Don't Hold Me:
Authors Note: This fanfiction was created to go with the alternative universe video of the same name that I am creating, which will eventually be posted on YouTube when completed. TRIGGER WARNING: Same general idea as my other stories just to be safe, although all of this may not apply, depression, anxiety, suicide (mentions, attempts etc.) cancer, mentions of medical treatment, tests, procedures, dying or talk of death, mental health issues, self-harm, etc. May contain harsh language. If you are easily triggered this story may not be the best fit for you.
Summary: Addison finds out she is pregnant after discovering she has cancer. It is recommended that she terminate her pregnancy, and begin treatment immediately, but after the guilt of aborting Mark's first baby, she wants a second chance to be a mom, and does not go through with the termination. How will her bull-headed desire to be a mom affect her diagnosis long term? Will she be strong enough to get them both through this? Rated M for Mature.
Chapter 1:
Addison's POV:
"Your test results came back… it's cancer." Naomi explains, and I am stunned into silence. "Addison I am so sorry." She says, and then goes on to tell Mark and I the exact cancer "acute myeloid leukemia" with I don't know what mutations because my body goes numb, and it is like I am underwater. I can see her lips moving, but I can't hear her properly. I look over to Mark who looks just as dumbfounded as I do. I am healthy. I take vitamins. I buy all the organic things and exercise. I can't have cancer. This must be a mistake at the labs or …. Something. She was doing labs to see if my iron defiant anemia was under control enough with the supplements to continue with the next round of IVF. It had gotten worse after the last round. This was not even almost on my radar. I can't be sick. She shakes her head, and gives me a sad, pitying look.
"Don't look at me like that." I demand, the numbness giving way to trembling as I return her look with one of disgust. Mark takes me in his arms, and squeezes my hands tightly, but I push him away, as if this is somehow his fault. I take a deep breath and move back. I don't want either of them touching me right now.
"Like what, Addison?" She asks gently, but her expression clears, and is replaced with one of guilt, as if she's suddenly realized what done.
"Like you're already planning my funeral." I say, before she can say anything else. "This is just another crappy thing to happen in my super crappy life. I will get through this and the two of you don't get to be sad when I'm not even sad." The trembling is getting worse, and maybe I almost fall because there is a pause, Naomi looks like she is going to apologize again, but then Mark calls my name, questioningly and is across the room in a second, grabbing me, and leading me to one of the overstuffed chairs in Naomi's office. I sink down into the chair, resting my head in my hands, trying to get the room to stop spinning. I have not even had five minutes to process this news, yet it seems like my best friend is already convinced that I'm going to die.
"There are options Addison, I've set you up an appointment with the best team in LA, for tomorrow afternoon, we're going to get you through this."
"I know about the options Nae…." I say, looking up at her, too shocked to cry. "I guess I didn't realize that you can do all the things, and still end up here. I just didn't realize I was out of time."
"What is her prognosis?" Mark asks.
"The oncology team will know more, but given that she's only 38, and the type of mutation… if she starts right away…."
"Just give me a number Naomi." I say. I am too tired to play games with her or listen to her skirting around the issue with Mark.
"Five years, maybe more maybe less. It just depends on how your body responds to the chemotherapy treatments."
"Five years." I echo, and I let Mark hold me, because he needs it more than I do. "That can't be right, Naomi, look at me, I'm fine." I say, shaking my head. The first stage of grief is denial.
"You're fine, for now, but I did all the tests, Addison I checked and double checked…." She is crying and makes her way to Mark and I to offer me a hug. I let them hug me, not fighting back, letting my body go limp in-between them.
"It's going to be OK." She says, "We caught this early, it's going to be OK."
"I hope so… I really do." I whisper.
A Few Days Later
"What's wrong?" Amelia asks, knocking on the bathroom door. I am crying hard, so hard that I have caused my nose to bleed, or at least that's what I tell myself caused it as I push tissue to my nose, trying to stop the flow. I know she can hear me. Since Mark and I told her about the cancer diagnosis she's been more like an annoying child than my brilliant neurosurgeon sister, who should have a million better things to do than baby-sit me. She hasn't left my side, which is really a bit much when you consider that she both lives and works with me. I haven't had hardly any time alone to just process what's going on. Time alone in my head with just ME telling MYSELF what to do without Mark or Naomi or Amelia interjecting their opinions.
