ADDISON MONTGOMERY SHEPHERD's POINT OF VIEW

Meredith Grey is standing in front of the house when I pull up that evening. I press my lips together hard. I don't like seeing her in the space that I used to consider my own. She looks so out of place here. I was already going to leave; her timing is immaculate. I had just put my bag in the trunk and was getting in my vehicle when she called. She sounded so frantic, so desperate on the phone. I knew that whatever happened was serious.

PHONE CALL

"Addison? Addison, oh God. I don't know what to do." She sobs. A rush of adrenaline surges through me at the tone of her voice.

"What's wrong?" I ask, trying to remain calm.

"Can you come over?"

"Are you hurt? Did Derek hurt you?" I have barely been gone any time at all, and I know from the rumor mill at the hospital that he's already moved her in with him. Mark has been keeping me informed.

"You were right, you were so right. I…I really need your help. Please."

"Yeah, okay. I'm on my way."

END PHONE CALL

Mark is going to lose his shit when he finds out where I've gone. When he finds out that Amelia allowed me to walk away. This was not a very thought-out plan. After hearing the franticness in Meredith's tone, I am reconsidering everything. I don't want to be put back in the situation I was before. Maybe I can just stay at The Four Seasons and come here during the day to help out while Meredith is at work. Meredith's arms are crossed against her chest. It's cold and dreary. She's not wearing a sweater. She's been waiting a while. There was a major accident stalling traffic. I don't know where she got my phone number, or why she decided that she could just call me. I should have went with my gut instinct and not answered the phone. I park the car and realize that she's crying. She looks deranged. Her lip is broken. There is blood on her face and head. I can see the beginnings of a black eye forming through her make up.

"What are you doing here?" I ask her. "Does this confirm the rumors are true? He's moved you in?" I get out of the car and walk over to her, she's shaking. I am fairly certain that it's trembling due to fear, and not shivering due to the cold. Though it's hard to tell.

"I should ask you the same."

"You called me. Did you really think I wouldn't show up?" I ask her.

"I was kind of counting on it, we're not friends. I know you hate me and all. You don't owe me anything. Nothing." There is a frantic energy about her that I can't quite place.

"I don't hate you Meredith."

"You could have fooled me."

"I promised Derek I'd be here, that I'd help you. He knows he's dying Meredith."

"What about Mark?"

"He's probably never going to want to see me again after the note that I left him, explaining things. I'm here to help. Meredith, what happened?"

"He's going to need a lot more help than you can give him." She scoffs through her tears. She puts her head to her hand, and when she pulls it back there is blood on it. She looks at the sticky mess on her hand, but her expression is void. She wipes the blood on her pants.

"I need to know what happened."

"I… I don't know."

"Meredith… Where's Derek? Is Derek hurt?"

"I… I tried to call nine one one, but I don't have signal out here. The signal cut out and then… then I just left him there. God. Could y'all have built this place in a worse location? You barely even have wifi. You're in the middle of nowhere. An ambulance probably couldn't find there way out through these sticks if they tried."

"Tell me." I demand, beginning to panic at the thought of what I have walked into. "You left him where? Do you have any injuries besides your face and head?" I ask her. I have had very little as humanly possible to do with Meredith Grey during this whole experience of being away from Derek. She was on my hospital team, but once I was released… the only time I have seen her has been at this last court appearance in which he was released. It's true, we're not friends. That doesn't mean I ever wanted her to be the one in this situation though. I never wanted him to turn on her the way he turned on me. She gave me hope that maybe he really had changed. That our experiences would have been different. I guess I was wrong. Abusers never change their ways.

"We were cooking dinner. I added garlic pepper, and it was like a switch flipped. He started calling me your name, hit me, called me a stupid woman for not remembering he hates pepper." She shivers. "I turned the stove off and tried to leave. He came after me. He was so mad and… I… I had to protect myself Addison." I start towards the house, and she runs after me. "Addison… you can't… that's why I called you!" She says. "I knew that you'd understand. She tries to block me from going in the door, but I am faster. "I… I didn't have a choice. I had to!"

