After Mark left that night Derek tried to get back to a sense of normalcy. Only problem was that he couldn't. It was as if he became a zombie. He was living mindlessly, too occupied in thinking about Addison, her condition and their terms with one another to think about anything else that was going on around him.

"Derek?" Meredith asked, hovering in front of his face while trying to get him to snap out of his trance.

"He's been like that for almost two days." Alexa murmured. "He barely talks, he doesn't sleep. It's really weird. I know I don't know him too well but it's like he's a whole different person now."

"Derek!" Meredith exclaimed again, this time causing him to snap out of his trance. "What's going on with you?"

"Meredith." he sighed, rubbing his eyes with a desperate need to catch up on sleep. "What are you doing here?"

"Alexa called me. She's really worried about you. And so am I, you didn't answer my calls yesterday, you didn't show up to work. It's a little unlike you. I just wanted to make sure you're okay." she answered. "And you're not...which is a little unexpected. Do you wanna talk about it? Is it me?"

Derek shook his head. "I need to talk to my daughter." he answered. "We have a lot to discuss, we have to make a few decisions. I'll call you when we're done. Okay?" he asked.

Meredith looked skeptical as she walked toward the trailer. She turned to Alexa and whispered, "Call me if he floats off into a different world again."

A few minutes later Derek drew in a deep breath and looked his daughter's eyes, the ones that looked identical to her mother's. "Your mother's mother died." he told her.

"I don't really know my mother let alone my grandmother. I'm sorry for her loss...but..." she drifted off, not knowing what else to say in regards to the death of a woman she's never even heard about. "Were you close or something? Is that why you look so depressed and shocked?"

"No." he answered. "We weren't close at all. Your mother wasn't even close with her. She wasn't exactly a very maternal, naturing person. But she was still your mother's mother and I know it hurts to lose a parent, no matter what the terms are. Especially if you never got the chance to make things right."

"What are we getting at here?" Alexa asked, raising her brow which only inflicted more of a resemblance with her mother.

"There is no easy way to say this, Alexa. No matter how bad things get between all of us, she's your mother. The only one you will ever have. And she's got breast cancer." he informed her gently. "I haven't spoken to her yet, I don't know details. She wasn't even planning on telling us. But anyway, she's chosen not to seek treatment which means that it is going to kill her."

"She's gonna die?"

Derek nodded regretfully. "Breast Cancer is aggressive. She... I'm not sure how long she's got but once it's progressed there is not much to do to stop it."

"I can't believe how selfish that woman is." Alexa scoffed. "She is gonna die and she wasn't even gonna tell you. And she's not getting treatment? What an attention whore! I mean, it's obvious she just wants people to coddle her. I can't believe her. She is so... ugh!" she groaned.

"She's not doing it for attention!" Derek raised his voice. "She's not! She probably thinks she's got nothing to fight for. If she wanted attention than she'd want to tell us so we could be all over her and talking her care of her, feeling bad for her. But she wasn't going to. She was probably going to work for as long as she could, and when she couldn't anymore she would stay home and wait to die... alone probably. If she felt like she was getting worse she wouldn't tell anyone. I know her, I know what she's thinking right now."

"You haven't even spoken to her!" Alexa exclaimed loudly. "How could you know what she's planning on doing or how she feel? How could you know what's going on in her mind? If I didn't know any better I'd say that you were the one that was just diagnosed..." she paused and looked up into her father's eyes then added, "If I didn't know any better I'd say you were still in love with her."

"What?"

"I've heard the story about the day I was born. I think it's Richard's favorite story to tell. He mentioned that you said you would want to take Addison's place because you hate seeing her in pain. That if you could, you'd actually rather be the one to suffer just because you love her too much to see her like." Alexa explained. "And that was like 13 years ago but that's love... and this sounds like the exact same thing. You are feeling her pain, that's love."

Derek squinted his eyes together. "I love her." he whispered to himself, test to words out to see how they sound. "I love her." he said a little more loudly this time, looking to his daughter for a response of some sort. "She can't die because I love her!"

"I'm not sure that that's enough of a reason to want to live." Alexa told him dryly. "No offence but it wouldn't be the first time you broke her heart if things don't work out. I think she's long passed the 'love is everything' frame of thought. If you want to change her mind than you need to really have a reason to get her to want to live. She needs a reason."

"You."

"Me?"

"You need her. And she needs you." he reasoned. "You're her reason to live."

"I'm not sure that I follow." Alexa responded. "We agreed. It's suppose to be like we don't know one another. It's suppose to be like I don't have a mother. She isn't suppose to be a part of my life."

"She loves you, Alexa. You don't understand how much she loves you, she can't tell you. You won't understand until you look down at your own child and know it's yours. You're the only reason she's still going. If police were to find you body after the kidnapping, if we had proof that you were really dead, she would not be here. She wouldn't have survived this long. She kept going because she had hope. And now you're here and she knows you're safe and you don't need her and she doesn't have a reason anymore." he explained.

Alexa was seated across the table from her father at a small restaurant in the city. She was playing with the edge of the linen napkin she had draped across her lap and although her eyes were focused on the menu, she knew her father was staring her down. She finally gave up on choosing her meal and returned his gaze.

"Why are you so against her?" Derek asked. It had been a whole 24 hours since the discussion had come up. However, that question was burning in Derek's mind. He needed to understand. "Why do you hate her so adamantly? And don't tell me it's because she's a whore. She's not, she made one mistake. That does not make her a whore. It's not like I wasn't cheating on her, too. She spent a few nights with Mark, I had a whole relationship with Meredith. If she's a whore than I'm not far off."

"That was just a random excuse I came up with." Alexa admitted. "I read all about the affair online. It just popped into him mind while I was talking to her and it seemed like a logical excuse at the time. I don't know why. But it really did seem like it would make sense. And she believed me so I never bothered to come up with a better lie."

"A random excuse?" Derek asked, his jaw gaping just slightly. "So what is your real reason?"

"She took it." Alexa whispered in shame. "She actually took my bitching. She didn't try to restrain my rebellion. She respected me, she listened, she loved me despite it. She took it."

"It gave you a sense of self-control." Derek realized, nodding as the thought made more and more sense to him.

"I thought I had an eternity to start getting along with her, I thought eventually she would realize and reach out." she went on. "I never thought that two weeks into it she'd get some crazy-ass fatal disease that would kill her. I didn't think that I'm on limited time that was about to expire." she paused to take a breath before continuing on with her rambling. "And now I'm so confused!..."

"Just think about it." Derek advised. "Like your mother said, do what makes you happy. If you want her in your life you need to tell her, if you don't see her as a part of your future than we need to come to terms with the decisions she's made from herself."

Alexa nodded slowly, telling her father that she agreed and understood what he was telling her.

"But Alexa, you don't have too much time to do that thinking. She doesn't have time." he reminded.

I'm sorry you guys hate that little breast cancer twist. It had to be done and I would never be able to kill off Addison, just keep that in mind for future reference. This isn't my favorite chapter, it kinda really sucks to me. But it's like transitional chapter to show Alexa's dilemma and confusion. One minute she's pissed off and blaming Addison for wanted to die and the next she's not sure that she's ready to lose her mother. I'm not sure how well I wrote that aspect of the chapter. Let me know your opionions on it, if you have suggestion to improve it than let me know.

Oh a seperate note, I just scored two tickets to the Emmys this Sunday after like three years of trying. On the downside, Kate Walsh will not be there this year.