Feels Like Home
Chapter 5
"Tante Addison, vous devez apprendre Français."(Aunt Addison, you need to learn French). Oakley informs me. We are sitting at the fountain again, reading during my lunch break. Meredith had taken Willow to an appointment and asked me to watch Oakley, swearing she would be back by the time my lunch break was done. "Quel livre avez-vous aujourd'hui (What book do you have today?) I just look at her, raising my eyebrows when she speaks to me in French. She sighs dramatically and repeats herself in English. "Aunt Addison, you need to learn French. What book do you have today?" Oh. Of course, she would be asking about the book. We finished Charlie and the Chocolate Factory yesterday, and I had promised to bring her a new book. Oakley's reading has improved greatly now that she has someone to read with, and books that she is interested in, at the place where she spends most of her time. I show her the book I've brought, Matilda. She looks at it with such curiosity, examining the pictures on the covers, and gently running her hands over its smooth surface before we're allowed to proceed. We alternate pages, her reading one, and me reading the other until we are finished with the chapter, and I close the book. She tells me I need to learn French again and I sigh.
"Why would I need to learn French?" I ask her curiously. "You and your entire family speak English. English is your primary language." Bizzy put me in French lessons as a child, very similar to how Meredith has done Willow and Oakley. The French tutor declared "C'est une cause perdue" (It's a lost cause) and told Bizzy to stop wasting her money. Thankfully Bizzy allowed me to stop taking the lessons and didn't force me to proceed with a different language. Something about when the best tutor, directly from France tells you that you're hopeless after three years there's nothing you can do to come back from that. Archer was thankful for this. No language lessons meant we had a whole extra hour in the afternoons to play, to just be children.
"English is too difficult." She complains. "There are too many words that sound exactly the same but are spelled differently. They all have different meanings and uses." She reaches into her backpack and hands me an English Language Arts worksheet on homophones. She got a check plus written in bright red ink on the top of the worksheet. She only missed one question, the differences between there, they're and their.
"Hmm." I say, looking the paper over for longer than necessary. Her handwriting is neat, slanted slightly, but written neat and small on the lines next to each question. Should five-year old's have handwriting this neat? It's horrible, but I do not remember what Heavenly's handwriting looked like. "It looks like you're doing well. A check plus is a really good grade. I'm sure there are tricky words like that in every language Oakley." She is distracted though. She is digging deeper in her backpack, looking through different folders mumbling 'I know it's here somewhere.' Finally, she hands me a small card, folded in half. I unfold it, heart racing as I realize what it is. It is a little hospital card, the ones that are placed in the bassinets at the hospital, so the babies don't get mixed up. Stapled to the card is a newborns hospital band. They both say her name, she is listed as Oakley Sloan. The hospital documents say her birthday, time of birth, height and weight.
"I found this in the box Mummy keeps all of my baby pictures and stuff in." She explains. "She keeps the ones that aren't in frames in the top of her closet, in a plastic box so they don't get damaged."
"It's not nice to snoop through other people's things." I say gently. I don't want this to go where I know it is going. I'm not ready to have this conversation with her.
"I wasn't snooping." She says, sheepishly. "Well not really! I needed a baby picture, and a current picture for a school project. We're not allowed to touch the ones in the frames. Mummy likes them to stay just so on the walls."
"Does she know you were looking in the box?" I ask her, knowing that Meredith would have remembered placing the card with the hospital band in there. I hand them back to her, and she places them in the front pocket of her backpack.
"No. My Mummy doesn't have time for stuff like school projects. That's what our teachers are paid to do." This is a bit harsh coming from a five-year-old, but I know arguing the logistics of homework being schoolwork that you do at home with your parents would do no good.
"Maybe the time can be found." I suggest. "Next time you have a school project I will help you, it's not fair to put all of that on your teachers."
"You said my real daddy is a doctor. There is only one Dr. Sloan here. He works in plastics. All of the nurses swoon over him." Her eyes go big, dramatic and she makes kissy noises and then looks disgusted and fake gags.
"He does." I say, in a non-committal way. "Sloan is a very common last name Oakley." I don't mean to gaslight her, knowing good and well that Plastic's Sloan is her father, but I cannot think of anything else to say that would detour suspicion.
