Title: A Tale Of Two Cities
Authors: Sara and Lizzie
Rating: T for language, sex, you know.
Disclaimer: We happen to own our personal anatomies, not Grey's. Or Patrick Dempsey's. Sadly.
Summary: Another shot at Post Prom. It's going to be a little silly. It will be our version of what happens post prom, and then jump a few months in the future when uh, some bicoastal high jinx ensue. So we'll start right after the prom.
Author's Note: Thoughts that go in first person inside a characters head are in italics.
This picks up right where the last chapter left off. This is our favorite chapter for this fic, maybe any fic we've done in a while. We're really proud of ourselves for this one. So feed our egos and REVIEW.
"You know that when the truth is told, that you can get what you want, or you can just get old." -Billy Joel
Seven Days
Addison felt confused at first. Stevens? Yang, maybe? O'Malley and Torres. Later, she would laugh about how her subconscious simply covered what it didn't want to see. But right there, in Meredith Grey's bathroom, a blind rage simply overtook her as what she knew had to be true settled into her brain.
She slammed the door to the bathroom, and consumed with anger, yanked open the first door she saw. Inside the door, revealed Meredith, wearing a cable knit grey sweater and a pair of lacy black panties, which thankfully covered her butt cheeks.
Meredith was pacing the length of her bedroom, her jeans crumpled on the bed, waiting to be put on. She looked up as she heard the door slam shut.
"Addison!" Meredith yelped. "You're in my house. Cause you were talking to Izzie. And now you're in my bedroom, which is awkward." She watched as Addison's face changed from anger to shock, before finally settling on something that looked like disgust.
"You're pregnant with my husband's baby." Addison said, holding up the pregnancy test. Meredith wished with every fiber of her being that the floor would give in on the spot she was standing and send her falling through the ceiling.
"No!" she said, denying it.
"That's what I thought at first." Addison said. "Because to know now, you would have had to get pregnant around the time of…." She trailed off, obviously counting backwards in her head. "Prom." She laughed a cynical laugh. "This explains why my husband was so happy afterwards. And why he leaves our trailer in the middle of the night. And why you broke up with Finn."
Meredith shook her head, but Addison wouldn't let her speak. "Please don't patronize me by denying it. You're pregnant with my husband's baby. It's true isn't it?"
Meredith knew lying was not going to help at this point. She nodded slowly. "I'm sorry." She whispered, lamely.
"You're pregnant with my husband's baby." Addison repeated.
Meredith winced. "Dr. Shepherd…" she started. Shepherd. Nice one. "Addison. It might help if you stop saying that. Feel free to keep the look of horror and disdain on your face. I fully support you in looking extremely disgusted. It just might help you if you stopped. With the saying."
Addison just stared at her. "You're pregnant with his baby. Is he leaving me?"
Meredith looked down, suddenly very interested in her carpet. Addison laughed a bitter, humorless laugh. "He is. And he, what, planned it with you? He didn't even give me a hint."
"I'm sorry." She said again, feeling like the biggest incompetent idiot to walk the planet. God, what was she anyway? She was an intern who popped gloves with her fingernails and helped her friend cut an LVAD wire. Addison was like, a high fashion, runway model slash surgeon.
Addison's eyes flashed with anger. "Well, as long as you're sorry, Meredith. That makes it all okay." She stood up. "I think I need a glass of water."
"The kitchen is…" Meredith started but the look from Addison silenced her. She sat on her bed, numb, as Addison left the room. She scooped up her cell phone from the bedside table and dialed the number of the only person she could think to call.
Derek was whistling. Whistling. Like he was a guy who was so happy he went fishing before work and whistled a lot. Wait, he was that guy now. He was stepping out of the shower in the trailer, whistling.
He almost wished there was someone else there, someone who would ask him why he was whistling, and grinning like an idiot. Just so he could smile and say, seven days.
He was dried, dressed and ready in practically no time at all, and contemplating stopping by Meredith's to pass the remaining hour before they had surgery, when the ringing of his cell phone distracted him. He smiled as he picked it up.
