A week, a few months, or two or three or even a year before Addek's tragic undoing. . . .

Negative

"I took a pregnancy test yesterday." she blurted out, just like that, as he reached for the coffee pot at the staff lounge.

Admittedly, she knows she probably should have expressed it more...delicately, less...harsh, less...whatever that was. Except she has been trying this new approach, something softer, with him, with them - well, whatever they are considered now since they're anything but a married couple, perhaps two strangers - and that demise was getting her absolutely fucking nowhere.

He would know this if he had been home lately. Yesterday. He would know how terrified she have been for the past few days, how she have tried to chuck it off as stress. Yesterday. He would know this if he had been in the bathroom with her, waiting anxiously for the ringing of her timer to let them know of their fate. Yesterday. It all happened yesterday.

Their future rested entirely on an innocent stick. Truthfully, it's anything but.

She drove to the pharmacy before going home to their sullen brownstone and picked up a test. Clearblue. Feeling everyone's judging and laughing gaze on her the second she stepped into the store. They know. They all know there's a secret inside her. They know.

Their future could go either way; on a straight path, in the direction to nowhereland - it's actually the same place they're heading to as of this second - or take a sharp turn to the right. To the right track. To the right way. To where they're supposed to go.

But she was nervous. Was. Now, she's just...she don't know.

He snapped his head up, eyes wide and rimmed with red. Tiredness, most likely. It's surgery after surgery and hours of going through patient reports and scans since yesterday morning, since he's got nowhere else better to be. That, and hope. So much hope that Addison can see the slightest straightening of his spine and shoulder blades. Hope, she can read were shinning in his eyes. She knows she probably shouldn't look to see them a moment later, but she needed to feel pain, tremendous pain, because right now, she's numb.

"It was negative." she shrugged. Her voice was so blunt. Dry.

Blunt, dry and hoarse.

Pinning her blues with his, she watched, very quickly, as he blinked back to dullness. The redness in his eyes growing brighter.

There were a couple of doctors lounging alongside them, scattered out in all corners, but none were in earshot to hear her confession and he's more than glad about that because hospital gossip spreads like wildfire and this hospital is just like high school, chatty and one that thrives in talk, and it's gossip they definitely do not need right now.

He doesn't know what to say. If he should even say anything at all. Well, he should, he's her husband. And he's also an idiot, making a fool out of himself by that gaping fish expression he's giving her right now.

She can tell by the way he opened his mouth, then closed it again, then sighed, leaning back against the counter like it's the only thing left in this world that can keep him from collapsing, that he was anything but ready to hear that from her. He can't bring himself to lean on her, she thinks, but a formica countertop will suffice, it seems that way.

Maybe next time she ought to be gentler.

Does he really think that she - Addison - is mother material?

"I...Addie...I don't know what to say." his voice was coarse. Choked. Like he's using the last of what little energy he has to grit out the words.

"Me neither." she chuckled nervously. She has no idea why she's laughing. This is no laughing matter. "Just...thought you should know, I guess."

She left the lounge and continued on with her day. Derek didn't follow after her and they didn't even look at each other as they crossed paths at the fourth floor later that afternoon.

He knows that was her. Those were her Manolo Blahnik point-toe black pumps. Ones that she dragged him to Saks just so she could irritate the sales ladies there by trying out about two dozen of the somewhat identical looking shoes before settling with the exact same pair she already had.

Who else in this hospital wears four inches heels?

She knows that was him. Those were his jet black curls that he spent just as much time as she did, if not way way more, every morning in perfecting the art of perfect hair. Though he'll never attest to that, she's living proof and she's a witnessed to his ridiculous rituals of combing and brushing and gelling.

Who else in this hospital has a gorgeous head of hair?

They didn't talk about it for the rest of the day.

"I don't want to tiptoe around you at work." he was the one who broke their mutually agreed silence as he caught up to her at the nurses' station that evening.

She just looked at him, then back down at her chart before closing the folder and handing it to the station nurse.

He had said it like he meant it. Addison wasn't sure whether it was the truth or perhaps, it was just a wish that was harder to maintain than he had anticipated.

Everything, it seemed, is so much harder than they had anticipated.

"Ok." she said and ran away when she was paged back to the same room she was in just ten minutes ago.

Her patient - not the mother but the incredibly premature baby - didn't make it.

They went home - or rather, she went home and he went to a bar or Mark's or...somewhere that wasn't home - and Addison cried. She's crying because she finally can, because there's no one around to witness the beastly looking creature that emerges whenever she bawls her eyes out.

It's an ugly mess, really.

Her husband still isn't here.

She's terribly sad, she thinks it's pretty obvious that she is, and he's not here to comfort her.