"So, is he my real Daddy?" She drills me, and I try to keep my expression blank. "I want to know about my daddy, about my real daddy." She admits. "I'm still mad at you. You owe me this information."
"I don't owe you anything." I correct her. "I did what I had to do to save your life." I realize it is too harsh though, her face crumbles, and she nearly cries thinking I'm upset with her. "What did your Mommy say when you asked her?"
"That Derek is my Daddy." She says, looking annoyed.
"He is your Daddy." I agree. "From the time you were a teeny tiny baby he raised you as his own little girl. He loves you. He keeps you safe. He provides for you." I wanted to deposit more money in Oakley and Willow's accounts I left them when I left the city. I still have online access and checked the accounts before splitting the bonus check I got when I signed on to work at the hospital full time, vs just the one case. I could have used that money for something else, but I don't need it. By the time that they're eighteen they might. Nobody knows where they might end up.
"You're just taking Mummy's side! You both know that's not what I meant!"
"It's what you get for now. I can't tell you anything without your Mommy's approval. If your Mommy doesn't want, you to know right now I'm not going to be the one to tell her against her wishes."
"It doesn't matter." She says. "I'll just ask Heavenly next time I'm over your house."
"Fine, you go ahead and do that." I say, still not totally convinced that this thing they're seeing and talking to isn't the product of grief and an over active imagination.
"Tu es si méchante! Je te détesté!" (You're so evil! I hate you!) She narrows her eyes at me and then. "See, you don't even know what I just said. I could have said anything, you need to learn French."
Meredith still wasn't back by the time lunch was almost over. I passed Oakley off to her newest teacher Meredith had hired for afternoon lessons. My head is pounding. I take a couple of Tylenol and then go to one of the on-call rooms. I just want a few minutes of peace and quiet before I have to get back to adulting and tending to my patients. I need to be in the skills lab. The quad's surgery is still not perfected. Their mother is still resistant to surgery, but so far under hospital supervision they're holding out. They're as stable as can be expected. Mark finds me in the on-call room. I've only been laying down a few minutes. I don't want to deal with him either. I just need a minute. I am scheduled to work late tonight. I picked up an extra shift. The nights alone in the brownstone are a lot. It's too quiet.
"I've been looking for you. I heard you were back in town." He says, opening the door, walking in. He leans against the wall, looking at me laying on the bed. I sit up begrudgingly.
"You couldn't have been looking too hard. I've been here almost a month now."
"I wanted to give you space."
"That's considerate, I guess." I say. "I was wondering how long it'd take you to come around."
"I missed you Addison." He admits. "You're here to stay I hope?"
"I haven't decided yet." I tell him. It's very complicated. I don't want to leave the girls, but I still don't know if I am ready for this life. It's been about a week since Oakley found out the truth and it has hurt every single day, almost worse than being around her when she didn't know. At least then I was just 'Aunt Addison.' now it's like I'm expected to step up my game.
"I'm sorry about what happened between us, really I am."
"You could have fooled me." I say. "If you were serious, you would have ambushed me the day I arrived." I wanted to find him, to talk to him and make sure he was okay with me being back. He was one of my best friends. When I left I didn't only lose my daughter. I lost my husband, my best friend. I didn't fight for him. Maybe if I had fought for him, we'd be together. We'd be together and happy. I shake my head trying to clear the thoughts. I can't think this way. He's happy with his... Trixie. He has replaced the family that we lost. He didn't find me, and I didn't seek him out either. I had enough gone on with Meredith, Derek and the girls. I don't know if I would have been able to handle one more thing that shortly after I arrived.
"I didn't know what to say." He admits. "With the way we left things it just seemed better to give you your space, especially once I saw you, and you look so good, healthy."
"You're here now though." I state. "I have a lot going on right now Mark. I'm due in the operating room in less than two hours. I need to round. I am supposed to be in the skills lab, and I still have to do my patients pre op briefing. I'm a very busy person, so if you could get to the point of this little intrusion, I'd appreciate it." It hits me suddenly that I don't believe in coincidences. I have been at the hospital almost daily since I arrived back in New York. He could have figured it out if he wanted to. If I didn't know better, I'd say that he's been going out of his way to avoid me. He doesn't want to work on our relationship. He wants something. He needs my help with something.
"She's pregnant again." He says.
"What?" I ask distracted. "Who?"
