Addison Montgomery Shepherd's Point of View:
Derek is in the NICU when I walk in the following evening. Just the sight of him makes my blood boil, and freeze all at the same time. He is sitting near Jazlynn's incubator, studying her carefully. Even at twelve weeks premature she looks like me. Jazlynn opens her eyes and coos up at the monster looking down at her. She has my eyes. They're piercing and blue. Not the standard newborn navy. Does he feel badly for what he has done? About the circumstances that led her to being in the NICU? I watch him put his hand into the incubator and stroke her little puff of auburn hair. I press my lips together hard, not sure what to think. He usually doesn't pay much attention to premature babies. He always called the babies that I care for red, wrinkled, squished little aliens. Sure, he'll operate or give a consult, but that's about the extent of his involvement. He's treating Jazlynn differently. I can't quite figure out why though. Does he know that she is his and not Mark's? Maybe it is because it is already evident what a fighter she is.
"Here, let me help you." I say, speaking up. His eyes turn to me.
"How long have you been standing there?" He asks.
"I just came in to drop off her milk." I carefully open the small black bag that I had been carrying and take the bottles of breastmilk labeled with Jazlynn's name and date of birth. I put them into the small mini fridge on top of the counter. I have spent so much time since she was born pumping milk for her. I carefully walk back to the incubator and smile down at Jazlynn.
"Her scans look good, there are no active bleeds." He checks her vitals, and administers her prescribed dose of medication into her I V. He waits several moments and then checks her vitals again, nods, and makes note of the time, and medications in her chart. "She's some kind of freak medical miracle." He says. "I just had to see her for myself."
"What are you doing here?"
"I work here Addison." He says, charmingly.
"There is a restraining order." I say, he smiles down at Jazlynn sadly. He knows that he is not supposed to be within 500 feet of me, Mark, or our daughter. It's early morning. I wonder where the nurses and staff are? There should be at least one or two nurses in here, as well as the interns who were on shift last night popping in and out to check on the babies in their charge. He had to have paid the head nurse off.
"I'm aware." He says. He locks eyes with me. I'm sure he can see I'm tired. I don't want a fight.
"You're supposed to be in jail Derek." My voice becomes a little stronger as I look into Jazlynn's incubator. Someone had place a little white stuffed bunny, almost identical to the one I had boughten for Ella all those years ago in the incubator with her. I have to be losing my mind. Derek's glare is so forceful that I look back up at him, this time I don't break eye contact. He's challenging me, trying to see how much power he still has over me. Fear surges through my body like an electric shock, but I don't back down, and he is the one who breaks eye contact first this time.
"Did you really think that piece of paper was going to scare me off?" He asks, laughter in his tone. He watches as I check Jazlynn's vitals again, and her charts, double checking his work, assuring he didn't do anything to hurt her.
"Please Derek. I'll do whatever you want. Please just don't hurt her." I beg him. I would go back to him; I'd give my life if only it meant that he would leave Jazlynn alone and never come near her again.
"It's a little late to be making deals, don't you think?" Derek asks, almost playfully. He walks closer to me, and I move backwards, he pushes me up against a wall, his body against mine, holding me there as he kisses me, too hard, too deep, hungrily like he's trying to eat my face off. Not sexy, or romantic in the slightest. "I own you." He runs his fingers over my body. I know better than to fight against him. I don't know what comes over me, but I feel myself getting lost in the moment. He has wrapped his arms around me, he's kissing my neck, and then suckles it before saying "I can do whatever I want to you, and the offspring we create. A piece of paper is not going to change that."
"I told you Derek, she's not your baby." I say, quickly coming back to reality, and desperate to stick with the story that I had invented with Mark.
"After all this time I thought you'd know not to lie to me. We both know this baby isn't Marks." He says, and I swallow hard. His voice is like the venom of a poisonous snake bite. Painful, but numbing. I try to move away from him, and he grabs me by the throat, squeezing tightly, lifting my off of my feet. My body goes weak. It's smarter than my brain. My body knows not to fight him. I don't scream or thrash around. I don't make a scene and he lets me go, pushing me forcefully, causing me to loose my footing and fall to the floor. I back as far away from him as I can get, coughing, massaging my throat. I can feel that nothing is severely damaged, likely it will only be more bruising. I know to hide it with a scarf or make up. In general, though Derek tries to never leave a bruise where people can see.
