OK, well, I was orriginally planning on making this chapter a little longer because there are a few things that still haven't happened, but everyone's asking for an update so I thought I'd post this now - and please don't ask for more straight away because I'm at school and welcome as the distraction of writing is... I don't think my teachers quite see it that way. Oh, and before I forget, thankyou for all the lovely reviews...
Boulevard of Broken Dreams
I walk a lonely road
The only one that I have ever known
Don't know where it goes
But It's home to me and I walk alone
I walk this empty street
On the Boulevard of broken dreams
Where the city sleeps
And I'm the only one and I walk alone
MEREDITH
Meredith pulled her daughter into her arms and for one glorious moment, they were perfectly safe, the pair of them, wrapped up in the love of mother and child.
"Addison?" Dr. Simons was on his feet, hastily trying to regain his composure. However, his efforts were unrewarded, the woman in front of him didn't even respond. She had turned all her attention to the little girl, eyes closed in an ecstasy of relief.
"Meredith!" Dr. Shepherd repeated that name he hadn't let pass his lips for four years. The two interns were staring at their mentor in confusion, and, at last, she turned as well.
At that moment, Meredith wanted to melt into the floor and his arms at the same time. Torn between old love and new fear she swayed in the doorway, clutching onto the little girl in her arms.
Suddenly Derek turned to Ally and Henry, "I'll take care of this, don't worry Dr. Patterson, I'll bring up your concerns," and filled with curiosity at this bizarre scene unfolding before them, the pair regretfully left.
"Meredith?" He said it gently, but as he took a step towards her, she tensed, like a frightened animal, and still she hadn't said a word. She tried to force out the words. Even from here, his practiced eyes spotted the swellings on her collar bone and the bulge in her sleeve where it hid her cast.
He swallowed the bile that filled his throat at the thought – some other man with Meredith, kissing her, making love to her, hitting her. All these years, and he was too late. When the tears fell, they leaked from the corners of his eyes until his face was a mirror of the little girl's.
"Mer, why do you let him hit you?"
The words she had been practising for four years, all those months when she had felt so lost and betrayed. She tried to say that he had no right, no right to be part of their lives, but his question seemed to pull the floor from under her feet.
"Ella," She took the sticky little hand in hers, "Ella baby, it's time to go home, say goodbye to the doctor." Derek's face flinched in answer to her words, but she kept her eyes firmly fixed on the toddler at her feet.
Ella on the other hand, looked up at yet another strange adult and gravely held out her free hand, freshly covered in its plaster cast and suspended in a cotton sling. "Bye bye," her childish voice unmatched by those grey saucer eyes.
Meredith tugged slightly on her daughter's hand, eager to leave the past behind her; where it belonged.
Suddenly, a crazy thought hit Derek and he yelled,
"Three and eight months?" but he was too late, mother and daughter had already disappeared around the first corner.
My shadow's the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating
Sometimes I wish some one up there would find me
Till then I walk alone
CARLOS
By the time Meredith got home, Carlos had been waiting for three hours, bordering on hysterical; he let out a yell of relief as Ella ran through the door.
"Baby!" He kissed her forehead, swinging her up into his arms and narrowly avoiding a vase on the sideboard. He tried to let his panic subside as he babbled it out into words, "What happened to Daddy's little princess?" and as Ella launched into a detailed account of her day, starting with her trip to the park with Mrs. McKenzy and leading on to all the new friends she'd made at the hospital: Ally, and Henry, and the doctor and how she'd had an x-ray and how she'd got a plaster cast that you could draw on with textas, Carlos' eyes wandered over to where an exhausted Meredith leant against the wall, dazed eyes staring ahead.
Carefully, he put the child down and gently pulled the woman he loved into his arms. "God, I was so worried," and they held each other for a moment, just revelling in the calm that comes from being held in another person's arms. Softly, Meredith let her lips part as he kissed her, and she shuddered with the softness of his touch – surely she was doing the right thing.
Neither willing to admit the irony of Carlos' fear, neither ready to acknowledge there was poison in paradise.
That night, they put Ella to bed together, Meredith and Ella curled up on the bed while Carlos read, and when he finished, he planted a kiss on both their heads.
I'm walking down the line
That divides me somewhere in my mind
On the border line of the edge
And where I walk alone
Read between the lines of what's
Fucked up and everything's all right
Check my vital signs to know I'm still alive
And I walk alone
DEREK
"Three and eight months," Derek repeated Simons words to himself like a mantra for the rest of the day. It was just possible, but why hadn't she told him, for that matter, why had she signed herself Addison, and why had she gone back to a man who hurt her.
I hurt her.
The words cut through him like nothing else, but he wasn't hypocrite enough to deny them. Once again, he cursed her stubbornness – if she wouldn't talk to him, he would just have to find her, and make her listen to him all over again.
Filled with a new determination, it was though a little of the life that had escaped him for so long, had crept back, burning his blood the urgency to overcome the impossible.
I walk this empty street
On the Boulevard of broken dreams
Where the city sleeps
And I'm the only one and I walk a...
My shadows the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
Till then I walk alone
