Hey! I know I haven't updated this in forever, so to recap -
Meredith and Cristina are becoming friends, and have discovered Lexie.
Meredith got drunk as a result and turned up at Derek's house.
Mark and Addison are debating their relationship
Read on!
"Hello there." Mark beams, motioning for Addison to hand him the baby. "Are you tired of all the dumb grownups, Huh? Is that it?" He walks off cradling Grace, whose wails decrease in volume as he rocks her.
Huh. Mark's always been good with babies - he's watched many a girl fall for the Mark Sloan with a baby act, actually, but he's never really imagined Mark being the one to get his daughter to stop crying.
The silence feels amazing.
Addison clearly thinks so too, pulling the ends of her robe tighter around herself, but she still looks drained and tired, leaning against the glossy dark front door.
"Go inside, Addie." he says.
"Why, so you can screw your mistress on the front porch?" she snipes.
Meredith, even through her alcohol-fueled haze, looks offended.
"I'm not his...mistress." she hiccups, swaying a little. "Just...just a girl he met in a bar."
"Nice."
"And he's just a guy," Meredith hums dreamily. "That I met in a bar."
"Do something, Derek." Addison hisses at him, eyes flicking through the row of trees at the edge of their property towards the lights of their neighbours home.
"Meredith, let me drive you home." he offers, but Meredith just grins widely at him.
"Take me for a riiiide." she giggles. "Hey, Derek-"
"I'm going inside." Addison says, sounding disgusted. "At least turn the porch light off."
The baby is very quiet now, lying placidly in his arms, staring up at him with those piercing blue eyes.
"You're real pretty, you know that?" he hums softly, stroking the bottom of her miniscule foot. "Just like your mom."
"Thanks." Addison mumbles, disgruntled. "That's the nicest thing anyone has said to me all week."
"I might be a little biased." he says, leaning over the arm of the sofa, close enough that her hair brushes his face. She smells sweet, citrusy.
"Don't." she mumbles, pulling away.
"It's over, Addison." he says, as gently as he can. "Your marriage is over, all you have to do is admit it, and you can come -"
She just stares at him, lips parted, but before she can say anything Derek has entered the living room, holding Weber's elbow gingerly as he guides her around furniture.
"Aw, she's so cute." Weber beams.
Addison smiles reluctantly.
"She looks like you," Meredith squeals at Addison. "Hi, baby! HIhi!"
"Derek, shouldn't you...drive her home, or something?" he says pointedly. This is a very, very messed up scenario. Derek and Addison are married but Derek had a one night stand with Meredith while Addison was in labor but he didn't care because Addison lied and told him it wasn't his baby, it was Mark's baby, but then Derek showed up anyway because he's decent like that and he loves his best friend's wife and that is enough to make his head spin.
"Yes, please." Addison says dispassionately. "Before she starts vomiting.."
"I don't puke." Meredith says proudly. "I'm not a ...a wuss. I can hold my alcohol." She hiccups, looking bemused.
"Good for you." Derek says, catching her by the shoulder as she starts to tip over.
"If she starts smashing into things I'm holding you responsible." Addison hisses at Derek.
"Oh, so you're worried about your knicknacks?" Derek asks.
"Yes. And they're not mine, they're ours."
"I don't want any of this." Derek gestures at the living room, which looks like it fell out of an architectural magazine. "You can keep it."
"Can we discuss your property division later?" he cuts in. Weber looks very woozy, and he doesn't want to be explaining to Ellis Grey how her daughter ended up unconscious.
"I don't know where she lives." Derek mutters.
"How do you not, we've been to Ellis' for dinner three times last month." Addison snaps. "Oh, but I forgot - you never came."
"I had work."
"And the rest if us didn't." Addison says sarcastically. "Just you, the big shot brain surgeon -"
"You're saying brain surgery isn't interesting?" Derek demands.
"Shut up." he bellows loud enough to wake Grace, who begins to cry.
Addison steals her away expertly, soothing her with soft murmurs. Meredith watches in fascination.
"She has a baby voice." Meredith says, awed. "She -Shepherd is using a baby voice."
