and of you. I didn't want to hurt anyone with this relationship until we knew where we were going. I never realized it would be too late at that point."
"I didn't realize I'm just a rebound girl. I told you right on our first date that I had serious intentions."
"You weren't a rebound. Addison and I have been separated for a while, you weren't a rebound. I wasn't looking to start dating when I met you and yet, but I gave it a shot and I enjoyed being with you. You were the first people I saw myself committing to after Addison and that scared me a little. I didn't want to do anything to scare you off."
"And yet you did."
"I know," Derek sighed. "I'm sorry."
"So what now? Where do you see this going now?"
Derek took a deep breath, "You were right. I am still in love with Addison. And I don't know if she's still in love with me, but I do know that I can't just stop loving her. I'm starting to realize that this isn't working for me, I can't just abandon my family. I realize that's not fair to you, and I'm sorry. I really didn't mean for this to happen. You deserve better."
"So you're ending it?" she asked to clarify.
Derek nodded, "I'm sorry. I realized today when I saw Addison that it's not fair for me to try to make a commitment to someone while my wife...ex-wife is pregnant and raising my on her own. They should be my only commitment right now. I'm sorry it took me until today to see that."
Addison wrapped her bathrobe tightly around her after a long day of work. She was just about to sit on the bed in her hotel room while waiting on her room service when she heard a knock on the door. She answered the door, expecting her double bacon cheeseburger only to find Derek standing on the other side.
"What are you doing here?" she asked, stepping aside so he could come in.
"I was hoping to see Christopher. He's not with you?"
"No. He's at home. Cooper is staying with him. I was coming for work so I wasn't sure I'd be able to find someone to watch him while I was with my patient and I didn't want him missing school."
"Oh."
"You haven't visited in a while. He misses you."
"I miss him too," he admitted. "I'm sorry I haven't made time to visit. I've been busy."
"With Dereana?" Addison asked.
"Partially, yes."
Addison nodded in understanding. She, of course, didn't have the option to ever be too busy for their children; one was in her 24/7 for the quite a while longer and the other depended on her as his primary caregiver. She didn't have the option to ever be too busy to consider them.
"But that's not an excuse, I know." He admitted without her having to say anything. "I think I was mostly just avoiding you."
"Avoiding me?! Why would you want to avoid me? What have I done to you?"
"Nothing, I don't want to upset you, Addison."
"No, please, tell me. What have I done to make you want to avoid me?"
"Nothing, you haven't done anything! It's just hard to be around you and watch you and know that I've hurt you and that you're building a new life that- frankly, doesn't need to include me."
"Derek, I'm carrying 23 of your chromosomes inside of me right now. We have a whole human that's half you and half me, and he looks at me with your eyes. That means you'll always be in my life. These kids tie us together forever, half of me and half of you will always coexist in these people that we created. We're basically bound for life."
"Yeah, but you could easily raise them without me. You don't need me. If you wanted to, you could cut me out."
Addison rolled her eyes, "Just like you cut me and Christopher out when you met someone else?"
"I didn't. I just had less time. It was a nice distraction. I needed a distraction. But having you here, seeing you with my baby growing inside of you, it reminded me that I was wrong. You don't get a distraction from reality and I shouldn't either."
"Derek, this isn't about being vindictive and getting even. Just because I'm choosing not to date, doesn't mean you shouldn't. You should go apologize and win her back. If she makes you happy, you need to go get her back."
Derek shook her head, "She did make me happy, Meredith made me happy for a while too. But neither of them make me as happy as I am when I'm with our son, and with you and now our little fetus."
"Derek…" she sighed tiredly.
"She says she can see that I'm still in love with you and I'm afraid that she might actually be right. So, we decided that it would be best to end things amicably."
Addison covered her face with her hands and sighed heavily. She took a few steps back to sit on the bed and let out another tired breath. "Derek, can we not do this right now? I've had a really long, difficult day. I have a flight tomorrow morning and this baby has been doing summersaults all day. I'm exhausted."
"Do you think I can feel it?" he asked, kneeling down and placing a hand on her abdomen without waiting for her answer. A smile grew on his face when he felt a slight flutter against his hand. "This is incredible. I can actually feel her."
Addison gently nudged his hand away from her. "It's not a girl."
"It's a boy?"