"Derek please, just stay away from her." I plead. I move towards them again. He ignores me and walks back to Jazlynn's incubator. He starts talking to her gently, so unlike himself. Ii touch him on the back to get his attention away from her. He turns around and pushes me so hard that I fall into another incubator, thankfully empty, I let out a cry of pain as my head smacks the hard plastic and I fall to the floor for a second time. I reach up, putting my hand to my head. When I remove it I see the wet, stickiness of blood.
"Get out of here Addison. You need to leave. Now! This does not concern you."
"I am her mother. This concerns me more than anyone else." I regain my footing and move closer to them for a third time. It's like a weird dance of torture between Derek and I. Give and take, push, and pull until finally someone breaks. I don't know how to just stay down and take it when there is another life at stake. I don't know what comes over me, but I pick up one of the extra I V polls and without even thinking about it, or the consequences, swing it at him as hard as I can. I strike him in the back of the neck. Caught completely off-guard Derek only had enough time to questioningly touch the back of his neck and turn to me, looking at me in alarm before collapsing to the ground. I freeze, just standing over his lifeless body. I look to the door, and then up to the camera I know is in the NICU. I should just walk away. I should just walk away. If he dies, I am free.
"Damn it Derek." I say, when I realize that morally I cannot just leave him there to die. I drop the I V poll and fall onto the floor next to him.
"What have I done? Oh God, what have I done?" I stammer. I move my shaking hands over him, checking for a pulse, everything in my being screaming for me to just run. He's not breathing. He doesn't have a pulse. "I killed him. I actually killed him?" I hit the emergency button, sounding the alarm. I don't know how long it will take for help to arrive, I fall back onto my knees next to him and manage to get him on his back and his airway cleared.
"He's not breathing. He's not breathing!" I am trembling as I place my hands on his chest and begin CPR and rescue breathing. I know that at any moment he could wake up, realize I am within arms reach of him and end my life. "My newborn just witnessed me killing her father. Already off to a fantastic start with this parenting thing Addison." I am sweating with the effort of doing the compressions properly my arms are so tired. Why am I even trying to save his miserable life? Is it just because I feel guilty?
"Please! Derek, I didn't mean it. Just breathe already!" I scream at him. I silently curse the team for taking so long. "I NEED SOME HELP IN HERE!" I scream, as loudly as I can. Where is everybody? Terror fills me as I realize that it's been too long. It's been three minutes, five minutes and then ten. I don't know what changes, but with a final rescue breath Derek wakes up, coughing, and breathes on his own. He looks up at me with confusion, and then reaches up and pulls me down on top of him, kissing me gently, passionately.
"What happened?" He asks weakly, unsteadiness shines in his eyes when I pull myself away from him and move quickly out of his immediate reach. His voice is kind, gentle, something I haven't heard in a very long time. Sincerity.
"I…I don't know. You were in here consulting on a case, and you passed out. You stopped breathing. I did C P R. You're probably going to be fine, but you need a work up to determine what caused you to pass out, you'd need to rule out any underlying conditions."
"You look different." He says. "Your hair's longer and flat. You're wearing your pajamas. Why are you wearing your pajamas? You're at work, you should be wearing scrubs."
"You were doing me a favor and giving me a consult on my baby." I say.
"You had a baby? When did you have a baby? This isn't funny Addison. I just saw you this morning. How did everything change since just this morning?"
"Derek what year is it?" I ask, slowly starting to piece together the puzzle.
"Your voice is different too." He points out. "It's deeper and then Addison it's 1994."
"Whose the president?"
"Bill Clinton."
"Where do we live?" I ask him.
"New York City, and we work at New York Prespeterian Hospital. We were married May 18 of this year. Addison enough with this game, you're really starting to freak me out."
"You're having some memory problems; you must have hit your head when you fell." I try to explain. I don't realize that I am digging my fingernails into my wrist until I feel the warmth of blood under them.
"What have you been doing to yourself?" He asks, he gets up and gently takes my hand, moving it away from my wrist. "You're hurting yourself, and your head is bleeding." He asks with genuine concern. I look up down at my arm and then turn it so he cannot see.
"I'm fine." I say. "Just anxiety." That doesn't work though. The blood from my head is dropping now and Derek takes my hands and leads me over to the scrub room by the NICU doors. Confused I follow him. I am still too used to doing anything and everything he wishes without even thinking about why I am doing it. This many years of abuse will do that to a person. He turns on the water and guides my wrists under the tap, turning it over and examining the many fading scars in varying shades of skin tone, to pink, to bright white.
