In My Blood
Chapter 2
Mark Sloan's Point of View
July 2010
I can hear Addison's weeping sobs all the way down the hallway and to the elevators. I need to go to her. I should hold her in my arms and let her know she isn't alone. I made her a promise though. She doesn't want our baby girl to be alone. I am not allowed in the operating room, or in the gallery. There is a child in another room screaming for pancakes. My mind flashes back to just a few days at the breakfast table.
*Mini Flashback to the morning of Heavenly's death*
"I want chocolate!" Heavenly had declared.
"Eat your breakfast first." I said, looking over at her from the top of the paper. Addison had her in another one of those Gymboree 'bow to toe' outfits. She had done her hair in pigtails this morning with these little brightly colored spiral ribbon clip. Heavenly fights with the clips, frustrated that she is unable to get them out.
"Poppa Pwease?" She asked, looking up at me with those eyes, so piercing exactly like her mothers when she wants her way. The look that they both know I cannot resist. Addison has trained her well. We sat at the kitchen table in a standoff for a minute.
"Fine, but don't get it on that outfit or your Mommy will get us both." I laugh when I say this and her eyes light up and a huge smile made its way across her face. I handed her one of Addison's expensive chocolates that she insists we keep stockpiles of in the house. "And finish your pancakes, they're star shaped and everything."
"Thank you! You're the best Poppa ever!" She gave me the biggest chocolate covered kiss on the cheek. I grabbed her, standing up with her and spinning her around. Sitting her down on the sink and wiping her mouth and hands with a clean wet rag. I gave her Eskimo kisses and reminded her that she is the best Princess ever, and how lucky I am to be her Poppa.
*END Mini FLASHBACK*
I feel like I can't breathe. I can see her face, hear her voice so clearly. How can life change so quickly in just the blink of an eye. I blame myself, and I know Addison blames herself. She wanted to get a Nanny, but I wanted Heavenly close to us. I convinced her that we didn't want our daughter raised by nannies like she was. This is my fault. I know she blames me.
"We'll take good care of her." Someone promises, putting their hand on my shoulder, and then helping push the gurney into the elevator. I watch, numbly, as the elevator door closes. My body is on auto pilot. I turn and begin walking. I find myself downstairs in one of the on-call rooms in the basement. My mind screams that I need to find Addison, but suddenly my body feels like it weighs a thousand pounds. The tears come, hot and heavy and in this moment I'm stuck. It's almost like I black out stuck in my own mental anguish. Something clicks inside of me and suddenly I have to get up. I have to find her. I can't be alone for a single second longer. I walk back to the room that was Heavenly's, expecting to find Addison right there, still laying on the floor, heart breaking. When I open the door a sense of panic fills my body as I realize it is completely empty, and the room had already been clean. She's gone.
Addison Montgomery's Point of View
July 2010
There is a flurry of activity in the room as the transplant team takes Heavenly, and then it's like time stands still. Meredith and Amelia are next to me. Bizzy is sitting in the chair next to the hospital bed. She's knitting something. I didn't know she could knit. Meredith is next to me, holding my head in her lap as I weep openly, screaming for my daughter, for Mark, for all of the injustice of the world. We know that the gunman is dead, but that doesn't make this any better. He took the easy way out. He destroyed our lives, and the lives of countless others and then committed suicide. Amelia shuts the door to allow me as little privacy as she can, but she and Meredith refuse to leave my side. I don't know where Archer, The Captain and Derek went. I haven't seen them since the nurse asked everyone to leave. Meredith and Amelia came back, but they stayed away. Perhaps Derek is with Willow, helping her through this loss. She needs her parents now more than ever.
"Get up." Bizzy says, is such a forceful demanding tone. She lays her knitting down and comes over to where the three of us are on the floor. "Addison that's enough of this. Get up. Right now." It sounds like I am underwater, and she is talking to me from the surface. I feel her physically pulling me up off the ground. "I said get up." She says, harshly.
"Bizzy this isn't helpful. She just lost her daughter." Amelia says, starkly when Bizzy lets go of me, and I nearly collapse back onto the ground. "She was your grandchild; you'd think you would be a little more sympathetic towards her mother."