"I don't know. I just know that right now we don't know enough to use labels so I'd prefer that we don't. I should really get to bed. I've gotta be up early enough to check on my patient before I head to the airport." she told him softly.
He nodded his understanding and stood up to leave. "Okay. Maybe I'll see you at the hospital in the morning?"
"Maybe you will."
He smiled in response and leaned closer to give her a kiss on the forehead. "Good night, Addie."
"Richard, have you seen Addison?" Derek asked the number morning, standing in the hall with two cups of coffee in his hand. "I got her coffee but I can't find her."
Richard checked the time on his watch, "She's on a plane back to Los Angeles."
"What? No, she said she'd be here to check on her patient this morning."
"She was here around 4:30 am. She had a flight back to Los Angeles at 7:30 am. It's 7:33 am so I'm pretty sure she's on a plane back to Los Angeles and it's probably pulling away from the gate right now."
Derek groaned in annoyance. "I didn't even get a chance to say bye."
"Derek, you hadn't spoken to her in weeks before this, why do you suddenly care to give her that kind of attention?" Richard asked bluntly.
"I was wrong to not pay attention. It was hard, it's hard to give her attention and be rejected. It was easier to just avoid the constant rejection. And Dereanna helped fill the void for a while. "
"If there was constant rejection she probably wouldn't be pregnant with your second child, would she?"
"Since the pregnancy, I mean. And with Dereana, I got to pretend all of that pain doesn't exist and it was nice for a while."
"You've done exactly that before," Richard reminded him. "When you left your family in New York to come to Seattle to forget the pain of Addison's affair, when you met Meredith at a bar and didn't tell her about your family. This is a pattern for you. You can't just block out Addison when things get tough, find a new girl to be with for a while and then implode her world when she finds out you have a whole family you abandoned."
"Meredith was different. That was Addison's fault. She's the one that cheated first. She slept with my best friend, practically my brother!"
"I know, and that was terrible. She was wrong, and if you couldn't forgive her then you should have divorced her and not abandoned her with no information. But she wasn't singlehandedly responsible for the downfall of your marriage. You had your share of blame, for pushing her away and putting your career ahead of your family. Mark had blame for taking his shot when Addison was vulnerable and lonely. All three of you should be ashamed for what happened, but that doesn't mean you get to walk awake and bring other people, like Meredith, into that mess. And now you've dragged another woman in."
Derek rolled his eyes at the lecture. "You don't know what you would have done in my shoes."
"Maybe not, but I know I would try not to make the same mistake twice."
"I should get back to work," Derek muttered in disappointment. "Want the coffee I got for Addison? It's an Americano."
Richard reached for the cup and took a sip. "Thank god she and I have the same taste in coffee."
"He's dating another woman?" Naomi asked standing in the kitchen of the practice.
"Yes, an age appropriate woman who actually looks his type," Addison added as she poked disinterestedly at her salad.
"How does that make you feel?" Violet questioned, not being able to help asking the question that stereotypically tied itself to her profession.
Addison shrugged in response. "I didn't really feel anything. I was livid when I caught him with Meredith. But this time I didn't really feel anything until he told me that being with her was a distraction he needed from me. Once he said that, that's when I was annoyed."
Naomi stopped poking at the cherry tomato in her salad and looked up at Addison. "Why would he say that out loud?"
"Because he's a man, and men are stupid," Violet replied with confidence.
"The worst part is, this little creature inside of me has my hormones raging and all I could think about the whole time was how I want to rip his clothes off and do the same things that got me into this mess to begin with. It took every fiber of my being to control myself."
Naomi dismissively rolled her eyes, "Don't blame the pregnancy. You've never been able to keep your pants on around him. I'm convinced that the only reason you wanted to be chief resident was so you could have a private office and skip the scrubs for dresses at work for faster access between patients."
With a mild glance of annoyance, Addison set down her fork. "Sounds like you're still a little bitter you never even made it into consideration for chief resident," she said half playfully with a smirk.
"I wasn't even trying, I had Maya. And you got pregnant with Christopher by the end of the year, probably from all the quickies in your office."
"And yet I finished a surgical neonatal fellowship, a maternal-fetal medicine fellowship, and a medical genetics fellowship so I think I turned out fine," Addison told her confidently as she threw the rest of her lunch in the trashcan nearby. "I've got to get back to work. I'll see you guys later," she added before leaving the kitchen.
