In My Blood
Chapter 3
Mark Sloan's Point of View
December 2010
I wake up and rub my eyes, looking at the time on the alarm clock. Two in the morning. I reach over to the nightstand and grab my ringing phone, looking at the name on the caller identification and then fumbling to wake up enough to press the proper button.
"Hello?" I ask groggily. "Derek?" I can hear Willow crying on the other end of the line. Derek says something, but it's mumbled. What could he possibly need at two o clock in the morning? I haven't talked to him much since Heavenly's funeral. He tried to be here for me, but it was too painful constantly hearing about his daughter Willow. They were best friends. Addison and Meredith were pregnant at the same time and bonded over raising their daughters together. I flash back to all of the playdates, field trips and slumber parties the girls shared. I think back to the time we all spent together. We were like one big family. That all changed when Heavenly died.
"Mark? Do you have a minute? It's important." There is urgency in his tone. Willow is screaming something unintelligible in the background.
"Can't this wai…." I ask in an annoyed whisper. Addison stirs in the bed next to me but falls back to sleep easily. I breathe a sigh of relief.
"She woke up screaming. She's been screaming for hours. She won't stop." He cuts me off before I can finish my thought.
"What do you expect me to do about it?" I ask him. I get up from bed, slowly, careful not to disturb Addison further. She had only started sleeping in the bedroom again that night I forced her to go to central park with me. She had distanced herself after Heavenly's funeral. The bench seat was easier when she was recovering from the multiple injuries her attempted suicide had resulted in and she never made her way back into the bedroom falling deeper and deeper into her depression until that night. I'm not sure what, but something changed, even if it was just a tiny bit. Having her back in the bedroom is a step in the right direction. It's an adjustment. Not a bad adjustment per says, but an adjustment all the same.
"Not you, Addison." Derek clarifies.
"Derek she's been through absolute hell, she's resting, now's not…"
"I knew you'd understand. Wake Addison for me. We'll be there in five." Derek said quickly as Willows screams turn shriller and I make out the words "I want my Aunt Addison!" I groaned. This is exactly like Derek. Of course, he wouldn't consider that it is rude to dump a screaming kid on someone at two in the morning. Especially someone you haven't spoken to in months. Still our relationship prior to my daughter's death pulls at me, and I get up, getting dressed and gently attempt to wake Addison.
"What's wrong?" She mumbles, but she doesn't move. "Is it the hospital?"
"No." I tell her. "Meredith is out of town on business and Derek is having some sort of an emergency with Willow. He needs your help."
"It's not an emergency." She says, pulling the pillow over her head to block out the light I had turned on. She slowly opens her eyes and stretches all the same though. "He's a doctor. If it was an emergency he would take her to the hospital, he wouldn't bring her to our brownstone." She says, logically.
"She was screaming for you Addison." I tell her gently. She thinks on this a minute, and something I can't quite place registers in her eyes. She and Meredith were so close that she was basically Willow's second Mother, and Meredith was Heavenly's. She gets up and slips her Yale hoody on over her tank top just as we hear the front door open and Derek coming through holding a crying Willow in his arms.
*Addison Montgomery's Point of View*
December 2010
Something about Willow's screams cuts through the numbness that has become my life and a little sliver of the old me surfaces. The me who considered this little girl as good as my own. The me who would give my life to protect hers. When she sees me leaning on the doorframe to the entryway she wiggles out of her daddy's arms, running to me. We don't say anything, but I kneel down to her level, opening my arms to her. She hugs me tightly, burying her face in my hoodie. I hug her back. I realize it's stiffly at first, but when I feel the weight of her against my body it relaxes, and I embrace her tiny frame.
"I'm sorry about this Addison." Derek says, and I look up, tears shining in his eyes. "I know it's difficult to see Willow after…" He trails off, watching me holding his little girl. He looks to the end table next to me and his eyes fall on a picture of Heavenly and Willow on Halloween. They were obsessed with the Disney movie The Princess and The Frog and had insisted on going as best friends Charlotte and Tiana.
"It's okay." I say. "You would have done the same for us." I turn my attention back to Willow though. Gently rubbing her back, after a few minutes her tears stop, and she is dry sobbing.
"Heavenly saved her." Derek says. He sits down on the window seat, looking out at the busy New York streets. He doesn't make eye contact with us, he looks ashamed.
"What are you talking about?" Mark asks. He moves closer to Derek, but I stay where I am. Willow had climbed up on my lap and I gently rock her back and forth, stroking her long dark hair. She is an exact little clone of Derek. She is almost asleep in my arms when she looks up at me, her eyes wide. She sits up whispers in my ear, a little too loudly.
"Heavenly saved me from the bad man." Her voice was quiet and trembling. I look from her to Derek questioningly. I am suddenly filled with panic at what I am about to hear.
"She's telling the truth." Derek says carefully. "We never knew exactly what happened. Today is the first day she's spoken to anyone since Heavenly was lost. I demanded the hospital send me the security footage from that day." His voice breaks when he makes eye contact with me. I shift positions, sitting down flat on the floor under Willow's weight. I'm not as strong as I used to be.
"Do you want to talk to me about what happened?" I ask Willow carefully. She nods, and doesn't say anything else, just rests on me until Mark suggests that Willow is safe with me, and they go to the kitchen to get coffee. I almost think she's fallen asleep when she gets up and goes over to the window seat. Her little padded footsteps going across the hard floor brings back so many memories. How many hours, days, and weeks had the girls spent together playing in that window? Too many to count. Love the relationship that Meredith and I were able to create. If someone told me that I would be friends or even admirable with the woman who my husband had an affair with five years ago I would have called you a liar, but we did, and it was something beautiful. I love that our girls had that support. Two sets of parents who absolutely doted over them. I sit down next to her and she cuddles close again. I pull the soft blue blanket I keep in the basket up around her. We sit like that for a long while, just watching the cars go by and the snow fall before she speaks again.