"It is my baby." Addison replies, giving Meredith the kind of look she reserves for particularly incompetent interns and things on the bottom of her shoe. "And I use my baby voice all the time at work."
"I've never been on your service all that long." Meredith muses.
"Your mother." he says sagely. "You mother, I think, likes you to be on cardio."
"I don't like to be on cardio."
"Well, you can have this discussion later." Addison snaps. "Derek, get her out of here. Derek."
Derek looks up from his phone, startled. "Eh?"
Addison points at Meredith, who by this point is poking a squeaky toy of Grace's, giggling.
"It's Ellis." Derek waves his phone. "She has a patient in the ER -"
"Don't even think about it." Addison warns.
"I'm already on her shit list." Derek protests.
"You are on a lot of people's shit lists." Addison promises. "Including mine."
"Addie, please -"
"Your mistress is going through my laundry." Addison says tightly. Meredith holds up a tiny babygro, cooing.
His phone chooses that moment to ring. Derek jumps a bit, like he's just remembered Mark is there too.
"Looks like Hitler wants me too." he says, cheerfully, to defuse the situation. "Gotta go. Bye, Addie. Don't drop the baby."
Derek starts following him, maybe hoping he can get out without his wife noticing.
"Take her with you." Addison begs.
"The baby?" Derek seems perplexed.
"No, your twelve year old girlfriend."
"I'm not twelve." Meredith corrects. "And I'm not his girlfriend."
Addison sucks in her cheeks.
"I can't." Derek says. "Ellis is there, and if she sees her like this -"
"Oh, he's all protective." Addison sneers.
"I'll take her home when I come back." Derek promises. He kisses the baby, gives his wife a painfully awkward shoulder-squeeze-hug and barrels outside.
"Mark. Help." Addison pleads.
"Just keep her out of trouble for a half hour." he shrugs. "I'll bet she's easier than the baby."
"Mark." Addison looks desperate.
"I love you." he grins, edging away.
Why is his life so messed up?
"You have a really pretty house." she sighs. This couch is so soft...she's sinking into it, clutching a silky pillow to her face. "You're so pretty."
Addison is pretty. Even with baby vomit in her hair. Even Alex thinks she's hot.
She tells this to Addison, who looks disgusted.
"Get up." Addison says shortly.
"I don't think I can." she says after a pause, embarrassed. Her legs are jellyfish right now. She imagined herself drifting around with squirmy tentacles for legs, stinging people. She'd sting Alex first.
"Maybe April can pee on him then." she says. Addison blinks, then shakes her head.
"I mean, that's what you do, right? You pee on people?"
"What the fuck are you talking about."
"When a jeffy - fleshy... jellyfish! When a fleshyjiff stings you? You pee on 'em, right?"
"I don't know. On the jellyfish? Or on the person?" Addison seems to be considering this seriously. "I think so. I hope Derek gets stung."
"I don't think we have them in Seattle."
"Shame."
"I'm sorry." she ventures after a while. "About your husband. I...I don't know what I was thinking."
Addison shrugs. "To be fair, I had just told him I was pregnant with Mark's baby."
"But she isn't Mark's." she confirms, looking at the baby, all cuddly in her blanket. She wants a blanket... she pulls something soft off the back of the couch. Addison seems annoyed, but doesn't say anything.
"No. And stay out of my personal life, Weber."
"Sorry." she hiccups. She was actually starting to feel comfortable with Addison. She's always seemed so ... out of reach, all glamorous and beautiful and awesome. Seeing her in baby puke and milk is oddly normalising.
But she seems to have reverted to her usual form, Ice Queen Bitch.
"I'm sorry about the bathroom too." she says, just to get it off her chest. "I puked in there. Also the robe, I had to borrow it."
"You slept with my husband." Addison rolls her eyes. "The rest is small stuff."
"I'm a homewrecker." she sobs. Addison's shoulder is so comfortable, and her robe is really absorbent. "I wrecked your home. And you just had a baby..."
The baby stares up at her, her eyes all blue and inquisitive. A fat tear lands on her teeny cheek.