Finally, the bleeding slows to a stop, I get a wet wipe and gently clean my face, cleaning away the blood and wiping my eyes, trying to stop the tears. I glance over to the counter where the open pregnancy test box sits, next to my cell phone, nail polish and make up. I pick up the test and read the results. Could this day get any more challenging? I open the door and she is standing there, clearly worried. I just want to run, to scream, to escape everyone's pitying eyes, but instead I just look up at her, my eyes red and swollen from the tears as I hold out the pregnancy test.
"I'm pregnant." I murmur, a hopeless expression, in my eyes. Something that was supposed to bring such joy. Something I have wanted since before I left Derek and moved out to LA with Mark brings only sadness now. I know that the prognosis for myself and the baby isn't a great one. I see this all the time, pregnant mothers, diagnosed with cancer, begging to save the lives of their unborn babies. It is not uncommon, but it rarely ends well. Either the mother dies, or the baby dies, or both mother and baby die. It is just not a happy ending where you bring home a baby in nine months and have the family you've always dreamed of.
"Oh Addison…." She whispers, pulling me into her arms as the tears come again, and this time I do not make any attempts to stop them. In a weird way I need to feel this pain. It lets me know that I am still alive.
Later That Night
"Go Away." I mumble when Amelia knocks on the door but knowing how well she listens I might as well have just left the door standing wide open.
"Do you have a plan yet?" Amelia asks, coming the rest of the way into my bedroom, and plopping herself down on the bed next to me. I know by her tone she is talking about the baby thing and not the cancer thing.
"I want to keep it. I want to be a mom, and I want Mark to have something to hold onto when I'm gone." I say the last part comes out dully, but without hesitation, not really thinking about the meaning of the words I am saying. The last few days have been hard with Mark. He's been so gentle and delicate with me, like he's afraid to hurt me, despite the fact that I'm fine for now and nothing is really any different than it was before we got the test results.
"Don't talk like that Addison, you're not going anywhere. Everything is going to work out." She says, in that concerned, false positive tone she gets when she's really trying hard to convince herself of whatever just spewed out of her mouth.
"I don't think it's going to be fine, this time Amelia." I say, shaking my head as the anxiety continues building. I don't know what to do with it. I have nothing to do with it, and don't know how to release it. I feel like a soda that has been shaken almost to the point of bursting.
"Auntie Amelia." She says, teasing me, tasting the words on her tongue, and smiling at me like I've given her the most wonderful gift. "I know you divorced my brother, but I'm still going to be the baby's Aunt, right?" She is trying to make me laugh, and so I smile a little. She knows it has been the plan from the beginning for her to be Aunt, and God Mother to any of the Montgomery-Sloan babies since Derek and I were unable to have children. She always tries to spin things around into a positive light. I wonder if this is something she learned when she was in rehab? I try to think back, has she always been this way? I know she doesn't mean anything by it, but her brightness is intrusive, and is beginning to annoy me.
"You can't tell anyone, Amelia please." I am curled up on the bed, staring at the wall, and she is still right beside me. "The chance of the fetus surviving to term with my diagnosis is slim at best." I can't even let my brain goes where it want's to about how ironic my life is. That after months of fertility treatments and six rounds of failed IVF I get pregnant naturally after being diagnosed with a cancer that's going to kill me. This is so…. Exactly what my life is.
"Mark needs to know." She says forcefully and I know this must be hard on her. Last year she delivered a baby with anencephaly and donated his organs to help other babies. She named him Christopher, her unicorn baby. I decide to just have her little bits of excitement about this baby, after all she's been through, she deserves, something, although I'm nearly positive that this is not necessarily is the right thing to be looking forward to. When the time comes, if the baby doesn't make it, we can grieve together. Mark is working late tonight. I wish he'd just come home already. I miss his warmth. This week has been a roller coaster I just wish I could get off of. I figure that I must be pretty early in the pregnancy for it not to have shown up on the vast variety of tests they did on my blood they took. I just want to go to work, I want to save lives. I want to deliver babies and have slutty sex with my super slutty husband in the on-call rooms. I just want to pretend like this nightmare never happened.
"I just need time to process everything." I say, trying to sound calm and unconcerned. Is pregnancy even compatible with AML? I have never seen a case personally. Supposedly it only haves to one in seventy-five thousand pregnancies to one in one hundred thousand pregnancies.
