All I really have to say is how sorry I am that I took so long to update this fic. I don't really have an excuse beyond that I've been really busy with school and work and music. Anyway, thank you all so much for your reviews, they mean a lot. I'm glad you like this fic, and I can't wait to hear what you have to say about this chapter. Enjoy!
The song in this fic is Superman by Five for Fighting. (Overplayed, I know, but it sort of ties in with the theme of this chapter.)
Tuesday is a really noncommittal day. There is nothing special about it. Monday is the day you dread because it's the first day back at work, and then comes Tuesday. You sort of float in limbo and hope that the rest of the week will maybe get better, but it doesn't really matter to you if it does or not.
This Tuesday was the second time in two days that I'd woken up next to Mark. It didn't freak me out so much this time… partially because I was getting used to it.
Well isn't that a scary thought.
I can't get used to this, because I know it won't last.
I can't stand to fly
I'm not that naive
I'm just out to find
The better part of me
Once again, the clock radio went off. I lay gentle kisses across his warm, firm chest as I reached across his sleeping figure to shut off the alarm. He slid his fingers into my wildly attractive bed head and massaged my scalp. I closed my eyes and laid my head on his chest, sighing as his fingers traced tiny feel-good circles.
Sleep was calling me back into sweet oblivion when the gentlest whisper of a kiss brushed my lips and the pull of reality won out in the end. I opened my eyes. His lips were curved into what could be distinguished as a smile only by a trained eye and his gorgeous eyes bored into mine.
I love his eyes. They're the palest shade of blue with a hint of metallic grey so subtle it's easy to miss. They were thin ice as smooth as glass with the ever present mischievous twinkle.
"I've got to get to work," Mark said abruptly, getting up out of bed and leaving me to flop unceremoniously off his chest and onto the mattress.
"Channelling Derek, are we?" I asked, slightly annoyed. Derek always used to use that line when he wanted to get rid of me.
"Don't be like that, Addison," he turned to face me; something Derek never did, "You know I've got Mr. McRae's second surgery first thing this morning."
"Whatever," I got up off the bed and slid past him into the bathroom, shutting the door behind me. I'd forgotten about that surgery, and was slightly embarrassed. I knew he'd never do that to me unless he actually had a reason.
"Hey!" he said a moment later, realizing that I'd snuck into the bathroom.
"Sorry, I've got to get to work," I called, grinning as I stepped into the shower.
I'm more than a bird... I'm more than a plane
More than some pretty face beside a train
It's not easy to be me
"Dammit!" I exclaimed as the hot coffee hit my new Dolce and Gabbana camisole and mercilessly scalded its way down my front. So much for looking hot today and making the young male interns drool. I'll have to stun them with my intellect instead.
I fastened my lab coat with one button, hoping it covered the coffee stain. Fortunately, it did. Holding the nearly empty cup of coffee still, I pushed the door open into Anna Davis' room. Her husband wasn't there, and I was surprised to see that she was talking animatedly to Alex Karev. "Good morning," I greeted, hoping to hide my surprise to see Karev there as efficiently as I'd hidden my coffee stain.
"Good morning, Dr. Montgomery," Mrs. Davis said, with a sad smile that betrayed the false sense of happiness she'd been emanating moments before.
"How are we feeling this morning?" I said, checking over her chart.
"Not bad. Sort of whale-like," she said, grimacing as she shifted her weight upwards.
"She had some contractions last night around four, but I put her on a magnesium drip and they stopped," Karev said.
I looked over my glasses at him. This unsolicited assistance was unusual for the cocky intern.
"I was on call," he shrugged off my gaze, leaving the room quickly, pretending to check his pager.
"Don't go too far!" I called, "You're my intern on this case now." His head quickly appeared back in the doorway.
"What?"
"You heard me," I raised my eyebrows and gestured to the IV in Anna's arm, "You administered magnesium, now you're my intern." He didn't look unhappy as he ducked back around the corner to answer his imaginary page.
"Mrs. Davis," I turned back to her, knowing that she was going into labour and that magnesium can only do so much. "We need you to make a decision about baby C. You could have to deliver at any moment, and I don't want to force this upon you in the operating room."
"I know," she turned her head away from me, her hand resting protectively over her babies.
My pager went off and I allowed myself to swear creatively inside my head. This was not the right time for this. "I'll be back as soon as I can, Mrs. Davis. We need a decision."
Wish that I could cry
Fall upon my knees
Find a way to lie
About a home I'll never see
"You needed a neonatal consult to determine that this woman was bleeding into her abdomen, and was not pregnant?" I was tearing into two ER interns over the dead body of a pretty young car accident victim.
The girl flinched, and her equally dense friend's eyes were as wide as saucers. Was I really that scary? Nothing like a woman who's Dolce and Gabanna has been ruined by the coffee demon, I suppose.
"Get your resident to teach you something, please!" I said exasperatedly as I stalked out of the room. I think it's time for an early lunch.
