In My Blood
Chapter 26
Addison Montgomery's Point of View
"Aunt Addison!" Willow whines. "Can't we go to the movies or ice skating or shopping? You used to love shopping. All of my friends have the new Pokémon game, and I don't. My Mommy and Daddy are too busy to take me to do such things, even though I deserve it."
"I thought you were grounded?"
"I won't be grounded forever. Please…. We can get a green juice and everything!" Willow begs, she flops herself over the couch, sighing at me with extreme boredom.
"You Mother wouldn't like that." I point out. "We have rules to keep everyone safe. I don't leave the house without her." I hate these stupid rules. I wish the both of them would just leave me alone already. Mark hasn't spoken to me again since the other night when he visited. I know he has started calling Meredith again to check up on me though. At least they had the intelligence to not call Bizzy.
"Does it really matter?" She asks, too sassy for her tender age. "You're divorced from Uncle Mark now, and Mommy isn't here. She's at the doctors with Oakley. Everything is always about Oakley." Willow says in a huff. She pouts and rolls her eyes at me. "You're an adult. You don't have to comply with what other adults tell you to do. Not really. Only kids do."
"Yet you want me to 'comply' with what you're saying we should do?" I ask her. Pointing out the flaw in her five-year-old logic. "Most of this is just things that happen when you're a big sister Willow. Sometimes babies get sick and need more attention. You were sick plenty when you were a baby, and your mom gave the same attention to you." I say, not thinking this through.
"Oakley isn't my sister. Heavenly is my sister." She says bottom lip trembling.
"Well Heavenly is gone, so Oakley might be your best bet unless your Mommy and Daddy decide to have another baby." My tone is harsh, bitter. Why am I arguing with a five-year-old?
"No." She answers, angrily. She gets up and walks over to the window seat overlooking the road that I spent so much time in after Heavenly's death. She climbs up on the bench and pulls her favorite blanket around her. She is quiet as she watches the passerby's and I sit down next to her. It takes me a minute, but I realize that she's crying.
"No what baby girl?"
"This isn't my best bet. This life can't be my best bet!" She screams. She's crying harder now, and I'm not exactly sure what just happened. "I want to go home."
"It's Sunday. Your Daddy is home today. Would you like me to call him to come get you?" I offer.
"No."
"I guess you'll have to wait for your Mommy then."
"I hate it here." She explodes.
"Okay." I say, calmly. She hits me over and over again. I sit still, letting her. When she has calmed down I scoop her into my arms. Holding her while she cries herself out.
"I love Oakley."
"I know you do. I'm sure she loves you too. Do you like having a baby in the house or is it too much for you?" I ask her gently. "There have been a lot of changes all at once.
"It's been fun." She says, perking up a little bit. "I always have someone to play with again."
"Do you want to talk about why you're so upset?" I ask her. I am afraid to know what she might say though. This conversation already seems too grown up. I shouldn't be having a conversation like this with someone as young as she is. Not without her parents. I think back to when I was as good as her mom. When our lives were normal, and everything made sense. It's only been eighteen months since our lives changed forever. How can it seem like yesterday and a lifetime?
"Why don't you want her Aunt Addison?" She asks me, looking down at me with those piercing blue eyes.
"I love Oakley very much. I want her to be safe. All her life she knew your Mommy and Daddy as her parents. Her entire life she knew you to be her big sister. It's not about not wanting her. It's about doing what's best for her. You're too little to truly understand this Willow, but you will one day." I say, trying to be gentle, but her lip is trembling again. "You're still a little girl. Still innocent of the world."
"I'm not so little." She objects. "I watched my best friend in the entire world die. I can ride a two-wheeler bike and I know how to do laundry and the dishes by myself without messing it up. I can take care of Oakley AND I make good grades in school, even in French. I was promoted to the next level in ballet and equestrian lessons."
