In Which Addison's Day Doesn't Stop

"Hello," I say groggily as I wipe my eyes sitting up from my desk.

"When I meant leave Derek, I didn't mean leave the state! Red, where are you? I've been worried sick. Why haven't you been answering my calls?"

Trust me Mark, if I knew it were you before I answered I wouldn't have picked up the phone… I rub my eyes and look at the time, "Mark… It's 3 a.m. Can we do this another time?"

"No, Addison. You just up and left New York. I had to find out through Savvy about a week after you left. You quit your job at the hospital, you left the practice-"

"Does Derek know?" I cut him off.

"No, when I asked that jerk where you were that first week, he acted like you were at home. I went by your house for 10 days in a-fucking-row Addison! Where are you?"

"I'm fine, Mark."

"I know that, Red but where are you?"

"How do I know that when I tell you you won't go and tell Derek?"

"Because Derek is a douchebag for the way he's been treating you and as his and your best friend, I'm not allowing him to get anywhere near you to mistreat you any longer. I just need to know you're safe, Red."

"I'm safe, Mark. I'm in a good place and I like it here… surprisingly."

"Well, I don't like it. I want you to come home."

"I can't… Derek-"

"This isn't about Derek, Red. You know that. I miss you not him. This has nothing to do with him."

"Mark…"

"Come home, Red."

"I don't know… I'll think about it about, okay? I have a surgery in like an hour. I have to go."

"At least I know you're still practicing."

"Thanks for calling, Mark."

"No need to thank me. I was just worried about you. I miss you, Red. I just needed to hear your voice; just to make sure you were okay and more importantly, to bring you home to me."

"Oh, Mark…" I say sighing and twirling my ink pen on my desk.

"I'm serious, Addison."

"I know… but I have to go, okay?"

"Okay. Next time, just answer my calls… The first time."

"I promise."

"Okay."

"And Mark?"

"Yeah, Red?"

"I miss you too."

"Oh, you didn't have to tell me that. I already knew." I can hear him smirking through the phone.

"Goodbye, Mark," I faintly smile to myself.

"Addison."

I hang up the phone and I just flop back down on my desk. I honestly have no clue what I'm going to do now. I was so set in getting as far away from Derek as possible. Now Mark is calling me basically pleading for me to come back. I need a voice of reason; a friend to talk to. I just don't have anyone that close here in Seattle… "Richard," his name pops into my head and I head over to his office but I stop at the coffee cart first. I'm actually surprised to find the chief in his office seeing that it's nearly 3:30 in the morning. I let myself in. "Hey, Richard. Juju?" I offer up the extra cup and he gladly takes it.

"Thank you Addison. What are you doing here so late?"

"I could be asking you the same question," I smirk.

"You'll understand one day when you're Chief," he sips his coffee, "So what's up?"

"Look," I pause, "I want to sign my contract. I really do and I want to stay but I want to be able to do that without any doubts. I didn't think I had any when I first arrived but… I have ties in New York but I love it here in Seattle."

"You're having doubts?" he asks before he starts again. "Stay for me, Addison," he says with a more serious tone, "Stay for yourself."

"Richard, I-"

"Look," he cuts me off, "in Seattle, you could be front page news. With your reputation and the money I'll put into promoting you, Seattle Grace will become one of the foremost neonatal hospitals west of Manhattan."

I laugh but I stop suddenly realizing how serious he's being. After a pause I speak up, "You're serious?"

"I'm ready to put my money where my mouth is."

After my conversation with Richard, I grew more confident with my reasons on staying so I decided to not stress over it too much and get ready for my day. I take a quick shower and change into fresh undies then I got dressed in my scrubs. I don't even put on my lab coat because I know I'm just going to have to take it right back off.

I'm walking past the locker room on the surgical floor when I see Dr. Yang walk out and a screaming Meredith following not too closely behind.

"I am not screw-," I hear her say but then she stops short and turns to look at me, "You're here early."

We start walking down the hallway, "To be honest, I fell asleep here but turns out I have a C-section at five o'clock. I'll be out by 6. I thought maybe I could treat you to breakfast before your rounds."

"I've already eaten."

"Oh, what'd you have?"

"None of your business," she smirks.

"Are you a cereal person?" I grin, "Straight out of the box, I bet. That's why you won't tell me... or are you all fruit and fibery?" She laughs but she doesn't answer, "Pancakes? Waffles?"