"Stop... crying on Grace." Addison says, patting her awkwardly. "And get off me."
"Don't beat yourself up too much." Addison says with a gusty sigh. "Derek and I were pretty much over anyway. I mean, I do wish he hadn't decided to become an adulterer... but even if you hadn't come along I think we would have ended it."
"Why?" she asks curiously. Derek said the same thing. She's always thought the Shepherds were the Brangelina of Seattle Grace Mercy West, they're both so beautiful ... and talented, obviously, and ...
"How much have you had to drink?" Addison asks suddenly.
"A lot." she answers. "Like... a lot."
"I need adult conversation." Addison confesses. "I'm not speaking to my asshat husband, and Grace is precocious but I don't think she really understands what I'm saying... anyway. You're drunk. You won't remember this in the morning."
"I never remember things in the morning."
"Well," Addison hesitates. She sees a sort of oh, screw it expression cross the woman's face, and she plunges onwards.
"You see, Derek and I, we got married when we were pretty young. And I'm not saying I didn't love him - I did - and he was in love with me... but we were married for ages. And he was so obsessed with work and with being the best that we kind of drifted apart, and we were friends with Mark since med school. Close friends. And Derek and he literally grew up together, and Mark was always there. You know what I mean?"
She nods, trying to look like she's following. She is, almost.
Addison nods back. "I realised ... I was in love with Mark. He was the one I was going to, to talk, or whatever, I was spending more time with him than my actual husband, and then -"
"You slept with him?" she gapes.
"No!" Addison exclaims.
"Oh, right. That's not what Derek said." she mutters, feeling her face burning. "He said he came home... and he saod something really dramatic about knowing his life was about to change -"
"Typical." Addison mutters.
"- and you and Mark were just sitting there." she finishes.
"Yeah. We stopped ourselves before it went too far - Derek was my husband and Mark's best friend. We couldn't hurt him, not like that... so I said, he could be either in the marriage, or I was leaving."
"Badass."
"Thank you. And then he decided we should come out here to this mildewed hellhole, to start over." Addison says. "You know the rest of it."
"And then he slept with me?"
"There were things in the middle, I guess." Addison says. "The relatively minor fact that I was pregnant being one of them. But yes, you sleeping with him was basically the end."
"Are you relieved?" she asks. "I was relieved when I caught Alex with his tongue down Kepner's throat. I didn't realise it at the moment, but I didn't really want to marry Alex."
"Kepner and Karev?" Addison says, snorting with laughter. She looks completely different when she laughs, almost human and not a doll. "I never did understand what you saw in Alex, anyway."
"No?"
"Did he make you happy? Did he make you laugh?"
"I think it was more...like I was laughing at him." she says after some thought. "And he was miserable in bed. Derek is amazing -"
Oh. Oh god. She did not just -
Addison looks like she might hurl. "Do not. Ever. Under any circumstances discuss my husband's abilities in bed with me."
"Sorry." she whimpers.
"You're better off without Alex." Addison shrugs, apparently recovered. "You're young. Really good sex is important."
"Was it really good? With -"
"Stop right there."
"Mark. I was gonna say with Mark."
"We -"
"Oh, right. No action." she remembers. Addison turns a weird shade of reddish pink.
"Oooh. You wanna."
"Shut up."
"You're blushing." she giggles. God, why can't she stop giggling? It's getting embarrassing.
"Am not."
"Why haven't we had a chat like this before?" she asks, managing to quell the giggles. "You're so nice. To talk to. Like a real girl friend."
"Because," Addison says sweetly, leaning in. "You are drunk off your ass and you will remember exactly none of this tomorrow morning, plus you will have a hangover, and we're out of coffee since Derek considers himself to be above grovery shopping. So. Karma is a bitch, isn't it, Meredith?"
"Twenty says Addison kills her and buries the body in the backyard." Mark says. He clambered into his car, saying it was better for the environment. This is annoying firstly because he has to listen to Mark prattle away all the way to the hospital, and secondly because it means Mark will accompany him back home to get his own car.
