Chapter Twenty-Four: How to Save a Life

Step one, you say, "We need to talk."
He walks; you say, "Sit down, it's just a talk."
He stares politely back at you
You stare politely right on through
Some sort of window to your right
As he goes left and you stay right
Between the lines of fear and blame
And you begin to wonder why you came
Where did I go wrong? I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness and
I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

The Fray

…

Despite the inevitable, constant chaos of Seattle Grace, Derek and Elena had managed to escape—even if only momentarily—to the still quiet of an empty office. The little girl was sitting on her father's lap, wrapped safely in his arms, holding tightly to the surgical cap that her mother had been wearing the day of Elena's first operation. Earlier that day, the little girl had worn it for her presentation, although the entire time mindful of what her mother was about to go through.

"Daddy, will you explain the procedure to me?" she requested in a tiny, tired voice.

But Derek knew that it was solely just to break the silence, yet he began a detailed explanation anyway. After all, the silence was getting a little hard to bear. "And then you'll be able to go in and see her," he concluded, doing his best to sound positive.

"Is she gonna be in pain?"

He nodded. "She'll be given some pretty strong pain medicine for the first few days, but after that… Yeah, she'll probably have some pain for a while."

"Okay," she sighed, doing her best not to show her fear.

"Anything else you want to know?" he offered, desperate to do anything and everything he could to make both himself and his daughter feel a little bit better. If it was even possible.

But the little girl just shook her head and gingerly moved her fingers over the soft cotton of the cap. "No, not right now. Can we talk about something else?"

"Wanna tell me about your day yesterday?"

"Mark picked me up from school, and then we went to the park and talked," she recounted, then added nonchalantly, "He talked about you a lot."

"Really?" Derek questioned, genuinely surprised. "What did he say?"

"He just told me a bunch of stories about when you two were kids," she reported, finally able to smile. "He told me about the time he and Mommy went looking for your book."

"He remembered that?"

"You sound surprised," she commented, even though she knew that her father's opinion of Mark was very different from her own. She saw a nice man who loved her mother, and he saw something else. "He remembered a lot of things, Daddy. You know, whatever he did to make you so mad at him… I think he's really sorry. I think you should at least try to talk to him again."

Derek sighed and rested his chin atop Elena's soft hair. He couldn't tell her what had happened… why they were at odds in the first place. It was hard to make her understand his point of view when he couldn't even express it, but there were some things that even someone like Elena just didn't need to know right now. "Some things are just really hard to forgive, Princess."

"You should try anyway," she insisted. "I'm pretty sure that he's going to be around for a while."

"What makes you think that? Did he say something?"

"Daddy…" she began, and turned to look him in the eye. She stopped for a moment, trying to find the right words to say without sounding like she was choosing sides. "Mark is in love with Mommy. And, well, she needs someone to be in love with her. I think he might even want to marry her, but he didn't say that."

"What do you think of him, Elle? Be honest," Derek wondered. Elena always seemed able to find the good in people, and if anyone could convince him that there was any goodness in his former friend, it would be her.

"When it comes to being a parent, he's totally clueless; he's gonna need my help really badly. But he wants to try because he cares. He said he would help us take care of Mommy. Maybe a long time ago, he made a bad mistake, but he really seems to want to make it better."

"Hey, sorry to interrupt," Mark said, appearing suddenly in the doorway. He had obviously just come out of the OR; the light blue surgical cap that he was still wearing was a dead giveaway. "She's out of surgery now. Everything went great, and if you want to see her, I can take you."

"She's okay?" Elena questioned as though it wasn't true until he said it once again.

"Yeah, she's okay," he assured her. "She's still a little bit groggy from the anesthesia, but she's asking for you."

Elena took hold of her father's hand, and the three of them walked in silence to the elevator. She noticed that the tension between her father and Mark wasn't at all as bad as it had been that time in the waiting room, yet they still said nothing.

"Hey, Mommy. It's me," she whispered softly as she walked up to her mother's bed. She did her best to ignore the tubes and monitors, but they still made her a little bit nervous.

