November 15, 2009

"Nurse Brenda? Brenda, dammit, you promised you'd talk to the Chief of Surgery about security!" Edward Atherton's voice, like the scraping of rusted metal, sounds forth as Derek enters the old man's room.

"We talked about this, remember, Mr. Atherton?" Derek asks patiently, thanking the heavens that at least he has retrograde amnesia, not a misshapen erection like Mark's latest patient. "I'm Dr. Shepherd, your neurosurgeon."

"In my day doctors were properly old and crusty!" Edward yells, apparently under the impression that he is talking in a regular voice. "Unlike that Asian robot who was in here earlier! She just wanted to cut open my brain!"

"Yes, well, Dr. Yang can come across a bit strong," Derek admits carefully. "But I assure you, despite the lack of crustiness, that you are receiving the best care possible."

"Humph. Doctors who look like models, robots that do surgery, and a hospital that plays out like a soap opera, for Christ's sake. I may not remember much, but I do remember the good old days, Dr. Shepherd."

"Mmm," Derek says politely, feigning interest as he taps his clipboard impatiently against his leg. This is the second time this week's he's tried to have this conversation with the old man and last time he got a jumbled load about WWII. "I'm sure you do. Now, we need to discuss a few lab results because quite frankly I'm …"

"It was just me and Phoebe, jus' her and me and none of this ridiculous technology. We lived in a little apartment overlooking Central Park that was the envy of all our friends. Phoebe was the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen, when I met her. She had hair as red as strawberries and everyone agreed that her key lime pie was positively divine …"

Edward's words finally sink into the hidden recesses of Derek's constantly occupied brain. "What did you say?" he asks in a shaky voice, because if Edward said what he thinks he did, he can see it. He can see that redhead gazing out over central park, the wind picking up her bright vermilion locks, the brilliant smile when she turns and sees him.

"I said her key lime pies -"

"No, not that. What did you say before that?" Derek asks urgently.

"I – I'm sorry, Dr. Shepherd, I'm having trouble remembering exactly …"

The old man's precious recollections are interrupted by the shrill ringing of Derek's pager, and as he leaves the room only to be accosted by a bunch of leeches in scrubs of a disturbing orange color, he reminds himself that he must not forget, because Edward's words have awoken a deep-buried longing inside of him …

Adds,

You're not going to end up alone, Addison. You're never alone. I feel like that too sometimes, that I don't know what I'm fighting for when me and Meredith have another fight and I'm just too angry or tired to work it out. It's all uphill right now, I guess we have to pay for all the downhill times, like walking in Central Park in the summer and the late nights spent rushing around the hospital competing for the best surgeries.

I hope someday I'll hold a blue-eyed baby in my arms and tell anyone who'll listen how much he looks like my father, but these days I begin to doubt whether that will ever happen. Not that Meredith is opposed to having kids … actually I guess I don't really know how she feels about it.

I always thought my kids would have red hair. It's so ingrained that it's hard to picture it otherwise, now. Do you think things would have been different if … never mind.

Everyone thought the elephant story was hilarious. Of course, I made the mistake of telling it in front of Izzie who then made sure the entire hospital found out – sorry. And yes, I was laughing, I got a lot of weird looks from my patients that day.

About the Clydesdales, I notice you conveniently forgot to mention that you withheld sex for three weeks after that … even on Christmas! And then when you finally forgave me, Mark walked in on us doing it doggy style and you blamed the entire thing on me, like it was my fault the stupid horse peed on your shoes.

Just the fact that you're there, Addison, is admirable. Sometimes I wish I were there – saving people for nothing more than the wordless thanks on the faces of their family, not for the money or the prestige or my reputation. We merged with Mercy West this week and all the residents have gone crazy with competition and I wish it could be just medicine without all this other crap.

All Meredith and the others will talk about is not getting fired so your letters are a breath of fresh air. Some days, I honestly don't know what I'm doing. I think I'm stuck and I don't know how to get out; all I do is wake up, operate and suture and reassure the ones that live – and then go back to bed.

How did we end up here?

Derek

P.S. Maybe we should talk about it. It's been more than three years, Addison. We could just get it over with – say what needs to be said.

She scans his latest letter under the blanketing indigo sky, dotted with little diamonds that are the only light in the desert. There's dirt under her fingernails as she digs, and sand in places she didn't even know sand could reach, and yet she finds her task so detestable that being clean amongst the filth would be wrong, somehow, even disrespectful.

Addison always cries when she does this. The morgue was never a place she was happy to see her patients end up but, she thinks, if she could go back in time, she would appreciate the peaceful rest of those deaths.

Her shovel hits stone. She wipes a lone tear.

You're never alone, Derek had said, and though there are three others out in this forsaken desert she can't find it within herself to believe him. It was just bad luck that awarded her this job tonight, and the underlying melancholy mixes with the newborn guilt and manifests as a wave of new tears spilling down her cheeks.

Handiwork finished, Addison clambers out of the hole (she never fancied herself overly proud or pretentious but hands trained in piano and handshakes as a child ache this night) and kneels behind the six white silhouettes illuminated by the dim desert stars.

Six babies died that day; six babies with perfect chocolate skin and wisps of inky hair and fleetingly bright with life before it was snuffed out.

Addison could bury all of them in this grave, get the job over with, and go curl up in her cot to seek out elusive sleep, but she figures the least she can do in the face of so much tragedy and missed opportunity is dig all six graves.

As she arranges glimmering sand over the sixth and last grave, she hears a rustle to her left and turns to find Sam, grime decorating his eyebrows and lean body propped up by his shovel. Silently, he begins to assist her in covering the tiny white body.

"I didn't know you were out here tonight," she breathes.

"It was supposed to be Umar, but his fever's gone up and it's looking like malaria."

"Shit."

"Yeah. These people are dying right in front of our eyes and all I can think about is the fact that Maya has a boyfriend. His name is … is Cesar and her aunt says he's the nicest boy you'll ever meet, but … he could be holding my baby's hand right now. Sixteen year old girls come into this village pregnant everyday and I'm worried about Maya's hands."

Grave finished, she and Sam fall into the lavender-tinged sand, and she lays a hand on his shoulder, the only comfort she can offer. He sighs and wraps an arm around her shoulders, and together they contemplate the paradoxes of the world they live in.

"I still haven't told Derek," she admits finally. "I should tell him, but … I just can't."

Sam raises an eyebrow. "You still haven't -"

"Nope."

"I thought you were writing to him or something."

"I am, but … we talk about other things. What we're doing, memories, patients. Not that."

"Derek can't talk about it if he doesn't know," Sam points out. "But at least you two are talking. Me and Nae … honestly I don't know what we're doing."

"She loves you, Sam."

"I know. Some days I just wonder how we got so screwed up." She nods in agreement, thinking of Derek's musings of how did we end up here and although she would pay vast sums of money to know, she is more concerned with where the hell are we going?