It may sound absurd...but don't be naive
Even heroes have the right to bleed
I may be disturbed...but won't you concede
Even heroes have the right to dream
It's not easy to be me
Yet again, Mark sits down beside me as I take a huge mouthful of gross green hospital Jell-o. "Rough morning?" he asked, taking a bite of one of his three doughnuts.
"Is the gross hospital food giving it away?" I asked, even though I knew that was it. Back in Manhattan, whenever I had a rough day, I would eat the gross hospital food and wallow. The gross hospital food was a little bit different now, but the ritual was the same.
"Oh, Addison," was all Mark said.
I shovelled food into my mouth at an alarming rate, and we sat mostly in silence. Mark slowly ate his doughnut, never taking his eyes off me, which I found disturbing and flattering at the same time. Or something of that combination that was enough to make me want to drag him into an on call room.
Rather than risk something like that, I settled for pointing at his last doughnut; "Are you going to eat that?"
Up, up and away...away from me
It's all right...you can all sleep sound tonight
I'm not crazy...or anything...
"Do I have a choice?" he asked as I reached across the table. I paused, doughnut half way to my mouth, to think about this for a second.
"Nah," I said, taking a bite. My pager went off. The Kiren baby. "Dammit!" I exclaimed for the second time that day. I stood up abruptly, the cold wetness of my coffee stained shirt brushing my stomach, and I realized that I hadn't changed yet.
"You smell like coffee," Mark said, taking a sip of his own coffee.
"Shut up," I said, pulling my lab coat closer and heading off to the NICU to check on Jessie.
I can't stand to fly
I'm not that naive
Men weren't meant to ride
With clouds between their knees
"Her lung collapsed," Izzie said when I arrived. Her voice was uneven and panicky.
I hurried over, placing my stethoscope on the baby's chest, listening for breath sounds. I was shocked to find them present; clear and equal. "You did it already," I said, unable to mask the surprise in my voice.
"Yeah, I did, well, I did it once before, and, she was – she needed to be helped, so I did it," she stammered out, crossing her arms over her chest and looking anxiously at the baby.
"Well done, Stevens," I said, ducking my head as I rested the stethoscope around my neck.
"Thanks."
"You've got a gift, Stevens," I went on, "but you need to learn distance. That's the only thing that will take you from being a good doctor to a great doctor."
She looked at me, her face set as she recalled the incident with the quints. I'd tried to teach her a lesson she had been unable to learn, and all I'd done was hurt her. "Washroom break," she gestured towards the door, her voice dripping with ice.
I sat down in the rocking chair beside Jessie Kiren's incubator and sighed. "I don't know how I'm going to make her learn that this is how life works sometimes."
Jessie wrapped her tiny hand around my pinky finger. She was weak; her grip feeble even for a preemie. "You're not going to make it much longer, are you?"
I'm only a man in a silly red sheet
Looking for kryptonite on this one way street
Only a man in a funny red sheet
Looking for special things inside of me
Inside of me
Inside me
Yeah, inside me
Inside of me
"We've got to get you a heart." I stood up and decided that I was going to get an answer out of Anna Davis, no matter how long I had to sit with her.
---
Maybe this whole idea of sitting with her forever was a bad one. It had been forty-five minutes since I'd sat down in the hard chair beside her bed. These chairs were very uncomfortable. I wonder if Richard knows that family members spend entire days sitting in these horrible plastic atrocities. I'd have to tell him.
"I can't save my baby's life, can I?" she asked, finally.
"I'm so sorry, Mrs. Davis. There is nothing you can do. There is nothing we can do," I said softly, doing my best to make her understand.
"Fine," she said, staring out the window. "That other baby can have my daughter's heart."
"Thank you, Mrs. Davis," I said, sitting forward slightly. "That means so much."
"Under one condition," she said softly.
God I hate conditions.
"I want to meet this baby."
"We can't move her from the NICU right now. She'll die," I protested, even though I knew there was only one way to get this baby a heart. "We can't move you either, or you'll go into labour again."
She sighed, the type of sigh that is more an attempt to not cry than anything else.
"But, I think I can arrange something."
I'm only a man
In a funny red sheet
I'm only a man
Looking for a dream
"She's so small," Anna gasped, reaching from her stretcher into the incubator in the NICU.
"Yeah, she is," I smiled. "But she's a fighter. The fact that she's survived this long with the heart she has is a miracle in itself."
"And I'll save her?" Anna asked, turning her head to look at me as she withdrew her hand from the incubator.
"Yes, you'll save her."
It's not easy to be me
"I'm glad you're here, Mark," I closed my eyes and breathed in the intoxicating scent of his cologne mixed with the smell of hospital and scrub room soap.
"I'm glad I'm here too," he said, kissing me on the forehead and brushing my hair out of my face.
"It's been a long day."
"What? Really? I never would have guessed," Mark feigned shock as he pulled the blankets closer around us. "I actually thought you liked hospital food."
So while not all of my chapters have a theme, this one definitely did. General idea of feeling helpless and struggling to overcome that.
R&R please,
Maybelline