"How much time? You're meant to check in to hospital tomorrow for your first round of treatments." Her voice breaks at this as she suddenly becomes serious and looks at me concerned, like she wants to say more, but doesn't dare.
"I'll give you a day. You'll need more blood work done, a vaginal ultrasound, prenatal checkup, special vitamins to help replenish what you're not getting through food."
"Amelia!" I whine miserably. My head is pounding in protests with a stabbing pain right between my eyes. I pull the pillow over my face in protest. "Please this is making my head hurt." I say, and I can tell she's trying to take it down a notch or two. I put my hand over the spot where baby would be, and she puts her hand over mine. "You're sounding more like me than I am right now." I say, giving her a small sad smile.
"I understand you want the rest of this to go away, but it's not going to go away Addison."
"I know." I say, realizing then how cold I am. I pull the quilt over me, but it still just doesn't really seem like enough. I get up and take the heated blanket from the closet, plugging it in and layering it. Sheet, heated blanket, and then quilt.
"It's the middle of July Addison." Amelia points out.
"Hey! Do I judge your sleeping habits?"
"Sometimes."
"Inappropriate men don't count." I say, but I am beginning to relax now, starting to get sleepy under the heavy warmth of the blankets.
"There is combination chemotherapy, targeted therapy with monoclonal antibodies, stem cell transplants, and so many others. There is even a clinical trial going on where they combine arsenic trioxide therapy with a stem cell transplant. There are options Addison, this diagnosis is unspeakably cruel, but we can do this, together. It doesn't have to be a death sentence."
"You and I are both educated enough to know that's not true." I say, turning my back on her, I close my eyes forcing myself to breathe calm, deep even breaths until she eventually is convinced, I am sleeping and leaves the room. I don't sleep though. The remission rate for acute promyelocytic leukemia after induction of chemotherapy is around ninety percent, in those under sixty, and the remission rate for other types of AML after induction is around sixty-seven percent, both of those numbers are great until you look at the survival rate long term. Only twenty-seven perfect of those diagnosed with AML survive to the five-year mark. Even if this baby somehow survives, I will be lucky if I live to see it graduate kindergarten, and the guilt of that kills me inside. There is no 'right' answer.
The next day
"Addison needs to talk to you." Amelia says, pushing me towards Mark who is making a cup of coffee. If looks could kill she'd be laying on the floor.
"Now? Seriously?" I ask her. "I just woke up. I haven't even had caffeine yet."
"No time like the present." She says shrugging.
"What happened are you OK?" Mark asks, turning to me, eying me up and down. When he has decided that I look fine, he turns and gets his coffee, and then gestures to the table, like maybe we should sit if the conversation really is that serious. I pour myself a cup and join him, taking the seat furthest away from him, trying to ignore his questioning, worried gaze.
"I'm fine Mark." I say, and Amelia gives me a dirty look now. I silently glare at her like 'what do you expect me to say, he just found out I have cancer, this can't possibly be as bad as that.'. "I just…." I start, trying to speak, but the words get lost. "I um…." I fidget with my hands, taking a drink of my coffee, stalling for time. I need more time. "I'm…." but anxiety has overtaken me, and I can't get the words out properly.
"Addison's pregnant and wants to keep the baby." Amelia bursts out.
"Amelia FILTER." I groan, my brain restoring my ability to use expressive language once the issue at hand was already out on the table. resting my face in my hands, instant tears, afraid to even look up at Mark. This baby is a miracle. We tried so hard to have a child of our own. I should be thrilled, but in reality I am just petrified.
"You were having trouble, you needed help." Amelia says, but then buries herself in the neuroscience today and a salmon cream cheese bagel.
Mark comes around to my chair, and I feel his hands on my shoulders, squeezing in support. "Is this true?" He asks. I smell the musky smell of his aftershave. I take in a deep breath, it is calming.
"I was trying to tell you." I murmur. He sits down in the chair next to mine, and gently moves my hands away from my face, wiping the tears from my cheeks with his thumbs.
"How long have you known?" He inquires, and then "How does this change our plan?" We had met with the team of specialists, and formed a very specific plan, none of which included trying to preserve the life of an unborn fetus. I am supposed to go in for my first round of treatments tomorrow. We will have to call the doctors and let them know that we need to delay treatments, it's as simple as that.