"You killed him?" I ask, blood running cold. My hand still on the doorknob, but frozen. It feels like all of the air has just deflated from my lungs. I realize then that she has a disproportionate amount of blood on her for the simple head injury that she has. I had initially thought it was hers but now… now I don't know.

"I thought I did." She cries. "But…"

"He's alive?" Isay, and she nods. I walk into the house; Derek is laying on the Livingroom floor. There is a small puddle of blood forming beneath him, his shirt is soaked crimson. There is a gunshot wound to his upper shoulder and a laceration to his head. I rush to him and kneel down beside him, gently stroking back his dark hair. How long had he been laying there? His skin is clammy.

"She… she… she shot me." He stumbles on the words. "She… has… a… gun."

"I know… shh… I know." I soothe, more to myself than to him. I didn't realize that he meant she has a gun right now though. I look up at Meredith. Momentarily freeze as I realize she is holding a gun in her hand for the first time. Where had she gotten it? When had she gotten it? She didn't have it earlier. "I'm going to try to fix this. Just give me a minute. I need a minute; I need a plan." I say, trying to push down the panic that I am feeling. The effort of talking has exhausted him. His breathing has worsened, it's raspy. I check his pulse, calculating the sum in my head. He's tachycardic.

"What's wrong? Why is he breathing like that?" She asks.

"Meredith please, let me help him." I beg her. I check his pulse again, trying to assess how much blood he has lost. He looks up at me several times. There are tears coming from his eyes I check for an exit wound. There are none. The bullet doesn't seem to have gone very deep. "Derek… Derek can you hear me?" He had let out such a pathetic cry of pain when I checked him. "Oh Meredith. What have you done?" I ask. She is swaying herself back and forth, just watching me. The gun is swaying with her, pointed at the ground.

"I… I only did what you couldn't." She insists. I take out my phone. The provider Derek and I use actually does have good coverage out here, Meredith must have one of the others. Before I can get the numbers dialed, she snatches it from my hands. "I only did what you were too weak to do. You can't call anyone Addison."

"Meredith!"

"No! I called you."

"For what exactly?" I ask her. "To stand here with you? To watch him die? To help you finish him off so that you can get the life insurance money? I'm not ride or die like that anyway, but especially not with you." I say, and she looks offended at this. She looks like she's just handed me this golden opportunity and I am being an ungrateful, spoiled little bitch about it. "If we don't get him help, and soon, he is going to die."

"He's not dying. He can't die Addison. He's just being dramatic." She moves further away from him, and motions for me to do the same, but I stay put. "He wants me to think that he's badly injured so that I'll get close, and he can hurt me again." She says, she looks down at the amount of blood he is losing and then back up at me, her face pale. She's just an intern, and not even a particularly spectacular one at that. If her mother would have been who she was she'd have never been given a second glance. She's completely unremarkable when compared to any of the other applicants for the surgical program. She looks as if she is speaking from personal experience though. I know she is telling the truth. I too have fallen victim to that trap. This isn't that though. He really is injured.

"Let me try and stop the bleeding. If the bleeding is stopped, he may stabilize." I say carefully. She shakes her head no and trains the gun at me now. Her breathing and her movements are becoming more unsteady. She is sweating. Derek lets out a moan. There is a gurgling sound coming from him with each breath. I try to gauge which is the more pressing issue. Meredith's instability with a loaded weapon, Derek's bleeding gunshot wound, or his possible tension pneumothorax. I never did do well with triage.

"I don't know…I…I don't know. Addison, do you really think he could die?" She asks me, apparently her response to stress is to shut down. She is an intern, and even as unremarkable as she is, she should be able to see that this man is in grave danger. "I…I can't. I can't think straight. I need to think. What am I going to do?" She is completely unhinged. I take off my sweater, fold it several times and go to press it to the wound, I can feel the gun against the back of my head though. "Don't touch him." She demands. "Don't or I'll…I'll…I'll shoot you too. Maybe I'll get it right this time."