"I thought you didn't take those extra lessons anymore?" I ask, hearing, but choosing not to respond to the part about Heavenly. "That's a lot of extra responsibility for someone your age." I frown, it seems like so much. She should be little, riding bikes and playing on the playground. Spending her free time doing things that she loves. I am not against chores, but I want her to enjoy being little.
"I didn't at first." She admits. "Aunt Addison do you remember when Heavenly broke her leg?" She asks me, and I nod, wondering how she remembers Heavenly breaking her leg. They were only three at the time. "She was so sad she couldn't ride horses and dance with me, but she came to every lesson anyway and watched."
"I remember. We did." I say, nodding in agreement.
"I wanted to stop and sit with her until she was better, but she told me no, I had to keep going. A few weeks ago, when I was playing upstairs, she told me the same thing, so I asked my Mommy to put me back in the lessons we did together."
"That's wonderful Willow." I say, unsure what else I could say to something like that. She looks over to a spot just behind me, and shakes her head, frowning, and sighs.
"I don't want to say that!" She objects to thin air. "It's too mean!"
"What's going on?" I ask, shaken by her sudden change in demeanor. "Tell me." She is shaking and crying again when she turns back to me.
"Heavenly says losing another child will break you. That's so mean of her! I don't want you to be broken again Aunt Addison, you're still a little cracked, but you're mending." She says softly. She gently touches my face where the feeding tube attaches. Disconnected from the machine at the moment, but how many times has she visited during a meal, or when I was in the hospital hooked up to tons of wires and machines? Too many to count. I wonder if it scares her. If I scare her.
"She's too young to understand this as well." I say, brushing the rest aside for now.
"She's as big as me. She's not too young. She's only forever four in your mind because you cannot see her like I can." She reasons, annoyed with me. As if the difference between four, almost five and five almost six is so much.
"I don't want to talk about this anymore." I say, harsher than I intend to. She narrows her eyes at me but falls silent and stares out the window. "You're both too young." I say, trying to tone things down a little bit. "It is impossible for you to fully understand the things that adults have to do to keep their children safe." Or eyes lock. I know we're both thinking the same thing, but neither of us says it. I didn't keep Heavenly safe. "Your mom will be back soon, lets bake cookies." I say to distract her.
"We can't. My Mommy doesn't let me have sweets anymore."
"Play Barbies?"
"Nooooo."
"Movie date in the home cinema? I have your favorite pickle popcorn flavoring."
"NO!" She says a mixture of a whine and a scream. I wish it wasn't considered rude to cover my ears. The shrillness in her tone physically hurts them.
"Well, your Mom texted, and she won't be back for around an hour. She has to go pick up Oakley's antibiotics from the pharmacy. I'm tired of listening to you whine, so what do you want to do?"
"Can we go outside to the rooftop garden?" She asks me.
"No" It's locked. I don't have a key. I say quickly. In the time before we spent hours on the rooftop together. The girls had built a magical land out of old sheets on a clothes line that was there when we moved in. They would run and dance through them, playing all afternoon long. Their delighted shrieks as they played floating through the air. Sometimes if I strain my mind hard enough, I can still hear the sound of them giggling and shrieking as they played. The door was locked in November, and nobody has been up there since. The walls surrounding the rooftop are tall enough to provide a safe play area for children, but not tall enough to stop an adult if they were determined to do something detrimental. Meredith found me on the roof one morning in November. I was sitting on the edge of the wall. I was so certain I was going to jump, but she talked me down.
FLASHBACK
NOVEMBER 2010
Meredith Grey-Shepherd's Point of View (Why the rooftop garden is locked, I couldn't figure out where else to place this, sorry for the awkward placement/ jumping POV's I already had it written in Meredith's POV. Heavily influenced by SVU, and all the jumpers on there.)
