Recovery

Part XI

Izzie had left Dr. Webber's office with a smile on her face. He was stern with her and up front, he told her straight out that it went against his better judgment to allow her back in the program, but Dr. Montgomery had gone to bat for her and she had better not let that woman down. Izzie had no intention of letting Addison down; she was going to prove to everyone that she did indeed deserve to be a surgeon. Dr. Webber told her to report directly to Dr. Montgomery when he left the office.

She had a big smile on her face as she approached her mentor. "Dr. Montgomery I just finished my meeting with Dr. Webber and from now on I am at your disposal, do with me whatever you wish."

"Glad to have you back on board Stevens," she reached out and shook the younger woman's hand. "Since you've been out of the loop for over two months I am going to have you report to Dr. Bailey until she tells me you are back on track and ready to handle a rotation with me."

"You want me to go report to Dr. Bailey?" her smile wavered.

Addie nodded. "Yes, she is waiting for you in the pit." She smiled at the young intern, "So you better get a move on; you know she does not like to be kept waiting."

"Yes," she said tentatively. "Thank you again for this opportunity Dr. Montgomery, I promise I won't let you down."

She nodded to her again, "I'm sure you won't. I'll talk to you later." With that Dr. Montgomery headed down the hall, Izzie stood a moment and studied the statuesque redhead as she made her way down the hall. She definitely must be trying to teach her some new lesson if she was turning her over to the nazi on her.

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"Stevens!" Dr. Bailey shouted as Izzie exited the elevator. "What on earth took you so long to get down here? I was informed you left the chief's office over thirty minutes ago. You are not here to be a slacker, you are here to work." Izzie quickly ran to stand in front of Dr. Bailey. "If you do not plan on working hard young lady, you can turn right around and leave the building." Miranda stood in front of the tall blonde with her hands on her hips and with a scowl on her face staring her down.

Izzie tried to keep a straight face as Bailey put the smack down on her, but she was so happy to be back and so thrilled to have Bailey back in her face she couldn't help but smile.

"What on earth do you think you are smiling at? Wipe that smile off your face immediately!" she snapped. "I don't like seeing my interns smile. It means I haven't worked them hard enough." She pointed at a stack of charts, "See that stack of charts? Those are yours, now get to work," she barked.

"Yes Dr. Bailey, right away," Izzie hurried over and picked up the charts. She quickly looked through them, ugh four recitals, one abscess on the posterior of a fifty-seven year old female, a teen with an infected tong piercing and a thirty-five year old male who had been thrown threw a plate glass window. Oh boy, it sure was fun to be back at Seattle Grace. She blew a loose blonde hair out of her face and headed to the glass boy.

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"Addison," she heard Derek call her name and continued down the hall "Addison!" he shouted louder, she start to go faster and slipped into the elevator trying to hit the close button to no avail Derek managed to slip in the doors before they closed. "Addison I need to talk to you," he said out of breath.

"Do you have consult?" she asked briskly.

"No," he shook his head.

"Then I don't think we have anything to talk about," she said icily.

"I want to talk to you about the baby," he said quickly.

She closed her eyes clinched her teeth and closed her mouth tightly and counted to ten, then exhaled slowly, "As far as I'm concerned that topic is off limits to you."

"I have a right to be a part of my child's life," he shot back.

Her eyes snap to him and narrowed. "You're child? Funny I was under the impression that you considered Mark the father of my child. Did I miss something?" her voice remained cold.

Derek reached over and smacked the stop button on the elevator. "Look when you first told me you threw me for a loop," he sounded desperate. "I didn't know what the hell to say or how to react. Okay, I knew from the start that I was the father but. . ."

"So the thought of having a child with me is that repulsive?" she said dripping with sarcasm.

"No!" he threw his head back dragged his fingers through his hair and let out a groan. "Addison," he spun around in frustration. "I was afraid. I was afraid to admit the baby was mine because I screwed everything up so badly." She started to back away from him and leaned against the back wall of the elevator. He moved toward her, his gaze burned into her, he put one hand on either side of her on the wall and looked into her eyes, his eyes softened. "Addison I can't even begin to tell you how happy I am that you are carrying my child. There is no one else in the world I would want to have a child with," he leaned in and lightly kissed her on the lips, she tried to pull away. He cupped her face and caressed her cheek then leaned in and tentatively kissed her again. This time he was rewarded with a response from her and he deepened the kiss then broke away his sharp blue eyes looked deep into her shining blue green eyes. "I love the idea that you are carrying my child," he whispered.