Violet's eyes focused back on Naomi and she found herself saying, "I know you and Addison claim to be best friends, but I think you're frenemies," she admitted. "You're always trying to outwit her, and you usually lose."
"I'm not trying to outwit her and we're not frenemies. We are friends with a long history."
"Are you jealous that having a child didn't stop her from being this trailblazer with her career but having Maya did change your career trajectory?"
"No!" Naomi exclaimed. "She had a trust fund that could pay for great nannies and a mother-in-law who is basically Mary Poppins. Of course having a child wasn't going to hold her back from fellowships. Sam and I were barely making ends meet, we couldn't afford extra childcare for extra fellowships."
"Sounds a little bitter, if you ask me," Violet shrugged. "Just stop trying to compete, you're a grown woman now and so is she. And she's pregnant, overworked, and emotionally wound up. It's probably not best to poke at that right now," she advised.
Seated at the dining table, Christopher was working on his homework when he heard his mom's cell phone start to ring. He bounced up, welcoming a distraction, and went to find it while she was in the bathroom. He caught sight of it on the coffee table and grabbed it, remembering the number of times his mom has chided him against answering her phone because it could be a patient or the hospital. When he realized his dad's name was on the screen, all rules went out the window and he answered the call.
"Daddy?!" He said into the phone excitedly. Derek hadn't called in weeks and he was excited to hear from him.
"Hey, buddy!" Derek greeted just as enthusiastically. "I thought Mom told you not to answer her phone anymore."
"Yeah, but I saw your name so I know it's not someone from work. You haven't called in a really long time."
"I'm sorry, kiddo, I was busy with work."
"Mom says you were busy with other things but she won't say what it was," Christopher admitted. "But she seems annoyed about it."
"Does she?" Derek replied, "Well, I was wrong. She's right to be annoyed about it. I should have made time to call you and check in on you and your sister?"
"Sister?!" Christopher exclaimed. "No! I told her I want it to be a boy baby! I don't want to be in a house with two girls and only one boy!"
"No, no," Derek tried to backtrack. "I just think it's a girl. I don't know what it really is. We don't know yet."
"I want a boy baby only!"
"Okay, I hear you, but we don't get a choice."
"I want you to want a boy baby only, too," he told his father.
"Well, I already have a boy baby. You're my baby boy."
"I'm not a baby!"
"You're right," Derek sighed, trying to smooth things over. Though the conversation only proved that life was easier when he could pretend these complicated facets of his life didn't exist. "What I meant to say is that you are my son, and I love having a son. But I like the idea of having a daughter too. A little girl. So I can have one son and one daughter."
"No," Christopher replied firmly. "You only want it to be a boy. Okay?"
"Okay, whatever you say." Derek conceded. "Is your mom around? Can I speak to her?"
"Not now, she's in the bathroom. She's been in there for a while, I'm not sure when she'll be done."
"Is she taking a bath?"
Chris shrugged, not realizing his dad can't see non-verbal communication cues. "She said something about washing off blood."
"Blood? Where is she bleeding from?"
The boy shrugged again, "I don't know. I didn't see any blood. I was busy watching TV so I didn't look, plus I don't like blood so I don't wanna see it."
"Chris, if your mom is bleeding, I need to know. Can you go check on her and tell me?" Derek asked his son as patiently as he could. Eight-year-olds were not the best source of information, but it was all he had to work with while across the country.
After a few minutes, he came back to the phone and said, "Mommy told me to leave her alone cuz she needs privacy."
Derek sighed in exacerbation, his hand moving toward his face to rub his eyes when his pager interrupted him halfway. "I gotta go, Chris, I will call back to check on Mom, okay? Keep an eye on her and if she needs help, call me."
"Okay," he agreed, only half paying attention to his father.
An hour later, right before scrubbing in for the emergency surgery that he'd been paged away for, he tried calling back to check in. The call went straight to voicemail, sending Derek in sheer panic. He called someone else to take the case and booked a flight in a taxi on the way to the airport. All he could think about was the fact that he'd spent weeks ignoring his family to avoid how complicated and messy the situation was; and now, just as he was trying to recover from the mistake, it would be more complicated and messy than ever.
Time to VOTE! Should Addek's second child be a girl or a boy?
Reviews appreciated! Thanks for reading.