Updating after AGES, I know. Recap: Derek has a moment of weakness and kisses his ex-wife. But of course, they don't talk about it and just sort of choose to forget about it (they can't get back together that easily). Anyway, here Chapter 4, set a short while after the previous events, not necessarily following canon events at this point. Also, I'd like to add that I have absolutely zero medical knowledge (as I'm sure you can tell from this chapter), and whatever I've included is based on extremely basic Google searches.
"-so, we'll schedule it for next week then, everything's right according to plan, Fleur," finished Addison, keeping the retractors back and pushing her chair back. Pulling off her gloves with a snap, she stood up from her position between Fleur Dowell's legs, and smiled. "This time next week, you'll be holding her in your arms."
"And wishing to God she'd stop crying," joked her husband, earning a sharp prod. On Addison's questioning glance, he added, "Every single member of my family has been an overly fussy, colicky, crying baby; my parents will tell you it's the Dowell curse. Our other three were, too. If they weren't so darn cute, we might have returned them."
"You know who I should really return? You," said Fleur, the slight French accent softening her words. "It's your family curse, after all."
"Alright, return me," he grinned. He draped an arm over her belly, and she placed hers above his. They shared a tender smile and then looked up at their doctor, who was watching them with a smile on her face as well.
"So, you're sure everything's fine?" Fleur persisted.
"I really am. You saw for yourself; the fetal defect closed up on its own and she's beginning to turn into the right position, so we're all set. I'll just send the nurse in here for you to sign a couple of forms about scheduling the labour induction, and you're free to go."
"Okay, thanks, Dr. Shep-I mean, Dr. Montgomery."
She walked out of the exam room, still a little unused to not hearing the familiar clicking of her heels. She called for a nurse and sent her to the room, and leaned against the nurse's station, taking the weight off her left foot.
"How's the ankle?" asked Dr. Bailey, walking up to her with a chart in hand and two interns in tow.
"Getting better every day, thanks. Callie still refuses to let me wear heels, though."
"Well, I should think so. How you manage to run from one room to another in those contraptions, I'll never know." Motioning to the two interns behind her, she continued briskly. "Do you need an intern today, or can I assign them to Shepherd and Lyman; they've got major surgeries today and could use the extra hands."
"That's fine, Miranda, I've got a relatively light schedule today. In any case, I'll page one from the other team if needed." As the three of them began to turn away, Addison added curiously, "What are these major surgeries happening today?"
Yang's face lit up, as it usually did about cardio. "Dr. Lyman's got a septal myotomy at 2, and it's especially complicated because of the patient history. Oh, and Shepherd's got a functional hemispherotomy at 4," she added dismissively, while O'Malley perked up.
"Which is a pretty big deal too, Yang, you could sound more enthused," reprimanded Bailey. "You're lucky I'm letting you be on Lyman's today."
"Oh, a functional H, interesting," said Addison. "I've only seen it once, back in New York."
"Oh, how was it? I'm hoping to catch a part of it from the gallery," added Bailey.
"I'll probably join you. In fact, I had assisted on that surgery as a resident; it was fascinating, even though I was already leaning far, far away from neuro," reminisced Addison, resting her elbows on the counter behind her. "It went horribly irreversibly wrong, though," she added, her face falling.
"Well, I'll see you up in the gallery," said Bailey, nodding at the woman before walking away briskly, the two interns following her closely.
Two smooth natural births later, Addison headed up to the gallery of OR 3. It was 5, meaning Derek's surgery ought to be past the beginning stages and well into the core of it. The gallery was packed, teeming with attendings and residents alike, everyone eager to catch a glimpse of it before they were paged. She quickly sidestepped a few people, lightly approaching Bailey sitting in the front, a seat beside her somehow free even as people stood around crammed.
"Is someone sitting here?" she asked, a little puzzled.
"I think Grey is, she just headed to the restroom," said Bailey, not taking her eyes off the activity below. "It's fine, sit."
"That's okay," she said hastily, moving a little to stand against the glass, peering below. Yes, the surgery was well underway, with Derek, O'Malley and a resident – she kept forgetting his name; Rogers? Redwood? – working slowly and methodically, analysing every inch, for this was where things could go wrong.
Addison looked away from the action to the patient, the draped body of a little child. Earlier, she'd heard the nurses talking about the young girl whose parents were risking everything to try this, to help their daughter have a normal life. Apparently, they'd already tried several surgeries with little or no success, and had barely been able to pay for this.
"Neat sutures, O'Malley," Derek's voice crackled through the gallery speaker, and she refocused on the doctors below. "Pull that one out neatly, and…yes, that's it." O'Malley stepped back, a little flushed and nervous but proud, and Addison couldn't help but smile as she thought of the intern days when a compliment on suturing technique meant the world.
Suddenly, an alarm sounded, and then three more machines were going off. A few of the residents in the gallery stood up, craning their necks to see the attending below glancing a little frantically at what went wrong. As she tried to understand the scene below, Addison was vaguely aware of Grey moving past her to sit down.
"What happened?" O'Malley asked, panicked.