"Fine, leftover grilled cheese. Curiosity satisfied?"

"Mere, that's pathetic. You can't start your day without a good breakfast. It's the most important meal of the day. Let me me take you out."

"Look, I'm not being seen with you in this hospital. Learn it, live it. It's unprofessional."

"We don't have to eat in the hospital," I say coming to a stop in front of the Nurse's station. "What are your plans for lunch?"

"You're going to be late to your C-section," she points at my watch.

I check it and see that it's nearly 4:45, "Ah, you're right. We'll talk later."

I'm eating breakfast alone in my office when I hear a knock on my door. "Come in," I say wiping my face. When I see it's Meredith, my face lights up and I smile, "Ah, so you are joining me for breakfast? I thought you didn't want to be seen with me in the hospital."

"You're right. I'm not here for breakfast. I'm here about a patient. He's pregnant."

"He?"

I follow Meredith downstairs to the patient's room. It turns out that Cristina and Izzie stole this patient from the psych floor. They were about to take him back when he took a pregnancy test and it was positive. That's when they came to get me. This has got to be a joke. There's no way a man can be pregnant.

When we arrive at the room, there's Dr, Bailey and three of her interns, a pregnant woman, I'm assuming is the wife, a nurse and two guys taking pictures. I start with the basics; introducing myself and I pull out my stethoscope to listen for a fetal heartbeat. I hear Dr. Bailey whisper to her interns, "Do not for a second think that I condone stealing patients but with that said, way to go."

"The first pregnancy test I took was a joke to make Tina laugh," the patient says as someone's pager goes off. All the doctors in the room check to see if is theirs but no one answers it.

"Well, we didn't think it would lead to you know, this."

"Mr. Herman, I can assure you, you are in no way pregnant." I say as I finish my assessment. I turn to leave and I make eye contact with Meredith.

"Phew," he responds, "That's a relief- to hear it, you know, officially, but, hey, why was that stick blue?"

"Well, that's what we're going to find out," Dr. Bailey states as I head out the room. Meredith walks out behind me.

"So what's going to happen to him?"

"I don't know. He's not my patient."

"Why not?" she says following me down the hallway.

"Well, he's not pregnant."

"Well what is he?" she asks genuinely concerned and eager to learn more.

"It could be a number of things," I say to her while looking into her eyes; eyes of wonder and curiosity, "most likely a tumor." I look at my watch, "It's too late for breakfast but maybe I can take you to lunch?" Before she can even answer, my pager goes off, "Ah, next time, Meredith."

It feels like a billion surgeries later because I've been in back-to-back-to-back surgeries since lunch. I come out of the OR exhausted and after scrubbing out I just flop down on the bench outside the OR wing. I feel as though I fell asleep because next thing I know, I look up to see Meredith standing over me talking. She smiled then reaches for my hand to help me stand up. "I was just about to check on my pregnant man. Wanna come with?"

We walk while casually talking as we head to her patient's room. Before we can even get there, we can see a crowd of people and a line outside his door. I look at Meredith questioningly and ask, "What's going on?"

Meredith starts pushing past people yelling, "What's going on in here? Everybody out! Out! Mr. Herman is a patient." She says this while shutting someone up as people start to leave, "A surgical patient, who is sick and embarrassed and tired of being stared at. You two," she says looking towards Dr. Yang and Dr. Stevens, "This isn't a zoo! Out! Out! Out! You all should be ashamed of yourselves. Especially you two."

She comes out behind everyone and shuts the door as everyone scrambles down the halls, "You are really something, Dr. Grey."

"You should get some sleep, Dr. Montgomery. That way next time you won't fall asleep in the OR."

The next morning I walk into the hospital with a smile thanks to a good night's rest and a fresh shower. I get two cups of Juju this morning and I make my way up to the locker room hoping to find Meredith. I hop on the elevator and about a thousand people get on after me. A couple is taking and one of them asks where billing is. "The basement", another person and I answered. I look up to see that that other person is Meredith at the front of the elevator. Humph, elevators seem to be our thing. Now I can't keep the thought of Meredith kissing me that time a few weeks ago out of my mind. The taste of her lips; I want that taste again. When the elevators comes to a stop on our floor, we both step off and I finally catch up to her to give her a cup of Juju.