The brownstone is dark and eerily silent when I walk into it. I shut the door and reengage the security system before looking around for Addison. The quietness makes me uncomfortable. It's not that Addison makes a lot of noise. She's usually sitting on the window chair or lying-in bed starring into nothingness. Mark insists that the television or the radio be kept on at all times, so she doesn't get engulfed in the silence. I realize that both the radio and the television are turned off. She's not sitting in the window seat. Mark didn't say much to me before he left, and he left before I got here. He didn't mention her still being asleep when he called and asked if I could sit with her today. Today is the nurse's day off and he was called into emergency surgery, a thirteen-year-old with severe burns to forty percent of his body. I agreed without much hesitation.
I still haven't decided if I like the nurse he's hired or not. Maybe it's just because I know Addison so well and know that Addison would hate her. She's bubbly and kind. I have never witnessed her being cruel to Addison, or even raising her voice with her when she refused to comply to the nurse's directions. I don't know how to explain it. She calls Addison Mrs. Montgomery. The nurse speaks to Addison as if she is no more than the hired help, as if she is below Addison, not one person speaking to another. She is very submissive. Addison would hate this if she were lucid enough to care. Perhaps it was her upbringing, but she hates it when people address her like she is better than them. She speaks to people as if they're equals. It's not that she's ashamed she comes from money. She's ashamed of the way money makes people behave. She's ashamed of how it can dehumanize you.
I told Mark I would come straight over, but in reality, it was about an hour after he called. Willow was clinging to me and crying so hard. Mumbling a bunch of stuff and nonsense that I couldn't understand due to how hysterical she was at the thought of me leaving. Our Nanny finally managed to take her from me, and I walked next door, letting myself inside without even knocking. It's not like Addison would have answered the door if I did anyway. She isn't downstairs and so I make my way upstairs, checking each of the floors. There is a cold draft as I reach the top floor. I realize suddenly and all at once where Addison is as I see that the roof access door is wide opened. I feel like I am walking through quicksand as I walk through the door, my mind automatically assuming the worst. My eyes fall on her instantly. She is sitting on the wall, her feet dangling over the edge. I approach her slowly, not wanting to startle her. Her red hair stands out against the blue sky and the view of central park.
"Meredith." She says my name numbly.
"How'd you know it was me?" I asked her. She hadn't turned around.
"The air changed. The air always changes when you're around. It isn't as heavy."
"What's going on Addison?" I ask, but she doesn't respond, just looks down over the edge. She is breathing heavily. I move closer to her, holding my hands up in a way of surrender. She turns, and balances herself with her back against the wall, pulling her legs up to her.
"Have you picked out a name for your baby yet?" I ask, trying to make small talk with her. She hasn't seen me in a while. I want to regain her trust.
"Oakley." She says weakly. "Heavenly chose the name for her the night she died."
"That's a beautiful name." I say. The longer she sits there the more worried I get. She's still weak, she's confused and shaky from coming off of all the medications she was on for the months since Heavenly's death. She's off balance. The weight of the baby and the loss of muscle tone from lack of physical activity affecting her agility and coordination. I hold my hand out, reaching for hers to help her down.
"Just leave me alone." She demands.
"I just want to talk." I say carefully.
"If I jump do you think I would be with her? Do you believe what we were taught growing up? That suicide is a sin?"
"I don't know." I admit carefully, not wanting to give her the ammunition she needs to just say fuck it and go for it. "I don't really know what I believe anymore."
"What's happening to me?" She asks, her voice is so broken.
"You were on a lot of medication to help you deal with the grief of Heavenly's death. Your body is detoxing from those medications." I say cautiously. She puts her hands over her tummy. I can tell by the look on her face the baby moved. I wonder if she's told Mark she can feel it's kicks. I wonder if she knows the baby's gender yet. I decide that Honesty is the best policy in this delicate situation. Someone called 9-1-1. There are police officer's downstairs, and a group of bystanders have gathered. Someone is pushing them back, away from the sidewalk. The street has been blocked off to car traffic.
"I just want to hurt myself. I want all of this to go away. I'll be with her again. That night she died; the night I crashed my car I saw her." She tries to explain, she says this so quickly I only catch a jumble of it.