Tears welled up in her eyes then started to stream down her cheeks. "Derek, please," she shook her head and whispered, "Don't."

He backed away from her and turned then hit the start button of the elevator and softly said, "I want to be a part of my child's life."

She closed her eyes, pursed her lips tightly. She tried to regain her composure then wiped the tears from her eyes. "I have no right to keep you away from your child Derek," she replied quietly.

He let out a sigh of relief and said, "Thank you."

The doors to the elevator slid open and she bolted out the doors, leaving Derek to stand there watching her retreating figure.

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Addison spent the rest of the day trying to recover from her encounter with Derek. Luckily she had finished all her appointments before their encounter so she was able to go home early so she could retreat and try to figure out what the hell was going on with her emotions. How could she allow herself to be put back on that rollercoaster again? She had left a message with Mark's secretary letting him know she was tired and was going home early, so he wouldn't worry, he had already told her he would pick up something for dinner. They had already planned on spending the evening at her place.

She was sat on her patio watching the boats in the distance on Lake Washington trying to make sense of what had happened with Derek. She was angry with herself, how could she respond to him? How could she be so weak after he had treated her so badly?

She could hear Mark calling her; she rose from her seat, straightened and put a smile on her face as she entered the great room. She was going to do her best not to show Mark anything was wrong. "So what did you bring for dinner?" she asked cheerily.

"Let's see I picked up a rotisserie chicken, herb roasted potatoes and green bean. How does that sound?" he smiled and gave her a kiss on her cheek. "And for desert, I brought double chocolate ice cream."

Her eyes light up, "Sounds wonderful, I'm starved." She really wasn't hungry, but she would force herself to eat. She went to the cabinet and pulled out two plates, two glasses, silverware and napkins then brought them over to the table in the kitchen, she quickly set the table as Mark unloaded the bag of food. While she dished out the food onto each of their plate, he picked up the glasses and walked over to the refrigerator and filled them with ice. He filled her glass with milk and his glass with iced tea, then walked back to the table placed her milk in front of her then sat down. They both began to eat their dinner. "Thanks," she grinned at him, "This is wonderful."

They chatted about their day as they ate, keeping to the mundane happenings at the hospital. She tried to maintain a cheery façade, Mark watched her intently as she talked; he knew there was something troubling her so he decided to give her nudge to open up. "Okay something is bothering you, I can tell. So spill it," he reached over and gently held her hand and gave it a little squeeze in encouragement.

She sighed and leaned back in her seat, she looked at the table and seeing they both were clearly done with their meal she picked up their plates walked over to the sink, turned on the water and added some dish soap to the water, as she did so she carefully brought up the subject of Derek. "I talked to Derek today," she said evenly. She turned off the water before the bubbles could threaten to over flow the sink.

Mark looked over at her as he finished clearing the table and brought the dishes over for her to wash. He watched her carefully as he picked up a towel and started to dry the dishes and said, "What did he want?"

She bit the inside of her cheek and tentatively continued, "To talk about the baby."

He tried to hide his surprise, "And?"

"He told me he wants to be a part of his child's life," she replied trying not to show him how much it had freaked her out.

"And?" he replied quietly.

"I told him I had no right to keep him away from his child," she shrugged trying to act as it was no big deal, but it was.

"So Derek wants to be a part of your child's life?" he asked with a slow nod. "Well we always knew that was a possibility. How do you feel about this turn of events?" he asked with concern. He stopped what he was doing and looked at her, and tried to figure out what she was really feeling, since he knew she was trying to cover her true feelings.

"Honestly?" he nodded. "I don't have a clue how I feel about it," she sighed. "Do you mind if we table this discussion? I really just want to put it out of my mind for the time being," she asked hopefully.

He narrowed his eyes and nodded then reached over and pushed a lock of red hair behind her ear. "Sure," he knew she needed more time to adjust to this new situation. She had to try and figure out how she felt about Derek wanting to be a part of her child's life. He knew he needed to give her space and that was exactly what he would do.

"Thanks, I really don't know what I would do without you, you know that?" she beamed a smile up at him.

