Not everything I hoped it would be, admittedly, (I blame the end scene) but I like it nevertheless. This has gotten to the point where I don't even what to put her except spoilers, so enjoy! In case it isn't clear, this is actually two weeks after last chapter.

Unchained Melody

Chapter 11: Every Breaking Wave

A sleek, black car pulled up outside Seattle Grace Hospital. The man who exited it looked befitting of the expensive vehicle, dressed in leather shoes and Armani.

He was a handsome man, and he walked with purpose. This was because Sam Bennet considered himself a man of purpose. It gave him an air of leadership and importance that Sam found he enjoyed.

When he walked towards the entrance of Seattle Grace Hospital, Sam had two main purposes in mind: firstly to find Mark, apologise to his best friend and possibly reconcile, then find out where Lexie was staying so that, secondly, he could find her and offer his condolences. Whilst Sam would not be making an appearance at his daughter's funeral - he'd been under the impression for many months now that Lexie'd had an abortion as he'd advised her to, and wasn't invited to the funeral anyway, having found out about it from a student of his that had been friends with Lexie – he hoped to get back into the Sloans' good graces, because it would be a shame to put so many years of friendship to waste.

Sam came to an abrupt stop before the doors of Seattle Grace and pulled an inhaler out of his pocket as he felt a familiar tightness in his chest before continuing in his journey and slipping the object back into his pocket.

However, upon stepping out of the hospital elevator after having gone through the process of finding out where the plastics wing was located, Sam found himself having a third purpose in mind: finding out the name of the blonde woman charting at the nurses' desk and taking her out somewhere.

Although usually Sam was not really partial to blondes – he preferred brunettes and, at one brief point in his college and med school days, redheads – there was something he liked about this one. She was tall and lean, with long legs. She somehow managed to look good in scrubs – a feat Sam considered impressive, given he'd been under the impression that nobody could look good in scrubs – but what made this all the more impressive was that they were salmon scrubs, and he knew few people who could look good in salmon.

Naturally, Sam wanted to complete the most important of his three tasks first, so he approached the blonde. Up close, she was a little too thin to be healthy – her collarbone poked out sharply, prominently and the same seemed to go for her shoulders – and there were pink, puffy rings around her eyes, fading purple bags beneath them.

Nevertheless, she was still a beautiful woman. Sam, like most men, liked beautiful women.

"Hey," Sam greeted the woman. His flirting was a little rusty – having been married to Naomi, he hadn't used it in a while; his adulterous relationship with Lexie began in them drunkly kissing and then moving on into something more – but he reckoned he still had game. Mad game. "I'm Sam."

"Hello Sam," the woman replied. "How can I help you?"

"That depends," Sam said. "On whether you're free tonight at eight o'clock?"

The woman laughed. "Are you hitting on me?" she asked. "In a hospital?"

"Is it working?" he asked, and she smiled.

"Maybe," she said.

"Can I at least have your name?" Sam said.

"Addison Montgomery," she told him. "I'm a surgeon. Neonatal."

Addison. It suited her. He'd been thinking along the lines of Kate, or maybe Maddy.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Addison Montgomery," he said, and he was about to continue talking but before he could do so, a fist hit his jaw with an almost audible crack and he fell to the floor with a shout of pain.

For the second time in a month, Seattle Grace Hospital bore witness to get another fight, and the only difference this time was that Mark was the one initiating and Sam didn't hit him back.

"What the hell, Mark?" he heard Addison yell angrily. Mark – that explained it.

He shook off the stars he was seeing and looked up. Addison was glaring at Mark, who was – the nerve of it – smirking and shaking off his fist. He had a new, fading cut on his cheek, from God knows what because although Mark Sloan's behaviour was hardly gentlemanly, he was not one to partake in fights.

"That's Sam," Mark said simply. "Sam is an asshole. You deserve someone a lot better than Sam. Like me. I'm a much better guy than Sam."

"You're the asshole," Addison told him, and then she joined Sam on the floor to gently check his face. "You broke his jaw!" she cried out indignantly, and that explained a lot of the really bad pain Sam was feeling. His teeth weren't fitting together right – malocclusion was what that was called, if he was correct.

