Disclaimer: I don't own anything
Addison is on her way to talk to the Chief about getting her job back.
Walking through the doors of Seattle Grace was slightly intimidating this morning. Yesterday, she thought she had walked through them for the last time. Today, she was going to try her hardest to make sure that today wasn't it.
Addison thought that if she hadn't scared Alex enough away with her awkward in-bed questioning, he had certainly been deterred by her non-stop obsession with what she was going to say to the Chief. Alex had laughed at her over breakfast, but had said the obligatory, "Of course he'll let you come back", which was really all she was looking for from him.
She felt like a schoolchild being sent to the principal's office. All the guilt and remorse that she felt was amplified in this walk of shame. Walking across the open bridge seemed to take much longer than it normally did. She could see the top of the Chief's head in his chair and hoped against hope he wouldn't turn around and see her. She wanted to prolong the face-to-face confrontation for as long as possible. Doing her best to appear smaller and blend in with the other doctors walking back and forth, she bent her knees slightly and bowed her head, cursing her natural height as well as her heels.
Addison felt a tap on her shoulder and she turned to see Alex with a look on his face that made is clear that mocking was about to start. She had seen that look quite a lot since yesterday.
"Do you know how ridiculous you look?" he asked with a smirk gracing his face.
"Do you know how ridiculous you look?" She knew it wasn't anything close to a good come back, but she was under a lot of stress and couldn't be expected to be witty all of the time.
"Oh, right. I never look ridiculous. That's what made you fall for me." There was no real response that could be made to that. He was right.
"Who says I fell for you? Maybe I just wanted some sex."
"Right. Which is why you were so worried about whether or not we should buy an alarm clock together." Damn it, he was right again. She had to remember to avoid Alex when she was feeling guilty and stressed. "And I do think we should get an alarm clock together. It can spend half the time at my apartment and half the time in your hotel room. We can name it Spot."
"Spot?" Addison wrinkled her nose. "I was thinking more along the lines of Rover. But, alarm clock or no, I do have my meeting to get to," she said, gesturing towards the Chief's office. She was sorry to end their conversation, but one of the first steps towards getting your job back is being punctual and not letting your boyfriend distract you from what you had to do.
"You'll be fine. He'd be crazy to not let you come back. Who else will keep me in line?"
Addison opened her mouth to respond, but Alex just squeezed her hand gently and walked away before she could respond.
Addison was always mystified by Alex's sweetness. It came out of nowhere. Just when you thought he was being an ass or that he was acting immature, he would pull this surprising kindness out of nowhere. It wasn't that he was a jerk all of the time, it's just that he didn't often show his vulnerability. He acted as though he didn't care, as though he was too important or busy for the kind of attention and sensitivity that the situation required. There was something about babies, though. It was like Alex had said. Babies didn't deserve the bad stuff that happened to them. Babies brought out the best in people, and they had brought out the best in Alex. He cared about them. He had developed a bedside manner. He was even described as, "cuddly" by a nurse when he had been holding a baby one evening, although in the next moment, she was barked at to never use that adjective to describe him again. But he had smiled after the nurse had fled and gently adjusted his arms around the baby. It was the babies that she should stay for.
With that thought in mind, she turned back towards the Chief's office and took a deep breath. She was Addison Montgomery. She did not back down, she didn't hide. She was one of the foremost neonatal specialists in the country. She was Satan. She just needed to be reminded of those facts every now and again.
Then she started walking, and every ounce of confidence she had built up drained slightly with every step. She was still going to have to beg for her job back. She was still going to have to apologize, and she was still going to have to deal with that look of disappointment on the Chief's face.
She tried to imagine how the Chief must feel. First he had thought he had found his successor in Preston Burke. Then Burke had a tremor and the Chief had felt betrayed. The Chief had told Addison that she had a good chance of being named Chief of Surgery, but she told him she was moving away and the Chief had felt disappointment. Every time he thought he had found a replacement, they let him down. That was part of the reason that he was so hard to face. The one downside of being allowed back into Seattle Grace was that she was even less likely to be named Chief now.
Addison had reached the door to his office. She reached her hand out to knock and paused for one brief moment. Was she absolutely sure that Seattle Grace was the place for her? Was Alex enough to make her stay? Once she was in there, could she reassure the Chief that she was not a flight risk; that she would stay for a good long while? If the Richard asked why she was staying, what would she tell him?
Addison did like Seattle, now that she was used to it. She enjoyed rain. It gave her a cozy feeling. She was willing to take a chance on Alex, to stay partly for him. What would she tell Richard? She wasn't sure she could handle the disapproving glare when she told him that she and Alex had slept together the night before and that she was staying so that they could date. Well, she would phrase it better than that, were she to use it as a reason, but that was basically it, wasn't it?
There had to be something more to stay for. There were the babies, for sure. But babies are everywhere. She couldn't very well tell the Chief that Seattle babies were better than babies elsewhere. She could try to sell him on the idea that she had made a life here, but it meant that she would have to backtrack from what she had told him when she wanted to leave.
"Tell me why you are leaving, Addison," the Chief had said, with concern evident on his face.
"I don't have anything here. I live in a hotel. Every day I have to see my ex-husband making eyes at Meredith Grey. Every time I pass Mark in the hallways, he's flirting with some new nurse. Every-"
The Chief cut her off, and she was thankful, because he didn't give her a chance to admit that she was lusting after an intern. "Addison Shepherd, if you are leaving because of a pair of jackasses, then you are not the person I thought you were."
"I don't have anything here, Richard," she said again. "I don't have a home, I don't have a life. I simply go to and from the hospital. I want to have more than that, and I don't think I can have that here."
Richard had sighed and leaned back in his chair. Addison couldn't look him in the eyes. He began lecturing her, fulfilling the fatherly role that she always had placed him in.
It turns out that just one person can make you feel as though you are where you belong. One person can make you feel as though you have a home and a life. Addison looked back to where Alex had disappeared, even though he was long gone. It was sappy, and it was cliché, but he was the difference. Alex was why she was staying. Well, Alex and the babies. Seattle babies were probably better than babies other places anyway.
She raised her hand and knocked on the door.
"Come in."
A/N: Really not trying to do a cliffhanger here. I'm tapped out right now, but I wanted to put something up. And I'm prolonging the moment when I will actually have to plan out how the conversation between Addison and the Chief might go. Because I have no idea.
And in most of my fics, I try to avoid conversations because, well, I'm not the best at writing them, so any constructive criticism on that front is more than welcome.