"The bad man knew my name." She stated simply, but she curls as close to me as she possibly can. I can feel her heart racing. "He called my name, I turned around to see who it was. Heavenly saw his gun." She puts her hands over her ears, "Right before the loud noise she pushed me away." Tears fall down my cheeks as she tells me this.
"Oh baby…." I soothe.
"She fell down, and she wouldn't wake up. I didn't know what to do. The bad man got afraid when she fell and left." I find myself comforting her. The nursery wasn't his first stop. The entire hospital went on lockdown. He looked for Derek first. A total of nineteen people were shot that day, and twelve ended up dying of their injuries. I don't know how he even got into the nursery. He claimed that his only motive was to kill Derek as retribution for the death of his wife. I don't blame Derek. We've all lost patients. The patient's cancer had returned and there were complications with the surgery needed to remove it. He did everything he could have possibly done to save her.
"Willow it's not your fault. You're only a little girl. There's nothing you could have done baby." I try to keep my tone light, and intentional. My heart breaks and suddenly an overwhelming guilt feels me. I never called to check on her. I never stopped by. After Heavenly's death I couldn't physically force myself to make that call. I couldn't go by their house and visit her. It was just too painful to see her, on her own, without Heavenly. I delivered this little girl. She was born in the guest bedroom right down the hall. Derek and Mark were both at an unavoidable medical conference out of state. Meredith showed up in the middle of the night in full heavy labor and terrified. I was the first one to hold Willow when she came into this world. I cleaned her off and wrapped her in a warm blanket. When I laid her on Meredith's chest Meredith joked that I'd be next. Heavenly was born just a few days later. It was almost as if she was waiting for her Poppa to come home. It was almost like one of those trashy Lifetime movies. I went into labor minutes after he walked in the door. We spent our maternity leave together obsessing over breastfeeding and baby carriers, binge watching Lifetime and Hallmark movies while on Facetime with each other on the nights neither of our babies would sleep. We spent the weekends together and birthdays and celebrated milestones. They played in the park and we had trips to the zoo. They were almost always over at each other's homes. We became accustomed to caring for each other's children. Every other weekend Mark and I would watch Willow so that Meredith and Derek could have their date nights. On the alternating weekends they watched Heavenly for us. Our girls did ballet together from the time they could walk. They were inseparable at the daycare program the hospital provided. You never saw one without the other. Until that day. She was too upset to talk anymore so I sit there, cuddling and soothing her until her eyes grow heavy once more.
"I wish I would have died to." She says, her voice eerily final as if her mind has already been made up. "The bad man was trying to shoot me, but Heavenly died instead." She says this just as Derek and Mark walk into the room. I sit up straighter and move her so that she's facing me.
"Willow don't say that." I tell her. She looks taken aback by my frightened tone. "Never say that do you understand me?" I ask her. I can't hide the fear in my expression, or the tears. My hands are shaking as I take her face and gently lift it up so that she is looking at me. "I love you; your parents love you. I am so thankful that the bad man didn't hurt you too." My voice is trembling. The sudden thought of losing her as well too overwhelming.
"Yes ma'am." She says dully. I know that look in her eyes all too well though, and it terrifies me. It's the look that you can only earn when the thing you love most in this entire world has been lost or taken from you. It's the look of depression and desperation. The look of numbness.
"Thank you for telling me the truth." I tell her, and she nods. She rests her head on me and pops her thumb in her mouth, suckling for a few minutes quietly before exhaustion takes her and she falls asleep. We sit in silence. Derek and Mark just watching hold her while she sleeps. Finally, I break the ice.
"How long as she been like this?"
"Since that day." Derek admits, looking at me sadly. "Meredith and I took her to doctors and specialists. They ran every test imaginable. They all said the same thing, when faced with a traumatic event children cope in whatever way they can that allows them to block out the trauma."
"That's bullshit." I say, even though I know it isn't. "She needs help Derek. Did you hear what she said? The unplaced guilt she must be carrying is enormous."
"Meredith and I…We want you in our lives. We want you in Willow's life." Derek says carefully. "She didn't only lose Heavenly that day. She lost you too." He walks over to us and gently caresses my cheek. I look up at him and take a deep breath, eyes filling again.
"What could I possibly offer Willow that you can't? I'm broken Derek. I can't help your baby. I can't even help myself."
"She spoke for you. She hasn't spoken since that night Heavenly was taken off life support. For the first time in months, I was able to hear my baby's voice. Wanting you prompted her to speak for the first time in months."
"I think you need each other." Mark says quietly, and without knowing my reasonings I silently agree.
"What if I damage her?" I ask, quietly. "What if I screw her up? It's too soon. I'm not ready."
"You love her like she's your own. I know you do because Meredith feels the same way about Heavenly." Derek says gingerly. It strikes me that he says, 'feels' and not 'felt'. "I know you won't hurt her."
"I've missed her so much." I admit. I smile slightly as she shifts in my arms. Realizing just how empty my arms have felt since died, and how full they feel now.
"I know." Derek says. "Mark's right, you need each other."
Authors note: Thank you for reading Chapter 3 of In My Blood. Please to take a second and review. I think it's important that both Willow and Addison be allowed to grieve Heavenly, they both loved her fiercely. Maybe they can help each other in ways that others cannot.