Mark nodded, as though this didn't bother him at all. "Yeah, that was a good punch," he said. "If I do say so myself. Put my weight behind it."

Addison helped Sam up. She asked one of the staring nurses – didn't these people have anything better to do? – to please get her an ice-pack, and then turned on Mark.

"You can't just randomly punch a guy out!" she exclaimed.

"He's an asshole!"

"Yeah? Cause he was being nice!"

"Oh, I bet he was being nice."

"You did not just punch him out because he was talking to me. That's juvenile."

"Well, did it catch your attention?"

"What?"

"All I'm saying is, I told you I loved you and then you ignored me for two weeks but then I punched an asshole and look at that, you're finally speaking to me, Addison, so if you ask me I'm smart and not juvenile."

She huffed angrily. Neither of them seemed to have yet noticed that the verbal brawl they were having was quite literally being watched by everyone within vicinity. A nurse handed Addison the ice pack she requested – she glared at Mark, thanked the nurse, and passed it to Sam, helping him carefully manoeuvre it over where the fracture in his jaw seemed to be. He tried to thank her, too, but his jaw was swelling and he was finding it very hard to speak right now, and she wasn't even listening.

"Now you can go and take him up to orthopaedics for treatment," Addison told Mark angrily. "If you excuse me, I have a patient." She stalked off, and when Sam saw the wrath in Mark's eyes, he found it impossible to suppress a gulp.

They x-rayed Sam's face. It was indeed broken. Though it may have sounded petty, that made Mark feel pretty happy.

Sam was prescribed antibiotics, and arrangements were made for when he'd have his upper and lower teeth wired together, which was pretty much the only treatment he needed.

"Why are you even here?" Mark asked Sam sourly as they sat, awaiting the maxillofacial surgeon. "Seattle is mine. I came here first. It is my terrain."

"Well in case you haven't forgotten, there is a funeral tomorrow," Sam replied. "I came to give Lexie my sympathies. This is, after all, my kid."

Mark snorted. "She's Lexie's kid," he said. "You can claim her as yours when you give birth to her – all alone – and then have to spend the next few weeks organising eulogies and arguing with the funeral home."

"What, and you were the one helping her?" Sam said.

"Lexie's a big girl," Mark replied. "She can take care of herself. That doesn't mean you have any rights to come barging in here without any warning like that. Besides, Lexie left the hospital ages ago, and you'd know that, so you have no excuse for coming here."

"I don't know where she is," Sam defended himself. "I figured she was probably at her parents' but I don't know where that is, and I don't know their names, and I can't remember whether Lexie's maiden name is spelt with an 'a' or an 'e'. So I thought you'd know."

In actuality, she was still staying at Meredith's house. Mark, feeling sorry for her and trying to share the spirit of new friendship in the face of their truce, had given her his room and claimed the attic. They were cordial, although they didn't see each other much. She was considering moving in with Molly, but that could be hard for her given Molly had her own, living baby girl.

"She's staying at 613 Harper Lane. It's not that far from here," Mark told him. "But don't be an asshole, asshole."

"Speaking of assholes, what was up with the blonde, man? I don't think I've ever seen you that territorial of a girl."

"Don't do that. Don't do the friend thing. We're not friends."

"What was her name? Madison, right? What's up with you and Madison?"

Mark scowled at him. "It's Addison," he said. "And you keep your dirty, adulterous paws off her."

"You know, you can hardly call me an adulterer without sounding hypocritical anymore. I mean, assuming you've slept with her – and let's face it, you're Mark Sloan, you've definitely tapped that – you're also become an adulterer yourself. You and Lexie aren't divorced yet, right?"

"We're separated. And the fact that we're getting divorced at all is your fault."

"Well, if I hadn't ever slept with Lexie you wouldn't have come to Seattle and met Madison, so really, you should be grateful to me. Forgive me."

A short bark of laughter escaped Mark's mouth. "Forgive you?" he said, making it sound like Sam had asked for a kidney. "You were my best friend and you slept with my wife. And for the last time, her name is Addison."

"I forgave you!" Sam exclaimed. "And what you did was far worse."

"What I did was an accident. Did you accidentally fall inside Lexie? On a weekly basis for six months?"