"We don't need that." I say, putting my hands up in surrender. "We don't need a gun here Meredith. I'm on your side and he, well… he's not hurting either of us in this condition. You don't want to kill me anymore than you want to kill him."

"You sound certain."

"I am. He is bleeding, he has symptoms of tension pneumothorax. If we don't help him, he will die."

"He deserves to die for what he's done." She says, but she sounds so unsure. "He won't die. He's not going to die. I didn't mean tot hurt him. I was just trying to scare him. I just wanted him to stop." She sinks down to the ground next to him, crying and taking his hand in her own, apologizing to him. I move quickly when the gun is no longer on me, moving away from them both.

"She's… crazy…help…me." Derek gasps. My eyes go wide as Meredith stands up and kicks him hard in the face. She is instantly remorseful and falls to her knees again, begging his forgiveness. I leave Meredith to her, whatever is going on and go to the kitchen. I get Derek's medical bag, and surgical kit from under the sink. I get rubbing alcohol. Meredith looks at me questioningly, but she seems frozen in place. She doesn't try to stop me or point the gun back on me again when I return with the medical supplies.

"What are you doing?" She demands.

"You told me once that I'm supposed to teach you right?" I ask, and she nods. "We're doctors. Not Gods. It's not our job to decide who lives and who dies. I'm saving him, I'm saving you. Everything in your life gets worse if he dies." I rip open Derek's shirt, and examine the wound on his shoulder, confirming again that there is no exit wound. I clean the scalpel with rubbing alcohol and irrigate the gunshot wound. My suspicions were correct. He is like a cat with nine lives. It is a flesh wound. He is going to need the bullet removed, and he will need stitches. I cannot do either of those things here. I pack and dress the clean wound, making sure to apply pressure until the bleeding has slowed. It looks worse than it really is.

"After everything he's done for you?" She demands. "You're saving him? It… It was self-defense Addison. I didn't have a choice." She repeats.

"That's what you'll tell yourself a million times but saying it more doesn't make it anymore likely that you'll ever completely believe it."

"It's the truth."

"Look… I almost killed him once too. I press against the wound harder. I had stopped applying enough pressure and the red blood was starting to soak through the white bandages and tape. Derek groans in pain again as I am applying more pressure. My hands are covered with his blood. "I wish that I didn't. I wish I wouldn't have had to."

"You survived though. You're free." When she says I'm free I break down, looking up at her in disbelief, unable to stop the tears from falling. "You walked away. You're safe now."

"I nearly killed someone I used to love. I will never be completely free from that." I look down and realize that Derek's breathing is shallow, and his skin has taken on a blue hinge. I look at his chest closer. Now that the blood has been cleared away I can see deep fresh bruises on his ribs.

"What did you hit him with?"

"I…"

"Now Meredith!" She leaves and comes back, showing me a heavy circuit bat. "I am going to have to an emergency needle decompression. His lung is collapsed. He's suffocating. He can't breathe." He had completely passed out. She looks like she is going to throw up, but backs away, letting me work. I sanitize the proper area, the affected side at the second intercostal space, along the mid-clavicular line. I find myself drawing an imaginary line from the nipple to the clavicle to make sure that I am in the right spot, and at the proper angle. Before Meredith can change her mind and stop me I insert a 14-gauge needle at a ninety-degree angle in the second intercostal space, just over the third rib. I hear a rush of air. Derek gasps and opens his eyes. I remove the needle and leave the catheter in place. I secure it with medical tape. His pinks up a bit. He's breathing easier.

"We have to get him to a hospital. Meredith please, call nine one one." I say. Maybe she is just shaken enough by what she has done, or just scared enough about what almost happened. She complies. She takes my cell phone out of her pocket and dials the numbers, putting the phone on speaker and holding it near my mouth. I had gone back to applying more pressure to the gunshot wound.

"Nine one one. What's your emergency?"