"How do the two of you expect her to get through this if you keep coddling her like a child? She needs to get up. Life goes on. She's embarrassing herself, tarnishing her good name." The numbness is beginning to set in as I imagine what the rest of my life will be like without Heavenly. I can't do this. Hot shame washes over me with Bizzy's words. I just can't. I move quickly to the bathroom and am physically sick. I hear Bizzy tusking. I know she thinks I am pathetic right now. It's not that I am embarrassing myself, it's that I am not strong. I'm not hard. I'm embarrassing her. I am not sure if it is Meredith, or Amelia, but someone holds my hair back and rubs my back until the vomiting has subsided. I look at the clock on the wall. It has only been an hour. The operation to harvest her organs is long, too long. It will take between four to six hours and that is if everything goes to plan and there are not complications. I don't know why I am watching the clock, as if it was a lifesaving operation, vs a life ending one. Nothing will change. Mark's right, she's already gone. I try to take some comfort in the fact that good is coming from the life that we've lost. At the end of the day ten little ones will be given organs that allow them to go home with their parents. They will have a chance to live while I will go home with empty arms.
"Pull yourself up Addison. Be the woman I raised you to be." Bizzy demands. I look up at her, looking down at me so coldly, like I'm the one whose inconvenienced her with my grief. Amelia and Meredith have taken to talking about something I don't care to listen to. Fuck my mother for drilling into my head that "Montgomery's don't cry." She says this and I wipe my eyes on the sleeve of my sweater and pull myself up. Fuck Bizzy for coming up with that. Fuck Bizzy for trying to raise me to be emotionally void. She has never lost a child. She has never felt her heart being ripped out and crushed. "She's gone. You're going to have to get over it. Heavenly's death is your fault. You have to deal with what you've done, and move on."
"How could you say something like that?" Meredith demands, looking from Bizzy, to me, to the empty hospital bed. "How could you be so heartless?" Bizzy doesn't address her though and is still looking down at me.
"If you would have hired a Nanny like I told you to this never would have happened. Instead, you insisted on putting my granddaughter in that germy daycare center. She is dead because you made the choice to go against the way I raised you, the proper way."
"You need to go." I hear Amelia say, vigorously. "We don't do well with mother's here." Bizzy leaves without another word to me. I can hear the restraint in Amelia's voice. She is biting her tongue, trying hard not to say something she'd later regret. For once she is filtering. I guess she doesn't want to make my life harder by getting into a fight with Bizzy.
"Addison?" Amelia asks, and I look back to her voice. I don't remember getting up, but I am standing near the door Bizzy left through, my hand ready to open it.
"I'm fine." I say, they both look at me like 'yeah right' they know it's an automatic response. "I just can't be in this room. In her room anymore. There's nothing I can do here. I'm going to go home and shower. I'll be back before the operation is over."
"You can't listen to what Bizzy said. You know she says things she doesn't mean. She is an emotionless bitch. I don't even know why you called your parents. They've only seen Heavenly a handful of times since she was born."
"Please don't leave." Meredith says quickly, but I grab my purse and my keys. "I'll walk with you." She offers. "You shouldn't be alone right now." Her daughter Willow is, was, best friends with Heavenly. We were pregnant at the same time, and they were born days apart. We live right next door to each other. We raised our daughters together; they were as good as close as sisters. I know she has to be hurting too. I should say something, should comfort her, but the words won't come.
"I need to go find Mark." I mumble, and she nods.
"We'll find him." She assures me. I really had no intentions of finding Mark though, so this complicates things. She is on one side of me, and Amelia on the other as we walk down the hallway.
"I'm OK, there's nothing that can be done." I tell them, stopping in front of the large window to the hospital's nursery. It's physically painful that the maternity wing, pediatric intensive care unit and the neonatal intensive care unit are all on the same floors. When I come back to work, I will have to walk past her room every day. I check my watch. I still have time. "I have a few hours before the surgery is over and I need to be back." I tell them. "I would like to go home and have a shower, change into something that doesn't smell like hospital." It's selfish, but I try to make my voice sound as evenly as possible. I don't want them to worry. "I'll be back before the operation is over."
"I'll come with you. I don't mind Addison." Meredith offers. Amelia's phone beeps rapidly.
"I'm so sorry Addison, I have to go." She hugs me close.