"'Take my bike for a spin, Sam,' you said," Sam said in a mocking imitation of Mark's voice, the anger drawing in his face too. "Just try it. 'The ladies love a bad boy with a bike. I bet Nae would like it.' And then your f*cking bike broke and slipped and I'm the one who lost his hands, Mark! I'm the one who suffered the nerve damage! You ruined my life! You're the reason I traded in surgery to become a goddamn professor and you're the reason I was teaching at Harvard, so it's only because of you that I screwed Lexie. It was all your fault!"

"I said I was sorry!" Mark roared. "Do you think it's easy carting around that kind of guilt? If you wanted revenge, you should have gone about it another way!"

They were both breathing heavily now, and drool was trickling from the corner of Sam's mouth as a result of his frustration paired with the broken jaw. He swiped it away, annoyed, with his sleeve.

Mark's fist was clenched into a fist once more. The urge to punch Sam again and fracture the other side of his jaw too was overwhelming, but he thought of all the repercussions that could have – Sam had enough reason to sue, as it was, and Mark wouldn't put that past him – and decided against it, instead leaving the room with a slam.

He found her curled up on the couch, as he knew he would. Derek sat down beside her, one of his hands instinctively slipping into her hair to play with feathery strands of dishwater blonde.

"What're you doing?" he asked curiously.

"Knitting," Meredith replied. "Or, at least, I'm trying to. I wanted to make like, a dress or something – you know, something meaningful, but…" she held up something somewhat mangled that didn't look much reminiscent of any kind of clothing – "I think I'm going to have to settle for socks."

"I think you lost a stitch… there," Derek told her gently, pointing out the mistake. "And… maybe there."

Meredith looked at the socks and sighed deeply, discarding them and the knitting needles. "I think I'll just buy something," she said. "Do you know what Lexie's doing?" she asked.

"She's trying to choose an outfit for the baby to be buried in," Derek told her. "I think Thatcher and Susan are helping."

Thatcher and Susan had become a bit of a semi-permanent fixture at the house, although things were a little stunted and painful to say the least. Meredith still remembered the way Thatcher's lip curled in distaste when Lexie introduced her daughter as Susannah Elise; she could tell he thought it was too close to the name 'Ellis' for comfort, although she didn't think Lexie had even thought of the correlation.

He didn't say anything, of course. Nobody would. Lexie's husband was divorcing her and her baby had just died. She was all alone. It would be cruel to say something.

God, it must have been be hard for Lexie, with things that way. "Promise you'll never leave me?" she asked Derek through sleepy cat-like eyes, and the wording of this request was poor to say the least – doctors knew better than anyone to never make promises – but he smiled.

"Promise," he said, and wow did Meredith love her McDreamy.

The day passed and despite its strange beginning, for Addison it was fairly normal. A day like any other.

The nurses thought she was taking drugs. They had, of course, heard of her hospitalisation and although Addison was on good terms with a majority of the nurses, they were nurses and they were inclined to gossip. She heard three of them talking about it in the cafeteria and later, two of them debating whether she was taking Valium or Ambien.

Just what about her was it exactly that screamed she needed help? Why was it expected of her to handle what happened in all the wrong ways? She was a doctor, a double-certified neonatal surgeon, a damn good one!

She was a doctor – so she ignored the gossip and the rumours and went about her day as she usually would. It was her third day back at work, so she still had a little to catch up on. A pregnant teenager, elective caesarean surgery in one case of vasa previa, two deliveries, one diagnosis of gastrochisis in a 20 week old fetus, and three sick premature babies made up her day. Through some miracle, nobody died.

She was on her way out of the locker room and had just changed out of her scrubs when she nearly stepped on a little girl.

For a moment, Addison found she couldn't breathe. For just a moment, she thought this was Ella, this was the daughter she'd imagined in such painstaking detail, even though she knew that to thinks so was stupid and impossible and irrational.

And then the little girl tugged on her skirt and said, "'Scuse me, miss, I can't find my Mommy and she always said if I get lost to ask a nice lady to help me. Please can you help me find my Mommy?"

"Of course," Addison said, her mouth dry.