He smiled back his eyes lighting up as he studied her. As they were finishing up with the last of the dishes he wanted to trying and cheer her up. "Are you ready for some dessert?" he headed to the refrigerator to get the ice cream out.

She walked up to him and put her hand on the refrigerator to stop him from taking the ice cream out. She slipped her arms around his waist, looked up and smiled up at him, her smile turned into a wicked grin when she said to him, "I'm ready for dessert, but not ice cream." He swallowed as he looked into her eyes and her true meaning registered. She reached up to caress his cheek, then slipped her hand behind his neck and pulled him down into a kiss. It was a deep passionate kiss; his heart was aching and mind racing as the kiss continued their tongues dancing against each other. As the kiss slowed he started to come back to his senses and pulled back. He shook his head at her and whispered, "No, not like this."

Her blue green eyes looked up at him desperately pleading with him. "Please," she whispered hoarsely.

"Addie," he reached out and gently took her chin in his hand and guided her look to in his eyes. "There is nothing on earth that I would rather do then be with you but we can't." He was shook his head, "I can't be your escape from Derek again."

"It's not like that," she whimpered and looked away.

He gently put his hand on her shoulder and continued, "Addie you can't tell me it's not like that. Since I've come to Seattle we shared one amazing kiss, but for that one kiss our relationship has strictly been just two amazing friends. Honestly I still don't know what that kiss meant because we found out you were pregnant before it could go any further. I know there is a lot of pressure on you right now, how hard your split from Derek has been for you. You are carrying his child, and I know you still in some way are in love with him. That just doesn't go away because he stopped loving you."

She turned back to him tears started for fall down her cheeks and stood firmly in front of him. "I don't want to love him! I don't want to have feelings for him! I want them to stop!" she screamed. She started to sob uncontrollably.

He reached out and cupped her face caressing her cheek with his thumb, "Addie you can't make it stop by making love with me, we already tried that remember?" The back of his eyes started to sting, he leaned over and placed a firm kiss on her forehead. He could feel a tear slip down his cheek. He wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly to his body and let her cry.

"I love you Addie, but I can't do this, I just can't. I won't survive a second round. I won't survive a second round because I felt something this time that wasn't there last time. If we do this now, we will never have a chance to get it back, and that would destroy me."

She let out another sob and shook her head into his chest, "I . . . I'm sorry Mark, I don't want to hurt you. I'm so sorry, I. . ." She couldn't get another word out through her crying.

"Addie I know it will be hard, but you have to work this out with Derek," he kissed the top of her head again. "I know you are frightened, and I have no clue where Derek's head is at this moment." He tried to calm himself, he didn't want to tell her this, but he had to free her to make up her own mind. "There is a chance that Derek finally realized what he lost when he let you go. For all I know he wants you back, he wants to have you back so you can both raise this child together as a family." He bit the inside of his cheek trying to stem the tears from falling; this was the hardest conversation he ever had. Addison happiness meant everything to him, and if being with Derek and raising her child with him would make her happy, he had to accept it. He looked straight into her eyes, her tears still flowing freely. "I will support you if that is what you want. I meant it when I said I was your friend no matter what," he tried to smile.

She reached up and lightly touched his cheek with her fingers, "But I don't want to be in love with Derek, I want to be in love with you." A determined look fell across her face. "Mark I am in love with you."

He continued to smile down on her and very slightly shook his head, "Addie, can you look me in the eye and tell me you are not in love with Derek?"

She looked him straight in the eye and firmed herself, "Mark I love you and I. . ." she tried to say it looking him in the eye, but he was right, she couldn't look him in the eye and say she was not in love with Derek. She turned her head from him and started to cry again, then crumpled to the floor.

Mark reached down and scooped Addie up into his arms then carried her out on to the patio; there was a glider on the patio that could accommodate two. He carefully sat down settling Addie on his lap, cradled her in his arms and rocked her, she buried her face into his shoulder and continued to cry. Twenty minutes later her crying had subsided, he could feel her steady breathing she had fallen asleep in his arms. He held her tightly to his chest and carefully stood. He carried her back into the house upstairs to her bedroom, her covers where already folded back, so he gently placed her in bed, pulled off her shoes then pulled the blankets and comforter up over her. He stood over her watching her peaceful sleep; he leaned down and kissed her forehead one last time, then exited the room.

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I hope you are enjoying my story, please let me know what you think.