"Addison what you're feeling right now... I know it's overwhelming. I know it feels like it will last forever but this is only temporary. It's not how you're going to feel forever."
"No." She says, shaking her head hard. "I deserve to die."
"Addison, you know what? I'm glad you said that. I'm glad you said that you deserve to die."
"I said it because I do." She says, but she looks confused.
"The scariest thing you could tell me is that you want to die, but you said that you deserve to die which means that part of you wants to live."
"No. Meredith." She's so distressed, she keeps looking down at the police cars and the people, she looks so terrified. "I… I don't know."
"Let's just talk. Like old times." I suggest.
"What if I can't love my baby?" If possible, she breaks down even more at this.
"You chose to keep your baby. You gave her a beautiful name. You already love your baby." I point out with a little smile at her. The thought of her not being a wonderful mother is so removed from my reality that it wasn't even something I considered.
"I can't do this alone... I can't. Mark hates me. He blames me. We blame each other."
"You don't have to. Listen to me. I'm going to help you. I promise you. I will help you."
"How will you help me after everything that's happened?"
"Look at me." She does. Her eyes are so red, so swollen. "Addison, we're going to figure that out together. You're forgetting I was her second mommy. She was my baby too. We're going to get through this together." Heavenly was not legally mine or anything, but just the way we raised our girls, our families were so close. "Now will you give me your hand? Let me help you down." Addison looks down at the ground again She closes her eyes hard and takes a deep breath. Two things happen at once. She moves to come down and slips at the same time as I had grabbed her, pulling her off of the wall.
"No! Meredith No!" She weeps openly.
"Shh... It's ok. Addison. Everything's going to be okay."
"How will it be okay when I deserve to die? I don't deserve to live. I can't live in this world. I'm suffocating. It's like I'm already dead. My life is already over Meredith."
"You don't know that."
"I do. I know that for a fact."
"How? How do you know that for a fact?" I demand, a little less gently now that she is off of the edge. I am still holding on to her hand tightly. I'm shaking so hard.
"It's been six months. Six months and I still can't breathe. She was my reason for living. I was put on this earth to be her mother, and now I am nothing and I have no one." I have to suppress my urge to roll my eyes when she says this. I understand that she is grieving, but she is still a world-famous neonatal surgeon with how many subspecialties? Thousands of babies are alive today because of her.
"Well, you have me. You can talk to me. Addison, I want to understand what you're going through. I want to help you. You deserve to live. Honey you deserve to live." She hugs me tightly, sobbing.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry Meredith. I don't know what I was thinking. I'm sorry."
END FLASHBACK
Addison Montgomery's Point Of View:
"Are you okay Aunt Addison?" Willow's little voice and her hands on my cheeks pulls me out of my thoughts.
"Sorry." I say quickly. "I'm fine. I was just thinking about something."
"What's that?" She asks me.
"Just that your Mommy is really brave, and you remind me a lot of her." She smiles at this.
"Why don't you go and play with Heavenly for a bit." I offer. It's ridiculous, but I am running out of options other than sitting here with her and listening to her complain about how bored she is until her mom gets back. "Or you could lay down in your mommy's room and watch Disney movies on the big TV to make you sleepy enough that you could take a nap. I'm exhausted. I would love a nap."
"Heavenly isn't here today, and I'm still too grown up for naps Aunt Addison. I've only gotten older since we had this conversation yesterday."
"I still love naps. I must still be ancient." I say. "Where is Heavenly today?" I ask her. The thought occurs to me that maybe Willow is just getting older, and starting to believe less, and as a result her imaginary friend she thinks is Heavenly is seen less and less. That still doesn't explain the psychic abilities though.
"Oh." Willow looks up at me. "She's been visiting Uncle Mark lately. She gets so frustrated because y'all are messing everything up. She's right there, screaming in your ears, but you don't believe and so you can hear her. She keeps trying though." She must be able to tell the air in the room has shifted suddenly dark and heavy because she turns to be and smiles. "You're actually kind of ancient. You're forty and forty is..." She stops and thinks a minute. "Forty is five times eight, so you're eight times me."
