thanks so much for all the feedback so far! i really appreciate it :)
yay for otherAdDeks! ;) anyway...here's chaps 3&4...I won't always be combining chapters like this...I just feel like they'd be too short to stand on their own for now.
Chapter 3
An hour or so after Helen Boyd awoke from surgery, Addison and Izzie entered the recovery room to break the news about her unborn child. Both Mr. and Mrs. Boyd were together at this point.
"How are you feeling?" Addison asked gently.
"Okay, I can't-" the patient tried shift her weight onto her left side.
"Don't try to move just yet. You're going to be a little sore."
"Am I…is he…" she didn't make much sense at this point, but Addison knew who her patient was referring to. She had a feeling that Mr. Boyd was already aware of his son's fate, but chose to keep his wife in the dark.
"I'm very sorry, Mrs. Boyd, and I really don't know how to tell you this but…" Addison paused, "We couldn't save your baby."
"What?" she seemed shocked.
"It was worse than we had expected, and if we didn't let the baby go, you may not have-"
"But you told me he would be okay." Helen interrupted. "You just killed him anyway?" her words were incredibly harsh, which of course was to be expected.
"I wouldn't put it that way. You could have died, Mrs. Boyd." Addison had been reprimanded by patients plenty of times, but it still hurt.
"You said you were the best." Helen spoke again. "I was told that there was no one better than you."
"Helen…" Mr. Boyd attempted to calm his wife down, though he knew it was no use.
Izzie, who had been standing in the back felt herself getting more and more frustrated with each passing second. Although she was not too fond of Addison, she knew that she was an excellent surgeon and did not deserve the treatment which she was receiving. "Even the best surgeons can't save everyone. You have to understand that."
"Stevens, please..." Addison did not want the intern getting involved in what she viewed as a lawsuit waiting to happen.
"Four years to get pregnant. That's how long it took us. Four years. And you killed my baby. You KILLED him!" Helen raised her voice as loud as she could possibly go before starting to cry.
An awkward silence encompassed the small room. "Dr. Shepherd…" Izzie broke the silence.
"I'll be back to check on you later. Once again, I am deeply sorry." And with that, Addison whirled around, leaving the room as quickly as possible.
The redhead brushed past everything and everyone in the hallway, taking the term 'power walking' to a new level. As terrible as it was, she actually wished that she had just let her patient die. She hated being treated with such disrespect, nor did she deserve it. Everyone respected her when she was in New York. Her life was there. She truly believed that no one in Seattle appreciated her talent, even though this was far from the truth. All she wanted to do was go home. Not go to her trailer…but to her actual home.
Addison finally came to a halt once she reached the nursery. She leaned in toward the glass, looking straight ahead toward the incubators which were lined up in front of her. She noticed an empty incubator on the left-hand corner and could not help but envision the baby that she lost sleeping soundly in the space. She shook her head, looking down as she tried to catch her breath. She concentrated heavily on breathing, because if she lost control, there was no doubt in her mind that she would break into tears. Addison closed her eyes and started to count backwards from 50.
"You did everything you could…" she had reached 33 when she heard Izzie's voice nearby. Addison opened her eyes, glancing to her right to see the young intern. Izzie did not look overwhelmingly concerned about her superior…she was just being honest. "Neither one of them would have survived if not for you." she added quietly before quickly turning away.
Addison did not respond, nor did she completely process the blonde's words. She closed her eyes again, desperately attempting to gain composure but losing her grip with each passing second. Her breath became unsteady as she gripped the small ledge she had been leaning on. She felt a single tear trail down her face and instantly wiped it away. You are Addison Montgomery Shepherd she told herself. You do not cry when a patient yells at you. You're stronger than that. You're stronger. But she was not just crying because of her patient, and she knew that. It took a lot more than a few harsh words to break her down. It was everything piled up. Her lack of sleep, her crumbling relationship…everything. She soon felt as if she were going to lose herself completely, and could only wish herself far from Seattle Grace. Yet, rather than running, she simply stood against the wall in quiet desperation that her anguish would soon pass.
Chapter 4
Derek and Dr. Miranda Bailey were doing rounds throughout the hospital when they passed by the nursery. Derek immediately noticed his wife standing by the window simply by her hair color. He could not tell that anything was wrong from behind, so he continued passing by.