"You have surgery tonight?" I ask her.
"There was a Multi vehicle collision on the freeway, the roads are so slick." She says. "We have four ambulances incoming traumas; I'll be there when the surgery is done. I promise." She says, and I nod my head okay. I don't mind her leaving. One less person to worry about. She handles her grief through her work. Operating helps her process. She runs down the hall towards the stairs. Taking the stairs is generally faster than waiting on an elevator.
"I need you to find Willow." I tell Meredith. "Find her and tell her I love her." Meredith and Derek had brought Willow to say goodbye to Heavenly before the rest of the family was allowed in. They explained to her what Heavenly was going to look like beforehand, but when they carried Willow into the hospital room and she saw her best friend laying on the bed, attached to all of the tubes she was absolutely distraught. She clung to Meredith, sobbing. If the roles were reversed, I don't think I could have done that. The sound of her cries is permanently engraved in my heart and my mind.
"Addison…"
"I'll be back before the surgery is over." I repeat. "Willow needs her Mommy right now." Reluctantly Meredith agrees, and walks in the opposite direction, towards the operating room's waiting room. I watch the babies for a few moments more, and then begin putting my plans into motion. I head downstairs and straight for my car. I sit, frozen in the driver's seat for several moments before reaching under the passenger's seat and taking out a bottle of vodka. Mark and I were meant to go away on the weekend. He said we should be prepared. I open the bottle and take a swig. Coughing as it burns going down my throat. It takes me a minute to realize I am soaking wet. It brings me to my senses a little bit. I look through the windshield. It's storming outside. I put the keys in the ignition, and when Heavenly's favorite CD starts to play I take another swig, and hit the radio's power button harder than necessary, turning it off.
'Be Brave.' I tell myself. I leave my headlights off and pull out of the parking lot. 'You'll be reunited with Heavenly if you are brave enough to end your own suffering.' My mind starts to play tricks on me as I take several more drinks of liquid courage. There is a long and empty stretch of road just outside of town. It's a very limited traffic area. A shortcut to the airport. I drive lost in my thoughts until I get to this certain road. It's windy, and just like always empty. There is no one to stop me as I drink the rest of the bottle, throw it to the ground and accelerate faster and faster until….
"No! Mommy what are you doing?" A little terrified voice asks. I slam on my breaks with such force that I begin hydroplaning. My vehicle spins out of control, crashing with such force into the guard rail that my unseatbelted body hits the steering wheel, and my head smashes into the windshield, shattering it. My car had come to a stop moments before I would have slammed into the side of a mountain. I move my head to my hand, trying to gauge how much blood I've lost and then turn around. Heavenly is sitting, buckled up in her car seat, sobbing.
"This isn't real." I tell myself. I have the sense to turn on the emergency blinkers. I am as close to the side of the road as I am going to be able to get. This can't be real. I was just at the hospital. They just took her away.
"What are you doing Mommy?" She demands again, with such force that I shudder. "You're driving too fast, too scary."
"Heavenly?" I ask, stupidly aware that I am speaking out loud to a figment of my imagination. "What's going on? How is this possible?" I must be having a mental break down. Given everything I've been through in the last few days I don't see how that would be outside the realm of possibilities. I rub my eyes and look up again. She's still there. Tears falling down her rosy, red cheeks.
"I was told I have to stop you. That I am the only one who can stop you. They told me it isn't your time yet."
"It wasn't your time yet either." I protest, beginning to cry, my breathing quickening. I hate crying in front of her. I always have. I guess that is the sort of thing that comes from being taught it's shameful to feel your feelings. I'm still recovering from my childhood, and I am a middle-aged adult. I can't stop myself. "I need to be with you. I'm your Mommy. I am supposed to protect you. I love you so much."
"It's not your time yet Mommy." She repeats. She unbuckles her seatbelt and climbs in the front seat with me. She places her tiny hand on my tummy. I know she isn't here, but I can feel her pressing down. "Oakley needs you Mommy and Poppa needs you too."
"Oakley?" I cough. "How did you…" I hadn't told anyone about the baby. I didn't even have the chance to tell Mark yet. I only got the results a couple of hours before the incident happened. What would he think about all of this? The last thing on my mind was announcing the pregnancy.