There was no way this child was anything like Ella. She was nothing like the child Addison had imagined and genetically speaking, it was highly unlikely that Mark and Addison could have ever conceived a child like her. She had olive skin, dark hair, and almond-shaped brown eyes; her looks suggested European heritage, something entirely different from the Irish roots Mark claimed to have.

"I'm Dr. Montgomery," Addison told the little girl, who slipped a small hand into Addison's. "What's your name?"

The little girl answered something indiscernible in the chaos of a sudden code blue erupting in the room beside them, and Addison once more had a mini heart attack when she heard it. "Did, uh, your name is Ella?" she choked.

"Nuh-uh," the little girl said. "Emma. Montreal. I'm six."

Emma. Two letters off Ella. Montreal. Six letters off Montgomery.

She was being irrational.

"It's nice to meet you, Emma," Addison said. "Do you remember where you last saw your mom?"

"We were going to see Daddy," Emma said. "'Cause he was in an accident. But she was walking too fast an' I got lost. You'll help me find her though, Dr. Monty, right?"

She'd always hated being called Monty – it was what her brother's friends used to call her, and most of them weren't the nicest people - but she didn't correct or reprimand Emma.

"I'm sure we'll find your mom soon," Addison told her. "Do you remember if your mom mentioned whether he was in trauma or neuro?"

Emma, unsurprisingly, didn't seem to know what either of the key words in the sentence meant, but she did know that her Daddy had hit his head bad, so Addison took her up to neuro.

She chattered the whole way up to neuro. While they were on their way to the elevator, she told Addison all about how her best friend was Karen and her favourite book was about Joey the Kangaroo and she didn't like spiders. In the elevator, she told Addison that her Daddy had always been really scared of elevators, because he got stuck in one once. Then she found out that Addison specialised in babies and asked an awkward question about how they were made which lead to Addison trying to explain the science behind how boy seahorses carry the baby instead of the girl seahorses. When they were finally in the neuro Ward, she was telling Addison all about the time she fell off her bike and got a concussion when-

"Mommy!" Emma exclaimed, and she let go of Addison's hand to run up to a frantic, crying woman who was being consoled by nurses.

"Oh my god, Emma!" the woman said, picking her up and hugging her close. "Don't you ever scare me like that again!"

"Is Daddy okay?" Emma asked, and her mother said they could go see him now, and Addison left.

A part of her missed the kid. Her hand was grubby and a little sweaty, and her nails, bitten to the quicks, were painted a sparkly shade of pink.

She was a pretty good kid.

Ella would have been a good kid, she thought, and it wrenched a silent sob from deep within her so she quickly slipped into a supply closet before she could burst into tears and humiliate herself anymore than she had since Lexie Sloan's arrival at Seattle Grace Hospital.

She would not cry. She would not cry. She would not cry.

She couldn't cry. Crying was weak, and if she cried she wouldn't be able to get over it. If she started crying again now she'd never stop crying. Crying was for when you were home, in bed, and the darkness of your bedroom and the fabric of your pillow could hide and muffle your tears.

She tried to distract herself.

There was a lump in her throat. There was a technical term for that. What was the technical term for that? The globus sensation, right? Something like that. When inflammation of the throat gave one the impression that there was a mass inside of it, even when there wasn't.

Just when it felt like there was no distraction that would work, and she was getting worked up and she couldn't breathe, somebody slipped into the supply closet behind her. At first, it only made her panic more, but then she recognised the smell of coffee and leather and felt familiar strong arms wrap around her gently.

"Deep breaths," Mark instructed her, but the feel of his words against her neck only made her breaths hitch more. The supply closet barely held enough room for Addison, let alone Mark and Addison.

"It's okay," he told her, "just breathe in, breathe out." And it took her a while, and her eyes were so watery it was a miracle they hadn't flooded and tracked make-up all down her face, but eventually she calmed down.

"You okay?" Mark asked her.

She took that last, deep breath and then pulled herself free of his hold. "I'm fine," she said, as composed as she could be when she was in a cramped supply closet and she was fairly sure she'd just had a panic attack. "How did you even know I was here, Mark?"

"I was consulting on a case for Amy and heard you on my way out. You're lucky I have freakishly good hearing," Mark said. "Besides, I think I should be the one asking questions, Addison. I tell you I love you, and then you don't speak to me again for the next two weeks, either pretending to be asleep – yes, I know you were faking, of course I knew – or just plain avoiding me like you have been since you could get out of bed."