"Grilled cheese again?"

"Cold pizza," she responds as we walk to the locker room.

"Oh come on, Mere, you have to let me take you to breakfast."

"Maybe," she says going into the locker room.

I smile to myself as I make my way up to my office. When I arrive, I find Dr. Stevens standing outside my door. "Good morning, Dr. Stevens. Juju?" I offer her the other cup in my hand, "Shouldn't you be at pre-rounds?"

"I already did them. I came in early; figured you'd want a head start to your busy day," she says following me into my office.

"Busy day?"

"Oh, um, you had a patient come in this morning... pregnant... with quints."

I'm sitting in Richard's office going through my contract and I think I'm finally ready to sign. I know I told Mark that I would think about it but honestly, there's no going back for me. New York has too many awful memories attached to it and it's time for me to move on. I want to start a life here. I'm making new friends and new memories. It was time for a change. I sign my contract and now it's official.

"Nice to have you on board," the notary says to me.

"Thank you, Patricia," I say handing her the signed contract as I get up out of my seat putting back on my lab coat.

"Ahem," she nods and exits the office.

"Your own service, state-of-the-art NICU and a salary that'll make you one of the highest paid surgeons in the northwest," Richard says to me as I walk up to his desk, "You better be worth it."

"Quintuplets, Richard," I smirk standing in front of his desk.

"That's a go?" he questions still sitting.

"The mother-to-be checked in this morning."

"Nothing, I like more than a high profile case."

"Well, don't go calling the press in yet," I smirk then I speak with a more serious tone, "it's an extremely high risk pregnancy. At least three of the babies are surgical; in fact, I'm gonna need to pull people from all departments."

"You're my star. Whatever you need," he says standing up and holding out his hand to me. I take it and shake with a proud smile.

"Dorie," I say entering the patient's room followed by my intern, "this is Dr. Stevens. She'll be working with us on this case."

"Oh, the more the merrier, apparently," Dorie jokes.

"How far along are you?" Izzie asks.

"32 weeks."

"And how long is a normal gestation period?" I ask my intern.

"40 weeks, but with twins, 36 weeks is considered full term. So with quints, 34 weeks is considered extremely successful."

"I plan on going 36 weeks," Dorie says to Izzie then looks at her tummy, "No one's leaving this uterus until I say so."

"The power of positive thinking, huh?" I joke.

"Well, that, bed rest and all the medical care you can give me."

"Uh, Adam's got a fever," the husband, Tom, says walking into the room, "which means soon they'll all have a fever. I don't think my mom's going to make it through lunch."

"We have four year old boys at home," the wife explains, "Adam, Oliver and Graham."

"Triplets?" Izzie says shocked and stutters, "You - you already have triplets?" She pauses and Dorie nods, "Oh, I guess when you take those fertility pills, you should really read the fine print."

"Dr. Stevens," I scold her.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she says genuinely, "I just, I meant it as a -."

"It's okay. I'm used to it. I just really wanted a girl."

"Yeah, we just didn't bank on five girls," the husband adds.

"But think of all the clothes and all that pink cuteness."

"Honey, that's your happy place, remember?"

"Oh, yeah," she says as they kiss.

I finish up my initial check up and I walk over to the chart to update it and I whisper to Izzie, "Try not to say 'everything' that pops into your brain." I hand her back the chart and walk out of the room.

I made copies of the chart to give to all the department heads that I needed to assist me in the OR today. When I walk up the stairs to the surgical floor, I find Dr. Burke, head of Cardio and Dr. Cam, head of Neuro, both at the Nurse's station. I drop the stack of charts on the counter before handing them both one, "Dorie Russell - She's giving birth to quints."

"Yes, Richard said we were on standby which is no problem really, cause it's not like I have a Neurosurgery department to run or anything." Dr. Cam says sarcastically.

"Aww," I pout really not giving a shit. He reminds me of Derek. Maybe that's why he stopped coming home. He's upset that I'm better in my field; even though he works the hardest, I'm naturally smarter. Maybe it hurts his manhood.

"Yes, apparently our departments are at her disposal." Dr. Burke adds in.

"Mmhm," Dr. Cam agrees as I roll my eyes.

"Do you have time to talk to the mom now? I want her to meet all the surgeons on her team."

