Chapter Two

Meredith's hands were shaking as she walked around the kitchen making tea. She was making tea for her husband's ex-wife who had just appeared on their doorstep. The irony did not escape her. The irony was made worse by the fact that she showed up just before she and Derek were about to have sex for the first time in two god-damned weeks. Meredith was not amused. If it weren't for the incredibly serious look on Addison's face her annoyance would have been anger. But worry kept the annoyance from being anger.

"Is it Mark?" Derek was asking as Meredith reentered the living room.

Addison sipped her tea and shook her head. "No. No problems there. No change either," she added; a hint of bitterness in her voice. Meredith glanced away from her, she understood this pain.

Mark Sloan had not recovered from the car accident three years before. He was PVS, diagnosed by Derek himself. Addison still could not let go, clinging even harder than she had clung to her marriage. Now the shell of the man who had once been Seattle Grace's best plastic surgeon had a room in the same home as Meredith's mother.

"Addie, there's not going to be change--" Derek started to say, but Meredith put a hand on his arm. He had had this battle before with the woman, once so against keeping patients on life support. Meredith could tell that Addison was not here for that.

"What is it?" Meredith asked gently, folding Derek's hand into hers.

Addison looked away from them, at the pictures displayed on the mantelpiece; pictures which documented the past five years of their family. "I'm sorry to bother you like this," she began, smoothing her plaid skirt nervously. "But I didn't know where else to go." She took a breath and looked back at them, although she seemed to be meeting only Derek's eyes. "l just got back from New York. Derek, I went to see Lauren. Professionally".

Derek drew in a breath and shifted, but Meredith was confused. "Who?" she asked Derek. He didn't seem to hear her.

"She confirmed something that I suspected. I have breast cancer."

The words hung in the air, neither Derek nor his wife knowing what to say. Finally Addison broke the silence. "I wouldn't have come to you, but I need a favor. I don't want anyone to know. I'm going to take a leave of absence and get treated in New York I just need someone to go with me, at least for the surgery. I don't want to bother anyone there. None of them understand about Mark, think they blame me for dragging him down here. I thought since you're familiar with the city. .."she trailed off. Meredith's mind was racing.

She had avoided contact with Addison as much as possible over the years, going as far as having interns go to her to request consults. Nor she was in Meredith's living room asking her husband to fly across the country with her. Yes, she had an incredibly valid reason, but it still put Meredith on the edge.

"We'll have to --. "she began to say, just as Derek said: "Of course ".

Meredith looked at him in shock. And was about to very strongly suggest they go to the kitchen when Lydia called out from her bedroom. "I'll go to her;" Meredith said, standing and walking behind Derek so that she wouldn't have to look at him. "Addison, I am truly sorry that this is happening to you." Addison nodded and Meredith headed towards the stairs.

"Mommy!" Lydia called and Meredith took the stairs two at a time. The girl's room was dark; her night light had gone out. Meredith nearly fell over a misplaced shoe, but righted herself quickly.

"Mommy's here, sweetheart," she murmured, sinking onto her knees by the bed. Lydia reached out for her, her arms going around Meredith's neck and her face buried in her shoulder. "It's okay, baby" Meredith soothed, rubbing her back, even though it wasn't really okay.

5he held Lydia to her until the child stopped crying. Even after her breathing became steady and she was obviously asleep Meredith held her, because that was something she could do.

After closing Lydia's door she cored not bring herself to go back downstairs, so she went and sat on her bed, attempting to figure out what was wrong with her. A friend was in need, what was the issue? If it were George or Izzie or Cristina. It's not though, a voice in the back of her mind said, it's Addison. That was the issue. This wasn't like when Mark was injured and she and Derek could work together to fix it, this was his ex-wife coming to him for help.

Meredith did not want to admit it, but it scared her.

After a few minutes of sitting in her bedroom in the dark she heard the front door open and close and then the sound of Derek's footsteps on the stairs.

"Is she okay?" he asked, referring to Lydia.

Meredith nodded.

"I guess it wouldn't work to say 'Let's pick up where we left off'?" he said heavily, leaning in the doorway.

Meredith shook her head, not looking at him.

"Can you talk to me?" he asked, stepping into the room and closing the door, before flipping on the light.

She looked up at him, knowing that hurt showed on her face. "I know you want to help her. I want to help her. I just think we should have discussed it first. This is horrible, and scary, and you and I are the married ones now. We talk about things, Derek!"

He ran a hand over his face and looked up at the ceiling. "I know," he said. "I should have checked with you before I agreed like that. My mind wasn't working, you know? She said that and I just reacted like…." He was obviously searching for the way to say it

"Like I had said it," Meredith finished, sounding defeated and looking away again.