The cries flowed in stages. It's sad at first - the kind of tears you would cry because there's nobody to talk to about how completely broken you're feeling. And then, they change without any warning. They grow hot and mad, angry tears - the ones you cry out of frustration and injustice. For being alone in a time of need and comfort. And lastly, she quietened - nothing else left inside her. Nothing to give. Nothing to grieve. Nothing to rage about.

Just acceptance.

She'd be a lousy mother anyway. She'll be a carbon copy of her own mother. Cold and manipulative.

And so she showered, pulled on a pair of sweats and a t-shirt that smells like her and not like Derek, because that's enough for tonight. Enough pity. Enough sadness. Enough wallowing.

There was a jiggle at the door. A pull and release. A gush of wind before the door's shutting echoed. A soft thud of his shoes being set down in the shoe rack sounded.

Derek's finally home.

Now that he's here, she feels nothing. She wanted him home but now, he's three hours too late.

"Addie." he called out as he walked into the living room. Then, frowned at the drink in her hand. She knows what he's going to say but she glared at him just in time for him to reevaluate his concerns.

There's strong scientific evidence that alcohol, even in moderation, can make it more difficult to conceive. She knows that, that's her specialty and she doesn't need Derek - the godsend - schooling her in something she spent more than a third of her life studying.

Sucking in a breath, Addison closed her eyes and took a long sip. Maybe this was just her imagination toying with her. Derek's never home. But the pain sitting in her chest like lead is too heavy to be ignored, to be just a dream - more like a nightmare. So, she willed her eyes open. He's on the couch, right beside her.

"Did you want it to be positive?" His words were stilted. Angular and staccato.

"I don't know."

Derek sighed, like it's the only thing he's capable of doing. "Did you want it to be negative?"

"No." she said quickly. There wasn't even a pause. Not a second or even the tiniest millisecond. No thinking. Just blurting.

There wasn't a 'no, I didn't want it to be negative', 'no, I don't want it to be negative'.

He stared at her. His hands were cold and he bet hers were too. They're always cold. They only ever talked about having kids once and that was a very long time ago. When they first got married. When they were young and in their twenties. Careers then we can think about having children. But lately, they were just so busy with work and being the best of the best, being the doctors hospitals can only dream of accommodating - those were their goals - that kids never popped into their conversations, or lack there of.

And now, they're in their thirties and they do not have much time.

She's now overwhelmed by his smell, his breathing, his trembling fingers inching towards her, pulling back at the last second like they've been burned.

"I've thought about it...for quite a while now actually." he choked. He had never told her this part of his goal. She knows he've always wanted kids and they both agreed on that. And that was that. They agreed. They just thought they had all the time in the world. "Four. Four kids. Two boys. Two girls."

She almost spat back the burning liquor that was travelling down her throat.

Four children!

She'd bare as many kids as she could, if she could. But it's time that's not on her side.

She doesn't know why he's telling her this, why he's making this whole situation worse by painting a picture of what they don't have, of what they will never have - well, she suspects, she's thirty-five. She wants him to stop talking. And yet, she's not screaming at him to stop either, because she's passive aggressive.

A masochist, isn't she?

Seeking out the pain, letting it singe then burn then scar.

"I thought about you taking it light with work. Complaining. Not really meaning it. Pretending not to be excited over Savvy throwing you a baby shower."

"Why are you telling me this?" she whispered, tears fogging her vision and just when she thought she was done with vulnerability.

"Just wanted you to know it wasn't a feeling of relief...if that's what you're thinking." he said, swiping tears that had managed to tumble down her cheeks with the back of his fingers. "When you said it was negative. I wasn't relieved."

A wave of something passed over her then. Nausea maybe. Heartbreak, probably.

"Maybe someday." she just about manages, not waiting for the 'oh definitely' because that would have been the response once upon a time when her fertility clock wasn't ticking like a ticking time bomb, because nothing is certain, just a series of maybes and possiblies and mights and coulds and never wills.

"I want it." he said quietly. "I really do."

And yet, they both know that want doesn't equate to having.

"I want it too." she let herself say.

They sit for a while. Longer than a while actually. Minutes or hours until her vision became blurry. And not just from the tears because she's also fighting the urge to close her eyes. If she does let herself succumb, Addison knows he won't be here when she wakes up.

"Derek, can you please…" she trailed off, backing out when Derek lets his eyes meet hers and she sees his own tears too. He adjusted his body, twisting and she's most certain that he's going to leave - she doesn't know what's making her think that - the desperation for him not to go, knocked all of the wind out of her lungs as she clung onto his arm. Begging.

But then his arms enveloped her, sealing her body against his so she can hear the heavy thump of his heartbeat and feel his carefully measured breaths against her hair. The gentle shake of his arms signalled to her that he's given in to the grief and she lets her fingertips stroke the back of his neck steadily, calmly, loosening the muscles beneath his skin so he becomes heavy against her shoulder. But she prefers it that way, the weight of his body pressing against her so he's everywhere. So she can feel him. So she knows he's still here.

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