Hi guys ! Thank you for all the amazing feedback on the first chapter - keep it up and make me update faster!
Also, remember this is set in that trippy AU universe - the characters are those AU personalities for now...but you'll definitely be seeing them journeying toward the way they actually are in the regular Grey's universe. Same goes for MerDer - they'll be up and down, in and out for a while, but its MerDer endgame, so yeah.
Don't flame me for not going straight to the wedding and two kids. Just saying.
Now, happy reading!
"What's your name again?" Mark asks, squinting at her like he's trying to remember.
"Meredith." she replies. "Meredith Weber?"
"Ah. Baby Ellis."
"Wh - Excuse me!" she splutters, feeling her face heat up. "I am not like my mother."
"I meant," he says, raising an eyebrow. "That you look like her."
Oh. And now Hot Junkie Guy thinks she's a nutcase, in addition to her being a homewrecker.
"How do you know the Shepherds?" she asks tentatively, hoping she isn't pushing her luck too far.
"We're friends." he says, smiling grimly. "We're all close friends. Used to be, anyway."
"Used to be?"
"Someone page an attending now." Kepner's voice shrills from inside the room; Shepherd slams his way out, looking terrified.
"What?" Mark is on his feet, looking tense. "Derek, what?"
"You lied to me." he spits. "You both lied to me."
"This isn't the time." Mark hisses, seizing Shepherd by the arm and dragging him aside. She can't hear what they're saying, but Shepherd seems to be sagging against the wall while Mark shakes him.
"Meredith."
Oh, crap.
"Yes, Mother?" she answers patiently, knowing there will be hell to pay for her tardiness. Setting an example, and all that.
"Where were you last night?"
There are lots of choices, tough choices, that you have to make. AP French or History? Premed or not? Med school? Harvard or Yale?
Okay, those were the choices she's faced. Maybe they aren't life or death, but this one definitely is, and she's wishing she had chosen to stay out in the hallway and be interrogated by her mother.
Because the second option was being dragged into the delivery room with Dr. Ryan.
The delivery room that currently contains the (currently terrified) woman her fiancé cheated on her with, the (currently in active labor) woman who's husband Meredith slept with and the baby whose paternity is being yelled about in the hallway.
Well, the baby hasn't made an appearance yet, which is the reason she's here.
The ultrasound blurs, blood flooding into her body as the placenta detaches, Dr. Ryan is yelling for an OR, when she feels a clammy yet surprisingly strong hand clamp around her wrist.
"There's no time." Addison gasps; she's never seen the woman with a single hair out of place, and now she's clutching at her all pale and sweaty. "Grey, there's no time and Kepner's ... an idiot, you have to do it, you have to get Connie to do an- internal podalic-"
"No." Dr. Ryan barks. "The C's safer."
"There's no time, do you hear me?" Dr. Montgomery snarls, gasping as another contraction rips through her, swatting away the hand Kepner proffers. "Do it."
"It hurts-" Dr. Ryan warns.
"Like a bitch, I know." Dr. Montgomery pants. "Do it."
"Get the father." Dr. Ryan snaps to the room in heneral; Addison shakes her head.
"I don't want him in here."
Which him?
"You can't do this alone." Dr. Ryan says, appalled. "Addison."
"Connie, if my baby ends up with anoxic brain damage because you were too slow, I will end you." she promises, her knuckles whitening as she grips the rails of the bed.
"Okay." Dr. Ryan concedes, snapping on gloves. "Grey,get over here, Kepner-"
"Get out."
"Excuse me, Dr. Montgomery?" Kepner squeaks.
"I said," Addison screams. "Out. Do not touch me, you blithering idiot. Out."
"Addison?" Derek is yelling from outside the door. "Addie -"
"Shut up." she hears Mark say.
April scurries out, and she sees a flash of Derek's worried face as the door swings shut.
Please he mouths.