"Hello, Addison." He said rather coldly. Addison, however, did not respond or even look in his direction. "What, so you won't even talk to me now?" He carried on, assuming that his wife had been purposely avoiding him. He propped himself up next to her, fully prepared to argue. But as soon as he got a good look at her face his expression immediately softened and all the anger that he had felt just seconds earlier seemed to disappear.
"I don't plan on standing around being your third wheel all day, Dr. Shepherd." Dr. Bailey interrupted.
"Can you cover for me?" Derek asked, leaving Addison for a moment.
"Excuse me?"
"Just for a little while…" he seemed agitated .
"You know you look pathetic when you plead." she paused, "I've got you covered for now. But don't expect any favors in the near future."
"Thank you." Derek rolled his eyes as he turned back to be with his wife. He strained his neck a bit, trying to get a better look at her, but she kept turning away to avoid his glance. "Addie…" he began, "what's wrong?"
No response once again. Addison felt ashamed and a bit embarrassed as well.
"Come on." He delicately wrapped one arm around his wife, leading her to a relatively desolate corridor of Seattle Grace. He knew that if he had any hopes of getting Addison to actually speak to him, that he would need to get her out of the public eye. "Talk to me." He spoke gently.
"I-" Addison's voice cracked with her first word, but she struggled to continue anyway.
"It's okay, just take it slow." He felt her body trembling slightly as he drew himself in closer to her. He cupped her face, seeing if he could force some form of eye contact.
Addison glanced up at her husband. She had been able to control her emotions relatively well for a while, but seeing Derek's eyes full of pity had become too much. Her strength came crashing down as she began to speak once again. "I'm just - I'm hav-" her words were all broken as tears began to flow freely down her face. "I'm having a bad day, that's all. It's really not…it's not a big deal." she managed to mutter through her tears.
"Okay, okay, shhh…" Derek took his wife in his arms, allowing himself to actually hold her for the first time in ages. He tried every trick he knew to somehow soothe her. Unfortunately, he did not actually know how he was supposed to comfort Addison. In fact, he could not even think of the last time he held her as she cried. He realized just then that he truly had been absent…that maybe if he had just taken 20 minutes out of his day to listen to his wife back in New York things would have worked out differently.
Addison's body tensed as she desperately tried to stop herself from shaking. Her breath was also getting increasingly uneven.
"Addie, you need to slow down." Derek attempted to get through to her, though he knew it was useless. "Can you try and breathe for me?" He spoke to her as if she were his patient, something that he certainly was not used to.
The redhead tried to obey her husband's request, but was unsuccessful.
"Shh, deep breaths in and out." he coaxed, all the while brushing a few stray hairs away from her face. "In and out…" he repeated until eventually her breathing began to slow down and she was no longer gasping every few seconds. "There you go." He leaned Addison's limp body against his, never once letting go of her. He rested his head on top of hers and closed his eyes, waiting patiently for her tears to subside.
Within about ten minutes or so, Addison had in fact calmed down a great deal. Every now and then a few tears would escape, but Derek figured that it was an appropriate time to try and talk to her. He slowly eased her body off of his, looking directly at her. However, Addison felt the need to look away…still ashamed to look her husband in the eye even after all the two had just been through.
"Not such a tough guy after all, are you." He broke the silence with a bit of humor.
Addison cracked a smile, appreciating her husband's lame attempt at a joke. "Shutup." she replied lightly.
Derek smiled, planting a small kiss on his wife's forehead. "Do you want to tell me what happened today?" he asked on a more serious note.
"Nothing, really. I just…" she tried to focus her mind "…the Boyd surgery didn't go very well." she responded.
"You lost the kid?" The desensitization which comes along with being a doctor was ridiculously obvious from his tone.
"Yes, Derek. Thank you."
"I don't mean to sound like I don't care, because I do. But you've lost tons of patients over the years, Addison."
"You really know how to make a girl feel better, don't you?"
"What I mean is that there's no way that's the only thing that's bothering you."
Addison shrugged, looking the other way. "I'm okay. I am. I just…I haven't really slept-"…but before she could finish her sentence, Derek's pager began beeping.
"Damnit" he looked down, "I have to take this, I'm sorry."
"No, no. Go ahead." She understood very well that Derek needed to respond to his pager call.
"We'll talk about this later okay?" He said, quickly getting up.
"Mhm." Addison simply nodded, even though she knew that they would not be talking about anything 'later'.
"Hey" he looked down at his wife one last time, "you're okay."