"You don't love me," Addison insisted. Her hand was on the door handle, but she knew he was aware of that, and he'd stop her if she tried to leave. "You just think you do. I mean, the way you treat Lexie sometimes… you guys were married! You must have loved each other, at some point at least. You forgive somebody if you love them. You're there for them. You fix things. And you just… left. You got bored, Mark, and then you got your excuse to leave so you left. And one day, you'd get bored of me too."

"You're saying that based off stuff you've heard from Lexie and Meredith and nurses," he said. "Let me tell you my side of things."

He deserved this at least.

"Fine then," she said, folding her arms over her chest. "Go on."

"We were both unhappy, Addie," he said. "When Lexie and I got married, she was just a kid. Like, nineteen or twenty or something, I swear. We dated for like, a few months – max – and then we had this tiny wedding in Vegas which I can barely remember. We were married two, three years. It didn't really work. I had a life in New York, and she had all these commitments in Massachusetts that it would be unfair to take her away from. It wasn't fair, our marriage Addison, on either of us. I kept her from enjoying her college days properly, because no twenty-something year old should have to worry about what her husband's doing or when he's coming over – she should be drinking and partying and having fun – and you start to feel guilty about that eventually. Lexie wasn't ready for any commitments, let alone the big commitments. We could have stayed married and raised her baby together, but we would have been miserable. We were unhappy, Addison. The difference now is that I was unhappy, and you made me happy again. You make me happy. So I'm sorry that I lied to you, and I bought you into this mess, and I am so, so sorry about the baby, but please can you forgive me? I love you."

She was still and silent for a moment. It made him nervous.

"Sixty days," she announced finally.

"What?"

"Sixty days," she repeated. "I forgive you, so if both of us can manage sixty days without sex, then I'll give you another chance. That's my offer."

"I'll take it!" Mark exclaimed with a grin that could have split his face, so joyful that for a moment he forgot they were in a closet and tried to swing her round in the air, which landed in them both landing on the floor, Addison a little bruised but actually laughing for what felt like the first time in years.

Okay, so, they talked. About some stuff. Hopefully, next chapter more of their talking will be about the baby. And Sam finally made his appearance. I think I plan on doing the funeral next chapter, but I doubt Sam will really be making any more appearances in the near future. Maybe eventually if I decide to do something with the whole Maya-baby storyline. Oh, and the sixty days bet is on! Prematurely, but ok. I've messed up the timeline sufficiently for this anyway. Prom will probably be happening soon, at this rate.

Oh, yeah, obviously, there will be some questions about this chapter probably - like, why is Addison blonde and why is she wearing salmon scrubs? That will be explained next chapter, too. Promise.

Thanks to all those who reviewed!

Wintermachine – thank you! I thought it was pretty okay too. Sad, sad chapters are to be expected, although I don't think this one is all that sad really. Yeah, I did take a little inspiration from that Burke/Cristina scene – Cristina was actually originally my favourite character in the series, until Addison made her grand entrance. I must have spent ages, quite honestly, trying to find a way to fit those last two lines in because they were my favourites so far. Thanks for reviewing!

Irony-FLD - I'm so glad you love this chapter! Showing some of what Addison felt and what her perspective was sort of was the aim of that chapter, so I'm glad you liked that and what the characters felt and everything. As you can see, we didn't get to see Addison's direct reaction to Mark said, mostly because I didn't really have a way to fit it in, but there are some second-hand accounts of it. Thanks for reviewing!

Ianuaria – I don't know but given I practically idolise you, I'm glad you did. Thanks so much for reviewing!

Patsy – oh my gosh thanks so much! Really, I'm flattered :). I'm sorry you cried but I'm glad you felt the chapters were well-written. After all that angst, I felt like people deserved a little pure Maddison, so, yeah. Thank you so much, you're a brilliant reviewer!

Hushedgreylily – hope you enjoyed your holiday in Cornwall! Thank you! Getting all caught up was my worry, so I'm glad things didn't come off that way. I'm glad you like the new twist on things, and I'm sorry your heart broke! Thank you for reviewing, and I'm glad you're looking forward to more!