"Trixie. We heard the heartbeat today. She's exactly eight weeks." My heart lurches when he says this, and I feel like I am going to throw up. He's moved on so quickly, three, now four children later and he still has that look of sadness, of loss in his eyes.
"Why are you telling me this?" I ask him. "You were married to me for how many years? Clearly being married to an OBGYN doesn't teach you how babies are conceived." He scowls at me when I say this, as if I have personally wounded him. I don't care though. "You can get condoms at any drug store, and if she wants a prescription for birth control after the baby is born, she will have to talk to her doctor about that."
"I love my children. They're amazing Addison."
"As long as they're not mine." I grumble, his face falls. It was too much. "What do you want from me Mark?"
"I would like to meet Oakley. I want her to get to know her siblings, and my wife. I, we, want her to be a part of our lives. I regret letting them adopt her every single day. I regret not getting my life together and being the father that she needed me to be."
"You walked out on her." I remind him.
"So did you. We both made mistakes with her. You're right. She was born too soon after Heavenly's death. We both needed more time."
"You signed the adoption paperwork; you haven't seen her in five years."
"Neither have you. We both did what we thought was best for her at the time."
"So now that I'm back you suddenly feel differently? You've grown and matured to the point that you want to make things right with her?"
"Why do you deserve a chance with her, and I don't?" He demands. I am taken aback at his tone, and back away from him a little. "She's my daughter too!"
"No." I say, shaking my head. "She's Meredith and Derek's daughter. If you want her to know who you are you're going to have to bring it up with them. I don't deserve a chance with her. It was thrown in my lap though and so I am taking it."
"I need you to help me with them."
"Absolutely not."
"Addison please."
"Why?"
"Trixie says if I don't try, she's going to take the kids, she's going to leave me." He confesses. "She says it isn't right that Oakley doesn't know who her father is." I look at him with disgust when he says this.
"So, this isn't about Oakley at all? This is about yourself, and maintaining your 'new normal'?" I question him, and he looks guilty. I feel so overwhelmed.
"Addison that's not what I meant." He tries to cover, but it's not convincing. "She's, my daughter. I do want to know her."
"But not enough to man up and ask them yourself?" I ask.
"Addison you're impossible! What's gotten into you?"
"You can't do this if it's not about her. If you're just going to dunk out of her life, if you're going to leave her again. Once she knows the truth there's no turning back from that in a way that won't hurt her. If this is just about you and your new wife and children leave Oakley out of it."
"She's knows you're her mom." I have no idea how Mark knows this, maybe he overheard us talking one of the many days we spent together during my lunch break.
"She wasn't supposed to." I admit. "I didn't have a choice. Derek needs to learn to keep his fat mouth shut." Oakley is still angry with me for leaving her. She doesn't understand that I gave her up for adoption to give her the very best shot at a good life. I couldn't care for her in the state I was in.
"Aren't you glad the secret is finally out in the open though?" He asks. "You look happier, your face glows when the two of you are spending time together. I haven't seen you like that since you were with Heavenly."
"She's an amazing little girl." I finally settle, not sure what to say to this.
"So, you'll help me?" He asks again, hopeful that I'll change my mind.
"When you make it about her, and only her, but Mark, we need to respect what Meredith and Derek want as well. The final choice is up to them." I say, giving in a little, it's not fair for me to keep her all to myself if he wants a relationship with her too. It needs to be about her though. He cannot use her to keep his marriage together any more than he could use her to keep our marriage together. Children shouldn't be born with a job to do. That was never the intention. At least not my intentions. From the very start he thought that having the baby would keep me. He thought that she would bind us together, that she'd make me realize how much I want to stay with him and raise a family. In the end he ended up losing us both.
"You look exhausted." Meredith says, we're in the attending's lounge, changing into our street clothes. I hadn't known she was working the late shift as well. I look up, surprised to hear her voice. I was already changed and been sitting on the bench with my head in my hands, just thinking.
"I'm excited to go home." I admit. "It's been a long day." My little encounter with Mark was abruptly ended when I was paged nine one one. The quint's mother was mid anxiety attack. She had pulled out all of the tubes and wires. She was demanding we release her. When I had approached her to try and calm her, she kicked me, hard. I realize that Meredith is frowning at my arm. It bruised up almost instantly and is now an angry shade of purple.