"I was just thinking about you." He murmured into the phone.
"Derek?" Meredith's voice asked, sounding shaken. "Derek, I think you better come over."
"I was thinking the same thing." He ventured, even though he knew something was wrong.
"Addison's here, Derek. She, um, she knows." There was a scuffle as Meredith hung up the phone. Derek closed his eyes, feeling guilty for not feeling worse. He scooped up his car keys and headed for Meredith's house.
It was laughable, really. The front door was open, so he let himself in. "Hello?" he called. There was no response, so he climbed the staircase and headed for Meredith's room, and what he found there was laughable.
Addison was sitting on a chair, with her head in her hands and Meredith was pacing back and forth in front of her in her underwear. Her cheeks were flushed and her hair was messy, and she looked so damn cute, wringing her hands together, Derek would have flipped her onto the bed if Addison hadn't been there.
Meredith sank down on her bed and looked over at Addison, neither of them noticing him yet. "I'm so sorry." She said again. Addison didn't even respond this time.
After what felt like and eternity she looked at Meredith. "I should have known, you know. There was no going back to me after you." She said. Meredith shook her head. She didn't get it. Addison was brilliant and gorgeous and put together and matched. All the time.
She ran a hand through her hair and looked up. "Derek." She breathed, relieved. Addison's head snapped up towards the door and her eyes narrowed. She and Meredith both stood as Derek crossed the threshold into the room.
"Addison." He said, standing next to Meredith. They looked like a united front against her, Satan.
"How could you do this?" she asked her voice low and deadly. "You slept with her." Meredith sucked in a breath as the pain and guilt hit her fast. Derek put a comforting hand on her shoulder and it sent Addison into a rage.
"I don't believe this!" she shouted. "You've been hiding this since prom!"
"How do you know that?"
"Jesus Christ, Derek, I can count!" she shouted at him. Derek blinked, confused, as Addison took her turn pacing. Meredith pulled her jeans off the bed and yanked them over her legs. It was almost cliché for the dirty mistress to stand around in her underwear.
"You were going to leave me. You were planning this with her and you couldn't even tell me?"
"Don't refer to Meredith as her." Derek snapped. "And stop looking so disgusted."
Meredith put a hand on her forehead. "I told her she could look disgusted."
"God, you were planning to divorce me, and have this baby with her, and I'll bet you I'm the last person to know about it!"
The world spun. "Baby?" Derek echoed. "There's a baby?"
"Well she's pregnant, isn't she?" Addison snapped, too angry to realize that he didn't know. Derek sat down on the bed, massaging his temples.
He looked at Meredith. "You're pregnant? How could you keep this from me?"
She shook her head quickly. "I just found out." She told him.
Addison threw her hands in the air. "Well this is fantastic." She shouted. "You didn't even know, and you two were planning my divorce." She looked at Derek's hands that were still at his temples. "You're not even wearing your ring." She murmured.
"You're pregnant?" Derek asked Meredith. "You're sure."
She nodded. "Pretty darn."
He let his head fall into his hands. "Oh Jesus." He muttered. Meredith couldn't take it anymore. He was obviously not happy about this news. Addison kept murmuring things under her breath, and suddenly the room felt about a thousand degrees and very small. She grabbed her purse and ran for the stairs.
Derek jumped up. "Meredith!" he called. Addison grabbed his arm.
"Derek Shepherd, don't you dare move an inch." He turned to face her.
"Addie, I'm sorry."
"Prom." She said. "That explains everything. The lattes and the sandwiches, and why you leave the trailer in the middle of the night. I knew every time I looked at the two of you there was something there. That's why she broke up with Finn. Why you let her perform your surgeries!"
Derek nodded. "Prom." He confirmed.
She looked at him, her eyes flooded with unshed tears. "Eleven years, Derek. Eleven years and this is how it ends? For cheap sex in a hospital?"
Derek yanked his arm from her grasp, his eyes flashing in anger. "Cheap sex?" He repeated. "Is that what you think she is to me? I love her, Addison. She's having my child." He said softly, more for his own benefit than hers.