"I'll give you twenty to shut up."
"I'll pass." Mark shrugs. "Your girlfriend is cute."
"She's not my girlfriend."
"Mistress?"
"Mark -"
"Revenge?" Mark suggests quietly. "Admit it, you just wanted to hurt Addison."
Maybe.
Mark knows him far too well.
"That was a part of it." he says. "But mostly... I was just a guy in a bar, and she was there and -"
"You are so fucking dramatic."
"I thought my wife was pregnant with your baby !"
"Addison made herself miserable for years, for you." Mark yells. "She stuck with you even though you were about as present as a doorknob. She literally lied about the paternity of her baby to get rid of you, Derek, she was willing to risk her reputation just to give you an out. She decided that was preferable to being an adulterous -"
"Look, I'm sorry." he says. He is. "I've said to Addie, I'm saying it to you."
"I'm not accepting it."
"I don't care."
"Buy me a drink and I will." Mark challenges.
"I have no obligation to make you feel better." he grits his teeth. "You are in love with my wife."
"And you," Mark taps him on the arm as he pulls into the parking lot. "Are not."
Derek Shepherd and Dr. Sloan arrive together, bickering. She doesn't understand their dynamic, but they are both expert surgeons and she needs them.
"What do we have, Chief ?" Shepherd asks.
"MVC, forty year old male with multiple fractures and crush injuries, GCS of eight. Hunt is in right now, we're waiting on Cardio for a potential punctured lung."
"Cardio's here." Yang reports, tying on her gown.
"I asked for Dr. Torres." she says, irked. "This is a complicated case."
"Torres went home." Yang shrugs. "She said something about talking to her husband... who I see is here, so she's probably going to be pissed. If you don't mind, I'll go save a life now." The young woman breezes past all of them, leaving her momentarily speechless. Sloan looks like he might laugh.
"Well, page Meredith." she calls after Yang.
Derek coughs. "Dr. Grey -"
"Yes?"
"Meredith is... at my house. She showed up... inebriated... we thought it was best she sober up there." he says, looking very much like he wishes the ground would swallow him up.
"She's drunk?" she splutters. Dear god. That girl is so irresponsible. She pulls out her phone to call Richard, when he turns up beside her.
"Hi, darling. I never went home. Isn't it lucky? I can help you with this trauma."
"Richard, I need you to go get Meredith."
"Where is she?" he asks, perplexed. "I thinks she's not on call tonight."
"She's with Addison at their house, probably having a conversation she will regret. Or possibly she's been murdered." Sloan answers.
"What ?"
"Just... go." she mutters. She can feel Shepherd and Sloan goggling at her, waiting for her response.
"You go." Richard says.
It's her turn to splutter, staring at her husband. "Excuse me?"
"You go," Richard repeats. "I'm going in on this case. You're free - you go."
"Richard."
"I've been buried under the merger paperwork all day." Richard smiles, kissing her cheek. "I need to do some surgery. Bye, darling."
"Let's set up for a TEE." she says, scanning through the lab tests someone hands her. "Okay."
Hunt stares at her like he's just met her. "What are you doing here, Yang?"
"Starting a conga line."
He doesn't get it. He continues to stare at her like she's sprouting horns.
"Where's Callie?" Hunt asks, clearly with some effort.
"She asked me to run this." she shrugs. "I think she went home."
"Apparently not." Avery murmurs. Torres is making her way into the room, getting tangled in her gown and dropping gloves.
"You're here?" Torres hisses at Hunt. "Where are the kids?"
"In your office, sleeping." Hunt answers. "Where the hell were you?"
"I was ... researching." Callie says evasively. "Damn it. Looks like a ventricular -"
"Rupture." says Margaret Pierce. She's appeared in the doorway, looking eager. "May I scrub in?"
"No." she says at the same time Torres says yes. They stare at each other for a moment, and Torres narrows her eyes and does a weird head - jerk thing.
"Well, if you don't need me on this I'll go home." she shrugs.
"I need you." Torres yelps. "I mean... for something else."
"Cal, are you all right?" Owen asks.