"That looks bad, did you report her?" Meredith asks, seeming to read my thoughts. This irritates me to a whole new level.
"I'm fine." I snap. "What good will reporting her do? Do you think reporting her will make her more comfortable living in a hospital? Do you really think that reporting her will make her quiet down? Listen to me? Allow me to operate?" I ask harshly. "She is terrified Meredith. Reporting her isn't going to help her come to terms with the fact that she needs this operation to save her babies lives."
"She's still refusing the surgery?"
"They believe that they can pray their way through this. That God will heal her and the babies."
"It's not working?"
"Have you ever seen it work?"
"Not personally. No."
"Baby C isn't doing well. I don't know how much longer we can hold out. Her partner is distraught at the thought of losing even one of the babies. She wants her to have the surgery."
"This isn't right, what do we do?"
"There's nothing we can do. She has to hit rock bottom before she can work her way through that fear, unfortunately that may come at the cost of her children's lives."
"You could have her declared medically incompetent or..."
"That didn't work when y'all did that to me."
"You got the lifesaving surgeries you needed. Oakley is here today because you were not allowed to make your own medical decisions."
"That's not fair."
"What's not fair is allowing this mother to put her children's lives at stake, it's not fair to continue with the wait and see approach when one of the quads is failing to thrive in the womb and the others are likely to follow."
"Why can you extend me grace, but not extend grace to this woman who is clearly suffering?"
"I did you a major disservice by extending you grace. You nearly died, multiple times, because I didn't step in and intervene before things got to a critical level."
"That's not the same thing Meredith."
"It's exactly the same. You have to do your job, and your job is to save that woman and her babies."
"I'm not a savior."
"You have to be. You're a surgeon. It's a different name, but practically the same thing."
"Je me suis enfuie ." (I ran away) Oakley announces when I open the front door that evening. She is alone, wearing her coat, shoes on the wrong feet, with a fully stuffed backpack on her back.
"Are you okay?" I ask her, alarmed. "What happened? Are you hurt? Is Willow and your parents okay?" I question her. Automatically assuming the worst. It's true that she has come over with Willow in the past, but Meredith normally does not allow Oakley outside on her own, even to come next-door.
"Nobody's hurt." She answers, much to my relief. She looks up at me expectantly. It surprises me when I am able to work out what she's said in French. It is actually one of the very limited number of things I remember from those torturous years in French lessons. She had said "I ran away." When I was a child, I attempted to run away to Paris. My plan was to live as a homeless child to escape my mother and her laundry list of rules and expectations. It was a stupid plan. I paid my driver a thousand dollars to take me to the airport. I bought a ticket beforehand using one of Bizzy's bank accounts. I was too young. Too naive. I didn't realize that even though I had a passport, and access to money, I wouldn't be able to travel as an unaccompanied minor without someone knowing where I flew to. My brain didn't register how ridiculous it was that I planned to run away to a country where only an estimated thirty nine percent of the population speaks English, and I could not speak French to save my life, then or now. Someone would have probably turned me over to the authorities. Or I would have been lost, or human trafficked. The world was still a dangerous place, even back then. In the end my parents did not even know I was missing. I was gone for over five hours by the time that Archer found me at the airport and drug me home, forcing the driver to give him back the money in exchange for keeping his job. Archer kept it. It's probably better that Bizzy and the Captain never knew of my little adventure.
"No, you did not." I tell her. "What's really going on?" I ask, raising my eyebrows at her critically.
"I absolutely did! I'm living here now." She announces, taking her shoes off in the entry way, she then pushes past me and drops her backpack on the window seat.
"Oh no you're not." I say quickly. "I'm not trying to go to jail for kidnapping. You'd better take your little self-back next-door."
"Non." (No) She says, crossing her arms stubbornly. I look her up and down carefully, and I believe her when she said she isn't hurt. She doesn't even look particularly upset, just determined.
"Don't you dare tell me no." I warn her. "Your Mommy is going to realize that you're missing and if she can't find you, she's going to be so worried." I say, and Oakley laughs, as if I've just made a joke.
