Chapter 2

She told Callie that she was ready to spring into action. But to her surprise, it was now she who wanted to wait and see.

"We need more information," Callie told her.

"More information? She's hanging on by a thread, Callie. Even George could see it."

"Well, yeah. But she obviously doesn't seem to see it, does she? No. If we go to her now, she'll just tell us she's fine and try to pretend like nothing's happening."

"So what do we do?"

"We collect more dirt, and we don't go to her with it until we're sure we have enough to push it. Can you handle the interns?"

"Yes…"

"Great. I need to talk to Joe."

She let O'Malley finish out the night on Addison's service. Then she went looking for Addison, to see for herself. She was half expecting to find a sobbing mess, a regular old 'surgeon going through nothing more serious than a thing' who just didn't want to break down in front of nurses and interns. But George had been right. She was repressing, and big-time.

Miranda eyed the tight, neat stacks of files on Addison's desk. "Looks like you're gearing up for a long night."

The shrug was just a little too controlled. She was holding in her tension, and it was taking a conscious effort at this point. Yikes.

"We were going to grab some drinks. You coming?" Miranda leaned forward, resting a palm on the desk. One of the file folders shifted a little. Without missing a beat, Addison straightened it.

"I might join you later. I really want to get this done."

Miranda picked up one of the folders, read the label. "Right. Cause you have really pressing notes to finish up on a c-section who was discharged three weeks ago?"

She caught Addison's eye, held her gaze, and very deliberately placed the file folder back on top of the stack, slightly crooked. Addison frowned just enough to let her know that she had recognized the game here, then righted it, lining up the corners.

"You know how it is. Once you fall behind…"

"Yeah. We'll be at Joe's."

She wanted to stay longer. She wanted to push Addison just a little more, so that maybe she'd finally crack and tell them something. But she had to get to Callie, right away, and report on this little meeting.

--

"Let me get this straight," Callie said. She plucked the lemon off the rim of her glass and squeezed it into the vodka tonic. "In the space of the last twelve hours, you went from 'she's fine, it's just a phase' to 'some combination of clinical depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder and alcoholism?' Damn. George must be a really good spy."

"You should have seen her, Callie."

"I have seen her. Are you forgetting that I was the one who brought this little crisis to your attention?"

"Oh."

"Well, do you want to hear what I found out? Joe says some nights, she leaves with us. Some nights, she leaves with Sloan. And one night…she very nearly left with Karev."

"Karev!"

"I know. I've seen her make the googly eyes a couple times, but I never thought it was progressing. Cliché, or what? But here's the part we can't miss, Miranda, and that's that every night, she's left from here. Joe's been seeing a lot of her."

They sipped their drinks for a second. After a moment, Miranda said "We leave from here a lot of nights too."

"Yeah, we do…but after only one or two drinks, not half a dozen. And we go home to someone…"

"…while she goes home alone."

"Or worse."

"Well, we just need to get her to leave with us, then. Take her home ourselves."

"God, you really are new at this, aren't you? Haven't you ever had your heart broken, Miranda? I mean, really, can't sleep, can't breathe, world spinning broken? A little bit of misdirection isn't going to make this stop. So we take her home with us, and? She sits in that god-awful hotel room and mopes and wallows and raids the mini-bar. That's worse! You know, it isn't alcoholism yet if she keeps the drinking to here, it's just a bad coping strategy. And…"

"And here, at least we have Joe to keep an eye on her?"

"Yeah, there's that. But you know, babysitting isn't really the long-term solution we're looking for."

"And all of this because of a man?" Miranda sighed.

"Not just a man, but a McDreamy. And Sloan being here, not helping any either. Poor kid! You can practically see the lines of pain wafting off of her."

"Okay, okay. We agree on that. So how do we pull her out of it? What do we do?"

"I want to sic your interns on her for a few more days, get as much data as we can. Grey is out, for obvious reasons. And I would say Karev is out too, although he might be worth debriefing. So, Stevens tomorrow. Then Yang. Then we meet again."

Miranda pushed the last of her drink aside. "You know, this friendship thing, this was supposed to be my R&R time. I don't feel very R&R'd."

"The night is young. Tell me something, Miranda. What are your feelings about karaoke?"

--

Stevens stared back at her with that same blank vacancy as George. "What do you mean, how was she?"

Miranda sighed. God help her if she had to go through this song and dance with all five of them. "Look, spread the word for me, will you, Stevens? Discreetly. Anything tough comes up with Dr. Montgomery, Dr. Bailey wants to know."

"If I spread the word, do I still have to be assigned to her service?"

"Stevens!"

"Fine. Can I go? There may be c-sections going on at this very moment which need my attention."

She watched Stevens walk away. "That girl has a smart mouth on her," she muttered, getting on with her own first chart. "One day, that's going to get her in trouble."

But she would worry about Stevens and her smart mouth later. One crisis at a time. Addison was close to the breaking point. She had to be, by now. Miranda planned to be there when she needed her.