"I am perfect." Torres huffs. "Great. Really awesomely good."
Maggie looks a little freaked out by this.
"This is totally normal for her." she assures Maggie. "Go ahead and book an OR."
"We need to talk." Callie hisses in her ear. "Wait until I get out of surgery."
"Addison, I apologise for the inconvenience -"
"It's all right." Addison smiles. She looks ...serene, cradling her baby daughter and sitting with her legs tucked under her. Meredith is passed out at the other end of the couch, reeking like a distillery.
"I don't know what's gotten into her." she confesses. Meredith was always stubborn, but this, getting drunk and embarrassing herself in front of her superiors is just too much.
"She's young and in love." Addison says, sounding mellow. "It happens to all of us. "
She shudders as she realises what this means. Meredith came here on her own, confirming her doubt about her and Shepherd.
And yet Addison is sitting there, singing softly and looking utterly unkempt.
"Oh." she says, looking up. "Yes. She did sleep with my husband."
She has a sudden urge to check Meredith's pulse, but her daughter assuages her fears by snoring loudly.
"Addison -"
"It's all right." the woman smiles. "We were going to end it anyway."
She's still reeling from the discovery that her daughter slept with one of her top surgeons when Addison hurls another bomb.
"Not to get into the details, but I told Derek Grace wasn't his baby, so he wasn't thinking straight." Addison confesses. "I mean, I do want to kill him with a butter knife, but in all fairness he was very upset that night. And so was she." Addison gestures to Meredith. "It's good she broke up with Alex."
Hormones, she decides. It must be all the oxytocin.
"And don't worry," Addison says airily. "I'm not leaving the hospital. I like it there - plus I intend to beat the crap put of Derek. After I get back from maternity leave, of course. Right now I have stitches in places no one wants any."
..
Meredith wakes up furious.
"Get out." she demands, pulling what looks like a baby blanket over her face. "I don't want to talk to you."
"Meredith, let's have this discussion at home." she says sternly. She wishes desperately Richard were here. This is his forte.
"I'm not coming home." Meredith says, peeking over the lace edge of the blanket.
"Meredith!"
Addison covers her baby's head, shushing them.
"You're a lying liar." Meredith snarls.
"I will not be spoken to like that."
"Good. I don't want to speak to you." Meredith says, triumphantly. Addison has to hide a smile in her daughter's hooded blanket.
Just wait till that adorable baby is older, she thinks viciously. She'll probably embarrass you too, she thinks. And make you wish you could just evaporate.
"You lied to me. You hid my sister." Meredith says, tears beginning to form in her eyes.
"Margaret?" Addison asks. "Isn't she in Seattle now? Wow, she's really drunk."
"No, Alexandra." Meredith says tremulously. "Lexie."
"I can explain." she says, in low tones. "Meredith, dear, let's -"
"My father died and you didn't say anything." Meredith screams.
"Richard?" Addison gasps. "What -"
"No, my other one." Meredith explains, wiping her nose on the cashmere blanket.
"Oh," Addison nods.
"I hate you! You are the most cold, withholding mother -"
"I have one of those too." Addison interjects. She frowns at Ellis. "You shouldn't have kept her from her sister."
"Right?" Meredith says excitedly. "You understand!"
"But I agree you should go home." Addison continues, bouncing the baby, who is fussing.
"Right. Sorry." Meredith mutters. She tries to stand up, pitches forward, and knocks her head on the coffee table. "Ow."
"Stop staring at my breasts." Addison frowns, draping the blanket over her shoulders as she feeds the baby.
"I'm not." Meredith explains. "It's just that I can't get up. But they're very nice breasts."
"Thanks." Addison says, mollified.
She slips an arm around her daughter's body, hauling her sweaty body to standing. She also manages to drag her phone one- handed from her purse and answers impatiently when she sees it's Jackson Avery.
"Dr. Grey, it's Lucille Ball - I mean, Junkie Girl.. uh, Alexandra? She's crashing."
I realised that I actually had most of this written, so I decided to fix it up and post. I forgot how much I enjoy writing this story.
Please, please, please review!