"You can't make me go back to there. You're my real Mommy anyway. If you try to make me, go back, I'll tell the police that you're my real Mommy. I'll show them the bedroom upstairs and tell them it's my room. I'll tell them that the people who claim to be my parents stole me and forged the adoption paperwork." After the sleepover I stocked the bedroom with clothes and shoes in both of the girl's sizes so that Meredith wouldn't have to worry about them having things they need if something like this were to happen again. They are neatly folded in the drawers and hung in the closet. I am regretting that now. It really does look like a little girl lives there. Would the police believe me if I say that she's not mine? I don't have a copy of the adoption paperwork. I gave all of that to Meredith. How big of a mess could this really become if Oakley wanted it to? She doesn't understand what she's doing.
"What has gotten into you?" I ask her. "You would NOT lie like that, to anyone." I look at her crossly, where does she even get these ideas. "I am not your Mommy." I remind her.
"Try me." She challenges "I'm not scared. My Mummy watches CSI: New York. I'm practically an expert. They'll run your DNA and compare it to mine. They'll know I'm telling the truth."
"In the meantime, you'll be taken from me, and from your parents and placed in Foster Care until we can prove to the courts you really belong with them." I say, but it doesn't deter her.
"Maybe foster care is better than living with them!"
"Television isn't a reality Oakley. Your parent's didn't steal you, and you can get us all into a lot of trouble if you lie to the police. Money cannot make everything go away."
"You get in trouble if you get caught."
"Oakley that is enough of this, let's get you home before your Mommy realizes that you're gone and calls the police for real. I was getting ready to go to bed, are you tired?" I ask her, but she fixates on the part about me taking her home.
"No! I'm not going!"
"What's going on at home?" I ask her carefully. "Do you want to talk about it?"
"You can't handle my life's drama." She says, falling back dramatically onto the bench seat. She pulls her feet up, and looks out the window, watching the cars pass by.
"You're five." I remind her. "It can't be any worse than my adult drama."
"I'm five and my drama is adult drama." She complains. "My house is too loud! I'm never going back; my Mummy and Daddy are psychopaths. The only person I even like is Willow and she's not even home. She got to go to a stupid sleepover and left me alone with them." She declares. I sigh and sit down next to her. At least she had the brains to run away next door, to someone safe. It's more mature than my plan to leave the country, tell everyone my parents were dead, and live homeless.
"I can understand that feeling. I didn't get along with my parents either when I was little. I'll text your Mom that you're here so she doesn't worry, and then we can talk some more." When I say this Oakley bursts into angry tears.
"She probably doesn't even know that I'm gone. How could she when she's fighting with Daddy again?" She demands, and then the word vomit, the thing that seems to really be bothering her slips out. "Mummy found out tonight that she's having another baby. She told Daddy and he wants her to get an abortion. I don't know what that is, but it had to be bad. It made Mummy cry. Mummy says that the baby is a gift from God, that it's just what we need to make Daddy stop drinking and bring our family back together. That's not true though. Mummy just wants Daddy to stop visiting the green haired girl that you work with. Why can't you make Daddy stop seeing her?" Oakley demands, looking up at me furiously. I am silent for several moments, shocked by these revelations. I look down at my phone, I hadn't heard it go off when I was in the shower, and then Oakley was at the door. Two missed calls. Meredith texted me a picture of a positive pregnancy test, and a voice text message. I text her back letting her know I have Oakley, and then press play on the text.
"I'm sorry. I know it's late. I just. I. I need somebody to talk to. Addie, please call me back when you get this." I can hear Derek banging on the bathroom door, accusing her of sleeping around, and the sound of the phone dropping.
I text her, asking her to come over when things have settled down, telling her we can talk. Oakley gives me a miserable "I told you so." Look.
"I can't control other people Oakley; I can only control myself and the way I respond."
"You need to respond meaner then. Green haired girl is ruining our lives. I wish that she'd just die!"
"Don't say that." I respond quickly, a little too harshly. "Never wish death on someone baby, you'd feel really bad if something happened to her."
"No, I wouldn't. I could have my Mummy and my Daddy back." She thinks for a moment and then continues. "I should say it because it's true! My parents aren't even my parents and now Mummy's going to have a dumb baby to take up even more of her time, while Daddy has that extra time to "Work" which really means visit the green haired girl. This isn't fair. I hate my life."
"Wouldn't you like to have a little brother or sister to play with?" I ask her.
"Maybe." She says, unsure. "I have cousins and they're alright."