"Yes, no problem," Dr. Cam says.

"I'll come by after I get out of the OR," Dr. Burke says heading towards the OR wing.

"Thank you, Dr. Burke. Dr. Cam," I say as Dr. Cam gets up to follow me to the patient's room where I find my intern. "Dorie, this is Dr. Cam. He's our Head of Neurosurgery."

"Hi, Dorie," he says.

"Dr. Cam wants to talk to you about baby C"

"Lucy," she corrects me as I step back to let Dr. Cam take over.

"Yes, Lucy has a condition called hydrocephalus. It is a buildup of cerebrospinal fluid on the brain."

"Okay, and that means..?" Dorie asks.

"Excess fluid builds up and it puts pressure on the baby's brain, which could result in brain damage…" he pauses, "Here's the goods news. We caught it early enough. We can take care of it quickly."

"How?"

"I'm going to install a shunt to drain the fluid. Barring any complications, you're looking at a full recovery."

"No brain damage?"

"No brain damage."

I see the relief wash over Dorie, "Okay, really… couldn't you have led with that?"

We all chuckle and then I get paged to the OR. "C-section. I have to go. I'll be back in a few."

I hurry off to the OR and the C-section went routinely. I thought I'd have time to grab food when I'm paged to Dorie's room. I didn't see Dr. Stevens when I arrived so I had her paged. A few moments later, I hear the footsteps belonging to my intern so I turn around and question her, "Where have you been?"

She's throwing her lab coat on over her scrubs breathing heavily. She better have ran here, "I, um, I… The nurse was here."

I don't have any time for excuses so I choose to ignore her… for all I know she could've been having sex in an on-call room. "I've loaded her up with magnesium. Start monitoring her toxicity."

Izzie grabs her chart and starts writing down the notes as the mother decides to speak up, "Oh, it's too soon. They can't come yet."

"Mom says Graham started puking," Tom says walking into the room. "What is it? What's going on?" He says finally noticing what's happening in the room.

"Dorie's having contractions," Izzie starts.

"The babies' vital signs are stable, but your placenta is lying low. We're going to have to keep a close eye on that. We want to keep them in there as long as possible," I finish.

"How are we keeping them in there if she's already having contractions?" Tom asks.

"It's all right, hon." Dorie starts, "They can stop them." She looks to me, "You're gonna Trendelenburg me, right?"

"Yes, I am," I say slightly proud that she knew that. "You've done your reading, Dorie."

"They did it with the triplets," she takes a deep breath as another contraction starts, "Gravity, remember, Tom? It worked fine then, and it'll be fine now."

"Hang in there, Tom. There's no time for second thoughts now," I add.

"We didn't think we'd survive the first week with the boys," Dorie says to her husband, "and we did, and we'll be the same with the girls. We're ready."

"Well, that's all we can do for now. Dr. Stevens, are you on call tonight?" I say updating the chart.

"Um, no."

"You are now," I say finishing up and handing her the chart. Hopefully I'll have time to grab something to eat. I walk down to the cafeteria and my genius self decides to stop for Juju before I grabbed food. When I do so, I run into Dr. Burke who's ready to talk to my patient. I comply and make a mental note to eat after. He, his intern and I walk upstairs to Dorie's room.

"Dorie? Tom?" I walk into the room followed by Dr. Burke and Dr. O'Malley, "Hey, Dorie, Tom, this is Dr. Burke. He's our Head of Cardiothoracic Surgery and Dr. O'Malley, who will be assisting him. Dr. Burke wanted to talk to you about Emily's heart surgery."

"Emily needs heart surgery?" Tom questions.

"Yes," Dr. Burke says as he steps up, "your daughter has a condition called Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome. The surgery will be extensive and the odds are that -"

"We don't believe in odds," Dorie cuts him off.

"Good, neither do I. But it is important that you both understand medically what's going on with your girls."

"After their born, there won't be much time to ask questions," I add in, "So…"

"Okay," Dorie says, "we're listening."

"What's wrong with Emily's heart?" Tom asks.

"The chambers on the left side are underdeveloped. In addition, the mitral valve, which connects these two chambers is abnormally narrow."

I get paged to the ER and I politely excuse myself as I run downstairs. It's Meredith who needs the consult. After a thorough check up, I decide to admit her patient. She steps out into the hallway with me, "So I heard you officially signed your contract. Congratulations."