"No!" he said sharply, sharp enough to make her finally meet his eyes. "If you had said that, Meredith, if you had told me that you had cancer I would not have been able to think, or move, or do anything. My world would stop." His voice went tender and she suddenly felt relief wash over her. "But Mer, you should have realized that. We've been married for five years, I love you. That's not going to change if Addison figures a little bit more prominently in our lives!" He stood across the room from her, staring hard at her. "You've got to trust me!"

"I do trust you!" she insisted. "I trust you! I just…. Freak out. You know that, Derek. I'm not proud of it. Sometimes a very small part of me feels like someone is going to show up and take all of this away from me. The first time that did happen and it just happened to be Addison who caused it."

She felt hot tears behind her eyes but now was not the time to cry. If she cried he would come over and hold her and it would be perfect. "So, I'm sorry if when she comes here looking for help I don't immediately leap at the chance to let you accompany her across country. I feel for her, you know I don't think she deserves that, that anyone does. I just…. I don't know. I don't know how to not sound like a horrible person." She suddenly felt vulnerable, with him standing and her sitting on the bed, but if she stood that could be seen as offering a challenge.

"You're not a horrible person, Meri."

"Don't." she said harshly. "Only Dad calls me that."

"Sorry. You're not a horrible person. I understand, I do. I think we're both just over-reacting because of the shock of what's just happened."

"Don't patronize me. Now is not the time for patronizing. I' m not Lydia, Derek; I understand the gravity of this situation. I understand that a colleague of mine who I very much respect has a horrible disease which she is about to attempt to hide from her friends and came to us for help. What I cannot get past is that she came to you for help, and you are her ex-husband."

"Meredith, nothing's going to happen. My going to New York with Addison will not change one single solitary thing with us. Our family, you, me and Lydia will not be affected. I would never do anything to compromise our relationship Meredith."

He took a cautious step closer, and when she did not react he sat on the bed next to her. Harsh words came into her mind: You did it to Addison, or If you're sure you've really chosen, but she did not speak them. She allowed him to put his arm around her and draw her to him.

"Meredith Grey, you are my life," he said, into her hair. "Okay?"

"Okay, " she agreed, but there was still a lingering sense that this was not over. They went to bed, love-making having lost its moment. He put his arms around her as was natural, but she did not lean back into him. Her hand went under her head and her eyes stayed open as she thought about what had happened. She was afraid, like she had not been in a long time.

When she finally went to sleep a nightmare came to her. The bomb. The explosion. She awoke shaking, Derek holding her tightly.

"Like mother, like daughter," he said sleepily, wiping her tears with his fingers and kissing her cheek. She smiled, despite her worry and kissed him.

"Have I ever said thank you?" she asked, in a whisper, her eyes only half open.

"For what?" he yawned, one hand tracing circles on her upper arm.

"This. The holding me after the dreams, the just being there. I used to thank you. I don't want it to be habit. Because it means something to me every time."

Derek smiled and nuzzled her shoulder. "That's my Meredith," he said. "I love you. And you're welcome."

"I love you too, Derek," she said, meaning it with every fiber of her being. He smiled contentedly and soon fell back asleep, but she lay awake again. Wondering.

"Dr. Stevens!" Chief Webber called, as Izzie headed to board the elevator. She turned around and smiled at the chief.

"Yes?" she said, brightly.

"I wanted to ask you, has Addison Montgomary said anything to you lately about taking a leave of absence?"

Izzie shook her head, puzzled. "No. I mean, she went on a trip last week, and I haven't seen her yet today, but--."

"Well, she came to me this morning to say she was going to take a six month leave, and start taking her personal time today. Very unlike her. I'll be relying on you to keep the department going," he said, firmly and she nodded, swallowing. She had always felt uneasy around the chief since he let her come back. "Is there something going on with Sloan?" he asked, quietly.

"I…. I don't know. I don't think so. I was there visiting Ellis Grey last week, and the nurses said there was no change in Mark. That there hasn't been for some time."

The chief nodded and sighed. "Okay. Well, knowing Addison, she has her reasons."

"I'm sure she'll tell someone, eventually," Izzie replied, making a note to go by Addison's condo when she got off.

"Yes, well. As I said, I'm counting on you Stevens. Don't let me down." The chief then swept off, leaving Izzie feeling seriously uneasy.

She went back down the hall to the elevator. When the doors opened, Meredith was there, leaning against a back wall looking exhausted. "Late night?" Izzie asked her with a raised eyebrow.

"Yeah. Well, not the way you're thinking, unfortunately. We got interrupted…." She trailed off, and then shut her mouth tightly. "What was that about, with the chief?"