"I asked your Mommy to come over when things settle down. Maybe there is something that I can do to help. Your parents love you Oakley. They just have a lot going on right now." I offer. She doesn't look convinced.
"Willow doesn't even know yet. I wasn't supposed to know but Daddy was on his phone on video call with the green haired girl in the downstairs bathroom, so I went upstairs because I really really really needed to use the bathroom. I accidentally walked in on Mummy looking at the test. I asked her what it was, and she told me. She told Daddy about the baby a little while later and everything exploded and so I ran away. It's so quiet here. I really want to stay."
"Your Mommy is going to come and get you." I inform her. "We should give this situation time though." I tell her gently. "Things seem bad right now, but they won't be this way forever." I think of my patient at work, and the quads. I make sure my phone volume is turned on incase anything happens, and they need me at the hospital. I need to go back to work. I need to somehow convince my patient she needs an operation that she does not want. Maybe the prayers are not working because her partner doesn't believe in it, and is just doing it to appease her? They need to be the ones having a serious discussion here. Oakley starts rummaging through her bag, and takes out her dolly, holding her tightly. I need to take her back home to her parents, but I am suddenly so tired. Meredith has a key; she can come after her when she's ready.
"I guess I am tired." Oakley announces. "Running away is hard work. Heavenly is here now. Can I go lay down with her?" She asks me, looking towards a spot just past me.
"She is?" I ask her, the thought of her going to bed appealing. If she goes to bed, I can go to bed. Who knows what time Meredith will come around, she still hasn't texted me back.
"I won't go up on the top bunk. She won't let me sleep up there. She says that I'll get broken if I roll over in my sleep and fall down." She looks over to the spot again. "She was visiting our sister and brothers. She says they're so sweet, and fun to play with, especially the twins."
"You can go, but just until your Mommy comes." I say, but I know good and well if she actually falls asleep neither Meredith or I will wake her and force her to go home. I think she knows this too, because she looks relieved. She climbs down off of the window seat and holds her hand out, towards that same spot. She smiles and closes her hand, as if she has taken someone's hand in her own. She swings her arm back and forth like little girl's do when they're walking and holding each other's hands. She walks carefully up the stairs, and out of sight. I don't offer to tuck her in or talk with her more, if she is asking for space, I will let her have it. I tell her that I'll check on her in a little while and go into the kitchen. I wash the dinner dishes, sweep, and clean the stove. When I go back upstairs to check on her, she is indeed fast asleep. I tuck her in, and it isn't five minutes after I come back downstairs before Meredith is letting herself in the front door.
"Do you want to talk about it?" I ask her carefully. Her eyes are red and puffy. She looks so tired and shaken as she sinks down onto the couch. "Would you like a water, or a coke or something?"
"I'm fine."
"I'm sorry I didn't respond sooner; I was in the shower. I didn't hear my phone go off and then Oakley showed up. I was trying to figure out what to do with her. She threatened to tell the cops you stole her by the way, so I'd watch out for that."
"She's been taking the news pretty hard. It's fine that you didn't respond. It's late. I shouldn't have called you, but I just… I didn't know who else to call."
"Meredith, you know I don't mind. It's fine."
"Is Oakley, okay?" She asks and I notice that she is shaking. "I thought she went to her room. I didn't even hear her go out the front door." She looks racked with guilt, and fear.
"Running away apparently wore her out. She put herself to bed upstairs." When I say this a look of relief washes over her. She is upstairs, asleep and safe.
"Thank you for looking after her."
"Sure." I say, though that is not my first thought, it seems kinder not to tell her 'I wasn't given a choice.' That would be too much right now. It would remind her that she is already struggling to raise the children she already has.
"I might be getting a divorce. The clinical trials are getting shut down. I don't know how much longer I can deal with his alcoholism. He's not a happy drunk Addison."
"I'm so sorry."
"It's not a big deal. I should let him go. He's happier with her anyway." She says. I shake my head sadly, but I don't press her. I had similar feelings when I left Derek for Mark. I give her a few minutes to pull herself together. I go to the kitchen and return with two sparkling waters from the refrigerator. I'm having one, and it would be rude not to give her one. She opens it and takes a drink. When I am this close to her, I can smell the alcohol radiating from her. I give her a look of concern.