"Thank you," I say with a smile. "It's official now. Maybe we can celebrate but you finally letting me take you to breakfast."

"Fine, maybe tomorrow. If you even have time between all of your babies."

"I'll bet on that." My pager goes off and I sigh, "I have to go."

"See you," she says as I hurry off down the hall and up to my floor.

When I reach my patient's room, I see Dr. Bailey with her intern standing outside, "Dr. Bailey, Dr. Yang." I say as they follow me into my patient's room. I pull up Dorie's ultrasound and I show Dr. Bailey exactly what I saw, "Here it is. Right there," I pause and print out a picture, "the omphalocele."

"Yeah, look at that," Dr. Bailey shows both of our interns.

"That's the scariest word yet," Dorie says sitting up.

"Oh, all it means is some of the baby's internal organs are growing in a sac outside its body," says Dr. Yang.

"Cristina!" Izzie scolds her. I'm glad she did before I could.

"All it means?" Dorie says sarcastically then starts to laugh. "'Her organs are growing outside her body.' That's all it means."

"It's going to be okay," Izzie comforts her as I put my hand on her shoulder. Dorie's grown hysterical.

"I'll remove the sac membrane containing her organs; make a small incision in the baby's abdomen and put them back inside," Dr. Bailey explains.

"Oh, Julie," Dorie starts to cry, "she's the quiet one. Dr. Bailey and Dr. Yang continue to talk to Dorie and I run out to grab food seeing that this could be my only chance. I haven't eaten all day. I don't want to end up passing out. I eat in my office so I can have a little time to myself. I'm nearly halfway through my sandwich when my pager goes off again, "It's Dorie." I close up my lunch and rush down to her room. I can hear her screaming before I even make it into her room. "What's going on?"

"There's fetal distress," my intern answers.

"My contractions are really hurting," Dorie adds, "and I think my water broke!"

The nurse rushes in to help and we lift up her sheet to find blood all over the bed. "Crap."

"Her placenta is tearing," Izzie says stealing the words out of my mouth.

"Okay, Dorie, we can't wait any longer. The babies have to come out now." I say going over to the phone to call the OR and let them know we're coming.

"It's okay," Izzie says to Dorie, "We're gonna take really good care of you. Just keep breathing."

We and a few nurses get Dorie prepped and ready for surgery, "Uh, Dorie, the OR is prepped and ready to go. Where's Tom?"

"He's at home with the boys."

"No," Izzie says, "I called Tom. He's on the way."

"Izzie, go ahead and page everyone on Dorie's team. The list is posted at the Nurse's station." Izzie gets up to leave but Dorie grabs her arm, "No! No!"

"Dorie, Dorie, you're fine," I say to her. "You're going to be fine."

"Nothing about this is fine! It's too early! They're too hurt!"

"Dorie," Izzie starts, "you've carried your girls this far. Now it's our turn. You have to trust us to bring them into the world."

"Tom's on his way?"

"Tom's on his way." I smile at Izzie as she nods and heads out the room. I picked a great intern. As we're heading up to the OR, Izzie returns and says, "Everyone answered their page except Dr. Karev."

The incompetent one… "Where is he? We need everyone!"

"I don't know. He was on-call last night. He might be asleep."

"Go find him!"

Moments later, I'm scrubbing into the OR. There's about forty people in my OR right now and we have no time to waste so I decide to just cut to the chase. It's silent. I look around the room and my eyes fall on Meredith who's smiling at me. I take a deep breath, "Ten-blade."

The first baby out is Emily, next is Julie, Lucy, Charlotte and finally here's Kate. I watch everyone file out of the room to their perspective ORs and I know that Charlotte and Kate are healthy enough to go straight to the NICU. It's time to close and I decide to let Izzie take over seeing that she's worked so hard on this case.

It's nearly 6 am when we come out of the OR. I decide to take a quick shower and grab some Juju. I text Meredith to see if she's busy and she texts back saying she has maybe an hour to spare. I take that as I sign to send her the address to where'd I'd like to take her to breakfast.

About twenty minutes later, I'm at the harbor with a table set and breakfast ready. I see Meredith walking up with a smile, "You know, when you said you found a breakfast spot with a view, I knew I should have taken you literally…"