"You're getting really good at multiplication." I say, ignoring the rest. It's too painful.
"My Mommy and Daddy say I have to be good at Math to be a surgeon." She says, dully. "I don't want to be a surgeon if I grow up."
"Oh?" I ask her, not ignoring the fact that she said if, and not when. "Well, what do you want to be?"
"I don't know." She responds, looking so lost. She climbs up onto my lap and we sit, looking out the window for a long while in silence.
"I don't know how to fix this Willow, but I do know that what we're feeling now isn't going to last forever. I know that when you grow up you're going to do amazing things. You're a wonderful, caring, compassionate little girl. You are so smart, and you have the power to be anything you want to be. You just have to hold onto that belief, okay? Promise? You'll remember that for me?"
"Okay. I promise, but only for you."
"Did you do your nutritional bag?" Meredith asks, walking into the kitchen, looking frazzled. She hands me Oakley before I can protest too much.
"Awe honey you don't feel good do you boogie?" I ask her. She's still so warm. Meredith took her in to urgent care this morning because her fever reached 104 despite meds. Oakley looks at me and pouts, she shakes her head no, and rests her head on my chest. "It's Okay. Your medicine will make you feel all better soon." I soothe her. They had given her the first dose of pain reliever and antibiotics at the hospital's urgent care, so she isn't due for several more hours.
"Addison?" Meredith says my name, so forceful. I look up at her. "Did you have your meds, and nutrition yet?" She repeats.
"No, I haven't yet, but I will." I say. She looks at me so disappointed. Like she left me alone for such a short time and she cannot even trust me with this one thing. I don't know how she expected me to sit that long while the machine ran and keep an eye on Willow. Willow had thrown such a fit this morning to stay with me when Meredith told me that she was taking Oakley to urgent care that I told Meredith she could stay and I would watch her, just to shut her up. "What did the doctor say?"
"It's just an ear infection. It will clear up with the two weeks of antibiotics." She starts preparing the bag for the NG tube. "You know you have to maintain a strict schedule with your nutrition and medication." I look from her to Willow who is happily eating pancakes with fresh fruit. She chose strawberries and blueberries. We added honey instead of syrup for the sweetness on top. She hadn't even looked up or cared when her mother entered the room.
"I signed the paperwork." I say, pushing the manilla envelope towards her. "All you have to do is file this with the courts and she's yours." I say, trying to distract her. Everything looks fine with the paperwork Mark had given back to me. On the surface it appears as if he just callously signed away our lives, but I know it goes deeper than that. He's in pain too. He's damaged too. He doesn't know how to cope any better than I do. He's already moved on hoping to find peace and purpose with this new life. He has a new woman, a new baby on the way. Deep down I can't help but feeling like we were disposable though. I wasn't any better. I wanted to put her up for adoption before she even exited the womb. It's like I always knew this would happen, like she was never meant to be mine. How much easier would this have been if Mark had let me give her up for adoption in the beginning though? Would she still have ended up with Meredith and Derek? Seeing Mark's name on the paperwork gave me the strength to sign mine.
"Addison…" Meredith says cautiously.
"No. Meredith I'm fine. I don't want to talk about it."
"You're not going to be fine. You have impulse control issues and no idea how bad you're self-destructing." Willow chimes in, taking another bite of her breakfast. I narrow my eyes at Meredith when Willow says 'self-destructing'. Would she have come up with that exact term on her own?
"You should finish your breakfast and let your mom and I talk." I correct her, warningly.
"You just said you don't want to talk about it, and Heavenly said…" She protests.