"I was already wasted when I took the test." She says. I try to show her grace. "I didn't think it would be possible for the test to be positive. If I believed even for a second, it would have been positive I wouldn't have been drinking. You know me Addison."
"I know." I say gently. "I just want you to be okay, everything you're going through, it's a lot."
"He's angry, he thinks I did this on purpose. I didn't."
"Of course, you didn't." I say, soothingly. "Things will work out." I say, confidently. "He'll realize how important you and the girls are to him. He'll come around."
"He didn't realize that you were important to him."
"You're different than me Meredith. I wasn't important to him; you were always the love of his life." This isn't a conversation we would have had years ago, but time has changed us both. It sounds odd, but him falling in love with her helped me to find my very best friend. We wouldn't have been friends if that hadn't happened. We wouldn't have had the wonderful years raising our children together. We wouldn't have been better for having known each other."
"Things won't change if he doesn't leave Amber alone." She mumbles. There are tears falling from her eyes, but she looks, not sad, something else that I can't quite place.
"Would it help if I talked to him?" I ask her, sounding more confident than I feel. "If you think it will help, I will talk to him. You've already made it clear that Amber is off limits though. I mean really at this rate I don't think you'll have to worry about her much longer. How many times can you fail your intern year before you're kicked out of the program?"
"She's failing?" Meredith asks me, distracted. "You're actually going to fail her?"
"What really happened between the two of you, I mean, aside from the obvious?" I ask.
"I don't want to talk about it." Meredith responds.
"Well, you're going to have to give me something to go on." I tell her. "Am I supposed to just let her pass when she is incompetent? She is a danger to our patients Meredith. She hasn't done the work. It could just be that she's distracted, but she doesn't know half of the things she should know at this point to pass, and this is her second go round. I don't know what to do with her, because you refuse to let me teach her. Your five-year-old has more medical knowledge in her little finger than Amber does in her whole body."
"Oh, way to turn this all around on me." Meredith says, irritably. "You're abusive. You abuse your interns, Addie. That's not teaching. I didn't tell you that you cannot teach her. I asked you to treat her with dignity and show her kindness and grace."
"You also said that she has potential for greatness, and she hasn't shown that to me. You can't get to the place where I am today by gentle parenting. You can't get through your intern year by screwing an attending. You actually have to put in the work. You didn't get where you are by people coddling you." I say, and then realize that I've said gentle parenting and not gentle teaching methods. It's different, but in a way it's the same. As an Attending it is my job to teach the interns what they need to know to be successful, and when they continue to screw up other methods need to be taken. In a way we are kind of like parents, teaching the basic life skills needed to survive a day as a doctor, as a surgeon.
"I don't even care anymore, just do whatever you want Addison." I look her over carefully, trying to decide if she is being genuine or not. I can't tell. She is always able to filter better to mask better when under the influence of alcohol which is the opposite for most people.
"I have bigger things to worry about than if you drive the woman my husband is screwing to the point of suicide or not."
"You're lying." I say, but there is something about the way she said that it's so knowing, like she has personal experience with this. Is that what caused her to change her teaching methods?
"You want to know why I am so protective of her?" She demands. I stay silent. "Last year when I confronted her about her relationship when Derek, I reduced her surgery hours. She accused me of hazing and reported me to the medical board. I very nearly lost my medical license and my job. When it was apparent that wasn't going to work, and she wasn't allowed to switch Attending's she tried to hang herself from one of the bunk beds in the on-call room. She was late for rounds as usual. I went looking for her and found her there. I had to cut her down, I had to preform CPR and rescue breathing until the code team showed up. In the letter she was clutching in her hand she blamed me. I didn't realize until that point that dealing with your shit has turned me hard, cold and emotionless. I was too hard on her, on all of the interns."
"That was never my intentions. Meredith I'm sorry."
"It wasn't your fault any more than it was her fault. When I saw her there, I didn't see her though. I saw you and all of the times you've nearly died. I saw all the times I've had to save you."
"Meredith…"
"Don't say anything…let me finish." She starts, and I fall silent. "Just please don't make your life harder for yourself than it already is. She's fragile, like you were. You can't take this on Addison. You don't need another helping of trauma, not now when your life finally seems to be on track."