Izzie shrugged, "Apparently Addison is taking off for six months, effective immediately. Have you heard anything?"

"About Addison, no, why should I have heard anything about Addison? I don't talk to her, remember?"

She said all of this quickly, as if she were hiding something. Izzie wanted to pry, but they arrived on her floor too soon for that. "I'll see you later," she said.

"Yeah. I may go by the nursery. I'm illin'," Meredith said, with a small smile. Izzie was about to say something about the fact that she could provide her own drugs, if Derek were willing, but the elevator door closed. Plus, something about the way that Meredith said they got interrupted made her not want to go there.

She always went to the nursery early in the morning to relieve worried parents, and hopefully release babies as early as possible. She remembered the anxiety that Meredith had gone through waiting for Lydia to be released. Addison had always done the same thing, but Izzie liked to think that she had also learned it from her own experience.

Izzie was no longer in her residency having started her fellowship in neo-natal with a specialization in disabilities that appeared at birth. She was very obviously influenced by her best friend's daughter, but it had the added bonus of giving her more time with the babies in the nursery. She preferred that to being with their mothers.

Alex passed her in the corridor and smiled, she smiled back and winked at him. They were on again, although Cristina tended to refer to it as "horny again". That wasn't really true, Izzie knew that they both had underlying issues. They were working on it. It was getting better. Their last off again had only lasted a week.

She smiled as she entered the NICU to check on her most fragile patients. The nurses nodded at her as she went to the first isolette where a tiny birdlike baby lay staring at her solemnly.

"Hey there," she cooed to him, sticking one hand into the isolette to stroke his arm. "How are you doing today little guy? Any miracles to share with me?"

"He's stable," a nurse replied, coming by with the baby's chart. "He just needs to gain a few ounces to graduate to the nursery." Izzie nodded, smiling at the baby. They needed a very personal touch when they were so little. It was an incentive.

At that second an alarm went off across the room. A baby had stopped breathing. Izzie rushed over to the insert a needle into the little one's collapsed lung. It was natural, auto-pilot for her to do things like that, the babies became patients in an instant.

We lost the Engle's baby last night," a nurse reported, standing at her elbow as Izzie slowly withdrew her stethoscope. She turned to check the baby's IV line and nodded sadly. "Dr. Peterson spoke to the parents." Izzie nodded again, moving across the room to check on another little one. They had expected the death of that poor baby, but she had still hoped.

"Okay," Izzie said, putting her stethoscope around her neck. "I'll be taking on Dr. Montgomary's neo-natal patients, I'll need someone to brief me on them when I get back from the nursery."

The nurse looked startled, but she nodded. Izzie ran her finger along the arm of the baby she was checking on one last time and headed out the door. In the nursery, she made the same proclamation and found Dr. Peterson giving him the majority of Addison's adult patients. No one questioned her. In the past five years she had become Addison Montgomary's protégé, and thus someone who you did not question. It wasn't something she milked, necessarily, but it did have its advantages.

She liked giving parents good news. It was the one time with adult contact did not bother her, outside of the delivery room. She released two babies who had been there longer than normal that morning, and four other newborns. One mother sat in a chair next to a bassinet, looking exhausted.

"Melanie?" Izzie said, gently, crouching by the woman, "It's okay to go sleep. We've got her here. It's why we exist."

The young woman nodded but didn't move. Izzie smiled and continued with her exams. When she looked up from checking one baby's heart rate she saw Meredith standing at the very edge of the nursery window. Izzie waved to her, but Meredith drew back almost as if she had been caught at something. She looked like Lydia when she had been caught eavesdropping at the top of the stairs. Izzie shrugged and turned back to the baby.

She had changed since she restarted her residency, she knew, being a surgeon wasn't always easier, but she was better at handling it. She had finally earned respect among the staff, mostly due to Addison, and she was told that she was good at her job.

An intern, one of George's, came to find her when she was on her way to get coffee before her scheduled surgeries began.

"Dr. Stevens? I was told to update you on Dr. Montgomary's neo-natal cases."

"Okay," Izzie said, checking her watch, "Can you walk and talk?"

"Um… yes," the intern said, shuffling charts.

"Okay, go," Izzie directed, and the intern began as Izzie made a beeline for the coffee. She was beginning to understand Cristina's love of power.

Almost as soon as she got her coffee she felt her pager go off. It seemed that her ten o'clock had come in a little early. In labor.

"Okay, Dr. Sussez, let's see if you can operate and talk," she said flashing a smile at the intern while racing for the elevator.

Momentarily stunned the intern was rooted to the spot for a second before running after her. Interns were so much fun to play with.