"I just found out last night." I say, frowning a little. "The baby can't survive the treatments Mark, not at this stage." I try to say this as carefully as I can, but I am still crying, and his eyes fill with tears as well. It is hard to explain that I am crying over someone I have never met. The thought of choosing myself over the life inside of me destroying me. Why had it been so much easier the last time? I chastise myself. A tiny voice surfaces in my brain though. It hadn't been easier. What I did has left a lasting mark on my life that I will never be able to escape from.
"What can I do?" He asks, but I just shake my head. "I am only in my first trimester; our options are to terminate the pregnancy or forgo treatment until I am in my third trimester or deliver."
"No." Mark says, shaking his head to show just how much he means it. "You don't get to make that choice alone. Not this time." He takes my hands in his own squeezing them tightly. "We can have another baby Addison, I can't replace you." I close my eyes, and I can see as clear as day almost seven years ago, when I had found out I was pregnant after finding Mark in the supply closet with one of the Peds nurses Charlene. I wasn't going to tell him, but then I did. He was so excited. He went out and he bought this insane Yankee's onesie and a calendar with the due date circled in bright red ink. We were going to keep it. We were so motivated to get our shit together for her. Mark just couldn't leave Charlene alone though and I wasn't at a point in my life where I wanted to raise a child on my own. The third time I found them together I broke up with Mark, and then proceeded upstairs and had a fellow attending preform the abortion. I have regretted it every day from the moment it was completed, but it was the right decision at the time.
"This is our second chance; can't you see it?" I ask him. The baby I aborted all those years ago was a girl. I know it was a girl. I was going to call her Ella, which was actually one of the names that Mark chose. When I asked him why he said, 'because it sounds like a name perfectly fit for a princess.'." I don't mean to, but I think about her every day. What would she have looked like? Would she have that same gap between her front teeth as I do? Would she have Mark's dirty blonde hair or my red hair? Would she want to twirl the baton in the marching band like my mother never let me? Would she love French fries dipped in strawberry ice cream like Mark? Who would she have grown up to be? Ella would have been six this year.
"No…. I can't if it involves sacrificing you." He says. "I'll come with you, I'll hold your hand, but we need to do what's best for you right now and that is not subjecting your already weak body to nine months of pregnancy induced hell. You need the treatments more than you need a baby Addison." He says, his voice is crackling, and I can tell he is trying to be strong, for me, but why? I don't need him to be my strong. I am not broken.
"I am not having another abortion Mark. We wanted this baby. We tried for this baby. After everything we've been through, things are different this time. This baby is a miracle who deserves a chance,"
"She could have both." Amelia says, I jump, startled, I had forgotten she was even in the room she was being so uncharacteristically quiet. "Twenty- eight to thirty weeks is ideal, but if she is able to make it to just thirteen weeks, she would be over the most critical time developmentally for baby, and the risk of the treatments affecting it, or causing long term damage is significantly lower." She points out, and I ignore the panging realization that she may only be on my side this very moment because she wants a new little niece or nephew, not because it's the actual right thing. She knows as well as I know that there has been no long-term studies on the effects of chemotherapy on babies in utero.
"I don't want to argue." I exclaim, putting my hands up in surrender and raising my voice over theirs. "It is my body, my choice, fortunately neither of you legally have a say." I remark, but they look so damn sad that I soften my expression and my tone. "There have been no long-term studies on the effects of chemotherapy to the baby in utero and I'm strong enough to survive this without putting it in harm's way. I will not be getting an abortion, or microwaving my baby, end of story." Mark looks like he would like nothing more than to strangle me and Amelia looks like she might cry. I know I am being selfish, but if I'm going to die anyway can't I be a little selfish? Just this once? "I really am OK. I'm going to be fine. You both need to relax. It's not time to be scared yet." I say, and then calmly get up, take my coffee, and walk away.
Authors Note:
Thank you for reading chapter one of Don't Hold Me! When I first started the draft for this story, I had the conflict be something completely different, and the story going in a completely different direction, but I realized that (original idea) was too similar to some other things I already have in the works for other stories, so didn't want it to be too similar. I also had several different thought paths on how Addison would cope with this whirlwind of information being thrown at her, so I went with what seemed a little more natural. Right now, she is a little big scared, but mostly in denial. 'I'm fine, everything's fine. I'm not sick, finding alternative, everyday causes for symptoms, etc.'
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PLEASE review. I would love to know what you're thinking of the story so far. I have some fantastic audio for the video where Addison says 'I'm his mom' so *SPOILER ALERT* the baby will be a little boy. What should she and Mark call him?
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