"My beautiful little angel. My brave little girl," Addison said groggily, although she managed to place her hand reassuringly against her daughter's soft, warm cheek.

"Are you feeling okay?" she asked, sounding entirely too much like an adult, as she ran her fingers through her mother's hair.

"I am now that you're here, Sweetie," Addison assured her with a sleepy smile.

Meanwhile, both Mark and Derek were watching quietly in the doorway, not wanting to spoil the moment. Derek wasn't quite sure what came over him in that moment, but he suddenly found himself turning to Mark and offering, "You wanna go grab a drink?"

…

"How's she doing?" Miranda wondered, going to pay her friend a quick visit before she headed home. Of course, she already knew that the surgery went perfectly—everyone in the hospital knew—but she just wanted to see for herself that things were fine.

Elena, who was holding onto Addison's hand as she sat in a chair pulled up next to the bed, lifted her head and answered, "A nurse just came to check on her, and everything was okay. She can't really stay awake because they've got her on a lot of pain medicine. But I'd rather that she slept through the painful stuff anyway."

"And how are you doing?" she asked, also pulling up a chair and taking a seat.

"I'm fine. Did William tell you how well we did on our project?"

She nodded and smiled. "He did. I'm very proud of you two, and I know that your mom is, too."

"Meredith brought me to see her this morning before school, and she told me that she was proud of me. I wanted to tell her about it, but I should let her sleep instead."

Miranda knew that Elena was the type to try to take all the responsibility upon herself without hesitation or complaint. To hold everything inside herself while insisting that things were fine and that she was all right just to make sure that everyone else around her felt comfortable. "Elle… I don't think you're really fine about this. Are you?"

"If I'm worried, it means that I believe there's a chance that she won't get better, and I just can't believe something like that. My mommy is going to get better. She has to get better. Heaven already has Leni, and I'm not giving Addison up without a fight," she told her with the sad smile of someone who carried the weight of the world on her tiny shoulders. "So Aunt Miranda, I can't worry; I have to be fine so she will be, too."

…

"Double scotch, single malt," Derek told Joe as he and Mark took a seat at the bar.

"Same for me," Mark seconded.

Joe looked at them skeptically for a moment before wondering, "Should I really even bother asking?"

Derek shrugged and answered laughingly, "I don't think I'd have an answer for you."

"So, how's Addie doing? Alex called and said everything went well."

Mark smiled as he reported, "It was textbook; she's doing great."

"Glad to hear it," Joe replied, pouring their drinks. "Okay, I'm gonna walk away for a minute to go serve my other customers. Do I need to keep an eye on you two?"

But Mark just laughed. "I can't think of anything I've done lately that deserves a punch in the face, so I think we'll be all right." When it was just the two of them, he turned to Derek, took a sip of his drink, and remarked, "So, I'm guessing there's a reason we're here."

"I wanted to say… thank you."

"That sounded sincere," he commented, eyebrow raised in bewilderment. "What's going on?"

"Don't get me wrong; a part of me still wants to punch you in the jaw. But the other part of me—the part that's ready to put the past aside and let go of this grudge I've been holding—is thankful. Addison and I… our marriage was over before the affair, and if it hadn't happened, I never would have moved to Seattle. I never would have met Meredith, and I wouldn't have the life I have today," Derek found himself admitting. Surprisingly, letting go of all those years of anger and bitterness made him feel better than he had in a while.

"We didn't do it to hurt you, Derek. It was wrong, and I'm sorry," Mark said, taking his turn at the apology. "You've always been a good friend, and… I haven't. I wasn't. But I'm not that guy anymore. I've finally come to the realization that… I am an ass."

"Yeah, you are," he laughed. He literally couldn't remember the last time he and Mark had talked this way.

"My whole life, I've envied you, Derek. You've always had family, people who love you. I thought that if I couldn't have that, the next best thing was to act like I didn't want it at all. But I do."

"Are you sure? Because if you hurt Addison and Elena, I swear—" Derek started to threaten, but Mark interrupted.

"I'm sure."