"It's a girl!" Dr. Ryan beams as a tiny, slippery whitish red body slithers into her hands. "Congratulations."
Addison seems unable to speak, gasping for breath as she clutches her daughter. Her daughter with eyes so blue they can only belong to one person.
"She's beautiful." she says, because it seems like the right thing to say. Because she can't think of anything else to say, because her heart hurts and she has no idea why.
Its Derek's baby, clear as day, Derek's baby with her scrunched up pink face and her rosebud mouth and Addison's hair and his blue, blue eyes.
"Why'd you lie?" she asks as a nurse takes the baby.
"What?" Addison asks, her head falling, exhausted, against the pillows.
"You-" she licks her lips, suddenly nervous, too far in to back out. "You said it wasn't Derek's baby."
She stares at her for a moment, her eyes unreadable. "Meredith..."
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have-" she apologises, disentangling her fingers - Addison decided she needed a hand to hold at the last moment - and getting up.
Addison's eyes seem riveted to her neck, exposed by the wide neck of her gray scrubs. She tugs them up, her fingers brushing against the sore spot she knows is an angry red against her skin.
"You called him Derek." she sighs, sinking against her pillows. "I should have known."
"Dr. Montgomery, I -"
"Addison, please." she says. She looks ...relieved? Relaxed? What the hell is going on? "You've had your forearm up my vagina, you slept with my husband, go ahead and call me Addison."
"I -" she splutters, feeling her face go red as Dr. Ryan and at least three nurses stare at her.
"Addison." Derek roars from the hallway. "For God's sake -"
Addison gestures for her to open the door; she does, and Derek stumbles into the room, steadying himself with a hand against the wall.
"Can we have a minute?" Addison asks, strangled.
"Of course."
They all depart in haste, placing the baby in her mother's arms, Dr. Ryan lingering outside the door until Derek glares at her.
"Just a minute." Addison promises.
"You lied." he says immediately.
"So I did." she yawns, looking supremely unconcerned at the fact that he is apoplectic with rage, stroking their daughter's tiny cheek.
"Let ... I want to see her." he says, sitting down heavily in the chair that's meant for the father-to-be.
"You couldn't say that without looking at the floor yesterday." she says quietly, smiling as tiny fingers grip hers. "You wanted out, I gave you one."
"I never said that."
"Derek, you didn't have to, you were miserable. All year, you've been miserable."
"I wanted the baby, I said I wanted the baby, I was going to try and make things right-"
"It was too late, Derek," Addison sighs. "Too late and too little."
"You lied to me about my own child, Addison, nothing justifies that."
"I know." she breathes. "I know, but I just couldn't do it anymore, Derek, I wanted to-"
"What? Steal my baby? Run off with Mark?"
Her cheeks flood with color, her voice rising. "It was never like that with us."
Derek laughs mirthlessly, pacing restlessly at the foot of the bed. "You practically told me as much, remember? I'm leaving you, Derek. You said it, and you were lying then, too."
"I wasn't lying." she says quietly.
"You said you loved him."
"I thought I did."
"Or you thought he did." Serek sneers coldly. "And when he dumped you you came running right back to me, didn't you."
"We were never together," Addison replies heatedly, cradling their daughter. "We never...we - I never cheated on you, Derek, yes I hated you for the way things were in New York, and yes, I wanted to leave, and yes, Mark and I ... we still are. But I stayed because it was the right thing and you stayed because that's just who you are, and we moved here and now here we are."
"You love him." Derek states, not disbelieving, not angry. Just...acknowledging.
"Yes."
"You only stayed ..."
"Because you said you wanted to make it work. Because you-" Addison's voice cracks, and she ducks her head, embarrassed. "You said you were sorry for how things were in New York."
"I am." he says softly, sinking into the chair beside her bed, eyes still trained on the snuffling, sucking bundle in her arms. "I'll always be, Addie, we had good years, lots of them, and I don't regret them..."