"What is this?" He asks me, and I know that he really is confused. He is looking at me like it pains him to know I hurt myself. That he had never noticed.
"You don't remember anything?" I ask, my voice trembling. When he is satisfied that my wrist is clean, he bandages it, and then sits me down on a step stool. I flinch when he cleans the wound on my head, injects a numbing agent, and begins carefully suturing the open cut.
"Addison, I would never hurt you." He says, gently bringing his hand to my face, caressing my cheek, gently forcing eye contact. I move away, and he lets me, but I can see the look of hurt in his expression. "Do you think that I'd hurt you?" He asks.
Be brave. Be honest. I know that it is just the head trauma that is causing him to be so kind to me. I wish the past years had reflected this type of love. I sit down on the ground, and he sits next to me. Every instinct in my body tells me to get up and walk out of the NICU doors, but something unknown compels me to stay. Something calms me and makes me imagine what life could be like if this wasn't just another one of his games. I almost don't mind that I've literally knocked some sense into him.
"It's 2005. We live in Seattle now. We've been married for 11 years. You did hurt me." I say, thinking of Jazlynn who wouldn't even be here right now if it wasn't for his direct actions. "Our marriage has been full of domestic violence." I say, thinking to how far I went to hide the bruises and evidence of such abuse. I think back to all of the times he'd hurt me, and then I'd have to smile and hold his arm that night at an event. "I had an affair. I slept with Mark, he got me pregnant, and you were so vengeful that you tried poising me so that you could take my baby away from me too. She was born at twenty-five weeks Derek." I say, looking over the incubator. "She is little, and she is sick, not because I couldn't carry her to term, but because YOU decided she didn't deserve that chance at life." He's crying now.
"Addison, I'm so sorry." He says, and I know he means it. "Can you ever forgive me?" I feel him wrap his arms around my body. I relax into his embrace for possibly the first time my entire marriage. Everything in my mind tells me to get up, to leave, that he's just going to hurt me again. The larger part is telling me that he loves me though, and that somehow a miracle has happened, and he has changed.
"Kiss me." I demand. I know that he would never kiss me unless it was his idea. This, in my mind is a test. He takes my face in his hands and pulls me close. Kissing me gently. So different than the kisses before. He pulls me closer to him, tangles his hands in my long hair. I kiss him back and he doesn't overpower me or push me away. I'm confused. Would he have always been this gentle if I had just complied? The door opens, and I pull away from him, a second too late. Derek and I both look up like guilty teenagers caught making out.
"What the hell is going on here? Addison? Are you alright?" He asks, making his way towards me.
"I'm fine Mark." I say, suddenly cross. I don't at that exact moment grasp that Derek being kind to me could be him manipulating me, to me he really has changed.
"Why are you doing this?" Mark demands.
"Why are you acting like a complete and total jackass dude?" Derek asks, Mark looks down at him disgusted, and turns his attention back to me.
"What's wrong with him?"
"Head trauma. He was consulting on the baby, and he passed out."
"Is the baby, okay?"
"Yeah, her latest scans are clear." I say, and Mark breathes a sigh of relief. "Are you sure that you're okay? Did he hurt you?"
"No… Mark calm down. I'm okay. He loves me, he didn't hurt me." I move closer to Derek, and Mark looks at me with a mixture of shock and disbelief in his expression. I rest my head on Derek's shoulder. "I'm okay."
"Didn't hurt you?" Mark asks. "How did you get that cut on your head?" He challenges.
"Someone spilled something, and I slipped. I hit my head on the incubator." I say, anger growing within me the longer the three of us are in the same room together. "He didn't hurt me Mark."
"I'm starting to think YOU are the one who sustained a head trauma." Mark rages. "Addison, you're in here because of him. Did you forget?" He grabs me up by my wrist and pulls me over to the baby's incubator, not even bothering to be gentle. "Look at our baby Addison. She's hurting. She's struggling so much because of him. She's sick because of what he did to you." He gently places his hand on my tummy. "You tried to commit suicide twice in less than a week due to the trauma that he put you through. That doesn't just go away." Mark says, forcing me to look at him.
"I never meant to hurt her." Derek exclaims. "I have a brain tumor. I'm dying. I would never hurt her. I love her." He says, tears falling down his cheeks.