"I won't take on more than I can handle." I promise her. "If Amber doesn't step it up, she is out of the program, period." I say. "I will teach her my way, the same way I teach the other interns." It sounds harsh. It is not that I am unconcerned with what Meredith has just revealed. It's just that my thoughts on the matter haven't changed. "If she cannot handle the high pressure of our job, she needs to find another career. Maybe she can be a social media influencer or something. I hear they get paid well."
"You're being a bitch." She tells me.
"Did you really expect that to change?" I ask her. "I recovered; I didn't have a personality dialysis. I am the same person I've always been." I realize what I've said and smile a little, remembering the lyrics from one of my favorite play's 'Wicked'. (Think of it as personality dialysis.) It was a complete coincidence that I said that, but it made me smile all the same. She looks at me strangely. Meredith Grey-Shepherd was never into musicals.
"Derek loves his children Addison. I will win everytime because I have his children."
"Stop trying to justify this to me." I say, shaking my head. "You won against me because I had no desire to fight you for him. That doesn't mean that you'll always win. Meredith, I trust you to make the right choice for yourself, for your children." I say. "If that means working it out with Derek, well that's your choice."
"I want this baby. I know he'll love this baby as much as he does the girls, he's just afraid."
"Are you afraid?" I ask her, remembering the conversation from a while back about the baby that Meredith and Derek had lost.
"No." She admits. "Things feel differently this time."
"You should still go get a checkup just to make sure everything is progressing normally, but I'm happy for you Meredith, for you both."
"At least you know that you're keeping the baby. That's half of the struggle." I say, with a little smile.
"I will have Derek sign up for alcoholics anonymous. He can get a sponsor, and we can go to marriage counseling or something."
"Yeah." I agree. "That would be good."
"It will work this time. I'm committed." There is a sour taste in my mouth when she says this. Is she implying that I wasn't committed for the years that Derek and I did couples therapy?
"Well good luck with that." I say trying to keep my tone even.
"Are you mad?"
"What?" I ask, confused.
"Are you mad at me?"
"Why would I be mad at you?" I ask her.
"You can't have children and I'm pregnant with a whole new baby."
"No… Meredith I would never be mad at you for that. You know I don't want children." I say, and she winces when I say that. She knows I don't mean it; she knows I loved Heavenly, and that I love Oakley and even Willow too. I guess it is different with Oakley though. Our relationship is similar to mine and Willow's. Oakley knows that I gave birth to her, but she still treats me like her Aunt. Not too much has changed. The only thing that really changed was her awareness of the situation.
"Well, you can have these three…" She says, speaking of Willow, Oakley, and the unborn baby. "Anytime you want a visit or a cuddle. I'll send them right over." She says, forgetting that I am supposed to be leaving in a few months. I decide to test the waters.
"I don't want to leave Meredith." I say quietly. "I want to stay. If it is still something you're up for I want to raise the children with you and Derek, as Aunt Addison, of course, but I'd like to be a part of their lives. I don't want to leave them again. I don't want to leave you again."
"So don't."
"Would we be able to make things work if I stayed? What's going to happen with Oakley? She's clearly going through a lot right now. I just want to scoop her up and protect her from the world."
"I know." Meredith says, shaking her head sadly. "I'll get her into counseling, and a support group for children who are adopted. I think what's really going to help her is spending more time with you though."
"Did you not just hear me say I don't want children?" I ask her, but I'm teasing. I know she doesn't mean all the time.
"You also said that you want to be apart of their lives." Meredith points out, I guess she missed my tone. "I'm not meaning that they should move in with you or anything, but maybe we should have an arrangement more like we did when we were raising Heavenly and Willow. It worked out so perfectly for everyone, especially the girls."
"I had Mark; it will be different this time."
"The person they need is the person who shows up for them Addison, and who knows, you might find some other hot piece of man candy, in time, for now let's make it about the kids. I'm not going to stop working just because this little one is here." She says, placing her hand on her tummy. "I love my job too much, so if you want them for a visit, please, spend time with them. They'd love that."
"Okay." I say, with a little smile. "We can work something out."
"I was hoping you'd come around. It looks like things really are beginning to look up."
Authors Note:
Wow this was a long chapter. Please Read and Review. Chapters 1-4 have been completely re-written with new scenes and expansion on current scenes. Chapter 5 is now complete. I am not sure when I will start Chapter 6. I want to work on a couple of my other stories, but hopefully sooner than this current chapter got finished. :') .