"I just know." She says, simply. "Don't be sad Mommy. I'm okay now. The bad man can't hurt me anymore. He's not here. He's somewhere else." She looks down at her hands. The pink and purple glittery polish is still shining brightly from when Meredith and I took the girls for Mommy and Daughter mani pedi's last week.
I stay still and silent listening to her speak, trying to soak up every word. I have always loved listening to her speak. Anything and everything she had to say has been fascinating to me. It kills me that I will never be able to hear her beautiful voice again.
She looks up out the window, there are red and blue flashing lights, and Meredith's voice screaming my name as she approaches the car.
"Help is here now." Heavenly says, simply. "Promise me you'll never do this again Mommy." She takes my face in her little hands and raises my face gently so that we're making eye contact. Just as I have done to her so many times before. I let out a sob, and a river of fresh tears. I look at her, smiling sadly. She is wise beyond her years. Did I expect that to change just because she's not earthbound anymore?
"It sounds like you're parenting me now." I joke, lightly, and she giggles before turning serious again.
"Promise me!" She pushes. "You don't get to decide when you're done." She kisses me gently on the cheek and vanishes as an EMT and Police officer bang on the window. I realize that my head is still laying against the windshield, and I cannot move. My mind must have been trying to find a way to fill the emptiness until help arrived, I reason. I begin to panic when I realize I cannot move or speak, and everything goes black.
Mark Sloan's Point of View
December 2010
"Get up." I demand as I walk through the brownstone door, and over to the window seat where Addison was still sitting, curled up, in the same pajamas I had helped her change into the night before. "Come on, lets go." I say. She looks up to me, questioningly. I try not to cringe. Her eyes, they look dead inside. I help her up and to shower and then I brush out her long red hair and put it in a pleat to keep it from tangling. While she cleans her teeth, I pick out something from the closet that looks vaguely like something she would wear. Even though she is five months pregnant she still fits into all of her regular clothing. If anything, the small addition of a baby bump complements her stylish clothing. She lets me help her dress with no resistance. I am painfully aware of the fact that aside from the baby bump she is mostly bones. The baby has taken what little nutrients she is able to hold on to. I put her warm socks on her and winter boots, and then her jacket, and my own, winter hats for both of us before helping her up again and guiding her to the door.
"Where are we going?" She asks, reminding me so much of Heavenly that I wince. I smile though. I am trying so hard. She's holding onto me for support, almost more than what would seem reasonable.
"I guess you'll see when we get there." I tease. She just glares at me with those same empty eyes. We walk outside into the crisp winter air, and I hold her hand tightly, semirealistically afraid that if I let her go, she'd jump out into traffic or something. She almost didn't come back to me the first time. If Meredith hadn't had the good sense to follow her and call 9-1-1 when she was driving erratically, she may not have gotten the help she needed in time after losing control of her vehicle and crashing. I don't know if she has the strength to survive a second 'accident'. She never intended to come back to the hospital. Never planned on holding our daughter one last time before she was sent to the morgue. She intended to join her.
I hail a cab, and they drive us to central park. I see the panic in her eyes as she looks out into the brightly colored Christmas lights and realizes where we are.
"I don't want to be here." She says, squeezing my hand tightly. "This was our special place with her." Maybe I was expecting too much of her. This is the first time she's left the house since Heavenly's funeral. She hasn't even gone to her routine prenatal appointments. I've had to have a doctor come to the house for all of her medical care. I don't know why she left with me so willingly tonight.
"I just want you to try. I promised Heavenly we'd come here again this year." I struggle to push back a lump that rises in my throat. When I made that promise to Heavenly, she was supposed to be with us. She was supposed to be running ahead of us on the path, dancing her way through the lights on either side of the pathway, and all above us. I smile weakly at Addison, pay that taxi fee, and help her out onto the street as we cross into central park, and onto the trail of Christmas Lights. We walk for a while until we near the ice-skating rink. The lights this year are spectacular, just as they always were. My breath makes fog in the chilly air. I squeeze her hand and she follows me further into the path.
"I don't have anything left to give." She says, stopping and sitting down on a bench. She pulls her coat tighter around her as she watches the happy families gliding and twirling on the ice rink. The silence could have never been so loud.