Once the surgeries were over, she went into the cafeteria to get lunch. Cristina was in the line and they started to walk together to their table.

Meredith, Derek and Lydia sat at one, and Izzie paused to watch them. Lydia was chatting animatedly as always, blue finger paint on her forehead. Neither of her parents was speaking, but they seemed to be having a conversation anyway. McDreamy was making puppy dog eyes at Meredith who was steadfastly giving him a very obvious 'not now' look and not noticing that all of Lydia's vegetables were finding their way onto her plate.

"Trouble in paradise?" Alex asked, coming up next to them. Izzie shrugged.

"I was over there last night and it seemed like they were just waiting for me to leave before they tore each other's clothes off and did it like rabbits," Cristina murmured. Izzie snickered as Meredith looked up.

"Gee, Mer," Cristina smiled as the three sat down. "I didn't know that you liked sprouts so much."

George was puzzled. No, George was actually very confused. It was a day off that he shared with Callie and they had planned to go look at apartments. However, in the ten minutes it had taken him to get up, go to the bathroom and get dressed his door had been locked.

That didn't normally happen in the townhouse, the reason for the very well enforced knocking rule. He hadn't knocked, of course, because when he left there had only been Callie in the room half asleep. Plus, Alex and Izzie were both at the hospital.

"Callie?" he called, "The door's locked." There was no answer, and he jiggled the doorknob, "Callie?"

"Go away, George," she called, sounding strangely angry.

"Callie? Are you getting dressed? We have to go in, like, fifteen--."

"I'm not going anywhere today! You don't want me to go anywhere with you today!"

Confused was no longer the word. Baffled worked pretty well.

"Yes I do. I want to go look at apartments with you today."

"No you don't!" Callie all but shrieked and George was seriously taken aback.

"Callie."

"Please George, just go," Callie murmured, apparently directly behind the door.

Not knowing what else to do, George backed away. "I'll be downstairs, okay? If you need anything," he turned and went down the stairs. He collapsed in a chair at the table and put his head in his hands, trying to figure out what the hell was going on.

Five years they had lived together. They'd fought, even broken up once just before Lydia's third birthday. Sometimes he thought that it was ridiculous of them to persevere in a relationship that had started as a rebound and a need for companionship. Then Callie would smile and kiss him playfully and he would forget these doubts. Somehow it just worked.

Now they had agreed to get out of Meredith's townhouse, to go somewhere more theirs and more permanent. Izzie could easily afford the bills now, and Alex was around most of the time. Meredith had spoken of renting the place out to interns, but then Cristina had brought up Doctorpalooza and she had thought better of it.

Cristina and Burke had shared an apartment for years, and they had only gotten married six months before, so really he and Callie weren't doing much commitment wise. She had just been in a strange mood over the past couple of days. Maybe, he realized, she needed her meds tweaked. Surprisingly, since he was a doctor, it always took him a long time to come to that type of conclusion. It had happened before, but he never remembered her funks being quite this bad. Whatever, if it was now was not the time to talk to her, he knew.

He reached for the phone and dialed the real estate agent's number to reschedule. Even if Callie did get up soon, it wouldn't be in time. They didn't have another day off together for almost two weeks. After hanging up, he got up from the kitchen and went into the living room to turn on the TV.

It was too quiet in the house. It had been crowded for a while, with the Shepard-Grey family, George, Callie and Izzie, but it had been nice. Friday (aka whatever day the most people had off) night dinners at Meredith's were just not the same. He missed Lydia and her antics, and Meredith's issues; even Shepard, sometimes. He had never quite gotten over his disdain for the man, but Meredith was happy with him. That was what mattered, as Izzie constantly reminded him.

There was absolutely nothing on the TV he realized as he flipped past The Price is Right for the fifth time. He picked up a magazine that was lying on the coffee table, but he somehow could not bring himself to be interested in the sordid affairs of celebrities. He was just about to try to go upstairs and convince Callie to come down again when he heard a crash and a scream.

He lunged towards the stairs and took them two at a time, thinking that he had thought that he was done with emergencies like these when Meredith and Lydia had moved out. The door to his bedroom was still locked, and he threw his weight against it, it took several tries before the frame splintered enough for him to get through the door. He'd owe Meredith for that, he supposed.

Once he got into the room he surveyed the scene around him. A broken lamp lay on the floor, under the window. It was the lamp from the bedside table, and lit looked as if it had been yanked out of the wall. He did not see Callie at first, but stepping over to the bed he nearly fell over her, where she was curled in a ball on the floor, sobbing.

He dropped to his knees by her, gently putting his arms around her and drawing her to him. She fought a little, but he held her firmly.