"But they're over." she sighs, one hand cupping their daughter's tiny head. She smiles, her face relaxing, and he sees the exhaustion etched in her skin, a wave of guilt sweeping over him.
She moved to Seattle for him, so he could start over, so he could have the opportunity he wanted. She carried his child for nine months, with the bare minimum of enthusiasm or help from him. She was willing to lie, to ruin her reputation and ruin her marriage, to give him the out he was too cowardly to ask for.
"Addie." he says again, tracing her knuckles with one hand. "I'm sorry."
"Our marriage is over." she says, still in that soft, wondrous voice, like she can't believe it.
There's no point apologising, no space to beat around the bush. Twelve years are crumbling around their ears as they speak, but the noise is sweeter than any he's heard in a while.
"This is sad." he says, for lack of anything else to say, and wonders how they got from the starry-eyed med students who couldn't keep their hands off each other to the jaded, tired adults laying their marriage to rest.
"It's all my fault." she whispers, folding a corner of the blanket over a rosy fist.
"It takes two to wreck a marriage, Addison, I did my fair share."
More than.
But this isn't the time, or the place to reveal his disgusting betrayal, not when she's barely awake, sore and exhausted and weak.
He'll tell her later.
"You slept with Meredith," she says. A statement, not a question.
A question might have been better, a question gives you room to explain why, and what, and where.
A statement means she knows already, and that she doesn't expect an explanation.
Because she doesn't expect better from him...or maybe because she no longer cares.
"Where have you been?" her mother rolls her eyes as she slides into the room, guiltily ducking into a seat next to Yang, who looks...hungover? Can androids get hangovers?
Somehow, saying giving Addison Shepherd an episiotomy seems inappropriate in front of all the woman's residents, so she mutters something about a patient and hopes her mother doesn't push it.
"Is she okay?" April asks desperately, her cheeks furiously red. "Meredith-"
"Shut it, Virgin Mary." Yang says coolly, cutting her off. "You want to know, find out yourself."
"Thanks." she mutters when April turns away, positively sweating by now.
"Can't stand her either." Yang grunts in response, swigging coffee. "What is this about again?"
"New interns." she reminds her. " five each."
"Excellent." Cristina smacks her lips, sitting up. "Slave labor."
"We should be creating a healthy learning environment," Alex frowns. God, she could just punch him. He looks terrified of being in the same room as her, avoiding her gaze and staring at hee when he thinks she can't see.
"Yes," Cristina smirks. "We should be kissing people in offices, it's a great team building exercise."
She can't help but snort her coffee up her nose at this, and Yang looks surprised - and pleased - at having gotten a reaction out of her.
"Meredith." her mother says, looking faintly annoyed. "Is something funny?"
"No." she says immediately, dabbing her stinging nose with a wad of tissues Charles passes her under the table. "Sorry."
"Well, as you all know." Ellis says brightly, standing up. "We are welcoming a new first year resident today, along with the new interns -"
"Izzie's replacement." someone mumbles.
"- I would like to welcome Dr. Margaret Pierce."
"Maggie?" She actually spits a mouthful of coffee across the table this time; it sends a very satisfying arc of brown droplets across the front of Alex's lab coat.
"Hi, Mer."
So, Maggie's here. I thought since, you know, Richard and Ellis are MARRIED TO EACH OTHER, there wouldn't have been a reason for Ellis to give her baby away. Maybe in this universe she had the guts to tell Richard, who had the guts to leave Adele...and they were one dysfunctional family. Maybe.
And yes, it's Derek's baby. I never believed Addison at the end of that episode, mainly because Mark asks her why the hell she said that to Derek. And because she's just so...emotionless when she says it, like she just wants to get rid of Derek and put him out of his misery.
Any name suggestions? I always imagined them with a girl, though - shame they wasted all those fabulous hair genes.
Pretty please with a cherry on top - review!
It makes me update faster, and better. Plus I love hearing what you guys do and don't like, and what you wnat to see next.