"This is Doctor Addison Montgomery." I give her my address. "I have a male, 40, with a GSW to his shoulder, broken ribs, collapsed lung, and a minor laceration to his head. The wound has been cleaned and packed. An emergency needle decompression has been done. He is breathing and alert now. Don't ask me any protocol questions, and don't route me to an EMD. We need an ambulance."

"An ambulance is on the way."

"Be advised this is a domestic violence call. There is a loaded weapon on the scene."

LATER AT THE HOSPITAL

"You know you're pretty bad ass." Mark says, handing me a coffee. I just stare at the wall. We are sitting in the hospital's waiting room. I haven't said anything since we arrived at the hospital, and I briefed the doctors on what had happened. My mouth feels sticky, and dry. I don't know if I can form the words. Mark was still on call when we arrived. He just happened to be in the emergency room already briefing another family on their family member's condition. He saw us come in.

"Come on Red. You saved a guys life. One who put you through hell and seriously did not deserve it."

"No. No one deserves to die."

"Dr. Montgomery Shepherd?" I ask, looking up the officer who had met with us earlier. He had asked me to stay. "I'm sorry to keep you here so long, you're free to go home now."

"Free to go?" I ask… "Wait… you need my statement?"

"Detectives spoke to you husband…"

"Ex-husband, we're separated." I say quickly, though the divorce was never finalized.

"I'm sorry." He corrects himself. "We spoke with Mr. Shepherd. He said that he shot himself, by accident when he lost his balance and fell down the stairs. He explained that tumors to the magnitude of his can cause issues with balance and stability."

"An accident?" I ask, confused.

"Yeah, that's what I thought too, but she backs his story. You folks have a good night." He says before leaving the waiting room. I look at Mark… shocked.

"I have a feeling this wasn't an accident?" He concludes quietly. I shake my head 'no'. "How much involvement do you have in this Addison? Did the two of you conspire to…"

"Would I have just saved him if that was my intention?" I ask harshly.

"I don't get it. Why would he lie for her?"

"I don't know."

"Addison… Addison I'm so glad you're still here." Meredith walks up to me. She is wearing scrubs. She has a bandage on her head, and one on her face. "I wanted to thank you." She says, pulling me into a hug. "Thank you so much."

"Meredith…what's going on? The officer just said that…"

"He said he could forgive me." Meredith says quickly, cutting me off. "He said that he could forgive me if I could forgive him. If we could make things work."

"What? No."

"Things could be different now. We could live out the time he has left. We can be different. He… He…He promised." We look at each other for a long while before she turns and walks away.

"Do you want to stick around in case she needs you?" Mark asks me.

"No. I can't help her. I can't help her, and I can't help Derek. I …" My breath catches. "I'm sorry." I am crying. He pulls me into his arms. "Mark I'm so sorry. I'm sorry for what I almost did."

"You were in the right place at the right time. Meredith needed twenty-six stitches in her head and face. She has 2nd degree burns on her back and arm that need treatment." I feel an immense sense of guilt when I hear this. I was so preoccupied with Derek that I didn't think to check for covered wounds. "If you weren't there, she would have killed him Addison. She would have killed him or allowed him to die. That's not who she is. You saved her from a prison sentence."

"Everyone responds to trauma differently." I say, trying to keep my tone neutral.

"That they do."

"Let's go home."

"I can't Mark."

"Why?"

"How am I ever supposed to learn to be self-sufficient if I keep falling back to you?"

"You are a brilliant doctor Addison. You're a millionaire. You are already self-sufficient. You just need to go back to work and remind yourself who you truly are."

"I can't."

"You really should eliminate that nasty word from your vocabulary. You can do anything you set your mind to Addison. I know can."

"I almost went back to him… back to…" I know that Amelia would have called him and warned him about what I was planning on doing. She's a nosey one. She would have read the letter.

"You didn't though. You helped with a crisis and now you're coming home."

"I…I can come home?" I ask, voice trembling.

"Addison, you are always welcome in our home. You made a mistake. That one mistake does not define you. It does not make you any less worth of love."