"Callie, it's okay. I've got you. We'll take care of this okay?"

She shook against him, more than he had ever felt someone shake before, and eventually he felt her body just give out under his hold, and he gently pushed her back, seeing that her eyes had closed. Gently he pulled her up and on to the bed, before turning to clean up the mess on the floor. One thing at a time. He cleaned up the glass and then turned to the rest of the room, which was somewhat destroyed. He picked up clothes that had been thrown on the floor, and nearly went as far as to vacuum, except that Callie was asleep.

He eventually climbed onto the bed next to her, putting his arms gently around her, so that she would feel safe when she awoke. The only thing in the room that seemed out of place was the door, hanging pitifully on its hinges. It was the only sign that something was just not right.

Meredith really, really just wanted to sleep. It was four o'clock in the afternoon, and she had a forty-eight hour shift. This meant that at six she would go downstairs, get Lydia, and feed her dinner in the cafeteria. The girl would be put to bed in an on-call room as her mother roamed the halls doing last minute checks on patients, and then she would attempt to sleep. Derek would wander in after the ER had quieted down, but then one of them would be paged, waking up Lydia….

Sleep really did not happen when they were both on-call. So she was ducking into an on-call room when she did not have any surgeries scheduled to try to get an hour or so of sleep in before she collapsed. She hadn't seen Derek since lunch, when she had left him sitting there with her friends to wash up Lyddie before sending her back to day-care. She knew that he would try to follow, but Alex had engaged him in a conversation about some fishing tournament. Meredith was grateful for that.

She avoided him for the rest of the day, not because she was angry, exactly, she just had to think. Thinking didn't happen when he was silently pleading with her over a patient's head. She had escaped to the on-call room at a moment when he was finishing up a craniotomy, leaving an intern to check on her post-ops.

She lay on the bottom bunk, staring up at the mattress above her, trying to relax enough to sleep. Usually when she was uptight like this it was over a patient, or an argument with Cristina and Derek would be there, his firm hands on her shoulders, rubbing out the tension. He was such a fixture in her life now, had been for five years, that this day had been hell.

And then, the door opened. Meredith cursed herself for not having locked it, but she preferred having whoever needed her shake her awake to having the door being banged on incessantly. She rolled over, to face the wall, listening to the squeak of his shoes on the tile, and the click as the door closed.

"Mer?" he said, gently, sitting on the bunk, and placing one hand on her back.

"Don't," she muttered, into the pillow, attempting to get away from him.

"Meredith, what is it? We were fine last night, why the sudden change?"

Meredith sighed, and shifted to face him. "Hmm. I dunno, Derek, let me think. Oh yeah, you happened to mention over breakfast that you're leaving next week for Addison's surgery. Have you forgotten what happens next week? What I've been stressing over for three months now?"

Derek's eyes widened and he ran a hand through his hair. "Oh," he sighed. "That."

"Yeah, that," Meredith said, angrily. "My observation period for my fellowship applications."

"But it's for Sacramento right?"

"And Seattle Grace!"

"Like Richard needs to observe you. And you don't want to go to Sacramento!"

"That is so not the point," Meredith said. "It's like a college essay, you try your best on all of them, even your safety schools, because who knows what could happen!"

"Don't you think that's exaggerating a little?" Meredith pushed up on her elbow to shoot a retort at him, but he held up a hand. "No, sorry, you're right. I should have thought. I'll take care of getting a Lydia-sitting schedule, don't worry. You won't have to do anything. I'll talk to Izzie, George and Cristina for you." He spoke gently, obviously trying to make amends, and she lay back.

"Okay," she murmured. "But it's not the same."

"As what?" he asked, gently sliding down next to her. There wasn't much room on the bunk, but she shifted over to give him space, a gesture of forgiveness.

She looked away, towards the opposite wall. "As having you there with me."

He sighed and kissed her neck. She arched into his touch, even if a part of her did not want to, and he began sliding his lips down. She allowed it, as he gently removed her scrub-shirt, planting kisses on her belly. As he played teasingly with the tie on her pants she ran a hand through his hair, and then her pants were off and his tongue was doing things that were achingly familiar and then she could not be angry at him any more, could not think coherently enough to be angry. All she could do was lay back and let her husband love her.

He left the on-call room first, when his pager went off. It woke Meredith, but she managed to fall asleep again, until she was paged as well. Groggily she put her scrubs back on and went into the hallway. Cristina was leaning against the nurses' station, and Izzie held a cup of coffee in one hand as she filled in a chart. Meredith smirked at them as she distinctly saw the words 'like rabbits' form on Cristina's lips.

A/N Review please!