"Fluid's leaking." Derek sounded calm and collected, but the way his eyes darted around the scene before him belied him.
"Oh no…" muttered Bailey. She glanced at Addison worriedly. "Any longer and they're going to lose her."
"He'll block that ASAP," said Addison, though the activity below didn't seem to reflect her words. "5-O-Prolene and-"
"She's crashing!"
Addison watched Derek reach for a smaller blade frantically, and she gaped, confused. She knew – and she was sure he knew, too – that that was the wrong choice, that cutting further into the lobe would have major consequences. What was he doing? Hardly thinking about the appropriateness of what she was about to do, she swept over to the speakerphone, pressing the button as the doctors around her stared at her, confused. "5-O-Prolene. Block it."
Derek barely glanced away from the open brain in front of him, but he kept down the scalpel and reached for the thread the nurse held out, quickly suturing. The alarms were still going off though, which had to mean there was a second leak – perhaps even more major.
"There's a second leak," said both Derek and Addison, her hand still pressing the microphone, and this time he glanced up at her, blue eyes meeting green. It was as if there was no one else in the room, and a sudden electric feeling ran through her as she looked back down at him, seeing past his steely gaze at the worry and doubt. Something passed between them as they wordlessly communicated, and she knew that he knew what to do.
"The hypo-" she said quickly, unsure as to why he was still hesitant.
"I know." And yet he didn't pick up the scalpel or the needle, still staring at the little girl's brain in front of him.
And then it clicked, and she ran out of the gallery, barely registering the astonished – and annoyed – faces around her, barely aware of the slight pain in her ankle, barely remembering to reach for a mask as she stood at the door of the scrub room and the OR, pulling it open.
"It's not her." Derek looked directly across at her, not even the least bit surprised to see her there. "Derek, it's not her. Find the leak."
He gazed at her intently for a split second, and she shivered (in all likeliness it was because of the cool air of the OR, but the dramatic part of her claimed it was because of him). Then he snapped back into action, focusing on the situation in front of him and working furiously.
She stood there for a few seconds, taking in the scene in front of her, the attending's and resident's hands almost flying through air as they worked expertly. The monitors began to calm down, slowing down to the normal. O'Malley visibly relaxed as he watched the two doctors slow down a little, observing the now controlled situation.
She turned around and went back into the scrub room, depositing the mask in the bin and heading out to the little bench by the nurse's station. Sitting down, she lifted her leg, bending the knee as she rubbed her ankle absentmindedly, thinking of a different time. She wasn't in the right headspace to be thinking back to that case now, or their lives back then.
Dragging her thoughts away, she looked to the side at the bustling activity at the nurse's station. Attendings dropping off charts to be completed, residents picking them up, nurses paging doctors, people enquiring about their families – it was a constant flurry of activity.
The OR was usually a controlled, carefully prepped environment. She had only one (or two) patients to think of, and nothing else mattered. But for the nurses, every single patient in every single room was at the top of their mind, from dealing with families to administering medications for the recovering patients to coordinating OR schedules.
Perhaps it was because of the fact that she hadn't actually been in the OR the whole day, or the fact that the surgery she'd just watched had dredged up memories she'd much rather forget. Perhaps it was the blinding lights above her and the constant beeping of pagers and phone calls and talking and running past her, but she began to feel a little woozy and exhausted. Very aware of a sensory overload migraine building in her head, she knew she had to get someplace quiet. Standing up abruptly, she felt a little faint as she walked past the very source of noise and light and irritants and quickly stepped into the on-call room in the corridor.
Sighing with relief at the closed blinds and the pleasant silence, she collapsed onto the lower bunk, not bothering to take off her shoes.
"-okay, Rogers," finished Derek wearily, nodding at his resident as he pushed open the door to an on-call room with his back. "Page me if there's any change." He stepped backward into the room, letting the door shut and then turned around, eager to pass out, only to see the lower bunk occupied by a certain redhead sleeping on top of the blankets, shoes still on.
He climbed up onto the top bunk, tossing around a bit to get comfortable.
A groan sounded from below, and he halted, waiting. Hearing nothing more, he turned once more onto his left, facing the wall, and pulled the blanket over himself, the mattress squeaking again.
"Could you please be quieter," said a tired voice from below.
"Sorry."
A pause. He could almost picture Addison's face as she recognized the voice.
"Derek?"
"Yeah."
Another pause, and then she said, "How was the surgery?"
"She's in recovery, it was smooth sailing after that." He hesitated, crossing his arms beneath his head and looking at the ceiling. "Thanks for your help."
"No problem."
He figured she had fallen back asleep and was about to do so himself, when he heard her. "That day wasn't your fault, you know."
It took him a minute to catch on. "Residency?"
"Yeah. I was the primary resident on it, I messed up, what you did exacerbated it of course, but the damage was already done – you and Evans couldn't have done anything else, really."
He leaned out of the bunk to look down at her. She lay on her side, facing toward him. "I never blamed you, if that's what you're getting at."
She let out a frustrated breath. "No, I'm very well aware you didn't blame me, but I'm just saying – you froze today because you thought you were going to mess up the same way, so I'm telling you, last time it was my fault. Not yours."