She sighed and sat down on the bed. She wasn't going to yell. She wasn't going to throw things. She was going to get through this with her dignity in tact. If nothing else, she was Addison Forbes Montgomery, and she'd be damned if she lost her dignity.
"You love her." She said. It wasn't a question or an answer, just something that ripped the last thread of their union.
"I love her."
She looked at him and smiled slowly. He sat down next to her and she sighed again. This wasn't going to be easy. "I know you do, Derek. I always have. I shouldn't have…" She swallowed hard. "I shouldn't have put you in the position where you had to choose me."
"Addison, don't apologize. I'm the one who's sorry." He put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed it. She smiled slowly, leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.
"She's having your baby, Derek. Go after her." Derek nodded, and stood. Addison nodded at him. "Go. I'll dig out the papers."
Derek blinked at her. "We still have papers?"
She shrugged. "I always knew it was only a matter of time."
With one last sad, crooked smile at his wife, Derek left her behind, and went running towards the future.
When he finally found Meredith, she was in OR three with a couple of scrub nurses, assembling scalpels on a tray.
"Meredith." He said, "What are you doing?"
She avoided his gaze. "Prepping your OR Dr. Shepherd."
"Meredith, I need to talk to you."
She smiled blankly. "You've got surgery in twenty minutes. You should start changing."
"Fine, you want to talk here, I'll talk here." He said. "I didn't react well to the news. It was shocking to say the least, and a little much on top of telling my wife I'm leaving her. Which, is coming seven days ahead of schedule, by the way."
Meredith's head shot up. "You're still leaving?" she asked.
Derek's annoyance at her refusal to talk flooded away. His face softened. "Of course I am. I left." The scrub nurses all stared at them, wide eyed, barely able to contain their excitement. "We're having a baby, Meredith." He said gently.
"And you're okay with that?" she asked.
"I'm thrilled with that." He said. She opened her mouth to speak again, but the gossip fiends in scrubs were practically salivating, so she stopped herself, and pulled him outside. She pulled off her gloves. Derek sensed she was freaking out, so he stuck his head back in the OR. "Someone have the chief push the surgery back until tomorrow." He said. "It can wait. Or, if there's someone else who wants it, give it away."
Placing his hand on the small of Meredith's back he led her out of the scrub room to a nearby lounge. "You're not happy." He observed.
She shook her head. "I could be. Right now, I'm simply overwhelmed with sheer terror." She looked down. "I didn't have the best examples of parenting, Derek. I never planned on kids because I always knew I'd be a terrible mother."
He gathered both of her hands in his. "Meredith listen to me." He said. "You are not going to be a terrible mother, okay? You're not like Ellis. She was hard and cold. You're warm, and you feel things, and you love. Maybe not always wisely, but you love."
She shook her head. "I've been pretty wise this time."
He looked at her seriously. "I'll understand though, if you don't want to…" he trailed off and squeezed her hands.
"Do you not want me to have it?" she asked.
"It's not really my choice, Mer."
"But you have a voice in this. Whatever it is, Derek, tell me."
"Meredith, I…." he faltered a little bit. "I think we should have it."
She looked at him a long time before pressing her lips to his. Breaking apart, she smiled. "We're gonna have a baby." She murmured into his lips.
"Derek Shepherd Jr." Derek said. Meredith rolled her eyes.
"In your dreams." She said, as he put his arms around her and pulled her to his chest. "I love you." She whispered.
"I love you too." He said, placing a hand under her sweater on her stomach. "Both of you."
The moment was broken however, when the door swung open, and the interns burst in. "Okay, seriously, Mer, what the hell is going on?" Cristina demanded. "Because the nurses are all whispering about pregnancy, and Mark Sloan just checked himself out."
Meredith looked at Derek and back at her friends. George smiled. "I mean, you're not pregnant, right?"
Cristina looked at Meredith, and at Derek's hand under her sweater. "Oh My God." She whispered.