"I don't care what Heavenly told you." I snap, "If you want to be argumentative at the table you can excuse yourself. I don't want to listen to it." She narrows her eyes at me, pushing her chair back so hard it nearly topples over, and goes to the sink, washing her hands and her face before storming up the stairs. Meredith looks at me, shocked. "I'm sorry." I say quickly. "I should have let you…"
"It's fine." Meredith says, tiredly. She distracts herself by attempting to wipe the snot from Oakley's nose with a baby wipe. Oakley fights her and wiggles away from her. She puts her head to my chest and wipes her nose back and forth on my top instead.
"Oakley, I'm going to need you to not." I say, she looks up at me with those big doe eyes and then giggles. Meredith hands me the package of baby wipes. I clean off my shirt, and then attack the mess that Oakley's made on her face with another one.
"Do you want to talk about it?" She asks.
"About what?" She looks expectantly from Oakley to the manilla envelope I had pushed towards her and then to me. "No." I say, simply.
"I'm not going to file the paperwork." Meredith decides. "Addison you're not there yet."
"You have to file with the courts, or it isn't legal. It isn't official if you don't file. She's yours. She's always been yours from the day you took her home and fell in love with her."
"I can't stop thinking about what Willow said."
"Seriously?" I ask her, raising my eyebrows. I know what she's talking about.
"You were hoping I forgot?" She asks.
"What more do I have to do to prove myself to you?" I ask her.
"I want you to stop giving up. I need you to want to live." She says simply.
"I'm not. You wanted to adopt her. I made it happen, now you have to do your part." I protest. Oakley looks up at me, shocked at my harsh tone and begins crying. I bounce her, apologizing and pat her back. Trying to sooth away the discomfort.
"That's beside the point." She says, actually rolling her eyes at me. "How long have I been camping out in your guest room now?" She asks me.
"I tell you to go home every single day." I remind her.
"You do, but I made a promise."
"The medical power of attorney is over. Mark and I are divorced. You're not bound by the promises you made to him any longer."
"He still loves you Addison. He just doesn't know how to help, or how to move forward." She stops and is thoughtful for a moment. "I didn't mean my promise to him, I meant my promise to you. Do you remember that day on the roof?" She asks me. I nod. "I swore that I would help you, that you wouldn't be alone, and I stand by that promise."
"I appreciate that, but Meredith I really am fine."
"Oh please." She says. "Please, let's not do this Addison. You're not fine, and we all know that your I'm fines are weighted. What are you really feeling?" She asks with a sigh. "Stop trying to push me away. It hasn't worked this far. I'm not going to be just another person who leaves you and breaks promises.
"I'm not, Meredith I promise I'm not."
"Oh yeah?" She challenges.
"I'm not. I just… Willow misses you and now you have Oakley. She needs stability. You could spend more time at home with them now that I'm doing better. I think the divorce was freeing. I feel a lot better." I am actually telling her the truth. Sad yes, but it is like a weight has lifted off of my shoulders. She considers this for a few minutes, and then shakes her head.
"I can't trust you."
"Why?" I ask her. "I have done everything you've asked. Everything the doctors have asked." I have stopped cutting. I have been taking my medication and my nutrition. "You can't baby-sit me around the clock Meredith. You need to be able to have a life. You need to spend time with your family and go back to the job that you love. You need to be happy."
"I don't want to take Oakley if it means that I will lose you."
"Take her. You're not going to lose me Meredith." I look at Oakley. I can't even complete the sentence. My mind is made up. I know what I have to do, and she isn't going to like it. I take a deep breath. "I'm only a phone call away." I wanted to say something about how I will always be here for her, and how I'm not going anywhere, but a plan if formulating in my mind. I need to help myself before I can help anyone else. I just don't know how to tell her. "Everything's going to be fine."
Authors Note:
THANK YOU for reading chapter 26 of In My Blood. I love Willow so much. It has been such a joy to have her as a part of this story. Addison's mind is made up, and she knows exactly what she's going to do. I wanted something more to happen with Mark, but it didn't pan out, but the little bit we got last chapter was nice, even if Addison wasn't the most receptive. We haven't heard from him in a while. PLEASE REVIEW.