"Come on Addie. We love Christmas." I try again, Christmas would never be the same, but she cannot stay shut up in the brownstone forever, especially once the baby comes. I don't think I would survive losing her too, and this baby, our baby, still needs its mother. I watch her sitting numbly, not moving, not speaking. I scoot closer to her and pull her over into my arms, alarmed by just how stiff she is. She makes an odd face, and then unexpectedly takes my hand and places it on her tummy.
"Oakley must love Christmas too." She says, with a tiny smile as the baby kicks hard against the pressure my hand was causing. I let out a half gasp, half laugh. It's the first time I have ever felt the baby move. "It must be our time of the year." I say, unable to stop from smiling.
"Hi baby… I'm your Daddy." I say to her tummy. "I'm your daddy and I love you so much."
"It's going to be okay." She says, but it's more of a question than a statement. I can see the anxiety in her eyes as the baby moves more. I wonder if this is the first time, she's feeling it kick as well. When she was pregnant with Heavenly, she had an anterior placenta and didn't feel the baby moving until around twenty-four weeks. Maybe the situation is the same with this pregnancy. I wish she would let me take her to the doctor they can do so much more detailed testing at the hospital.
"Yeah." I agree, gently. "Everything is going to be okay."
*Addison Montgomery's Point of View*
December 2010
"I'm not giving up on you." Mark says, and I look up at him, biting my lip. I don't know what happened, but after we got back from visiting central park it was like everything is a hundred time worse. I stayed at the window the entire next day, and now he is home from work. He found me sitting in the dark. I hadn't even bothered to turn on the Christmas tree lights. He had somehow coaxed me to the kitchen table. He offers me some soup. I accept, having a spoonful and then pushing the bowl away. I stand up, and attempt to go back to the window, but he catches me by the wrist.
"Addie Heavenly wouldn't want this." He says, bluntly breaking the ice. "It's been months. Addison she wouldn't want to see you like this." He nudges the bowl of soup back to my place and nods towards the chair for me to sit down. I don't know what makes me comply, but when he lets go of me, I do.
He kneels down in front of me and rests his head on my tummy for a minute, before looking at me. He is smiling, but his eyes are shining with tears. "Oakley needs you Addison. Heavenly is gone, but this baby needs you." I am convinced the baby is a girl, but we've never had an ultrasound to confirm either way. He sits on the chair facing my outward turned chair and takes my face in his hands. "I need you." He says, he leans in and gently kisses my lips. There is not much of a community for grieving parents. When we left the hospital, everyone said go home, join a support group. Everyone said it would get better. I don't blame them. They are the professionals. They are paid to be optimistic. They are full of shit though. Nothing will ever make this better. Time does not heal all wounds.
"I'm scared." I admit, almost silently, but he heard. "I'm scared, and I'm so angry all the time. It feels like I am going to explode." I try and explain. "I miss her so much." I'm opening up more than I have done at any one given time since she died.
"I miss you both." He responds. "I wasn't kidding when I said it's like you both died. I'm just here, and my entire world is gone."
"I'm so sorry Mark. I never meant to hurt you."
"I know, and that makes it so much worse." He stirs his soup in his bowl, but also isn't eating.
"Why didn't you just leave." I ask. "It would have spared you months of pain."
"What do you mean?"
"Why did you stay after Heavenly died, knowing how much her death messed me up?"
"You seriously have to ask?" He gets up, putting his bowl in the sink and then begins pacing the kitchen as he lists off the reasons. "Well for starters I stayed because you are my wife and I love you. I want to make my marriage work. I stayed because you need help, and I want to honor our wedding vows. I stayed because you are the mother of my children and no matter what happens in our lives, I will always love you." He grabs me, pulling me to my feet wrapping me in his arms and we kiss. I don't know why, but I relax in his arms. It's a strange feeling. Something I haven't felt in what seems like an eternity. Unconditional love.
Authors Note: Thank you to everyone for reading chapter 2 of In My Blood! This story is an interesting change of pace for me. I love Addison and Mark. I really feel like Addison and Mark could have been endgame in the show if only they were willing to stick it out thought he hard parts and been honest with each other. As always please review with any comments, questions, or concerns and I will try and address them : )