He hesitated. "Well, today you helped-"
"Derek?" The door opened with a loud creak. Meredith Grey stood in the doorway, the faint light from outside illuminating the two bleary-eyed attendings leaning out of their bunks and talking.
"Meredith-" Derek began, quickly sitting up in his bunk, while Addison retreated back into hers and turned to face the wall.
"What on earth happened with that patient, Derek?" exclaimed Meredith loudly, and Addison winced slightly. Noting it, Derek motioned for Meredith to come inside and speak softly.
"Nothing, it's fine now," he whispered.
"Dr. Webber's furious, he wants to speak to you and Addis- Dr. Montgomery," she corrected, "and the board of governors and the parents are going to be told that you froze and she helped you out, and it's all looking like a big mess, Derek, and if that girl doesn't make it then I don't know what they're going to do to you, and-"
Derek climbed down from the bunk. "Meredith. Breathe."
"I can't- and George is scared that he's going to be dragged into it – and that poor girl, Derek, what if she doesn't wake up, what if this all-"
"Meredith, it's going to be fine, she'll wake up-" He placed a comforting arm on her shoulder, but she shrugged it off, fidgeting.
"-and then Izzie is off in her mess and I can't keep this together anymore, I just can't, and that girl, Derek, I was on peds the whole week and if she doesn't make it, I don't know what to do, she just can't die, her parents – and Dr. Webber wants to talk-"
"Dr. Grey," said Addison, and Derek saw her get out of the bed from the corner of his eye. As Meredith stood there panicking, she quickly took control. She led her to the bunk, murmuring soothing words while the young intern continued rambling, gesturing wildly.
"Derek," hissed Addison, "water. Or a paper bag."
Snapping out of it, he filled a small glass of water from the cooler in the room and handed it to Addison, who held it up for Meredith. She resisted the glass at first, but the older woman refused to budge, holding the glass to her mouth. At last, she began to take small sips, her hands falling to her sides limply as she drained the glass slowly.
"You're okay," repeated Addison softly. "You're okay. You're in the on-call room, the one on fifth floor, in the hospital, in Seattle. The day's almost over. You can sleep." She kept the empty glass on the table beside the bed, and motioned for the young girl to lie down, who quietly acquiesced. Finally, she pulled the covers over her and looked at her – she was already out of it, on her way to deep, and hopefully peaceful, sleep.
Addison stepped away from the bed and turned to leave, catching a glimpse of Derek's face as she moved past him. That pure love and affection used to be for her. "Thanks," said Derek a little sheepishly, and she stopped with her hand on the doorknob. She nodded sharply and left.
Addison exited her office, locking it behind her.
"Hi."
She jumped slightly, turning to face Meredith Grey.
"Hi," she responded with the same intonation as the intern.
"Thank you for helping me the other evening," said Grey. "I don't exactly remember the details, but Derek told me it was you who calmed me down."
She waved a hand airily as they began to walk toward the hospital entrance. "It's nothing."
"No, really, because I get that you probably hate me, or-"
"I don't hate you," she said, slowing down and looking at her. She repeated her words from the day she'd been high on morphine. "I don't hate you." Tilting her head, she added, "You're a good doctor, and a good person. That's all that matters."
Grey seemed surprised, and Addison briefly wondered if she (and the rest of the hospital) really believed she hated the intern simply because of Derek. They'd bought into the whole Satan thing, then.
"Well, thanks, that's nice," she said awkwardly. "Um, I know this is very last minute, but George and I are throwing Izzie a sort of we're-here-for-you party, because of everything that's happened, so it would be great if you could come."
Addison chuckled. "Thanks for the invite, Grey, but I don't think we're that sort of friends."
"Izzie would appreciate it, she really liked you-"
"Until I let her think she killed that baby," finished Addison. Her face fell slightly. "I did to her what Richard did to me, and an intern who showed promise in my field is no longer interested in it."
"It wasn't right, what you did," agreed Grey, "but her running away from your specialty and from surgery isn't on you." She hesitated. "You should come. If not for Izzie, at least come with Callie Torres and the others, and just have a good time. Everyone doesn't hate you."
"Just you, then?"
"I don't hate you. I tried, believe me," said Meredith. "You're an amazing doctor, and a good person. That's all that matters."
Addison smiled. "Alright, I'll be there." She walked toward the double doors, and then turned around and added, "You might want to warn Derek, he's not going to be happy about it."
"Oh, he'll get over it." The two women nodded at one another, and then Addison strode out of the hospital, while Meredith headed back inside.
Thoughts? I really liked the idea of Mer and Addie sort of moving past everything that's happened, and I loved the conversation the two had when Mer had been all drugged up. A small part of me would like both of them to dump Derek's ass and just be good friends (almost Mertina ish) but let's be honest, that would never happen. And anyway, this is Addek endgame. Ngl, ch5 is going to take a while because I'm just so busy with end of semester work, but I'll get around to it sometime I promise! In the meantime, please review and suggest more ideas, I'm open to it!